Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2468: The Baseball Barometer

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Scott Boras talking turkey, a heartwarming player-fan interaction, two more unintentional challenges, the depths of the Mets’ predicament after their 11-game losing streak, whether Munetaka Murakami can keep up his hot, extreme start, whether hitters should stop swinging against Mason Miller, whether government regulation can improve sports streaming, and the nature of on-base streaks, then Stat Blast (1:32:34) about NL and AL Central standings oddities, the longest periods out of first place, and scoring coming all in one inning, plus (1:44:34) several follow-ups and bonus blasts. Audio intro: Dave Armstrong and Mike Murray, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Boras quote Link to Geese controversy Link to brother-sister embrace Link to Mangum comments Link to Lorenzen clip Link to Lorenzen quote Link to accidental challenge story Link to Mets streak story Link to MLB.com on the Mets Link to Perry on the Mets Link to Sheehan on the Mets Link to Szymborski on slow starters Link to Ben on high-turnover teams Link to team run differentials Link to preseason playoff odds Link to updated playoff odds Link to “Kokomo” curse story Link to “Kokomo” wiki Link to “Kokomo” video Link to Spanish-language “Kokomo” Link to Mets borough mascots Link to Peraza pitch image Link to Peraza pitch clip Link to swing/zone rate data Link to Miller’s stats as a Padre Link to Miller’s Stuff+ stats Link to Murakami’s grand slam Link to Murakami’s Savant page Link to Longenhagen on Murakami Link to Baumann on Murakami Link to Murakami projections story Link to PECOTA hitter projections Link to NPB analyst on Murakami Link to Kruk in a suit Link to Farley skit Link to Bloomberg on NFL streaming Link to Bloomberg on MLB streaming Link to story on Baldwin’s bill Link to story on Ohtani’s on-base streak Link to times on base wiki Link to info on DiMaggio streak scoring Link to upside-down NL Central Link to previous upside-down standings Link to 4/11 AL Central Link to 2006 NL West Link to 2011 AL West Link to 2022 AL East Link to Orioles-Guardians game Link to 2003 Phillies-Reds game Link to 1972 Braves-Astros game Link to 1933 Yankees-A’s game Link to 1928 Pirates-Giants game Link to new Rockies celebration story Link to Rushing’s “fishy” comments Link to Rockies celebration images Link to Rockies celebration clips Link to Cronenworth HBP story Link to listener emails database Link to new switch-hitters data Link to name matches spreadsheet Link to Takatsu on Murakami Link to “Does Bat Day Make Cents?” Link to other promotions/giveaways info  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

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunted dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say philosophically and pedantically, it's effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2468 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraph's Baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporter, I'm Meg Rowley, Fangrass, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer. Ben, how are you? Feeling good, because I believe we've been blessed with maybe the best Boris quote ever. Oh, no. So this appeared in a piece that Brittany Droly wrote for The Athletic published on Friday about the Padres sale price, which we podcasted about on Friday. We did.

And various industry reactions and what it means for the CBA negotiations that the Padre have garnered this reportedly record price. And Scott Boris is quoted a few times in the piece. And unsurprisingly, he is of the opinion that this shows that the baseball business is robust. And we... Booming. Yeah, we largely agree with him on that, as we said. And, you know, some of the suggestion in here as well are the Padre's kind of an outlier

because of what we mentioned, that they don't have a big four competition in town. And Scott Boris downplayed that idea and said, I would say the truth is the Padre's valuation out to the lies that baseball isn't at the most prosperous point of its existence and some other unobjectionable, unremarkable quotes. However, there is one more that is just quintessential Boris. And it comes at the end of a longer quote. And I'll just read it to you. It's two sentences. Baseball's prosperity turkey is done. What?

The barometer says it's ready to eat. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Baseball's prosperity turkey is done. The barometer says it's ready to eat. Okay, wait. Okay, wait, okay.

Prosperity turkey has been cooking, and it's done. But then it's April. Yep. It's not at all timely or seasonably appropriate. You can eat turkey, whatever, I guess, but this is not when people are typically thinking about turkey's being ready. Not in a non-like sandwich context. Yeah. Also, you use a thermometer to determine the done. Our man, Mr. Boris, is using a barometer to measure the temperature of his turkey.

But that's not, that's wrong, though, because. That is that at all. the correct instrument. Right. Yeah, that's pretty... Your food thermometer. So I don't know what a barometer would say about a turkey's readiness. Well, I...

Wait, wait, wait. So has the turkey been in the ovens of November? How it's ready? So were you just like, sorry, Thanksgiving's canceled and we can't use the sucker at Christmas either because it's like, brings new meaning to the phrase low and slow? I guess. But it's... No, no, no, no, no.

I can't be undone like this on a Monday, Ben. I don't know what to make of this. It comes at the end of this longer quote about private equity and why they are enthused about 162 games of inventory and content and selling stadium rights and all that stuff. And then suddenly he hits us with baseball's prosperity turkey is done. Which is interesting because that suggests does he think that this is the peak of baseball's prosperity? And that if it's going to go downhill from here, it'll be overcooked. Right.

Or that you can consume all of the prosperity turkey and then there's no more prosperity to be had. Also, picking the bones of the carcass of baseball. I don't know. Right. And like a turkey is like a very finite resource. Now, there are a lot of turkeys. in the world. That's true.

And I'm given to understand that in some parts of the country, there's something of a nuisance turkeys can be kind of a nuisance bird. In some parts of the countries, in other parts, maybe that's less true. But it, but like you make a turkey to eat. Yeah. And then you eat the turkey. And then there's no more turkey. Unless you make another turkey, but this implies, like, the baseball prosperity turkey.

Yes, it's just one. Baseball is the turkey and it's just been in the oven for 150 years or whatever. And now it's finally ready, which, yeah, suggests that now is the time, I guess, to be charitable. Maybe he's saying now it's appetizing. It's ready. It's savory. Right. The smells are wafting from the kitchen and every.

Everyone is following their nose because they want a piece of baseball now. But, yeah, when you start to think about it a little more, which clearly he wasn't counting on, it does kind of fall apart on multiple levels. Just the barometer is the best, I think. Barometer. Because you don't, you use like a meat thermometer. Right. And, yeah. You're not worried about like the barometric pressure of the bird.

It's. No. And we talk about barometers in a figurative. sense. You know, you're trying to sense which way the wind is blowing, but not the actual physical winds. So just, you know, trying to take the air and, you know, see if things are getting better or worse or whatever. It works on that level. But once you've introduced the turkey and the idea of the turkey being done, then you really have to have the correct implement to measure that. And the best part is that this is the final line of the piece. This is the conclusion. This is the kicker. Like,

you know, you want the money quote. It's like, what do I want to leave readers with? Okay, here's the one big takeaway. And it's Scott Boris saying baseball's prosperity turkey has done. The barometer says it's ready to eat. Right. The phrase that comes to mind with it is like your goose is cooked. Yeah.

And that's not a positive. You're not delighting in the sudden presence of cooked goose, you know. And maybe that's a weird phrase. But the phrase has a, the saying has a negative connotation. Yeah, yeah. It's just. And a goose and a turkey, those are different birds, right? So we need an impugn the honor of turkeys because of the potential issues with goose, with geese.

Oh, not with geese. That's a whole other. That's a whole other conversation. Wax. Yeah, in the music world. But really, this is the dichotomy of Boris on display here, because. He's cited as an expert, and he is. I mean, who is more expert in baseball's labor relations and economic well-being than its most powerful agent for decades?

And mostly we agree with, I think, his wider thoughts about baseball. And mostly, he sounds like any other expert you're going to be quoting. And then suddenly, this just comes out of nowhere, the turkey analogy. It's usually like a nautical analogy of some sort. and I guess bringing the barometer into it. Maybe there's a hint of that. But yeah, that's the best. And the fact that it's just left to speak for itself.

Right. As the final lines in the piece, this is what I will be thinking, which is a, it's a perfectly fine article and mostly fine quotes from Scott and then this. So the best. I want to have sympathy for it because I suffer from, you know, Reddit never said it syndrome at And, you know, if I were to share some of my most embarrassing examples, people would be like, are you Jessica Simpson? We were so mean to her.

Silly label. Seems like a fine lady. Yeah, it's a funny one. Your goose is cooked. Your turkey should have been done months ago. Yeah. I am heartened that he agrees with our underlying conclusion, although now I'm concerned that we were actually reaching a mildly divergent ones.

Well, that's a little moment of Zen for your Monday and maybe other people's Tuesdays by the time they're hearing this. The moment that will undo me for the rest of the week. Yeah, maybe. One or the other. To bring you back from that, did you see the moment on Sunday, the fan moment when, yeah, Jake Mancombe? Yeah.

I'm just, I'm such a sap for these when you get the crowds with the kids. getting a ball, and it's just so heartwarming. And we've talked before about, are you actually obligated to give the ball to a kid? And some grown-ups, they were kids, and they're still kids at heart, and maybe they never got a ball when they were a kid, and maybe they've been trying their whole lives.

And sometimes I feel like people are piling on, and it becomes this almost like Lord of the Flies, sort of everyone's chanting, like, give it to a kid. And generally, I'm all for that, and that's fine. But I also think, you know, sometimes you, heard it a lifetime of fan game going and you don't know the history there. So as long as you're not ripping it out of the hands of some child, then I'm not going to jump to conclusions, but I think it's always nice if you can give something good to someone else, kid or not,

but especially a kid because maybe you're creating a fan for life and all of that. But this specific case, none of that really entered into it because it was a kid giving a ball to another kid. And it was Jake Mangum of the Pirates outfielder. And the great thing about this. So he threw the ball between innings to a kid. And the kid who caught it was a boy with a glove. And Mangum's throw was maybe a little slightly off target. It was a little low because he was throwing it up into the second deck.

Yeah. And the boy had to reach out and catch it. If he had not snagged it with his glove, it might have bounced off the facing or been too low or something. And then the boy handed the ball to his sister, who was the intended target of the baseball. And then the sister instantly immediately just bear hugged her brother. Oh, yeah. And it's just, I defy anyone to watch it and not get a little bit sappy about this. Oh, yeah.

Because it's just, it's so heartwarming. And it was heartwarming even from Mangum's end because the reason, or one of the reasons that Mangum threw this ball to that girl or intended to, is that the girl was wearing a Mengham jersey, a number 28 Pirates jersey. And Mangum is a new Pirates player. Yeah. And he said he hadn't seen anyone in the park wearing his jersey yet. And so this little girl, it was a special moment for him to see his jersey in the stadium. So it was cool for him.

And then it was cool for him when the brother caught it and handed it to the sister. And then I believe the father of the two, you could kind of see. in the background of the clip who's just celebrating how heartwarming a moment this was. And it was just so joyous and so palate cleansing. And Mangum has younger sisters. He's close to. And so this was special for him. And he was reminiscing about how when he was a kid, he's bringing his glove.

