Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2216: (Fish) Food for Thought

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and FanGraphs’ Michael Baumann play a game of “College Baseball Player or Vuelta a España Stage Winner?”, discuss Kumar Rocker’s potential and path to the majors, and (17:38) meet major leaguers Tyler Jay and Richard Fitts, before talking (39:33) to *checks notes* Marlins reliever Big Mike Baumann about becoming the second major leaguer […]

The Stag Blast Effective Moral Sauvage. Effective Moral Sauvage. Hello and welcome to episode 2216 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Van Graaff's presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, not joined by Meg Rowley this time, getting by with a little help from my friends with Meg on vacation and one of my friends formerly of The Ringer, but now, FanGraph's own, Michael Bauman. Hello, Michael. I thought about trying to do a Meg impression, but one, I can't get that mellow, and two, I think it's a bad idea to mock your boss on recording. Yeah. I can't imagine that being that convincing.

Not that you're bad at impressions or can't do voices, but I don't know that the register would really work for you. But I don't want to doubt you, but I guess now you're just disappointing people because we've brought it up and you aren't debuting the impression. I've been losing the upper register. I recently attended the wedding of our friend and former colleague, Shocker Saman, earlier this summer and did karaoke at the after party.

And oh man, the tenor one is not there anymore. Oh no. Well, you got to keep the upper register for future performances of what did Jerry DiPoto do? That's true. Cause he's always doing something and you'll be called upon to perform. So got a packed show today, lots of different segments, lots of different guests, but I thought we could start.

Well, we should probably start with, I imagine you have some sort of game to torment me with. That is correct. Okay. So for those of you listening out there who don't know, in addition to writing about baseball for fan graphs, I also write about cycling, bike racing. My newsletter on Substack, it's called Wheelie Sports. We had a nice little uptick in subscribers during the Tour de France and the Olympics.

And now that those are over, everybody's fleeing. So please, if you're at all interested in cycling, I'm sure some of you are out there. It gets published twice a week. So, you know, we'll have coverage of all the major races. But in the spirit of unifying cycling and baseball, Ben, we're going to play a game called College Baseball Player or Vuelta a España stage winner. Ben Shulkin Wow, I'm completely out of my depth and both counts here. Jared Sillman Ben, do you know what the term stage means

in a cycling context? Ben Shulkin I think so. I think it's just a part, it's a leg of the race, right? Jared Sillman Yes. So the Vuelta a España is the Tour of Spain. It's a three week race, just like the Tour de France, except instead of taking place in France, it takes place in Spain. That just wrapped up a very exciting race, lots of drama.

It's made up of 21 individual race days and the person with the shortest time at the end of it wins the race. But also winning an individual stage at one of these big races is quite prestigious. Ben, frankly, you should know most of these people. These are pretty big names in the world of sports. So the first, the first name that's coming up is Caden Groves, Caden Groves. Gosh. Well, there are a lot of Cadens in baseball these days, I know. And probably that's just cause there are a lot of Cadens in the world in that

particular age group. So I do not know this C cadence, but I guess I'll just bet on baseball. No, Kaden Groves is a sprinter for the Alpecin-Dekunac team. He won three stages at the Vuelta and the points classification. I'm glad you brought that up because I steered directly into, wow, there were lots of cadence in every Angle Zone country in the world. Flooding the zone with cadence. how could I possibly narrow it down? Number two, Alexis Gravel. Alexis Gravel. Alexis Gravel, gosh, that sounds more like a cyclist to me. No, he's a left-handed pitcher for McNeese State.

McNeese State? In Louisiana, his bio on the official team website says that he can walk on his hands for a full minute. Okay. Number three, Pablo Castillo. Well, gosh, we're talking about the tour to Spain here basically, right? So I mean, Pablo, maybe this is, you're trying to mislead me. This is always a mind game here, but I guess I'll go cycling.

Yes, he is a cyclist. He is a Spanish rider for a team called Equipo Kern Pharma that got a wild card entry. They're not a top tier team, but they got into this big race. They had never won a top tier race before. They won three stages at the Vuelta, two of them courtesy of Pablo Castrillo. They were one of the sentimental favorites for the Vuelta and he was one of the race's breakout stars. And the last one, Brandon McNulty. Well, that sounds like a baseball player. So he's an American. He's from Arizona, but he's a cyclist. He's the US national time trial champion.

He took the victory in the race opening individual time trial and actually led the race, which is unusual for an American in a race of this stature, although an American did win the overall last year, but he's one of the top young American riders. Well, I feel like you threw me a bone with the Pablo. You didn't have to toss me a Pablo when we're talking about a Spanish event. I thought about giving you, like, I thought you'd hear a Spanish name and think, oh, this is a baseball player. I thought about giving you, like I thought you'd hear a Spanish name and think, oh, this is a baseball player. I did, I almost psyched myself out

because I thought that was too easy, but fortunately I didn't think myself in circles. So I'm on the board at least one out of four. It's not great. This is one of the tougher ones I've given you. It is, yeah. You took it easy on me with the astronauts so last time we did this, but yeah,

cycling or college baseball, that's rocking a hard place for me, but I have not been reading Wheelie Sports enough or I would have been better prepared for this. So wheeliesports.substack.com, we'll link to it on the show page and you'll be prepared if anyone quizzes you on college baseball player or cyclist, which probably won't happen, but it might if you run into Michael Bowman. So one college baseball player I actually knew when he was a college baseball player is Kamar Rocker. And he was so famous that even I was aware of him as a freshman, no less. And it has been a long and winding road for Kamar Rocker to make the majors, but he is. Finally, we're speaking before his major league debut for the Rangers on Thursday.

And Rangers are just throwing everything they have at the Mariners this weekend. And I guess Kuma Rocker maybe doesn't get the headlines with Jacob deGrom making his comeback Friday and then Max Scherzer making his latest comeback on Saturday. So that's pretty impressive company. But Rocker also a notable debut and really one of the end of season storylines that I'm looking forward to here seeing what exactly he will be. So maybe you can recap because you just wrote about him for Fangrass and what he's been recently and what he was long ago. Maybe the last time that people were paying attention to what Kamau Rocker was doing. Can you retrace the career to this point?

Every so often there's a big physical high school pitcher who has no business making it to college, who ends up dropping because of signability concerns. Garrett Cole is an example of this, probably the most famous example, but Rocker was a potential first-rounder out of high school in the Atlanta area. His father is a college football hall of fame defensive lineman and longtime college at NFL defensive line coach. So that'll give you some of the, like an idea of the physicality of this guy. And he showed up just this monstrous six foot four freshmen throw an upper nineties with the killer slider at Vanderbilt. And he was the best pitcher on the team as a freshman when they won the national championship.

He threw a 19 strikeout no hitter in the super regional round and then was most outstanding player of the college world series. And then it just sort of stagnated for a little bit. He had some trouble keeping his mechanics straight. There was the COVID year, Jack Leiter emerged on the same team

and sort of Rocker was kind of yesterday's news. And he struggled to stay healthy, he struggled to throw strikes. In my story, I mentioned going to Rangers camp with Eric Langenhagen, this would have been March of 2023. And we were actually there to see a Jacob deGrom rehab start on the backfields. Rocker just happened to start the A-ball game that started afterward. The slider was incredible and everything else just looked lost. I was starting to worry.

I thought this was going to be a 220-inning multiple-Saiyong winner in 2019. Four years later, it's like, well, maybe this is a reliever. It was a bummer because in addition to being good, he's very fun to watch. He's very animated, very excitable on the mound the no hitter against Duke includes a lot of him barking at the Duke dugout Like it's he's that kind of competitor and he's like overall one of my favorite college baseball players ever And I'm just really excited because he's come back. He's only made seven starts in double and triple A He had a couple starts on the complex before that he's only made seven starts in double and triple A. He had a couple starts on the complex before that since returning from Tommy John's surgery. The slider was always good. The sliders now is like off the charts. Like we're talking people are putting 80s on it. He calls it a curveball,

by the way, evidently, but it's mostly classified as a slider. Yeah, you know, baseball, Saman calls it a slider. It's sort of low 80s, very, you know, very vertical. I guess like there is sort of like a hard off the table curveball element to it. It's the breaking ball, whatever you want to call it. The swing and miss rate, I think was 74.2% across those seven minor league starts. He threw, I think, 55 of them. If that anything like that happens in the major leagues, it would be the most dominant secondary pitch in the, in the league. And so I'm excited, one, to see how major league hitters deal with that pitch, but also, like, I just love watching this guy pitch.

And I'm really excited to see that, you know, for an audience that really hasn't had a chance to watch him since 2021, like, to see what all that fuss was about. Cause like, I tweeted the link to the story and Ari Gerson, who's a Vanderbilt B writer, his friend of mine, retweeted it. And all of a sudden my mentions were full of Vandy fans like,

like, oh my God, he was so fun. The no hitter was the best game I've, you know, I've ever seen. And like Vandy baseball has had a lot of good games. Like it's pretty crowded field. So I'm just, I'm so excited. I'm, I'm really happy that we're getting him on this sort of upswing of hype. Yeah. That I didn't think was ever going to come back. So, you know, it's just, it's fun. If you watch one game tonight, you should watch that one. I guess that probably will have happened by the time. Oh, sorry. Well, go back and watch highlights of one game from last night. You know, you watch one seven minute YouTube video, watch the highlights of the Rangers game.

Yeah. And because he looked lost for a while and then the injury and the Tommy John and plus the pandemic when he was still in school and just everything else, you would think that by this point, oh, it's just nice that he made the majors at all. Not that he's old, like he hasn't turned 25 yet, but you would think, oh, it would be a victory just to get there. And I guess it is, but also that ace ceiling is still intact. And I know there are people who would think, oh, it would be a victory just to get there. And I guess it is, but also that ace ceiling is still intact. And I know there are people who still think, well, he won't have the mechanical consistency and maybe he gets hurt again and maybe he does end up in the bullpen. But there is sort of a sky is the limit feeling with him right now.

And so where do you rank him on a prospect list? I think MLB pipeline has him at number 95 on their top 100, but you could put him like probably in the top 20 years, like, you know, just going by his recent performance where he struck out 47 in 29 and two thirds across his seven AA and AAA starts, like he's been totally dominant. You had the stats in your piece just about the whiffs that he's had, the bats that he's missed in those two AAA starts and throwing nasty high nineties fastball to go with the slider or curve, whatever we're calling it. Like if he could keep

doing that, I guess the doubts are more about whether he can sustain that health-wise and consistency-wise, but on any given day, if he's doing that, he still looks like a top of the rotation talent. And I think the biggest thing that my outlook has changed over the past month or two is, I guess the ultimate ceiling is back. The ultimate ceiling is probably about the same as it was when he was a freshman in college. But now the floor is not middle reliever. If he came out as a league average reliever, that would be kind of a bummer, but it's closer

floor now. And I think that just the way that slider is played in the upper minors, even if all that stuff, even the durability and mechanics and the strike throwing, this is still a guy who could strike out 14 guys per nine innings out of the bullpen and save 30 games a year. It's like, he's going to be not just a big leaguer, but it looks like a pretty important one. Do you fault the Mets at all for how they handled drafting him in retrospect now, because he had not gone through the pre-draft physical and disclosing the medicals and everything. And then they opted not to make him an offer. And then of course subsequently,

he got hurt and he had to, I mean, he rebuilt his appeal as a player in Indieball and then the Rangers surprised everyone when they took him as high as they did, right? And then that looked like it wasn't working out for a while because then he had the Tommy John, but now that he's kind of a blue chip prospect again, I mean, you could say, would they regret it and will they rule not having it? But was that a situation? Because at the time they came in for some criticism and compared to the Brady Akin situation with Houston, but can you blame them looking back? It's not as bad as the Brady Akin situation. I think I always, knowing what we know about

pitchers and what, like you can red flag basically any college starters medical, just that that's what throwing that kind of workload does to your elbow. I do kind of hold it against anybody who flunks a first rounder in a physical. And, you know, I think the rocker situation doesn't vindicate the Mets just from a process perspective as much as the Aiken situation did for the Astros. But I do think it's kind of shady to get to that point in the negotiations and throw out, oh, we're gonna, like the implied threat is always like,

okay, lower your bonus demands or we're gonna fail your medical. I do think that there's a perverse incentive there for, for some teams. So I, I do hold it against teams that do that. Well, hopefully he will be better than a previous rocker for the Rangers, the notorious rocker who I guess is notorious in New York as well. The problem was not that he wasn't good. I guess that was not the only problem at least.

And now he's reunited this rocker with Jack Leiter, with the Rangers, who has been sort of spotty and inconsistent this season as well, although he's looked pretty good lately. So which Vandy guy you got now going forward? I've always been a rocker over Leiter guy. And I think that there was a time where that was a minority opinion. I think the rocker got kind of overexposed because a guy who's that physically mature and that polished and that effective as a freshman in college really doesn't have a whole lot to do for his last two years before he can go back into the draft.

