Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2318: It Was the Worst of Times, it Was the Worst of Times

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Ben Lindbergh brings on Brandon Uffner, an Orioles and Braves fan, to talk about his two teams’ slow starts to the season, his prescription for fixing them, how he came to root for them, managing his competing loyalties, and more. Then (36:01) he talks to Austin, a White Sox and Rockies fan, about both of […]

Number one fan grass baseball podcast. This stat cast is that blast. T O P S plus when the stats need contrast. Zips and steamer for the forecast. Hello and welcome to episode 2318 of Effectively Wild baseball podcast from fan graphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, not joined today by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs who is on

vacation this week. And as is often the case, it takes a few guests to fill Meg's shoes. At the end of the episode, I'll be joined by frequent stat blast correspondent Ryan Nelson who has several stat blasts for us. But first I have two thematically paired segments. I often go with something high concept when Meg is away. I'm always fascinated by people who are fans of multiple teams in the same sport,

just how having those affiliations works emotionally, the mental gymnastics required, how they determine their fan priorities. And so today I thought I'd talk to two people who are fans of two MLB teams apiece and who have not had things go their way thus far this season. So in this first segment, I will be talking to Brandon Uffner

who is a fan of both the Baltimore Orioles and the Atlanta Braves. The two teams that got off to the slowest starts this season in terms of World Series odds, playoff odds, et cetera. And I'm not trying to discount the suffering of any other fans. There are worse and more demoralizing teams than these two, but these two had high hopes.

These were expected to be among the best teams in their respective leagues, and it has not gone that way. This first segment was recorded before the Orioles lost nine to one to the Twins on Tuesday, and the Braves squeaked out a two-one win in 10 innings over the Reds. So the Orioles are now 13 and 21, the Braves just barely below 500 still,

after having entered the season as the closest thing to a lock according to the playoff odds, this side of the Dodgers. Fans of some other teams could have had a legitimate claim to more disappointing starts relative to expectations. I don't know, potentially those twins, I see you twins fans. It's been rough, not just in season,

but over recent off seasons and you have the Rangers with their scoring struggles. By the way since I brought that up on the podcast last week the Rangers have demoted Jake Berger, called up Evan Carter, and replaced their hitting coach. They hired Brett Boone to be their new hitting coach. Can you imagine if I hadn't mentioned the surprising offensive ineptitude of the Texas Rangers last week? They wouldn't know yet. They heard it here on Effectively Wild and they yeah, actually we have been bad. We better make some changes Well, you're welcome Rangers fans Anyway point is other teams have been bad other teams that were expected to be good have been mediocre

But we've probably talked about the plights of the Orioles and the Braves more so than any other Projected frontrunners thus far this season. So I thought what's it been like to be a fan of these two teams? What does that do to your appetite for baseball? What's a fan's prescription for fixing these teams? How does the spectator experience compare? We'll get into all of that with Brandon. But then I thought, okay, that's not so bad. What if you were a White Sox and Rockies fan? So I scoured the internet and I found one of those two. Poor, long-suffering White Sox and Rockies fan Austin will be here with us in the second segment to open up about that experience.

The Rockies are six and 28, the White Sox are 10 and 26. Did you know that entering Tuesday, the last place White Sox and the Guardians who are now in second place at 21 and 15 had almost identical run differentials and base runs records? Is that all Guardians magic again? We'll see if it

lasts this time, but there's been no White Sox magic. And then, hey, maybe on a future episode, we could talk to a Tigers slash Mets fan or a Yankees slash Cubs fan, or well, we usually have a Mariners fan on this show. We can hear how sunny and happy it's been, but in some respects, sports pain and sports perseverance are more entertaining to hear about than smooth sports sailing. So let's get going and we'll welcome in our first guest. Well, no team has lost more from its World Series odds since opening day than the Atlanta Braves. Second on that list is the Baltimore Orioles.

No team has lost more from its odds of winning the division since opening day than the Braves. And no team has lost more from its odds of winning the division since opening day than the Braves, and no team has lost more from its odds of making the playoffs period since opening day than the Orioles. And so I am joined now by Brandon, who roots for both the Orioles and the Braves. And you have had it bad this season, sir. Yeah, that's an understatement for sure. It's been a rough start to the season.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your dual Orioles, Braves fandom, anything you'd care to share your biographical details or just your baseball biography. So when I was a kid, I grew up in Eastern Pennsylvania in Philly's territory. And even though the team was good back then, for whatever reason, I just thought they were a really boring team and just didn't have

any interest in following them. My dad was a Yankees fan. And the other teams he followed, he was a Lakers fan and a Cowboys fan as well, a true front runner of a fan my dad was. But while I had Lakers and Cowboys stuffed animals and lamps and basketball hoops in my house, my dad wasn't pushing Yankee things on me.

So I was kind of a free agent, so to speak. I didn't care for the Phillies, as I mentioned, and the Orioles were the next closest team. So I would see that cartoon bird logo in places. Cal Ripken was huge back then. I really liked what he was doing. So I guess I just kind of gravitated towards the team due to that awesome logo that they had

that was very appealing to my kid self. And I fell in love with the team, for again, for whatever reason, mostly due to Cal, I would say. I grew up, moved around to some different places, moved to Massachusetts, Ohio, and then eventually came down to Georgia. And every stop along the way, I've always kind of disliked the local team. I don't know, maybe it's the contrarian in me, but I didn't care for the Red Sox fans.

When I was a kid, I wore my Ripken jersey to a game. I was probably nine years old. Fans were throwing popcorn and spilling beers on me. So I was like, all right, Red Sox, definitely not a Red Sox fan. When I moved to Ohio, again, they had some good teams as well, but it was more fun to have that different point of view, I guess, and have like debates with those local Cleveland fans. So never really gravitated towards them, had been an Orioles loyalist my whole life.

When I eventually moved down to Georgia, it was kind of the same thing, didn't have interest in the Braves. They had some great players, great teams, certainly players I respected, but couldn't really get into the fandom because the Orioles were too strong in my heart. Then they eventually moved right across the street

from my office, basically closer to my house. And I had an opportunity to do something that I've always wanted to do in my life, which is get season tickets for a team. So I splurged for my brave season tickets. Again, just a baseball fan in general, like going out to the games. Eventually, though, when you're going to enough games, and you kind of feel

like you're part of something by having those season tickets, I became, you know, a bigger fan of the Braves. They are my number two team for sure. I'm not gonna, you know, fully committed on the way out, commit to the Orioles. But I think it was during that weird COVID season that we had that really cemented my appreciation of the Braves. Kind of as cheesy as it sounds, you know, like a lot of teams did, they offered cardboard cutouts of yourself that they would put in the stands.

And I put on one of the handful of Braves t-shirts I had, Braves hat, whatever, put that in the stands and it felt like I was like part of something unique and different. And that's kind of when I, I crossed that line and said, okay, I am partially a Braves fan now as well. The next year they went on that awesome World Series run and the rest was kind of history.

So Orioles again, number one team, Braves have a soft spot in my heart as well, though. Okay. So yeah, one team you chose and one team, it sounds like almost chose you against your will. There you go. They wore you down and it was partly proximity. And I guess you're not as into the mascot of the Braves who very much disturbs my co-host Meg. And so you're not as charmed by Blooper as you were by Oriole Bird as a child, I assume. You know, I think I'm with Meg on that one.

There's something about a flesh colored fuzzy thing that's just, it's a little weird for me. Yeah, that's how she feels. So no conflicted loyalties. So if these teams meet up in interleague or when they do, I guess they're playing in July, or if someday they match up in the World Series, then you will have no division in your mind.

There'll be no conflict in your heart. You'll be always all the way, but maybe you'll feel a little bit bad about it. Yeah, I thought last year maybe was was going to be that World Series matchup I was dreaming for this season. I said, hey, it didn't happen last year. Maybe it'll happen this year. I don't know if it'll ever happen, but if it does Orioles all the way. Yeah. Right. So what were your expectations for these respective teams of yours heading into this season? Yeah. I've been saying for a few years that 2025 was going to be the Orioles year.

You know, they had their playbook that they, you know, stock the farm system, develop those players, and then accelerate the timeline. So in my head it was, you know, we had Adley and Gunnar and Westberg and all the guys kind of coming up that were going to hone their craft, and then we were going to trade for that elite starting pitcher at some point. And that was going to be the thing that pushed us over the edge. So 2025 I was all in, I was beyond excited the last couple of years, the Orioles exceeded expectations that kind of hit that timeline sooner. And I thought that my dreams might actually become a reality this year and the Orioles would

would have that World Series run. Obviously, that hasn't looked great so far. But that was the hope going into the season. And the Braves, it's kind of a more boring answer, I guess, because the Braves have been great the last few years, they had the World Series run. So the expectations there were just, you know, they're a perennial playoff team. They'll make the playoffs again and we'll see how far they go this time around. Yeah. And did you think that after they made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth last season until the last game of the season, that was very much in doubt and there were so many injuries and okay, now we're going to get Strider back and we're going to get Acuna back. Did you expect it to be easier this time? Did you think that they would just cruise to the playoffs if not to a division

title? Yeah, I did. I, you know, they, like you said, you get Strider back, you get Acuna back, you get, they had so many guys who were injured last year that it seemed like if they could fight their way through that this year would be a relative cakewalk. You know, the division, you have the Phillies, you have the Mets, two really good teams that they would have to overcome and battle throughout the season. But I did not fully expect them to start off 0-7, stumble out of the gate and then have to kind of put themselves in the same position as they were last year, fighting the whole

season just to make the playoffs. Yes. And obviously they've turned things around since the 0-7 start. They're approaching 500 again. Ronald Acuna, maybe a month or so away from returning. So things are trending up there in a way that maybe you can't say about Baltimore.

But yeah, I guess we should talk about just which has had the worst vibe so far this season, which has dismayed you more, which is costing you more sleep. And it didn't take long for things to really run off the rails for both of these teams. So I guess like, when did you start to realize like, oh, maybe this is not my year as a fan? Yeah, you got to look at the Orioles. Again, I was so hopeful for this year. And a lot of fans were frustrated by the got to look at the Orioles again. I was so hopeful for this year and a lot of fans were frustrated by the offseason that the Orioles had. You know, every fan wants

ownership to spend money. They want their GMs to go out and get the best players. And I feel like I'm a rational fan who understands these guys have budgets, they have plans, you know, it's no different than the business world. You have to have a plan and stick to it. You can't get, you know get crazy and go off the rails with it. I actually liked what we were doing in the off season and some of the moves we made last year. Getting Efflin was a great multi-year move. I liked the Sugano signing.

