Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2534: Breg Sits

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s return from vacation and their podcast-producer search, then discuss the uncertain statuses of Aaron Judge, Alex Bregman, and Shohei Ohtani on the precipice of the playoffs, how similar finishes in consecutive seasons can produce extra-disappointing or surprisingly uplifting results (featuring thoughts on the Astros, Diamondbacks, and Cardinals), the Padres’ recent run, Paul Skenes pinning part of the blame for his inconsistent season on the WBC, what to call the Tigers’ rebranded ballpark, managerial moves for the Red Sox and Mets, Cade Cavalli’s extension, business updates involving the Yankees, Angels, and Dodgers, an Ichiro Suzuki sighting, and a pair of weird-lookin’ (hit by) pitches, plus a few follow-ups. Audio intro: Cory Brent, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Spokane airport expansion Link to Boone quotes Link to Judge’s calf explanation Link to Judge injury update Link to FG post on Judge Link to soleus muscle wiki Link to Ewing Theory explainer Link to Bregman report Link to post-ASB WAR Link to Bregman clip Link to Bregman face photo Link to Encarnacion clip Link to coach box enforcement Link to Ohtani training Link to Ohtani return update Link to Schwarber postseason comeback Link to “Mr. Autumn Man” article Link to BaseRuns records Link to Ben on the Pirates Link to Skenes comments Link to Ben on WBC injuries Link to Ben on WBC pitching Link to Tigers park renaming Link to Episode 1639 wiki Link to bank merger info Link to Busytown wiki Link to Richard Scarry wiki Link to Beer Barrel Man wiki Link to Red Sox management moves Link to Mets managerial move Link to FG post on Cavalli extension Link to Walter suit Link to Levine on Walter 1 Link to Levine on Walter 2 Link to Yankees PE article Link to MLB PE article Link to Moreno ownership article Link to Ichiro article Link to Ichiro video Link to Halvorsen pitch Link to Halvorsen pitch article Link to 2025 Halvorsen pitch Link to Cantillo pitch Link to Cantillo pitch article Link to Windbigler wiki Link to WPBL gamer Link to WPBL draft analysis Link to Ben on PCA vs. Miz Link to Nakashima wiki Link to Nakashima stats Link to MLB sac bunt leaders Link to Ben on Nakashima Link to Nakashima retirement story Link to Nakashima retirement clip Link to Fighters fan on Nakashima Link to NYT on sportsbooks  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 and welcome to episode 2534 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs back from vacation. And I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing so much better now that you're here. And what a flawless intro. Thank you. The muscle memory or the mental memory.

It kicked in. Yeah, man. First take Meg. Here we are. Or maybe it's that you're feeling so refreshed from your time off. Yeah. Yeah. So vacation had its intended effect.

Yes. As I said to you before we started recording, I feel like I re-grew my whole brain. So that was good. Last year, I just sort of whiffed on like planning and extended like a vacation length vacation before the postseason. And so then by the end of October, I was ready to, for reasons that had nothing to do with my colleagues. and everything to do with my own logistical failings, was ready to murder every single person I work with. And again, not because of anything they did.

I have self-awareness. I can see into the inner Meg. And the whole time I'm like, I'm annoyed because of me. I'm the problem. It's me, Meg, the problem. So I vowed to do a better job this year and actually take my post-July slash trade deadline break. and reconnect with the family and go to the mountains and hike around

and be an air that wasn't 115 degrees, see some sports, see the winning Mariners won both the games I went to. Occasionally. They do win some of them, yeah. Yeah, they do occasionally win. Got to watch Sam Darnoldless Seahawks went fine eventually. And yeah, and I,

I feel like I've made this plug on the show before, but I'm going to reiterate this piece of wisdom that I have learned as an adult person in charge of her own schedule. If you can manage it so that you get back from vacation on a Friday, you should do that every single time. You should give yourself the grace of getting home on a Friday and then realizing, oh, I have two more days before I have to go back to work. I'm going to, I'm going to get groceries. I'm going to, I'm going to do laundry and put away all the travel things. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have a Sunday at home with football, if that's your thing.

For me, it was. It was so delightful to sit there. A Sunday at home with food. I did have a puzzle, you know, and so then by the time I got up on Monday morning, I was raring to go, Ben. I got so much done yesterday. I did almost everything on my to-do list, cleared out almost all of my pending email responses, and went for a bike ride. And I finished that puzzle, you know?

How about that? Good. Important that you finish the puzzle. That's a good pro tip. I can see the argument for extending the vacation as long as possible. Just, hey, if you're on the vacation, might as well maximize the vacation and come back at the last minute. But it is really nice to have that buffer. because otherwise the Sunday scleries are extra intense when you're coming back and you have to

transition not just from weekend mode but vacation mode back to work mode and to Monday morning. That's tough. So, yeah, I think you're on to something there. And I am a, this varies by person. I am a tidy person. I am a putterer, as we know. even if you can't manage a full weekend or even just a Sunday to get your affairs in order when you get home, I'll say this. Your life will be better if you immediately unpack your suitcase,

even if all you're doing is emptying that sucker out and putting the laundry in the laundry basket or washing the room, whatever. Do that. Put it away. And you will be glad because if you don't, what'll happen is it'll be Wednesday and you'll look around and you'll go, my life is in shambles. I don't know. Up from down. I don't know my own name. Where are my clean clothes?

Couldn't tell you. And I had the benefit. It was a long trip. It was a two-week trip. Part of it spent with my folks on the west side of the mountain. Part of it spent with my mom's in the mountains. And obviously able to do laundry in the middle of that when I got to my moms. So I had, you know, I had the clean clothes.

and the dirty clothes and not all the clothes were dirty. So it wasn't an overwhelming amount of laundry that had to get done when we got home. But as you age, you want trips to be fun. You want them to be relaxing. Hopefully they'll be stimulating. But you should just also really try to prevent them

from being punishing. You know, and travel, it can be punishing. Now, this is like, you know, it's doing half hour flight. What is that? Nothing. That's nothing. That's not.

It wasn't like we were coming back from Europe or anything. But it's just like, set yourself up to succeed. Also, this was, the first time in a couple of years, I had flown out of the Spokane airport. The reasons for that we flew out of Spokane are not important. They continue to make that airport so nice, you know. A plug for regional airports, you know? They're so manageable.

And I have pre-checked, so, like, it's not like travel isn't manageable, but it's just like, oh, this is very pleasant. And they should let us check bags again. They should let us check bags without having to pay for them. It was a long trip, and even with the laundry, I checked a bag because I had a lot of, mostly had a lot of shoes I had to pack, you know, because I knew it would be hiking, and then there's like, you got to wear when you, when you reach the ripe old age of 40, you just have to accept that it's better to wear hookas when you're

traveling or whatever your orthopedic shoe of choices. Again, you're trying to prevent the experience from being punishing, but those are big hunkin shoes. So then you have to bring other shoes. So I had all these shoes, you know, and so I ended up packing a suitcase, I was going to have to check, so I checked it. And once you get past the experience of like, like phantom limb suitcase where you're like, oh my God, I left something behind. And you didn't.

You didn't. You just don't have a carry-on. Boy, is it nice to go through the airport without a big carry-on? You have to hurl up into the overhead. No, you have to wait for checked bag on the other end. But again, if you're traveling through regional airports, that's not a burden. Anyway.

These are excellent travel tips. save some material for the bonus pod we have coming up. We're burning bonus pod material. We have baseball to catch up on. No, they're too valuable. I have no idea what happened in baseball. What are you talking about? I'll fill you in.

Don't worry. I'm happy to have you back. I'm happy to hear about the Spokane Airport. Spokane is great. Spokane is refreshed. Yeah, I said that sort of strange. I also am a quick unpacker. It helps me transition back into not being on vacation.

And also don't love to have that sort of sad reminder. that relic of the vacation lying around reminding me that I'm no longer on vacation, but you're fully recharged. You can slowly deplete your reserves over the course of October, and then you can relax during a long lockout. So that's something to look forward to. Anyway, you go away for a couple weeks and editor-producer Shane decides to leave us. Hopefully, correlation, not causation there. Nonetheless, thanks to everyone who has applied. And I think we We can say that we're no longer actively soliciting applications because we have received so many, and we have yet to sift through them and get back to people. But thanks to everyone who has applied.

It is, of course, sad for us to lose Shane, and it will be a tough transition. It is nice, though, to give people cause to write in to compliment you to tell you how much they like your show and want to be a part of it. It's not worth Shane's departure, but that's the silver lining, at least we got a lot of nice, Of course, the downside is that we will have to disappoint plenty of those people, ultimately, because like Highlander, there can be only one. But still, thanks to everyone who has written in, and we will make some decisions soon. Now, there are some prominent players who have also taken some time off or are about to be taking some time off and hope to return, rested and recharged in October. but that is in some doubt.

So maybe we could catch up on Aaron Judge and Shohei Otani and Alex Bregman. I assume you are more or less aware of what has befallen these players lately. I am, yeah. Yeah, there hasn't been much news about Shohei since he left. He's been on the IEL. He seemingly will be activated this week. He has been training against the trajectory machine trying to round back into form. And it seems like he's about as close to full strength as he's going.

going to be before he has an offseason to heal and have whatever procedures are required, if any. Right. But Aaron Judge came back and then has gone away again. He is now on the IL. He is eligible to be activated on Sunday the last day of the regular season. But it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. I will be at that game, taking Sloan to her first Yankees game.

