Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 500: The Somewhat Special 500th Episode

Episode Date: July 25, 2014

Ben, Sam, Grant Brisbee, and Jeff Sullivan draft their favorite things about baseball.

🎵 She comes running down like water. She comes running down. Good morning and welcome to episode 500 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Ben, how are you? Very well, thank you. Good.

We're going to skip the Diamondbacks headlines portion of the show today, although there were some good ones. Double segment on Monday. We have, yeah, maybe. We have special guests, two of them, in fact. One is Grant Brisby, who you know from SB Nation and McCovey Chronicles. And the other is Jeff Sullivan, who you knew from SB Nation, but now you know him from Fangraphs, as well as occasionally FiveThirtyEight.

And this is, I don't know, it might not be exciting for you guys out there, but for us it's very exciting. I would say that Grant and Jeff are the two writers that I love the most in the world. I don't want to say that they're the two best. They probably are, but I don't want to say they are because then people might think that I'm dismissing other great writers. But they're the two that I love the most. And I think that's close to true for Ben as well. Is that true for you as well, Ben? Yes. Yeah. And I mean, the biggest challenge in writing, I think, for me and probably for Ben is to not go over the line into just completely plagiarizing

Grant and Jeff's work. So Grant and Jeff, hello. Hi. I would like to call you on something. First of all, I don't know what the swearing rules are on this podcast. I'll try not to do it. But just the other day when you were saying your fond farewell to Ben's 10-year baseball prospectus, you asserted that he was the best, in your opinion. Therefore, you have some decisions

to make, and tread carefully on identifying the best. There can only be one best. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice, Sam. I think that one could make the case that right now I'm speaking to the three best baseball writers in the world. And that is a daunting thing. It's a great thing.

So I'm glad you guys are here. Grant and Jeff, you guys haven't spoken since Jeff left SB Nation, right? This is a great big reunion for you, correct? First time you've talked to each other in two years. We've been feuding. We've had our issues. The water is not quite under the bridge. The bridge is very tall and the water is very murky. It's not under the bridge. The thing about Grant is he's thwarted my several attempts to have him killed.

And so it's become this thing that I don't actually know if he was aware. But we communicate. We definitely communicate. I haven't heard his delicious voice in a while. It sounds a little different on podcast than it does in person. It's preferable in person, I think. A little smokier in person. Yeah. We have our rumors,

our backroom gossip we talk about. A long time ago, after I left SB Nation... He almost broke some news there. Whoa. I'm coming to take your...

I'm not taking your job. Shortly after I left, I don't know the exact date, although I could just read this but john hayman uh posted a tweet and uh he does that a lot uh john hayman tweets a lot but he posted a particular one that was about i don't remember his name but it was a red sox prospect and the tweet was hashtag red sox prospect sent to AAA after arrest for driving 111 miles per hour and crashing car. Maybe they should send him instead to AA. See, it doesn't

actually work so well spoken. It's better as it works. Because it's AAA and AA. And what Grant decided to do was not ignore the tweet like you do most of them, but he decided to send it to me in every conceivable way uh that you can send the communication to somebody else and so uh you know there was a

there was a retweet and there was a an email and there was a there's a text and there was a favorite and there's a direct message and courier service singing a variety of other things. Well, what I have on my fridge right now is a hand-drawn and hand-transcribed copy of the tweet that Grant put together presumably in what I would estimate to be about seven and a half hours of careful calligraphy. And he drew the tweet for me and mailed it to me in the letter. And it is on my refrigerator along with something drawn by Bradley Woodrum and it is among my prized possessions. Probably one of the 10 things I would take out of here if there were a fire that I started. It should be known that I don't take effort on anything. I don't make an effort to do anything at all. Raise kids, write about baseball,

but for some reason, I had to recreate that tweet with my bare hands. And go to a post of this. There's a picture of John Hammond on the hand-drawn tweet with the customization that he has a butt for a face. And there's also a note in parentheses and an arrow

that says, butt for a face. So there was a little artist's uh yeah you guys are very cute you've always been very cute that's one of the things i most miss on the internet is youtube being cute in the same region same general area now it's more just passive-aggressive cute. Yeah. All right. So there's the banter. Jeff Sullivan provides the banter for the day.

Appreciate that. We're going to do a draft today because, of course, drafts are the worst part of our show. And so how can you do episode 500 without a draft? So we're going to do a draft. We're all just going to draft a thing. Baseball things. That's the draft. The draft is baseball things.

Everybody's going to pick a baseball thing. And then everybody will then pick another baseball thing. And then everybody will pick a third baseball thing. And then John Chenier, our official scorekeeper of Effectively Wild, will figure out a way to put these into a spreadsheet and measure who's winning for the next 15 or so years. And that'll be the show. So everybody brought a couple things to draft. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought, okay, so I drafted for the short term. I didn't, I wasn't.

It's a keeper league. I was not warned. I'm going to be the Phillies. Flags fly forever. If you win this year, you can take a certain pride in that. There's only four teams. I feel like you should win about almost four flags over the course of 15 years. These are things that we like about baseball. We should clarify.

We shouldn't clarify. I've dealt with clarifying for you three enough today on this. There is no point. You have to understand this is a nonsense framing device. So you can draft any words that you want. Anything. Anything is fine. Just justify it. And that'll work.

So there's also a rule that if somebody drafts something from a category, that category is off limits. That's a rule that I don't expect to be enforced, frankly. I think we can argue that any specific draftee is part of such a limited category that it doesn't actually prevent anyone else from taking something similar. I think that's probably true. I don't anticipate any problems here. I also don't anticipate really any good things. I think that's probably true. I don't anticipate any problems here. I also don't anticipate really any good things. I anticipate very little.

Did you say we're drafting words? You can, Grant. You can draft me. People always ask what my favorite word is. Yeah. And I found it. It's unfurl. When you unfurl a flag, it's a great word. When you said drafting words or baseball words and stuff, I got excited. Sorry. We'll go on with the draft. You know a word I learned recently is borborigmus, which is the sound that your stomach makes

when you're hungry. Oh, that's one of those words that I know that I knew before. Like it's just familiar enough that you can recognize something as something you used to know. It just kind of makes you feel old and undereducated. Yeah, it's also a word that sounds cute and funny and whimsical, and I brought it up because it's cute and funny and whimsical. But the context I read it in was Chilean miners starving to death. Oh, dear.

That makes it sound much less like a Sniglet when you read it in that context. Do you like furl or only the opposite of that? Furl's all right. I could do with furl, but there's something with the two syllables, I mean unfurl, like you're really accomplishing something that's basically just unrolling a sheet of something. I can do furl though, furl's good. What about peat? Like peat moss? I might have to draft a peat.

I might have to draft a peat It's a strange substance I don't know that I've ever actually encountered it Well it's one of those off tastes for what? Whiskey? Granted no Yeah I know Like some good Laphroaig scotch That just tastes like you're sucking on a rock I love it

Drinking some right now It's only 11 to 1 well like most drafts this one will begin after the scheduled time uh so we'll let a guest go first uh there by the way have been i just want to say that of course uh one of us had to do this uh there have been about 70 Mosses in minor league baseball history, but no Pete Mosses. Sorry. One of these days. Who was the last pick? I think the A's last pick of the draft a couple years ago was named Travis Pitcher. That one always stuck with me. I like that idea, although I think he's bad.

