Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 240: Several of the Finest Listener Emails

Episode Date: July 10, 2013

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about the best name for a future baseball player, no-trade clauses, RBI and wins, and a starter with Mariano Rivera’s cutter. Cameo by a raccoon.

And there's a lot of questions we just don't know the answers to. Good morning and welcome to episode 240 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. You know what I like about 240? What? 240 is the line where a bad batting average becomes just a mediocre batting average, or I guess where a terrible batting average becomes just a bad batting average. Like a guy who's hitting in the 230s is having a lousy year.

A guy who's hitting in the 240s is like a decent week away from hitting 265. Yeah. 240's a big number. Another month and we'll be average. Almost. What I don't like about 240 is that I haven't slept since 239. So this is going to be a this is going to be a challenge, but we'll get through it. This is, this is listener email Wednesday. So you will help

us get through this with your questions. Wade Boggs had 240 hits once. There's a big, that was a, that was a, uh, that that's some black ink that I saw a lot in my life. I probably saw that black ink about a thousand times. Does it reassure you that the Cardinals released Ty Wiginton with many millions remaining on his deal? Well, it kind of makes me feel better that they make mistakes. You know, what was the original deal two years five million signed this offseason yep huh uh no it doesn't necessarily reassure me why would that reassure me makes me feel a little bit a little bit better that they haven't completely solved baseball. Uh-huh.

That even the Cardinals can make some costly missteps. Yeah, I guess. Okay. I'm not rooting against – I don't mind. I actually find it more interesting when the Cardinals seem invincible. Uh-huh. and I'll seem invincible. I felt a little nervous.

I would say that I felt a little nervous in life ever since last May when the Rangers quit being invincible. It was nice to know that there was somebody out there who had figured it out. Because my life is pretty good. I like my life. I generally think I make right decisions. But I'm still striving to get better. I'm still striving for this perfect existence that I'm hoping that someday I might achieve.

So when you see a team that has achieved it, it gives you hope. And then when you see that they are actually huffing paint behind the middle school, and you realize that they're just a fraud like everybody else, and you're a fraud too uh i find that troubling so no that i would say that the ty wigginton news is the worst thing i've heard today it makes it makes their greatness seem more attainable to me uh i now feel like i can aspire to be as good at something as st. Louis is because they're not completely perfect. No, because they're as flawed and pathetic as you. You're saying there's no room for improvement. Much less so.

There's still plenty of room for improvement. There's hope now that I could reach that point because I can make a mistake and still be like the Cardinals. Do you remember the day you found out that Ty Wiginton was white? and still be like the Cardinals. Do you remember the day you found out that Ty Wiginton was white? I don't really remember him being one of those confusing race players. I went through a period in my life where I was the worst at both left-right and racial. I don't even – obviously, I don't care what Ty Wiginton is.

It makes no difference to me but i would i would realize that i'd well i'd turn on a game and i'd i'd see a guy and i'd be like that guy that's yeah that's what he looks like and he bats left-handed uh so yeah i have a friend who every once in a while still to this day but for a period of time about every three weeks or so, I would just send him a text message or an email saying, you know, Brian Giles, left or right? And he would reply. Yeah, I'm not good at left, right. Never been great at that. I've never been good at things that are easy to look up because I use, you know, baseball reference or whatever as a crutch. So like uniform numbers, I have no idea what anyone's uniform number is.

I mean, it always seems sort of, sort of like a relic of an earlier time when maybe we didn't see players all the time and know what they looked like. And, and many of them have their names on their jerseys so that was never really a um a significant thing to me that i tried to commit to memory pretty good little career wigginton put together you think it's over i assume he'll be a yankee in a matter of days. He made $25 million in his life. $25 million.

