Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2332: The Setup Man Cannot Hold

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Spencer Strider’s concerning performance, how he and Sandy Alcantara remind us that comebacks from elbow surgery aren’t automatic, and whether things are lookng up for the White Sox on and off the field. Then (32:23) they bring on top-tier Patreon supporter John Thomas to banter about his background […]

It's the Zombie Runner Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands, Effectively Wild! Joey Meneses! No! Walk off three run digger! Stop it! Walk off three run shot! Oh my god! Meg, he's the best player in baseball.

Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Railey, Fangraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm sitting in darkness because my overhead light went out shortly before we were starting to record. So I'm, my face is bathed in the glow of my laptop screen, but that's just about the only illumination in this room.

It's shrouded in shadow otherwise, which is ironic because on a recent Patreon bonus episode, we talked about how long light bulbs last these days and how rarely we have to replace them. That's the kind of bonus content you're missing out on if you're not subscribing to our Patreon. Just great light bulb banter. But I was betrayed by this bulb and so I'm in the dark.

But that's okay because we will shed some light on baseball in this episode. I tend to be in darkness anyway. Not figuratively, not emotionally, just, you know, inside. Yeah, blackout curtains. That's kind of the goal. Anyway, I am also concerned about the darkness that Spencer Strider has brought to his return. And to some extent, also Sandy Alcantara,

who we've talked about, but it has reinforced for me that getting your elbow reinforced, it is not a slam dunk deal. It is not that you are necessarily gonna come back at all, or that you're going to come back as an equally effective pitcher. And we know that intellectually, we know what the numbers say. And there are studies out there that say there's return to play rates, and then

there's return to play at previous level rates and, and they're pretty high and they've gotten higher over time. But I think there are some like 80%-ish, maybe in that range, which means that one out of five guys might not get back or might not be back in as good as they were before. And so you're playing pitcher roulette with these elbows, whether you have the full TJ or you have the internal brace as Strider did, these have not looked like the same pictures. And we talked about Alcantara's struggles and what that does to his trade value, if any, at this point. But Davey Andrews just wrote for FanCrafts about how Strider has performed since his return. And I knew that the surface numbers weren't great, but Davey

diving under the hood has made me even more worried about Spencer Strider. Yeah, I didn't come away feeling great about it. I mean, as Davey took pains to mention several times in that piece, like we're talking about 19 endings, you know, and it isn't unprecedented for guys coming off of major surgery to like take a little while to ramp up into their prior form. And you have to factor in the additional IL stint for the hammy. And so what kind of state are his mechanics in? But is the hamstring going to account for his slot being lower? I don't think

so. So it makes you worry some about how Strider is going to adapt. And I think that it's easy to forget with someone like him who has been so good that we watched this guy really just overcome being like mostly a two-pitch guy, right? Like he's a two-pitch guy, but it was fine Like the quality of them was such and the interplay between that fastball and slider was such that like he he only needed to But you got to be able to make the two of them work together. The fastball has to play like so It's alarming because one could imagine a version of Strider that is different, but it's going to need to look quite a bit different from what we've been watching over

the last couple of years. But again, it's 19 and a nings, so maybe you feel, maybe you're like, oh, it'll be okay. Maybe you hope it'll be okay. And from Atlanta's perspective, obviously they needed to be okay. They have a different set of concerns than the Marlins do, right? The Marlins want it to be okay so that they can push Sandy out. The Braves want it to be okay so that they can continue to lovingly embrace Spencer Schrader over the rest of his contract. And make the playoffs, hopefully. Right. I guess if there's going to be a year for your guy to need time to adjust, maybe in a weird way, this is the optimal year because like, you know, they're 27 and 34.

If it is a lost season. Right. Like maybe, but you don't want it to be a lost season, right? And part of why I think they still had optimism that this would not be a lost season and why the projections like them was that they were still going to get Okunya back and they were going to get Strider back and it was going to help to catapult them into the braves that we are used to watching and to a version of themselves that is familiar but has been at a remove, you know? So it's like,

but now they're pretty hurt, you know? That's the other thing. They're pretty hurt. In a way they need them more than ever because if they want to have any hope of making it this year and overcoming this slow start, then they really needed Acuna to come back and be himself and Strider to come back and be himself. And so if the latter is not happening, then that's concerning for this season and beyond. And for fans, if we don't necessarily care about whether the Braves make the playoffs or whether the Marlins can trade another guy, I just like these two pitchers. I've enjoyed their work. I want to see more of it with them pitching well. And Strider, likeable guy, right? You know, and so I want him to remain elite and, and he is more of a, you know, numbers nerd type data guy.

I'm sure he's highly aware of all the things that Davey wrote about as our raves as a team, and they'll try to figure something out to compensate for this. And hopefully it is just rust and building up strength and maybe he's just been skipping everything butt leg day. Maybe that's the issue here. I don't know. But-

Every time he's up there, you're just like, where's the horse that you rode in on? Where is it? Yeah, you do generate a lot of power from your legs as a pitcher, I know. You do. But also other parts of you. Other parts of your body too.

Yeah. But it's bad because it's, and Davey pointed out just how small the margins are. Because it's not like he's suddenly a soft tosser. He still throws fairly hard. He's still sitting mid 90s, but he's not sitting high 90s. And so what seems like a small difference,

it's like the behavior of the baseball, as we all learned several years ago, you change one tiny thing and the seam height is just a little bit different and suddenly everything's way out of whack. With a pitcher, you drop down a little and we covered that a lot of pitchers are dropping down a little lower and it's not always a bad thing necessarily, but it hasn't worked out for him. Just all the stuff models agree that his stuff is way down. And hitters agree because they have hit him very hard.

And he's not as... Yeah, he's not striking guys out the way that we're accustomed to him striking guys out. And the movement profile is not there. And it's just, it's flat. It's like dead zone now. It's just kind of an average-ish fastball in a lot of ways, if that. And because he was so fastball forward, he was such a fastball dominant guy. And like fastball slider, that was his whole deal. And now neither of those pitches is good. And maybe he'll have

to start throwing more curves, more change-ups. He'll have to, you know, Davey documented, he's changed his location already. He's nibbling a little more. I hope this is temporary and that he will return to the dominant, one of the best pitchers in baseball that we saw prior to his surgery, because it'd be a bummer if that guy did not return. But it is just a reminder of the struggles of these guys, even if they do eventually return to form, it is not automatic and it's not necessarily right away, even if they come back after a long absence. Yeah. And like that was sort of what I was trying to get at. You know, I think that Strider was underestimated by some as a prospect. Like Erica's talked about this, that Strider ended

up being sort of an instructive case for him because he was lower on him than he ought to have been in part because he was only a two-pitch guy. But part of that can work when like those pitches are as good as they are and they, you know, they allow one another to sort of play up well. And then because we watched him do it with such consistency until the second injury, I think you can kind of go too far in the other direction, right? You can forget the precarity of it, that you just have fewer options at your disposal to try to compensate when one of those isn't working the way that it used to, and then they aren't playing off each other the way that they did when the fastball was harder, and when it was coming in from a slightly different

angle. So you just, it doesn't take that much and you can't just be like, well, I guess I'll just go to this like really great change that I've always had. It's like, he's had like, like a whisper of a change, you know, like a, like a suggestion of a change. It's keeping the honest of a change, right? It's not a put away pitch or it hasn't been for him historically. So As Davey noted, as you've just noted, surely Strider and the Braves are aware of all of these things. We're not telling them anything that they're not aware of. He seems like a smart guy. You don't end up with guys like that if you're not a hard worker.

I bet he'll be able to figure something out, but whether that version looks like the version of him we're used to, whether it's different but as effective, that part I don't think we know just yet. So hopefully he's able to sort something out. And I think the piece of it that is hard for us to know on the outside is like, is the slot change in particular the result of him drifting in a way he's not meaning to or did they look at him and like his delivery and the stress it's putting on the joints and everything and say, Hey, you should lower to try to like reduce pressure. And if that's the motivation behind the change, well, then it's, you know, you're you're now you're engaged

in like a slightly different project, right? So because you want to maintain that drop so that you can hopefully stay healthy. But so I don't know, I I'm fretting. Me too. Well, we wish him well and Sandy too. We are about to be joined by a Mike Trout tier Patreon supporter. We will talk to him a bit about his history with baseball in the podcast and then we'll answer listener emails and do our hypothetical what if of the week and wrap up with some stat blasting. Only other bit of banter since we started on a negative note

there, things are looking up for the white socks. And how long has it been since we could say that everything's coming up white socks suddenly? How long will it be until it's actually everything coming up white socks, right? Yeah, look, they're out of the tunnel. They can see the other end of the tunnel. Maybe. I'm not going to say that this is pope related, but you could lump this in with the white socks pope and just say it's been a run of fairly decent news for them. Now, the first bit of news that I just wanted to mention is that you can watch White Sox games more easily now.

So as of Friday morning, the Chicago Sports Network is now more widely available. This is the regional sports network that's a partnership between the Blackhawks and the Bulls and the White Sox, and there's been a carriage dispute. And so now CHSN will be available within Comcast's ultimate TV package in the Chicago area. So the White Sox are now more accessible. Now, if this were last year's White Sox, you might say, well, who wants to watch the White Sox? It would be better if I were blacked out, but things are kind of looking up on the roster

and also especially long-term because the other news that we just got is about the, well, potentially distant future of the White Sox, a non-Rynesdorf related future of the White Sox because Jerry Rynesdorf and Justin Ishbia, the private equity billionaire who also has a stake in many other sports franchises, the Phoenix Suns, the Phoenix Mercury, Nashville SC, the Ishbia's, their big sports owners,

investors. How many billionaires are in this freaking family? I know. As has been widely speculated, see, there was a bit of an about face because the twins seem to think that they were going to be selling to Justin Ishbia. And then not only did he back out of that, but he went to the White Sox. And you know, he's in the area. And so it makes sense that he would want to own the White Sox.

But the twins maybe thought they had a buyer lined up and then had to go back to the drawing board while their division rival, if you can call them a rival currently, at some point they will be a rival. Justin Ishbeya hopes that they will be a rival. They now got this cash infusion. So the thing about this is that the timeline is uncertain because this is what was termed a long-term investment agreement that establishes a framework for Ishbia to obtain a future controlling interest in the White Sox.

And people saw this coming and the White Sox had denied it months ago when it was reported that there was probably a pathway to ownership here. Well, clearly there is. So under the terms, he's going to make capital infusions in the short term this year, next year to help pay down existing debt and support ongoing team operations. But there will be no transfer of control until at least 2029, at which point

Reinsdorf would have the option, presumably an exclusive option, I would imagine for Ishby at that point, to have a controlling interest for Reinsdorf to sell at any point from 29 to 33. And then after the 2034 season, Ishby would have the option to acquire the controlling interest from Reinsdorf, who would be nearing 100 by that point, which seems relevant.

I didn't stat blast the actuarial tables here, but one could, and one could speculate about whether Jerry Rensdorf will be in control of the White Sox in 2034 and will be in a position to sell as he is 89 years old currently. Anyway, it looks like one way or another, there is a line of succession here, and that Justin Ishbya will probably be the new owner of the White Sox at some point in the next

decade. Which is, it's something. Look, Reinsdorf has owned this franchise since 1981, so even for there to be any change on the horizon, even if he lives forever and milks this thing till the last moment, well, at least you know at the outside how long Rynestorff's control could continue. And in the short term, Ishbia will at least be putting some cash into the kitty here, which maybe will free up some spending for the White Sox. We will see. Look, it's not bad news.

As someone who lives in the media market of the Phoenix Suns, do I think that every Ishbia-owned team has it going great? I mean, I do think that. There's been some hiccups, yeah, but they have spent. There is that. Maybe not always wisely, but being miserly has not been the main issue. I think, you know, if you wanna like get some some insight into the Ishbeahs, there's a

very good Pablo Torre finds out episode about Matt Ishbeah and the goings on at the sun. So like, you know, you should like take a peek at that. But also, it can't, I don't want to say it can't get worse, but like, I feel like we would be exploring mystical territory were it to get worse, right? I also would like to congratulate everyone. I imagine, I haven't listened to the last couple shows of your colleagues on the press box, but I imagine that this is the one of the Pope's, this is the Pope's first miracle is probably their overused, overworked Twitter joke of the week. I love how I stepped on the delivery of that. Just like really stepped on it. But I think that this is an interesting way to like gradually phase him out. I would love to hear why now, right? Because he's gonna be 100 by the time

this all is said and done. He's quite old now, you know? Does he need this money? No, what's he gonna do with it then? Don't know, like why? Why now? You know, why now? I think he likes owning the team.

