Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2307: The Best Worst Game

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s big bonus, Edmundo Sosa’s beginner’s home run robbery, how much of a difference depth makes, and the relative levels of alarm about the shoulder injuries of Reynaldo López, Victor Robles, and Blake Snell. Then (49:14) they talk to MLB.com’s Michael Clair about what it was […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's effectively wild. Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs. Hello Meg. Hello.

We talked last time about Vladimir Guerrero's's $500 million extension with Blue Jays. We did not know one detail and it's a fairly big detail and it's the signing bonus. Oh yeah. We knew that there was one. I mentioned that there was a signing bonus, but the terms of it had not been reported. And now it turns out that most of the $500 million deal is signing bonus. It's like, why don't they build the whole plane out of the black box?

Why don't they just make the whole contract out of signing bonus? That is almost what they've done here. So it's a $325 million signing bonus, and then he gets the remaining 175 mil in salary. So I'll quote from Ken Rosenthal here, "'The Jays will pay out 65% of Guerrero's contract in signing bonus.

Both the signing bonus and salary will be distributed in varying annual amounts over the 14-year term of the deal. Baseball CBA does not restrict the amount a team can include in a signing bonus, much as it doesn't restrict the amount of deferrals. The bonus, however, is included in the calculation of a player's average annual value for luxury tax purposes,

including salary. Guerrero's annual luxury tax hit will be 35.71 million. So it's not a loophole. We don't have to start so fretting about things. The Dodgers, it's not just the Dodgers. Toronto cheating too with their cheating, cheating contracts. No, none of that. Ken says, for Guerrero, the benefit of getting the bulk of his money in signing bonus would appear twofold. Signing bonuses are allocated to an

athlete's state of residence. Guerrero resides in Florida, a state without income tax. So he presumably will avoid paying state tax on the bonus, generating millions in savings. Always a heartwarming story when Shohei Otani or Vladimir Guerrero or some other athletes gets to keep all that money instead of paying taxes. The other benefit is that signing bonuses are not contingent on the performance of services. Guerrero would receive his annual payout

if Major League Baseball canceled games due to a work stoppage, a possibility that exists. After the sports CBA expires on December 1st, 2026, he would also receive it if the league canceled games for some other reason, such as a pandemic. So pandemic-proof contract as well. The benefit to the Blue J's in paying out more in signing bonus than salary, if it exists at all is unclear. So within a month, he gets an initial

signing bonus payment of 20 million. And then because the deal runs from 2026 on that money doesn't count against the CBT this season, assigning bonus supplies to the luxury tax payroll during the guaranteed years of the contract. So I guess that's like a semi-slight loophole potentially, I don't know. But really it's just expanding the boundaries of contract terms. We see a lot of teams doing it. And we mentioned the other day that Cattell-Marte's extension is structured such that he's due to be paid

less in 2027, just in case the season is canceled or curtailed, he would stand to lose less. And perhaps Vlad and or his agent also planning for that contingency in part. So I was saying the other day, I wish we could all just put it out of our minds until next year at least when it becomes an imminent threat. But if you're signing a long-term contract, then it is incumbent upon you to consider those things. So I guess kudos to the tax planning people and the accountants and the agents for considering what would happen to their clients' earnings if something happens to that season. I think my big takeaway in all of this is that like

wow they really wanted to get this deal done. Yeah. You know like this is the stuff you do as a team where you're like we're getting it done we're getting this done today like let's go let's be done doing this. The tax thing is always weird because I'm just uh in favor of like uh you know rich people paying their taxes but yeah he's not not paying them. He's just not paying them. Yeah, it's legal. Can you hear this little distinction I'm drawing there between the knots and the paying of the knots?

Yes, it may be nice if such loopholes could be closed, but I'm not holding my breath for that one. But yeah, we did get Jake wrote in to say that the reporting maybe suggested that he wouldn't continue to negotiate after his self-imposed deadline. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he just said, here's my number and then waited a while and then the Blue Jays or Rogers were like, okay, fine. So maybe there wasn't much of a negotiation post deadline, I guess. I don't know whether the details are out there on how and when exactly this came together. I have not read them yet,

but I'm sure they will surface if they haven't already. But yeah, good point. Maybe he didn't have to do any additional negotiation. They caved, they acquiesced. They said, let's be in the Vladdy business. And so here they are. Long term. In which case, that would speak well of his strategy of saying, I'm not negotiating anymore because sometimes, yeah, you draw a line in the sand and you refuse to cross it. And the budget say, all right, fine, we will give you hundreds of millions more dollars. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to, like, I'm working through a tariff joke in my head, but it's not coming together for me.

Sort of like the tariffs. So, you know, we're all thinking it. Yeah. But the flat extension was not the biggest news in baseball this week. I mean, it was probably among non-sickos among normies. It was big news, but I think for me, at least the big news was the showdown, the clash of the non-titans, the games of the century between the Lehman Lightning and the Yeshiva Maccabees

who met up to play a doubleheader on Wednesday, couple D3 college teams. And you know how I feel about college baseball, just can't get enough of it. And so I was initially just grabbed by this story, compelled by the spectacle, the saga of these two teams who had not won in a combined, I guess, five years, at least.

Neither of them had won since 2023. Yeshiva had not won since 2022. They had a streak of 99 losses coming into these contests and Lehman had a streak of 42 losses. It sort of surfaced on the internet a couple of weeks ago that they were going to meet and that someone had to win, barring unforeseen circumstances and this kind of captured people's imaginations, including mine. I love a story like this at any level of baseball. And I really, I wanted to go and I initially planned to go because it was in my area. These are two New York area teams.

I put it on my Google calendar and everything. And then the location changed last minute because of rain. It didn't affect things that much because they moved to New Jersey, but it's not actually that much farther from me than the game in the Bronx would have been. But I just had multiple podcasts recording scheduled. And also it was clear that this was not really an unsung story. This was, initially I was thinking like, oh, I'll go, I'll get an exclusive. Redditors talking about this, I'll go and I'll get the scoop. And then it very quickly became

clear that no, everyone was interested in this and they were going to be like, major mainstream media people covering this game. And so it felt a little imperative. I wasn't going to get an exclusive. However, Michael Clare of MLB.com was one of the people who were there covering this game and I was following along with his coverage and I figured it'd be fun to hear from someone who was on the ground, who could give us a little of the local color, a little of the flavor being in person. And I suppose I'll spoil what happened because we're going to talk about it in the interview. And also it happened a day before we are recording.

Yes. They split. They split the double header. Yeah. So both of the losing streaks came to an end. It's just a fairy tale ending. I love this story. I have two things to say about it before we have the interview. The first of which is an apology

for my lack of participation in the backend because my local color was some very loud landscaping going on. I thought I'd spare our listeners and also you and Michael that. So if people are like, did Meg fall down and lose her mic? No, I just, there's the leaf blower right there. And the second is Ben, I think at some point you just have to accept that you might be a college baseball fan. And to be clear, among college baseball fans, even among them, caring about D3 baseball played at this level is some sicko s***. So, you know, with that caveat in mind, increasingly, you're just a guy who likes college baseball, Ben. You know, you're just a guy who likes the college game and that's okay.

But you should accept it and, you know, embrace it more fully. That's what I think. Yeah. Well, I like weirdness and whimsy and quirkiness and there's ample quirk in college baseball and I'm less interested in the actual good teams and players because I just figure like, if they're really good, I'll see them eventually. I'll get to know them after they get drafted or they're professional players. And so I wanna get in on not even the ground floor, like the sub basement, I wanna get in on the players

who I'm never gonna know otherwise because this is the end of the road for them when it comes to their playing careers. That's the stuff that intrigues me because you're gonna see things that you would never see in professional baseball. So a little less compelled by the actually impressive

programs that are just churning out future major leaguers and prospects. Even so, Ben, even so, you can just, you can just watch the the sicko stuff. There's plenty of it. There's so much sicko stuff to be had. And there's even there's even sicko stuff at the good programs, you know? Like this is the thing about it.

They're not all getting drafted. No, they're not. So, yep. Well, please keep me apprised whenever weird sicko stuff happens. By all means, we will banter about it I'm I'm down. All right Alright, here's something I didn't expect to see this week either Edmundo Sosa Robbing a home run. Yeah in left field for the Phillies against the Braves and Marcel Uzuna

Didn't expect to see Edmund de Sosa in the outfield at all because he had never previously started a game out there. He had played portions of five games in the outfield. He's an infielder. He hadn't even moonlighted in the outfield in years, I believe. His sum total of Major League outfield experience was five games and no starts and just a handful of innings basically. And I know in theory, left field is easier than the positions that he typically plays, but still tell him Losh, it's incredibly hard to go out there and do almost anything that you've never been asked to do before. Different angles, different job. If he converted to left field full time and was good,

that wouldn't impress me that much. But to make the play with the best possible outcome in your first opportunity, pretty spiffy. And so he got the start in this game for the Phillies. And in the first inning, I think his first chance out there, he robs a home run from Ozuna. And it's swung on and hit high of the year, deep left field. Sosa going over towards the corner at the wall. He jumps and he caught it. Oh my goodness. And Mundo Sosa, his first

play and his first start ever in left field. And he's robbed Ozuna of a home run. He brought it back over the wall. This game's easy, boys. Oh my goodness. Sosa. I guess you could say maybe the route was not the most direct perhaps. Maybe that betrayed his inexperience out there, but ultimately he got where he was going. He got where he had to be. And he stuck his glove over the fence.