I thought that he's the type of pitcher that you can slot in there as like a number three, number four role and not worry about him going out there and getting shelled. Even Charlie Morton, a guy who has had some really bad luck and some bad vibes from the fans, I thought would be great slotting him in as a number five role. Let him be a mentor to some of the young guys. And I was a big, huge Grayson Rodriguez fan. I think he just has all of the elements that make a player great. And

I was excited for what was to come this year. Yeah. The pitching fell apart super quick. And unlike the Braves, there's not really reinforcements coming tomorrow. You know, I don't know when Rodriguez is going to come back. Bradish is somebody who's going to come back the second half of the year, if at all. Tyler Wells, he's solid. I don't know that he belongs in the rotation necessarily, but I just don't know where things are going to go with the team. And that's before we even look at the lineup. The lineup was the thing that was supposed to be cemented in stone to carry us through the next seven years or whatever it might be. And outside of Mullins and O'Hern, nobody's

really hitting. And the vibes just look so bad. You know, I think a few years ago or two years ago, really, the team seemed to be having fun. They were being who you would expect a young team to be who got along with each other. And I'm just not seeing that as much these days. So I have to say the Orioles have crushed my heart, broken my spirit to a certain degree. And I'm still hopeful they're gonna be able to turn it around some way somehow, but it's an uphill battle for sure.

Yeah, I guess you never know with vibes, with chemistry, whether it's a chicken or the egg kind of thing. Are they not looking like they're having as much fun because they're losing a lot? Are they losing a lot in part because they're not having as much fun? Those things are so intertwined. But I notice now that both the Orioles and the Braves have a 99 WRC plus. So they're 14th and 15th in offense per plate appearance so far this season. And I wonder which of those is more surprising than both being so mediocre.

Cause yeah, the Orioles have all these excellent young hitters and then the Braves two seasons ago were just a juggernaut offensively. And then last year that kind of tanked, but you figured, okay, they're losing a lot of guys and everyone's hurt and it will bounce back this year. And that hasn't happened so much for, for both of these teams to be so, so, so offensively, which surprises you more.

I think the Orioles surprised me more the Braves. They've had their bouts the last few years where they're either hitting homers or they're not scoring runs. So I'm not surprised by some of the sluggishness and some of the kind of cyclical nature of their approach. I think the Braves will certainly finish the season higher in those rankings. You get Acuna back, you kind of have the lineup that you wanted to have this year and the offense is just going to go to the next level, I think. The Orioles, it's been so disappointing. Like I already said, the way things have gone,

the vibes are off. They're dealing with injuries as well. The at bats just don't look good. I thought they were going to have this amazing top five offense for several years. And we just can't seem to get out of our own way this year. I'm not surprised that you liked the Charlie Morton signing as a brave slash Orioles fan. I guess he'd be your guy. So Charlie also holds another special place in my heart because a couple of years ago, when I was watching him up before he was about to pitch, I said to myself, I was like, man, you know, Charlie's getting up pretty old. And then I kind of looked in the mirror and like, he's like a year older than me. So I had this like existential crisis myself.

Right. Yes. You start getting to a certain age and you really appreciate those 40 somethings who are still hanging in there in MLB. So have you gotten to go to any Braves games yet this year? So have you gotten to go to any Braves games yet this year? I actually had not been to one yet. I'm going to my first one next week against the Nationals. Okay. But I did get to see them in spring training. Uh-huh, okay, that's fun. Back in the good old days before things went wrong.

And I guess given the competitive situations of the two, it would be one thing if they were in weak divisions and they got off to slow starts, but they're in the AL East and the NL East and that's tough. AL East top to bottom, NL East certainly the top few teams at least. And so which of the competitive situations do you think is more daunting as you look ahead and say, can this team turn it around? Traditionally, I would say the AL East, but the whole AL East has been, I wouldn't say

stumbling because teams are winning, but nobody's running away with it. I think the, you know, the Mets have gotten off to a really nice start this year, which makes it a little more daunting to overtake the division. So I guess that would give a slight edge to the NLEs being tougher to make up the ground right now. Yeah, the Braves are six games back of the Mets and the Orioles, even though they're in last place and the Braves are in third, the Orioles are only five games back

of the first place Yankees. And so I guess that's kind of heartening because we're just, it's early May. It's early enough that unless you're the White Sox or the Rockies, which I'll get to in my next segment, or I guess the Pirates, you haven't really had time to fall behind that far. Those are the only three teams that are double digits

behind the division leader. So you look at five, six games, you say, okay, we can make that up. I guess, you know, if you assume that this is just a mirage and that the teams just have not been playing to their true talent thus far. So what do you think each team needs in addition to just getting guys back

or guys who've underperformed no longer underperforming? Do you think that there are moves that each has to make over the next few months before the deadline in order to fully recover? Yeah, I think what they need most are a hug, but absent that, it's no surprise. Every team needs starting pitching. I think the Braves are going to be fine. Strider is going to come back, hopefully, you know, be able to stay healthy the rest of the run. You get a Cunha back. How often do you get to add an MVP to your line up, you know, at this point in the season? I don't think they really need to make any moves. I also quite frankly, don't even know what moves meaningful moves they could make, because I don't think they have a whole lot waiting in the farm system that's going to,

you know, be a ton of value to a team that they would need to trade with. I think the Braves will be fine. The Orioles, like you said, absent health, they need starting pitching. And I'd love to see a veteran bat come to the lineup, a guy who can take some pitches, work the count, kind of show some of these young players who have been swinging at bad pitches, not swinging at pitches, whatever it might be, just kind of to mentor them, help them out along the way.

I love O'Hern and the grit that he's brought to the team, but I think if they could add one more bat somewhere in the lineup, probably in the outfield or at DH, that could be helpful. And then really they need a whole new rotation at this point outside of Sagano. And I don't, I don't think that's happening anytime soon. Right. So have you retroactively then joined the mob and, and brought out your pitchforks and torches and run Michael IAS out of town on a rail, or are you still in the camp of the plan? The process was okay

and things have just gone wrong? Cause that's kind of been his take on this, at least publicly is that how could we possibly have anticipated that Grayson Rodriguez and Zach Eflin would be hurt at the same time, you know, that you might have multiple starting pitchers injured and guys who have long injury track records. And then everyone else who just hasn't worked out and Morton just kind of collapsing and

being moved to the bullpen, et cetera. So are you now more so than you were over the winter thinking, gosh, we really should have been more aggressive. We should have even, you know, whether we were going to get Burns back or not, we should have at least made more of an effort to sign someone of his caliber. Now, who knows you signed Blake Snell, well, Blake Snell's injured right now,

but maybe Max Fried, maybe, who knows, right? Like there's someone out there who's better than Kyle Gibson, right? So like, are you now ruining that? Are you now thinking they sort of sat on their hands too much? Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy to say, they should have gone out and signed Max Fried.

You know, Max Fried is great. He looks great this year. But again, I'm a rational, I think, realistic fan. I don't think we're going to be, you know, offering a seven, eight, nine year deal to a starting pitcher. And I don't think we should, cause those things always start to fall apart, you know,

three, four years in. I think we had a good plan in place. I do think the injuries have caused problems. And I think we could have masked some of those injuries if the lineup just didn't go cold. I think, you know, if Adley's, you know, hitting and Gunnar and Mountcastle and all the guys are mashing the baseball, our run differential isn't as grotesque as it is right now. And you could cover up some of the rough pitching that we've seen so far. Luck plays a big role in the game.

I don't think you can fault the moves that the team has made this offseason, I would say. If you want to fault the team, I would have loved the Orioles to grab a guy like Luis Castillo a couple years ago before our competitive window was supposed to open so that we could kind of get out in the forefront and try to accelerate that timeline. But if we weren't going to make the move back then, I don't know. I don't know what move you make right now. What other move we should have made in the off season that would have been responsible for the future. You know, when you listen to the fans, everybody wants to sign our young guys to these long

extensions. You're not going to be able to necessarily do that if you're spending, you know, 200 million, 300 million on a pitcher who's going to break down in a couple of years. So I don't fault Elias. I fault, you know, I think there's a lot you can fault with the team right now But I think he had a plan. I think it was a sound plan and I'm gonna keep my pitchfork in the corner for now Do you think that that is the mood of the Orioles fan base in general or would you say that you're on the? Friendlier side when it comes to the mood toward Elias right now. I am're on the friendlier side when it comes to the mood toward Elias right now? I am definitely on the friendlier side. There have been some bad vibes across the Orioles fan base.

I understand it, but like I said, I think you have to be just kind of aware that just because we didn't sign some guys this off season doesn't mean we weren't trying. You know, people wanted us to resign Burns. Burns seemed to want to go be closer to Arizona anyway. So I don't know what we were going to be able to do. You know, you look at the moves that were made or weren't made. Nobody looks at what negotiations were because we don't know what all of those negotiations and conversations look like. Yeah, I think it's possible that they couldn't have gotten Burns even if they had tried to, although he did come out

and say that he was kind of confused by the lack of aggressiveness and going after him from the Orioles, that they sort of said they were interested, but then didn't really show that they were interested and they offered him a shorter term deal and they never really checked in or followed up. And the Diamondbacks were really courting him. And yeah, it's possible that he might've just decided to go to Arizona anyway, but it doesn't sound like they made the best effort, right? They didn't seem to

make it that hard for him to decide to leave. And then yeah, your options for that kind of picture are limited. I guess I would say that when it comes to a long-term deal for a picture, yes, they may very well break down and not be helping you by the end of that deal, but the Orioles need to win now. I mean, this is the time for them. And so if a guy you signed to a long-term deal is bad five years from now, does that matter so much?

