Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2360: Generous Tipper

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a few of this year’s WAR leaders dropping off their previous paces, Dave Roberts’ critiques of Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ playoff pitching, Clayton Kershaw vs. Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander’s self-deception, the early hot streaks of Luke Keaschall and Warming Bernabel, Carlos Correa returning to form as an Astro, […]

Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, Effectively Wild, The FanGrafts Baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs, And I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer. Ben, how are you? No, I'm a bit bummed that progression has set in on the war leaderboard. There's always a point in the season when I realize that the players who were on pace for some super extraordinary full season stats are probably not going to get there. And this is about that time. We could receive several slumps that we've seen recently.

So Aaron Judge, his WRC Plus has dwindled. all the way to $1.99. Oh, my God. Basically, an embarrassment. Yeah. Yeah. He has not hit well in his return for the Yankees as a DH thus far. 73 WRC plus.

It's just six games, but he does not have an extra base hit, semi-concerning. And so he's now at seven war, which feels like, well, lower than he used to be. So that number has been going down, not up. Then you have, of course, Cal. who has pulled within half a fangraph's win above replacement of Judge. But he had gone quite cold until recently. Yeah. And now the bat has been rekindled.

And he has been hitting some bombs again. But for a while there, July was pretty so-so. And August, even with the recent home run barrage, August has not been kind to him on the whole. So perhaps some fatigue setting in there. Who knows? But his pace has slowed as well. And then PCA, Pete Carranstrom, he has entered a cold snap of his own and some of the offensive correction that some forecasted could be coming just based on his aggressiveness, lack of plate discipline. Lately, it has stopped working as well.

I'm just reminded of the wily coyote image of how you're just sort of sailing out into space. And as long as you don't look down, that's okay. You can keep flying. But then you look down and you plummet into the ravine. So I'm not saying that Pete Armstrong is Wiley Coyote or that he's plummeting, but lately, at least, he has been. So there are obviously people who have played well of late, but the leaders for most of the season to this point who were at one point on pace for just record-breaking seasons. I guess everyone's, I mean, there's always. somewhat on pace for a record-breaking season early enough in the schedule.

But yeah, it looks like they're going to just have to settle for merely excellent, extremely valuable, remarkable seasons and perhaps not the greatest of all time. Yeah, I don't think that the takeaway should be like washed, you know, if I'm going to, you know, and I don't suggest that that is your takeaway. Your takeaways are always so insightful, nuanced, allow for, you know, the egg and flow. Yeah, measured. We try to be measured. They allow for the ebb and flow of the season. Measured of the man, that's me. Measured of the man.

I like that. I like that quite a bit. But this is what's going to happen. It's going to happen with Cal and Judge. You're going to get some amount of, obviously, either injury or fatigue, perhaps impacting their performance. And when you're a big boom guy, you know, when so much of your production is tied up in the boom, if you don't boom for a while, like you might see a little up there. And then PCA is just, I think, always going to be vulnerable to stretches where he isn't producing. as well as he is capable of because there's just like so much chase.

There's just like so very much chase in his game. And sometimes like that works out fine. But other times you go, oh, buddy, you're not, you're not getting to those the way you might want to. So it'll be okay. But also I'm sure that they're hoping that things turn around sooner rather than later because they all find themselves being a load-bearing part of teams that either are, are aspiring to overtake divisional foes or really in need of arresting a drop in the Yankees case. So got to get to it, brothers.

But I imagine that they will, at least at some point here. Now, Shohei has been fine of late. He has a 274 WRC plus in August plus the pitching. So I suppose he is bolstering what is probably for some, a predictable boring MVP case. but if looked for a while, like PCA might make that close or even overtake him and still could, potentially, but Otani has opened up at least a sliver of daylight on the Fangraphs War leaderboard for what that's worth. Have you felt neglectful lately? Have you felt like you have not been doing your part to say enough about Otani? I hope you don't feel like I've been discouraging you from talking about Otani. No, not at all.

For you, you've been awfully quiet on the Otani front. Are you okay, Ben? You okay? Yeah, in a relative sense, by my standards, I guess we'd have to get effectively wild wikikeeper and transcriber Raymond Chen to run the numbers on our frequency of invoking Otani as he has done in the past. But, yeah, by effectively wild standards, Otani mentions have been fairly few and far between a flight.

But he's been doing his thing. I've been tuning in and enjoying it, as always. Yep, chugging along. I did notice some pointed comments that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had for Otani the other day. Actually, I was somewhat surprised, actually, how plainly and frankly he spoke about this because the headline, this was after a tough loss for the Dodgers against the Blue Jays. Blue Jays keep winning. Dodgers not so much of late. And this was on Sunday, and the Dodgers just sort of,

squandered one. They had a ton of base runners. They loaded the bases on walks and Blue Jays, I think, walked 13 Dodgers and Blue Jays struck out 14 times and the Dodgers had 10 hits. And yet somehow they just sort of stranded everyone and lost five to four. And they can't really afford losses at this point because as we speak here on Tuesday afternoon, they are just one game ahead of the San Diego Padres in the NOS. That would be more compelling if there weren't many wild cards to play with, but nonetheless, frittering away a division lead would still be a significant blow to that team.

So the Dodgers were frustrated. Dave Roberts was frustrated. He said, this is frustrating because I just felt there's no way we should lose this game today. We had them on the ropes numerous times. And for us not to win is so frustrating. So again, making it clear, he's frustrated. And he took some of that frustration out on Otani seemingly because Otani was up in a big spot and then Mason Flew Hardy came in, the Blue Jay's eighth pitcher of the day, just a delightful name.

The most incredible name. And I want you to continue, but I want you to know it's also a very versatile name, right? like we worry we worry so much about guys who have names that seem to suggest a negative outcome for their particular role on a baseball team right like you know james outman he's flirting with disaster every time he steps up to the plate because of his name and and we you know the the chases and it can be can be kind of perilous flu hearty offers um satisfaction to both camps though right because like if he you know if he he throws a 92 mile an hour fastball right down the middle and then it gets hit for a home run then it's like more like amazing foolhardy right with that pitch but then but then if if you have what happened with otani where he just swung through one then then the otani is the one who is foolhard it's perfect it's a great it works on on many levels because it does sort of sound like foolhardy and i guess it's more hardy than hearty even though it's correct at the end yeah and And so it works on that level.

But then also it sort of sounds like threw hard. So if he threw his hard. Yeah. Yeah. But also like flew hard. Like if someone hits a home run off of him, then hard fly ball. It really is versatile. It's so, it's so versatile.

And so it's terrific. And now you might argue, you might be saying, well, Meg, you know, a James Outman, he also plays the field. And so he can he can have some two-way applications. to his name also right where it's like he can catch a ball and then the guy is out man so you know there's there's room to maneuver to play here but i just think it's delightful so anyway please continue about show hey otani uh yeah well well otani was up and it was uh bases loaded and and toronto has uh i think jeffman was in with one out and otani was up then i guess

flew hardy came in and and hoffman had loaded the bases i think that's right o't Connie fouled a couple pitches off, and then he chased a sweeper and struck out. And Robert said after the game, the last thing I was thinking was he was going to strike out. We've got to come up with one right there. Chasing the ball down below is something we can't have happen. And then he had another comment about Otani because Otani earlier in the game had been thrown out trying to steal third with two outs and Freddie Freeman up. So, you know, make the last out at third. right? And that ended that possible threat. And Robert said that was his decision, not a good baseball play, which is, you know, almost Ron Washington-esque. I mean, it's not wrong. It's undeserved. That is the prototypical situation where if you go, you've got to make it or you are going to come in for some criticism. But yeah, I don't know. Otani's such a golden boy and he has been playing well. In fact, he had two hits and his 41st homer in that very game.

