Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2333: Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the In-Game Interview

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about good news and bad news for Ben’s recent Meet a Major Leaguer subject Christian Montes De Oca, Craig Kimbrel’s short-lived return to Atlanta, the promotions of Roman Anthony and Jacob Misiorowski and a proposal for automatic call-ups, Denzel Clarke’s incredible catch and extreme stat line (and the nature […]

We're gonna crunch those stats. We're gonna talk about baseball. Sticky stuffed and torpedo bats. We'll talk about it all. If you want good takes on baseball and life, just tune in to Ben and his lovely co-host, Ben and his lovely co-host, Ben and Meg. It's Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2333 of Effectively Wild,

a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Minberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. I've got good news and bad news about my meet a major leaguer guy from last week,

Christian Montes de Oca. Yeah. He is no longer a Phantom major leaguer. So that's the good news, because when I highlighted him, he had been promoted, but not gotten into a game, and then got demoted again. And so he was in that Phantom ballplayer category

of he was an active player, but he never actually made his major league debut. They expressed hope and some confidence that he would eventually. And we didn't have to wait long. So this is the good news. The Diamondbacks got to call up a 27th man on Saturday. They didn't have a traditional double header, but they had a suspended game from Friday that they had to finish on Saturday,

in addition to the regularly scheduled game. So they got a 27th man and that man was Christian Montes de Oca. And unfortunately for the Diamondbacks, but fortunately for him, And unfortunately for the Diamondbacks, but fortunately for him, a couple pitchers got shelled in that game. And so the Diamondbacks were down 13 to one fairly early on, thanks to or no thanks to Ryan Nelson and Kendall Graveman. And so they called in Christian Montes de Oca and he pitched great. He pitched two and two thirds innings, no hits, no runs, just one walk, two strikeouts, just dominant debut.

So that was the good news. Then some initial bad news was that he was back down again after that, because he was just the 27th man. It was sort of a one day thing. But then the good news again was that he got called up because Kendall Graveman, who had pitched poorly in that game, he had a hip thing. And so he went on the IL. And so they summoned Christian Montes de Oca back.

Another bit of good news, but then another bit of bad news. Bad news. Real emotional roller coaster. Up and down. Yeah. Real emotional roller coaster up and down. Yeah, he was unavailable Monday because he reported an arm problem. Yeah and Could be bad potentially doesn't seem good He went for imaging as did Justin Martinez

Which is when it rains it pours I know it doesn't rain that much in your neck of the woods, but these days it's been bad for the Diamondback. So he's having an MRI because he had elbow discomfort and Diamondback's fans know that elbow discomfort often leads to bad things as they have recently relearned. So it's said to be concerning and I'll provide further updates when we have them. But hey, even if worst case, at least he is now officially a newly minted major leaguer.

So that's something. It is something. And you know, especially given the path he took to get here, I don't want to downplay the something that it is. It's something, you know? Yeah, it's something. So, I met a Major Leaguer even before he was officially a Major Leaguer, but now he is. So, I just wanted to close the loop on that one.

Speaking of up and down relievers and following up on pictures we talked about, Craig Kimbrel did in fact come up as we teased. We broke that news live or reacted to that news live on our most recent episode. And he came up and he had himself a Kimbrell-esque inning. It was, well, it was not a clean inning. It was a scoreless inning. He came in, he pitched a scoreless seventh,

and he actually faced the minimum, but with some help. So he allowed a single and a walk in the inning, but there was a caught stealing and then he helped himself out with a pickoff. And so he erased both of those runners and also got a strikeout. And that was that. So there was some traffic. It was busy, but he got out of it. And then he got designated for assignment after that. Yeah, sure did. After we were teasing, oh, he's coming. And then after he had this heartfelt reunion with Atlanta, they kind of made a big

deal of like, Oh, Craig Kimbrel's back after all these years and then gone after a single inning and designated for assignment and subsequently has elected free agency. So any team can now enjoy the Craig Kimbrough experience. Yeah. I bet they're lining up and I bet they're like, oh, we want to, do we feel like the team made a big deal out of it? Did the team? Not a huge deal. It was like social media. We're marching on, right. And so I always wonder in moments like that,

like social media professionals are busy people and front office folks are busy people. And so I don't imagine they necessarily have endless time to like sit down and confer. But do you think that the front office folks saw the post about him? We're like, oh, but we're probably going to just like cut him loose. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder whether they cringed a little or whether they, whether there is any

caution like, what's not too big a deal about the Craig Kimbrough comeback because it might not last that long. It's kind of like the scenario we discussed recently on an episode when we said that instead of having the ceremonial one day contract to retire with a team, that you should actually maybe be forced to play in a game. That's kind of what happened here.

I mean, I don't know if he's gonna retire, but maybe that's the end of his time with Atlanta. And it was nice, like a little full circle moment for his career, but then it just didn't last that long, the good vibes for him. Put it this way, things at this stage in his career, based on what we have most recently seen, it could have gone so much worse. It didn't go badly. I think it's fine in that regard, but there is sort of a bit of awkwardness when you're extolling the virtues

of his return and then your follow-up post has to be, we have designated Chris Campbell for assignment. And again, I don't want to make too much of this. This sort of thing happens often, so it's not really a big deal. I don't want to make too much of this. Like this sort of thing happens often. So it's not really a big deal. I don't think there was any like negligence on the part of the social team or anything like that. But it is funny just given the propensity of the Braves to break their own noose, you know, they tend to be the ones who let you know, we've reached an extension with this

player and he has decided to donate his dog to the Braves cherry and You know that sort of thing. So that part does make it a little bit funny to me. Just smidgen It's a sort of funny. Yeah, you'd think it would be worthwhile though for there to be some communication Yeah, there's different departments just like hey, let's tone down the celebration just a little bit because this might be short-lived. I mean, I guess the signing a one-day contract ceremonially, it is similarly brief, but in this case, he probably hoped for a little more and maybe he'll get more elsewhere.

He has a decent AAA stats this year. He doesn't have the stuff, obviously, that he wants to. Doesn't have the stuff, man. I guess the Braves, they have really already probably ruined my bold preseason projection or prediction about Craig Kimbrel because now that's sort of spoiled. Love this bit where I bring up a preseason full prediction and you have no recollection of it.

Oh yeah, it's a bit, you know, it's a bit. I actually have them all stored up here. They're in a little lock box in my brain. Yeah, it was that the Braves would finish out of first place by I think the same number of games, at least as many games as Craig Kimbrel pitched in and they lost basically saying that they were going to fall prey to the same fate that many of Craig Kimbrell's previous employers did, where they kind of trusted him in high leverage spots and he blew a bunch of games and maybe it cost them. That's not going to happen here

unless they bring him back, unless he gets on the Jesse Chavez Express and starts to just come back over and over and over again. But I guess the Braves already kind of took themselves out of contention for first place, at least as things stand right now. In fact, just coming back over and over and over again. But I guess the Braves already kind of took themselves out of contention for first place, at least as things stand right now. In fact, I was just looking, when you were away about a month ago, May 7th, episode 2318,

I brought on a guy named Brandon, who was both an Orioles and Braves fan. And also talked to Austin, who is a White Sox and Rockies fan, because I just, I wanted to take the temperature of a couple people who were fans of teams that were off to terrible starts and were having horrible seasons. And when I talked to Brandon,

the Orioles were the worst team. The Braves had started terribly, but then seemed to have righted the ship. And the tone of that conversation was, I think things are really dire for the Orioles, but the Braves, things are looking up. They'll probably be okay. Right, optimistic.

Yeah, they seemed to be rounding into form and Acuna was coming back and they were at least nearing 500, I think, at the time. Well, since then, I think the most recent game when we recorded that interview was May 5th. And since then, the Orioles have actually been better than the Braves because it's gotten bad again for Atlanta and it's still been bad for Baltimore,

but not quite as bad. I think since, so May 6th on, the Orioles are 13 and 18 bad. The Braves are 12 and 19, slightly worse. So it has not actually turned out that at least one of those teams would be okay. The Orioles have been a little bit better than they had been to that point, but the Braves have sunk back into sucking.

So yeah, thoughts go out to Brandon. They have sunk back into sucking. My goodness. What a sentence. And I guess Craig Kimbrel is not going to be the answer for them. Probably not. Yeah. Well, speaking of maybe more notable promotions from the minor leagues. Everyone's like, yeah, we definitely came here to talk about Craig Kimbrel who was not currently employed as opposed to the top prospect in baseball making his big league debut. We went with Christian Montes de Oca and you know, maybe you were expecting

Roman Anthony Banter, but we got there. That's the effectively wild difference. Not only Roman Anthony, but also Jacob Mizarowski of the Brewers. It's Mizarowski, I think. Is it? I looked at a YouTube video and the broadcaster said Mizarowski, but I don't know that that was right anyway. I don't know. I think it's Mizarowski.

I probably would have guessed that, but he throws really hard regardless of how one pronounces his name. We'll probably become more familiar with the pronunciation now that he's a big leaguer or about to be. So that's something to look forward to, him pumping in 103 for as long as that lasts, I guess. But also, I'm always like the... I know, I'm always the doomsayer when it comes to pictures

you throw really hard. I've been burdened many times before as those pictures have. So I can't get attached. I get all invested in Christian Montes de Oca and then suddenly he's going for imaging. I mean, this is what happens with, with pictures. It's just hard to get invested in their success.

