Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 381: Email Answers for Your Friday

Episode Date: February 7, 2014

Ben and Sam answer emails about an auction for playing time, Mike Trout’s plate approach, a contract that could kill baseball, and more.

You want to put 30, sir? 25, ma'am, you're out. I'm at a down bear down 25, at a down bear down 30, 30, now 5. I'm 35, at a down bear down 40, put $40, 35, at a down 40. I'm at 35, down 40, 40, now 5, at a down bear down 45, 45, at a down bear down 50. I'm at 45, at a down bear down 50, sold 45, sold them $45, put them on 281, 281. Good morning, and welcome to episode 381 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I'm Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller and only Sam Miller today as we do a listener email show and take a break from the team previews, which most of you seem to be enjoying as we have so far. Yeah, I just wish David Roth were here tonight.

I know, I wish he David Roth were here tonight. I know, I wish he could be here every night. Although I have missed this, Ben. I've missed you and me. Yeah. We never talk anymore. No, not alone anyway. You want me to read some emails?

Yeah, sure. Before we do that, did you see the tweet that I received today and retweeted? I was on Clubhouse Confidential to talk about Pakoda stuff, and I got a tweet from someone who said, listening to the Effectively Wild podcast, I assume Ben Lindbergh was a fat guy based on his voice. Clubhouse Confidential blew my mind today. So apparently while we've been talking about fat player photos,

I've been doing so in a fat voice. I have actually heard this from people in real life who have also been surprised when I've told them that you are slight. Wow. surprised when I've told them that you were slight. Wow. It's interesting because you actually sound like a large young person.

You sound like a large boy. Like you're 6'2", 285, 14 years old. Well, sorry to deceive everyone everyone you can read emails now yeah i mean your picture doesn't mislead though i mean anybody who's seen your picture no just the voice does on the internet that would already know i would think um all right so So Chris asks,

How much would a team need to raise for the Jimmy Fund or similar charity to auction off a chance to start a regular season game in the field? No hitting, just play left field or wherever. How much could one person off the street hurt over one half of an inning? Think of what good all that money could do, cure cancer, shelter the homeless, etc. And we've actually answered a version of this. We've answered one of the many questions we've had that has asked, could a billionaire buy a team and then get to play, for instance? How much damage could he do over the course of a year?

Various variations on this. But the auction is what appealed to me about this because I like the idea generally of getting money from people who don't need it to people who do, and it's tricky to sort of socially engineer ways to do that. And one time, Dan Brooks, who has asked a question that we'll answer later in the show, but Dan Brooks suggested or asked me how much I thought the Hall of Fame could raise if they auctioned off a vote, like sort of did the deadspin thing in reverse. It just makes so much sense because why not? I mean, one vote out of 500 isn't going to do any real damage. And even five votes out of 500 wouldn't do any.

What's that noise? Well, I'm drinking tea, but that was a thoughtful exhalation. And so, and you know, like it actually, in that case, you can make the case that the Hall of Fame benefits from having different sort of viewpoints involved. Nobody is going to do it who isn't interested in baseball unless – well, actually that's not necessarily true. Ford might do it, right? It could be like – it could just be like naming a stadium. You would corporate sponsor a vote. But regardless, it doesn't seem like you're going to get a significantly worse ballot than the median ballot. And so I have

long wondered how much that would raise. And now I want to know how much Chris's idea would raise. See, I don't think the Hall of Fame vote would raise that much. Probably not. Why not that much? any recognition for it. It's not like your name is entered in some big book of Hall of Fame voters that everyone can see and you can brag about. So I mean, there are people with a lot of money who will spend it on silly things. So probably you could find someone who would pay a decent amount for charity, but it wouldn't come close to comparing to Chris's idea,

which I think could command a fortune. I mean, there are many extremely wealthy baseball fans out there who would pay a massive amount of money, I would think, to be able to see their name in you know baseball reference or total baseball or whatever it is that they look up baseball stats in um and for for a team i mean first of all it wouldn't do that much damage you i mean you could even as long as the person is in the game right you you don't even have to have them play the field that you probably wouldn't get as much for that if you just put a guy in and immediately And as long as the person is in the game, right, you don't even have to have them play the field.

