Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2331: The Secret Sauce

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Pete Alonso’s performance since they marveled at his hot start, the return of Craig Kimbrel, Max Muncy’s tale of two seasons, how hitters fare after LASIK, the Mets’ “secret sauce” against Shohei Ohtani, whether the Dodgers’ injury woes will hurt their capacity to recruit pitchers, Brandon Pfaadt’s “yes […]

How do you calculate whore? Does it come from the heart? Should we use defensive run safe or follow the OAA way? Who's gonna win? With their quips and opinions, it's effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2331 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. I have another Effectively Wild curse tube report. Oh, no. A follow-up on a player we talked about who is doing well, who hasn't done so well since then. To be clear, there's also the Effectively Wild bump, the Effectively Wild boost. We do that all the time too, but this is the other thing. We started episode 2317, or maybe didn't start it there,

but soon got to this by talking about how amazing Pidalanzo had been and his renaissance. This was May 3rd this episode was published. And at that point or through the second, I guess, when we recorded that, Pidalanzo was, I think, the third most valuable player in baseball, something like that. Sounds about right.

Yep. Aaron Judge, Fernando Tatis, Pitalonzo, and really I think Pitalonzo had been the best hitter in baseball, not named Aaron Judge. And I brought that up at the time because Pitalonzo had gotten to two fan graphs were. And I noted that he had basically equaled his 2024 total because his total last season was 2.1. And so I said, oh, he's already had his full 2024 season of value and we're just more than a month into the season. And I'm pretty sure I said something to the effect of,

even if he regresses, and probably he will, he'll end up being way better than he was last year. Maybe he'll double his war from last year. Well, Pete Alonso hit a couple homers on Wednesday as the Mets beat the Dodgers. And I thought to myself, haven't heard that a whole lot lately, it seems like. Haven't heard as much about the Petalanzo

offensive fireworks. And so I went to see how he had done on the whole what his war was since that day when we recorded in early May. Zero. Zero. He was at 2.0, then he is at 2.0 now. Yeah.

So it's still in play that he could end up with the same more that he had last year. I hope not for his sake and for the Mets sake, but yeah, he's been at a standstill war wise since then. He is a 106 WRC plus. So it's not like he's completely cratered offensively, but when he's more or less a league average hitter as a non-defensively or speed wise gifted first baseman,

then that's what it's gonna be. It's so funny. I struggle with this every year because like in the first month of the season, you're trying to be responsible, right? You don't wanna overreact to anything. You don't want to overreact to players who are having a rough go. You don't want to assume a new level of performance from players who have suddenly really gone

on a heater, right? But I think it's hard, especially when you are trying to pay attention to the whole league, to not have your view guys kind of calcify based on their April. You know, that Zach and Hannah wrote about this at the bandwagon, like what if May was the starting point of the season? How would we think about the best players in the league right now? Like who would kind of shift around if that first month were wopped off? And I guess I have to add

Pete to that to that list, right? Maybe the list you gave in the beginning is proof positive of this concept. Because of course, my little Mariners heart bristles like where's Cal in your list of hitters? And of course, Aaron Judge flash in the pan, right? Totally useless. So you you know, like some guys kinda keep on keeping on, but you inspired me in this moment to be like, gosh, what's going on with Spencer Torkelson? How's that still going? And you know, the answer is like in June, not the best,

but also how many games is that really? So, May, still quite good, not quite as good as April, but still strong, 130 WRC+. So, you know, you can kinda, you risk having an out of date opinion of guys do you attribute it to anything when it comes to Alonzo? I mean, you talked about the defensive piece of it. And let me tell you, the team and the looking at them very best in addition to the whack he's getting from the positional adjustment. It's also

like, you know, is Pete good over there? But you, do you have a theory of the case Ben, or is it just, you know, the vagaries of being a, we don't want to call them one dimensional, but dimension forward slugger. How's that? Does that thread the needle? Is that appropriately polite? Sure. Yeah. A limited number of dimensions. We don't have to specify how many exactly. There are limited numbers, just sort of like for everybody. I guess so, yeah. I don't know, we talked at the time about why he had been so good.

And I think we were somewhat flummoxed by that because obviously it was a surprise. And there were articles written as there always are when someone goes on a heater like that. And I think he talked about, I mean, he maybe got into better shape and changed his regimen and maybe some mechanical changes. And I think we were speculating about,

did he take this personally? Was it a Michael Jordan situation? Did he feel disrespected? Was it a wake-up call that there wasn't more interest on the free agent market for him? And I think we talked about the time, I think we said it would probably be a no brainer for him to opt out. Well, I don't know, maybe, maybe not so much. Maybe that's a brainer now. Yeah, maybe that's a brainer. That's a brainer. I like that as an expression. I don't know if I

like this application of it as the definition of the expression, but I like that as an expression. I don't know if I like this application of it as the definition of the expression, but I like that as an expression. It's a brainer now. There's still most of a season left. So you were gonna say there's still most of a brain. I don't know when the dust settles and when it's all said and done, whether April will seem like a really long time ago

and his stats will look similar to what they were before he hit the free agent market. But, yeah, now it is not so certain that teams are ruining the opportunity to have signed him. So, I don't know, I assume it's probably just that players' true talent levels don't fluctuate that dramatically. And he was playing over his head, and maybe he's playing over his head,

and maybe he's playing under his head now. Having all kinds of coinages in this segment. Yeah, under his head. These things, they tend to normalize, so we'll see. Maybe he'll bounce back and he'll be a happy medium Pete. He'll be somewhere in the middle between April Pete and May Pete. Happy medium Pete. I wonder if he would want that nickname on a t-shirt. If he'd be like, you know, it's me, happy medium.

Happy Pete. But then is it like happy feet? Is happy feet one of the ones with terrible songs? Some of these kids movies, man, some of them have bangers, some of them feel like a Psy-op, you know? Yeah, now that I'm a dad, Some of them have bangers, some of them feel like a Psy-op. You know? Yeah. Now that I'm a dad, I really do appreciate when some kind of kids' content has legitimately

good music. Like, my daughter's obsessed with Doc McStuffins, which is an animated show on Disney+. Just really good songs. Just really catchy. It's kind of the definition of they didn't have to go this hard. Like just songs that sometimes I wish were not buried in a kid's cartoon. I mean, that's a good place for good songs to be too also.

That's this show, okay. Yeah, sometimes I'm listening to a Doc McStuffins jam and I'm thinking like, this could have been a popular song. Someone could record this, someone could cover this. Maybe you change the lyrics potentially, but this tune has potential. Like a reverse kids bop? Yeah, sort of.

So I do appreciate that anyway. Gokmik Stuffins. Oh, she takes care of her stuffies. Her toys. Yes. That's cute. Toy hospital. Yeah, it's good.

Nice. You know, you can listen to whatever music you want. No one needs to know. Oh, you can, yeah. I'm just, the lyrical content maybe could be better. It feels a little immature. Perhaps, yeah. You don't feel the need to sing to a stuffy.

I do think sometimes, yeah, with the kids' cartoons, if you repurposed the melodies, then you could really have a hit on your hands. I mean, that could be a whole genre, like a whole musical artist, I think, just mine kids' cartoons for jams and then just like turn them into popular songs, change the lyrics, change the arrangements a little bit.

It's gold, Jerry, it's just sitting there for anyone. So that's a hot tip for you. I would definitely try to test the bounds of whether you've made Disney content different enough to profit on it yourself. I think that they tend to respond to that really generously and without any litigation whatsoever. Well, I'm not saying steal it. I'm not saying rip it off.

Plagiarize. I'm saying license the songs. Got it. Okay. Get people credited appropriately, but'm saying license the songs, you know, get people credited appropriately, but just, just re-record it and you'll sail straight to the top of the charts. Yeah. All right. So let's talk about someone who has sailed straight to the top of the leaderboard whose

fortunes have improved as Pete Alonso's have ebbed, I refer of course to Max Muncie, who has been just fantastic lately for the Dodgers and whose improvement has coincided with an adjustment to his vision. He is wearing glasses now. He's wearing, you know, your sports glasses, goggles kind of thing. And he has totally turned his season around

since that very day when he started wearing those things. So he had not been good. I guess we should have done an episode where we talked about how bad he had been and then we could claim credit for his resurgence. But he had, let's see, this was April 29th, I think was his last game before these corrective lenses. And through that point,

there had been 168 qualified hitters and Max Muncie ranked 150 in WRC+. He had a 60 WRC+, through that point, 28 games, 105 plate appearances. He had batted 180, 295, 236, and he had struck out 32.4% of the time. So it was not the normal Max Muncie offensive performance and just very bad in general.

Since then, since April 30th, when he showed up with this new eyewear, almost the same amount of playing time, 30 games, 122 plate appearances. And since then, 170 qualified hitters, Max Muncie, 17th. He has a 171 WRC+, he's batted 268, 393, 598, and he has struck out a mere 17.2% of the time. He has halved his strikeout rate,

he has walked almost as much as he has struck out. He has been an offensive force and I enjoy it when there is this obvious an explanation for a hitter's turnaround. Sure. And I think it's too simple, but also it's satisfying because we were just trying to figure out, well, why was Pete Alonso doing so well and why isn't he doing so well now? And you could dig deeper into the data

and you could come up with some sort of explanation, but it's usually not some obvious smoking gun. And then sometimes it's like, oh, well, he started wearing glasses. And then so maybe now he's seeing better and you can understand how that would be helpful. So I agree with you. I think everything you've just said is true.

And I'm not going to be difficult and fault the Dodgers for their process, because I think that from a process perspective, they do a pretty remarkable job, all things considered. But I will say the following. I do not understand the sudden use of glasses phenomena. And to be clear, not the first guy who has played for the Los Angeles Dodgers for whom this has been true. Right? Like TK Hernandez.

Yes. Do you wear corrective lenses? Cause you're not a glasses guy, but do you wear contacts? I do not because I got LASIK. Oh, that's right. You got LASIK. Unlike you, I had not good vision at all when I was a kid. And so I did have glasses and then I had contacts for many years.

And then I got LASIK and it has turned my life around in a Max Muncie-esque way. I mean, not really, but vision-wise, it's done the trick. Yeah, it changed things dramatically for you. And so and I think now that you say that, we talked about your LASIK previously because I it's terrifying to me like the laser in your eye and your awake. Oh, yeah. I didn't do it lightly. It's like you're going to do what to my eyes? Yeah. So yeah. So so look, I appreciate that, like, it would be weird if we empowered the Los

Angeles Dodgers, who are an employer at the end of the day, to like mandate LASIK for their players. It seems like a, seems like a bad precedent to set between an employer and an employee. But isn't an eye exam part of the physical and spring training when you report? Like, don't you go? And like, shouldn't they? Do they? Don't they? I don't know. Definitely at some points. I don't know whether you do that every year, every spring. They should do it every spring.

You probably should if they don't. Yeah. I just, if they don't and maybe they do. And, and maybe like some of these changes that guys are experiencing. I assume it's a change. I assume that. I don't know that that's true. But let's maintain that assumption for the purposes of what I'm about to say. Let's say that Max Muncie at one point had better vision than he has now. And he has experienced a decline in his vision as we all do. And like me, he's like kind of squinting at night when he drives.