Oh, that's right. A buzzer, buzzer beating excursion. But I doubt that we will see Aaron Judge in uniform, or at least on. the field. The Yankees have been quite cagey about the severity of his calf injury, as was he. They have finally given up the ghost there and sort of let slip what is happening here. But for a while there, they were refusing to say what grade the calf strain was. Aaron Boone professed not to know. He professed not to care. He said it didn't matter, which was weird, because clearly it does. And also it would be strange if they didn't know or if he weren't able to ascertain easily the results of that MRI.

It seems like Judge is sort of sensitive about injury updates and timeframes. And especially now after he returned from an injury and then he got hurt again. And obviously his postseason status is very much in doubt. And so it seems as if he has wanted to play this close to the vest. And maybe Boone and the Yankees have to abide by his wishes or have chosen to because he's the captain. because he's the captain, he's the superstar, and also he and Boone have had a bit of friction from time to time about wires being crossed and different messages pertaining to Aaron Judge's physical state.

So the latest we have heard is that he got an injection into the calf, and now he's staying off it for a couple days, a PRP platelet-rich plasma injection to hopefully hasten the healing. And it seems to be specifically a... problem with the solace muscle, which I'm not sure I was aware of, but when we say calf, we act as if it's just one thing, a calf muscle, but I guess the calf is composed of a few different muscles, all of which are a great disappointment to me personally as a calf-challenged person.

I wasn't going to bring it up. Yeah, you can always count on me to bring it up. So I was not aware of a soleus muscle specifically, but this seems to be a pretty important one. And it's one that plays a vital role when it comes to stabilizing you when you're running and performing athletic activities, especially perhaps when you're a giant like Aaron Judge. And there's been some concern that maybe if he doesn't take it easy, this could be a prelude to something worse, some sort of Achilles injury or ACL or something, something that could endanger next season. But obviously, he wants to be back for October and the Yankees want him back for October. So this is not the first time that the Yankees have sort of skirted around giving a transparent injury update. And they're not the only team that treats injuries that way.

The Astros were notorious for that for a while and others. And in baseball, we are used to a level of transparency that other sports would envy, or at least media members and fans when it's all just lower body injury or questionable or whatever. and very little specificity. So it's not sounding good, though, as far as judge's prognosis, certainly for the wild card round and maybe beyond that, because usually a calf. And he's had these issues before, some of which he's played through, some of which he's missed time for.

But it's usually a multiple week thing, a two to four week, a three to six week, a range that could potentially take him out of the playoffs entirely. But it sounds like he really wants to play. and perhaps we'll play before he is fully healed or at a time when he would not play if this were the regular season. But then if he pushes himself to play in the playoffs, could he do further damage? Or will he just be compromised and not actually help all that much? So all of that remains to be seen. Okay.

So I think a couple of things about this. I think I don't know the answer to what is the likelihood. or rather, what is the increase in likelihood of him suffering a catastrophic injury that alters his potential trajectory for 2027? Obviously, I'm not a doctor. And even if I were, I'm not his doctor. So I don't know the answer to that. I'm sure it is one of the considerations. Yeah.

Well, his doctor has refused to tell him anything about the injury, seemingly. So even if you were his doctor, it's confidential. It's classified. Yeah. Right. Actually, let me start with that, the manager piece of it. So on the one hand, I think that there is like an obvious strategic advantage to them being as cagey as they are allowed to be with the severity of the injury, the exact timeline of his return, sort of what percentage of Aaron Judge, they think they're getting back, right? So I know it's annoying to people and I am sure that like odds makers are furious that, that, that, that they've been kind of cagey about it. But I understand it from a strategic perspective, because, like, candidly,

they don't care if the media members in the room were happy. They want to win their what looks like wild card series against the Red Sox and then advance. So I get that part of it. I think that it would be good, though, if, like, when engaging in obvious, like, strategery, to not be, to not sound dumb about it, you know? Like, of course you know, you know Aaron Boone.

You know you're, it's, your job to know. He has to know. It would be weird, willful ignorance if he did not know. Why would you not ask how severe is my superstar's calf strain? When would he be back? Right. And so we can assume that he did that and that he is aware of the answer and wanting to share as little as possible. So I think that you can like, just Aaron, thread the needle here a little bit, buddies. Aaron's, you know, thread the needle a little bit here. And just, you know, if you want to be coy, sound coy and not ridiculous. So there's that. Yeah. When he said it didn't matter what the grade was, first of all, I assume if it were the least severe, if it were a grade one, they probably

would have just said that, which leads me to believe that it's not the least severe. And if it were the most severe, right, if they had already made the determination that it is going to prevent him from playing in the postseason this year, well, that would matter too. There's no version of this injury where the severity doesn't matter. Now, maybe what he means

is in the more limited and constrained definition of mattering, that is, what is Aaron Judge's availability for the remainder of the regular season? And it sounds like the wild card round, that it doesn't matter because regardless of what it means for his availability, should they advance,

like he's not really going to be able to play this week or next. Maybe that's what they mean. But like, come on. Come on. Yeah. He did finally allow that it was a moderate calf strain. Right.

I guess there are a couple interpretations beyond the obvious he just doesn't want to say. Right. One, if he says it doesn't matter what the grade is, it could be because it's bad enough that realistically he can't come back. And so whether it's this grade or that grade, he's done regardless. Or it could be he's coming back regardless, whether he should or not, even if he has to hop on one foot, he's still going to come back because it's the playoffs and he just wants to be there. Do you think, though, that there is a competitive advantage?

I understand what you're saying. He's under no obligation to divulge it. And if there were some way in which it would help the Yankees not to disclose his status now, then okay. But is there really, would it actually affect? Because by the time the playoff rosters are set or the wild card roster, at that point, you have to disclose it and the Red Sox are going to know, right? So it's probably not as if, and usually there's kind of a courtesy between teams when it comes to who's going to be on the roster or who's going to be starting.

And sometimes I wonder whether teams will break that norm and say, you'll find out when everyone else does when you show up for the game. Sure. Then there's almost a mutually assured destruction sort of or deterrence thing there where they don't want other teams to do that to them. So they do sort of send a courtesy text to say, hey, here's who's starting. here's whom we're carrying or something. Right. So just keeping it up on the air now about whether Judge will be available for that series, does that help?

Are the Red Sox going to do anything differently? I think the answer to that is no, right? Like, I don't think that it really matters all that much. I don't know that it changes, like, who they're going to carry. The Yankees are pretty balanced from, like, a hand. handedness perspective, right? It's not like you go from, you know, picking different relievers to not, like, you're just, no, I don't think it actually matters, but I think that that is the argument that they would make, which is like withholding information and not giving them perfect information has some marginal strategic benefit. And we're not under an obligation to help them out, even if there's like a social expectation of that. I think that's what they'd say. I agree with you, though. I don't think it alters, like, who Boston puts on their. wild card roster. You know, they're just going to send their best guys regardless, right?

And they, you know, it's like, okay, you know, maybe you, I bet you do feel better if you're Boston and you don't have to deal with judge and like, gosh, like the most fearsome right-handed hitter on that team is now, indulgment, right? Like, I don't know. So, sure, but I just don't think it really alters who you. send. But I think that's what they tell you is like, oh, well, we want to remain mysterious in service of trying to maximize the information imbalance as long as we can. But you're right, they do disclose the rosters in a chance. Right. Yes. Eventually, we will know one way or another

when he is in the lineup or not or on the roster or not. And obviously, it's a big blow not to have judge. And you can take all the cheap shots you want about some of his postseason struggles. still having Aaron Judge, better than not having Aaron Judge. Although fully operational judge has been hypothetical for some time because even after he came back, he looked pretty rusty. He did hit one homer, but he was not back to full strength. And now if he had not had this calf injury, maybe he could have gotten the rust off by the time the postseason rolled around,

assuming there were no lingering effects of the previous injury. At least it's not a recurrence of the same injury. I guess that's kind of good, at least when it comes to the short-term outlook, though you start to worry with someone that size, especially as a sign that the body's breaking down, which it hasn't. He's held up. That was the big concern about earned judge is that he did have some injury issues earlier in his career. And then you look at some of the past titans and how they aged. And he's actually been remarkably durable. He has not had his junkerlostent phase of late.

So hopefully this isn't a prelude to that for the Yankees' sake. But they have been without him or without his peak self for a really long time now. And they've held their own. It's not a great lineup in his absence. It's not a terrible lineup in his absence either. They have Bellinger. They have Rice. They have some guys who hit lefties well, at least.

They're maybe getting Grisham back for the playoffs because they have to figure out their outfield what it would look like without judge and how does Spencer Jones fit into the picture. And so I don't know how that all shakes out, but they were a winning team even without judge, even without much hitting while he was gone. And Shazolm's getting activated today.

Yes. Yeah. So they're good enough to win. It's not as if you can count them out. You know, I wouldn't do a Uing theory. Oh, they'll be better off without him. And I also wouldn't do a they're doomed without him. it would be kind of funny if they finally won a World Series during the Judge era without Judge.

I mean, not that I wish him ill or anything. That's that sports talk radio existence. Yeah. That cycle into existence, you're the one who's going to have to listen to it. So you go with God in a good wind on that one. Yeah. I have nothing against Judge. He has the Jeter disease of being boring.

Right. At least no scandals or anything. he seems to be as far as we can tell an upstanding fellow and he's an incredible player but yes there are a lot of Yankees fans who think that he's playoffs poison and so if they

did actually end this extended drought by Yankee's standards in his absence that would be a nuclear talk radio sports radio cycle I so the version of judge that we have seen since he came back before

this most recent injury was not like a particularly fearsome version of him. I still think you worry about him in a short series because all it takes is him going off a little bit to be a real problem. I'm going to offer you something, though. I don't want you to, I didn't prep you for this. So if you need a beat and you need me to vamp more about travel, I can.