And this was actually a pretty impressive one. And maybe, yeah, maybe if he was more experienced, he could have made it look easier because he just would have been there before. But still the mechanics of the catch were pretty impressive because he backhanded it and he kind of caught it as it was going beyond the wall, behind the wall. Like he didn't, you know,

sometimes you'll see Aaron Judge rob a Homer and it's just like, he was just standing there. He's just a giant and he lifted up his glove. He didn't even really have to jump or anything. In this case, it was a pretty impressive timing and coordination and he really did bring it back. Yeah, it was an incredible play. I, look, I have said before that one of the ways

in which I am a grump, Ben, is that I tend to be less delighted than other people when highlight real plays are the result of the first half of the play being a low light and the second half being a recovery. And look, is that a flaw in my personality? You could argue that, right? Why not just enjoy things? I can't, Ben. I can't just enjoy things. I've never had the constitution for that. So I tend to get a little annoyed when people bring up even like, look, we got to talk about that Juan Céspedes play having just been, it was good at the end, but part of it's fine. But so anyway, this is like a flaw in my personality, or maybe it's not. Maybe it makes me a brave truth teller.

Yeah, it's defensible. I don't like to yuck people's yam. I don't enjoy that experience, but I do have the instinct, you know? I don't always act on it. It's sort of like I don't actually trip the guys riding the monowheel things, but I want to, you know? I learn something about myself every time

and it's not pleasant. And it's the same lesson every time, to be clear. This is like a persistent flaw. But anyway. I do think multiple components of a play can be impressive. So you could screw up and still have an impressive recovery. Yes, but that's not how they're built, Ben. They're not built that way.

They're not built as impressive recovery. They're built as impressive play. It's part of, yes. Part of them is impressive, right? But but not all of them. So anyway, um, I have an exception to this persnickety part of myself, which is when a guy is not playing his typical position and he does something like this, he just gets a free pass for being awesome.

This is just like cool across the board because the recovery cannot be remotely assumed, right? And it was still, I mean, like the look, the look on the bullpens face when he did it was so incredible. And you know, it does also have sort of the feel of, I don't believe in curses, you know, I don't think that's like a real thing. But I am starting to have concern about the Braves being like a little cursed, you know, like there being some amount of curse at play here because, watched that game and it felt like, oh, maybe they're going to figure it out, but it was still tense until the very end of it.

It's just like this fraught affair and they did, they pulled it out and Sean Murphy hit a home run. And so maybe you say this is a turn or the start of one. Okay. But I do worry that there's like some hex at play there because they, for a while they were going to blow that thing. But anyway, yeah, so-so is great. And he gets just gold stars across the board because again, playing out of position,

you just get to enjoy it, you know? So thanks for that. Playing out of position, you just get to enjoy it, you know, so thanks for that. Playing out of position, just blanket statement. I think it's my favorite thing across sports, and that applies to, there are of course gradations here and a two-way player who does those things at a high level, I guess it's not even playing out of position at that point because you're just playing a lot of positions. And then if you're out of position, but you're really bad at it and it's not a novelty anymore, it's just pitchers hitting and flailing or position players pitching too much, then the charm wears off, but versatility, variety.

I enjoy it. But that, and then a player who's pressed into service doing something that they don't normally do. Right. Cause it feels like service, right? It feels like this is part of why I didn't feel the need to calm down quite as hard on Kyle Schwaber and his outfield defenses, other people, because it was like, he's sacrificing, you know? He's making a sacrifice for the Phillies. It's not his fault that they signed a bunch of DHs. I mean,

thankfully he just gets to DH now, but you know that one time when he was out there and it was bad. And what was particularly impressive about Sosa is his reaction to it, which he must've been as surprised as anyone that he pulled this off, that he was even in position to pull this off. And yet he sort of styled it

once he realized that he had actually snagged it. He did have a moment where he looked into his glove. He's like, what? I did that. But then he quickly recovered to kind of make it look nonchalant. Like, yeah, I did that. Of course I did. And he sort of like, he pulled the glove out behind him, verified that it was in there, and then did sort of a belated flourish. It wasn't the most smooth thing. If he were more experienced, he wouldn't have had to verify that he actually caught the ball before he sort of celebrated. So it wasn't in one smooth motion. But nonetheless, once he did confirm that he had made the catch, he made a nice little motion. And then he backed away from the bullpen who was celebrating. And

he did act like he had been there before. At first, he didn't crack a smile initially. He didn't celebrate excessively or anything. He just kind of looked like, yeah, this is routine. This is what I do. I'm Edmundu Sosa, a left fielder who robs home runs. And then eventually when he got to the infield and his teammates greeted him, and of course they were all hyped and they were all slapping him and cheering and laughing and everything. And then finally the facade cracked

and he did show a smile and he was high-fiving everyone and kind of looked like a happy-go-lucky little kid. But I did enjoy that he at least kept up appearances for the moment and made it look like, yeah, this is just something that I do routinely. Yeah. I feel like the full range of human emotion experienced by that guy in the space of 30 seconds was spectacular.

One of my favorite highlights of this young season so far, two other things. One, our pal Ben Clemens, other Ben of Fangraft's fame, he returned to one of his favorite topics, which is depth and attempting to quantify it. It seems like this is his white whale. He's just, he's going to do it or die trying. He's going to figure out a way to quantify team depth and factor it into projections and playoff odds. It's just his life's work.

And I believe that he will accomplish it at some point. We had him on last year to talk about an initial stab that he took at this and he's still tickering, he's still refining his methods and figuring out how to implement them. But he took a new approach at it and he had some leaderboards, many leaderboards, many tables, and he had sort of the difference in depth among teams and tried to factor in, okay, if you lose X number of your top players, how much will you actually lose and expect a winning percentage? And this was one way to quantify depth. Although, as he noted, there are many ways to look at it

because if you have a lot of good players, then you will lose more if you'll lop off those good players from your roster. Even if you have good depth, you're still losing superstars. Whereas if you're a team that doesn't have any stars, this is maybe the saddest Rocky stat I've ever seen. I know.

Yeah, they got walloped in that one. It wasn't the headline, but I was like, geez, you guys. Yeah, it was like, if you take away the Rockies three or ex best players, their win expectancy doesn't decrease at all. Like the difference between their top line players and the replacements just isn't enough to even register really. Which I mean, they do have a few pretty good players who

have had pretty good seasons and might again, but yeah, comparing them to some of these other teams, it's just, it's not stars and scrubs. It's not solely scrubs, but it's just much more mediocrity. And so, yeah, you might see a team like the Dodgers is gonna lose the most, but it's all kind of relative because then they're still gonna be at a high level after they lose the top guys, because they still have a bunch of good guys and they still have depth.

So you kind of have to look at it as an ordinal ranking. Anyway, he has a lot of leaderboards and it's kind of complex, which is why this is his life's work. But he did determine that ultimately his life's work might not amount to much. He didn't quite put it that way, but that's my interpretation

because he found that the actual gap, at least by this method, in depth, is not really that great. So he concluded the variation across the league in injury resilience is relatively minor. The Mets take the biggest hit to their expected winning percentage after accounting for depth at 24 points of winning percentage

with the league average drop being 14 points, the least affected, that's the Rockies, thanks to their lack of high-end talent. Their expected winning percentage against neutral opponents drops by only a single point after accounting for the chance of injury. That gap of 23 points is less than four games across a full season.

So he's suggesting that even if he figures it out, assuming that he doesn't completely change up the method and come to a different conclusion, that depth alone might not be worth that much or might not be worth as much as it's cracked up to be. And that sounded a little lower than I probably would have guessed and maybe further refinement will raise that number.

But as he said, is that worth measuring? Obviously, but it's nice to know that based on historical data, the difference between a team with elite backups and one with a relatively weak bench is on the order of low single digits. Depth matters, measuring playoff odds more precisely is an admirable goal.

