Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2404: A (Bases) Loaded Question

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Aaron Judge having been teammates with both Taylor Ward and Tyler Wade, a revelation about the late-season health of Elly De La Cruz, and the hidden value of multiposition players such as Mauricio Dubón, then (38:22) answer listener emails about the terms “baseball lifer” and “double-barrel action,” when […]

Otani, the Stap Place, the beef forest are so shweets, the avi pettance, and super, a fete, a fete, I think that it's effectively cool, I think that it's effectively wild, effectively savage Affectible Sauvage Hello and welcome to episode 2404 of Effectively Wild A FanGrafts Baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I'm joined by Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, Ben, how are you on my first take? No one will ever know if that was true or not, except for me. and maybe Shane. They'll never know. I'm doing okay. I'm a little less stuffed up than you sound for now. I don't even have children, you know? Like, what is this?

What is this? What's your excuse? What's this about? I don't know. I don't even know. I go and I be social one time and now I sound like. Oh, well, that's your mistake maybe is socializing. I should have been at home.

It's one way to stay healthy and safe. Sure. Lead a happy, fulfilling life. I got an email from. Friend of the show. We have friends. I have friends. One of them, Dan Hirsch, who works for baseball reference and sometimes answers our stat blast requests, he emailed to say, I may not be the first person to write to you about this. He was, in fact, but I was listening to the latest effectively wild and enjoyed the conversation about Aaron Judge and Tyler Wade's relationship and the confusion

with Taylor Ward. I just wanted to point out that Aaron Judge went to Fresno State with Taylor Ward. So he basically went from playing with Taylor Ward in 2013 to playing his first professional game in 2014 with Tyler Wade. And Dan says, I have to wonder if Aaron Judge has ever mixed them up before. So as we established last time, he and Tyler Wade are besties. And he evidently has a preexisting relationship with Taylor Ward as well. So do you think he has ever stumbled or stammered or had a minor mix-up? I'm trying to think, so you have Taylor and Tyler, and you could shorten them to like Tay or Ty,

but you probably aren't, you can't use them interchangeably. I think the way to get around to this, if your judge, is to just call them both buddy, and then you don't have to worry about it, right? Like, you're just like, hey, buddy. And he is your buddy, you know?

And in Tyler Wade's case, He's very good buddy. Yeah, he's one of his best friends. It might be a bit awkward if he always called one of his best buds buddy and never referred to him by name. Well, sure. And he may well, you know, have it sorted. I was able to keep like 14 different Ashley's straight. Now, I only had to call them Ashley.

But I remembered that, you know, I was like, oh, Ashley. I know which one you are. I knew all of their last names and I never got them wrong. You know, we think about how many baseball player names you know, Ben. You know so many baseball players' names and can recognize them, like, on-site. Sometimes when they're only in, like, quarter profile. So I offer that because, sure, big league broadcasters who also famously know so many baseball player's names and can recognize them in quarter profile do goof these two guys, but they don't, they don't really know them, right? They don't really know them.

But judge knows them. So if he, if he struggles, I bet he relies on like buddy, pal, brother. Baseball players love to call each other brother. They love to be like, hey, brother. They love to do that. Brother, coach. Or just bro. Or bro.

Yeah. But I think a lot of them do go for the full elongated brother, which isn't to say that they're all tall. But they call each other brother. That's nice. I think that's nice. It feels like a, you know, a counter to the male loneliness epidemic, really, is what it feels like. I've always wished that someone could credibly call me coach, and they can't. I don't have any rights to that nickname.

I'm no one's coach, you know, an editor's a different role. It's not the same as a coach. And so I... It's a mentor of sorts, but... Yeah, but it's not the same thing. So all of that to say, I bet he gets it right most of the... the time. And also, I bet that, you know, you're, you forgive things from your very best friend that you might not forgive from anybody else. And so I bet if he goofs it, um, that Tyler,

Tyler's not my best friend. So I have to have some intentionality here. You know, I have to be straight about things. But I bet that Tyler is forgiving. Do we, know, if at all, how much time Tyler and Taylor have spent together? That's what I wondered whether they've ever hung out as a group. I don't know. Did they ever overlap on a roster, Tyler and Taylor? I don't think so. No. But they're at least, they have a mutual friend in common. So maybe they've associated at some point. But yeah, that's sort of what I said to Dan that, well, if I ever speak to Aaron Judge, this will be the first question I ask him.

But I think it is a little different when you know the people involved personally, because it's just, in our minds, they're in the same category. They're just baseball player. No, they did overlap. They overlapped in 2022 on the Angels. Weren't they both Angels in 2022? Ward and Wade, yeah, but not Judge, right? No, not Judge. Yes.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Right. I assume that if you are one of these people, you probably don't get confused. Well, no, but I just mean that, like, I wonder what their relationship was to each other while they were, they being Taylor and Tyler. Right. Oh, God. We need, you know, I'm torn because on the one hand, there are so many wonderful human names across so many different cultures, but also we maybe need more names. Because, like, the existence of Taylor and Tyler suggests a lack of imagination than I think does not.

speak well of us as like a species. Anyway, I wonder what Taylor and Tyler's relationship was like while they were both on the Angels, because that was the source of... I wonder what Taylor and Tyler talked about. That's a tongue twister. Yeah, maybe they talked about both being friends with Aaron Judge. That's one way you can break the ice. If you have a mutual friend, just talk about your mutual friendship, and then maybe you can parlay that into being friends with each other. That can be dangerous, though, because if you're not actually mutual friends, and one of them is like, I don't like that guy, and the other one's like, he's my best friend. then you become enemies because you're like, well, I barely know you.

And broadcaster, that's right, because broadcasters mix them up in part because they had, they were on the team at the same time. You know, that was part of, that was, that was the root of the whole. That was sort of the origin story, maybe, yeah. I remember things better when I don't sound like I have cotton balls up my nose. I think for the people involved, I'm sure they can keep them straight. I'm sure Aaron Judge doesn't actually get them confused. If he does, it's purely a pronunciation issue that could probably be a,

excused, but probably he keeps them separate because he knows them personally, whereas for us, they sort of occupy the same bucket in our head, the same sort of headspace. They're just big league baseball players whom we don't know personally. We have watched and studied their stats, and that's all we know. So they are in a sense interchangeable, but probably not for Aaron Judge. But my point, my point was that if Taylor and Tyler were friends with each other while on the angels, then if Aaron Judge does accidentally call Tyler, Taylor, I bet that Tyler minds less because he's like, ah, my good buddy, Taylor, you know? Like, that's why I'm curious about what their relationship was like to each other,

because it's, it offers a smoothing of the way. Yeah, that could be, although if you're the bestie of Aaron Judge, if you're Tyler Wade and he is mixing you up with Taylor Ward who he may be played with in college but doesn't know as well or isn't as close to then maybe you take that personally maybe that's sort of an insult as if you can't distinguish between us

yeah I don't rightly know I'll have to ask Aaron Judge at some point I will probably be the first person to ask him if he can keep them straight maybe so we'll see what he says I'll report back when you're there asking him that will you also go to some

of the pitchers and ask them about what it feels like to give up a home run because I always wanted to ask them that but I always feel I'm like not in a clubhouse very often so it feels like a it feels like a personal thing to bring to a big leader who you don't know well right

and like how do you time that question do you do it when they I think you probably do it when you have when they haven't given up a home run in a very long time that's the type I feel like I'm sounding worse as we go right like if you're like hey I know that you don't remember what this feeling is like

because it's been such a long time you can cast your mind back to the last time this happens. Yeah, that's a tactful time to bring enough. Yes, I'm sure it doesn't feel great. But I have at times at least heard a pitcher express appreciation for a true bomb hit against them where they're just like, yeah, he got me like I had to turn around and stare at that thing to see how far it went,

which I always appreciate that. There's almost a pride, it seems like, at times when the pitcher contributes to a ball that's hit that far because they do make some contribution. The pitch's speed does make a minor contribution to the ball's exit speed. And so you can feel like you had something to do with that, too, even if it kind of wet against you. So, yes, I will add this to my list of questions for Aaron Judge, and I'll ask him if he calls

people brother, which actually reminds me of Hulk Hogan more than anything, which is not the most positive association, but I see why your sentiment. It does suggest some tenderness. Here's another story that suggests some tenderness, although in this case, in the form of a quadriceps strain. You know that I'm kind of fascinated by hidden injuries that we find out about after the fact, or perhaps never find out about. And we got some insight into one just this past week, courtesy of Cincinnati Reds, Pobo Nick Kral, who made a disclosure of sorts about Ellie de la Cruz and what he was dealing with. late in the season. And if you will recall, we talked about this, and I think maybe even speculated about this in mid-September, episode 2373, we talked about how Ellie had been in an

extended slump and how he just hadn't been playing like himself. And I didn't go back and listen, but I think we may have at least raised the possibility that perhaps he was not 100% physically. That turns out to have been the case. So, So Kral first described this injury as a partial tear of the quad on the Reds Hot Stove League radio program, and that kind of made the rounds because partial tear sounds scary. And then the day after he clarified kind of that it was a quad strain, which is the same. That's what a partial tear is. It's a strain. It's a tear.

