Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2276: Them’s the Breakouts

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about some good news and bad news about breakout picks, Junior Caminero’s unbeatable bat flip and home run trot in the LIDOM playoffs, the latest MLB The Show cover model(s) and the lone MLB franchise that hasn’t put a player on the cover of a video game, the Ryan […]

They'll still be speaking statistically, rambling romantically, pontificating pedantically, bantering bodily, drafting discerningly, giggling giddily, equaling effectively wildly. Hello and welcome to episode 2276 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters, I'm Meg Raulie of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing okay. I have good news and bad news about breakouts. Okay. Are you a bad news first or a good news first person? You know, I reserve the right to change my answer conditions with not withstanding, but I think, give me the bad news first, I suppose. Yeah, I'm a bad news first person.

I wanna end on a high note, right? Sure, yeah. Bring me down and then lift me up, hopefully. So when it comes to breakout candidates, breakout picks, one of the main offenders, Jim Boden, who is probably one of the main offenders in a number of ways, but specifically- I'm gonna say you gotta narrow that down. Yeah, but specifically, he's one of the main offenders in a number of ways, but specifically- I'm going to say you got to narrow that down.

But specifically, he's one of the main offenders when it comes to breakout candidates who I would not consider breakout candidates because they've already broken out. And he has published his annual list of breakout candidates for the athletic. And as usual, I would say certainly the majority of them are not breakout candidates. He leads with Michael Harris II, former wiki of the year. What are we talking about? Lawrence Butler is on there again, who also appeared on that MLB.com list that we were critical of. Junior Kamenaro, who we'll talk about in a second.

Yeah, we will. He's on there, recent number one prospect in all of baseball. Other prominent players, James Wood, who just appears on every single breakout list these days. I don't get it, but fuck, this is the bad news. This is standard issue breakout lists. And I was heartened to see that the top comment with a 58 to six up vote to down vote ratio,

as we record, is from one Michael P who says, seems like a lot of these guys have already broken out. That's right. Thank you, Michael P. I agree. Good job, Michael P. And Kevin J responded to Michael P and said, it's so annoying how unimaginative breakout lists have become. And it's not just this one. Almost all of them are just lists of great players that were hurt last year or recently graduated top 10 prospects in baseball. Thank you, Kevin J.

Preach. Yeah. Okay. So that's the standard thing. However, I'm pleased to report that MLB.com published a list this week. Oh God. No, it's, this is the good news portion. Remember?

So this is unobjectionable. And MLB has learned its lesson, I believe. And listener Bob sent us this article and wrote, "'I think you may have scared someone.' Whatever you do, just don't call them breakouts. Bed will destroy us." I doubt that is the thought process here. I don't think we have that kind of power, but I was pleased to see that MLB.com published a list

at midnight on Tuesday, headlined 10 up-and-comers looking to extend small sample success. It does sound as if they crafted it to avoid effectively wild fishing. That's so funny. Oh my God. This is kind of what we were calling for. Just say sustaining success that you already had.

Oh my God. Now in the article body itself, the URL does say MLB hyphen breakout hyphen candidates hyphen who could build on small sample success in 2025. But that's just the URL. And then the text, the body of the article does say we'll be watching these 10 breakout candidates closely. Here's the thing, though. These are actual breakout candidates for the most part. I would say that these pass muster for me mostly. Except that James Wood appears. James Wood, if you do any kind

of breakout list or anything, James Wood's got to be on there. Again, recently one of the very best prospects in baseball had a decent debut, started slow, but then hit quite well down the stretch as this article notes. So again, he was like number three overall and scuffled for his first 21 games. And then over his final 58 games, he hit 288, 383, 479, and he's 22 years old. And he's recently removed from being one of the top prospects in baseball. So again, I wouldn't put him on the list, but he's the only one that I'm really mad at. Yeah.

You've got Jonathan Aranda for the Rays. You've got Joey Bart for the Pirates. Post hype prospect sleeper. Osvaldo Bito, the athletics, Cody Bradford, the Rangers, Yvonne Herrera, the Cardinals, DJz, the Nationals, Garrett Mitchell, the Brewers, Pavin Smith, Diamondbacks, Matt Wallner, Twins, who if you put together his last couple seasons, he hit quite well, but also hasn't really been an everyday guy and has struck out a lot. So okay, there's room for improvement there. Mostly, I would say that those are indeed up and comers who are looking

to extend small sample success. And I think this is entirely or almost entirely unobjectionable. I doubt this was the podcast applying pressure and we've got the editorial staff of MLB.com running scared and trying to appease us. Probably not. But if this had been the first story, then we never would have brought it up. So this has been a big difference from that list of breakout candidates from every team from a while back, which included a number of superstars.

I don't know that we have anyone running scared. We're pretty unintimidating as people come. I could imagine us having certain people at mlb.com running annoyed. That's possible. Because that headline reads, and I'm going to do a big swear and I don't want Shane to bleep it, so parents be warned. That screams, leave me the fuck alone already. That's what that screams.

That headline is, what possible objection could you raise? Are you satisfied? Up and covers looking to extend small, simple success? I dare you to find fault with that one. Yeah, try to come at me with this one. And look, I know that we have received on background insight into how some of the initial missteps in this whole process occurred. And so to ascribe like a grand design to it might be overstating things a bit,

but I have become increasingly convinced that this entire thing was just a psyop to wear us down to the concept of breakouts, including people like James Wood and Lawrence Butler. Because now when you say, well, James Wood and Lawrence Butler are on here, I'm like, well, whatever. Like, you know. At least it's not Julio. Right. It's not Julio. Like these are guys who, you know, I can appreciate more casuals,

not really knowing. And so sure, yeah, put them on the breakouts. That's fine. That's fine, Ben. Yeah. So I think it was all big all one big scheme. That headline is one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my entire life. I cannot tell you how delighted I am by that headline. That's maybe my favorite thing to occur this week. CB Yeah. I don't know if the SEO is as strong

for 10 up and comers looking to extend possible success. BT I don't think they care. I think they're like, again, we just need these two to shut the fuck up about our goddamn pics. Cover your ass headlight approach. They threaded the needle. They still got the breakout in the text and in the URL. So hopefully they're getting their clicks because they deserve their clicks.

This was not click bait. This was a satisfying meal. I clicked on this and my appetite was sated. You were sated, yes. So well done MLB.com. That is so funny. I can't, I can barely believe how funny I find that. And I say to everyone who contributed to that, well done.

We will now leave you alone. We're sorry for being so annoying, but honestly you deserved it. So, yeah, I would love to think that we had that kind of pedantic power that just editors were quaking all across the internet for fear of being singled out, unaffectively wild. Pedantic power is so much nicer than bullying, but yeah, um, you shouldn't take that bullying works from this, but if but yeah, you shouldn't take that bullying works from this, but if you did, I don't know that it's a conclusion that doesn't have

any evidence in support of it. Yeah. Well, let's talk about non-breakout candidate, Junior Kim and Arrow, who was the number one prospect in baseball at some point, so very recently and has exhausted his rookie eligibility and his prospect ranking eligibility, but remains a very promising player. And he broke out on a single swing. He broke out in terms of home run trots. He had a breakout home run trot.

I think we can say that because he really just pushed the boundaries of what constitutes a home run trot. It really was a thing of beauty. If anyone was not watching the Lidl championship game, the Dominican winter league, it was quite a time. LS. If you weren't watching, you missed more than just Junior Caminero. This is a hell of a game, Ben. Did you watch this whole game? Not the entire game, no. But I was following updates and yeah. What a game.

It's a good time. It's a great atmosphere. Oh, it was such a great atmosphere. Here's, let me, before we get into Caminero, here's just the way to sell it. Yeah. Do you know who started for Escojito in this game? It was Johnny Quedo, right?

It was Johnny Quedo. It was Johnny Quedo. He was wearing 100, was he not wearing? Number 100, yeah. Johnny Siento, just like, it's great. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. Yeah. Now we can talk about the Junior Caminero of it all,

because this was like a back-and-forth contest this this featured You know like some real Lidl greats and some names that folks who are less familiar with like the Staples of the Dominican Winter League will know like, you know, Gene Segura played in this game junior caminero We're gonna discuss soccer cheese Brito. We also got like going to discuss soccer. She's Brito. We also got like, Emilio Bonifacio was in this game. We got shots of Juan Soto in the lead. And we were like, I was like, wait, is he, he's not rostered, right? And it was like, no, he's not, but he was wearing a jersey. He desperately wants to play in Lido, which is wonderful. There was a report that he had asked

for permission to play, like someday he'll play maybe when he's done as an MLB player or maybe when he's not on a massive contract and a superstar anymore, he'll play. Like it'll be 40 year old Juan Soto playing for Lise for sure. Oh yeah. Harold Ramirez was in this game, Francisco Mejia was in this game, in this game, Francisco Mejia was in this game, Lido Icon Jr. Lake, Jr. Lake. And I have such affection for the announcers down there because in 2020, we got so little baseball and it was for good reason. We got so little baseball. We didn't get a normal fall league. We barely had instructs down here. You were just, you were feeling lost, big and small that entire year. Right. But then, but then Lidon played and they were broadcasting the commercials

from the Dominican. There is, there's an announcer down there and he was calling this game who goes, he's primarily broadcasting in Spanish, obviously, because this is the feed that like goes out in the DR. And so he's broadcasting in Spanish, but he has a couple of catchphrases that he always delivers in English. Oh, Ben, it's so great. And then they've changed, they've changed the Presidente commercials, which I am disappointed by, but the, in 2020, the, the Presidente commercials were for Presidente Golden Light. And it was like on the top, there would be like the sad office worker version of a person in the DR. And then on the bottom,

there would be like happy dancing feet from the Presidente Golden Light, like the Presidente Golden Light, Presidente Golden Light. It was so good. It makes me so happy. And so it is really great. I'm sorry, I am going to let you talk about Junior Kamenera, but I just have to do a little lead on PSA because- CBT. Oh, please. I'm enjoying the lead on love. KS. One of the things we got to hand it to them on this one, right? Lead on is now just on MLB TV. I mean, like not after yesterday because it's over now. The season is over, but- CBT. Caribbean series coming up.

