Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 353: The Penultimate Listener Email Show of 2013

Episode Date: December 20, 2013

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about a three-Andrelton infield, modern-day barnstorming, signing and trading Kendrys Morales, and more.

All I want from Santa is a genuine cowhide Rawlings Pro Special One autograph by Roy Halliday If that's all I've got neath the tree Christmas morning One gift will sure be enough If I get a new baseball glove Good morning and welcome to episode 353 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from BaseballPerspectives.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg, and it does occur to me

we haven't spoken yet about our holiday schedule with each other it's not inconceivable it's not inconceivable this would be our our last show of the year it's it's not inconceivable I can't conceive of such a thing I suspected that you you might spring this on me I wasn't springing I'm I'm just discussing i'm putting it out in the open i believe that the uh the people's business should be conducted in in uh in sunlight well baseball prospectus is taking off the first three days of each of the next two weeks so the site will be off monday to wednesday uh 23rd to the 25th so we will definitely be taking those days off uh and then presumably we will be taking off the 30th and the 31th. So we will definitely be taking those days off.

And then presumably we will be taking off the 30th and the 31st. So what we are really talking about here is the 26th and the 27th. And I would submit that we should record podcasts. All right. So it's not quite the penultimate. The pre-penultimate episode. It's penultimate eve. Right. And it's a listener email show.

It is the last of the week though. Yes. And the last for a stretch. It's the last for a stretch. All right, so it's a listener email show, and we've picked some emails, and you've got them in front of you. But did you see what R.J. Anderson tweeted at me earlier an hour ago? I didn't. He tweeted a passage at me from Summer of 49, the David Halberstam book, and it's about how Yogi Berra was a bad framer.

Yogi Berra was what? He was a bad framer. How Yogi Berra was what? He was a bad framer. Oh, really? Apparently. I will read this very short passage. This is from the summer of 49, obviously, which was, I guess, Berra's second full season as a catcher. But there was so much to learn, and he was learning in the middle of a pennant race. In addition, the pitchers were uneasy with him.

There were so many things he did wrong. For one thing, he did not know how to catch the ball. He tended to stab at the last minute, carrying the ball, in the eyes of Allie Reynolds at least, out of the strike zone. He was supposed to do the reverse, scoop the ball into the strike zone. Don't stab, Yogi, Reynolds would say. Reach out and bring it in. It was as bad with low curves. Barra seemed to grind them into the dirt. The pitchers were sure they were losing calls because of Barra, and they were not happy. Bad framer. Yogi Barra, bad framer. I wonder if he proved. When was that book written? When was the book written?

was that book written when was the book written uh uh i will i will look i i read that book long ago that was maybe one of the first baseball books i read uh and at the time i was not focusing on framing so that didn't stick out to me um i will i will try to find when that book came out. Good stuff. Yes, interesting. Okay, this question kind of relates to something we brought up briefly the other day about barnstorming and how players don't do it anymore. So this comes from Jason. If a random billionaire, Ted Turner, Vince McMahon, Richard Bronson, Zuckerberg, a board shake at all, decided to sponsor an off-season barnstorming schedule, let's say Team USA versus Team World,

how much would he have to pay to field two 20-man arbitrary count rosters of all-star caliber players? For a frame of reference, according to this article, which he links, Babe Ruth in 1922 made $52,000 from the Yankees during the regular season and could have earned about $25,000 from barnstorming. So that's about half of his full season salary. Obviously, I doubt MLB would ever allow this, but it is fun to imagine a Felix versus Kershaw matchup in November. Does he say how many games they're going to play? He does not say that, no. That's obviously pretty important. Well, because they do go to, I mean, they have those MLB all-star teams

that go to Japan and play games in Japan, which is essentially barnstorming in Japan without the barns. Actually, I've been to Japan, and I didn't see any barns. Um, but they, they do play baseball games that don't count. I mean, it's not, it's not as though there is some rule that you, that, you know, that MLB has outlawed any baseball that doesn't count. They play a lot of baseball that doesn't count. Right. Well, the, the problem would probably be that teams would start putting clauses in contracts saying that you couldn't do this, just like they have clauses that say that you can't ride your motorcycle or you can't play pickup basketball or whatever it is. Teams would

