Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2337: Strip Poker

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a possible Rays franchise sale, the latest on Elly De La Cruz, Oneil Cruz, Sandy Alcantara, and Aaron Judge, Andrew Benintendi as the current face of replacement level, Nats manager Dave Martinez’s comments about coaches, and Clayton Kershaw’s cap on Pride Night. Then (56:10) Ben brings back former […]

More than 2,000 episodes retrospectively filed And at each new one we still collectively smile That's Effectively Wild That's Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2337 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fan Crafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fan Crafts. Hello Meg.

Hello. I know that you don't remember your bold predictions from our preseason bold predictions podcast, or anyone's for that matter. And so I've taken it upon myself to remind you of them from time to time. One of yours was at least two teams announced new controlling ownership. And you already had one down, one to go as was ruled by Chris Hannell, who keeps the stats for those things. The White Sox eventual down the road transfer of ownership, the framework for which was put in place.

Chris ruled that that counted. And we are maybe close to number two here because the Rays seemingly are being sold. It's not official yet. It's just a letter of intent, but there are exclusive talks with Jacksonville developer, Patrick Zalubsky and a coalition that he has put together

to sell the Rays for $1.7 billion reportedly. And I guess that's not shocking because we kind of knew that the Rays were on the market or at least Rob Manfred reportedly had pressured Stu Sternberg to explore a sale that the Rays were on the market, or at least Rob Manfred reportedly had pressured Stu Sternberg to explore a sale for the Rays. And we just kind of had the feeling, given the way that they were seemingly stalling slash sabotaging the ballpark agreement that they had previously made, it seemed like maybe they had cold feet or they weren't eager to proceed with that.

And so we speculated about maybe whether they wanted to move the team or sell the team. And then there were reports that maybe MLB wanted them to sell the team. And seemingly they are moving down that path. So do I get credit for that? Well, I guess Chris will have to rule. I don't know if a letter of intent, which is not binding. Yeah. I don't know if a letter of intent, which is not binding. Yeah, I don't know if that quite counts, but we're within the window here of predictions. So if this becomes solidified at some point this season, then you could quite easily get credit.

And you still have the twins in your back pocket. If the twins sale proceeds, then that's another avenue for you to cross off this second one. Yeah, man, maybe, maybe all the teams that employ former fan grass riders. No, some of them are very much not for sale. It's hard for me to know what to think of it. I don't think that like my impression of Ray's ownership is wholly negative, right? It's not a John Fisher sort of situation to me, which I, you know, I don't think that like the ballpark stuff has been handled particularly well.

And they do have to play on hard mode because of the mandates, the budgetary mandates of ownership. But it does seem like a team that is really interested in winning baseball games and is not opposed to investment in some parts of their organization, even if they are not spending big from a payroll perspective. So it's a, it's an interesting one to unpack, you know, and it'll be, it's so funny because it's like, wow, almost $ive, not only because of the direction that an individual franchise might take, but because of what it tells us the data point it offers in terms of the perceived value in the marketplace, assuming that this is the price that ends up being settled on and that the sale goes beyond a non-binding letter of intent. But like, you know, it's the Rays. They're not a

marquee franchise. They're a good baseball team and have been for a long time. And you know, like they're the only one that employs Jeff Sullivan. That's gotta be worth something in the term sheet, right? You know, it's just like, oh, look, we get to listen to Jeff to do internal fan graphs, basically. I could have done it for a lot more people. I'm just saying, I'm just a person who has a note to offer to our friend. But it is clear, again, assuming that this sale comes to fruition and that the eventual sale price lands somewhere in this neighborhood, that owning a baseball team is still seen to be a good investment, a worthwhile one.

It's an obviously lucrative investment in a way that we can put a more tangible sort of number on as a result of a sale, right? I think that's why these are always so closely watched because you do get a nice little check-in on sort of what does the investor community think of this as a potential asset. And I am using that word purposefully here. So I think that piece of it is interesting. And then, you know, I don't know anything about this guy. You know, how many business guys are we supposed to know really?

I feel like I know too many business guys. I know the names and can ID the faces of too many of these dudes, but I don't know if there's like a conclusion we can draw about the potential impact this might have on future raise payrolls, for instance. Does this alter the fortunes of the franchise in terms of how they have to go about constructing their roster? That'll be interesting to monitor too, assuming of course that it happens. And I think that it should so that I can get a bold prediction, right? You know, that's really what at the end of the day, that's what matters.

These predictions that I remember so well. Yeah. Yeah. That was interesting to me too, the sale price, because the Rays were rated by Forbes and Sportico when they do their annual MLB evaluations or evaluations of the franchises. They were 29th, just ahead of only the Marlins, the other Florida team. And their valuations were, I think, 1.25 billion from Forbes and 1.35 from Sportico. So this is exceeding those by a fairly wide margin. And yeah, you only get so many data points to see, oh, are those estimates roughly accurate?

And I think they are generally in the ballpark, so to speak. But the fact that the Rays are even this valuable, yeah, despite all of the uncertainty of their situation, in the ballpark, so to speak, but the fact that the Rays are even this valuable, yeah, despite all of the uncertainty of their situation, then that just speaks to how good the investment in baseball teams and sports franchises has been for very wealthy people and continues to be. And I have been interested in, we talked about this on Hang Up and Listen recently, but there's a clause in the bill that the Republicans are trying to pass now that would lower the potential for sports franchise owners

to use those franchises as tax shelters, which is ironic because the bill is about preserving tax cuts and largely benefits the wealthy. But in this one specific way, it could actually hurt sports owners who have just been able to depreciate everything essentially and write it off, including player payroll and all the rest. And that is somewhat in danger if that provision stays in the bill, if the bill passes, that would only apply to new owners. And so I have wondered, are they going to try to just ram through some sales before that happens so that new owners could still benefit from that potentially?

So we will see, but regardless, it's a good investment on the whole, whether you're turning a profit year in and year out, the appreciation of the sports franchises has been very beneficial. And I think Sternberg bought the raise for 200 million in 2004, and sure, there's been a fair amount of inflation since then, but even so.

And this guy who is buying it, I guess according to Forbes, his net worth is 1.4 billion. Of course, those estimates are imprecise, but that probably would not make him among the better healed owners. But maybe more so than Sternberg, who I guess, by MLB owner standards is not among the richest. But you never know really whether a new owner, it's not necessarily perfect correlation between owner net worth and team payroll. And so it's hard to say and Sternberg, whatever his other drawbacks, he has at least put the

right people in place seemingly to run that baseball operations department. And so you never know what you're going to get with a new owner. And sure, potentially this new guy, if this new guy does take over, might put more money into payroll or might not, or might put more money into payroll, but also not be as good an owner and not hire as well. And that could not work out as well. I know there are some people who are wondering,

will he move the team? And there's a Jacksonville AAA team, the Jumbo Shrimp, the owner of which is one of the limited partners in this arrangement potentially, but it seems like the expectation is not necessarily that you would move to Jacksonville. And I guess the fact that this guy is in state maybe makes it less likely that the Rays

will leave the state. But they still have to figure something out, whether it's in the Tampa area or elsewhere in the state. Isn't it because they wouldn't let him buy the bills? Like back in the day? Is this like... There is some speculation that yes, it's just, it's a grudge. Trump is trying to stick it to the people who wouldn't let him into their club. You know, you go back in time and you make pro sports the safe haven of fail sons. World history is really different, Ben. Just like, put, let W be the commissioner. Let's fine.

Let Trump buy the bills. Sorry, those fans. I know you've suffered, but. Every now and then amidst the many, many Trump policies that are just the worst. There's one where I'm like, oh, okay. amidst the many, many Trump policies that are just the worst. There's one where I'm like, oh, okay. Even if that one is driven by a personal vendetta, just like most of the others are, it's like, okay, I guess there's one, doesn't make up for all the others,

but I'm with you on this one specific provision. Yeah, man, I hate to be explicitly political except that I thanked you before the show and I was like, Hey, I'm going to like say some stuff about some other stuff. The public land provisions in that bill are just like devastating. So if you're, you know, we're regardless of where you fall in the political spectrum, if you enjoy like being able to go to national parks, you know, whether it's for camping reasons, wildlife preservation,

the climate impact. Like there's so much in that bill that's bad, but like this is, if that's a thing that matters to you. And I think that there tends to be for some a little less ideological valence to that issue. Like this is a good one to get on the phone with your representatives because it would just fundamentally reshape the American West if some of these sales went through. So, you know, one more thing for everybody to worry about. Cool. Cool. Google.

Okay. Here are a few quick updates. I thought we could do a quick cruise slash Dela Cruz update. So, Ellie has picked it up offensively since the last time we checked in. He's hit a bunch of home runs, a bunch of games in a row. He is up to a 126 WRC+. So still tracking behind his full season war total from last year according to fan graphs depends on the defensive metric, but the offense, it's back. And in fact, he is now hitting better on the season than O'Neil Cruz,

whom we compared him to last time, and that time O'Neill was having the better offensive season. And at that time he had been shaky in center field. And he seems to have turned things around in that department, even as his bat has slipped somewhat. He's still, he's walking a lot. He's chasing a lot less, but he's been a little less productive offensively. But as Davey Andrews observed in a post for fan graphs on Wednesday, the defense, both

by the eye test and the metrics, he seems to be getting the hang of center field potentially. And even if the bat has regressed slightly lately, that's a great sign for his long-term value. If he is able to make a go of it in center, then the offensive bar is lowered relative to a corner. And I want him to be good, just as I want Ellie to be good. And so, yeah, good news, bad news here, but overall fairly good for both of them. But maybe the balance of power, Cruz, De La Cruz power has shifted once again back

in Ellie's favor. We shall see. I'm very excited about the prospect of O'Neill Cruz being like a good center fielder because first of all, the eye test in the early going was, it was rough out there, dude. It was rough in spring. In spring, we were like, I'm really gonna not work out. And I think part of what is so exciting about, it's just true both of these guys, right? But like part of what makes them so thrilling is that they seem like they have a tremendous capacity for spectacular plays, right? Like they seem like guys, we've seen them make spectacular plays. We've seen them hit spectacular home runs. We've seen them have moments on the

base paths that are amazing. We've seen Ellie be a really good defender. Center field is a position that lends itself to spectacular. If you're good out there, you're going to maybe you're not going to look like Denzel Clark, but you have the capacity to do something that is visually stunning and like very obviously run saving, you know? It's certainly not the only position where like good defensive play can save a run in a literal sense, but there's something about it that has like a more individual feel to it. We're like, no, that run, that run that was gonna go over the wall.

It didn't, is the funny thing. He caught it, like amazing. And so I am in favor, well, I'm in favor of him being a good player because it would be really exciting and cool to see him realize sort of his prospect potential. And a good and consistently good O'Neill Cruz is like quite the boon for his organization, right? Like that has franchise altering potential to it, depending on how good the good is, right? But also, you just want to see that guy look cool out there, man. Like I just want to see him look freaking cool. So that part's exciting. However, the balance between the two is sitting.

Like I'm jazzed about that part. I hope that he continues to make progress there and it starts to, well, be a thing that I don't feel compelled to watch in like a little how are we doing out there today? Because like, boy, it was, even when it worked, And by that, I mean, like even when he ended up making plays, he was supposed to, it never looked comfortable. It didn't look intuitive. And that makes sense. He's like adapting to this new position, but it felt like he felt

a little bit like you were watching a baby deer. You know? Yeah, very much so. I think baby deers would be bad centerfielders. I feel comfortable with that take. Another turnaround that may be in the process of happening is Sandy Alcantara. Things have looked up a bit for him. He's had three solid starts in a row. So over those starts, he has thrown 17 innings.

