Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2313: Great Sports Content

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about old-pitcher comebacks (or dropoffs), James Wood’s inefficient excellence, Aaron Judge’s potentially unparalleled peak, whether pitching to contact pays, a possible Paul Skenes change, a base-stealing update, private equity’s MLB plans, and Rob Manfred’s feelings on fandom. Audio intro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Guy Russo, “Effectively Wild Theme” […]

Does baseball look the same to you as it does to me? When we look at baseball, how much do we see? Well, the curveball's bent and the home runs fly The more to the game, the beats the eye To get the stats compiled and the stories filed Fans on the internet might get riled, but we can break it down on Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2313 of 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. So, Jesse Chavez is back on the Braves big league roster. Maybe he will save them in his latest return.

But more interesting to us, I think, in old pitcher news is that Rich Hill still is one. He is still planning to pitch this year. He is still throwing. He is still planning to pitch this year. He is still throwing. He is hoping to sign soon. There was an update this week. Reportedly, multiple teams have shown interest in Rich Hill, who turned 45 last month. I don't know what that interest consists of

or how ardent the interest is, but apparently one of the teams, I mean, multiple teams, that means one of them is not the Red Sox. And one from the AL East that is not the Red Sox has shown interest in the 45 year old lefty, assuming one of them is also the Red Sox, because it'd be weird if there were multiple teams

interested and one of them wasn't the Red Sox, given his history with that franchise, but maybe we'll have an AL East bidding war. He'll be the difference maker in a tight division. Can't say he exactly served that function, filled that role last year, but another year older, another year wiser, just more experience under his belt. I think it could be time for the big comeback.

So it warms my heart to know that Rich Hill is still out there, throwing thinking of himself as an active pitcher and that there are teams out there that are thinking of him that way too potentially. Does it make you feel a little nervous about the veracity of the reporting that he is not just already a Baltimore Oriole?

Like does that mean? Yeah, right. Because if ever there were a team of the reporting that he is not just already a Baltimore Oriole. Like does that mean? Yeah, right. Because if ever there were a team that should have some interest and put pen to paper. Yeah. Seems like it should be that one. Although as we have noted, you know, like the tangoing,

it takes two, gotta have two to tango. It's true. Yeah, I mean, maybe they've just been burned by 40 plus pitchers with Charlie Morton's performance this year. And you might be cooked. I know. Sad to see that because as I've discussed, I've enjoyed his career and it looks like

he may not be long for the starting rotation if the major league staff, but yeah, they could use some help there obviously as we discussed the other day. And so you'd think that he would be on their list. They are 30th in war from Starting Pictures. They are the only team that has a sub replacement level starting staff to this point in the season, and they project to be 27th from here on out. So it's not exactly a case of, yeah, but just give it some time. Right. The ship will be righted,

not necessarily because the best guys on the staff are injured currently, and then question marks about everyone else. But yeah, you would think that Rich Hill, they've reached the Rich Hill point of breaking glass in case of emergency. Oh yeah, definitely at that point. And I don't mean that as an insult to Rich Hill point of breaking glass in case of emergency. Oh yeah, definitely at that point. And I don't mean that as an insult to Rich Hill.

No, we would never. We would never, we wouldn't dream of it. But we also would note the obvious limitations of a man of his advancing, not advanced, advancing age, but also say, hey, why not give that a go? Why not give it a try? Cause things are pretty grim there. Anyway, yay for Richell.

Yeah. Fingers crossed. Hopefully there's some exciting signing news soon. Cause last year with his kids little league, he wanted to be around cause he's Richell, seems like a good guy, but he wanted to do the ramp up later in the season plan and maybe that depressed interest somewhat, although he did get signed ultimately and have a quick big league audition.

But this year it seems like he's been more committed from the start to pitching and hopefully that will lead to commensurate interest. So developing story, we will report as there are additional developments here. Yes, exactly. And on the opposite side of things, youth-wise, age-wise, just wanted to talk about James Wood for a second

because I'm really enjoying the shape of James Wood's production. I thought you were going to say the shape of James Wood and I was like, well, he is very tall. Also that, yeah. I mean, those things do go together because he has somehow managed to make it work despite having a profile that would not suggest

that it was conducive to offensive success. And yet he has been an excellent hitter. And I am not gonna call it a breakout because again, I anticipated James Wood being good because why wouldn't you? He was pretty good last year in his first taste of the majors and tippy top prospect and all the tools and everything else. He was on everybody else's breakout list this year.

And so I'm sure that some people are considering themselves vindicated because he has a 156 WRC plus thus far. He's walked a lot. He has eight dingers. You look at those stats and you would think, wow, this is a great offensive profile and he's put it all together. And yet he hasn't really. That's the really intriguing thing.

Yeah, the results are there. And yet the process, it seems like there's a lot of room for improvement. And I don't know whether that means that he is just unique and he can make this work without the typical profile that leads to offensive success, or it means that when everything clicks, it's just gonna be scary.

Cause if he can do this. Yeah. So he is now hitting ground balls 60% of the time. So 60% of his batted balls have been on the ground thus far. The only player who has a lower percentage of pulled balls in the air to this point, he has 1.6% of his batted balls. So it's like, I guess two or one of them, maybe one,

I think he has hit in the air on the pole side thus far, because for a while it was like he hadn't had one yet. I think he finally got one, but maybe just one. The only guy with a lower percentage of pulled balls in the air is ground beef himself, Yandy Diaz. Ground beef, yeah. Yeah, and he is also a very large and strong man who has made it work despite often hitting the ball on the ground.

He hits it so hard that it's okay when he gets a hold of one and he did like have a little bit of a breakout at one point where it seemed like he was getting the ground ball tendency under control, but then it didn't really stay that way. A breakout? Yeah, I mean, look, I'm okay. It was a power breakout.

Yeah, it was a power breakout. I'm just giving you a guff, Ben. I'm giving you some guff. I know that you are, but I think Yandideas, he was a guy who broke out at one point or seemed like a breakout candidate, but he's still hitting the ball on the ground almost 60% of the time.

He hasn't totally changed his ways. He does not have a 165 WRC plus this year. Yeah, but James Wood is so strong that he just like, he just goes oppo constantly. He almost has that Stanton strength and Stanton, he will pull balls and they'll just be Titanic taters, but he will also hit oppo shots that like no one else

can hit like off the bat, the trajectory of it. You just wouldn't think that that could possibly clear the fence. And then it does because it's John Carlos Stanton and James Wood has a little bit of that too, where somehow he's hit eight bombs while barely hitting the ball in the air, because I guess on one level he doesn't need to, because he's just, he has so much strength to spare. Yeah. His home run distance.

It's like, okay, if he could pull some balls in the air, he might clear the fence by 50 feet instead of a few feet. But as long as it gets over, it doesn't make that much difference ultimately. And it's not like he's been super lucky, like his expected weighted on base is higher than his actual weighted on base. His BABIP is low. So it's such a compelling profile where he has just all the promise in the world

and he's doing really well. And yet it seems like he's not even close to tapping into his potential. It helps to be 6'7", you know? Like that's gonna be a boost to your raw and in-game power. But yeah, his ability to actualize it so far, given the ground ball read is pretty phenomenal. I need him to continue to do well.

How long does he need to do very well before he displaces James Woods as the top Google result when you start to type in James Woods? Because you want to put one down. I'd rather type in James Wood. Yes. You know, you want to go one down. I'd rather hear from James Wood. Yes. Yeah. You look at his baseball savant percentiles and he's in the- Yeah, they're pretty nutty.

Yeah, mid nineties to high nineties in basically all of the batted ball quality, exit velocity, hard hit, bat speed, all of it. Not like sweet spot squared up. There's, there's room for improvement there, but he's absolutely crushing the ball and he's crushing it so much that he doesn't even need to hit it on optimal trajectories all the time. So I'm, I'm kind of torn by what I want to happen here. Right. Do you want to maintain the extremity and see how long it can persist?

