Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2366: The Post-Toss Toss

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the early start to the 2026 regular season and MLB’s schedule in a warming world, tossing snacks after tossing a bat, this year’s potential trio of 50-homer hitters (including a Cal Raleigh update), the virtues of players who have high floors (with check-ins on Bobby Witt Jr. and […]

Upsters, that's infantry, they both mean a lot to me. That's wild of baseball. Special dances, previous series pitching and pure poetry. That's how I love baseball. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2366 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought

you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley Fangraphs, and I'm joined by Ben Lerberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Well, I'm excited because it's a Tuesday, which means that we're going around, around, around. The majors, the majors, the majors. I didn't do the echo on the, the, I guess I didn't do that echo that well. Maybe Shane could add an actual echo effect. We have a podcast producer.

Around, around, around. The majors, the majors, the majors, the majors. The point is, it's Tuesday when we're recording this. Yeah. We have not spoken since Thursday. Oh, my God. Ah, an eternity. An age.

So much has transpired, so much banter to get to. Beginning with breaking news, which is that we got the regular season schedule for 2026. Yeah. And the season starts so early, earlier than ever, really. There's an opening night game. It's, what, Yankees Giants on March 25th, and then opening day, real opening day, is the next day, March 26th. That sounds. It's so early.

It is the earliest domestic opening day in a non-delayed season. It is a new high score, a new early date on the calendar. And it just feels wrong. I'm not against it necessarily because, hey, MLB will be back even sooner. But still, like, it just seems unnatural somehow. Because when we started watching baseball, the season would start first week of April at some point, probably. But for years and years before that, it would start mid-April, even verging on late April sometimes. And now we're creeping into late March and earlier in late March, less late March, there are no international games.

There's no international opening series. I guess because there's a World Baseball Classic, which is exciting. But I got to think that with opening day that early combined with the World Baseball Classic, this is going to be a super compressed ramp up to the season, right? Like spring training will be short. It will be abrupt, which is maybe okay. Maybe spring training lasts longer than it needs to anyway. But still, March 25th, there will be Major League Baseball played and not even in Japan or

Korea or Australia or anywhere. I struggle to react to opening day normally, you know, like with the same set of incentives and enthusiasms as your average Jane or Joe, because all I see when I see a March 26th opening day, all I see freaking early start to position all power rankings my stars and girders some of this I imagine

is also about accommodating various World Cup related activities right this this is a schedule that comes with a number of built-in off days and at least one

double header as a result of needing to accommodate World Cup matches occurring in cities that also are home to a major league team so there's there's some of that you know there's a little bit of that going on but also quite early just uh hey don't know about it i you know there's obviously a one difference throughout the ages is like you know once the schedule goes to 162 games you got to like shift stuff sooner you know in your start you got to be able to accommodate a 162 game schedule.

You have to be accommodating to international competition, whether it's your own or someone else's because, you know, they have to know that the World Cup has the potential to be profoundly disruptive in these cities from a transit perspective. So they got to deal with that and accommodations. Can you imagine? I hope all the traveling secretaries out there have already booked their various guys into hotels throughout the FIFA schedule, because that's going to be. I'm I going to pretend to be excited about the World Cup?

Not yet. You know, maybe I'll, maybe I'll round into that form, but I'm not, I'm not going to do it yet. I don't, I don't feel a pressure to do it. You know, I'm acknowledging. Sometimes it comes upon me spontaneously. Like I remember in grad school, the first year I was in grad school was like a World Cup year. Everybody really was having fun. And, you know, it was the summer, go down to Ross Keller at the Memorial Union.

I miss the Union in Madison, man. That was a great spot. And they put it on the big screen. I'm sitting there and drink a beer with my buds. That was nice. I think it was more about the buds in the beer than the soccer, but that's a bit of introspection for another day. But anyway, there's like stuff that they have to work around here,

but it comes at a cost, right? And the cost is more days of your schedule, potentially impacted by frigid weather on the front end, right? It's cold at the end of March in a lot of the country. It's frigid. It's frigid time. I wonder if that is the future, though, as the climate gets less frigid, unfortunately, whether this might actually be beneficial because it's becoming a concern, more of a concern, just extreme heat. I mean, you know better than anyone where you live, but for baseball players, for athletes who are not in domes, and maybe the future is just domes and retractable roofs. But in the short term, as we try to deal with rising temperatures, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world if the season starts earlier, ends later, and you actually do build in more off days, just some slack in the schedule, not just for World Cup-related reasons, but just for rest.

Like, as the dog days get hotter and more exhausting, and as earlier in the year gets slightly more temperate, you know, it's not that big. make a difference, granted. I mean, it's a major disastrous difference, to be clear, climate change. But also, it's only like, what, two to three degrees Fahrenheit on average higher than the pre-industrial temperatures worldwide with dangerous spikes and more extreme weather and all the rest. But just on your average day, plop down now and 1850 or whatever, you wouldn't necessarily know, oh, this is global warming because it might just be 89 instead. that of 87 or something. I mean, for you, 89 would be a blessing. That would be a sweet relief. But still, like, it's not as if late March is sweltering now.

And you can see it. I mean, it's not just polar ice caps melting. It's also like flowers and plants bloom earlier. And migration patterns are different. You know, all these things like the natural world adjusts. And so maybe the sports schedule must also adjust. and it could be a little less costly potentially to, you know, if we're just talking, bumping it back a week, let's say, relative to when we started watching baseball 30 years ago, well, maybe the average temperatures is the same now a week earlier than it was 30 years ago, right? So I don't know.

Maybe it makes some sort of sense, even if that's not exactly the plan. There's definitely something to the notion that, and I don't think this is, you know, to your point, what's motivating any. schedule changes this year. But, like, I think there's something to the idea that, like, the more the league views itself as needing to be adaptable to, um, the realities of playing an outdoor summer sport in an increasingly warming world, like the better, you know, just to, I don't want to, like, overstate the case or anything, but like last week in the valley here, it was very hot. It was also, we're in our monsoon season. And so there was a day where it was hot and, And for the valley, relatively humid.

There was a little bit of humidity in the air, although I saw James Fegan while he was in town. And I said, it's humid today. And he looked at me like, it was crazy. So, you know, like all relative, I suppose. But on that day, there had been multiple players playing in the Bridge League down here in Arizona who collapsed on the field because of heat. You know, one of whom who had to be taken to the hospital, although I'm going to understand that he's going to be okay. The Cubs banged the rest of their Bridge League schedule. Now, I don't know if that was entirely motivated by heat-related concerns, so I don't want to, like, ascribe a definitive motivation to it, but I'm sure it was one of the factors that they considered.

So, like, there's stuff that work, there's, like, a reality that the league is going to have to grapple with about how it plays sport outside. You know, there are extreme environments where it tries to do that now that are probably going to bear the brunt of that, at least from a heat-related perspective. but, like, obviously, like, the age of climate change disrupting baseball is here, and it's been here, right? We've lost games to forest fire, smoke, or not it, though not as many as we arguably should have, you know, like the, the trap is what it is right now. Not all of that stuff is purely a byproduct of climate change. It's not like hurricanes are new, but they are worse and more frequent than they used to be, right? Like the average, the last five years in the valley have been some of the hottest in recorded history. So it's just like this is the thing that the league's going to have to figure out how to adapt to, even if the broader political context changes again in a way that tries to grapple with those issues more directly.

So that's a long way of saying that that's really early. I'm going to start editing positional power ranking so soon. Yeah. But the good news for people who don't have to edit and plan positional power rankings is again, most people. Most people, yes, the offseason will be slightly shorter. That's good, right? That's something that when the World Series ends, which I think can be as late as November 1st, if it goes the full length. But whenever that ends, the countdown to, well, I guess the countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting might be the same.

But the countdown to opening day will be a few days shorter. So there's that at least. Plus, there's the countdown to the World Baseball Classic, which you may or may not end up being excited for the World Cup. but you will be excited for the World Baseball Classic. I'm already excited for the World Baseball Classic. I'm already excited. Yeah, the storylines I would think I fret about pitchers and their arms with the distraction of being out of camp for the buildup to the World Baseball Classic,

which is always a storyline. Pitchers reluctant to participate in the past. We'll see if that holds now that people are really into the WBC. And I've been somewhat skeptical about whether there is actually an elevated injury risk because guys get hurt in spurt training all the time too. Right, right. But between that and this slightly earlier start to the regular season schedule, then, yeah, you're going to have to get your stuff together pretty early and fast.

So that's always a little risky, but at least we can look forward to an earlier opening day. So we had a new bat toss by a player, new bat toss dropped. It was this time by Wilson Contreras of the Cardinals. So this was not as violent a bat throw as Victor Robus as was, but there was one thing that they had in common. So in Contreras' case, it was a little odd. He struck out looking on a pitch that was a strike, and I guess he wasn't complaining so much about that particular strike call, but he says he was objecting to something that the empire said to him. The empire tossed him.

There was a little bit of he said he said, or, like, lack of clarity about what exactly set him off, but he certainly did get set off, and he was raging a little bit, and he was doing a hold me back, and people were holding him back. Oh, wow. And then he did a little bat toss, not like end over end. It was more like a lateral thing, but he actually, he hit a Cardinals coach by accident. Yeah. Friendly fire.

Yeah, it was. It was friendly fire. and that was obviously not intended. He apologized for that. But he was not aiming for the coach. It was Brent Brown, the hitting coach, and it was after he was ejected. So he was upset about being ejected.

And then I guess then he threw his bat, which certainly would have gotten him ejected. But the ump, I think, suggested that he might have made contact with him anyway. He was kind of looking behind him. Like, I think he was probably tossing the bat in the direction of the umpire. Oh. He made it sound like it was just an accident. He said, I wasn't looking back.

I just threw the bat back. That was not on purpose. It looks like he was looking bad. I don't know. He was looking back a little bit. So I don't know what his intent was exactly, but it was thrown in the general direction of the umpire who was standing right next to Brent Brown. Anyway, the coda to all of this, the epilogue. was the same as it was in Robus' case,

which is that after he returned to the dugout, he launched a bucket of snacks onto the field. In Contreras' case, it was Haichu. Oh. And in Robes' case... I know. In Robes' case, it was sunflower seeds. That's fine.