All right. So anybody want to go first? Do we have a volunteer, or should I go first? I don't want to pay the top slot money. All right, so my pick is going to be Babe Ruth. First pick in a baseball draft seems like it should be Babe Ruth. I like everything about Babe Ruth. One of the things I like about Babe Ruth is that you get the feeling that 2,000 years from now, there will be big debates about whether we're supposed to read his biography literally or whether it's all metaphor like the book of Genesis. None of it actually seems realistic and it

sort of seems like a hoax that people forgot was a hoax. But my favorite thing about Babe Ruth is, of course, that no-hitter that he threw with Ernie Shore, where Babe Ruth pitched to one batter, walked him, got ejected, and then Ernie Shore came in, got the runner, stealing, and then retired the next 26 batters. And the reason that I like this game and Babe Ruth's part in it particularly is because this game is essentially, well, Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore are essentially the Homer Simpson and Frank Grimes story told in real life. So just think about if you were at this game, or think about if you were Ernie Shore. There's this kid who's like 23 and is already a bit of a celebrity. And he goes out, and the way that Babe Ruth they've rejected as he walks the first time for pitches

start screaming at the umpire immediately after one better starts to meet the impact impartels and a quiet down i'm gonna run you and they've received you run me uh... quote i will come in and bust you on the nose and so the umpire kicks now of the game

ruth runs in and actually does bust him on the nose start punching the umpire kicks him out of the game, and Ruth runs in and actually does bust him on the nose, starts punching the umpire. Several policemen had to drag Ruth off the field. And so then Ernie Shore comes in. So here's the story of Ernie Shore. Ernie Shore was a good kid, a smart kid, and sort of wanted to be an engineer. Grew up on a farm, went to college, taught math at a university in the off season. Even at this point, he was already doing that, teaching math at a university in the off season. Good kid, quiet kid. And he comes in to relieve this guy who's essentially the monster of

his time when you really think about it. He's a sociopath. He punches the umpire after one batter. And so then Ernie Shore comes in and very quietly retires the next 26 guys, throws what is essentially a perfect game. So if you look in the history books, though, and I'm looking at the Major League Baseball's list of no-hitters right now, and Shore is listed merely as having thrown a combined no-hitter. According to Major League Baseball's records, Ernie Shore's accomplishment was equal to that of Lucas Lutke getting one out in a game in 2012 against the Angels. Combined no-hitter. And the Ernie Shore-Frank Grimes thing sort of goes further. So Ernie Shore enlisted in the military during World War I at the height of his career. He missed a year doing this. He went to officer school at Harvard while he was doing

it, so he took it really seriously. He talked about being in the Navy as long as he was needed. He got a stripe on his whatever you get stripes on. But he was never the same as a pitcher after he came back after the war. He had a bad year. He blamed it on some of the this is according to the Sabre bio of Shore, quote, man-child Ruth was a poor match for the mild-mannered southerner. A story circulated for years that Shore had asked for a new roommate after the Babe had used his toothbrush without asking. Shore would continue to save Babe Ruth from his own sociopathic behavior years later. In 1920, the last year of Shore's career and the last year there were teammates, Ruth was called, quote, a piece of cheese by a fan in the crowd.

Ruth went into the crowd to attack the fan. The fan pulled a knife and Shore got in between them and played peacemaker and maybe saved Babe Ruth's career. Ruth tried his best to ruin his career anyway. He got syphilis. He missed time in the middle of his career for it. He was a horrible monster of a man. And yet, at the end of the day, Ruth is the one who gets all the credit. Shore gets none of the credit. 40 years after the knife incident, Roger Maris was breaking Babe Ruth's single season record. And Shore went so far as to defend Ruth and say it's a shame to see his record broken and stand up for his teammate. Ernie Shore is the good guy who just could

never quite get credit. And Babe Ruth was the monster who continually fell uphill. Sounds to me like maybe you should have drafted Ernie Shore. No, no, no. Babe Ruth. No, because of his connection to Ernie Shore. Mostly. Babe Ruth, then. Now I feel like a complete ass

because I was going to pick Buster Posey's eyes. And that was a great story. I had a head start. Like Tim Lincecum's pouting lips. Like, that's all I have. How quick were people to weapons 95 years ago?

A piece of cheese, and then a man comes to make you pay your penance, and then you're like, well, I insulted you, and now I'm going to try to stab you to death. And he wasn't even the one who was insulted. He threw a barb, and then he took out, he unfurled perhaps, a literal sort of barb, and he was going to stab Babe Ruth. How did people survive that time of, they really should have been drinking more alcohol back then. It should have just calmed people down because Prohibition was making people crazy.

I don't think they did survive as often. Well, they're all pretty much... Many of them died sooner. Yeah, they're all... Well, they're all dead now. Yeah. So... Oh, yeah, that's...

Doesn't say much for their survival skills. I wouldn't even put Buster Posey's eyes in my top three baseball players' eyes, I don't think. Who's your number one eyes, Ben? Ryan Domet. Yeah, that's fair. And then you got... Domet. Bryant, Chris Bryant eyes.

Hunter Pence. Yes. Where do you put the Jeff Franco eyes? The crazy lopsided eyes. We should have drafted eyes. What are we doing here? Well, but we only have three or four players' eyes. The crazy lopsided eyes. We should have drafted eyes. What are we doing here? Well, but we only have three or four players' eyes. My favorite eyes are, I'm actually reviewing right now so that I have some evidence behind this, but my favorite eyes are either Howie Kendrick or Jacoby Ellsbury.

I don't think a lot about their eyes. Well, are we talking eyes or eyebrows? Is it just the ball? Just the eyeball? Well, it's the eyeball and the soul behind it. So which Scherzer eye do you take first? The green one.

You always go green. I think it's Grant's turn to draft. No, green light go. Okay. Drafting. I came up with – I was going to draft the other Ryan Braun because – Oh, that's a good one. I'm just excited that he exists and that for the rest of his life,

he's going to have to say, you know, I used to play baseball. You did. What's your name? Ryan Braun. You did. What's your name? Ryan Braun. But wait, like, is he going to start with the butt weight? Is he going to wait? Is he going to like impatiently look at the ceiling? Or is he just going to like have this smug look on his face?

Like, yeah, ask me, asshole. I just, can I say that word? Yes. I got carried away. But I mean, I used to love like, you know, there's two Jeff D'Amico's, there's two Steve Ontiverosos. I've always been fascinated with players that share names, irrationally so, but for some reason the gulf between Ryan Braun, superstar and arch-villain, and Ryan Braun, nondescript relief pitcher has always fascinated me.

So I'm going to pick the other Ryan Braun. I'm pleased that you brought up the other Jeff D'Amico, but I think along the same lines, I think one of my favorite things, so I always loved that the Padres had Adrian and Edgar Gonzalez because they looked identical when they were batting together in the lineup because they had the exact same fit. But in 2002, the Padres had both Bobby Jones, which is like one of them, I believe, was white. One of them was black.

They were very different Bobby Jones, but they had both Bobby Jones, which is crazy. So I think that that takes your level. I like the Tommy Malone's because Malone is the incorrect spelling, and there have never been any two Tom Malone's with the correct spelling. And I also like, that's a good one, Grant. I think a pick, a reasonable pick in that spot might have been that Alex Gonzalez was once the number one similarity player on Baseball Reference for Alex Gonzalez, but the other Alex Gonzalez was not the number one similarity for the other?

