Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2500: Yet Another “Things We Like About Baseball” Draft

Starting point is 00:00:08 isn't here and we're lacking introductions. So this is me singing you the introduction. It's effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2,500 of Effectively Wild, a fangrafts

Starting point is 00:00:27 baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rally of Fangraphs and I am joined by a motley crew, the first of whom is Ben Lindberg of the ringer, Ben, how are you? Feeling patriotic for this podcast. Okay, I was going to say.

Starting point is 00:00:44 And we have some friends along for the ride, Sam Miller of Pebble Hunting. How are you? Pretty good. Do you think that Motley is supposed to describe the individual members? It's a crew of people who are all Motley, or is the crew itself only made Motley by its unification? That is such an effectively wild question to be asking. Oh, it is. In fact, it is an incongruous or heterogeneous mixture.

Starting point is 00:01:11 It describes the crew. Yeah, it describes the crew. We've got to consult Tommy Lee on this one. Right. Yeah. I'm not personally being accused of motleyness. No, but only when in concert with me and Ben and our fourth guest, Grant Brisbee of the athletic. Grant.

Starting point is 00:01:29 My pockets are overflowing with motley people. I got motley everywhere. Enough for all of us. We're crew now because I'm here. We've got motley. We've got moxie. We have everyone except. Jeff Sullivan, sadly, Jeff Sullivan could not join us.

Starting point is 00:01:44 He was invited, but he big-timed us, basically. How long ago was he invited then? He was invited six weeks ago. And was he offered any time, any day? Yes. I mean, there were some restrictions just because of other people's unavailability. But it was pretty open-ended. And in fact, I contacted you all six weeks ago so as to preclude the possibility that any of you might have an excuse for getting out of this thing.

Starting point is 00:02:09 because there's got to be some time in six weeks, but no. I think a good way to describe how early you were trying to set this up is that you sent an email that I replied to. That's true. That's all you got to say, I replied the email. That means you gave plenty of runway for this. So we can all make fun of Jeff. I think that's perfectly reasonable. I may have had to prompt you via text to answer the email, but nonetheless it was appreciated.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Text is a different kind of email. It's electronic. It's mail. It comes to your house. Jeff did, he did send his regrets, but I, I question the sincerity of them. I don't want to leak internal documents here, but his decline was,

Starting point is 00:02:46 I would rather do the podcast than what I'm going to be doing, but I'm unavailable, which is why the six weeks notice, and literally any time you want, is relevant. Just a blanket unavailable for the next six weeks on important baseball business. So he big league does, basically, but he is a big leaker.

Starting point is 00:03:04 He works for the Tampa Bay race. They're a first place team. I'm sure that he has a lot to do with. that. And he is now a senior analyst of baseball process and strategy. He was an analyst last time I checked. Now he's a senior analyst. So either he got a promotion or he got old or maybe both. So, you know, it's like enough raise executives get poached by other teams. It's only a matter of time until he's running the race. I feel like besides the senior, because the senior might just be, you know, inflation, title inflation. But process, that's a big addition. Like process.

Starting point is 00:03:39 is a completely different area of the org tree, of the org chart. Yes. So that's kind of exciting. Like, he would be the one in charge of telling them to, like, I've noticed that the Rays are the team that most aggressively drops their bat in between the catcher and the ball when they bunned. And so he would be the person who would, that's process, right? Yeah, I guess that's not strategy.

Starting point is 00:04:03 Maybe it's a tactic, but it's probably process too. And I guess the process doesn't include public politics. podcasting anymore, sadly. I'm just picturing him like on his back and one of those like rolling gurneys, like a mechanic and underneath Stephen Matts and going, oh, here's what your problem is. And if that's not right, I don't want it to be fixed. Anyway, we're happy to have two cherished guests here for a milestone episode because we all convene this crew, Motley or otherwise, every 500 or so episodes to talk about things that we

Starting point is 00:04:36 like about baseball. And we've had a few years to brainstorm since the last one, which was in 2023. We've done this for episode 2000, episode 1,500, episode 996, and episode 500. And I know on a previous edition of these, we got into, why not 1,000? Well, it was because Sam went to work for ESPN and the podcast was changing. And so we had to do it a little early that time. But nonetheless, it's a tradition, and we are continuing the tradition. And it just so happens that this milestone for the podcast is coinciding with a milestone for the country.

Starting point is 00:05:11 The last week of the country. You never know. We'll find out. But Tim, Patreon supporter, wrote in in June to say, tell me you didn't plan for episode 2,500 to be released on the same day. The USA turns 250. And I told Tim that we didn't. We did not plan that. That just was a complete coincidence.

Starting point is 00:05:31 I like the implication that we did plan it. Yeah, 14 years ago. Sam and I were plotting in the summer of 2012. If we start now and we do it five days a week for this number of years and then we switch to three and we almost never miss an episode, then it will perfectly line up so that in 2026, it'll be 250 and 2,500. Is this the real reason you podcasted on the day of your wedding? Just to stay on schedule. Just to be on the pace. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Yeah. Right. Every holiday that I haven't taken off, it's all been the long game that I had this target in mind that I had to make this goal. And effectively wild may be turning a mere 14 years old later this month, coinciding with Sam's birthday, as always. But there are 10 effectively wild episodes for every year of our nation's history. So how about that? It kind of puts things into perspective. It makes America seem sort of pathetic.

Starting point is 00:06:30 Which one do you think Rutherford B. Hayes would have liked the most? We had him on, I think, a few times. I think Taft would have been a listener since everybody knows. Everybody knows two things about Taft. It's true. Bath tub and opening day. Stuck in a bathtub and listen to podcasts. And as a personal favor to Grant and Sam, I will not be bringing up the San Francisco Giants

Starting point is 00:06:53 because we're drafting things we like about baseball and things that will make us and our listeners happy. So unless you want to bring up the giants of your own accord, I will not be initiating that. And so I could do a quick little recap and review of the things we've drafted before. And I think these episodes are pretty evergreen. They probably hold up. So you could go back and revisit them if you haven't been along for this very long ride. But just to summarize, bring everyone up to speed back on episode 500, which was before Meg joined the Motley crew. I don't know whether it was Motley at that point.

Starting point is 00:07:28 but it was me and Sam and Grant and Jeff. Sam's picks in the inaugural version of this episode, Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore. That's a favorite of yours, the Ernie Shore, Bay Bruce story. Radio commercials during baseball broadcasts, which I know you. You still love, right? And I think it was particularly plumbers and pipe fitters. Yes.

Starting point is 00:07:49 Right. I just drove by a tap plastics this morning. Just this morning. It's a fantastic plastic place. Tata, tap. Yes. Yeah, that was much covered during the first Sam Miller run on effectively wild baseball commercials, radio broadcasts, war road, etc. What else did you draft?

Starting point is 00:08:08 A third thing, GM's making predictions. Oh, that was, of course, the Krasnix, which has now been inherited by Jesse Rogers, the annual predictions by baseball insiders, which were usually no better than a coin flip, if that, according to your research. All right. Grant's picks that time were the other run. Brian Braun. I've got forgotten about. When baseball players are mentioned in rap or hip hop lyrics. Action Brunson. What was it? Action Brunson. And who was the player that was? Oh, gosh, it was a funny one. Oh, it was a Randy Valarde. There you go, yes. Yeah. This was also the subject of some Sam Miller works for BP, if I recall correctly. And searching for players with dirty words in their name on baseball reference.

Starting point is 00:08:56 tradition that Jeff and John Boyce maybe have extended to the present day, as far as I know, still going. And Jeff's picks were Petco Park scoreboard faces in 2005 or 2006, Perenthesases, Jeff isn't sure. I'm citing from the effectively wild wiki here. Reactive player expressions and John Ulruid's tree battle with his neighbor. Views being obstructed and so forth. Oh, geez. And now you're going to read yours. Yours are so bad. I remember the first year.

Starting point is 00:09:29 They were so bad. Yeah, I think I got better at this. Evidently, I drafted pitch FX. Oh. This was, this was 2014. It was, I mean, it wasn't really new even then. So I don't know why I drafted pitch of X. It seems like a brown-nosed-er pick.

Starting point is 00:09:44 I don't know why. Like, that feels like a teacher's pet kind of piece to me. Bud's Sealing was his second pick. Bud's ceiling? No, that was a joke. That was a joke. No, I actually drafted a, drop me in for it because I was a great commissioner prospect at the time. But I also drafted

Starting point is 00:09:59 different field dimensions, which, you know, maybe that's predictable. It's still certainly something I love about baseball and lament that they're not as different as they used to be. And platoons, which, you know, I still like platoons, but not the most creative picks or esoteric picks. I will give you a spoiler for baseball superstars 2009. I just filed it. Scholastic books. there's a little article in there about what if what if different sports had different field dimensions huh? You know, like if you're talking about

Starting point is 00:10:30 Fenway Park, the green monster, like what does that look like in football where you've got like maybe one half of the field going straight up but you get to score on the 10-yard line? Real clever stuff. Look for it. Scholastic books. Grant, you know, one time, I think I've mentioned this, but Grant one time surveyed a bunch of writers asking them what weird thing they would do

Starting point is 00:10:50 for ballpark dimensions if they could do anything. If they were like making the homer of ballparks, you know, the homer, the vehicle from the Simpsons. And he surveyed a bunch of people

Starting point is 00:10:59 and then he never wrote that piece and I keep waiting for it. And it's so it sounds like your skeletal, I'm guessing, Grant, correct me wrong. You pitched that to them, right? I wouldn't say pitched.

Starting point is 00:11:11 It's more like you have to come up with six ideas like, duh, here, so. Wacky field dimensions is in Grant's DNA is what I'm saying. Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it.

Starting point is 00:11:22 Episode 996, so that first one was in 2014. 996 was in 2016, and it was the same four-person crew. Jeff picked the Baltimore Orioles off-season rumor mill. Evergreen. Yeah, that was a pressured pick. That would have worked in almost any subsequent year. I think it was about how the rumors weren't very exciting. Fernando Rodney.

Starting point is 00:11:46 I don't really remember what about Fernando Rodney. but there's a note here that says Jeff says that Fernando Rodney is a player you love more when he isn't on your team so maybe it was about the Fernando Rodney relief experience and how it didn't really offer relief because it was kind of a high wire act

Starting point is 00:12:01 and finally Bill Bergen one of the great all-time terrible players Grant picked the sadness of undoing your rally caps the best best yeah this is the exact reaction I had 500 episodes when you were reciting these

Starting point is 00:12:17 When you said that at the time, I also was just inspired anew. Grant, it's your career highlight was the sadness of undoing one's rally cap. It's incredible. Dude, I mean, one time for a Twitter bit, I did a rally coffee table. And it was like, this is back in the day where, like, I was trying to, people cared about the Giants. And I was trying to join in. And the Giants were down. And I flipped my coffee table over and the legs were in the air.

Starting point is 00:12:42 And I put a picture on the Internet. And they didn't win. and then I had to turn the coffee table over and somehow it was worse but I think the hat's just bad you just feel stupid like what have I done what if I debase myself for you guys know that rally cap commercial

Starting point is 00:12:57 the Google AI can a rally cap whatever untapped good mojo whatever have you noticed that like the AI doesn't apparently know what a rally cap is they just included Corbyn Carroll wearing a headband no watch next time it's not it's not all

Starting point is 00:13:13 rally caps yeah yeah It's just a hallucination. You've got to be careful overturning coffee tables, as I learned last time I regaled Mick with an injury that I suffered this week. I seriously injured myself hurting. Hours before we were set to record, and I didn't learn he was injured until we were on Mike, and I had to remind him, you are allowed to take episodes off. And you don't even need to suffer like a blunt porous trauma. Yeah. Well, we couldn't take an episode off because imagine if my fours,

Starting point is 00:13:45 14 year long plot to have episode 2,500 line up with America 250 was scuttled at the last minute. But then, you could have sucked. It would have been okay. We would have had a sup. We would have had a sub. Well, the blood had dried, so it was fine. But I like the sadness of undoing your rally cap. I prefer the other Ryan Braun. That's my favorite. But you still have to undo your rally cap even if the rally succeeds. But then it's not sad. Oh, yeah. Then you're releasing like joy particles into the air. That's fine. Yeah. You know what?