But they both chose to punctuate their tantrums the same way. Yeah. And I feel like it's just... It's gilding the lily. It's a little, it's like a grace note, I guess, for the rant, but it feels extraneous to me. It's just like, you threw a bat. Like, it doesn't, there's no where you can go up from that other than, I guess, like a Johnny Roseboro sort of situation where you're actually hitting someone with a bat. But, like, that's, you've already ramped up.

You've pretty much peaked in terms of, like, your tantrum, right? And so I feel like the tossing the seeds at the end, it just feels like a little extraneous gesture. Maybe they're just so heated that the tantrum continues, but I don't know. To me, it just feels like you already maxed out. You reached your ceiling when it comes to how angry you can get and how demonstrative you can get about your anger on a baseball field. Right. It just you can't also toss the seed. It almost feels like a, like a face-saving thing to me at the end, almost.

It's like, like, you'd be almost sheepish about it. It's kind of like, okay, so I mentioned I was watching Platonic season two the other day, and you learned that that was a thing. Yeah, and I doubted you, and then I saw someone else reference it, and I was like, either this is incredibly elaborate, or there is a show called that. In its second season, I'm given to understand. Yeah, good show.

Yeah, it's a Bader Meinhauf phenomenon there. I mentioned platonic. Suddenly you're hearing about platonic all over the place. All over the place. That probably would have escaped your notice if I hadn't primed you. Yeah, it wouldn't have piqued my interests at all. But anyway, continue. So in one episode, there's a moment where Rose Byrne's character refers to Seth Rogen's

character's fiancee as a bitch, but to a third party, to a mutual friend. Okay. And she's then... Oh, it's dangerous. Yeah. subsequently worried, though, that the friend is going to tell Seth Rogen that she called his fiancé a bitch. And so she then starts to pretend that she just says bitch about everything.

Like, instead of bitching, she just says, like, that's so bitch, and she just starts saying it about everything, which I feel like that's like a comedy trope. I've seen that in other things, I think. But, yeah, the idea, try to establish that, oh, yeah, that's just something I say. It doesn't mean anything. Yeah. That's me. Always, always that bitch. Yes. And so that is what it feels like to be when you toss the bucket after tossing the bat. Just like, yeah, I'm a loose cannon, you know?

I'm just an angry guy. Like, I'm just throwing things. Oh, there was a bat within reach. Yeah, I didn't notice, didn't mean to. I was just tossing it behind me. Wasn't really looking. Oh, there's a bucket of sunflower. Yeah, I'll throw that too.

It's basically a quiver. I'll just, I'm throwing whatever's. It doesn't really make it better. I don't know whether you, like, tack a game onto the suspension because of the sunflower seat or high chew bucket toss. Probably not. No, probably not. But, yeah, it feels to me like either your, your performance.

formatively trying, yeah, I'm still so mad that I'm just grabbing everything within range. Or you're just trying to like play off the bat toss as if it wasn't that big a deal. Like maybe your cooler head is starting to prevail and you realize like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble now because I just threw a bat and that's going to be bad. So I'll just start tossing other stuff to make it look like, yeah, that's normal. I'll just normalize the bat toss by doing the bucket toss too. I see to me it reads much more as like you know that that malaney bit about making the birthday sign and how we've all gone too big too early like a big ass bee that's this is the the ejection equivalent of that because you're right like we talked about the robless thing and we don't have to sort of rehash that conversation but you know I think part of what part of what marks the bat toss throw what have you as being particularly worthy of suspension because, you know, like a coach got hit in this instance,

but in general, like, you can kind of see the bat come in. Like, you can get out of the way, right? But it's so, it deviates so profoundly from the norm of the sport. And a bat is a thing that we all understand as having a, like a weaponized use away from the fields, right? Like, plenty of people have, like, a baseball bat in their house in the case of an intro. or whatever, right? Like, you have, you have an understanding that you can, like, bludgeon someone with it in a way that would be damaging to them. And so it's like, no, we must stamp this out, even though arguably, like, you know,

throwing a baseball at someone intentionally could, in certain circumstances, do greater damage to them, right? So we are, we're taken aback by the abrant nature of the behavior, right? This is deviant in a way that we have to, like, have a firm line about. so it's like it's a big ass bee you know it's the it's like one of the worst things you can do but like you know whether they mean to or not guys are throwing their snacks all over the place all the time you know and like we've talked before about the casual nature with which snacks are discarded or at least the waste of snacks i guess hichu would be easier to pick up right and it's in a

rapper so you're not wasting hichu you know i maybe overstated the case there also because you could pick up the hichu and just put it back in the little buck did they have a bucket of hichu the way they have a bucket of like bubble gum yeah that's great where can i get a bucket of hichu i wonder if i wonder if people would like hichu as a halloween treat did i tell you that i ordered a halloween like candy pull the other day you're always way ahead of the game well look, the other, yesterday, you know, our recording got delayed today because a haboob came through yesterday and I felt briefly like I was on Arachus and should like go find a sandworm, but it did, it did do a little bit of mayhem to the yard. It's fine, but like there was some

mayhem that needed addressing. And then I had to shower because it's hot out. But anyway, we're getting on it, but it's arguably too early for me to be ordering. But they have Halloween stuff at Lowe's now, Ben. I had to go for. push broom and they had they just had their Halloween guys out they had their giant animatronics they're just ready yeah anyway baseball bats don't throw them at people no so i had missed this story entirely which is surprising so he's definitely going to draw a suspension also right i would think so yes you would think so yes even if he maintains that he was just trying to toss the bat back toward the plate there was a lot of traffic between him and the plate including an umpire yeah that seems a little reckless

Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. Well, that's just, yeah, I enjoy it, I guess, when it's a manager, when there are many components to the tantrum. Yeah. You know, like you do your sort of like your gestures, you kick dirt, and then you throw your hat, and then maybe you do some other sort of pantomime, you know, one of the more elaborate routines that some managers have had and gone kind of viral for. And then when that continues as you're walking all the way back into the dugout, and then you toss something just to show that you're tossed from the game, but you're still tossing stuff yourself. I kind of like that when a manager does it. But when a player already raises it to the max with the bat toss, then the bucket toss is just such an afterthought.

It just feels it doesn't really land. I mean, it lands. The bucket lands. But the gesture doesn't really land because you've already stolen your own thunder by throwing the most inflammatory thing you can throw in that context. Well, and I also think when all of your stuff is verbal, you're right. It's like a little exclamation point to like toss your gum or knock over like a clipboard and the paper scatter. But also managers have to do a different thing, which is they need to express frustration.

But they, because they are the manager, ideally need to have like some amount of dignity, right? And like throwing Haichu, that's not manager behavior. A player can do that, right? I mean, again, I think that you're sort of like getting the, you're putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable given the order of operations here. Although maybe that suggests that his accounting of events is accurate, right? Maybe he wasn't thinking about it as like building a dramatic crescendo. He thought of the Haichu as the crescendo.

And he was trying to get the bat just toward the... I'm not saying it wasn't reckless. I'm not saying, I believe this is a theory. It seems silly. It seems obviously not true. But maybe it is true. And maybe he was like, I must hide you. Yeah, he's trying to improve his cover story, essentially, by tossing the chew.

I mean, I was going to give him the brief benefit of the doubt and say that it was a true story and not a cover story. But I like your thing better where he realized, oh, boy, I screwing. up and I don't want to draw a suspension so I'm going to have to I got it what's around the hichu the seed thing is like it makes it makes a bad mess you know because then you got like rake yeah someone has to clean that yeah I always not you it's not the person who through it yeah I mean show Hey Otani would probably clean after himself if he did that but he probably wouldn't do that in the first place so most players they're tossing it on their way out after being tossed on their way out so they're not

coming back to clean. Yeah. I imagine that there are guys who would be like, oh, that was unbecoming of me. And I should offer to help with that. You know, that's a population that's bigger than just one, but smaller than the number of big leaguers. So, yeah. I saw a stat from opta stats the other day that said today, show Hey, Otani becomes the third player to reach 45 plus home runs this season. after Cal and Kyle, Cal Raleigh, Kyle Schwabber.

It's the third time in MLP history that at least three players have reached 45 homers before September, along with 1998, which was Mark McGuire, Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa, and Greg Vaughn, of course, and then 2001, Barry Bonds, Sosa, and Juan Gonzalez. And I was wondering whether this means anything, because 98, of course, that's associated with, with the home run race in 2001 and Barry Bonds. I mean, this is peak PD era, steroid era. And I've questioned how much the offense of that time and the home run rate of that time was actually related to steroids

as opposed to a ball change and other factors. But I think for individual players, it probably had an impact to certain players who defied the aging curve, and it made them stronger. And so that was right in the sweet spot of that period. And so here we are now in 2025, and we're probably going to have 3.50 home run hitters because Cal's already there. Cow has hit his 50th home run of the season.

He's charging hard. He is now equalized. He's tied with Aaron Judge in the Fangraph's war race, at least. And then Kyle Schwerber and Joey Otani are at 45, and we're not even to September yet. So partly this is. a fun fact lying because, well, it connects to what we were just talking about. Season starts earlier. So you have more time to accumulate home runs before September because you might be playing

two or three weeks more of the season before September than you used to back in the day. But also, we're on track probably for 50 homers, three 50 homer hitters if those guys don't go into big slumps or get hurt down the stretch. Chautani and Schwerber. And 98 and 2001 are the only two seasons that have had more than three. They had four a piece. Oh, and I said Juan Gonzalez. It was Luis Gonzalez, of course. That makes more sense. Yeah, I guess it does. But 98 was Griffey McGuire-Sosa, Vaughn. 2001 was Bonn's Louise Gonzalez, A-Rod, and Sammy Sosa. And then no other season has had more than two 50 Homer hitters. So it'll be those two steroid-era seasons with high home-run rates, and then 2025. And I don't know whether that means anything.

