Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2325: MLB’s New Main Characters

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Rich Hill’s latest perfect game bid, whether the Tigers are as good as they’ve looked, Jared Jones’ elbow surgery and the Pirates’ offensive outage, Paul Skenes and whether lower arm slots will protect pitchers’ arms, Pete Crow-Armstrong and the players who’ve ascended to “main character” status this season, […]

Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2325 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Riley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Do you remember back in September 2016 when podcast hero Rich Hill was... Relax. when podcast hero Rich Hill was September, I said, when he was pulled from a perfect

game in progress, this was, he'd gone through seven innings, I think, but he'd been dealing with blisters as he had often in those days and he'd thrown 89 pitches and Dave Roberts said, oh, he probably it'd be 110 if he managed to get through nine. So he just pulled him. This was after the Ross Stripling incident when Stripling was pulled from his major league debut after seven and a third no hit innings. So Roberts had established that he was willing to do this. This is different from when Rich Hill subsequently, I think in 2017, lost his perfect game bid in the ninth,

but still had a no-hitter going. And he stayed in for the 10th, and then lost the no-hitter and the game in the 10th. Yeah. Boy, there's a lot of Rich Hill lore. Anyway, history on this podcast. Yeah, that's true. History repeated itself this past week because Rich Hill was pulled from a perfect game after

four innings in the Arizona Complex League, which is rookie level baseball. But he got through four spotless innings. He was pitching for the Arizona Complex League Royals against the ACL Cubs. I think every hitter he faced was born after Rich Hill was drafted. And they were outmatched. Rich Hill was dominant.

Four innings. He'd thrown only 43 pitches, 33 strikes, but this was his first professional outing of the season. So no hits, no walks, seven strikeouts, 69 game score. Nice, just like beautiful 12 up, 12 down dominance from Rich Hill making his bid for that decimated Royals rotation. The cavalry is coming, reinforcements are arriving. Nice to know that he can still handle rookie league hitters, and now we'll find out if he can handle harder challenges. But just, you know, pulled from a perfect game. Rich Hill, just what's old is new

again, and also what's old is old, if it's Rich Hill, but still great. Two things related to this, the first, and look, I want you to know I already regret the phrasing of this question, but since you mentioned blisters with Rich Hill, was he a pee guy? I don't think he was a pee guy. I think, I think, maybe he was.

I mean, he may have tried everything because that went on for quite a while with him. But I think- It was a persistent issue, as I recall. Yeah. I think we may have asked him about it when he came on for the 10th anniversary. I cannot recall if we did.

I remember wanting to, but I also was like, I cannot bring myself to, you know, that's like a, uh, maybe you asked, maybe you were brave. I think you, I think you might've been brave. I don't know if we asked about the pee specifically, but I think we might've asked about, yeah. I think my recollection is that maybe he tried some sort of advanced laser therapy of some sort, that there was some more advanced, the modern equivalent to just peeing on your hands to toughen them up. Is that the modern equivalent? Are those things in, you know, in tandem? Are they a dyad of some

kind? I don't recall us asking about that. The pee part, We asked about the blisters because it was such a, it persisted across like multiple seasons, you know, it's just like so inextricable from his pitching. I remember thinking, I want to ask about the P, but also, you know, sometimes you have to have talked to someone at least one other time before you bring something up, right? Like you're trying to- I don't abide by that rule. I know. You're, you're, well, you're braver than I am, or at least less haunted at 3 a.m. So I, I could not have brought myself to do it on, on first conversation, you know, just

so committed to being normal. You remember that John Mulaney bit where he talks about how his now ex-wife says that he's running to be mayor of nowhere? I related to that a little too hard. Anyway, so like the first thought I had was, was Rachella P. guy? Context important. And the second is we sit here and we always talk about how old he is, which I'm sure he really loves. But we talk about that being a comfort, right? As long

as the 45-year-old Rich Hill is in affiliated ball, hopefully, as we've noted in the majors, helping a very thin Royals rotation at this juncture. But as long as he's in it, we feel good because it's like, ah, Rich is there and he's 45. And I'm going to be 39 in a month. But that's younger than 45. But you're noting that many, if not all of the guys he is facing on the complex were born after he was drafted is making me realize maybe it's not a comfort, right? Because we're going to be noticing that gap a lot and reminded of the age thing a lot. He's there and 45 isn't like old to be a person, but it is old to be a player. Maybe we need to reevaluate the degree of comfort it's really

going to bring. Here's a funny thing. When you Google Rich Hill, because I wanted to remember precisely how old he was and I was worried I had it off by a year, people also search for his wife, his child, which like, relax guys. And then could you guess the two other people who come up in the also searched for when you Google Rachel? I bet one of them you might get and the other I think you will end up being a little surprised by. Brian Bannister?

No, no, no. That would seem logical. Oh, it would seem logical. Not Dave Roberts or Clayton Kershaw or something like that. No, Edwin Jackson. Oh, Edwin Jackson, of course. Yeah. That makes that like, you're like, okay, sure.

And then John Farrell, which like, okay, but also of all the, you know what I mean? It's just interesting. Anyway, he's been in the game forever. Uh, we hope to see him in Kaufman, uh, sometime soon. And then someone will have to ask him about the P thing, you know? Maybe. That's optional. Yeah. Yeah. So the Royals, even though they have vacancies in their rotation right now, have been great pitching-wise, in fact. Only the Phillies have had a higher rotation war to this point in the season and just their entire staff has been one of the most valuable in baseball.

I wanted to talk about another AL Central team that actually hasn't had as high a pitching war and starting rotation war, but has had a better record and results. And that's the Detroit Tigers who are, if not the best team in baseball to this point, quite close. They're right there. They have the

highest winning percentage in baseball, which is certainly one way to determine which has been the best team. They have the second highest run differential after the Yankees. And this has taken me somewhat by surprise. I thought that they were the most interesting team in baseball coming into the season. I wrote that at some point at the Ringer, but I was not convinced that they would just pick up where they left off late last season. And in fact, they have. And it hasn't purely been the pitching chaos approach that propelled them to the playoffs last year, their staff has been fine. It's been good enough, but they have hit better than I thought they would. I think that's been the surprising thing. And they have the fifth best offense in baseball

by WRC plus. So that's the part that I didn't quite foresee. It's almost like the Mariners in a way where pitching lack of success has been surprising at times and the offensive success has been surprising. It's a little bit of that going on with the Tigers where it's like, wow, okay, this team can hit actually. And if you can hit and you have Tarek Skupel, then you're well on your way. Their bow pen actually hasn't really been anything special thus far. Their 20th in FanCrafts were from their relievers.

And I don't know whether that's just regression or bullpen's being volatile or something I asked about on the team preview pod we did. Just, is there any hangover effect? Are they tired after being worked as hard as they were down the stretch and into the postseason? I don't know, but it is largely the same group of guys, plus Tommy Canely and the great John Brebbia. So it hasn't mattered because they have just not had a lot of close leads to protect, I guess they've been putting up runs. So what do you make of these juggernaut Tigers? Do you think they're this

good? Are they clearly the team to beat in the AL Central? The twins rarely lose anymore. And they're five and a half back even after their long winning streak. The Royals are tied with the twins and then the Guardians are just a half game back of them. So it's not as if this is not a competitive race if the tigers come back to earth at all. But the question is will they or are they just this good? Well, so here's like a thing about that question. There is obvious overperformance for some of their guys. Although I think you can make the argument that there have also been guys who have taken what appears to be legitimate steps forward.

I thought that by this juncture, Spencer Torkelson would have fallen off. I thought, this isn't going to go like this forever. Surely it can't. So far, it's been okay. He had a 151 WRC plus in the first month of the year. He's at 145 in May. It know, it's not, it's not like a really hot start is sort of obscuring a recent cool off. So that's encouraging because he was, he came into the year and you were just like, I don't know what you're going to get from that guy, but it's probably not going to be much. He wasn't assured a place in the lineup even. Right. And then you have guys like Javier Baez where you're like, well, this isn't going

to last, but it sure is fun while it is lasting. They've had a number of guys be hurt. Some of those guys are not really the ones participating in this effort so far, at least not to the degree that Torque and Baez are. The reason that Javier Baez is playing at all is because of other injuries. That's the thing though, it has helped them somehow that those guys got hurt if anything, because the replacements have been excellent. So there were all these injuries, and you just didn't expect these guys to have the prominent roles that they've had. Baez and Torkelson and Zach McKinstry and Dylan Dingler.

