Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2528: The Roundtable Reunion

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

With Meg Rowley on vacation, Ben Lindbergh brings a few dearly departed baseball podcasts (briefly) back to life. First up: The Roundtable, featuring EW cofounder (and Pebble Hunting author) Sam Miller and The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee and Andy McCullough. Ben, Sam, Grant, and Andy discuss the worst and best ballpark promotions, Doug Eddings’s cap decree and bid to become MLB’s new infamous umpire, what 2026 taught us about ump importance, whether umps uphold unwritten rules, future revelations about the Astros’ banging scheme, a trivia question in a new movie about the number of ways to reach base, Ketel Marte and the mountains teams try to climb, Sam’s recent writing about the boundaries of baseball performance, Andy’s ace updates, and Shohei Ohtani’s pitching outlook. Audio intro: Daniel Leckie, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to The Roundtable archive Link to Roundtable cancellation post Link to Pebble Hunting Link to Grant’s author archive Link to Andy’s author archive Link to Jelly Roll wiki Link to Ben on baseball pizza discounts Link to Taco Bell promotion wiki Link to Jessica Simpson quote Link to Zoolander clip Link to Eddings wiki Link to Eddings article 1 Link to Eddings article 2 Link to Eddings article 3 Link to Eddings article 4 Link to umpire retirements Link to Ben on ABS Link to Gattis on Kershaw Link to banging-scheme site Link to banging-scheme research 1 Link to banging-scheme research 2 Link to banging-scheme research 3 Link to banging-scheme research 4 Link to Noggin Boss Link to MLB Isoblox cap Link to “dadhat” definition Link to The Sun Never Sets wiki Link to Joe Swanberg wiki Link to mumblecore wiki Link to Fennessey on mumblecore Link to automatic double wiki Link to Snapple on reaching base Link to SABR on reaching base Link to Enders on reaching base Link to Marte article 1 Link to Marte article 2 Link to Marte article 3 Link to Marte article 4 Link to double summit wiki Link to Sam on bad challenges Link to Sam on pitcher mistakes Link to Sam on strike rates Link to Tango on miss distance Link to Sam on Kershaw mistakes Link to Andy on aces Link to Ohtani pitching update Link to Sam on two-way Ohtani Link to Beyond the Scrum Link to Sportswriters Blues Link to “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

Hello, they'll keep your same. Hello and welcome. Or a slow workday. Making Benwaxing about a playoff race. Whose bats hide? It's Effectively Wild. So stick around. Hello and welcome to episode 25, 28 of Effectively Wild,

the baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ring not joined today by Meg Rally of Van Graf's, who is on a two-week pre-postseason vacation, recharging her baseball battery. She'll be back and better than ever. And in her absence, I have taken upon myself to try to resurrect some dearly departed baseball podcasts and some podcasters I haven't heard in a while, at least together, in their former incarnation.

And so all this week, potentially next week, too. We'll see how it goes. We're bringing back baseball podcasts from the dead. And what better way to begin than with the roundtable, which means that I am joined by a former effectively wild host and founder, Sam Miller of pebble hunting as well as Grant Brisby and Annie McCullough of The Athletic. Hello, gentlemen. Good to get you back together again.

Yo. One, two, three. Hello. Yes, it is tremendous to be here with that absolute rat, Grant Brisby. At least two of you were talking about pop punk and ska and metal before we hit record. So it felt like I was listening to the roundtable before I was actually recording the roundtable reunion. But it is wonderful to hear you all again. As I recall, I may have some of these details wrong.

But the way I remember, the athletic was begging you guys, just make more roundtable. And you all were like, no, you know, we've had enough. We've said all we wanted to say. and this is the time to walk away, you know, leave a year too soon instead of a year too late, Branch Rickey style. And you've had great discipline maintaining that stance. So I'm grateful to you all for going back on that resolution and doing a little effectively wild reunion. The hardest part was really all the brand partnerships we cultivated, walking away from those.

The sponsors, yeah. Art is art. This won't help with that. But you also enjoy being paid in praise and confidence. compliments, and those at least might be forthcoming from this, because I know a lot of effectively wild listeners have missed the roundtable and often lament its absence in our Discord group, and I miss it too. So here you all are, and it's great to have you. And since I have a couple of giant snowers on this episode, I did want to lead us off by reading an email that I received from

listener Alfred last week, because I thought you might have opinions about this. The subject line was the worst and best ballpark promos. And Alfred writes, this year, along with all their other my ever-decreasingly beloved giants, announced a new sponsorship deal with Chick-fil-A. Speaking of sponsors, the promotion is as follows, if any Giants player hits a home run off the Chick-fil-A foul poles at Oracle Park, customers can claim a free entree at any Chick-Foulet Bay Area location before 10 p.m. the next day. Here's my question. Is this the worst in ballpark promotion ever. As far as I know, foul pole dingers in any park are quite rare.

Oracle Park's configuration seemingly makes this even more unlikely, with the 24-foot high wall in right field making the foul pole a lot shorter than it might have been in a more standard park dimension. Secondly, the closest chick-fil-a to Oracle Park is over six miles away as the crow flies in Oakland, with the second closest being more than eight miles away in Daly City. Finally, as a comparison, let's look at the Rochester Red Wings, Talk Bell K-Man promotion. One player on the opposing team is designated the K-Man for the game. If at any point that player strikes out, every ticket stub can be redeemed for a free-seasoned

beef taco at area Taco Bell restaurants. There's one less than a mile away from ESL ballpark and three more within a five-mile radius. Every time that player comes up in the game, the entire ballpark starts yelling, Taco! For the entire plate appearance. And the crowd erupts when the designated player strikes out. Even from a pure entertainment standpoint, it outclasses the chick-flip. promotion. So what do you guys think? Have you taken any note of the Chick-fil-A Oracle Park

promotion hit the foul pole and you get free Chick-fil-A? Because that does sound like a low-probability event. That was actually the problem in January is I got the call and they were like, hey, we're not going to do the podcast anymore. And I just said, Taco. I wasn't aware of that promo. It is true. That's way too low frequency of an event to have such a low reward for. Yeah. So that is pretty crazy. I mean, at the very least,

don't you want your brand to be named a lot? Like, you want to have, don't you pick something where they name it every seventh inning of every game? Like, isn't the point that this is a moneymaker? Isn't it a moneymaker for Chick-fil-A when a foul ball, you know, leads to free chicken? Like, it's good for them.

So why would they make it so hard for me? That's the idea, because you can miscalibrate it so that you're giving away too much chicken or whatever. I mean, it's like those mattress place promotions, right, where it's like they give refunds if someone wins the World Series or whatever it is, right? And then sometimes if everything works out, it costs them lots of money. But in theory, you should set it up so that you are getting more promotion than you are giving up in free product. So how do you fix this? How do you scale this? if you hit the foul pole, do a thousand people win a hundred chicken sandwiches?

Do you enter a drawing for chicken for life and do like 10 people get it and you know who they are? Like, because they're on commercials and stuff. There's a way to make this work. There's a way to use these fair poles to the advantage. Has Long John Silver ever considered sponsoring McCovey Cove? We don't have those out here. It is much better, though. Put like a chicken duck bag.

like a duck boat, but it's a chicken, put it in the cove, and if a ball goes in the cove, everybody gets chicken. We've solved it. But chickens don't live in water. Not with that attitude. Chicken of the sea is brand as far as I'm aware.

I think, you know, I think that corporations have gotten cheaper with these giveaways, and I was noticing this a couple weeks ago because it was someone's, like, home run inning, and if, like, they hit a home run, if the team hit a home run,

And then like someone, like a predetermined person, got like $300 to a casino restaurant. Yeah, like a restaurant at a casino. This was obviously a much lower frequency event. But when I was growing up, it was the giant's grand slam inning. If a giant hit a grand slam in the fifth inning, they would give you $10,000. They would give one person $10,000. And back then, $10,000 was probably worth like, you know, $30,000 or so now. So it was a big giveaway.

It would only happen maybe like once a year. But it was kind of exciting. Like a big, that's a big prize. And I've been listening since then, and I have not heard a Grand Slam inning. I don't think most broadcasts have a Grand Slam inning anymore. There might be a home run inning where you get, you know, some much smaller prize. But the Grand Slam inning where you get a truck, it seems like is gone. And I'm kind of disappointed by that.

So, you know, let us know. Email, Ben, if your team has a Grand Slam inning. But I think the Grand Slam inning has been phased out, and I hate it. That was a foundational promotion for me. My mom's name was, like, she was called. She was one of the contestants for a Grand Slam in. And it was like,

yeah, everyone, again, you know, and they, I think, didn't get a base runner on, but still, it was the idea of, hey, you know, this could be our ticket to Disneyland or something like that. So, yeah, it's foundational. We, I'm going to, I'm just going to sound like I'm complaining about modern life for a little bit.

But, like, we also had the Giants replay, which was during the broadcast, the biggest moment of the game as determined in real time. So sometimes they'd get it wrong, but, you know, they'd try their best to pick a big moment in the game. And the broadcast would say, you know, two runs are in. It's a three, two game, and that's your Giants replay. And then the next day at like 545 AM, K&BR, you could call in. And if you were the seventh caller, they would ask you, what was the Giants replay? And if you could name it, then you'd win a prize. And it would be $50 if you could, it would be $50 if you

could name it, but every day that it didn't get solved, then it would go up another $50. I wanted a trampoline, okay? I really wanted a trampoline. I didn't have any way of earning $279. That was outrageous. So I would wait until the Giants Replay Prize got over $250, and then I'd wake up at $5.15 in the morning, get ready, prepare, and try to be the seventh caller. And that was pretty much my job. Like, I was a child labor. And I never won it, but like there was a path to winning money through baseball-based sweepstakes. And now, a day's, I think, based on my conversations with teenagers, is now you just install apps that, like, run malware on your phone

and you get, like, $50 a month for having the app on your phone. I don't really understand it. It feels super scammy, but it doesn't feel as productive as making me listen to a whole baseball game and then wake up at 515 the next day to get my money. You want to know how to make some money. You don't even have to watch the games. You can just bet on them. That's true.

