Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2329: In the Zone

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the most exciting prospects who haven’t yet made the majors but should soon (including Jac Caglianone, Roman Anthony, Bubba Chandler, and Andrew Painter), the struggles of once-ballyhooed trade targets Sandy Alcantara and Luis Robert Jr., the recent rebounds of Emmanuel Clase and Devin Williams, the returns of Mike […]

Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2329 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Which would you say are the most exciting prospects

who have not yet been promoted, but will probably be promoted this season? Well, it's so funny that you asked that, Ben, because I feel like there are two obvious answers to this question. Well, it's so funny that you asked that Ben, because I feel like there are two obvious answers to this question. The first is Roman Anthony of the Bastion Red Sox, who are having a rough little time here, those Red Sox. They're making all of the optimistic fan grass writers who picked them for things, including me for the World Series win.

Look, foolish. 27 31. Get it together, Boston. I'm nice to you one time. You learned your lesson. Yeah, never again. But Roman Anthony is perhaps the most obvious answer. Roman Anthony, who is batting 309, 441, 514 at AAA at this moment, as we record on Friday the 30th, he's a 158 WRC plus there. Walk-in 19% of the time, striking out 21% of the time. Seems good good. You know, it seems good. Eight home runs, three steals. That'll play. You know, he's a consensus top guy. Number one prospect for some. I think number two for us at this moment is a 60 future value guy. So, Roman Anthony is one answer. And then the other is the Jack Wagon himself. Yes. Jack Caglione. People are like, why are you calling him the Jack Wagon?

That's weird. And I didn't start it. Rooney did on the college World Series broadcast last year. So it's not me. I didn't do it, but it is funny to call someone the Jack Wagon because it assumes a level of maturity in your audience that I don't know they've demonstrated up until now. But yeah, he hits a lot of jacks.

It fits. He does, man. He can really hit the ball. You know, he's a little less well regarded than Anthony in part because I think there is even though he has addressed some of this stuff as our recently published Royals list would indicate, still a fair amount of, there's some chase in the profile. It's a long swing, although one that he's managed to shorten up. And he is in all likelihood a first baseman. He does have a rocket of an arm, as college baseball fans might remember. There was a time where he was

a two way. Yes, even I remember that. Even you, even although you're, you're like famously a college baseball fan now. So well, when it comes to two way players and also players playing through injuries and D three D H's who were really dominant. Yeah. And so a marquee guy coming out of Florida might have been above your notice, below your notice. I don't know what direction your notice is going, but outside of your notice.

Yeah. There's a special dispensation for potential two-way players. Those are in my notice. Yes. So he was at times a good pitcher, is being developed purely as a position player, can throw quite hard though. So you might think, well, put him in right fields, you know, put him in a corner and see what he can manage out there. But they haven't really deployed him out there all that much in part because when he plays the outfield, quite circuitous the routes I would describe them as. But he'll be able to be fine at first, although, you know, first base,

one of the crowded positions in Kansas City, but he can hit and he's limited sample here, only nine games, but has already hit five home runs at Triple A for Kansas City. So, you know, as that club struggles to have an offense worthy of its superlative pitching staff, funny combination of words, but a true combination, I think the CAGS calls are getting louder.

The calls for CAGS, bring them up, CAGS. You never, I just got to say this, and I'm allowed to, I'm Italian enough to make this note. You've never seen a more Italian looking young man than Jack Caglione. His last name, Caglione, might have betrayed this to you, but I have to take a small amount of issue with Jack Caglione. And it's not really his fault. But Jack, J-A-C is not short for Jackson. It's not a uniquely spelled version of Jack as

a name. No, Jack is Jeffrey Allen Caglione. Jack Caglione. What are we doing? I'm making hands. I'm doing hands in Jack. I'm reaching out to you as one of your people. What are we doing? I wish that this is one of the few times that I wish that we did video because I have never looked more Italian than I do in this exact moment. The gestures with hands, there are several of them. Yeah. I like the Jack as a nickname, as an acronym version of Jack Caglione, but the C in Jack, if you say his full name, it's kind of redundant, right? If the C in Jack's- Yeah, it's like ATM machine. Yeah, exactly.

But my complaint is more about Caglione and the pronunciation vis-a-vis the spelling, which I will never quite understand how Caglione is spelled Caglianone, clearly. We are a mythic people, you know, a people who have emerged from what is really a confederation of city-states only recently brought together to form the nation of Italy. We are a little bit ridiculous at all times. I've never met an Italian who should take themselves seriously, at least not to the degree that some of them do. Look, one of the Pope guys, one of the potential popes as many noted was named Pizzaballa. And that was his name. That was like his,

his Christian name. It was on his birth certificate. But it's spelled like that. Right. I know. But look, you do funny things with vowels when you're feeling a little jaunty, you know, the thing about Caglione as a name is that it's jaunty. You know, it's like you're, you're on a Vespa, you're, you're drinking. I am drinking a non-alcoholic Peroni as we are recording. So really this is the perfect time to talk about Jack Caglione. Is that spelled peri-a-none? I like Caglione. I like the name. It's just, there's a mismatch here. Something has gone awry and I don't know what the etymology is or what the origin

story of the pronunciation is. It seems to me like maybe it was just that everyone kept saying Cagliote and they were like, fine. Yes. Like people are going to say it this way anyway, so whatever. That's almost always the reason that ethnic whites names are pronounced the way they are. Cause they're like, ah, this is too exhausting to fight. Anyway, I am quite excited about Jack and I think you nailed it there.

It's pretty uncontroversial who are the top two prospects in baseball. Certainly on the position player side, I think there's a clear two position player prospects and a clear two pitcher prospects who are probably in the consensus top 10 overall and should arrive at some point this season and people are impatient for them to arrive already. And Roman Anthony and Jack Caglione are the hitters and then Bubba Chandler and Andrew Painter are the pitchers. And there are other top 10 guys,

but they've already arrived, or at least they've made cameos. Marcel Meyer is in Boston now, and Jordan Lawler was just sent down, but was up. But I am excited for all of them, obviously. Chandler has just been dominant. Yeah. He looks totally ready.

Couldn't be more ready. The thing is, I'm less excited about his arrival because the cavalry is coming, but it's not really going to help prop up the pirates that much. I mean, it'd be nice, I guess, for Paul Skeen to have some company, another young phenom in the rotation with Jared Jones out, but it's not really going to meaningfully improve the Pirates prospects this season. And then as for Painter, who's been pitching fine in AAA, not as dominant as Chandler,

but the Phillies don't need the help really. They just, even with Nola injured, which is a rarity, they have the best rotation in baseball. In fact, painter might be more useful in the bullpen. That's something that we often see a starting pitcher prospect being broken in, easing into the majors in a relief role, sort of the Spencer Strider. It's an age-old strategy and the Phillies might actually need more help in the pen than they do in the

rotation. They might need more help in the pen than they do in the rotation. They might need more help in the pen than they do in the rotation. Obviously, they're down Alvarado because of suspension. And it also might just line up nicely with their understandable desire to manage painter conservatively given the injury history. And so they have tried to line up his innings such that, you know, he started a little bit later, he didn't really, you know, throw much in the spring. And they've done that to try to backload his available healthy innings such that when they are in October and they need reinforcement that he will be available. That kind of load management

was always part of the plan. And now to your point, like, it's not as robust a group as one might hope for a team that is anticipating a long playoff run. Now, I imagine that Philly will seek reinforcement for that group, you know, whether it's at the deadline or sooner potentially, but it's looking a little light. Jordan Romano is not like doing it really. Yeah, it's not a bad bullpen, but it's just an embarrassment of pitching riches for the Phillies and that's the stronger need it seems like. So I'm a little less excited about those two arrivals, A, because the Phillies don't have as acute a need for Painter and the Pirates, they just have too much of a need for

Chandler even to help. I mean, I'm excited to see him, but really it's still the Pirates at the end of the day. So more excited for Anthony and Caglione and Anthony, I guess there's some question about positional log jams and where he will play. And I think I am most excited to see Caglione because there, the need really is acute. Acute. And yes, as you said, he's been playing first base. He's perhaps better suited to be a first baseman, but the Royals have the Pascuatch over there.

