Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2372: How Slow Can You Go?

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s near no-hitter, the Effectively Wild bump, and the Orioles’ incredible comeback), then banter (and quasi-Stat Blast) about four subjects: whether Shohei Ohtani has been more or less valuable as a DH only or as a two-way player this season; whether Cal Raleigh hits a disproporionate number of […]

It's effectively wild and it's wildly effective. It's good and baseball and a perfect perspective. Impressive, smart, and impeccably styled. It's the wildly effective, effectively wild. Spin rate a long shangle, that'd be able to war. You might hear something you never heard before. Hello and welcome to episode 2372 of Effectively Wild,

a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. I'm McGrawley FanGraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? We almost manifested the no-no. Can you believe it? We almost reversed jinx, a no-hitter, into existence. We did, and then I guess we didn't try hard enough, and so the intense emotional distress,

The Dodgers fans felt is also pretty cheerful, question mark. I said as much on that episode. I said, what if this is one of those times when we talk about something that hasn't happened? And then all of a sudden it happens. And it came so close, so close. Yeah. But an incredible Baltimore comeback thwarted the effectively wild bump. People talk about jinxing no hitters.

You can't talk about them in progress. Well, we talked about how none of them had happened. happened all year. And then the very day that we published that podcast, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, nearly no-hit the Orioles. And then an incredible comeback ensued. This was just a wild ending, not effectively wild from the Dodgers perspective, but took a 3-0 near win, turned it into a 4-3 loss or a 4-3 win from the Orioles perspective. I can't emphasize enough. So I was tracking that the no hitter was in progress, right?

And then you get to this point in your Saturday where you're going to see a comedy show and it's about to start and you got to turn your phone off because you don't want to be a jerk. And the expression that I had, I assumed, like more often than not, you're going to lose a no hitter. Even at that late stage, you're going to lose a no hitter. you're going to lose a no-hitter, right? That's my default assumption, particularly in a year like this. And is in a year like this part rational? It's not, you know?

Because, like, what bearing does prior years no-hitter rate have on this year? None. I submit none at all. But I was like, oh, I'm going to happen. And but I still assumed, I still assumed that the Orioles, a team that in this very game had demonstrated profound ineptitude, against Dodgers pitching. And over the course of the season has been, you know,

not a winner a lot of the time. I just assumed that they would lose and it would be sort of a normal loss. And you cannot imagine the face I made when I emerged from a comedy show and saw that not only had the no-hitter been disrupted, but that they had lost the game? I was like, I don't understand the witchcraft that we have.

Like I worry, you know, if we were in a Disney movie, we would be in this like protracted period where we're trying to understand our powers, right? We're trying to get our arms around what they mean, how we best utilize them. Because I'm not trying to be a problem for Yamamoto. I like Yamamoto. I want to see him thrive. And I am worried about our good friend Craig and what he might be doing. vis-a-vis pulling out his own hair if this Dodger season continues sort of in its tailspin. So I don't know what to tell you, man.

How did it happen that this became the way that we have influence over the course of the game? I'd like to try other stuff, you know? I'd like to make it felt in other ways. So I don't know. Sometimes we use our powers for good. You could even say that we spurred Yamamoto to come really close. And then our magic wore off there at the very end, or Jackson Holiday has more powerful magic than we do, perhaps.

Anyway, whatever happened, this was painful for Dodgers fans, but led to just an amazing moment for Orioles fans who have been sorely lacking those moments and those reasons to celebrate this season. So I feel pretty good for them. It really can be quite traumatic in a sports sense when you lose a no-hitter or a perfect game. when you're one out away from that.

I mean, I still remember well when Mike Messina lost a perfect game to Carl Everett after eight and two-thirds innings. And that was a little more meaningful and memorable because it was a perfect game than a no-hitter. And quite quickly, New Yorkers had way worse things to worry about in September 2001 after that. But that was painful when I was watching that at the time. I can't believe that you just dropped a 9-11 reference into the chat.

I just remember that it was September 2001, but yeah, I do not mean to equate the two, obviously, but this was in a sports sense in a much more low-grade way in a painful sports memory for me. But just saying when you get that close, you kind of take it for granted. Like up until that moment, I feel like you're always going to lose it because odds are you will, even if you go into the, yeah, like even if you go into the ninth with a, perfect game or something. Odds are against you because you have to face a few batters and maybe you're running out of gas and they've seen you a few times. And even if the emps are expanding the zone a little bit and all that, it's just, it's hard. But you get to that point, you're so close. You think, okay, we've got this in the bag. But Yamamoto, on his 112th pitch, Jackson Holiday took him deep. And then just more madness ensued because Blake Trinan comes in to

try to close the door. And at that point, after the holiday homer, it goes from a 0.4% chance to win the game for Baltimore to a 1.4% chance, according to the win probability estimates at Fancraft. So it's still, you figure it's over. But then, Trinan comes in, pours fuel on the fire, Jeremiah Jackson doubles, then there's a hit by pitch, there's a wild pitch, Ryan Mountcastle walks, then Colton Couser walks with the bases loaded, forces in a run, and then Manuel Rivera comes in and walks it off with a two-run single. And just like that, you've gone from euphoria, being on the verge of euphoria to the depths of depression,

unless you're an Orioles fan. Yeah, it had to have been a wild swing of emotion. I can't speak to it because, again, I was in a show, you know? I was busy with a show. but it was um i guess like you're heartened if you're a dodgers fan at this point in the season like the the bigger takeaway is probably wow look at some of our pitching our pitching is rounding into form our pitching is getting healthier our pitching is being productive that that's encouraging right because you've spent so much of the year with a rotation that is various stage of plagued you know

and so like yay good but but also the this um And Padres, they're close in the rear view, you know? They're sitting right there. They're like the big T-Rex, not like Teo, who we've established in the Jurassic Park analogy, would be like a very slow T-Rex plotting to the point of not having to be run away from, really. Now, the Padres have not been able to, they've sort of played the Mariners, you know, role to the Dodgers Astros, an analogy I'm sure that Dodgers fans will really appreciate. because they love the Astros so much,

like their favorite team apart from the Dodgers. You know, they haven't exactly been breaking down the door at this moment when the Dodgers have been flailing. But it's the best, you know, they're right there. So you got somebody's got a, you know, there's an opportunity to seize it, I guess is the point. So go, go seize, you know, go like, grab it. It's possible that that race won't mean much

from a playoff perspective, depending on how the Phillies, do. It might just end up determining seating in the wild card round, which is not that big a deal, really. It could mean a buy, though, potentially, and obviously means a lot pride-wise. So it's significant, given the rivalry between the Dodgers and the Padres. Some people suggested that Andy Pahas, who was in the outfield for the Dodgers, should have made more of an effort to try to rob that holiday homer. But I think that was sort of an optical illusion, because if you look at in Camden Yards, where it hit, it hit several feet beyond the fence, so it looked like maybe if he had just really gotten up there and tried to grab it if you could have. But I think it went too far. There's like a, there's a railing where it hit and he would have had to have super stretchy arms, I think,

to get to that point. Plus he was probably playing it because it could have caromed off the top of the wall and so he would have had to be ready for that. But no, I think even if he had tried his darnest to rob that homer he couldn't have So it was destined to be, I guess it was faded, and that was that. And still, we have no, no hitter this season.

So we'll see if that continues. We've still got a few weeks left. I have today four banter topics that will each be sort of statblasty, or at least I have sort of stat blasty research prepared, even if they're not stat blasts per se. I've got spreadsheets. I've got tabs. I've got links on the show page. So strap in people. It's going to be exciting.

What a tease. I'm ready. Yeah. I don't know if that made people lock in more or tune out. But probably if you're in this deep with us, that's what you're looking for. So the Dodgers struck back on Sunday. They won five to two, helped by two home runs by Shohei Otani. I did see on Roto Wire, you know how they have those player notes.

and there's the little update about what the player did, and then there's an analysis section. And the note, the analysis for this Otani Two Homer Performance says, Otani had been stuck in an abbreviated slump coming into Sunday, going just one for 11 in his previous three games. Wait a minute. Yeah. What? Okay. Stuck in an abbreviated slump.

You can't be stuck in an abbreviated. I don't want to, I'm not trying to give anyone a hard time, you know, like editorially. That's not my store. I don't need to tend to it. But what does that mean? You can't be stuck in an abbreviated slump because if you're stuck, it's not abbreviated, like definitionally. Right.

What does that mean? We could argue, we could quibble about what is an abbreviated slump. Is there even such a thing? Sure. Does a slump have to be protracted in order to be a slump as opposed to just a few bad games? But regardless, even if you allow that there is such a thing as a three-game slump, I don't think you can really be stuck in one. You can't be stuck in it.

It's too quick to be stuck. It's too quick. He's no longer in that slump if there ever was one after this performance, I suppose. I'm not done. I'm sorry. I like a three games, three games of not hitting well is like, oh, you had a bad burrito earlier in this and you're feeling the after effects of the bad burrito. Like, if food could credibly be involved with your poor performance, it can't be.

You can't be stuck. Yes. You can't be stuck in a burrito, you know? Like, burrito's famously escapable foods. Like, you're like, oh, and then the food escapes with you, you know? Especially if you use the Lindbergh method and you're eating it from the inside out, middle out method. But, yeah, it's, I hopefully these are still written by humans and we're not just mocking AI or something here. But even if they're humans, probably someone is cranking out 100 player notes on deadline and didn't give it a second thought.