KS. I was just going to say, I think they're going to do the Korean series. Oh, then I'm so excited. So, so, uh, next year, when everyone is kind of coming down from the World Series and you're hankering for baseball and you want to watch baseball that is in like an easy time zone for you, if you're based in the US, cause like, you know, for, for part of the fall, you do get some pro ball out of Asia, but it's hard for us to watch that because of the time difference, right? And it ends so much earlier than Winter League. So if you're hankering for baseball and you want some bright young stars, but you also want to remember some guys, lead home is for you. Oh, what a time you'll have. Like just the best time.

Yeah, guys were remembered. Yes. Yeah. So Kevin Arrow comes up with the climactic hero moment here, Kevin Arrow of the Rays, but in this game of Leonis Estella Escojito, and he hits a 454-foot solo home run to break a tie, top of the ninth, put the Leonis ahead for good. It's the game winner over the Tigres-Dalise. Yeah, it ended up being the game. It ended up being a game winner. Yeah, yeah. Yes. And this seals the championship of Lidl. And Junior Caminero, he was feeling it. He was aware of the significance of this moment. The man is 21 years old and he aged significantly before he actually reached home plate. The tater trap time here, I think was just shy of one minute. Nicole Sarris Yeah. I timed it at 55 seconds when I put a stopwatch on it. But

Jared Ranere I'm glad you did. Nicole Sarris You know, there might be operator error because I got distracted by how hard he pimped the out of this one. He did. Because holy Moses. Yeah, the bat flip, I don't know whether you saw the post, I'll link to it and I just sent it to you, but the altitude that he got on his bat flip, I don't know how high would you estimate that is.

That's like a three story building or something. Yeah. He's just staring up at this bat flip as if it's like a high pop fly or something. It's way, way up there. Great shot of this. It's like if we had a shot of Jesse Roscoe's glove toss in 1986, which for all we know never came down because it just wasn't really captured on the broadcast. No, it got caught in the upper atmosphere and wanted to live it, I'm pretty sure. Yes, and that's what happened to this bat, basically.

It's like Prince's guitar toss at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. The hang time on this bat flip was 4.1 seconds. And that was just the first phase of this. So the entire team comes out of the dugout and greets him. Like he basically celebrated with the entire team comes out of the dugout and greets him. Like he basically celebrated with the entire team. Usually that happens when you reach home plate at the conclusion of the trot.

And it did. Not satisfied with that. No, no. But there was a preliminary celebration with the entire team. Basically like at first base or like along the first baseline or between home and first. Yes.

He basically like he stopped, he came to a complete stop. Yes. Like there was no, no trotting going on whatsoever. It was some sort of like stations of the cross type. Like he, he just like everywhere he went, he stopped and fully embraced. Like the third base coach got a full hug and like backslaps. Like he, he fully stopped moving multiple times. Like there was no forward progress being made whatsoever. You know, the gesticulations and the screams and it was just

wonderful. And it went on and on and on. And look, if this were MLB, he would probably get beaned or something, or people would be pissed. I guess, I don't know how long grudges in Leadome are carried over, whether next Winter League or something, there will be scores to settle if he's playing. It didn't look like the players on the field were thrilled by this, but there wasn't any obvious reprisal. Like there was no, right. Jogging in particular that I could see, or like no one got in his way before he scored or anything. Like people were maybe shooting him dirty looks, but that was about the extent of it.

Okay. So they're, oh, oh, oh, I'm so glad. Oh, so glad to talk about this. So there are a couple of things that I think, first of all, the, the comparison that came to mind for me is like the like this home run trot was like a wedding and the celebration of first base was like the rehearsal. Like he got to do, you know, it's like if you host a wedding and you have a lot of people in from out of town and you kind of do a party the night before, like after the rehearsal dinner, because you're like, we've got to give these

people something to do. CB Yeah, the rehearsal home run trap. Yeah. LS Right. And so he gets that whole situation. And then first, the interesting thing about the angles we get is that, you know, obviously there isn't someone for him to talk to on his own team at second base. And so presumably that might be a moment for quiet reflection, but we don't

see it because the broadcast decides to cut to the mound for a second to see the pitcher looking exasperated with his hand on his hip. Then he gives the full hug at third to the third base coach. He does the, are you not entertained, you know, thing as he's coming down the third base line to get the, the Escojito fans who are in the ballpark to like really get pumped up because like as you noting this happening in the top half of the inning might've suggested, like he is, there are a lot of Escojito fans there, but this is- Yeah. And it's game seven to be clear.

So this was, the stakes were high. The stakes were high, but like this is, this is Lee Say's ballpark. So like he's trying to get the visiting fans all excited. And also, also it is both an incredible moment and the stakes are so high. And there is some, there's like an undercurrent of hilarity to this because this is a big moment for him. It's a huge moment for his team. As I noted this because this is a big moment for him. It's a huge moment for his team. As I noted, this was like a back and forth game.

There were defensive miscues at some point. Like he can't let down Johnny Quedo, right? So stakes are high, the championships on the line. Lise has an opportunity to answer back in the frame. That's true. It was not a walk off. It was not a walk off. It was a very important go-ahead run, obviously, and as you know,

it ended up being- And a bomb, 454 feet to dead center. He hit the s*** out of that baseball. My God, a lot of swears today. I don't know. I'm excited. So it was loud. It was loud off the bat. One of those were like, oh, that's very much gone. very much gone. Very much gone. I wonder if he'll be allowed to play in the Caribbean series. Cause like at a certain point international play starts to bump up against spring

training in a way that like might be a problem, but I wonder if they'll give him like dispensation to go play in the Caribbean series. Cause like. He earned it. He earned it. And also one of the things that you notice when you watch Lee Dome, and I think this is true of a lot of international play, like this stuff means so much to these guys. It does feel like, which isn't to suggest that like major Lee play doesn't matter or

anything like that. Oh, I forgot to mention that Albert Pujols is managing for SME. Yes. Congrats to Albert. God, I forgot to mention that Albert Pujols is managing for Espanol. Yes, congrats to Albert. God, yeah, congrats to Albert. Anyway, it just is clear that this stuff is very important to these guys. It really resonates with them. And so I wonder if he will be granted some amount of dispensations, like go play in the Caribbean series. But yeah, like it was, it was big. The guys were crying after the game. It was beautiful. Pools looks great by the way. Like good for you, bud. You're doing great.

Yeah. It's funny because like the pace was so slow on average, but a lot of that was when he was motionless, when he was just hooting and hollering and whooping and back slapping and everything. When he was actually moving sometimes he was just hooting and hollering and whooping and back-slapping and everything. When he was actually moving, sometimes he was moving fairly quickly because he would skip and hop and he did this thing between second and third. I don't even know how I would categorize it, kind of as if there were invisible tires on the ground and he was sprinting, picking up his legs and putting them down and jumping kind of like high stepping almost to third base. So just like a lot of different ways to do locomotion. And then he tossed his helmet when he got to the plate and he stamped on the plate multiple times after just walking home and the catcher is

just silently looking on, but the entire team and the mascot clustered around him at home. Just the joy that was on display here. Absolutely fantastic atmosphere and environment. This might just be the peak for bat flipping and home run trotting. I don't know that this can be topped and probably wouldn't be in an MLB game. We could maybe just declare the one-upsmanship when it comes to celebrations just over at this point. I think this was peak celebration.

Yeah. It was really beautiful. I hope he has a long and wonderful career ahead of him. I don't want to suggest that he's peaked from a celebration standpoint at 21, but I just don't know where there is to go from here but down. Yeah. At the very least, he'll be probably chasing that energy and the ability to replicate it for his whole career, which might, it might prove to be good grist for the motivational mill, right?

Like he knows what it feels like to play a incredibly important role on a championship team and now he can bring that same joie de vivre to the Tampa Bay Rays. The Tampa Rays? I'm doing a little sub tweet. CB. Yes, we've gotten a couple emails about how we refer to the place that that team plays. LS. I just would say- CB. It's just a- LS. Can I just-

CB. There's no city named Tampa Bay is the thing. LS. Sorry, we didn't name this. Who are you mad at? It shouldn't be us. You should be mad at the team. I'm not going to go through the whole email. I will say the following, which is, and I've noted this to you within the last 24 hours, hey, just as like a, you know, with the, if you want to say it in line to us in the, at like a coffee shop if we ran into each other, assume that it's too rude for email. I don't know, maybe that's a good rule of thumb. Some of you are wilding out in a way that I have come to not appreciate, so relax. The St. Petersburg race, the race who are actually playing in Tampa.