And like, he's like, I used to be able to see the tiny, you know, when they go to the quad box on squeeze play, I used to be able to still read the ticker. And now I can't. Is that still good enough? I don't know. Yeah. You know, anyway, just to like make it familiar to all of us. But so like, we assume there's like been a degradation and maybe I don't want to attribute like a stubbornness or lack of maturity or a sense of machismo to Max Monzi. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not acquainted with the man, but maybe, you know, he either doesn't think it's that bad because like we all have declining vision as we age, or at least a lot of us do or maybe he's like in denial about how bad the decline is or maybe he doesn't want to wear

glasses because he thinks they make him look like a dweeb. Like I don't know, you know, maybe none, maybe this is a lack of communication prior to now on the part of Max Fonsi to the Dodgers or to his optometrist or ophthalmologist depending on the nature of Max Muncie to the Dodgers or to his optometrist or ophthalmologist, depending on the nature of the problem with his eyes. But I just feel like if I were a major league organization and you got, you know, some of these clubs, they got massive medical staffs, you know, huge. And if you don't, you can call down to your local Costco and be like, I pro Costco vision is great.

Can we get the crew from your Costco vision closest to Camelback Ranch to come down and just give all these cats an eye test and see where they're at so that we can, you know, cause like it just seems like such a easily detectable issue and such a simple intervention. And so when we hear about established big leakers being like, oh my God, the power of corrective lenses, I'm like, they were doing this before they had

all the planets nailed down, you know? Like, it feels like we should have this on lock. So I just am amazed every time. I'm like, it is, is there a market inefficiency of just either regular or more regular I Exams and then of course like the guy has to say yeah sure I'll go get the specs or whatever But then I think you should just lie to him and say they look really cool They don't they look dweeby, but like also, you know what looks really cool? Hitting the home run. That looks so cool, Ben. So you could just do that. And then even if you have, I mean, they look a little dweeby. I don't think all glasses look dweeby. I just think

that the specs, you know, they look pretty dweeby. I'm gonna, I'm gonna cul-de-sac briefly and then I'm gonna let you talk about Max Muncie again. I was watching on, I think it was Sunday, Sunday, because it was a day game. I was watching the Mariners, you know, when they won that one time. Haven't been doing that lately. Tighten up, boys. Jorge Polanco had the coolest sunglasses and like different sunglasses. They were like, not all of them, but many of the young men playing ball these days, they have those like, are you a baseball player

or are you trying to go snowboarding glasses? You know, like they're big, they have a bright reflective color and Jorge Polanco's sunglasses were like round and blue and they I've just never seen a ballplayer wear them and I thought they were so cool and I wanted to know how long he had been wearing those because again, I have just never seen a ballplayer wear that particular style of frame before. I was like, are they prescription? What's going on? And so, anyway, that's my story about Jorge Polanco and his sunglasses. I'm gonna let you talk about Max Muncie again.

Well, maybe they should get together and Polanco could give Muncie some fashion tips, some style tips on his new glasses. But, yeah, I have thought of this a lot too, given my own history with eyewear and not the best vision. And sometimes those declines can be subtle, as you were just saying. Now you'd think that if you were a ball player, you'd notice fairly quickly if you weren't seeing something. Like if you're not making out something on the quad box,

that's probably not gonna impair your performance as the editor-in-chief of FanGraphs. You could just sit closer or something, I don't know. I squint and I deny reality is my move at the moment. That's an okay way to cope probably for now. But Max Muncie, for a hitter, you'd think that you'd pick up on that quickly because you'd be able to tell, hey, I used to see the seams,

I used to see the pitcher's fingers, I used to see the orientation of the ball, now I can't quite tell. You'd think it would be kind of an eye exam constantly, like, okay, I can't see this anymore, or that your results would be potentially. And I do understand why, yeah, you might be hesitant. I mean, there was a real bias against eyewear

earlier in baseball history. It was very rare for players, for athletes in general, to have glasses, because at that point, they were more breakable. And if a ball hit you in the glasses, I mean, you get a piece of glass in your eye, right? Like, they didn't have the materials to even make that safe. If a ball hit you in the glasses, I mean, you get a piece of glass in your eye, right? Like they didn't have the materials to even make that safe.

And then there was just a bias against it because, well, maybe dweeb, but also it would draw attention to your- That you were having vision issues. Right, exactly. And so you would want to kind of fake it and hope that you made it. And also back then the lights at night weren't as good.

And so that could be a problem too. Everyone calls glare, yeah. And then you have to paint your whole face with eye black and then we're back to college. Right. And I guess even now, you know, you want to be careful. I mean, these things aren't entirely without complications. LASIK for instance, mine has gone okay,

but there are absolutely people it doesn't work out well for who have some serious complication or just get dry eye or have like halo vision. There's kind of like a ring around lights at night, which would not be great if you're playing under bright lights at night. Right, one of the reasons that driving at night is now something of a problem is you see the halo

and also the headlights are too bright. Yeah, that too. It's very old. Well, I mean, it's been life-changing for me, just not needing to worry about contacts and putting them in and putting them out and they get stuck in your eye. And yeah, I don't miss any of that at all.

But if you're a ballplayer and your livelihood is at stake, then I can understand why you might be a little wary of that sort of thing. The other thing is that with Muncie, evidently he has had and maybe still has very good vision. According to the MLB.com story here, he had a stigmatism that was his issue here. That was Kikei's problem. Yes, it was the same sort of thing. Yeah, so it says Muncie himself has said it's hard to deny that his production at the plate began to tick up

when he started wearing glasses. Although he has near perfect vision, Muncie learned he was slightly left eye dominant after visiting the same optometrist who diagnosed Kikei Hernandez with astigmatism last year. So I guess, you know, it was not maybe the most obvious thing. It wasn't like he suddenly couldn't see in front of his face.

It was more of a subtle thing that still could have impacted his performance, but I guess perhaps it could have escaped notice unless you did get an eye exam. And the other thing is that maybe you're not moved to look into that sort of thing if you're doing okay. So he's been an excellent hitter over the course of his career. So it may very well be that he was just in a funk for other reasons. He was unlucky.

He would have bounced back regardless, and it just so happened that he was more receptive to eyewear because he was hitting so poorly, and so he thought, okay, maybe I'll do something different here. Yeah, I'll give it a try. Yeah, in this article, even though he acknowledges the timing here, he kind of refuses to say that it's entirely the eyewear. It says he's hesitant to that it's entirely the eyewear. It says he's hesitant to attribute his turnaround

to the eyewear in part because it would diminish the hard work that he has put in to get back to this point. Quote, I think I'm not selling out to them because it's not like I was really terrible for several years. It's just one of those things where maybe it is because of the glasses, but for me,

I want to trust in the work that I've been doing and I want to trust in myself that I didn've been doing and I want to trust in myself that I didn't just bring in something random and that's what's helping me, which is an interesting way to think about it. Cause I get the idea that he wants to think that he pulled himself up by his bootstraps or something, but like, it's not something random.

If you have a vision issue. Yeah, I would, in fact, I would actually take that as a positive, I think, because if you credit your hard work to your bounce back, then are you also gonna credit your slump to not working hard enough? Like is that your fault?

I mean, I would, if I found out that there was a vision problem that was partly responsible for this potentially, I would, that would be a load off my mind. I'd say, oh, it wasn't me. I wasn't not working hard enough for something. It was just biology, basically. So that's kind of an interesting way to look at this. You know, who else we have to add to our list

of Meg's opinion of them calcified and needs to be updated. Or Hippolongo. Oh yeah. 249 WRC plus in April, 23 in May. Boy oh boy, that's less good. So it's really that you have to return to your previous opinion of Jorge Polanco. I don't want to be mad at him again though.

I was so worked up. It was projection. I should have talked to somebody about it. It's not his fault. It's a weird thing to navigate. I would imagine that that central to your understanding of yourself as a ball player is how you answered this question of how much of your struggle is

within your control, certainly, but I think maybe more generally, just mutable versus immutable, right? That you really can change in a positive direction. And yeah, sure, like your eyesight is something that you can't control in terms of its baseline quality or whether you have an astigmatism or not, but you have a lot of control or at least perceived control over because like treatment to correct that is well understood, readily available, minimally invasive, except that they're putting a laser right in your eyeball. Can you see the knife? The little scalpel? Because there's a scalpel,

right? Or is it the laser that cuts it? No, I think it's just the laser. Yeah. Okay. But you can like, can you hear, can you, sorry, I gotta ask, can you hear it? Can't really see it ironically, but you can. Cause you're like blinded. But you can smell it. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Absolutely no. Apologies to everyone for, they are shooting a laser at your eye and reshaping. No. So there's like actual cutting that is happening there. I'm sorry, I'm gonna do the biggest swear. I'm gonna do the biggest swear. And so I want everyone, like if the kids are around, if they are watching Doc McStuffins, mute me immediately.

No way, you can smell it? You can smell it, yeah. Benjamin, no. There's sperm happening. Okay, I'm sorry. Now I have to ask like a lot of questions. Does it smell distinctive? Like is it, is it a new, was it a new smell to you?

Well, I have fortunately not been burned often. So I guess if you put your thumb on a stove or something, I guess it doesn't smell. I love that it's just your thumb. You're not putting your whole hand on the stove. Just like your thumb. Just testing it to see if it's too hot. Or like if you grab a hot pan.

Yeah, right. That doesn't rise to the level of singed where you're probably going to emit a smell, probably. Yeah, so it was an unfamiliar sensation to be emanating from me, I suppose. I think I was warned. It wasn't painful. It was uncomfortable, the recovery for a little while, and you can't really see and you kind

of are wearing something to cover your eyes and it feels like a sandpaper-y feeling in your eye for a little while. They do one at a time, right? They don't do them both at once. Or did you have both done at once? No, I think I had them done both at once. Oh really? Cause when my dad had to get Lasik, sorry,

here's Eyecare talk. And I think they did them one at a time. If I recall correctly, he like did one and then it like recovered. And then they did the other one. He didn't mention the smell, but maybe that's cause he loves me. Was there a sound?

Did it make a noise? I'm imagining the beginning of Empire Strikes Back when he cuts open the top. It didn't make that noise. It didn't make that noise. You didn't hear like lightsaber and then go like, oh, I'm gonna be in something gross while I to stay warm. The machinery may have made a hum of some sort, but I don't think it was, you know,

maybe a whine. But no, it wasn't like, I am so sorry to our listeners, but sometimes, you know, you have like, saying you may fire when ready and then the green beam shoots out and all the wrong explodes. That's not what you want to happen. It did not go pew pew, no. I mean, I wouldn't expect it to sound like Alderaan. That's a planet, not your eyeball.

I would expect it to sound like when you have to, you find your friend, he's frass bitten near death and you just got to get him warm. And what better way to do that than to fly something in the tongue and he's like, put him out there, you know, and you're like, oh boy. Probably should have had a content warning for this whole segment, because I know I talk people can be phobic about that. I mean, I reacted in a way that suggests that I am sympathetic to that.

I think it's like it's a reasonable. You're not supposed to touch it. See, I wouldn't be able to do contacts because of the eye touching thing. Right, a lot of people have problems with contacts. Yeah, but I imagine, I'm ready for glasses, like in terms of my aesthetic. In a lot of ways, I feel like I,

they're spiritually already part of my aesthetic. So I'm really just rounding into my optimal form. You know, it'll be too bad though, because I'll get them and then because we all work remotely, I won't get to do the like cool editor thing where you like pull them down and then put them on the desk. Put a corner of them in your mouth maybe. You don't got it, you know?