Sometimes we see guys really shove as freshmen and they go to junior college so they can reclassify and get back in the draft. And sometimes we see guys really shove as freshmen, they go to junior college so they can reclassify and get back in the draft sooner. And if you don't do that, then you're just sort of treading water. And I think that Leiter only really had one season in college and he was unbelievably good. And I think by that point, he definitely earned getting drafted in front of a rocker. But I do think the more you see a pitcher like that, the more you're inclined to nitpick. So rocker now, rocker then, rocker always for me.

All right, well, I am psyched to see what he can do for the rest of the season two, and we will have a little more rocker content later on this episode because I will be speaking to Lakshmi Gandhi, who wrote about rocker three years ago and the fact that he would be and now will be the first MLB player of Indian descent. His maternal grandparents immigrated to the US from India. So that's a big deal for fans from India or of Indian descent, South Asian baseball fans.

So we'll get into that aspect of his arrival. And as we're meeting that Major Leaguer, I figured we could do a quick Meet a Major Leaguer segment with some less prominent Major Leaguers. It's rare for a rocker to come along who's almost a household name among serious baseball fans before he even makes his debut, but we tend to focus on the more obscure players who make their Major League debuts on the Meet a Major Leaguer segment. So I have my guy, you have a guy too. I figured you would have someone who was a favorite of yours in college baseball other than rocker. I am very eager to meet this nascent Major Leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new.

Let's meet this mysterious Major Leaguer. So who's your guy? My guy is Tyler Jay. Okay. He probably would have been a household name or close to it for those of you who really followed college baseball about 10 years ago. He was the star in the Big Ten when I was covering the Midwest for D1 baseball. He was the closer for the University of Illinois. This was an unbelievably good team. I think they lost one regular season game in conference. And like the SIDs are on the big 10,

like were talking to me about it because like I was the only journalist who was at that one loss and they were like, you saw Illinois lose. Nobody's seen Illinois lose this season. And Jay was a big part of that. He was a, I say closer, he was really a multi-inning reliever in the sense that like he, there were games where the starter would get through five innings and he would just come in and throw, just close the game out. And so he was a big part of this dominant Illinois team that was a lot of fun to watch and has produced almost no major leaguers, weirdly, despite having the entire all Big 10 team that season. In a league that, the Big 10 was not the league it is now.

Certainly back then it was sort of like the, this was the first, first year that league really took a step forward, but there were a lot of good players in that league. Brandon Lau, Jay Cronenworth, Lamont Wade, some impact big leaguers came out of that group and Illinois just steamrolled everybody. And Jay was, like I said, the best player on that team. He was a smaller guy. He's listed at 6'1", and having interviewed him up close, I think he's lying about being 6'1". But he's very muscular, very athletic, had a really easy motion, incredible command, plus slider, and he ended up being the number six pick in the draft. It was interesting. This was back when the

draft took place during the NCAA tournament. They they were in the super regional against Vanderbilt. They had had rainouts. They were playing on Monday and Illinois gets eliminated by Vanderbilt. Jay makes the start. Dansby Swanson hits a home run off him. And Dansby Swanson finds out that he got picked first overall from the dugout 20 minutes after the game ended. And so like, you know, I'm going back and forth interviewing guys and they're going to the, the like on campus TV studio next to where they're having the press conferences and like Swanson's going through and Walker Bueller's going through and Jay's going through and all those guys got drafted in the first round. And, you know, Jay was one of the best

players from a really fun era of baseball for me. And it just didn't happen for him. In the minor leagues, he was pretty good with the twins. They tried him out as a starter. I think that was kind of the expectation. Obviously you're not taking a relief pitcher, six overall in the draft. And he floated around with the twins and the Reds and then went through the pandemic, went through Indie Ball, and popped up last year. Like, I thought he was done, basically. And it was some injuries, but also just like he wasn't getting guys out.

And he popped up in the Mets system late last season, and has since made his Major League debut this season. And it's like, it's not much. It's five appearances totaling seven and two thirds innings. He has a 470 ERA. Some of it with the Mets, a couple appearances with the Brewers, but just like with I'm glad that everybody else is getting an experienced rocker in the major leagues. After so long, I'd given up on this guy entirely. I'm just glad that if he stuck with it that long, like he's 30 now, that he at least got to have

that cup of coffee in the major leagues. Yeah. That's what I was saying with Rocker, that he's not quite at the point where, oh, it's nice that he just got there at all. But tower J is at that point, I guess, even though he's beyond that point. Yeah. He was drafted even higher than Rocker was the first time. Well, sort of in the middle of rockers. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And now he's 30 years old and that's kind of in a, well, you assumed that he would never get there and now he's there.

So that's something. He's still on the Burrs 40, man. So, yeah. Okay. Well, my guy is Richard Fitz. And yeah, I mean, Tyler J he was a top 100 prospect several years ago, obviously, and Richard Fitz was not and is not. And I think he was 13th on the MLB pipeline list when he was called up.

Longin Hagen had him 21st on the fan graphs, red Sox list back in June. And he's 24 years old, although he looks 12, just like a large 12 year old, but he is twice that old. He's 6'3", 230. He's a big guy, but he just looks young. He's got these nice little dimples. You just kind of want to squeeze his cheeks. Really good dimples actually. Incredible dimples. Yeah. And he's a fully grown man. He's a really good dimples actually. Incredible dimples, yeah. And he's a fully grown man. He's a married man. He's very grown, more grown than most people ever are. And he's now a major leaguer.

And he came to my attention because he was essentially replacing Rich Hill. And it felt wrong, obviously, for Rich Hill to be cast aside so quickly after the comeback, but it also felt right for a rich to be replaced by a rich. It felt like the cycle of the circle of life, sort of the old rich out, the new rich in. Now, Richard Fitz got a lot of attention, obviously, because of his name. I was going to say you did not call him Rich when we were talking about this.

That's the thing, right? So I mean, Rich Hill, everyone calls him Dick Mountain. It's for fun. He seems totally fine with that. When you have a Richard Fitz or a Richard Love Lady, I never know what to do because you wish they would lean into it, I guess, but you understand why they don't. And if they go by Richard as opposed to Rich or certainly Dick, then you know, you don't want to call them by that because they've probably been taunted their entire lives. And yet it's fun for fans to get to meet them and have various not that clever, but still sort of satisfying wordplay. So, so I stay away from it. And yet I almost wish they would embrace it even as I get why they

don't. I think it depends on where you are. I know for someone like us, we're professionals. I think it's sort of like Rich Hill. You want to let the player take the lead on that sort of thing. Rich Hill kind of embraced the Dick Mountain thing. And he put it on his player's weekend uniform. I remember being a young Phillies blogger

and the way I handled Antonio Bostardo back then is not how I would do it now. So yeah, I sympathize. You have to let that hanging slider down the middle pass. Yeah, they can all be Dick Butkus and just go for it, I guess. So I wish he were a lefty because that would have been even more appropriate if he was taking the Richard spot on the Red Sox roster, but he's not. He's a righty and he's fully 20 years younger than Rich Hill or almost. He's 24, Rich Hill is 44. He's from Helena and he has kind of an interesting story. Helena, Alabama, by the way, I guess I should

specify. That's not the Helena. Yeah, that's not the one that people would immediately think of probably. And he's a fairly new addition to the Red Sox organization because he was a Yankees draftee. He was taken in the sixth round in 2021. And he was actually sent to the Red Sox last December in the Alex Verdugo trade that Red Sox fans are probably feeling pretty good about, I guess, because not only did they now get a big leaguer, but they also saddled the Yankees and Yankees fans with Alex Verdugo, which has caused them seemingly a lot of psychic torment this year. He also has an interesting story, not just because he's been on both sides of the Yankees Red Sox rivalry, but because he's been on both sides of the Alabama Auburn rivalry.

You are probably much more familiar with the Alabama Auburn rivalry than I was because I'm not sure that I knew there was an Alabama Auburn rivalry. In baseball, it's not, it's not as big a rivalry as it is in other sports. Not that I would be aware of it if it were in baseball either, probably, but I have a history of being oblivious to college school rivalries. I married a Syracuse girl and on our first date, she made some kind of comment about, Oh, Georgetown guy.

And oh yeah, that's big East as hell. Yeah. And I was like, what is that? Is that something? Am I not supposed to like you? And then it kind of vaguely came to my mind. Oh right, yeah, there were people who used to chant beat cues or whatever.

That was a thing, right? I never actually- As a childhood Villanova fan, I hate both of you. Okay, well, gotta say, Jesse was wearing my Georgetown hoodie yesterday. I don't know if she would wear that with the rest of her family around, but she did do that anyway.

I've become more familiar with that rivalry than I was as an actual Georgetown student, but the Auburn, Alabama thing, so Fitz apparently was a big Alabama fan when he was a kid. His mom went there and lots of people in Helena, big fans of the University of Alabama and college sports, huge there of course, so crimson tide. But his brother, his older brother Trevor, played college ball at Mississippi State and

became a hero there and the Bulldogs made it all the way to the College World Series when Trevor Fitz was a sophomore there in 2013. Those of you who know Mike Farron will know his love for Wes Ray, who was the first baseman on that team. That team also had, I think it was Ray and Hunter Renfro. When they came back to Starkville after going to Omaha, they had like a parade and the two of them caught a possum behind a gas station. And this was like just very much the vibe of that team. It was just all like big hairy dudes and team I remember very fondly. Well, Richard Fitz was nine then, but he went to Omaha with the rest of his family to see his older brother start and he was cheering for the Bulldogs and then he switched allegiance from one crimson

clad team to another. And so he was a Bulldogs fan. And then as he became a baseball player himself, he wanted to play in the college world series too. He chose to attend Auburn despite the intra Alabama rivalry there. And I'm reading from a boston.com article. The two schools sports programs have been fighting for supremacy over the state of Alabama since 1893. That passion hasn't worn out with time. A fan of one team would almost never wear the other team's colors for any

reason, but Fitz was willing to make that switch if it meant his baseball career would benefit from it as he did going from the Yankees to the Red Sox. And he also went to the College World Series as a freshman and pitched on the same mound and had a good college career there, which I guess you probably saw. Yeah, some of it. I was going to say, like, if you want to play baseball, certainly back then, Alabama has recently made a pretty good head coaching hire and they're sort of on the upswing. But definitely back then Auburn was one of the two, or was the one of the two that you wanted to go to if you wanted to play baseball and reach the major leagues. So Fitz was called up and made his season debut on Sunday and it went well and it came against the White Sox, which is nice. Like

we should break in every big leaguer with a nice easy start against the white socks. And he went five and two thirds gave up two runs, no earned runs. And actually the white socks won that game seven to two, but Fitz gave them Fitz and the red socks need the help because they are dead last by fan graphs pitching war since the all-star break. So I think he's kind of been waiting for the call for a while now. And it finally came. AC The 2019 Auburn Tigers, which Richard Fitz pitched for, won 38 games. They went 38 and 28, or they could end up winning more than the White Sox. CB And maybe so, yeah. And the other interesting thing about Fitz is that not only is he a former

Auburn student, but he is still an Auburn student. He is currently going to school at Auburn because he was drafted after his junior year and he wants to finish off his degree because his wife is getting her master's in counseling and so she's been kind of taunting him apparently, like if I can get my master's, you can at least finish your undergrad. And so he is getting his business administration undergrad degree and he was doing finance homework like on the seven hour car trip to make his major league debut. And I listened to a bit of the 310 to left interview he did with friend of the show, Alex Spear. And he's talking about like, after I get off this interview, I gotta go do homework. Like he's fitting in homework in the clubhouse,

which is unusual. It's not uncommon for a player to go back and get their degree, but often they will wait until after their career is over, right? So he's sort of a cerebral guy, and also his wife is hanging, holding this over his head. So- I mean, it's a business degree.

Are you questioning the rigor of the business administration program, but, still it's admirable to go back. You know, you, you want to be a well-rounded person. I do think if you're going to do that, like you don't want to wait until your career is over cause you're going to forget everything. That's true. Yeah. I guess. Right. Do it while it's fresh in your mind maybe. But, but usually they do wait because you want to prioritize your training and your playing and everything.

And then back in the day, players would go back to school. I mean, they'd do it over the winter. Sometimes they still do, but yeah, to do it like while you're having to tell your finance professor, ask for an extension on a homework assignment because you're making your major league debut, that is not common. I would hope that he got that extension, but still like the life of a baseball player,

there's a lot of downtime. There's a lot of, you have to be somewhere, but you don't have to be doing something. So it's a good time to, you got plenty of time to study. So he's a sweeper, splitter, four seamer, slider guy. Eric had him as a future fifth starter, but he's made some changes to his pitch mix as has virtually every Red Sox starter this year. So in the piece that I read about when he reacted to the trade, he was with Garrett Whitlock at the time because he trains with Whitlock, I guess. And he immediately declared, I'm a Red Sox, which I have conflicted feelings

about because I would probably say sock. I know it's hard. That's tough. That's a, I have some sympathy for him. Yeah, right. And I would try to write around it or speak around it probably, but I'm just more comfortable with the singular sock than socks. I actually had this conversation with Meg recently. It was white socks for an article. And like, I asked her about two things for in a single sentence. And she said, I was not allowed to say white socks, apostrophe S, but I was

allowed to say screwing the pooch. So, well, if the socks fits, I guess anyway, that's Richard fits and Tyler J. And we got a question that I meant to ask you about a Patreon supporter, Tobias sent this in because he saw that Cade, not Caden, but Cade Povich recently set season highs against the White Sox, which got him thinking about some questions, which might make for interesting stat blast fodder, how many players and what percentage of the league have had their best game of the season against the White Sox, how many players and what percentage of the league have had the best game of their career against the White Sox? How many players and what percentage of the league have had the best game

of their career against the White Sox? How do these numbers stack up historically? That's not quite what you did, but I sent him a recent post of yours where you basically tried to White Sox adjust the rest of the league and it's a fun exercise, although I guess the results are sort of underwhelming. It's a little underwhelming, yeah. Yeah. Cause you expect there's such an outlier and so much worse than even the

bad teams in baseball that you would expect that they would be dragging down the league averages and kind of skewing things, but not really, because they're only one of 30 teams. So I think you have to look at it in context of total games played, because Juan Soto, at least at the time I was right, well, I guess he hasn't played the White Sox since then. But he had a 421 WRC plus against the White Sox, and it's one of the 20 best seasons any player has had against any single team.

