Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 259: Cricket’s Replay Review Controversy/Revisiting Ruben Amaro’s Offseason Moves/The Ethics of Cruz, Peralta, and PEDs

Episode Date: August 6, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss a cricket replay review controversy, a few of Ruben Amaro’s regrettable moves, and the suspensions of Jhonny Peralta and Nelson Cruz.

well i can't believe that there's no noise there's no hot spot the batsman's not going to review that i just can't believe that it's just a staggering decision to show that the technology is showing clearly there was enough evidence to overturn a mistake there was no hot spot there was no noise so just expect that to give it not out. Good morning, and welcome to episode 259 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller, and some congratulations are in order, I guess. Well, yeah, everybody's got a dream. Yeah. My dream was pretty modest yeah you just wanted

a rod to make a plate appearance or or be in a box score for some reason be be announced uh at some point this season and it happened so i'm happy for you somebody suggested that the best the best outcome to this would be if if aRod plays, but he actually is worth four wins from this point forward, and I lose. Yeah, because it does sound like, according to Michael Wiener, that his appeal may not be done until after the season. So his suspension, if there's one, will not start until next season. And yeah, in that case, there is the potential that he'll be big down the stretch. He'll regret this.

Yeah, it's possible. I've got a big, big lead on you. Oh, yeah? I do. Oh. Yeah, it's significant, Ben. I'm sorry to hear that. That was the first thing I did

because I was flying back to New York and I took off before first pitch in that game. And as soon as the plane touched down, before you're supposed to turn on your cell phones, I turned on my cell phone and opened it back to see if A-Rod had played. I was in suspense the whole flight. And that's why the plane crashed into a building. Yes.

They were just taxiing along on the runway, and all of a sudden the signals went crazy and just right into a building. Blame A-Rod. It's all his fault, as usual. Okay, what else do we want to talk about today? I want to talk about Ruben Amaro's off-season trifecta. Okay. Let's talk about Ruben Amaro's off-season trifecta. Okay.

I wanted to talk about Peralta and Cruz a little bit, but first I wanted to mention something from the wonderful world of cricket. Should I do that now? Sure. Okay. So I don't know how I came across this story, but it's a fun story like every cricket story that we've come across during the course of the show. So cricket has basically what people want baseball to have when it comes to umpire decisions. to umpire decisions.

There is a replay review system, and it's very sophisticated, and it uses the latest technology. It uses Hawkeye, which is what tennis uses to tell if a ball was in or out. I mean, it's kind of like pitch effects. And then it uses Hotspot, which do you remember Hotspot from baseball from Fox, I guess it was? It's not still around, is it? It was briefly. Remind me?

It was in the playoffs like last season, I think. And I don't know if it's been around this season. But it's that thing where on a replay it shows whether the ball hit the bat because it shows the heat of where the ball hit something. So they use that in cricket to tell whether the ball hit a bat or hit a pad. And then they apparently used to use but no longer use something called the snick-o-meter, which was a microphone system which was supposed to detect the sounds that the ball hit or the sounds as the ball hit the bat or the pad which would then confirm the hotspot reading of whether

it hit that thing or not so it has this sophisticated system set up and there's a challenge system. I think each team is allowed two challenges unless one is upheld and then it doesn't count. So there is a new controversy because there was a match. I guess it was between India and Australia. I struggle to understand the details of any story involving cricket. And there's a third umpire who watches a TV feed that has Hawkeye and has Hotspot and watches the replays, which is similar to what people have suggested for baseball to make it more acceptable to the umpires union is you just make new umpires and they'd be watching TV and they'd have access to all this technology and the on-field umpires

would be able to appeal to them and they would be able to pass on their decision. So there was a controversial decision in this match and it seemed to suggest, Hotspot suggested that there had been no contact or something, which was the opposite of what the on-field umpires had ruled. which was the opposite of what the on-field umpires had ruled. And the TV umpire still seemed to blow the call, or at least that has been the general reaction that he blew the call. Australia's prime minister tweeted that that was one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions he had ever seen. And apparently this system has worked fairly well. And those of you who listen to Cricket can write in and tell us, but it's worked fairly well. But there have still

been these moments of controversy where it seems like the technology is working, but somehow the call is still wrong. And so there's been some suggestion that maybe umpires are – the TV umpires are less inclined to overrule because they don't want to show up the on-field umpires or they just don't want to go against their decision. And so there are still these controversies. So it strikes me just because of baseball's similarity to cricket and the similarity of the system to some of the systems that have been proposed for baseball that even putting every piece of technology into play and having another umpire in the booth watching them