It's sort of the same thing. But strain doesn't sound quite as serious. But this is something he was dealing with on the radio on Wednesday. day, he said, if you look at his year last year, and I think a lot of people don't know this, at the end of the year, like toward the end of July, he was dealing with a partial torn quad. And he has been rehabbing. He was at the ballpark today. He's been rehabbing this whole offseason.

To his credit, he played every day. He tried to grind through it. He tried to play through it. If you look at his defensive numbers, he made 12 errors through roughly toward the end of July when he got hurt. And then he made 14 from the end of July on. He was trying to play through it, but he wasn't able to do it as successfully as possible. And that shows up certainly in the defensive stats and also in his offensive stats too.

And Carl said, I do think that you look at where he was up until that point where he got hurt and he was definitely better defensively. He just didn't finish the way he started because there was even some talk of, will he still be a shortstop? And the Reds are trying to quiet that down by saying that he was not his healthy self late. in the year. So don't judge him by that stretch of performance. And offensively, too, I don't know exactly where to draw the line. I don't know if there was a particular day that we can identify when this happened. But if we just look through the end of July, he had a 129 WRC plus and 29 steals and 4.2 war. And thereafter, over the last two months of the regular season, 66 WRC plus. Eight steals, point two were.

So he was essentially a replacement level player while he was dealing with this quad strade, evidently. And I'm always fascinated by this because I continue to think that if we could perfectly account for the player's physical state at all times, and that could mean any number of things, that could be just how well-rested you are and a serious injury or a nagging injury or even psychological stuff, just that you're dealing. with off the field. If we could account for that, then a lot of what looks like inexplicable or random variation in player performance would turn out to be pretty explicable. We would just be able to say, oh, yeah, he was dealing with this thing that made him X percent of what he usually is. And if we had that perfect information, I'm sure that we could really improve projection systems and we could really ramp up how well we think we understand baseball, but that knowledge is not public most of the time. And he didn't go on the IL, right? So it's not as if someone

looking in the future. It's not as if a projection system can really take this into account. Because if you're on the IL, if you miss some time, then there's a way to incorporate that into data. That is data. You could factor that in. But if you're playing through it and you're playing every day the way that Ellie was, there's just, there's no way really to account for that cleanly. And it's something that could easily be forgotten if you just didn't see this quote or, you know, if we're talking decades ago or something and you're not doing the research, you're just looking at someone's stat line and you're not digging into what was said about them at the time, then you'll probably never come across this. And you'll never know and you'll

never be able to explain why that was. And we lose out on a lot of knowledge that way. And And this is, I'm just talking about injuries that the team is aware of. Of course, there's the whole other genre of injuries that the team doesn't even know about. We talked about the Sean Murphy of Atlanta injury. That was an unpleasant surprise for his team when he decided to come forward about that as well. So there's like two layers of secrecy. There's the layer where the team is aware and the trainers are helping the player manage it and everything. But it's just not public knowledge, at least not until after the fact.

And then there's the double secret probation kind of knowledge where no one knows maybe ever. And the player just takes that to the grave, basically. So I just, I wish, you know, I don't want to be like invasive of anyone's privacy here. But I wish that we had that information at times because I think it would really aid our understanding of player performance. Well, and I don't mean to call you out, Ben. But if I recall our conversation about Ellie correctly, like, you, you. Even in the context of that conversation, because he hadn't had an IL placement, I had to remind you that he had been dealing with lower body stuff and that that might account for part of his performance swoon. So it really can obscure what's going on.

I mean, I can offer some comfort to Reds fans that his projections for next year still look pretty sterling. But it does sort of, you know, we forget these things so quickly. and then our understanding of guys can become unnecessarily modeled, which is part of why the Sean Murphy of it all was like particularly inexplicable. Because I'm like, don't you want people to know that you're not playing as well as you could in part because you're injured? Like, don't you want that not, I know they don't like to offer excuses. But like, it does fundamentally change your understanding of a guy. It's a good excuse, you know.

And I mean, setting aside just the getting the treatment that you actually need. and hopefully being able to get over an injury more quickly. Yeah, very odd, very odd thing. And sometimes I think guys in a way that isn't meant to be, you know, them engaged in, like, injury subterfuge, I think sometimes they fail to appreciate just how serious the injury they're dealing with is, right? And then they go and, you know, what they thought was, well, this is just the way my body feels during a punishing marathon of a season,

and it's like, oh, I got to get this cleaned up. I love cleaned up as like, as a way of describing off-season surgeries. And it's like, oh, we had to get the knee cleaned up a little bit. And I'm like, there was a thing from outside your body, inside your body. Even if it was orthoscopic, like, it was outside your body. And then it was inside there. And I feel like cleaned up doesn't really do justice to that as a notion. Cleaned up.

Yeah, most of us would consider that. More involved than a clean up. I love that they talk about clean. They talk about like the inside of their knee or their elbow, the way that I talk about. Like, I don't know. I don't know if this ever happens to you with Grumkin, but does, does Grumman rub against stuff to make it smell like her? Does she do that? No, not really.

Okay. So cats do this constantly. And then you look around one day and you're like, why are all the corners in my house dirty? You know? Why are all, they have this grime? Yeah. And then you're like, oh, I got to wipe, I got to wipe down the grime with an all-purpose cleaner. They talk about getting their knees mildly operated on the way that I talk about like dealing with cat gunk. Yeah. It was arthroscopic. It wasn't invasive. They didn't have to fully open me up. It's just, you know, routine little scope.

I'm like, sure, you're not like a, you're not like a medical dummy in the Victorian era. But otherwise, I think we'd still call this. just surgery, brother. I don't know whether the specifics of Ellie's injury had even been reported at the time. You're right that there was some understanding that he was dealing with a lower body injury of some sort, but it wasn't widely known. Maybe Reds fans

were aware of it. It wasn't really common knowledge and I went back and... See, I don't recall either. And I'm the one who was like, hey, I think that we probably need to mention that he's hurt a little bit. Yeah. And I look back at his roto wire notes where they typically document any physical ailment that a player is dealing with. And there wasn't

anything on Ellie during that whole stretch. So it wasn't specifically or widely reported or known exactly what was happening with him. Another thing I wonder is now having seen how that played out and how he was able to play through it, but not well, would they do it again? Would he do it again? Would the Reds do it again? The Reds did barely manage to squeak into the wild card round. So success, I guess they got where they wanted.

to go at the end of the regular season, but he wasn't really helping them over those last two months. I mean, he was in the lineup. He was in the field, but he was a replacement level player and maybe worse than that, depending on where we start the arbitrary end points or beginning points. And so I don't know that the Reds were really better off with Ellie playing. I haven't really done a deep dive into the Red's Jet chart to try to figure out who would have subbed in for him, and then what else that would have done. But in theory, at least, if someone's playing at replacement level, you should be able to replace that production, more or less, with its equivalent.

And also, sometimes if you're playing through it, now, I don't know if the nature of his injury was such that he needs a whole offseason to heal. Right, yeah. Taking a week or two or three off wouldn't have made any difference. But seeing how it played out, I do wonder whether there would have been any benefit to just sitting him for August. let's say, bring him back in September, maybe he would have been closer to his usual self, or just sitting him entirely.

It's like a fine line, because when it's the best player on your team, which Ellie is, then yeah, you want him in there. And even if his performance is compromised, you figure, well, he's still probably going to be better than our second string option.

But maybe not. If you're so compromised that you're playing at replacement level, maybe it's better for you to sit. So I wonder, in retrospect, if they could do it over again whether they would have handled that any differently and whether he would have

because, you know, that puts a little damper on his stats and could affect his future earnings in some way, potentially. So, yeah, I wonder because it's hard to navigate that in real time. You don't have perfect information about how this person's going to play.

And whether it'll make the injury worse, you know, like you're lacking so much. Yeah. You know, we've seen that sometimes. I mean, the Yankees, right, having Anthony Volpe play for several months with a shoulder issue that certainly seems to have hampered his performance, right? And had to be addressed after the regular season. And a lot of that time, he was not playing well at all. So, yeah, there's kind of a fine line.

And, you know, Volpe is not Ellie either. No. So, like, Ellie, you figure, oh, you know, 80% of Ellie or something, that's still a pretty good player. Volpe maybe not quite so much. Yeah, 80% of Volpe is like maybe not a big leaguer. Yeah, so it's hard to navigate. But, yeah, if they had the information that we now have and looking back with hindsight, I wonder whether they would have done anything differently too.

Well, speaking of injury-related surprises, I have a banger of a revelation for you that just came across the transom. Are you ready, Ben? Extra, extra, extra, extra. Okay. Grayson Rodriguez went on foul territory. That's not the extra part. And he was talking about the experience of the trade.

And he offered some insight into how it felt to be dealt and hearing from the guys in the Orioles Clubhouse and how nice it is kind of cool feeling. He described the angels wanting him badly enough. And then he gave some insight into what the doctors have said about his lat injuries and there being bone spurs in his elbow. And it's like bone speaking up. Clean up.

Right? People talk about bone spurs, and they're like, oh, I got to get the elbow cleaned up. And I'm like, you had, you had extra bone. And now you have less, 100% less of that extra bone. That's not cleaning up. The Goldilocks bone zone, just the right perfect amount of bone. Right. And the lat having to work harder because of the bone spurs and then slowing down his arm.