And so that's why he's clung to it for this long and why he's not just selling immediately. Yeah. Which is why I wonder like why now? Why start it now? But yeah, oh Ben, I have bad breaking nose. It's not related to the white socks.

What's that? Corbin Burns needs TJ. Well, I am not surprised. But that stinks. Wow. Well, I am not surprised, but that stinks. Wow. Anyway, so yeah, look, I don't want to step on White Sox fans' enjoyment of this moment. I do think that, you know, every owner has to be evaluated sort of on their own terms. We don't know that the Ishbeys will be good owners, but we do know what the current state of affairs is. And so I think being excited and keen to move on from that is perfectly reasonable.

And the resources that are at least theoretically available to be brought to bear on the club's behalf I think are meaningfully more robust. And that is very positive also. I am curious, you know, because of the sort of timeline here, you know, it's not like Ishbia won't be involved if he's doing capital infusions, like presumably he is going to expect to have some amount of say, right? And so I wonder, like, what does this mean for the existing, not only the existing roster, but the existing front office group, right? Like, does Ishbia look at this group and the existing, not only the existing roster, but the existing front office group, right?

Like, does Ish be a look at this group and say like, yeah, Gets is my guy. I don't know. So it'll be interesting to see sort of how that stuff unfolds. Yeah. And I think, well, the only way it could get worse, I guess, if the team leaves, but Rheinsdorf has been making noises about that for decades and trying to apply leverage, get a new ballpark, potentially even move. I think the lease on rate field runs through 2029, which is the first year that Ishbia

could potentially acquire this controlling interest. So I don't know how you break down the impact on a potential move here, but Reinsdorf has been the one just threatening to do that from time to time. So I think as long as they stay and if they spend, even if they don't spend super efficiently, yeah, it probably can't get worse.

I mean, to give you an idea of the kind of rich Justin Ishbia is, I was alerted to this story by Zach Cram the other day, who also lives in the area. And Justin Ishbia, he's been buying up property in that area, which I guess you'd think is good. You know, he's local, he's around. He'll want to keep the team there too. And so he and his wife, Kristen, they have snapped up

all of this property on Lake Michigan, and they bought and wanted to combine three different parcels after spending $34 million on the land and the existing everything there. And they wanted to build this combined house with all the properties unified that would cost $80 million, but they had to get approval from the Winetka Village Council. And so to get the go ahead to do the demolition on the existing structures there, they had to appeal. And they've been trying to do this for a while. And they did like an emotional appeal.

And there's this picture in the story of a somber looking Justin Ishbya, like holding onto his wife for emotional support, basically. And it says that, here's the quote from, this is from his wife, who was tearfully addressing the village trustees. When we first bought property here in Winnetka in the summer of 2020, we thought that we'd be able to send our son to kindergarten here. Unfortunately, as time passes by, we are unable to build our home. Our children are missing out on being able to attend school here, play in our yard, and make friends in the neighborhood. They are missing out on being able to live

our dream of a quiet, authentic suburban life because of personal bias and her family being used as political pawns. So billionaires are going to billionaire. I guess the concern here in addition to any historic preservation stuff was, well, what if they build this $80 million combined property and then they decide they want to leave? Who's going to buy that? Who's going to buy it? Yeah. Right.

So it works. This emotional appeal worked. Think of the children and their quiet, authentic suburban life. It worked. This emotional appeal worked. You know, think of the children and their quiet, authentic suburban life. It worked. Yeah. No. It worked. Yeah. Hey, billionaires, they get their way. They lobby, they apply pressure, they make a tearful address to the council and yeah, it worked. But I guess White Sox fans should probably be happy that it worked, I guess, because hey, they're in the area for the long run. How big is an $80 million house?

I'm glad you asked because it is more than 68,000 square feet of space. So they built an office building that they're living in? They built the mansion to end all mansions. They built a medical dental building? Including an indoor and outdoor pool, plus the 2.7 acres of Lake Michigan shoreline. So they have three different ways to swim,

I suppose anyway. Look, they have a ton of money, they can do what they want with it, but the suggestion that they couldn't live there, they couldn't raise their children there because they didn't have the 68,000 square feet place. They only had like the existing structures that were there when they bought these many millions of dollars properties.

So they like were deprived of the quiet, authentic Serban life. Like that's just rolling over in his goddamn grave. authentic suburban life. Get the, get, this is why I'm saying, don't get attached to these people. It's just, just don't get. It's gradations. It's, you know, it's not, can you feel good about your billionaire?

It's how bad can you feel about your billionaire? And look, I want to be fair that you can feel so much worse, you know? Yeah, exactly. As we're reminded every day. But also, what a ridiculous, oh man, people took drone footage of this house. Yeah.

That's such an enormous, terrible thing. It just looks absurd. I just. It's like the mega McMansions that Derek Jeter had and Michael Jordan had and they become albatrosses basically because no one wants them or they're just... What are the property taxes on this place? I wonder. My God.

I'm sure they can afford it. It isn't helpful to the project of trying to snoop on Justin Ishbia that there is like also a Matt Ishbia mega mansion that appears to be a different building. Oh, yeah, even Justin and they own many other properties in many other places to be clear. Not that anyone would have doubted. Well, no, but they won't be living their authentic. No, exactly. They wouldn't be living their... Suburban life there. You can only live an authentic, you know, you can only live an authentic suburban life at the Great Wolf Lodge that they are building. This building is enormous.

Of course. I know that they have people to clean this property. There's no way that they're doing it on their own. But it's also just like, what? Do you even remember what's in all of the rooms? Can you imagine if you had cats and they lived in this house? You'd never know. You'd never know if they'd gotten out or not.

You'd never see them again. They could leave and start a cat colony and you wouldn't know, you just assume they're up there somewhere. Feral society in their wing of the mansion. You could have a cat colony in your own house. Yes, right. And you wouldn't know.

It looks like, according to my quick Google here, which may or may not be accurate, there's the square footage of the playing surface of Raite Field is 108,464 feet. So I guess this is most of a rate fields size. It seems like it must be even bigger than that though, this house. But anyway, I would just feel so frustrated because like, imagine how long it takes to build that.

Yeah. Your kid won't be in kindergarten anymore. Wait, do they not care about the authentic suburban experience of the person who lives in the giant house right next to them? Just don't build a house so big that people are like, I should go get drone footage of that. I think that's a good rule of thumb. I mean, the better rule of thumb probably, probably,

is like, if you can't clean the whole house by yourself in a day, maybe it's too much house for you. I mean, I don't want to judge. Like, people have families of very incisors. Oh, by the time you finish cleaning part of it, the part that you had cleaned least recently would be dirty again and you'd have to start all over again. I mean, I'm sure they have people to do that for them. The secret to a clean house is unfortunately been to always be cleaning, you know?

Yeah, I guess so. Well, the White Sox themselves have cleaned house over recent years and the last point I wanted to make is just that, well, yeah, on the field at least. Yeah, okay. It probably can't get worse on the field either. Now the Rockies are saying, hold my beer, hold our well priced and tasty and flavorful beer at Coors Field. But for the White Sox, I don't think it can get worse and it's gotten better. Things are looking up a little bit. They have been outscored

by a mere 57 runs. They're 20 and 43. They're bad. They're absolutely bad, but they're not historically bad the way that they were. They're just normal, very bad. And that's progress. And you look at the roster and you know, the pieces are falling into place slowly, but you hope surely. I'm sure White Sox fans don't consider it surely, but like Miguel Vargas, he's figured things out. He started slow, but since April 20th, 147 WRC Plus, he's top 35 in war among position players. They just called up Kyle Teal, one of their catchers of the future to go along with Edgar Carrow, who is also up.

And now I guess they can split time at DH and catcher. So both of their backstops of the future are up now. And Chase Mydroth has been pretty good. You know, one of the guys they got in the crochet deal along with Teal and Teal has just raked in the minors this year, every level really along the way. And the pitching staff, they are 20th in Fangrass War from their starting pitchers. And again, that's not good, but for the White Sox to be 20th in anything after last year when they're dead last in everything, basically, that's good.

Like Shane Smith, a Rule 5 guy that they got, he's been a very solid starter for them. Yes. He's been a good find and he has gotten better and they plucked him away from the Brewers. And I guess they also got former brewer Adrian Hauser, who's doing great work for your minor league free agent draft team, I believe. But, you know, it's a, I think so. People think this is a bit at this point and I swear it's not. Jonathan Cannon, who's on the IL right now, but he's also been pretty good

and there are more prospects on the way. I know Colson Montgomery is not hitting really, but like, you know, Noah Schultz is coming along. He's in AA, he might not be too far away. And suddenly you can squint and see a solid rotation there. So it's looking a bit better is all I'm saying. Like they've, I think the worst of it is behind them. Famous last words, but I think like they're on the upswing and they started from so

low that they're far from good. But still, I might actually watch a White Sox game now that, you know, it's available to you in the Chicago area. You might, you might check in and say, hey, this team, there's reason for optimism now that there wasn't last year. Well, I think that that is a delightful perspective to have and one that is not completely ridiculous. So how nice for you, but mostly for White Sox fans. I'll take it. Yeah. I guess the only knock is that like they're the one team that has not profited from one

Soto trades really, because they got Drew Thorpe out of the action who went to the Padres in a one Soto trade and then went to Chicago in the Dylan C's trade and Thorpe then got Tommy John. And so they haven't really seen any of the proceeds there and Hiro Iriarte remains a prospect but hasn't pitched all that well. There's work to be done and we'll see

if they can salvage something from Luis Robert. but yeah. Like there's a plan at least. You could project at some point a few years down the road and say, yeah, there might be the foundation of a decent team here, which is more than you can do for the Rockies who are not only worse than the White Sox now and maybe even worse than the White Sox were last year, but also have no plan. And so you can't even project and say, okay, the 2028 Rockies might be pretty darn good. And the White Sox, they've been through this before with the Great Farm System and it, you know, came to fruition for a little bit. It just didn't last. But meanwhile, the Rockies, you've got the Denver Post running this article where they just like asked former Rockies what the Rockies should do because the former Rockies

are embarrassed to have been associated with the Rockies. This is the funniest subhead I've ever seen. Dave Veers once saves 39 games for Dick Monfort. Now he's pleading with Monfort to save a cratering franchise from itself. I haven't thought of Dave Veers in years. Former Rockies closer Dave Veers, who I guess is still in the area

and is like ashamed to wear Rockies gear around because of how bad they're... This article is just like a remember some guys. Garrett Atkins, I guess, actually, is the one who lives there. He's like, as somebody who lives here, it's hard to ignore. So this writer is just like emptying out his contacts. Like, what former Rockies do I know who can comment on? Like, yeah, Dave Veers will weigh in on this and tell Dick Monfort

he's got a clean house. It's just, it's so funny. It's Dave Veers. Ah, all right. Let's get to our guest. Alright, well we are joined now by our Mike Trout tier Patreon supporter, John Thomas. John, welcome to Effectively Wild. Thank you all for having me today.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting us. And if you have listened to previous Patreon people's appearances, as I don't doubt that you have, you probably know that the first question that I'm going to ask you is what could have possibly possessed you to support us at this level. Yeah, I have heard a few and I have definitely thought about it a bit. I wanted to preface everything I'm about to say that it

felt very navel gaze-y as I was thinking it through. So I hope folks can give me some benefit of the doubt in kind of going through my own little moments of triumphs throughout my life that brought me to this podcast episode. The ultimate triumph. This is it. Yeah, this really is it. This is my, this is like my main focus. The pinnacle. This is where peak performance looks like.

It's all downhill from here. Well, you both joke about how much people would pay to like play in a major league baseball game. This is kind of my version of that, if we're being honest, you know? So, but what sparked me to do it or, you know, made me crazy enough to do it. This is kind of my version of that, if we're being honest. But what sparked me to do it or made me crazy enough to do it, I play in a fantasy baseball league I have for the past about 11 years with the same group of people. And I've actually-

You must appreciate all our invaluable fantasy advice here. I mean, it is generally what brought me here. So it wasn't straightforward, but tangentially. But I've actually won the last four years, which is, yeah, some of it is, I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm like, not good, but I totally worked into it. But it's also like, definitely very lucky to have won four years. How many people are in this week?