Who are actually playing in Tampa? My stars. They're not playing in Tampa Bay. They would be very wet if they did that, but they're in the area and Tampa is part of the market, so look, everyone knows what I mean. Okay. I'm just, I'm glad we have international baseball. Obviously I watch mostly MLB. It's the vast majority of the baseball that I consume and it's the highest caliber and the best talents going up against each other. But I'm so happy that there are just different baseball ecosystems with their own way of playing the game and their own

way of teaching it and their own ways of appreciating it from a fan perspective because It really is. It's a beautiful thing. It's beautiful that baseball is a global source of Entertainment and kind of a global bonding exercise But it's also great that each environment has its own way of playing and its own way of being demonstrative, more so, less so, different mechanics, different player development philosophies, different pitch types. It's great that there's variety. It truly is the spice of life, as I have heard some people say. So I also got some data on the longest home run trots in MLB just for comparative purposes here. I knew that there would be nothing along the lines of what Junior Kim Harrow managed here, unless like maybe

one of the times someone gets hurt mid-trot or something. But I checked with MLB's Statcast research team and I heard back from Thomas Harrigan, who was actually the author of the MLB.com article that we led this episode with, the 10 up and comers looking to extend Small Civil's success. I do not know and did not ask if he wrote that headline. Many writers do not write their own headlines. What face do you think he made when your email hit his inbox? Do you think he went, oh no. Oh no, is this about breakouts?

You cannot possibly complain. I was so careful. I specifically crafted this so as not to annoy you. Hello. For all I know, he's not a listener. I have no idea and did not inquire, but he has brought a little light to my heart twice today by writing that article and also by answering my query here. And I asked about the longest. So the longest dating back to 2015, the Staticast era, the longest home run trot on record or the slowest is Gary Sanchez, August 28th, 2019 at Seattle 38.7 seconds.

And Thomas said to me that that includes only undisputed home runs to rule out situations where the batter might have slowed or stopped their trot because they didn't realize the ball went over the fence or some other reason. And I sent a video of the Sanchez homer to Thomas because I noted that it was slowed somewhat by the fact that he wasn't sure at first whether it was fair or foul.

So he was doing a little lean to try to put some body English on it. And that slowed him down. He's not super fast under the best of circumstances, but it was artificially slowed. This was his 30th home run of the 2019 season. So it took a little time to admire it, but also wasn't sure whether it was gone. And so I asked, okay, well, if that doesn't count, then what would count? And he found that the slowest that is like really legitimate, like there was no pause whatsoever as far as he tell was Josh Naylor, September 19th, 2022, Josh Naylor then of the guardians had a 35.7 second home run trot. So basically, Kevin Arrow had about 20 seconds on the longest one on record there. So pretty impressive. Although I don't know that we would count this again as like a legitimate trot, but there was the Gary Sanchez one 38.66 seconds. There was Nelson Cruz of the twins, April 21st, 2021, 38.4 seconds.

He was injured on that one. Then there was Juan Soto who again was watching from the opposing dugout as Kamenera was making his slow progression here. He had the next lowest 37.69 nice seconds last July, which there was kind of like a war of home run trots in that game. It was Yankees versus Rays. And I guess it was not Kim and Arrow who was conducting this war, but it was, it was like Randy Rosarena and Jose Siri had slow rounding of bases. And then there was Juan Soto. He took his time too, except he also paused to see whether it was going to be fair or foul. So again, they're extenuating circumstances. Anthony Santander last September, September 19th,

he also stayed in the box a long time, maybe to see if it was gonna be robbed. And then Cattell Marte of the Diamondbacks, August 27th, 2019, 35 seconds, he hurt himself during the trot, so he had to slow down. But the nailer one, there doesn't seem to be any mitigating circumstance there. He, 35.73, arguably over the past 10 years at this point,

almost the slowest legitimate trot. So that is the number to beat. We'll see if anyone can. But if you count Kevin Arrow, then I don't think anyone's going to come close to touching him. Wow. That's very funny. That's sure something. Yeah. It was the sort of thing where I did think to myself in the moment, I'm glad this is taking place within the context of Leedome because if it were in MLB, again, I'm not, I want to be clear, not expressing displeasure with this,

but there is like a, I wouldn't put it at a high likelihood, but there would be like a 5% chance that some umpire would like step on the moment and tell him to hurry it along, you know? And so I just, I don't feel like I was- Or just a brawl would break out or something. Brawl, yeah, brawl. Hmm, brawl. But yeah, anyway, wow, what a time. What an evening. People should watch sports. They're pretty cool. It was great.

Absolute scenes, as they say. Okay. Do they say that? Who says that? I guess in the UK, they say that in soccer sometimes. I'm not, you know, that's not a part of my cultural heritage really, so sorry. Speaking of young, exciting stars,

we got the reveal of MLB the show's cover model for the upcoming edition of the game. Models. Yes, models, which we teased this with Curi Oller, who was on recently to talk not really about this, but she does work for Sony and on the show and we asked her to divulge the identity of the cover model, didn't even consider

that it might be models. And she said she knew, but she did not, loose lips did not sink ships. But now we know and in an unprecedented decision in the 20th anniversary of the game of the series, we have three, three cover models. And my eye was caught by something in the press release. So I'll just quote here, Sony Interactive Entertainment, San Diego studio,

today revealed Ellie De La Cruz, Gunnar Henderson, and Paul Skeens as the cover athletes for MLB The Show 25 on its 20th anniversary edition. This is the first time that the show has ever featured multiple athletes on the same cover. Of course, there have been variant covers. There have been multiple covers, alternate covers and international covers, so throwback covers. So there have been multiple cover models in the same edition of the game, but not on the same cover.

So, and this is what really piqued my interest. It says, Dayla Cruz is the first Cincinnati Reds player ever to grace the cover of a video game. Not just an MLB the show video game, but any baseball video game it seems to imply, which is then confirmed by, it continues, Henderson is the first Baltimore Orioles player on the cover of MLB, the show,

and the first Orioles player featured on the cover of a video game since baseball hall of Famer Cal Ripken jr. On MLB 99 and skeins is the Pittsburgh pirates first cover athlete since Andrew McCutcheon on MLB 13, the show. So it seemed to me that they did their research here and I assume this is not. Now, MLB 99 was also a Sony Interactive Studios game, the predecessor to the show. So it's possible that when they say baseball video game, they're talking about only their franchise, but they seem to draw a distinction there and say that Ellie is the first Cincinnati

Reds player ever to grace the cover of a video game. They didn't specify what franchise. And this got me wondering then if that is true and whether it's true, but if it is, were the Reds the only team not to have had a cover model? Oh, that was me saying. Yeah. Yeah. Which would be appropriate, podcast lore for years. So we had a running bit about how we'd ever talked about the Reds. And then for a while there, we were talking about the Reds quite a bit in part because of Ellie, because Ellie came along and other young guys and they were exciting. And then I guess last season we mostly went back to not talking about the Reds, but we

did talk about Ellie at least a fair amount. And there's a good chance that we'll be talking about the Reds more this season than in coming seasons. But this would be appropriate. This would kind of fit with, you know, with the Reds just didn't give us a lot of reasons to talk about them for the first decade or so of the podcast. Like they just, they weren't good for a lot of that time. And other than Joey Votto, they didn't have a whole lot of stars.

And so there was, it was just kind of a low profile franchise and low profile players for the most part. And so I wondered, were they the only franchise? And was this the last franchise that had to check that box off of never having had a video game cover model? And so I put this to the hive mind in the Effectively Wild Patreon Discord group and we quite quickly collectively crowdsourced

and I eliminated every other franchise, but one. I believe there is one franchise and please anyone write in, correct me if I'm wrong, but we did not find a Kansas City Royal. We have not found a Kansas City Royal who has been on the cover of any baseball video game. Oh, interesting. Checked all the obvious suspects,

checked all the games, found examples for every other franchise, but not the Royals. Yeah, and now I guess there hasn't been a national maybe, but if you count the Expos, which I think you should, it's the same franchise. You did have, Vlad Grero Senior was on the cover of High Heat 2002. So we crossed that box off on the bingo card. So every franchise, as far as we could determine, has had a cover model except for the Royals. And that is sort of sad because basically like it came down to the Royals and the

Reds where the two remaining, as far as we could tell, franchises that hasn't had one and you had great choices for both the Royals and the Reds because Bobby Witt Jr. is right there. And you gotta say, this is sort of a snub because you have not only Ellie, but also Gunnar Henderson on this cover. And Bobby Witt Jr. was better than both of them in 2024.

Clearly better, as great as those guys were. He had like a two and a half fan graphs, war lead over Henderson and a four war lead over Ellie. And I get that Ellie, like he's exciting, he's magnetic, like, you know, he's an outlier in terms of like physical skills and speed and power. And he's just a very compelling player and personality. So I get why he might just generate a little more buzz than BWJ. No, no shots at Bobby, but Ellie just, you know, he makes a little more news.

