Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2490: Hogging the Spotlight

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon. Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the listener response to their conversation with Adrian Chiles, newly minted major leaguer LuJames Groover, and a big Giants comeback (in defiance of the team’s historically walk-averse ways), then (21:25) answer listener emails about how long-term team outlooks factor into present-day disappointment levels, spectacle vs. analysis in closer-entrance pageantry, whether umps should be able to challenge themselves, how future sub-Ohtani two-way players will be perceived, the entertainment value of human managers and hypothetical robo-managers, a pre-playoffs rest period, and stats used as verbs, plus Stat Blasts (1:27:23) about teams that turned deficits into large leads, Paul Skenes and glad-to-see-him-go games, and the Angels’ used-to-be-good guys. Audio intro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Episode 2489 Link to Groover debut story Link to 2025 Groover story Link to 2025 Groover clip Link to Groover shirt story Link to Eldridge game story Link to Eldridge game box score Link to ultimate slams story Link to Giants BB%+ Link to Krukow/Kuiper clip Link to Knicks comeback story Link to Ben on Larry David Link to Burnes setback story Link to Crochet setback story Link to Crochet setback confusion Link to Michael’s BOOG intro Link to BOOG pod appearance Link to Jay on the White Sox Link to Duran entrance video Link to story about ballpark loudness Link to call on Contreras Link to Miller hot-mic moment 1 Link to Miller hot-mic moment 2 Link to Miller hot-mic moments article Link to Sam on the Umpire Manual Link to info on umps and HFA Link to Sam on the two-way balance Link to two-way draft prospects story Link to Grandstand Managers Night Link to Ballers’ AI manager Link to Twitch Plays Pokémon Link to moonwalking robot Link to running robot Link to kicking robot Link to Laws of Robotics Link to Deep Thought wiki Link to Marvin robot Link to Grant on mascot pants Link to NBA Cup Link to Paine on the NBA Cup Link to more Paine on the NBA Cup Link to Knicks banner news Link to Schlittler quote Link to Shakespeare usage shifts Link to Bulls vs. Tides story Link to big comebacks data Link to harmonic mean wiki Link to listener emails database Link to Skenes game story Link to more on Skenes game Link to bullpen blowups data Link to Mancini comeback story Link to past Angels Blasts Link to used-to-be-good guys data Link to Boog/Mancini survival story  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

For the 2,000 episodes retrospectively filed. And at each new one, we still collectively smile. That's effectively wild. That's effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2490 of Effectively Wild. A Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraps, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer. Ben, how are you?

I'm grateful that everyone has shown up to listen to us, even though Adrian Childs is not here. I know it's hard to go back to a world without Adrian on Effectively Wilde or Jade Van Clay for that manner. Yeah. We got lots of positive feedback to 2489, and it's just nice of you all to show up. I know that the world is a little less bright now that Adrian has left us on the podcast to be clear. He's still just doing fine otherwise. Yeah, although presumably still struggling with soap, dispelior. Spencer's. Yes, absolutely. But I did share some of listeners' feedback with him because he seems

not extremely online, which is probably why he is such a delightful fellow or part of it. I don't know if it's a symptom or a cause, but he is not on social media unless he lurks. And so I sent him some of the feedback, some of the rave reviews. And he seemed heartened. He seemed pleased. He seemed chuffed. And I did share with him some suggestions to have him back on the show, which is something that you and I had talked about. Perhaps if the rays make the playoffs, he might want to come back to talk about that. Or some people suggested a regular Ask Adrian questions segments. Or he could ask us. Adrian asks questions. And he just accumulates some musings, some curiosities, some questions about baseball, and he could share them with us from time to time.

And he seemed open to the idea of being an occasional UK correspondent for us. So I hope that that is not the last that we will hear of Adrian on this episode. But what a pleasure. I mean, the last that we will hear of him on this episode since we have heard from him on this episode. On this podcast, I mean. But yes, unfortunately, no secret cameo later in this episode. I hope people will listen on nonetheless. But I did get the sense that our listeners might just.

toss us over the side if it meant more Adrian. Oh, yes. Yeah. In a heartbeat. I'm very clear-eyed about where we land in the hierarchy. If only because the number of people I saw who are absolutely not familiar with the show in any real capacity, expressing some delight at him having made a podcast appearance once a couple of the blue sky posts about it broke, I was on and up, I was on a high note after our conversation, but brought to a more realistic place after noting those. Yes. Well, effectively, Childs, I guess we should rebrand us. All right. So we will do some emails this time. We have a few stat blasts in store. I have a bit of banter to lead off.