somehow doesn't eradicate the problems. And I guess we sort of saw that on that Angel Hernandez replay review where it seemed to be blown after the umpires watched the replay. So never going to be perfect, I guess. But it does still seem like an improvement. I don't know. Cricket fans who listen can tell us whether cricket is better for this new system or not. But it does seem that we will never be completely without umpiring controversies, even when pitch effects is used to determine balls and strikes and replay is applied to every play and uh all the technology is is used well congratulations on introducing a pretty worthless straw man argument for everybody to to use against

technology and replay right yes excellent excellent job ben you will be quoted in at least one column one hot take yes it will never be perfect therefore why why bother improve it why strive why try yeah uh i wonder if the umpire uh in the booth if that's considered like the good day of the week for him like he doesn't have to dress up uh-huh i don't know yeah i don't know bring his own lunch right i don't know whether it's a rotating system or whether there's always the same uh guy see when cricket cricket descriptions of cricket plays never make any sense to me so uh this player was adjudged by umpire tony hill to have edged spinner graham swan to w Matt Pryor for one after a vigorous appeal. That was a wicked googly.

Yeah. I don't know what that sentence means, but apparently it was a terrible call. Okay. So baseball stuff. Okay. Hang on one second. I'm plugging in because I'm out of battery again. Baseball stuff.

Before we do baseball stuff, I want to do a quick update as well. Thanks to everybody who alerted me to Ricky Weeks batting against Sergio Romo last night. It is very nice to have that alert set up without even trying. I appreciate all of your tweets. And so Ricky Weeks hit against Sergio Romo in the ninth inning. One of the interesting things is that Weeks was put into the game late, not specifically. We should mention why we're talking about this for the benefit of people who missed that one episode. Yeah, Ricky Weeks was 0 for 6 with six strikeouts and had never fouled a pitch off against Sergio Romo in that time.

Virtually had seen nothing but sliders and swung at all of them and never come close to making contact. It was probably the most impressive pitcher-on-hitter dominance that I'd ever seen, hysterically so. pitcher-on-hitter dominance that I'd ever seen, hysterically so. So, yeah, Weeks was inserted into the game in the seventh inning, even though probably a pretty good chance that he was going to have to face Romo. So clearly Ron Rennick, he wasn't too concerned about the matchup. And Romo threw him fastballs, interestingly enough, two of them. First one was a ball.

The second one, Weeks put a pretty good on and uh didn't hit it squarely so he flied out to left so he's now over seven but he has made contact and uh that's disappointing it is interesting that over seven in this case seems less dominant than over six yeah so. So we'll keep watching today. I wondered whether we should revisit the would you rather have Montero or Pineda debate that we had in light of Montero being suspended and

Pineda having a shoulder sit back. Well, we should, but not today. Okay. Not when those things are timely. We'll do it later. Well, somebody email us that question, and then we'll get to it tomorrow. Okay.

Somebody send a quick email. Okay. All right. You want to do your topic? Sure. I just wanted to talk about the three guys that Ruben Amaro signed this offseason that drew some scorn around the Internet. And look at how they've done or how those signings have gone and whether we judge him for them. So, of course, I'm talking about Delman Young and Michael Young and Uni Betancourt. Betancourt, mercifully, I guess, or whatever, was released in spring training, and so he is not a filly.

He is a brewer, and he is a brewer who plays every day and is having the worst year of his career offensively. And probably overall, he is out of 1,069 ballplayers this year. out of 1,069 ballplayers this year. He ranks 1,068th in Warp, and he is just two hundredths of a run ahead of Jeff Kepinger. So this is not going to take long, I don't think. And he's just exactly what you would think Uniesky Betancourt would be, except maybe a little bit worse.

But I guess Amaro doesn't have to take credit for that, because even though he signed him, he let him go. So that's one guy. One guy is Delman Young, who I wrote the transaction analysis when he signed Delman Young for a pretty low compensation. for a pretty low compensation. And I noted that, you know, Delman Young is, there's no reason that they have to play him if he's bad.

He's signed for cheap enough, and if Dom Brown breaks out, then that'll be great because then Young won't have to play. And, you know, they can just cut the cord really easily. And so Dom Brown did break out, and yet Delman Young has still found lots of at-bats. He is also below replacement level. He is now starting to get lots of plate appearance-based milestones, so he is now getting paid more based on the incentives in his contract. And of the 1,069 players in baseball, he ranks 791st in Warp. Weren't some of the incentives in his contract weight-based?