Or Chris Young, the pitcher, was involved in the trade for Adam Eaton, the pitcher, and then years later, Adam Eaton, the center fielder, was pushing out Chris Young, the center fielder, and it was like this big, nonsensical, meaningful something or other that I've never quite parsed. But the Chris Young and Adam Eaton circles fascinated me too. I think my favorite thing about the Alex Gonzalez's is that if you look them up on Baseball Reference,

one of them has accent marks and the other does not. So the Alex Gonzalez who was active as of earlier this year, or technically maybe still is, has two accent marks. He has accent marks on both A's in his name, whereas the retired Alex Gonzalez does not. Maybe he just didn't have much affect in his voice or something. He just didn't really hit those A's as hard when he was playing.

He was American born as well. Right. So I don't see how anyone could really ever confuse them once you know this. Actually, that's very helpful. I actually think that I will now no longer confuse them. That is like a significant development in the field of Alex Gonzalegi. I like that the other Ryan Braun arrived so shortly before the famous Ryan Braun. He had a September call up in 2006. So for about a month he had the baseball encyclopedia to himself. He was the only really prominent ryan braun and then and then the famous ryan braun comes along in may of 2007 so he had just this short short time in the sun when he

was the only ryan braun and then the other ryan braun came along it was all downhill oh and another thing i was gonna love baseball, but this is actually the same thing so I can't draft it again, was that when the Giants had Mike Stanton the reliever, they let him go after the 2007 season, 2008 season, can't remember. They let him go. And the Reds signed him. And because the Reds signed him, the Giants got a supplemental draft pick. So they're in this draft and they have this extra pick that they got from Mike Stanton. And the pick comes to them, and there's a high school kid, big high school kid, whose name is Mike Stanton. And he's just sitting there.

And he's supposed to be a first rounder, a second rounder. He's supposed to be at the top of the draft. The Giants have this draft pick for Mike Stanton. And there wasn't one person in the front office that said, you know what would be cool? Because that's generally how most draft picks go. It's just like, you know what would be awesome? As if we drafted the son of Chuck Connors or something.

But for whatever reason, no one said, you know what would be cool? Let's draft this Mike Stanton because we got the pick for the other Mike Stanton. And everyone would have said, yeah, that's a great idea. And it didn't happen. And that's the story of how the Giants missed out on Giancarlo Stanton because we got the pick for the other Mike Stanton and everyone would have said, yeah, it's a great idea and it didn't happen. And that's the story of how the giants missed out on Giancarlo Stanton. One of my other favorite things. You know, there's this idea if you're like an independent coffee shop and a Starbucks moves in down the street, there's this idea that Starbucks is going to come in and ruin your business and that's why everybody hates Starbucks. But what they actually find, what

economists actually find is that Starbucks moving into your town or your area is the best thing for an independent coffee shop. Because all the attention given to this big Starbucks creates this whole new market of latte drinkers and people who want to drink a $4 coffee. And so it's really counterintuitively, the best thing that can possibly happen to you is that a bigger, mainstreamier, more powerful version of yourself will move in right down the street from you. And Ben, when you were talking about the couple weeks that Ryan Braun had the baseball world to himself, it sort of is the same kind of idea. It was not any sort of accomplishment to be the only Ryan Braun yet.

It meant nothing. We didn't even pay attention to him. Probably meant something to him. But when the real Ryan Braun came in, all of a sudden, the fake Ryan Braun's average draft position in fantasy drafts probably shot way up because people were accidentally drafting him. It was, in a way, the best thing for him. In the long run, though, I'm not sure it served him so well. away the best thing for him. In the long run, though, I'm not sure it served him so well.

Maybe not. If you don't think there's any value to four bloggers talking about you on a podcast on a Thursday afternoon years after you retire. I wonder what a Royals Ryan Braun autograph goes for. I wonder if there's just any secondary market for that.

What if you got the other Ryan Braun to autograph it? On August 10, 2002, the Padres played the Reds and started Bobby Jones. On August 11, 2002, the Padres played the Reds and started Bobby Jones. They allowed nine runs in both games and they lost.

They weren't very good pitchers. But that's the only time they pitched consecutively that I can find that's of interest to me. That's the same year that it was Dennis Tankersley. You remember Dennis Tankersley? I do. Yeah. He was a part of that Padres team that was just going to do the next wave

of talent that Jake Guttrow and Tag Bozied. Tag Bozied, yeah. And Xavier Nady, I think, made good out of all of them. That was the success, I think, maybe. Yeah. I'm looking at a Royals Ryan Braun autographed 2007 upper deck on sale for $2. What about Jeff D'Amico? Which one, Jeff?

Hey, the other Jeff D'Amico is also a royal. That's interesting. All right, whose pick? Oh, I guess... Mine? Whoever. Yeah, go ahead. All right.

What order? I guess I don't know how you're gonna it's okay so i'm gonna take i don't remember the year exactly i don't remember the exactly they're doing this at petco park all i'm gonna estimate maybe 2005 2006 but i'm gonna take the petco park rotating scoreboard faces i remember like you go to any baseball game and then when a player comes up to bat then you're gonna have like his picture goes up and then you're gonna any baseball game and then when a player comes up to bat then you're going to have like his picture goes up and then you're going to have his statistics and what he's done in the game and maybe like a trivia trivia factoid that's just standard you accept it at every single ballpark

that is a big enough scoreboard and so the Padres would do that and they moved in Beko and they do the usual thing where you have just like the the bust right the the portrait of the guy from the nipples up basically and then it's like that's the baseball player who's down there that we can't really see. But there was one year, at least one year, that the Padres decided they were going to change things up, maybe make it a little more compelling. Just grab your attention a little more,

because hitters take forever to walk up to the plate, and then they step out of the box and everything. So what they started doing instead of... When did football broadcasts start having the players move? Instead of taking a still shot, they just lift their heads up and say, I'm from the Ohio State University. When was that? Because I feel like that's within the past 10 years. Maybe a little more. I don't think I've watched a college football game in the past 10 years, and I've seen it happen.

Well, I think that if you're watching a college football game, they don't all say that they're from the Ohio State because you know you're watching in Ohio. Anyway, so the Padres decided instead of having just the stationary pictures, then they would have the players begin looking to, I think, the left. looking to, I think, the left. They would look 90 degrees away and then their heads would very slowly rotate to face the camera, except they would not change their expressions as if they were just turning like, oh, hey, I didn't see you over there.

They would instead just look away from the camera and then fix their gaze and then turn to look at the camera and they all every single player on that team not just Khalil Green looked like they were going to murder you these look like dolls that you have in the corner of a dark bedroom it's just really truly unsettling and it was the first of I would say probably 10 years of unsettling baseball experiences at Petco Park and that continues to this day but it was a different sort of unsettling baseball experiences at Petco Park, and that continues to this day, but it was a different sort of unsettling. And, like, there was a lot about Khalil Green era

that was a little weird that we didn't really ever get to dive into, but I think that right there, that is the image I have of Petco Park. It's Khalil Green's face slowly turning with this glum, like, I don't want to be any part of this life on this planet. And then he looks at the camera and he says, I'm at the plate now and those those animations have grown more elaborate since then now they're

they're often full body there's there's a bat being swung it's very artistic lighting oh god they are that same year they did a 70 like you know a 70th throwback day with the exact same animations. And so they had all the players photoshopped into this festive gear, but they still had the same stupid expression. And Khalil Green had the same stupid expression. He was really not having spirit week that day. It was just, yeah. It was perfect. It was perfect.

