Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2410: You Can Observe a Lot By Watching

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller, and podcast scorekeeper Chris Hanel review the results of an under-25-pitchers draft Ben and Sam conducted a decade ago. Then (13:38) Ben and Sam banter about Ben’s physique, answer listener emails about doing a The Only Rule-style experiment 10 years later, discuss Sam’s revamped, unique approach to writing about baseball this year, and consider some possibilities for what we’ll remember about baseball in 2025. After that (1:05:57), Ben continues the sporadic “Baseball Jobs” series by interviewing 71-year-old John Yandle, the Giants’ left-handed batting-practice pitcher since 1985, about his transition from pitcher to BP pitcher, the keys to good BP, balancing his day job and his baseball side gig, anticipating starting-pitcher matchups, fending off advanced pitching machines, his incredible longevity, arm care in his 70s, the hitters who’ve complained the most, throwing BP to Barry Bonds, and more, followed by (2:01:20) a postscript. Audio intro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio interstitial: Sam Miller, “Effectively Wild Theme (Ken Maeda’s Nice ‘n’ Easy Remix)” Audio outro: Jimmy Kramer, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to EW Episode 669 Link to competitions/drafts sheet Link to EWStats site Link to The Only Rule Link to Ben’s Vince Gilligan video Link to Pebble Hunting Link to Sam on tripping Link to Sam on non-highlight highlights Link to Sam on the CI challenge Link to Sam on dropped third strikes Link to piece about first pitches Link to How To with John Wilson Link to Sam on remembering past years Link to Sam on Ohtani in 2024 Link to Sam on the World Series Link to Sam on the Hall Link to titular Yogi-ism Link to John’s B-Ref page Link to John’s Newmark bio Link to 2024 article on John Link to 2012 article on John Link to 2007 article on John Link to Johnson’s first pitch Link to Bonds TTO splits Link to Giants Trajekt machine Link to Cooney/Wharton Link to Cooney’s LinkedIn Link to Byrnes wiki Link to Wrapped post Link to Patreon gift subs Link to Secret Santa sign-up  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2410 of Effectively Wild, a Baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, not joined today by Meg Raleigh, who is traveling, but will rejoin me next week from the winter meetings. And so later on this episode, I will be continuing the intermittent, sporadic baseball jobs series, bringing it back by talking to a very long-time batting practice pitcher, John Yandel, who has been throwing batting practice for the Giants for 41 seasons and counting ever since 1985. I love talking to octogenarians and nonagenarians, sometimes even centenarians, so a septuagenarian is nothing, but 71. That's how old John is. It's pretty old in batting practice pitcher years.

But first, joining me is a fellow who has been following the Giants for roughly as long as John has been throwing batting practice to them. Co-host, Emeritus, and Pebble Hunting substack proprietor, Sam Miller. Welcome back, Sam. Thanks, Ben. How are you? Doing well. Also with us at the store.

start of this segment is official effectively wild scorekeeper Chris Handel. Hello, Chris. Hello, very happy to be back. So I don't know exactly why you're back. I know roughly that you have something to share with us. You have a habit of just trusting me and being like, hey, yeah, okay, come and explain whatever madness it is that you've discovered. Yeah, hasn't steered us wrong so far, but you told me something about a draft that Sam and I did a decade ago that is now concluded, I suppose, Well, the draft concluded a decade ago, but the results now are official cemented. So you are here to tell us how we did and also tell us what we did, because I don't actually know. Well, as listeners know, we brought it up on the preseason predictions game episode.

We're working on eWStats.com to build out the whole entire history of all past competitions. And I was going through the Google sheet that my predecessor, John Schneer, kept, and noticed that there was a draft that was made on episode 669, where both of you did, I think it was like the second or third iteration of drafting under 25 starting pitchers. Right. And you drafted 10 pitchers apiece, and you were basically tracking them over the next five and 10 years. In this iteration, you used warp as your metric.

And 2025 was the final year of that draft. And so we now get to know the winners. Now, this is the interesting thing. 2023 was last year that John had been tracking it. At the time, Ben, you were leading 57.65 to Sam's 53.15. I love that he went out to the second decimal place. And in those next two years, so Ben, you had a lead of about four warp. You then gained another two in change.

and Sam gained about 1.7. Yeah, I'm looking at my team, and since 2023, everybody has either retired or should have, so... Well, I can now announce that based on that, because Ben had a lead and then extended it, the winner is Sam Miller. I think I see what happened here. Yes, Sam wins by a score of 65 to 62.8, because warp calculations have changed a great deal. And so... All part of the plan.

All part of the process. You do have to trust the process. And I even went back and listened to the episode. And Ben, you were like, you were talking about how Warp had just changed. And you have a... Does back and forth about no, new Warp is better. I am not making this draft based on these calculations of Warp. But I don't think that you counted on Warp changing this much in the interim.

And so, Ben goes from a final score of... 60.8-5 to 62.8. Sam goes from 54.8-5 to 65. Wow. A full 10 warp plus change for your team. Yeah. Can you remind us of who our team's work? Because I haven't the slightest idea.

Sam's draft board was Jake Oterizzi, Archie Bradley, Aaron Sanchez, who went up four warp by the new calculations. Eddie Butler went up by four. Kyle Hendricks went up by 1.8. Michael Lorenzen went up by 2.5. Rafael Montero stayed right where he was. Kendall Graveman went down a little bit. Trevor May went down by two.

Kyle Lobstein went up by one. And Erasmo Ramirez was on your draft board. Hey, that team stinks. Ben's board was Carlos Martinez, who took the biggest hit out of everybody. In the new calculation, he lost 6.4. warp from what he was originally had. Now, when I say what he originally had, John was basically capturing the warp at the end of each season and was going by that. So it's not just, we're not just, it was a whole range of different warp calculations that are being normalized to 2025.

So Carlos Martinez, Trevor Bauer, Taiwan Walker, Jesse Hahn, A.J. Cole, Daniel Norris, Tim Cooney, T.J. House, Tyler Matzick. names. I've just like... Yeah. Anthony Descliffeani who gained six warp in the new calculations and Nick Martinez who gained 2.23.

Wow. Tim Cooney? I drafted Tim Cooney. He didn't pitch after that season. This is definitely remembering some guys. That's all I can say about that. That's the best I could do. The last player picked, it looks like, is Nick Martinez

and he is by far the best one still going? And he took, he, he, he left the country for half of this time. Yeah. Nick Martinez is the only player in this draft to earn one warp in 2025. Oh, gosh. And now I'm wondering what the best we could have done is, which I'm sure you haven't calculated, but if we could retroactively find out. You know I'm going to now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you want to figure it out after this and update me and I'll, I'll say it on the outro, but the, the ideal team that we could have drafted to maximize our warp back then, because I'm sure we could have done a lot better than we did. Tim Cooney, my goodness. So there's the theoretical, like, if you had been able to draft

players that you didn't even know existed yet. And then there's the one that's, okay, these are active players that are under 25, who you would have known about. Yeah, I guess the latter, probably not someone who was 16 back then and just had a great debut year this past season or something. Yeah. I think if either one of you had said, Terrick Scoobel in 2015, that would have been a very weird choice.

Yeah. I assume that these players had to have been active for us to draft them. We couldn't draft prospects or something like that. Did we specify? I don't know,

but I'm going to assume that that was the case, given the list that you had here. Yeah. I think probably that was what we did. Do you know, you know, you know that phenomenon

that probably everybody has mentioned in conversation where anything that has happened since March 2020 feels like it happened like three weeks ago and anything that happened like February 2020 or before feels like it happened several centuries ago. All of these guys aged 20 years in the last 10 years. There is no way that Trevor May

who was, there's just no way that Trevor May was under 25 10 years ago. There's like no way that Carlos Martinez is currently under 35, which by definition he must be, but I think they all aged 20 years in 10 years. Tim Cooney turns 35 in about 15 days. He's December 19th will be his 35th birthday. What is he doing?

I have no idea. Can we call him? Yeah, cold call Tim Cooney, ask him if he's as surprised as I am that I drafted him 10 years ago. Wow. So we don't actually have the full 10-year data set for legacy warp, right? because we just don't have how warp was calculated then. And also, John has not been tracking it the last couple of years.

So you just, you added, or you know what it was a couple years ago. And then you have recalculated, but we don't know. Yeah, I wonder if Warp had never changed. Maybe I would have retained my lead. But I guess I failed to anticipate it's changing. This is the thing I was going to mention. I did happen to reach out to Craig Goldstein. And I'm going to see if I can get those numbers.

yeah it's probably not still calculated i would guess but but if we can get the formulas if we can like if we can get that and then i can be like we can run the stats for yeah we can reverse engineer what the warp would have been based on these stats i'm sure that'll be worth the time that it takes the stats team at baseball perspective but i guess i have jonathan judge or other folks on the stats team there to blame for sabotaging my team which might have come out ahead if not for those refinements but that's the risk you take with ever-evolving stats. If I'm reading this right, in the first two rounds of this draft,

we had like twice as much player value. Like you had, and your first pick was Clayton Kershaw, who had a pretty nice career. Not bad, yeah. So Kershaw is on here, and Chris Sale and, you know, Strasbourg and Madison Bumgarner in the first round. And then, like, the second round, we had Garrett Cole and Nathan Avaldi. I mean, Nathan Avaldi is way better than any of the pitchers who were in.

in the third round. Zach Wheeler, Zach Wheeler, who... You had Sunny Gray. Yes, Sonny Gray. So I got to tell you, too,

like, this, there's, we've drafted three players who have passed away. I was not expecting, yeah. I guess I just wasn't expecting that

to be a thing. Like, that's depressing. Yeah. I did not factor that into my, my projections, yeah.

That's a level of slog to rigor mortis that I don't know if I'm uncomfortable with. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Okay. Well,

from Kershada, Cooney, a couple great lefties on my squads. All right, Ben, who's your first pick? If we were to redo this now. Yeah, well, let's run it back. Yeah, haven't done any prep on that, but I'd like to think we could do better this time than that third time, at least. I thought that Harry Pavlittis did it with us once, too. No?

Yeah, that sounds familiar, I think. I don't see them on here. That does sound familiar. Now I'm going to look, because there's so many tabs to this. Yeah, I think he did something with. us at least one time. September 6th, 2013, Ben, Harry, and Sam drafted best under 90 mile per hour starting rotations. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. As soon as you got halfway through that, I remembered it. Yeah. And how's that going? Well, that one was only for a year. So that was decided

in 2014. Harry won 3.39, Ben 2.73, Sam, 1.6. That's old warp. Do it again. We'd have a tough time doing a under 90-mile-per-hour draft in 2025. All position players pitching. Wait, you're using mid-season milestone. You started in September 2013, which makes it harder to get with BP's system. Yeah, we'd have to get retroactive day-by-day warp calculations. Although, based on the margins here, I think Harry still got it. Because he had Travis Wood at one point.

and Ben Lindbergh had Mark Burley at 2.21, but also had Marco Estrada at negative 1.45. Ben, do you realize that we drafted guys who wouldn't get Tommy John? Right. All right, Dickie. Did anyone pick him? That was a good pick. Doug's first pick. Yeah, Doug Thorburn was in that draft and that was his first pick. Smart. Yeah. Yeah. Ben had Doug Fister, Mark Burley, Dan Harron, Jaime Garcia, Marco Estrada, Sam had R.A. Dickie, Bronson, Arroyo, A.J. Griffin, Jason Vargas, and Wandae Rodriguez. Harry had Jared Weaver, Travis Wood, Dylan G., John Danks, and Tyler Skaggs. Okay. Well, thanks for reminding us of some pitchers who used to pitch, and also of some pretty bad draft picks that we made.

This has reduced my own opinion of my projection skills. Not that I have a high opinion of my ability to forecast the future. But thank you in absentia to John Schneer for his years of record keeping. And to you, Chris, for keeping the flame alive. I did reach out to John and let him know what was about to happen. And he thought that was the funniest outcome, which we both agree is the best. Okay. Well, while we are talking about things we did a decade of that we're probably prouder of

than those draft results. Yeah, and that's a good segue. Oh, okay. I was watching a video that you were in recently with Vince Gilligan. Yes. And, buddy, you are ripped. What, when did that, when did that start coming together? I guess, I don't know, gradually.