You don't got it. Like, yeah. So anyway, all of that to say, I think that like test your guys' eyes when they report and then make appropriate recommendations and maybe it'll help. It would be really funny if Kike's optometrist could only diagnose the stigmato-thism. It's like, it turns out they all have an astigmatism. Because then it's like one eye focusing they all have an astigmatism. Cause then it's like one eye focusing,

what is an astigmatism? Yeah, well that can, it can lead to blurriness, right? It's like an irregularly shaped cornea. Oh, it's right. It's the right, right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know how noticeable it was or NDSI dominance is a whole other conversation too that can affect hitting.

But I find this satisfying whether or not this is really the reason or a reason for Muncie's resurgence, because I have actually been frustrated by previous studies have shown that LASIK hasn't really worked for MLB batting performance, at least there was one small sample study about 20 years ago that showed that

there was just no perceptible difference before and after LASIK for about a dozen guys who had had it. There was actually a follow-up just this spring in Sabre's Baseball Research Journal, the impact of LASIK on MLB batting performance and this was with a larger sample of 40 or 50 guys. And it also found kind of unclear conclusions, ironically, I guess, take the LASIK to the study, but it basically found sort of non statistically significant changes. What it did find though, was that in the season prior to LASIK, there was a perceptible decline by these players,

similar to Max Muncie having had a decline prior to his adopting this eyewear. And then the question, which is kind of difficult to untangle from afar, is was that because there was an actual vision impairment and that's why they got the LASIK, or is it just that they slumped? And so they said, huh, maybe I should get an eye exam, and then they realized that there was something

they could correct, or they were just more willing to have a procedure done, even if there wasn't a serious vision issue, it was just, well, maybe you can't hurt, I better try anything, because I'm not doing so hot. And so then they did find a bounce back in the year or two after LASIK, but again, you would usually find that with any group of players.

If you found a bunch of guys who got worse in year one from the year before, well then the year after that, they're going to return to the mean to some extent too. So that's what happened here. And the study conclusion was basically that we can't say for sure, that it's kind of inconclusive just with the sample and also just the degree of decline and improvement and the possibility that it's just regression. So it wasn't super obvious yet again.

It wasn't a smoking gun. It wasn't a smoking cornea even. It was... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sure that some players probably, they have actually improved for that reason, but others, it may have coincided with it, but not actually been the reason. So this is an example and we'll see how Max Muncie does over the rest of the season. But I'm enjoying the splits for now because it's just very nice and clean. It's like equal samples and just a day and night difference.

And for now, at least we can say, ah, glasses, Eureka. That worked. Well, and I wonder too, if part of the difficulty in sorting out sort of signal and noise there is that like, there are plenty of people who need corrective lenses, glasses, whatever, you know, from the time they were little kids. So like having a need for glasses is not necessarily related to your age. But I wonder if part of what makes it kind of difficult to sort out is that like some of it might be you are experiencing age related decline because you're getting older and it's manifesting in both your performance

and your vision, maybe? Is that a potential explanation? Could be. Hey, breaking news, as we have been recording, Ken Rosenthal reports, in the wake of today's ninth inning collapse, the Braves are summoning Craig Kimbrel from AAA. Oh my god. He's back, baby.

No, no. I love the way that it's reported. are summoning Craig Kimbrough from AAA. He's back, baby! No! I love the way that it's reported. It almost makes it sound as if they collapsed in the ninth inning and it somehow manifested Craig Kimbrough. Like, they had a closer meltdown, and it's like Craig Kimbrough appears, like you said, red rum in the mirror or something, and he just shows up.

But because they had a day game game and they lost to the Diamondbacks who came back. The Diamondbacks scored seven runs in the night and beat the Braves 11 to 10. I got an alert about that. As we noted the other day, Kimbrough has pitched well in AAA. And he also had this clause in his contract

where if the Braves didn't call him up, if someone else offered him a major league job, he could just take that at any time and they would lose him for better or worse. But yeah, Reisel Glacius came in to stem the bleeding and did not. And they hemorrhaged. And so Craig Kimbrough arrives. Not that he's immediately going to close or anything. And usually, I mean, this would be kind of a cool homecoming, full circle moment, I guess, for Timberlake to be back with the Braves where he began his career and was one of the most dominant pitchers we've ever seen

on a perning basis. But as it is, it's like, oh boy, what are we getting into here? So we'll see. We'll see if that actually helps. But yeah, as forecasted, as foretold, Kimble back. People are going to be so weird about it, you know? Or maybe they won't. Maybe they'll be really normal.

Maybe he'll pitch great. And then they'll just be excited, you know? That'd be a fun story if he pitched great. I'd enjoy that. Yeah. All right. Couple other Dodgers related items while we were talking about Muncie here.

I enjoyed this story from MLB.com headline canning Mets using quote secret sauce to neutralize Otani. So the Mets have beaten the Dodgers four times in six games. They've got a couple more against them, I think, but they've kind of shut down Otani relatively speaking, at least against the rest of the league. Otani's batting 301-399-671 against the Mets. His slash line 208-286-458. So he still hit a couple homers, but they were solo homers.

He hasn't been at his best. And so this is all about how the Mets have done well against Otani. And I saw that headline, secret sauce to neutralize Otani. And of course, this made my mind just perk up. And I was thinking, oh, do they have the secret to Otani? Is this, can we bottle this? Can other teams? Like, have they identified the fatal flaw in the best hitter in the National League?

And suddenly this is gonna spread. The book is out on Shohei Otani. He's done because the Mets have discovered his secret vulnerability. Yeah, and I think no after reading the story. But Tyler McGill said, there is a secret sauce, but then the next sentence, there's a secret sauce to every hitter,

which makes it sound a little less special. But I mean, I guess that's true. They all have relative flaws and weaknesses and there's a scouting report on all of them. But the way that it describes how the Mets have pitched Otani, and I guess you'd think that if they had discovered the secret sauce.

They wouldn't tell anyone. They probably wouldn't. It probably wouldn't be fully explained in an article in mlb.com. But the way that it's summarized here is basically just that they have done pitching against him. They've done good pitching. Like it's not, he has a hole right here

and if you throw it there every time, or he miraculously, we've discovered that there is a certain pitch type that he actually can't hit. But it's really just that they threw really well placed pitches against him. So they pitched well as their secret sauce. Basically they pitched well. Yeah.

They did good. Right. So Griffin Canning, who played with Otani with the Angels for a few years, he said, the key to neutralizing the slugger is mixing things up every time you face him. Okay. I mean, that is kind of a cornerstone of pitching, I guess, right? Now, Dave Roberts said,

I think they're really not throwing fastballs in the hitting zone. If something is, so again, they're not throwing fastballs down the middle. That's okay. If something is in the strike zone, it's spin or change up, and they're changing a lot of locations.

So they're going in, crowding him, going away. They're just not repeating a lot. So they're changing locations. They're not throwing the same pitch over and over. They're not throwing fastballs down the middle. Anyone taking notes here? Like writing down the secret sauce? So this is how you neutralize Shohei Otani.

Don't throw him the same pitch every time. Don't throw him fast balls over the middle. And then, okay, so here's another thing. For Blackburn on Monday, they're pitching to their strengths. That meant attacking Otani with hard stuff up and in and soft stuff down and away. Aha, Up and in and then down and away. Wow. Yeah. So here we are in 2025.

Yeah. We've discovered we're breaking just new frontiers in pitching. Up and in, then down and away. Then down and away. It's almost like, so I guess maybe you would want to change the hitter's eye level. That sounds like it could potentially be. I know, I know I'm blowing people's minds here. So mixing up pitches.

Okay. So this strategy one, change the hitters eye level and then try to be unpredictable. So I guess you, like, you don't want the hitter to know what pitch is coming next and where it will be located. Yeah. This is really like, this is changing everything I thought I knew about pitching, which in my mind was just kind of, you know, just throw it in there. Like, you know, just you want to throw strikes, right? That's a, that's a piece of advice you hear often.

So you just kind of want to just like lay it in there, I guess, is kind of what I thought pitching was about really. But apparently it's like about disrupting timing and subverting expectations to some extent. Yeah, I know. And that's all it takes to just neutralize Shohei Otani. Right. I don't know why other people haven't thought of that.

I know. That's pretty wild. I know. Look, I think on the one hand, like, what are they gonna say, you know? But also, this sounds so silly, you know? The secret sauce, the secret sauce. If you had secret sauce to get out the best,

don't tell people about that sauce. I think that should be proprietary sauce. And I think the explanation is that they don't actually have secret sauce. Right, they don't have any sauce. I think that should be proprietary sauce. And I think the explanation is that they don't actually have secret sauce. Right, they don't have any sauce. This is the most familiar sauce. This is the most publicly known and available sauce I've ever seen. This is the sauce that people have talked about. This is the Heinz ketchup of sauce. Yeah, yeah.

Ubiquitous. We're in season 150 of Major League Baseball, I think, depending on when you start the clock. And this sauce has been known, I think, more or less since they stopped the batters being able to request that a pitch be delivered in a certain location. Ever since then, it's basically been this is the strategy. Now, to the Mets credit, they have followed that strategy to a T. Like this is good pitching. They've done well. Like they have varied their pitches. They have

varied the location. They have hit their spots. Kudos to them. So maybe it's more like the headline and the way this article was presented and it's six games. Like, you know, you could probably find some team that's neutralized Otani or whoever over a couple series in any season. Like that's going to just happen by chance if anything. So yeah, this is, you know, my, I perked up when I read this cause I'm like, Ooh, imagine, imagine if finally, now it's not that I want Shohei Otani to be just a man. Right, what are you rooting for Ben? But imagine, but imagine if that were to happen several years into the career of a legend like Otani, the book is out.

But no, I don't think the book is out. No, it didn't happen. And it's not out. There's no book. It's the same book. It's not like me, you know, clutching my giant Sir Kensington's ketchup. That's special sauce. That's discontinued sauce. That's escaped the wrath of venture capital sauce. They're just talking about pitching well. They're just talking about pitching well. But to their credit, they did pitch well. They did do it. And so that's good if you want the Mets to win. I bet they find that pretty useful. It was good sauce.

There are two commercials that are living rent-free in my brain right now. The first is that Gatorade commercial and the outro of the Gatorade commercial. And we actually, we called it Gatorade. What? Why is that in there? I, okay. So like there's the Gatorade commercial, then there's, do you get commercials for QT, the gas station chain in New York?

Are you familiar? I don't think so. Are you familiar with QT? I think I have developed the ability to not see commercials. I'm sure that's not entirely sure, but that's a really cool tool. That's a that's what is your secret sauce? Yes, that is my secret sauce. I mean, part of it is just paying to avoid commercials.

That's one way that I avoid them. But also, yeah, no, it's it's tough with that. That's why advertisers love live sports, because we can't skip the commercials, at least not as effectively as we can elsewhere. But I think I have neutralized, yeah, my Mets version of facing Otani is I will mute or I will just stare at my phone, and thus I will not actually consume the commercials,

except sort of subliminally in the back of my mind. Maybe it's all filtering in there somehow. Anyway, I don't think I have seen that, or if I have, I have not retained the information. It's the most recent Gatorade commercial, and they say, naturally, we called our stuff Gatorade. And he's like a southern gentleman of some kind talking about their electrolyte juice.