Or do you want him to make an adjustment and then like really realize his full potential? Yeah. Yes. So I guess if he has it in him to be Aaron Judge, basically, like if it turns out that he's doing this with one hand tied behind his back, basically, and if he can make the mechanical change and he can lift the ball and he can pull the ball,

imagine how much better he would be in theory. But then again, maybe this is just his profile as a hitter and it's not completely changeable. And if you actually got him to hit the ball in the air or try to hit the ball at front more or whatever, like maybe it would hamper him in some other respects and maybe there are limits to his malleability perhaps. And if you mess with his success,

maybe it would actually hurt in some respects, even though he'd be closer to conforming to what we think of as the desired profile for a player. So if it's possible that he could make some tweaks at some point in his career, and he's 22 years old, he has plenty of time to do that. Lots of time. He's also quite fast, by the way, which, you know,

that's nice too. So he's got it all going for him. If he could make those tweaks at a certain point and just be a juggernaut and be the best hitter in baseball and an unstoppable offensive force, I'd rather see that. I would rather that he maximize his potential and reach his ceiling. But if it turns out that maybe this is his ceiling,

that would be fun too, because if he managed to make it work with seemingly a suboptimal approach, but compensating for that with his other physical strengths and skills, because we always say like, we like biodiversity and we like different types of skill sets and different ways to succeed. It's kind of boring if everyone has the same approach at the plate.

And so I like the idea that he would just say, no, I'm going to keep hitting the ball on the ground and yet I'm going to hit it so hard. And when I do occasionally lift one, it's gonna go out every time and this will work somehow. And I will somehow be one of the best hitters in baseball despite this approach. That would be fun too. So either way we win and the Nationals win and James Wood wins.

Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, I think from the Nationals perspective and from James Wood's perspective, see like possessive apostrophe S to be clear. Well, it's a good movie villain, but things have taken a turn. Anyway, I think that from their collective perspective, you know, if he is given the option to like be Aaron Judge or not, they'll probably be like, you know, you could be Aaron Judge.

That'd be fine. Like if you want to, if you want to max out at Aaron Judge, who Jay Jeffy is just like, yeah, this guy's like a hall of Famer though. It's just amazing. He didn't debut for so long. Anyway, you know, they would probably opt for that. And I, in terms of my confidence in sort of his long-term viability as a player, like he was obviously a very highly regarded prospect. He's quite talented. It feels ridiculous to say, I will have greater confidence in you as a player if you're Aaron Judge, because this is a hard thing to do. Aaron Judge is singular in his own right. Anytime a guy has sort of a wonky profile,

you do have to have like a lingering sort of nagging concern that it will not sustain itself, that he will not be able to maintain this level of production with such an odd shape to that production. But I'm fine seeing how it goes. And I think that he has room for improvement as a player, even if the general approach at the plate remains the same and the outcomes of his bat of balls remain sort of similar. Like you noted that he's fast and he is, he already has a fortunate on bases, but like he probably has additional room to grow there. Like if you look at his early

season base running metrics, they're not so stellar, right? So there can be little bits and bobs of improvement. I mean, you know, he's not a remarkable defender, for instance, he's in left for a reason, but like, you just gotta, that's pretty cool. Six, seven, you could just reach anything on any shelf. We keep talking about him having more room to grow. Like, not physically, probably. Yeah, but he's put it all together, right,

like O'Neil Cruz, who has the same listed height. Now he's doing better this year too, and we could talk about that at some point. At the plate? Yes, at the plate. He also- Oh my gosh, Ben. Yes, similarly.

It's bad out there, man. Yeah, but even more so. Yes, work in progress defensively to say the least. That's generous, yeah. But at the plate, it's been a bit better this year so far, and I hope it continues to trend better. But he has also felt like a very raw, if he puts it together. The difference is that O'Neill Cruz is 26 years old. And that is a very different proposition than being

22 and still having some tweaks to make and some polish to add. But yeah, it's been exciting to see and some polish to add, but yeah, it's been exciting to see what James Wood has done. And I guess since he brought up Judge, I almost do kind of take it for granted that he is just this otherworldly hitter because we've seen him do this now for several years, except that he's Benjamin buttoning-ing in the sense that, that's very hard to say.

It's hard to say and it's also really difficult to envision because he ends up being so tiny at the end of that movie. That's not happening, and Judge is not shrinking. I'm envisioning like a shrivel, but in my mind, his like proportions have remained the same. So he's literally just been like shrink rayed down to like being a shriveled small version of himself. That's what my mind is doing right now.

I think I added an extra ing on the end there that I didn't need to. Benjamin buttoning. Benjamin buttoning. Yeah. Buttoning. It's hard to say. Buttoning, buttoning, buttoning.

I made it harder than it had to be though. Yes, but because he's been doing this for a while, I just tend to think to myself, yeah, Aaron Judge, he's the best hitter in baseball. He's being judge-like again. But he does just keep getting better. He is aging in reverse performance-wise. And he's off to this incredible start this year.

And it does make me dream on what this season could be because he's coming off of two 11 plus win seasons in the past three. And the one sandwiched in between was an injury year and other things went wrong. So, and he had a mere 172 WRC plus in that year. Just, you know, a lost season for Aaron Judge really. But 206 the year before that, 218 the year after that,

while being durable in those two years, playing almost every game, even as he was filling in in center field last year, like he's done it all. And he started last season so slowly by Aaron Judge standards. And so I felt myself getting greedy when he turned it on and went on that just superhuman

run. I was thinking to myself, if only he hadn't slumped to start the season, we could be looking at an all-timer here. And is that what we're seeing now? Because I don't want to just assume that he can keep coasting to a 250 plus WRC plus the rest of the way. We should not take that for granted. Probably not. But for him to have slumped last season at the start and for him it was a slump.

He still had a 115 WRC play, still an above average hitter, just way below Aaron Judgian standards. But after that by month it was 275, 279, 213, 271, 183. Maybe he ran out of gas there in September. And of course we know what happened in October. So I don't want to discount that too, until he does produce in October. I'm sure that there will be Yankees fans out there saying, yeah, but he hasn't done it when it counts.

And I'm sure he says that to himself at times too. But if he could just excise that 115 from the start of last season and just do what he did the rest of the way or do what he's been doing, then we're looking at what could be one of the best seasons of all time. I mean, he has been the best hitter since Bonds,

but he has not been quite as good as Bonds at his peak. Like when Bonds was posting 235, 244 WRC plus, it's not out of the realm of possibility that judge could just do that. Right. I keep expecting like at some point this will end because the man is 32. He actually is turning 33 on Saturday, two days from now. Yeah, happy birthday, Erin, early birthday. Happy early birthday, yeah. And I guess it will be happy, at least on a performance level here

because he's been better than ever. And so I don't know when this will stop or when he will finally show some signs of age, but he sure hasn't yet. And I, I would love if he could just keep this up all year and have that one season that eclipsed everyone. I mean, we're looking at like Babe Ruth's Barry Bonds territory, potentially. Very selfishly, it would be nice, I think, for the sport to, maybe this is cheap of me, Ben, you know, I'm open to the feedback that I'm about to say something that's a little hacky, but to

have one that isn't tainted by PEDs, to have a new year, right? And one that we could probably see a lot less of the merrises in. Merrises, woodses, zoses, you know what I mean? It's just, there's all this consternation about baseball as it's currently constituted. We have to do all these news cycles about how the sport is dying and that we spend time talking about how that's silly. I just think let's have a new record setting thing and one that isn't tied up in the stolen base piece of it. You know, like we're much more comfortable having amnesia around the state of the ball

and how it bops back and forth and how it changes than we are with like a big rule change. I'm going to land the plane here and make a point, I promise. You know, just like having this air as like defining offensive performance and having it be a new, beautiful, special thing that we point to and say like, ah, now it's like we can just use judgy and I don't want to erase bonds from the record or anything like that. And you know, my relationship with the PED thing kind of comes and goes. And obviously like he has other words as a human being that perhaps I wish we cared about

more than even a PED piece of it. But I think it would be very special to get to watch and to have it be something that is tied up so much in the hidden component rather than, you know, a great home run threat and stolen bases. Because like I'm not bothered by stolen bases now. I don't think they're all necessarily like cheapies with the rule changes, but it is a different rule environment than prior eras. And so you have to account for it, right? You have to do your little mental adjustment. And I don't think that that's necessary in Judge's

case for two reasons. One, it's not really about the stolen bases, but also, you know, when we talk about like the ball having changed on the juice ball era and this and that, you don't worry about it with someone like Aaron Judge, right? Like he's sending the ball to Jupiter no the juice ball era and this and that, you don't worry about it with someone like Aaron Judge, right? Like he's sending the ball to Jupiter no matter what he's doing. Yeah, like James Wood. Right, like James Wood, like James Wood. Wood.

