Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2200: The Clutchness Correction

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Jesús Sánchez and the (perhaps) surprising longest-homer hitters of the Statcast era, the hot hitting of Victor Robles, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Tyler Fitzgerald, the competitive race for the (nonexistent) utility player of the year award, what lessons should be learned from the 2024 Padres’ clutchness correction, whether […]

Sometimes I still feel like that little girl Hearing grandma's handheld readies Collecting baseball cards before I could read Hello and welcome to episode 2200 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Reilly of FanGraphs and I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Ben Lindberg of the Ringer I'm all right. How are you? Meg Reilly of FanGraphs 2200.

I struggled with how to say that. Ben Lindberg of the Ringer I know. We have to reset psychologically every hundred episodes when we do those intros. Tell me if this seems strange to you. Jesus Sanchez now has the longest home run hit this season. Probably not the player you would expect to be at the top of that list, right? Hazer Sanchez, highest paid active Marlin,

$2.1 million, as I mentioned on a recent episode. Only active Marlin making more than a million with a couple of higher paid pitchers on the IL. Below average hitter this year and for his career. Has some pop, obviously, as he demonstrated with this bomb off of Jacob Junas, but still longest homer of the season. Wasn't it Coors or anything?

It was just a very long home run. And I was wondering how weird that was for the longest home run hit this season to be hit by Hazer Sanchez, not Otani, not Judge, not Ellie or O'Neal or any of the obvious candidates. And I've come to the conclusion that maybe it's not actually that strange because I've looked back at the Statcast era history of the longest home run hitters in each season, and they're not always the ones you would expect.

You would think that Judge and Stanton and Otani would dominate this category, and they are certainly represented, but they don't dominate the way that they do if you look at say the hardest hit balls in a given year, typically. So just looking at the longest home runs, this is stack cast estimated distance. So not necessarily where it actually landed, but how far it would have gone if there had been no obstruction in the way. So this year, Jesus has at the top 480 feet, then Jorge Saler at 478, then we get to Judge at 477 and Otani at 476. Now last year was kind of chalk. This is what you would expect. It

was Otani at the top 493, Stanton 485, Schwaber 483, and then tied with Schwaber Nolan Jones, but that is course of course. Then you go back to 2022, CJ Krone hit the longest home run of 2022. The Krone zone. Yeah, 504 feet. That one was at course. So other circumstances, but even if we throw that out, Kristen Yelich, 499. Hazer Sanchez again, 496. Ryan McMahon, 495, Coors and Mike Trout, 490. 2021, Miguel Sano, top of the list, 495. Tommy Pham, 486. Yermeen Mercedes, 480. Remember Yermeen? I hadn't thought about Yermeen Mercedes. Yeah. Remember Yermeen? Wow. Yermeen. I hadn't thought about Yermeen since that season. I hadn't thought about Yermeen.

But he was third and then Adam Duvall, 4E3. So that's your top four for 2021, a year when Otani was doing what Otani does and everything. Miguel Sano, Tommy Fam, Yermeen Mercedes and Adam Duvall. 2020, Ronald Acuna Jr, Stanton, Alex Dickerson, that was of course, and then Acuna again. 2019, Nomar Mazzara, 505 feet, you might remember that one because that is, I think, the longest home run on record in the Stats Cast era. Nomar Mazzara, Obviously, as everyone would expect.

Miguel Sano again, 496. Pete Alonso, 489. Ron-Hel Ravello, that was at Coors, but still 487. Okay, 2018, Joey Gallo. Sure. You expect him to have some long ones, 495. Franci Cordero, 489. Trevor Story, 487 at Coors. And then Paul DeYoung, 486. Paul DeYoung.

Now 2017, Judge and Judge, top two spots. That was his rookie year, right? His first full season. And then Gary Sanchez, third. So the Yankees dominated that year. 2016 Stanton 504 at course. That was one of the home runs that made me wish that he could just be a Rocky so that we could enjoy that spectacle all the time. Mazzara second, 491. Again, Mazzara is kind of like in the Jesus Sanchez category of like not really a good hitter, but I guess when he gets a hold of one, it could go a long way. Mark Reynolds, third at 484, Ryan Healy, 480, and then all the

way back to the first season of the Statcast era, 2015, Michael A. Taylor on top, 493 at course, Jonathan Scope, 484, Pedro Alvarez, 479, and then Stanton tied at 479. So there's certainly some Stanton and some Judge and some Otani in here, but there's also a lot of like Jesus Sanchez and CJ Krone and Nomar Mazzara and Franci Cordero and Michael A. Taylor and Jonathan Scope and just guys you would not really guess, right? And it's weird that Hazel Sench is at the top of the leaderboard this year, but then again, it's not really that weird because the top of this leaderboard is perennially sort of strange and unexpected. So first of all, I feel like you're being disrespectful to Franci Cordero. Franci Cordero, who had, you know, a 70 raw power grade on him when he was a prospect.

I think that like, there are a couple of categories. Like none of the names that you mentioned were surprising to me once you said at course. Right? Like the lighter bat guys among those names that you just listed often hit those home runs at course. Right? Like the lighter bat guys among those names that you just listed often hit those home runs at course. I also think that there's like a special, particular weird alchemy to a home run and sometimes it just hits exactly right, right? Like you have the right pitch to the right spot in the right ballpark with the right

guy. Most of the dudes that you just mentioned have plus or better raw power. They weren't always able to actualize it in games because sometimes they had like disastrous chase or like, you know, like really bad contact skills. But in general, like they had big power and you know, when a guy with big power gets the right pitch, sometimes ball go far. You know, I think it's as straightforward as that. And I, I kind of like that some of the names there would be surprising.

Like I don't want to underrate power as a tool and a real skill. And certainly being able to like get the most out of your raw power is something that guys aren't able to do all the time. Again, like see Joey Gallo, right? In tremendous thump, but like, boy, does he strike out a lot. So I don't want to underrate it as like an actual tool, but I do think there's like just sometimes a guy just is able to run into one and then you're like, wow, now we have to

remember Franci Cordero. Man, remember Franci or you're mean. Or you're mean. Yeah. Your mean mania that didn't really last that long, but it was a thing for a while there. Yeah. It was like an interesting four weeks where we were like, you're mean. And then he was like, no, largely no. Yeah. I think you've nailed it there. You've hit on it just like these guys did. I think it's partly that it's just, you take the field over any individual favorite. It's just, you know, you got hundreds of hitters

and all you have to do is crush one to get to the top of this leaderboard. So yeah, you're gonna have your Otanis and your judges and your Stanton's who will hit more very long ones. But if we're talking just one sample of one here, then yeah, you can have a Ryan Healy or someone who just hits a ball really hard. And then yes, I think it is just the guys who maybe had better batting

practice power than game power sometimes, or just had other holes in their offensive game and weren't really great hitters overall. Your Jesus Sanchez's, your Mark Reynolds's, your Pedro Alvarez's, your Franci Cordero's. These guys were sometimes good hitters, but on the whole, not really, but they could hit for power. That was the one, but they could hit for power. That was the one thing that they could do pretty consistently. And so they could show up here.

And yeah, that's why, you know, Jesus Sanchez, he showed up a couple of the 2022, he was third on that leaderboard. You wouldn't guess him. He wouldn't come to your mind immediately, but he is the kind of hitter who could show up on this leaderboard without even sniffing an overall offensive output leaderboard. Yeah. Like if you had told me that like D. Strange Gordon had the longest run of the Staticaster, I would be like,

what? I mean, I know that ball was juicy, but good gravy. Yeah. There's no like Nick Madrigal on here. There's no, you know, even a Steven Kwan type hitter who's like, you know, good hitter, but, but just doesn't have that kind of raw power, right? Or even in game power. So yes, it's, uh, it makes sense, but also it's surprising until you look back at the list every year and you realize that, yeah, no more mazara. You could, it's the longest home run of anyone that wasn't in course. It was just a really long home run. And I guess there could be some error bars on any individual tracking number here, but still. So No Marozara showed up twice on those leaderboards that

I read there. Yeah. He could thump it. I mean, we've talked about this sort of within the context of just, what are the moments in a guy's career or his development that change our understanding of what he's capable of? And, you know, we don't want to mistake being able to do a thing with being able to do a thing consistently, because those aren't necessarily the same. But like, once you have, you know, posted a, you know, you've had an exit velocity above a certain threshold, it's like, okay, that's in there. Is it going to be in there consistently? But I know you can do that now, and I didn't know you could do that before.

