Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2380: Clinching Chaos

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners clinching the AL West, the benefits and drawbacks of MVP debates, the power of great players to enhance a season for spectators, the Cardinals’ and Giants’ reciprocal eliminations, the near-extinction of the 200-inning pitcher, the Nationals’ new head of baseball ops, and how predictive a track […]

It's Effectively Wild It's Effectively Wild With Man and Back Back Rally Hello and welcome to episode 2380 of Effectively Wild A Fangraphs baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters I'm Meg Rally, FanGrafs, and I'm joined by Ben Lemberger the Ringer. We are up with it.

energy today, Ben. Yeah. Congrats to you and Powell Raleigh and all the many Mariners fans who listen to Effectively Wild. Yeah. You've clinched the A.L. West. Yeah. It, um, look, I didn't have anything to do with it, you know.

I didn't really clinch anything. I've been clenching, huh? But not clinching. Didn't, that wasn't me. Although it was fun as I was watching the postgame celebration and they cut to everyone. filing into the locker room slash murder room that they have prepared. It's just always what I think of

when we get to postseason time. It is very dexter-esque. Yeah, I'm like, it's so nice that we're filling this space with positive energy because the decorations make you think that somebody's going to die. And I'm sitting there and I'm watching everybody filing and they're being handed their goggles.

And I was like, hey, there's Dave Cameron. Oh, yeah. I know that guy. You know, there's Dave. Oh, way to go, Dave. So he had something to do with it. Yes. Not me.

But it was very exciting, you know. An emphatic victory. I have not been in a position in my fandom to very often opine, like in an informed way about like the ideal way that one can clinch anything, you know? I just haven't had that. That hasn't been part of the emotional repertoire. Here's the thing I discovered last night. It feels legitimately very cool to have your favorite team do it themselves, you know? Like throughout that Mariners broadcast, they had the Astros A's score, like up in the left-hand corner.

You know, they have the little scorebug pretty consistently. And you get to a point, and it happened fairly early because, you know, Cal hits 50s, Julio Homores, Jorge Polanco right behind him. They're up early. Luis Castillo is cruising. Beautiful start, you know, so good. Was it against the Rockies? Sure.

In a ballpark that suppress his offense? Yeah, one could argue that, but a nice, like, reset after, you know, him having a rough stretch. And I didn't have to worry about what was going on in the upper left hand corner. That didn't matter, you know. that was that was houston's business and i'm not going to use this as an opportunity to gloat about the um you know the misfortunes of the astros it's not about them you know for for once it's about the mariners and that feels so nice you know they did it themselves they wanted it home people were losing their their whole gourts you know just um you know their entire minds lost

with delirium get to watch cal hit 60 i will say this. I'm going to offer one no. Because I want to make sure everyone's clear about where I stand on these things. I don't know who the ALMVP is. If I had a vote, and I don't, I do not, I want to reassure everyone. I don't have a vote in that race. I have an awards vote this year, but not that one. I suspect that if I sat down and I really put my arms around it and I tried to engage with it objectively, then I still might probably vote for Aaron Judge. You know, it's close. There's a lot that I think, or at least something that isn't captured in the, it's a catcher of it all, um, doing what cow's doing. But like, I want to make clear that I am in

awe of Aaron Judge and the season he's having. And, you know, he's not really getting, um, a lot of hay in terms of like a historic effort, although he had his 50th and 51st home run last night. Very fun for the two of them to each hit two in the same night. Yeah, it was funny. It was all of baseball's best sluggers had multi-homer games other than Choyotani. It was Judge, Kyle, Kyle Schwarber hit two. And of course, Edmundo Sosa hit three. Amazing.

Amazing. First multi-hit, first multi-home run game of his career. And he hit three, very cool. All the biggest bats, Judge. All the biggest bats, right. Shorber, Raleigh Sosa. Not that Sosa, though, Edmundo Sosa. So I think that it would be easy.

And when he hit 50, then we started to kind of put his season in his own historic context, right, as a guy who has managed to do what Judge has done with the consistency that he has, right? Like all of these tremendous, at least 50 home run seasons, really spectacular. A 202 WRC plus. I mean, just like, wow, I just hope that we spend collectively the next couple of days really luxuriating in what these two guys are doing. And the NL has its own fun to offer. I know that there's a segment of the Phillies fandom who are convinced that Kyle Schwerver is the MVP. I would respectfully disagree with that. But like an amazing season, terrific.

Get out your, you know, John Milton, get out your checkbook. You got to bring him back. Otani, what a year. You know, we're sitting in a really special, cool time, and I have been known to be annoyance prone, you know, that might be an aspect of my personhood along with anxiety. And I have seen some posts that I have found to be annoying. But I'm going to set an example and just like, we should really soak it in because there's been a lot of midness this year, as we have discussed. But a lot of, that midness is sitting at the

team level. And, you know, fine. But there have been some really spectacular seasons put up by individual guys. And I hope we enjoy it to the last drop because it's really something. I could not, I know I've seen it. I'm sure I've seen it a couple of times. I do want to impress upon people how rarely guys hit home runs where Cal hit that first home run. DeBall doesn't go up there very often. Yeah. It was sure.

It was so emphatic, you know? And I just, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun that they did it themselves. It feels like an important step forward for the organization in terms of like how they now really have to regard themselves. You know, we have complained, and by we I mostly mean me, but we'll, we'll sanitize it a little, we'll say we

have mostly complained about the Mariners being in, I have often felt like they've been stalled over the last couple of seasons, right? That the Astros have at times presented themselves as vulnerable and that for whatever reason, mostly ownership, the club has not adopted an attitude of let's go. Let's go. Let's make it our year. Let's go get, go get it. And I felt like they were aggressive at the deadline. Their guys are playing great. The vibes are immaculate. I didn't even finish the thought I started with, which is that, hey, Mariners broadcast,

just like, I know he's your MVP, but this is an open question. So let's just allow for the beauty of our season. That's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say, everybody. Yeah. We don't have to, I'm just saying. But, yeah, like, they have been idling, and it felt like the thing that they needed to do to not only be taken seriously, but I think to take themselves seriously as an organization

was to win the West. Don't squeak in. Don't go get it. Go hang a non-embarrassing banner. You know what I'm saying? Like no more of this wildcar bullshit. Let's let's be in a different era of Mariners baseball. And who knows if we are? You know, there's a lot of baseball yet to play this year, they will have some interesting decisions to make come the off season. But it just it's pretty cool. It's a cool thing to watch. I'm trying to enjoy it. I'm trying to maintain some amount of critical distance. I don't know that I'm succeeding. Who could even say? But it just feels very cool. Like, you know, two nights in a row, you get Cal Raleigh on TV saying, might as well go win the whole fucking thing. And everyone is like, oh, that Cal, you swear away my son. It's,

Yeah. I'm enjoying myself. It's nice. I'm happy for you and your fellow fans. This is, I think, the fourth Mariners Division title in your lifetime. I don't mean to dwell on that fact. Oh, no. Dwell away. Just saying that you haven't had the opportunity to see an exciting clinch, really, in 30 years and 30 years ago, you were quite young, quite small. And I'm sure you remember it in some way, but probably weren't able to appreciate it the way that you're. able to appreciate it now, even if your fandom is different from the way that it was when

you were a kid. And back then, that was a close one. In 97, they won. They had a lead of several games. And then in 2001, which was the last time this happened, they had a huge lead. It was just a formality. They won the West by 14 games. So there was no suspense whatsoever.

So the fact that this was very much in doubt until recently, it was in doubt that they would make the playoffs at all, let alone that they would win the division. get a buy, et cetera, and it all just happened very quickly because they decided to stop losing baseball games almost entirely. And so that has paid off for them, especially because it is coincided with the Astros, mostly stopping with the winning. So it is quite exciting. I have a few thoughts on Cal and the MVP conversation.

Sure. One is just that, yes, we should absolutely just enjoy these guys. And I know that this will sway no one, and this will not turn down the temperature on these debates, one iota. But it is weird that we force ourselves into this binary mindset where it just becomes hyper-competitive and people are partisan and we have to find the flaws in the other guy. Can we not just agree that they're both great? I mean, they're just both great. Let's just appreciate how great they are. Why does it immediately have to pivot to?

but is this guy slightly greater than that other guy? And why does this have to be something that we get wrapped up in? And our identities as fans are at stake and people are angry and people are trash talking. It's so silly. And I wrote about this in 2022 when it was Otani versus Judge. And at the time, my position was basically the same. They're both great. Just appreciate them both.

You don't have to decide which one was better. It doesn't actually matter. There's nothing at stake for you personally. There are 30 people in the world who have to vote on this award, which is not even really representative of the baseball writers, as we talked about recently, as a whole, which itself is not necessarily representative of some sort of inherent truth or the position of fans as a whole or people who work for baseball teams or whatever. It's just 30 people's opinions. 30 people who know more about baseball than the average person, but they're not so experts that they are necessarily right and you're wrong if they say otherwise and you disagree.

We don't have to put somewhat stuck in this that it turns into a flame war about this guy's better than that guy. They're both great. They're both great in different ways that are fascinating to contemplate and appreciate and marvel at. And I don't know why we do this. Why are our brains broken in this way that it immediately has to become a head-to-head competition? It's not like they're competing against each other, decides which of these teams makes the playoffs or something.

Like, nothing will change. They're having these great seasons. They're very valuable. Whatever the pronouncement of 30 voters is will not change how valuable they are. So, yeah, it can be kind of interesting to discuss and look at the various wrinkles of the season. and different analytical approaches to this, different lenses. I'm all for having that conversation if it's just sort of coming from a mutual admiration for them both, really.

