Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2347: Time Elia All Wounds

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Blooper, the All-Star-Game-hosting Braves’ flagging fortunes, the pre-deadline trade market, the simultaneous surges of Ceddanne Rafaela and Pete Crow-Armstrong, the performances of old pitchers Charlie Morton, Clayton Kershaw, and Justin Verlander, and the death and legacy of Lee Elia, then (1:01:44) share several Stat Blasts about players who […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2347 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs, who is in the Atlanta area gazing at Truis Park from her hotel room all ready for All-Star Week. Hello Hotel Meg. Hello, it is Hotel Meg. What can you see from your vantage point just the the facade the outside of the stadium? I can see the facade of the stadium I can see many lanes of highway in between here

and there I can see like the very very tippy top of the scoreboard, I think. Not so much that I would be able to discern any game action, but enough that when they light it up, it's like, well, yeah, that's a, that's a scoreboard. No sign of Blooper, I hope. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if he knows the distaste. Are you going to have a run-in with Blooper? Are we going to hear some viral moment?

Some media member just aghast at the sight of Blooper during the All-Star Festivities? Oh, boy. Yeah, maybe. I mean, look, I don't wanna come into the creature's house and make it feel bad on its home turf, but he is a monstrosity, an abomination, an affront to God and other mascots. And the existence of Blooper within his division is an own goal that we should talk about more

and more often. Because look, if you're gonna look to the fanatic and say, hey, I want one of those, you can't do that when you play in the same division as the Phillies, that's embarrassing. That's little brother right there, you know? And so I maintain that he is a weird, fleshy embarrassment that everyone involved in his creation should feel badly about themselves. And I know that he delights

some children, and I just hope that those children know they deserve better, you know? They can aspire to more in their mascot affections. So, I'm getting it out now so that when I get to the park, I mean, Blooper doesn't know who I am. First of all, Blooper's not real. I mean, like, there is a corporeal entity that is blooper, but, like, the, I assume that the person within blooper, blissfully ignorant of my opinions of blooper in much the same way that I imagine the person who runs a blooper social media doesn't know that I find it weird and tryhard. But maybe they do, you know, it's always, it's always shocking to me what people notice, you know, what people listen to the folks in the game who enjoy our podcast. And I'm grateful for that.

But I do hope that Blooper is an exception. Well, try to keep your cool, I guess if you have a run in. I know it's, it's not cool in Atlanta, Atlanta, but your temperament, at least, I hope not to hear that you had a run in. I think that my reaction might be quite legible upon my face. Never been a good poker player, but I'm not one prone to physical violence. I'm not going to get up in bloopers business. I might look aghast from a distance.

But I don't imagine that I'm going to have too, too much opportunity to interact with any of the mascots, really. I wonder if it's the same person, first of all, how many bloopers are there? Right? Like this is always a question with mascots, both in terms of how many versions of the costume they have and then how many different people play blooper. I don't know the answer to either of those questions. And I wonder, is it the same blooper?

Is it the regular blooper? Is it the regular Blooper? Like is, I imagine there's a rotating cast, is getting to be Blooper during the All-Star festivities, is that an honor or are you kind of like a player who would really like a vacation honestly and would be fine having the B-side Blooper having the B-side blooper inhabit the costume. Yeah, if I were inside any mascot costume and it were over 90 degrees as it would be in Atlanta, I would be quite happy to take that time off.

But really the 2025 Braves themselves are a bit of a weird fleshy embarrassment because they... Such a description. Well, I'm borrowing your phrase for blooper, but it kind of applies to the team because the Braves now are 40 and 52. You want the team that is hosting the All-Star Game, you want that to be a showcase for, well, your city or at least the outskirts of the city in this particular case. And you just want to, you know, it's your time to shine and you want to show off your park and your mascot monstrosity. But you also want to hopefully have a successful team at the time to showcase. And Atlanta now, they enter the All-Star break on a down note, even for

a season that's been on a down note. They've lost five of their last six series. I think they split the sixth. So they've kind of been up and down. They started terribly and then they were good for a while and it looked like, okay, they've righted the ship. There's still time to fix this thing. And then it got bad again and then it was okay. And now it's been really bad again.

And their playoff odds are now down to 3.6%, which is tied with the Angels, who have a considerably better record than the Braves do. They now have a worse record than the Orioles. They have lower playoff odds than the Orioles. I feel for the fellow who was on an episode of Effectively Wild, who is a combined Braves slash Orioles. I feel for the fellow who was on an episode of Effectively Wild who was a combined Brave slash Orioles fan. Things have not gotten better really since then. So it's been really

lousy. The odds of the division are barely registering above zero, but now it's just an incredible long shot that they're even going to make the playoffs, which I kind of thought that they would make a run and salvage this thing like they did last year, even if it was just like last year, barely scraping in with a shorthanded roster. But yeah, I don't know if it's going to happen this year. And I know that Alex Antopoulos had said some things about how they weren't going to sell. And there was a slight caveat there. Like, we'll see what happens.

This was weeks ago. But yeah, even if you're someone who expects to be right in the middle of your championship window and your window for contending and rivaling the best teams in your division, it's getting late. Well, it's not even early anymore. But yeah, this is, it's looking like sellers that I never would have expected to be sellers.

Yeah, gosh, they lost to the Athletics yesterday, didn't they? That's so funny because my, like, I was able to watch very little baseball yesterday because of travel. I did get to check in on my Mariners at the end. What a thrill that was. Brian Wu was good again, but yeah after that not so great Yeah, we'll get to that but my most recent impression of the Braves is them just hitting a bunch of home runs against the athletics But yeah yesterday turned a different direction. I don't know what to make of them It does seem like some short-term retooling is perhaps in order This team should be better than it is it feels, you know? And so I don't

want them to be, I don't imagine they feel a need to be overly reactionary to the whole thing, but it's quick, it's amazing how quickly a young cost-controlled core assigned to a bunch of extensions, buoying the fortunes of the Braves Foundation can stir to like age into their late 20s, you know? And so all of a sudden you're looking around going, wow, this isn't quite as young of a team as it once was. And it's not that the guys that they have under contract can't perform well. They've demonstrated they can in the past, but having them do it all at the same time and be available simultaneously has definitely proven to be much more of a challenge this year than I thought it would be even with Strider and Okunya, you know, starting the year dinged

up. So, yeah, the Braves, they should be better than this, not just in terms of their true talent and the injuries that they've had, but also they do have a positive run differential. Right. Yeah. The lowest possible positive run differential. It's plus one. But still plus one, you should not be 40 and 52.

The Orioles are 42 and 50, and they've been outscored by 77 runs on the season. So yeah, the Braves have been unfortunate in multiple ways, really, but it's just, it's looking bad. And I was thinking about this because this is our last episode of the pre All Star break period. And it's just looking ahead to post break and deadline will be coming up in just a matter of weeks. And I don't know, I at one point, I

thought that, gosh, it's gonna be a dead deadline. Again, like it seems like who's gonna even be in the seller camp because as we forecasted, there's just a lot of mediocrity and a lot of teams that are okay, fine, decent, good, but really not great. Neil Payne just wrote about this on his sub stack and showed that the best teams at this point in the season are just not nearly as good as they usually are. Even the Tigers, even the teams that have the best records, usually there's a team with a better record than this and then maybe there's some regression over the rest of the season.

But even the outliers now are not all that far outlying. And so there's a real compression there. And until recently, I was thinking, man, this could be so slow because who's going to have any players to move. It's just going to be the teams that are so bad that they don't have any desirable players and yeah, maybe now if, if the Braves are entering that group, if the Orioles, they did make a minor trade with the Rays, maybe that's a sign of additional deals to come, though they have only so many players, it probably makes sense to trade.

But yeah, I don't know. The elite talent that figures to be available at the deadline seems like it should be pretty light. But I have long since given up on my ability to actually forecast deadline activity and how many moves will be made because sometimes I think, oh, it's going to be busy and then it's slow or vice versa. So I don't really know. But there are just a lot of teams that are kind of in that range of, yeah, if we play

well from now to the end of the season, we can make it. You have kind of a weird mismatch going on because a lot of the talent that is likely to be on offer isn't the kind that tends to inspire really, really big moves at the deadline. And a lot of that isn't because the guys aren't playing well, but because of the things that you noted where teams are more likely to adopt sort of like a short-term reset mentality rather than a teardown, but also because a lot of the guys who seem like they could get moved to this deadline if, you know, the Diamondbacks decide that they're done and aren't going to go anywhere or if, you know, we get a big sell off from the Orioles,

like the guys you have are guys who are going to be on expiring contracts, right? Like how much, he's been great and he's hitting all these home runs, but like how much do you really want to pay for Eohenio Suarez when he's a free agent at the end of the year and he's in his mid-30s, right? What are you really willing to give up for Ryan O'Hern? Zach Galin is a free agent and has been like bad by his standards. So, and just kind of objectively, not a good year for him. So, yeah.

So, you know, you end up in this kind of weird spot where, you know, there are short-term rentals available, but they aren't of such caliber that you're likely to give up big prospects for them anyway. And the guys that remain are, you know, a mix of either kind of middling or older or what have you. So I don't know. But then I say that and then we will get some crazy trade because that's what almost always happens. I do think we'll look back and we'll look

back and we won't see a deal that's done in the sort of traditionally understood deadline season, which for me is like all-star break through the deadline that rivals the sort of traditionally understood deadline season, which for me is like all star break through the deadline that rivals the sort of magnitude of the diverse trade. Like I think that's the biggest in season deal we are likely to see this year. But I don't know, like maybe we'll be surprised. And there's always, you know, one piece of this that I think we sometimes struggle to have insight into and that can result in trades that surprise us is, you know, we look at sort of surface level performance, we look at guys peripherals, we don't know if there's a dude who's like worn out his welcome in a clubhouse, right?