And it does sort of change what I understand, at least the like, tails of your potential in a given tool or skill to be, even if you never get there again. Because some guys just can't, they can't do it Ben. They can't do it at all. Even if they wanted to do it one time, they wouldn't be able to do it even the one time. Yeah. That's the Bill James concept of signature significance, which is just, you know, you have one fantastic game.

If you're a pitcher, you have a huge K count in that game. Some guys will just never be able to do that. If you do it once, that doesn't mean you'll be able to do it consistently, but it at least shows that you have it in you somewhere. And there have been pieces and studies that have shown like, hey, just one batted ball. If you can show that you can hit that with elite power and speed and contact quality, then that means something that affects your projection.

But then there are some guys who just hit one like that every now and then, but they can't consistently make contact or they don't walk or they're vulnerable to breaking balls or whatever it is, right? But still they can crush one every now and then. And a couple of things this little exercise made me notice. First of all, I was using Baseball Savant for that. Baseball Savant URLs are the CVS receipts of the internet. Yes, they are.

They're the longest URLs. Every time if I'm pasting a Savant URL on the show page when I'm linking to something we talked about, it's just like I have to scroll down a while to get to the next link that I'm inserting because they're so extremely long. Now, CVS receipts don't have to be as long as they are. Maybe some URLs do, I don't know, because there are just so many options and searches you can do on that site. So it has to be every possible quality and condition that you've selected or not selected. But man, those things are unwieldy. You have to do some sort of link shortener if you're going to send someone a savant URL. You can't just drop that thing on someone without warning.

Yeah. When I am editing stuff for the site, sometimes I have to do like a reality check about is this paragraph too long or does it just have a savant link in it? Because I can see on the backend what the full URL is and it's like, oh God, we got to break this sucker up. And it's like, no, that's going to be two words in the final piece. And the other thing is that just to clear up a possible misconception, because we're talking about course and how that kind of almost cheapens a very long home run.

And that's true, but I think there's still a perception that the primary reason why Coors is such a good hitters park is because balls go very far and lots of homers are hit there. And that's not the case in this humidor era, of course. It's still the best hitters park in baseball, though not such an extreme outlier as it was, say, around the turn of the century. But the reason why it's the best hitters park is because of other kinds of hits. So if you look at, again, Savant's park factors, Coors is only ninth in the degree to which it juices home run rate. It is first in bacon batting average on contact, first in the hits factor, first in singles, first in triples, second in doubles after only Fenway. So it's all the other kinds of hits

really that produces that because it's just such a big park. It's just got the most square footage in fair territory and the outfield is so large because it kind of has to be because it has to be sort of deep or else there would be tons of home runs. But the byproduct there, the trade-off, you suppress the home run somewhat, but lots of balls can fall. So the BABIP is always super high there. So that's really why Coors in this era is such an offense inflating park. But it is still certainly true that on any individual batted ball, if you get one in the air, it will go farther there than anywhere else. Yeah. You're in this bind if you're the Rockies because you don't want it to be like a complete band box. But in order to do that, you're like, oh, you don't want it to be like a complete band box.

But in order to do that, you're like, oh God, we're going to give up so many triples to you guys. Yeah. Yeah. It's either that or just make the walls really, really high. But this is probably better. That would be so funny if they were like, okay, we got to make them high. People still have to see.

So like we'll make the top of them glass, but then the glass will reflect down into the field. It'll kill some ants. Also it'll blind people. What do we do? Yeah, this is probably the best solution given all of those competing concerns. Right, because you can't kill ants and you can't blind people, but you still got to be able to see the game. What will we do? So speaking of hitters, you were just talking about how some guys, they seem to have the skills or the tools and they can't actualize it. And then maybe eventually they do. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but I do have to ask you about Seattle Mariner, Victor Robles, who has just kind of come out of nowhere. One of the best hitters in baseball since Seattle picked him up. So this was, I'm not saying this is fluky in any way. I'm just saying it has surprised me somewhat.

So Victor Robles was like perennial prospect and then post-hype sleeper and then wasn't even a sleeper anymore. And there wasn't even any semblance of hype left, but he was a top prospect and he broke in young and he showed promise and he was a good glove guy, of course, but not a good hitter. And career 81 OPS plus for the Nationals, who finally released him on June 1st. And the Mariners said, hey, we need hitters of any stripe. We will pick him up.

He made his Mariners debut on June 5th and since then 97 played appearances, 170 WRC plus, 70% better than league average. If we set the minimum at 90 play appearances since June 5th, he is the 17th best hitter in baseball on a rate basis. What is happening here? What a boon to the Mariners who need any offense that they could get. And I don't know whether they were expecting to get any out of Victor Robles, but whatever they were expecting, I think it's safe to say he has surpassed those expectations. We're expecting, I think it's safe to say he has surpassed those expectations. My sense of the initial signing was that they mostly were not satisfied with their existing minor league options in terms of centerfield defense.

So they were concerned and I'm not saying this is what the team told me, this was just my read of the situation was that they have Julio. Julio is a plus, maybe a plus plus centerfield defender, but behind him in the minors, they weren't like super enthusiastic about say the centerfield defensive Jonathan Klausai, who might be better suited for a corner. And so here's a Victor Robles largely for free. Why not go pick up that guy who, you know, you're right to say, hasn't been able to hit, is a solid glove, although he hadn't really been able to replicate the standouts of Peralta of defense he showed in 2019. Go get him as

insurance, which I'm sure they're happy to have just from a defensive perspective now with Julio dealing with his high ankles brain. But yeah, I think that the bat has to have dramatically exceeded their expectations. I know that Michael Ajito wrote about Robles for BP trying to sort of unpack the swing changes that they have helped him implement and, you know, that may have unlocked his bat. But yeah, it's, it has dramatically exceeded my expectations for it. I remember when news came down that he was going to be finally released by the Nationals, Davy Andrews wrote about sort of the course of his career so far and the ways in which it had sort of

been tantalizing but disappointed. And as we were working through edits for that piece, I don't think Davy will think I'm speaking out of turn here. I was like, hey, so you kind of made it sound like he died. So we should probably acknowledge that he will get probably picked up by another team because if nothing else, he can play a competent center field. But yeah, I'm furious that you've brought this up. Michael is a Mariners fan, so he gets to tempt the fates however he wants to, but how dare you, Ben? That article made me think it was more real

than I assumed just looking at the stats because he has actually improved his bat speed somewhat and his contact quality and his exit speeds and their mechanical changes associated with that. So they have actually tweaked some stuff about his approach, which just makes me appreciate the change of scenery. I guess he was kind of a classic change of scenery candidate as they say, and it doesn't always produce results like this

but it does kind of make you think like, we talked about loaning players to other teams last time and we've talked about that at greater length in the past. And there are some cases where it would almost behoove a team if whatever they're doing with a particular player is not working, just get some different voices in there. Just get some different hitting coaches, impress upon the player, the urgency of their situation, whatever it is, they get cut loose and picked up somewhere else. Maybe they're just more receptive to the message

or maybe they're hearing a message that they hadn't heard before. But I love when a change of scenery pays off, at least so far. And also encouraging the underlying numbers have improved as I mentioned. I looked to see, is he vastly outperforming his expected weight in on base or something?