It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen at a baseball stadium. And the category that nobody else, I guess, can draft from is, I don't know, scoreboard introduction faces? It's a rich vein that you just took off the table. Yeah, I think that's off the table. Same names are off the table, and Simpson's allegories are off the table. Ernie Short. The Giants do something like that.

I don't think they still do it, but there was one season where they would have this bumper between commercials and it would be kind of like the camera zooming in and out of Sergio Romo's face as he looked at the camera and maybe tossed a baseball up. It's not weird

until you put it into a gift form and just have it completely loop and just loop and loop. And you're looking at it. It's like, man, what, I mean, they had to do just takes and takes and takes of this stuff. And there was someone who had to sit down and, and watch all this and decide what the best 10 second snippet of looking into the camera awkwardly as the camera kind of zoomed in and stuff it's a it's a compelling genre yeah the yankees i remember a couple years ago i happened to go to yankee stadium and what they would do is they would have uh they would have every player and every coach on the team in order say appear on the scoreboard and say hello fans i'm alex rodriguez or whoever welcome to Yankee Stadium.

And it was the exact same line repeated like 35 times. You were just trying to figure out what they were going for. What is the lesson here? Because no artist does something without some intent. So whoever it was that came up with that idea was obviously trying to say something about either the fungibility of all man or perhaps the subtle differences that make us human or something like that,

but it was just the exact same line for like seven minutes. You and I witnessed that together. Yeah, we did. We shared a laugh. You and I and John Heyman, actually, although he doesn't know that. Did he have a butt for a face? I guess it could have been a statement on what the internet has done to our attention and how maybe you just need to be reminded,

this is Yankee Stadium, you guys, like 35 times in a row, just so you know where you are. Okay, I'm up. So the thing that I'm going to take, in different company would be a reach, I think. In this company, I'm surprised it's still on the board, frankly. And my thing is PitchFX. I'm taking PitchFX off the board because if not for PitchFX,

I would either not be writing about baseball or I would be writing poorly about baseball, I think. Or I would just be writing about why bat flips are bad at this point, I think, because I would just be totally out of ideas. And the scary thing is that, well, if you imagine, just imagine a world without PitchFX and how that would change our routines. And to put the fear of God into you, a world without PitchFX could very well be this world, for all we know. We have no guarantee that tomorrow we will still have access to PitchFX. I like to live my life as if every day is my last with access to PitchFX. I like to live my life as if every day is my last with access to PitchFX. The impotence that I would feel as an analyst if I were suddenly robbed of that resource is a frightening thing to contemplate.

When I was growing up, apparently, my mom thought that, I don't know if she was joking or not, but she thought that my future job would be a fire lookout in the woods because I guess I didn't get along with people. And I think that maybe if pitch effects were to go away, like you, I wouldn't know how to write about baseball anymore. So I think that might be the impetus to become, maybe we all become fire lookouts together. Not together, like you don't need four people looking in the same woods but we can communicate back to back south yes there's four directions right yes that's perfect so because i drafted

pitch fx i am the only one of us who is allowed to use it in future articles i guess now we have three fire lookouts i I mean, PitchFX is a must. I remember writing without embedding videos. Well, no, I don't remember, I should say. Being able to describe something with words, that's so archaic to be able to say, I don't even know how you start describing a home run. He clambered a huge dinger.

He clambered a huge dinger. I don't even know anymore. I can embed a video and just say, here. Unfurl home runs, if I recall correctly. I am a magic. I can take up you and here's a portal into the world of that home run. I'm magic. New media.

Watch this. And I can't write without it. Did you just draft embeddable videos? Was that your pick? No, I think it's kind of like pitch effects. It's something we can't do. Yeah, tools for research and writing is off the board.

That removes splits. I was thinking about choosing splits and or split finders, but now I can't. That's a broad interpretation of pitch effects, but okay. In 2004,

I had one of those Bill James books that had a bunch of statistics toward the end of it, like leaderboards. And I remember the Mariners had just signed Adrian Belcher at that point. I was really curious. really curious maybe this is whatever but uh some of the numbers in the back of the book were like batting average for the year on sliders and change-ups and fastballs and it blew my mind because i'd never seen that data before and i thought oh my god i have to have more of this and then like the next year when beltre was was not very good for the mariners and we all identified like

oh we swing into that low way slider stuff i remember i paid money to whoever the source was specifically so i could get like belt rays information on batting average against sliders as if that was that held the key to everything that i needed to know about adrian belcher and at the time it felt so true and i was so excited to be able to share that data with the internet, and now it's like I couldn't even pretend to look at those numbers and not identify all of the holes with it. If I have any issue with PitchFX,

it's that now we're expected to show our work, which is fine. I mean, it's good. Accountability is good. It's nice to know that somebody's not making things up. But I wish that you could just say, like, if you know that Adrian Beltre is bad against sliders, I wish you could just say that that's the case instead of having to have 17 graphs. I mean, baseball articles, you know, for as long as I've been reading them on the Internet, there's been this clash between ugly and informative.

It would kind of be cool if we could just say, oh no, I've seen the numbers guys, just trust me. But now everybody expects you to make a heat map and I don't know how to make a heat map. Everything takes so long. When we first started blogging, things would take 30 minutes or something and then you would just write. It was easy but now everything has to be so thoroughly researched so people don't call you on being wrong just so you know what you're talking about. It makes the process a lot more involved.

Blogging has completely changed. I'd let you guys do it, and then I'd just link to you. I'd just quote you, and if you say something interesting, and then I'd... I mean, I don't do any work. I don't know... I mean, it's funny how you... Sam, you said you liked my writing. I don't think you've read any of my writing. I don't do work. I like the memory liked my writing. I don't think you've read any of my writing. I don't do work. I like the memory of your writing.

All right. I promised that we wouldn't go too long earlier to one of the three of you, and so I think we just have to do one more round, if that's okay. No, we're doing the whole draft. We're not skipping the draft. Jesus.

Well, Jeff's the one I promised. Well, now I made time. All right. So I'll do my second. My second pick is radio commercials during radio baseball games. I love radio commercials. I've always loved them. I love that there's only seven.

And the season, I mean, if there's one thing you can say about a baseball season, it's that it is forever. And yet they only make seven commercials, and you get them all for the entire season. I love that, but what I really love about them is that there's this combination of a lot of the commercials are things that advertise nowhere else. I've never seen the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union marketing themselves anywhere but a ballgame. I've heard a million commercials on ballgames. And it's interesting that somewhere someone made the decision that this is where the whole budget goes. And alongside those tiny, tiny, tiny little things, you have Budweiser, tiny, tiny little things, you have like Budweiser, where like some, similarly, some guy decided that they would invest like $30 of their like multi-billion dollar advertising budget to advertise on these little radio spots. And it's the same when you look at like the minor league ballpark fences the the fences always have ads and it's like

chiropractor uh mike microsoft and i love that too like i just i love anywhere where the scale of the sport becomes absurd where like you realize like oh yes some of these people are making $25 million a year and nobody thinks anything of it. And some of them are just these tiny, tiny, tiny little parasites on the bottom of the sport trying to squeeze a couple of extra nickels out of it. So I had

one time Rev Halofan, who was the SB Nation blogger for the Angels, thought about sponsoring the post-game show on the Angels games, on the Angels radio game. It was going to be sponsored by Halo's Heaven, kind of a natural fit.