He has a 2.12 ERA, a 3.36 FIP. He struck out 15. He's walked three. I don't know if it's quite vintage Sandy, but it's kinda closer, at least on the surface. Now the caveat there, the most recent of those starts was against the Phillies. The prior two were against the Rockies

and the Pirates respectively. And now I know that the Rockies subsequently, they've been on a bit of a roll by Rocky standards. They've won three in a row. You don't have to guild the Lily, it's fine. Like, it's fine. They're coming off a game where they hit seven home runs, which tied a franchise record,

which is impressive considering that this franchise used to play in Denver without a humidor. Right. But look, yeah, they're still the Rockies. But there is very much a kind of, is he good or was he just facing the Rockies dilemma that we've been facing lately? Atlanta went through this recently because Spencer Strider had a great start against the Rockies and struck out a ton of guys. And then Grant Holmes had a fantastic start against the Rockies and struck out a ton of guys. And then Grant Holmes had a fantastic start

against the Rockies, even though the Braves ended up losing that game. He struck out 15 Grant Holmes. But didn't he also allow nine runs in that start? I don't think he did. I think they did. Yeah, they did. Or 10 possibly.

I thought that I did not pay attention to that game other than the, and I was like, how does one even, how does that even happen? I also wondered how does one strike out 15 and allow that many? And I guess the answer is you don't, but your relievers do after you because yeah, Grant Holmes, he pitched six and a third and he allowed three runs and two earned and then struck out 15 and then yes, the Braves lost 10 to one. But that was one of those where it's like, Grant Holmes struck out 15.

Is he that good or is it the Rockies? And you know, it's probably a little bit of both. If Sandy has gotten himself back together again, then the timing would be good for the Marlins, at least when it comes to being able to potentially flip him before the deadline. I feel bad for Marlins fans. Like the best case scenario is that this guy gets good again just in time for him to be shipped out.

But I guess you're used to it if you are still somehow after all these years a Marlins fan. But I would be happy if Sandy were good again. Luis Robert has not really been good again. He's been a little bit better in June at the plate than he had been before then, but not so good that he is back. It's been a rough go. Yeah, it has.

Okay, well, that's the update on Sandy. Update on Aaron Judge, he slumped. He's had a slump. I think this is the first time you could say that Aaron Judge has been anything less than blistering for more than, I don't know, a game. He's had a five game stretch where he has been legitimately one of the worst hitters in baseball, which normally would not be notable whatsoever. But for Aaron Judge to have a negative 10 WRC plus over a span of five games, 21 played appearances. He's struck out, I think 12 times in those played appearances.

He struck out an awful lot. Yeah, he's been kind of bad and it happened against the Red Sox. And so that was a bad timing on his part. He was like one for 12 in that series and struck out three times in each of those games and crowded into a double play in a high leverage spot. And so you have to wonder, did the Red Sox discover the secret sauce? We talked about the Mets and the secret sauce against Ohtani. Do the Red Sox have

the secret sauce against Judge? Probably not. He had a just a Titanic showdown against Garrett Crochet on Friday, which was a ton of fun because they left Crochet in and he was facing Judge yet again. And Judge got the best of him the last time he did tag him for a homer, which was the only hit that Judge got in that series. But that was fun. You don't get to see matchups like that that often. I mean, not just like power against power, one of the best pitchers against one of the best hitters,

but also having gone that many rounds in the same game, usually you're gone by that point with good reason, I guess, as that play appearance showed. But nonetheless, it was fun to see them tangle yet again in that game, having gone up against each other a few times already and having to mix things up. Although crochet was just it was like, here it is, hit it. Here's my best stuff and you can put your best swing on it.

And that was enough for Judge in that one specific case. But yeah, the WRC plus has plummeted all the way down to 130 or 230. I was going to say, wait a minute, it was this much longer and worse than I'm appreciating? 130, that would be pretty serious. But 230, yeah, all the way down. But you know, it was so stubbornly in the 240s or 250s that he's found a new lower level. And the Yankees, as we speak here on Wednesday, they've gone 29 consecutive innings without scoring.

They've been shut out a few times in a row, which it's kind of like as Judge goes, so go the eighties. Not as much as it was a couple of years ago, because they do have a better lineup top to bottom, and John Karl Stanton is back now. It's hard even to find a place to play him. They have double digit number of above average hitters this year. So it has not been solely the Aaron Judge show,

but as he has had a rare brief offensive outage, the entire team has too. Yeah. They have to figure out like, what are they going to do with Ben Rice who like really seems deserving of, you know, more than part-time duty. So how do you factor him and keep him in the lineup part-time duty. So how do you factor him and keep him in the lineup with, with Stanton back? But yeah, I have to say if the, if the Red Sox had discovered the secret sauce for neutralizing Aaron judge and they had still traded Rafael Devers, then I think you got to fire the entire front office. Like you, you unlock the secret sauce for the biggest bat from your biggest rival in division. And then you trade your best hitter, unconscionable fire everyone.

Yeah. Yeah. I also just, I noticed that Andrew Benentendi was perfectly replacement level to this point in the season. We're switching socks here to the white socks. Yeah, he's at 0.0 according to fan graphs in 46 games, 183 plate appearances. And he has been almost exactly there the last two seasons. So 2023, negative 0.3, 2024, negative 0.3. He is just essence of replacement level. He is pure distilled replacement level. He is like the avatar of the concept of replacement level. He is pure distilled replacement level. He is like the avatar of the concept of replacement level,

which is surprising given the high hopes for him earlier in his career. But he has settled into this phase where he is just the face of replacement level at this point. I was trying to see like, is anyone closer to replacement level with this much playing time over the past few seasons, because he's been a starter.

He had 621 plate appearances in 2023, 522 last year. He's been playing very regularly, despite being almost perfectly replacement level. The only other hitters who have been within a win of replacement level in either direction and have had more plate appearances than Ben and Tendi over the past two seasons, Josh Bell and Andrew Vaughn, who until recently was also on the White Sox. It's appropriate, I think, that two of the three most replacement

level players would be White Sox because they've just been kind of a replacement level team. If you're on a better team, you probably don't have the opportunity to be replacement level for that long because you get replaced. Right. Ben attendee has not. And obviously they signed him to a big contract, probably regrettably from their perspective. And so, yeah, I just, I always wondered, you know, for a while it was like

Willie Bloomquist was the most replacement level guy, but he was often, he was not always a starter. He was like a super sub and utility guy and multi-position player. But Benetendi, he's just like highly paid starter for this team and yet has been stubbornly replacement level. And, and just so close, like he hasn't been that far below. Andrew Vaughn was well below replacement level this year before he got traded and sent down. And even Josh Bell has deviated a bit further from zero than Benetendi has. He's just, he's dead on, you know? And he's also like just a little bit

below average as a hitter and the defense hasn't been good. So it might surprise people that he's, he's that bad. Cause you might say, oh, you know, kind of close to an average hitter, but just not really giving you anything else anywhere else. So that's who he is at this point. So he is, he's like my perfect, if I had to cite the concept of replacement level to someone, direct them to Andrew Benatendi's fan graphs page. I just, I remember when that deal was signed. I felt bad because like we had been imploring the White Sox

to spend money. We were like, please. Like they had, at that point they had a very exciting young core. We were like, please like supplement this group. And then they did. And we were like, I like that. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, I don't want to, I don't, I don't have any issue with Andrew Ben Intendi. And he was a fine player in Boston, but it just seemed like such an obvious and egregious overpay for what he was likely to become and be at that phase of his career. And that proved to be true and to be true like immediately. And when you don't spend, like how you spend matters a lot more, you know? If you're the Dodgers, you can sign Michael Conforto and he can just be bad and then, you know, you torture Craig with him. So it has a utility in a way, right? Like maybe not the utility you were hoping, but you're like, well, we got rid of Kelly, so we got to have somebody and I guess it'll be Michael Conforto. But you can absorb those. I don't even know that I would call it a miss signing, but like you

can absorb signings that end up not being productive in the way you want them to be because you have budget and they don't. So you got to get those rights. And they sure did not. So it would be nice if they could have some sort of rebound and Renaissance. Maybe it'll be the Pope's second miracle. You know, like, got the team to be sold. The white sacks are winless since he donned a white sacks cap. Well, maybe, maybe God was like, hey, like felt a little too close to you asking for a favor, my friend. That's not how this is going to work. I want to be clear that my understanding of Catholic doctrine, which, you know, is not perfect, is that the, the miracles for sainthood don't have to all be about

the White Sox. They don't all have to be about the same thing. In fact, I don't know if you get like bonus points for them being, you know, do you need to demonstrate breadth? Or can you just be like, can you be a one tool player, but like really, wow, you, you nailed it. I feel like I'm being offensive. I don't mean to be. No, we'll get to Clayton Kershaw in just a second. Last bit of Binter before that, Josh Bell still on the Nationals for now. Dave Martinez still managing the Nationals for now.

Though he is embattled. His chair is wobbly. His squid is not fried yet. But the fire Davey calls have come out because the Nationals have lost 10 games in a row. The last five of which have come against the Marlins and the Rockies. I guess it's kind of the corollary

to what we were saying earlier about if you're good against the Rockies, were you really good or was it just the Rockies? If you're bad against the Rockies, then you're really bad. But also because Dave Martinez, he has made himself a story with a cake that he gave the other day. Hannah Kaiser beat us to this at the bandwagon, but I was planning to banter about this and still will. So he was asked the other day where the blame lies for the nationals offensive swoon. And he had a headline making quote here. He was asked how much of it is on the players, how much of it is on the coaching.

And he said, it's never on coaching. It's never on coaching. Coaches work their asses off every single day. We're not going to finger point here and say it's never on coaching. It's never on coaching. Coaches work their asses off every single day. We're not going to finger point here and say it's on the coaches. It's never on the coaches. They work hard. The message is clear.

All the work is done prior. Sometimes they got to go out there and they got to play the game. It's always been about the players, always. I played this game a long time. Never once did I blame a coach for anything. We worked our asses off to get better. They gave us information and we used it.

These guys understand what the game is. These coaches, I've never had such a group of coaches that worked as hard as they do. They're here working due diligently. They go over everything. They sit with the players every day. These coaches, they work their asses off. Every coaching staff is like that.

And the players know sometimes you gotta put the onus on the players. They gotta go out there and they gotta play the game and play the game the right way We can't hit for them. We can't catch the balls for them. We can't pitch for them. We can't throw strikes for them They got to do that So he said no finger pointing but then kind of did point the finger at the players multiple many fingers and then he tried to walk it back later and he Said that his remarks weren't about the players. He said he never mentioned the players, though he pretty explicitly did.

But I understand what he's saying and that obviously the players are the ones who ultimately do have to play. But I thought this was kind of a fascinating quote. Obviously, he's just defending his coaching staff and to some extent by extension himself. And maybe the coaches have been perfectly fine. But the thing that interested me most about this quote was that he was basically saying inadvertently that coaches don't matter and that maybe he

as kind of a coach as the manager doesn't matter, which we've keep having this conversation when managers were fired earlier this season, we talked about Derek Shelton and is it his fault and did he do anything wrong or other underperforming managers? Is it ever a manager's fault? Have we just gone past the point of ever really blaming a manager for a team's lack of success, Brandon Hyde, is that his fault? The Orioles playing better lately, who knows?

But for him to say it's never on coaching and that his coaches work well and every coaching staff is like that, it's as if he's suggesting that most coaches are replacement level themselves. That every coaching staff is good, no coaching staff is better than any other coaching staff. Like they're all equally competent and they don't directly impact what is happening on the field.

And thus, how can you ever hold them responsible? Or should you even care who the coaches are? Cause they're all working hard and the players have to do it ultimately. It was just a really kind of fascinating quote to me for a manager to defend his coaches and yet at the same time, perhaps unintentionally make the coaches sound supremely unimportant. Yeah.

I don't know really how else to interpret it than that, that there is just this you've sort of rendered moot their presence by talking about them. It's so bizarre. And I think we've talked about a number of managerial firings this year. I'm sympathetic to the notion that these guys are often, whether it's fair or not, the first ones to go and they surely don't, you know, they're not putting the roster together. We don't have any manager GMs in baseball to my knowledge. And they can't go up there and hit for their guys.

They can't pitch for me there famously. They tend to sit in the dugout during all of that. But you got to have some responsibility. Also the part of it that I found strange is I'm like, what if you don't get fired and you've just said all of that? Like, you're putting the brunt of the blame for this like really nasty stretch in a season where you guys haven't been able to take a step forward as a club on mostly other people. If you stick around, what's the vibe going to be like in your clubhouse?