It's a 12 team league. Wow. Okay. Very serious people like, you know, we all, we all like log on for the draft and people set their lines every week. We have like, it's a weird setup in terms of categories. It's kind of like a points league, but in category form for the listeners who would understand that. So like we have innings minimums you have to meet and if you don't meet it, there's

a fine that you pay that goes into the like general kitty that gets paid out. Having listened to the podcast for legitimately 11 years, I started listening around episode 450 or so. I felt like it was kind of time to give back a little bit and those kind of things seemed to mesh together. Wow, so you've kind of put your winnings toward this, maybe, potentially. Yeah, a little bit, yeah. What kind of league is it?

It's just like a regular head-to-head league on Yahoo. It's basically, it has like you, not just hits, you know, the normal five by five categories, we kind of have like, it's like 12 by 13, or 13 by 12. Some of those include like cycle, grand slams, certain like randomness, no hit or perfect game, and nowadays, complete game and shutout are also complete randomness, maybe even compared

to when we started the league. So there's this weird incentive with the pitching aspect of it where you want to get as close to the inning minimum as possible because there are the negative counting hits, runs, earn runs, walks. So you're kind of playing this weird balance. Our league relievers are actually very valuable. Even just your like, you know, the Andrew Miller types were incredibly valuable because you get two great innings from somebody.

And we have more on the offensive side. I do think it actually mirrors a lot of baseball. I think I've owned Carlos Santana every season because like his stat line just really aligns with being successful in our league. So that's kind of the setup of it generally. Yeah. Well, congrats on your success. We can't claim too much credit, but we're glad that you're here. And what is your background as a baseball fan? I like a lot of people like started just playing in T ball, farm league, little league. And I was always really good. I'm a bigger guy. I'm like six, four larger, you know, maybe

not look apart far apart from me or normal, like pitcher build or whatever. And I was that way from like age seven. I was just a big kid. So I did well and I was just kind of really gravitated towards baseball. And I have like a really couple key moments I think about a lot in terms of like what really made me fall in love with baseball.

I can remember pitching at nine and being on the mound and being like annoyed that we called two and two an even count because you only needed one more strike versus two more balls and that I felt like I was actually ahead in that moment, which felt, I don't know, I wasn't talking about that with anybody, but I look back on that. Proto-effectively wild. Yeah, exactly. And then when I was nine, I'm sorry, not nine, another one, this is maybe the most navel-gazy, it's a trope that men will talk about their high school accolades.

I'm going to tell you about a little league accolade, but it's always stuck with me in terms of a statistical sense. I pitched against a team who was not, it was probably the worst team like in our small little league, but I threw an 18 strikeout, no hitter. I walked the first two batters of the game and then just struck out everybody after. And I still have like the score sheet from the game and stuff like that. And it always just seems like, oh, wow, what's the game score on that one? You know what I mean? Or like, just, it was just, and again, I know I'm sitting here talking about my 12 year

old achievements and whatnot, but it always stuck with me as sort of just like the, again, that luck aspect of it. Like as much as I was pitching well, there's a lot of luck that went into that game turning out that way. And just kind of that balance between skill and randomness that baseball really kind of, you know, has. And then I also, I'm from the, I grew up in Cambridge, Mass and I'm 34 years old. So I've had quite the run of sports success in my time. I've been very lucky about that. And that's kind of just, you know, obviously I was a big Red Sox fan. I was playing baseball, a big part of my life for sure. And then I just continued to

grow up. I found FanGraphs when I was kind of looking for fantasy content, honestly. Kind of came to Rotographs first, FanGraphs second, which was super helpful in terms of the league. I like made my own z-scores and kind of learned that from some articles that had been on Rotographs and the community blog. I am also, this is really weird and I don't know, but I'm kind of like a Ben Lindbergh super fan, weirdly. I think.

I never would have expected that someone who would pay to appear on this podcast would be a fan of mine, but that's very flattering. My second favorite article I think I've ever read is like your scout school series. I really, really, really enjoying that on Grantland and behind my favorite article ever is actually a Patrick Dubuque article where I don't know if either of you remember this. It was 25 Adam Duns versus 25 Koji Uehara versus 25, whatever, not Juan Pierre, D. Gordon's and Bartolo Colon's.

And I just think that's one of the funnest things I've ever read. Legitimately, Belly laughs while reading it for the first time. But I also listen to The Ringer, big House of R fan. I love the lore segments. I have two young daughters. We bought a Switch recently. But before having the Switch, I hadn't had any consoles

since my Xbox 360 a long time ago. yet I was still listening to button mash episodes. So like, you know. Wow, that's dedication. Yeah. Again, I, you know, you can tell me when it's gotten weird and I'll try and tone it down. But that's kind of, that's kind of the, that's like the big picture. I know that's not as much baseball related, but you know, and Meg, you're great too, just to make sure that's in there. Oh, thanks.

No, it's fine. I think it's good for Ben to like feel little John Brebbia right now, you know, like to be on the receiving end. Yeah, yeah. No tattoos of our names anywhere on your person? No, no. I'm not getting them on my butt. Yeah, we're good, we're good. We're good.

Great. Well, I'm envious of Patrick now, your number one. I'm gonna have to give him some grief for that. Maybe I can outdo him someday. My Switch 2 just arrived. Oh. Congratulations. Video games, yeah, exciting times.

How is it? It's very much like a Switch, but a little bit bigger and better, so that's exciting. A little bit bigger and better? Yeah, Stay tuned. You can hear that on button mash on Monday, or at least John will. I certainly will. I won't. When you threw that no hitter, thanks. When you threw that no hitter, they say, and I think it's often true that with big league no hitters, there's always some spectacular

defensive play that preserves it. Was there one in your case in your 12 year league no hitters, there is always some spectacular defensive play that preserves it. Was there one in your case in your 12 year old no hitter? Or was it just you struck out 18. So I guess you kind of did it yourself almost. You might not have needed much help. I honestly didn't. It was a six inning game.

I literally struck out every hitter. I walked to the first two and then if you look at the score sheet, it's literally KK. Maybe I don't want to say them so quickly. Good self-editing there. But it just runs down, you know, and you just see it over and over again. And I actually went through the lineup because it was Little League, we had like a designated hitter. I just went through the lineup, like everyone batted twice, and that was it.

That was the game. It was over. Despite. Wow. Yeah. Despite the times through the order effect, they didn't catch on to you the second time around. Couldn't get to me. You could have done the satchel page and just dismissed all your fielders and told them to go off the field

and just done it solo. That's pretty impressive. Thank you. Yeah. My 12-year-old me is very happy right now. And are you still in New England and what do you do now other than win your fantasy league every year?

I'm still in New England and been some other places, but I live just north of Boston now. And I am a middle school math teacher. I focus on supporting actually like English language learners or multilingual learners is the kind of language that we use now. So I mostly Spanishspeaking students who are newer to the U.S. and, you know, focusing on helping them understand the math, but also language acquisition in that process. Cool. That's great. All right. Well, unless you have any further compliments to pay me, then I guess we can proceed. I never tire of hearing people tell me how much

they like me. It's not so bad. It's not that I think Buttonmasher is a bad podcast, Ben. It's just that I... No, you just, you couldn't say one way or another, I'm sure. You know what? That's true. I actually couldn't... apart from the, you know, sort of standard rubric that we might apply to all podcasts, would be completely in the dark, would have no way of knowing if you were saying anything of value whatsoever. Well, you could extrapolate from this podcast potentially if you think I say something of value here, which is debatable, then perhaps that also applies to video games, though not necessarily. Okay, let us answer some emails and we'll do our hypothetical of the week, but I guess we could

start with some other kinds of emails here. Here's one from Patreon supporter Samuel, who says, I am a supporter of Everton football club, which this past weekend played their final game at their home of 132 years, Goodison park. It was a beautiful and poignant day, incredible to watch on TV and very emotional for toffees everywhere. It was sad, especially for the Liverpudlian supporters who made the park so famous and full of life generation after generation.

This got me thinking, is baseball too engrossed in its own tradition to ever let its cathedrals go? I can't possibly imagine it, but also I'm now confronted with the possibility. Would be interested to hear your thoughts on if these parks could ever reach the point of needing to be replaced. And he specifies that he is referring specifically to Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. So have they now survived long enough that they will survive forever? Or could the fate of Goodison Park one day come

for Fenway and Wrigley. Oh boy. I mean, I guess, you know, John, you probably have the most exposure to Fenway of any of us. I've never, I've never seen a game there. I've like walked by Fenway. I talked about this on a Patreon pod, I believe, so I'm not repeating myself for most listeners here, but I went to Fenway when I was a kid and I was a Yankees fan and I was there with my parents in Boston for some other non baseball related reason. And they forced me to go to Fenway because I felt like I was a traitor. Like I was, I was betraying my Yankees by going to see the Red Sox in their home territory. The Yankees weren't playing them to be clear, but I was a big baseball

fan and my parents thought, well, I'd want to go to a baseball game or I'd want to see this historic park. And initially I was sulking and I felt like I was some sort of turncoat and I felt terrible about it. And then I really liked Fenway, but I couldn't admit that. And so I insisted that we leave before the game was over. I also, I think, wore as much Yankees gear as I could, ostentatiously. I think I was probably too young and small for anyone to bully me about that.

But I wanted to, well, as far as I recall, I don't really remember bullying happening, but maybe I blocked it out. But I wanted to represent, you know, I was behind enemy lines, essentially, but I didn't want to be cowed by that. But I had to silently admit to myself that I really liked Fenway, and I do really, really like Fenway. And I like that it's so distinctive in terms of layout and history and design and color

and just the fact that you can immediately tell that it's Fenway when you're watching on TV. And so now I can admit it freely. I am less biased and I think Fenway Park is wonderful. Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I do love Fenway and being a teacher, I think I get this really unique experience where I have every marathon Monday off and I try and get to the game then. And I took my kids, my older daughter had been, but it was my youngest daughter's first time ever going to a game.

And I think in a quintessential Boston sports game at Fenway, they saw someone drinking beer out of a shoe, which I think was, you know, really, yeah, yeah, you just need those moments. And my youngest or my oldest daughter's, her teacher was running in the marathon, which was really cool to just leave the game and then go cheer her on right on the pathway, which was really awesome. And I do love Fenway. I don't think we should get rid of it. That being said, every other ballpark experience is just more efficient. Yeah, I went to City Fields a few days after that Red Sox game I was just talking about actually. And just like maneuvering the stadium was infinitely just better, just walking around.

And the amount of sight line, the times you could sort of be in a concourse area while still taking in the game was actually really nice because I was able to just see it from different vantage points where we're here in Fenway. If you're in the concourse outside of a small few areas, you're hidden from the game. And it is just difficult to navigate

and where you're going. That being said, I could never see them getting rid of it. I'm just a little too young to remember when it was kind of more of a push of are they going to keep Fenway or not. but I was old enough to remember it being part of the conversation happening. And I, and you know, you know, whatever my six, seven, eight year old self then, I don't remember exactly what year that was or what years that that was, um, was devastated by

the, the idea they were going to get rid of it. And I think it should continue to exist. I'm sure you can make some argument to me that there is a safety aspect. I know they recently had to cancel two concerts, a Shakira concert and some country singer concert. I don't think it had anything to do with Fenway Park and its structural integrity. It was like the staging,

but it made me think about just the idea of like, well, one day Fenway Park just not makes sense to have. And I've been to Wrigley once and I enjoyed that also. I found that more easy to navigate than Fenway was, but I think it has a more traditional shape and size than Fenway does as well. Yeah, I haven't been to Wrigley for years, but the first time I went, I was less charmed by it

than I was by Fenway. Sorry, Cubs fans don't want to make you mad, but yeah, I just, maybe it was partially because I had an obstructed view, which I guess is the authentic Wrigley experience, but yeah. It's often part of the authentic Fenway experience. The angles definitely can put a crick in your neck depending on where you are, but yeah, I wasn't quite as charmed by Wrigley or even Dodger Stadium for that matter. I have a take.

Oh yeah? Okay, go ahead. So I've never been to, I have, I've never seen a game at Wrigley or Fenway, so I will not opine on the viewing experience there. And I think that once you're in the stands at Dodger Stadium, beautiful. I appreciate so much about that place. But also it is kind of claustrophobic when you're not in the stands. The concourses of that ballpark can feel kind of restrictive. And we are going to get emails about this, but I stand by my take. The Dodger dog, it's just okay. Just okay.

I'm given to understand that they have changed Dodger dog suppliers. There was a pandemic related Dodger dog supply issue and they, they changed to a different Dodger dog supplier. So I'm, I'm willing to accept the notion that the Dodger dog of old, although hopefully not an actually old Dodger dog, cause that seems like it would be a health and safety issue. But the former formulation of Dodger dog, probably better. My Dodger dog, just okay. So that's my Dodger Stadium take.