I mean, I guess it depends obviously if your ownership is willing to spend, but Rubenstein has at least said he was or did initially before he started talking about salary caps. I think even when he was talking about a salary cap, he said that he was willing to raise payroll and did raise payroll just in kind of confusing ways. But you know, you have this young, inexpensive core

and I know that the team has gotten more expensive, but if you aren't signing those guys to extensions or you haven't yet, and you also have this core that's making league minimum or close to it and at least is projected to give you a lot of production, then you know, that seems like the time to splurge or to sign someone to a deal that might not really work out long term on a dollars per war basis, but if it gets you to the playoffs this year and maybe you go deep into the playoffs, then maybe that's worth it. Now I guess things have started so badly for them that even if you put Max Reed on this

roster or just like put some ace on there that alone probably wouldn't be enough. I mean they'd be in a less dire situation than they are right now but they've dug themselves a pretty deep hole. You mentioned the run differential. I mean they have actually outplayed their expected record, their base runs record by a few games and only the Rockies, Angels and Marlins have worse run differentials than the Orioles. So that's where they really stand out. I mean, the Braves have been outscored, but barely and the Orioles

are just, they're getting trounced. Yeah. And I think you go to your last question. I want to reserve the right to revisit this in five years. You know, you mentioned Rubenstein. I think if he doesn't open up the purse strings and sign some of these guys to extensions, my view on this year would certainly change in retrospect. I understand the idea of going all in, but if we don't have a long-term plan and our

short-term plan is what it is now, then I may retroactively grab that pitchfork and sit outside of a camping yard, see if I can make some noise. Yeah. But by then it'll be too late. Let's hope not. Let's, the Orioles will have blown it. Yeah. We're going to try to stay positive here.

All right. I guess the other thing, and I know Rubinstein didn't own the team during this period, but when you've just been through that tanking period and you didn't spend anything on those teams and the product reflected that seems like implicit in that is almost a promise of, okay, when we get out the other side here and we've built this team through drafting and developing and scouting, then we will spend the money that we weren't at all spending in those years. So, you know, I know it's not him.

And so there isn't perfect continuity there, but that almost seems like it should be part of the bargain. We're going to just super suck right now, but as soon as we get out the other side and there's light at the end of the tunnel, then we will actually invest the money that wasn't invested in the team in those years. So yeah, maybe that'll happen a few years down the road, but this is the window. The window is open right now, it seems to me. I think something else that happened this year, which, you know, again, the season's going off the rails, but in my head it was, this was a great year

to make that mid-season pickup if we needed to. Now, when you start off the way we did, it's not, you know, it may not make sense around the trade deadline to make a move, but we still had a couple of guys waiting in the wings that we could dangle as trade bait to get that big starting pitcher to push us over. That's probably not going to happen now, especially if the team continues going down the path it is. And I also think that the lustre of some of our prospects, a guy like Kobe Mayo, for example, hasn't really shown what he could be at a major league level.

So you have to wonder if we even have the trade chips, assuming you don't wanna trade some of your, the guys who are at the major league level in the starting lineup today. So how much has this dampened your enthusiasm for baseball? It's early and this is a time when normally you're excited and it's a new season and anything can happen

and my teams could go far. And then they start the way that your two teams have. Has this caused you to watch less baseball, follow baseball less closely, or are you still in a baseball mood despite all of the circumstances? Yeah, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I'm still in a baseball mood.

I think it's early enough I try to tell people you know Once if you get to the end of May and both of these teams are still struggling then I'll get disappointed Then maybe I'll go grab that pitchfork we talked about earlier, but for right now. It's early enough You know the Orioles young hitters could start hitting the pitchers certainly can't get any worse So you have to think that you know that the things will turn around there. And the Braves, again, you get Strider back, you get Acuna back, they're going to be fine.

Maybe they're not going to run away with the division. They should end up in the playoffs again. So I'm not completely disheartened yet. I am sad that the odds of this Orioles Braves World Series I've been dreaming about aren't probably going to happen this year, but it's not all hope is lost quite yet. Yeah, Orioles rotation, dead last in FanGraphs War to date,

but 27th in Projected War the rest of the way. There you go, things are looking up. Technically an improvement, yes. So, do you think that if this Oriole season doesn't improve, I mean, it almost has to improve, but if it ends up with them out of the playoffs, do you think that anyone's job will be in danger given that more people are out for blood

and want heads to roll more so than you do. Yeah, I mean, I think Hyde is definitely on the hot seat right now. I mean, somebody will have to go, you know, a head will have to roll. I think Elias has kind of probably built up a little bit of a safety net for himself. And I think the injuries maybe have helped him out a little bit more, you know, when you're watching games, you're not seeing him in the dugout. He's not making the day to day, you know, managing management decisions. You know, the, the Orioles fans don't love the, uh, ever changing lineups, you know, not getting the same bats in the lineup day after day to build up some

consistency, work out of slumps, whatever it might be. So I think that that, that seat under Brandon Hyde has to be super hot right now. And I don't think the injuries are going to give him the same sort of grace that Elias might be able to escape with. And even if the teams are losing, which has the more entertaining experience for you,

whether in person at the park or via the broadcast? I mean, if your team is getting crushed as the Orioles and Braves often have to start the season, which one would you rather be watching either in person or from afar? You know, which broadcast or ballpark experience would you prefer if the game's not going great? Oh, it's a good question. I guess the Braves have shown more fight this year, so I would say that

that experience is probably a little bit better than what I've seen from the Orioles. I guess if you want to watch a lot of runs get scored, if you're a fan of the home run, watch an Orioles game because you're gonna see a few. Hopefully our guys hit some, but more than likely the other team certainly will. Yes. As just happened the other day with seven being allowed right over the weekend in a game. But I mean, also just ballparks and, and broadcast crews, just sort of the aesthetics of your surroundings when the game's not going well. Yeah, I mean, I think both teams have great broadcast crews.

It's easier for me to get to a game being that I live just outside of Atlanta. So I love that experience, but I got to tell you, I think the Orioles broadcast team is one of the best in baseball. Love listening to those guys when I have been able to get up to Baltimore and I haven't been there over the last couple of years, but maybe I've chosen great games

to go to. Maybe it's just been the vibe in the park that day, but the park was rocking and it was a really fun experience. I think, you know, with my Orioles bias anyway, I would probably rather be up at Camden yards, but youards, but you can't really go wrong either way. And for anyone who doesn't understand the phenomenon of dual fandom, who thinks that you have to have only one team and it's your ride or die, and granted you're a lifelong Orioles fans and the Braves are more of a recent love, but how would you explain sort of how you navigate dual fandom

or how you split your time? Is it essential? I guess that this is an AL team and an NL team. Would you not want to double up in a single league? Yeah. I mean, I guess first I would say I have three kids and I love them all equally. So there's a, there's a path, but when it comes to baseball, yeah, I don't think I would be able to root for two teams in the same league. That would just be challenging. When I have to choose between the Orioles and the Braves from a viewership perspective,

I typically lean towards the Orioles. This year, they're typically down early, and then I can flip over to the Braves broadcast, so it's kind of been an easier decision. But generally speaking, I lean towards the Orioles. They're not in the same league. They're not fighting for, you know, the division title, whatever. So it hasn't really been a challenge. And I think both fan bases are also really great. So, you know, it's not like if I was, I don't know, a Red Sox and the Phillies fan, there might be some angry remarks of outraged fans saying you can't do that, but the Orioles and Braves fans, both relatively reasonable fan bases,

and it's been pretty easy to navigate. I wish you the best. I wish you better, at least, than it's been, which it would be hard not to be. I'm glad you've retained your enthusiasm for baseball. And thanks for coming on and sharing your pain, Brandon. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. This has been therapeutic and let's hope that the season turned around for both of these

teams so I can sleep better at night. Okay. It can always get worse. There's always a smaller fish. After a break, I'll be back with Austin, who is a fan of both the Colorado Rockies and the Chicago White Sox. This coming segment was recorded before the White Sox lost on Tuesday. Shower me with data that I never thought to compile Now I'm freely now a scorecard with a cracker chat with a smile That took me wild

Alright, well if you thought the Orioles and Braves starts to the season were bad, then brace yourself because we are about to talk to a genuine White Sox and Rockies fan. His name is Austin. He has been doubly cursed or has cursed himself. He has the dual misfortune to be rooting for both of these teams at the same time. Austin, welcome and my condolences. Ben, thank you so much for having me. No condolences necessary. I just think back to the 2005, 2007 time of my life. That was very happy. I was a freshman in college and it was amazing

when the White Sox took the World Series in 2005 and then of course, Rocktober in 2007 happened. So yeah, you know, ever since not great, but hey, we're here. Yeah, sure. What goes up must come down, I guess, and keep going down and down and down. The good news is that the Rockies Tuesday game has been rained out. So at least there won't be another loss added

to the tally today, but they do have the worst records in baseball to date, and that's probably not a huge shocker. So what was your expectation for these two teams coming into this season? Obviously on the heels of a historically terrible season for the White Sox and just a generically really terrible season for the Rockies. Did you think that some strides were going to be made here? Did you have any semblance of hope? What was your mindset of a month or so ago? My mindset a month or so ago was I am so glad that hockey and basketball is still going on because I don't have to pay attention to any of this yet.

Um, I mean, it was, I was hopeful. Of course, I didn't think, you know, I was not delusional. I didn't think anything chaotic was gonna happen, but I certainly didn't expect the Rockies to be sitting here with six wins on May 6th. That seems quite far-fetched, if you had told me a month ago. Yeah.

So how did you become a White Sox and Rockies fan or Rockies and White Sox fan? What's, what are your relative levels of investment and enthusiasm in these two teams historically? Historically, it was a lot more prior to having kids. Now I've kind of had to focus a little bit of my efforts differently. Originally, I was a White Sox fan.

My dad is actually born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Lived there through the mid 70s and then moved out to Denver. And I was born there were no there was no baseball here so I grew up just kind of a White Sox fan by proxy a memory I have that really stands out to me is watching the American League Championship series White Sox versus Blue Jays and Was that 92 93? I can't quite remember

And just seeing that was like the moment in my life that I was like, wow, sports is a little bit different. Like, I remember seeing my dad get emotional when the lightsocks lost. And I was just like, wow, this is wild. I'm glad I get this moment to be with him. Yeah, 93, that was. And then a few years, you know, then also the Rockies are in town. And I remember going to games down at Mile High Stadium before Coors Field. And

they were always, one was an American League team, one was a National League team, never had any thoughts of like, oh, two teams to support. They never play each other. Obviously Interleague play has changed that. But I live in Denver, huge Rockies fan. I try to get down to the stadium as often as I can. I'm going to take my son to his first game this year. But yeah, I'd say I'm pretty casual as a fan right now. I can't blame you really. But when they do play each other in interleague, or let's imagine a scenario where the White Sox and Rockies meet in the fall classic, where would your loyalties lie?