Like all these guys. Yeah, it was. Can I just say, I talk about bootlegger face. That's that's a bootlegger name. Dylan Dingler. Come on. Like that guy's getting shot by a Tommy gun at some point. Apple orchard or something. Yeah. But they had guys get hurt.

Parker Meadows. That was a big injury seemingly at the time. And then, Lorenzo Perez and Matt Vierling, these guys got hurt at the end of spring training or right at the start of the season. And that opened up playing time for all these other guys. And those replacements have been better than you would have expected the frontline guys to be. And now, I guess the question is, how do you work back expected the frontline guys to be. And now I guess the question is,

how do you work back in the recovering guys? So Parker Meadows comes back. We talked about Javier Baez recently and how it was a ton of fun what he was doing and it was great to see him back to the super utility type, multi-position versatility. And the offense still seemed like he was kind of hitting over his head a bit.

And so yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like he has a, he has a, a, a 3 45 Woba and a 309 X-Woba. Like there is, you know, there is a gap between what he's done and his, you know, actual expected production here. So yes. So if you keep that in mind, now it's hard if someone is off to a great start and is helping your team off to this incredible start

to then say, well, thanks for your contribution. Now the starter's coming back, so you're on the bench. But sometimes that is the right move to make. If you don't think that's gonna be sustained, you don't wanna fall in love with something that happens over the course of a couple months if it seems like it's somewhat smoke and mirrors, not entirely, but that could really make their bench

shore up that group. They could have the best bench in baseball if they're just gonna bring Meadows and Vierling back and these guys are gonna start. And then McKinstry and Baez and some of these guys are gonna lose playing time. Torque, yeah, Torque I'm buying. Torque just seems like it's happening.

I'm buying it. I think he made a meaningful, real adjustment, you know? And it's impressive. I'm happy for that guy. Like I had totally written Torque off. I had no expectation for him coming into the season when they brought in Torres and it caused this chain reaction among some of their other guys and it was going to basically move Tork Olson off of a guaranteed first base job.

I was like, yeah, you know, it makes sense. That was where I was with it. And I was proven wrong, I think, you know? And we'll see if he can continue to sustain, you know? It's two months, it's not nothing, but it's not, you know, his track record up until now, but it does feel like a meatier change than I was anticipating.

So good for him. Yeah. Really. And good for Gleybert Torres too, who was hurt also. He missed some time, but when he is played, he's been very good. And I feel like Ben Clemens and I were out here. We were the Gleybert Torres cheer squad, essentially over the off season saying, why aren't teams signing this guy?

And he has a 129 WRC plus so far and his expected stats are even better than that. I get that he's not a good defender. He's not a superstar or anything, but you get this guy at his age on that one year deal, I still, I don't completely get it. Like it feels to me like the floor for him is roughly average player.

So I just, that still seems like sort of a miss. I don't know how many teams would be better off with him or could have been projected to be better off with him, but that was a pickup that I praised at the time. So that has worked out pretty well. So yeah, suddenly they're looking pretty darn good here. And I don't think they're going to run away with things in the Central. I think the Twins are good and the Royals are, I don't know, they're fine.

It's like they're going to stay in it too. And the Guardians, I just, I never count out. I know they've been outscored. What else is new? They're, you know, six games above their base runs record. A broken record, mentioning the Guardians base runs record. But they are constantly defying it. And last year they did it with just a historic bullpen performance that is tough to repeat.

But yeah, I think all these teams are fairly good. But it's, Tigers, as great as their record is, teams are fairly good, but it's the Tigers as great as their record is you can't even look at it and say, wow, they're over their heads, they're over their skis, whatever they're over, they're actually this good, or at least they have been this good thus far. So it's fun. I'm glad because it's not like they broke the bank over the off season and I wondered, have they been a bit too complacent? They're, they're clearly really banking on the younger guys being good and having their holdover players

take steps and make strides and their late season collective team breakouts being real, they were kind of betting on that happening. So it has been a good bet thus far. Yeah. Well, and it's interesting because it's like, since some of those guys who we weren't counting on production from have actually managed to,

at least to this point in the season produce, like, you know, they have the ability to navigate these injuries, but they also have the ability to navigate like, cool, Keith has a 106 WRC+. It's fine. It's not amazing, right? They're able to sort of weather some of the guys who are still young and are still sort of inexperienced at the big league level, having time to sort of find their way through

and they don't have to be in the lineup every day. It allows them to do that. And then I think that as an outside observer, it is a really fun sort of sweet spot for them to be in because they are good enough in a real way, in a way that feels sustainable for them, feel good about maybe adding at the deadline, you know, being, if they come to think that any of their young guys down in the minors are going to be able to help the cause, you know, you have a good argument to bring them up and see if they can do something. But they're not so far ahead that they get to rest on their laurels. Like they have to remain hungry. They

seem like they have the motivation to do that. It's a really fun point in the talent, competitive – they're a good point on that graph. They're occupying good spots on the X and Y axis for those things where it's like, okay, this is probably going to be a team that, you know, continues to try to fight. If they can see additions at the deadline that would be helpful to them, they're probably going to contemplate those things. You know, it's, it's good. And they are also close enough to their competitors that not only will they be motivated, but they aren't so far out of reach that the twins and the

Royals and the Guardians will go, eh, you know, better get them next year. Like they have good incentive to continue to try to catch them. So it's good. If only, you know, a division like the AL East could have such a great balance of things as the AL Central, we'd be. Yeah, it'd be fun. I do think the Tigers could use a starter. Who couldn't? As I always say, you can never have enough pitching. I've heard that it's kind of catching on.

I've heard other people start to say that now. Not always crediting me, but it's okay. It's out there for everyone now. Yeah. You know, if only Michael Lewis had listened to you, things might be very different in Baltimore, but you just, he didn't have the, the, the line to you then. And so is it really his fault even? He just didn't hear you.

They have the fifth best projected rotation rest of season, but Terrence Goopal is, is carrying a lot of that load. So beyond that, there isn't really a starter in that rotation. I mean, they have four guys listed on their depth chart right now because some guys are hurt. And maybe some guys will come back and help. But it's not like you can really count on Alex Cobb to be in your rotation at any point.

And so hopefully you get Mize back or Reese Olsen who had been pretty good. Right. But you'd like to see, now Flaherty was another edition that we praised and I think was good. He's been, yeah. He's been fine. And Jackson Job has also been, yeah.

You'd like to see Job be good and unlock his potential. That would help, but yeah. This is just a fun team. So I'm enjoying this run. It's a good run. I think it's a defensible thing to enjoy, you know? Yeah. Not so enjoyable though,

what is happening with the Pittsburgh Pirates, both pitching wise and offensively. So Jared Jones, he's gone for the year and probably into next year. He had a UCL repair. It was internal brace. So look on the bright side, it wasn't the full Tommy John replacement.

So that does move up the timeline in theory, but it was your standard progression that you just expect to see and dread seeing with pictures where it's just, there's an arm problem, there's an elbow problem, they get the imaging, oh, no structural damage, okay, we'll try rest and rehab or PRP or whatever. And then the outcome of that is that you just kind of lose a couple months of him coming back because eventually he does just have to go under the knife. So that stinks because he was so exciting at the start of last season before Skeen's arrived even. It was Jared Jones mania

and that was less expected than Skeen's was because Jones, his stuff just took a leap, perhaps too great a leap, who knows. Maybe his UCL was like, wait, our stuff is this good? This is more than I can handle. But it kind of petered off later in the season. And I don't know whether that was a warning sign or it was the beginning of the end for his elbow here or what, but yeah, he didn't quite keep that up. And then the injury striking this spring and you kind of just had a bad feeling about that one as soon as it was reported. So that stinks because as good as Andrew Heaney has been, you know, Paul Skeens can't carry

this team on his own or even an entire rotation. And clearly he is not getting any support from his team and from his offense specifically, which has just been historically bad at scoring runs, which is of course the goal of an offense. They did win their most recent game as we record here on Thursday, but they have gone 26 consecutive games with four or fewer runs scored.

Which ties a record in the modern era, ties the 1931 Boston Braves and the 1969 California Angels for the longest streak. So yeah, that's really bad. Over that span, the Tigers have the third best offense, 127 WRC Plus, this is dating back to April 23rd. The Pirates, dead last, even worse than the Rockies offense after the park adjustments.

