Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2327: Playing the Hits

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the new hardest-hit ball of the Statcast era, exit speeds across eras, Oneil Cruz vs. Elly De La Cruz, whether Tarik Skubal has gotten too good, Aaron Judge not feeling great at the plate, whether Rockies fans should boycott the team, how the (first) Juan Soto trade is […]

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Hello and welcome to Episode 2327 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fan Crafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fan Crafts. Hello, Meg. Hello. Well, we have a new hardest hit ball of the Statscast era. How necessary do you think it is that we append of the Statscast era?

I mean, we have to for accuracy's sake, but do you think that if we had an all-time batted ball exit speed leaderboard that encompassed all of baseball history, that the top of that leaderboard would look a lot different than the Stadcast era one or just a little different? I guess what I'm asking is do you think that balls are being hit harder now at the extremes than ever before? My instinct is to say yes. I think at the extremes I might even been be open to the notion that they're being hit harder on average, not just at the extremes, I might even then be open to the notion that they're being hit harder on average, not just at the extremes.

But look, it's not that there would be no one from prior eras of baseball history. There have been plenty of fellows over the years who have really walloped it, as it were. But I suspect that if you're putting the you know, the Aaron judges and the John Carlos Stanton's and the, as we're probably about to reveal, O'Neill Cruzes of the world up against the hitters of yesteryear that the modern bunch is gonna come out ahead on average. So that's my instinct, but you know, we'll just, I guess we'll never really know, will we? No, probably not. We could perhaps impute it from video footage or something

if we wanted to try to time how quickly. Yeah, and I don't know that the error bars would probably be too big to say anything with certainty, but yeah, I would guess that if we could go back all the way that there'd certainly be some Gary Sheffield in there. There's got to be some Gary Sheffield in there, at least from the past few decades. I don't know whether Frank Howard or someone like that was hitting balls as hard as today's hardest hitters.

It is hard for me to imagine that any big leaguer has ever been stronger than John Carlos Stanton or Aaron Judge. But yeah, I think if you're talking about outliers, if you took some outliers from earlier eras and of course the pitch speed contributes a little bit to the exit speed. So pitch speeds getting faster would suggest that that has raised the bar for exit speed on the whole. But still just individual batted balls, I got to think. Like, I don't know, Jimmy Foxx or someone who's just known

for being a really hard hitter in an earlier era, it's probably not quite comparable. But we talk about this a lot with pitch speeds, but not so much with exit speeds. Yeah, like I could imagine, you know, if you had a season of Frank Thomas in there somewhere, I would be like, sure, you know, I believe that. And then of course you get into some of the modern verified PED users or PED adjacent

guys and you're like, yeah, maybe. But then it's like, are you counting that in the same way? I think it would probably be silly to think that there's no one from prior eras who would write. Because like, yeah, I think when you look at someone like Aaron Judge or John Carlos Stanton, you know, you have like this incredible melding of their innate physicality with modern training and nutrition techniques. And so you imagine that you're getting some sort of boost from that, but it's not like they're the first big humans who have ever existed, right? So, you know, it's funny because it's like you look at Frank Thomas and we got taller guys than that now.

He's a big guy. I mean, he's a big hurt, Ben. You know, there are bigger hurts now. There are bigger hurts now. We can't discount the big hurt, but we must account for the other big hurts that walk among us. So if you told me Josh Gibson or someone had hit one as hard as today's batters do, I'd believe it.

But there's just so much different about the conditions and the bats and the balls and all the rest. Anyway, as far as we know, no one has hit a ball harder than O'Neill Cruz. He has the hardest hit on record. And that was true before this weekend. It's just that his previous hardest hit ball on record

was a mere 122.4 miles per hour. And the new one is 122.9. And the previous one was a single. And this just feels more satisfying to me. Because some of the hardest hit balls of the Statcast era, which dates back to 2015, you would not know it from the video necessarily. Now I looked up, there have been 26 balls on record, hit 120 miles per hour or more. And as you might imagine,

those have been pretty productive battered balls, 991 Woba, 22 hits. So it's good to hit the ball that hard, but sometimes you hit it that hard on the ground. And so his previous one, which came in August of 2022 was a single. So for the past three years, almost the hardest hit ball of the Stadcast era was a single, which is it felt underwhelming. And then prior to that, from 2017 to 2022, John Carlos Stanton had the

hardest hit and it was also a single and that was not very fun. And then tied with that one actually was a Stanton grounded into double play from August of 2021. And you can tell he hit it hard. And I guess it's almost appropriate that he would hit it that hard and then ground into a double play. But still, I want fireworks.

When you tell me that it's the hardest hit ball, I didn't doubt the measurements or the technology or anything, but it was just underwhelming. And so now we have a king of the stat cast batted ball leaderboard that seems worthy of the title. Yes. Because O'Neill Cruz just absolutely obliterated

a ball thrown by the Brewwers, Logan Henderson, and it got out very fast. It was 432 feet hit distance, but it just, it went so fast into the river in Pittsburgh and had that sound and it just, it looked as hard as it was. And so this just feels right. I'm happy. It just feels like order has been restored. Yeah, it is. What poor soul had to feel that John Carlo double play ball. Goodness. I go

back and forth on how much I care about the stat cast of it all. I want to know. It's interesting, but it's not necessary to my sense of wonderment and awe to know that a home run was hit at a particular exit velocity or that it traveled a certain distance. Home runs are like porn. You know when you see them, right? And there are ones that are more sensorally satisfying, probably also like porn. But I didn't even mean to set that one up. But you know, often the ones that leave the most profound impression in your memory are the ones that have that sound. And you know, you take a lot I think from the visual cues that both the pitcher and the assembled crowd

give you, because folks in ballpark do react differently to some home runs than others. But sometimes you can blend the science with the aesthetics, and you get this singularly perhaps satisfying moment of being like, wow, how did he do that? And then you look at the sad cast and you go, wow. So, yeah, what I'm saying is that I was pornographic. I guess that's what I'm saying. Whitmerefield was the poor soul who intercepted that John Crow Stanton double play ball and started the double play.

And the broadcaster on the broadcast I'm watching said that it was grounded sharply, which sounds like an understatement at 120.2's Mops per hour. But what else are you going to say? Because it didn't look that impressive. It was just a grounder to second, ultimately. And so I did not like that being a top,

or even tied a top, the battered ball leaderboard. So now we have a new king and O'Neil Cruz, he's having himself a fine offensive season. We talked about Ellie De La Cruz a week ago and he is I think exactly where he was when we talked about him, which is at a 99 WRC plus. So the breakout that I was hoping to precipitate by bringing up the fact that he was not doing so hot,

that hasn't happened yet. He's still just kind of treading water. And I almost mentioned when we talked about Ellie that O'Neill was having the superior offensive season, but it wasn't great, but he has had himself a fine last week and he is now up to a 134 WRC plus. And he still strikes out a lot.

He's O'Neill Cruz. That's what he's going to do. But he's hitting for more power now and combination of power and speed. And that's exciting. That's what we associate with Ellie. And O'Neill's kind of done it better this season. He's up to 18 steals,

which is close to his full season total of 22 last year, plus 11 homers. He's walking more often. If anything, he has underperformed the batted ball stats. So he's not going to be quite as valuable all around as Ellie, just because he doesn't bring the same defensive acumen and he is still trying to make a go of it in center. And according to Staticast, he's holding his own. It's par, but defensive run save says very bad, which kind of is what the eye test typically says about him out there.

So I don't know. I mean, I hope that he is playable out there because I think it would be more fun if he remains at an up-the-middle premium defensive position than if he just shifts to a corner, but I imagine that he will surrender to the inevitable eventually. But if he's hitting tanks like that and he's just hitting this well overall, then that's okay. He's still a pretty good player. Maybe not the superstar potential that Ellie has, but to this point, he has been the better cruise

in the NL Central. And I remember almost making a bold prediction about them going into last season. I was going to predict something about how they were really going to, one of them was going to separate himself from the other because they had been sort of similar value wise to that point. And then Ellie did and really lapped O'Neill and Ellie's so much younger than O'Neill. But thus far, O'Neill off to the stronger start, figuratively and literally. Are you concerned that it's like a Highlander situation where there can only be one at any

given moment? Only one, like really? One who's actually really playing well. Yeah, one like really talented cruise. I mean, they're not the only cruises in the majors to be clear, so that kind of puts a damper on it. Plus, as a Dela Cruz, even a Cruz is kind of a separate category. Right, exactly. You know, it's a different name. Yeah. So really, what are we doing?

You know, why are we trying to moosh them into one guy? I don't think the centerfield thing is working well so far. So I want it to. And I'm sure that both O'Neill Cruz and the Pirates wanted to, too, because when you have a guy who I think, even if he achieves some version of this over the course of his career, you can imagine him being a player who even in the seasons where he's going good, there's a lot of variance in his performance, you know, week to week, month to month. He just, he's always going to have a big zone. He's always going to have a long swing. He does get to pitches that you're surprised by given the sort of length

of his levers and whatnot, but like there's going to be variance there. And him being a viable center fielder would give him this really nice floor on which to stand as he weathers that variance. I don't even know if that counts as a mixed metaphor, so I'll make something. But it looks not great out there. And you can look, it can be good and ugly, right? That could be a thing. But some of the ways that it looks ugly are...