Not recently, I guess. I've been working out. I remember, I remember that at Stompers Summer, which was a decade ago, you were, like, doing more than me, but you were still, like, you were a lean, you were a slender then. You were still part of the corduroy crew or whatever it was. Like, you definitely fit in more with the writers than the ballplayers. Yeah. If you were eating chickpeas, I remember that, out of the can. Yes.

So the only people who are working out actively, only strength trainers eat garbonzo beans out of the can. So, but I was not expecting, I mean, the traps, the biceps, I saw you and you know what I said? What? I said, he looks sexy. Have you seen that body? Wow. Thank you. Does that work as a callback?

Do you recognize that? No. Is that about a stomper? No. In January, 2023, you and Meg talked about two players tweeting within 20 minutes of each other, or not tweeting, but telling beat reporters within 20 minutes of each other that their teammates had shown up to camp.

It's actually January, I think I said, spring of 2020, they both said... It was like the new best shape of your life. Exactly. And they had used the exact same words. He looks sexy. Have you seen that body? Yeah.

Anyway. So what's your... How do you do it? What's your, like, what's your routine? Well, I guess just the usual lifting, heavy things and eating a lot, eating a lot of protein, lots of chicken. Do you have a trainer? Do it on your own? Do it on my own. What'd you do today? What heavy things did you live today? Nothing, my mouse today so far, but the day is young, for me at least, because I'm kind of nocturnal.

There's a little gym in the basement of my building. It's an old building, but it's a decent little setup. So I just go down there, often in the dead of night. Are you more like dump? Bells, machines, or body weight? All of the above, really. But, yeah, if you want to put on some size, I guess more than body weight is helpful, probably. So, yeah. Well, congratulations. I started doing exercise for the first time three years ago.

And I started too late. I believe it's too late for me. No, it's never too late. Nothing has changed. I work out every day and nothing has changed except for I do feel that my body is stronger. Like I have a different sense of balance. You know, my core is engaged in daily activities. I like that, but I think I'm too old to get as big as you. I don't think so. I don't think it's ever too late, but you might have to eat vast quantities of food, which I'm good at, but not everyone is. Also, do you still walk many miles a day? I stopped walking because I replaced it with this other exercise time. Okay. I was going to say because that could hurt your gains, you know, if you're walking too much. Not that walking is bad.

Do you still eat all your food in a two-hour period every day? No. No, I eat throughout the day and night. But I do more high-intensity cardio than sort of distance or durability, I guess. So my recollection was that you would have – let me see if I can – Let me see if I can, okay, you would get, don't correct me until I'm done, you would get a three-egg omelet, some sort of chicken wrap, and like the salmon from the diner. Am I close?

Yeah, that sounds about right. You don't need more that way. Yeah. You ate the same thing every day for several years in a row, the exact same thing. Diner servers are often taken aback by the size of my order, so. I was taken aback by the size of your choice. traps. Well, thank you, I think. I didn't expect this detour, but I appreciate it. I guess I've made some gains in the past decades, so that's heartening to hear, which is good because my ego

needed the boost after that little Tim Cooney recap. I did want to talk about it. You are in better shape than Tim Cooney right now. You never know. Who knows what Tim Cooney's up to? All right. So what were you going to say? Ten-year project? What were you going to say? Yeah, I was going to talk about the book we wrote that summer and revisiting that because we have recently gotten a couple questions about it. And they are similar. Patreon supporter Chris said if you got another go-around with the Sonoma Stoppers with the past decades advances in technology and assuming for sake of argument you wanted to, how would you approach the experiment differently? And then a listener named Philip, who just read the book a couple weeks ago, it's nice to hear that people are still discreet.

discovering it in 2025, also wanted to know what would be the biggest difference in running this experiment in 2025 or 2026 versus 2015. So that is the question that multiple listeners want to know if we were to do this again. How would it be different? Yeah, I don't have a good answer for that. I presume it would go exactly the same. I mean, I would still be me and whatever, you know, like, it would be different if I was doing it with the lessons learned from the first time. But if you put 35-year-old me and 144-pound Ben in the same same situation, but just with 2025 tech and analytics, I don't think that necessarily we would do anything all that different. I think the big difference would be that, I think, I think,

that probably more players at that age are, like, aware of the resources that are out there and they all want to be, they all want to take advantage of those resources, like, specific. Like, we had, like, one guy who had heard of Drive-Line at the time, and he was like, can you hook me up with Drive-Line? And if we had, you know, known that he was going to be that eager to do it with, you know, a little bit more time, we might have tried to do that. Like, I could imagine that if we'd had that idea in April of that year, we would have set him up with DriveLine and had him doing, like, video consulting or something, and that would have been part of the book. I think if you did it now, like, like, you know, 15 of the 23 guys on the roster would be actively seeking, you know, lab type things like that. They know as much as we did, yeah.

So probably there would be, there probably would be a lot more appetite for us to be just basically like, brokers and connecting players to consultants or players to, you know, trainers, that type of thing, like offbeat trainers. So it probably would have been some of that. Of course, like, it was a big production to get a couple of pitchfx cameras out there. Nowadays, I guess, like, those are all, like, pretty portable. They're not pitchfx cameras, but, like, those sorts of things are pretty portable, and you could probably just get one and bring it to the field every day, right?

Yeah, you could probably get, yeah, we'd have some hit FX thing or Rhapsodo or EdgerTronic. It would be more complicated because there's just so much stuff. We thought we were pretty fancy for getting a pitch of X's, which we were, even in retrospect, it's kind of hard to believe that that actually happened. But now, wearables, I mean, wearables in the time were considered like sort of like dystopian and. Yeah, right, we got some bat trackers and then we very half-heartedly tried to use them. and we barely did, but now we would really have to. Like heart rate stuff and, you know, basically heart rate stuff. We would, everybody would be wearing a watch, I would say.

Yeah. And we were overwhelmed with the information that we had even then. And it would be hard to, like, get a statcast set up at Arnold Field. But if we somehow managed to do that, we wouldn't even be able to analyze the information because we'd have to have a whole staff. We'd have to have, like, huge hard drives even to store. that information. So it's advanced beyond probably our capacity to even make sense of that data if we manage to gather it. And there's so many things. Yeah, some are probably easier to obtain

than they were then, or we might have a better sense of what we were doing with them. I also think that maybe we've just kind of moved past the need for a wild experiment, as the subtitle says, because all that stuff is happening in the actual games. And so I think part of the fun of it is have a couple of writers who don't normally get to do this, like amateurs taking over, but also part of the pitch, at least, was we'll go beyond what any actual team would do. And now we wouldn't even be able to because teams just did all that stuff. Some of the stuff we did, they did, and they did it so much and it worked so well that it then

got outlawed and you can't do it anymore. So, like, I don't know that we would be able to do that kind of pushing the boundaries. Because, like, what did teams not do now that? that we out here say, oh, they should do this, they should do that. Pretty much all the stuff that it makes sense to do, it seems like they do. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, having a somewhat nerdy guy in the dugout is not unusual anymore. Having that interaction between the front office decision making and the on-field decision-making is not at all unusual.

So the fish-out-of-water aspect of it would still work, but, like, who we represent, what archetype we're supposed to be representing wouldn't be, like, as not. novel, I don't think. And how would my larger traps change the dynamic of me being in the dugout and completely not fitting in? Would I command more respect from the athletes? You would have, you would fit in. Yeah, you would fit in, and the clash would be between you and me. I'd be pushing you into a locker with the other bros. You'd be telling me that the closer is the closer because he's the closer, bro.

Right. Yeah, I mean, yeah, now, who even knows what? what a starting pitcher versus a relief pitcher is anymore. It's just all kind of blending together. So, yeah, I don't know that it would work so well. I don't feel a tremendous desire to try my hand at that again. It was a little tempting in the moment, but now I kind of feel like the moment has passed, at least.

Not that the book actually turned out to be that we did all the cutting edge stuff that teams wouldn't try in a couple cases, yes, but mostly it turned out to be us being so bad at stuff that we never actually did half the things that we intended to do. But the other thing is that it would have to be about development of the players much more so than it was then. Because we tried a little bit of that, but A, we just had a hard time catching up and getting our heads above water. And we had a three-month season and all the rest. But now the whole emphasis, because back then it was more of the moneyball era.

Let's see if we can find some untapped talent by sorting a spreadsheet. whereas now it would have to be can we make these guys better and so we'd have to track all sorts we'd have to figure out did we make them throw harder or get their bat speed up over the course of the season or whatever

and what do we know about that so yeah it would be harder I think in some ways I don't know I what do we know about that is I don't know maybe that's kind of true but I think even if we had three more months in 2015

that would have been the direction that we would have been going in that is already the direction that we would have liked to have been going in at the end of the season. Just the season ended too fast. Yeah, three months is just not very long, especially when it takes the first couple of weeks to just set up a camera and figure out how to retrieve the footage or whatever else we were trying to do.

So, yeah, maybe that was the right time. Maybe that was the last possible time we could do an experiment like that and have it seem actually bold and boundary pushing. And now it's just table stakes to do all that stuff. so well done i guess good job us with our timing though if someone else wants to give it a go i'd be interested in seeing how they would do okay a couple other things i wanted to ask you about the first is pebble hunting your excellent substack which i hope that everyone is reading i'm sure not everyone listening is reading but they should be they would like it they should go

sign up you gave me free pebble hunting i believe and you cost your some money because I would have happily paid. I have read every word since you started publishing, but this is the third season that you've been doing pebble hunting, and you did something different this year. And you didn't announce that you were doing anything different, I don't think. And I don't know whether you conceived of it as something different or whether you were sure that you were going to do something different. But when the season started, you just turned it into a diary, essentially. And each entry, almost every... entry is day X of the MLB season, and you write about something that happened that day.

And so it's December in real life, but in pebble hunting, it's about the all-star break now, I think. Just about, yeah. It's actually the last day before the all-star break, although I do think I'm going to speed it up quite a bit now, partly because my, as I noted this in one of the posts, but my note-taking actually, as the season got toward the end, my note taking really slowed down. I had this sense that the end was coming and the potential of each moment felt like less there. And so I actually have a lot less to write about in the second half than I did in the first half. So there's that. But also, I think that there's an aspect where like if you open a newsletter in December and it starts

with, you know, a date in July, you're just not that interested in it. Like, I had, there's a, I do have a little bit of a framing problem here where I don't, I don't think that it makes it more fun to read. It was more of a, I think I chose to do this almost entirely for my own kind of benefit. I needed to find a way to write more and to not be overwhelmed by, like, because what happens, so what, what normally will happen is I'll be watching baseball and I'll see something and I'll think, oh, that, that would be fun to write about. But, Either I'm already in the middle of writing about something, and so I don't have the mental space to do it, or, like, immediately my sort of performance anxiety is like, oh, no, what if it's not good? And, like, I get scared of it, and then I don't want to engage with it.

And so the idea was that I would just jot down everything that I see that seem to be worth writing about, and I'd take the pressure off by letting future me write about it sometime in the future. And was not announcing this plan part of taking the pressure off because you didn't want to commit to doing it all season? Or because you never said like, here's what we're doing. Season three, I'm going to keep track of stuff every day. And the funny thing is it's divorced from time, sort of, because you don't even say what the date is. And I had to calculate that we're almost at the all-star break. I'm not even sure when I read Pebble Hunting when it's happening. It's like it's happening at any time.

It could be happening today, except they're not playing baseball now. The good thing about it is that I guess it gives you off-season content because they're not still playing MLB games, but you're still writing about MLB games because you're catching up. But it kind of, it takes it out of time because it's, yeah. I think that's the goal is that it will feel out of time because I'm not writing about like, you know, oh, well, are the Blue Jays, are the Blue Jays falling apart? Can they write the ship before the, you know, the trade deadline?

Like, I'm sort of taking myself out of the topics that get dated and trying to write about things that are going to be interesting forever and ever. And that's actually a little bit of the framing when I take the notes is like the way this started was I had a little, I had a sheet of paper, and I would watch baseball throughout the day. And then the next morning, I would basically be like, okay, what do I remember from yesterday? And, you know, like, I've always been really interested in this idea of what we remember, like, what survives, what doesn't just, like, immediately, you know, like, get stuck in the present and never move into the future. And so I would write about what I remembered from the day before. And then the further behind I got, the more there would be, like, a filtering out of things that weren't worth remembering. And so, like, yesterday I wrote about a manager trying to get a catcher's interference call because the catcher touched the batter with his foot. And I think that's, like, timeless, right?