Yeah, I don't know. That sounds familiar. Yeah. Probably. I think he had some number of weigh-ins throughout the season that he had to meet some number. Yeah, I think he had some number of weigh-ins throughout the season that he had to meet some number. Yeah, I don't know. The last paragraph of the transaction analysis was,

a lot of times we say we can't judge a move until we see how the players play. But in this case, it's less about how Young plays and more about how the organization reacts to his nearly, but not quite, inevitable failure. Because there's no reason this move has to cost them anything more than $750, but not quite, inevitable failure, because there's no reason this move has to cost them anything more than $750,000, a pittance, until they let it. And I think, arguably, it has cost them more than that. I mean, literally, it has cost them more than that.

But I would say that, arguably, he's, by this point, well, we'll talk later. And then, finally, Michael Young young who um uh i guess michael young probably the impression is that he's having a a little bit of a better year he's been a you know about a league average hitter he's played terrible defense and of the 1069 players uh 1,069 players. He ranks 993rd in Warp. So he's actually been worse than Delman Young thanks to his defense. However, you know, Michael Young, it's always hard to know exactly where his value stops. He might be having, you know, for all we know, he's been a great guy in the clubhouse, and he's going to help Delman Young turn things around, and it'll all pay off.

He was not traded at the trade deadline, but he might have been. And so, yeah, those are the three guys. Normally I'd say, because a big part of their negative warp is their fielding, A big part of their negative warp is their fielding. And usually I would say we're less confident in the fielding numbers and their hitting hasn't been so bad. But given that it's these guys and we have large samples of fielding stats that tell us that they're very bad at fielding, I guess I'm not quite so concerned

about that. Yeah, Baseball Reference has Michael Young at 17 runs below average at third base, which probably pretty close to the record already, right? I mean, third base is not responsible for that much territory. Yeah, I would. I don't know about the record, but I would guess that that would lead or come pretty close to leading in the negatives most years. So, you know, I like I like these these examples because a lot of times baseball is unpredictable and then we assign the credit to a move to the GM even though you couldn't have really predicted one way or the other. And in this case, I would say that all three of these were exceedingly predictable. These are almost, I guess Michael Young is probably hitting a little bit better than maybe one would have predicted and so you might give Amaro credit for that.

a little bit better than maybe one would have predicted, and so you might give Amaro credit for that. And again, we don't know what his total value is because of the whole character stuff, but basically everybody's doing exactly what they should have been doing. And so the Phillies are having a poor year, and the roots of that problem go deeper than these two players plus uniski betancourt who's not even there um but i don't know it feels like a pretty damning indictment of amaro that that in fact uh all three of these players well at least i don't know i don't i don't

really know whether i should lump betancourt into this. I kind of love him just because of how I just never stop talking. I never quit enjoying looking at Uniesky-Betancourt. I mean, this is his seventh consecutive year below replacement level. He's a win and a half below replacement level, and he just keeps getting chances. It's one of the sort of most enjoyable parts of baseball to me. Yeah. Yeah. He was certainly a punchline, just like those other two guys. I guess I might give Amaro a partial pass for him just because he was a spring training

guy and because he tore it up in spring training. He was great in spring training for the Phillies. He hit.447 and slugged almost 600 and they still didn't give him a job so uh maybe they never intended to give him a job unless the entire roster was injured or something so it i mean i i blame the brewers more than than the phillies that's true for that move but uh yeah, the other moves, gosh, I don't know. We talked about Delman Young and whether he'd be out of baseball

by the time he was, what, 30 or something, or before, and seemed like it was a pretty realistic possibility. And yeah, I mean, he's been who we thought he was. So, yes. And worse than that, he has continued to play despite being who we thought he was. The amazing thing about Betancourt, too, is that he hasn't even started a game at shortstop. You can sort of understand, like, this desperate, how GMs can get in this desperate place where they need a shortstop you can sort of understand like this desperate the how gms can get in this desperate

place where they need a shortstop and you know you can't you could throw theoretically throw anybody out there but you really can't i mean there's only a handful of guys in the world capable of playing shortstop and he so you could sort of understand why teams were were were uh you know suckered into him but he had he started one game at shortstop last year. He has started no games at shortstop this year. He has started one game at second base. He's primarily played first base. Uniesky Betancourt, with his 604 OPS and his 676 career OPS,

has primarily played first base for a Major League Baseball team this year. I can't even imagine. It's a beautiful thing. Baseball is the most beautiful thing in the world, man. Yeah. And these guys are so smart. That's the thing. They're so smart.