But here we are. giving it a second and third and fourth thought. But yeah, that stood out to me. I had some notes and now we have expressed them. Anyway, that was really the point, although I knew that we would make it the point. But I thought we have sort of a natural experiment here because of where we are in the Dodger season

and Shohei Otani season because Shohiotani returned to the mound in the Dodgers' 73rd game of this season. And today we're recording on Monday. they play their 144th game. So they played 72 games with one-way Otani, and they're about to play their 72nd game with two-way Otani. And I thought this would be interesting to compare his performance

and his value in each role, because before he returned and maybe even after, there have been whispers out there, right? People suggesting he shouldn't do this, he doesn't need to do this. It's not beneficial. It's more of a risk than his nest. And so I wanted to examine this won't be conclusive one way or another, but is he better doing the two-way thing or has he been more valuable doing the two-way thing half-and-half split season this year?

So one thing we could say is that the Dodgers have been worse or at least have had a worse record in the two-way Otani era here because they started the season 43 and 29 with one-way Otani. that's a 597 winning percentage. With two-way Otani, they've been 36 and 35. That's a 507. It is worse. Yes. This one game that they have to go is against the Rockies, and I believe in course. So perhaps they will pad their numbers with one more win, and Otani will pad his numbers.

Keep that in mind. I can update later if he goes off and has some extraordinary game, but probably the conclusions won't differ here. So Dodgers have been worse. They've been in more than an abbreviated slump, but I don't think we can blame the changing usage of Otani for that. Probably not, no. Yeah. Now, if Otani had been way worse, I guess, spoilers, I'm giving things away here. I'm sorry.

Spoilers are you're doing the segment at all because, like, Ben, I don't want to impugn your honor or suggest a bias in your reporting. But I would hazard a guess. that if the conclusion was Otani was worse in this stretch where he has been both hitting and pitching, that you would not say anything about it. How dare you? You might wait for more data before you drew a conclusion, which is a defensible position and not indicative of this doubt of him

as a two-way player living, as the kids would say, rent-free in your head. Yes. You're accusing me of podcast publication bias here. I am. You're suggesting that there could have been a file drawer problem. If he had cratered when he started pitching again, then we just wouldn't talk about it.

We wouldn't do this comparison. Although... I'm just saying. It is Shohei Otani, so probably we would talk about it one way or another. If our history is any guide, if he suddenly stank up the joint, we might talk about that, too, I would say. I'm not considering this conclusive either. This is just one trial in the vast multiverse with an infinite number of one-way otanis and two-wayotanis.

All we can do is look at our one tangible reality. A mere coincidence. Perhaps. A happy accident, you know? No, it's not overwhelming, I will just say. Also, spoilers. So you could still make the case either way. But let's lay out the numbers here.

Okay, so we've covered that the Dodgers have swooned. But Otani himself, so through June 15th, that was his last day before his first pitching appearance. So that's 72 Dodgers games, 70 Shohei Otani games, 326 plate appearances, 176 WRC Plus, 3.5 fan graphs wore. Okay. Not too shabby. All right. Not too shabby. From June 16th on through Sunday's game, so that is 71 Dodgers games, 70 Otani games, 317 played appearances, 162 WRC Plus.

So the hitting has been slightly worse, albeit still one of the best in baseball, 176 down to 162, playing time almost equivalent. the plate appearances will be almost identical after Monday's games. War-wise. Yeah. Okay. Position player Otani, 2.8 war. So that's a little bit down from the 3.5 in the one-way Otani period. However, 1.4 pitching war, at least according to Fangraphs. If you go by baseball reference, it would be lower.

That's by runs allowed. But if we go by Fangraphs pitching war, which we generally do, not only when we want to make a particular point. That's true. We pre-register. I've pre-registered this take. You're a fit boy. Yeah. Yeah, you can't accuse me of doctoring it after the fact.

You're a fit boy. And also, it's not even because we're a fan graphs podcast. It's, uh, we just like Fangraph's War. At least I do. I come by it honestly. I'm not even paid directly by Fangraphs. It would be very funny. I was like, I don't like FanGrafts War.

I think it sucks. That would be fun. Yeah, I'm just a paid chill by Fan Crafts War. It's just, yeah. So overall, he's been a little less value. at bat, but he has the 1.4 pitching war, and thus it's 4.2 war, again, before the final game of this period, could still tack on a little, compared to 3.5 war. So it's similar. It's not like he blew one-way Otani out of the water here, and if you wanted to make the case

before that he should just stick with one way, I don't know that this will completely convince you. However, even though he's hit a little worse, which may or may not have anything to do with the fact that he's been pitching over this period. It could, greater fatigue, who knows. But also 176 WRC pluses, they often tend to come down. Maybe not in Shohei Otani's case. In 2023, he had a 180 WRC plus, which was identical to his 180 mark last year,

even though he was pitching almost all of the time he was hitting in 2023. So he has shown the capacity to sustain elite offensive performance while pitching. Anyway, the point is, even if he declined slightly, offensively, he can still more than make up that value pitching-wise. And, of course, he hasn't been fully operational unleashed to Weyotani for this whole span or arguably for any of this span, right? Because he came back and he was pitching an inning here, two innings there.

They haven't let him go more than five. So in theory, next year, he's another year removed from the injury and the rest and all that. if he's still healthy and they take the gloves off, then he could accrue more pitching value. And I guess perhaps that could take a greater fatigue or injury risk if he's actually pitching more. But even with just sort of a compromised pitching performance, you add it together and he's still been more valuable

as well as, I would argue, more entertaining, more buzzy for baseball. So I think the math still supports this, as long as he's able to keep doing it? I think that that is a defensible position. I'm not totally surprised by it, one, because he's just a really good player, but also because, you know,

you have to think about the fatigue piece of it, and I don't mean to say that facing big league hitters is the same as rehabbing from an injury, but it's not as if the desire to pitch, just to like encompass a broad stretch of activities here, wasn't making itself felt in terms of a toll, right? Like, he had to rehab. He was rehabbing the whole time to think that that didn't have some sort of impact on, you know, his energy level, his potential fatigue, what have you, seems, you know, wildly optimistic to me.

So I think, see, I'm helping to bolster your case, which would I suggest that it needed bolstering, that it wasn't already sufficiently strong? never would never say such a thing i was actually going to say that it could support the opposite case what you're saying here because perhaps when i'm comparing one way otani to two way otani i'm not actually doing that because one way otani was trying to make it back to the mount so he was and he was taking it slow yeah he wasn't he wasn't pitching right like he was pitching but he wasn't pitching you know what i mean like i think that it it is useful to acknowledge the potential impact it might have had on his hitting performance, or at least the strain that it might have contributed. But I don't think that rehabbing back is the same as facing big league hitters. I mean,

that's its own. And like the, you know, the toll when you're in a game and you find yourself in a tight division race kind of unexpectedly, right? The toll isn't just physical. It's emotional. It's mental, right? Like you have a responsibility to the club. What you do matters so much more. Now, him being able to be two-way Otani is important for the Dodgers, not just in the immediate term, but in the long-term as well. So perhaps you say, well, he already had a mental toll, the mental toll of rehabbing back from a major injury again. But I'm just saying, like, you know, there's something to be said for it not being, it's not like one-way-O-Tani and two-way-O-Tani. It's like one-and-a-half-way-O-Tani and two-way-O-Tani. And then you're like, add two-way-way-otani.

and it's like, wow, that's a lot of Otani. Or you could say, if you're someone who thinks that he should specialize, well, in a way it's not specializing because he'd be able to play defense, not in a pitching way, but he could play outfield, let's say. And so you could say one way Otani is really halfway Otani because he doesn't play defense. So maybe the counter is, okay, sure, you're doing this math, but you're comparing D.H. Otani. What if he's good defensive outfielder, Otani?

If he said, I'm done as a pitcher, then perhaps he would play the field and that would be valuable too. Well, sure. And again, you know, you underestimate the man at your own peril, but I do think that there's something with every year that passes since he last played the outfield and played the outfield at a high level, there is something kind of facile about the assumption that, like, he would be able to just be a great outfielder. Now, given some of the options that the Dodgers have on board right now, perhaps they'd say he'd be good. enough, you know, you know? I would say so. I think he'd have greater range than Teasca Hernandez and would hit better than Michael Conforto. I'm confident in both of those things. I mean, it wouldn't be hard. I do want to experience a world where Otani is just hitting and playing the outfield. Not for an entire season. I'm not trying to take anything away from you, Ben. I'm not

trying to rob you or the game of anything. But just like for, like as an experiment, not only to see what his outfield defense looks like, but like a social experiment to see how Dodger fans would react to it? Because like on the one hand, such promise, right? They've never seen it. So you can just imagine it would be great. He'd be the greatest outfielder imaginable. And then you might see it and maybe it would be good, but also like he has to like kind of get his feet under him in terms of like how sharp his routes are. Maybe he runs under the wall and then you'll freak out a little bit. But basically I know that we are in the middle of a great Dodgers fan crash out when it comes to their experience of their team. But I think there's unexplored potential for the like particular flavor of crash out.