It's reassuring that as best I can tell, we're both heading in the right direction and not far off already. So I don't know, maybe that's kind of a counterintuitive conclusion or it's not depth doesn't matter, but it maybe varies a little less than people might have intuitively guessed or than I would have probably. cooking in a lab all by himself. This is like a broader effort to think about how we can incorporate the notion of depth into our playoff odds most primarily because we tend to underrate teams that have good depth in terms of their likelihood of making the postseason. Although it's bent notes in that piece, we can sometimes underrate the impact of stars too, just from the way we deal with

played appearances. So, you know, it all kind of balances eventually, but I think we want to be able to say with greater nuance, which of these teams is going to go in the s*** if it loses its stars. And our playoff odds obviously reflect on roster changes, right? So like, you know, again, I'm not gonna name a player, but think of a star, think of your favorite team's biggest star. If that guy gets hurt and is gonna miss

the rest of the season, well, his played appearances or innings pitched are gonna disappear on the death charts overnight, and then all of a sudden you're gonna look and go, oh boy, like it really hurts to lose that guy. I don't want to invoke any particular names in case curses are real and I'm wrong about it. You know, it's like have a little hedge.

But yeah, I think it's, it's a thing that we're trying to sort out how to do and, you know, having a sense of how frequently teams are losing their biggest stars and having to test that depth is useful to that endeavor. So yeah, it's like, you know, we're still figuring it out, but I think it's an interesting exercise. So there you go. I know this is a collaborative exercise, but I do prefer to think of Ben as some sort of mad scientist, Captain Ahab, Dr. Frankenstein, and everyone was saying, just leave it alone, Ben. And he just refuses to stay out of the lab and keep just stitching together different systems.

Maybe he's Dr. Moreau in this analogy. I don't know, but he's worrying at this problem while everyone else is worrying about him. That's the way that I prefer to view it. And then you can construct a mythology in which you have competing mad scientists. Because surely if Ben is a mad scientist, then Dan is sitting somewhere doing God knows what with the Zip's machine.

So we got a lot of creative juice and narrative arc, yet to be explored, canon yet to be set. Yes, or headcanon at least, mine. And he also kind of quantified just how frequently a team will actually lose a significant amount of value to injury or to unavailability. And as he specified, this is not a way to try to figure out, okay, players who are playing through some sort of injury and maybe have diminished performance because of that. This is purely about players who are just not available at all and were projected to

be and the difference between the expectations and the reality. And so he found that last year's Atlanta Braves were pretty close to the worst case scenario, which is not news to anyone, certainly to Atlanta fans. And he kind of calculated that they were basically like losing two and a half of your best players, more or less. I mean, they literally did lose Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuna Jr. for much of the season

and then they lost other guys too. So he put this as a 2.5 best player missing team. And he looked over the past decade to see just what the frequency is of how many like increments of your top player missing, just how common it is among all teams. And so he found that being a two and a half best players missing team, that's just 4.6% of all of the teams.

So that is quite rare to be as injured as the Braves were last year. Though that is very similar to being not injured at all, to just having none of your top players missing, essentially 5.6%. So roughly equally likely to be as bitten by the injury bug as the Braves were last year and not to be bitten at all, which might be like last year's Royals or something.

He didn't say that, but I'm just guessing because they had good injury health and luck. And so he found that the vast majority of teams fell somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 top player equivalents of missed time. And he said that he at least found this to be a satisfyingly reasonable shape. It's quite rare for a team to have no injury issues at all

among their top 10 players. It's equally rare for a team to have huge injury problems missing the equivalent of more among their top 10 players. It's equally rare for a team to have huge injury problems missing the equivalent of more than their top two players. So that would be the baseline expectation if you're calibrating how hurt your team's roster is going to be and thus how hurt you are watching it. It's roughly like, okay, take away one of their top 10 players for a full season, essentially.

That would be the most common outcome. Either that or half a best player or maybe one and a half of your best players. Basically, like, that half to one and a half is going to encompass the majority of teams. So that's just the kind of calibration, knowing that you're almost certainly not gonna get things through things unscathed, but you're also gonna usually not lose like a third of your lineup or your rotation or something

over the whole season. So that's the injury bar. That's the baseline basically, which is helpful to know. Yeah, I agree. And speaking of injuries, there have been a few lately as there often are. I wanted to ask you about a trio of shoulder injuries specifically. Shoulder injuries, never good news, but there have been three in particular, and I wanted to ask you which you thought was most damaging to its team's fortunes based on what we know now about the player, the team, the severity of the

injury. Okay. So one is pretty important to you and your Mariners. It's Victor Robles who was carted off the field with a shoulder injury the other day. And he's gonna be out for a while. They're shutting him down for what, 12 weeks, it sounds like he's gonna be out. Yeah, he's on the IL now. It's a left shoulder dislocation, which caused a small fracture in the humeral head in his left shoulder.

That's a disturbing sequence of words. Yeah, it was really bad in real time. Yeah, the fracture is supposed to heal without surgery, so I guess that's good. But even if he does avoid surgery, which I suppose is not a certainty, then it'll take in a- Yeah, they have to monitor how it's healing on its own. Yeah. which I suppose is not a certainty. Then it'll take- Yeah, they have to monitor how it's healing on its own. Yeah, six weeks to heal, a six week rehab process. So that's best case, you're looking at three months.

And we know that the Mariners offense, it doesn't have bats to spare. And so that's bad. Okay, sticking with the Atlanta Braves, Reynaldo Lopez, we mentioned his injury the other day. He underwent arthroscopic surgery, which is better than a more invasive alternative, but still worse than not having surgery at all. And having completed this procedure, they now say he will be shut down for 12 weeks. And Schnittger described it as a cleanup procedure, which doesn't sound so bad,

but he's gonna be shut down from throwing for 12 weeks. And then that takes you to July, and then he has to be reevaluated at that point. And even if everything looks good, then he's gonna need several more weeks to ramp back up, which means you're looking at August or even September potentially. And that's assuming that the Braves are still in it and they've recovered from this

rough start and they could actually use him. You know, there's some scenario, I guess, where he has a setback or the Braves just continue to suffer setbacks and they just shut him down and he doesn't come back at all. So this is coming on the heels of the extension he signed and Atlanta losing some pitchers and he was a pretty important pitcher for them last year. So not good again, not good. Not good is the consistent theme here, but I'm asking you which is least good.

The other one is Blake Snell. Blake Snell has himself a shoulder injury also. Now his sounds like the least severe of the three, at least based on what we know now, but also he is the best player of the three with the highest expectations and highest salary of the three. So there's no structural damage, they say,

and it's just inflammation, but they are shutting him down for a bit. He's on the 15 day IL. He's going to get an injection of some sort, it sounds like. And what's kind of concerning is that he says this has been bothering him for weeks. So it's not just that this started once the season started and he was throwing an earnest, it's just inflammation.

But you always kind of have to worry, okay, what's causing the inflammation? Is there some underlying issue here? So you were talking the other day about the Dodgers getting healthy. And I said, don't count on it. And you said, no, I'm not, of course not because they're the Dodgers.

Well, yeah, no sooner did we have that conversation than they lost one of their top starters. So Blake Snell, Victor Robles, Reynaldo Lopez, if we're doing a shoulder concern meter here, how are you ranking the levels? Okay. I am putting Braves at one, Mariners at two, Dodgers at three. One being most concerning. Most concerning.

Okay. So here's sort of why, because it would be so boring if I gave you an answer and then it was just like, won't tell you why, figure it out on your own. I think that the situation in Atlanta, Sean Murphy home runs aside, managing to beat the Phillies aside. Did I go into that segment thinking that Philly had held on to their win and that the curse thing would have a bigger impact? I mean, I maybe did, but why would I admit that? You know why would I, you know what I mean? Why wouldn't I just say, hey, Shane, cut it? Because I'm a pro.

Pretend that you know what you're doing and you never make a mistake. And it's all routine, just like Edmundo Sosa did. He held on to that ball, even if the Phillies didn't hold on to their lead. And I think that the broader curse point remains because of all the stuff I'm about to say. We talked last time about the concern that we had about this Atlanta team. You know, they're five

and a half back in the NLEs. They're in last place, which I will point out just to remind everyone who maybe is like, oh, what's the fifth team in the NLEs? It's the Marlins. That's the Marlins, you know? It's a good reminder. Thank you. And the Nationals also in that division. Braves behind both of those clubs. So I do think that Atlanta has some amount of starting pitcher depth in the upper minors, but it's not endless.

Their system is down relative to where it's been in recent years, which isn't a result of them being bad at stuff. It's just that they have graduated a lot of guys who are now on the roster. So I wonder about their ability to sort of trade in a way that sufficiently replaces production if it comes to that. Though again, they have some guys, but they're like, they're trying to, Ben, they're trying to, um, like to, to lean on those guys, you know? And it's not the, it's not endless steps, you know? Like I guess we're going to see Hurston Waldrop at some point, right?