Anyway, I just like keep saying it out loud over and over. Naturally, we called our stuff Gatorade. I guess that's a good campaign then. No, it makes me hate them. Their slogan got lodged in your head and made you repeat it on a podcast where they're now getting free advertising. So it worked. No, I want to launch Gatorade into the freaking Gulf of Mexico.

Anyway, I wouldn't do that. Natural disaster. And then the other one is QT, which is like Quick Trip. That's a gas station chain out here. And they have these commercials. I think that they operate nationwide. Couldn't tell you for sure though. And it's like people extolling the virtues of the gas station lunch, right?

Like being able to get a sandwich or whatever at the gas station. And there's a guy and the way he says it is so funny. He's like, that whole spread, that whole spread is a good lunch. And he just like, he's like, one of those guys is like kind of eating all of the syllables while he's talking. Like it's amazing that the sound is escaping his mouth. Sort of like Martinez. Yeah. The secret to good advertising is just subverting expectations through

intonation or pronunciation and someone says something weird. And so it sticks out to you. So it's like, it's like the saying that is sometimes attributed to Warren Spahn hitting his timing, pitching is upsetting timing or disrupting timing. I don't know whether he said that first again, I think probably he didn't come up with, with that idea. Maybe, maybe he, he put it in that formulation or maybe that's apocryphal. Who knows?

He was pretty good at pitching. So obviously he had the secret sauce, but that's, you know, he was way ahead of his time. I mean, everyone else is just getting on board with this in 2025, but Warren Spahn, he knew just years and years ago, but I guess the same thing applies to advertising, just to disrupt the timing of how you deliver your line.

I did just search on the Quick Trip website to see if I could patronize Quick Trip, and they only allow me to search for locations within 75 miles of me, and there isn't. So, yeah, doesn't look like we have them. That whole spread is a good launch. In fact, I just searched New York, period. And no, no Quick Trip.

All right, well, anyway, then you won't get to have In fact, I just searched New York period and no, no quick trip. Yeah. Well, anyway, then you won't get to have that whole spread, which is reportedly a good lunch. I guess not. All right. The other Dodgers related thing, I read this in Craig Calcatera's Cup of Coffee newsletter. He was noting that the Dodgers had just picked up a couple pitchers because they need them. You know, they go through them quickly, those Dodgers. And so they have picked up Jose Urania.

He is now with the Dodgers after the Blue Jays designated him for assignment. And also they got Will Klein, who was DFA'd by the Mariners, I believe. There was a little trade there. So, you know, more grist for the mill, I guess, for the Dodgers. And Craig wrote about how many Dodgers injuries there had been, and he said, "'My guess is that it's partially a function of them signing high-risk guys to begin with.

I can't think of several they've acquired in recent years who already had a significant injury history, which we've talked about in the past. But it also has to be the case that something about the way they develop and coach pitchers is contributing to this carnage. It's to the point where if I were an agent, I'd be wary of sending my pitching clients to Los Angeles unless they were paid very, very well to do so, which is an inversion

of what you usually hear, which is that pitchers might want to go to the Dodgers. Maybe it's more hitters because of the Max Muncie-esque reclamation projects that they have had and guys they've made better But you you hear that about pitchers too, and they have certainly improved pitchers We were just joking about it the other day, right? The Dodgers get Alexis Diaz and oh he's gonna go on a run or Michael Kopek even if that doesn't quite fit the timeline But that is interesting the fact that thegers, they certainly have developed this reputation now and it's warranted. I mean, they have had a whole lot of Tommy John surgeries.

I ran the numbers on that at some point. And I think a lot of it is the history of the guys that they've gotten and their payroll allows them to have that redundancy and to sign these guys and commit a lot of money to them despite the risk, et cetera. But also, they're kind of at the vanguard of modern pitching and modern pitching hurts pitchers' arms

and guys throw hard. And so it kind of tracks that if you were on the cutting edge of pitching, that you'd be on the cutting edge surgically too, just because you're gonna have guys who go down. So it seems like, I mean, I don't know how, how well Craig's take there is representative or reflective of the larger perception, but at some point, if you are just the walking wounded

with the pitching staff as they are again now, and they just won a World Series that way last year, but this year they were like, surely we have developed enough depth where this can't possibly be a problem. And no, it's still been as acute a problem. And Andrew Friedman did acknowledge that they were going to at least inspect, scrutinize whether there was something they could improve or whether they were doing something wrong from an injury prevention standpoint. I wonder whether it could

get to the point where the Dodgers are so associated with pitching injuries specifically that players would actually be reluctant to go there if they look at Blake Snell or Tyler Glasnow or someone and just say, huh, I could sign this high dollar deal with the Dodgers, but would I immediately end up hurting? Would that be worth it in the long run? I wonder. I don't know the answer to that. I think that a couple of things determine the likelihood

of it. The first is, are there actual tangible improvements being made to those guys, right? Because it's one thing if you get hurt, and you also haven't gotten any better. If you get hurt and then you get better coming out of rehab, which is not an unusual trajectory, right? Where you have like the time to actually do an evaluation of your repertoire to change things, maybe recondition your body coming out of rehab. I think part of it is going to be dictated by like when in a player's career he comes to the Dodgers. So like, if you're Jose Urania, what do you have to lose? You're not getting any better, right? You've been a knock around at the bottom of the 26 man guy for a couple of years now at this point. And if you can go there and revitalize some amount of your career, or even just like,

you know, pitch well and pitch often and have a chance to win a championship. Maybe on balance, that's worth it to you. Where a guy is in his career matters. Is he at the very end? Is he going there on a free agent deal where he has made his money? I'm not wishing injury on Tanner Scott to be clear, but on some level, if Tanner Scott goes down tomorrow, Tanner Scott's probably going to be like, well, that sucks. And I want to be out there helping my guys and I want to play. But there's some comfort in the fact that Tanner Scott just got paid, right? So I do wonder what their actual reputation within the industry is, because my sense is not that maybe this sense is wrong, I'll allow for that possibility.

But my sense in talking to people is not that they think that the Dodgers unique among big league organizations are like posing some sort of risk to their guys. In part because it doesn't seem like they are like relentlessly training for velocity, which is, I think, still thought to be and we know is like not the only way, but one of the ways that you can hurt yourself, right? I think that there are a lot of factors that go into that kind of thing. If you're in a position where your agent is directing you to a team, it suggests to me that you're either a free agent, in which case you're signing a contract that gets you paid, or you're a free agent, you know, maybe minor league or a guy who just got released, and maybe on balance, the opportunity to get better if in fact you perceive the team as regularly improving guys is just worth it to you. So Craig's a smart guy. I don't mean to knock Craig or anything, but I just, I wonder if that analysis is perhaps a little pre mature. Cause I don't think they have

the same reputation for it's not that they don't go through guys. They obviously do, but I don't think that it's perceived as churn in the same way that it is with say, you know, some of the raised teams of previous years. Now, maybe that's unfair. Maybe they should be associated with churn in the same way. But I think that I would perceive it as sort of overstating the case a bit because I think as we have discussed before, that a lot of why, not the only reason why, and I'm sure that they want to examine

their processes to figure out like, is there a problem here? But like, my sense is that a big part of why the injury rates are what they are for the Dodgers is that they draft guys who have gotten hurt in the past, sometimes guys coming off of TJ, or they trade for guys who have a history of injury, and then those guys get hurt again. So it's like, is that a Dodgers problem, or is that a, you know, the fallibility of the human elbow and shoulder issue?

Right. Like, and again, I don't wanna... I don't know, I feel like I end up defending the Dodgers a lot. I'm not trying to do anything, you know? I don't know, I feel like I end up defending the Dodgers a lot. I'm not trying to do anything, you know? And maybe they, maybe, maybe I'm being blinded by the money piece of it. Because I think that part of why people bristle, part of why people bristle at the anonymous reliever churn model is that it is often an approach that is adopted by teams that don't run significant payrolls. And so there is like a callousness that you can attribute to the strategy, right?

Where it's like, it is carnage. There's human, you know, you're just like mowing through guys and you're not paying them and they're in on league minimum deals. And yeah, but like a lot of the guys who have gone down for the Dodgers, like, I don't know, I think Blake Snell is doing okay. Right. Like the Dodgers make Blake Snell a rich guy. Yeah. He's already a rich guy, but they made him like a generationally wealthy guy. Right. So a lot of the guys who are down, they, they paid a pretty penny for, and they have more pennies than everyone else because no one's going to have penny for, and they have more pennies than everyone else,

because no one's gonna have pennies soon, but they have a lot of money. But yes, they need those guys. Right, no one's having pennies soon. Yeah, they really want those guys to be healthy. It's not as if they're like, ah, next man up, no big deal. They actually are depending on those pitchers.

And so it reads, part of it is that the organizational posture toward this approach, I think is appreciably different than, you know, let's see what we can do with these sort of bottom of the 40 man guys. Can we teach them a new pitch, train them for velocity, adjust their arm, whatever, like and, you know, they come in and hopefully they're good, but sometimes they get hurt. And if they do, well, we'll just go get another bottom of the 40-man guy and see what we can make of him.

And I think that that maybe overstates the case in terms of the callousness too. But I do think that that's part of why it rankles because it's like, no, these are people and they're trying to have pro careers. And you, you know, especially if it's a guy who's still under team control, it's a year out of your, you know, a season out of your team's life. But like it might end up affecting his earnings trajectory for the rest of his career, right? Depending on when he gets hurt in his team control year. So I think that that's part of why the Dodger stuff always just not always, but often reads differently to me because it's like, this isn't one, this isn't a situation they want the guys who they are depending on have gotten hurt. big guaranteed contracts and it, you know, it does alter kind of the way you engage with the risk that they're incurring. And that's the other thing, like maybe, maybe what they're trying to get their

guys to do is inherently riskier. But if you're Blake Snell, and the Dodgers come to you and they say, we're going to alter you in this way. And I don't think that Blake's now is all that different now than he was before he signed, but like, we're going to alter you in this way. And that comes with some amount of risk that you're going to blow out. But also, we're going to make it worth your while because you're going to sign a deal that is worth $182 million with deferrals and all of that, but we're going to make you a very rich man. Then he gets to do a calculus on that and say, that's worth risking for me. I don't know how I want to interact with that because I don't want to give them too much credit and I don't want to let it go. But also, I don't know, like I'm sure Blake Snell is disappointed because he wants he's a competitor. He wants to pitch. He wants to win a World Series like he went to LA for a reason.

Part of how they sell these guys is like you get to come in and be part of this organization and we're going for a ring every year. And how do you know? Well, part of it is we gave you Blake Snell, who Meg hates watching to pitch, $182 million with the rolls. So we mean it and guys buy into that and it's real. And I'm sure that Snell wants to be out there and he can't be. And that's, I'm sure frustrating to him. And it's frustrating to Dodgers fans because Ben Kasparis has thrown like the third most innings on your team and has one start or something Like it's like yeah, Craig is losing his mind every single day on on blue sky because of how Craig losing his mind about the Dodgers. Yeah, I know I was like, oh gosh, I should check in on him because he's normally so even keeled We love you, Craig. What would happen to Craig if he watched or rooted for literally any other team? Would

it just be the end of him? Or would he roll with the punches more than he does because the Dodgers, any failing is magnified? I don't know. We're having a little bit of fun at Craig's expense here, but I will say the following, which is that Craig is often correct in his diagnosis of what is wrong. They should maybe start lowage Ben, not Low Leverage Ben anymore. I hope Low Leverage Ben never hears that I called him that. I didn't mean it as an insult.

