Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 454: Lend Us Your Listener Emails

Episode Date: May 21, 2014

Ben and Sam banter about ejections and the Diamondbacks, then answer listener emails about pitch count histories, career strikeout records, a baseball version of the XFL, and more.

All day long, close to gone, waiting on you to answer me. I'm sorry. What is this? You said that you had some quick banter on cricket ejections. Oh, well, a few of you did reply with an update on cricket ejections? Oh, well, a few of you did reply with an update on cricket ejections. We asked. We wanted to know how cricket ejections compared to baseball ejections. And so basically the summary is there are far fewer arguable calls in cricket, more straightforward calls, fewer arguable calls. So that is one thing.

And also, there are no managers in cricket. There are only player managers, if I'm reading this correctly. And so that would actually be more significant than losing old Clint Hurdle or whatever to, you know, to the clubhouse if you actually lost a player. It's the captain, basically. Your manager is your captain. And so that's significant. But the other thing is that it's just not done. not done. I'm going to quote here, if I can get there fast enough, I'm going to quote Graham, who writes, catching up on the podcast, cricket fan here, manager and anyone else

cannot enter field of play ever. I wonder if I misunderstood the captain thing. Hang on. Poorly prepared for this. Hang on. So this is from uh venite who i'm first i'm going to establish the captains venite says all managers are player managers also known as captains no one from the pavilion also known as dugout comes onto the field unless there's injury or equipment issues so uh so there we go so that those two jibe uh and then i'll just keep going with venite there are only two judgment calls the umpires need to make. First is a foul tip, which is treated like any other batted ball, unless the batter is out of clean catches made.

The second is a leg before wicket, LBW, where the umpire has to determine whether the hitter would have been out if his legs hadn't prevented the ball from hitting the stumps. And let's see. Sometimes the umpires will give the pitcher and the captain a warning if there's too much appealing on lbws i skip number three which talks about appeal lbw appeals uh but even in the worst case scenarios where the players are yelling and pointing at umpires the umps just take it like champs and deal with it so uh so that Vanit. So I'll go back to Graham now. Manager and anyone else

cannot enter the field of play ever. Players never dispute decisions and are heavily fined for even slight body language to the contrary. Umpire's word is final, though replay system has undermined this. Relations, probably more words than previously. So I forget how I got to this, but I suggested that maybe we should think about manager ejections in baseball then as a reaction to European formalism. And Graham writes, To English eyes, they sit with hockey brawls, which is to say kind of classic on-field ugly American behavior, which is interesting.

Boorish. Yeah, boorish, exactly. So that's interesting to think of, to think that when our managers go out and spit, spittle and curse at their authority figure, that that looks like something, that the rest of the world is looking at that and judging us. And I guess depending on your relationship with America, you can decide whether that is something that you are extra proud of now or slightly bashful about.

I feel like I should be doing a USA chant now. Graham also writes, Aggression is all between players, never at umpire. Questioning call would never be acceptable. Home run, slow trot, okay. I guess he's saying that a home run, wait, a home, oh, so a home run, slow trot is okay. Oh, because, yeah, because I guess, yeah, that's interesting because all of our aggression is fueled, like you would never, the unwritten rules of baseball are that you would not show up players because

they're your peers. And in baseball, umpires are not in any way considered anybody's peer or better. They are considered the hired help. And I think that's what drives a lot of the manager objections too, is that power discrepancy. All right, and the other quick piece of banter is that somebody's... Maybe this is why baseball is no longer an Olympic sport. It's just too much for for foreign viewers to tolerate but we got an email also from steve from new jersey who pointed out that in european soccer ejected managers are forced to sit in the

stands or at least one was he sent us a video of chelsea's manager last year who was ejected and then forced to sit in the stands just next to next to a fan next to a Chelsea fan I guess and so Steve speculated that this would bring down ejections as managers would be reluctant to watch the game in the stands with fans rather than in their office while drinking a glass of fine scotch uh-huh cool um all right and then the one other thing is that somebody suggested that my vocal doppelganger is Seth Meyers. That's not true, correct? At first, I didn't think so. Then I went and watched some Seth Meyers videos, and it's not way off. All right. So then, of course, now we need to have a vocal doppelganger suggestion for ben not sure i want to hear those and that will do it for the banter on to the questions uh also

no one notified us that ryan webb finished a game on sunday so he's he's at 80 career without a save albers at 83 i wanted to say uh before we begin that the um that the there's been a lot of talk about the the diamondbacks uh new new management structure with tony larusa as the chief baseball officer and there have been national columnists praising this move because larusa is a winner uh and he's going to change the culture. And there have been national columnists coming out against the move because he's a first time chief of baseball ops person at 69 years old. And he is a manager and who says he can do this job. And a lot of that talk has centered on whether he is sabermetric enough for this team, because there had been some sentiments from the managing general partner, Ken Kendrick, that he wanted it to be more of a balance between the grit and heart