It's like, they have all of this money and you wouldn't be able to tell that in every part of their ballpark. And maybe that's a nice thing, actually. Maybe it's good in some weird way. But I found myself feeling kind of claustrophobic while I was there. Although some of that may have been the result of having to sprint through the concourse to try to find a quiet place for us to talk to Scott Boris and then get canceled on. Right.

And they've been doing some renovations there, so it may look different from when you went or when I went and, and similar to Wrigley and Fenway, they're spruced up. And you're right, John. I mean, it was very much in doubt that Fenway would survive a quarter century or so ago when the team was sold. And I'm glad they went the way that they did. And they've had the seats on the top of the monster and they just try to squeeze as much revenue out of that little place as they possibly can. But you really do lose a lot potentially. So on a long enough timeframe, I assumed that every ballpark will be replaced

or maybe all ballparks will be replaced. Maybe there will be no baseball. That's a topic for another day. In fact, I think we've had that discussion and we probably will again. I guess even if MLB were to go away at some point, that wouldn't preclude one of these stadia surviving, I suppose. I mean, the Coliseum is still standing and we don't do Gladiator games, at least the way that they did them anymore. So maybe like it crosses a threshold and it becomes so historic that it's just, it's protected, it's a monument, it can never go away.

But I don't know, I would never feel confident in predicting that. And especially like in this country, I don't know if we have the same reverence for old stuff as in Europe and other places where things have been standing for so many centuries longer than this country has existed and just urban renewal and constantly paving over everything. That's just a part of the American experience. And so the fact that Fenway is just tucked into Boston proper the way that it is, which is what makes it so charming and gives it its unusual alignment and everything. There's always going to be the pressure to, hey, we could have a higher capacity. We can have fancier luxury boxes. We can make more money, but you do stand to lose something. There is a real risk to severing that history.

And I experienced that as a Yankees fan even. And I didn't see the original original Yankee Stadium, but even the moderately old version of Yankee Stadium, which was on the same site. And there really is something just to being on the same site. Even if you have changed it, if you could say it's the same field location,

as opposed to next door to where the fields used to be, that really does make a big difference because these parks have been upgraded and things have been replaced. It's like the ballpark of Theseus sort of, it's like, you know, you replace every part of it at some point, but if it's still the same design essentially and in the same location so that you could say right down there. I mean every blade of grass and bit of dirt is different from when Ernie Banks was there or whoever, but that's where they played. There's really something to that and there's a charm and a character and Yankee Stadium obviously I have fond memories of it because the Yankees

were a dynasty and I was a kid. And so it was a perfect storm of yes, that's my happy place. But if you replace it with someplace like the current Yankee Stadium that has very little charm or character, then you really lose something. And even if you don't do a bad job, even if you replace it with another modern cathedral, that could be good too. But you still have to just start from scratch when it comes to your memories and that ballpark being lived in.

So I very strongly hope that these few very old ballparks that we have preserved, and that goes not just for the few major league ones, but minor leagues everywhere, like the few surviving Negro league parks, the minor leagues, you know, everywhere, like the few surviving Negro leagues parks, the minor league parks that are still standing. I want them to continue to survive because we love baseball for the history and the ballparks are just a physical manifestation of that. I also think there's one other small piece,

Ben, you kind of acknowledged it in the beginning, like when you're watching a baseball game, the stadium is a little bit more part of the viewing experience, certainly compared to soccer, where I think you really are zoomed in more on the actual field itself and see a little less of the stands or the sort of outer bounds of the field, where when you're watching a baseball game, yes, there's probably a slew of stadiums that end up looking similar. But like you kind of know Pittsburgh when you're looking at Pittsburgh, never mind Fenway or

Wrigley or some of the more iconic ones. They stand out. And so I think it'd be harder to change that experience. You certainly, if you ever got rid of Fenway, they'd probably just build a Fenway replica somewhere else. I can't imagine they would actually change the look. Not that that preserves what we're talking about. That's why the Red Sox, every minor league affiliate just is

Fenway in another location. And I'm sure other teams have some of that's for the wall and being able to play against it and stuff like that. But also some of it is like an aesthetic aspect too. George M. Stein, Renner Field in Tampa, home of the race. But yes, yeah. And you can preserve the dimensions, but it's just, it's not quite the same. So yeah, new Yankee sucks.

Like it does. It sucks. And I can say that knowledgeably having been to both and yeah, some of that because the beer selection is so bad and the concessions are an embarrassment. It doesn't help, you know, but it would be bad regardless, I think. I like it when you can see the place that a ballpark is, to your point, John, from the ballpark, right? That's one of the cool things I imagine about Fenway is that you're very aware you're in

Boston. It's one of the things I love about T-Mobile Park, because it's close enough to downtown that you are getting this like vista of the city. You get that in Pittsburgh. There are lots of places like that where you're like, this is true in Dodger Stadium. Having been rude about the Dodger dog, I will be true. I will be true to one of the better parts of that ballpark, which is like, you have this incredible view and obviously like the land it's looking out on is not exactly

uncontested in terms of Dodger history, but it is this beautiful view of the mountains. And I don't know, when you go to a different place, some of what they're doing tends to be like kind of socking you in a little bit. Like, and I feel that way at Yankee Stadium, I feel that way at City Field. I just feel kind of sucked in where it's like, where am I? And you know where you are because they won't let you forget you're in New York, you know? They're constantly reminding you of that fact. But I like it when you can see the, really see the place.

I think that's cool. All right. Here's a question that is related to those dynasty Yankees. This is from Patrick who says, I've been ruminating on a question raised on episode 2330 about why no current reliever other than Kenley Jansen seems close to joining the prestigious 500 save club and I wonder how much Mariano Rivera's mere existence shaped the way closers were used during his reign. If Rivera was seen as a central figure during the Yankees dynasty, wouldn't it have been natural for other teams to try to replicate that model? How realistic would it have been for teams to zag too far from the most successful franchise of that era? Rivera's consistency may have reinforced the

belief that a team needed an elite ninth inning guy to win, which in turn may have led teams to avoid experimenting with alternative bullpen strategies. What are your thoughts? I don't know if I would attribute it to Mariano, I guess is the thing. Like I think that his usage was the conventional wisdom of the time taken to the natural extreme that his like outlier skill allowed for them. But I don't know that they like invented that notion and then had everyone be like, Oh, we should be copycats. Like that was kind of the way that closers were deployed, you know, before Mariano Rivera ever came into the picture, but he let them like really lean into that for a long, long time. maybe is that his dominance delayed how long it took for other teams to innovate maybe or get away from that model because it would have been quite daring to go in the other direction while he was

at the top of the sport and the Yankees were as well. Like yeah, clearly Mariano Rivera and the Yankees did not invent closer usage and having closers be in safe situations and mostly short outings and all the rest. It's funny because in his first dominant season, he was still a setup man to John Wetland and that was actually arguably Rivera's best season or I mean by fan graphs were it certainly is because that year when he was pitching in a setup role He did have more flexibility and he did have more multi inning outings and so 1996 he threw a hundred seven and two-thirds innings and And that was after he had stopped starting he was exclusively a reliever that year

but he could be in a more multi-inning role because it wasn't so constrained by saves. And he was a four-win pitcher that year by FanCraftsWAR. And he never got above three really in any subsequent year when he was still throwing the same number of games roughly, but fewer innings because he would often be a ninth-inning one-inning guy. Not always, obviously. And very often he would go longer than that in October, but he was, it was a little more rigid than like that was kind of the modern fireman that was showing

the potential. And then if anything, they put him in the closer box and maybe he was a little less valuable. I think it worked out fine for him and for you, so I'm just saying that's kind of a quirk. So I think that a particular player and usage can absolutely impact strategy. And you could look at Dennis Ecker-Sley and Tony LaRusso, and Ecker-Sley wasn't maybe exactly the first closer who is in more of a one-inning role, but because of his success and La Russa deploying

him that way, that really became the model. And so the model that Rivera just adopted and inherited that kind of came to some extent from Eckersley and La Russa. And so maybe you need someone to break the mold and Mo did not break the mold because he was so good within that mold. And the timing, I guess, kind of lines up for when he went away and when teams started to experiment. I don't think it was entirely because Rivera wasn't there anymore.

I think it had to do with just changes in the front office and the way that teams were using analytics and all the rest. But maybe if he was still around and still dominant, that would have made it hard to tinker. I think there's like a small chicken and egg too, where like the Yankees were putting Mariano in so many positions to save games over all those years. Not that you can't get saves on any team, but just the amount of times that the, he's probably up by two, three runs, one, two, three runs over that stretch where he

was just racking up saves and it made total sense. And he was as dominant as he was. They didn't have to experiment with him. It made sense to wait until the ninth inning so he could get a save. He liked doing that probably and it fed into it. But then the byproduct of that was more teams were just holding off their guy until they could get them in a save opportunity. And I'd be curious if he was on a team that was closer to 500 more often and was maybe playing games where his value would have been a lot more useful in a seventh or eighth inning. Would they have experimented more because he was still as good as he was, but they just could get to the ninth inning and very often still have the lead

that they needed. Yeah, that could be. OK, here is a question from listener Sean, who says that he just finished my book with Sam about the Sonoma Stompers. The only rule is it has to work. He says he loved it. Thank you, Sean. I'm 41 and remember, this is a compliment Ben. Yes. Sudd says I'm 41 and remember being a young professional looking for all the

new ways to do things and also having a ton of time and energy to do it. And so he identified with our efforts in Sonoma. I just finished three years as a head coach of a track and field program in Nashville, Tennessee. Stopped teaching and coaching at the school I was at because of scheduling issues with my wife's work and our three young kids. We won two boys state titles and one girls.

I think I applied Saber Metrics-ish to our program to gain success, but I also think it had a negative effect that became visible after three years. It regressed performances to the mean. Here's what I did. There are 19 track and field events, including the decathlon.

14 are explosive running based. Therefore, we can train athletes at the 400 meter distance and then take the pure fast twitch energy systems, burn glycogen appropriate skeletal frames and make them 100 to 400 sprinters. Then take the runners who need more oxygen and make them 400 to 800 meter runners. Then anyone with special skill in explosive movements

or body control can be trained as a jumper and or a hurdler. For what it's worth, we trained on a 21 to 28 physiological cycle. We had 3.5 to four training cycles in our season. Everything was to stimulate max VELO, sprint VELO, or aerobic conditioning. Field events followed similar training patterns, but with skill-based habit learned patterns,

two practices a week, one high impact, one low impact. What I think the problem became though, was that by moving athletes based on their most efficient use for the team, we didn't allow for growth or change into events that inherently take more time to learn. Thus leaving a dearth of specialist, PV, hurlers, decathlon, which account for four total events

or 21% of total possible points PV, Hurlers, Decathlon, which account for four total events, or 21% of total possible points and possible more adjusted for opportunity cost, as most programs don't have coaches for those events and can't train them well, and most kids just wanna run the 100. So with this anecdotal experience of three-year sample, do Saber Metrics inevitably move performance

to the most efficient and sacrifice great or exceptionally high margin performances?" So are we, I guess, lowering the ceiling in some respects because you are focusing on efficiency or I guess what Sean is saying is that they were left without some specialists, but it seems to me this kind of is about, you know, a trend towards specialization. If you're getting more efficient, if you're focusing, hyper-focusing on certain movements, then maybe there are others where you're not quite as well-rounded

and well-balanced. So I think we see something along these lines in other sports and in Major League Baseball for that matter. I think you're right that we see something along these lines in other sports and in major league baseball for that matter. I think you're right that we see some of it. I mean, certainly we've had like the biggest shift of all from a specialization perspective where you don't really have once guys reach like higher levels of competition, certainly once they get to affiliated ball, all but a few of them have done the broader sort of specialization exercise of deciding whether they're a pitcher or a hitter. So we've had that part of it. I do think that baseball is a little different. I may be betraying my poor memory of being a track athlete in middle school here, but you just

get so many reps. And so you have an opportunity, I think, to do real skill development. And it does take a while, and we allow people to take a while despite whatever ambition Rob Manfred might have for the draft. It does tend to take a while, both before their pros and then after. So it's not totally efficient in that regard because it might end up taking you four years, five years to get to the majors, right? So there is some amount of inefficiency.

