Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2478: MLB’s New Main Characters

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the latest lima-bean-related revelations about Tarik Skubal’s elbow surgery, the Giants’ censored synchronized thrust and the history of homoerotic celebrations in baseball, Coby Mayo’s dog’s devotion, the Orioles’ rotation issues (and a Rico Garcia update), Atlanta’s unexpectedly productive DHs, Ben’s invisible baseball neighbor, and Konnor Griffin’s glow-up, plus (1:12:33) a check-in on the hitters and pitchers who’ve over- or underperformed their projections the most through the first quarter of the regular season, and the players who’ve made cases to become new MLB main characters. Audio intro: Benny and a Million Shetland Ponies, “Effectively Wild Theme (Horny)” Audio outro: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to The Athletic on Skubal’s surgery Link to Seinfeld squirrel surgery scene Link to Giants celebration clip Link to Key & Peele sketch Link to Baggarly post Link to Baggarly article Link to other article on the edict Link to JHL’s possible smooch attempt Link to new bow celebration Link to Gilbert GIF Link to Vitello thrust Link to Posey ownership story Link to Charles B. Johnson wiki Link to Johnson donations article Link to Mets outfield imitation Link to 2022 Mookie celebration Link to Mookie Twitch stream answer Link to Mookie Twitch clip Link to bukkake wiki Link to Mookie’s Ohtani comment Link to 2024 Dodgers crotch bump Link to 2016 Cubs crotch bump Link to 2014 Mariners celebration post 1 Link to 2014 Mariners celebration post 2 Link to 2019 Rangers crotch grab Link to Red Sox celebration info Link to Dodgers memorial announcement Link to Collins obit Link to MLBTR on Fried’s elbow Link to Mayo game story Link to Mayo quote clip Link to Mayo quote text Link to Argos wiki Link to mid-March team SP projections Link to team SP WAR to date Link to Orioles SP stats so far Link to team hitter WAR Link to Elias’s Eflin/Rodriguez quote Link to 2026 Elias SP quote 1 Link to 2026 Elias SP quote 2 Link to 2026 Elias SP quote 3 Link to team defense leaderboard Link to .000 BABIP streaks Link to MLB.com on Garcia Link to Profar DH article Link to team DH production Link to team LF production Link to 2026 Location+ leaders Link to Link to 2024-26 Location+ leaders Link to latest Skenes gem Link to BP on Griffin’s rookie eligibility Link to Griffin’s early-season sample Link to Griffin’s second sample Link to hitter leaderboard since Griffin’s birthday Link to “quarter pole” definition Link to preseason hitter projections Link to preseason pitcher projections Link to hitter pace leaderboard Link to pitcher pace leaderboard Link to hitter over/underperformers Link to pitcher over/underperformers Link to Hogg on Miz velo post Link to Hogg on Miz velo article Link to Jones on Miz velo Link to Miz vs. Jones velo fun fact Link to Crizer on April 2025 main characters Link to Clemens on Walker Link to BP on Turang Link to Blue Jays IP leaders Link to Orioles shutout gamer Link to 2475 Podsednik Stat Blast wiki Link to 1879 Podsednik Stat Blast Link to 1885 Podsednik follow-up Link to Podsednik walk-off Link to corvids wiki Link to icterids wiki Link to Vandy video clip Link to Vandy controversy summary Link to Vandy-Mizzou gamer  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

Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be horny about baseball? Every take hot and hotter, entwining and a budding, watch them climb big mountain, nothing's about nothing, every stitch wet, loose wet, breaking balls back, doormy on effectively wild, but can you not be horny?

When it comes to podcasts, how can you not be horny? Hello and welcome to episode 2478 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined by Ben Littembourg of the Ringer. How are you? I regret to say that I have another Terik's Guble Elbow update. I'm pretty sure I suggested that the one on the last episode would be the final update, at least until he returns.

But no, I have more courtesy of an excellent. article by Cody Stavenhagen at the Athletic that answered a lot of the questions about the scubel procedure that came to our minds when we recorded on Monday. First of all, we got another degree of precision about the size of the loose body, the joint mouse that was removed from Terrick Scoobel's elbow. And we have also learned what it was exactly. It was a speck of calcified cartilage. And last time we learned that it was about the size of a lima beam.

according to Scott Boers? Yeah. Well, Dr. Neil Eletrosch, who performed the surgery, now specifies that it was about the size of a fat lima bean. Okay. So now we're getting increasingly precise. And I appreciate that because I said last time, hey, liam beans can be big lima beans, can be small.

Now we know it was a fat lima bean. Okay, but, but Ben, problem, problem I see here. A spec is tiny. A spec is small. enough to fit on a flower that Horton feels the need to protect from birds and other creatures because they're who's down there, okay? And they can't see them, right? And they're going to boil that dustbite.

Boil it, boil it. That's what they're going to, that, that's not the size of a lima bean. That's true. If a lima bean was the size of a speck or a speck was the size of lima bean is really the direction that that should be going, he wouldn't have had so much fricking trouble convincing them that there were little creatures down there. It's true. Now, the good doctor didn't say spec in fairness to Dr. Neil Al-Trosh.

That was Cody's word choice. So we could quibble with spec, perhaps. I quibble with spec. I quibble with spec. And really, you know, at a certain point, these indiscretions are the fault of the editor for not saying, hey, I've read Horton here's a who. And I know that as a speck, it's very tiny. and he needed those big old elephant hairs to be able to hear them.

Here's another detail. And I'll just warn anyone if you're squeamish about injuries, body stuff. But I have to be here. You have to listen to it, unfortunately. This is an OSHA violation. Everyone else skip ahead 15 seconds. Oh, my God. Just the effect of the spec, which was not a speck.

So it says at various points throughout the past few months, the loose body would become lodged elsewhere inside Scoobel's arm, like a stick in a bike tire, and Scoobel's elbow would become locked. What? That's very unpleasant to read. Like it would be extended and he wouldn't be able to unextend it, kind of locked? I guess it was kind of frozen in place because the lima bean was lodged in the wrong place, and so it was somewhat painful and then also reduced his range of motion.

So that's how he knew that he had a lima bean, a fat lima bean in there. Now, the rest of the article largely does back up Scott Boris's interpretation of events, which I noted and quoted because he had appeared on Buster Only's podcast and talked about this. Now, Scott Boris branded this the scubel scope. That is not actually the name for the procedure or the device, and that is not how Dr. Neil Elitrash is identifying it. The tool is called the nanonetle scope 2.0. So scope is there, but the scoble is. part. That is Boris branding. Well, yeah. And what they do here, so they make an incision.

They still have to make an incision, but it's a narrow incision because this nanoneodle is about 1.9 millimeters in diameter. So it's about half the diameter of the traditional arthroscopic thing in the jig. So it doesn't do as much damage. They can just stick it in there. And when they make the incision, then they pump the joint. full of fluid, and they use the camera on the end to identify the lima bean, the loose body, and then use a tool to either grab or suck it out. So it's not the nanoneedle, the scoble scope

is not the thing actually sucking the loose body out. Yeah. It's just identifying where the loose body is, like a little poke, and the nanoneedle can just more easily glide to that location. And then the surgery would require, and I'm not sure I knew this word, but the surgery would require pumping an estimated 65% less fluid than the arthroscopic procedure to insufflate the joint. As if a suflay, you're making an elbow suflay. Insufflate. Yes. And that means less swelling and pain and, in theory, less recovery time. And not just in theory, but also this has been used.

not on a high-level baseball player, but it has been used in other sports. They've used it on NFL players. They used it on the great hockey goalie, Connor Hellebuck. He had this done to repair it torn meniscus and remove assist. And basically it does, according to all the studies out there,

reduce the recovery time because the implement does less damage and Scoobel can get back to throwing more quickly. And so even if there isn't really a MLB database, of nanonetal scoble scope injuries and treatments there's enough evidence out there to make Boris and Neil L. Trash

confident that Scoobel can come back more quickly, but we will see. When you have a torn meniscus and a cystus, is it a cynicus? Maybe. That's what Scott Boris would brand it. Well, I regret to inform you that we have to reset our days

since Meg and Ben were fighting counter back to zero because that was way more detail than I was hoping for. Yeah, I'm sorry. I have a memory from my childhood of my stepmom had to get like her rotator cuff repaired and they gave her like a video of it. And then we were, okay.

So Forst implies that a younger version of me didn't think I was going to enjoy watching it and then change her mind, which is what actually happened. I was like, oh yeah, let's look in there. And then I was like, I don't care for this at all. There was like fluid and there was the cuff. and you could see where the fring was. And it did look like it was floating in there, like in an aquatic way. Like a current was going across something on a coral reef.

I didn't like that. I don't think that your body should look like the bottom of the sea, even though I understand there are probably parts of it that do. But again, those are on the inside. And even though it might be my business if it's my insides, fundamentally it still isn't. You know, it's like not mine to see. Right.

So the needle is just very, very small. Yes, very skinny needle. How tiny must the camera be? Yeah, you know? Very tiny. That's really pretty remarkable. That's like a feat of engineering. It is, yes.

New oil trash would not use the nanon needle 1.0 because the resolution on the camera wasn't sufficient. But when they upgraded to the 2.0, suddenly he could see in there. The 2.0 is about the camera, not the needle. The needle presumably remains large. Unchanged? Yeah, might be both, but definitely the needle. And so he made the incision. He found the loose lima bean and then slid a miniature grasper into the elbow.

And because of the lima bean shape of the loose body, it had a tendency to float into tiny spaces inside the joint. And it would be difficult to remove with normal size instruments. So they had to use the special tiny instruments from Seinfeld that they used to operate on the squirrel. and he found the loose lime of bean and then he says there's some little tricks on how to hold it still once you find it and then you enter the joint with a grasper and then you pull it out.

I like when a medical device is just named after the thing that it does. It just, it grasps. So it's a grasper. Yeah. Grasper stat. Okay. So, yeah, now we know probably more than we needed or wanted to know

about this procedure. And maybe that will be the end of the body horror for this episode. We have met our body heart. quota. Medical things. They occupy. You're going to be like, what is this comparison she's making? Come along with me, friend. It's sort of like college relievers, how every college reliever either looks like they're like 13 or 49. There's very little in between, you know, they either look not old enough to drive or like they should be giving you advice on how to like rebalance your IRA.