Towers-Gibson philosophy and the Josh Burns philosophy, which was, I suppose, the articles are making it sound completely sabermetric. And so La Russa did, he's been asked about it a bunch of times, and he's sort of, he's come up with more diplomatic ways to phrase his thoughts on sabermetrics than maybe he wants expressed them. But he does the, it's a valuable tool, but statement. And I always get a bad feeling from the it's a valuable tool, but statement. statement. And I always get a bad feeling from the it's a valuable tool, but statement. I like the it's a valuable tool and statement. It's more inclusive because the valuable tool, but statement is suggesting that there are ways in which sabermetrics cannot help you. And I feel like we've learned enough to say that it's helpful in almost all areas, that it's not the only thing.

say that it's helpful in almost all areas, that it's not the only thing. Neither of us is a sabermetric dogmatic person who thinks it's the only thing worth considering. But La Russa says that he thinks it's mostly a tool to help you identify talent and then prepare the talent. And he essentially says that it should stop there, that teams have gone overboard and are interfering with the way that managers and coaches conduct strategy during the game by running the analytics and forcing them into it, I would definitely say I think that's a bad idea. And that would give me a bad feeling as a Diamondbacks fan. I mean, La Russa has a long track record of success and there are many things to recommend him, but it seems to me that the game is going more and more in that direction of integrating coaches and front office and using analysis to inform in-game decisions and it seems like seems like not the best sign that the new hire is is

against that i'm actually generally against conjunctions i find most of them to be unnecessary in this case, it's a valuable tool, period. And then whatever else he would have said would have been good. To me, conjunctions take on way too much significance and way too much weight in a sentence. And to me, the words that he says after but or and are all that matter. And whether he said but or and before it is ultimately fairly irrelevant. So count me on team no conjunction. I will say, though, that I would love it if your Twitter bio were updated to be, is a valuable tool but.

Just so you know. All right. Well, there's my thoughts on that. And one more thing. We've been talking a lot about 3-0 pitches lately and the increasing prevalence of them. And I've been informed that Madison Bumgarner swung on 3-0 tonight. Wow. All right.

I love that. Mm-hmm. He did not get a hit tonight. I'm not sure what he did on the 3-0 pitch. Mm-hmm. Okay. This question comes from Scott. He says, if Vince McMahon or some other billionaire were going to create an alternative to Major League Baseball, a la the XFL, what changes should they implement to set it apart that eventually Major League Baseball might be forced to co-opt?

Perhaps the ABA and its three-point line are a better analogy. As a refresher, the XFL mandated natural grass open-air stadiums used an opening scramble instead of a coin flip, banned points after touchdown kicks in favor of one, two, and three-point conversions, and popularized the use of the Skycam. Sometimes in basketball or football, NCAA rules make so much sense it forces its way into the NBA or NFL, but college baseball has no such influence. So if there were a baseball version of the XFL, what do you think would cross over? Well, I mean, it wouldn't have been inconceivable, I guess, 40 years ago, although it probably is now that college baseball's

I guess 40 years ago, although it probably is now that college baseball's metal bats would cross over. I mean, the safety thing would always have been an issue, but it does make for a more exciting game. And, you know, the way that metal bats can now be, you know, essentially engineered to do whatever you want them to do, that they're very easily manipulated, I guess, makes it maybe a possibility going forward. But, I mean, this would have to be, in keeping with the question, this would have to be something that would enliven baseball, right?

So a lot of the things that we've talked about in the past wouldn't necessarily enliven baseball except to the most kind of curious, some might say stale viewer like us. So I have two ideas, one of which slightly dovetails with a question that we'll probably answer later in the show, but I'll say it anyway, and the other one which doesn't. And one of them, I've actually been kind of pondering this idea for a couple of months and waiting for the opportunity to mention it

on this show, and I think it this idea for a couple of months and waiting for the opportunity to mention it on this show. And I think it's actually got a lot of merit. And here's my idea. A home run is worth more if you're trailing. So if you're the losing team, a home run counts for, say, one run more or two runs more. Maybe it's worth more if you're trailing by more, but maybe not. Maybe it's just worth more if you're trailing at all. And then that would basically make it much easier to close deficits.

