Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2344: Shutout Shoutouts

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Paul Skenes’s new interest, Clayton Kershaw and the evolution of 3,000-strikeout celebrations, and the deepening deadball era in Japan. After that (24:37), frequent Stat Blast Correspondent Ryan Nelson joins to discuss why there have been so many team shutouts this season and then deliver several Stat Blasts, followed […]

A baseball podcast, analytics and stats, with Ben and Meg from Fangrass. Effectively wild. Effectively44 of Effectively Wild, a fan graphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of fan graphs and I'm joined by Ben Lundberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm okay. Time travel. We're coming to you from the future, but also the past, but also our immediate future. Yes, we just concluded recording our preceding episode and now we are starting a new one.

We negotiated over what we were going to do this week. Yeah, sure. It's a holiday week, of course, And we came to kind of a compromise. I don't know which... We're recording right now. I'm going to try to not bring my kind of rancid mood from the end of our last episode forward into this one. And so I will meet you in the spirit of generosity and say, yeah, compromise. Certainly.

Yeah. Still doing three, but the latter two will be shorter than usual. So that's something. We're only doing two recording sessions, but we're just, we're breaking one up into two essentially. So did you see that effectively wild guest, Paul Skeens, it seems that he has developed a hobby of sorts. He was seen on the field the other day, hanging out with the Pirates grounds crew, and he was just hanging for 15 or 20 minutes before a game, just on the field, assisting or observing.

I will send you the photo of this happening. And then evidently as reported by Noah Hiles, who covers the Pirates, he said he followed up on this. Paul said he was out there because he was bored, added that he would love to cut grass professionally whenever his baseball days are over. Oh my God, he's such a dad. He is. I like him. He's just very normie, even keeled. He's a character in a sense,

in a trout-esque way almost, where it's like the lack of intrigue kind of just becomes his persona. Yeah. It's kind of fun to just have a non-controversial, just seems like a good guy who's given his best effort all the time, kind of classic role model sort of athlete, but he seems self-aware just about yeah, how he's like prematurely a dad, kind of, and just, I enjoyed this, because when we had him on the show earlier this year, you asked him, I think, whether he had developed any hobbies outside of baseball,

and it seemed like he was trying to, but struggling, because I think he said that someone had given him the advice that you need a non-baseball outlet. And so he had tried various things. So he tried to pick up guitar and wasn't great at it, but he was still searching for his, his outlet, his calling his non-baseball vocation. And maybe, maybe now he is founded. He'll be probably the first big leaguer, at least in a long time to join

the grounds crew after he retires. So I like that future for him. What a hero, you know, what a, what a legend he would be in Pittsburgh if that was really what this assumes he remains in Pittsburgh for his whole career. But let's, let's, let's indulge that thought. Let's, um, again, let's meet this moment with a spirit of generosity. So as not to bring forth the bad mood, but you would just, you would be a legend if you like, you have a long, we hope very long, very successful career. Maybe it involves memorable postseason moments, maybe you win a ring, you get to the end,

you don't, you don't really feel like coaching, you know, it's a grind. You got to travel with the team. You're ready to adopt a different rhythm, you know, you's a grind. You gotta travel with the team. You're ready to adopt a different rhythm, you know? You wanna spend time with your family, but you still wanna be around the game. You want that feeling you get going to the ballpark. So you become a guy on the ground. You would be a legend.

I don't know if there is actually a trajectory that would make you more beloved by a baseball fan base. I think that might be it. I mean, sure, maybe you'll go on to be the manager of the team or the GM. You'll bring more success to them later. But to do this work, to be kind of like an everyman after you've been one of the best in the game. I don't think you'd ever buy a beer in the city of Pittsburgh ever again. You might, you might dine out on that quite literally for the rest of your life. It is so deeply dad. I do think that one of the things that happens as you age and I invite all people to embrace this part

of their personalities, even if it's out of step with your peers, is you just, you really enjoy puttering, you know? You get into your little puttering projects, you got that closet you got to sort out. You get, you know, sometimes I walk around the house with a, with a rag and the multi purpose spray and I'm like, there's a weird hand print there. How did it get there? What, what's it from? And then I got to walk around the whole house and I got to look at, I got to look at everything

and be like, are there other weird spots? Are there places where the cats have been rubbing up against that corner to market as theirs and then there's that like weird schmutz that you get? Got to take care of that. You feel away about it. So all of that to say, I wish Polulskiin's success in all of his endeavors. And if that includes cutting the grass, there's nothing really therapeutic about that too. You just call the thing you do have to worry about though. And this is a very modern problem.

But if you're doing yard work, you're going to want to listen to something and you might listen to podcasts. And I wouldn't advise that. I'd recommend that you, or if you do, really think about it, really exercise some discretion. Because if you're sitting there, you're on the writing more, you listen to a pod, sometimes they're good. Sometimes they make you crazy. So just book on tape.

Yeah. Well, I was going to say it was good that he had developed an off-the-field interest, but I guess his interest is literally the fields now. That doesn't really work. But it does. It keeps you close, but it puts you out of remove. I think it's brilliant. True.

Yeah. There's a little less pressure, not that that's not an important job. It is a very important job. Yeah. Yeah. The grounds crew has to do its job in order for Paul Skeens to take the field himself when he's not just hanging out. But I guess you don't have to be on a grounds crew to indulge his new

found interest in grass. He could just buy a big house with a big yard and get a big riding mower and just ride around to his heart's content. I saw someone on Reddit made the joke. He wanted to hang out with a group of guys in the Pirates organization who could actually rake, which is just cruel. But Meredith felt bad for him because the Pirates, they just had a stretch where they were actually hitting. They swept the Mets. They just blew away the Mets. They beat the Mets 9 to1, 9-2, 12-1. And then they beat the Cardinals 7-0.

And then it was Skeens' turn, and the Pirates won 1-0. And Skeens, despite not allowing a run, did not get a win. So he just saw all that run support, crammed into the four games before he started, and then back to zero yet again. You're driving him to being a turf guy. You're driving him to be being someone who's gonna be interested in, well, not that type, but just to you, RF, and just being interested in seeds

and fertilizer and just all of the grass growing techniques. I'm sure he'd be great graded if he gets into it. I have I have it. I have the perfect. I have the perfect extension of this, right? He starts he starts as a grass guy. He starts as a lawn dude, and you're right. He's into seeds. He's into plants He starts to learn about the various things then he looks around and he notices There's all these birds. Look at all these different kinds of birds I should learn about all these different kinds of birds and then he'll really be 30, you know? Like when the time, you got to wait, Paul. You don't, you need to do it in your 20s. You can, but famously, you really start getting

into birds in your 30s. I, the number of people then, and I'm one of them, I'm like, look at that bird, man. Look at, what kind of bird is that? I got, I got to look it up in my bird book. And then sometimes I don't, sometimes I can't find it. And I send a picture of it to my mom. My mom and her wife are obsessed with wingspan, the game. Which is super fun, wonderful game. And she is so wingspan-pilled that when I will send her pictures of a bird, like I saw here in Arizona, wild,, unimportant, a heron

by a little like man-made lake. And I sent it to her and she was like, nine point bird. And that's how she understands. I mean, she knows all the names too. She knows like all the names of the birds. But she also remembers their exact point totals in wingspan. I was like, should I get my mom into Pokemon? Like, is that, is that what I should do? Should I start sending some like Pokemon her way? Yeah. Anyway. Got to spot them all, I guess. Maybe he could get into Pokemon. He could catch them, because I'm sure that there are Pokemon in the ballpark, as there often are. He could catch them while he was on the writing board.