They have Vini Pasquantino and we don't want an Italian displacing another beloved Italian on this roster. Although that happened, that happened within the country very often until like basically the time that the Cincinnati Reds became a baseball team. So it's hardly unprecedented in our history. They have been playing him in outfield corners. He's sort of been splitting time a little left, a little right, a little first. So they are grooming him to play outfield and he doesn't have to be a great outfield defender from the get-go

to help the Royals. And that's why I'm most looking forward to seeing him because there's a real mismatch there. The Royals offense and the Royals. And that's why I'm most looking forward to seeing him because there's a real mismatch there. The Royals offense and the Royals pitching, which has been excellent. They've got great starting rotation and that will soon be bolstered by the arrival of Rich Hill. And so what more could you need on the pitching side really? So what you need is a bat and a big bat.

And that is what Jack's gonna give you. And specifically, they need outfielders because the Royals have the least valuable outfield of any team thus far. Really? Yeah, I know. Who could have anticipated that this group wouldn't be incredible?

Oh my God. I know, not a total shock. So this is a sub replacement level outfield to this point. And so if Jack can just sort of stand out there and- You're calling him Jack because you refuse to say Caglione. You're like, no, I don't believe that's the right way to do it, the people of whatever province. I don't even think they're provinces, I don't know.

I've never been in it, It's really embarrassing, honestly. Oh, wow. You're not even entitled to speak about these matters. You got to go back to the homeland. Anyway, the Royals have a sub replacement level outfield to this point. And so they could really use Jack, even if he's just getting to the routine plays. Right. the routine plays, and nothing more. That's adequate as long as he's hitting. The Royals have been just a tad worse at negative 0.8 war collectively from their outfielders. Just behind, or ahead of, I guess, behind the Cleveland Guardians,

who could have expected a Guardians outfield to be bad, despite Stephen Kwan's best efforts, it seemed like they had kinda conquered their outfield issues. They had at least a middle of the pack, a credible outfield last year. And despite Kwan's best efforts, still a sub replacement level group on the whole,

just a tad worse than the Rockies and the White Sox and the Angels who were all also at replacement level or below. So have the Braves by the way, but that probably won't last much longer now that Ronald Acuna has come back. Anyway, I really want to see Calhoun on the Royals. He's just a more intriguing prospect to me because there is a little more risk or a little less refinement, some rougher edges there. He just, he feels like not really a Royals type player to me.

Maybe that's an outdated perception because the Royals have had more power hitters in recent years. They had Jorge Saler lead the AL in home runs six years ago when he just beat out Mike Trout and hit 48. And then Salvi led the majors, I believe, with 48, also a couple of years after that. But I don't really think of the Royals as a slugging team.

And I guess that's because of Kaufman to a large extent, but they had decades really where people would talk about Steve bye bye Balboni and how long it had been since the Royals had had a true power hitter and they have Bobby Witt who obviously hits for power, but he's just an all around great player. He's great at everything. hits for power, but he's just an all-around great player. He's great at everything. And just a grip it and rip it slugger like Caglione, who is just going to like hit some absolute tanks. I just, I don't really think of the Royals as that kind of team. They're like more speedy and scrappy and defense and stuff. And so I'm really looking forward to Caglione coming in.

He has the, well, he has 14 home runs in the minors this year, surpassed only by Ryan Ritter, who's a 24 year old in AAA for the Rockies in Albuquerque, I guess. And then Shay Whitcomb, he is a 26 year old in AAA with the Astros. So among real prospects, Caglione is leading.

And if you look at WRC plus minimum 200 plate appearances in the minors this year, Roman Anthony is at a 158 WRC plus, Caglione is at 159. And then the only guys above them are a Dodgers teenage A-Baller and a Padres 23-year-old A-Baller. And then Brock Wilkin of the Brewers, who's in AA and Otto Kemp of the Phillies, who's just mashing in AAA 25-year-olds.

And they're like fringier prospects, you know, like not highly ranked, undrafted, even good stories, but not the phenoms, the blue chippers that Anthony and Kaeplione have been. So I really am curious to see what the adjustment period will be for Caglione, because he is very aggressive. He is a real free swinger, and he's also trying to learn how to play outfield on the fly.

So he is far from a finished product, and yet, man, he has been completely unfazed by AAA. He is just totally taken to that place and is absolutely raking there even more so than he was before he got promoted from AA. And there were real questions about him because he didn't like the miners on fire last year after he was drafted.

And yet this year he came in and was great in spring. And he actually, Dan Szymborski noted that he improved his Zips projection more than any other player in spring training because he was just so good. And there was such a small professional sample for him proceeding this spring. And it looks like he's really putting it all together,

which is not to say that he's not going to scuffle and look overexposed and overmatched at times when he gets to the majors. But again, the bar is not that high for him to clear in Kansas City. So I'm excited. I talked about how like the, you know, when, when Eric and James wrote about CAGs, they were, you know, mindful of how the outfield might go. They have margin for error though, right? Because, you know, the, the outfield in Kansas City cannot hit particularly well, but Kyle Lisbell is a really good center fielder. So he's going to be aided by the other guys on the field, at least from that perspective.

I do have to note just because it is important that people really sit with this that right now on the big league roster Called up this year is another Royals prospect whose name is literally John rave. Yep, John rave You gotta sit with that for a minute. You know, it's just like a really this is a non non-alcoholic peroni I'm drinking, right? Yeah. I gotta say, the non-alcoholic peroni, very good dupe for a normal peroni. For all my like, oh, I'm in my late thirties and I got to sub some of these out for non-alcoholic girlies out there, the peroni.

If you want a light lager that's a good, a good fake, highly recommend. Okay. Good tip. All right. Well, these guys will come along at some point soon. I don't think we have reached the fretting about service time manipulation stage with these prospects, but teams are impatient

and fans of those teams are impatient, especially when they're contending teams and when they have holes and when they need help and reinforcements and Anthony and Calclyone will provide them at some point probably pretty soon. Yeah I think that there is urgency in so far as like right now the Royals are seven games out of first but they are and the Tigers are just I think that we you tell me if you're comfortable with this. I think that we can stop like qualifying the Tigers as a good team. Like they're not just a good team for the AL Central.

I think it's just a good baseball team. I think it's a good club. I think so. I think it's just a good club. So they have to contend with like an actually good club at the top of their division, but they're not so far out of it that it's, you know, impossible to imagine the top of those standings changing a couple of times.

And they know what's wrong. They know what they need to do to improve. Whether they have the prospects to address that themselves with CAGs, yeah, maybe. Whether they have the prospects necessary to package a couple of guys and make a trade at the deadline. A little less clear, right? Because the system isn't awesome and a lot of the good is concentrated in Caglione, but also a lot of the good is concentrated in Caglione and he looks like he's approaching big league ready. With the Red Sox, I don't know, you can make a firmer readiness argument to a certain

degree just because like Anthony's been around for longer, you know, he was a 2022 draft guy, Cags was just drafted last summer. So you know, I'm not sitting here going, I can't believe they haven't called him up. But I also am looking at the Red Sox and going, I don't know guys, you got to do something different because this is starting to get kind of bad, getting kind of dicey for you. As we record here on Friday afternoon, the Royals are half a game out of the third wild card spot in AL.

And if they could leapfrog the Astros and climb into that spot, then four, I was about to say all four AL Central teams, there is a fifth one. All four AL Central big league there is a fifth one. All four AL Central big league teams? That's rude. All four real ones would be in playoff position. That would be something.

Imagine four AL Central teams going to October. How about that? Yesterday after we recorded, I recorded a podcast with my old friend Nathan Bishop, who used to be my editor at Lookout Landing. And we were talking about the Mariners and I got to bore him with Mariner stuff, which he was excited about, so now you don't have to worry about it. But he was asking me, you're a baseball media person now, how has your relationship to fandom changed?

And I talked about how it ebbed and then it kind of came back with the playoff run and it's like this, there's tension there. And I did tell him, I was like, the place where I feel my fandom most acutely is actually in the satisfaction I take when the Astros lose. That's where it's actually at Zenith where I'm like, hmm, there's still something in there for me. So yeah, let's explore Brave New World where all four central teams go to the postseason and the Astros don't at all.

Let's try it. Let's see how it feels. We won't know until we try. Speaking of other returns, Mike Trout, he's back, about to be as we record here. Sounds like he's gonna be returning on Friday. And you know, that's not bad. Not a season ending injury as it turns out.

And sure it was initially nothing routine precautionary reasons, day to day and ended up being a month long absence. But you know what? I'll take it. Anything short of season ending injury at this point with my trout, I will take. So happy to have him back.