I think that that's a big problem with sports in general, and I was trying to think of a way to fix that. It just doesn't, I mean, when a game is not close early, it's very hard to keep viewers interested. And if you had some avenue for closing the gap, it would make a lot of games more interesting. And this seems like a pretty good way to do it. And you could imagine that there would be some real twists if, say, a home run were automatically worth one extra run and you were down by one and you hit a three-run homer, that, well, that'd be like getting a Grand Slam.

But then, of course, you would now be winning. And maybe the fact that you're winning now gives the other team the upper hand. So I don't know exactly the balance that I would want here i i don't know exactly the the balance that i would want here like i don't know how many extra runs i don't know how many different acts should be uh should be given more weight but basically i would want to give in any sport i think i would be interested in giving the losing team uh some extra advantage uh so that they could sort of speed score yeah and the other one is just so obvious. It's not something that I'm recommending,

but it's just so incredibly obvious that it almost seems like it might happen at some point in the next century. But basically just like slow pitch softball, just knock a strike and a ball off of the count and speed everything up. Yeah, I mean, I think the pace of the game is the obvious one. So that, that could be it, or it could be just more, more strictly enforced, uh, time between

pitches and everything. Um, if you want to make it extreme, you could, I don't know, you can give, give people an electric shock if they take too long to adjust their batting gloves or something, people an electric shock if they take too long to adjust their batting gloves or something but there'd have to be like a shot clock or something except it would be a it would be counting down until the next pitch and you'd have to have to deliver that pitch by that time or else you would i don't know you'd put the guy on base or you'd forfeit a a ball or a strike or or whatever it is yeah for for all the sort of Ken Burns romanticizing about the lack of clock in baseball, it also is like the one thing that baseball doesn't have

that is kind of fun. Clocks are fun. Clocks are terrifying, though. We've already ruled out the shot clock idea, I believe, many hundreds of episodes ago. But I could see why it would appeal to more people than me. Yeah. I'd like to see just all of the reins being taken off of teams

as far as in-game strategy. I'd like to see players be wired up to the dugouts. You'd have a pitcher, you'd have a headset. Everyone has a headset. So they could be directed from the bench with precision. No more motioning from the top step. You could talk to them. You could give them scouting reports from player to player.

You could use whatever electronic equipment in the dugout you want you can use walkie talkies to communicate with the front office no no limits you can use whatever information you want i don't know how i i think i would like i would like that better i don't know how much more compelling that would make it to the viewer. Unless you could eavesdrop on the communications. If you could listen in on the headset. Maybe that. All right. Okay, next question.

But then, I mean, in a way, you know you're not going to get anything. That would just basically create another channel of kind of non-information. Because they wouldn't... I imagine-information you know because they they wouldn't i imagine that when they know that they're being listened in on they're not going to really give you anything right it's not going to be interesting is it or maybe they would develop a code and then we would try to break the code imagine how much fun that would be

uh yeah i guess but like for instance uh the catcher and the pitcher currently have a code whenever a runner's on second base yeah it's right in front of you and you've never once tried to crack it or successfully cracked it there is a code staring you in the face every game and you don't know it and you don't bother you don't know it. And you don't bother. You don't know. I could be a science dealer. But you're not. I'm not, no. Okay. All right, so the related question you alluded to is from Matthew.

He says, It seems like a possible blanket solution for the rising strikeout rate, increase in Tommy John surgeries, and longer game time would be to simply award batters a walk on three balls. Theoretically, the net effect would be that pitchers would throw with more control and less break, thereby reducing their susceptibility to UCL injuries, maybe, which would mean batters would likely make more contact and thus generate offense. Obviously, that's less fun for all six baseball fans who love a pitcher's duel,

but everyone could have their druthers. Shorter plate appearances would mean shorter games and also the possibility that starters could work further into games, cutting down on the minutiae of committee bullpen usage. On the other hand, it could also create a scenario where batters treat the 2-0 pitch like they currently treat the 3-0 pitch and never swing, leading to a parade of walks. But there's an argument to be made that 3-0 is essentially a redundant count as swing rate is so low that the batter either walks, which he could have done after the 2-0, or takes a strike and basically returns the at-bat to its prior state of 2-0, where he's more likely to swing, in which case his batters would probably swing more overall, leading to a decline of walks.