Or you know, those sorts of personnel HR related concerns. And I don't mean to suggest that there's someone who's like done something really naughty, but you know, sometimes guys move and the part of the reason they move is as much about their team fit as it is their roster fit. And so, you know, sometimes we struggle to know what what all that's about. We struggle to know, you know? Yeah, there are several teams right now that are just a few games below 500 and are sort of in the 10 to 20% playoff odds range and maybe how things break for those teams over the next couple weeks will dictate the deadline to some extent, like the Guardians, Reds, Royals, Diamondbacks, Rangers, Twins.

Any of those teams could go on a little run and be over 500 and in the thick of the wild card race by the time the end of July rolls around, or could have a lousy couple of weeks and just say, yeah, let's pack it in. So it depends which way things swing because there are, I think, 16 teams maybe over 500 now. And remember, I think one of my bold predictions was that there would be a record number of teams over 500. And that's still in play because there are a bunch of teams that if they're not there, they're within a series or two of being there potentially.

The Diamondbacks, the Rangers, the Royals, the Twins, the Angels. Well, the Angels, yeah. So how things go for them, I guess. Right. Feels like it's close. It is pretty close. It's not early. I always, I do a double take when I see, you know, like Pasin will come out with his big trade deadline preview or whatever. And it's like June 3rd.

It's like, this is almost two months before the deadline. We don't really know anything yet. So, but I guess those things get clicks, but yeah, even now where we're well into July, we're still saying, it's kind of up in the air. And I'm sure a lot of teams who are talking to other teams are also getting that sense of, I don't really know which way things are gonna swing.

Yeah, I mean, even just in the last week, like my opinion of whether the Red Sox are likely to be buyers or sellers has sort of changed, right? Because they've gone on this like seven game winning streak and now they're in a, they're in wild card position, right? As of this morning, I think, you know, the Mariners have fallen out and the Red Sox have slipped in, am I correct in thinking that? Yeah.

So it's like, I don't know what that portends. I see all of these rumors that they're gonna like move Jaren Durant, and I'm like, are they? Why? Like, I know they have this like, glut of outfielders, but I don't know about that. So it's just a weird, you know, it's a funny thing. I never know really what I want.

Like I, selfishly, I am a woman divided, right? Because on the one hand, like, a good busy deadline is good for the website because we get to write up a bunch of exciting transactions and people want to read about those transactions and then they come to the site and they read them and they, you know, they click, click, click and they sign up for memberships and that's so exciting. But then also I'm always so exhausted by the end of the month that, you know, what if it was just a, what if everyone was just like, we're content, you know, what if we looked within ourselves and found contentment then, you know, just like a, a peace, a calm, an understanding of ourselves and our rosters

is good enough, you know? What if we did that? That sounds nice. Well, you mentioned the Red Sox and Red Sox outfielders specifically, and I was gonna bring one up too, because since the beginning of June, most valuable player in baseball by Fangrass War, or at least hitting war, Cal Raleigh, okay? Yeah. Tied with Cal at 2.1 war over that span, Juan Soto, okay? war or at least hitting war, Cal rally. Okay. Yeah.

Tied with Cal at 2.1 war over that span, Juan Soto. Okay. We know he's been, huh? He's quite a good player. Non-all-star Juan Soto. True. But another non-all-star, I think, as we speak, I lose track of who's an all-star or not.

Seddon Raffaella. How about that, man? He's tied with Cal and Soto since the start of June, three-way tie, 2.1 war. He appears to be putting it together and it's really exciting. Very exciting. I know that there are a lot of Red Sox fans

who quite like Sedon Raffaella and have enjoyed him. There are definitely some Patreon supporters in our Discord group who just love Seydan Rafaela, even when the overall value wasn't that great. But there was promise there. And I remember talking about him at some point, not that long ago, and we noted that there was a big mismatch between his expected stats and his actual stats.

And that gap is closing because his actual stats lately, he's just been on fire and he's hitting for power. He's of course delivering his awesome defense. Actually it's those three I mentioned at 2.1 war and then at 2.0 war, it's Aaron Judge and Bobby Wood Jr. Okay. And also Pete Crowe Armstrong. Yeah. It's, it's like R and Bobby Wood Jr. Okay. And also Pete Crowe Armstrong. Yeah.

It's like Rafaela and Armstrong, you know, they're kind of similar in some ways. They're just like the great defensive centerfielders who are really putting it together offensively and have speed and power, especially speed in Pete Crowe Armstrong's case still in base wise, but even Sedan, Sedan can run too. So yeah, it's been fun because both these guys, they've had issues with walks or the lack thereof and strikeouts and everything. But, but yeah, it's really exciting to see it all come together, especially for players whose bar is as high as it is just because the floor is high if you can field like those guys can,

but if you can field and hit like this, woo. And it's funny, because it's like, we are talking about this incredible stretch that Rafael has been on, right? Like he had a 136 WRC Plus in June, his July WRC Plus is 259. I don't imagine he's gonna slug 900 the rest of the way. That seems unlikely.

He's still not walking like barely at all. He has a 3.2% walk rate over the last two weeks, 5.1 for June. But yeah, I mean, like, first of all, I think that when you're trying to talk to a fan base about like how to understand the value that a player is bringing. Because I did a panel about, I guess, about a month ago now with some high school students who are Sabermetric folks. They have like sports analytics clubs in high school now, Ben. Yeah. Daughter of one of our Patreon supporters, actually.

And it was a really fun conversation. And the students asked really great questions. And it was a really fun conversation. And the students asked really great questions. And this is a Boston approximate group. And so Red Sox players were top of mind for them. And one of the questions that we fielded was, how do we think about Rafaela? Because he can be very frustrating when he's not hitting. And the case that I tried to make is, yes, that is frustrating. But I think that if you're going to have a guy with his kind of defense, like first of all, the potential for him to make the argument of like,

literally saving runs is higher than it is for most positions, right? Because centerfielders can, they can wrap them around second, you know, like throw guys out, they can do all this stuff. But they just give themselves an incredibly high floor from a production perspective, because what they can do out there is so valuable if they can feel to the level that a Raphael or a Pete Cromshon can, and to see them then be able to hit, like, they don't have to hit like this to be just incredibly valuable,

but if they're able to sustain some version of this, right, again, probably not a 900 slugging version, probably not an almost babbit being 391, although those guys are fast, so, Again, probably not a 900 slugging version, probably not an almost babbitt being 391, although those guys are fast. So like, you know, unelevated babbitt, you can imagine, probably not 391, but unelevated babbitt. It's just very exciting. And it's just goes to show like, you know, part of Rafael's issue last year, which was his first full season in the majors was, you know, not only is he just adjusting to big league pitching, but he was bopping back and forth positionally.

You know, he is a true center fielder and is really good there. They were, you know, he was having to play the infield just because of injuries on the roster. And I think that, you know, being more settled, more accustomed to the kinds of pitching that you see in the majors, but also just being able to like be a center fielder. Just go be an amazing center fielder. Don't worry about all this bopping around bulls**t, you know? Like that does a lot for guys. And I think just the combination of that natural maturation with stability in the position, it's just like, it's really cool, dude. Like I just, he's so fun. He's so fun to watch. Yeah, I saw that Petriello put on Blue Sky.

He was looking at the monthly splits for Rafaela's pulled in the air percentage. And in July, it's way up, like almost 40%. And it's, you know, usually less than half that, a lot less than half that. So it seems like he's nailed something with his swing. I don't know whether he's changed anything, or maybe if you just looked at any player who's in the midst of a blistering hot streak, then right.

Something like that. But but yeah, that would be a nice change if he were not only hitting the ball pretty hard, but also hitting it in an optimal way for power. And I have been thinking about that with both Raffaella and P. Cromstrong, because it is a tough profile to sustain when you're a pretty high strikeout guy.

Now, like since June, in that June period that I cited, they've both been like a 19% strikeout rate. That's fine. That's better than league average. So, you know, if they could keep it there as opposed to above league average in the mid twenties or so, then that would be perfectly fine. But it is, you know, when you're walking four percent of the time or whatever, it's a little tough. You are, yeah, you're more babbip reliant because there are going to be a bunch of balls in play. And so it can

be tough to sustain just being one of the most valuable players in baseball, even if you've got that glove. I guess long term, I don't know, maybe you'd bet on Pekka Armstrong because he's like a year and a half younger than Seydan, which is pretty significant at that age. But it is really fun to just watch both of them blossom like this. And, you know, they were both pretty big prospects, I guess. But it is really fun to just watch both of them blossom like this. And, you know, they were both pretty big prospects.

I guess Armstrong maybe at his peak was an even more highly rated prospect. But yeah, it's really fun to see this happen. And for the Red Sox, this was supposed to be the year of Christian Campbell and Marcel Meyer and Roman Anthony. And it has been to some extent, like they've, they've all arrived and Anthony has been good, you know, especially given his age and everything. So it's encouraging, but the real value for the young players on that roster has come from Rafaela, from Narvaez, from Wilier Breu. So, yeah, you put together those guys with the three prospects who've debuted this year

and Crochet and everything else. You can see why. Seems like future's bright and possibly even the present is bright, despite all of the Devers discord, which maybe is hopefully behind this organization now, but everything that it exposed about front office dysfunction. And I don't know how much of that was blown out of proportion or not, but they certainly have a young talent base of just promising and productive players.