69, not so nice, WRC Plus from the Pirates who have hit 217, 295, 308. And I know they've had some injuries too, but boy, yeah. Skeens, it's gotten to Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, whoever else is famous for being good and getting no run support. I think Zach Granke had a lot of these games, maybe even holds the record for like one nothing losses. Like Skeens has had a lot of those where it's just, I can't do this all by myself guys.

Pulling a Felix. Yeah. Yeah. Felix, another one. I liked that John Heyman reported on Wednesday, I think it was that Skeens won't be traded. Like who was suggesting that he would? I mean, look, somebody must be because the, if you go to mlb.com right now as we're recording, the top latest news line is should pirates trade skeins? Not so fast.

Dot dot dot. I feel like that was entirely created out of thin air that Haven was just like, I'll ask them if they're considering trading Paul Skeens and they'll say no. And then I'll report that they're not considering trading Paul Skeens. It hadn't crossed my mind that they were considering Paul Skeens. Was this a subject of conversation before this news quote unquote was reported? I think that the answer to that is probably like, if you are the team that employs Paul Skeens and he is this good and you are going absolutely nowhere, you probably have had a conversation internally

about like, what is the kind of return we would need to be offered for us to think about doing this? Not because you want to, or for us to think about doing this, not because you want to or even because you're making proactive calls, but because it is a reality so grim and so pressing that one cannot avoid it. An obvious way out of it is to have a better farm to point to, an escape hatch down the road. How do you pry open that escape hatch? Well, maybe you trade Palskines. But I am with you in that I think the most likely outcome or chain of events here was, you know, him being like, I wonder if they trade Palskines.

I'm going to go ask about that. I don't even really resent the question, although I do have to say, haven't Pirates fans been through enough? We have to be entertaining this notion in public out where they can see, do we really? I don't know that we do. Look, there's a real problem with trying to assess the organizational direction of the Pirates because it is not unprecedented to have a very bad team that has a couple of good players on it. And it is not unprecedented to have a cheap owner. And it is not unprecedented to try to flip your very talented cost control players for other further away talented cost control players in the hope that a solid nucleus forms where you can be cheap but still competitive.

None of those situations are, I don't know Bob Nutting, right? Who can know the heart of a man, right? But I often think that even in moments where a team is very cheap, and even in moments where they are very bad and their owner is sort of content to abide a status quo of cheapness and badness, they often aren't willing to abide quite this bad of a status quo. And nutting seems fine to do that. And so, you know, I could, if this were a normal bad small payroll team, I think that we could outline the couple of different pathways that they might take going forward. And we could assign with some amount of confidence, a relative probability that each pathway is taken.

Because we have all these other examples to point to. It's harder when you have this particular constellation of traits though, because I think as long as he can cash the check, that's what's at bottom for him. And they all want to cash the check to be clear. Like, I don't know that greed is a unique, not in characteristic, but even the guys who are content to be like, yeah, put a potential wild card team on the field

and let's see how it goes and we know, we'll kind of float along. They have like a little bit more shame. They have a little bit more and I don't know if he does, you know, and again, I don't know the man, but we just have a one area where we do have a lot of evidence is that like if there were a greater amount of shame, things would be different. I think that I do have a higher degree of confidence in saying. So anyway, it's a weird thing. I don't know what I wish for here because I don't want to deny Pirates fans Paul Ske, because it would be more fun to see him wearing the uniform of

a team that is better or has a greater hope of being better in the near future. I think fans of bad teams deserve to watch really good players wear their uniform too. But also, it would be more fun for baseball if he were on a different club. So it's just a real, it's a real pickle is what it has been, you know? Yeah, first of all, I have learned that it was evidently actually Jeff Passon who started the whole

trading Paul Skeen's news cycle in an appearance on the Pat McAfee show when he just sort of idly said that if the pirates don't think they can sign Skeen's to an extension and why should Skeen's want to sign an extension with them then they could explore trading him even now that you might make a case that that could be a sensible move for them. So I guess that was what prompted the discourse. Didn't mean to impugn the good name of John Heyman. And this is far from the worst news cycle to stem from something said on the Pat McAfee show. Regardless, it would be more fun certainly to see him on a potential playoff team. I do still find Skeen's Day entertaining. Even though it often ends in loss for him, which I'm sure is quite frustrating.

And that stat I was reaching for about him allowing one run and still losing. The Mets did that eight times to Matt Harvey in his first 33 career starts. Michael Mountain pointed this out on our Discord group because this has happened six times to Skeens in his first 33 starts. So it was worse for Harvey at the start of his career. Zach Greinke had that happen to him 48 times, which is the career record, though it was a long career. Anyway, I think it's probably very frustrating for Skeens

to give great efforts and then feel like he has to pitch the whole game and also be perfect every time because he's not going to get any support. But when I'm watching, I'm not rooting against Paul Skeens. I want him to be happy, but mostly I'm watching for his performance and his mastery. And so what happens when the pirates are hitting or after Paul Skeens leaves the mound matters a little less to me. That said, yeah, it would be fun to see Paul Skeens in a pennant race, but no, I'm not trying to find a way to extricate him from the pirates. I'd like the pirates to be better, obviously. I don't think there's any point in restarting because as long as

nutting's there, then how can you hope for better, which is a depressing way to put it, but it'd be one thing if you thought the owner would ever invest in the team. And if we just get the right group of young guys, then he'll supplement that core, but nothing's not going to do that seemingly. And there doesn't seem to be any prospect of him relinquishing control of this team. So if you just punt on this attempted rebuild and say, we'll get them next time and we'll trade Paul Skeens for just an enormous haul and we'll start over.

You might very well end up in the same place place except years will have passed and you won't have Paul Skeen. So I would still try to make it work. I think it's salvageable potentially if he were to invest, but again, that doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Nor does it seem like the Pirates would entertain such a concept, even if you could construct an argument for it considering the message it would send to the fan base, given that the guy is nowhere near free agency yet. And I wonder, look, I'm not like advocating for anyone to lose their job, but I wonder if, you know, if it could be put to him a little differently by decision makers at the top that like, you know, if you're not going to invest in payroll, you can still invest in your people, you can still invest in systems

and infrastructure. And like there are talented smart people who work for the Pirates. It's not like that doesn't there isn't some groundwork for that already, but if you're not going to spend, and they are really not spending, if you're not going to spend, then you need to have clear pathways to being competitive on the scouting side, the draft and development side, in your infrastructure, in your front office folks, and maybe having additional money spent there could allow them to raise it a little bit and in the process raise their ceiling. they're zailing. But I wonder if they have the right voices at the sort of, you know, directory level and above that can make that case in a compelling way to nutting. Because as we have talked about, like getting your owner to spend is a skill, It is a question of persuasion and argumentation. I don't want to say that

it is an achievable goal with every owner. Maybe he is just that allergic to the notion that it doesn't matter who's sitting there. I wonder about that piece of it, if there are other means of sort of trying to put a more competitive roster on the field that haven't been fully maxed out. As I often say, like I feel for those folks too, because you very often are, you know, as frustrated if not more so than the outside observers because you have like a full handle on the situation, you know, all the little things that aren't quite right that aren't pushing you forward. And that has to be very frustrating. So I yeah, it's

a it's a mess. But every pretty much everyone involved deserves better, except for Nutting. This might be exactly what he deserves. Speaking of Skeens, he lowered his arm angle somewhat this season, and that's kind of been a trend that we've seen the lower arm slots. I was thinking that maybe this will help a little bit with the injury epidemic, again, related to Jared Jones, because there have been some studies that have shown that this can actually help. Baseball America just wrote earlier this month, there was a piece, do lower arm slots lessen injury risks for pitchers? And Beteridge's law of headlines was violated

because the answer was actually, yes, seems like it. And they cited a recent study of elite college pitchers. I'll quote here. What the researchers found was compelling. Lower arm slots significantly reduce joint stress, both at the elbow and shoulder, without sacrificing velocity. And it's not like there's no stress, there's still a lot of stress, it's just

in a relative sense if you're overhand, if you're over the top, then there's a little more stress. So overhand pitchers experience the highest elbow torque, 6.7% of their body weight times body height, while sidearm pitchers had the lowest at 6%. That might sound like a small difference, but over thousands of throws it adds up and there was a similar trend for the shoulders. So it's just, it's a little more torque efficient, I guess, when you're throwing from a lower slot and not everyone can do that. It depends on your posture and your trunk and how your arm works and your rib cage and all of these things.

