Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 503: Listener Emails of Future Past

Episode Date: July 30, 2014

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about the trade deadline, draft strategy, five-strikeout innings, and more.

Shadows of the mountain, don't tell the world from our earth. The breadth and the height of an undiscovered first. Good morning and welcome to episode 503 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast for Baseball Prospectus presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, a writer for Grantland.com with Sam Miller, editor-in-chief of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Hi, Ben.

How are you? Okay. So congratulations to Ryan Webb, who won a game on a walk-off by Manny Machado. More importantly, finished the game. The win is immaterial. All that matters is that GF next to his name. That was his 86th career game finished. Somehow we neglected to mention that he finished a game last week. I was not notified. I don't know how that happened. Heads will roll, but he is up to 86. In Matt Albers' news, Matt Albers will throw a bullpen session this Friday, and reportedly, or according to him, his shoulder is feeling, quote, pretty good right now. So those are words

that would strike fear into Ryan Webb's heart. It's amazing how much the leaderboards changed this year. Webb started the year as just sort of something to mention so that the weirdo topic had a little bit of depth, but Albers was our guy. He was the champion. Webb was a distant thought, and now Webb has run away with it. i don't know if albers will ever catch him i mean especially uh you know well webb has the how okay ben here's here we can don't look

okay how old how old do you think ryan webb is i'm not totally sure I can get within four years. Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to say that Albers is older. I'm going to say that Webb is 29. And I'm going to say that Albers is 31. Those are both good guesses. I'll say 29 sounds right. I'll say 33 for Albers.

All right, let's find out. Ryan Webb is 28. He turned 28 this past February. Albers is 31. Ooh, I almost nailed it. I know my Webb and Albers. So that's the seventh win. I guess you'd call that a walk-off win?

Mm-hmm. That's the seventh walk-off win for Ryan Webb. We talked about their walk-off performances. I don't remember that. We've talked about them so many times. Who knows? Okay. So that was a good day.

Ryan Webb finished the game. Vin Scully's coming back for his 66th season in 2015, which is always welcome news. And also there was a little mini game that Clayton Kershaw played on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, like a William Tell exercise where Kershaw threw at an apple that was on top of Kimmel's head. And if Kimmel had listened to us the other day when we talked about pitcher's command

and how the average pitcher misses his target by close to 14 inches, he probably would have been more worried about having a baseball thrown at his head by Clayton 14 inches, he probably would have been more worried about having a baseball thrown at his head by Clayton Kershaw. And as it turned out, Clayton Kershaw did not hit the apple. He missed the apple a few times, and then he hit Kimmel in the head. First of all, I will just go on record as saying that I do not believe that that ball hurt Jimmy Kimmel at all.

I think that was a rubber baseball and they should be ashamed for acting as though it were at all realistically a baseball. But here's my question. That was probably what he was 15 feet away, 20 feet away? Yeah, and throwing

soft tossing. And aiming at a target yeah, throwing not as hard as he could and aiming at an apple on a man's hard as he as he could and uh and aiming at a apple on a man's head instead of a catcher who do you think is actually better at that at that challenge uh kershaw or you because kershaw really you could tell didn't really know how to do it like he yeah like he was sort of doing frustrated you know how he has that hitch in his motion like he couldn't sort of decide whether to do that or not. It was really funky and awkward.

He kind of looked like a right-hander throwing left-handed. I would take Kershaw over me in just about any life activity, but you might be right. His advantage is probably diminished in that instance, which is not his typical delivery and target. Okay, so this is the listener email show. Anything else you want to talk about before we get to some emails? Yeah, well, I would like to thank people who responded to the Independent League episode. We had responses from a current independent leaguer a the father

of a former independent leaguer uh a uh broadcaster in an independent league uh a broadcaster for the sonoma i believe sonoma stompers i'm going to double check this um and uh he invited me out and i'm going to go see the sonoma Stompers sometime soon. Thanks for that. Justin, the Plumber Pipefitter Union, do you want to talk about this now or is this going to be one of the emails? It was not. Yeah, go ahead. We talked about radio ads in episode 500 and how much I love them. In particular, I singled out the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union commercials because you never hear them advertised anywhere else. Justin is actually a member of a Pipefitters