And I think that medical device terminology occupies sort of a similar spectrum where it's like either the most bananas word you've ever encountered in your life with so many syllables that it's clearly not meant to be a word that gets set out loud very often or it's grabber. And there's not a lot in the medical device space sort of in between. And if you're a person who sells medical equipment and you think that that assessment is, incorrect. I defer to your expertise and I am so confident in it that you don't even have to send an email about it. Okay. Well, as a palette cleanser from the grasping, maybe we can transition to thrusting. Oh, okay. We can go from body horror to body positivity, body celebration. And we can talk about the thrusting that the San Francisco Giants were briefly engaging in, but now are not.

because we've gotten some questions about this. We've talked about players kissing. Your position is they should, but only if they want to. And now the question is, should they thrust? And I assume your position is the same, but it seems like the Giants' position is not the same, that they should not do this even if they do want to. So in recent days, the Giants outfielders have debuted some groundbreaking celebration. And they kind of built up to it because there was an initial case where

Junghu Lee tried to get Drew Gilbert and Elliot Ramos. It's unclear, but they were hugging. They were embracing the trio of outfielders. And then Lee put his hand on the back of the necks of Gilbert and Ramos and tried to push their heads together. Yes. In a way that suggested to me that maybe he was hoping they would smooch, it could have been something else.

But that's what I thought he was going for. Well, and I took the position because, you know, we didn't have the information we do now. That's true. About just how intimate they all desired to be. I thought that he was like going for like a mutual like forehead bunk, you know, like, oh, let's put our little bunk, bunk and heads together, you know. And it turns out he did want to put their heads together just different. Yeah. In light of subsequent events, though.

I think we can update our priors on what he was hoping to do there. Yeah. So then shortly after that, they debut a new celebration where the outfielders come together and do a dry hump, essentially, in the outfield. Well, I assume it was dry, but I mean, it was. I was going to take exception to the hump part because I think thrust is a more apt description of that particular motion. Whatever it was, it was vigorous. It was not just one crotch bump. No.

It was repeated. It was several, several groin taps. Yeah. Groy taps. I mean, it was the full McRingleberry from Key and Peel. It was several pumps. Oh, wait, we got a flag there. Is that for excessive celebration?

Yeah. Well, see, and I'm not sure about that call. I don't know, Bill. That was three pumps. And the rule book says you cannot have more than two. Oh, my gosh. But look at the kid. He's pleading his case with a dress.

played his case. Yeah, clearly three-pun. Coach Johnson, definitely not happy about this call. So that happened, and that seemed like, okay, that was the new normal. But then, quickly, someone cracked down on this. And it was relayed from on high, as Andrew Baggerly posted on Blue Sky. It's my understanding that a message has been relayed, and here's the thrust of it. Well done, Andrew.

This particular outfield win celebration will be one and done. And indeed, it did go away. They stopped thrusting and they switched to bowing. They just lined up and bowed with no full frontal contact or contact of any kind, really. And according to Baggerly's piece at The Athletic, here's what he wrote about it. So there was a meeting, a pregame team meeting prior to Tuesday night's game against the Dodgers. And the team had won a couple games in a row. and there were some issues that Tony Vitello wanted to address.

He wanted to talk about the newly constructed roster. He wanted to talk about role adjustments and the need for flexibility and for everyone to trust the process. Also, and I'm quoting now, at some point before the meeting adjourned, he politely asked his outfielders to cool it with the pelvic thrusting. Quote, they're a close-knit group. Let's put it that way, said Vitello when he was asked about it. And it was Harrison Bader was the third member of the third member of the trust. trio when they did the full thrusting as well as Drew Gilbert and Junghuli. Drew Gilbert appears to be a wild man just in an entertaining way, but that man is wired a little

bit differently than most. So Vitello evidently put the kibash on this, but I don't know whether he was the originator of that message or just the messenger because maybe this was a mandate that came down from ownership from the front office because I don't know if you saw this but Vitello did a clandestine pelvic thrust of his own. Did you see the Vitello thrust? I will, I will, and this looks more like a dog humping motion. Vitello was standing in the dugout and he grasped the dugout railing. My God. And he started going to town. And so that suggests to me that maybe he's trying to signal that he's on the player's side, that this was not him. This was the man who was clamping down on the thrusting and

that Vitello, he's still on their side. He's secretly thrusting in the dugout where no one can see except the TV cameras. So this actually, this makes me feel more positive feelings about Tony Vitello than I did the last time we talked about it. But that made me question who really passed down this d'kt. So I don't know whether we'll know. But perhaps Vitello was just relaying the message reluctantly. I am not a betting person, but this feels much more posy-esque to me than it does

Tony. Having experienced on TV, but that was enough, his tenure at Tennessee, this doesn't seem like the kind of thing he would be bothered by. Yeah, I was going to say ownership mandate,

which I guess Posey kind of is ownership. Minority ownership. But the Giants ownership is famously not liberal, politically speaking, because I was going to say, like, how will the city of San Francisco survive such a scandalous sight of men thrusting vigorously? Scandalous. Look, you play San Francisco. I think if your boys want to be close, it's plenty of precedent for that in the great city of San Francisco. And you said, this isn't like indecent. Now, they went from kissing to this in the space of like a week.

So what's next? Maybe there was concern about what this wasn't on-ramp to more than anything else. Yes. So, you know, maybe I have some sympathy for that, I suppose. But if one seeks to understand some of the celebrations that we see on the baseball field, you don't have to work very hard to know that they're not, you know, family-friendly. And so I think that is this maybe a more direct and straightforward version of that? Sure.

But I also think it's fine as long as everyone is saying yes and having a good time. I don't think that this is like indecent to have on the field in the view of children. I think everybody should chill out a little bit, you know? Let the boys have their fun. Look at these secure men having a good time with the fellas. Yeah. So I don't know if this is an owner Charles B. Johnson measure or who clamped down. I guess you could say that they're representatives.

of the organization. It's perhaps not super professional. There are kids watching it's a family-friendly entertainment. We bleep swears on this podcast mostly because people with kids sometimes complain. So maybe it's the same sort of idea that it could prompt some uncomfortable questions or something. But I think it's fun. And this is almost, it's become kind of the new bat flipping. It's like no one cares about bat flipping anymore. Like thrusting is the new bat flipping. And it's not as if opposing teams complain, I don't think. This is more of, can we get away with this on the broadcast? Like, is this okay? Do we have to censor this somehow? And there's a proud tradition of groin on groin' contact in baseball celebrations. This goes back, this goes back away. David Ross

certainly popularized. I don't know if he pioneered, but he was among the first. to do this with the 2016 Cubs. And then there's been a bunch of Dodgers celebrations, right? In 2024, there was the Kike Hernandez groin bump with Gavin Lux. And, you know, these are championship organizations, right? I mean, 2016 Cubs, 2024 Dodgers. Right. These are teams you want to emulate, right?

So, I mean, this is an example of the Giants, just not being a championship. caliber organization if they're saying no no groin taps to you everyone no heavy petting everyone sit with their feet on the floor with the door open boys so it's not the only reason the giants are not a championship caliber team currently but maybe it's another manifestation yeah i think uh look there are so many ways to celebrate with ones with once bros and we should have an expansive understanding of it. And that's not to say that anything would go, but I struggle to find this particularly bothersome. What happens if they start playing poorly? Because, look, are the Giants a fundamentally different baseball team than they were a week ago? I would submit to you that they

are not been. I think that they are still, what do they call it, in a bad way in terms of their current position vis-a-vis the rest of the league. But I'd also just note, These same here giants have won three in a row. They've won four of their last five. They beat the Dodgers twice. Yeah, the vibes have been bad. So you don't want to crack down. Yeah, yeah, come on.

And they're not even, again, they're not even grinding. They're thrusting. It's fundamentally different action. Speaking of grinding, do you remember in 2022, this was before the Kike Hernandez crotch bump, the Dodgers debuted, and specifically Mooki Betts debuted a celebration that I think became known as the Mukake celebration because I'm going to send you a gift to refresh your memory. I will link to all this, to be clear, if anyone wants to watch along with us. Yeah, this is sort of a...

Yeah, this was in 2022, and it was, I think, after a home run. Right. This is what I'm talking about. Yeah, and Mukki was in the dugout, and he did. did this thing with other Dodgers where they were grinding, cranking something at a groinish level. And then after all of that, someone sprayed a drink in Muki's face. Yeah. Yes. And it was branded the Mukaki by various fans.

And I think they had to stop that or they did stop that fairly quickly. But Muki was asked about it later on a podcast or in an interview. And he said that it was a. pepper grinder thing. Yeah. But he had a smile on his face. He was laughing. I'm pretty sure we know what was happening here.

I came up with the home run celebration dance. You know what's when I'm talking about. Yeah, I don't know who came up with it. But it's just grinding pepper guys. I don't even know what you guys are talking about. I mean, it's not even. Okay. That's all right.

All right. What happens when it gets on your face, though, because it's like a reaction. You know, no, the water. The water to the face. Hold on. Wouldn't you be trying to get pepper out of your eyes after they do it? But instead, that's why he... No, that's why he poured the water on my face to try and get the pepper out of my eyes.

Oh, that's why it was... Got you. It looks a certain way, but you guys, you know... Great answer. Yeah, it's not that way. It's not... It's not like that. But it was a great...

I feel like it was a great celebration. And you know what? I'm pretty sure. everybody in the chat would love to do the celebration because that means they hit a home run in the big leagues. Yeah. Okay. Sure. I still like that.

You know, you can't admit it, maybe. And Mookie, he kind of disappointed me not that long ago because he was asked if he would think about Shohay Otani or Freddie Freeman when he goes to bed. This was, I think, in last year's playoffs after they had big games. and Mookiei said, I'm probably not going to think about another man while I'm in bed. Yeah. Like, come on, Mookie. Who among us hasn't lain in bed and thought about Shohiotani? So that sort of, you know, just, hey, we can all be comfortable enough to say that.

Can we? But he was the one maybe who debuted that celebration back in 2022. So he did give us that. This wasn't the specific celebration I was thinking of, but like Mariners fans can think back to the Kyle Seeger era version of the team where they would, if they would like double, they would do their hands above their heads in a, look, I'm going to say something and it's crude, okay?