I do think that you are going to have some amount of sort of selecting for the guys who can at least demonstrate a baseline competence in necessary skills because you have fewer roster spots and places for them to like be slow burns, developmental burns because of the contraction of the miners. So maybe efficiency is required or at least greater efficiency is required because you only have so many shots to be on a domestic roster. But I don't know. I don't think it's quite as like brutally efficient as that. Maybe that's the goal, but I don't know that there's been success in that regard. You know?

Yeah, I think the Max Velo, I mean, that parallels perfectly with what we're seeing in baseball. And I think you do hear people say this and maybe it's just, oh, back in my day, baseball was better, everything was better. But you hear people say that pitchers today, they're, they're throwers, they're not pitchers. They don't know how to get through a lineup a few times. That's something that you, you sometimes hear people say that pitchers will be stunted in their development if you never push them through a third time through the order, because they'll never learn how to do that, how to vary their pitch selection each time through, how to pace themselves, how to hold something in reserve.

And that's kind of true. It's not as if pitchers were ever great at navigating that because the times through the order effects always existed before people recognized it. But I guess I could imagine it being even more extreme now if pitchers were asked to go deeper into games, but they're just not asked to do that. So it's just a more specialized job pitching in general,

all the pitching roles, relievers don't throw as many innings, starters don't throw as many innings. And even though there is this trend maybe towards pitchers trying to develop more pitches or at least starters and pitch design, maybe making that a bit easier, there hasn't been that great a change as I talked about with Ben Clemens

when you were away not long ago, Meg. And so I don't know that I believe that so much. You hear a lot of pitchers these days. They don't know where the ball is going. They just come out and throw as hard as they possibly can. And I think a lot of that is exaggerated. I think people see the speeds and they assume that that's the case, but I don't think it is actually the case.

I there's maybe a little bit of something to it where you have more margin for error if you're throwing harder and perhaps you have a little less fine motor control if you're prioritizing just whipping your arm around as fast as you possibly can, but I tend to think that we all have like Nucleolus in our minds or something and that's not really the way that pitchers are. It's almost like the Nichols law of catcher defense applied to pitchers.

Like if you throw hard, then people assume that you have no command or no control, and you're just, you're effectively wild essentially. But I don't think that that's always accurate. So, but this applies probably also to youth sports because this is something you hear often that kids are being asked or forced or encouraged to specialize earlier,

especially if they or their parents have ambitions for them to get scholarships or GoPro. And they think, well, I'll just do this one thing from an early age and repeat it as many hours as possible and get as many reps as I can and then I will be elite at that thing. And sometimes that backfires because it turns out that it's actually good to have a wider range of experiences and for your body to move in different ways and to play different sports so that you get a general all purpose athleticism as opposed to just, I'm really good

at this one specific motion. And then that can lead to overuse too. And that's probably part of the reason why we see more arm injuries is kids have been throwing from an early age over and over and over again, and maybe not having an off season where they just play basketball or something.

I do think there's also an aspect of this that like track and field is there are specialized parts to it, but the running aspect specifically is, is more of a gradient of the same skill. Whereas baseball and other sports are just typically more specialized in their like the skill they're doing. But I do think you sort of see it, even if you think about pitchers where just like the difference between a starter and a reliever is much more blurred nowadays. It's not as specific as everyone trains for the 400, but to your point, everyone just

throws hard. I think it goes in the, like, why do we no longer have the Matt Stairs types or even Lugies? We have less specialized specific people because you need to be able to do all of the skills more and why the Ben Zobris prototype was so alluring and why Chris Taylor stays on the Dodgers roster for as long as he does because the idea that someone could hypothetically go and do a bunch of different positions, play a bunch of different positions is valuable. I definitely think you see it in basketball where they kind of want just more height and

length across the board, but your biggest big men are typically less valuable and your smallest guards are typically less valuable outside of the extremes in those positions, certainly in a playoff atmosphere. Football, I think if you think about linebackers and DNs and even just across safeties, it has kind of flattened in terms of what the difference there is. I can't speak to hockey, but I would imagine, I know, actually I can say like, you don't have your bruisers anymore who come in just to like fight someone else. Like this, as the skill level rises,

it also kind of flattens in the skill distribution because you kind of need to be able to do all of the things. So I definitely think the analytic aspect of it is more of a like, how do we flatten things out? And it means that we miss some of the extremes. Silly me, like, again, I thought about my fantasy baseball league where I don't care about grand slams and cycles and no hitters. That's not worth me trying to analyze who's most likely to get me a complete game because

I might get two in a whole season. I'm really more focused on, again, Carlos Santana, who can get me walks and on base and doesn't have terrible average and things like that. I just think you do see that sort of smoothing of what is beneficial and what teams are looking for, but maybe less on the biomechanical aspect, which he was very insightful on. That was quite impressive to hear you read off how he went about everything, I will say. Yeah. And I guess this applies to batters too, because that's another complaint you hear from the old school, oh, they have no two strike approach now. They don't shorten up.

They don't try to make contact. And there's truth to that. It's not entirely true. There isn't, you know, like I just think that it's in service of describing the ways in which some styles have converged, there's a risk of flattening the difference that does exist though. There's still some difference, it's true. But hitters, they do swing away more so than they would have in an earlier era.

And it probably makes sense to analytically speaking, because yeah, you're going to get your strikeouts, but you're also going to get a hold of one from time to time. So there is, yes, kind of a convergence of tactics and maybe player profiles, and we've talked about that, the biodiversity of baseball idea. Okay, let us consider this week's What If, which is also a listener email email but is sponsored by our partners

at What If Sports, which you can find out more about by going to our special dedicated landing page at the What If Sports website, which is whatifsports.com slash effectively wild. And when you get there, you can read descriptions of the different types of what of sports simulation games you can play including Hardball Dynasty where you start from scratch take control of a franchise make all the decisions do it over seasons sort of your standard franchise mode but extremely in-depth and then Sim League Baseball where you can pull in players from any era any team jumble them up and see how they would fare with and against each other.

And if you go to whatifsports.com slash effectively wild, you can click on these special offers for Effectively Wild listeners. You can get Hardball Dynasty, the first thing I described, or Sim League Baseball, the second thing I described, for $1 for your first season. What a deal. All right, here is our question.

Actually, first I'll give you a response to one of our earlier what if hypotheticals, which was about catchers who were intentionally bad at framing to confuse umpires. So manager Marcus, Patreon supporter says, this is a follow-up to a what if question posed to you from a week or two ago, someone posed a question along the lines of what would happen

if catchers started framing badly on purpose. I think we're all living the answer to this question already. My recollection when this trend changed may be off, but a few seasons ago, I feel like the best framing catchers a decade or so ago were subtly moving their gloves back within the edges of the strike zone to persuade umpires that what they saw wasn't really what they saw, whereas now most catchers are pulling everything into the middle

of the plate, middle of the zone, no matter where the target was or where the pitch ended up. It is very inelegant and yet seems to be pretty effective for many catchers. I would say this move everything middle middle approach is bad framing. It's unsubtle, sometimes jarring and lacks grace. But as long as everyone does it, and everyone does now in my observation seem to do it, that is the standard good framers are judged against. Compare a video reel of Jose Molina framing pitches

with say Alejandro Kirk. If we only judge framing statistically, then maybe framing is as good or better than it has ever been. But if we look at this as an art form, then I think a lot has been lost in the last decade or so. And I gotta say, I think I'm with Manager Marcus here. Not to be-

We've talked about this, haven't we? The stabby approach? Yeah, not to be too back in my day myself. And Jose Molina, he was one of one. And even in his era, he stood out from everyone else, which is why I just imprinted on him. And I was after I read this question, I went back and just watched a reel of Jose Molina framing

and it soothed my soul because he just would not move his hand and wrist at all. It was the most subtle. He was, I guess, had such strong wrists that he was able to just hold the ball and present it exactly where it came in, except just with a subtle little twist maybe, but not a yank, not a jerk, not at all like that.

And he was an outlier, I think, even even then but it does seem to me that even the best framers of today even Patrick Bailey there's like a yanking going on there the kind of thing that we used to make fun of when occasionally a like someone in the little league world series would do that they'd just take some way outside pitch and try to yank it back into the strike zone and it wouldn't work. Evidently it is working and I don't know why that would have changed but when I was writing about framing back in the early days of baseball bloggers making a big deal about that,

I always said it was about being quiet, it was about being still, it was the less movement the better. And that is just not what I'm seeing these days and I gotta be honest, it's, it's sapped some of my appreciation for the aesthetics of framing. In addition to like it violating sort of my aesthetic preference for framing, I find it annoying because it makes it harder to defend framing to the critics. Because like, you know, the ideal framed pitch to my mind is not the obvious ball that is somehow made to look like a strike by a good framer.

The best framed pitch is the borderline pitch that could go either way and is presented such that it appears to be an obvious strike to the umpire. Right? That's a little, that's a lovely little bit of sleight of hand. You're like a magician, you know, and you have to receive the ball. This is why I've always found the argument that framing is akin to flopping to be not persuasive or at least one of the reasons. Cause like you have to catch the ball, it has to be received. And so what are you meant to do if you're the catcher, but make it look like a strike? But when it's all stabby, you know, when the movement is so forceful, the person watching

the game is very aware of the fact, even if that pitch is a close borderline call, and it is being made to look like a strike. Even if it is the kind of pitch that I like to be framed, it isn't being done in a way that makes you understand why an umpire would say, well, yeah, that's a strike. Of course that's a strike, right? It pierces the veil, you know, it removes the mystique. You go from being a magician to being, I don't know, a worse magician. You go from being a magician to being a guy dealing three card Monte. I don't think that analogy works, but I'm going to go with it because you shouldn't deal three card Monte.

That's just, you know, that's cheating people. Yeah. It used to be more sleight of hand. It was, it's gotten garish in a sense. It's so show-offy, you know? Yeah, it's so obvious. Now maybe this is, this is my hipster baseball sensibility where I liked the idea that, oh, this is so subtle. Look at this, just a little flick of the wrist and you wouldn't even notice it if you're a normie fan and yet look how much it's worth. And now it's just in your face.

And it also, it does make it seem a little less impressive from a technique perspective because yeah, before, right. It was about, you had to hide it. You had to kind of camouflage it. And I'm not saying it doesn't take skill now, obviously. It takes skill, but there was something that so impressed me about Molina and maybe like Jonathan Lucroi and Tyler Flowers

and that era of framing. I don't know whether this has anything to do with the fact that one knee down has become the dominant stance. I don't know whether that has contributed to this or not. I don't know why that would be related necessarily, but that has coincided with this change that we seem to be noticing here. But it just, like if the umpires are that gullible

that you can just yank it, then it makes them look bad as opposed to making the catcher look good. That's the distinction, I think. Yeah, and so that bugs me. Honestly, Ben, like this might be the best example of the brutal efficiency effect on baseball, right? Where it's not about the artistry, the, you know, brutal efficiency effect on baseball, right? Where it's not about the artistry, it's not about little sleight of hands.

It's funny, because I like framing, but I don't like closeup magic. I'm not an, it's not for me. But yeah, it's like, is it pretty? No, but does it get you where you need to go? Yes, well then do it. And do it that way, because that is the most reliable way. But it's like, come on, flirt with me a little, geez.

I kind of don't understand why it works also. Right, it feels like it should be counterproductive. Yeah, that's what I always thought. Just the guys who were just obviously yanking it, they weren't going to fool anyone. And I really should have rephrased that. Are we not doing phrasing anymore anyway? But enough about Reese McGuire. I feel bad. Poor Reese.

Not his fault. Unless you have any observations about framing John, I will move on to the new. We can move on. Or anything else related to what we were just talking about? I'll stay away from Reese Reguire for now. Thank you. Yeah. And I also will not make any John Thomas jokes here because I'm sure you do.

That would be appropriate here. I guess that's more of a like a British slay sort of thing. So what is that? I don't know what that is. Am I, am I being given a little toy that I am not old enough to play with? Yeah, it's like a cockney slang, no pun intended, so to speak. No, just for the male member. Oh, male members. So much worse than any slang.

You could just call it a John Thomas for now and it's fine. John Thomas, man, those Brits. I tell you what, man. I wasn't going to bring that up because I'm sure you've got that your whole life. But then you've got Reese McGuire and how could I not? I mean, come on. All right. That was just too tempting. Okay. The new What If Sports What If question of the week comes to us from JP Bender, also a Patreon supporter who says, I was thinking about how the pirates are fortunate enough to have Paul Skeen's pitch every fifth day for them and how they're not really taking advantage of that, which got me thinking,

what if every pitcher on the pirates were a copy of Paul Skeen's? At first, I figured this would greatly improve the pirates, but how much do you think the times through the order effect slash familiarity effect would come into play? Let's say for this hypothetical, each copy of Skeen's would not be able to modify his pitch mix to emulate different pitchers. If one skeens adds a pitch, the rest follow suit. I'm sure no one would ever solve how to hit skeins 100% of the time, but over the course of a series, do you think hitters would dramatically improve, or just marginally? Alternatively, what about if there were only two teams in the league?