Their front office is so smart. They could teach us everything. And yet, here it is. I wrote something about halfway through April when Betancourt was really hitting. And Ron Renneke said that he was like a new player. He said he's more patient than he was before. He sees the off-speed stuff better. He looks like a good offensive player.

And then he said, I don't want to say he wasn't a good offensive player two years ago, which he wasn't. But so I looked at that. And at the time, the stats actually backed up what he was saying, that Betancourt was somehow a different player. He was swinging less and he was swinging less at pitches out of the zone. And this was something that was true last year too. Like he was over a fairly large sample. He was chasing less. And obviously since then he hasn't hit at all. I don't know whether he's been less selective or just slumped anyway. Fortunately, I published that late on a Friday night,

and I loaded it up with lots of caveats about how it would probably look silly later in the season. So hopefully it won't come back to haunt me too much. But yeah, I don't know. We spent the winter making fun of certain moves. We spent the winter making fun of certain moves. Collectively, the internet, we made fun of, say, the Brandon League signing, and that has turned out to be bad. We made fun of these Phillies ones.

That's turned out to be bad. We also made fun of some Diamondbacks ones, I guess, that have not turned out to be bad. backs ones, I guess, that have not turned out to be bad. But yeah, it does still seem like there are times, as smart as front offices are, as more qualified to talk about baseball and analyze baseball than people in them are, than most of us are, does seem like there's still some times when when things that don't make a lot of sense happen and um and it doesn't really turn out to be more to the story it doesn't seem like they're just just kind of bad yeah kevin correa scared us for a while too right he did because that was the yes that was the one i mean that was really a consensus bad move, and he had that incredible start. It was going to be really embarrassing when he was an all-star.

He hasn't been. He's been awful. Pretty bad, yeah. Incidentally, the record for runs below average at third base is safe. It is Ryan Braun, and it is 32 according to defensive runs saved. And then you also have Gary Sheffield at 32. So Michael Young could do it but it's very

unlikely. Well maybe it's time for him to move to the outfield more. And he can be the new Delman Young. Yeah and there was that report that Brian Cashman tried to trade for Michael Young at the last minute before the deadline and pick up his salary

and throw some prospect Philly's way, and they wouldn't do that. The Phillies wouldn't do it. Yeah. Hmm. Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. I don't know. I don't know I don't know

Yeah okay Do we have anything more to say about that or we'll just We're just gonna bash it and we're done We're done So I remember Last season I think we did A topic about whether the Giants Should bring back Malky Cabrera right

We talked about that Whether they should let him play in the postseason after his suspension was over. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like we, did we disagree about that? Maybe we came close to disagreeing for once. I don't really remember.

But obviously that didn't happen. They didn't play him. The Giants did okay without him. We should look that episode up and just play it right now. Yeah. Play the whole thing. I'll use the whole thing as the intro sound to this episode. And so now we're facing a similar situation here with Johnny Peralta and the Tigers and Nelson Cruz and the Rangers,

Tigers and Nelson Cruz and the Rangers, whose suspensions will be up just about as the season ends, and they will be eligible to play in the postseason if their teams want them to and if their teams make the playoffs. So there are lots of issues surrounding these two suspensions. I guess the first thing I wonder is, well, I don't know, do you make any kind of character judgment whatsoever about their decisions to accept these suspensions and not appeal? I don't know whether this would have been true for them,

but as we said, supposedly A-Rod's suspension won't be resolved or his appeal won't be resolved until after the season. Maybe that would have been the case with Peralta and Cruz if they had whatsoever about, I don't know, moral character or their motivations in not appealing when their teams are in pennant races or on the way to the playoffs? You know, I don't know. I've been kind of thinking about the philosophy behind it. And I think I kind of do. I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a huge thing. And if they can be back for the postseason and if they actually would play in the postseason, I don't know, it might be that Melky has set a precedent and now no team is going to, you know, to, to kind of break that precedent.