And another fellow that I've been delighted by, maybe not to a child's-esque extent, but nonetheless, Lou James Groover. Yes. Otherwise known as Lou James Groover the third, because there have been two previous Lou James Groovers. Correct. And I have reached my quota when it comes to the D word, debutante, that is. So I will not abuse that word on this episode. But there have been a few more big first games, courtesy of a course. Cole Carrig and Braden Montgomery of the surging unstoppable White Sox.

First place White Sox as we are recording. First place. Lou James Groover did not have that noteworthy a debut game, but it was noteworthy just because anyone's major league debut is. And because, again, I can't emphasize this enough. His name is Lou James Gruver. He is on the Arizona Diamondback, so you will have an opportunity, perhaps, to see Lou James in person.

I saw him live. I saw him in person. In the debut game, I assume you've seen him as a prospect at some point, too. But you were on hand to witness the major debut of Lou James Grover. Wow. Well, that's exciting. And it was exciting for me just to know that there's a man named Lou James Groover or that there have been at least three.

And I was reading up on him a bit. And he is commonly called Gino. That's his nickname. But he has kind of reclaimed the Lou James name. Yes. And I was reading about this last year. He wanted to reintroduce himself with the name. And this is his birth name because it honors his father and grandfather, who are Lou James

Grover the second and first, respectively. And he said, I love it. I mean, I think it's a very sick name, agreed. I don't really know too many Lou Jameses besides me, my dad, and my granddad. Neither do I. And he also said, I obviously. just want to keep hearing it, which is exactly how I feel about the name, Lou James. And he said, I just want to honor that name, you know, make it worth something.

And it's already worth something as far as I'm concerned. However good, he turns out to be at Major League Baseball, the name is certainly worth something. They love their little guys, the Diamondbacks, you know. And he's six, too, so he's not like tiny, tiny. But like a lot of their, a lot of their guys are, they're littler, they're littler guys, you know. They're often littler. There are no brewers or anything. Yeah.

No. I don't think of 6-2 being small. I mean, I know there's been size inflation for Big Leakers over the years, but for a non-pitcher, at least, it's far from diminutive. But for anyone who is wondering how this is spelled, by the way, it is LU and then James, but that's all one word. It's kind of a fancraft's capitalization camel case sort of situation. Yes, there is a camera casing situation, yes. Capital LU, capital J, Ames. He had a Keep It Groovy T-shirt.

He probably still does. Fantastic. Yeah, which was when he was playing for the Sod Poodles, the Amarillo Sod Poodles, speaking of notable names. They made up a Keep It Groovy T-shirt and people were wearing it in support of Lou James Groover. And I would like to also because I support Lou James Gruver and his name and his being a big leaguer. So, congrats. I was happy to meet him. Also, I don't know.

Whether you saw the Giants game last night, we are speaking on Thursday, so Wednesday, we don't often lead with our banter just being like, hey, did you see the game last night? Because you got to specify which game. But, boy, that was an interesting ending. So the Giants were down pretty big, and then they won. And it's nice for the Giants to have an uplifting moment in what has been sort of a downcasting season. but they were playing the Nats and they were down big because the Nats got out to a 2-0-0 lead

and then a 6-0 lead and then a 6-1 lead and then a 9-to-1 lead going into the 8th and the Giants then scored 5 in the bottom of the 8th Nationals got one back in the top of the 9th and the Giants scored 5 again put up back-to-back 5 spots in the 8th and 9th

and won at 11 to 10 in dramatic fashion. So Matt Chapman had himself a heck of a game. He was four for five with a couple bombs and a double. But really, at the end, the big blow was struck in the end by Bryce Eldridge, who hit an ultimate Grand Slam walkoff winner. So, yeah. I mean, any Grand Slam is good, obviously. But this was the ultimate, as it is sometimes called. and, you know, it's when a guy hits a bases loaded walk-off Homer when his team is trailing by three.