probably not want their players doing this. And I imagine there'd be a pretty unified front, I would think, about that, where you would have a hard time signing a contract that would allow you to do this, at least after maybe an initial person got away from it. You could do it once. You could do it this offseason if you wanted to for players who don't have that sort of thing prohibited. for players who don't have that sort of thing prohibited. After that, I assume it would be difficult to do. But as for the salary, I would guess that players would need to earn more pro-rated than they do during the regular season. Whatever they make per game during the regular season,

say you'd have to, gosh, I don't know, triple that maybe to get – I mean, it depends if you're – we're talking about – he's talking about all-star caliber players, so presumably we're talking about veteran guys who are making a lot of money. There might be young guys who are making the minimum who would be interested in doing this for less. But if you're talking about baseball's biggest stars, in order to have them risk injury and train for it and disturb their winter and travel somewhere, I would guess that you'd have to at least triple whatever they make during the regular season. I mean, again, though, half the league is playing baseball right now.

I mean, not right now, but hundreds of players played in winter leagues and fall leagues this year. Yes, yes. I'm not saying that teams would love it, and I'm not saying that teams wouldn't uh require uh you know their pound of flesh from this I mean but like it in certain cases they send their players to the Arizona Fall League to get their work in or or whatever the case is but I just I don't I don't know I mean there's nothing in for instance I I would I would bet you know dollars to donuts that there's nothing in Miguel Cabrera's contract that keeps him from playing winter ball in Venezuela.

So why couldn't he play winter ball in Wrigley Field or whatever? He probably could, but he probably wouldn't want to. It's cold in Wrigley Field. It's not where he lives during the winter. It's cold in Wrigley Field. It's not where he lives during the winter. I guess I'm just saying I don't think that this is quite the deal breaker that you think it is. And also, another question. Do players who are pre-arb and are just getting paid the minimum, can a team insist on contract clauses?

Or is the minimum the minimum? Do you know? I mean, you don't know. I don't know. Why would you know i mean you don't know you don't know why would you know but i wonder if the team can i wonder if a team can put a clause in a um pre-arb player who simply has had his contract renewed um to not play basketball or if if everybody who's you know three years of service time or less is out there just playing basketball and riding motorcycles because the last time they'll ever get to do it they're just all motorcycles like just one last ride but nothing but motorcycles

and paintball yeah oh i don't know what else you know i don't know what else is outlawed i don't know what else is outlawed but there was a uh you know studio uh pinnacle did a uh a series in 1992 on ballplayer hobbies and one of the ballplayers hobbies was uh was robin yount who who liked to do like uh dirt bikes or something and there was a picture of him like 25 feet in the air on a dirt bike and i've always wanted to go get that set of hobbies cards and see how many of them are unthinkable now. Yeah, and it would make a good article if we could get some source to tell us those contract details. I'd like to know what's prohibited.

There are probably some really strange things that are prohibited. All right. To the point though, uh, to the question at hand, which is really more about the financial incentives that would require to get a $25 million, a person who's making $25 million to give up his off season, um, and do the thing that he probably hates more than anything in the world, which is play baseball in front of other people. Uh, uh, what would it take? and it's not quite the thing is that like so babe ruth got half his salary but he you know he needed that money like every every million dollars you make probably increases the number of million dollars you would need by two you know so like it might actually be that it would require 50 million dollars. Like Tiger Woods goes and plays like, you know, some tournament in, you know, in China or something in his offseason.