You probably wouldn't get as much for that if you just put a guy in and immediately took him out again, although then he would still be in the official baseball records. But even if you left someone out there for an out or something, it's not a big difference. You could pick your spot in a blowout or a meaningless game or or whatever i mean so the the competitive uh risk is is very slight so the only question is what the what the fallout would be i mean maybe the players would mind in some way uh uh I mean, maybe the players would mind in some way. Well, okay, so let me ask you this. How much would have to be raised before the players wouldn't mind? I mean, if you said this guy paid $2 billion for providing drinking water to sub-Saharan Africa, then it'd be hard to complain, right?

Yes, right. But if it were like, you know, $75, I mean, this is sort of a common problem with silent auction donations is that the person who donates often goes, oh, you only got that much for it, and then it's hard to get them to contribute next year. So the players are essentially donating in this scenario. So first off, how much do you think would be raised?

Let's say that this was not a one-time thing, but it was three times a year a spot like this came up. And it was every year. How much do you think on average would be raised? And do you think that that would be enough that everybody would go along with it and say this is purely a good thing and we don't care if it's sort of silly? And presumably, both teams are eliminated. You do this in September when both teams are eliminated and there is actually no competitive reasons not to do it. So is there any part of this that would then give you sketchy feelings?

I feel like it depreciates significantly if you do it three times a year every year. The idea that it's a unique opportunity. I mean, if you said this will never happen again, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you auction that off, I mean, I feel like you would get many millions of dollars for that from someone. Sure. But if you did it three times a year for 30 years? Okay, so first we'll do it's a one-time only thing for some reason and and and even if it were a one-time only thing the guy knows that it

might not be like he can only control what's happened in the past and what's currently happening he doesn't i mean the more he donates in fact the more likely it is that it will not be a one-time only thing. True. I think, I don't know, the number that popped into my head is like 20 million. Okay. There are people with 20 million to spare. Would you rather go to space or play an inning in a major league ballgame? To me, not even close.

Ballgame. Not even close. It's like the easiest decision in the world. And people are constantly paying 20 million dollars to go into like into talking about space yeah like i would not yeah not not to bad mouth what all these space guys are doing but it's not space okay right that's not space i agree you're going high you're not going into space exactly um yeah so did you have a number in mind for this 20 million seems right yeah because not only is it a really cool thing but I feel like at that level no one will be upset with you I don't think. And you just look like a generous person who

likes baseball. How far, so let's say this happened. I mean, you're watching it presumably? Sure. Yeah. Are you more excited to see this as a fan slash writer

slash occasional giffer? Are you more excited to see this or would you be more excited to see don trell willis play third base in the 19th inning well uh is he is there an at bat involved or is it just standing in the field for an out uh just the field just not for an out? Just the field. Not for an out, though. For the top of the first. Standing in the field for the top of the first. There's no at-bat.

Probably rather, yeah. I'd rather see someone play way out of position. Someone I know. And do you feel any queasiness about the experiment in this situation? Not really. I mean, it does, to some extent, the reason that the opportunity is so cool and why it would command so much money

is because it's unprecedented, because it's so incredibly difficult to become a Major League Baseball player. And this is a shortcut to that um but i mean it wouldn't bother me enough to object to it in any way okay and then finally is there anything else in the sport that could be auctioned off that would be similarly lucrative but uh even uh you know less less disruptive i mean Can you think of other things that should be auctioned off? Being the manager seems to have virtually no stakes whatsoever. There's not even an insurance

issue there. You're in the records, I guess, but you're not in the records in the same way. Nobody would really care like Ted Turner managed who cares right Bill Vecht did a fans manage a game day right the vote where they like held up flashcards or something so how much

would rich guys pay to manage a game in the major leagues to manage a game in the major leagues? To manage a whole game? You'd get a good amount for that. I think you wouldn't get $20 million, but you'd get millions.

You think millions? I think so. I think more than $1 million. I'm saying $1.2 million. But isn't that potentially more disruptive right i mean if you're actually giving the person unfettered you're giving that person the actual powers of the manager and well what are the powers of the manager the powers of the manager are to make a line up right and what else yeah so but what so what what else well i mean if you Yeah, so what? What else? Well, I mean, if we're talking about impact on the game,

that's more significant than someone standing at one position for an inning. The person could throw the game intentionally if he wanted to. He could do all kinds of crazy stuff. He could take the starter out after one pitch and put in relievers and use the whole bullpen and you know crazy stuff no you're right that would be much more disruptive now that you mention it that would be actually now i i would like to i would like to collect 1.2 million dollars and bid on this yeah because that actually now starts to sound a lot more fun yeah what would what would you rather do i would i mean every like i would not like to sit for three hours in a dugout with players who hated me because I was doing all these weird experiments.