And I just want the parents in the room who, I don't know, have gone this far with us. It was what some Mariners fans colloquially referred to as the double-handy J celebration. And they also tried to plausible deniability their way through, which is how you do. it with these things so that you can keep doing your celebration, even though you know what it's about. But I struggle to believe them, you know? And who am I to unpack the complex

psychology of pro baseball players who are simultaneously engaged in celebrations that one could call pretty gay, while also exhibiting a version of masculinity that seems hostile to that particular view of the world. Now, not exclusively, right? We know Kiki Hernandez, for example, to have fairly progressive politics. So I don't mean to, I'm not trying to smear anyone who is an ally. But it is, it's an interesting bit of business, you know? It's an interesting sort of bit of business. And I think that the best way for us to come to understand it is to let them kind of do whatever they want with their breasts, as long as everybody's saying. and yes, and having a good time.

Who are we to judge, Ben? We are pro baseball players kissing and pro them doing whatever else. And as long as the threshold of consent is being reached, then say okay by me. Yeah, I think in a sports culture that can be homophobic and not uniquely homophobic, but, you know, I don't know if it's as homophobic as, say, hockey heated rivalry aside. but it's not good. And Jason Collins just died way too young. First player to publicly come out and play in a big for sports league.

And that was almost 15 years ago. And that has not happened in MLB. Big for men's league. Right. Yeah, obviously. The many ladies of the W are going, excuse you, Ben. Yes, yes, of course. But, you know, that still has.

hasn't happened in MLB. And so I'm not suggesting that the crotch grabbing and the groin bumping is necessarily breaking down barriers is making this culture more permissive. You don't need to load it up with meaning it perhaps lasts. Right. I don't know if it's freighted with that kind of cultural societal significance. I don't know whether someone who has been closeted is going to see this giant's outfield celebration and say, ah, it is finally safe for me to be me or something. Yeah, there's a place for me, yeah. But, you know, maybe, maybe there's a little something there. It wasn't just the Mariners. The 2019 Rangers had a crotch grab celebration. Yes, that's true. Joey Gallo and Noamar Mazar did that. I mean, they really,

like, reached and got a handful. And granted, maybe there was, maybe there was a cup involved, but even so. I mean, doesn't make it less of a handful. Yeah. And this stuff, it often kind of goes mainstream? Like when I was trying to find that 2019 Rangers incident, the first headline I saw was at People, People Magazine, People.com. And it was sharing this Rangers crotch grab. Normally they would not be covering baseball. So there is an intrigue to this. There is a curiosity to it. Oh, and you may have seen this, but even though the giants have been thwarted, stymied in their attempt to thrust. The Mets did an homage. They did a tribute to the Giants Outfield celebration. Did you see this? So I did not. Yeah. So it's it's spreading. Now they didn't do it. They didn't do it well.

They didn't fully commit to it. Well, what are the Mets doing well? I know. That's the thing. It's so Mets that they tried to do it, but then they like halfway through, they kind of lost their nerve. And, you know, there was some bumping certainly, but they kind of like cracked up. in the middle of it, and they just sort of ran in. Carson Bench, I think, sort of started it, but it's hard to say. They weren't all perhaps consenting to equal degrees. Is this from yesterday? This was from yesterday, yes, Tuesday.

So, yeah. But clearly they had seen the giant celebration and they wanted to do their own version, albeit expertly. So, you know, and the Red Sox, you know, and the Red Sox, they had a pelvic thrust celebration on the base path. and then they abandoned it, I think maybe shortly after Alex Quora was fired, I think, given the way they started the season and all the tumult and everything there, maybe they just felt like it was not, it didn't fit the mood of the team or something. And I think sometimes the broadcast would cut away from it. So maybe they got a talking to also, or they just, they've substituted other celebrations.

But clearly there's an impulse here, you know. So this is this is not as significant as, say, the Dodgers just announcing that at their Pride night, they are honoring and installing a tribute to Glenn Burke and Billy Bean, Billy Bean without an E on the end, and they're going to have a permanent display to those two. And that's great. And these temporary displays, well, I don't know whether they are motivated by the same desires. But, you know, I welcome it. I'm glad that these barriers are being broken down. crotch bump at a time. And to be clear, like, I think that part of why it's just like, again, you know, maybe, maybe some of these will be expressive of, I would imagine, away from the field, but romantic motivations or interests on the part of the folks doing it. But mostly I'm just interested in there being a broader and more expansive range of ways that these guys can relate to one another interpersonally. And the one that we get the most prominently is very, it's a very particular understanding of masculinity. It's, it's very heteronormative. And so I just, you know,

I want to open up the, the bounds of what, again, as long as everybody's wants to, you know, and, and to be clear, I'm not, I'm not some libertine. Like, I understand that there is a, uh, an outer bound past which it is probably not advisable in what is a broadly inclusive space that is going to involve families to like, you know, you got to be reasonable here. I get it. Yeah, maybe the mukaki, the brocaki celebration. That was maybe a little on the nose, literally. But also, it's a space where I think we are engaged in, just to make this sound a little more like I'm a sociology student, you are engaged in a negotiation. around these things because sure there are kids there but like it's not just kids there

there too and there aspects of that entertainment that I think can be like a little bit I was gonna say sex here but that's not quite right like raunchier right they can have sort of a rebald sense of humor about them so I just think um I wish I had had the courage of my convictions to say yeah he's making him try to kiss because I watched it and I was like I think he's looking at a headbunk and he thought not a salacious enough bonk we must bonk other bits. We must be engaged in other, and I don't know anything about Jung-Hoo-Lee as a person is the other thing. I think that Harrison Bader, his involvement in this is unsurprising to me just based on like the way that he has presented himself publicly

over the years. Andrew Gilbert for that manner. Yeah. Baggerly in his post saying that this might be the last thrust put in parentheses, I don't think Jung-hoo will be sad about that, that this will be one and done. So I don't know. So, I mean... And Jung Huli might not have been the instigator of it after all. Yeah, you can see in the clip that he was not embracing it quite as wholeheartedly. I mean, he was going along with it. But there's an element of peer pressure. And again, we do want this to be consensual.

Totally. And so he did mid-thrust as the other guys were hugging and had their arms around him and each other. He put his arms up in the air as if to say like, whoa, whoa, I don't know about this. Oh, okay. Maybe he was a bit more trepidious about that. I guess rewatching it. Yeah. Yeah, that is right.

We'll continue to track these evolving norms and mores and probe what they might mean for the sociocultural. It's just how MLB functions, just bros being bros and sometimes bump in groin's like this. And I do think that this is kind of the new frontier of celebrations where we've all not completely put it past us, but the culture war is about can you just be. exuberant by yourself. I think that has largely been resolved in favor of yes, you can. Of course, there are still some flare-ups sometimes when someone takes exception to a celebration and thinks that it was targeted at them or it was putting them down or showing them up or something. But this, this is a mutual expression of joy. And so I don't think I've seen other players object to this so much because it doesn't feel as targeted toward them. This just feels like something that players

are doing, that teammates are engaging in. And so this really, it feels like the resistance to this is maybe the audience or ownership or management or whatever or just some kind of latent, can we do this? Is this okay? What does this say about me? So anyway, there's nothing wrong with that. Not that there's anything wrong with the Giants Outfield celebration, but perhaps we're we will see it live on in other celebrations or echoes of it, at least. Gosh, I'm not even going to have to instruct Shane to use the horny theme for this episode. I don't think he will probably do that on his own. To make this more PG from here, here's another quote that I identified with strongly,

and I thought was quite heartwarming. So Kobe Mayo has gotten off to a rough start this season, but he did hit a big three-run homer the other night against the Yankees and supplied all the Orioles runs in a game that they won by one run. And so Mayo was pretty relieved about that big hit. And he said afterward that he had leaned on his support system to get him through the tough times,

his family, his girlfriend, his golden retriever, Finn. And he said, the dog doesn't know I made an error. He's referring to a two-out throwing error that he made that resulted in a walk-off win for the Marlins recently. The dog doesn't know I made an error. He doesn't know I struck out four straight at bats. This game does a lot to the mental side and we can have a lot on our minds going to sleep at night, putting our heads on the pillow, whether we're thinking about showeotani or not. As much as guys want to flush it sometimes, it's tough to when you leave the field.

So I think sometimes you need the people in your corner. My dog loves me, so it doesn't matter what happens. He's always going to be there for me. And I thought that was so sweet and touching. That's nice. Especially the end of it where he says it doesn't matter because the dog's going to be there. At the beginning, when he's like, the dog doesn't know I made an error, he doesn't know I struck out four straight at bats. That leaves open the possibility that if the dog did know, he might turn on Kobe Mayo. You know, it's just he's kept him in the dark. He's pulled the wool over Finn's eyes.

He comes home and tells Finn he had a great game. And so Finn wags and says, I still love you. No, it's just that even if Finn knew about the error and saw the strikeouts, He still wouldn't care because it's an unconditional love for Kobe Mayo. And I think a lot of pet owners feel that or not even pet owners. You know, he talked about his family and his girlfriend. They were kind of afterthoughts. So it was really Finn mostly, but also the other loved ones in his life.

And I've had this experience, too. I come home after a tough day. And, I mean, usually I'm home to begin with because I was going to say, where are you coming home from? That implies that I left to begin with. But I don't know. I went from one room to another after a tough day. Or it's something I associate even more strongly with when I was a kid. And if I knew I had a tough day ahead or there was something I was dreading or something I was anxious about,

I had a big test or something or I had to give a presentation and I was kind of just, I was stewing in some anxiety about that. I would like, lie in my bed the night before the morning of and, you know, just like cuddle with my dog. and think like, well, no matter how this test or presentation goes, I'll be back here, you know, later tonight. I'll, like my dog at the time, Holly, like Holly will still be here. She'll still be getting under the covers or Grumpkin today. And she won't care how that went. And so how bad could it be if at the end of it I'm still back snuggled in bed with my doxins.

So that still brings me comfort, I think, even. Even now, but especially when I was younger and had tough times or really was apprehensive about something that would be a thought that would kind of carry me through the day. Like, hey, I just got to just got to get back to my dog who will greet me warmly as always and will make me forget about whatever happened. So here's to you, Finn, and Kobe. I feel that too. Oh, that's so nice. I don't know if cats provide exactly the same comfort in all circumstances. but I don't want to get into a dog versus cat discussion.