But because Juan Soto's baseline is so high, didn't actually impact his, his stat line is better, but it's not obviously better. I guess I would say that the other two guys I singled out are Alec Boehm, who raised his WRC plus for the season, five points in three games against the White Sox. And Zach McKinstry, who has an 80 WRC plus this season.

And if he didn't play the White Sox, his WRC plus would be 65. I think that's probably the one that, the one that I would single out most and made the most obvious difference. So the White Sox, in addition to setting records or floating Zach McInstry's continued major league career. Yeah. Or it's like some of the close awards races. I guess there are some value metrics that do adjust for quality of competition, but if you're talking judge versus wit or whatever, okay.

So judge has faced the white Sox six times this year. He's hit 450, 607, 1000. That's a 1607 OPS, which is good even by judging standards, three homers in six games. Wit of course has played much more against the White Sox being in the division. So the White Sox against Witt or Witt against the White Sox, he's had 13 games against them, 54 play appearances, and he's hit 469-596-53 with two homers only. So I don't know, they've both just totally beat up on the White Sox, right? So if we had some sort of filter for some of the close races, I don't know if that would change anything in anyone's minds. I mean, like you said, they're all beating up on the White Sox. It would be funny if like

Aaron Judge like somehow ran into three different Garrett Crochet starts or something. Yeah, I guess there are teams that have struggled more than you would expect against the White Sox, like the Guardians who just swept the White Sox but before that had gone five and five against them. Whereas the rest of that division has gone, I think, 33 and three against Chicago. But for individual players, like I was just looking at Tarek Scubal versus Seth Lugo, obviously both in the AL Central. And Scubal has made two starts against the White white socks, 2.45 ERA. I guess that's basically what he's done against everyone.

Whereas Lugo has made three starts against the white socks and he's got a 0.79 ERA in those games. He's given up two runs in 22 and two thirds against the white socks. So, you know, it could be a tiebreaker, I suppose, if you think there's a tie there. Yeah. I think the other thing is like, we sort of have to adjust for the less unbalanced schedule that we've got now. Cause if somebody was playing the, I think it was in the last year of the unbalanced schedule,

the nationals lost 14 games to every division opponent, which had never happened before. So if like the, the guardians and the, and the Royals were, were playing 18 or 19 games against the White Sox, I think the league should have had to step in and put the finger on the scale for the Wild Card race, because that really would be a pretty big advantage. Well, as I mentioned later in the episode, I will be talking more about Rocker and the cultural impact of his promotion.

And then also I will be giving a few updates and followups, but I figured Meg is away. It's mid-September. It's the perfect time to check in with multiple Marlins Relievers, because why would you want to talk to just one? So hopefully that hasn't been a signal for everyone to turn off the podcast all at once.

I think this will be interesting. I will be doing a Declan check-in. So Declan Cronin, who is a favorite of mine because he is the lone major leaguer ever from my high school, Regis High School in New York. I had him on for the first time last year when he had just made his major league debut for the White Sox actually, but he escaped the fate of being on the 2024 White Sox and he's been on the Marlins all season and he's had a really interesting season because he has a super high BABIP and a big ERA FIP gap and he has not allowed a home run all season, which was the subject of a recent fan grass posts.

So curious statistical stuff going on with him. And that's a fun conversation. And figured if I'm going to talk to one Mike Bauman might as well talk to the other one too. So we have had the other Mike Bauman, big Mike Bauman on interviews together and separately on the late lamented Ringer MLB show RIP. But it was so lamented. It's so late, so lamented. But he is of national interest now,

not just extremely personal interest to someone named Michael Bamman, because he has played for five teams this year. And he is the second person ever to play for five major league teams in a single season, following in the footsteps of Oliver Drake, who also did that back in 2018, and was on an episode

with me and Jeff Sullivan, episode 1304. So now my family- One of my favorite epi- or one of my favorite accents in baseball history. Oh yeah, yeah. So he was on that one and we had to talk to the latest guy to do it, Big Mike Bauman. So we'll bring him on right now. Well, the only thing better than one Mike Bauman is multiple Mike Baumans. So in addition to medium Mike Bauman, I'm joined now by big Mike Bauman, who is now and hopefully will remain for his sake for

at least a little while a member of the Miami Marlins. This has been confusing for me because multiple Mike Baumans have asked for admission to this Zoom room. They are both here. Hello, Big Mike Bauman. Hello, how are you guys doing? Doing okay. You guys both okay with the big versus medium? I didn't want to denigrate you and call you small Mike Bowman. I'm not small. No, you're not small. Yeah.

You're a medium Mike Bowman. I think that's, that's accurate more or less certainly in comparison to the other Mike Bowman on the call. But I am definitely the second biggest Mike Bowman I've ever met. Yes. Yes. So this is, uh, at least the third recorded podcast conversation involving the two of you. I know you've met up in

person as well. And it's been tough to meet up in person with big Mike Bauman this year because his location is always changing even more so than a typical baseball player. You've been extremely well-traveled this year. And I know that it's not the first time you've been asked about this. And for all I know, you're sick of talking about it and probably sick of switching teams, but I guess we'll probably go stop by stop, but maybe big picture. What has this been like for you? Cause there are very few people who've had this sort of experience. Yeah, it's definitely been a whirlwind.

You know, I've definitely learned a lot. It's been quite the summer, definitely not how I expected it to go, but here we are. It's the beautiful part of baseball. I want to change a thing. Yeah. Well, you've changed a lot. The thing that always comes to mind for me when somebody changes teams a lot or gets traded in rapid succession is like, practically how that works in terms of like moving your stuff. Like, you know, are you living out of hotels or you know, what kind of support are you getting from, from your teams in terms of getting yourself situated in now four new cities in one summer?

Yeah, it seems like every every new team I've traveled even more and more lighter. The teams are super accommodating when it comes to shipping your car across the country if you need to, covering the rest of your apartment lease. They'll pay for the first seven nights in a hotel room. That's helped a lot. But I've just been traveling with one suitcase just so I can make sure I have everything with me at all times. And have you gotten better with practice? Was your fourth team change more smooth than the first one? Yeah, actually it has been. I didn't have to worry about

making phone calls to get anything shipped around. I just had everything with me. So if you're living out of one suitcase, how many outfits is that? And are you like mixing it up? Are you getting sick of wearing the same clothes all the time? Yeah, I probably have like eight outfits that I could mix and match. So I'm definitely kind of sick of that. But I should probably do laundry here pretty soon. So probably as many outfits as I really have in my regular rotation and I don't have any

excuse for that. I'm just working from home. I could live out of my closet, but fashion, not really a priority for me, I suppose. And what about for your family and for your wife? And I know you've got a baby on the way later this month. So how disruptive has that been for her and for you as you sort of planned where you're going to be for that delivery, hopefully? I mean, she's been unbelievably supportive and she's been my rock along with my mom, my brother along the way. But she's been able to stay in Florida where we reside in the offseason and we've just kind of been counting down the days, but you know, I was cross country or trying to set up an induction date and, but now just being in Miami, it's, it should be just a quick drive,

which that's a positive right there. Every first time dad, I went through this a few years ago myself. I mean, you're nervous. You've got a, a go bag ready. You've had a go bag ready just all season. Have you packed a go bag ready. You've had a go bag ready just all season for yourself. Have you packed a go bag within your big suitcase? Yeah, right. It's a smaller suitcase within the single suitcase that you have.

What's the plan though? I wonder about this generally for baseball players. I mean, I guess you can drop everything even though you're a big league player, but you get that text or that call and then you're just ready to go even if it's the middle of the game or something? Yeah, pretty much. I just have her on emergency call at all times. She has some contacts within

the organization. So if we're playing a game, she can reach out to them and they can call down to the bullpen and get me to come in. And yeah, pretty much just all hands on deck and just be ready whenever. Just curious about this. I remember going to the Orioles home playoff games last year, and all the wives and girlfriends were sitting together wearing matching jackets that they'd had custom made. I imagine that support group for families is important. But have you been in Miami long enough for your wife to get sort of integrated into that part of the community? But like, have you been in Miami long enough for your wife to get sort of integrated into that part of the community?

No, she well, she hasn't been to Miami yet. She's just traveling hasn't been easy for her. So she's just been staying at home. But yeah, definitely. It's awesome to have support system of other families that have gone through the same, same kind of scenarios. And just for everyone to have you back and just understand what kind of the process of what you're about to go through. So, um, they've, they've been a huge help.

Some wives particular back in Baltimore have been super helpful. So yeah, she's, she's been in a good spot. And I know you're from Minnesota. Is that still where you're based over the off season? No, based in Florida. Ah, that's convenient for you now, as you just said. But I guess what would it take for you to put down roots at this point, having been through this experience? Because I know you're probably hesitant to rent. I mean, you know, living out of hotels and you've been on the move,

and that's not unheard of for baseball players, but to feel secure that you're actually going to be with a particular team for the long haul, is it going to take some time for you to feel secure that you're actually going to be with a particular team for the long haul? Is it going to take some time for you to feel settled that way? Definitely. This game owes you nothing and you just got to take it one day at a time and you got to show up every day and do your job. And my goal is to be able to stick with the team and hopefully it's Miami and I love the young energy and the direction they're moving in. So my hope is to turn it around with these guys.

You've got so much more perspective on like what it's like to play in different organizations. I guess I was going to say travel, see a whole bunch of different teams, but you said you've just been playing the Nationals and the Blue Jays over and over again. Having experienced five different organizations this year, do you have like a favorite environment or like, who's got like the best clubhouse? Who's got like the best ballpark environment or, where's it easy to play versus other places?

Yeah, it's been cool seeing, actually being a part of five different major league teams. I loved playing in T-Mobile Park in Seattle, and I love Baltimore's fan base and just the players there and San Francisco's first-class organization. And then the Angels definitely a bunch of young town and another team that's moving only going to be trending up and being able to play for Brown Washington for a hot second. So this has definitely been some perks to it and just some cool experiences.

CB Yeah. And so I wonder just whether you feel like you were a San Francisco Giants. I mean, was that just so fast? Just one game, two-thirds of an inning, does it feel real like that happened? Like you were a member of the Giants in any meaningful way? No, I honestly, I guess not. That's where I sat down and was like, is this my fate? I got to figure some things out here if I want to stay on the team. But I was so thankful for the opportunity there. I'm still grateful to be able to wear a Giants uniform. So it just didn't work out. And that's just, you know, it's kind of what I've learned is just how things go sometimes. So speaking of uniforms and, you know, sticking in one place for a long time, the first move,

the trade to Seattle, I've like I've wrote about this at the time, I thought that was a great fit for you because you throw hard, you've got the hard breaking ball. That's the kind of picture that Seattle's had a lot of success developing in the past few years. I thought like, you know, my conclusion was like, you know, maybe one or two things change and like you're the, you know, you're Andres Munoz basically. And, you know, they tried you in high leverage situations and it didn't quite work out. That's really what set you on this motion from, you know, maybe this is just a change of scenery to now you're kind of on this conveyor belt from team to teams. And I was curious, like, if that was an adjustment, I guess, generally, I want to ask, like, how things went in Seattle from your

perspective, was there an adjustment from, okay, I'm changing teams once to, oh, this might happen again and again? I think once I got to Seattle, I had some good outings, but I also had, like you said, some leverage situations that didn't go well. For a reliever, the most important thing is not necessarily your stuff or what's coming out of your hand, but it's the consistency of what you can bring on a day-to-day basis as a reliever. And this whole season, it's just been a lack of consistency on my end. And so just going from team to team, it's actually, it's like I've been used to it going from team to team now and just seeing a bunch of new faces around, but in baseball, you know, it's a game of consistency and that's where I just

need to improve. One thing that was pretty consistent in Baltimore is you came up with a group of guys that you're part of this big prospect class that all got developed together. I know you and Austin Hayes played in college together. I know you and Zach Lother played together a lot when you were in the minors. And now you're being dumped into this whole new social environment, this brand new workplace. How has it been fitting in with a new team every few weeks? I don't want to sound like a parent sending their kid to summer camp, but are you making friends okay?