So for that reason, I would actually manage by the book, so to speak. So I would still rather be the player. However, you do bring up a good point. You could mess with some millionaires for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I want a baseball reference page. That's really the key to the, because, I mean, the,

it's not even so much the experience of, well, it is. It's being on the field during a game, but it's also being able to look yourself up in the same database or same book that, you know, whoever your hero was growing up is in. Yeah.

What about how much do you think a person would pay to have, um, to be an umpire? But I don't even mean to be an umpire cause I don't even want to make the calls. I just mean to stand next to an umpire. Like, like what would it be worth to have a seat that was like five feet behind second base and you were you were responsible for dodging anything that comes your way but you get to just stand in the middle of the field would you even want to do that it would be awful in fact in fact i if you actually kidnapped me and put me there, I would pay everything I have to be free. That would actually be a pretty good place to put kidnapped victims.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that. Someone would, though. Somebody would, yeah. Somebody wanted to tackle the first base coach of the chicago it was the white sox of the royals it was the royals in chicago somebody wants to do everything yeah all right so that's the show we'll be back next week with the twins uh all right i'll let's do another one yeah this is uh this is from dan brooks who was just mentioned uh one of the hallmarks of projection systems is regression we typically don't forecast superlative numbers not because

they don't happen but because for any individual player they're unlikely projection systems tend to be ultra conservative contrast that with prospect evaluation where guys are given eight grades written up as a sure thing, forecasted to be all-stars, etc. Prospect evaluations tend to vary, but most are not hesitant to give out a wide range of scores, despite actually having less objective data to go on. Any thoughts on this disparity? Should we tell ourselves that eight really means a little bit more likely to succeed, and that a projected first division all-star really means kinda might make the majors someday if he's lucky and things fall into place?

Or should we tell ourselves that projection systems are simply too conservative and that Chris Davis will probably hit 60 home runs? I don't know that I buy the premise. Yeah, I get it. I don't feel like I buy the premise. Yeah, I'm good at it. I don't feel like there are that many. I mean, for instance, there are players who are projected to be all-stars, just as, you know, Pakoda projects a lot of players to perform at an all-star level.

There are not players, though, who are projected really to be Hall of Famers. I mean, I've been – there might be somewhere, but like I've been reading the top tens that we've been running all year and it actually does feel like there's a heavy dosage of conservativeness in these projections. Nobody is projected to be the next Mike Trout, for instance. It tends to be like, I'm actually, I'll be surprised to see these glowing reports and big scores put on their power. And then they go, he could be a 18 to 20 home run guy. And so I actually feel like, I don't know if this is necessarily true industry wide,

but at least ours, I feel like they are pretty conservative. Not a lot of extreme cases projected. Regulars are projected. Some all-star level performers are projected. I just read Oscar Tavares, which will run tomorrow, and that's one of the more extreme ones where it says batting titles. And that might be an example that Dan would put, because the average player probably is not ever projected to win a batting title but it's kind of saying he's capable of that sort of thing it's not necessarily predicting that he will he has the skills that a batting title winner would have. Yeah, no, I know, but that's a generous,

you're generously discounting that. I mean, what it says is that there are batting titles in his future, which is what Dan is bringing up. Sure. And so in that case, I can see that. I do think there's this issue with comps, for sure, where if a player reminds you, say you're a scout and you've been scouting for 50 years and you know you've seen 10 guys who look like Bo Jackson and six of

them never got past double a and two of them were you know spent three years in the big leagues and one of them was you know a pretty good ball player and one of them is Bo Jackson, well, Bo Jackson's the one you're going to remember. And so when you see the 11th guy who looks like Bo Jackson, who fits that archetype, you're certainly not going to remember the six and you're less likely to remember the nine. The one that's going to come to you is Bo Jackson. And so there is a huge default for the comp to be the most famous comp that you can imagine. And so that creates this world where everybody's comp is amazing.