So it's not just like anyone can decide I'm gonna lower my arm slot or I'm gonna raise my arm slot. And so this is, it's very much in the way that teams and pitchers are kind of customizing their repertoires when it comes to how their arm works and pronation and supination and trying to maximize those qualities or compensate for deficiencies. It's the same with just the position and shape of your body essentially, but we have seen more guys make this change. And Zach Kryiser in the bandwagon was writing about this with Hunter Brown, who, although he didn't have a good,

most recent start, he has been one of the best pitchers in baseball over the past year. And partly it's that he just, his sinker is great and he changed his pitch mix and that has been a big help. But Zach pointed out that he's also a very extreme over the top guy. And so he's kind of swimming against the current of this latest trend. And it's all about vertical approach angle. And this is where we start getting granular and into the weeds and everything. And we were talking about hitter attack angles. This is kind of the pitcher equivalent of that.

It's just at what angle is the pitch crossing the plate? Right? There's no such thing literally as like a rising fastball, but there are degrees of steepness of falling. And so you talk about like a flat fastball and that can be confusing because that sounds bad, right? Like when we talk about like a flat fast ball and that can be confusing because that sounds bad, right? Like when we talk about flat pitches, it makes it sound as if it just didn't break

and it was a hanger or something, but flat can be good in the sense that it's not dropping and if hitters expect it to be dropping, then that can be good. So if you're kind of throwing up in the zone, Joe Ryan is a guy who stands out here because he's throwing from a lower slot, but then it's a flatter fastball. So it's not dropping that much. And like anything with pitching, you just, you want to be away from the dead zone. You want to be away from the middle where hitters are accustomed to seeing deliveries that look exactly like that. And so they're primed for that. You want to stand out in some way. And so that's part of it,

just lowering the arm slot so that you can have kind of confusing movement to hitters basically. Like the arm slot is lower, but the pitch is not dropping that much. It has a high vertical approach angle. Again, it gets complicated, but this is kind of the new hotness. And Zach mentioned in the bandwagon, you can track this, that being over the top is out of vogue. So he said in 2021 per stat cast arm angle data, only 9% of four seam fastballs were thrown from arm angles below 30 degrees, while 26% of them were thrown from angles over 50 degrees. This season though, 20% more than double the rate of four seamers are coming from below

30 degrees, while only 19% are coming from over 50 degrees. So that is, I think, mostly about just giving hitters a different look. And of course, when that becomes the norm, then hitters will adjust to that. And people will say, let's go back to doing what we were doing before. Maybe that's working for Hunter Brown. But maybe the byproduct of this, if it is actually less stressful for your arm, if you're built that way to handle it, It's not going to be the pitching panacea or something. We're still going to see plenty of pitching injuries, but every little bit

helps. So maybe this will help. Yeah. And to your point, I think so often about that piece that Russell Carlton wrote years ago about how we have these broad understandings of the game and trends and injuries and all of this, but at core, every player is an N of one. And when you're talking about the ideal mechanics for a pitcher, so much is just going to be dictated by that guy's physicality, like you said, like the way his trunk rotates, his natural pronation or supination sort of instinct, there is so much that is about that guy's body. And some of it is going to be more malleable than other parts of it.

But there is an ebb and flow to these things. We see certain pitches come in and out of vogue depending on how hitters are reacting to them. But I do think that if a particular delivery emerges as having viability from a pitch perspective, where it does allow your arsenal to play well against major leaguers. And at least for some meaningful percentage of the pitching population, it presents a bit of a guard against injury. It puts a little, a meaningfully lesser amount of stress on your ligaments, joints, all the... There does seem like there might be more staying power in something like that than just the typical vagaries of like, oh, we're all throwing

splitters now or what, you know, the sweeper, kick change, death ball. I think the fact that we call them dead zone fastballs, I know that they're not always down the dick, but like have some courage, you know, like be a little be a little naughty in your terminology here. Anyway, they're not always right down the middle, but they often are the dead zone guys anyway. So it's just it is interesting and thinking about how those things will be balanced against one another is fascinating. But this kind of stuff does make me optimistic in a muted way. Because to your point, there's still pictures, it's still very stressful, there's still a lot of them gonna break. And who knows, like maybe guys make this adjustment and we aren't really

appreciating other trade offs that they're making that make them more vulnerable to something else. Who knows? But I think so often when we're talking about trying to figure out how to keep guys healthy, there's this implied trade-off between effectiveness and longevity, right? When the fastball is faster, they are better. That's not all that determines it. It's not just Velo and we've learned so much about that. But like, we know that velocity is good, but also the velocity makes you break. And so there's this tension and, you know, I understand we've talked about this a lot. I understand guys having some amount of willingness to make that trade because they want to be good so that they can get paid and they want to win. And, you know, I understand all of that.

And so for there to be a way to do it that also helps your fastball play, that's it. That's a good thing, Ben. That strikes me as, you know, and again, muted in my optimism and because like, you know, again, the pitch and it's, it's nuts that anyone does it. It's, I continue to think increasingly it's not as nuts as people catching, which is the most nuts behavior on the field that we see every day. But still pretty nuts. But you know, maybe and Joe Ryan, he's been very good. You know, he's been quite like, yeah. And he, he looks like Billy from Stranger Things.

I'm not the first person to make that connection. I'm not like having an aha moment. It's just like, especially when the hair was longer, it was like, whoa, are you gonna be weird at a pool? That sounds nasty in a way I don't mean it. I want, go watch Stranger Things or don't. It's up to you. They're gonna be like 45 when the next season of that show comes out.

It's like watch them navigate the difficulty of the upside down mortgage. Yeah, it's almost back. Anyway, when is it? Wait, sorry. Later this year. Later this year? Like when later this year? I haven't, it's amazing that Netflix isn't advertising that already.

Yeah, I don't think there's an exact release date yet, but it's coming later this year, seems like. But this is the last one, right? This is the last season. It might be a staggered release again, maybe it'll even stretch into next year, we'll see. Okay. I quite liked the last season. I thought they got their fastball back last time.

Yeah, I quite enjoyed it. It was more like a series of movies than a TV show. A little more horror forward, which I thought was a good direction for them to go, because then it kind of made the Nostalgia less saccharine. Anyway, that's our take on Stranger Things, a show that hasn't been new for quite a while. So we must protect Paul Skeens at all costs, whatever his arm angle is. And Paul Skeens was already one of the main characters of the sport, as I term them, just the most prominent players, not always the best, but usually among the best, but just the guys we can't stop talking about

who are just the faces of the game, essentially. And Zach Chrysler, speaking of the bandwagon, again, by the way, since I keep mentioning this, this is not SponCon, it's just organic. It's great. I'm a reader subscriber. I enjoy it. They give me things to think about.

Yeah, actually Hannah emailed me, unsolicited, to send me a link that I could share with Effectively Wild listeners, which would give you a free month trial to the bandwagon if you're interested. What's the downside? So I will link to that on the show page in the podcast description for this episode.

Thank you, Hannah. But Zach did something at the end of April, which I thought was smart because he highlighted April's main characters. And so he wasn't saying breakouts, he skirted that dangerous terminology. He was just saying, these are some guys who have been big parts of this baseball season

in perhaps an unanticipated way. They've just taken a leap so far, they've become ubiquitous, inescapable, omnipresent. And one of those guys was and is Pete Crow Armstrong, who we haven't really talked about and we should rectify that. We got a request too from listener Joe, who said, just wanted to reach out

and see if there's any chance we could get some PCA discussion on the pod. Yes, there is, here it is. I've been watching him closely for a while, drove out to South Bend a few years back just to catch him in single A and it really feels like he's put it all together this year. Watching him live in centerfield is jaw dropping. He's the best centerfielder I've ever seen. Balls that look like surefire doubles in the gap, he's just there, gliding under them like it's a routine fly ball. I know Meg's talked about being center field defense-pilled

and this guy has done that for me. I'm genuinely curious if Stadcast backs it up. Are we looking at one of the best center fielders of the Stadcast era? And now he's coming along at the plate too. Ever since he quieted his stance and moved back in the box, it works, Ben. This is in the email.