Oh, that'd be fun. That will be fun. That will be fun. Yeah. His run support so far this season, 3.44 runs, which is identical to the run support that the Guardians have provided. One Luis Ortiz. Maybe it turned him into the Joker. Just the lack of run support. And he's like, well, I got to get mine. Who knows?

But it's not the least run support that any starter has received this season, but it's not great. It's toward the bottom of the list, certainly. Yeah. Yeah. Looking at Shane Baas and his 6.59 runs, Ben Brown and his 6.79 elsewhere in the NL Central. Must be nice. I'm sure Paul Skeens is thinking. Or maybe he's just thinking about grass.

Who knows? Maybe. Maybe. Clayton Kershaw, he recorded his 3,000th strikeout. Yes. I'm sure Paul Skeens is thinking, or maybe he's just thinking about grass. Who knows? Maybe, maybe. Clayton Kershaw, he recorded his 3000th strikeout on Wednesday and there was a long celebration and not unexpected, obviously. Maybe Paul Skeens will get his 3000th strikeout in some distant day if he's not seduced by the siren song of ground's crew. But I noted that there was a long elaborate celebration for Kershaw as you might

expect, but you might also not expect it because there haven't really been extended celebrations on the field in game for previous 3000 strikeout achievers. And one of the mods in our Facebook group, Jonathan, he pointed this out and he looked at Max Scherzer's 3,000 strikeout back in 2021, when he just got a graphic on the scoreboard, he tipped his cap and then he just kept pitching. There was just not much of a fuss, not a big to-do in game.

Whereas with Kershaw, they stopped the game, there was a standing ovation. He got hugs. He got curtain call, lots of festivities. And I think there are reasons specific to Kershaw and Scherzer why that might be. But I think it's interesting because we have gotten to be more of a celebration kind of culture in baseball.

Like, you know, when it comes to individual plays and bat flips and such, but also I think historic milestones, even team success. I remember talking with Sam and I think he wrote about like when did players start dogpiling on the field when there was a no hitter or when they won the world series or something. You know, you watch sometimes old clips from early broadcasts and you went to world series

and it's just like shaking hands and then you go into the club. It's just like, no one seems all that excited. Whereas now it's huge. And I think that's kind of true when it comes to recognizing individual accomplishments too. And I was watching MLB put up a montage on YouTube of all of the 3000 strikeout guys that they have on video. No Walter Johnson, I guess, but you know, almost, almost everyone else.

And, and it does kind of get more elaborate over time. It's very brief and business-like a lot of the earlier guys who did that. And then Kershaw, it was more like, all right, let's, let's shut this thing down. Despite the fact that we have a pitch clock and a between innings clock, and we're trying to rush things along these days. So I'm not against it. I think it's nice to take time to savor and celebrate accomplishments, but it was, was interesting because some of those earlier cases, it's like, Oh, maybe a

couple of infielders came over and shook their hand and maybe they threw the ball into the dugout to save. But that was about it. Whereas a big deal has been made about Kershas 3000. I think that there are a couple of things that there's like the general vibe of these things, as you know, like we are kind of celebratory. We want to have these moments at the park. You got all these fancy graphics boards, right?

You got to put something up there. Like, it's kind of a waste of that big old screen if you're not putting our graphics package together. You know, I think that when a guy's, like, a lifelong whatever, it hits different, right? Like, I think that that's a big part of it. With Kershaw, that he's just like, been this lifelong dodger, and it seems like, you know, might end his career as one, if only because, like, days getting long for Clayton.

It is kind of a funny thing, because, like, it wasn't a great start. No, it wasn't. No, it was... It looked like he wasn't gonna get there. It looked like he wasn't going to get there. Like it was like he wasn't going to get out of the third inning. Well, yeah, yeah. Part of it, I guess, is that it was his last batter of the game. It was kind of make or break whether if he was going to get that strike out or not. And he did.

Otherwise, it would have happened on the road. And then it probably would have been a less elaborate celebration. Now, when Scherzer did it, he was with the Dodgers too, but he had barely been a Dodger. Barely been there. Yeah, if he had done it earlier in that season, even when he was still on the Nationals before he was traded, then he was with the Nationals

for a while, but even he wasn't a career national. He, of course, started with Arizona and then he was with the Tigers. And so I do think a lot of it has to do with, yeah, it's Kershaw and what he's meant to that organization. And Dodgers fans have seen every one of those strikeouts and been happy about them. So that's a big thing. The fact that it was the end of his outing probably helps.

The fact that maybe it's, it's seen as the tail end of his career, kind of a last gasp. Like maybe this is the last time that you'll be able to really celebrate a Kershaw milestone, whereas Scherzer obviously had some years left at that point. So that's probably part of it too. Yeah, and I think that, you know, I was struck on the broadcast, like there were several times where they were like, they're

going to let Clayton celebrate this individual achievement. I've had my issues with Clayton Kershaw lately, as we all know, but I was like, well, yeah, why wouldn't they do that? He's a lifelong Dodger, very important to the franchise. It is this rare accomplishment. And as Jay noted in his piece on it today, like, might be a very long while before we have another guy like this, right? Like the number of active players with even 2,000 strikeouts is like vanishingly small. So we're really waiting for the next, you know, the current young guy crop to have hit their stride in terms of their careers before we really start thinking about it again Part of it part of that is injury stuff right like Derek Cole is close, but he's hurt

you know and Sail is has sort of rebounded But he's her right now, you know So there are a couple of guys. I don't mean to say there's no one, but this is probably for a little while going to be the last opportunity that anyone has to celebrate this. But what a weird evening for it to be one where you have this big momentous occasion and a celebration of it, because not only did Kershaw not look very good, not only did he like, he got to two strikes a bunch, but he just couldn, close it out. You're giving up home runs to Austin Slater.

Like, what are we doing? And then, of course, like, this entire thing is preceded by Max Muncie suffering an injury so bad that they gave it the football replay treatment and refused to show it again. Yeah. So like, it was just the vibe of it was so bizarre to me. You know, I don't know. What a weird thing. Yeah.

Thanks to Vinny Capra for cooperating and taking that pitch for a called strike to send everyone home happy. At least the Dodgers fans in attendance. But yeah, I think Scherzer when he did it, he was also in the midst of a perfect game attempt, which he lost in the eighth. I think he lost the no hitter and the perfect game. And also it was like division race in September with the Giants. It was like a bigger game. There were higher stakes.