And often it is, but often it's not. Often it's about my guy is better than your guy and trying to tear the other guy down. So I know that I just implored everyone to, like, you know, soak it in and enjoy it. I do think that, like, sports debate, that's a fun, proud. tradition. It doesn't have to be. And I, look, I'm going to say, I'm going to say something rude about Yankees fans. And then I'm going to, I'm going to cast a side eye at my own people. Okay. So it's going to be, it's going to be okay. Part of the general temperature of the conversation is that it involves a Yankees player and thus involves Yankees fans. And I think it is a group that tends to be, as we have

discussed before very certain of its own greatness, right? Or the greatness of its players. And guess what? They're not wrong about Aaron Judge in that regard. He is certifiably, unquestionably great. Yes. Great. Great, great, great. So there's that. I also think that part of what is giving this race in particular a flavor of annoyance is that Mariners fans are not often in a position where they get to say, are guys the best guy in any kind of credible way? We've had more luck in that regard on the pitching side of things. But like, you know, individual awards for Mariners players, not unprecedented certainly, but often a product of a bygone era. Right. And so, Mariners fans are annoying too because they are reacting to the insinuation that Cal shouldn't

even be in the conversation or is a distant second from a place of defensiveness. And we tend as human creatures to not cover ourselves in glory when that's the perspective we're coming from. So a good amount of annoyance to go around. And then you sprinkle that with the fact that part of what is fueling the debates is that you get to pick your particular flavor of advanced stat to advance your argument. So you, and I want to be clear that I'm not like knocking our brethren at baseball reference or baseball prospectus. That's, that's not my goal here today. But, you know, if you are a baseball reference war person

or even a warp person, well, this isn't really much of, as much of a conversation, right? we have tended to be of the mind and I think this is still my position that you know when the war gaps are are fairly large you can appreciate the other guy and you can acknowledge wow this is an incredible season but there's only so much well he's doing all of this as a catcher that you can really pack in there to to level Cal up right so if you are a baseball reference war person and so you're looking at at a flavor of war that does not include catcher framing or you're a war person. And so you're looking at a version of war that is derived from DRC Plus and thus thinks that Cal is over his skis from a hitting perspective. You're like, why is this a conversation? If you're a Phanagraph's war person, you're like, oh, well, they're half a win apart. So it's fairly close. Let's dive in. And so I do think that all of that is is sort of baked in there. And so then you have people who are sort of using the race as like a hobby horse for other war-based conversations, which is a

hilarious sentence out of context. So that's all in there. And look, sports shi-talkin is fun, man. It can be very fun. And it can be fun and not annoying. And some of this is just me being an irritable sort. You know, one has to acknowledge one's own vulnerabilities to bullshit, and that's me. To the extent that any of this is important, it's because we ascribe some importance to it. It doesn't actually matter in any cosmic sense who wins the World Series either or who wins any particular baseball game. We've just decided that that's a thing that we care about. So that's not necessarily more valid than caring about who wins the AL MVP, I suppose.

But I guess it also comes down to if you are a fan of. either one of these teams and you're watching one of these guys day in and day out, it is difficult to conceive of them not being the most valuable player in the league because they're both so good. And so you might know, in an intellectual sense, okay, you are aware perhaps of the stats that this other guy has, but if you're a Yankees fan and you're seeing Aaron Judge every day and you're a Mariners fan and you're seeing Cal every day, even in the abstract, it's like, how could a catcher who has 60 home runs and plays every day?

damn day, well, like, how can he not be the MVP? And if you're, Aaron Judge is the best hitter since Barry Bonds and just an unstoppable offensive force, well, how could he not be the MVP? And they're both quite deserving in many years, most years, maybe nine to ten war guys, just eye-popping traditional stats and advanced stats. So if you are somewhat biased because you're watching one of them all the time and they have delivered many jolts of dopamine to you over the course of this season, then I can see why the mind might reel at the idea that they would not win that hardware, because how could they

not? They've been so good. But yes, it's true that we like talking about these things and without these things. If we all just had a very even keeled, oh, well, this team might win and that team might win and this player might win. And then either way, we'll be fine and life will go on. You know, we need some people to be a little too into this. We need, we're all a little too into this.

And that's why it works and that's why it's fun. So, yes, some joshing, of course, is pleasant and some making an argument for your guy and there are well-constructed arguments that one could make for each player. And, yeah, it's just when it goes beyond that, then having to hyper-fixate on the MVP-race almost to the exclusion of just appreciating the finer points of each player's season. Like just appreciate how good they've both been. And, you know, I made my position clear the other day that I think Cal has had the more noteworthy, memorable maybe season that he's kind of been the player of the year. He has sort of dominated the narrative of much of the season, at least.

And I also think that having individual seasons like this, it really enhanced. enhances the experience, the spectator experience of a season, almost immeasurably, because baseball is known as a sport where one star doesn't do that much. And one star can't convert a bad team into a good team. And that's all true. And there are a lot of players and even the top players, people historically have overrated how much they're actually worth, how much they can swing a team's fortunes. Of course, as the examples of Judge and Rally show, they can turn an OK team, into a division winner, and both of these teams are where they are right now because they have Judge and Cal Rally, but also in a larger sense, at least as a more impartial observer, it enhances

the season so much for me to have even one guy who's having a season like this, that I can just check the stats every day, that I can just see, did Cal hit a homer? Did Judge do something? What are the stats now? That really makes it so much more fun. for me to follow. And as you noted, there has been a bunch of midness on the team level. But even having one guy who's having a season like this, let alone three, if you throw Otani in there, that really gives me something to cling to where that becomes one of the main stories of the season.

And it's a consistent story throughout the season. And that makes a big difference to how I would grade the experience of following Major League Baseball. Yeah. I think that having individual performances like this is so, it's just like profoundly enriching. And to be clear, I am, you know, like a fan of one of these teams. So it does hit different when it's like one of your guys, right? But I think part of what it battles against for me, regardless of the player and the team he's on, is that, you know, I would say that like it's talking about discourse, one of the different. defining, and I think still ongoing, discourses, discourse, I, this is course of this era of baseball has been, is the game in a healthy place, right? And particularly in years like this, where we see the team level competition and, you know, the division competitions largely marked by midness. I think that there's a lot of fretting on the part of fans of the game that, like,

we're, you know, we're in a bad way here, right? And the cultural prominence of baseball has slipped relative to other men's sports. And we are, you know, constantly litigating rules changes. And we have another, you know, surely another work stoppage looming. And there, You know, the owners are these craven, cheap goons that we don't care for. You know, there's a lot about the game that feels sort of fretful and anxious. And I know I've remarked on this commercial before, and it's wild that this piece of, like, PR stuck with me so much. But I do very often think back to that commercial that they aired before opening day. 2014, 15, Buck Showalter was still a manager, Felix was still playing, so, you know,

peg the year based on that, but, you know, bucks drive in a golf cart around a backfield, you know, as spring training is underway. And he's like, these are the good old days. These are the best guys. These are the best 750 players in the world that the world has to offer. The game's being played better than ever has in the history of it. Pretty good. Run the bases. These are the good all day. They are.

I don't want to be so Pollyanna-ish about the state of the game, and it's many flaws that I ignore them because I think, you know, tending to those issues, trying to hold powerful people to account, trying to think creatively about how we enhance the experience of watching baseball for fans. Those are all important endeavors. But I don't want to be so fixated on them that we lose sight of the fact that, like, these are the guys we get to watch right now. And that is, so, to borrow a word from Cal Raleigh, fucking cool, man.

Like, it is good stuff we're seeing out there every night. And it's not perfect. and we have notes but like what a treat what an absolute privilege that these are the guys that we get to watch

that these are the guys pitched in competition for an award but also that they are the ones who are going to define the postseason and it's not that all the best players in the game are making

you know the playoffs this year but a lot of them are you know and if the if the guardians hold on. We get Jose Ramirez too. Yeah. You know, so it's, it's just a really, there are parts of it that are so special and they are so, a lot of the times, unprecedented. And I do hope we get to hold on to that because, you know, especially this week, like you and I have both remarked to each other and on the pod. Like, look at these games we get. Like, what a, what a slate, you know. Yeah, we talked about how great Tuesday was and then Wednesday

It topped it, probably, not just with the baseball action, but also these individual performances. And as tiresome as I find some aspects of the MVP conversation, I love that these guys just keep raising the bar. And with anyone else, I mean, you would think, okay, Cal hits two more, he gets to 60, the Mariners clinch, that's it. That's the coronation. He sealed the deal. And then Judge is like, I also can hit two homers and get three hits as the Yankees pull into a tie aside from. from the tiebreaker in the AL East. So, you know, just holding serve.

It's great. And I also like the fact that the Mariners have clinched, which means I hope that we will get more Cal before the end of the regular season. Because now that he's gotten to 60 with four games to go as we speak. Oh, they're going to let him. Right. No, they're going to let him hunt 63. They're going to see if he can do it.

You have to. You have to. For sure. And it's not even irresponsible to now. Like if they had clinched this weekend sometime, you know, maybe you like give him Sunday off or something so that he has a couple days before the wild card series starter. If they hadn't won the division, that is. If they had to play in the wild card series, then just how little rest he's had. And I know he doesn't want to rest, but still at some point you figure that's got to take a toll.

And maybe let's actually give him a couple consecutive days off here. Well, now he's going to get him. So he can rest for a few days, even if he plays all these remaining games and just gets the maximum number of cracks at it. So Cal can rest in November. They have a lot of incentive to keep, I mean, it would be kind of, man, I even hesitate to say this. I was going to say it would be challenging for them to not push through to having a buy. I suppose it's possible. They haven't clinched it yet, right?

They haven't clinched to buy. Yeah. But to give everybody a chance to rest, Cal, including. to give, you know, Brian Wu's peck more time. I will say there was a moment, speaking of, like, let everybody get a rest. There was a moment while I was watching their post-game celebration last night. I have to say, those dudes were so happy to just pour beer and champagne all over Angie Menzic. Angie, I weep for your hair.