And Tedd extended his hitting streak. So he did more to contribute to the win than a lot of Dodgers did, but I guess also did some stuff to contribute to the loss. So I respected it in a way because maybe even Shoha Tani needs a rebuke from his skipper every now and then. And it seems like they have a good relationship and you don't want to go easy on the superstar when he makes a mistake and have sort of double standard. Though there's always a double standard. There's especially a double standard for Shohi Otani who gets the rules. rewritten for him. But nonetheless, yeah, he didn't couch that. He didn't really pull his punches there. And I was semi-surprised, but I also thought that it perhaps reflected well on Roberts or just

reflected his frustration that he would speak so plainly. Yeah, it's hard to know exactly what I think of that because I agree with you. Like, I think it's important, you know, when you're a manager, I imagine you're conscious of the fact that the statements you issue in public about any one of your players, you know, the other players are paying attention to that, right? And seeing how you talk about your guys. And it has to play not only to that guy, but to some degree, it needs to play to the entire clubhouse. And so I can imagine if you're a non-Otani Dodger, feeling some amount of relief or gratification at the notion that, okay, we're all in this together. And sure, like he's so important to this roster and his contract is so strange and he's said to make

all this money but like he has to be held accountable too and that's good but also if you're the dodger you might say well skip you got to be able to like slow your cool your jets if the jets need cooling and maybe you view it as him being a little frustrated and not able to emotionally regulate And so maybe you think that's bad, but mostly I think that the thing that everyone in that clubhouse is likely focused on is, hey, wow, those Padres, only a game back. And meanwhile, AJ Priller's sitting in his office going, it was a whole part of my plan. It was all part of my plan. He'll learn, it won't matter if we come away from this period with more time to assess the results on the field if we think that AJ did a good job or a bad job. Right now, AJ's like, I did the best job.

I will learn no lessons if there are any lessons to be learned. They're not current A.J.'s problem. Those might be future A.J.'s problem. Those are not my problems right now. Yes, that is me every night into morning when I stay up forever and then figure that it's a tomorrow me's problem. And then it is tomorrow and then it's my problem. It's today's me's problem.

But I have not learned that lesson in my 30 plus years on this earth. So, yeah, maybe it's the same sort of dynamic there. Sure. Anyway, I imagine maybe headline news in Japan. Dave Roberts has semi-harsh words for Shohei Otani. Who knows? But the Dodgers rotation is rounding into form, actually. And so that would probably make one more optimistic if one were a Dodgers fan.

Not that you can count on any of those guys to stay healthy for any length of time. But the fact that they felt comfortable enough to trade Dustin May, not that Dustin May had been any great shakes for them, but there was a point in the season where just anyone who could pitch at all was a pretty hot commodity for them. But now just about everyone is nominally back and smells back and Glassnow and Yamamoto's cruising and Otani is doing well. And Kersha has been pitching quite well himself. Amid Sheehan. So suddenly the Dodgers are deep when it comes to starters. Will that continue?

Who knows? Who knows? Who could possibly say? Even Roki Sasaki is on the comeback. trail seemingly. Yeah. On the men's, I can't believe I'm in a position where I might end up having to say nice things about Blake's now. Who could have predicted that we would get here? I wonder whom they will move to the bullpen if they are blessed with all of these healthy starting arms when October rolls around. Because Dustin May, he could have been a candidate

to do that. I don't know whether he would have wanted to on the eve of free agency. You could imagine Roki, if he is healthy and throwing hard, maybe that would be one way to ease him back in. Yes, seems like an ideal deployment. You know, if he's in a position where they feel comfortable that he can really contribute something, I imagine, we would see him sort of east back in, out of the pen. Yeah. Yeah. Well, speaking of Dodger starters, I did. We're a little late to this news, but that Friday, Kirsha Shurzor Showdown, ooh, I said that successfully. That was fun stuff, you know? Sure. The old guys still got it. They both pitched credibly well. Kersha out duld his former Dodgers teammate, Max Scherzer, but it is striking just how similar some of

their career accomplishments are. Everyone billed it as, oh, the two guys with 3,000 strikeouts, but there's so many other things they have in common, just two championships apiece, 218 wins, pitcher wins a piece after Kershaw won that game. Oh, that's funny. He brought him into an exact precise tie with Scherzer. It's their respective 18th seasons. Of course, Scherzer has a few years on Kershaw, but Kershaw got started and established younger, and so it's the same number of seasons.

And actually on baseball reference, I believe that they are each other's second most similar player. I think Pedro is actually the most similar pitcher to each of them, but they're runner-up for each other. So a lot of history there. And what was it, four career matchups? It wasn't something that had happened a whole lot. And, of course, everyone was spreading the story about the fateful day when they first debuted against each other way back when, which was supposed to be a Randy Johnson versus Greg Maddox start. And then they got scratched and two other legends stepped up to take their places, not that people knew that they would be legends on that level at the time. But, yeah, that was good.

And, you know, a lot of this season, they and Verlander, whom I've just kind of grouped together in my mind as these guys who are kind of in the twilight and are some of the defining starters of their era. Many times they have not looked like their old selves or they have looked like their very old selves this season. And this time at least, you know, they showed flashes that they got it done. They gutted through it and it was fun to see them go at it. So, you know, it was a typical modern starting pitcher matchup, especially with advanced age starters where they're not going to go that deep into the game, of course, and it's not like they hit against each other. Although that did happen earlier in their career, and I want to say Scherzer singled against Kershaw. I think that happened. Washed.

Yeah, Kershaw can't come back, can't get even on that score. But that was a pretty fun night. I will admit that that rolled through, and I didn't watch, but I did see the highlights after, and I noted the success. It's a good thing. Like, you want, it's still hard for me, even when it goes well, to have the relief at it going well and the glimpse and appreciation for the glimpse of the old version of them to outweigh the, oh, God, is this going to make me sad going in?

But, you know, you get close, and that's really the best you can do. do. I did see a quote along those lines from Verlander who got his 3,500th strikeout in his most recent start, but couldn't really take a lot of pleasure in it because he didn't pitch very well, which has been the case for him most of the time this season. He struck out the side in the first inning. He was facing the nationals, and so he was the 10th pitcher to have that many strikeouts. But then something unraveled not to have three strikeouts in a game, to be clear, many more than 10 pitchers have done that, but to have 3,500, but he had a quote there that sort of spoke to the capacity for self-denial that we all have inside ourselves, I think, and maybe older athletes more than any other, because, you know, he's been struggling, he's been looking for answers, and it seems like he has been flummoxed by why he has not pitch better. and most people would say

have you looked at how old you are but he doesn't feel that I guess and he's not that far removed from being great because he did win a Tsayung Award in his comeback in 2022 so from his perspective he's probably thinking well that wasn't that long ago

it wasn't really and why can't I come back from that potentially but he compared his stuff to 2022 or said that he has been constantly comparing his stuff to his stuff from 2022 and that he hasn't found a difference really and so he's been pretty puzzled by why he has not had better results because in his mind the stuff has been there and I don't know exactly where he's seeing that or what information exactly he is really relying on to come to that conclusion and that's why I wonder

whether it's sort of selective stat looking, perhaps some cherry-picking, perhaps accentuating the positive, I don't know. Yeah. Looking at his stuff stats on his fan graphs player page, it's definitely downed from 2022. Like his stuff plus was 115 in 2022. Higher is better, 100 is average.

This year it's 106, which is, you know, Not terrible, but definitely down. And then his location plus, so the command, how he's spotting those pitches, also down from 99 to 93. And so you put those things together. And the pitching plus, which combines, blends the stuff and the location has declined from 112 to 99. So well above average to well below. Yeah. And yet he said, well, not well below, but barely below.

And he said, stuff's great. stuff's fine. I've spent a lot of the season looking at comparables. It's right on par, literally almost up and down the board with when I won the Cy Young. So I think the stuff is just fine. The results have been, and here's that word again, frustrating. So I wonder what stuff he's looking at exactly to reach that conclusion and console himself. Yeah, it is an odd thing because it's not like he's, you know, I know that there's been personality. change and what have you from a front office perspective, but it's not like it's a group that doesn't put data and metrics in front of their guys. So I have to imagine on some level, he knows?

Yeah. Question mark. I mean, I suppose it could be as simple as it feels the same to him, even if the metrics would point to it obviously being different and like not by a little bit relative to his best seasons, but, like, maybe it feels the same. And so what a weird thing that would be, you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't know whether the giants are showing him something or whether he's freelancing here and looking things up on his own. Because, you know, I guess it's not like his pitch speeds have completely cratered.