They don't suggest that it's gonna... That his defense is gonna round into like plus form. But who knows, you know, maybe it'll just take a little while. Maybe it'll just take longer. Could be true. Speaking of stat-cast superstars, and in this case, just an actual superstar, Tarek Scoobal has just... He's entered

the de Grom zone, I think, of he is just, he's so otherworldly, just untouchably good that I've now become concerned about him. Like I feel like he's... Oh, no, not that de Grom zone. We don't want him in that de Grom zone. He's in, well, it kind of goes hand in hand really. When you're as good as the Grom was, I start worrying about whether you are testing the limits of the mortal form, whether your body is going to rebel at how great you are.

The surface stats don't look that different, ERA wise, he's kind of having the same season that he had last year, but he is now locked off half a run from his FIP, and that was from him being the unanimous and deserved A.L. Sayong Award winner last year. So he now has a sub-2 FIP, barely above 2 ex-FIP. He is basically halfway to his war from last year in many fewer than half the innings. Like he's really just leveled up. Like he's lowered his walk rate.

He's raised his strikeout rate significantly. Like a lot. Like last year. Yeah. He's cut his walk rate almost in half while adding five percentage points to his strikeout rate. So his strikeout minus walk percentage has gone from 25.6 last year to 32.3 right now.

That's a sizable jump given how high a starting point there was. And so he just had this extraordinary game over the weekend where he threw a Maddox and complete game shut out under 100 pitches and had the most strikeouts in a Maddox. He struck out 13. And that's tough to do because strikeouts typically take more pitches to record

than other kinds of outs. And so 13 strikeouts in a Maddox, that is pretty impressive. Just totally shut down the Guardians, 5-0 win, 13 strikeouts, enematics. That is pretty impressive. Just totally shut down the Guardians, 5-0 win, 13 strikeouts, no walks. And what got a lot of publicity is that he ended the game by striking out Gabriel Arias on a 102.6 mile per hour four seam fastball, which was the fastest strikeout pitch by a starting pitcher since pitch tracking started. And also it was the hardest thrown pitch of his career. And it was also according to JJ Cooper of baseball America, the third pitch and the fastest pitch to top 102 miles per hour, 75 or more pitches into a start. So Nathan Valdi and Justin Verlander had done that, had

thrown 102.4, but 102.6, that is a record in the majors. And so it's now reached the point where I'm starting to say, you're too good and maybe you should take it easy a little bit because I want to protect Tarek Schuepel. And he was so good last year that if he just kept pitching the way that he was last year, he'd be the best pitcher in baseball as he was. And yet his average four seamer speed

has increased by a full mile per hour, as has his max. This was the max. So again, I'm just thinking, take it easy. Don't fall so in love with your extreme stuff that you test the limits and laugh in the face of the elbow gods because we need you to stay healthy, Tarik. Do you take any comfort from the way that his sort of physicality manifests relative to DeGrom. Because DeGrom's not like a skinny guy, but like he is a slighter guy than Scoobble. One time Michael Bauman described Paul Skeens as being built like the USS Nimitz, which I found very evocative. I was like, that is,

that's an evocative phrase. I know exactly what that means. And I, I would put Scoobal in, in the Nimitz category, right? He's got like, he's a solid guy. He has a solid lower half, not, this is going to sound judgmental in a way I don't mean, but like, you know, not like dumpy, like well built, but solid, you know. And so does that offer, you know, comfort? Is that not a bomb at all that he's like, he looks like he can, he looks like he could take a punch, which is weird having fixated on how his lower half is constructed, but, um, you know, he does, he looks like he could, you know, he doesn't sometimes pictures pictures, this is not what

Dick Graham looks like either, but you know how like, Max Fried looks like a consumptive Victorian, like a haunted doll. You know, sorry, Max, but you do. You're like, you look like you'd be vulnerable to spores. Scoobble doesn't look like he'd be vulnerable to spores. That's a Secret Garden reference for all my Secret Garden heads out there, you know?

The Last of Us reference, which is probably where more people's heads went. Ben, sorry, I have to do a minor digression on the shows that I was so proud of. I was so proud of how caught up I was in real time on both The Last of Us and Poker Face. And look, I know that the baseball episode of Poker Face is out, but sometimes you agree to watch a show with someone else, and then they have to go on a trip. And so you are behind. You're behind. So I'm saying that not because I am mad at anyone in particular, but just to say that if you are contemplating sending a note to us about the baseball episode of Poker Face,

which is now a baseball show, much like The Last of Us. I haven't seen it yet. And so I would ask you to please not because I am anxious to watch it unspoiled. And also I have not seen past the premiere, The Last of Us. I don't know if I'm gonna do it, you know? I can't decide. Yeah. Anyway. Didn't it just end?

Yes, the second season just ended. Scoopal is big and strong. It is true. DeGramme never looked to me like he was throwing that hard. It was maybe Mac's effort, but it didn't look like it really. And so that's something that you could have said about him. Oh, it looks kind of easy. Somehow it's coming out of his hands easy. And the fact that scubal does have more of the prototypical power pitcher build, I guess that's good because you might say, okay, maybe the muscles are taking more of the strain and it's not going directly to

its ligaments, but I got gotta think it probably doesn't make that much of a difference. Because you're just, you're whipping your arm around so fast and this tensions, the forces are such that even if you're absorbing some of that with other parts of your body, your UCL is just, it's really not shouldering the load, but elbowing the load, just absorbing a lot of that in

a way that even if you're compensating for that somewhat, it's just, it seems like it's not going to be sustainable unless you have sort of a freakish UCL that is just stronger or thicker than someone else's. And we don't know that that's the case. He might be big and strong on the outside and not on the inside. Who knows? So yeah, it doesn't reassure me that much. I guess I'd, I'd rather see someone with that build doing that, or I'd, I'd think it might be a little more sustainable or a little less dread, but not that much less, I just, I don't want my mind to go here. I just want to enjoy the mastery of Tarek's Google, but this is inevitably, this

is what modern pitching has conditioned me to think like I can't get too attached to any pitcher. Whereas with a position player, we celebrate the stat cast extremes and we say, wow, this is so exciting. We're going to get to watch this guy. You don't automatically think when O'Neill Cruz hits the ball a zillion miles per hour, you don't automatically think he's going to break. Even though he has, sometimes.

But it's just not nearly as strong a correlation there. Whereas with a pitcher, anytime someone really lights up the radar guns or it's just all red on the stat-cast stuff, that unfortunately is a red flag for me in a way that I wish it weren't. And of course, like Scoobl has a TJ in his rear view. It's a good bit in his rear view at this point, but he has that. He had the flexor tendon thing. So it's not as if he has been immune to injury in the course of his career either pro or amateur, but you do look at him and go, oh, you're not going to snap in half.

You're a big strong boy. You know, it's not like when, like when Edwin Diaz is out there, you're just like, how are you staying together and complete, just moving around? You're so slight. Yeah. And and sometimes, yeah, it does look like you're putting more of your body into it, like, you know, Tim Linscomb kind of sense, where that was always the the concern about him or why he was nicknamed the freak. It was like, how is he producing this stuff with this frame? And the answer was that he was getting every iota out of it with that big stride and everything else. And perhaps that is why he declined fairly quickly from his extremely high and fun peak. Scoople does look like he's, he's, he's,

there's effort there, right? Like it doesn't look like he's, he's, he's, there's effort there, right? Like it doesn't look like he's just playing catch and it's just coming out of his hand easy necessarily. But yeah, that was, that was as dominant as any pitcher today is and 94 pitches too. And like had the Maddox with some room to spare and 72 strikes. He's just, he's so in control. It's just, it's really awe-inspiring. And when a pitcher inspires awe, it also inspires terror in me anyway. Hope I'm not infecting everyone else with my anxiety

and neuroticism when it comes to pitchers, but it's kind of a justified paranoia, unfortunately. I don't want you to experience anxiety over things that you can't control, but I do end up feeling like we're on a more level footing when you express these kinds of concerns. I'm like, oh, see, it's not just me, it's been two. We're just a nervous bunch of broadcasters, a bunch of nervous Nellies over here. I know I can't control it. And yet I hope that if I just put it out there in the world and just just flash that yellow

light and say just Tarek, you were the best pitcher in baseball already. No need to test the limits even further, even if you could. I am very impressed, but you just you don't need to. So I just I think that even when you're the best, you can sometimes fall in love with that. And like, how far can I push this? And can I test the outer boundaries here? And well, we know what happens sometimes when you do that. So yeah.

Sometimes. I hope that he lasts because the Tigers are fun and he is fun and he's great. Okay. Yeah. Sticking with players who are just testing the extremes here, Aaron Judge, who has now fallen below a 400 batting average. He's down all the way to 398. Washed.

I know. Bum. Washed. Yeah. 245 WRC plus. It's just been a rough stretch for him, but he had a quote, do you remember last year, this was last August when he said that he did not feel locked in yet? We talked about this. I do remember that. Yeah, because he'd been as locked in

as any hitter had been since Barry Bonds, since the start of May. And this was like late August and Judge said he did not feel locked in yet. He said, not yet, we're still getting there. And he chuckled a little, but then after he chuckled, he got serious again when he was saying that. So it didn't seem like it was totally tongue in cheek.