So Matthew wants to know, would removing a ball from the count required to earn a walk cause an increase or decrease in walks? And why wouldn't it work? Please shoot holes in my theory. Well, I think it would create a huge increase in walks. And it would create just even more incentive for batters to play for the walk. Knowing that you're that close to a walk would essentially, you know, it would almost become criminal to swing it a first pitch, I would think, knowing that you're, you know, the likelihood of walk is just so high. I do have an idea that I think might work for this. I'm not sure if it would, but

very often it is suggested to us, or I see it suggested, that the solution is to add a strike, you know, to the solution to the three true outcomes environment, is to add a strike or remove a ball or, you know, somehow tweak the count. But it really just, I mean, the incentives are still for the batter to try to draw a walk, and so he's just going to push, you know, that much harder for a walk, and the incentives are still for the pitcher to try for a strikeout. So he might just keep pitching for a strikeout. And, uh, you could imagine a situation where there is never a ball put in play, uh, if you do any of these things, but I think I might have a solution. I haven't

completely thought it. Would you believe Ben that I haven't completely thought it through? I haven't completely thought it through, but I also haven't, I mean, I haven't, I'm not sure that I've actually even partially thought it through. But I like the idea of it. And it goes like this. A walk and a strikeout simply happen when one side is two pitches ahead of the other. So a strikeout could be on two strikes if your first two pitches are strikes. A walk could be on two balls if your first two pitches are strikes. A walk could be on two balls if your first two pitches are balls.

And the reason that I think this works, and this could be looked at, but my impression is that the three true outcomes mindset that pitchers and hitters both have mindset that pitchers and hitters both have is higher the further away you are from the outcome, which I guess, let me try to say that again. When there are two strikes on them, hitters swing a lot. I don't get the feeling that hitters are any more patient now on two strikes than they were in 1987. And when pitchers are behind three balls on batters, unless it's a very good batter who they're not concerned about losing, they throw strikes. They try really hard to throw strikes.

They have good strike rates, as much as they're capable of throwing strikes, which they're not. So the closer you get to that sort of negative outcome, the more these guys actually try to have sort of an honest battle with each other. And in this scenario, nobody wants to go to what would affect the three balls as a pitcher by throwing a ball, any ball. And nobody wants to go to what would affect the two-strike count by throwing a ball, any ball, and nobody wants to go to what would affect the two-strike count by taking a strike.

The incentive would really be to be, I would think, the incentive would from both sides psychologically, if not necessarily mathematically, would be to be very aggressive early in the counts to keep from falling behind 3-0 or 0-2, essentially, early on. There's also the fact that you could imagine that it would slow at-bats down, because theoretically you could have 50 pitches where the guy doesn't ever swing once if the pitcher just alternates ball strike, ball strike, ball strike. But it would also be a lot of quick at-bats. I mean, look, if they're going to walk Miguel Cabrera right now, it takes five pitches.

In this case, it would take two. And if they're going to strike out the pitcher who's batting, it takes four pitches now. But in this case, it would take two. who's batting and it takes four pitches now but in this case it would take two and uh so it's speed the three true outcomes outcomes themselves would take a lot less time and so we might not be as bored by the process of them and we might not resent them quite so much so i think it's a winner yeah i like it tentatively i'd have to think about it a little more, but it makes sense to me. It would speed things up.

All right. Well, it might not. It seems like it could, but it might not. All right. This one comes from James in Sarasota. Reggie Jackson still holds the career record for batter strikeouts with 2,597. How many currently active major leaguers will surpass that total?

And obviously the first inclination is to look and see who's close. And not a lot of players are close. Not a lot of active players are close. It's sort of surprising. There's Adam Dunn, who currently ranks fourth on the all-time leaderboard.

He's about 330 behind Reggie Jackson. And so you figure that he'll get there. He's still a productive player. He is still a full-time player, more or less. He's still striking out a ton. So really he just needs to play a couple more seasons or the equivalent of a couple more full seasons to to get there so you figure he'll get there um but but there's no one really there's

no one else within 500 strikeouts alex rodriguez is the only other active player above 2000 and then you have to go down another couple hundred to get to bobby abreu he's not going to get there derrick jeter he's not getting there soriano's not getting there really you have to go down another couple hundred to get to Bobby Abreu. He's not going to get there. Derek Jeter, he's not getting there. Soriano's not getting there. Really, you have to go down to number 36 on the list. I mean, Torrey Hunter has 1,500-something, and he's not going to play long enough to get another 1,000. So no one is close.