Hope he stays in the lineup. Hope that his strange stats from the start of this season normalize and that the results start to match the contact quality more and the angels could use him because they haven't been abysmal, which is somewhat surprising. And just mentioned how bad their outfield as a whole has been,

so he helps there too. I guess this is not the year for Jo Adele after all, which we could have said in any of the past several years, but yeah, there were still people holding out hope, and maybe even a little less so now. Did you see that Hunter Renfro got released? No, big news. People are like, why is she mentioning this?

I think that we have to entertain the possibility that the man taking the field will not actually be Mike Trout. It could be Hunter Renfro. They could be doing a switcheroonie on us. Oh, it's true. Yeah. Now that the Royals have let him go. Yeah.

Yeah. His fellow thumb. They both look like thumbs. It's fine. It's okay. They're the worst things to look like. It's a very useful digit. It's what separates us from much of the rest of the animal kingdom. There you go. Right. It's really a compliment. I'm paying both of them, honestly. Yeah. Now, Ronald Acuna has come back. Yeah. He has hit the ground running. I guess not so much literally.

He hasn't stolen a base yet, but he has hit and it didn't take him long to hit. In fact, he hit the first pitch he saw for a home run. And he has close to a 200 WRC plus in his week or so back. So he is trying to send the message that he is the same old Ronald that he can just step right into that lineup and be the MVP caliber player that he has been before remains to be seen, but certainly hope that that is the case. He remains one of baseball's main characters.

He was missed. The Braves very much missed him. And I would say that Spencer Strider's comeback has been a little less encouraging. I'm not deeply concerned, but he has not picked up right where he left off the way that Acuna has seemed to so far. Hasn't really gone deep into games.

The just unhittable strikeout stuff hasn't really been there. Of course, he came back from the more serious injury and then he had one start which went okay. And then he went right back on the IL with a different injury and then he came back and he's made a couple starts since then. And obviously they could use those two guys at the peak of their powers or anywhere close to that because yeah those are among the best players in baseball so the Braves situation is still sort of tenuous which maybe we will get to if you're gonna ask me about playoff odds a little later so we could keep our powder dry there but good to get a guy like Acuna back and even better when he immediately reminds you

what you were missing. Right yeah I think that you do get a little spoiled on the position player side. There are exceptions to this, certainly injuries that tend to linger or that you wonder if they're still bothering someone. But the rounding into form feels like it has the potential to happen much more quickly for a position player than for a pitcher. We're seeing this with Schreider, you're seeing it a little bit like say with George Kirby where it's like this stuff is there but you're not commanding the baseball well, you're still kind of having to feel it out. So yeah, it is a very fun thing. Although I have such a high level, I have anxiety about Ronald Dacununa Jr. the way that you have anxiety for Scubal.

Where the first day he was back, I didn't have the game on because I had to go run an errand and I got a text from a friend that said, Acuna, LOL. I thought to myself, there are two options here. Either he hit a home run or it is an ironic, sad LOL because he immediately blew out a knee again. And I do think I will have a level of concern for him, maybe for the rest of his career, but certainly for the rest of this season. I want to see him steal a base as like a proof of concept, but I also don't want him to try again ever, which is ridiculous a proof of concept, but I also don't want him to try

again ever, which is ridiculous because part of what makes him a main character and so dynamic and so valuable is the combination of skills and he's a, even though he's not like blazing fast, he's a really good base runner, but I'm so afraid that he's gonna ding again and it would be so sad. So I don't know, it's just like a complicated mesh of feelings when it comes to Ronald for me. Cause I'm just like, what if he gets hurt again? Speaking about some players who have not performed as expected, though they have returned from injuries.

Wanted to just talk for a second about Sandy Alcantara and Luis Robert Jr. Who everyone forecasted would be the big potential trade pieces available at the deadline. And right now that appears to be very far from the case. And in fact, I think that was one of my bold predictions that Robert and Alcantara would lead their respective teams in war, their start of the season teams in full season war,

despite being traded at the deadline. It doesn't look like that one's gonna pan out. Yeah. I think you might find yourself on the losing end of that. Yeah. Now, Robert, somewhat impressively to me, unimpressively but also impressively at the same time, he is leading the majors in stolen bases despite barely getting on base, which seems like it should be a prerequisite.

Yeah. I haven't looked what his attempt rate is, but it's gotta be the highest because he is currently running a 276 OBP, which even in these years of low on base percentages league-wide, that is far below par, though it's not far below where he was last year, which was 278. So now there's kind of a question of, is he just this kind of hitter now,

post injuries? And I remember him being one of Dan Szymborski's bust picks coming into the season, just maybe he's not actually that good anymore. He certainly hasn't been this year. So he has a 250 BABIP and that is weird. He is still Luis Robert and the expected weighted on base is far higher than the actual weighted on base. And so I think there's probably some ill fortune happening here. But even so, to steal 21 bags while not being on base all

that often, there is something impressive about that. I guess he's trying to show off that the wheels still work. So that's good news, I guess. And I could see him being a by-law candidate if he does not right the ship before the deadline. Teams might look at the speed and might look at the differential between his results and the process, the batted ball quality and say, yeah, this is someone we might bank on for the second half of a season if we have a hole and have a need. So I could see some reason for optimism or at least not complete pessimism there. Whereas with Sandy Alcantara, boy, he's been bad. Now, he's been sub replacement level even by FanGraphs War.

If you go by baseball reference war or FanGraphs RA nine war runs allowed based war. He's like a one and a half below replacement level, which is hard to do in 51 innings in about a third of a season. So he's just been downright bad. I mean, he has a eight and a half era and even the, the peripherals case for him, it's still like a five and a half FIP unexpected ERA, which is also quite bad. So I guess the positive case for him would be that the stuff still seems to be pretty decent. He still throws hard. It's kind of hard to tell like the pitch shapes

and the movement and all. There's not something that immediately leaps off the page or the screen at me and says, this is why he's been bad, but it appears to be, I mean, control and command have just deserted him, which is not unheard of after Tommy John surgery, but five walks per nine, and he's never been the dominant elite strikeout guy

that you might associate with someone who won a Cy Young award and was good enough to deserve to. Right. He's just been a good control guy and a good ground ball guy and he's still getting some grounders and yeah, it's been some bad luck, but man, it's been rough. It's not just that. Yeah, and they keep running him out there. He's made 11 starts and I guess they're hoping

that he'll show enough. But at this point, he's kind of tanked his trade value already to the point where unless he just completely snaps back to Cy Young caliber form over the next couple months that we have until the deadline, which is possible, then you'd really have to be banking on some team, just fixing him somehow, or him just shaking off this persistent rust.

Cause yeah, I did not see this coming, both of these guys being as bad as they've been to start the season. Yeah, I think that I imagined, I thought that Sandy would be fine. And I thought there was a possibility that Louis Trevor Jr. would be sort of in a bad way, but I imagined that if that were true, it would be the result of further injury,

right? Because he's had stretches like where he's been dinged and whatnot. So I was like, you know, given that there is a bit of an injury history there, I understood the tension that the White Sox friend office felt where it's like, if you know you're going to trade this guy, if you want to do it now while he's healthy because he's healthy now. But they didn't, you know, all the reporting suggested the trade packages that they were offered over the off season were like kind of lackluster and they're keen to stop accepting those. You know, as we talked about with James, when we did the season preview,

like they weren't blown away by anything. And like they have had sort of a mixed track record in really getting good players who seem like they'll be part of the next good core out of these big deals. And he's the last guy. He's the last guy that they can move, but you can't move him like this.

I mean, you can, but what kind of return are you going to get? I think it's, it's quite likely that there are plenty of teams out there who look at his sort of suite of peripherals, the track record, you know, I don't want to, I'm not accusing him of loafing or anything, but I also can imagine that like, if you're on that White Sox team and you have an injury history, are you like really busting it? Cause like, don't you wanna be healthy

so you can get moved, but you gotta play while you get moved too. So it's like a, ooh, what do you do? What path do you choose? And he does still have that gear when he wants to or needs to. His sprint speed is pretty much undiminished, at least every season since his rookie season

when it was at its peak, but he's still fast 87% of sprint speed, whether he gets moved or not, he's still moving. He can motor. Right, and so you can imagine all of those things and you can imagine there being interest, but you also, if you're a team that needs like a good center fielder and you think he's that guy,

I think you're still trying to lowball them a little bit, right? Because it's like, what has he done that suggests that he needs to net, you know, a couple top 100 guys like, not much lately. So it's a, it's a fix. And like we talked about this in the context of Sandy earlier, and I think it applies in both cases. Like this is part of the risk with this being part of your rebuilding strategy, because you don't know. You just don't know if they're gonna stay good. You don't know if they're gonna stay healthy.