Like, you know, he's lost most of a mile per hour since 2022 on average. but it's not a complete collapse in that department. Yeah. Yeah, you look at the stuff. And I haven't dug into exactly why the stuff metrics are worse because I have not spent as much time comparing as it sounds like Justin Furlander has. Sure. Yeah, it's basically, it's more or less across the board,

but it looks like especially the fastball. The fastball is not the pitch characteristics are not as good. And also the curveball, not so hot, too. So it's not even just one particular pitch. Right. You know, I don't know. I guess we all just tell ourselves these sweet nothings and fictions and try to like assuage our concerns and say, oh, I'm not that old. And look, I still got it.

And, you know, you've selective memory, right? Yeah. This back pain will go away. Right. Yeah. I feel fine some of the time. most of the time. Yeah.

So I'm basically the same. Right. The second IPA will be fine. That won't do me in for the next day. It'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I'm just looking at the pitching bot on the page as well.

And yeah, it looks like there's definitely some decline there too. So I don't know what you're looking at exactly, Justin Burlander. It's a little different from what is on your fancraft's player page. But perhaps. perhaps you would point to some other stat. I don't know, but that was somewhat telling to me. And even just the fact that he's reaching for that comparison and trying to, because that's what a lot of players do

if they're going through a rough patch, even if it's not necessarily age-related. Maybe your mechanics are in a funk. And so you call up some video from when you were going well and you say, what am I doing differently now? And how can I get back to what was working then? And probably you're grasping at those straws ever more tightly as you start to get to the age bracket that Justin Verlander currently occupies. I wonder to, you know, there's the, I'm engaged in completely unsubstantiated psychoanalysis here of Justin Verlander in particular and older players more generally.

But, you know, I think there's a difference between sort of a short-term denial. and a long-term denial. And the distinction I draw there is, I'd be very curious and I will be very curious to see sort of how he talks about the season that just was and then his desire to continue pitching once the season has ended. Because there is possibly a part of this that is,

hey, man, like, I'm still under contract through the end of September. You know, like the Giants weren't going to make the postseason, but he's got a couple more. turns through the rotation to take here, right? And so part of what you're doing might be, I got to get through to, yeah, postseason starts on fucking September 30th, Ben. Wildcard round starts on September 30th.

Yeah. I don't care for that at all. It's inconvenient for our being able to say October postseason is synonymous. Get that one day. Yeah. Get that. So close. Just give that to us.

They're really jobbing me on that. you know I'm I'm furious but anyway I also think that like it's sort of an active aggression to send me an email on August 12th about your postseason schedule like you can't get to the middle of the month on that anyway but so I'll be curious to to see sort of how he reflects when he's not engaged in a need to sort of soldier through what has been an up and down season and one that certainly has had highlights as we we've noted here right like getting to 3500 strikeouts is an accomplishment and one that you should be proud of, even if it comes in a loss, an effort that ended up not being particularly Sterling. But once you're not in the day-to-day, once you're not trying to get through, you might have room for a more honest assessment of how it went and how it might go if you stick with it. So I'll be curious to see how that maybe moves around for him.

He's collecting some milestones, I suppose. He's compiling. He's not compiling many wins, which he had hoped for. In fact, he has won. And I guess he hasn't compiled any baseball reference war either. He's at least in positive territory per fan graphs. The FIPP is fine. It's not great, but it's playable.

So he's not embarrassing himself out there, I don't think. And I always say that pitchers and players should play as long as they feel like they want to, and someone will let them. I never want to usher someone off the stage with the cane yanking them off stage right or left or whatever. They can work their way off when they want to as far as I'm concerned. But it is somewhat deflating at times to watch it happen. Yeah, I agree. I guess in a more positive light, I am heartened by some of the youngsters who have shown up and been on torrid stretches lately.

So we had, and are having, I guess we're having the Luke Kishel just debut. I mean, he debuted in April. Right. So it's this weird sort of splintered thing when you talk about his first X games, not X games, as in the X games, but, you know, his first however many games. But he's been having all sorts of heroics for the twins, which is exciting and well-timed for them, I would say, because of the Exodus. Like, it's always really nice when that happens. I mean, of course, my mind goes to the heroics of one Joey Manessus, just, you know, salving everyone's just souls after the departure of Juan Soto.

Yeah. But when a young guy comes up and you get a glimpse of the future, when it seems like you've just turned the page on the recent past and then, hey, we have Lucchia. Look at him hit. This is fun. So he's been on a tear. and then for a while there, warming Bernabelle of the Rockies was similarly off to quite a start. And he has been cooling Bernabelle lately.

There have been so many jokes about, I mean, it's a delightful name, but so many people were making the, you know, very easy. Ah, he's not warming, Bernabelle, he's already hot, you know. But how could you pass that up, I suppose? So he had just a blistering first seven games, I guess. He had a 317 WRC Plus in his first, let's see, it was, yeah, his first seven games with the Rockies. He came up on July 26th, July 26 through August 2nd, 317 WRC Plus. Since then, he has also played seven games, and he has a, no, sorry, he's played eight games from August 3rd, to August 11th, and he has a negative three WRC plus.

That's less good. That span, yeah. I would be a complicated query, but I would guess that going from 317 to negative three in like the same number of- Biggest swings. Yeah, it's got to be up there, I would think. So he was all the rage for about a week. And then lately not so hot.

But we all got acquainted with warming Bernabelle and what a fun name. And so, like, you know, he's not a top 100 guy, right? He hasn't been. I don't think he's not at Pipeline. I don't think he is on the board at Fangraphs right now. Kishel is at Pipeline, but I think is not at VanGrafs. Am I right about that? You would know the board better than I.

But neither of them is a tippy top prospect, but promising players. Kishel's a top 100 guy. He was? He was, okay. Yeah, he's ranked 56th overall. Okay. Yeah, I figured he did me, but somehow I missed him. Yeah, he's definitely on there.

I don't remember where he was prior to our most recent update, but if you give me two shakes of a little lamb's tail, yeah, he was a top 100 guy when their list went live. So, yeah, Luke Kishel. A patented optostat's fun fact in his first 10 games in the majors, the twins, Lu Kishel has a 500 plus on base percentage, 10 plus runs batted in, five plus steals in the last 20 years. The only other MLB rookie to put up those numbers over any 10 gamespan. That makes the fact more fun is Mike Trout. Yeah. Mike Trout in 2012. So second coming of Mike Trout, Luke Kishel.

So what can I say? I'm a simple man. I enjoy a rookie sensation. And when a rookie comes up and sets the world on fire for a week or two, well, you never know. He could just be the best player ever. We have no big league level evidence to the contrary. And we know way more than we used to about prospects.

So there's less of a surprise, there's less of a innocent naivete, so you're probably going to get fooled a little less often by a Kevin Moss than you might have before because I know, oh, this guy's here on the list or he's there on the list or he's not on the list. And so I calibrate my expectations accordingly. Whereas decades ago, there was no list. At least not a list that everyone knew. So for all the average fan knew, this guy could be the goat. Capital GOAT, not lowercase. And they used to say that a rookie hitter who came up could be good once. around the league because the book wasn't out and granted the rookie wouldn't have a book on any of the pitchers, but maybe the pitchers would pitch him like some scrub and he would take advantage at that for a while and then the book would get out and then the next time around the league he would get his comeuppance. And I don't know how predictable a pattern that was. And if it was one, I'd figure that it would be less predictable today because the book is already out. The book is written before you're called up. There's so much data and information and video on minor leaguers. And now, of course, everyone claims that the adjustment from the minors to the majors is

harder, which I kind of doubt. But some top prospects certainly have struggled, as some always have. So it's nice to see someone, at least temporarily, lay waste to the league as if this level is somehow easier for them than the lower level. There's still an exciting sense of possibility and newness, that fresh relationship honeymoon phase. So we've had a extremely hot rookie in each league to enjoy up late at least until the slump set in for Mr. Brunabell. So I'm really torn about which of these I like more. I think that the more rigorous answer, certainly the more defensible answer is Kishel, not only because he has been so torrid and the fun facts are, I think, legitimately quite so fun,

but also being being the guy who gives your fan base a lift when you have gone through the sort of tear down that the twins did at the deadline like there's the on-field production but that is some real we can't measure it with war value right like it does i think just fundamentally alter your experience of of the team when you have not only a guy who's playing well but no certainly no offense to joey manessus but a guy who's also understood to be an important, potentially important part of the future of the franchise, right? Like Keishel was a preseason top 100 guy for us. I think that was true for most publications, sort of understood to be a good prospect. Maybe not to your point, like a tippy, tippy top prospect, but like a solidly top 100 guy. And so for him to be doing the thing that we thought he would be able to do, and at this particular moment in time. Like, I think that that is a really special thing.