And I kind of want to see it because I'm apparently a mean person. Well, this is not the last word on this topic. There will be many more words, I'm sure. This has been a running storyline throughout Otani's career from the time he started trying to be a two-way player. And it will continue to be until he eventually, inevitably, gives up the ghosts and specializes. And look, if he gets hurt again, if he blows out the elbow again, then even I will entertain the possibility that he should specialize, that he should stop trying this thing. It was fun while it lasted. But for now, it has continued to be fun for the most part.

And I think still makes sense from a value perspective. Yeah. We'll see. We'll continue to evaluate that. And it will change at some point, presumably, I guess. unless he declines just in equal measure on the mound and in the batters box and just becomes a diminished version of himself but still sort of finally balanced in this way because it does have to be just perfectly calibrated so that it makes sense

so that he's not too much better at one or the other to just conclusively settle this raging debate. And, you know, if he has a big start in October and they do let him go deeper than five, perhaps if he's pitching well, then maybe that quietes the talk. for a while because at that point it will seem like it was all worth it to have gotten him to that point. We will see. This is just an update, a check-in, a snapshot. It just

occurred to me that, hey, we're just about at the point where we can divide the season into and compare. Okay. Next banter topic, John Brebia was designated for assignment by the Braves. Very sad. Very upsetting. He had a solid first two outings

and then ran into the Seattle Buzzsaw on Saturday. And the Mariners... I can't help but note the contempt in your tone of voice. Is it because I ambune your ethics as a journalist? Why are we sending bars? I don't know that Buzzsaw is necessarily negative. I'm respecting their offensive prowess.

They scored 28 runs in two days, albeit beating up on the underbelly of the Braves pitching staff, but still 28 runs in 2. days. That's nothing to sneeze at. And they needed those wins, obviously. So Brebeah, he had started okay in his Atlanta tenure. But then on Saturday, two winnings, four runs allowed on two homers, the second of which was off the bat of Cal Rale. And that maybe was the coup de grace, and that was that. I saw someone, quote, post a headline from MLB trade rumors on Blue Sky and said, more like gone Brebia, which I did not appreciate at all. It feels rude.

Normally would appreciate wordplay. But he is the latest of many victims of Cal Raleigh this season. So I thought we could actually talk about Raleigh for a second. You thought this was going to be a Brebia blast, but it's actually a Raleigh blast. Let's talk about the leading MVP candidates in the other league for a second, since we just talked about Otani. And this was prompted by an email we got from listener and Patreon supporter Cameron. who wrote in to say, big Mariners fan, who is not enjoying the collapse, collapse feels a little strong.

They weren't that great to begin with. What? The fuck are we doing? What are we doing? You have to have like a lead to collapse, I think. So I don't think it quite qualifies as a collapse. It's more like they've just been mediocre at best for some time, as have most of their opponents as we were talking about our last timeout.

It's been a disappointing portion of the season. Let's say that. There you go. Cameron continues. However, I am enjoying Cal's home runs, and he seems to be really good at hitting bombs when the game is already basically over. Garbage time, if you will. Today, and this was after the Saturday game, after the Brebeah game, his ninth inning one made it 10 to 2.

I know he has hit tons when we are losing 8 to 1. It would not surprise me if he had. like 20 garbage time home runs, is there anything here? So it's true. He hit two homers this weekend and they were both what I would call garbage time. Saturdays Homer turned a 9 to 2 lead into a 10 to 2 lead. And then on Sunday, actually after this email was sent, he turned a 13 to 1 lead into a 16 to 1 lead. So I thought this was interesting not just to answer Cameron's email, But also, because I could imagine this sort of thing having some bearing on the outcome of the ALMVP race because it is so close. It is neck and neck.

And sometimes when it's close war-wise, people turn their attentions to clutch as a kind of tiebreaker and not illegitimately, I guess. If you're saying, these guys are basically both the same, but one has made his hits count more and you're looking for anything that can separate them. It's reasonable to look at that, even if you don't think it's. predictive or some sort of true talent indicator. We're measuring retrospective value here within reason. So I wanted to see whether this held up to inspection has Cal just hit a bunch of blowout dingers this year. So baseball reference has a split where it gives you the hitters performance with a more

than four run margin, and that could be up by five or more. It could be down by five or more. Sure. But one way or another, it's not close. Eight of his 53 homers this year have been with a greater than four-run margin. Eight of 53. Doesn't sound so bad, right? That doesn't sound like a lot.

I wouldn't say that's 15.1%. And in fact, if we check the league average distribution, league-wide, what percentage of homers are hit with a greater than four-run margin, it's 15.7%. Oh, okay. So bang on league average. Yeah, just about a little bit better even. So I wouldn't say that this supports the idea that Cal has been a garbage time merchant, that he's just stat padding in games where the outcome is already decided. I did look to see whether the Mariners have had more plate appearances with a greater than four-run margin than the league as a whole or something like that.

Yeah. Well, I also looked at Cal specifically. So 12.9% of his plate appearances this season have come. with a greater than four-run margin, league-wide, it's 14.6%. So he has had fewer, but not that much. I don't think that changes the math all that much here. So if you look by that measure, there doesn't seem to be any glaring smoking gun here.

And it's interesting. I feel like I've heard this complaint about sluggers before, and maybe sometimes it holds up, but I would guess more often than not it doesn't, because it's just kind of anecdotal and confirmation bias. I guess you could say wouldn't you remember the clutch ones more? But I don't know. It could just be that Cal has hit a lot of home runs.

So he's going to hit a fair number in pretty much any game state that you hit 53. You can probably summon a bunch of examples of him hitting them in blowouts too. Yeah, that tracks for me. I mean, I don't have any reason to think that he or judge. would be particularly prone to garbage time home runs as a percent like as a proportion of their totals just because like they're both good hitters right and so now good hitters are going to be able to take advantage of poor pitchers and perhaps have a have an easier time doing that than they would when they're facing say you know the starter for the day or the the top of the rotation guy and so So I guess in that sense, you could imagine if they are playing in a bunch of blowouts and they are seeing position players more often than is typical because they are part of an otherwise very effective offense, right? Or they're seeing John Brebia more often than most. I'm sorry, John.

You know, like, facers down, man. I'm not here to, I'm not here to impugnue. I'm trying to reestablish my cred as a neutral, impartial objective. party when it comes to my favorites. Everyone's allowed to have their favorites, you know? I have my favorites, but I'm clear-eyed nonetheless. Right. You qualified it, I think, sufficiently for both Brebia and for Otani.

I'm simply noting, you know, sometimes the best way to win an argument is to acknowledge the laws in your own is all I'm saying. Exactly. Yeah. I like all kinds. You know, I'm not just a front runner, not just the superstar, maybe most impressive player of all time, but also. John Brebia. And yeah, definitely

John Brebia and we could think of others. So part of it is like they're both good hitters. Part of it is like as a person who has watched more Mariners games than is maybe advisable for her own mental health. Like they don't feel like we're always

blowing guys out kind of a team to me. Been a lot of tight feeling contests. So there's that. But yeah, like good hitters both. I imagine that when we get into the nitty gritty of their MVP cases, that much more is going to be made about the role of defense, both as it pertains to framing specifically and just more generally, although judges back in the field now. So maybe that'll kind of fade as a consideration for folks.

But yeah, sure, garbage time sometimes. You want to tell me that what is Aaron Judge's percentage by this definition? I have that handy. I bet you do. Yeah, I'll just, I'll mention, yeah, Aaron Judge, I think, is a great mistake hitter. He's a great hitter overall, but I remember some analysis suggesting that he will completely prey on mistakes, which is something that good hitters do. Yes, not every home run comes on a mistake pitch, but if you're a really good hitter, then often you do capitalize on those mistakes. And that can be a big difference between great hitters and not so great hitter.

So maybe if Aaron Judge is especially adept at that, you might think he'd be well positioned to really feast on the garbage time pitching, perhaps. But in fact, if you wanted to do a comparison, which we do here, it does favor Cal because 11 of judges 43 homers this season have come with that greater than four run margin. So that's 25.6 percent. And again, remember the league-wide margin is 15. point seven percent and cal's is 15.1 so that is considerably higher so you could kind of levy this complaint about judge if you wanted to i did also look just low leverage just not specifically greater than four run margin but low leverage and if you wanted to look at this 26 of cal's 53 home runs have come in low leverage that is 49.1 percent of the time

people might think that, like, low and high leverage are evenly distributed, but they're not really. High leverage is rarer. There's much more low leverage than there is high leverage. So 49.1% of his homers have come in low leverage, and league-wide, it's 45.3%. So slightly higher, but not notably so, I would say. And Judges is 53.5%. So that is higher than capital. again. So I think Cal has the better clutch argument. Not that either one has been particularly

clutch. They're both in negative territory by the fangraph's clutch metric. Remind people what that is because I think that sometimes people misunderstand that stat. Yeah. It doesn't mean you suck in clutch situations. It just means it compares your clutch, your high leverage situations to overall, right? Or your lower leverage. Yeah. So, so yeah, comparatively. they've been a bit worse in high leverage spots, but not notably so. I guess probably most guys have been a little bit worse because better pitching and all. Right. Yeah, they're both in negative territory, but they're both top 10 and win probability added

just because they're so good overall that even if all of their hits and homers haven't been perfectly well-timed, they just kind of brute force their way to being incredibly valuable offensively. But yeah, if you were looking for a tiebreaker, I don't know that there's like a glare disperity here that I actually would decide my vote based on. But I would not knock Cal. I don't know whether this has been a larger conversation about either of these players. But, yeah, before anyone jumps to conclusions about somebody stat patting in moments that don't matter, it doesn't look to me like Cal has been doing that, certainly.