I hope it was okay. There was also a moment where Ryan Roland Smith is talking to John Stanton, who was bone. dry, bone dry. And then someone who I did not recognize came up. And, you know, Ryan Roland Smith is like, given, given John Stanton the playful business about how he doesn't, how he's like, come on, you got to got to get doused a little bit here. And someone who I did not recognize came up and poured champagne on John Stanton. And then he went, okay, that's enough. And I was like, oh, God, I hope that person's job is secure. I hope that guy's okay whoever you are um but you know they're they're like doing their they're they're letting people enjoy watching this right because again it doesn't come around from erinershines very often and

cal picked up a a bottle of champagne and they looked like they were weird they weren't cork pop ones they you had like a you needed a bottle opener and he is briefly trying to twist and i was like don't cal you put don't what the yeah you know and he's just you know and he's He looked like he was going to do that thing that that bros do at barbecues where there's no bottle opener where you, like, hold the bottle and you try to whack it off on the edge of a table. And I was like, please fucking don't, don't, I'm sorry for all the swearing. Don't. And then so one of their long-time VP of PR came up and was like, ah, I was thinking. Cal did look around and he's like, I need a bottle opener.

I need a bottle opener. It's like, those hands are precious, sir. Yes, yes. Please don't. Better safe than sorry. Break yourself. Yeah. No, you venture.

into that situation when there's a champagne celebration going on in a clubhouse, you must expect to get doused. You waive your right to remain dry in that situation. So you know what you're getting into and you've got to accept that risk. So that was fun to see. And the Guardian's ongoing domination of the Tigers and lights out bullpen is fun to see. Not for Tigers fans, obviously. You did have on Wednesday, yeah, the Tigers and Astros and Blue Jays.

and Mets just continuing to fumble things to varying degrees. You also had, so this was, I think, sort of interesting. On back-to-back days, consecutive games, I believe, the Giants were eliminated by the Cardinals, and then the Cardinals eliminated by the Giants the next day, I think. I saw some conflicting reports about whether the Cardinals were actually technically eliminated. It's another annoying thing about just all the things. tiebreaker nonsense because like sometimes it's actually difficult to compute if you are technically

eliminated if there is some scenario where you know 16 things go right for you and there's a certain sequence of wins and losses that okay there is some small mathematical chance but it was widely reported that they were eliminated so they eliminated each other in back-to-back games and granted they were they were long shots i'm sure they weren't harboring a lot of hopes entering that series. But they played each other a couple times, a couple series in the stretch, down the stretch here. And they basically had sort of like a mutual elimination pact by more or less splitting

their games. Like if one of them had... Sounds so dark as a way to describe it, geez. But if one of them had just agreed to step aside for the other and just said, you may sweep me, they would have been actually positioned pretty well to make a playoff spot. either one of them had done well, just one, you know, almost all, all but one of those games or swept them, then they might have been in the playoffs, but as it was, they more or less split them. And so they took themselves both out of it. And I was trying to think, like,

is that like a revenge game at that point? Like, do you think the Giants on Wednesday are like, all right, boys, let's go out there and give them a taste of their own medicine? They got us. And I know it's not as simple as they were eliminated by the loss. Because, of course, there's a million scenarios and other teams had to lose and everything. But if we simplify it, we can just say that the Giants were eliminated on a day that the Cardinals beat them. And then the Cardinals were eliminated on the day that the Giants beat them. Does that count as playing spoiler? Like, are the Giants a day after being eliminated themselves?

Are they playing spoiler when they eliminate the Cardinals? Are they like, let's get them back for what they did to us yesterday? They did technically do it. So I'm not saying they didn't play spoiler, but I think to start discussing spoilers, both clubs have to have a greater chance, like more recently. Surely there is, at every moment,

before a club is eliminated, a greater chance of them making it than not, right? Like, did that make sense? like you if you've had a precipitous fault like for instance just let's pick a let's pick a team where I can't be accused of biased look people want me to be honest about the team I prefer to win and then sometimes I do that and people are fucking rude on the internet about it and I'm like what do you want for me you've asked for something I give it to you and now you're being rude why to me kitten let's say that the Mets blow it and miss the postseason right let's

pretend that that happens or assume for the purposes of this hypothetical. Obviously, like, they will have a day where they are formally eliminated and they will have had days in the past where their odds were much better. If a team within their own division is the one that finally eliminates them, I would designate that club as having played spoiler. If their odds peaked recently at like 5%. I don't know that spoiler is the framework I would really put them in. Does that distinction makes sense, right? Like, I think you have to have been closer to being in it. The Giants and Cres, there were times where they were much closer.

I know, but it's just not a framework. They had time to come to terms with the fact that, yeah, we're probably out of it. There's a slim chance remaining here. I just, I don't know how many times this has happened where two teams have eliminated each other in the same series in consecutive games. This is the kind of question that people pose to us and we try to answer here, but I don't have an answer to that yet. If I obtain one, I will report it. But I can't imagine that that happens too often. So I wonder about the mentality there. But yes, perhaps it was too remote a possibility

for them to have actually held on to enough hope to like take this tit for tat personally and say, aha, you danced on my grave yesterday and today I shall dance on yours. But that did amuse me, that possibility. Anyway, just so much to concentrate. contemplate during this exciting last week. This has been among the best ends to a season, somewhat unexpectedly. Unexpectedly. Yeah. I think that's adding to the, that's really adding to the feeling where it's like, oh, we didn't expect.

It's like if you, your neighbor brings you over a cake and you weren't expecting that cake. And you're like, oh, my whole day is redefined. Now it's a day with a cake. That's how this feels to me. You know, that's a relatable. I like my neighbors. What can I say? They're nice people. They would do that. They would bring, they'd bring me random cake. They would be, they're random cake kind of people. They're nice folks. But it's like you, you didn't expect that to happen. Or like, do you ever have the experience, Ben, of you get your winter coats out and you stick your hand in your pocket and there's like a 20 in there? And you're like, whoa. I have free, and it feels like free money, even though it was always your money. And arguably, you've been irresponsible. You've been misplacing a $20 for months.

Maybe a whole year, but it feels like a little present from the universe to you, like, ah, I'm rich now. I got, I got magic money. That's how it feels. I feel like we just pulled a 20 out of a winter coat, not knowing, remembering it was there. How nice. Yeah, it is nice. See, I turned my mood. I turn my mood all the way around. I was really grouchy from posting, embarrassing, Meg. Get your mind right. What's wrong with you? And the Seahawks play tonight? That'll probably be ridiculous. it's for people who don't understand, when the Seahawks come to the desert and play the Arizona Cardinals, you are almost certainly guaranteed not only one of the weirdest games of the year, but invariably one of the dumbest games of the year. So that's like the mindset you have to come into the game with for both teams, right? This is, this is not me praising the Seahawks. Play a normal game in Arizona challenge. I can think of two times maybe in the last 10 years that that's happened. So anyway, it's like, let's all get our heads on straight, starting with me.

I do want to reassure people again. I don't have an ALMVP vote. I don't. I don't. Okay. If you're sitting there being like, I don't, I don't believe your protestations. I think that you are in the, in the tank for Cal, maybe just because of vibes. I don't know. I'm not. I don't know what my answer would be. But guess what? It doesn't matter. I don't have to, I don't have to take that question to my creator. I don't have to. I can just sit here and pop off on my own podcast. Great. Yes. The voter rolls will be revealed when the awards are announced. It's not it's not secret ballot situation. No, it's not secret ballot. So we will know there will be proof of Meg's words. I think that we should let the whole body vote, you know? I think we should

let the whole body vote on everything. I've made this, I've made this argument to to the association before and people have not found it persuasive apparently. I absolutely agree. I think it would be the surest way to, I mean, we adopted rules as an association around the gambling stuff, but I think it would be a good further safeguard from the influence of any of that, because every vote gets diluted then. Although the New York chapter would be so powerful, that might be a problem. You'd have to, like, wait it.

I don't know how we'd do it. That is the rationale, I guess, to not have too much home cooking in certain markets. But then you end up with a small body of voters who might not really be representative of the larger body either. Right. Yeah. We need to hire a political scientist to consult with us. Maybe we just need ranked choice voting, you know? I don't know if that's the answer.

I've been out of that game for too long to be able to tell you if that's the right choice for this. I think it's probably not. Another observation about individual players this week. So on Wednesday, we had our first pitcher of the season past 200. winnings. Logan Webb became the first in his start. He would have been my first guess. He would have been my first guest. I should acquies to, but yes, he is, I guess, the closest we have to a quote unquote workhorse these days. Logan Webb. So what's our new vernacular for that? Have we just, have we come to a consensus? We almost don't need it. Because they don't exist anymore. It's all,

it's all relative, I guess. The war course has gone extinct and so we don't need a new term. That's them out to pasture pretty much. But yeah, it's like he's now at 201 innings, 201 and 2 thirds. So that's your Mr. Durability, Logan Webb. He does potentially have one more start on Sunday so he can run that up a little bit. And then on Thursday, in another gem against the Blue Jays, Garrett Crochet, became the second member of the 2025 200-inning club. He's at 205 and a third. I believe the only other pitcher who can crack this club is Tarek Scouple.

If he makes his start on Sunday, he's at 195 and a third. So if he goes five innings, he'll be over 200 for the season. That's it, though. I don't think anyone else is still in the running close enough to make it with one start left or however many they have left. So that's it. I think this was one of my preseason predictions, I believe, last year in our bold preseason predictions game that we wouldn't have a 200-inning pitcher.