And those guys can end up being really precious to fans, not only when the times are good, but as sort of a bridge from the lean times to those good times. But also, warming Bernabelle is like such a, like, an 80 name. It's like if we factored the name into the evaluation, because you're right. I don't think that he was, he was last a ranked person. prospect for us like back in 2023 maybe and so

but like if I asked the prospect guys to like season the reports with the name um tat ten like overall in baseball warming burn I mean just like

it sounds like the name of a like a wizard in like a young adult novel right like warming Bernabel like he had some sort of dashing wizarding sorts, you know, maybe he's not a wizard, but he's like magic adjacent, you know? He's in something in that space. That's pretty great.

Yeah, because we lost Tukapita Marcano, and, you know, he ran himself out of the game, but we're the real losers because we lost that name. I'm sure he would agree that we were the real losers there. Yeah, he'd be like, you're right, I mean. In a way, he was a loser, I guess, on multiple. multiple levels. But also, we lost something in the process because we have fewer opportunities to say Tukapita Marcano. Yeah. And when we say it, it's now tainted. It's a tainted Ticapita. And so instead of Tucapita, we have warming Bernabelle who could maybe be a replacement in our hearts. And perhaps he could warm them. Yeah. I mean, certainly, we have unfortunate

occasion to remember and use Markano's name because these dumb controversies keep coming and so we have to remind everyone that we have had a recent lifetime ban for gambling but it's not a fun occasion right like we're we're there to do unfortunate business when we invoke Markano's name now whereas warming Bernabel I mean I am here for a fun time you know and for his sake hopefully a long one yeah you almost have to call him Marcano in that context because Tukapita just, it sounds so joyous. You can't really be sad when you're saying Tukapita. And so when we're, reflecting on the disgrace of Tukapita Marcano, we just have to stick

with the surname, I think. It's just a little less light. Yeah. And like, Warren Burnabelle has like a musicality to it that is really nice. Whereas with Tukapita Marconno, I feel like I need to pay attention. when I'm saying it because there's like a lot of consonants in there and you're trying to space them right

and anyway, even though he has been banned in disgrace, I still owe him the dignity of his name, right? I still want to say his name correctly, but I do feel like I really got to take a pause and make sure I'm getting all the consonants right. So I enjoy warming for a number of reasons and to Marconno's detriment and this is one of them, one, not a gambler, two, not banned in disgrace.

Three, warming Burnabelle, you know? Yeah. As warming Burnabelle goes, so go the Rockies, I suppose. Because they were playing better, but they have lost eight in a row, I believe. Mired in a losing streak. Yeah, that coincides with the warming Burnabelle cool down. And so there now, I mean, I had written off their chances of really chasing him. history of having the White Sox hold their beer.

And yeah, they're saying not so fast. Don't count us out so quickly. Maybe we can't be that bad. I understand there's like a humor to it. I feel like we do our best with these sorts of stories, right? We don't want to excuse like this kind of organizational ineptitude, but you got to be able to find the funny in it, right? Like we are in search of that.

But I, my request, my ask of major league teams. next year is, I don't want to be thinking about new losing records, you know, like, spare us this. Life is hard enough as it's currently constituted. We don't need to be thinking about this nonsense. Yeah, we had the A's two seasons ago for a while, then we had the White Sox. Now we have the Rockies. I think it will have run its course after that, hopefully. I think if we go a fourth season in a row with some team just truly challenging the worst teams of all time, then maybe that we'll have jumped the shark, you know. So maybe we can just content ourselves.

So three seasons will suffice, I think, three consecutive seasons. Yeah, it's just like such a, it drags you down, you know. It really does drag you down. And I'm sure that the guys on the team are like, yeah, we also would like to suck less. But guess what? You have control, at least. Just be better at baseball. Yeah, you have more input anyway, not control.

It is a game that will humble you. But also be less humble. You know, be humbled less, would be my request. Hey, speaking of hot streaks, did we call the Carlos Correa Astros Renaissance? Or did we call it? I'm sure we weren't the only ones, but Carlos Correa has now almost equaled his 2025 war with the twins in his first 10 games with the Astros. That's a 193 WRC plus back in Houston. I guess he only just recently returned to Houston and actually played there.

But as soon as he put the Astros colors on again, he just instantly morphed back into Astro's era, Carlos Crea, as we all expected and forecasted, much to the dismay of the mariners who otherwise have been riding high and almost eliminating the difference between those teams. I think that here's the thing about it. I have so little input into this division race. all I can control I can control is how I feel about it. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to choose to be delighted that the Mariners have been playing good baseball lately, that they have taken good advantage of playing teams that aren't doing as well and helping to collapse that gap and make it make it a race, you know, firmly in a playoff position.

But you do got to, you do got to slay the dragon, Seattle, you know, like you got to do it. And so in some respects, here's how I can maybe help my fellow Mariners fans think about it in a way that won't have you crash out so hard about Carlos Cray. Because let me tell you, there are a lot of really just bereft Mariners fans. Now, to be clear, the vibes around the team are, I think, actually quite good. They should be, yeah. Because, and they should be. They've been playing good baseball. They are chasing.

They got reinforcements at the deadline. Yeah. And those reinforcements are playing well and Julio is hitting well. And Cal seems like he might be pulling out of this skid a little bit, though to your point, it's been kind of home run our best for him lately. And so, so look, the vibes are good. I don't want to, I don't want to suggest, don't put it in the newspaper that I was mad, okay? Yeah. I don't want to suggest that.

Yeah, I almost said big slumper before, but I didn't want to make you mad. Absolutely not with you go on hang up and listen with that shit, my friend. You don't bring that energy to our podcast. How dare? How dare? Absolutely not. You're in timeout. Like the implication that I'm snarky, mean bend over on hang up and listen.

That's why I just, I save all of my barbs. for that podcast. Yeah. Look, you save your Mariners barbs, okay? You can barb away. You,

you, you, you, you, you, you, first season of Stranger Things

that hear all you want, justice for barb. But also, that's coming back soon, right, end of the year. Anyway,

we don't have to talk about it again. But so here's, here's the perspective I'd like to offer my fellow Mariners fans before I rose so predictably

to the bait that I was offered on this year podcast. at some point they got to slay the dragon right like the the postseason drought has ended

it is starting to accumulate time again but we're not an embarrassing territory yet there's nothing embarrassing here we're not going to get mentioned on the broadcast of another sport

as like a cautionary tale of what you don't want your franchise to be right that's not the territory we're in we don't have to sweat that but here's the thing the next thing is to win the division it's been a very long time it's been a really really long time and you might think oh no the the astros they reinforced their lineup at the at the deadline and korea will come back and he will be spectacular and it's all it's all over but no just think

if they can do it how satisfying it will be it will be so satisfying if if korea comes back and he plays well and they're able to kind of cobble it together and then they lose the division anyway we're going to be insufferable we're going to be the worst and people will lose sympathy for us in the playoffs and then they'll root for other teams but here's the thing it'll it'll feel good you'll feel good to you and you'll be excited and you'll be happy and then you know you'll have checked off a box and it'll be a satisfying box to check and then you know I'll let been out of timeout, you know. As we speak, the playoff odds at Fancraft still give the aster's a slight edge, but I think

I would flip it. I'm a Mariners, man. I think they're the better team. Oh, yeah, now you're a Mariners, man. We're out here speaking, we're out here speaking big slumper into existence. Like, like, we understand how magic works and should toy with it. What is wrong with you? Absolutely not.