Yeah, that is the other thing I've learned from talking to teenagers, is they just bet on baseball. Yeah. Does this, did my app, do you guys know about my app thing? Like, you download an app and they just give you money, but like you're running some weird tracking app? Does this, have you heard any of this? No.

Okay, I might have made it up. No, I mean, my kids might be using it. Yeah, by drugs, I don't know. That's none of my business. Ten years ago, I did a piece for 538 with Rob Arthur about the Papa Slams, the Papa John's pizza discounts. Oh, yeah, yeah. And we tried to quantify the probability of winning based on the ballpark because they had team-specific discounts. And we found that the win conditions ranged from 52.9% to 7.7%.

So there was a broad range in how likely you were to get the... the victory conditions for the pizza discount, if you even wanted that. But this is much more remote what Alfred is talking about. And he wrapped up by saying which ballpark would the Chick-fil-A promotion be the best at. Pesky's poll might give Fenway a lead, although the Green Monster presents the same problem as the right field while at Oracle. And what is the best in ballpark-based event promotion? I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of ballparks or promotions. So perhaps some crowdsource data is needed to will neither.

Neither do I. Neither do we, I imagine. But yes, please do write in. I think if you're going to do the foul or fair pole based, it has to be a big bonanza when you hit it because it's just going to be so rare. And it's hard to really root for it. It doesn't really up the entertainment value that much unless, as you said, Grant, you're getting something really good when that actually hits for you. It's like the Taco Bell playoffs promotion. Someone steals a base and you get a taco or something.

Like, that's a pretty high probability event. you're probably going to get that taco and everyone kind of looks forward to it and it's good marketing. But if it is a really remote event, then it has to be a huge payday, which quality of Chick-fil-A, chicken aside, I don't think this quite qualifies. I must have mentioned this on the show at some point, but the Giants, when a long time ago, like 25 years ago, they had a promotion or someone had a promotion that if J.T. Snow specifically hit a home run that hit something specifically, that you'd win a half a million dollars, okay? And so that's a fine promotion. But the crazy thing is they'd say, they would have it for the first half,

and then they would have it again for the second half. And so they would say, you could win up to a million dollars. And, like, I specifically am going to win the drawing both times. Both times I'm going to be the guy? Like, that's crazy. The odds of that are insane. And they ran that ad for an entire year.

And every time I just thought about how illogical it was that they would say you could win a million dollars. There's probably even rules that you can't, you aren't eligible if you win the first half anyway. What about the guys that catch like two foul balls in a game or Dernard Span hitting his own mom with a line drive? Come on, man. Where's your imagination? So you could win up to a million dollars. Could win up to a million dollars. Stranger things have happened.

And you remembered the promotion, even if you didn't remember what it was actually advertising, which was probably the point. But part of it was memorable. I've also been remembering, do you remember the Jessica Simpson chicken of the sea confusion? Of course. Okay, because ever since we've been talking about chickens in the sea, I was remembering that as well. But you were talking. While you were talking, you were thinking about Jessica Simpson that whole time? Yes, I had to get it off my chest. Anyway, you can contact us if you have thoughts about ballpark promotions and the likelihood of them paying off.

I prompted you all with a few topics that we could discuss, though. This is kind of your show to an extent, and so you can take this wherever you want. But maybe I can just toss this out to you briefly, because the big news in baseball this weekend, weirdly, was an Ump show, which almost made me nostalgic because I feel like maybe we're kind of in a downtime for infamous umps and ump shows. And I'm sure everyone listening is aware of what happened with Doug Eddings and the Cardinals and the Rockies. But just to briefly recap, there was a young Cardinals pitcher who was making his Major League debut, Hansel Rinconi, Hansel. So hot right now. And he had a cap that was slightly crooked, not super crooked, but just a little bit askew. And Doug Eddings made a point of telling him to adjust it.

and then a little later after Rincon got beat up a bit by Rocky's batters, Ali Marmal, Cardinals manager came out and gave Eddings a piece of his mind and took long enough doing it that Eddings assessed a pitch clock violation to Marmel, which only made him more upset. And then shortly after that, Eddings blew a call at home plate, which the Cardinals couldn't challenge because they had already used their Leapay review. And that was kind of a costly call, though it ended up that the Cardinals won. anyway. And then after the game, Eddings tried to justify this, and he made some suggestion that

a Rockies batter had brought it to his attention. And some of the reporters initially thought that he had been referring to Hunter Goodman from the context of the comments. And then Hunter Goodman loudly denied that he had said anything about the cap, which made Eddings look like a liar. And then the reporters walked that back a bit and said, well, he didn't actually name Goodman. We thought he was talking about Goodman. could have been some other Rockies batter, maybe. Cole Carrigg was at the plate at the time. I don't know.

I haven't seen anyone ask any other Rockies batters if they said something about it. Ultimately, though, he suggested that he was responding to an unwritten rule. He said it was an unwritten rule. It's not a rule. I guess it's a little unwritten rule. They can't wear their cap backwards like a catcher if it's a distraction, like anything on the field, like a glove or something,

and someone makes you aware of it. Then you kind of address that. But he did it in a really, really just annoying way, right? And referred to it being his ballpark. And, you know, it was kind of a flashback to earlier days and policing of behavior, especially with non-white players, especially. Ultimately, he did apologize to Rincon after he was rebuked by MLB. So you can judge how sincere the apology was. Anyway, this all made me think, are we kind of running out of ump shows? Because it seems to me, if you had asked me before this weekend, who's the raining

infamous ump whom fans like to dump on and maybe players criticized too i don't know that i could have told you because we're we're four years out from joe west's retirement angel hernandez is two years gone c b buckner who had his own infamous moments earlier this year but then got hurt and announced his retirement so he's done las diaz is done at the end of this year so maybe eddings is is making a bid to be the new umpire whose name everyone knows but i think maybe we're running out of those guys And maybe that's a good thing, but maybe it tells us something about the role of umpires in today's challenge-heavy game. You're making me think, like, the play here is for the union to start looking for like a

happy Gilmore type of umpire who can really come in and make a name for himself. Because if you, the less visibility that umpires have, the easier it is to switch over to robot umpire. So, you know, let's let's get a couple ringers in there to do some twirls, some Leslie Nielsen stuff. I think that's the play. Yeah, I mean, this is just so clearly a spot for jelly roll. I think he's showed an ability to shape shift before, you know, he can easily slide into the country music, you know, lane that was vacated by Joe West.

I think it would be great to see him more on television. You know, I like it. I think it's great, Grant. What? Jellyroll? He's a cultural chameleon. Why not? I just know that Andy loves the umpire for the Savannah bananas.

Oh, that guy. Huge, huge fan. And they do have a little bit of a resemblance, those two guys. So I didn't know if you were making a reference. No, you know, I do want to say, though, my algorithm has stopped feeding me banana stuff this year. It has been very interesting. I get so much less banana stuff. Like, are they less of a thing?

No, they're not. No, I think maybe a lot of times, like Europe will be leading the way in, enforcing restrictions on big tech. And it might just be that Europe has stepped in and defended you from Savannah Bananas videos. Oh, man. I still get them, but you're right, not as much. There has been a little bit of a pause. I was getting crushed by Bananas videos last year.

And, like, I just, I haven't thought about them in legitimately weeks. So, thank you, France. Yeah, there are two worlds, I guess. They're still everywhere. They're still selling out. People are thinking maybe they're poised for an even bigger breakout. if there is an extended lockout next year. But that is a good point.

Maybe the demonstrative ump is in banana ball and not elsewhere. Because I think it goes hand in hand with maybe the conformist approach to mechanics and deliveries and batting stances and everything going to get and flattened out. We're not seeing so much the super demonstrative punchouts anymore. And maybe that's seen as too ostentatious and you're making it about you. Or maybe there just isn't time what with the challenge system and everything. or the umps are just they're better obviously they're making better calls and also there is the pressure valve where if you're upset in an ump usually you can just challenge and get their calls overturned and so i think probably the the path to becoming a notorious ump it's it's thinner than it

used to be which i guess is good because it's always been said that if you know the umpire's name that's bad that you should aspire to anonymity if you're an umpire and i guess that's where we are I do think we should have a Jeffrey Yan-style ump. Like, I do think we should have a real, you know, razzle-dazzle man back there, you know, getting some air. I think that would be good for the game. Can you imagine that, like, to end the World Series? Like, that would be, who.

Yeah. The Enrico Palazzo, that'd be nice. I'm not sure exactly where we're, I don't know what we need, where we're going, but umpires definitely do need to figure out how they're going to have a role in the game. I mean, after ABS this year, I think the big lesson of ABS is that they're gone. Like, umpires are gone. They're not going to make it.

And I mean, I really, like, it's a weird thing because it's almost like, it's almost like it's 1930 and the Paris Review is talking about how silent actors are the greatest artists in the world. Like, there's this strange new appreciation for how amazing home plate umpires are. But also, they clearly have no role in the game. We have a system that's better than them. they're getting it wrong sometimes. We would prefer they get it wrong none of the time.

There's a solution, right? And when you start thinking about it, there's a replacement for the umpires in just about everything that they do, every role that they have. They could be easily replaced. You could have pressure sensors on the bases. You could have, you know, like just Hawkeye for everything.

It would be really easy to replace them. And we used to need umpires, right? We knew they were flawed, but you had to have them. And now it feels like the systems in place, they are the problem. Like almost everything that gets wrong, it's because the field ump got it wrong, and then the guy in Chelsea had to do a call stands because it wasn't clear and conclusive, so he couldn't overturn it. Like, it's a higher threshold to overturn the guy on the field.

And so the fact that he got it wrong in the first place is the only reason. reason that we can't fix it. If, you know, like, if he didn't exist, Chelsea would have just told us what we all saw with our eyes on replay. But because he said, he ruled it one way, and we got us to do call stands, like the things that umpires can do that maybe, you know, replay can't do, like determine whether it's a balk or not. That hasn't really gone well for them this year. Like, there's been a number of, like, no one could do that, obviously. But, But like the Chris Sale bach controversy was pretty insane, right? Like they let him do the balk nonstop for six years.