Yeah, I guess. I think we all have multiple goes and minds of we all want to be major league baseball players for a long time. It's been our lifestyles. And so we all have a lot in common and being able to find mutual connections over the past. I know this guy from this place and this guy from that place makes it, that's the beauty of the game. So baseball is a small world and that's definitely helps just kind of build relationships. When you join the Marlins, you get there a few weeks after that entire team is

shaken up at the trade deadline. So there are a lot of new faces there already and presumably people getting to know each other. Did that make things a little bit easier from a icebreaker standpoint? Yeah, actually, I'd say so. I had already known Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby from the Orioles and seen Jake Berger a lot of times going through the minor leagues.

You just kind of build connections there. Like I said, the clubhouse there is young and exciting and everyone's happy to be there. So, showing up to the field every day and the guys are going through it together. So that kind of makes all the bonds stronger. You and Max Meyer formed like bonded on the Minnesota guy basis? Yep. Yeah. He's from the town privately next over. So, you know, we knew a lot of people and you know, fellow Vikings fan, Gophers fan, he's been awesome to have around. And I know players are always reluctant to make any sort of excuses for anything,

but this can't have been easy. It can't have helped from an on-field pitching perspective, that you're going from place to place and you never know where you're going to be. Do you feel like it has affected your performance in certain ways or have you been able to just put all of that movement out of your mind once you step on the mound? No, I think at the end of the day, I've been able to not think about the movement. It's the same game, same mound. And yeah, at the end of the day, it's just go out there and pitch. It doesn't matter what uniform it's been in.

It's kind of been the same mindset of to get the batter in the box out. But yeah, yeah, no, definitely can't make excuses as a baseball player. Teams do have different development philosophies and often when they meet with a player they just acquired, they say, Hey, here's how we see you. And here's what we think you should do. And maybe you should throw this pitch a little more, you should throw it at this location a little more. Presumably you've had some version of that meeting four or five times this season.

And I wonder whether there's whiplash there or is there continuity? Like does your previous pitching coach pass along information to the next pitching coach and then to the next one, to the next one, in your case, it'd be kind of a game of telephone there. But is there any sort of like, we want this next team to know what's been going on with this guy and so we'll kind of do a handoff here? Or are you getting conflicting information at times from a team that wants you to do one thing and then the next team suggests you do something else? Actually, there was a connection between the angels pitching coach and the Marlins pitching coach. I think the Marlins pitching coach here

had actually coached the angels. So there's a little back and forth there. Yeah. No, I think going from each team, I've kind of been like, Hey, is there a magic potion here that you can help me out with? But I've learned like, Hey, it's pitching, it's pitching. And you can kind of peel back the layers and be like, Hey, this at the end of the day, this is it's baseball. It's, you know, what it's been for the past hundred years. And this is how you get change speeds, you command and pitch uses is great. But, you know, if you're leaving the ball in the middle of the plate, as I've learned, it can go a long way.

Yeah, I guess it might be smart. Just play for all the teams, get all the Intel that they have on you. So, you know what their scouting report is and whatever developmental ideas they have for you, and then you can take the bestouting report is and whatever developmental ideas they have for you. And then you can take the best of the ideas and implement those. So it's actually kind of a might work out in one way, even though it's hard in others. So going back to the topic of trying new things, when we talked last year in Philadelphia, you told me that you were going to try pineapple on pizza on my recommendation.

Have you gotten around to experience in that? Yeah, I can confirm that. Oh, that's a household favorite. Well, pizza nights will be throwing pineapples on there. That was a great recommendation. Do you haven't steered me wrong yet? And the other thing we talked about and the thing I promised to try it was suits, which you said you and the Orioles were, uh, we're watching a lot on the team

plane and I watched the whole thing and I'm curious, like, I just which you said you and the Orioles were watching a lot on the team plane. And I watched the whole thing and I'm curious, like I just want to bounce a couple thoughts off you. Like you said, like the characters are really compelling and they're just so much fun to spend time around. And I agreed, except like I could not stand Rachel. And I wanted to know like what your thoughts were on on Rachel from suits. Yeah, you know, I'd go back and forth a lot. You know, I actually didn't end up finishing the season or the all the seasons. So I think where I left, it sort of Peters out,

like you're not missing that much. I think where I left off, I liked her in the moment, but previously I know I was going back and forth. So what are you watching now? Right now I'm actually kind of open to anything. I don't have a show right now. It's football season. So true. Yeah. So I've just been getting ready for Thursday, Sundays, I guess your occasional Friday, Saturday,

Monday. So I'll say this, if you like this sort of like middle brow, white collar drama, my wife and I have been watching Scandal. And if you haven't, it's on, I think it's on Hulu. So I imagine you can get Hulu with the, with the commercials off on a major league salary, but it's dude, it's the craziest I've ever seen in my life. So if you liked suits, I think Scandal is like the drama turned up a completely, a completely different level.

Yeah, I'll have to look into that. You know, the baby coming up, I'm sure there'll be a lot of couch time. A lot of time holding the baby, you know, they're not going to understand what's going on. So definitely take advantage of that. If you like white collar dramas, you could also watch white collar. That's another option for you. Yeah, characters welcome.

Yeah, or Suits LA, I guess. Stay tuned for the spin-off. Oh, right. Oh, I didn't know about that. Yeah, because Suits was a sensation. It wasn't just Mike Bowman's and other Baltimore Orioles, everyone was streaming Suits. So we've got a spin-off on the way. So you've kind of run the gamut when it comes to placing the standings this year. You've been on first place teams, you've been on last place teams. Is there any difference in terms of your preparation or your attitude going to the park day to day if you're in a pennant race or not so much, or are you just sort of doing the same thing

and feeling the same way regardless? I've been doing the same thing regardless. I stay humble and think anytime I go off the mound, whether we're up 10, down 10, tie ball game, it's just, you gotta, you gotta compete no matter the situation, but it's, it's, it's been cool seeing, you know, what, what it's like to be in a winning clubhouse and what it's like to be in a clubhouse that's trying to get there and, and trying to make the playoffs. So yeah, that that's also been another experience and something to take away for the future. Yeah. And you said it's part of baseball and it is, and there are other guys who've been stuck in this sort of cycle, but most players, I guess, don't do it to this degree. And I guess the good news is you still get a full year of service time, right? Because you've been

off basically, or you've been in that sort of DFA limbo, but you're still accruing service time while that's happening wherever you are. But do you think from a structural standpoint or rules-wise, I mean, I guess this is happening because you're out of minor league options, right? So you can't be sent to the minors without passing through waivers. And so there have been other guys who've been stuck in this sort of cycle or something like Anthony Ghost has been with through with the guardians this year where he keeps getting DFA and then he comes back up. And I guess that's partly by choice that he's choosing to continue to sign

minor league deals with the guardians. But when this sort of thing happens, do you think there's anything about the system that should change or is it just inevitable that certain guys at certain points of their career are going to get caught in something like this? Yeah, no, I just think, you know, baseball can be really hard and I mean, being out of options has been a blessing and a curse and you know, blessing I get to, you know, I've, like you said, I've been able to accrue a year and a curse. And you know, blessing, I get to, you know, I've, like you said, I've been able to accrue a year of service time. You know, that's what I've been fortunate of. You know, I've been super fortunate and it's been a blessing to be able to be claimed and wanted by

each team. So you just got to go with the flow and keep going with it. But I can't say too much to the system, but I've been fortunate. That's for sure. Have you been notified? Have you found out the same way each time? Are you getting a text or a call or having a conversation or have you ever found out on Twitter or something? No, nothing crazy there.

Just a tap on the shoulder by, by an assistant staff member to go in the manager's office. And we sit down and they give me a spiel. And then I go home and I'm in DFA limbo for a few days. Have you talked to any other guys who've been in similar situations about this, either from a just lifestyle standpoint? How do I manage this or just the mentality or the emotions of it? Yeah, there were some guys, one guy in particular, Danny Coulomb with the Orioles.

Yeah. He'd always tell me like, Hey, I've been DFA'd six times. You know, it's not easy, but you're going to be okay. And looking at him now, he's someone I can look up to and be like, wow, this guy's on one of the best teams in baseball and he's a key part to it. So, you know, he's someone I can look up to and give myself hope for for the season moving forward. I guess you're, you're kind of looking down on him too, cause he's not very big for a big league pitcher, I guess.

I didn't make that joke about Max Meyer. And I guess just from a mindset standpoint, I guess you could take it one of two ways, right? You could be like, this team didn't want me, or you could say this other team does want me. And so you've been through that cycle several times now. Are you trying to look at it in a positive way? And is it ever hard to do that? Yeah, it's hard, but the only thing you can do is look at it in a positive way. It's been a dream to play Major League Baseball and I'm still able to do it at least up until today. You never know. All you can do is think positively and feed your brain and self with positive words.

It's the only thing you can do to keep moving forward. Well, it sounds like you're taking things in stride. If you have any goals for next season, baseball-wise, do you have anything that you want to work on with your pitching specifically, or are you hoping you stay in one place all season and you actually get to rent and live in an apartment somewhere instead of checking in and checking out constantly? Yeah, I'd love to be in Miami all year and be able to go to the playoffs, turn this into a playoff team as they were in the playoffs last year. Hopefully that just comes with, for me, just being consistent.

I got to make some adjustments this off season and, you know, hopefully, hopefully some things click. Is there anything paperwork wise or procedurally that has added extra headaches because of all this changes or is it just something that like your agent or whoever does your taxes or whatever like things will be a little more complicated for them, but it's not something you need to think I didn't even think about taxes. Yeah. I don't know whether you've thought about the tax implications of all this or whether you have an accountant or someone else who does, but I always wonder about that sort of mundane stuff. How does that...

But if you did your own taxes, that would be the funniest thing in the world. No, actually that's going to be a great question for my tax guy. But no, I actually am still trying to collect paychecks because I haven't been in teams long enough to get direct deposit set up. So I got some paychecks floating around. So other than that, no, it's been super easy. All the teams make the move transition super smooth. So are there checks like following you around the country? It's like when someone leaves a job and then they call you a couple of weeks later and you're like, do you want this, this last check? Do you want to cash this thing?

It makes the, the angels sound like one of those like third tier Spanish soccer teams that's like, Oh, it's like, can't make payroll, like chasing Artie, Artie Moreno around for the money. Yeah. No, they're great. But in San Francisco, I actually had a situation where I had to ship my bags across the country. Um, so I had to get reimbursed and so I had to get the check sent.

I was going to get the check sent home, but then I was with, I ended up being with Miami, I was like, Hey, actually I'm playing you guys if you just want to send it over to the visitors locker room. So I actually made it easier there. Nice. All right. Well, we wish you the best and that you can stay in one place for a while and that everything goes well

with you and Nicole with the baby and a belated happy birthday, I guess too. You just turned 29. So it's been, I guess it's one of those years that, you know, between the birth of your kid and everything else that's going on, I guess hopefully you'll be able to look back on later, years later and be like, wow, that was wild. And hopefully things will have settled down a bit by then.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys. That's, that was very nice, Ben. You didn't talk like this before you had kids. Yeah, I'm just a mellow dad now. How many kids do you have? Just one, which is enough for the moment. Going from zero to one is a pretty big difference. Not that going from one to two or more is small, but I think that first one is probably the

biggest change as I guess you're about to find out. So good luck with that. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you to both Bowmans for joining me. When I was younger, I used to go salmon fishing pretty often with my dad in the Pacific Northwest. And when you'd get a bite, someone would yell fish on. And if you were lucky, you would sometimes have two fish on at the same time. Different rods, of course. And that was called a double header. It's not just a baseball term. I guess this episode is technically not a double header because we're not speaking to multiple Marlins

at the same time, but we just had one fish on and now we'll have another. I'll be back in just a moment with my fellow Regis High School alum, right-hander Declan Cronin. Sometimes I still feel like that little girl hearing grandma's hand-held readies Collecting baseball cards before I could read

They say I waste my time tracking all these deadlines But it's here I've found my kind, we're joined now by a member of the Marlins bullpen who has spent the whole season though not quite the whole year with Miami, the pride of Regis High School, Declan Cronin. Declan, welcome back. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it. It's great to be back.