Now you're a Mariners, man. I'm not a magician. That's warming Burnabell as we establish. But no, I think the Mariners are the better team, and I do think that they can overcome this one-game deficit that they face currently. I don't know. I don't know how the aster's have been as good as they've been with the absences and underperformance of the fact that they're even here at this point

in mid-August in first place yet again somehow. Yeah. But it just feels like a high-wire act that I don't know if they can. make it six more weeks. I don't know either, but here's the thing. I simply have to assume that they will so that I am less disappointed if it doesn't turn around because, I mean, here's the thing. We're going to learn, we're going to learn some stuff about these here Seattle Mariners in the next little bit here because, you know, they go to Baltimore. The Orioles famously not playing very good baseball this year, but they're on the road at Baltimore. They're on the road against

the Mets, who also are not playing good baseball lately, good gravy. Fibes have been bad in my city in many boroughs, multiple burrows lately. But a team that I think has a higher true talent level than what they put on the field of late. Like, I think that they are a better baseball team than they have played like. And some of these, you know, some of these losses have been heartbreaking and disappointing and marred by like, and marked by like bad defensive play and guys, you know, Edwin Diaz blowing saves and there's like a weird twinning thing going on with the Mets and the Yankees right now. It's like there's the sloppiness and so anyway you're all despondent and I wish you

well but but not this weekend. So you know they have the the Mets then they go to the Phillies they have a home a home stretch that involves well the athletics but also the Padres who you've noted her playing better. So like they you know they got the guardians they have more real teams on the horizon. I can't believe that they close their season against the Dodgers. That's something, you know. That could be fun. That could be a lot of fun.

Gosh, we're all going to be such a wreck. Can you imagine if, like, they have to beat the stupid Dodgers? If they have to be the stupid Dodgers to win the division. Oh, my God. It's just, you know, it's like you want them there. You want, as a fan, you do want them in the postseason. But as I said last time, like, it's not fun, you know. It feels very stressful.

And it's bad for me because, like, and that's really what it's all about at the end of the day is my experience of it. Because, like, October is a very busy, stressful month for me from a work perspective. You know, we just got to go ahead. That was why MLB was trying to give you a heads up on that schedule. Like, hey, Mick, we'll let you know early when you should plan to be buried in work. Yeah, because there was ambiguity about it, you know. Like, also, Halloween, not a scheduled off day this year. I don't care for that.

I don't care for that. tough for your trick-or-treating aspirations. I know how important that is to you. To be clear, I am not trick-or-treating. No. I enjoy. You're dispensing treats. Right. Yes. I just, you know, we are so lucky to have new listeners all the time. They have not heard me talk about Halloween yet. And so I don't want to judge, like, I think teens should be able to trick-or-treat. I think that's a nice thing. I think it's an indication of a healthy and safe community when the teens can trick-or-treat. And hopefully they do it in a way that's not annoying. But, like, don't be weird about teens. and trick-or-treating.

A 39-year-old woman without a child, she shouldn't be trick-or-treating. I'm comfortable saying that. I'm comfortable having judgment about that decision if it were one that people were making. Although I think largely it is not one that people are making. But I do enjoy... I bought a Halloween candy bowl yesterday. I was like, it's 110 degrees. We're doing this.

Like, I got to cope somehow. I am activating this level of cope. Anyway. It's Milwaukee. world anyway. We're all just trying to carve out a corner of it while the brewers are just hogging all of the winds. So remember when Brandon Woodruff came back and I was marveling at the fact that he was still standing, that he was still breathing basically, like how do athletes do it, how is his shoulder still attached? How could he make it back at this level? He has been,

well, if you go by RA9 war, I'm cheating here, but if you do that, he's, He's basically been a top 10 pitcher in baseball since he came back. And by basically top 10, I mean, he's tied out to one decimal place for 10th. So, you know, that's the fanographs RA9 war leaderboard since his return on July 6th, more than a month now. And FIPP tells a slightly different story, obviously. So, you know, I assume that there will be some correction coming in his surface stats as well. He does have a 143 babbip. I know the brewers are good at pretty much everything.

They could play good defense, but not that good. So although, you know, he's given up a lot of home runs on fly balls as well. So maybe there will be two kinds of correction and they will meet in the middle and he will still be good. But he'll still be good. He has been excellent. He has not merely been some semblance of his former self, but he has basically just resumed pitching the way that he did before he was certain, if not better. He has been terrific. Davey just wrote about him for us for

Fangraphs. He noted this dynamic that you're talking about where on the one hand he has been quite lucky but also it seems like all of his heart contact has been pulled in the air for a home run and so there might be some equalization there

and you'll be shocked to learn as a guy coming off major shoulder surgery at his age like not throwing nearly as hard as he used to but like there's also stuff there that is very positive and he seems like he has to factor pretty heavily in their postseason rotation. So, yeah, and also if Andrew Vaughn just keeps sitting home runs,

then what does it matter how Woodruff pitches on those days, right? He just hit a bunch of... Yeah, Andrew Vaughn, Colson Montgomery, you know, baseball's best sluggers, basically, as we all expected. Yeah, Brendan Woodruff and Justin Burlander could get together and compare 2022 stuff stats with each other. But Brandon Woodruff probably doesn't need to because he has a pitch, better than Burlander, but the Brewers. Everyone's

talking about them. We've talked about them, too. What more is there to say? A lot of people just point out the depth. I pointed out the depth and how, okay, maybe the individual seasons don't stand out. It's just that they have a whole group of good guys, if you were great guys, but then

that just raises a secondary question, which is just like, how do they keep getting all these good guys? It's one thing to just say, yeah, just have a bunch of average plus players, but it's easier said than done. You have to develop or trade for or sign those guys somehow, and other teams want them too, and the Brewers have just been better at that.

It just, it feels like during this run that they've been on, and they've won 10 in a row as we've, as we're speaking, but, you know, they've, they've, I haven't remembered a brewer's loss in months, it feels like at this point. Yeah. And so it just, it feels like they have taken the crown of, wow, Milwaukee's the model organization. They're just the shining paragon of the league. They're what every other organization aspires to be.

Not that they haven't been respected for some time now because they've been constantly in contention. But they seem to have just taken a leap. And I guess that says as much about the mediocrity of the next best teams in baseball this season as it does about the Brewers. But the Brewers have been quite good. So they have really sort of separate. themselves now it's just you know we used to kind of compare them to like oh the rays they're kind of like you know Milwaukee rays like they're the the Midwest equivalent of the raise or whatever right and now no they're they're like setting a more superlative example than

the rays who of course have cratered lately and have been just like constantly on the road because of that right front loaded home schedule that they have in a minor league park and everything. But yeah, brewers, just the epitome of professionalism in baseball these days, the epitome of professionalism and pocket pancakes. They're putting them in a little pouch now. We got an email about that. They're putting them, they're putting the pocket pancakes in a little pouch, and then they give you syrup and also butter. And so I still think that there's like a stickiness issue unresolved, but less of a stickiness issue. Because you could in theory, like, you know, drizzle the syrup on the pocket pancakes and hold on to the little.

little pouch and then just be like, no, no, no, no, pocket pancakes. Pocket pancakes. I mean, I'll say this about Wisconsin. Wisconsin innovates in the award space in a pretty dramatic way. And so that's exciting, you know, like different cheeses, cheeses that take on a different texture depending on how they're prepared, right? Like, don't underestimate a state that, you know, I'm not saying they invented cheese skirts. They may have invented cheese skirts.