There aren't many more corps that are probably better and younger than that across the league. And like you look at it and obviously like there are parts of that core that haven't yet manifested the way we want, right? Like Campbell, as you noted, had a really rough entry. Now he's down in triple A and like maybe learning first base, but there is like actualization in that core in a way that's exciting, right? And like you want these guys to really show what they can do. And some of them have been, haven't been up for very long. They have, you know, time to continue to adjust. Although

as you noted, Anthony has been playing pretty well. But yeah, it's a it's exciting. And you know, it makes the devour straight even more flummoxing to me in hindsight, I got to say every day I just think about like, why did they do that? I mean, I know, I know why, but like, why did they do that? You know, PCA peaked as a 55 future value prospect. So yeah, he was slightly better regarded. Rafaela peaked as a 50 similar profiles, although the power was really what differentiated PCA from Rafaelaella, but they had some similar warts and they've lanced them. You don't lance warts, do you? They have similar wars now, at least. Ah, from warts to war.

My God, we've done it. Well, that is fun. We will continue to follow them. And I was also thinking on the other end of the age spectrum, just a little update on Charlie Morton. He's continued to be good. He's like a top 50 pitcher or so in baseball since the start of May. He had that terrible start.

And since the start of May, he has a 3.18 ERA with a 3.32 FIP. He's been, you know, he's striking out almost 10 per nine still. He's getting some grounders. It's like, it's almost vintage Charlie Morton. And in fact, of the over 40 crowd, well, I guess Justin Verlander barely has a better war than Charlie Morton, according to... He got lit up the other day. My God. Yeah. He's still a tenth of a win ahead of Charlie Morton on the season among the over 40 pitchers crowd, which is Verlander, Morton, Scherzer, and Jesse Chavez,

who I think I will mention again later in this episode. But I feel for Verlander because he's 0-7 record-wise and that seems like it probably actually matters to him because he prides himself on his career wins. Like he wanted to get to 300s. I don't think he's going to. Certainly is not making any progress toward it, but he's at 262 and on the season, he has a better ERA than Charlie Morton does,

and even a better FIP. And yet he is 0-7 and Charlie Morton's 5-7. He's picked up five Ws that Verlander easily could have with the better timing and support and everything. So if his goal in coming back was to just keep inching, crawling closer to 300, he has made zero progress. I guess I should say he got lit up the time before that. It was the athletics who put six on him

and three innings on the fourth. He did not get out of the fourth, or the third rather, excuse me. I was going by the score against the Phillies, but he didn't give up most of those runs. Well, he gave up four, but only two of them weren't. Anyway, this has been Meg refamiliarizes herself with Justin Verlander's game log.

Looks to be actually looking up the run support quickly. I see 3.8 runs for Verlander and 3.43 runs for Morton. So it looks like Verlander has actually had better run support than Morton despite being winless. So I suppose it's probably bullpen support or something else that has come back to victimize Verlander. Yeah, it could be true. It does make the, we talked about this briefly earlier this week, but it does make the decision

to select Kershaw as like the, you you know honorary all-star a little more perplexing because it's like is Verlinder going to pitch out to him this year? I don't think I don't know if that's gonna happen. Scherzer either. Morton will just keep going forever. Not only will he outplay everyone, he'll out love us all. Yeah Kershaw you know we we think of him as not nearly the same picture anymore and he's not, obviously. He has a 3.38 ERA. Like somehow one way or another, he does manage to keep runs off the board. He's not striking out anyone anymore.

Yeah. I was about to say, how's his FIP doing? FIPS. You know, it's not that bad. I mean, it's not as disastrous as I thought it was about to say what's this? How's this fit doing? You know, I mean it's not as Disastrous as I thought it was gonna know I thought there would be better than Morton's and more than ours Yeah, it would be more than a run of difference. He has a 419 fit and And hey his exe array is only three nine seven. guy's doing great. He's not fun to watch anymore is the thing about Kershaw.

And you know, that's even before you get into some of the other stuff about him this year that we've talked about. It's like Kershaw used to be, you used to be able to delight in a Kershaw start and now it's mostly just stressful, you know? And it's making me realize how big a difference strikeout versus non really makes

in my ability to enjoy a starter. And I feel badly about that because I don't want everyone to strike out. That's boring. But you know what a nice thing about boring is? It's generally not anxious, you know? And now it feels anxious. You just feel like he's close to blowing up all the time.

That's at least how I feel. So it's just not, it's not an enjoyable viewing experience anymore. You see the effort, you can kind of feel him laboring. It's like when Maureen gets to the point in center stage where she should really stop dancing cause she's not well and her teacher says, I know it was Gallagher, it was Gallagher

as the director of the ballet famously. He's not playing himself in center stage, but he's like, I need to see the beauty of the movement, not the effort behind it. And that's how it feels with Kershaw. Very different athletes really, Maureen versus Clayton Kershaw, but that part's the same. Yeah, it's a...

Because there's sort of an art to that too, and just gritting it out when you don't have that stuff anymore, and people kind of valorize and, you know, maybe romanticize like a late career Maddox or Glavin or something, and you're just getting by on dial and command and you're sweating and yet you're still getting it done. There's something to be said for that, as opposed to just being able to blow everyone away. Like, you know, it's I know Kershaw was asked about Jacob Misrowski the other day and he was talking about like, you know, everyone throws

harder than me basically these days. And so he throws a lot harder than him, but you know, he's just like the new young gun. But it's just like, it really impresses me that Kershaw, like the last time he got any Saiyung votes was 2020. And since then, so like post-peak, even post-peak, because the last time he won a Cy Young award was, I guess 2014 was his last win, but then he had a top three and a top five and a top two. But really, like 2021 on, somehow he has still been a good pitcher. Like he has a 2.93 ERA from 2021 on when he's kind of been like throwing 90 miles per hour and semi-washed like of the, let's see, 188 pitchers who have 300 innings pitched

or more over that span. He has the 12th best ERA. It's like somehow he's just, he's made it work. And you know, it's different, I guess, even like this year and last year than 2021. And after that, it's been worse lately as he's gone on. And it's not even a Dodger Stadium thing.

Like he's 12th in park adjusted ERA too, or tied for it with like Corbin Burns and Michael King and you know, like pictures you think of as being good. So it's, you know, this is his third all star appearance in that span, even if this one is an honorary one. So that is kind of like a legend. Sometimes if it's a picture, they just, they hurt themselves. They completely tank and they don't even tack on some productive years or semi-productive years.

And he has managed to do that despite being injured, unavailable a lot of the time, a lot shakier than usual. He's still been like, you know, when they're running him out there, when he's able to be run out there, he's like, he's a credible major league starting pitcher. Yeah. And I don't mean to suggest that like, he doesn't have a place in in their rotation. And, you know, despite his availability often being limited over the last couple of years, the fact that he's available right now has

value to them that isn't captured in his stats, right. So I think that there's something to that. And I like that we admire the work, right, that we admire the willingness to grit through what is clearly not easy anymore. And I don't mean to say that like, being as good a pitcher as Kershaw was, was ever easy in like, you know, the strictest sense, but again, you can see the effort behind the movement. I think valorizing that makes sense, but it doesn't mean that it's like a super enjoyable viewing experience. Put it this way, Clayton Kershaw makes me appreciate Blake Snell. That's a problem of a sentence. That's a problem of a sentence. I'm like, when will Blake return? Please allow me to watch Blake. I'm like, I'd rather watch Robbie Ray. Robbie Ray got replaced in the All Star game, I think because of when he's pitching. And I was like, Oh, thank God, because I don't like watching that guy pitch either.

You know, it's sort of a similar like plotting problem. Catching strays. That's the greatest insults you could hurl at someone from an aesthetic pitching perspective. That's like, it's like saying some mascot makes Blooper look good or something. He's just so flesh-colored. He needs to be a color, you know? He needs to be a color. It's like, is that purposeful? Is he supposed to be like a weird human-monster hybrid? And then how does that happen? Was it like genetic engineering? Was it a, we have to clone one player enough times to field an entire baseball team out

of it, but something has gone horribly wrong in the lab and all of a sudden, oops, all blooper? Is that what happened, Ben? I think so. What is blooper's origin story? I don't actually want to know the answer. I just want it to not exist anymore. And I'm not saying that the good people inside of Blooper should lose their jobs. I'm simply saying that they should be given a less terrifying vessel

in which to ply their mascot acting trade. Do they consider themselves actors, do you think? That sounds judgmental as a question, and I don't mean it to. You know, like, is that... Do they think of themselves as actors? Performers, at least. Performer, yeah, maybe that's closer. Again, if you are a mascot performer, and you think of what you do as acting, I am not here to suggest that you are wrong.