You know what I mean? I just was like, this is, it sounded like, you know, I think that he probably will get fired. And they sounded like the words of someone who maybe also thought that he would get fired. So perhaps he's a little less concerned about that piece of it, but it was very odd to me. I was like, I don't know that this is quite

what you mean to be saying. Is it? I don't know. It was, it was a weird one. And I do think that a big part of what a manager's job is, is just to kind of take the blame, just to absorb the blame and take responsibility. And we've given some grief to Ron Washington for seemingly not doing that at times and kind of throwing his players under the bus. And granted, those players have been bad,

but still, your job is the public face. Not to say that you can't ever give tough love and some players might respond to that. And I tend to think maybe privately is a better way to deliver that than publicly. But yeah, this made me think, well, is there less variation among coaches just in general now? Because they're all getting input from the front office.

They're all probably if they have jobs at this point, or are at least somewhat receptive to that collaborative relationship, I could buy that there's less variability among coaches and coaching staffs. And so maybe there is just a generalized competence and few are just superstar coaches who are so far above the baseline because they're coaches who are basically the managers drinking buddies and aren't actually, you know, they're treating it as a sign of cure

kind of thing and they're not really putting any effort into it. That probably has gone away for the most part. So it's probably true to some extent that most coaches work hard and they do the basic parameters of the job and they're available to the players. And they're just more coaches than there used to be.

So many. Yeah, so I sort of get what he's saying, but also to imply that coaches essentially can't make a difference. I mean, we know that those relationships, sometimes players respond to certain coaches and not to others, and that can be very individual specific. Some can gel well with one team or one group of players and not another, and that's not necessarily their fault or the players' fault.

It's just different groups of guys, but yeah, that's a weird one. It's never, never on coaching, always on players. Like, yeah, that seems, that seems impossible. You know, it seems, it seems so obviously not true as to be a very silly thing to say. I would never hold coaches primarily responsible for a team being bad. So in that sense, it's true. I would never say this team is bad. This team is not hitting because of bad coaching.

But it can clearly be a contributing factor, I would think. Or at least you could be better with better coaching. And maybe it's not just coaching, it's also front office. Since coaches are sort of an extension of front office, are they getting the right information? If they're the intermediaries, then is that even there for them to relay? But yeah, that's not really a great sign.

And evidently the players did not respond to it well. So, which you could imagine. The Washington Post said that one person said players were shocked, dismayed and pissed. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, like what, what does he think is going to happen? Yeah. These are the things that bubble up and boil over when a team is not playing well, regardless of why it's not playing well. Okay. Last thing we wanted to discuss before we get to our guest is Clayton Kershaw. Clayton Kershaw has been pitching better

of late as we discussed. We talked about how he pitched well against St. Louis and maybe channeled a grievance that he had against the Cardinals for showing a home run that he had allowed to them more than a decade ago on loop on the video board. And then he subsequently had an even better start against the pre-Devers giant. So perhaps he is channeling that grievance into pitching better, but it is not his only grievance that he is seemingly airing publicly here. So Clayton Kershaw and his cap. Yeah. So over the weekend Dodgers had Pride night.

They wore caps where the logo, the LA had the pride flag colors in it. And I think the Giants wore pride hats too. And you don't always see like dual participation. So I was like, oh, that's kind of cool that like both teams are kind of buying into this, or at least a lot of the team is buying into it because Kershaw wore the cap. This wasn't a raise situation where, you know, there were members of the team who refused to wear the pride uniforms, but he wrote Jen as in Genesis 9, 12,-16 on his cap in a way that was visible and legible on the broadcast. And that passage in the Bible is, my understanding, comes after the flood has abated.

In it, God is renewing his covenant between himself and man, his creation, that he will not send a flood again. Right? And there's a bit in there about- Should I read it? I have it up here. Sure. Okay.

And God said, this is the sign of the covenant. I am making between me and you and every living creature with you a covenant for all generations to come. I have set my rainbow in the clouds and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life." Which is nice, you know? Yeah.

I won't flood the earth and kill everything again. It's nice. Thanks. Yeah. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth is at least one translation. It's the new international version. You might hear that and think, well, that's, that seems innocuous. That seems nice. All living creatures, right? That would surely be inclusive of the living creatures who identify as part of the LGBTQ plus community, right? Everybody. But this verse has been adopted by

some conservative Christians as a means of trying to reclaim the rainbow flag from Christians as a means of trying to reclaim the rainbow flag from the queer community, right? Like for Christians only. And so this seems like a very obvious and sort of pointed rebuke of the, of Pride night. And you know, I guess Clayton gets to say that and I get to say that I think it sucks. And it felt worth mentioning because this has been a bad week. We're recording on Wednesday when a fairly disastrous Supreme Court decision has come down upholding a ban on trans youth care in Tennessee. I will not pretend to be a lawyer, but I know enough to know that this seems constitutionally

incoherent and that Roberts trying to maintain the conservative majority has twisted himself into a decision that doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but is going to have potentially devastating impact on trans youth in Tennessee and in any other jurisdiction that sort of adopts the logic of this case in justifying its own bans, both for trans youth, but also for trans people more broadly. This is coming up as we learn that the Trump administration is accelerating its project to basically decouple the National Suicide Prevention Hotline from the Trevor Project and other organizations that are specifically targeted at assisting members of the queer community who are dealing with suicidal ideation.

And look, I don't know Clayton Kershaw. There have been times in Clayton Kershaw's life as a public person where he has adopted positions, has said things that I think a lot of progressive baseball writers thought, well, we know that he's a conservative guy and we know that he's a devout Christian, but clearly a person who has a fair amount of empathy is able to assess things that are put before him, listen to people saying how particular policies affect their community and have empathy for them and say that black lives do matter, right? That this is a guy who has that capacity. And it's just profoundly disappointing to see again, him not be able to extend that capacity to a community that is under attack

right now. I don't know if he's thinking about all of those things in much the same way that when he said what he said in 2023 about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I don't know how much attention he was paying to the broader news environment. I don't know if he really understood how much of a mark he was being for a hateful movement. But it's just profoundly disappointing. And this is a time when we should be rallying in a public and proactive way to protect people. And he's failing to do that. And again, he gets to think what he does, but I get to say that it sucks. and I hope that people will find occasion to tell him that and communicate the stakes of this moment to him and help him to find some Christian compassion for

people who really could use a champion in the world generally in a conservative space like baseball. And, you know, the Dodgers haven't exactly been stepping up when it comes to this stuff. You know, I think they're, it sounds like their pride night was nice, but they're based in LA. They have a huge Latino fan base, many of whom are Mexican, and they have just been ducking responsibility around the ice raids. Not everyone, right? Kiki Hernandez came out and talked about this in a precise and proactive way, but this is a civic institution that means a lot to the city of Los Angeles. And Los Angeles is a diverse, vibrant place. And I have had a lot of really nice things to say about the Dodgers. I defended them this off season.

But I think that they're skirting their responsibilities in a number of ways. And I find that really disappointing and hope that they will course correct because I do think that like public institutions like this saying something, people in pro sports, people with big public platforms using those platforms, it matters all the time and it especially matters right now. And I hope that someone will like knock some heads together in that clubhouse and make those guys pay attention to what's going on around them. So yeah, it was disappointing, not particularly surprising.

This cap episode, you broke this news to me. I hadn't seen it before you messaged me about it, though I subsequently saw it everywhere. And I was not aware of this taking back the rainbow movement. And so when I read that verse at first, I thought that sounds kind of inclusive. Like I don't know if he means it that way. And then I caught up on this ideology

and there's a whole website devoted to it. The rainbow is a sign from God for salvation and hope not a sign of LGBT. And it goes on to say, well, other stuff that I'm not even gonna read here, but it's kind of clear what the message is there. And as far as I know, Kershaw has not publicly commented on this.

I don't know if he's been asked about it. I haven't seen a quote. So we are to some extent inferring his thinking here, but it doesn't seem like a large leap to say that he is most likely in line with this campaign to kind of, quote unquote, reclaim that iconography. Imagine re thinking that you could reclaim Imagine re-thinking that you could reclaim rainbows. Yeah, it's- Ridiculous. It's particularly disappointing. Well, part of it is that I have quite enjoyed Clayton Kershaw's baseball career.

Yeah. And I admire his work ethic and I have rooted for him. I have enjoyed his pitching. I've enjoyed the way that he has adapted to not being the same kind of pitcher, but still being effective. I felt for him and his struggles in the postseason and all the rest. And so I want to be able to root for him as a person. Obviously you have to decouple often. It's like the art from the artist, the player from, you know, the play kind of thing sometimes. And you sort of assume. It's like the less we know often about a player's

personal beliefs. Sometimes the better, the easier to root for them. But in Kershaw's case, he has to know what kind of impact his thoughts and expressions can have because this has come up before with him and Pride Night, different circumstances, but obviously he knows that it can hurt people for him to

speak up on that side of things. And also for him before to have objected on the grounds that the sisters were involved and his objecting to the iconography that they had essentially reclaimed or kind of re-appropriated, right? And so he said at the time that it was not about Right. And so he, he said at the time that it was not about LGBTQ people or it was not about that issue, that it was purely about the sisters and the way that they demonstrated. And that seems not to be the case now, if you're just subjecting to a pride cap and you know, you agree to take that contract and sign for that salary and, and be a big league player, you know that part of that is going to be wearing that pride cap and he wore it, but still had to sort of make it about himself in a way. And it's just like, it's not even that he's one of the people who just be like, let's keep this out of sports, let's keep this out of baseball. Even though it's very hard to do that in practice, there are people who say, let's not have any nights for anything, let's not celebrate anything,

let's just keep it about baseball. But he's not even that, right? Because he has been one of the people advocating for Christian faith days at the ballpark and all the rest. So clearly he's okay with some sort of political, religious connection between baseball and what is happening at a ballpark. And so he's not objecting on those grounds either. And so, yeah, it's just, it's disappointing. It's like, you know, let them have their day. It's okay if, like, if this doesn't reflect

your personal beliefs, well, we could disagree with you on that, but you just, you don't have to draw attention to it. And, you know, he didn't say anything about it, but he still wrote this in a visible way that he knew could be captured on cameras. And, you know, it was not like a silent private protest. It was a public demonstration of a sort.

And so, yeah, it's disappointing. It's frustrating. I don't know how much more of my life I can really spend trying to like persuade people to like have respect for my mom, for instance, if you're not already on board with that project, but I just like, there's just no real reckoning with the state of play in the world, the relative power imbalance. So it's just, it's going to tarnish him for me. Like it was

already a lot of the way there. I, I interpreted his behavior in 2023 as mostly him being, like I said, being a mark and not really understanding how he was being useful in a broader project that is really damaging. And I don't think that's true anymore. So that really sucks. And I hope that, you know, for our Dodger fan listeners, you know, whether you're part of the queer community or not, but particularly if you are that like, you're having a happy pride and I know it's really hard right now, but like, we're really happy to have you here. And I'm sorry that this is happening. You still get to enjoy this

team however, feels right to you. You also can take a break from them. But like, I don't know, I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge this because it's like, it's been a bad week and there are going to be more bad weeks to come. And you have a lot of value to us. So I thought it was important for us to take a beat to say that because the world is scary, but this is a place for you. So, yeah. And this, this piece of scripture, it's like, they're so close to getting it almost because you could read this passage. Yeah, come on. It's literally saying like, there's a covenant between God and all living creatures of every

kind on the earth. I mean, this is a message of inclusivity and acceptance, or it could be if you chose to read it that way. And they would probably say, oh yes, you know, well, we love the person, but not their behavior or whatever, right? Like, which again, kind of rejects their personhood. And that's the problem with that.