No, he isn't by a mere six points during his Seattle tenure. So, you know, yeah, he has a 391 Pabbit, I think as a mayor, like, but you know, it's not flukey in that sense. It's flukey in the sense that he probably can't keep up this actual underlying production indefinitely, but it seems not to be flukey in the sense that he is actually

hitting that well, more or less. It's just not like he's gotten super lucky. It's just that it will probably be tough to sustain this. It probably will be. I'm so glad you mentioned that, you know, so that we can think about I'm going to invite the monkey's paw to curl a little bit here and ask this question. It's a preemptive question. It's a thought, a notion of, hey, we should keep an eye on that more than it is offering a definitive opinion. But we often laud, I think appropriately, the Mariners pitching dev because they have

helped a number of guys get better. They seem to be adept at getting the most out of their prospects and picking prospects who were sort of open to feedback, helping tweak guys when they've come over and trade. I do wonder if maybe we're starting to see a bit, a touch, a skosh, just a little, ooh, skosh of improvement on the hitting dev side. We've seen a number of their of improvement on the hitting dev side. We've seen a number of their recent draftees from last year's draft class make adjustments post signing with the org.

And yeah. Well, they could certainly use some help in that area. So. Wow. Okay. No, this is good. Balance it, Ben. Balance it.

You gotta, yeah, balance it. Okay, good. I'm highlighting a good hittinghitting mariner here. I got worked up temporarily, I got mad, and then I was like, ooh. Perhaps suggesting that it won't continue quite this way. It might not continue. Perhaps, but I am giving him his flowers for now, at least. It does make me feel like there should be some sort of like post-hype sleeper exchange

program of some sort. I mean, I guess that's what like the rule five draft and free agency are for. So that if you just get buried on a particular team, you eventually have an out. It's not the era of the reserve clause where you're stuck there forever, but there should be some sort of mechanism where it's just like, we have this really talented player and it's just not clicking for us. Maybe we can trade. I mean, you can make a trade. That is a thing you can do also, but there should be like backsies on it. It should be kind of temporary. It's like, Hey, this guy seems like he should be good, but he hasn't been good for you. And we have a guy like that too. And maybe we'll just, we'll trade for

a while and it'll be temporary and we'll each impart some message to this player that maybe they haven't heard before. And then we'll see if it, it clicks for one. And then I guess, after a certain amount of time, maybe you could have like an option to just keep them if it's working out well for everyone, or you can say, okay, now you have to send them back to us and thanks for fixing him. But, but it would be nice if there were some way to just like get these guys exposed to that message. And especially when it's like a player who says they just weren't getting the

information with their previous organization. Like Trevor Rogers said something about how he's already gotten much more information with the Orioles than he'd ever gotten with the Marlins. Now he hasn't pitched particularly well as an Oriole yet, but still like he's already gotten much more information with the Orioles than he'd ever gotten with the Marlins. Now he hasn't pitched particularly well as an Oriole yet, but still like he's getting data that he never got before. Or Yusei Kikuchi, when he went to the Astros and they sat him down and had one of their patented meetings with pitchers after the Astros acquire someone. And then he came out with a different pitch mix and was playing up his change up and playing down certain pitch types and had a really good first start for the Astros. Be nice

if there were a way, I guess, to sort of spread that information around without the players being permanently spread around. But I guess that's how you kind of do arbitrage and identify opportunities to pick up players who are undervalued because they've underperformed in a certain place. This is a less tidy fit to someone like Roger Jukacuchi, but for the post-hype prospect guys, it's nice when they get that opportunity to make adjustments on a contending team, right? Yes.

And I, again, like a monkey paws, I see you and I say resist, stay away, get away from me. But, you know, often you'll see teams employ a strategy of sort of cycling through these guys, right? And seeing who can we pick up to, you know, tweak and alter and maybe be useful to us next year. It's nice when the guy gets to go to a team and then be like, you know, hey, I'm, I'm on a team that's in a competitive playoff race and maybe I'll get to maybe, maybe could be true. Maybe we don't want to

jinx it could be true. Then maybe I'll get to see October baseball. I don't know. Could be true. You know? Yeah. Another guy whose improvement I want to shout out, this is a little less unexpected, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. So we talked about him early this season and we noted that he was still not really clicking, not really launching, had been fairly mediocre. And then we returned to him when he heated up a bit and we said, oh, hey, he's heating up. And now I returned to him once more to note that he is hot. He is scalding.

He is in fact now having about as good a season as his peak year. He has a 160 WRC plus and his career single season high in the year when he was an MVP runner up 166. And it hasn't made quite as much of a splash, it seems like, maybe because he's not the new young arrival or maybe because he's been overshadowed by some of the other guys who are having fantastic seasons and he is still mostly a bat only bat first player. And maybe it's just because he's hit fewer homers, but on the whole, he's just six points below that 2021 year when he was the talk of two countries. He's now hitting 316, 389, 537.

And the stats, I mentioned Robles 17th since June 5th. Vlad is sixth over that span with a 191 WRC plus, but that probably sells him short because since May 1st, he has been the best hitter in baseball. Well, no, almost the best. He's been 184 WRC plus since May 1st, the best non-Yankees hitter because Aaron Judge has a 257 WRC plus, which is basically peak bonds. So he's been bouncing since May 1st and then Juan Soto is second at 192 and then it's flat. So his monthly splits and then it's flat. So his monthly splits are just the kind of progression you want to see. So he had a 99 WRC plus in March, April, and then 164 in May, 170 in June, 199 in July, and 329 in a small sample August so far. So I don't know that he's gotten the attention for this that he was getting when he was doing this sort of thing a few years ago and offensive levels

were higher than so that made the superficial stats more impressive and helped him hit more homers but he has returned more or less to his peak output. So that is heartening. Yeah. I think that the fan perception of him in Toronto is so fascinating because I've, you know, when I've had a chance to chat with like Toronto radio people, you know, he kind of falls in and out of favor. And I think that this year people, and I don't want to speak too broadly because, you know, I talked about how Mets fans are with Francisco Landoor and then we got a bunch of angry emails from Mets fans, but some of you are being weird. So like, what do you want from me? You know, I think that because he was such a highly touted prospect, because the bat

was described at no less a publication than Van Graaf says, mess-a-onic. And because, you know, he was just so good in 2021 that even though he has had good seasons by like big league standards since then, there's been disappointment. And I think, you know, like some of that is fair and some of that is maybe silly and the Jays haven't been exactly what we thought they would be or what their fans have wanted them to be in this era. But this year, I think that it seems like people are like, that's really good. Remember, that's like really, really good. And you know, there's always going to be a cap on how a stat like war views him either because he's playing first base and having to deal with the positional

adjustments there or because he's playing like a not great third base. But just looking at the offensive component of his game, it's like, right, he's sitting like 316 and has a 160W or a C++. That's something, you know, that sure is great. Yeah. And I guess it's also because of the trajectory of his season, as we said with Lindor, if you start slow, then it takes a while for your numbers to really round into form. And so he was seen as disappointing earlier this season, and then you have to keep checking in

and realize, oh, wow, no, he's made up for that slow start. And then also it's that the Blue Jays are bad and disappointing. So in 2021, they were not a playoff team, but they won 91 games and they were competitive and they were young and exciting. And now they're trading at the deadline in the direction that they didn't want to be trading. And he was even mentioned as someone who might possibly be dangled, but that I guess has kind of suppressed the excitement surrounding the flat, but there should still be some excitement surrounding the flat.

He does still hit a fair number of ground balls. Like he still has a 49 plus percent ground ball raid and that's just been kind of an issue for him a few years ago. It was lower and he got a handle on that. And that's one reason why he got a handle on that. And that's one reason why he was hitting more home runs. So that makes it kind of flashier, I guess, the shape of the production, but yeah, give Vlad his due. He's been very good. He's been very good.