Probably he's more of a highlight real guy, even if he's not overall as valuable player, or at least wasn't last year. But Gunnar, Gunnar Henderson, Bobby Wood Jr. has got to have a stronger case than Gunner Henderson, I would think. Right? Yeah. For all I know, they asked Bobby Wood Jr. and he didn't want to be the cover model.

Or he asked for more money or something. Who knows? I don't know. Maybe they asked, but that would be quite a slight. If we came into this year with only the Royals and the Reds needing a cover model, and they took two other short stops over Bobby Wood Jr. I was just about to offer an explanation that actually lays the blame at the feet

of wanting to include Paul Skeens because really what they could have done if they are comfortable with a trio is Don, Ellie, Gunner and Bobby and had to be like- Oops, all short stops. Right, had to be oops, all short stops. Oops, not whoops, only a moron would say, whoops, all short stops.

Only a fool, only someone who didn't pay attention to her own childhood would say, whoops, all short stops. That would have been a pretty cool approach actually. It would have been a super cool approach. We've said, oh, it's the golden age for short stops multiple times within my lifetime, but it's been true probably multiple times and, and shortstop are really good right now.

Yeah. So that actually would have been kind of cool. So I, I wonder, I wonder whether they asked Bobby or whether that was floated, but now I'm kind of invested in, in getting the Royals cover model. Like let's go. The problem is there are fewer baseball video games than there used to be. Just different. And that applies to really all sports video game franchises. There's just been a consolidation.

There's almost this monopolistic tendency where certain franchises have just established their dominance and sometimes have actually gotten exclusivity or sometimes have de facto exclusivity because they just crowded everyone out of the market. And I don't think that's been good on the whole for sports video games. The review scores over time have cratered. Neil Payne wrote a good study on this and I've talked about it on hang up and listen and I'll link to some of that stuff. But there used to be at least a few annual baseball franchises. And now there's the show and occasionally there's something else or there's like a super mega baseball or, you know, different, less realistic simulation.

Or of course, there's like more of the out of the park style game. But when it comes to, you know, the MLB the show style game, often it is literally kind of the only show in town. So there isn't really the opportunity, I guess, to have as many models, even though they're more offshoot covers per edition. So now I am, I'm stumping for Bobby Witt Jr. I'm starting the campaign right now. I don't know how he could top the season that he just had, but if he maintains that level and maybe gains even greater name awareness,

we got to get a Royal. Like let's give the Royals fans something here. It's been too long. They're the only team. I agree. I know that there is like a special like exclusivity thing that people appreciate about having a cover model for MLB the show, right? But I think having multiples accomplishes a couple of things. First of all, you just appeal to more fan bases, which seems like a good business strategy, if nothing else. I also think that some people have come to interpret inclusion on the cover of the show

as a certain kind of curse for some, right? Where there are guys who get made cover model and then they don't live up to that. I mean, like, I guess what Tony is an exception to that, but, you know, people worry about a curse. Yeah. The Madden curse, SI cover jinx, et cetera. Right. Maybe it like spreads the curse out or then, but maybe it just means you're all equally cursed. I don't know how curses work. So that might be false logic on my part, but perhaps it disperses the curse and then the potency of the curse is lessened. So instead of having a bad season, you just have a slow start. It's like that.

CB. Yeah. Because the curses, of course, come down to just regression. And maybe that. You know? CB I'm talking about curses. Yes. Right. Yeah. I'm not talking about, I'm talking about curses. But then maybe, maybe it's like, you know, in like a Stephen King novel when like a group of kids gets cursed and then they all have to suffer some terrible fate. Right. So that would be bad. You know, then we're causing greater problems across the league because we have more fan bases that are like, why was our guy cursed? Well, speaking of Stephen King, kids, yeah, don't be Pennywise and pound foolish.

And don't skimp on the cover models. It spread the wealth around. And yeah, let's, uh, I don't know that. I don't really know like what the ROI on cover models is because people are going to buy the edition of the show like year in and year out. If you're in that gaming ecosystem, you're just going to do that regardless of who the cover model is. So you're hoping maybe to snag some people who just happen to see that cover art or in the past, primarily because people mostly buy digital these days.

If you would walk into a video game store, brick and mortar, and you happen to see some superstar staring out at you, maybe you would be more likely to snag someone. But these days, if you want a baseball game, if you're in the market for a baseball game, you're probably gonna get the show, and it probably isn't going to depend

on who's actually on the cover. I'm sure that like an Otani cover sells more than a Jazz Chisholm cover, but I don't know if it's like worth the disparity in how much it takes to secure the rights to those players or what. I'd be, I'm sure they have data on that, or at least they've tried to model, so to speak, that so that they can figure out how much to offer these guys as an incentive to be on the cover.

But Jazz Chisholm had a cover. We talked about that at the time. It seemed like kind of an outlier in terms of what he had accomplished in his career to that point. And they were betting on a breakout for Jazz and that didn't really happen. Maybe it still will, who knows. But if Jazz Chisholm could have a cover when he's on the Marlins, we've got to get a Royal, a cover. A Royal on there. Plus like if we're talking, if market size is determining this stuff, then it throws Cincy and Pittsburgh out the window in terms of their qualifications. So I think, I mean, if it were me, and again, I don't know what the economics of this are and I don't know what's most persuasive, but I would take a, I'm going to regret this

because I find the enterprise dubious, but you'll see what I mean. I'm given to understand that when Sports Illustrated does their swimsuit edition, it is very common for them to have multiple cover models now. They have three or four, five, I don't know. They have like a lot of different kinds of people and like that's cool. And it probably becomes a collectible thing for some people. Right. Again, don't love the whole thing.

I thought Martha Stewart looked fantastic in her cover model outfits. So good for her. But all of that to say, they should have two editions. I think they should have a position player cover and a pitching cover because then you solve all your problems, right? You can still do oops, all short steps. And then you can do a solo of skeins if you want. I think that if you're going to pick a guy, like he's justified in having his own cover, because he's like one of the brightest young stars in the game, he's the one rookie

of the year, like he was in this young conversation. There was all this stuff, right? So that would be fine. I think wanting to get Skeens in there really jammed them up, you know, because they, maybe they felt like they couldn't do four. The way that they decided to do this, which I guess makes some amount of sense is like you have Gunnar hitting on one side, you have Skeens pitching on the other and then you have Ellie doing, ah, in the middle. And that does look cool, but you

could fit a fourth guy on there, I bet. You could find a, you could have Bobby fielding, you know? Like it's clear that Ellie is preparing to like run the bases here or has just run the bases, perhaps has stolen a base, although his pants are clean, so probably not. He might be home run trotting, actually. He might be home run trotting, because he does have clean pants, so it doesn't seem like he slid. People are like, why is she talking about the pants?

Because it makes it seem like he didn't slide, you guys. That's why I'm talking about it. So I'm talking about the pants. I'm not talking about the pants the way I normally talk about the pants. These pants are not very see-through. I bet they, well, but you can see that one of Gunner's shorts. I just want to point it out. I can see the line where his little briefs are.

CB Yeah. I guess you don't have the biggest markets represented here. And so maybe that's part of why they decided to triple up. KS They could have done oops, all small markets, right? Yes, that would have been cool. And then they could have just thrown KC in there, you know? Yeah, I would have liked that. Yeah.

It almost stood out to me that there's a pitcher at all. I'd like someone to do this research for me, but I wonder whether pitchers have gotten less represented as cover models- I think they have. ... than they used to be. It would make sense because I've written about how you have fewer pitching prospects on top prospect lists these days. Although not this year.

Well, yeah, but this was not the greatest crop of prospects, I guess. But really it's like, why would you choose a pitcher? Because they might spring in spring training and then you're still trying to sell your game and your guys getting Tommy John surgery and they're just on the field less than they used to be. They're pitching fewer innings. And I would guess it's always been skewed towards position players, toward hitters, but you had Roger Clemens, MVP baseball, and you had Nolan Ryan's baseball and not exclusively like Texas aces, but there were some pitchers who were cover models. And I'm gonna guess that that's gotten

less common over time. Anyway, I was wondering who was snubbed, which Royals could have been cover models and weren't. And so I looked back to the start of the cover model on baseball video game era, which I'm dating to 1988's Reggie Jackson baseball, which as one would expect featured Reggie Jackson on the cover would be.

It would be so funny if it was somebody else. Yes, I thought that too. Reggie Jackson baseball. If he was just like, this is my favorite baseball player, I'll put him on the cover of my game. That would be hilarious. Yes, that would not be very Reggie. He was known for being a bit self-aggrandizing at times. So it's my name on the cover, but let's put someone else on it.

Probably wouldn't happen. But if we date it, there was Earl Weaver baseball in 1987, not a player, but I don't know if there was anyone. Before that, you had generic figures, I think, for the most part. So if we go back to 88 and look at the Royals, FanGraphs, War Leaders from 88 on, they are Kevin Apier, Alex Gordon, Mark Gubiza, Zach Granke, Carlos Beltran, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Sweeney, Brett Saberhagen, David DeJesus, Bobby Witt Jr., and Salvador Perez. Of course, fan crafts were digging Salvi for the framing.