Like, that's just a weird sort of play that it is relevant to the era because catchers are playing super close to batters. And it maybe is relevant to the future if we start having to watch catcher feet. But mostly it's just this kind of like weird thing that I will remember from that day of watching baseball. And it doesn't, yeah, like you say, it doesn't really matter what day it happened. It doesn't necessarily really matter what year it happened. It's just like part of my, it goes into the giant barrel of memories that I have from the game. So yeah, timelessness, I think was the goal not announcing it. You and I both know you can never announce a season long.

because you will hate it. If you announce it, you will hate having to finish it. We had, I had this with unique pitching lines one year. I had, I had rereading everything that Nate Silver had written at Baseball Perspectus one year. I had, it hurts to watch Albert Pujol's run one year. You had, what have you had? I did catcher framing of the week for a while there. And it's, it gets boring and tired.

And so I didn't want to announce that, like, I was definitely going to make it through an entire year this way. I didn't want to make it a project. It was more just something to get me writing quickly and often. And the great thing about it, I think, is that if you read pebble hunting, you get a lot of things that you won't get anywhere else. I guess the downside, if it is a downside, is that you'll get almost nothing you will get somewhere else. So, as you said, if there's, like, a big trade or something, you're not necessarily going to get the Sam Miller trade. reaction at pebble hunting. If there's some big news, you might chime in. If there's a great world series, for instance, you might write about whether that was the greatest world series.

Or if something happens and that sparks some association with something else, then you might sort of skip ahead to write about that thing. But usually you're writing about something that is a pebble hunting exclusive, essentially. It's unique to pebble hunting. You're usually not writing about something that people already know they're interested in. You're writing about things they didn't know they were interested in, and hopefully we'll become interested in over the course of reading the newsletter, because they weren't even aware of them at all, so they couldn't have known whether they would be interested in it or not. So it's all sort of like idiosyncratic stuff, I guess.

I mean, it's all fascinating to me, but it does, I guess, violate the normal rules of trying to attract business, which is like right about things everyone has heard of or is Googling that just happened within the last couple hours while you're getting search traffic or whatever. It's not that, but I hope that it has found an audience and sort of an evergreen one because, yeah, there's no shelf life for most of this stuff. Well, good. You tell me, I don't know if it works. I don't know if it has worked. I have really enjoyed. doing it. I don't know what I'm going to, I don't know if I will do anything remotely similar to this next year or not. But like, I do sometimes worry that people are annoyed that I'm, like, they

might think that I'm just late, you know? They might be like, man, this guy took four months to write about a blooper and a Rockies game. Like, he's got to quit procrastinating, right, faster. Well, the thing about it, I think, and this is maybe sort of your superpower, or one of them, You have many powers. You're a five-tool writing talent. But in addition to just the great writing and good analysis and all the rest of it, is that it seems like you watch an extraordinary amount of baseball. And I say that as someone who watches a fair amount of baseball myself.

But I'm always really impressed and intimidated, kind of, by how much you watch. Because almost everything you write about is something you personally observed. In fact, you've had a series this season. on what you call the NSAs, the Never See Against, which is plays that should be highlight worthy, but we'll never be in a highlight reel because they didn't result in an out or whatever, but they were just as impressive as a play that delivered the ball a split seconds earlier so that there was an outcall instead of a safe call. And those things you only know about because you're watching.

And it seems to me that you must just watch more baseball than almost anyone else. And not just have it on in the background, but watch it in a focused, intentional note-taking type of way. So I don't know if this is more watching than you used to do or whether this exercise has caused you to watch more. It has freed me up to watch more because otherwise what happens is I start to get stressed by whatever I'm working on and then I don't want to watch the baseball. You know, like the baseball feels like work.

It feels like a distraction. I procrastinate by, you know, like not watching. And in this way, because like, I don't know, it's weird. Because the thing I'm writing about is not a threat to me, because I'm not going to get to it for three months, you know, like, it's not threatening to watch baseball anymore. Like, I can just watch it, take notes of things that are fun, and then be like, I'll sort that out in three months. Like, I'll like that in three months. And if I don't like it in three months, I just skip it. Like, I've usually got like seven or eight things per day.

And by three months later, you know, the thing that I like the most has been sitting in my heart for that. that whole time, like waiting to be written about. And other things have connected with it. There's been, like, a great connecting aspect here where because I know I'm going to be writing about, like, I'm going to, for instance, I'm going to be writing about umpires closing their eyes when the pitch comes in, which... Oh, we entered a list of email about that not long ago. No.

I should have written about it when it happened! It was about what would happen if an umpire sneezed. Oh, yeah. And they missed the play, so you could probably think whatever you're doing. Everybody, don't tell anybody I'm writing about this. I don't want someone to sneak in on it. But there was some foul tip or something where the umpire had like closed his eyes at the moment of the foul tip. And I'm like, how is he, he can't, he couldn't see that.

His eyes are closed. So then I spent the rest of the season knowing I was definitely going to write about umpire's eyes closing. And so I have like all these other, like I was watching. I was making these connections. Anyway. So that happened a lot. There's like a lot of like seven examples of something where if I had tried to write it that day, I only would have had the one example, which is a good thing. That's a great thing. And yeah, I think in some ways I've had some really like interesting insights that wouldn't have occurred to me. Otherwise, I think that maybe my favorite thing that came out of this year was that I started noticing batters not running out the drop third strike. you know and by keeping very close paying very close attention to that i was able to like prove

with data that hustle is down like i was pretty excited that's the other thing you'll you'll casually in one line be like so i watched 357 examples of whatever it is and then i'm just thinking how long did that take yeah it takes a long time yeah sometimes a thousand i've watched a thousand pitches for some of these before like a thousand just like the entire day just watching six second clip after six second clip that can be very zen there's nothing better than that really when you have because i can't listen to music or anything while i write but i can if i'm just doing that gathering data or doing something in a spreadsheet so if i could just settle in for hours and just do some rote task just uh and listen to something while i do and zone out that can be quite pleasant

three months watching to see how long it would take me to catch a baseball player tripping for no reason, you know? Right. So, like, that was fun. I got... Yeah, although I'd quibble with whether that was for no reason. I think it was, it was not a completely

unforced. What are you talking about? He did not trip, he didn't trip on anything. No, but he was, it was performing a baseball activity. Like, he was doing an athletic move, right? He wasn't just walking. He was, I don't remember the exact play.

But whatever it was, he was like, was he trying to field something or something? Oh, man. He picked up a ball. He was a pitcher. He fielded a comebacker. He stood up. And then he just began his move to first. But he wasn't running.

Like, I think, I did. He was in the midst of making a play. But. No, come on. This is nothing. This is a foot shuffle. This is a shuffle at most, which is no harder than a walk, than a, than a step. I don't know. I think this is pretty obviously he just fell over. He didn't trip on

anything. Nothing hit him. He was standing and then he was falling. Yeah, it's true. He wasn't just walking back to the dugout after the end of an inning or something. I mean, there was like time pressure, you know, it was, it's a low bar for a coordinated professional athlete not to fall down while performing a routine activity. So I'm with you on that. But yeah, I've seen and done less coordinated things than that. Well, I got another trip that happened later in the year, so I'll probably get to that one. Yeah, look forward to reading about that in March or whenever you get to it. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. It lowers the bar, I guess, for what is worth writing about, because it's not like every piece has to have some thesis or something. I mean,

hopefully it does, but it could just be, here's what I noticed this day, and this was kind of interesting. And it will be interesting to me, but it does remove some of that pressure to, like, do I want to clog someone's inbox with this? Like, is this worthy of bringing to their attention? And, you know, if you're doing this season-long exercise, it's just, here's the latest thing that I noticed. So I like that. But did you watch How To With John Wilson? Yes. Pebble Hunting has basically become baseball how-to with John Wilson. I think that's fair. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. That's, which is a high compliment in my mind, because that's an incredible show.

But I think it's true, in part because... I actually prefer to think of it as the baseball version of The Gleaners and I, the Agnes Varda documentary, but fine, whatever, if you want to go middlebrow. How to do with John Wilson, what are the impressive, amazing things about it, is that he has so much footage, because he's just observing, and his team of documentaries is just filming everything all around them. And so he will say something and then show an image that goes with that. and you wonder, and of course he's crafting the narration to go with footage that he has,

but it seems like he has a clip for every possible thing that he might say. And that's what happens in pebble hunting too, because you will always have just like, here's a gift I saved of some, I don't know, random celebration after a play in May or whatever it is, and you'll just break out that gif. And it makes me wonder about the like Indiana Jones-esque storehouse of clips and highlights you must have. How is this even organized? Like, do you have a massive folder with like daily gifts and notes about, like, how do you even retrieve an example like that? Do you have a spreadsheet of every gif that you've captured? So I have my notes, my notes document, my notes file,

whatever. And so that's about 17,000 words and it's just organized by day, right? So it just, like, it just goes reverse chronological. And then I just put like four or five words, whatever the thing is. And if there is a GIF or if there is a screen grab attached to that, you know, like connected to it, then I will write down what the name of the file is. And then I put all of it in a file in a folder that says 2025 season. And so then when it gets to that one, I just go look for the GIF that says like Gorman Fundies, which I've written in my Word document. And that's all it is. Do you ever take notes on something and then forget why that was meaningful to you? Do you take

comprehensive enough notes that you can explain to your later self why you recorded that? Or is it like you wake up from a dream and scribble something and then you in the morning have no idea what you were talking about? No, like usually I, so like you, these are exactly, basically

no, basically the answer is I always know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I will put a link to the play in question and then the word, it'll just be like this and I'll be like, well, I don't know what that is. So I have to watch the playing question, because I don't know what this is. But like, for instance, September 15th, after Gallen Fundies, they immediately got a new ball.

You know what that is, right? Sure. That is that for some reason, the catchers throw back to the pitcher was just really stupid. And Zach Gallen was like clearly annoyed that this throw was not at him. And so he put forth like a 2% effort to try to catch it. but the ball just like went past him okay and then because it had touched the ground they put a new ball in play and the reason that i saved that is because i've been looking for the least a ball has to touch the ground for it to not be you know for it to be replaced and that is i don't know

if i'm going to write about that i i don't know if i have enough examples to make an essay out of it but that is why i i thought about that they immediately got a new ball okay Then September 14th, after Alonzo's walk-off Homer, Lindor too slowed him. You know what, obviously you know what that is, right? Is this that when, I know you've tracked the ones where the player like takes a beat to throw and then takes too long to throw? No, this was, everybody was giving Pete Alonzo high fives and then Francisco Lindor gave him a fake high five and then went too slow.

And that was a weird time to see a guy too slow his team. teammate, right? Yeah. So I have a GIF that is Alonzo too slow. And if I write about that, I don't know if I will. I don't think I will. But if I write about that, that's what that'll be. Joe Ryan's f*** you as he walked off the mound of a score listening. I mean, you know, I love it when players are really fired up after they get three outs in a row and they're like screaming and like, ah! You guys probably don't have an editor that's going to edit out my profanity like at the athletic, the roundtable.

bleeps now. Okay, good. All right, good. So, yeah, the Cubs frantic ball guy. They have a ball guy who's pretty frantic. Cubs fans know what I'm talking about. Josh Smith, Bunt, Spin. I got a lot of slow motion replays of Buntz

because I liked watching the spin, the ball roll over. I'm not going to use that, but there's a gift for it. Anyway, so you have a sense of what the note-taking is like. How far did the Rangers spit their seeds? Gabby Moreno almost landed the ball in his divot. That's a good one. I'll probably write about that. And if you don't write about some of these things, you could do one of your prune the past roundup posts where you have things that are almost worthy of a full edition and you just

get them all out of your head at once. A lot of these won't get rid. And I think I am actually going to do a prune the past week next week because I've got to get rid of some of these. But like a lot of these are not, they sound like not worth a post when I just put it like that. but one, I won't get to a lot of them. Two, they do connect and make, you know, things, themes, and John Wilson's a good comp. And, yeah, I mean, all of these end up being 1900 words and have a big lesson, you know, a big life lesson. Yeah, yeah, and probably it would make a good time capsule. If you do this approach for multiple seasons, I don't know if you will, but just to open up a document from several years ago and go day by day and reminisce about the things that you saw, that would be kind of interesting.