Yeah, maybe they should give all their pitchers eye exams. Couldn't hurt. By the way, speaking of nicknames for things involving NL West pitchers on injury-plagued teams, I have enjoyed, we talked about that historic, terrible start that Brandon Fott had the other day that the Diamondbacks had as a whole. We talked on our Patreon pod because you were at that game watching as the Nationals scored 10 runs in the first inning. Yeah. I enjoy that people have labeled his outing a yes hitter, the opposite of a no hitter.

It's like. Oh no. Yeah, it's a yes hitter. I find that so mean. I find it hilarious and also mean. It's not untrue. Yeah, it's a, I don't know exactly what the definition of a yes hitter is, but if anything was this,

it would be this. Maybe it's a start where you don't get an out. Yeah, he left, he exited without having gotten out. Yeah. Now, he didn't allow a hit to every hitter he faced, but he either hit or allowed a hit. Yes. In every. So maybe that's that's the platonic ideal of a yes hitter,

because he faced eight batters. Six of them got hits and two of them got hit. Yeah. So that's a yes hitter. Either he was hitting them or allowing hits. And people likened it to Carlos Rodan's disaster start a couple of years ago. Maybe that's a yes hitter because he didn't get an out either. He also, I think, faced eight guys.

And in his case, now he walked a couple. Yeah. So, cause you can get a no hitter and still walk guys, right? And so maybe you can get a yes hitter and also walk guys. It's just, I think that fits. That fits. Okay. So Radon, he also allowed six hits and then he, he walked a couple guys and then he was

done. So a yes hitter. Yeah. That's, I love it. Yeah. That's all you do is hit people or allow hits. This happens very rarely. So I don't know how often we'll have an opportunity to play this term. But I'm tickled by, by yes hitter. I think, I think that it's fine. It doesn't, I will say, I think that like the concept is spot on. It isn't a fun thing to say.

Yes, hitter. Because it, what is it? I know what it means, but like it doesn't like a no hitter. You immediately know what that means. Right. You didn't, you know, hit them. There were no hits. No hitter.

Yes. Hitter is like, it sounds like you're saying yes chef. Like, yeah, like. Yeah. Yeah. But like Brandon standing up there being like, my mise en scene is a mess. But it's because every start is a yes hitter. Right. Unless it's a no hitter in the sense because you're allowing it every time. That's the default that, OK, yeah, you're going to allow a hit every time. And that's why we don't use that term.

But I I then enjoy that it's nothing but hits. That's why it works. But maybe, but maybe fought then doesn't qualify because I think that like no hitter is no hits breaking x tree x tree. That's what that means. You allowed no hits. And I think a yes hitter would maybe require you to exit having allowed only hits, right? That every guy hit. Maybe every guy has to hit for it to be a yes hitter. It needs to be diametrically opposed. The only guys who didn't get hits, he hit.

And I know, but it's not the same. I think it needs to be diametrically opposed to a no hitter, which is like every guy hits himself. Okay, not hits himself. Don't do that. But like, he needs to get a hit. He needs to have reached space via a hit for it to be a yes hitter. I think that's my edit for the room.

Yeah. Well, that's gonna be even rarer, but... Well, right, but then it's... But then, that's good. That even rarer, but... Well, great, but then it's... But then, that's good. That's good that it's rare. First of all, for like, you know, the mental well-being of pitchers everywhere, because if it were happening often, we'd be like, oh boy, something's out of whack. But also because, you know, we...

Be'mon, we... Remember that year where there were all those no-hitters? There were so many no-hitters,ters and people were like this isn't special anymore You said that you know, you were like, I don't know about these no hitters I don't know hitter in progress and the the push notifications Yeah, we're like out on it and and some of your frustration was that many of the no hitters that year were combined no hitters, which you were just thoroughly unimpressed with as a rule. You're like out on the no hitter, the combined no hitter rather.

But all of that to say, I think that a yes hitter, every guy has to hit. And I know I'm not trying to take anything away from CJ Abrams, you know, getting hit by a pitch. Again, twice in the getting hit by a pitch. Again, twice in the inning this happened to him. Different pitchers, because by the time he came back around they were like, enough, Brandon, we cannot with you anymore. The record for most batters faced in a start where every batter got a hit is seven, done twice in the 70s by Bill Bonham and Mike Lacasse.

We can dial down the definition. That is a fair enough objection or edit. That's what you do. It's got to be the opposite. It's got to be the exact opposite. I think, I think. We are one step closer to the challenge system. Rob Manfred, he spoke and he said some stuff. One of the things he said was acknowledging Donald Trump's influence on Pete Rose's reinstatement,

to no one's surprise, but also to no one's surprise, he said that he will be suggesting that MLB implement the challenge system next year. So that's the timeline that MLB wants. He is going to be, now it sounds like he doesn't want to just ram this through, that he wants everyone to be on board with this. And he said, my single biggest concern is working through the process and deploying it in a way that's acceptable to the players.

There's always gonna be things around the edges that we need to work through and whatever. And I want them to feel like we respected the committee process and that there was a full airing of concerns about the system and an attempt to address those concerns before we go forward. So that makes it sound as if it's possible that it might not actually get implemented next season, even though MLB does have the power to do that and impose it unilaterally.

They had their CBA with the umpires. The umpires said, okay. And in the CBA with the players, they actually have the ability to just implement things after 45 days. They have to notify the players, but after 45 days, they can just unilaterally implement things. And certainly giving them this warning here. Maybe he's saying, okay, if they need tweaks or something, let's talk about it beforehand, because they

have the majority on this committee. It's what six owners and like a few players and an empire. Put Taylor Wolves on the committee and that'll be fine. Yeah, well, maybe so. Maybe he'll be happy. And maybe players as a whole will be happy. I don't know, because generally the players object to everything that MLB proposes when it comes to rules changes. In this case, I don't know. I think there would be a sizable contingent of players who would be in favor of it, in some fashion at least, and some players might have notes on the way that it's implemented. And as we've seen, there were some players who were upset about the,

the buffer in the strike zone grading for umpires being tweaked slightly this season. And there was a dispute about whether players were sufficiently informed about this, et cetera. So you change anything having to do with the strike zone and players could be pissed about that potentially. But in this case, he's issuing warning. They've tested it in the minors. They've tested it in spring training, the AFL, et cetera. So he's now saying next season and we'll see if there's significant pushback because yeah, I don't know that he wants to just do it over the objections of players if they do have strenuous objections, but maybe they won't. And maybe MLB feels like, well, we'll win the war of public opinion on this one regardless.

I think that when you're talking about a change as fundamental as this, like there is value in it being something that everyone has bought into rather than league imposed. And, you know, I suppose you could say that about the pitch clock too. And eventually he was just like, hey, we're doing the pitch clock.

But I think that there's value in all of the stakeholders having said, yeah, this is the best way to achieve all of our goals. And you know, I don't think we really have to wonder or worry about the umpires doing it because the umpires were like, yeah, do the full robo zone, like whatever you want, or at least some their Union dead. But I think that having everyone buy in is useful here. And I think they'll be able to get it to a spot where that is what happens.

Like people seem to have generally liked the challenge system and not just Taylor walls, you know? I think that it proved to be useful. So, yeah. Yeah. And I guess players feedback has been incorporated all along as the system has been tested and tweaked at various levels and adjusted based on the reviews that the league has gotten. So what we are testing now or what will be implemented is kind of the result of a lot of collaboration, hopefully, at least. So, yeah, it's coming.

Though the comments on the athletic story that I saw about this news, some of the ones at the top were kind of what I was forecasting, which were, you know, once this is implemented, then people will be like, well, why stop there? Why do this half measure? We've talked about that ad nauseum, so we don't have to cover it in depth again now,

but just that idea of slippery slope that, you know, once this is out of the bottle, if this is successful, as I think it probably will be, then people may at some point push to let's just have the computer call all the pitches. Why have this half measure? Even if it's not a half measure, even if we might look at it as a feature, not a bug. And no, this is actually optimal. This is superior in some ways. Just not sure that people will be persuaded

of that longterm, but we'll see. It's coming one way or another. So we wanted to end by meeting a couple major leaguers. And I will just say one quick thing before we get to that. I read a story, which is in a way about a major leaguer meeting another major leaguer who happened to be his dad, which he did not know. This is a story, a good story by Bob Nightingale,

credit where credit's due. And it's about former major leaguer, Eric Anthony, who he had nine years in the big leagues, so late eighties to late nineties, and you know, not a spectacular career, but he was around, he played for several teams, mostly for the Astros, and he did not know who his biological father was.

His mother just, you know, she was kind of vague about who it was and never told him and wanted to keep that secret for some reason. But he took a genetic test several years ago, DNA test, and then the cat got out of the bag as so often happens with family secrets and these tests. And so he connected with some relatives, and one thing led to another, and he learned that his dad was Dodger's legend, Willie Davis. Wow. Yeah.

And his mother was still alive at that time, and he took these findings to her, and she confirmed it. And evidently, she wasn't thrilled that he had found out about this at all, or this way at least, but eventually they got past that and it was fine. And it's actually kind of a heartwarming story because this seems to have led to some nice things. Now, Willie Davis has died, sadly, and so he couldn't, you know, meet his dad with this knowledge. Although he then realized that he probably did meet him when he was a little kid, not knowing the relationship. But, yeah, evidently his mother kept this quiet, well, for a few reasons. One, Willie Davis was married at that point, and so this was an affair.

And also, she didn't want anything from him and just like didn't want for her sake or his sake for this to become some kind of public story or anything. And so just kept it quiet. And now that he has learned about this, it's nice. Like he's connected with Willie Davis's family, his family now and Willie Davis's brother likes the fact that there's now this little piece of his brother who's gone, who's kind

of come into his life. It seems to be something that everyone is pretty pleased about, and he's made these nice connections. That's great. And it's meaningful to Eric Anthony that he has learned that his dad was Willie Davis and everything. But I thought this was interesting because we talk about the nature nurture argument when it comes to like baseball bloodlines and athletes and everything. We were talking about that with with eyesight just a little while ago.

You know, sometimes you're you're born with not the best and sometimes it degrades as you go on. Well, we've talked about this with major leaguers, sons of major leaguers becoming major leaguers themselves. Yeah. And it certainly seems as if, you know, way out of whack with the general population that you're much more likely to become a big leaguer

if your dad was a big leaguer. And we've talked about the reasons for that and how much of it is nature and how much of it is nurture How much of it is that you've got the genes and how much of it is that you were kind of? Coached by your dad in a lot of cases or you were brought up You know Maybe you you had money because your dad was a big leaguer and you had coaching Whether from your dad or just the best coaches money could buy or maybe you're around the clubhouse and you're right

You know steeped in the game from birth, et cetera. So this is an interesting case. Maybe it's a point in favor of nature because Eric Anthony did not know who his dad was and they didn't have a relationship and he had no idea that his dad was a big leaguer. And yet he became a big leaguer himself. Not quite as accomplished a big leaguer as his dad.