Right, yeah. Differentiate those things in your own life. Spend 10 minutes telling me how like you are distinct from the love you have for your spouse. Those are sharper, right? Yes, exactly. But it's like the underlying message here because, you know, I'm not a religious person,

but religious belief is not inconsistent with supporting the queer community. It's just your interpretation, or sometimes the official stance of a church. But even so, you can reach your own conclusions and you can parse these passages in your own way. And I don't know whether that is part of, as you might say, their project in this case,

that this piece of scripture on the surface, I mean, kind of claiming this as your own, it makes it easier to defend that stance because it's like the passage itself could be read in kind of an inclusive way. Like I saw a lot of people reacting to that the way I initially did. Yeah. Seeing Kershaw's cap reading what he was citing here and thinking, oh, well, maybe this, this is supportive. Maybe this is ambiguous. I don't really know. I don't know whether that plausible

deniability piece of it is part of the motivation. Clearly not for the people who are actually like organizing this campaign because they're pretty explicit. Read in on the campaign. Yeah, right. And there's like, when I was Googling this to try to familiarize myself with it, there was a post that came up from the true Christian subreddit, which was basically like, are we making a mistake by even trying to rebrand the rainbow here because we could inadvertently promote pro-LGBT positions by people thinking that we are being supportive when actually we're not, right? So that is the thinking

here that's happening. And yeah, it's very much just like, it's a snowflake behavior in addition to being intolerant and there's the whole tolerance of intolerant and you know, there's the whole like tolerance of intolerance, you know, is not tolerant is not good. It's not just let people be themselves because that's not what's happening here. It's not if that was the attitude, then probably you're not writing this verse on your, your pride cap. Yeah, I briefly, I guess I'm happy to say that I was not familiar with this dark corner of the internet immediately either, but I briefly had a moment where I was like, Oh, maybe he heard people last time. Maybe he heard people say like, Hey, I love watching you.

I'm a gay person. You know, I'm a trans person. This is really hurtful to me. And maybe he, you know, he accessed empathy and compassion the way he's demonstrated he's capable of, right? And then I was like, oh no, so much worse than that. So, can I break a piece of Dodger related news that has nothing to do with Clayton Kershaw or Pride? Apparently, according to Shams, the Dodgers ownership group is buying the Lakers. What? Does this count toward my bold preseason prediction?

I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so either. Well, you've already got magic on board, I guess. Yeah. Collect all the LA jewel franchises. Wow, so many more bobbleheads. Anyway, so. We can't count John Fisher selling one of his franchises either.

He is selling his MLS team. Oh, really? He's selling the San Jose earthquakes, potentially to help fund the Vegas park, which is still sort of vaporware, even though they are kind of going through a show of breaking ground that's not nearly financed. So maybe that is why he is selling his team here. It's not the team that everyone called on him to sell, unfortunately, but all right. Franchises and franchise owners making moves billion Billionaires being billionaires.

So let us pivot from that to a guest who will be with me for the rest of this segment. You had something come up during this interview and so you will not be with us, but it's a good conversation with a former teammate of Clayton Kershaw's Ross Stripling. And Kershaw actually comes up and I actually also asked Ross

if players talk about politics among themselves. So we'll get his answer to that. And we'll also just delve into his career because he recently retired, at least retired as a player. And so I thought it might be enlightening to do kind of an exit interview for him as a player because he's kind of been effectively wild, adjacent, Sam and I devoted most of an episode, episode 859, to Ross Stripling and his debut when he was pulled in the midst of a no-hitter attempt. That was 2016. We talked about Ross Stripling.

And then Ross Stripling joined us on a subsequent episode in 2019, episode 1397, and Sam and I ran through his career and also talked about some of the more notable plate appearances and batter pitcher matchups of his career and he walked us through them. And then episode 1997, a couple years ago, he inspired a stat blast about Swingman. So I thought it'd be good to get him back on. He is a former podcaster himself. He used to host the Big Swing podcast for a couple of years, so he's experienced, he's been in the biz. And so he will join now to talk about his career

and the ups and downs and whether it was all worth it and whether he is content with the way it worked out and what he will do next. I wanna know about baseball. I wanna know about every single team I wanna know about Sadglass and Fancrafts and about Oh Oh Oh Donnie I'm a very modern fan

reading up on all the analytics I wanna know about baseball presented by Patreon supporters of Effectively Wild Well, I am joined now, or I suppose I should say rejoined by Ross Stripling, who I guess I should now describe as a former Major League pitcher, though once a Major Leaguer, always a Major Leaguer in a way. Ross, welcome back to Effectively Wild. Good to be back, man.

Like six years later, running it back. This is fun. You sent me the old recording. I listened to a chunk of it and what we talked about. That was a fun conversation, man. So glad to be back. Yeah, well, you were a podcaster yourself at the time. And I guess you retired as a podcaster.

You hung up your mic before you hung up your cleats. What caused the end of your podcasting career? Yeah, I'm just hanging up things left and right over here. You know what, man, that was a combination of things. I had a kid, I would say that was the biggest thing in my life. I'd kind of exhausted my network. I'd been traded from LA to Toronto.

We had gone through COVID and we were even doing like two episodes a week for a little bit in there in COVID when there's nothing going on. And I just said we were having a hard time finding guests, hard time finding new stuff to talk about. And then my co-host got promoted at his job and was taking on more in his real-world life. And it just became hard to sync up,

hard to get motivated for it. We feel like it had kind of run its course. You know, we had that Joe Kelly episode where he was basically calling the Astros cheaters and all sorts of stuff. And we made the bottom line of ESPN and that felt like our pinnacle. And after that, we could never achieve those heights anymore. So we just kind of feel like it was time to call it. Yeah, that seems like a reliable way to generate publicity. Invite Joe Kelly onto your show. You're going to get aggregated for one thing or another. We haven't done that yet. We should break glass in case of emergency. Have Joe Kelly on. Yeah, I suggest from a business standpoint,

it's a great business decision to make. Just turn on the mic and let them go and see what happens. Well, a lot of that was relatable. We've been doing this podcast for a long time, three times a week. And I can also testify that having a kid does not make that easier and it doesn't get easier to get guests. I guess at some point you think, huh, we should have Ross Drippling back on.

It's been six years. So that's how it goes. But you were not exactly the first, but you were kind of early to the wave of athlete podcasts, which it seems like now every athlete has a podcast. It's just, it's just become quite common for athletes to become media figures themselves. It really has, man, especially in the NBA. There's guys in the NBA that I don't even realize had them and they'll pop up on my like Instagram feed. I'm like, oh man, even that guy has one. But, you know, definitely I was, I'm by no means am I saying I trailblazed the space, but you know, I do know that there's a couple that I think came on our show. Ian Hap specifically came

on our show and within a week he had his own show with some of his Cubs teammates, you know. So I do think that we, you know, laid a little bit of a foundation for some guys where they saw it's a fun outlet to do with a friend, with a buddy to talk baseball. We are not a well positioned sport as far as just how busy we are and kind of maybe how introverted our athletes are versus other sports. You know, we don't show a ton of personality. So I think it's cool to see Mookie with his show and he, you know, is a really well produced show. He's got video and all that kind of stuff.

Me and Cooper, my co-host, we were just putting a microphone between us and the audio was terrible and we were trying to figure it out on the run when he was in Houston and I was in LA and get a guest. And we were early to all that stuff that now is so easy and seamless if you're trying to start a podcast. And, but yeah, I think that's cool.

You know, that's something we're proud of. Once again, by no means am I taking credit for Mookie Betts' podcast show, but I do think we, you know, we laid the framework, I think, for a couple guys. Well, I think I just referred to your retirement as a player or podcaster, and you didn't, in your Instagram post, you did say, hang up the cleats. But it is often described as retiring ESPN picture Ross dribbling retires after nine MLB seasons, MLB trade rumors, Ross dribbling retires MLB on Instagram.

You've announced your retirement. So is it odd to hear that you have retired at age 35? Is that how you describe it? Is that how you think of it yourself? It is extremely odd. It's odd when like, we just moved into a new neighborhood so we're meeting new neighbors and making friends in here. And that first conversation, you know,

some of the guys I've met since I've retired, like we're talking about, and I'm like literally saying that out loud to them, like, oh, I'm retired, I'm a retired baseball player, retired athlete, it's goofy to say, like my dad is 68 years old and retired and when he says it, that makes sense. Yeah, you know, when I say it, it's like, everyone looks at me like, okay, well, what are you going to do? And I'm like, well, I'm navigating that as we speak. But, you know, yeah, that's just become, I think, the common jargon to use, you know, when we do hang up the cleats and in the real world,

when you're walking around, it's more, maybe kind of goofy to say, but in the sports world, you know, it doesn't feel odd. It feels like the right word to say. Yeah, it's going to be hopefully a fairly small part of your life in terms of time. I mean, even the best players, it's just, it's as a fraction, just not that long, even though it is maybe the most notable thing that many big leaguers do or the thing that people want to talk to them about for the rest of their life. It's ultimately something that's over at a period where a lot of other people's lives and careers are kind of just getting started. It is weird, man. We have the MLBPA, which is our union.

And then we have our MLBPA, which is our alumni association. Sorry, that's my kid. Alumni Association. Sorry, that's my kid. Yeah, it's okay. You're a family man now. You're at home. Yeah. And he always leads with the Alumni Association, always leads with a quote that's like, you're going to be a former player much longer than you're going to be a current player.

And that's one of those things when you're playing, you're just not, you don't even like, that doesn't even like register, you know, you're just so laser focused on extending your career or even just the next game in front of you. And then now you get to this point where I am and you start thinking like, yeah, man, you know, I hopefully have 60 years ahead of me where I am a former player. And what are the next next 60 years look like? I'm so fortunate that I was able to, you know, make enough money where I don't have to rush into anything right now. But I'm, you know but I'm kind of a busybody hard worker.

I'm gonna get into things, but I can be really picky right now, right off the bat as far as how I spend my time. I got three young boys for anyone listening that doesn't know, four, two, a newborn. So I'm in the trenches over here with my wife and plenty busy. So that's helped as well.

It was almost like a perfect combo where I'm just so busy and also at peace with my career and how it went and seeing it end when it did that I'm in a good spot. But here we are a few months later where I'm starting to get the itch to do something, need to fulfill my heart and my mind a little bit with something besides speaking to toddlers all day.

Yeah, time to fire up the podcast again and speak to some adults. heart and my mind a little bit with something besides speaking to toddlers all day. Yeah. Time to fire up the podcast again and speak to some adults. At least you can talk to me for now. If you do make it 60 more years, then we will definitely have you back on. Cause we love having former major leaguers on, especially in their eighties and nineties. And if you're, if you're 95, I'll be 98 at that point, but I'll probably still be podcasting if I'm around.

So who knows what we'll be 98 at that point, but I'll probably still be podcasting if I'm around. So who knows what we'll be talking about? We'll be talking through our robots via AI. It won't even really be us. It'll just be like our consciousness talking to each other or something. So your announcement that you put up, you said it's time to hang up the cleats. How did you know it was time? You were in camp with the Royals this spring and you called it a career not too long after that. So what sent the signal to you that this was it?

Yeah, I mean, without getting too long winded, don't get me wrong, I worked extremely hard this off season. I felt like I showed up to Kansas City's camp and are in really good shape and you know, and my stuff was as good as it's been in the last couple of years. And they were very forthcoming with me of saying, we like our guys and if healthy, it's going to be really hard for you to make this team. So I knew it was an uphill battle, but relying on experience and the kind of craftiness that

I pitched with that I might be able to sneak into a spot, that's not the way it shook out. So then obviously you opt out and you hope 29 other teams maybe need a veteran guy to come log some innings if some injuries happened or whatever. That didn't happen either. I had a son that ended up being born on March 26th, so the day before opening day. And it just didn't make sense to go to AAA anywhere. And I don't think I had it in my heart, to be honest anyway. So I'm actually very thankful that Case, our third boy, was born around then because that

just cemented in the decision to go ahead and call it. And I think the game was telling me it had kind of passed me by, man. You know, you could go pull up my baseball reference. My last two years have been, you know, by far my worst years, box score wise, but still feeling like I was throwing the ball really well. And as well as I did early in my career. Now, like, I may not have been, you know, I go watch video of myself in 2016 1718, my body is moving much faster. You know, that's the difference between a young man and an old

man. But I'm still throwing 92 miles an hour, I still have my curveball, my cutter slider was throwing 92 miles an hour. I still have my curve ball, my cutter slider was the shape that I wanted. I still have my change up, but I just wasn't having near the success that I was early in my career with similar stuff. So I think the game had just kind of passed me by, man. I couldn't strike anyone out.