I'm just saying I don't have that historical, like, fact at my disposal. But they've definitely, if they didn't invent them, they took someone else's and ran with it, you know. So, like, I shouldn't be surprised. A lot of snack potential in the Midwest because they're really interested in doing exciting stuff with dairy, you know, and various meats and pocket pancakes, as we've established. Another exciting to something that the brewers have done is an alumni home run derby, They did this recently, so they had Prince Fielder, who I'm glad can participate in an alumni home run derby, and Ryan Braun, who is still popular among many Milwaukee fans, I suppose, and some less prominent non-legions, perhaps, Brewers, veterans, including effectively wild or at least Jeff Sullivan legend, Kian Broxton. Keon Braxton. Whenever I read that name, I hear Jeff saying it.

broxton yeah the ship has sailed on the broxton breakout however he did win the brewers alumni home run game yes so they they had this derby and you know derby's all the rage right now i mean this is another data point in support of sam's article way back when about how home run derby is the future of baseball or sports or is going to just take over the world and i guess that the brewers are not the first to do a veteran or alumni home run derby. But they had a pretty successful event. And it seems like, I mean, Casey McGee was in this thing. I don't know exactly what the qualifications were for participating in this

or if you had to meet a certain threshold for Brewer's excellence to get on on this thing. I mean, these things can be hazardous, right? I mean, the Yankees just brought back their old timers game. And Mariana Rivera tears his Achilles, which is not the first time that he has torn something severe while shagging fly balls. But, you know, he was going after one, 2019 in the old-timers game. I think he hit an inside-the-parker or something. And here he was going after a ball tore the Achilles. Time is undefeated.

But, you know, when you have an alumni home run derby, you just never know what you're going to get or whether that's going to be interesting or whether anyone's going to go deep at all. And this one was fun, evidently. And so now the discussion is, will this kickstart alumni home run derbies everywhere? Will the enthusiasm for the all-star swing off and the derby in general spawn more alumni derbies? And, you know, I guess I'm into it. I guess, you know, as long as you have the right personnel, then sure, why not? people have like it seems like a really nice way to indulge nostalgia around these things because they're almost always like benefiting charity in some capacity right and so you have like the feel

good part of it and you like to see your guys now i can imagine that it is at times like a a little bit thorny because people go on to have lives after they've played baseball and sometimes they don't even dug themselves great with those lives. And so you do have to think about that part of it. But I think that they're nice. You know, if people feel comfortable doing it, they understand, I'm sure, that there's some risk. Although maybe, you know, looping back to our Justin Furlander conversation, perhaps people are less adept at assessing their own limitations as they age than I'm necessarily assuming.

But I think it's a nice thing. People show up for all kinds of celebrity, this is and that's, you know. Yeah, enthusiastic celebrity, this is and that's a sellout crowd. I don't know how many of the ticket sales were because of the home run derby, but it played a part. And it's part of the 25th anniversary celebration of American Family Field. So they bring these guys back. Like, how far down the list do you get before you get to Kean Broxton? I wonder, it's just, you know, didn't have the longest Milwaukee tenure.

But he had his moments. Anyway, evidently. The Brewer's business operations guy said that a half dozen MLB teams reached out after this derby to just, you know, pump his brain a bit, get information and how well it had worked so that they could kind of perhaps put their own plan into motion and do this elsewhere. So we'll see. We'll see. I mean, I think they're fun. I do think that having them sort of pegged to a particular like milestone is maybe a good way to do them, but not exactly. the premise, right? Like if you're like, oh, yeah, it's a, it's an anniversary game or what

have you. Then, you know, you're, you're not doing it necessarily every year. I don't know if there's appetite for that. But maybe there is. You know, again, people are nostalgic. They like to indulge nostalgia. And, you know, that's not always a productive impulse, but it doesn't have to be a negative one either. So maybe it's fine. Pick your brain, not pump your brain. Pumping your brain sounds, well, not painful, but hazardous. Probably. Pump your brain. Pump your brain.

That's like if you've played a learned league or whatever. You're pumping your, is it learned league? Is that what it's called? It's learned league? Learned league? Okay, relax you guys. Learned league. Get out of here.

I was saying nice stuff, but now I think you're just being cocky. Learned league. What are you? Some sort of country gentleman in a Jane Austen novel. I must do my learned league before. I go quarter Bennett sister. What are we doing here? I don't know what that accent was either,

but guess what? You all have to deal with it because I had to learn about learned league. Yes. Oh, my God. You just learned it to that lesson. Pat Irfie was pretty into this alumni derby. He said, I think it just opens the door.

Can you imagine the Brewers versus the Cubs home run derby? Their three legends versus legends of ours. You know what I mean? Can you imagine that happening around the league? I can just see him just munching on his pocket pancake. I was just going to say he just wants to spread the gospel of the pocket pancake to another, another league, another team, another, he's like, we must spread the gospel pocket pancake. Casey McGee suggested that it could be 2005 to 2010 brewers against 2010 to 2015 brewers. It could be age-based perhaps, although it seems like there'd be a bit of an advantage built in for one team there.

but I don't know. I like that McGee said he tried working on his swing before last week's event, but family obligations got in the way. So he didn't really prepare for this very much. For all, I know he hadn't swung in years. But, yeah. And, you know, they didn't put up short fences, which is kind of nice. I mean, they didn't hit as many homers because you don't want guys to get skunked.

You want them to be able to still poke one out. And, like, there's the famous highlight in the old-timers game of Luke Appling, hitting a home run when he was 70-something, and it's pretty impressive, but there were shallower fences. And so, you know, it's nice if guys can actually reach the fence with the old distance. And the nice thing about an alumni homer derby is that you don't really have to run. So less of a chance of tearing something if you're just swinging, though still some chance. Yeah, still some chance.

But an importantly diminished chance, shall we say. Yes, yes, because players are importantly. diminished perhaps at that point in their careers. We got a question about running and about base stealing from Zach, Patreon supporter, who said, I meant to mention this when we were talking about the Mariners, I feel like if you two don't address Josh Naylor's stolen base exploit soon, I'm going to wonder if I'm existing in the same reality as you. It is really something.

What is happening here? He has 11 stolen bases in 15 games as a mariner, which is the same number of stolen bases. He had in 93 games as a Diamondback and more stolen bases than he had had in any previous season. What has gotten into Josh Miller? It is funny because he's, you know, he's not built like a guy you think would be a stolen base machine. But I think that some of it might just be that he is perhaps running on guys who aren't. I mean, wow, he had two in one game. He had two in two games, I mean, back-to-back games against the White Sox and then he had two against the Angels.

I think some of this is probably just having a good sense of the guys that you're playing against. Maybe you're like, I don't have the best arms back there. He's been caught two times this year and no times as a mariner. He has a third percentile sprint speed. I love the, it's not even sneaky fast. It's just sneaky. I like the old guy who picks his spots. He's not old either.

He's just, he's slow. He's 28, but it reminds me of older players like a, you know, sneaky stealer poo holes late in his career where he had that run where he couldn't run really at all. And yet he would just pick up some stolen bases or, I don't know, Paul Goldschmidt, like the guys who aren't fast, maybe they were never particularly fast, but they're wily. They have the base stealing insinx, and also everyone writes them off. Freddie Freeman, right? Freddie Freeman had that season where suddenly he was stealing bases out of nowhere. It's just, you know, no one's paying attention to you, and you figure I can go. So I might as well.

I love it. Yeah. I mean, I do think that some of this is also just having, like, an understanding of who you're running against. He is running against Kyle Teal. And maybe, you know, Kyle Teal's been okay as a at throwing runners out this year. But like sometimes it doesn't do a great job of that. Like he wasn't particularly Sterling at AAA for Chicago. So maybe some of this is just like, yes, they don't expect you to go.

And so you have some advantage to go. And some of it might be running against guys who you can run on. And the combination of those things is enough for you to just like wreck up a bunch of stolen basis. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's just that, you know? Yeah. No, it's great. I doubt the Mariners were banking on acquiring this speed demon, this base thief, when they picked up nailer.

But it's a nice surprise. Yeah, I think that they were probably like, hey, go hit some home runs, won't you please? Yeah, which he has. He's hit well. It's not even like he's compensating for something. I guess he's been on base a lot, which has enabled some of the base dealing. But it's not like he's slumping and has suddenly decided, oh, I have to convert myself into. a base stealer so I can contribute offensively.

He's doing just fine. Right. But firing on all cylinders, cylinders we didn't know he had. Yeah, which is good because, like, clearly, Aohaniosaurus is washed. He's a negative 2 WRC plus in 10 whole games. My God. He does have a home run, though. That's nice.