And then what do you do? You know, so it can be a rough go. Well, I hope for better fortunes for both of them. I quite enjoyed Sandy Alcantara when he was at his best. He was a little bit of a rough go. Well, I hope for better fortunes for both of them. I quite enjoyed Sandi Alcantara when he was at his best. He was a little bit of a throwback. Just got a little more contact than aces typically do these days and was dominant, was durable, would go deep into games.

And I missed that. And now you just haven't wanted him to go deep into games because those games just have not gone great. Now, I did want to highlight a little bit of a bounce back since disastrous starts to the season. Remember when Emmanuel Classe and Devin Williams were just horrible to start the season and Classe of course had a rough post season last year and

Devin Williams kind of did too at least in one particular home run and then they started the season and these were you know nails these were the best relievers in baseball or on the short list of best relievers in baseball over the past several seasons and things were not going great at the start of this season and class A just suddenly seemed hittable and Williams was blowing games left and right after the Yankees acquired him. And I thought that was a good move. I thought, you know, maybe Néstor Cortés is not entirely healthy here and you're getting this dominant reliever and he's going to pair with Weaver and that's going to be a great back of the bullpen.

And then he performed so poorly that he actually got demoted out of that closer role for a while and is working lower leverage and just not getting save opportunities. Well, they've both bounced back to some extent. They've both been pretty darn good lately, which is not all that surprising, I guess, given their track records. A sample size is undefeated, or at least it usually wins. And often when there's a bit of a freak out over a reliever, now relievers are volatile to begin with,

and a full reliever season is almost inherently sort of a small sample these days. So those results will bounce around. And then if you start slicing and dicing and looking at subsets of reliever seasons and just a week or two or a month of a reliever performance, who the heck knows? But if you just sort of look since, you know,

basically a month now, if you look since late April, April 26th, Manual Class A has a 1.42 FIP over that span, which is the eighth best among relievers who have thrown at least 10 innings. And Devin Williams, a little less elite, he's 43rd best over that span, 2.66 FIP, but you know, great peripherals, great strikeout rates for both of them. That'll play. They've more or less looked like themselves. I guess the classes not getting so many grounders over that span, but you know, the the airbenders been bending again, and he's now kind of working his way back into a higher leverage role. It was a little weird, you know, and, and now it's a little less weird that they have

found their footing again. I'm not saying Manuel Classe is, is Cade Smith or anything, you know, he's not that great. But I think that they are both back to being pretty dependable late inning bullpen options. I think you're right. I think that they are. And like, I mean, weird levers are weird, dude. Like sometimes they're bad and then they get better. And you're like, why? And you're like, I don't know.

It's working now. It wasn't before. You're like, what? Yeah, it's like Alexis Diaz, who was just acquired by the Dodgers from the Reds. Dominant Reds closer, who then became less dominant, but still fairly effective, and then completely lost it. And now he's going to the Dodgers.

And of course, everyone's expecting them to Michael Kopeck him and make him good again. I know that Kopeck was actually pitching well just before the Dodgers acquired him from the White Sox, but nonetheless, when the Rays acquire a reliever, when the Dodgers acquire a reliever, everyone assumes that they will be great from that moment forward. And the Dodgers could use a dominant Diaz because like their entire bullpen is on the IL as is most of their rotation but what else is new? Remember at the beginning of the offseason when people were like, how are they gonna fit all the guys on the thing and where will they...

Yeah, turns out not to have been much of a dilemma. How are they gonna squeeze everyone onto that roster? Still a dilemma where the innings going to come from and how are they going to couple together a pitching staff, but yeah, it's not that their problem has been too many healthy and effective pitchers. And to be clear, they are in a position where they're rooting for it to become a dilemma, right? They want all of these guys back. They want them healthy and effective and throwing well. So, you know, this isn't what they wanted, but also.

Yeah. And, you know, speaking of luck regressing in a good way in this case and things normalizing, Devin Williams is fellow Yankees bullpen guy, Fernando Cruz, who I thought that was a great acquisition that they made. And I think we said so at the time or at the end of the season. And he's you know, it is mid thirties, like he only showed up a few years ago. And so he's older than you'd think. But he was totally nasty, like when it came to bat missing in Cincinnati. And he's he's followed the opposite trajectory of Alexis Diaz, essentially, where Cruz, I think we could chalk it up to just terrible luck

because he just had much lower FIPS than his ERA over the past couple of seasons. I think if I recall correctly, only Aaron Bummer had a bigger disparity between his ERA and FIPS in the direction that you don't want a disparity if you're a pitcher. And so the Yankees just banked on, well, if he keeps striking out everyone, eventually maybe the home run per fly ball rate will normalize

and the BABIP will be lower. And that's exactly what has happened. So his FIP, his peripherals actually have improved probably. I guess his ex FIP is the same as it was last year, essentially. But the ERA is down two full runs from where it was in each of the past two seasons with the Reds. And so he's been an excellent back of the bullpen arm. And that almost felt like the kind of thing where it's not like teams are really fooled by FIP versus ERA anymore. No. You know, like there, there was a time maybe where, you know, someone could swindle another team because they weren't looking at the defense independent stats, or at least you could swindle

someone in your fantasy league. But that era is long gone. And yet Cruz seemed like a case. I know that it was over two seasons that he had a pretty wide differential, but two seasons for a reliever, it's like 130 innings pitch. It's just, it's not even a full season for a starter. And so you can't really bank on that being meaningful.

And thus far, at least he has shown that it has not been. So he's been a big part of that rebuilt Yankees pitching staff. And I've got to say, like, I'm impressed by the Yankees. I didn't see this coming so much after the late spring injury issues and Garrett Cole being out for the year. And here are the Yankees

with the best run differential in baseball and the best base runs record by a lot, like a hundred points of winning percentage, if anything they have underperformed. They have a credible case as the best team in baseball to this point. And I thought they were gonna be good even after they lost Soto,

when they then had that flurry of moves and did their level best to replace Soto in the aggregate, as we all joked, that actually has worked. You know, that's worked pretty well. And you gotta kinda hand it to Brian Cashman. I don't know if Yankees fans will, but he's done some strong work revamping this roster. Do you think that they will?

No, I mean. Do you think that they'll be like, you know, who's so smart and also so handsome is Brian Cashman. We say that all the time. We don't tell them enough, but their patience has run out with Brian Cashman and, and I get it because he's have not won a world series in a long time and they're forced to accept the great shame of an AL champion ring, as we covered last time,

but I think he's done a nice job with this roster this year. It's really exceeded my expectations because you lose Soto and put aside the fact that Soto has not played up to expectations with the Mets thus far, even if he were, the Yankees are doing a pretty good job of filling that hole because obviously it helps to start with Aaron Judge and just getting better and better somehow,

but this is not what it was the season before Soto when it was just Aaron Judge kind of carrying that offense to the extent that a baseball player can, he was doing it. This year, he has a supporting cast. And it's Cody Bellinger, who the Yankees acquired for his salary, essentially, and not much else. And he's been good. He hasn't been like prime peak young Bellinger,

but he's been solidly above average with the bat while playing a bunch of different outfield positions. Swiss Army Knife, sort of defensive plug and play guy, that's been solidly above average with the bat while playing a bunch of different outfield positions, you know, Swiss Army Knife sort of defensive plug and play guy. That's been valuable. Paul Goldschmidt, who I think a lot of people thought was done. Yes. Is not, evidently. At age 37, Paul Goldschmidt has a 156 WRC plus. And is that bolstered by a 399 Bavip? Yeah. And he was always a high Bavip guy in his prime

because he just, he hit the ball hard and had sneaky speeds. Remember when Paul Goldschmidt stole 32 bases one year? That happened. I do remember that. Yeah. But you know, that's a little high, but even the expected stats,

the contact quality have really rebounded. Like he's been good. I mean, you know, a little bit of a different shape to the offensive profile. He's kind of like morphed into more of a contact hitter at this stage. He's not hitting for that much power. He's just like a high average guy

who has a bit of pop and patience. It's an interesting version of Paul Goldschmidt, but who knew that he had this left in him. And then the rest of the lineup, it's largely homegrown. That's the impressive part. I mean, you have the remainder of the Soto trades, which is Trent Crisham, who is cooled off predictably, but you know, he's still useful and a decent defender even now. But then, you know, other than just whatever's left of DJ LaMejio, which is maybe not much at this point. So, you know, you didn't really miss him when he was gone. And you're not missing John