In the interest of combating my own accusations of bias, like here I will note that like the gap between them, which had previously collapsed, is starting to a one. widen out again and in judge's favor, although it remains 0.4 wins, which I think allows for a debate. We'll see how broad it gets Bobby Wood Jr. kind of falling further behind here as the race goes on. He's now a full win behind judge. So there's that. But yeah, like it seems like it will remain a busy and interesting little, little stretch here. 53. That's something, man. like as a yeah what a what a thing you know what a thing as a catcher it's just like it's a it's a thing that he's doing and he's doing it ben as a catcher and he's he's really he's really doing it what's the remind me then what's the as catcher record do you recall off the top

of your head you know and and by that i mean for our listeners like the the strict split where he is hitting the home run on a day when he is catching as opposed to The fact that he is primarily a catcher, but might be dehing on the day that he is hitting a home run, because he's at 42 as a catcher in the strict split and 11 as a designated hitter. He doesn't have a pinch hit home run. That would be so fun. I think he should have – it would be cool if he had one of those, you know? It would be neat.

How often is he pinch hitting? Not very often, because when does he get a day off? Never. The answer is basically never. Right. Yeah. And he's won away from the switch hitting record, right? Not just for catchers, but switch hitters. Yeah. So he's hit 42, you said, of his 53 as a catcher. Correct. Okay. Yeah. So the primary, right, there's the primary catcher record. And then there's the when you're actually catching. Catching. So if you're usually a catcher or when you are actually literally a catcher. And I think he is tied for the most home runs as a catcher.

I think he's tied with Javi Lopez in 2003. As a catcher, meaning in the strict split. Yes. Because he's already beaten Salvador Perez's as a primary catcher record. Yes, he already owns that record. He's the home-runningist dumper around. And he's had some pretty big homers in his day, as Mariners fans can recall, I think. I always just be like this very special.

And so I'm so glad that he gets a season like this and hopefully, you know, one of many to come, right? But it's like he was already important to the franchise in a day-to-day production kind of way. And then he was like really important to the franchise in terms of like he hit the home run that secured them a win that secured them a place in the playoffs. And then we got this monkey off our back. And that monkey was like, I am so happy to be. Finally, I've been dogging you guys for 21 years, and that's been a waste of my time as well as yours. Now I'm a free guy, you know. I don't know what gender the monkey was.

What kind of monkey is it either? You know, like what kind of monkey? There are a lot of different kinds of monkeys. It's a lot of species variation within the monkey world. I didn't specify, by the way, judges, low leverage homers. It was 23 of 43 this season so far. And, of course, then there's championship win probability at it if you wanted to bring that into things. Sure, why not?

Both these teams are in pretty close races. So that's also not much of a separator, though I guess you could make the case that Mariners need every win even more than the Yankees do. But, yeah, it's close. Neither of these factors really makes this race easier to decide. So perhaps the next few weeks of play will settle things. Okay. So speaking of garbage time pitch, Scott Kingery of the Angels pitched in an A's Angels game on Saturday.

The Angels were down 9 to 1 in the 8th when he entered, and it got so much worse. The final score was 17 to 4 because Kingery, in his second Major League outing as a pitcher, in his first since 2018, he threw two innings. He allowed 12 hits, eight runs all earned on two home runs. However, it wasn't all bad. It was almost all bad. But there was at least one actually kind of semi-impressive thing he did, which was that he struck out Nick Kurtz, one of baseball's best hitters this year, on four pitches, including three whiffs on lollipops between 32.2 and 32.7 miles per hour. Okay?

So this speed the rounds because you had just these three. He lobs just almost identical, almost identical speed. And Kurtz seemed to be swinging for the fences, and he could not make contact. I have lamented this trend toward position player pitchers, not even trying to make a show of it, not even trying to deliver whatever their max effort is. We're just seeing a lot of this, just soft tossing, just lots of 30-something mile-per-hour pitches. And it doesn't look great. Not that it ever looks great when most position player pitchers are pitching.

But until 2017, position player pitcher Vilo consistently averaged in the 80s. This year it's down to 58, a new low. Now they've just given up all pretense of even trying to throw their best stuff out there. Even if their best stuff is 60-something miles per hour still, just for respectability's sake. So when this was going on, this debate was raging. in our Patreon Discord group as well and people were differing on whether this is an embarrassment

to baseball and we're sort of citing the fact that Kurt struck out as well maybe this is not actually an example of not putting forth your best effort maybe this was the best tactic to throw ultra super slow pitches to Nick Kurtz and disrupt his timing so much

that he just ends up whiffing now the rest of King Re's outing would suggest that that didn't work so well. That this wasn't part of some strategy, that this was simply what he had. Yeah. Or, well, I mean, I assume he has a little bit more than that. So I guess it was sort of a strategy just to take it easy, not to hurt himself.

But presumably not because he thought that it would lead to better results. But you never know. Like watching those wild whiffs from Kurtz, I was thinking, well, maybe there is something to that. Maybe just slowing it down. not to batting practice speed, which hitters still see sometimes, even if they're mostly hitting at like game speed batting practice or project machines or whatever, you still see some standard BP out there. And so maybe to dial it down even further to a speed that you never see, even in practice,

maybe that would work even better. Maybe it's not. Yeah, maybe there's something to that. Yeah, maybe it's not an Achilles heel for Kurtz. It's just maybe everyone should be doing this because you're seeing. 90-something, and then this guy comes in throwing 30, and you'd think that would be easier at a time. And it would for a mere mortal, for a normal person, but for a major league baseball player, maybe that would be even more disruptive and distracting.

So I wanted to check. I wanted to look at the numbers to see when position players pitch, do they fare better when they throw as hard as a position player pitcher can, or when they throw as slow? as a position player pitcher can and still actually get it on the fly to home play. So I looked just a 20-21 on. So the past five seasons,

including this one, post the 2020 shortened season. And in that span, the slowest pitch thrown by a position player pitcher was 30.1 miles per hour by Brockholt in 2021. The fastest pitch thrown by a position player pitcher was 95.1 in 2022 from Christian Bethancourt, who was actually sort of a legitimate two-way player. Yeah, I don't know if that, if he really counts, you know.

Yeah, baseball savant counts him and there's a position player pitcher flag on there. And I guess there were times when he was more of a legitimate two-way player than others. But if he didn't want to count Bethincourt, then you could count Nate Eaton. who topped out at 94.9 in 2023. So that's basically the range from 30 at the low end to 95 at the high end. And so I basically took the slices of the fastest and slowest 15 miles per hour. So I looked at like 45 miles per hour and under and 80 and up. Okay.

Specifically for position player pitchers over these. seasons. And I looked first at the weighted on base average allowed on these pitches in the different velocity bands. Okay. So I'm going to tell you first the Wobah allowed on the 80 and up pitches. There were 849 of these pitches, 450 weighted on base average allowed. That's bad. That is very, that's very bad. Maybe I can. It's not great. Yeah. Maybe I can find a comp here. Who has a 450? That's basically Aaron Judge's Wobah this year overall.

Okay. He's at 447. So against the fastest position player pitchers, hitters have managed basically an Aaron Judge Woba, 450. Okay. So the slow pitches, 1005 slow pitches, 45 miles per hour and under,

do you want to hazard a guess or will you under duress for purposes of content? No. No. I refuse. I refuse. No. Okay.

Well, playing along at home, those of you listening, you can pre-register your takes so that you can't claim after the fact that you were right. Will it be higher or lower? And by how much? This is again, Wobah allowed on the slowest pitches compared to the 450 on the fastest pitches. Here's the answer, 449. Whoa. It's the same. Whoa.

It's one point off. So no difference between the fastest and the slowest pitches from position player pitchers. If you wanted to do 79 miles per hour and up just to make the number of pitches more equivalent because we had a mismatch here of 849 pitches in the fast group and 1,05 in the slow group. If we drop that barrier for the upper bound to 79, then we get up to 9.000. 169 pitches. And it actually gets worse. The Woba gets worse. It's a 454, 454. So either way, you're sort of screwed, but you're screwed sort of equally. Whether you're, you come out there firing or lobbying like Kingery did. And this was even after Kingery skewed the stats, presumably, by kind of crap in the bed on Saturday. Did he throw strikes, Kingery? I don't think he walked. Did he walk any? I don't think he walked. I don't think he walked. any one, I guess, because everyone was just teeing off.