He's been unstoppable unstoppable even with the fact that he swings at everything, I mean everything. He is second in FanGraph's war now. So I don't know if Ben will grant me breakout status. Maybe it's a sequel breakout, a reboot, a soft relaunch of the original breakout that technically premiered in late 2024. Either way, it's been electric budding superstar

or maybe budding main character. He is still second in FanGraph's War as we speak, a distant second because Aaron Judge is just in his own league at this point. But after that- And in another league than PC, I get it, cause he's a cub. Oh, I get it.

Yeah, but yeah, he is leading the national league in war. So yeah, he did kind of quietly break out late last year. He, he made some changes. He hit a lot better. It would be hard to hit worse than he was hitting, but no, he was hitting legitimately well and with the defense, that was exciting, but there were questions about how sustainable those offensive improvements were. And it turns out looks like quite sustainable, at least thus far.

So, yeah, he has been a ton of fun to watch and he's been a big part of the Cubs success. It's just cool because he always had a high, relatively high floor because the defense is that good. And so when you can play centerfield defense the way that PCA can, you really have to not hit to not be rasterable. But it seemed like he had the potential to be this superlative defender, be a really good base runner provided he was on the bases enough. We've seen that this year. He has 14 stolen bases already.

He has power and it was all about whether or not he was going to be able to curb the tendency to chase. And it was right there, but you just didn't know. You just didn't know. You just didn't know. And he would show flashes and then he would start chasing it again and you're like, hey, and then meh. But it's really cool to see a guy who had like a, you know, like when he graduated as a prospect, his like future hit tool was like a great, it was like a 40. And this is kind of what the right tail outcome looks like for him.

And so for him to be able to do it and all of a sudden, even at a time when Kyle Tucker has been kind of swooning on a relative basis, like swooning for Kyle Tucker, they have had this really fearsome outfield unit. It's just a very cool thing. We have given Guff and Cubs fans have given Guff to the organization for not really going whole hog, committing to spending in a way that has seemed necessary. I don't know. If I'm PCA, I'm like, you better give me a big, big number

for an extension. But like one way, as we talked about with the Mariners, like one way to say to your fans, like we're really committed to being good is to be like, hey, this is one of our dudes. I wouldn't want to see it for a little longer maybe than PCA is currently constitute. Plus he's like, I want to be like thoughtful in the way that I say this. He seems like a weird guy, you know, like in a good way, like a good weird. First of all, he looks like Flea. There's always the hair thing. What are you doing? You know, a kid of a Hollywood type, right? Just like a good, like quirky weird, also very talented, tremendous combination.

We need more of that. It's good to have a greater diversity in the personality ecosystem among players. That Hollywood thing, by the way, that still is a fun fact that just blows people's minds if they haven't heard it. That the mom from Little Big League is P. Crow Armstrong's mom, Ashley Crow. Yeah, Ashley Crow is his mom. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean like, yeah, she is, that's cool. It is very appropriate. It's very appropriate. The fact that he would end up on the Cubs and all the rest. Yeah, the thing about him is that he is still chasing as much as anyone, as much as anyone except Lenin Sosa is the only hitter who has a higher chase rate so far this season. And yet he has made it work because yeah, he's got pop when he does make contact. Right. It really does go. He's got a four point three percent walk rate.

His strikeout rate, it's not unmanageable. It's it's not that far above league average. The strikeout to walk ratio isn't great, but he's right. He's not whiffing. It's not like he's drinking out 30 percent of the time or. Yeah, 24 percent in this era. That's OK, especially when you have a 274 isolated power. Yeah, right, that'll play.

You have 12 homers. He's already exceeded his home run total from last year in 123 games and 410 plate appearances. He had 10 homers, now 50 games, 211 PA, 12 homers. So that's gonna go a long way, as many of the balls that he's hit have. But it reminds me, it's kind of like Sadon Raffaella, who is the same profile of just extreme free swinger,

great outfield defender. Can he hit at all? And that has been a question with Sadon. He hasn't, again, he's showing flashes too, but he hasn't really put it together. Now, I note that Sedan Rafaela has a higher expected weighted on base this season than Pete Crowe Armstrong does. He must have one of the biggest ex-WOBA to WOBA gaps because that's 285, WOBA 76 WRC plus. It looks like he hasn't progressed at all

relative to last year, but in terms of the quality of contact, perhaps it has, but it's the same sort of profile. Let's see, you don't even have to be 139 WRC plus the way that PCA has been this year. If you can combine that with the defense, then yeah, you might just be the best player in the league, which is what he has been.

But if you could be even an average bat, then you're gonna be an immensely valuable player because your floor is just so high with that glove and also speed and base running. He's stolen 14 bags. So it's a really exciting player profile. Yeah, it's tremendously, it's just tremendously exciting.

The combination, he's like, okay, I'm gonna start to workshop a concept. Are you ready? Okay. So we have the notion of three true outcomes in baseball, right? Yeah. Is there something to the idea of being a three true highlight player? Because like,

he can have the defensive web gem, right? And he's a tremendous base runner. And he hits big home runs. Is that, is this anything? Am I, is this anything, Ben? I don't know, let's think on it. I think, I think maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I guess it's the same sort of when people say someone's a five to a player, I guess they're getting at the same thing, but putting it in terms of highlights, yeah.

I think, yeah, he can provide all different kinds. So I think that is, that's a good little rubric. I like that. Yeah. Man, he really should go as flee for Halloween though. Yeah. And by the way, the, the stat cast, it matches the eye test. So if you were asking listener, yeah, like last year in not even playing a full season, he tied Dalton Varshow for the best fielding run value, according to Statcast, aside from Patrick Bailey.

And this year, thus far, he has actually bested Bailey and has been the best defender in the league, fielding run value-wise. And FanGraph's War is based on that now, the defensive component, so that is part of why he is number one in the National League now. But yeah, it's not as if there's really any any debates about his defense.

His defense is really fantastic, and all the systems agree, his defensive run saved, whatever you look at, is gonna say that he's amazing, because he is. Yeah, he's amazing. And it's way premature to say this. And I understand like why I understand the appeal of a half season of how you're biased, but we're on real bad trade watch with PCA.

It's not the worst trade in the history of baseball, clearly, but like, you know, it was, you know who the Mets would probably like to be able to throw out there in the outfields with a not defensively very good Wonsoto? I'm having a hard time. Yep, yeah, it's true. Traded by the Mets, this was the deadline 2021.

2021, yeah, this was the end of the Cubs mini dynasty teardown where they shipped out like Baez, Bryant, and Rizzo all within like two days of each other. Yeah, that was that deadline. Yes, this was Baez, Trevor Williams, and Cash for PCA. That's right. Yeah. Man, I already forgot about the Javier Baez Metzera. He was actually very good for them, but it was brief. It was a half season and then he was a free agent. And then, you know, now PCA is doing this.

Also, yeah, wow, he just looks so much like Flea to me. And the hair, he's an odd bird, but like it's a... It works for him, you know? Plus we love a long last name on a jersey. You know? We love that. Yes, we do. We do. So who else has ascended maybe to that main character status this season

who wasn't already there? Who wasn't already there. Who wasn't already there. Yeah. So I'll tell you. So Zach mentioned Cal Raleigh as one of those guys. Yeah. Can I be a homer for a minute? I want to get back to your question, but can I just be a homer for a minute? I feel bad for Cal in advance because look, a lot can happen. It's only May. But I would imagine that if you were

to lay odds on the AL MVP at this juncture, it's Aaron Judge, right? And deservedly so. I'm not taking anything away from Judge. Like, what a season. But also, we so rarely get catcher MVP seasons. I know this was maybe Eric's bold prediction from the fan graph staff before that we would get a catcher MVP. We haven't had one in a long time because apart from anything anything else catchers just don't play all the time you know especially now except for cal except for a cow right yeah except for cal right so like the last catcher mvp was posy in 2012 and then the last guy before him was mauer in 2009 you know this guy's winning as a catcher so like we would be having a lot of fun with how good a year Cal is having, especially given his position and to your point, how much he is playing.

He has played in as many games as Aaron Judge. He has played as many games as Aaron Judge. He is only, he only has 10 fewer played appearances than Aaron Judge. And he's a catcher. And we would be having so much fun. And he just signed the big extension. And he already has 16 home runs. And it's amazing. And he somehow has five stolen bases, which is maybe actually my favorite piece of his stat line. But Aaron Judge exists.