Union, says, we found out a few years ago that the Sheet Metal Workers Union, our rival, was going to be broadcasting during Twins games, so we countered by doing local advertising during the NCAA basketball tournament. We had never advertised like that before and we haven't since, which is exactly what I love about union advertising, nowhere else. And so then you and I had the exact same question, which is why would the sheep man workers union be a rival of a pipe fitters union? Those are two different unions. They should be solidarity. And Justin explained that, well, okay, I'll try to explain it quickly. But basically, so Justin is not a pipe fitter or a sheet metal worker. He is a HVAC service technician. And so they're sort of rivals

because there are kind of people who don't quite fit into plumbing or sheet metal but could fit into either. So for HVAC, pipe fitters do gas and water piping when used for heating, cooling, and refrigeration purposes. So logically, the guys who work on the machines that the piping is connected to should be in their union. However, sheet metal workers make the ductwork that is also connected to heating and cooling units. Therefore, we could be in their union as well." There's bickering over which laborers will fit into which members. Now we know a lot more about plumbing, pipe fitting, and sheet metal unions. I am very grateful to Justin.

This is a top five email, I would say, that shows history. Yeah, I was excited too. I've long wondered about that since my childhood, listening to WFAN and hearing those ads and wondering what a sprinkler fitter was, which is also something Justin told us. Yeah, he says that there are sprinkler fitters who only work on fire sprinkler systems.

And he says, in most big cities, we are in different local unions. On a national level, the three unions organize and negotiate together. So in a big picture kind of a thing, they are allies. He then adds, but not the tinners. Screw them. I think Justin's email was really an ad masquerading as an email. We just advertised for the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union. Can we just, I don't know how Sean Foreman would feel about this, but what if we just started doing Plumbers and Pipefitters Union ads

in the second half of the show? We wouldn't even charge them. Yeah, sure. Do it for free. All right. So other listener emails. Let's start with Chad, who asks, which will happen first in Major League

Baseball, a batter with a five homer game or a pitcher with a five strikeout inning? Oh, that came in like 10 seconds after Zach Granke had struck out four in an inning, and the fourth one was also in the dirt and required a throw from the catcher, and it wasn't really in doubt at any point. It wasn't a close play. However, if the throw had gotten away, I'd say there was probably a 1-in-12 chance. I mean, it did require a throw. It wasn't a tag.

So maybe a 1-in-12 chance that he gets thrown away, and then maybe a 1-in-3-ish chance at that point that he strikes out the next day. So we got reasonably... That actually might be the closest baseball has ever gotten. It won't be remembered, but that might be the closest Major League Baseball has ever gotten to the five-strike out inning. We don't know.

And that does seem like the more like, does it seem like the more likely? I mean, it's, you could, one could figure, yeah, right. One could figure out the probabilities involved and have an actual answer. Maybe someone will want to do that. But yeah, it's more likely that that will happen than it used to be, whereas it's not really more likely that a five homer game will happen. But if I told you, the thing is that most guys who hit four homers, so I don't know how many four-strikeout games there have been, or four-strikeout innings.

Do you know how many four-strikeout games there have been. Or four-strikeout innings. Do you know how many four-strikeout innings? Let's say that they're somewhat comparable. I'm going to... Actually, I'll know. No, I won't. 32.

32 in the American League. 32 in the American League, and then 40 in the National League. So 72. And then there's been like a dozen or 16 four-strikeout, four-homer games. Yeah. So... The thing is, though, that most guys who hit four homers have a fifth at bat in that game. And some of them occasionally will have a fifth at bat even after.

And yet... But the four-strikeout guys, they almost never get to, like, it's very hard to then get a fifth batter in that inning. Like, I doubt anybody's ever struck out four and then faced another batter. I would just go out on a limb and say that nobody's ever faced a fifth batter after striking out the first four. So it's not exactly like they have the same chances. It's really hard. How many strikeouts?

There are so many strikeouts, Ben, that, what was I saying? I forget. Oh, yeah, there are a lot of strikeouts. However, how many dropped third strike batter reaches are there? There's probably a hundredth as many as there are home runs and so i don't know that the math is actually that simple like most times when a guy strikes out four strikeouts uh in an inning there's no avenue for expanding that um it's almost impossible you have to it's basically what are the odds of two things happening one of the things happening is

two dropped third strikes in five batters and the other is pitcher striking out all five batters although of course an inning can go more than five batters but like how many innings do you even think there are where there are two dropped third strike that might actually be the better comparison how how i wonder if there have been more innings in which there have been two or more dropped third strikes with the batter reaching than there have been you know four home run games because those don't happen very often no which would you rather see oh it's stupid five home runs yeah yeah um okay next question is from mike with jeffeur and Jason Lane now on the Padres roster.