They were so eager to hit off of him. Yeah, because it's like, what are you, I don't know, would you, I mean, like 30 miles an hour, like, wow, that's pretty rough. It is super slow. And I'll just say blanket statement that these position player pitcher numbers, they're semi-skewed perhaps because, A, you are in blowouts. And so often their opponents are not the cream of the crap. either. Maybe you've got some defensive substitutions at that point. Some starters have been subbed in

for. And then also it's just, it's kind of a farce and everyone is aware that it's a farce. There's a lot of knowing smiles when they get up there. Yeah, there's laughs and there's

jokes and there's maybe the hitters aren't trying as hard as usual or maybe they're trying too hard. They're swinging for the fences. Maybe that was King problem here it's just they see fresh meat and they just launch mode yeah right they get a little over eager or just the game's kind of over and they're playing out the string and they're just not super motivated or locked in or concentrating so it's hard to say like if you had your first stringers facing the position player pitchers in a meaningful moment then i imagine the numbers would be

even worse but point is the wobas are almost identical now here's the thing there's There's a slight lie in here. When I'm citing the Wobas, we're looking at the results. These are like pitches that are put in play. And that is still meaningful because it does suggest that if you're throwing these ultra-slow pitches, when the hitter puts them in play, they're not really punishing them any more than the faster pitches. And I guess that could be what we were saying the other day, that maybe it's just hard physically to hit a pitch that slow out of the ballpark because, It's just not supplying a lot of that speed itself,

and the hitter does supply something like a sixth of the exit speed, the pitcher that is, and then the rest is the hitter. So there's a little less speed coming in and then thus maybe also going out. But if we look more holistically at all the pitches, which we can also do at Baseball Savant, by looking at the run value per 100 pitches. So not just on the results when it's put in play. What are the results and how hard is it?

hit, but just overall, which would take into account things like throwing balls versus throwing strikes and all that. So it's probably a better measure. I think both are interesting, but if you really wanted to dive deeper and say which is more effective, then probably you should look at the actual run value on a rate basis. So for the 45 and under mile per hour pitches, 100,0005 pitches, they have a negative 4.8 run value per 100. And in this case, negative is bad for pitchers. Okay, so negative 4.8. If we look at the 80 and up malpower pitches,

they are at 4.0. Negative 4.0 runs per 100. So negative 4.8 for the slow pitches, negative 4 for the fast pitches. That's a difference. That supports the faster pitches being better, theory. They're both terrible, to be clear, but there is a difference of about 0.8 runs per 100 pitches in favor of the faster pitches. And if you wanted to do the 79 and up split, then it's

negative 4.2 runs per 100 pitches. So either way, I think you can make the case that, yeah, actually, the faster pitches are better. But not when there's a result, not when the ball is put in play and also buy a lot less than you would probably figure also i should also note that like some of those harder throwers it's not just that they throw harder and thus the pitches are better but also some of those harder throwers have pitching experience that's why they're out there throwing that hard yeah they tend to be selected for having you know like thrown a little bit sometimes it's like all the way back in high school but like yeah which yeah which guy's been is like familiar with the mound has been up here before, you know?

Yes. There is a leaning forward that for sure. Yeah, exactly. Like Bettencord or, you know, others. And so that's another reason why I think you would think that that high-speed group would be better than this by more than the low-speed group. Because the low-speed group is going to be a bunch of guys who have zero pitching experience and they're just out there as sacrificial lands. Whereas the high-speed group, there will be some guys who have actually pitched, if not professionally, at least on. an amateur level and might have some idea what they're doing and might have better command

or something like that. So, or might have other pitches that they're sequencing with these faster pitches. There might be more of a speed disparity. So, so you would think that they'd be better, not just because of the speed differential, but also because of that. And yet, it's kind of a small difference. So I'm now forced to question when I do see the 30 mile per hour lollipop pitches, whether I really should get more up in arms about this than I do just about the generic position player pitcher who's actually attempting to do something good because maybe it doesn't make that much difference.

Once you put in any position player, you've essentially surrendered and maybe the manner of your surrender at that point is immaterial. Right. Like there's just, you know, I think that it becomes at a certain point a binary between like, well, there's, their position players is the thing, Ben, they're not pitchers. I mean, you're right to say that they are often selected because they, you know, threw four innings off a mound 15 years ago or whatever. But, you know, like, they don't clear the binary position player or pitcher distinction. And then at a certain point, you're just like, yeah. I mean, sometimes they just strike guys out.

It just happen on occasion, but it's quite rare, you know, because they're pretty bad up there. And even if they have individual pitches within a sequence that work, the odds of them all working, at least enough, seem kind of low. I think it's also kind of a bad look for baseball if the game is on. Now, maybe the mistake is that you have the game on at all at that point, and you can just turn it off because even though we're getting more position player pitching, even with the rules that narrow the range of games where you're allowed to use a position player pitcher, they're still up a bit, at least, relative to recent years where there was kind of a crackdown and there was a commensurate decline in the number. It's bounced back up a little bit. But it's still, even being vastly more common than it used to be, it's still just a tiny minority of actual pitches and innings thrown. So you can easily disregard it and just tune out. And if it doesn't bother you

that much, I totally understand that too. I'm not charmed by it anymore, but it's still rare enough that I'm not really angered by it. It's just when it happens, I'm like, eh, the thrill is gone. So it would look worse, I think, if you just happened to tune in and you saw someone just lobbing the ball in a way that a regular person could, then it might look like, oh, this is just more of an embarrassment than if you're at least kind of making it look a little more competitive. But what the numbers suggest is actually it's not really that different. So it's not maybe worth getting that worked up about. And maybe the ups. side is that we get to see Nick Kurtz, one of the best editors in baseball this year,

look silly, corkscrewing himself into the earth, trying to hit a home runoff of Scott Kingery. I think that they intervened enough, you know, to arrest a trend that was getting out of hand. I think the rules around, like, when you can bring a position player in and what have you, it's, it's curtailed it enough that it doesn't wrinkle. Because for a while it was delightful, and then it was like, okay, like, something, surely must be done about this. And then they did. Just got an email from Patreon supporter Cam in response to my response to his Cal Raleigh question.

And he says he appreciates the research. Maybe it's just because of all the losing lately. Every home run he hits just felt inconsequential to the game result. He said it. Not me. We're allowed to say it. We're the ones suffering. I see.

Okay. I mean, come on. come on you know i didn't mean that you were biased i just i think i correctly noted that if otani had like i'm going to swear to suck as a hitter and you know was like really bad that you would be like well we got to wait to see and and you know what that would have been fine that wouldn't have been like a a dereliction of duty it wouldn't have been i wouldn't have thought that that was biased i just would have said that like the fact that the fact that we were talking about it revealed to me the probable answer although you could have done a

real, you know, like, rug out from under me kind of surprise situation, but Otani's just been good, you know, the thing about it is. You're not going to really surprise me about Otani is the thing, because I am also watching him, you know? Yes, you do know what his overall numbers are. Right. Like, he's sort of hard to miss. If he had suddenly sucked for the most recent half of his season, you probably would have

been aware of that. Right. Like, spoiler alert, you know, like, so Davey wrote a delightful piece about the big home run that he hit last week. And then this morning he pitched me another piece about Otani, which, um, forthcoming at Fangraphs.com may be live by the time you're listening to this. And Davey was like, is it too much Otani too soon? And I was just like, no. The answer to that is literally like, no. It's always no. The answer is always yes to Otani. Always no to too much Otani. No. You can't. And it's not even like a clickbait thing, you know, although Otani content does well. It's just like, this is the most exciting guy, you know. Um, No offense to judge or the dumper or anyone else, but it's like it's, this is the guy, you know. Yes. If the thrill has been muted a bit by the fact that it's not brand new, then it has not worn off the way that the charm of position player pitching has.

And in fact, I would suggest that the hiatuses that Otani has had from pitching has, in a way, just renewed the luster of it every time he returns from pitching. because, hey, it's been a while since he did this and we weren't sure that we would ever see it again. Okay, so we've come to the fourth and final of these topics, and this might be the one I'm most curious about and most eager for your thoughts on. I'm going to be a very active listener. Really hone in.

Okay. I don't know if you've noticed, but lefties have pitched particularly well this year, both some of the elite league-leading types, but also league-wide. So this is something that has been noted by a few writers going back a few months. I know Travis Sotchik wrote about this in June. Zach Kreiser wrote about it in July.

Stephen Nesbitt wrote about it in August. Apologies if I'm leaving anyone else out. I'm sure other people have picked up on this. But much to my surprise, it has continued that this is arguably the best season ever for left-handed pitching. And we're almost at the end of it, at least the regular. regular season here. And so I'm trying to puzzle out why that might be, as these writers have, and they've all proposed various possible explanations. I don't know if the case has been cracked, but we can walk through them and see if any makes sense to us. So here's some high-level

numbers. So lefties through Sundays games have a 3.82 ERA this season. Righties have a 4.32 ERA, so that's a difference of a full half run in favor of lefties. If we look at ERA minus adjusted ERA at FanGraph, so that is just accounting for the league and the ballpark and everything, then lefties this year have a 91 ERA minus, and this is different from ERA plus, which you will find at baseball reference, ERA plus higher is better, ERA minus, lower is better. And 100 is average in both, of course. So in the entire live ball era, going back to 1920, ALNL only, this is the best park-adjusted ERA that left-handers have ever had, 90-line.