And he's getting paid just like absurd sponsorship fee or appearance fees. And I really I think it has to be like I would guess that it would have to be. has to be um like i would guess that it would have to be um i don't know i would guess that it would probably have to be something on the order of uh 10 times what you get paid per game yeah and maybe even more than that if we're like what we were talking about the other day is sort of fun things like you know having babe ruth face an 18 year old woman or you know just having players barnstorm against amateur players or people in different leagues the the more interesting things because if it's just if it's just felix versus kershaw that's we're just extending the regular season at this point um so we would be more interested in seeing players do strange things,

and it would probably take a lot more money to get them to do that. That's true. Yeah, well, Tiger Woods recently did a thing where he hit a golf ball from Asia to Europe, like he was in Turkey or something. And just for that one swing it was like he got paid like 600 million dollars literally that's the exact figure literally 600 million dollars uh bobby asks can the mariners negotiate a sign and trade deal he actually said sing and trade deal which is I like that idea much better.

Seattle front office, the musical. Yeah. Can the Mariners negotiate a sign and trade deal with Kendris Morales if what they get in return is less valuable to the other team than the other team's first round pick? Sorry if that's not worded well. You should be sorry, Bobby. So what he's asking, and we talked about this when the qualifying offers were first announced, when we talked about who got them and then who, well, I guess everyone declined them, but we talked about the fact that Kendris Morales was the most likely to get the Michael Bourne, Kyle Loesch treatment from last offseason where the draft pick really impacts how much teams are willing to pay them. And they end up not signing with anyone or dragging on throughout the offseason. been talking about this a lot lately and oh will he wait until after the amateur draft in june or

you know middle of the summer to sign uh so that at that point he won't cost a draft pick but he'll have to sit out part of the season uh so the other idea is that the mariners sign him don't have to pay the draft pick and then they trade him to another team uh and they they get something in return that that they are happy with um and theoretically that that should make morales happy and it would make the mariners happy if they get a trade that that they're satisfied with uh so we we did some some serious googling before we started recording. And from what we can tell, it's theoretically possible. There's no rule that prohibits this from happening, but it has to be approved by Major League Baseball and probably also by the Players Association.

And it seems like this is probably unlikely in this case. John Marossi wrote a column at Fox Sports just about a day ago, and he briefly mentioned this idea. And he said MLB did not allow that with Bourne and Loesch last year. And one source told him that multiple teams tried and failed to get permission to do that, and that it seems unlikely that MLB would change course in the second off season of a collective bargaining agreement. And then there's also some idea that Scott Boris doesn't have a lot of friends in the commissioner's office and that they won't

bend over backwards to do him a favor for his client. So it seems like it's unlikely, but not completely impossible. This is basically my stock answer to every question that is like, would it be possible to subtly subvert the rules in this way to, you know, to gain an advantage? The answer is always yes. And there's, you know, probably nothing stopping you to do it except that Major League Baseball is essentially a benevolent dictatorship. And once you start doing things that work, they'll just stop it. They'll like they just they'll go back and do whatever they they'll change the record books. They don't care.

They'll do anything they, they'll change the record books. They don't care. They'll do anything they want. If they, if they don't like the way that you're, uh, you know, they, basically Hunger Games is like, uh, is an, is, is a metaphor for all major league baseball. And when you start thinking that you're going to outsmart them, uh, they just, uh, send out a pack of, uh, bees or whatever. Right. Yeah. Uh, isn't that what Hunger Games happened? Isn't that how Hunger Games went? A pack of bees? Essentially. Yeah. I think that, Hunger Games happened? Isn't that how Hunger Games went? A pack of bees? Essentially, yeah. I think that that happened at one point. And I found an article, I came across an article from 2009 where this was being talked about with Juan Cruz, the reliever,

because this was back in the Elias draft pick compensation system where Juan Cruz was a type A free agent. And since he was a reliever, no one was really that interested in him. And there were quotes from Josh Burns, who was the Diamondbacks GM at the time, saying that they'd talk to the union and they'd talk to the commissioner's office

to see if there was a way where he could just sign with them and then they would trade him. And it seemed like that was being considered as a possibility. It was feasible at the time, although it did not end up happening. He signed with the Royals, who I guess were happy to give up that draft pick. Okay, this question comes from James, and I feel like we might have talked about this before. I don't know whether we did, but I have something new to say about it if we did, because this is one that I dug up from our archives. This is from James in Sarasota, and he asked, today's baseball on ice question is what if baseball allowed two-way substitutions, allowing a player who had left the game to return?