I worry I say it wrong like every fourth time. This is part of why I'm emphasizing it. I'm not suggesting our listeners get it wrong. I'm suggesting me, Meg gets it wrong sometimes. And I say James Woods. I don't mean James Woods. No. I mean James Wood, Meg gets it wrong sometimes. And I say James Woods. I don't mean James Woods. I mean James Wood, tall player for the nationals. Yeah. Didn't voice any Disney characters so far as I know, but it was one of his better roles, arguably, you know, that Hercules, it rocks anyway. So I would just like to have, I'd like to

have it and it's so exciting and it's so so cool and it's just like an amazing thing that he can do. And so, yeah, breaking news, record setting season would be fun, you know? But the home run thing, it did get kind of, it got a little joyless at the end, you know? Because there was just so much Maris and I don't, I just, I want it to be about this guy, you know, less about that guy when it's about like, and you know, if he has a record setting season, it's not like he'll be able to do that without reference to the prior record holder, but I don't know. I just think it'd be cool. I'm in, I'm in for a, a, a judge Ian thing. Also kind of related to judge, but unrelated. And I don't mean this as a

knock on the prior occupant of the booth, but you know, when I watch the Yankees, I will often like do the radio overlay on MLB TV rather than listen to the Yankees booth, which isn't a knock on the Yankees booth. It's just like, I really like listening to Susan and now Dave Simms is there with her and man, I'm not knocking the current Mariners booth either really, but man, I miss Dave Sims. Dave Sims and Susan, they're great together, Ben. They have such a nice rapport already. Like it's just, it's really good. It is nice. As I've discussed, I had a soft spot for John Sterling. Sure. He was my voice that I grew up listening to. Yes.

And he had a unique kind of chemistry with Susan as well. Yes, he did. And so, but yeah, it's a different dynamic, but a good one. Yeah, really nice. So anyway, if you're out there and you're like, I want to listen, I'm going to watch a Yankees game. I have an all season. I might suggest the radio overlay

because they have a nice rapport. Sims is great. He seems very happy. He seems like he's having a really good time. Not that he had a bad time with the Mariners, but I know he wanted to be a Yankees broadcaster for a long time. It's nice.

It's a nice thing to hear. So anyway. Interesting thing about Judge, of course, is that people will remember the 62 homer season, but that is not his best offensive performance overall. Last year was better on a rate basis and overall he played just as much. And this year is on track to be better potentially. I know he has a 500 bad hip right now and is probably playing a little over his head, as high as his head is, but like this is his established level. Anyone else with a 250 WRC plus,

you'd say, oh, well, that's gonna come down significantly. And with Aaron Judge, you have to start to wonder, like, is it, like, what is his true talent to actually at this point? Like, you know, I guess his, his fan graphs depth charts projection right now for the rest of the season, or I guess maybe this is, is this is, yeah, for the rest of the season, or I guess maybe this is,

yeah, this is rest of the season is 186. So that's what Zips and Steamer think his true talent level is right now. I'd take the over on that. Yeah, I think you might be right. Yeah, I mean, it's always, even for someone like Judge, I think that projection systems are generally right to be skeptical of players sort of maxing out their extremes. But yeah, he could,

he could do it. He could maybe do it, Ben, you know, it's really amazing. It would be nice if there were an untainted, uh, greatest season. Right. And look, I'm sure that there will be people who are suspicious of him too. And one of the most suspicious things about Bonds is that, well, aside from the physical changes that he just kept getting better as he got older, which is not normal. That is to an extent what Aaron Judge is doing as well. Now he has always been huge, so he has not gotten perceptibly huger, so that helps. But wait, what if he's getting like a millimeter taller every year, every

couple of months he does in fact grow. And then at some point we're going to look up and it's going to be like the torpedo bats where we're like, when did this happen? And it's just progression over time. It's below the just noticeable difference thresholds where you're thinking, well, yeah, of course, he's always been big. We know that. Like the sliding mitts. Yeah, exactly.

They're getting bigger, I tell ya. Yeah, so it's also not like, you know, Barry Bonds is gonna be traveling around with Aaron Judge as he tries to break the single season WRC plus records. Probably not, no. This is not a storied record. It's a record that's subject to change as park factors get recalculated, et cetera.

Yeah, it's a little, a little loosey goosey-er in general. This is a nerd thing that nerds care about, but that's who we are and too many of our listeners are. And so we will care about that. And yeah, it's just fun to see the dominance that he's had here. And there were concerns about how he would age and understandable concerns. I remember Joshian regularly writing

about this and I kind of quibbled with his conclusion just based on the fact that Joe was looking at the history of tall hitters and saying, some of these guys just didn't age that well, Frank Howard or Richie Sexon or whoever, right? And the counterpoint would maybe be Dave Winfield who did last a long time and have a Hall of Fame career. And so Joe was saying, well, the track record for guys this tall, I may have mentioned this on the podcast years ago, I don't recall, but the track record isn't that great. But my comeback to that was, well, the track record is so limited of hitters this huge that I don't know that we can really reach any conclusions

here. A, there haven't been many hitters who've been that big and B, there haven't been many hitters who've been that big and anywhere near as good as Aaron Judge. So we're talking about a handful of examples or, or not even a full handful. And so I didn't really think that you could extrapolate that much from that. That said, I think just there is a history in sports and not even only in sports, just in general of tall people are subject to various ills and ailments. It's one of the problems that goes along with that. Like your body is just bigger. There's more wear

and tear and strain. There's just more body to break potentially. Like there's more cell division going on. Like, you know, things can go wrong and he's putting a lot of weight on the joints and everything. And that's, you know, one reason why they and he's putting a lot of weight on the joints and everything. And that's, you know, one reason why they wanted to get him out of center field, like a little less of a strain on the body. And so I think in that sense, yeah, all else being equal, I'd probably say that someone who's super tall and big,

maybe I would project a slightly steeper decline curve, but because he was starting from such a high point, I didn't know that that was such a big concern. Really, it was a bigger concern that he had injury issues and availability issues earlier in his career, which I guess you could say was connected to his frame, who knows, but there were years there like 2018, 2019, even 2020, short in season, but he played half of it. So there were a lot of years there where he was not playing as much as he would have liked to, but two out of the last three, three out of the last four, at least he's been quite

durable. So I don't know that that will continue indefinitely, but I, I'd love to see just what he did last year without the slow start. And maybe he didn't have the slow start this year, maybe he'll have a slow finish or he'll have a slow middle or something like he may slump at some point, but the potential is there for him to just absolutely obliterate every offensive record. It is such a fascinating thing because I've watched this, I would say is often more dramatic in say football than it is in baseball. But like when you are that size, the potential for your body to just like create enough force

to damage itself, right? Like I will never forget Jimmy Graham, we used to be a tight end, you know, first for the Saints, then he was a Seahawk and then da da da. Anyway, they traded for him because they lost that Super Bowl and they're like, we need a big guy on the goal line. And it was fine. And he like, he just tore apart his own knee one year coming down and it wasn't a contact injury. He just, the force of his own body, the torque he created with his own body was enough to just like pull it apart. Um, and so you, you know, you worry about that kind of thing with these guys where they're like so big, did they just break themselves?

But to your point, I just don't know that we have enough guys like that to feel confident that we can draw a conclusion, you know, especially when it's a question of like, how does your own physicality affect your longevity? We're, you're really into N of one territory on that stuff. Cause so much is going to depend on the individual player, how their, you know, their body composition and how, you know, how tight they are and all kinds of stuff, right? Like it just seems like I understand why there is a broader

skepticism. And I think that as you're trying to like fit a guy into, you know, a general heuristic so that you can project their performance long-term, that makes sense to do. But I think that most people who are in that business would acknowledge that there are huge, huge error bars as big as Aaron Judge, right? When it comes to that stuff, because it really just depends. Like you think about judge's injuries, you're right. There have been times where he's been unavailable. Some of that has been like his body.