But- Him and Miz about the same in terms of their understood ceiling. Roman Anthony also up for the Red Sox, much anticipated top prospect and fresh off of his 497 foot Homer, which is, he absolutely crushed it. And then Wilier Brau went on the IL

and so there's a space for Roman Anthony now. That's kind of punctuating your promotion. That's getting called up in style. Just, hey, I hit an almost 500 foot homer. This is the longest home run on records anywhere this season. It almost feels like something like that should just be an automatic promotion. Like if you do something that spectacular,

your team is just obligated to call you up. And maybe it's the Miz, I'm just gonna say the Miz. I think a lot of people call him Miz. Yeah, I think they do. So I don't think you're speaking out of turn there. But if you throw 103 as a starter, maybe that's automatic promotion. And if you hit a 497 foot homer that is longer

than any home run that a big leaguer has hit this season, maybe that's just automatic homer. It's like the Bill James signature significance concept, the idea that you do one thing in a game, or you just like hit a ball so hard that, you know, someone hits a ball 115 miles per hour or something. It's like, oh, okay. This guy's got at least that big league tool. Right. And so there should be just a threshold where

it's like, all right, you get called up at least, at least for a day. And then if you're bad, maybe they have to send you back down. Except, well, I don't want it to be tied to pitch speeds because I don't want, I don't want people to be tied to pitch speeds because I don't want people to be trying to throw 103. So I don't want to encourage that. But maybe hitting an extremely long home run, I guess that's probably safe or more safe at least. So that was one of those moments where it's like, oh, this is a big leaguer, whether you've

officially anointed him or not. He just hit that ball far enough that I think he's a big leaguer. Well, it was one of those things where, you know, I think there had been calls for Roman Anthony's promotion. There had been wondering why a floundering Red Sox team had not already promoted him. And there's like a positional, as has been sort of the theme of the Red Sox team had not already promoted him. And there's like a positional, as has been sort of the theme of the Red Sox season, I'm sure they're thrilled with this, but you know, there's sort of this question of like, well, where do you play him? Right? Yeah. Because

he's a corner guy. Well, they have corner guys who they like. He's stretched in center. Plus you have Rafael anyway, you don't really want to put him there. So like, where do you put him? And then a brain got hurt. And so it sort of resolved that question, at least temporarily. And to be clear, I'm not saying like, oh, you shouldn't play the best prospects in baseball, because like, what will you do in your corners? But, you know, they've, they've had this like constant shuffling that they've had to do, they've had to do so many different infield configurations. And Christian Campbell is the first baseman now, which is fine because

he can't really play other positions anyway. But like, you know, there's this question, like, what do you do with him? And, and then he hits a big home run and also a Braille gets hurt. And so then what you do with him is you promote him. But I want to throw down a challenge. I'd like to, I'm throwing down a gauntlet. I'm asking us to rise above. I think that the Roman Empire and Anthony jokes have been a little easy. I think the Ben, I won't say they're cheap. We get to have our fun. It's a hard world out there. We should have our fun. But also, you know how much those folks wrote down? There's so much history to be had. There are other jokes, you know?

I'm just saying, crack a book, find a new angle, and then come to me with your Roman Anthony jokes. Because I don't think we've seen the best that everybody has, you know? And it's just, there's never a bad time to revisit the classics, you know? We can have a, we can do more here, is my point, you know? And I understand that in some ways, you're limited by the fact that like, you might think to yourself,

well, who do I know among the agents who would give me grist for this mill? Who would have, and you're like, oh, but I can't look to Herodotus. He was grist. Guess what? There are other writers. There's other, there's other history. There are other jokes. Go find them.

Go find those jokes and then bring them to me. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you haven't found them. You're not bringing them. You're just, and then bring them to me. Okay? Okay. So you haven't found them. You're not bringing them. You're just... I have, but I feel go sharing them.

No, I'm just saying... No, I haven't made any great jokes. I'm not saying that my jokes have been good. My jokes have been absolutely... You've refrained from making a bad laugh. Right, because they've all been too easy, Ben. They've been too easy, you know? And so I've like, no, that's, I'm not

saying it's beneath me. I laugh at all kinds of things. Last night when Dominic Kanzone came in and hit a home run to tie the Mariners D-backs game before they promptly, well, not quite promptly. I was like, I'm getting sick and feel very tired and I'm in this time zone and wish you all would wrap it up. The only time where I've been like, sure, zombie runner, whatever. I'm not serious. I'm ill. But I made a joke on blue sky that Brigham had left it in his can hit zone.

That's not a good joke. I made it anyway. I was like, this is what I have right now. This is where I'm at spiritually. But I think we could all be in a better comedy place. And I look forward to us reaching it. Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. Robust history.

That encouragement, yeah. Sometimes knowing when not to make the bad joke is more important than making the good joke. Yeah. Sometimes it's just better to sit on it until you have better material. So we'll take that to heart. You can work on it.

And I understand that we all look at social media as our big open mic, but you don't have a tight 10. You don't have a tight baseball 10. Go work on your baseball 10. Well, we look forward to seeing what Roman Anthony has. We know he can hit 500-ish foot home runs. So that's exciting. Look forward to that.

And we'll see if he can write the Red Sox or at least contribute to that effort. Did you watch his debut game? Did you watch the game? I saw the highlights, but I didn't watch the full game. It looked miserable there. Misty the whole time, you know? Like a man emerging from myth.

The fans were so frustrated with the strike zone in extras that I was a little worried that they were going to start throwing things. And you know, was it that the zone wasn't very good? They had a point sometimes. Not all the time, but some of the time.'t very good? They had a point sometimes, not all the time, but some of the time, but also they were clearly cold and wet and that combination makes people cranky and they were ready.

They wanted to win Ben and they didn't, they didn't win. You know? Nope, but hopefully for their sake, and Roman Anthony's still win more with him than they won without. And speaking of promotions and demotions, sticking with the theme here, John Kenzie Noel, Big Christmas got sent down.

I had not noticed how bad he had been. Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. So last year when he came up and delighted us all with his nickname and his game, he wasn't above average hitter in his first exposure to the big leagues, came up and delighted us all with his nickname and his game. He wasn't above average hitter in his first exposure to the big leagues, about 200 plate appearances.

He hit a lot of bombs, he hit 13 home runs. Guardians need pop, it seems like, ah, here's the guy, here's the answer. He hit a 118 WRC plus, he was clearly gonna have to hit to be valuable, but it seemed like, okay, maybe he will hit. The less said about his defense, the better. Yeah, he was just 22.

Then this season, and I know it was kind of part-time play, I guess, because, well, he didn't deserve full-time play, given the way he hit. He had 107 played appearances before he got sent down over 46 games. His WRC plus was four four four Yeah, number four you don't usually see a single digit WRC plus that is not a good sign No, certainly certainly not over over a hundred plate appearance. No. Yeah, he hit

146 168 223 yeah, he walked 168, 223. He walked three times and struck out 34 times. Yeah. That's not the ratio that you want or the strikeout rate period. No. Didn't hit for much power.

Obviously didn't hit for much anything. Sub 200 BABF, sub 100 isolated power. Rough, very rough. So he got sent down. I hope he'll be back. I hope that he can improve upon those numbers in this season or future seasons. But I did have to check just where that ranks

minimum hundred plate appearances. It's basically it's a top 20 or I guess I should say bottom 20 offensive season of all time. So, or not all time. I just, I looked, it's a, it's, I looked for the 30 team era to try to just be kind to him going back to 1998. And I'm disregarding number one on the list, which is Randy Johnson, the pitcher who he threw enough to just barely get 100

plate appearances. He had 104 in 1999 for the Diamondbacks and he had a negative 43 WRC plus pitchers bad at hitting. He hit 124, 124, 165 that year. But if you remove the unit from the list, I think he's the only pitcher who shows up here because most pitchers didn't qualify for a hundred plate appearances or more, he would be 20th worst. So it was bad. We've seen some small sample,

terrible performances before. In fact, you don't even have to go to a different team. I remember talking on this very podcast about another Cleveland Guardian, Cam Gallagher in 2023. Remember that Cam Gallagher season? That was a negative 18 WRC plus. Yeah. Which would be the worst on this list, one of the worst ever. He hit 126, 154, 168 in 56 games and 149 plate appearances. And you know, he was a catcher, which made it a little bit better, but not that much better. But that's his last taste of the big leagues, it seems.

So yeah, hopefully John Kenzie can play his way back up and Christmas will come again. But this was a call in his stocking performance, unfortunately. I mean, I just sat here and I was like, everyone should tell better jokes. And then I was like, did I paint us into a corner? And the answer is yes. Yeah, he has not been hitting particularly well. I think that when a guy has this kind of profile, it can happen. You know, this can happen. 2.8% walk rate is wild. That's something. That's really, that's really quite something. And again, like he's not a good defender out there like at all. So there's, he just has to hit. There's he's a, he's a low floor, low ceiling guy. But to your point, like when he came up, he was very good at the thing that they were

most lacking, right? They really needed more thump and he could provide it. And he, you know, he had 13 home runs in 198 play appearances. Like that's not nothing. He was like worth half a win despite really just like rants of defense. So there's that, but also this is a club that has aspirations and he doesn't fit them right now.