And probably people would be interested in the stuff that was left on the cutting room floor that you didn't actually write about. And you have certain obsessions that you develop that you return to. And sometimes you can even see evolutions in them over the course of a season. Like you've written a lot about catcher interference, as you said, and the highlights that are not highlights. And the first pitch of the game getting grooved, that was a big one for you this year. And that paid off because you noticed that the first pitch. of the game is pretty much always just a fastball down the middle, more or less, and you argued that people should be swinging at those more. And then it seemed like teams took your advice

to some extent after that. So then you've got multiple editions out of that. So that's always nice. Thanks for saying, thanks for letting me talk about it. I got to say, like, I feel like I haven't said this, but I feel like this is the one place that people will forgive me if I say it. I think it's really good. Like, I'm really, like, I think I'm doing good work. And I hope people will will appreciate it. It's a, you know, it's a big lonely internet out there these days. Like, you know, I've talked about this elsewhere. You probably have noticed this. You don't write about baseball, but you've probably noticed this about other things. It is no longer a sharing internet. You used to, like, publish your thing, and then you get to spend a whole day watching

people retweet it. And things just don't get shared the same way. Like, it, everything is sort of siloed off. The social media sites don't really like to promote sharing of outside sites. I'm like now I'm doing a paywalled newsletter so that no one wants to share anything from a paywall newsletter for good reason because people who aren't paying for it or like, why are you sending me this? So it is a little bit of like it's hard to not get the same type of, you know, like sugar feedback that I used to get. But I do think that like, man, I've written a lot of stuff this year there. I'm like, that's great. I think so too. So I was going to call it indispensable, but then I rethought that because almost everything and everyone is dispensable when you get

right down to it. But I think it is irreplaceable in the sense that it's not a commodity. The things that you're writing about would not be written about anyone else usually if you weren't writing about them. And probably for some people, it's not for them, much like this podcast, I suppose, but if this podcast is for you, then probably pebble hunting would be for you. So go check it out if you haven't already at pebblehunting.substack.com. And the last thing I wanted to ask you about is something that I assume will be coming to pebble hunting sometime soon, but you've been doing for years and years. You referenced it earlier.

You're what will be remembered, what will remember from this year. You've been doing that since ESPN, and you haven't done it yet this year. I assume you will. And so you probably don't have an answer yet, or if you do, you don't want to spoil it. But I've been thinking about what we'll remember from this year. I was going to toss out a few possibilities. Honestly, I don't even mind spoiling it. I wrote at such length about the Shohei Otani game in the LCS and then the World Series,

the full World Series, and then Game 7 of the World Series. And I think, I mean, I don't think there's much suspense. Those so overwhelmed. It was a pretty bland year, you know? Yeah, that's what I was going to add. Right. It's can anything overcome either game well, I guess, is, is, it the playoffs as a whole, you could argue, because the playoffs were just really good, just

statistically, and also kind of vibes-based. Everyone agreed the playoffs were great. The World Series specifically, specific World Series games, or the Otani game. Yeah. And you almost have to specify which Otani game, but the clincher in the NLCS. I don't think you do have to, I don't, well, I mean, you and I might have to, maybe we might have to specify, but I think that in, I do think that for some decades, the Otani game will not require specification that it will just... Well, I was thinking of World Series Game 3,

which was an Otani game, but it was also... Each base 10 times, and it was the game, yeah. It was noteworthy for other reasons, too, whereas Game 4 of the NLCS was just the Otani game. Yeah. And you've written at length about Otani in the context of what we'll remember you did last year. You did a, what, a four-part series or something?

Three. And a lot of it was about Otani and what we'll remember about him and how he maybe broke the whole idea. And so I guess that's another question. Did Otani's latest memorable feats erase some of his previous feats? Like if Otani was what we'd remember about a previous year, did that get overwritten now by the more recent, the fresher, even greater exploits in the postseason? And so now we'll have a new thing that we remember Otani for and something else will slide in and overtake him in a past season. I don't know.

Well, we had that, yeah, we had that conversation after the first Otani year where we said, but wait, what if he's better next year? And so there was always a little bit of a hesitation to, like, announce the Otani year too soon. But I think that's passed. Like, Otani just gets all these different years now because what he does is, he's not just like, oh, Stan Musial, he had a great year. Oh, you know, he hit 347. He was the best player in the National League.

Like, that's not why he's the, it's not why it's his year. it's that every year is in fact unlocking new things and doing things that he himself has never done that nobody has ever done that nobody else will ever do again quite possibly but that also are new to him and so I don't I don't really have a problem awarding him year after year

it's like unprecedented other than kind of Babe Ruth Babe Ruth sort of had a run of these years but I don't have a problem with it and if I end up settling with on the Otani game as the answer this year it won't bother me. And I don't think he has been retconed out of any of his previously awarded years.

I think that he does, I think that his memorable years are still his memorable years. How often has it been the case that the thing that you thought got remembered from each year is just a game that one player had or even a postseasoned series for that matter? Is it often that, I guess some years it's a spectacular World Series or something or some moment in a World Series, but is that kind of uncommon for it to just be like that guy had a great game? I'd have to look at like the whole 130-year list of it, but I don't think so. I mean, a lot of times it's a single play, right? Willie Mays made that catch. That's like clearly the answer for that year. And, you know, Harvey Haddicks.

Everybody remembers Harvey Haddicks. Nobody knows anything about 1959 or whatever, except this one Harvey Haddx game. Yeah, like, you know, Carl Hubble struck out five consecutive Hall of Famers in the All-Star game is a thing. And there's a bunch of things like that. I was trying to think of what could possibly rival either the Otani game or the World Series or whatever it is. And I don't know that there's a better choice. Well, there's one really good choice, but it just doesn't seem to be, it is also a very late-break possibility and it doesn't seem like it's going to be historic enough like no one cares i don't know

like it hasn't been as big a news as i expected it would be but i mean it's like a manual class a yes that's that's what i was going to say is one and that it totally depends really on what comes next i guess like if well either way maybe if this turns out to be a singular incident and they crack down on that type of bet and no one ever does it again or no one ever gets caught doing it maybe that would burnish its legacy because it'd be remembered as the one time someone did that or got caught doing it. Or if that becomes kind of a common occurrence, then maybe that's the moment when the Pandora's box opened or the floodgates opened and everyone remembers that is the first time that that happened or no one remembers it because it becomes commonplace.

But that's possible. I was thinking Cal Raleigh has a case, right? Just his season. Yeah. I mean, in a week year, we would have been talking about him for this, for this category. Until the end, you know, basically until October started, it seemed like it was quite possibly going to be either Cal Raleigh or as like weird. It's like going to be hard to believe that we thought this was a big deal. But the torpedo bat game at the beginning of the year, when the Yankees, I mean, the Yankees homered on the first three pitches, we learned about the torpedo bat. At the same time, like, that was a pretty big moment in ball, right? And it has, like, good lore potential, but we're all sort of bored of torpedo bats. But, yeah, Cal Raleigh.

I think Cal Raleigh is an example of, like, he defined the season for us. He is our defining storyline of the season, but he doesn't have, like, the memorability that is going to entrance kids reading books 60 years. years from now. And so I don't think that he's likely. Now, it really does help that he's got a couple of records. Records get you repeated. You'll hear his name in this season repeated for many years. You will. Although, in a weird way, like, the fact that no catcher is ever going to get within 10 homers of him kind of hurts because no one's going to ever be chasing him. But, yeah, Cal Raleigh is, that's fine. He's a fine answer, but like, it would be a pretty weak one. Yeah. Dodgers repeating is just related to Shohei in the World Series, but it had been a long time since anyone did that and the whole deepening the discussion about the Dodgers breaking baseball and cementing their status as a dynasty. Maybe that's all just kind of wrapped up together. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Rockies, now if the Rockies had broken the White Sox lost record, maybe that wouldn't be remembered because that was a one-year-old record. If they had broken all of the records,

for being bad, like most losses, worst winning percentage, etc. They did, though, get worst run differential modern era by like a lot, but that just probably does it because you have to caveat you can't count the spiders

in 1890 and also most people don't care as much about run differential. But they were worse in many respects than the White Sox were the prior year, but probably won't be as well remembered. If they had lost like a hundred and They would have been a good contender, but even if they'd lost like a hundred and twenty-three and broke the records by a little, coming so soon after the White Sox had had the 121 loss season, there wasn't like a pent-up energy tracking their chase or anything like that.

So I don't know, they were, they had a shot. They were like a first half story. I watched a lot of Rockies in the first half. I didn't watch any Rockies in the second half. I don't think they were chasing anything. I don't think they're that memorable. And, you know, run differential, I don't need to go into this. But the higher the run scoring environment, the more it encourages.

Like, if you lose six to three and you lose three to zero, those are the same for run differential, but they're not the same for Pythagorean record, you know? And so when you say they had the worst run differential, that's partly just raw numbers caused by their offensive environment. I don't know if their Pythag record was actually the worst of all time. But anyway, it's too complicated. It's not fun. Yeah, yeah.

And the only others that occurred to me, well, there were a couple memorable collapses, memorable to their teams. There was the Mets collapse, but it's not even the most memorable Mets collapse of this century, probably. And then what could have been is the Guardian's comeback and the Tigers collapse, except that gets kind of ruined as a timeless story. both because the Tigers still made the playoffs and because they then beat the Guardians and almost undid the collapse in a sense. So that seemed like it was going to be an enormous story for about a week.

And then it becomes kind of forgettable. Just like you blow an unprecedented lead to blow. And then the implications of that basically don't go beyond like that week or two. So, yeah, that probably won't. Nick Kurtz, like if Nick Kurtz turns out to be the best hitter ever, and this was the year he arrived on the scene and had an all-time rookie

great offensive season, I guess, maybe. It occurred to me the Yankees' facial hair policy ending. I don't know. You'd ever know what will somehow be memorable if every Yankee suddenly has a beard next year, maybe. Also, one kind of out of left field one, the All-Star swing off, like if that turns out to be precedent setting in some way,

if eventually we end up in a world where games are ended with swing-offs, and that's the first time it was really tried and seemed to be a success and everyone liked it. Maybe that has some potential, could have some legs. That's, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good out-of-left-field suggestion. That's about, I like that, I think. I haven't really been thinking that hard about my own out-of-left-field thoughts. So maybe I'll come up with some others in the next few weeks, or maybe I'll just end up writing

about Otani and why, you know, I'm not tired of him. Okay, well, if anyone has ideas for something that can beat the Otani game, right in, let us know. I'll share it with Sam, and we will look forward to the breakdown on pebble hunting. We'll look forward to pruning the past coming up. I assume your Hall of Fame ballot will be coming sometime in the next month or so. I don't know if you've made your decision yet, but I am curious, given that you became a big hall guy, last year officially, finally, and you sort of decided that everyone's going to get in eventually, so I might as well help and not hinder.

But I'm wondering if you can find 10 on this year's ballot, because sort of slim-picking. I think I can't find 10, yeah. I think you can, too. Judging by who you voted for last year, it seems like Cole Hamels would be a cinch for you, probably. We'll find out. We will. How are you spending your days and nights now, then, other than hitting the gym?

I guess now that you are not watching the enormous amounts of baseball you must have been consuming over the past several. Because I don't know, do you have an estimate for like how many hours a day you were every now and then there will be a pebble hunting where you'll be like, days 87 to 97, I was traveling, didn't watch any baseball. So I don't know what happened those days. But on average, I mean, that must have been a huge part of your day and night that is now removed, as it is for me and many. baseball fans, but especially for you, the quantity you were consuming. Yeah, like three or four probably hours a day. MLB app, MLB TV, whatever, they do a version of Spotify wrapped now. Yes, yeah.