But, you know, if they, if the timing works out where they are back just in time for the postseason especially for peralta um where you know probably you know probably the tigers chances of winning the division aren't changed that much and um you know they are they can start really looking for the postseason, then it makes sense. I mean, you want to be there for the postseason if you have a choice. But it does feel like you have some obligation to the team that signed you. I mean, obviously, some team is not going to get 50 days of Nelson Cruz. And it does seem kind of more ethical if you have the choice of putting that burden on the team that signs you with eyes

wide open knowing it um and then you know the team that um that didn't on the other hand i also kind of do believe that these suspensions are intended to penalize the team as well as the player i think that the team should be penalized i don't think that the teams are, even if they take all the precautions and even if they are really diligent about it and take a strong stance about it, I think that you need to have this incentive in place for teams to continue to be diligent. And so I like the idea that teams are being punished as well. This is one reason I don't think they should get to keep the salary is that the team should get to keep the salary because I think the team should be punished

for having players who cheated, especially because if you actually believe that their performances were enhanced, then the team has already banked value. So you create some really weird incentives if the team gets to take credit take credit for the player's cheating and never have to in any way suffer for it. So in that case, I generally would prefer that these suspensions take place immediately

regardless and that the appeals process be as quick as possible so that you can really tie the punishment to the current team. process be as quick as possible so that you can really tie the punishment to the current team. So I guess that's not really Nelson Cruz's moral jurisdiction, but I'm glad, I guess, that that's happening. With Cruz, I don't know. I mean, it's been, with Cruz and Peralta, it's been painted as that they're going to make less money as free agents

because of this if they have the suspension looming over them and that they would be perhaps suspended during a season in which they're being paid more than they are now because they'll be free agents and will have bigger contracts. And if that's – I mean that's the way it's framed. I don't know if that's the truth, but if it's the way it's framed, I find it somewhat understandable. But it seems a bit cheap. We're talking about not that much of a difference of money. And these guys are extremely rich.

And I guess they don't have an obligation for being – by being rich, they don't have an obligation to give up a few extra $100,000 just because it makes us happy. But it does seem a little bit penny-pinching. I think it seems to me that it would be more desirable for them to just get it out of the way if possible. And furthermore, I'm not sure that it would actually cost them all that much money in the long run. If you're talking about signing as a free agent, I bet a lot of teams would love to sign free agents to prorated deals that don't include the first 50 games of the season. Those games aren't as valuable as potentially the last 5, 12, 19, 19 or 20 that take place in October.

So if you get a higher proportion of the guy's performance is in October, he's actually leveraged better and worth a little bit more. So I don't know. I mean, if you're talking about removing 50 days of pay, I'm not sure that they take a huge hit. It seems sort of like a missed PR opportunity for them. Like if I were in their situation and, uh, and Nelson Cruz has made $20 million in his career and Peralta has made almost 30. It seems like it would have been an opportunity to try to, I mean, you know, once you get this suspension and you have Biogenesis attached or whether or not it's about that, say it's about that and say, uh, you know, I'm, I'm going to make less money as a result of this, but I, I have enough money and I just want to help my team and, um, and, you know, spin it as you're,

you're punishing yourself or you're, you're taking your lumps or whatever in your financial area because you care more about helping the team and all that. Maybe, I don't know, maybe that goes part of the way towards repairing your reputation, at least in comparison to the other guys who got these suspensions. So you're saying the penitent thing would be to appeal and – Yeah, and to say I care more about being a good teammate than I do about what I make as a free agent. And just to take that angle seems like something I would want to do. And so then there's also been discussion about you could you could i mean if

you're if we're talking about how you're sort of spinning it it seems like you could make i mean to me it seems like the thing that generally would play better is to say yeah i cheated i'm going to take my punishment i'm not going to appeal appealing appealing is is a way of proclaiming one's innocence. Yes, you're right. And not giving a full-throated apology. I mean, the best thing to do usually in most scandals, if you want to have people move on, is to come out and say that I screwed up badly. I'm not even going to try to defend myself. I'm really sorry, and I'll take the punishment without protest.

So, I mean, that's kind of maybe what I would like about it. Yeah, that makes sense too. So the other consideration is whether they are re-signable by their current teams. There's been some reports that neither team is particularly interested, it sounds like, in bringing these guys back. Of course, they don't have to make any kind of decision now. But does this appeal or should this appeal or non-appeal the acceptance of the suspension?

Or should this appeal or non-appeal the acceptance of the suspension? Should this make the Rangers and Tigers rule out bringing them back because they have made this seemingly selfish decision at the expense of the teams? Well, it seems like the Rangers really have put it to him in the terms that it is a selfish decision, and if he goes ahead and makes it, which he then went ahead and did, it would be an act of selfishness. I mean, it sounds, based on the reports, that the Rangers made it pretty clear that they wanted him to take a certain course of action and that an alternate course of action would be seen as being against his employer, right? Assuming that I'm picking up the reports correctly and that the reports are true, it feels like he made his choice and maybe they were using that as leverage. Maybe they were using that threat as leverage. But one way or another, it feels like you have a severed relationship at this point, right?