Could they effectively and strategically use both guys as both pitchers and outfielders? Isn't having a reliever with the ability to play a defensive replacement level outfield to facilitate late game matchups a strategy that has been underemployed? I can see an athletic guy like Drew Storen pitching to right-handed batters and then able to hold his own in the outfield for a left-handed batter or two before he comes back into pitch. Wouldn't this add value and differentiate many of the middle to late inning relievers?

So this is a thing that happens every now and then. It's rare. This is Rob Neier's favorite thing, right? The Waxahachie swap, the Paul Richards technique that has happened recently. I think Rob has documented every known instance of this or every instance of this and there have been some fairly recently and it and it makes some some statistical sense and and sure if you have francor and lane who were obviously able to play outfield then you would want to do that but i guess i guess you'd you'd need to neither of them is a specialist, right?

A reliever that you would necessarily want to play matchups that much with. It's not like having a loogie or a roogie who can also play outfield. At least I don't think. I don't know about their splits. I haven't looked at their splits. But that would make it more valuable. But I guess if you, if you bring them in and you want them to, to face some, some righties, then, then they'd be among the best people to do it or the most capable of doing it. You wouldn't have to worry about them totally flubbing a fly ball. So sure. Neither one adds enough with the bat or the glove uh sorry yeah neither one adds enough

with the bat or the glove that you particularly want to keep you know neither one is a good pitcher either like they're not good is the problem right they don't actually have they have a broad based bad skill set yeah it's like oh we've we've we've found a way to get more jeffrey and corinne jason in the game like we never have to take them out they're terrible at everything they do but they can now be 70 of our team's action like that's the problem with both of those guys like you would actually like to pinch hit for them put in defensive replacements for them, and bring in relievers for them at any point that they're active in the game. So that's part of the issue, although it is tempting.

Okay, next question from... I'm watching a video while you were reading that. I was watching a video of Joey Gallo hit a grand slam out of the stadium. Like he hit it out of the stadium. And this is, I think this goes to my point this was linked on a blog a well-read blog i imagine that i'm going to see retweets of it and my point about home run highlights and home runs in general is that they're actually very rarely aesthetically pleasing there it's fun to see them the swing because you know the ball goes a long way but

the actual sight of the ball traveling is often not that satisfying. Like you have a hard time picking it up. They're crazy misleading. Like a lot of times, like a ball down the line that goes 430 looks like it's gone to Jupiter. And, you know, a ball to dead center or to right center might go 480. And yet you don't quite have a great scale for where it is. And, you know, a lot, a lot, a lot of time you don't even see the ball land. You don't really know.

And then furthermore, there's a lot of fly balls to shallow left that look pretty amazing if you don't cut because you don't sort of realize that it's off the end of the bat or the handle or whatever. So I find it to be a little bit of your brain is priming itself to be impressed by a thing that it isn't actually capable of comprehending that well. So this Joey Gallo home run, which like I said, I expect I will see tweeted multiple times in my timeline. And it's an MILB.TV video, so you can imagine how good it is. video so you can imagine how good it is you basically see a swing and then you hear an announcer kind of freak out and then you see like uh the camera pulls up enough for you to see the center fielder and that's it that's the entire and then it sort of shakes around like it's like where

did it go and then you see gallo running around you at no point are you aware for sure that there's a baseball in this picture uh and you certainly don't have any sense of how far it traveled. And yet people are going to act like this is a worthwhile thing to watch, Ben. This is my point about home runs. We've got to get Gallo in HD. He's got to be rescued from MILB TV because he hit like 15 balls out of target field during batting practice before the Futures game. We need to see this more joey gallo home runs once we can see where they go i think you will be entertained

i would say draftable that a joey gallo home run would be something that i would draft yeah sure uh okay question i have no by the way i have no idea whether this ball went to right field, center field, or left field. Can't tell from this one. Wait, Gallo, probably right center, it looks like. Can you send me this highlight? Yeah. All right. Okay, next question from Paul.