And I don't think it's come out yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing my numbers this year. Yeah, you better be top 0.1% or something. Because I really did enjoy watching baseball way more this year than in previous years. And I thought that this format was great. I like watching baseball, but I like liking it. I don't like watching it when I don't like it. You know, like, oh, I got to watch. You know, that's no fun. So this was, like, great. Like, I felt, you know, they, I think that there, like, are a few, I've picked up a few, like, sort of, like, super traits that, let's see if I can put this in the right way, but, like, personality traits or, or maybe, like, states of mind that, encourage and help grow all the other positive states of mind, basically. So, like, if you are grateful, if you are humble, and if you are curious, it basically, like, unlocks all the positive ways you would ever like to feel. Like, those are, like, the three foundational states of positive being, humility, gratitude, and curiosity, right? And I really, really,

felt curious about baseball throughout this year. And a lot of times, it's like May 1st, by May 1st, you're like, they're still doing this? They're still, they're still going. Can we just like skip to the hot stove? And I didn't feel that way this year. So in that way, it was good to feel the curiosity. Well, you said every edition of the newsletter almost wraps up with some sort of life lesson. And now this podcast appearance has as well. We got some classic Sam Miller philosophizing there at the end. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Ben. Everyone should go subscribe to pebble hunting at pebblehunting.com if they haven't already.

And I will be back in just a second with John Yandel, who has been throwing batting practice before games started by opposing left-handed pitchers since 1985. We'll discuss arm care in your 70s, whether human batting practice pitchers can fend off pitching machines and John's experience as the personal batting practice. pitcher for Barry Bonds. I think you might enjoy this interview, Sam. I'll go listen to it. Is it up? Not yet. When this is, it will be.

Ben isn't here, and we're lacking production. So this is me singing you the introduction. It's effectively wild. Ben isn't here, and we're lacking productions. So this is me singing you the introduction. The fact is it wild. Well, by day, he is the executive managing director of the San Jose office of real estate firm Newmark. By night, or actually, by other parts of some days, he's the Giants.

left-handed batting practice pitcher, as he has been for 41 seasons and counting. And today, he is my guest on Effectively Wild. Welcome, John Yandel. Thank you. I was looking at your listing on the New Mark website, and it has, as is standard, an achievement section, an education section. It mentions that you went to Stanford. It mentions that you were the president of the Association of Silicon Valley Brokers several times. It mentions an award that you won from that association. And then it says batting practice pitcher for the San Francisco Giants baseball team, 1985 to present, which is not something that you would normally see on a corporate bio like this one. And I assume that must be a fantastic conversation starter. And I would know because it has

started our conversation. Yeah, you know, baseball in general has been that for me even before I, you know, started the position with the Giants. It's just something a little different. And yeah, it's that icebreaker. It's the beginning part of most conversations now that is how I get introduced. It's something that everybody wants to talk about because at least around here, they're all Giants fans. Right. Well, I definitely did want to talk about it, but I want to go back even before you got that side gig and talk about your professional pitching career before your professional batting practice pitching career. Give me a self-scouting report on yourself as a pitcher, as the pitcher who got drafted in the 11th rounds by the Padres and pitched several seasons in the minors.

Yeah, you know, I played since I was eight years old, and, you know, I've always been, God bless me with a good arm, and, you know, I was big for my age back then, so I kind of threw harder than the other kids, and, you know, because my parents wouldn't let me throw any breaking pitches, my dad, until I was, you know, out of Little League, which was great. So I think that helped keep my arm in shape as well or not from getting hurt. And so then, you know, played through high school and did fairly well, was drafted out of high school in the 14th round because by the time they had the draft,

I was already given a scholarship to Stanford. And so they kind of thought why to be going, which I did. And so I dropped down in the draft to the 14th round then. And then, yeah, I went to Stanford and had a great time. And my only really sore arm came my senior year. And so I ended up missing the last month of the season. And I remember back then they said, well, if it's not better in a couple of weeks, we'll cut on it. Which back then, literally, there's no arthroscopic.

They cut your arm. And it was the ulnar nerve, a funny bone nerve in the elbow. So it wasn't just sore. was painful. And then I went up to Alaska to play in a summer league that I'd been to the year before, and I didn't say anything because I really wanted to go up there and spend another season. I thought they knew I had a sore arm, just kind of hoping to get better. And then I was warming up to go in, it hurt in the bullpen. And then I went out and the adrenaline took over. And I think that popped back into the little canal that the ulnar nerve goes in, and this never hurt.

Wow, so just pitch through it. Just pitch through it, yeah. Doesn't work for everyone. So long as you'd answer to your question. Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's held up all this time, clearly. So what were you like as a pitcher? What did you throw?

What was your stuff like? Yeah, you know, not Nolan Ryan kind of speed. Very few people do, but I would have good control and a good breaking pitch and kind of kept everything low and I could, you know, hit inside. side targets and outside targets. And, you know, so, and a good slider. So just mixing it up back then and, you know, keeping the ball from the middle of the plate, you know, and, you know, now it's a joke, you know, I'm trying to get people

out. Now I get paid to get hit because I throw it down the middle of the plate now, and the harder they hit, the better I'm doing. And you weren't hit all that hard in the miners. You made it to AAA with the Padres in your fourth. season with them, mostly as a reliever, and then you went to the Angels for one more season in AA, and then you called it a career. Your numbers on the surface weren't too shabby. You were in your age 26 season, which clearly for a lefty, that's young. So I assume that

you decided that it was time to walk away. Yeah, kind of a combination, kind of a mutual decision, to be honest. It was, you know, I had a good season. I was, I think, three and two in Hawaii even AAA, more than like probably a mid-3 ERA, and I thought there was a chance that, you know, I would be able to make it up the next year, you know, just kind of spot deal being left-handed certainly helped. And so those were my hopes, aspirations, whatever else. And then I got to spring training, and there was a new general manager, Trader Jack McKeon. He got known as Trader Jack. So there was no loyalty to who

was there already, and he wanted to kind of form his own team and do whatever. So they were two days before spring training was over, had my ticket in hand to go back to Hawaii again. They traded for

four pitchers, three of who were left handed, two of had who had major league experience. Dave Grebecki was one of them. Seaman was another one. And so, So they wanted to kind of kick me down to double A again, and I'd been there, done that. And so kind of asked for the release and then went over because it was so late in spring training, I signed on AA for California Angels and ended up going to Holyoke, Massachusetts.

And, yeah, it was a brutal weather during April and May. So I didn't pitch. They already had kind of the rotation set up and didn't pitch that much in the beginning. And I threw, didn't have a good first half, had a really good second half for kind of a mediocre overall season. And so Warren Spawn was actually the traveling pitching coach, and he was in town. And so I went out with drinks with him and just said, hey, you know, I would like to go to big league camp as a non-rosper player. Or, you know, I'm going to probably call a quits. And he goes, well, you better call it quits then.

So I did. And all my friends were, you know, making money from Stanford. And they were having good jobs. And I was making, you know, $1,000 a month or whatever it was back then. But I think it was actually $3,000 a month. But for six months out of the year. And so, you know, I kind of thought it was my time. And so then, yeah, I got out of it.

And I still remember the first nights, you know, That most academic thing I'd done in the four and a half years I was playing was read the Sunday comics. And, you know, so I went and my girlfriend at the time had her Stanford MBA. And so I thought, okay, I got to get an MBA. You know, that's the way it goes. And so I took the test without any quality, you know, without any practice test, without studying, whatever, just wanted to do it. And it was brutal. I didn't do very well on it.

So I'm still without my MBA now. But, you know, the rest kind of is, you know, just always continued to play, moved up to Portland, playing the league there during the summer, and then moved down to California in 85. And one of the guys that I played with in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was up with the Giants. And so I was visiting him in the locker room.

And coaches knew that I threw, and they all towards the end of the 85. season. And they had sore arms and needed somebody to throw batting practice. So that started it. I've just kind of kept showing up every year afterwards. Yeah. And you've pitched a lot longer than Warren Spahn, speaking of lefties who stayed in the game a long time. So you go from Haleakala to Holyoke to business. Did you, in that interim, when you weren't pitching before you caught on with the Giants, did you have any regrets about having walked away? Or did you just not look back. No, pretty much every day. Yeah. And it was, it was such a different life. And,

and, you know, you realize once you're out, you can't really go back in, I mean, there are stories people that do, but, you know, it's few and far between. And yeah, you know, I ended up having to, you know, I was worked for Burroughs computer company selling their check processing equipment. And, you know, there's back into presentations, which I hadn't had a lot of experience doing and, you know, learning about the product. So before presentations, I'd spend all night, you know, studying, getting ready for it and all that. And, yeah, there was many times at three or four in the morning going, what am I doing? You're just be coming in from the bars right now and I'm up studying. But, you know, life has been great.

God's been great to me. And this is all part of the path. And I think that it's just the way that it was meant to be and to hook on with the Giants and still be around it. I mean, face it, if I ever did make it to Big League's, it would have been for a short career, and that would have probably been Ed. Right.

Yeah, your friend, who you mentioned, who you were visiting when you serendipitously were asked to throw BP was Ricky Adams, right, who had played with you in AA. And 85 was his last year in the Big League's. He played 54 games for the Giants, 120 games total, and that was that for him in the big leagues at least. So, yes, a lot of guys, even if they make it, they don't get to stay nearly as well. Good research on your part.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And he was out. And then, you know, it's, I think when you make the big leagues, you think you're big and you don't go back and play summer league ball, very few people do. You know, when you're a minor league guy, you know, you have the dreams of, You know, I mean, I remember when I was first pitching with the Giants, you know, I could still throw well there because I'd thrown for the three years. And I've just been out of it for three years. And, you know, you had visions of, hey, maybe, you know, I could throw a session on the side and they would see me.

I mean, I'm in the big leagues now. All they know, all I need to do is be seen or something. And, you know, then that kind of faded away over the years, too. But I did get to pitch in one game with the Giants with a big league team behind me when they went and played. the AAA team, like they did every year in a game in Fresno is where their AAA affiliate was. And so Mark Garner, who actually was in Fresno or grew up in Fresno, started the game. And he was going to go like three or four ending before the season started. This was kind of like their last game. And he was going to be the third or fourth pitcher. And he didn't make it out of

the first inning. He got crushed. And so they ran through some people. You know, they had the game starting in a couple of days they didn't really want to go through everybody. So I kept going to Dusty Baker, the manager at the time ago, I'm ready. I can do it. You know, go out there. So finally, you know, like the eighth inning, he comes up and says, you still want to throw? And I go, yeah. And you go, go get warmed up. So I went there and I threw and made it out of the and I walked the first guy and he goes, you know, I'm pretty nervous, you know, and, you know, for you're just going to go like walk everybody. But then I got one guy to pop up. I struck out the next guy and the third guy or fourth guy, I guess, because I walked somebody, flew out

to left field. I made it out of the inning. So, yeah. Yeah. And in 78, when you got sent to AA, Roger Craig was the manager of the Padres in his first season. And he had to give you the news that you weren't going to make the club and said, I'll see you in the big league someday. And then he becomes the Giants manager in that 85 season when you're around. And you got to say, well, here I am. But I wonder, you could have had the glass half empty or glass half full view of making it to the majors in the way that you did. Because I could imagine that the proximity to a major league mound, if you still had regrets about your pitching career, you might think even more acutely, oh, I could have made it. This is what I missed out on. Or you could have the optimistic take, which is, hey, I made it after all.

Not quite exactly the way that I intended to or expected to. but this isn't so bad either. So it sounds like the latter is closer to the way that you perceive this. Yeah, you know, and then I wish I could say that that attitude came quickly. You know, you go through your regrets. You go through what if things could have been different, you know, and now after 40 years in doing it, you look back and go, well, things most likely wouldn't have been different.

But, you know, you look at, and I was never going to be like the superstar starting pitcher. But when you get down to the 11th, 12th guy in a pitching staff, you know, in relief, there's not a lot of difference between, you know, a good AAA pitcher, you know, and, you know, one of the big league guys that's in that position. So, you know, you always wonder how you would have done if you ever had the chance. But, you know, you also got to live with a fact that you'll never know. And when you got that gig, you were young, you were 30, I guess, right? So was there a part of you that was treating it as a tryout? Just, hey, maybe I'll get another look here. Yeah, no, that's, that's, you know, mentioned before, yeah, that was, that lasted really a

couple of years to where, you know, because you throw from 50 feet, you know, and so, you know, you appear to be throwing harder, which, you know, they, they want, but on the field, there's really two parts of batting practice. There's on the field, you know, that's more, you know, that's more, three-quarter speed over the middle, all fastballs. And that's just kind of getting them warmed up and I handball, you know, contact coordination. And then there's in the cage, which is 45 minutes before the game starts. And that's where they want you to throw hard and, you know, throw different pitches and, you know, all that. So I've, over the years, you know, back then even had developed a pretty good 50 foot curveball and slider and everything else but you know then i could throw hard and

they wanted me to throw as hard as i could so it was competitive you know but you know roger never went into the into the cage he you know was was out on the field for batting practice and when you're getting hit and doing whatever so yeah it it's you know something i would have loved to have done but didn't do. And then you realize that just like what you said, you can be bitter about it or wish things were different or just be appreciative of what you have. And so it wasn't too long before. I mean, in the beginning, I was always appreciative of going up there. I never took anything for granted, you know, year after year and still kind of don't. You know, I mean, they can tell me that I'm done and then I would assume for age discrimination and get my job back again.