And that wasn't the case last year. And it's not quite the case this year. But it really came down to the wire. And maybe we're one year away at this point. The number is dwindling. I mean, the ceiling now, like Garrett Crochet, I mean, first of all, it's incredible that Garrett Crochet will lead the AL innings pitched and may lead the majors innings pitched. crochet of all people who was not known for his heavy workloads. So that is a triumph for him

and for the Red Sox. But also the fact that we're looking at a trio of 200 innings guys, I believe, at most. And that's it. It's just the 200 inning guy is almost extinct. And when they are, that will be the end of an era. That'll just be the latest sign of the pitcher workload apocalypse. I don't know. It does seem to me still like we've just gone a little too far. Like when you have someone who is as good as scoble or crochet or skeins or any of these guys who are close to the top, that you would just want them working a little more because they are so good. And you just want a disproportionate number of innings going to them.

But yeah, I'm just tracking this and wondering which season. will be the last. Like I was open to the idea that maybe there would always be a handful, at least, of them, because even if the top end number kept coming down, you'd still really want your aces to be pitching as often as possible within reason. But no, now we're close enough to having none of them that I think it is probably going to happen at some point in the next few years. I guess the thing that helps potentially guard against that,

but it's so it's so tenuous there might be circumstances so like scuba's a good example right you say if he makes a start on sunday if they haven't clinched but they also haven't been eliminated like if it comes down to the final day he'll he'll make that start he'll make that start right and so i can imagine and i and i mentioned that because i can imagine there being circumstance that that pushes a guy who's kind of close over the line because that's what his team needs and given season right we need you to make one more start it's it's that or we miss the postseason right but as an expectation going into any given year i don't know i mean like i wonder i'm trying to think how many guys we had projected for 200 or more innings coming into the season i don't think it was

very many, just off the dome. I doubt we had very many guys in that range at all. Probably more than, probably still more than was actually realistic. Yeah, let's see. You, well, no, it was only two, according to the preseason depth charts projections. It was Logan Webb and Zach Wheeler, who if he had not gotten hurt, probably would have ended up there. But that is one reason why more pitchers don't end up there. that they get hurt.

So, I mean, it makes sense not to project individual pitchers for that level maybe, but you still think that you're going to get some guys. It's like with the batting average projections, you don't project that many guys to hit 300, but you expect that some guys are going to get babbit blocky or whatever. And just there will be some number of 300 hitters, even if very few guys are projected to be on an individual level. Not that there are many 300 hitters.

these days who are qualified either. That's also a number that's in the single digits, but there are a few more of them than there are 200-inning pitchers. But, yeah, we almost just have to eliminate it from the vernacular, just the shorthand of the 200-inning guy, just with the exception of Logan Webb. You know, it's just not really a profile

that reliably exists anymore. Sort of, sadly, I think, kind of counterproductively. I think that you... Oh, the Mets DFA Dickey Love Lady again. Yeah, yeah. You deserve to miss the postseason. The Pirates optioned Big Bank Dowery Moretah immediately after we highlighted his celebrations. Oh, devastating.

I think it is to the game's detriment. I don't think that you necessarily lose the starting pitcher as like a center of the narrative if he's a guy who, you know, throws 180 innings or 170 inning. versus 200, but it just, it does continue to chip away at that sort of protagonist in a way that I find diminishes my enjoyment of any given game. I think it's a bummer. I don't find myself bothered by Warhorse's terminology. I don't like stud because, you know, like there are, I get the argument. I'm not saying I'm right. That one doesn't wrinkle in the same way as some of the others. I'm like, oh, let's excise this from copy if we can. Yeah, right. The idea. because, you know, it's kind of dehumanizing on some level, you know, just comparing a player

or to an animal. I don't think that's actually really what's going through most people's minds when they use that term. Yeah, I get it. I get it. It doesn't feel as loaded with other stuff as some of the other ones that I think have been more consistently removed from our terminology. But I get the argument. But to your point, like we're putting them out to pasture.

Sure. There are a different kind of clue now. Sad. Anyway, one other thing that I wanted to mention here, there was a hiring. This is in the realm of teams that are not in contention currently, but hope to be at some point in the future. And thus, they have hired a head of baseball operations. I refer, of course, to the nationals. So the nationals have replaced Mike Rizzo on a more permanent basis by hiring Paul Duboni, who was. Do you think you have to be Italian to run the nationals?

This is what we're learning? I guess it helps. Yeah. Hey, I'm doing the hands. He's coming from the Red Sox organization. And people have been having fun with the name because he has not had a formal title revealed. And so he's kind of been announced as the head of baseball operations, the hobo. And so he's tobo the hobo, the potential future pobo.

But we're having fun. He comes highly recommended. I don't know him or anything, so I can't say, you know, but he has the typical credentials, I guess, for someone who's, you know, your generic, young, accomplished, highly regarded baseball operations executive. But what's interesting is that one thing in his favor is that he has presided over a period for the Red Sox. And he's not a recent hire. I think he may have been a Charrington hire.

So he's been with Boston for a long time and has worked his way up. up. But he has presided over recent drafts, which have been quite productive for the Red Sox, and I think, as Passon put it, for a nationals team in need of a serious infusion of talent, it's worth noting Paul Toboni ran the draft for Boston when it chose Roman Anthony, Marcel O'Meier, Christian Campbell, Peyton Tolly, Connolly Early, and the prospects who went to Chicago in the Garrett Crochet deal. That's quite a strong record, and so I can see why that would be a point in his favor. And I have no reason to think that he does not have responsibility for how well they did in those drafts. But I do always think when this happens because, you know,

we'll see teams have a hot streak in the draft and then follow that with a cold streak. And maybe they had a change in personnel and maybe that's why or maybe other teams caught up or who knows. But there is so much randomness in the draft that you never know for sure whether someone is just a whiz and yeah they nailed it and even if they did nail it it might not stay nailed because other teams might steal a march on you and your edge might not be maintained or whatever but but there is an element of randomness in the draft and so i'm not saying this is the case for paul taboni specifically i'm just saying that you're bound to have some teams i'm going to have fun with it for so long you're allowed i support that but there are some teams that are just

bound by chance to have a great run in the draft and just those coin flips are going to come up heads a bunch of times in a row and then those people will get poached with the expectation that they can keep that running and rolling for another team yeah just sustain that incredible record right go find go find woman anthony again surely he's thick on the ground to do even if you do have some skill and and you should deserve and get some credit for that records, that doesn't mean you can keep it up necessarily. So even if it were all completely random, you would have some executives who just looked like draft geniuses because they happened to have a bunch of picks go right. And then those executives will get promoted or hired to run

other baseball operations groups. And then will that run of success continue? Who knows? I guess it's maybe still the best bet to find someone who hopefully has a good process, but also has good results, but it's not necessarily something you can bank on. I'm not saying Nationalist fans should not be happy with this hire or anything. I'm just saying, right. You can't count on draft success to be sustained necessarily because it never is indefinitely. Yeah, I think that that's right. It's very difficult for not only your average fan, but even folks within the industry,

to necessarily assess, assess these guys. you know, the local beats tend to have the best view of them and certainly the most informed perspective, but a lot of what they do, to your point, is dependent on circumstance, I won't call it luck, but circumstance, right? Roman Anthony has to be there for you to draft him, although you have to, you know, be like, oh, Roman Anthony. So I don't mean to say there's no skill, but it's a blend, right? You're bringing together a scouting staff's assessment of a player, he has to be there, he has to be signable, there's all this stuff that goes into that And then the day in, day out of that, you might not have, you know, super keen insight to.

You just have to kind of roll with it. So, you know, I don't mean to say, I don't mean to say that it is a bad hire. It seems like a well-regarded guy. But our ability to sort of grade their success is a project that, say project so much, you know, that unfolds over a series of years rather than months or what have you. So there's that. Yes. Yeah.

I guess Nationals fans know this well probably because they had a run of draft success. Eid, of course, by having high picks in years when it was beneficial to have high picks. But there were number one picks who don't turn into players as good as Stephen Strasbourg and Bryce Harper. And so they had that run of Strasbourg, Drew Storren, Harper, Anthony Rendon. And then in recent years, it's been Bupkis with mostly the same people pulling the trigger on those picks throughout that time. So, yeah, you never know, really. And obviously, whoever's running it, I read a Washington Post deep dive the other day about who's running the Nationals. And this was before this hiring.

So now we know, at least titularly, who will be running that department. But a lot of it was about how there are just too many cooks in the kitchen from an ownership perspective. and no one knows who to talk to or who has the final say, and it's all consensus and it's sort of mysterious and that it's been like this for years. And so will Toboni even have free reign to do what he has to do and get the institutional support and the infrastructure? There's a lot that goes into it other than just hiring the right person.

But it's a start to hire someone that people generally think well of. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Okay. Maybe we can answer a few. emails here to close us out. Okay, so here's one from Van in Sacramento, Patreon supporter, who says, I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but I've been thinking about a hypothetical that could become relevant with the announcement of the challenge system in 2026. Will we ever see a player challenge a ball strike call that was initially in their favor? For example, the batter

challenges a pitch that was initially called a ball. The catcher or pitcher challenges a pitch that was called a strike. The only case I can think of is the catcher gets crossed up and drops a borderline pitch that is called strike three, no swing, in a count with fewer than three balls. The ball gets away and the batter reaches first. The catcher challenges to get the pitch changed to a ball and the batter has to continue the plate appearance. Does this scenario, challenge system aside, happen often or if ever, are there any other hypothetical circumstances in which a player might challenge a call seemingly against their interest. Do we know if this is even possible under the new rules?

I was trying to puzzle this out. I was chatting with Ben Clemens about it. This specific scenario, it wouldn't arise very often. But I think even if it did, you probably wouldn't be allowed to do this, right? Because you have to challenge immediately. I don't know how they define immediate. I don't know the press releases. I don't think included, say it has to be within X seconds, but they say immediately.

You just, you can't consult with anyone. You can't wait, obviously, for someone to watch the replay and give you a verdict. You just have to tap your head, tap your helmet, whatever it is right away. So you probably, you can't wait until, like, you find out that, oh, the ball got away and he got to first base. And then you challenge, you can't, you can't wait that long. Also, doesn't the question sort of imply that it is, in fact, a strike that was just dropped? Yeah. So if the catcher gets crossed up, it's called strike three.