But what percentage of judge? So like what version of judge, you know, the 80% version of judge? What percentage of judge do they need back to justify a dramatic injury risk increase? Basically, I think there's an argument to be made that particularly with uncertainty around next season and how long it's going to be and his age, because he'll play all of, not all, but basically all of next year is a 35-year-old. I think there's an argument to be made that they should just kind of throw crash into the wind a little bit. I know that there's a lot of time remaining on that deal, right? There's, wow, he's still under team control through the end of the 2031 season, right? I understand that they probably need to think about the long-term viability of Aaron Judge,

and especially if you think this is the beginning of a physical decline for him, because you're right. He was durable and the injuries he suffered were like these freak things, right, where he ran into the wall at Dodger Stadium and what have you. But if they think this is the beginning of the sort of end of his physical prime, maybe they need to mitigate risk around that stuff in a way that I'm being too cavalier about. But maybe if they think that they should just be like, screw it. We got to go win a World Series right now. Like this is the year. This is the time. I don't know.

Like what, how good, how healthy, how full sum of judgment? Do they have to be working with for them to be like, nah, screw it? Like even if the odds of you blowing out your Achilles are like 50%, we still need you to run around out there. Like, what is the, you know? And I'm sure the percentage of injury concern obviously matters to that equation too. If they're like, well, yeah, there's always a risk when you're coming off a calf that you might suffer like, a more debilitating lower body issue injury. And so there's heightened risk, but it's not crazy, but it's existing.

But also maybe they don't think we're going to start next season until August and they're like, whatever, you're just going to have a long time to rehab. Hope you can figure that out on your own since we can't talk to you during the lockout. Yeah, I don't have a problem in principle with as long as everyone is on board and goes into this with eyes open, just saying, yeah, we're going to take an elevated risk long term for a possible. short-term payoff. I think if I thought that I was significantly increasing the risk of a major injury by bringing him back, then I would already be worried that he wouldn't be of that much use to me in his hobbled state. I think that's the thing. If I were concerned enough that he

wasn't close enough to fully healed that he could have a recurrence or that it could lead to something even worse, then I would already be worried that he'll just be a shadow of his former self and he won't actually help us. So I guess ultimately I'd have to, those things almost move in lockstep where I'd have to be pretty convinced that he's healed enough to help us now. And by extension, he's healed enough not to be just a ticking time bomb. Because in his seven games when he was back between injuries, including the one he left early because he had hurt himself, He had a 39 WRC plus. Now, that was a long layoff.

And as we noted, didn't do a rehab assignment, was just training off the trajectory and everything. So now, if he sits out another 10 days or however many or the whole wild card round and then comes back, are we confident that he's going to be better than that? And I could imagine that maybe there is just some intimidation value to having judge, even if you're not fully confident that he is his usual set. Just does that impact not so much a lineup protection perspective, but he is the one guy who maybe would exert that sort of effect. Sure.

Or just if he gets on base, if pitchers are careful with him, then maybe he sets up some other people, although if he can't really run, how much does that help if he's clogging the bases? So if he can play, he will play, obviously. But then can you even be confident that he's being fully forthright with you If he says he's good to go, are we sure that he's actually good to go, or he just really wants to be in there and doesn't want to miss a playoff run of however many he has left?

The Yankees make the playoffs every year. So it's really just how many years does he have left is probably how many playoff runs he has left just about. But he doesn't want to squander another one. So, yeah, I'd have some serious concerns either way. If he comes back, that seems like good news. but will he actually be the guy you're thinking of? And then if he doesn't come back, well, that's not ideal either. But they were a winning team.

Even when he was out, they've got really good pitching, and they could certainly make a deep run without it. Now, the other injury that is impacting a wild card team is Alex Bregman. And Alex Bregman has been second only to Pete Carr Armstrong in production since the All-Star Break. And I don't just mean on the Cubs, I mean, in baseball. Yes. He has 3.4 war since the All-Star break. Yeah, so he's essentially tied at least out to the first decimal place with Fernando Tatez Jr.

For second in all of MLB in value there. And now he is out for the rest of the regular season, potentially part of the playoffs as well, because he has multiple facial fractures. And boy, does he. I mean, look. We saw the photographic evidence here. I'm going to do a swear and you should you should bleep it, shame. But like, I opened my phone and I was like, oh, he's got a f*** up face. Like, it's just, you know, it's just a good reminder that even though we don't tend to think of baseball as a contact sport because it isn't in comparison to, say, football, boy, can it be really dangerous, you know?

Like, his face is so, he's just in the on-dex circle. I didn't see this happen live because I was on vacation. And I think by that point, I was in the mountains. And so I had already negotiated my sports viewing for that week, right? You know, got to do a little bargaining with the mom about that. Was he doing the thing? And I'm not victim blaming here, to be clear. But was he doing the thing where you have the center field camera shot and you're like,

Why am I seeing him in frame? Was he, like, really close? Yeah. You know, sometimes that frame is wider is zoomed out because they want to get the behind home plate sponsor in there. So sometimes that can be a bit deceptive. But also, sometimes the player is creeping over to get a more. Yeah.

Head-on look at the pitcher. Yeah. And when people say that Bregman was hit by a foul ball off the bat of Michael Bush while standing in the on-deck circle, they're taking some serious creative liberty there when it comes to in the on-deck circle. The ESPN piece I'm looking at says that he suffered multiple facial fractures after being struck by a foul ball while standing in the on-deck circle Sunday. He was not in the undec circle. He was in the general neighborhood of the on-deck circle, but he was several strides away from it. He was closer to home plate. And again, not saying that he had this coming.

or anything. Sure. Obviously, it stinks and we wish him well and everything. Oh, yeah, yeah. But does it increase the risk to stand where he was standing? Yeah, it definitely does. And if MLB is going to police where base coaches are standing and whether they're standing in their box,

which is at least partly out of safety concerns, then they should do the same for hitters. For one thing, there's a competitive advantage there that hitters are trying to get. But the other, especially if you have a lefty, at the plate and you're standing on that side. It's just you're taking your life in your hands. It could have been worse.

It could have been much bad enough. He could have lost an eye. Oh, yeah. I mean, it hit him in the cheekbone under the eye. So it wasn't in a place where the helmet really could protect him. It could have been even worse. And so from the photos we saw that he posted himself, his eye was just completely swollen shut. Oh, yeah.

That's the hours after the injury. And hopefully he's icing it. and that will come down. But yeah, he looked way worse than me when I suffered my podcasting injury this summer when I dropped a table on my head, moving it so that I was somewhere to put my mic. That looked pretty gnarly,

but it didn't look this bad, and I didn't fracture any facial bones as far as I'm aware. So, yeah, this was a high-impact injury, and he hopes to be back, and it would certainly be bad for the Cubs if he were not. But, yeah, just taking the opportunity not to blame Bregman so much as just to say, hey, this is actually a safety issue. And if umpires are going to police your position with respect to various boxes on the field,

then this one should take top priority. I mean, just standing there, I'd feel terrified for my life, standing that close to the plate, knowing that if a lefty fouls a ball, it could just come back and you have no reaction time. There's no way you could get out of that trajectory. So, oof. It looked very bad. It stands, and again, I'm not trying to make light at what happened. I'm glad he's going to be okay.

And then it was not worse and that he didn't suffer would seem to be any sort of permanent damage. It is a funny contrast in, you know, within the context of like people feeling as if the Yankees are being shifty and not forthcoming about Aaron Judge and people feeling consternation with the Dodgers for sort of hemming and hawing about Otani and do you, put him on the aisle or do you not? And then this happens and you're like, well, you can't lie about it. Look at his f*** up face. Yeah. Yeah, which he put out there for all the world to see. I mean, you may as well put it out there.

What are you going to do? He walks into the clubhouse and you're like, ah, you know? You got all your eyes? There's precedent. Remember Juan in Cornacione who had a career ending facial fracture and serious eye damage when the same thing happened to him almost 20 years ago now. So, yeah, it makes you sick to your stomach. And just from a competitive standpoint, it hurts to lose Bregman.

Oh, yeah. It seems like he'll, well, he'll attempt to be back at some point in the postseason. But who knows, wild card round seems like a stretch given how he works there. Yeah, I think if you're the Cubs, you have to hope that you can just, you know, survive that and then get him back later. I have a selfish little interest. Give me, Judge and Bregman Fall League rehab games. Give them to me. Yeah.

Because they can't go out. Yeah. Right. They can't go out on a rehab assignment, you know? That's not on offer. That's not an offer for them. Send him to the desert, you know? Like his bruises get better because it's so dry here.

It's not horrible here is the other thing. Don't I sound so happy? It's something nice. Yeah. Great. It's like, not 115 degrees anymore. I've got the fall white. Anyway.

Nice. Yeah, sweater weather. I'm going to be that guy in the onion. Maybe not for you. Careful. Like, don't, don't overdo it. We're not quite there yet. For some of us.

We do end up with sweater weather here. That does exist, but we're months away from that. Yeah. I'm going to be the guy from the onion headline, though. The Mr. Autumn man walking down street with cup of coffee. wearing sweater over plaid-collared shirt, except that with me it'll be a thermos of tea, but close enough. Anyway, suddenly it seems like Shohey Otani's various ailments aren't so bad. Oh, a little knee here, a little bicep, something or other there.