Yeah, there's never been a season lower than 93, and even the 93s were a very long time ago, 1924, and 1949. There just hasn't been a recent season. There hasn't been one this century or this millennium below 90s. in 2002, 97 in 2018, 2017. So lefties are generally better, you know, that there's a lefty advantage. There are multiple lefty advantages in baseball, really. There's the left-handed platoon advantage as a hitter. You get to face a lot of right-handed pitchers, and you have the platoon advantage there.

And then also lefties, you know, have certain positional advantages. but lefty pitchers in terms of you actually get to play certain positions that it's tough to play. Otherwise, that's what I mean as a position player. And then also lefty pitchers, even though they are at the mercy of right-handed hitters, and thus they don't have the platoon advantage as often, they do have the familiarity advantage in their favor because there are fewer lefty pitchers. Yeah, exactly. And so you just see fewer of them in the big leagues. You see fewer of them all the way up to the big leagues, maybe even fewer at the lower levels.

Right. And so lefties have always been overrepresented in baseball compared to the population at large because there are these advantages. But still, they are underrepresented compared to righties. Okay. So people have been trying to figure out, well, why is this historic outlier season for lefties? And if you wanted to go by WRC Plus, I guess you could say, I just looking at it. the splits leaderboard at fangrass. I went back to 2003.

There hasn't been a lower WRC plus mark than the 95 that hitters have managed against left-handed pitching this season. I think there was one year 2018 that was also 95. But yeah, it's just people have been bad against lefty pitching or lefty pitchers have been good against everyone. It's hard to chicken and the egg sort of thing. So trying to figure out why this is and what it means. One notable thing is that a lot of the very best pitchers and starters in baseball this year have been left-handed, are left-handed.

So you have Terrick Scouple, you have Christopher Sanchez, you have Garrick Crochet, Jesusu, Hesu, Framber Valdez, who, for some reason, Framber is a righty in my mind. I don't know why that is. I always have to remind myself, like some guys, yeah, lefty, Terik Scouble, lefty, Gary Crochet, lefty, obviously. Frommberg, for some reason, I always have to. The reframe, yeah, not a righty. Max Fried, that's six of the top ten. Pictures this year by Fangraphs were, are lefties. Plus, Ranger Suarez, Matthew Boyd, that's eight of the top 14.

Trevor Rogers in there, nine of the top 17, Andrew Abbott, 10 of the top 20. So lefties are way overrepresented among the very best pitchers in baseball this season. A lot of Phillies in there, the healthy Phillies. Well, also Zach Wheeler, who's not pitching anymore, but would still be on that list, but not a lefty. They're not the healthy Phillies and any part of their team right now. Geez. Yeah. So one thing I thought, well, could it be that there are fewer lefties maybe now?

And so what we're seeing has been winnowed down and only the best lefties remain. And so it's sort of like a selective sample sort of issue. But that doesn't appear to be the case. The lefty percentage of total batters faced in each season has ranged from 18.4% at the low end in 1936 to 35.7% at the high end in 1949. I guess those years, fewer teams, fewer pitchers, so the percentages were more variable. But overall, in that whole 1920 to 2025 period, 27.8% of batters faced have been faced by lefty pitchers. And this year, it's 27% on the dot. So nothing there, really.

So what could this be? You know, it's not even just ERA if we look at FIPP minus. So park adjusted FIP also to kind of take some of the randomness and defense and everything out of it. Then lefty pitchers this year have a 94 FIP minus, which is tied for the lowest ever with 1914. 1944, 1961, and 1962. So even there, it's been a really long time. And those are all either war years or expansion years for whatever that's worth. So even the peripherals are particularly impressive for the lefties this year.

So do we just throw up our hands and say small sample and some of these aces are lefties? And I guess that's that or might there be more to it? Because we're almost at a full season here. It's not a super small sample. My instinct is just that you happen to have a concentration of very good guys who happen to all be lefties, that it's probably that more than anything else, like, specific or I'm trying to think if there's other than the reasons we've already run through, like something unique to this year, something 20-25-ish about it. At least I'm trying to think of it without making like a kind of cheap political joke because there's like, oh, those are lefties, maybe they're like, need. Neither one. Is there anything to the notion that the batters against whom they have the most obvious platoon advantage?

Like, are they better or worse relative to historic averages? Are we, like, coming to the question from the wrong direction? Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean? Like, is it – does it tell us something actually about the hitters, though? Does it? Maybe. Yeah.

To be clear, not confident that that is anything, you know, that that gives us anything. One thing that makes me a skeptic about any big league-wide explanation for this is that there doesn't seem to really have been a progression toward this. It's not like we've been trending in this way necessarily. Like if there were some sort of developmental pitch design reason, then I would expect that lefties would have been getting a bit better. by the year. But it doesn't seem like that's the case. Like last season, Lefty's had a 99 ERA plus or ERA minus and 98 FIP minus. And 2023, they were 100 ERA minus 98 FIP minus.

It's just, yeah, there's 2022. They were worse than league average, 101, 101. So, yeah, it doesn't seem like there's, it's like we've been incrementally improving here. It's just a sudden step change. Are they better at throwing, like, the sexy pitch du jour? And so, like, there's, like, a sexy pitch effect. I like saying sexy pitch effect, although I almost stumbled over it just then. Yeah.

So, okay, I'll run through a few of the possibilities that Sotchik and Krizer and Nesbit considered here, and we can talk about whether we find... Sounds like a law firm. Yeah, whether we find any of them convincing. So they all mentioned, well, there's just a... cluster of left-handed aces explanation, which could be it. I guess you could then say, well, is there a reason why there's a cluster of left-handed aces?

But, you know, that could just be a coincidence, I suppose, or other guys getting hurt or whatever it is. And those guys are still a small minority of the overall batters faced by lefties, but maybe enough to sort of sway things because they've just been so good. But, all right, if we set that aside and say, maybe that's just the most likely answer, Zach considered in a piece he wrote for opt-a-analysts that maybe lefties are doing a good job of stifling the running game. That, you know, teams and players are running rampant these days. And lefties, maybe easier pick-off move.

And maybe that's more important when your pick-off moves are limited. But he did not find that that held up to his scrutiny. He didn't, yeah, he didn't really find anything about just like stolen bases. raid or anything like that against lefties versus righties or I don't know if there's anything with pickoffs or whatever but he considered that found it wanting so I suppose so do I there's a a bunch of like pitch usage stuff that might have something to do with it now I thought maybe it would have something to do with pitch speeds like actual stuff improving for lefties. If you look at stuff plus at fan graphs, which I think just goes back to

2020, there's nothing clearer there. If you just look at lefties, it doesn't, there's no stuff plus spike for lefties this year. But if you look at fastball speeds or just four seamer averages, so lefties are up about three miles per hour since 2008, lefties were at 90.1 miles per hour for four seamers in 2008. This year, they're at 93, which is actually flat or down a tiny bit from the past few years. Righties are up from 91.8 to 94.9. So they started higher. They're still higher, but they've each improved by about three miles per hour. So it doesn't seem like lefties have really gained ground pitch speed-wise, fastball speed-wise, over that span. They haven't really closed the gap because lefties have had this gap historically because they do

have those other advantages and the familiarity effect and holding runners and all the rest. But, you know, so they're able to get by with lesser stuff. But yet, it doesn't seem like the relationship between righty and lefty speed has changed all that much. So I don't find something there particularly compelling. Now, pitch speeds or pitch types rather, like maybe there's some. something with sweepers or sliders or, I don't know, Travis mentioned that maybe teams are taking a less platoon heavy approach this year.

And so lefties are in a slightly more favorable position because they haven't had the platoon disadvantage quite as often. And, you know, it's up a little bit, at least relative to recent seasons. I'm not sure how well that's held up, but it's not huge. I don't know, but if there's less platooning for whatever reason, I guess just more relievers, fewer bench bats, I don't know, whatever it is, that's maybe a slight contributing thing to this. David Cohn talked to Travis Satchik and said that maybe certain types of pitch design

might favor lefties, especially against lefties. This is sort of what you were getting at before when you said, like, maybe the pitch du jour, it's better for lefties or something. So Cohn said in my eyes tell me that the pitch design is more east to west, two seamers inside and sweepers away, especially two seam inside to set the tone. It's very difficult for lefty hitters

to hang in there and still cover inside fastball. So we have high rates of lefties sweeper and slider usage. And Zach also mentioned just a slider spike for lefties. And so maybe just like lefties have better. ability to neutralize the platoon advantage now, you know, because I don't know. When I had Ben Clemens on an episode earlier this year when you were away, I think, he did a couple posts on like looking at how much pitchers vary their arsenals based on the handiness of the hitter.

And he did seem to find some evidence that they are doing that more, that they're kind of tailoring their pitch mix more based on who the hitter is, which I guess is relevant to our recent conversation about advanced scouting and whether pitchers actually tailor their game plan and their pitching approach to the actual strengths and weaknesses of the hitter. But maybe this is more of a handedness approach. So I guess if you have more of a bifurcated approach and you're throwing a bunch of sliders or sweepers to lefties, like, you know, maybe teams are getting a bit better at neutralizing the platoon advantage for pitchers or disadvantage for pitchers. Does that sound persuasive to you? potentially like as a thing in the soup you know it's like i also think that there's probably not

one explanation for why this is the case right like it's a combination of things coming together in concert to be like well these good lefties you know another thing that zach mentioned maybe multiple people mentioned is that with the smaller minor leagues and the accelerated timelines for prospect promotion at least with with highly rated prospects maybe that has amplified the lack of familiarity advantage. Like maybe you're just seeing fewer lefties along the way. And so you're getting to the big leagues and you've spent even less time facing professional lefties than hitters have in the past. So like maybe, maybe if you're hurrying someone up to the majors and you just got fewer pitchers in the minors in general, I don't know offhand how the percentages have changed in the minor league.

but I guess maybe if you're seeing fewer lefties in amateur ball, let's say, and then you're getting spit up to the majors, then I guess you would have had less exposure to left-handed pitching on your path to the big leagues. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, maybe. So, I don't know. I mean, again, as a thing in the thing, yeah, that's in the thing soup. Yep.