With the Rockies. Just because I'm here in Denver, so I could be here with the city and get all the hype. If I was leaving Chicago, it'd be the opposite answer. I'd be pulling for the White Sox. Ah, interesting. Okay. So this is again, it's like our previous guests. It's like one team was a childhood love and then another was you were a transplant and

you developed an affection for that new team. But I guess opposite in the sense that you're now maybe more enthusiastic about the team that you're close to as opposed to the one that you grew up rooting for. Yeah, it's just a little bit easier to access information about the Rockies living here in town. You know, I tune into sports radio, driving to and from work and, you know, sometimes they bring it up, not really too much anymore with not doing too great, but it's just the proximity to everything is really what would say pushing one ahead of the other. I wonder what Rocky's sports radio to the extent that it exists is like because we've talked about how the Rockies draw well even

when they're bad and you know it's a nice place to go to the park and you could get some cheap beer and there's a view and there are a lot of transplants in Denver I know and maybe they nice place to go to the park and you could get some cheap beer and there's a view. And there are a lot of transplants in Denver, I know, and maybe they just want to go see a ball game regardless of who's playing or who they're rooting for. But are people up in arms? Are people calling for heads? Are people demanding that Montfort sell the team the way that people are demanding that John Fisher sell

or Bob Nutting sell? Is there the same sort of outrage? I haven't seen that level of outrage yet. Um, there's been nothing really organized as far as like, you know, I'm on like the Facebook groups and the Reddit, the Reddit pages and everything. And there's not been like a, let's get down to Coors Field and stage a protest. Um, nothing that's really gained a lot of traction. My neighbor was a original Rocky season ticket holder.

I think he was 22, number 22 on the list and he just canceled last year, didn't renew. So people are salty about it, but it's not really actionable quite yet. I mean, it's still the best bang for your buck. It's the best outdoor bar in Denver. And it's a great way to spend an evening. And it'd be sweet if like the actual team on the field was as good as the actual environment in the stadium. That was the sweet spot. The happy days for you when the white Sox and did their drought and won. And then the Rockies won a pennant not too long after that.

Those were the good days. And I guess there were some good days in the not too distant past too, or at least, well, better days, they could hardly be worse than the present days. But like, are you surprised to find yourself here as a fan with these two teams? Cause of course the White Sox, part of the frustration with them is that they squandered what seemed to be a really promising roster,

an incredible farm system, and graduated a lot of guys and made the playoffs. And it seems like, okay, they're set for years. And then that all just completely fell apart. And the Rockies, it's a little different in that I guess they haven't seemed as promising in recent years, but maybe it was tough to anticipate that they would fall this far.

Cause that's the thing historically with the Rockies. They haven't ever won the division, but they hadn't ever lost a hundred until just recently, until a couple of years ago too. And then they decided they liked it, I guess, and they want to keep at it. But, you know, they had always been, were often been bad, but not like maybe worst in baseball bad. So this is sort of a new nadir for them. Yeah. I mean, it's wild just to sit here and say, oh, the, you know, the two favorite teams I support, their combined record is what, 16 and 53, I think.

It's absurd. Like, there's teams that are contenders right now who have already won 16 games this year. I've got two. And neither of them have combined for it. So I don't know. I take pride in it. I'm like, hey, there's not a whole lot of White Sox fans

that I know outside of my immediate family here in Colorado. So we always get a good laugh in it. I'm like, hey, you know, there's not a whole lot of White Sox fans that I know outside of my immediate family here in Colorado, so we always get a good laugh about it remember the old times and You know, the Rockies are just always the Rockies They've you know since I was born here in Colorado and ever since they got here They've always been you know, a second or third tier as far as the priorities sports wise are in town You know safe for 2007 when they went to the World Series, is it because of their sustained lack of success for 30 years? And you know, the Broncos, Avalanche and Nuggets have all won titles in that timeframe.

They've just kind of always been like, hey, the Rockies, it's a nice night, get out to the ballpark, fingers crossed we can watch some good baseball. Maybe they'll win. Do you miss Blake Street Bombers era? Do you wish that there were no humidor, that if they were bad, at least they'd be bashing and it would be weird and it would be baseball on the moon like it used to be? Just given that they can't even hit it home now. Forget about park factors and adjustments. Even before that, they can't seemingly score. Man, that's a really good question.

And I've never thought about it. On the one hand, yeah, that was wild. It was entertaining. No lead was safe. The games were also going like four and four and a half hours long, and that's a long time to sit out in the sun roasting. Pitchclock era, I don't know how the Blake Street Barbers would do these days when it's very, you know,

home runner strike out almost vibe. It would be more entertaining certainly, but would it be caught with the wind stack up? I don't know. Is it worth it to have entertainment without the winds? I guess certainly, but I guess it's better than not having either the entertainment or the winds. If you have to choose between the two, Ideally you have both and the entertainment typically comes with the wins, but if you could manage to have entertainment without wins, well, that's something. And I guess you do, cause you said, you know,

good ballpark vibe and all of that, but the baseball itself, not so much. No, and the vibes are incredible. I mean, anybody who can get the chance to get down to Coors Field on a summer evening and watch a game, I mean, there's nothing like it the Sun sets You know, the people are great you pretty attentive fans, you know, there's not a lot of chaos or other distractions going on You know, all those people are up at the party deck now

It's been fun Do I wish that maybe my dad had been born in you know A more successful baseball city that gave me that fandom like I've got friends who are Yankees fans You know from from New York. And I'm like, man, that's pretty cool. Your son can be, you're going to pass that on. And I'm like, do I want to pass it on to my kids? Or is it like, hey, go your own route?

I guess, yeah, if you're taking your kid to Rockies games, I guess you've made your decision. I mean, that's the only accessible baseball for you at the big league level. And so I guess you've steered them more towards Rockies just because it's natural, because they're the team that's there and it's not like inflicting white Sox on them would be any better currently. Pretty much.

Um, fortunately they're still pretty young to really get any of it, but, uh, they won't remember this. They'll forget the bad memories. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm trying to think like, I don't remember what the White Sox are doing in the early 80s. Which of these teams do you think is closer to respectability and dare we even say contention?

Oh, man. Honestly, I'd have to say the White Sox just because they don't have to play in the same division as like the Dodgers, you know, Dodgers, Giants, Arizona and San Diego right now. Plus I know they got some pretty solid young pitchers in the minor leagues coming up, which hopefully you know, they work out and pitching is going to be what drives the bus forward. But I don't have any ambition or thought that they're going to be, you know, the Rockies or White Sox will do much in the next few years. Yeah.

Yeah. It does seem like the White Sox, well, they have a plan. And will the plan pay off? Who knows? The previous plan didn't for very long, at least. But at least it feels like they're sucking toward something, I guess, as opposed to just sort of aimlessly sucking

and completely unintentionally sucking. I guess it's worse to feel like you're trying as hard as you can and you still suck that much. Yeah, it's kind of like, hey, at least, you know, we suck, we know we suck, but there's a plane in place and eventually we won't versus where it's the Rockies. It's like, hey, we suck. And I don't know, Coors field is hard to pitch at. So sorry, gang. Well, maybe next year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and the White Sox have had some younger guys arrive, or they're on the verge of arriving,

or they have a good farm system, at least. So there's hope on the horizon, as you said. And hopefully that will pan out for them better than the previous great class of prospects did. But it's nice to at least be able to project a few years down the road and say, oh, this guy could be at this position and this guy could be at this position.

And the Rockies, you know, they've had their fair share of young promising players and Tovar and Doyle and Doelander now and they're guys, right? But it's harder to construct a fantasy roster of like contending teams made up of players who are in the organization currently. I keep going back and forth on whether I want Dick Monfort to sell the team or not personally.

You know, I read your articles that are put out in the local papers or what have you, and he seems like a really nice guy. Like I think a lot of baseball fans would love to have him as an owner. He's willing to spend money. Maybe he doesn't have him as an owner. He's willing to spend money Maybe he doesn't do it the best but he's willing to spend everything I've read He knows the players knows that you know Everything that you would need to know about him as far as like hey, we work together

Wife and kids names birthdays what their likes and dislikes are. He seems like a very great owner from a personal standpoint Spends money, but he kind of does a lot of stupid things and that's where it's tough. You know, hiring his friends and family to run, you know, let's get some smart people in here to do the, you know, to focus on, you know, all the stat cast and saver metrics and all that good stuff. I mean, I have no idea, but it's just kind of like, that's my own vibe. Yep.

No, I think that seems pretty accurate to me. But I was going to ask what your prescription is for getting out of these doldrums. That might be a nice way to put what's happening here. But is there a specific, okay, here's what we do. Here's my Austin's 10 part plan to get the Rockies and or White Sox back to contention. I mean, for the Rockies specifically, I know a few years ago, they were very big into developing technology for pitching machines that could replicate pitches both at altitude and sea level.

Right. So that way there wasn't as big of a change going from Denver to Florida, for example, and then to Atlanta, then back to Denver, then San Francisco. It was really hot up and coming a few years ago and I haven't heard anything about it since. I don't know if it's still around or if maybe it kind of went by the wayside. Something like that I would love to see. I mean, it's tough.

The ball breaks differently at altitude versus at sea level. And these are major league players. They're good at what they do. The pitchers are going to pitch, but how as a hitter do you adjust overnight from a ball breaking six inches to breaking 18 inches? And that'd be where I would start. It's like, how do we figure this problem out? And then the rest can kind of go from there.

Yeah, that seems like a tough nut to crack for them. And they do have the fancy pitching machines as far as I know, they have the trajectory and everything and they've talked about that. But I guess you want to see what that would look like. I guess you're seeing it. And it's not great. So it might take more than that, or maybe it's

just a problem that is difficult to deal with. I mean, really now, it's not even so much the coarse field hangover effect or going from sea level to altitude. It's more that they can't hit anywhere at all. So yeah, that's obviously these guys are all major league talent. They're there. They're playing day and day out. Yep.