Starting point is 00:14:17 You shouldn't. Any rally cap that works should be displayed on a, yeah, on a, you know, in your room, in your trophy room. You should have a row of successful rally caps. Or you could just like wear it to a parent teacher conferences or whatever, like when you need that little extra, you know, spark. What's going on in your parent teacher conferences that you need a rally cap? Rally cap, let's go.

Starting point is 00:14:40 All in, 110% leave nothing out there. Do you bad kids? Are your kids bad? They are my kids They are technically They share my DNA So Yeah

Starting point is 00:14:49 That could be an expensive habit If you had to Get a new hat every time I think that's exactly Why it would work though If you're not willing To really commit your hat To the cause

Starting point is 00:14:59 Yeah And speaking of suckup picks Grant's last one was How talented umpires are It's true Quietly The funny thing is They were garbage at the time

Starting point is 00:15:10 Like we now know That they're way better now than they were done. Way better. They weren't even trying. Like, all you had to do was say we're watching you, and they get way better. And back then, they were garbage. They were still so good.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Does that mean that Elf on the shelf works? Sam's picks were the worst ever sacrifice bunt. Yeah, that's a good one. I don't really remember the specifics. What? Oh, it was, okay. Sam details when Terry Francona called for a sacrifice bunt against Mark Wollers, a pitcher who had the yips and was,

Starting point is 00:15:43 struggling to throw strikes. Sam thinks that Francona was trying to be kind to Wallers calling for the bunt. I believe I asked Doug Glanville, the bunter. I think I asked him one time. And I think he said something like, oh, that's interesting. No, I don't remember. Speaking of baseball-related raps, you drafted Matt Kemp's rap album. And one of my favorites was Phil Necro being old, because we all got to Google Phil Necro and how old he looked, even older than he actually was, which was very old. I drafted players being afraid of weather, which was when lightning would strike or something, and players would get startled. I drafted pitchers' bodies when they are throwing.

Starting point is 00:16:25 The elbows, it's just nightmare. Nightmare, absolute nightmare, nightmare fuel. And Mike Trout, that wasn't very creative of me. I don't know if I was drafting anything specific about Mike Trout, but just maybe all the material that he had given us up to that point. episode 1500 was in 2020 and meg joined the team for this one. Oh. And that time we had, Jeff's picks were feeling hopeful about a team in spring until they lose their first game.

Starting point is 00:16:55 The unsolvability of baseball, which is maybe why he's unavailable for this episode. He's still in the lab trying to figure out baseball. And fan understanding of managers, Grant picked searching baseball. reference, this is a theme with Grant, for player names from the 1904 season. And the fact that Paul Giamatti is the son of former MLB Commissioner A Bartlett Giamatti. Classic bit. I don't understand why you like that so much. It's so good because I found out about it.

Starting point is 00:17:26 No, I found out about after the fact. So, like, if you're thinking, like, you've got the 1980, what was it, 1980, eight tops, and you've got the A. Bartlett Giamatti, like, you grow up when you've got a commissioner's baseball card. And then you grow up and you see, well, that guy's pig vomit. And then pig vomit becomes like a big star in his own right and one of America's beloved character actors. And then at some point, they dovetailed and my mind was blown. And I just love that. I'm sorry.

Starting point is 00:17:49 I'm not going to apologize for it. It is still a not very widely known fact among mainstreamers. You can still. Not that the mainstream people know who Abe Arbari is either. So it's kind of like doesn't really land. What he did kind of broke containment though. So you can say, Paul, Giamadi's dad was the one who banned Pete Rose and everyone knows who that is.

Starting point is 00:18:11 You know, like that kind of brings it all together. It's like, wow, really? So I don't know. It's maybe not that cool. But I was reading a book where it was talking about different professors and stuff and it starts talking about, well, my friend Bart and all this stuff. And it was like, oh, that's pig vomit's dad. I know him. Band Beat Rose.

Starting point is 00:18:30 Evidently, Grant had only two picks that year, unless the effectively Wild Wiki is missing something. Sam picked Willie Mays's house party. Yeah. That's a good one. Bo Jackson's 1990 score baseball card number 697 and the 1989 to 91 amateur drafts of the Houston Astros. That's not that good one, to be honest. That one was, I could never figure out how to write about that,

Starting point is 00:18:55 so I basically just dumped it on the podcast. Remind me again. You could draft as long as you wanted it back then. Even if no other teams were drafting, you could just keep picking players. And so the draft would stop at like around, you know, 40 or 50. But then the Astros decided to just keep going. So they did like 90 to 110 picks a year.

Starting point is 00:19:14 So they have just this like the draft sheet for those years is just like constant Astros that never, they didn't even sign most of them. It is a weird thing. Like it's not that interesting. But it was in the tickler file and I had to use it up. Yeah. They drafted as many players as all the teams together will be drafting in the next CBA, probably if MLB gets its way.

Starting point is 00:19:34 Willie Mays had a housewarming party when he bought a house in San Francisco. For kids. Every kid in the neighborhood showed up if anyone was wondering. Meg drafted baseball scandal names involving horniness. I don't even really remember. We all know this, so you can just move on. What did I mean? Yeah, was there any, are there notes?

Starting point is 00:19:58 Are there any notes there? Not really. It says horny baseball scandal names, but that does. doesn't offer any additional details. Oh, maybe I meant the banging scheme. Oh, that's probably. Yeah, it was, yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:12 This was 2020. Yeah. Randy Johnson is untainted by controversy. I probably meant the banging scheme. Yep. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Goof-based walk-offs, for example, a wild throw.

Starting point is 00:20:26 Yeah. Maybe a walk-off lock. Who knows? Fans misjudging foul balls. Yeah, I do love that. And then, oh, you had a bonus pick, I guess. You were picking up the slack for Grant here. Maybe.

Starting point is 00:20:36 Maybe. For drafts you had not participated in. When pitchers figure it out, when everything clicks, I guess, when a corner is turned to do another effect of a callback. Yeah. I think I had to leave early. Oh, maybe that's what it is. Because I can, like, juggle things and show up, but then also do my other accommodations, as opposed to just telling you to, you know, buzz off like Jeff.

Starting point is 00:20:57 Anyway, sorry, go. And finally, heartwarming pick, the friends we met along the way, parentheses, friendships with other writers and research. That's nice. Oh, that is nice. So wait, how many picks are we doing? It's three. Three each. It's, yeah, you don't need five this time. Okay. I was like, I was briefly panicked. Yeah. I picked quad A players, first baseman doing the splits, which does really still impress me, the fact that they can all do that, even the ones who don't look that flexible or athletic. And incorrect and exaggerated appraisals of player value in the pre-war era, which I collected and later wrote about, that is still a favorite thing of mine because back then nobody knew. Nobody had any

Starting point is 00:21:38 upper or lower bounds on what a player might have been worth. And so just wild-ass guesses. This guy was costing us 10 wins. This guy was worth 20 for like good defense around the first base bag or something. You know, it was always something like that. Now we know better, but I'm sort of sad about it. And last time, episode 2000, this was 2023. And Jeff joined us, but half-heartedly. we were only talked about the pitch clock yeah we were already losing him at that point he drafted the pitch clock and then number two he drafted rob manfred for introducing the pitch clock and then number three pedro bias for prompting the introduction of the pitch clock he was right though history has vindicated that uh pitch clock pretty good pretty popular

Starting point is 00:22:25 and the other people's picks grant drafted learning that a celebrity played minor league baseball That's always a good one. The Rifleman Connors. Team name suggestions from fans. Is this like a Boaty McBoat face kind of thing? Seattle had a name the team contest before the Mariners, and someone did Streakers, Seattle Streakers. So that was that context.

Starting point is 00:22:48 And how much Ted Williams loved his bats. Love those bats. Sam drafted pointless infield practice while the pitcher warms up. Oh, that's good. Errors that make baseball cards valuable. and players who served as umpires in a game. Oh, okay. Meg drafted players showing affection for each other.

Starting point is 00:23:07 Yeah, I do like that. That's been a running theme. Frisky teams that emerge from mediocrity. So not frisky in the affection showing sense, but competitively speaking, probably. Maybe that's what's driving their leap forward. And I guess there was like a little lightning round. Those were the two main picks. I drafted silly player injuries and baseball broadcast directors, you know, when you

Starting point is 00:23:30 get the behind the scenes of they're like in the compound and and they've got 20 different screens and they're calling out cuts and I always like seeing that nerve center. Oh, and I drafted Jeff King not liking baseball, which is a favorite of mine, just, you know, top draft pick, top prospect who just seemingly didn't like baseball all that much, even though he was very talented. Meg's lightning round picks were baseball in empty or near empty ballparks. When fans misjudge a fly ball as a home run, did you draft that in? two consecutive drafts? Or no, I guess one was foul balls and one was fly balls.

Starting point is 00:24:05 And one was baseball trying and failing to be cool, but then succeeding in being cool by accident. Still waiting. Still waiting for it to be cool. When you guys watch, when you guys are like looking something up and you find a, you find yourself watching a clip from 2020 baseball, does it just make you queasy? Like I, I mean, like, I really have to like turn it off. I really don't like it. Yeah, and I should clarify that I didn't mean it in that sense.

Starting point is 00:24:36 I was probably thinking most specifically about, like, the experience of Fall League. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Where you go and it's like you and 15 retirees and like a bunch of children who should be in school but aren't for whatever reason. That part's not as much fun because it's the middle of the day. I know we're kind of loosey-goosey down here, but. You really should be learning math right now. What better way to learn math than to take in a baseball game.

Starting point is 00:25:05 I know exactly what Sam's talking about, though, because I think one of the coolest, like, rarest, it'll never happen in baseball events that I've experienced in person was Trent Grisham hitting a walk-off home run for the Padres at Oracle Park. It was because the game was canceled here. The schedule was here. It's the pandemic season. The Padres are the home team at Oracle Park. So he hits a walk-off home run.

Starting point is 00:25:27 It's the most ridiculous thing. but also that memory's awful because it's like you're looking around and there's literally cardboard cutouts of my parents somewhere in this stadium and it's like it's just awful so I don't know how to treat that memory

Starting point is 00:25:40 I still don't it's like it's there but it doesn't fit and so I might need to purge it I have my cardboard cut out do you really? Oh yeah the Mariners sent me they didn't like do me a special favor I think you were able to get it at the end of the year

Starting point is 00:25:54 oh that's right my parents must have it oh I'm definitely that's for the living room Where do you keep cardboard meg? It's in the garage. It's in the garage with the, in the cabinet of, like, holiday decorations that are a weird shape. So, like, Meg, a cardboard meg is sandwiched in between a shark fin that has at times been used as a Halloween decoration and also a giant spider with opposable digits that sits outside at hell. She's near Halloween, which is good because both cardboard. cardboard meg and real leg make have an affinity for Halloween.

Starting point is 00:26:32 You don't have to answer this now, but could I borrow cardboard meg? Like, I'll get it back to you in good condition. Just if you get to send it to me for a little bit. I don't even know why. For what purpose? Yeah. Well, I'll figure it out later, but cardboard meg seems like it shouldn't be hidden. It should be.

Starting point is 00:26:45 No, she should be. It's like a weird jump. I mean, again, it makes sense that it's with the Halloween decorations because it ends up being like a weird trauma jump scare every time I see her. Yeah, it does sound hunting. Where did cardboard meg sit? I don't remember. I don't remember where in T-Mobile she was.

Starting point is 00:27:02 So who you all going down to the lake with? Well, going down with Steve and Dan and cardboard meg. Carboard Meg. Don't get cardboard meg wet because that might be the end of cardboard. She's made out of a material that it's not actually cardboard. That's true. I guess they had to be water resistant at least. Yeah, it's like that.

Starting point is 00:27:19 Well, no, we have a roof at T-Mobile because, you know, you got to worry about that. But it's like the material that those signs that they put on the side of the road that say, We'll fix your windshield and give you $300. And I'm like, whoever calls these people, you know. Did they, did they bring them in at night? No, they left them there. There were thousands of them. So are they like sunbleached?