Did we talk about that? Yeah, we did. Yeah. So I want to talk about it again because I'm reading a book right now called Pages from Baseball's Past. It's by Craig Wright, who, of course, was one of the pioneering sabermetricians, one of the first people to work in analytics in front offices. He worked with the Rangers and was in baseball full-time for over two decades. And now he writes a sort of newsletter about baseball's past. It's called a page from baseball's past. You can find it at baseballspast.com. And they just put out a book collecting some of those

newsletters. And, uh, it's just sort of an anthology series about interesting anecdotes or interesting research that he's uncovered from baseball history. And it's very interesting. I would recommend it because it's kind of a mix of history and analysis. And one of the most interesting chapters, I think, is about courtesy runners. And not just courtesy runners, but also courtesy fielders and courtesy batters. I don't think I was aware of this practice, and I don't know whether you were, but it used to be the case that this could happen, that a player could sub in for someone who was temporarily incapacitated for some reason, and then after an inning or so, that player would be ready to come back into the

game. And he just would. And the player who had come in for him before was not used. The player could come back into the game after having been removed and having a substitute. And I was not aware of this. The last time it happened legally was July 2nd, 1949, when Ray Boone, who was on the Indians, was hit by a pitch in the ninth inning and could not run. He was in too much pain to run. So the catcher, Jim Hegan, was allowed to pinch run for Boone, even though Hegan was already in the game. He was already catching. And Boone was not technically out of the game. The game actually, it happened to end that inning, but had it not ended that inning, Boone could have been eligible to return and play defense and hit in his

normal slot. And this rule was, or there was no rule prohibiting this until after that 1949 play. That winter, there was a rule added to the rulebook, Rule 3.04, that said a player whose name is on his team's batting order may not become a substitute runner for another member of his team. It actually happened one more time after that, a few years later, illegally. I guess the umpire was just not aware of the rule. It happened in 1952, but that is the last time that it's happened. There is still the rule that we've talked about that allows for a pinch runner in the middle of a play, and we talked about the fact that Gabe Kapler did that in 2005. He was the last to do it. But I was not really aware that this was a practice. And Craig Wright says that there were nearly 60 known instances

of courtesy substitutes in the first 74 years of Major League Baseball. And there would have been more, except that there was the condition that the opposing manager had to approve. He had to give his permission to allow the other team to use the courtesy player, which is how in the 1949 example I gave, it was the catcher, Jim Hegan, who was like the slowest runner on the team, who was allowed to be a courtesy runner because the opposing manager said, yes, you can do it if you put the slowest runner on the team in. So I was not aware

that this happened. And there were courtesy fielders. There were like five instances of the same thing being done with fielders and even courtesy batter. That happened too. In 1915, Chick Gandel on the Washington Senators popped his knee while swinging at a pitch. The opposing manager of the White Sox, Pant Rowland, agreed to let Rip Williams finish his at-bat. And then when Gandel got his knee straightened out, he returned to first base and played the remaining seven innings in the game. So this was one of my favorite chapters from pages from Baseball Past. You know, what's shocking is how recent that is. So this was one of my favorite chapters from pages from Baseball Pest. Yeah. What's shocking is how recent that is.

It's one of those things where like if it were like 1880, you'd go, oh, interesting. But it's like when you find out that like, you know, in Texas, women couldn't have dogs until 1980 or something like that. You're like 1980. Like my parents were alive in 1980. Yes. That's weird. Like I know people who were alive in 1980 yes it's that's weird like i know people who were alive in 1949 yes they grew up in such a different environment so i was thinking about my mother was born the day after the last courtesy runner um you're setting yourself up for identity theft sorry for giving away your age on the podcast mom um so uh i was thinking while you were talking about the original question which as you noted

we've answered but i also have now thought of something else i would like to say about it if that's okay it is okay it's interesting because um when you think about it the rule that you can't leave and then come back is essentially a way of ensuring that worse players are on the field than would otherwise be on the field like if you could then you'd have you'd be able to use your your best players more often once they left the game you would not have burned them they could come back in you could do a lot you know you could do more platoons. You could have pitchers be fresher, longer, and you could do all these sorts of things to raise the level of play. And yet, we don't do that because somewhere along the line, it was determined that