He called and asked how much it would cost. What do you think it costs to sponsor the post-game show for, let's say, the whole season? $10,000. Yeah, $1,050. Wow.

So when you think about how much effort goes into putting on these radio broadcasts for all of us and to get these few extra dollars here and there. The other thing I love about radio broadcasts is I love how even today, to this day, some radio broadcasts still give their post-game show guests the player who had the best

day you know like you have hanley ramirez on because you have the game winning double they still give him a gift certificate yeah for dinner for dinner to like a steak place or something like he's gonna use the 75 gift certificate and then's going to like argue because tax and tip aren't included so i just i just love any i mean i'm not a i'm not one of these people who's obsessed with the way you know like the oh the game's not how it was in my day or anything but i do love these little parts of the game where they stay small and they still kind of remind me of the way it was when i was i think my feelings about commercials on baseball radio broadcasts are kind of colored by my formative experiences with baseball radio, which mostly involved John Sterling and Yankees broadcast,

in which the game is indistinguishable from the commercials in a sense. Like every moment is sponsored by someone. Every sentence moment is sponsored by someone. Every sentence almost is sponsored by someone. So you will just slip in that sentence I just said was sponsored by someone whenever there's a break in the action. Or the 15th out was sponsored by Geico because they have a tenuous connection to the number 15 in their advertising campaign.

Yeah, yeah. And what do you think they pay for those? Like, what do you think Geico pays for that? I don't know. I don't either, but I love the fact, I mean, I love that Mike Trout, if you want Mike Trout to advertise your Subway sandwich or your Nike shoe, you probably have to pay him like, I don't know, at this point, $2 million, $3 million a year. But if you want him to advertise your credit union, he'll do it on the radio for like, I don't know, 750 bucks is my guess.

It seems like a market inefficiency. It does. It does. With radio commercials and baseball, because there were summers when I was going to school up in Oregon where that's all I had was radio. And I didn't have a television broadcast. And I hated radio commercials. Absolutely hated them. And it's because they have one sense to work with.

When you're watching a television ad, a commercial on TV, you are getting – they're trying to get you visually. They're trying to get you thinking. They're trying to get – you know, they're trying to put words in your ear, but they're also trying to show you visually. They're trying to get you thinking. They're trying to put words in your ear, but they're also trying to show you something. With radio, all they've got are the ears, and they want to make sure you listen. So it turns into something like surprise electronics. TV commercial would be, here's a talking aardvark for Fry's Electronics. Hi, I'm the aardvark. Here's what you can do with a Blu-ray player. Come to Fry's. And, you know, it'll make you think and possibly go to Fry's.

On the radio, it's, your best buys. Yeah. On the radio, it's, your best buys. Ah, okay. You know, you have no choice but to just, your ears start bleeding.

So I don't know if you can edit that quieter, but that's why I hate radio commercials. And that's what i think when you first said that it was just it kind of took me to a dark place i'm gonna make it louder so that people know what you're talking about took me to a dark place sorry about that who's who's up that's grant's yeah second pick grant all right second pick is uh let's see i like when baseball players get mentioned in the rap or the hip-hop lyrics oh yeah yeah i mean i did a piece on that that you didn't read probably once no i did it was it was like a power ranking of sort. Answering the questions of the day via hip-hop references, yeah. And I like that on an Earl Sweatshirt album song that Mac Miller uses the line, some dope rap on your hoe ass, Tony Womack.

Out of context, I love that that exists. out of context i love that that exists and you know it's not that's not a song i can necessarily quote at all you know i'm not trying to get street cred on the podcast circuit but just i like when you know the beastie boys you say sadaharu or or uh you know any anything else. I think there's a rapper who goes by Action Jackson, who, or Action, I'm sorry, Action Bronson, who, so he has a lyric that reads, suck my, and it's very offensive, and then he follows that, blank my MF blank, it's the young Randy Velarde.

All of that blank my MF blank. It's the young Randy Velarde. And I think that there's got to be a touch of self-awareness in there. So it's not completely ironically hilarious, but I just love that line. And I just I wish I had the talent to to rap because I would make a lot of songs with Randy Velarde references or comparable references therein. Am I up? Oh. You're up.

Okay, we're going to wipe the category reactive player expressions because I think one of my most cherished memories of all of baseball, this goes back to the 1995 American League Division Series when the Mariners came back and they beat the Yankees in Game 5. And after Edgar Martinez hits his game-winning double, the whole team is piling on Griffey at home plate because he scored the winning run. It's one of the last times Ken Griffey Jr. ever smiled. And they show this clip.

And it's a little weird to look at this clip of the Yankees dugout and see a young Derek Jeter there just staring at the celebration like, I'm going to be in 15 of these coming up. But you also, the camera just captures Paul O'Neill, and just captures Paul O'Neill walking toward the clubhouse, like, to leave the dugout to go to the clubhouse, and he's just staring

out at the field, just, like, with the saddest eyebrows, this side of, I don't know, Elliot Gold, and he's just walking, walking, and it just captures him and it just... Elliot Gold? Elliot Gold? Just go with the flow, Sam. Just go with the flow. Sorry.

I don't have a mental rolodex of men with sad eyebrows, except for this instance of, give me 10 minutes, I'll come back with one when Ben's drafting. And it just captures Paul O'Neill walking, but it doesn't just show him walking in front of his teammates. It just shows Paul O'Neill walking, but it doesn't just show him walking in front of his teammates. It just shows Paul O'Neill walking for like 10 consecutive seconds of him.

It's like the longest dugout in baseball, apparently, because it takes him 10 seconds. And it never shows him actually get to the door. Maybe it's like a loop of him just walking, but he's just staring at the field. And it's sad, Paul O'Neill. And the reason that this spoke to to me so much is for one thing i was like 10 years old and so i was i was uh already like beyond excited you're the kind of happy that only a kid can be happy about sports but what i understood about paul o'neill at the time also was that he was this uh total insufferable self-importantimportant whiner. And I don't know how true that actually is

because, again, I was a child and my impressions were biased by the fact that I was a complete idiot. But I know watching Paul O'Neill... He was a legitimate butt face. Yeah, he wore his emotions on his sleeve, one might charitably say, about the late Paul O'Neill.