And then in the middle of a play, they're like, that's a balk. And that's weird. Like the umpires, if they can do anything, it should be enforcing, I don't know, some judgment,

they're not that likable, you know, like they're not, they don't have charisma. They are often sort of jerks. They're scolds. And I don't blame them for that, and maybe that's necessary, but it doesn't make anybody happy that they're there. And so I'm not calling for the end of umpires, to be clear.

I'm not calling for the end of umpires. But why are they there? I think this, because I had a prediction, and I think this dovetails nicely into it. The next umpire who makes a name for him or herself, it's going to be, they're going to have the equivalent. of hitting for the cycle or a four home run game or a no hit or for an umpire by getting calls wrong that are overturned because theoretically you can have infinite challenges and so if the batters keep tapping their hat and being right i could see an umpire like biffing 20 calls in a game you know what i mean just becoming the story like every time he makes a call the

hitter goes whack-wap and he's wrong and the umpire just doesn't get it remains resolute just just head down, nope, I'm going to call my game. That was kind of the Buckner, the first weekend or whenever it was of the season before he got a concussion. He just got repeatedly challenged. And the imperfect game, maybe that's what we're aiming for here. I'm not saying I'm nostalgic for the days of the celebrity ump necessarily, or at least not the celebrity ump who's known for doing ump shows and being a stick in the mud.

And as Marmel said, I think Eddings's display was pretty embarrassing. I'm not saying bring that back. But it's kind of like the old conversation about, well, oh, you're going to miss when umpire manager arguments are gone because they bring in the replay review in ABS and suddenly you won't have umps and managers yelling. And I think that's true to an extent. I think we get fewer knockdown, drag out managers throwing things kind of arguments. But also the game moves more quickly and I don't know how much I miss it.

I don't mind having it once in a while as just kind of a relic of an earlier buy gone baseball age. But I, on the whole, prefer this, I think, for the game to be officiated more or less correctly and smoothly and unobtrusively. But what you're saying, I think is true. I wrote something before opening day about is ABS doomed before it begins? Not because I was anti-ABS, but because it just seems like it will inevitably seem like a stopgap. Just the better it goes, the smoother the system operates, then the more people will just think, well, why don't we cut out the middlemen and just have the system make all the calls. This seems sort of silly. So I assume we are heading for that at some point. And then, yeah, maybe that makes

umps seem like extras almost, as you were saying, Sam, they're just like, they're bystanders. They're less essential to the proceedings. Yeah, I don't, yeah, I feel like it, there's, there's a role for them, but I haven't quite defined what it is. But the role is somehow more like, I don't know, like MC, like keep things going smoothly. You got to, you know, keep the pace going. You got to keep everybody in a good mood. I feel like step one is their mic and the mic never goes off. Like, they're miced 100% of the time. And so they are our ears on the field. And every argument with the umpires, someone's there with someone's there pressing, you know, the button when Aaron Boone's saying bad words or whatever. But all the sound on the field, we get through the umpire mics.

So I think that's one thing that they can be. I think you've got to get rid of call stands. They cannot be the problem in that way. It has to just be that if we're going to the replay room, then we're going to let the guy with the replay decide what happened. You cannot have it be that the fallible human locked us into our mistakes and we can't do anything to overturn them, which is how it is now. And it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. I like that there are restrictions on how many challenges you get, both ABS challenges and, you know, umpire call challenges, because it turns it into a little bit of a game within a game. But probably they need to have more just so that you can't constantly be saying,

well, challenges are so precious that if the umpire messes up, I can't hold him accountable because I don't have enough challenges to constantly be doing that. So probably you need to figure out a way to get more challenges into the game. Because, again, if you look back at, like, after a game, there's, you know, 10 things went wrong, and it's all stuff that could have been corrected that we all know was gotten wrong. And it is not wrong because we need it to be wrong. It's wrong because we just don't want to get rid of those guys yet, but like, why? So it's an issue, I think, going forward.

Like, I really think, like, everybody has said, as ABS came in, wow, can you believe how good umpires are at their jobs? Like, we never knew how good they were. And yet, I mean, I think this has been, like, the worst thing for them, in a sense. Like, we're saying nice things about them, but we all now see that they don't need to exist. And so that's, like, a bigger concern for them. We can say all the nice things in the world, but we're making them feel obsolete. I think this is the year that the umpire kind of, like, went away. Like, this is the year that the next 10 years of phasing out umpires began.

here in earnest. Sam, you've written a lot about unwritten rules, so I wondered whether you thought there was anything to what Eddings was saying, which I think it was a flimsy justification to begin with, because this wasn't a case of a distraction, even if a Rockies batter did bring it up and say, hey, can he do that? This wasn't like wearing white sleeves or tattered sleeves or, I don't know, a chain or something that's swinging around and potentially distracting the batter or causing a safety issue or something. It's just a cap that's a little crooked. And we've seen many players do this, black players, Latin players, even Sunny Gray, for that matter. And so it was weird and it seemed like he was just on a power trip and he was talking about his field and picking on a kid who was

making his major league debut. So I think he was wrong on multiple counts. One, just suggesting that wearing your cap crooked is against an unwritten rule because I think that's been so normalized that it's not. And players would say that it's not at this point. But also the suggestion that an umpire should be upholding an unwritten rule. A lot of people responded to that and said, he should just stick to the written rules. But is there any way in which umpires do perpetuate or defend unwritten rules? Can you think of any examples?

Does that happen? I mean, in a sense, they do when they try to de-escalate tension between players, right? Like, any time they are saying, like, you know, calm down, don't punch that guy. Like, that's, I mean, I guess don't punch that guy. is violating a written rule. But I think there is probably some de-escalation going on. And I don't have a problem with them in a de-escalatory role. That could be their role, right?

Maybe that's part of their role, is they keep these guys from, like, killing each other, you know? Like, they keep the tension down. So I don't think that's a problem. I mean, the problem with unwritten rules is always that some of them are just incredibly stupid. It's not that there's, like, norms being enforced. We all enforce norms in life. it's just when the norms become outrageously stupid and self-defeating that then we get mad to see them enforced. But, you know, like, we have unwritten rules in this conversation.

And, like, it's fine. That's good that there's unwritten rules. I also think that we maybe need to, I don't know, this is, like, not a common enough of occurrence, but maybe we need to expand what the written rule. Like, like, I don't know what you guys think of this, but it feels like kind of a pretty bad mark on the umpires that not one of them noticed the astrars. bang in the trash can. Like, I feel like they should have picked up on that. Somebody should have, they should be aware of the surroundings. It's their field, right?

Like, they're in charge of keeping this environment moving forward through a baseball game. And they should be aware of whatever. If a plastic bag is flying in the wind on the warning track, they stop the game and they say, let's get rid of that plastic trash bag. I feel like if they were paying close attention, someone should have heard this trash can banging over time. And maybe they didn't just thought, not my place. You know, like, I don't, I don't, you know, like, umpires don't call a runner out for leaving the base too early on a sacrifice fly unless it's appealed. Maybe they were waiting for someone to appeal to them. Can you do something about

the trash can scheme? So either they didn't know about it or they didn't act, but like, I think they should have. And maybe that is my baseline for, like, how I think umpires need to reframe their job catch the next trash can scheme and be likable. And stop guys from punching each other. Yes. Which a Boston scientific robot could do. Like if you had four of them like, I bet you you could make them do. Until you have the physical robot, you need some manifestation of authority.

I don't know. All I've seen of those robots is them just like accidentally windmill kicking children in the gonads. Like I wouldn't trust them. Or self-destructing. The robot doesn't even need to be turned on. Just put them in a lawn chair. and everybody will believe that he's real, and then have a guy in the booth who's booming down the rulings.

Hey, I have a disruptive side comment that I was just reminded of. You mentioned the banging scheme, and I've been thinking about the idea of, like, in what year will Netflix or some other streamer do the Astros documentary in which players explain the scheme finally? and how many players participate. Yeah, because there have already been multiple documentaries on that, right? Or podcast series or there have been chronicles of it.

There have, and they've been good, but they don't have the kind you're talking about. They don't have a, I'm not going to say a player's name because I don't want to cast aspersions on who I think it would be. But like they don't have a player saying, all right, here's how we did it, right? What year does that happen? and how many guys sit for it? I think the nostalgia cycle in general is about, what, 25 years, 20, 25 years. Like, when did Friends? Friends was basically like 20 to 25 years. Probably the same cycle that, like, Friends and the Goo Goo Dolls went on.

So, you know, it's been, it's been seven since they got caught. So somewhere between 16 and 18, and everybody will be retired and they will all do it. You think Jose Altouva is sitting for this? I think he might, if only to deny his role in it, right? I think Altuve for sure is sitting for it. I think Altuve is actually standing for it. You just can't see his leg. Folks, send a strongly worded letter to the New York Times Corporation if you want to hear stuff like this.

The thing that might make it happen or might make everyone participate, but also might make it less likely to have. happen is that there's not that much mystery about it, right? Yeah. We kind of know how this scheme works. The only mystery is Altuve. That's not true. I kind of disagree because you couldn't hear that trash can in the playoffs. That's true.

Yeah. Yes. And their home stats were way worse that year. Oh, yeah. I mean, I still don't think it really worked on the whole. It anti-worked. Yeah. It's somehow totally sabotaged.

And that's the craziest thing about it. I mean, they don't get any free passes for that. They were trying to cheat and they just somehow it made them worse, but they doubled down on it. But yeah, Andy, you're right. They couldn't hear it in the playoffs. You're right. You could definitely do a good, compelling story on it, I think. So I can enjoy game five again?

Like, they couldn't hear anything in game five? Like, that was natural? Well, that presupposes they were still using the trash can in game five and hadn't moved on to other different sort of, you know, systems. We don't know because they haven't talked about it. They claim that they didn't, they claim they couldn't use it in the postseason because it was too loud. And so there was no trash can't effect.

I mean, maybe they were lying, but. No, but I think, who was that guy? Tony Adams. No, Evan something. Not Evan Drellick. Oh, that guy. No, Evan, Evan White. You know what I'm talking about?