It's just, you know, cats, sometimes they might hold it against you if you do something wrong. I take it. But, you know, it depends on the cat. Well, it does depend on the cat because much like dogs, there's, you know, variation and individuality to each special little feline spirit. The place where they can be kind of pissy is when you come home from a trip. Because they'll be like, excuse me, I swear. where the fuck have you been? Yeah.

Where were you? What were you up to? You weren't here. You know, and I imagine that your experience of this is similar to mine where when you are lucky enough to work from home, they're totally spoiled. Their barometer for what's normal for a pet is completely warped and out of, I imagine, alignment with a lot of pets where, you know, the person who is their owner has to go to like an office job or what have you.

So the cats are at their weirdest immediately upon arriving home. And part of that is one of the first things you have to do after a trip where the cat is to be like, okay, what kind of weird stuff did you get up to while we were gone? Yeah. You know, what did you do that the cats that her didn't notice? But I sure will. It often involves hairballs in weird spots is what it means, especially this time we're so stinking hot, shedding like crazy bent,

just in a constant losing battle with. the hair and the dust and the dander and the what have you so but you know like as an example our listeners might recall that last monday i was sick and i had been sick the the week prior i decided to at the beginning of my illness in you know how you're hopeful at the start of getting sick that oh it's just like a one day kind of thing and then you come to realize like no you're sick you're going to be sick for a couple days yeah and so i was like oh i'll take a I'll take a nap on the couch with baseball on baseball nap has healing powers. And did the cat know I was sick or was the cat simply excited for the odd midday nap on the couch?

Midday hanging out on the couch doesn't happen very often because I work in the office. And she came over and she snuggled in there and was like, here, I'll nap with mommy. And that was nice. It was nice, you know. And it didn't prevent me from being sick for a couple of days. but that that was good. When the vomitous part of being ill hit, then I'm like, please be away from me.

Yeah. I can't have you snuggling me. I might have to get up abruptly. Yeah. The dogs, or at least mine, won't hold it against me if I'm gone, even though that's a rarity for me. It's very much, it's Odysseus and Argus. It's, you know, you could be gone for five minutes or 20 years.

And they're just happy to see you. Yeah. Thank goodness. You're back. Finally. It was way too long. Yeah. Elsewhere on the Orioles roster, I hope that a lot of Orioles have pets or dogs who love them because a lot of them have been struggling.

And we talked the other day about the Giants. Last time we talked about the Giants, I think they had the second worst run differential in the majors. Well, now the worst run differential, the Giants have thrust all the way up to fourth worst. So things are looking up for them. The Orioles are tied with the Astros. for the worst run differential in the majors. If we look at their base runs run differential, which introduces another layer of abstraction,

it's deserved run differential, what their run differential should be, then they have the worst in the majors, and so their base runs record is the worst. Base runs thinks that based on their underlying performance, they are the worst team in baseball. They've had the worst start to the season. And what else is new?

I guess the primary culprit, it, not that the position players have been great. There's something like 21st in team position player war, but the starting pitching. The starting pitching. Yeah. They have the worst starter war in the American League. They have the fourth worst starting pitcher war in baseball. It has been quite bad and worse than even I thought it would be.

And we've been pretty low on Orioles starting rotations in recent years. But as of mid-Margars, or so, they were projecting to be middle of the pack. Fangraph's depth charts had them like 16th on March 9th when it was archived by the Wayback machine. And now 27th. And I was looking back, I was casting my mind back to some Michael Ius optimistic quotes about the rotation.

And it wasn't quite as bad as last year when he was just like, well, we couldn't possibly have dreamed that Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez could be heard at the same time. I mean, you know, like. Who could ever? thought. No, it's a world's not dreamt of in our philosophy. But this time in February, he talked about how it was a very strong group, a talented group of guys. We have a very good rotation. I think it's a really strong group. I think our rotation is very strong and very talented. So he restated multiple times how strong, how talented the rotation was. And then in another quote from later February,

he said that the Orioles rotation has a ton of potential and that the Orioles are very hopeful. It's a real strength for our team. And then right before opening day in late March, he said it's a rotation that has the potential to carry us to an ALE's title and hopefully very deep into the playoffs. And I guess it did have the potential to do those things.

So you can't really fact check it and say it wasn't true. But it hasn't turned out that way thus far. And it's, it's been sort of surprising how bad it's been, at least to me. We definitely said, a lot of people said, one more guy would have been good, you know, whether that guy was Framber Valdez, well, given recent events, I don't know how you'd feel about having Frumber, but he's a pretty good pitcher still. And the guys that they did get, so they traded for Shane Baz. He's been pretty bad so far. And then Kyle Braddish, basically they were banking. on Kyle Braddish and Trevor Rogers continuing to pitch like aces.

Because those two guys had. They'd been a great one-two punch at the top of the rotation, and they had come back from injury. And so I think everyone was sort of extrapolating, okay, what if they just keep doing that all season? But they haven't. And Bradish has a near-5 ERA with a 4.2 FIPP. Trevor Rogers, after a recent rough outing, he has a near-6 ERA. with a 4.5-ish FIP. And Chris Bassett, whom they brought on,

he has almost a 6 ERA with a 5 plus FIP. I mean, it's really been bad. Like everyone who's their most effective starter, well, ERA-wise has been Brandon Young, but he hasn't really been that good either if you look under the hood. So I know they've had some injury issues and stuff, but not a single guy who has made

more than one start for them has a FIP under 4.2 or 4.19. Like there's just no one who's pitching like a top of the rotation pitcher. It's a bunch of back of the rotation guys. It's as if Trevor Rogers and his ridiculously low ERA from last year just all of that kind of corrected at once. And it was sub two last year somehow. And so he pitched outpitched his FIP and now he's underperforming his FIP, but his BIP also hasn't been very good. Yeah.

So I guess you could still say in second guess, I mean, it was a first guess for a lot of people, but you could still second guess even if you first guess and say they should have done more. But they've kind of struggled across the board. It's also the position players, which was the case last year, too. We fixated on the starting rotation, but maybe the bigger issue was that all of the bats regressed or a whole lot of them. So it's more evidence thus far, even though they spent and they were pretty aggressive over the offsees. and we did give them some kudos for that, they're off to really rough start,

maybe not quite as demoralizing as last year's start, but not much better, especially since they actually tried to get good this year. And so the longer this goes on, the more you start to worry and wonder, is this it? Have they peaked already? Is this going to be what they got out of that rebuild?

I think that, well, there are a couple things. And this is relying on me remembering what I said at the time, which is that a thing I'm famous for, Ben? Sure is not. I appreciated that they spent money. I didn't know and didn't think that they had engaged in like really optimal resource allocation. Yeah. It's nice to get a Pete Alonzo. If you have confidence that the bad is going to be stout, okay, great. And I can appreciate why you might feel a reticence to, you know, sink a bunch of money into free agent starters because pitchers famously get hurt. So there was some logic to, hey, we want to spend on a big bat.

We think it's, you know, that Pete's going to be like, even if he's not the 141 WRC plus version of himself that he was in 2025, like that he has a pretty solid floor in the 120s. And that hasn't proven to really be true yet, you know. he's had stretches where he has been more stout at the plate than he is right now. But he said two hits today and that has brought his WRC plus up to 108 at the season level. So it just felt like a lot of money to give a guy who was really first base only and, you know, might not have a super graceful decline phase. And you're like happy for Pete Alonzo that he finally got his big check. but also if you're the Orioles, is that where you really want to spend $155 million?

I'd submit that maybe it's not. So there was that piece of it. And when you're an organization that has had to work really hard to convince ownership to spend, I do think that, like, you just have to be aware of the fact that, like, you don't have endless checks, right? Like, if you look at what the Dodgers did this offseason, it hasn't really paid dividends for them, you know? like and we can talk about the slumping dodgers i guess at some point but it's not like either of their really big marquee signings have worked out super great so far now kyle tucker's bat seems to be on the rebound he's up to a 118 w rc plus but he hasn't been even the i think more realistic

sort of 135 to 140 guy that people kind of expected him to be i think everyone was aware that he probably wasn't like a true talent 180 WRC plus hitter that like he was in 2024 in limited work but like thought he was going to be better you don't have to play to Oscar and write whatever and obviously Edwin Diaz hasn't has barely pitched for them is hurt and you know was bad when he was on the mound so they haven't been able to do much but they have a lot more margin for error because the appetite for spending there is greater and they have just such a high floor to begin with from a talent perspective pressures on for Baltimore, right? You spent time being intentionally bad. You brought together this great position

player court. You were pretty reticent to trade out of that group. And it's not to say that it didn't happen, but like you kind of, the like big consolidation trade that we all thought might be coming for Baltimore never really came. You know, you did a little bit to get some pitching, but like it hasn't, you haven't moved any of the big guys, whatever. So I just think that the way that they've decided to allocate resources across their roster both in terms of actual like money and then you know what they might have done with that farm system when it was at its height they haven't really done much there and they seem to have a very strange notion of like both the expected health of pitching generally their guys in particular and the likelihood of any of some regression from guys who were suddenly good

last year or were good again last year but have been inconsistent over the course of their careers. So do I think that this team like should be as bad as it is right now? No. And there have been some parts of it that have been better. Like, you know, it's really cool to see Adley Ruchman good again. Like Adley's just, Adley back. Adly seemed back. You know, he's been really productive at the plate. The defense looks like it is in a, in a much better spot than it, you know, it had been. So like, okay, great. If you had told me that Adley Rutchman would have a 144 WRC plus on May 13th, I would think to, oh, 147, 147 per the live stats, I would be like, oh, surely the Orioles are better than 19 and 24, but they're not. And I just think that

the way that they've decided to build their roster has left them very little margin for error. and I don't I don't understand why Mike Lice, who is a smart guy, keeps seeming so like bumfuzzled by it. He's like, I can't believe the guys get hurt. It's like, well, yeah, they're pitchers, Mike. You're not new. Like, what do you mean? Yeah.