And the Giants and the A's were both using me as a starter. And what would happen is if I faced even a slightly above average line, let's say the Dodgers and I was going through Shohei, Freddie, Mookie a second time and I got to two strikes, they weren't even remotely going into defense mode. They still knew they could get off their A swing against my two strike stuff because I didn't really have 2024 strikeout stuff,

you know, the, the, where, where we are with pitching velocity and movement profiles of off speed stuff, you know, I could, I can paint the corners and get soft contact, but I had a really hard time putting guys away the last two years. And the math just tells you that's a hard place to be because if you can't put anyone away, that's more balls in play. And the more balls in play, the more wacky stuff happens, the more dinky hits you give up. Inevitably, you go dinky hit,

a rare walk by me, another dinky hit and then you give up the double, that's a three-run inning and that's how you have a five-year array like I've had the last two years. I had to go out knowing I had to pretty much be perfect to have success if I was going to navigate through a lineup two or three times. And that's just a really hard place to be, man.

So I just, I showed up to spring and you know, if I would have thrown another 15 scoreless innings in spring, I think I might've felt different, but spring training was more of the same kind of, you know, didn't blow anyone away in spring training. And I think it was just the game telling me, you know, strip, you, you had a good run, man. Let's, let's call it and move on to something else. Yeah. I guess there are a lot of pitchers who might feel like it was time to hang it

up if the standard is can we get out Shohei, Freddie and Mookie? That's a tough assignment for anyone really. But, but I was going to ask about that because you didn't really lose stuff, at least not in terms of your fastball. And you were never the hardest thrower, but like a lot of guys in their mid thirties or toward the end of their career, you know, they lose a tick or two or three and you were still sitting 92 last year, which was sort of where you were when you came up more or less. And so I guess the league got faster around you, just the average velocity, the stuff just

got better and better and better even since you broke into the big leagues, not even quite a decade ago. So I don't know how noticeable that progression was just over the course of your career, that, wow, suddenly there's just a flamethrower everywhere I look and 92 is not what it was. Yeah, it's extremely noticeable, man. I mean, just go turn on the College World Series, that kid for Arkansas that just had the 19 strikeout, no hitter, I think his last pitch was 98, you know? His 119th pitch of a no hitter was 98 miles an hour in college, you know?

So it just, I just think with how nasty the stuff is out of bullpens that you're seeing night in and night out that when I got on the mound with my 92, with, you know, I had a good arsenal, but I had no alpha pitch, right? No outpitch. They're all just kind of solid pitches that I could command in any count.

And I was, you know, crafty, and that's what kept me around. But when push came to shove and I had a man on third with one out and you can't put anyone away, that's almost a guaranteed run. And that just, you know, that leads to higher RAs and you're, you know, you're not giving your team as much of a chance to win as you were before. And you just, you know, your room for error is so small. And I just think you could see that hitters were, you know, not necessarily like pumped to face

me, but certainly more pumped to face me than they are. These dudes are running out of the bullpens these days. Yeah. Well, your former teammate, Rich Hill, who's got a full decade on you, he's still trying to make the Royals. So he's in AAA with them right now. So, and he's probably doesn't throw as hard as you do. So he's trying to make it work somehow.

I don't know if you have any Rich Hill stories from your time as his teammate, but he's been a favorite of ours on this podcast for years. He's a favorite of everybody. He has just made friends anywhere he goes because he's such an easy dude to root for, but he's also just so fun to be around. Talk about a guy that just flipped a switch from the ultimate clown in the dugout and off the field to then just an absolute maniac on the mound. You know, he really is one of a kind and you know, and he has some of the stuff

that I feel like is kind of like you can't really put a number on it, right? Like he has a really weird fastball that's like 88 miles an hour, but you know, I'm sure it has very high vertical approach and probably high spin and all that stuff. But it's like one of those things when he's 250 feet away or 60 feet away and you're playing catch with him, the ball hits you just as hard. And that's like a God given skill that he has still in his mid forties.

So that's why he's still around. Those guys that just kind of have like these unicorn analytical stuff to them that we used to not be able to put a number on, but now can much better kind of figure. They guys, so yeah, anyways, here we go, getting long winded, but you kind of brought up how I've seen the game change and how it's, just since I kind of came in 10 years ago.

I remember SpenRate. I remember spin rate. I remember hearing the first time spin rate. It was 2015. Now it's just such a part of what we tell. And honestly, spin rates kind of come and gone. It's not even really that important anymore. We've moved on to other stats. But I remember these guys that could throw down the middle,

a guy named Matt McGill, who pitched a little bit in the big leagues, was just ahead of me in the development system with the Dodgers. I remember getting to AA where he was, and he would go out and he would throw 92 right down the middle, maybe middle up. I would just be like, what is this? Then a year, two years later, we were able to actually quantify why that was.

Forever there's probably been guys that have just been so frustrated because like, man, Joe Blow can just live down the middle with his fastball, two-oh, just throw a middle up fastball and get away with it, how frustrating that used to be. And now here we are, we understand why that's the case and why when someone like Walker Buehler gets two-oh, he can still groove you a heater middle up and have success versus if I'm two-oh,

I gotta throw a wrinkle in for sure because I'm just asking for damage. So, you know, it's just fun. I've literally kind of timed that perfectly to be able to see analytics and pitch design come in on the pitching side of stuff and how we've gotten to where we are today. Yeah, and you were kind of early

to deprioritizing the fastball, which is a league-wide trend now. Speaking of putting wrinkles and things, it's just, it's constant off-speed stuff, breaking stuff. And even at the start of your career, when you were throwing your four-seam or at least less than 40% of the time, that was, that was pretty rare at the time. And I guess everyone else kind of caught up when it came to just, there isn't such a thing as a fastball count or you don't necessarily have to lead with the fastball.

Yeah. I'd love to take credit for that. Like that was my idea. And, and, you know, through, through the retirement process here, as I've talked to people and kind of reminisced a little bit, the one thing I've been adamant about is just how lucky I was to have been drafted and developed by the Dodgers. And I know we look at them now and you see Shohei and Yamamoto and Freddie and Mookie, and you think it's an unlimited pocketbook, and to an extent it is, but they are still elite at developing.

And that 2020 World Series team, I think, had 19 homegrown Dodgers, as well as guys like Muncie and Justin Turner who were thrown away by other organizations and turned into superstars by the Dodgers. So to your point, I debuted in 2016, had a crazy debut, carried a no-hitter into the eighth.

Really that was the only success I had early. After that, it was pretty rocky as a starter. I always thought with my high arm angle and what I was told was throwing down in the zone was my strength because I'm throwing at such a steep angle that it's hard for them to square it up if I'm down in the zone. And I'm like, maybe 10 starts into my big league career

and Andrew Friedman, Dave Roberts, Rick Honeycutt call me in and they say, hey, we're gonna option you down to Arizona and we're gonna teach you to only throw up in the strike zone and you're gonna do that for a month. You're gonna throw bullpens like every other day for a month and you're gonna just throw heaters up and your curve ball off that tunnel.

And we think you're really gonna take off. And I remember being so stubborn about that because I didn't believe in that. I didn't know any better. That was really early to that scene. And lo and behold, by the end of 2016, end of 2017, everyone is throwing up in the strike zone. And I was really, I really was one of the first ones onto that pattern of basically just, I did not, when I came back to the big leagues in mid to late 2016, my rookie year, I was 90% fastballs up if I was throwing you a fastball. That saved my career.

It really did because I'm thankful that they obviously put that opportunity in front of me. I'm thankful that I ended up not being too stubborn to do it. And then thankful that I I ended up not being too stubborn to do it. And then thankful that I have the ability to command that. It just changed everything for me. I got to where I could throw a fastball between the belly button and the letters in my sleep. And that just opened up so many things for me and was able to get strikeouts up there. I was able to tunnel my curveball off that. And that's really when I took off.

Well, speaking of that stuff, and also the Dodgers specifically, you were one of the many pitchers who had Tommy John surgery. You had it, maybe when you were on the verge of the big leagues, you had been invited to spring training in 2014, and then you come down with the sore arm,

you get Tommy John surgery, and that delays your debut potentially. And the Dodgers have had a ton of pitchers who've had Tommy John surgery. And there's been some conversation about our, are they doing something to cause this and they've even acknowledged we're going to examine our process to see if we're doing anything. And a lot of it, I think it's just that they have the risk tolerance where they can acquire guys who have an injury track record and it's not

going to bankrupt them if those guys then get hurt again. But we've seen this league-wide prioritization of throwing as hard as you can and max effort and we've seen the injuries increase. So do you think that those things are connected? That this stuff, all the hard throwing is the reason why we're seeing these surgeries. And if so, do you have any prescription for how pitchers can be effective, how teams can be effective at developing pitchers, and we could somehow curtail this pitcher injury epidemic? Yeah. You know what? We talked about this kind of stuff over the last couple years, and I have a facility out in West Houston where we, you know,

have a track man and do some pitch design with some young pitchers. And and we talk about it there, too. And you know where I think I've settled, man, is it's just it's part of the game. And no, I don't I don't have a solution. I think where we are right now, where what we know you need to get your off speed stuff to shape like as far as velocity and vertical and horizontal movement to get swing and miss and soft contact. It is a max effort slider breaking ball kind of throw and that's a little ligament there

in your elbow and a lot of times it's not going to hold up. But you know what? It's a very successful surgery. You do your 12-14 months of rehab and then you come back and that pitch is right there again and you keep going with your career like I did and hundreds of other pitchers have as well. That might be not necessarily what anyone wants to hear,

but that's where I've settled. I think it's so competitive now to get these pitch shapes that we know lead to success. And I think to get there, a lot of times, it will lead to injury, but on the other side of that injury is that pitch that will lead to a lot of success. So, you know, I think that's kind of where I've settled. I certainly don't think the Dodgers are any worse

than any other organization. They have a lot of A-listers, so those A-listers get hurt and that makes headlines, but there's guys having Tommy John left and right everywhere. So I think it's just in our game to stay as we've gotten so much bigger and stronger and powerful. And that's such a tiny little ligament there in your elbow. I don't see a world where that's not going to be a part of our game. Well, looking back on the whole span of your career, what is your proudest accomplishment, if there is something specific? Oh man, great question. You know, I was thinking about that because I haven't done many interviews since I retired and I did one right after I retired and they asked me some questions like this and I was just not very prepared and I remember hanging up

that interview and just being like, man, I did, I butchered that because I'm not very nostalgic and I really haven't taken the time to reminisce probably as much as I should. As here, I sputter around while I think. The pitching the first game back in Toronto after COVID was pretty darn cool, man. I don't think I appreciated that as much until I went through it as far as like an entire country

that was battling through all that stuff in COVID and had more protocols than most countries and were ready to open up, but they couldn't get their sports back. And we were playing in Buffalo, like right down the street. And they finally opened it up and we get to Toronto and they only let like 12,000 people in. Everyone like right down the street. And they finally opened it up and we get to Toronto and they only let like 12,000 people in.

Everyone's crying during the national anthem. I'm just like warming up trying to get ready for this game. I'm kind of starting to cry and get emotional. I'm like, man, this is like heavy and powerful stuff. And then I go out and pitch well, get the win. Jordan Romano from Canada gets the save. And just like how crazy and powerful of a moment that was. I think that'll be super memorable.

My debut, you know, I touched on it earlier. My debut, I think that those two are like a one, two combo. I got to revisit it because you sent me the link and we talked about it a little bit. And you sent me the YouTube video of it. So I just started watching some of it and just like watching that. I just look, I look like a kid. It kept panning to like my parents and my wife before she was my wife in the stands and like some friends that were

there that I haven't kept in touch with as well over the last 10 years that were there from the beginning versus some that are still my best friends. Like just that debut to go like that after working so hard to get there and to just kind of have something magical happen like that in the rain in San Francisco. I think those will be the two that I think I revisit in my head the most.

Well, I was going to bring up your debut because at the time this podcast goes back a ways we were podcasting then and we did an episode on that and talked about it for about half an hour, your pitching performance, but also the decision to pull you in the midst of that no hitter and all the different considerations and protecting your arm. And it's a close game against the Giants who the Dodgers beat out by not that many games in the division that year. And just, we went back and forth about it. And I actually, I wanted to play a clip here

of my former cohost, Sam Miller, who talked about it at the time because neither of us knew who you were at the time. Right. Because this was, you kind of announced yourself to the sport in this really headline making way, but you were not really a top prospect. You had just come up from AA

and were kind of this dark horse candidate to be starting games for the Dodgers. And here you are in your very first game. And so I want to play about a minute of Sam talking about why, or one of the reasons why he wasn't sure that he was on board with Dave Roberts' decision to pull you as you were making this historic start. Let's hear it.