In many fields, he would be considered the greatest success. I remember when I was a kid watching The Big Spin. You didn't have The Big Spin. It was the California Lottery. The Big Spin was like a Saturday evening, almost like a game show kind of a setup, but it was like on a studio and there was no, no audience. And the big spin is if you played the big spin scratcher, you could win spin. And then you get to go on the show and you'd get to spin their wheel and, you know, play one of their games. And you'd see these guys and you'd get to spin their wheel and you know play one of their games and you'd see these guys and they'd win like twelve thousand dollars and they were so happy i mean they were

as happy as you've ever seen a human being and ty wigginton has made uh what is it two thousand times that much in his career and you get the feeling that there was never a moment where ty wigginton just soaked it all in and jumped jumped around ecstatically in his room. Even though he made 2,000 times as much as that guy made, he was never as happy as that guy. That guy was happy. And Ty Wiginton has just been like, okay, got to go to work again. And then slowly but surely, he's one of the richest human beings who's ever lived. Yes, that's right. All right.

Is that enough banter? Emails! Okay, we're going... All right, let's start with... We got 10 questions from Jason Dvojkovsky in one email. We picked a couple of them to answer. Two. Yes.

So the first one is, do you care about catcher framing in the All-Star game? If you're choosing between Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Santana and stipulating that each has the same value, but Lucroy's comes from defense slash framing, whom do you take? That's a good question. You just corrected his who whom. I did. Which I think he'll find amusing when he listens to this episode a few months from now. I think that it's almost not fair to ask you this question because if there's one person in the world who would choose the framer, I assume it would be you. Well, we're stipulating that each has the same value. Well, yeah, let's not stipulate that.

Let's stipulate that. Let's stipulate that. Let's say that Lucroy is a two-warp player, Santana is a three-warp player, and Lucroy is plus 10 and Santana is minus 10 in framing. So their values would switch exactly if you had... They're also in different leagues. Can't you take them both?

This question is deeply flawed. But you switch the value, right? So it's 10 runs in each direction. So if warp, which as it soon will, hopefully incorporated framing, then they would have the exact opposite warps, as they do in our hypothetical. So then which one do you take?

The warp as we see it, or the warp as you sense it to truly be? I guess the latter. Do you think that the framing, though? This is the question. It might not matter as much in an all-star game. Yeah, I don't think you're likely to see any particularly good frames because Luke Roy would be catching pitchers he's never seen before. But also pitchers who can hit their spots well.

Maybe. I wonder what umpires. Do you think umpires are different in all-star games? Do you think umpires are? Yeah, I think the good umpires get selected for that sort of event. No, no, but I mean, no, I don't mean that. I mean, like, Jim Joyce is, you know, if Jim Joyce was umping an all-star game,

would he be a different umpire than he is every other day? Like, do you think he has a bigger strike zone or a smaller strike zone or exactly the same strike zone? I guess exactly the same. Yeah. I'd guess exactly the same. Yeah, I can't figure out a way that would be more entertaining. You know, I guess a smaller strike zone would be more entertaining. You want people swinging. You're hoping that they'll figure out that they should swing.

So a smaller strike zone would probably be more entertaining. But yeah, sorry. So anyway, the point is that I'm not sure that you would see. But that's not necessarily the point of the All-Star game. The point of the All-Star game is partly at least to see the players that you think are the best, not necessarily to see them perform the best so much as just to see them congregated. And if you really admire the skill that a particular catcher has, you might want to see him there, even if you don't get to see his thing.

Does that make sense? Do you think? Yeah. Like, would you, if Molina were there, would you shake your head and think this is going to be boring or would you be really excited? You being a person who loves the All-Star game already. Yes.

Can't get enough All-Stars. Yes, which has heightened the excitement. I'm already on the edge of my seat. Yeah, I'd like to see that. I like seeing Santana hit, though. I enjoy that, too. Yeah, I think I'm on record at some point as saying that with All-Star games, I still use as a tiebreaker and probably even more impactful than a tiebreaker,

I use the traditional stats. I like to see dingers in the All-Star game. I like to see the guys who are having the seasons that would have excited me as a 10-year-old. So I would say that I would always skew toward fastball pitchers and home run hitters and maybe speedy shortstops. I wonder if you're more likely in an all-star game, you're probably only going to get one plate appearance, but maybe you could catch multiple innings.