And that exact rhetoric wasn't repeated this offseason. Obviously, some of the moves that they've made have indicated that they wanted to reinforce that group. But, you know, you're reinforcing it with, like, guys who haven't quite lived up to their prospect pedigree and, like, Chris, pass it. And yeah, you need innings eaters, but like, I think we said at the time, they didn't have

they don't have like a dude, you know? They didn't have a dude we felt was sure to be a dude. They have had, they have guys. They don't have a dude. You need, you need at least one dude amidst your guys so that everyone can be bros. This is like the hierarchy of guys. And

you're sitting there thinking, Meg, you dropped the word fella a bunch at the beginning. Position players are fellas. I don't think that, I don't think that pitchers can be fellas. I think that only position players are fellas, you know, the fellas, the boys. Okay. Yeah.

Interesting taxonomy. Well, at least they have Rico Garcia. So you can't make a whole pitching staff out of Rico, I guess. But he's been quite a pickup for them. I love that name. Yeah, me too. And, you know, we're out of the jinx zone, I think now because we talked about Rico Garcia and his historic babbip streak, his zero babbip streak.

That was last week. and he has pitched twice since then and has not allowed to hit on either time. So I think we're off the hook now. Yeah, it's not our fault. If anything bad happens, you can't blame us, Orioles fans. We already jinxed it and nothing happened. But I will point out now, when we talked about him last time,

he had already set the record for the most zero babbip innings to start a season. Yes. But he was still climbing the all-time leaderboard of just longest zero babib streaks. spanning a season, across seasons. So now he was at 19 and a third innings counting the end of last year. And he's pitched since two more hitless innings. And so he is now up to 21 and a third innings, which trails only Johnny Vandermere, who he has just one out to go to catch up with.

And of course, famously back-to-back no hitters. And, Eck, the all-time record holder, Dennis Fendermier, Hekersley, who he is now three innings behind. So that's the number to beat. I'm now, I'm hanging on every Rico Garcia outing in appearance now just to see if he can somehow sustain this because it's wild. I mean, it's not wild. He has not been wild.

But I don't know how he's doing this. It's because he entered this season with a career 308 Babbip. If anything, that's a little worse than league average. There was no indication that he had any sort of hit suppression. capacity and yet this is the guy who just decides nope no more hits for anyone so yeah one more out he will pull even with van der meer and three more innings he would catch up to heck and uh you can't blame me if he doesn't because okay we didn't do it statutes already passed not my fault okay another thing that uh that kind of gave me warm fuzzy feelings in the mold of seeing myself in

Kobe Mayo and his dog. I also, in my apartment, from one window, the one kitchen window, I can see into a neighbor's apartment, and I can see their TV. Because the way this building, it's an old building, and there are two lines, they're two elevators. And so there's like the front of the building and the back of the building. And there are only two apartments in the front, and they're more in the back. and this is a back apartment. So I don't know who lives there, and I don't know which apartment it is, but it's on the same floor. It's weird how in apartment living in the heart of New York City, like you can live in such close proximity to someone and not know who they are or be able to.

So I never see the person in this apartment, but I can see part of their living room and their TV I can always see. and they always have baseball on the TV. Yeah, at least in the evenings, they always have the Yankee game on. Nice. Yeah, it is nice. And I just, I'm in the kitchen, just refilling my tea or whatever it is. And I look out and I see the TV and there's baseball on it. And it doesn't feel that invasive because I can't actually see the person.

And so I don't know who lives there. I mean, I'm sure whoever it is, I've probably, if not shared an elevator with them because they live on a different elevator. I probably run into them in the lobby or something. Maybe I've said hello, but I don't know. I can't put the face to the apartment because I've never seen the person who's in the apartment, only the TV, the unseen person off screen who's watching the screen. But I really, I like encountering baseball like that just in the world in this incidental way. It sort of reinforces, oh yeah, other people care about this. Because I know they do and people listen to this podcast.

and they write in so that we know we're not just talking into the void and people care about these things. But there's something to just seeing it in the world. And I'm not like going to sports bars and stuff at this stage of my life. So I'm not really seeing other people watch baseball unless I'm actually at a baseball game. And so I'm very charmed by this one window where I can see the baseball on the screen. And there is a communal aspect to that where I think, oh, right. And who many, you know, there are however million stories in the naked city or, you know,

there are just people watching baseball on their screens all over the place and they're watching different games and we're all kind of tied together by that. It's very nice. And it reminds me of when I read about the stats about how everyone in Japan is watching the WBC. And, you know, you can tell because, like, people flush the toilet at the same time in Tokyo. Because, like, if it's an inning break and everyone goes to the bathroom, And it's this super high percentage of people, the population in the country, watching games.

And I'm always envious of that because you don't quite have that same communal feeling here because there's the popularity of it. It's not the same. And so I wish that we had that. And I get a little feeling like that every time I see my neighbor's TV screen and the baseball in their living room. So just thought I'd share. Are they a one team kind of a living room as far? As far as you can tell, or do they branch out? I think it's always been the Yankees, but I'm not positive about that.

But yeah, anyway, they're a baseball fan. I could strike up a conversation with them sometime if I knew who they were, but I don't. It's a mystery. It could be anyone. That's the other nice thing. I look at the other faces of these strangers who are my neighbors, and I think, are you the baseball watcher? Do we have something in common? I don't know.

Maybe. It's a little mystery. Do we have a kinship we're not yet aware of? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Another more surprising thing, I think, than Orioles starters struggling. I just happened to notice this, that Braves DHS are leading the National League in war and WRC Plus. How about that? Yeah, which I would not have expected because Jerks and ProFar was expected to be the primary DH for the Braves.

I don't think he was super pleased about that, but he was in line to be the starting DH for that team before he got suspended again. And when he got suspended, it seemed like they didn't really have anyone. Right. And so I thought they would struggle. Not that ProFar was the best bad or anything, but he seemed to be better than what they had on hand. Is this because they're just like D.Hing Drake Baldwin a lot? Well, it's 16 games of Drake Baldwin. So it is a little bit of Drake Baldwin.

But it's mostly Dominic Smith. How about that? Yeah. Dominic Smith has a 181 WRC plus. That's so crazy. in 77 plate appearances, which is more than Drake Baldwin has out of that spot. Yeah. And, yeah, there was like one game of a cunea and a few games of Michael Harris the second,

although those were games when he happened not to hit. He's hit in all the other games. But yeah, Dominic Smith has been great. And the Braves are tied with the Astros and Yordon for the highest WRC plus by DHS, 157. So that's very much a can't predict baseball, Susan. I mean, it's like Yordon is the. Astros number one. It's the Phillies.

Number three. Okay, that makes sense. They spent a lot of money on a pretty good DH. Yeah. And then it's the Braves sandwich between those two teams with, yeah. Now, their left-fielders have been terrible. So ProFar played some left field for them last year. I don't, she wasn't really in line to this year.

But they did sign Mike Rstramski to play left for them primarily. And that has not really worked out so well. So I guess, you know, it's not all coming up roses, although mostly it is for the race this year because not much has gone wrong for them really on the whole. But their left-fielders, they rate close to the worst in baseball. It looks like 28th in WRC Plus and 23rd in war. So they do have a weak spot. It's hard to identify, but it's there. Also, the Orioles pitching issues, their pitching has been bad, but also their deities.

defense has been bad. So that's part of the ERA fit gaps is that according to baseball savant, the fielding run value stat cast base day are 27th at negative. So that hasn't helped make the pitcher surface stats look good. But yeah, it's it's been bad across the board. It hasn't been good. Yeah. And my other timely observation is that by the time people hear this probably, Connor Griffin will no longer be rookie eligible or prospect eligible. Obviously, he's a rookie this year, but prospect eligible because he will have had

his 130th at bat. He is won away as we speak going into Wednesday's games. And I guess that means there will be a new number one prospect technically in baseball. So congrats to, I don't know, Jesus Made probably, who will maybe take over the top spot.

Big shoes to fill. But Griffin, he's kind of turned his season around. quietly. And, you know, we've all been marveling at Pirates pitching. We marveled at Pirates pitching last time. And then Paul Skeens came out and shoved again. That guy, if they ever let him go, nine, he is going to pitch a perfect game or a no hitter one of these days. It's just, it's a matter of time, I think. I am furious. I am furious. I was like, surely, just let him, just let him, just have him go batter to batter. Have him, have Gregory Soto ready. Fine.

Fine. He needs to do what Bailey Ober did on Tuesday, which is. Well, this is the thing. Bailey Ober, Bailey Ober, and no offense to Bailey Ober. Bailey Ober is a fine pitcher. He was so happy. And I was just sitting there watching Bailey Ober be thrilled, watching the assembled twins, be thrilled, watching the assembled non-twins. Be thrilled.

And I'm like, look at what you could have. Pittsburgh. Look at this happy man. Well, it schemes his fault for not being efficient enough because Bailey Ober, he didn't just throw a Maddox, a complete game shutout in fewer than 100 pitches. He threw a complete game shutout in fewer than 90 pitches. He did it in 89 pitches, which was, I think, the second. There was the stat, Jason Lukhart, who coined the Maddox stat, reported that he is the

third pitcher after Adam Wainwright and Sunny Gray to have a sub-noburn. 90 pitch Maddox this decade. There have been only 55 of them since 1988, when we can go back to. And of course, the leader in sub 90 pitch Maddox is Maddox. He did it seven times. But yeah, that's what Skeen needs to do. I guess he needs to be that efficient because otherwise he's going to get the hook, unfortunately.

I just like, look, I don't want to sound like an old person, you know, or like an old school person. I don't want to be fussy. I appreciate keeping Paul Skeens healthy. I understand. I was here on this very podcast talking about how the pirates have obligations, not only to themselves, but also to baseball, because Paul Skeens are so good. And the responsibility got heightened when Scoobo went down.

And is that fair? No, but it's reality. And I shouldn't have said that because they, Don Kelly, I'm going to, I tell you what. Don, you stop it. You know, you stop. You let him try. And it's the sort of thing where he, you know, they didn't let him try. And the pirates still won that game.

They still beat the Rockies. But it got a little hairy there in the ninth. And Gregory Soto gave up a run. And I was just like, you deserve to lose. You've done this back-to-back starts. Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate? Paul Skeens gave up five runs in a single inning on opening day. And he has a sub-2 ERA.