So there you go. Well, in happier news, let's talk about a fairly recently arrived big leaguer who has become a sensation. And I speak, of course, of Denzel Clark. Oh my goodness. This one to center field Denzel Clark on the move back after he stepped up to the plate and makes another catch. Oh my God.

Back to back weeks where he wins the electric play of the week. And he's already on the leaderboard for this week. You go ahead and book it. I've heard the list. I've seen the list of the greatest catches you're ever going to see in your life. If you don't have room for this one on your list, we're watching two different sports. We talked about Denzel Clark not long after he came up because we were worried that he would displace Shay Langoliers, the A's catcher on the A's sprint speed leaderboard because we were tickled

by the fact that Shay Langoliers, the catcher, was seemingly the fastest player on the A's and was faster than their previous center fielder, J.J. Bleday, and then Denzel Clark came up, and we thought, well, it was fun while it lasted, but it's over. As long as he lasts, once he qualifies, he is going to displace Shay Langleyers on that leaderboard, and in fact, he has.

That has come to pass. Now that he qualifies Shea Langleyers 28.4 feet per second, Denzel Clark, 29.2. And he put that speed on display in a spectacular play that was made on Monday, a home run robbery that, look, some home run robberies, they're not as thrilling as others. Sometimes it's just a tall guy in a short fence.

And that's all it is. And it's Aaron Judge in front of the short porch, just holding his arm up. No shots at Aaron, but he's very large. And sometimes a little less, you know, athleticism, just not quite as much acrobatics required. Right. This was gravity defiance.

Spectacular. This was incredible timing. Yes. This was one of the best catches that we've ever seen. Yeah. This was amazing. We felt like Denzel Clark was going to be a good, a very good, a plus center fielder.

He was a small school college guy, right? So there was room to grow. When Eric wrote his report for the A's list, he noted that he is arguably a plus center field defender right now. His feel for running to spots has improved. He has elite top end speed. He takes bold risks with dives, and he did some absolutely ridiculous stuff

around the outfield wall during his stint in the Arizona fall week. With his size, athleticism, and bold creativity, Clark is going to have a very long big league career as a premium center field defender. So we like, this is an important part of the profile for Clark, like a carrying tool, because he has big, big raw power, but also,

you know, he has a huge frame. Like the swing is poorly timed. It can be kind of awkward. He can't pull the ball. He has these big long levers. So it's like, you know, what's he going to look like at the plate? He might be just like a 30% career strikeout guy. But when you can do this, people live with that, you know? It's just like, it has to be one of the very best catches I've ever seen. And I think that Anaheim is like a sneaky place for home run robbery, like a sneaky good place for home run robbery, despite not having super short walls everywhere. Like, and some of that is Mike Trout in his prime was like very good at home run robbery, but he also plays in a park that seems to kind of facilitate that in center. Julio has had some

good plays out there. And I'm not saying that to diminish what Clark did. I'm saying that even within the context of a ballpark where it seems like guys can do this, it's one of the best catches I've ever seen. Yeah. You know, he, he, the combination of verse with reach is really what makes it so amazing because he gets up really high, but he does have to reach out pretty far. Yeah, that's the thing. It was, it was way gone. It wasn't like one of these home run referees where the ball is just going to scrape over the fence. That thing, when he retrieved it, it was several feet seemingly over the fence

and he used the full extent of his wingspan as a six foot four guy. I mean, I was just denigrating the tall guy and short fence combination, but that was this, but not really because this was acrobatic. This was, he was clinging to the wall and just had a lot of air time

and was just almost sitting on the fence briefly. And then just reached way over with his back to home plate. Just amazing. And then he came down and he was pumped immediately as well he should have been, but everyone else was just stunned, which I think really sold it even more for me. Like, Nolan Shannwell, who hit the ball for the angels, his face, like, it was just blank, like with his mouth open a little bit as if he had just seen God or something. like with his mouth open a little bit, as if he had just seen God or something.

Right. And then Grant Holman. Do you, sorry, I have to interrupt on Shannon's behalf, because like, I feel really badly for him, right? It's such a weird thing to be on the receiving end of one of these highlights, because like he can't say anything, but wow, that was amazing, right?

Like he can't be a poor sport about it. But this is a guy who like, despite all all of his standing hasn't really gotten any stronger you know like he's it's very strange especially for his position like how little thump there seems to be in the bat and then he does this which should just be a no doubter to one of the deepest parts of the park. And Denzel Clark is like, no, sorry, no. Like, what, the poor guy. Yeah, how far do I have to hit it? Come on, this is what I'm supposed to do.

Yeah, I have read, I mean, I've seen that he has improved his swing speed and his exit speeds to some extent because he did like a bat speed training, overload, under load thing, seemingly on his own. Not- Because he was like, I'm tired of standing. Yeah, I guess he didn't do his, I'll just stand all off season training regimen.

He tried to swing harder. And I guess that worked to some extent. It doesn't seem to have been done in concert with the angels. He kind of took it upon himself to do that. But if I were playing for the angels, I might take my development myself too. Might not be a bad idea, but it hasn't really paid dividends for him. As you're saying, like he's swinging harder.

He's hitting the ball a little bit harder, but he is not hit for more power at all to this point, at least now his, his expected stats have approved. And so maybe when Denzel Clark is not out there, things will normalize and keep hitting it there and generally good things will happen. So under the hood, some improvements and he's cut down on the strikeout rate too. But yeah, to be slugging 385 as the first baseman

and he's making it work. Like he's getting on base and you know, he can play first, like it's okay. But it probably is extra frustrating. So he was stunned. And then Grant Holman, who was the pitcher for the A's, so close to hold man, man, we could have had another nominative determinism case.

But he didn't even, like usually with a pitcher who's saved like that, spared a home run, they'll be all smiles, they'll be grinning, they'll be like pointing at the fielder to say, oh, you know, I'll credit to you, you saved my bacon here. Holman also was just stunned. Like his hands were on his head as if it really was just some sort of like rapture situation.

Like the bubble got raptured. Like people were awed in just the old school sense of the words. Like no one knew how to react to this other than Clark himself who was just instantly pumped. And watching it again is it's just so incredible. Like it's just such an incredible the different poses he can be in at various points of this play.

If you break it down into like discrete still images is spectacular. There's the reach. There's the flip. He like looks like he's sitting down on air at one point. The fact that he didn't tumble over the wall is like kind of spectacular on its own. I'm yelling, sorry. I don't mean to be so loud, but it's just like, I can't imagine. They're so good, man.

I can't imagine being able to do this. And every big leaguer can't do this. I don't, you know, like, but I can't imagine being able to do this and every big leaguer can't do this. I don't, you know, like, but I can't imagine being able to do this. This is the play equivalent of a world series ring where for like the first two months after I'd done it, I would tell every person I encountered on the street that I had done this. Yeah. Yeah. I would just be like, did you see what I did? Hey, I'm Denzel Clark. We haven't met before, but by the way, you see what I did? Yeah. Look, look at my phone. I have the GIF just on a loop here. Here it is.

Here it is. Here's Grand Home in Space. He didn't get a good jump, particularly. In fact, his first step was in, I think. Maybe he figured Nolan Shannwell. I don't know. Wow. But he had to...

Shannwell burn. Yeah, I know. But then he had to go back. And so the route wasn't the best, I guess, but once he got going in the right direction, he timed it perfectly. I wonder whether he could have like intercepted it closer to the fields

or whether he let it get that far out on purpose. I don't know, but it was perfect, aesthetically speaking, at least. It immediately reminded me of the Gary Matthews Jr. catch. And then you mentioned trout. I saw people copying it to a home run robbery trout made in 2015, which looked pretty similar. There was a Devon White grab in 1994

that looked a lot like this. So there have been others in this genre, but this was special. Apparently. I did Toronto Radio earlier today, and Blake Murphy said that this had a 95% catch probability according to Staticast. Do you believe that? David Kemp No, but Staticast, it can be a little wonky,

I think, when it comes to like balls at the wall or right around the wall. It's kind of hard to quantify there, but I did see, I think someone in our Discord group mentioned that he has a hundred percent catch rate on plays with a catch probability between 30 and 60%. And there's been like eight of them. And so for most players, that's like a coin flip. And for them, it's just automatic. And I feel good because we did on Hang Up and Listen on Monday,

we did a bonus segment about quantifying defense and it was sort of centered, no pun intended, on Pete Crow Armstrong. And I did bring up Denzel Clark in that segment before the catch just to say, hey, look what this guy's been doing. Because even before that catch, he was setting the statcast leaderboards on fire.

And now, so he's played 125 innings. He just came up what a couple of weeks ago, right? And he has already recorded seven runs according to Statcast defensive metric fielding run value. He's at plus seven already. I had to lower the innings minimum even to get him to show up on the savant leaderboard here. And he is already up there at plus seven.