But nonetheless, I guess this is, you know, when you're trying to decide nature or nurture, here's a case in favor of nature because there was no connection here other than the genetic one that helped, evidently, in Anthony's case. Well, that's a nice thing. I'm glad glad that it was a I guess it probably wouldn't have Been a story that got reported if the opposite had been true Yeah, maybe but I'm glad that it was a you know that it's resulted in a coming together. That seems like it's to everyone's Liking because you know, you can imagine a family situation like that having Liking. Because, you know, you can imagine a family situation like that, having complication

for people. But that's nice. That's nice that he got to learn that. It is. Yeah. And his, his newly discovered family wasn't that impressed by having a big leaguer in the family. Sure. Yeah. Oh, you're the second best big leaguer in our family. Yeah. Usually, you know, most, most families probably you discover that Eric Anthony is related to you. It's like, and... Usually, you know, most families probably you discover that Eric Anthony is related to you. It's like, ooh, tell us your baseball stories. Sure, yeah. We're used to it.

That's fun. Yeah, but it does sound, and he's learned a lot about his dad, and he's connected with former teammates of his dad to learn more about him. And he was actually managed at one point in his career by Bill Russell, who played with Davis and didn't know the connection, obviously. So he's done this sleuthing to learn more about his dad. And this appears to be pretty meaningful to him as he is acclimating to this new knowledge.

But one thing that I thought was kind of interesting, he thinks about what it would have been like if he had known sooner and he had been able to talk to Willie Davis about it, or if his dad had been present in his life in some way. And I wonder if he had had the nurture as well as the nature, whether that would have changed anything in his career, just talking about this debate.

So evidently this sort of solved a mystery for him. It says, everyone always wanted to know where he got his athleticism. Why did he gravitate toward baseball and not another sport? Why did everything seem so natural to him as a left-handed hitter? So he didn't know that he had a baseball player in the family. I don't know whether he was pushed toward baseball

because of this connection, I guess not, but just that maybe he had some biological advantage there when it came to coming from a pro athlete. But also he then says, I often think about that, having my father in my life, this guy was a major league legend, no way around it. To have a conversation with him, asking him certain questions,

to have that knowledge and experience, I'm sure it would have improved my career. So he's kind of contemplating that nature question too. Like, okay, he had the raw materials maybe from his dad, but if he had had his dad's guidance as well, if he had been around baseball, who knows how that could have affected his development. So he's kind of sort of tacitly acknowledging there

that he thinks that it could have been an even greater advantage to have his dad in his life from a baseball perspective. And so I guess he is sort of saying what people usually say about nature and nurture. Usually it's not or it's and, it's nature and nurture. And so, yeah, maybe he had some natural athleticism

and that was enough to at least give him a good start to be a big leaguer potentially. But if he had had the tutelage and been around the game, then maybe you're talking about Eric Anthony, the way that you talk about Willie Davis from a baseball standpoint, who knows or not. There have also been a lot of sons of big leaguers who knew that their dads were big leaguers and weren't as good as their dads. Yeah. But yeah, interesting to contemplate. Yeah, it's funny because it's like, you know, on the one hand, I'm always sort of, I'm not

not interested in the question, but I tend to be a little less interested than, than folks might expect just for precisely the reason you identified, which is the answer is always clearly both. Like it's a yes, like, which is it? Yeah, it's both. But this, if he had been able to have a relationship with his dad, you would expect that that is such a significant change to his trajectory as just a person. And I don't mean to suggest that like his life is bad for not, you know, like his life is his life. It's probably as good things and bad things. But it seems like it would almost have to have had some effect on his career, just because it would have such a profound change, impact on your life generally to have had a relationship like that. So interesting. I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to meet him while or at least like meet him with that context. You know, you can imagine that being a thing you have regret over. Yeah. Then again, you never know there are kids who rebel and revolt against their parents.

Maybe he would have become a surgeon. You know, it's like, baseball, baseball, baseball, everything's about baseball. I don't want to play baseball. I don't want to follow in my father's footsteps here. Why can't I just go study quasars? Yeah, you know, who knows? It's always funny to contemplate because there are times where I'm like, I don't know, this is definitely the perspective of someone who is fortunate enough to largely really like her life. But I've had moments where I'm like, Oh, I wonder how my life would have been different if, you know, if I had just, you know, taken the scholarship to UW or if I had gone to Clara McKenna and gone to college in Southern California instead of going back East, or

if I had done this, that or the other thing, what if I had gone to Smith instead of Bryn Mawr? But I like my life. And so it's fun to think about, but also you have to imagine your life turns out, maybe not completely differently, but importantly differently. And there are people in it who you'd, you wouldn't know you miss them, right?

Maybe in a cosmic way you potentially could, but I don't know, I wouldn't wanna change it in a cosmic way, potentially could, but I don't know. I wouldn't want to change it. I like where I'm at. So yeah, change anything significant sliding doors, butterfly effect, and suddenly effectively, wild listeners do not get to hear Meg Rowley anymore. I guess they're happy with your choices. Well, you just referenced quasars calling back to our meeting Alan Rodin of the Blue Jays, astrophysics scholar, and we've got two new major leaguers to meet today, both

of whom who were suggested by listeners and Patreon supporters. I think maybe multiple people may have suggested your guy, but definitely including Patreon supporter Daniel in Las Vegas, always accepting nominations here because there are a lot of major leaguers. There are a lot of new ones every year and some of them are less known than others and we tend to gravitate towards the lesser known ones. There have been 123 newly minted major leaguers so far this season. So who's your guy? My guy is Nick Enright.

And I, I messaged you earlier today as I was pulling my notes together that I feel bad that Nick Enright was like only an honorable mention on our Cleveland list, which, you know, is often the way of these things, right? We don't, we don't highlight. My guy wasn't even mentioned, not even honorably, not even, not dishonorably either, just not mentioned at all. So yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, but I say that mostly because Nick Enright had like a really inspiring story and has a really inspiring story. And I imagine that's part of why he's generated some interest. So let's meet Nick Enright, who's a right-handed pitcher with the Cleveland Guardians, and he made his big league debut on May 25th of this year. Enright went to high school in Richmond, Virginia, and was originally drafted in the 19th round by the Mets, but opted not to sign. He instead went to Virginia Tech. He was drafted out of Tech by the Guardians in the 20th round in 2019 and was chugging along through the majors.

He posted a 288 ERA and a 289 FIP with a almost 34% strikeout rate in 2022, which was the last year he was a ranked prospect for us at Van Graaffs. He checked in that year on the Guardians list as a 35 future value prospect and here's Eric's report. Another late round pick from 2019, whose sneaky fastball has helped him reach the upper levels very quickly. Enright had the third highest swinging strike rate among full season pitchers in this org last year behind only Daniel Espinosa and Cody Morris. His fastball only sat about 90 miles per hour but it has plus plus carry and pairs well with his lovely 12 to 6 curveball. At this velocity, he projects as an up-down reliever. That offseason, so December of 2022, Enright was selected by the Marlins

in the Rule 5 draft and appeared to be on the verge of making the majors, as Rule 5 drafts sometimes do. The Marlins bullpen the prior season had a 4-15 ERA and a 405p, so that suggested that they could use some relief help. But that winter, things took a pretty terrible turn for Enright. On December 17th, he woke up and there was something the size and shape of a boiled egg protruding from his neck, at which point he asked, and this is a funny sentence, and we are allowed to laugh at it because Nick Enright is doing well. So you're allowed to find this funny.

But he, again, a boiled egg, and he apparently asked Aaron, his then girlfriend, now wife, does this look swollen to you? And I just, man, man, you guys are great. And, and he thought, you know, that maybe he was like having an allergic reaction to something or maybe had tweaked something when throwing a bullpen. And so they tried a heating pad and like Tylenol to reduce inflammation and eventually went to urgent care and then the ER. And again, like he felt fine other than this thing protruding from his neck. He was not like he had had a good bullpen the day before. There are multiple reports of him having like deadlifted like 400 pounds.

So like he is presenting as a healthy young man, right, pro athlete, but was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma as a result of this. Specifically, and I don't know if I'm going to say all of these words correctly, stage two nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma. And this is, again, a young guy, pro athlete, like has a girlfriend, feels like he's on the cusp of the majors. And he has talked to people about how disorienting things were in the, you know, weeks after his diagnosis. He wasn't sure if he would ever play again, if he would need to do chemotherapy. He said, he told

the athletics, Zach Maisel, those were some scary days and scary thoughts. And then in January of 2023, he was connected with Carlos Carrasco through a Marlins trainer who had connections with the Mets. This is when Carrasco was on the Mets. And as everyone knows, Carrasco has had leukemia. He had to take a leave of absence from baseball, but apparently talked with Enright and talked about how the routine of baseball was very comforting, even though he wasn't able to train during his treatment. Like he was trying to stay in a rhythm and stay around the team. And he told Enright, I might have cancer, but cancer doesn't have me.

And that was like a very motivational thing for Enright. He said, he told Zach, so this is from Zach's piece, hearing that rattled Enright from his stupor, it's like a tree that's been in the desert, Enright says, and all of a sudden a bunch of water gets dumped onto it. I felt so much stronger, everything all seeping in. And so he began treatment for his lymphoma, fitting it around the baseball calendar because he was still trying to throw and train because remember remember he'd been taken in the rule five draft. So he he is operating as if he has a he has a big league roster spot that he is going to be able to earn in spring. This is also from Zach's piece. He would rise at 6am,

commute two and a half hours to the University of Virginia Cancer Center, slump in a waiting room chair, donate a vial of blood, which almost always caused him to faint, and then endure three and a half hour immunotherapy session. The first couple rounds left him covered in hives, so doctors attached ice pouches to his arms. By sunset, Enright was a zombie. Each treatment began with a cocktail of Benadryl and Tylenol. Then, doctors added in a steroid that made him nauseous and spread a tingling sensation throughout his body." And this is this is from another piece from Zach in the athletic. I remember looking over to my mom and dad at the time

and right says like, wait, am I allowed this would be the worst way to ever fail a drug test. But the steroids did not violate MLBs policies. There were no banned substances in his treatment. But while the steroid didn't help him throw harder, the entire process left him feeling weak and like vacillating between feeling incredibly tired and then treatment, but while the steroid didn't help him throw harder, the entire process left him feeling weak and vacillating between feeling incredibly tired and then not able to sleep because the steroids were keeping him up. He's going through all of these rounds. He had to take months off between rounds of treatment because it would leave him just

completely depleted. You might think, why not step away to do this? And he, you know, said that, like, if he had been a top prospect or a first round pick and he had had a signing bonus to fall back on, like, maybe he would have done that. But he's, like, literally on the verge of the majors. And he's trying so hard. And, you know, it sounds like the Marlins were supportive, like Kimmings said at the time, that they were just concerned about him as a person. But they did reach a point in the calendar where they either had to put him on the big league roster or return him to the Guardian. So they ended up sending him

back to Cleveland. This was in 2023. He pitched in the back half of that season, but it didn't go well, as you might imagine. And then, you know, he comes into spring training in 2024 and felt like he was moving in a positive direction. He got a very good checkup. They actually were able to delay a round of his immunotherapy as a result of that. But then his shoulder started barking and he missed four months with a shoulder impingement and then was like trying to rehab in Arizona. And you know, I don't know if this guy is going to end up having a long big league career. He was a not super notable prospect for a reason, but talk about having tremendous perspective on life.