There's no swing. And then the ball gets away. The batter reaches first. I guess it doesn't assume it's a strike. Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily. So the catcher could challenge to say, no, it's a ball, actually.

And you're not at first. So, yeah, that wouldn't happen that often, but I don't think you could. I think too long would have elapsed to do that. It would be funny, but no, I don't think you could do that. Other scenarios where this could happen. So I guess one, well, one that other Ben brought up is like, what if you have one of these umps who takes their time making a call? And so if you have to challenge immediately.

I think it's immediately after the call, though. Like, if the guy takes a while and then you still get to... Yeah. Because their understanding of it isn't so dissimilar from yours, right? Where, like, the call isn't the call. You know, the ball's not a striker. The pitch isn't a ball or a strike until it has been ruled such by the umpire. And then you would make your...

But if the guy just takes a while because he's dramatic, you don't lose your ability to challenge. That would be crazy. Yeah. Well, there are cases where someone's confused about what the count is. And sometimes you have a plate appearance that goes on too long because people forget and there are four strikes or something or whatever. That happens occasionally. So I guess if you had someone who was confused about what the call was, like maybe you miss. heard or something, that could happen conceivably.

I guess that could happen. Yeah. So it's not so much that you're taking forever to make the call and you like challenge preemptively because you think you know which way it's going to go or something. But also, yeah, you lose track of the counts or you think that the ruling was the opposite of what it was. I guess that could happen somehow. The other possibility is that what if it's low leverage situation, it's a blow

out maybe and you walk and you don't want to walk. You want to swing. You have a guy up there who just really wants to swing and there's a 3-0 pitch and it's borderline and it's ruled a ball and you don't want to go to first base. You want to get another crack at it. You want that 3-1 count so you can sit fastball and try to put a charge into one. Then maybe do you challenge against your interests so that you could possibly stay in the box and get another pitch to swing at. That was something Ben suggested, but I think that that probably wouldn't fly because it would be against the unwritten rules. I don't know if there really are even unwritten rules that govern this situation, but maybe there quickly will be some because that would be like a kangaroo court situation

or the other team would be mad at you because you're trying to run up the score because it's already a blowout, assuming that you're up by a lot. Right. And you want to keep, I guess it could be that you're down by a lot and you like you want to get a bunch of runs. But if you're down by a lot, then. You want more runners on base anyway, but I don't know. Just like, no, I don't want to walk.

I'd rather swing. I feel like either your opponent or your own teammates, or maybe both would be mad at you. I think that in a tight, tense game, you maybe want the ability to, like, swing. But I think part of the problem is that in situations like that, like, it's in the postseason, you got runners on, you got a base open. You got Aaron Judge up there. If you're the opposing team, like, maybe you don't want to, maybe you say you don't want to intentionally walk in, but you don't mind him walking, right? You'd prefer he walk than really hit.

Intentional walk. Right. And in those circumstances, the pitches you throw are not likely to be ones that would be, like, overturned via the challenge system, right? That's, I think, where this sort of approach breaks down is that a lot of the circumstances, and situations we can conceive of are ones where it's not like you have a borderline

pitch, you know? You know what I mean? Like if you're in judge, you're frustrated, you're like, coward, pitch me. But like, if you try to employ this as a strategy and you're in the scenario I described which granted I have constructed in part so that he can't do the successful

fight me, bro thing, the ball, the pitch isn't close to the zone because you're like, I mean, it's close-ish because you don't want to, like, have a wild pitch. But you know what I mean? Is what I'm saying making any kind of sense? Yeah, I guess, right. If you're better...

Ferry has the tent. I don't know, Meg. The better batter's up and you don't want the bat taken out of that batter's hands and they're kind of pitching around him, then yes, maybe it would be in your best interest to say, I don't want to take my base here because we want this guy up to get the hit.

And even if they continue, you to kind of pitch around him, maybe they'll make a mistake and they'll leave one over the plate and he can punish it. Of course, the other team could just put him on automatically at that point. Why mess around? So maybe it's not even really, I guess the upshot is I doubt that this will happen. Yeah. Now I kind of hope it does.

Now I kind of hope it does. At least one time, and as often happens with like the implementation of new rules, they, you know, they can be adaptable. you know, they get presented with edge cases they maybe didn't consider and then they can make a determination, is this an edge case we want to allow for, or is it not, you know, and then they'll kind of go from there. Yeah. Okay. Question from Paul in Boston. How much of the creation slash existence of so many mid-teams this year is attributable to the increased frequency of pitcher injuries. I hadn't considered this. So we were talking about mid-teams. We were talking about pitcher injuries. Is there a causal connection there?

I mean, I definitely don't think it helps when you have guys get hurt. But I also, this year didn't strike me as like a particularly terrible year for pitcher injuries. Yeah. Like 2021, 2021, am I right? To remember that it was devastating? stating there were a bunch or maybe it was 22. Yeah, this has not been the worst of the few recent years, I guess, but it's, I guess, I guess, I think this is probably unlikely just because it's only in the last, well, this season and last season, I guess, that we've been talking about there being no great teams. Before that, we were talking about how many super teams there were.

Right. And it wasn't like the pitcher injury situation was meaningfully different a couple years ago than it is now, I don't think. So we've kind of had both extremes of midness just within this high pitcher injury era. So I don't know that that is sufficient to explain it. I guess it would increase the volatility and unpredictability of the season, one would think, because if you have the best teams, have the best pitchers concentrated on their rosters and those pitchers are more liable to get injured than it does tend to even the playing field.

Of course, the bad teams can have their best pitchers get hurt too. No one's immune, but that will hurt them less. So I guess that's the way in which it makes sense. Like if the best teams have the best pitchers and they're more at risk of losing those pitchers, that's going to hurt them more than it will hurt the bad teams who might also lose pitchers to injuries, but those pitchers won't be as good to begin with.

As devastating as it would be, I'm not even to say his actual name. Imagine you had a man named Saul Pekines in his entire life. He's like, my last name is impossible to pronounce. You're not wrong about that. If Saul gets hurt, it's bad for the pirates, but they weren't making the postseason anyway, right?

It doesn't change the, it doesn't really change the course of their season necessarily because they're so bad in other ways. This theoretical Saul, Pekines, maybe we wouldn't pronounce one of the first two consonants in Pekines. Maybe he'd be a silent P. You know how P's are always silent in language? That's the real thing. Maybe he's Eastern European and some.

You could go with that. Strip. I just didn't want to name an actual person, Paul Skeens, because we love that guy. Yes. we all feel the same. But I think if you looked at certain teams and you said, well, what if the Dodgers had had their current rotation? Don't you mean certain peteams? I did not mean that.

No. But if you gave the Dodgers their current rotation for the full season, then they probably would not have been nearly as mid as they actually were. Great. For sure. Yeah. I guess there's something. to this, I think. I mean, you know, we talked about the projected midness heading into these seasons. So it's not as if it's completely taken us by surprise that there haven't been

better teams. Maybe it's taken us by surprise that the Dodgers haven't been better or the Braves weren't better or the Orioles weren't better or whatever. But people were talking about it. We were talking about it coming into the year. Yeah, it seems like the extremes, less extreme than they used to be. But part of that, I suppose, is injuries that predated. opening day, just guys who got hurt in previous seasons or just building in our knowledge of the increased injury risk. So, yeah, I don't know if it's the biggest factor. I think it's probably just cyclical. And it's probably also, it has to do with the incentives with the expanded playoff format and the number of wild cards available and all those things that we've

talked about. I'd probably put more weight on that than on the pitcher injuries. But yeah, it might be a factor. It's in the mix. It's in the soup. Okay. It's in the soup. Relatedly, Tyler B, Patreon supporter, says, How do you feel about the continued cutaways after half innings of umpires checking pitchers' gloves slash hands slash belts for sticky stuff?

The league wants to show, hey, remember, this was a thing four to five years ago. However, pitchers have adjusted. That is, percentage-wise, stopped doing the thing. So now it just feels like a pat-on-the-back opportunity for the league rather than an actual problem or a meaningful viewing experience for the average baseball watcher,

or do we as a collective audience just acknowledge the extra 10 to 15 seconds of a baseball broadcast and say, the fewer commercials, the better, even though we get the same number, if not more. I haven't even thought about this, really. I guess it's just, it's so part of the scenery that I've become accustomed to it,

and yeah, we don't really talk about spin rates and sticky stuff so much anymore. And we don't even delight in the sensual, tender scenes of umpires and pitchers, caressing each other's hands that was briefly a thing that we delighted in but now it's just pretty routine but i i don't know that i would say that we're it's not extra time is it really like are we lingering on that on purpose to show it or is it just in the course of yeah when you're

heading into an inning break and you don't want it to be too abrupt and you show the guys walking off the field for a few seconds and so that that will catch some of that inspection sometimes, but I guess I haven't felt like it was still purposeful, like they're lingering to show that. I wonder, like, you know, like, is it our emotional support pitcher check or something? I think that mostly what is happening is that the pitcher exiting the field between half innings is almost always a staple of broadcast, and it just so happens that right now, That involves often, though not always, right?