Some of that has been like an outfield wall was designed badly, right? You know, so how do you think about those things in concert with one another? It can be really challenging. It just would be so cool to be able to reach everything, but then cars would be hard to buy, you know? Like, does he have to shop at a special store?

Is he a big and tall guy? You know? He is absolutely a big and tall guy. I mean, he is a big and tall guy, but I mean like a literal, like, he is a literal big and tall guy, but is he a, you know, does he go to the big and tall guy store but is he a, you know, does he go to the big and

tall guy store? He probably needs some custom jobs, I would imagine. How he needs some, you know, and like he can afford it. Good news for him. I think the part of his performance that I am actually finding to be the most impressive is the fact that he and his wife have a relatively new baby at home. Yeah, it's true. And he's doing all of this on, you know, I don't know their domestic arrangements, so perhaps it's, perhaps not, but I would imagine at least loud in there, you know, even if he's not the one getting up and doing overnight.

So that's amazing. That strength for Aaron Judge, a scary prospect. But yeah, just don't take it for granted. What we're seeing here, this is historic. He's been great for a long time, but if anything, he's getting better. I know he came out of the gate with that 52 homer season record setting season in 2017.

And we thought, oh, okay, this guy is great, but he's so much better now than he was then. So it's really, really impressive. Yeah, he's just put on a clinic out there. Even with those long, long levers. See, he's got such, it's like- I know, the giant zone, the calls that go against him. Yeah, it really is kind of incredible.

I wish you were funnier, you know? Me too. I've complained about the quotes, the boilerplate before. I don't even mind them being boilerplate, but it's just like, you know, and what am I doing? Complaining about a person I don't know. Maybe he's hilarious in his personal life,

but I wish he were funnier. You know, he's so, he's very G-dressed in that regard. It's almost appropriate. He's just a giant who just mashes, like, you know, do we need that guy to be funny also? Sure, I guess it'd be nice, but I just want him to be just huge man, Yankee, pinstripes, just embodiment of the brand.

Just hulking out, just, you know, like I don't need the comic relief from him necessarily. Some more, I guess, introspection or at least, you know, like I don't need the comic relief from him necessarily. Some more, I guess introspection or at least, you know, deviation from cute cliches would be nice from time to time. But yeah, I just, you know, he's a straightforward masher at the plate. He can do it all though he's not like just a power guy. He's just an all around great hitter.

He's batting 415 right now. He's like become a contact hitter. He's batting 415 right now. I know. He's like become a contact hitter is the thing. He's striking out 20% of the time. He's like, at least so far this season has a better than average strikeout rate. When he came up, he was more all or nothing. And there was a lot of all, so it was still really good.

But there was still a fair amount of nothing. He was striking out 31% of the time. More than that, his first few seasons when the league strikeout rate was a little lower than it is now. And now, even though he's hitting for as much power as ever and doing it all and patience and all the rest, he has actually increased his contact too,

cut down on the K's. He's just, there's absolutely no flaw in his game at the plate. So yeah, let's all just appreciate it. Not that we weren't, but even I catch myself sometimes saying, yeah, Aaron Judge, we know he's great, but he's that great. So let's-

Yeah, we should definitely make sure to appreciate what we have because it's a very rare and cool thing and we might not see it again. I mean, even from him, the rest of this season, like when Jay wrote about Judge for Us today and he noted at the end that in all likelihood we will see less of this, but or a more muted, though still probably exceptional version of Judge, but maybe we won't.

So let's dig in on it. Maybe it'll be great, you know, greater. A few other things, other Ben, Ben Clemens wrote something about the fact that the players are running wild. Running. Stolen base attempt rate is up yet again. And I had been paying less attention to this because I didn't have a bold prediction

at stake this season. Last year I had been paying less attention to this because I didn't have a bold prediction at stake this season. Last year, I had a bold prediction related to stolen base rates continuing to climb, which did happen, but I think a little less than I had boldly predicted. But there was some debate about, well, will it be kind of a consolidation year and the first year with the new rules, everyone was running and maybe now defenses will adjust and

players will run less. And as Ben notes, defenses did adjust, perhaps, but also players kept running a lot. The attempt rate was higher. The unsuccessful rate was also higher. That's a weird way to put that, but there were more caught stealings and also more steals. Yeah, I could have just said the success rate was lower. That would have worked as well. That would also more steals. Yeah, I could have just said the success rate was lower. That would have worked as well. That would have worked too, yeah. I twisted myself into syntactic knots. Sometimes you gotta take the easier edit, you know?

Yeah, but this year they're off to the races again and the rates are continuing to climb. And I don't know whether there's a seasonality to that, like whether it's an early season, whether, you know, comparing one season to the next, you're comparing full year to early year. As far as I recall, I don't think there's a huge effect there. Like you might say, oh, it's, it's colder, you're getting less offense early on. Maybe you'd be more inclined to run, but I, I don't think it's a huge thing. So, cause early on last year, I think there hadn't been, as I recall, an

increase and I was starting to concede defeat with my prediction that there were going to be more steals. And then they turned it on after that. So I don't think it was right out of the gate from the get-go. Anyway, they're continuing to run more and I am curious about what the ceiling is here. Will that continue indefinitely? Are they close to the ceiling now? And obviously on the whole scoring is down. I guess it's not down relative to the last year

with the old rules, cause 2022 was a low run scoring year too. That was a 4.28 runs per game and we're at 4.31 right now. So that's kind of interesting that the runs per game, and I know we're comparing full season to April, March here, but roughly in the same realm, even though the shape of the production has changed considerably, at least on the base pass. And maybe that just goes to show that the running game doesn't matter as much as the other stuff, which is kind of the conclusion that we've all come to. People lament the base running fundamentals.

And I think if players are actually spending less time on that, maybe there's a reason, because not that they shouldn't pay attention to that too and try to optimize every aspect of their game, but if there's an opportunity cost there, work on the stuff that matters the most. And I was noticing that, okay, so the runs per game, the OPS, it's all sort of similar to 2022.

The batting average is maybe down a little bit more, but if you look at the steals, like the attempt rate, the success rate, so much higher. So in 2022, last year under the old rules, there were 0.51 steals per game. I guess that's per team game. And this year it's 0.84. So as a percentage increase, that's a lot

with only a small increase in the caught steals per game, just from 0.17 to 0.22. And this isn't the most rigorous math, but if you took the difference in the attempt rate or the success rate there, so the difference between the 0.84 and the 0.51 steals per game and then factoring in the caught stealing difference too, so that's a difference of like 0.28 bases

per game that you're getting now that you weren't getting then because of the extra steals. And meanwhile, the total bases per game is down by roughly the same amount. So batters produced in 2022, 13.28 total bases per game, and now it's 12.92. So that's essentially equalized. So the hitting is a little bit worse

and maybe not that stolen bases count in total bases. I'm just saying artificially, you could kind of factor that in because you're getting those bases while you're on offense, just not while you're in the batter's box. So it kind of comes out in the wash. It kind of equals there. It's like a little less offense,

but also you're getting more bases on the base paths and overall it's the same. And I guess the rules to relax the restrictions on the running game, it was never primarily about increasing scoring. That would be a by-product of course, and generally fans like more scoring, but it was more about the action on the bases

and the contested plays, and we are getting more of that. So mission accomplished in a sense, it hasn't really rectified the whole offensive pictures, strikeouts are still high, batting average is still extremely low, and you want more balls in play and you want more successful balls in play, but that part of it at least has worked and is continuing to work.

Yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah, it's like dramatic changes. It's very much if baseball were different, how different could it be? How different would it be? Yeah, it's just like very different in one respect, but then overall almost the same, almost identical. Almost the same. Not different at all.

Yeah. and overall, almost the same, almost identical. Not different at all. Also wanted to highlight another study that came from the oyster analytics folks at Down on the Farm, the excellent sub stack, Owen Riley and Maxfield Lane looked at something that I may have looked at at some point in the past or talked about, but the old chestnut about how if you are a strikeout guy, you're inefficient and you're throwing more pitches

to get those strikeouts. And so it's kind of a common trope, pitch to contact. I'll be more efficient. I'll just get more outs with fewer pitches. I can go deeper into games. And the fatal flaw of that plan has always been that if you do get fewer strikeouts, it is true that on average, you throw more pitches to get a strikeout than you do to get a non-strikeout out. So as they

determined here, the average number of pitches per strikeout is five essentially, or that's the median average 4.9, whereas any other kind of out, less on average 3.4 pitches. So it would seem like a good plan that, okay, if I want to speed things up and be more efficient here, fewer strikeouts takes more pitches to get those strikeouts. So I'll just pitch to contact and I'll lay it right in there and they'll put it in play and then we'll move on to the next batter more quickly. But the pitfall of that approach, of course, is that a strikeout is almost always an out and you get to move on.