And so, okay, maybe brighter days are ahead for Grayson. Except the angels are just taking all this on faith because according to a number of people who were watching his failed territory interview. And this is not a direct quote. This is like a paraphrase of what he said, but I'm reading a blue sky post from Andy Kaska, who says, Grayson Rodriguez said he didn't go through a pre-trade physical assessment from the Angels.

The deal happened as is. But Rodriguez said he's ready for spring training. I want to laugh for a thousand years. Can you imagine not requiring a pre-train? trade medical on Grayson Rodriguez. Can you imagine? And I understand, as we discussed last time, they're buying positive variants here, right? That's the thing they are acquiring is Grayson Rodriguez and his positive potential variance as like a front of the rotation arm who happens to have been hurt for a long time. But don't you want to know if he like has an elbow at all?

Don't you want to, aren't you curious about like the state of the lat and the elbow and the the whole shebang. I would have expected that he would undergo a physical. I called the angel savvy, and this is my punishment for that. My hubris is being punished with the revelation. Now, maybe the angels will come out and say, well, we exchanged MRIs or whatever. We don't know. Yeah, right.

That's what I was going to say. Not that I'm inclined to give the angels the benefit of the doubt when it comes to medical issues or any baseball-related issues, but it's possible that he had a recent physical, right? Maybe he had just like an end-of-season exit interview physical, and they were just like, well, that suffices for us, probably. Sure. Sure. I would even go so far as to say, that's likely what happened,

and that the angels were like, well, he probably hasn't thrown very much between now and then and doesn't, like, ride dirt bikes so far as we know, so this is fine. I'm sure that that's likely what happened, but can we live in the world where there was just no medical exchange at all because it's funny? It is funny. Because the possibility is funny. Or they were just like, well, we could have our own people check them out, but you know what? Probably the other team's better than we are. So let's just defer to them. I doubt the interest would have that kind of self-awareness. But yeah. Wow. I know that this is, it's not charitable of me. to enjoy this potential. It's not nice, you know?

Because, like, Angels fans have been through a lot. And candidly, the guys on the Angels have been through a lot. It's not generous of me. But I am sick, and so I get to have a little treat. I get to have a little spite treat. Just a little one. Just a little, only a little one, Ben. Just a little spike treat.

I get a little spite treat. It's funny because the Orioles historically have been a team that has dealt harshly with players after physicals, right? Like, they signed Jeff Hoffman and then unsigned him last offseason after they saw something in a physical that evidently didn't bother the Blue Jays as much. And that was kind of a thing with the Orioles going back for more than a decade at this point, you know, over multiple regimes, maybe. So I don't even know. Periscity, you might say. I'm not sure if that's really a hallmark of them or it just so happened to be the case over a period.

But, yeah, they have been particularly tough. when it comes to scrutinizing medicals. So I don't know. Maybe the angels just felt like, well, if the Orioles say he's okay, then we'll take their word because they're the ones who tend to back out of deals. But yeah. Did they say that, though? Is that what they said?

I wouldn't really expect that the angels did the greatest due diligence in any case. So we can laugh until more information comes out and probably vindicates them. Again, I want to make clear that my assumption in this moment is that there were some medicals exchanged as part of the transaction and i mean i guess you know when when you acquire a player you you probably just automatically get access to whatever their medical records are right and see stuff but and so i want to i i want to be clear that i am not believing the funniest possible version of this story but i am enjoying the funniest possible version of this story yeah i sound insane. They sound so stuffy.

I like that description about the deal happening as is. It's as if you're in some like antique store or like secondhand store. There's like a chip on the bottom of the one of the legs. Yeah, there's like a sticker that just says like as is. It's like that's how Grace and Rodriguez came. Yeah, you can deal with restaining it yourself. Yeah. Like can we get a discount on him? Because he missed so much stuff up. Everything must go. It's just as is. You know, you're not going to the final price, final offer. in whatever condition you find to.

Our least expired and we have to move inventory before we move. Yeah. Yeah. Like that. There haven't been many transactions since we last talk transactions. Atlanta did make a couple. They resigned Reissel Iglesias. And they also made a more minor trade than the Grayson Rodriguez trade.

They traded Nick Allen to Houston for Mauricio de Bonn. Yes. And that is interesting. only insofar as it lends itself to a point that I like to make about multi-position players because sometimes people will argue that war doesn't completely capture the value of a multi-position player. Sometimes they say this about Otani and being a two-way player, but sometimes it's just about a player who plays a bunch of different positions.

and there's an argument about is there some greater value that's not captured by the pure just kind of breaking it down by position and putting in your positional adjustments and looking at the just the playing time at each position but something beyond that because it gives you options right

there's optionality as the business buzzword goes right and you have multiple ways that you can construct your team, your roster. And I thought about that with Dubon because Alex Anthopoulos, Braves Pobo, was talking about this acquisition. And they've wanted Dubon for a while, it seems like this is not the first time

that they've tried to trade for him. And Anthoplas said the appeal with Dubon is that he can play anywhere. He's a true Swiss Army knife. He protects you at a lot of spots, and he's a good defender at almost every spot. He's a high-energy guy, a great teammate, and has great speed,

great bat to ball contact, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously, he didn't hit particularly well this past year, though I guess he hit better than Nick Allen, but that's a pretty low bar to clear. And they aren't sure exactly where or how they are going to use Yibon. And that, I think, was interesting because Anthoppa said, I did tell him that I don't know what his role is going to be yet. The fact that we have the flexibility to do all sorts of things with him is good. We'll just see how the rest of the offseason goes.

That's true. He means purely in a baseball context on the field. Get your minds out of the gutter. We'll just see how the rest of the offseason goes. I asked him tonight about how comfortable he is there. I guess this is at shortstop. Our underlying data on him at shortstop is good and strong, but we think he's good at second, good at third,

good in the corners, and can play center field. We like the contact and the speed as well. So he's just a good piece. We've had a bunch of injuries over the last few years. So he's just a great fit for us. And you can understand, I guess, with a team that has had the injuries that Atlanta's had over the past couple of years, why it might be comforting. It might be a nice security blanket to have someone like DuPont, who, unless he gets hurt, then whoever else gets hurt, unless it's Sean Murphy, unless it's a catcher, then you can sort of just stick him there and he can do a competent job. And he went on to say, I would say his role will be dependent on what else we do this winter.

I have no idea what the roster's going to look like. come spring training. I've no idea what the rest of it will look like. It's crazy thing for a gym. Springer. Yeah, no idea. Just a complete mystery to me. Yeah, some idea.

Like a lot of players are under contract. I hope you have some idea. Famously, a lot of Atlanta Braves are under contract for a long time. For a long time. Knowing he has the flexibility and the athleticism and the ability to do all that stuff, it just gives us so many options this winter. So that is something that I think we can't really account for and nor probably should something like war. But I think there is value to that in that you have a

player like that. It does give you a bit of an edge maybe as you're going through your offseason and you're figuring out other signings and trades to make. You just have a number of different paths available to you because you can slot him in in so many places that it gives you the option to basically just say, well, if we get a good deal on someone at this position, then Dubon can play over there. But if we get a good deal on someone who plays this position, okay, then we just slot Dubon in over there. And it probably gives you a leg up when it comes to your off-season maneuvering. So it's sort of like value that accrues, I guess during the season,

but mostly during the hot stove season because it gives you maybe a better chance to construct a better roster, even if it's not really reflected in how that particular player performs. I like this move for them a lot. I do worry that they will just sort of be satisfied with him as their everyday guy is short. He hits lefties pretty well, but the splits are fairly dramatic between, you know, him versus lefties versus righties. There's just, you know, disturbing precedent for them being willing to go with a really crummy bat at short, you know, look at Nick Allen. but I do think that he is a really good clean fit for them because he can play everywhere

and all the places that he plays well are places where they had a starter go down for some amount of time last season and so the idea that you can just pop him out to an outfield corner or you can start him at short or what have you I think has to be really appealing if you're Anthopolis I think that we capture the value of those guys good enough but I'm willing to concede the notion that we are leaving some percentage of their value on the field. Because it's not like they don't get credit for playing at those positions. Yeah, no, it's, yeah, I think they get appropriate credit for their direct contributions. It's just that there's kind of an indirect value that they provide to a pobo by letting them chart a number of courses through an offseason.