But sale doesn't look quite right. Same doesn't look quite right. You know, I know that his fit is better than his his ERA, but he looks like his slot is different. And I don't know. They just have a vibe right now as a club of like, we thought last year was the year everything goes wrong and they fall off a cliff and they don't make the postseason. But no, actually, maybe this is the year that it's like it all proves to be too much. They end up in too deep a hole before Strider comes back. They're really

reliant on like, you know, Grant Holmes, Price Elder. Again, maybe it'll be fine, but I just think that they're less well positioned to weather some of this than they have been in prior years, either in terms of the quality of their depth, which again, they have depth, but they're like kind of running through it, or their ability to swing a big trade and have that sort of reinforce their unit. But then sometimes they lose Ronald Acuna Jr. like in the middle of the year and they win the World Series. So I might end up looking like a real dummy, Ben.

I got dummy potential written all over me. I don't think that Lopez probably would have repeated how effective he was last year, certainly from an ERA perspective. Granted, his FIP was excellent too. His expected ERA and ex-FIP and some other peripherals, a little less so, but still strong, but there was probably some regression coming regardless,

but even so he was a pretty key cog in that rotation. And he is now projected on the FanGraph step charts for a mere 25 remaining regular season innings. Even so the Braves rotation projects to be third best in baseball, according to the Fangrass step charts behind the Dodgers and the Phillies. But I'm with you. There are serious causes for concern there. And I know you have the reigning Cy Young Award winner, and then you're about to have Spencer Strider, who was one of

the favorites going into last year for the Cy Young. and Schwalbach is good. And so it's a strong top of the rotation potentially, but yeah, I think I'd take the under on third best rotation from this day forward. So. Yes. And you're just in a position where, coming into the season, there was hope that we just have to ride out the remaining injury absences and then we're going to be

a fully effective Voltron of a, and the amount of time where they're going to have all of these guys healthy and back together, it's just, it's different now than it was, right? Which isn't to say that they can't figure it out just, I'm nervous for them in part because unlike the Mariners, which I'll get to next, like they play in a good division with good teams. Marlins and Nationals aside, like I just don't know how much further back you want to fall from the Mets and the Phillies than you already are, So they're in a spot where they're not going to be cushioned by the relative midness of the division in a way that Seattle might be, although, you know, maybe the angels are just seven and three. Ben, do I swear, what the f**k, dude?

Ben Zechra Yeah. I swear, what the f**k dude? Angel's fever, yeah. Catch it. So that brings us to my Seattle Mariners. I guess the best way to talk about where Seattle finds itself because the hits have kept coming, right? So, you know, Robles got hurt and it sucks because like the catch was so cool. And then it was obvious right away how bad it was. You know, when you have, when you sustained an injury that is not your lower body and they have to bring the cart out, you are just in like a lot of pain. You're just in a tremendous amount of pain. It really

sucked. Like it was clear that he was just not okay. And anyway, so, so Robles gets hurt, we get to live the Donakans own life. And then yesterday, Ryan Bliss tore a peck or something. And so like he's on the aisle. So this was not a deep club. This was not a club that had much leeway or give in terms of depth. And now you're going to have like, you know, they have like a load bearing Miles Mastrobony. I don't know that that's the place you want to be, you know, like we're going to see a lot of Leo Rivas, Dominic Kanzone.

I think the reason that I put them behind Atlanta is one, my expectations were just low. How big a deal is this? I mean, a big deal and obviously such a bummer for Robles, but like also what are we even doing here? And that still exists for this club as a question. And I do think that the West is softer and the Mariners have a superior farm system. So they at least theoretically have some options if they find themselves in a position where they determine they need to make moves to stay competitive to replace some of this production. Either they look around and they deem one of these young guys an able substitute, or

they trade some of their minor leaguers to replace what they have. Now I will say they do find themselves in this kind of funny position because you might think to yourself like, oh, they can just call up one of those young guys. And yeah, I mean, maybe they can, but also not as many of those young guys as you might think are outfielders. Some of their better outfield prospects are further away. So like in terms of replacing Brobless specifically, I don't know.

And then you have the Dodgers and it's like, this was part of the plan. I mean, maybe they thought that, I think they probably thought they were gonna get more innings out of Snell than any of their other like whoops-a-doodle, these guys are always hurt dudes. I'm sure the thing that they thought was going to sort of limit his inning ceiling was inefficiency rather than injury. But they just got a whole mess of guys, you know, and they'll play some of those guys and then snow come back, probably

it sounds like, and they'll play different guys at different times. Like I don't want to say that there's endless depth because there's not. And I don't want to say that it could never like become a problem for them. But also I think they'll probably be fine. Yeah, I would not be at all surprised if it plays out a little like last year did where he started slow and then he also got hurt. That was groin injuries, not shoulder. So shoulder, a little scarier. But he of course had had the late start after signing late and ramping up late and everything. And so it wasn't so strange seemingly that he wasn't quite together from the gecko. But then of course he put it all together

and was just the best pitcher in baseball or one of them for an extended stretch, which we've seen him do a few times now. So, would not be at all surprised if he just shuts it down briefly, comes back, has no lingering ill effects, and just is dominant and lights out for the rest of the season. That is something we've seen him do before.

Though shoulder injury, always a little concerning until proven otherwise. But yes, they do have depth, even though you know that it's gonna be tested and it already is being tested. And he was part of the insurance knowing that it was gonna be tested, that you kind of hoped, I mean,

it says something about your options when Blake Snell is the durable guy you can count on, but from an injury perspective, he kind of has been. So yeah, it's, it's not good, but also they're the Dodgers and they don't need to push anything or anyone, even though they've had other teams given them a run for their money in the NL West. I'm assuming that eventually they will not really need to scrap for a playoff spot or even for that division title, certainly the way that the Mariners and the Braves do. So they've got a cushion, they've got a buffer, they can afford to let him heal and get right.

So I think I agree with your ranking of those things. And I'm sorry that we won't see Robles for a while for multiple reasons, but also because he's become a curiosity for me because he's right up at the front of the batter's box. He moved up a bit last year. He's now the closest guy to the pitcher this season. He moved up even more, an additional foot. He's just right at the front part of the batter's box.

And sometimes he will do it within a plate appearance, but sometimes he'll do it depending on the pitcher, but he's just kind of done it overall this year. And of course my amateur hitting coach advice recently was that everyone should move back in the box. And he has defied me. He has done the opposite of my blanket one size fits all recommendation.

And I guess it's worked okay for him. He's turned things around as a Mariner, but he feels like he can catch up to any fastball and so he wants to cut off additional movement. And so if he's facing someone who's a very breaking ball dependent, then he wants to just interrupt and anticipate and kind of cut off some of those pitches, intercept them before they can sink and move more. And I continue not to totally buy it and continue to think, but still it'd be better to just have a longer time

to get a read on that pitch and be able to react to it. But that's what he says. And he says that he's taking a cue from watching Wansoto. So Wansoto doesn't do it as extremely as Robles has been doing it, but I guess anything that Wansoto is doing seems like it should maybe be a good idea as a hitter at least,

although maybe he just has such preternatural skills that you can't really mimic something if you're a mere mortal that Wansoto can do effectively. Anyway, I was looking forward to seeing whether that would continue to work or whether eventually he would have to concede that, yeah, Ben was right. I should have moved back in the box. Well, and it's annoying because we won't be able to conclude anything about him after this year.

Because even when he's back, I mean, I say that maybe he'll come back and he'll just like light the world on fire and he'll hit great and it'll be fine. And we'll be like, wow, it's so nice that the Seattle Mariners got this awesome outfield reinforcement in time for their playoff run. But more likely, we just have to write this season off as, you know, something of a mulligan for him because if he comes back and he doesn't perform well, how confident will we be that we know that's because he is giving back the gains versus is not right still

from injury, like we're just not gonna know. So that sucks. Yeah, it does. There's a couple of guys who did have breakouts in a sense last season and got extensions as a result of that. And now we don't get to see really whether they're gonna continue that

at least just based on their fully healthy and available selves. And of course, Snell got himself a large contract commitment as well. All right, let us take a quick break and we'll be back with Michael Clare to talk about the baseball event of the year, of the season.