On the one hand, it only takes, like, one extra guy hitting 50 homers to, like, make it notable. So that's the definition of sort of a small sample, really. But also, it hasn't happened in all the seasons aside from 98 and 2001. So it is still somewhat noteworthy. So I don't know. I was trying to think of like what that could be attributable to. And I don't know that I've really come up with anything in particular. But it's surprising that it would happen this year, for instance, and not 2019 or 2017 when we were at peak home run rate.

Home run rate still high, historically speaking, but down significantly from where it was in 2019. So, and, you know, as we talked about at the time, that was more about just like everyone hitting 20 than everyone hitting 50, obviously. It was just like the weaker guys could kind of poke one over the fence because the ball would travel farther, whereas the guys on the top range of power could just, they were hitting it out anyway. And maybe they were just hitting it even farther. But I don't know. It is somewhat surprising. Like the home run rate this season is. essentially the same as what it was in 2001 in 1998 or at least 2001. I guess it's even

higher than it was in 2008, just like home runs per game essentially, but lower than it has been in several recent seasons. So I don't know what to make of that, if anything. I don't know what to make of it either. I do imagine that a good bit of it is just like the confluence of there being more days before September and you having a couple of guys who are just like really prolific good home run headers. Yeah, the pre-September part of it, I think, is definitely, that's part. But this is even just full season. Right.

There aren't more games than there have been for the past 60 years or so. Right. So I don't know. I don't know what to make of that. I will also admit to being a little distracted because I was like, how long do I have to let me and talk before I can interject to talk about Cal? And I wasn't sure what a polite interval was. You're always welcome to do a Cal interjection.

So, so like, hey, how about that Cal? You know, it's very exciting. I can tell that I'm invested and that I want, that I want him to win ALMVP because, like, my threshold for a historical, like, milestone or record being interesting is, like, very low now, you know. where it's like multi-home run games by a switch hitter. And I'm just like, wow.

And it's like, does that matter. I mean, it, it does. Like, it's, that's a cool thing to do and be able to do, right? I don't know that the, you know, it doesn't matter. It's not like a thing. It's not like we, we didn't, I didn't know who held that record before I, before entering the season, right? Yeah, if he gets to 54, because that's the record for home runs by a switch hitter.

I believe, because that's Mickey Mantle, 1961. So if he surpasses that, that's meaningful. That's meaningful. But most multi-home, I mean, obviously you have to hit a lot of homers to have a lot of multi-homer games, probably. But it is kind of a weird one. Yeah, it's definitely a weird one. And so, like, I'm here to acknowledge my own limitations as a human being, right, to admit to my biases. I have been amused by, there's like a, a bridge.

window last week where there was like a merging discourse about the about the whole thing right like what I can't believe that people think the cows the MVP so obviously I're in judge and it was a weird way to find out who we uses what version of war I think was mostly my takeaway once from like oh you're a beerf person cool um which is fine it's fun to be a bereft person I'm not but I understand people doing it, you know. I don't think it's like a wild departure from the land of the hinge. But, like, that conversation is quieted now, you know, and I think all the homeruns have helped with the quieting.

Here's my take, Ben. The tired take is that now they are tied from an F-war perspective. The wired take is that when there was a four-tenths of wind gap between them, they were also tied. That's the same war. everybody is the same that's the same war you should everybody's this same it's the same um but i just think it's delightful i love that we actually get to have a conversation about it um i'm particularly enjoying the tone of the conversation today but um you know give it a week and let judge go off and

maybe i'll be singing a different tune but it's sure something you know those are just some and they're like ben they're like emphatic home runs you know they are they are very big and loud i think going to, he's going to just leave the ballpark, I think. I think one of these days is just going to be like, boop. And then it will be gone. It's nice, you know, he's the Zanino who was promised. I think that's what I've come around to. Like, this is what Mariners fans hoped we would be getting with Zanino.

And I talked myself into my Zanino being good at points when he was not, like, in an objective way. And now I don't have to do very much convincing. And that's fun, too. For me personally, it's not that he was never good. He was just only really good that one year and then some years quite poor, as it turned out. Yeah, we've been talking about Cal and Judge so much this season that people are making an effort to add new names to the race to make things more interesting. You know, like people have been mentioning Bobby Witt Jr., for instance, who's less than one war behind those two guys now, according to fan graphs. And look, I mean, we still have more than a month to go.

That's why we said last time we can't just wait to come to a determination until the season is over, which is when people actually vote on these things. Sometimes the discourse demands its answer. Yeah, but it's true that, like, Witt has kind of quietly because he started slower and also because this, as good a year as he's having, it's kind of a down year from last year, which was also just an amazing season. And unfortunately for him, coincided with Aaron Judge having an even more amazing season. But, yeah, we haven't talked about Bobby Witt Jr. enough this season. We barely talked about him at all because we just kind of take it for granted now that, yeah, he's one of the best players in baseball. And if he has a relative down year, like a mere 130 WRC plus instead of 169, well, what new is there to say about him other than just to say, yeah, he's still.

excellent, maybe not quite as good as last year, but still really good on the short list of the best players in baseball. And same with Trey Turner in the National League, because I think, you know, for a long time, it was Otani versus Pete Carr Armstrong. And not that PCA's completely out of it, but he's been slumping and he's got a sub 300 on base and everything else. So now it's like, okay, but Trey Turner, he's coming around the bend, you know, he's, he's closing ground. And he is like, he's been great. He's been great. Yeah. but he's probably not there, unless, of course, like the leader's slump and the trailer is hot. Like, we have time left.

They could absolutely catch up there within striking distance, but it would be tough, I think, at this point to overcome the narrative dominance of Shohei and Cal and Judge. Just because it's been like wire to wire, they've kind of been the leaders since early on. And I think everyone just got entrenched in that it's Cal versus Judge, you know, mindset early on, or it's Shohei versus PCA or whatever else. And so to inject new names, even if they are deserving at this stage, I don't know, you'd have to kind of come from behind, not just statistically speaking, but also in terms of voter awareness. But, you know, you hope the 30 people who are actually voting on these things are considering the whole sweep of the season as opposed to who was leading. in July or whatever, because, you know, Witt and Turner, they've outplayed those leaders over an extended stretch, well, so they're making up that ground. They've been excellent, too, and probably have been somewhat unsung or not sung enough

just because we kind of take for granted that they're good, and they have leveled up this season a little late. I think the timing of these, like, very strong stretches is always impactful to our collective understanding of how this stuff goes, you know, when you sequence the hot stretch versus not like matters a good bit. You know, I think we get this, we get this every year where you just can't overcome, necessarily overcome the momentum of the leader. Sometimes there's a really big gap and then there's nothing to overcome except a really big gap. But it definitely plays a role in sort of solidifying our understanding of what kind of year they're having and the late sort of

breaking good performance can take a while to kind of make its way into the instinctive reaction we have when that guy comes on screen, right? Where it's like, oh, he's having a great season or, oh, he's so hot right now. You know, like, they ended up getting blown out in that game. But, like, Trey Turner came up to the plate yesterday and early in the Phillies game against the Mets. And I was just like, man, he's just been on an epic heater. And then it does impact, even when you're watching a lot of baseball.

and you want to think you're thinking about it in a smart way and you're not like assuming that you will have a hot hand forever if you have one right now, right? Which is, of course you don't, because otherwise we wouldn't note it as hot, right? You would say, you have a hand, you know, like you normally do. You have a normal temperature hand. You have a 65 degree hand on the outside, hopefully not on the inside.

But I was like, oh, he's on that pitch. And I'm like, was he, though? Or am I just assuming he'll be able to do something with it because he's been hitting so well lately? So I think it definitely has a part to play in all this, or at least it plays a part in all of this, even if it's one that, you know, hopefully people are able to take a step back

and sort of assess the totality. But, like, this is part of why your votes not due until right before first pitch of the first playoff game. I mean, like, you can submit it after, before that, to be clear, but like you have up until then to do it. Don't wait until then though, because like what if you miss it? And then like only 29 votes, that would be bad. That'd be bad. Yeah. And you're talking about hot hands and people being hot. I'm now thinking of George Casanza ranting about having no hand. And I'm also thinking of Will Farrell saying

Hansel, so hot right now. Hansel. These are just the movie quotes and sitcom quotes that run through my mind as I am paying close attention to everyone. everything that you are saying. We are a particular age. We are a particular age. We are a particular age. Anyway, I do, I love players like that who are so well-rounded that they're just so high floor because players like that, like Witt and Turner and Cal for that matter.

Sure. Or his teammate, Julio Rodriguez, who has also been better. Like these guys, even if they have a disappointing year or a slow start or something, they're still immensely valuable players. Yes. They're still just like Cal before this season was solid four to five were player for three years because it's just like if you're a catcher who's good defensively and you take some walks and have some pop, like you're going to be really valuable.

And then he just goes off and reaches a new level and now he's possibly an MVP. But he was already just such a solid player. Julio, who's been seen as somewhat disappointing just because I think he burst onto the scene in 2022 and he had a 148 WRC plus and was like a six-war player and not even quite a full season. And so we're all extrapolating from that and thinking, okay, well, he's just going to be a perennial seven to eight win player. And he hasn't quite been that because the bat hasn't been quite as good. But even like last year, 116 WRC plus this year, 119, he's still good.

to be like four win player worst case he's already a four win player this year even though he doesn't walk very much and you know he's probably had some some batted ball bad luck maybe this year but like that's the floor for him because he's a good defensive center fielder or even great one and a good base runner and so you put all these things together and how bad can you possibly be so like bobby witch junior if everything goes right and he's firing on all cylinders well then he's a 10 war player we saw that last year. But even if it's like he takes a step back, okay, he's going to be merely a seven-ish war player.

I mean, and his defensive turnaround from his rookie season to subsequent, like still just blew my mind. Yeah, because like, yeah, negative seven by stat cast in 2022, negative 18 by defensive run saved. Yeah, Darius hated his defense. Yeah, totally hated it. And the next year still didn't like it, but disliked it a lot less. And Statcast, he went from negative 7 to plus 10 in one year, which has basically been where he has stayed or even better.