And we've even talked about, like, you know, what's the statute of limitations on bringing your glove to a game? And, like, can you get too old for that? And again, I say, I don't think so. as long as you're not getting in anyone's way. But this was just so special. And kind of an only-in-baseball moment just because other major sporting events, for the most part,

don't have as many souvenirs. They don't have as many interactions of this kind between people on the field and people in the stands where you're just chucking baseballs in a good way to the fans. You know, I mean, every now and then a puck will go into the stands or something. But it's not usually. intentional like this. There's just way more foul balls and home runs and fans can keep them, you know, in early days of baseball. You had to give them back sometimes. Supplies were limited.

But now you can have that souvenir and that memorabilia. And when it has a story like this, I don't know. It was just, I will break down watching any one of these clips. It's just, I don't care how basic that makes me. It's just I can watch this an infinite number of times or an infinite number of highlights like this, and it's special and tear-inducing every time. Yeah, it was just really lovely. And, you know, kids at that age, when they have siblings, it can be a frat bit of business, you know? I've, I've joked before on this pod that, you know, my sister and I, we tried to, like,

kill each other at that age. Not literally, it was one knife incident. Everyone was fine. And now we're, like, so close. very dear friends, but you, you know, you have a, you have to come up together and sometimes you hate each other and you're annoyed and especially if there's like an age gap, the older sibling can feel kind of haughty in comparison to the younger sibling. And so it's just a really lovely sweet thing. And, you know, you can kind of see other older fans in that clip kind of moving

like they're going to try to get the ball. And so it was nice that like it went to its intended target and then it had a meaning for the player too. It's just a really sweet, nice thing. Yeah. And the boy is not old either. I don't know the exact ages here. Yeah. And so if there had been sort of a sibling rivalry about this and I'm an only child, so I don't.

Right. You don't understand any of this at all. Yes. I never had to share anything that I had. But only child syndrome. But yeah. Yeah, and so you could imagine maybe the boy has not gotten a ball. And maybe it was ambiguous which one of them Mangum intended to throw the ball to.

I guess the fact that the girl was evidently wearing a Mangum jersey. Maybe that kind of gives it away. But the boy could have plausibly thought, oh, he's throwing the ball to me. Or it's, you know, fair game. It's first come first serve. It's in our general vicinity. I brought a glove. I made the play.

I get to keep it. So it could have gone in a completely different direction where suddenly. it leads to a fight or something. And who knows what happens after this very short clip, but I don't want to know. But yeah, in that moment, he instantly gave it to her and she instantly reacted as gratefully as you could ever imagine. And it was just, I'm sure if they're like normal siblings, they are often at each other's throats and not bonding like this, but the fact that we got this one window into that

relationship. And then they get to enjoy that for the rest of their lives. Hopefully they get to reminisce and see that clip of when they were kids. And I don't know. It's just really nice. It was a lovely moment. It was a really lovely moment. Yeah.

Okay. A follow up on the topic of accidental challenges, which we have talked about the last couple times. And we got at least two more since the last time we recorded, both courtesy of a player who just seems to come up constantly on this podcast. He's just like the zealig of effect. Wild, even though he's never actually been on. He was on the Ringer MLB show.

But Michael Lorenzen, he challenged twice, both inadvertently. And I'm going to just play a clip of Lorenzen explaining the miscommunication in here. And when he's talking about Goody, he is talking about Hunter Goodman, the Rockies catcher. I'm looking at Goody, and I'm thinking, Goody, what do you think? Is that close? Because we're not, I'm not trying to challenge anything. want to challenge anything. And so it was just a natural reaction like Goody, like what do you think, Goody? And then I get it. It's, I got to come up with a different signal maybe of like Goody.

I thought that was good. And then I did it again on accident. Like I didn't even mean to challenge it the next inning. I think I did the next inning where I'm like, is that close? And then he challenged. I'm like, oh, I don't want to burn a challenge there. I was just asking Goody. So I have to come up with something to where I can communicate with Goody. Like I thought that was good. What do you think? because I do not want to challenge anything personally. Okay, so this is another example to add to the pile of accidental challenges. But I think another good example of how there's a learning curve here, and this seems to be user error.

Yes. This seems to be a skill issue. I mean, we were talking last time about how players will probably learn that they have to stop tapping their heads or their helmet sort of sub-grimmed. sort of subconsciously when it could be interpreted as a challenge. This is very funny, frankly. Yes. Because Lorenzo is just like, yeah, I wanted to try to signal to Goodman that maybe he should

challenge. And so his signal for maybe we should challenge was basically a challenge signal. Yeah. He's just like, I'm going to tap my head to indicate that maybe he should tap his head so that we could actually challenge. I think we can we can lay this at Lorenzen. door. I don't blame the umpire for misinterpreting this one. Yeah, it's funny too because I just, every time we hear about one of these, and, you know,

I think that there are probably a couple of others of accidental challenges that could fall into this same category. I'm like, you guys have so little time to do this. And like, the mental processing, isn't Hunter Goodman's sort of mental processing better spent just making his own assessment of the challenge worthiness. I also do love Lorenzo, me, like, I don't want to challenge. I shouldn't, you know, I don't, I don't want to. And it's like, well, but maybe you do a little bit. Maybe, maybe you actually do, because you, you wondered, oh, was that one close? And like, he's, he's just, he's just back there, Michael. He's just back there looking at it. So he says he's going to have to come up with a different signal. And I think that's a good idea, probably. But yeah, this is,

This is very amusing. I think. And one of them was correct. One of them was upheld or there was an overturn and the other. It was an incorrect challenge, not that he was intending to challenge. It was a funny moment. I happened to have that game on during this sequence. And I was like, man, Hunter Goodman's having a weird day back there because he did it.

And if I'm remembering the sequence correctly, his initial challenge was unsuccessful. And then like almost immediately he did another one. And that one, that one was successful. But I was like, I think you guys are being too loosey-goosey with these. You know, like you got to rein them in. And I didn't, I didn't see Lorenzen's little tap, tap, tap. Yeah. That was a wild game for a number of reasons.

Anyway, people should learn from Lorenz's example there. And yeah, don't use the actual official signal for the thing to suggest that maybe you should signal for the thing. Right. Yeah. Goody. Goody reminds me of, like, reading the Scarlet Letter. It's like all the town gossips are Goody something, Goody Hibbins or whatever, you know. Puritans.

That's probably not what, good wife, right? That's not the show, which has been discussed on Effectively Wilde. Yeah, I believe it was meant as a not to good wife. Yes. That probably, I guess, calling him Goody probably doesn't lead to a lot of confusion with characters from the Scarletters. letter, but signaling that maybe he should signal that that did in this case. So one for two, could have been worse. It could have been worse, but they're, you know, it's like, Michael, you're being a little

bit of a dupist, don't you know? And he clearly, you know, he was, he was not defensive about it. He obviously volunteered this insight, but yeah. Well, it couldn't really be much worse for the Mets these days. And we probably should talk about that. It's the talk of baseball. It can be briefly the talk of Effectively Wild. And they are off on Monday, which is when we're recording, which means that they cannot lose on Monday.

So they've hit upon a way to at least stall the losing streak at 11 for one day. So 11 losses in a row. That is, it's never good. It's not good at any point in the season. It's not good for any team. But it's particularly bad, really, for the Mets. who were coming off of a late season collapse in 2025 and then an overhaul of their roster.

And then they start out by getting their collapse out of the way early. I guess that would be the positive way to interpret it. But when you enter the season with the second highest payroll, the second highest projected playoff odds, the second highest projected win total, and all the baggage and history of just being the Met, And then this happens. That's obviously going to lead to managers who were maybe on a wobbly chair already, being on an even wobblier chair.

This will lead to unrest as it pertains to David Stern, certainly Carlos Mendoza questions about what is happening here. Is the season already lost? And they are now down to 41.1% playoff odds. Yeah. And 11.8% chance to win the division. And when the season started, they were at 80.4% chance to make the playoffs and 38.4 to win the division. So they've lost basically half of their preseason playoff probability. And I don't know, two-thirds or more of their division probability.

So we did talk after what, the first couple weeks of the season about how pennants can be lost in April as. Dan Zimborski recently wrote. And I'm not writing them off. I don't think they're a terrible team. But they have dug themselves a pretty darn deep hole already. They have indeed done that. Dan will actually have a piece out tomorrow on the Mets and their skid. He'll inspire you to feel a little bit better about it.

But no, that much better about it. You know, Jay wrote about this team when I think they're losing. The closing streak was only, what, eight games at the time? Their last loss came courtesy of Craig Kimpril. Who else, by the way? Craig's, he's doing it for you there, Ben. You know, he's helping you out. The offense has been quite poor over this stretch.

They have scored, you know, sort of in the midst of this run of 11 losses. they have not managed to score, like, really very much at all. They have two games in that stretch where they have scored more than three runs. They've been shut out three times. They've scored one run three times. So it's just been a very, very lousy sort of time. They got walked off in extras. on Sunday.

Yeah. I was like, oh, they're going to do it. No, they didn't, though. And it was Devin Williams who blew the say if it was Kimbril who then suffered the loss. Yeah. And, you know, like, they're not pitching particularly well, like, really outside of McLean. Khoraisanga's not been good. But the offense is the real, is the real killer.

I mean, you're probably going to lose a game where your starter gives up 12, no matter how many you score. But some of these have been tighter margins that an offense that was clicking on more cylinders would have been able to sort of manage or overcome. I mean, I think when Jay looked at it, they only have two regulars, apart from Soto, who is currently on the injured list, who are hitting at a league average clip or better, namely Francisco Alvarez and Luis Robert Jr. Jared Young, who was. hitting well in limited action is on the IL

with a torn meniscus. So like that through the line I'm going to tell you well, that's what sort of paved the way for MJ Melendez's ascension to the active roster. But Lindor has been bad and Beshet has been bad

and Samien has been bad and Jorge Polanco has been bad. Carson Bench, who's last name I've only ever said correctly, has been really bad in a way that makes you think that like he could perhaps benefit from some more time down on the farm, but like to be replaced by whom, you know? So of the guys on the Mets who have at least 20 played appearances,

so I'm cast in a wide net here, pen. Only four of them, as I've said, could be classified as like good hitters, two of those four Soto and Younger on the IL, although Soto should be back later this week. The remainder of the 13 all have WRC pluses that are not only sub 100, they're sub 80. Francis school Lendor is a 76 WRC plus spend.

Yeah. So does Marcus Semyon. So does. Yeah. It's not the first slow start for Linder as a met, but it's bad. And he's not great in the field at times too. And obviously, yeah, okay, so we're talking about an 11 game losing streak. And that's half of their season at this point.

They played 22 games. So yeah, the numbers are going to be bad. And they are. They have the fifth worst run differential in baseball, only the Phillies. Phillies are dead last in that category. And the Royals, who've also been having a rough time of it, lost seven in a row, and the White Sox and the Blue Jays defending AL champions. So there are some pretty good teams or teams that were expected to be good that are off to slow starts there. And we got an email from a Mets fan named Brian, who just the subject line was need some hope.