Another thing that Zach mentioned in a follow-up piece in the bandwacken is maybe lefty, have exploited release angles more. Maybe they've gotten more extreme because he mentioned the Sean Manaya reinvention last year when he kind of turned himself into a Chris Sale lookalike at midseason and then pitched better. And Andrew Abbott, I guess with the Reds, has done something sort of similar this year

where his horizontal release point has become more extreme. So, you know, move over to the edge of the rubber and maybe give guys a different angle, a more extreme angle. Yeah. And I looked at this on a league-wide level, and there doesn't really seem to be anything there. I don't know. Maybe individual pitchers, but you can search for, like, the average horizontal release point by left-handed pitchers year to year. And this year does not really stand out relative to the past several seasons.

So that doesn't seem to be the smoking gun that we're looking for here. I want one of these things to be like the no-doubter. right yeah this is it this is why but i don't know stephen in his piece like he had reason one i guess was just like you know you have these aces maybe or reason one i guess was that lack of exposure which you know is not new this has always helped lefties reason two lefties can't hit lefties reason three righties can't hit lefties i guess so it's like the platoon advantage has all but vanished for right-handed hitters, he's suggesting. You know, this is all just the pitch arsenals and the different percentages and everything.

Yeah, I find that semi-persuasive just because I think there used to be more dogma when it came to, oh, you can't throw this pitch to opposite-handed hitters or you have to throw this pitch to opposite-handed hitters. And along with all the other things that have been broken down about, oh, you've got to establish the fastball. And, you know, you got to, oh, this is a fastball count. and this is not a fastball count and you throw fastballs low in the zone, not high. All this conventional wisdom has kind of fallen by the wayside if it hasn't been borne out.

So, yeah, I could buy something like that. But, you know, and Stephen said maybe it's like soft tossing lefties to the extent that they exist. They're throwing more pitches. Like they just have more weapons in the arsenal these days. and that's just, it seems to be kind of true of all pitchers. I don't know if it's true of lefties disproportionately, really, so I don't know. And then reason five was just we still don't understand what makes lefties good,

which is not really a reason. But whatever has made them good before is making them even better now. So it's a thorny one, but it's held up. Like I became aware of this a few months ago when people started writing about it, And I kind of thought, oh, well, this will come back to the mean. It'll equalize at some point. And it just hasn't really. And that has made me believe more.

And yet, only to an extent. Well, I mean, we'll keep at it, you know. I think the only way for us to gather more data is to make everybody switch sides. You know, like make all the natural radius for Lifty and all the LFTYs for Rite and then see what we get. And I think mostly we would get. a lot better hitting, you know? Maybe that's the way to address, like, the level of offense in the league is just to make all the pitchers switch.

But let the hitter stay the same, you know, and see how it goes. That might help. Who would be worse? Actual pitchers throwing with their offhand or position player pitchers throwing 30 miles per hour, I guess, ruling out the few ambidextrous guys. Depends. You get an offseason to prepare? Yeah, that might change things.

I probably, man, I don't know, I might, I might still take, I might take the position player pitchers over the, but maybe that's, I don't know, you have to think about it a little bit, which I guess goes to show how bad the position player pitchers pitching with their natural handiness are that this is even a question in my mind. Because, you know, like athletes, they often mess around with throwing with the other hand. And so they've probably at least tried it. They've probably picked up a ball. Yeah, just for fun. And maybe some of them are better than others. Yeah, I think most of them could probably lob it in there at 30-something the way that position player pitchers do. But yeah, I don't know.

Probably it wouldn't be much better. But that would be an interesting comparison that we could run here. You know, why not have legitimate pitchers out there in the garbage time innings except they just throw with their other hand so that they don't tire themselves out. I guess this has always been the question with the few switch pitchers. Like, can they just throw twice as much or is your lower body going to be fatigued and everything else? So it's not really twice as much.

It's more, but it's not twice as much. But if you're just lobbing, then there's not much lower body strain there. You're not really striding. Yeah. I mean, I think it's worth trying, though. I think we should try it. These are the deep questions that we ponder on this podcast. That's right. All right, I've got some piping hot follow-ups for you. When we were doing the one-way

Otani versus two-way Otani comparison, I meant to mention that he did miss a couple of games early this season when he was on paternity leave. So that slightly lowered his playing time in the first sample. And as for the second sample, the Dodgers did win on Monday. Otani went one-for-three with a walk, raised that two-way Otani, WRC plus slightly, and tacked on a tenth of a war, which makes it 4.3 versus 3.5. of Otani, and also position players pitching, got an email from Mayrob, who's a Patreon supporter, from Broomfield, Colorado, says I'm writing in reference to a discussion in episode 2371 regarding Juan Soto approaching 30 stolen bases. When you broach this topic, my immediate thought was that Soto is

a wannabe, sort of this era's Barry Bonds. Please do not mistake me. I am not remotely suggesting that Soto has used or is using PEDs. It has been widely reported that Bonds saw the acclaim of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa during their 1998 home run chase and wanted that adoration. Bonds was a wannabe McGuire and Sosa. My thinking is that Soto saw Otani's contract and wanted that big round number. He saw Otani swiping bags left and right last year and wanted that too. Soto is a wannabe Otani. What's next?

Pitching? I think this is tongue in cheek as evidenced by Meraab's emoji use. I'm sure the idea of landing an enormous contract had occurred to Juan Soto before Shohei Otani got. his. Although there is something to the contract one-upsmanship that happens. Someone gets a big dollar figure. The next free agent up wants a bigger dollar figure. Anyway, this could have happened in theory when Soto was young. I mean, he's still young. But when he was a teenager, well, he was a teenager in the big leagues. When he was a young teenager, when he was 14, he was a pitcher in the Dominican Republic and a trainer named Rafael Zapata converted him into a position player. And other coaches

thought this was misguided because evidently he couldn't hit or run. Well, now he can do both. But there was a time when Soto didn't want to give up pitching. Zapata said in an MLD.com piece published earlier this year, I had to tell him that even though he would be playing in the outfield and hitting, that he could still pitch on some days. Well, he doesn't do that anymore. Though I did find a YouTube short on the Fox Sports YouTube channel

from just this year where he was standing on the mound for the Mets during batting practice, looking as if he was about to start pitching. Though ultimately, I don't think he did, or at least if he did, it wasn't caught on camera. I'm just saying, there's a chance. No, there's not really a chance. Star players used to pitch sometimes. You'd get a Stan Musial or Jose Canseco position player pitcher outing. Now, there's just too much injury concern.

Don't want to risk that Otani copycat contract on a garbage time outing. We talked about what to call immaculate innings that feature only one pitch type, like Mason Miller's All Sliders Affair, Got some suggestions along similar lines. Tim wrote in to say the first thing that struck me was using mono for one pitch type. And Patreon supporter James, in the same vein said a monochromatic emaculate inning, taking some inspiration from quantum physics where particles can have color, but it is just a term for an intrinsic property of the particle,

not really what we think of as the colors we see with our eyes. As I said to James, might not catch on with the general public. But then the general public doesn't care about this anyway. Now, on the topic of pitcher game plans and whether they do actually read the scouting reports and adjust what they throw and where they throw it based on hitter strengths and weaknesses, Bradley Woodrum, who writes for Baseball Perspectus these days, formerly of Fangraphs and our guest on episode 2269, when he came on to talk about his lengthy stint in the Marlins front office. He's an effectively wild Patreon supporter, and he writes to say, regarding your discussion in episode 2369 on Tash Bradley, scouting reports, and the throw it down the. middle mindset, I may have a uniquely insightful perspective on the matter. During my time with the Marlins, we developed a sophisticated all-in-one suite of heat maps that our pitching coach Mel Stadlmeyer Jr. and our pitchers and catchers used for game planning. Our genius senior

analyst, Robbie Knopf, built the heat maps to blend information both about the pitcher's pitch shapes and velocity with the batter strengths and weaknesses. It made it very easy for pitchers and catchers to see where the best run values were in a given pitcher-batter matchup with a quick glance, and it had baked into it the adversarial location concepts Jonathan Judge has been unearthing. But as soon as Peter Bendix, formerly of the Ray's front office, took over, we were directed to strip all the batter information from our models. Focus on the pitcher and their stuff was the message from the front office. I think that's how the idea of just throw it over the plate has evolved in recent years. Throw to your individual heat maps, and your heat maps will always look

best over the heart of the plate, because on average, that's where they'll do best. I'm not sure if that's the best approach. We had some pretty great pitching in the years using our blended heat maps and ignoring batter chase rates works in favor of an overly aggressive lineup, but it certainly explains why a guy like Bradley can go this long without seeing batter information in his pregame meetings. Organizational philosophy, which differs among organizations. Okay, pitch tipping. You know this is sort of an obsession of mine.