So those were the guys that I first checked when I was thinking, was there a royal? I looked at Beltran and there was no Beltran. And then I looked at George Brett, who was, his peak was a little early, but he was still around when they were making baseball video games. And I looked at George Brett, who was, his peak was a little early, but you know, he was still around when they were making baseball video games. And I thought Salvi, Beltran, but no, none of these guys, where was, I don't know, Kevin

Apier, Pitchfests 91 or something. Like we didn't get that. So yeah. And maybe the fact that Kevin Apier is the war leader over this period is why we do not have a Royals. That could be, maybe that tells you something because those guys that I just mentioned were either like not the biggest stars or they just weren't with the Royals for their whole careers like Beltran who went elsewhere, Granke who went elsewhere.

I don't think those guys had covers elsewhere either, but maybe it's partly that they didn't spend their whole careers there and partly just that they haven't had the best baseball teams over that period from 88 on for the most part. So that could be how it happened combined with not the biggest market, but they are overdue. We got to rectify this royal wrong. We got to get a royal on the cover. I want to see Bobby Witt Jr. next year or someone. I don't know who else it would be, but give me Cole Regan's on the cover next year. I don't know. Sure.

We got to end this drought. I can't imagine anyone who seems like he would be less interested in having his face on a video game cover than Zach Granke. Yeah. I gotta say, I gotta say that he probably, I mean, maybe I don't know if he was asked, but, and I don't know him, so maybe he'd surprise me, but I doubt he'd be like, yeah, that sounds great. Like the man who famously said he didn't want to throw a no hitter because he didn't want the hassle. Like I don't think that guy wants to be on MLB, the show. Probably not. No, that's why we love him. But since 88, that not quite arbitrary. I mean, this is Sam Miller said baseball started in 1988. That's the start of pitch by pitch data, but it's also maybe the start of the cover model

era. The Royals lead the majors in losses since from 88 on. So again, not completely coincidental that there's a Royal missing, but I'm just saying, we've crossed off every other team. It's their turn. It's been their turn. Well, and to your point, like they have a guy where it would not be remotely ridiculous to have him on there. Not a stretch. Not only is he a very talented young royal, but like he and the royals have committed to keeping him a royal for probably the rest of his career, right? You know, he signed that big extension.

So I think it would be good. I got to say, Ben, I need your, So I think it would be good. I gotta say, Ben, I need your, can I ask you a video game opinion that isn't about MLB the show? How do you like the Indiana Jones game? I've seen commercials for the Indiana Jones game. It looks so fun. It looks fun enough where I'm like, I kinda wanna play that Indiana Jones game. Yeah, highly recommend it. Did a podcast about it. I'll link to it. Do you think that it would be too challenging to be fun for me, a person who last played video games

on a regular basis when it was Frogger, but also Half-Life? It's somewhat involved, but I would say it doesn't really require coordination that much if that's what you're worried about. It's very, very puzzle heavy and, and, yeah, lots of puzzles, lots of exploration. It's quite cerebral. Like there's, there's whip cracking, there's swinging and slinging, but it's a little less of an action oriented game than you might imagine. It's not a shooter, although you can shoot. So yeah, I would recommend it. And also if you're going to get into

MLB the show one of these years, this might be the time because it sounds like Road to the Show is going to have more of a amateur baseball component perhaps because it teases the press release like high school on like, and maybe, you know, high school, maybe there's college, there seemed to be college representation here. Maybe this is why they chose those three. You got a college draftee, a high school draftee, an international signee. Maybe that's not a coincidence either, but if you love amateur baseball, which I know

you do, maybe this will be the addition of the show for you. All right. Well, I'm glad we figured that out. And if we omitted a royal, please let us know. Okay. Yeah, Ben's all worked up. Yeah, one transaction to talk about briefly is that the Cubs acquired another Houston Astro,

in this case, Ryan Presley. And I applaud the Cubs trying to upgrade and get better. I hope that they are aware that there are other avenues one can pursue besides trading for a Houston Astro. One could, for instance, sign a free agent. One could do any number of things to enrich your roster. But after getting Kyle Tucker, they have now added Ryan Presley. And there was a bit of a delay because he's a 10 in five guy and he had no trade rates. And so he had to wave his no trade. And then also the Estros are sending five and a half million to the Cubs to

cover some of Presley's $14 million salary for this coming season. And also Presley in exchange for waiving his no trade clause, got a new no trade clause plus an assignment bonus to cover the tax difference going from Texas to Illinois. Yeah. You got your leverage. You got to use it. So good. The Cubs upgraded. They got a good reliever, perhaps a reliever whose best days are behind him and, you know, maybe is in decline at this point, but remains a productive reliever. Sure. He did, he did just have the lowest strikeout rate and strikeout minus walk

rate since 2016 and also I think a career low average fastball velocity. So he's not quite peak Presley perhaps at this point, but he still makes the Cubs better and in addition to questioning whether the Cubs know that there are other ways that they can get better, I just, the dust hasn't fully settled here on the Astros off season. So maybe we can punt on having a full breakdown of what they'd done, but I'm trying to figure out, because it seems like maybe part of the motivation for this was to be able to afford Alex Bregman potentially. They still have an offer out to him. They are not the only team,

but they clearly still are keeping the door cracked open for him and it would be quite weird and funny and convoluted if they ended up bringing back Bregman after seemingly moving on from him by trading with the Cubs and trading Kyle Tucker to the Cubs and then getting Isak Peredis and then signing Christian Walker. Imagine if after all of that, they then resign Bregman and move Altuve to left field, which he has said he's willing to do if it means bringing Bregman back. But how wild a sequence of transactions would that be if you traded Kyle Tucker to save money and then you end up with Altuve in the outfield because you

brought back Bregman and also you acquired people people who played like Bregman's position and it's just doesn't seem like the most efficient direct route to what they wanted to do here. Now they may not bring back Bregman at all, in which case Astros just like spend some money and you know try to extend your very long competitive window here. But if they do end up bringing back Bregman, which at this point I hope they do because, you know, it just feels like he's a little bit of a villain and it just feels right for him to stay with the Astros and not have to trouble some other team with whether they should boo Bregman or not, even though his sins were committed for some other organization and keep him on the Astros,

keep him together without Duve. That seems like the best solution for everyone. But also, what a wild way to go about it, if that's what happens here. A little bit of a villain. A little bit of a villain. That's a joke about his height. In case anyone missed our last episode, go check it out. So I think a couple of different things, and I know that Bauman's planning to write on

this question for us, so I'm sure that he will help me to clarify my own thinking on it when I edit his piece, but it's weird. It's a weird sequence. There are a couple of ways we could explain it that make it slightly less weird. For instance, we could, if we wanted to be generous, maybe assume that they were of the opinion when they did the Tucker trade,

that Bregman was not coming back and they felt like Paradees was a tremendous fit for their ballpark, which I agree with. He can play third, so it helps them to address that issue. Okay, fine. And Bregman's not coming back and we don't have any interest in sort of repeating our experience of first base from last year, where we had this like enormous hole in the lineup and we tried to plug it with Singleton and like we didn't really get acceptable first

base production there. And so what are we going to do? Well, we'll sign Christian Walker because he's really talented and we think he'll age better than Jose Abreu did, which, you know, seems reasonable. Then you're in this spot where you would think to yourself, okay, well now we're committed to not bringing Bregman back because we've already moved an incredibly talented player. We have brought in Paradees great, but we also signed Walker so we can't shift Paradees to first base in the event that Bregman comes back.

And even though Jordan Alvarez still plays the field sometimes, like we kind of have a not fully committed DH, but a lot of the time committed DH and how much time he spends there is going to depend on his health. And who knows, like it might be necessary for him to primarily DH next season, to only DH next season. So like, what do you do? You have a lot of less sort of dynamic, movable roster pieces now. And so then you end up putting Altuve in the outfield, like what? I don't know about that. And so I just find them very confounding. They must have really thought they weren't going to get Bregman, but then what changed to indicate they were going to get Bregman?