We'll see what he looks like when he returns this week and whether he appears to be hampered at all. But obviously, he'll just be hitting, and it would be a great loss to L.A. Not to have Otani, though, again, when he was compromised by those ailments, he was not hitting like Otani either. So that's the morass you can end up in here where it's a name brand player, a big star who's been a big part of your success and you just say,

well, we got to get him back at all costs. And then you realize that, oh, we have him, but we don't really have him. He looks like himself, but he's not performing like himself. And then do you ultimately hurt not only them physically, possibly, but also the team competitively by trying to play through an injury.

So something to evaluate as we look ahead to the playoffs, which we're just about a week away now. All right. I was thinking, you know, since the playoff field is almost set now, of course, there are some teams, including your Mariners even, who as we speak are not yet eliminated. I know. Hey, they could play spoiler for the Astros at least,

so that would be something. I mean, we've talked about how playing spoiler just doesn't seem that satisfying, but at least it's salvaging something. If you've had a super disappointing season, if you could take out your division rival at the last second. I mean, obviously you're just letting another division rival in, but still there's a bit more bad blood maybe with the Astros than with the Rangers. So you could at least hang your hat on that,

sad as it would be to have to hang your head on that if you're the Mariners and so much more was expected of you. But basically, as we're down to six or so games per team remaining here, It's just a question of four AL contenders have to be winnowed down to three more or less. Yes. And we've got to sort out this Rangers versus Astros situation in the West. And there are all sorts of seeding considerations, of course, and there are teams with some outside shots. But I was thinking of this in terms of some teams that are winding up in pretty similar situations to where they found themselves last year, maybe even the year before.

because the Astros, for instance, who might just squander this, it's really close because they hold the tiebreaker over the Rangers, right? I hate having to remember tiebreakers at this time of year without actually the prospect of a tiebreaker game. But that makes it look a little closer than it is,

and it's quite close already. But if the Astros were to miss out on the playoffs, which is a distinct possibility, then they might end up very much in the same boat. as they were last year where they just barely missed out. Now they were a better team last year or a more successful team.

They're sitting at 77 and 79 as we speak. They won 87 last year, but it was sort of similar where they had so many injuries and they were running on fumes and it felt like the last gasp of that great run that they had, however tarnished it was.

And maybe it wasn't the last gas because this year actually might turn out to be the last gasp. But if they make it, they'll barely make it. And if they miss, they'll barely miss, which is where they were last year. And sort of the same thing with the Diamondbacks, who really are long shots right now. It was looking like maybe that Diamondbacks Padres' final weekend of the regular season series might have some stakes now. Maybe not so much because, to their credit, the Padres have been on a great run, which they've really solidified their playoffs.

And it's nice to see that, by the way, because to see a team actually sees a playoff spot and almost win out over the past couple weeks. And they've had a really easy schedule, but they've made the most of that, whereas the Mariners, not so much. Right. So, yeah, I mean, we were all projecting, oh, look how light that schedule is. It doesn't guarantee anything. So the Padres have seized those opportunities, and they've done quite well, and they've managed to patch various holes. with unlikely pickups who have raped,

and it's not even the deadline pickups that they made so much. Robbie Ray and Casey Meis have not helped them at all. They've actually both been quite bad for the Padres, but the aggressiveness at least in seeing themselves as contenders, that has paid off and credit to them for believing in themselves and then actually backing it up. But the Diamondbacks might end up just on the outside looking in. and last year they were an 80 and 82 team

and they had that late run after they dealt at the deadline but then there was also the late collapse just to miss and they might end up in a similar spot where they're maybe the first team out this year and then the year before that they were an 89 win team

and they missed out and that was the even more heartbreaking year right that was like the tiebreaker and the three way and they just they never got in. And so they have not been back in the playoffs since they won the pennant. And yet they have had a few close calls since then. So that's pretty tough. It's just they've had a ton of injuries too. But yeah, it's a rough spot to be in where you really can sort of see yourself getting in until

the very last second and then just, oof, just end up on the outside. Yeah. I, I, I feel. I feel bad for them. You know, it's hard. The national, well, I mean, this is true, especially in this year. It's like the NL field is so competitive, especially in comparison to the American League. Their division is so stacked. You know, they have to contend with the Dodgers always. And then to your point, like the Padres have really come on.

And even though their deadline additions didn't do much, haven't done much for them, the fact that they saw themselves as contenders and so didn't sell, right? So still have Mason Miller, apart from anything else, and Moriho and what have you, puts them in a really good position to deal with October,

but also to sort of sustain over the last couple weeks of the season and get in. And then they've just been, I mean, for lack of a non-trivial word, like snake bit. They really have been. Like, the pitching has been so hurt over the last two years.

And even as they've gotten guys back, you know, they're not like Corbin Burns doesn't look like himself, right? And Zach Allen's in the bullpen now. And thank God for Rodriguez. Like their pitching has just been in such tough shape. And, you know, Fought's been sort of in and out of effectiveness. And it's a tough assignment, even assuming perfect health.

And they haven't been able to muster that. And it's really a shame because they've gotten, you know, even with all the the tell drama and whatnot, like they have gotten some really. impressive seasons out of some of their guys. And, you know, I don't think that you can look at the trajectory of, say, Corbyn Carroll's career and say, like, oh, they've wasted his prime. They haven't, first of all, he's still in his prime and also he went to the World Series. So there is that. But, yeah, you just feel like they're sort of missing out on these opportunities. And I don't know how much patience their ownership is going to continue to have for some of their front office

people and for Tori and it's just unfortunate because I you know for all the criticism that I have leveled at say the Mariners and there is something about those orgs both because I live here now and I'm from Seattle and also like they're such frequent trade partners that I mentally I often link them even though they're not in the same league you know I don't think that like that Mike Hazen has like mismanaged this roster and it's not like it's been under-resourced at I think that, like, my impression of Tori Lavello is just that, like, he is, like, a really good baseball guy. There are times where I, you know, wish he would manage the bullpen a little bit differently, but I think he's done incredibly well with a tough assignment, which is to wade through and sort of pilot this team at a time when they've dealt with great injuries.

And I just, you know, we didn't, we didn't talk a lot about the Cattel stuff when this most recent round of it happened, but like just the way that he conducted himself in talking about Marte and and really the way that that entire clubhouse talked about it, I was just very impressed with him. Like, I think he's like a deeply empathetic human being in a way that is like really refreshing generally and I think is particularly useful in a context like this. And so I, I worry about the job security that those guys have. I know that, you know, Torrey's chair being wobbly has been talked about a lot. So, you know, I worry that, like, Kendrick will just be like, ah, you know, and kind of, like, get for it, I don't mean to make him sound like the penguin,

but sometimes I'm just like physical resemblance there. Anyway, I worry that, like, there will be some, some leadership sacrifices. And I don't know that they necessarily are going to be to the benefit of the club. But, you know, it's just like, it's so hard when you're in the same division as the Dodgers, he can't quite get over. And, you know, if I'm going to, if I'm going to say anything sort of negative about them, I sound so positive about the Diamondbacks. Like, the fact that their pitching has been so injured has, I think, laid bare that, like, they have really struggled to develop pitching internally.

You know, there are success stories, obviously, but, like, you know, I had to think any or could have made something of Brandon Fott, just given his background. So I do think that they have been in a position where they haven't been able to look to their minor league system and be like, oh, well, it's fine because we have this guy waiting. Yeah. So we'll see who ends up atop the AL West, who ends up atop the AL Central, or ends up settling for a wild card. I was also thinking that sometimes you get a team that has more or less the same record, but the season feels either better or worse depending on other factors. For instance, the Cardinals, who were contending sort of for much of this season. And they're going to end up in an almost identical spot.

They're fourth in the NL Central. They're 76 and 80 as we speak. They finished 78 and 84 last year. It's going to be just about the same record. And yet, I would imagine that Cardinals fans feel much better about this season than they did about last season. maybe just because of the preseason expectations. They weren't expected to contend. It was sort of a surprise that they even faked a run at being in it for a while.

And also they actually sorted some things out and they figured out which guys are good and which guys could maybe be part of their core and some prominent players took a major step forward. And so they end up in the same place standings-wise. But they feel much better positioned for the future, I think, than they did even a year ago where so much of that was nebulous. It just feels like, okay, our record's the same. But it feels like we have moved up a stage in the rebuild. We've really made some progress and we're closer to being able to envision a true contender. And they continued to make some moves and trades.

And so sometimes no progress at all superficially. can mask a lot of progress under the surface. It just doesn't necessarily show up in the wins and losses. Yeah, I think that when you, you know, when you have young guys either emerge in a way that makes clear that they're going to be like stalwarts for the next good team or take a big step forward. I know that like the last month hasn't been great for Jordan Walker, but he's also had the ankle thing.