If you're doing this to protect his career, you have to think philosophically about what a career is and what the goal of a career is. There is more to this world than the one path to success in baseball. It is not just about winning the World Series for a team and it is not just about making as much money as you possibly can as a player. There are other ways that we can define success, particularly in those situations where the two things that I've just named are unlikely, as they are for most teams and as they are for most Ross striplings.

I think that you have to look for opportunities. You basically have to look for the winning hand where it is. Ross stripling just potentially got dealt a monster hand, and he is not ever going to get another monster hand. This is a guy who is going to be chasing runner-runner inside straight draws for his whole career. And here he's got four to the straight flush draw after the flop and you're mucking. It's crazy to me that you would do that in this guy's career. That's funny. Yeah.

In Sam's defense, I think the next thing he said was, maybe I'm being disrespectful to Ross Ripley because no one knew the career that you were going to have and that you were going to pitch for many more years and everything. And so he's thinking this could be the one moment this could be it. And now that we know everything that transpired after that, I wonder how you feel about that, what Sam said, and also just generally about that decision not to be able to go for it in that game. I love the poker reference, that's great.

You know, hindsight's 20-20 for sure. After nine years, I think you can say that that probably is the incorrect opinion because I was able to sustain a career and go have more moments, and that was definitely my best chance at that big poker hand, like he said, but still had some other really cool moments and was a part of some other teams and things like that.

But I do think he's correct in that if I would have only played two or three more seasons, that was my moment. That would have been the Phil Lumber perfect game, Dallas Braden perfect game kind of thing that would have sustained for my legacy. Even after nine years, that probably will be my legacy. Oh man, remember Stripling's debut, that was crazy. And you remember Dave Roberts pulled Stripling

in his debut, that was crazy. So in a lot of ways, it still is front and center on my baseball paragraph. I do not lose sleepover at night. It seems like fans lose sleepover way more than I do. I really don't think about it that much at all. I just, you know, if I had a do-over, I wish that it could have been a 10 to nothing baseball game.

Or I wish that I felt like I had more of a voice at the time, you know, I'm like a rookie making a debut. I wish that I could have, you know, between innings gone up to like Rick Honeycutt and Dave Roberts and felt more comfortable to say something like, look, I, you know, I have a little bit left in the tank. I understand you guys are weighing your options right now

and this is crazy, but you know, I wish I could've talked it through more, I had no impact on that decision whatsoever versus just a couple years later, that would've been a group decision, I think, as far as how I'm feeling, where I'm at, what we're chasing here. At the end of the day, that was game five of the season,

which every game matters, but my goodness, let's make a run at that thing. I don't know, I never got close again. So that was my one shot, you know, as your former cohost said, but man. Yeah. And that was Dave's fifth game as a manager too. So he was a rookie also.

That happened to him over and over again, man. He had to pull Rich Hilt in a perfect game because of a blood blister. He pulled Kershaw in a perfect game after seven, one time in Minnesota. That just happens to Doc over and over again, man. It's funny because that caused quite a stir in 2016 for you to be pulled from that game. Now if that happens, I don't think anyone would bat an eye. It's just, it's so common for pitchers to be pulled from no hitters now. And the pitch counts are so strict that no one really gives anyone any grief now for if you're, you know, a hundred pitches through seven and a third, and you're a

rookie and a guy who's had elbow surgery and all of these other factors. I don't think it would even cause a commotion these days because it's just so normalized to pull pitchers regardless. And that was something we said at the time, like we were kind of bummed that you didn't get the chance to go for it. And yet also sort of admired that Robert's stuck to his guns

or stuck to the plan instead of kind of, you know, getting swayed by the moment because you could get yourself in trouble. Like, you know, getting swayed by the moment, because you could get yourself in trouble, like, you know, the emotions are running high, and then maybe you push you too far, and who knows, maybe you get hurt again, and you don't have this whole career. It's hard to say. And yet, part of us was also like, man, give the guy a chance. You know, one side of it that I've never thought about it till right now is it was kind of a win-win a little bit. Well I don't know, Doc took some heat for it obviously, but I was not left in there

to blow the game, which I think helps. If I would have been, if I would have given, you know, what happened was I walked a guy, got pulled and a reliever comes in and gives up a home run as a one nothing game and the reliever comes in and gives up a home run and the very first guy he faces still in a no hitter, right? It would have been a combined no hitter at that point home run. Now we're losing two to one. And we end up losing the game. If I would have given up that home

run, we probably wouldn't even really talk about my debut, you know, it would have just, it would have been just a cool little thing, but it wouldn't have the no-hitter legacy, it wouldn't have the, you know, we wouldn't be talking about it right now at all. So it was kind of like one of those things where you almost like got me out of there before, oh, I don't know, now I'm feeling like

I'm copping out a little bit. It just, it works on a couple of different levels as far as how I got pulled. If anyone remembers, my dad went up to Dave Roberts the next day in the hotel and said like, man, I think you made the right decision with tears in his eyes. Thank you for looking out for the best interest of my son.

I know my son's gonna give you everything he has, kind of thing. And my dad's a West Texas old man and that is right on brand for him. And I think Dave Roberts said something like, man, you just gave me goosebumps saying that to me. Thank you so much. And that took off like wildfire in the media.

So it just, there's a lot of things that came out of that debut that are special that now nine years later, I'm actually thankful the way, maybe the way it played out the way it did. Yeah. It's an entertaining what if, and it's memorable. It's almost like the Armando Galraga non-perfect game. No, it is nowhere near that.

Well, that led to some good things. I mean, I know that he's talked, I think, in recent years about, oh, they should do a replay review and retroactively it encounters it. But for a while there, it seemed like he was at peace with it, and Jim Joyce, and they wrote a book together. And it's probably better remembered that that happened than if he had actually done it. I don't know. So it's frustrating and yet, yeah, there's sort of a silver lining to it. I was going to ask, since I asked your greatest accomplishment or the thing

you're most proud of, I was going to ask what your greatest regret or disappointment was and I don't know whether we just covered it in that question or whether there's something else. Okay. Yeah, no, I think, you know, I think I can pinpoint really where it kind of started going downhill for me a little bit was I, I came off a really good year in Toronto where I then signed the two year deal with San Francisco. And, um, January going into that first spring training with San Francisco, I, I kind of jacked up my back deadlifting and I did not want to show up new guy on a contract hurt.

And if I had a do-over, I would have just showed up as the new guy with the contract hurt, but I tried to grind through it and got to, you know, some mediocre level of health where I was trying to get through that spring training and gear up for the season. All the while, that my change up in 2022, my last year in Toronto was one of the better change ups in baseball that season as far as how it played out. And I've gone back to watch some footage from that season and that thing was dancing. It was the best it had ever been in my career. I had found it and I felt good in that off season carrying it into that first year in San Francisco.

Well, I still wasn't necessarily punching out a ton of guys. So I get to San Francisco and you get in front of new coaches and they kind of have their ideas for you of how to take it to the next level. And they wanted to show me a splitter to basically get more swing and miss where now I have this good change up that gets a tonitter to basically get more swing and miss where now I have this good change up that gets a ton of soft contact, some swing and miss,

and then I have a splitter that can just put guys away, righties and lefties. And I actually got to where it was somewhat serviceable, but I couldn't command it. If I threw 10 of them, three of them were nasty and seven of them went 46 feet. And what ended up happening, man, was I saw the upside of it and I just dove all the way in on it.

I, I worked on that thing day and night and all my other pitches got left behind. And when it came to maybe game four or five of the season for me, when I finally decided to bag that splitter, I just couldn't get it to be a usable pitch in the big leagues, it just wasn't competitive it to be a usable pitch in the big leagues, it just wasn't competitive, and tried to go back to my arsenal that I had had 2022 the year before in Toronto, it just wasn't up to speed, I couldn't get my change up to where it was in 2022. I was battling that back thing.

And I just I just wasn't the same. And I would just say after diving into that splitter, the way I did, I never really got my arsenal back to exactly the way I wanted it or to a usage pattern that I had in Toronto for whatever reason. That's my biggest regret. I wish when they would have showed me that splitter, I would have said thank you, but no, I'm going to rock with what got me here. I don't blame the Giants.

The idea was there. When I got to the A's, they had the same idea. The idea was there when I got to the A's, they had the same idea. When I got to the Royals this spring training, they got me, they had the same idea. Let's try a splitter. Let's try something that gets you more swing and miss man. Like strip, if you can just create a little bit more whiff man, like you still have the upside that you've had your whole career. And I think if I had a do-over, I just wouldn't have lost my mind on that splitter like I did, man.

It just totally wrecked a lot of things. Where is your World Series ring? What do you do with it? It's sitting in a safe place somewhere close by. You don't have to specify the exact location in case anyone's planning a robbery. It's not out for display. Honestly, I got inducted into my high school hall of fame a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you. And I showed up and I was like, man, this is like when I should have worn it. You know, like there's maybe like a thing or two a year where you maybe have a chance to unleash that thing and wear it. And I was like, man, I missed it. So I need to get it more on my radar to where I can show it off every now and then because that thing and wear it. And I was like, man, I missed it. So I need to get it more on my radar

to where I can show it off every now and then because that thing's insane. Yeah, I wanted to ask how you felt about that because that's 2020. Now there are people who kind of discount that championship because it was 2020 and it was a short season and all that. And I think that's sort of silly just because in a way the Dodgers path to winning that World Series

was harder than it would have been. It expanded playoff field, more competitors and that team was so good during the regular season that it's not as if they snuck into the playoffs because the regular season was short or something. But you weren't with them by that time. You were with the Blue Jays and so you didn't get to pitch during that World Series run and that was not your most successful season with the Dodgers. So how do you think of that in terms of your contribution to it? Like you were with that team for several years and then when they finally broke through, you weren't really with them to enjoy it.

Though of course, you know, you pitch for them that year, you get a World Series ring. But does it feel different because you weren't actually on the field when that was happening? Yeah, it is a complicated set of feelings for sure. On one hand, I am extremely proud of having that ring and feeling like I contributed to that ring. If anyone remembers, Dave Roberts is up there accepting the trophy and he's thrown out thank yous to people and he actually says, thank you, Ross Stripling, for what you contributed to us being here, which I immediately called my dad and I was like, did you just see that?

Anytime I see Doc, I go out of my way to thank him for that. That was so meaningful and powerful for me and is one of the reasons I am so proud of that ring and I do think I was part of a core that helped get the Dodgers to that point. When you're talking, obviously these are much bigger names than me, but I was technically a part of that core of the Seeger, Bellinger, Jock, Urias, Will Smith, homegrown talent that ended up getting those great Dodger teams over the hump and then into and winning a World Series

after losing 17 and 18. But then on the other hand, I've signed some balls in my career later in my career where someone has asked me to, oh, put your spiel on it or whatever. And sometimes I write 2020 World Series champion, most of the time I don't. So it is like a complicated feeling of knowing

that really I wasn't a part of it. I didn't get to celebrate, you know, I didn't get to, I don't think they had a parade, right? That was COVID. So like, I didn't, I wasn't in the locker room after that, popping champagne with with my teammates and their families, you know, so it's, it feels earned in a lot of ways, but it's also not something I'm quick to show off, because I know I'm kind of an asterisk nest next to it in a way.

So I've never really actually talked about it out loud, but I would say now working through it in my head in real time, that's kind of how I feel. Yeah, I just think it's just the whole sweep of your career. I mean, you've played with just absolute legends and future Hall of Famers and all the rest. And so comparatively speaking, I guess your career doesn't stand out in the same way, but you have these accomplishments. You were an all star once, you have that world series ring and just being a roughly big league average pitcher for nine years, most guys even who make the majors don't last anywhere near that long. And so if we go by just career war, I'll use a fan crafts war, which is a little

kinder to you than baseball reference work. Like, you know, fan graphs has 10,519 players on record who have pitched in the major leagues and some of those are position player pitchers, but you know, roughly 10,500 people and that's just ALNL history. And you rank 1,263 out of those 10,500-ish in Major League history. So that's like an 88th percentile pitching career, essentially, which is good, right? Especially because, you know, you weren't a first round draftee, you weren't really a top rated prospect. And so you certainly exceeded what the expectations would have been. And so I wonder whether you feel that way.