Oh, yeah. The catcher, right? Like, he has said that they had Kershaw using some sort of app. Evan Gaddis? That's right. Evan White, was that the guy who was on the... That's another guy. I believe Evan Gaddis has said that they had Kershaw through some sort of nefarious means.

I can never actually track down what that was. So, you know, that's probably why the book tanked. But, yeah, I don't know. I was just curious. I think it'll happen within the next 10 years. But I think it'll be like five players agree to do it. Whoever does it in 10 years is doing us all a terrible disservice. because if they will just wait 20, everyone will do it.

Yeah. And the sports dock boom has sort of subsided. Although now it seems like there's less of a delay between when the thing happens and when you get the documentary about it. Like Netflix is doing those mini-docs on things that just happened. But I agree it would be best if you waited for a while and got more than just Evan Gattis, I guess, on the record. But all right.

My last thought on the edding situation is that it was kind of nice that Rock And Cardinals players had ring cones back and they were all wearing their caps crooked too, except that a lot of them, maybe all of them or most of them, were doing it only in the dugout, which felt to me like a half measure. It's like if you really want to support your guy, just turn your cap around on the field, because that's what was the offending for Edding's behavior. So go out there and provide a full-throated defense. I could see that bugging me.

You know what I mean? Like if my laptop's in a different spot when I'm riding, like if it's up an inch higher, It would impair their performance, you mean. Yeah, I mean, like, legitimately, it would just be enough of on my radar that I wouldn't want to do that. Yeah, definitely I could see that for the pitcher. But that makes it more of a significant gesture, though. I agree with Ben in spirit. I think that he's right that at the very least they could have worn it, like, out to their position and maybe between pitches every once in a while.

I mean, try to signal it more from the field. Yeah. I can see that. So technically, there's no rules. there's got to be some rules against like 10 gallon hats or sombrose, you know what I mean? You gotta wear the uniform hat. You have to wear the uniform hat. Can the team make that like a 10 gallon hat the uniform?

I think they could. You could. Yeah. Yeah, I did it in advance. You know, if a team did that, you know what I do? 11 gallon hat. Jazz Chisholm wears the fabled dad hat. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Did you have you guys noticed that? Yeah, the perch of the cap, I think you could. Yeah. He's in full dad hat. it's like a 45 degree angle from his head to the sky. It's like he's doing like an astrology experiment with his cap. I don't think that actually is what a dad hat. I always thought a dad hat was the one that like...

Yeah, that's not a dad hat. It's high on your head, right? Yeah, his does that too. I'd like to see a pitcher wear a Noggin boss. That would be pretty good. You ever seen one of those? The big, the big fuzzy hats? Wait, wait, wait.

Say it one more time. The Noggin boss? You ever seen one of these? Noggin boss. Yeah, it's like the only hat that can fit on Carrig's head. Look at it. Oh, right. It's like when they had the protective caps that everyone didn't want to wear because they were so big.

In the NFL, they wear like the Yoshi helmet. Yes. Yeah, the Noggin bosses, like, that would be cool. I would like to see a, I'd like to see a pitcher come out wearing that. Those are $100. That is simply too much. That's why they're putting in a cap, actually, because they're trying to get Noggin bosses for 2027. and the owners want to have some cost certainty.

Yeah. I wonder if the Giants pitchers would go along with that or whether they would opt out of the Naug and boss. Okay. So one other thing I want to ask you about from this weekend, I really need a ruling on this. So there's a new movie that hit wide release this past weekend. It's called The Sun Never Sets.

It's an indie drama. It's a Joe Swanberg movie, though there are some stars in it. Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson. Multiple new girl cast members, Lamorne Morris, is in this also. And it's a baseball movie by the Sam Miller definition and no one else's. There is one baseball scene. And I heard about this months ago when it was at a festival.

And I've been just counting down the days until it came out so that I could get the scene verbatim. And I put out a call if anyone went to see this movie, which very few people did, judging by the box office. But I think effectively wild listeners who heard my call may have been most of the tickets sold to this thing. but one correspondent was able to record this scene in the theater. I'm sure just set the phone down. I'm not encouraging people to use their phones during movies and theaters, but it was unobtrusive. Our correspondent actually didn't care for the movie and left after this scene, but it has gotten mostly positive reviews. And I will set the scene here.

This is the context I got from the person who recorded this scene. Dakota Fanning's character is at bar trivia. with her friends. When Jake Johnson's character enters with a woman he is newly dating, he and Fanning's character are in the middle

of a complicated situation ship. He's a divorced dad, and they had been seeing each other for a few years, but he was reluctant to get married or have more children, so she is exploring other romantic options,

and so is he. Her team, in bar trivia, has no clue about baseball, and Johnson's character on a two-person team with his date is impressing her with baseball knowledge.

The scene cuts back and forth between the two tables. That's probably more than you needed to know, But I shared the recording with you three. It's mostly intelligible. I won't play it on the podcast, both because it's a bit muffled and there's cross-talk and it's tough to make it out. And because it might be a bit legally dicey to play a clip from a movie that's still in theaters, even if this could fall under fair use.

So I'll just summarize what you hear. You hear the announcer at the bar trivia saying you can use two of your score sheets for this one. There are 10 correct answers. In the game of baseball, there are 10 different ways to get on base. What are those 10 ways? And you immediately hear Jake Johnson's character say, God damn it. And then he starts brainstorming. He says, it's where the fielder decides where they want to get you out at second.

And then you get to get on first. And then he says, and then you've got catcher's interference. Sort of surprising that that came to mind that quickly. But decent pull for number two. His date actually says, okay, wow, I'm impressed. This is hot, which is, of course, what we are all accustomed to hearing when we talk about catchers interference. Someone else says there has never been a professional team in Alaska. this is not my thing. So Jake Johnson's character continues. Ground rule double, he says,

and his date says, oh, I know what that is when it bounces over the fence. And he says, that's exactly right. Then the announcer says, 10 seconds left, players, let's see some answers. Someone says, oh, my God. And then Jake Johnson says, the new extra innings rule where somebody starts on second. Doesn't call it the zombie runner, but doesn't call it the ghost runner either. And then there's just a bit more back and forth, but that's more or less it. The answers are not shared on screen. And so I've been trying to figure this out in the pedantic semantic way that we examine and scrutinize baseball scenes in movies. Is this accurate? Are there actually 10 ways to reach base in baseball? And what are there? And what would I write down if I were doing bar trivia, which is unlikely to happen. But if it did.

So what do you guys think? First of all, it's like, this is an epistemological question or set? Like, is there a set number? Or is this all just how you define it? Because I've seen. anywhere from 7 to 23 suggested online ways to reach base. I got to tell you, if I was at a bar and I was forced to do this question, I would walk the fuck out. I do. There are 10 ways to reach base. You got to take your base, chase. You got to get hit.

Spit. You got to get catchers interference clearance. I will say that in that clip, though, there was something that pissed me off, like, legitimately as an actual baseball nerd. Did any of you catch it? Well, are you referring to the ground rule double? Yes, sir. Okay. Are you objecting on the grounds that it's actually an automatic double?

It's an automatic double. That's correct. See, this annoyed me, though, because if we're getting into types of hits, right? Because then if you're slicing it that thin, if you're saying like a ground rule double, is one way. Now, maybe he wrote that down he was just wrong. Maybe his character just doesn't isn't so much of a ball nowhere. But if you're writing down ground rule double,

then that has to be, suddenly you're expanding the number of possible ways because you're talking about not just hit, but now subsets of hits and subsets of doubles even, right? I mean, then you could just, you know, inside the park home run. I wouldn't say it's a subset of an automatic double. That's true

too. But also, if you're specifying the type of hit, then it's like, well, how deep does this rabbit hole goes? Are we talking about infield hits or granted that's like an actual ruling i guess which sets it apart it's not just a description a qualitative description of the hits but that i think if you're going ground will double or automatic double then i think aren't you going to get more than 10 i'll just i'll just say none of this is canon no right but what is canon is there canon is this a thing where we can each have our own interpretation i'm already i'm a block away i'm at the next bar honestly

Ritokor's light. I'm having a good time. Honestly, my mom had a version of this when I was growing up, and I don't remember if it was 8, 9, or 10. I just remember that the hook, the twist, was Pinch Runner. Like, it was a popular

trivia question for her with the, yeah, the gotcha was Pinch Runner, which, okay, you know, I guess, I guess that is technically a way to reach for, you know, base. Yeah, this, I thought your mom was this was part of the Grand Slam inning promotion. How many times?

How many ways can you reach base? But I've seen people suggest that kind of the classic answer is seven that a base hit, a walk, a hit by pitch, an error of fielder's choice, which is mentioned in this scene, a drop third strike and a catcher's interference. So maybe that would kind of be the core seven ways. But then I've seen people, why not this? Why not that? You could get to eight, nine, ten. And 23 is the most. I think you can get to 11 if you want to fight for it. I think that it's fair to ask somebody

this question. I don't think it's fair to ask somebody how many ways are there to get the first. I think we've established through this conversation in your research that there is not a universally agreed upon correct answer. There are seven-ish, seven probably, that are accurate, you know, like are undeniable. And then there are up to four that are debatable. So if you say, if you start with a number and say, can you come up with X number, it's a fair question as long as you don't go higher than 11. I do think that you have to be prepared to have an annoyed respondent if you go higher than like eight. Andy's annoyed just when he hears the question. But yeah. The bartender says, how's it going, dude? I said, you will not believe the shit

is talking about at the bar down the street. Yeah. I think eight, though, you could ask someone to name eight without getting them mad at you. I saw someone posted on the baseball subreddit, a Snapple cap, which had this as the trivia question and said there are nine different ways to reach base. So nine is fine. Nine is between eight and eleven. So what are you including then in the between eight and eleven?

So the seven you named. Okay. And then Pinch Runner is, that is an adequate answer. That's a fine answer. Yeah. Okay. It's not, it doesn't have to be there. You could stop at seven.