It is bunker. It is nuts. What this guy is doing right now. Yeah, a 1.96 ERA, it is rookie year. A 1.97 ERA last year and a 1.98 ERA this year, despite that disaster start on opening day, which wasn't even entirely his fault. But so at this rate, I guess in, I don't know, 40 years or so, he'll have a still have a sub 2.5 ERA because he's adding a tenths of or a hundredth of a run every year. But is it like, it's like, you know, how you can. technically get like infantessimally close to the wall and never touch it.

Yes, he's asymptotically approaching. Yeah, I don't know. I want us to have an opportunity to interview him again and I want you to refer to his ERA that way. I hope it's another Zoom call so we can see what his face does when you say that. Because I think he's a smart guy, you know. Yeah, sure. He has a 183 Babbif, which is, you know, not nearly Rico Garcia-esque, but quite low. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, he's just cruising. He's constantly cruising. through every start. He makes it look easy. He makes it look almost low effort. And we talked to him about this. I think he does not throw super max effort all the time. He's still like sitting 97 something. But we know he can throw harder than this. He was sitting like 99 as a rookie and he consciously tried to take a little off. I mean, it's ridiculous that taking a little off can still be sitting 97 something. But he is he's so good and he is pretty efficient. And I think it's really his command that. That, because according to Stuff Plus, like, he's at or close to the top of the league in location plus, whether this season or since his debut.

Not that his stuff isn't also great. His Stuff Plus ranks high, but his location plus is even more elite. So I think it, I mean, he just does it all. He throws whatever pitch he wants to and he puts it exactly where he wants to. And so he doesn't have the most eye-popping strikeout stats. They're good. to be clear, but there are guys who have higher striking. He's not the MIS in that respect.

He's not throwing quite as hard. He's not missing quite as many bats. But he's just efficient and he doesn't walk anyone. And he has such elite command to pair with elite, pretty darn elite stuff that it's just the complete package. I mean, he's great. But everyone knows he's great. This was supposed to be a Connor Griffin point,

which is namely that Connor Griffin, and he has kind of turned his season around. Now he's, you know, probably not going to make good on your bold prediction about him having Mike Trout's rookie war. However, he has already sort of salvaged what was a rough start to the season, understandably, because he was 19 when he came up. But if you do sort of split his season, if you just look at, so he hit his first homer of the season on April 24th. His birthday. That's right. Yeah, so from the day he turned 20...

I don't know why I said it like that. His birthday. From the day he turned 20 on, he has been far more productive. He has a 155 WRC plus since then. 0.8 war, that actually ranks 14th among all qualified position players. So that's pretty darn solid. Now, he has a 395 bab-up over that span. So it's, you know, the yin and the yang is skeins is low.

Griffin is high or something, but he's had an above-average walk rate over that period. He has struck out more than the league average, but not an unsightly amount, about 25% of the time. And he's been one of the best players in baseball, despite just being 20. And he's also cut down on his chase rate. It's still high. He's chasing 33.6% of pitches outside the strike zone. But prior to his birthday, it was 40.8%. And, yeah, it was one of the worst.

in baseball. And now it's still worse than average, but it is not nearly as extreme as it was. So you can kind of see him already putting it together a little bit, and he still has strides to make. But he had a 38 WRC plus through April 23rd, and then he turned 20 and maybe a switch flipped, or at least his luck has improved. But probably a bit of both. And I'm sure he'll only get better from here and by the end of the season we may very well be saying that he lived up to expectations even though the expectations were extremely inflated because he was such a hyped prospect man wouldn't it be cool if he did make my bold prediction right that would be a hell of a run through the end of the season I think my bold predictions were too bold I think I may be that's

I applaud boldness in the bold predictions that's yeah you plot boldness when it means I'm going to lose. But yeah, he, he's certainly been more productive. I do want to see, I know he's like from the 23rd through, you know, today he's slugging 500 and his ISO's 209. I would like to see more like over the fence power from him. But, you know, because it's not a lot of, it's not a lot of extra base damage that he's, that he's doing. It'll come. It'll come. Because he is, as we, as we, recall, really quite young still. So, you know, I, that part of it, like, I want to see that sort of translating games. His expected stats around power are a little bit better than his actual, so that's some of it surely. But it's really okay if they take a second to get acclimated. And

sometimes you burn bright, like right away. And you look at the top line numbers, you're like, oh, my God, this guy's doing great. And then it's concealing like a recent slump. Like, you know, who hasn't been particularly good as good of late is Kevin McDonagal. But still pretty. I say that he had two hits yesterday, one of which was a double. So it's not like it's been, you know, atrocious, but like compared to the very, very hot start. It's like a mini. It's not even really.

What were they talking about on the broadcast the other day? They're like, oh, it's been harder for him. I guess it has been relative to how it was going in the early going, but it hasn't been like that bad. You guys tricked me. I'm going to email Benetti and I'm going to yell at him. I'm going to say, oh, Jason, you guys. I mean, he does have like an 81 WRC plus since the end of April. So it's, you know, it's been a little rough.

But there's been flow to these things is the point that I'm trying. Exactly. Yeah. To make. There's variants. There's growing pains. Yeah. It'll be fine.

I mean, they're both really good. They're both really good. You know, they're really good. And the last thing I have for you here is also related to performance relative to expectations because we have passed the quarter mark of the season, as I mentioned the other day. Not the quarter pole. The quarter pole's telling you how much is remaining. I know.

People get that wrong. Yeah, but the quarter mark, we are now entering Wednesday's games. We are 25.8% of the way through the season. And sometimes at these milestones, I like to do little check-ins on performance relative to pre-season projections to see who's furthest ahead of or, behind the pace. So I have for you the hitters and pitchers who have most outperformed their preseason war depth charts, fan graphs projections. So this is the combination of Zips and steamer with the playing time estimates. And if someone hasn't played at all, I counted that as

zero war. And I just compared the preseason war total projections to the on pace, the current on pace projections, which takes into account the percentage of games that you have played thus far and sort of extrapolates it forward. So this is looking at actual projection to date, not updated projections for the rest of the season or anything. So the players, hitters, who are furthest ahead of their war pace, number one, Jordan Walker. Jordan Walker had just a 0.5 war projection. People were given up. We're wondering if that former top prospect was still in there. He's on pace for seven war, 7.1, to be precise. So he's a 6.6 war ahead of his projected pace. So he's number one. Number two, Shay Langaleeers. He is a 6.4 war ahead. And he was projected to be

fairly productive, 2.9 war, but he's on a 9.3 war pace. So not so bad. Matt Olson, whom we talked about last time. He was obviously projected to be pretty good, but has been really good. So he's 6.1 war ahead of his pace. Ildemarro Vargas, whom we talked about recently. That's right. Celebrated, but also downplayed the odds of this continuing. But nonetheless, he is 5.3 war ahead of his pace.

Brandon Lau, who has been a key to the pirate success thus far. Good pick up for them. Yeah. And it was seen as a good pickup, but perhaps insufficient. Well, maybe it was sufficient after all, the tinkering that they did because he is playing 5.2 war ahead of his projected pace. Max Muncie, senior, Max Muncie, original flavor, Max Muncie the elder. That implies that Max Muncie, the younger, is Max Muncie the elder's son. And then you're like wondering about time travel, probably.

Yeah, the edge gap there is. Yeah. Confounding. Max Muncie of the Dodgers is five warhead of his pace. Bryce Terrain of the Brewers, who's been great and, again, was projected to be very good, but has been way better than good. 4.9 war ahead of the pace. Andy Pahas, also of the Dodgers, 4.8 war ahead. Mike Trout.

Mike Trout, who had a 2.4 war projection and is still pacing for 6.9. Nice. Can you say nice on a 6.9? Why not? 4.5. War ahead of his pace. And then Mickey Moniac. Mickey Moniac is 4.5 war ahead of his pace.

And, well, not quite rounding out the top 10. That was 10, I guess, but tied at least out to the first decimal spot. Ben Rice of the Yankees. Yeah, he had to be here somewhere. So he had a pretty solid projection, but he's 4.5 war ahead of the pace. So those are your top hitters who have outperformed. and then some others, I will just reel off rapid fire. Otto Lopez of the Marlins.

Miguel Vargas of the White Sox. J.J. Weatherholt of the Cardinals. Yeah, he's been great. Top prospect, making good. Ezekiel Duran of the Rangers. Ozzy Albies we talked about last time. The Braves, he has bounced back big time. Bobby Witt, Jr.

Even though he was projected for 6.9 war, nice again. 10.7 war pace. 3.8 war ahead of the pace. And then Carlos Cortez. The switch throwing Carlos Cartez of the A's. He is 3.8 warhead. Cody Bellinger of the Yankees, Colson Montgomery, keeping it up for the White Sox.

That's fun. All right. So those are your top hitter over performers. I'll link to the full spreadsheets here. The guys who are most behind the pace on the position player side, Willie Adonis of the Giants. He was projected to be 3.9 war. So the projections had pretty high hopes for him.

And he's on a negative 1.7 war pace. So that's negative 5.6 war behind the pace. Yikes. Yeah, that's not good. Ezekiel Tovar, even though things are maybe sort of looking up a little bit for the Rockies, not for Tovar specifically, who was expected to be part of whatever core they were constructing there. He's 5.3 war behind the pace. Cedric Mullins, a lot is working out for the race, but not Cedric Mullins.

He's a 5.1 war behind the pace. Patrick Bailey, whom we talked about at some length last time. He got himself jettisoned. He is a 5.1 war behind the pace. Matt Walner of the twins, 4.8 war. And Kibrian Hayes of the Reds, who's like the longest thread in the history of civilization. Can Brian Hayes be good? Can he hit?

Can he field? Can he do anything? Lately seems like, no, maybe not. So he's 4.7 war behind the pace. Carl Raleigh. Yeah. Now, obviously, he had an optimistic projection. He was projected for 6.3 war, but he's on pace for 1.6.

I know he just showered in his uniform and had a couple hits after he tried to do away with whatever is plaguing him by just getting very wet. So maybe that will change his fortunes, but he's 4.7 war behind the pace. Trey Turner of the Phillies is 4.5 war behind. and Lawrence Butler of the A's. He is 4.4 war behind and Alejandro Kirk, who's 4.4 war behind, but he got hurt, of course.

That's unfair, though. Yeah, I know. So, and then, yeah, that's the bottom 10, I guess. And then you've got Catelle Marte with the Diamondbacks. I know. Should have traded him after all. He's replacement level now. Yeah, I'm sure that won't continue.