Also, you're going to sign Bregman, Bregman's content to come back and like the money you're saving on a reliever is like going to grease the wheels enough to make that happen. Like what kind of deal is Alex Bregman signing? That seems bizarre to me too. I'm not committed to this, but at this juncture, my instinct is that he will just be an Astro again. You know, he's a great fit for that ballpark. It relieves him of the pressure of whatever lingering sign stealing, culture fit questions you have. He doesn't have to worry about, you know, going to a new park that doesn't have the Crawford boxes and his production tanking. Like it just seems like an obvious choice,

but then keep Kyle Tucker, you know? Like if you're gonna have like the remnant of that sort of last good Astros team, I mean last good, like they were good, they've been good. It's annoying, but they're very often good. But you know, that group that had Bregman and El Tuve at its core, if you're going to have that group like right again, then keep Tucker, you know? And I understand that like they thought they were going to be able to maximize what they got back in trade. And like Parade is a great fit for their ballpark. I don't think that that assessment is incorrect, but it's just like, again,

they feel like they're coming and going in a way that I find really confounding. And then Dan files his zips and they're still just projected to be one of the best teams in the American league. And I'm like, what the hell are we doing here? So, so there's that part of it too. But yeah, I think he'll just end up being a, an Astro again, but I, I will offer this to Alex Bregman, who I sure hope doesn't listen to the podcast just based on how much we've talked about his height. But if he does, first of all,

Alex, sorry, but you're the one who fibs, so what are we supposed to do? Not notice that you're standing next to Al Tuve? The other thing I will remind you of, sir, is that if this plan comes to fruition, you're not going to be standing next to Al Tuve next year. And I don't know, maybe you're like, oh, that'll be better because the lack of contrast will be less obvious, but then we're going to know how tall the other people on the infield are and we're gonna be like hey You know how you say you're the same height of minus like a couple inches from Jerry paint. No, you're not. No, you're not No, you're not

There's a lot for me to say but anyway, I sure confusion I think that they are a talented enough team that on some level this stuff Is all gonna kind of come out in the wash. And we're like really probably quibbling about a couple of maybe like a, you know, we're quibbling about some runs. It maybe translates to a win, but I also think that it's just like a weird, it's weird. It's so weird. That outfield is worse now, you know?

And like it's appreciably worse, at least in terms of the way it's going to hit. And so like, you know what, I don't get that. I don't understand. Yeah, it's nice that El Tuve is willing to make that move. And to be clear, he's not a great second baseman. In fact, he's quite a poor second baseman at this point. So if he were to go to left fields, it's a move down the defensive spectrum. There's some precedent for that type of move. You never know.

He's like, he's been playing second base for so long. He's 34 years old. Will he take to it? I don't know, but he probably wouldn't be worse relative to the average left fielder than he is now relative to the average second baseman, but it's still asking your face of the franchise to do something he's never done before or relying on him to volunteer to do that and having to learn on the job. Why can't you put Bregman out there? Make Bregman go to left. Yeah. I don't know if that would make him want to return, but probably

the less Jordaan is playing out there is probably the better. It's like his knee. It scares me. His knee is our problem and he's such a talented hitter. It sucks. And everyone likes him. That's the other thing. It's like, you know, when you're a Mariners fan, you can at least hang your hat on, like some of these Astros weren't always necessarily likable, but like everyone in the game likes Jordaan. It sucks. Anyway. Yeah. He had a knee sprain in the last week of the season and then returned for the playoffs briefly as a DH and then apparently like there was more knee

damage than he really led on or that people knew because he just recently said there was a lot of damage and at the time of the injury, there was a lot of doubt about whether he would have to have surgery and he said the, the last three or four weeks, it's been feeling great. So everything is good to go. Apparently it wasn't enough damage to have surgery because the body's been recovering good and I feel good to go. Haven't had any setbacks. I've been running, training.

That's sort of scary. That would scare me if I were an Astros fan. If it was like in doubt until the last month or so, whether he'd have to have another knee surgery and it's feeling good for now, but who knows you ramp up for a season and maybe it starts twinging again. But for now he's okay. But I would keep him off his feet for the as much as I could probably. Yeah.

I mean like you'd rather a twinge than a spring, but you'd like to avoid both if you have your druthers. Well, we will return to the Astros and to Bregman sometime soon, I imagine, one way or another. Sticking in the AL West for a second, just wanted to get some Mariners' thoughts from you in the second episode in a row, but for a different reason this time. Because of Mike's really great piece. Yes, because Mike Petrile published his magnum opus about why people can't hit at T-Mobile and specifically why they can't make contact there.

And as Mike noted, if you look at the single season stat-cast park factors for 2024, the most extreme offensive environment in MLB was T-Mobile in Seattle. It depressed offense by slightly more than Coors Field, enhanced offense. If you look at the three year park factors, that's not quite the case. But the point is that it suppresses scoring and that is not news. And we've known that for decades. And there's been all kinds of conversation about why that is. And people tended to say, well, Marine layer and the air just knocks the ball down and it's not warm. And all those things are true.

But also there's some other stuff going on here. And Mike investigates every possible angle for why the park factor is what it is at T-Mobile. Because as you know, it's like we talk about how bad the Mariners offense was, but it was more or less middle of the pack offense on the road. It was just very bad at home. And then we talk a lot about how good Mariners pitching is. And it was in some respects kind of middle of the pack pitching on the road and like best in baseball at T-Mobile. So to some extent, it's like Funhaus Mirror sort of distorting these things we think about the Mariners. Yeah, they have good pitchers and yeah, they don't have great hitters, but they're really like,

it's getting skewed because this park is so extreme. Katie- It's accentuating the extremes at both ends seemingly. The conclusion he reached as he said is like, it is a couple, it's a little bit of, it's a little bit of everything, right? The Marine layers definitely in there. We've heard hitters in the past, most recently to Oscar Hernandez talk talk about not liking the batter's eye in Seattle, that the orientation of the batter's eye in particular, the angle at which it sits, makes it hard to pick up the ball, I think particularly for right-handed pitchers, right?

Which the Mariners have a whole lot of, which I don't know if that's a coincidence or not, but they are righties all the way down. Right. But also, while the angle of Seattle's batter's eye is unusual, it's not unique in baseball, right? You can find sort of parallels in Baltimore and Cleveland. Now you might say, hey, famously, the offense in Cleveland can be somewhat anemic, but like that's not true in Baltimore. Like they hit the shot out of the ball in Baltimore. So- Yeah. He found that 30 parks in 2024, 24 of them had batter's eyes that were perfectly straight or just about. And then of the others, so there are three head angles where the eye was angled considerably from left field to right, getting farther away as you go toward right field

like Fenway. And then three, like T-Mobile, had batter's eyes that get farther away toward left field at angles of 12 or more degrees. So as you said, it's a Seattle, Baltimore, and Cleveland. Cleveland has trees and greenery and it's closer and it's kind of different, but the Orioles' batter's eyes is on an even sharper angle than Seattle and it's farther from the fence, although Seattle's extends farther toward left field, Mike noted, and the parks face in the same direction, Camden Yards and T-Mobile. And so it's hard to say why the issues would not plague Baltimore players if that's the reason. But there have been players complaining about this going back decades.

Oh yeah, like Dan Wilson, Brett Boone, Edgar complained about some parts of this. So this is This is not a new Teoscare Hernandez specific issue, right? So like there's that, there's the potential for the sun and like the sun at particular times of day being, interacting with the batter's eye in a way that makes it difficult to see because you're getting glare out there, right? So there's that explanation. There's the wind and Mike takes pains to note not the wind necessarily in the outfield, although there are times where it really swirls around out there, but the wind sort of between the mound and the plate and the way that the ball is interacting there.

And how that seems to, according to MLB.com data scientist Clay, not only creates tailwind, which is good for fastballs, bad for breaking balls. And you all might be sitting there going, hey, don't the Mariners pitchers have like a really fastball heavy approach a lot of the time? And aren't there swinging miss rates against fastballs like really good at home and you'd be like, yeah, you're right. You know, that that's true. The roof seemed to be the least persuasive explanation to Mike, you know, for folks who

haven't been to Seattle, when the roof is closed, it doesn't create a closed air ballpark. It's not like in Houston or Arizona or Toronto where you close it up and you can effectively pump climate control in there, right? Do AC. There's a great quote in here that I had never heard before from Mariners groundskeeper Tim Wilson, who said in 2021 that the roof in Seattle is quote, it's a big umbrella on wheels. It's mostly designed to keep precept out, right? Like the issue in Seattle that they are worried about is not extreme heat, but rainouts early in the season.

So if you go to a baseball game in April in Seattle, even if it's not raining, it's freaking cold in there. Like that dampen your bones kind of cold. So it seems like it's kind of a lot of different things and all of that combined with an offense. This is me editorializing now. All of those things combined with an offense that might struggle already seems like a recipe for anemic hitting at home. So.

Yeah. Yeah. And Mike noted the average temperature, 62.9 degrees, 30th of 30 ballpark. So it is actually colder. And yeah, the quality of contact, when you make contact, the ball just does not travel as far as it does elsewhere. I think Wrigley was the only place where there was less carry typically on the ball, and that's wind related, I guess, when the wind blows in. But it's not just the carry and the lack thereof, but also just the lack of contact. And the Mariners, they struck out a lot last season. They were neck and neck with the Rockies, I guess a hair behind the Rockies in strikeout rate,

but tied out to the first decimal place 27% if you round up strikeouts and a big home road split. And if it were just the batter's eye, you'd think that wouldn't be that hard to fix or just re-angle it or something. If it's the sun and the orientation of the park, that's tough because you can't really just pick up the park and rotate it.

And so I don't know what the solution for that would be. And Jerry DePoto, who's quoted in the piece, did say, I don't think it's an everyday thing, it's an occasional thing based on the position of the sun at a given time for a short period of time during a game. And Mike kind of corroborates that, that it does seem like the strikeouts spike at certain times. And then Depoto says, the issue just might be the angle of the ballpark.