And that is not the case with a ball in play. Many balls in play become hits and then those hits reset your counter, essentially all the pitches that you threw to induce that batted ball, they got you nowhere because now you're just starting over again with the same number of outs, you're in an even worse situation.

And so when you factor that in, if you look at it not in terms of pitches per batter, but in terms of pitches per out, then it changes completely. And suddenly the advantage for the pitch to contact approach is entirely erased, if not reversed. And it turns out that, yeah, maybe it'll take you a few more pitches

to get that strike out. It's like the Blake Snell approach, right? But if you have fewer guys on base and you actually get to bank that out, then it's gonna help you in the long run. Cause the other guy is pitching to contact, he's gonna have a bunch of guys on base and he's gonna have to face more batters ultimately, even if he dispenses with each of those batters more quickly.

And they also came up with clever ways to look at, do you go deeper into games? Right. And yes, even if their conclusion is is if anything, strikeouts lead to longer outings because you're not more efficient on a per pitch basis or per batter basis, but on a per out basis you are, and you can go deeper into games and they controlled for the fact that guys who were getting more strikeouts are just generally going to be better pitchers.

Even if you account for that, you can still go deeper into games. Even if I guess, you know, if you're a pitch to contact guy, you might be saving some strength and you might not be going max effort all the time, but even taking that into account, it's advantage strikeout pitchers. And I guess if you're facing fewer batters, then there's less of a times through the order effect potentially in those later plate appearances. So on the whole, I've just always been very skeptical of that piece of advice.

Maybe like there are certain times, depending on the score, depending on the count, depending on the batter, you wanna have more of a pitch to contact mentality. But on the whole, I would say it tends to be pretty counterproductive. So when I've heard a player espousing that approach or a coach, even more so, I just kind of raise an eyebrow and think, I don't know.

I don't know if that's actually going to benefit you in the long run. It's funny because like, I want there to be a lot of different ways for hitters to succeed. And so embracing a high strikeout mentality seems like it's working across purposes with that. But there is something just also very aesthetically satisfying about a guy who can just be like, I don't know, hit it and like can really go at you and strike a bunch of guys out and have that be core to his identity as a pitcher.

I think it's a more satisfying thing to watch a lot of the time than a guy who's like, I don't know, I don't know. But then, in order to have a strike a pitcher, you have to have hitters striking out, Ben. So then what do I make of that? I guess the answer is every pitcher shouldn't be that. And then we kind of solve the biodiversity problem,

even though I do find it satisfying, I really do watch a guy just be like, I don't know, I'll try to hit it. Can't do it? Great. Yeah. Sam wrote about this in connection with Paul Skeens the other day at his Substack Pebble Hunting, because it seems like maybe Skeens has taken a little off

or not gone max effort all the time. Do you think that's cause he talked to us and we were like, hey, don't blow out. We put that question to him specifically and maybe it was food for thought. He said, wow, gotta think about that. What a question. Yeah, I should revamp my whole approach.

It's not as if he is like transitioned into a soft tosser or something. Right, right. He has not hit triple digits this year yet, unless you round up. He's touched 99.9, but he hasn't quite hit 100. And last year he maxed out at, yeah, but last year he maxed out at 101.9.

So the top end is a little lower. And you can never say that's entirely approach. I mean, pitchers, even if they're young, they could sometimes lose a little lower and you can never say that's entirely approach. I mean, pitchers, even if they're young, they could sometimes lose a little velo, but I tend to think it's maybe more just not fully going all out all the time. And that has had some costs in a sense, like his strikeout rate is down considerably,

but his control has improved. He's walking fewer guys. Thus far, at least he hasn't allowed dingers. He's walking fewer guys, thus far at least, he hasn't allowed dingers, he's still getting grounders and he's been totally dominant, like a two-fip, even though he has less than a strikeout per inning and even though he's throwing a little less hard than he would like. That was the question that I had for him,

just like, can you make the Jacob deGrom adjustment at your age before you've had the elbow injuries? And his comeback, which was, I think, quite reasonable, was like, well, yeah, but a 22-year-old body is a little different from a mid-30s body. But then again, like lots of young pictures, bodies break too, so they're hardly immune. And maybe there is a little overconfidence of youth,

like this can't happen to me, right? Cause it hasn't happened yet. But it's heartening to me because as Sam pointed out, and as I always said about DeGrom, he doesn't need to max out. He is so good and so dominant, using a little less than full strength. His little less than full strength

is still better than anyone else's full strength. So we'll see how his season evolves. But if he could put a two-fip out there while not touching 100, then I'd say he should do that. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think that anything that can be done to maximize his health, with it, I mean, anything that can be done

to maximize his health as a person, he shouldn't pitch at all because it's just bad for you no matter what. But like, you know, within the confines of him still being a major league starter, like I think that that is a worthy trade-off. It doesn't guarantee that he is going to stay healthy because guys who throw less heart than him also blow out. But you're trying to maximize your chance,

right? You're trying to maximize your chance. Is he still doing the beard? I'm excited to it. He is going up against Yamamoto, I think, tomorrow. Yes, that's a marketing matchup. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. He's still doing the beard. That's good. Yeah. He should keep the beard.

I think it's a good move for him. Yeah. And also he probably is aware that he's not gonna get any offensive support or bullpen support probably. And so he better stay in the game if he wants the Pirates to win. And yeah, it's bleak, but he does seem to care about durability and going deeper into games and being a traditional starter in that sense.

And so, yeah, I hope that he is wise beyond his years and this is part of his maturation. And of course he has all these new pitches. And so that helps too without having to throw as hard as possible at all times. He seemed like a really thoughtful guy when we talked to him. I appreciate someone who, this is true regardless of the like kind of area that you're talking about, like I like it when people feel comfortable hearing a question and like pausing and thinking about it for a second rather than just launching into an answer. And you know, there are plenty of people who they talk about whatever their area of expertise is for a living. We were probably the 99th interview he had done that day. So if he had

had some pat answers banked, I wouldn't have blamed him. But you know, it makes you feel as a person talking to someone that they've really been listening and actually considered responding to the question put to them rather than viewing it as an opportunity to sort of advance a particular answer. They're keen to get out there and just leaving it at that. So he seemed like a thoughtful guy. And if I, he wants to pitch as long as he can, I'm sure because like, you know, it'll be, it'll be lucrative, it'll be storied.

And the longer he's good, the more likely it is that he is pitching during a competitive window for the Pittsburgh Pirates, which still seems like it's a little ways. Yeah, yeah. Kind of last as long as possible if you want to make it to the promised land with the Pirates.

Yeah. All right. Last couple of things, and I guess they're kind of last as long as possible if you want to make it to the promised land with the pirates. All right, last couple of things, and I guess they're kind of tied together. One is about Rob Manfred, and one is about private equity interest in baseball, which I'm sure is something Rob Manfred is in favor of to some extent. But there was a CNBC article that I read the other day.

It was not the one that caused an uproar online because there was like a CNBC sports business reporter or just business reporter who like discovered that owners are in favor of a salary cap and thought that was breaking news apparently. And also that like a salary for has been considered breaking. I really liked, I know that everyone's favorite thing is when you talk about what somebody posted on social media, but I really enjoyed Bauman reacting to that a couple of days later being like,

I was confused why this guy was still going and then I realized he was fighting with Craig and it's like, yeah, that tracks me. Yeah, like a dog with a bone, that Craig Goldstein, but we love him for it. But he does kind of tell you the importance of subject matter expertise, I suppose, because even if you're a journalist and a business reporter, if you don't report on baseball or sports and you're just like out of your depth and I know what this is like covering

a variety of things and I'm always wary of like, am I going to sound like I don't know what I'm talking about here because I don't, or I know less than I do when I'm on firmer ground. And so it's just hard to cover something when you're not aware of decades of history and literature. And suddenly you think you're the first person who's gotten the scoop that owners are pro salarysolary cap and might also consider a salary floor if it's low enough.