You spoke about contenders last week, and given the time of year, most teams should have an idea where they stand. What do a team's playoff odds have to be in order to consider themselves a contender? Is it as easy as saying that if current playoff odds plus the marginal projected odds gained after making their one, two, three, four, or five deals, whichever you prescribed last week, to improve is greater than 50%, you are a buyer, and if less than 50%, are a seller do you consider this to be an appropriate gauge or should the 50 threshold be adjusted down if teams value the wild card game less than division series are playoff odds the best measure of contenderness huh it'd be nice if we knew the playoff odds for each team for the next year and the year after because what

you really want to know is does the the move uh increase your playoff odds more this year than it hurts them next year right and and probably with some discount for next year because next year might never come uh we might all be you know in a pile of smoke by then. But you don't. You don't actually. That's the thing that we're really guessing on. It's kind of funny because we try to do these analyses of the team's needs and we have with pretty good precision, we know what their next two months are and then we go through this very elaborate math to try to figure out what their next eight years are going

to look like when really we have absolutely no idea like beyond beyond a year or two from now we have no idea like even even like 2017 i don't feel that confident saying that the astros and the cubs are going to be great like i feel pretty you know pretty good saying some of those players are going to develop but you know it's we know much less than we think we do once we go a few years out. I would say, though, that I feel pretty good about a team doing something at 30%. It sort of depends on where they are in the cycle and various things. Depends on how much of the playoff odds is division odds and how much is wild card odds. Yeah, exactly.

But 30% feels like a team that's worth watching. Yeah. Our friend of the podcast and listener to the podcast, Michael Bauman, wrote a thing for Grantland the other day, a blog post applying economic theory to MLB trade deadline decision-making where he came up with an equation that teams should use to decide whether they should make a move at the deadline or not. And it was all theoretical.

He didn't run through the actual math so much. Or he sort of did. He did one example. But he had all these variables like contender status. And you assign it a number. And then you figure out what the future contender status. And all these sort of unknowns and assumptions that you make there. So teams maybe run through some sort of version of those things or not.

Maybe they just kind of go with their gut about these things. I don't know how rigorous the process is by which teams decide whether they are buyers or sellers, whether it's kind of a feel thing or whether they actually run the numbers. Probably depends a lot on the GM. And it probably depends on the GM's life cycle to some degree too, because I'm looking at this right now and you have the, I said 30% and 30% would be 12 teams right now. And I think that all of these teams should rightly consider themselves in it. Tell me if you disagree, but the Orioles, the Blue Jays, the Tigers, the A's, the Angels, the Nationals, the Braves, the Brewers, the Cardinals, the Pirates, the Dodgers, the Giants.

All those teams seem completely in it. Not all of them are looking as aggressively to buy, but all of those teams would make sense as a buyer and certainly aren't you know anything like seller right those are 12 good teams so then that kicks out probably three teams that are currently currently see themselves maybe as buyers the the yankees the royals and the mariners who are all between about 18% and 22%. And I think that those are tough calls for all of them. But two of them have GMs who are wobbly chair, right?

And so it could be that that's a part of the math. I mean, you look at the Royals. Nobody's talking about the Indians as buyers. The Indians have slightly better playoff odds than the Royals. No wobbly chair. And nobody's talking about the Rays as potential buyers, although they've come off of their selling. And they're pretty much right there with the Mariners, more or less. So especially with, let me see, yeah, especially, actually with adjusted playoff odds, which gives you basically a 50, only about half the value

for the wildcard win because you have to flip that coin. Then Rays actually have identical to the Mariners, basically adjusted playoff odds. And so one team wants David Price and the other team's going to sell David Price. So maybe that's what, maybe that's the wobbly chair in action.

Yeah, that could be. I have watched the Joey Gallo Grand Slam. I think it's clear that he pulled it. I think you can tell from the initial trajectory of the ball and the direction that he's looking that he hit it to right field. But you're right, as soon as the ball exits the frame, that's the end of that. The camera work is non-existent, essentially.

You just see part of the diamond the whole time. I just got an article idea, Ben. Good. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I just got one. It's going to be good. It's going to be a hit. It's always a nice feeling.

All right. I'm typing it to myself um okay it's gonna be good i can't wait all right oh i'm envious okay uh this question comes from andrew p my question is about dan ugla so as grant brisby has already posited multiple times dan ugla has been so bad that the braves are paying him a lot of money to play elsewhere. That is that's clearly the case. The Giants signed him to a minor league deal, which was much heralded by the fan base as a no risk option to which Grant and many other writers cried foul. As Dan Ugla can, in fact, be worse than what they've got now.

And the Giants have a habit of letting such players do so. Lo and behold, due to injuries, they called him up and he was predictably horrible. What I found interesting was that in every interview I heard, they claimed that the real plan was to let him work out his kinks in the minor leagues for roughly 10 days, see his opt-out clause on August 1st before promoting him. My question is, does this rationale hold any water at all? What could the Giants have found in his swing that could be rectified in one week in AAA that can't be rectified in the majors? If this is impossible, then why sign Ugla at all? Is this purely an FU to the fans who wanted Dan Ugla, i.e. you want this guy?