And I think that's part of why a lot of prospect writers bristle when you ask for comps because comps have taken on a little bit of a bad science reputation. And I think that's very fair. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like looking at some of the internal discussions

that go on with the prospect staff, people talking about what grades to give certain players, and, I mean, how many eights have there been during this whole off-season series yeah i mean maybe a couple um and even and even those generally are not projected eights they're eights for the level uh-huh yeah and so so i don't know if anybody's had a projected eight. I don't. Yeah. And I, and I know that, that Jason often says that, you know, he wants to, he likes to use an eight every now and then, because if you'd never ever use an eight,

then there's no point in having a 20 to 80 scale. You might as well stop somewhere else. It just, having a 20 to 80 scale, you might as well stop somewhere else. It just, it's silly to have a scale and just put the top part of the scale off limits completely. But even so, it's very rare for him to drop that on anyone. But, and, I mean, is Dan saying that scouts should, you know, if they see a guy once, they should want to see him several more times before they put an optimistic grade on a guy because maybe he was just having a good day. That's possible.

But a lot of these things are, I mean, you can't say that a guy is a 300 hitter until you've seen him hit 300 over a really long period of time. But you can say that a guy has an eight fastball, maybe based on one game. Or you can say that a guy has an eight run based on one time to first, maybe. A guy has an eight run based on one time to first maybe.

So to some extent, these things require less of a sample, right? Because they're just innate tools that you can either see or not see. Yeah, kind of. I don't know i don't know i mean with with running to first that's true i mean the guy either ran that fast or he didn't and there's probably not a huge amount of variation um but with the others you do sort of have to live with the player a little bit before you can get a really good read on it i did i talked to a scout not long ago who told me that he scouted jeff mathis at one point and in retrospect he actually says he he uh he should have he saw him on a really good day and wrote a really good report on him and says in retrospect uh he got too swayed by one day he

should have regressed uh his experience and pretty explicitly acknowledged that. So I don't know. I don't know if scouts regress to the mean. If they do regress, if they do assume that if they see a guy doing something unexpectedly good that it's – they caught him on a good day because guys do vary from day to day. Right. good that it's uh you know they caught him on a good day because guys do vary from day to day yeah right you could you can say that a guy had a seven whatever on that day you at least know that he's capable of doing it you don't necessarily know if he can consistently do it which is important also but but this is what dan is asking i mean you also know that chris davis is capable of hitting 53 home runs you don't know if he's consistently capable of doing it well who is like no one is really uh-huh so um right whereas some people are consistently capable of running as fast as whatever you saw him run to first, yeah.

All right, so the next question is also actually about, this is a Dan Brooks slash, well, this is a Dan Brooks episode, as it turns out. This is from Bobby. Getting back to the recommendation Sam gave, do you remember a couple months ago when I talked about how I love the player cards on Brooks Baseball, how they sum up the player's approach at the sort of homepage for each player, player page page? So he's referring to that recommendation.

Are you guys surprised that Mike Trout's write-up on Brooks Baseball isn't a glowing endorsement? And then he links to Mike Trout's write-up on Brooks Baseball isn't a glowing endorsement. And then he links to Mike Trout's write-up on Brooks Baseball, and I'm going to read it. In 2013, against all fastballs, he had a league-average eye and an exceptionally patient approach at the plate with a league-average likelihood to swing and miss. Against breaking pitches, he had a very poor eye and a very patient approach to the plate

with a league-average likelihood to swing and miss. And against off-speed pitches, he had a very poor eye and a very patient approach to the plate, with a league average likelihood to swing and miss. And against off-speed pitches, he had a poor eye and a steady approach to the plate and a below average likelihood to swing and miss. So there's basically, this is Mike Trout, the greatest player of his generation, and perhaps of all time, we will see. And there is in this write-up one superlative and uh one close to superlative he has an exceptionally patient approach on fastballs he has a very patient approach on breaking pitches those are the two kind of raves but otherwise you know you wouldn't be able to pick this guy out of a of a bucket of other pretty good hitters.

And so Bobby says, I'm surprised he doesn't have a great eye. He had a 432 on base percentage last year and led the league with 110 walks. He has positive run values against every pitch offering. Wild. So I asked Dan about this. Oh, good. I was going to say we should ask Dan. You're way ahead of me.

Well, no, I mean I asked. I don't remember what he said. Oh, okay. Hang on. I'm scrolling. So first off, though, I just want to say that this does not make sense. Mike Trout is patient, and he's patient and he looks mature for his age to play. And he does seem to see pitch as well, and he does seem to have a pretty good eye.