And if you stop at seven and the person says Pinch Runner, you go, no, I'm not counting that. I said seven, okay? So if you go eight, you can include Pinch Runner. If you go eight, though, you have to go nine, because now you have to include Zombie Runner. I'm sorry, those two go together. They are separate, but they go together. And that was alluded to in the movie scene.

Yeah. So that's eight and nine. And then if you want to go higher, you can say, fielders interference, which I don't like because fielders interference and catchers interference are not actually distinct rules, my understanding. But like obstruction? They are, but. I don't know what obstruction is. But fielders interference and catch's interference are basically the same rule.

But they are different. They are different names. You could theoretically go to third on a fielder's interference. You can only, anyway, so that's fine. And then you could have, I don't like this, but you could have batted ball hits the fielder. That's a hit. We know that's rule to hit. That's a single.

Yeah. Snapple had that. Snapple counted that end fielder interference slash obstruction. I wouldn't count it, but if someone challenged me to come up with 11, it would be the 11. it would be the 11th one that I would name and I would be fine with it. And what about like fan interference or umpire interference?

Like if we're splitting. Fan interference? How is a fan interference going to? Where are you playing this game? Is this 1909 Pittsburgh? Peskey's pole a dude with really long arms. Yeah. Oh.

Has anybody ever reached around Peske's pole and caught a ball in front of the pole? That's a great. That would be legendary. Yeah, it's true. A fan interference on a home run. You're right. Fan interference on a home run is,

I didn't think about that. What about the time that Benji Molina hit a home run that they originally ruled a single, and then while he was at first base, they sent in Emmanuel Burris to pinch run for him. After that, they called it a home run, and Burris got to run

around the bases. Does that count as him reaching first base? It counts as him reaching first base, and yeah, for Benji? Yeah. Of course, it does. It's not quite a pinch runner. It's, well, I guess it is. Damn it. Yeah. that's that's tough yeah

fan interference is a tough one yeah but is a fan interference ruled fan interference fan interference isn't ruled fan interference it is ruled whatever it was with fan interference in the way but you you get a home run like it's not like on your baseball reference page

it lists that as a fan interference now wait a second what if what if there's hit by pitch right what if you make pretending like you got hit by a pitch as its own category, because you didn't get hit by a pitch, but you sold it.

That's a way to get on base is to go, ah, my groin, or whatever. Which is weird, because the pitch almost hit you in the elbow. I'm now taking away fielders interference

because that also goes down as a hit. So you've reached on a hit. So take away field. Fielder's interference is gone. Catchers interference stays, but field... Andy, I just realized

how mad we're making. you. Bartender says, what do you do for work? Like, you know, to be honest, I'm kind of in a transitionary phase. I'm trying to, I feel like I may have wasted my entire life. And it's tough especially because people would be looking to you to be the expert answering this question. And maybe it's just unanswerable. It's like the limits of knowledge. Is there any objective reality? The 23 that I referenced, there was an answer guy column in ESS. The magazine. I don't know when this was, but there's someone named Eric Enders, researcher at the Baseball Hall of Fame who suggested that there are 23 legal ways to get to first.

Walk, intentional walk, which again, right there, we're talking subsets of walks, hit by pitch, drop third strike, failure to deliver pitch within 20 seconds. Now, what if you just do a pitch clock violation your way to first base, right? Someone does three pitch clock violations. I'm just thinking of that image of. Abe Simpson talking to the children and he's saying, and there was a, there was an answers guy column in ESPN

the magazine. Let's not. Don't go anymore. Catcher interferes. You already reached the point. I don't want to hear any more. Spectator interference. Fan obstruction, is that different? I have no idea. Fair ball hits umpire. That's where we're just talking about. Fair ball hits runner. Again, you could, I guess, split those hairs.

Fielder obstructs runner, pinch runner, fielder's choice, force out at another base. Now, is that not a fielder's choice? that different from a fielder's preceding runner put out allows batter to reach first. Now, are we just saying different ways to define a field of choice?

Sackbunt fails to advance runner. Sack fly dropped. Runner called out on appeal, error for illegal pitches. And if a game is suspended with a runner on first and that player is traded prior to the makeup, another player can take his place.

This guy, this is why you don't pay writers by the word. Yeah, yeah. Actually, maybe it's 22, but then he sneaks in single at the end. But yeah, the point is, I don't know that there are objectively 10. And I would be fine with someone just raising up their hands or leaving the bar like Andy and saying this is not a valid question. This is disputed because reasonable people could disagree about how many ways to reach base there are. I just like you could look at, I don't know, retro sheet event codes or something, but it's just how do you, what objective standard is there to define this is a way to reach base.

space and that's not. I just want to clarify. I do believe that Eric Enders was a big time poster on rec sport baseball. So if there are like old school nerds listening, yeah, yeah, we know. He was pretty cool. I remember I have fond associations with that name. So I'm Team Enders. So enough is posting credentials here. He's a poster. Okay. All right. Well, I applaud a baseball scene in a non-baseball movie and they did raise some of the suggestions and questions that would come up. But I just I don't think there is a set answer exactly. It's the longest thread in the history of forums. I had never heard of this guy.

Joe Swanberg, the guy who's considered a major figure in the mumblecore film movement. You ever hear about this, Paul? The mumble core. Wait a minute. You ever see, you've never seen drinking buddies, Grant. You're, Grant, you're pretending not to know what mumble core is. You are mumble. You're like a mumblecore character.

Sean Fennessee, my colleague just wrote about the influence of mumblecore movies last week for his substack. Jake Johnson is playing handsome you in all these like Joe Swanberg movies. It's like a disaffected guy that they don't understand how he still has health care. I'm looking at Jake Johnson. Never seen him before my life. Who are these people? Are you serious? What, you really never heard of Jake Johnson?

No. You have to know that I am my media. consumption is so bad. Well, I do have to say this is where like never being a beat writer kind of messes with you because ballplayers, at least of a time, obviously loved the show New Girl. They really, New Girl was a hit. Craig and Cusha appeared on it. Yeah.

New Girl. But, you know, like lots of ballplayers liked New Girl. And Jake Johnson was on that and was very funny on it. Yeah, nothing. And the Mumblecore messed me entirely. So I, that's why. Wow. Well, you're one of today's 10,000 as X-K

Casey, you would say. So, yeah, Jake Johnson, the star of The Dink, also the pickleball movie that came out on Apple TV this summer. So the summer of Jake, I guess. My wife and I, we watched that show. He did, what's it called? Maximum Pleasure Guarantee. It was pretty good. I like that show. Yeah, that was good. Yeah. It was probably like two episodes too long as a season, right? Like it probably should have been like six instead of eight, but whatever. Good show. Yeah. Y'all ever see The Wire? All right. So we kind of got a ruling, which is that there is no ruling, really. But thanks for helping me out as best you could. Everyone except Andy, who refused to dignify the question with an answer. What else you got? What else you got then? Well, Andy has something. You wanted to talk about a quote that pertains to Catelle Marte, but is not actually about the recent Catelle Marte, not showing up for work controversy. So why don't you T us up here? It's a quote that I heard first at the 2023 World Series. from Tori Lavello and I've been thinking about it fairly often because I'm wondering how common

of a problem it is and it came it came up during the you know the Cattel Marte saga but you know Tori said we talked about getting to that mountain making sure it's the right mountain climbing that mountain together and here we are there's two teams standing at the top of the mountain and I guess what I'm wondering is from your guys perspective is like how often do you feel like teams have guys climbing the wrong mountain and how much of a problem that is for clubhouses, or I guess, you know, alpinists or whatever. But like, I feel like that's, you know, because it's like, it's a very silly phrase, right? Making sure it's the right mountain. Like the idea that you would get to base camp at Everest and be like, is that K2? And it's, you know, that's not a thing. But like,

it's also, it's very profound, right? Like, climbing the wrong mountain is like a real problem in, in life, wouldn't you say? I think that it's somewhat over-complicates it. I think there are two mountains for ballplayers. One is everybody's playing their best, but if you're not winning the World Series, don't get too upset. You can't be having a tantrum because we're a bad team.

We all know we're a bad team. That's the mountain we're climbing right now. The other is ballplayers should all be trying their best, and if they're not playing well enough, they're not getting upset enough because this is our time. We're going to the World Series. So you have the two mountains. They both ask you to do the same thing.

They just ask you to react to failure a little bit differently, whether or not you're in World Series contender mode or whether you're in get through the season and make small progress is where we can mode. And that's really the only two mountains, right? Yeah, or I guess there's the personal mountain where it's about you, right? And it's just, uh...

Yeah, I think there's more than 10, there's more than 10 ways to climb a mountain. Yeah, how many mountains are there? Yeah, it's like a mountain with a double summit or something. Sometimes people do claim that they climb something, and then it turned out that they weren't actually at the right peak. There might be twin peaks. That's a show.

Have you heard of that one, Grant? But, um, yeah, I, because you could say that Ketal Marte, I mean, however you want to interpret his no-showing, which is kind of a recurring issue for him. And it's, it's confusing because it's so, beyond the norm in baseball, in pro baseball, in major league baseball. Speaking of unwritten rules, I mean, I guess that is a written rule that you kind of have to show up for work. But also it's very rare. It's so serious when someone's even late to the park. You know, like Carter Jensen

overslept. He slept through his alarm and it became this big thing. Like, you have to be there. Like, that's a big thing in baseball. And there was also a little controversy last year about Marte asking for more days off. Yes. Like not violating any rules, but more days where he needed a blow than was considered proper by the competitive athlete. And so that's more of an unwritten rule. He was taking too many Sundays off, basically. Yeah, because he had the mid-season All-Star break, extended break where his house got burgled and maybe it was because of that and maybe not, but he took his time coming back.

And then, yeah, at the time that happened, it also surfaced that maybe some players were miffed. that he had begged out of games that were high-profile games, playoff games or playoff race games or something. So that whole thing was confusing, and it was, I kind of felt for Lavello trying to navigate it without throwing Catell under the bus anymore. And he clearly seemed to care about Catell,

but it was just mystifying because it was like, he had something with his knee, maybe, and felt like he couldn't play, but then also just didn't show up. And then also when he was doing his rehab, he was at the casino, which was, you know, he was allowed to be, but that's, that's an unwritten rule probably while you're rehabbing from an injury after no showing. Maybe don't get photographed at the casino.