Fine. You see how bad he is? Are the Giants just flailing around wildly in hopes that something might stick? Any insight would be great. Andrew also offers to attend an independent league baseball game with you sometime uh so yeah this is this is flailing around wildly right that's all that's all it is it's it's joe panic is playing second base and marco scudero is is not himself and is hurt and and you signed dan Ugla because you've heard of him and because he's there and because he's been good at points in the past.

And I don't know, Sabian likes to bring in veterans and every now and then they occasionally do something crazy. Yeah, I mean this is like 96% of the same DNA as the Pat Burrell acquisition, right? Right. If Pat Burrell is 100 on the Pat Burrell Plus acquisition scale, then Uglo would be like 92, 94. He's not quite there, but he was worse for a little longer, and people hate him more, I guess. But basically, this is what Burrell, I mean, okay, so Burrell, so Ugla basically was pretty good in 2012.

You know, he led the league in walks, which is a weird thing. Probably people don't really remember that. But two years ago, in the same league as Joey Votto, Dan Ugla hit.220 with the league lead in walks. And then he was really bad last year, and everything collapsed. But he still drew a lot of walks. He hit 22 home runs. His BABF went bananas.

And he had a.671 OPS. And he had a 671 OPS. And then this year it got worse. He finally got waived with a 472 OPS. So then Pat Burrell, pretty good with the Phillies in 2008. Really good. Pretty good. Signs a two-year deal with the Rays, which made everybody like Pat Burrell because the Rays don't sign no junk.

He immediately sucks. Hits 221, draws some walks, hits 14 homers,.682 OPS. Next year, even worse,.625 OPS. Terrible, terrible, awful. They get rid of him after only 96 played appearances. The Giants get him. He's a total hero for him. He even has to stand in the field, and he's still a total hero for him. He was good down the stretch. People liked him. He's a scout now. Everything good came out of that. So, yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you get Dan Ugly? I mean, sure, he could be worse than Joe Panik. And Joe Panik could be worse than Joe Panik. Like, it's could be worse than Joe Panic. It's hard to say that in three weeks the actual worst case scenario

is predictable or was able to be anticipated. I mean, yeah, Dan Ugla could have his worst three weeks of his life. But he's not on it. I feel pretty confident. I feel very confident, in fact, that Pocota likes Dan Ugla more than it likes Joe Panik. And Brandon Hicks. Yeah, I just looked that up while you were talking.

Ugla's preseason projection coming into this year was 272 true average, an above average hitter. Panik's, right now, his projection is 238. So that's a big difference. Right now his projection is 238 So that's a big difference I don't think that anyone would subscribe to the UGLA projection But at the same time we've talked about how people are not necessarily that good At outperforming projection systems So who knows

And Brandon Hicks, 235 true average, 237 projected Better fielder, clearly, but still. All right, this question comes from Miles. Let's say there is a player who has just called up to the big leagues for the first time at age 30. He is a strict first baseman. How many consecutive home runs would he have to start his career with to be considered the best baseball player of all time?

Let's assume lightning strikes him after his first out rendering him lame but not dead i'm not that cruel what ben what is this question so all he ever did was hit the home runs and make a single out guy guy comes up at age 30 how many home runs in a row does he have to hit wait why did he that's a good question why did he make the out uh i think he's saying that once he does the out is that uh after he makes the out lightning strikes him and he never plays again so he's hitting consecutive home runs until he yes so after his first out okay so yes so i thought that he made an out in his first at bat and then lightning struck him and made him good

but i also don't know why he has to make an out why couldn't he just have lightning strike him um at any point like yeah sure let's say he never makes it i not going to get hung up on that. So the record is, what, four home runs and four consecutive plate appearances. There was a – yeah, I think so. Five. Is it? I don't think it is. Really? There was a Diamondbacks minor leaguer who hit five in five consecutive at-bats this year.

And I don't think that i think that's that's never been done in the majors um incredible yeah it's surprising so everyone so everyone who's yeah so right yeah so uh carlos gonzalez hit four in a row in 2012 and yeah no one's no one's improved upon that so um so that's not really all that relevant. It's not like he's going to be considered the best player ever if he does do it five times. Nope, by law. By law, if he does five, he's the best to ever live.