Carlos Stanton that much because you've put together this lineup of Jason Dominguez and Ben Rice and Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells and Oswald Peraza. And suddenly you have all these homegrown guys. I know Judge is homegrown too, you know, he's older obviously and much more highly paid, but this is a largely homegrown Yankees lineup. And then filling in for Cole, you have Freed, who's worked out as well as a free agent signing can to this point. And then Karl Sradan, another cashman free agent signing who didn't work out immediately, but is paying off now. And then Clark Schmidt and another homegrown guy and Will Warren, who's done a decent job filling in. And meanwhile, you have your usual bullpen

full of like waiver claims and free talent pickups, Weaver and Mark Leiter Jr., who's been fantastic. And then Williams rounding into form, and you know, Loisica's back, and Tim Hill still around with the bootlegger face, et cetera. Like, you know, this is pretty impressive, even with Jastrchism out for the past month or so, and Oswaldo Cabrera now has the fractured ankle,

like I am surprised. I have to hand it to Cashman. Luis Hiel, of course, has been out and will be out for a while longer, and Stroman's been out, and they've really, yeah, they've made it work. They've made it work. It is, I think, pretty impressive.

I would tend to agree. They have been good and legitimately good, not again just by comparison. And also that division, which we thought was going to be such a knockdown drag out, just okay, you know? And at the bottom, pretty bad as it turns out. So there you go. Wow. That's disrespectful to the Orioles, although they only have one more win than the White Sox. How about that? I hate to say this,

but if anyone is in need of reliever reinforcements and who isn't, do you know who has a 1.2 ERA with a 2.28 FIP in 15 innings in the minors this season, most of which have been compiled at AAA. Do you know who's hanging out there waiting for a call? I don't know. I feel like I'm going to feel silly that I don't know though. I feel like you've set me up to feel silly.

Am I about to feel silly? Who is it? Tell me, tell me. Someone might feel silly when they sign him. Craig Kimbrel. Craig Kimbrel. Craig Kimbrel, he's back, baby. No. He's gonna be back.

Someone's gonna take a flyer. Oh my God. No. No. Another of my bold predictions was that the Braves were going to finish, I think, did I say out of first place? I think I said out of first place, not a playoff spot, though I'd have to check.

You keep asking me and I keep saying I have no idea. I know, I'm not expecting you to know. But I basically said that the Braves were gonna shoot themselves in the foot and they were gonna bring up Craig Kimbrel and Craig Kimbrel was going to blow the games that would keep Atlanta out of the playoffs or out of first place at least.

Now it's sounding familiar to me. Yeah, so the Braves maybe have not played well enough for Craig Kimbrel to be the thing that keeps them out. But Craig Kimbrel, man, he's looking like Pete Kimbrel, which I'm sure he won't turn into the Jekyll Hyde. It won't be that kind of transformation when someone inevitably says, well, seven other teams tried it

and he made all of them feel bad about it, but it won't work for us, you know? The Tobias from Arrested Development meme, like this'll be the time when it'll work out. But man, he's striking guys out. He's doing it all down there. And I think he has a deal with Atlanta where if anyone offers him a major league deal,

he is able to opt out and just take that, I think. So, I mean, he has pitched well enough and there are enough bullpens that are shorthanded. The Dodgers, they've gone down that path. They've tried the Craig Kimbrough experience. Might they want it again? Look, if they're trying Alexis DS, what could go wrong? I would have way, no, like, wait a minute, relax.

Relax over there. What are you, look it, look it. What are you, what are you, and what are you? God, his roster photo is so funny. He's just got like hair. Oh boy. I would have a meaningful amount more confidence in Diaz. I mean, like he's almost a decade younger

than Craig Kimbrough. One would think that you could, I don't like the use the expression, teach an old dog new tricks, because they're not dogs, they're men. They're human men. But you know, like, grant me the license of the expression. Like you're, you're likely to do that with a younger reliever who might need a little adjustment than you are with Craig Kimbrel.

Come on now, come on now. Do you really want a friend of the pod, Craig Goldstein, to have more reason to complain about the doctorgers bullpen? No, no, I don't. I think you do not. No, but someone's gonna take that plunge. You know it, if he maintains a one ish eerie and a two ish fit in AAA, there's gonna be a need

and he's gonna get the call. We're gonna see Craig Kimbrel again. It's just a matter of time. I gotta be careful because I might monkey's paw my way into him being a mariner. And then how silly am I gonna feel? Pretty silly. I'm gonna feel pretty silly if I do that.

Well, you can teach an old pod new tricks. That's what we live by here at Effectively Wild. We're an old pod. I like that. But we try new things. We mix things up. And one thing that we've been doing this season, which is not really new, though it has new things, we mix things up. And one thing that we've been doing this season, which is not really new, though it has new branding, is an Effectively Wild What If of the Week,

which is our sponsored segment, which is sponsored, of course, by our temporary partners here at What If Sports. And as we have mentioned, we have a special landing page at whatifsports.com slash Effectively Wild. And as we have mentioned, we have a special landing page at whatifsports.com slash effectively wild. But last week we put out a call and said,

hey, we know there must be authentic long time what if sports players in the effectively wild audience. So if anyone wants to write in with a testimonial, a tribute, please feel free. And we heard from Michael Powell's Patreon supporter who wrote in to say, I thought you might be interested in my experience. I've been active on and off,

mostly on at What If Sports for over 20 years now. Yeah. Including a lot of hardball dynasty. They're older than we are. I have left a few times, but I've never been able to stay away for long. The games in the community are just that engaging. I've shared Hardball Dynasty worlds

with many past Effectively Wild guests and other members of the baseball media community, which was a lot of fun and gave me opportunities to test my mettle as GM against people who think about the game for a living. I also reconnected with a childhood friend through Hardball Dynasty when he and I randomly ended up in the same world together.

That's so nice. Yeah, I should add, I know that some people have walked away from What If Sports in the past because some of the former ownership groups didn't really put any time or effort into supporting and improving their products, but the current owners are site users who very clearly care about it. So for those who may have tried it and left, now may be a good time to give it another chance. And now is an especially good time

because you can get yourself a deal by going to whatifsports.com slash effectively wild and signing up for a first season of Hardball Dynasty or Sim League Baseball for $1. And evidently you will be matching up with other baseball professionals and you will reconnect with long lost friends. That last part is probably not guaranteed,

but it's a possibility. All right, thanks to Michael. And here's a what if question. Here's a hypothetical, which comes to us from listener Mitch. This one may be unanswerable. I don't know, but we'll do our best here. Mitch says, I came up with this a little while back,

joking with friends. We realized that baseball is essentially just zone defense and wondered what would it be like if it was man defense? It obviously isn't for good reason. Perhaps we should stop there, but we won't. How would it work if a team wanted to embrace man defense? Maybe if there were a runner on and no force out, they could bring an extra fielder in to follow them,

letting you tag a guy out anywhere. Maybe if baseball had developed some sort of man coverage, there'd be fewer bases, but you'd still have to run the base route. Not expecting an answer because it's a really dumb scenario, but appreciate the podcast and all the work you all do. And you should know if you appreciate the podcast, well, this is what we specialize in.

Sometimes at least really dumb scenarios that are maybe thought provoking. So yeah, this will test our abilities to conceive of something other than what we know because baseball is pretty fundamentally a zone defense game. So what would that even look like? So if you only watch baseball,

I mean, the distinction we are drawing here, zone defense, man defense, it's, you know, are the defenders playing in a specific area, a zone, one might even say, that doesn't really change, is not tailored to the individual. You don't have a defender assigned to a specific offensive player.