It's happened already. Of the century. Yeah. Why not? If we're going to go for it, we might as well go all in Yeshiva versus Lehman. Where do you go in a world of bad takes? For the good takes on baseball and life With a balance of analytics and humor Philosophical musings

Effectively wild Effectively wild Well, long-time listeners may recall that I take issue with the idea that baseball is uniquely or to any greater degree than usual, a game of failure. I think that failure is the default state in many sports, if not most sports. I think we wanna see athletes accomplish difficult things. We wouldn't wanna watch games of success. I think if you pick just about any other sport,

most of the shots don't go in. They don't usually score a goal. That's just the way that sports work. Plus baseball is sort of a zero-sum sport. don't go in. They don't usually score a goal. That's just the way that sports work. Plus, baseball is sort of a zero-sum sport. So if the case for baseball being a game of failure is that batters fail most of the time they come to the plate, then doesn't that suggest that pitchers succeed most of the time? Why are we looking at this solely through the offense's perspective? Maybe it's a game of success for the defense. Anyway, that is a prelude to this

conversation, which is to say that I will make an exception and I will allow that there was in fact a game of failure or maybe a double header of failure, multiple games of failure played this week on Wednesday. Maybe it wasn't so much that these games were games of failure as it was that they were preceded by many games of failure. When the Yeshiva Maccabees faced the Lehman Lightning on Wednesday, they had the two longest active streaks of futility, the longest active losing streaks in college baseball. Someone had to win and one person who won was Michael Clare, who was on hand to cover this event for mlb.com and joins us now to give us

the on the ground reporting, give us some sense of what it was like on the scene. Welcome Michael. Hi guys, how are you? Doing great. So I assume that you, like me, found out about Yeshiva and Lehman via a Reddit post just over two weeks ago from Conscious Apple

on the baseball subreddit, or am I assuming incorrectly and you're a long time Lehman and or Yeshiva fan? Well, I did find out from Conscious Apple who is also Moonlight Graham, who is also a former professional player himself. I don't want to give too much info because I don't know if he wants that info out there, but I did meet the great Conscious Apple at the game yesterday.

Other people found out about the game from DSarm, the popular YouTuber. But while I am not a lifelong Yeshiva or Lehman fan, I did attend a D3 school that I was not good enough to play for their baseball team. And I did get called out in the student newspaper for when I delicately made fun of their then 35 game losing streak. So there was a lot riding on this one. Yeah, this really captured everyone's imagination. So it went viral in sort of a very niche way among hardcore baseball people. It really swept, I think, our consciousnesses. There was a real sense of enthusiasm. I was quite captivated by this. A bunch of people were watching the live streams of the game.

I had it on the camera angle and quality were not ideal. But still, I was witnessing history, some sort of history. So when and why did you decide that you were going to go and witness it in person? So yeah, I think it was as soon as I saw the Reddit post. I brought it up to my editors and they were like yes Do this we want this which then I think myself and everybody for this game Was in this weird scenario where we didn't want yeshiva or Lehman to win until yesterday It was like you have to keep losing you can't take this from us like a 40 game losing streak is fine a 97 game, but like you you've got to keep losing until this matchup.

So there's a lot of scoreboard watching the weekend before, you know, I was watching the scores being like, please, you can't win. You can't win when we're this close. I just, I had no idea how popular it was going to be. People at MLB were going into conference rooms and pulling up the live stream on the larger TV so everyone could watch together. I was not read, you know, I thought this would be interesting for people like me and, you know, weirdo baseball people, but it seemed like it really found a home amongst any sports fan. So give for those who are new to this fervor, who perhaps do not spend time on Reddit because

it scares us or we're not college baseball enthusiasts like Ben famously enthusiastic about college baseball. Get on board with college baseball, Meg. You really should give it a shot. Yeah, thanks. But give us some context for just how profound the losing had been prior to the action that you saw. Yeah, so Yeshiva University, modern Orthodox Jewish school in Washington Heights had lost 99 consecutive games coming

into this. Only two players on their team had ever seen a win while playing for Yeshiva. So everybody else was used to they go to practice, they put their uniforms on, they go to a game, they lose, and they repeat. Winning might not be everything, but losing like that has got to be hard. And then Lehman came in with a 42 game losing streak and their head coach, Crystal, got a very young guy, had a chance to talk to him. He was on Lehman College's team when they last won a game. So he had never won a game as a manager, but he was on the team the last time they won a game. So there was a lot riding on this. Lehman had a entering the game a 17-0

all-time record against Yeshiva. The game was supposed to be at Lehman's facilities, which is a natural grass field, and talking to one of the former players who came out for the game, he said there are manholes in the outfield, so like you have to know when and where you can dive. And also there's a Tals Hill type hill in right field you have to race up. Because of the weather in New York, it had to be moved to a neutral site. Because Yeshiva were the ones who found the neutral site,

they then became the hosts for the game. So it was, the beauty of baseball was really on display. Technically, when you said that no one had seen a win, It was, the beauty of baseball was really on display. Technically, when you said that no one had seen a win, I guess they'd seen plenty of wins just by the opposing teams. They never felt what a win felt like. They kept seeing other people and had no idea what that experience

would be like for themselves. Yeah, that's the interesting thing to me is that there really was an underdog in this game of underdogs. There was sort of like, it's like a Russian nesting doll of Davids and Goliaths basically, where the David in this scenario was also the Goliath to another David, because Yeshiva's losing streak was more than twice as long as Leeman's. And then as you said, Leeman has dominated Yeshiva head to head 17 and 0 all time with a ridiculous run differential, evidently 15.4 runs per game against Yeshiva's 3.8.

So this was really a mismatch. You might be inclined to say, oh, they're both terrible. And I guess you wouldn't be wrong about that, but also there are gradients here. One was way more terrible than the other. Yeah, well, what was interesting is once the game started, and I don't know if this was from all the fans who were there or like the weather.

Yes, it was D3 baseball, so the guys aren't so big. They're not maybe the strongest or the fastest. And yeah, there D3 baseball, so the guys aren't so big, they're not maybe the strongest or the fastest, and yeah, there were a few errors you might not see in other levels, but there was good baseball on display. You would not, if you went to this game, you would not think this is a team that's lost 99 games, this is a team that's lost 42 straight games. You'd think, okay, yeah, maybe they went, I don't know, 8 and 20 in the season, but you certainly wouldn't think this was a... The records made you think going into this, that this could have been some sort of the start of Bad News Bears' Comedy of Errors, and it wasn't. These were good baseball teams playing good baseball. Yeah, I guess it's kind of camouflaged when bad baseball

teams play each other because they kind of look equally competent slash incompetent. Maybe it wouldn't have looked so impressive if this was one of them versus a D1 team or even maybe the best D3 team, but playing against each other, it's a similar enough level and it looks more or less like real baseball most of the time that you might not know at a glance what you were witnessing here. And there were some really solid plays by middle infielders especially, some great plays by each team shortstop. You know, maybe the arm strength and the throws to first were not the hardest throws you've ever seen. Maybe some of the base running decisions, especially leaving college, they ran into all three outs in the fifth inning of game one,

where if they don't do that, maybe it's not such a tight, dramatic game. But for the most part, yeah, this was an evenly matched game. It looked like baseball. There weren't three dozen walks, which was my concern with how cold it was and how much wind there was going to be was that we would just be watching guys walk to first all day and that's not fun for anybody at any level. But instead they were good games and everybody who came out I think had an amazing time. I imagine that that, you know, especially after the conclusion of the second game, you're going to get out of the cold.

Both of these teams have snapped their losing streak. There are vibes and those vibes are good, but they're sort of aggregated and averaged good vibes. I am curious in the break between the first and second game, when Yeshiva is now staring down a hundred game losing streak, What was the atmosphere like as they prepared to play the second game of the doubleheader? Because it's all fun and games, both of those teams come out of there with a win,

but if their streak of futility continues, like does it become a sad thing that we have to just monitor for the rest of our lives? It was a sad thing between the games, because the first one was so close So tight it was it was packed I would say most fans were yeshiva fans whether they attended the school or there are people that took work off and you know When you're rooting for an underdog you're gonna root for the 99 game losing streak rather than the 42 game losing streak

And then there are a bunch of kids from local high schools who you know walked over when when high school got out And they watched the game and it was so close It was so tight, you know when when yeshiva was up five four and they ended the fifth by gaining The runner out the plate it felt like one of the most important games you've ever been at but when they lose 7-6 on a hit by pitch in extra innings was the eighth inning but because it was a doubleheader seven innings each There was this feeling of like, just like crushing despair, like, well, if we can't do it this time, how are we ever going to do it? And a lot of the people left, there's a much smaller crowd for the second game. It was really cold. But I also think

part of it was, had the first game been a blowout, maybe more people stick around. But the first game took so much energy and desire from everybody. It was kind of like, we have to just stand around and start over again? Like, we can't do this again. So there was this feeling like that. If anything though, maybe that helped Yeshiva because you could see that they were getting nervous at the end of the first game their pitchers were walking guys when they Hadn't been doing that earlier before the hit by pitch There was a bunt and nobody covered first base where if they cover first base The hit by pitch then just loads the bases rather than forcing the winning run in you know the little things that like do

Separate a winning team from a losing team the cracks started to appear So after that though they put up three runs in the bottom of the first in game one and just kind of ran away with it. So I wonder if how close they came and all the energy, maybe it made it easier. Hey, let's just play loose. We're gonna, we've lost a hundred now, but it helps that Yeshiva took a big lead early in the next one because I could see where if Lehman took the lead, Yeshiva just throws their hands up. But you know, not actually, but the players on the bench go,

we're never going to win a game. Yeah. Can you set the scene just to tell us a little bit about the field and also the conditions and then the crowd, which there was one. Yeah. Yeah. All the players said, you know, I'd asked the manager and some of the players like, what's this crowd like? Like, usually it's like our moms and our girlfriends and maybe, maybe they come out.