He was in Arizona on the Guardians complex trying to rehab and he's throwing when it's 115 degrees and I can testify it was really freaking hot that summer. He was just like, I take that any day of the week because he wasn't in the hospital getting immunotherapy. And so he pitches the rest of that year at Columbus after he gets back from the impingement. And then he goes through a round of treatment. He and his wife go on their honeymoon finally down in the Caribbean and they were on their honeymoon when he found out that he was being added to the 40-man roster for Cleveland.

So not exposed to the Rule 5, clearly had done enough to say, this is a guy we got to keep and then has had a two-flat ERA and a 435-fitbit AAA this year. And again, he came up, he made his debut on the 25th in Detroit. Funnily enough, it was strikeout cancer weekend when he made his debut and he entered in the seventh inning of that game and they played God Bless America before he came in. And he said after the game, those 35 to 40 seconds gave me time to reflect on my entire journey to get there. And then I was able to just think about all the obstacles that my family and I have been able to overcome these last couple of years.

He pitched well. The team lost, but he threw two innings. He struck out three, including Riley Green for his first big league out. He didn't walk anyone. He didn't allow any runs. He said after the game, I've always felt like I'm good enough, but it seems like the opportunity has eluded me for the last handful of years. To be here, to be on that field, and feel like I belong was a really good feeling.

Once it ended, it was like, now it's just the same 60 feet, 6 inches it's always been. It was incredible. That was everything I wanted it to be. And his next set out didn't go quite as well. He allowed three runs to the Dodgers. It was the ninth inning. He walked with Hauney. Betts singled. And then Max Muncie. Should use the secret sauce. Homerd. And it tied the game, but the Guardians rallied to walk it off. So suck it Dodgers. And he was optioned after that, but then quickly recalled and didn't allow any runs in his

next outing against the Angels. And that's Nick Enright, who I hope has a long big league career and an even longer healthier life. Hear hear. All right. Well, my guy did not go through that kind of adversity to get to the majors, but he definitely took an unusual path. And he was also suggested by a listener and Patreon supporter, Preston Salisbury, who wrote in to say, I doubt there's enough info on him for a meet a major leaguer. Oh, I take that as a challenge. He's still just a phantom major leaguer, but the Diamondbacks called up Christian Montes de Oca last week. Why is this notable? He's an international signee who signed at 22. I have no idea what the oldest is for someone to sign who hasn't played in pro leagues in Mexico or Cuba or Asia, but that's got be close to it. Getting to your 20s unsigned pretty much has to be the international equivalent of Jim Morris,

who was the subject of the rookie. So yes, that intrigued me when I saw, I wonder why he was so old when he was signed. And I don't have all the answers, but I did learn a lot of things while I was trying to research this. So Christian Montes de Oca, he is still a Phantom Major Leaguer, unfortunately. He has not made his Major League debut.

He's just been called up? He was called up, and then he was optioned after almost a week. So, he was up in the big leagues with the Diamondbacks, I think when Eduardo Rodriguez went on the IL. They called up Montes de Oca, and he just never got into a game. And then they sent him back down to AAA. So I forget whether we have a policy on Phantom Major Leaguers in Meta Major Liger,

but I think perhaps we have in the past, or at least we have jumped the gun and introduced someone before he made his debut. I think they should be recognized. Yeah, I think they should not be phantoms. They were there. They were on a roster, an inactive roster, and hopefully he will get a chance at some point. But he was doing quite well in AAA when he was called up, as you might expect. I think at that time he had a 2.37 ERA through May 14th at AAA in 19 innings and So I don't know exactly why he didn't get into a game

But I think he did subsequently have a couple bad outings and that has tanked his ERA a little bit For the Reno Aces, but I hope that he gets another chance because it is an unlikely path To have been signed that late and to have made the majors mostly technically. He was born on August 30th, 1999 and then he was signed on December 14th, 2021 by the Diamondbacks and he did work his way up pretty quickly. So I've learned a little bit about Christian Montes de Oca. First of all, no relation to Bryce Montes de Oca, who was in the big leagues with the Mets briefly

a few years ago. Christian Montes de Oca, who is 6'4", 230, right-handed reliever, nicknamed El Oso, the Bear. He was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Bryce Montes de Oca was born in Lawrence, Kansas of Bill James fame. He is of Cuban descent. Montes de Oca basically means mountains of goose.

Mountains of goose? Goose, Oca is goose and Montes is mountain. So it's not dick mountain. It's goose mountain. And I tried to look up like, you know, Wikipedia says Spanish for mounts of goose or hills of goose may refer to foothills of the golden goose.

I'm not sure exactly what the origin is, but there are a few places in the world, the Spanish speaking world that are called Montes de Oca. And actually, if you go to the Wikipedia page for Montes de Oca. And actually if you go to the Wikipedia page for Montes de Oca, the surname, it does say Spanish surname, meaning mountains of goose. Notable. Mountains of goose. It's a very evocative image, just a mountain of geese.

Of goose. Yeah, it's like, I guess there are geese on the mountain. And so it's a mountain of goose. It's like mountains where guess there are geese on the mountain. And so it's a mountain of goose. It's like mountains where you would find geese, but I think of it as like a goose mountain, just so many geese that they have made a mountain. But it lists six notable people with the surname and three of them are baseball players.

So there's a great ratio. If you are a celebrity with the name Deoka, you're probably a baseball player, at least there's a 50-50 chance. So there's Bryce, there's Christian, and then there's Eliazer Montes De Oca, who is a Cuban player and an Olympic gold medalist. Anyway, that's the backstory on the surname,

the backstory on him. So here's an interesting thing. I met a non-major leaguer as I was researching Christian Montes de Oca because I wondered when exactly did that international signing period start? Oh. We're used to, you know,

you can sign international players at 16. And I knew that that had been the case for a long time, but I didn't know exactly how long or when that started. I thought it was maybe in the eighties at some point. And it was kind of convention even before that. I found as I was looking through old newspaper clippings, I found this article from March of 1972 headline, you can't hide baseball stars anymore,

recruiting in Latin America tougher. And it says, Howie Hawk, who helped build the Pittsburgh Pirates with his thorough scouting in Latin America says, times are changing. It's getting tougher and tougher to sneak an unknown prospect out of the once untapped, but talent rich Caribbean area.

Hawk says, down there now, you've got to get the boys when they're 16 years old if you can, he said, because if you wait till he's good enough, someone else will get him ahead of you and that's it. But that wasn't yet a rule that it was 16 or that you couldn't sign someone before 16. And I actually, I asked around knowledgeable prospect people,

hey, when did this rule start? And the first few I asked did not know. And then Ben Badler of Baseball America pointed me in the right direction. He thought it was after the Blue Jays signed Jimmy Kelly when he was 13. That is, yeah, J-I-M-Y Kelly, I assume, Jimmy. Could be he-me, Jimmy Kelly, I assume.

But I don't know why I didn't know this story. And it seems like other prospect people didn't know this story, but I've since familiarized myself with the saga of Jimmy Kelly, who was signed by the Blue Jays at 13 years old. And that led directly to this rule. He was 13 years and 217 days old.

And the way that it happened was he had a brother, it was early 1984, he had an older brother, Julio, who was 15 and was trying out in front of Blue J's scout, Epi Guerrero at the Blue J's Dominican Academy. But the scout had heard that the younger brother, Jimmy was a star shortstop. And so he said, hey, why don't you take some ground balls? And then he looked great.

And then he had him take some swings and he looked great. And they signed the younger brother who was 13 years old. February 15th, 1984, he agreed to a contract that included a $5,000 signing bonus and became the youngest player to ever sign with a major league franchise. And it wasn't illegal, like it wasn't against the rules down there at the time or MLB's rules or anything, but they did hide him for a little while because they knew that other

teams would object to this. And the milb.com story about this from 2018 says, when Kelly's signing became public knowledge, teams questioned the optics of what amounted to a child being scouted and signed to a professional contract just months after becoming a teenager. Other MLB organizations lobbied for new rules to effectively govern and put a floor on the age international prospects would be allowed to sign.

Within 10 months months MLB mandated that international amateur free agents be at least 17 years old by the end of their first professional season. So- And then there was never a problem again. Yeah, that solved it all. But we did a whole podcast episode once

where we talked about rules that were prompted by a specific person or player in baseball. We could have included this, the Gene Kelly rule. That's why it's age 16 and has been that way now for the past 40 years or so. But the thing is that he was already signed and his contract wasn't voided or anything. So he played. If you look at his baseball reference page, it's wild. It had 1985, age 14 season. He played for the rookie level Gulf Coast League affiliate of the Blue Jays, 48 games.

He had a 565 OPS. He slugged 221. Throughout his career, he played six years in the minors, all for the Blue Jays, except the last one he was with the Mets. And consistently, he was, at all for the Bouges except the last one he was with the Mets. And consistently, he was at least for the first four years, five or six years younger than the league average at his level. I mean, this is more than like World War II guys coming up when everyone was in the service

and 16 year olds were in the big leagues. This is a 14 year old in the minor leagues and he made it as high as double A and you know never really hit well but I mean not unexpected given the age gap here and there are some good stories. There's a 2012 Sports Illustrated story, this 2018 story when they actually had him back to Dunedin to throw out a first pitch. And he was talking about, it was hard for him, obviously. I mean, we hear so much. He followed the trajectory of the player in Sugar, the excellent baseball movie, where he washed out eventually and then he went to Washington Heights,

he went to New York and just found odd jobs and made it work one way or another. But we know, we hear so much about the adjustment that international players have to make, especially these, you know, teenagers from Latin America who come to the States and they're in some small town and they don't speak the language yet. And, you know, they're having to adjust to all sorts of things. So all the sorts of things that you have to adjust to as a 16 year old or an 18 year old or however old they are when they come stateside. Yeah.

And on top of that, they're trying to be professional baseball players and they're away from their families. And you know, I mean, it's, it's really hard and teams have gotten better about providing a support system for those players in the years since Jimmy Kelly was here. But back then there really wasn't much. And so it was hard for him. He was racking up like $1,200 long distance phone calls because he was homesick. He missed his mom. You know, he's 14 years old. And so some players and team personnel, you know, kind of watched out for him and took

him under their wing a little bit. But they talked to some former teammates of his and they're like, yeah, we knew he was young. He was kind of immature. I guess they didn't even realize quite how young he was. Most of his teammates and some of them were like, oh, he was one of the guys. But I mean, barely. Wouldn't you want to know? Wouldn't you? You'd think. I mean, can you imagine?

Sorry, I don't want to interrupt your major leaguer made a major leaguer. Yeah. Um, you're here. Your mini episode of major leaguer folded in here, but like recursive inside the segments, the segments. Yeah. Can you imagine? So like, let's say that they had like told the clubhouse like, Hey, this kid

is, I mean, how old was he when he debuted? Did you say 14? Yeah. So they're like, Hey, this kid is, I mean, how old was he when he debuted? Did you say 14? So they're like, hey, this kid is 14. So like, you know, don't offer him booze or dip or, you know, curse around him. I don't know. Like, would it be weird? And then you're a player in that clubhouse and you hear the story and you go home to your significant other and you say, hey, honey, you're never going to believe this.

One of my teammates is 14. Can you imagine if you, what I'm like, I would be like, do we need to like knit him a sweater? Or like, can I get lunch? Like, you know what I mean? Like you would. Right, now a lot of the players he's playing with, maybe they're 17 or 18 or something.