One team takes on 1,296 plus innings against Paul Skeens. Could they hit 300, 400, 500? Finally, who do you think would win more games head to head over 162? A team with only skeins pitchers, with an MLB All All-Star lineup or the most average team you can think of? So what do we think the familiarity effect of facing Paul Skeens, but a different Paul Skeens, not the same one who's going to be tired and overworked. It's a new fresh Paul Skeens every day, but it is the same guy with the same repertoire. Same repertoire and like I imagine like same arm action.

Yes. Everyone is built like the USS Nimitz. Yeah. Like it's it there's like a it's like the prestige but with Skeens's. I guess while we're talking about magic, but. Right. Yeah. There are multiple of them. Sorry to ruin the

prestige for everyone. Spoiler alert. He was cloning. It's not like a hive mind. Like it's not, I think, one consciousness. It's like, you know, they're clones. They have their own mentalities. They have their own thoughts and feelings. And so they're not throwing the same pitch every single time, the same way they're not, you know, the same sequencing, the same pitch type usage necessarily, but they do have the same arsenal of pitches to deploy. I feel like Paul skeins is just really good. And that's what makes it hard. Yeah. You know, like we could never really replicate the times to the order effect in this nature. Like obviously it happens like this is maybe combining

the reliever penalty in the playoffs with the, with like the normal times to the order effect. But Paul Skeens is really, really good at pitching. So I just think, and they gave them an all star lineup. So I think that also helps compared to an average team. Maybe that was, that confused me a tiny bit. I just think that team would be incredible no matter how familiar everyone was with Paul Skeens.

And he's got a great repertoire where he maybe could, he might be the kind of pitcher who could beat this a little bit with the depth of pitches that he has. Yes, yeah. Now the Pirates have a pretty strong rotation. I mean, they, even without Jared Jones, they are 11th in starting pitcher war, according to FanCrafts this year, and a lot of that is Skeens. But really, it's pretty solid, more or less top to bottom.

Mitch Keller, Bailey Falter has been good, Andrew Heaney has been good. And if they call up Bubba Chandler at some point, that could be one of the best rotations in baseball baseball potentially. So is there a point at which it becomes diminishing skeins returns where like, if you have some decent alternative options, maybe having five skeins is not as good as having four skeins and a Mitch Keller or something, right?

But I think you're right that on the whole, Skeens is so much better than the typical pitcher that replacing your back end starters with a copy of Skeens, it's probably gonna be an improvement, even if each individual Skeens is no longer as effective. I support this experiment in human cloning because I think one of the things that we

always, really no response to that? I think one of the things that is always so fascinating to contemplate when it comes to the times through the order penalty, and it can be challenging to really isolate is like what is the effect of fatigue on effectiveness there, right? Like is it, it's part of the issue that they are familiar, is it that they're tired, you know, like some of it's in there, but what if you could stream fully arrested skeins one after another, then you could really, you could really hone in on the familiarity piece of it. And they wouldn't, it wouldn't like, to the question's point, as you said, it wouldn't

be, they'd still be like reacting to the hitter who's in front of them. So presumably they would know, maybe they would try to mix things up. As John said, like Skeen's has a fairly robust repertoire, so maybe he could kind of, Skeen's four could kind of, skeins four could kind of mix and match. But I do worry it is a bit too galaxy brain to be like, no, you'd prefer to have four skeins instead of five. And I think given your choices, you just always rather have five skeins. It's like not a bad thing to have five skeins. I get what you're saying, but like, I still think you probably want five skeins. Yes. Maybe the way to vary it is to have, you have your starting skeins every day.

You have your starting skeins. There's that skeins going again. The really interesting thing would be if one of the skeins was like, I want to be a painter. What do you do with that skeins? And it's like, no, sorry, you're engaged in a grand baseball experiment. You can't follow your dreams. You must pitch. Yeah.

I think they have free will, I would hope, in this scenario. So they could walk away if they wanted to. Yeah. But you want your starting skeins and then you want a slew of non-skines relievers. And then you want a skeins to finish it out because then maybe the familiarity, like you've seen a bunch of other, you've seen other relievers and you're like, oh, what does the skeins even look like? And then you're like, ah, dang it, there he is again. But now your mental map has been wiped.

Matthew 14 Yes. I think that I've been pretty convinced by the recent research that the times through the order effect is more familiarity than fatigue. And so I do think there would be an effect here. Now, I remembered some research from Russell Carlton at baseball prospectus about a dozen years ago now where he looked at whether it's actually important to vary the handedness of your starters, because some teams will do that. They won't want to have a bunch of lefties in a row if they have the personnel, if they can just stagger by handedness, then they will often. And he couldn't find any evidence that that was the case that batters are more effective than expected. If they faced a lefty yesterday and they're facing a lefty today. He also looked at that a few other ways based on power finesse,

based on whether you're a ground ball guy or a fly ball guy, based on whether all of those things were consistent. He couldn't find any evidence that that mattered. However, that was 2013. And as he acknowledged even then, there could be more sensitive granular approaches to that question. If we were to drill down on it now with all the data that we have about pitch types and pitch shapes and pitch speeds and arm angles and arm action and all the rest.

And you actually came up with pitchers who looked visually similar. Maybe there would be more to it than just handedness because you could have two guys who have the same handedness but one is over the top and one is more sidearm and one's you know throws hard and another doesn't right there could be some pretty significant changes there so he couldn't find anything there. Also years ago I failed to find any evidence of a playoff familiarity effect for starters who pitch Twice in the same series that they're no less effective the second time Facing the same team in the same series But as you just alluded to John we know about the the playoff familiarity effect for relievers and that does seem to take a toll

over the course of a series and effect for relievers and that does seem to take a toll over the course of a series. And even Paul Skeens himself, the genuine article over the course of his fairly brief big league career, he has had a times through the order effect. He's so good that he's still worth using third time through, but his first time through OPS allowed is 510 and his third time through is 631, which is still excellent, but there's a meaningful difference there. So if he's your only pitcher every game, then yeah, there's going to be a real drop off. And like there's just going to be better scouting.

There are in-depth scouting reports of pitchers now, of course, but if you're always going gonna be facing that same guy when you face that team and you're facing him every day, then you're gonna have even more intensive preparation for that and in-depth advanced scouting and reports and figuring out tendencies and all the rest. And so you kind of get the book on that guy to the extent that a book exists,

I think more quickly than you would. And plus every team, you're almost going to be pooling your resources. Even if teams aren't sharing their scouting reports with each other, they're all going to be scouting Paul Skeens. And so you might see some tendencies come to the fore. If, if one team is particularly successful against the Skeens is, then it might become clear that they have cracked the code somehow. Secret sauce.

Yeah, and then his secret sauce, exactly. And so that surfaces and then other teams can borrow that. So I do think that subsequent Skeens' and second, third game in a series, they really would be meaningfully worse. I just think that he's so good that you'd probably be better off with an all skeins rotation than your average rotation, at least of even one skeins and a bunch of other non skeins pitchers. What if the key is to freeze each skeins in like a different season, right? So like, sophomore campaign skeins has a slightly different mix than then rookie skeins had,

right? He's like changed some things. He's added pitches. So what if it's well, what if you JP's question specified that each copy of skeins couldn't modify their pitch mix, they could maybe throw pitches at different rates. But if one skeins learns a pitch, then the other skeins has also learned that pitch. Okay, but have some imagination with me then. And envision a world in which they aren't like one organism connected together. Yeah, if you could have like last year's skeins and this year's skeins,

that would be some real differentiation there. Like aspen trees, you know, they're like networked, but like we're not, we're saying you have to be severed from your skeins brethren, and can't be duplicate skeinsing, you must be unique skeins. And really isn't that nice to give them the dignity of distinction betwixt and between them,

because they are clones, and are otherwise lacking in distinction, right? We've already said the one can't paint. It's like you can paint, the only painting you can do is of the strike zone. But so we let them be a little bit different. I'm expanding on the question, the notion of it. I still think it's good to have a bunch of skeins as if you can. Can I tell you a funny story? So when I went to see skeins, they had the, they had Skeens, you know, Skeens was like warming up. He was like doing toss in the outfield and then Skeens was on MLB network, like an interview with Skeens, not

the Skeens that was on the field. They weren't talking to him while he was on the field. This was like a prerecorded thing. And I don't know if they were like forced perspectiving him. He's a big guy as we've established, but like he's standing next to DeRosa on the MLB network set and I'm like is he 13 feet tall or is mark much smaller? Than I thought he was like is he a tiny it was like it looked like some hobbit Gandalf for a minute Where I was like how tall and it was it was notable enough that everyone in the box was like have we been? Misunderstanding how tall Paul skeins is You know like this whole time is he actually like five inches taller than we thought? Or is he very small?

Anyway, it was confusing. It looked like there was like forced perspective and they were at one long table. Any other thoughts, John? No, I do think though the Meg that one side effect of giving them more personality is more of them will want to paint or etc. And we might get some sad skeins if they really have too much free will. I almost think this more of like connected mind is like they are ruthless killing, pitching

machines who all they know how to do is paint the strike zone and have no other. So I think that's just one thing I'd be afraid of. I think that it's so optimistic of you to assume that the skeins we have now is not a little bit sad about what's going on. I actually think that's what feeds into it is he's giving, he has some sad boy energy a little bit for sure. It was so funny when they cut to to Livy Dunn at the start skeins at happy start, happy start, right? They blow out the Diamondbacks at home and the the broadcast cuts to Livy Dunn and she's so happy and I was just like, it's like I said, I was like, wow, I think she really loves him because she's surely watched so much bad baseball this year and yeah, well, you'll make that for love. That's the question,

of course, how this affects Livy Dunn. Are there multiple liby duns? Do they have to compete for her affections? Is there some sort of shared situation which I don't want to explore on this podcast? I feel uncomfortable speculating about that. You know, that doesn't feel like our business No, probably not whatever makes liby and her various schemes is happy. It feels like a thing they get to sort out for themselves Yes. Yeah. Wow. This is reminding me of all sorts of sci-fi scenarios that come to mind that I, again, will not explore on this episode. And maybe with facial hair they could differentiate themselves. You have the mustache skeins, you have the clean shaven skeins, you have maybe a full beard skeins. We have beard skeins.

Yeah. He's currently beard skeins. But like, Brebb full beard skeins. We have beard skeins. Yeah. He's currently beard skeins. But like Brebia beard skeins. Oh, you want Brebia beard skeins? Not saying I want it. I'm just saying they might want it to stand out from each other. They. Yeah.

The one of the clones, one of the skeins clones. He might be like, oh, I got to have a... Yes. Yeah. Well, I'd like to end with a little stat blasting here. Would you care to stick around for the stat blast, Jon? Or do you have to? I would love to. Okay. Hmm. Well, I'd like to end with a little stat blasting here. Would you care to stick around for the stat blast, John? Or do you have to? I'd love to.

OK, great. If only for the silence where the diddy would normally go. Yes. Yeah, you don't hear pulling back the curtain here. You'll have to just imagine the stat blast song that everyone else will hear now. Okay, well, things have been looking up for the Rockies a little lately, relatively speaking, but I am still going to dunk on Dick Monfort here a little bit. And by the way, do you have any opinion since we just covered the John Thomas thing? John, do you have any opinion on the Dick Fitzs and the Richard Love Ladies of the world? Like, should they just embrace it like former MLB player Dick Pohl? He didn't insist on Richard Pohl, you know? Like, do

you just say lean into it it or are you sympathetic? Lean into the pole. Oh, absolutely lean into the pole. Always. Yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah. I think, I think I'm, I'm a pro for the bit kind of person. So I think they absolutely should. Yes. No wonder you like this podcast. Yeah. Amen.

So as some may recall the spring before the season started, Dick Monfort resisted the temptation mostly to make a prediction about how good this Rockies team would be, but not entirely, because even though he didn't weigh in on a win total prediction that could have and would have come back to bite him as has happened in the past. He did answer at the Northern Colorado Friends of Baseball Breakfast. He said, the infield, quite honestly, and if you like defense and I like defense, will be the best defense maybe in the history of the game.