Anyway, the latest in that genre is that Aaron Judge just said over the weekend, I don't feel too great at the plate. Always a work in progress. Like, come on. Still, it does make me wonder, like if he doesn't feel too great. Now I think part of this has to be eyewash.

Part of this, I think probably is his actual mindset and maybe this is why he's so good. He just, he never feels content. He's always trying to do more and that scares me less when he does it than when Tarek Skopel does. And he actually elaborated on that. Now he came out and he said he doesn't pay too much attention to his numbers, you know, yada yada. My dad would always give me the quote, if what you did yesterday still seemed big today, then you haven't done anything today. So it doesn't matter what you did yesterday, if you're still happy about your good game last night, then you probably haven't done anything today. Which, look, maybe this is the ultra elite athlete mindset and there's something to that.

Don't rest on your laurels and sure. It's a, what have you done for me lately kind of sport. Now I think there's something also to just feeling contentedness, not complacency, but just feeling like, Hey, I'm doing a good job. Like I should feel proud of how good I have been. And so I don't know how much of this is legitimate and how much of this is something you say and I'm the captain and you know, the usual kind of,

I mean, it's just the quotes, Aaron Judge, there's no more boring quote, I don't think in baseball because it's so funny. It's so sleep inducing because he had another big game and this was in cores, and then he was intentionally walked and there were boos because people were disappointed that he wasn't going to hit. It was only his ninth intentional walk of the season, but it was a 10 run inning and

so it helped set up. The Yankees had 14 batters come to the plate and he said, if I can get on base for those guys, they're going to do something special. You never know what's going to happen. You've just got to stay ready to hit every single time. Just, I almost fell asleep just reading that sentence to all of you. So I never know how much of this is what he's actually thinking or how much he's actually thinking and how much he is just embracing his role as the captain and feels like I'm a role model and this is what I've got to say. And I'd rather a player be a boring pillar of the community, a very big pillar in Judge's case. Like, you know,

I'd rather have you be squeaky clean and boring than a good quote with like actual bad stuff on your record. So I, you know, it's fine to just be kind of Mr. Like Captain America, literally as he's going to captain the U S team and the WBC, it's okay. You know, like we need players and athletes and celebrities like that. I'm sure it does some good in the world, but man, is it boring. So what he says, he doesn't feel locked in, or I don't feel too great at the plate, even as he is just on the greatest heater that any hitter has been on, maybe ever,

maybe any right-handed hitter at least. I don't know what to make of that. Is that how he really feels? And if so, is he right? Is there actually a higher gear? Could he ever do something that would make him think, I feel locked in, I feel great at the plate right now. Maybe he said that at some point in his career.

I haven't read every quote because they're incredibly boring, but like it almost makes me wonder, is there more here? Should we actually unlock Aaron Judge's latent potential? When you're that good, you're going to breed a certain amount of contempt from your fellow players. I don't think that Aaron Judge is disliked or anything, but you're really good and you're better than anyone else and people are going to be kind of jealous of that at times.

And particularly if they're not on your team, you know, if they're on your team, you got to pretend that you're only happy about it and you have no envy. Right. That's your, that's your bit of eye wash. And I'm sure that, you know, I don't have any reason to think that Aaron Judge isn't well liked by his teammates. And I don't have any reason to think that they aren't like genuinely impressed. I'm sure people are impressed. There's gonna be a little bit of like,

when there's one guy who is just the presumptive MVP in a given league, there's gonna be some amount of like, what else can I do possibly to like earn these accolades other than like, have you kidnapped? Yeah. If I were on his team, I don't know that I would feel envy just because it feels so unattainable. It's like, it'd be one thing if he just looked like a regular guy and he was this good, but he just, he looks the part.

Well, I can't be as big and as strong as Aaron Judge, and he's just so head and shoulders, not even trying to make a play on words here, but above everyone else, that it's just kind of like a separate league. Like I wouldn't even... It's like envying the divine. Like what's the purpose of that really? Yeah.

I, I, okay. I'm, I'm moved by that argument. I do wonder though, like, I don't know don't know, you are just in this very strange spot where how do you talk about being as good as you are? It must feel necessary to have some amount of modesty. And what you're doing is legitimately very hard. I think that there is an element of truth to Judge's statements, which is that there probably, maybe there is a version of him that's even better than this. And even if there isn't, when you are trying to be as good as he is, you probably are efforting at a level even higher than

what you've been able to put on the field. And you're lucky to land where you are, which seems impossible to think of, but surely must be true, right? Like you can't be as good as he is right now and be complacent. You have to be efforting the whole time, even if you are, you know, humming and you're not, you're in, you're going good and you're in a, you know, you're in a good stretch, all that stuff, like you're still having to put in all of this work to sustain that level of performance. Surely you have to be. And so maybe from your perspective, you are honestly saying, I'm just doing my work.

I'm having to do all of this work to do this. It's so hard. And so maybe there isn't any like faux modesty in it. Maybe not, but maybe. And so it's just an odd, I don't envy him having to try to thread that needle because I think there is an expectation on the part of fans certainly, that even when you're that talented that you are modest, that there's a humility, even if it's honest to say, yeah, I'm like the best hitter in baseball right now. It can rub people the

wrong way, which is so silly. And I think part of it too, is that he is paying a Yankees like ability tax. When the best hitter in baseball is a Yankee, that bugs people, man. That really irritates a lot of folks. Cause you know, I think that people don't have the same, I don't know if this is supported by evidence, my sense of it. And I say this as a person who has at different times in her life been a Yankee hater in a virulent way, my sense is that the level of rancor outside of say Boston toward the Yankees is at a lower level than it was during the evil empire times.

But it's still there, and it's still the source of easy humor and genuine disdain. My stepmom was texting me, she went to a game during the Mariner series against the Yankees a couple weeks ago. She's like, I still don't like these guys. I still don't like them. And she's like, and I don't like their fans being here. And then, and this is a joke for the late, the two or six heads who listen. I was like, well, people from Bellevue have to be able to root for somebody. That's a funny joke.

You don't get it, but it's very funny. Oh, what a burn. What a sick burn it is. But you know, I think that even in our era of maybe greater appreciation for individual performance, regardless of the athlete, the people still love to hate the Yankees and like to be able to kind of jab at their fans. And so he he has a harder task in terms of likeability than some others. Like if Jose Ramirez, who was having a very nice season to be clear,

but if Jose Ramirez had the same stat line as Aaron Judge, the coverage would be so, it would have a slightly different tone and texture to it. I really think so. And people love, you know, people like Aaron in I don't mean to say that people don't like you're in judge I think people like you're not judge. Yeah, you know He's easy to like because he never says anything controversial to your point like this is the cheater of it all right like you know What do you who does he annoy most? People who root for the Red Sox and reporters who wish he'd give them better poll quotes.

You know, like that's really the constituency of annoyance for Judge, but he does have to push against the pinstripes a little bit, I think. So, anyway. We are kind of in an era of unobjectionable best players in baseball, or you couldn't call Judge O'Rotani brash the way that you could have called Bryce Harper that at certain points. Bryce Harper ruffled feathers and he was always mentioned, you know, when they would do those surveys of fellow players and the fellow players could get their caddy who's the most overrated response and sometimes it would be Harper even when Harper was really good. I don't think anyone could credibly argue that Judge or Otani is overrated. I mean, I guess you could if you thought that Otani's celebrity is such that it is

just transcended typical baseball player and maybe he gets too much hype. But you certainly can't argue that they're not as great at baseball as everyone seems. but you certainly can't argue that they're not as great at baseball as everyone seems. And they are kind of the, I think, almost unanimously acknowledged best players in their respective leagues. I don't know that anyone could really make a case for a better national league player than Otani

or a better American league player than Judge. And Judge versus Otani, that actually is kind of a fun debate who's the best player in baseball. Because if you go back to the start of 2021, when Otani won his first MVP award, it is neck and neck, war-wise. So Otani is at 38 war and Judge is at 37.2. So that's a rounding error.

So even though Otani has done it in a different way, he's had some two way play in there, he's had the 50-50 season in there, and then Judge of course had the 62 homer year. So they've both made history in their own ways, and yet they have come out at almost exactly the same place. And so whether you think one is better than the other, like that's a legitimate debate that I don't know how interesting it is because ultimately the upshot is they're both

amazing. But if you enjoy that kind of bar room debate about baseball players, then that's pretty good one. Judge Ohtani, who do you want today Or who would you have wanted over this period? And yet they are both outwardly fairly humble and fairly respectful and all the rest. And so you can't really be mad at them. Now people are mad at Otani for going to the Dodgers and signing a big contract, the gall, and then the conspiracy theorists out there with all the eBay nonsense. But beyond that, on a personal level, there's just not much that you could really fault

either of them for. They're not the kind of superstar who's like rubbing people the wrong way because of their on-field demeanor or because they're full of themselves or anything. They're just not that. So we're kind of in an era of, you can't call Otani boring. He's been anything but boring, but just in terms of quotes, like their public communication,

pretty boring, both of them, especially Judge. Especially Judge. And I think you're right that like, setting aside the deranged Otani gambling truthers, people are more angry at the Dodgers around the contract stuff than they are Otani, I think. You know, I think that when you try to parse the people who are frustrated with the state of payroll, their ire is directed more at the team in its totality than it even is at

him individually. Yeah. You don't even really hear that much about Judge behind the scenes. Like he lets his hair down or something. Cause you hear so much about Otani as a teammate and as a prankster and this happy go lucky guy, and they're both pretty media trained. And so we don't see that much of it. We get glimpses in the dugout of Otani maybe, but you don't even hear really that much from Judge's teammates about, yeah, when the cameras are off, like he's this really funny joker guy.