And I don't think you can reconstruct the ballpark, so it would be a challenging thing to do. I guess there's also the question of how much it matters because an extreme isn't necessarily bad, you might look at the Rockies and say it's been bad, perhaps, or there's a lot of other stuff going on there too, but you could potentially take advantage of extreme environments. And if the Mariners were aware of some of these things and they intentionally loaded up on right-handed pitchers and fastball heavy pitchers, well, that would be smart. That could potentially even help them. But I don't know. Do you think

it has hurt them or helped them? Is it hard to tell? There's a little suggestion at the end of the piece that maybe they've figured out that they just's a little suggestion at the end of the piece that maybe they've figured out that they just required a different approach at the plate because of all of these challenges. And Edgar came back to be the hitting coach at the end of last season. And then September, the Mariners were good and they cut their strikeout rate and they had their best month at home in a while. And Edgar was preaching this liners up the middle approach along with Kevin Sitzer as the lead coach and Depoto said like, it's just adapting a team to the ballpark, it's not trying to adapt the ballpark to some fictional team. Our ballpark might not be conducive to doing it quite the way we have in the

past, shame on us for taking this long to understand that. I don't know, is the suggestion there that they need to just be more contact oriented and not swing for the fences because it's so hard to make contact or what? Because I don't know, even if you knew that, even if you tried to be contact oriented, it would still be hard to make contact relatively speaking. And then you'd be costing yourself dingers potentially, although maybe if the ball doesn't carry at all, then it is not really, doesn't behoove you to swing for the fences, especially if you're going to swing and miss very often. LS I think a couple of things at once. Mike makes

note of this as one of the potential explanations when it comes to the uptick in offense that they saw toward the back end of the season, some of that was that Julio seemed to have emerged from his slump, which was not really limited to his performance at home. Jared Ranere And they got Victor Robles and Rosarina. Yeah. Katie Katz And Justin Turner. So like the composition of that offense was different. The composition of that offense in conjunction with more favorable weather conditions, maybe that was enough. So I think a couple of things. I think that like, despite the fact that the conditions

on the field do make it hard, it's not as if no one who can hit for power can do well. You just have to like really hit for power. Maybe I don't know, like maybe you need a couple more big dumpers, although it is funny that one of Cal's Home Runs is one of the ones that got knocked down by like crazy wind. So my general thought here is that the first place they might start is coupling, if they really think that Edgar is presenting a approach to hitting that is conducive to success in that ballpark, they should get good hitters and try it and see how that goes. Because I feel like when you have a team that as it is set up currently is looking to give playing time to like Dylan Moore and Donovan Solano and Austin Shenton that you perhaps

have not fully maximized the offensive potential of your squad regardless of where they're hitting. So there's that. But I do think it's worth them looking at the batter's eye because you're right, like the glare thing is hard, but if everyone is really struggling with the angle of the thing, can't they do something about that? Can't they? Yeah, you'd think. Then again, if you would think that greater familiarity might help you, that could even be an advantage to your team because if this is a really disorienting batter's eye, your batters would be less disoriented by it than visiting

batters who see it less often. So it might make it harder to recruit hitters or sign hitters, but they don't seem to be making much of an attempt to do that anyway. So like, you know, if, if every batter is going to be discombobulated at T-Mobile, then better for visiting hitters to be more discombobulated than your guys, that could be a home field advantage for you potentially, even if it's

suppressed scoring overall. So I don't know, but it is an interesting mystery that Mike did his best to unravel here. And yeah, the strikeout park factor for T-Mobile, I think was a 115, like 15% uptick in strikeouts. That's the highest. That's a lot. So I sympathize with Mariners hitters, even though a lot of them not that great anywhere. But I want to make clear that I'm not making this purely about like roster construction because I think the idea of saying, okay, let's go get, we appreciate the ways in which this ballpark is not optimized for hitting for power. And so, you know, we still need to hit for power.

That is still an important part of scoring in today's game. We know all of the statistical reasons why you do better when you're hitting for power, but we wanna have like the very best version of contact hitters because we think that those guys can provide an important floor to our offensive production at home. Okay. I think that, you know what, I don't know if that will work, but I'm sympathetic to

that as a theory of roster construction in an extreme environment because you don't, to your point earlier, want to change the park too much because the pitching advantage is like appreciable, right? And is keeping you in some of these games and like just think if you could get into the playoffs and be guaranteed a home series, like imagine facing that rotation in Seattle. Like that's a tough assignment for any playoff team. Okay, great. We want to lean into that, which means that we need to think a little bit differently about the position player side of our organization so that we have guys that are the best version

of this. Okay, fine. But they're not maximizing that part, right? Like if you go back to, like go back to 2015, right? 2015 was a year where the Mariners still had, and to be clear, 2015, not a successful season for 2015, right? 2015 was a year where the Mariners still had, and to be clear, 2015, not a successful season for Seattle, right? But 2015, this is a year where, you know,

you still have Nelson Cruz, you still have Robinson Kineau, you have a very good version of Kyle Seeger. Is that right? Was he good in 2015? Am I misremembering Kyle Seeger's career? We always have to grapple with that because I am 38 now. No, he had a 115 WRC+. It was fine. So we're going to do this for 2015 and then we're going to do it for 2016, which was a better year for Seattle just in terms of its overall production. Nelson Cruz had a 152 WRC+, at home. He had 17 home runs at

home. I'm looking at 2015 home split. Cano had a 129 WRC+. At home, he had 17 home runs at home. I'm looking at 2015 home split. Kano had a 129 WRC Plus at home. He hit 11 bombs at home, which is, I will point out, the same number of home runs that Cal Raleigh hit at home last year. So if you have good hitters, if you have good power hitters, even dealing with all this nonsense, they can occasionally overcome those troubles

and still have productive seasons at home. So I think that what you want to do is like look at the profile, see if there are guys who you can do something about, say, hey, you're like a really great contact hitter. In 2016, a year where the Mariners almost made the playoff difference so close and they got great years from some of these guys at home. And even though like years from some of these guys at home. And even though like they, some of them had lower WRC pluses, some of them were higher, Nellie and Robinson Cano hit 17 home runs at home, Kyle Searhead 11, Seth Smith.

Do you remember Seth Smith? Yeah. People in Seattle were obsessed with Seth Smith. Seth Smith. They even learned how to say his name right. People were doing weird dad stuff with Seth Smith in terms of like- I remember him more as a Rocky, really. I mean, to be clear, very fair, but this is, you know, this is what we had. So like, all

I'm saying is to bastardize a quote from our old friend, Littlefinger from Game of Thrones, you know, fight them everywhere, you know. Battle them on every front. Go sign good hitters. Also, look if there are ways to think about who you're targeting in free agency, how you're tailoring development, to acknowledge the reality of your ballpark on the hitting side so that you can put guys in a position to succeed so that if you think you should have a couple of contact hitters, right? A couple of guys who are going to just like send it up the middle routinely. Okay, great.

But go get the best version of that because you're still, in my opinion, not optimizing the neutral field version of your offense by being so penny pinching. So. Does that feel fair? Does it feel like I'm being fair to them? Because I do think that there are like real challenges to overcome there. I don't want to, Mike did such a nice job with this piece. It's really fantastic. I really liked how he went through each element and like it's all, it's all in there, you know? And obviously I don't want to overreact to a small sample to, you know, once again sort of pound the table for more spending in much the same way that I don't want to overreact to one year of park factors. But it is interesting as a data point that when the sort of baseline true talent level of some of the roster rose, that in conjunction with changes to the temp led to a significantly better offense, right?

And the fact of the matter is that a lot of this for Seattle is going to depend on can Julio be more productive early in the season, whether it's at home or on the road? There's other stuff going on here that held back the production of the team in the first half of the year. So we should grapple with that reality, but I don't know if you've noticed, Teasker Hernandez is like a really good baseball player. And some of that was, he thought the batter's eye was weird there, you know?

And some of it might've been other stuff, but like, I do think, I don't know. I think that there are multiple things that they could try. And I know that you can get into trouble when you are trying to address multiple variables at once, because you don't know if what you're doing, what part of what you're doing is affecting what part of the problem. But if you just get good hitters, you can feel confident that that's going to be useful

anywhere. Yeah. You've been making me think about little finger oratory while you've been talking about the Mariners. I wonder whether- I can't believe I brought up a game of Frong's thing because I haven't done the Dragon show. I'm not going to about the Mariners. I wonder whether- LS. I can't believe I brought up a Game of Thrones thing because I haven't done the Dragon show. I'm not going to do the Dragon show. I'm not spent, I'm sorry.