And he was, despite having an 80 WRC plus last year, he had 2.2 fan graphs were in 133 games, 398 plate appearances, because he was so good in the field. At least, Stackass fielding run value had him as the seventh best fielder or tied for the seventh best fielding run value in baseball, despite not playing a full season's worth of innings. And despite playing a whole bunch of positions, it's just pretty. impressive because, yeah, he played 961 innings and everyone else above him at least played more innings and in some cases many more innings than he did. And, you know, there's some small sample variants and all of this, of course. But yeah, he kind of, you know, it's not like the typical utility guy who, sure, he can play a bunch of positions, but is he actually good there? Good at any of those. Yeah. But he actually seems to be good pretty much.

everywhere. So if he hits, then that's a bonus. But yeah, it's just being able to kind of cover your asset that many defensive positions. I think that's valuable. And there is an aspect to that that we don't capture really and nor should we because that's not really what war is designed to do. It's not really what it's for. Yeah. But there is a little extra something there, I think. Yeah. And then, you know, on the flip side of that, just briefly, further evidence that we are in like a new era of Astros baseball where they're like, yes, we will take the, as you said, if you think that Maricio Dubon's back can be kind of like, look out for Nick Allen, although, you know, he's going to cost less money. So that seems like

part of the appeal. And, you know, they have other thumpers. Jim Crane's like, save me some money. Go save me some money in arbitration. It is particularly impressive to rack up that kind of fielding value while just constantly switching positions like that too because he played every outfield spot left right and center he played second he played short he played third he played first

even so all those different angles and gloves and mechanics and everything it's hard to do that and still be elite everywhere so he won a gold glove seems to have been well deserved yes

I feel like we you know we talk a lot about the the DH penalty and sort of how it manifests and how real it is for like a guy who's like really a DH versus someone who's like cycling through there and so and we've talked about some of the nuances there but I don't think that we as an industry maybe talk enough about the potential challenges of switching a betwixt in between positions like that and it's not just packing although it does involve more packing because of the gloves you need different gloves you got a whole

you probably have a whole bag full of gloves yeah I would think so yeah all right well I've got some emails we have a big backlog of emails because we basically haven't done a genuine email show in a long time what with the playoffs and then all the early offseason

business so we'll probably have more emails next week and by all means keep them coming podcast of Fangraphs.com but we can do a few and we have some that are of sort of pedantic or definitional nature. And this one comes from Jacob, and it's a question about the term baseball lifer. So Jacob says, I am a twins fan, and I've been hearing Derek Shelton be termed a

baseball lifer. He's only 55 years old, and if all goes well, he has many happy years of life ahead of him. So it seemed to me pretty young to call him a lifer. In your estimation, what is the youngest someone can be and still be called a baseball lifer? On the flip side, what's the oldest a potential manager can be who's still thought of as a rising star? Yeah, I don't know because a manager, it's hard to say because managers can be in their 30s. They can be in their 70s. Who knows? There've been people at all ages of the, or all ends of the age spectrum who've had some success in that role.

Though I guess you probably wouldn't call them a rising star. I don't think beyond your, I don't know, 40s probably for a manager, I would guess. maybe it has to do with experience more so than age so it's probably dependent on the person but yeah baseball lifer that is that is a term you tend to hear applied to the the real grizzled gray beards wizened you know just like put half a century into the game and all sorts of roles so is Derek Shelton too young at 55 to be a lifer or or how young can you be in and be a lifer. I don't think he's too young to be a lifer.

And part because of how we age adjust our understanding of old in baseball. He is old in baseball terms. I mean, he's not like an old person. Yeah. Not an old manager, really, either. Right. But he is old in a baseball sense, right? When you're like, oh, my God, this 34-year-old, they're probably going to fall apart rather than play another big league season.

So I think that he's sufficiently, uh, a veteran to be called a lifer. He has, you know, a patina. Like, if he were a cast iron pan, he'd have a patina. Yeah, he'd have a little verdigris, little rust, little tear. Look at you, the non-cook being like, let me boast over a vertigree. Well, yeah, I don't know about verdigree from cooking. I guess I know about it from buildings, probably.

It's, you know, when the copper turns green. Yeah. I don't, you know, I don't know. with copper as a cook brass or bronze or whatever it's too expensive

apart from anything else copper you are like a pittita on your you're cast starred but you don't want rust that would be

that's problem that you need to rehabilitate your yeah anyway I can hear your your cold advancing in real time

the funny thing is and I have I hate I hate to say say this because I feel like the monkeys paw will immediately curl. I don't feel bad. I sound bonkers, but I don't feel bad. But the last time I said that, the next morning, I woke up with like a 102 degree fever. And it was like, I guess I'm not doing my job for two days of the wildcard round. So yeah, well, nervous. I hope that's not the case this time. But yeah, yeah,

it is striking. When you when you did the intro, it was like, oh, I can kind of here that there's a little bit of stuffiness maybe and now you're like the stereotypical can't breathe through my nose I was I was trying to not talk very much yeah well maybe that was a good idea you can go back on vocal rest

as soon as we're finished here but uh anyway technically I think almost every major league baseball player or person is a baseball lifer because they've spent their life in baseball like I'm just I'm on Derek Shelton's Wikipedia

page, and it notes that he got his first set of catchers equipment at the age of three. So, yeah, and his father coached baseball, and so he played from the time he was a his entire life. He's been in baseball. He's been playing baseball. He's been coaching baseball. So by that definition, he is a baseball lifer. And most big leaguers, even if they're young, big leaguers, they've spent the vast majority of their lives playing baseball, right? So is it more about that or is it a combination of what percentage? Yeah, I guess

it is, is it about percentage or is it about bulk? Is it about just your, your counting stats, essentially, just how many years or is it the percentage of years you've lived? And I think it's, it's generally the former, right? Like I think when people talk about this, it's, you're not usually describing a young man as a baseball life. even if they have spent the same percentage of their life, essentially. I guess the older you are, the greater the percentage if you stay in baseball of your life will have been in baseball. But still, if you're 25 and you start playing when you were three, that's the overwhelming

majority of your life has been in baseball. I think you're right. Part of it is like what are you trying to put the emphasis on, right? you're trying to um when you're you're talking about the the person in questions biography and when you're when you're a very young man sure you have been playing ball for like a huge percentage of your life in some likely in some capacity or another right but like wad soto for instance like he came up what he was so young well he had been playing baseball for most of his life anyway though even though he's so young and now he's been playing baseball for a long time

relative to his age and just in, you know, general terms like he's been, you know, free agent and what have you. But, but when we think about Juan Soto and how age plays in his biography, it's still mostly washing over us in terms of like, I can't believe how young he is still, right? Like, remember, remember when Wad Soto was a free agent, cast your mind back, you know, to last December. But when Juan Soto was a free agent, how many times did we say, oh, my God, and he's still only, he had, like, just turned 26, you know? She's only 26. Oh, my God, so you're not focused on his longevity in the game. You're focused on his lack of real longevity on this mortal coil, right? Whereas when you get to someone who's been around the game in some capacity for as long as, say,

Shelton has, then it's about like the, then it's about tenure. And you're thinking about that person in their age in terms of how long they've been around the game and how long they've been working in it and the pull that it must have on them to like still be in this grind in your 50s when you've presumably made money that might allow you to slow down. I don't know, Shelton's the best example of that, but you know what I'm trying to say. It's like when you hear that Albert Poulos wants to manage, You're like, wow, he must really love baseball because, buddy, you could be done, you know, you could be golfing. You could be, I don't know what Albert Poolehouse's interests and hobbies are outside of baseball.

Sometimes they don't have one, which is part of the problem, you know, and then it's like you're in your 50s. You're trying to develop a new skill, which, like, was good for you as a person, but sometimes you like routine. Anyway, I think you have to be, you have to be not an old man, but an old. old baseball man. You know, that's how you have to be an old baseball man. Yeah. Speaking of single-minded focus on baseball, we will be discussing

the HBO documentary or docu-series Alex versus A-Rod next time. Early next week, we wanted to wait until we could interview someone associated with that production. So we'll be dissecting that series next time if you want to

catch up and watch before we pod. It's three episodes in the last one came out on Thursday, but that seemed to be part of the unique ingredients that make up A-Rod is a single-minded focus on baseball, which is a bit of a double-edged sword sometimes. But, yeah, I agree that to be a true baseball lifer, you have to be pretty grizzled. And I'd say by the standards of baseball lifers, 55 maybe might be even on the young side. Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah, I'd say maybe 60. Maybe when you hit 60, you can be a baseball lifer. I was going to say when you start getting AARP mail, but guess what? Guess what, Ben? That happened. Remarkably early. Yeah. Yeah.

And then you get targeted advertising about menopause, and you're like, excuse you, I am not yet 40. I don't know that I need the hot flash part of this yet. So here's a question from Joe. It's a question about double barrel action. Oh. I don't know. That's a, it's a gun reference, right? Yes.

I have a question for y'all about your opinion of the phrase, double barrel action. Is it double barrel or double barreled? Or maybe it can be both, but used by broadcasters to signal that there are two pitchers warming in a bullpen. It seems to me that it's exclusively used to refer to a time when two relievers of opposite handedness are warming up at the same time in the same team's pen. And it was used this way by the Blue Jays radio broadcast. whose name I unfortunately don't know to refer to activity in the Yankees' bullpen in the second inning of their division series.

I mainly experience baseball through radio broadcasts, where this is a somewhat common phrase, but I believe I've heard it used on television broadcast too. What I'm wondering is whether or not the podcast hosts have the same conception of the term, or if you've ever used it or thought of it in different situations, can double-barrel action denote two lefties or two righties warming up at the same time? I assume the phrase refers to shotguns, which often have two barrels, one on the left and one on the right, in a configuration called side by side, though they're also over and under shotguns, which are the only kind I've ever personally used in a trap shooting class I took for a physical education requirement in college. What a sentence. Yeah.