Like Pete Kerr Armstrong is at plus 11. And Sedan Rafaela is at plus 10. But these guys have like between 500 and 600 innings. So like on a rate basis, Dutton Clark's on pace for the most spectacular defensive season we've ever seen. I'm not saying he's going to continue to field at this pace. It's weird.

We don't talk about fielding as a pace all that often, but like this player profile, because he hasn't hit to this point. He's at 260, 245, 294. Yeah, 50 WRC plus. He's hitting like Zach Greinke. He's hitting like Jeff Mathis. That's not great.

And yet he has 0.6 war already in 16 games. And it's the weirdest profile. Like he's on pace according to the fan graphs on pace leaderboards. If he were to play in every game from here on pace, according to the fan graphs, on pace leaderboards. If he were to play in every game from here on out, he would have himself a 4.1 war season. So he's basically playing at a six war pace per 162 while hitting with a 50 WRC plus. And gosh, we just talked about John Kenzie Noelle's

to walk ratio. Dead's like Clark's holding my beer. He's at 29 Ks and one walk. So he has struck out in more than half of his plate appearances. So you could say that offensively he has looked over matched and yet defensively he has been more than a match. Could he keep up this profile? Like what will probably happen is that his defense

will remain good, but it won't be this off the charts. He won't have this many highlight real plays in a short span of time. And then probably the bat will be a bit better, one would hope. Like he, you know, the depth charts project him for an 81 WRC plus. He had a 121 WRC plus in AAA before he called up.

He's not completely offensively inept. And so, you know, like now he did not hit a home run in AAA this season in 31 games, but he did hit 13 last year and stole 36 bases. Like he's, you know, he's got a little pop, he's got some speeds. He actually walked almost as often as he struck out in Triple A.

So I don't think that the bat will be this bad. So it'll probably just be a bit more normal. He'll come back to earth on both sides of the ball. But can you imagine a player who's like almost unplayable with the bat, except for the fact that he's so good with the glove that he's actually a star. I mean, we've seen less pronounced versions of this profile.

Obviously there are guys whose strength is not hitting. I mean, Sadon Rafael of maybe being one of them, although I think he's gotten a little unlucky, but like imagine a 50 WRC plus player who was like actually a star level player because he was that big a difference maker on defense. Seems great. Let's do it. We want different kinds of guys, you know?

I mean, it's I, I will say that like that is a profile that has the potential to be quite frustrating to fans because like, you know, doesn't it always feel like that's the guy who ends up in like the bottom of the ninth with two on and two outs and you need him to just get a hit to walk you off and he can't do it. So like there, I don't want to overstate the case, but you know, taken runs away has value, man. Like it's not, you want them to be able to add too, but if you can field like this, and you don't, and I think the important thing to keep in mind

with someone like Clark is that like, yes, him being capable of a spectacular play like this is like so exciting and obviously has tremendous value. He doesn't have to be doing this every time to be a very valuable center fielder, right? And you know, you can take runs away before they get to be a very valuable center fielder, right? You can take runs away before they get to the wall. So I think that you're right.

The most likely scenario is that he starts to hit a little bit better and his defense levels out to something that is still very, very good, but perhaps not like this every single night. But I don't know, give me an extreme profile. I like those. Yeah, me too. Yeah. The premise of that hang up bonus segment was basically, Hey, we can measure defense better than we used to be able to.

And there's a little less uncertainty when someone like PCA comes along and is elite. Of course, everyone knows he was going to be a good glove. It's the bat that has been the surprise, but even so you can have a little more confidence than you could even for fairly recent players like Andrew Jones, where there's this debate raging about was he actually like one of the greatest defenders of all time or is he a little overrated and are the defensive stats maybe just a little too high on his supply? Because that makes all the difference for his Hall of Fame case. Like it looks like he's probably going to get in. He has a couple more shots at it, but that's been a, a big conversation point.

And he's a fairly recent player. And so even more distant players, I think directionally, those stats are, are correct over the course of a career, certainly, but you can't be quite as confident in a smaller sample. And we used to talk about even like while this podcast was being recorded, we would talk about, oh, you need a full season or maybe you even need three seasons of defensive stats. And now I think you can be more confident in a smaller sample, at least as to how

you're measuring performance in that sample, it's not always predictive, but I do think that, that stat cast defensive stats are the gold standard for defense at this point and certainly for outfielders. And I think something like DRS or baseball prospectus is stat. I think maybe they can add some value. I still look at a range, but if I had to take one, especially for outfielders, I would take away a FIP, whatever we're calling it, just because it has better inputs. It's less garbage in and presumably less garbage out because the big

unknowns were always, well, where did he start that play and how far did he have to go to get it? And now we know those things because those things are tracked. The difference is, or the reason why it can still be a little misleading in a small sample is that you do need the opportunities, like Denzel Clark needed this ball to be there in order to make that spectacular play. And so he could have had that talent and just not gotten to show it off if Mollin Chenwell hadn't cooperated and placed that ball right where he placed it.

So over a small sample, you can get in an ordinate number of those opportunities, those plays that differentiate a really fine fielder from an average fielder, because most guys are going to get to most plays out there. Most plays are fairly routine. And then there's a smaller subset that are really like the potential five-star catches that separate the wheat from the chaff. And you might just happen to get a lot of those and make the most of it, credit to you,

but also you can't make those plays unless they're available to you essentially. So that's why he will probably regress is that he just won't get as many opportunities to show off these defensive skills that he has. But it is nice to look at that and say, yeah, that matches the eye test. And the eye test wasn't always reliable for fielders either, because sometimes the best fielders make the hardest plays look routine.

And so even watching it, if you're not taking in the entire play and, oh, how far he had to go. Sometimes the guys who make the amazing diving catch, well, they had to dive because they got a bad jump or they were slow and someone else. That's right. You know, PCA, he just, he cruises. He's, he's just, sometimes he's just there and you're surprised that he's there, but it doesn't even look like it was that hard for him. So that's why defensive stats can still mislead us to some extent, but I think it's better than it has been. Oh yeah, I think that we are in a much better position

regardless of the stat, I think, at this point. But yeah, I still think that having some amount of caution is prudent. I think that looking at all of the available public stats, if they're all directionally aligned, I think that that's instructive. If one is sort of out of sync with the others, it can provide useful information because they are to your point, like they are using different inputs potentially. And so it might sort of illuminate a section part of a guy's defense where you know somebody has a blind spot or what have you and being

able to look at it over a while I think helps and then I think look you gotta look at the guy you know like you're right that the eye test can fool you but I also think that there is something to sitting and watching a guy and seeing how you sort of understand his defense, how it washes over you. And unfortunately, I do think this scenario where sometimes it can be more instructive to like be able to get a live look. Because to your point, like, especially on a broadcast, like they might not show you the full play, you know, and so being able to actually sit there and watch like, from when the ball leaves the bat to, you know, whatever fielding the fielder has to do, like,

I think that that provides some value and then trying to triangulate between all of those things puts you in a good spot to at least have a sense of like, not only good defender or no, but it can help you start to establish degrees of difference between players. So that's what I think about that. Ken Arneson, the longtime baseball blogger who now works for Weather Applied, which is the company that supplies that weather data that goes into Statcast. He put on Blue Sky that Denzel Clark made them revisit the max height that a ball could

be caught in their calculations. Like just because he got up there so high and vertically he could have reached higher. It was more laterally that he reached, but because he's so big and he was on top of the wall, I guess in their model, they just have a max height that, oh, no ball could be caught if it's higher than this. And he could have maybe broken that potentially.

So it was that type of play that just makes you reevaluate everything. Yep, pretty cool. While we're talking about defense, I do have to acknowledge the many messages I received when Jazz Chisholm of the Yankees was miked up and made a throwing error while he was being

interviewed by the broadcast. It's not the first time that this has happened, that a fielder has flubbed something while mic'd up and being talked to during a game, which as you all know, I loathe. And so any time this happens, not that I'm rooting against jazz chism, but there's some part of this, this is satisfying to me just because it leads to a whole round of why are we doing this? What are we doing? Why are we bothering these players while they're trying to play? I don't know if he messed up because he was being interviewed, but can't have helped,

I guess, to have been mulling over a question just before a ball is hit to you. It was a tough play and errors happen, even when guys aren't miked up. And so I don't know whether there's, eventually we'll have enough of a sample, probably, unfortunately, where we can actually look at error rates while guys are miked up.

And we'll see if they actually are more prone to making errors. Maybe I'll do that analysis and that'll drive a stake into the heart of the live in-game player interview on field because if players think that they're going to screw up, they're more likely to embarrass themselves on national television, then maybe they'll be less likely to do it whatever little stipend, whatever little bonus they get for appearing, it just won't be worth it. And just as he's the kind of guy I would want mic'd up, if someone is going to be mic'd up, he's an entertaining

talker, he's an engaging guy, but I still hate it. Not him. Just the exercise you participated in. Don't hate the player. Hate the in-game. Yeah. Ha ha. That might be the episode title. I am not convinced that even a very thorough statistical analysis would dissuade players from participating in that if they are already inclined to do so though, Ben. I'm not optimistic, because here's the thing. They don't think they're gonna commit an error. You know, they're like, that's a problem for other people.