He's a plus 15, according to Statcast so far runs wise this year. And actually, Trey Turner has had a very similar, but maybe even more flummixing defensive glow up this year. Because he's a plus 11 by FRV. the stat-cast-based defensive metric. And... Don't believe it was. His year-by-year F-R-V totals, going back to 2017, which was the first time he played shortstop regularly,

zero plus nine, that was his high watermark to date, plus two, minus two, zero, zero, negative four, negative two. So he's kind of like hovering around average most of the time and maybe a little bit worse than that lately. and he's 32 years old and you think it's probably not going to get better, you know, that's the age at which many short stops are moving, maybe off the position if they've lasted that long. And suddenly he's at plus 11 this year,

which, like, you know, I'd have to look into what has led to that and why he's been so much better. And, you know, even now with stat-cast-based metrics, you can give a slight side-eye to a single season or not even a full season of defensive stats at this point. and it is largely subject to the opportunities you get. And Stackast, I think, is better for outfielders than for infielders. Not that it's bad for infielders, but I trust it even more for outfielders.

Sure. So now you take his floor, which was basically a four-win player, because even if he wasn't like set in the world on fire offensively, he's still going to be a great base runner and he's playing shortstop and he wasn't a, you know, like you start with that base of, yeah, I'm fast and I'm a good defender. Right. Anything you do on offense is gravy. If you can hold your own, you're already like an all-star level player.

And then you have a good offensive season and you're an MVP level player. So it's good to have a well-rounded set of skills to be a multi-tool player. Yeah. And I think that it, you know, it can be kind of, it doesn't make the slumps less frustrating to fans. I think that fans still look at star players or, or play. players on big contracts who are having something of a swoon at the plate

and they feel an annoyance at that even if they are playing an up the middle position that gives them a high floor but boy it gives them such a high floor you know and

it feels like such an obvious thing to say you feel like a dope for even bringing it up but it's like yeah good defense very important very important at those positions

I remain skeptical of that that Turner sort of assessment, just because, like, I'm not saying it's wrong this year. I'm skeptical that it represents some sort of, like, true talent shift in Tray Turner. Defensive Run saved for what it's worth has seen a similar change, but from a lower starting point. Right.

So defensive run saved hated him the last two seasons, negative 12 and negative 14. And this year, so far, zero, which is a big improvement. So he's actually, he's plus 14 relative to last season in defensive run saved and plus 13 by FRV. So similar magnitude, just from a very different floor. Starting place, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I don't think that he is like a fundamentally better defender than he used to be. But I could be wrong about that.

And I'm sure that the Phillies would be happy if I am wrong. They'd be like, well, that's good. That makes wrong. Yeah. And you never know if it's a positioning thing. Maybe and then like how do you attribute that to the player or the team and different defensive stats handle that differently? He's also he's still the fastest player in baseball. He's so fast.

He is the fastest at 30.3 average feet per second sprint speed, 100th percentile. He's like he's number one at 32, which is not old, but you tend to think, you know, by that point you might have lost a step or part of a step. And he's first in MLB in that metric. Yeah, it's wild. And that part of it, I guess, is maybe part of the counterargument to what I was saying. Because part of why I feel a skepticism with like a turnaround for him that I didn't have necessarily with, say, Bobby Wood Jr., which wasn't to say that like I didn't want to see another good defensive season out of him before I was like, yeah, this is like a sticky adjustment. that he's made, right?

There's like a fundamental reassessment of the tool that needs to go on here. But I was more willing to believe it because Bobby Wood Jr. is young. And so it's like, sure, like, this happens. Young players make adjustments. They, you know, they get that infield coach who, like, helps them figure it out.

And then all of a sudden, like, their approach to defense is just fundamentally altered and to the upside. And that's harder to do when you're 32. too. But also, you know, if we take Turner's speed as a indicator of sort of his broader physical tools, well, that would suggest that there hasn't been a decline, right, in those physical tools because he's so freaking fast. So that's maybe part of the counterargument. Now, obviously, we'll have to see, like, what does next season bring in terms of his defensive

assessment? You know, like, it was a pretty gnarly one last year. So maybe the actual answer and also the most boring possible answer is it'll land somewhere in the middle probably because there'll be a regression from both directions yeah speaking of of awards uh there's about to be a new one because the bbw a a of which we have been members has voted to inaugurate new award for reliever of the year starting in 2026 so there has been an MLB reliever award. People remember the Rollaids branded award back in the day. There is a league-sanctioned Mariana Rivera AL Reliever of the Year award and a Trevor

Hoffman NL reliever of the year award, which I think people don't pay that much attention to, which goes for a lot of the MLB awards because they just are not as so long-lived as the BBWA awards that have been around forever. And so sometimes they just feel like an alternative. that no one wants or needs other than the league, really. And they just haven't kind of caught on in the popular imagination. And plus the writers, the media members, are mostly promoting the BBWA awards that the writers themselves have some say in, et cetera. So there's a new Reliever of the Year award.

Where do you stand on this? How do you think that's going to play out? I did not vote to institute the Reliever of the Year award. I voted, I should say. I voted nay. I voted nay. I understand the rationale for this from my fellow association members. I want to be sure to be at least somewhat politic in the way I talk about this.

And I've expressed these concerns to Jason. So, like, you know, I don't think I'm speaking out of Jason Stark, who was, like, one of the main proponents of this shift. And I think that his argument is a reasonable one, even if it's one that I ultimately disagreed with, which is that relievers are making up an increasing share and ever-increasing share, we might say, of the total innings that are thrown in the majors every year. So it is a distinct position that merits some accolade and sort of fessing. And yet relievers at this point in the awards history

really never, ever, ever win the Cy Young and indeed rarely placed particularly highly in the voting tabulations of Syung voters. And so there's this gap that exists between the way the game is being played and the acknowledgments that we as a body give out. And I think you're right that like the awards of the BBWA carry a greater weight, not just amongst ourselves, although we do like to do a little bat pack. bat bat patting yes i think that also it matt like it matters to players right like part of why players care about winning pitchers care about winning a si young award is because you know sometimes

it comes with more money and it might help them arbitration but also like sandy cofax won a si young right you establish yourself in this lineage of greatness that i think players take a lot of pride in so yeah one could argue that like that lineage of pride will not have been established as it pertains to a reliever of the year award but you got to start somewhere as the counterargument so fine i'm sensitive to this argument but i i take issue with it for two reasons the first is that the the purpose to my mind of the siang is to designate the best pitcher in each of the two leagues and i approach our understanding of that from like a value perspective, right? Like, I'm a, I got a, I got a war mindset. The fact of the matter is that like, like, scoble's just more valuable than the best reliever in baseball.

Sure. You know, like, and I think that that's pretty straightforward. And I think that, like, if the trend continues unarrested the way that I think some of the folks who liked the idea of proactively establishing a reliever of the year award due, that, that's, you know, that, like some of this might end up coming out in the wash anyway. Like if we get to a point where, you know, the scales are maybe not balanced, but much closer to balance between the innings that starters are pitching and the innings that relievers are pitching, well, a great reliever season will merit some young consideration, I guess.

But I get it, but I just didn't think that it merited its own discreet award because there isn't anything in the rules that precludes a reliance. from winning the Syung Award, and relievers have in the past. You just haven't in a good while. So it didn't strike me as particularly necessary. This is a less good argument. But it's also like, well, what do we call the damn thing, right? Like, the two best reliever names are taken.

And given some of the recent reporting around Mo, like, I don't think we'd necessarily want to, like, put his name on an award right now. Anyway, but, like, what do we call this, you know? the best guys are so it just it and again that's like a much weaker argument to my mind but i i don't think that this was a totally necessary thing for us to do and a question that i raised at the bbwa meeting in atlanta was like if we look back at the last 20 years of si young award winners do we look at any of the winners and say ah no there's this reliever who should have won i think the answer to that is no.

So then, yeah, maybe they do need their own award, but like, here's maybe a better comp. We don't break out position player awards. I mean, technically pitchers can win the MVP, but they very rarely do. Like, at this point, that is more often than not an award that is awarded to a position player. And we, you know, can acknowledge in a value-based framework, how it might be difficult in many years for someone who's primarily a DH to win that award. But clearly it's not impossible if you have like a crazy good season as we've literally just seen. So I, you know, I think that there's something to having like a very exemplary understanding of what the Sayyang means. And that's not

entirely fair to relievers. And I don't want to be a dick, but also they aren't throwing as much. a lot more than they used to, and, you know, that isn't to say that there aren't guys who if they were on a different team and they were given different opportunities either from a roster construction perspective or from a player deaf perspective that maybe the pathway that they ended up having to take as a relief only guy would have been different and they could have been a useful starter. And we've seen that this distinction for, at least for some guys, is a little more malleable than we maybe have historically appreciated. right, partially because we've seen a number of successful conversions lately, but I think it's

overly simplistic to say that every reliever is a failed starter, but it's not so overly simplistic that they should get their own award. Yeah, I agree with some of that, and I guess disagree with some of that, although not that strenuously because I don't care that much about this award, I guess, is my bottom-wide takeaway. And I think, and I think, and I don't want to insult those who, who proselytized on behalf of this award but I do wonder if that

general sense of like was part of why we ended up with one because there were a couple of us that were like what is the point of this and then there were a number of people who were like no we should have one because of the way players are used and then most people weren't in the room in Atlanta so I think they were probably like sure why not

like let's work fun you know that was that was me I was yeah I think everyone was varying degrees of but I was more on the yeah sure why not I guess now I didn't actually vote on this partly due to apathy and partly because I don't think

I will be eligible to vote on the award itself because I'm no longer an active member of the BBWA I'm an honorary member emeritus member whatever it's called which is more or less the same for all intensive purposes but I'm not eligible to vote

on end of season awards now I was eligible to vote on end of season awards for, what, more than a decade, I guess. And I never got one because I'm in the New York chapter. And there are so many writers and media members that it rotates among them. And I just never got one. My number never came up. So I never got to vote on one. I will not get to vote on one. But I still have a card. It gets me into ballparks. I guess the privilege is very based on the park. Still eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame if I ever wanted to, which I haven't to this point. But I would not be eligible, I guess, to vote for

reliever of the year. So I didn't weigh in on this. And also pretty apathetic, pretty indifferent. But more on the side of, yeah, I guess, why not? Might as well have one. I think you're right that they are eligible for other awards. But at this stage, I think it would be very difficult for one to win one, which I think is for the best. I think it's, you know, in the same way. As you said that it is very unlikely now for a pitcher to win an MVP award, it's happened within recent memory, but it's just, it's going to be tough because things are so war-based now, and it's very difficult for a pitcher to have a top war. They just don't throw as many innings. They just are not as valuable, really, as the top position players now typically. So plus there's a sense that, well, they have their own thing.