Yeah, my physics did not have trap shooting as a requirement oddly. It seems like most bullpens do have only two spots for pictures to warm up for whatever reason, but are there any with more than. to, I guess it's rare that you'd get more than two, because usually you want your righty option and your lefty option, right? And so the third would be sort of extraneous at any particular time. Would it be possible to have triple barrel action? As far as I know, triple-barreled shotguns are not commonly used, but other multi-barreled guns could give us more appropriate terms, such as combination action. A combination gun is a firearm that includes at least one smoothbore and one rifled barrel, but often have more than one of either kind. I'm sorry to have

made you think about guns for so long. So, do we agree that double-barrel action needs to be both-handednesses accounted for, or can it be two righties warming up or two lefties warming up? I don't know that I've ever heard it used when it's two guys of the same-handedness warming up simultaneously. I think that most broadcast will use it to refer to when you have both a lefty and a righty warming up. I think it is about shotguns, you know?

Like, that's people's understanding of it. I don't know. Whoa. What just happened there, Vett? I saw editing to do after we're done. That's going to go interestingly. Yeah. So I agree that that's probably the derivation, the etymology here.

Yeah. Although, well, I think it's still, it's useful sometimes to refer to. Now, I guess maybe most of the time when you have multiple relievers warming, they are of opposite-handness. You have guys of both-hand-dises. So maybe it's just that, yeah, you only have more than one warming because if you're going to bring in a right-y, you just have the right-y-in. The one-righty, yeah. But I'm sure it has happened. There are times where, yeah.

Yeah, you might have, like, you know, maybe your manager gets guys up based more on, like, leverage than handedness, right? You have an inning that's on sort of a knife's edge. And depending on how it goes, you're like, oh, we need our closer. And then if it goes badly, it's like, oh, bring in the low leverage guy. So then you might have a, you might have match twin handednesses. Or it could be other sorts of platoon splits, not handedness, but groundball, flyball or something else. Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Specific characteristics of the pitchers and hitters.

So I'm sympathetic to the idea that when you have two relievers warming, it would be useful to have a phrase for that. And I think, yeah, okay, if it comes for shotgun and there's one barrel on the left and one on the right, okay, but they're both like just barrels that the bullets are coming out of. You know, it's like they're not doing anything different, really. They're just, they're both shooting, and they're just one is over there and one is over there, which is kind of also what's happening when, if there are two righties warming up, they're still side by side and they're still just, you know, launching projectiles.

So to me, it's still sort of double barrel action, I would think. I mean, yeah, I think you're right and Joe's right that traditionally it is to refer to a FDN righty, but I wouldn't really, I wouldn't be up in arms

so to speak. If you had two righties warming and it was described as double barrel action, I'd be fine with that really just to convey that you got more than one reliever warming. Right. It'd be all right.

We have so much, like, gun vernacular in our vocabulary. I mean, we have a lot of guns. Describing a good arm as a gun. Yeah. You got to preserve his bullets. Yeah. Canon. Yeah.

Canon. Well, canon. It's a, oh, no. I'm going to ask a question. And we're going to get. Yeah. It's going to be like a hot dog a sandwich. I think it's different.

that? Isn't it more distinct? Isn't it more, I mean, I think a hot dog is not a sandwich. It's a hot dog, but, um... I think, no, I think a cannon is a gun. It's just, uh, it's a large caliber gun. It's, it's, it's artillery. I might be more likely to describe it as... I think it's a gun. I think, I think, I think... But it shoots a, it shoots a round thing and not a pointy thing. it's very very specific subject matter expert type terminology there well you know i'm thinking of like old school canons they're probably yeah like a round shot like a cannon ball but right yeah you could probably fire differently shaped things yeah i think it's a gun i think it's one of those like i was a pretty grim part of show gun i didn't finish it after that not because of how grim that particular scene was, but it was like, whoa, those four horses.

I think all cannons are guns, but all guns aren't cannons. I think it's one of those, technically speaking. Anyway, I'm okay with double barrel action referring to same handiness, but I agree that it is usually reserved for opposite handedness. And usually that's the case when multiple relievers are warming up. I guess there could be a situation where you might want three relievers, you know, like what we just described, except what. with handedness added on top of that.

And I don't know if there's usually enough real estate to accommodate that. I'm not sure if it's like competitive advantage. We'll, you know, this one goes to three. It's like adding a new blade in Gillette or something. Right. I was just saying, like, we're doing three relievers. Yeah. Yeah. Not sure you would use that all that often. But there might be certain cases.

I don't know. I don't know. They tend not to get guys up if they don't have to because it does, you know, just to warm up and just to throw, even if it's a warm up pitch and it's not 100% effort, it takes a little something out of you. Oh, sure. Keep track of that sort of thing. So you don't want to get someone up for no reason at all. You want at least a realistic possibility that they could be coming into that game. And do you really need three guys up at the same time?

You know, maybe just pick two and be happy with it. so yeah maybe all right here's question from effectively wild wikikeeper raymond chen patreon supporter how do you count the number of times a team has loaded the bases or had the bases loaded oh so dixon defines bases loaded as a game situation when they're runners on first base second base and third base sounds right yeah and defines loading the bases as putting runners or allowing runners to be put on first base, second base, and third base, but doesn't give guidance as to how to count them. In the bottom of the first, in Cubs Brewers NLDS game one, the Brewers loaded the bases on a Jackson Turyo single, but Bryce Durang struck out to end the inning. In the bottom of the

second, with runners on first and second, Andrew Vaughn singled to load the bases on the radio broadcast of the Cubs Brewers NLDS. The announcer said, The Brewers have had the bases loaded twice so far this game. So far so good. Sal Freelich then lined out leaving the bases loaded for Caleb Durbin. Question, does this now count as the third time the Brewers have had the bases loaded? Or is the Durbin played appearance the same bases loaded situation as Freelix? An even more interesting situation occurred later in the same inning.

With runners on first and second, Blake Perkins drew a walk, loading the bases a third time. Whenever I hear or see Blake Perkins, I think of in Perkins, in Perkins and Rick. I can't not hear it that way. Blake Perkins drew a walk, loading the bases a third time. Jackson Truroo then singled, scoring one run and leaving the bases loaded. Bryce Terang then came to the plate. Did Tereng have the same bases loaded situation as Truroo, or is it a different one because the runners advanced? Sadly, Terang once again ended the inning with a basis loaded strikeout.

Did Jackson Truroo load the bases with his single? even though the bases were already loaded, does there have to be an empty base because before you can load the bases again or can you unload and reload in a single play? Now we're getting back to gun territory. In other words, in that game, how many times did the brewers have the bases loaded

and how many times did they load the bases? Here's a litmus test for your answer. In the NLCS game one freak double play, suppose all the runners had stayed put on Muncie's uncought fly ball and Freelick had thrown the ball to second base to force one runner out. No runs would score and the bases would remain loaded with different people at some, but not all of the bases.

Did the doctors reload the bases? Okay. Okay. Here's my answer. I think. I think. So my initial reaction was, okay, so like you load the bases one time. So you have a famously a runner at each base.

By the way, when you started reading this, I was like, I'm sorry, are we going to be disputing the definition of a loaded base? No, we're not going that far. More generally, and I was like... Not yet, but the off season is young.

Okay, so like, let's say you load the... If you load the bases the one time, I think you would only be said to have re-loaded the bases if at some point in the course of the ending

one of the bases becomes vacant and then it becomes reoccupied. Does that make sense? It does. So does it have to be vacant for an entire plate appearance as in you can't just advance a runner,

let's say there's a bases loaded walk or something, and people are changing which base they're on, and those bases are briefly unoccupied. This is almost like that question we asked about, like, how do run score, when do run score? I think I would, in that instance, be more likely to say, like, if I were in the broadcast booth, I would be more likely to say the bases remain loaded.

Yeah, bases are still loaded, yeah. Are still loaded. It's a different situation. basically because there are different runners on those bases. Yes, they're different runners. And so I'll acknowledge that as a difference in the game state. But I think that I would be referring to the bases as still being loaded or have remained loaded. But if you were to, you know, you have the bases loaded and you bloop a little single in and two runs score.

And then it's, you know, you're on first base, you being the batter and the trail runner has advanced. advance to third, but second is open, and then, like, the, the next batter up draws a walk. Then you have reloaded the bases. Mm-hmm. Yes. It would be the way that I would—then it would be reloading them because they were—they were not loaded, and then they became once again loaded, as opposed to remaining loaded. Basically, I think that part of it is dependent on, like, does the hitter have the opportunity to hit a grand slam or not?

when they come up and then if the answer to that is no they don't then well then obviously the bases are no longer loaded but you're in a different you've like reset you've reset does that make sense whereas like if you you know if you're there you're brisk rang and you're like oh everybody the bases are loaded and then you get hit by a pitch and the runner at third scores the bases remain loaded and the next you know you brice ring were able to have the potential to hit a grand save and then the next batter he also has the potential to hit him so the bases have remained loaded for that hitter yes i think i agree yeah in order to load the bases they have to have been at least partly unloaded for you to there has to be a vacancy yes and we're not referring to while the play is in progress you know you you walk when the bases are loaded and and okay there's briefly a moment where people aren't on the bases physically but the game state hasn't really changed And the bases are all still occupied, essentially, and play has stopped. And the runners that are, you know, the other runners who have not scored, they're not, like, in jeopardy of making an out either, you know?