Chiambe? Sort of shocking, isn't it? It is. Sort of shocking. I mean, I was shocked to hear that Reggie Jackson still had the record. I wouldn't have known who has it, but I would have bet anything that somebody else had taken it

by now. I might have guessed 10 guys. I might have guessed Gary Sheffield for Pete's sake. I might have guessed Mark McGuire. I might have guessed... I probably would have guessed that A-Rod had more by now. I'm actually sort of already surprised. Dunn's a good bet. Let me name some other names because I'm looking at the active leaderboard, which is a little easier

for this, I would say. Ryan Howard is 1,100 behind, which is about six full seasons. He's not going to play six full seasons, is he? No. Okay, so then we've got Mark Reynolds is 1,200 behind. He's only 30. He's four years younger than Howard, but is he going to play seven? I mean, he's barely halfway there. I don't think so. Miguel Cabrera is, well, who cares if he's barely halfway there?

He's younger. I mean, okay, Miguel Cabrera is 1 well, who cares if he's barely halfway there? He's younger. I mean, okay, Miguel Cabrera is 1,300 behind. He's 31 years old, so that would be basically, he'd have to play until he's like 42. So he's not probably going to get there. BJ Upton is... He's signed through about that age, but he probably won't play as much, but he might strike out more.

BJ Upton is four behind Cabrera, and he's two years younger. Cabrera doesn't strike. Cabrera hardly strikes out anymore. A lot of his. So, B.J. Upton is four behind Cabrera, but two years younger. He basically has, he's 1,300 behind,

which basically needs to double his career. But at this point, he's in baseball in six years. which basically needs to double his career. But at this point, what are the odds? He's in baseball in six years. Right. So then going down, looking for players who are young. You know, Ricky Weeks, no.

Prince Fielder, he's probably not. I mean, he needs 1,500 more. He's not going to get there. Matt Kemp is about where Fielder is. He's a year younger. You could imagine that kemp could maybe you don't think of him so then here's the best so here we get to a decent name it's it's early but justin upton 20 26 years old 26 years old already has 907 strikeouts so he's already almost to you know to to you know he's he basically has as many as josh

willingham and he's only 26 uh so he needs 1700 basically um and what is he striking out right now he's striking out 150 a year right uh let's see uh yeah 160 last year so that's a pretty good bet that's like eight you know eight nine years, and he's only 26. So I would bet on him. But the thing is that I pass a billboard every once in a while that says the first human to live to 200 is alive right now or something like that. Have you seen that billboard? Yeah, right.

Yes, I've heard that. And so what we know about the sport, I mean, shouldn't we assume that in 10 years everybody's striking out 230 times a year? And that, you know, like, there's got to be... I mean, if the sport is really this crazy compared to what it used to be, shouldn't there be 20 guys who are under 25 who do it

who aren't even strikeout hitters? But just, I mean, look, everybody strikes out 50% more often than they used to. guys who are under 25 who do it who aren't even strikeout hitters but just i mean look everybody strikes out 50 more often than they used to right maybe more and it's going up well so the question is why haven't we seen this yet it's it's a really good question pedro alvarez maybe although he's he started slightly late yeah i mean reggie jackson played for a very long time so that's i mean that's part of it he he played for what 21 seasons or something almost 3 000 games over 11 000 plate appearances so you have to have longevity um but we have had we have had players play that long in higher strikeout times, I suppose,

since Reggie Jackson, whose career spanned the late 60s to the late 80s. So I wonder, is it just that Jackson himself was such an outlier in that he lasted so long despite striking out so much? Maybe. Yeah, started he started very early there are 163 players with at least 450 strikeouts and the only other name that maybe has a chance that's below upton uh or who has a decent chance is jason hayward And he's, you know, he's not, he doesn't have nearly the case that Upton has. So basically we're saying three? Three players?

Dunn and are we saying two? Two players? Did we only say Dunn and Upton? Yeah. Which, I mean... David Wright, not impossible. David Wright's uh, you maybe could make a case for David Wright, maybe.

I mean, if somebody plays to 46, then he's got a shot. And so if Wright or Cabrera plays to 46, then they'd have a shot. Maybe Mark Reynolds has a shot. Yeah, I guess, so Reddy Jackson, how far, but I mean, Reddy Jackson isn't, is Reddy Jackson that much of an outlier? Like, how many did Babe Ruth have? How many does Reggie Jackson have more than number two and three? Number, well, okay.

Oh, so Ruth is way down. So number two is Jim Tomei. Goodness gracious, where's Ruth? Ruth, oh my goodness. Ruth struck out half as many times as Reggie Jackson. Why did I think that Ruth was up there? He was a high average guy. So Tomei just missed it, and Sammy Sosa's quite a ways down. He's struck out half as many times as Reggie Jackson. Why did I think that Ruth was up there? He was a high average guy.