Just as a Mets fan, I need some hope right now and wanted to know about precedent and has anyone ever had this sort of losing streak and still made the playoffs. And yeah, a handful of teams have. It's not very many, though. It's not very many, though. Yeah, you're already getting to the point. It's not even a handful, really. It's three teams. It's the famous 1951 giants, the 82 Braves and the 2017 Dodgers who were famously weird and hot and cold.

Then last year's Guardians had a 10-game losing streak. They came back to make the playoffs. There are a few other Wildcard-era teams that had nine game losing streaks and made the playoffs, 2023 Diamondbacks, 2012 A's, 2010 Braves. Joshean had the stat since 1996, the first full 162 game season with eight playoff teams. 64 teams have lost at least 11 in a row within a season. Some of them did it more than once. Of those 64, three finished above 500.

and those 2017 Dodgers were the only one to win more than 84 games. That's a pretty short list. Now, all of those lists of how many teams to do this or not do this made the playoffs. It's skewed to the point of perhaps being unhelpful to look at the past precedent because the playoffs have expanded so dramatically that for most of MLP history, you had a lot fewer playoff teams and it was a lot harder to qualify for the playoffs. But even so, when you have this short a list of teams that have had this sustained a stretch of losing and have recovered from that to make the playoffs, it's easier to do that now than at any previous point in history other than the past couple of years. So that's the reason for hope. And the playoff odds still give you some hope. It's 40% or so.

But that's a lot lower than it was a few weeks ago. So, I mean, the reason for hope is that they, you look. at the names, and it seems like it should still be a pretty decent team. And the projected rest of season winning percentage, according to the playoff odds page, started the season at 555. Now it's 540, which is actually a pretty big drop for 22 games. But still, 540 rest of the season, just that if they hit that target and play 540 baseball the rest of the way, they're an 82, 83 win team and they'd have to really luck out to sneak into the playoffs. So they have to be considerably better than that. Can they be better than that? Yeah, sure. I think they could be. But the factor

means that the preseason expectation for them was like a 90 win team and now it's down to 82, 83. And so you're just losing whatever margin for error you had. And yeah, I mean, it's it's tough to come back from something like this. And unless you believe in the gambler's fallacy, which has fallacy right there in the name, then you don't think that a cold streak produces a corresponding hot streak after that to kind of make up for it. Right. There's something that guarantees that you'll play better. No.

I mean, they will play better, but they won't play correspondingly better. Yeah, necessarily. So it's not like, yeah, we're just getting our losing out of the way. And maybe you'll look back at the end of the season, then they will just have gone on a tear and they'll end up with 88 or 89 wins or something. And they will squeak into the playoffs or perhaps even by a more comfortable margin. And then we'll look back and laugh at how dire things seem to be in April. But as of now, there's no guarantee of that. It's far from a guarantee.

Yeah. One thing, you know, sort of related to this, though, that I would mention. And I don't feel bad spoiling part of Dan's piece because by the time this goes up, it'll be. hours away from being posted. You know, many of the teams that have fallen into this bucket historically have been expected to be very bad to begin with, right? And so if you are looking for a reason to have some hope, it's that, you know, one could probably argue that the true talent of a lot of those clubs is a lot worse than what it might be for this Mets team. And so while you're not guaranteed to have like an equal and offsetting win streak in the future.

Your odds of playing meaningfully better than you are at your lowest point seem higher for the Mets than they would be for, you know, a club that was expected to only win 65 games going into the season, right? The other thing about it is that those rest of season expectations also inform rest of season strategy. So if you have committed big payroll to a team and you think that you're, actually much better than this. Well, maybe you don't, and you start to get some traction, and that is a key part of this,

right? If you just keep losing, it doesn't really matter. You're just going to be bad and probably miss the postseason again. But assuming that your fortune sort of turn around and you're able to start scoring, that the return of Soto helps some, although the degree to which they are failing to score seems like it is a problem that is going to require more than even one one Soto to remedy. but, you know, assuming that they can kind of turn things around and write the ship and then maybe go on a little bit of a run, the likelihood that they say sell at the deadline is lower than it would be for a club that was expected to be bad, was worse than that, and then proceeds to continue to be poor, and then maybe has, you know, a really ugly post-deadline record because they've traded away all of their other good players. Dan has something on this as well.

So I think that there are circumstances that are not unique to the Mets, but that probably put them in an importantly different bucket of lousy team than some of the other lousy teams that are grouped in this cohort. And it helps that the Phillies have been bad. Yeah, there's only one winning team in the NL East, Atlanta, so that helps bit. And Atlanta is far exceeding preseason expectations. So that division is to some degree. being defined by aberrant performance, which, again, is not a guarantee that, like, it necessarily will write itself or that it will write itself in a way that is sufficient to sort of flip the script. But it does seem like there's just like a lot of early season yuck going on in there.

Or, yay, if you're an Atlanta fan, they made crook wear a suit on Sunday night baseball. He had like a caged animal. Yeah, that's a natural. Look, I'm on record as having some complaints about John Smolz. And for those of you who think that I have a mean streak when it comes to curmudgins, I present to you my limitless affection for John Kruk, who is a treasure who should be protected at all costs and allowed to wear comfy clothes. They even made him slick back his hair. It would have been better if they had been like, hey, so John, it's a national broadcast.

And, you know, Benetti's going to be in a suit. And C.J. Nukowski is going to be in a suit. So you should, you should probably wear a suit. And you can't wear the team polo. I know you love the team polo, but you got to wear a suit. They should have let him wear his hat. You know, he normally wears a baseball cap. Yeah. But all of that to say, weird stuff's going on in the NL East. The Mets are losing all the time. And John Kruk wears suits now. So who knows what's going on over there. But he really looked distinguished in the suit. I mean, he looked like Chris Farley in. the van down by the river sketch, sort of where he's a motivational speaker. You know, it's not like he looked super corporate and professional, but it just, it seemed unnatural.

Why are you trying to force Kruk into conforming? It looked bizarre, you know? I think that that man should get to go to funerals in comfy clothes. Look, it's just, you know, be yourself, John. And he still was himself on the podcast because he's a national treasure. All of that to say, should you have hope? Well, I don't think that there's any reason to throw in the towel on hope entirely after 22 games. That feels quite premature. But they've, they've got their work cut out for them now. And I think that, and you know, this is a vibes-based

read of the situation, which might not be supported by science. The vibes also just seem terrible around that team right now. Like the guys seem kind of in a bad way. And, you know, no one enjoys being on the wrong end of a seven and 15 record. Yeah, it'd be hard pressed to find a team that was on an 11 game losing streak where the vibes are great. It would be a little disconcerting if they were like, no, everything's fine. You'd worry that they didn't perhaps appreciate the stakes of their circumstance.

But it doesn't seem like a club, at least from. distance and again this is who knows who knows maybe everything's fine but it doesn't seem like a club that is radiating no like better days are just ahead for us yeah so i guess look it pains me to say this ben but they might need some bits you know the solution to their problem wow that's true desperation when meg rally is calling for bringing the bits back look it's an 11 game losing streak i don't enjoy seeing Francisco O'Lendor look dejected like this. That makes me sad. This is the equivalent of burning sage or whatever to try to improve the spirits.

What is your humpy? And how can you ritually sacrifice him? Because I don't think you're allowed to kill Mr. Met probably. Or grimace, probably. But grimace isn't around anymore. This is the problem. Maybe this is why they should have had one bit and it should have been grimace. you should always have in much the same way that sometimes a manager's job is to get fired.

Sometimes like a secondary mascot's job is to get eaten by a bear, you know? And so what is, and you can't, I don't think that you can kill either Mr. or Mrs. Met. You definitely can't kill Mrs. Met. I would entertain arguments. You can't kill a lady mascot. It's on chivalrous, plus that dog deserves to be preserved. but you got to contemplate some hard choices. So who is Timmy Trumpett still around?

Probably not because Edwin Diaz isn't on the team anymore. And he's a real person, so don't further it. Yeah. I mean, the latest bit is that people are calling it the curse of Kokomo. What's the curse of Kokomo? So after Brian Wilson died last year, the Mets played Kokomo as a tribute at City Field. Kokomo was part of it. And Brian Wilson had nothing to do with Kokomo, even though it's a Beach Boys song.

He was not with the group at the time. He was not writing that. He was not playing that. That's so embarrassing. And look, I'm pro Kokomo for anyone who thinks it's like the worst song ever. I think it's fine. Yeah, it's cheesy. It's schlock, but it's good.

I don't care, you know? And you can get me to criticize Mike Love at any other time. But Kokomo, I quite enjoy. I'm sorry. And I enjoy the video. and I enjoy John Stamos's role in it and in the Beach Boys in general. So I don't mind Kokomo, but it is not an ideal choice to play as part of a Brian Wilson tribute. So anyway, the Mets are 47 and 70 since the team played Kokomo on the day of Brian Wilson's death last June.

And this became kind of a Reddit sensation and has been going around. So, yeah, the curse of Kokomo. Could be. Maybe that's the new bit. Maybe you have to play a more fitting Beach Boy's song to exercise the demons or something. I don't know. But yeah, that's the latest explanation. But when you're at the point of reaching for that as an explanation, it does suggest how bad things have gotten. What other bits could they do? They could just do the bit of being better at baseball and getting Juan Zodo back. And then Francisco and Doran, Bobachet, being good players as they're. have been before. And also, they do have an easier stretch of schedule coming up and not a tough schedule really projected for the rest of the season, but they do have after they face the twins, these surprisingly successful twins. Then they play six against the Rockies, three against the

nationals, three against the angels. Not that all those teams have been pushovers, but still, that should help a little bit. Plus, I said they were projected to end up around 83. wins, well, they ended up at 83 wins last year, despite everything that went wrong at the end. And they almost made the playoffs. You know, it would have forced a tie break game if we still had tie break games. Right. We were still a civilization and played out tiebreakers instead of having statistical ways to settle that. So if they end up that bad again, they could still make the playoffs.

So the bar, the bar is lower. Anyway, I think better days will be ahead because there could hard. be worst days ahead. It doesn't really get much worse than this, I hope, famous last words. But I would not be feeling great about my job security if I were Carlos Mendoza. And he was already somewhat in jeopardy. And so perhaps his squid could be fried if this continues for much longer. Yeah. But, you know, I'm not a big believer in firing a manager to light a fire under a team or anything. While it's hard to say struggles like this are his fault, he doesn't seem to be helping. Definitely doesn't seem to be a tactically gifted skipper, which you can forgive if

everyone's getting along great and the team is doing okay. Harder to forgive if everything's on fire and you're pouring fuel on the flames. But I think regression will be their friend. Just will it help enough. It will it be a sufficiently strong regression? Yes. And it does, I guess, I staff blasted and wrote over the offseason about high turnover teams and how history is not great with the high turnover teams and that all else being equal if you had a high degree of turnover from one year to the next, that bodes ill for you. That stability when it comes to a roster is generally good and that can be for a lot of reasons. Obviously, if you have a good team, you don't have to have much turnover. You just bring everyone back. But even holding the goodness

of your team and how many games you won the previous season constant, just having a ton of turnover tends to be bad. I thought that the Mets would overcome that because I thought that the guys that they ended up with were good enough to do that. And I think they will still look good eventually. Does that have anything to do with the slow start? The team not jelling because it's a bunch of new faces and players at new positions. I don't know.