Like I was an 88th percentile pitcher, even among the best of the best, the elite who actually made the majors at all, which just getting there is an incredible accomplishment, let alone lasting as long as you did, or whether you look back and you compare yourself to other even more accomplished players and say, I wish I could have had that kind of career. Just how content are you overall? That's cool, man.

I appreciate you taking the time to spell that out. You know what? I am, I don't feel like I left a lot of meat on the bone. So I think I am very content. And I think that I, in a lot of ways, tapped out my potential, in a lot of ways, worked my tail off to accomplish what I did, and I'm very proud of it, and feel like I'm, you know,

very close to maximized it out. For those that don't know my background, I walked on at Texas A&M. I didn't have any Division I offers out of high school. You know, so just even earning like innings at Texas A&M. I didn't have any Division I offers out of high school. So just even earning innings at Texas A&M was kind of like a peak in a way. And then everything that came after it was just gravy. And don't get me wrong, I worked my tail off to get there. And I feel like this is something that I've started to hear lately where I was fortunate, not lucky, where people are starting to say,

because you work really hard, that fortune starts to come into your favor, not necessarily like you earn luck. If anyone's heard that, I kind of like that phrase, I just need to learn how to use it a little better. But no, I am extremely content with it. And when you say something like that stat right there, that's pretty amazing.

And that's something I'm really proud of. And I think as more and more time separates my career and where I am right now, I think that I'll be able to appreciate that even more. And yeah, I would just say that's where I'm at, man. I guess one of the weird things about being a big leaguer is that everyone knows how much money you made, which is odd. They could just look that up. And it was a considerable amount. Sam and I, in that episode that I played a clip from,

we estimated how much money you might make over the course of your career. Did you all? That's funny. Yeah. And you, you blew by both of our estimates a lot. So, you know, it's, it's odd though, because usually you talk to someone, I mean, you don't know how much money I've made. Let's talk about it. A little less, but there's no, you know, podcastersreference.com where you can look up someone's salary. But obviously, like you've made a tidy sum. So what motivates you professionally at this stage? Because you just, you said at the beginning of our conversation,

I mean, you're 35, you're already feeling the itch. What am I going to do with the rest of my life, aside from spending the time with my family that I didn't get to when I was a pitcher in a way, much of the year, but really like what motivates you if, you know, making money, I guess, isn't quite the motivator that it is for many people. And you've had this sideline, you know, making money, I guess, isn't quite the motivator that it is for many people. And you've had this sideline, you know,

you got a finance degree and you've kind of worked as an investment advisor during your baseball career. That was your backup option when you didn't know if baseball was gonna work out. And you kind of were the go-to guy to maybe give investment advice to your teammates. So is that something you want to do more, or do you want to be around baseball,

or do you want to do something completely different? Like what, aside from spending more time with your family, what kind of gets you out of bed in the morning at this stage? Yeah, I touched on it a little bit early. You know, I'm definitely being picky about it so far. I've had some cool opportunities from people that have reached out with things, and I'm definitely not ready to dive 40 hours into something per week. I'm just going to be picky. On the finance side, you touched on it. What I really want to kind of get into that I think

would be very fulfilling and feel good on my heart is this NIL space where I think some of these kids are making money very early in their life and in their careers. And I am just curious to see really how they're navigating, if that really is the Wild West, how many people are trying to get their hands on those deals. I've heard agents are trying to make as much as 20% on some of these NIL deals.

If they even understand the tax implications, like if they are getting a million dollars from Kentucky to go play basketball, like that's not a million dollars. I can show you one of my pay stubs that proves to you that that's not a million dollars. I think they would love to hear that from an athlete, someone that's walked that life and has been in their shoes and has made money at a young age and is now 15 years ahead of them of trying to navigate how to make that money last a lifetime. I really think that's a message that could resonate with them. So I've started to pursue that avenue a little bit through the company I work with here in

Houston, we're called Skyward Financial, of trying to get in front of some college programs, football, basketball, baseball, and just kind of give them some financial literacy, like what the power of compound interest is, what one big financial decision in your 20s can hurt or help you when you're 60 and trying to retire. And how do we avoid being the stereotype that we all know about athletes? And I believe Adrian Peterson

might have just filed for bankruptcy. Like I don't even want to look at what Adrian Peterson made in his career to think that he's filing for bankruptcy. So I think that has a chance to be really fulfilling and something that I find myself working on a lot behind the scenes right now. Baseball wise, I called everyone in the game that I felt comfortable calling and kind of asked for what's like a one foot in one foot out gig right now will have three young kids and that basically doesn't exist. If you're trying to work in professional baseball, might as well sign up for 100 hours a week and the nighttime schedule

that comes with traveling and going to games and all that kind of stuff. You know, so the next thing would probably be to reach out to Texas A&M, who's about an hour up the road, and see if I can come around them a little bit, watch some bullpens, see if I can help those kids a little bit in their careers as they get theirs off the ground. Then I think to answer your question, one thing that gets me out of the bed is the unknown. I know that I have things to give and I have avenues to explore,

and I want to give bandwidth to each of them and see what sticks and see where I am a year from now as far as what motivates me and what I do want to give my time to. So I think that is such an interesting thing right now that I'm trying to navigate. So yeah, that's once again another long- winded answer. Yeah, you're a natural podcaster. We need long wind over here. But yeah, that's good because there are so many athletes who, as you noted, you give a young man maybe a lot of money early on and that's a recipe for squandering it in many cases and not thinking long-term. And, uh, you were better armed to invest hopefully than, than most

athletes are at that stage because of your background and your education and everything. So I did want to ask another aspect of your career. I did a segment on an episode a couple years ago that was inspired by you moving from the rotation to the bullpen. One of the times that you did that, just looking at just the swing mania swing men in major league history. I don't know how you feel about the term swing man, whether you

embrace that, whether you resent that. But I was, I was trying to figure out just who best represents the swing man. And I looked for like guys who have started and relieved at least 100 games apiece. And then I looked for the guys who had the ratio closest to one where they were basically even time out of the rotation and the bullpen. For example, Wade LeBlanc, he started 129 games and he relieved 129. Oh my gosh, really? Wow. Yeah, maybe it doesn't get much more where did I end up? Well, you ended up with a ratio He started 129 games and he relieved 129. Oh my gosh, really? Wow.

Yeah. Maybe it doesn't get much more than that. Where did I end up? Well, you ended up with a ratio of 1.08. So you started 129 games and you relieved 119. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Pretty close to one.

And the thing is, I think you have a better case than Wade LeBlanc for a couple of reasons. For one, you pitched in both roles in every single season of your career. So some guys, they have a starter phase and then they have a reliever phase. Your every single season was at some point a starter phase and a reliever phase. And the other thing is that you were almost equally effective

in those roles. And it's maybe more typical for someone to be significantly better out of the bullpen than as a starter. It depends on, on your roles, but like looking at your results, 4.16 ERA as a starter versus 4.20 as a reliever, 4.08 FIP versus 4.03, 259 batting average allowed versus 260, 734 OPS allowed versus 741. You are almost exactly the same guy.

That's amazing. Regardless of the role. I guess the only difference is that you did throw a little bit harder as a reliever, but only by about one mile per hour. So I wonder how you feel about constantly, I guess someone could look at it as being jerked around or you could look at it as just being versatile

and how that affected your mindset depending on the role and whether you self-identify more as a starter or a reliever or just embrace both. No, I am so proud of the swing man role that I have, I think, and will be remembered for. Same way, I think, Kike Hernandez, Chris Taylor, some other guys I play with in LA are very proud of the versatility utility man type role that they have.

And yeah, don't get me wrong, Kike wants to play center fielder shortstop every day, you know, and have that routine cemented in and be an everyday guy. That's always, my dream was always to be a big league starter and to be a successful big league starter. And probably the two biggest stretches I'm most proud of in my career are the 2018 All-Star stretch as a starter

and the 2022 Blue Jays stretch as a starter. That led to me signing my deal and almost making a playoff start for that 2022 Blue Jays team before we went to and out against the Mariners. So I think in my head, I'm most proud of stretches where I was a good quality starter for good teams. But I'm also very, very proud of the swingman legacy that I'm gonna leave behind,

and maybe you're even saying I'm the most swingiest swingman ever. That would be pretty cool to be known for. But where I'm proud of that is later in my career when I was in Toronto, San Francisco, in Oakland, and we had some young guys that were making the team that had maybe been starters all the way through their minor league careers,

and now they find themselves in the way through their minor league careers, and now they find themselves in the bullpen for the first time, and they're coming up picking my brain and wondering what my routine was when I was one versus the other and how I handled it mentally. And I knew that I had become known for that and it had become a resource for guys

to use how to navigate that space. Because it is tough, man. Even when I was pitching well on some of those Dodger teams, I could go nine, 10 days without pitching because we were so good. And they didn't need the long man for stretches like that. How did I stay sharp? How did I, and it didn't matter.

10 days later, if I was gonna go out there and pitch, they expected me to be sharp and have my stuff. It didn't matter if I was a little bit rusty. You know, so I am proud of that. And to answer your question, I knew that's what was going to keep me around early. I mean, those Dodger teams were stacked, man. You're talking Kershaw, Kinta Maeda, Hunjin Ru,

Brandon McCarthy, Scott Casimir, as well as guys that were coming up with me that were in my era of Dodger development that I was competing against. So it's not like I had 180 innings for me as a starter in the big leagues, that kind of runway ahead of me. I knew that if I was going to make that team and stick around, I needed to be versatile. And I was able to adapt that skill.

And that is something I'm really proud of. Do you have a theory for why your stuff, I guess, didn't really play up particularly in a relief role? I mean, you were kind of a long man, as you said a lot of the time. So it wasn't that you were coming in one inning at a time, just firing Max effort necessarily. But did you change your pitch mix? Were you able to dig deeper and throw, as I said, a little bit harder, I guess. But like, you know, sometimes there's more of a, like the switch flips and,

and a guy who had some success as a starter is suddenly unhittable as a reliever, that kind of thing. So I think it's because I was always in that long man role. Like you touched on, I think that I was always preparing for an entire lineup versus a lot of guys are preparing for windows, especially lefties are preparing for that like Ohtani Freeman stretch of a lineup and they just kind of laser focus on that.

And then if they end up facing someone else then you kind of prepare in the moment for that appearance. Versus me, I needed to be as prepared in a relief role as I was as a starter from a scouting report standpoint. And I also knew that typically if I was going in, it was likely going to be for six outs or more. And I wasn't going to blow out my energy in a one inning stint because I knew that I probably needed to be able to maybe get all the way through the lineup.

And I think that's one reason that I ended up being good in that role was it wasn't a huge change in mentality or preparation because it was so similar in the way the Dodgers used me early on where a lot of times I was going two plus innings. I didn't have to go out there thinking, I gotta strike this guy out

or I'm going into first and third situations with one out and I'm gonna be the fireman. I really was never that guy. I was pretty consistent in who I was and the situations I was going into, whether I was starting or leaving. Okay. Maybe we can wrap up with a few quick ones here. One question that we get a lot, people are curious what players talk about with each other and how those relationships work and specifically whether players talk about with each other and how those relationships work. And specifically whether players talk about politics or whether players talk about news and current events and sort of sensitive subjects,

because that weighs heavily on a lot of people's minds and factors into their conversations. And we've talked about players talking to you about financial advice or talking about their craft or just shooting the shit the way that people do, especially if they're in the bullpen with a lot of time to kill. But is that something that players talk about given that there's so many guys from so many different backgrounds and parts of the world and you have to spend so much time with each

other that I could imagine things getting kind of awkward. Maybe it's almost like you want to stay away from that. And I guess there's probably a lot of agreement on political issues among a lot of players. But is that something guys get into? Or, you know, that again, maybe players are so focused on their careers that they're not paying that close attention to that stuff or they don't have strong opinions. But this is one of those areas where it's like, I wonder whether players are just like us or whether this is just a different sort of existence.