And also it was Scherzer for all we know, he was like, hey, don't make a big deal out of this. I want to stay locked in and fired up. I don't want the distraction of being paused to celebrate myself in the middle of this game. So that could be it. But yeah, I've seen some, oh, will he be the last 3000 strikeout guy? 3000 strikeouts doesn't mean as much to me as some other clubs and milestones. I think maybe because it's a semi recent phenomenon compared to say the 3000 hit club or 300 wins or something. Walter Johnson did it in 1923.

He was the first and then no one did it after that for more than 50 years until Bob Gibson got there in 1974. And then there were a bunch of guys, that whole generation of, of just guys who pitched so many innings, Gaylord Perry, Nolan Ryan, Tom Sievers, Steve Carlton, Fergie Jenkins, Don Sutton, Phil Neuquo, Purplei Love, and those guys lasted forever. And so they racked up that those strikeouts. And then there was another gap until Clemens, Johnson, Maddox, Schilling, Pedro, Smoltz. And then there was another gap. And then Sabathia did it in 2019.

Verlander did it in 2019, Scherzer in 2021, and now Kershaw. And yeah, I think it's not out of reach the way that 300 wins seems now because- Agreed. Yeah, pitchers don't throw as many innings, partly because of usage, partly because of injuries, but the strikeout rate is high enough now

that it's feasible. And yeah, for the first whatever, is high enough now that it's feasible. And yeah, for the first whatever half a century of Major League Baseball, no one did this because there just weren't enough strikeouts, even with the just ridiculous innings totals that those guys racked up. And so it feels a little less meaningful to me, maybe. Also, yeah, because a strikeout is always good, I guess, but there are also some really excellent pitchers

who just don't get quite as many strikeouts, and that's okay too. So, yeah, I guess that's why. I think, Sabathia, there was a stoppage in the game to celebrate his doing it, but. I think that's right. I think I remember that. Generally, I'm okay with, yeah, let's stop,

let's recognize the legends when they do something legendary. I think that's good, because we've talked about, you know, there may be fewer milestones and yeah, the active leaders are beyond these few guys who are at the tail end here. Might be a while before we see that. There are fewer exciting races and record chases and everything. So then, yeah, when these opportunities come along, then you might as well. Right, yeah, you need to take a beat and say, hey, let's take a beat, you know?

I guess Johnson, Gibson, and Kershaw are the only three to have gotten 3,000-plus strikeouts with one team. So that is a more exclusive club. Yeah, it's a much smaller group, yep. Okay, also just wanted to give everyone an update on the dead ball era in Japan, which we talked about last season. It has continued. It is even deader offense there. It's so extreme. So let me just read you the league wide OPS figures starting in 2018. It's just been a steady decline every season. The league wide OPS has been lower in each league.

So here's the Pacific league, which is the DH league in NPB. So starting in 2018, going to 2025, 723, 717, 703, 683, 668, 664, 650, 642. That's this year. And in the Central League, where there's no DH, 730, 716, 714, 698, 678, 668, 645, 622. They're down to 622 in the Central League. It's like the limbo bar, how low can they go? The average hitter in the Central League this year

has hit 233, 293, 328. So you think hitters are having a rough go of it in MLB these days? Check out NPV and the central league specifically. 622 OPS. That was the MLB OPS in 1904. So that's, it's literally dead ball era offense over there. And it's more of a small ball based game. So I guess if that's what you like, just go back to the early 20th century. It's like scientific baseball, manufactured runs, bunts, slap hits. Yeah. I mean, that's what you

need to do over there at this point. And we've talked about the causes before, because it's such a protracted, just steady decline. I think it's, I'm sure the ball plays a part, but it just keeps going year after year after year, walking off a little offense every year. That makes me think that it's not solely the ball, that it's pitching development or other developments. But yeah, that is, man, 6 622. That is just so extreme. We think of offense in some respects, at least being at a low ebb in MLB these days, but

we're still at a 715 OPS. It's like a, it's like a hundred points almost lower over there. Yeah. Wild. Do you have a sense of like, what is the, what is the mood around that? Because, you know, we would be in a full blown panic, just like a full blown freak out about it. If that's where we were. Yeah, it's, I don't know, but it seems to me like there's a little less furor and fury about that than there be here where, yeah, we would constantly be wringing our hands and trying to solve the problem. The only thing we talked about. Yeah.

Yeah. There's curiosity, I think, about why it's happening. But yeah, maybe it is that more bunt-centric small ball mindset. Right, yeah. Like if that's the strategy that's kind of in vogue to begin with, even if a little less so than before, then maybe it's a little less of a shock to the system when it's just harder to hit the ball over the fence. Maybe fewer guys are trying to anyway.

That seems like it could account for at least some of it, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, let us bring on frequent stat blasts correspondent Ryan Nelson, who has prepared some stat blasts for us and will escort us to the end of this episode. and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's today's stat blast.

["Stat Blast"] All right, we are rejoined now by frequent stat blast correspondent, Ryan Nelson, in person to do some stat blasting. Welcome back, Ryan. Hello everybody. Good to have you. We were just saying, this is the first time

that you and Meg have been on the podcast together. You've been like ships passing in the night. Often you've been a fill in when Meg was on the road, you made your debut during the Jeff era. So we have actually now seen Ryan and Meg in the same place at the same time, at least podcast wise. So glad I could bring you two together. Glad to have you on as always.

I thought some blasting would be appropriate for the 4th of July. I will be perhaps setting off some fireworks safely, maybe legally. I don't know. I'm not sure about that. Don't check me on that. But I did look up, evidently it's traditional on the 4th of July to do a 50 gun salute. You have not prepared 50 stat blasts. That would probably be excessive even for us,

but you have prepared several at least. I did want to get both of your thoughts on something stat blast adjacent before we get to what you've prepared for us, which is just shutouts. There've been a lot of shutouts this year, not single pitcher shutouts. There haven't been very many of those because pitchers don't throw nine innings. Typically they don't throw a whole game, but team shutouts, I mean. And there's been some news about that lately because there were a couple notable days where there was a record or near record number of teams being shut out, shutting out their opponents. And so I was thinking about this. I think Joe Pisnanski just wrote about it, two specifically one-nothing

shutouts, Paul Skeens and the Pirates just had one of these, he calls them Blylevens, but through Wednesday's games there have been 197 shutouts. We're on pace for 369, which would be an all-time record. Of course, there were many fewer games in earlier eras, including some low-scoring eras, but still, last year with essentially the same run scoring per game, there were only 321 shutouts. I looked up the rates, just the percentage of games that were shutouts, And this year is quite notable. The only season since the advent of the DH in the American league in 1973,

that has had a higher rate of shutouts. So 7.6% of team games this season so far have been shutouts. The only year that had a higher rate in the DH era was 1981, which was a strike season, a partial season that was at 7.9%. Since then though, since 1981, when there were four on the dot runs scored per game, this year there have been 4.37. So you might think, okay, there were just fewer runs scored that season, so there were more shutouts. But since 1981, there have been 4.37. So you might think, okay, there were just fewer runs scored that season. So there were more shutouts, but since 1981, there have been 15 seasons with fewer runs scored per game than this season.