So like you can kind of explain that a way like to see that guy emerge and be such a force and feel like, oh yeah, development isn't always linear. Like, sometimes it looks like this. And that doesn't mean that the guy can't become a good big leaker. It does have a different flavor to it. I think that they did a good job of appropriately setting expectations. It's been funny to watch some of their games in the last, like, month and a half because, you know, and I don't begrudge ballplayers for saying this stuff. And, you know, what is, what else is J.J. Weatherhagen is they didn't even always going to be on the team for sure. But, you know, they've, they've talked about how I remember they did an interview, I think, with Weatherholt about how, like, you know, our expectations

internally were high and no one believes in us. And I was like, no, our expectations were set by your front office, which was that, like, this is a rebuilding period for this club. And, like, they behaved that way in the offseason. And Hym was pretty candid about, like, what they were doing and what their organizational priorities were and trying to figure out, like, what is their approach to pitching going to be and how are they going to refine the development on that side? And I was like, we didn't think that you were going to be a postseason team. And that's fine. Like, I think that if you go into a season with a clear plan of like, here's how we as a, I know that, you know, Haim was around before, but like, I'm in charge now. Here's how we're going

to conduct ourselves as an organization. Here are the weaknesses that we've identified and want to improve. And then you have young guys. emerge, even if those young guys are position players where the question is still like, or is the pigeon going to come together? I think that fans look at that and feel really positive about it. And, you know, they're not quite where they were in their heyday by any means, but like they've arrested their attendance decline, right? They're getting people back to the ballpark. They're excited about some of their young guys. So you're right. It can, it can feel really different. And some of that is just like an expectation setting exercise.

that isn't to say that like if you set expectation low forever, the fans are going to be like, great, we know that we're going to suck. So it's no problem. Like people do want to see improvement. But like, again, to. So I don't have been sharp contrast. Like I didn't expect anything of the Cardinals. And so I'm like, oh, 76 and 80 with like exciting young guys, that's super respectable.

And then I look at like 73 and 83 from the Mariners and I'm like, fire everyone. And that's not. I'm not actually calling for that. But, like, you know, your reaction to it is really different based on where you think the clubs going to be coming into the year. Well, another team that has made some progress, which it should feel good about, but not quite enough progress, which maybe it should feel bad about, is the pirates who are ahead of the Cardinals in third place in the NL Central.

Did you see what former effectively wild guest Paul Skeen said about the WBC and the part that it possibly played in his disappointing season. No, I did not. Did he blame it on the WBC? He kind of did, which was disappointing to me. So reading this piece in the Post-Gazette, which starts like many in baseball, Paul Skeens has spent plenty of time lately

trying to figure out why his fastball velocity has decreased and why he's been less effective this season. As he's looked back, he's keyed in on one thing, the world baseball classic. Quote, there are a lot of other factors, so I don't want to put everything on that, Skeen said. But I feel like that was kind of the root of it a little bit. When Skeens was first asked about his decreased velocity of the season, he'd said it was intentional,

which we discussed. He said that he had intentionally taken something off to preserve himself and his arm. But now he's singing a slightly different tune. As the season continued, he began to admit he wasn't sure where it went, the lost velocity. that is. The answer is somewhere in between, he says now, but the WBC probably played a part. Quote, usually that time of year, you're kind of ramping up and it's a little bit slow. You can kind of get onto the slope and find your body. One live BP, you're topping at 97, and then the next year, 98, 99.

And that wasn't the case this year. Looking back, I don't think that really helped. So, I don't know. Do you buy it? Does this ring true to you? I'm sort of sorry to see him say this. Now, I can't discount the possibility if he says that this has something to do with how he has pitched, then who am I to say that it couldn't possibly? But I'm sort of sorry to see that he said it because I was pleased to see that pitchers were more willing to participate in the BBC this year, specifically Team USA pitchers.

They'd have such a tough time recruiting in past World Baseball Classics. And then this time they got a lot of the top guys, at least, or for part of the tournament. And Skeens was front and center. Skeens was leading the charge. Skeens committed early. Skeens was helping convince other pitchers to commit. And so if he's now thinking differently, if he's now maybe the next time the WBC rolls around, perhaps he's more reluctant, maybe people read this and say, uh-oh, if this got in Skeens' his head, even if he didn't get hurt, which is. always been the thing that's floated around and dug the WBC.

Just it's more likely to cause injuries, which I've never seen any evidence that that was true. And I wrote about it years ago. And at the time, this was a few WBCs ago. But at the time, I couldn't find any evidence that that was true, that players who participated in the WBC got hurt at a higher rate because sometimes players got hurt regardless. And sometimes players get hurt in spring training. And so you can't pin every injury on the WBC.

But yeah, I don't know. Maybe he's just grasping its straws and the WBC is a convenient scapegoat. But what do you think? Do you put any stock in this or give it any credence? The particular nature of the concern is interesting to me because the purpose of spring training is to ramp up. And so I think that, you know, one of the things that we have heard from some players is that, the WBC is a more effective way of them ramping up because it has stakes, right? It feels like it is simulating a regular season or even a playoff environment much more effectively than like,

you know, going to Peoria is. And so I could see it being a benefit, but I think we can let in the notion that there might be guys for whom this is true and that the the demographic of player where it is going to maybe make itself felt most keenly is it is in the pitching without having to say, well, cancel the, cancel it, cancel the tournament, right? Because I think you're, you're just as likely to have guys who, again, view like, that more serious step up in competition as a motivator and something that gets them sort of into regular season mode. more effectively, the rules around usage in the WBC are so conservative. And, and, you know, for all our frustration about, like, not seeing the best pitching available,

whether it's on Team USA or elsewhere, like, I think that's the right approach, right, because you're not going to get participation at all if those rules aren't very careful. I think it's possible that there are guys for whom it is, it is true, that it is, like, too aggressive of a ramp up too early, that if your skeins, and particularly if your workload has been managed so conservatively over your professional career,

that maybe that ratcheting up isn't the right call for a guy like him. I do find it interesting that his best stretch as a pitcher in this regular season was the stretch that was proximate to his WBC performance. not the one that is farther away.

And so maybe that speaks to him, you know, tiring out sooner or something. Maybe he's just grasping for some kind of an explanation that feels, you know, that kind of allows him to mentally flush this season. Like, I don't want to psychoanalyze former, effectively wild guest Paul Sienes. But when you're someone who's asked, like, what are your hobbies away from the game? and you talk about how you tried to play guitar, but then you had to stop because you weren't good at it, you have a particular kind of competitive drive

and being able to let this year go and just move on from it might be challenging for you. And if you're able to pin it to something that is external like that and not something about either your health or your own effectiveness, Like maybe that's useful to you. I think it's okay.

Like, I think that we, we love the WBC. We are such boosters of that tournament. It's so much fun. I don't want us to be like dogmatic about it. And I think it's possible there, guys, where it isn't just because of how they need to ramp up, it isn't the right fit. It's not like we're hearing this from the entire staff. And again, like, you know, right.

after the WBC, no one could get a hit off of that guy, you know? Like, he was unhittable, and I was on the pod being, like, why are the pirates such cowards let him pitch the ninth,

you know? Yeah. And I wouldn't have said that if he had sucked, you know, so. That's why I have trouble buying it as a leading cause. Could it have contributed in some way?

Of course, he had that rough, abbreviated opening day outing where he didn't finish. and now in inning, and he had the misplays behind him, and he wasn't super sharp either. But then after that, he was his usual dominant self. Some people cite his next eight starts, and he had a one-something ERA,

but really, over the next, gosh, I mean, two months, almost three months, 15 starts, basically half a season. He was his usual excellent self after that first one. 2.37 ERA, 2.7.5 FIP, 106 strikeouts and 16 walks. in 87 and the third innings. There were no worries or causes for concern, really, at that point.

It looked like he was just sailing along and having another Schenzyn season. And then the trouble started. Right. So can we pin that on the WBC? It would have had to have this delayed effect, which I guess is kind of plausible. So he elaborated on this. He was talking about how he was going very quickly from his first live at bats in February to spring training to the Team USA pair of appearances.

He said, when you go outing to outing, you don't really see the big picture sometimes. And I think looking back, I can kind of see it now because early in the season you can get away with stuff mechanically or you might not be moving perfectly, but you're fresh and the velo is there because you're feeling good, can't get away with that in July and August and September. Right. But is that really related to the WBC or is that a larger issue with training? Sure. I mean, okay, maybe that can interrupt your preparation for the season to an extent, but to the extent that it would be determinative, that you'd be losing your stuff or feeling off-kilter months later just because you had to ramp up a little more quickly than usual.

I don't know. It seems sort of like a stretch, so I do wonder if it is kind of a coping mechanism or just, well, I didn't pitch like my usual excellent self this year. what else was unusual, I pitched in the WBC. So, yeah. And maybe it takes some of the concern off because, hey, there won't be a WBC next year, so I'll be back to normal. And maybe it's not denial. Maybe that's a smart strategy. Maybe that's how professional athletes, they move on from struggles and they fix themselves, short memories and all the rest of it.

But he did say that he didn't feel that great mechanically even early on in the season when he was having success and he's been tinkering. He said, even in that early successful stretch, I didn't feel like I had my delivery. It's just weird. It's easier to put your finger on it after the fact than it is in the moment. It is enlightening, I think, that he said that he does want to throw harder and he hasn't been able to because there were some people. And I was kind of wary of sounding the alarm about his pitch speeds being down because I don't want to pile on because that just reinforces the perception that everyone has to be max effort at all times. And so if he was actually intentionally taking something off so that he didn't shred his UCL,

then if anything, I would want to support that as opposed to saying, uh-oh, what's wrong with Paul's Keynes? Maybe nothing. Maybe he just meant to do it like that. But no, it doesn't sound like that. he does say I would have liked to throw harder than I have this year. He said he wasn't trying to throw less hard. He just wasn't trading specifically for velocity, and that the mechanical tweaks he's made have not restored his velocity as they have in the past. Like, clearly his mechanics have been out of whack, and we've talked about that, and so many people have written about that.

So can you pin that on the WBC, or is it something else? Is it conditioning? Is it just bad habits? I guess you could get into because of the WBC and then the effects aren't felt until months down the road. I don't know. But it's hard not to imagine if Skeens had continued cruising along as his excellent self all season, whether that potentially could have made a difference for the pirates in a season when a lot of things really worked out well for them. So I don't know if that would have been enough.