Like, here's how maybe an argument for it just being as routine and sort of run-of-the-mill. They still show the pitcher when exiting very often when he doesn't undergo a check. And so I think they're mostly showing the pitcher exiting, and sometimes he is engaged in a little check, and sometimes he's not. But I wonder, you know, in the early going of it, if they wanted to provide some context for what that looked like. I will also say that whatever elevated temperature there seemed to be around the checks, which, you know, there were guys who were grumpy about it for a while. Now, every time I see an umpire and a pitcher engaged in a check, it seems very cordial. Everybody seems friendly. part of that is that they're used to it part of that is that they've gotten smarter about where they're hiding goop perhaps they're still using goop you i mean individual guys maybe not but nobody needs to tuck their jersey in as much as some of these boys are checking tucking in their jerseys they're not tucking it in they're reaching into their belts they're reaching into their belt yeah it may have gotten so routine that it's just lax now because you're going through the motions and it's not a rigorous

inspection and and no one's really paying that close attention to it. It's just, it's not nearly as visible and salient an issue anymore. And so, yeah, I don't know if it's still serving a purpose. I guess I'd rather keep it as opposed to going back to where we were, where it was technically against the rules, but there was no enforcement whatsoever. And I do think things got a little out of hand, so to speak. And so even making it a formality, even if it's just sort of for sure, So it keeps it in the back of pitchers and teams' minds not to do that or not to do it in the most egregious way, at least. So I'm in favor of keeping it, and I don't mind seeing it, and I barely even notice it. And there is just a prescribed time, what is it, two minutes break between innings in local broadcast, I think,

and then maybe 255 or something in nationally televised games, and then it's longer, or 255, I guess it's for posse. season games. It's, you know, we're going to have longer breaks, right? And it's not that they couldn't cut away slightly earlier, I suppose. I mean, they try to cram in ads wherever they can. Obviously, they're doing little cutaway ads between pitches sometimes. But I'm all for giving us a little taste of the ballpark environment, because it is weird when you're watching at home, it's like the ballpark's still there, you know? And we don't see it except when the game is going on. Technically, the game is going on even between innings. It's during the game, but that is just obscured from our view. So I like getting a little glimpse of those moments,

the changeovers. So I'd much rather have that than to cut to ads a little early. But yeah, I don't know if it's purposeful to say, hey, look at us. We're still vigilant. Yeah, I would be I'm a little skeptical of that. I mean, I'm sure they don't mind reminding people and offering some assurance on that score, but I don't think that that's the intent of showing it. I do really love it when they just linger on the ballpark. It doesn't happen very often. Yeah. But it is a nice thing when you're spared, when you're spared a break. Again, it doesn't happen very often. But it's like, you know, the Phillies do it sometimes

now when the rounds coming in because they want to show the entrance, which is so cool. Yeah. Dodgers do it sometimes when they want to show Otani coming off the mound and immediately getting ready to hit, so... Right, right, yeah. Feels like bragging, but why not do it? You got this cool guy on your team. I'd brag if I had a unicorn on my team, too. I'd be, look at this a unicorn.

Okay, Matt, Patreon supporter says, today I saw a quote from Carlos Rodan claiming he knew Garrett Crochet was special after seeing him throw three pitches. Forgive me for not remembering the episode number. I forgive you, but Rodon's quote sparked a memory of an old conversation where Ben and Sam discussed how many Jose

Fernandez pitches, RIP, you would need to see before concluding that he was a top three or whatever pitcher in baseball. I believe you both settled on three or four pitches. I forgive you for not remembering that because I don't either. And I was a participant in that conversation, that alleged conversation. I guess my question is, in an age where the last man in a bad bullpen has stuff that would be considered witchcraft even a couple decades ago, has this number increased. How many pitches would it take to know that a skein's scoble or crochet is special? I guess Carlos Rodan would say three, but I'm allowing for the possibility that he is either lying or as a professional pitcher has some level of insight that a fan doesn't.

Well, you couldn't do it based on pure speed anymore. There might have been a time where just being able to hit a certain number on the gun. would be enough. Yeah. And now it's not. That is perhaps necessary, but not sufficient. So you'd need more. Now, I guess Rodon is probably talking about just a visual inspection here.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, what information do you have at your disposal? Because that might reduce your number considerably. Like, if you have sophisticated specs on the pitch, if you know, you know, it's break, It's like, you know, you might be able to be like, holy shit. Like, you can do that. Yeah. So it's probably, and even without that, it's probably fewer than you would think, but maybe, yeah, more than you guys answered a couple years ago.

Yeah, I could buy it being higher. Well, I think if you had all the data at your disposal, maybe it would be lower because we just know more about pitches than we used to. I mean, we can quantify those things better? Here's the part of it that you would need just a larger sample for, I think, regardless of the information you have at your disposal. I think that you could grade the quality of the pitch in front of you, and maybe those pitches are super nasty. And maybe they're even well located. But maybe the guy just had like, you know, I've seen, I've seen relationships.

levers have like their best command outing and then their dog shit later because they can't locate successfully so the the command and control piece of it i feel like you would need a little more to feel confident yes um but also to determine if a guy's effectively wild do you like my little you know what i want to rewatch that i'm not going to have time to look at for another month fantastic mr fox sorry I just thought of that with the... Yeah, that was fun. I love fantastic Mr. Fox.

Anyway, I do think it kind of depends what you want to grade them on, but in terms of like the pure quality of one pitch, it might be fewer than you'd expect. And there is something about like the baseball equivalent of like the thinkability of a thought. It's like, oh, he can do that. That's good to know he can do. Can he replicate that?

Maybe not always. But he is capable of it at least the one time. And this is sort of like how you can have your opinion of a hitter fundamentally altered when you see him hit the ball really freaking hard. Yeah. Because you're like, wow, he can do that. You know, I didn't know he could before. And now I know he can. Whether he can do it consistently, that's a different, slightly different question.

But like some guys can't even clear that bar or even one time. Yep. So the Bill James signature significance concept. Yes. So you can see one pitch from some pitchers and it will be a better pitch. that way. I put it in terms of grad school. You know, we come to our knowledge different ways. Yeah. You see one pitch from one of the nastiest pitchers and you know that he is at least the potential to be that good, a potential that most pitchers don't have because you could give them

an infinite number of pitches and they'll never throw one that hard or with that angle or, you know, whatever, with that movement, that sort of spin, et cetera. So it's really just a process of each pitch gives you more information and you're gradually refining your projection. I don't know how quickly some stuff-based metric like Stuff Plus stabilizes how many pitches you need. I'm sure that after one or after three, you could at least rule out more or less certain tiers of performance, probably, or at least say, this guy has the potential to be among the best. This guy has special stuff. But yeah, you're right. There's a distinction between just having great stuff and having great results.

And I don't know that you could tell that much reliably about your ability to locate in three pitches. But still, being able to tell that you have the stuff, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that you could tell that someone is special in three pitches. You need to know more. You need to see more to see if they're actually reliable and consistent and dependable. but to say, oh, yeah, this guy has the potential to be special. He has a special arm at least. Right. I think you could maybe do that in one pitch sometimes.

You know, the error bars are going to be pretty big if that's all you're seeing. Okay. And yeah, I do think probably the number has gone up if you have no data at your disposal. But if you have all the data that we have now that Sam and I didn't whenever we had that initial exchange, then I think that might actually help you in some or something. specs. Maybe that would actually lower the number because you just be able to quantify things that before you would have had to try to suss out with the eye test and that would be tough. Okay. Yeah, I think that's right. Question from Sebastian in France, who says your recent podcast about bets and boon as well as my own frustration about the latter had me thinking about an extra entry into the how much is baseball different from other sports canon. Do you think baseball fans put too much responsibility on managers? It seems almost every fan base, even the winning ones, are always questioning every move,

especially with the bullpen. Every time a reliever blows a save, managers seem to be the main target for angry fans, while when a kicker misses his field goal or a hockey or soccer player screws up his penalty shot, no one or few people at least calls for the manager or coach to be sacked at once. Why is this so? I've been thinking about a few reasons. Even good MLB teams lose so many games. So inside those 60 or 70 defeats are a few can't happen that are driving fans angry

while coaches of teams who play once a week may be less of a target with people cooling off in between sports fans famously cool off quickly. I was going to say, I don't know, I know that the NFL is trying to expand into Europe. Cool heads prevailing not much. experience of football fandom, but perhaps, along with more interesting kinds of cheese, things are a little different in France. I'm not making fun of you. I'm jealous of that cheese.

Also, the butter. What's up with that? And we know that actual MLB managers are more willing than the diehards to lose a game if it doesn't wreck the bullpen for a week. Cut to all those closers, never entering the games. No one but the most delusional fan thinks that they can be a football or basketball coach calling plays and stuff, but baseball? Baseball seems much easier to most, right? I bet some of us think we might actually manage to win an MLB game. If the starter is good for five or six innings,

I only have to play a few matchups here and there, lefty on lefty or not, and then it's a cinch. Or is it because, between the strongest union in sports and guaranteed contracts, no trade causes, et cetera, it's hard to cut or bench disappointing or unproductive players, and managers have to be more diplomatic, heating up all the fans out there yelling DFA that bum after every strikeout with men on. Finally, MLB managers get ejected so often relative to other sports that it may lead to people thinking less of their actual abilities. Even the umps can no longer deal with this, or I guess that teams can just go on and win without them. So I guess first, do we concede this premise? Do we agree that it's even true that fans are?

quicker to blame managers than they are coaches in other sports? I don't know that I grant that premise. Well, I can't speak to every sport, but the example of kickers was brought up, right? So I think that when a kicker misses a kick and it's like a normal-ass kick, people aren't like, I can't believe that the coach put him in that position. right but i do think that the decision to kick or not kick very much scrutinized right and so we go bonkers and and this has been this as a place to react has only been heightened as analytics have taken a greater hold in the NFL because there are a lot of people who make a lot

a hey, around fourth down decision making. Should you be kicking here or not? And being very angry with coaches who are too quick to kick, whether it's punting or, you know, kicking a field goal when you should go for it. You should go for it on fourth down. Sometimes we're a little over our skis on that, in my opinion. But also, a lot of coaches are cowards and should go for it more often. You hear the language I'm using? see how we get mad at them.