How often does it happen? How consequential is it when it actually happens? So we had a case of this in a Yankees Blue Jays game this past weekend, which seems like it was sort of consequential, but I'm still not sure it was. So here's the headline from the Associated Press, at least as published at ESPN.com, judge tips Rice ahead of Scherzer changeup, leading to home run. So this was on Sunday, big game, division rivals. Ben Rice of the Yankees hits a three-run homer off of Max Scher in a 4-3 win for the Yankees. The Yankees have had a number of episodes where they have very demonstra. extraordinarily signaled upcoming pitches.

Sometimes maybe as a gamesmanship measure, just trying to get in the pitcher's head. Sometimes maybe they actually do have the pitch and they want to communicate that to the batter. So it says, standing off second base, Aaron Judge spread his arms ahead of a pair of Scherzer changeups in the first after getting a signal from Cody Bellinger, the runner at first. So Rice is at the plate. Bellinger's at first, judges at second. Bellinger at first picks up on the pitch, signals that somehow to judge who spreads his arms to tip off Rice.

They're good at it, Toronto manager, John Schneider, said, Max has got to be a little bit better. It was obvious in the change-ups. Rice just missed one, foul Homer, and it's fair game. So here's the thing. Scher threw 17 change-ups in four-and-third innings. He admitted, the story says, opponents had told him they can figure out from first base

when he throws the pitch. Quote, I thought I had addressed it. I thought I had made the proper adjustment to get my glove in front of my face, but clearly I hadn't. Now, that's interesting because it makes me wonder, what's the etiquette on tipping off an opponent to their tipping? At what point, if ever, do you tell them that they're tipping? Not during the game, right? When you can take

advantage of that. Do you send a discreet text later at the end of the series? Do you say, hey, FYI, you've been tipping, we've been picking up on this? Or do you hold that knowledge in reserve? I suppose there are scenarios where it might benefit you if the pitcher corrects the pitch tipping, if you have some incentive to root for their next opponent to lose, and enemy of my enemy is my friend situation, but maybe not. You never know you might face them in the playoffs again. Now, we don't know which opponents tipped off Scherzer. Maybe it was an opponent that couldn't face him again this season isn't going to be in the playoffs. So no skin off their back, as we all know, the expression goes. And maybe you've been on a team with that guy, your friends, you do them

a solid. You would want someone to tell you if it wasn't in the heat of battle. That's a side note, though. Scher throws three changeups to Rice. Judge didn't signal on the first one. So either Bellinger didn't pick it up or Judge didn't pick up the science. from Bellinger. So Scherzer's tipping here. One pitch is not communicated to Rice. That's with an O2 count. Judge does communicate that the changeup is coming on the sixth pitch of the at-bat. And Rice takes it for a ball to work the count full. Then Judge spreads his arms again and Rice fouls it off. Into the second deck in right field, but still just a foul ball. Then Thai France, who's playing first base for the Blue Jays, goes to the mound to tell Schurzer, hey, they're on your change-up. Then Rice fouls off a fastball and a curve. And then, he hits a fastball. Not a change-up, 380 feet for the home run. Belinger confirms that he was signaling this to Judge. Schneider says, everyone knows the Yankees are good at this. By the way, isn't this an example of the Yankees doing a fundamental, right? Isn't this a little thing that they are doing well? So the headline is the Judge Tips Rice leading to the home run, but did it actually

lead to the home run? It preceded the home run, but was there cause and effect? There were three change-ups in this event. On the first one, there was no signal. On the second, it was a ball, which, okay, maybe Rice takes it because he anticipates the movement and reads it better, but who knows? And then the third one was a foul ball. And yeah, I guess he prolonged the plate appearance and that eventually culminated in a home run. Arguably, not having to worry about the change-up helped Rice time the fastball, but did it lead to the home run? Wouldn't the example of pitch-dipping working be if he actually hit the home run on the change-up? Anyway, this seems like a clear-cut case of pitch-tipping, and yet the impact of the pitch-tipping is still

anything but clear. Wanted to highlight some history that happened in the minor leagues. You may have heard about the Tigers' double-A affiliate this year, the Sea Wolves, because they got the John Oliver promoted rebrand, but the Tigers High A affiliate, the High A-West Michigan Whitecaps made some history by finishing 92 and 39. That's a 702 winning percentage. The best by a full-season U.S. based minor league team since 1997.

Now, here's a fun fact, 1997, the then single A West Michigan white caps had the same record. So you have to go back to 1994, the high A modesto A's, who had a 706 winning percentage to find a team with a better record in the minors. So that's kind of incredible. Not just that this was the best record since 97, but that in 97, the previous record with the same winning percentage was an identical record by the same team. Weird, wild. Also fun that their early season success was driven by the Tiger's top three prospects, Kevin McGonigal and Max Clark, and Jose Wreseño. And those three guys got simultaneous promotions to AA, right before the All-Star break, I believe. But the white caps kept it up somehow, lesser prospects picking up the slack and propelling the team to this historic record. Well done, white caps. Of course, people tend to care more about the prospects than the records and the standings in the minors, understandably. But still, white caps, I have.

salute you. We mentioned last week that Yankees manager Aaron Boone had asked umpires to check Astro's outfielder Taylor Tremel's bat. MLB did inspect it and pronounced it illegal, but also aren't applying any punishment because there was nothing about it that was advantageous to Tremel. There is just a spot of discoloration. And according to the regulations, a two-color bat must be divided into two sections, each of one solid color. There has to be a specific dividing point. Multicolored bats are only permitted if the color transition occurs at the 18 inch mark from the knob. Now we know. So this was just a discolored barrel. Didn't confer any benefit to Trammell. And thus, there's no punishment. The matter is closed. From bats to bat cracks. I did an outro note last week about

bat crack sounds on broadcast. Got this response from listener Patreon supporter Reggie Deal, who was a Patreon guest on episode 2018. He says, as some of the long time listeners will know, I'm blind, and so I very much notice differences in sounds. I would encourage you to look at the YouTube replays of games each day from the various highlight reels MLB produces, and you will notice very much a difference in the broadcasts. In fact, ESPN puts too much enhancement on the mic that picks up the bat, so that it does not actually sound like a bat in recent years. To take this further, some broadcasts will intentionally raise the crowd effects mic that is near

home plate, listen to games played at home by the Orioles or Nationals, and you will note the radio volume of the crowd sound goes up just before the sound of the ball hitting the bat or the catcher's glove, then it is dropped back off. Until recently, say, about 10 years ago, I had never noticed such a thing, but I know the nationals have been doing it since at least 2016. Since COVID, some teams for some reason put extra mics on the field to get extra sound, and the placement of the mics and the distance being different in relation to home plate did create an odd and annoying double sound. So instead of hearing the knock of the bat, you would hear knock knock. If you look at video clips from, say, about 2005 and prior, you'll know.

note that certain ballparks have a more pronounced sound when you hear the bat make contact, particularly hard-hit contact. That would be true on all broadcasts, which means this was a permanent mic that was in a set place and accessible to the audio board for all broadcasts. Some ballparks also, just by the way they're designed, have more of a noticed reverb effect where the sound of the bat crack echo is picked up. This was particularly true of the ballpark at Arlington and Joe Robbie Stadium. Of the current ballparks, Angel Stadium has always had a nice sounding bat impact, which has to be a combo of the setup on the field, and the placement as I described above.

I've also, through the years, noticed this to be true in Kansas City, and in the Rangers' new Globe Life Field, though the sound quality was better in the Rangers former park,

as the new one makes infield pop-ups sound better than they should. Also note the sound of how a hard-hit ball comes across at Target Field. It reminds me some of the Rangers and Marlins' venues.

One other thing that I hope folks in power within broadcasting start doing again, listen to the audio you're putting out and adjust when it is not quite right. There are some clips from the 2015 World Series,

game five, where the audio sounds like it is being done via a large soup can, almost surely because there are mics that are set up either too close to one another, or one is set up in a place that is getting a major echo from nearby hard structures within the park, creating a very obvious and uncomfortable sound distortion. Well, thank you, Reggie. I had not noticed these subtleties.

Finally, on the latest episode of Hang Up and Listen at Slate, I did do a remembrance of former player and brilliant manager Davy Johnson, who died on Friday. I paired that with a remembrance of hockey hallfamer Ken Dryden, who died on the last. the same day. They were both Renaissance men, deep thinkers, very versatile, lots of success in several fields. And so I reflected on their lives and their deaths and how they stood out in a kind of conformist specialist sports culture. So that's at the end of the latest hang-up and listen episode in the afterball section. I'll link to that and lots of other stuff on the show page. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon 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. Shasta Webb, Casey from Wilmette, Stephen Oliver, Eric Procease, or ProCise, and Gregory Lenehan. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, prioritized email answers, playoff live streams coming up, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more, check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild.

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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 a little later this week. Talk to you then. How can you not be pedanted? A stab blast will keep you distracted. It's a long slog to death, but they're sure to make you smile. This is effective in wine.

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