Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 481: The Next Unwritten Rules

Episode Date: June 30, 2014

Ben and Sam talk about three things that could inspire new unwritten rules (as if there weren’t enough unwritten rules already).

I need money. I used to be a stick-up kid, so I think of all the devious things I did. I used to roll up, this is a hold-up. Ain't nothing funny, stop smiling. We still don't nothing move but the money. But now I learn to earn cause I'm righteous. I feel great, so maybe I might just search for a nine-to-five. If I strive, then maybe I'll stay alive. Good morning and welcome to episode 481 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from baseball perspectives presented by the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by the Play Index at Baseball Reference.

I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Ben, how are you? Great, how are you? Okay. Anything interesting happen to you this weekend? Nope, nothing in particular. Me neither. Something interesting happened to Alexei Ramirez. That's right. He drove in a run Drove in three runs

Multiple runs, yeah He had a home run And on Friday he had a home run And then on Saturday he drove in a run In a pinch hit appearance So I hope it was us It was almost like that RBI list streak

Was an insignificant fluke of sequencing Or maybe we lit a fire under him Hey, we mentioned last week That Brandon McCarthy has been pitching well Or something like that And somebody said The heck are you talking about? He's been pitching well or something like that. And somebody said, the heck are you talking about? He's been pitching terribly. And so do you want to justify that?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess in the sense that he has allowed lots of runs, he has not been pitching very well. But the things that normally predict future success normally predict past success also. Peripherals, he's getting lots of ground balls. He's not walking a lot of guys. He's getting a pretty good strikeout rate for him. His velocity is up. He's throwing like 95 on average, So he has good stuff. As you have noted, he has looked good to you whenever you've seen him. So he seems to be doing the things that lead to success. And he has the

indicators that usually suggest that a pitcher has had bad luck. He's had lots of hits on balls and play, that kind of thing. So you would expect that if the peripheral performance holds up, that the ERA will come down in the second half. So that is what we meant. Yeah. And, you know, basically the three elements of FIP are, you know, strikeouts, walks, and home runs. And the home runs are the thing that are, you know, as far as any of those FIP elements are going, the home runs are the one that are killing him, which is itself the flukiest. It's not necessarily a fluke when somebody has a high home run rate, but it is the flukiest of the three. I'm just curious, of the other two, strikeout and walk,

which one do you think is the, which one is the less fl fluky one if you saw a guy who had a great home run rate uh and also a great either strikeout or walk rate and by great i mean like better than usual like you just didn't see this coming from him uh he had been let's say he'd been a seven strikeout three and a half walk guy in his career would you rather see him go to, say, nine and a half strikeouts and keep the three and a half walks or stay at seven strikeouts but now he's at, say, one and a half walks? Would you basically rather have him go

to Phil Hughes and cut the walks or, I don't know who's an example of a guy who added the strikeouts, but to add the strikeouts. Right. And presume that the proportion will keep his add the strikeouts right hmm i and presume that the proportion will keep his fit the same either way uh-huh um gosh i don't know i would

guess it seems like the like maybe the walks would be less fluky or would be uh yeah less fluky is that i mean because i don't know it could go either if you if you run into i mean it could be that you could of course just be completely random it could be that you ran into a certain sequence of hitters who were prone to chasing or whatever it was or it could be certain umpires with big or small zones or or your catcher is better now and he's getting you more strikes, all those things. But if it's strikeouts, then maybe it would be a lot of them are called or something, and maybe that would be more fluky.

But I guess it would go the same way with the walks. Yeah. I just asked you a question you were not prepared to answer. Yeah, I don't know that I would have been more prepared with more time. That's true too. I don't know. I don't know the answer either.

I think I would say that if a guy's strikeout rate went up dramatically, I would think that he had had a change in his true talent level. If I saw a guy whose walk rate dropped dramatically, I would think that he had had a change in his sort of in his true talent level. And if I saw a guy whose walk rate dropped dramatically, I would say that he had had a change in approach. And I guess that I would probably, I think the answer is probably strike outs, but I think I would rather have the approach. The approach feels realer to me, like it's intentional. But on the other hand, on the other hand, the other one is ability.