So I think that that's an area where a lot of responsibility still redounds to the coach. I also think that, like, the NFL and football generally gives opportunities to fans to get frustrated and yell at them because you can get mad at the play calling, right? and that that's a more direct sort of impact that coaches can have in that game like it it we will get frustrated like I can't believe you called for a jet sweep in that moment why are you running again sometimes you know just to pick a thing right so I think that the fact that you have and and that's not always the head coach's fault right who's in who's responsible for play calling is going to depend on the team and, you know, the background or the coach, et cetera. But I think the fact that you have like play calling from the sidelines in football gives you, and, you know, you're going to call plays to a certain extent basketball too, right? You architect that in advance, even if there's, you know, improvisation in both games that the player

is ultimately responsible for and obviously they still have to execute. But I think that fans just like to get big mad at their team when it's not going well. And sometimes I think that it's because, you know, we as fans view, not that people don't get mad at individual players, certainly, but like I do think that you're more likely to feel affection for a player than you're necessarily likely to have affection for a coach. And so sometimes the coach is like a useful scapegoat so that you can be mad at someone because, boy, you want to be mad and you're not going to let that go.

That's part of being a fan. But if you are mad at the coach, then you don't have to be mad at your favorite running back or, you know, you don't have to be mad at the quarterback on your favorite team or what have you, you know. So I think there's some of that. But I do think the ejection thing sort of adds a seasoning to it in the baseball case that is a little different than other sports because I don't have data in front of me to back this up, but just my sense from watching a lot of sports is that like MLB managers. get kicked out way more often than anyone, regardless of whether they're a player or a coach. Like, I do feel like our incidence of ejection is higher in a major league baseball than in any of the other sports. The fact that managers are in uniform and they do go onto the field and that makes them seem

like more direct participants perhaps than someone who's in a suit on the sidelines. I do think there's something to what the same. is saying in terms of baseball just seeming easier, just because the decisions are kind of clearer in some ways because the game moves at a statelyer pace. Right, right. And you do, at least in theory, have time to consider these decisions and to plan ahead and to say, okay, this guy's coming up, like the batting order is set, and we know when this guy is going to bat again, and here's the scenario.

And people get upset about batting order decisions where you have. all the time in the world to set your lineup. It's not even a forced error. It's an unforced error if you think it is an error. The game wasn't even going on. So maybe there's something to that. You know, in other sports, you have timeouts, but the action is more continuous.

It's more complex, chaotic. There's so many people on the field running all over the place. It's harder to drill down to just, here's the one decision that I have to make. Now, in certain respects, there are more options available to you, like with the kicker example it's not like you have eight guys who could potentially

kick the field goal now maybe your team doesn't have a good kicker and would be upset about that but you're probably going to hold the GM or the front office responsible for that in most cases so you're not going to get mad about why did he use this kicker instead of that kicker

the way that you're going to get mad about why did he use this reliever instead of that reliever because in theory you have eight of them or whatever at your disposal in that moment. I definitely would quibble with the observation that when a closer blows a save, managers are the main target. I think there's... No, it's the closer.

Yeah, there's plenty of anger to go around, to be clear. Oh, yeah. And so if it's the closer's fault, if the closer is bad, then he's going to get plenty of that ire and wear that too. If that is a repeated pattern with him, and if the fans think that he shouldn't have been put in that spot, then they'll also be mad at the manager. So it's not mutually exclusive. You can be mad at both. The well of mad is bottomless. But I, yeah, I guess I'm not sure that I totally buy this because people get pissed at all kinds of coaches, really. It's an equal opportunity

practice to get upset at coaches slash managers. But yeah, maybe certain decisions. It's You know, if it comes down to planning versus execution, if it's a planning moment where you had time to consider your tactics and your strategy and you still seemingly make the wrong call or you're caught flat-footed or something, then yes, absolutely the manager will be blamed for that. There are some cases, of course, where a manager will make such a strange decision that he will be blamed more than the player who actually gives up the hit. or whatever it is. But that's not the most common, I guess. And that happens in other sports, too. So, yeah, I'm not sure I buy it. Yeah.

I don't think I buy it either, but not because they don't like French cheese. Yeah. My French is gone. It wasn't great to begin with, but it was real bad now. That's a Meg problem, not a French problem, to be clear.

I'm not making it about the French. Of course. A couple quick staty ones. Jonathan says, I was watching the Red Sox on the Nesson alternate broadcast on September 24th when Isaiah Kinerflaffa beat out a throw to turn what would have been a double play into a fielder's choice. After this occurred, Jonathan Papelban commented that he didn't think teams were turning as many double plays now as when he was playing because the shift, both pre and post new rules, pulled middle infielders away from ideal double play depth. Personally, I'm skeptical that this is true, especially because Papp has a reputation for making some wild claims.

That said, might be worth a stat blast to check. Ironically, the next hitter grounded into a double play to end the inning, so ball don't lie. Well, I think he might actually be right here, though I'm not sure if he's right for the reasons that he's citing there. It is true that there are fewer double plays now than there were when Papelbon played. both in total and on a percentage basis. So he pitched in the majors from 2005 to 2016. In 2005, there were 3,908 instances of player grounding into a double play. Last year, there were 3,227.

So about 700 fewer GIDPs with the same number of teams and games, more or less. And if you look at it on a percentage basis, so baseball reference has this as a stat where they have a certain definition of a ground into double play opportunity. It's a runner on first with no outs or one out, and they look at that opportunities, and they look at how many double plays there were in that situation, I guess two or more outs via force out on a ground ball as they define it. and then they just give you the percentage. And so in Papalban's rookie year, that percentage was 11.1 in his last year, it was 11.0. It ranged between 10.7% and 11.3% during his years in the big league. So pretty narrow range. This year, it's 9.4%.

So on a percentage basis and as a accounting stat in sum, there are fewer double plays. than there were then. Whether that's because of infielder positioning or primarily because of that, I'm not sure because there are a bunch of reasons why that could be true. Because a lower on base percentage, for one, so you just, you have fewer guys on base,

that's not going to matter so much for the percentage, but for the total number. If you have more guys on base, then you have more potential opportunities to ground into a double play. So if that's happening less, than maybe fewer outcomes like that are happening. And then you have more strikeouts than most, if not all, of those years when Papalban was in the big leagues.

And if you don't put the ball in play, then you're not going to be able to turn a double play. And even when you do put the ball in play, more balls are in the air now than they used to be. So you're either not making contact or you're lifting it and you're not going to get a ground ball double play in either instance. And so I would guess that those factors have more to do with it with the infield positioning because, well, for one thing, so in 2005, that was pre-common infield overshift. And then by 2016, it was quite common, right? And the rate barely budged between those two years. So I'm not sure that that was as big a factor as some of these other things that I'm pointing to here.

I think you're right. Okay. Well, he's not wrong on the... Sometimes I don't have anything more to add. You've made the point so well. Yeah, well, he's not wrong if his main argument was that teams aren't turning as many double plays now. He's right about that. But, you know, whether it's primarily due to the positioning, I don't know.

I guess you'd want to, if you got even more granular and you looked at these situations and you said when you had a ground ball in a ground ball double play opportunity. or a ground ball with a certain trajectory or something, how often did they turn it? If you were able to isolate those instances, then you might be able to kind of compare like-to-like and see whether the infielders have actually gotten better or worse at turning them, presented with not just the opportunity, but ample opportunity because they also got the batted ball

that was required. But I have not done that work. So we will reserve that for some other time. Lastly, we got a question from David, who has the subject line, Trey Yassavage's teammates. So this is Blue Jays rookie pitcher Trey Yassavage. And he sent us a screenshot of a tweet that was a quote tweet of a Blue Jays tweet. And it was a picture of Trey Yassavage's minor league teammates. A few of them showed up to his MLB debut to be supported.

And the Blue Jays account said, how awesome is this? And there was a quote tweet from one Rob Wong who said, considering he's pitched in five levels of baseball this year, does Trey Yassavage hold the record for most teammates in a single season? Oh, what a fun question. And so what David's, yeah, David said, I feel like Trey A Savage at least knows more people in the organization than anyone. He might be more familiar with the roster, the farm system, the orgs, strengths, and weaknesses than any coach. GM president. Huh. I don't, well, maybe on a personal level, probably.

Yeah. Like, I would hope that the GM and, like, player development director probably has a more encyclopedic knowledge of their personnel than Trey Savage and those players' strengths and weaknesses and everything. But in terms of, like, how many is he, well, even if it came to, like, being on a first name basis with or something, you know, if you were, like, the scouting director and you drafted them, or you sign them, or you're the farm director or something, you're probably going to, and you've been around for a while, you're probably going to, you know, they're going to recognize you, you're going to recognize them. But, yeah, in terms of, like, actually having a close relationship,

I guess someone who has had the progression that Trey Savage has had this year, he has been teammates with a whole lot of players, many more so than some executive has. Yeah, I mean, yeah. For people who are not familiar with his trajectory this year, he started in A-ball because he was a first-round drafty last year, 20th overall pick, and he did not make his professional debut until this season, right? And he climbed all the way. So he started in Dunedin, in A-ball, in the Florida State League, and then he was promoted to Vancouver. that's High A, the Northwest League,

and then he went to New Hampshire in the Eastern League, AA, and then Buffalo in the International League, AAA, and then now he's in the major. So five levels in one season that is quite a meteoric rise. So, yeah, he probably does have a pretty decent, holistic sense

of how the Blue Jays operate top to bottom because he's gone bottom to top in one season. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah. I did ask, Kenny, Jacqueline of Baseball Reference, a semi-frequent Stap Blast consultant, whether it was possible to look up the players who played for the most teams or with the most teammates within one organization in a single season, according to baseball references data.