This season isn't that extreme in scoring. So 15 times since 81, the league average has been under 4.37 runs per game where it is right now, but the shutout rate has never been this high. And I'm sure there's a strong correlation between the shutout rate and just runs per game, but it's clearly not perfect and it seems like we're outstripping the number of shutouts one would expect even, like even relative to the past few years or years where the level of overall scoring has been similar. So I was trying to puzzle out

what would lead to more shutouts with the same scoring or even more scoring. And I don't know that I've come to a great answer, but I don't know, does anything occur to either of you about why we would have so many shutouts now, even though we're, you know, we're in a low batting average era, but not a dead ball era,

not a super low run scoring era. Yeah, to put the numbers on it rather than the narrative, because that's where my mind goes first. You know, the two things that come to mind is, it's still early ish. Yeah. Or the halfway point, but we're kind of comparing the first half of the year, right to the full year, maybe there's something to that.

Yeah. You would think because the scoring does tend to be a little lower early in the year, it's lower scoring, colder weather. Although some of these notable shutout days have come recently when it has been quite warm, but yes, there's always a danger comparing roughly half a season to full season, especially when there is a seasonality effect and you might expect higher scoring later in the season. So perhaps the pace and the percentage will decline.

Yeah. And continuing to spit ball, I think the only other thing that comes to mind for me is, you know, it seems to be that when something is rarer, you're more likely to find kind of weird swings, right? Yes. You know, small numbers things. So, you know, 7% of the time is still relatively rare. It reminds me of I can't remember if it was the no hitters or the perfect games.

We had none for like four years and then six and one month or something. Like when something's rare, they just tend to cluster more often. I don't know if there's something to that as well, but I can't think of any narrative reason why shutouts would be up when scoring is the same. Like shark attacks. Yeah, I don't know if it would be maybe something related to the way runs are scored now,

where it's more all or nothing because it's more home run centric. Does that maybe make some sense? Because even if the overall run scoring on average is similar, if it's more home run based, which it is like a higher percentage of runs are scored on homers these days than historically. And home runs, even though we're still, you know, historically high, not at the peak of the late 2010s, but still high, even though the ball is deader, then if you have a low batting average, like, you know, but high home run rate, then maybe home runs

are still fairly rare as offensive events, then you might tend to, like maybe there's more variability. I didn't check like standard deviation of run total, but I could imagine that maybe you just get more blowouts or more big totals and more just outages because if the home runs cluster together, then you get a lot of runs. Maybe even like the median number of runs scored

would be instructive here instead of the average because maybe you just get kind of an all or nothing sort of situation going on. Yeah, it is interesting though, because our sense was also that there were that there were a good deal more blowouts. It feels like those things shouldn't sit in concert with one another, right?

Yeah, but maybe they could. If my all or nothing theory holds water, then you get more nothing, which is more shutouts and more blowouts, which is they all. So maybe that actually supports this. Or maybe it's the XKCD comic with the random number generator and we're fitting narratives to that. But yeah, it has at least been true to this point. So we will see if it will continue to be true. And I'm trying to like blowouts that could also have something to do with like position player pitching potentially, you know, once you're kind of. Out of it, then you pour just gas on the fire.

Cause why not? You don't want to use a real pitcher. I don't know what other usage things might be different. You're asking relievers to get more out. Maybe bull pens are overtaxed potentially. You just get more running up of the score. I don't know. But yeah, I like my all or nothing theory and also Ryan's randomness, this means nothing theory. So we'll check in maybe at the end of the season and see if this sustained itself. Okay, so let's get to the stat blasting proper here. Do you have a preferred order

that you wanna take these in, Ryan? Let's start with the days between pitchers facing each other. Yes. I asked you about this quite a while ago, and I forget what even prompted my question. I definitely had a reason to ask you about this.

Do you remember what my reason was? Oh, it was Chris Sale, Zach Wheeler. That's right. Yes. Zach Wheeler faced Chris Sale in Wheeler's second career start, and then not again until this season. And I thought, I'm sure that's not anything like the longest gap, but that is a fairly long gap. And so I wondered what was the longest gap between the same starting pitchers facing off against each other. And we both had an inkling that maybe we had done this before, but I couldn't

find that on our list of stat blasts. Maybe effectively Wild Wiki Keeper Raymond Chen will message me after this and said, yes, you did this on episode X, but I don't know. I didn't remember the answer at least. So listeners probably won't either. Yeah. It's just a list of guys who pitched until they're really old. That's basically all this is. The number one on the list, Randy Johnson, Jamie Moyer. So they pitched in 1989 against each other and then in 2007, which feels like it's 5,000 years apart,

but it's only a little less than 20 years apart. Couple of former Mariners legends. So that's yeah, 6460 days between matchups. And that's first by a lot actually. I was surprised when you sent me this list that there was that much of it, almost a thousand days between number one and number two. I love when you do get the guys

who pitch in several different decades because they they like pitched in, you know, the last year of a decade and the first year of another decade. And sometimes, yeah, when you think of like how different baseball was in the eighties and the 2000s, and yet Jamie Moyer endured through it all. And Randy Johnson, Randy Johnson was more of a, like, he was a sign of what was to come, I guess. Whereas Jamie Moyer just was a phenomenon that he just managed to keep on trucking for as long as he did.

Where like, you know, more pitchers resembled Jamie Moyer in the eighties, but not so much in the 2000s. Whereas Randy Johnson was like kind of a terminator just sent back from the future to show us what baseball was gonna be like. Yeah, and so following up on that, the next guy on the list, next guys rather, is Don Sutton, Fergie Jenkins, who pitched in 1967 then 1982.

And then kind of a fun one, we had baby John Smoltz face Greg Maddux, who was on the Cubs at the time in 92. And then they faced each other after Greg Maddux left was on the Cubs at the time in 92. And then they faced each other after Greg Maddux left the Braves in 2007. So teammates for, I don't know, something like 12, 13 years, but faced each other before that and after that.

And then the only other guys in the 5,000 days or more between club, Schoolboy Roe and Fritz Ostermüller. They went from 1934 to 1948. between club Schoolboy Roe and Fritz Ostermuller. They went from 1934 to 1948. Phil Neekro and Rick Wise, 67 and 81, and Sil Johnson versus Waite Hoyt. And it was quite a long wait between 1923 and 1937. I will put the full list linked from the show page as always. All right. I'm glad I asked you about that one again.

And it's entirely possible that we said all of this before and are reacting to it anew, but it all went out of my mind if we did anything like this. Maybe we did something similar, but not quite the same. I don't know. Another one that I asked you about very early this year. Yeah, only three months late on this one. Well, you got around to it. It's evergreen.