Not for me, I wouldn't do that. I bet that the guys who commit errors are still likely to go on the next time they're asked. Maybe. That's my, because you know, there's a confidence that you have to have to do the thing. Okay, I wanted to highlight two weird plays involving baseballs.

I mean, I guess most of the plays that we discuss involve baseballs. Pretty much all of them in fact, or a whole lot of them. But two that involved baseballs that were non-standard were not really the typical plays involving baseballs. On Friday, there was one where a ball was thrown from the stands into the field of play, and it was kind of confusing. And then on Saturday, Ryan Weathers of the Marlins got pegged in the head by his catcher, Nick Cortez, who was just throwing down to second,

as catchers do after pitchers complete their warmup, and they turn and they walk off the mound, and Weathers did that, and Fortes, you know, he threw down to second, and Weathers was in the way. His head was in, he was bad. He was down for a little while, and he did stay in the game,

and he pitched a in the game. Yeah. He pitched a few innings and the first inning went fine, but then he felt not so great eventually. So he said he was fortunate to hit him in the top of the head and not the back of the head. And he had an eight pitch first inning, but then he got taken out after the third for what was called precautionary reasons after he threw 57 pitches, gave up four runs, and they

said he's undergo further evaluation. He said, I just felt very disconnected out there a little bit, just with like, just all that adrenaline left me. It's kind of like that episode of SpongeBob, where everything's on fire inside of his brain. I just felt like I was in pure chaos after that happened. So it was just kind of the right time to come out of the game there, or maybe the right time would have been initially, immediately, I don't know. Because Nick Fortes was sort of upset

about that happening too. Like he felt bad about it. The Marlins eventually won in extra innings, but that was weird. That was a weird and sort of scary play. We more often see like the Eric Chavez play where a fielder, maybe they threw it around the horn or something and someone's throwing it back to the pitcher

or it's just like a lob back to the pitcher and they're not looking and they maybe get hit in the head or the beans or something. And it's kind of a funny gif and no one gets hurt, but this is less frequent for this to happen on like a real throw with some, some mustard on it. I found it to be completely wild that he was allowed to stay in the game and now he's on the 60 day IRL, although that's because of a lad straight up because of anything related to the pitch he took off the game. And now he's on the 60 day IAL, although that's because of a lat strain, not because of anything related to the pitch he took off the head. I just, like, he fell to the ground, you know? Like, you can't just let him go back out

there. What are they thinking? This can, I, I was totally flummoxed by it. I thought it was irresponsible. I'm like, he got hit on the head. It looked, he got hit on the head hard, you know? And you can't be messing around with that. Like, they don't have someone who can call down and be like, Hey, you got to take him out. Yeah, I don't know. I know he was the schedule starter and everything. And like, scratching a guy that late is suboptimal. But you know what else is suboptimal? A concussion. Yeah, it is sort of surprising. I guess he probably said he was fine and then he pitched well initially and I guess they thought, well, dodged a bullet there. But yeah, he got hit hard enough in a place where usually it's just, better be careful, better run this guy

through the protocols or something. Yes. Yes. wild, wild stuff. Did not care for it. Also wild was this play between, it was a game between the Braves and the Giants on Friday, and there was a ball that was thrown from the stands onto the field, I'll send this to you if you haven't seen it, and we'll link to these things

on the show page. Of course, drive to right. Yes, he's got it. He's coming in. Here's the throw home. It is not in time. And where did the other ball come from? Came out of the upper deck. Some clown through the baseball on the field. I have never seen that. Wow. I have never seen that. Oh, whoa. Someone just threw a ball into the field of play on a sack fly.

So it was a sack fly situation in the fourth inning, bases loaded, one out, Sean Murphy hit a ball to right field, and Matt Olson scored as Mike Yastremski's throw, a one hopper was coming in for the Braves first run, but almost at the same time, I guess it was well timed by whoever threw this, but just as Patrick Bailey was getting ready

to receive the throw from Yastremski, another ball bounces onto the field and then toward the pitcher's mound. Apparently it was thrown from the upper deck. Yeah. And the umpires conferred to discuss what to do, but they didn't end up doing anything because nothing really affected anything.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like it changed the outcome of the play. No, I don't think it did. And Bob Melvin, Giants manager said, "'That's a first, I've never seen that before.'" He's seen a lot of baseball. Yeah. "'I don't know where it came from. I don't know what the rule is.

I think everybody was a little surprised by it. It didn't affect the play, but it was extremely odd to see another baseball come on the field. And I was just thinking of that is certainly rare. Almost nothing is unprecedented, but it is quite uncommon. Is it surprising that that doesn't happen more often? Because like you can bring a baseball

into a baseball stadium, you can buy a baseball at a ballpark. Is it surprising that there aren't more yahoos who just like throw? It kind of is, right? Cause I mean- I was just about to say, I'm honestly shocked that this doesn't happen anymore.

It gives me a surprising amount of faith in like the durability of society. Yeah, cause it could be really disruptive and dangerous. Yes, dangerous potentially, yeah. But think of how many people will bring their whole body onto the field, how many streakers do we see? And yet people are much more likely to do that seemingly than to just throw a ball on the field,

which is something that you can get away with. Like you're not gonna be- Much more easily, yeah. Yeah, like I don't think they found the person who did this. You're just in the sea of fans and you're throwing it. No one's, unless someone reports you who saw you throw it, like it's hard to tell from the field where it came from exactly.

So, and it's not hard to smuggle a baseball in. You don't even have to smuggle it. It's not like contraband. You can buy one there. Yeah, exactly. So I'm sort of surprised that people don't try to be jerks and interfere with play more often. I'm not saying they should, like I'm glad they don't.

I'm grateful for their restraint. Yeah. Yeah, but also why don't people do this more? I wonder, there's so many intoxicated people in a ballpark. I don't know why it doesn't happen more often. People enjoy, if a visiting player hits a home run into the stands, and at least some parks, it's tradition, you throw it back onto the field. People like that.

Every now and then we see a particularly impressive throw made by a fan who's, that's like a permissible situation where convention is you're allowed to do that and not get in trouble because play stopped and everyone understands. Right, there's not confusion. Yeah, but this, I hope this doesn't spark anything. I hope this doesn't inspire copycats

because this was confusing. And I'm just, yeah, surprised it's so rare. I am surprised also. If I had to hazard a guess, I think that part of it is that people aren't really sure like what the literal ground rules for something like this would be. And so they don't want to, they don't know what the rules are.

But I think that a lot of people have a sense that like, you know, if a fan interferes, it's gonna generally be to the benefit of the hitting team. Although not always. But like, I think there's a worry that they would inadvertently create a situation where the team they're there to root for is put at a disadvantage because of their behavior. Whereas like streaking, you know, the only person you're really embarrassing is yourself and maybe you don't feel embarrassed.

Maybe you like the way your bits look, you know? And so you're like, you're there, my bits. But yeah, I'm I am surprised just because, you know, ballparks famously sell substances that can lead to the impairment of judgment, that it doesn't happen more often. It does give me faith in humanity in a weird way, which is nice because, like, especially after the pandemic, you know, anytime you're driving, you're like, we're worse now than we were before. And I don't know that that's empirically true, but that's how it feels. You know, it feels like we're angrier, which is great behind the wheel, because that doesn't

lead to anything nasty. So you drive to the ballpark and you're left with this sense that it's collapsing all around you and that we're just so close to the edge. But then nobody throws a baseball on the field and you're like, maybe we're doing fine actually. I mean, we're not, but in this small way we are. Yeah. We got to take our small victories where we can. I'm just saying. Celebrate human nature whenever humans give us the opportunity to.

Yeah. Okay. Going into that. And the last bit of banter I had, I guess, is also about the foibles of flawed humans. But did you see that Clayton Kershaw was upset because... He was a little angry, wasn't he? Yes, because prior to his start, so he started in St. Louis on Sunday. And prior to that game, the Cardinals played a video of Matt Adams'

go-ahead three-run homer off Kershaw in game four of the 2014 NLDS. Yeah. That was the homer that ended up clinching the series for the Cardinals, eliminated the Dodgers. The Cardinals go on to the NLCS. So Kershaw was not pleased by that. He said, I think it's a little Bush league, but I don't expect anything less from these guys. So it's no worries, which, you know, when you end with, so it's no worries. So don't put it in the paper. I was mad.

Yeah, exactly. But, but if he was mad, he channeled that rage quite effectively because he had his best start of the season and he threw five scoreless, struck out seven and the Dodgers got the win and I guess he got the last laugh. And you know, if they had shown that clip one time, I'd say, yeah, no harm, no foul. It's fine. Like it's relevant. It's, the Dodgers are in town, Kershaw's pitching. Here's a good moment for your franchise. Why not hype up the fans by showing it? But the thing was they, they showed it on a loop for several minutes. Yeah.