Like, I don't, you don't hear that much about that from Judge. So either it's not there, he camouflages it better anyway. I think that a thing that a lot of people just have to like metabolize is that a lot of these guys are really boring, you know? And it's fine. That's fine. It's fine that like the bulk of their time and effort and, and mental focus is, is directed at baseball. That's fine. Like that's, but like a lot of people are boring. Not just baseball players. Yeah. A lot of people are boring. They're boring. They have boring habits. They have relatively boring lives. It doesn't mean that they're not meaningful to them. It doesn't

mean that they don't delight, you know, their intimates, you know, their friends and family. But like, you know, we can't all be like fascinating conversationalists. Then the truly fascinating conversationalist wouldn't be so fascinating. I'm pretty boring, you know? I'm not a, I don't know that I'm a particularly interesting person, that's fine, it's fine. Please subscribe to Effectively Wild's.

No, I think I'm good on mic. But like walking around in the world, I don't think that people are like, wow. Yeah, right. Yeah, definitely more interesting on a podcast in my case than if you were just to make small talk with me in real life. Yeah, think about how much,

here's the thing for everyone to think about, he talks even slower in real life. I meant to mention, by the way, that I had that caveat about major leaguers when I was citing the fastest pitch thrown 75 pitches into a start by Scoople because Jacob Misurowski, the Brewers prospect, he just did that. He threw 103 mile per hour hour pitch like 77 pitches into an outing the other day or yeah 78 maybe I think so yeah that was the hardest pitch on record thrown by a starter majors or minors so yep he's in triple-a he will

presumably show up pretty soon he has a sub 2 E there. So not a lot of competition in the rotation as it's currently constituted to keep him out either. So you're going to see another guy throwing incredibly hard in the big leagues sometime soon, I would imagine. Yeah, I would think so. Okay. So wanted to talk about a plea that a sportscaster made a news guy in Colorado, a guy named Kyle Clark, who's on Nine News Denver.

And he had a little plea, a little direct address to the camera the other day, where he mused about whether Rocky's fans should stop showing up. Before I bought those tickets, I paused. Because I've heard some very smart people say that the Rockies ownership will never have a real incentive to improve the product on the field until people stop buying tickets. And I want the Rockies to be competitive.

I mean, I want my girls to grow up cheering for a competitive baseball team. So I paused before I bought my family tickets for a baseball game. How sad is that? A family should be my family tickets for a baseball game. How sad is that? A family should be able to go to a baseball game without worrying that giving the franchise a few dollars is enabling them to continue being a perennial doormat for visiting teams. Basically that if you want to send a message to the team that this is unacceptable, then you can't just keep going, or maybe this is perpetuating, this is enabling the bad baseball

that the Rockies are playing, because as we have discussed, they draw decently even when they are abysmal. And that is true this year, they're barely down year over year attendance per game from last year, about 360 fans per game. They're 18th in baseball in attendance average per game from last year, about 360 fans per game. They're 18th in baseball in attendance average per game at home. And that's despite being off to one of the worst starts of all time.

And this is kind of a perennial thing with them that we've talked about. And similar for the Angels and just various factors specific to these markets. And it's a nice place to go to the game and maybe there are a lot of transplants and in the Angels case there's Disney nearby and all the rest and so he was sort of saying are we part of the problem because the Montforts aren't really reaping the anti rewards here of being so bad at running this team. Even if they're truly terrible, the team still does okay. And they don't maybe feel the impact of that on their bottom lines. And I thought he handled this plea well because he was saying,

I still want to take my kids to a game and they're going to enjoy their time at the ballpark. They don't even know necessarily that this team is so bad. They're just going to have a fun time out there and I don't want to deprive them of that and just to send the signal to the Montforts. I don't want to be a bad dad, keep my kids away from the ballpark. And I'm not saying that anyone else should do that either. But there is something to that idea. I don't know whether an organized boycott would actually have an effect or would really be a wake up call for them to just be, we can't keep coasting here, but it does seem

like that's potentially part of it. That just the downside risk for the Rockies isn't that great because they'll still just do decently. People will purchase tickets to see the Colorado Rockies, even if it's about the worst product you could possibly imagine, except when Aaron Judge is there getting intentionally walked and having 10 run innings. Yeah, I would be curious. I saw some footage of that Yankee series, Victorian consumptive Max Fried was starting, because I think he had a nice outing there.

What other kind of outing has he had this year? He's just been, he's been great. He's been quite good. Yes. Um, but like, you know, quite good in course, which is, you know, that's no small, small smash me, small feet. I don't know anything about the size of his feet. Hey. Um, but, uh, it sure looked like there were a lot of Yankees fans there. Now, I think that like that is probably true. Even when you have much better teams that like when the Yankees are on the road, they have a lot of fans show up because they have a lot of fans, many of whom travel, but many of whom don't have to because they just live in the local areas. So I don't know how representative it is, but I am curious, like, what is the

actual breakdown of Rockies fans to visiting fans? Maybe if we have any Rocky fan listeners who go on a regular basis, I'd be curious what your sort of anecdotal experiences of that. But I don't know how easy it would be. I think part of the problem here, and this is part of the problem with the team more generally, think, part of the problem here, and this is part of the problem with the team more generally, and certainly part of the problem with affecting a consumer boycott in this instance, is that this has been shaped into very much a family business. And so some portion of it, now, not everyone, obviously, in the org is a Monfort, but I wonder if one of the barometers for Dick has more to do with sort of his own family's experience of working for the

team than anything else. Now, maybe that works in van's favor because if one of the ways that he is one of the ways that he is sort of assessing the success of the franchise is, is this still a meaningful legacy to bequeath to my children who are involved in the organization? Well, then kind of hitting them where they live, maybe that's more meaningful because he is going to be perhaps less inclined to sell because he wants this to be a thing that is like, you know, a jewel of the family or whatever. But it's a tricky thing. And I do want to distinguish like the failures of the Rockies from the failures of the A's where I think that we saw very real impact from the fan boycotts, even if it didn't keep the athletics in Oakland. I think the messaging around it was very clear.

And I think that like it was effective in terms of communicating the potential strength of that market as a fan base should a more, you can't say feckful right? Feckless is like, it doesn't have a, you know, but with a better owner, I think that despite the fact that Montfort has in his role in, you know, various committees actually tried to, you know, do a salary cap and curb spending like, you spending, not just on players, but in terms of off-field activity, he hasn't been able to find purchase for those ideas and he has at times spent on the team.

So I don't know. I don't know if it's quite the same thing. And then you have to ask yourself, and perhaps this is the most depressing question of all for Rockies fans, how much unexplored winning potential have to ask yourself, and perhaps this is the most depressing question of all for Rocky's fans, how much unexplored winning potential do we think there is in that club given the environmental factors? I don't know that we have a great answer to that. Like if you were to tomorrow, kidnap everyone who works for the Dodgers,

who isn't a player, and you were to transport those people to Denver, and then say, I mean, you don't have to do, you don't have to transport the ones who are here in the valley. They could presumably just go to Salt River instead of Camelback. But you poured over the entire ops organization and you say, you have to run the Rockies. You have the same infrastructure, which would take time to set up, but like, you know, we're not kidnapping people really either. So let's entertain my hypothetical. You know, you have the same infrastructure, you have the same people, you are able to do all of the non-player spending parts of being the Dodgers. And then maybe if you have success, because Montfort has occasionally spent, you can say,

okay, let's pay some players and maybe you're not doing quite as much as the Dodgers are doing obviously, but you might have some, you know, success in making that case. How good can the best front office in baseball make a club that has to play half its games on the moon and then is dealing with some hangover effect in the other half? Like, so how good can the Rockies ever be? Even if they have better ownership, even if they have a really smart front office, even if they have all of the infrastructure that good clubs have, we don't know the answer to that. And so you can have hope, you can dream on it, be in whatever number you want.