If he does that and his first out is someone's fifth strikeout in an inning, then he's the best player ever. All right, so there's... I guess there's two questions here. I almost hesitate to say this, but there's the realistic answer and the non-realistic answer. The realistic answer is, like,

if he did, say, I would say 17 and then Lightning Strike, I would say that his legend would be strong enough that people would say it for 100 years. They would talk about him as the greatest ever, but oh, but for it got cut short. I don't think he has to go to 17 to get that status no i think i think i mean it's not it's no one's no one's ever gotten past

four ever and this guy is coming out of nowhere um so i i think i know but he's a 30 year old rookie if he doubles it i think he just has to double i think if he does it eight but he's a 30-year-old rookie. If he doubles it, I think he just has to double. I think if he doubles it eight times. He's a 30-year-old rookie. You think if he hits eight in a row and then disappears forever, people are going to say, well, he probably was better than Babe Ruth, but we'll never know. No, I think his legend will live on forever.

That's what you were saying, right? But no, I don't think anyone will. I'm not saying that people would talk about it. I'm saying somebody somewhere, I would say at least 12% of baseball fans would say in seriousness that he either was or would have been the greatest of all time except for the lightning strike. I think it depends on his origin story. If he's Toe Nash, that's one thing. If he's Steve Tolles nash that's one thing yeah if he's steve tollison that's

another right why why was he not called up until age 30 was he languishing in triple a for years or did he just get spotted by a scout and show up at a tri-op camp and well the question the i think the question is trying to steer us toward he was unaccomplished and unexciting before this happens. Because by saying he is a strict first baseman, I think, I mean, that obviously isn't actually relevant. We're talking about a guy who's only going to play for like seven or eight games. So who cares? I think Miles included that detail because he doesn't want us thinking that this guy is otherwise, that you can make a case for him otherwise. Like the entirety of his accomplishment is in this thing that happened once.

And I think that if he... So to me, seven, we forget about it. We don't forget about him, but he's just another one of those baseball things. So seven doesn't get me too excited. I think double digits it's going to be. I already gave you my answer. Why am I talking? 17. So that's the realistic. The unrealistic where analysts, where like you

might convince Jay Jaffe that he's one of the greatest of all time. That might be, probably probably not that much more but 45 um sure yeah it's really it's well yeah maybe if there's if there's a mechanical change that explains this right that would that would help right because if if uh i mean it would take a long time for me to ignore several seasons of undistinguished stuff in the minors and him coming up. But if he suddenly had some sort of like Jose Bautista-like explanation for how he did this. You really think a guy's going to hit even 10 in a row and they're not going to find an explanation for you? They have an explanation for everything. If a guy goes three for four in spring training, they have an explanation. There will be a narrative. You don't need to worry about

lack of narratives about this guy. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So, yeah, I'll say 25. Okay. Okay. Wait, 20. Okay. Good. Good answer. Thank you. Okay, good answer. Thank you. Want to do play index? Sure. This one, I kind of... Well, you'll see. So I saw a stat today on some Twitter account run by MLB.

Seems like they have a lot of them at this point. And one of them tweeted a fun fact that Craig Kimbrell has 18 appearances in his career, 18 saves in his career where he faced three batters and struck out all three. This is, I believe, known as the Kimbrell in some circles. And he has 18 of them, which is the most in major league history. Like, Craig Kimbrell is like 25. And he already has a record in accounting stat. I guess he's 26, and he already has a record in accounting stat. And it just blew my mind to think that there's a guy who's 26 and has a record, even a very specific 2014 Fun Fact style record, already.

And so I started thinking, and he actually has the record by a lot. Number two is 14, I think. So I started trying to figure out if anybody else has a record that's that young, who is that young, has already set a record. And so obviously we know that, like, for instance, rate stats are easy.

There's somebody right now has the best strikeout rate rate in history for a reliever, for instance. I'm not talking about rate stats. I'm talking counting. I'm not talking Mike Trout has the best stolen base success rate in history. That's a rate stat. I'm not talking anything that is single season. I'm not talking anything that is most X without Y. I'm just talking you count the things and there's more than anybody in history has ever done.