It's the ultimate. It's the most exciting possible grand slam one could have, at least when it comes to the score. And this is fairly rare. I think he was the 33rd ultimate Grand Slam on record because you need a confluence of circumstances to make that happen. And Bryce Eldridge did that damage against the Nats, which is his home. town team. He is from Fairfax, Virginia. He grew up rooting for the nationals. And growing up, I mean, he grew up a long way, first of all, because he makes Lou James Groover look fairly small. Bryce Eldridge is six, seven. But also, he grew up not long ago because he's 21. One might

say he's still growing up in some important respects, probably. So this was not long ago that he was probably pulling for the Nats. And here he is doing in the Nats and probably not even feeling that bad about it because his loyalties are to the Giants now. This is exciting. You know, nice to see a Rook come up, get that kind of big blow, especially in a giant season like this. But I think what stood out to me maybe the most about it, I mean, there were some pretty interesting fun facts that came out of this game. And not really the kind of that. lie either. Eldridge was the youngest player in MLB history to hit a walk-off grand slam. So he was a little bit younger than Roberto Clemente, who did it at 21, but an older 21 in

in 1956, though that was an inside the parker. So maybe that makes it a bit more special. Also, it was the second walk-off slam in Giants history. And I almost said San Francisco Giants history, but that would have been inaccurate. You got to go back to when they were the New York Giants because this was, of course, the Bobby Thompson home run, June 16th, 1952, or I guess not the Bobby Thompson home run, but a Bobby Thompson home run. So that's pretty special. And he was told about that and he says the appropriate cliches about how it's cool. And he's trying to wipe the smile off his face and stay professional, though you don't have to. I think it's perfectly professional to smile in that situation. Nothing wrong with no one's going to say.

say smiling is Bush League when you hit an ultimate walk-off Grand Slam Brice. I think that that's right. I do think it's funny that we have spent, look, we're a baseball podcast, so it makes, you know, an obvious kind of sense. But this happens, and it's like the least remarkable comeback that happened yesterday in sports, really. Yeah, I know. Well, we didn't lead with the Knicks, but they had themselves quite a comeback, too. I don't want to slate them. That was quite exciting here in New York, but it was exciting for, I was, I was riveted, Ben, you know, I was, and I felt rewarded for not turning it off when they were down like 30 points, which you guys got to figure that out. But I think it is games like this that kind of help you see your way through seasons like the ones that the giants are having. It's like being able to hold up a lantern and a dark wood and be like, well, maybe we'll get out of here someday, you know? Yeah, it is a bright spot. It is nice to have those things to cling to. It's just like a, a, a piece of flotsam, you know?

It's like the ship goes down, but there's some wreckage that you can cling to. And maybe it's not big enough debatably for two people. And so Leo has to let go and sacrifice himself, even though, arguably, he could have stayed on there with her. But who knows, that debate will rage for the rest of time. I think what was almost, it wasn't actually most notable about this comeback, but it did stand out to me,

is that Waxe played an important part in this comeback. And Wox have not been a strong suit for the San Francisco Giants team. They have hit some home runs and they have hit some slams. That has not been the problem as of late. In fact, I mean, they've been slamming like nobody's business. They've got Grand Slams. That was their seventh slam in a 23-game stretch, which made them only the second team in MLB history to do that in a single season.

So fun facts upon fun facts here. But it's funny. Eldred said he was trying to envision it. He always wanted to be that guy in that situation. And often they'll say, I wasn't trying to think home run. I was trying to stay within myself, not trying to do too much. You know, you don't want to swing for the fences. You might end up missing.

But how can you not at least think about it, you know? And Kruk and Kipe, they were thinking about it too because they were talking about it on the broadcast in a somewhat NSFW not safe for work way, where I think it was Mike Kruko, he said, you know, wouldn't it be something? And they were both talking about wouldn't be something. And TARPS off was happening. People were doing TARPS off at the time. And so I think Kuiper just acknowledged that it would be something if there was a Grand Slam

and they were echoing each other. And Kuiper said it may be more than TARP's off. if Eldridge knocks one out of here. And Kruko said, I'm going to hold you to it. Time to drop trow and hog out. Hog out. Hog out. That's the next evolution of tarps off is hog out.