Tomi just missed it, and Sammy Sosa's quite a ways down. So there were a couple of close calls. Andres Galarraga, number six on the all-time list. But yeah, you'd have to figure that whoever, the next generation of long-lived superstars, there's got to be someone in it. And of course, we're talking about, I mean, you have to do this for two decades, and it's possible that the strikeout rise will reverse itself over that time. Maybe it will increase, get to the point where some of the things that we've talked about will actually be done, increase get to the point where some of the things that we've talked about will actually be done and and the the rise will slow or will reverse and maybe guys won't strike out so much but if

it does continue to rise then then yes i mean someone active today would would have to break it i mean reggie jackson own he's only 24th in played appearances career which is a lot but it's not that i mean there's five guys at least who are going to have more played appearances career which is a lot but it's not that i mean there's five guys at least who are going to have more played appearances than that um although you know yeah like you said he he combined the two extreme longevity and uh you know for his time uh extreme strikeouts five led the league five times so but i mean on the other hand 171 is nothing now i mean there's four lead off hitters who will do that this year. All right, play index segment.

Sure. So this was suggested to us, and we appreciate that. Suggested by Matt, who noticed some weird fun fact about Jacob Turner having the third longest streak to start a career without a win on the road, which is a really convoluted fun fact. Is that a fun fact? I don't know how much fun I'm having listening to that. Party.

So the chyron also showed his ERA, and he had a sub-4 ERA, which got Matt thinking that seems pretty low to not have a win in so many starts, 17 straight starts. I know it's the Marlins, but you'd think you'd be able to get at least one win. So my question is, what is the lowest ERA to not have a win over eight starts? He chose eight because that's about a quarter of a season. I'm going to discard the suggestion of eight and go a different direction. You can play around with this question, what is the longest no

win streak with an ERA under three, longest for an ERA under two, et cetera. Don't tell me how to do my job, Matt. Actually, you can tell me how to do my job. So I went to Playindex and I looked for winless streaks by starters. And I basically just did that and then took all the pitchers who had 10 games, basically 9 or 10, I can't remember. I might have done 9, I might have gotten 10. I think I did 10, but I saw a 9, and so then I went to 9 later.

Streaks since 1988, which is, we all have different time periods we like to use for our play index searches. Sometimes I think that baseball started in 1950. Sometimes I think that baseball started in 1969 when they raised the mound. A lot of times I like to think it started in 1988. I basically think that everything after 1988 is real baseball. Everything before 1988 is pretty close, like real close, but so much change from year to year that it's hard to treat it with quite the same certainty. And then everything before like 1923 is, maybe a couple years later,

it's completely made up, like totally useless, not baseball, not recognizable. Get out of here with that stuff. So I looked for streaks of nine or something games in a row, and then I simply started sorting them. So I have some answers for you, and I basically want to focus on three quick answers in particular. The longest ERA under 2.25 uh is nine uh sorry the longest stretch with an era under 2.25 is nine starts without a win uh jose de leon in 1991 was

at 2.21 and then jared cozart last year last summer uh second start of his career onward, he won his first start. And then his next nine, he had an ERA of 2.23 without getting a win, which could kill a lesser man. And so that's interesting, Jared Cozart. That slipped by us. But, of course, the thing is that if you were an announcer doing astros games or or something like that you you know by the end of this streak you'd be talking about how unlucky he is oh just such a shame he hasn't been getting the support he needs then you know it's bad luck for the youngster hopefully he doesn't get down about it uh he's definitely pitched well enough to win but luck

is so many different things you know i mean you could say oh yeah but he was pretty lucky to be born with one of like the 200 best throwing arms in the world that's pretty lucky uh you know? I mean, you could say, oh, well, yeah, but he was pretty lucky to be born with one of, like, the 200 best throwing arms in the world. That's pretty lucky. You know, he's lucky that he has a big league pitcher's body. He could have had that arm and been five foot two, like a lot of humans are, and that wouldn't have helped him. And he could have been born in a place without baseball and grown up not realizing he had this incredibly valuable skill. And it would, he would have died a popper because he was growing up in like uh what's this country that doesn't play baseball russia so uh so those are all lucky but then here here's the other thing though right uh here's the other thing kozart in that stretch