And of course it was kind of written from a pro-owner perspective, whether inadvertently or wholeheartedly. And so a lot of people took that piece to task. This is a different piece by a different author. The headline, MLB could draw greater private equity interest as uncertainties lie ahead. And the language in this piece was very much like,

well, I'll just read you some quotes from private equity people who are quoted in here. There hasn't been a massive private equity gold rush to invest in MLB. MLB needs to get its house in order for the league to become even more competitive for investment. Institutional investors aren't going to commit and risk their capital when all it means is it's helping to fund an arms race of talent.

I love that. It's like, we're not interested in just you signing players to make your baseball team better. Get out of here with that. Like we want to make a profit here. If we can't turn a quick buck, then don't bother pitching us. And, you know, it goes on to say like one of the risk factors from this perspective is that there is no salary cap, unlike other major sports leagues.

And so this is seen as uncertainty risk. It's less control. That's how it would be viewed from the owner's perspective too. That in addition to the ongoing evolution of broadcast rights and not being sure how that is going to affect franchise values and profit margins, et cetera. Here's another quote. This is a moment of strategic transformation

in which private equity capital could help smooth this transition period and offer strategic assistance. Baseball remains a great asset with great sports content. I've always said that about baseball personally. That's kind of our position at Effectively Wild here, that baseball remains a great asset with great sports content. How can you not be romantic about the sports asset

with the great sports content? I mean, that's how we all, that's really what got us into sports and baseball from an early age. I'm in it for the content, really. Yeah, when I was, I remember going to my first game and seeing the green of the grass

and the crack of the bat and thinking to myself, this is a great asset. I had not considered how great an asset this was. This is some excellent sports content. So they will figure this out and those that invest early will benefit. So first mover advantage, early adopters on baseball, this hot new game that we've got going on here, this new asset, baseball with its fresh sports content. And it goes into talking about the rules changes and the younger audience and how those things

are attractive and beneficial. And I think they are not just from a private equity investment perspective. But in terms of the content. Yeah, it was to read about it in a business publication. Yeah. And it's not exactly like a quiet part out loud sort of situation, but just unadorned,

just we're business folks, we're in this to make a buck and maybe millions or billions of bucks ideally. And we're just gonna say it in those terms. Like we don't care about baseball. Like we're- No, we care about the biz. Yes, it's not for the love of the game. This is for the love of the assets

and the great sports content. So I mean, I do think that baseball, it does have a lot of sports content. That much is inarguable. There's a lot of inventory in baseball and hopefully that's to its benefit in some ways and to its detriment in other ways, I think. But I mean, I guess I want baseball to thrive, but not necessarily as an investment vehicle unless that is a reflection of the overall health of the game.

But if Rob Manfred talks about something like this and he does, or if they talk about this stuff in an owner's meeting behind closed doors, I'm sure they put it in these terms, maybe publicly they wouldn't describe it as a great asset with great sports content. Occasionally Rob will though. And it's like not the mask will slip, but you know,

like he's a business guy and a lawyerly guy and a lawyer. And he's obviously- And the commissioner. He's the commissioner. And- Great. But we always kind of crave from a commissioner. And this is something that Bud Selig,

despite all his other flaws, like he did care about baseball, I think, as more than a great asset with great sports content. He cared about that too, to be clear, but he also did have a lifelong love of the game and Rob Manfred either doesn't or has trouble conveying that he does. And so occasionally he will put it in more private equity friendly terms and that's not what you want necessarily from a public spokesperson unless they are in a pitch meeting, which I'm sure he is often in more private equity friendly terms. And that's not what you want necessarily from a public spokesperson, unless they are in a pitch meeting, which I'm sure he is often.

And I want him to get favorable broadcast deals and all too. Not that it's gonna personally enrich me, but I want baseball to thrive and want it to be widely available for as many people as possible, which is not always, I guess, the most profit maximizing strategy in the short term. Sometimes those things come into conflict.

Anyway, sometimes he does the business speak. It was kind of entertaining for me to just see the business speak laid out without any affectations or any pretense to the contrary. Can I get on a little bit of a soapbox about something real quick? Okay. This is like going to be the most annoying I've been in a while. Sometimes sports writers get like a bad reputation. Like what we do is assumed to be trivial because it's not like hard news, quote unquote.

And every time the business press, and there are plenty of very good writers in that space, I don't mean to say that there aren't any, there's a lot of fluff too. There's a lot of fluff in sports writing. There's just fluff out there sometimes. But I really do think that it's an incredible training ground for being able to think about a lot of different issues and having to balance a lot of different perspectives and interests because you can't be a lot of different perspectives and interests because you can't be a sports writer these days and not be really well versed in labor questions.

That's true, regardless of whether or not you cover a league with a cap. I think there are plenty of people writing about football who do a really good job of that and basketball. And I'm sure that there are soccer folks who do the same thing, but I don't read them because I don't care about that sport very much. But you have to be versed in labor questions. You have to be able to talk about race and gender. You have to be able to talk about sort of municipal politics and state level politics when you think about the funding piece of this stuff for stadiums. And I just, I don't know. I think it's cool. I think we get to touch a lot of different stuff and have to and people should be nicer to us about it. So anyway, that's just me on my switch. Be nicer to us because we're

so smart and also do such a good job. Yeah, there has historically been a little less of a prestige associated with sports writing or yeah, there's been a little bit of a little brother, little sibling syndrome or yeah, it's because like even though sports are quite popular because they're a great asset with great sports content. Incredible content. You know, they might be the thing selling the newspaper, but not the thing winning the Pulitzer or something.

I mean, I'm sure sometimes they do win their sports awards and everything, but yeah, it was the perception of like, oh, it's the sports pages and everything. But yeah, it was the perception of like, oh, it's the sports pages and the funny pages and this is the lighter content. And a lot of sports coverage has fallen into that category. But yeah, if you're going to be good at it and consider all the things that one should consider, then you do have to have a pretty broad understanding of society and culture at large really to cover sports holistically and effectively. Yeah. So I just wanted to say everybody's doing a great job. Keep doing what you're doing because

it's not that Craig won't yell at other sports. He doesn't have to do it as often it seems. So that's nice. I think it's okay for the commissioner of a sports league to talk in business terms to a business audience. I don't think that that's like inherently objectionable. No, it's good if anything, I would think. If you could code switch like that and sell your sports to that audience in that way,

the language that they speak? Absolutely. Yeah. I think that that's okay because it is a business and I think that there needs to be fluency around that for the commissioner. I want there to also be sentiment and genuine affection, but I think we sometimes get trapped in like a sort of feudal cul-de-sac as a cometariat when we're dealing with Manfred because there's like all this attention and time paid to like, does he love baseball?

He hates baseball. And it's not who cares, but it's like, you're not going to know the heart of the man in a way that will either be satisfying to you answering that question or particularly meaningful, right? Like it's just, he does or he doesn't, but he's the commissioner. So let's deal with him on the terms that he gives us. But I also think that there needs to be an appreciation and I find it wanting on his part, I find it wanting on the part of many of the league's owners that like you are an owner of an asset with tremendous content, but that asset with tremendous sports content is also a civic institution.

And one way you know that it's a civic institution is that more often than not, we collectively have helped to pay for the building that that institution occupies. And you know, it's about regional pride. It's about having a parade at the end. It's about being a really important fixture in a community. And I wish that that, even if it weren't the only thing that they cared about, because I am somewhat realistic about the way that capitalism works.