But, you know, I guess what, they're like seven games out of playoff position now. So probably that would not have done the trick. But of all the things I was not concerned about with the Pirates this season, Paul Skeins was at the top of the list. Yeah, I thought their rotation would be stout, that their bullpen would be shaky, and that their lineup would be terrible. And there have been times when the lineup hasn't been good.

But, you know, there have been other times where it's been quite stout, and the pitching has been bad. And you're like, what do I? what do we do with that? What am I supposed to do with that? Yeah, I thought they were going to be a really strong pitching team that couldn't hit. And they ended up, now they started much hotter offensively than they finished. Yeah, they've been, in fact, quite poor as a lineup in the second half.

They have an 87 WRC Plus. The only team that they are better than is literally the Angels, famous powerhouse. House. Yeah, but right behind the Rocky. The Rockies have an 88 WRC Plus. That is shocking. That is. You just think that, though, I mean, I understand that WRC plus takes a park into effect, but good grief.

Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't take into account the, the chorus hangover effects necessarily. So, yeah, but, but on the whole for the full season, the pirates are at 101 WRC Plus, just smack dab in the middle, 15th in baseball. And if you told me that that was what they were going to be, coming into the year, I would have said, oh, that'll be enough with the pitching that they have. Right. Give them an average-ish offense and that'll do it.

Now, a problem is, even though they're 15th in WRC Plus, they are 20th in position player war because the defense has been a disaster. So that's... Atrocious, in fact. Yeah, that's a big part of the problem. And then the pitching, the bullpen was a big issue, which they tried to address at the deadline quite aggressively. And overall, they're sixth in pitcher war. So I would have thought that that would be enough. And they're sixth in starting pitcher war, too.

So the bullpen, they have kind of fixed on the fly to some extent. But, yeah, it hasn't quite been enough. Bullpen is actually fifth in war. So that ended up being pretty impressive. Yeah, I thought that unit would be bad. A lot has panned out for the pirates this year. but unfortunately they're still. And part of it is just that they have underplayed the underlying numbers

because they're eight games off their base runs records, which is not the worst. They're tied with the Marlins there, and also the angels are 11 games under, and the Giants and Tigers are 13 games under. Oh, my. I mean, that's a lot. And even 13 games, I guess,

might not have made the difference for the Giants, but could have helped the Tigers, Of course, that was sort of a season long. Are the Tigers actually good? Or is this run differential deceptive? Who knows? We may never solve that question. Obviously, the bullpen has been horrible.

After 15,000 comments or whatever. Yeah. So I hope that Skeens will figure out whatever was ailing him and that he'll be back to his excellent self next year. And also that this doesn't put a damper on the momentum of the WBC and the participation of American players. At least we haven't had so many catastrophic injuries that the WBC has been blamed for.

But if people pin skeins his struggles on the WBC, that wouldn't help. You know, whether it's his own personal participation next time we have a tournament or just others who might look to him in that precedent when it comes to sitting something out. I mean, again, there are going to be guys where it's just not a,

It's not a fit. So what do you do? Yeah. It's not going to work for everybody. Yeah. And, of course, it's the conversation, well, it's sort of the conversation we just had about do you play in the playoffs if it jeopardizes the successive season. Well, it's kind of the same calculation for the WBC, except that you're talking about a national,

international tournament and a national team versus the team that employs and pays you. So where do your loyalties lie there? Because we heard so many players say, this is like the World Series. It feels the stakes are high. We actually put a lot of stock in this. But then the teams are saying, yeah, but we still pay you a lot of money to play for us, though. And so you should put that team first too. So if there are players who are saying, well, maybe it could jeopardize my season in some way,

but also it's worth it because people really care about the WBC now. well, you'd get divided responses on that, not only from your employer, but also from your fans, because there are WBC only fans, there are regular season, championship season fans who don't care about the WBC. There are people who care about both, of course. But if you're a Pirates fan, you probably care more about the Pirates season than you do about the WBC. Sure. And I, you know, I think that maybe the issue with his performance of the WBC was about being uptight, you know? And maybe that had lasting effects on this evening. Yeah.

Maybe that's what ailed Cal for so long. It was just the WBC. Stick up your ass syndrome. Who knows. Anyway. Another thing we have to navigate here is what we're going to do about the new name of Comerica Park. Okay. So what are we doing?

So I brought this up to Ben Clemens, who informed me that in his prior life as a finance person, he, like, had some dealings with this bank. And apparently the reason for the name is that those were the streets that it was on. It's like, it was, I don't know if it was, I don't know if they were avenues or streets or boulevards. So that part I don't remember. But, you know, there was more of a reason behind fifth third bank than I was in. anticipating. But Ben, what are we doing? What, what's going on? This is... The fifth third lore actually came up on a previous episode of Effectively Wild five years ago. This was 1639. And we learned on the fly about the history of fifth third, because it was the merger of Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank.

And they chose Fifth Third Third instead of Third Fifth. Well, there are some possibly apocryphal stories. there, but maybe because they didn't want it to be confused for an alcohol reference and prohibition was happening. And so they went with Fifth Third, which is kind of hard to remember if you don't know it because it's hard to say. Yeah. And it's a Midwest thing. So if you're a Midwest, I mean, this is an Ohio-based bank.

And so if you are aware of Fifth Third, then it's sort of a household name to you. And if you're not from that region, then you might have no idea what people are talking. talking about, but you're about to now. The thing is, though, so Comerica is being renamed Fifth Third Park because Comerica Bank was acquired, I guess, by Fifth Third. And now we have to navigate what to do about this. Now, obviously, we're not stakeholders, rights holders. We're not obligated to call it by any corporate name. We don't have to call it Comerica. We could just keep calling it Tiger Stadium if we wanted to. But I think there is a meaningful. difference when a park originates with a corporate sponsor and then keeps that now for,

what, more than a quarter century? It's sort of like how Safeco will continue to be Safeco to me, even though it's T-Mobile. There's something, and I think there's probably diminishing returns when it comes to just how much value you get out of the corporate sponsorship just because people do continue to call it the thing. that they associate with that place. It's like when Miller Park became American family. Right. It's just, I still sort of think of it as Miller,

whether I refer to it that way or not. So it becomes, it's almost like semantic satiation, right? It's like when you hear a word over and over again and it starts to seem not like a word. It's sort of like that with the corporate naming rights, where when you hear it for long enough, and also it was the original name, you cease to associate it with Comerica Bank or whatever.

It's that park. And so now we all have to reevaluate what we're going to call this thing. And we have to get used to the mouth feel of fifth third, which is not easy. Fifth third. It's not as bad as guaranteed rate. Yeah, or just rate now, I guess. Right field, freight. I'm like, rate it.

It's got to be tough on the lisping community, the fifth third. The other thing about fifth third is that there are many fifth third parks or stadia. Oh. And I think it came up in the- Well, that's a crime too. Context of one of the previous ones on that old episode because there are multiple minor league teams that play in a fifth-third park. There's a fifth-third park in Spartanburg, South Carolina, which is where the Texas Rangers high A team, the Hub City Spartanburgers, play. And then there's fifth-third field in. Toledo where the mudhens play, the Tigers AAA team.

There's a fifth-third arena in Cincinnati where the Bearcats basketball team plays. There's a fifth-third arena in Chicago where the Blackhawks train, I guess. And then there's a fifth-third stadium in Georgia, which is where the Kennesaw State University Owls football team play. So it's really like the sixth, fifth-third park or stadium of some sort. So they're all over the place. Pick a park. You can't have all of them.

On the one hand, I agree. But on the other hand, I didn't know about any of those. So it doesn't really matter to me, right? Like there's that piece of it. It's sort of like how, you know, the Mariners play at T-Mobile Park. But T-Mobile is like a general league sponsor of Major League Baseball. And so you have like T-Mobile, like, brand activations in other parks that aren't T-Mobile parks. But I don't, that's none of my business, you know.

Yeah. I don't, I'm never going to call it fifth third. What, you have to slow down to say that. You do. Third. You know, if anyone's going to find a way to have fun or in a way that doesn't piss off his corporate overlords, it's going to be Benetti. So I guess I look forward to seeing how he threads that needle, but it's ridiculous. It sounds like, it sounds like a bank in busy town, you know?

I made that joke on Blue Sky, and I'm not going to make a better one here, so I'm just going to make it again. Like, that's not a, you want to tell me that fifth third is FDIC insured? Get out of here. That's a fake bank. That is a fake bank with fake money full of animals, you know, like animals working there. The animals are the tellers. They're also the customers. It's in busy town.

They've got a worm. He drives a car in the shade like an apple. Yeah, you'd think that they could have rebranded at some point. Usually I'm skeptical about corporate rebrandings or they roll out a new logo and what was wrong with the old logo? And it was just you wanted to enrich some consultants or something who said you needed a new look or a new name. And if there's enough brand recognition, but fifth third, I'm sure locally is very well known. Nationally, not as much. And I understand the origin and how they got to fifth third, but could they have not at some point in the intervening 120 years?

or whatever it was have said maybe there is a more sensible name. Maybe we don't need to continue to honor the legacy of Fifth Bank and Third National Bank. And it's enough time has passed that maybe we could come up with a new name here that would roll off the tongue a little bit more. I guess it's good that there's no fifth base in baseball or else we'd have potential for confusion about runners on fifth and third. It just sounds like you're like, it does. sound alcohol adjacent, you know?

Fifth, I mean, because of fifth. They were hoping to avoid, I guess. Right. Like, they didn't. They didn't avoid that. It sounds like a bank for boozy animals who live in busy town. That's what it sounds like to me. Richard Scarry is like, oh, boy, I could have never come up with that.