Starting point is 00:27:40 Have to be. Oh, I don't recall it being particularly sun bleached. Short season, but you'd think being exposed to the elements be a bit worse for wear. Yeah, and like, did it ever smell like wildfire smoke? And you paid for that, right? They didn't. Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 00:27:59 Do you remember how much? I do not remember how much. I remember it being a low enough dollar amount that even on like pandemic pay cut salary, I was like, this seems fine, you know? Like what else am I doing? I'm not going to dinner. It was one of the, it was like that brief interregnum where it was like they weren't trying to gouge. It was like, this is just sort of a fun thing because people need fun things in the world, just kind of cover the costs and we'll all have fun together because. the world's a mess. I think it was less than $50.

Starting point is 00:28:30 Yeah. I think my parents was like $20.5 or something. Yeah. I'm really surprised that I didn't do it in retrospect. Why didn't I do it? Yeah. I don't know. Hopefully you won't have another chance. And it sounds like we will not be drafting favorite baseball memories from 2020 as things we like about baseball. But let's find out what we will draft. We have completed the recap portion of the podcast. Wait, real quick, just a real quick correction. Not that anybody cares, but I just checked and Doug Glanville emailed me back about the, he did in fact email me back and he did

Starting point is 00:28:59 remember this bun. He remembered it very well and he wrote about it in his book, in fact, because it was, he remembered it being a really like profound moment seeing this guy in stress and anxiety and his part in it and he felt really bad laying down the bun because the throw was wild. And he was also very frightened because he didn't know if he'd get, you know, drilled in the face. And did he know if it was because Swellers was so wild? They were trying to do it. him a favor? No, he did not know that. And I said, I'll have to ask Tito someday. And that was the end of the interaction. Okay. So it might be the worst analytically, but maybe the best if it was done out of kindness. Who knows? All right. We can let our guests go first, I guess, Sam. Would you like to lead off?

Starting point is 00:29:42 So my first pick is non-ballpark food. There was a great piece in the athletic, which I don't podcast for. by Talia Minsberg a couple of, a couple months ago, about the, I guess you would call this the spaghetti policy. Oh, yeah. Basically, it's about like fans that bring spaghetti in, full spaghetti dinners in court or gallon bags. There's a site that I think it's called the sicko, the sickos or the sicko committee. I think it's called the sicko committee. Anyway, they log the food policy, the spaghetti policies for every ballpark. whether you can bring a spaghetti dinner in in gallon bags.

Starting point is 00:30:29 And I read that piece and really enjoyed it because I really admire ballparks for letting you bring in food. Most places, most things that you go to that can conceivably monopolize food and, like, holds you hostage, essentially holds you hostage until you have no choice, but to give them money for overpriced bottled water and popcorn. They do that. They gouge you. ever since I worked at a movie theater and I would watch the bill that people would have to pay to eat at a movie theater.

Starting point is 00:31:01 I've been pretty radicalized on this. I really don't know how they get away with telling you you can't bring food in. If it's a place where food is not allowed to be eaten, that's fine. But you're saying it is legal to eat food, but only food that has been provided by them. I hate that. To me, that's, like, awful capitalism. Like, we can make you unhappy until you have no choice but to pay, you know, ballpark prices or movie theater prices or amusement park prices.

Starting point is 00:31:32 I've always been a sneak food into the movie theater guy. I've snuck food into sporting events in my sock, and I will continue to do so. But, you know, you're limited in what you can put into your sock. Anyway, the point is this spaghetti policy movement and this article in The Athletic both reveal or like show that ballparks are exceptions. For the most part, in almost every ballpark, you can bring food in, even though they sell food, even though like it's a big part of their business model to sell you food. They will let you bring in your own food like normal people treating you like normal people. There are limitations on the carriers. You can't bring them in it

Starting point is 00:32:13 necessarily in a glass tubper, you know, a glass jar or a huge cooler. But if you want to put a sandwich in a gallon bag, all but like two or three ballparks will let you do it. One of the ones that won't is the raise, and they paid for it. I don't know if you guys remember this, but about 20 years ago in the pre-good raise era, you know, like the bad raise era. A devil-race era. They were embroiled in controversy because they wouldn't let a woman bring in like pastasios or something, and they kicked her out of the ballpark, and they were for her bloodshed.

Starting point is 00:32:50 sugar. Like she got kicked. So now they're even, I believe, even the rays now are forced to have a medical exemption in their policy. I like that. I think it's good, honest, civil behavior to let someone eat food in a place where food is allowed. I think it also tells us maybe something about baseball as a product, not being quite as good as some other things that they have to let you bring in your food. Like, like, I think. think there's just so many games. It's like, there are so many games, yeah. They can't, I guess that's a way, but it's not, it's not that baseball isn't a good product,

Starting point is 00:33:27 but that baseball has to be pleasant all the time, you know? They have to keep it pleasant for 500 hours a year to keep people, repeat customers coming back. And so they can't quite be as abusive to their audience, you know, like a movie theater can be like, hey, man, you don't want to watch Avengers, someone else will. And with baseball, they have to kind of keep bringing you back. They have to keep you happy. So I like that. Disneyland, too, by the way, is also a place that you can bring in a bag of spaghetti.

Starting point is 00:33:58 Or maybe not spaghetti, but you can bring in drinks at the very least. Disneyland is pockets full of spaghetti, no bags. That's allowed. I know from experience. Yeah. I question how appetizing just a bag of spaghetti that you smuggled into a ballpark would be. But I guess it depends on preparation. You're raising issues on the

Starting point is 00:34:20 I know. Sam's about to invoke my raw mushrooms. Raw mushrooms in a bag. Sweaty mushrooms on a hot summer day. I will say that my daughter has an egg allergy. And so that's a tricky one when it comes to buns, hot dog buns, stuff like that. And if you've ever asked at a barrage, does this have eggs in it? You know, that you're not getting no one, like, even in a bakery, like a really, like nice bakery, you ask if this has eggs in it and people look at you like, well, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:34:48 So in that respect, we bring food for the kid with the allergy problems. And it works out. So one vote for Sam. That's a good one. I think it probably is also especially because pre-pitch clock games were of indeterminate length and pre-zombie runner two. And so you go to a movie, you know more or less what it's starting. Maybe you have to add 25 minutes for ads in Nicole Kidman and trailers. But basically you have some idea.

Starting point is 00:35:10 And you know what the running time is, but they don't list that in advance for baseball games because people would probably think it was rigged. And there's no clock counting down. So you don't know. You can't really make dinner plans or anything. So you might starve. And also it's outdoors. Maybe that's part of it too. And there's the convention of just, you know, shedding your peanut shells and your cracker jack or whatever and just making other people pick it up for you.

Starting point is 00:35:39 But yeah, I think. And it's also, there's historically, at least there was a lot of downtime. And the games were long. and there's time between pitches, time to talk or time to chew. So I think it's a good sport to eat to if they let you. But I'm with you. Yeah. I mean, they have a captive audience.

Starting point is 00:35:57 I usually try not to buy anything at concessions, both because I don't want to miss anything and also because it's so expensive. But yeah, I either abstain and just eat before I go or try to slip something in. But I'm with you. Their permissive policies are appreciated. Yeah, I don't think I've had a ballpark. I don't think I've bought a ballpark concession in like 30 years. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:19 And obviously the options have expanded. I thought at first that you were drafting non-traditional ballpark fair at ballparks, which you can get, obviously. Just things that don't seem appetizing to me in that setting particularly. Like what? But I mean, I've had ballpark sushi and it was okay. But I'll eat grocery store sushi. I will take the risk. But, you know, all sorts of stuff that like congeals.

Starting point is 00:36:44 And maybe it's good under the heat lamp, but then you bring it back to, or it's some sort of triple-decker construction and you can't actually transport it back to your seed or eat it and it collapses and then everything's messy. So like gourmet dining at a ballpark unless you're one of the fancy people in one of the clubs or something and you get an actual sit-down meal. If you're eating it in the stance, I don't know. It's not for me. And then there's the whole like conspicuous consumption monstrosities that teams compete to create to create. creates that like calorie max, how many calories can we cram into this thing? What is more American than that, I guess? I think it's more about height or length that they're trying to max actually than calorie. Calorie is a byproduct of that, certainly. But the super long hot dogs, the very tall burgers.

Starting point is 00:37:33 Yeah. And you're like, even in a restaurant, how would you eat that? Yeah. It has no structural integrity. All right. Grant, you want to go? I do. And I'm so glad when you were reading out what we had taken in previous drafts. I was half sure that I had done this before, but I have not. It is the ambient noise of a baseball game in the other room. So it can be TV.

Starting point is 00:37:53 It can be radio. And so you aren't hearing the play-by-play. You're hearing a frequency. And then when that frequency goes in a certain direction, you intuitively know that sounds like a single. That sounds like a home run.

Starting point is 00:38:06 That sounds like a straight... Like, honestly, try it. Just you're in the kitchen cooking. You've got a baseball game in the other room. You can't hear the particulars, but you know what's going on. This reminds me of the exercise Sam did with his friend at the Giants game, right? Where you went and you stood outside the ballpark and you tried to gauge what was going on.

Starting point is 00:38:25 Yeah, tried to keep score of a game that we were listening to from outside. Was this BP? No, no. It was pebble hunting like 24. Oh, my God, I miss that one. Now we know who reads Sam and who doesn't. Anyway. But it wasn't super accurate, right?

Starting point is 00:38:42 It was pretty inaccurate. In fact, it was pretty bleak. I was surprised at how little. And we were at, it was at Oracle. So we were like right outside an open air, you know, like right outside. This wasn't like, I'm not, I'm saying like we weren't at one of the big bowls, like the Angels Stadium, right? Where you can only hear a home run. In fact, I was going to do two types of parks, like a downtown park and a suburban park to see the difference.

Starting point is 00:39:10 you know the downtown park was like hard to make out much sound it was uh there's a there's a lot less pop than i expected there to be so i say bleak only because i would like everybody to be free to clap and yell because the pitcher gets ahead oh one uh and if you're the only one then you kind of aren't free to do that and there was a there was a lot less cheering like if you look if you think that you're sort of like only going to cheer when other people are cheering then there's a lot less cheering than I kind of had realized. And I felt sort of silenced in my own ability to cheer. And we knew who won.

Starting point is 00:39:48 We knew who won. We knew kind of like we knew it was kind of a blowout. Anyway, off topic. Do you still do laps while you're watching a game? No, I do not do that because of the pitch clock. Yeah, because I don't know whether your route would take you out of the room so that you'd be hearing the ambient noise or whether you always maintained line of sight. No, I always, I left the room.

Starting point is 00:40:10 Right. I would, yeah. But Grant, so I, that's a great pick. I love the ambient noise of baseball. And I would bet that if you were to just survey movies and TV shows, which often use ambient, you know, programming in the background of scenes, that baseball outnumbers all the other sports, like 100 to 1. Oh, I bet you. Every baseball broadcaster's IMDB page is, like, long because they're just like taking random clips of baseball. I don't think you have that for like NFC showdowns.

Starting point is 00:40:41 Like I don't think football ambient noise works in movies the same way. But we all now watch baseball mainly on MLB TV, I assume, and the ads are often highlights of baseball, right? Like the ad programming is often highlights, bloopers, et cetera. And I found that very confusing. I'll be cooking in the kitchen and I'll hear the pop. And then you go in and it's like a Bo Jackson in the 1990 All-Star. Yeah, the crack of bow's bat.

Starting point is 00:41:09 It's like you only hear that three times in life, right? Yeah. There are, when I'm driving my daughter home from soccer practice, or soccer practice ends at 9 o'clock. And so a lot of times now with the pitch clock, it's that's peak, something's happening in the Giants game, and I got to listen to it for work on the way home. But she'll get in and she'll want to talk.

Starting point is 00:41:28 I'll just say it. I think my kids are more important than baseball. You know, I'll just say it. And so I turned down the radio a little bit, And it's to the point where I can not really make out words, but I can tell if a reliever is screwing up. You know what I mean? Like you can just tell, like John Miller's voice gets to a certain pitch

Starting point is 00:41:46 when it's like, well, this is a problem. Now it's three and oh, you know what I mean? But you're not hearing the three-no. You're saying, I'm sorry. I just love it. It makes me feel, makes me feel like I have a sixth sense. Yeah. And the murmur of the broadcaster's voices,

Starting point is 00:42:01 that's a crucial component of that. Sonorous. if you are lucky enough sometimes to be able to do or if you used to be able to do the ballpark overlay where you could the broadcasters and just listen to the ballpark sounds that's a nice and beyond's too but from the other room it does help to have the broadcasters getting animated or subdued it's a good one we've all heard it we've all enjoyed it meg oh it was fast that was abrupt grant yours is not worth talking about anymore well you talk to everything i was going to say sam okay so I, the odds that any of these get picked is small.