So instead, we're just like, he's a main character in Emergy. No! Justice for Cal. I mean, not because like Aaron Judge should win MVP if this continues, but I just, it behooves me to say as both a podcast host and a Mariners fan, look at this year that Cal Raleigh is having. It sure is something. They are so fortunate to have him. He is like really the engine of that offense.

It's amazing. 172 WRC+, Ben. Yeah. I have taken with Aaron Judge recently, I've taken to looking at his single game WRC+. Like I'm not just waiting for the box score. That's sicko stuff. Yeah.

I'm looking at the live tracking on his Fangrass player page to see what his WRC Plus that day was. Because the funny thing is that he will have these great games that lower his WRC Plus because it's so high to begin with. Right. Like he had a day, I think it was one of the games against the Mets on the 16th, I guess, where he had two hits and a walk, and yet it lowered his WRC+, because you do that every day, you would be the best hitter in baseball if Aaron Judge didn't exist.

So he had, yeah, it was a two for four day with a walk, two singles. That's a 229 WRC plus. So you do that every day, you're immensely valuable. But that was that dragged down his season line because it was like that was a bad day for Judge. So that just tells you like the typical day for Judge is better than two singles and a walk. It's just it's unbelievable. But yes, Cal's been amazing. Maybe, I don't know if he was quite a main character status

already, just because, like, so many people knew Big Dumper. And... Yeah, Big Dumper does help, you know? When you got a vaguely naughty nickname, it does. Yeah. And he has a Big Dumper. And you know what? People love a Big Dumper.

People are ranking him number one, number two among catchers coming into this season. So it's not a shock that he's maybe the best at that position, but he has been even better, like, by a lot than he had been before. So I'm willing to concede that one. So who else might fit in? By the way, just notice, looking at the combined world leaderboard, one of your

bold predictions in our pod this spring. I think your first one, and I applauded it. I thought it was such a clever one was that Isak Peredes would outwar Kyle Tucker and Kyle Tucker has been very good. Oh, look at that. They're so close. He has a lead of a 10th a win above replacement over Paredes. So you were banking on Crawford boxes playing to Paredes' strengths and yeah, that has happened. They have basically been

of equivalent value thus far. I want to applaud everyone involved in the in the bold predictions game for their like honor as people because I think that our listeners are probably cluing into the fact, especially over the last couple of episodes, I have no memory of what my predictions are. Zero. I have, I mean, I know a lot of them were A's related, like a shocking amount of them were like it's just truly bizarre number of them were a is related and by that I mean, I think two were But you could you could tell me anything You know, you could tell me that I predicted anything and I'd be like sure probably that sounds like something I would do

But none of you try I know that a lot of this is is Chris keeping you honest and all of the meticulous tracking But you you haven't even tried to pull one over and you could clearly I have zero recollection of what I said. One of these days I'll just I'll refer very matter of factly to some prediction you didn't actually. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I have a nominee. I have a nominee and it might be controversial because I don't know that he's actually broken

through into the like national consciousness. But boy is Jacob Wilson having a good little year. I think that Jacob Wilson needs to be in that conversation because weirdly I think the sort of Benny Hill themed machinations of the organization as it pertains to their move to Vegas is keeping the A's in the conversation. I mean, they're not playing really bad baseball. I guess they've been worse of late. Wow, there's seven games back now. Okay.

So they've had a little bit of a worse time. But again, because of playing in Sacramento and the way the ballpark is playing and the fact that there, there are interesting guys in their lineup and then it's like, are they even ever going to get shovels in the ground in Vegas? Doesn't it get harder to build in the summer? One would think it's also harder to play baseball there in the summer, one would think, but I don't know, maybe they have a solution anyway. I think Wilson is at least on the verge

of being in that conversation just because he is having a really terrific year and they are so sad as an org, but not him. He's got a 147W RC+, and he had the park and all that, but still, but still, buddy, you know, he's got a 147 WRC plus and like, yeah, the park and all that. But still, but still, but you know, but still. I do think Hunter Brown should be in that mix. Even though he's coming off his worst start of the year and he gave up a few homers over the past calendar year. Here's the list of pitchers with a higher fan crafts war than Hunter Brown, Tarek Scoobel, Chris Zale, Paul Skeens.

That's the list. So he's been more valuable than Zach Wheeler, Garrett Crochet, Logan Webb, all these guys, Michael King, Cole Regans. He's been better than that. Now, I think part of mean character status is just how aware of you are people. Yes, which is like the Flaw and the Wilson nomination. Yeah, true. Now, to me, breakout, when I talk about breakouts, I'm mostly not meaning that.

I'm not meaning how famous you are. Some people do, I think, conflate those things, and I guess that's defensible. For me, that's just more about how good you are, how well you're playing, which should correlate to how many people have heard of you, but not always perfectly. So the Hunter Brown, I don't know that he is ascended to the status of everyone knows his name and we're all talking about Hunter Brown, but we should be. I think he's getting close to that at least. And yeah, I'd put him in the mix. I might put Jesus Lizardo in the mix,

which I think Zach did as well, just because he is so good. And he's been good before, but he's been just fantastic. And now he's doing it for the Phillies. And this is, I think, a case where what team you're playing for and whether it's a good team and whether it's a big market team. Yeah, main character status that that is related. Do you think that I'm not trying to stir and I don't say this doing anything.

Do you think that in the mix of emotions that Zach Wheeler feels toward his teammate, Jesus Lizardo, that there's like a touch of resentment in there? Because let me win a Cy Young award once. Yeah, it remains wild that Zach Wheeler has never won a Cy Young. I mean, you understand on a year to like in any given year there, it can make sense. But like the man has been so good and so consistent and he throws all these innings and also he is now being slightly overshadowed in his own rotation by a guy they rated for. Do you think that there's just like a little sprinkling, a little, as opposed to Aaronola, who's probably just like, Oh, thank Christ,

there's not going good for Aaron. Anyway. Yeah. There are other guys who have had what could be classified as breakouts, but I just Christ, there's no one as good in this rotation. Not going good for Aaron. Anyway. Yeah, there are other guys who have had what could be classified as breakouts, but I just, I don't know if they've qualified for main character status. Like, Heraldo Perdomo has been fantastic off of his extension.

Yeah. Yeah. But is he household name status yet? Or Chris Bubich, who is still standing in the Royals rotation and is really helping to prop up that unit. He's been great, but is he main character status? I don't think so. I would- Only if we lean into how funny you can make his last name

if you have the mentality of a 12 year old. Bubich, come on, come on. Doesn't hurt, yeah. I think, I don't know, maybe James Wood could be in that group. And again, he was not a guy who I said break out because highly rated rookie who had a good rookie year, but he has, as anticipated, I would say,

taken a step forward. And just because he's so large and so unusual, I think people are quite aware of him. So... Do you think that Yamamoto was just too prominent to begin with? Yeah, I think probably just all the uproar about the Dodgers getting another guy and how good he was and how big his contract was, I think. Even though he only threw 90 innings last year?

Right. He has pitched much more like the guy the Dodgers thought they were getting. Yeah, he's been fucking really good. Yeah. But he has been well-known for some time, at least. He might have been too much in the consciousness for some time at least. So he might be, he might've been too much in the, in the consciousness for it to, for it to really fit.

And it might be having the same problem that like the breakout thing would, you know? Yeah. There's popular breakout pick who has broken out thus far, Jonathan Aranda of the Rays. Not sure if, if he's main character status, but he, he has been really good. Jung-Hoo Lee, maybe?

Yeah, Jung-Hoo Lee. Jung-Hoo Lee is a great one. Yeah, I think Zach had him too, because he was high profile signing, but then he got hurt. And so early into the season, right? He got hurt very early. And Lee came over the same off season

as Yamamoto, right? Last year. He was last year. So I think too, you know, last, not this off season that just happened, but the off season before that year was, you know, the, the best players in a lot of the free agent rankings, including ours, many of them were coming from either Korea or Japan. And so I think that on the one hand, there was hype around that. But also, it wasn't like this year where, you know, it was the Roki show. You know, there were a couple of guys who were well thought of and then he got injured early, he wasn't very good. And then he got hurt and he missed the rest of the season. And now it's like, he is been fantastic for them. And I know in

talking to Ben Clemens, who lives in San Francisco, like very central in the Giants marketing of the team this year, there are like a ton, there's just like a ton of giveaways and, you know, he has a bobblehead, he has this, he has that. So he, um, I think is a really good one because they've also leaned into making him one of the faces of their franchise. So. Yes. Yeah. Who else? I guess there are guys who've been like, Zach Neto has been really good. And not make the case that Zach Neto is a main character.