You could, that's true. So that's a consideration. It would be fun to hear the announcers talk about the catcher's framing. That would be a first in an all-star game. You know? Yeah, possibly. It'd be something for them to talk about. What are they going to talk about when Santana

comes up? Here's a guy who hits not historically well, but better than a lot of his peers. That's why he's here. There's not much to say about it, but with Lucroy, you could talk. They could fill eight minutes of fairly intelligent conversation talking about framing yeah could show some good graphics who broadcasts the all this is a fox these days i think so uh-huh yeah all right so we're both are we both I'm taking Santana. Are you taking Santana?

I guess, yeah, probably. Well, everybody, don't forget to vote. It's at J-L-W-O-J on Twitter. File your votes. Make sure that – hashtag frame debate. Yeah, that'll be trending. What's who's your who's your final vote person, by the way? Well, I mean, it's like it's hard. I mean, I'm a total koji junkie, but I mean, it's it's not fair because he's my guy. Who's yours?

Well, I'm fond of him too, but I have always had a soft spot for Robertson. That's true. You wrote about him. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe Robertson. The crazy thing is Delabarre is a guy who I have a rooting interest in this year. I won't go any deeper than that, but I have a rooting interest in him.

And my impression of Steve Delabarre this year is that he has been disastrously bad. And no, he's not been bad. He has walked five batters per inning. But otherwise, solid major leaguer. wise, solid major leaguer. I also kind of like, I wouldn't mind seeing Benoit just because I wrote that thing before the year about Benoit closing and how maybe it would make sense to have him close. And there was the whole Leland thing about how he can't pitch on back-to-back days or something. But now he's closing and I'm kind of rooting for him.

Well, the thing about the All-Star game is that the one interesting thing about it is that you get to see starters pitch one inning. And so there's something really, like, uncreative about trying to get one-inning relievers who... Oh, yeah. Yeah, it seems very silly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if it even getting past like the idea of you know what's the best strategy or or whatever i mean it's oh it's just not that fun

to watch a reliever coming in relieve nope uh and then jason's other question or the other one that we're going to answer was if you wanted to maximize the chance that your son would be a major league player, what first name should you give him? I think that he's going for something like Brock, but I think that Brock is more of an athlete name than a baseball name. So I would go with Casey. So I would go with Casey. I think Casey is a name both with baseball lineage, but also it seems to me a disproportionate number of baseball players named Casey currently. And also it sounds like a good baseball name.

But the name Jeff popped up just because it feels to me like there are a disproportionate number of terrible Jeffs, if that makes sense. And so if you want to get, I mean, you know, like a guy like David Wright clearly has the talent to be a major leaguer already. His name didn't get him where he is. His play did. But then a guy like Jeff Mathis, you wonder like, well, what got him there? His name is not been disproven to be the reason. And Jeff Francour, for instance, is a lousy Jeff.

There have been some pretty good Jeffs. Sure, there have been some pretty good. There have been pretty good everythings. There have been pretty good wades. There have been pretty good wades. There have been pretty good any name. We're not looking for what there have been pretty good ofs. We're looking for what there have been bad ofs. And I can only think of one Uniesky,

so I landed on Jeff. Yeah, I don't know if that would help you get there. Well, I think I would go with something really – if I wanted to maximize the chance, I would go with something that would evoke some sort of positive association in baseball men. So I'd probably name him like Scrappy or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Scrappy is a – that's really good. Yeah.? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, Scrappy is a good... That's really good. Yeah. That's really good, yeah.

I mean, just imagine, too, if Scrappy weren't his nickname but were his actual given name. Right. That would be incredible. Scrappy is a good one. Yeah, there have been two major leaguers named Scrappy, but none since 1917.