Like, so it's just, it's all still. It could be in some cases. If you're not talking about a basis-loaded walk, if it's just, you know, like an infield single or something. Right, right, right. But, like, in general, you know what I mean? Like, especially if it's like a walk or a hit by a pitch, it's like, well, the, that. The runner at second is not in jeopardy. They're just going to...

It does depend on what question you're trying to answer, though, because for accounting purposes, if you're looking up splits, let's say, a team's performance with the bases loaded, for instance, that would count as a separate plate appearance, of course. Like if a different batter comes to the plate, that counts as another, an additional plate appearance with the bases loaded for the purposes of that. split. So, yeah, if you're counting plate appearances with the bases loaded, then that number's

going to go up. But if you're counting just times when you're loading the bases, which is not really a stat that we cite or need to know all that often, then I think maybe there's a slightly different answer. And perhaps we have parsed the fine differences there. And our last pedantic question, which is sort of similar, maybe, comes from James, Patreon supporter. James in Columbia, Maryland, who says, not 20 minutes had passed after World Series game seven's final out before I engaged my father and brother in a how can you not be pedantic about baseball debate. I was wondering which season saw the most innings in its World Series, figuring this

season would probably be high on the list with two extra inning games, one of which went a whole extra normal length game. So I started to count innings and immediately ran into a pedantic decision point. did game one go nine innings or did it go eight and a half innings? We're still, did game three go 18 innings, 17 and a half innings, or 17 and a half and one more batter innings? My family is split on how to do the math, but agrees I need to wait until we've all had some sleep before I ask any more follow-up questions.

Yeah, this may have come up before because this is another, what question are you trying to answer? This is another example of me thinking that we haven't. done good in the world that we're bringing these questions to mind for people. Yeah. Yeah. I think it varies because obviously for, say, accounting purposes when you're tracking a pitcher's innings thrown or something, then you're accounting for individual outs there. But if you're talking about just how many innings, like, okay, if there's a ninth inning, but you don't have to play the bottom of the ninth because the home team is winning,

you still had a ninth inning, right? Now, only half of the inning was played, and so if you were adding up pitcher innings or fielder innings, you would only have half an inning there, but also when we're talking about, well, how many innings were played in that game, it kind of just depends, right? It's like there were nine innings, but also there were eight and a half innings. They're both true, you know, and they're speaking from a certain point of view. From a certain point of view, but the one that says it was an eight and a half inning game is a sort of silly point of view, in my opinion, because here's, I don't know if this is a compelling answer. I don't even know if it's very smart, but here's my answer.

So let's say, okay, so let's say that you play the top of the ninth and it is a tied game going to the bottom of the frame. And the first hitter for the home team hits a walk off home run. you're not playing that complete inning either right you're not playing that complete half frame you don't have to right you've walked it off yeah and so we wouldn't say that you've played like eight and you know three quarters no we'd say you walked it off in the bottom of the ninth you played a nine inning yeah i guess when a pitcher comes out for another inning and they get removed before recording an out then we will say they they went seven plus or something often but but i think the fact that we don't make we don't make my new distinctions in the way we talk about it in the bottom of the frame when we could potentially only have a single batter come to the plate, depending on the game state, suggests an exhaustion with the notion that it's anything less than a nine-in-a-game. So there.

Yeah. So there. This did actually occur to me, I guess, about the same time it was occurring to James because I was writing my post-world series piece. And I was trying to figure out how to describe the length of the World Series because I did say we haven't had an eight game world series since 1921, but we had eight games worth of baseball in this series because we had, and more, because we had one game that was. Yeah, it was like the math on that ended up being pretty easy, didn't it? Yeah, and it was, I think, the most innings played in a World Series, at least a seven-game World Series. but I was briefly thinking about how to describe this exactly and how many innings was it

because there are different ways that we tally that, depending on what question we're trying to answer. Yeah, what question were. And I was a little snarky and I don't mean to be rude about it. But I just think like as a rule of as a rule of thumb, the useful distinction is, you know, did you play any of that inning? And then, you know, it's like, you know what it's like? It's not at all like this. I feel like I'm making a lot of mouth sounds, so I apologize if that's true. I feel like what it's like, it's sort of like eligibility, season eligibility for the Hall of Fame. If a player has played a single day in the majors, it counts as a league year for the purposes of their Hall of Fame eligibility.

One day is enough for you to have reached, you know, if you have nine full season, or partial seasons for that matter. And then you play a single day in the 10th year, you've satisfied the requirement for how long your career lasts for Hall of Fame purposes. And so I think it's a lot like that, where it's like a, you know, once you're in it, and think about it this way. When we describe, so like in 2020 and still in many minor league contexts in the Arizona Fall League, if you have to play a double header, you'd play a seven-inning double header.

And we just called it that. And everyone knew what we meant, you know? And this is the thing about the pedanta questions. They're often very amusing. And I think the times when we give short answers, it's often like, well, did you know what we meant? And you know what I meant. And I think it's useful to distinguish it from times when there has been some sort

of disruption to the game that has required it to, even if temporarily, for the course of a day, conclude early, right? Because, like, maybe, maybe you have, maybe there would be like a, you know, a thunderstorm. It rolls in. And you have to, and it concludes in the eighth. You wouldn't be like an eighth and change.

Then that's confusing. You can't use it for games that come to a complete, have a, oh, no. Have a conclusion in regulation. Yeah. You'd be all jammed up. You'd be all confused. We wouldn't know it from down.

Okay. Yeah. So I think we're on the same page here. If a game goes to an extra inning, then that counts if you're trying to, if you're just summing up, how long was that game in? Right. And they played into the 14th inning, let's say it. And there was no bottom of the 14th or whatever. Right.

You know, if it's the 9th, then there's no bottom of the 9th. It's still, it's a 9 inning game. Right. But when you're actually adding up the innings pitched or the innings fielded or whatever, then, yeah, you're going to account for it a little bit differently than if you had played the full inning. So. Great. Okay.

Context. Context is pretty important, it turns out. Yeah. Okay. Here is a sort of stat-blasty question from Ashley in Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, who says, long-time listener and Patreon supporter writing to you from Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, forward to hearing your insights over the long, cold winter, or short, hot summer, as it is about to be here down under. I wanted to share a play from my mixed gender beer league softball team

that took place earlier this evening. This was a few days ago, not that you need to know exactly when Ashley's beer league softball game took place. My team was fielding with no outs and runners on first and second. This is not going to be another question about basis loaded or how many innings there were. The opposing batter hit a ground ball to our third baseman, who is playing off her base close to our shortstop. She collected the ball, and her body's momentum meant that she threw two second for the out. Our second baseman had time to throw the ball back to third, and our third baseman got the out there as well, a standard 545 double play. Except, as it turns out, it isn't that standard. A search on Google has rendered very few instances of a 545

double play. In fact, none at all that I can find in video format from MLB. Admittedly, more common would be for the second baseman to throw to first and get the batter out for a standard 543 double play, but both of our basemen were contorted in such a way that this play just worked. Should I be surprised that a 545 double play is such a rarity? Is it actually a rarity? And we just don't have much footage of them taking place? Is it the more athletic and gifted fielders and runners of MLB that mean this type of play is consigned to beer wreck leagues only. So I put this question to Michael Mountain, fellow Patreon supporter, who checked the logs for 545 double plays or 565 double plays. Michael found 25 instances on record of a 565 or 545 double play in MLB,

including three in the statcast era, the most recent of which was in 2020. 22, when Phillies were playing the Brewers and Bryce Harper was batting, and Reese Hoskins and Kyle Schwerber were put out. Michael says Harper's was hit hard enough that Schwerber had to hold in case it was caught on the fly, turned out to be a one hopper, and he was stuck. The other two were choppers hit by above-average sprinters, in Victor Robles' case, an elite sprinter, that the third baseman came into the base path to field. The runner coming from second had to hold up to avoid an interference call, losing all their momentum and having no shot to make it onto third, Miguel Cabrera nearly fell down. In both of the slow chopper plays,

you can see the shortstop moving to cover third, and they're at the bag when the play concludes. It seems like the main difference between Ashley's play and how a similarly scored play unfolds in MLB is that the second out of the play is not typically made at or near the base. I would imagine that runners going on contact who don't have any reason to slow down and root are virtually never an option for getting put out at third. So that is the answer, Ashley. It does happen in MLB, but maybe not exactly the way that it happens in beer rec league softball. And I will link to the three examples of the play on video that we can access easily here. Thanks to Ashley for the question.