See, normally I might be inclined to say, Oh look, it's just, it's, it's trolling. It's, it's good natured, or at least like this is the sort of sports trolling that I can get on board with and, you know, just take it and, and chuckle about it and don't be a red ass or whatever. But several minutes on a loop, that is a little Bush Luke. I think I'm with Kershaw. This is actually a bit Bush. So I think a couple of things about this.

The first thing that I think is that I saw that there were some Cardinals fans who were like trying to like take the piss out of Kershaw for reacting, which I found funny because this is only fun for you if he reacts, right? If he doesn't say anything about it, then you haven't had your fun, right? Because the reason you applaud this and find it to be, you know, a fun little snarky bit of business is that he gets flustered by it and is like grumpy. You want him to be a red ass. You want to be able to do the, don't put it in the newspaper, I was mad meme.

Like you want to be able to meme. And in order to meme, he has to provide you grist for the meme, right? You need to put grist in the meme mail. I do find it kind of funny. Like I know that that start was meaningful within the context of that postseason, but has it been successful trolling if your prior World Series win came before that? Do you have a leg to stand on?

Also here's the thing about it. The Dodgers just won the World Series. They have not fallen on hard times. They have in fact won two World Series since that happened, which is two more than you have won. So there's that piece of it too, where I'm just like, you know, this is like effective trolling in the micro, even setting aside the fact that you then lost.

Like it's still a little bit of snarky business and fine, rolling in the micro, even setting aside the fact that you then lost. It's still a little bit of snarky business and fine, but in the broader context of your two franchises, it does read a little funny. It also reads funny within the broader context of this season, because the Dodgers, sure, they're in a tighter division race than any of us, I think, anticipated, but they're still first in the NL West and have won 40 games and like you're looking up at the Cubs. No, your season has gone better than I think a lot of people, including me, thought it

would. So like props to the Cardinals for that. And I think a little bit of, you know, friendly or not so friendly, like, joshing is fine. I think like there are teams that don't like each other and it's okay if they don't like each other and they Might behave a little differently toward that team than others, but it it is kind of funny, I Don't know like what is Kershaw supposed to say I guess like I Don't know. You got me. I don't know. You got me. Yeah. Yeah.

I guess I'll just have to look at my two rings as comfort. And like it is, you know, that's maybe overstating the case slightly because it's not like he had a ton to do last year. But, you know, it's just it's a funny it's a funny thing. It's sort of I'm fine with I'm a swear. I'm fine with talking. I think talking is fine. I think that we can sometimes be a little sensitive to s*** talking in a way that like,

we could let things sort of wash over us in a less confrontational way. There is something like pretty mean about that, that I am like kind of surprised by. It just feels like a, it feels very pointed. And the rep, you're right, the repetition is really what moves it to something where I'm like, that's kind of nasty, you know? Like, so I don't know, I'm glad, I guess I'm glad Kirshen won. Like, it's a, it's quite a way to rise to it. I also, if I had to bet, I kind of feel like the fact that he had that start on that day was maybe not a complete coincidence.

I know the stereotype of stat heads is, oh, the players are just robots and it's all random number generator and they just do their thing and they get better results some days than other days. But Kershaw seems to me like a guy I wouldn't want to piss off. Like he's just very focused, very intense. I could absolutely see him taking that personally in a Michael Jordan kind of way. I mean, like how else could you take it? Yeah. Oh, sure. And just channeling that effectively. Now, I guess you could say,

given his postseason record, maybe the more amped up he is, maybe that's not the best thing for him because he's already at such a high level. And in fact, that was kind of, I think, Andy McCullough's thesis in his book about Kershaw is just that, you know, if you have regular Kershaw who's already the way that he's wired, and then you get to play off Kershaw, and you're just kind of in the red, and maybe it's not actually beneficial at that point. But I don't know, like, if you could rerun this game somehow

without the Cardinals taunting Kershaw repeatedly before the game, I think I would bet on his game score being lower. I'm not gonna say like, you know, he would have been bad and it was the difference between him being bad and being good, but I just, I gotta think like a little, little extra rage, who knows?

Maybe, maybe that's what he needed these days. I also think it's such a, so first of all, like maybe I'm misunderstanding the history of the St. Louis Cardinals, but I also feel like the Cardinals have like a heated, venom filled rivalry, but it's with the Cubs, right? Like isn't that their main... So save this bile for your real rival, you know?

Like keep that special and toxic. What are you doing having that spill over into a regular season game? Like against the Dodgers, like relax. Save this stuff for the Cgers like relax get you save this stuff for for the Cubs what are you doing over there so that's one thing and then the other thing of it is like it is sort of funny you know there there have been like the the relative fortunes of these two franchises but it also feels a little weird to be doing this at like this juncture in Kershaw's career where

it's like, he's kind of an elder statesman. This is probably his last ride. He's not what he was. He certainly wasn't what he isn't what he was in 2014. Matt Adams retired last year. Right. And so it's just sort of like, it's also it, it's a weird, it's a weird flex because you're like, you know, you're, you're talking about a time when you got the guy, okay, great, but it's a lot easier to get the guy now. And then pretty embarrassing given that it's easier to get him and then you couldn't get him.

This is always the risk of s*** talking too. It's like sometimes it backfires because you don't win the game and then you just have to sit there being like, well, you know, I tried. It's like, what if that shot hadn't gone in and then Halliburton had done the choke thing? Like, he'd hear about that for the rest of his career, probably. You know, I'm talking about basketball now and Nick Dan mitzover. I know, you know, because you're an all sports head now. Like, you are a consumer of all sports. But you've been watching any

of the Stanley Cup? I have. Yeah. Hockey. It's the best. Can I ask it? This is, I swear it's related. And I know that basketball and hockey are different sports, just in case anyone's like, weren't you just talking about the NBA finals? So I'm sorry to all the Knicks fans. Bing, Bing Bong. Is that what you all say? Bing Bong? Yep. That's it. Bing Bong. Well, hopefully Bingong gets to write again sometime.

Have you been, but you've been watching some of the Stanley Cup here? So and you, you know quite a bit about hockey actually. You know, let me rephrase. You know so much more about hockey than I do. And I, I know this. Here's one thing I know about hockey, that last year it was these same teams, right? The Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers. Weird to have a Florida team go to hockey, but we'll let that go. I can say that as someone who used to have

a hockey team in Arizona and doesn't anymore. These two, and spoiler for everyone who didn't watch the Stanley Cup last year, the Panthers won. The Edmundson Oilers did not. They have a number of very good players, but also these two teams seem to fiercely hate each other. Yeah. And boy, are they looking for every opportunity they can get to just like kick the living out of each other. My God. Hockey. You know, we talk about how violent football is and it's definitely more

violent than hockey just from a pure impact perspective. But some of these boys, I'm like, it's a good thing it takes a while to get a skate off or something you might end up making some choices you regret. Yeah. It's not quite a four nations face off level animosity, I guess, but it's, it's up there. So intense. Yeah. Anyway, there's some history.

There's some, some beef, definitely. Yeah. I would like, uh, I say this as someone who doesn't have a strong opinion about it, but I'd like it if the Oilers could win. It's weird that a Canadian team hasn't won the Stanley Cup in such a long time. That's strange. Yeah. We actually, we did a full hangup segment about that while I'm plugging

that other sports podcast. We also, we talked to Kim Aang. That could be relevant to some of our listeners here. We talked about AUSL, the softball league that she's a commissioner of and MLB just invested in. So, some softball banter and an interview on that episode. I'll link to it on the show page. By the way, one data point in support of my Clayton Kershaw channeled the rage and

the trolling only made him stronger take. He did throw his fastest fastball of the season. I was just about to say, did he throw harder? In that game. He reached back for a little extra, and he fired one in there at 91.3 miles per hour. That's his high. That's his high this season.

Oh, boy. Yeah. It was fast enough. All right. It was fast enough. All right. It was fast enough. Our last thing for this episode, people have been clamoring. Clamoring. I was the one holding us back from talking about a TV show. I mean only briefly.

Yeah, but sometimes it works the other way. But this time, you watched the season of Poker Face before I did, and there was a baseball episode, episode five of season two, and it's called Hometown Hero, and it's a baseball episode, a fully baseball episode, and so people have been writing in and asking us to discuss it and critique it, and I don't have a huge amount to say about this episode, but I did finally catch up with the second season long enough to watch this episode. Yeah, not at all.

Yeah, I haven't watched the entire season. We did a Patreon bonus episode some time ago about the first season of Proper Face, if you want to go back and catch up on that. But this episode specifically, we can discuss, I guess, what we thought of it as an episode, but also what we thought of the depiction of baseball. So this was written by Tony Toast, who is the show runner this season.

This is the first episode he had written. He was formerly the guy in charge of Longmire, a show that I quite enjoyed for several seasons. Yeah. Okay, yeah, I didn't watch that. And it was directed by John Dahl, also the first Poker Face episode he had done. It was not my favorite episode of Poker Face,

I would say that much despite the baseball connection. But the baseball, I have a couple notes, but- I have a couple notes. It was not an egregious representation of baseball. It wasn't egregious. No, it definitely wasn't. It was not one that, but it was not an egregious representation of baseball. No, it definitely wasn't. It was not one that felt like it was designed to make... Here's what I'll say.