I messaged you on April 3rd, just after the start of the season, to note that Wilmer Flores had hit four home runs in 71 games last year, 242 play appearances, and he had already hit four this year in his first six games in 24 plate appearances. And I said, there must be a stat blast in that. And now there is. So I wanted to know essentially like the fewest games that it took a player to match his preceding season's home run total. I said we could do games or played appearances, games easier, maybe better anyway. So, so yeah, just the shortest amount of time it took to match your home run

total from the previous season. And I guess you set a minimum at four so that we could include Wilmer Flores in this. Yeah, that's right. We definitely overfit this stat blast a little bit here, but Wilmer Flores had 71 games last year, 242 plate appearances. So I set the minimum for the previous year, basically at those levels, 70 games

and 200 plate appearances had to hit both of those qualifiers. Wilmer Flores hit four home runs, so we made the minimum four home runs as well. We find that four home runs is pretty close to the top of the list here across the board. The more home runs you add to this, obviously the more difficult it gets. But in 1954, Al Kalein actually played in 138 games, 535 played appearances and only hit four home runs. And then I think he ended up hitting 27, if I recall the next year. But it only took him six games to get to his fourth homer.

So tied Wilmer Flores on the games count there. Obviously, he'd go on to hit quite a few more, probably more than Wilmer Flores if I had to guess, but. I would call that a breakout, I think I'm comfortable calling that. I mean, I don't know. Was Al Kalin too big a prospect to call him a breakout candidate in 1955? I don't know. But he, uh, I guess he was, well, 1954 was his first full season. He had a brief call up in 53 and then 54 he came up and that was his age 19 season. He had a brief call up in 53 and then 54 he came up and that was his age 19 season.

So he hadn't grown into his man strength yet, I guess. And he did, he was 23rd place in the MVP race for the Tigers that year and third in rookie of the year running. So I don't know, maybe in 1955, unaffectively wild, I would have said, Al Kaline, he was number three in rookie of the year running. So I don't know, maybe in 1955, unaffectively wild, I would have said, oh, K-line, he was number three in rookie of the year voting. How could he be a breakout candidate?

But he did go from an 80 OPS plus in 54 to a 162 OPS plus in 55. And it's funny because he went from four homers to 27. And then the next season he hit 27 on the dot again. So he had like one of the more notable increases and then an identical total after that. Yeah, he probably just pulled the each row and decided that he was going to hit home runs now, just like we all know each year could have done as well.

Exactly. Yeah. How many episodes of this podcast do you think there have been that you were going all the way back to whether you... Nevermind. Yeah. We weren't around that long ago, though sometimes it seems like that. But yeah, that's got to be a nice feeling, I would think, if you're Will Miflores and

you're like just a handful of games into the season and you're thinking, well, I've already been about as productive, at least in that category as I was in almost half a season's worth of playing time last year. So must almost feel like, well, everything after that, it's just gravy. I've already matched what I did last year and they brought me back for another year. So I guess I'm safe for 2026 at this point.

But yeah, that's quite a turnaround. I'm guessing there's usually probably a story of some sort, you know, injuries someone was playing through or yeah, it was just like their first season or something, and then they very quickly got up to speed, but that's fun. Glad I could set that question to rest at long last. He's got 11 home runs now through 82 games and 325 played appearances, a 100 WRC plus and a 0.1 FanCrafts War. But that's better than his negative 0.7 from last year so progress. Yeah and 27 still on the table. Yes

exactly you could get there. So I will mention Brian Roberts in 2004 also tied both Flores and K-line, hitting his fourth homer in six games. He had hit four in 736 plate appearances in 2004. So he had a little bit more of an unprecedented power burst there. It wasn't a small sample size quirk. I remember that outlier season he had. He, he did, I think appear in the Mitchell

report and I think he did cop to trying steroids in 2003, but you're saying 2004, that was the year where he had the sudden power burst. He said, uh, Roberts in 2003, when I took one shot of steroids, one shot. That's all it takes, it only takes one. Yeah, it was like delayed action, I guess. The one shot didn't take effect until 2004. So 2003, I took one shot of steroids.

I immediately realized that this was not what I stood for or anything that I wanted to continue doing. I never used steroids, human growth hormone, or any performance enhancing drugs prior to or since that single incident. I can honestly say before God, myself, my family, and all of my fans that steroids or any performance enhancing drugs have never had any effect on what I have worked so hard to accomplish in the game of baseball." He said he was very sorry and he deeply regretted making that terrible decision. So I guess we'll leave that to all of you to decide how plausible that is. He apologized to Peter Angelos. Angelos commended him for acknowledging a serious and uncharacteristic past error in judgment. That's really interesting. Just the, I shot up one time and that was it.

Like if you were gonna have that crisis of conscience, would it come after you? You did that? And you just- Well sure, Ben, you gotta dance with a four looker before you're like, I can't do this ever again. That's a terrible idea. Yeah, well anyway, that's his story and I guess he has stuck to it.

Anyone else you wanted to mention? Yeah, one more shout out here. If we do look at it by plate appearances, George Hendrick is who Flores is tied with. He had also had four home runs in the previous season and took 24 plate appearances to get to four the next season. However, it did take him 10 games compared to Flores' six. But the record goes to 1965 Hawk Taylor, who matched his previous years four once more in just 20 plate appearances.

He had hit four in 235 plate appearances this season before. So really, getting that 20% home run rate is pretty solid. Roberts's career year, that was 2005. He ended up hitting 18 with a 140 WRC plus 6.8 fan graphs were that was quite a season. However, why ever it happened. Okay. I asked you something that was inspired by the recent passing of Cobra, Dave Parker, RIP, legend of the game, legend of cool, had himself quite a peak. Glad that he at

least was elected to the Hall of Fame before his passing, though sadly he died about a month short of actually being inducted. And he had a really interesting career shape. The reason he had to wait so long to get in was that he had kind of an unproductive, well, peak. I don't know if we'd call it a peak, but at least part of his peak period was down because he had this great start to his career and he was one of the best players in baseball.

And then he had this five year period, 1980 to 1984, where he just wasn't very good at all. And he was taking cocaine and that was well-pupil sized and then he had injuries and then there was conditioning concerns. And so this mid-career swoon was kind of an atypical progression. And I think that's probably why he, you know, was on the ballot 15 times and didn't get in and then had to wait. It was just a strange

shape to his career. But then he kind of had a career renaissance of sorts. He goes to his hometown Reds in 1984 and he has a big bounceback star season. And then, you know, like he kind of burnished his credentials. Uh, he won some awards and became a veteran mentor and everything. And like, at least superficially had some pretty productive seasons late in his career, like, you know, good offensive seasons, DH seasons, got MVP votes again, you know, 1985, that was, you know, his second year with the Reds. I guess that was the one when he had the big comeback,

his first year with the Reds, not so hot, but the second year he was MVP runner-up, All-Star Silver Slugger, then his first year with the Reds, not so hot, but the second year he was MVP runner up all star silver slugger. Then his third season with the Reds, he was not as good, but still top five MVP finish all star silver slugger. And then even like age 38 with Oakland, he got some MVP votes or 39 with Milwaukee in 1990. He was an all star again, got MVP votes, silver slugger. So, you know, he kind of rehabilitated

his baseball performance late. And so I put this to you, I didn't know exactly how to define it, but I wanted to know previous examples of that mid-career swoon, because we think all the time of like the typical aging curve, you start out not so great, and then you get great, because we think all the time of like the typical aging curve,

you start out not so great and then you get great and you have this period of greatness and then you end not so great. So it's, you know, the roller coaster, you go up, then you go down. And so I wanted to know examples of kind of a Parker-esque lull where you were good initially and then not so good for a while and then rebounded.