It used to be a written rule, remember? They got to, like, Willie Mays for that. Yeah, but no more. But so, sorry, you're suggesting that Ketel is not maybe recognizing that the mountain is the team effort and it's all about the team and like he's letting whatever it is. Well, I don't know. I mean, you know, I, I've probably told this story before on the on the pod. But, you know, when I was in, when I was in college, I interviewed George Saunders, the great fiction writer for a story. And, you know, I was in a very, sort of like in, you know, intense, like, writerly mode and everything, you know, thinking about career and, you know, when having goals and all that sort of stuff. And I asked him how he, like, how he ever.

Not anymore. That was when you had goals. Yeah. No. No, I, yeah. Yeah. How many mountains are there for media members? I don't know. I tell you this, though, I'm at the bottom of mine, brother. Oh, yeah, my therapist was like, you know, you should tell yourself, think about how you were at 22 and tell that person how far you come. And I'm like, lady, that guy had a lot of ambition. He just interviewed George Saunders. Like, and that was a big deal for him.

Yeah. Yeah, right. He was like, well, no, but what I asked him, I was just like, hey, how do you deal with sort of comparing yourself to other writers? you know, like how do you, you know, look at the stuff you write and then think, like, well, I read this story or this book by someone else and it just really messed me up. Like, how to, you know, like, I'll never be able to do that. Like, you know, all the sort of things you think about. And he was like, you know, you just, I look at it.

It's like, I'm on a mountain. And I just have to climb my mountain. And I wonder is, you know, is a baseball team because a baseball is such an individual pursuit, right? Like, should you just be focusing on your mountain? or is the team all climbing the mountain together? Yeah, it's like the run-your-own race saying, but also it's a relay race or you're passing the baton.

It's weird because baseball is kind of an individual sport masquerading as a team sport. It's among the more individual nominal team sports. You can often kind of plug and play people, but then not always because there are sometimes clubhouse issues that arise, and then it's the age-old debate about whether winning breeds chemistry or chemistry breeds winning and all the rest. But yeah, when someone doesn't show up for work

and doesn't have a great excuse and didn't communicate that clearly, then that seems to be an example of not rowing in the same direction, I guess. Then that becomes the proverbial distraction where everyone's asked about it, and then they have to weigh in, and then there's all the stories about strife behind the scenes,

et cetera. Every player's got strengths and weaknesses, and every player, you know, has successes and failures. and this, like, it is interesting that this one particular type of weakness and this one particular type of failure, which is like that sometimes you don't show up for work, is so much worse than like just if you went 0 for 30. Like that would be forgivable. And I mean, in the aggregate, Ketel Marte is a great ball player who's worth more to his

team than almost anybody else on the team and who contributes to their winning. And this past weekend, Saturday, right? He had a big home run and made a big play. That's... Yeah, and you wouldn't, if he went over 30, which was maybe the war equivalent of him not showing up for work for two days or whatever before he went on the aisle with the knee thing, then you would forgive it.

But for this, it's unforgivable. And I think that's because of a pervasive belief, maybe a false belief. I would argue probably false belief, but deeply, deeply, deeply held in sports generally, which is that it's contagious, that being like Catelle Marte is contagious. And if you let such an attitude persist, it will infect all 26 people.

And I suspect that that's mostly not true. That mostly guys take care of their own business. And when you see someone at work who's, you know, falling down on the job for whatever reason, you roll your eyes, you don't emulate it. and that it's basically fine that Catele-Marté has this one particular weakness in his skill set. But the mountain talk implies that, no, we're all like where we, oh wait, holy cow. I cannot believe I was going to quote Q&ON. No, he's not a reliever.

He's an infielder. Wow. Anyway, that the weakest link on the team will hold you back and that, you know, you all got to ride. You all got to climb that mountain together. And so that's why I say that, you know, it overcomplicates things. What Tori Lavello is basically saying is that the whole team needs to be moving in one direction. But really, there's only two directions for a team to be moving in. One is toward a World Series.

The other is getting through this year so that we can go to the World Series next year. and that's what I took the quote to me. Would you say that Marte was like threatening to move the over this window? Is that a thing? Like just feel like you're over this and you move in the over this window? Okay. Three, two, one. You just, you lie and wait in the bushes while everyone is else.

And you're cooking up some kind of wordplay that you just debut at the end of the conversation. And then you just drop your mic and walk away. That's exactly here. because I've been thinking about like my personal mountain in my career and it's like I feel like I just kind of like made camp 500 feet up and I don't feel like going any further. I found a nice escarpment or something like a butte or a mesa and I'm not going to climb a mountain. I'm lazy. I'm just, I'm right here. I'm just going to make jokes about, I don't know, Rick Russell until the end of time.

That's all I do. Granner, are you familiar with the geographic entity known as a molehill? I am, yes. I am on a molehill, yeah. Well, if this were a real roundtable episode, it would have ended a while ago. There's one last thing I want to ask you about, and it will serve as promotion for Sam Substack, pebble hunting, because it seemed to me, I don't think you've explicitly acknowledged this or signaled this, but it seems to me that a theme of your recent writing this season has been, are baseball players secretly not that good at baseball or less good at baseball than. perhaps we presumed, because you've written a number of pieces that sort of expose the limitations of the people who are the absolute best. They have reached the mountain. They are at the

piticle of their profession. You wrote something about bad ABS challenges to take us back full circle to where we started this episode. And I think the most eye-opening thing there that you kind of concluded was that like maybe batters can't actually tell where the ball is going to be that well. You wrote the conclusion here. is about hitting, and it's this, whatever fallibility you assume about big league hitters and their ability to recognize pitches on the way to the plate, it's actually much, much, much worse. You see a guy chase a slider and you think he thought it would be a fastball and got fooled. You think it's that the pitcher hid the ball well or tunneled well or threw his change up with

good arm action or got unusual movement for his pitch type, all of which are examples of a batter's expectations being subverted. But it's so much worse than that. A batter can see the entirety of the pitch, watch it cross the plate, watch the catcher, catch the ball, and even then, he still doesn't always know whether it was a strike. He can be wrong not just by a quarter inch like anybody, but by five inches, and he can be wrong, not because it doesn't cost him anything to be wrong, but despite it costing him and his team a great treasure.

You also wrote about, and you talked a little bit about this the last time you were unaffectively wild, just the narrow range of possible strike throwing in the big leagues and how the best and worst guys when it comes to the percentage of pitches that are strikes, it's a very thin window. And you wrote about how many mistakes pitchers make in a game and how sometimes you'll hear, oh, he only made one mistake or something because it was the costly pitch that led to the home run. And A, maybe it's not even always a mistake. And B, maybe there were 12 other mistakes that he got away with or just weren't that decisive.

And we don't even realize how many mistakes they're making all the time. So I don't know whether you were kind of conscious of this theme or pursuing. it that way, but it seems like you're bumping up against the boundaries of baseball performance here. You know, I wasn't thinking about it consciously, but I think it actually goes back further than that. Like about a year and a half ago, I wrote about the last day of the 20-24 season when Aaron Judge went 0 for 5 with five strikeouts against bad pitchers. And I think that actually that idea has come up a lot since then. And I would not say that what interests me is that is the idea that baseball players are bad at what they do. The theme to me is that so much of what we respond to that happened is actually just completely contingent on things that have nothing to do with the player's skill level.

That there's just so much variance in every play. And we're constantly like a guy hits a home run and we're constantly. showing the pitch and being like, well, see, there, you know, he left it up. But they leave it up all the time. They are just constantly leaving it up and the batters are constantly missing it or chasing or taking pitches down the middle or like I also think I got into this with backup sliders, which is like the most accidental pitch you can throw. It's like the worst, like no one's ever tried to throw a backup slider. It's the worst slider you can throw and it's like devastatingly effective. So when you watch baseball and you're constantly seeing like, well, a team one, let's

explain it. And the explanation is like 95% that's just the way random stuff happened that day. It changes the way that you think about ball, right? And like how far you want to go to draw conclusions or how far you want to go to say that this team had to win the World Series this year. There was no other way it could go. Or this player's, you know, slumping. Well, I mean, he's technically slumming because he's not getting any hits, but has anything changed in the process? I mean, it just kind of is the way that it goes a lot of the times, right? I always think about it in the terms of like a foul ball because a foul ball is almost by definition a hitter screwing up. And yet, you know, before almost every big baseball event, every great hit,

every walk off home run, there's probably a foul ball, a foul tip. I mean, it's a hitter swinging the bat in a way that can be punished by an out. out, like, it's justified to be punished by an out. And I always think about that. Just, you know, just that little tick of a foul tip, you know, that's a batter screwing up. And yet, they still get to be the hero after that. Oh, yeah. Tony Gwyn would talk about how if you, you know, like, make bad contact, you lose the whole at bat. But if you swing and miss, you only miss one strike. I think Tony Gwynn. But anyway, it's true. We all observed this in our lives. So failing worse is fine. failing like just like basically what I'm saying is if you miss the barrel of the bat by a half

inch you're out but if you miss the barrel of the bat by a full inch you're fine and that's a weird thing like that happens that happens like 40 times every game right and so it dramatically changes what would have happened i rob arthur's thing about how like within a batch of baseballs you have like a 15 foot margin of like how far they're going to go like basically like the build of the ball has enough variance that like the same contact off the same pitch will go like 10 or 15 feet further just based on which ball from the same batch the umpire happened to throw into play and you think about all of baseball history as being dependent on those tens and 15 feet and not just not just on home runs like um you know like balls that get caught the difference between a diving catch and a triple to the gap is maybe that the ball was slightly deader and landed in front of the center fielder. So there's just

like tons of contingency of the game and it is like always on my mind and it's easier I think to write about that than it is to pretend it doesn't exist and write about how good O'Neill Cruz is or something like

because everything else that you write about all the players doing their things like it's like it's like you've seen behind the curtain and you know that they're at the mercy of forces out of their control and out of our control. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I always, I get frustrated because I think people assume that, well, not always, but in many cases, people assume that anything that's good for the batter was a mistake by the pitcher. And then you, you watch the replay a lot of times and it's not that. It was a perfectly fine pitch,

but it was a good piece of hitting. That's when you get the good piece of hitting or you get the, you know, the other guy lives in big houses or drives big cars or whatever, too. But I think a lot of times people, it's sort of a results rather than process after the fact, well, he got a hit, he hit a home run. So it must have been a meatball. He must have just left one in a place where you can hit a home run off it. And I don't think that's always the case. But I think the converse, I guess, of that that is that like pitchers make mistakes all the time that you don't identify because they get away with it and they get a good result. And so no one thinks of it as a mistake.