53 innings 31 strikeouts yes 30 32 walks yes so so during this incredible luck unlucky streak he had the greatest luck i mean he was terrible he basically was terrible by the things that we generally uh you know give credit to the pitcher for he also allowed only three home runs which sounds great but he allowed 71 fly balls and 34 line drives that's a lot of balls in the air to only allow three home runs especially in in a pretty good park for home runs so that's a lot of balls in the air to only allow three home runs, especially in a pretty good park for home runs. So that's a lot of luck. And then furthermore, he had something like a 650 overall OPS

against him during that stretch. But with runners in scoring position, it was 111 with a 111 slugging percentage. He was incredibly lucky. So don't- Nothing to complain about. No, it all washed out. And he is definitely not going to die a popper,

unless he's irresponsible with his money. All right, longest stretch under an ERA of three is 13 games, Rick Mahler in 1988 and 1989. Kershaw in 2009 is the second longest with 12. Longest under 3.5 ERA is 17 games, which is a long time. That's Ryan Dempster from 2012 to 2013. And so Dempster is interesting because if you do the longest with an ERA under 4, still Dempster.

Longest with an ERA under 4.5, still Dempster. He almost gets the longest with an ERA under five but Fernando Valenzuela had a 19 game streak with a 4.94 ERA uh so Dempster is kind of uh up to up to very recently is that was the king of of this uh of this particular category uh but there's a new contender uh and this will give you something to watch for as you watch. Oh, by the way, there are 15 streaks since 1988 longer than Dempster. 15 streaks of starts without a win longer than Dempster's. Those 15 streaks had an average ERA of 6.32, in case you were wondering.

Dempster's was 3.42. So, big outlier. But right now, Jeff Samarja has a 15-game stretch without a win. And during that stretch, he has a 3.2 ERA. So he's kind of, in a way, is kind of in a bind. Because if he goes two more starts, he'll pass Dempster's streak. And he'll have a lower ERA. But if in one of those two starts he gets bombed

then his era will go above dempsters so it's a it's very precarious um but the interesting thing about samarja is that um by chance i kind of fumbled around and and and noticed that actually if if instead of looking at his as a 15 game win list streak 15 start win list streak if you just look at his last 12 he has a 2.03 era and so as as you recall the longest stretch under 2.25 was nine right and and if you just ignore the three win list starts at the beginning of this for Samarja. He's blown past that. 12 starts, 2.03 RA. He has beat all... I mean, he is kicking everybody's tail, in a sense. It's just slightly...

It's slightly skewed by the chance three bad starts that he had before. So he's got a shot to make some history. So that's the answer. Jeff Samarja. So keep watching him. Root against him and root for him at the same time. Root for him and root against him at the same time.

And we'll probably talk about it more in the future because that's what we do. I don't find that quite as compelling as the great Webb-Albers race. All the Albers fans out there and all the Webb heads, I don't know whether the Samarja streak will inspire the same devotion. Uh-huh. Because it doesn't say anything. There's no tragic... Well, I don't know.

The games finished without a save streak is somehow sadder and tragic, even though these are both sort of silly stats that we ignore in many contexts. I don't know. This one doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance for me. Well, Ben, I don't find you as compelling as you used to be either. That segment should have been sponsored by Brian Kenney. That was like the kill the win

segment for the week. No, I agree. No, you're right. It's not as compelling. It's not as interesting a race and it will be over much sooner um so i agree but nonetheless all that was done by baseball reference is play index and and you have to admit you you cannot deny uh compelling or not that would not have been possible without the play index baseball reference no i cannot deny that so if you have questions like that you got to get the play index on baseball reference.com and use the coupon code b BP so that you can get a discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. All right.

Let's take one more question from Paul in Los Angeles, who asks, you both seem like even-keeled people, thank you, who would not want to cross boundaries or embarrass a hypothetical high school kid. If you're watching that and happen to be charting pitches, at how many pitches would a kid have to throw before either of you said it has to stop and you just forced the issue? Is it before 194 or after? He is referring to a recent outing by a high school pitcher who threw 194 pitches in 14 innings and made the internet very mad.

94 pitches in 14 innings and made the internet very mad. So if you're watching this game, I don't know what he means, how we would object. Would we run onto the field and stop the proceedings or would we just ask the coach politely to stop? Is there a point at which you think it's too much? My understanding is that the kid who threw the 194, that's the end of his career. He wasn't in any danger of getting drafted or anything like that, right? Yes.

So we've had this conversation before. I actually don't understand the outrage. I think good for them, good for the manager, good for everybody involved. It's the guy's last start of his career. It just absolutely doesn't matter it seems very weird to me to hold uh youth you know youth sports 17 year old uh to the same like health standards as you know carlos rodon or or whatever i mean who cares i i right there's no there's no downside to me yes It's a great memory for him

and he doesn't need to throw any more baseballs. So I'm fine with it. As far as I'm concerned, if we're talking about a guy who has absolutely no plans to ever play baseball again, I mean, I wouldn't like if it were me, if I were out on the field throwing

thousands of pitches, you know, even if I were just playing catch, throwing thousands of catches, and you came over and told me to stop for the health of my elbow, I would ignore you. I would find you to be a busybody and bothersome. Well, I don't think Twitter has ever been accused of that. I mean, I never had a future in baseball, and I almost certainly abused my arm.