So the game was at Farley Dickinson Field, which is out in Teaneck, New Jersey. It is kind of in a little valley right by the route for off ramp for Hackensack. There were a few foul balls that went on to the highway there and during rush hour we were all very excited to see if they would hit any cars. When game one started at 2 the temperature was about 37 38 maybe 39 degrees wind gusts of 30 miles an hour but it was about as packed as you can get for Teaneck, New Jersey at two o'clock on a Tuesday. The bleachers were mostly filled by the end of the game. They were packed.

The area behind home plate near Yeshiva's dug out down the third base line. That's where most of the high school kids came. There was a bunch of high school kids who came from the local high schools when their day was over and walked over, and that's where they all congregated. I'd say about 80% of the fans were Yeshiva fans. There were a fair amount who were students or faculty from Yeshiva. They have a really good D3 basketball team, and they were just in the tournament. So a lot of the cheering were kind of basketball cheers and they were doing the, you know, sort of jazz fingers behind home plate in big moments and and and so it had this this playoff basketball almost soccer like feeling to the cheers because I think that's what they were used to doing and then most of the

fans who came out that had no tie to the school seemed like they were rooting for Yeshiva just because of the longer losing streak. But there were people who took work off. There was a guy, Saul Ehrlich, who I talked to. He took the day off work so that he could come out there. He was also in shorts, which I thought was insane. And he was there the whole game.

And I was freezing bundled up I brought long johns in my backpack because I was like I don't know how bad it's gonna get You would think that weather would have made it worse but I think it almost made it this communal atmosphere where everybody's suffering but everybody's having fun and we're all in this together you know most of the crowd did leave between games one and two and in game two the Lehman fans kind of had the edge But at the end when it was pretty clear that yeshiva was going to win If lehman came back there was not enough sunlight. There was no lights at this field

So there was a chance if the sixth inning took longer the game was going to end early So once the Lehman fans at the end saw that Yeshiva was winning, they started joining with the Yeshiva fans and cheering for them as the game was ending. So it really was, everybody who was there loved baseball, loved weird baseball, loved story and passion. And it was just, it was, it was an incredible atmosphere to just hang out and talk baseball with everybody. And I imagine that that same sentiment has to be there for the players as well because, as you noted, these are both Division III programs.

These kids aren't there on scholarship, right? By the terms of it being Division III, they're sort of playing for the love of the game in face of tremendously long losing streaks. Did you get a chance to talk to any of them about why they were doing this? So the sense you get is they love baseball. They love playing baseball. Being an athlete in college is hard. You look at the numbers,

whatever percentage of high school athletes, it's like, what, 20% if that continued playing athletics in college. So even on D3, this is something great. You know, you play until they take the glove from you. The game one starter for Lehman, Justin Chamorro, who pitched the entire game, all eight innings, about 100 pitches. He is he is a bio major. He's going to go into a P.A. program when this is done. But he said, I talked to him after the game.

He said, I told my coach, Chris Delgado, you're not taking the ball from me. If we're going to lose, it's going to be me who loses it. I am carrying this until the end of the game. That's the attitude these players have. This is this is why we love sports, right? Like it doesn't matter if you're the best team, but like this is why competition is fun and we're into this because you have pride in yourself,

you have pride in your teammates, you wanna do something for a group larger than yourself. And that was kind of the attitude that the players had. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to talk to anyone with Yeshiva because the school put basically a media blanket around them. We weren't allowed to talk to the coaches, the players, the athletic staff. So I only got to talk to Lehman, but that was, I have to imagine it was the same for both teams. Were they worried it was just going to be overwhelming interest or were they too embarrassed

to talk about it in a good-natured self-deprecating way or what? I guess that was the vibe. Maybe they thought everyone was going to be making fun of this, but if you saw the crowd, if you saw the people coming out to cover it, maybe, you know, I know some of the people online build it as the worst game ever played, but the people who came, they wanted to see a losing streak end. We knew we weren't seeing major leaguers, but we were seeing people who take this really seriously, who go to school and then have to go to practice for hours. I don't know what their thought process was, but I think everybody who was there, the media that came out, there was

This American Life, NBC News was there, CBS News was there, I was there, Moonlight Graham from Reddit was there, DSARM was there, like there were a lot of people there. And nobody was treating this like this is a joke game and isn't it funny to laugh at these players who was just, can you believe these two teams have had these huge losing streaks and now they're gonna play each other and one of these streaks will end?

Yeah, that's the thing. Everyone was joking about, okay, something's got to give, someone's got to win. It's the most stoppable force versus the most easily moved object, however you want to put it. But I think to be honest, probably my ideal outcome would be that somehow no one won, that they just went to so many extra innings that the sun went down and there were no lights and they had to call the game on account of darkness or something, right? Like just the universe conspired to keep both of these teams winless. But if that wasn't going to happen and this streak couldn't be sustained for both of them, then I think this was the ideal outcome. And you could even argue that this was the ideal outcome period.

If you're not a sicko who just wants a really long losing streak to continue, but you just want everyone to have their moment, then it's good that this was not a doubleheader sweep, that they split this thing and that each one got to taste victory at least one time during their college careers. Yeah, that's the thing. Unless you're a creative writing major who does just want to have this endless game

and if you've seen EFIS, people start driving their cars onto the field to light it up. This really was the perfect way. In all honesty, I think it was the perfect order to happen as well, because it made Yeshivas losing streak a hundred games. Oh my, and oh, they were so close and they lost it again

and they had the lead in the last, like it had, the second game could have been a little closer. That was the only thing we could have would be like Yeshiva winning on a walk-off. However, Noah Steinmetz closed out the game, got the last two outs. He is the younger brother of Jacob Steinmetz, the only Orthodox Jewish player in minor league baseball. He's with the D-backs the younger brother of Jacob Steinmetz, the only Orthodox Jewish

player in minor league baseball. He's with the D-backs and his dad is Elliott Steinmetz, the head coach of the basketball program, which is very successful at Yeshiva University. So even then there were competing storylines and things to talk about in what was otherwise a nine to five, not very close ball game. So what is next for these two emerging Titans? Where did these programs go from here? Hopefully not back to their losing ways. I believe Lehman has like CUNY championships,

no matter what, I think every team in the CUNY program plays on that, could be wrong there. But really, I talked to Chris Delgado about, you know, he's rebuilding the program. And I asked him, you know, what does that mean? Like, these players are not here for baseball, they're here for education. So you're not really recruiting for baseball. So it kind of depends on who comes. And what it comes down to really is you set a standard, you set a culture. This is how we practice, this is how we play, this is how we carry ourselves on the field, and I think those are the things that can

make the difference. You know, you see Yeshiva losing the first game, the pitchers were getting nervous, somebody forgot to cover a base, you know, the things that even when it's close you just keep losing, it just seems like they're always going to happen. It seems like that's really the plan, is we're gonna have a team and we're gonna do the best we can, but we are going to, we're going to maximize our abilities in this scenario. So, you know, Lehman, I think historically was a team that would win like eight, ten, twelve games a year. Yeshiva, a little worse. I talked to Jake Mintz and I believe he said since 2006 they have won 29 games total.

Baseball, you're not supposed to lose 99-100 games in baseball. You know, what, the best team wins 11 out of 20 games and the worst team wins 7-8 games out of 20? It's a game of failure, Michael. It's a game of failure, but you're supposed to luck your way into succeeding sometimes. So, I don't know if you can expect these teams to be battling for D3 championships soon, but I would be shocked if we see losing streaks from them like this in the near future. One thing with Yeshiva, they do have a new head coach

and was told kind of off the record that there is sort of a new standard for play there and that they are kind of excited for what the future brings. But again, it also depends who's coming to the school, who's enrolling. Yeah, I guess I wanted to ask you just about the sequence in the first game in the fifth inning where it looked like Leheman was coming back and then didn't. And then also the way that that game ended or the way that the winning run was scored, because that just felt like the most fitting way for one of these games to end. Yeah, that fifth inning, I don't know who is, if the calls are coming from the dugout,

if the players are making the choices themselves, but in the fifth inning, in order, these are how the outs were made, picked off at second base, thrown out trying to steal third, and thrown out at home to end the inning. From a crowd excitement, you could not ask for anything better.