So, I don't know. I think I'd take the walks guy. But I don't know that that's the right answer. Garrett Richards is probably the example that we're looking for. The Phil Hughes equivalent would be probably, for strikeouts, would probably be Garrett Richards, by the way. Yeah, probably. And McCarthy, his home run rate is way up, but his fly ball rate is actually down. And he has the highest home runs per fly ball rate in the major leagues, at least among qualified starters. Something like twice the league average and twice his own personal average. So, you know, it doesn't really seem like there's a reason for that, although I guess there could be. But without looking a whole lot deeper, it seems like

something that won't last. By the way, another thing from this weekend was that it was announced that that Giancarlo Stanton would participate in the Home Run Derby. And I have I've been kind of out on the Home Run Derby for a while. It goes on forever and I always, I don't know, sometimes I tune in just for a round or two and then it just drags on and on and on. Anyway, they announced that there will be a tweaked format this year that basically there will be fewer rounds and if you have a great first round, you'll get a bye

and there will be some head-to-head stuff later on. Seems like it would make it more interesting. But I'm more excited just by the fact that Stanton will be there. And I guess I'm bound to watch now because he is on my must-watch player list because of the home runs he hits. And so now he's going to be participating in an event where all he does is try to hit home runs. So I will be watching. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, John Carlos Stanton cannot not be in the home run derby. I continue to think, though, that the home run derby needs to have a contrast, not just a lot of guys who are similar.

contrast not just a lot of guys who are similar so while i'm glad that john carlos stanton is there because he is the the extreme he is the epitome of of that type of player uh it will not be a home run derby that i will tune in for probably until they start having contrasts so yes that was our that was our recommendation last year right is just to have like each row in it and and tiny players in it yeah but not each row not anymore yeah each row like each row like six years ago but now that's that would just be sad that's sort of sad uh all right so uh let's talk about my topic today my topic is uh i want to talk about three different instances of uh potential unwritten rules, violations or non-violations, I guess. I want to get your take on each of the three of them. All of them have been slightly

in the news or sort of at least in front of my eyes of late. So we'll just go one by one, if you don't mind. So the first one is David Ortiz doing as he does, complaining that the official score didn't give him a base hit and instead credited a defender with an error. And continuing this on after a game and forcing the league to, you know, pitiably give him the hit that he wanted. Is there ever a case where you think that a player is justified in begging for a statistic? I mean, I wouldn't begrudge them attempting to do that.

I might do that, but I wouldn't do it so publicly and in such a whiny way. I mean, the thing that I objected to most, I think that most people objected to most about the way he went about it, was just his suggestion that the official scores at a certain park should be biased toward the home players. He said something about how that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to give you that hit. And that is exactly not what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to give you that hit. And that is exactly not what they're supposed to do. Major League Baseball has taken measures to ensure that they don't do that, that they are impartial and that there's some oversight

and that they're not doing the home cooking thing. So that was the worst part of it, that he made that suggestion. And he sort of took it back afterwards um and recanted but uh but i i don't have a big problem with with doing it privately i mean because it it seems to work pretty well it worked for him or at least uh it was changed for him and and it's often changed it seems like and and given how much money is at stake i wouldn't have a big i wouldn't have a big problem with it if you i mean if you're if you lose the game and it's you know the the only thing you want to talk about is that you got it you

reached on an error instead of getting a single then that seems like something that would not go down well among other players. So I would say that that is kind of a violation, and he took some flack for it. So I think it was recognized as such. You say you're okay with it in general, though. Why? You say you're okay with it in general, though. Why? I mean, isn't it sort of the very nature of the idea of a team that you are playing for the team and not for your own individual statistics or glory? I mean, wouldn't this, in a lot of circumstances,

wouldn't playing for stats or being too aware of your stats? I mean, a pitcher, for instance, knows that no matter what happens, if he gets the win or the loss, when he's interviewed in the locker room after the game, that he has to say, if the team won and he didn't get the win, he has to say, I'm just glad the team won. And if the team loses, then no matter how much it helps his ERA or how many strikeouts he adds to his total or whatever, he has to say, well, all that matters is the team wins. So the team doesn't win.