These are all kind of post hoc explanations we come up with to try to make. make sense of a random universe. Yeah. Well, and it's one of those things where one has to acknowledge that, sure, can difficulty with positional adjustment, not the positional adjustments, but adjusting to a new position affect your performance at the place, almost certainly. But the bats, they're very sick. And I think that that is probably a problem that extends beyond.

And okay, so Ben, I have a, I have a suggestion for the, for the Mets. I've come up with it. And I blame you for not immediately interjecting here. Did you know? And I don't know if they still do this, but the Mets have a five borough mascot race now. Oh, yeah. Okay. So here's the thing.

You can't ritually sacrifice the Empire State Building in New York because of 9-11. And it's probably bad to do. So they, you know, like how many teams have mascot races, like, say, the Mariners with Humpy and the other fish, the parodies, the presidents. Then the Diamondbacks have the legends race. They never let Randy Johnson win as much as they should. I continue to think that there's something weird going on with that. They have, they being the Mets apparently introduced the five borough mascot race last year. And the options are the Queen.

Mascot is a little seven train and it's got a funny little bird on top. Like, you know, when the birds get stuck in the subway, that's not funny. You always feel bad for them. They seem very stressed. But there's a subway car. There's a piece of pizza, a lady piece of pizza. She's a woman piece of pizza. She's not shaped like a woman.

She's shaped like a piece of pizza. But she has lady features. She represents Brooklyn. And then you have the. Empire State Building with sunglasses and like a, you know, an arched eyebrow representing Manhattan. And then the Staten Island looks like a fairy. And then the Bronx mascot is a giraffe from the Bronx Zoo that looks very, like, dangerous.

I don't understand why they made the Bronx guy look so dangerous other than maybe this is just a dig at the Yankees, right? Because that's the borough where the Yankees also live. but like the Bronx drafts wearing a white t-shirt and it's dirty. I don't need to know why. So I'm just saying start with the Bronx one because it's the most unnerving and just start ritually sacrificing the mascots from the borough race. Obviously save queens for last.

Really try to avoid sacrificing the Empire State Building because again, like I'm not trying to make light of it. You don't want to induce trauma. It's supposed to be just a generic skyscraper, I think. It's not supposed to be the Empire State building? I don't think so. Well, I think my logic stands, regardless of the nature of the building. I think you just don't want to do, like, building-related murder in New York.

That's poor form. So I think you start with the giraffe, the evil-looking giraffe, and you just see how many of them you, you know, like, do one a week because who knows how long you're going to suck. You know, you need to have room to continue the mascot. murder until morale improves. And then and see where it gets you. I don't, the, the more I think about it, the worse I feel about the pizza one. We will find and send, we will link to a photo in the show notes. The pizza one is demonic, actually.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, I think that's the most disturbing. She's got a headband on and like, you know, 80s style track pants. But then her mouth and nose is a mushroom. Her little rosy cheeks are, I'm assuming, pepperonies. But then she also has a little rosy cheek pepperoni up above the headband, which makes it look like she's got like an errant pimple up there or something. I don't know what the eyebrows are supposed to be.

They look like they're supposed to be a food of some sort, but it's not, is that, are they supposed to be onions? They're purple. Are they supposed to be purple onions? I don't care for her at all. Eggplant? I don't know. That's not what eggplant looks like.

Anyway, I'm just saying, you know, the bits served you guys well, although they're magic proved to be limited, right? Now you have no bits and you're mired in a slump. You could try to resurrect a bit, but it's going to feel like you're forcing it, although that was true of the bits before. And so I think, you know, nothing doing. ritual sacrifice at this point. And playing better baseball, but you have more direct control over the ritual sacrifice, arguably. Yeah, maybe to head off pedantic emails, I should note that Brian

Wilson vocals did appear on the Spanish language version of Kokomo. Oh, really? That's so funny. There is a Spanish language version on which Brian did sing. So I don't know whether that invalidates the curse of Kokomo or not, but do with that information. What you will. Wow. It's a good song. I don't care what anyone says. That feels like a young. PR person's mistakes. Sorry young PR people. That's like someone who's not steeped in the lore being like, just pick the most upbeat one of the songs. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Other Wilson's are on it, or at least one. One other Wilson. Carl, the voice of an angel on that song and every song. Okay. Let's also talk about a better than expected start by my man, Munitaka Morikami.

Yeah, you're just anticipating the entire slate of articles running at Fangraphs from him, by the way. Okay. Well, he is on pace for 59 dingers, so that seems good. Yeah. And something like a six-war season. And he has a 153 WRC plus. He has eight actual homers to date after homering in each game this past weekend. And the line and the stat cast percentiles and all of it highly entertaining. Because at baseball savant now he's in a 99th percentile. in barrel rate. So he has hit the ball hard more often than just about anyone else on a rate basis. And he also has a first percentile whiff rate. So it's just the quintessential swing hard in case you hit it. When he makes contact, it goes a long way. He hits it very hard, but often he does not make contact.

And so he has walked a lot. He is upwards of 20% walk rate. also has struck out in exactly a third of his plate appearances, which is a lot. But obviously, if he could keep these things in balance the way that they are now, if he could keep slugging and keep swinging missing, it would work overall. And he would be a valuable player, even though he's not given you much on the bases, and he's maybe an average first baseman, if that. I mean, he's not given you much defensively.

It's just it's all about the bat. and the bat has hit the ball very hard when it has hit it. So I've been fascinated by him for a while. I mean, I wrote about him years ago. And then this offseason, when he ended up getting so much less money from the White Sox than he was forecasted to get from someone. And then there was a chorus of scouting types breaking down the swing and looking at, here's how he's performed against 95-hour-plus fastballs.

as we covered last week, the average four-seamer is essentially 95 now, so it seemed not to be a good sign for him that he was coming over to a league where he was going to be facing even more high velo, and he hadn't done so well against it in recent years in NPB. And I was purely scouting the stat line when I was sort of more optimistic just because he has been good in the past, and he was great in the second highest-level league in the world. at a very young age, but also he did most of his mashing when he was very young. And then the past couple years, he was good, but not as good, but also he had been hurt. Yeah, he had been hurt.

And 23 and 24, he played full seasons, basically, and was worse and struck out more. And then 25, the numbers were good again, but he played 56 games and he was injured. So it was pretty hard to forecast. and I kind of defaulted to anyone who was that good when he was that young, like there's got to be something in there that he won't be just a complete basket case when he comes over here and he'll look totally overmatched. But when you dug into the swing metrics and the stuff and everything, it was reasonable to think that he might struggle in the transition. And he still very much might. I think it's still an open question. So I'm not declaring victory or that everyone who thought he was going to be bad or unplanned.

was wrong. Like, it's very possible that this extreme balance that he has going on here will not stay in balance and that the strikeouts will soar and the balls will not keep soaring. You know, right now he has a 208 batting average and he is slugging 542 and on basing almost 380. And so if he could keep this working and, you know, the quality of contact is there and the expected weighted on bases, 93rd percentile and everything. So I want this to work. I want to believe that this could work. He's just, he's going full gallow now. And so, yeah, the shape of the production is, I guess, very much what was forecasted. It's just that the slugging has more than made up for the whiffing thus far. But will it continue to? That is the question. So he has a 153 WRC plus,

The fan graphs depth charts rest of season projection is 123 WRC Plus, which would be fine, which would be, you know, still like an above average player and worth the kind of small contract he got relative to expectations. So I think if he can do that, I think this will work out well for the White Sox. But can he keep doing anything like he has done to date is the question and remains a mystery? It's also funny, and I don't want to get too far into this, because, again, someone is writing about it for the same tomorrow. Did you just look at this line? I mean, you are in there. I guess I'm talking about a couple of the biggest stories in baseball. You mean to say that your reason for it and my reason for suggesting it to Ben Clement's identical?

Good editorial judgment on both of our parts, I guess. Thank you. Thank you. It is funny to look at his performance by pitch type. also just given whatever he wanted destroying fastballs and can't hit a look against secondary. So that's very funny

considering that one of the primary concerns which I think was a fine one to raise was that his performance against sort of MLB caliber velocity had been quite poor relative to the rest of his performance. And obviously he was not seeing the same

sort of frequency of high velocity fastballs in NPB that he was likely to see here. So there's the fact that not all of those fastballs have been particularly hard that he's hit well. But anyway. Yeah, he hit the Grand Slam, I think, on Friday on a 98 mile per hour pitch. Yeah. It's not that there haven't been any. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that we can say definitively is that we could perhaps all do a little bit better of a job trying to sit with the uncertainty of forecasting players coming over from

international leagues than we are because I think folks were right to raise concerns about his capacity to hit high velocity. And, you know, when you have exposure to the data VSA synergy sports like we did at Fangraphs, it was like, oh, this might be a problem for him. And there isn't a lot of precedent for a positive adjustment here. So it's something to keep in mind. And it's clearly something that affected his market. And it's not like, you know, all 30 teams are like, well, you know, Eric says so, well, I guess we aren't going to sign that guy, right?

I think that this was an industry-wide concern. But I think that the way that that ended up playing out in the, like, public discourse around it, particularly as it pertained to Murakami as a potential draft target in fantasy was, this guy will never do it. And that's not exactly the same thing. And I think that even, you know, like, Bauman had really pronounced concerns about some of his contact stuff when he wrote about Murakami, which they, those were fair, those are fair concerns to race. And sometimes you get a guy who can figure it out. And also, sometimes you've played in 21 games.

Yep. Yep. So, like, who knows what it's going to look like? But I also think that this, like, stretch of. good performance that he's demonstrated shows why this was just a worthwhile gamble for the White Sox to take, regardless of what its results ended up being, because the upside on that signing is, you know, stretches like this. And will he continue to hit like this the whole season? I don't know. Does a 208 batting average bother you more if you, you know, aren't just like

obliterating every ball you do make contact with. I mean, probably, but also right now, in addition to hitting 208, he's slugging 542. So that'll play at least for a little while. So I think it was a worthwhile experiment. And I'm excited to see kind of where it goes because I'm sure that the teams that face, you know, the White Sox next are going to, they're just going to have more on tape from this guy.

they're going to have a better scouting report. The league's pitchers will make an adjustment. And then it'll be incumbent upon Murakami to make an adjustment back. And, like, that'll be fun to watch too. Yeah. And I think in theory, that adjustment should happen more quickly now than it used to when all you had to rely on was having faced a guy personally in a lot of cases. Now, I mean, we're talking about what the scouting report was coming into the season.

So everyone knew that. And teams obviously had that data on him and video. and he's in the WBC and everything. So there wasn't really a shortage of information. But I think probably some players, maybe they're not paying as close attention to the scouting report as they should, or maybe he makes some adjustments and he adapts.

But, you know, we've seen other guys start slow, like Okamoto, who I was similarly high on. So you never know for sure. But with Murakami, no one questioned the strength and the pop. So that was good because sometimes the question is, well, will the power translate? No one questioned whether the power would translate in Morikami's case. It was just how often will he be able to get to that power by actually making contact with the baseball. And thus far, the answer is often enough.