They have the Cy Young, which technically, yes, they are still eligible for. MVP, but also they have their own prestigious award and I'm kind of fine with them being shunted into that category. And something similar has happened with relievers where, yeah, they're technically eligible to win Zayang, but they're not going to it at this point. Like, you know, it hasn't happened in a long time. The relievers who've had the best cases to do so in recent years haven't come close. I mean, they've gotten votes, but they haven't even been like super close to winning, and it's because, like, the cachet of saves has receded, and people aren't giving extra credit to that. So you look at some of the Cy Young Awards that relievers won in

the 80s or whatever, and you scratch your head and think how did that happen? So I think this is better, and maybe it even precludes some silly reliever winning a Cy Young season because now they have their own thing, and someone who might have been tempted to vote them in for Say Young might now say, well, they have their own award, so I won't do that. So maybe it's sort of a safety valve that could prevent a future silly Yves. I unvote for a reliever, but I don't know that that would have happened anyway at this point. But I think my two main questions about this are, A, will anyone care? Because can you invent an award at this stage and make it meaningful?

Because what makes it meaningful is not just that you hand out the award. It's just it's that people care about it. They think it's prestigious. They think it's actually significant. And I think it's tough now to debut an award in 2026 and have people care about it because there's no real history behind it. And that's a big part of why people care about MVP's

because they go back decades and decades and great players won them and so you're part of that lineage. And, you know, I guess if you somehow hadn't had a most valuable player award or a best pitcher award and you started handing that out that might still seem significant,

but a lot of it is the tradition. that goes along with it, and this won't have that. And then the other question is, how will you even determine that? And I wonder how people will vote for this? Because if you had handed out a reliever of the year award, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, it would have been largely saves-based. Right. But now it's not going to be saves-based.

Saves might be an input. They might be an influence. But are they going to go to the top save-getter every year? Probably not, but what will they go? Will it be FIP-based? Will it be war? Like, people don't even pay that much attention to reliever wars. Right.

And there's a sense that maybe war doesn't account appropriately for relievers, which I'm not convinced of, but, like, the point is that they have lower wars. And also the separation between the top guys and among the top guys is smaller, just because, like, the leaders might have two or three war or whatever it is. And so you're going to get people who are. effectively tied within the margin of error there. So will it be war-based, will it be FIPP-based, will it be ERA-based, will it be win-probability-added based, or some other more exotic stats, some sort of shut-down meltdown

to, I don't know what people will weigh here. And I'm kind of curious about that, I guess, in an intellectual, cerebral sense, just like if you had to do a regression equation of various stats that would predict who wins Reliever of the year what will actually go into that soup you know like how will how will the voters wait that but mostly i think that uh people probably won't care all that much at least the the readers the fans is just i don't know that uh you can introduce it at the stage but but in principle i'm okay with giving relievers an award because uh you know that to me doesn't really there's no conflict in the sense that yeah relievers are less valuable than starting

pitchers even nowadays when starting pitchers don't pitch that much either. Right. But that's okay because this would be a specifically reliever-based award. Like I'm generally philosophically a small hall guy when it comes to relievers. There are very few relievers who would, if I were to vote on the Hall of Fame, who would clear my bar. But in that case, the relievers and the starters are on the same ballot. And a vote for a reliever is, at least theoretically, could be a vote for a starting pitcher.

Right. And I think it's sort of silly because, you know, relievers will get in now, even though it's so hard for a starting pitcher to get in, even though the starting pitcher might have double the war or double the innings or, you know, more. But we'll put Billy Wagner in. And Billy Wagner was great on a per inning basis. But then, you know, Tim Hudson doesn't get in or Mark Burley doesn't get in. It's just, it seems sort of inconsistent to me. And so you vote for reliever on the basis of, well, reliever's a position and they were among the best relievers. so they get to go in.

But that's not really how the Hall of Fame ballot works. It's not like broken out by positions and you don't get a certain number of players at each position with plaques in the Hall of Fame or anything. So that's all just one big C. And that, to me, makes it different from just handing out a reliever award where, yeah, the relievers are less valuable

than the best starters, but that's okay. Like there's an award for best DHS, right? That MLB has handed out since the beginning of the DH, it's branded as the Edgar Martinez D.H. Now, you know, people don't pay attention to that mostly because it's just an award for best DH. And so it just, it doesn't really resonate even though there is some history behind it. And that's maybe what we will get with Reliever of the year. But in principle, I'm fine with just, okay, best D.H. gets an award.

Sure. Like, you know, it's going to be a high bar for a DH to win MVP. They have to be Shohei Otani, basically, but you get them their own category, then fine. You know, there are a lot of awards that people just don't pay that much attention to, and it makes the player feel good, and it's fine. It's no skin off my teeth, essentially. Skin off your teeth. Yeah. There shouldn't be skin.

You want the skin off your teeth. Yeah, it's, like, you want the gums to be healthy, but you don't want any skin on your teeth. It's the skin off the back, or is it the nose? Is the nose skin off your back? It's no skin off my back. Is there a teeth expression? What a gross expression, to be clear. Yeah, it is pretty gross, actually.

But I would argue somehow less gross than it's no skin off my teeth. Yeah, that could be a cannibal situation if there's skin on your teeth or. Oh, my God. I was just thinking he had some sort of weird gum thing going on. Yeah, right. That seems bad. Anyway, forget that I ended on that odd note. But yeah, I'm fine with it, but also like, eh.

You know, it seems like, okay, sure, we could have, I didn't feel like it was a great injustice that the BBWA did not have a reliever of the year award, but I also feel like, yeah, you know, I guess it makes sense, but I just, I'm not, I care less about awards in general these days. So maybe that's just my general apathy reflected in this. Yeah, you're not particularly award motivated. And I think that that's fine. And again, like I said, I think that there are. there are reasonable arguments to make about this. I just wasn't moved by them ultimately. And so I didn't.

You can escape by the skin of your teeth. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. But yeah, still skin and teeth. Which would make sense because minimal amount of skin, you know? Like, it's like, oh, by the. Right. Yeah.

I always worry about those expressions having like some sort of horrible origin. It feels. Well, this is that way. One's biblical, I think, which does not preclude having a horrible origin, but it's basically, yeah, it's that, the idea of it's like the smallest margin imaginable, I guess, right. Skin of your teeth. Hmm. Well, okay. I think that, do you think I threaded the needle of expressing my disdain, but not insulting any of my fellow association members?

Yeah, I think so. Okay, that's good. The measure passed despite your opposition. It did. So, you know, jokes on me. I'm a loser, you know. I was a loser on this one. And I made out loud arguments about it at the meeting.

And I apparently didn't convince anyone. So, you know, but you know what? That's one skin off my back. Yeah. I guess if some people are for it and other people are just like, yeah, then I guess the people who are for it will win the day often just because they're more motivated, really, than the anti people who are just like there doesn't seem to be a pressing need for this but also it's it's not like a travesty or anything so i guess if you guys feel super strongly about it then sure you

can have your award and and uh have your award yeah you could have your little reliever of the year what's it to me your dumb little award no i again i think that you can make an argument it wouldn't be one i would make but one could and one would not be engaged in and some sort of chicanery if one did. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah. You were a loser,

but some relievers will be winners because of this award. Yeah, I wonder, though, I would imagine that it'll be like, it'll still be a lot of closers because, like, closers often are the best relievers, not always, but. Not always, but often. But if they combine the saves and the high leverage and the closer mystique with excellent rate stats,

I mean, I'd love to see some set-up men winning. Sure. I'd love to see like some throwback relievers who were actually pitching a lot of innings, even if they're not the best innings per inning, but like just a little more bulk because I'd like to see just the 100-inning reliever make a comeback at some point. And there was or is that there is a setup man of the year award. There is. How granular can the awards get?

This is what I'm saying. It's sort of a crowded space already. Like, what do we do in here? Yeah, I'm not actually sure that they hadn't that one out anymore. But they used to, at least. There was a Setup Man of the Year awards. It was Joel Zuma, Neil Kott, Hideki Okajima, Hong Chi Kuo. I like a lot of these guys.

Jeremy Affeltz, Joaquin Benoit. David Robertson, my guy, he won. See, there should be an award for those guys. Those guys are often underrated. They're unsung because, you know, they're just a little, lower leverage, perhaps, but you got to have the setup, man, as the bridge to the closer. You got to have a good bridge. You got to have a solid bridge or you end up with issues with bridge.

Yeah. Did you see, speaking of late-ending relievers, did you see the post-game interview that the Marlins, Tyler Phillips did? No. He got a save. He got his second save of the season. and he was interviewed. It was like a one-minute interview. I guess I'll get Shane to just play a little clip of this.

All right, Jack, thank you very much. Tyler, you threw 32 pitches yesterday. When did you know you were going in tonight? When they called down. And you were ready to go. Yeah, I'm ready. They call down, I'm pissed off. I'm ready to go. Why do you get so pissed off? I don't like hitters.

How did you get through that nine? Throw the wall over the plate. How long does it take you to cool down after a win? I never cool down. And the slapping, what was the level of slapping when you came on? My face is hot. Yeah. Great win.

You're scaring me. Go to the clubhouse. Thank you very much. Like, he was just monotone, like, game face on monosyllabic answer or like one word responses for the most part. Because like, he was still pumped up in that classic reliever way where they just like, you know, they're just super amped. And he still. He hadn't come down, I guess, from the high of that. And he was just like, it's just like, what's motivating you here?

He's just like, I hate hitters. Which I love. That's great. That is a great, great line. That's so funny. That's closer mentality. And it's kind of funny because he has not really been the Marlins Cozer. He has two saves.