Starting point is 00:42:37 So why, why am I worried about how I'm sequencing them? You've had three years to prepare. We gave you time. I love the idea that you think I prepared yesterday. I really love it when players look sheepish after a replay review has been initiated, indicating that they know that the call should go against them, right? That the replay review should, we're down to the benefit. of the team challenging, whatever the outcome is.

Starting point is 00:43:07 You know, the guy who knows he overslid the bag. I especially love it when a guy maybe knows he didn't get hit by the pitch and he has a little bit of a look like, I'm going to have to go back in there. But he keeps it kind of close because the look on his face isn't going to dictate the outcome of the replay review, right? It's going to be those goobers in New Jersey. It's going to be whatever they see on super slow-mo. But he has to look like, I might get away with one here because it didn't happen quite the way they called it on the field.

Starting point is 00:43:40 And I just, I love that. I love when they can't help. But especially if they make that face at an opposing player, like, we both know what happened here. Didn't we? Don't we buddy? I just love that. I love it when they look a little sheepish. Like, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:43:56 Yeah. That's one of my favorites. Can I offer a subcategory of this, which I don't know if this counts. one of the things that I've loved about ABS is seeing how immediately many challengers wish they hadn't challenged

Starting point is 00:44:11 there's something really kind of impulsive in the movement and there's like a little once they have a second to review their actions and not only their actions but the pitch itself they replay the pitch itself

Starting point is 00:44:23 and you can sometimes see them realize that they have challenged and they're not going to win they shouldn't have challenged and they're going to lose and they already know they're going to lose. And I love that. I love that look as well. I'll just throw in the, I like the chaos that is currently now. Like it's not codified. You don't really know all these players are kind of just winging it as far as win expectancy and like, is this the

Starting point is 00:44:48 moment in the game to use this last challenge? And they, you know, it's, they haven't been briefed on it. I don't think they've, they've had to do the cliff notes or anything. It's just sort of everyone's winging it and just say, yeah, no, that's, this is the time to do it. It is two outs, nobody on. a 2-0 count. I'm going to challenge this. Oops, wrong. And I love that it's chaos. And you can see, like a few people,

Starting point is 00:45:10 like a few players get it. Like they understand it's like, ah, that I know, I know that's a ball. But not the time, not the time. And other places like, tap, tap, tap. You have wronged me. Yeah. Well, and maybe a further subcategory of this.

Starting point is 00:45:24 And I'm going to offer this. And then if it's on anyone's list, I think you can still draft it. I am increasingly enjoying the guy who looks aggrieved at a call and has challenges at his disposal but doesn't opt to use them. Where it's like, hey buddy,

Starting point is 00:45:39 you know, the solution is right in front of you. It feels very like childlike to me. Like you're not willing to help yourself or maybe you know that the leverage doesn't make sense or it's too early in the game. There's a team policy about when you use the challenges and you would be running a foul of that. But the guy who like kind of looks at the up

Starting point is 00:46:00 and it's like, I don't know, man. tap, tap, tap away if you think it's wrong. Or you identified a few cases earlier this season, Sam, of the K-strut, when the pitcher K-structs Oh, have I already? Yeah, I'm 100% going to write that article. I did not realize I'd already hit it. You did, but yeah, some cases where someone will do that and then they won't get the call, but then they still won't challenge.

Starting point is 00:46:22 The K-Stra and the K-stair, yeah. Yeah. Doesn't get challenged, yeah. challenge where your emotion is. Yeah, just have the courage of your convictions. So, yeah. Now, does this sheepishness apply as much to ABS? Because obviously there's less of a turnaround time.

Starting point is 00:46:38 There's less, I mean, the umpires aren't conferencing. You get that little graphic that sometimes blocks our view of the player. And so there's a little less, you might get that immediate. Ooh, shouldn't have challenged that one. But you don't really get the dawning realization so much, and less like mid-pidge trajectory as you're seeing the graphic, maybe. Yeah, I think you get some of it in that moment where it's like, oh, that's not going to, that's not going to land in the zone. Or, oh, that's going to land well outside where the guy kind of goes, you can kind of like see his shoulders drop.

Starting point is 00:47:10 I would be curious to hear from players about the split of, I am mad that the call didn't go my way versus I'm afraid of getting yelled at when I get back to the dugout about having wasted a challenge. and I don't know what is motivating the physical reaction most of the time. Obviously, you can let your team down in many ways, but generally speaking, if you let your team down, it doesn't affect your teammates' chances of getting an RBI later or getting a home run later. It hurts your team's chances of winning, but it doesn't hurt the other player's chances of putting up stats. And I sort of believe that most guys mostly just want to put up stats.

Starting point is 00:47:49 And this is the one thing where you can ruin the rest of your team's stats. Like for the rest of the game, they don't get to have as good as stats as they want because they're at the mercy of a bad strike zone potentially. It's like an example of like, say you were trapped in a mine for like 70 days and you only had like a little bit of food. Using the ABS and losing is kind of like being caught stealing rations. That's very dramatic. So I do think that you see a different kind of face there than you do with any other. Yeah, yeah, it's a bad face. Do you know, you guys, I've mentioned this in a post, but so the Brewers basically have like hitters don't challenge.

Starting point is 00:48:36 I don't know this. I haven't seen this reported, but basically none of their hitters challenge ever. Like they challenge a ton on defense and then they hardly ever challenge on offense. And it's a big enough differential that like that has to be a directive has been sent down since spring training. So most brewers will not challenge. But Gary Sanchez, for some reason, challenges more than any hitter in baseball, and he's not that good at it. She's so bad at it in fact. So he's done, he has, Gary Sanchez, Gary Sanchez has 45% of the Brewers' offensive challenges.

Starting point is 00:49:09 Yeah. Yeah. Chaos. So I think because this is such an impulsive act, not saying that he's necessary impulsive, but, you know, we all know, like we've seen the impulsive. He's like the Leroy Jenkins of the brewers. The pitchers, the challenge, even though they're not supposed to. You know, we all know pitchers aren't generally supposed to challenge. Like, I've seen, like, openers use a challenge, like an opener pitcher use a challenge.

Starting point is 00:49:34 And I'm like, that's not allowed. You're not allowed. Right? So I think that the team should be able to preemptively tell the umpire, this guy doesn't have the right. Like, even though he is, the rules say he can, we're just, we're putting a, like, when you Put a pause on your credit card because you can't find it. You're not canceling your credit card. Right.

Starting point is 00:49:55 Child loss or something. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You should be able to, before a plate of parents, you should be able to just send out a note to the umpire saying this guy's not authorized. And then when he taps the helmet, the umpire, does he placate him? Like, yeah, we'll look into that. You should.

Starting point is 00:50:11 It's like being muted on Twitter, not blocked, but muted. You don't even necessarily know. Like, maybe you even be like, oh, you lost. Oh, yeah, we're going to check. We're going to check. But yeah, it doesn't go through. Okay. Should I go?

Starting point is 00:50:24 Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I really like backhanded compliments about baseball players. And I got one a few years ago because Jesse came with me to some sort of alumni event at my grammar school where I went for 10 years from nursery through eighth grade. And I was on the baseball team in seventh and eighth grade. What? You're kidding.

Starting point is 00:50:46 My coach from there was at this event. Wait, Ben, you were on your school baseball? team? I was. Tell us more. Well, I'm about to give you the scouting report that my coach, Coach Jorge Roman, who was one of the coaches in those years, Jesse met him. And I mentioned that he was one of the baseball coaches. And so she asked him for a scouting report about me or to describe what kind of player I was. And coach Roman said, he had a great understanding of the game. That's terrific. Which, you know, kind of tells you all you need to know, I guess. Now, you know, at that stage, I was four foot seven.

Starting point is 00:51:24 I mean, it was 13 or 14. Hadn't hit my growth spurt yet. But that was Coach Roman's memory of me. So I guess maybe that told you that I was cut out to be a podcaster and blogger more than anything else. And I like when baseball players are described that way in terms similar to that. For example, just this week, the Red Sox made a very minor trade. and they picked up from the A's, an infielder, Brett Harris. Chad Tracy of the Red Sox was asked about Harris and why they had picked him up because he was DFAed by the A's.

Starting point is 00:51:59 He had been in AAA. And Tracy said, I think a big part of it was that he's available. I think a big part of it was he's available. He's infield depth. He's played first, second, and third. He has a pulse. Yes. Big picture we've gotten fairly.

Starting point is 00:52:17 thin on infield depth over the course of the last couple of weeks. We've exhausted a good portion of our infield depth. So did not say one nice thing about Brett Harris other than he is technically a baseball player. He knows how to play infield positions and he was available. I mean, half of that's on Brett Harris for being named Brett Harris. Maybe. You got to be Aloysius Jumanji if you want to like have a memorable career. Aloysius Jumonji. Well, you'd put that guy on your bench. I'd get his jersey. Off the top of your head, Grant?

Starting point is 00:52:49 Sure. We all have names. Sure. That must have been one of those 1904 baseball names. Big Jeff Feffer. It's a college baseball player, that's where you. Maybe. So my favorite version of this is he's a baseball player or sometimes he's a ball player.

Starting point is 00:53:05 And obviously, it's context sensitive because sometimes this can be a legitimate compliment. Sometimes it's just factual and informational. Like you're just literally explaining that someone is a baseball player. But more often than not, it is a great compliment that is also a backhanded compliment. So, for example, in 2021, and I'll play a clip of this, but Clayton Kershaw was asked about Zach McKinstree. Hey, Trayden, what can you kind of say about what Zach McKinstree has been able to do here in the last week or so? He's a baseball player, man.

Starting point is 00:53:35 That's like, I think that's just the best compliment you can give somebody that plays our game. And he really is. And that's clearly not true. Like, people have paid. much better compliments to Clayton Kershaw than he's a baseball player. Like, he's a many-time Sy Young Award winner. He's a future Hall of Famer. He is the best pitcher in baseball.

Starting point is 00:53:56 He's arguably the best pitcher ever. These are the best compliments you could give somebody who poise our game. I'm technically going to say something that's true. Ben Lindberg is a baseball player. Right. Technically. It was true in seventh and eighth grade, at least. And so I've collected many examples of this over time.

Starting point is 00:54:12 I wonder if you're going to name mine. I've got one in mind. Well, there are nuances too. this. So in 2016, Jordan Bastion of MLB.com, he did a post called the Tito translator, so invoking Terry Francona again. And one of these Titoisms was about being a baseball player. He's a baseball player. And Jordan Bastion wrote, well, aren't they all baseball players? Every person who wears a Cleveland uniform is indeed a baseball player, but some of those baseball players are baseball players. Just the other day, Francona used this one to describe

Starting point is 00:54:45 Mike Napoli. Tito even took it to a new level. He's a down and dirty baseball player. What does it mean? It means the player in question has great instincts that he does more reacting than thinking and he does so well when he's out on the field. He'll get his uniform dirty and do whatever it takes to put the team first and his own stats second. Probably because his own stats aren't that great, but that goes unstated. Another go-to descriptor for a baseball player is that he's conscientious. Tito used that one for Michael Bourne all the time. Once I asked Francona, when you say he's a baseball player, what do you mean exactly? He replied, you know, he's just a baseball player.

Starting point is 00:55:23 And I nodded. So that's what it usually goes like. And I mentioned one of these earlier this season because we were talking about Ildomaro Vargas. And this was when Ildomaro Vargas was like the best hitter in baseball and had a 400 batting average or whatever. And Pat Murphy Brewer's manager was asked about Ildomaro. of Argus and he wanted to say something, something kind of complimentary about him, but what do you say? And Pat Murphy said, he's always been a baseball player. And then he went on to say he's always been a winning player. He's always been a little less tools than his performance is better than his tools.

Starting point is 00:56:00 He's playing with a freedom. He's finding the barrel. He knows himself. As you mature as a player and get more time, you can find pockets like this. So even when he was riding high, he acknowledged that This is small sample fluke. It's a pocket and it will not last. And it didn't, as we subsequently talked about. He then became the worst hitter in baseball after that. But we're still a baseball player, I guess. So sometimes it's something to brag about.

Starting point is 00:56:26 Sometimes it's used in the context of, like in the great 2016 Richard Linklater movie, everybody wants some. And, you know, they're talking about you can be different kinds of athletes in college. And the Glenn Powell character, Walt, is talking about how there's kind of a cachet to being a baseball player. Bottom line is this. Her friends are going to ask. What's he like? What's he do? She's not going to have to say the old...

Starting point is 00:56:50 I don't know. He's a marketing major. That's not going to cut it. He's a baseball player. Oh. Oh, see, now they got some special to talk about. At that level, maybe it's a mark of distinction, but then once you're actually a big leager and it's clear that you are a baseball player,

Starting point is 00:57:07 then it's sort of a slap in the face to be a baseball player. Or it says something. about your character and your effort level, but also says something about your skill level. See, because my first instinct is I coach softball for 13 years, right? And it was rec softball, wasn't at a high level. And so to me, she's a softball player or they're a softball player. It has like a connotation that I get.

Starting point is 00:57:31 It's like you line up a bunch of kids, and there are some kids where you say, here's how you go down and you get your glove dirty and like all that stuff. And some kids are just like, hell yes, this is what I do. I've done it and it worked and I'm going to do it even harder than the next time, right? Yeah, that's how it is at rec for 10-year-olds and then they weed out because some of them are like,

Starting point is 00:57:52 I don't want to get dirty to catch a ball. That's dumb as hell. I am going to draw some really good art. And right, you peel off and that's the selection bias. By the time you get to Division I softball, they're all softball players, man. Like they're all, they aren't there because you might get the occasional Jeff King,

Starting point is 00:58:10 but in general they're all the people who are like, this all rules. I'm going to devote my life to it. And yeah, I'm a softball player. It reminds me of the bit in one of Taylor Tomlinson's stand-up specials where she's describing the challenge of finding a father's day card for a dad you have a contentious relationship with and opting for you are a dad. This is a card. This is a day. She'll simply state the most neutral facts available to us and hope that suffices. I'm not sure that I accept this. as a backhanded compliment.

Starting point is 00:58:44 I think that there is embedded meaning to this phrase. It's clearly understatement and cliche, but in the same way that scouts refer to a guy as a dude or a guy. And we're like, yeah, I mean, they all are. You could say that, right? But we know what it means. We know what a guy means in a scouting context, right? And I think that he's a baseball player is like saying he's a comedian's comedian.

Starting point is 00:59:17 You know, like there is that meaning to it. It's not intended to be, I don't have anything else to say about him. It's intended to say something very precise about him, which is that, you know, he's a baseball. He's a baseball player. Yeah. So I think that you're right that it can, because it's like so general and non-es, unspecific and also like unfalsifiable that it becomes something that you can say about players who aren't actually good.

Starting point is 00:59:45 Yeah. But I don't think that it always is said about players who aren't good. It is intended to be a compliment, but it's said selectively. And so it's kind of there's a qualifier, which you're usually not referring to a superstar as a baseball player. So it's always you're trying to say something nice about someone. And you really are. you do appreciate and admire this quality in them,

Starting point is 01:00:11 but you can't just say, like, well, he's a star, he's an All-Star, he's a Hall of Famer. Like, you've got to reach for something else. So, like, you're saying if we collected all these and then, like, charted their wars, that it would be like they have an average war of 0.1. It's a 0.1 war compliment. Yeah, I have a few other examples. You know, the caliber of player. Like, just this week, Philly's play-by-play guy, Scott Fransky,

Starting point is 01:00:32 called Bryson Stott a baseball player. He's a baseball player. Last year in the ALCS, I wasn't able to hear this myself, but someone said that Buck Martinez said that the Blue Jays, someone was a ball player. There are a lot of them on this team. That, okay, there were some good players on the Blue Jays. One of them, though not one of the higher profile ones, was Nathan Lucas and Blue Jays manager, John Schinder, called Lucas a baseball player less than a month ago.

Starting point is 01:00:57 John, what makes Nathan Lucas a good baseball player? That's it. He's a baseball player, you know? He's a good defender. He runs the base as well. He understands situations, understands what he's good at. He knows when to work account. He knows when to be aggressive.

Starting point is 01:01:12 He knows when to take some shots. You know, it's just the biggest compliment I can give a player usually is that he's a baseball player, you know, and I think Nate has been that for his whole career, and I think, you know, the world is kind of just seeing that. Last year, Otto Kemp got called a ball player or a baseball player multiple times. Rob Thompson called Otto Kemp. He's a baseball player, and I like baseball players because of that. they play the game the right way. Also, Larry Boa said he works for everything. Nothing's given to him.

Starting point is 01:01:41 He does everything well. He's a baseball player. He's a student of the game. He handles himself unbelievable. But that's that's Otto Kemp. That's kind of, you know, quad A type player. Alex Cora last year said that Marcelo Meyer, he's not just a prospect. He's a baseball player. You know, that's a compliment. He was a real prospect. 24 Rocco Baldelli on Christian Vasquez. He's a very dedicated baseball player, and he is a baseball player. Inside his body, he's not a guy who just plays baseball. He's a baseball player.

Starting point is 01:02:13 He loves this stuff. He's never going to stop working and trying to improve himself, etc. Dave Roberts called Johnny DeLucah, a baseball player. This is very damning. This is very damning. He's a baseball player. He's that old school gritty grinder type. He's a good defender.

Starting point is 01:02:28 He can play all three outfield spots. Positional versatility is a big thing when it comes to being a baseball player because it's like you can play all these positions. You're playing more than anyone else's. And Joe Madden called David Fletcher a baseball player in 2021. He's the kind of guy that can get overlooked with today's methods. I would take several more of those. We all would. He's a baseball player.

Starting point is 01:02:50 He just does things properly. He plays the game, right? He's got great skills. He sees things that other people don't see in advance. We never heard what happened to David Fletcher and his. possible sports betting activities. I never got an update on that. So that's it.

Starting point is 01:03:05 And, you know, sometimes like in Space Jam, Michael Jordan is described as a baseball player and describes himself as a baseball player. And then it's kind of dismissive. It's like, oh, yeah, baseball player because, you know, he's playing basketball then. What I'm trying to say is, we need your help.

Starting point is 01:03:24 Yep, by my baseball player now. Right. And I'm a Shakespearean actor. All right, guys. Right back in this game. Come on now. Let's play some tough defense. Why didn't you get this guy?

Starting point is 01:03:35 He's a baseball player. He's a baseball player. Looks like a basketball player to me. Yeah, me too. There was another good one I found in Baseball America from 2019, and this was USA Baseball GM Eric Campbell on Clayton Andrews, the 5-foot-6 pitcher, who later got a little bit of Big League time. But I think the word the scouts use is he's a baseball player.

Starting point is 01:03:59 Whether he's a pitcher or a left fielder, he's a baseball player. He's a California kid who just loves to play the game. That's the definition of Clayton Andrews baseball player. So, yeah, it helps if you are sort of short of stature. And that's, I found one example from 1999, which was Kevin Malone, then the Dodgers GM. The sheriff? Yeah, on Craig Counsel, they acquired Craig Counsel, and Kevin Malone said he's a baseball player. And if you look at all the teams beating us, they're loaded with baseball players.

Starting point is 01:04:33 Astute. That's a real monocle popping out of the eye moment. Like, by Joe, he's right. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty tautological. There are some other, like in 2022, Brian Snitker called Ronald Acuna Jr. A baseball player. And that's unusual because he's, you know, totally tooled up star.

Starting point is 01:04:52 But he was being asked about him making some misplays in the outfield. And so he was saying he's a baseball player as in he's fallible. He's human. He can make mistakes from time to time. I mean, it just seems like maybe the throw and that he's had a couple plays here. He's a baseball player. I don't expect to be perfect. I know that.

Starting point is 01:05:14 So that was an interesting little wrinkle. So the only way that like a true star can be called a baseball player, I think, is either when they did something wrong like that or if they're a littler guy and they did something small ballish, then you can kind of compliment that on, like Dave Roberts last year called Mookie Betts. He's a baseball player. And it was, you know, after he made some heads-up play, right? So that happened. Jason Stark referred to Jimmy Rollins in 2008 as a baseball player. There's a connotation that, like, you're not too flashy. It's not all about you. You're a team player. Like, Ryan Sandberg, okay, probably maybe the best player who was referred to as baseball

Starting point is 01:05:54 player, but he referred to himself as a baseball player. Can't do that. Yeah, you can't. It's like nicknaming yourself, you know, but it was when he retired in mid-194. When he'd stopped being a baseball player. Exactly. Right. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:06:10 Yeah. And he said, like, the skills that he had, he said, the thing that helped me become the player I was, have left me. And so, yeah, he was no longer a baseball player. But he said, I've devoted everything all my life to baseball. I haven't had any distractions or anything else on the side. And he was a baseball player. And he just wanted to be remembered as a baseball player.

Starting point is 01:06:32 And Larry Himes, the Cubs GM at the time, said, there are no Ryan Sandberg billboards. I've never seen a Ryan Sandberg ad. That seems unlikely, right? There had to be. Yeah. But he enjoys playing baseball, not doing peripheral stuff. So he wasn't in it for just the stardom or the money or anything.

Starting point is 01:06:50 He was a baseball player. and that's how he wanted to be remembered. And so, you know, I found some columns. Mike Royko, the legendary Chicago Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, he had a real hard on for baseball players in the 90s. So he talked about how Sandberg was a true baseball player. He talked about how John Kruk was not an athlete, but was a baseball player. Again, backhanded compliment.

Starting point is 01:07:14 I agree with that. Yeah, Kruk might agree with that, too. Did you guys happen to be watching the Phillies game when they had one of the Artemis two astronauts in the booth with Kruk. I saw the details. I have just, I have developed over the last couple of years just like a really profound affection for Kruk, which I'm not the only one. I don't know. I'm not like, you know, having a take here.

Starting point is 01:07:39 But watching him interact with the notion of a human being going to space was really beautiful. It was such a magical. He's like, you guys got beer up there, you know? And then he had clearly asked her, it was Christina Koss, had asked her all these questions when they had had dinner together in the media dining room. And he noted that like he asked her, we really, have we really been up there? And she was like, yeah, of course. And he was like, you know, what am I, I believe her, what am I going to do? Get my information from podcasts.

Starting point is 01:08:15 And I was like, this suggests that not only is John Crockerware of podcasts, he has like a developed, understanding of some of the shenanigans that the podcasts get up to in conspiratorial spaces and finds them wanting. And it filled my heart with joy. So that's the story about John Crick. Ben, can I give you my favorite backhanded compliment? Sure. He does things that don't show up in the box score. Yeah, of course. Especially with the modern expanded box score. Like literally every, so I was going to write a post about things that truly don't show up in the box score and I can only think of one

Starting point is 01:08:50 and it was backing up a throw that didn't get away from the fielder just back he backed up the throw the throw was accurate it was fine it was fine, it got caught but he backed it up that didn't show up in the box score everything else shows up in the box score and even that is tracked it's tracked yeah but it is hard to get

Starting point is 01:09:07 the tracking data that is released does not like if you try to get the tracking data for the other players in the field of a play that are not the primary actor in the play, you will see that it is very hard to do, and therefore I consider that not in the box score. So would you say a catcher running to first, you know, as a matter of course, that's

Starting point is 01:09:28 something that doesn't show up in the box score? Are you trying to trick me? That's what I just said. Did you say the catcher, the catching position? I mean, he's a fielder backing up a throw. Yeah. But like, all right. Gosh, you know, I just wanted to clarify.

Starting point is 01:09:43 Yeah. This is why the podcast was canceled, you know. You know, the only other one, you know, the only other one that occurs to me, Sam, is like if a guy is the final hitter in a half inning and then one of his teammates brings out his hat to him, his hat and his glove. You know, because he's like, he doesn't go back to the dugout for it. Somebody brings it out to him and is like, here, he needs this for the next half inning. I found a reputed Pat Tabler quote, which I couldn't confirm could be apocryphal, but he's a baseball player. And what do baseball players do? They play baseball.