And, you know, even though the career as a whole, the shape of it, he hasn't really launched the way it seemed like he might. He's still like almost at 20 war, at least according to baseball reference, Van Grasse has him a little lower and he's 25 years old. So, you know, some guys have barely gotten started by that point. So he's still racking up the counting stats at the very least. And he plays a lot, right? Like he played in all 60 games in 2020, then 161 games, 160 games, 156 games. He's played in 111 games this year. So he really racks up the plate appearance. You know, he's getting like 700 plate appearances per season, basically,

and hardly missing a game. So that's going to add to your tallies, at least cumulatively speaking. Yeah. Also, while we're talking about guys who've been hot, if we use that same sort of cutoff, so June 5th was what I was using because it was Robus's first game for the Mariners, the best hitter in that span, minimum 90 plate appearances, Tyler Fitzgerald is the best hitter in baseball with a 244, a Judgian-Bonsian WRC plus since then. If we go since June 20th, which I think was when he came up for good because he spent some time in AAA this season too,

he's been up and down, he's been up lately. And since June 20th, 250 WRC plus in 81 played appearances, just edging out Vlad and Judge as the best hitters, minimum 80 played appearances over that span. He's had 11 home runs in his last 18 games. Tyler Fitzgerald, who is a 26 year old who was never a top 100 guy. He came up for the first time, made his debut last year, played 10 undistinguished games for the Giants, and now, lately at least, he has just gone off. And he raked in AAA2 this season.

He had even better there in Sacramento, good hitting environment, but 1121 OPS there and over a thousand OPS in the majors this year. And don't know about you, but I did not have that on my board. Did not see that coming. I don't know if it's more or less unexpected than Victor Robles transforming as a Mariner, but it's up there. So that's been fun and surprising to see. I don't know that I had a take on him one way or the other. I think I was absent a take entirely, really.

Probably. Why would you have had a strong take on Tyler Fitzgerald? Why would I have had one? But we've had to form one now. Now, unlike Victor Robles, he has somewhat exceeded his expected stats. So since June 20th, no one has outperformed their expected weighted on base by more than Tyler Fitzgerald's 96 points. Now we could probably lop off 96 points and he'd still look pretty good because he's been that incredible. But he has been playing and hitting somewhat over his head, which would

probably be unsurprising to people. But man, like the Mariners could really use an injection of offense that they've gotten from Victor Robles and the Giants could use the same. And they have gotten that from Tower Fitzgerald. And it just made me realize that this has been a fantastic season for super utility types. So episode 2189, we answered a question from Preston, Patreon supporter about whether we should hand out a utility player of the year award. And we said, yeah, we should hand out a utility player of the year award. Right.

And we said, yeah, we should. But if we did, I'm not sure who we would give it to this season, because the options are pretty impressive. So Tyler Fitzgerald not only has he hit like this lately, but he's played several positions. So he's played 27 games at short, eight games in center, So he's played 27 games at short, eight games in center, six games at second, three games in left, two games at first base, and he's pitched three games to boot. Yeah. And then who else is in this category? So David Fry, I guess, right? We haven't talked about David Fry a lot lately because he has slumped hard.

Yeah, he's cool. Yeah. So we talked about Fry after the games of May 28th was when we marveled at what Fry was doing. And then suddenly he stopped doing those things. So he had a 210 WRC plus to that point in 128 plate appearances, which was the best in baseball with at least a hundred. Since then, he has a 74 WRC plus in 171 plate appearances. So he's pumpkined pretty hard over that span. And I guess the, the guardians as a whole have too, because they started out surprisingly strong offensively. And since the start of July, only the White Sox, Angels, and Rockies have a lower WRC plus than the Guardians.

So I guess as Fry goes, so go the Guardians and they've both gone down offensively since that point. But still on the whole Fry has been productive and he has done it while playing 23 games at catcher, 16 in left, 13 at first, four at third, and four in right field. So you've got him, love the catcher who plays a bunch of other positions. It's not catcher and center. We haven't had that so much since the days of Dalton Varsho, but still, yeah, me too. But it was clear that

it wasn't going to last that long. Then we've also sung the praises of Willie Castro, right? Who has already made some history because he became the first player in MLB history to appear in at least 20 games at second, short, third, center, and left all in the same season. And he's made a lot of starts at those positions short, third, center and left all in the same season. And he's made a lot of starts at those positions too, as other guys have gotten hurt. So his updated totals, did I write that down? Possibly not, but he's played lots of games at all of those positions and has also pitched a couple of games too. And then you have Sedan Rafaella who has made some history himself because he

has become the first player in the modern era at least to play 60 plus games at shortstop and 60 plus games in center field in the same season. And those aren't different games in all of those cases. He's played short and center in the same game sometimes. So that's a really interesting breakdown. 64 games in center, 62 at short plus six at second and four at third. So these guys are playing all over the place plus what Mookie was doing before he got hurt. Like this is fun. This is the season of super utility types.

Well, and Rafaela is a fun case because, you know, we have expressed, admiration is probably the right word for guys who are sort of pressed into multi-positional duty by the needs of the roster, which is definitely the case for Rathaella, as they've had to cover injuries on the infield in Boston. He is a natural center fielder and I think was expected to have that be his primary position when he was coming up, but it's like the team needs what it needs. So get you to the middle infield, please. And I think when guys can answer the call there, I know that the metrics are sort of mixed on his defense, but he's a very talented defender. It's quite a small sample.

And it's cool to see a guy be like, yeah, sure, I'll do that for you. Don't worry. I got you. Yeah. The updated totals for Willie Castro. I love the evenness of the distribution of playing time here. 37 games at second, 30 games at short, 23 games at third, 23 games in left, 20 games at center, plus a couple of games at pitcher.

That's fun. And you know what? It's almost fun whether you excel defensively at those positions or not. Like Willie Castro, the defensive metrics are split. So defensive runs saved has him as a significant negative overall defensively. Whereas I believe out-to-be-average stack cast has him as an overall positive. But it does take a toll. Russell Carlton has done research on this. It's hard, even if you have the skills theoretically to play off those positions, to be constantly switching,

let alone picking some of them up on the fly and just the different demands at those positions to be constantly switching, let alone picking some of them up on the fly and just like the different demands at those positions, the different angles, right? The different techniques, like it's not easy to just switch constantly from one position to the next. So it's a competitive race for this non-existent utility man of the year awards that we would like someone to hand out. Maybe it can be the effectively wild utility player of the year award, but I don't know who the leading candidate is at this point because all these guys are making strong cases. Yeah, I agree. None of this is new, by the way. It's a recent trend. Bullpens keep getting bigger,

so if you want a spot on a bench, you got to play a bunch of positions, but these guys are extraordinary. trend bullpens keep getting bigger. So if you want to spot on a bench, you got to play a bunch of positions, but these guys are extraordinary. Well, we've been talking about regression and players doing things differently than they've done them before. So I want to raise the subject with you of the Padres clutch correction this season.

So this was a big storyline last year, right? I wrote about it. We talked about it many times, most notably, I suppose, on episode 2062, last September, which was titled competing Padres post mortems. We broke down two deep dives into what had gone wrong for the San Diego Padres from the athletic and the San Diego union Tribune. And both of them were about dysfunction, right? In the clubhouse and in the front office

and was this contributing to some kind of culture problem that was leading to the Padres underperforming their raw talent. And we considered all of those factors and I think we gave some credence to them, but we also said, maybe this is just randomness. Maybe this just kind of fixes itself. And we've certainly seen that happen with other teams.

And now we've seen that happen with the Padres. So the Padres, based on the underlying numbers, are essentially the same team that they were last year, if not worse. And this was not unanticipated. I think people predicted that the Padres might be a worse team on talent this year without Juan Soto and others, but better winning percentage wise would have better results just because they'd be less unlucky or onclutch. They'd have better timing, however you want to put it. So their base runs record last year, their winning

percentage was 559, but they ended up at 82 and 80 and it took a late surge to even get them there. This year, their base runs winning percentage is 547. So lower than last year, but obviously they have played much better in their 61 and 52. And they're just kind of playing like you would expect them to play this year, as opposed to drastically historically underperforming how you'd expect them to play. And it is because of clutchness or timing or whatever you want to call it. They've gone from nine and 23 in one run games and two and 12 in extra inning games last year to 13 and 12 in one run games and four and one in extras. They have gone from 30th in batter clutch, the fan graph stat last year, dead last to third, third best this year.