But what makes Mike Trout marvelous is his ability to put the bat on the ball, which happens after, you know, after it, it's not really, it happens after he's swung. So it's not really an issue of his approach. It's more of an issue of hand-eye coordination. And then what happens after the bat hits the ball, which is that he's very strong and exceptionally fast, which creates, um, a lot of power when he hits fly balls and a spectacular babbit when he hits it in the park. And so it doesn't totally shock me that the things that Mike Trout does extremely well wouldn't show up on a description of his plate discipline. Now, Bobby does, though, point out that he had a 432 on base percentage last year and

led the league with 110 walks. So it's not just that the ballsy hits fall in or go over the wall. He also draws a lot of walks. So Dan says he's very patient and he doesn't swing and miss often, which makes up for the fact that he chases a bit. And this is a good description of Mike Trout. He is very patient. He takes a lot of pitches, particularly, I would say, early in games. And he doesn't swing and miss often. And he does chase. He will chase more

than you expect, given his on-base percentage. And Dan says that if you look at guys with high on-base percentages and good walk-to-strikeout ratios, which Trout also has, he struck out quite a bit last year, but he walked so much that he had a good ratio. One thing they do better than most other guys is isn't discriminate the strike zone better, but rather they just don't swing. And then Dan says, I remember looking at this a few years ago. Abreu, Euclid, Drew, Scudero, it wasn't that they had great eyes. They just didn't swing the bat

which turns out to be a pretty valuable thing dumb as it sounds my trout had the second lowest swing percentage in baseball last year and um so uh going a little bit off topic uh a bit what do you think about what dan says where the ability to just not swing the bat turns out to be a valuable thing? I would say in the post-moneyball correction era, which maybe is what we're living in, we've learned that the point is not to walk and that you shouldn't be teaching young hitters to walk. You want to teach them to leverage the count and that you can be too patient and all of this. So what do you think about the idea that, in fact,

simply not swinging the bat is a very valuable thing? That makes some sense to me. We've talked about it with pitchers hitting at the plate and how you think they should never swing, right? For actual hitters, I guess I can see that. So is he saying that no one is really able to consistently distinguish which pitches not to swing at, and so it's just that not swinging at all tends to favor certain hitters? No, he's saying if you don't swing, you'll walk a lot.

No, he's saying if you don't swing, you'll walk a lot. That if you just don't swing, that the – I think if I'm understanding him correctly, that if you just don't swing, that the advantage that you gain will be greater in walks and hitters counts than the disadvantage that you pick up in strikeouts and pitchers counts. Well, yeah, that makes some sense. I mean, you'd have to – it would only work if when you do swing, you get good results, I would think. Because if you don't get good results when you do swing, then eventually you'll just start seeing a lot more strikes

and it won't work that well anymore, right? So it's not necessarily something that you could just tell anyone to do or automatically get someone who doesn't swing and assume that he'll be good. But I guess I could see how, on on average hitters who swing less would be better yeah i think that um i think i think this makes sense to me i i think that what it is is that um that if you don't swing then you know what if you don't swing, then you know what, if you don't swing, what happens? Well, you go deeper into the count. You get closer to the end stage, right? Early on in the count, you don't know what the at bat's going to turn into. It could go in any direction.

But the deeper you go, the deeper you get to a forced conclusion. And so the deeper you go, the pitcher and the batter have to make adjustments. And so if you just go up there and you take and you get to three balls, then the pitcher has to throw a strike. And if you just go up there and take and you get to two strikes, then you have to swing, right? Both of those things are pretty obvious and intuitive. And I think that it's probably fair to say that batters are better at putting the bat on the ball with two strikes than pitchers are good at throwing strikes with three balls. Pitchers aren't very good at throwing strikes ever with three balls or any time.