Who do you think would have the edge in a draft based strictly on names, Scrappy or Slugger? Probably Slugger. Ace? What about Ace? Yeah, Ace would be pretty good. And the other thing is, I mean, you could just name him after a really good player, like just name him Babe Ruth or something. And it would be attention-getting, so he would stand out. It would be a conversation point, and it would have the same positive association. And maybe subconsciously you would ascribe some more talent or positive qualities to him because when you think of him, you think of the best baseball player ever.

Yeah, I think Bo might be a good name. You're probably are you old enough to remember wonderful, terrific Mons? No. you know, a fairly famous prospect, as I recall it, in like the early 90s, who was named Wonderful Mons, and his middle name was Terrific. And his dad was also named Wonderful Mons, I believe. So he was Wonderful Terrific Mons III. Huh, and he didn't make it. Let me, I'll look for his page.

But yeah, if you want to go ahead. Okay. The next question comes from Matthew. Matthew says, there's been some talk recently about the possibility of the Brewers trading Ivani Gallardo. One of the issues that has come up is that in Yo's contract, there is a clause that allows him to block trades to 10 teams.

While I can understand why a player would have a no-trade clause that covers all other teams, a limited set of teams does not make sense unless they are teams in which the player has had bad experiences. What is the advantage of such a list to both the player and the team? bad experiences. What is the advantage of such a list to both the player and the team? And then he lists the teams that Gallardo can block a trade to. The Angels, Astros, Blue Jays, Indians, Orioles, Phillies, Pirates, Red Sox, Tigers, and Yankees. Well, I think that the answer is in that list. My guess is that if, I'm sorry,

whose question is this? George? Matthew. My guess is that if Matthew were on a long car trip perhaps with his parents and his dad had given him this riddle and he had had four and a half hours to solve it, my guess is that he would have solved it by looking at the list of teams, right? They are

almost all teams that a player like Giovanni Gallardo is likely to be traded to. So you pick, if you have a trade clause, a no trade clause, it exists almost entirely to give you contract leverage so that when you get traded you can work out an extension or some sort of superior contract option. Almost everybody accepts the trade that they're given unless they have some sort of circumstance like Derek Lee, I think,

when he had a child who needed medical care near where he was, and A.J. Burnett, I think, because his wife is terrified of flying. But for the most part, no trade clauses exist so that you can negotiate a better deal from the team that wants you. So you just pick the 10 teams or at least the 7 or 8 teams that are most likely to trade for you and most likely to pay out if they want to trade for you. And then you throw on the Astros. I think if I were a player, I'd probably put the most extreme park that would not favor me on there,

even if it weren't a team that I was likely to be traded to, just because I'd be very concerned about my stats. Seems reasonable. Yeah. Did you look up Wonderful Mons? Yeah, Wonderful Terrific Mons was, he topped out at AA. And he had some decent years in there, very speedy, a lot of stolen bases. And, you know, like as a 21-year-old in A ball, hit 280, 330, 483 with 12 homers, 47 steals.

But a low round pick, never got above double A. And my guess is that I know of him because his name got him on some baseball cards. This was around the time when – you're probably too young to have collected baseball cards, right? Because by the time you were old enough, they were awful. They may have been awful. I guess I didn't know any better. I had and still have binders full of them. What was the first year that you bought your own packs?

I would guess probably something like 93. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I would guess probably something like 93. Oh, gosh, yeah. So right at the tail end of the Golden Age, I would say. Golden Age, I think, was probably like 89 to 93. And then it just became completely subsumed. Is that a word? It is a word. Subs with parallels and and inserts um but uh

yeah so around 94 do you remember classics 93 92 93 94 do you remember classic no classic was uh doing like amateur cards and minor league cards and so i believe that's where i remember seeing a lot of wonderful terrific mons uh and my guess is that he was I remember seeing a lot of wonderful, terrific mons. And my guess is that he was only on there because of his name. Doesn't look like he should have been a prospect to me, and he's not listed as ever being on a top 100. Yeah, well, that would, I mean, he'd certainly get attention on the Internet today if he were a prospect now. That's true. That's exactly what he would get.