restrictions are part of what make the game good. And even restrictions that lower the overall level of play make the game good. And, um, I think that this is sort of an, uh, an, an analogy for PEDs where you will hear the point made, um, somewhat regularly. I feel like that, um, well, you know, their PEDs make players better. It's they're trying to they're trying to they're trying to be better. So, you know, why put restrictions on them? And, you know, in that's true. But we've decided as a sort of sports culture that we don't actually want the ultimate performance. The point of the game we've decided is not actually to reach the highest levels of athletic achievement. That is not our goal in

this. So you can't think about that as the end of baseball. Nobody in 150 years, it has evolved. That is not the end that we are going for. The end is to have a compelling style of play with restrictions that create games within the game. And so, yeah, that's all. Yeah, that's a good point. I want to read one last example from this chapter, the most extreme use of courtesy players, which comes... Oh, sorry, I did not, I didn't mean it. No, you didn't. That was a worthwhile thing to say. The most extreme use of courtesy players occurred on August 28, 1877.

Louisville first baseman Jumbo Latham needed Al Nichols to fill in for him for an inning at first base. Latham came back into the game and later singled. Left fielder George Hall was used as a courtesy runner for Latham, and Hall was still on base when his turn at bat came up.

So center fielder Bill Crowley went out and ran for Hall. So Louisville not only used three courtesy players, but they used a courtesy runner for another courtesy runner. That is always embarrassing when that happens in slow pitch. It happens once a season it's just awkward that almost as awkward as when you're on base in little league and you realize that you just can't hold it anymore you have to go pee uh yeah early baseball was kind of crazy um all right this one comes from mike in toronto

and he asks about the three Andrelton Simmons infield. Hey, guys, I know you've answered this sort of question about the outfield, but how about the infield? Would you rather have three Andrelton Simmonses whose positioning was optimized for each batter or a league average four-man infield, which employs a league average number of shifts? field, which employs a league average number of shifts. You would not be able to replace the fourth Andrelton Simmons with an extra outfielder, and you can have one left-handed Andrelton if you choose. If your answer is the four-man infield, how about three Andrelton Simmonses versus four Miguel Cabreras, or three Andrelton Simmonses versus four Princefielders? So basically, would you rather have three Andrelton Simmons or four average guys or four below average guys?

Yeah, yeah. You know, when we answered the previous version of this, we should have known this was coming and actually done some math because there's probably math to be done. So I can only answer off the top of my head go with your gut i would take the league average infield me too over three andrelton simmons and i would take three andrelton simmons over four prince fielders yes i completely agree uh-huh um what if what about this would you rather have have four left-handed Andrelton Simmons or a league average infield?

I guess probably the Simmonses. I feel like they would get to the ball so quickly that they could just like run around the ball and throw all right and how many how many ryan howards would it take to outweigh three andrelton simmonses um right hand right-handed andrelton simmons, but of course three left-handed, left-handed Ryan Howards. I can have one. Can I have one lefty Simmons?

If you want. All right. Um, five. You would, you would, uh, you would take, you would take five Ryan Howards over three Andalton Simmons. I think so. I, I absolutely would not. No?

How many would you? Absolutely. How many? He can't even throw, Ben. Well, that's true. You could have six on the left side of the infield. It wouldn't count. Yeah, you could.

They'd have to relay it like Cassius Buckets from a flooding boat. You'd have like a pitcher's helper ryan howard in the middle uh yeah you're right i guess if you have a player who just can't make a throw from third base or shortstop then it almost doesn't matter how many you have no i would take three andertons over five ryan howards but but six six ryan howards over three Andertons. Six is my number for Ryan Howard's. Okay, last question from Kyle. His question is about the Rule 5 draft. We could maybe answer it, but I have something related to say. So he wants to know, basically, he asked a few questions, but I guess the most interesting question is whether we need a Rule 5 draft. Should teams be penalized for stocking good talent in their farm system, even if there is no room on the 40-man roster?