I wish that it felt closer to the center of the whole endeavor for people because I do think that it's this special thing and the only justification for its existence as something that we as taxpayers pay for is if they have an understanding of it as part of our like civil religion. You know, this thing that brings joy to people that is a site of like Democratic contestation and like it brings people together. It helps to facilitate or it should even though this is hard now with with prices being what they are for a lot of people. Like it should be a place where like people mix and mingle and like, you know, interact with folks who might not live in their neighborhood. And I think that that part of it is really important. And I always feel a little like on my back foot when it's about like, let's bring the

private equity folks in because like their goal is profit maximization. And I don't think that making money and owning a sports team and spending money on that sports team and understanding that sports team is occupying like an important place in a community. Those things aren't necessarily working against one another. Maximizing profit ruthlessly might be working across purposes with that other stuff. So I get people being nervous because I share that nervousness. I do think that like, it's okay for the business part of Rob Manfred to like speak to the business part of his job. Um, it's so interesting too, that there's not like, he's fascinating to me as a commissioner,

um, because he doesn't often choose to make his own job easier from a PR perspective, right? Like he doesn't, he doesn't do that part well. And maybe because he doesn't do it well, he just opts to not do it. We've gotten a lot of sports content out of Rob Manfred, like not being able to do the sentiment piece of it. And it's so funny that like he can't really do it very well. And Bud Selig could, and that man was involved in collusion.

You know what I mean? He did sports crimes and oversaw baseball during the steroid era, but he could fake it pretty well. Not all the time. What finer baseball tradition is there than owners trying to suppress player salaries? I mean, that goes back to the beginning. From time immemorial, right?

And so I just find him fascinating as like a subject, Manfred, because he can't do guile, you know, he really can't. And I find that useful. I worry, we've maybe talked about this before So I apologize if I'm repeating myself, but like we know that his tenure is coming to an end and I do have a certain amount of anxiety about the next person who occupies that seat being a better politician than Than Rob because I think that there's something useful in him being than Rob, because I think that there's something useful in him being unable to bullsh-t, excuse the swear, but like he really can't do it. He gets flustered easily. There's all kinds of stuff,

right? And so it's just, he's so fascinating. But anyway. Yeah. Well, that's the last bit of banter that I had was about the latest example of Rob Benford saying something where you kind of questioned whether he's from this planet or whether he experiences sports the way that others do. And so this is, I guess, the sequel to a comment that he made a little more than a year ago. As you'll recall, he was asked how the league plans

to maintain a presence in Oakland after the A's leave town. And his response was, first of all, we do have a major league team in the Bay area. It's not like there is not an available option. The Giants obviously still play here. Now, as I recall- This was not received well. I condemned that a little less harshly

than you and then many did. I kind of understood what he was saying. It wasn't a good answer, but I thought it was valid to point out that you're not entirely, there will be no baseball toehold whatsoever in this geographic region. Like San Francisco is not the same as Oakland,

even if they're both Bay Area. And obviously I don't expect every A's fan to say, well, whatever, I'll just be a Giants fan now. That was kind of the implication maybe. And so that part of it, yeah, that's silly. But I didn't think it was a bad point to be like, well, there's still Major League Baseball not too far away.

Like, you know, there are people who could become baseball fans in this area of the world and have access to our product, our great sports asset and its sports content. So I sort of saw what maybe he was attempting to say and thought it was kind of valid, even if the way he expressed it came out as basically like enabling the A's messy departure

and then just being like, you can be a Giants fan, no sweat. So I understand why it was perceived that way. His latest comment in that vein comes from an LA Times article about how Dodgers tickets are expensive now. I mean, it's, it's a hot ticket. It's, it's not necessarily because they have a high payroll. It's because they have an appealing product, a really great sports asset. People want to go see the Dodgers play and they will pay to see them play.

And thus the tickets are priced higher and it's just expensive to go see the Dodgers play and they will pay to see them play. And thus the tickets are priced higher and it's just expensive to go and the concessions and the transportation and everything. It's just, it's not easily affordable to go to Dodgers games. And so I'll read this little passage here. Not withstanding Manfred's belief that MLB does not have an affordability problem,

a pop-up survey on the league website last week asked fans whether they strongly agreed, somewhat agreed, somewhat disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement, attending a Major League Baseball game is affordable. If local fans consider the Dodgers prices too high, Manfred suggested where they could find a cost-effective alternative. One of the leaders in terms of thinking about affordability has been the other Los Angeles team, end quote, Manfred said. And he has a point in the sense that yeah, Angels games are much cheaper to attend

and there's a reason for that. They do not produce as great sports content with the roster that they have assembled and the success or lack thereof that they've had. And so it's valid to say, okay, this is an outlier, maybe the Dodgers are one of one and look, there are other teams that are more affordable. And so you can't generalize about the entire league and hey, there's even one that is the closest team to the Dodgers that is much more affordable. And we've talked about how the Angels attendance has been surprisingly robust,

even as they have not put a compelling product on the field. And I don't know exactly how the conversation went. There's not a full transcript here, but it does say that if local fans consider the Dodgers prices too high, Manfred suggested where they could find a cost-effective alternative. If it really was like that, if the author was like,

hey, these games are expensive, what would you tell fans? And he was like, well, you can just go to an angels game instead. Then that also speaks to that same question of does he understand fandom? Like, is he familiar with the concept of allegiances to particular teams and how most people experience sports, which is not like if you are deprived of your favorite team

or you're unable to afford their games, then you just default to, well, I'll go to the other team that's in the area. That's not how it works. Maybe there are times when fandom should work more that way, but it doesn't. And you can times when fandom should work more that way, but it doesn't. And you can't just expect people to say,

well, they took this team away, but at least I could still go to this rival team and watch their games instead. Or I can't afford to go to a Dodgers game, but at least I can go to this quasi Los Angeles team. It's not as if you're just saying, I wanna go to a baseball game and I'll take whatever you got.

Like if you wanna see the Dodgers because you root for the Dodgers, then you're not gonna be placated by going to an angels game. It is not delivering what you want, which is Dodgers baseball, not just generic baseball played by anyone. So I sort of understand his point

and yet the way he expresses this and has now multiple times does make me question, like, does he understand how people bond with baseball teams and how people experience sports? Yeah, there is like a, it's like you're trying to widgetize. Widget is a weird word, weird word, widget. I don't feel, I don't love saying widgetize. I feel like that sounds so odd. It's not a real word that might be why, but anyway, yeah. It's like you're trying to, it's like,

well, won't any baseball do? And on some level, I'm of the opinion that all live sporting events are good. And it doesn't matter what the sport is. And it doesn't matter if you know anything about either of the teams playing. Any time you can go sit at a live sporting event and have a snack and a beverage is a good time.

It's just a good time. But it's a different thing to enjoy that good time. It's just a good time. But it's a different, it's a different thing to enjoy that good time versus I'm going to go see my guys. I'm going to go see my folks. I'm going to go see my team. You know, we call it, it's a home nine. You want to see the home nine. So it is a weird, it's a weird understanding of the sport. It's also funny because like, even if you were just, hello, I am a generic baseball fan. I am in the market to see some baseball today and I don't care the specifics of who, you

still want to see the better team play more often than not, right? So it's not even really, it's like, okay, well, if that's on the table, you know how many college baseball programs there are in Southern California? You could go for so much less money. You know, if you don't care about who's playing, just go, just go, go see any old, go, go check out some various Bruins and Trojans and all sorts of folks, you know, or minor league teams or minor league teams. Indie ball, right? You could go see if, if all that you really care about is it being about to ball sport, folks, you know? Or minor league teams or just indie ball.

Right, you could go see if all that you really care about is it being a bat to ball sport, there are so many good softball programs in Southern California. Go watch some gals play softball. I just read about how cricket is finally getting a foothold in the US. So yeah, go watch cricket.

I mean, it's just, yeah, it's not interchangeable. It's not just, I want to see some balls hit with bats. So. And it's not to say that like all of those things aren't, aren't good on their own terms, right? That they don't have merit. They do, but they're, they're not interchangeable. Yeah. It is sort of alien.. I spent time saying we shouldn't try to really unpack whether he loves the sport or not, but I would be interested in knowing if he's an alien. We spent all this time on tic-tacs and congressional testimony from nervous-looking military folks to just diagnose Rob Manfred. That would be a fun premise for a TV show.

He's an alien, but he has to be that'd be a fun premise for a TV show, you know, like he's an alien But he has to be a commissioner of a major sports league Why aren't we hearing about the drones anymore Ben? You guys still talking about the drones in the local media market? What's up with that? Where's the much got bigger problems? I guess I mean yes, but also what happened with that? Wait, no drone talk. Where did the drone talk go? I don't know. I don't know that I want to talk about the drone sport, but the absence of talk of the drones is striking. It has been striking.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we were too worried about the planes. You know, worried about airplanes. Anyway, maybe this is something that someone should explain to Mr. Manfred just to make sure that he understands the relationships that fans have with sports, because this could have bearing on other decisions that he understands the relationships that fans have with sports, because this could have bearing on other decisions that he makes. Like, maybe the way that he handled or didn't handle the whole A's exodus from Oakland, if he's just kind of thinking, well, all those A's fans, they'll get over it. They'll just be Giants fans instead.