So his ceiling is still somewhat limited as a player, just because unlike Joey Gallo, whom he's often comp to, he's playing first base and not excelling in any area, whereas Gallo was actually a pretty good all-around athlete for a while. Yeah. It's just under a good base runner. Yeah, and even if this works out with Murakami in the short term, will he age well? I don't know, but that's not an immediate concern because he's only 26 years old. So, yeah, and there were some systems like I think Pocoda was pretty high on him. You know, if you were just looking at the stats, basically, and how he excelled at a young age, then you would probably I'll be pretty optimistic and bullish about how it would translate.

It's almost a case where, like, the more information you had, probably the lower you were on him. And so was that a mistake? Were you hyper-focusing on smaller samples? Because it's not as if he had faced that many really fast pitches over there, too. So that in itself was sort of a small sample. And then one thing we talked about was, well, will he just adapt? Because maybe he wasn't that good against those pitches because he didn't face them that often over there. And maybe here he'll be aware that he has to and has to be quicker to those pitches.

And maybe he will, but easier said than done. So I don't know. I continue to remain fascinated by him. And if I had to bet, I wouldn't bet on him staying at a 153 WRC plus. I'd probably take the under on that. But I think I might take the over on the prediction, which has already come up a bit since the start of the season. So somewhere between the 153 and the 123, I guess, is where I would figure that he'll sit somewhere in there. And we'll see.

And, you know, I mentioned this. There was a Japanese analyst wrote a piece about how, although he had struggled against some of those faster pitches, he totally crushed the slightly slower ones. And even if the league average is 95-ish over here, well, that means that you're still seeing a lot of pitches. that are slower than that. And so if you're really feasting on those, then that's going to help you. And obviously, you're seeing a lot of slower off-speed pitches,

although, as you noted, that hasn't really been to his benefit. So anyway, yeah, I guess don't be too confident about anything. We try not to be here at effectively well, maybe almost to a frustrating degree. But that's why it's hard to predict performance and predict baseball. But that's also what makes it fun to follow, because we don't know. all in suspense. But yeah, it's been fun just to see him hit some Titanic taters and like be a pretty

personable guy through a TV from afar. So I'm enjoying it. And, uh, and I, I almost hope that he maintains this super extreme, just like bats 200 slugs 500. I mean, that's, it's kind of a fun profile. It can be super frustrating when a guy like that slumps and is just getting all the whiffs without the dingers. But when both are coming fairly fast and furious, then yeah, that'll play. And it's fun. Yeah. And especially because he's, as you noted, walking a good amount.

It's like your impression of him when he is going like this is just a rather extreme one, right? It's like he is very true outcomes. And that can be fun as long as one of the outcomes is the home run part. Yeah. And I could imagine that maybe if he. If he were facing elite pitching, if he's in the playoffs or something, maybe he would be more exploitable than other hitters who were equivalently good, but that probably won't be a problem that the White Sox will face the season.

Wow. Speaking of whiffs and missing bats, a little Mason Miller update for you here. He is now through 11 in a third innings on the season. He has faced 38 batters and he has struck out 27 of them. So 38 batters, 27Ks, two walks and two hits. And then every now and then there's an actual out on a batted ball. But yeah, that's pretty much it. He still has not allowed a run.

He's a zero ERA. He's at a negative 1.11 FIP. He has looked totally nasty. And I don't know if you saw he had a strikeout on a pitch that Oswald Paraza of the Angel swung at. And if you haven't seen it, I'll just, I'll send you a clip

so that you can experience it as we listen because it's quite something where this pitch is absolutely nowhere near the strike zone. It's, uh,

I think he saw. I don't know. But yeah, and there were, there were comments kind of denigrating Oswald Paraza and what was he looking at? And, but,

I kind of just give a pass to anyone who's facing Mason Miller. Because I don't know. Like it seems like it's impossible for everyone. And this is particularly embarrassing. But also, I guess I would understand basically any swing and miss at a Mason Miller. This was in the dirt. And I don't know, like a foot outside or something. I mean, it had to be up there on a list of like the farthest from the strike zone pitches that someone whiffed at.

or swung at at all. But that's what he's doing. He's making everyone look silly. And so it's reached the point now where I'm wondering whether the optimal approach against Miller is actually not to swing. Yeah.

I mean, obviously, I would go up there not swinging. I would go up there, not swinging against every major league pitcher probably. That would be probably the better idea for us. But even for an actual major league hitter, I got to think that maybe just not swinging at all

would be the best strategy at this point because he has actually, like there's a high swing rate against him. So of the, let's see, there are 231 pitchers who have thrown at least 10 innings thus far. And he ranks 40th in swing rate. So he has the 40th highest swing rate, 49.7%. And he actually has a fairly low zone rate. So the percentage of pitches that he has thrown in the ABS zone, this is 45.2%, and that's 174th highest out of 231. So if he's getting lots of swings and he's also throwing a lot of pitches outside the strike zone,

well, maybe people shouldn't swing. I would suggest that swinging isn't working. So it becomes kind of a math equation of what are the odds that he throws four pitches? outside the zone before he throws three in the zone? Inside, yeah. Yeah, compared to what are the odds that something good happens if you approach the plate appearance normally, which obviously are low. Yeah.

Even if you don't think this is quite his true talent, even if you just take his Padres tenure, which is up to 33 games, 34, and two-thirds innings, I mean, that's that's a half a season, at least for a reliever. So I don't know how to estimate a reliever's true talent. I guess that's part of what makes it hard to project reliever performance. But it's like a half a season. And I don't know, relievers, they might change their true talent might change after more than that. So even over that span, he has a 0.52 ERA and a 0.39 FIP.

And he struck out like 19 per 9 or something with a few more walks last year. So even if you took that as his true talent over this stretch, which won't necessarily continue, but that's, hitters have been so bad that maybe just kind of hold the bat menacingly but don't actually try to do anything with it. I mean,

I guess part of, and I was chatting with other Ben about this too and he said, he pointed out that part of the reason maybe that his zone rate is so low is because he's ahead all the time. So you'd almost have to look at his by count zone rates because he keeps getting ahead

and then he can finish you off with the slider. Right. He doesn't have to throw the slider anywhere near the strike zone, obviously. So, yeah, if you adjusted for that, maybe it's, it's not like he's super wild, but it's just. No, he's not. And it's funny, the stuff plus metrics haven't really changed for him that much this year or even relative to years before he was on the Padres. But the location pluses is up this year. So maybe he has had better locations or commands, but it's, I don't know, how can you? you even tell because like anyone will swing at anything with him. He's basically a two pitch pitcher. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard. It's like, well, it's either the slider's coming or

he's going to throw the fastball, which is sitting 101 point something. How hard could it be to tell the difference? Obviously very hard. Yeah. Because major league hitters just aren't able to do it or if they are able to do it, they still can't hit it. So yeah, I don't know. Don't swing. Maybe not swinging is the way to go. It's less good advice than. when I was being like a Roki truther during the pro season, where I was like, you guys should just stop, just make a throw you a strike. You should see if you can throw a strike

because sometimes it seems like he can't do that. And I don't think that it's quite that same way with Miller, because you're right. He's not like especially wild. No. But maybe you'll get lucky. Yeah, right. That's the thing.

It's like you only have to be better than like completely terrible, which is what everyone has been against him. Yeah. Yeah. And no one wants to go to the plate not swinging, and you're not supposed to go up there looking to take a walk. And obviously, hitters become hitters because they like swinging the bat and they want to swing. And so they probably wouldn't feel great if you gave them the instruction, don't swing.

They're probably going to resent that. And they're going to feel like, well, you know, it's the arrest and development meme. It's like it didn't work out for them. But it'll be different for me. Yeah, it'll be different for me somehow. But yeah, it's approaching the point of, I think, you know, we'd have to run the numbers more rigorously maybe. But depending on what you think the baseline for your actual expectation for success against Mason Miller is, you're probably still screwed either way. Yeah.

But maybe you're still screwed a little less if you just try to work a walk and get on base somehow. I wonder if you could convince hitters to do. do it if you put it in terms of like, well, this will mess with him. Yeah. This will throw him off his equilibrium if you go up there and just like me and mug and keep the bat on your shoulder. Because that's not, there's a desperation to all of these A-Bs, you know. There's like a.

Well, it's desperate times right now for them. Sort of a flailing desperation. Being a hitter against Mason Miller is worse than being the Mets maybe now, just in general. So, oof, Roki. You mentioned Roki. Roki is been rough. I know. It's not great. That's not great. Yeah. It's not great at all. It could be better, you know. It could be much, much better. Yeah. We could, it could be going better than it's been going, which is pretty bad. You just got to stand up there and see. Yeah, this is for two different reasons. It's like one guy you think maybe he just can't throw a strike. And so you might, but against Roki, like people are hitting him too. I mean, he's given up dingers and everything. With Mason Miller, it's a different proposition. It's. It's not that he's wild.

It's just that he is so dominant and unhittable that this might be the only way to work your way on. And, of course, this is contingent on him not knowing that you're doing this is the thing. I mean, maybe it would throw him if no one swung at him. But then maybe also he would say, oh, you're not going to swing. Well, I'll just lob one in there. I mean, that's the fatal flaw in my plan to work my way on by going up there not swinging is that Mason Miller knows that I'm not a major-hitter. and he doesn't have to be careful with me. But yes, if you could fool him into thinking that you were trying and not actually try.

Yeah, maybe. It's worth a shot at this point. Yeah. I almost want to go back and look like played appearance by played appearance at him. And you can never really come up with the counterfactual of, well, if this guy hadn't even been intending to swing. But if you just played that game, would you have gotten to ball for before? strike three with each of those guys. Well, and it's, yeah, and it's tricky too because, like, it's not like he is obligated

to employ the same sequence of pitches, right? So, like, if he goes, if someone goes up there and doesn't swing, well, that truly Mason Miller is going to address what he wants to do and try to get you to swing. Yes. He also has agency and too very terrifying. He's not a Mason Miller simulation. He is actual. Mason Miller and he can see what you're doing.

Right. Yeah. Terrifying. Just totally nasty. Yeah. He's incredible. Yeah. It's gotten to the point where I really think you might, you're just, you're damned

if you do, damned if you don't, really. You know, might as well try something different. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like what, what's the worst that could happen? It's already bad anyway. Yeah. Right.

Okay. And also just wanted to note that there are some, some, some. rumblings about legislative or governmental meddling, I guess, would be the negative way or regulation might be more positive, depending. But there are some intimations that maybe lawmakers might do something about streaming rights and the very fractured streaming landscape that we have talked a lot about. So this came up. There was a Bloomberg report about how the Justice Department, which is maybe a misnomer sometimes these days, has opened an antitrust probe into the NFL to see whether its deals with media companies are driving up costs for consumers because there is an antitrust exemption. There's the 1961 Sports Broadcasting Act that's. still governs a lot of things.