Starting point is 01:10:13 I think it's Christina Coke, not Koss. I think I missed. I did. I actually Googled because I thought, oh, I thought, exactly. I thought it was a Christian. That's exactly what happened. Well, we are all cos brain. Yeah. Honestly, I was already primed to think about Christian Koss and you have to know why. We invoked the giants. I promised that we wouldn't. My brain did a weird little, little cross there. So before we get any emails, you know, just I go in that column on Kruk. said one of his teammates said, and this was when Kruk was on the Padres in 86, I guess he was a rookie. One of his teammates supposedly said, I've never seen anything that looks like Kruk. I've never seen anything that moves like Kruk. I've never seen anything shaped like Kruk.

Starting point is 01:10:57 But he was a baseball player. One time recently, a couple weeks ago, Kruk, somehow like they got talking about like high school football or something like that or maybe high school basketball, something. And, you know, his partners, like, asked him, like, you know, did he play or, like, was he good or something? And he's like, yeah, I mean, I was the best player in the state. And, like, it does remind you that even John Kruk was not only the best baseball player in the state. Right. But even John Kruk was the best athlete in all of West Virginia. Like, he was the best at everything.

Starting point is 01:11:31 Yeah. Yeah. That's what these guys are, all of them. And so if you get described as a baseball player, as an amateur, as a kid, that's probably not a great sign for you. And it wasn't for me, I guess. And the last example I'll share us, I found an example from 1978 about a player named Kevin Willoughby on the New London, Connecticut Whalers High School Baseball Team. And I don't know what happened or became of Kevin Willoughby, but it starts, coach Gil Varhus describes Kevin Willoughby the best. He's a baseball player.

Starting point is 01:12:01 And although that may sound like an oversimplification, it really is not because that's just what Willoughby is, a complete ball player. But even that, if you're adding an adjective complete or he's a great baseball player, you know, that's different. You're dressing it up. And you can throw adjectives in there like wet that really changed the meaning. Yeah, then we know who you're talking about. It's Brandon Marsh. But, you know, anyway. So, Sandberg, I'm not anything besides a baseball player.

Starting point is 01:12:24 But that's not usually that greatest thing. Although they're all big leaguers. They all deserve some acclaim for that. All right, back to Sam. So I mentioned this in a post very recently. This might be another example of dropping an article idea that I'd, just don't know how to get into in an article, but there were

Starting point is 01:12:40 something like 80 pitchers qualifying pitchers last year, wherever you set the threshold, like 80, I think, was threshold. 80 qualifying pitchers last year, 79 of them through between 61 and 68%

Starting point is 01:12:57 strikes. Technically 60.9% and 68% strikes. So call it 61. So basically every pitcher, 68, 61, to 68% strikes. And, you know, for the life of me, I just don't think that there's

Starting point is 01:13:12 anything else in sports that has such a narrow band of performance, which is weird to me because we all think of some of these pitchers as being very wild, and some of them as having great control.

Starting point is 01:13:28 And yet they all are in this tiny band between 61 and 68%. And so I'm, I don't know how to phrase that, but the fact that every pitcher basically throws the same percentage of strikes is my thing. I think it's crazy, right? Like, that's crazy, isn't it? And so somebody, I mean, look, it would be hard to stay in the majors if you threw 40% strikes. So I'm not saying that there should be the full, you know, human distribution of strike rates among these pitchers. they're selected for that, but they're selected for many things.

Starting point is 01:14:10 And yet you see much, it seems to me, much wider variance in skill level for swinging strike rate or velocity or, you know, ground ball rate. If you look at hitters, they have way wider distribution as far as like contact rate, chase rate, exit V-low. Like there's a million different ways. to be good at baseball, good enough to make the majors in every other way.

Starting point is 01:14:42 But somehow, if you throw fewer than 61% of strikes, you are not allowed. And if you throw more than 68, you just don't exist. You're the greatest player of all time. Can't be a baseball player. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:58 And so I think that's crazy and delightful. I think that the fact that Jose Soros, Soriano and Brian Wu throw like five different pitches over the course of 100. That's like the wildest guy

Starting point is 01:15:16 I've ever seen and the most accurate guy I've ever seen. And it's like one out of 20 pitches differs? That's nuts. Yeah, you couldn't even tell.

Starting point is 01:15:29 I mean, unless you watched a big sample, right? You wouldn't even know who was the wild guy who was the effectively wild guy who was the control artist. You're pretty clearly the effectively wild guy. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:15:43 Does that speak to the importance of the strike zone in baseball? It's like the Bill James quote. You know, the strike zone is the very heart of a baseball game. An inch in the strike zone means far more than 10 yards in the outfield. I don't know how he calculated that. But it's like you can't, there just isn't much of a allowable range there really because it's just so crucial, it's so central to the way the game has evolved.

Starting point is 01:16:09 I don't know. Yeah. I don't know either. And I'm cheating somewhat because you're a lot less likely to qualify as a pitcher if you're walking guys, right? And like not just that you're less likely to make the majors if you're wild, but like there are pitchers that are under 61, you know, 61% from last year,

Starting point is 01:16:29 but they only threw, you know, a smaller number of innings. And pitchers do and, you know, like relievers. and Tyler Chatwood. Tyler Chatwood is always my go-to guy who somehow stayed in the majors a long time despite seemingly throwing very few strikes. I don't even know if that's accurate. I just like bashing Tyler Chatwood for some reason.

Starting point is 01:16:47 Totally inexplicable. I don't know, Ben. I don't know. I don't know what it speaks to. I haven't decided how to write this yet. I don't know what it speaks to. I haven't. I purposely didn't pick something

Starting point is 01:16:59 that was baseball reference related today because I tend to do that every time. But one of the things I like, about baseball is this simple conversation has me on the Nick Nuggenbauer page right now. It's just it popped him ahead and I was what did what was that guy all about and yeah Nick Nuggenbauer. Yeah that's a good one. If anyone has examples of similar phenomena in sports where there's that narrow a range at the highest level of something the skill spread is that small please write in I would be interested. Okay. Grant. I and this kind of dovetails in with the

Starting point is 01:17:34 idea of he's a baseball player because I love one of my favorite baseball things that I've watched covered over the last couple decades is coming in this hellish season for the Giants. And it is such an oasis. And it's Luis Arise, his defensive improvement, which is, it passes the eyeball test. He's doing, he's doing stuff out there where it's like, wow, that is a hot shot defensive second baseman. And I love the idea that that's still possible. And I don't know who the other, because first off, you have to be a baseball player to be able to commit to fielding like this. And if you're a baseball player, I feel like you can work with Ron Washington and get coached up. But just the idea that out there somewhere is, you know, a pitcher that's been

Starting point is 01:18:19 told to focus on getting that velocity up or getting this spin rate, getting this snap on a slide or something like that, that you can put all these efforts into it and then still on the side, there might be something that's untouched that you can rediscover later in your career and go, you know what, I'm going to work on this now. And then that takes you in a whole another direction. It's the skill it takes to do what Luis Aray's did as a hitter seems to be like it would be the, you would need to put all of your efforts into being that good as a hitter. And it's a reminder that it's, it's the whole, he's a baseball player. I'll just say he's a baseball player. But the idea that that's still available to some of these baseball players

Starting point is 01:18:57 is fascinating to me. Yes. Oh, I completely co-signed. Can I jump the line, Meg, because I have a very related one and it'll dovetail with this. Yes, sure. So, yeah, I'm fascinated by this too because this was one of the things that made me want to write a book about player development because there was that whole wave of Rich Hill and Justin Turner and Jeannie Martinez. And it was just like, these guys were already big leaguers. They already had reached the pinnacle.

Starting point is 01:19:25 And then it turned out they had another gear and all they had to do was whatever, start swinging up or learn a new pitch or throw a, one already good pitch way more or something, and it seems so simple. So I wanted to take today players just deciding to change something, and suddenly they're a completely different player. And it's more about the mindset of it specifically. So not even picking up a pitch, or I worked with Ron Washington or something where there's like an actual physical change. They're doing something different. But just like someone told him, hey, why not think about it this way? And then they did that. And then they were a completely different player from that point forward. And the most recent

Starting point is 01:20:10 example of this is Cabert Ruiz, Nationals catcher this year, or for many years, but this year he is actually good. And Spencer Nussbaum wrote a piece about this for the athletic. And it's about how they unlocked Capeert Ruiz after years of stagnating or going to. And it's about how they unlocked Cape Ruis after years of stagnating or going backward, if anything. And it turned out they just, they had a meeting with him. And the Nationals had these player plan meetings where they kind of talk about what could improve and how you could do something better. And for Cape Ruis, the idea was basically just that like he should try swinging harder.

Starting point is 01:20:46 Like, have you thought about that? And that worked seemingly. So they had this meeting for him in early May. and they just, they told him, so here Ruiz's diligence in pregame work, quoting from Grant's athletic colleague here, they said, put him on the precipice of his breakout. If he embraced a couple of modern philosophies swinging harder and pulling the ball in the air, he could become a productive player at the geriatric by national standards age of 27. In his first at bat after the meeting, Ruiz pulled a double into right field. In his next at bat, he did it again. His next time up, he swung harder than he had in almost any at bat this season. pulled a home run inside the foul pole in right field.

Starting point is 01:21:27 His OPS jumped 127 points in one day. Over the next three weeks, it spiked another 130 points and since it's 763. Since the meeting, Ruiz has been the most productive offensive catcher in baseball. And this was published May 28th, just looking at the previous three weeks or so.

Starting point is 01:21:42 But it's still true. He is still the most productive catcher in baseball since that meeting in early May. And all they had to do, really, and there's a little more to it. Obviously, they worked with him in the cage, and they showed him some data and stuff. But basically, here it is.

Starting point is 01:21:58 After the meeting, over the weeks that followed the meeting, the Nationals had him spend time in the cage, generating more power from his backside, taking more swings before the game. Okay, these are more mechanical changes. He was doing underweight and overweight bats and stuff like that to work on swing speed and bat speed. But it says, when Ruiz went up to the plate,

Starting point is 01:22:16 he said, the Nats wanted him to think of two words, do damage. So how did this all work out? Before the meeting, swing speed from the left side, 66.7 miles per hour after 68.9. Before the meeting, percentage of batted ball events pulled in the air, 25%, 70th in MLB. After 58.3% the highest rate in MLB. Before the meeting, one extra base hit every 11 at bats. After one extra base hit every 4.1 at bats.

Starting point is 01:22:41 And all they had to do was telling you're doing great. Just do damage. Just swing harder. Swing harder. And he did. And Sam, you might remember, because we talked about it at the time, I think, Zach Cozart had a similar epiphany back in 2015. He had been one of the worst hitters in baseball in the proceeding.

Starting point is 01:23:01 Come on then. You might not remember. I do not. Well, it's emblazoned on my minds, at least. I'll never forget the Zach Cozart transformation. Full snort on that one. How could you forget our pal C. Trent Rosecrins, who now works for the athletic, but was then with the Cincinnati Enquirer, he wrote a piece, and it led with this.

Starting point is 01:23:23 This spring training, this is 2015, Red's Hall of Fame shortstop, Barry Larkin, had a simple question for the team's current shortstop, Zach Kozart. Hey, you ever thought about telling yourself to just crush the inside part of the ball? Not guide it, but wherever that ball is, just crush the inside part of it. For some reason, that struck a chord with Kozart, who was hopping between two minor league games to get extra at bats. He thought about crushing the inside of the baseball in that very next at bat, and he crushed the ball off the wall for a double on a change-up. I was like, oh, Cozart remembered before Sunday's game with the Cardinals, it was kind of eye-opening. The simpler you can make everything. And if it's that one thought that keeps me clear, it's definitely going to help.

Starting point is 01:24:01 So this was our mistake with the Stomper's when we had a whole scouting board of information. And all we should have said was, have you thought about crushing the ball? Have you thought about doing damage? And maybe Cozart was especially suggestible because then he had like a re-breakout in 2017. And Trent wrote about that. And apparently it was because he watched a YouTube video. And the YouTube video told him to think of his swing like putting pizza in an oven. And you want to put the pizza in level.