Boba Chette, disappointing pickup thus far for the Mets. Owen Casey for the Marlins. is not delivered immediately. Trevor Story of the Red Sox the aforementioned mooky bets of the Dodgers. He's been hurt. He just came back. Raphael Devers of the Giants,

Juan Soto, another man. And Fernando Tatis, whom we talked about, still homerless, right? He still has not ended bad ground, I don't think. It is strange. And Bo Nailer,

who got himself sent down, and also Salvador Perez of the Royals. So those are your your top 20 and your bottom 20 in terms of pacing ahead of or behind war. And I'll give you the pitchers, too. So here are the pitchers who are ahead of their projected war pace. Cam Schlittler, number one.

Yeah. Yeah. Cam, he had a pretty conservative projection, and he's on like a nine war pace or something. So, yeah, he's 7.2 war ahead of his. a preseason projection, not too shabby. And Davis Martin, of course. There you go. Catch Martin mania for the White Sox. Davis Martin

is 5.8 war ahead of his pace. Seth Lugo of the Royals, 4.1 war ahead. Nolan McLean of the Mets, who McLean was acclaimed, but he also had a pretty conservative war projection, and

he's 4.0 war ahead of his pace. The Miz, whom we talked about last time, he is about four war ahead of his pace. Kurt Hogue, by the way, he wrote something about how the MIS definitely seems to have a tendency to actually dial up his velo against, like, certain guys or certain teams or certain sluggers. So what we were talking about the other day with poor Spencer Jones, who had to face probably the hardest pitch ever thrown by a starting pitcher in history.

And definitely the hardest pitch that a rookie has faced in his first major league played appearance on record, but was not solely limited to Jones. The Miz does seem to, he lets the emotions run high and, you know, puts the pedal to the metal. Also, this is pretty surprising, but he has been great. Bryce Elder of the Braves. He is 3.9 war ahead of his pace. He's changed some things. He has been pretty impressive.

And Parker Messick of the Guardians. You can always count on the Guardians to find a pretty solid starter who exceeds expectations. So 3.7 war ahead of the pace for him. And the Blue Jays, not everything has gone well for the Blue Jays, but the Dylan C. signing has, he's been nails for them. So he is 3.7 war ahead of his pace. Kater Martero for the Tigers is 3.6 war ahead. And Shota Imenaga of the Cubs is 3.4 war ahead of his pace. So some brand names and some pretty surprising names there.

Yeah. On the list of surprises, as you would expect, I suppose. And then just rounding out, that was the top 10. After that, the pitcher over performers, we've got Landon Rup of the Giants, Antonio Centiella of the Rockies, whom we've talked about, change his pitch mix. Justin Rebleski, Robo of the Dodgers. He has been excellent. Max Meyer of the Marlins, Braxton Ashcraft of the Pirates.

We talked about him last time. Louis Varlane just, you know, playing every day, pitching every day as he did in the postseason. Yeah. I feel like every time I turn on a Blue Jays game, Louis Varlane is on the mount. I feel like I have watched Louis Varlane pitch more for the Blue Jays than any of their starters. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah. It's wild.

They have lost a lot of starters to injury, but nonetheless, yeah, he's picking up the slack. Shohei Otani, who is hours away. from making another start against the Giants, in fact. Carmen Muginski of the Pirates mentioned him the other day. Max Fried of the Yankees. So he's got some elbow issues of some sort now. Yeah. He's got a butt elbow is the thing, Ben.

He's got butt elbow. Elbow posterior problem. If there's something actually wrong with Max Fried, I'm going to feel bad about having been a little casual in my joking about it. But everyone has made this joke. So I think there's like a safety in numbers thing. But elbow. butt elbow.

Elbow, but or butt elbow? Which is it? We don't know. Varland is he's seventh on the Blue Jay staff in innings pitched. You've got Gossmann,

Ceas, Lauer, Patrick Corbin. He's coming up. They picked him up after the season started, but he's already made seven starts and 34 to third innings

and he's been decent, at least. He's been Corbin-esque, so he's given them what they wanted, I guess. But, yeah, Varland is leading

the Blue Jays. at least Blue Jays who have not made a single start. There are a couple guys, Spencer Miles, Braden Fisher have made one start apiece, but yeah, Louis Varlane, the only reliever only, who is that high on the list, pretty impressive,

and Jensen Junk of the Angels. And then the pitchers who have not kept up with the pace, former effectively well guest, Zach Lattel, he is a 5.7 war behind his projected pace has not gone great for him with the Nats. Cole Riggins of the Royal System. disappointing because he had injury issues last year and then injury issues again and elbows and shoulders and he looked so good briefly there it'd be nice if you could get back to being that guy again but he's 5.2 war behind the pace. Garrett Crochet, who was bad and then hurt is a 4.5 war behind his pace. Merrill Kelly of the Diamondbacks.

He is back for another go-round and it's not going well. 3.8 war behind the pace for him. Brian Abraeu of the Astros. 3.4 war behind Luis Morales of the A's, 3.3.3 war. Brady Singer of the Reds, 3.2, Max Scherzer, who has been mostly idle and also not good when he wasn't idle, 3.1 war behind. Tony Santion of the Reds, 3.1 war. Nick Ladolo, also of the Reds, 2.9 war behind the pace, and Griffin Jacks of the race. He is 2.9 war behind the pace. even though everything's coming up raised these days. Then you've got Ryan Weiss, Simeon Woods Richardson, Roki Sasaki, Miles Michaelis, Hunter Barco, Brian Beaux, Jacob Lopez, and Tatsuya Imi.

Also, Sunny Gray, Eric Lauer, down there. So those are the highlights and the lowlights. I will put those spreadsheets online in case you want to just see where any particular player is comparing to their projected pace. You can just sort accordingly. So of those names that we've mentioned, guys who have sort of catapulted to prominence,

Zach Kreiser at the bandwagon last year after April, he did a little April in review and sort of anointed some new main characters, because you know how we talk about certain baseball players being the main characters of the league? And so after April, he just came up with a handful of guys who he thought had ascended to main character status. and that also like they would maintain main character status and that people would be talking about them more throughout the season. So his five after last April were Pete Kro Armstrong. So that was a good pick, I think, even though he slumped late in the year.

He was definitely a talked about player. Jesus Lazzardo, who, you know, maybe didn't keep up the hot start, but was good, had a good year, got some Cy Young votes. Cal Rale, who was maybe the most talked about, player last year. Zhonghu Lee, that didn't really hold up, I guess, so much. And then Nick Pavetta, whom I don't know if he was that talked about, but he was good. He had a very good year.

So that continued. So those were his five after last April. He didn't do that exercise again this year. So hopefully I'm not stepping on his bit here. But of these names, I guess it doesn't have to be one of these names, but it most likely would be. who has sort of ascended to, oh, this is a main character now, or like this is a guy whom we will be talking about as a main character. I wouldn't call it a breakout, but it could be a breakout.

I mean, some of these guys have legitimately broken out, at least so far. And that is how some people define breakout. It's like, oh, he just went from a hipster player whom, you know, the sickos knew to more of a household name, whoever was talking about. So who has reached that level? Like has, is Jordan Walker? Has he become a main character? Has he done enough?

I was going to, well, I don't know that any of them have done enough. I think you need more than we've had of the year so far. But I would say that he is sort of the leader in the clubhouse for me of the guy who seems likely to sustain. And that isn't to say that he, you know, like Ben just wrote about him. And I agreed with his conclusion that, you know, On the one hand, it doesn't seem likely that he will be quite this good for the entire year, but also nothing he's doing is like so wildly unsustainable that it seems like he's going to revert to being bad. It's sort of like he's finally playing like the guy we thought he would be.

Yeah. And I do think that the change in his launch is meaningful enough to like really give him greater margin for error. He's always going to strike out a good amount, but like he's getting the ball off the ground. much more than he was. Still not an ideal amount, but a meaningful enough amount to sort of pass over a threshold of like viability, I think, to the rest of the profile

and allow the just, you know, intense raw power to actually play. Yeah. So if it's like if you had to tell the story of this season so far and you were trying to come up with names who would not have been high on anyone's list before the season started, Jordan Walker would be, I think, up there certainly.

Like he's been one of the more noteworthy players of 2026 who was not expected or projected to be, even though people hoped, you know, former top prospect, but people also were giving up. So. Yeah. And I think that the former pedigree really helps in this sort of analysis because people are ready for, you know, an ascendant Jordan Walker. they expected Jordan Walker to be good before. So I think that it, we love the story of the guy who like finally makes good on his prospect pedigree. And I think that when you couple that with the team he's on, you know, a club that it's like has intentionally sort of taken a step back, but that didn't do such a dramatic, you know, that is sort of like primed to be good on a, they hope a relatively short timeline. You know,

We like it when you have sort of upstarts within organizations like that. And because of how bad he has been previously, he sort of qualifies. And like, they're 24 and 17 as we're recording today. Like, they're, you know, they're a viable club in a division that has proven to be a lot better than we were necessarily expecting it to be. And if you can combine, if he's finally able to, like, be the guy we thought he was going to be. And then you marry that with someone like Weatherholt. It's like, oh, now we're kind of talking about. something here. You know, this is, this is a group that could be more exciting than we were

necessarily giving it credit for, maybe not, this year, although, like, you know, maybe this year. Yeah. Because the Phillies and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Mets being bad. And I think we can just say that now, you know, like, that's a, that's not to say that they can't fix it. That's a bad baseball team right now, you know, there's not a lot there to recommend it. It's like Nolan McLean and then a bunch of suck. is pretty much what the Mets are. So the Mets being bad and the Phillies being mid, it kind of opens up some possibilities, right?

Like, do I think that the Cardinals are going to win the Central? I do not. I think that, you know, the Cubs are good, although God, they need pitching badly. And I think that the brewers, now that they're getting guys back, like they're going to be good and frisky, and we're seeing them be good and frisky now that they're getting healthier. So I don't know that they're going to, like, win the same thing.

central, but it could be an interesting wild card bank, you know? Yeah, so Walker would be one of my five just because of the narrative surrounding him because the Cardinals overperforming and because of my relative confidence that he could sustain this, that he could continue to be productive for the rest of the year. So I'd include Walker, whereas I say, Ildemar of Argus, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Elamara, but I'm not quite as bullish. I'm not quite as much of a believer. So, yes, I guess if you were telling the story of the start of the season only, this might be the year that we remember.