That's the criminal evolution of Harps off. Yeah. That's when the exposure becomes indecent. And I don't know whether either Kruko or Kuiper followed through on this. And maybe that's for the best. But, you know, once you put that out there, you kind of have to put that out. out there. You don't have to put that out there. You can always reveal that you have thought better of it. And no one will think less of you for having thought better of it. They'll simply say, that's, that's good, you know? We all, we all overpromise. It doesn't mean we have to think of it as under-delivering when you keep your hog in your pants. I don't want to call it a hog. Can I get out of that? Can I request dispensation? Yes.

Hog. What did he say? Hog out. Drop trial and hog out. Time to drop trow and hog out. No. You keep hog in. Only hog in, you know.

I mean, when you're home, when you're in the privacy of your own home, you can have everything out. You know, you can just be naked. You can have the tarps off and the hog out. But in public, we insist on hog in. Yeah, behind closed doors is one thing. And not just the broadcast booth doors because that's still semi-public. They need to be your

private doors to drop your private drawers. That's the rule, okay? Yeah, yeah. But walks played an important part in this rally because the Giants drew four walks in this game, which doesn't sound like a lot. It's not that much.

But for them, it's pretty impressive. So in the eighth, Chapman let off with a homer, and then there was a Devers Dinger, and then Zhonghu Lee drew a walk, and Bryce Eldridge drew a walk, and Daniel Susack, not Andrew Susack, as we have made clear. He doubled and Lee scored, and so that played a part in the scoring there. And then in the ninth, there was also a walk because Louisa Rice let off with a double, and then Chapman doubled to score a rise, and then Raphael Devers.

drew a walk, which has been a relative rarity this season. He's walking less than half as frequently as he did last season, I believe. And so these sort of set the stage and extended the rally and passed the baton and then Lee singled and then Eldridge hit the walkoff. And so walks, four walks in one game and three walks in those final two high scoring innings, that's big news for these giants because as other people have pointed out, but we have not touched on as of yet, they are a historically anti-walking team. They do not walk.

They are not just the most infrequent walkers this season, but if we go by walk percentage plus, which accounts for the league walk rate, which is important in this season because at least early in the season, walks were elevated as people were adjusting to different strike zone and ABS and all the rest. And so for the Giants to have a 6.1% walk rate, that's the percentage of plate appearances in which they've walked this season when the league-wide rate is 9.2%. Well, that is quite low. In fact, according to Fangraph's figuring, that is a 68 BB percentage plus, 68 walk percentage

plus. So 68% of the league-wide rate. And that would be the lowest in the live ball era going back to 1920. You have to go back to Brooklyn in 1918 had a 67 walk rate plus, and the Giants are at 68. So lowest walk rate plus lowest walk rate relative to the league in more than a century in the whole live ball era. I don't know what has gotten into the Giants or gotten out hog-wise, but walk-wise. They just aren't drawing them. And that's a bit of a problem because they do some other things well offensively.

But it helps not to have solo shots if you can draw some walks. So all these slams lately, maybe the walks are ticking up. That's perhaps too little too late for them. But still, maybe they can avoid some sort of ignominious history. I like the word ignominious. Me too. We should use the word ignominious more often, which is maybe unfortunate because then you have to have a reason to use ignominious.

Yes, but they've given us all sorts of reasons. I pivoted from the noun to the adjective because I was mentally rehearsing how I would say ignominie. And I think that's how you say it. But I was more comfortable with ignominious. Ignominious. It sounds like a kind of rock formation. It does. Right.

Okay. I don't remember what I was going to say about the giants. I got distracted by the word ignominious. ignominious. I think that what I will say is they have some very tall guys to build on, or at least the one really tall guy, and they got a lot of other stuff to figure out, but what are you going to do? What if we made this our paid pod for the week? What do you think about that? Because I will be without you next time, sadly. And there will be some other guests and such. So maybe we can just do our paid pod in the middle of the week instead of our third one, as long as it is. one a week. The sequencing doesn't matter so much. It doesn't. And we said, we said that,

we did. We weren't people. And if anything is going to inspire people to sign up for the Patreon who had not yet signed up for it, it isn't going to be an episode with two really fantastic guests at the beginning of the week or the episode I think you're doing on Friday, which will have several other really wonderful guests. It'll be me being distracted by the word ignominious. That's what's going to really hip people over the edge. Ignominious, that and my crystal clear recall of the game that I saw La James Groover in, you know? Mm-hmm. Well, if we had paywalled Adrian Childs, well, maybe that would have been better business, but then...