And also, all these other people who don't have historic allegiances to the A's, suddenly they will develop them, because, hey, it's baseball. It's like, it's replacement level. Oh, there's baseball. We'll call up whatever form of baseball is easily accessible. Right. And no, you can actually sever lifelong ties to the sport if you take away one team, even if there is an alternative nearby even if that

alternative is cheaper and I guess you could go see the Dodgers play the Angels in Anaheim. Maybe that would help though I'm sure that would jack up prices too because you'd have an influx of Dodgers fans but you could go see other good teams and stars play the Angels. You don't have to watch the Angels alone and Angels got off to a better start than people were expecting this season anyway. So it's not irrelevant that there are also more affordable teams out there, but yeah, it's not a perfect substitute and it's not going to really assuage anyone

if they're saying, this is my team and I can't afford to go to the games and see my team anymore. Don't worry about it, Go see the angels instead. What percentage of people are actually going to think, Oh yeah, that's a good answer. Why didn't I think of that? I'll just go see some angels baseball and that'll be just as good. I mean, right now it's not as bad as it could be.

That's something. And I do, I do think that like, again, it's just like such a funny abdication of a chance for good PR. It would just be so easy to say. I think it is incumbent upon all of our teams to have evenings that are accessible for families to see our great sport. That's all it takes. Is he really going to piss off Guggenheim if he says that? And I'm sure that I would hope, I actually am not sure.

I would hope that the Dodgers have like, you know, value nights or whatever. Like a lot of teams, I think are trying to have some evenings and some like in ballpark concessions or whatever that are more accessible. And I want to imagine that the need for that might increase over time, depending on how the economy shapes up overall. So like, it would just be so easy to be like, I hope that all of our teams are exploring ways of making the big league experience accessible

to families in their communities. That's all, it doesn't seem like it's right there for him, you know? And again, it's like, it's useful in a way for people like us who are trying to like help people understand how the sport operates. When you don't have to claw your way through fluff, it's a little easier. But it's so interesting, Ben. Maybe he is an alien. I don't think he's an alien. I want to be clear. Also, I want

to remind people because I still occasionally see confusion on this score on social media that there has been a dramatic revision to the Otani dog question, right? That I have embraced new information and now think that that dog is a loving and loved member of the family. Congratulations to Shohei and his wife on the birth of their baby. But I still think that my initial instincts were correct, but, you know, like in a Netflix movie, things change over time. And now it's a beautiful dog dog human love story, not in a gross way, in a sweet way, in a normal dog owner dog way. I'm glad you've made this partial embrace of reality.

It's progress, I think. You're coming closer to life as I understand it in this particular situation. And to be clear, I don't think that the aliens have been here, you know? Like mathematically, there probably are other smart things out in the universe. They're out there, just far away. Far away.

They're not particularly really interested in our business down here, which is a mess. Yeah. I meant to say, by the way, when we were talking about the stolen bases, that most of what we were citing there in terms of stats was before Chandler Simpson arrived. So now with Chandler Simpson in the bigs,

that's gonna raise the roof on the steel rates even more, one would imagine. Guy who stole a hundred for last year. So. It's so cool, Ben. You know, like he stole one against the Diamondbacks the other night and the helmet flew off. And it wasn't even like an amazing jump.

He's just so lickety split. It's so cool. And like, he can, yeah, man. That was one of your bold predictions that you would lead the league in stolen bases. He arrived early enough to do that. I know. So, and I had one that was a player steals at least 80 bases. Now he could lead the league

in stolen bases without stealing 80, but maybe he will make both of our predictions come true. Yeah. Because I am still waiting for just a game breaking base dealer because when we used to talk about Billy Hamilton in those terms and Sam wrote about him a ton and we talked about him on this podcast and for a little while there looked like he would just break base stealing because he was so fast that the distance between bases would be too short for anyone to catch him potentially unless he fell down or something. And then that turned out not to be the case.

Like he was an excellent base dealer, but he could be caught. He wasn't invulnerable. It wasn't like as long as he held up his end of the bargain, no catcher could throw him out. And I'm still waiting for that guy to come along. Maybe it's Simpson, who knows, but someone who's just, you can't catch him

if he gets even just a decent break, just like something has to go horribly wrong for him to be caught. Because especially with the rules that we have now and potentially being able to get a longer lead and everything, you'd think that we could get to that point where it would just be automatic, where you almost couldn't stop someone. And Will Simpson be that guy? Will anyone be that guy? Or will that 90 feet between bases less however many inches it is now because the bases are bigger? Will that continue to survive the assault

of improving skills over time? Where that's what convinces people that there was some sort of like divine design for the game and that's why we can't change things. And really it was a product of trial and error, but it's held up remarkably well despite all of the other changes over the years and centuries. Yep. It's so fast.

All right. A few more follow-ups. First, as I teased last time, if you're in the New York area, you may be interested in accompanying me and fellow listeners and other people who worked on the Ella Black podcast on a trip to Ella's grave. This is happening on Sunday, May 4th. Check the show page and podcast description for a link where you can RSVP if you're on Facebook or if not, just find out the details and show up. Jacob writes in to say your discussion of the Brewers TV broadcast, mentioning your previous conversation about the John Brebbia spreadsheet,

reminded me of a moment on opening day when the radio broadcast alluded to your prediction of the helmet tap ejection. Clearly the broadcasting crew in Milwaukee has fine taste in baseball podcasts. Here's what Jacob's alluding to. I believe this is Lane Grindle on the call. Here's Contreras tying run-a run aboard at first. Pitch home. It's a check swing at a strike on the inside corner. I read or maybe I heard somebody on a podcast talking about some concern that a pitcher would tap their hat out of habit. The first couple of days of the season and the umpire would take it the wrong way. Like they're showing them up. Not wrong.

You go one. Misses high and outside. One ball one strike. There was a moment when Contreras struck out back in the third inning on a check swing, he tapped his helmet pretty aggressively on his way back towards home plate. I may not have been the only person who predicted that. So perhaps this wasn't an effectively wild reference, but if it was, I'm glad that we're so popular among Brewers broadcasters.

But give us a plug by name, send some listeners our way. Another listener named Ben writes in to say, I wanted to add a point regarding Comerica Park's keyhole, that's the strip of dirt between the mound and home plate that was just removed. Comerica had been the last big league park to have one. While yes, the park has lost some uniqueness with the loss of the keyhole, it is still the only park that has a home plate shaped

batter's box as opposed to every other park that has a circle shaped one. Don't think I knew that. Also, if you want more uniqueness or near uniqueness, PNC Park and Dyken Park, the former Minute Maid Park, are the only two parks that have a path to the batter's box from presumably the on-deck circle. The more you know. Finally, Andrew writes to say, I wanted to follow up with a related note about the owner bobblehead conversation.

In Toronto, there is a large bronze statue, normally reserved for all-time great players, e.g. Willie Mays at Oracle, of former owner Ted Rogers. And after all, what is a statue but a large bronze bobblehead? This is the only statue at the ballpark. On the topic of the bobblehead being destroyed, the statue has drawn a fair amount of ire from fans. After Jose Batista's contract negotiations turned south in 2016, a Twitter user threatened to throw the statue into the Lake Ontario harbor. Oh, we could have had a curse of the Colonel,

Hanschen Tiger sort of situation with Ted Rogers. Unless Rogers quote, paid the man. Police were called at the behest of Roger's staff and visited the fan at his house outside of Toronto before giving him a verbal warning. It is perhaps worth noting that Jose Batista posted 1.9 fan graphs were that year and negative 0.9 the following year

before leaving the Blue Jays. Perhaps the statue stays up for the foresight of not paying them in. If you'd like to pay us to keep making our great sports content and to get yourself some other stuff in the bargain, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks, as have the following five listeners.

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We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. A sense of analytics and humor, philosophical music. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild.