Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2480: The Most Embarrassing Baseball Play

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether the Phillies’ surge would have happened the same way if Rob Thomson hadn’t been fired, discuss streaks that were snapped for the Mets and Rico Garcia, delight and dismay in John Kruk repeating a podcast talking point, try to determine the most embarrassing failure a player can suffer on the field, bemoan a missed opportunity for an ambidextrous pitching appearance, mark the promotion of Mariners prospect Colt Emerson, and then discuss which of this season’s most over- or underperforming teams will regress. Audio intro: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: The Spaghettis, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to team records since 4/28 Link to team run differentials since 4/28 Link to team records since 4/26 Link to Dan S. on managerial firings Link to Neil P. on managerial firings Link to Mets comeback game story Link to past Mets streak discussion Link to Holmes injury story Link to Davis call story Link to Garcia hit Link to .000 BABIP streaks Link to mound-charge strategy discussion Link to Kruk clip 1 Link to Kruk clip 2 Link to Phillies vs. Pirates game Link to Adolis arms Link to Reds walk streak Link to Cortes pitching play log Link to Cortes profile Link to 2025 Cortes switch-throwing game Link to Venditte glove article Link to Cortes pitching tweet Link to FG post on Emerson Link to MLBTR on Emerson Link to Crawford fielding stats Link to preseason playoff odds Link to BaseRuns standings Link to team performance vs. projections Link to Sheehan on the Rays Link to Sheehan on the Cardinals Link to Ben on playoff velo Link to updated PR pickoff data Link to team positioning runs Link to MLB.com Walls article  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

And welcome to episode 2480 of Effectively Wild, a fancrafts baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindbergh of the ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing well, but not nearly as well as the Philadelphia Phillies. Now, I know we've had this kind of conversation before, quite possibly when the Phillies replaced Joe Girardi with Rob Thompson and their fortunes changed. But these fillies are 15 and 4 since firing Rob Thompson. That's the best record in baseball over that span. And it's not a bunch of fluky one-run wins or extra inning wins. They have the second best run differential over that period, too, trailing only the brewers.

Wow. So what are we to make of this? As rational, sabermetrically-minded observers, must we simply say regression and small sample? or they were bound to do better anyway, or must we bow before Maddingley magic? I mean, look, I don't feel the need to denigrate Don Maddenly. I'm not here to blow up his spot. I'm not here to give him a hard time.

But I feel like it's a good baseball team that wasn't playing particularly well. Seems like they were sort of due to play better. And they had some guys who were hurt and got healthy again. And, you know, they have. Exactly. Heller's healthy and pitching well. Good job, Donnie. Yeah, he looks more and more like himself with every start.

And they have Duranbeck and like Harper's playing well. Again, we already talked about that at one point. Chorber keeps scalding the baseball. Yeah, 20 dinners. Yeah, if they can just get Trey Turner going, you're going to be cooking with gas over there. So I think that it's mostly this was a better baseball team than they were playing as, and I think that there was an understanding at the time of

of Rod Johnson's dismissal that they were kind of shaking it up for the sake of doing that. I'm not it wasn't likely to be all that different under Don Mattingly, and I think so far that has proven to be true. Now, they're playing better. They're over 500 as we are recording on Monday before games start. They are still eight games out of first place in the East, but weren't they like 15 out at one point or some bit of nonsense? You know, so things have improved in a marked way, and that's really all you can hope for.

Yes, and their playoff odds are back up to 65%. And even if Atlanta hasn't exactly slowed down, obviously things are looking quite a bit better for the Phillies from a wildcard perspective. Yes. Tied with the pirates, three and a half games out of the third in a wild card. So at this rate, they'll have claimed that spot, perhaps by the end of the week. But are we so dogmatic as to maintain, though, that the firing made no difference that they would have had the same record over that spin? Because I'm with you. Of course, this team was going to be better one way or another.

And it's not even as if Rob Thompson seemed to be some sort of pariah or something that anyone was particularly complaining about Rob Thompson or blaming him, holding him responsible for. for anything, it was just, well, we got to throw somebody overboard. Right. So are we still to say, though, even accepting that this was a good team, that it had the foundations of a playoff favorite, and that its fortunes were destined to improve, would we still take that to the extreme of saying, if they had not fired Rob Thompson, if Don Mattingly had remained the bench coach, they had not rocked this boat, which was taking on water, they would have gone 15 and 4 anyway.

Would you take it to that extreme of saying that things would have played out exactly as well for the Phillies if they had stayed the course? No. I mean, I try not to be especially dogmatic about things just generally. This is a rather thin needle that I'm going to try to thread here. I don't want to say that there was a lack of urgency on the part of the Phillies players. prior to his firing, I do think that when you are at the point in your season where the front office feels the need

to make a performative managerial firing, and it is, you know, not yet may, you maybe sit there and go, oh, gosh, I got to get my ass in gear here a little bit. I'm sure there's some of that. I haven't watched every single one of those games, so I can't really speak to whether there were any moments where, you know, we had a madingly stroke of genius

that, you know, that Rob would have fumbled. But I suspect that much more of it is attributable to the team simply just kind of playing much more like their true talent level than anything else. But, you know, I guess one thing you can say, one thing you can say is sort of a roundabout way of being complimentary to Don is that Mattingly at least didn't, like, lose the clubhouse, right? There wasn't some rift that formed as a result of moving on from a skipper. they liked and then Maddingley's elevated. The counterfactual that I'm actually the most interested in which we obviously can't

know the answer to is how different would it have gone if at all if they had succeeded in hiring Cora. That's the alternate reality that I would be fascinated by because I can imagine a circumstance where that goes worse, you know, where there's like a bristling and a, you know, you're like breaking in a new guy and it's like, well, why? you bringing in this guy who got can from his job? Like, why can't we just keep our guy we know and like, you know? So that one I would have been fascinated by to see how that would have gone.

But I don't know. I think that's a pretty good baseball team. They have some good guys. I think it's mostly just like Zach Wheeler's pack and looking more and more like himself all the time. Yeah. And this has not been a particularly tough stretch of schedule for the Phillies. It was Giants, Marlins for four games. Rockies, Red Sox, Pirates.

Got to talk differently about the A's than you're a custom tuba. Oh, yeah. You got a course correct on that. Oh, yeah. I'm bullish about the A's, but even so, these are not the best teams that they've been playing, and they'd had a fairly tough schedule going into the firing. And, yeah, it's not as if, even if you think that in the specific case, it might have made some difference.

Obviously, it's not a panacea in all cases. The Red Sox are nine and ten post-cora, which is an improvement. but not a noteworthy one really. But we talked about Dan Siborski's research and about how, on the whole, over the course of 20 years and 40 firings, teams played precisely to their expectations, their projections at the time of the firing.

And Neil Payne also looked at this on his substack, and he seemed to find a bit of a boost, at least early after a managerial change where teams outplayed their process. previous performance at least. Obviously, you're going to outplay your previous performance just because you probably underperformed if your manager is getting the axe. But even though I am more toward the side of managers don't matter all that much in most cases, and I wouldn't say that Rob Thompson was clearly the outlier, the unusual case where he actually was tanking the team's

fortunes, I guess I'd still say that when you have this sort of run of success, which obviously wasn't expected or projected, that if you did anything differently, it almost would have to go worse. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know exactly how or why, but it's kind of like 15 and 4. That's about a best case scenario. And so if you messed with that success, then probably it's all downhill from there.

And so I don't know exactly it would be hard to tie it to, okay. this guy got a hit in this game because he was inspired by Don Mattingly being his manager or a fire was lit under him because Rob Thompson was deemed expendable and now who's next or something. So it would be really hard to connect the dots, but in sort of a butterfly effect way, I guess I might say that if they had not done that, my expectation would be that they would have had a slightly worse record, perhaps. if they had just stayed the course. But it's a long season, and it's quite possible that they will, on the whole, from here on out, they will mostly play two projections. I wouldn't be surprised if when the dust settles and it's all said and done, we look at what Zip said on the day they made the managerial change and what their actual record ends up

being and find that it's not too far apart. I think that that's right. Maybe they wanted to do it for Rob. Maybe they felt like, we should. do it for Rob. He lost, he lost his job kind of on it. It must be a strange feeling to be a player and correctly read the situation as we were playing like, I'm going to do a swear, we were playing like such a dog shit that this guy lost his job even though he wasn't really at fault for anything that was happening. That has to feel bad. I would feel compelled to do better for the,

for the skipper as it were. Well, the Mets did not make a change. Carseman Doza is still their manager and they are, since the Phillies fired Thompson, the Mets are 11 and 7, so things have ticked up a bit for them, though the injury issues, of course, have continued. It's, yeah, it's been rough. They just, they get one guy back, they lose another guy.

Clay Holmes now done for months, seemingly after having his leg fractured by that menace. Spencer Jones, he hits the ball too hard and sometimes at people. and Holmes just in the latest example of superhuman pain tolerance or the power of adrenaline or whatever it is. He kept pitching for a while. I mean, I know not every fracture is like created equal, obviously, you know. Right. It's not necessarily like your femur sticking through your skin or something here. Maybe it's just a...

What? Sorry. It is with you lately. Okay? I'm sorry. It's all the loose bodies that have been floating around. It's just getting to me. Now it's like snail's got the loose bodies.

We'll see if he has a snail scope or not. But yeah, sorry if I've been somewhat cavalier with my descriptions. I tend not to be squeamish about these things. And so I may just not anticipate what sort of reaction this will spark. I'm sorry. Clay Holmes is hurt is the point. Yes. But things are looking up, relatively speaking, for the Mets.

And just the first of a few follow-ups here, The Mets did have a big comeback late-inning win and a walk-off win against the Yankees on Sunday. And this is something that had come up on episode 2458 when we fielded a question about extended streaks of not coming back to win a game that you were trailing after eight innings. And we got a question about that because the Mets at that time, they hadn't done that. they had something like a 70 game losing streak when trailing after eight innings. And someone asked us if this was a record. And we, and by we, I mean, Michael Mountain determined that, no, it was not nearly a record. And that the record seemed to be the White Sox having lost 205 consecutive games when trailing after eight from late 2023 and then into early 25.

So, no, it wasn't that noteworthy, but it still felt noteworthy for Mets fans. and it was the longest active streak in the majors of failing to mount a come from behind victory when trailing after eight. So finally, they snapped that streak. So it was 91 consecutive games, I believe, that they had lost in that situation. And then Tyrone Taylor said, not 92. That's it. I'm drawing the line right here. So good for the Mets, a big win for them.

And they haven't had that many. So this was, I think, the last time they had won such a game in the regular season since September 30th, 2024. That was when they beat the Braves to clinch that playoff appearance at the very end of the season. And then if you include the postseason, it happened in the wild card series immediately after that when Pete Alonso hit the homer off of Devin Williams. But yeah, it had been far too long for Mets fans' tastes. And who knows? Maybe that will motivate them. Yeah, maybe, you know, I think they got some reasonably good news as it pertains to Francisco Lindor and his timetable to return.

So maybe they'll also be on the come-up. It's so funny because they, you know, we should apply the same sort of analysis to their club in terms of expecting that a team that is more talented than they have played so far will play sort of closer to their true talent level. And that's not to say that like every move they made this offseason, was great or that I don't know what's wrong with Boba Shett. Can't figure that one out. He's not being bad in the ways that I would expect his game to collapse. So that part of it is flummoxing to me. But they should be better. And that's the approach we should take. And I don't believe in magic. But I think I do believe in curses, at least on a limited baseball basis, and more so with the Mets than others. So don't know what to make of that. I also have an update

about a streak pertaining to former Met and current Oriole Rico Garcia. Yes. Because, sadly, his streak was snapped. We didn't jinx him. Kevin Brown did. So I will, I'll play a quick clip from the Orioles broadcast. You'll hear Kevin Brown and his broadcast partner, Ben McDonald, and this will be edited and abridged and combined.

But you can hear Kevin Brown bringing up the zero battle. that Garcia had going and then calling the end of it. Rico did not allow a hit for the first 10 games of the season in the 11th, Kansas City's Michael Massey Homer. He is now not allowed to hit in eight consecutive games. The league is one for 57 against Garcia, just unfathomable number. He dumps in a curbstack. There's no pattern to what he's doing.

You always got to respect 95 and 96 because he's got that. back pocket, but the all-speed stuff has been outstanding. There is one pattern. Well, yeah, let's hope that pattern continues to. There's an 02. A base hit. A miracle. That is the first hit against Rico Garcia in the field of play this year.

So it was Garcia on Garcia crime. It was Luis Garcia Jr. Who ended this, and this was not seeing I single or anything like that. He earned that hit. And Rico Garcia's streak of not allowing a hit on a ball in play ends at 21 and two-thirds innings dating back to last season. So he did set the record to start a season, but he will have to settle for a tie for second longest streak all time with the well-known Johnny Vandromer. So Rico Garcia just did what. But Johnny Vandermere did essentially, although he did obviously allow the home run in the midst of his streak.

But he tied Vandermere and trails only the all-time leader, Dennis Eckersley, who had just two and two-thirds innings more. So he was almost there. He almost made it. But no slouch to be second. And no one would have ever guessed that he would have been the one to do that. But he's been nasty. It's partly just babit pluck, but also he's been good. He's been like a real, real life late inning arm, missing tons of bats, getting whiffs, nasty movement, good control.

He looks like quite a find for the Orioles at the back of that bullpen. Sometimes guys emerge, you know. And sometimes guys emerge after their Mets, but not while they're Mets much to the dismay of Mets fans. But again, the bullpen hasn't been the biggest problem for these Mets. And one more follow-up on a conversation that we had. earlier this season. On episode 2463, we entertained the suggestion that maybe a team should consider essentially sacrificing a weak hitter to try to get an opposing pitcher ejected by having the hitter get plunked, let's say, and essentially flop, but in the most aggressive way possible,

to take it personally, to charge the mound. Because we found that, you know, Even when a hitter charges the mound and a pitcher basically just puts up his dukes in self-defense, he's liable to get ejected. Even if he's not instigating it or throwing a haymaker or anything, you could get him run. And we talked about whether this would work and whether it would be underhanded and who might be a good candidate to go through with this. And then none other than a broadcaster we have discussed a few times already this season, John Kruk, great minds. he had the same idea. And I will play a quick clip of him. This is from Sunday's Philly's Pirates game.

Oh, man, that got him. Yeah, I did. So he's hit by a pitch. I mean, if you want to get schemes out of the game, charge him out, right? I know you didn't mean this on purpose, but we've got to get your ass out of the game. I am just so delighted

that some part of John Crook's beautiful mind overlaps with ours. Yes. I am terrified by that. You know, I do want to acknowledge the part of me that feels a deep concern. But mostly it's just a profound sense of flattery and gratitude that we could connect, you know, through space and time and arrive at a similar conversation. It's funny because dispositional, I want to be clear.

I don't think of Adolas Garcia as like a particularly like aggressive guy. He's definitely a demonstrative guy when things are going well. for him, right? We've seen him really bat flip. But I don't, I don't read him as like a particularly like aggressive dude. Maybe I'm missing something, but that's not. But here's the thing. You got to deal with those arms, you know, sure, he's, he's like a weak hitter within that lineup. He, you know, we talked about this when he was acquired. And, and really, it's just, you want any kind of an upgrade with the bat and really any kind of an upgrade with the defense. And right, and that's what you're getting with the doleys. But he

looks like someone who could really wreck you because he's just his arms. I mean, look, we know Crook appreciates his physique. We know he does. He wants to see him oiled up in wrestling. Like, we know that about John. I like to see him and Garcia on a oiled up and flexing after a good workout. Garcia might have him this year. Boy, he's a big man.

Regardless of the pitch around the mound, I don't think this is specific to skeins or anything, but I do think it would give you pause about your desire to rumble because it's like, now, Skeens, as, as no less Illuminary than Michael Bowman has noted, is built like the USS Nimitz. So maybe he's not going to be intimidated by Adolese because he's, you know, himself quite an intimidating figure. But I, I wonder if, like, the, the vibe of it is a little bit wrong where you, you have a, you have a, you, a pause that you must entertain to be like, do I really want to fight with this guy?

Like, does not? Now, you know, he's got six inches on a dolly. So maybe he's like arms or no, I don't care. Let's go. But maybe not. Maybe it's not quite the right. But you would inspire him to fight more.

So maybe it is the right thing, right? Because this was the delicate balance that we noted when we were talking about this. Like, you can't just have some little shrimp of a guy do this because the guy the pitcher's going to be like that's adorable what do you what are you getting out to there buddy yeah a little bit tired or something like it has that sort of energy and then if it's a really big hulking dude well then it's like well what if they actually fight then you have real risk of injury so you have to sort of thread the needle so maybe maybe garcia is the right candidate for this

both in terms of his offensive profile and also the fact that he's like big enough as a as a presence to like think that he means it and could do some damage, but is relative to Skeens shorter enough and Skeens is himself robust enough that it would, you know, it wouldn't come to real blows. But also, I think that Paul Skeens is aware of how important it is that he be on the field for the pirates as much as possible. He probably wants to pitch in the ninth inning. Yeah. Although in that specific case, the Phillies did not need. to resort to trickery, they beat Paul Skeen's fair and square. He had a fairly rough outing.

They touched him for five runs in five innings. So that's one way to beat him. Just hit him hard instead of getting him ejected from the game. Yeah, instead of, or at least threatening to. So, yes, it is heartening, also somewhat disturbing that John Crock had the same idea that we consider John effectively wild. Maybe he's a listener. Who knows, if so. Hi, Kruecker.

But yes. I'm skeptical. I'm also, I can't, I don't see him as a podcast person. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think it's anything about us. I think it's about. Not an aversion to effectively wild specifically. Podcasts. Right.

Yeah, I can't imagine him being like, I'm going to be a podcast guy. I don't. Yeah. I think that I, and I say this to his credit, because wouldn't we all benefit from this perspective. But my, my sense is that John Kruk views his cell phone as a phone. as a phone, and that's all. You raised an issue on our most recent Patreon episode that you're flummoxed by all of the apps on phones and desktops, for that matter,

sort of looking similar and it can be a little bit discombobulating when you're trying to find something specific because all the apps are blue. I bet that John Crook has like two apps on his phone. I bet that John Crook has, I bet one of them is a banking app. Are we counting the phone app? No, we're not counting the phone. message app. Yeah, I bet he can text. I bet he can receive email but never checks it on his phone. He strikes me as someone who's like, well, I got to look at email on my computer because that's

where you look at email. It's sort of like a millennials can't book flights on their phones. That's true. You want to be able to see the big screen. I prefer more real estate. Sure. He doesn't strike me as a podcast guy. And, you know, God bless him. He has appeared on the odd podcast, I believe. It's hard not to if you were a member of the media. But as far as I know, he hasn't hosted one. And I don't know anything about his podcast consumption habits. But we can guess, perhaps. So yes, those are important updates for all of us. And I'm especially happy for the Mets that they pulled that one out because on Saturday, the day before that big comeback victory, Joe Davis had debuted a call. I'm sure you heard the owner. know the Mets call that Joe Davis gave us all for posterity. This was a Carson Benj dropped fly ball. He kind of had a Aaron Judge clanked off the mitt sort of incident. And Joe Davis, well, I'll play the clip. Belinger, flies the first one to right center field. And I love that he extrapolated just from Benj dropping a ball to, oh, no, the Mets. Like it was

this very just all encompassing. This was not just one player making a mistake that ultimately proved not to be that costly. The Mets were winning that game and they went on to win that game. But it was just so redolent of the Mets, so emblematic of the Mets that all he could think in that moment was, oh, no. Oh, no, the Mets. Yeah. They do inspire you to sort of extrapolate out from any. individual moment of failure to sort of indict the whole franchise. In a way, I mean, I'm sure

it's not a relief to any of the players on the team because I bet they wish that things were just in a better spot for them than they are. But I wonder if it's freeing in a way. It's like, Carson Bench, that's not you failing this on Mets, man. Like, what do you expect? You're on the Mets. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that call will echo through the ages. We can shout out, know the Mets whenever it's appropriate, which it so often is. I will say on that there is a certain amount of risk to that decision on Joe Davis's part, because do I imagine that the Mets are going to be the Dodgers' biggest problem come October? I submit to you that they will not be, even when they start playing in a way that is more in keeping with the actual skill on that roster.

But it's a bold move as an announcer to sort of give bulletin board material to a potential rival. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because if you're, it's one thing if it's a player, but you're just, I mean, no offense to Joe Davis, I think he's a good announcer. But you're just some guy, you know, you're not, you're not involved in the production on the field. That's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to describe it in a good, entertaining way and help fans understand it. But to potentially put something on a bulletin board in an opposing clubhouse, that's bold.

I think there's the potential for backfire there. Now, the Mets have to do a lot better than they have for it to matter at all. You know, we sit here and talk about the Phillies being eight out, 11 and a half for the Mets, and they're 20 and 26. And you can't defend that specific play. It's not as if that wasn't an oh, no moment. It's just that other Mets might have looked around. and said, I didn't do it.

Right. Oh, no, Carson Benj, maybe, but what did I have to do? How am I getting lumped in with this mistake? I suppose, but if I'm a guy on the Mets right now, I'm not sitting there being like, how dare you impugn my honor? It's like, you don't end up 20 and 26 due to one guy. So, you know, everyone is shouldering at least some of that blame, except for making normally.

Well, speaking of failure on the field, we got a question. from Patreon supporter Jeff that I thought I'd throw out to you and the audience for discussion. So Jeff says episode 2479 had a stat blast about pinch runners getting immediately picked off. Ben suggested that it was the most embarrassing thing

that can happen to a player on a baseball field. You know, because you had one job, right? Yeah. You were brought in to do the running. Someone else earned his way on base. And then you took his place and your job was maybe to advance a base, but primarily not to be out.

Right. And you couldn't do that. So especially if it was like the Sam Haggertie case from last week where he got picked off immediately. That's pretty embarrassing. So Jeff says that got me thinking about other scenarios in which a player is brought in to do one job and instantly does a bad job. A pinch hitter weekly popping out on the first pitch.

A defensive replacement making an error on the first ball to them. A reliever giving up a hit on their first pitch. could we rank these in worseness? A couple of thoughts, one is leverage. In today's game with universal DH and small benches, pinch hitters, runners, and defensive replacement seem more likely to happen later in the game with potentially higher stakes. Relievers, on the other hand, come in earlier, though not necessarily in lower leverage.

Another thought is redemption. Pinch hitters and runners might get only one shot in that game. A reliever might stick around for two more batters. A defensive replacement. generally stays in the rest of the game with potentially more opportunities to make up for that mistake. So can anything compare to or surpass the pinch runner who immediately gets subjected to a two-pland? I kind of don't know that I think there is. Like, let's say you're a reliever and you come in and the bases are juiced and you immediately give up a home run. Well, that feels really bad, right?

your job was to get out of the jam to help get out of the jam. But also, you didn't put those guys on base, you know? That's not your fault. You're just, you're there to try to clean up somebody else's mess. And if you don't do a satisfactory job of it, well, don't spill stuff on the carpet then. You know what I mean? So it's not good to be clear. And it feels really bad.

But it's, I think, of a different category. Now, when a pinch hitter comes in, their optimal approach, at the plate is going to be at least somewhat dependent on what the pitcher in question is doing. I like it. It feels better to me to like see a pitch, like see a pitch, you know. I think the exception to the pinch hitter being less bad is like if you come in to pinch hit and the pitcher in question does not have it that night and they are scattershot and you immediately go up there swinging, I get very annoyed by that. It's like, see a pitch. Make him show you that he can throw you a strike, my guy. Why are you swinging away?

Stop swinging away. Make him throw you a strike. But what if the pitcher is thinking that? Well, he's going to take one here and then he just throws you a meatball down the middle. Well, you know, you got to react to the pitch you have too. But I'm just saying, like, sometimes you'll see a guy come in and he will, he'll flail at a pitch that is not a strike and he like weakly grounds out. And you're like what was that about? You watch the two guys prior

to you make him throw a strike. Why are you helping him out? So that's very frustrating. Can you tell I watch the Mariners a lot? But the pinch running, it's just you are being selected for such a specific skill. You got to

hold it together, man. You know? And it's especially embarrassing because it's not like you never get see guys get legitimately picked off or thrown out on the base paths. But it does feel like a skill that you should have dialed in better. You know what I mean? Like most guys don't get picked off. Most guys, if they're out there to run, they have the skill to do that in a way that is reasonable.

So I find it very flammixing. Yes. Well, I have some data on this specific situation because at the end of last week's last episode, I threw out a question for people to ponder, which was, do you think that the pickoff rate is higher for pinch runners or non-pinch runners? Because you might be inclined to think pinch runners are probably better runners. And therefore, they would be picked off less often. Then again, pitchers and catchers are highly aware that they're better runners. And so they're going to be throwing over there and checking up on them and trying to keep them close.

and also the situation when a pinch runner comes in, maybe they are often expected to be trying to take that base, swipe that bag. So they're taking extra risks, they're taking longer leads. So I asked Michael Mountain if he could determine who has a higher pickoff rate, pinch runners or non-pinch runners. So I do have an answer now, and he filtered the time range to 1951 through 2025. 51 is when MLB first started tracking caught stealing officially. So the overall pickoff success rate is 0.49% so 0.49% of opportunities.

Someone is picked off. That's 4.4 million opportunities. And I think that was when a base is open ahead of you, essentially. So it's 0.49% overall, but the pickoff success rate against pitch runners specifically is 0.6%, higher than 0.49. And that's in 89,000 or so opportunities. So pinch runners get picked off more. Yes, they get picked off more. Do we think that part of the explanation for that is that pinch runners are brought in with the expectation that they might be both speedier and able to.

to advance the base, and so they are taking, like, a larger lead. And so are more like that, that's the explanation we would attribute that to, right? Yes, I think so. And they're just going to be drawing more scrutiny. And Michael slice and dice this a bit more to look at what happens with stolen base threats, specifically, guys who have some wheels. So against players with 10 or more stolen base attempts that season, who are not pinch running, the pickoff success rate, and really it depends on whose perspective you're considering the

pickoff from, I guess this would be from the defense's perspective, but 0.72% in about 2 million opportunities, so that's against the stolen base threats. So that's the highest yet. The overall, 0.49, pinch runners, 0.6, but the stolen base threats, who are not pinch runners, 0.72%. Whereas the pickoff success rates against non-stolen base threats, guys who had fewer than 10 stolen base attempts that season who were not pinch running, their pickoff success rate was only 0.28% in about 2.3 million opportunities. So, even if we limit it to non-pinch runners, the guys who are more liable to take off, they have a much higher rate of being picked off. And so I think we can say that the pinch runners having the

higher rate is because pinch runners have a disproportionately high percentage of runners who are stolen base threats or, you know, there's a real risk that they're going to go. So as Michael says, without controlling for how costly a pickoff would be, given the game state, which is almost certainly not uniform across those samples and which should theoretically impact both how determined a pitcher is to try it, as well as how careful a runner is in avoiding it. Pinch runners overall are more successful at avoiding being picked off than eager stolen base. attempters who reach base of their own accord who are not pinch runners. So yeah, it's just a skewed sample sort of thing. The pinch runners, they're guys who can go in situations when maybe they're

expected to go. And thus, the defense is vigilant. So that is the answer to that question. But it's not necessarily the answer to the question of what's more embarrassing. So maybe that minimizes the embarrassment a bit because often a pinch runner is going to be taking a bit more risk. And it's not that they really have one job, which is not to get thrown out. That's easy enough. If all you had to worry about was not getting thrown out, then you could just stand on the base. You wouldn't take a lead at all.

You couldn't possibly be tagged out if you maintain contact at all times. But they're probably taking longer leads and maybe they've got the green light. Maybe they were even instructed to go. So now they still should not get picked off if possible. But still, it's an unusual situation. But I still think it's pretty embarrassing when you are inserted into that spot. And obviously it depends on the specifics and pickoffs can, you know, sometimes it can be scored of pickoff, but you're actually going. And sometimes it's just, you know, you misread the move and you dive back too slowly or whatever it is.

You get caught napping or you're just appropriately taking a risk. Who knows? And, you know, we have often made the case and we are hardly alone in this that like there is a, a. a good case to be made that runners should be going more often than they are, that there's a lack of aggressiveness that is sometimes to their detriment. Sometimes you

need to force the defense to make the good play. You don't want to nap or be caught napping. It's funny that we say that. It's like so rude. It's like a deeply insulting thing, really. It's not just, oh, you made a mistake. It's like you were

fully neglecting your responsibilities. Do you think it's worse to be caught napping or forget how many outs there are. Oh, yeah, that's another quite embarrassing thing. That's a, that actually, that actually might be the worst one now that I think about it. Forgetting how many outs there are. And it's true. It's, it's a fun one because it's bad on either side of the ball, you know.

You don't want to be goofing around with how many outs there are if you're the fielding team or, you know, you're on offense. It's not always costly to forget. Sometimes you just have a brain fart, but when it is, yeah. Infuriating. Yes, that's true. Because you're sitting at home, and granted, you're being reminded constantly how many outs are because it's sitting there on the scorebug. But you know how many outs there are. You're very aware of how many outs there are.

You're sitting there always remember. And you're like, isn't one of your primary jobs to know how many outs there are so that you don't. I think that's actually the worst one when it costs you When it doesn't Then you feel like you've brushed up Against a ghost Yeah that is a strong contender

Because I think Oh that sucks when that happens There has to be an element of Unforced error And especially if it's a mental error Because a reliever coming in And giving up a hit That's not embarrassing

It might be annoying It's disappointing But it's not It happens too often For it really to be embarrassing. And it isn't even necessarily an indication that you threw a bad pitch. Sometimes you got to hand it

to the guy, right? Sometimes a guy just, you know, he gets out there and he hits it true. Yeah, as the saying goes, the other guy drives a big car to or lives in a big house too or I guess I don't know what the saying is. Maybe there are multiple versions of that saying. I don't even know.

But yeah, all these guys are good. So if you get beaten on a particular pitch, that's not that big a deal. If someone, okay, if you pinch hit for someone and it's like, oh, here comes the big bat and then you pop up on your first pitch or something, that's mildly embarrassing maybe just because you were inserted for your hitting prowess and probably the guy you pinch hit for is thinking, well, I could have done that. And it's kind of like Casey at the bat comes up and just goes down swinging or something. And maybe that's a bit embarrassing, but it's not that embarrassing because hitting is hard. So, you know, odds are you're going to make an out, right?

Right, yeah. You're Barry Bonds, basically. So, okay, if you make a week out and it's on the first pitch or something, maybe that's worse. But it's not that bad. And even a pitcher, the odds are more in your favor in any particular point appearance. But it's not like the percentage that we're talking about with getting picked off as a pinch runner, where it's sub 1% of the time, opportunities that happens. So the only one I can think of other than what we've talked about, I guess, well, when you can't throw strikes, that's pretty bad because at a certain point it does become probably the hitter's taking, you know, like if you've walked a couple guys and it's 3-0 or something, that's an invitation to just lob one in there. And if you still can't throw, especially just walking someone on four pitches.

Yeah. Of course, it kind of goes beyond embarrassing into uncomfortable at times. Right, you feel bad for the guy. Yeah, or when it verges on yips sort of situation. Depends how wild, if you're just missing by a bit, it's not quite as bad. But, yeah, when you can't find the strike zone for an extended stretch, that's uncomfortable. And I guess walking guys with the base is loaded, that becomes pretty embarrassing, especially if you do it a bunch of times.

Like that's just, it's free passes, it's free runs. You got to make them earn it at some point. So I think that would be up there. Or something like Carson Benj and having that ball go off his glove, that's pretty embarrassing. And maybe it would be worse if you were a defensive replacement. The other thing, I think Russell Carlton has studied this. And I think maybe he didn't find glaring evidence of a defensive replacement penalty. within one game.

When you're switching from one position to another, learning a new position, yes, but I don't know that there's quite a defensive equivalent of the pinch hitter penalty where pinch hitters seemingly, depending on the study, hit worse, and it's hard to control for because sometimes guys are pinch hitting

because they've had some physical ailment or something that prevented them from starting. Maybe they're not at 100%. And there's the DH penalty, which doesn't seem to affect full-time DHS who acclimate to that role. But yeah, when you're sort of put on the spot, then it kind of balances out because on the one hand, you were chosen to do this job. And so you must be especially well suited for it.

You're a pinch runner. You're a pinch hitter. You must be a good runner or a good hitter. Or if you're a pinch pitcher, basically, right? You're a reliever. You're brought in. It's because your manager thought that you had what it took to get that job done. And then you don't.

And that reflects poorly on you. But also you were put in a tough situation because if you're pinch hitting, you know, you were cold and you were trying to warm up and you weren't in the game. Or if you're a reliever brought in to try to clean up someone else's mess, you didn't make that mess. So it's a bit more forgivable. So if you're a defensive replacement and you have a ball clank off your glove on an easy play. And it's a physical error, but it's almost more of a mental error if it's just a can of corn, if it's a completely routine. play that anyone would make, then it's not so much a coordination issue as it is you took your eye off the ball, literally, like you were not paying attention or something. And so that's kind of

on you. So defense or replacement or otherwise, if a ball just drops, it's not even like going through the five-hole, you know, go between your legs, go under your glove. That's bad, but there could always be bad hops, and it's hard to sort of sacrifice your body even if you're conditioned to do that as a professional player. But yeah, just kind of muffing a really easy play. Or some sort of like, you know, it's snodgrass's muffer, it's Merkel's boner. Like it's some huge, high-levered situation. And you make a mistake that is more of an issue of lack of game awareness or something.

Or, you know, there's always overthrowing the cutoff, man, throwing to the wrong base. That's kind of in the mold of the forgetting how many outs there are. Oh, forgetting how many outsour are so much worse, though. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think that one takes the cake for me. I don't know that I'm ever more frustrated than I am when that happens. I'm like, how did you, how?

Yeah. Half the time, too. And it's like, if it's on, I'm like, your catcher is often being like, hey, there are two. There too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The one that we talked about recently where Henry Davis ended the string of seven consecutive walks by Reds pitchers. And he was up to O.

and then grounded out on a pitch that if you're Henry Davis in that situation, you probably shouldn't be swinging at at all. That's up there, I guess. Because, yeah, it has to be a combination of the physical mistake of mishitting a ball, but also just the decision to swing in the first place when you're bat probably should have been on your shoulder. Right. Make him throw you a strike. Make him throw you a strike.

Don't get to run out on the base paths. Remember how many outs there are, you know? The fundamentals, the Little League stuff. The fundamentals. Yeah. And I know it's harder in practice at major league game speed than it is when you're sitting on the couch and saying, I learned that play in Little League. But nonetheless, if you are actually in the big leagues, you should be up to that speed. So, okay, those are some candidates.

Please feel free to write in to suggest others that we may have overlooked. The most embarrassing thing that could happen on a baseball field. And I guess keeping it in the realm of baseball plays, maybe. You know, I mean. If your pants split, that's the most embarrassing thing that can happen on a baseball field. Yes, if you have some sort of accident. That's embarrassing if you're on a city bus also, you know. Yeah, yeah.

So we're talking about actual baseball action, not some misfortune that befell you while you happen to be playing baseball. Okay. All right. We'll settle that once and for all. Also, here is a great disappointment. to me. So we mentioned Carlos Cortez last week of the A's because he's off to a fantastic start. He was one of the hitters who had most exceeded his war pace when we checked in after the first quarter of the regular season. And that is still true. He has a 165 WRC Plus, not too shabby.

But he also made his Major League debut as a pitcher. He did some mop-up duty on Sunday. And this was exciting to me when I saw that it was happening because Caras Cortez is a switch thrower. He is ambidextrous. And he made some history, as we mentioned previously last year, typically what he does, he plays right field or outfield left-handed. And then he plays infield, third base, right-handed. And he did both of these things in one game last year. And it was at least the first documented case of a position player entering a game, throwing with one hand, and then switching their throwing hands and position later in the same game. So there aren't a lot of officially listed switch throwers out there.

There's Cortez. There's Anthony Siegler, but he hasn't played those same positions. So this was exciting to me because we have seen him be ambidextrous and demonstrate his. in dexterity in a single game. And here he was on the mound. And so I was thinking, well, he's going to do the Pat Bendetti. He's going to be a switch pitcher on the mound because why wouldn't you if you were Carlos Cortez? And to my great disappointment, he didn't. And he threw left-handed. And he just, you know, lefty in the outfield, righty and the infield, lefty on the mound, which I guess makes sense if you had to pick a side. But he didn't. In the field. He didn't.

In theory, he could have alternated, and he didn't. And so when you go to the MLB.com play log for this, it knows, I suppose, that he is officially a switch thrower. And so the play log says before every plate appearance, Carlos Cortez is now pitching left-handed. Yeah, because it's like the Pat Bendetti rule, like you have to declare which side you're going to, you know, otherwise you end up in the silly dance where. especially if a switch hitter is up and you're just switching sides ad nauseum. So I guess they considered it as him declaring himself anew as a left-handed pitcher with every plate appearance when he was throwing as a lefty. But he did that for the entire outing, which was disappointing to me.

And ultimately, he threw a scoreless inning, so it didn't really come back to bite him. But he did get touched up a little. There was a little traffic. he walked Daniel Susack and he gave up a double to Matt Chapman, both right-handed batters who had the platoon advantage against the lefty Carlos Cortez. So even though he limited the damage and stranded the runners, perhaps he would have fared even better had he been alternating. So I can only assume that he didn't alternate because maybe he didn't have the right equipment

because what some people may not realize about Pat Bendetti is that not only did he have the capacity, the ability to throw with either hand, but he also had a special glove, which looked like any other mitt from afar, but it actually had six fingers or four fingers and two thumbs and then a pocket in the middle sort of splitting the digits in half. And so he could use this on either hand. And so he could just, he could switch. He could switch hands, which I'm going to guess that Carus Cortez, as a non-pitcher, probably did not have a specially designed glove. And so that was okay when he wasn't switching positions mid-inning, and he could have one glove for the outfield and one glove for the infield. But maybe he would have needed the special Mizuno Pat Vendetti

model to do what Mendei did on the mound. So I don't know for sure, but that is my hypothesis about why he wasn't doing this store. Maybe he just wasn't adventurous. I don't know. Also, he was, you know, getting it in there like mid-80s. I mean, he had some decent stuff, certainly by position player standards. I think it was some of the hardest pitches thrown this season. So maybe he's just better from that side. Maybe it's like a Gerangelo-Sangello-Sangea sort of situation where he is. ambidextrous, but he throws much harder from... Yeah, from the one than the other. That would be my guess, but also, like, we're into, like, the third order level.

Right. Like, ambidextrous application, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, he must, you know, if he's able to play right field and third base and can do one or the other with either hand, like, those are both positions that require one to have a strong arm. So he must have two fairly. strong arms. But yeah, maybe he has more aptitude for pitching with one or the other, because

he is a natural lefty. He learned later to throw righty. But I hope that someone special delivers a special mitt for Carlos Cortez so that if he's ever in a mop-up man role again, he is able to show off the fully operational Carlos Cortez experience. Because come on, we were cheated. Yeah, I think that that's right. Like, it's just go up by one glass. love, you know, how much could it cost. Yeah, come on. I know it's, you know, a special design and probably not something you can just walk into a store and buy off the rack, but he's a big leaguer, you know? Yeah.

The innovation has been made. The technology has been perfected in the past. It can be rebuilt. It can be replicated. So I hope he looks into it now that he is a professional pitcher. Also, some news for Meg's Mariners. We have a prospect. call up. Cold Emerson, a consensus top 10 prospect in baseball. Mariners' top prospect extended this spring, was

promoted to the majors, made his debut on Sunday. So that's exciting. 20 years old, right? Youngest Mariner promoted since King Felix. Good company. So tell me about the arrival of Cold Emerson.

How close of attention have you been playing to the meritor's last week. Look, they had to do this because Brendan Donovan went on the IEL again. Yeah. And they were a little stretched. And it was one of those call-ups

where he was not initially in the lineup for Sunday's game. Which I mentioned mostly to illustrate how like kind of last minute this decision ended up being. But luckily, you know, Tacoma's just down the way. And as bad

I-5 traffic can be not an impediment to him actually getting up there. I think that were it not for the injury to Donovan, that he would still be in Tacoma. He's striking out like 27% of the time. And I think Cole Emerson's going to be fine. I think that Colt Emerson will be a good big leaguer. He went 0 for two with a walk. He did score or run in Sunday's game. A game they lost 8 to 3.

That's not that. best. I don't think that there was anything that I saw in his debut that made me think differently of him as a player. But I do think that, you know, they're kind of in a bad way right now. And it doesn't feel amazing when injury necessitates a high profile prospect being promoted rather than like, hey, this guy's, you know, busting down the door. But I don't want to sound like, he's 20. It's exciting. Like, he's going to be a good player, I think. And here he is. So nice to debut in the steelheads

uniforms because they're just so sharp. They just look slick. But it's hard to get super amped about it when it comes in like a bad loss and they look sort of rudderless. You know, it's like, can you also turn into a high-powered reliever while you're up there, cold?

Like, do you have that? You know, we're talking about guys coming in in fun and interesting ways, you know? Do you actually, you sure, 100 by any chance and you want to help to solidify that bullpen. But yeah, he is up. I will be curious to see

how long he is up. And I imagine that the way Cole Emerson plays will have a lot to say about that, but they're pretty banged up right now. You know, we didn't talk about how Cal's on the aisle for the first time in his big league career, Donovan's road again. They have a number of injuries on the pitching side. So it doesn't matter in an AL West where like

one team is exactly 500, Maybe not, but they kind of need to make some moves here. You don't want to throw. I was giving you a guff saying you got to re, you got to update your priors on the A's leading the division at 500. Oh, yeah. Yes, this NL Central has no losing teams. Al West has no winning teams situation,

has persisted for an improbably long time. Here, the position players currently on the injured list for the Seattle Mariners, Al Raleigh, Will Wilson, that's Elizabeth Big Deal. Brendan Donovan, Masterbony, who I don't think is on the 40, but Patrick Wisdom, Victor Robles, and then they are, they have both brash and spire. On the aisle on the pitching side. So that's not great. Yeah. I wonder what percentage of top prospect promotions are precipitated by injury.

Yeah. At least partly by injury. Of course, there are. plenty of top prospects who make their debut on opening day. They break camp with the big club. I guess there could be injuries involved even in some of those situations. But especially with the mid-season call-ups, often there's some sort of injury at play. I guess when Connor Griffin came up, I guess it wasn't really sparked by an injury.

Jared Triolo got hurt. Sort of injury and sort of like, whoa, we have good pitching. And remember how the offense isn't. as good as it could be. Yeah, I forget the sequence. I think Triollo might have gotten hurt immediately after that. Obviously, he wasn't a great bat to begin with. Or Travis Bazzana, for instance, he was brought up after Gabriel Arias got hurt, and then they had to move Brian Rokio, and then one Brito wasn't hitting. So it was a combination of an injury absence, creating a vacancy, and then someone else not doing inadequate job filling that vacancy, and then you call up

the top prospects. So I wonder, obviously, there always has to be some sort of hole to fill, because there are many instances where a good prospect is just blocked by a better player at the same position for a stretch. But I wonder how often it's totally just taking someone's job, just someone plays their way out of a starting spot and the prospect played his way into a promotion versus someone goes down. Someone. gets heard and gets pipped pretty much, you know, but like legitimately gets heard and then their spot is stolen by the hot shot prospect who comes up. So when Donovan comes back, then, I guess it depends on how Emerson plays in the meantime, but he is the shortstop of the future,

right? And so you have J.P. Crawford, who is hitting well, but continues to field like maybe someone who should be de-hing or preferably playing a corner or something, right? So if Emerson hits well, which is obviously an open question, is there any way that Crawford could be displaced in the short term that Emerson could stay up or does his continued residence on the roster depend on somebody being hurt? I don't think you want him up there if he's not playing every day. Yeah. You know, he's such a young guy. that having, you know, reps at a high level on a consistent basis, I think is just obviously going to be to his benefit. And, you know, he played 34 games at AA last year and six games at

AAA. It's not like he has a ton of high miners experience where it's like, okay, well, just let's throw him out there and see what he can do against big league pitching. Let's see if he can figure out how to like deal with that high fastball. You know, like he's 20 and he's played 44 games at AAA, you know? So I think you want him getting consistent reps. Now, if Donovan is hurt in a way that stretches, then, you know, maybe this resolves itself. I don't know, I don't know what they're going to do about JP. He's in the last year of his deal.

He is hitting well, so you want the bat in the lineup. They have a number of guys who they'd be better off DHing, but here we are. So it's like, what are you going to do there? You have two guys coming back from injury who you're presumably going to cycle through the D.H spot a little bit as they're coming back to sort of ease their transition back into hitting. And you want to hitting every day, but maybe you want to give Cal more time off his feet when he returns.

You want to give Donovan more reps at D.H. So they have a little bit of a roster puzzle to sort out, and I don't quite know how they'll play it. But they definitely want Emerson playing every day. day. Well, they have added a cult to a collection of coals that they already had. So this is exciting. Many young guys. Yeah. And speaking of Pirates promotions, there was some buzz that the password could be on his way to the big leagues, potentially, Osten Garcia, who is probably a bigger prospect because of his nickname at this point than his performance, although he was formerly a higher rated prospect and remains

a prospect, but I think is better known than his pure performance would warrant because of the unusual spelling of his name and the nickname that has resulted. But he's been doing well after initial slow start to the season. And he may come up to provide further reinforcement for a Pirates team that is off to a strong start. So, okay, here is a question. Well, this will perhaps touch on the Pirates. This will certainly touch on the Mariners again, but last week... I sound so excited to talk about them, don't I? When we talked about players who were over or underperforming their preseason projections through the first quarter of the season, this is kind of the team equivalent, and obviously

we've touched on some teams that are doing better or worse than expected. But I just, I looked up now we're almost 30% of the way through the... season. And I compared the pace that teams are playing at, just extrapolating their winning percentage over a full season, to their preseason projected win total, according to the Fangraphs Playoff Odds page. And I just look to see who is pacing furthest ahead of or behind their preseason projection. And there are several teams that are about 15,000, full season wins or more ahead of their pace and several teams that are 15 or more full season wins behind their preseason projected pace. And I thought I'd just throw them out to you and

see if you're a believer in any of them. Which surprise team do you most believe in? And I guess that could be maybe the team that is playing better than forecasted. Which one do you like or has changed your mind the most and then of the teams that are scuffling and struggling and suffering, which of them maybe do you believe will rebound whether or not they fire their manager and hire Don Mattingly. So, okay, maybe we can start with the teams that are playing most over their heads from the preseason projection standpoint. We have the Tampa Bay race.

Mm-hmm. We're sitting pretty in first place in the AL East. they were projected for 79.7 wins, and they are on pace for 108. So that is a difference of 28.3. And again, this is not looking at their full season projected win total. This is just looking at what they are on pace for, given how they have played thus far. So 28.3 wins ahead of their preseason pace. Then we have the Braves, who are 20.7 wins ahead of their 89. point six win preseason projection.

Then we have the St. Louis Cardinals. Yeah. Who were projected to be mediocre, 75.4 wins and are on pace for 95.1. So they're 19.7 wins ahead of their pace. Then the San Diego Padres, who had an 80.6 win projection. They're 18 wins ahead of that. And the Chicago White Sox. Mm-hmm.

who projected for 67.4 wins and are 17.1 ahead of that pace. So those are the five teams that are 15 or more wins ahead of their pace if they were to continue playing at this pace relative to their preseason projections. And then just missing that cutoff, you have the other Chicago team, the Cubs, who are right at 15 wins above, or 15.2 to be precise. and one of their rivals in a robust NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers, who were 12.7 wins ahead. What else is new? The Brewers surpassing projections, who knew? What?

Speaking of, next up on the list, the Cleveland Guardians, who were 11.8 wins ahead of their projection. And then the only other team in double digits, not a good team, but not a terrible team, which they were projected to be the Washington Nationals, who were 11 wins ahead of the pace. So the big five, rays, braves, cardinals, Padres, White Sox. Is there one of those that has impressed you or changed your mind the most and converted you

into a bigger believer than you were? Well, we've already talked about the Braves and my skepticism of them coming into the season. I think I have to lead with them in part because a good bit of their current, Success is being driven by offensive returns to form, but forms that we have seen previously. So that makes me more confident in them. I still worry about their ability to sustain on the pitching side. But, you know, maybe they'll keep getting guys back and maybe it'll be okay. It could be okay.

They've got a reasonable cushion. Yeah. So that's impressive, you know, and, sale is, well, he's having a great season. Is there a gap between his ERA and his FIP? Yeah, but like it's not like the FIP is bad. And I'll say this about the Braves. They are the only one of these teams that is not overperforming its base runs record. The Braves actual record as we speak is 32 and 15. Their base runs record, identical 32 and 15. So they have pretty much played. I mean, And their run differential is about 20 runs higher than it, quote, unquote, should be.

Their base runs deserved run differential. But basically, if you strip out some of the luck and fluctuations, the Braves have had an under-the-hood performance that mirrors their record. So that is pretty impressive, given what their record is. Yeah. And, you know, as I said and have said before, part of the disconnect for me with them is that I just, anticipated them being much worse than they have been because I thought they were too injured on the pitching side. And it's been fine. Yeah, I was very optimistic about the braves at the start of spring training.

Right. And then by the end of spring training. It's like half their rotations on the injury list. And pro fire was suspended and just, yeah, everything seemed to go wrong. And it seemed as if history from last season was repeating itself. Right. But they have been stout enough in the rotation. Part of it, too, is that they've gotten really great performance.

so far from the guys at the back of their bullpen. So, you know, they've been kind of able to paper over some of that stuff to the extent that there was an issue before. It's like, well, when you have Suarez and Iglesias and they're pitching the way they are, like you kind of get away with a good amount of stuff and nonsense. You know, Fuentes has been fine for them in relief. And so I think that I was more down on their pitching than I necessarily needed to be And part of it, too, is that, like, I didn't know what to make of some of the declines that they had seen in their hitters, especially some of those guys have aged.

And, you know, a lot of their hitting looks really strong and, gosh, Drake Baldwin's fun. So I just think that they're a more complete all-around team than I was necessarily giving them credit for, you know, Hassan Kim is back. So, like, they, they, I think, have managed to build this really nice lead in the division, which isn't to say that they can rust on their laurels because, you know, we have the Phillies and the Mets sort of playing more like themselves lately. But I think that they're the most impressive of this group. The race, I don't know what to make of the raise. I mean, the rays, so the rays are, they're 30 and 15. Their Pythagorean record is 25 and 20.

They're 24 and 21 by base run. So they're obviously outperforming. Their pitching has been more stout than I was necessarily expecting. it to be, but I felt like they had space for sort of positive variance there just because of they're getting guys back from injury and you don't know what you're going to get with that. And like, is Griffin Jack's daughter? I don't know. Do I expect them to be this good?

Did I, I certainly didn't expect them to be the best team in the AL East on May 18th, Ben? I didn't expect that. Yeah. It's not as if they were completely written off as being competitive, but they were, no one pick to win that division or very few people's at least. And yeah, I figured maybe they could stay in it. I didn't think they would be bad, but yeah, I did not expect that they would be sailing along like this. And I think part of it is that, well, it's just the general anonymity of their roster, which is nothing new for the raise, really.

But certainly from a mainstream perspective, they just have so much roster churn and turnover. And this offseason was kind of classic raise. They just made a zillion moves. And it was hard to tell what it all amounted to. And did they actually get better? I don't know. And can you count on anyone actually being here for very long? And I think, yeah, they've been a little lucky.

And Josian wrote about them a few days ago. And he always breaks it down in terms of what he calls one X or one slash X games, which is like not just your one run. game record, but also extra innings. Right. Because in extra innings, sometimes with the zombie runner, you end up winning or losing by a lot of runs. But obviously, it was close, you know, it was tied after nine. So it was kind of a close game until they switched the rules around on you.

So if you just look at how they had done in those games and not double counting the one-run games that are also the extra inning games, they were as of a few days ago, 10 and 2 in those games. And they'd done it with a pretty bad bullpen so far, which we're not really accustomed to seeing from the race. So as Joe noted, it's just, it's kind of a weird. It's a weird mix of things. But like Clanahan's been good and effective. And Nick Martinez looks like a good pickup for them, right? And Rasmussen's been pretty okay. So it's like there are parts of it that are working well.

And there are parts of it that you wouldn't expect to be. quite so good, but like, Yand dea is having a great start to this season. And Aranares been good. And Camerro's been good. And, you know, they're getting, like, OK performance out of Brian Vallotti. And, like, you know, it's like they're raising it in an interesting way. But you're right that, like, you expect there to be sort of a shutdown set of arms at the back of that bullpen. And they haven't really had that yet.

But, like, they're hitting well enough in other parts of their lineup. And they're getting OK production out of their starters. And so, yeah, like they seem like a team that's probably five or six wins above what you would expect from their underlying statistics. But also, you know, being able to be competitive in that division at this juncture, I think goes a long way because, you know, do I think they're better than the Yankees? I absolutely do not think that to be true. I don't think they're better than the Blue Jays. But I also think that like those ones are banked. So, you know, who cares?

It's funny. Rasmussen, I've seen a lot of fun facts going around where people try to stump other people because Drew Rasmussen is on the list of lowest ERAs over however many seasons, minimum however many innings. He has a career 2.78 ERA as a Tampa Bay Ray. And this is his sixth season with them. So he's been quite good at run suppression for some time. He has a 3.19 ERA this year. And that's his highest as a ray. So, like, he just doesn't give up runs, but no one really knows because he's been hurt a bunch. And even when he's not hurt, he doesn't go deep into games. So his single season high is 150 innings. And, you know, he's kind of been a swing man at certain points. You never know who's going to be in the Ray's rotation or relieving for the Ray is like, yeah, Griffin Jacks, sure, why don't you start? We're short-handed here. Why not? So Rasmussen is pretty impressive on a purring basis, and he's done that for quite a while now. And so they're this weird team.

They have an effective rotation, but a rotation that doesn't go deep into games, which is kind of classic rays and also the personnel that they have. And then usually they really ride the bullpen hard, but the bullpen has been bad. And then they have a really good outfield defense, but a really bad infield defense. Yeah. You know, they have like some mashers who. just are basically DH quality fielders like Camerro and Aranda and, you know, you only get Diaz and you only get one D.H. Yeah. So the others have to play somewhere. So yeah, it's sort of a

strange team. And whenever you see the raise exceeding expectations, I think you're always inclined to just say, oh, it's the race. They've figured it out. They're doing something, right? They've hit on something that no one else has and everyone will be copying in a couple years. So I don't know. I think they're not this good, but maybe they were underrated a bit just because they just don't have a ton of continuity or big names. But yeah, it's an awkward, inelegantly constructed roster, maybe. Yeah. The sum of the parts, not a bad team. So coupled with disappointing starts from Toronto and And certainly Boston and Baltimore, for that matter, they're, I can't really say running away with this thing.

But, yeah, they're in a nice spot right now and certainly in good playoff position, one way or another. Yeah. And then it's like you look at some of the other teams you mentioned. Like, I think that the White Sox are, they're performing in a way that is respectable. You know what I mean? Like, do I think that they're necessarily a playoff team? No, because I don't know that Marcombe is going to maintain this level of. home run rate, but I mean, they were a better club than I thought they were.

The pitching's not very good. The pitching remains not very good. The white tucks are fun. They're fun. Yeah. And we talked about this with James on the preview. Right. They were feisty.

They were frisky, you know. They had a lot of good, exciting young players. They'd clearly turned a corner, you know, like you could see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then they have some really interesting players I was excited to see. could Colson Montgomery keep that up? Yeah, I guess so. Sure looks like it. Could Murakami hit? Sure looks like it. And then you've got Miguel Vargas hitting as well as he has. Like they just, yeah, I agree with you. It's a little light. It's a little thin, but it's coming together, you know? And putting that together with some prospects who are waiting in the wings. I'm pretty high on the white socks in the median term. This might be one of those seasons where they're sort of, you know, at least a year ahead of schedule. I know it's odd to say that about the White Sox because in a way they're like three years behind schedule and also a year ahead of schedule maybe. But yeah, they're constructing a core here.

And it's a watchable team. It's a watchable team. It's the AL Central. So that has a way of maybe moving up the timeline a little bit, especially with the Tigers. struggling, which we will mention in a moment, and Terrick Scouple hurt and everything. Am I going to completely count out the White Sox keeping pace with the other teams in this division, making it interesting, making a real run? No, I'm not.

Ultimately, yeah, they probably don't have what it will take this season. But, yeah, I mean, 24 and 22, do I think that they're that much worse than a 500 team at this stage? I don't know. Maybe that's kind of who they are. Like they're, you know, they're seven runs in the red, run differential-wise. So there are a couple wins above their base runs record, but not by a lot. It's not a complete mirage. Again, it's a respectable club.

They're given people, you know, they're given people a reason to watch them. And it's not just Murakami. I mean, Murakami does help a good bit, to be clear. Catch the Davis Martin mania. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Catch the fever.