It wouldn't have been right. The public would have been deprived of the joy. And plus, we might have given people the false impression that if they supported us, they'd just get Adrian Childs every time. Right. And then they'd take us to the Better Business Bureau or something, you know, false advertising. Right. And then we'd have Jade, our other wonderful. guests on us in some fraud case capacity, and then where would we be?

We'd be somewhere terrible. So I think we made the right call. It's nice when we don't have to pay all the guests. It's worked out so far, mostly. So we will do some emails, and I have some Stap Bless with the assistance of frequent Stapless consultant Michael Mountain, who, by the way, is now a published author at Fangraphs.com at the Fangraphs Community Research site. Welcome, he has published a site.

Yeah, he's on the community blog. A topic that he talked about on this very podcast back in 2024, episode 2254, he has a Hall of Fame metric called Boog that is based on a wins above average perspective on player performance. And he has further updated and refined that system. And this was optimistically, though I think realistically titled Boog and the Hall of Fame Part 1, parentheses, introduction. So there will be more to come. Stay tuned, but do check out his research, which we will link to. But we can perhaps segue to our email segment with a Giants-related question, because we got one, and it's from Ian, who says, disappointed and frustrated Giants fan here.

I'm sure you're not alone, though perhaps your spirits were raised a little bit by Bryce Eldridge. While I agree that the Mets, Red Sox, Tigers, and Royals have almost certainly been more disappointing than the Giants this year, and I take some solace in that. I guess. It's nice to take some solace in the fact that other people, other teams might have it worse than you and yours. I did want to point out one part of the disappointment of the Giants that I think puts them in the same tier as those other teams. This is in response to one of our discussions of which team is most disappointing this season. So Ian makes the case for the Giants. He says, despite their middling preseason projections, because we had looked at it in terms of performance relative to projections. The Giants feel to me like they are in a win-now position, and so their underperformance this year makes me feel worse about the intermediate term trajectory of the franchise. While I feel it's relatively likely for the 2027 versions

of the Mets, Red Sox, and Tigers, asterisk, which I will get to, to be contenders again, to be honest, I don't know about the Royals. This season makes me feel like the 27 giants are going to be even worse. Our aging stars in the infield, Adamus Chapman, Devers still have several years left on their contracts, and I doubt their best years are ahead of them. The outfield is disappointing, and the rotation is fine at best. Even if Logan Webb returns to form, and Rup Plus McDonald's sustain their performance, that feels like a good, not great rotation.

The 27 free agent class isn't exactly bursting with outfield bats, which we desperately need, but I also don't trust this ownership group to spend on the sort of free agents that I think we need. I want to be measured and not jump to conclusions, but I am losing faith in Poebozzi. we settled on on Buster Pobo, right? I think that's settled. I don't know that we did decide. Did we? Bobosi's good too.

Pobosi, I got to say that's, I think that's better than. I still like Buster Pobo because it just, it sounds more like you're going to be saying his name. And then you could do a little switcheroo. I mean, they're both good, but I like the other one better. Anyway. Part of me wants him to trade one of our low-level infield prospects, Gonzalez, Hernandez, level for an outfielder. I'm not sure we have the prospect depth in addition to those three guys to put together a compelling package. I know I'm being pessimistic to an extreme. Please tell me I am overreacting,

but I just don't know how this roster will be better in 2027 or 2028. The Giants haven't been the most disappointing team this year, but I would submit to you that the ramifications of their underperformance are among the most dire. What do you think? And the asterisk was, the Tigers perhaps are in a similar position with Terrick Scouble leaving. I'm not that familiar with their system, but my sense is that they have a much better group of prospects set to debut soon and more young guys on the team now who might reasonably take steps forward and break out, which he used with some trepidation, used that term advisedly. But it's okay. So what do you make of this case that if we evaluate team disappointment in isolation, just looking at this season alone, maybe we miss

the ramifications for future seasons, the way that this season's disappointments will reverberate. Much like the suggested nickname for Buster Posey, I'm open to the suggestion, and I think that the Giants might be a good example of it. I think you have a combination of, yes, aging guys. I think that maybe the depth down on the farm is a little more intriguing than it's being given credit for here. Although I'll note that when Brendan wrote up their system recently, one of the things he took pains to say is that it is a system where the very best, guys, and this is, you know, setting Eldridge aside who has technically graduated from prospect status, but entered the year rookie eligible, that a lot of their guys are on the littler end with limited physical projections. You have to hope that they can continue to sort of keep pace

with bigger and stronger peers as they climb the minor league level. But I think there's some, there's some interesting stuff here. They have operated very well internationally. So, you know, It's not like the farm is completely rough, but a lot of their best and most interesting guys, in addition to the sort of physical potential limitations I've noted are not particularly close to San Francisco. So there's that piece of it. Oddly, and I'm going to be a real downer here, and I apologize in advance. In some ways, the fact that they have gotten the kind of outperformance they have from Luis Arise this season makes me more skeptical of them in a way because I just struggled to believe that they really anticipated this,

all of which is a long way of saying, I think that there is something to the notion that one can zig where other people zag, and that can have beneficial effects on a system because baseball is a team, is a league of copycats. And if you are able to identify the holy grail of the market inefficiency, you can kind of do well where other. others are feeling. I worry that the way that they have chosen to zig where others are zagging is to overreact to the Farhan era and go too far in the direction of like old school,

non-statinclined, non-analytically inclined. And so if that is the guiding principle of your roster, and you are in a position where you are going to have to get bigger and better performance out of older guys like Matt Chapman, like Devers, like Willie Adamas, that you're you are going to have to be good at sort of pro-identification in terms of who you trade for. I just, I don't know, man. I think that they might find themselves sort of lost in the wilderness soon. And it seemed like, oh, maybe they're being cool and creative. Maybe bringing Vitello in is an indication that they have a predilection for outside thinking and a young perspective.

And he just seems like he's kind of in over his head. So I don't know. they feel rudderless to me. And I think the biggest problem that they might face in a long-term way is like, how do you fire from the front office a partial owner of your team? You know, what is the like procedure for moving on? And franchise legend. Right, from that guy.

And that's not to say that there can't be some amount of improvement. And again, there are parts of this operation that seem like they are working well. but I think that there is sort of a retrograde tendency in the way that Posey thinks about the game that is maybe not so productive when it comes to having to challenge against big boppers. And it would be one thing if they were in the AL West, because that's a bad division now,

or the AL Central, maybe it wouldn't matter quite so much. I mean, I will remind people, as we are recording today, no disrespect intended. The White Sox are winning the AL Central, They're just in first place. It's half a game, but they're in first place, Ben. You know, the teams that the giants have to knock around against are most immediately the Dodgers, Padres, and Diamondbacks.

And, you know, we could have a conversation about sort of the long-term trajectory of the Padres franchise and how rosy we think it to be. But, you know, I think everyone has pretty high expectations of the Dodgers and, like, the debacks are trying to scrap and be our presence in that division. they have James Groover. So how can they go around? Really? Exactly. Only did you see a Corbyn's had a setback in his rehab? Yeah, that's unfortunate.

Yeah. So did Garrett Crochet. Setbacks. Setbacks are a bummer. Yeah. They're in a rough spot because they have to deal with not only a strong National League, more generally, from a wildcar perspective, but they have to contend with some real heavy hitters in their own division,

or at least one heavy hitter and two teams that are, you know, sort of alternately scrappy and good. I guess the Rockies are kind of a nice gimmy in the West, but I don't know, man, seems not ideal. Although they have demonstrated, now I'm going back to this other thing. I mean, they have demonstrated a willingness to, like, spend and try to attract free agents.

But on the other other hand, they've kind of failed to do that. And the guys they've gotten, I don't know, I've been the best. Yes. So except for Arise, who is. Exactly. Yeah. I'm glad we're getting the good Arise.

Two and a half win player. I know. And not just the defensive turnaround, which we've talked about, but also that the bat is back more towards peak arise. Twins, Marlins era arise where he's not a juggernaut, but he is a well above average hitter. Well above average hitter. Yeah. And there's maybe a little bit of overperformance there, Wobah versus X Wobah Y. which you might think, well, does ex-Woba even work for a Louisa rise?