They have gone from a 77 TOPS plus in high leverage situations last year. So that's their performance in high leverage spots relative to their overall performance. It was significantly worse this year, 129 in those spots. So they've outperformed by almost as much as they underperformed last year, if not more. So in some ways they've just kind of regressed to the mean, like the one run record, it's not that they're excelling in that area this year, they've just been average. They're just won about as many as they've lost, which is what you would expect. Or they have gone from unclutch to clutch. So what are we to make of this? Will we get deep dives this year explaining how the culture has improved? Perhaps those have already been published. I don't know. When things are going fine, you're less likely to get the

full breakdown that's like, things are going fine, you're less likely to get the, the full breakdown. That's like, things are going fine, as opposed to when things are disastrous, then you, you get lots of people willing to speak about what's happening and people wanting to look into that. And obviously it's mostly the same team. I mean, there's been significant turnover and you know, but it's mostly the same hitters and the same lineup. And it's AJ Preller still, who was one of the people blamed by at least one of those pieces last year for the culture. But you also have a new manager, no more Bob Melvin, Mike Schilt in, Melvin out.

Perhaps there's a better relationship there between GM and manager than there was last year which seemed like that wasn't going great. Is it purely just stuff randomly went wrong last year and now it's going fine or well? Or are there other factors at play? Will we ever learn our lesson when it comes to these extremes, even knowing that the historical pattern is that they will revert to something more normal in the following season or even in the rest of the current season? Because we've seen it over and over and over again, and this is the latest example. No, we'll never learn.

The Padres bullpen is not bad. So like one of the things that can contribute to over or under performance in one run games is like a really good or really bad bullpen, right? At least by result. And like their bullpen is like 10th by our version of war. I think that you can tell that they appreciate that this is maybe some of it is guys legitimately doing better because they've changed something, but also that there's some flukiness because like what did they do at the deadline?

They went out and reinforced that bullpen, right? They were like, we need more arms out there. But no, we'll never learn our lesson. We'll never ever learn our lesson. And I think it's hard to disentangle the culture from results piece, which I think is part of what we said when we were engaging with those narratives last year, which is like the one feeds the other and there are good clubhouses that happen to have losing records and there are winning teams where everybody seems to hate each other. There's no like one way it can be, but often when things are going good,

your vibes are right because the team is doing well and it helps to paper over any underlying sort of fault lines that might exist between, you know, leaders in the clubhouse, between the coaching staff and the players, between the coaching staff in the front office, et cetera. And when things are going poorly, everybody's just kind of spiky and in a bad mood and things that you might have been able to overlook or let go, you kind of dig in on because like, what is it going to cost you? You're already losing. Yeah. It's always a chicken and an egg thing.

And I tend to think that it's more that the egg is the underperformance and then the chicken is that everyone's pissed about the underperformance, right? And it flows more in that direction than in the other direction, though it can be both, of course. So I think it's partly that. And yeah, maybe like resetting and it's a new season and blank slate and I'm sure these things can feed on themselves and you kinda come up empty a bunch of times and suddenly you stop believing in your ability to come up big.

Though even if you look at say like a correlation between the first half and the second half or something, you tend to see there isn't much of one. So that like teams that are really unclutched in one half of the season, there's not much signal there when it comes to the rest of the season. So it's not just that the vibes are bad and they continue to be bad until you have a whole off season and there's some roster changes or you get a new manager or whatever it is. Again, like it might be part of that. And I'm sure there have been pieces published about the vibes being better with the Padres this year. And for all, I know they started in spring training.

There are always spring training pieces about every team about the vibes being good, almost without fail, but that's because you haven't lost yet. You haven't run into tough times and that's when the vibes can fracture and the personalities can clash and the tempers can be short and little spats blow up into big ones. But yeah, there's just, I don't really believe that once you make the majors and you've gone through the crucible of all the levels of amateur baseball and the minors and everything else, and you've proved that you don't completely fall apart in pressure spots and you can't be a complete choker to have even made it to the majors. I just don't think that the disparity is that great

really between teams or among players. And so I would always bet on a team to bounce back. It's just, it's very hard to maintain that kind of dispassionate perspective. If you are a fan or even a member of one of those teams or someone who's covering one of those teams day in and day out. Cause yeah, I could just look at the splits and I can look at the projections, but I'm not watching every single Padres plate appearance. And if you are, and you're seeing them fail over and over and over again in these important moments, it's really, really hard to step back and say, oh, this doesn't mean anything about the essence of this squad. This too shall pass. You just see them come

up empty so many times that you kind of convince yourself that, yeah, this team has a fatal flaw and there's something wrong with their approach. That was a big thing about the Padres approach and it's all or nothing and they're trying to be the hero and then they end up being the goad. And again, like maybe some of that has changed and improved with coaching or new training methods or attitudes or whatever it is, but I tend to believe that the bulk of it is probably just that these things tend to kind of correct themselves given enough time. And the 2023 Padres didn't have enough time, but over multiple seasons, they've had enough time. Right. Yeah, things tend to even out. And, you know, I do wonder if after a season that has gone poorly

even if it really is just an expression of like a really bad luck or sequencing if maybe guys are more receptive to Changes that could be useful to them like, you know, maybe you look back at your 2023 and you're like I don't want to do that again And so you're you're more open to changing the grip of a pitch or what, you know, whatever. Victor Robles going from the nationals to the Mariners. Yeah, exactly. I love that you keep bringing him up. It doesn't make me nervous at all. As an example of success.

Totally fine. Um, totally, totally fine. But yeah, I do wonder if it, it puts you in a more receptive mood to changes that might be useful to you having better success the following year. And to be clear, I need to dig in on each of those guys to see if there's anything all that different with like, I don't know, maybe the grip or their release point or whatever, but maybe they're just like, hey, let's try some stuff. Let's not do that again. Yeah, that's true. It is tough to untangle regression

that would happen anyway, if you kept doing the same thing from the fact that if things are going badly for you, then you're gonna be more likely to change something. And so it could be a bit of both, of course, but we've just seen so many examples of this that I'm always just inclined to say, take heart that we've seen so many teams that struggled in this way. And then they bounced back and they stopped struggling in that way. And then of course I can be a downer sometimes if it's a team that's, that's

going great, right. In the other direction, for example, the guardians, sorry to pick on the guardians after picking on David Fry for a second, but the guardians have had a lot of success that they've been clutch this year, right? So they have a 129 TOPS plus with runners in scoring position this season. They have a 115 TOPS plus in high leverage spots. They're fourth in fan graphs, clutch just below the Padres. So they've been quite clutch, which has made their offense look more productive than it has been overall. And early in the season, it really did seem like they had changed things and they were hitting for more power and yeah,

maybe there's a wind tunnel now in Cleveland, but also they seem to have improved their approaches and that has kind of cratered lately, but the clutchness, the timing, the fortuitous nature of that has kind of propped up their run scoring overall. But if you look at their base runs records, like they have vastly outperformed where you'd expect them to be, right? So the Padres are just about dead on their underlying expected record. They're like one game below where they quote unquote should be. The Guardians are 11 wins above their base runs record. Like their base runs record says they are a 500 team, right? 56 and 56 is what they should be. Whereas in

actuality, they've been like a 600 winning percentage team, 67 and 45. And so you, again, if you're a fan and you're watching and you're thinking, oh, they're scrappy and they make contact and they put the ball in play and they run or whatever it is, you know, they can keep doing this. And it's just hard to find a team that can continue to keep doing something like that. Like they are more than double the out performance of any other team's base runs record. And that's why there are still skeptics, even though as we speak, I think they're still clinging to the best record in baseball,

maybe by half a game. I believe that is correct. Yeah. There are still people who think they're going to completely collapse, which I don't know that I see that, but I think they have played a bit over their heads and the playoff odds give them basically a coin flip chance to win the AL Central, even though they've been leading it for so long, but Minnesota's kind of closed that gap somewhat. So they would be the flip side of this, where you look at how they have managed to outperform expectations and you think, maybe they can't keep doing that, but maybe they could keep doing it for the rest of the season at least, and that's all they need. Well, they also need to do it in October.