Yeah. It's exciting. He's, you know, he's pretty good. And then we have the Padres and the Cardinals. Now, the Cardinals I had next to no expectations for. Right. And they entered this season as much non-entity as the Cardinals have been in the past couple decades. They just seemed like a non-factor.

And it seemed like a positive sign that they had really committed to the rebuild. and then you could kind of forecast, okay, a year, two years, three years down the road, they might have the makings of something here, and this will be an important year for them to figure out what they've got and who's worth keeping around. But for them to get off to a start like this, after shipping out Gray and Contreras and Donovan and all the rest, you know, just like kind of moving on from all those veterans. Like, this is pretty darn impressive that they get off to a 27 and 19 start after. that.

Yeah, I think that, you know, we've spent a good amount of time sort of contemplating Jordan Walker's re-breakout, reintroduction, assent, whatever you want to call it. And there have been a number of impressive rookie performances this year. And I think because the expectations of the Cardinals were low, like the way that JJ Weatherholt is playing is getting lost in the rookie shuffle a little bit. But, like, he's a 119 WRC plus. He's playing good defense. Yeah.

You know, he has eight home runs. So I think that they are getting contributions from both ends of the expected sort of competitive window, right? Like, where you could imagine a version of Jordan Walker who kind of continues to flounder and isn't, well, is part of the next group that's good, but isn't viewed as sort of a core piece of that. But, you know, if he's able to sustain this, like, I think we have to reevaluate him. it hasn't gone well with everyone that they were trying to like figure out this year right like Nolan Gorman has a 93 WRC plus so you know not everyone who they were sort of using this year to to reassess and sort of understand better has necessarily been great but you know it's been it's they're a respectable club and and as you've kind of joked like that's not a that's not a

gamey division right now so the fact that they're playing this well um given the the rest of competition that they're facing in that division. Like, that's not, that's not nothing. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, they do have these still kind of confounding guys like Gorman, Lars Neupar, but they also have, I guess, Alec Berlinson's, he's hitting pretty well, but they have like Victor Scott the second. Good glove, not hitting at all. So that's sort of disconcerting. Yeah. But when you have Jordan Walker doing what he's doing and you have Ivan Herrera, who's not only hitting as usual, but also has returned to catching more regularly, which is pretty exciting for me personally. But that plus Weatherholt, plus Mason

Wynn. Right. And Burleson, like, you start to look around and, okay, you've got the makings of something here. Right. And I was talking about Riley O'Brien is a potential trade piece the other day. Well, not if they keep playing like this. He's older than the rest of those guys, but he's also team controlled for a while. And if they think that they might actually be good sometime soon, then maybe you want to hang on to him. So yeah, it hasn't worked out for everyone, obviously. I mean, there's Victor Scott, there's Pedro Pajas, there's Matthew Libertor. Like some guys aren't really breaking through the way that they had hoped. But this is encouraging, not even just because of the record.

Yeah, McGreevy's been pretty good. Yeah. And I guess the record goes hand in hand with the fact that some of these players are playing well. But even if you took away the record somehow and you just had a lackluster record with these individual successes, that alone, I think would be more than most people expected from this club. So if they could actually stay in this thing and make this season interesting from a competitive playoff race standpoint, while also shoring up hopes for future seasons, well, yeah, that's a big win. Yeah. And, you know, I think that when we talked through their rebuild or step back or whatever, it's not a step back. They dealt too many guys for us to use that kind of cutesy terminology. But it was clear that like they want they want to be good reasonably soon. I think their expectations of it are, you know, not that it would necessarily happen this year. But part of why I think they took the approach they did to some of the deals that they did where they were getting a

mix of guys who, you know, were likely to be big league ready soon and guys who were further away is to give themselves the opportunity to have sort of this like, I've already used the term positive variance, but positive variance, right? Or maybe you have a couple guys pop. You use the year to evaluate in a real way the dudes who are on your roster who are sort of in between cases, figure out which of them are going to be important for you going forward. Now, their biggest challenge as an organization. The thing they have to figure out is like, how do they develop this pitching?

How do they develop the guys, both who are in the system already and who they've recently either drafted or acquired? And, you know, some of the early returns on those guys aren't the most outstanding, right? Like, Liam Doyle's an ERA 604, but he has a 371 FIPAA, so maybe it'll be okay.

You know what I mean? Like, they still have to solve that piece of it, but, you know, they have time to do that. because I don't think that this should this should meaningfully adjust anyone's expectations in terms of when they're going to be good and competitive again. The nice bonus for Cardinals fans is like,

hey, you're going to watch a more entertaining brand of baseball this year than you were reasonably going to expect. But like, let's imagine for a second that they are able to sustain this. They become a playoff team. Like, what are we really talking about there? Right? Like, you're going to throw this rotation in a playoff series?

Like, I don't know about that. That seems, you know, game one starter, Michael Moregreavey? Feel good about that? You want Dustin May in your playoff rotation? So, like, there are obvious limitations to this group in terms of not only their ability to sustain and make it to October, but then perform there. But it has to be encouraging and answering for yourself as an organization, which of these dudes are dudes for us in a year when you don't expect

to compete to your point? Like, that's a year well spent. If you come away with answers on those players and you are giving opportunities to young guys to get run where it makes sense, like, that's a good use of the year. Hey, guess what? We were right. JJ Weatherholt is good. Yeah. Okay.

And so from a base run's perspective, the raise are six runs over. The Cardinals are four wins over, not runs, wins whole wins. times it by 10. And then the Padres are five wins above their base runs record. And this is with Fernando Tati's Jr. remaining the hardest hitting homerless hitter. It's bananas. It's wild.

Yeah. It's really something. It's not as if that many Padres are having standout seasons. No, the Mason is leading the team with 1.4 war. Yeah. The offense is pretty lackluster just across the board. It's been a tough go for their, for their offense, really, not the best. Yeah.

Now, Michael King has looked good and has been on the mound, which was kind of the key for him. So that's looking like it was a smart signing. Maybe some other teams were scared off. But yeah, you, you know, they've been kind of patching together a rotation. And you look at just the individual stats and you kind of wonder. how they're making it this competitive. Yeah. Because, yeah, the Dodgers have had their issues with health and hitting and everything lately.

But the Padres are half a game back, you know, and equal in the loss column as we speak. So they're running neck and neck with L.A. They only have one qualified hitter with the WRC plus above 100, and that's Andrew Bogartz. Who's having quite a resurgent season. Like, way to go, Zander Bogart. you're having a great time. But like, their leader from a WRC plus perspective is Gavin Sheets. Yeah.

And, you know, he's, you know, not so far off the qualified pace, but, you know, he is a 152 WRC plus. Miguel and Duhar has a 124. But they're big boppers. Like Machado, Tatis, and Jackson Merrill all have WRC pluses in the low 70s. Jake Runninworth. My God, dude. like, what's going on with you? So it's a weird, it's a weird group because on the one hand, they feel like a team that should be hitting much better than they are, but they're also winning.

So I don't know what to make of them other than this is strange. And hopefully you get some sort of a course correction from guys like Machado and Marilyn Tatis. And then, well, hey, again, you've, you've banked wins. You've kept yourself within striking distance of the Dodgers while you're trying to figure this stuff out, but I don't, Ben? Ben? Winner the Padres not having some sort of strange season. This is one of strange in a good way this year, at least. Yeah, but a very odd org some of the time, you know? Yeah. Well, it's AJ Pellor's team, so that makes some sense. Plus, they're in the midst of being sold. I mean, just, yeah, what a weird year. And one cautionary note on the raise that Joshean mentioned,

even though we're talking about how they're exceeding expectations. They do have very flat swings and sort of they don't walk a lot. They don't hit for a lot of power. They have kind of Joe made the comp to a 2010 royals or 2020s guardians or recent Brewers sort of offense where you wonder how it works and it's kind of contact and average and speed and all the rest of it. And there's at least some evidence that maybe that doesn't hold up super well in the playoffs should they get there. Because even though contact guys, they might lose a little less proportionately speaking against high velocity, at least according to something I wrote years ago. But they have sort of long sequence offense, as Joe puts it, like you just have to string together a bunch of hits because they're not walking that much and they don't have a whole lot of big bopper.

And so sometimes that doesn't go so great in the postseason when you're facing great defenses and great pitchers and hits are hard to come by. And you kind of hope for the three run homer. And maybe they're not the best equipped to provide it. But just to get there would, I think, exceed most people's preseason expectations. Yes. Okay. And then of the teams bringing up the rear here on this list, the teams that are tracking to be 15 or more wins worse than what's. they were projected for preseason.

Well, you have the Mets. Who else who are at negative 19.5 relative to the preseason total? And then who else? The Red Sox. Negative 18.1, even though those two teams have course corrected somewhat. They are still well behind where they were supposed to be. And then the angels who have had it rough lately and also long term. They're at negative 16.9.

really over any frame of reference or span of time that they've had it rough. 16.9 wins below where they were supposed to be, and they weren't supposed to be good to begin with. And then the Astros, we've talked a bit about all their injuries and where they will go from here. They're 16.2 wins behind the pace. And then the Tigers at 15.2. And your Mariners just spared from clearing that 15 win above her behind bar there at negative 14.1. And then the other teams in double digits. The Giants, negative 13, the Royals, negative 12.8.

So the big losers there, Mets, Red Sox, Angels, Astros. You could throw in the tigers if you care to. I guess I could say, are there any that you really believe are just genuinely bad? Are you a believer in their surprise suckage? But I was going to frame it more in terms of, do you believe that they could bounce back? do you see some of these teams as being better than their records so far would suggest? What are my options again? Mets, Red Sox, and we've talked about those teams, plenty.