But, yeah, you know, it's, it's, you know, and now the last couple years I've gone down to spring training for the whole kind of two and a half months because they're, and beginning to January, there's guys that live down there. It's a popular place for players to be that, that come by and want, you know, want to take some swings and things like that. So I love that area. I'm not that busy at work. Everything, you know, since COVID is a lot remote anyway. So it works out well to do that. And at first, you were making $20 a game. I assume you're making more now, but it seems like you're doing this, not for financial reasons, but for the love of the game. And that tenure, that longevity that you've had, are you then the longest tenured member of the Giants organization? Is there anyone in any capacity you're aware of who has been with the team longer than you?

No, there is Karen Sweetie, who is the executive assistant to the general manager who's been there. I think two or three years less than I have. But on field, no, I'm, and Ron Wotis has been there for 27 years, I think, who's kind of, was a third base coach, the bench coach, he's been kind of all the things, and he's still, you know, active with him, doesn't travel and things like that, but it's still there. But I out tenure him as well. So I let him know all the time, and he's got to respect me for it.

Yeah. Well, it's incredible that you've stuck around that long because even though you're currently good at the job, it would have been easy for you to have been replaced at some point. I mean, everything has changed over the years. All the players have come and gone, the managers, the coaches, ownership, even the GMs, etc. And so at any point, someone could have said, hey, thanks for your service, but I've got a buddy, I'm bringing in to do this or I'm doing it myself or whatever it is. So have there been any close calls? about a decade ago, you had a rotator cuff injury and you were out for a while, right? And so a younger guy came in for a while, but as soon as you were able, they wanted you back.

Yeah, that didn't work out that well with him. He got released from AAA, and then they asked if he wanted to come during spring training, and I still wasn't healed up yet. And so they asked if he wanted to come and throw batting practice, but he did. He was left-handed as well. And so he never really got used to the, you know, slowing things down and throwing it over the middle and, you know, about the fifth or six person that he hit, you know, they kind of called me up and said, or how are you doing?

You ready to have you come back yet? And it was six months to the day after the surgery that I was back on the mound, which was honestly a little bit early. It hurt for the first, you know, two or three weeks that I threw. And then it got good again and never had a problem since. knock on wood. So, yeah, but then I was fired the first year by Murph, who is the clubhouse guy, who Mike Murphy, who'd been there for, you know, 50 years or something back in the

Willie May's days. So he didn't like Rick Adams because Rick didn't tip all that well and he was messy and, you know, whatever else. And so he related me to Ricky Adams. And so, you know, I showed up the next year. and, you know, he was the first guy I saw when I walked into the locker room, and, you know, he just goes, no, we don't need you this year. And so I said, okay, let me go say goodbye to a few people. So I went into Roger Craig's office, Roger Craig's office, and said, hey, you know, I really appreciated. I had a great time last year and appreciate the opportunity. And he goes, what are you talking about? I go, well, Murph said you didn't need me this year. And he goes, go get your uniform on, put your uniform on, I'll go talk to Merf. So then I did. Same thing exactly happened the next year.

I went into Rogers' office and he remembered and then he goes, you're fired again. I go, yeah, I go, I'll go talk to him. From then on, you know, Murph was always, you know, a little bit standoffish with me, which he can be, and he could also be the greatest guy in the world. And then after a few years, we became good friends. And I always reminded them when he denied it, but you remember when you've been fired. Yeah.

So aside from not plunking people, what is the key or what are the keys to being a good batting practice pitcher? So just control, you know, getting the ball over and being consistent with that, you know, like in the beginning, it's on the field, it is, you know, the goal is kind of 19 out of 20 pitches that are strikes, you know. And every once in a while, you let one go and slow or whatever. But they just want to get into that rhythm and swing and work on whatever they're working on. So it's control number one. And, you know, throwing a ball, you know, that's relatively straight. And so, you know, that's, unfortunately, I didn't do that so much in the beginning. That's why I got my nickname, which is Cutter John, because I was throwing at Candlestick Park,

had these horrendous winds coming at you and just swirled around the park. So any little unique spin would be magnified because of that wind. And so my ball tended to cut into a right-handed hitter. And, you know, I was throwing like I did three-quarter, you know, release, you know, regular pitching. And then I realized that if I threw it more like a football over the top, then that cut would go away. And so, you know, that was all over probably a, you know, a month or two period of time that I changed my motion in order to do it. But I'm still known as Cutter John 40 years

later. So nicknames die hard. And so, yeah, so I mean, once I'm known as Sinker John because of gravity, then that's when I'll quit. Right. And you estimate you've thrown something on the order of a million batting practice pitches have you tried to calculate this yeah you know i did and somebody asked how many i threw and i have no idea you know you know count up to a million but you know i just figured you know every time that i've thrown you know you throw probably 300 pitches you know 120 or 150 on the field and then equals to that if not more in the batting cage and so because when I first started

it didn't make any difference whether it was a right hand or left hand or they just need somebody so I was up there every day at the home games I didn't travel back then and then when Barry Bonds came in he kind of

liked the way I threw it became friends with him and that's when he said I want John to travel and ask me first if I could and you know it's like we were talking about earlier you know my job was

very good at letting me take time off and go do it. And so then I start traveling as well and still am. So what is your schedule then now or how has it evolved over time? Now you're throwing BP before the Giants face a left-handed starter? Is that right? So when do you get the call? And then what's your schedule on a game day?

Well, so, yeah, I try to make as many games as possible. I'll miss two or three left-handers typically in a year. with other things that come up or cities that are hard whether they're just one left-handed Milwaukee for example is really hard to get to Pittsburgh's not that easy no direct flights

and so you know they know that I'll be there unless I tell them that I'm not going to be there so it's more like you know they don't ask me every time they just kind of assume now and so that's worked out well and they've been great at like

you know if I've taken the team plane if it works out But that first game is, you know, the left-hander, then I'll take the team playing, and then I'll throw, and then I'll come back on a commercial flight. Most of the times I go back and forth on a commercial flight. And, you know, I mean, there's times where I thought it was pretty important at the office, you know, where I would fly out to New York to take the six o'clock flight in the morning, you know, land at 2.30, had taken a taxi to the ballpark, throw, come back to the airport and take a late night flight back so I could be in the office at 8 o'clock

the next morning. And I don't do that anymore. I'll still have that schedule, but then I'll leave the next day, you know, stay overnight. And then, you know, realize I've been to a lot of great cities, but never really saw any of the cities other than the ballpark. So now I'm kind of doing, you know, last years or whatever this is going to be. Who knows? I just want to have the experience of seeing all the places I go to. And your Newmark bio page says you've been doing this kind of work for 34 years, which is a long time, but not as long as you have been throwing batting practice. So were there times where they came into conflict, especially when you were earlier in your day job and not a senior and things weren't yet remote where you had to

make a choice or there really was kind of a, I can't make it to that meeting because I've got BP. Well, yeah, I'm a good question. And it's, it's, you know, there were conflicts, but it was mainly me. It wasn't really the company and the clients or anything else. So I've really been able to, because people know what I've done. And so, you know, it's unique enough to where if I have to postpone a tour, you know, then they understand, you know, or I have a partner that I work with, you know, that does the tour. I'm not there. They understand that. So the conflict was mainly self-imposed rather than, you know, the company saying you can't go or, you know, client saying you can't go or whatever. But, you know, I never really, you know, now it's,

it's totally different because I just, you know, I'm older, been doing it for a long time. And so now that, you know, my friends, you know, are having grandkids and things like that where they love baseball, you know, I'll take them and get them on the field before the game and kind of give them a tour around. And, you know, that's what I've been doing the last couple years. The first 30 years, I didn't really want to have anybody think, you know, which is stupid. Now I look back on it, but didn't want anybody to think that I was throwing because, because, you know, it helped my job. You know, I wanted to let them know that I'm throwing

because I love the game and love being there and, you know, not mix the two. But nobody cared. You know, it's, you know, I probably should have used it more now looking back on it, you know, to get business. Right. Because it's, you know, yeah. Yeah, could have been a big shot for clients.

Here's what I do. I'll take you around. Yeah, that kind of thing. Although maybe the Giants wouldn't have appreciated that so maybe the fact that you didn't try to mix the jobs is is one reason why you've lasted so long there so yeah no you're right and and you know we'll never know you know there's different you know i made it through like uh seven general managers yeah eight field managers you know and everybody's got a unique kind of a of a deal so yeah it's it's yeah what may have

worked with one group may not have worked with the other group so yeah that's exactly right i mean I know my position there. I don't try to act like I'm one of the players. I mean, even back when I was young enough to be one, you know, I was there to kind of provide services, not be somebody's best friend or, you know, whatever. I mean, you know, you get to know everybody, but I always never really kind of acted like I was more than what I am. Are you looking at the probable pitchers far in advance to try to figure out, okay, might

they have a lefty coming up? And these days, you never know, there's a lot of TBD, right, and a lot of openers, and so you can't always anticipate when there's going to be a lefty. So has it gotten harder for you to forecast when your services will be required? How far in advance do you know? Another good question. Yeah, it's kind of a lot more difficult. It is, you know, it used to be where people would set up the rotation five days in advance and they would announce it. And so, and then really the majority of the time of my career, that's, That's the way it was. Really, since, I guess, probably COVID, another thing, you know, call it five or six years, you know, a lot of times they don't announce who's going to throw. And, you know, I won't find out until, you know, two days before I have to go and sometimes

even less. And so, you know, the coaches typically will know when they'll say, well, I think it's going to be a left-hander, you know, this is what they're going to do. They haven't announced it yet. So I'll go ahead and get my plane ticket ready to go. You know, and the West Coast is easy. You know, it's Southwest typically, and you can cancel your ticket and get credit and put it towards another ticket. When it's East Coast, you know, United Airlines, it's, you don't use it, you lose it kind of thing.

And so, but they've been good about that too and they understand. And it hasn't happened all that much to where I just, you know, they switch the last minute. But yeah, it's, you know, I wish it was a lot more in advance, but I really don't know my schedule that much. And it wasn't not a big deal because I was home all the time or, you know, whatever to just jump on a plane. I'd get used to it. Now it's a little bit, you know, I want to kind of do other kind of travel and enjoy the fact that I'm 71 years old and, you know, shouldn't be tied to anything anymore. But, you know, I love that. that. And so I want to be tied to it in a way, but in a way, I want to be tied to it conveniently,

and that doesn't always happen. I wanted to ask you about your arm care routine, especially as you've gotten older. You mentioned you had the rotator cuff injury, so I guess it hasn't been pristine from a health standpoint, but what do you have to do to keep that arm in shape? Because sometimes I'll see a former player who throws out a first pitch, for instance, and it'll be kind of shocking that's not that they're not firing it in there anymore, but that they can barely throw it, right? I saw, speaking of another lefty who actually ended his career with the Giants, Randy Johnson, he threw out a pitch for the Mariners in October, and he's 62, so you've got almost a decade on him, and he was standing well in front of the mound, and he still bounced

it, and then afterward he was kind of cranking his shoulder around and rubbing it, you know, ruefully, kind of jokingly, and who threw harder and was more powerful than Randy Johnson. So I assume it's sort of a use it or lose it kind of thing, that you got to stay in shape. So what do you do to prepare and what do you do after you've thrown BP? Yeah, I've said that I can kind of throw all day long every day, but I go out in the backyard and I bend over weeding the garden and then I can't stand up the next day and stiff and whatever. or so it's what you get used to. But also I do, you know, during the off-season,

I do this program called P90X, which is kind of an overall, kind of a leg-arm back, you know, workout and try to stay pretty loyal to that. So I'm staying in shape. And then, you know, I really only am not throwing for now a month and a half during the year.