And so here's the problem with this play index idea I had. It was an hour of me running queries and getting none for the most part. I found two, two that are kind of useful. It also, ideally, it was going to be a positive thing. So I found two that are arguably these things. But I thought that while you have me, I have Play Index in front of me. Would you have an idea for one that might happen, and I could run it real quick

and see who the record holder is, if it's somebody young? Somebody young and active? young somebody young and active it would i'm trying to think of things that have changed in the modern game as much as strikeout rate has yeah um i did that too but i also since i did this for an hour i did everything uh by the way this is not one because randy chote is 38 but i learned that randy chote has the record for most appearances in which he hit every batter he faced. Nobody in history has had more appearances than Randy Choate's six appearances in which all batters he faced were hit. That's a good one.

Yeah, it seems like they're – so that's obviously – that's a corollary to the strikeout great thing, the short relief appearance thing. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like most appearances facing one batter with fewer than an inning pitched or something. Yeah, unfortunately, Mike Myers has every one of those. He has the most one batter appearances.

He has the most no out appearances. He has the most appearances in which he struck out every batter he faced. He has the most appearances where he walked every batter he faced. He has the most appearances where he allowed a home run to every batter he faced. Mike Myers has a billion one out, one batter it turns out uh-huh uh i don't know you don't know you can't you don't have even one that you want me to run in real time that was kind of one but you already but i ran it i ran it yeah i've already done sorry think of one more and i'll pretend i haven't already done it

how can i think an hour of you thinking in in a minute um what else has changed uh nothing all right all right well here's the two i found both of them are are barely things okay if the kimbrough is a thing then these can be things but they're barely things. But if the Kimbrel is a thing, then these can be things. But they're barely things. They're almost the exact same thing, too. Matt Moore has the most ever five-and-a-third-inning scoreless starts. With three.

Nobody's ever thrown more. And Scott Casimir has the most ever six inning scoreless start like i said same thing uh casimir though that's uh that's that as you know from my box score thing that's a part of the time there's a lot more really good six inning starts that was one of the things that when i was looking up every box score earlier this year to see which pitching lines were new had never never been done before, I knew to zero in on six inning good appearances, particularly high strikeout, low walk appearances. Because these are all outings that would have earned the pitcher a seventh, eighth, even ninth inning in every previous generation. But these days, you go six.

And a lot of times they say thanks for the effort. That was great. So, Kazimir has 14 of those. 14 six-inning no-run starts in his career. Nobody else in history has more than three. Kazimir is, I think, 28 right now, 29 maybe. So, that's another one. That's a record.

Oh, he's actually 30. Turned 30 this year. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if you have any ideas for possible records, let us know. No ideas, no ideas. I'm not running these for you. Do not play Index.

Absolutely not. $30, BP, promo code BP, $30. And if you find a good one, we'll forget to mention it. Right. Okay. Question from Brandon. I was thinking a little bit about spending in the MLB draft. Could you envision a scenario, even one that's borderline slash completely hypothetical, where a team would be willing to intentionally overspend its draft spending limit and take on the consequences for doing so. I imagine such a thing wouldn't be practical in real life

or would require a perfect storm of factors that would make it worthwhile. A few factors I'm thinking of off the top of my head. A team would need to be in a worst-to-first situation where they're drafting in the top 10 because of a bad previous season but will be drafting in the 20s the next season and likely for seasons to come. That's a good one. The future year's picks could then be seen as expendable if they find the right players this year.

A team would be banking on signing a big-name free agent or two or more in consecutive seasons. And since they'll already be forfeiting their top picks because of overspending the limits, they would only have to forfeit a third-round pick. A team would have to identify at least three first round level talents in one draft and be able to acquire them in the later rounds to make up for picks lost in future years. This would require an ideal situation where talented players drop and then

keep dropping when teams realize they can't meet their contract demands. The only way I could really see this happening is if certain players start falling a team in a situation like this notices and then decides on the spot to execute the plan plus since prospects will break your heart it's too risky to really go beyond all in and forfeit so many future picks there are probably too many factors to make it work but it's a fun thought experiment would love to hear your thoughts so um so the indians did this. They exceeded their bonus pool. And so the thing about the penalties is that they're progressive. So the more you go over it, the more it costs you. So you could certainly, and it's good that they did that,

because you could absolutely imagine scenarios where, like in this year, it's such a deep draft that you could say that there are three or more. I would say there probably were even more than three first-round talents that dropped past the 10th round. That if you really wanted to just say nuts to it all, this is going to be the year, you could easily get enough first-round draft picks this year to make up for losing a couple next year or whatever.