I am simply curious about how you understand your own craft, you know? Yeah. Well, in Blooper's defense, someone has to stand up for Blooper. No, no, no one does. No one has to stand up for Blooper. The devil has enough advocates, Ben. We don't need to bring Blooper devil advocacy to this pod. What's wrong with you? He doesn't... what are you? All right, make your case. Since you are saying that he is essentially

just an abomination, that is basically his backstory. Like they're not sugarcoating what his origin story is. What is his origin story? So I'm reading here from a 2020 MLB.com story by our pal Michael Claire. I'm reading here from a 2020 MLB.com story by our pal, Michael Claire. Some writer took time to dream up that monstrosities origin story. Yes, and this piece says,

so with the Braves heading to their first NLCS since 2001, it was time to learn a little bit more about the team's big fuzzy weirdo. Blooper is a product of science run amok. Oh boy. In 2018 Atlanta put everything that makes a brave super fan into a machine and this nearly seven foot tall, five extra large shirt wearing beast is what emerged.

Wait, so he is canonically a person subjected to science experiments? Well. Or like traits of people subjected to science and then, so like he is meant to be human flesh tones. He is perhaps some sort of like. Oh my God. Okay, he's like Shrek,

but like all of his pores have ramen coming out. Jacob Masella, the Braves mascot coordinator and Blooper's very close friend told MLB.com, he loves everything to do with the Braves. He loves standard ballpark fare and that's why he's a 5XL dude. He never chills when it comes to the input of food. He doesn't have a mouth, which is strange.

I'm a man of science, but I haven't figured that out yet. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry. So I'm sorry. So I'm a man of science, but I haven't figured that out yet. Wait, wait, wait, wait, sorry. So, I'm sorry. So, part of Blooper canon is that he has an insatiable appetite for ballpark food, which is why he is the size that he is. I feel like that's a little bit problematic of a backstory, but we'll let it go. But he can't eat it because he doesn't have a mouth? Is Blooper taking the food up his...

I'm just wondering like how are we to understand... is he having... are there like ballpark suppositories? Is that ball... is there a hot dog suppository? I am so sorry everyone, but look these questions demand to be answered and in order to answer them they must first be asked that is Should I track down blooper at media day and ask him if he consumes food via suppository? He probably don't answer it again after that. But yeah, it's uh, he's kind of a he's kind of a turducken I suppose of a being he's just like Various things just thrown into some sort of meat grinder and put together.

A Turducken who probably would like Turduckens, that sounds like. Yes, he likes all sorts of food according to mlb.com slash braves slash fans slash entertainment teams slash blooper. His favorite food is seafood S-E, because if he sees food, he eats it. And also cornbread and peaches and grits and sweet tea. So he is pandering in addition to being a monster. He is a panderer. I am concerned now that this is actually a Psi-op by members of the Atlanta Braves Organization to make the people of the greater Atlanta

area distrustful of science. I am a little worried about that now. I am also worried about the existence of hot dog suppositories. But look, is this the direction you thought this would go? Not me. I love how mascot talk always takes us to the wildest frontiers of the pod, you know? And I'm not, again, I feel like these are questions that have to be asked and then answered,

but I am nervous to ask them myself because I would like to be invited back. Okay, well, that concludes our blooper discussion. Possibly, you never know. Possibly, who knows? The last thing that I wanted to banter about before I share some stat blasts. So Lee

Elia died at 87. Baseball lifer did everything in the game and if anyone knows anything about Lee Elia or if you read Lee Elia's obits they are going to mention three minutes of his life which is the rant that he went on when he was the manager of the Cubs, which was caught by a radio reporter and memorialized forever and is on YouTube many different videos. It's just like a legendary manager blow up. And that's basically what he is known for. Like the athletic has an obit for him. The headline is Lee Elia, former major league manager remembered for profane rant dies at 87. Yeah. And I wonder, he knew I'm sure that that is what the headline of his obit would say. Yeah. Because you know,

this was famous, infamous, notorious for decades really. And like that's even the first paragraph. He managed the Phillies and Cubs for two seasons apiece, but is perhaps best known for a profane post-game rant critical of Chicago fans. He was a big leaguer. He wasn't a particularly distinguished big leaguer, but he made it as a player. And then he managed a couple of teams and he was a coach and

he was a special assistant. He was in baseball for 60 years or more, just like minor league manager, major league manager, scout, everything, right? He did it all. And that three minutes, that is basically what he will be remembered for. And I wonder what that was like. Like he was asked about it later in life a number of times. And he kind of had embraced it to some extent. Like he said, he wished that it hadn't happened. Like he wished he hadn't done it, but also he kind of came to appreciate

that people cared about this, or like, you know, people would tease him about it, or people would bring it up, and they still remembered it. Like, you know, after all this time, it's kind of divorced from its context, and it's not like anyone's really offended about it anymore. And it's just one of those fun baseball things. I mean, this is more than 40 years ago,

it was April 29th, 1983. But you live for 87 years and three minutes, three minutes leads your obit. And it's not like the best three minutes of your life. I mean, I guess many athletes, probably their obit will lead with something that maybe took even less time than three minutes. Just like some big home run they hit, some big goal they scored,

some basket they made. But it's such a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of your life. And also in this case, it was not a fraction of your life that really reflects well on you or is even representative of who you were as a whole. And I guess you just gotta embrace it. Like I feel like we've answered emails before where we've kind of touched on,

would you rather just be forgotten or remembered for something along those lines? Maybe it doesn't even matter once you're gone, you're not even aware of whether anyone is remembering you or not, but you are pre-aware of what your legacy will be, and so I don't know. Like most people are just forgotten by most people or never known, and even the most famous people

are forgotten eventually, but is this a good legacy? Would this bother you if you're on your deathbed knowing that someone's prepping your obit Even the most famous people are forgotten eventually, but is this a good legacy? Would this bother you if you're on your deathbed knowing that someone's prepping your obit to talk about the three minute rant you went on 40 plus years ago? I mean, I guess it would depend on the content of the rant, you know?

It was a great rant, so. It was a great rant, and I think you're right that it wasn't one that people like I could imagine Rants that you would be haunted by right? Yeah. Yes And and perhaps haunted by like moments after they've been delivered I think that he had you know, he did have a career after that He made an impact on a lot of organizations and players, and I wouldn't necessarily love it.

I don't know that I would be bothered. I do think that the legacies that you should, this isn't a complete thought, right? I haven't really thought about legacy that much. I am 39, but I'm only 39. I think that like the people whose opinions matter the most to you and who you kind of think about legacy in terms of should probably be people who have a context for you beyond like a three minute episode, right? But yeah, it would be it would be an odd thing to see a life's work reduced to that. And I think you just have to find your way to like the confidence and peace of knowing

that like that's not, that might be what leads the, the O bit, but that isn't the sum total of your work really, you know, and the reverberations of your work are being felt in players who you've helped to coach and manage and influence and you know, the, all the work that they do, the, the moments that they have, which stretch hopefully beyond three minutes, right? So I don't know. Yeah, one of the statements in this piece, Dan Wilson, Mariners manager, said, Lee was special, baseball has lost a giant,

a great baseball man, and an even better human. I saw that Bailey from Fluish Baseball tweeted or blue-skied that observation the other day about how all these guys cannot possibly be better humans than they are players because they were really good players. We bantered about that at some point. That was that was an effectively wild first over here. I don't think we went viral for it.

We like Bailey, but yeah, baseball has lost a giant, a great baseball man and even better human. He was like a father to me and taught me how to be a big leaguer. Known to most of us as Uncle Lee for his kind demeanor and the love he showed everyone. We will all miss him dearly. So that's because if you know nothing, if you don't know him personally, you're probably thinking this guy's like a total hothead.

And this statement, I don't know if it was almost intended as a corrective to that. Like, no, that wasn't who he was. Like any of us are our worst three minutes or angriest three minutes. If that somehow got recorded and we were well known enough that it went viral and got preserved for all time. And, you know, I'm sure that many a managerial rant, there are a few famous ones, but most of them don't get recorded and don't get published. And I think he was sort of surprised that this one did and it had this long afterlife. But it wasn't even like that's who he was, I guess.

Like he wasn't even a Billy Martin or a Larry Boa or someone who was known for being really fiery. It was just this one moment and you know, the context, like the Cubs were off to, I think, a 5-14 start, and they had been booed by their home fans that day, and, like, you know, lots of personal abuse heaped on players and everything. And things were kind of looking up for the Cubs. Like, they were good the year after that. They had this young core that was coming together,

and so he was frustrated that the fans were realizing the progress that the organization was making. And they just had a tough loss, a one run loss. And it was just, it was a moment. And he threw off the handle a little bit. And it's just a legendary rant. And as you were saying there, it's not like he said something cancelable

or like truly reprehensible or he's like dropping slurs or something, you know? Yeah, yeah. He was dropping F-bombs left and right and center, but I think, I think he had 33 F-bombs in this, like, I think someone counted it was like 448 words and 39 of them were some sort of profanity. I guess 33 F-bombs. So it was like, you know, one of every 11 words

is a good ratio, I guess. And of course the thing that he took heat for at the time was that he got on Cubs fans, basically said that like, if you were at a day game at Wrigley, and of course they had a lot of day games, then like get a job basically. He was like, the expletive don't even work. That's why they're out at the expletive game.

They ought to go and get an expletive job and find out what it's like to go out and earn an expletive living. 85% of the expletive world is working. The other 15% come out here. An expletive playground for the expletive world is working, the other 15% come out here. An expletive playground for the expletive. Yeah. All these so-called fans that come out here and say they're come fans that are supposed to be behind it, ripping every thing you do.