So how can it possibly play well for a guy to be this interested in his batting average, particularly when it's one hit? I mean, nobody's and it's and it's david ortiz and he's he's he's not his pay you know his salary is not dependent on this hit in any way he's not you know he's not gonna miss the hall of fame or because of this one hit i mean it's it's you know it he's david ortiz he's he Ortiz. He should be completely above this, no? It's interesting because, let me just say one more thing. It's interesting because if a second-year utility guy did this, he would get savaged, right?

I mean, he doesn't have the service time. He doesn't have the credibility... the service time he doesn't have any uh... credibility to start asking for it and yet he's the very guy who should be allowed to care because he has some staking whether it's a hitter not david ortiz can do whatever he wants because he's david ortiz but it is like

it is that he more than anybody else has no stake in this and should you know by all rights should be acting like he he's got 2,300 hits or whatever he's got and not freaking out about the one, right? And the fact that he does it repeatedly as well, this is not a first time, this is not the most egregious case, also seems to be damning. It's self-centered, but I don't have a problem with people being self-centered.

I'm okay with it. I expect people to be self-centered. You should – okay, so we expect them to be self-centered, but we don't expect them to express their self-centeredness, right? No, I would not – That's what – the sort of foundation of every unwritten rule in baseball, not everyone, but a large number of them is don't express your self-centeredness we know you're happy you hit a home run just don't show it right right that's what the rules come down to so yeah i don't i

don't think there's any way to to do this publicly and and not look bad but i don't begrudge any player doing it i mean i i I can imagine that if I were playing first of all if I were playing I would just be obsessed with my stats to a an unhealthy degree it would probably impair my performance because I'd constantly be like looking up whatever my my oh you know oh swing rate or whatever is I'd probably be I'd probably be exactly the type of person that all the players say that they don't want to look at too many numbers because it's paralysis by analysis I'd probably be that

but I don't mind if someone wants to get a hit, it's hard to get a hit in Major League Baseball No, it's hard to get on base, getting a hit doesn't matter, it's an artificial construct created by some guy 140 years ago. It's hard to win a World Series.

And you win a World Series by winning baseball games. And you win baseball games by scoring runs. And you score runs by getting on base. It doesn't matter how you get on base. Well, right. So if we amend the on-base percentage formula to include reached on errors. But it doesn't matter. We're not amending the winning world series standards.

I don't know. I'm okay with it. I'm okay with, I mean, I'm okay with people, all the other unwritten rules stuff that, as you say, it's often seems to,

seems to be in place, put in place for like to keep players from doing things that are in their own self-interest. Like, you know, swinging on 3-0 when you're up by a certain number of runs, or taking an extra base when you're up by a certain number of runs. I think in that long Kirchen article about unwritten rules, I think it was Brandon McCarthy said something about how he doesn't begrudge anyone doing that, trying to pad their stats because stats are how players get paid and, and they have a lot at stake and I, you know, I'm okay with it. I would, I would be circumspect about it. If I were a player, I would not be complaining in the media. I would just

follow whatever the process is to do this, go through the regular channels, and that would be that. Yeah, it doesn't bother me either. I do have one question, though, one more about Ortiz. if there was some reason to doubt his good intentions, because he had given away too much of his own thinking and we knew that he was this interested in his stats, that if there was some scenario where you wondered whether he was playing for the team or playing for himself, that this might make you doubt that he was playing for the team.

I'm trying to think, though, if there is any event where David Ortiz could be playing for himself in a way that would not be playing for the team. You could imagine it for certain players whose role is to be sacrificial, by which I mean to literally sacrifice themselves by bunting or doing the ground-out thing, but that's not Ortiz's role.