They're playing in a region of the court, of the field, of the rink, of whatever it is. And then the offensive guys can come in and attempt to bypass those defenders who are stationed there. And in a more of a man defense, well, it's, you know, kind of what we're seeing in the NBA, right? Where it's more, you're assigned to a certain player and certain players match up with others. And maybe you have a double team sort of situation, but you're not just necessarily

confined to one area of the floor. And in baseball, we have positions and those positions are pretty rigid when it comes to defenders and, and there are limits to really how far a field you can range at least from some of those positions, a, because it's in the rules now and B, because you have to stay close enough to say a certain base in order to get over there in time. But what would this look like? What could this look like? How different would baseball be? This might actually be a situation where baseball really would be different. I guess with shifting, that was more man than zone, right?

I mean, it was still zone predominantly, but with Shifting, it was at least tailored more to the individual than just we're playing in a certain position. Doesn't matter really who's hitting when we were actually able to explore the studio space here and study the spray charts and say, this guy hits

over here. Like to some extent, wasn't the infield extreme overshift, wasn't that kind of man defense more or less? It's tricky because part of why this ends up being challenging in baseball, I mean, like there are so many reasons. It's quite a lengthy list if we're being honest. But one of the problems is that your starting point as the hitter is fixed, right? So like if you have a guy at the plate and he always pulls, you know, he always pulls. You might adjust back when you could shift however you wanted to. You might shift. I get what you mean that it's sort of like playing man, but you're not really playing

man. You're playing the ball. That's true. You're playing man on the ball because the guy is far away from you. And you don't really have an opportunity to interact with him until he's put the ball in play. And so the thing that you're defending is the baseball more than it is anything else. And so like that part of it's different.

And then if you have a guy on base, I suppose that you could, and we see teams shift their defensive alignments depending on the game state, whether they're ahead or behind. If there are guys on base, you can pull everybody in, you can play no doubles, you can do all kinds of stuff. But you are making concessions in other parts of the field, right? Potentially. Like you probabilistically you're making the decision based on where you think the most

likely trajectory of the ball is going to be. But like you are leaving open and this would, as we know, drive pitchers absolutely baddie, where if you are aligned such that you think you're gonna be able to catch the ball because you owe this guy always pulls and then he goes the other way, well, no one's over there. And it's a disaster. And then everybody yells and they say analytics are stupid and we have to have discourse. But even in that instance, like your failure is one of not playing the ball. Now, once guys are on base, I guess you could get like a little bit closer in so far as like you can position yourself such that you're trying to like be in position to get a guy who's already on base out. But it would be very challenging because you can't be like, you're not gonna be like up on him, right?

Like if a guy's getting a lead off the bag, you're not gonna stand where he is because the opportunity to get him out is probably most likely to occur back near the back. Right, so that's one of the things that makes this difficult because baseball, famously, you don't have to have the ball to score, and in most other sports you do,

so you're just defending the offensive player who has the ball or the puck or whatever the implement is. Whereas in baseball, you are currently defending the ball and then the runners are doing their thing. And so in baseball, you have zone-based defense, and we even refer to defensive systems as zone-based defensive stats, UZR, DRS, etc. The other obstacle is that you're not really allowed to be an obstacle in baseball. It's not a contact sport, which I appreciate about it. It does tend to lead to fewer devastating injuries, at least some kinds of injuries, but you don't have

blocking, right? And so, and there's a limit to how you can do that, of course, in every sport that does have that. You have to have some rules and some limits and there are going to be flags on the play and they're going to be whistles. And more and more all the time, right? Yeah. As leagues try to course correct when they've been maybe a little cavalier about injury in the past. Exactly. Right.

However, there is such a thing as garbing someone and boxing them out. And also in football, of course, you are supposed to block and you're supposed to tackle and there are things you can't do when you can't grab them by the face mask and all other sorts of rules and specifications. But that is inherently part of the game that you're just supposed to put your body in front of someone else and block them. And in baseball, if that happens, it's typically against the rules. It's some sort of obstruction or interference or whatever. So that that really does limit your options here. So unless you went to full contact baseball, and you did have defenders assigned,

you know, like what if some sort of blocking were allowed? And obviously we've gone in the other direction, where, as you said, baseball has also followed that trajectory where we want less contact and fewer collisions. But if we reverse that and said, okay, you could actually get in a baserunner's way. And if you did that, then it might make sense

to assign a fielder to block the baserunner, even if that would leave you with a huge hole somewhere else on the field that the ball could be hit into. Then you'd get more of a man defense situation where you just have to say, okay, we're, we're bringing in the left fielder because the left fielder now will be blocking the guy on first and will be attempting to stop or slow down, impede the progress of the base rudder on his way around the bases. And then you'd have to make an interesting decision.

How good a blocker is this guy? And how would that change the body types that you want in baseball? Because you want fielders to be mobile. You want them to be able to get on their horse, so to speak, and go and get it, track down a fly ball. But what if that guy is gonna be your designated blocker also? Then do you want him to look like a defensive lineman

or something, right? So there's gonna be a bit of a balance there. And you could have kind of a designated blocker, like probably, you know, that guy's gonna have that build. And then you put him in the position on the field where you can most easily hide him, I guess you stash him in left or something. And you just live with that defense because you know that there's going to be a man on much of the time. And so that guy's not actually going to be playing the field. But then how does that affect things

analytically, right? And I guess it doesn't matter that much if a ball drops, if the base runner cannot advance because they're blocked by the designated base blocker. And then can that blocker, does he have to be assigned to a specific runner or is he essentially playing zone then? Right. Is he like, is his zone just in the base path? And then he can block any runner who comes along? Like what if the ball rolls all the way to the wall

because there's no left fielder, can that blocker, can he get in the way of the guy who was on first when that play started and then also get in the way of the guy who's now gonna be running around the bases because the ball rolled all the way to the wall in the absence of a fielder. This actually would be baseball being quite different, I think. It would be quite different. You would have to, to your point,

you'd have to have very different ground rules. I think it would really discombobulate guys, you know? You'd need to like pause baseball for like a generation to get a whole new group of dudes used to having it be a contact sport, I think. Because guys, they train their whole lives, they have this conception of it being one way and then you're going to change it on them? No, no, disaster, injury, concussion, broken legs. It would be very bad, I think.

So that's, I guess, the implementation of this that I can think of. It's not something that I would want. You wouldn't advocate for baseball to be completely different than it is now? I would not. I quite like it the way it is. Baseball's good. Yeah. We can make some tweaks. We can polish it around the edges, but on the whole, no, I wouldn't be in favor of fundamentally re-imagining it at this stage.

You could also, like maybe if you had to designate a specific defender to defend against a batter, like- To be like a rover. Yeah, like only this fielder can retrieve the ball against this guy. If you did something like that, obviously it's going to dramatically increase run scoring. I don't know what everyone else is going to be doing on the field because yeah, if you just had to say tag you're it and I mean, maybe if you had each individual fielder assigned to an individual batter on the other team. That's something you could do again, not sure why you would, but you could. Yeah, why would you though?

So, so you're- The thing about it is why would you do it? Yeah, and you'd, I guess you'd have to do that again based on batted ball tendencies and say, okay, where's this batter most likely to hit it? Is he most likely to hit a grounder? Is he most likely to hit it in the air? Is he going to pull it?

Is he going to hit it the opposite way? And then you find your fielder whose skills are best tailored to defend against that batted ball profile. And so, you know, your number two hitter comes up and you have your assigned designated fielder for that guy. And maybe they'd have to be the first to touch the ball, let's say, because, you know, they can't do it all themselves. I can't just... This procedure. I just... Well, and it's like, gosh, it's like, you know, notifying the refs,

you're an eligible receiver as a lineman, like exhausting. You don't need so much potential for committing meetings, I guess is my point. I think part of the problem, so this would not make baseball actually recognizable as another sport. You wouldn't watch a game under these rules and be like, wow, baseball is just so much like football these days. I don't think that that would be your takeaway, but I also think that like baseball has a hard enough time recruiting, you know, guys want to play other sports sometimes. And I don't know, you want to make it closer to those because it's like, then why, then why play baseball at all? You know? Yeah, that is one thing that baseball has going for it over football, for instance,

is that, yeah, you'll have to ride the bus in the minor leagues and you don't know if you'll actually make the majors and, but it does have fewer head injuries and guaranteed contracts. I mean, there are things like longevity. It's like Ricky Henderson's mom wanted him to play baseball, not football, because she was worried for his safety. And that turned out to be a pretty good call in his case. And even though football has ascended in the spotlight and baseball in a relative sense has descended, that still applies. You

could potentially have a longer, healthier career and maybe make more money and also just have a better post-playing life if you have the skill to go either way. So yeah, to make baseball more of a contact sport would strip it of that advantage. So we've considered some of the possibilities here and if there's anything that we haven't considered feel free to write in and having considered them, I'm going to say that I'm glad that baseball did not go in this direction. But there are ways one could do it.