That's a big statement, but you've got a gold glover at third, even though he never gets one. You've got a gold glover at short, Tyra Estrada gets one. You've got a gold Glover at short, Tyra Estrada who we added is a really good defensive player and Michael Tolia is a great first baseman. So look, he hedged, he caveated, but not sufficiently I'd say.

He said, quite honestly, it will be the best defense and then said maybe in the history of the game. So I acknowledge the maybe, but still as Dick Monfort said himself, that's a big statement. So I thought we could check in on how the Rockies infield is doing, and then also look at what's the best team infield to beat. What is the team to beat here?

What is the best infield ever, defensively speaking? So the Rockies, to no one's surprise, probably have not had that great a defensive infield. And to Rockies, to no one's surprise, probably have not had that great a defensive infield. And to be fair to Montfort, like they were a pretty good defensive team last year. There were reasons to think that they could be good at defense, but they just haven't been especially much as they haven't really been good at anything. So first of all, we have to decide is a catcher an infielder? Where do you two stand on that?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would like, I, you know, it's weird for this exercise. Like I would say a catcher is an infielder, but I think from a defensive metrics standpoint, I don't think of it that way because so much of their value is outside of the infield defense. Yeah. I don't think a catcher is an infielder. I've struggled with this and you could ask the same question about a pitcher. Of course, we just, we don't have great pitcher defensive stats going back far, which kind

of makes that moot for the purposes of this question. But in my mind, yeah, technically, they're infielders, but they're the battery, the pitcher and the catcher. Sure. They're kind of their own separate entity. they're infielders, but they're the battery, the pitcher and the catcher. They're kind of their own separate entity. And also like the catcher technically is not in the infields. Like the baseball dictionary,

Dixon's baseball dictionary defines infield as the area on the playing field bounded by the four baselines, the diamond, the area on the playing field bounded by the four baselines, the diamond, the area on the playing field bounded by the outside edges of the base paths. This definition applies because there is no official definition of where the infield actually ends and the outfield begins.

But I think if you're in foul territory, as the catcher uniquely is, are you actually in the infield? It's pretty unique across sports too, I was just thinking, which is interesting. Yeah. To be like off the field of play for most of your time. And you know, you're in play also, obviously, you're playing there, but in a sense, yeah.

I appreciate everything that you're saying and I don't think you're wrong. I'm fine with them being sort of a standalone category, right? A grouping onto themselves. I would say yes for like, in this instance, I think that the answer is maybe yes, because you're right that they're part of the battery, but that's not all. That's not the only, they interact with other players on the infield and they don't ever interact with players on the outfield, really, really. Yeah, I guess they might help with positioning.

There's a little binary, like, are you in the infield or are you in the outfield too? And catchers are clearly in the infield in that question. That is true. Yeah. The definition in Dixon for infielder is a defensive player positioned in the infield, specifically the first baseman, second baseman, third baseman or shortstop, and sometimes the pitcher and catcher. Henry Chadwick in the game of baseball, 1868, included the pitcher and catcher. Henry Chadwick in the game of baseball,

1868 included the pitcher and catcher among the six infielders. So yeah, we could go either way. The rule book for what it's worth, I think largely separates catcher from infielder because there is one rule, which is like 5.06 B4G, which I think has to do with how many bases the runner advances if the ball is thrown out of play. And there, there's a note that says for the purpose of rule 5.06B4G,

rule 7.05G, a catcher is considered an infielder. And as someone in Reddit many years ago pointed out, this is kind of the exception that proves the rule, because for this specific thing, it says a catcher is considered an infielder, but everywhere else it seems like not, because it will say catcher or infielder in many places, as if they're separate. So I'll give it to you both ways.

So whichever definition you prefer, I'll give you the answer. And it actually helps the Rockies a little bit if we don't include catching, but only so much. If we go catcher free, then the Rockies are 13th in defensive run saved this year. And if we include catcher, then they are 21st. So not only are they not the best defensive infield of all time, they

are not even close to the best defensive infield this season. In fact, they're barely above average without catcher and below average with catcher. And for all of this, I had some help with Ryan Nelson for other parts of this answer, frequent stat blast correspondent. The way that we're looking at this is just the DRS or for earlier eras, the total zone of the players at each infield position combined, but only when they're playing that infield position, not just if they played some outfield too, you lump that in. It's, it's only when they were actually playing infield. So I have a spreadsheet here.

Do you want to say something before I get to the rest of this, Meg? I do, which is that I think that the Rockies must agree with you because they DFA Jacob Stollings today. Okay. So they are also displeased with the state of things and would perhaps prefer not to have to count them anymore. How timely.

Okay, well, the all time answer, and this is joining total zone for earlier eras and defensive runs saved since 2002. The answer is the 1975 Baltimore Orioles, best infield defense of all time without including catcher. They were 83 runs above average. And that was Lee May and Bobby Gritch and the great Mark Blander and the great Brooks Robinson.

So this is a pretty good, I think, passes the sniff test. You know, 75 Orioles, that sounds about right that they would be at the top of this list. Second, these are the only two teams above 80, runs above average collectively. The 1999 Mets, who I remember having a very fun infield of John O'Rourke, my fave, one of my faves at first.

Edgardo Alfonso, the very ultra-popular Fonzie at second. Ray Ordonez, who was maybe a little flashier than he was as great as he was purported to be, but still pretty good at shortstop. He won the gold glove that year. And another of my faves and a great defender, Robin Ventura at third. So that's an infield for you right there.

So they also had Mike Piazza at catcher, who I think actually was a good defensive catcher. And that doesn't hurt that much, because if we look at catcher inclusive I think actually was a good defensive catcher. And that doesn't hurt that much because if we look at catcher inclusive versions of this, then the 75 Orioles are still on top. Dave Duncan was their primary catcher that year. They were 87 runs above average, including catcher. And then after that, the 1998 Tampa Bay Devil Race. Now that I would not have expected that they would be number two in field defense of all time.

This is a last place team that won 63 games, expansion team. And yet on the infield, including catcher, they had Flash John Flaherty, they had Fred McGriff at first, Miguel Cairo at second, Kevin Stocker at short, and Bob Smith at third. And I guess that was all that they were good at that year. And then third, it's the 99 Mets again at 78 runs above average, including Piazza. And Piazza was good. He was very bad at throwing,

but he was very good actually at everything else and receiving and framing as best we can tell and working with pitchers and all the rest of a catcher's job. So that's the answer. That is what Dick Monfort and the Rockies were aiming for. And that is what they have fallen very far short of. Okay, next stat blast.

This was a self-directed one. Also, I got curious about holds, and specifically the worst holds. So you know, the reliever stat, the hold, we don't talk about it that much. It's not really tracked all that diligently. People don't pay that close attention to it. But the definition of the hold from mob.com, a hold occurs when a relief pitcher enters the game in a safe situation and maintains his team's lead for the next relief pitcher while recording at least one out. One of two conditions must be met for a pitcher to record a hold.

He enters with a lead of three runs or less and maintains that lead while recording at least one out. And two, he enters the game with the tying run on deck at the plate or on the bases and records an out. So it's a way of, uh, can we invent a stat to give set up men something other than saves essentially. And it's just, hey, did you come in in what is and would eventually be a save situation and not cough up the lead? That's basically it. The thing is, though, that you don't have to be good to get a hold. You just have to avoid the game being tied, like the lead being completely blown while

you're on the mound. And I was thinking of this earlier this season when Devin Williams, I guess, had already been demoted from the closer role. This was May 5th and Devin Williams came in in the eighth inning for the Yankees. They do not have Mariano anymore. Things have changed there and Devin Williams came in with the Padres batting down three nothing in the top of the eighth and he came in against the bottom of the Padres lineup. He struck out Martin Maldonado so far so

good. Then he walked Tyler Wade. He gave up a single to Brandon Lockridge. Wade went to second. He struck out Fernando No Tatsis Jr. and then he walked Louisa Rice. So he has loaded the bases now. Tying run is, is on first and that's it. His day is done. And so he leaves having gotten the Yankees into a jam and gotten a couple outs but still Luke Weaver pre hamstring strain and fateful stretch, he comes in to replace Devin Williams and immediately gives up a double that clears the bases and all those runs are charged to Devin Williams and Zander Bogart's then singles to score the guy who doubled, which was Manny Machado, and that was that. Lead gone, Yankees lost the game.

So Luke Weaver gets the blown save and the loss, and Devin Williams gets the hold. But he also pitched two thirds of an inning and gave up three earned runs after he entered with a three run lead. So I thought, well, that's a pretty lousy hold. I mean, technically he held, I guess, they still had the lead when he left,

but I thought to myself, well, that's gotta be about as bad a hold as you can get. But I was wrong. It was not as bad as holds can get. And so that's what I wanted to look at. What's the worst hold of all time? And in fact, Devin Williams, at least by win probability added, that was only like the 83rd worst hold of this season, according to baseball reference Stathead, which I used for this. The worst hold

of this season was Garrett McDaniels early in the year, Angels reliever, this was April 1st against the Cardinals. And Garrett McDaniels, he comes in in the bottom of the 10th. So he had to deal with the zombie runner, but still the Angels are up six to three, and he's facing the number nine hitter. He walks Mason Wynn, he strikes out Lars Knutbar, then he throws a wild pitch, then there is a double that

scores two runs, Luke and Baker, then a pass ball, then a walk, and then he is replaced by Ryan Johnson, who then gives up a single and the tying run scores. And all those runs are charged to Garrett McDaniels. And that is the worst hold of this season. So that's a one third of an inning, which he had to get to qualify for the hold three runs, two earned, two walks and the hold. The angels did eventually win that one at least, but WPA wise, that is a negative 0.365. But that was just this season. So what is the worst hold of all time by when probability added?

Well, I will tell you. It is Joe Cascarella, July 7th, 1934. And this was actually, it's a tie with Pete Reichert in 1973, but I'll just go with Cascarella here. This was a negative.591 win probability added. He enters in the bottom of the seventh with the Red Sox batting and he's pitching for the A's with an eight to three lead. So this is a substantial lead, but I guess it was a safe situation because the bases were loaded when he entered. So, you know, it's a tough assignment, I guess. But he comes in replacing

the excellently nicknamed Sugar Kane, whose name was Merritt, but Sugar Kane. Why wouldn't it be? How did we not name Matt Kane Sugar? Why was he not nicknamed that? I don't know. That's more evidence for baseball nicknames are worse now. Anyway, Joe Cascarella comes in, faces Dick Porter, bases loaded, he allows a walk and the bases are loaded, so he walks in a run. Then he allows a single that scores two more runs. Then he gets a ground out to get out of the inning. He comes back out for the eighth, still has a three run lead at this point, and it's a three batter inning at least. There's a walk and then a ground out and then a ground ball double play. And then bottom of the ninth, he comes back out and he is

still up 10 to 7 and he allows a single and a double and a single and two more runs scored and then he is replaced by Roy Mahaffey. So now he has left a runner on and that runner eventually scored when Wes Farrell hit a double and that was the end of the game. It was a walk-off situation and the Red Sox came back to win 11-10, but Joe Cascarella, he got the hold. And it was Roy Mahaffey who got the flip-blown save. Though I guess Cascarella, he got the hold and the loss in that one. So there was some indignity there, at least. Yeah, maybe that's an official score decision. Maybe they handled things differently. Obviously they weren't awarding holds at that point.

So this is a retroactive hold, but nonetheless. Okay, and then I looked at this one more way. That was when probability added. I looked at it also in terms of what baseball reference calls. It's basically base out runs saved. It's like RE24, which is less context sensitive. It doesn't consider the score so much.

It just considers the base out situation. And if you go by that, then the worst hold this year was Phil Maiton. It was May 4th, I think the first game of a double header maybe, and this was Cardinals and Mets. And Meitan enters in the top of the eighth against the Mets. The Mets are down by three runs and he's facing 6-7-8.