It's not as if they're, you know, fully grown, but there's a big difference between those years. My parents were like, sure, you can babysit the baby for four hours while we go to Ikea, nothing bad will happen. In hindsight, that was a lot. Yeah. Not unusual, but just big responsibility for a little kid.

Yeah, the downside of it, I guess, would be that maybe all the other players are kind of walking on eggshells around them, which would be that maybe all the other players are kind of walking on egg shells around them, which would be good maybe, but also bad for Clubhouse Unity. I don't know. Maybe you do want him just to be assimilated. Because that's the other thing when you have some child prodigy who's like getting their degree at 15 or whatever. It's hard. I mean, it's hard to socialize. You could be bullied. Maybe everything's competitive in the minor leagues. Maybe there's a target on your back.

It's like, oh, you're this hotshot kid. You think you're so great. You're 14, you're playing here. You're competing for a roster spot. So I could imagine him being bullied even more, maybe? Potentially, if you have the wrong group of guys around him. I don't know. Look, it's just, it's not a good situation

one way or another. And he doesn't seem to have hard feelings about it, but he does in one of these retrospectives, he's like looking back on it. Yeah, I wasn't ready for this. I was not emotionally mature enough for this. It was just, it was too much. And this still happens in some sports to some degree.

I mean, in soccer, you know, you have academies, you have kids getting signed and it's hard to do that. Right? And so we talk all the time now about how there's just an icky feeling to when you read about teams signing 16 year olds, knowing that they made commitments to sign those players when they were 14 or 15 or something, right?

And that's not great. But I guess the fact that that Jimmy Kelly or Jimmy here, like, I guess we have him to thank for the fact that it's not even worse than that. I mean, yeah, but a lot of those kids are, you know, you go to their Instagrams and you're like, kids wearing team gear. He's wearing team gear and on the complex and he's a year away from being signing eligible. You know, it's like, I know. Yeah. When does it start? And the SI story says his signing created uproar, opposing teams concerned about the prospects of child labor and worried they would soon be forced to scout nine-year-old Dominicans lobbied for new rules governing the signing of child labor and worried they would soon be forced to scout nine-year-old Dominicans lobbied for new rules governing the signing of international talent. So obviously he was not prepared for this.

How could he have been? And it sounds like it wasn't a traumatic experience or anything for him. And he still looks back fondly on being a baseball player and still loves the game and everything. So I guess it could have gone worse than it did. Sure. Man, yeah. And I guess they initially they had his, his dad was like had a locker next to him for a few months when he went to Dunedin.

He actually, he eventually got to big league spring training. He got that close. He never made the majors, but for the first few months there, they did have his dad with theirs with him. So I guess the teammates must've known there was something unusual about this situation. But that's not ideal either. It's like, my dad's is lockering next to me. That's making things weird. I mean, one way or another, the spotlight's going to be on you.

So yeah, it's tough. Anyway, that's the origin of why it is done the way it is done currently. And so I was wondering, yes, how unusual is it for Montes de Oca to be signed at that age and at least get to a big league active roster. So got some help. This was sort of a combined meet a major league or stat blast, I guess, And that I asked Kenny Jaclyn of baseball reference to send me a list of the players who were oldest when they were signed, the international players

who were oldest at the time of signing in the B-Ref database. And the oldest ever, that would be Masumi Kuwata who played, he was signed when he was 38.262. Kenny gave it out to three decimal places here just for the ultra precision. But he was signed more than 38 years old in 2006, and then he made his Major League debut

when he was 39 for the Pirates. He pitched very briefly for them in 2007, 21 innings with a 9.43 ERA, but he's the oldest international player to sign and make the majors after that. It's the legend Daiseng Koo, who is best remembered for doubling off of Randy Johnson somehow and making Tim McCarver look silly for saying that it was a give up at that.

And then also coming around to score on a bunt from second with an amazing slide. Just a hero. John Boyce has done a video about that. Ku was 35 when he debuted. And then Alduke, Orlando Hernandez, he was 32. And then Uli Gurriel and then Kaz Sasaki, Jose Contreras, Orlando Oroho. Anyway, these are all players who were professional players in Japan, in Cuba, etc. before that. So that's a different situation. So I looked for the Latin American players, because even Mexico is different, because there was a whole arrangement between MLB and the

Mexican league for years. And then, you know, sometimes Puerto Rican players will be like grouped in the same place, though obviously Puerto Rico is part of this country and and is subject to the MLB draft and everything. So I separated that out and I just, I focused on Latin America only. And it looks to me like the oldest signing age for a Latin American player who made the majors is Gonzalo Marquez, who signed at 25.278. And he was from Venezuela, and he made his major league debut in 1972. So this is before the Jimmy Kelly rule,

but Gonzalo Marquez, he made the majors with the A's in 72, didn't have a long career, but that was a long time ago. If you look the number two name on the list, he would be the oldest signing since the Jimmy Kelly rule, and that's Roger Diago, who signed at 25.130. He was from Panama, and he made the majors in 2003 when he was 25. So he came up quickly. After Diago, there are just four more players who were older than Montes de Oca when they signed and made the majors.

Montes de Oca was 22.3. Above him, Hermon Gonzales, Leonel Campos, Francisco Santos, and Rufino Linares. Santos is the oldest from the Dominican. He was 23.082 when he signed in 1997. He was 29 when he made the majors in 2003. So that's it. If Montes de Oca does make his major league debut, he will be the seventh oldest player as far as I can determine to have signed out of Latin America, the Dominican, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, other semi recent

examples. Michael Martinez is actually next on the list. Famous or infamous for having made the last out of the 2016 World Series. He signed at 22.274, made the majors at 28 in 2011. Miguel Sanchez, who saw some time with the Brewers a few years ago, Denelson Lamet. And I'll put the list of players, both Latin American and all international

players online if anyone wants to peruse it. There isn't really like a great player on this list as far as I could tell. There are a few recognizable names, but it doesn't seem like there was some superstar who wasn't signed until he was 21 or older and then made the majors. And everyone felt silly about that. It seems like mostly pretty short careers, which I guess makes sense. I don't know exactly the origin story

of why Christian Montes de Oca was signed so late. I think some non-English speaking players still don't get equivalent coverage. I know that he has been covered a few times by the Arizona Diamondbacks Sports Illustrated site. And so I saw this headline from last month, Christian Montes de Oca opens up about Journey to the Big Leagues.

And I thought, ah, this'll be exactly what I need here, but it doesn't have that much detail. He talks about how he found out he was getting called up. The trainer said, hey, stop the running, the pitching coach is looking for you, so go look for the pitching coach. This is through an interpreter. At that point, I had a little bit of a chill,

a little bit of a feeling. So he had an inkling that he might be coming up, but he originally thought he would be reviewing a successful ball strike challenge from his last outing that they'd be going over that. But no, it was manager, Jeff Gardner of the Reno Aces informing him that he'd been promoted to the big leagues. He told me I had been a good teammate, been a professional

and heading to the big leagues. And then he informed his parents and his brother. And he does acknowledge that, yeah, he was signed late. He said in Latin America, signing at that age is a little bit more difficult, a little bit unheard of. Really, I think it's thanks to God to be able to give me the opportunity.

And I guess also the Diamondbacks and whoever scouted him. But I don't know if he was just like physically a late bloomer or what, or why he was passed over. It does seem like this is happening less lately that players are signed this late and are making the majors. I guess probably because the scouting, the talent evaluation has become more efficient, maybe, whether it's through Buscones or, you know, people on the island who are just doing a better job of identifying talent,

or maybe the teams are, I don't know. But yeah, it seems like it's becoming less common for this to happen, that you could just slip through the cracks for that long and actually have big league talent. And then rose pretty quickly, you know, lots of strikeouts and kind of tore through A-ball with like striking out more than half of the batters he faced and then quickly got a promotion and he's just been climbing the ladder each step of the way.

Now he's not a prospect prospect, I don't think. The Diamondbacks top 53 prospects list from December at FanCrafts did not include his name. So, you know, maybe he's the 54th best Diamondbacks prospect. I don't know. But yeah, he's not super highly touted. But when he was called up, Tori Lavello said, a kid that's come up through our academy, he's continued to persevere and grow and learn year by year by year. It's just a little deeper meaning for somebody who's climbed through the ranks and come from where he came from in our program down in the Dominican, put himself in a position with an aggressive fastball, some real good secondary stuff that's coming to earn this call up.

He was a non-rester invitee to big league spring training with the Diamondbacks and pitch pretty well and impress people. And so he was on the short list, but he's got like a fastball sinker slider, probably someone who'd be good against righties. He throws mid to high nineties. So the slider is probably his outpitch. So, you know, not major platoon splits and he's got sort of like a death ball kind of slider, I guess.

Oh my god, a death ball. Yeah. So that's the scouting report on him. Farm director Chris Slivka told Arizona Sports he is a power armed right-handed reliever who throws strikes, four seam sinker change up slider. He's always challenged hitters. He's really worked on his execution and command and has really taken steps forward this year. He's really matured as a pitcher with his preparation. Obviously the stuff has developed as well. He added a sinker during the fall league. His slider shape has improved, added a little more depth. He's come a long way in the last two years. So it's impressive that he was signed at all at that age, that he made it to the cusp of the majors,

that he was there at least. Good stuff, I guess. Good stuff. We'll see. I hope that he gets another chance to actually make his major league debut, but notable even to get to that point. Indeed, very notable. Goose!

I meant to say when we were talking about Willie Davis and Eric Anthony, Willie Davis, super underrated. Like he's a 60 war guy, he's a top 200 player by baseball reference career war. And I don't hear that much about Willie Davis. You don't feel like he's given his due. I think he's, yeah, I think he's underrated and not talked enough about. And I kind of think the same thing about a contemporary of his, Reggie Smith, who was maybe an even better player. And I don't know if it's just that it's kind of a generic name or what, but like, he was an incredible player, like a top 150 by baseball reference were all time, like 138 OPS plus for an outfielder who played for 17 years. And I feel like just most people, we don't talk enough about Reggie Smith. Neither of them got any support on the Hall of Fame ballot or actually Willie Davis. He didn't

even appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. He's the best player never to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot. There was like a log jam that year and some players became eligible and he just wasn't even on the ballot. A 60 war guy? You gotta be kidding me. My hypothesis is that they're overshadowed because they were contemporaries of a much more famous and even better Willie and Reggie. I think that's what it is that Willie Davis was a National League center fielder.

Like there was a better black center fielder in the National League at the same time. He was in the shadow of Willie Mays and then Reggie Smith. There was a better black American League outfielder at the same time, who was, you know, quite a well-known player. I think that Willie Davis and Reggie Smith suffer from having been contemporaries of Willie Mays and Reggie Jackson. That's my theory, because I don't know how else to explain the fact that... I, like, were they just too well-rounded? Were they not notable enough for any one thing? Were they just not the attention-seeking type?

I don't know. It's my overshadowed by a better player with the same name theory. Whether Reggie Smith needed a better nickname or something. I don't know what it was. But we should recognize Willie Davis, even if he's not secretly our dad's and also Reggie Smith who is still around

and should be celebrated while he is. I agree. Well, Pete Alonso three for four with a dinger after we recorded Effectively Wild reverse jinx in effect. That'll do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. We'll discuss the White Sox sale, future sale next time. For now, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively

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