Well, last time I talked to you, you had just made your major league debut, which was a whirlwind for you as it is for everyone. So you were still in the pinch me on pitching in the big leagues phase. Do you feel established now? Do you feel like when you're going to the park, this is just your routine? I would say it feels a little bit more routine, yes, but there are still, you know, there are still moments where, you know, I have to pinch myself a little bit to remind myself that this is real. But I think there's going to be moments like that,

hopefully forever. HOFFMAN Can you ever settle down and relax and feel like, yeah, I'm just a big leaguer. This is just a normal job. It feels like anyone else going to their job where you can get used to anything, however unusual it is, or are you feeling like you're in a constant competition on some level? I would say there is a level of comfort that I have developed this year. Obviously just the continuity of being on one team the whole year with the changes we've had, especially, I feel like one of the few guys that's been here since the beginning. So I guess I have a little bit more

familiarity with my surroundings than most of the team. I guess I have a little bit more familiarity with my surroundings than most of the team. I guess in a way that just naturally lends itself to that feeling. It is an odd career in any number of ways, but I think maybe the most notable way, well, the most notable way I guess is that your employer can change without a moment's notice and there's not much you can do about it at this point in your career. But also I guess that most people have careers they could conceivably do for the rest of their lives. I could conceivably be a writer and editor and podcaster for the rest of my life if I don't screw up too terribly. The physical limitations won't constrain me really, whereas professional athletes know their time is limited, right? Not to remind you

of your mortality and all of our mortalities, but you can continue to work inside the sport in other roles, of course, as you already do. So maybe that's kind of cushion for you because you kind of, you have a second job in baseball basically, but every professional athlete in any sport is always trying to stave off the end that you know is coming, not to get too dark on a Thursday morning here? No, I mean, there's absolute truth to that. I think one thing for sure is to never take a day for granted because as you said, it comes to an end at some point, and for some people it's maybe a little bit more predictable than others, but you can go down a list of guys that were on top of the world one day and out of the game the next.

So certainly important to keep an even keel and to stay humble in that standpoint, but also just to appreciate every day because there's so much out of your control that, you know, you really should be making the most of every single day up here. So as you mentioned, you're one of the longer tenured Miami Marlins, I guess, even though this is your first year with the team, but you did have some movement earlier this year. It's not quite a big Mike Bauman level of moving between teams, but you were selected off waivers by the Astros back in early January, and then you spent a little more than a month as a Houston Astro before the Marlins picked you up off waivers. So do you feel like you were a Houston Astro in any meaningful way and how did it affect your life to change teams during a part of the year

when you're not actually physically with the team? Yeah, I think if there's a time to do it, probably the off season. Obviously I've never had that organization's shift in season, but it didn't change a ton from my standpoint. We were still maybe a little bit over a month out from spring training and you know my ramp up to spring training was probably gonna remain the same regardless of who I was with, whereas you know in season there could be some more variables there. Did I feel like a Houston Astro? I mean I guess

a little bit, but also you know never actually like stepped foot in a facility or had a locker or anything like that. So in another sense, maybe not, but you definitely hit it on the head. You know, employers can change on a dime and I definitely experienced at least a little bit of that this off season. I guess you were about a week away from reporting to spring training when you found out that you were going to be reporting to a different camp, though still in Florida. So there's that at least.

Did you have any conversations with the Astros front office or coaches or teammates or anything? Did they tell you what to expect or was that all going to happen when you showed up for spring training, which never happened? Yeah, no, I had some, I had some conversations with, with a good number of people and was in pretty consistent communication for the, I guess, three or four weeks or whatever ended up being that I was an Astro, just kind of keeping them in the loop with what I was doing, throwing wise and sending data and video and that sort of thing.

So that was good. I didn't feel like, you know, totally on an island, but yeah, pretty, you know, abrupt end to that Astro tenure. And then conveniently in terms of logistics and things like that, the Marlins spring trainings just down the road. So I didn't have to change my travel plans or anything like that too much. So I'm lucky I know for a lot of guys, it could be challenging. And I'm sure that you still have some fondness and gratitude towards your old team, the White Sox, who drafted you and brought you along and you made your debut with them.

But I wonder, I mean, without throwing your old teammates under the bus, I know that the Marlins have not had what we would call a winning season necessarily, but you kind of bit the bullet of being with perhaps one of the worst teams ever this year. So do you feel at all relieved to have missed out on the 2024 White Sox experience, or do you feel sympathy for former friends who

have been part of that? Yeah, I mean, I certainly feel for some of the guys that are over there. I mean, I know it's just been a really tough year for them, you know, on kind of historic proportions. And there's a lot of guys who I really like and some really, really close friends over there who are, you know, having to deal with all that comes with that. So for sure, I do feel that on a human level, but baseball wise, I am happy to be where I am, obviously, and that's been great. But yeah, I mean, I certainly, I feel for a lot of those guys. But then when I look at the roster, there's not actually so many names even there that I played with. So. Tanner Iskra Yeah. They've had a lot of changes too. Yeah. Does it change your day to day?

If you're on one of the worst teams of all time or a run of the mill last place team, or if you had been a Houston Astro and had been on a first place team, does that change your attitude? Do you think as you're going to the park, as you're preparing, or are you mostly focused on yourself and your own, your own performance, and that's the only thing you can control? Yeah, I mean, I think the right answer is that it probably shouldn't matter in terms of your preparation, that sort of thing. I mean, I know in Miami, like the guys, we come to work every day to win that day, regardless of the record.

If you're in the middle of a historic losing streak, I would just imagine the human nature kind of creeps in where it might be a little tough. But at least where I'm at, I think if I was in Miami or Houston or wherever I would be, I think the preparation would be the same. The goal would be the same to whatever my name is called to go out there and try to leave the score the same as when I came in. The Marlins, I think in the past have not necessarily been known as a progressive development kind of cutting edge team, but things are different there now.

It's a different administration. It's run by X-rays people, of course. So I wonder how you have found that and also going from Chicago to briefly Houston to Miami. What are the changes in terms of what people have shared with you or the tools that are available to you? Yeah, I think it's definitely like an interesting time with the organization. As you said, you know, totally new front office for the most part, some new kind of player personnel as well, but also kind of the continuity of like in terms of pitching coach of Mel, you know, Stoudelmeyer Jr. still being there, same bullpen coach, that sort of thing. So it's been a nice blend. I think for me personally, I really

enjoy kind of how we approach game planning and stuff like that. You know, I think the terms old school and new school are maybe like overused or something like that. But I do think it's kind of a nice blend of what's important in terms of, you know, maybe the intangibles, but also being able to like rely hard data and stuff like that to inform game plan, attack plan and stuff like that. So as a pitcher and someone in my spot with my kind of background, I really do like where I'm at.

I think they're only gonna continue to kind of develop and add more pieces and more tools and stuff like that for us to use. So definitely tell it to know we're headed in the right direction. And then in terms of like, you know, actual execution on those sorts of things,

like it's been great this year. I think like I've never been more confident going into baseball games that I have a really good plan of attack than I have this year. So it's good. And so you may end up with, I think, the third most innings pitched on the 2024 Marlins, depending on how the rest of the season goes. And one of the guys ahead of you is Trevor Rogers, who's no longer your teammate.

So to talk about that turnover and all the activity around the deadline, I know there were some days there, some games where the Marlins may not have had enough major league players to fill out a roster given all of the departures. So what was that like for you and for the rest of the team that was still around? Yeah, it was tough. I think we did a really good job of not making it a distraction once it was time to go play the game. But obviously with MLB Network on in the clubhouse and stuff like that, everyone's obviously on X or Twitter. It was not lost upon us that like, a good chunk of the team would not be there post deadline. I honestly think it was probably

more than we actually expected. There were a few moves where guys were like, Whoa, you know, didn't see that coming or just, you know, we knew Tanner Scott wouldn't be in the bullpen, right? And we were kind of ragging him about that all year, like, you know, everywhere we went like, Oh, I wonder if you'll be here in July. But there were some, you know, maybe more low key moves and stuff like that that we didn't see coming. So it was definitely interesting. I mean, even like myself, like the day of the deadline, I saw my name all over the ticker on MLB network. And of course, you know, guys were having a fun with that. And then at a certain point, the deadline happens and it's like, Whoa,

okay, we have a totally new team. We got to meet all these new guys. We have to go out there and play tonight. You know, guys that might've thought they were getting traded and weren't had to kind of refocus and re-center off of that. And then obviously, you know, we had guys that we'd gotten really close with just heading out the door and mass. So it was a very unique time. I think, you know, last year in Chicago, there was a very unique time. I think, you know, last year in Chicago, there was a little bit of a sell off, you know, there was, you know, Lance Lynn, Raven, Kelly, those guys, you know, even burger were traded and I kind of got there during that

time or slightly after. So I was not really part of like the group that was transitioning through that. I was one of the, you know, replacements or whatever you want to call it, who filled those spots. So to be a part of the group one of the you know replacements or whatever you want to call it who filled those spots So to be a part of the group that was you know there from the beginning and then you know saw all those guys leave It was pretty interesting Definitely like not easy from like a human standpoint to have just like I think double-digit guys leave your clubhouse like Yeah hours before first pitch of a major league baseball game But so it goes and you know, I really like the guys that we have here now. So, you know,

it's kind of the nature of baseball, but it was definitely unique. It was, it was pretty crazy stuff. Yeah, that's, I know that they moved the deadline to not be at a certain time that overlaps with a lot of games, but it seems like it should be just maybe a universal off day for everyone, just so that you can kind of adjust to the fact that your entire team changed. Are you then wearing name tags in the clubhouse? Is there some sort of team building exercise? Everyone goes around and shares a fun fact about themselves or something, or is it just kind of everyone goes up to everyone else and says, hey, I'm so and so?

Pretty much that. Pretty much just making those introductions whenever you could. I mean, there were some guys that got there to play in Tampa like during the game because maybe we traded more people than we anticipated or something like that. There were a couple teammates that I didn't meet until like after the game, which is kind of crazy. Well, I want to talk about your performance this season and there are a lot of strange things about the statistical profile of your season, seasons I guess as you're probably well aware.

You have the highest BABIP allowed of any pitcher this year, minimum 60 innings pitched and not that you would throw your teammates under the bus but just looking at stat cast at least it doesn't look like you've really had a problem with defensive support behind you it seems like it's maybe bad bounces and unlucky placement, but a lot of balls falling for hits there. And so I think you have the second biggest ERA minus FIP gap this year. So I wonder how you evaluate how everything has gone. I guess you're probably a fan of fan graphs war that fit based war

where you have a top 25 figure in the majors. So that would suggest that you've had a very successful season. Ross stripling former effectively wild guess is the only guy who had a bigger era minus fit gap in that direction this year. So how are you thinking of how you have pitched this year and is it sort of weird when you look at your stats? Yeah, I would say it is a little bit weird. Obviously had like a very really good start to the year. You know, first couple months were just seamless, honestly, and then hit a little bit of a rough patch. There was a point definitely in maybe July or August where I was like, you know,

because every stadium you go to, you see your name and then you see your ERA right next to it, right? Like that's like the one thing. It's like hitters, you see their batting average. That's maybe starting to change a little bit. But for pitchers, it's still ERA everywhere. Yeah, got to get the FIP up there. Yeah, like the FIP might be in, I don't know, five ballparks, but in like tiny font and hidden away. So you see that number and I'm like, I'm going out there and I'm like, I'm not getting flacked around the yard. So you see that number and I'm like I'm going out there and I'm like I'm not getting so lacked around the yard. Maybe you know everyone has an outing or two like that but it's like I'm not like walking the house. I'm not giving up a ton of damage like I just it's weird that number keeps going up and like I don't feel like I'm doing anything worse. I'm still striking out guys like so I did kind of a deep dive myself just for

like a sanity check one day in like the hotel after an outing where I think, I don't know, I gave up like three runs and it was just like ground ball after ground ball single. And it's just, you know, none of them found a glove till it was too late, you know, kind of thing. So for my own sanity, I went and kind of did a deep dive and looked at the peripherals like, you know, what is it? I had a couple conversations with Brandon Mann, our people strategist, the next day, and we both kind of came to the conclusion,

it's like, you might just have some like really, really, like really bad luck. You know, there were like a few, maybe whiffs were down a little bit and stuff like that, but overall, like everything looked pretty consistent from the months where I was cruising and was in the ones to the months where I was ballooning. And the only difference that we could really find on the stuff we were looking at was like the bad bit was just through the roof. I mean, like in the four hundreds versus being like pretty much around

league average when I was doing well. So it's like, okay, you can find a little bit of sauce in that. Obviously, that only goes so far. To give up runs or, you know, especially like there were a couple games where I came into close games and ended up losing the threat of the inning by giving up a bunch of singles or whatever it might be. And those are tough to deal with even if you're like, oh, it's just my bad. If you know what I mean, it only goes so far in terms of performance. At the end of the day, you do need to put up zeros. Yeah, it's been a weird year for sure.

I feel like I've pitched pretty well. I think there are definitely a lot of numbers that do point to that, but I think the biggest number would point to a pretty mediocre season, which I don't feel like I'm having. I always wonder whether that would be reassuring or extra frustrating to know that there is just a lot of luck going against you. Because on the one hand, it's liberating and you know you're doing what you can do and what you can control and everything else is out of your hands and you could be sort of zen about it.