And also, he is like six strikeouts per nine or something. He doesn't seem like the sort of guy who would be like, I hate hitters. I am. I'm a terminator. Look, man, when you hate him, you hate him. I guess so. But he was, I don't know if he was doing a bit or if this is just like who he is in that environment. And maybe he's like a rich hill type where he's just very genial on any other day and any other time.

But you catch him right as he's coming off the field. And he's just single-minded. But yeah, he's a pretty hard thrower. But he doesn't, he doesn't miss bats enough to like have this mentality. I don't think that I appreciated that he did. Sometimes you get a window. You know, the typical postgame sideline interview, it's just cliche after cliche, and he did a little bit of that. But you got a sense of, like, who he is, unless this was just a character that he was performing for yucks.

Like, man, this was a window into the Tyler Phillips personality. So a rare, revealing, entertaining, and somewhat disturbing sideline interview. That's so funny. I yeah I like to think of him and like his two his two personality stages could be like you know like the Terminator in the in the first two Terminator movies where like on his off days he's like Terminator 2 Terminator he's like come with me if you want to live yes that's my Arnold isn't it so good aren't you like oh my God why is she even doing this podcast she should be doing impressions she should be doing voice work I think being a voice actor would be a lot of fun I think that it's like the right kind of famous but anyway I And then, like, when he's on the mound, he is, like, O.G. Terminator and he's trying to kill him to Hamilton. But then she gets really good arms and the shotgun, and it's all over for O.G. It was an important part of my development as a feminist Terminator, too. Oh, yeah.

And she, like, single-hand. Terminator ripped. Yeah. Does the shotgun? I was like, oh, I think equal rights are important. Bad ass. Yeah. I've, we're not doing meet a major leaguer today, but I have met two major leaguers recently.

both relievers eligible for the Reliever of the Year award as of next season. I wonder if they, can I interrupt you briefly. I can't decide if, so I'm in the Arizona chapter and we're a smaller chapter and certainly much smaller than New York. And so I can't decide. I don't know if they're like, if they kept a role, like our votes, I think are confidential. I don't think that they're going to like use. I can't decide if it would be better for me to never vote on the reliever of the year award or

to be made to vote every year on the Relieber of the Year award? Or which one is a greater punishment? Anyone? Yeah. By the way, for anyone who is wondering why I've moved from active to honorary, my sense of that is that, like, there was some trimming of the rolls, some pairing down because there were just a lot of people in the New York chapter. And I guess it was not really a reflection on me.

It was more the ringer was no longer considered accredited for BBWA purposes. because I'm the only person who really writes about baseball there. I don't cover baseball full-time for The Ringer. I do this podcast outside the Ringer, obviously, and I still do some baseball there, but it's not a full-time thing. And so I can't really argue that I have to have active status. I can still get into the ballpark and get into the clubhouse if I need to for a story. But, you know, I'm not on the beat, not in the clubhouse every day.

And so, fine, like, I'd rather be active, but it wasn't that big a deal. And I sort of understood the reasoning. Anyway, the important stuff I can still do. But, yeah, it wasn't like I voluntarily left or decided I didn't want to be a part of it anymore. That's how that happened. So, anyway, I'm still the same guy. So it was sort of like, but what? But I'm still at the same place.

Nothing changed except, I guess, well, covering baseball less as a company. So that's what happens. Politics. Anyway, I interrupted you. My fault. But the two relievers that I have met recently are just both big boys, just very big boys, two of the biggest boys in baseball now. So, Zach Maxwell of the Reds and Drew Summers of the Tigers. The listed dimensions for these guys, Zach Maxwell, 6-6-275.

You don't see a lot of 275s. And then Drew Summers, 6.3, 250. Yeah. Yeah, these are big boys. They're 24, 25. Maxwell's nickname is Big Sugar, which is fun. I like when any big guy is named Big something. Yeah, that just, it feels right.

You know, it's not the most creative, but, you know, I appreciate it. And the Reds, when they introduced him on social media on Twitter, they had a picture that they tweeted of, like, big sugar and it was like a cup of coffee with a bag of sugar and then Zach Maxwell was pictured on it and I guess you do add sugar to coffee and so they were saying welcome to the show Zach Maxwell but it also well yeah I mean I don't drink coffee but yeah but if I did I don't know that I would drink sugar with it but it suggests that he's not going to stay that long sort of right yeah it suggests that he's he's going to get only a cup of coffee I don't know whether that was intentional, but that's one way you could interpret it.

I guess a lot of relievers don't stay that long. They just get sent down, brought up again. But one replyer to that Reds tweet said Jumbo Diaz 2.0, which is essentially, I mean, Jumbo Diaz, he really lived up to that nickname. He was, he made Zach Maxwell look small. But Big Sugar is appropriate. And then the tweet in which the Tigers unveiled Drew Summers, I'll send you this because the replies to it were quite amusing. I guess the Tigers motto this year is built different, but because they have the team's slogan under Drew Summers and it says built different and it makes it sound as if it's a commentary on the build of Drew Summers.

But some of the replies to this tweet, I will not read the more mean ones, but I will read only the semi-mean ones or the affectionate ones. Drew been in the minors for 20 years or what? Right. He was born in new balances. That's funny. Kenny Powers made it back. No, that's my HVAC guy. Okay, that one's funny, too.

This guy was built downriver. Someone suggested beef drew, anticipating the beef boy, I guess, beef drew. And a lot that suggested that he would be adept at barbecue. So someone says, bro looks like he can smoke a mean brisket. And someone says, this isn't a real guy. Looks like the local electrician. This guy seems gritty. The hefty lefty, dude fixed my car last Wednesday.

A lot in that vein referring to him as I just saw I'm playing my local beer league last weekend. Alternate timeline, Bobby Hill. I know bro makes a killer steak. BBQ Pitmaster vibes. Hope he brings the team smoked

brisket or homemade sausages as his welcome offering. So Drew Summers and Zach Maxwell. I enjoy, we always enjoy that baseball can accommodate a wide range of body types. And these are These are just big boys, big bullpen boys.

My thing is always just that I want to make sure that when a guy has like a body-related nickname, that he's like actually good with it, right? And it's hard to, a lot of the time they're just going to say they are. And he may well be. But I just want to, regardless of what it's remarking upon, right? Like if the guy was named string bean, I'd have the same concern because it's just like, yeah, you're a pro-athlete and like your body is the subject of like an intense amount of scrutiny and also like maybe you don't maybe you have a different nickname maybe you don't want your nickname

to be about your um size or maybe you're like yeah i'm this size you know i can see going a lot of different ways is my point and so i just i'm always like i'm sure then he's okay with being called man and if the answer is yes then like go with god my son because that's i do love how many of these are not actually about like his um physicality or like the way that it you know his body composition or anything but you can't see his body it's about him being a dad it's about him looking like a dad it's his face it's his manner it's his expression yeah it's not a it's just a face portrait yes a full body photo so it he has his arms folded oh yeah he looks very stern he's kind of glowering a little yeah he looks like you're in trouble like yes you you

took the car out and you didn't ask and now there's a thing and dad knows that it was you. And I find this very funny and it reinforces my theory and it is making me surprised at the surprise of some of the comments here, which is, and you won't know about this because you don't watch college baseball except when we make you. but you know every reliever in college baseball looks like they are 12 or an insurance adjuster and there is no in between right there's no one where you're like that is a 22 year old man he is either a tiny baby or like someone worried about how his 401k is balanced it's that's it and so yeah of course of course some of these guys look like dads i mean some of them may well be actual dads but in terms of like the archetype of the The dad. Of course. Of course. Of course. It is a proud tradition in the sport, as far as I'm concerned. And Zach Maxwell, like, he's got the fastball to match. He's, you know, firing triple digits. Like, he's got a character personality. He's been memed. Like, he's already a fan favorite for the Reds. So hopefully it won't just be a cup of coffee. And apparently Matt Kane was Big Sugar. I don't really remember that. that it's on his baseball reference page at least but i guess uh zach maxwell is not the inaugural big sugar

but uh yeah i'm i'm enjoying both of these fellows and uh that's fantastic to the big leagues yeah and uh apparently the origin of of big sugar so maxwell says i was throwing in a game in college and the guy who was doing the tv call called me a big hunk of sugar and that immediately got shortened down to big sugar it's good by me i don't hate it okay So there you go. I mean, it was the same to pick a different, like, I wanted to make sure that Cal was okay being called Big Dumper. Because if Cal was like, hey, stop talking about my ass, I'd be like, we should stop talking about this man's ass, at least as much as we are. You know, like, sometimes you see a modern Marvel and you're like, I'm, anyway.

But like, you want to be mindful of that. I think they bear enough scrutiny on the minutia. of their physical forms, that if there's a nickname that bugs them, like, we should leave off of that, you know? And that's true of any nickname. Sometimes they have to, like, litigate that sort of thing between them, you know, between them and, like, their teammates.

And that's, you know, I can't do anything about that. But when he was like, yeah, Big Dumpers fine, I was like, great, way to go, man. That's, that's good stuff. Yeah, apparently Big Sugar's father. Tom, I don't know what he tips the scales at, but he stands 610. Wow. So, yeah, he played basketball for Idaho State. So he was even bigger sugar.

Wow. I mean, this is small sugar compared to Tom Maxwell. Yeah, or like, you know, like one of them can be like, when you're doing juniors for sugar-related nicknames, do you stay in a size-related spot or do you try to shift to like sugar and sugar substitutes? Yeah, it's like big stevia or something. Well, no, I was going to say, like, one is, like, the genuine article. Like, one is big sugar and then the offspring are, like, you know, aspartame or whatever. Big sweet and low, yeah. You know, big sweet and low?

That's pretty good. No, let me, no, sweet and low, I think would be. Just by itself. Yeah, a great, like, can you imagine if you were a submariner and your name sweet and low? Yeah. That would be, that's good stuff right there. Someone get on that. It's pretty good.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I, I think we're cooking with gas with that one. Yeah. Tyler Rogers, speaking of submarine, I hope he wins really for the year. How confident are you that you have the right Rogers when you name are Rogers? I operate at like a 40% confidence level. I don't think I get it wrong, but I have to think about it every time. I have to, and I have to double check.