But maybe we need just a little bit more. I mean, it's, you know, Chris Bryant is a big albatross around to the books right now. And I mean, I don't fault the guy at all. Somebody threw me that much money. I would not hesitate for a moment. And I don't think he's trying to like not play, but it's just like, man, Dick,

that was not the best contract we could have made right there. Like perhaps that money could have been better used elsewhere. Yes. And that was, I think, anticipatable at the time. Maybe not that he would give them nothing and that he would have these serious health problems, but that it was not the best signing or the best time to sign him.

Yeah, that was kind of first guest widely. Yeah, I've got a bunch of, all of my in-laws, my brother in-law and everybody are huge Cubs fans and they make sure to bring it up as often as possible. And I'm like, hey, well, I don't know what to tell you guys. We're white socks and Rockies people over here. Yeah, yeah. Right now, as we record here on Tuesday,

the Rockies, not only that they have a 60 WRC plus where 100 is average and lower than that is worse, obviously. So that's very, very bad. But they have the lowest OPS in baseball of any team. 620, the White Sox are at 621. So your two teams just neck and neck, buddy, buddy, much as they are in your affections. But for the Rockies to have the lowest OPS in baseball before we park adjust, that is truly dire. So that's where we are. Yeah.

It's, it's bleak. Yeah. You want bleak, not bleak when you're talking about the Rockies. So what about like just the, the watching spectating experience? We talked about just how nice it is to go out to cores, even like watching the broadcasts, just following the team from afar.

Could you compare and contrast? Now I know that the departure of Jason Benetti was a blow on top of many blows for White Sox fans, but how would you kind of grade the ballpark experience of the two teams and the broadcast experience? If you're gonna tune in, knowing that your team is gonna take a punishing, which one is preferable just for the atmosphere?

Oh man. So I, you know, I grew up, I'm from Denver, all of my family was in Chicago. So we used to fly back every summer. So I caught White Sox games all the time. And, you know, going with my dad and my uncle and cousins to Kamiski as it was, I mean, that's a memory that I'll take forever. That was great. You know, I remember being there the day that Sammy Sosa had his whole corked bat incident come out and t-shirts were springing up immediately you know poking fun at it and Going getting pizza after with the family. It's kind of a dumpy stadium not in the best part of town But the memories are there on the flip side though Coors Field is amazing. I mean, going through college here in Denver and basically growing up, going there all the time. I mean, I was a 10 minute,

like 20 minute walk up the street when I was in college. I went to 60 games a year just walking up to the gate. I don't think I, I would put Coors Field up with any stadium in sports in the world as far as atmosphere and views and what you can see. Beer is cheap, the food's ballpark quality, it's decent, and it's a cool breeze on a hot summer night, you can't beat it. As far as the broadcast, I listened to Drew Goodman when he's doing the play-by-play, I like him. I think he does a great job.

It's hard 30 years a winning a division. It's like how, how much enthusiasm and momentum can one man have for, for that much downturn? White Sox, I don't get to watch as much on TV anymore. So I don't really have a great opinion on how their broadcast is looking. I know Hawk Harrelson is no longer there if I'm not mistaken.

Yes. I didn't mind him too much. Sometimes he made it about him, but other than that, I thought he was pretty good. I wonder what White Sox fans call their ballpark currently. I know you're not in Chicago and go into games there regularly, so maybe you're not the best person to ask. But I struggle with what to call it myself.

I still call it Kaminsky. But what is it? God, this is so stupid. I am such a bad fan now. I don't even know what it's called right now. Is it still Great Rate Field with the big down arrow? It was guaranteed rate, and now it's just rate. They just dropped the, it's just rate field.

Perfect. Yeah. So. Perfect. Yeah. Wow. So what has come out of these two conversations, I think is that it's tough to be equally invested in two teams at the same time, even if they are in different leagues and they're not regularly competing with each other.

I guess everyone kind of has like a 1A or a 2, or I don't know how you'd compare the White Sox to your Rockies fandom, but seems like it's tough to hold two teams in the same sport in your heart with the same level of love. So you kind of have a backup and a number one, at least. And that might change over the course of your life, which one is sort of ascendant.

But yeah, hard to hold both of those in your head at the same time. No, I think that's pretty much spot on. And honestly, I know there was all sorts of rumors pop up all the time, like, oh, the White Sox are going to move to Nashville or whatever. Truthfully, if that happened, I probably wouldn't. I would just be a Rockies fan at that point.

I have no loyalty to Nashville or anything like that. It's more of like, hey, this is my childhood. The White Sox were my team. If they didn't exist anymore, it's like, hey, I'm not gonna follow them. So how many Rockies games are you going to these days? And how has this affected your overall level of enthusiasm for baseball, this downturn?

I mean, are you still paying as close attention to the sport or are you kind of checked out until these teams get good again or at least not totally historically terrible? I'd say it's more of a periphery right now. Granted, the last four years I've had children and they're taking up a lot of time. So I don't get to follow as closely as I used to.

You know, I get to a handful of games a year, maybe five, 10, at least a few times a month, especially through work. Sometimes we'll do work outings with it or just going out with my family is usually it, but definitely not as much as it used to be back when I was single in college and could just do whatever I wanted

without any thought or responsibility, really. And when these teams are good again, I'll say when, not if, trying to be positive here, then will you come right back to them? They're not burning bridges with you permanently. They're not losing you as a fan because they're just so bad that you're forsaking them forever.

Will you get back on the, I don't know if I'd call it a bandwagon, you've been a fan for a long time, but will you pay closer attention when they're good again and not hold a grudge or have hard feelings about what they put you through? Of course. No, and I don't think I don't have any real hard feelings honestly right now for them. I mean, it's I know they're not intending to be terrible. It's what it is.

Yeah, some, you know, somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be the worst team. Unfortunately, mine are the two. But no, I still in got to do it. Somebody's got to be the worst team unfortunately minor with the two But no, I still in sport him enthusiastically. I saw you know, maybe it's more of a self-afflicting wound to support him It's almost like a point of pride like yeah, I'm not gonna give up now just because they're bad like this still my squad I'll still watch baseball from more of a cursory standpoint like oh these players are good You know, I appreciate watching Shohei play,hei play. Not necessarily a Dodgers fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I can respect what he does. But no, it's like these are my teams. I've stuck with them through thick and thin for 30 years for the Rockies, over 40 for the White Sox.

I'm not going to bail. Something truly egregious would have to happen for me to say, all right, cool. I'm getting rid of all my crap, my jerseys and hats and all of it. So. Right. Yeah, I guess that's the takeaway. It's not just about being bad. I think all fans understand you sign up for a lifelong relationship with a team,

you're going to get some bad with the good. It has to be just actively repelling your fan base. It has to be picking up stakes and moving like the A's did and just, you know, totally salting the ground on their way out. Or it has to be just not trying to win in a very obvious way. As you said, Manfort is trying and you know, in some ways, I guess it's a worse reflection that they're trying and still failing so horribly, but at least you don't like hold the grudge against them so much because it's like they come by their badness, honestly, almost, you know, like, and maybe you do have to jettison this ownership group

in order to get good again, and that would kind of be my prescription or that would be a necessary prerequisite along the way, because all the other institutional continuity and loyalty, which is a quality that we would value if they were more successful, it just seems like they don't have the wherewithal to actually like start fresh and entrust this team to people who know what they're doing better. But yeah, they are trying and are not going about it

the way that Bob Nutting is where he's just kind of cashing checks and they're gifted these great young players and just aren't surrounding them with talent. You can't really levy that accusation against the White Sox and the Rockies. They're they're trying. They're just really failing horrendously. Yeah, exactly. It's like, hey, you might be you're you're doing I hope this isn't your best,

but you're trying. You're just not very good at doing it right now. Right. It's like, hey, you might be you're you're doing I hope this isn't your best, but you're trying You're just not very good at doing it right now. Right. Let's get better It's not even an intentional tank which you know in some cases like the Orioles you could tank for a while and That's not great. And there are fans who say I'm not coming back after you did this to me But it at least if like you engineer the rebuilds well and that was your plan all along, there's a way in which it can work out. And it might even be preferable. Like if the Rockies had just stripped down to the studs and, you know, won 50 games for a few years and then come out the other side and been good, maybe that would have been better than just aimlessly casting about and

being mediocre for years. And now basically like having tanking level results without actually tanking in a sort of purposeful way. It's like the worst of both worlds basically, where you're tanking and it's hard to tell what you're going to get out of it after it's over. So yeah, it's, it's bad. And I'm sorry. Hey, that's all right. Cause you know what the only reason anybody's a fan is you suffer through the bad times and it makes the good

times that much sweeter. Yeah. Yeah. There's something to that. Yeah. Or, you know, yeah, if, if the team like a trade spooky bets or something, yeah. If there's something like that, where they're just actively trying to be bad, I don't think you're bound to make yourself miserable for life.

If that team is repelling you, then be repelled. That's okay. Like find something better. You know, if you're in some sort of toxic relationship, then get out of it and find a better one. But I think that if it's a normal fan relationship and they're just ebbs and flows, then you know, the low water marks

help the high water marks feel better. Cause you felt like I suffered through something and this is my reward. You know at the end of the day we're we're all busy people we got money and budgets to run and you know unfortunately right now it's like hey do we go to Cruz Field and watch the Rockies or we spend that money elsewhere and you know oh I couldn't even think of something you know go to the amusement park or you know and it's it's nothing against them it's just like hey at this point in my life where's the best spot to put my time and money? Well, the Rockies have the worst run differential in baseball right now. The White Sox,

actually only eighth worst, I believe. So progress, maybe. Yeah. Things are looking up. How much White Sox baseball did you actually intentionally consume last year via any form? Oh, a ton. Yeah. It was like, oh, this is a train wreck and I can't look away. Right. Are we going to break the record?

Yeah. What's going on? Were you rooting for the record to be broken there at the end? Or sort of disappointed that they even pulled out of the steep descent at the end and like, you know disappointed that they even pulled out of the steep descent at the end and like you know they could have made even more history. I mean at the time it was more of a novelty I was like wow this is quite a disaster do I want to be remembered you know as this team being the worst record of all time and you know the hundred plus year history of the sport?