But I don't think he has a pattern of overperforming, really, in the past. But it's fun when he can not only hit for a high average, but have it not be a completely empty average and hit for a little bit of pop and walk more often than he has struck out, which is a low bar, to be clear. He is contributing to that historically low giant's walk rate, but his strikeout rate is even lower, which we love him for. we have been exhausted by the Louisa Rise wars in the past. So it is nice when Louisa Rises war is high enough that we don't have to have the Louisarise Wars. It's a funny thing though,

because it's like, I agree with you. And we like this profile to be finding success. And like, you know, it's not Louisa Rises's fault that baseball, social media can't be normal about anything. But it is kind of funny because we have all of this like gnashing of teeth and discourse when he's not playing this way and now he's playing well. And I feel like nobody's talking about it, which

I know that I have pooed that as a trope because here I am, here you are, we're talking about it. We have a baseball podcast. But which maybe goes to show that everyone who is getting so worked up about a rise was shadow boxing. Right?

Right? Because who who's out there? crowing about Louisa Rise right now. No one. No one is doing that. We are. We're all crazy. We're not, but we're not in a, we're not in a,

in a, like a gotcha kind of way. No, we're not declaring victory. We're not spiking the football or anything. We're just saying we enjoy Louisa Rise and it's nice when we can enjoy him in a less complicated way, a less fraught way. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah, his ex-WOPA is identical to last year. So just putting that out there.

But nonetheless, if he can. keep fielding and even running the way that he has been, then that's okay if his bad declines a bit from here. Okay. Okay. White Sox, best team in Chicago to date. Sorry, Cubs fans. It's been bad for you lately, I know.

It's been bad for them lately. It has been a not good time. Although, as we are recording, and, you know, I hesitate to say this because who knows where it might be at the end of the episode, but as of now, they are winning. They are up. Six to two on the Rockies top five. So, you know, they ought to run around two outs. Who knows where it might go?

Hold that lead. All right. As to Ian's point, I think he has one, and I think it's a valid one. I will say I wasn't particularly bullish about the Giants beyond this year coming into the season. But maybe that's part of Ian's point that because there was a lot of uncertainty about whether the Giants would be good beyond 2026, than that put the onus even more on this season when it seemed like they were at least going for it and that this might be their best chance in a little while,

and so it's more deflating when they fail. So maybe it's changed my long-term outlook a little bit, but perhaps not dramatically. But maybe that, again, makes this feel even more like a lost opportunity. Not that I had very high expectations for the Giants in 2026, either is the thing. Maybe I was just very low on them, Anyway, I didn't expect them to be this bad, but I thought that probably their realistic ceiling was somewhere in the same 500-ish range that they have been for quite a while now. So maybe I just kind of came in not having any high hopes.

And so it's hard for low hopes to be dashed. But talking about those other teams, you could say, okay, the Mets are certainly disappointing in that there were higher hopes for them this year. But the Mets, it just feels like with Steve Cohen's bankroll, they're at least kind of conceivably able to, we saw how they turned over the roster this past off season, maybe not to great effect, but they shouldn't be that far from being good again in theory. And then the Red Sox, now,

that's one where they seemed like a team on the rise, not a rise, but the rise. And then everything kind of back. backfired and went south for them. And also some of the young core has not progressed and has maybe gone backward. And so that's bad for the long-term outlook because you kind of thought that, oh, they're poised to contend and they're coming off of a contending season. And it seems like it should only be better from here. And those young guys will just develop and progress. And then that just hasn't happened. And so maybe that starts to make you question the long-term future.

of a team that seemed to be set up well and to have quite a firm foundation. So it's always an interesting debate. Whose most disappointing lots of teams have valid cases, valid claims to that title. It's rough in a season when, you know, at least at the beginning, we were like, wow, no historically bad teams. Amazing. We've moved on. But there's a lot of very depressing. Well, it's not even mid.

It's like low mid, beneath mid. That'll do it for the free preview of today's Effectively Wild. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to listen on and hear whatever wisdom and wit await, we would love to have you. You can visit patreon.com slash Effectively Wild to access the rest of this episode and plenty of other exclusive content. Weekly subscriber-only episodes, monthly bonus shows, our Discord group, our live streams. Either way, we will be back with another episode soon, which will appear in full on this feed. Until then, we wish you well and thank you for your support of Effectively Wild, whatever form it takes.

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