And he sent me some. He said, given that we can't easily account for which players were on the team at the same time. Yeah, that's tough because, you know, you might be on the same minor league team in the same season. but you might have been ships, players passing in the night. Right, you have to account for the promotions and demotions around that guy, too. Yeah. Yeah, so we don't have that, but just defining teammates as any two players who both appeared for the team in the season,

he gives me a leaderboard of the players who had the most teammates within an organization in a season. So to put Yassavage into context, as of the time Kenny sent me this, which was eight days ago, perhaps Yusavage has picked up additional Blue Jays teammates since then. But at the time, he had played for those five teams and had 210 teammates by this method. And Kenny notes that a lot of this is dependent on the particular organization. For instance, the players with the most teammates this year are all in the Orioles

system and have only played for four teams. So there's been a lot of turnover there. So the three leaders, Chadwick Trump, one of my favorite names in baseball, Hudson Haskin, And Zach Eflin, all Orioles, all played for four levels this year. Trump led with 225 teammates, Haskin with 223, Eflin with 221, two you savages, 210, even with more teams played for. But the leaders, according to the records we have here, 253 is the record, and it appears to be a three-way tie. And it's a three-way tie between Janeshwi Fargus, who great names, even more great names. But with the Mets in 2021, five levels, 253 teammates, Jojo Romero with the Phillies in 2022, five levels 253 teammates. And then lastly, Simone Musiotti, also for the Phillies, also in 2022, five teams, 253 teammates.

and then I'll link to a screenshot of the others. But it does seem to be dependent on the year and the organization. But all of the leaders, almost all of the leaders, are clustered in recent seasons, mostly post-pandemic. In fact, there was 2019 Johnny Cueto, San Francisco, five teams, 243 teammates. I was semi-surprised that these were all from recent seasons because there used to be, back in the day,

there used to be more affiliates. per organization. Like before there was a limit on that, you used to have so many. But maybe guys get promoted more aggressively these days if they are someone who has helium like that and is a highly rated prospect. Or there are just more players per team than there used to be what with all the changes in pitcher usage. That probably has a lot to do with it, right?

Maybe you're just going through even though you have fewer affiliates now. Going through more guys. Yeah, there's just more turnover. I don't know if any of this has to do with like a post-pandemic backlog or traffic jam pile up with a bunch of players who didn't get a 2020 season or something. Maybe that had something to do with this also. But yeah, it does seem to be more recent, which sort of surprised me. But Yesavage is not a record holder, not even an outlier in this season. But, yeah, if you had to go to someone to sum up the state of the Bujay's organization or just.

tell you who's a good guy in various clubhouses, then you could probably do a lot worse than Trey Savage. Yeah, I think that's right. All right, well, today's episode ending dispatch from the pennant race. You'll never believe this, but the benighted Blue Jays, tigers, Mets, and Astros all won on Thursday. Bodes well for avoiding various collapses. The Reds also won to keep pace with the Mets, but the Diamondbacks dropped a game to the Dodgers,

which clinches the NL West for L.A. and puts Arizona in a pretty tough position. The Tigers winning one against the Guardians, no less, leaves them both in solid shape entering the weekend. According to the Fangrass playoff odds, as I record this, Guardian's 89% probability to make the playoffs. Tigers, 85%, met 78%,

Astros 28% and Reds 20%. But, you know, never tell me the odds. We tell you the odds all the time. Plenty to play for this weekend, though, and plenty to watch. I don't really need to give you a Mariners update now that they've clinched, But I'll give you a Mariners-related update.

I was informed of the existence of Rocky Starter Bradley Blaylock by Alexandra Whitley, writing at Baseball Perspectus on Thursday morning. Previewing Thursday nights Mariners Rockies game, Alexandra wrote, it's the final career start for Bradley Blaylock. He hasn't announced his retirement or anything like that, but he's made 11 starts plus two relief innings for the Rockies with a 9.16 ERA, striking out 4.3 batters per nine innings. That includes more runs than innings in each of his last five.

starts with an equal number of homers and strikeouts, 10, and a FIP of 10.05. I'll leave room for the idea that another team could find something interesting about Laylock and relief, but this is a pretty hard closing of the door on him starting. And for those of you who may be asking how even the Rockies could give so many starts to a pitcher with such awful results, it's worth keeping his AAA results in mind. In 15 Pacific Coast League starts, he has an ERA of 8.6. You might not be impressed by that either, but it does indicate that he's successfully made the transition to MLB without too much of a dent in his performance. Oof. Harsh, but unfortunately fair.

So naturally, I wondered how Bradley Blaylock would do in this game going up against the Mariners in Cal Rally, and could he at least lower that ERA a little. And the answer is, no, no, he could not. But he did extend his streak of more runs allowed than innings pitched. He went three and two thirds, and he gave up five runs all earned on six hits, two walks, and one strikeout. One homer, but not to Cal, it was Eohenio Suarez. who hit it. So that raised his ERA in the majors this year to 9.36. Now, the good news for him is that

that's not unprecedented. In fact, the highest ERA ever in a single season, minimum 55 innings pitched in the majors, belongs to Roy Halliday, who had a 10.64 ERA and nearly 70 innings pitched for the 2000 Blue Jays. And hey, he made the Hall of Fame. Halliday was 23 that year. Blaylock is 24. Perhaps there's still hope for him. But as Alexander mentioned, he got roughed up in AAA, too. So over 119 and a third innings pitched, combined across AAA and the majors this year, Blaylock had an 8.98 ERA. I asked baseball references Kenny Jacqueline where that ranked among all pitchers in the baseball reference database across any and all levels of affiliated ball, minimum 100 innings pitched. And the answer is, it's not the worst. In fact, it's only 17th worst.

It's barely worse than the Rockies Carl Kaufman, who had an 8.95 ERA, just last year in almost 130 innings for AAA Albuquerque. And it's slightly better than Parker Duncees 9.22 ERA in 111 in a third innings pitched for the AAA affiliate of the Braves back in 2022. However, most of the other pitchers ahead of Blaylock, or behind, depending on your perspective, pitched a long time ago. And also, none of the pitchers who had a higher ERA than his pitched in the majors in that season. They were all exclusively at some level of the minors.

Now, I guess that makes things better for Blaylock, not just because he made Major League money for a while, but because it's harder to pitch in the majors than the minors, so his ERA is slightly more excusable. But still, he does stand alone on that list. In case you're wondering, no one has ever had an ERA this high in 100-plus innings pitched in the majors only. Typically, you pitch like that, you don't get to stay up there. And, hey, he has an excuse. They're mitigating factors here. He pitches for the Rockies.

Course Field. He's pitched in the Pacific Coast League. In Albuquerque, high altitude, high offense environment. But, you know, not good. Feel a little bit bad about stat blasting Blaylock because so many hitters have blasted hits off of him this year. Still, 8.98, it's an extraordinary number. I'll link to the spreadsheet from Kenny on the show page.

A couple other follow-ups. Dustin, Patreon supporter, says. In episode 2378, Ben mentioned that he is for getting rid of base coaches. I've started to take this position to this season after I was on a date with someone who didn't know much about baseball and she couldn't understand why the base coaches were there because it should be up to the players to know when to go and steal and take the extra base, and I couldn't really come up with a good reason other than it's always been that way.

I'm telling you, out of the mouths of babes, not calling Dustin's date a babe, to be clear. It's an expression. Sometimes it takes a neophyte to realize how silly something is. Also, listener Kevin argues that we were way too pessimistic about the value of the hitter or pinch hitter who is guaranteed a single on episode 2379. Even on a pure war basis, assuming he gets 120 plate appearances, per season, allowing for injuries or some games where there's never a high enough leverage situation to bother pinch hitting, an 883 Wobah is worth 55 batting runs.

That's a six-win player if you give him no positional value, or more like four if you treat him as a DH, which is probably more appropriate here. That's already one of the game's most valuable players and a reasonable Hall of Fame candidate if he plays 15 seasons. But on top of that, you actually should credit him for clutch performance, because you can deploy him in high leverage moments. Maybe I'll have time to properly research this later. but from intuition and scanning a bunch of game logs,

I think the median team game has a peak leverage of about 2.5 or 3, and singles in that leverage are worth about 0.1 to 0.15 win probability added. If he averages 0.10 WPA over 120 games, he should really be paid and treated like a 12 win player, arguably the best of all time over a full career. Admittedly, you can't always predict the highest leverage moment to use him ahead of time, but remember I've also taken away 40 low leverage games per year. Even at 0.06 WPA times 120 games, he's a seven-win player.

Talked a while back about Jonathan Judge of Baseball Perspectus' research about adversarial pitch location, trying to quantify which pitchers are good at not only leveraging their strengths, but exploiting their opponent's weaknesses. And I asked Jonathan to check on whether the league as a whole has gotten better at adversarial pitch locations over time. He has data going back to 2017, I believe. Because I was thinking, well, on the one hand, scouting reports have probably improved. On the other hand, the philosophy of just aim for the middle and let your stuff

and natural movement do the work has taken hold over that span. So are pitchers tailoring their locations to opposing hitter's traits more or less? I could have believed either answer. And Jonathan has just gotten back to me and informed me that the answer is neither, evidently. At the end of the day, he says, not convinced we are seeing much variation across the years. All right, null result. Now we know. And finally, on episode 2375, we talk. to Adam Durowski about his research into players with 4,000 professional hits on the occasion of Robinson Canoe joining that group. Canoe was the 22nd confirmed member, but Adam mentioned that he thought he had identified a potential 23rd, but hadn't been able to confirm it quite yet.

Well, now he has. He reported on Blue Sky Venicio Garcia, played his last game 55 years ago and died in 2007, but we finally found hit number 4,000 for the 1954 Oriole. He wrote a saber piece about it, which I will also link to. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to 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, Danger Bird 653, Misha Berkowitz, Tritus, Charlie Grueler, and Callie Mughal. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord. group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, the next of which we will be recording and releasing quite soon, playoff live streams, which commence next month, personalized messages, prioritized email answers, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, Questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join the EffectivelyWild Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group, slash EffectivelyWild. You can find the EffectivelyWild subreddit at R.S.EffectivelyWild. And you can check the show notes at Fangraphs of the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

and we will be back to sum up the end of the regular season and set up the postseason early next week. Effectively wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled beats, effectively mild.