We've talked about that. Yeah, so it might actually be that the deeper you get into account, the more that the batter is actually able to take, to sort of exert his agency. A pitcher is still going to always be kind of incompetent because pitchers, it's a really hard target to hit, whereas hitters are sort of more competent. So that's kind of, I don't know, I haven't like obviously tested that or anything like that, but that's sort of what occurred to me it might be the explanation here and of course there's also the fact that a walk is significantly better than the average batted ball than a strikeout is significantly worse than

the average batted ball since the average batted ball is going to be an out anyway, a strikeout's not that much worse, whereas the average batted ball is not going to be a hit anyway. A walk is significantly better, so that's also an issue. Yeah, sure. I'll buy it. All right, last question. Paul asks, suppose a few years down the road Mike Trout signs with a team for 20 years and a half a billion dollars. No opt-outs, no options, no benefits. He's just a half a billion dollar player. So content with being a half billionaire and more than set for life, he decides being good at baseball isn't that important. He shows up at the park every day and plays when he's in the lineup, but he basically phones it in when he's called on. He'll frolic over to any ball hit his way,

etc. He doesn't care what his manager teammates or the media have to say on account of him being so rich. He does nothing explicitly wrong per se that would give the team who signs him grounds to invoke any clauses to void the contract for any misconduct. He just appears to have lost all ability and interest in playing the game is this a complete doomsday scenario for mlb uh mlb as owners players association fans media would be communally disgusted by such a display but i suggest it would foster enough distrust between every party to seriously cloud the future of professional baseball as we know it or not uh i don't i I think that the thing is that very few players sign contracts that they are certain are the end of their earning potential. Even in this

scenario, Trout's 22 right now. Even if he signed it today, he'd be 42 at the end. And there are 42-year-olds who make a lot of money. Bonds was making $18 million when he was 43. And 20 years from now, we're all going to be living to 200 years old. So who knows? But he's a half-billionaire. Maybe he doesn't want any more. Oh, right. That's why A-Rod was totally content to not keep doing steroids and threatening to murder people.

Like, do you know anything about humans, Ben? They just want all the money, all of it. So as long as there's earning potential there, significant earning potential. I mean, this was the fear, right? This was what everybody warned was going to happen when free agency came. They just said, oh, well, once players start getting rich, they're just not going to happen when free agency came, they just said, oh, well, once players start getting rich, they're just not going to want to, you know, you're not going to have guys who play into their 40s anymore. You know, there were people who thought that none

of these career records would ever break because guys would get rich and quit at 35. And that's explicitly the opposite of what has happened. Guys play, uh you know at a higher level later in their careers and my sense at least from uh the fact that um omar vizquel is like probably trying to come back right now uh is that they play later uh than they than they used to too um and so that didn't happen so it would really only be the scenario where players contract were sort of certain to take them to the end of their career that this might be the case and that's happened too i mean like for instance um mariano rivera knew that he was mariano is a bad example because like what like he would ever do anything wrong. But lots of guys know they're going to retire at the end of the year,

and yet you don't ever hear about them quitting. Griffey took naps. That's the closest you ever came. Griffey took naps when he wasn't actually even – when he wasn't needed. But you don't really hear about guys just quitting on the sport. And I wonder why that is. I guess it's because it just sucks to look bad doing something, anything. I feel stressed doing this podcast.

I have no financial incentive one way or the other, good or bad. This podcast has no impact on my bank account. And in fact, the incentives are for me to be worse. I don't like doing it. And yet, I am nervous that I'm going to do a bad job. I'm nervous before every episode that it's not going to be a good episode. And so I just think that the social pressure, I don't know what the ratio of power between social pressure and financial pressure is, but I think that the social pressure might actually be worth more than the amount of money

you could pay a person. Yeah, I mean, imagine the attitude towards this guy that his teammates would have. It would be unbearable to be in the clubhouse with 24 other people who knew that you were phoning it in and hurting their chances of winning. Billions of people watch you. Millions. Billions of people watch you. Millions. Yeah, you'd have to be, I mean, you'd just have to be a non-human for that not to bother you just about. Yeah.

So even if there were one guy who was like this somehow, yeah, I don't know whether it would be really a destabilizing influence it it does seem like something that would be extremely rare yeah uh yeah has there been an example to can you think of an example of a person who was even accused of this like well well Derek Bell Operation Shutdown oh yeah so good I think you know what as soon as we hang up I'm going to read about Derek Bell for the next 40 minutes me too that's going to be fun we should do an entire episode on Derek Bell

should have him on we should alright so that's a week of podcasts we'll be back next week with our twins episode is that correct? Twins on Monday

send us more questions we'll do this again in a week and coming up there is no second portion of this show this is it podcast at baseballperspectives.com. And please rate and review us on iTunes and subscribe to us on iTunes

or whatever service you use to listen to this show. We appreciate it. And we also hope that you join our Facebook group, or at least I do, at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. So have a nice weekend. We will be back on Monday.