It's not totally fair to George RR Martin. I know that he didn't do the last season of the show. I know it's not his fault, but I'm just, I have no... It's like when you eat something and then get neurovirus and you're like, I don't want to ever eat that thing ever again, you know? It's kind of like that. It's like that last season of Game of Thrones

was like neurovirus. Understandable. You're missing out a little bit, but I get it. I wash my hands of it, but I also like neurovirus. Guess it's George's fault a little bit for not finishing the books, but beyond that. I mean, yeah, but like, who among us hasn't struggled to write, Ben? Sure. Yeah, we've all been there. I wonder whether Fight Every Battle Everywhere was inspired by

Winston Churchill's We Shall Fight On The Beaches speech, but it's where my men went. Anyway, one factor, there was at least one factor that Mike did not consider, which was pointed out on Blue Sky and Mike said he could confirm that he did not consider it was Ken Arneson, old school baseball blogger who now works for Weather Applied Metrics, which is one of the providers that supplied data for Mike's piece. Ken pointed out, he said, good article, Seattle's low park factor is a kitchen sink of issues, to which I'll add one more fun fact not mentioned here in Seattle has MLB strongest gravity. A fly ball in Miami will travel about a foot farther than the same ball in Seattle, just from the difference in earth's gravity alone. Yeah, this is why the Mariners have struggled for

so long. They've been weighed down by Earth's gravity. This is why the Pacific Northwest is so spooky on screen all the time. It's just people weighed down. The Earth is pulling them to the center of mass because I guess gravitational force increases the farther one gets from the equator because- And they're the northernmost ballpark? Yeah, they're the northernmost team because gravity is stronger at the poles because the earth bulges at the equator and thus you're farther from the center of mass at the equator compared to the poles where you're a little closer. So the gravitational pull is slightly weaker. And it's enough to make a difference? Evidently. Mike, Ken did the math.

I did not, but apparently that makes a difference of a foot of fly ball travel. I would not have ever, that has not occurred to me. So, throw that into the list. He says gravitational acceleration in Seattle is 9.83 meters per second squared while in Miami it's 9.79. So I guess the Marlins have even less of an excuse for having a pitcher's park themselves and often an anemic offense because they've got gravity or less gravity on their sides. But yeah, this is not something you would notice just walking around when you go home

from Phoenix to Seattle. I doubt you'd notice that there's suddenly a go home from Phoenix to Seattle, I doubt you'd notice that there's suddenly a spring in your step because you're closer to the pole. LS I mean, I am always tired at home. CB I guess that could be for other reasons. LS That's a weather thing, I think. CB Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. Did not know that, fun fact. LS Okay. So first of all, my mind is blown.

Not because like the concept of gravity being more intense at the polls is new, but I just am surprised that it's enough different to make a difference, right? Like for it to really have an impact. I also think that they need to like work some wicked stuff into there, because you should be defying gravity. Yeah, something there. It should hold space for home runs. That one's free to any Mariners marketing folks to listen to the podcast.

I know there are a couple of you. Hi, sorry that your team hasn't signed anybody. You make such pretty graphics. I want you to be able to apply your wares on social media. Oh, God. The more you know, gravity. Yeah. Well, we learned with the whole uproar about the ball years ago that the tiniest little differences and the ball can make a major difference when it comes to fly ball carry. So why not gravity? Sure. Okay. I will end with a stat blast. We had an Orioles signing and it was that Adam Jones is back, not as a player. Actually I guess there have been some other minor Oriole signings, but Adam Jones is coming back as an assistant to the GM or an advisor to the GM.

He's gonna be maybe doing some front office stuff, but also some community ambassador stuff. And this is topical for the stat blast because even before the Adam Jones reunion, Andrew M, a Patreon supporter in the StatBlast channel of our Discord group, mused, Adam Jones feels like an oriole for life and yet played 11.5% of his games for the Mariners and Diamondbacks. Which player was the closest to being a one-team player without actually being one? So who played the highest percentage of games with one team that was not a hundred percent.

And that led to a lot of discussion and speculation. And then finally, Patreon supporter, sometimes effectively wild guest, Michael Mountain, did the math and did the queries and made a spreadsheet, which I will share. And we have answers here. So the answer is- Can I guess? You can. I doubt you're. So the answer is. Can I guess?

You can. I doubt you're going to guess the right answer. But go ahead. I don't need to guess. I'm interested in who you're thinking of, because maybe you're somewhere on this list. OK, so the first name that occurs to me is Edwin Jackson. But is that in the spirit of this query?

Are you looking for guys who have spent the most time but with a little elsewhere? Yeah, this is sort of the opposite. Am I reversing? Yeah, you're sort of reversing. Okay, never mind it. The not Edwin Jackson, he would be a good one. I will maybe mention Edwin Jackson in a moment when we reverse the sort on the leaderboard. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, the original question was about people who spent almost their entire careers with one franchise and then just moonlighted somewhere else. And you maybe don't even remember that they played for that other team. So they're as close as possible to 100% with one franchise without being at 100%. Brandon Crawford. Brandon Crawford, yeah, I guess he'd be

probably a pretty good one. Let's see if he's on here. Brandon Crawford is at 98.3%. So he had 1,655 games with the Giants and 29 games with the Cardinals. But this is a competitive list. Even 98.3, he's- Isn't that enough? No, he's not even close to3. He's uh... Isn't that enough? No, he's not even close to enough. He's two hundred fifth on the list.

Two hundred and fifth? Oh geez. Okay. So there are guys who came considerably closer to being one franchise players. In fact, there are 94 guys who spent at least 99% of their career, but less than 100% with one team. So people were thinking, throwing out names, Harmon Kilbrew, Dwight Evans, Zach Wheat, Ryan Sandberg who played 13 games with the Phillies and 2151 with the Cubs, that's 99.4%. And Sandberg is a good guess. No one with as many total games played has a higher ratio with one team than Sandberg. But even Sandberg is just 39th on the list. Anyway, the actual answer is someone no one would have guessed.

Oscar Stanage. Oscar Stanage. Who is that? Yeah, he was a catcher and he debuted in 19-06. Okay, thank God. I wasn't worried that you're going to say a name and I'm going to be like, who's that? And you're going to be like, well, he was an all-star last year. Oscar Standage, yeah. Oscar Standage, he spent 14 years in the big leagues,

but they were in the aughts and the teens and the twenties. So he played one game. He made his major league debut with Cincinnati in 1906. And then he was out of the majors for a couple of seasons and then caught on with the Tigers in 1909 and played the rest of his career with the Tigers as a teammate of Ty Cobb. And so he played 1096 major league games and all but one of them were for the Detroit Tigers. So he is at 99.91%. So he is at the top of the list. Then you've got John Stern's 809 games for the Mets, one game for the Phillies, 99.88%. Kristi Mathewson, he went the other way in contrast to Oscar Stanich, who started with the Reds. Kristi Mathewson finished with the Reds. He pitched one game for the Reds at the end of his career

after spending his whole career with the New York Giants, 99.84% of his career was with the Giants. 0.84% of his career was with the Giants. And I could go on, Yogi Berra, another notable name, 2,116 games for the Yankees, four games for the Mets, which was sort of a publicity stunt when he was with them, kind of as a coach and manager, 99.81% with the Yankees. So there are a lot of names, so we could go down the list, but Oscar Stanage is your winner.

And you do not have to feel bad about missing Oscar Stanage. But if we flip it around and we look for the journeymen, the ones who even the team that they spent the most time with did not make up a high percentage of their career. So the Edwin Jackson types, the itinerant players. Edwin Jackson was close, fairly close to the top of that list or the bottom, depending on how one sorts it. He is, let's see, I guess the 18th most journeyman guy because he pitched for 14 teams and his primary team, I guess, was Tampa Bay. He pitched 87 games for the Rays or Devil Rays of his 325. So that's 21.12%. That was his high for the franchise that he spent the highest percentage of his time with,

but no one, no one can compare. The ultimate journeyman is Paul Bacow. Paul Bacow, perennial backup catcher, have glove and gear, will travel. Amazing. 11 different teams. He played 119 games for the Cubs of his 670 total. And that was the most that he played for any one team, which means that 15.08%

of his games came for his most played for franchise. 15.08%. That is the ultimate journeyman. So yeah, there are some other names you might know there. Ron Valone. It's maybe a little harder for pitchers to do this potentially, but guess who is at number six on that list? Rich Hill, patron saint of Effectively Wild. Yeah. Which almost surprised me, even though he's played for 13 teams, he's been with the Red Sox so many times that I would have thought maybe he would have spent more of his time with the Red Sox.

Yeah, me too. But no, only 74 of his 312 major league games were with the Red Sox. That's 19.17%. So he's quite, quite high or low there depending on how one looks at things. And Oliver Perez, another recent journeyman, Jamie Wright, Mike Myers, Milton Bradley, Mark Redmond, Ty Wiginton. I'll link to the spreadsheet. A lot of names to remember, but yeah, that's a fun one. And Michael Mountain mentioned also Gary Sheffield is a notable journeyman, especially as such

an accomplished player, lowest percentage of games played for his longest tenured team in which that tenure represents at least 500 games. So 558 games in a Marlins uniform, 2018 in seven other uniforms, but less or fewer than 550 in any one of them. So 21.66% for the Marlins. So yeah, it's a little less uncommon with someone like Sheffield who was as good as he was as opposed to say a loogie or a backup catcher. But I guess he wore out his welcome in some places. I'll also note that Henry Aaron, most games played for a primary team while not being a single franchise guy.

So 3076 games with the Braves, 222 for the Brewers, which was a return to Milwaukee where he had started, but different franchise still. Yeah. Fun one. All right. Yeah. Well, thanks to Adam for the prompt and to Mike for doing the research. That'll do it for today.

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at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page at Fan Crafts or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode later this week. Talk to you then. I wanna hear about nothing if RBI's here Tell me about some prospect I should know about

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