And because I play in a men senior league in the end of October. So I keep my arm. arm in shape doing that. And then, you know, November and half of December, I don't throw. And then I start throwing here coming up in another couple weeks. I'll be throwing against the wall or against a net or, you know, whatever. My kids are grown up now and out. So I still throw with my younger boy, you know, a little bit. But yeah, just, you know, don't be stupid with it and try to throw as hard as you can without warming up.

And, you know, I have a little weight routine that I did after on my rehab, you know, from my shoulder surgery that I still use. And anybody listening that has arm problems, get it fixed and go to Ken Akizuki, who's a giant orthopedic surgeon, and he was great. And, you know, I never, I mean, again, knock on wood, you know, had problems with my arm ever since. And so I get a lot of credit to him and, you know, just the fact that you got to pay attention to your body. And, you know, if it's stiff and sore, you know, then you're probably not ready and you've got to work out a little bit more. But once the season starts, I've been blessed on, you know, really not having any issues.

And I don't ice afterwards. I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore. So, yeah, just, but I think if I didn't throw for a year and I did something like Randy Johnson to do, I'm sure I'm going to have arthritis, persitis, whatever in the arm, and I won't be able to lift it up at some point. That's why I keep throwing just to make sure that my arm is okay. Yeah. Well, it seems to me that the greatest threat to your tenure is not your own aging or health

or some young hot shot batting practice pitcher prospect coming up, but technology, because teams have evolved the way that they've done batting practice or have had machines do it. I think the Giants were one of the last teams to start using a traject arc machine. Maybe they didn't need one because they had you. I don't know. But there's been that trend where you have a machine that can actually replicate, mimic the movement of pitches, not on the field for now. You still have to go under the bowels of the stadium or wherever to hit against that. But between that and then the trend toward high speed batting practice and game speeds, not that you're just lobbing it in there, but, you know, you might want to face the velocity that you're seeing in games.

So has any of that seemed like a threat or how does something like a trajectory arc work in concert with what you provide? Again, compliments on your knowledge of the game because not that many people know about the trajectory machine. Your nemesis. They had it, you know, down in spring training last year is the first time that we saw it. And it is good. I think they need to do it so that there is quicker time between pitches because it's probably like 20, 25 seconds between pitches. And, you know, in that period of time, you know, I'll throw them, you know, 10 pitches, you know, and obviously not that hard, not, you know, everything else. But yeah, I think, I mean, whether it's that or, you know, there's pitching machines too. And, you know, I don't throw 95 miles.

an hour, even, you know, from 45 feet or whatever I'm throwing right now and, you know, how that changes, you know, what 80 mile an hour fastball becomes 95 if you're throwing from that distance, but it's all different. So from 60 feet, you know, yeah, then they'll start using it more and more, I think. And, you know, even the pitching machines they do. But a pitching machine you know they set it for a slider you know and so you see 20 sliders and they go okay i'm done with the slider i want a fastball and it takes them a while to adjust it some practice pitches you know it's two or three minutes which doesn't sound like a lot but when you're in the batting cage ready to swing again you know that's time so they just they want to get in and out everybody's

kind of got their their pre-game routine and there are some guys that just want pitching machine. They don't want to see me. There's other guys that want to see, you know, an arm and not a machine. And so that's just, you know, I'm there to do what anybody wants at any given time. And, you know, obviously no pressure to hit off me. But, you know, yeah, you always wonder whether they're going to be replaced by some mechanical arm or not. But so far it haven't happened. And if it does, then, you know, I've had a great career, but people still like to see an arm. Well, we all worry about being replaced by robots in whatever our line of work is, I suppose. And they can't take a trajectory on the road, at least for now.

It's too bulky. You can't put one on a plane. But you haven't been tempted to sabotage the machine yet, it sounds like. No, but, you know, I pay attention to it and who does it. And they didn't. Yeah, we've had it for a while, but it just, it sat in the back of the, the cage. And so, you know, it's more of a pain because it's a projector. And so the projector is put right where I throw, you know, from, and it's a box that gets screwed down.

And luckily, they figure out a way to loosen the screws a little bit. And then you can kind of take it out of the grooves and pick it up and, you know, and move it over off to the side. And then there's just the screws that are sticking up that you still have to kind of throw around. But whether it's me or Pat Burle back then or whoever else was throwing batting practice, it was more of a hindrance than it was an advantage.

And we'll see. I mean, they'll have it set up in spring training and it's a different coach now, manager, different pitting, you know, coach. You know, everything's changed for the Giants now this year. So we'll see whether, I think Buster Posey is a fan of it. And so that will make a difference, you know, as well, especially with a new coach.

You want to keep your general manager president happy. Was Buster a fan of you when he was a player and you were a batting practice pitcher? Because that would help too. No, Buster didn't really take batting practice off me that much, but he didn't take batting practice off anybody. You know, he had his, you know, routine that he would do, which was soft toss. You know, off of a tea, you know, he was obviously a catcher, so he had a lot of stuff going on with a pitcher before the game.

And, you know, he was just one of those blessed, you know, hardworking, but blessed individuals that didn't take a lot of batting practice. So Barry was my biggest advocate. I think they were surprised when I came back the year after Barry in 2008. Barry was there until 2007, and, you know, they're kind of surprised to see me again thinking, you know, I was Barry's guy, but, you know, I had thrown for, you know, eight years before Barry. Yeah. He monitored the team as well, which I reminded him, and now I've been doing it for, you know, 18 years after Barry's retired. So. Yeah.

I do want to ask you about him in a second, but first, if you're willing to disclose, is there anyone who was the opposite, who you did not? like throwing BP 2 for whatever reason? Maybe they complained about your pitching or they just wanted some strange routine or whatever it is. Dan Gladden early on, who was back in the 80s, and, you know, he was just a complainer anyway. And so, I mean, I remember he was, you know, I was throwing and he wasn't hitting the ball that hard. And he goes, you know, this is, you know, it's nothing like, you know, whoever the pitcher was.

I forget that day throws. You know, kind of disgusted and because you're not throwing hard enough. So he came up and I threw as hard as I could from 50 feet, which back then, you know, I was 34 years old or whatever I was. I could still throw pretty hard and especially from 50 feet. So, you know, I think he never complained again anyway. I don't know whether I got more respect because of that outing or what. And then Kevin, Kevin Mitchell, I called him Kevin Bitchell because he kind of always was complaining about something.

But, you know, and now I'm, you know, I mean, and that all ended too. You know, there is nobody that really, you know, was that way. And Jeff Kent was a unique personality. But, you know, if they don't, I never tried to force myself, certainly wasn't my position to do that, to throw to anybody or whatever. either liked me or they didn't. And I guess there's enough people that did that I'm still doing it. And, you know, the, you know, players have been good.

You know, you're there for them and they realize that. You know, I'm not there for me. I mean, I kind of am just because I love doing it, love the game. But, you know, you're really there to help them. And I've never, in my whole 42-year-now career, ever told anybody I couldn't throw to them. So, you know, there were guys that wanted to, you know, not starting that. day, but wanted to see a left-hander because they were a platoon later on in the game potentially. And so I would stay after the game started and throw to them in the cage for a while

longer. And, you know, people, you know, there's typically a break from, you know, the time that you're on the field to where, you know, people start hitting in the cage because the home team hits first. And so I go up and have lunch, you know, or dinner, I guess, you know, in between. And some guys have, you know, come into the lunchroom and ask me to throw, so I put my dinner aside and go throw to them. So, you know, that's never really want to say, you know, I want to end my career saying I've never told anybody I won't throw. So that's my goal. Have you ever been called upon to do a home run derby? No, you know, Barry was in at once at home.

And so, no, I'm really not that kind of a pitcher. there's a guy Juan Lopez was his name that was a right-hander who threw, you know, batting practice as well. And, you know, he didn't have a curve or slider or anything else like I throw in the cage. But on the field, he threw within a, you know, a three-inch diameter, you know, everything was at the exact same spot every time. And so Barry had him throw to him, even though I kind of threw a lot to Barry. more, you know, my ball moved a little bit. It wasn't always in the same spot. It was typically a strike, and I still throw like that. I'll throw, you know, I aim for the middle, but sometimes it hits the inside of the plate, sometimes the outside of the plate, you know, but still a strike.

But that's not what home run derby is about. They wanted the same pitch every time. Right. Yeah. You're too hard to hits, let's say, to be a home run derby pitcher. And I guess the Giant 7 had a whole lot of huge home run hitters since bonds, but bonds was the best of all times. So, I mean, he had a reputation for being prickly with people at times, certainly, and teammates wasn't always the most beloved figure in the clubhouse. So how did you bond with bonds? Just by being there when he needed me and wanted me, and, you know, he was so great to my family and, you know, to me over the years. And, you know, like I've told people when they ask me about him and go, you know, we're all, you know, we all can be bitchy or whatever the word. I mean, not appropriate for a podcast is 10% of

the time, you know, Barry was just really good at it, you know. And so that 10% that he wasn't friendly, he certainly wasn't friendly. And, you know, it's tough. I mean, I was around him during some those times, you know, you learn when to stay away from him. And majority of the time, you didn't have to worry about it because he was good. And, you know, we became, you know, good friends over the years. And so, but, you know, he's, it's just a different life for somebody like that, because you get asked the same question over and over again, you know, with people that, you know, weren't there, you know, interviewing what Barry had said in one interview and then 10 minutes later, somebody else would come up to him and ask him the same thing. And so, you know, he just kind

of, he was all about baseball and it wasn't about, you know, necessarily. And I think, you know, if he had to do it again, he may change, but it was more go out and perform and that's what people want to see, you know, he wasn't there to make reporters feel good about the themselves. You know, and, you know, sometimes he was, you know, it's just a moody thing. And like I said, you know, Barry at 10% of the time that he was in his bad mood, you know, he was good at it. And in 2007, the New York Times talked to you when he was chasing the record and you said that you had given up more home runs to Barry Bonds than he had hit in games to that point. What was your usual routine with him? What did he have you do?

so we would typically play games so you know i'd throw to him just regular batting practice and you know he was you know a lot of the good hitters you know they always did the same thing will clarks and you know and whatever they would take the first few pitches the opposite way so they kind of get that hand-eye coordination and bat coordination and you know hit it the opposite way and then they would you know hit it straight up the middle and then he would pull it and you know you see him working on things like that. And so Barry would go through, you know, that routine. And then, you know, we played a game.

And so he spotted me a strike and, you know, I'd throw as hard as I could. And, you know, then we would, you know, have a, you know, we went anywhere from one inning to nine innings, depending on how he felt that day and what he was working on. And so it was good because I got to be. be the umpire as well as the pitcher so you know he crushed a couple and i never let him get too far ahead you know and so yeah he'd crush a couple and i go out there's a fly ball to left field you know and i said what do you mean that was halfway up the upper deck i got uh you know don't argue with me

on the umpire as well so so yeah we'd play three out so you know never struck them out um but uh you know we'd start with one strike and and then you know keep score And could you see the evolution in him as a hitter? Because when he got to the Giants, he was already the best player in baseball. He was the MVP that first season. But then, of course, he became the best player ever. However, that happened. You know, I'm sure that you saw the physical transformation, but also as a hitter,

he just reached a higher plane of existence, you know, whether he had help doing that or not. The fact is he was the best ever two-step. into a batterer's box in some of those years. So did that manifest itself in batting practice also? You know, I don't know that it became better in batting practice. I think he became even better as time went on. And, you know, all the speculation on, you know, what very did or didn't do.