You just have to really dramatically reimagine the sport. But it would still be recognizably baseball, I believe. And that's a question I think we've answered in the past. What are the constituent parts of baseball? Like the core components that you can't do without. And really it's the bat and the ball and someone throwing a ball to someone else who hits it with a stick.

I think that's kind of the essence of the sport and you would still have that. It's just that everything after that would be quite different. Yeah, it would be so strange. And you know, who knows? Part of why we like the sport the way it is, is because that's the way it's been. And that's the version of it that we were initially exposed to.

And who knows, maybe baseball football would be our favorite thing. If we had grown up with baseball football, we didn't grow up with baseball football. And I like football, so I guess I just like football and then also baseball. I don't need baseball, football. Baseball, football. Base-kuh-ball? Base-poo-ball? I don't know what it would be called, but... What? I don't know. Try it again. Wait, what would...

Baseball blended with foosball, maybe. I don't know. What's baseball and football put together? I don't know. Something's baseball and football put together? I don't know. Something very silly. Something very silly. Yeah, well, that's a movie idea for everyone if it hasn't already been mined for material. But even the essence of the sport has changed over the years, because when baseball started, pitching wasn't important.

Pitching was just how you got things started. It might as well have been hitting off a T almost at that point. And now our conception of the game has changed. Perhaps there's room for Mitch's version of the game, but probably not. Okay. All right. So before we end, did you want to do your little playoff odds quiz here? We're two months into the regular season, about 35% of the way through the regular season schedule.

I don't know if I was conceiving of this as a quiz. Okay, a game, whatever. I can make it a quiz, Ben. I can make it a quiz. I don't know if the quiz version is, I just think it's interesting to see who's moved the most. And me being interested in that question did inspire me to ask Sean Dolinar, our lead developer, to sort of make a tweak to the playoff odds page at Fangrass,

which it has proven valuable. So now, if you take the playoff odds and you select changes as your display option, you can sort the columns by the change amount, not by the playoff odd amount, which is a good change. It's a good change to changes, but I guess I'm curious who, who you think this is just the make playoff odds, odds. So you can get there by winning your division or by clinching a wild card. What team in baseball do you think has moved their playoff odds the most in a positive direction since the beginning of the season? Oh, okay. And this is since opening day for everyone? Everyone

changes since, oh yeah, I'm making sure that yeah, since opening day for everyone. So it's not just inclusive of the Cubs and Dodgers results. Okay. I don't know how much of a difference it would have made anyway, but I think, well, it's probably a team we were just talking about, right? The Detroit Tigers. It is indeed the Detroit Tigers. They, uh, have experienced a 48.6% increase in their odds since opening day, and they have

a good bit better odds of winning the division and good odds of clinching a bye as a result of that. But most of their increase has been in the win division category rather than the clinch wild card category. So that's very exciting for Detroit fans. Yes. What do you think the second best move has been? Ooh, okay.

Is it another team that we just talked about? Is it the Yankees? It's not. They come in in third and your instincts there are good and they're not too far off the second place team, which is the Chicago Cubs. They're odds plus 36. And it's interesting, like, here's an artifact of being an NL Central team. So their win division odds up dramatically. Their clinch wild card odds down. And that is about being in the central and the NL being much better than the AL. But yeah, so they are in second place.

The Yankees are in third plus 34.2. The Phillies just after them plus 21.2. They're similarly like big ups in terms of winning division, which will make sense when I talk about one of the big losers, but their odds of winning, of taking a wild card have fallen. I don't know if I would have guessed the Phillies because as good as they've been, especially lately, I expected them to be good. And so I'm not surprised by how good they've been, but yeah, I guess it's, it's

more about their perspective rivals. And one who hasn't been so much to this point. Yes. And then I'll just also note to round out the top five in terms of gainers, we have the Cardinals, no one thought well of at all, including me. And they are only three games back of the Cubs in the Central and are plus 19.8 on the year so far. Then there are the laggards, Ben, then there are the laggards.

So do you want to guess the team whose odds have suffered the most since opening day? Gonna guess the Orioles are featured pretty prominently. It is indeed the Orioles. And look, it has become something of a running joke at FanGraphs that the Orioles tend to not do especially well in our estimation. We had them with like 45% chance of making the postseason. We thought that the Yankees would win that division. This is all before the season started,

but we thought they had a decent shot at a wild card. And my, how the turntables have turned. We have their win division odds down to 0.1 and their overall playoff odds 1.3%. It is rough times in Crabland. Did they call it Crabland? They probably super don't work and get emails about that. Sorry. I'm not, this is not a knock on balls more beautiful city. And then they are joined by their AL East division mates, the Red Sox, who I hear have a good prospect named Roman Anthony, we should call that guy up, but they're down 37.4. And then those Braves down 37.2, which is like kind of remarkable because on the one hand they started off so poorly,

but they did have that good recent run, you know, and they got Okunya back. But yeah, things are looking kind of grim. And then, and then we have an AL team. Can you, another AL team, can you guess what it is? Can you guess what the fourth worst? It must be, I'm surprised that the Red Sox are that high. I don't know that I would have guessed that, but I would... We were very high on the Red Sox preseason. We had them second in the division, only like a game and change back of the Yankees.

Like we really... We liked the Red Sox. And as a staff, we liked the Red Sox, including me. I picked them to win the World Series. I don't think that's going to happen, Ben. I think that's not going to happen now. But they do have a positive run differential, and they have dramatically underperformed the base runs record.

And I thought they'd be good, too. I didn't think they were a lock or anything, but I thought given the additions of Crochet and Regman, who of course is hurt now, and that's part of this, but he was great before he got hurt, and then the prospect reinforcements, yeah, I was a believer to some extent. So yeah, I guess maybe I would have been

a little lower on them pre-season than the odds, and I'd be a little higher on them now than the odds, I think, so my personal Red Sox swing would probably be a little more moderate, but I do understand because, yeah, I don't know. It's not like... Well, the Yankees have been good, as we just said, and so that's a big part of that. But, okay, well, another AL team, it must be the Rangers. It is the Rangers.

They are down 30.4. And yeah, and then the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks are confounding, Ben. I don't understand. What's going on? You know? Tell me about them. Well, part of it is that their bullpen's pretty bad.

And so that has a lot to do with it. And also, you know who has not been very good this year? Zach Galen. Yeah, it's true. Rough. Rough. Corbin Burns, been better. Been pretty good lately.

Been really good lately. But Galen, oh boy, it's not good. It's so odd because they can score runs. I mean, they didn't against Skeens the other day. I got to go see Skeens. He's pretty good. He did cut away. because they can score runs. I mean, they didn't against Skeens the other day. I got to go see Skeens. Yeah. He's pretty good. You know, he did cut away. You can confirm now. Yeah. I have confidence. Yeah. And you know how sometimes in the press box, they'll put the game broadcast on so that you have it as a reference point. At one point they were cutting away and happening after he had pitched.

I guess Libby Dunn was there and Baxter, that's Gamp, he was right there and he seemed like he was going to mess with her, but I don't know if he did. And then I had the thought, how much bad baseball has that lady had to watch this year? Libby Dunn has had to have watched some really bad baseball, I think. I wonder how much Pirates baseball she watches when he's not pitching because if she mostly watches his starts, then she's still seeing a bad team, but not that bad baseball just purely because of her boyfriend. Right.

But frustrating baseball. Frustrating, yes. Absolutely. I mean, when he... So he won that game. The Diamondbacks lost like 10 to one. Yeah, he got some serious run support. He got all his run support all at once in that game, the Diamondbacks lost like 10 to 1. Yeah, he got some serious run support. He got all his run support all at once in that game.

Yeah, it was a sloppy bad effort, I gotta say. I don't know what they're doing with Jordan Lawler. They sent him down and it's like, is that better? Like is he just not good? We have to contemplate the millennium Jordan Lawler not being very good. But anyway, like they just were listless and they were making mistakes and those mistakes cost runs and Lawler had two errors and the only run that I think they scored was a solo shot in the ninth from Tim Tawa and I was like, oh boy, we're in a rough way.