However, if Lehman just goes station to station, if they have those guys clogging up the base paths, was that a Dusty Baker thing from like 30 years ago? You know, maybe we don't even go to extra innings because, you know, they basically ran their way into the outs. Again, if the players are choosing that, they want to win, they want to do something, they've got the cameras there, they've got all the excitement there, like they're trying to do something. And yeah, winning on a hit-by-pitch felt crushing, especially because Yoshiba, after they gave up what was the winning run, they stranded the runners, like if they fell apart and gave up a bunch of hits and then it was 12-6, but no, it was one run. It did feel crushing, but fitting to what has happened with these teams, which then made Yeshiva's win in game two just so much better.

And I talked to Kristol Gatto after the game, and I don't have his quote in front of me, but he was very gracious, essentially saying, without saying it, I'm happy that both teams got their win today. I had a friend who was texting me during the game because he was watching too and sort of sending me play by play and was wondering if there was some sort of strange strategy that might have helped one of these teams at this point when you're losing that many times and yes you'd think what with the randomness of baseball you might just fluke or luck into a game at some point, but no. And so at that point, at this level of baseball, does it make sense to do something strange just to lean into the variance because you are far from the favorite?

I mean, do you always run? Do you just bunt constantly? Do you not swing at all and hope that you will just draw a bunch of walks or is there something randomizing pitch selection? Who knows, right? There's got to be something. I wonder whether they ever thought, okay, we can't win the conventional way. Let's win some weird way. But then again, these are real athletes and it's not a farce.

And so maybe you aren't so tempted to do that. Yeah, there was one play. I think this was the second game when Lehman was trying to come back. It was a routine pop-up to first base and there was wind, so it wasn't the easiest. But the first baseman gets turned around, misses the ball, he falls, the ball lands in fair territory but then bounces straight into foul territory with nobody touching it. So it went from a Lehman batter thinking they had an infield pop-up double to being back in the batter's box. So there were a few moments like that. One of the

issues I think with Lehman running so much was that Yeshiva's best player is their catcher, Jake Arnou. He tied the school record in game one with his sixth triple on the year. He's a good fielder, best bat on the team. So maybe if there's a worse catcher, Lehman's decision to run works out and the ball gets thrown all over the place. But with Jake Arnaud back there, he was able to kind of control that running game a little bit. And I think that I think Yeshiva might have also gotten into the Space of maybe we can just draw walks towards the end of the game as they were getting nervous

That was a complaint. I kind of heard some other people saying was you can't walk your way to a victory So I think there was some of that at play and I think the weird weather helped not incentivize that. Yeah, the only rule is it has to work. Come on guys. Exactly. Was the celebration or I guess the celebrations, could you kind of describe the level of, did they act like they had been there before

even though they hadn't? Or was there unbridled enthusiasm, was their dogpiling, did they look like they'd just won a World Series or something? The fans cheered so much more than the players. Game one, Lehman definitely cheered a little more. It was close. It was tight. They had to battle back, come back. Game two, Yeshiva kind of had it in the bag for a while. So when the game ended, the catcher and pitcher hugged. However, when Yeshiva then went off to talk to their head coach down the left field line, that's when you saw the kids kind of going wild a little bit. So I think part of it was

like we can't act like this is incredible and we can't believe we won. You know, it's a nine-five game, like come on. But when they were, I think the cameras were off and and they were down the line and they were talking to their coach You definitely saw some excitement there one of my favorite things though is is Justin Chamorro When the pitcher who won game one when he was asked, you know, how is he gonna celebrate said? I'm gonna get pizza from my favorite place when we get back to school. So it's Broadway Pizza up on 234th Street. I haven't had it yet. He told me I have to come up and try it, but that was his celebration Like yeah, we did it we won. I got class tomorrow. I got work like hey, I'm gonna get some pizza and then go to sleep I don't know if anyone had a radar gun at this game

How hard would you estimate that these pitchers were throwing? I didn't see any radar guns, but I did talk to some people. And there was a scout, but he a former scout for the Royals, Mets, and Yankees, but he said, my nephew's on leave and so I'm not working, but you know, come on over and talk to me if you want. I think the hardest throwers were probably low 80s. Most had a little slider, twisty, slurvy kind of thing. I would imagine most of what we saw was probably mid 70s though. This gave me a greater appreciation or newfound appreciation for the Caltech Beavers and their far longer streak, which I guess overlapped with the beginning of Effectively Wild.

I don't know whether we mentioned it then, but this was a long time ago, but when everyone was saying, oh, this is the worst teams ever and the longest losing streaks. No, longest active losing streaks, though they aren't anymore. But the Caltech Beavers had a decade long 228 game losing streak from 2003 to 2013.

So that's losing. That makes Yeshiva and Lehman's streaks look like nothing. Like at that point, that is a short story for, you know, you're reading that in plowshares or something like that is that that is losing for like moral purity or something. Like a winner cannot possibly be an upstanding citizen. I can't imagine what it has to be like to be the athletic director at a school that loses consecutively for a decade. This is when Meg and or Michael try to sell me, Michael Bauman, that is on the virtues of college baseball.

A big part of it is the extremes that you see in this ecosystem where you can have many different player profiles and you can have a great variation in player talent. And that is, I think, one of the most appealing things about it. And I've always been drawn to extreme futility as well as extreme success.

Just any sort of extreme is generally interesting to people. And that is the nice thing that in college baseball, you can see the future major league stars of tomorrow versus someone who just played at a school that is not really taking athletics that seriously, or it's not why they're going to that school and they have no serious professional aspirations. And so there's just more of a mismatch than you will ever see in professional baseball where every player is a professional. And that's kind of cool. That's a thing that I like about college baseball. And this was a good example of that. My hot take is that early 1900s major League Baseball probably looks a lot closer to what we saw at Farley Dickinson yesterday than we like to believe.

I think America fell in love with baseball at a time when 75 probably was the average fastball, and guys were dropping things and taking weird routes and chaos reigned. Baseball's gotten a lot better over the last 100 years, but my belief if I took a time machine back to like 1905 is that, yeah, Honus Wagner was great, but everybody else around him could have been lining up. So you don't have to take a time machine to watch Major League Baseball now,

which I assume you will go back to doing. Will that be a shock to your system after your day of doubleheader baseball between Yeshiva and Lehman? Will it be a relief to remind yourself of how good these guys are in the majors, or will you miss the charm of the amateurs? I think a little of all three, you know, I do a lot of international baseball work now

and one of the things I love about international is one game means so much. I love the 162 game schedule. I love that I can fall asleep to the radio and it doesn't really matter who wins or who loses and the story will continue the next day. That's one of my favorite parts about baseball. But it was great to have a regular season game,

an April game that wasn't gonna change anything in the standings, be live or die, where you've got a starting pitcher saying, I'm gonna throw until my arm falls off because this means so much to me. And so I think I'll miss that a little bit, but I think it'll also be nice to, you know, turn on my TV, relax, enjoy a game, whoever wins, whoever loses, it's not that big

of a deal, and everything can just continue onward. Yeah, we don't have to worry about Justin Chamorro's arm being abused. I don't think we have to worry about his long-term career prospects probably. Don't want to denigrate the guy, but I'm just saying for him, this is when you do leave it all on the field. This is when you, if you're going to risk an arm injury, this is the highest stakes game of your career probably. This is going to be the biggest crowd.

This is going to be the biggest media presence. So yeah, if you're, if you're ever going to demand the ball, now I guess you could say, I don't know what the times through the order effect is like in D3 baseball between Lehman and Yeshiva. I guess you could say maybe it'd be better if he allowed himself to be removed from the game. But if he is their best pitcher and their best option,

then that's when you ride your ace. And I think he got better as the game went along. I don't think it's like that thing people say about stinker ballers. It's like, well, they gotta be tired to throw the sinker right. I think there was the heightened expectation. He said he tunneled everything out and was just focused. And I'm sure to some extent, but it was so cold. There was so much noise. There was so much attention.

I can't imagine that in his first few innings that didn't affect him at all. So if anything, maybe his arm was tired, but he was just getting locked in the later and later it went. And yeah, he said like, this is the end of my baseball career this year. So I'm leaving everything out there because after this, I'll get my biology degree and then I'll move on to my PA career. I didn't fact check this, but my friend who was texting me was noting that one of the pitchers, I think it was one of the Lehman pitchers had walked several guys in a couple innings or less in game two. And he noted that Yeshiva has not hit a home run all year.

Is that true? Is that true that Yeshiva has not hit a home run all year. Is that true? Is that true that Yeshiva has not hit a home run all year? I guess we have to fact check that. But if that's- I might have to fact check that. However, talking to Jake Mintz again, which he loves his D3 baseball, the single season record for home runs for Yeshiva is four.