And 1961 is like pre-capable, let alone pre-streaming, right? Yeah. Maybe this is because everyone in Congress is old and they're having trouble figuring out which channels the games are on. I don't know. But that's a real concern that we have discussed. And so they've started to talk about whether this is actionable in some way. There's a broadcasting exemption in the Sports Broadcasting Act. And so there's leverage that the NFL.

NFL has to extract high prices, and then maybe that gets passed on to consumers. And so Wall Street Journal has been writing about this, Bloomberg. And this also came up in an MLB context, too, because evidently this scrutiny is not limited to the NFL. It maybe extends to other leagues as well. And FCC chairman Brendan Carr, whom some people may be familiar with because of various incidents involving late-night talk-show hosts. This is a guy who seems quite willing or eager to try to force people that he doesn't care for to conform just through the threat, perhaps the vague threat of governmental crackdowns

of some sort. Vague is one way that you could describe it. Not very vague in all instances. But he said last week, I think you could make the argument. that there's other sports leagues out there that are potentially pushing the limits of the Sports Broadcasting Act even further than what the NFL has.

The NFL is something that everyone is aware of and focuses on, and so I speak of it just as a shorthand, but we are focused more broadly on other leagues as well. So these probes are going on and planning to examine the streaming rights of other leagues that are subject to the Sports Broadcasting Act as well.

And there is also a bill that has been introduced by Senator Tammy Baldwin, who's a Democrat from Wisconsin, which will be called the For the Fans Act. And it's, again, supposed to kind of counter this issue and decrease costs for consumers and make local games easier to access and also ending blackouts for fans with out-of-market subscription. So there was an athletic piece about this, and Baldwin talked to Andrew Marshand, and just talked about the frustration, how hard it is to watch your games, how costly it can be. And so is there something that could be done about this?

If enacted, I'm quoting here from The Athletic, the new bill would impact the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, WNBA, MLS, and NWSL, among other leagues. All nationally televised games involving pro teams from a state would be made available for free statewide via broadcasting or streaming and on a consistent channel or service. This is similar to the NFL's policy with TV partners that mandates free local access for fans of participating teams in nationally streamed games like Thursday Night Football on Prime Video.

It is leveling the playing field for fans, Baldwin said. Sports leagues and teams of all sizes will continue to be able to make money from advertising and media rights. We just want to have some basic ground rules to bring down costs for fans. Another thing the deal would do is make it so that services like MLB TV or NFL Sunday ticket or NBA League pass. Other platforms that offer the majority of games for out-of-market fans would no longer have national blackouts when games appear exclusively on a streaming service requiring an additional

fee. And it would ensure that fans outside their team's home market who are paying for complete out-of-market packages don't lose access to their team's games that have been cherry-picked to appear exclusively on streaming services requiring additional payment. So if you subscribe to MLPTV, you can't be blacked out of those national games, which often are some of the choicest. Right. So do you think, do you have any confidence in our government?

I could stop right there. In our government, too, to try to regulate this in a positive way. Baldwin's in favor of keeping the sports broadcasting act. He wants to keep that status quo, but then wants to try to tinker within the margins to improve things. Do you think regulation will deliver us from this fractured streaming landscape, fractured and expensive? Or do you think that leagues will sort themselves out in some way? I have very little confidence in leagues sorting themselves out in a way that is going to positively redound to the benefit of consumers. So there's that.

Yes. I have more faith in congressional regulatory action. than I do in this Justice Department or FCC to do anything because my Meg guess of the motivation to do anything about this on the part of the various departments that are part of the executive is that maybe our president's so mad he wasn't allowed to buy the Buffalo Bills. And so he wants to go after the NFL. I am also mad at the NFL about that. You couldn't take that all for us? Sorry. Like, I know that it's been a tough time, Bill's fans, but, you know, you made that all of our problem?

That's not fair. It wasn't the fans who did that, wasn't. But I think that I would, in an administration that didn't seem like it was trying to wield the power of the FCC to punish political adversaries be in favor of more rigorous broadcast-related regulation to try to maintain some semblance of public interest, to try to protect. consumers from outrageous costs. I'm generally a pro-regulation person, so there's that, but that sort of runs counter to the general vibe we're living in right now. You know, TBD, I guess. Yeah. There are all sorts of bills introduced in Congress that have some sort of people-friendly title, like the For the Fans Act, and how could anyone be against a For the Fans Act? And then it just doesn't go anywhere, really. And it's, you know, kind of a quixotic thing. So,

I assume that this will be another example in a long line of those. And there are just a lot of business interests that would be against it. And those businesses can lobby a lot and spend a lot of money to keep the money rolling. And so I'm not optimistic, really, of great reform here. But it does seem like something that would be broadly popular, which might help, at least. There's not going to be much blowback aside from. from the lobbyists. No one's going to complain about making it easier and cheaper to watch sports, which is one of the few bipartisan issues out there. Everyone likes and watches sports. So you could

certainly garner some popular appeal with something like that. But yeah, will there be actual follow-through here? And enough people lined up to support these things, I kind of doubt it. So I don't know whether I have less confidence in the leagues and broadcasters to regulate themselves or in the government to regulate them. It's kind of not much confidence either way, really. But, you know, we've talked about in the MLB context, how we have been higher on the leagues and Rob Minford's efforts when it comes to broadcast stuff than in many other arenas. And sure, he does seem motivated to do away with blackouts. People hate blackouts. It's like there are a lot of existing. deals and frameworks and infrastructure. Like, you can't just snap your fingers and, like, make all of those deals void is the other thing. So that's why I'm another reason why I'm sort of skeptical that a bill is going to just be able to end those things.

But in the long run, there's at least some movement toward that, toward greater availability and being able to sign up for your team's package and just stream things in market. So there's some signs of hope in that area. Well, and I do think that there are differences between, say, the broadcasting priorities of the NFL compared to MLB, right? Because you have – I know that there are carve-outs for local markets and what have you with national games for NFL stuff. But, like, the big national deals are the priority, you know, you just have a greater – sort of existing precedent for prioritizing the national over the local. You don't have a notion of as long of a schedule, so you, I think, can be a little more creative with how you spread out your

inventory in MLB. But, like, we have generally been appreciative of the tone that Manfred is brought here. I mean, I do want to make clear that my expectation is that he wants to get rid of blackouts so that the league can control all of the broadcasting rights and then charge you for them. Yeah, not out of the goodness of his heart. Right. Like his goal is not to like return us to, hey, throw an antenna on top of that bad boy and see what your local game looks like, right? Like that's not what he wants. He wants you to be able to buy, you know, a consolidated MLB TV package where you are paying for,

ideally all of your local teams games and hopefully the out of market stuff too and guess you get to send that you know check to right it's going to be the week but i think that getting it to a place where you can accommodate streaming in a way that makes sense for a lot of at least for a lot of young people and avoid blackouts like those are worthwhile endeavors my expectation is that i will have to pay to watch baseball. But that's true now too, right? So is the amount going to change dramatically? I mean, maybe. I do think that they have a pretty good sense of like what the upper bound for that stuff is. But we'll see if that ends up being true. So I just think that, um, do I have faith in government to regulate? I do. Do I have faith in this government to regulate? I do not. I do not.

But I don't think regulation is really the goal for the current administration. It's retribution. So that might have something to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. And consumer protection, not high on the list of priorities. No. We just saw with the ticket master settlement and subsequent judgment. And fortunately, some states and people are pressing on with that kind of antitrust legislation. But I think it's noteworthy, at least that this has reached the point. the fin unrest has reached the point where at least there's governmental grandstanding going on about this if not actual action it has reached the point where enough people are pissed about it that the highest halls of government these cries are echoing and people are at least saying things that they think will please people so that kind of tells you okay and and one email i wanted to answer from paul about show he otani's on base streak he's up to 51

and, you know, there are many, many people and many games between him and Ted Williams at the top of the leaderboard with 84. But this has been a big-ish story because it's Shohei and it's a fairly long streak. And because he, for a while, had the simultaneous on base streak and scoreless streak as a pitcher going on. So Paul says, I was at the Dodgers Rockies game on Saturday where Shohey extended his on base streak to 50 games with a two-out single in the top of the ninth. except he had already reached base twice that game, once on a fielding error and once on catcher's interference, but neither of those counted toward his streak. This feels wrong. To me, an on-base streak should mean how many games you've reached base, regardless of how you got there. I realize the idea of an on-base streak comes from on-base percentage, and for OBP it probably makes sense not to count errors or fielders' choices, but I still feel like these outcomes should count for streaks.

Does it bother you that the terms on base percentage and on base streak aren't counting the number of times that someone got on base? Is there another term we could use for this? So it does bother me a little bit just because, yeah, you have a times on base stat and it's like hit, walk, hit by pitch. But it doesn't count many other ways that you can get on base, whether you're reaching on an error or a drop third strike or, yeah, catchers interfetched. or fielder's choice or something. Now, some of those, I guess it bothers me that something where you might have helped, you might have done something positive is not counted. Like a catcher's interference, I guess you could say you were just the beneficiary of that

without having done anything to earn it exactly. You have to be aware of it. But even like reaching on an error, it's not all errors aren't created equal, of course, but we do know that there is some skill. There is like a recurring pattern to who has reached base on error a lot. And, you know, that depends on, like, being fast or hitting the ball to a certain side of the infield or hitting the ball on the ground or hitting the ball hard or whatever it is. Like there is some signal there that shows up year after year. But then again, if like an on-base street counted fielder's choice reaching, maybe that just would sort of sap.

any specialness that it had. But technically true, like you were on base, but also if you didn't really earn your way on there as we typically think of it, then how would... There's subjectivity with all this stuff, including hitting streaks, obviously. A lot of that is dependent on an official score. Yeah. So it's always going to be somewhat squishy, but there are a lot of ways to get on base that are not counted as times on base.

Yeah. But I think that we just should resist the temptation to interject more subjectivity on the part of the official score into these sorts of things. And like you're going to say, oh, well, that was an error. But like, he had a lot to do with it. You know, like, that's a judgment call that we would be asking the scorer to make. And they do a good job. I don't, I'm not saying that to impugn official scorers out there. I am not one of the people who's in the error conspiracy camp, right, that we're just getting really sticklery about those.