That's true. Lest we forget the whole point of this thing is for them to try to make a deep postseason run. I love that we got an email a couple of days ago from a listener who's like, hey, you guys don't talk about the Guardians enough. And Ben's like, Oh really? I got you. They've been a fun team and a fun story and a lot of fun players and they have surprised me. I think maybe that's one reason why we haven't talked about them more is that there's been a little bit of a reservation like, can they keep doing this? You know, can the coin keep coming up whichever way they keep calling it?

I don't know. If it does, well, that's a fun story in its own way. Like right now they have the best record in baseball, but the seventh highest world series odds it looks like, or eighth, I think. And I think that's partly because the playoff odds still sort of doubt their ability to win the division. But also I think it is because of the perceived lack of true talent of the roster. And you're right, they do have to do it in October 2. And yes, the constant refrain, anything can happen in the playoffs and you don't

have to be a powerhouse or a super team to make K in October. But Neil Payne just did something on his substack where he looked at the record of previous teams that outperformed. In his case, he looked at their wins above replacement and looked at teams that, you know, they're on track to win 11 more games than expected via war. He looked at previous teams that outperformed by that much since the strike and they are the 2020 Marlins, the 2016 Rangers, the 2008 Angels, the 2007 Diamondbacks, the 2004 Yankees, just a handful of teams, fairly small sample because it's hard to outperform by this much, but all of those teams were eliminated and most of them in

fairly short order. I think all of them were, let's see, most of them were eliminated in the division series. The 2007 Diamondbacks and 2004 Yankees made it to the championship series before they got knocked out. Those teams mostly have not had deep playoff runs. Make of that whatever you will. This is not like the strong starting rotation guardians that we're used to. It's like good bullpen guardians, but it's hard if you don't have the all-around overall pitching staff that they have had in some recent seasons, if you have also a middling offense. So,

sorry, Guardians fans, we did talk about your team today. Danielle Pletka Man, they're like, go back to talking about Stephen Kwan, though. Jared Svelter Yeah, no, nothing but praise and affection for Stephen Kwan. And you know what, what makes the, the guardians or any other team look better than to talk about the White Sox. And I do want to return to them for a second. So we are recording on Tuesday afternoon before we find out whether the White Sox will snap their streak or lose a 22nd consecutive game. But I think this applies regardless. Could we have

foreseen the depths of the struggles of the White Sox this season? Because we knew that they would not be good. We knew that they would be bad. But we did not know. I don't know that anyone anticipated No, I don't know that anyone anticipated this sort of historic suckiness, right? Like, I think they had the third worst projected record coming into the season according to the FanCraft step charts. So they weren't even projected to be the worst team in baseball. Now we did our team preview pod for the White Sox. It was our third to last one. And I do recall saying on that one that even though they had the third worst projected record that I could easily see them as the worst team in baseball, but did not foresee this. And even though they were projected to be bad, they have been so much worse than expected that the projections have missed

on them the most. It's not like the projections thought they were going to be good. Right. Thought they were going to be bad, but they've been so bad, so objectively terrible that this is still the biggest miss for the projection. So like, the projection now is for that preseason projection to be about 21 wins off. And that's forecasting them for 46 by the end of the season,

which seems optimistic, right? I've said that repeatedly about the projections that they seem high on the White Sox, just because how are you ever going to project a team to be this bad, right? It's almost unprecedented. It could turn out to be unprecedented in the modern era. So the depth

charts still have them finishing the season at like not worse than a, not much worse than a 400 winning percentage clip. And I don't think that's going to happen. So if they end up where they're forecasted to end up, they'd still be about 21 wins off and no team either in a positive direction or a negative direction has, uh, has missed underperformed or overperformed their projections by this much. So again, like what is it? We knew they were going to be bad, but I just did not see a, a challenger to the 1962 nets. If not the Cleveland spiders,

like I just did not see this coming. Like, is this just they're bad and a bunch of things have gone wrong? Is this vibes? Is this the same conversation we just had about the Padres except with a way worse team? Well, Ben, I am flummoxed, you know? Cause like we thought they'd be bad,

but like they do have a couple of very good players They don't have very many of those guys, but they do have a couple of very good players Exactly a couple exactly two. Exactly a couple. They have two. They have one two. Well now they have one two They had like two very good players and like one Deadline worthy player put it that way and then they stopped having that one deadline worthy player. This it that way. And then they stopped having that one deadline worthy player, this is Fetty. They had, because they didn't trade. I just thought, you know, Crochet's been so good. He's been so good that he should be better. They should be at least a little bit better. It's really, they're bad at everything though. They're pretty much bad at everything and dramatically so and the

vibes are rancid. But you have to get, even with a very bad team, you have to get at least a little unlucky to lose this many games in a row. Just like you have to get pretty lucky. If they were ripping off a 22 game win streak, I mean that would be more shocking, but this is still fairly shocking. It's such a, it's pretty bad. Yeah. So they are speaking of base runs record, they are eight games below. So they are the, the biggest under performer, even based on their underlying numbers, they should be eight games better than they are. But even if they had played exactly to their base runs record, they'd be on pace for only 113 losses instead of 124. It would still be way worse than I think anyone saw coming.

Maybe there were some White Sox fans who saw this coming, but I don't know if it's, yeah, just some bad luck. It's, you know, some injuries, I guess, but you can't really pin it on that. It's just, everyone's been bad and, you know, the managing seems to not have been good. I mean, the messaging hasn't been good. I don't know about the about the managing itself. They are eight and 23 in one run games. So they're basically 2023 Padres in one run games this season. And it's not all noise record in one run games. Like a better team would still be expected to have a better one run record than a terrible team. It's just largely random. And so even a bad team like the White Sox, you probably wouldn't expect them to be quite that bad in those games. So yeah, they've lost a lot of close ones, but also they're just historically bad. And I don't know whether they are all

just sad, you know, like whether they're just beaten down by this season and things have just gone so wrong in the clubhouse that it's become a compounding problem, probably. Yeah. But I don't know, like I just, I'm shocked really. I didn't think we would see, even in this era where we see like a lot of really good records

and a lot of really bad records. And this season we're not seeing the really good ones. I think even the Guardians aren't on pace for a hundred wins. This is going to be the first season in quite a while maybe that we don't see a hundred win team. I feel like I jumped the gun I think on last year's bold predictions when one of my predictions was along those lines, this is the year when we haven't seen teams

at the top end excel, but who has the bottom fallen out for the White Sox. It has fallen out. And you have to think that if you're employed by the Colorado Rockies, if you're employed by the Oakland Athletics, if you are an by the Oakland Athletics, if you are an employee of the, I mean, even like the Angels, the Marlins, you're like, well,

it could be worse. And like dramatically, so they've only won 27 games. They're 41 and a half games out. That's the next greatest gap to the division lead is the Rockies at 25 games out. That's, man. We just talked about the best of times in the AL Central and this is the worst of times. We don't even have to qualify at AL Central just in baseball baseball. Yeah. Just, I guess everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, except it's not even like they have just missed some star players or something. Just like no one has played well, except for a couple guys. So that makes you think, because when the White Sox have underperformed in recent seasons,

they had tons of injuries and a lack of depth got exposed. And I mean, I guess there's been a lack of depth, but there's also a lack of everything else. So the first string players have lacked. So I just really didn't think that in this era, you would see something out of the baseball of many, many decades ago. The expansion Mets,

I mean, I just did not see any team, given that team, run for its money, I guess would be one way to put it. So I'm just shocked that it's been this bad, even though I expected it to be bad. Yeah, it's just, it's grim. I want to know how White Sox fans are. Like, are you folks okay? Is it, has it turned, you know, has it gotten so bad that it becomes like, quirky? Is that possible? Like, I don't want to delight in it. But I also, I do wonder, like how are you, you know? No, I feel bad. I think it's bad for baseball and yet it's riveting and I can't look away. It's very much rubbernecking what's happening here.