I'll tell you one thing. I hope we get just to stuff it up s*** Just to stuff it up then 3,000 f***ing people that show up every f***ing day Because if they're the real Chicago f***ing fans, they can kiss my f***ing ass right downtown and print it! My f***ing ass What the f*** am I supposed to do? Go out there and let my f***ing players get destroyed every day and be quiet about it? For the f***ing nickel-dye people that show up? The f***ers don't even work! That's why they're out of f***ing game! They want to go out and get a f***ing job and find out what it's like to go out there and f***ing live it!

85% of the f***ing world's working! The other 15 come out here! The f***ing playground's right here. Yeah, so, you know, that didn't go over well with the home faithful, but then I guess nothing was at that time. It's always a bad move for a team to criticize its fans, even if they have a point. I mean, you know, if they're singling out a single fan who said something terrible, okay, but if they're like, every now and then a manager or an executive or a player will question the team's support

from its fans, you know, like, why aren't people buying tickets? Why aren't people coming to see us? And even if they kind of have a point that never really resonates, you know, it's never like the fan base is chastened and it's like, oh, yes, we should support this team more. Let's go out and buy some tickets to show them. We love them. That's never how that goes over. No, it's definitely not. I had forgotten the job part. The job part's not awesome, you know? It's not the best, but the way that people in the game

are gonna react to a guy who's, like, biggest negative moment is directed externally toward fans is just going to be different than it would be if he had criticized his own players or his own organization. I bet that, I'm not saying that this was great behavior or anything like that, and I don't think it's awesome to fly off the handle at fans, even if he might have a point about this, that, or the other thing. But I bet that this red is standing up for his guys to a lot of people.

Oh yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. Yeah. And ballplayers like it when their managers do that, even if they do it in a way that isn't particularly graceful. So I don't know. We all have bad days. I also think that, I don't mean to suggest that if this happened today, it wouldn have bad days. I also think that, like, I don't mean to suggest

that if this happened today, it wouldn't get attention, it absolutely would, but I also think that, you know, it would be, it was definitely more shocking in that era than it would be now, I imagine. Yeah, that's probably true. I mean, this was, you know, posts. Part of it is the swearing, you know? We're just like, you can say shit on TV now, Ben, you know, post... Part of it is the swearing, you know? We're just like, you can say s*** on TV now, Ben.

You know? That's crazy. Yeah, I guess the fact that it was audio too, that was part of it. So that you could hear it for yourself as if you were right there in the room. Because this was like, you know, well, post-ball four. It wasn't like people didn't report on the dirty details and the see me side at this point, but it's true. Like probably at the time there was a higher tolerance for just, you know, work in blue like this and managers were all fiery and gritty

and you know, there was tolerance of berating players and reporters and all the rest of it. And so it's true, like now it wouldn't really resonate in the grand scheme of things because just there's so much to distract us from every story and so much that's worse than that out there. But also, managers so rarely say anything interesting these days. They're so kind of corporate speak and even keeled for the most part that when Dave Martinez says that coaches never do anything wrong or you can never blame coaches or, you know, Ron Washington product of an earlier era will come out and say some things sometimes that

were like, really, watch you said that. But it's nowhere near only Ilya. Like even if you have an Aaron Boone, who's probably saying things along these lines when he's in the process of getting thrown out, then when he's in the press conference, usually it's very boring and kind of low energy. So in a way that's almost frustrating for fans

because they want to see that emotion, you know? And fans would probably even appreciate it if the manager were ranting about the poor play of the team, even though that wouldn't go over well in the clubhouse, they'd want to feel like, oh, he's as upset about this as we are. Yeah, I think you're right that we draw distinctions between on-field behavior and sort of like media availability behavior But it's funny because people see the on-field behavior a lot more Yeah, so isn't that where we would prefer people be decorous?

As opposed to Aaron Boone who I have said by way of trying to comfort Red Sox fans is an embarrassment and a bad influence on children. Yeah, you got to control yourself at some point. What are you? What are you? Some failed science experiment of fans? I cannot believe that that is the lore associated with this. Lab created science run amok. Yeah. Right. What does Blooper understand Blooper's like species to be? Does Blooper, it's very uncomfortable. Yeah. Like is Blooper just like some new species?

Like in species? The horror film Species? Maybe it's some kind of lab leak escape containment, the CDC's in Atlanta. We can't be doing this nonsense in amusing context. We have to deal with it in less amusing ones. To be clear, I'm not saying that that's what I... Ilya said decades later in one story,

I made some comments that I don't even know how they came out of my mouth, because they were not comments that I normally would make. Never in my wildest dreams did I think somebody would run out of there and put it on the air. And yeah, maybe there was a little bit more sort of a standard of like what stays in the clubhouse, or what's said in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse,

I guess. Maybe there were just fewer people with mics and cameras and everything. So now you just think, oh, everyone's got a digital recorder and that would be just on the internet immediately after they leave the clubhouse if I say something like this. Often I'm suspicious and skeptical when someone says,

oh, I would never say something like this. Like, this is not reflective of who I am. So often that comes out after someone drops a slur or something. And then it's like, so this was the one time that you did that then? And you were just comfortably saying that because you were angry.

It doesn't seem like everyone else just gets angry and starts dropping slurs left and right. F-bombs, yes. Slurs, not so much. But, you know, again, this was not slurs. But, yeah, I guess if he was kind of a nice guy who was more even-tempered typically, then maybe it was actually a rare lapse. But he also said,

I think there's a little bit of a leave Ilya fan base up there in Chicago. I guess after 20 years years you can look back and say a lot of good has come out of it. A lot of fun has been made out of me. No matter where I go, I couldn't be treated any better. People come up and they say, Hey Lee, how you going? I'm a working Cubs fan or something like that. So in a way it's kind of nice. If I could, I'd wish it didn't happen. That's so funny. I'm a working Cubs fan.

That's great. Another time he said, I know it will never change, but I hope it's a little softened now. I hope there's some warmness over it now. I hope they understand. And I guess, you know, maybe you wouldn't even get an obit if not for that. And maybe that obit, people learn a little bit more about you and your career and your whole life

in baseball and everything else that you accomplished that, hey, this man was more than a three-minute rant. And so that's just the thing that kind of gets the headline and then some people maybe read beyond the headline. Right. And I will say that like as I have seen that rant reposted places, right? Because there are like YouTubes of it and all this stuff. Like it is being described as classic. That's the word I've seen the most, classic. And so I do think that people now, you know, and I'm sure the mileage varies with Cubs fans,

although it sounds like at least a couple of them have a sense of humor about the whole thing. That like the way that it is being like metabolized now is not as like, I can't believe this guy, right? There's not pearl clutching around it. There's like, oh my God, like get a load of this. So I don't think- If anything nostalgia, like, oh, that's when

you can say what you felt or whatever, you know, not everyone was corporate buzz speak, watering down sort of thing. Yes, there is an authenticity to it that I think in an age where a lot of, not just like managers but like on down to draft prospects are like media trained to within an inch of their wives, having moments of authenticity, I think, does resonate with people even when it is largely negative because you're operating at a remove from whatever moment it was. And so you're not like, even if you're a Cubs fan, I can't imagine that you're still

ruminating over how that particular moment in Cubs history felt. Like you've moved on to other stuff. Yeah, you won your World Series finally. Right, you want to, right, you have that sort of, you know, you've gotten that off your back and so you're just not as, I imagine, like, it's not re-stimulating, right, like it doesn't serve that function in your emotional experience and so you can just be like, oh yeah, like this is how people used to talk and look there I think there are good reasons to not be like super into dropping 30 f-bombs in three minutes at work You know, I don't I don't think this is like, oh we've gotten soft

Yeah, or anything like that in much the same way that I'm like not I'm not like advancing the lab leak I want to make that clear. I listen to the books kick. books, I know what's up. But it's just like a genuine frustration. And again, I think because it is in defense of his guys, like it feels all the more authentic, right? You know, because it's like, hey, we're we're trying to do something here. Get get wise and get a job. do something here. Get wise and get a job. Yes. Okay. Well, we can do some statblasting here and that will take us to the end of this week. Okay, so here are a couple quick ones as a warm up. And some of these came from the StatBlast channel of the Effectively Wild Discord group where you can often get some smart folks who are capable queriers to answer these questions for you. But one Patreon supporter who goes by Juustane said,

said, said, Andre Grinio of the Cardinals recorded his first career win, save and strikeout all in the same day today in the Cardinals double header with the White Sox. Has this ever happened before? And Michael Mountain, somewhat frequent stat blast consultant who helped with a bunch of these stat blasts today, says, I think this is a first.

Jim Donahue of the 1961 Tigers got his first career win and save on the same day, April 23rd, but those were his second and third career pitching appearances and he notched a strikeout in his first game, April 11th. Same for Harry Smythe for the 1929 Phillies. So Grinio, he filled up those three stat categories all in one day and that appears to be a first. I guess did he pitch, he pitched in both ends of the double header though. So I mean, I guess that he would have had to, right, to get the win and the save.