I mean, I would throw day after day after day as hard as I could until my arm hurt like crazy. I mean, my arm always hurt when I was a kid, always. It hurt 100 days a year at least because I would throw as many. I would throw until it hurt, and then the next day I would throw until it hurt um and so i i'm all about this kid and you sound like a seasoned salty 15 year vet who always says that his his arm never never doesn't feel bad but yeah we we

got a yeah i would object only on the grounds that the coach is clearly not considering the times through the order penalty. He would probably be better putting in a reliever. But yeah, we got a related question from Bobby who asked, what does it mean for someone's non-baseball life prospects if they blow out their UCL? Is their arm never the same or useless for the rest of their life? Or does it mean that they just can't be an elite pitcher anymore? And it's the latter, right? That's my understanding. You can still go through life. You don't even

necessarily have to have the surgery. You could play catch with your kid if you want. You just, you know, you can't maybe throw 95 with pinpoint control anymore if you could ever do that. That's my understanding. I don't know if it's true, but that's my understanding i don't know if it's true but that's my understanding right um and then paul in los angeles also asks amateur arm abuse and the recent run of mlb injuries got me thinking how would a major league team react if a potential draftees family handed them a folder with pitch counts of every start they've made since little league or maybe junior high it'd be like a carfax report maybe it even has things like weather and days of rest listed. Do they think the family is crazy and neg the kid because of this?

Do they appreciate it and get excited? Does this data not matter to them at all? Also, has this already happened? Some parents are paying tens of thousands of dollars for travel baseball. How could that not have happened when that exists? It does seem like it would make sense, especially if you were a pitcher who at 12 was already thinking about the showcase circuit, that you would sort of keep these records just like a smart person might keep their oil change log so that when they sell the car they can show how well it's been maintained.

And it really, frankly, doesn't even seem like it would just be that hard. Maybe it would be, but it doesn't seem like, given that we record everything these days about our lives and that digital space is cheap, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to imagine that Little League would just start doing this, would start recording pitch counts for every pitcher in every game, and that these would all be fairly easily accessible if you had a reason to access them. And that, yeah, more or less, at least a good number of the kids' outings going back to age eight would be available.

So I think a team would be interested in it. I don't know. It seems to me that there's a pretty good chance, given how little we know about how these things actually work, that you would probably draw too much significance out of these numbers, out of these records, and that you probably would have a lot of kind of false positives, pitchers who you'd be scared off for some reason, but not necessarily for any good reason. I mean, I think it'd be, I don't know,

it seems like maybe it wouldn't be that useful, but I think that everybody loves data, and so everybody would think that it was loves data and so everybody would think that it was useful and they would probably probably would pay for it yeah teams are are all for acquiring good medical information they send their scouts out to do that the scouting bureau sends their scouts out to do that uh to find out whether a player has had any injury issues any surgeries anything like that so I would think they'd also be interested in this. But yeah, I have a hard time imagining that it would decide a drafting decision all that often either.

I mean, if a guy has been healthy his whole career, and you're choosing between two pitchers who have been healthy and haven't had any serious injuries, you're choosing between two pitchers who have been healthy and haven't had any serious injuries, but one of them had a bunch of 140 pitch outings when he was 13 or something. And, and I'd shown no ill effects of that since then. Maybe it would, maybe it would be a tiebreaker if two,

two pitchers were literally even in every other way. But I have a, I have a hard time picturing a team staying away from someone because of that. Maybe a truly egregious 194 pitch outing would tip the scales a little bit. I expected 40 names in that Reggie Jackson question. I'm shocked. Yeah, me too.

It is really strange. All right. So that's it for this week's listener email show. All right. So that's it for this week's listener email show. Please send us questions at your leisure for next week's listener email show at podcast at baseball prospectus dot com. Please rate and review and subscribe to the show on iTunes. Please join the Facebook group at Facebook dot com slash groups slash effectively wild, which well over 1,300 listeners in there talking about baseball. And we'll be back with another show tomorrow. So we're definitely answering the question we got

about ranking Derek Jeter's girlfriends by hotness, right? Yep. I mean, haven't we already done that one?