Okay, next question comes from our pal Eric Hartman. He says, Sam mentioned that sometimes the worst stat is enough to tell the story. Let's put this to the test using two of the worst stats, RBI and wins.

I'd question whether those are two of the worst stats. What? There are worse ones. Name two that are worse at doing what they intend to do. Well, I guess they're certainly the worst in the damage that they've caused. It feels to me like there should be some stats that... Well, there's certainly stats that are more useless. Yeah, but they are descriptive.

They're not necessarily value judgments. That's true. Okay, I'll accept that they're two of the worst stats. How many of each of these would a player need to allow you to be confident that they were the best hitter or pitcher in the league with no other information with your standard 20 win or 120 rbi season it's very possible that they weren't great but what if they had 25 wins and 160 rbi 30 and 200 what would you guys set at the limit it's not really conceivable that a hitter with 300 rbi would not be the best hitter

uh i think my numbers would be i think i'd draw the line at at 22 wins oh come on you're saying if a pitcher won 22 wins you would feel confident he was the best pitcher in baseball yeah that's absurd ben you've this is like uh i could probably could probably go back no more than 12 years and find you three examples of this that have been not true. Yeah, probably 12 years ago, but 12 years ago was different. I think in the last several seasons, the only person to do it has been Justin Verlander. That's, well, in the last few years. There was a, and Cliff Lee did it in 2008. And I think either of them would certainly have an argument as the best or the best in their league, at least.

Brandon Webb had 22 in 2008 and was not the best pitcher in his league that year, although he finished second in Cy Young voting. I think it's— Wait, so hang on, though. We've got 10 22-game winners since 2000. Yes, I'm looking at that list. They include Matt Morris, who was worth four war. They include Brandon Webb, 5.84.

That was 2001. Yeah, so it's been, I would say of the ten, you're right. All right, I withdraw. Of the ten, there is one clearly non-elite season on there. And we're not. season on there uh and we're not and and and then eight eight that are arguably uh you know you could probably argue with the best best year or you at least wouldn't be laughed out of the room and we're saying uh confident reasonably confident i mean if my if i were staking my life on it i would i would raise it a few wins as i value my life. It's crazy how big a difference there is between 21 and 22.

Yeah, right. Last year, Gio Gonzalez had 21. There's so many bad 21, like Russ Ortiz, two win, 21. Andy Pettit, three win, 21. Jamie Moyer, Bartolo Colon in 2005, 21. I mean, yeah. So it's a huge, Ian Kennedy, huge difference between 21 and 22. I wonder if that's just a coincidence or what.

Yeah, it could be. But at 22, I think there's, I don't know, I'd say there's maybe an 80% probability, something like that, that you're the best pitcher. I don't know. It's hard to say best. I mean, best is so debatable. Can we just agree 80% chance that you're one of the three best? I don't know. It's hard to say best. I mean, best is so debatable.

Can we just agree 80% chance that you're one of the three best? Yeah, I think that's yes. I might be even higher. I would be sad. I mean, I don't want to say who's the best. We never know who's the best. So let's say generally consensus top three. Yeah. So 22 is my number.

I was going to go way higher than that. You're living in the past. You've sort of convinced me. Get with the times. Yeah. 22 seems reasonable. I was actually thinking I was going to go something like 26.

But maybe because I wanted it to be definitive. Yeah, if you want to be definitive, then that seems reasonable. See? Yeah. Go ahead. I was going to switch to RBI. Was there some other pitcher thing you want to talk about? No.