So he got the win in the first game, and then he got the strikeout and the save in the second game. So I guess that's the only way you're going to do it. So that's not a cheat or anything. So that appears to be a first. And then Triscuit, Patreon user, says, John Carlos Stanton just hit his first career pinch hit home run. Much to the dismay of the Mariners that came in that game, that Wu left with a lead,

and then I think Stanton's homer made it five to three, and then they ended up blowing the rest of the lead and losing six-five, rough. But... BLEH! BLEH! Triscuit wants to know, does John Carlos Stanton have the most home runs ever at the time of his first pinch hit homer? So this, this vaguely ring a bell. I don't know whether we have covered this before, but that was John Carlos Stanton's, let's see his

That was John Carlos Danton's, let's see, his 432nd homerun. So I guess he had 431 before he hit that pinch hit homerun. Is that the most at the time of one's first pinch hit homer? No, it is not. Michael Mountain again to the rescue. He found that there are actually five guys who had more career homers before their first pinch hit homer. Mel Ott, that was number 463 for

him. Nelson Cruz was number 460. Frank Robinson 536. Manny Ramirez 538. And Alex Rodriguez, his first pinch hit home run was number 669. That's pretty impressive. I mean, I guess number 669. That's pretty impressive. I mean, I guess when you're that good, you're probably not pinch hitting that often because you are just hitting. You're starting, right? Like how often did A-Rod even have to pinch hit

because he just played a lot. Played a lot. Yeah, okay. All right, here's a question that is fairly timely. This is from West, a Patreon supporter, I believe. My dad and I were discussing random big leaguers over the July 4th barbecue, and he brought up biff pock-a-roba.

I hope that I'm... We don't have enough biffs anymore, really. I think we should have more Biff's. I guess maybe it's Pokoroba, Biff Pokoroba. Do you think the Back to the Future ruined Biff as a name? I think so, I think so actually. I think people are like, nah, I can't be Biff. Biff sucks, Biff Tandon's the worst.

Yeah, there are only two big league Biff's. There's Biff Pokoroba and there's Biff Weissong who played in the early 30s. Pokorova was in the 70s and 80s and his given name was Biff. He was Biff Benedict Pokorova. How about that? I kinda-

Biff Benedict. Yeah, I guess I thought that Biff was a nickname and if you would ask me what it was a nickname for, I would have had no idea. Biff Wysong, his given name was Harlan. Harlan, that's like an actual name. Biff. Yeah, well it's.

Biffed. Like if you biff something, isn't that like saying, you goofed it, you did it. Yes, I biffed it, yeah. I biffed it. I biffed. Yeah, I guess it can be a nickname for Clifford, but how do you get?

How do you get there? Biff, biff. Cliff, I understand. Clifford to Biff? You're going backwards in the alphabet. You're going back to the future. So Biff, yeah, Biff Tannen from Back to the Future. His name was Buford, Buford Howard Tannen.

That makes way more sense. I mean, I guess. First letter. Buford to Biff. I just don't think that Biff should be a name. I don't, sorry to all the Biffs out there. If you're named Biff, I doubt that there are any babies born

after Back to the Future who people were like, we gotta call this kid Biff, you know? How he was just like a small time monster in this. Not a big time monster like Blooper, small time monster. Well, West wants to know, we were discussing unlikely home run hitters. My dad was convinced that Biff Pokeroba hit less than a home run per season on average,

but in reality he hit 2.1. But what caught my eye on his player page on baseball reference is he was an all-star in his lowest war season in 1978. That feels like a fun stat blast for the all-star break. Who else was an all-star in their worst season by war? Besides the recent honorary all-stars. What about for people who had only one appearance

that was their worst season by war? So Michael Mountain again crunched the numbers on this. He writes, I found 3616 player seasons for ALNL position player all-star selections from 1933, first all-star game to 2024, with 1155 different players being selected during that time. 29 players received an All-Star selection during the season in which they had their lowest career fan graphs war. That includes 2018 Wilson Contreras, 1.0 fan graphs war, whose baseball reference war total was significantly higher, suggesting a framing deficiency that was

likely not considered strongly by All-Star voters. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah, 2018 was also not his lowest baseball reference war season, so he wouldn't show up on this list if you use that source instead. Three other active players also appear on the list. 2023, Salvador Perez, negative 0.3, FanGraphs were also his lowest baseball reference

war season, 2024, Adley Rutchman, and 2024, Jackson Merrill. I would expect both Rutchman and Merrill and maybe even Salvi to play their way off this list in the future by having a worse season in which they are not all-star selections. Miguel Cabrera's legacy inclusion from 2022 also appears. So that leaves 24 names of retired players who were legitimately selected in their worst season. of retired players who were legitimately selected in their worst season. Biff Pokeroba is not on this list as Fangrass rates his 1981 season as his worst overall at negative.9 F-WAR rather than his negative.6 F-WAR All-Star season in 78.

Other than Jackson Merrill, only three of these players were named to just a single All-Star game in their entire careers. Ray Lamano of the 1946 Reds, not Romano. Hey, my voice. I can't do Romano. I can't, I can, but it takes like a long time to warm up and I'm not going to subject anyone to that. I've already made them think about hot dogs.

I feel like it might end up being similar to your Jimmy Stewart if we were to hear it. No, it's a different, wow. I am offended, I am appalled. My Jimmy Stewart is pitch perfect. Take that back, my God. Okay, so it's Ray Lamano, Grady Hatton of the 1952 Reds, both Reds, and then Billy Hunter of the 1953 St. Louis Browns. Hatton was the lone Reds representative in the All-Star game in 1952. Billy Hunter

was the only Browns position player, although Satchel Paige was also representing the club in his second integrated All-Star game appearance. Ironically, Grady Hatton was the best player on the 1946 Reds, but was passed over that year in favor of LaMano shortstop Eddie Miller and pitcher Yule Blackwell. There was, for a time, there was an era when there were multiple all-star games. So I don't know whether this was those years, because maybe that would lower the bar for selection.

I'd have to check. But yeah, it was all in the same range there. Actually, Billy Hunter, that name stood out to me because he just died the other day, RIP Billy Hunter. He was the last surviving St. Louis Brown. And he just died at 97. RIP and D... Wow, good long life. I mean, I guess, yeah, would have to be, but wow.

Yeah, should have had him on the pod. Every time I see him, player pass, I think. Could have been ineffectively well. Cold call, missed my chance, but Billy Hunter has no three-minute rant to be remembered by, but he did a lot of other things, including appear in this staff last for having been an All-Star one time in not such a great season for him. There is no three-minute rant to be remembered by, but he did a lot of other things, including appear in this stat blast for having been an All-Star one time in not such a great season

for him. Although it does happen, Michael continues most recently to Jazz Chisholm in 2022 and Mike Trout in 2021, it is exceedingly rare for a position player All-Star to finish the season with fewer than 300 plate appearances. If you restrict the search space for a player's worst season to checking only years of 300 played appearances or more, then 53 additional players also show up as all-stars in their worst full season. So this is, you know, because you could have a worst season where you just barely played, right? But this is like you

were actually playing and not so good. Right. And so, yes, if you filter it this way, then 53 additional players show up as Oscars in their worst full season, including Biff Pokeroba. Biff. Billy Grubar- Oh boy. Billy Grubarkowitz. Brr- Wait. Grubarkowitz. Brr-Barkowitz?

Brr-Garkowitz. Brr-What? Grubarkowicz? Grubarkowicz? Grubarkowicz? Grubarkowicz? Grubarkowicz? Grubarkowicz. Yeah, Billy Grubarkowicz's remarkable 1970 season also shows up here. Grubarkowicz. I'm going to crack myself up. Grubarkowicz. Yeah, we are, we are remarking on it, at least right now.

At age 24, he was coming off a sub replacement level 70 plate appearances in his rookie season of 1969. He put up 6.1 FanGraphs War as the Dodgers third baseman in 1970 made the All-Star team and then after the All-Star break his strikeout rate ballooned and his batting average plummeted. First half pre All-Star break OPS 944 post All-Star break 750PS 944, post-All-Star break 750. Further hampered by injuries, he struggled through five more seasons in the Bigs, but never managed to reach the 300-plate appearance threshold again, thus making this 6.1 FanGraphs War mark his worst full season. Of these 53 additional names, 10 are one-time only All-Star selections.

Berthas, 1947 Reds. Man, those 40s and 50s Reds, they're all over the place on this list. Eddie Kazak, 1949 Cardinals, only season reaching 300 PA. Another Red, George Crowe, 1958 Reds, though he did play in a Negro league all-star game in 1948. The aforementioned Billy Grabarkowitz. Jerry Moses, 1970 Red Sox, Biff Pokeroba, 78 for Atlanta, Dave Engel, 84 Twins, Brian LaHare, 2012 Cubs. That's one of those that

I was thinking of the other day for in the category of like that guy was an All-Star. That was a weird kind of fluky random All-Star season. Jordan Westberg for the 2024 Orioles, so only season so far reaching 300 plate appearances and David Frye for last year's Guardians. In addition to Westberg and Frye, other active players who are likely to play their way off this list are Ronald Acuna Jr., Pete Alonso and Will Smith.

Will Smith is having a fantastic season. This year, man, he's been so good. He's hit really well. Yeah, I think that you would be silly to look at the sort of like catcher wide stats, like league wide stats and be like, oh, let's just leave Cal in there and assume everyone's doing well. But he is not the only catcher who is having a really terrific season at the plate. Yeah, yeah, if not for Cal, we'd be talking about Will Smith and his 174. 174? Yes, 326. Yeah. 435, 48. And that's, I mean, that's his best season. And that's, that's a real bounce back because his bat has been steadily declining. And it was like kind of concerning because the Dodgers signed him to a long-term extension

and he's 30 and his bat was like barely above average last year. And meanwhile, his framing took a hit which has continued to be the case. But when you have a 174 WRC plus, it's okay if you're not a great framer. You're more than making up for it. Yeah.