And I saw a clip that went semi-viral the other day of Miguel Vargas newly christened white sock, just kind of like looking glum and sitting, it looks like in the corner of the dugout and just looks unhappy to be there. Now, I don't know. Maybe that's just his resting expression or maybe that was just in that moment. He just didn't really have an expression on his face, but it looked like he was ruining the day that he was traded to the White Sox. Do you think because imagine going from the Dodgers, you know, first place team, they've had injuries, maybe they've underperformed a tad too, but still they're the Dodgers. They're on the way to another playoff appearance. They've got all-time great vibes guys in that clubhouse.

You know, you're playing with Shohei and Mookie and Freddie and all the rest, right? Kike and then you go to the white socks. What a shock to the system that must be. And, and yet on a personal level that could benefit him because he gets regular playing time now, right? He was not starting every day. Now he gets to start every day and that could be good for him to get those regular reps and, you know, build up some stats and maybe make more money down the road.

And yet, going from one atmosphere to the other, I wonder whether he's happy. Is he looking on the bright side? Is he like, this might benefit me personally, even though I'm now going into a very terrible, depressing work environment. Like, would you be upset to be Miguel Vargas making that trade off or would you be happy in some ways? I mean, I'm selfish enough that I would be pleased in the sense that I get to play more now, but man, it would be pleased in the sense that I get to play more now, but

man, it would be tough to go into work. Even if you feel unburdened by what has been, like if you're Miguel Vargas, like you didn't, you weren't there for all those losses. Maybe you don't feel dragged down by the weight of the personal responsibility for having been present amid all that losing, but still you're just being plunged into that soup of sadness. KS Look, man, vibes are so important. I think that the ability for sort of a bad time around you to swamp your individual accomplishments can like can't be overstated.

And there are definitely exceptions to that rule. And I wouldn't, to be clear, wouldn't begrudge him that position if that's the one he ultimately ends up taking. But it sucks to work at a place where the vibes are bad. And I mean, it's a little different in sports than like an office job. Shocking. Being a big leaguer and being an office worker, completely different. But I do think that like it tamps down the broader enthusiasm when you're like a guy

who's going good on a team that's having a really hard time. Like, I think a lot of guys feel weird having sort of a really expressive experience of their own good performance because like read the room you know and if you read the room the vibes are bad and so you have to you have to kind of diminish a little bit to navigate that as a workplace and so I think it just makes it very very hard now when you're a young big leaker and you weren't assured playing time at the big league level on another team, like I do think that there's room for you to sort of take a slightly middle path and say, okay, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to, I'm going to play really well. I'm going to make big league money. And then if this rebuild takes them longer than they think it will, which like it might, you might just get moved, right? Because like part of why you trade for a player like him is he's big league ready right now. And I think that I think there are ways from the big league readiness of their roster matter very much. And so like even though they traded for him and they clearly like

him as a player and want him in the organization, like, just keep playing really well and maybe you'll play your way out of there, who knows. But in the meantime, you have to sit with people who have had, like, a brutal season, even if their individual performance on the team hasn't been bad, which, like like isn't very many of those guys. And you know, it's like you're, you're sitting there like, how do I, how do I navigate these waters because they are very choppy around me and I am not a lifeboat enough on my own. I don't, I don't want to continue the nautical analogy because I don't have enough expertise there, but it would suck.

I think the players who get traded to teams that have won fewer than 50 games at this point in the season should be entitled to hazard pay. There should be a fund that the union has to say, here's your restitution for having to be on a crummy club. Cause you don't have any control over it, right? Like it's not like he was in a position where he could refuse the trade. He couldn't do that. He just has to go play there now.

Yeah. My God. Okay. We will end with a couple follow-ups here. Last time we answered a question from listener Matt, who suggested that we should have more belts or cups or trophies awarded based on matchups between individual teams. So like every team matchup would have some sort of physical manifestation of your pride, your bragging rights of having won the season series or whatever that year.

And we noted that there are things like the Vetter Cup, which is not a physical object. And then there was something like the, the Marist Trophy, which was a, a old New York tradition that was a physical object. I comped this to awards that are handed out to teams for having the best regular season record in other sports, which people suggest we should have in MLB. And I don't disagree, but also the precedent is that when those things do exist, no one cares and no one even is aware or pays attention. So unsurprisingly, a few people have let us know there are in fact several other examples of matchups between teams, rivalry series that do have an associated trophy or cup of

some kind, a physical object that I just was unaware of. So the Rangers and Astros play for a silver boot, the silver boot series. Wow. Yeah. So that's something that exists. And Matt suggested that maybe like, you know, there could be proceeds that would go to supporting good causes or something. And some of these do that.

But also, I just don't think anyone cares particularly about the cups or the trophies. The Cubs and the White Sox have the Crosstown Cup trophy. At least that's what Wikipedia says. That seems redundant, a cup and a trophy, but the Crosstown Cup trophy, I guess has been a thing since 2010. That would make me so mad if I were like a team PR person and I had to prepare a press release about that. I would be like, why didn't we change this?

Now it's too late. Some of these things have like corporate sponsors that go with them because everything is a sponsorship opportunity. And then the A's and the Giants have the Bay Bridge series trophy. So again, these things exist, which as of 2018, the winner of the annual series

retains a trophy fashioned from a piece of the original bridge. That's kind of cool. I like that as a keepsake. I guess this will be the last year sadly for the Bay Bridge series trophy. And then the Blue Jays and the Expos had the Pearson Cup, not named after Nate Pearson, who was not yet a player by that point, but the bragging rights for the winning team in the head-to-head Canadian MLB team matchup that was handed out the Pearson Cup for many years. So again, I just don't think really people care about the physical object because again,

you care about the wins. that you might gloat about, but actually having a trophy. I mean, if it were like the Stanley Cup and it traveled around or something, maybe that'd be fun, I guess, a photo op perhaps, but you know, you don't put that much stock in a single season series anyway, even if it's a rivalry series, you know, how much does that mean or matter really, right? But it exists. So I guess it's a good suggestion, Matt, in the sense that people have already preempted your suggestion and taken you up on it before you even made it. So thanks for filling us in about those existing ones that we weren't aware of.

I still think that the big ax that they passed back and forth in the Wisconsin-Minnesota rivalry game is a better object. It's a big ax. It's not a real ax. It's made out of wood. And so no injuries. I mean, I guess if you wielded it, it would still mess somebody up, but it's not like ... They don't hand a literal axe to a bunch of young athletes. Like that seems like a terrible idea because they're

all, you know, excited to have won and who knows what they'd do with it. I'm not accusing them of attempted murder. I'm just saying that like they might swing it around because they're excited and actually get one of their, you know, teammates. That'd be terrible. In the Lone Star series, when it was an interleague play, when the Astras were in the NL, so they had the winner of the six game series, the Silver Boot, as I mentioned, it's a 30 inch tall display of a size 15 cowboy boot, because it's got to be big in Texas, cast in silver, complete with a custom handmade spur. handmade spur. And if each team had won three games each for a tie, they planned for this. The declared winner of the Silver Boot in the Lone Star Series was the team that scored the most runs over the course of the series. Oh, sure. I mean, that makes sense. You have to establish tie breaking procedures in advance because once there's a tie, people are going to get all worked up about it.