Okay. I think my RBI equivalent of 22 wins would be 155 if you do a if you do a search of 155 you get 30 seasons in the last you know 113 or so um so it's very rare the last time it happened happened, I think was Alex Rodriguez. Let me, uh, yeah, uh, Alex Rodriguez had 156 in 2007 when he was probably the best player in baseball. Um, yeah, he won an MVP award. So, so I'm gonna go with that if you lower it it's if you lower it to 150 it's kind of like it's kind of like the 22 to 21 win difference it expands the pool quite a bit Ben do you hear this sound yes I was about to ask you what that was i have no idea i think it might be a raccoon i don't know it's

very near me though it's terrifyingly close to me i have no idea what it is is it i'm looking i mean i'm sitting in the dark i'm i'm this is just awful i'm wondering whether there's i'm sitting up against the back of the house. It's possible that it's a raccoon underneath my house. Hmm. Which I guess would be not too scary because it's not going to get me, but gosh.

I don't think it's going to get you regardless of where it is, but it could be above me, though. It could just be waiting to jump. Yeah, that would be more nerve-wracking. 155 is definitely a number that I would consider a line. 155, maybe 160. 160 seems like elite. Again, I think I probably overdrew where I thought the line would be to be 100% confident.

So I was going to say something like 195 or something or something just absurd um to be that you know to be sure that it's the best the the I guess with the um I guess the trickier question is like what would the spread have to be between two players for you to be let's say 98% confident that player A is better than player B. Uh-huh. Because you could certainly imagine. Knowing nothing else. Yeah, knowing nothing else. Just the lineup order.

Exactly. To be 98% confident, I would say probably like 60 a 60 RBI gap yeah I mean in 2000 Coors Field that would not get you close to enough I mean I'm sure that Andre Skolaraga drove in 150 in a year

where I could find 10 players who were better than him yeah he did but 2000 Coors doesn't exist so i'm not really considering it um yeah galarraga drove in exactly 150 in 1996 i mean like what did michael bourne michael bourne was like something like a six win last year, and I doubt he drove in more than, what, 45, 50? 57. 57. So, you know, maybe in this day and age,

117 would not be out of range for a player who is less than a 6-4 player, though. No. I think that you're probably... I think to be 98% sure you might actually need something like a 110 RBI gap. Or like a... You could...

Maybe like 100. I don't know. I wouldn't go lower than 90. Well, I like to live life on the edge. And probably for wins total i would probably want something like a like a 13 or a 14 win gap yeah having having seen cliff lee in the last few years and and other pitchers like that probably yeah that sounds reasonable all All right. RBI. Wins in RBI are very insidious statistics. It's tough to eradicate them because it would be easy to eradicate them if they were a little less correlated with performance. But they're just enough correlated with performance that it's hard to talk people out of them.

correlated with performance that it's hard to talk people out of them because if you look at a leaderboard for any any year it's almost always um the best player or one of the very best players and then it's hard to make that argument that it doesn't reflect performance when all the people at the top of the leaderboard are generally very good. It's frustrating. Yeah. I don't know if we have any more, but if we do, let's make it. Yeah, let's do the last. I'm terrified. Okay.

All right. We'll answer this before the raccoon gets you. This one comes from Doug. I get that generally speaking, relievers wouldn't be as effective as starters because they work much harder for a shorter duration. This is evidenced by Roldis Chapman throwing 101 for one inning, but probably around 94 to 95 if he were to pitch as a starter. Mariano Rivera has pretty much thrown around 92 miles per hour for his entire career, basically just using his cutter. He is one of the few pitchers I know of anyway who exclusively throws a here-it-is-hit-it pitch that isn't a 100 mph fastball. So my question is, not necessarily could Mariano Rivera be a starter,

but is it possible that if someone with slightly better arm strength could learn Rivera's cutter, we could see a starting pitcher with Rivera's numbers, given that the pitch is only thrown at 92 mph? starting pitcher with Rivera's numbers, given that the pitch is only thrown at 92 miles per hour. Seeing as Rivera isn't the classic, I throw it as hard as I possibly can for an inning reliever. It seems doable if someone else could learn the cutter like that. It is interesting because Rivera has probably at this point faced some batters like, I don't know, 25, 30 times?