I don't know why I said the late Paul O'Neill, but I guess it's possible. But it was just like in, maybe it was like 2009, 2008 or something, I remember the Red Sox were playing the Angels in the playoffs and I think it was J.D. Drew hit like

this super gut-wrenching home run off Francisco Rodriguez in the ninth inning and I hated Francisco Rodriguez because of his whole showy celebration. I hated the Angels because they're division rivals my favorite team and so I always hated Francisco Rodriguez and you always love when you see those players that you hate just like look the saddest they possibly can and I remember the broadcast on Fox went from this clip of like all the Red Sox going and slapping fives in the dugout and that cut the Francisco Rodriguez in the middle of the dugout head down all you saw was was the bill of his cap and he was just staring at the ground like a Charlie Brown scene for 10

seconds also and that was perfect juxtaposition so this is part Paul O'Neill and part Francisco Rodriguez I guess but it's just those moments Paul O'Neill is the most vivid memory I have of a player I hate just being super anguished on or near a baseball field. And I still love it to this day. Paul O'Neill has done nothing to me for 20 years, but I still love it to this day. Yeah, one of the one of this I think one of the harder things about watching baseball as an adult is that I know that to some degree, some guys do, but a lot of these guys don't actually care that much. Like they don't want to be embarrassed of course and they want to have a long career and make a lot of money but part of what makes them able to do their job well is that they have the sport more or less in perspective and very few of them i think live and die with these losses they know that there's

a billion of them and that they're going to play again next year uh and uh i like to imagine that they are um that they are as unhappy as i am or as happy as i am i think they probably do get as happy as we do but i don't think they ever get as unhappy as we do no no i think it's unlikely okay i'm going you're going at it keeping draft order straight okay so i'm gonna take the fact that field dimensions are different. That's going to be the thing that I draft. I think this is, I don't know if it's unique, but it's certainly one of the distinguishing characteristics about baseball. a charming thing turns out that that is less charming than we than we thought that is not an unalloyed good that that games could go on as long as as as players want to take because uh now they they do so but the the field dimensions thing i think has no no downside it seems like something that if baseball were designed from scratch today there's's no way that that would be part of it,

that field dimensions would not be standardized. The extremes in field dimensions in baseball history, be it the Baker Bowl or whatever it is, that just completely, completely changed the game, and everyone thought that that was okay, that the game was so malleable that you could just build a completely differently shaped ballpark because it was on a hill or something and you had to accommodate the geography of the area.

And so the game shifted to accommodate the geography instead of the geography shifting to accommodate the game, which seems crazy that that would happen. And it gives us, I think, a clear way to identify what game we are watching at all times. If you put on a game on TV, you know where that game is. I don't know whether that's as easy to do in other sports, which I don't watch really, but I guess that's what uniforms are for, maybe, so that you know who's... And like the logos on the field of the court. Yeah, there are ways that you could do that. And different color wood is a thing that basketball courts have, I understand.

But that and also the extra layer it adds in analysis, it's something that makes us sound smart that we can say that we park adjusted something. Even if we didn't actually do the adjustment ourself, we know that you have to park adjust. We're clued in enough to know that one has to do that. It gives you an air of authority, I think, when you say that you park adjusted. You're not just some rube using unadjusted stats. And that gives us a reason to justify our salaries, I think is one way that we justify it is that we take things like that into account. So yeah, fields being different dimensions is a great thing. In every draft, there's that

moment where you go, I wish I had that pick. And I'm sitting here with rap lyrics, and I'm looking over at the park dimensions, and what a sucker am I. The Mariners just traded for Kendris Morales. Yeah, they did.

Something we should all be... Breaking news from the past. No one's going to be writing about that, because we're all here. Talking about Randy Velarde. Grant, when's your big ballpark thing coming out? I've been waiting like nine months since you said you were going to design a ballpark. Oh, you know, I forget about it every time until you mention it the next time. I still have responses, and they're pretty good, and I will do something. It seems like an off-season thing. It was tethered

to I think an SI piece that I can't even remember the original piece that prompted the idea. But then my idea was to get ideas from baseball writers from around the internet about what would be in their ideal ballpark. And there were some serious answers, some silly answers. And it will be, it's my Chinese democracy and it will be as good. I promise you that. And see, because of different field dimensions, when you write your post on Kendris Morales, you will have to mention that probably. And you'll talk about how fences moved.

to mention that probably. And you'll talk about how fences moved and so that changed things also and it impacts different people's power in different ways and it gives us something to talk about which is nice. On that tip, Mark Normandin passes along this nugget of information. Can you guess the OPS of mariners' DHs? I bet I can guess the number it starts with, and the number would be a five. So it's since 2010. Oh, shit. Yeah, no, I haven't changed my mind.

Still five. That's post-Vedro, probably. Look, please, let's not have this be a Mariners. I do this to get away from them. I don't want this to be about them. Can we just please resume the draft? Don't answer the question that you brought up. 648. Why would you do that? What did I just say? What did I just say, Theo?

A 298 on base percentage and a 350 slugging percentage over five years. Something we've been debating recently is whether to continue with Corey Hart or Jesus Montero, to say nothing of option C, which would be, be please not either one of them now or forever. And so what they've done to address the issue is to pick up a DH who has been even worse in Kendris Morales who's not a good player. So this is... I'm listening to you craft your post live. This is exciting. Here's the part of it. Here's the start of it. The Mariners wanted to sign Kendrick Morales

and they didn't because he didn't really want to go there. And so he went to the Twins and then as soon as he signed with the Twins, he lost all control over where he would go. And so the Mariners basically waited for him to finish his spring training with the Twins, which is basically what playing with the Twins is. Then they traded for him. Now they get Kendrick Morales for two months. He's going to be better than Corey Hart and

Jesus Montero probably. He won't be good enough to make the Mariners make the playoffs. He's going to be better than Corey Hart and Jesus Montero probably. He won't be good enough to make the Mariners make the playoffs. It's going to be sad. He'll leave again. That'll be it. Done. Printed. Now I need to stretch it into 900 words in a gif.

In a what? Yeah. What did you say? All right. Well, sorry for making you go there, Jeff. I'll keep the draft going. My next pick is the Mariners 2005 draft. That's not true.

My last pick is GM predictions, GM's making predictions. And Ben does a piece every year on GM predictions, but those are public predictions. We can't trust them. I like the good faith predictions. And so Jerry Krasnick every year polls GMs on some of the hot topics of the day and asks them yes or no or where's this guy going to go. And I wrote a thing looking at all their predictions over the course of a decade and finding that they were basically no better than random chance. They add like all that expertise and knowledge adds like 2% to what a coin would give you. And I love this because it's very calming to me. I mean, it's so hard for us to predict baseball and when we're writing.

It's so hard to ever be right about anything that's going to happen more than 12 seconds from now. And so you feel like, oh, well, I'm just not doing my job well enough. I just don't have enough information. If I just read more and processed more and studied more and researched more. But in fact, more data gives you nothing. Even access gives you nothing. These are just impossible questions to answer. So real quick, Krasnick did this again last year, a year after I wrote my analysis. And so these are the seven questions he asked them. Where will Robinson Cano sign? 19 out of 21 GMs said the Yankees.

None said the Mariners. That is a big miss. Which Scott Boris outfielder, Ellsbury or Chu, will provide better value over the course of his deal? The majority said Chu. Chu is much worse. He is barely replacement level right now. That is a big miss.

Which of these starting pitchers do you like most? Garza, Santana, or Ubaldo Jimenez? All of them gave answers. That's a big miss. They all suck. Which former Yankees prospect, Hughes or Chamberlain, has a better chance of blossoming? They got that one right.

Everybody said Hughes. Which team will sign Tanaka? The large majority said the Dodgers uh which team will sign tanaka the large majority said the dodgers they they did not sign tanaka tanaka signed with the yankees if you're here for the baseball news um will the tampa bay raids trade uh will the tampa bay rays trade david price this winter 17 of 21 said yes he is still on the tampa bay rays and which aging pitcher has the most left in the tank halliday Hudson or Kuroda the majority said Kuroda they should have said Hudson

they were all wrong someone's if this alarm goes off I've spent too long on this podcast that's actually not what that alarm means but however by like tremendous coincidence it is what it means so we need to

sort of move, but we have like eight minutes left. Grant, go. Do it. What? Change the draft. The first round takes the longest. The second round goes fast.