But then at a certain point, if you're still giving up some runs, then I might feel extra frustrated. It's like, what did I do to deserve this? I'm doing everything right. Why is the universe conspiring against me? So I would imagine it's probably ping ponging back and forth between those feelings based on the outing and the day. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I try to be like as dispassionate about it as possible and just like, I've had some really good conversations with people too. Like Tyler Zombrow over at Tread, like, you know, he's like, you can control only so much and like I was, that's a very cliche thing, like control the controls, but it's literally like, you can control like your pitch shapes, your usage percentage, the locations you throw in and like the rest is really up to, you know, the baseball gods or whatever

you want to call it. Like, so make sure that you're honing in on those things. But yeah, I think I try to be as Zen about it as possible. And then there's outings like yesterday I had an outing in Pittsburgh where like first batter hits a scorched line drive right at the short stop. And like that's not lost on me that, you know, I was due for one of those, you know? So I certainly appreciate the bad bit of gods for being a little merciful at times. But yeah, it's been a weird year for sure. What with the negativity bias of the human brain, I know it's the ones that you think should have been out are probably easier to remember than the ones that you kind of get away with. But it is, I guess, important to remember that it goes both ways. And I guess the other

consolation would be, yeah, maybe a fan who's looking at that number on the scoreboard might not realize the underlying numbers, but teams do, right? And so in the sense of job security and salary and all of that, things have changed to the point where ERA might once have dictated whether you were going to make money or whether you were going to continue to be a big leaker. Whereas now you can be confident that the Marlins and every other team are looking at the stats under the hood. Right? Hopefully that won't affect your career prospects, even if it affects whether you're getting cheers or booze on any given day. Yeah, totally. I think that's a great point as well.

Now I know you're a data-driven guy. Are you also at all superstitious? I don't think I'm superstitious. No, I don't really think I am. Well, I want to ask you about the fact that you haven't given up a home run yet this season, but then- Oh yeah, no, I don't think like- If you do give up a home run, are you going to be mad at me? No, no, no, I won't be.

And no, no, no worries. Okay, all right. Well, Declan has absolved me in advance of jinxing him if that were to happen, but I wouldn't be the first because as I'm sure you saw, there was a fan graphs post about you a couple of weeks ago by Leo Bogenstern. Whoa, I made it. That was, uh, that was pretty cool. I'm not gonna lie.

The title was Declan Cronin hasn't given up a home run in 2024 and that is still the case and Leo had a ton of stats about how unusual that would be and you'd be the first guy in a decade to not give up a home run in 60 or more innings pitched and Whatever happens from here on out just getting to this point in a season without having given up a home run facing as many batters as you faced is extremely unusual. And if you could keep it going, then you'd end up in some pretty rarefied territory.

I'll just quote from his piece here. You could become the seventh pitcher in the past 30 years to throw at least 60 innings in a season without giving up a home run. If you reach the 70 inning thresholds, then you'd be the fourth in the past 30 years to top 70 innings without a home run. You could get to 75 innings pitched and you'd be the first since

Greg Minton in 1981. And a lot of these pitchers and previous performances were in lower home run rate eras, which makes what you've done even more impressive. So now that I have thoroughly jinxed you and gotten this in your head, obviously you get a lot of ground balls. And so that's a big part of the home run prevention. There is also, I suppose, some luck that enters into this too, right? You could look at a stat like ex-fip, which normalizes for a home run per fly ball rate.

And obviously none of your fly balls has turned into a home run, which is maybe partly you and partly pitching in Miami and partly other factors. So I guess you could say, well, one version of luck has kind of gone Declan's way, but not pure luck. So how much is this in your head? How much are you thinking, wow, I've done a great job of limiting damage, as you said earlier, and how much just, huh, this is weird and kind of fluky.

Yeah, it just feels like kind of funny. Like, you know, obviously like I will give up home runs, you know, I was in AAA for two weeks this year and gave up a home run there on like a jam shot fastball. So like, it can happen. Yeah, I guess the headline is inaccurate then you have given up a home run in 2024. Yeah, actually Colson Montgomery, what's up? He's a good guy. So if anyone could do it, he can do it. It definitely feels like kind of funny. Last year in the big leagues, I gave up, I think three home runs in like 10 innings or something, which felt like wild

because I don't give up a lot in general, but maybe I was due for like a little bit of regression there, but it's kind of fun. I had no idea that it was a thing until one of our media people told me, they were like, oh, I can't tell you, but like I have something to tell you or something like that. And I was like, what? And they're like, I have to wait. And then I threw that day and they're like, okay, now I can tell you like, you just broke the Marlins, I think it was the Marlins record for most innings to start a year without a home run. And I was like, I haven't given up a home run. I could have sworn I'd give

a home run at some point. And they were like, nope. I was like, oh, okay, that's cool. So yeah, it's definitely not like top of mind. And I'm certainly not superstitious about it. Like I will give up home runs at some point. So I did have a dream though. I will, I'll have to admit this. I have because we only because we're talking about, but I had a dream. I don't know when it was. I think it was after an outing in Philly.

The last time we were there where I had two outs and then I gave up like jam shot, double down the line, like fighter off the plate away to Harper, doubled down the other, like just like brutal. I was in a bad place and I had a dream that I went out there and gave up a home run and then everyone started clapping and I was like, why is everyone cheering? And they said, the curse is broken. Your bad bit's going to normalize because you just had to give up a home run.

It was the baseball gods. You were giving up all the singles as punishment for not giving up a home run. It was the baseball gods. You were giving up all the singles as punishment for not giving up a home run. I was half expecting to maybe give up a home run the next outing, but I didn't. That's how much, I guess, the topics we've been talking about have been weighing on me. But no, I'm not superstitious. It's just kind of funny. CB Okay, good. Because I felt some trepidation about bringing it up. I know I'm going to get tweets if you were to give up a home run, people would blame me, but Declan says it. Yeah, it's not my fault. Or whatever hitter ends up hitting the next one, I guess.

But I mean, obviously like you must be keeping the ball out of danger zones, even if there is some luck and flukiness happening here and you're keeping the ball on the ground, of course. And I don't know, I haven't looked to see if you've had some very close calls or home run robberies or anything that have bailed you out like that. Yeah, no, I mean, that's the other thing too, is like, it doesn't feel like I've just gotten like super lucky. It just, like, I really haven't had like a single ball off the bat this year where

I've thought, oh, that might be gone. You know what I mean? Which is cool, but won't be the case forever. Yeah. And I guess you wouldn't want it to get in your head where you're like, I'm almost there. I'm having this weird season. I'm going to not give up a home run all year. And then suddenly you're either avoiding the zone too much and you're walking people or you're getting like too careful and then that backfires and you hang one or something, right? So you want to kind of put this out of your head probably,

which isn't easy now that I've put it back in there. No, yeah, I think like pitching to avoid home runs specifically is probably not like a great way to pitch. Yeah, just like hitters always say, I'm not trying to go up there to hit a home run. Now I think sometimes they are and they just won't say that. But still it's probably counterproductive to try to do that or not do that. And hopefully you just don't if you're a pitcher. I meant to ask when we were talking about the

balls in play, whether you miss the shift. Now you weren't in the big leagues, of course, before the infield positioning was severely restricted last year, but I'm sure coming up through the minors and everything you experienced that. So I don't know whether the shift would have saved some of those balls that became hits for you and turned them into outs this year. But it's funny, like pitchers at first, they didn't like that. They didn't like what was the unorthodox defensive positioning. And then I think they probably grew to like it because they got used to it. And also it helped them in theory. So do you wish that your fielders had been freer to stand wherever maybe would have blocked some of those balls that became hits?

Yeah, I mean, probably would have, would be like the answer there, but that's not something I like really would think about. But it is what it is. Since you have your sort of second job in the off season. During the season, are you still involved in some way or are you mostly just focusing on being a big league pitcher yourself? Yeah, really the only thing I'm helping them with and I think that's the biggest thing I'm helping them with is the way they're doing it. I think they're doing it because they're doing it because they're doing it because they're doing it because they're doing it because they're doing it because the season, are you still involved in some way or are you mostly just focusing on being

a big league pitcher yourself? Yeah, really the only thing I'm helping them with in season is on the hiring side. So like obviously a ton of applicants for like performance coach positions, but we're also hiring analysts, biomechanists, another kind of ancillary components there. So I helped on the hiring team. There's a team of us, so it's not just me, but giving input, having conversations, stuff like that, around the new members of the team.

And I forget whether we talked about this last time, but you were a recent arrival then as someone who has that sort of side job, or I don't know whether you think of it as a side job or sort of a second main job, but if you need information or advice or some other resources, will you go to TRED? Will you go to the Marlins? Is it some combination of both as everyone's sort of talking together and on the same page? It's definitely both. There are some things that I know that TRED provides that I'll go and get from them. I get tailored heat maps and stuff like that from them, which I'll cross-reference with

the stuff I'm getting from the Marlins. Usually things line up pretty well, but if there's a discrepancy, I'll look into more why do the Marlins think I should throw this here, where I'm looking at the expected run value and it shows that that might not be the best idea or vice versa But so that's definitely a big piece But then also the the guys at tread definitely follow me pretty Consistently and we'll certainly reach out if they have any you know ideas and stuff like that Like you know, hey, I watched your last outing and I noticed this sort of thing

Which is great kind of like a neutral third-party set of eyes But yeah, definitely both and it must also be helpful to have your finger on the pulse of pitching development through that job at Treads so you know all of the trends and what are guys messing around with and what's the new hot pitch type. And so I wonder what is catching your eye these days when it comes to trends around the league and pitch usage and pitch types and pitch development. Yeah. One of the things I've talked a lot to Tyler Zombrow about who was really the kind of big piece around the initial stuff plus model that Tread rolled out, I guess a couple of

years ago at this point, but you know, he's always diving into kind of iterating on it and how to make it better. And I was speaking to him about why certain pitches grade out differently in different models and stuff like that and asking his opinion on it. And he's really dove deep into kind of like approach angle over kind of movement, characteristics of pitches.

So like, you know, really looking at like, what's the ball's path to the plate look like versus like what it's induced vertical break or horizontal break actually looks like and Finding kind of outliers on the approach angle side of things I think like vertical approach angle everyone's kind of like got their mind wrapped around Obviously, I think everyone at this point realizes that like a lower carry fastball from a lower slot could maybe perform better than a Icarry fastball at the top of the zone or something like that

perform better than a high carry fastball at the top of the zone or something like that. But he's been looking into horizontal and stuff like that and seeing some guys with some really unique kind of pockets of really low, low, high whips and stuff like that based on really unique horizontal approach pockets and stuff like that. So we bounced ideas back and forth. It hasn't maybe led to any really specific changes in season for me, but definitely stuff I want to dive in to in the off season in terms of, you know, maybe seeing how I can maximize that and get as unique as possible, which seems to be the name of the game. Yeah.

I was going to ask you what you were planning to tinker with if anything this winter. So is that mostly a location thing or would that be your motion, your delivery? Is that something you can change or would it be a pitch grip, pitch type sort of suggestion? Yeah, potentially all the above. I mean, well, one thing this year that I've actually instituted is the foreseen, which has been like an absolute weapon for me this year. I think it's like my best performing pitch. I don't obviously throw a ton, but it's been great and that kind of came about from looking at approach angle plots and kind of figuring out that it would be pretty unique from my slot given the characteristics of it and implementing that. So that was pretty quick,

just like adding another pitch on the spot. Outside of that, you know, you could always toy around with where you are on the rubber and obviously like location and then maybe trying to change the movement profile of certain things to really get into some fun pockets of uniqueness on those plots. But yeah, right now, just try to focus on obviously like finishing out the last couple of weeks so I don't have any big changes planned for that, but it should be pretty fun this off season to dive into that kind of stuff. Got an email a few months ago from a listener and you might be the perfect person to ask about this because you're both a baseball player and you have sort

of this second job and it's a listener named Matt who said that someone in our Facebook group had posted a question wondering if players ever left a team meeting and said to themselves, this could have been an email. It got me wondering in what ways do baseball players do non-baseball stuff related to their jobs? When they get called up, do they go to HR and get an email address and login access? Welcome, Aaron, here's your email, a.judge at yankees.com. Here's your work laptop, your key fob,

and your ID card, please sign here. I truly have no idea if anything like this happens. It's 2024 after all. Do they have work emails? Do they just show up and do baseball stuff and they're completely out of the corporate loop? Are they somewhere in between? Inquiring minds want to know.

That's a really, that was really, that was really well done. Whoever submitted that, that was awesome. No, we don't have work emails. Every organization is probably different. We use like the TeamWorks app for communication. So like everybody in the entire org is in there. So in theory, if you wanted to talk to anybody, you could kind of private message them on there. But we have groups, obviously, you know, a pitchers group, a full team group, a traveling party group, stuff

like that, or any kind of pertinent relevant information is put in there in terms of, you know, times for clubhouse opening, stretch time, spatting practice, anything else we might need to know, buses on the road, stuff like that. I mean, I guess you meet with HR, like basic stuff that you would set up anywhere you work, but no, no work email, but that's really funny. And other paperwork and stuff, is that something that your agent would take care of if there's any procedural stuff? Or I don't know at this point in your career what that would be exactly.

It's not like you're filing for free agency or something, but is there stuff like that? Union dues, health insurance, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, stuff like that, like insurance, retirement plan, things like that. Usually you take care of it in spring training. You have like a day where HR will come in and make sure that everyone gets all that squared away.