You can say that's worth, you know, it's worth 30 wins in any given year. I don't know, I don't know the answer to that. But like, I do imagine there is kind of a cap that there is just on some level, a part of the hurdle you can't clear. Are you always tripping over the hurdle? I don't know how track and field works, but you know,

so I just, I don't know. I don't know. Even if you get everything you want, you certainly have a better club. And I want to be clear, like they should do so much better than they're doing. Like this is an unacceptable state of affairs. I do not mean to suggest that they should just be like, well, I don't know. We play on the moon and like wash their hands of it. But cause like, you know, it is a meaningful gap between say here where I live and Denver, but it's

still a high elevation ballpark. And the Diamondbacks are better as a team and more entertaining. And they've developed hitters and they spend money sometimes and there's all this stuff. So it should be better. You can do better, but I do wonder, is there a cap to the better? And then maybe there is a cap, but you have a couple years where the ball just bounces the way you need it to when you're on the road and it's fine and you win a World Series. I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah. There just doesn't seem to be the concerted movement to say, force someone to sell the team. the concerted movements to say, force someone to sell the team, not that that actually produces that effect. But at least you get the consolation of memeing about it and commiserating about it. And that just doesn't seem to exist to the same... I don't know that memes are...

a lot of consolation. I don't think... I mean, for some, they are. But like, let's not be overly confident in the power of meme. Yeah, just not the same collective outrage. And we've talked about some of the reasons for that and the differences, but I do wonder if there were more of that, whether it would send that message. Hey, we actually have to roll, we have to have a blank slate, we have to clear the decks

here, or whether that's just not the way that Montfort is wired. And I wouldn't want to deprive anyone of the pleasure of going to the ballpark, even if it's just to see the visiting team. Then you're letting the Rockies' management's incompetence prevent you from one of the joys of spring and summer, which is just going to the ballpark with some friends maybe

and having a beer or whatever whatever and just enjoying the game, which you can do even if the team that you're watching is truly terrible. So I do understand. I don't, I don't love the idea of people depriving themselves of that just for some hypothetical possibility that maybe this will engender change, but I do wonder what would happen if there were just an organized, sustained fan boycott or if the Rockies really saw their attendance crater. So, wanted to ask you about Wansoto for a second

and specifically the Wansoto trade. We talked about Wansoto. Okay, which one? Yeah, good question. The first one. We talked about Wonsodo. Yeah, good question. The first one. We talked about Wonsodo's hustle. Now let's talk about Robert Hassel III,

who just came up with the Nats. And so now I think looking back at that nationals trade of Wonsodo, I don't know that it's ever great to trade a young franchise superstar. You want to build around that guy and make them the cornerstone. Sure. But is this now the new model for if you are going to do it, here's how you want

it to work out because it's working out as, as well as you could hope that it would, given the talent that the nationals got back. Now the nationals are still not a good team and they have a lot of work to do, but that trade in isolation is looking pretty darn good because the talent you got back. So to refresh everyone's memory, August 2nd, 2022, Nationals trade Soto and Josh Bell to the Padres for Robert Hassel III, Harleen Susanna, CJ Abrams, Mackenzie Gore, Luke Voigt, and James Wood. Now we can kind of, Josh Bell and Luke Voigt kind of cancel each other out. We can just consider Soto and the prospects here. Wood, Gore, and Abrams are the three most valuable players

on the Nationals this year by war, and just promising young guys you can build around, exactly the type of player you want to get back when you trade your franchise superstar, if you trade your franchise superstar. Hassell is not the prospect that he was, right? But he is, you know, he did decently in the minors this year.

He's only 23. He's an outfielder. He's not a future Soto or something, not that anyone really is, but maybe he could be a complimentary player at least. He could be a contributor. And then Susanna has not even arrived yet, but he is maybe the

nationals top prospect or second best prospect. He's, he's a righty pitcher. He's in AA. He's not too far away. Maybe, maybe next season, if not this season. So you've got three building blocks, like your best players today and probably best projected players going forward or among the three. And then Susanna, who hasn't even arrived yet, but could soon join that group.

And Hassel, who has made the majors at least. And I mean, forget about what Soto was doing and he's off to a slow for Soto start. And, you know, I guess he was not at his best with the Padres, but he produced plenty while he was there. Even though Joey Manessa's produced him for half a season, which I will mention yet again, cause it's been a whole week or so since I did. But this is what you want to get because when you trade a player like that, and it happens so rarely that you trade a player like that

because there aren't many players like that. And to happened so rarely that you trade a player like that because there aren't many players like that. And to be that young and that good, and what did he have? Two and a half seasons of team control left when they dealt him. So you better get a haul back. I mean, that's like a make or break trades. Like that can determine the direction of your franchise.

And they sort of struck gold, right? Like, I don't know that any of these individual players is gonna be the caliber of Juan Soto, but put them together, add the wars. And I understand that you're taking up more roster spots there, but on the whole, that's exactly what you want to get back in this situation if you decide that you are going

to deal someone like that. I think a couple of things about this. The first being that I struggled to divorce the efficacy of the trade with where it leaves, where the franchise is at this juncture. Because you can say that the trade piece of them trying to leap into a new window of contention was successful. They did obviously get some good players out of this.

I think that when we reevaluate the trade knowing what we know now, it doesn't have the feel that it did at the time to comp it to another trade that drew a lot of consternation and ire at the time. It is obviously better than the Mookie Betts trade, right? Oh yeah. Like leaps and bounds. And so by that measure, successful. You know, so, so yay, that's good.

They got real big league contributors in the bargain. They got some guys who have managed to continue to take steps forward at the big league level. They have some guys who have a ton of promise and will probably continue to improve as time goes on. They got some role players, right? There's a lot in here that's good. And to your point, not all of those guys have even made their debuts, but are still quite promising in terms of what they might ultimately bring to the Nationals. But I also think that the purpose of trades like that, the purpose of every baseball team,

is to try to contend for the postseason. And I think that we are right to notice that the big league club, even with that infusion of talent from the deal, is still a ways off from doing that. They're closer than they were, most certainly. And, you know, I think that like there is a lot to be said for being as far away from being say the Rockies as you possibly can be. And so if a deal like this helps to facilitate you like, you know, arm barring that away from you, great, cool, awesome.

But I worry that it might give a false sense of security to some that like, they'll just, it'll all be fine in the long run. There are interesting guys on this team, it might be, but like all you have to do is look at the draft order for this coming draft to realize like, hasn't, it's not perfect. Like yeah, you have a draft lottery and everything,

so it's not like their record assured them the first overall pick, but like the Nats are picking number one. That's not what you want. I mean, it's what you want if you had a year like they had last year where it was like, eh, you didn't get there. But I just, big deals like this are meant to be, and I think in the case of Washington, like sincerely were in service of retooling to be better, but the very best franchise is one isn't saved by grace alone. You know, you can't be saved by trades alone.

You got to have like infrastructure and people and ops and like, you got to develop all of these guys and then you got to spend money smartly. And like, there's just so much that goes into it. So do I think that this club is like, you know, an embarrassment? No. Do I think that this deal looks better in hindsight than it did at the time? Yeah. Do we think that it stacks up better than some of the other big, you know, star moving trades that we've seen? I do. But to your point, like, they moved two and a half years of control and of one of the best players in baseball. And as we sit here today, they are 24 and 29 and they're 10 games back in the East.

So, you know, like I also think that like on some level, the most honest assessment of that trade is that like we have to give them an incomplete grade because like not all of those guys have debuted and we don't know what the final form of James Wood is going to be. And I want to be applauded for not calling him James Woods. Just that. I did it, Ben. I did it. I just think... Well, yes, they lost two and a half years of control of Juan Soto. They were a last place team during those years, and they still are. And they probably would have been with Juan Soto.

So in that sense... Well, I think they're ahead of the Marlins, so they're not a last place team at the moment. Okay, I will give them that good point. Yes. But they, they have been during the team control time that they traded Soto away and having Soto probably wouldn't have changed that. And so if they knew, okay, we're in for a couple of years of sucking here, where do we wanna be in 2025

when we're hopefully starting to get better, we're in fourth place now, then you look ahead and say, this is what you wanna get out of a package like this. Now I'm not saying trade your franchise superstars. If you have a Soto, try and sign him. I think that is the best, that's the best for just for you long-term because most trades don't work

out as well as this one seems to be or could. And it's just good for fan loyalty to have that guy you can build around and to feel like you can keep your star, all the rest of that. And we so often say like, you're not going to get anyone back who's as good as Juan Soto and probably the Nationals individually haven't unless James Wood figures out how to hit the ball in the air consistently and just is unbelievable then they're still not going to have anyone who's individually as good as Juan Soto but collectively I just think maybe if we were going to cite examples of when you dealt a franchise player

and you got back a number of players who were really core contributors to good teams down the road, like if you might have cited, I don't know, the Mark Tashara trade in 2007 or the Zach Granke trade in 2010. And you say, oh, we get Lorenzo Kane back or we get these guys back who then win a championship with us. And that's, that's good. That's what you want. That maybe this is now the example, the next time inevitably some superstar gets traded that people will say to themselves, maybe it'll be like the Soto trade and you will have to specify which Soto trade. And you could even say that the Padres did decently when they traded Soto trade and you will have to specify which Soto trade and you could even say that the Padres did decently when they traded

Soto to the Yankees and the Yankees got what they wanted out of Soto. They had got a fantastic season from him They won a pennant, but the Padres got Michael King who's really good and other guys and so Soto has not been traded for peanuts thus far even though it was unusual for him to be traded as often as he was, as early as he was, despite his accomplishments. But I honestly think if you told the Nationals right now, you could have Juan Soto, let's say the alternate history where the Nationals signed Soto to an extension.