The third round is just like a conference call. I take this guy. I take this guy. I take searching for players with dirty words on baseball reference. When you're supposed to be working and you just go to baseball reference and you just go like, well, maybe there's a player with Dong in his name. Then you search for Dong and actually there's several Koreans.

But there's also Tommy Dong. That's Tommy Dong he he was an independent league player he you know had a good eye i'm looking him up right now played for duluth he had a 390 on base percentage but no one gave tommy dong a chance i'm giving him that chance right now and he's from and there is a he's from erlangen, DE. And then there's a flag by it. What is it? Were you talking Denmark?

That's Germany, idiot. Why wouldn't it be like GR? Recognize the flag. We're in America. Yeah, that is a German flag. So Tommy Dong was born in 1972 in Germany. He graced us with a few seasons of any league ball. And now you can enter Dong into baseball reference and pull him up. A note, a project I always wanted to do

and never got around to when I was with SB Nation. It's not really fan groups material anymore. But when I was doing one of those searches, I found a guy named Louis Blows and I just wanted to write an artificial biography of the story of Louis Blows who never got above West Palm Beach in the Florida League with Montreal. He was a lefty. 5'11". I figured maybe he could

just be a lefty in the majors. Carve out a career. Never have to worry about money for the rest of his life. Then he was bad in the minor leagues. His name is Louis Blows. He would come from like a middle school into high school where he was just constantly disparaged and made fun of like, you're never going to accomplish anything, Louis Blows. Basically, the Frank Graham story, I guess. It just sucks across the board. But it really, I never did it for one thing because I never did it and also because SB Nation also has

John Boyes and there's no point in trying. Notgrass still exists for a little while longer. You could do that. Yeah, I don't have enough to write about. Actually, since I don't have enough to write about, I just have to write. For me, I think maybe the hardest thing about writing, and there's something like this for many jobs, but everyone is allowed to have off days because you can never be at your best. But when you write and you have an off day, you still have to publish your material for an audience. And so it's just, it's like, you can't just curl up in bed and be like, not today. You still have to write whatever a thousand words and have people judge you

for it because otherwise your bosses are like, why didn't you write? You can just start typing naughty words into Baseball Reference and make a post out of it. I work for a company that doesn't do that. No, you graph it. You graph it, Jeff. You know, the other day, it was so hot in Oregon for a stretch and it's never hot long enough to justify getting an air conditioner, but I wanted to get a new fan

and I genuinely could have used fan graphs to learn what kind of fan to look for to improve circulation through my apartment. And we have nothing, not a single one, not even like on-knot graphs I don't think. Do you ever write something and you had to write it, you had to work that day, so you write it and you're like, this has no particular value, and then you just choose not to tweet it? Is that a tell that you're having an off day? I've done that before, but I wrote something yesterday for today

that was about, I was going to go to the rock climbing gym I go to, and I had a time I was supposed to be there and I had planned at night but I still had to get like one more thing written and I was just running out of time the ideas weren't making sense so I had this little idea and I put a thousand words around it like some side benefit of like the Jeff Samarja trade and then I thought about and I thought well this doesn't matter why did I write about this it's going to get published on Fangraph so I'm not looking forward to the feedback on this one but I still wrote it and scheduled it and it's up there for the world to see hopefully it doesn't

see it i think there's some sense in it but it just it doesn't matter the whole piece doesn't matter yeah i i can't imagine anyone here having that feeling or not having that feeling i mean there's i can point to 100 articles that I wish were just completely deleted. And technically, I have the power to go back and delete them. Actually, technically, I have the power to go back and delete your pieces, by the way. I once wrote a piece on Irvin Santana that was like that, and nobody read it. And it delighted me that nobody read it. I thought, oh, no, this system works. The world has responded

to this piece that has no value by assigning a value to it. And every once in a while, I'll write something that I do like. And there will be this moment in the morning where I'm able to see how many views that piece is getting. And it's like, uh-oh, this could be close. A piece I like could actually supplant Irvin Santana at the bottom of my... But that never happened. So Irvin Santana is still my least read piece ever and probably my least valuable one. So the market works.

I'm going to look for it and tweet it right now. I think we all have the power to delete Grant's post. Do we not? McCovey Chronicles needs some sort of security consultant because we all have. Not just McCovey Chronicles. I have the SB Nation front page access still too. I think they neutered it. Well, what's the name

of the SB Nation front page these days? SB Nation. Oh, SBNation.com. All right, let's see about this. I got news for you. I'm not going to do anything. But you could. Oh, I think it's my turn to draft.

Just so you know, you guys, all three of you have editor privileges at McCovey Chronicles, and it's like Jerry Glanville leaving tickets for Elvis to every Falcons game. I figure any time you guys are just drunk at 3 in the morning, and you're like, I want to write about the Giants, but what kind of outlet do I have? You know, you all have an outlet, so you're all guest editors there. Yeah, you know what I miss writing about is Michael Morse and his double-D tits. Okay, so I'm going to... Okay, so the category I'm going to strip away with my draft. I think it's my pick now because Grant took baseball.

Your serious draft is a baseball reference. Dirty words. That's the worst feeling after you draft and someone goes serious. It's like when the Ottawa... It's so bad. Yes, it's a serious pick. Well, what was it? 20 years ago, the Ottawa Rough Riders and the CFL drafted a dead person. Do you remember that?

Oh, yeah. No, it's a dead person. I'm going to take away the category of off the field property disputes and i'm going to take the whole john oliver tree story uh i don't i assume that this you probably are aware of the john oliver tree story to some extent i remember i'll read you some lines an appraisal commissioned by the oliver said removing the tree would increase the value of their four4 million property by $255,000. The trees that belonged to the neighbors blocked 40% of what would otherwise be a 30-degree view of Lake Washington, Seattle, and the Olympic Mountains, John Olerud told the Board of Adjustment.

And his wife had a really nice house up on a hill. And they wanted their neighbors down the hill to remove one old tree of a rarer species than the one younger, one other tree of a less rare species. And the way that it was settled was that the old roads then just had to pay to have the trees removed. It cost like $130,000, which apparently trees are expensive to remove, which is interesting that the rainforest keeps disappearing. removed, which is interesting that the rainforest keeps disappearing. But I think that what strikes me about the story, I don't care about the off-the-field property dispute. I think it's fitting that it's John Olerud who had it, because I think you look at him and think that's the kind of guy who, when he's retired, is going to have an off-the-field property dispute. I think he just kind of has the face of a property disputer. But it also kind of instantly gives you some perspective of, oh right, for

a lot of these guys, especially guys who look like John Ulrich, when they retire, off the field they're exceptionally, extraordinarily boring people who just have the same stupid crap like they're spending their weekends replacing the gutters and like fertilizing or aerating the lawn. Just they go right back to being these people who aren't worth your time or attention they're actually kind of annoying uh within the neighborhood because they want a freaking view uh that tearing down trees paying a fortune to remove those trees but i think the the ultimate bigger message of this is that baseball players off the field are either irrational and kind of

stupid or they're just dreadfully boring. And so don't meet them is the point. Don't meet your heroes because they're stupid or boring. That's where Ricky Henderson used to be on the team with the property dispute. I was going to make that same joke. I was going to say that I like the story better where Ricky Henderson tells John Ulrich

that he once played with someone who had a property dispute about a tree. Apocryphal. He should have walked into the council meeting or whatever and like a tearful impassioned plea like, what if the tree branch falls on my head?