No, I would say we are a lot like everyone else. You know, if you're, you know, the old adage, if you're around the water cooler at work, you know, you're going to kind of, you're going to avoid conflict and short spurts because why and these are guys like you said You're gonna be around more than your own family If you know that you're gonna disagree on something like that Why even like stir the pot unless you're just feel like stirring the pot and then you're gonna stick to the pods that kind of agree With your rationale I think on the politics side So, you know the and and I would say most baseball players actually probably are pretty conservative leaning. Yes.

For whatever reason, that's just the way it's worked out. You know, but if politics or something like that are going to come up, it's usually going to be in like a small group with like-minded folks that are talking about stuff that they agree on. If it's going to stir into something bigger, I only probably saw that happen a few times ever. And it actually would end up being pretty constructive, but then at the end of the day, we're very competitive alpha type guys, and it could get out of hand, I've seen that too.

And that's just really rare. It's one of those things that you're gonna avoid unless you're just feeling confrontational for some reason, or you just have finally fed up with some guy that thinks differently than you and you're ready to go have it out with them. But in general, I would say we operate like most people in the real world, which is you seek out similar like minded people and you kind of stick to them if you're going to choose to talk about politics or something that can be polarizing like that.

Yeah, I would agree that it's definitely a minority, just more left-leaning players, but there are some who are known for that or more outspoken about that. And the media tends to be left-leaning, the baseball media certainly, and the audience for this podcast, I would say. And so those guys, they get a lot of attention for that

because they do seem sort of like outliers. And I wonder whether that is that like a subject of conversation on a team? If you know that kind of there are a bunch of people who fall into one camp and then a much smaller group who don't make the players hold that against them, or is it just mostly kind of everyone's on a team, right? And maybe that's the difference. It's, you know, people are at each other's throats politically these days in the country,

but maybe there's nothing connecting them. Everything's so polarized, whereas in baseball, at least in theory, you're all sort of pulling in the same direction, regardless of what your personal views are. Yep, I would say it's definitely more of that. It is more of like, when we're at the field, we're focused on baseball and maybe some other things

that come up, but we're certainly leaving a lot of the politics and that kind of stuff behind. There's some guys that say things on Twitter or whatever. And let's say that even happens, someone had a big tweet the night before that went viral that might've been talking politics or whatever. That hardly will even come up the next day in the locker room. It's almost like the Severance

show if you've seen that in some ways. And what you'll see us do is we'll just do like little one-off drive by, shoot the s***, like you said, where Biden fell down going up the stairs into Air Force One and you know a guy is left leaning across the locker room and be like, man, what happened to your boy last night? As you like walking to the tunnel to go hit. And then that's the kind of stuff you'll see. As far as like big, mature, we're gonna solve the world, political conversations going on around the lunch table

before our day starts, that's very rare, man. If we have time for stuff like that, we're talking about something light and breezy. We're talking about our families. We're not like trying to blow each other up. Yeah, yeah. Okay, least favorite hitter to face. Guy you're most relieved never to have to pitch to again.

Yeah, we talked about him last time, man. It's Trout. And I haven't faced him much later in my career. So this is still just like a PTSD from early in my career. But how I touched on earlier as far as just like not having the stuff to get guys out, especially second and third time through. So if you're talking about a guy that always saw me good, no matter what, and now I'm going at them with my 35 year old stuff, as opposed to my 26 year

old stuff, I just know that the cards are heavily stacked against me. You know, if you throw hard and you can live up in the zone, especially up and in, you can get Mike Trout out. But if you soft serve stuff down in the zone or even below the zone, like I do and am known to do, he just tees off on that. So he just, he had to be licking his chops every time he saw my name on the box score, man. Yeah. Yeah. The final tail of the tape, he batted 500, 533, 1214. That's a slugging percentage, 1214 against you. So, yeah, that's tough. 15 play appearances.

But Lisa was a name brand guy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's better than it, yeah, being some nine hole hitter or something. So I'll take it. Was there anyone now that you have hung them up? Can you say that you felt good about facing as someone who was good generally, but you felt like you had their number for whatever reason? I was, you know, as a low strikeout guy, I don't know that I'll ever say like I had their

number because, you know, there's probably no one that I was like that went like oh for 10 with seven strikeouts against me. I think the guy, just because he's relevant day in and day out, I would say I handled Otani well. I don't know if you have the ability to look it up quickly, but I remember a lead off triple. But other than that, I remember some strikeouts against Shohei. He loved to chase my change up just out of the zone because you know

I think that he knows he can go down and get stuff down in a way and still slug it and I could get mine to Go just enough down in a way to get it off his barrel And I'd be interested to know what Shohei has done against me Yeah, you faced him nine times and he got three hits though The triple you mentioned is the only extra base hit and you did strike him out three times. So, so was that three 33. So yeah, I can't say I'm winning that, but the OPS against Tani. Yeah.

Yeah. Eight 89. I've been probably lower than his career. Oh yeah. So there's, there's that still not great. It's worse than I thought. I guess maybe I just knew I kept them in the yard. So I was-

Yeah, exactly. If I struck out Shohei Otani one time, I would dine out on that for the rest of my life. So three times, that's not bad. Okay, favorite teammates, or if you want to give me a short list of favorite teammates, not including Rich Hill, whom we already discussed. Well, without getting too much into it,

Clayton Kershaw is first and foremost on that list. I just, he did, by no means did he take me under his wing, but in the way that he knows how he did, you know, just like learning through osmosis from watching him work and get after it and prepare for lineups and, and, you know, do his thing night in and night out and be a competitor, but also just be like a family man and a Christian man. I'm so thankful for the time I got to spend around him. I'll forever say that. And then from just like a fun standpoint,

Kike Hernandez, Alex Wood, Kyle Farmer, Corey Seeger, like the young kind of core that we came up with together in LA and then had success together in LA, those will be the guys and the friendships that I think will last through my lifetime. So those are the ones that come to mind quickly. And then lastly, maybe I think your crowning achievement in my mind is that you stole a base standing up. Runner goes without a throw. Hey, Ross Stripling with a stolen base. This was June of 2018.

What? And another favorite of mine, Tyler Flowers, was catching that day. You stole a base. Is this not ringing a bell? I had no idea. Really? Yeah. I thought this would be like, you'd be so proud of this.

You stole a base and didn't even draw a throw. And evidently this has completely faded from your mind. Dude, that has to be, oh my gosh, I gotta find that video. That has to be like a, what is it called? Like indifference or whatever. And they gave me a stolen bass. No, it counted, yeah. Was there a man on second?

There was a man on, I think there was a man on third. And so maybe they were worried that... Oh, we were trying the old Little League play maybe. Yeah, right. You know what is actually probably my favorite thing now that we're talking about it is I pinch ran a lot early in my career. And we are, and I believe it's either the bottom of the ninth or extra innings against the Pirates.

And either it was always one of the catchers. So either AJ Ellis or Yas, Monte grand all or yeah, they got on first base with two outs and they pinch run me and Austin Barnes hits a ball into the right center gap. And I go first to home to walk off. And and that just that was insane. And I got made fun of for weeks because of the way that I run. Everyone calling me Forrest Gump. And then, but one of the funniest things was

when I was running home, I was scared to slide. I hated sliding. I didn't, I just, I didn't want to do it. So that whole time I'm just hauling ass, thinking I don't want to slide, I don't want to slide, get there standing up. And I get, you know, I'm 10 feet from home plate and Kike Hernandez is there to tell me

whether I need to slide or not. And he's given me two hands up, which means you're good, you don't have to slide. But I think he's going for the double high five to celebrate the win when he's already started to kind of look at Barnes and go celebrate Barnes for the hit. And I just smacked Kike right in the face,

thinking he's going for the double high five. And I have that video, that is a great video. Barnes hits it and Joe Davis says, how fast can Ross Stripling run? And I'm just like cooking it around the bases. And it's great. Yeah, missed opportunity to do a crotch bump with Kike, which he is also known for.

Yes, he is. Yeah, no, I was never fortunate enough to be in the mix for one of those. Wow, I can't believe that you don't recall your one stolen base at any level, as far as I can tell. It's not like you were running in the minors or college or anything, but. Yeah, it probably doesn't register

because it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like strip has the green light to go here. It was, we were probably trying to hoax the other team and I just probably penguin walked over there and they let me get there. Got a great jump though. Yeah, it was pretty impressive. It's already, it seems to me, amazing that pitchers ever hit. Like, you know, we're going to come to a time where players careers are wrapping up and they were just in the universal DH era and pitchers never had to do that. And you had to do that a lot. And like most pitchers, it was not your strong suit exactly, but you know, you got on the board. I had a couple, you had a few hits

at least. I didn't even hit in high school. So the fact that I have any hits, I'll hang my hat on that. Yeah. We, we let that go longer than we should have. It's way better now. Well, hopefully we haven't let this interview go longer than it should have, but I have enjoyed it. And this is good to do this exit interview now while it's still fairly fresh and preserve as a podcast time capsule,

how you were feeling about your career in its immediate aftermath. And who knows decades down the road, maybe you will reflect on things differently or remember things differently, but I'm glad we got this down on the record and I wish you well with your post quote unquote retirement second career, whatever it turns out to be. Yeah. Thank you very much, man. This was fun. Yeah. A little trip down memory lane. Appreciate you being prepared and helping me through it almost like a therapy in a way. But yeah, man, this is fun. I look forward

to seeing you again in five or six years. We'll run it back. All right. I meant to ask Ross how much simpler his taxes are going to be now that he's no longer a professional athlete, but it slipped my mind. I guess he hasn't had to file them yet in this new stage of life. So maybe we can talk about that next time. To clarify something Meg and I addressed earlier, the severing of the Trevor Project from the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline. The Trevor Project Hotline will still be active.

People will no longer be able to connect to it through the US National 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline, but they can contact it directly. You can call 1-866-488-7386. You can also get in touch via text. We will link to that on the show page. Also, it was reported late on Wednesday that on Thursday, the Dodgers will announce their plans for assistance to immigrant communities impacted by the recent events in Los Angeles,

according to a team spokesperson. Rockies beat the Nationals again after we recorded. Still, presumably it wasn't the Nationals' coaches' fault. Still, presumably wasn't the Nationals coaches fault. The latest on Rich Hill, by the way, according to Robert Murray of Fan Cited, Hill has not opted out of his contract with the Royals. But if the Royals do not promote him to the majors and another team is willing to offer him

a major league contract, the Royals will not stand in his way, one source said. Speaking of people getting in other people's way, at the end of episode 2326, we talked about a late May AAA game between Reno and Albuquerque that ended in a very wild walk-off win, which involved Ildemarro Vargas running onto the field

with a cell phone to record what was about to be a walk-off situation and accidentally colliding with his teammate Christian Pache, who was rounding third and heading for home. Listener and Patreon supporter Kyle Loebner let us know that that video has now surfaced. It is on Instagram. It is very amusing.

I will link to it on the show page if you'd care to check it out. And finally, we mentioned Ron Washington being an old school guy. There was an associated press piece about that jazz Chisholm quote that we talked about the other day about Chisholm giving 70% effort.

This AP piece was about hustle and how valued it is in baseball these days. And Wash, who's kind of the go-to source for baseball quotes from ornery old schoolers, he said, you give the visual of 100% at all times. The only person who knows your 70% is you, but don't tell people your 70%. So when they see you dog it,

they say, well, he's only 70%. Which we kind of got at when he talked about jazz. He didn't appear to be giving 70%, though that quote could come back to haunt him when he slumps and people accuse him of not hustling using his own words against him. WASH has a point there. That will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. And a special thanks to those of you who make it possible for everyone else to listen by supporting the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount

to help keep the podcast going, help us stay almost ad free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners, Frank, Dan Valenzola, Eric Huseby, Benjamin Haywood and Tyler Hurlbert, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers,

autographed books, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free fan crafts, memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at fan graphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to effectively wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the effectively wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the show page at fancraft, so the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats recited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon.

Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be pedantic about baseball? If baseball were different, how different would it be? On the case with light ripping, all analytically, about baseball.