What that did is, you know, it's not something you take and all of a sudden you get big and stronger. You know, it's something that getting may or mean, not have taken that you've got to work out and it helps you it helps you um you know to recover quicker and work out harder and barry worked out harder than anybody I've ever seen I mean he was there after games you know lifting the four games lifting you know he had his own weight guy that was there you know helping them and and doing all that so he worked as hard as anybody that I've

ever seen harder than anybody I've ever seen the game so you know that's that and it and it's like But, you know, I'm pretty convinced Barry would have had, again, if, you know, that thing was there, he would have the same number of home runs because it wasn't like, you know, Barry hit a lot of home runs in the first row, you know, and when he got stronger and bigger, you know, he would hit him 40 rows up. And if he wasn't stronger and bigger, he still would have hit the ball, you know, home run, you know, in the first five rows or whatever it may have been. But he was, you know, I would like to see what the stats were of anything, you know, where Barry saw five pitches or more in an at-bat, what his batting average was. And I'm guessing it was, you know, a lot higher than what his career was just because he would then kind of know the pitches, have that feeling of the timing of each pitch, you know, know how it broke, know the arm angle that he was. throwing so that, you know, he could, he could kind of, not guess, but, you know, the probability of where his arm angle was at being a slider and being ready for that pitch, there he was great at. You know, he would, you know, whether it's true or not, I remember he told me the story,

because he would, he would, like, call my pitches and, you know, I was going, you're throwing a slider, you're thrown, and I go, you know, how do you see that? It goes all the arm angle. I look at something in the outfield, and, you know, when you're looking at something that far away, you know, the arm angle that you use gets magnified by that distance. And if you drop down a little bit on your slider, you know, it's five feet difference out in center field. You know, there's the way that the geometry works. And so, you know, he used that to determine. what the pitcher was throwing as well. But he never got fooled, and he was always on balance. And,

you know, that's the thing that, you know, whether I'd throw him a change up at 50 miles an hour or a fastball at 80 miles an hour, you know, he was just never fooled. So, and always on balance. And he has spoken very highly of you. He said in one article, I needed John. There's no question. He was a huge part of my career. That's pretty high. praise coming from a player that accomplished. And it's a good thing that you did stay on after bonds departed because the Giants then went on to win three world series and you got three world series rings. What do you do with your rings? Do you ever wear them? Where do you keep them for safety's sake? Well, one of them now is with one of my best friends that I went to high school

with and he went to Stanford with me and played pro ball and everything too. Now he's retired from his main job in substitute teaching to stay busy. And so he took one of Barry's bats and one of my World Series rings and had a show and tell, you know, at the school that he was teaching at. And so, you know, that's what they're for, you know. And, you know, when I don't, I keep them in the safe, you know, and so they're just too big. I mean, I'm a skinny little guy and these rings are big. So if you're an NFL lineman, you know, they would all probably be proportionate on me. It looks like, you know, it's out of place a little bit. I did my share of wearing them, you know, each year when we got them.

And then they've been kind of my own show and tell when people come over and ask about it, then I'll show them and all that. But, yeah, most of the time they're locked up. Do you have any idea who the next oldest or longest, tenured batting practice pitcher around the league is? Is there a fraternity of batting practice pitchers? Or do you communicate? Do you know if anyone has this sort of track record that you do?

There's nobody that's kind of independent as not a coach that have done it. There was a guy down in Los Angeles. Boniforte was his last name that stopped throwing probably six or seven years ago. But he'd done it for a long, long time as well. I mean, 30 plus years. And he was left-handed as well. And then, you know, he kind of had arm problems and, you know, whatever. So then he stopped.

But the coach, and I can't remember his name right now, and he'd been with Oakland A's, and he's 75 years old. And he throws batting practice. So, you know, on the field. And so, yeah, he's got me by age and is still doing it. But to kind of have an independent job or an independent person come out, yeah, there's giant's been great. I mean, I appreciate every time I step on the field. And, you know, a lot of times I've thought, okay, well, you know, maybe this will be my last year, you know, as I'm driving up there and for the first time.

And you're wondering if you're ready and it's going, okay, it's the same thing. Year after year, and maybe this is it. And then you step out on the field and you go, no, that's not it. I love it. And so, you know, there's just green grass and, you know, this outdoor and, you know, it's just something that I'm blessed to have been able to do. Well, it's funny in your minor league career, I guess you probably could have hung on a little longer than you did if you'd wanted to, but you've more than made up for it in this second pitching career. You're now a very much tear the uniform off me kind of guy, it seems like, and I hope they don't anytime soon, and that Tony Vitello and his staff appreciate what you bring and that your arm holds up and that you can

keep fighting off the robots and the machines and throw BP for many years to come. Thanks so much, John. This was fascinating. All right. All right. Well, do you think I have some updates for you? Yes, I have some updates for you. First, on the pitcher warp draft.

I have some facts. I have some figures. One little thing, the warp totals that Chris cited at the start of the episode were for those pitchers we drafted in 2015 through 2025, as he subsequently realized that 10-year period should have ended in 2024. That's 10 seasons, including 2015. However, that does not change the results. Sam still won, according to the current model of Warp. 63.7 wins above replacement player to 60.9. Pretty close. And because I had to know, I looked up how we would have done if we had gone by Fangraph's War instead of baseball prospectus Warp. Of course, we were a baseball prospectus

podcast at the time. Now we're a Fangraphs podcast. If we were doing this today, we'd probably use Fangraph's War. Well, by Fangraphs War, my 2015 draftees won. Seventy-point-1 war to 71.6. So by Old War, I would have been the winner. By Fangraphs War, I would have been the winner. But by present Warp, Sam won. Now, we wondered aloud which pitchers we should have drafted back in 2015 and how well we could have done if we had had an ideal draft, so Chris and I figured that out. If we had both drafted perfectly, each taking the best person available, I would have won 109.5 to 97.2. And if one of us had picked the best 10 candidates available, anyone who was 24 or younger and active in the majors when we drafted in early May 2015, they would have earned

162.1 warp. And actually, we did a little bit better than I thought, because if we had Drafted ideally, I said we would have had a hundred nine point five and 97.2 warp. So with 63.7 and 60.9, we were more than halfway there. The pitchers we overlooked and should have drafted. Kevin Gosman, Marcus Strowman, Robbie Ray, Carlos Rodan, Andrew Heaney, Mike Fultenevich, Felipe Vasquez, Jose Urania, Ken Giles, and Corey Canable. Sorry, we snubbed you guys. But according to the effectively wild wiki page for that episode, quote,

Ben and Sam agree that the crop of under 25 starters is not very deep this year, and many of them have injury concerns. So maybe we didn't do that badly. It was just a weak class. Also, in case you're wondering, I did find out what happened to Tim Cooney and what he's up to today. He made six starts for St. Louis in the majors in 2015. That's the entirety of his big league career. He then went to Cleveland. He retired as a player after the 2017 season. And what did he do next? He went to business school. Unlike John Yandel, he earned his NBA from Wharton, no less. Class of 2020, he went to work for McKinsey, yeah, for almost four years. And now he is a corporate strategy senior specialist at Vanguard. I guess he landed on his feet. I also have a follow-up to something John said. He said

he'd like to know what Barry Bonds' batting average was when he saw five or more pitches. And John said he figured that Barry's batting average would be higher in those plate appearances than it was overall. Well, you know I had to check on that. With some help from Michael Mountain, we have pitch-by-pitch data going back to 1988, almost all of Bons' career, but not quite. Michael found 4,053 plate appearances from 1988 through Bons' last season 2007, in which he saw five or more pitches. The slash line was 253-501-539. Obviously, five-plus pitch plate appearances were going to get a lot of walks, even more so than usual for Bonds, so we're mostly interested in the batting average and slugging percentage 253-539, and Bonz's career batting average and slugging

percentage were 298 and 607. So considerably worse in the five-plus pitch plate appearances than overall. But then I wondered, okay, well, what about the rest of the league? Did the average batter get much worse in those situations? Well, from 1988 through 2007, National League, the median average was 260 on the dot, with a 411 slugging percentage, 5 plus pitch plate appearances, 217 batting average and 344 slug. So again, Bonds was 298 versus 253 and 607 versus 539. The league was 260 versus 217 and 411 versus 344. So Bons's drop-offs in those played appearances, 15.1% for his batting average and 11.2% for his slugging percentage.

The league as a whole, 16.5% for the batting average versus 15.1 for Bonds. 16.3% for the slugging percentage versus 11.2 for Bonds. So he declined less than average. Of course he did. He was Barry Bonds. And he declined notably less than average in his extra base hit ability. So this does turn out to be another way to show that Barry Bonds was a good hitter. But the results might surprise John. I think the reason why the batting average and slugging percentage are lower in those plate appearances is that seeing five plus pitches means a lot of two strike counts. And that's going to drag down your numbers. Michael looked just at bat's ending with a three-ball count, and the numbers were still a little bit below Bonds's average and the league's average. So kind of counterintuitive, but now we know. Bonds didn't have a huge times through the order effect for what it's worth. A thousand 58 OPS, his first time facing a starter in a game. Then 11-03 the second time. A thousand sixty-nine the third time, 977 the fourth time. He was just a great hitter, however you slice it. There have been a bunch of small transactions since the last time we potted. Maybe we'll do it. a roundup next week, depending on how much major news there is coming out of the winter meetings.

A smattering of free agents signed, Cedric Mullins, Miguel Rojas, Melio Pagan, Anthony Kay, and we had a Red Sox Pirates trade with password going to the Pirates and Johan Oviedo going to Boston. Kudos to that unnamed exec in the Jesse Rogers ESPN survey we discussed the other day, who said that the top trade candidate of the winter was a pirate starter. Nailed it. A pirate starter has been traded. To me, maybe the most interesting signing was the Rockies hiring Josh Burns as their new GM serving under Paul DiPodesta. In a way, it's another blast from the past, not as distant a past as Depot, but Burns was the GM of the Diamondbacks from 2005 to 2010 and the Padres from 2011 to 2014. However, unlike DiPodesta, Burns has not been

out of baseball. In fact, he's been with the Dodgers since 2014 as their senior vice president into baseball operations. He's overseen their scouting, their farm system. Seems like a good guy to have around if you're trying to catch up on what has happened in baseball in the past decade and you're trying to learn from the best, get your scouting and your player development and your prospects up to speed. Plus, you get to poach a front office talent from a division rival. Seems like a suitable right-hand man. And perhaps encouraging that the Rockies were able to persuade someone from the Dodgers to work for them. He also was previously the Rockies AGM 25 years ago or so. Just needs to work for the Giants to complete the NL West Circuit.

Lastly, tis the season for year-end podcast listening stats, Spotify, Wrapped, and others. Thanks to all of you who have sent us your stats, who have posted them, and tagged us. It's always gratifying to see how much time people have spent listening to the podcast, though I've got to say, some of you are sickos, which I appreciate. But based on what I've seen, it seems like listening to every episode we published this year gets you only into the top three or four percent of listeners, which means that, A considerable number of you have not only listened to every new episode as it's come out, but also listen to some old ones or listen to some multiple times. We always do well in these things because we put out a lot of episodes.

I don't know if you've noticed. And also, they tend to be fairly lengthy like this one. But some of you have listened to effectively wild for a significant percentage of the year. I think the top number I've seen so far, listener Jack Alexander posted in the Facebook group, 44,823 minutes, which makes him a top. 0.1% fan. Considering it's still early December, that's what, 8, 9% of the year, something like that, spent listening to Effectively Wild? However, in the comments, he did disclose that he sometimes listens when he sleeps. Can you actually listen when you sleep? You can put the podcast on as you're falling asleep. We have no problem with people using Effectively Wild as a sleep aide, but we might have to discount that minutes total, just slightly. Those are garbage time minutes. That's some low leverage listening. Minutes consciously listened. That's probably the metric we would want. Listener Dan Enden is a top 1% listener, 15,224 minutes. If those were all minutes while he was awake, maybe that's a more legitimate total.

Look, asleep, awake, old episodes, new episodes, one-time speed, three-time speed. We'll take it. We're happy to have the support. And we're especially happy to have the support on Patreon, which you can confer on us 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, Patrick Britton,

Raleigh Richards, Matthew Fury, Chris Dyer, and Christine Goo. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad-free

fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are Patreon's order, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, music, and other podcast platforms. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can check the show page in the podcast

post at Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats recited today. One link is to sign up for effectively wild secret Santa, which you can do until December 10th. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. That will do it for today and for this week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. Number one, fan grass baseball podcast. The stat cast is that blast. T OPS Plus when its stats need contrast. Zips and steamer for the four. Cast, calming in high, meek boss on a hover crab. No notes, minor league free agent drag.

Burn the ships, flames jumping for a nap. Cal FEMA, boning on the bat shaft. Vegas on the butt feet, never say your hot seat. Games are always better with the pivot table spreadsheet. No ads. Subscribers will support us. Room, room fast on your slog to rigor mortis. Peace, Sam.

Rest and peace, Jeff.