And I guess you could say by definition, maybe it wasn't because he got away. Maybe the hitter wasn't expecting a bad pitch. So it was a good pitch by definition, right? But I think many times it is just that it's really hard to hit and it's really hard to pitch too. And that's why a lot of the command tracking stuff that's out there now say that like pitchers miss, they're the best in the world. but like the standard deviation of command of miss distance is like eight inches or something.

Like that's how much the average major league pitcher is missing roughly, you know, eight inches, nine to 11 something in that range, probably less than that. It was people used to cite higher figures because we had like the catcher glove tracking and maybe it was a bit exaggerated. But even so, like there's there's a big spray pattern there. There's a margin of error there. And I think with hitters, like maybe because they're reactive, if a pitcher makes a mistake, it feels more like an unforced error. It's like you just, you could have thrown it

anywhere and you threw it there instead. Whereas with the batter, you don't know what's coming and you still have to react and it's so really hard to hit a, you know, going back to the banging scheme. Like, you can know exactly what's coming and where and it's still really hard to hit it. Maybe it's harder to hit it, if you know. Whereas the pitcher, it's like they're initiating the play. So in theory, they can just do what they want and put it where they want. And so if they screw up, it seems worse, except that it's not necessarily unless it's like something you you wrote about recently, Sam, when Mason Miller threw that change up, which we talked about uneffectively wild too. And it's like, why would he? And he kind of beat himself up just for the decision to throw that. That was maybe an unforced

error, even taking to account game theory and all the rest. But beyond that, it's like there are physical limits. You can't always throw the pitch you want to throw exactly where you want to throw it. So guys are screwing up constantly, even though they screw up less than anyone else in the world would. Plus, a lot of it gets hidden because they're facing the best in the world also, I guess, like, you know, because you were trying to determine if a pitcher just wants to throw a strike, what's the upper limit of that? And it's what, like, maybe 70% of the time was like the most in the, you know, pitchers at the plate with a 3-0 count or whatever and they just need to throw a strike? Like, I could not, yeah, I could not find any situation.

any base run, out, count, batter situation where pitchers have been able to do better than 71% zone rate. And so that to me leads me to think that they cannot possibly do better than 71%. They probably is not a better out there. Which, I guess, coincidentally, is similar to the upper limit for the strike rate as well. And maybe that's because it's Major League Baseball, even if it's the worst conceivable Major League hitter at the plate and it's a situation where you're incentivized to throw a strike. it's still a game that counts with thousands of people paying attention

and a lot riding on it so like if they were just throw in batting practice or throwing to us in a non-game situation part of it is just if you have to throw a credible major league

quality pitch and you know when pitchers used to bat definitely the average pitch speed would be lower than it was against a real batter but they'd still be throwing 90 or something right

so like if they if they just threw it in there at meatball speed, presumably they could have a higher accuracy rate, but you just never see that in an actual game setting. Well, I would say also to one of the more like brain unlocking stories I've read really ever about baseball was something Sam wrote about Clayton Kershaw many years ago and it was about Kershaw's misses.

Sam, do you remember that one? Oh, yeah. In the middle of the plate. Yeah. He's like missing middle middle and no one's hitting it, right? And I think that if you, from a really outside perspective, you're like, wow, he's making mistakes. And then the hitters are also making mistakes. And everyone here just totally screwed up, right?

Like, everyone here sucks at their job. But what is actually happening is that while Kershaw is making location mistakes, his delivery and his approach are so effective that he is actually succeeding and that he is getting the hitter. balance. So in theory, while he's not trying to throw, you know, balls into the nitro zone, he can get away with throwing into the nitro zone because his delivery is so sort of pristine, because he's so deceptive, and because he has, you know, an arm action that allows the ball to sneak up on the hitter and effectively, you know, catch them napping or so they end up late or they swing through or they just take a ball that they should be driving. And that is a huge element of pitching that I think gets lost in the discussion of things on just like a pitch

by pitch basis, you know, where it's like, wow, look at the amount of break on this ball. And it's like, yes. But like, there is something to be said for, you know, what does the pitcher's delivery do to the batter's timing? Is he doing things to disrupt that? What was the pitch before it? What is the sequencing in the previous at bat, you know? And I just remember reading that from Sam and like with a lot of things that Sam has done.

just sort of amazed by his ability to find it. But I think that that opens up just a way of thinking about the sport that was incredibly clarifying for me. Yeah, I think that we can almost break pitching into three skills. One is when you throw the ball in the middle of the plate, how often do you get away with it? Two is when you make your pitch, how often do you get beat anyway? And three is, what is your ratio of those two things? And, we focus mostly on, I think we probably focus mostly on the third one and we say, oh, it wasn't where he wanted him. But really, I think that probably the first one is the main skill.

The main skill for pitching is you're going to screw up tons when you do, how often does no one comment on it because you've got to swing through anyway. And like Jacob Mizorowski right now is the greatest pitcher I've ever seen. and he throws, like, he's throwing more strikes than anyone, and he has no command. Like, he's just guessing, right? Like, he's aiming for the middle, and the fastball shows up somewhere,

and that's good enough, because his stuff is so good that it doesn't matter. And then, you know, the off-speed stuff or the secondary stuff is also really good, but his skill is that he can make mistakes, and they're not mistakes, because no one can hit him anyway. And that's like kind of the, that's the great, the greatest skill you can have in pitching.

And they all have some of it, but most people only have a little, the good pitchers have a lot, the greatest pitchers have a ton. And that's kind of what you want. And Kershaw had that and he didn't even need to have like huge velocity to have that. Yeah. The thing is, yeah. Well, you know, Randy Johnson tipped every pitch, allegedly. You know, like guys who faced him said they knew was here comes fastball or here comes slider. But then it's like, well, you know, it's, it's.

It's not just press the button on your joystick and then the ball goes flying in the opposite direction. You still have to like make contact with it. And, you know, Ms. has an element of that right now. Is the Ms. an ace, Andy? You know, oh, man. I was just about to end the episode and then I opened Pandora's box. No. You must have months of pent up ace takes, which I don't really want to hear.

But I do want to hear the answer. What are you an executive at the New York Times Company? is the Ms. an ace? I'm going to, I mean, everyone knows what my answer is. It's no. He's definitely no to.

The default is no. It's always no. Unless he hasn't done it long enough. He doesn't go to keep in the games. He hasn't even done it for one year, let alone too. He is an applicant. He is a,

he will apply during the 20, 27 season for the title of Ace. I'm very clear about my, like people get, this makes people so, man, dude, I went on foul territory. at the beginning of the year.

And, you know, I was on with, like, Eric Crats, who, like, you know, I like, and I don't blame the guys on the show. Because they, but they do this all the time. They, like, clip out the stuff and just, like, set it up. So it's like, hey, dude, let's just get everyone to yell at this guy online, you know. And so the clip is like, is Yoshinobu Yamamoto an ace? Like, you know, Alonarizzo says, yes. Andy McCullough says, no way, Jose.

And like that, and the clip is like, the question. You know, Cratsy's like, he's like, where do you have on Yamamoto? And I was like, oh, well, you know, we have this very funny rating system. And I'm explaining the applicant system, which obviously the effectively wild listeners are very familiar with. And I don't need to explain. But I'm just like, yeah, you know, so like for me, he's great. I love Yamamoto. Like, he's the man. Like, but, ah, you know, technically he's an applicant. He's got to do it again. You know, like, that's it. And like, by the way, he's a two. That's what the sort of, that's what the judgment's going to be. But I got like that guy pitching ninja made fun of me. It was like, you're like a mo, you know, just everyone was like, you're so stupid. And I was like, the clip makes clear that I'm an idiot. Like I'm saying like, well, I am an idiot. But here's my

opinion. So, okay, what are my current ace rankings? I want to know what you, is schemes. Is schemes an ace? Is he revoked? I don't, we've never really had a case like this. Yeah. Really. Like, because since we started doing this

like in the in the current like since we started formally doing this at the athletic usually when a pitcher falls from like Walker Bueller was really high I guess so I guess we've never had a case like this is bit strong but there was no argument that Walker Bueller was the guy right there was like he's an ace but there you know he's not Jacob de Grom two years ago you would have said you know it's Keynes and scoble there's no debate on who the two best pitchers are and now um I think scuba was still a one. I don't know where I would put skeins if I had to look, if I had to rate him. Because part of the thing is once you earn ace status, it is kind of hard to take away. Like it's not like being elected a senator, but you do get a term. You know, it's not like,

that's why it takes years to get there. So I don't, I don't know. The ACE is right now, like Sanchez, Ace, Chris Sale, Ace, Ms. Applicant. Wheeler. Weillers and ace. Yeah, Wheelers and Ace. Lazzardo, he's a two. Dylan Sees, we could go back to our podcast from the offseason where it's clear. I know nothing about what I'm talking about

with pitching. So, you know, whatever. Camp Schlittler. Applicant. Yeah, I get. He's got a two. Yeah, applicant. Chase Burns, applicant, Parker Messick, no. Are you still?

you're still saying that Yamamoto is a two though even even now i thought he just had to do it again and hasn't he's well the season's not over yeah okay but like you're saying like he's a couple he's a couple weeks from his i don't know no he's he's a one i don't know he's he's like the thing is he's such a badass like the stuff he did in october the stuff he did in october is so legendary that it is difficult to suggest that he's not a number one but based on kind of the standard that I've stupidly said, he's, he's really borderline. But, yeah, the October stuff is going to put him over the line, I would say. Was Webb there for you?