So it's a tough assignment, but what did you come up with? Yeah, this is one where we kind of didn't find a satisfying answer, unfortunately. And maybe that speaks to this doesn't really happen so much as maybe the narrative would lead us to think. Even looking at Parker here, you know, we're trying to determine if a player is good, which is sometimes hard to do. But we looked at war and Parker had a really strong 20s. That decade was really good for him. You mentioned at 29, he kind of dropped off out of nowhere. From an awards perspective, he did have that resurgence. But if we look at war, he had a 5.4 war season at age 34,

but the rest of his 30s combined he averaged 0.4 war per season. So it's more like he kind of declined at 29 and then had a random good year than it was that he resurged for the last five or six. Awards notwithstanding, but when we looked at this, I tried to find five-year spans based on Fangraph's War. And because we didn't want to include people like, Nelson Cruz was one example we thought of where they were kind of just not good for a long time then all of a sudden good.

I wanted to make sure there was at least three years on both ends of the spectrum of that five-year span. So that kind of already eliminates a lot of players because now we're saying minimum 11 seasons played. But when we do that, the top of the leaderboard here, it fits the bill to some extent, but doesn't feel right.

The top leader is 1942 Augie Gallin. From 1938 to 1942, he averaged just 1.3 wins above replacement. In the four seasons before that, he averaged three war, and in the seven seasons after the span, he averaged 3.6. So I mentioned to you that, you know, a couple things, it doesn't feel like that big of a difference. I mean, I guess one more player and a three-war player, that is a significant difference, especially over a career. But for the all-time leader in the metric, that feels not especially significant.

And then the other piece here, which is gonna be true throughout, is he was hurt, right? In that five-year span, he played mostly half seasons. He didn't reach 80 games in three of those five years. So it's hard to say, well, did he really decline or was he just kind of banged up for a few years there. Yep. I mentioned third place here as well as 1992 to 1996 Bill Spires. He averaged one war for the beginning of his career and then had a five-year span of negative 0.4 war per season and then after that the rest of his career averaged 1.7 war. Again, kind of some injury stuff there. And

this is another one where it wasn't so much that he was good and then bad and then good again, as much as it was he had basically two years in his entire career that weren't awful. And those were bookending that five year span. So he was kind of bad throughout and had two random decent years that buoyed kind of the beginning and end of his career. So he was kind of bad throughout and had two random decent years that buoyed kind of the beginning and end of his career. So it feels like maybe there's not so much here, but also this could be one where if you slice and dice a little bit differently,

maybe there's a little clearer signal, but just poking around, we didn't find much. And second, did you say was 1893 to 1897 Billy Hoy and then yeah first Augie Gland I guess is how you pronounce it according to baseball reference at least. So yeah this was this was the case of oh this seems so strange I wonder what other examples of it there are and then it turns out that there really aren't any examples because I guess it it actually was that strange yeah so I thought there would be some just because there are a lot of players and a lot of seasons, but yeah, it would be weird.

I guess another reason why it's weird is that if you have that protracted down period, then you don't even get the post period, right? You don't even get to have the rebound and the Renaissance. There's survivorship bias in it for sure. Exactly. And Dave Parker was such a star young that even after all the travails of his mid-career,

he was gonna keep getting chances. And if you're a borderline guy and you don't do so well for a few years at an age when you're supposed to be doing well, then no one's going to give you a shot to have the three seasons after that that you needed to qualify for this query. So yeah, that's probably probably part of it. Okay, well, thanks for checking.

And our IP Parker, it's interesting, like he was obviously famous and well-known and liked and appreciated during his career. But I think the two photos of him that everyone knows now, if you hear any noise, it's just me and the boys boppin' t-shirt with the hat just kind of rakishly off kilter on his head. And then the other one where he and Grant Jackson are, are smoking in the dugout in spring training in 1980. These are like very of their era kind of embodying cool. I would guess that those photos of him are better known now than they were during his career because they just, they're everywhere now. They're like memes kind of they circulate on the internet. And

They're everywhere now. They're like memes, kind of. They circulate on the internet. And if it was the 70s or 80s, were you even gonna see these? Would it be in the newspaper? Would you encounter these the way that we do now? Or you can buy a me and the boys boppin' t-shirt now online. That probably wasn't the case before.

So in some ways, players can be forgotten and more appreciated in their day. But then others have kind of a post-playing life that keeps them in the culture. And that's good. I'm glad that Dave Parker's cool is remembered. Okay. You have a couple more maybe for us here? Yeah, a couple quicker ones. Adam Morgan asked one about the Red Sox.

They noticed that they were the last team this year to be shut out, speaking of shut outs earlier. They lost five to nothing to the Braves on May 31st. And they were 28 and 32 at that time. So the question was, is it strange for the last team in the majors to be shut out to be under 500 and are the Red Sox in danger of finishing the season with the worst record of any team to be the last team to be shut out? And I think Ben, in the past you've summarized that a lot of

stat blast questions are, I noticed a thing, is it weird? Yeah. And this one, kind of not really. Just not that weird. So I did look back for going back to 1901 and found when was the last team to be shut out and what was their record at the time and what was their record at the end of the season.

And so it turns out there's not a huge correlation here between team quality and not being shut out for some extended period. There is some obviously better teams are less likely to get shut out. But overall, since 1901, the average team to be the last one to be shut out in that season ended up having a 548 win percentage,

which I think it's like an 87 win team. So good, but not jugger, not good or anything like that. And then in fact, 29% of the time, the team that was the last to be shut out ended up having an under 500 record on the season. So not particularly crazy. I did also note this is kind of almost too close, but the Red Sox had their first shutout in the 60th game of the season. On average since 1901, the last team to be shut out was shut out on their 61st game. So that even that timeline is fairly familiar. As far as which team was the worst team to go forever without being

shut out, it was the 1939 Browns. They actually made it all the way to game 81 without being shut out and they ended the season with a 43 and 111 record, which is a 279 win percentage. So the reason there, you could probably guess right off the bat, it's that the Browns didn't really have problems scoring runs. They scored 4.8 runs per game, but they lost a billion and a half games because they allowed 6.7 runs per game. Oh my God. So they were just getting hit around all over the place.

They were second to last in baseball and runs per game that year, even though their runs scored per game was about league average. Wow. That's rough. Looking a little more modern. It's the 1969 Pilots. They made it 50 games without being shut out, which was the longest that season, but they ended the season 64 and 98, which was a 395 win percentage.