So is there ever a time where you think that Ortiz's intentions could be questioned because of this? Maybe injuries, right, if he wanted to take a day off. Maybe he could say that it's because he wants to help the team more down the road and someone else could say that it's... Chris Sale was pitching, for instance. Right, right. So yeah,

that's probably it. If he ever sits out for Chris Sale, that'll be... then we'll question it. So, when that happens, then I will make a big deal out of this. Until then, it seems fine. Okay. Alright, next one is Mike Napoli hitting a home run off of Tanaka and

saying not to Tanaka and saying not to Tanaka, not to anybody, but being seen on TV saying the words I don't know what the words were. What were the words, Ben? He's an idiot or what an idiot or such.

Yeah, what an idiot. Stupid idiot. What an idiot. What a stupid idiot. Yeah. He's a stupid idiot. What an idiot. Can you believe what a stupid idiot I think was what it was? I think it was, can you believe what a stupid idiot he is?

Hmm. I think that's what it was. You're pretty good at lip reading. I am. So the reason that he said what an idiot, or whatever it was that he said, is that Tanaka threw him a fastball after beating him with splitters all game long. And Napoli was surprised that he would give him a fastball. And Napoli hit it out and won the baseball game.

Problem? Is this a problem? Should he know that there's always a camera on him? Yeah, probably. I mean, I don't know. Is it a problem that it's known now? Is it really, is it going to come back to haunt him or the Red Sox in any way? Well, let's first off, before we get to that, let's just agree that calling people idiots is wrong. Okay, sure.

I mean, look, if he went out to Tanaka right after Tanaka's sad moment and said, you idiot, that would be wrong, right? Yes. All right, so is it a problem? Second question, is it a problem? It depends how everybody takes it, but given what we know about baseball players, one of the 50 people involved on the two teams is going to take it the wrong way,

is going to make too much of this, and somebody is going to get hit in the face. And then he said after the game, nothing towards him. I thought he would throw me a splitter in the dirt. Nothing towards the guy that I call an idiot. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, if you're a player,

I suppose you should be aware that everything you say can be heard, or probably just if you're a person anywhere, judging by some of the recent scandals. But, eh, i don't know i mean i don't have that big a problem with it maybe maybe he figured that the tanaka wouldn't be able to to lip read it because he doesn't speak english so well and because he's an idiot right of course. Yeah, I don't know. I guess if I saw a guy with a pattern of doing this who was constantly insulting players on the other team in a way that was somewhat showy or reckless or irresponsible,

I might start to consider it intentional and think that he was a jerk and that he has the whatever retribution is coming to him. But I would say that, yeah, Napoli gets a pass, certainly for the first time. I mean, how are you so – come on. I kind of like – I mean, I always kind of wish that baseball would be a little more WWE from time to time, just a little – I always root for the heel turn a little more WWE from time to time, just a little. I always root for the heel turn a little bit. So if there were a guy who just ostentatiously trash-talked, I wouldn't be too upset about that.

He'd probably get drilled over and over again, but it would be entertaining. Yeah, I don't know that I want that. It's not that I don't know. I want that. It's not that I don't know. I don't have any issue with that particularly. I don't think that I would necessarily turn on a player who did do that, but I wouldn't find it entertaining, to be honest. Okay. All right, last one.

This one goes back a little bit. This one goes back a little. I'll just say that. So Manny Machado, one of the things that the A's were apparently upset about was that he hit Derek Norris on his follow-through of his swing a couple times and then didn't apologize or acknowledge it or whatever. And it seems like every day I see Norris getting hit on the head with a bat. He's just constantly getting hit on the head with backswings. And he had to come out of a game, I think, because Eric Ibar hit him on the head with a bat. He's just constantly getting hit on the head with backswings. He had to come out of a game, I think, because Eric Ibar hit him on the head with a bat. This is not something that I ever