Yeah. This started in 1992, I guess, the silver boot. Okay. And then when we were talking about Mike Trout last time and lamenting his recent track record of availability, I said, I just threw it out there. I was kind of curious if some sort of medical experts, some genetics expert could weigh in on how someone could suddenly seemingly go from being so durable to not only being so injury prone, but also so slow to recover. And naturally we got a response from a doctor who literally works in the department of clinical genomics at the Mayo Clinic. So

a subject matter expert, Dr. Brendan has written in here and said, I was listening to episode 2199, noted your call for genetics experts slash physicians and I am both. I also have personally had an ACL tear and a meniscus injury, suffered from gardening while old. So Brendan is just an expert on all aspects of this question. And he says, while there are a number of genetic disorders of connective tissue that can impact joint stability and healing,

I think it is extraordinarily unlikely that Mike Trout has anything currently identifiable as a genetic cause for his slow recoveries. In my experience, people with lifelong genetic disorders affecting connective tissue rarely reach the highest echelons of physical competition. Their bodies simply break down too fast to sustain the levels of practice and training

to achieve what is needed for a career in professional athletics. Though genetic testing technology is changing rapidly, we can now sequence someone's entire genome in a matter of hours, when doing it at all was science fiction at the beginning of my career. Given that, it wouldn't surprise me if we start to get better data about understanding the genetic underpinnings of a range of traits soon. Current genetic testing slash science is mostly focused on finding high impact single gene disorders where one or two variants in a single gene are the main cause of all or most of

someone's health issues. The challenge is that every healthy quote unquote normal person has millions of variations from one another, and the data science to understand the interactions and synergies between different common variants is still a work in progress. Super interesting stuff if you like being in the science weeds, I do. Also, I think that Trout's recoveries, while slowish for pro athletes, are pretty reasonable for mere mortals. But I think that Trout's recoveries, while slowish for pro athletes, are pretty reasonable for mere mortals. But I guess that's the jarring thing is that he suddenly is a mere mortal after not being

one for so long. I tore my ACL and meniscus about three years ago and still feel it and limp around sometimes. I'm at an age where a sneeze can make my back hurt for a week. Hey, even some baseball players have had that happen. It would be nice if Trout had both superhuman healing and hand to eye coordination, but it looks like he just got the latter. Well, you know, like sometimes a podcaster does that and then like ruins the back end

of her trade deadline week. Yeah, it would be nice. Oh my Trout, man. I feel sad all over again. Yeah. I'm not saying it's like a syndrome or something or some like identifiable disorder, but I suppose everything is somewhere on a spectrum and could maybe be governed by genetics in part. So, and we didn't say this the last time we talked about it, though I think we've said it before.

Even when he does return, he's got a DH, right? Like I hate to say it, but you can't keep running him out there in center again Like it it's not clear that he did something specifically Because he was a center fielder that that caused this to happen Right, but just aware and terror on him like, you know, obviously having him DH lowers his ceiling as a Obviously having him DH lowers his ceiling as a player, but you know, so does not ever playing.

So if they could keep his bat, his still potent bat in the lineup, I feel like you gotta do that. And, you know, I'm sure he won't want to do that. And especially to go straight from center to DH without passing go without, you know, passing an outfield corner or something. Right. Maybe that would help. Maybe it's less running in a corner, but you kind of like take drastic measures here, you know, just run him out there as a DH and see if that helps. Yeah, I guess.

Boy, it's just such a shame because it's not just, it puts a cap on his value from a war perspective, although it does, although as we've seen, sometimes you can have a just wildly productive season as a DH and have it be team altering, right? So maybe he'll Ohtani it, but it's such a big tumble. It's such a big tumble down the defensive spectrum. And like we're able, part of why we're able to stomach Otani, DH-ing and only doing that this year is that one, he's likely to return to the mound and continue to do the two way thing.

And if it's determined that he can't do that, like the expectation is that he will move to a corner outfield spot and then he'll just like be a really great outfielder in theory, right? And sometimes you DH a guy and like he doesn't take to it. Like it's a skill. It's a thing to be able to do that. And I imagine it would be a really abrupt shift, although maybe less abrupt because he's just missed all this time. So it's not like he's been playing the field, you know, in the interim, but yeah. Oh, and we wanted to maybe end with a call for information from people that there's something we're wondering about. We're curious. So we have noticed that over the past couple of years and also so far this year, there's been a pattern in our Patreon support where we add patrons in the

first half of the year and then we level off. We seem to hit a plateau about halfway through the year and then just sort of stay there for the rest of the year, which is not the worst thing in the world. We're not losing supporters and year over year, there's still been some growth, but it seems like we're just adding and people are flocking to our banner for the first half of the year and then that growth ceases in the second half of the year. And I assume that that just kind of correlates to a lack of interest in baseball in general or listening to baseball podcasts at least that in the beginning of the year,

you're prepping for your fantasy draft and you're excited for the season and you're listening to the team previews and anything could happen and no one's out of it. And then the midpoint of the year rolls around and some teams are out of it. And some people are White Sox fans. And maybe they aren't interested in tuning

into heroes talk about how terrible their team is. Right. So you would think that being the Saber Metric-minded people we are, we'd be doing data analysis of our audience and downloads and all of that, but we're really not. I just, I never look at that stuff. So I don't know whether our downloads tail off to a similar degree, but I assume it's just a general lack of enthusiasm for baseball, people paying attention to other stuff, football comes back. I don't know, right? So it's probably something that is kind of related to larger structural issues rather than anything specific to the podcast. But we wanted to ask whether there is anything we could do

to attract you to Patreon in the second half of a year or at any point in the year. And we'd certainly be interested in hearing from our existing Patreon supporters whether there are any other perks or benefits that we could offer, but we have convinced those folks at some point. So for the undecided voters out there, for the uncommitteds, what could we do, if anything, to persuade you to sign up? Is there anything that we could offer that some other creator or podcast offers

that induced you to sign up that we have not done? So if so, please write in and let us know what that is. Yeah, we're curious. I guess so we hamstring ourselves somewhat by putting all of the podcasts in front of the paywall. So there are some podcasters or creators who will just lock stuff away so that you have to sign up to access it, which I'm sure is effective, but is sort of distasteful to us. We would rather not do that, certainly. I like everyone being able to listen to every episode.

And then the other thing that some people do is they have ads on the podcast and then they offer an ad free feed. So we're, we're screwed ourselves over here by not doing either of those things. And we don't have ads on the regular feed. And I think some people sign up to support us just out of kind of gratitude for those things. Like they appreciate that. And, you know, regardless of what they're getting in return, they want to help fund those efforts and ensure that we can keep doing those things, which is great. But if there's some perk or something we could offer that would get you to sign up, then

please let us know. I guess with the caveat that we do not have unlimited time and resources, So, you know, we're, we're stretched as it is with our other jobs and things that we do. And so, you know, we do a bonus episode and we do playoff live streams and, you know, people can come on the podcast and we give priority to people with selecting emails or answering messages. And there's other merch and ad-free fan grass memberships and autograph books and lots of other stuff that I, they plug that you can take advantage of. So piling on a lot of other stuff that would take a lot more time and effort might be tough for us to swing. But

with that caveat, we would still be interested in hearing from anyone what we could offer, if anything, to get more people to sign up, because that would be nice. Yeah, agreed. All right. By the way, we recognize that not everyone has the disposable income to lavish some on a podcast. There are bills to pay.

There are more important causes to support. We understand. If we were smart, we probably would have put this mini pledge drive at the top of the episode instead of at the end. We may be smart about some things, but not necessarily about making money. We don't want to bother anyone, we don't want to ask for money, we just want people to give it to us. But you're only ever going to get a fairly small percentage of people to pay for something

that they can get for free. But we do deeply appreciate those of you who do. Also congrats to the victorious Chicago White Sox. First time we've been able to say that in almost a month. They beat the A's 5-1. They will settle for merely tying the longest American league losing streak. They got to 21, but they did not go over. They did not bust.

I guess their whole season has been a bust. Nevertheless, they're back in the win column. Also while we're offering congratulations, I'll offer some condolences. Billy Bean died on Tuesday. We must of course always stipulate, no, not the moneyball one. Bean spelled without an E on the end. This Billy Bean, who did overlap with the other Billy Bean during their major league careers, became the second former MLB player after Glenn Burke to come out publicly as

gay and in the past decade has worked for MLB as its first ever ambassador for inclusion and more recently its senior vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Also a special assistant to the commissioner. He had leukemia. He was only 60. Sad to see him go. If you'd like to listen to him, Jeff Sullivan, R.J.

McDaniel, and I had him on Effectively Wild on episode 1257 back in 2018. You can and we hope will 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. Jacob Sugerman, Max Perlman, Mark Rohan, Arthur, and Sam Cunningham. Thanks to all of you. As previously noted, 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 FanCrafts memberships, prioritized email answers, potential podcast appearances, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com

slash Effectively Wild. 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 fancast.com. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes, Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild and you can check the show page and your podcast apps episode description for links to upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLB ballparks. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you a little later this week. Haunted dreams, well stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say Philosophically and pedantically

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