He allows a walk to Luis Torrens. He gets Jeff McNeil to ground out, then Luis Angel Acuña singles, and then Tyrone Taylor singles. And so Meitan then allows a single to Francisco Lindor and two run score, and he leaves runners on first and second for Jojo Romero. And so that is the worst by RE24,

the worst hold of this season. And that is one third of an inning pitched, three runs, two earned runs. And lastly, the all time worst hold by RE24 belongs to Danny Cox, 1993, September 15th. This was a negative 4.94 RE24. This was Blue Jays versus Tigers. And Cox comes in pitching This was Blue Jays versus Tigers and Cox comes in pitching for the Blue Jays in the bottom of the sixth with the Tigers

They had started the inning behind five to nothing but Todd Stottelmeyer who was pitching for Toronto had already allowed one run So Cox comes in inherits runners at first and second with two outs and still up by four runs allows a single to Dan Gladden. My man Mickey Tattleton, Froot Loops scores, Alan Trammell goes to third. Then there's a walk to Tony Phillips, another great and favorite of mine. And then Lou Whitaker, another legend, he singles and scores Trammell and Gladden. And then Cox comes back out for the seventh, has a one, two, three inning, comes back out for the eighth, allows double, single, run scoring single, ground out, run scoring double.

And then finally gets replaced by Mark Eichhorn. So this ends in a Blue Jays 14 to eight win. But the line for our guy Danny Cox is one inning and two thirds and five runs all earned. And yet he gets the hold. So I think it's a little less embarrassing when you're pitching multiple innings and you're coming back out after a break. That's a little better than the Devin Williams situation

where you can't even get through an inning, maybe, but it's still not great. And I wonder whether the reliever feels any pride or sense of accomplishment whatsoever in the situation. Like, hey, I got a hold. I don't know whether holds even help you like in arbitration or whatever. I don't know if pitchers pay attention to this,

but in a sense you did your job because your job was to not lose on the most fundamental level and to preserve the leads, but also you made that lead so much more precarious that I can't imagine that you would be feeling great about it. I was surprised there was 84 people this season between I forget what the first place one

and Devin Williams, because the Devin Williams line was already pretty bad as it was. Yeah. He didn't, yeah, he, he wasn't in long enough maybe to make it worse, but he sort of, he was the setup man and he set up Luke Weaver to fail. All right. Lastly, I was inspired a few weeks ago by Clayton Kershaw's no hit start against the Reds Arizona Complex League team. Do you remember this? When Kershaw was rehabbing before he came back,

one of his rehab starts was at like the lowest possible level, the Reds Complex League affiliate and Kershaw threw six no hit innings. And that was kind of cool. It's like, hey, the old guys still got it, at least against the extremely young guys. And I was thinking to myself, how cool would it be if you're one of these very young Reds

and you get to face Clayton Kershaw? That's awesome. And imagine if one day one of those AZL Reds made the majors and faced Kershaw again and would remember. I'm sure Kershaw wouldn't remember but what if they remembered, oh I faced this guy several years ago when I was just starting out and here I am. Now that probably won't happen in this situation because I sadly kind of doubt that Kershaw will be around long enough for someone to hypothetically make the majors from that

team and face him again at that level. Yeah, I mean, not saying he's definitely done. It's just these guys are years away probably. And I did look at the lineup that he faced and they didn't have any like tippy top prospects. No one who was on the recent Reds top 45 list at FanCrafts but he did face four guys who were in Eric's list of last year's Dominican summer league names to know. So there's something, you know, maybe one of these guys pans out

someday. But I was curious about times when that has happened, when someone has faced a rehabbing pitcher or vice versa, a rehabbing batter faced a young pitcher. And then they met later in the majors, but their first meeting was in the minors. And I was thinking, oh, I wonder what lore there is, like how long a gap was there between that first minor league meeting when one guy was rehabbing, and then when they faced each other on equal footing,

you know, not big leagues versus Bush league, but both big leaguers. And I wondered like, would they remember it? You know, like the young guy would, I would imagine, right? Like you'd remember that if you face this guy in a minor league rehab assignment, that's, that's always something that minor league guys, they get hyped for because it's like, oh, a little taste of the big leagues here, a little sneak preview, even if this guy is diminished or shaken off the rust, that's still kind of cool.

And so you'd probably remember that, but the rehabbing pitcher probably wouldn't. But I wondered like longest gap between those types of meetings and like lowest level for that to have happened. And also maybe the batter or pitcher who went on to the longest big league career who had that happen. And so I got this data from Robert Owl at baseball prospectus, who's the director of operations over there. And I went to Robert because I know that he has helped me with this kind of query before, because for this you need really minor league play by play data.

And we have that from MLB and it's in the BP database and probably in the fan grass database too, for 20 years. So we have it back to 2005. That's about as far as we can go with the best version of this. And so I asked him for this data. He sent it over. I will share the spreadsheets, which are quite fun to browse.

So here's what I've learned. The longest gaps between, it's almost like some sort of count to Monte Cristo situation. It's like, I was, I was working my way back to get my revenge on you all these years. You had forgotten about me. You thought I was just some minor leaguer who didn't matter. And here I am. Aha. And I show up with a flourish again. And probably the picture is, well, I don't want to do and or spoilers here, but you know, it's like, who are you? Right? Like, you know, I don't think of you at all.

I'm conflating Andor and Don Draper there, but you get the point. Okay. So the longest gap between the first batter pitcher matchup between two guys happening in the minors and then the reprise in the majors is Eric Hosmer was rehabbing and faced Chris Martin. So this happened, the rehab appearance happened in AAA August 30th, 2014, and then they faced each other again in the big leagues, May 10th, 2022. So 7.7 years elapsed between when Eric Hosbur was rehabbing in AAA, Chris Martin had not yet made his debut. That's the other thing I should specify here that the minor league party here cannot have made their major league debut already to qualify for this. So Robert removed all of those and also the criteria for rehab

stints, like there's, there's no real designation in the data for this guy was on a rehab assignment. So he made it, he set it such that it's like between one and 99 batters faced in the minor league stint for that season level and at least 1200 MLB batters faced in prior seasons. And then for batters, it was between one and 49 plate appearances in that season in the minors and at least 1000 MLBPA in prior seasons. So that's it, 7.7 years. That's the longest that anyone went in that direction.

And then if you want the rehabbing pitcher who is facing the minor leaguers, then the longest gap is much longer. 11 years, 11 years elapsed between when Oliver Perez was rehabbing in AAA and faced Ryan Rayburn. And this was, this was September 1st, 2005, it looks like. And then they met up again, August 17th, 2016 in the majors. And I wonder whether Ryan Rayburn remembered that they had faced each other. The next longest gaps here both involve Rich Hill,

which is appropriate. So 10.9 years elapsed between when Rich Hill faced Wilson Ramos and Donovan Solano in high A in separate starts in July of 2008. And then he faced them again in May and June of 2019. So yeah, there's a lot of Oliver Perez here because he was around forever, you know, ageless lefties. There's a lot of Rich Hill.

There's some Bartolo Colon, Randy Wolf, Charlie Morton, Ju Smiley, you know, guys who, who hung around forever, I guess is a good one. Now the lowest level at which this first meeting has ever happened. And then having had an encore, a sequel in the majors is rookie ball. It has happened as low as rookie ball. So this Kershaw scenario, it could come to fruition. So when you have the rehabbing batter against the pitcher, like in 2016, AJ Pollock was rehabbing and faced Jose Suarez. And then they faced each other again in the majors in 2022 when Suarez was in rookie ball at that point. Same thing 2012, Jacoby Ellsbury

faced baby Jose Barrios in rookie ball. Yeah. And then they faced each other again in the majors in 2017. Luis Valbuena and Paul Frye, Nomar Garcia-Para and Jorge Campio, Alex Gordon and Sean Kelly. I'm tickled by that. I'm tickled by the, the rookie ball matchup that is just a, it's foreshadowing really of what is going to happen years and years down the road. And then for batters who are facing rehabbing pitchers, they're actually more examples of that. And just at the top of the list, I'll, I'll mention cause this is a fun one. Zach Granke was rehabbing in July of 2016 in rookie ball and faced Isaac Paredes, baby Isaac Paredes. Yeah. And then they faced each other again in the majors in August of 2022.

So that's kind of cool. There's another Rich Hill example, of course, Rich Hill faced Alexey Amarista in rookie ball back in 2008 and then faced him again in 2011 in the big leagues. Oh, and if you're wondering about the shortest time elapsed between these meetings, it's five days, five days. Yeah, so Derek Holland was rehabbing at AAA and faced Owen Miller. And then I guess Derek Holland got promoted

and Owen Miller both got promoted immediately. I didn't look into the circumstances, but they faced each other's like, it was May 22nd. I guess it was like three days somehow. I was like May 22nd to May 25th or something. And they faced each other almost immediately after and it must have been deja vu, I suppose. So that is almost all I have for you,

except that the most career MLB plate appearances by any batter involved in one of these confrontations in the Miners First is Andrew McCutcheon, who has gone on to more than 9,000 career plate appearances in the majors. Baby Cutch in 2008 faced Josh Fogg and then that was in AAA and then they matched up again in the majors in 2009. So lots of good ones here. Kutch, Carlos Santana, Freddie Freeman, Joey Vado, like the first Freddie Freeman versus Oliver Perez, that happened in the minors. Carlos

Santana versus Chris Young, that happened in the minors. Carlos Santana versus Chris Young, that happened in the minors. Manny Machado versus Chad Godin. I guess that's not quite as exciting. Adam Jones versus Rich Harden. Anthony Rizzo versus Jason Marquis. I don't know, I'm into this. You can peruse. The first time Nolan Aronado faced Barry Zito,

like all these hidden matchups. Hasmer again and Zach Greinke. I don't know, I like this. You wouldn't know, it means nothing to the pitcher at the time probably, and yet then like some day later, it seems historically significant. Or, you know, the same thing with the rehabbing batters facing future good pitchers like John

Lester who faced 11,487 batters in the big leagues. He faced the late Ryan Friel, who was a fantasy favorite of mine back in the day when I played fantasy back in 2007 in the minors. And then again, in 2009 or Greg Zahn faced baby Cole Hamels or Jose Batista faced baby David Price. You know, lots more where this came from and I think it's a fun one to look at the spreadsheet. So I will link to it online. Do you ever think about how easy it would be for you to make up names?

It would probably no one would know except I show my work, you know, I provide the data and people could could call me on it potentially. Right. And you would know. I would know except I show my work, you know, I provide the data and people could could call me on it Potentially, right and you would know I would know exactly. Okay. Well John, this has been a pleasure for us Hopefully for you. Is there anything that you would care to plug before you depart? I have two little things one My neighbor Ed was very kind in helping me try and set up best I could. And he does leadership development. So if anyone's looking for that, Excelsius Leadership Development, please support Ed.

And then just thinking about the students I work with, really, anywhere you are, you can look into what your local immigration organizations are. It's usually easy to find some that are worth donating to if you're in the greater Boston area. One in Chelsea is called La Collaborativaativa and you can donate to their page. It's the collaborative in English. I'm sure if you look it up and try and phonetically spell it, you will find it easy enough. They do a lot of work

within the community, a lot of advocating. And I know I could probably list immigration attorneys and such that would do a lot of great pro bono work, but that's kind of hard to divvy up. And this is an organization that will like put people in the right direction. Cause I just see it every day with the students I serve and just some of the challenges they go through emotionally and even physically for some of them with it. And so I just think it's a hard time out there for them now and what ways we can kind of give back would be just really wonderful. And just also thank you to both of you, Meg definitely and also Ben very much so as we alluded to in the beginning,

I did have quite the pleasure. It was quite surreal in many ways. Well, it was a pleasure for us as well and we're grateful for your support. Thank you. All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. Hopefully Corbin Burns didn't listen to our banter

about Sandy Alcantara and Spencer Strider before he goes under the knife. You'll come back better than ever Corbin, stay strong. Also Patreon supporter David reminded me that that story we discussed last time about Eric Anthony discovering that his father was Willie Davis, not the first in its genre.

Jason Stark wrote a story back in 2020 about how former White Sox starter Richard Dotson discovered fairly late in life that his father was former Philly starter, Turk Farrell. Dotson was not quite as big and probably not quite as good as his dad, who had passed by the time he learned this information through a DNA testing kit.

But both right-handed pitchers, both big leaguers knew nothing about each other. Nature strikes again. Nature Goulet! You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast coming help us stay almost ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners Noha Hendy, Silverhand, Kevin Warwick, Greg Stoll, and Michael Hoffman, thanks to all of you.

Patreon perks include, well, potential podcast appearances, as you just heard, if you wanna follow in John Thomas' footsteps, plus access to the Patreon Discord group, monthly bonus episodes, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, autographed books, discounts on merch, and ad-free fan crafts, memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com

slash effectivelywild. If you are a patron, you can contact us through the Patreon site. If not, you can email us, send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fancrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group

at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. You can find the effectively wild sub edit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the show notes at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. Have a catch and a slog with me in a virtual rise next week.