No. Yeah. But it's also like hey you know somebody got to do it. At least I could always look back and laugh Exactly. Yeah, yeah have some gallows humor about it while it's going on and then later You can control yourself by thinking that hey remember how bad it used to be. It's so much better than that now So I I want that for you Gallows hammer humor. I appreciate it. That's exactly it You know, sometimes you can find sick fulfillment and watching terrible baseball just as much as you could find fulfillment

watching good baseball. So, or maybe that's just a reflection on me. Who knows? Words to live by. Thanks Austin. Pleasure talking to you. Hope that your baseball teams are better sometime soon. Appreciate it.

Thank you guys so much. Okay. Let's take one more quick break and we'll be back with some stat blasts! Sit it lay and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's today's StatBlast. ["StatBlast"] All right, well, let's wrap up with some StatBlasting here. There's been a bit of a StatBlast drought. We haven't had a stat blast in quite some time

and we've built up a stat blast backlog. And here to empty at least some of it is frequent stat blast correspondent, Ryan Nelson. Welcome Ryan. Hey Ben, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. We've kind of lost track of how many stats you have blasted. We were just comparing notes

and digging into the archive here, some going back a bit. So you've compiled a bunch of these. I guess we'll start with some of the earlier ones and we can work our way up and we'll save some potentially for next time. But we can start at the beginning of the season. This was one that was sent to us from Sam,

Patreon supporter Sam Isaacs, who wished us happy opening day. So that's how long it's been. I saw the White Sox and Angels are playing each other today and it got me thinking, what are the two worst teams to have ever faced off on an opening day? Has an opening day matchup ever been the worst and second worst team in baseball that season?

Will the Angels and White Sox push into historic levels of terrible opening day matchups? I guess I'm also curious about the opposite with the best matchups, but that isn't as fun to me currently. And worst matchups will be more thematically tied to this particular episode. So yeah, White Sox and Angels, I guess there's the question of,

are we approaching this retrospectively? They were the worst of that season, or with the vantage point that we have coming into the year where we know that the white Sox and angels are coming off of horrendous seasons. I guess in this case, it's sort of the same because it's not like the white Sox and angels got much better since last season. But how did you tackle this one? So yes, both these teams were probably the worst last year and maybe the worst this year.

So either way you look at it, probably the same answer, but I did tackle this looking retrospectively. So if we had the crystal ball to look forward into the future to say, how would these teams end the season from a record perspective? Would these be the worst teams? And so it turns out this has happened a few times, but not a ton, and really only once in relatively recent history. In 2002, the Tigers and the Rays played on opening day. Both those teams lost over 100 games. They actually had the same record, 55 and 106, which was tied for worst in baseball.

But other than that, it hasn't happened since 1955. And in that year, it was the eventual 53 and 101 nationals at the time, played the 57 and 97 Orioles in the opening day. So those were also the worst two in the standings. Other than that, it's happened four other times and I guess poor Phillies and Braves. They both were really bad for a long time, I guess, because three of the four matchups were Phillies-Braves matchups in 1922, 24, and 41. And then in 1944, wartime Dodgers and wartime Phillies, again, the Phillies. So the Phillies really had a tough few decades, I suppose, there. But other than that, it's never happened. So, you know, seven times in history is not particularly common. And we don't know yet if we'll get another one this year, but it's certainly

potentially in the cards. I know the Angels have been cooling off a little bit here, but I think the the Rockies are probably going to give them a run for their money, it seems. Yes, cooling off would be a charitable way to describe how the Angels have played lately, probably, but also technically accurate. But I guess it's good that this doesn't happen more often because you want people to be excited for opening day. Then again, I guess if you're a fan of a terrible team, maybe that's the best case scenario.

Maybe you want to play another terrible team on opening day because then you might actually win one. You have hope. So it could be better than a mismatch where you're a terrible team playing a good team. But some of these cases, probably not most of the ones you just named, but there's a surprise terrible team.

And so you could have a case like the White Sox and Angels where everyone knew coming in that they were terrible. But I guess most of the time when you end up being the worst two teams in baseball, you probably didn't have high hopes, but we'll see. The Orioles are testing that contention so far this season. Okay, next one based on early season results. This was submitted by multiple listeners.

So Suze wrote in to say, I was at the Yankees nine home run game. This was late March. This was peak torpedo bat fever, which was made all the weirder by the fact that they also made five errors. I'm wondering what the highest run differential is for a team that makes five plus errors. And basically what the spread is on that seems like usually that team wouldn't be the one

notching the win. But now I'm also wondering if there's a point at which error totals become correlated to outcome. And then similar version of that question we we also got from Sebastian who wrote in, who said about that Yankees Brewers game two, lost with all the torpedo bats talk is the fact that not only did the Yanks win a game in which they allowed nine runs and had five errors,

but they won by an 11 run margin. Is that very unusual? That's typical format for a stat blast question. Was that weird? How weird was it? Yeah, it was pretty weird, but not the weirdest. So I mean, if we look back at all time baseball, old baseball, fake baseball, this isn't that uncommon. If you ever look at game logs from like the late 1800s, it seemed like they averaged five errors a game at the time.

Errors were super common. I think, you know. Scores were less charitable at times as well. So all time, teams actually still win 23% of the games where they commit five or more errors. So it's not that uncommon to win a game with five errors. Now to win it with 11 runs is pretty uncommon, 11 run victory that is. But overall, if we look at all baseball, 11's nothing. You know, we have a game on record from 1872 between the Baltimore Canaries and the Brooklyn Atlantics, where I don't have here which team was which, but one of those teams committed five plus errors and won by 25 runs. Presumably the other team also had 48 errors or something like that. presumably the other team also had 48 errors or something like that. So all time it's not that weird, but modern baseball, if we look since 1961, it is pretty

uncommon. We actually only have one game on record that had a larger margin of victory for a team that had five or more errors. That was a game between Minnesota and Detroit on June 4th, 1994, where the winning team committed five errors, but still won by 14 runs. And also to update that overall stat, since 1961, teams who commit five or more errors only win about 15% of their games, which may be a little more in line with what you would think,

but still probably more than I would have guessed. But the reality is if you hit, it doesn't really matter if you commit a few errors, if you just score enough runs. So this is the second best margin victory for a team with five plus errors since 1961 in the expansion era. So fairly notable in modern history, kind of a footnote if you look overall, but that's true of a lot of these error stats.

Well, I do appreciate you going all the way back to the National Association with that one, not even National League pre-NL. That's the depth and the breadth of our stat blasts here. And I guess probably that has partly to do with the fact that there are just fewer errors now, as we have discussed and stat blasted about before. So you probably just get fewer five error games, period. And so I don't know whether as a percentage it's changed

or whether you just get fewer five error wins because you have fewer five error games overall. But maybe it's a bit of both. It's certainly true. I mean, so I do have that stat here. All time, there's been 5,100 games where a team has committed five or more errors. Only 686 of those have come since 1961, which is about half of all games have come since

1961. So the rate has dropped tremendously there as well. And one more quick just kind of quirk of this stat blast, the previous second best margin of victory for a team to commit five plus errors was also a 1994 game between the Giants and the Astros where they won by eight games. So just interesting that in the last however many 60 plus years, the two previous highest margins of victory were the same year about two months apart. Probably just a fluke, but sometimes flukes are intriguing regardless. Here's one that wasn't a fluke, but it was unusual.

I mentioned this on the pod the other day because David Lurala had highlighted it at Fangrass that on April 10th at Fenway, the Red Sox walked off the Blue Jays on a 4-3 ground out because there was no chance to get the runner at home because Andres Jimenez, who was playing second for the Blue Jays, he bobbled the ball and yet he still threw to first to retire the runner on a force out even though it was sort of a meaningless out, statistically meaningful in some senses, but couldn't change the fate of the team. And Laurela noted he got some

help from baseball references, Katie Sharp, who said that since 1914, there have been 17 instances where the winning run scored from third base on a ground ball that was fielded by the second baseman and thrown to first for an out, but that it hadn't happened since 1997. And so I gave you kind of an open ended prompt, which was just that I'd be interested in any other information you could glean on other meaningless outs in walk-off situations, since that was a very specific one. Yes, absolutely. So this was a hard one to search.

It's not so much a technical problem. It's just how do you wrap your mind around what this looks like, right? It's hard to define exactly what a weird outcome is. But I basically just looked for any sort of scenarios where the ball ended up at a base other than home when really the out at home was the only thing that mattered in these walk-off situations. And I found a couple interesting ones. There was a game from August 25th of 2021, which was somewhat similar to this scenario where a ball was hit back pretty hard to the pitcher when the bases were loaded and the

pitcher bobbled the ball and he was never going to get the out at home. So, you know, regardless, it probably wouldn't have changed things, but he did then pick up the ball and throw it to first for an out, which did not end the game and they lost the game regardless. So we did find some video footage of that one. Another interesting one was in 1995, a Boston Red Sox and Yankees game on May 3rd. Again, bases loaded here, ninth inning, or actually, I believe this one went to extra innings, the 13th inning, it looks like. There was a deep fly ball to left field. Left fielder bobbles the ball, and again,

runner's going to score from home regardless, or score from third regardless rather. But the left fielder then picks up the ball and throws it to third to get Don Mattingly at a force out at third, which is, I suppose, great for getting that extra out, but they lost the game regardless. The last one I found that was somewhat similar and interesting was this Brewers and Cubs game from 2013. The Brewers won it in a walk-off squeeze bunt. They bunted it back to the pitcher and the

pitcher had a little bit of trouble fielding it, actually looked at home, saw that the runner had scored, and then threw it over to first to get that out. That then didn't matter, and it got logged as an out, surprisingly, even though the runner had scored, you'd think the game would be over at that point, but it did make it into the books as an out, but one that did not matter and did not prevent the loss.

So these have existed and happened a few times over the years, but it was definitely weird. I think we can qualify it as a capital W weird play, but we see things like this every few years where something random happens. And what I think happens is these players, they just muscle memory, they try to get an out, right? It doesn't matter that the out doesn't matter. They probably don't pick up on that in the moment. They just see the chance to get an out and they do it. And then probably two seconds later realize it didn't matter that the out doesn't matter. They probably don't pick up on that in the moment. They just see the chance to get an out and they do it. And then probably two seconds later,

realize it didn't matter what they did. Yeah, I like it. It just feels like reflexive and perfunctory, but fun to me. And that 1995 game of the patter was Bernie Williams, my man. So that was a fun little memory too. Yeah, I'm glad that this happens from other positions, other scoring permutations too. So yeah, as we said on the pod, I think I would do this.