It does remind you how much of base stealing is just voluntary, though. It's just about your will. It's just about deciding whether you want to go or not. not because how many times have we seen that? It's like with Otani last season, mid-season, just turning on the afterburners and just deciding, yeah, I'm going to go 50-50 this year. Why not? I'm not remotely on pace for that. But if I set my mind to it, then sure, no problem. And so, you know, it's just, it's all about whether you want to risk the injury and the wear and tear and obviously the outs on the bases and everything. But a lot of guys could get away

with running more than they do. And there's just not as much of a premium placed on it, even in this era where obviously base stealing is up because of the rules changes. But even so, like, you can just set your mind to it and do it, which is, it's fairly rare at this level of sports. Like, where you can't just set your mind to, we were just joking about the Rockies should just decide to be better at baseball. Well, you can't play better baseball.

Yeah, you can't do that in most facets of the sport. But base stealing is one where even if you don't have speed, then you can just say, yeah, I can probably get away with this here. And then you do until people catch on and until suddenly that's in the scouting report and then maybe you get burned for it. It's a nice reminder. You know, speed is an important component to base stealing. It's not like that doesn't matter. But I think that guys who are good base dealers, like actually good base dealers, not just like. like opportunistic Josh Naylor-based dealers often don't get, to my mind,

sufficient credit for like the part of it that is the decision-making being good, right? Like, you can be fast and be a doofus on the base paths, right? That doesn't, you might be able to mask some of your dofussness, but you're not going to be able to do that for everything. And so I want to use Josh Naylor being able to be opportunistic and like have a good sense of who he's running against and sort of exploiting guys not thinking he is going to go really is an opportunity to praise the base dealers who are far more prolific at it because I think that like it gets underestimated as a skill, right?

We tend to maybe put a little too much emphasis on the athleticism piece, which to be clear is very important. You're not going to have an amazing, amazing base dealing season without it. But like they're thinking about it too. So that's all I have to say about that. Okay. I have a trio of Padres' observations to close on the first Louisa Rise update. His strikeout rate is, if anything, lower than the last time we talked about it. I want to say it was 2.7% last time.

Now it's 2.6%. It feels frozen to me. Every time I look at his page, I have to refresh because the strikeout rate is it's always there right around 3%, below 3%. I guess because he strikes out so rarely. just it doesn't move that much, but he's at a 12k percentage plus, so his strikeout rate relative to the league, which I think is certainly still in the running for real history, which I discussed at some length earlier in the season. So that has not changed.

This is not a regression sort of situation or not really. It's kind of just his true talent for better or worse. However, he is batting 292, and on some level, the. traditionalists box score stats, back of the baseball cards, stats, old soul in me, just wants Luis to arise to hit 300. I want that to happen. It just, I mean, partly it's just because he's a fun, entertaining player, and he's just not very valuable if he's not hitting 300, because that's his calling card. And it's partly, you know, we're living in the era of low batting averages or the latest era of low batting averages. And there just, there aren't a lot of

300 hitters out there. There are just a few in the National League. I think it's Will Smith is qualified, I think, and then Xavier Edwards and Freddie Freeman. So it's like if Louisa Rice can't bat 300, then no one can or maybe Freddie Freeman can, but not many other players. Almost no one can. Yeah, so I just want him to do that. I mean, I wanted him to continue to rack up batting titles and keep winning them with different teams. every year but feeling that you know I'd just like to get him up above that round number and

I think he can there's certainly time for him to do that I have confidence in him I want him to hit above 300 and be valuable so that it's so weird he would probably resent this but so that we don't have to talk about him more at all because it feels like every time not you and I we do it in a way that's so fun and entertaining but often I find the conversation around him to be sort of frustrating and I can't account for why we have to keep having it in the frustrating way. You know, we could... He's divisive. He should be unifying.

He should be unifying. Yeah, he should bring us together, you know, do it together. Yeah. Well, Luis Reyes' teammate Mani Machado attempted a hidden ball trick, which is one of our beats every now and then. Oh, yeah. Love a hidden ball trick. Yeah, and they're so rare that we haven't even bantered about one recently. But Machado tried one, and it did not go well.

So he did not complete or pull off the trick. I'll just read from the AP story here. Padre's third baseman, Minnie Machado, tried a hidden ball trick against the Boston Red Sox, and it ended up costing San Diego at least one run Saturday. So he, like, really didn't pull off a hidden ball trick is what you're saying. It backpired. With Jaron Duran on third base and one out in the third inning, Machado still had the ball after Alex Bregman was caught in a rundown on the previous play.

With reliever Wandi Peralta on the rubber, Machado tagged Duran near the bag. Duran pointed to the mound and third base umpire Scott Berry called a bach. Scoring Duran to give Boston a two to one lead, Trevor's story moved from second to third. By rule, the pitcher cannot be on the rubber for a hidden ball trip to be legal. if another player tags a runner while the pitcher is standing on

or straddling the runner. The rubber, straddling the runner would be different. Straddling the rubber, man, straddling the rubber. What a phrase indeed. What a phrase indeed. Really? It's a bock.

Everyone knows, of course, what a bock is and immediately recognizes all the different varieties of... 100% of the time. Box, yes, of course. Goes without saying, I am always impressed by the presence of mind of players in these rare situations when sometimes they know and immediately points up.

Like, how was he even aware? Like, he's on third base. And, I mean, I guess he's watching Peralta because, you know, he's not wanting to stray too far from the bag. And so he realizes that, but it's not like Jaron Duran was probably the subject of a lot of hidden baltric attempts lately. Right. So, you know, it's something, I think, that these guys, like,

they know that situation. It's the fundamentals. really. It's just the model player's excellent grasp of the fundamentals, as everyone says. Mike Schilt Padres manager said, I thought it was a great baseball play. I'll take some responsibility. We want to work on

everything that can possibly happen in spring training. It's my miss that we didn't. So he's blaming himself that the Padres didn't practice the hidden ball trick more. You just can't be on the rubber when that happens, but Manny's IQ shows up again. Just something we didn't work on. He was on the rubber, but he

had him. So he was fool Although I guess you could say he was fooled because Peralta was still on the rubber, and thus he didn't consider himself in jeopardy, perhaps, if you want to give Duran some credit there. So I don't know whose fault that is. I guess it's Peralta's fault for not realizing and stepping off the rubber more so than Machado not realizing that Peralta had not removed himself from the rubber. But one way or another, I mean, I'm happy to see the tradition stay alive and that someone at least is. He's trying to blow on those hidden baltric embers and fan them back into flames. Yeah, although hopefully not while they're straddling the runner. I guess not.

And a final Padres-related story has to do with pitch-tipping. So there was a pitch-tipping story surrounding Robert Suarez of the Padres. And this sort of went mini-viral on social media because caught on the Padres broadcast was a Red Sox coach holding an iPad that had side-by-side images of Suarez. And one side showed Suarez, the Padres closer, in his pre-pitch set up before a fastball. And then the other side showed him in his pre-pitch set up before a change-up. And I guess in the latter image before the change-up, a little more of Suarez's right hand was visible from the centerfield camera, suggesting that perhaps he was tipping. the change up. And so there was a blown save and there was a walkoff. And Rubin Diablo,

the Padre's pitching coach, said that he got 36 direct messages about this that everyone was writing to him. Wow. And it was a big deal. And he said, but it's like, yeah, we already know. And it says as Suarez might have been tipping pitches two nights earlier. Happy to have pitch tipping stories instead of pitch-fixing stories much more. I'm on to that. Yeah, much more wholesome. And it's not clear that the Red Sox took advantage of this, but evidently Niebla's claiming at least that the Padres have been aware of this, that they've been working

with Suarez the whole year that they told him, this is what you do when you tip pitches and trying to correct that tendency in him, but that sometimes when you're in the thick of things, you forget and you fall back into those old habits. So he's essentially saying, yeah, we know. And I wondered in this situation, would you bluff, would you pretend to know so as not to seem outclassed by your opponent or that you've been out scouted somehow? Because in theory, you should know your guys better than the other team should know your guys. You see them much more. This is very strictly in your purview.