Dead or alive, Richard Scarry. Don't know the answer? Don't care, don't know. Yeah, I think I'm going to go not. I'm probably not alive, right? I love that there are two ars and scary. He's like, oh, yeah, he's been dead for quite something. hasn't been with us for a while.

Richard is scary. Is Gary his given name, do you think? Is that his real? It is his real name. Scary, the second of five children, was born in Boston to Mary McCour and John Scary Sr. Yeah, well, spelled with two ars, of course. Two hours, right.

Anyway, anyway, I guess we can blame the teetolers and the temperance movement. This was pre-prohibition when that, merger happened, but the temperance movement was already attaching some stigma to the demon alcohol. And so that's why we have fifth third. Third fifth would be a bit better, I guess, but I would suggest that there might be a third possibility that did not include fifth that might actually be the best of all. So we will each have to tackle this according to our own lights, I suppose. And probably we can just keep calling it Comerica or just call it Detroit or the park where the tigers play or whatever for the most part. It's the player. They play in Detroit. I think part of why I

can't move on from Miller feel for the Brewers is one, you know, when you've been to a ballpark under a particular name, that just, I think, is your permanent reference point for it, even if it isn't the original sponsor. And also, they're the Brewers. They should. have a beer. They should have a beer named Perk. They're the, they're the brewers. Yeah. Ben. They're would be fitting. They're the brewers, you know, and I know they have Bernie brewer, but he's a, they have a barrel man. They have a man. Is he, sorry, is he meant to be wearing the barrel or is he barrel? Do you understand the distinction? Yeah. Is his body barrel or is his body barrel? Or is it an accessory? Like, um, like a, a hobo during the depression.

It looks pretty permanent to me. He is made of barrel. It's sort of like the Royals mascot where the crown is part of his head. I don't care for that. That would be my read at least on this. Because I think at least historically he has had the barrel around his middle, but then I think he has a tap for a nose. That's right.

He does have a tap for a nose. It goes beyond the barrel. Right. Yeah, the beer theme. So I think it's a whole body. effort. Yeah. Okay.

Good. We've sorted that out, at least. We don't know how to refer to the park necessarily, but we know that how the body of the barrelman is constituted. Yeah, I always think, and, you know, it's not as if, like, when we refer to a park with a naming rights deal, sometimes you sort of feel like, oh, we're playing right into their hands. They bought us, except they didn't pay us to refer to it, so we're under no obligation.

But sometimes it is handy just to have a shared reality. And when something becomes the official name, I mean, I'm not saying we all have to start saying Gulf of America and Lake of America. This comes up in other contexts too, right? Can you issue an executive order to make it Fifth Third Park? I guess you don't need to. But that it's like, well, when is the name become official? Is it the historic weight of it? Is it conventions?

Is it what's displayed on Google Maps or Apple Maps? Is it some sort of edict? I don't know. But, you know, it is just to avoid confusion when talking about baseball and you say, well, where was that game? Of course, you can just say it was in Detroit. And maybe that suffices sometimes. But when you're talking and when you're writing, you can't always say it that way. Sometimes it is helpful to refer to the stadium.

And then if you use the outdated name, does it sound like you don't know there's a new name? you're behind the times, or does it potentially confuse people who came along later and they know that park by a different name? And so sometimes just for comprehensibility, it helps to agree on the same name. Sometimes it might actually muddy the water because if no one remembers that it was the Oco Coliseum or something, you know, to dredge up one. Okay, if it's that, then you're in luck. You can just call it the Coliseum. But most parks that are just park or stadium or something, You can't quite call it that unless you're in the area and maybe there's only one stadium. And if it's Yankee Stadium, you say, oh, I'm just going to the stadium and people kind of know what you meant.

And fortunately, City Field is a field, not a stadium. So there's a little less confusion there. But, yeah, it's not always purely playing into the sponsor's hands, but sometimes it is. Certainly we don't need to adopt it day one. If they keep it that way for decades and it then attains the status of, yeah, Now we know it by that name. We can switch over, but we don't have to be too hasty, I suppose. I think that's right.

Okay. All right. Well, there's been a bunch of other baseball news, but nothing so pressing that we must discuss it in depth. We should probably do a business of baseball segment at some point just because we have more Mark Walter developments. Now there's a class action suit of people who are going after him, which seems not.

the best news for him. He also sold off the Chelsea piece that he owns of that franchise, as anticipated, is the news tightening on him as it pertains to Dodgers ownership. I don't know, but maybe we can have someone walk us through that at some point. You know, I emailed Matt Levine of Bloomberg, of Money Stuff, whom everyone loves, and I admire as well. I love to talk to Matt. Me too. You could have a little Goldman alum reunion with Matt Yeah, but then I would quickly exhaust my credibility on that and be like, hmm, you want to look at office space in Midtown and hear about a regulatory regime from a million years ago. Yeah. Probably not even the rules anymore.

I've enjoyed his recent writing on the Walter situation because he sounded as flummoxed as anyone. Yeah. Because he's trying to figure out, okay, who was harmed by this? Like it was shady what he was doing. Right. They were kind of cooking the books, but also was anyone actually defrauded? Did anyone lose anything as a result of this? And does that matter?

And I guess that'll be hashed out in this class action suit as well. Anyway, he has a standing invitation, which maybe he will take us up on at some point. But he basically said, like, maybe when I know what's going on here, then I can come on and explain it to you. So it sounds like, you know, he's as much in the dark as we are when it comes to untangelo. of this. So it's very much a developing story. We also have the Yankees' private equity story. So the Steinbrenners have sold a piece of their ownership of the franchise. They still retain majority control. But there's a private equity investment and a big valuation, which we know.

But it turns out that the percentage here might be scaling up to 16%. And MLB has had a limit of 15% when it comes to private equity ownership, which suggests that they may be elusive. that restriction in the coming years, unsurprisingly. So we have the private equitization of professional baseball and everything else. Obviously, this has happened in minor league baseball, and we're all wondering what the effects of that will be happening in MLB to some extent, too, even if it's just minority shares to this point. And I read an interesting story at The Athletic about how maybe one reason why Artie Moreno

selling the Angels to Stan Cronky hadn't leaked before it was announced is that he owned that franchise 100% of it. He didn't have any minority owners or anything, which is a real rarity in this day and age because a lot of teams just to get out from under debt or whatever and didn't have debt too because a lot of franchises are deeply in debt, which is not necessarily a huge problem for them because they can always get loans and they'll be fine, they'll sell and someone else will assume the dead or something. But the angels weren't in that situation,

which might be one reason why no one really saw that coming, at least that specific sale at that specific time, because he didn't really have to tell anyone. It was just sort of like a handshake deal between him and Cronky and didn't have to get banks involved, fifth, third, or otherwise. And there weren't minority owners who could leak the news, but that was sort of old school. So now we're getting these ownership consortiums increasingly.

and we'll see what the effects of all of that are. I'm sure they'll be great. And also shout out to the Red Sox, not only for turning their season around and aiming for the Wild Card Round here, but Chad Tracy, the Chad Tracy Red Sox, the Chad Sox will continue

because he has been named the manager officially. He was still on an interim basis, but now he's on a three-year deal. And why not, given how that clubhouse seems to have jammed, and the team seems to have thrived under him. And also, Craig Breslo, chief baseball officer, formerly derided as a stiff.

The socks have exercised the options in his contract for 2029 and 2030. So seemingly, Craig Breslo, not going anywhere either. I mean, he appeared to be on the point of, he was certainly on the point of getting public votes of confidence from ownership and ownership saying, no, we're not moving on from, Craig and we have confidence in Craig, which sometimes can be a bad sign, but then they turned around their fortunes, and so has he. So not saying complete vindication for Craig Breslo, but he has at least managed to keep his foot out of his mouth, mostly, which is easier when your team is winning.

And also some of the acquisitions and moves that weren't panning out subsequently are looking a lot better. So just quite a turnaround, not only for the Red Sox. writ large, but also for Craig Breslow's standing and reputation and now also the Chad Red Sox and Chad Tracy's job security and status. Yeah, very exciting stuff. And, you know, the Mets are making people, official, full-time managers, no more interims. That broke while we were recording. How about that? Okay. Andy Green full-time manager. Andy Green had insisted that he wanted to return to the front office and did not want the gig, but He got it.

He must have changed his mind at some point. There you go. Yeah. And also the Nationals extended Cade Cabali. Yes, they did. That's nice for them, I guess. Yeah. They could use some pitching.

They could use some pitching. He's been good. It makes a ton of sense for him. He's been super hurt. Now he's got, what, like $50 million? Great. Perfect. Seems good.

If they could just put a bullpen together, then they might really, they might have a stew going. They might really have something cooking. So in theory, that should be the easy part, I guess, assembling a bullpen, which a lot of teams do sort of from scratch. But, boy, it's been historically terrible this season. And that was the thing that really sank them more than anything else. Also, nice sentimental story, unsurprising, but still welcome that Justin Verlander will be starting Saturday's game for the Tigers. He will be reinstated from the 60-day I-L. And, you know, it's sort of ceremonial, but not entirely ceremonial because he will be active.

Obviously, they're having celebrations for him and bobbleheads and such. But it's quite nice that he will be back on the mound for one more outing, which, you know, I hope he'll pitch well as Max Scherzer has salvaged his season and possibly his major league future over the past little while here. But just to see JV on the mound once more. as long as he looks okay, that'll be nice, you know? It'll be nice. Why not give Tigers fans and also him that little pleasure at the end of a lost season ultimately? At whatever ballpark they currently live in. Yeah.