Although maybe, presumably, I mean, possibly if he comes back in the postseason um and particularly if he comes back in the postseason and catches a fly ball over his head late in game six uh then maybe everything will be forgiven and that those will just be words um i don't i don't. I haven't heard as much about the Tigers and Peralta. Yeah, there was just a – I don't know. I mean, Dombrowski was kind of vague about whether he would come back, and Danny Knobler tweeted something about how he has the sense that if Iglesias does okay in Peralta's absence, they won't want Peralta back, which I guess might be the case regardless. I don't know.

If they think that Iglesias is cheap and can do the job, then maybe they wouldn't need Peralta anyway. And I guess what we talked about last year was whether it made sense for the Giants to bring Melke back based on the fact that he seemed to be much better than the alternative. But that he also would be very rusty and we weren't really sure, at least I wasn't really sure, whether he would be able to come back from a 50 game break without being able to play rehab games and just immediately be good again, which I guess is something that I still wonder about that. And it seems like with Cruz especially, there's a fairly large drop-off from him

to the Rangers' replacements for him. And there could be a large drop-off to Iglesias, although maybe not quite so large. I think one difference is that Cabrera was going to be ineligible basically until the last game of the Division Series or something like that. If I'm not mistaken, if I'm reading this correctly, they're suspended for 50 games yes yes so that would give peralta for instance three games at the end of the season before the postseason starts and i feel like that's i think that that's significant

for one reason because yes it's you get three games of of game game action to to get back into shape the other thing is it does feel slightly psychologically different to have a guy who is suspended in the middle of the season, even if it's very late, but who does come back in the middle of the season versus Melky who is going to be

coming straight from jail. It was going to be like Willis Reed limping down into the sands, except he was going to be like like uh you know willis reed limping down into the sands except he was going to be wearing like uh you know orange jumpsuit jumpsuit exactly and so this is slightly different i think psychologically and as far as the optics and um i don't know it'll be my guess is that is that it would play that that basically they the tigers wouldn't suffer any real hit from this.

And then, you know, probably, you know, they certainly, I don't know. I mean, it's now coming back to me that I was the pro-Milky guy, and I think you were the anti-Milky guy based on the questions about his performance. Right, I think so. And so maybe we're just going to reprise those roles. But, yeah, I would expect the teams to want him and to benefit from him. And we talked about the clubhouse issues too and whether there would be any, whether players would well.

Sorry, it looks like Cruz's season, Cruz's suspension, I believe, goes through the last game. Uh-huh. Okay. But not not beyond so he would not get three games to play uh-huh um okay yeah and we right we talked about whether whether their teammates would welcome them back because the thing that they care about most is winning and getting world series shares and playing in the postseason and playing well in the postseason, or whether they would resent the suspension, maybe even more so in this case, because there was possibly the option to avoid it or push it back,

and whether that would then cause some sort of internal strife that would not make it worth it. And I don't know. We can't really say anything conclusive about that, not being baseball players who've been in this situation. But it's a consideration, I guess, that could be a tiebreaker if you're not sure if a player can come back and be good again anyway. So I guess... What about Antonio Basardo? Will he pitch in the postseason for the Phillies?

That's what everyone is wondering. I don't know. When Dumb and Young and Michael Young go on a tear for the last couple of months and propel the Phillies into the postseason, that will be an issue too. So if A-Rod hits 475, 650, 1100, okay, so he's got an 1800 OPS from this point forward. Let's say he manages to produce seven and a half warp in that time.

And the Yankees miraculously win the division in game 163 and A-Rod hits three home runs in game 163. How many first-place MVP votes? I'd have to say zero. You think zero? I think zero. A listener sent us an email asking whether there was any scenario we could imagine whereby Ryan Braun wins another MVP award in the future at some point we didn't we didn't discuss that uh i didn't push to discuss that because my answer was was just gonna be no i

don't think so i can't i can't construct that scenario i don't think um i mean i don't know he could he could he could become someone who goes around donating his salary to orphans and rescuing cats from trees. And maybe over time that would erase the stigma enough that he would be forgiven. But it's hard to imagine. Well, I'll talk to you tomorrow, Ben. Okay. Emails. Yeah, tomorrow's emails.

well I'll talk to you tomorrow Ben okay and tomorrow's emails so please send us some so that we'll have something to talk about at podcast