I, but he was dinged up last year, right? Didn't he have a Yeah, I guess, yeah. Wrist or a thumb or a finger or a foot or a hip or something? He's leading the National League in batting average and on base percentage. That's amazing. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah. We actually, speaking of David Fry in this context, we got an email from Patreon supporter

Charlie who said, related to the discussion of all-stars who are strange to have made the game, I fear that David Frye will become one such player. He was, as John Cruick put it, in the Nitro Zone for the first half of 2024, but he did so by well outperforming any projection for him before or since. Just a really kind of funny guy to have made an all-star game no matter how deserving it might have been for his performance at the time. And you know, he had some big hits and clutch playoff hits and all the rest. But yeah, he was, he was also, he was old for a first time All-Star. I remember looking that up and maybe answering a question about it at the time. And yeah,

that did kind of come out of nowhere. Yeah. But the thing about it is it was fun though. And what, you know, what are you going to do except have a little bit of fun with David Fry? They needed Thump and he provided it to them. That's exciting. That's what they needed. David Fry. Wow. I forget. I don't know whether I answered this on the show, but I just searched our inbox here, our mailbag, and I found an email from Max

July 12th, 2024. So almost exactly a year ago with the subject line, Hey, now you're an All-Star. And it was prompted by David Fry, who was technically a rookie. And yeah, he asked, I can't imagine many, if any rookies have made the All-Star team as a position player this old, usually if he has All-Star talent, they're up earlier, they're coming from another professional league. Is this the oldest rookie to have become an All-Star in their rookie year? And I sent him a couple stat head queries about that. And Don Johnson for the 1944 Cubs, age 32, he was the oldest.

But then after that, it was like Kosuke Fukudome and Hideki Matsui, you know, guys who'd played professionally elsewhere. And then Greg Olson, 1990, Toby Atwell in 1952. But yeah, 29, 28. That's other than that Don Johnson year, that's about it. And then on the pitching side, Rolando Orojo in 1998, he was 32 and he was runner-up Rookie of the Year that year. Brendan Donnelly for the Angels in 2003 was 31 and then Hideki Okajima and Shota Imanaka and Kodai Senga. So yeah. Yeah. Alright, next stop last question comes to us from EJ35, Patreon supporter in the Discord group. I have an interesting query.

In the Tigers versus Guardians game today, the Tigers scored six runs on the first 10 pitches of the top of the 10th. There was a zombie runner on base to start, of course, but what is the most runs scored by a team in the first 10 pitches of an inning, or fewer than 10, if that makes it look cooler. Michael looks this up and of course we have the pitch by pitch data going back to 1988 and Michael says I think

this is a record. Another record. You can ring the bell, set off the sign, raise the alarm. We've got another record here. Michael says I found two half innings in my retro sheet data where a team scored five runs in the first 10 pitches thrown. So 2000 A's top of the seventh against Kansas city. They went Homer, single, single, three run Homer, pop out Homer. And then 1985 twins bottom of the first against Baltimore, single, RBI double, RBI double, RBI double, two run homer in nine pitches. However, note that this game proceeds the era of widespread pitch tracking, 1988 to present, and thus may not be fully accurate.

Four runs on the first four pitches of the inning has happened once. 1998 Tigers in the top of the seventh against the Twins, all first pitch swinging, obviously, leadoff homer, single, single, three run homer. And I also found 15 instances of zombie runner era teams hitting a home run on the first pitch of an extra inning, thus scoring two runs on the first pitch of an inning,

which is a blooper-esque abomination. But yes, this was a first to score six runs on the first 10 pitches of an inning. Just absolutely blitzed them. So zombie runner assisted, but nonetheless still pretty special. All right. This is a classic, this seems weird. Is this weird question?

Always enjoy when, when one of those does turn out to be weird. Andrew M, Patreon supporter says, who has been the final out of a loss for a team most often in a season? Either raw number or as a percentage of total losses. So Michael said, kind of hard to check who made the final out, but the player who was at the plate when the final out was made in the most team losses for a single season is Javier Valentin for the 2008 Reds. It happened to him 20 times. So 20 times he was just standing at the plate, maybe making the out himself or another out

made while he was out at the plate and just helpless to prevent it. Runners up Ed Charles for the 1964 Kansas City A's 19 times and Jose Valentine, different Valentine for the 1996 Brewers 18 times. So as Andrew noted, four major league Valentines and two show up at the top of this list. And the list and the 1964 A's were very bad but the 96 Brewers and 2008 Reds were only 82 and 88 lost teams which kind of makes that more impressive in a way. You'd think if you were going to have the record for just being at the plate, being a bystander or being actively committing and out at the end of a loss, it would help to play for a team that had a ton of losses, but evidently not. They weren't really that bad, but they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Okay, here's one from listener user Gray, who says,

what's the biggest difference between a team's winning percentage in one run games compared to overall winning percentage across an entire season. So as we know, the winning percentage in a one run game can fluctuate a lot, can be quite random. There's, I think there's a slight correlation between your quality in non one run games and your record in one run games,

but it's very low correlation as we know that just varies a lot. So you can have teams that are bad that have great one run records or teams that have great one run records that are bad overall. So Michael determined the most clutch teams by this measure. So their one run game winning percentage

is higher than their full season winning percentage. The all time record is the 1877 Cincinnati Reds were not the same franchise as the current Cincinnati Reds, but 267 season winning percentage, 563 in their one run games, but they only had eight-run games. So maybe that's a little less impressive, but in the modern era, 20th century or later record, the 1974 San Diego Padres, 370 season winning percentage, 660 in their 47 one-run games. That's, how would you feel if you were a 1974 Padre

and you can win all the close ones, but none of the not close ones? Would you feel better about yourself or worse? I would feel stressed, I think mostly. Like, can you imagine your only release comes in super tight contests, and then the rest of the time, you're just like languishing in a loss?

That would be terrible. Yeah, it would be, but then I'd almost, I'd feel more frustrated, I guess, about the other games. Because even if I might tell myself, oh, it's kind of random, I think players don't often feel that way. They feel like, oh, we gutted out the close ones. That's something to do with our makeup and our desire and our want.

And so it would be a weird thing if you were like really clutch, but then terrible all the other times. I don't know. I don't know what I would make of that. But yeah, that is the record. And then the 21st century record is the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who of course were truly terrible. Yeah.

But 265 season winning percentage, 514 in their 37 one run games. I guess the worse you are in a full season basis, the easier it is to show up on this list because the one run games is a much smaller sample and that can fluctuate a lot. And then the least clutch teams, so their one run game winning percentage is lower than their full season winning percentage. All time record is the 1876 Chicago White Stockings, AKA the Future Cubs, 788 season winning percentage, 400 in their one run games, but that was just 10 games.

They didn't play as many back then. The modern 20th century or later record, the 1948 Cleveland Proto Guardians, World Series winners, the last Cleveland champions, 625 season winning percentage, 339 in their 31 run games, but I guess they won when it counted. And then 21st century record, the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, 574 season winning percentage, 349 Toronto Blue Jays 574 season winning percentage, 349 in their 43 one run games. And I will include the spreadsheet for a lot of these things, but in the spreadsheet, Michael made columns showing how each winning percentage would translate to a raw win total in a 162 game season.

So the 2015 Blue Jays were sort of a 93 win team, but in one run games, they played like a 57 win team. And you know, since this question was prompted by an observation about the 2023 Padres who were quite weird themselves, it's worth noting that they are ninth all time on the least clutch list, just behind those 2015 Blue Jays

for least clutch team of the 21st century and fourth worst since integration. Okay, penultimate stat blast was along those lines and this was one that I asked about because there was this tweet by a Chris Ferreira who said, the Orioles, Twins, Rangers, Marlins, Nationals, and Pirates are a combined 55 games under 500 this season. The Angels have lost every series against all of them, with a combined 4 and 17 record against all of them. So that's weird, because as we noted, the Angels have not been bad, but they've been

really bad against other bad teams. And so I just wanted to know who the most like backwards records teams are, like good against bad teams, bad against good teams, that kind of thing. So Michael, look that one up too. And the answer is the 1878 Red Stockings show up here. They were 694 against good teams The answer is the 1878 red stockings show up here. They were 694 against good teams and 500 against bad teams. So that's a split of 194 points of winning percentage.

And Michael did this the way that Baseball Reference does it in their split against, they break it down, like below 500 teams and then 500 or better teams. And they do it at the end of the season, which I think is probably the better way to do it. Like not were they over 500 when you played them, but did they finish the season over 500, which should be more telling of team quality probably.

So the modern era record though, and a recent one, the 2016 Rangers, they were 659 winning percentage against the good teams and 493 against the bad teams for a split of 166 points of winning percentage. So that's also gotta be a weird one. What do you think that would do to your mentality? They were 35 and 36 against teams that finished below 500. And then they were 60 and 31 against teams that finished 500 or better. So like the parts of the schedule that you'd say, oh, this should be a cakewalk was just the opposite. And then the ones where you're dreading this road trip against a bunch of good teams, they were dominant against those teams.