Well, there are, I mean, there are fewer errors than ever. But there are people who think that it's like. Oh, because then it'll be instructed them to try to juice the low batting averages, right? Yeah, yeah. And I'm not a, I don't participate in that conspiracy. I don't find it compelling. But I think that it is good to, the clean. way to deal with questions like this is to say that this this category of reaching very often

has more to do like say in the case of errors with the fielding teams goofs than it does with any special acumen on the part of the hitter which isn't to say that the hitter might not have anything to do with it or that like being very fast might not inspire a fielder to rush a throw or what have you, but on average, you're going to give a more accurate rendering of that event as one that is the fault of the fielder rather than an expression of skill on the part of the batter to say that doesn't count. And I think that you're just, you're going to end up being right more often than not, or at least more often than you would be if you left it up to the judgment of, you know, 30 different, or I guess it's not 30, 15 different official scores on any,

given day. So I think it's okay. I think it's better than the alternative is, I guess, what I would say. Yeah. I wouldn't mind if there were a times on base stat that actually did say how many times you were on base by any means. That might be interesting. But yeah, yeah, not just the subjectivity, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere or no one's going to care about this. Right. That's the other thing. Right. Like we already have a hard time. I feel like on base streaks are kind of getting a lot. little bit of a glow-up in the last couple of years where I am I am hearing them cited much more consistently and I have long been here's where I'm a bit of a truther like I have long been an on-base

streak truther that we should maybe not hold it in equal regard to hit streaks but that we ought to give them more play than they get because I think that people one mistakenly discount the percentage of them that really are guys hitting their way on which is often a lot of of it. And two, that, like, walking is a skill. It's not merely charity on the part of the, of the pitcher. Like, you're, you're working a, you're working a bladebearance there, buddy. And hit by pitches, too. Of course, you have to get hit, but that should definitely count because, ouch, you know. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. Yeah. So I get the frustration. Maybe that's part of why people don't care as much about on base streaks. I think it's largely because for a lot of

baseball history that wasn't considered a skill so much the way that hitting was, but also maybe, yeah, hitting, it's just simpler, even if that's subjective too. You can kind of know instinctively what a hit is or at least easier than a time on base where you can actually literally be on base and it doesn't count as a time on base. It's just kind of confusing. But yeah, I understand the frustration. But I think to preserve how cool the accomplishment is, you do have to actually make it something that's a little less random or subjective or unearned. But yeah, it's never going to be perfect. All right.

And I just wanted to close while the standings are as they are. We got a couple Staplast questions about standings-related things and score-related things. They'll take a data set sorted by something like a B are in minus or O. And then they'll tease out so interesting But discuss it at length And analyze it for us in amazing ways To taste a blast We got four emails

Over the weekend About the same thing And there were, I think, multiple requests about this In our Patreon Discord group as well So when one of those happens And everyone is noticing something at the same time then we know we must blast. So Owen, Dan, Ryan, Seth, perhaps others all wrote in to note that the NL Central standings,

I think this is still true as we record here on Monday afternoon, are in reverse order of run differential. So, yeah, it's perfectly inverted from what you would expect based on run differential. So the NL Central, which is a powerhouse, we were talking about the weakness of the NL East, Every team in the NL Central is a winner thus far. Yeah. The worst teams are 12 and 9. And, yeah, there are some, you know, unusual records with one-run games and everything. Even the Mets, the poor Mets are one-and-five in one-run games.

Those more Mets. Yeah, there's been some good luck going on there with the Cardinals, the Reds. But it was the case, at least, that it was exactly in inverse order, because the Reds were at the top with a negative 11. and then it was the Cardinals at negative 10, the Brewers at plus 21, the Pirates at plus 22, and the Cubs at plus 29. There is a tie.

There was a tie. The Cardinals and the Brewers were 12 and 8. So this was, I think, Sunday that this was true or going into Sunday after Saturday's games. But we got asked by many people, what's the latest in a season that this has happened? And Michael Mountain, frequent staff as consultant,

writes, everyone is clamoring for run differential standings info, and they're right to do so because this has never happened before, at least not exactly like this. All of the NL Central teams have played at least 20 games, and the run differential is completely reversed from the standings. I'm calling this upside down standings. There's a pair of tied teams prior to the untimely death of the end-of-season tiebreaker game, ties in the standings, could be listed pretty much in any order, according to the whims of the publisher. Even if we're generous and allow teams that are tied to be listed in any order, this is still.

the furthest into a season since 1901 that any AL or NL division has had upside down standings. It's never happened at any point in the season without taking advantage of the flexibility that ties allow. But even with that assistance, there's a real difference between the current NL Central arrangement and previous examples. For instance, look at the standings when this happened on April 19, 2017, the second furthest into the season we've ever seen this. At that point, each AL Central team had played 14 games. The Tigers with the worst run differential in the division, negative 14 were in first with a record of 8 and 6, one game ahead of the other four teams who were all tied at 7 and 7, and therefore sortable in whichever order you like. So it's trivially possible to put them in order by increasing run differential.

That arrangement is way easier to accomplish than the current situation in the NL Central because there are so many more ties. The current NL Central standings have four distinct team records and one pair of teams that are tied. No division has ever had upside down standings with four distinct team records before, regardless of how early in the season you look. With three distinct team records, the 2008 NL East had upside down standings on April 8th, 2008, but that was only six games into the season. So to recap, the 26th, NL Central is not only the deepest into the season we've ever seen an upside down division, regardless of how many ties there are,

but it's also the highest number of distinct win and loss records in an upside down division regardless of how deep into the season you are. Wow. So how about that? Yeah. How about that? Made history in multiple ways. No wonder everyone noticed it and emailed us about it.

And Michael includes a spreadsheet of the 21 previous times it has happened and how far into the season they were and how many distinct win-loss records were involved on that date. So, yeah, kudos to everyone who bombarded us with this question. It's nice, you know, when you get a lot of questions when it is actually something somewhat notable. So all the emails were not wasted. So that is good. And another similar standings-related question.

This came to us from Raymond Chen, effectively wild wiki caretaker, who said he was curious about the latest in a season that a division standings had the teams with consecutive descending win totals. where the first place team has N wins, the second place, N minus one, third place, N minus two. Because it happened this year in the AL Central when Cleveland was nine and six and the twins had eight wins and the Royals had seven wins and the Tigers had six wins and the White Sox had five wins. So again, Michael determined that the latest in a season this has happened, actually a lot later than this, August 4th, 2006. Wow. In the NL West, the Padres had 56 wins, the Diamondbacks had 55, the Dodgers had 54,

the Rockies had 53, and the Giants had 52. And if you want to also specify that the number of games played is identical among all teams to get the pleasing symmetry in the game's back column as well, then it's May 7th, 2011, in the AL West, when the Angels had 19, the Rangers had 18, and the A's had 17, and the Mariners had 16, only a four-team division at that point. And if you disqualify the AL West for having only four teams, then it's April 23rd, 2022 in the AL East, ranging from the Blue Jays at 10 wins to the Orioles at 6. So the 2026 AL-Central equaled the record for latest into a season where wins,

losses, and games back all step up or down by one in a division with five or more teams. So some strange stuff happening in the standings. You know, we did the staff last recently about how there was incredibly compressed standings and there was just very little separation from the best team to the worst after 15 team games or so. And now also we have this weird inverted run differential situation in the NL Central or we did. And then we had this AL Central situation for a while. Just a lot of weirdness happening. And it's not entirely related to the Mets. It's not entirely related, but that's because they haven't yet sacrificed the pizza mascot.

Yes, that's true. Yeah. And since I just mentioned the Rockies again, I've got to give credit to the Rockies for being a little frisky. They took two out of three from the Dodgers this weekend. And they also got on Dalton Rushing because Dalton Rushing said there seemed to be something fishy, suggesting that Rockies were sign stealing or something. And Dave Roberts was like, nope. shutting that down, but Dalton, he was, yeah, and then the Rockies, they seized on this fishiness, and they made it a meme and they turned it into their celebration. And now they're all

fishermen on the bases and they're all just reeling in lines. I mean, that's pretty good. You know, they're still going to end up not being a very good team probably and the Dodgers are going to be miles above them in the NOS standings. But at least for now, they're holding their own and they're standing up for themselves. Sometimes all you can be is a thorn in the side of your rival. Sorry, I'm about to be rude to the Rockies as I'm praising them. Rival isn't quite right. But, you know, the big team on campus, you can just be not a spoiler even, but again,

a thorn. Yeah. And just to round up our standings related questions here, Daniel, Patreon supporter said, according to the AP gamer written after the A's beat the Rangers on Wednesday, they claimed sole possession of the division lead for the first time since 2021. This strikes me as a relatively long time, as even a very bad team could accidentally win their first few games of the year. What's the longest streak all time of this? I'd imagine the Pirates and Rockies' current streaks are longer than the A's streak. And Michael says,

Daniels instincts are correct that most teams are alone in first place at some point during the season. 17 out of 30 teams did so last year. Daniel's instincts are also correct that the Pirates and Rockies are two of the teams that did not do so last year. However, they are not running longer streaks than the A's were, the A's had the second longest active streak behind the Washington Nationals who have not held sole possession of first place in their division since June 11th, 2018, which is before they won the World Series, surprisingly. But yeah, the other teams with an active streak of more than 365 days are the Red Sox, Royals, White Sox, Diamondbacks, Orioles, and Cardinals. The Reds and Twins also played their way off that list earlier this week or last week,

taking their first division lead since August and October 2023, respectively. The longest streak in the divisional era, 1969 to present, is held by the Atlanta Braves. After winning the first NL West Division title in 1969 by three games over the Giants, they didn't have sole possession of first place in the division again until April 9, 1982, 4,572 days later, when they started the season 3-0 en route to their second NL West division title. I guess they made up for it later. when they were winning the NL East every year for years. Under the current three divisions per league format,

the longest streak belongs to the Detroit Tigers. They played their first game as a member of a five-team division, the AL East on April 4th, 1994. Their first solo division lead came on April 7, 2004 in the AL Central. After starting the season, 3 and O, that is a 3,656 day streak, or that days later. Yeah.

And lastly, we got a question from Todd. who said on Friday, the Orioles defeated the Guardians 6 to 4. In this game, all of Baltimore's runs were scored in the eighth inning. My question is, what is the most runs scored in a single inning when the runs scored in said inning were the only run scored by that team in the game? I'd be curious to know the most in a win as well as a loss. And Michael says something else noteworthy about that Orioles Guardian's game. The Guardians also scored all their runs in a single half inning, although it was not the matching half of the same inning where the Orioles scored. the highest scoring game on record in which both teams scored all of their runs in a single half inning

is the Phillies Reds game on April 13, 2003. The Phillies won 13 to 1. The Reds one run was scored obviously in a single half inning the bottom of the fifth, while the Phillies scored all of their 13 runs in the top of the fourth. That mark of 13 runs by a single team is also the record for most runs scored in a game where all scoring happened in a single inning. The only other time it has happened was by Atlanta on September 20th, 1972, in the second inning defeating the Astros 13 to 6, the highest scoring loss, where all the losing

teams' runs came in a single inning, 11. The Philadelphia A is lost 17 to 11 to the New York Yankees on June 3rd, 1933, and all of Philly's scoring came in the third inning. Finally, if you require all of the scoring in a game for both teams combined to come in the same inning, the highest scoring game on record matching that criterion, is the Pirates playing the Giants, the New York Giants, at the Polo Grounds on July 26. 1928, the final score with 7 to 5 Pirates with all 12 runs being scored in the second inning. I like when the runs are distributed a little more widely than that.

I don't like all the scoring in a single inning. Yeah, we want the action spread out a bit, I think. What if that's the inning you went to the bathroom? Oh, yeah, then you'd miss all the action. I mean, you probably wouldn't miss all the action because if it's all that scoring and one in the inning, the inning probably lasts it a long time. But still, you'd miss some of the action. That's true, yeah. I guess you'd miss some of the action.