saw 15 years ago, unless this is something that I'm completely forgetting from my childhood. I just don't feel like I ever, ever, ever saw this growing up. For the first 20 years I saw baseball, I didn't see anybody get hit by the bat on the backswing. Probably it happened occasionally, but I just don't ever remember seeing it. And then it started to happen every so often. And you'd be like, Ooh, when you'd see it. And now it feels like it's really regular. And I'm just wondering, this is not quite an unwritten rule situation, but maybe it is. Um, is this something that needs to be looked at because it really looks pretty severe when a guy gets hit uh in the head with a bat and it feels like it's happening

more and more and more right now i'm trying to figure out uh whose fault this is and who needs to be like i guess to fix it Do you tell Do you penalize the batter Or do you penalize the catcher I guess it depends I mean there are marked areas Where these guys are supposed to be right So if they're not in them

Then you would penalize the guy who's not in them Yeah but there are marked areas For where they're supposed to be in yet If the batter I mean the batter Catcher's interference happens when the batter is in the batter's marked area and the catcher is in the catcher's marked area. And yet the catcher is penalized for it. catcher's interference and he he had perceived that there were more of those now than than before and he was wondering if that was maybe a result of catchers paying more attention to receiving pitches with all the emphasis on framing i had i googled that quickly and found a found a article

from 2008 at baseball analysts that look at the the rate of catcher interference calls and it at baseball analysts that look at the rate of catcher interference calls, and it didn't seem like there had been a huge spike through that point, but I didn't look over the last few years. If there has been a spike in those, or there's been a spike in players getting hit by backswings, I mean, I would assume that would have more to do with the catcher than the batter, unless it's that more batters are moving back in the box or they're... Well, they swing harder and they have longer follow-throughs.

Yeah, that's true. Everybody swings harder now on every pitch, it seems like. That's at least what the grumpy old men at the donut shop where I have my grumpy old men sessions are always saying. They're always swinging for the homer, even on two strikes. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it, it does seem like it, it, um, I feel like that passes the eye test that guys do swing harder. They swing with longer follow throughs. Um, and without having looked at where catchers are setting up, I would generally have, my tendency

would be to put the blame on the batters. I mean, you know, look, if you swing and then you let your bat follow through, it's going to hit the catcher. Like, there's nowhere else for it to go. That's where the catcher is. So I would say that it's probably the batter's fault. I don't know.

I mean, I feel like it's probably the batter's fault. Well, you'd think that if you were Norris and this were happening repeatedly, you would move back, but then again... But maybe you can't. Maybe that's the point. Maybe it's unavoidable. Yeah, well, I mean, if he went far enough back, I guess he could avoid it, but you're giving up something if you're a catcher and you're moving way far back. You're losing

a few inches you have to takes a little longer to throw the ball down the second base maybe it's harder to receive a pitch in such a way as to influence the umpire so so you're saying that maybe it will become an unwritten rule to hit someone with the backswing because the thing with thing with Machado was not just that he hit him, but that he gave absolutely no reaction to hitting him. Generally, you will see the guy turn around and apologize and say, are you okay? He just didn't really react at all.

Yeah, I would guess, though, that if the protocol is that you apologize and say, are you okay um that it is also an unwritten rule that you try not to do that like that's what an apology is an apology in good faith means didn't mean to do that we'll try not to do it again uh and so if you were a batter and you did this 10 times in a row and you apologize 10 times in a row it would probably not go over that well yes so that's why it doesn't mean that much without the change in behavior. Yeah. So that's why I brought it up in the unwritten rule segment.

But I wonder whether there is a written rule that is, I would guess, I'm just going to say, I would guess that within, let's say, 8 to 12 years, there will be a written rule prohibiting this and penalizing one side, either the catcher or the batter. I would guess the batter, but one side will be penalized for this contact. Okay. And I also, let's see. No. Hang on.

Do those two things have to do with each other? Do I want to make those connected? No. Right. Glad we got to hear your thought process I literally cocked my head up and stared at the sky as I was doing that I was actually looking up like a dog

trying to figure out where he was in the universe Okay So that's it then Yeah So please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference Go to baseballreference.com Subscribe to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription.

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