Starting point is 01:24:31 And so he did that with his swing. But, you know, it showed up in the stats. He was very bad. And then he got very good. And seemingly because it was like Barry Larkin was like, have you thought about being good at baseball basically instead of being bad? I feel like there's those stories. But the famous ones are like Nolan Rying saying, hey, Randy Johnson wants. you move over on the mound a little bit.

Starting point is 01:24:52 Right. And it's like, now he's a Hall of Famer or. Yeah, yeah. Hey, how do you throw that cutter there, Mariano? And then now I'm Roy Halliday, you know. But you have to wonder those stories where it takes someone from a quad A player to someone who gets a pension. And I bet you there's a lot of those things that we're not privy to.

Starting point is 01:25:09 Yeah. When there's a physical manifestation of it, it's a little more understandable to me. But when it's more like, have you thought about swinging hard? It just seems like how did you, how did that not occur to? you. And the third example and final example, you must remember the supposed the Buster Only anecdote about Connor Wong and Eroldus Chapman last year, where according to Buster only in spring training, Connor Wong was catching Chapman, was using pitchcom, and called for an inside fastball. I'm quoting only here. That's when the light bulb went off over Chapman's head.

Starting point is 01:25:44 He told Wong and Jason Veritech that he never thought about spotting his fastball. He would just throw it to home plate, all of a sudden, his entire perspective has changed. And supposedly that was why Chapman had halved his walk rate because the pitchcom called for an inside fastball. He's like, wait, I can. Ben, you know better than to use that example. We all know that that was. I don't know that I buy that.

Starting point is 01:26:12 And I don't know that I buy any of these, frankly. Oh, I do. Oh, my gosh. I do. This feels so true. to how I experience life. That, like, that really the habits of mind that we have, and in particular the sort of cognitive distortions that we have,

Starting point is 01:26:32 that give us, you know, that put limitations on us, or that give us stress or anxiety or that, you know, suppress what we think we can do, are often overcome by very simple awareness of those cognitive distortions or very simple monter. that counter them. And it's the hard thing is keeping them fresh and accessible, like the mantras or the fixes. The hard thing is keeping them fresh and accessible so that you don't go back to the self-defeating

Starting point is 01:27:04 habits of mind that you've been relying on for your entire life. But I feel like I've had so many of the best days or weeks of my life have been due to, like, three words of advice. So I really do relate to this. I feel like this sounds true to me. Okay. All right. Well, do damage, Sam.

Starting point is 01:27:33 See how that changes things. Okay. I think, though, that there's like an alternate version of this where the advice given is something that's completely unachievable. And those are admittedly funnier to me. I'm blanking on which pitcher it was now, and I have a text out to clarify. So if I can find out before the episode closes, I'll let everyone know. But there was a, like, a minor leagher who was having a hard time.

Starting point is 01:28:00 And he was on a team with Granky. So that narrows it, you know, at least somewhat, I guess. But he, you know, he was having a really hard time. He had just gotten called up. It wasn't going well. And he asked, you know, Granky for advice. And Granky's like, yeah, like, throw a bullpen for me all watching. He's like, oh, great.

Starting point is 01:28:18 And Granky was like, I think you should throw like five miles an hour harder. And he was like, okay, well, okay, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, have you thought about throwing harder? You know? Like, I think it would really solve things for you. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:28:31 And probably there are a bunch of examples of counterproductive advice that screwed someone up. Oh, sure. And then that doesn't get written about. But yeah, it's almost miraculous to me the idea that, oh, this could just unlock something. Eureka moment. All right. Sorry, Mick. Go ahead.

Starting point is 01:28:46 That's okay. mine is transaction names that double as like a human experience or interaction or feeling. So like a player being tendered a contract or sadly non-tendered. You know, a player being granted his release. Like, oh, that's some heavy stuff. Or even just like a team has recalled a player. Like, oh, yeah, that guy. He's down there.

Starting point is 01:29:10 We should get that guy up. We have a problem right now. He might be able to solve it for us. Yeah. You've all gotten a lot of mileage out of those. when it comes to like roto wire updates. Yes. Yes. You quote tweets.

Starting point is 01:29:21 Drawing trade interest. Oh, I love that. Yes. Like, and so I just, I think the tendered, non-tendered one is, is the most evocative for me. Granted, his release is certainly evocative, although kind of tragic. But they're, you know, we've all talked about, in fact, on this very podcast, like the long sort of tradition of, you know, the way that. that GMs are talking to each other about a potential trade, sounding somewhat salacious,

Starting point is 01:29:51 and this feels like another version of that. And I just, language is fun, and this is one of the examples. I'm a big fan of that and those, and I wonder whether our brain is, like, somehow drawing some metaphor between these things and our own experience, or if it's just that, like, all words have several meanings, and we can pick the one that most tickles us. Right.

Starting point is 01:30:12 But, yeah, I think those are great, that you mentioned, those are all great ones. I love granted his release. Yeah. It's just, it's so euphemistic. Yeah. It's wonderful.

Starting point is 01:30:25 What about the harsh reality of designated for assignment? He could be going anywhere. You could be assigned to Madagascar. It's the opposite of an assignment, too. Right, exactly. That's true. We will figure out what to do with you later, pal. Yeah, that guy could be at a gas station or on vacation.

Starting point is 01:30:43 I always think outrighted is just very. harsh. So outright it is an interesting one to me because you know that like how sometimes you'll be like, oh, Tommy? Oh, yeah, he's an outright monster. Right? Like you know that that way of using it. So every time I see giants outright Wilken Ramos, I'm like, that's right, they are outright Wilkins. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:31:04 They're bad. Yeah. They deserve to go to AAA. All of them. They're outright Wilkins. They're Wilken all over the place, man. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:31:13 Yeah. It's like, yeah, they can't hardly wait scene where they're talking about Preston and they're trying to describe Preston. And he's just, I mean, he's Preston. What can you say? That reminds me of the baseball player, you know. We're back to this. Ben, guys moved on. Right. We're going to grant his release soon.

Starting point is 01:31:30 So we should do our final round. Sam, what's your closer? I like that baseball, you know, we all live in silos for the most part. You know, I very rarely travel more than, you know, 20 miles from where I live. You know, most of my friends are like the same age. me and pretty similar. And I like this, it's like sort of like subtle, but baseball exposes you to a world of different people from different backgrounds with different behaviors that you just would never be exposed to. And I like that. And you sometimes it also exposes you to a certain amount of,

Starting point is 01:32:00 like evil that frankly or like rottenness that you frankly wouldn't. And the best example of this is the people that named their twins Tyler and Taylor, I just can't believe that those people exist, that there are people in this world who had identical twins and name them Tyler and Taylor. I think you said this on the last round table. No, but I'm with you. You've got imp and skimp, and it's like, no. We were on our, not our last episode, but the episode before that, contemplating, or at least

Starting point is 01:32:36 I was, like, Somali Jolly, you know. Uh-huh. Yeah. I wasn't sure if Jolly was Molly's maiden name or if she had taken her husband's name and we came to find out that it is her married name. But the point I was making is like the calculus, you know, there are all kinds of reasons that women take their husband's names. And that calculus is one set of decisions. And then there would be the parental decision of being like, this is our precious baby girl Molly. and our last name is Jolly.

Starting point is 01:33:10 We are creating the Molly Jolly combination, which is delightful, but also kind of inherently ridiculous, right? And that's very different than a grown woman being like, no, I'm, I am aware of the hilarity of Molly Jolly, and I accept Molly Jolly. I am Molly Jolly. You know, her husband's name is Burt. They're Molly and Burt Jolly. Burt Jolly. Doesn't that just, she's married to a Muppet, you know? Like, that's a Muppet Man's name.

Starting point is 01:33:42 Like, she's, this is a Muppet Man, you know? Jolly is such a delightful last name, though. I could see why, like, I don't think she would have necessarily gone with Molly Folly. Like if, right, no. But, like, Jolly, when you get the chance to marry into the Jollies. Yeah. We think it was Zach Lee. Zach Lee was the pitcher who Granky told to throw harder.

Starting point is 01:34:06 I guess he didn't do it. He didn't do it. Should have taken that advice. It might have been a spring. It was probably a spring training situation, not a column up to the major and then drawing them. I believe I was workshopping exactly where Zach Lee is short for exactly. I believe I was workshopping a Zach Lee tweet for like 10 years. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:26 Yeah. I had an obsession with all baseball players who were adverbs. So it's like, you know, you cliffly walk out to the mound and, you know, so. You've reminded me of the former owners of Twins.com who blocked the Twins and MLB from buying Twins.com for years. And they were named Derland and Darwin Miller. No relation to Sam. Yeah. Durland and Darwin.

Starting point is 01:34:51 Yeah. I don't know. Like, I understand the myriad ways in which this could be problematic and it's a bad idea and we can't do it and it's a free society and people have to be able to make their own choices. But sometimes I do wonder if like parents should have to submit some of these names to like a review board. you know. You are so going to get so many emails from Dirlins. Durlin's a fine name. It's the combination of the names.

Starting point is 01:35:15 It's the, to Sam's point, it's the, hey, you're already going to, people are going to comment on your existence in particular ways because you're twins, right? Like, I don't know if these kids were twins, but I just assume they were twins. Yes, they were. But that's, that's right, right. Right. Right. And so it's like, you know, like, you're just always. already going to have a lot of conversation about you because despite the fact that there are a lot of twins in the world, they're still relatively rare on like a per birth basis. And so why complicated? Give them wildly different names. Differentiate them. They're already not distinct enough from each other because they're twins. Because they're twins. All right. Another, The Simpsons, I mean, Sherry and Terry, right? On the Simpsons, they nailed it. They're annoying and she should feel bad about it. Taylor and Tyler are hard to keep straight. Yeah. Anyway, like,

Starting point is 01:36:07 Like every phone call, you'd have to clarify. Yes. Did you say Taylor or Tyler? Yes. You'd have to have them demonstrate their delivery on the mound to tell them apart. Do you think that parents always get the identity of their twins, right? What's the error rate on that? Do you think?

Starting point is 01:36:23 What do you mean? Like in what, like, they know. Differentiating. Yeah, I think they know. Do you think every time though? Do you think every single time? I do. One of the guys who got drafted into who got taken in the NHL draft this year,

Starting point is 01:36:37 and I'm not remembering their names and it doesn't matter. He's a twin and his brother was also in the draft. And they asked his parents, the higher drafted player who I think went in the first round, they asked his parents like, did they ever play a trick on you? And I so appreciated his dad's answer because he was like, no. And then he's like, but I guess I wouldn't know. And I was like, that is a, he's like, maybe they did, you know? And I just was like, I was like, I feel like this is an honest man.

Starting point is 01:37:04 It's like that conspiracy theory that, Azi Kenseko and Jose Kenseko switch places in a game and no one knows. I would try it. I would try it at least once. They didn't even look that similar though. Right, yeah, but not them. But if you were true twins and you were on the, and of course, the Rogers' is, it's a real editorial nightmare man. Whenever we have to write about one of them, I have to do, I make myself do like an extra

Starting point is 01:37:29 two rounds of fact checking that we have the right guy in the piece. I think humans, it turns out, are like super perceptive at different. differentiating gates of each other. So I actually think that if you knew the people, you would be able to tell just by the way they walk and carry themselves. It would, even if they dressed up the same, I don't think it would scan as correct. But I would bet that we have something like,

Starting point is 01:37:55 I would bet something like 30 to 70% rate of accidentally switching them in infancy without realizing it. Yeah. Like at some point, and then they just live out their entire lives. with the wrong identity. I think that probably happens a lot. Right, because they're just like, they're, you know,

Starting point is 01:38:12 when they're in the like blobby baby phase, they're not able to differentiate themselves as reliably. Go grant. Okay. I'll keep this quick, but I have to ask, we mentioned Phil Necro earlier. Does anyone,

Starting point is 01:38:25 if I say Joe Necro's batting career, does anyone understand what I'm getting at? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he had, what he had. Ah, don't blow it. Okay. I don't, okay.

Starting point is 01:38:36 Okay. Okay. So, Joe, Nekro, a bad hitter for his career. He is, let's see, he pitched for 22 years. And when it comes to being a hitter, he had, his OPS plus was eight. That is a 156 batting average, 188 on base percentage, 188 slugging percentage, a bad hitter. However, when you're going through Joe Necro's line, May 29th, 1976, he does have one home run. And so he comes up and it's Joe Necro, and he's behind.