I think that many of the quibbles that I have about the baseball piece of this episode are excusable within the context of many of the people who watch Poker Face not being baseball fans and requiring a bit of many of the people who watch Poker Face not being baseball fans and requiring a bit of explanation of things and I think that there were parts of it that Were done. Well, I will say that I think this season is like down a little bit relative to last season still enjoying it Certainly, but I I don't think that it's quite as strong as the last season Was so some of it is just maybe a general downgrade certainly, but I don't think that it's quite as strong as the last season was. So some of it is just maybe a general downgrade.

So we should lay out. So within the episode, should we do a little plot summary? And then, yeah. And I guess for those who have not seen, which is a streaming series on Peacock created by the great Ryan Johnson. And it's kind of an ode to Columbo. It is a how catch him. So it's a detective procedural.

You see the crime committed, the murder, someone dies. You see how it happens. And then the hook is how that person gets caught. And Charlie Kail is the lead character of this show, played by the excellent Natasha Lyonne, and her gimmick, because, you know, every detective show has to have some gimmick, is that, I guess it's not even the most original gimmick, but it's a great show. It's just, she can tell when people are telling the truth or lying.

She just has a special inherent ability to unfailingly know when someone is lying. And so she's kind of a drifter. She's just itinerant. She's going from place to place. She keeps getting odd jobs. And wherever she goes in classic crime show procedural tradition, crimes get committed. The murder rate around Charlie through no fault of her own

is sky high. Sky high. And she just stumbles across a crime and she's not an official investigator or anything, but she can't help but help out because she hears people lying when a crime is committed. And very often she's like present in or around the scene of the crime, it turns out,

and maybe she knew the victim or she knows the perpetrator. And so she unravels the mystery and gets to the bottom of she knows the perpetrator. And so she unravels the mystery and gets to the bottom of it by the end of the episode. So it's very lightly serialized. There is a larger overarching story, which they've kind of retired in this second season,

to this point. And mostly though, it's just, it's episodic. It's just, you know, murder of the week, essentially, mystery of the week, or it's not even really a mystery, but in this one, she gets a gig as a ball girl at a minor league park for the Montgomery Cheesemongers. And she is just, uh, settling into this life. She's floating around aimlessly. She doesn't know what she's going to do with herself.

She catches on here. There is a conspiracy of some of the minor league players because the cheese mongers are a terrible team and they're on a near historic minor league losing streak. And so they decide, five of them just decide to throw a game or five actually. And there's a little bit of a sports betting commentary here. You know, that's what I liked.

Yes. They succumb to the temptation because they can bet on this five game parlay where if they lose all of those games, then they make 10 times what they bet. And these are all like baseball dead-enders, you know, they're, they're running out of rope. And the main guy who's played by Simon Rex is Rocket Russ Waddell, who was a former top prospect nicknamed Rocket after Roger Clemens. And he threw 100 mile per hour fastballs and he's, he's lost it. And he's just playing out the string here

and he's getting down to his last game and the team's gonna cut him. And so he has to lose his last game, but then a young hotshot prospect gets promoted to that level and he's gonna get that start and he's not in on that conspiracy. And so they have to figure out what to do. Right, and in order to sort of throw his game without telling him about the,

the gambling conspiracy, they spike his bubble gum with LSD. Yes, they dock Ellis him and they dock Ellis him and like doc Ellis, he pitches extremely well. They dock Ellis him. And like Doc Ellis, he pitches extremely well. Yes. So here's, this is my primary beef with this episode, which is, you know enough to know about Doc Ellis. You know, he ran, he threw a no hitter while on LSD, but like, it wasn't a clean no hitter,

right? Like it was an incredibly sloppy game to dock through. He hit a bunch of guys, he whacked a bunch of guys. It was not a good day out. I mean, it was, but it wasn't, right? It wasn't a performance that seemed like it should result in a no-hitter just because of the sloppiness of it. And it is a funny, it's funny. And like this guy who they have play, Felix Domingo, like is good at that part, has the ugliest arm action I've ever seen in my entire life. Like a fricking shot putter out there.

Like what? They couldn't find a guy who had been a ball player? Even by the standards of actors playing baseball guys. Yeah, the actor was good, quite charming. Brandon Perea is his name. And they kind of played with it during the outing because they had him like suddenly throw sidearm. It was like, you know, he was just doing all sorts of stuff

and it was working because he was high. But yeah, his natural delivery was, yeah. Yeah, it was woof. And so in the course of this episode, he throws a great game. They end up losing anyway, because of the catcher who was in on the conspiracy, like warning the other team sitter and sort of alerting him to what the play is going to be. And then the other guys who were in it intentionally misfeeld the ball and there anyway, they, they win by losing you know the conspirators win by the team losing and they make this money and then it becomes clear to Domingo Felix Domingo what

is going on because one of the members of the conspiracy is something of adults and is trying to figure out what his share of the winnings is going to be. And so does math to that end in Felix Domingo's little notebook, because we are given to understand that in addition to everything else, like him being a great promising prospect, like, you know, he's paying attention to the weather and he's journaling and he has sort of a, you know, modern picture air to him, right? He's incorporating metrics and also journaling and the stuff.

And so when he comes to discover that this has gone on, he confronts Russ who is trying to find the remnants of the gum so that there is not evidence of them having interfered with his start. And he confronts the guy and he, being Russ Rockett, throws a baseball at the back of his head 100 miles an hour and it kills him. And that's how he dies. Yes. See? They checked on Ryan Weathers, what's going on? And then sets up the scene to make it look like this was a pitching machine accident. So here's another issue.

Why is this pitcher taking batting practice? Like that in order for- Yeah. What are we doing? That's my main issue with this episode. And I know, you know, if you're not a baseball person and probably many people watching this series or not, then that probably wouldn't stand out to you.

But this is, as far as we can tell, this is an affiliated team, right? I mean, I guess it wouldn't make much of a difference if it were Indie Ball or whatever, like in the minors. It would though, because of sort of the way they set up these co-conspirators, like that only works if they're in affiliated ball. Yes, that is true.

Yeah, but I just mean in terms of a pitcher hitting. Like, DH is everywhere in the minors these days. And so since this does seem to be set in the present, then it would be weird that this hot shot young pitching prospect is taking batting practice at all. And no one bats an eye at that. It's just, and he's there like late at night, after hours, no one else is there. And no one questions, huh, why is this top pitching prospect taking

batting practice or like extra batting practice? Why would he be taking batting practice at all? I mean, maybe just for fun. If he likes hitting, I guess he could stand in there. There are probably some hitters who just like swinging a bat from time to time, but it does seem quite odd that he would be there late at night taking BP as a pitcher.

So that was the number one thing that I think just seemed discordant. Yes, it seemed discordant. Here's another thing about it that seemed discordant. I appreciated the commentary on betting. But like, first of all, these guys are so not subtle about having won a great deal of money in the clubhouse the next day. You'd think that they would try to like be low-key, at least at work. Well, one of them is, as you said, canonically adult.

So that kind of makes sense. But yeah. But like they're walking in and fancy clothes and like there's, there's evidence around also they're in affiliated ball or at least they appear to be. And I know that like there's a little bit of trickeration on their part in terms of like how these bets are being placed, but presumably they were being monitored for betting. We know that guys get got in the minors for this stuff, right? In fact, some of them did and just returned or just got reinstated after a year of suspension.

Released. Yeah, that too. Almost uniformly. Not all of them, but yeah. So like that part of it too, I was like, they are being awfully cavalier with this in a number of different directions. Although I did appreciate like a pop culture reminder so soon after the reinstatement of Pete Rose about what the number one rule is that you never break. I was like, that's right, writers of Poker Face, you've got it.

And so then yeah, like Charlie ends up taking LSD Lace bubble gum and she sees BJ Novak and I will say I want one of those cheese monger hats, man. Those cheese monger hats are great. They are so cool. I thought they did a decent job of representing just minor league teams these days with the wacky names and the atmosphere and everything. Yes. Carol Kane is like the local owner and amazing.

Yeah. Great. Kind of underutilized in this episode as guest stars in Poker Face go. But... And there's this whole story. I guess I appreciated the fact that that team is seen as tenuous. I mean, it seems like it's the upper miners most likely, because you're probably not going to have these like old guys in the lower minersors, but it seemed like they were kind of riffing on just teams getting contracted these days.

Like this team, it's kind of a touch and go existence. And I liked the idea of just time and your career and it's fleeting and your sports dreams can depart and one day you're the hotshot prospect. And then the next day you're on your way out and you've lost your stuff and all of that. So I did kind of appreciate some aspects of the depiction of minor league baseball here. And it's like significance to the town and everything. But yeah, that was the one thing that really stood out to me, the pitcher taking batting practice, which is quite key to the plot.

And then secondarily, this bothers me less, but the main guy, Rocket, the pitcher, so his whole thing is that he can't even touch 90, you know? He's like a latter day Kershaw when he's not mad at the Cardinals video operator. And so he finds it somehow when he needs to, like when he's targeting someone, when he's not mad at the cardinal's video operator. And so he finds it somehow when he needs to, like when he's targeting someone, when he gets angry, again, much like Kershaw, he's able to get some of his speed back, although in this case it's like lethal

and he's suddenly topping 100 again. The explanation, at some point a fan explains the trajectory of his career and says that he had the yips and then explains what the yips are. And that's okay, except that it seems like the explanation for his low VLO is that he had the yips. And that seemed a little strange to me.