Although as was subsequently pointed out, it does actually hurt the pitchers ERA potentially. Initially I thought it would help because you're recording an extra out, but actually you can't have a earned run charged on the error. So if you actually do make the out, then maybe you're, you're hurting your pitcher potentially, but improving your own defensive stats, at least some of them.

So I don't know whether it's selfish or selfless, but nonetheless, it's weird and unnecessary and I like it. It's like in the early days of baseball, when they used to play the bottom of the ninth, even if the home team, the batting team was winning, they would just play anyway. Just go through the motions. We agreed to give you a certain amount of baseball. We're going to do it no matter what the circumstances. We're always going to try to get that out, even if it's ultimately futile.

Okay. Here's one that I prompted you with just this week, because there was a viral tweet from the fun fact generating Twitter account, Brooks Gate. And this thing has like several hundred retweets or quote tweets and 20,000 faves on Twitter. And it just says the Mets have lost their 34th game of the season 15 years in a row. This was pointed out on May 3rd. and faves on Twitter. And it just says the Mets have lost their 34th game

of the season 15 years in a row. This was pointed out on May 3rd, and I saw it circulating elsewhere. So I don't know who had the original insight that the Mets are seemingly cursed. They did subsequently lose again. They lost a one run game to the Cardinals six to five. So they've now lost 16 34th games of the season in a row.

So it's not always on that date, obviously. But I wanted to know, is this noteworthy? It was noted and many people considered it noteworthy because they shared it. But how weird is this? What are the longest winning indoor losing streaks on a particular game of the season? Yeah, well first of all, I just want to make clear this is obviously not a fluke. They are just cursed on that day. There's no way that this is just random noise.

So let's get this out of the way. This is rule 34, I think. Google that. It's about the Mets losing their 34th game of the season. Yikes. Yes, so is this notable? Yes, but it's not a record. So my first instinct here was gonna be, if you look at all the permutations of 150 years of baseball in the 34th game or the 97th game and this, that,

that it would pop up all the time. And to some extent that's true, but not as much as I thought. This 16 straight of either wins or losses on a particular game number of the season is a five-way tie for sixth. So four other teams have done this before. And then there's five teams that have had longer streaks.

Again, pretty random here, but we have the Yankees who have won 17 straight, 110th games of the season. That streak ended in 2012. That one actually feels like there might be some signal through the noise. The Yankees were pretty good in that timeframe. And then similarly, the Rockies lost 17 straight, 21st games of the season, which ended in 2009. There was a few good Rockies teams in there, but more bad than good, right?

The Reds, maybe some signal here too, 17 straight 152nd games of the season, ending in 79. So there were some good Reds teams in that timeframe. Orioles lost 17 straight 32nd games of the season, ending in 2012 as well. So all of those are tied for second at 17. And then a few games ahead, the Giants, then the New York Giants won 20 straight 143rd games of the season, which ended in 1930. So two straight decades, you were, you know, you could book your ticket 143rd game of the season, they were going to win it. And at the time, they had fewer games in the season too, right? So that was pretty close to the end of the season. There was probably some pretty notable

games in that timeframe as well towards the end of the season, you know, pendant hunting supposedly. So the Mets would have to do this two more times to make the modern record to pass the 1930 Giants. And they actually would also be the all-time record for a losing streak if they got two more coming up in the next two seasons. For those of you who are curious about active streaks, the Dodgers have the longest active win streak. They've won 13 straight, game one 16s. That again, pretty good signal there. They

could extend that this year. We haven't come to game 1-16 quite yet. But then tied with them is the Marlins who have also won 13 straight games in their 44th games of the seasons over the past 13 years. So kind of yin yang there. Marlins 44th game coming up pretty quickly here. So we'll see if they can extend their streak as well. Okay, well, we don't condone or encourage betting here typically, and I definitely would not tell anyone, advise anyone to do some parley based on these winning and or losing streaks.

I don't know that I would bet on the Marlins to win that one given their current roster construction. But this is quirky and fun, because yeah, whenever you see a fact like that, my mind at least always goes to, well, what's the context here? Like, is this, where does that rank? You gotta give me more.

It's an interesting observation, but I then need to know much more information and that is when I come to you. Okay, let's do a few here that were submitted via email. So Josh Shains, who is a Patreon supporter, this was from mid April. He wrote in to say, Manny Machado just hit a home run

on the ninth pitch of an at bat in which the Cubs had two dropped foul pop errors. How many plate appearances have ever included two dropped foul pop errors? Have any of those plate appearances ever ended in a home run? So they always say you can't give good teams extra outs, can't give good hitters extra strikes. He got multiple extra strikes in this plate appearance. Yeah, that's right. And this is pretty rare. Here I have on record about 10 times this has happened.

So one out of 10 already pretty interesting. But the one surprising thing that I've found here that I was genuinely flabbergasted by is that even of those very rare 10 times, there's never been a player to reach base after having two foul errors. So 10 times just with two foul pop errors periods. Just regardless.

Okay. Correct. Yeah. So not only did he get a home run, but he was the first player ever to have kind of, you know, his third life on two foul errors and even reach base period. So very impressive, first time in 150 years there. I'm not gonna read through all the past times

this has happened, but more recently, Matt Holliday did it in 2004, but he subsequently grounded into a double play. Dave Winfield did it in 1980, but he flew out. And then there were several times that happened in earlier baseball. Again, errors were more common then. But yeah, no record of anyone reaching base after having had the two foul errors committed in there at bat.

So super interesting. A pretty good find. I think that would be notable just watching the game. You see two foul errors. I think that would be notable just watching the game. You see Tuva errors. I think you definitely recognize that's something unusual. But I don't know that I would have guessed that it was the first player ever to reach base after having it happen.

Yeah, that is definitely one of those. You see something new every time you go to a game, and that's a kind of a classic example. And that's not even, you know, you don't need pitch by pitch data for that. That's just like play log data. So that goes all the way back. It's not completely comprehensive, of course, for the early years, but for a lot of major

league history, at least, you know, ALNL history, that's a big chunk of that time and hasn't happened. So quite a cool little accomplishment. Okay. of that time and hasn't happened. So quite a cool little accomplishment. Okay, here's a question from Greg who wrote in last month to say, Kike Hernandez is now, this was then, four for 39 with four home runs. I'm almost certain this was a past effectively wild hypothetical about how frequently a hitter would need

to homer to be valuable if he did not record any hits otherwise. Yes, he's at.1 baseball reference war and negative.1 fan graphs war and mostly has been Boyd by his defense which I find surprising since he's primarily played first base so far with Freddie Freeman hurt. Never know whether to say Boyd or Buoyed. I go back and forth. I went with Boyd that time. Is it possible that we're seeing the longest such streak? I guess there are two ways to look at it. Most at bats or plate appearances,

39 and 43 in this case with only home runs or most consecutive home runs, four without hitting a single double or triple. I was mildly interested in seeing how long the Dodgers could remain undefeated, but Kike's current streak has me totally captivated. Yeah, Ben, you'll have to fact check me here. This email came about a month ago. I don't think Kike Hernandez is still doing this. No, he is not, which is probably for the best. Yeah, so it is a fairly impressive streak actually.

This is one where small numbers mean a lot. The record that I found is actually just five for a player to have basically their five first hits all be home runs. And it has happened two times. So recently in 2021, Rodolfo Castro for the Pirates did this. It was his first 10 games of the season and actually the first 10 games of his career. So he's the only player to do that.

And he went five for 24, two walks, five home runs. So he passed Kike Hernandez by one home run there. Tied for first with 1992 Rob Deer, who probably if anyone was gonna do this, that's a great choice for your guess on who would do this. He did it in just six games, going five for 23 with five locks and five home runs. So five is the largest number of home runs we've ever had on record for players to hit only home runs first five hits. We do have eight other players who have done this prior to Hernandez, you know, this being four. And it's interesting, it's basically Hall of Famers and pitchers, almost exclusively.

So going down the list, we have 1947 Eddie Miller, we have 1958 Hall of Famer Eddie Matthews, we have 1962 pitcher Milt Pappas, 1964 Hall of Famer Willie Mays, 1997 Ellis Burks, 2016 probably future Hall of Famer, I think Robinson Cano, 2016 Trevor Story and 2021 Andrew Young. So interesting mix of really good players and pitchers who I suppose just don't get a lot of hits and maybe fluked into some home runs there. Yeah, Cano would need people to forget about PEDs for him to make it, but player-wise, performance-wise, he could have or certainly was on track to. I always enjoyed the young Robinson Kano.

But yeah, Kike Hernandez has hit one home run since then. He's now up to five, but he has 12 whole hits. So he actually has non-homer hits outnumbering his homer hits at this point. And I guess that has been for the best, even though his home run pace has slowed down. On April 8th, when he hit his fourth homer, he had a 598 OPS and now he's up to 661. So things have looked up

even as his home run pace has slowed down. And that was just to start the season, right? What you were looking at. So if we were to look at stretches within a season, then presumably there would be many more. Oh yeah, almost without a doubt. This was to start the season.

As humans, we like to have these clean cutoffs. So it feels more notable when it's to start a season, even if it may not be. So there was one other question in there about plate appearances, number of plate appearances to continue to hold this one-to-one hit-to-homer ratio. And so I did look into that as well. The all-time leading mark, for context, Kike Hernandez had 43 plate appearances. The all-time mark was by 1968 Dave McNally, who made it 54 plate appearances. The all-time mark was by 1968 Dave McNally,

who made it 54 plate appearances. But also he was a pitcher and he only had one home run. So he had gone one for 54 to start a season with a home run. So I don't know that really fits the model we're looking for here. But the largest number while maintaining multiple homers was 49 by the earlier mentioned 1962 Milt Papas.

He went four for 43 with one walk and four home runs. And he actually was a pitcher as well. So kind of interesting that he was hitting a home run 10% of his plate appearances. He hit a double later in the season. So ended the season six for 69 with four homers and a double. So just nothing but bombs for Milt Papas in 1962.

If you're curious on a position player, the longest they've gone, so non-pitcher, it was 1997 Mickey Teddleton. Mm. Fruit Loops. Love Mickey Teddleton. You're naming favorites. You named Ellis Birx a second ago. Just great remembering of guys here.