Well, there you go. I don't, like, would you think to yourself, like, we rise to the occasion? Like, as far as I know, I think I've seen studies or questions to this effect, like, is this predictive at all? If you're a team that's beating up on a bunch of bad teams, does that bode ill for your chances in the

playoffs? Let's say when you're only going to be facing winning teams, like I think it doesn't matter really, or it doesn't matter very much because it's just, you know, it's not really huge samples or anything. I think it's not super predictive. Those Rangers though, they went 95 and 67, they won the AL West, and then they got swept by the Blue Jays in the division series. So all season long, they're like, yeah, we can totally handle the good teams. It's the bad teams that are our weakness somehow. And then they get to the playoffs and it's three and out. I guess that I would feel satisfaction like defeating a team that's very good, but I don't

know that I would make more out of losing any one individual game than I would otherwise because we just know that on an individual game basis, like good teams do lose to bad teams. That happens, you know, if you're losing to like the Rockies, maybe you feel differently in a season like this where you have extreme sort of outlier performance on, on the low end. But I think that if you lose to like a team that's, you know, a couple of games under 500 or whatever, I don't know if that washes over you in quite the, in a particularly different way than it would otherwise, you know, I just don't know.

Yeah. All right. And then the 2010 Cardinals were next on the list with a 136 point winning percentage split. 1979 Giants, 1932 Reds, 98 Twins. I will put the spreadsheet online. All right. And then lastly, this was one that I got curious about

and figured out myself with some help from Jessie, my wife, and her Excel power pivot expertise. I saw that Billy McKinney had been in the big leagues again briefly. And at some point I remember saying, I know that recently I talked about Andrew Benentendi as the new face of replacement level because he's just been so consistently replacement level.

But prior to that, I had suggested that Billy McKinney might be the better choice because he just kept getting signed by teams and then very quickly actually replaced. Like he is like the literal replacement and he tends to just be brought in. It's like break glass in case of McKinney basically, or like, I guess McKinney's, yeah, who comes out of the glass once you break it.

And he just has these short stints and doesn't do very much. And then he's on to the next stop. So Billy McKinney, he's 30 years old. He has played 323 games in the big leagues, almost a thousand played appearances, negative 0.6 career war. And he's played for a bunch of teams. And so they keep just deciding,

yeah, I guess we'll go get McKinney. We need someone. He's played for the Blue Jays, the Yankees, the Brewers, the Mets, the Dodgers, the A's, the Pirates and the Rangers. That is eight teams he's played for in the big leagues. And mostly they cast him loose pretty quickly. So I just, I saw that, you know, he went on waivers

like the Rangers had him and then he was available. And then I think they have subsequently resigned him to a minor league contract. They just they brought him up very quickly because Evan Carter was on bereavement leave and so they just briefly promoted Billy McKinney. He played a couple times and that was that. He was actually hitting quite well at AAA Round Rock so good for him but yeah he he's kind of the guy who comes up when you need someone. So I found that he has had seven stints now, or he's had stints with seven different teams where he was sub replacement level. And I thought that's got to be some sort of record because I get that you go get someone

like that when you need him, but like after he keeps playing at replacement level, do you keep selecting that guy over and over? And he's actually played for some good teams too. Like he's been with the Blue Jays, he's been with the Yankees, the Brewers, the Mets, the Dodgers, like these are contending teams that he's been with often and they keep signing him.

So I just wanted to know what is the most sub replacement level stints that anyone has ever had. And I just looked at it like individual seasons, so not across seasons. How many distinct unique teams have you played for in a season and been replacement level in that season? And Billy McKinney, not a record as it turns out. Seven, it's up there. But in fact, there are 10 players who have had eight or more. There's a many way tie

for seven. There are nine guys who have had sub replacement level seasons for eight different teams. Five of them played in the Negro leagues, Wilson Reedus, Clarence Palm, Candy Gin Taylor, Harry Jeffries, and Leroy Morney. And, you know, there was maybe more movement in those leagues and shorter seasons and everything, so maybe it was a little easier for that to happen. Of the ALNL guys, of the others on this list, we have Tommy Davis, who was actually a pretty good player on the whole, but he did have many sub-replacement level stints.

Ross Detweiler, recent pitcher. Kevin Jarvis and Miguel Batista. They were all eight sub-re sub replacement level stint team guys, but there is one guy who has had nine, a record nine. So like Miguel Batista, for instance, he did it for the Braves, the Cubs, the Pirates, the Expos, the Mets, the Nationals, the Cardinals, the Royals, the Mariners. That's a lot of teams, but number one, the most replacement level guy, the most replaced, the sub replacement level, I don't know, we need a name or a title or something,

but it is a player I mentioned earlier, Jesse Chavez. Jesse Chavez has had many sub replacement level stints. Of course, he is best known as a guy who is just a forever Atlanta Brave. And over and over and over again, the Braves get rid of him and bring him back. It's like Rich Hill with the Red Sox, but maybe even more so. They have demoted him and promoted him multiple times, just this season even. But he has had, let's see here, I will try to remove the duplicate

so we don't credit him with even more teams that he's been Superplacement level. Okay, he's done it for the Angels, he's done it for the A's, he's done it for the Blue J's a couple times, he's done it for the Braves three times, I think. And we had a previous stat blast about how he's been better with the Braves

than with other teams combined, which is maybe one reason why they keep finding their way back to each other. But he's had some sub replacement seasons, even for them. He's done it for the Cubs. He's done it for the Dodgers, the Pirates, the Rangers, and the Royals twice in their case too.

So, I mean, I guess if you've been around for that long, he's had time to have all of these separate stints, but also they do keep bringing him back. So yeah, maybe even more so than Billy McKinney. The thing I like about McKinney is that he is basically replacement level for his whole career, which just, it feels right for him to be the epitome of this,

the Avatar, whereas Jesse Chavez, you know, he's got six or seven war career. But still, he has had the most times ever being a sub-replacement level replacement. So that's a distinction. They should have given him the commissioner spot in the All-Star Game. Yes, exactly. Yeah, all right. While we were recording, I saw a Blue Sky post

by Sky Kalkman who noted that Denzel Clark has been hitting well lately. Yeah. Sky said, speaking of Denzel Clark, he's been improving a lot, swinging at more strikes without chasing more, making more contact in the zone, putting more fly balls in the air. Over the past 10 games, he has a 140 WRC plus with only quote unquote a 31% strikeout rate and 8% walk rate and tons of damage on contact still only up to 66 WRC plus on the season. But might he be making the Sedan and and PCA move here? Might we get a third great defensive center fielder who can hit actually? Just give it some time. You know, we don't have to rush hit actually. Just give it some time you know. We don't have to

rush these things just give it time. It would be nice though. Sure would be nice. Well we've reached the end of our time today. By the way if you look at Billy McKinney's fan grass page you might see some 0.0s there that don't look like they're technically negative. If you export I got the behind the scenes data and they are a tiny bit below zero. But in the spreadsheet that I will upload, I also have it with the cutoff not at zero, but at.05, so you could be exactly at replacement level if you're rounding. And going by most stints with different teams below a.05 war, Harry Jefferies, one of those Negro Leaguers, he's on top with 10 teams. And then with nine, it's another Negro leaguer, Wilson Reedus tied with Jesse Chavez, Ross Detweiler,

and Miguel Batista. Kevin Jarvis was a pitcher too. Maybe it's easier to do this if you're a pitcher, but Tommy Davis, I suppose has the record for position players, at least ALNL. All right, two responses from listeners to share. First, from Patreon supporter Michael. Further to your discussion on temporary substitutions for head injuries on episode 2346, there is a precedent in the NCAA rulebook to allow a player being evaluated for a concussion to come out of the game and re-enter in the same line-up spot later in the game if cleared. The temporary substitute is also allowed to re-enter in the same lineup spot after the original player returns. If a team is out of bench players, a previously removed player can be the temporary substitute as well. I

think this is prudent, as it lowers the incentive for a player to gut through a head injury as they would a less dangerous injury, particularly for a catcher when there are no catchers left on the bench. I think it would be prudent to allow a team to reenter one of their two designated catchers even if their bench is not yet exhausted. And listener Becca says on the latest episode, the email question from Max about microscopic mound moving activated the sleeper agent ninth grade physics student in me. I decided to calculate the smallest thing perceptible by the human eye, assuming 2020 vision from the vantage point of the human eye, assuming 20-20 vision from the vantage point of the first basement,

assuming eye height at six feet for simplicity, looking straight at the space between the mound and home. The math is not even close to perfect, but I wanted to just get an idea of the ballpark, parentheses, LOL, ended up with 0.2517 inches, so about a quarter inch. That's a little over five eighths of a centimeter, Canada. Of course, being able to see something

a quarter inch in size, like just the eraser part of a standard pencil, isn't the same thing as being able to discern the difference between two distances with a quarter of an inch difference. I actually think you could get away with moving back an inch 0.137% of the 60 feet, six inches distance and less than half the diameter of a baseball. And Becca attached a math doodle

that she made while coming up with this calculation, which I will link to on the show page. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. You can support and we hope you will support the podcast 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 ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners,

Cody Dunlap, Julia W, CT Douglas, Marlo57 and Sam Cleveland, 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, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free FanGraphs 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, and we hope you will. Send your questions and comments, your intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com. But even if you aren't a Patreon supporter, you can contact us, and we hope you will.

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. You can check the show notes at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you early next week.

Just a couple of baseball nerds It could be Sam or Jeff Jeff, or Sam, or Meg, and Ben, Unless he goes on paternity leave again. In which case Meg will find someone great to fill in! But whoever it is, they'll still be just a couple of baseball nerds! They'll still be speaking statistically, rambling romantically, pontificating pedantically, bantering bodily, drafting discerningly, giggling giddily, equaling effectively while...