So I looked basically since World War II on that one and I did not count 2020. Um, because one, there weren't a lot of games and two, some teams didn't get shut out at all that year. So put the 2020 asterisk on it. All right. And then we can stick with the Red Sox for this next one, which came to us from Ryan, also a Patreon supporter who said, I was listening to another podcast and they mentioned that Roman Anthony made it all the way through the minor leagues

without ever facing a pitcher who was younger than him. That got me wondering which hitters and pitchers racked up the most played appearances or batters faced before they finally saw an opponent who was younger than them at the major league level. I gotta think that this list is going to be pretty heavy on all-time greats. Bryce Harper has to be pretty close to the top of the list. Yeah, this list has a couple people you've probably heard of. So number one, Mel Ott, 2751 played appearances before facing the younger pitcher. Just a casual, what is that, like four seasons basically.

Yeah, that's like a, that's a whole career for a lot of guys. That's amazing. Yeah, that's. Yeah, That's like a, that's a whole career for a lot of guys. For a lot of guys. That's amazing. Yeah. That's. Yeah. Going down the list, a few more young good players.

So Ken Griffey, that is not Ken Griffey Jr. Actually, I believe I could double check that, but I think that's Ken Griffey senior, Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Rogers Hornsby, Robin Yaut. And then to round out the group, Edgar Rentaria, who good player in his own right, maybe not in the group of the previously named players. All those players had about 1500 or more played appearances before facing a single younger pitcher

in their entire career. It's gotta be junior, right? Cause Griffey senior came up in his age 23 season and younger Griffey came up at 19, age 19 season. That's probably right then yeah that makes sense. That's why you shouldn't name your kids the same name you have. So that one's not on me. Yeah, that's their fault. More recent players that have done this, Manny Machado, Ozzy Albies, Miguel Carrera as well. So if you're good and you come up young, that's pretty much what happens.

So I was surprised at the length of a lot of these. I mean, that so many players went many seasons without facing a single pitcher younger than them was a little surprising to me. Yeah, that's remarkable. You haven't done pitchers, right? No, that was just batters. Pitchers I think it would be much, much less, I'd have to imagine,

because it's tense that pitchers come up a little bit later, but we could check that one as well. Yeah, I can do an update if you run pitchers as well, and I will put that list in the show notes as well. And then finally, a question from Kate Shrike who asks about sequentially increasing runs in consecutive starts. So Curtis Rogers of Seattle Sports Radio noted

that in his last six starts, Brian Wu whom we discussed recently has given up zero, one, two, three, four and five runs sequentially. Has anyone else ever done that? Is this the longest streak of consecutive starts with increasing runs? What about the other way around? I imagine that direction is easier to sustain

as getting better is an easier way to stay on a roster than getting worse. Yeah, so pretty much any way you slice this, the answer is that Brian Wu has tied for the record, except for one very specific way in which case he's tied for second. So if we look increasing, the record is six straight starts. So in 1974, Andy Messersmith for the Dodgers did the exact same sequence, zero to five and six consecutive starts. In 1994, Brian Williams of the Astros had six straight starts, allowing one to six, so starting a little bit higher. And then

in 1997, Jeff Judin did one through six as well for the Expos. So Brian Wu, if you slice it specifically that way, has become the fourth player ever to do that exact sequence of runs and starts. If we flip it around the other way, and I should clarify that that is runs, not earned runs. So runs overall. If we flip it to descending, six has also happened twice. It was in 1915, Rube Foster, but not that Rube Foster, a different one. Went from 5 to 0 in 6 starts for the Red Sox, and then Noah Lowry did 6 to 1 in 6 consecutive

starts for the 2004 Giants. So I did slice this as well based on earned runs to see if we found a different answer, and we did actually. So for the up variety of earned runs, we see that the Messersmith from earlier was both runs and earned runs were the same for all the starts, but is also joined by 1971 Senator Pete Broberg and 2008 Brewer Jeff Supan. But-

Supan. Supan, excuse me. But earned runs descending the record is seven starts. So 1984 Dodger Rick Honeycutt allowed in seven consecutive starts, six, five, four, three, two, one, and zero runs in 1984. So it is worth noting, interestingly enough, that his streak did extend over multiple seasons. So he actually started that streak in September of 83, continuing into 84.

All the other streaks that we mentioned before were in single seasons, except for the Brian Williams one, which was the 1994 Astros. He started in 1993. So depending on how you slice it, Brian was either tied with a bunch of people for first, or tied for second with a bunch of people behind Rick Honeycutt.

Yeah, I guess it'd be tough even to notice that this happened if it was extended over multiple seasons. I wonder whether any of these players actually noticed that or not, but especially if it's stretched over an off-season, it would probably be pretty tough to remember that that was the case. By the way, after Wu had his one, two, three, four, five, he then went back to zero, and then two and two after that. So he was probably pretty happy that he didn't extend

the streak to six. I know I was happy. Yes, I'm sure you were too. Well, thank you as always, Ryan. This was excellent stat blasting. Yeah, thank you both. All right. A few follow-ups before we wrap up this episode and this week. First, Ryan completed that stat blast about the most played appearances or batters faced by a player before facing someone who was older than them. As you recall Mel Ott was the leader among batters by a lot. 2751 played appearances in the big leagues before facing a younger pitcher. Ryan had speculated that the pitching leaders would have lower totals But he says I was wrong. I didn't consider how many batters pitchers used to face. So the leader in this category is Dwight Gooden.

3635 batters faced before facing a younger batter. Second place Bob Feller, 3303. And then a distant third, Felix Hernandez, 2470. The only other guys over 2000, Mike McCormick and Hal Neuhäuser. Then Larry Durker, Rick Porcello, Burt Blyleven, Ray Sedecky and Lee Meadows rounds out the top 10. As Ryan says, Gooden averaged almost a thousand batters faced per season his first three years.

Of course, we know that that sometimes takes a toll. And so as I said to Ryan, I doubt any new pitchers will be making the top of this list anytime soon. I know Felix wasn't that long ago, but it was kind of a different era of pitcher usage and pitcher development. Obviously pitchers just don't face as many batters period these days, but also they don't tend to come up as early as Gooden and Felix did. There was a lot of research about that.

The injury nexus when you're young, the injury risk is elevated. That kind of overwork would lead to a lot of shoulder injuries. Obviously, Gooden wasn't quite the same after the beginning of his career, though there were a number of reasons for that. But it's very rare just to see a teenage pitcher in the big leagues, period, these days. Felix came up age 19 season, then his age 20 season.

He pitched a full season, almost 200 innings. He had 1,154 and two thirds innings in the big leagues before his age 25 season started. That's just probably not going to happen again. At least not unless there's some dramatic change to the way that pitchers are developed and promoted. Thanks again to Ryan. Also some news about the availability of the podcast.