If you're the pitching coach and your pitcher is tipping pitches, that's. kind of on you, right? So, I mean, who's going to know, I guess, other than the pitcher involved if you're just blustering and pretending to have known about it. Yeah, we have this under control. Yeah. We know all about the pitch tipping. You would want to say you knew, regardless of whether or not you actually did, because then you can claim that you've remedied whatever the problem was, right, that there's been a proactive addressing of it. So I think that you would probably fib a little bit. I think you'd probably fib. Yeah, I'd say so. And Suarez, he also sounded unfazed by this, that he thought that his team also would have picked up

on this if it was happening and that they would have told him after the game and said, make this adjustment, although really during the game, I guess, would be better. But then again, you don't want to get in a guy's head. This comes up sometimes, like, you know, wasn't there a story about this with, was it with Cal and the Mariners? And someone on the Mariners was maybe tipping or, or... Yeah, I think it might have been Munoz. Yeah. Against the Yankees, I want to say, right.

And they seemed to have picked up the signs where they were, they were maybe stealing signs or sharing them from second base or something. And there was this whole, and Cal went out to talk to him, but like part of it was just, well, where I don't want to, like, make him overly conscious of this while we're just trying to get out of this jam right now. Right. I don't think you say in the moment, hey, you're tipping. I think you might say, I mean, like, I imagine they were using pitchcom, but you might say, like, oh, we're going to mix it up a little bit or change your signs if they were using signs for some reason. But I imagine they were using pitchcom. So he probably had to say, like, oh, I think they're on this pitch or whatever. You wouldn't say, hey, you're tipping in that moment. Or maybe you would, but if it were me, I'd be like, oh, my God, now I can't not tip. I must always tip. I tip in perpetuity.

And that seems counterproductive. Yeah. And Schilt about this, he basically said, well, we're living in a surveillance state. That was not a direct quote. But he was like, he's like, Big Brother is always watching, more or less. He said, this is the real quote, which is not that different. We're in a society where no one can hide. I mean, just the technologies, everything that's out there, it's being used, it's there.

these guys are not machines, but machines are evaluating and overlaying and using artificial intelligence and all the different things that take place and it's something that clearly we monitor. We have internal awareness of it. We're looking at our side, the opponent's side. But then he said, and I'm wholeheartedly with him here, I think it's overblown. You can look at it and slow it down and you can take a picture of it. Go do it in front of 40,000 people in real time and with an athlete that's moving and see how successful you are. I do think there's people and there's teams and players that are good at. it. But I also think that even if it's slightly there, it's really hard to pick up in live

competition. And I agree. I've always been a pitch-tipping skeptic. I feel like this really fires up fans' imaginations because in theory it's something that we can see. It's almost like when the banging scheme came out and you can go back and listen to the bangs. You can kind of convince yourself, oh, look, oh, they're gesturing from second. Okay, what are they seeing? I can look at the footage. And sometimes you seem to be able to pick something up, but you never know for sure what exactly they're seeing or whether they're seeing anything because maybe they think they're seeing something, but they're not actually and they're sucking themselves out. Or as Nabila said, sometimes it's a deke that they're bluffing because they want to get

in your head and force you to change something. And so they're just pretending to have picked up on something. And it's just, it's really hard. I mean, yeah, even with, and this is all legal and gamesmanship, although, you know, players still ruffles feathers and guys get plunked for it every now and then. It's sort of a self-policing thing, but it's not anything you're going to be suspended for as long as you're not using real-time technology that's connected to the internet or something. But, like, you know, teams, they, I'm sure, have models and they can run, you know, on the footage, just have some kind of computer vision machine learning sort of set up that can detect these minute differences. But then, yeah, is it going to be persistent? Can you actually pick up on that and process that in real time, which is the same conversation we had about the signs dealing?

Because it's like, well, you're not used to. You're not accustomed to knowing what pitch is coming. And so it seems like that should be a huge advantage. But maybe it actually throws you off your game. Maybe it's distracting because you're trying to take into account this extra information that you don't normally have. Maybe you overthink things. So I just, I'm sure that there have been cases where pitch tipping was.

decisive and pivotal and someone picked up on something at just the right moment and capitalized on it. But I think it's a bunch of hot air in most contexts. Heard it here first. Hot hair. Hot hair. Yeah, I can imagine. I think that it's one of those things where the instances where it makes a difference, it probably makes like an important difference, but those instances are spaced out amongst the times when they actually are able to like pick up a pick up a sign or what have you. Like I think there are times

where they're like, we know what's coming and then they still swing through it. Like good execution is probably going to beat out and overcome for knowledge of the pitch more often than not.

Yeah, it's hard to hit Robert Suarez even if you know what he's pitching. And yeah, there's just so many distractions and some of the other cues that you're picking up on and I'm just generally a skeptic.

I think it's it's way overrated as a factor. Sure. I'll never know from sure. And there have always been players, coaches who are reputed to be just pitch-tipping savants and could just have this superpower. And you'd think that would just be immensely valuable. And whenever you read a story about this, it's like it's kind of embarrassing.

It's like the other team had better intel and your counterintelligence wasn't up to snuff. But I just, I think we make too much of it. Yeah, I think that people like anything that reads as like Spicraft, you know, they're like, this is so cool. And I don't know about that, so. Pitch-tipping skeptics here at Effectively Wild, official podcast position. I think that we're pitch-tipping realists more than anything else. Yeah.

And there are definitely cases where it has mattered. mattered a great deal and sometimes in like postseason situation so i don't want to say that it can't it doesn't ever matter um but i think that it's also uh you're not doomed to tip in perpetuity is the other thing about it right like once guys realize that they're doing it they seem like they're pretty adept at course correcting on it so yeah okay yeah not total pitch tipping truthers but just you know i try to avoid the truther thing just like wherever i can it seems to lead to madness more often than not these days. Just another patented, measured take.

Yeah. Okay, a couple of follow-ups. Last time I did a little combined stat blast slash meet a major leaguer on the most productive Ivy League schools in the MLB draft era. Of course, listener Damon wrote in to note that Lou Gehrig went to Columbia, then Columbia College. But yes, that was before the 1965 amateur draft cutoff that I imposed for that segment. However, a little bit of background on my findings from Patreon supporter Josh, who says some further context on Dartmouth's baseball program that may explain how they've produced so many big leaguers, because that was the takeaway that Dartmouth was the relative baseball powerhouse of the Ivy League.

Their longtime head coach, Bob Whalen, who was at the helm from 1990 through his retirement this past season, was a fixture at Stanford's annual summer prospect camps, which other Ivy League schools weren't always invited to attend. Dartmouth then stood out as an attractive alternative for top high school ball players, interested in attending a quote-unquote prestigious university who weren't quite Pact 12-10 caliber recruits or wanted a college experience away from the West Coast. I recruited at these camps for a similarly selective D3 school for a handful of seasons, and to be honest, was often frustrated by Dartmouth's presence. It seemed like every prospect I'd talked to already had Dartmouth on their list and had spoken to Coach Whalen, so the guy knew what he was doing. When listening to the pod, I found myself shouting, Dartmouth to no one, as I listened to Meg, try to guess which Ivy League school had produced the most MLB talent. Well, thank you, Josh. Always good to put the story with the stats. And listener Greg writes in to say, I am here with a pathetic, semi-pedantic plea for mercy and grace from a pirates fan.

On more than one occasion in the midst of praising the Brewers and their success at making something out of nothings, Ben has commented on Quinn Priest's success with Milwaukee, despite being a pirates cast off. happy as I am to see Priester's success and sad as I am to see it come in a divisional foes uniform, I must set the record a little straight here. We traded Priester to Boston for a decent return, Nick York, albeit a return that we've since let sit in AAA, while the big league team continues to be truly horrible at the plate, it was Boston, who then flipped him to Milwaukee half a season later,

for a return, I think, fits more with the idea of Priester being a cast-off. Anyway, we Pirates fans suffer enough at the hands of our ownership, front office and on-field product in that order. So show mercy here and spread the word. Priester is a Red Sox cast off. All right, I'm going to give it to you. Priester was a Pirates prospect, who didn't pan out with the pirates,

but Boston cast off, okay. Either way, he's another win for Milwaukee. And it's a win for us every time someone signs up to support the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going,

help us stay ad-free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners, Jason Frankel, Josh U, Kevin Linger, Eric Heraldo Gordon, and Ethan Cheel. 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, discounts on merch and ad-free fan graphs memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild.

And you can check the show notes at Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another. episode soon. Talk to you then. Thank you.