And I believe that is also the all time record. So I think it's quite possible that, no, they have not hit a home run. And even with the wind, it was swirling and it wasn't exactly going out, but nothing even really threatened to go over the wall. So. I'm looking at the stats now and fact check true,

they have not hit a home run this year. Their opponents have hit 16, I suppose. So it's not a huge check true, they have not hit a home run this year. Their opponents have hit 16, I suppose. So it's not, not a huge power circuit, but still they have not hit a ball over the wall and you'd think that that would make it more imperative to throw strikes. Because if there's not much of a power threat there, then you'd think that just, just fire it in there or just lob it in there. But then again, maybe that pitcher has trouble throwing strikes, even if he's intending to, which is kind of why I was saying at some point, do you

just sort of take, but that's no fun for players if you just put the take sign on for everyone. I mean, you don't want to win that way probably. So I get it. Just a play straight up and eventually you'll get your win because you'll play another winless team. So this was charming. I think we all very much enjoyed it, whether we were there in person or we're following it vicariously. So I'm glad this was flagged for everyone. I don't know if that

Reddit thread hadn't happened. Do you think this just would have passed and we would have all been unaware of this or maybe someone else would have noticed at some point over the past couple of weeks, I just, these teams were not on my radar. So if someone else hadn't pointed this out, then I would have been oblivious to this game and I'm glad that I wasn't. I would have been so sad.

I feel like we would have found out six weeks from now, like, oh yeah, there was this amazing game and well, nobody went and who knows, maybe in the middle of Texas right now there's a team that's lost 75 games in a row and they're gonna play someone who's like but you know nobody's recording it right now so nobody knows to go find it like you wrote what I think almost ten years ago you went out to Kansas City for a semi pro team that was yeah well yeah deep cut that you're... Yeah. Yeah, the Salinas stockade, the independent league team that was a traveling team. So they had

no home park and they were just roaming around and they were kind of put together last minute. And they were one of the worst professional teams of all time at the time that I went out to see them. So yeah, I've always been attracted to that sort of story, especially in Indie ball, because it's like you are a professional and that would be impressive to a lot of people. Hey, I was a pro baseball player, but then again, there are so many rungs

on that professional ladder. I guess there were even more then than there are now. And so you could be one of the best players in the world. I mean, on a percentage basis, you're still up there if you're anywhere in pro ball, and yet you are so vastly far below the best players in the world. So yeah, I've always been drawn to that contrast.

And that's why this story tickled me too. Yeah, when I was in early college, I followed the road warriors who were the eighth team in the Atlantic League Just to fill out the schedule. They had no home park Their roster was the 26th man of every other team. Whoever didn't make the cut But I followed them meet me and a friend followed them around for a few weeks ended up staying in hotels with them and Meeting friends and family and girlfriends

and taking photos with them. There is something kind of magical and, you know, what happens, if a team loses a hundred games in the woods and nobody notices, did they lose a hundred games? I guess that's really the question we have to ask. But you would notice. This is your beat now. I'm sorry to tell you, but you just have to go be cold in suburban New Jersey whenever the bell is rung. Well, listen, White Manna cheeseburgers was down the street, so I had a good meal before the game.

So as long as there's something interesting wherever, you know, the first McDonald's, I think, is down the street from where Bakersfield used to play. And if you guys remember that stadium center field is lower than home plate, so they had to build a giant hitters eye. So as long as there's weird stuff along the way, too, I mean, that's the America you want to see. Yeah, it's a love of the game situation. you want to see. Yeah, it's a love of the game situation. And speaking of that, you just completed a book, I believe, about another team that loves the game. I guess it's probably a little premature for pre orders. But congrats on submitting the manuscript. And if you want to get a little plug in, please do.

Yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I just completed the manuscript a couple weeks ago. It's tentatively titled. We sacrifice everything to baseball. It's about the Czech Republic National baseball team everyone on the team is a is an amateur The head coach is a neurologist in Brno Their star pitcher is a firefighter their media manager is also a pitcher on the team Their media manager is also a pitcher on the team. And so, you know, they they kind of surprised everybody and Shohei Otani wore their cap after after playing them in the world baseball classic. So that should be out from University of Nebraska Press

in time for next world baseball classic. So as soon as I have preorder information, I will be spamming everybody and probably sending you guys a message like if you if you need a guest to talk about something, I've got a book out. Well, we actually got a question a few weeks ago that I thought at the time, and answering this sounds like a good question for Michael Clare, not anticipating that we would be talking to you soon, but since we are, I will just pose it to you in person. We got this question from listener

Simon who wrote in to say, I teach English overseas and have the delightful opportunity to introduce baseball to hundreds of middle and high school students in the Czech Republic this year. Hockey and football reign supreme, so I've only had the chance to explain that baseball exists and that Shohei Otani is very, very good at it. That said, I think this might be promising ground for new fans. Czech Republic had a team in the WBC and played against Samurai Japan in Nagoya last November. So my question is, which team should I build a fan base for?

The Dodgers have seemingly locked down Japan, the Braves have Kurosawa, who gets the Czech lands? I'm willing to set aside any personal attachments to find the right fit," he continued. Some factors you might consider in your decision-making. Czech fans are known for being rowdy, heavy drinkers, and love a good player nickname. The nearest big leaguer by place of birth to our town was Josef Kukolec, an electrician and skilled bowler who made precisely one start for the 1904 Brooklyn Superbas. The only player with a CZ in his name was Jim Czikowski of the 1994 Colorado Rockies,

or perhaps I should contact every club social media team and see who will send these kids cool promotional merch. I'm not above selling out by any means. So, given what you have learned of Czech Republic, the national character, the players on that team, would you care to make any recommendation about which big league club might be best suited to be introduced to the youth of Czech Republic by Simon? This is incredible. Does he say where, I looked up just quickly, John Stradronski, who's from Prague.

Does he say if he's if he's in Prague or if he's in? He doesn't specify now. Okay. My first thought, my first thought was Mets or Orioles, simply because there's kind of this losers but coming close. It's also the two teams where Martin Trvenka, arguably the best player in Czech national team history, came closest to reaching the majors.

He was an Orioles prospect. He was called up for a weekend with the Mets, but when Chance Cisco didn't have to go on the IL, he was just the bullpen catcher for a weekend. So arguably one of the like saddest ways of reaching your dream kind of. Like you get to see your dream, you get to wear the uniform, you get to be in the bullpen, but you don't actually get to be on the roster. Both of those places seem like a good place too, to grab some beers with friends and, a good time. I'll say a lot of the Czech players who I know who have come over love the Yankees because there is that kind of history where

if you're overseas you kind of want to follow one of the big teams, but my gut goes Mets or Orioles at the moment with maybe a team like Kansas City, because, you know, Czech Republic, it's central Europe too often it gets looped in with Eastern Europe, small countries so I could see, you know, like, oh, Bobby Witt Jr. and, you know, if they were getting into the sport in 2015, I could see like, oh my God, this underdog story and they don't necessarily play like everybody else. So those are off the top of my head. Those are the three I'm leaning towards. All right. Great recommendations from the man himself. Looking forward to the book. I will link everyone to the story that you wrote about Yeshiva and Lehman for MLB.com.

Always enjoy your work. Happy to have you on. Thank you, Michael. Thank you guys. Always a big fan to listen. I don't know if this is weird, but you guys talk to me to sleep anytime there aren't late night baseball games to put on. It's the podcast that I then turn to.

We get that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Sing you a lullaby or something while you are on here. The stat blast song is my lullaby. So. All right, figured I'd read this email that we got from Patreon supporter Peanut Cheesebar in response to our discussion yesterday of Britt Giroli's piece for the Athletic about

the ways in which players are frugal, let's say. Peanut Cheesebar says, I wonder to what extent the players' cheapness is partially based on their extremely competitive nature. These guys don't like getting beat by anyone, whether a lefty reliever with a submarine delivery or a delivery driver bringing them a sub sandwich. Nice. I feel like that competitiveness could be a factor, along with the choice fatigue that comes with all of these nickel and dime add-ons to food orders, etc.

Yeah, hadn't thought of that. These players are mostly ultra competitive. Not that anyone loves to spend money they don't have to, but perhaps that is another manifestation of the way that they're wired. Good thought. That will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening and special thanks to those of you who support the podcast on Patreon, as do the following five listeners who, like Peanut Cheese Bar, have already signed up and pledged

some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. CJ Kindle, JM, Ran Bunnell, Sean Kim, and John Donaldson, 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, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free email answers, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free fan graphs, memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions,

comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fan graphs dot 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 notes, sub-fangraphs, 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 one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk

to you soon. Follow the OAA way Who's gonna win With their quips and opinions It's effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild Effectively wild It's effectively wild