Starting point is 01:39:09 The Astros are behind. Two to one. He comes up with one out and the top of the seventh cranks a home run to tie the game. Eventually, the Astros end up winning. Joe Necro is the winning pitcher.

Starting point is 01:39:22 The losing pitcher who gave up that home run, Phil Necro. Which I just freaking love that, that this guy can just suck and his brother's a Hall of Famer. But that Hall of Famer, if he screws up with one knuckleball,

Starting point is 01:39:36 even the crappiest guy can hit a ball out when it's the floatiest knuckleball ever and it's just it brings in knuckleballs it brings in quirkiness it brings in siblings

Starting point is 01:39:46 like that moment is just uh... Moisheff's kiss yeah that's a good one yeah that's almost like the Gaylord Perry home run coinciding with the moon landing kind of story

Starting point is 01:39:56 everyone kind of agrees that's not true not true like a lot of good stories yeah apocryful but don't like I just don't tell crook that and I like the idea

Starting point is 01:40:05 that his brother was trying to get him out So one-run game, he's up there, and he's trying to throw his best knuckleball and his dangled little brother, just like a little brother. Yeah, and you had to figure the knuckleball is, it's the great equalizer, right? Like, the major league quality pitch that you're most like a good hitter against is the knuckleball.

Starting point is 01:40:25 Like, obviously, these guys are much stronger than us still, so if they connect with the knuckleball, it goes a long way. Whereas we're weak, and if we connect, it would not go that far, so there's a difference. But how different would, the contact rate really be between big leaders? Because they don't really have any control over it. They can't explain how they hit it or why they hit one and they don't hit another.

Starting point is 01:40:46 It's just kind of random. And also, like, why they're able to hit a baseball so regularly, the steps that it takes to do that might be counterproductive. That's true. Specifically for a knuckleball. Absolutely, yeah. I just love the idea. That was honestly one of my backup choices in case one got taken. It's just that we, all of us talking, we could make the majors.

Starting point is 01:41:06 with one weird trick is if we could just throw a great knuckleball for strikes, we could be in the majors, and I just love that idea. We'd be baseball players. Yeah, all right. Meg, your final pick? I like it when the play ball kid chokes at the beginning of the game.

Starting point is 01:41:22 So like, so, so baseball's such a funny thing because in the rule book, Rule 5, playing the game, starts with Rule 501 starting the game, in parentheses, play ball. And then it proceeds to say that at the time set for beginning the game, the players of the home team shall take their defensive positions, the first batter of the visiting team, shall take his position in the batters box, the umpire and chief shall call play, and the game shall

Starting point is 01:41:50 start. But most teams interpret this rule as a little kid should stand at a microphone and yell, play ball, or at least some teams do, including the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are the big league team I see in person the most often now. And most of the time, the kid for the, the biggest potential like goof that a kid will will commit in this moment is forgetting that a microphone is its own amplification device and that they are hooked into the stadium sound system. And so they needn't scream as loud as they possibly can because we're going to, we're going to hear you, buddy. We're going to hear you a little friend. But sometimes, especially if it's like a really little kid, like a really small kid, they get shy.

Starting point is 01:42:36 And they go, play ball. And they talk so quiet. Or they have to take like a couple of seconds. And then they muster up the courage to say what they're meant to say. And then the action commences. And I just think it's one of the cutest things you'll ever see in your human life. And I say that as a non-parent. Maybe this is activating the anti part of my brain.

Starting point is 01:43:01 but when that little kid is just like, play ball, you're just like, everyone's waiting on you. And they could get going without that because the rule is about the umpire saying, play and commencing. And they're not going to wait an hour for this kid to muster up the gumption to say play ball

Starting point is 01:43:20 in front of a crowded ballpark. But it's really cute because it's like, what did you think you were here to do, little friend, you know? And I just love that. So that's my final pick. I just think that there's like, something internal inside everyone that if that kid says what's really on his mind like he

Starting point is 01:43:36 steps up with microphone says Dracula's never been to the moon then like he goes viral and like so there's like a part of you that knows that this is important and you have to say play ball and get out it's a more direct and magnified version of when the camera like if you're at a game and the you know it's between innings or what have you and they're like spanning the crowd to be like wave at the, everybody waves. They're so excited. They have no plan after that, right? Like, everyone wants to engage with the camera and be seen. And then they have the moment of, I am engaged in human recognition, and it is terrifying. I have no other plan after this. And there are the people who flex, and they're the people who dance. And I don't understand

Starting point is 01:44:21 the confidence of those people. Like, those people sleep better at night than I do and have fewer concerns and I envy them because if I'm waving I'm like this is all I got is the waving. All there is is the waving right now. So I love the ballpark at some moment of they at the if you go early enough to Diamondbacks

Starting point is 01:44:40 games like let's say you're getting there really early because you're worried that they'll give away all the Corby and Carol ballbell heads and you have to get one of each you know because they're doing the home runs and the stolen basis for the 30 30 season you're like oh I got to get there really early and so then you see

Starting point is 01:44:56 all the pregame ephemera and they have a scoreboard thing where they will find a person on their phone and then they will set a timer and see how long they remain oblivious to the fact that they are on

Starting point is 01:45:12 the jumbo tron on their phone which is a kind of high stakes thing because what if they're on their phone for a long time because they're learning of like a medical emergency or something but people are always it feels like it could be mean spirited but the couple of times seen it, everyone wants the person to remain oblivious for as long as possible. And it has a very

Starting point is 01:45:34 like kind of friendly energy to it. And then when they finally look up and see without exception, that person always looks bashful and then waves and everyone cheers for them. And, you know, like being oblivious on your phone can feel antisocial, but this feels communal in a way that kind of flips it in a nice way. So anyway, I've talked for a long time, only some of which is about my pick, But that's what we're here to do, isn't it? Yeah, that's a good one. MLB just tried to trademark play ball. And the patent office said, nope.

Starting point is 01:46:03 Yeah. Keep it pure. Keep it wholesome. That's a good one. All right. Well, I'll keep the last pick short and sweet. I won't Fernando Rodney yet. I will try to save this one, close it out without incident.

Starting point is 01:46:15 But I am taking MLB Game Day 3D glitches. Yes. Oh, yeah. That's great. I have a small but great. rowing collection, which I just emailed you all if you care to watch while I talk, which I will link to on the show page as well. And this is the advanced technology that was introduced or at least fully rolled out in 2024. And as we noted, everything baseball players do on the field

Starting point is 01:46:42 is tracked. And so this is their pose tracking. It's when they're running around. They're all transmogrified into stick figures and wireframe figures. And it initially wasn't clear to me what purpose this was serving or why we needed this because we have the video. But often we don't have the video of every play and every angle. And so you can kind of pause it and you can look from here or there somewhere where a camera wasn't. And you sort of strip it down to the basics, the bare essentials. And so sometimes it actually provides some insight into how a play went down. But sometimes it goes terribly horribly wrong.

Starting point is 01:47:20 And the players are present. and they leave this earthly plane and sometimes they ascend into the sky and sometimes they descend and they sink into the earth and it seems like it usually goes wrong well when it's something out of the normal

Starting point is 01:47:39 I don't even know which one you're watching I was hoping because Brian Grubb wrote a newsletter about all this and one of the links that you sent in the email is to one of his blue sky posts. And it just has catchers emerging from the earth. It has batters disappearing into the earth.

Starting point is 01:48:00 Yeah. It's like they're taking, we entered an email once about what if the mound just rose from the bottom of the earth, subterranean. Or like our mole man hypothetical where you have a mole player who's burrowing under the bases. It's kind of like that. They just rise from sub-sunturranean layer and then they disappear whence they came. And it's just the best. It usually happens also at some celebratory moment. Often it's like a walkoff.

Starting point is 01:48:28 And so the system just gets overloaded and stack us like, what are all these people doing? I lost track of where they are and who they are. And they're, you know, fist bumping and their butt padding and their chest bumping or whatever. They're making all kinds of contact. And so they like blend into each other. Or one person just like is a marionette and starts there's some satanic puppeteer who is just pulling them into the sky and contorting them in just horrible rictus of suffering.

Starting point is 01:48:58 And sometimes they just disappear like Jesse Orozco's glove or Prince's guitar or something, and you just don't know where they went. So sometimes it's like a walk-off. Sometimes it's between innings. Like maybe, I don't know, the system isn't ready for that. It's like some interstitial interlude. And the most recent example, heartbreaking, it was posted on Blue Sky and deleted. and now I can't find it anymore.

Starting point is 01:49:24 It was June 2nd. I think it was in the Reds game. But somehow the catcher and the batter switched places. So that the batter was wearing the catcher's gear. And then they both sank into the earth at the end. So I just love that this happens because it's like this is such sci-fi advanced technology. It would have totally blown our minds, you know, a decade ago, really. Like we would have been wowed, or I guess a decade ago, Stackess was new.

Starting point is 01:49:54 But, you know, before that, we would never have thought that they could ever do something like this or that we would ever have this wealth of information. And as advanced as it is, it still regularly f's up. And just its only job is to portray what happened on the field and do a one-to-one mirroring of the play. And it usually does. But sometimes it definitely doesn't. I love that stuff. It's like on Blue Sky Roto world, their headshots of players is like extremely pixelated.

Starting point is 01:50:26 Why are they like that? Well, they say, it's a thing. They grab them. And like, they're apologizing. It's like, don't apologize. Every time I see it, it lifts my day up. Like, literally, like, I just see this ultra-blurry headshot of a baseball player. And it lifts my day up.

Starting point is 01:50:39 I don't know why. But it does. And like, I unironically love that glitch. Never fix that. Yeah. The unintentional comedy value of this is just off the charts. I love it. Okay, I think we did it.

Starting point is 01:50:51 Good thing Jeff spurned us, or we would have been here all day. All day. I'm going to get off this recording and invite him to episode 3,000 immediately so that he has three years to say, yep, I think I have something that day. But by then he'll probably be pobo, so maybe he'll have an excuse. But anyway, I'm glad that you guys could join us. Happy birthday to the USA. Whatever its faults, without it, we wouldn't have baseball? So that's a point in its favor.

Starting point is 01:51:21 Got something going for it. I guess that's true. And the Giants may not be worth the price of admission, but Grant always is. So read him at the athletic. As is pebble hunting, also always worth the price, though I get it for free. But nonetheless, I read every word. Subscribe to Sam's substack. You don't, yeah, just to be clear, though, you get it for free, but you have the paid level.

Starting point is 01:51:44 You would not be satisfied with the free level. No. If you hadn't given me a comp, I would have paid. So you cost yourself a sub. I had my wallet out, and then you gave me a comp. So, like, I could probably just mail you a check for the difference over the months. But at this point, it's gotten gotten up a little bit. So, like, I'm not sending you a check for a couple hundred dollars.

Starting point is 01:52:05 All right. I'm glad this podcast is still going. What an institution. Hopefully, we'll all be back for 3,000 or sooner than that. We don't have to wait three years between conversations. But happy birthday to us, the country. writ large, happy early birthday to Sam and also to effectively wild. Happy 2,500.

Starting point is 01:52:25 Thanks to everyone who has helped us get to this point. Thank you, Sam and Grant. Thank you, for him. You're welcome. All right, that will do it for our Sester millennial maybe episode. Hard to tell. Anniversary numbers typically don't go that high. And our episode count goes that high.

Starting point is 01:52:41 And hopefully we'll go a good deal higher. Thanks in large part to you. Our listeners, our supporters, particularly our Patreon supporters, If you've been here since episode one or episode 2499, maybe this is even your first Effectively Wild. Welcome aboard. Regardless, we thank you for listening. And if you'd like to help ensure that we can keep making this show for the foreseeable future, please do consider supporting us on Patreon by going to Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks. As have the following five listeners, Howard, Justin Zocke, Esteban Rivera, as Devils Run, and Tyler Doss, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to a third unrestricted episode every week,

Starting point is 01:53:28 plus a monthly bonus episode, exclusive live streams, membership in our Discord group for patrons only, personalized messages, prioritized email answers, shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, fan graphs memberships, 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, and outro themes to podcast at Fangrafts.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms.

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Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2500: Yet Another “Things We Like About Baseball” Draft

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