It's, you know, cause he'll say, he says that at one point there's nothing wrong with my arm. It's just, it's all psychological. Right. I don't really think of that being the common manifestation of the yips. Usually it's about wildness. It's about control or the lack thereof. It's not so much about like, you forgot how to throw really hard.

And so he can throw in a controlled way, but only 83 or something. I guess if you had the yips, maybe if you compensated for your yips by just really slowing down your arm action and not having your natural delivery, and maybe like you could, maybe you could throw in your in the 80s or something without being wild. And it just, that wouldn't work either, but I don't know. Like usually with guys with the yips, it's not that they lose their ability to throw hard. It's just that they can't find the strike zone anymore.

So I guess you could say that maybe he's compensating for his inability to find the strike zone now by just, you know, almost unwillingly, he's restricting himself. He's throwing less hard so as not to hurt someone or something, maybe, you know, he's so in his head that he, but it's, it's kind of an odd depiction of the yips. Especially because like, I get on some level

that having the fastball, like having the Velo not there and then having it re-emerge in this moment where he's like panicked and trying to figure out how to silence this guy who has figured out their plot and is demanding all the money. Okay, fine. But like, that whole thing works just as well if he like, can throw really hard but doesn't have command, but then he is able to, with pinpoint accuracy, nail this dude in the back of the head.

Like, that works as a story story that works as a plot device. But I think it's harder. It would be harder for you to do the like, wow, he can't make it to the majors. Because like if you if you're throwing one on one and you don't know where it's going, like you're probably still going to have some kind of big career, even if it's only very brief. But they could have had him like called up and he gets a taste. But he can't get back there because he can't commit. Like there's a version

of this that works. Yeah, I guess they needed it to work this way because part of the way that this turns is that like no one suspects him because this ball that the pitcher gets drilled by is going like the corners reporter, whatever says that it had to have been at least 100 miles per hour or something. And so no suspicion falls on him initially because he can't throw that hard anymore. But then Charlie gets suspicious because this is an old pitching machine and it doesn't have that kind of speed either. But I guess you needed him to not be able to throw that hard

and then to suddenly regain his throwing that hard. So if he had just had an arm injury or something like your typical washed out prospect, or if he had the usual yips where he throws really hard but doesn't know where it's going, then he might still have come under suspicion because like he throws, or even, you know, people might've thought, Oh,

he threw one wildly and it was an accident and he's covering it up or something. So you kind of needed him to be like throwing 80 something until somehow that mental block is removed in extreme situations. But yeah, it's, it's kind of convoluted because they had to make it work in that specific way. And so they sort of massage the, the yips a little bit to make it happen. And then like, look, I'm not a, um, a lawyer. I'm not a police officer, but the way they get him is like Charlie lies and says that there's a big league scout there. And then he throws one on one in the game in front of the Scout as an aside like the radar guns they got used in this episode were amazing

Like it's so funny. They're not that's not what they know I think maybe that's part of the joke because it's an undercover cop is the Scout and he has a speedometer Like yeah cop would have I guess so yeah and like they make him look like he's straight out of like I guess so. Yeah. And like they make him look like he's straight out of like 1970 as both a scout and a cop. Like somehow he looks like both simultaneously. And then like he throws one on one and the guy immediately goes like, we got him and the jig is up.

I don't think that that's enough for you to like convict someone of murder. The fact that he's pretty circumstantial. Yeah. That he happened to be able to throw. Yeah. The ending was was circumstantial. Yeah, that he happened to be able to throw. Yeah, the ending was kind of abrupt. Goofy. It's one of those episodes where often a poker face episode will have, even if you know what happened,

there's a little bit of an extra twist or something that happens over the course of the episode. And this one, there wasn't really. There was no, nothing really surprising happened. And then the resolution, as you're saying, was sort of unsatisfying. Cause it was like, this is not an open and shut case. You didn't nail this guy.

He's acting as if he thinks he's caught and everyone else is, but not really. I don't think this is going to hold up. So it felt a little underbaked. It felt a little underbaked. And look, we're being critical. I like this show. I still like this show.

And, like, there have been some episodes this season that I thought have been, like, very good. But I do think that, like, it has been down in general. The Malaney one, I thought, was really strong. Like, I really liked the Malaney one. I do think that there's just, like, a propulsion the show now because Like the the the conceited the first season the reason she's on the road is that she has like inadvertently caused it wasn't her fault, but like has sort of inadvertently caused a gangster son to jump off a building and Now she's on the run from the casino gangster

And then like that kind of gets resolved, but then she's on the run from the casino gangster. And then like that kind of gets resolved, but then she's on the run from like the mob, but then that kind of gets resolved. And then it's like, well, what's driving this forward other than her like wanting to see the country? Which I guess with procedurals, you don't need something to tie them together. It's just, you know, someone's a detective,

someone's a doctor, whatever it is, there's a new case of the week. Now in Charlie's case, she's not a detective. So it's, you know, it's extra strange that she keeps running into these mysteries, but that's just the conceit of the show. And it's kind of winking and knowing and that's fine. So if the writing of the episode and the guest stars, et cetera, and Charlie's always great. So, like, if that hook is strong enough, then I don't necessarily need some underlying motivation. It's just, oh, this was a fun little case

that is introduced and resolved in the same episode. And in theory, baseball show, that's great. When a show we like becomes a full-fledged baseball show. And you had pitched this when we did our Patreon pod on season one. I think you suggested that something like this, like a baseball episode. Yeah. Did you even specify a minor league park? I think I did. I think you may have. I think I did. And to be clear, I'm not saying that this idea got ripped from us or anything like that.

There's no allegation here. But yes, I did. I thought that it would be a great setting. And I was relieved because, you know, part of this, as I think we mentioned a couple of months ago, like, you know, a couple of images from this or moments of this episode were in the trailer for this season. And in one of them, you see the pitcher who ends up throwing the game on LSD do a back flip and I was like oh god this is gonna be for Savannah Bananas themed and it wasn't he's just on LSD you know he's not a banana he's just on drugs so I was relieved that it wasn't banana themed because I was like I don't need any banana I'm all in my poker face. Meg did deploy her bananas take on our most recent Patreon bonus episode while we're using

those. So if you do want to hear her fuller thoughts and mine on the bananas, you can do that. But anyway, this is, I think still worth watching. And like much of the baseball was handled well. And I agree with you that like in terms of the vibe of a minor league park and team and some of the shenanigans that can result from that, that I thought they had dialed in very well. Ego Wodom has like a really funny cameo as like the announcer and their sponsor, they're the cheesemongers, their sponsor is this like Velveeta

like product and there's a running bit about her like suffering physical debilitation as a result of this like fo' cheese that I thought worked well. Again, the odds of us getting one now seem low because we didn't have like a few sieve praise to offer for this episode, but get at me with the cheese mongers at you guys. But you know, it could have been a little bit better. And I think that if one or two things had been shifted ever so slightly, it would have been even more successful. And like, I like that kid who plays, he was in NOPE, right?

Who played the good young pitcher. He was in NOPE. He was great in NOPE. Yes. NOPE is great. People should watch Nope. Yeah. Update, this actually comes from Kyle, Patreon supporter. Clark is now nine for nine on roughly 50, 50 catches. He's just gotten an enormous number of opportunities in a short span of time.

Of opportunities. It's wild. Yeah. That's kind of what it is. And as you noted, the robbery was not actually one of his harder opportunities, according to Statcast, which may or may not be accounting for all the factors there. But arguably not even his most impressive play, even though in a way it was. Yeah, in a way. In a way. All right. Didn't mean to shortchange Jackie Bradley Jr., by the way. He had an excellent Denzel Clark-esque catch as well.

Also, Craig Kimbrell signed a minor league deal with the Rangers after we recorded. You know, there's one gag that got me in that Poker Face episode. There's a runner, not a base runner, but a running joke throughout the episode about the minor league manager, who's played by Gil Birmingham, AKA Thomas Rainwater in Yellowstone. And it's implied that he is unwillingly in an open marriage. At one point, he's reading an open marriage for dummies book, something like, so you find yourself in an open marriage.

It's not really a focus, it's just a throwaway thing. But then you get to this big pep talk that he delivers before the climactic game. And he says this. It's probably our team's last game in this great park. So let's go out there and stop this losing streak. Yeah. Yeah. Let's win for us. Yeah.

Let's fucking go, Rocky. For Felix. For the Lubensky family. Yeah. And for these fans who have suffered with us for all these goddamn years. And while we're at it, let's win one for good old fashioned monogamy. Woo! Yeah! Made me laugh. Okay, that'll do it for today. Thanks as always for listening and special thanks to those of you who support the podcast

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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'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Romantic, pedantic and hypothetical, semantic and frantic, real or theoretical. episode soon. Talk to you then. Authentically strange and objectively styled Let's play ball It's effectively wild

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