Yeah, the union dues are, I think, just taken automatically out of your paycheck, so you don't really have to do anything there. Yeah. Well, sounds pretty simple then, I guess. So there's not, we're not doing a ton of paperwork at the ballpark every day. It is mostly baseball stuff. That's probably for the best. You got a lot on your mind as it is. You got to study those scouting reports and everything. That's right. All right. Well, we're asking the important

questions here. I'm glad we got that straightened out. It is always a pleasure to talk to you and to follow you and you're doing Regis proud and happy early 27th birthday, I guess later this month. And I wish you continued good luck in certain ways and better luck than you have had in other ways. Thanks Ben, I really appreciate it. All right. As Dr. Seuss said, one fish, two fish, old fish, new fish.

I guess we could go up to 69 fish. Yes, I know, nice. Because that's how many players the Marlins have used so far this season. That's tied with the 2019 Mariners for the most major leaguers ever used by one team in a single season. And they just added a couple guys to the roster, Jeff Lindgren and Michael Peterson, recent meet a major leaguer subject, whom the Marlins just claimed from the Dodgers. So one of those guys should be Marlin NUMBER 70! And I guess it'd be appropriate if it were Michael Peterson because he will be wearing

NUMBER 70! Apologies to Joe Buck for taking him out of context there. So Miami's still tinkering with that roster thanks to two of those soon to be 70 Marlins Not Big Mac but Big Mike, Bauman, and Declan Cronin, who is also big by the way. They were both playing podcast setup men for our closing conversation. I'll be back in just a moment with Lakshmi Gandhi to discuss the significance of Kumar Rocker's debut for fans of Indian and South Asian descent and then I'll have a few follow-ups for you. Just one big math equation You're all about these stats we've compiled

Cause you're listening to Effectively Wild With Ben Lindberg and Meg Rowley Come for the ball, banter's free Baseball is a simulation It's all just one big conversation Well, it may not be the biggest event this week involving an American who identifies as both Black and Indian, but Kamar Rocker is making his major league debut, and that is very notable news too, especially for fans who are of Indian or South Asian descent themselves because Rocker is the first MLB player of Indian descent. I wanted to talk to someone who wrote about that a few years ago and probably anticipated that there would be a shorter time between writing that article and having Rocker make his major league

debut. But Lakshmi Gandhi wrote about that subject for NBC News a few years ago and it's still very relevant and she joins me now. Hello, Lakshmi. Hey, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for coming. And tell me how you first became aware of Rocker and his prospects as a major league pitcher. I came I came across Kumar in a very roundabout way. I feel like I just saw his clips on pitching ninja, which I'm sure is a lot of people's introduction to him. And then of course, his first name caught my eye. I'm like, Kumar? Oh, I wonder what his story is.

And then I looked him up and I saw that a couple of people in Tennessee when he was in Vanderbilt had written about his Indian heritage. So his name was always in the back of my head, but I don't really follow college baseball. But then when it turned out like, oh, this guy's getting a lot of buzz when the second time he was drafted came around. So I was like, oh, let me see. Like, oh, he's really good. And so that was just very interesting. CB Yeah. And you're a Mets fan, right? So for a while there, I guess you were extra excited? BT Oh my gosh, we were. Yes, my whole family was so excited because, well, when my parents

moved to New York, they moved to Queens, which is obviously the home of the Mets. My cousins, she has little kids, they were excited. It was just heartbreaking when that didn't work out. CB Yeah. Well, hopefully you're happy that he's here one way or another, even though it was sort of a circuitous path that he took to Texas ultimately. So for those who don't know, could you give just a little bit of background about rockers' background? KS Sure. So as I mentioned, Kumar Rocker is about to make his debut for the Rangers and he has an Indian mom, Lalita, goes by Lou, and a Black American father who was actually a pretty well-known college football player. So in the beginning, I think his family thought he'd also follow in the family

footsteps and go into football. But he turned out to be like just a pitching rock star from a very young age, and ended up at Vanderbilt, which I believe with Jack Lader. And then he was drafted by the Mets in 2021. And I wrote about that for NBC News, because, you know, South Asians, especially in New York, in the Tri-State area, were very, very excited about it. But then that sadly did not work out because the Mets apparently had some problems with his medical records or there was some kerfuffle and that didn't work out. And now he was eventually signed with the Rangers.

CB Yeah. He certainly has a football build at 6'5", 245. So he's a very big intimidating presence on the mound, but very skilled baseball pitcher. You talked to a bunch of people at the time about what it meant to them or would mean to them that rocker could arrive and be the first and the lack of precedent for that. Maybe you could recap a little the conversations that you had then or that you've had since or even recently. Back in 2021, I was a writer for NBC Asian America, which is a vertical, specifically devoted to Asian American issues. We don't do a ton of sports coverage because there just have been so few Asian American athletes still. So that was also one of the reasons my eyes perked up as soon

as I saw Kamar's name when he was at Vanderbilt. So anyway, when he was getting a lot of buzz towards the 2021 draft, I'm like, oh, and especially if he was going to the Mets. And I feel like the Mets was a big part of his initial buzz because the South Asian community, I'm also in Queens, I'm also in New York, it is so big. And it was kind of this built-in fan base just waiting for him. So I talked to a bunch of Indian American, different South Asian American fans from back then about why they were excited. What does it mean to have, in terms of representation, but also just beyond that, just seeing a real public figure in baseball with South Asian heritage, South Asian name,

what does that mean? And it was really meaningful to a lot of people. So as we mentioned, it didn't work out in 2021 with the Mets. But I'm hoping that with his debut today, more people will be introduced to him and he'll just really take off. I felt so sad when that thing with the meds didn't happen. It felt very unfair. So I know that a lot of people are still really, really rooting for him. CB And I don't know if it compares to Queens, but I know just from looking that there's a large South Asian community in Texas,

too, a couple million Asian Americans living in Texas and Indian Americans being the largest group and that there are communities of Indian Americans in Dallas and elsewhere in the States. So I'm sure that people will respond to that there as well as just nationally, maybe even internationally. And you wrote a little bit in your piece about just the patterns of migration and diaspora that kind of contributed to maybe his background or his family arriving when it did. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that at all,

just the history of people with Indian heritage coming to the US and establishing communities here. KS Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So while there have been South Asian Americans, Indian Americans in the United States for a really long time, even in New York, there were South Asian Americans in New York in the 20s. But most people, or people like my parents, Kumar's grandparents, they really migrated to the United States after 1965 when President Johnson signed the 1965 Immigration Act. Because of that act and also due to

a lot of things happening in South Asia, like just circumstances there, it just led to this combination of a lot of South Asian Americans, particularly Indian Americans, moving to the United States. Kumar's story is very much part of that post-1965 migration, which really changed the country for the better because before 1965, our immigration laws were very, very racist. Many of you probably remember studying in school the Chinese Exclusion Act or the Bard Zone,

very, very anti-Asian immigration in particular, and also anti-African immigration. So this act really loosened those laws and corrected a historical injustice, because the laws were really just favoring European Americans. It was almost impossible to move here legally. With the passage of that law, it really just changed the United States for the better, I would say. We're seeing the children and the

grandchildren of that. Like you mentioned, there is another famous South Asian and Black American in the news right now. So those laws really transformed the country. CB And sometimes some members of an underrepresented group when they break through and everyone's looking at them as the representative of that group and role model, and some people are more eager and excited to embrace that than others. And others, I guess you can't blame them. They just want to kind of go about their business. But it seems like Rocker is very proud of both of his heritages and likes to talk about that and have his family speak about that in various interviews. So it seems like he's really embracing that mantle.

Yes, it's really, really lovely. There's this wonderful Dallas Morning News profile from like 2022. There's this beautiful baby picture of Kumar and he's wearing this very traditional Indian woven silk outfit and it's posed in a photo studio. And I'm like, oh, so many of us have like a photo like that. And it just felt really sweet. And I feel like, you know, you did mention there's all, there are a lot of like South Asians in Texas, but especially if you live in a town where there aren't, like if you live in a school district

where there aren't a ton of South Asians, like this could really just seeing this representation could mean a lot because you don't really see a lot of South Asians. And so it's just really touching to think about. CB Do you expect that his debut would be a big story in India, that it would do anything for interest in popularity of baseball there? KS I'm very, very curious about that. So obviously, when you think about sports in India, you think about cricket, right? So like we just had the T20 cricket World Cup and like India won that against

South Africa. And there always have been or in recent years, there have been attempts to like break into the Indian market. I mean, why wouldn't you want to break into like a market with over a billion people, right? So, so we did have that Disney movie based on those two guys who won like a million dollar arm with John. Yeah. So we had that movie and that was based on two people who like did make it in the minor leagues, but you know, they kind of didn't work out. But so there have been attempts. So it would be really interesting. I think the challenge would be, you know, obviously time zones in watching Kumar, there'd be like a time zone thing. But people did write about Kumar being

drafted, they did mention his grandparents are Telugu, that's a South Indian language that they speak. It's like, they're from a state in South India called Andhra Pradesh. So if you look up like, especially like Telugu blogs, newspapers, they really picked up on that part of his heritage, you know, his like that linguistic connection. So I am curious about how that's gonna work. Yeah. And so you mentioned the million dollar arm guys

Dinesh Patel and Rinku Singh, and Singh is probably better known now as a wrestler because he went on to be in WWE after the baseball experiment. But there have also been some other additions to the professional ranks, right? Indian Americans who have been drafted, including some prominent ones.

And so Rocker might be the first, but hopefully won't be the last in the coming years. Definitely. I mean, we've seen like the Trent of Blue Jays has like a really high ranking prospect. The same year that Rocker was drafted, there was a player out of Yale that was drafted. So there are like, I think like as we see like the community evolve, you know, and like, even the parents like, you parents, you usually, baseball is so expensive, you need to be driven places, so your parents have to be invested. So I think that as we see parents who are second and third generation themselves, who

grew up as fans or grew up playing, that we're more likely to see younger players come up. Rohan Honda was the Giants draftee in that same 2021 draft, and he only pitched through 2021. I guess he never actually pitched in the minors, it looks like, but then there is also Arjun Nirmala, who was the first rounder. You mentioned that the Blue Jays selected 20th overall last year and he's in A-ball this year. So there are other players in the pipeline, but Rockers is the most prominent. Yeah. And I do wonder what sort of impact that will have if he sticks and succeeds. And are you seeing much response to this or excitement to the news that he would finally be called up and then surrounding his debut. That's been a little curious because I think maybe because it is like late September, there is a lot of news this week. I haven't like a lot of other non baseball news this week.

I haven't, I haven't seen a lot of buzz and like that makes me a little sad, but I do wonder like, you know, hopefully, hopefully we will get more excited about it because this is definitely a history-making thing. I think a lot of people were upset about what happened in 2021, but it didn't work out. So I think a lot of people are rooting for Kumar Roker. And so I think once the community in particular learns that he's starting soon, I think they'll be all in. Are there any other aspects either to his story or to the larger experience in community here that you'd care to mention that people should be aware of as they watch him for the rest of this

year? One thing that was really interesting in that Dallas Morning News story I mentioned was obviously Rocker's paternal family is full of athletes. His father was on the Washington football team and his uncle was also a professional football player. But apparently his maternal grandfather was a pole vaulter. And so like in India, and so there was this like great, and obviously that's a lot of athleticism, a lot of strength. And like it was in India back in the day. So like the pole was made out of bamboo and there's this like anecdote about him like pole vaulting into this like, you know, pit of sand. And I'm like, this is so cool. Are there other athletes who have debuted or excelled in other sports in the US

specifically or I guess even internationally that have been embraced as trailblazers in that same way? I think it's hard. I don't think, like, honestly, there just haven't been a ton of Indian-American athletes. There's tennis player, Rajeev Ram. He's won, I believe, a bunch of, like, doubles titles. Like, he made a lot of buzz with that. And there have been a couple of people in the NFL. But again, like, nobody who's been on the star level.

Like, you'd have to be really looking like, oh, what are the South Asian athletes, and you'd have to be doing those Google searches to find most of these people. And I'm sure they're great people. But you know, they're not like, they're not close to household names. So I think that's also part of the reason Kamar is getting a lot of buzz, because it's like, oh, like when it was like, he's going to be, he's so highly regarded. And even when he was like, he's going to be, he's so highly regarded. Even when he was like in college or even before that he was getting buzz, like that's very unusual. So it'll be interesting to see if we have more people, you know, like they're kind of flashy,

superstar level, like that would be very exciting. What are your plans for watching Rocker's debut and any future starts of his? Oh my gosh. And buying a Rocker jersey? What have you got on top? I can't wear a Texas jersey. I don't go that far. But no, I was actually thinking, how am I going to watch this or at least listen to it? So either probably at last resort, try to listen to the radio stream or definitely watch clips tomorrow. And hopefully it's like, I'm like perfect game on your taping.

I know I'm not the only person who's like secretly waiting for that. CB That would be a pretty big story. Yes, I think so. Well thanks so much for coming on and talking about this and for writing about it a few years ago. And that article has been recirculated a bit now that it is in the spotlight again now. And you've already done that work and brought it to light. So it's sort of evergreen and it's been a pleasure to talk to you, Lakshmi. Thank you.