I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say this. Like, I have had to correct Fangraph's copy about about which one is which. And it didn't help that they got both got traded at the stupid deadline. Yeah. You know, and so then I was like, oh, God, we got to. Because you know when you're very tired, you make more mistakes? I was like, we're all very tired. The odds of us goofing this up at least one time seemed quite high.

I don't think we did. We made other small factual errors, but we didn't make that one. I remember Tyler just because he's better and I guess just more. an outlier more notable in some respects, although Taylor quite a good reliever in his own right. He's had a very solid career too. Taylor Rogers just missed out on being teammates with Big Sugar because he's no longer on the Reds. It did occur to me the other day. Speaking of another Reds pitcher, you know how Brady Singer, when he went from the Royals to the Reds in the Jonathan India trade or the Brady Singer trade for that matter, a lot of people said, oh boy, he's not

going to be a good fit for Cincinnati. He's going from Kaufman and now he's going to this home run haven. He's been fine, you know? That's great. You never know exactly. You never know. Look at the park factors and you can say, oh, this guy might not be a good fit for this park. But, A, he might change something to be a better fit for the park.

And then B, it just might not actually come back to bite him, really. So, like, his fan graphs war this year, at least, is basically identical to his full season, Fangraph's War from last year. In some respects, he's been better with the Reds than he was. Because with the Royals, lower FIPP, he is actually more of a flyball pitcher than he was in Kansas City. Yeah, like his ground ball rate last year was 47%. Now it's 37 or 38%. So he's not getting grounders at all.

But his home run per fly ball rate has declined significantly, which could just be luck and good fortune or I don't know, maybe something else. but he's allowed fewer home runs. He has a lower home run rate this year, despite giving up more fly balls or at least getting fewer grounders and moving from a better flyball pitcher's park to a worse one. His ERA is slightly higher, but on the whole, he's been totally fine. So you never know. You can kind of forecast those things or project where a player might be a better fit or not. Right.

Maybe we overrate park factors to begin with because, like, parks are less, extreme than they used to be. So, you know, you have the humidor and you have less extreme dimensions. And so it probably matters a little bit less. And then with the sample of one player's season, it might not necessarily manifest itself. So, you know, I don't know. That stuff, it can get in a player's head sometimes in a way that might affect them adversely. But we'd probably overrate it on the whole. Anyway, that was just my random observation about Brady Singer since we were talking about reds pitchers i was going to say i noticed that brady singer has worked at least six in uh five of his last six starts and so i was wondering if you would say

he's working late he's rabies singer boy bringing that back after all this time ben which is bad a while i was going to give you chance to do it but i laughed I have too hard. Tuesday show. Let's go. Yeah, we're carrying the Friday energy into really any day. It's almost a holiday weekend. Right.

It's almost a long weekend. Close enough, yeah. Yeah. I noticed, by the way, because we were talking about Josh Naler, just suddenly becoming a stolen base feed in Seattle. Alejandro Kirk also stole a base. I know. Just, you know, took advantage.

Just caught him sleeping. No one was expecting. Kirk to go, and he did. Daniel Vogelbach never got his stolen base. I mean, speaking of base stealing and big boys, I wanted him to get that one, that swipe that was promised by the MLB promo. If Alejandro Kirk can do it, then surely Daniel Vogelbach could have done it. If Josh Naylor can do it this many times, I think of that.

It was, I think, one of my bold preseason predictions last year was that he would actually do it. And he didn't. And I have to conclude that it was within his powers because we're seeing these other bigger, slower guys go, even often in Naylor's case. And all it takes is where there's a will. There's a way. And I guess he didn't have the will.

I also, it sort of snuck up on me, much as he's snuck up on opposing pitchers and defenders, Juan Soto has 21 steals this year. So put that. Yes. Juan Soto has stolen 21 bases, and he has been caught one time, or no, two times. Two times. I guess he just got caught again recently. Yes, yesterday. Yeah, but 21 for 23, Juan Soto, his single season high before this is 12.

And it's not like he got faster. If anything, he got slower, the defense has been rough. But he has suddenly decided that he's at least going to be an above average base dealer and base runner now. So that's something he's suddenly added to his game. So I'm just sort of fascinated by when and how players just decide that they're going to flip the switch and say, yeah, I'm a Baystallard now because you can't just set your mind to it and do it. And there's probably less of an emphasis placed on it. And there's just, we know it's not worth all that much war-wise. And so it's probably like, you know, it doesn't add as much to your reputation as a player unless you like go 50-50 like Shohei or something.

Right. And you're probably not really being urged to do it by your team because there's an. injury risk and it's not going to end up with you like getting paid a lot more the way it might have when stolen bases were in vogue and plus i guess it's just it's easier to do now what with the rules changes and so that's why we're seeing this happen more and so it's not quite as impressive when you do do it but still like 21 for 23 that's like tray turner territory that's like carlos beltrane out here so i mean good for him i guess uh even though he's uh the sprint speed is down and the defense has been bad. He's

slightly compensating for that on the bases. Well, and it's funny too because, you know, you noted he's only been caught twice. And like one of his caught stealings yesterday, he still ended up on second base because there was a missed catcher by Bryson Stott. So he was he, the way that it is written

up is that Juan Soto picked off and caught stealing second base. Juan Soto to second, missed catcher by second baseman Bryson Stott, assist to pitcher Christopher Sanchez. So then he just ended up on second anyway. So it's like even in his caught ceilings half of those times he's on second base like that's yeah how about that pretty good yeah how about that and it's uh i guess especially valuable because he's always on base so if he can

be a base stealing threat when he's on base too then uh he certainly has plenty of opportunities to do it all right so just uh newsworthy which we have left to the end of the episode for some reason but update on zach wheeler it's it's not great so he had the clock would have been worse It could have been worse. I mean, could have been the worst, but he had a clot removed, and then now is having a subsequent procedure to decompress the area because he does have thoracic outlet syndrome. It is, it's like the Larry David Kerb bit about the good Hodgkins and the bad Hodgkins. They're both bad, to be clear. But one is worse than the other, and there's a good and bad thoracic outlet syndrome, sort of, both bad, but one worse than.

the other so he has venous thoracic outlet syndrome which is not the worst kind right it's about blood clots not nerves is my understanding of the difference is that a good layperson's description i think so and yeah the neurogenic kind yeah so that's when like the nerve is is compressed and and then maybe you lose feeling in there and that may or may not come back right and then the it's not good to like compress veins either and get a blood clot that can be very serious but but i guess you know if you remove a rib or something you know just a simple little procedure just remove a rib sure no big deal but you sort of loosen up the area these things are caused like swimmers get this and pitchers get this often among athletes because of the repetitive upper body motions and so

you remove something there that's pressing on it and you hope that it's no longer a impressed and that everything bounces back. He's still going to be out a long time. Yeah, six, eight months. Yeah, so he's going to miss best case scenario, just, you know, part of next season, probably, and you hope that that's all, and then it doesn't turn out to be, because thoracic outlet syndrome, that's been, you look at the list of pitchers who have had that, and it is bad, not a lot of comebacks from that diagnosis, and some of them at least had the worst

kind. So, yeah, you hope. Like, if he has a tough return from this, as we've noted, he has already talked about retiring after his current contract in a couple of years. So maybe he would be at peace with that. Maybe he would just walk away rather than have some really difficult and painful or frustrating rehab process. But obviously, we hope that he returns and gets another crack at a Sayyung Award or he could come back as a reliever and win a reliever of the year award. Maybe that's one thing. You can pivot to the bullpen. You're trying to tempt me into saying something rude.

I shan't. Then I shall not. Burnish his Hall of Fame case quite as much as the Sayung Award would, unless he had a John Smoltsian second act to his career and became a great closer for years. Maybe that would help. But yeah, we wish him well. you know, just as a human being, but also because we just enjoy him and root for him and want him to do well, and he has done well, and he's been the best pitcher in baseball over several seasons. So blow to him, blow to the Phillies, though they still have a robust rotation in his absence,

but has to hurt to lose the best of their excellent assortment of aces. Merrill Kelly is like the most famous example of getting this particular kind of thoracic outlet surgery and then coming back and being affected. right? But yeah, it's just a bummer. It's obviously a huge blow to them for this postseason and potentially for next season as well. You're in this odd spot because I think that when people see thoracic outlet syndrome, they rightly are quite kind of fatalistic about the potential for the player to come back and look anything like their old selves. I don't know that we've done a great job of distinguishing these two versions of it and the treatment and

the differences in those. And I saw a lot of people. social media being like he's done forever and I'm like well he might be like we have to entertain that possibility because to your point it's not like there's a good version of thoracic outlets syndrome there's just like less bad versions but there is greater precedent I think for return on this one than then there is on the nerve the nerve one so I don't know man but it'll be really weird to watch this Phillies team in October without him yeah you know I know that they ended up getting lit up yesterday, but at least they have Christopher Sanchez

who they can slot into that role. They still have not DFA Jordan Romano, but I think he went on the aisle, maybe. So anyway, he's not a starter. You know, talking about a failed starter. Beel and Philly say he's a failed reliever. Well, Shane Bieber's back, though. So that's nice.

Yeah, how about that? And looked good in his first start back. I thought that was one of the bigger deadline pickups because, I mean, it was somewhat speculative because he hadn't pitched in the majors this year. But just based on his track record, you had to think, like, he had the potential to be an impact starter. And there were very few impact starters dealt at the deadline. So. Yeah. And it's kind of like a new look, Bieber, because he, he changed his pitch mix a little bit going into last season. But then he barely pitched last season. He had two starts. He didn't allow a run. But then he was hurt. And we just, we barely saw him in 2024. And then he comes back now. And yeah, it looked great. Nine strikeouts in six innings pitch, and so could be a big addition. That Jay's rotation, it's old. Yeah.

It's an old rotation, but, you know, oldies, but goodies for the most part. Those guys have been good. Even Max Scherzer has been good lately. So it's, you know, Brios and Gossmann and Scher and Bassett and Lauer and Bieber. Not a 20-something in the bunch there, but some solid options. So good to see Bieber back. Also, Kyle Tucker, his major league reset, not a minor league reset, but his major league reset went somewhat well, I guess, right? He's had a couple big games since he's a temporary brief benching by the Cubs.