He's not a main character. He's actually not. No, absolutely not. Like I and I don't mean that as I don't mean that to disrespect his play. But like, no way. I mean, you should have said that about Jacob Wilson, probably when I brought him up. But like Zach Neto, yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. I'm thinking like, well, you're a Brayu has been even better, but no,

not, not main character, main character. That's a pretty exclusive group. You're on the marquee, you're on the poster. This is not, you're not an extra. It's interesting too, because this has been, you tell me if I'm overstating the case, I feel like this has been a pretty meh year in terms of rookie production. And so, and there are exceptions to that, right? Like Drake Baldwin is having a great rookie season and Jacob Wilson is still technically rookie eligible. So maybe I'm hurting my own case, but it's like, you know, you're talking about like Outside of Baldwin and I guess like my draw has been pretty okay, but it's like, you know and I always forget that Jason Dominguez is still technically rookie eligible this year, but

Him and him and Wilson not for very long, but Wilson was Wilson was like a day He had he was like eligible by like a day. I counted those rosters as all I would take a Wilson just to be really sure on that. But I think that it's been sort of an underwhelming year from a rookie production perspective. There hasn't been like a big breakthrough guy. I feel like I'm forgetting someone, but I don't think I am. Like it's just been kinda, you know? Yep. Mackenzie Gore.

Sure. It's just, it's hard to be on a bad team. I think part of, yeah, it really helps if you're Jung-Hoo Lee and you're not only marketed a lot, but your team is surprisingly successful. Or if you're Luzardo, you're on the Phillies, that helps to be a main character. So, and you can transcend that.

You can be Paul Skeens and you're just a main character, even if you are on the Pirates, but it helps to have been on a contender and a high-profile team. Let's see, I think Zach had Nick Pavetta at the time, but I don't know that I would go that far with him. Maybe Joe Ryan gets to that point potentially. It helps that he has a movie star face.

Yes, yeah. And also is pretty good. Yeah, the Cardinals have been surprisingly good and homegrown again. They have been. Yeah, they're getting that production from their guys. Neil Payne just wrote about this, but it's more of the Cardinals model of Mason Wynn and Victor Scott II and Brendan Donovan and just more homegrown guys. Matthew Liberator, who at least came up with them early, and Ivan Herrera, you know, it's been nice to see

they've kind of bounced back. I know that Cardinals fans, they really suffered there with a couple of years that weren't so hot. But yeah, I don't know. This shouldn't be a long list probably of newly minted main characters. So I don't know. This shouldn't be a long list probably of newly minted main characters. So I don't know that. Yeah, by definition,

it should be sort of a limited selection of guys, I think. Yeah, like I'm not given Trent Grisham main character status. He's been good, but I don't know, like belatedly Michael King, just cause he's, you know, he was doing it with the Yankees. He's done it with the Padres.

It feels like he's still sort of low profile relative to how good he has been. Sure. I, can I advance a theory with you that I have not made a scientific study of? Yeah. I feel like the Padres have a very high, perhaps the highest concentration of I'm on the mound and annoyed stink face boys. They have a, and by that I mean mostly Nick Pavetta and Michael King.

When Michael King and Nick Pavetta are annoyed on the mound, they let you know because they become stink face boys. And I'm not sure it's the highest concentration of stink face boys, but I think it might be among the highest concentrations of stink face boys. I'm not saying it's a problem necessarily, but it is interesting to me how it plays on my emotions even when the Padres are playing a team that I don't have any allegiance to because when a pitcher is a stink face boy, and I'm not saying that they're unattractive men

as human beings, I don't really have a strong feeling. Right, they have a stink face expression. They become stink face boys. And I think that when a pitcher is prone to stink face, they better be right, because otherwise, they end up having an aesthetic of whining, even if they don't vocalize their whining. And I don't care for whiners. I tend to be like, eh, now I want to see you lose because you're being a whiny stink face. And so I

think there's a stink face boys. That's my stink-faced boy theory about the potteries. I was, cause I was watching them when they were playing the Seattle Mariners. And I feel like there were a number of instances in the course of that series where the potteries got swept. So they had something to be annoyed by, to be fair, but also these Mariners, they kind of got to some of these guys and they made stink faces and I went, like I was in the Simpsons. Can a stink face coincide with a bootlegger face? Can a bootlegger face have a stink face?

Oh yeah, because like bootleggers are human beings, right? They exhibit the full range of human emotion, one would imagine. I've never met a bootlegger because you don't really need to have. And now you can buy moonshine at Total Wine, which is so weird to me. I don't know if we should be, we're being cutesy with moonshine. What are we doing? I mean, what are we doing? I don't understand that.

And it's funny because P Pavetta, you know, he only gave up one earned to the Mariners. King gave up three, but, uh, you know, he didn't have a bad outing against Seattle. He struck out seven guys. Like he, he was a, he did not have a stinky outing, but there were times during that outing when he was like stink face. The real test case of stink face and bootlegger face is now I need to watch Tim Hill like a lot. Tim Hill has such strong bootlegger face. It's profound. But I haven't really noticed him having stink face, but maybe he does. Who is the stink, bootlegger face?

Who's sitting in the middle of that Venn diagram? Sound off in the comments, friends. What a fascinating taxonomy you've come up with here. Look, I have a lot of thoughts about faces and where else am I gonna share them but here? Cardinals leading the league in outs above average, by the way, so best defensive team thus far. Who would have thought Cardinals homegrown guys and defense so out of character

for them? The Cardinals way, it's back after a brief hiatus. It's so funny to me how much less baseline annoyed by Cardinals fans I am than by Yankees fans. And it's not that Cardinals fans don't exhibit annoying behavior. They absolutely do. But if I were going to place it, it's because one, they're a national league team. So my preferred team doesn't have to deal with them as often. And also, I've never lived in St. Louis, but I have lived in New York. So maybe it's like I've seen I know what it's like to be in a sports bar

with Yankees fans much more than Cardinal fans. So that's something for me to think about. But I don't know, are Cardinals fans being annoying about their team success? Probably, right? They're probably, I mean, everyone's annoying. People are annoying. Every team has fans being annoying, but I don't know if it's disproportionate anyway. We'll accept other nominations for main character, but be... And for stink faces. And for stink faces and bootlegger faces.

But yeah, it's be discerning, be exclusive, have a high bar. I don't know if it would be worth even just anointing our main characters of actually pinning down who we think the main characters are because this is so subjective and squishy and it's always changing. But yeah, it's kind of a you know it when you see it, maybe. So but probably not. We know it when we see it and someone else would know something else when they see it. So right. But yeah, if you think someone else would know something else when they see it. So, but yeah, if you think someone else deserves to be included in the ranks of baseball main characters, let us know.

So let us know. Yeah, let us know. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I have some nominations, speaking of nominations, for the terminology for those home run robberies or the opposite of home run robberies. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Just so we can close the loop on this, we can put this topic to bed potentially. Okay. Yeah, we'll see. Some of our bits tend to be long running, but I'll do a little roundup here of all the submissions that we've received and maybe this will close the book. We shall see. So we were talking about nominations for when there's a tandem homerun robbery, when two players participate, as happened with the Red Sox and Seydan and Williard the other day,

and also when there is a gift of a homerun, when a homerun ricochets off of a player, they're trying to catch it, it goes off their glove, and inadvertently, they send it into the stands and it would not have gone out otherwise. So I'll just reel off some submissions here. Thomas, Patreon supporter says, how about home run promotion both in the Costco sample sense as you said and the upgrade sense Julio was running a home run promotion the other day? the other day. I appreciate the spirit of that, but I still think that it doesn't get at the accidental nature of this because you run a promotion on purpose to like, uh, inspire particular

behavior and I think Julia would prefer that we stop talking about this entirely. Yeah, probably. So I get what you're going for and I think that part of it fits, but part of it is little off in terms of that piece of it. There needs to be, even if the word oopsie or whoopsie doesn't appear in it, it needs to have the spirit of an oopsie. And I don't know that that's quite right. Yeah. Steven, Patreon supporter, said for the outfielder assisted home run, not soccer imagery, but basketball.

So we were talking about the tandem one, maybe being an alley-oop and alley-oops or whatever does that work? So perhaps a tip in or a put back would be something you could say for the outfielder assisted. And then the Jose Canseco case off the dome. I even said off the dome and yet didn't make the leap as Stephen said to dome run. And Stephen said should clearly be called a dome run.