Look at me. I'm wearing a helmet. I'm at a city council meeting. What would happen if that tree branch fell on my head? My blood would be on your hands. At the first of two city hearings, at the first of two city hearings, Olerud decided Jesus' admonition to love your neighbor as a reason the bakers, the neighbors,

should give the Olerud family the same commanding view they enjoy. Love your neighbor. Remove your trees so that we can look at the view and, incidentally, your property as well. Not love your neighbor don't ask them to remove trees on their property This is some warping of Jesus's message here But as it happens it just showed up in the news this morning that Jeremy Bonderman now also has his own property dispute regarding landscaping and bushes that block a public access to the Columbia River. So I take property disputes.

Excellent. That's good. Okay. My last pick is going to be platoons. I like platoons. It's a fun word, first of all, platoon. But also it feels very resourceful that platoons are a thing it's like uh teams are saying that you know we we couldn't we couldn't get a guy who could hit from both sides of the

plate he just wasn't around we couldn't afford him but we're you know we're making the best of it we've got these two guys you put them together it takes twice as many roster spots, but you get the same sort of production out of them. It's a very, it's a frank acknowledgement of a player's lack of ability, I think, which I enjoy. I think teams are at the same time saying, we will pay you millions of dollars to play for our baseball team. you millions of dollars to play for our baseball team, but the second a guy who throws from the left side instead of the right side is on the mound, we want nothing to do with you anymore. So you are worth millions even though you are extremely limited in your abilities, which I guess you don't generally hear teams criticize their own players, but that in itself is kind of a criticism.

I guess implicitly anything that an employer does not ask you to do is a criticism. No one asks us to be the chairman of the Fed, for instance, so they're implicitly saying that they don't think that we'd be good at being the chairman of the Fed. But for baseball teams, you don't hear a lot of self-criticism, but platoons are sort of the same thing. It feels very efficient. Platoon players are sort of like found objects that you can put together in an artistic way, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and such.

So platoons, one of my favorite things about baseball. You have pitch fx you have ballpark dimensions and you have platoons it's a pretty strong draft yeah you clearly have the best team but then like halfway through the season platoons is going to get injured and the red socks is wacky beards on the waiver wire. And then what are you going to do? That's a strong draft. Platoons are, I mean, you don't really, I guess you have line changes kind of in hockey where you've got, you know, this guy is going to be your goon. Jeff has always liked hockey more than baseball,

so he can probably chime in on that. I think you're trying to insult me, but it's true. Hockey is a lot more fun. It's true for me. The hour or so I spend watching hockey per year is one of the most enjoyable hours of the year. I keep thinking I should spend more hours doing it, but I never do. My brother asked me about this. I'm going to cut off Grant's story real quick just to say. To clear the air, I guess, my brother asked me about this. I think I enjoy watching hockey more than baseball, but I enjoy thinking about baseball a lot more than thinking about this. I'm going to cut off Grant's story real quick just to say, to clear the air, I guess. My brother asked me about this, and I think I enjoy watching hockey more than baseball, but I enjoy thinking about baseball a lot more than thinking about hockey.

Thankfully, our job is to think about baseball more than it is to just sit and enjoy watching it. I don't think any of us enjoy it. It's a struggle for us to come up with three things. The Mariners haven't finished with a positive rent differential since I started blogging about them in 2004.

Wow. Wow is right. Yeah, I don't enjoy baseball either. I agree. I think that probably if this were a truly honest draft, I would only have one item, and that one item is that it provides an outlet whereby I get complimented by people.

That's it. That's why I do this. I would write about anything in the world if by doing so strangers sent me tweets that told me I was worth something. Particularly the people on this podcast. Those compliments come for a lot.

I retweet Sam and Ben. I don't retweet their favorite Grant. But you follow Grant. You don't even follow Ben. I get overwhelmed by Twitter because I have a terrible attention span and then the more that goes on on Twitter then the

harder it is for me to actually get work done so I would love to follow about 200 more people on Twitter but I just cannot do it I hate Twitter I hate Twitter I don't tweet so I'm a good person to follow I'm not going to clog up your timeline with tweets. You know what?

I'm going to do it right now. Oh, man. This is a banner day. I'm even going to give you one of my favorites. The day that Jeff followed me, I actually used my favorite fun fact in the world. I had basically been saving it for a special occasion. I sort of broke it over the hull of the ship and I used it right after because I wanted

to make a good impression and got a retweet. It's pretty exciting. Solid. Where is the follow button? How do you use Twitter? Found it. Ben's on the list. Now I need to unfollow somebody. I'm going to look for Grant's page. Alright, go.

Do you three get hate mail? No. I don't have my email address anywhere. Nobody can find it. All right. So they don't send it to the Jeffrey.Solt. They don't. They don't.

Because I do it always like. Because I. I get like things that tell me you know i'm a duty head stuff like that and i go out of my way to be mostly inoffensive and bland when it comes to my opinions and wishy-washy and stuff like that so it always catches me off guard when someone's just like you know you're the worst i get a lot of you're unfunny those Those are really perceptive, actually, because I'm not very funny. But I'll get some of those. But I just was curious if you three didn't, and you don't. And okay, I got that question. There are a few.

I mean, I was always warned about Fangraph's commenters, and they're by and large fine. But I know that I'm pretty thin-skinned, like probably most writers. was warned about like fangraphs commenters and they've they're by and large fine but uh you do i think i know that i'm pretty thin-skinned like probably most writers i am far too oversensitive to criticism and so if i get any i will curl up into a ball and write stupid crap like what i published this morning instead of things that are good and uh but hate mail isn't a thing there is annoying mail but less of it now that I don't write about a team so much instead of just all baseball because then you get the real crazies,

like the radio callers. They're not going to bother the national writers. You guys, I want to do this forever, but I can't. I actually have to go. So you guys can keep going if you want. No, I'm going to write about Kendrick Morales. All right. All right. So, Ben Ben read the promo and say goodbye

ok so please support our sponsor baseballreference.com 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 we'll be back next week

I suppose. Send us some emails at podcastatbaseballperspectives.com if you would like, and have a wonderful weekend. Can I draft baseballreference.com? The play index. You may draft the play index. I revoked my last draft, and I draft this episode. Should I call Grant first or Jeff first? Whom do you like more? I'm not going to say that when you could be recording.

I started recording just before I asked you, just in case I could entrap you. Do I sound better this time than last? You do. Much better. He doesn't have a microphone anymore, Ben. That's why. He's using the computer microphone Going raw

Plug in straight to the board As they say the music is Hi Hello Hi Jeff Yeah digging this chemistry Hi Jeff Wait what's the draft order oh yeah um I don't know anybody want to go first or are we snaking or are we linear

it's an important question because there are only so many things that we like about baseball so we might run out quickly it's true there's only three things I like about baseball, so we might run out quickly. There's only three things I like about baseball. They're very precise. I don't know. Fastest finger. That would be a terrible nickname for anybody.