Great guys. And this was the end, the way end of Mickey Teleton's career. He actually retired after this season. He, for the Tigers that year in his first 10 games, went 3-for-35. Not very good. But he did have three homers and three walks, so it kept him kind of at almost replacement level. But then he only played seven more games, went 1-for-9, no more home runs after that, and ended up retiring after just seven more games, went one for nine, no more home runs after that, and ended up retiring after just seven more games. So, you know, interesting little bit there towards the end

of his career, but ultimately was not very good in 1997. And hence the 36 year old decided to call it quits. All right. Last email question. And this one is also sort of a two parter. It's a subject line catching hat mask trick. This comes to us from Ian who says, I'm watching the Rockies at Giants. This was May 1st and thought of something that feels like it might be a thing, but I'm not sure.

So I'm submitting my first ever EW email. One for one, Ian. In the top of the first, Patrick Bailey threw out Jordan Beck trying to steal second. In the fifth inning, Bailey nabbed Alan Trejo at first on a great back pick to end the inning. This got me wondering if a catcher has ever completed the pickoff trifecta, nabbing at least one runner at all three bases in a single game. And if it has happened before, is it rare?

Quick Googling didn't get me too far, so not sure if this has been answered or perhaps too common to be interesting. In the unlikely event, this is a newish thing we've stumbled on. Can we call it a catcher's mask trick? Sadly, I'm too sleepy to see if Bailey can pull this off tonight and I must head to bed. But maybe I'll wake up to a box score

containing a rare feat. I don't think he did it. But if he had, how rare a feat would that have been? There was also a PS here from Ian. As I finished this email, I'm realizing a pitcher could accomplish a similar feat with pick-offs, maybe a question for another time, or maybe a question for the same time.

So you tackled both of these, the pick-off trifecta, the mask trick, whatever we want to call it, has a catcher or a pitcher ever had a pick-off at all three bases in the same game? Yeah, I gotta say, I love this question from Ian here. It's, as far as I can tell, a novel question. I did a little Googling as well and didn't really find anything on this topic.

And it was really easy to look up. Sometimes you get these questions that are so bizarre or strange or hard to research that, you know, maybe no one's just ever put in the effort. Until you, you love those too. Take it as a challenge. Yes, I do love those too. But this one, easy and interesting, which is a great combo for at least getting through

some of the backlog we have here. So yes, it is pretty rare. I found 29 times on record that a catcher had done this, but only two times this century. So it's been pretty rare in recent history. There was actually four times in the 90s that happened, and then it did not happen a single time between 1952 and 1991. So I mean, we go through little spurts here and there, I suppose, mostly noise on when that happens. But, you know, if you're only one of 30 guys to ever do this, or rather one of 30 times, because there are some repeats in this list, it is pretty notable.

So the two times this century, a couple of names that may not be surprising, certainly one that's not surprising. In 2001, AJ Pruszynski did this. So Pruszynski was playing for Twins at the time, playing against Milwaukee, and he picked off a runner at third in the first inning, caught a runner stealing at second in the fifth inning, and then picked off the runner at first in the seventh inning.

So he did a clean one, two, three in order, or in reverse order, I suppose. The other name here in 2008, against the Rays on May 17th, Yadier Molina did this, who again, if you were gonna pick anyone to do this, Yadi might be one of the obvious choices. He picked off the runner at first in the first inning,

caught a runner stealing third in the fifth inning, and then got the runner at second in a pretty exciting strike them out, throw them out double play in the top of the ninth. And then I believe that Cardinals went on to win that game in extras so all those were probably pretty critical because it was a very close game. I did mention there were some repeats here there was a catcher I'd never heard of them maybe you have named Ivy Wingo who actually did this three times in a four-year span

on the 19 teens so of he has 10% of the recorded times this has ever happened. And then there was also a guy named Wally Shang who did this twice kind of in the same timeframe that 19 teens and 19 20s. No other person has ever done this multiple times. So I think it's a really good award there. I like the idea of the mask trick. I think that's clever as well. So I'm on board. I think we're going to keep a mask trick eye out in going forward.

Yes, but it's not quite as rare as the pitcher pickoff hat trick, which we might need a snappy name for, but it's even less common. You've looked into this too. Yeah, absolutely. It's as rare as it can be without being impossible and it's happened one time. So Phil Neekrow on July 29th, 1977, was playing against the Pirates and he completed the, maybe the pick trick, perhaps, I don't know. But in the first inning, he picked off Dave Parker at first. Then in the first inning he picked off Dave Parker at first then in the fourth inning He picked off Omar Moreno at second and then in the fifth inning shortly after the previous one. He picked off Bruce Kyson Who was trying to steal third and ended up tagging him up at third. So He also went in order, you know

Like the that was it in the cycle like the pure cycle if you hit him in order He did the pure pick trick and he's the only one to ever do a pick trick ever in general either. So super, super rare there, makes sense. There's a lot more caught stealings than there are pick offs. And this is one, I don't know that we'll ever see this with all the new rules around disengagement and things like that.

This might just be a one and done for the history books. Yeah, natural cycle, that's what it is. There it is. Yes. The natural pick trick. Right. All right, that's fun. Yeah, I wonder, because right, with the new rules

and then they've restricted like the old throw to first or fake to third, throw to first, and yeah, it's probably harder to do now even though you have more guys going than in recent years at least. And I wonder whether pitchers even pay as close attention to the running game as they used to if they do pick offs as much certainly compared to some errors, perhaps not. Anyway, that's a great question. Ian, you started off with a home run just like Kike

Hernandez. So now you have to send us some doubles and triples and singles questions. And I'll treat you to one last one that came out of conversation in our stat blast channel in the Patreon only discord group where you can ask your own stat lesson. Sometimes other listeners, including Ryan, who's in there too, will answer them for you.

And sometimes I'll share a few on the pod, but some of those are Discord only content. So go sign up if you haven't yet. But Andrew M, a Patreon supporter, noted that Rylin Thomas, who is a recently arrived big leaguer, and he's on the Mariners, he's the first Rylin in major league history, Andrew said.

How many novel first names do we get on an annual basis? Are we at a relative maximum because of weird spellings and nicknames or a relative minimum because it's so hard to have a novel first name this far into major league history? Would you care to speculate about whether we're seeing more or fewer of these? Because just more Major League history,

you'd think just more of the possible names would have been used already, but then again, like different makeup of the player pool and more teams. And, you know, there are a couple of different ways you could look at this too, like as a percentage of new debuts, et cetera. But what would your gut sense be for whether we're seeing more uniqueness or less uniqueness

in names? Yeah, I did not see this stat blast in the channel. So I'm coming in fresh. My perspective is I would guess we are in a local upswing. And maybe in the last 20 or 3040 years, we're seeing more now than we were 20 or 30 years ago. But I bet there's been some waves and perhaps when we started getting a lot of Hispanic players in, you know, in the 50s, 60s, that could have been a little bump there. But it just seemed like everyone was named John or Jim or something like that for 120

years. So if I had to pick one or the other, I'd say more now than in the past. I think you just about nailed it there. So Michael Mountain, who is also a Patreon supporter and has sometimes been on the show to stat blast himself and do other things. He took kind of like a basic simplistic look at it

and he just kind of looked at all the characters before the first space in a player's name field on fan graphs. So it's dependent on nicknames, it's dependent on, you know, oil can Boyd goes down as the first oil in major league history, right? So, you know, it's a little wonky in that sense,

but it should be directionally capturing something here. So far this season, we've had 85 new big leaguers and 13 unique first names. So the first Christian with a K, the first Maverick as we discussed recently, the first Sung-Chee, the first Gage, Tiersow, Soren, Roki, Tomoyuki, Loarbert, Rylan, Yorbit,

Haysung, and Blade, Blade Tidwell. And if you say, oh, Blade, that can't be his given name. Well, no, it's his middle name, but his first name is Jansin, J-A-N-Z-E-N, which would also be unique. So almost 3000 discrete first names according to Michael's method. And yes, that counts a JJ Hardy with dots between the J's as a separate name from JJ

Bleday with no periods. But still, Michael found and he put together a Google sheet, which I will share and there are multiple charts and graphs on this thing, but it depends on the time and the leagues and who's eligible for this. So the unique name debut count spikes in 1884 when the number of quote unquote major league teams more than doubled because the union association came in and there was expansion in other leagues. And then there's another big spike in the early 1920s

when you have the Negro leagues that are recognized now as major leagues. And so you had some names pop up for the first time then. And then it declined to a nadir in 1950 and stayed fairly low until the early 1990s. Obviously the very beginning of Major League Baseball, all the names were unique for Major League Baseball. So there were a lot then, but it declines over time as the names stayed stable and a lot of them had been used already until the early 1990s and then you have increased internationalization in the talent pool and it's just risen steadily ever since then. So you were basically right, it's at a local maximum over the past several decades at

least, and you can chart it by percentage of debuts that are also the first of their name, as they say on Game of Thrones. And so it's not just attributable to the rise in the number of rookies that we're seeing, though there's that too, or league wide expansion or roster churn, or whatever it is. It's not just that, it is also as a percentage of the debuts, more new names. So yeah, there's more newness and you know, just so many Japanese players coming over and Taiwanese and Korean and just many potential places

that are sending big leaguers to us. And plus all of the tragedy names as we've discussed, just the new and adventurous spellings of traditional names which would count as unique for these purposes. So yeah, there's more newness than ever. So I guess that's somewhat exciting. So thanks to Michael and a big thanks to you. And there's still a few that are in the queue and of course you can keep sending them to podcast at fanangrass.com or pasting them in the StatBlast Discord group or anything else you want to plug or where people can find you

or contact you. No, not at all. You know, we're going to have some more StatBlasts coming. As a quick aside, I, in my day job, work in supply chain. And there was a little something that happened around April 2nd that has made my day job, work in supply chain. And there was a little something that happened around April 2nd that has made my day job a little more complicated. Don't know what you could be referring to there.

So it did get a little busy there. So lots in the hopper, the mailbox overflow with, and we will get a lot more out in the next few weeks here. I can't imagine the tariff blasting that you're having to do these days. It's daily, don't fret. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening.

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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. I'll be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. The wacky hypotheticals are perfectively styled back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. dialed, but their spiciest takes are still respectfully mild. More than 2,000 episodes retrospectively filed, and at each new one we still collectively smile. That's effectively

wild. That's effectively wild.