Thanks to Michael for looking up. and answer. And we have a couple switch-hitting-related questions. And I guess one of them is sort of in the pedantic vein, perhaps. So maybe I should have considered it earlier. But this one is about what counts as a switch-hitter. This comes from ARIA in Oak Park, Michigan, Patreon supporter, who writes in with a question that niggled at them about Cal Raleigh's historic season. down the stretch. Are there clear parameters for quantifying a switch hitter or maybe qualifying a switch hitter or classifying a switch hitter or more specifically for defining achievements by switch hitters? For example, if a player is a legitimate switch hitter but happens to hit all

of his home runs from one side of the plate, is he eligible for most home runs by a switch hitter records? I guess it would be tough to set that record if you were hitting them only from one side of the plate, but technically it could be done. Or suppose Aaron Judge has 62 homers going into the last game of next season. The Yankees have the division sewn up and the game is a laffer. As a lark, he takes his final at bat, left-handed and hits a home run. Is 63 now the new record for most home runs by a switch hitter? We can go on and on with implications and hypotheticals, but you get the idea, can you provide

clarity? So how would we define a switch hitter? do you have to be a full-time switch hitter? Can you moonlight? Can you be a switch-hitting dilettante? Can you just try your hand at it and count as one? Or do you have to meet some minimum of switch-hitting to qualify? I think that you probably do have to hit some minimum,

like some percentage of your play appearances have to come from the other side. I mean, like, even like, I think Cal is like a real switch hitter, right? He hits from both sides fairly consistently, but like even quote unquote real switch hitters, like they tend to, if only because of what the pitching matchup dictates, tend to see one side more than, from one side more than the other. But if you have like one plate appearance from the other side, like you might be listed as a switch hitter, but I wouldn't consider you a switch hitter. But I don't know exactly what the number is that I need to be satisfied. Do you know what I mean? I don't know about that. Yeah, I don't know if you'd be officially listed unless you were doing it really regularly.

You'd have certain plate appearances in that bucket, again, to go back to the splits. Yeah. But I don't think anyone would really call you a switch hitter. It would just be a fun little experiment you tried. You know, someone turned around just for one plate appearance. Like, you know, that has happened, I guess, but you wouldn't call someone like that a switch hitter. I think the more likely scenario where you're like sort of falsely classified that way is, you know, there are guys who give up switch hitting. And so because they're, sometimes they're like meaningfully and appreciably better for one side than the other.

And they might be listed as switch for a little while, but effectively be transitioning to being a one side of the plate guy. And so sometimes I think maybe their classification lasts like a season longer. than it should. The really confusing thing, and I don't know if, like, an MLB person who listens to the pod can clarify this for us, but why are some guys listed, the vast majority of Switch Shitters, when you look at their, their, like, player page are listed as Bats S for Switch. But some of them are B for both. Why?

Why? Why is it different? What is the, why? Why? Why does that happen? Why are they not all S? What is happening? Why? Why? I don't know.

He drives you crazy. Yeah. At least we feel crazy. I did just remember, remember when Anthony Rendon batted, left-handed? First of all, remember when Anthony Rendon batted? I don't even remember that. Yeah, that used to happen sometimes. I think he's in his last year of his contract now, finally, for the Angels.

I'm sure they'll be sorry to see him go. But in 2022, he hit left-handed for the first time in his career. Like he'd messed around doing it in the batting cages, but he did it in a game. where the angels were up by eight runs, and Brett Phillips was pitching for the raise, so position player pitcher, though somewhat better than the typical position player pitcher, who went on to try to be a pitcher pitcher for a while there.

And this was when Reid Detmer's was, he had a no-hitter going, and Rendon hit a home run, which was quite impressive that he managed to do that in his first ever left-handed major league plate appearance, but you wouldn't have called him a switch hitter. after that, right? Because it was just one time. It was just on a lark. Like, you know, I guess he had the capacity to do it. He did do it once, technically speaking, but yeah, you have to do it regularly,

I think, to be classified or officially listed as one. And it doesn't come up that often because that's quite rare. It's very rare that players will just turn around for the hell of it, you know, because it has to be, yeah, it has to be that sort of situation, blow out where the other team has essentially already made it into a farce by bringing in a not completely real pitcher. And you say, okay, then fine, I will fight farce with farce by then turning around myself. But I don't think that changes your classification. And I don't think that if Aaron Judge did the same thing next year and hit his 63rd Homer lefty, that anyone would really refer to that as the switch hit record. And I don't know going back to what I said before.

like, I think that once you, I think that once you come in as a switch here, you're probably just always listed as switch, right? Like, I don't, I'm trying to think of an instance where a guy, like, made the transition to just batting from one side and then, like, there are guys who've retired from one side? Right, but I think they, are they still listed? Yeah, are they reclassified, like, on their player page or whatever? I don't know that they are. I think they're probably listed as switch in perpetuity. But, yeah, like, because you want to know that they did hit switch. probably right to like maintain the record yeah so though yeah Shane Victorino comes to my mind

as someone who did that who was a switch hitter and stopped switch hitting oh and see at baseball reference at least he's listed bats right but there's a nice little handy note that says right under the bats and throws victorino was a switch hitter until midway through the 2013 season how about oh and we just have him listed as bats right so this is a fan grab's failure yeah yeah because everyone's like, when will they get Shane Victorino, right? Yeah. Anyway, I think that you have to like take some percentage that I refuse to be nailed down to today from both sides in order to qualify.

Like, yes, I agree. Like if Aaron Judge turned around for whatever reason and hit a homebrown and like, if you're going to put money on anybody to be able to do that, wouldn't have been if you're just to be like, I can't fucking send one out of here. Yeah. Now, the other way around, so to speak, when a switch hitter does not switch hit, which happens on occasion, we have highlighted how Tommy Edmund, despite being a switch hitter, will sometimes not turn around, sometimes we'll face a pitcher from the same side because of what that pitcher throws and the stuff and how it breaks or the arm angle or whatever it is. And we saw that fairly recently. I would still say that Tommy Edmund is a switch hitter. right he he just so you can it's not a hundred percent you know you could you could have a little lapse every now and then where you but it maybe it's even just like a majority maybe it's just if you switch hit more than half of the time that you are you know able to then you're a switch hitter

because you can be a switch hitter and sometimes stray from that and still be a switch hitter because then the exception is not switch hitting it's just you know right yeah the exception that proves the rule sort of. Proves the rule sort of. Yeah. And then Bobby, who is a Patreon supporter, had another switch hitting related question. As baseball fans, we often lament switch hitters

who are so bad from a particular side of the plate that they should only hit from their dominant side, a topic all the way back on episode 95. Well, I did not recall that good deep pull there. And that even comes up with or has come up with Ellie de la Cruz in the past. but are there any traditional hitters who have such extreme platoon splits

that they should start switch hitting? This question is inspired by Cal Raleigh, whose superpower as a hitter is pulling the ball in the air from both sides of the plate. Could other pull-happy hitters replicate this approach? Could a player like Williore, who smashed Redis with a 29.4%

pulled air rate this season really do any worse than his 8.3% pulled air rate in his limited left-on-left matchups? Previously on the pod, you've interviewed Don Kessinger, episode 2120, and Fernando Perez, episode 1093, who learned to switch hit mid-career, so it can be done. Will any current major leaguers be bold enough to follow the trail they blazed?

Yeah, it's definitely more common to stop doing it mid-career than to start doing it mid-career. It's a pretty tough trick to pick up midstream or ever, for that matter, but it seems like one way that you can do it is to do it when you're young and your brain is still sort of wiring things that way and maybe it's a little more malleable and you can forge those new connections and it can be a bit more natural than when you're picking it up as an adult and those pathways are sort of said or more so than they are when you're a kid. It's kind of like language acquisition maybe a bit like that. But I don't know that I would look at anyone who had super extreme. splits and say that that meant that they should be a switch hitter, it might mean that they should be a platoon player. Right. I was going to say, I don't think you're like, oh, let's see more of this person. Yeah, I think that's, that's a bit of a leap. Like, it could happen and I guess has happened, but I wouldn't, statistically speaking, at least, I wouldn't, I wouldn't extrapolate from being so bad from one side that I'd say, oh, might as well just turn around, because you could

always be worse. Right, yeah. Like, could, Willi or Abraeu do any worse? Yeah, probably. Like, you know, if you're like most guys and you have no facility for that and you haven't practiced for that, then yeah, you probably would be even worse. So you'd be like a pitcher hitting or something, you know, maybe if not even worse, potentially.

So, yeah, if you have not cultivated that skill of ambidextrousness or something, then you're you're probably going to be bad and you'd be better off just. sitting. Yeah, I agree. That's my instinct. I wouldn't be like, oh, please, let us see what more we can extract from this player. I'd be like, let's see less of him, maybe a little bit. Yeah.

And there could be players, if you had some special knowledge about that player and you knew, oh, actually, he's got kind of a good looking swing from the other side. Or, you know, like Rendon, maybe he's messed around with this in practice or something. Then maybe you might say, you know, give it a shot. Maybe it actually couldn't be worse. But for most guys, it could and probably would be worse. Right. And I don't want to suggest that, like, you know, there isn't a player development scenario where, like, you might say, oh, wow, we actually should just turn him around to see what he could do from that side. But I think you're, I think you're more likely to see a team go, can that guy get on the mound for us than you are to see them say, oh, he should just, he should start batting from the left side, actually, you know.

I think that's more, I'm not, and I don't know that the one is even particularly likely, but I think it's more, more likely is my point. Yeah. Okay. And last one, speaking of development, this is from listener Jordan Ryan Peterson, who sends us an email with the subject line connection between high spending and a great farm system. This morning, I was basking both in my team's back-to-back World Series wins and the fact that ESPN said they, being the Dodgers, have the best farm system in baseball,

fan grass has them at a measly number three, and I've wondered for a while whether it's unfair to uncouple the amount of money the Dodgers spend and the strength of their farm system, as so many fans do. We don't just spend money, we also develop great players.