So they raised the offer that he didn't accept. And it still would have been lower than what he ultimately got from the Max. But you know, whatever, whatever it would have taken to sign him, if you assume that he was signable hypothetically at that point, whatever premium or what would have seemed like a premium you would have had to give him at that point. Okay, give him that contract now, and you have Juan Soto signed for the rest of his career at whatever that rate is, probably lower than his actual current rate,

but still a lot. Or you get Wood and Abrams and Gore and Susana. I don't know that the Nationals would trade for their current reality. I think maybe it's better to have what they have now. And that's not what they could have expected when they traded Soto because I think this is like an upper percentile outcome. And as you said, it's early yet.

Like these guys are still early in their major league careers and Susana hasn't arrived yet. And for all we know, they'll all stall out and this will seem silly a few years down the road. But if they all continue to blossom and the Nationals do eventually get good, or even if they don't, if they don't, it won't really be because of the trade. I'm just evaluating the trade in isolation here. I don't know that the Nationals would rather have Mark Soto now than that quartet of young talented players and I'm not even considering, I'm not even including Hassel

in that group. I don't disagree. I just, you know, they grade each part of your SAT separately, but then you report one score to colleges, right? You're like, I got a meh on the SAT and, and they'll look at it and they'll be like, wow, you're like really good at verbal and your math is only so so like to pick an example. Speaking from experience. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't as good. You know, I got into Bryn Mawr.

I went out. I went fine. But I don't remember. Do you remember what your SAT score was like the actual score? I do. I do. I do too. People are like, you shouldn't remember that.

I'm like, why? I'm not like weird about it. I'm not like telling people I'm gonna be 39 in a month. I don't like lead with like, hi, I'm Meg Rowley and my SAT score was this. But like, I remember what the number was. The weirder thing is that I remember how many kids were ahead of me for valedictorian in high school.

I should probably let that go, right? That one I could serve to let go? Yeah, probably. I took extra classes and honors in AP and some of those valedictorians, they didn't adjust it, but maybe that's fine. Maybe that's the right thing to do, actually. Maybe I'm being a weird snob about this. It was great deflation. They should have graded you on a curve because of your strength of schedule. Who cares? I mean, me clearly still, but I shouldn't. I acknowledge that this is a personality flaw.

Anyway, I think that it is good that they did well in this area because you have to. If you have a generational talent on your roster, I think you have to do well if you're going to trade that guy. They did it. And guess what? We don't talk about that trade the way we talk about the Betts deal, right? We don't.

And I wish that they could have held, I wish that they had held on to Soto. And when I say that, what I really mean is I wish that the organization and the big league roster had been in a position where holding onto him was the obvious correct choice, even if you risk losing him in free agency, right? Like I wish that they had been in a different spot organizationally than they were. But having made the decision to trade him, you have to do well and it seems like they did. But the other part of their SAT isn't as strong.

And so you have a fourth place team. Couple other observations. I love a good minor league reset when a minor league reset works. Like someone is slumping terribly and send them down to get their head straight. And then it seems to pay off immediately. And I'm speaking of Jake Berger here because Jake Berger started the season terribly. And when the Rangers shook things up offensively and changed hitting coaches and everything else,

they sent down Jake Berger just for about a week at AAA. And it seems to have worked like a charm, or at least the results are exactly what they would have hoped. So he went down to AAA, he just spent six games there. He raked at AAA. He then came back up and he's been raking in the big leagues ever since. So in AAA six games, he had 391, 462, 696.

And then he came back up and since his promotion, he has a 143 WRC plus in the big leagues. He had a 55 WRC plus when he was sent down. And I don't know whether it was the minor league reset or not, but the timing has worked out just, this is like the platonic ideal of the minor league reset or not, but the timing has worked out just, this is like the platonic ideal of the minor league reset. Like if you wanted a, every now and then this happens, like remember Seiya Suzuki got benched for a while and it wasn't just like a benching, it was like a mental timeout.

It was just a break kind of, and then he hit better after that. And I don't know whether this is why Jake Berger has hit much better since he came back. Maybe he was going to hit better anyway, because he was expected to hit well. That's why they acquired him. But the timing works out such that if you were planning a minor league reset, it's like if you were planning to trade your franchise superstar, the blueprint is let's have it work out like it seems to be working out for the nationals. That's what you would want for Jake Berger and for your guy who's following in Berger's footsteps.

And it's funny because I think that would have the opposite of the intended effect on me. I think if I got sent down as a veteran, like that's a pretty drastic move. Like Berger, he's 29 years old, he's an established big leaguer. It would be kind of a shock to the system to be sent back to AAA. And I guess that was the idea. And it was a good shock to the system. It sort of jumpstarted him.

I think for me, it would do the opposite. I'd get even more in my head. I'd be like, man, I'm back in the miners now. I stink. Like, I must be really bad if they don't even believe in me. And I'm sure they accompanied it with the right messages and, miners now, I stink like I must be really bad if they don't even believe in me. And I'm sure they accompanied it with the right messages and, Hey, we believe in you and this is just for you to just take a beat here and, you know, not stress and you'll be back soon.

I'm sure like couching it with the appropriate comfort and reassurance is very important when you do the minor league reset. But for me, I think I might just spiral because it's like, I'm a lost cost. So I don't know that it would work on my psyche, but it seems to have worked out in Jake Berger's case, or at least he has hit the way that they wanted him to hit. I think a couple of things about this. Some are specific to Jake Berger and some are more general. The first is that like Jake Berger has been through a lot as a player. He has had some just really rough injury luck in his career. He was on the White Sox. Like he's been through

it. But no, but like he's, he has dealt with a bunch of injury stuff. And what I've heard from Scouts who interacted with him on the complex while he was working his way back through all of that is just that like, he has a good perspective on things. He is a cheerful person. And you know, he by all rights could have been discouraged and seems like he was able to sort of weather the psychological load of all of that impressively. So some of this might be that he is dispositionally suited to the reset, right? To be able to sort of take these things in stride, you know, whether he had that perspective pre all of the injuries or not, I don't know, but either through the crucible of those injuries or just because of the way that he was when he entered pro ball.

I think that he seems like, at least as an outside observer, seems like he was sort of well positioned to sort his way through all of that stuff. And I also think that for some of these guys, you do work obviously during just you do work, obviously, during the season. It's not as if big leakers don't have to make adjustments. It's not like hitters don't notice that their mechanics are out of whack and have to like get in the cage and work with the hitting coach and figure their way through. But it is harder to have time for all of that stuff. You have all this work that you have to do just to be ready for games.

And then you're trying to like revamp your your swing and that seems like it's hard and it takes time and are you going to be able to actually do that work in game against big league fastballs and big league breakers? Impossible. I do think for some of these guys, it's not a relief to be sent down. Obviously, you want to be in the show, but to really have the room to work through it and readjust and reset seems like it would be meaningful and would, you know, on some level it could be a relief if you're thinking about it in kind of the right way. Yeah, White Sox and Marlins, that's a, you just, I bet it gives you perspective, right? Like, you know, what are we all doing here?

We're doing this. When Berger came back, he said, it was a good reset. Obviously you don't want to be put in a position where you're going to get optioned. For me, I obviously have to play better. I know that it was getting back to who I am and being the player I know I am. So it's good when he took it that way. And that's the kind of thing.

Yeah. You know, the player and you know their personality and you know whether this is going to cause them to spin out and just double down on whatever dark thoughts are going through their head or whether it'll be a nice way for them to just, you know, start from scratch and remember the fundamentals. The Rangers as a whole have not hit better in May than they had before May, but Berger has at least. Dave Sessions, who covers the Rangers sometimes for MLB.com, he described it as clearing his cache in the miners, which I think is a good way to put it.

It's like when your web browser's misbehaving and you just clear the cache and sometimes... Okay, nerd. Clearing the cache because it's full of porn? Could be. That might be one reason why you have to clear the cache. Common full circle. That was regrettable phrasing.

Yes, it was. They are kind of a mess from a hitting perspective. They really are. And now you got guys who are hurt, you know? There's all sorts of stuff going on with those Rangers that isn't quite what they were hoping it to be. I can't think of Jake Burger without thinking of Brian Cox's ad read for McDonald's. Yeah. Hot and juicy burger. Yes. And also the suggestion that if he were to hit 250 again this season, which as we noted, he hit 250 in 2022, 23 and 24. And so one of our listeners suggested it should be called a quarter pounder if he were to

do it yet again. See, it's not just me. Yeah, he's batting 217 thus far, so he's got to get that average up, but it is, it's climbing quickly since the reset, fortunately. So we're back in business. Sticking with the AL West and players being promoted, just wanted to quickly note I am worried about Shay Langelier's standing at the top of the A's sprint speed leaderboard because the A's called up Denzel Clark, one of their prospects who is faster than Shay Langelier's I'm afraid to say. By a lot.