It was spread out too. Maybe you should just not go to the bathroom. Yeah. Hold it if you can. Oh, and we got a response. Remember when we stopped last week about Ryan Christensen and the fact that he hit all of his 16 home runs against different teams, won a piece. And so he was the answer to the question, who has the most homers with all of those homers coming against different teams, never doubling up? And he had the record all time and also even to start a career.

Yeah. And we got an email unsolicited. from Olivia Hummer, who is the senior manager for baseball communications for the A's. Yes. And Olivia wrote, Don't know if you are aware that Ryan Christensen is the A's first base outfield coach, but wanted to let you know he was totally unaware, both of the record, and also that he'd hit all his homers off of different teams.

He was delighted to learn the fact, though, and we all got a good laugh. I sent him the clip as well, because I had mused. I wonder if Ryan Christensen is aware of this and maybe we'll cold call him someday. No need because Olivia with the A's was listening and played this for him. And now we know he did not know. This was news to Ryan Christensen as well as to us. And one other response that we got to a recent conversation, this is from Alex Vigderman with Sports Info Solutions, who wrote to us on Monday and had a couple notes related to episode 2467.

He said you had a couple of musings. in quick succession that I felt we had some ability to put numbers to, so I figured I'd reached out with respect to the idea that pitchers might, quote unquote, man up and not present themselves as hurting when they're hit by a batted ball, because we talked about Tobias Myers getting hit by a Freeland line drive and not reacting. And Ron Darling and Oral Hershizer were talking about this in the booth and how you never want to show them that you hurt them. So Alex says, SIS tracks all kinds of injury events, including things that the players don't show a reaction to. So while we can't tell how the player's actually

feeling, we can at least try to judge if getting hit by a batted ball elicits a less dramatic response than expected. So the Sports Info Solution Stringers, they not only record when someone gets hit by a batted ball, but they record the apparent severity of the injury. So you can classify it as no visible effect or some visible effect might shake off an arm or something, or medical attention stays in the game or leaves the game, or the worse, the game stops and there's a cart slash stretcher situation. I did not know that they recorded this in such detail. To roughly compare analogous plays, I looked at injury events since 2018 where a pitcher was hit by a medium or hard hit-hit ball and compared them to a hit-by pitch or a foul off a body part. I would

accept an argument that these aren't apples-to-apples comps, but I think they get us close. If we remove injuries that are initially severe enough to merit medical attention, ball hit off of pitchers have about a 50-50 chance of the player showing some kind of ill-effect right afterward. For the comparison group, it's more like a 40% chance, and that 40% rate is more consistent with the overall average across all injuries. That could suggest that pitchers are actually showing more pain, but also could be that these injuries are a little worse.

On these injuries, the expected days missed, per our prognosis log shortly after the injury, is slightly higher for the pitchers, particularly for the injuries that they're showing some effect from two expected days missed versus 0.5. This could suggest the opposite of the above that pitchers and batterers show a similar response, but the pitcher's injuries are actually a little worse. The overwhelmingly most relevant detail here, though, is how often someone checks on them. Pitchers receive medical attention almost 60% of the time they're hit by a decently hit batted ball compared to under 10% for batters hit by a pitch or fouling a ball off their foot.

But when we compare the expected days missed on these injuries, the pitchers have a lower average 2.6, then the batters 4.3. So there's a lot more sensitivity to the pitcher getting hit, despite there not being a meaningful difference in health on average. That's interesting. So the teams are doting on the pitchers. They're more likely to go out and check on them, even though they're not injured more than someone who fouled a ball off themselves or got hit by a pitch or something. I guess it's just it's rarer maybe for pitchers. and so it seems more noteworthy and obviously it could be. Well, I mean, both hit by pitchers and getting hit by batted balls can be bad depending on where one is hit.

But that would, I guess, support your argument that maybe pitchers don't show the pain because they're more likely to be lifted or visited. So they don't want to give you any excuse to come out there and yank them. Yeah. Did you see Jake Reneworth get hit in the face around the weekend? Yeah. Oof. Again, none of these guys throw up. It's so crazy.

I would. And he had all his teeth. He had like kind of like grimacing at the camera in a way that showed all of his teeth. And I was like, I'm sorry, this is one of the rare moments where I think it is incumbent upon the trainer to approach a living human being a bit like a horse and be like, I need a pride open and look at all the. Why did he? He was like, I'm staying in the game.

And I was like, I think that's a dereliction of duty. I think they should have been required to pull him. He got hit square in the freaking face. Yeah. And Alex also checked with respect to the frequency of pitchers coming back to a low and inside pitch after the batter fouls won off his foot. Because I mentioned there's the old bromide that if a guy fouls one off his foot, then you come back in low and in because he might be wary of swinging or something. And Alex said, I looked at any plate appearance since 2018 where a batter fouled a ball off his foot and compared the pitches before and after to keep the context as similar as possible. He found, unsurprisingly, balls off. hit off the batter's foot are more often low and in, 39% versus 19% on other pitches. However, the pitches proceeding and immediately following the foul off the foot are not more likely to be low and in, according to his analysis. So the rates are all basically even at 19 to 21% low and in, except for the one that's fouled

off the foot. So he says there's no particular trend as far as you can tell. of avoiding or targeting low and in before or after the foul off the foot. So I don't know. Maybe there's no truth to that on the whole. But anyway, it's nice when we have staplas that are done in response to our staplass that we didn't even ask someone to do. Yes, very thoughtful.

All right. Closing the loop on a few matters, stat blast related. Scott in Vancouver, Patreon supporter said, Just wanted to bring to your attention something we Blue Jays fans have been tracking. second-year pitcher Braden Fisher has yet to allow an earned run on the road in 31 and a third innings in his career, while allowing 15 earned runs in 25 innings as of April 9th at home. It was only last week in Chicago that he allowed his first road unearned runs, thanks to a Tyler Heineman error, wondering where this would rank on the most road slash home earned runs allowed before allowing the first home-slash-road earned run to start a career.

Well, first of all, Fisher did subsequently allow an earned run on the road against the Brewers on April 14th. But also, Mountain says this isn't particularly notable in terms of runs allowed, simply because there are plenty of examples of mediocre starting pitchers who made several road starts and gave up lots of runs before appearing at home or vice versa. For example, the all-time record for runs allowed on the road before allowing a run at home is 36, achieved by Philadelphia A's starter Carl Doyle, who had a 3.33 home ERA in his rookie season of 1935, but just happened to make his first six appearances on the road. Also, Michael followed up on a staff last from episode 2464 about switch hitters who hit notably higher in the lineup from one side than from the other.

At the suggestion of Raymond Chen, he took another look at this via a different method, which quantifies how far away the center of gravity is in the batter's platoon split for average batting order position using a unit circle with a radius as one as the mapping domain. A hypothetical player who hit only leadoff versus left-handers and only fifth versus righties, for example, would have a Platoon difference of 1.97, nearly a full diameter of the circle. When he removed the 500 plate appearance overall minimum requirement, it revealed 1994 Bernie Williams, my favorite player, as the most extreme standout.

He took nearly 75% of his left-handed hitting events batting seventh and 66% of his right-handed hitting events batting lead-off. I will link to the new spreadsheet. Also a question about player names and batter pitcher matchups came up in the Discord group. Listener Joseph noticed that Bubba Chandler was pitching to Chandler Simpson and wanted to know how often has there been a wheel of fortune before and after situation where the last name of the pitcher is the same as the first name of the batter? Well, pretty often. Michael found 2,153 occurrences on record dating back to 1910 via retro sheet. That also

includes pitcher first name being the same as batter last name. It happened in 46 plate appearances last season. The most prolific name matches are John. Lots of Tommy John in their 330 batter pitcher matchups from 1964 to 1988, where the name John was a match. Second is Scott. Third is Lee. I'll put the full list online. Even the earlys. Early win faced Jake Early.

Listener Skelly wondered whether Joe Ryan makes the list for both of his names. And indeed he does. He has pitched to both Ryan Mountcastle and Connor Joe. He's also pitched to other Ryan's, LeVarnway, McMahon, McKenna, O'Hern, Bliss. Other players who have faced batters or pitchers with both directions of name matching, Russell Martin has batted against Martin Perez. There's an accent mark difference there. And Adam and James Russell. Jackson, Merrill has batted against Luke Jackson and Merrill Kelly. Garrett Mitchell has batted against Reed Garrett and Mitchell Parker. John Denny pitched to Denny's Gonzales and Walling and also Tommy John. Joe Kelly

pitched to Connor Joe and Kelly Schauch. Boone Logan pitch to Aaron Boone and Logan Morrison, Scott, Scott, and a whole passel of Terry's. Jackson Todd pitched to Reggie and Ron Jackson and also Todd Cruz and Paul Wilson Pitch to Josh Paul and Wilson Delgado. Connor Joe coming up clutched there for all the first name Joe's. And last week when we were talking about Tatsuya Imi and his acclamation to the majors or lack thereof,

I was talking about how no players had come directly from NPB to the Astros before. I may have said or suggested that the same was the case for the White Sox and Morikami. If I did, that's not the case. The champion 2005 White Sox, in fact, had two players who came over directly from NPB, Tadahito Aguchi and Shingo Takatsu.

Takatsu was Morikami's manager with the swallows in NPP, and actually he was in White Sox Camp this spring, and he predicted somewhat jokingly, but maybe not entirely, that Morik would hit 55 homers. Well, he's on pace. And finally, Sean McCormick, Patreon supporter, responded to our conversation about promotional giveaways by teams, and he said, listening to your conversation about the impact of promotions and promotion creep reminded me that I wrote a paper on this in undergrad. It's been a few years, but I refreshed my memory.

reviewing a few economics papers I referenced, including one called Does Bat Day Make Sense? C-E-N-T-S. At a high level, games with a promotion increase attendance by about 3,893 fans per game, a 14% increase. According to that paper, factoring in promotion frequency, teams with a greater number of promotions experience diminishing effects, as one would expect, with a promotion increasing attendance by 12% on average, down from the previously mentioned 14%. The difference is still small enough that the promotion creep we're feeling has been historic. effectively effective for getting butts in seats, ignoring cost. I can hear Bob Nudding complaining

about cost being ignored, so we've got that looped in. Quality is, of course, relative, but they found that for every additional dollar spent on the item given away, an additional 2,68 fans are brought in. If not clear, this is on a rate basis, not the total cost of 20,000 bobbleheads. A few other points from other papers, expected, but bobbleheads are the most effective giveaway. Promotions on weekdays are more effective than promotions on weekends, and promotions draw returning fans, not new fans. The Mariners seem to follow these ideas as their bobbleheads and funco pops are often two or three day

giveaways that happen on Monday through Wednesday. Thank you, Sean. I will link to a couple of those papers. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free, and get yourself access to

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If you are patron, you can message us through the Patreon site. Send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, their podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes in the podcast post at Fangraphs or on Patreon or the

episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. I've been in makeup on the way No, it's gonna be a good Wanna hear about none of them obvious, yeah Tell me about some prospect I should