Yes. Yes. Yeah, because there's literally one rule in the entire world that protects minor league baseball players. And this is it. Yeah. And he also asks whether the rule five draft is broken. I don't. Do you think it's broken? I don't think that – I think that there should be more of a penalty if you draft a guy and then let him go back to his team. It feels like that you basically just lose $25,000 in the transaction. It feels weird to me. It feels like there should be something more final about making that pick. I'm also not 100% sure that I think that trading as cavalierly as they do players who have been picked, maybe that's good for the player. So maybe that's the point.

But it feels kind of weird. I feel like there should be higher stakes for a Rule 5 pick. Too easy to get out of it. Well, the reason that I wanted to answer this question is that someone who works for a team in a front office proposed to me earlier this week a related idea, a Rule 5 draft for front office employees. So say baseball operations people only, every team can choose 12 executives, 12 front office people to protect.

And if you've been in the same position in that front office for, say, four years or something without a promotion, you are eligible for the front office rule five draft. And the selecting team would have to put you in a similar position or promote you for a year or, I guess, lose you again. So same concept. But there are front offices that promote people very quickly. There are also front offices where you can just kind of get stuck behind a bunch of people and maybe you're qualified for a position higher or more lucrative elsewhere. And the idea is that maybe teams, people with other teams would, would know that you're capable and would, would take you out of this, uh, out of this blocked

situation and put you into their front office and let you, let you spread your wings. Uh, so I, I guess the, maybe the biggest problem with this is, i don't know there are a couple couple problems with this there's the i guess the confidentiality aspect of it where you would you would have a lot more movement between front offices theoretically and teams probably wouldn't want that um and and i'm actually i'm sort of surprised that there's as much movement as there is, because when someone leaves one front office and goes to another, I mean, I guess, theoretically, you're still bound by an NDA. But there's, I mean, there's no way that you could give another team permission to hire or interview one of your employees and expect that person not to

share any of the knowledge that he's learned while working for his old team. So that's a potential problem. I guess there's also the problem that maybe there wouldn't be that much movement because maybe you just wouldn't know about these people's abilities unless they were actively campaigning for a job in another front office, you might just not know about them because they're stuck. They're not in a very prominent position. All of their work is confidential. So it's not like with a minor league player where you can scout that player

and look at his stats and everyone knows how that player is performing. With a front office person you might not you might not know um is it hard for is it hard for front office people to move jobs right now uh i i don't know how hard it is really um i know some teams don't promote very quickly and that can get frustrating for some people um but i i don't know how, I mean, we've heard from time to time when there's like an opening of some sort and some team wants to talk to some other team's executive that once in a while they won't give permission,

but usually if it's a higher position, they will, it seems like. So I don't know. Do you think there's anything to the front office rule five draft? Well, I don't know. I didn't know that you couldn't just leave. Like if you were in a front office and you were not under contract once your contract is up or if you're not under

contract, couldn't you just go? There's nothing stopping people from moving about as much as they want to, right? Yeah, this is I guess if you are under contract. Uh-huh. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how these things work i've never

i've never worked at a like a real company that like was super hardcore about anything like this so uh like every company i've ever worked at people just like call in sick and then fly across the country for a job interview and then they if they get it they leave so hard to say yeah yeah i think it's it's probably a little harder in in a top secret industry like baseball operations but um yeah i don't know anyway person wanted me to to suggest this idea to the masses so now i have uh cool all right so that's the end of the show uh as we, we think we will probably be back with a couple shows at the end of last week or next week. But we hope that you have a very Merry Christmas or Merry trip to the Chinese restaurant or however you you celebrate or don't celebrate December 25th. And we also hope, as mentioned yesterday, everything at Baseball Perspectives, published at Baseball Perspectives

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facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. So have a nice break, and we will talk to you again next week. I forgot to say when Summer of 49 was published. Oh, really? What year was Summer of 49 published, Ben? 1989. Okay. Okay, bye. I forgot to say when summer of 49

was it was it 1989 it was okay bye