Yeah. So he is not yet qualified for the old sprint speed leaderboard, but, and I think he's hit list as of yet, but if he does stay up, then I've got to imagine he's gonna bump Shay off of there and we're gonna not have a catcher at the top of a team leaderboard anymore, which is unfortunate, but the most recent A's prospect list

published at FanGraphs said that Clark has an XL NFL wide receivers frame and a cut six foot four two twenty. It takes him just a handful of strides to glide from base to base and he has plus raw power. Though I didn't think he had showed it in the minors this year, but he's a center fielder, arguably a plus centerfield defender right now, and elite top end speed, which you can't quite say about Shea Langleyers, even if he's the closest thing to it on the A's. So there's always a bigger fish, there's always a faster runner,

and yeah, if Clark stays up, then I think Langleyers' days at the top of that leaderboard are sadly numbered. I think that that is likely true. I think that that is likely true. I think that that is likely true. All right. We talked about Juan Soto and his slow start, just wanted to shout out Clay Holmes and the fact that he has been a solid starting pitcher for Soto's team,

the Mets, as I think a lot of people forecasted and as we, I think we praised that signing when it happened or at the end when we did our off season wrap of free agent signings that we liked and he started out great and you know, it hasn't been just great smooth sailing all the way through, but on the whole he has delivered what the Mets were hoping he would deliver and he's changed his pitch mix and he's throwing fewer of those sinkers and he's got a change up now and he's throwing some four seamers. And it seems to me that he has abided by Tom Tango has this rule of 17 he calls it, which is like based on half a century or so of pitchers going between the rotation and the bullpen.

And when you are starting versus in relief, Tango found that there's like this 17% discount basically when you move to the rotation in terms of your home run rate, your strikeout rate, it's just sort of a standard rule of thumb, how you will see a pitcher's rate stats sync when they move to the rotation, no pun intended in Holmes's case. And if you do the math, that is actually exactly what has happened. I mean, his ERA is a little lower than it was last year with the Yankees as a reliever, but his FIP, his ex-FIP,

his expected ERA, all of that stuff, strikeout rate, it's all roughly in that range. It's not hardened fast, like it's not some mystical, it's always 17%. But it has kind of fallen in line with that. So the Mets, they've gotten their money's worth. Like that just, it seemed like a smart signing when everyone was really paying a premium for starting pitching this season.

And that wasn't the only starting pitching free agent signing that the Mets made, but some of the others were perhaps not as good as this one has been. So there's been a lot made of this trend of relievers going to the rotation, and it's been kind of tough to pin down whether it actually is a trend or whether we're making too much of it, but it just... Last year, there were a lot of guys who did that and some of them were quite successful and it just seemed to me that it's an easier transition

to make because the expectations for a starter are just less different than they used to be from your expectations for a reliever. You're not expecting starters to go that deep into games. They're maxing out often just like relievers do. And so it doesn't seem like it's as big a jump and Holmes seemed like he had the repertoire to maybe make it work. And for the most part he has so good on him and, uh, and the Mets for, for taking

that plunge and seeing him as something he hadn't been to that point, at least in a while. It would be funny if it was like the 11th commandment, like a secret 11th commandment. Always, it must be. Rule of 17. 17, yeah. Is that in the Gnostic gospel? Is that what that's about?

Right. And also wanted to shout out a player who I had not heard of before this weekend, a college baseball player named Andrew Mazzoni, who is a grad student and is in division three and is just totally tearing it up. And I saw this, I think CBS Sports posted something about this that was then posted on our Facebook group because he drew 10 intentional walks in one day. And it was a double header to be clear, but still he drew 10 consecutive intentional walks

in the Division 3 regionals. And you would say, man, how good must he be if he's doing that if they don't want to face him. Even Aaron Judge, people pitched to him a surprising amount. Andrew Mazzoni makes Aaron Judge look like Denzel Clark. He's like, you know, nowhere near. He had a 1602 OPS this year for Claremont Mudd Scripps in division three college baseball.

And he is 25 years old. He is in like his sixth college season, I think, because he played for Dickinson and he graduated from Dickinson. And now he's a grad student at Claremont and he's still playing. And this year, according to the baseball cube, his regular season sets were 496, 623, 979.

And according to the story I read in the Belmont Voice, he was actually batting 5'11", entering the weekend, which led all college hitters at any level. And he is just, he's a beef boy, basically, if you see him. He's actually playing with an injury, I think, to his knee, to his PCL, and he's playing through that. So he has a brace on and he's just a like prototypical kind of DH slugger body. He's a six foot left-handed hitter and he's 25 years old and he's older than these guys he's playing.

And it's not like he's a prospect, you know, like he's just a hitter. He's not an all around good player. He's old for his league. He's in division three. He's probably someone we've our eyes would have gone wide when we saw his stats with the Stompers because we would have said, huh, if you could do this, maybe he could play in the Pacific Association. But I doubt that a big league scout is really getting excited about this. But imagine how much fun that must be

to be Andrew Mazzoni and to just dominate like that. Even if that's the end, even if it's not a means to an end, it's an end in itself. And this is his last season. And maybe he could continue on and play an Indie ball or something if he wanted to, but he may very well just decide this is it and go out on a high note.

It's got to be fun. Even if you don't harbor big league dreams or realistic major league aspirations to be that good. And this isn't grammar school or high school. I mean, you hear often with future big leaguers, they just completely tore up their league in little league or high school or whatever, and you might see numbers like this,

but this is Division III, and they just want no part of him here in this series. That's gotta be kind of cool to, like even if that's the pinnacle of your athletic career, I would dine out on that for the rest of my life. I'd think back to how I was just like putting Aaron Judge and Barry Bonds' stats to shame in whatever league you're in. That's awesome. Yeah. To be clear, it is part of the Clearman Consortium, which includes Clem and McKenna and Scripps and Harvey Mudd. I was like, is there another script? No, I understand now. Can I tell you

the best part of his student bio is how much family detail there is in here. And everyone in his family went to Harvard, seemingly. Yeah. So you see this from an athletic family that has competed collegiately in a variety of sports. Father John played football at Harvard. Aunts Carrie and Marty swam at Harvard. Aunt John, I'm saying aunt because I imagine that people who went to Harvard this much probably do. Aunt Jan swam at Wellesley. Aunt Meg rode at Brown.

Uncle Robert played hockey at Harvard. Cousin Ellie swam at MIT. Cousin David currently runs cross country and track and field at Ithaca. But he gets sh** from the rest of the family for only going to Ithaca, which is a good school. I don't field at Ithaca. I bet he gets sh** from the rest of the family for only going to Ithaca. Which is a good school. I don't mean to slight Ithaca.

This is not an anti-Ithaca college. Dickinson. Yeah, he graduated from Dickinson. Yeah, he went to Dickinson. Yeah, right. Incredible. That was his safety school in his family. But yeah, I mean, he had a, he got his bachelor's in international business and management, but a minor in econ and Japanese.

Yeah. That's interesting. I wonder what his career track is. Yeah, but the way it's phrased, it does sound very Victorian. Yes. Talk to cousin Ellie. Aunt's, Carrie and Marty. Cousin Ellie swam at Wellesley. Yeah, Aunt Jan.

That was Jan. Cousin Ellie swam at MIT. Yeah, get it together. Don't just repeat cousin Ellie. Yeah, so was Jan. Cousin Ellie swam at MIT. Yeah, get it together. Don't just put cousin Ellie. Yeah, so good bloodlines there, evidently. I guess. But man, just imagine posting that slash line anywhere. I don't like any actual competition. If you do it in beer league or something,

well, that probably feels good too if you're just weekend warrior and that's what you're just destroying your softball league. That's fine too, but doing it in D3, I don't care how old you are. It's got to be a nice feeling to just be so incredibly good that no one wants any part of you. Yeah. Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer.

I almost went to Claremont McKenna. Oh, wow. Okay. Shout out to Andrew Mazzoni, the rare college baseball player. Amazing. I love that you picked a D3 guy who goes to a tiny liberal arts school in California. That is beautiful. Yeah. It just would fit in perfectly on the Stompers.

Him and Sean Conroy just going to an engineering school, having just eye popping stats. I love that. That is the nice thing though about that level is that the good guys can just be so much better than the baseline that they can put up stats like that. And it's sort of a small sample season. Not that I'm suggesting this is not Andrew Mazzoni's true talent. I would never, I think he actually is that great.

But yeah, shout out to that guy. Salute to Andrew Mazzoni. And lastly, maybe I have a feud to start here as we end. Oh, my God. You're admitting to anxiety and feuds. Who are you? A new man. I'm not actually starting the feud. They started it. I'm responding to the

feud. It has come to my attention that former big leaguers, Michael McHenry and Stephen Brault, both former pirates, McHenry was a catcher with the excellent nickname Fort as in Fort McHenry. And then Stephen Brault was a pitcher. Yeah, they are broadcasters now and they do some work for Sportsnet Pittsburgh. And it has come to my attention that they do a segment on Saturdays, I believe. I think it's just a short segment

and they have dubbed it, Effectively Wild. Something you may never thought you'd see. Javi Baez is our first video here on Effectively Wild. What? Something you may never thought you'd see. Javi Baez is our first video here on Effectively Wild. He's transitioned to center field from shortstop out in Detroit. He's been hitting really well. And you know what? Outfield's been working out pretty well for him too.

Let's take a look at it. Yeah, they have titled the segment of their Saturday program on Sportsnet Pittsburgh, Effectively Wild. They're coming for us. They have taken our name. of their Saturday program on Sportsnet Pittsburgh, effectively wild. They're coming for us. They have taken our name. We have not actually laid claim to this in any legal sense, but evidently what this is, according to one tweet I saw,

I think they've been doing it for several weeks. I think maybe this goes back to the start of the season or close to it, but the way it was- Oh my God, it's the torpedo bats of stealing names. Yes. Forever. When was the last time anyone thought about torpedo bats, by the way? I don't know.