I would guess more than that let me yeah i can check quickly um but but but can you check more quickly than i can check uh but he hasn't faced them more than once in a game which is probably the more relevant statistic, I would think. Well, I guess one answer to the question is that... 50-30 times he has faced Manny Ramirez. Yeah, yeah. I'm getting there. Yeah, I mean, one thing is that just because... Well, I guess Rivera throws 92, but presumably if he were a starter, he wouldn't throw 92, right?

Right. Yeah, so he's saying someone who could do that. Uh-huh. But then whoever, wait. So, yeah, wait. But then if he could do that, then he would throw even harder. Oh, so basically he's saying if there's a guy who threw 95 as a reliever and could cut it like Rivera. Yeah, well, he's saying if someone could throw Rivera's cutter

exactly like Rivera throws it, but as a starter. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Ray Durham. Oh. 26 played appearances against Mariano Rivera. 0 for 26. Never reached base. And only three strikeouts.

And only three strikeouts. That's crazy. That is crazy. Wow. I'm looking down this list of numbers, and it's like 234, 189, 353, 000. Double take. Crazy. Yeah.

I wonder if that's got to be a record right i bet no player has faced any no non-pitcher has faced any pitcher more times without getting a hit i'm gonna just stake my reputation saying gotta be a record as a i would say as an expert on fun facts this fun fact feels historic to me i am my my considered opinion is that this fun fact feels historic to me. My considered opinion is that this fun fact has great value. I agree with that. I'm of the opinion that it is not the most hitless plate appearances any hitter has had. I'm always surprised by how often things happen over and over in baseball and how nothing that I initially think is special is special.

I feel like the Mariano Rivera question perhaps needs more thought. But I guess, I don't know. I mean, do you think, I guess the question is, do you think that we'll see a one-pitch pitcher dominate the way that Rivera dominated as a starter? Do you think that's a fair summation of the question? Like has Rivera opened up the door to what we think a pitcher could Rivera dominated as a starter? Do you think that's a fair summation of the question? Like has Rivera opened up the door to what we think a pitcher could do even as a starter? Yeah, I guess, yeah, that's an okay way to interpret it. I don't know whether he's saying that the starter has to be as effective as Rivera on

an inning per inning basis, because that seems impossible. Or I don't know whether he's saying just that a guy can get by with one pitch, which, I mean, Bartolo Colon kind of gets by with one pitch. He kind of does, yeah. And, yeah, well, it's interesting. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I don't really know. I wonder what Rivera would have done as a starter.

I mean, we know that he wasn't a very good starter coming up, but he wasn't, he, he had some interesting, uh, you know, things to him as a prospect and he didn't throw a cutter when he was a starter. So it would have, it'd be great if you could go to one of those other universes where he was kept as a starter and learn the cutter. Um, cause yeah, there's probably, we, I don't know, I think we've got a lot to learn about how to utilize pitches. It seems to me that probably, I think it is my personal hypothesis that pitch mixing is overrated and that we're going to move further and further away from it.

So I guess that sort of answers the question. I think that particularly with starters, we're going to move further and further away from it. So I guess that sort of answers the question. I think that particularly with starters, we're going to move further and further away from pitch mixing and see a lot more guys who are essentially one-slash-two pitch pitchers. Is that just because guys go through the lineup fewer times now? I think it's because their pitches are all much more unhittable. I think there's a lot of guys right now who can throw the same pitch 20 times in a row and it can't get caught up to.

Yeah, but I wonder whether you could do that going through a lineup multiple times. Yeah, I think we're getting closer to that point, and I think that pitches will continue to get even better. Interesting. Okay, you should get yourself safely inside and do some research on Ray Durham and hitless streaks against pitchers. Okay. All right, we'll be back tomorrow with another show.