So that's what you want to see, you know. He got to clear his head. And then I think his first game back from the benching, he had an Ofer 4, but then he had a homer the next day and then he had a two homer game. the day after that. So that's encouraging because he hadn't hit a home run in weeks. Right. Not since July 19th was his last home run. And now he's hit three just in a few games back. So moving in the right direction, probably. Yeah.

And lastly, we had an Orioles extension. How about that? That's right. Yeah. We didn't even talk about Passio. Yeah, young Orioles. Well, we talked about him the other day when he was called up. Right. We didn't talk about the extension. So, yeah, there's not that much to add other than, yeah, he's good. He's a great prospect. I'm quite bullish about his offensive potential. And if he can't even fake catcher, if he can stay behind the plate, then that's quite a

kind of player you want to sign long term. And the Orioles did. So that's a first for them. And maybe it sets a precedent. I know that their owner suggested that he wants this to be just the start. and that maybe other dominoes will fall there. I don't know, but it's a good proof of concept, at least, that the Orioles want to sign players to an extension

and that they can sign one of them to an extension. So this is an eight-year, $67 million extension with an option and escalators. And so it could max out at $88.5 million. And not a ton of free agent time, but a couple. free agent years lot out here, right? So it's a start. Orioles will want to see more like this, of course,

but to get Basayo, it's good. It's a good indication that they're at least attempting to do the thing that people have been confused about them not doing. Yeah. It's hard to grade it. I completely understand the motivation for Basayo, and I don't think it's like an unfair deal. And to your point, like it doesn't really buy out all that much of his free.

agent time. So, you know, he'll have the opportunity to make a second big contracts worth of money, assuming he's a good player later in his career. I think the real test will come this offseason because, you know, some of the quotes from other guys in that clubhouse who you might think would be a priority for an extension sounded, you know, kind of mixed, right? Like Gunner Henderson talked about a winning culture. And so I think that if what they want is to have this serve as like this starting point for like locking in the parts of their young core they're the most excited about it needs to be supplemented by moves from outside the organization that really bolster the rest of the team particularly on the pitching side so

I think that if we see them active in free agency the odds of more extension domino's falling seem much higher to me if if they don't then there's like a cynical way to read this which is you know they they they took the guy who and again I don't think it's an unfair deal like I don't think that they you know they didn't Ozzy Albies him or anything like that but they took the guy who has the greatest incentive to sign one of these contracts and locked him in and now they have like another young cost control guy for long enough that if they have to go through a rebuild they can do it right That's the cynical read of what they're doing. And it takes two to tango and all that stuff.

And I'm trying to knock them for doing this. Like one of the things that we've said, to your point was like, okay, if you're not going to sign free agents, like you can spend the money on the guys you have in house and keeping them around and then hope that you can supplement them with development later. But it'll just be interesting to see. I think we'll get a better read on what their intentions are in terms of competing after another offseason has passed. Yeah. From the Orioles perspective, given the number of young guys who, who have had somewhat disappointing years for them this season?

Like, this might be the time to strike, you know? Because, like, you might get a deal if you still believe in the long-term future of, say, Jackson Holiday or, well, even Adley, I guess, or, well, I don't know how you navigate the Adley-Basio rotation there. And I know Adley's hurt right now, so in the short term, it's not an issue, but long-term. But, yeah, like Colton Couser and all these guys who have not had big years. this year, then if you still think that they're going to be good, then maybe this offseason would be the time to talk to them while you kind of have the upper hand in those negotiations, perhaps. I had forgotten until Kylie McDaniel tweeted this the other day that the Yankees had come to an agreement, had a handshake deal, verbal deal with Basayo

as an amateur before he was eligible to sign back in 2021. And then the Yankees signed Garrett Cole, which cost them some of their international pool money. And so they then cut Bessio loose, and he ended up signing with Baltimore for $1.3 million. So there's an alternate history where Bessio is a Yankee, although in that history, Garrett Cole's not a Yankee. And I don't think he would want to undo that, even though Cole was hurt this year. He's delivered. He's been as advertised for the Yankees. He helped pitch them to a pennant last year. So not saying, you would undo that, but probably stings a little for Yankees fans to be without coal this season. And also their division rival has Basayo locked up long term now.

Yeah. Well, what are you going to do? I always think when I see these stories about like amateurs who had deals and then the deal was undone or whatever, it's like, you're not even supposed to be able to have that sort of deal. I know you just do what everyone does and that's just the unstated. You don't maybe have to put that in every tweet about these things, but also, like, you know, you're not actually supposed to have deals before the signing deadline with anyone. But everyone just accepts that that's what you do and what you have to do to compete. It's just, it's so weirdly out in the open while still being prohibited ostensibly. It's just a strange situation.

Yeah, it's a weird one. Okay, just to follow up for you, after we recorded Wilson Contreras received a six game suspension, which he will appeal. I figured out what I was trying to say about the snack toss after the bat toss. In comedy, there's an expression to put a hat on a hat. It's taking something that works well on its own and tacking onto it in a way that isn't additive and may actually detract from it. The snack toss after the bat toss is putting a toss on a toss. Also, you know how we talked about check swing appeals recently?

Well, Bradley, Patreon supporter, wrote in to say, no question here, but writing in with a strange occurrence. In August 22nd's Cubs Angels game in the top of the 8th, Sayas Suzuki was called out on a check swing by the home plate umpire. The home plate ump did not appeal the call, but the first base ump thought he was asked and signaled that Suzuki didn't swing. They stuck with the call at home because there wasn't an appeal, but the Cubs were obviously very upset. Both Pat Hughes and Ron Cumer said they'd never seen it before. Not sure I have either. It's like a constitutional crisis of umpiring, two conflicting rulings. But the original ruling stands because the secondary ruling wasn't requested.

Just chiming in from the peanut gallery. Keep your thoughts to yourself, first base hump. We also got several responses to my prompt on an episode recently about sounds in sports that are kind of akin to the crack of the bat in baseball, something sonic that one could use to evaluate a player's performance potentially, or at least some perceived relationship thereof. Jonas, Patreon supporter, says in episode 2365 during the crack of the bat discussion, you asked if other sports have something analogous and discuss tennis, I think

table tennis might rely on sound even more. My dad and I are very casual players, but I remember him saying the best players could hear the spin applied during a serve and would stomp during serves to obscure it. I'm not close enough to the sport to know how true it is, but this article used audio processing to categorize spin, and there seems to be a lot of online discussion around the use of stomping to disguise serves. My guess is the faster ball and greater scale of baseball limits the in-game utility of audio signals compared to visual. It's interesting. Sometimes catchers will stomp in a misleading location. to camouflage where they are setting up behind home plate.

Jeff, Patreon supporter, says on the subject of sound indicators in sports, disc golf has snap, the sound of a particularly hard throw made when the disc rips out of the player's grip, at least some grips at high speed. We got a bunch of responses about golf. Darrell says, I have a couple examples. The sound of a golf club striking the ball when the sweet spot is struck, especially with a driver, and the sound made when a football is punted, again hitting the sweet spot. Ashton says, in golf you can.

literally hear who is a good iron player and who isn't. I'm a low single-digit handicap and my iron sound nothing like better players. It's a piercing sound that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He's done some examples. Drivers are so forgiving these days that it isn't nearly as impressive as it used to be. They're essentially tennis rackets that sound like college baseball bats, but the best players in the world tend to be the best approach or iron players in the world. Tiger then, Scotty Sheffler now. And finally, Jameson went into greater detail about that phenomenon. It's a sort of cliche, but golfers will often say things about the ball just sounding different coming off of certain players' clubs. That is, in fact, what Ashton just

said. To an extent, there is truth to this. Focusing on shots with irons, a hard hit ball does sound distinct from a ball hit less hard, and the sound of a shot struck on the club's sweet spot is noticeably more solid compared to a poorly struck shot, which tends to sound more clicky. The best way to consistently strike a shot with an iron is to hit down on the ball, hitting the ball before the club contacts the turf so that the divot is in front of the ball, which can sound different than a shot hit fat, which is when the club hits the ground before the golf ball. Given all of that, listening to better players hit golf shots can sound notably different from listening to worse players hit a golf ball, whether anyone can actually

tell a difference between PGA tour player A and PGA tour player B strictly by sound, who really knows? As drivers and fairway woods have advanced from wooden heads to steel to now titanium for drivers and some fairway woods, the sound has changed quite a bit. Nike actually released a titanium driver in the late 2000s called the Sasquatch Sumo that became infamous for having a distinct dead sound. Additionally, there's evidence that what golfers express as the feel of a club is pretty strongly influenced by the sound it makes when you strike it. You tend not to be able to tell the difference between clubs as much

if you wear noise-canceling headphones, for instance. Shots out of sand traps are actually taught largely on sound. You want to thump the sand behind the ball with the club and let the sand carry the ball out of the bunker. That's a bad idea if shy hallood is around. You shouldn't actually hear the club hit the ball at all. I'm struggling to find a link, but I distinctly remember Johnny Miller, an accomplished PGA tour player from mostly the 60s and NBC's lead golf commentator until about a decade ago, always claimed that he could tell if a shot was struck well or not when he was calling golf on the broadcast from the way it sounded in his headset.

In my estimation, that was probably about half real, half exaggeration. Reminds me of a famous listener email we answered once about someone who claimed that they could tell the sound of strikes when watching baseball. Thanks for all the responses. I guess the theme is if you hit something with something else, it might make a sound, and that sound might be meaningful, or at least might be believed to be meaningful. It is very meaningful to me and to Meg that some of you choose 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, Matt Wasserman, Ken Berger, Will W., Jackie, and George. Louis. 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

fancrafts 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, sorry, you're not allowed to contact us. No, that's not true. You can email us anyway at podcast at fancrafts.com. Send your questions, your comments, your intro and outro themes. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and YouTube music and a plethora of other platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. 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 McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. with Ben and Meg from Fangraves Effectively Night Effectively while

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