Like a month ago. I mean, you kind of called that being a fad. I did. Fizzling. I don't know that players are using them any less, but we just stopped caring because it became clear that it wasn't really... Well, the Yankees haven't played the Brewers in a while, so everything's fine now. are using them any less, but we just stopped caring because it became clear that it wasn't really... Well, the Yankees haven't played the Brewers in a while,

so everything's fine now. It wasn't some game-breaking advantage, and then we all very quickly moved on to that not being the new interesting thing. Anyway, the way this was described by a tweet from Sportsnet Pittsburgh was that Brault and McHenry, take a look at the most impressive, unique, and wacky plays

around the baseball world, Eyes Emoji. And the one segment that I saw that was online, it was just a five minute thing, and they're both standing there flanking a big video board, and they're just doing a little run through of, well, impressive, unique, and wacky plays. Not just bloopers, some bloopers, but just other plays that are interesting

for one reason or another. And they have called it effectively wild. And I feel like we just have to assert our primacy in the baseball media space when it comes to effectively wild. Now we did not coin this phrase. And as we are reminded frequently by people who notify us that broadcasters said effectively wild, we know that.

They just said it. It's not about the podcast. They just said it. And I'm like, okay. I appreciate the effort. Yeah, we don't need to know every day. I'm flattered every time someone does write in cause it's like they heard it

and it made them think of the podcast. And then they took a minute to tell us about it. Yeah, we don't actually need to. But also. If there's some think of the podcast. And then they took a minute to tell us about it. Yeah, we don't actually need to. But also, yeah. If there's some connection to the podcast, if they mentioned the podcast, if maybe it's said about someone who is near and dear to the podcast, that might be of interest to us,

but it is a common phrase. That's why we named the podcast this. And I had imagined that if you watched every single major league broadcast or listened to them all somehow, and you were just sitting in a big room, like the architect from the matrix and just simultaneously streaming every, every TV and radio broadcast, you probably hear it every day. I would imagine that it is said every day somewhere by someone on a big league broadcast. So yeah, it's not uncommon.

However, to actually dub a recurring segment, Effectively Wild, how dare you, Michael McHenry and Stephen Gault, this is ours. You must cease and desist, not like legally, and also I'm kind of kidding, but you must let us have Effectively Wild. And this is even more galling because Michael McHenry is a former Effectively Wild minor league draftee, free agent draftee,

and Stephen Brault is a former Effectively Wild guest. I was going to say. Yeah. Could it be that he remembers the Effectively Wild appearance he did seven years ago in May of 2018 on episode 1213? Did he file that one away and say, oh, Effectively Wild, that's a good name for something. If I'm ever in the media post-playing days, maybe I shall repurpose this name. Well, I'm here to say, Stephen Brault, that we're still here and we're still calling it effectively wild. He was on the show because Jeff Sullivan was quite taken with the fact that he had a historic streak

to start his career without having struck out, because this was pre-Universal DH and he was in the National League and he was a pitcher and he prided himself on this also. I think he went 35 plate appearances to start his career without striking out, which was saying something given how bad pitchers were at hitting. And it was, I think, the longest such streak to start a career by a pitcher since World War II or since like 1940 or something. So it was notable. And we had him on to talk about that and other things.

But he was an interesting guy also, like he was a two-way player in school, which is probably why he wasn't striking out. And he's a singer. He has released an album. He's like sung with symphonies and such. He, you know, he's has sung the national anthem. I have no quarrel with Stephen Brault other than the fact that he is now using the name, Effectively Wild for this segment. So I don't know if this will get back to Stephen Brault and Michael

McHenry, but I'm just here to say, sirs, that we were here first. I mean, like I was going to say like more like ineffectively Googled, but it sort of falls apart when you've been on the podcast. I don't think we have like a legal right to the name or anything. It just seems like a goofy thing to do because there's like, Oh, an incredibly popular genre defining podcast that shares everyone has heard of including former players such as Mike McKendree and Steve, every single one of them. Yes.

Great. Every single one of them. Yes. Look, I could say and make a very mean joke about listenership versus viewership for those respective segments, but I'm not going to do that because that's unkind, you know? And it's not their fault that the team that they cover sucks. So I will simply say that maybe we should go on there or something. I don't know. Like maybe they should.

Maybe they should come back on here. We should call them onto the carpet. This is a shot I'm firing across the bow. I'm just saying, don't make us get our lawyers involved, our non-existent lawyers, which we would have to retain the services of in order to get them involved. But.

Call my mom and be like, hey, do you remember this part of law school? Yeah. My mom's a lawyer too. We'll get our moms involved. Yeah. Don't make me call my mom. Steven Brout was early to the, uh, the player podcaster trend.

Also he had one of the early like active players having a podcast, which,, which that's just endemic these days, and some of them are good. The implication being that the rest are not. Yeah, I have thought that if you ever leave me, which I hope that you don't, but you know, hosts have left me before. If ESPN hires you, if the Rays hire you. I don't think you're in danger of either of those things happening. Well, if anything happened that took you away from the podcast, I don't know what I would do because like, I don't know,

it's not like I have a backup plan here. So I'd have to scramble if I were to continue. But I have thought that maybe like some future incarnation of Effectively Wild, whether it's with both of us or without one or the other of us, maybe like a player being incorporated into the show down the road at some point. Because it seemed like that was very far from the realm of possibility when this podcast began, that a player would want to be on a podcast, or that they would have the sensibility to suit effectively wild.

And yet, we have kind of a roster now of players in our orbit who just are like effectively wild kind of guys, you know? Like a Brent Rooker or a Declan Cronin or a John Brebbia, of course. I feel like could hang. And that is, that's kind of a popular model now. Like you get a nerd and you get a player or you get just a normie, a civilian and a player.

And it's kind of like, it's always been the broadcast model in baseball, like you have your non-player and then you have your player or players who can give you the player insight in the broadcast booth. But what we do here, we're usually not breaking down mechanics and that kind of thing. But to have a player insight into some of the wacky hypotheticals that we entertain here would be nice if the player were willing to roll with those things. And I think there are players out there these days who could and who do. So that'd be an interesting thing down the road, I guess, maybe, I don't know if, uh, like a player, a player co-hosts, that would be an interesting

incarnation of Effectively Wild someday. We're going to get so many weird emails from you having said this. Are you going to leave Meg for John Brevia? No one is leaving. We're not thinking of no one, nothing. This is an idle thought prompted by my memory of Stephen Brelt having a baseball podcast and, and now just outright thievery of our podcast title. It would be so funny if you turn on that show this week

and it's like ineffectively Googled is the new name of the show and the people watching it are gonna be like, what's this about? And he's like, don't worry about it. It's gonna be an inside joke for the rest of the show. Well, I just got an email that Seiya Suzuki and Taylor Ward were named players of the week. Taylor Ward has hit 15 homers this season, good for him.

But this reminds me that it's been awhile since our most recent Taylor Ward name mix up by a broadcaster. We did get this nomination though from listener and Patreon supporter, Josh Newman, who wrote in to notify us of this almost slip up featuring the raised Taylor Walls on the Blue Jays broadcast on Saturday.

No catcher in the AL has caught more base stealers than Alejandro Kirk, who here catches one of the fastest players in the game. Inchandler Simpson, and here he is last night, but he caught Taylor-Taylor Wells to end the seventh. That was a minor one, but it was close to Tyler Walls or perhaps even Tyler Wells. This wasn't so much a Taylor Ward-Taylor Ward mix-up, or even Turner Ward, as it was a Taylor Walls-T, Tyler Wells potentially.

Too many Taylor, Tyler tongue twisters, which is a tongue twister in itself. Nominations for names for home runs mistakenly allowed by defenders in the outfield. Keep trickling in, we've mostly put this topic to bed, but I'll read one more late arriving nomination from Patreon supporter Mike, who says, "'I just wanted to chime in on the accidental homer topic.

The domer homer is perfect, but only for that specific instance. That was for homeruns hit off the dome off of an outfielders head. For all accidental homers, why not look to Homer Simpson and call them domers? And yes, you have to say it like Homer. D-o-mer. I think that's probably why this won't catch on. Clever otherwise though. Homer! Domer. I think that's probably why this won't catch on. Clever otherwise though.

Homer. Homer is what grownups call me. Call me daddy. Homer. Daddy. Homer. Daddy. Dad, dad, da.

Yes. Domer. Are you a little? You can support Effectively Wild by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Michelle G. Iono, David, James Gross, Reese Johns, and Leslie Wolfhard.

Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, autographed books, personalized messages, discounts on merch, and ad-free fan crafts 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. It's been a while since we added a new one to the rotation. To podcast at fangraphs.com. You can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the show page at fan Graaf's or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We thank you as always for listening, and we will talk to you again a little later this

week. Does baseball look the same to you as it does to me. When we look at baseball, how much do we see? Well, the curve balls bend and the home runs fly. More to the game than meets the eye. To get the stats compiled and the stories filed. Fans on the internet might get riled, but we can break it down on Effectively Wild.