Angels, Astros, tigers, tigers, mariners, if you want to include them. I think that the Tigers and the Mariners and the Mets and the Red Sox are better than their records. Well, they'll be able to bounce back. I don't know. I think that the tigers and the Mariners will have an easier time of it. just based on the competition that they face in their division, which doesn't mean that it'll be enough. But I think the Astros are a bad baseball team, generally.

They seem like a pretty bad baseball team. You know how I know that they're not a good baseball team? They mostly made the Mariners look pretty good when the family were like that. So that's always a sign. That's always a little indicator. And then the angels are bad, but we kind of knew that. And I don't think that the expectations of the Astros were particular. high, even with their underperformance.

It just seemed like we're in a period of slow swoon. Yes. And it just becomes a matter of like how aggressive does the team want to be in pursuing a rebuilds. I don't know how bad you have to be. How bad? Well, I'll put this question to you so that you have to contemplate it for our listeners. How bad did the Astros have to be to entertain trading Yorda?

About this bad, probably. I think, yeah, you always want to embark on the rebuild. I'd rather do it too soon than too late. That was something that Branch Rickey was famed for, where he would just anticipate when he would have to move someone. And the whole, I could finish last without you that is attributed to him. But, yeah, the Astros just fit that mold of kind of like the post-championship Phillies, where they just tried to keep it going.

You really, you run into trouble sometimes when you say, we'll keep, we'll run it back, we'll cling to this core, we'll keep trying to patch over these flaws, and we'll make one more run at it, and then the stalwarts just get older and older, and if you don't have that pipeline, which they had for so long, which was supplying new talent to the team,

then it just gets harder and harder, and the tires get more and more threadbare. And sometimes, if you pull the trigger on the trades a year too late, then you're dooming yourself to maybe a few down years, right? It can really be, if you do it, yeah, you'd rather be too early. And not that, you know, in this era, in this environment where you don't actually have to be that good to make the playoffs, then there's always the argument for, well, could we maybe, yeah, could we maybe make this work and squeak into the playoffs and make a run? And that's defensible too. And sometimes we give teams a hard time when it seems like they don't really have a championship caliber team, but they might have a wildcard winner.

And in baseball, if you're a wildcard winner, well, you could be championship caliber because the playoffs are pretty random. So, yeah, it's hard to pull the plug, I think, especially these days. So I sort of don't fault them for trying because they were so close last year, despite having a huge injury stack. And so they could have talked themselves into, okay, we'll have better health this year and it will be better. And then they really haven't had better health. And you don't really expect better health as you get older. So, yeah, there's still some pretty enticing players on that team. And so if they were to really strip it down, and I'm not saying old school Jeff Loonow sort of strip it down.

But, you know, a standard rebuild for this era, then, yeah, they would certainly have some takers. and someone like Yordon as good as he is. But even their quote unquote young guys aren't that young, like Yordon or Jeremy Pena. And then if you have someone like Yordon who's obviously defensively limited and has an injury history and everything else. And even now when he's healthy, he can still be an impact player as a D.H because he might be like the best hitter in baseball. Yeah. But anything short of that or less availability, then it's tough to. construct a team on that foundation.

Right. And you have guys like Christian Walker who has had a nice little bounce back from his first year in Houston, which was terrible. But, you know, he's 35. Like, do you really want to? But I'm just saying, like, they, there are ways in which their ability to capitalize and Jordan might be limited by the fact that he does come with pretty pronounced injury risk. But you also have, he's not a free agent until 2029. Now, if you think that next year is going to be truncated season, like, does that alter the way you think about how much time you have with him? So, like, I'm sure that'll play. But he would, I mean, he would easily be one of the most desirable trade targets on the market.

I know we're not talking about the deadline. I'm breaking my own rule. But I'm just saying, like, they're a bad club. And they're going to have to answer this question for themselves in the coming month, probably. Yeah. I would be open for business. Yeah. And it's too bad for them because, like, they've actually been hitting well.

like the offense hasn't been the problem. They're pitching. It's just a garbo. I also worry that the mariners are like psychologically damaging, am I all on their own? Because he was their first team back after coming off the AIL. And it didn't go great, Ben, you know, it didn't. So there's that. The Angels or the Angels will entertain the Trout trade conversation again at some point.

I'm sure they are pretty bad. I think they're just a bad club. And they are mired. They are mired in the suck, as it were. Okay. All right, a few closing corrections. On our last episode, I referred to the fact that Jonah Heim started the season with the Braves, but is no longer employed by that team.

However, I still misteemed him. As Discord group user Mulder Batflip pointed out, I said he was on the Rangers, but no, he's on the A's. Of course, He had been on the Rangers. He was on the Rangers last year and for some years before that. And before he was a Ranger, he was on the A's for the first time. So this is his second go-around with the A's. I can't keep track of where Jonah-heim plays.

Where in the world is Jonah-heim? Well, for now, he's in West Sacramento, at least when the A's are. Another Mayacopa, I promulgated an outdated description of DRS methodology. And I heard straight from the source, Alex Vigderman, listener, Patreon supporter, and vice president of analytics at Sports Info Solutions, which publishes DRS. Alex says, I was listening to episode 2479 and wanted to hopefully clear things up a bit about the methodological differences between OAA slash FRV, that's the statcast-based outs above average or fielding run value, and DRS.

At this point, both systems handle positioning similarly. Ben recalled correctly that this was a discrepancy between team-facing and public-facing DRS. There's still some methodology differences, but public DRS has taken positioning into account for infielders going back to 2013, implemented in 2020, and for outfielders going back to 2021, implemented in 2021. So both systems do take into account the starting point on any particular play. Alex says, interestingly, my colleague Mark Simon and I were just, just discussing an MLB.com article detailing Ray's shortstop Taylor Walsh's ability to position himself perfectly. That article also posited that Stackcast accounts for Wals' positioning better than DRS. Stattcast and SIS theoretically use the same moment in time, the pitch release,

to judge where a player is positioned. But we come to different conclusions about Wals' positioning prowess. So there's something to dig into there. You can actually find the positioning value we carve out for teams on fan graphs. And I will link to that. It's on the leaderboards, on the fielding team stats page. Alex says it's named a bit funcally because the abbreviation RTS comes from Team Shift Run saved, which is what we used to call this concept before the updated system. And the leader this year, Taylor Walls is race. Let me know if there's anything else that would be helpful to clarify, as you can tell from the fact that this has come up twice in a week. The word hasn't exactly gotten out as well as we'd like. Well, here I am helping to spread the word, the correct,

accurate word this time. And I did ask Alex whether he's looked into, whether there's any more of a disparity between DRS and FRV than there used to be, because I have seen some people postulate that there is. For instance, Joe Sheehan, writing last month about the Padre's defense, said DRS hates their defense, stat cast loves it, and increasingly I don't know what to do with those splits, which seemed to be more common. So I said to Alex, I don't know if there's truth to that, or if there is what it would mean. He said, we haven't looked at that, but maybe Mark and I can get our heads together on something. The methodologies are more similar now than they were a few years ago because of the components MLB has added, so I wouldn't have expected that kind of result.

But there's also some room for chaos because baseball reference and fan graphs sometimes show different totals because column names or mappings have changed over time. The team DRS values are an example, where Fangraphs has a separate positioning run saved value and the total that includes that value, while baseball reference has a column that claims to do the same, but in fact doesn't include the positioning value. That may have been the source of my confusion. Alex says, fun, we try to address these when we find them, but we don't always find them, and we don't always coordinate as well as we could with our pals over there. So defensive stats, in principle, more similar than ever, but sometimes still different. To paraphrase the old

effectively wild refrain, if defensive stats were different, how different would they be? And one final follow-up on that same stat blast from last time about pinch runners that we referenced earlier. The numbers I shared from Michael Mountain last time were slightly off, Because of the way the retro sheet data is coded, sometimes there's a pickoff flag, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the runner was actually put out. So on something like 30% of the plays with pickoff flags, the pickoff didn't result in a put-out. So the rates I cited earlier on this episode were accurate, and I will also link to an updated spreadsheet with the individual pinch runner rates, which includes everyone with at least seven stolen base opportunities who has a higher pickoff rate than the most prolific pinch runner Matt Alexander's 4.7. This is, again, pickoffs over stolen base opportunities as the denominator.

And Michael kept that minimum of seven stolen base opportunities so that he could include pitchers, Jack Flaherty and Tommy Hughes, not to mention, of course, Deadball-era Phillies outfielder, Bud Weiser. That's right, Bud Weiser. And those guys and one John Monroe, they all got picked off one time in seven stolen base opportunities. That's a 14.3% pickoff rate. And that's the worst. If you require double-digit stolen base opportunities, then it's Bubba-ta. Thompson, who was picked off in 3 of 25, that's 12%. Matt Alexander was 16 out of 3.41.

And Michael notes, Senators slash twins starting pitcher Pedro Ramos had 165 stolen base opportunities as a pinch runner and was picked off only once. On the other hand, he attempted only four stolen bases in his career and had a 50% success rate. The most stolen base opportunities for a pinch runner who was never picked off is 246 for Dick Schofield Jr. We would love it if you would support the podcast on Patreon. which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly

amount to help keep the podcast going help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners humber pie not humble humber morin mccord john ellis dave finagan and kenneth perski thanks to all of you patreon perks include access to our full length unrestricted third episode of each week as well as a monthly bonus episode exclusive live streams and our patreon Discord group, plus prioritized email answers, personalized messages, shoutouts at the end of episodes, Fangraphs membership, potential podcast appearances, and more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, intro themes to podcast

at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group, SESHEffectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes in the podcast posted fan graphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then.

How are you? I'm okay. We got so much to do today. Breaking balls and blake in snows. and blaking snows and those stats won't blast themselves Effectively wild Effectively wild

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