Also, did you see that Ichiro made another appearance at a high school girls game in Japan? No. And through a 127 pitch shutout with 17 strikeouts. That's amazing. I love Eitro, man. He's the best. He will not go away, and no one wants him to go away, to be clear. He's not like overstaying his welcome.

I think everyone's just happy when Eitro appears. But I love that he takes pitching so seriously. He always wanted to pitch and obviously, like, has good looking mechanics and stuff and everything. Did not take anything off. Like, their videos I'll link to people can check out. But he's going up against a. high school girls baseball team, you know, a top rated one, but nonetheless. And he's like not taking anything off.

He's just going and he's going the distance and he's striking out 17. Yeah. Just like, I love Yichero. Yeah. I just, I hope he does this just for the rest of his life. He just like makes cameos when you least expect Yichro to manifest. He just suddenly Eichro's there looking like he, you know, still the uniform still looking trim. Still looks like he's in baseball shape and not pulling any punches whatsoever, regardless of his opponent.

He's just going to go full speed ahead. Go-go-I-Hiro. Go-go-I-Chi-Roe. The best. And the last thing I will ask you, who threw the weirder pitch? There have been a couple weird pitches lately, okay? So I'm going to send you, this won't work that well on a podcast, of course, but I will link to these pitches and you can tell me which one is weirder. So here's one just from the past few days by Seth Halverson

Of the Dodgers Whoa, what the heck is that? Yeah, so... Feels like you're missing frames. Yeah, both of these, it was really weird. He like, he lost his footing, I guess, like he was a little tripped up. It kind of looks like when a quarterback, you know, just like they don't want to be sacked. And so they just sort of throw it away.

but it was like, you know, he didn't have to worry about a balk, I guess, because the bases were empty. So maybe it's the old windbiggler. It's like, you know, don't halt your delivery midway through because you could hurt yourself, that old saw. And he just carried through. And he was off balance. And it looked for a second like he was going to hang on to the ball. But then weirdly let go of it at this weird angle. And the ball rolled to the plate and actually hit the batter on the ball.

the bounce drew Gilbert. And so it was a hit by pitch, like the weirdest lowest speed hit by pitch ever. Same genre, I will send you. This was a week or so earlier. And this one was by Joey Cantillo of the Guardians. Same thing. Hit by pitch, Brooks Lee at the plate. This one was slightly faster. This was 39.9 miles per hour. And the Halverson one was 32.6, which is the slowest hit by pitch ever tracked. I guess that's the way you want to take one for the team. And this one, I don't know which looks more awkward. It was like he kind of did a little.

I love how Berksley is like, that's going to hit me in the butt. Yeah. And did not make a move. I guess really you are supposed to make some attempt to get out of the way. Yeah. Yeah, but I think if it's going that far in your batter's box, you can just stand there. Yeah, I don't know, which is, he did a little leap, almost a little pirouette. It was like, he almost, he looked like, I mean, he's a left-hander.

He looked almost like he was a righty throwing with his offhand or something because it was that awkward. And he almost did like a little pirouette. And then through this sort of unintentional ephus, it's just like, you know, getting your foot, stuck and then following through just the weirdest looking hit by pitches I've ever seen. So I don't know which one takes the cake for you, which one is weirder. Either one seems stranger to you. I mean, the second, the Cantillo one is definitely the weirdest looking to me. It's the weird, but they're both very odd.

Yeah. At a certain point isn't more dignified to just fall down. I think so. Yeah. Or just hold on to the ball. It's just... I do think a lot of people... I think a lot of guys worry that they're going to get hurt, though.

They do. Yes. It's the old Dickwin-Biggler, which other than Dickwin-Biggler has not actually claimed a known victim. But foolish baseball, Foolish Bailey, pointed out on Twitter that maybe Halverson is making a bid for his second consecutive weirdest pitch of the year award because he had a really weird one.

last year too. Okay. But it was like the direct opposite. I don't know if you remember this one, but I'll link to this as well. He like fired full speed, but way wide of the batter, like behind the batter, but not even in a dangerous area, just so far that it was like, what were you? You know, he just lost his grip, I guess. And then it went like out of frame basically to the backstop. So, yeah, just.

innovating, I guess, just new weird ways to technically throw a pitch or even potentially hit a batter. Did you watch any of the Nationals Tigers game yesterday? No. So DJ Hers made his season debut and he had a couple of like airmail throws and it was like, oh, maybe he's still a little rusty there, buddy. Maybe it's still a little rusty on that one. But, but, well, you weren't rusty at all. You got right back into the swing of things.

Just good to be back, man. Good to have you back. I won't exhaust your reserves before we even get to October. So we will end it there. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. Also, that will do it for the inaugural season of the Women's Pro Baseball League. Congrats to the Los Angeles Queens for finishing off the San Francisco Firebells in the full five games.

To claim the championship. I am Isato with the first ever complete game in WPBL history to close it out in style. Hope to have more WPBL coverage coming your way. For now, I'll note that on our last episode I asked Bradley Woodrum how he thought the teams had done in the draft. How closely did the draft position correspond to player production? He subsequently pointed me towards some analysis that was done on that very topic by the analyst Sporty Dolphin at Sporty Dolphin. I'll link to it. Looks like there was no correlation between draft slot and ERA, but the teams did do better at sizing up hitters.

There was a negative 0.31 correlation between draft slot and OPS. The lower the pick, as in the lower the number of the pick. Closer to number one, the higher the OPS, that's what you'd want to see. Still, a fairly weak correlation, but short season, tough to project. Sato was the second overall pick. Paid off in the end. Another topic we talked about last time, Pete Carr Armstrong versus J. Jacob Miszerowski, the wide disparity between their wars and what that signifies about the

respective values of top pitchers and non-pitchers in the game today? Well, I dug more deeply into that and wrote about it. Also talked about it a bit on MLB Network. And what I found more or less backed up what I was thinking, it's been five years since Corbyn Burns had the last seven-war season by a pitcher. And this stretch of five seasons, including 2026, is in the D.H. era, at least, the five-year period with the most pronounced difference between the values of the hitter and pitcher war leaders, or even the top five hitters versus the top five pitchers. There's been about a four-war gap between the best hitters and best pitchers in recent years, as there is just about between PCA and the MIS, or PCA and just about anyone.

That's another thing that stood out to me. It's not just that PCA is having such a fantastic season. It's also that the runner-ups are having pretty lackluster seasons. In fact, if the number two player by Fangraphs War, does not get to seven war. There are a few guys who could barely, but they'd need to finish strong. Then this would be the first season in which the number two player by war didn't have seven war or more since 1950.

And they were playing 154 game seasons back then. Anyway, I'll link to my piece. I think there's some stuff of interest in there. Also, I shouted out Ichro a moment ago. Let me also give a tip of the cap to another ex-NPB legend, at least here on Effectively Wild, Takuya Nakashima, who has just officially retired. He'd actually been playing in the Farm League this year. He hadn't been in NPB proper since the year before. But 18-year pro-career, 15 seasons in NPB, and long-time listeners will remember that Jeff Sullivan and I were somewhat obsessed

by him, and in fact, I wrote a long feature for the ringer about him back in 2017. He has his own page on the effectively wild wiki and everything, because we often get questions about a hypothetical player who could foul off pitches indefinitely and what they would be worth. Well, he was that player. And he wasn't hypothetical. He's a former fighter and teammate of Shohe Otani, and he actually played for the fighters his whole career in Japan. And the thing about him was, not only could he foul off tons of pitches, he had no power. He hit everything on the ground, and usually the other way. Tons and tons of bunts, just kind of a deadball-era player come back to life, saw tons of pitches, tired out pitchers, just a fascinating profile. He finishes

with a career slash line in more than 5,000 play to This is mostly as a shortstop of 234, 311, 263. So, OBP, almost 50 points higher than the slugging percentage. Three home runs, 33 sackbunts, which is nuts. That would rank seventh all time on the MLB leaderboard behind a bunch of guys who lived a very long time ago. He's actually only 35. He debuted as a teenager.

I wish him well with his post-playing career, happy trails to Kuianakashima. And finally, in case you missed it, the New York Times several days ago published a piece headlined how Draft Kings uses AI to target the gamblers' likeliest to lose. I'll link to it. It might be illuminating. It might be eye-opening or it might be entirely unsurprising if you've been following how sports books operate. But the Times reporters talk to a lot of X draft King's employees about how the company is using

various models to keep players on the hook and how it's resisted using such technology to identify problem gamblers. and potentially help them. If anything, it identifies problem gamblers and gets them even deeper in the hole. It's pretty consistent with more or less everything else we've learned about sports books. But if you're on the fence about whether these practices are predatory,

check it out. You could be convinced. We, of course, will continue to resist being sponsored by such sports books or by anyone, for that matter, thanks to our supporters on Patreon. There are sponsors, our patrons even. Patron is one of those words that works multiple ways. I can refer to a benefactor or a customer.

But hey, you can kind of be both by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks. As have the following five listeners, Nick, Jason Moody, Eli Thayer, Grace, and Andrew Fisher. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include membership in our Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes. You want more low-stakes rants about

travel and other assorted subjects, that's where you can get them. You can also get a third unrestricted regular episode of Effectively Wilde each week, and you can get access to exclusive live streams, two of which will be coming up in October. If you are Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. You can also contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro, and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcast, 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 subreddit at R slash Effectively Wild.

And you can check the show notes in the podcast posts at Fangraphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Effectively wild, effectively styled, distilled over chilled beats, effectively mild.