Hey, remember when Ildamaro Vargas was like Batten 400 for a while? That might be memorable. But I'm not sure that by the end of the season it will hold up. So I have a hard time elevating, what, a 34-year-old kind of career journeyman utility guy who has a hot streak, which has been fun, to main character status. But I'd go Jordan Walker. I would say Ben Rice, I think he could qualify as a new main character just because he's a Yankee. So that always helps. And because he's just like teamed with Judge to kind of become a sidekick to judge in the way that Juan Soto was kind of like an Eminem Boys dynamic that they have going here.

So to have a second big bat like that in the lineup. And he was already good. and there were people who were very optimistic about him and the projections were strong, but of course he has exceeded, I think, just about all expectations. So he has been fantastic. I mean, they were trying to platoon him for a while there.

I don't think they need to do that. So I'd say Jordan Walker, Ben Rice, I think Mike Trout has returned to main character status and maybe he kind of was already just because he was Mike Trout and we talked a lot about him even when he wasn't good and we bemoaned how he wasn't good. So he kind of had,

main character emeritus status just for life, I guess, because of what he accomplished early in his career. But he's kind of returned to that status of actually paying attention to what he is doing now and not just in contrast to what he was doing then. So, yeah. And then there are other guys, I mentioned Bryce Terang, but like Bryce Trang was already really good. Right. You know, maybe in more of a mainstream appreciation sense. But like, yeah, he was very valuable. He was on the WBC roster.

He was, I think maybe he was too good to have made this leap. Like, he got some MVP votes last year. He won a gold club. I don't know. Maybe he's reached a new level now where we could say he's become a main character. So, okay, I'd consider him for made character status. So Walker, Rice, Trout, maybe kind of, and then maybe Bryce. terrain I would lump in there.

And yeah, I think those are the hitters I would elevate so far. And then as for the pitchers, I guess you've got to put Cam in there. Obviously, he became a pretty prominent character late last year when he came up and he had big playoff performances and everything. But it wasn't clear that he would be this good. So, yeah, I think maybe Cam Schlittler, you got to elevate. and that says something about the hot start that the Yankees are off to if they have multiple players who are maybe graduating to main character status and exceeding projections by so much. And then McLean, can we put McLean in that category?

Because obviously he was a top prospect and anyone who knew who he was knew he was good and he was on the WBC roster and everything. But also just because he's done it, he's continued to do it and because he is a bright spot on that team that is. struggled so much and he's just really looked apart of an ace. Maybe, maybe Nolan McLean counts. I do worry that some of these guys are like too exposed, that we have two, that it's sort of like a version of the breakout conversation. But yeah, I think that, like if Cam Schlittler's in there, then it seems like Nolan McLean has to be, right?

Like, you can't keep, include one, but keep the other out. It's like not logically consistent. Yeah. And I don't know if this, I mean, it's obviously the attention you. get is correlated to your market size and how good your team is and everything. Like, I don't know whether Davis Martin can be considered a main character of major league baseball. He's off to an excellent start.

But, yeah, I think maybe we would need to wait on that one a little longer. Whereas, and the Miz, for example, he's right next to McLean on this projection acceders list, but he already became a main character. He was a main character from day one, pretty much. He was like, he showed up and was an all-star, right? out of the gate. So if anything, he was rushed to main character status prematurely, and maybe now he's, like, fully deserving it a little more based on the performance and not just the stuff, but I think he was there already. So among the pitchers, I'd say Schlittler, McLean, yeah, I think a guy

like Davis-Martin or even Justin Rebleski, you know, even though people got to know him a bit during the Dodgers run last year, or even like Braxton Ashcraft. I think there's maybe another category for a top prospect who's new. I mean, someone who's like as new to the scene as Braxton Ashcraft or JJ Weatherhold or Connor Griffin, like they were kind of main characters just because they were top prospects like that. And so I think unless they become a post-hype sleeper sort of like a Jordan Walker,

then I don't think they quite qualify for this because I think they were there. And someone like Mason Miller, who is like in the top 25 overperformers or just outside it. And it's harder for a reliever maybe to make that list. And he was already so good that he had rosy projections anyway. So I think he was already too good to graduate to main character. He became more of a main character earlier this season than he had ever been before for sure. But I think maybe he was already known as an elite closer type. So, yeah, if I had to pick five new main characters, I'm going to go Jordan Walker, Rice Terang, who, again, like Brewer's fans knew he was good, but maybe not everyone did.

Walker, Terang, Rice, Schlittler, McLean. And then. I think that's right. If we want to stick Mike Trout in there, but he kind of was a main character for life anyway. So, okay, that's my top five, our top five, if anyone wants to look at these spreadsheets. sheets or not and suggest anyone else who maybe made that leap to main character status and could keep it up for the rest of the season, then our inbox is always open. Okay, a few closing corrections slash updates. As I noticed that the Orioles, after we recorded, recorded their first

shutout of the season, thanks to six scoreless from Kyle Bradish, a combined one hitter. And no, the one hit was not allowed by Rico Garcia. He didn't pitch. One on episode 2475, we did a Stap Blast about season starting home run droughts by players who had double-digit home run totals the previous year. And we noted that Scott Pidsednik was the only hitter to hit 10 or more homers in a season and hit none the next year in the regular season, despite qualifying for the batting title. Well, Patreon supporter Emily notes, I do feel the need to point out that Potsednik did hit two homers in that postseason, including a World Series walkoff. Yes, very important. Those homers count too. In fact, maybe they count even more. And this reminded me that we actually

did a quite similar stat blast about power outages on episode 1879. And that time, we had to do a follow-up on episode 1885. Another Potsednik correction, because Scott Potsednik had not showed up in the first stat blast results because of his postseason homers. And he was, we noted, the only qualified homerless batter to hit two homers in the postseason. So the first time we did that stat blast, Pettedic did not show up because we weren't excluding post-season homers. And we had to follow up to say, actually, no, he should be the record holder.

we shouldn't have counted his postseason homers. The second time we did the stop last, Pettennik did show up as the record holder, but we didn't even mention his postseason homers, which were pretty important. So, we have corrected the record twice. We all know how many home runs Scott Petzdenik hit or did not hit in 2004 and 2005. Also on episode 2476,

we discussed a hypothetical about a ball being hit up in the air, a pop-up, and never coming down. And how would that be scored? And then that morphed into a hypothetical about what would happen if a bird seized a ball in mid-flight. and carried it past the fence. Would that be a home run? And hey, what if the bird then changes its mind, turns around and comes back into the field of play and drops the ball? So much to consider. Well, at some point in that conversation, I think Meg may have said that a

grackle, because we were talking about grackles, and whether they were part of the Corvid family, not COVID, Corvid. And one of our ornithologically inclined listeners wrote in, Colin, Patreon supporter, who pointed out that grackles are Icturids, or blackbirds, a family that includes orioles, crows, cowbirds, and other species that do a lot of cool, intelligent stuff. Because Meg was talking about how grackles seem so smart. They are generally recognized as intelligent, even among birds, which navigate thousands of miles on their own first try. But I would humbly postulate this as a result of exhibiting behaviors that are easily recognized by humans as being intelligent, such as cowbirds laying their eggs in other birds' nests, or cashing food, or guarding of food sources cooperatively.

Grackles in particular adapt well to humans, confirmed they are everywhere, Phoenix and Houston, but blackbirds also generally suck at flying, unlike swallows and swifts, which spend the day aloft. But intelligence plus being close to the ground and in urban areas makes them uniquely observable and in the case of red-winged blackbirds, lots of aggression, which again makes them visible and observable. They are very cool. Thank you, Colin. And Simon writes in to say, I just finished listening to your discussion of balls that go up and never come down. While the explanation is not as whimsical as a bird carrying the ball off forever, this actually occurred in college baseball last weekend. A ball got lost in the first.

fog during the Van Dizu game, and chaos ensued when it was never located. It's true. Here's the call. Can they take it back here in the ninth? That ball is crushed into right field. They can't see it. One run is in. Here comes a second.

The right fielder Jordan raises his hands up in the air. And Holcomb comes all the way around. I think the ball actually went over the fence. This is madness, Nelmerie. This is madness. So, yeah, it was so foggy. The ball just disappeared. It was originally ruled a home run.

Then the umpires got together and consulted with the SEC office and ruled at a ground rule double. And so that tied the game for Vanderbilt instead of giving them a two-run lead. And so the game was suspended and resumed the next day with the score 7 to 7. And ultimately, in extras, Missouri prevailed. Eight to seven. And in the fog of war here, I think justice was not done in a kind of cosmic sense. Because it seems to me that the preponderance of the evidence supports the initial home run call. An SEC spokesperson said, during the top of the ninth with runners on first and second base, the batter hit a ball to right center field that was difficult to locate due to poor visibility.

Upon conferring as a crew, the umpires ruled that the play was a ground rule double, scoring the runner from second base. After video review, the call on the field was upheld, as no video evidence was available to overturn the call due to low visibility. So video review was just reviewing the video and finding that you still couldn't see the ball. But the trackman data estimated that the ball was hit 108 miles per hour and traveled 3759 feet. That would have been a homer. The hitter, Braden Holcomb, said he was 100% positive that the ball went over the fence. A Vanderbilt fan possibly biased, but nonetheless found a ball past the right field fence or claimed to that was caked in mud with no other balls nearby.

This was allegedly the home run ball. Someone else did some math and calculated that it couldn't pop. possibly have been a ground rule double. So, Vandy was, eh, I'll spare Shane a bleep. Eft by the fog. We've talked about Edward Westbar's Fogo Power. This was fog power, or the lack thereof. That's college baseball for you, folks. Raymond Chen also said that our discussion reminded him, as it reminded me, I was thinking about this, but I didn't mention it when Shohei Otani hit a ball through a gap in the roof of the Tokyo Dome, and he got a ground rule double for that. But I guess that's not quite the same as just having the ball disappear. You can support the podcast on

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for links to the stories and stats recited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon.

Effectively wild where we can talk about a to me. If they were a baby a bit more, I want to hear about learning them all the eyes, Thank you.