I'm not going to look for articles to see that someone has already taken this idea, but if no one has, I agree with that, dome run. Yeah, I think dome run is very good. Okay, that's official, effectively wild terminology. Yeah. Jonathan in the same vein as the Ali Oopsie, yeah, the Ali Oopsie, he sent in,

Hey, it's LJ submitted Home Run Caper for the two person Home Run robbery, or John submitted Batman and Robin. So the idea of sort of a sidekick that it's assisted the outfielder assisted home run. See even that's confusing now because that makes it sound like you're talking about the tandem one where one guy gets the assist and then the other guy gets the catch. But talking about two different types of assists here. So the Batman and Robin or the Home Run caper, that would be when two guys team up to do one. But I don't know, I kind of like Home Run helper, which is one when I, which I think I said on the episode the other day, like maybe that could work

for either too. Like Michael, Patreon supporter says, how about a home run facilitator or home run enabler, and that would be for the gift version when you, you cause a home run that you didn't mean to. How do you feel about those home run facilitator, home run enabler? It doesn't really roll off the tongue, I guess. It doesn't. And like facilitator doesn't seem right for the same reason where it's like there's an intent to do the thing. Like if you're, you try to facilitate stuff generally,

right? It is a, um, a positive action. Enabler, uh, I guess, but like if you're enabling something, even if the beha- we tend to say enabler in a in a negative context, right, that you're like enabling bad behavior. I still think that it's a more active thing than we mean here in addition to it not really rolling off the tongue right. So I think I'm I think I might be out on that. Michael endorsed my own run suggestion. Yeah. I'm grateful to him for co-signing that one. He mentioned also that he was at Wilmer Flores' three homer game on Friday.

And one of those was a facilitated three run homer, thanks to Tyler Soderstrom, who was also responsible for the A's only run. So he was net negative two on the day. All right. This is from Brian who says, could an outfielder assisted home run be called a donor homer? Or if we're sticking with rhyming, perhaps a boner homer. Boner meaning mistake.

Of course. Yes, of course. And everyone would take it that way. I can't remember if I have shared this story on the pod before. And so if I have, I apologize. But, you know, not everybody listens to every episode. Here's the thing when you introduce Boner as a synonym for a mistake, particularly if you like tell your mom that. Like you tell your mom about Merkel's Boner because, you know, you're having a conversation with your mom and the word boner is funny. And you know, you, you arm her with that factoid and then you go to a baseball game with your mom and it's clear she doesn't quite have a handle on like what constitutes an error.

And so then your mom is constantly asking you within earshot of children and strangers, is that a boner? Is that a boner? Is that a boner? Is that a boner? And let me tell you, it's not what you want. So I would just say,

you gotta be discerning about your boners. You gotta be discreet with your boners. Wait till she finds out about snotgrass's muff, then she'll be asking about that too. But we got, yeah, along those lines, Michael also suggested bone run. So, boner homer, bone run. Okay, so here's the thing.

I like the way that sounds. Like that is objectively fun to say a bone run But I think the absent boner You don't really like know what that means like bone run is I think would be confusing to people who haven't listened to like a thousand episodes of effectively wild So I think it's it's fun to say but you need an intermediary boner homers phase Before you can get to bone run, right? You need to you need to have boner Homer

Which I again cannot endorse and then have people Shorten that to bone run And I think that's too many steps and far too many boners. Yeah. I do kind of like Donor Homer though. That's not bad. I like Donor Homer. Yeah.

It does, again, make it sound intentional, but it's... Yeah. But I'm maybe just like giving it a pass because there's like a nice musicality to it that I'm appreciating. But Donor Homer sounds, I don't know, I like the way that sounds, I think. Yeah. And another one was a defensive dinger. This was from Michael. When you cause a Homer to go over the fence, defensive dinger. Sounds like Dylan Dingler, but defensive dinger, yeah.

I mean, I guess that that could work potentially too. But maybe we're going about this all wrong. That's what Alex suggested that instead of a pun, we need to consider acronyms, a la Noble Tiger or TootBlan. Right. And so Alex says, might I suggest Fartbat, fielder assisted run that brings about tragedy,

or maybe simply fart fielder assisted run, parentheses scoring tragedy, fart bat? Here's the thing that I didn't realize until this very moment, fart bat is funnier than fart on its own, you know? I think fart bat is maybe one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Fart bat is great. Fart bat is great.

People know noble tiger, no out spaces loaded, ending with team incapable of getting easy run and people know toot bland thrown out on the bases like an income poop and these things, it has to sound good as those do. And it has to be something that, yeah, causes embarrassment or fan frustration. And that's exactly what this is. That's what the situation is. And Fartbat is very funny.

Fartbat is so funny. I think Alex is onto something here. I'm like overwhelmed by how funny Fartbat is. Fielder assisted run that brings about tragedy. I like that, Fartbat. Fartbat, Fartbat. I, you know, I, look, there are nominations we have gotten and terms we have discussed that I think have been

like more obviously related to what we're trying to describe. If you were to ask a fan on the street, what do you think of whatever is, their instinctive explanation would be closer to the play we're describing than Fartbat. Which sounds like the batter is farting in the box. The Fartbat sounds like you're describing a play where the hitter's in the box. That's what it, the fart bat sounds like, you know, like a, you're describing a play where the hitters in the box and he farts and the catcher. Which we have done by the way, or at least speculated about.

Yeah. Part of, you know, big part of my career, you know? But also it sounds like that. And then the catcher like obviously reacts to the fart, but I just really like saying fart bat. So I might be willing to accept the ambiguity of the expression to have an excuse to say fart bat. I farted on the pod one time in a way that I was worried was audible on the track.

Well, I remember everyone farting that out. For lunch and it made me gassy and everybody farts and I thought it was going to be a quiet fart and so I didn't take steps to try to mitigate and then it was just like a really loud one and I was like, I wonder if Shane had to like crop out. I'm surprised you didn't message Shane like Like, hey, Shane, if you're here, fart. No, I was like, maybe I should have as a courtesy to Shane. I'm realizing this makes me sound kind of rude. Not for farting, everyone does that,

but like for not telling him. But I was like, no, surely he, no. Like it's not gonna be that sensitive. Yeah, well, I don't remember anyone pointing it out. So maybe it wasn't. And you know what? It would have been pointed out, you know? Okay, yes, I imagine so.

All right, well, if Fartbat catches on, then we can give Patreon supporter Alex Davis credit for that one. Thank you, Alex. We can probably now cease the flood of submissions, though I'm sure they will continue to trickle in. Although not the flood of farts. Alright, that will do it for today. Meant to mention, by the way, speaking of Cardinals,

Matt Carpenter announced his retirement last week on Scott Linebrink's podcast, of course, where all big baseball announcements happen. Scott Linebrink right up there with Dave Bush and Connor Jackson when it comes to my mid-2000s fantasy baseball heroes. Anyway, Carpenter was most recently a Cardinal. He'll be best remembered as a Cardinal, but I think I'll never forget that 2022 Yankees partial season, he had 47 games, 154 played appearances, 15 dingers, 305, 412, 727 slash line. That's a 216 WRC plus.

That was one of the strangest, fluukiest small sample seasons I can recall. Of course he broke his foot when he fouled a pitch off it and he missed a ton of time and then came back for the postseason and had a whole bunch of strikeouts. But I'll always love that 2022, because if you set the minimum at 150 plate appearances, which of course you have to in order for Matt Carpenter to make the leaderboard. And we go ALNL only. The only hitters who've ever had a higher WRC Plus in a season are Aaron Judge, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle.

A short list of some of the greatest hitters of all time. And Matt Carpenter. And if you look at stints with teams, just the highest career WRC plus with one team. And in this case, we could even lower the minimum to 90 plate appearances. Matt Carpenter, number one, easily beating out Babe Ruth and his measly 197 WRC plus with the Yankees.

So Matt Carpenter, a true Yankees legend, apologies to Cardinals fans. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast coming, help us stay almost ad free and get yourself access to some perks

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and ad fee FanGrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com.

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We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. Sometimes I still feel like that little girl hearing grandma's hand-held greetings, collecting baseball cards before I could breathe They say I waste my time Tracking all these deadlines

But it's here I've found my kind We're all effectively wild