But he got all these runs and it was good. And I was happy for Skeens. And it had to have been thrilling for Libby Dunn because, again, he won. And they said that he had not won since like the end of April. He didn't have a win. Not and I don't, they mean like a pitcher win. I think that the team has maybe won on days that he has started. I didn't, I meant to check that and didn't, but like that's a long time. He's so good. Well, glad you got to see good skins and also him being happy. Perhaps I'm sure he didn't look all that different facially, but nonetheless.

Yes. It's very, very serious. Yeah. The Diamondbacks and Ranger, they continue to track each other, sort of. It's so weird. After having matched up in the 2023 World Series and then both being disappointing last year and missing the playoffs entirely,

the Rangers buy much more than the Diamondbacks, the Diamondbacks just barely missed and they scored the most runs in the league and somehow still managed to miss the playoffs. And then this year, I was fairly bullish about both of them. And I guess I should have been more bearish, but the playoff odds are more bearish now than they were when the season started. Well, and it's a weird thing too, because on the one hand, it's like, I think that

the, I think that the diamond, I think I think that the diamond backs are at the better club. I think I think that, do I think that? I think I do think that the Diamondbacks are at the better club. I think I think that. Do I think that? I think I do think that. But also it's just really hard in the NL. The NL is so stacked. And the AL is not stacked. The AL is kind of bad.

I mean, the Yankees are good, but a lot of the AL is so underwhelming. Yeah. And the Diamondbacks fourth best offense in baseball by WRC plus, and then the Rangers 28th. And that just flummoxes me more than anything. And obviously they've shaken things up there and they've let people go and they've brought people in, but for them to be the third worst offense in baseball behind the Rockies and the Pirates.

So confusing. Worst offense than the White Sox? What is happening here? What is happening? An offensive juggernaut two seasons ago and then really fell back to earth last year and now has just completely cratered. And I just, I look at the names

and I still struggle to understand how they have been this bad. He was the losing pitcher in his four prior starts. Skeens was. Guess how many earned runs he allowed in each of those starts? It was four starts. He started against the Cubs at home, and then he was at St. Louis, at the Mets, at Philadelphia. Guess how many earned runs in each of those starts? I'm going to guess not more than two in any of them. The only one where he gave up three was against the Cubs. He gave up three earned to the Cubs.

He gave up two earned to the Cardinals and an earned run each, each to the Phillies and the Mets. And I lost all four of those games. Oh, I'm sorry. He won, I am so sorry. He did win the game immediately preceding the D-backs. So they must have goofed on the broadcast. You can't take any wins away from Paul Schienz here.

No, I'm sorry. He went six strong against the Brewers and the team won in extras, but he wasn't the winning pitcher. I need to clarify something because I was doing a bad job. So he was the losing pitcher of record against the Cubs, the Cardinals, and the Phillies. He was not the losing pitcher against the Mets, and he didn't get the win against the Brewers. They won, but he wasn't the winning pitcher. Got it. If I were Paul Skeens, I would try to buy the Pirates. I'd be like, how hard can it be, really?

Like, Livy, let's go. How much influencer money you got knocking around. You gotta go sell some more sweats. Pirate fans would chip in, maybe some sort of crowdfunding situation. They'd be happy to make that happen. It would be funny if he bought the pirates and then traded himself.

He's like, I'm outta here. Marcus Semyon is batting 173, 260, 224. That is a 42 WRC plus and 223 Plated Princes. Yeah, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. Indeed. So those are the big playoff odds movers, huh? Yeah.

Let's see. I'm looking now. Who else is in double digits? We've got I'm looking now who else is in double digits. We've got Oh, there are other teams in double digits, the Brewers and the Pirates. The Brewers and the Pirates odds are both down 20, which is hilarious in the case of the Pirates. Um, but that's cause they went from like, uh,

something to nothing. Yeah. So basically nothing. Brewers are down 20.5. Reds 14.7. Athletics 10.6. And then there have been a bunch of double digit gainers. The twins, the Padres, the Giants, the Mets, the Astros.

The Guardians. The Guardians. Yeah. Just almost all of the AL Central teams. The Royals, even the Royals are slightly up, but basically not. Been a busy first third of the season. We're officially a third of the way through. Yeah, more.

Yeah, it's like 35% just about now. Yeah, it was a third on Memorial Day. Now it's past that because it's past Memorial Day. It's getting real now. It's not small sample so much anymore. Individual player seasons. Yes. But teams, not so much. Getting even a full season is not necessarily enough to gauge the true talents. But but yeah, we're we're past the point where you can just write off struggles as saying it's early. It's about to be June. It's not early anymore.

I know I'm going to, I'm about to be 39. I mean, not like tomorrow, but soon in the next month. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we're past the point of saying it's early in our lives as well. Jesus Christ. What an end to the, this is like a fun episode, kind of zippy. Like we talked about guys struggling, but we talked about, you know, the bright young men who will come up and maybe change their team's fortunes and oh, what a time. And then you're like, remember how you're closer to death than you were earlier in your life? Well, that's on brand for us too.

We just stared into the abyss for a second there, confronted our mortality. Also confronted the fact that Jackson Job has gone on the IL with a flexor strain. No! In his right elbow. Could have been worse, but also could have been better. Could have not had a strain at all. Chandler Simpson got options. Oh, Chandler Simpson.

That's that's not good for another of your bold predictions. But I love reminding you about your bold predictions. I know. I feel like I know myself so much better with each other. He was going to lead the league, right? Or the majors or something. I said he would lead the majors in stolen bases, and he is currently third. He's been in steals. He's not out of the running, so to speak.

Yeah. X-Tree, X-Tree.'s... It's not out of the running, so to speak. Yeah, Xtree, Xtree, I am being reminded of this by the wonderful, effectively wild stats account on Blue Sky, which everyone should check out because it will remind you as well as me what my bold predictions are. This is managed by Chris Hannell and our good friend. And he notes that Chandler Simpson is currently third

in steals with 19, and he's only two behind behind the leader and he achieved that number in just 35 games So I was like directionally correct, but also he can't hit big league pitching right now. So they sent him down Yeah, he wasn't totally overmatched like 85 WRC plus he batted 285. It didn't look good You know, yeah, he had no power batted 285. It didn't look good. It didn't. Yeah, he had no power. No. But like if he were a better defender, I think this would work. If he had the profile of a Raffaella or a, you know, PCA or something like that, this would be sufficient.

He could just be a speedster, a slap hitter, but he's not given you the kind of elite defense that they're giving you. So that's a problem. Yeah, it is a problem. You know, it's a problem for him, but mostly for me. No, mostly for him. But also for him. Significantly higher on base than Luis Robert Jr.

So he had that going for him. Yeah, but also it'd be nice if he would walk more because if you're not going to hit for any power, he does hit for contact. He hits the ball, but not like to the extent that Luis Reis does. So he's, you know, you got to do a couple of the outcomes. Like if you're not going to hit homers, you know, it'd be good to draw some walks also so that you could get on base so that you could use that speed. So yeah, the overall profile perhaps is not the best.

Yeah. All right. Well, we will do some stat blasting next week, presumably. We will get to the meet a major leaguer segments that we teased. We have candidates all picked out. We just need to find the time and we will. All right, that will just about do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening.

We talked last time about Jace Lavallette playing through a fracture. Well, Ryan Top reminds us that the Brewers, William Contreras, has been playing with a broken finger on his glove hand for the last month or so and catching while doing it. He was also told he wasn't going to do more damage by playing with it, that the main issue was pain management and he's been trying to figure out how to swing a bat with it. It's probably playing a role in his down year this year, though he seems to be figuring it out.

But yeah, that's even tougher for a catcher. Obviously they had to reconfigure his glove to make foul tips a little less painful. Contreras's fracture may have its origins in 2024, but catchers, they're a different breed. I remember when Martin Maldonado was playing with a broken hand and a sports hernia in 2022. Chase Lavallette is not a catcher, but he'd fit right in.

Oh, and hey, happy birthday to the great John Brebbia, who turned 35 years young on Friday. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay almost ad free and get yourself access to some perks

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We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. in the mud or going for a walk One strap on my head, but then listen to people talk I wanna hear about baseball with nuance and puppy and stats Yeah, yeah! So I wanna hear about picture wins or about gambling odds All they want to hear about my chatapeticals And the texture of the hair on the arm going out of one's ass. Gross, gross!

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