We're on YouTube now. No, we're not pivoting to video. We're still stubbornly not doing these things on camera. But if you want to listen to us on YouTube now. No, we're not pivoting to video. We're still stubbornly not doing these things on camera. But if you want to listen to us on YouTube or YouTube music for whatever reason, you can. I have added a link to YouTube playlists of Effectively Wild episodes to the bottom of each podcast post on FanCrafts

or maybe in your podcast app as well. It's not every episode on there. It's just the past few hundred going back to early 2023, the Shane McKeon era of Effectively Wild since we stopped using music that YouTube might flag. So if you use YouTube or YouTube music for your podcast listening, just easier to have a browser window up in the background

or whatever it is. You can now do that. I doubt many people will embrace this new option of listening to audio only episodes on YouTube, but it's there for you if you want it We want to meet people where they are to some extent I was also thinking that as Luis Ortiz of the Guardians is being investigated for possible pitch fixing I feel for the other Luis Ortiz's Luis's Ortiz Luis Ortiz's the Guardians guy is Luis L

Ortiz, but of course, there's the fellow pitcher Luis F Ortiz who is in the big leagues 2018-2019 and then 22 to 24. There is also a Luis A Ortiz in the big leagues in the 90s, though he wasn't a pitcher. Just imagining Luis F Ortiz getting texts about Luis L Ortiz, someone saying, say it ain't so, and Luis F Ortiz insisting, no it isn't so, that isn't me. Luis F. Ortiz seemingly isn't pitching anywhere. This season he has an alibi. He's like a Hitchcock character, the wrong man. Actually, Luis F. Ortiz evidently is recovering from Tommy John surgery. Even more airtight alibi. Couple corrections. On the last episode, I mentioned the practice of appointing honorary All-Stars, and I said that Pujols and Micky had gone to the game in that capacity but I think I said that they did that in back-to-back years first Pujols then Micky as JG White points

out they were all-stars the same season on opposing squads. Also Mike E writes in in response to an off-the-cuff comment I made I think this was when we were talking about fans taunting players and crossing the line and feeling empowered to do so because they know that players can't physically go after them, or at least that's strongly discouraged, maybe I said something like, if you taunt a player and that player punches you, classical conditioning, you learn your lesson. Well Mikey notes as a former doctor of psychology and current anti-corporate life coach, I feel that I must channel the pedantic rods of lightning and point out the following.

If a fan were to be discouraged from disgustingly taunting an athlete on the field by said athlete immediately responding by clocking them good, that would be an example of operant conditioning rather than classical conditioning. The canonical example of classical conditioning is Pavlov's dogs, whereby two involuntary processes, hearing a bell salivating are linked together. Operant conditioning on the other hand requires a voluntary behavior. For example, being a complete asshat at a baseball game, which is then shaped via reinforcement to increase the behavior or punishment to decrease it.

The canonical operant conditioning was conducted by BF Skinner on various animals using his Skinner boxes, apparatus that perhaps could be repurposed to improve the behavior of various fans in 2025. Guess it depends how humane that is. But yes, thank you Mike. Certainly would have been disappointed in myself for making that mistake when I studied the difference in school. And finally, Rob writes in to say I'm sure this has been discussed at length at some point on the pod, but it's something I've been thinking about lately following the line drive back at Matthew Boyd that nearly demolished his effing face. That was so, so scary. It was impressive athleticism reflexes look,

and we all had a laugh slash cheer because of how scary it was and his father's reaction. Meanwhile, I'm channeling his mother with her reaction to his near death experience. They were both in the stands to be clear. His mother looked terrified, stricken. His father was sort of relieved slash celebrating. Rob says, your talk about pitcher extension

had me thinking about it even more. These guys are getting closer and closer to the plate. They are left in a vulnerable position with their follow through for the most part. Yet here they are closer to the plate and the batter post swing, not wearing a helmet with exit belows that are higher than the very pitch they threw.

The way I think about it, a pitcher should need a helmet more than a batter or at least as much. Now I understand that a pitcher throwing to a batter has a very narrow possibility of where the ball will end up. A batter will consume a large percentage of the area where you'd expect a ball to be thrown. A batted ball can go in any direction at any velocity and any launch angle. Mathematically, pitchers are significantly smaller percentage of batted ball targets. Compared to the batter's percentage of thrown ball targets, I get all that. But pitchers are less physically positioned to be able to dodge a ball that is coming back at them faster maybe than they threw it. Am I overreacting or overpanicking at this idea or has the recency

bias of Matthew Boyd, the pitcher extension talk, and a general paranoia that bad things are going to happen in the world consuming my way of thinking? I don't think it's an overreaction. Obviously a pitcher getting fatally struck by a batted ball is a low probability event, fortunately, but play enough games, enough pitchers, enough batted balls. It does seem almost inevitable. There have been a number of close calls and we have talked about this at some length. I remember specifically addressing this on episodes 1735 and 1736. We talked about the potential for protective headwear, comparable equipment in softball, et cetera. We may have addressed this more recently too,

but I had not made the connection between the extra extension that I talked about the other day, pitchers releasing the ball about six inches closer to the plate than they were doing a decade ago. And at faster speeds, the connection between that and added injury risk, but you'd think there would be one. These pitchers aren't really prioritizing being set up, facing the plate,

landing ready to field a ball. It's max effort and releasing as close as you can. So that would seem to enhance the danger, plus batters being stronger than ever, hitting the ball harder. So yes, it is something that worries me somewhat, and that I do wish there were more steps taken to prevent. Also, Rob says, I want the mound moved farther away from home plate. You and me both, buddy. Finally, I am recording and releasing this on the day after Independence Day, but close enough. Wanted to highlight a fun Facebook sh** post in our Facebook group from one Luke Johnstonston who did some silly research and says I cross-referenced the list of cities destroyed in the movie

Independence Day with the MLB schedule on July 2nd 1996. Why July 2nd? Well that is when that cinematic classic was released but also that's when its story starts and that's when the alien invasion occurs. So Luke found here are the results MLB cities destroyed, New York City, home of the Mets and Yankees, Los Angeles, home of the Dodgers and Angels, San Francisco, home of the Giants, Toronto, the Blue Jays, you know which teams play in which cities.

I'll just read the cities. Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Pittsburgh, Houston, Phoenix, Detroit, and Boston. Additionally, these teams were destroyed while playing in the cities that were attacked. The Orioles, who were in Toronto, the Brewers in Detroit, the Twins in Chicago, the A's in Seattle, the Rangers in LA. The Dodgers and Braves were actually spared by being in San Diego and Montreal at the time of the attacks. So the Cleveland, not yet, Guardians are your AL champion by virtue of finishing with a better record

than the only remaining AL team, the Kansas City Royals. The Atlanta Braves had to forfeit the rest of the season due to not having a home park. So the San Diego Padres would have won the National League. Of course, one correction to that, the Diamondbacks were not yet a team. So the destruction of Phoenix would not have taken them out. Bad news for young Meg that Seattle didn't make it

and for young Ben for that matter in New York. Of course, as some other listeners pointed out, they could have perhaps found parks for the surviving teams to play in. Listener Tom said, surely Atlanta could play in one of the vacated parks by teams destroyed on the road, maybe five empty ballparks from the road teams that were destroyed, but would they have had the heart

to go on and play out the string in the wake of all that tragedy? I doubt it. Then again, baseball can be a symbol of healing after or during a tragedy. But can't we just give Cleveland a championship even if it takes an alien invasion for this team to win one, Padres too for that matter. That will do it for today and for this week.

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