Well, thank you so much. This was wonderful. Well, things were rocky at first for Rocker, but he worked out of an early jam. He ended up throwing 74 pitches over 4 innings, 3 hits, 1 run earned on a Justin Turner solo homer, so he's no Declan Cronin of course, 2 walks and 7 strikeouts. Not a bad outing at all. Clearly that swing and miss stuff is going to translate to the majors, or at least to the Mariners, but they are the easiest team to K. We will watch his career with great interest, and by the way, Lakshmi and I focused on Rocker's significance as the first player of Indian descent to make the majors. But as she noted in her article a few years ago, Rocker also has the potential to be a prominent black American at a time when African-American participation in baseball is declining.

We've talked about that plenty too, so as a black player and maybe a black pitcher particularly, he could be pretty important from a representation standpoint in multiple ways. A few other follow ups for you. We talked about potential candidates to be on a baseball movie, Mount Rushmore. We were sort of struggling to find a definitive fourth. Well, if you want to go in a gender diversity direction, we did get a suggestion from Patreon supporter J. Wade Edwards, who wrote nomination for baseball actor Mount Rushmore, Doris Day. She made three baseball movies, is a recognizable name, and adds diversity to our mountain. Her baseball movies On Moonlight Bay, 1951 she's a tomboy who hits a triple and steals home in a sandlock game. The winning team, 1952, that's the

Ronald Reagan, Grover Cleveland Alexander biopic I mentioned the other day, she plays the wife. And That Touch of Mink, 1962, while being wooed by Cary Grant she gets to sit in the dugout during a Yankees game with Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra, at least two of whom did not showcase much natural acting talent in that scene. Now only one of those is a true blue baseball movie, as opposed to the effectively wild definition

of a baseball movie, but okay, she was also a big baseball fan. She was maybe more than a fan of Maury Wills, if the somewhat salacious claims in Wills' autobiography are true. It's a stretch, but points for creativity. I'll link to what Jay has written about Darstay and baseball and Maury Wills. Also we were talking the other day about how impressive Shohei Otani going 50-50 really would be and how do you compare that to other great power

speed seasons and also how do you discount it for the fact that it's easier to steal bases now. He's up to 47-48 now. And I was thinking about that. I think you do have to discount the steals some, relative to how hard it would have been to steal 50 a couple years ago. And of course, you can just decide to try to steal a lot, though you might suffer some consequences if you're constantly getting caught, but you can will yourself to a steal more so than you can to a home run. But here's the thing, no 50 home run hitter has ever come close to 50 steals. If someone had gone 50-45, 50-40 in an earlier season, I'd be inclined to say, okay, is 50-50 in 2024 really more impressive than that? But no one has had even a 50-25 season. That's right, no 50 homer hitter has gotten even halfway to 50 steals. A-Rod went 54-24 in 2007 and Willie Mays went 51-24 in 1955.

24 steals is the most by a 50 homerun hitter. So you can discount the accomplishment because of the current stolen base environment, you can discount it because he's a DH, which means less wear and tear, but even if you apply those discount rates, 50-50, pretty special season. Even though Otani's major league leading stolen bases and caught stealing runs above average figure currently sits at just 6.8. Also, there's been a bunch of conversation in the past few days about the A's playing in Sacramento. Are the conditions conducive to a major league club? Well, clearly not to the degree that they would be in a big league park, which John Fisher has chosen to vacate. There are lots of suggestions that the facilities won't be up to snuff, that the synthetic

playing field that's being installed will make it even hotter at field level than it would be already, and it's pretty scorching in the summer in Sacramento to begin with. There's also a report that if the A's make the postseason, their home games might not be played at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento. All of this led to MLB releasing a statement on Thursday that said it is a certainty that the A's will play their 2025 season in Sacramento as planned. MLB is continuing to work productively with the MLBPA on the details of the transition. It's hard to accept that anything involving the A's is a certainty. And these are all very valid concerns, but I am curious about one particular point that's come up. Susan Slusser wrote a piece about this for

the San Francisco Chronicle the other day. Headlined MLB players, agents, wrapped their heads around A's playing in Sacramento, quote, "'It's going to suck.'" That was a quote from Sean Gelli, the Giants pitcher. Well, the article says, "'Then there is the stadium itself, "'which is on the smaller side, 330 feet to left,

"'403 to center, 325 to right. "'Hitters might complain less about Sutter Health Park "'when they slam a bunch of homers there, "'but big league pitchers probably won't like it much. It's going to be hot, but it's going to be a great place to hit, said Milwaukee First baseman Reece Hoskins, who's from Sacramento and still lives there. It's going to make Cincinnati look like a pitchers park, Jelly said. Aaron Judge in that park could set a new bar for homers in a series.

Someone will, whether it's him or Juan Soto or Shohei Otani. So I got curious. How great a hitters environment is this? Is this going to inflate numbers? Is this going to lead to record-breaking performances? So I checked baseball America's minor league park factors They have two-year park factors that they just published this June I was somewhat surprised to see that they have Sutter health park as the second most pitcher friendly park in AAA Not just the Pacific Coast League

But the international league too. Only Sugarland by their calculations is tougher for hitters. So I asked Matt Eddy at baseball America, who wrote that article and did those calculations, what gives does this mean it's not actually going to be a great hitters park? Or do minor league park factors not really apply to major league hitters?

Could it play as a band box for big leaguers, even if it's a pitcher's park for triple A players? And Matt answered, that is the million dollar question. All right, glad I'm asking the right questions. Susan got great quotes in that story. I would lean toward the expertise of players, especially those who have played at Sacramento or are familiar with it like Hoskins.

Distortions exist in the minor league data, the largest being the PCL league format and schedule. Sacramento plays so many road games at venues that cannot be considered neutral, which amplifies the characteristics of their home park. Also there are distortions in AAA talent. Virtually every hitter capable of hitting for power in MLB is actually in MLB rather than wasting away at AAA.

So while most every hitter in an MLB lineup can hurt you if you make a mistake, I don't think the same is true of a AAA lineup. On the flip side, the rate of runs scored in games at Sacramento ranks about the same compared to other AAA teams as Oakland ranks among MLB teams. So runs per game at Sacramento is to the AAA rank what runs per game at Oakland is to the MLB rank. So make of that what you will. I guess it'll be interesting to see how that park plays. Maybe not so interesting to A's fans, but to numbers nerds, sure.

And speaking of numbers nerdery, on episode 2213 I did a stat blast inspired by Ben Joyce and his very fast fastball, but pretty pedestrian strikeout rate. I tried to figure out who are the pitchers who strike out more or fewer batters than you'd expect given how hard they throw. And Patreon supporter Daniel wrote in to say, I've been thinking about the Ben Joyce velocity and strikeout rate conversation and I've been bothered by how this stat was dominated by strikeout rate with fastball velocity less important. I think I figured out the problem. Strikeout rate is much more variable than fastball velocity.

It's not uncommon to have half of the league average strikeout rate, but unheard of to have half of the league average fastball velocity. No real pitcher is throwing 40 something miles per hour. So perhaps you could find the Z score for both if there's a way to calculate standard deviations. Then you could find the difference between the two to find your outliers. Well this is a smart suggestion and it's something that I was dissatisfied with myself with the previous way we looked at this.

So we're looking at standard deviations from the mean for both strikeout rate and fastball velocity. So if we take how many standard deviations you are from the mean in Velo and then subtract how many standard deviations from the mean you are in strikeout rate, then the biggest positive numbers will give you the hard throwing non-bat missers and the most negative numbers will give you the opposite. Guys who miss more bats than you'd expect. The relatively soft tossing with getters. So going back to 2002, one of the players I mentioned last time, Jack Kahanowitz, teammate of Ben Joyce reigns supreme, minimum 30 innings pitched.

He's about 0.8 standard deviations above the fastball speed mean and about 2.7 standard deviations below the strikeout rate mean. That's a difference of 3.55 and that is the most all time. He has to this point in the season, struck out 15 batters in 44 and a third innings. While his fastballs, foresemer and sinker combined have averaged about 95.8. So he's a pretty hard thrower and he is just getting no case.

And number two all time, it's a player who was just recently activated by the Dodgers, Brewstar Gradaroll. But but in 2021 when he was 2.6 standard deviations above the velocity mean, and about.9 standard deviations below the strikeout rate mean. 2013 Johnny Helweg is third, then 2024 Ben Joyce, fourth all time the player who inspired this inquiry, 2018 Jordan Hicks, some of the same names I mentioned with the previous method, but this is better. Graham Ashcraft in 2022, highest ranked starting pitcher, 18th all time in 105 innings. Chin Ming Wang in 2006, 32nd overall, highest for a pitcher who qualified for the ERA title. At the other end of the list, it's dominated by Tim Wakefield,

who obviously didn't throw his fastball very fast at all. That wasn't his weapon, but he had some decent strikeout rates. The lowest placement by a non-knuckleballer, no Wakefield, Dickie, Steven Wright, is Jason Vargas in 2019 and podcast icon Rich Hill in 2017. I'll link to the full spreadsheet on the show page. Thanks again to listener and Patreon supporter Michael Mountain for his help. Finally, there's been one more development, probably the last one, in the September 2021 Carlos Estevez prediction saga, as discussed on our past two episodes. Then-Rocky's closer Carlos Estevez made a prediction. In the ninth inning of a game on September 9, 2021, he predicted that the Rockies would come back on a Ryan

McMahon home run on a curveball. He supposedly started warming up in preparation for that home run to be hit ball. He supposedly started warming up in preparation for that home run to be hit because it would force a bottom of the ninth inning against the Phillies and then Estevez himself would come into the game. The uncertainty surrounded when exactly he made that prediction and when he started warming up

and also how unusual it was for someone in that situation to warm up regardless of the prediction. Well, last time we obtained a recording of the Rockies radio broadcast in which it was mentioned only after McMahon hit the home run that Estevez had then started warming up. None of the other broadcasts mentioned that he had been warming up at all in that half-inning. Estevez's bullpen catcher, Aaron Munoz, to whom he made the prediction, recalled that

he had made it, but couldn't recall when exactly, seemingly after, McMahon had been announced as a pinch-hitter, which was also what Alex Coffee, the author of the article in which that anecdote appeared, seemed to think. Munoz couldn't remember when Estevez had started warming either, though he thought it was earlier in the inning, because Estevez would have had to start warming up earlier in order to be ready to come into the bottom of that inning. However, that Rockies radio broadcast indicated that he hadn't gotten up until after the home run was hit, which ensured that he would get into the game. Well, we have heard now from a second secret source who contacted us unsolicited to provide further evidence.

This secret source whose identity is known to us, but who wanted to remain anonymous, used a research tool that is accessible to people who work for MLB and broadcasters and front office members to go back and look at pitch by pitch data and video from multiple angles, which is available for games going back to the beginning of stat cast. One of those angles is a high home angle that has a teeny tiny view of the bullpen and our secret source says there is indeed a righty throwing in the Rockies bullpen before the pitch to McMahon, and the secret source says, I also see a righty reliever there for the first pitch of the top of the ninth. I can't see any detail, but it seems safe to assume it is Estevez. This adds zero clarity to the question of when he

made the prediction, but lends credence to the idea that he would have gotten up regardless. And the secret source sent video clips, which I have reviewed, and I have confirmed that there certainly does appear to have been a right-handed reliever Throwing in the Rockies bullpen when that inning started well before Ryan McMahon was announced as a pinch hitter Which would suggest that Estevez if indeed it is Estevez and not some second reliever now We're into conspiracy territory second shooters second spitters on the grassy knoll the grassy bullpen But no it looks like there was only ever one pitcher warming in that inning and that he started at the very beginning of that inning.

Now, if this were CSI, I could ask an analyst to enhance. Then they would zoom in and somehow get a crystal clear image of Carlos Estevez to confirm that it was indeed him. But I think it's safe to say that it was and that he was warming as the top of the ninth got underway in preparation for a possible appearance in the bottom of that inning. I'm half expecting some other secret source to contact us, someone who works for DARPA or something, and will say, oh yes, we have a top secret time machine. And I took it back to September 2021 and I stood at the visitors bullpen and I overheard

Estevez make his prediction and here's the audio clip. So far that hasn't happened, but it seems like effectively wild listeners have access to resources that most of us can't conceive of. This internal MLB research tool is envy inducing. I can't share the video clips that I was sent, unfortunately, because I don't want to blow the secret sources cover. However, I did get permission to share a screenshot so you can see the angle we're working with here.

Just a teeny tiny reliever, but it is a real reliever. So thank you to all of our secret sources who have come out of the woodwork and shared this classified intelligence with us and also made us wish we had access to these resources. You can ensure our access to financial resources and help us sustain this sleuthing by supporting the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks

as have the following five listeners, Marie Lessing, Maggie, Paul, James Hertz, and Tim Cashin. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch

and ad-free FanCrafts memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fancrafts.com.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild sub-edit at r slash Effectively Wild, and you can check the show page and the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today, as well as upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLB ballparks. There may be one more remaining, and it would be a Marlins meetup if you're in the market for some Big Mike Ballon and Declan Cronin action. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance.

I'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Effectively wild Been in makeup all night Know it's gonna be a good time I wanna let her bang lipstick I wanna hear about her name RBI's head Tell me about some prospect I should know about Effect, effect, effectively wild Effect, effectively wild