Sure. I'm trying to suss out to what extent the Dodgers use their financial might to flip trade pieces for great prospects. Clearly, the Dodgers still have to scout well and identify those players, and they get great value in unexpected places, call it the Max Muncie theorem.

And since they're always great, they don't ever seem to be in a position to trade great players at the end of contracts, since they're never going into a rebuild. But is there an extent to which that spending does translate to stocking their farm system with great players? I think the answer is yes, in a couple of different ways, although I would know, first of all, I don't think that there's anyone who's like, the Dodgers have a crappy farm system. Like everyone acknowledges that part of the strength of the Dodgers as a team is that they also tend to draft and develop well, particularly given the, they never draft all that highly so don't act put upon everyone thinks your guys are the best but i think that it can manifest in a couple of different ways one might be that if you're willing to take on money when you're doing a trade you might be able to keep better prospects because you're taking on money and that's the value you're bringing to a deal rather than like needing to

to trade very good guys although I think that I've said that but you know I think mostly what I think of the Dodgers as a trading organization is that they have been

throughout their progression really savvy and knowing who to keep and who they can view as tradable right and this was maybe more stark as a skill in the Seeger Bellinger-Belinger prospect

era than it necessarily is now but I think they do a good job And everyone has the odd Yordon Alvarez in the mix, too. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I also think that the way that the money can manifest is in spending resources on like the tools of player dev, the quality of your facilities, all of the various bits and bobs from a technology and data perspective, quite meaningful, prior to, you know, this recent CBA with the minor leaguers, maybe the way that you invest money is in. and like nutrition and accommodations for your guys and what have you. So yeah, I think the money can manifest. I don't think that the Dodgers have the market cornered on this. But where you see it in other orgs is like there will be investment in player dev from a facility or technology and personnel, right, player dev personnel and having a lot of folks who you're throwing out that problem is another way that the money can manifest.

And we see other clubs that have good player dev, but maybe that's where they're putting a lot of their resource, because I do think that you can get pretty dramatic return on that investment. And so that's why you see clubs like, say, the Milwaukee Brewers, who have a payroll that's a fraction of the size of the Dodgers, but are putting money into people in process on the dev side. so that they can try to sort of punch above their weight from a payroll perspective, right? Because one way to try to tangle with a club that has big payroll when you don't is to get the most out of your very young, you know, team control guys. So I don't think the Dodgers are alone in this. But yeah, I think that like, I mean, it's striking when you, when you go to Camelback, just how many people there are there during the spring. Like, you walk around Camelback during spring, and they're just so – and I don't mean fans, although, boy, there are a lot of fans, understandably. So, but it's like you walk around Camelback, and there's just a lot of folks on their backfields, you know, in team gear, and they're working on something.

Yep, more technology, more coaches, more infrastructure, and, yeah, just not cutting corners and skimping on things that probably deliver a great return on investment because it's always the, like, dollar. per war. If you develop one productive player, then this was worth it. Or something like when we talked about David Popkins, the Blue Jays hitting coach and his origin story, it was like the Dodgers knew that he was a good coaching prospect. And so they sort of, they signed him as a player, even though he didn't play just so he could be a player coach and they could keep him around for a while. And just something like that, which is just a rounding error. It's not even that for the Dodgers, but some organizations, they might not, if you can't say, oh, this will produce a very tangible immediate result for us.

They might just say, no, but a team like that is not going to draw the line there. And so, yeah, you just kind of collect talent. You put everyone in the best possible position. And I guess if you had like a correlation between farm system rating and major league performance, I guess it would be an inverse one because typically, I guess, a team that is riding high, in the majors probably is at a low ebb in its farm system because it probably promoted a bunch of good prospects to get good in the majors and probably also hasn't drafted high for a while or has traded some of their good prospects to get good major leaguers and everything. So it is somewhat

unusual and notable when a team is maybe the best team in the majors and also has one of the best farm systems. Yes, and has for so long. I mean, yes, this is a place where L.A. really distinguishes itself because you just think surely they'll have exhausted their prospect depth by now. Surely they will have graduated the guys who are worthwhile, but it's like they just keep coming. Right. And sometimes their depth is such that, well, sometimes their prospects get blocked. You end up with like a Dalton rushing.

Like where is he going to play? Where's he going to play? Sometimes what they do is then just trade those guys, you know? Like they package Ryan Pepio and Johnny DeLuca or whoever off to the raise and they get Tyler Glasnow back and they just kind of keep that treadmill going. And so even if they're getting older, and that is the closest thing that the Dodgers have to a concern, but the prospects are still valuable for them because they can just flip them. If they don't have a spot for them, they can flip them for some high-level player,

and they can just keep doing that. So it's a way their farm system helps them, even if it's not directly helping them via promoting those prospects and having them play for the Dodgers. I think the way that I would maybe describe it, And, you know, Los Angeles is, is clearly the frontrunner when it comes to this stuff right now. I think that, like, the Mets are trying to move toward this model. You know, you get to a point where I don't mean to say that, like, there's a bunch of fat, you know, that could be trimmed and that they don't do internal audits and that they don't care about what the budget looks like. Like, they do, you know, this is, this is still a business, you know, and it's being run by people who are mindful of what it costs.

But I think that they are at a place where their resources allow them to be purposefully inefficient in some places because they think that long term it will yield players who can assist them at the big league level, right? Like, maybe you don't need this many folks. You don't need this many coaches. You don't need this much player dev staff. Maybe you don't need this many scouts. But if one of them gets you the guy who can allow you to keep the conveyor belt going, well, you know, it's a drop in the bucket. And I think, you know, particularly on the non-player staffing side, in the grand scheme of things, especially for a team like the Dodgers, there's fucking printing money, what's, you know, what's a 70K salary, even with benefits and all the stuff brought in? Right? Like, it's just, it's not very much money in the grand scheme. And I think the teams that run smaller payrolls, but still manage to compete, they understand that piece of it very well, right? Like I said, they understand the return on investment. And so even though it might be a little inefficient at times, it's still worthwhile for them. Okay, just been here now. I was not

planning to gloat anymore about my minor league free agent draft victory. I did plenty of that on our last episode. But just as I was about to post this one, I got an update from Effectively Wild scorekeeper Chris Hannell, who notified me that although my 10-for-10 performance did not produce the most combined batters-faced plus-plate appearances in Effectively Wild Minor League Free Agent draft history, Jeff Sullivan had me beat by 44 in the 2019 draft. Chris just noticed that that draft went to 11. There was an extra round, 11 rounds instead of 10, and Jeff's 11th round pick in that draft, Josh Lucas, amassed a very nice total of 69 batters-faced, which is, more than the difference between Jeff's 2019 sum and mine in 2025. So if not for that 11th round, I would have had a higher total, the highest total ever. So I have another claim to fame.

Most combined batters-faced plus plate appearances drafted in a minor league free agent draft through 10 rounds. Chris said this provides evidence that I actually did have the greatest performance ever. His words, not mine. And he gave me permission to go forth and be annoying about this, which I have now done. All right. In case it wasn't clear before, by the way, the guy. Consensus among the cognoscenti seems to be that it would have been unusual, at least, for the angels to request a physical before completing that trade for Grayson Rodriguez.

It's not the normal procedure. There are probably better things to dunk on them for, but it is tough to resist the temptation. They do have a history. I've been meaning to play this clip, by the way, that a few people sent us. It's a quote by University of Pittsburgh head coach Pat Narduzzi. This was on November 10th. We don't get to talk as much about must-win games these days because there are no Major League Baseball games being played. which is kind of a precondition for those games to be dubbed must-win.

But we still have must-win creep in other sports. And Pitt's head coach shut down an attempt to apply it. This was heading into a matchup between Pitt and Notre Dame. And Pitt was in the hunt for the college football playoff. And its best and maybe only path to the playoff was by winning the ACC. And the game against Notre Dame wouldn't affect that conference title race. But the Panthers did have some history with the fighting Irish. Pitt was, I believe, 0 and 4 against them.

during Narduzi's tenure, and the last couple losses came by a combined score of 103 to 10, as he was reminded shortly before this response that you're about to hear. Do you feel like this is a must win for this team when it comes to something? Absolutely not. You know, it is not an ACC game. I'm glad you brought that up. It's not an ACC game. You know, I gladly get beat 103 or 110 to 10 in that game.

They can put 100 up on us as long as we win the next two after that. but again, our focus is on Notre Dame and getting as many wins as we can. I love it. I can't recall a coach or manager so emphatically shutting down the suggestion that a game was must win. Absolutely not, he said. And indeed, the Panthers didn't win. On November 15th, they lost to Notre Dame 37 to 15. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild

and signing up to pled 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, Stephen Durfey, Matthew Krueger, Emily Thornley, Kirsten Brown, and Jonathan King. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, playoff live streams, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild.

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Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always for listening. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. How can you not be pedanted? A stab last will keep you distracted. It's a long song to death, but they're sure to make you smile. This is effective

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