I know. I'm not going to say. That's a provocative question. What is he? That finally woke up grand. Not the best. Yeah. I think he's barely got a, yeah, he's basically right there with skeins.

Yeah. It's a very weird season. I will say, I mean, I've been on, I'm just going to keep vamping to keep this episode going. I've been on parental leave for most of the years, so I haven't been totally locked in. But like, it's just like where the players we knew to be good are less so. Is that fair to say? Like, Ezekiel Duran is fifth in war.

Yeah, I guess that's always true to some extent. So does Cole reclaim his acehood now that he's returned and pitching very well? Yeah, I mean, Ben, I've been very clear about this. Yeah, it doesn't expire after you. you're out with TJ. When you come back and demonstrate good health and some level of success, you either are reclassified or recertified as an ace, or you are recertified as an American badass,

which is a designation of past greatness and prevents, you know, the idea of being like, well, Max Scherzer's number five. It's like, you know, all right, no, like he moves into an honorary sort of category. All right. Well, next time we'll bring you back for a Drew Rasmussen. Is he an ace? No, he's a three. He's a three.

For two hours. Okay. Okay, first of all, Andy, you got to look up Drew Rasmussen. He is a two for sure in your, in your threshold. You haven't looked. You have no idea how good he is. Yes, I do. He throws like 140 innings of 275 ERA ball every year, right?

I mean, that's pretty good these days. He's at 150 this year. I guess he's B might be a two. Let me look. A two. Yeah, I'm not saying he's an A. Wow. Yeah, that's okay.

Okay. All right. Can I, I know, look, you can say no, but can I just do one quick pivot to one other topic? You're always trying to make the episodes longer, Sam. Since we're talking about Aces, all, all Shohay Otani ever wanted was to be an ace. He did not care about any of what he's done. He only wanted to be an ace. And I guess, Ben, you talked about this, but none of us listened to it.

And we didn't get to talk about it because our podcast got canceled. But I'm curious to know, like, what does everybody think that Shepard? Joe Hay Otani's pitching future is, we can do it as quickly as you guys want. Yeah, I would not be shocked if he's done, done. I mean, it's premature, obviously. He's said that he's focusing on hitting. He's seemed to be, he's probably done pitching for this season. And, you know, it's not like we know of any serious physical ailment that would prevent him from coming into next year as a pitcher as a two-way player, which he was handling maybe better than ever until the knee and the biceps started barking this year.

So he may very well just approach next season like it's a reset and he'll be back doing his thing. But I do wonder whether the pressure now, because whatever's going on with him physically seems to have affected him offensively as well, even though some people have denied that, when it gets to that point, because you wrote Sam about how it just, it has to be so finely balanced to preserve it. He has to be really good at both things, but not clearly better at one of them. and it can endanger his hitting because his body's breaking down and he's 32. And so I don't think this is the likeliest, but I would not be shocked if we had seen him for the last time on a major league mound. I'd put the probability of that at like, I don't know, 30%, 20, 25% or something. But more likely that he just comes back next year and does it again and as long as he's able. And obviously, I hope that's what happens.

but it's getting to the point where the leash is probably pretty short. My answer will be in bookstores in 2028. No, I am not kidding. I think that this winter will be instructive for how they try and navigate the next six or seven years. And I think that what would make sense from a team perspective is you try and build up his pitching so that he has thrown 75 good innings, you know, on October 1st. And he is available to help your team pitch in October because, you know, watching him pitch this year before he got hurt. I mean, there was an argument he was the best pitcher in the world, right? Like, he looked so good.

And that was while carrying the full load of being a DH. And so I think the idea that the Dodgers would just give up on that is a little far-fetched. And I think certainly the idea that Otani, who, you have to remember, Otani has been told, no, you can't do that, his entire baseball career. And his answer has always been, well, actually, I can. And to a point, he has been correct, right? Like, he has been correct. But at some point, he's going to be wrong. At some point, you know, his body is going to not permit this.

But I think the idea that he would just, you know, be like, well, you know, I kind of tweaked my neck and my bicep. And so, and I'm such a good hitter. So I might as well just, you know, be at DH. No, I think it's, I think there, it's going to be a lot more drawn out. And how the Dodgers navigate that. I mean, I think there's pathways of doing it, but also like the only award he has never won, you know, that matters is the Cy Young.

And he was on track to do it for a while there. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if we find out after the season that this was more serious than everyone led on and he has to have some sort of surgery, which would not be his first knee surgery. He's obviously wrecked, like, I mean, his body, you know, which like stands to reason, right? Like, he's 32 and doing this at 32, doing this at 22 was nuts. Doing this at 27 was unfathomable and doing it at 32, like it's humans can't do this except for one. Yeah. So I could imagine him getting to the point where. he's like,

I'd be more help to the team as an outfielder or something. I don't think we're quite there, and I hope we're not quite there, but it's within view. Grant, you have any opinion? I wonder if there is some sort of long-term plan that could, like, split the baby

where you're moving them into a dedicated, I'm preparing for October bullpen duty. I'm preparing for October starting duty. And you've got Otani as a hitter, not necessarily Chuck at 80, 90, 100 pitches. every fifth day, but preparing himself, going, throwing bullpins when he needs to, and then showing up in October in being the secret weapon. I could see that. I don't know. That sounds pretty hard. Like, that sounds like it's not easy on your body, too. But if it's easier on your body than a full slate of starts in a rotation, then maybe that's something they could try.

Yeah, I also think the transition to the outfield is not as simple as it sounds. I think that would be a real physical adjustment. and it's not something that, you know, he's ever really expressed much enjoyment for doing. Now, I do, you know, if you're the Dodgers, right, you might be like, you know, winning a Cy Young is cool, but if you consider it a gold glove award and left field, like, I don't know. Minds how many mountains there are. Yeah, right. You want to talk about like small mountains time. You ever done with Adam, Duval's done?

Yeah. So I do think that that is something maybe down the road. But, yeah, I just don't, pitching is what kind of matters. the most to him. And I don't foresee him giving that up, especially when he's still so good at it. He's 32. His offense,

you know, maybe we'll find out that it was because of the injuries he had from his pitching this year. But, you know, like, also really quite likely, he peaked as a hitter two years ago. And now he's on the other side of the parabola. And he's a, you know, if in that case, if he's

a DH who's putting up three and four wins seasons. That's valuable. That's good. But it seems like it's going to be really boring for him. And it makes me wonder like, I mean, especially when you start looking out at like a four-year time window, what kind of hitter is he going to be at 35? Hitters don't age that well. Pitchers, some of them age extremely well. And I wonder whether there's a future where he gets to finally do what he wants to do, which is just pitch, and put the hitting aside, you know, bat on his Maybe he bats on his days to throw, but he just becomes a, he tries to do what, like you say,

that's what animated him as he was growing up when he was a young player. He wanted to pitch. He didn't want to hit. He wanted to pitch. He wanted to be the world's greatest pitcher, the greatest pitcher that baseball had ever seen. And I don't know. Like, I wouldn't surprise me if there's some part of him that wants to get to that point where he can find new things to do. and there's not really new things for him to do in the two-way role.

Like he's not going to do 60. He's probably not going to do 60. He's not going to probably be the greatest hitter in the league ever again, right? Like in his 30s. And I just wonder what he's going to do to counter the boredom, what he's going to do to keep on having like a goal for doing something unprecedented. And the fact that if his ERA this year had been 2.79, then, you know, maybe I'm not even thinking about this and no one's thinking about this.

But his ERA was 1.79. 1.79. There have been like a dozen ERAs in the ones in our life, and he was having one. Like, it's got to be tempting for him to say, well, I can be the greatest pitcher in baseball, right? Like, I'm not that much older than Zach Wheeler was when he got good.

Why can't I do that, right? Well, speaking of mistakes, I think it's a mistake not to put you guys, on the air together regularly, but I'm glad I could rectify that mistake for one day only. Covered a lot of ground. We decided whether there really are 10 ways to reach base. Next time we'll talk about whether there really are 50 ways to leave your lover. I think there are probably more. But you guys, look, I could keep having you guys back for this series. We could do a Bags and Brisbane reunion next time. We could get Corrig on here

for a Beyond the Scrum reunion with Andy. The true Andy heads remember sports writers blues. We could get, bring Pedro out of baseball retirement. What about the baseball barista with 100 pence? Yeah. Oh, wow. Many defunct shows, which suggest that people want to keep putting you on the air, even if eventually they remove you from it.

No, yeah, it's sort of the points you all just made, Ben, there's been times where I'm, like, no, like, I should have a show. And it's like I was, I've been given a lot of chances. I'm not very good. the audience doesn't like me. And I have to just accept that. It's not anyone's fault besides my own. You're all aces in my book.

Thank you guys. Read Grant and Indy at The Athletic. Read Sam at Pebble Hunting. Wonderful to talk to you and listen to you again. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. If you have requests for baseball podcast resurrections,

feel free to write in. I may or may not be able to make it happen, especially if we're talking about podcasts hosted by current team employees, and I already have a few shows lined up. But I would welcome your input nonetheless, much as I would welcome your support of the podcast on Patreon. This podcast, the one that's been going for 14 years and counting, while other baseball podcasts drop like flies around us. In large part, thanks to support from our listeners who have gone to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free,

and get themselves access to some excellent perks. The following, five supporters are numbered among them. Matthew Kruger, Howard Brown the 4th, Mandy Schlegel, Calvin Waters, and Zach Jost, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to a third unrestricted episode each week, a monthly bonus episode, our Discord group for patrons only, exclusive live streams. We just did a live stream this past weekend, but we have two more coming up in October. It's almost playoff live stream time. Plus, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, 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. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com

slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group effectively wild. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. You can also check the show notes in the podcast posted fan graphs

or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. I will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Okay, so Shane, we got disconnected. Well, it's fun while it lasted.

Even Ben's like, I can't deal with these fucking guys. Oh, just my luck, guys. It hurts.