The problem is that the more you go over, the more it costs you. So the penalties are, as such, 0% to 5% over your bonus pool. You pay a tax on the overage, which is nothing. Every team should do this every year, right? A 75% tax on the overage. right a 75 percent tax on the overage there's no there's no way that you're not getting uh yeah discount on on draft players those guys are all should be paid more than 75 percent more than you're only paying 75 on the overage so if you go over by 300 000 you're paying 200 000 like that seems like a pretty good way to break the rules.

I'm surprised more teams don't do that. Russell and I talked to Kylie about how the Yankees totally blew up their international spending draft this year. The penalties for that were pretty severe, and this seems like it would be a much better move. So the Astros, for instance, could have gone over by 600,000 this year without going over 5%. And it sort of feels like, I don't know,

that wouldn't have been enough. 600,000 wouldn't have been enough to get Mac Marshall. But I'm surprised that they didn't seem to be intending to get Mac Marshall all along. Like Mac Marshall was a backup for, blanking on his name the other guy the fifth round guy uh jacob nicks yeah jacob nicks um but uh it seems like with that 600,000 to play with um probably would have been worth kind of exploring things with him all along but

uh yeah i would gladly go five percent over all right anyway the next uh the next tier is uh five to ten percent you pay the tax and you forfeit a number one pick and of course we know that if you at a certain point you're losing two picks because that's what the astros uh would theoretically be in danger of losing if Major League Baseball forced them to honor their Knicks contract. So those are, yeah, I don't have much to add besides the email and the fact that I could read a couple of rules out loud, everybody. Yep, that's good. All right, last one from Robert. Usually in Pasadena, but tonight in stormy Chicago, to Sam and the Pickler.

That's a callback to my pickling days. Two questions. The first one, are questions that are asked on Mondays or Tuesdays more likely to make it into Wednesday's show than questions asked on Thursdays or Fridays? I'm sure I'm not the only listener who's idly answered this, wondered this, and I would say no. I think probably the opposite, but not a huge difference. It doesn't really matter. I think that we're, I mean, I don't know. A lot of times we don't read any of them until the day of.

I at least glance at every one when it initially comes in. Yeah, I used to. I used to and I still do a lot. But a lot, sometimes I don't. So it goes both ways. But I do like to have time to think of them and think about them.

And there are a lot of questions that we get that I'm not really ready to answer in an hour, but I would be after a few days. And those ones, if they come in on Tuesday, they don't have much chance. And on Thursday they do. Yeah, we got a lot of questions that are good questions, but that even after a week I wouldn't be prepared to answer because they just require a lot of research that we don't have time to do

for an answer on a listener email show. But nothing really slips through the cracks, at least. Before we answer on a listener email show but but i none nothing really slips through the cracks at least before we start recording the listener email show i go back and look at every email from from the previous week since the last week's show so so i see it at least uh and then robert's real question is is a home run from a player you're absurdly overpaying like a bj upton or an ug, worth more than a home run from a surprisingly well-performing rookie who is making the minimum and delivering plenty of bang for the buck?

I ask because recently when Chris Young actually hit a home run for my Mets, I felt a brief reprieve, as in, oh, at least he's a little less of a disappointment for $7 million than he was before the homer. That got me thinking, is there a difference? Is a homer simply a homer? Or is there more value for a team to get value from players they've paid more for? So I guess we could talk about it

in terms of psychological value as well as value for the team. The money is already spent. So unless you're, I guess, trying to trade the guy, in that case... Which you might be. Yeah, trying to trade the guy in that case. Which you might be. Yeah, you might be. So sure.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I was going to say you're more likely, but you're actually maybe not more likely than a young player. Young players get traded. I think that as a fan, I would rather see a home run from the overpaid guy because he's overpaid for a reason. He used to be good and uh you're thinking is this home run um uh foretelling some good things in the future

and you know that he's got he's got a good history in his past so like if dan ugla hits two home runs tonight for instance i'm going to be much more convinced that he's going to have a Pat Burrell type summer than if Brandon Hicks hits two home runs tonight, because I never thought Brandon Hicks was ever going to be good or will be. However, probably for that reason, the answer is probably the opposite. It seems like it's much more likely to buy a player who's not going to be good a longer stay if he already has money invested in him. Teams aren't super great about walking away from players they are currently paying money to. And if it makes you more likely to put a terrible Dan Uggla into the lineup for too long, then you would ever be likely to put a terrible Dan Ugla into the lineup for too long than you would ever be likely to put a terrible Brandon Hicks

or a terrible Joe Panik into the lineup, then it could actually be bad for the team. So probably that's probably the answer. Yeah, good answer. Okay, so that's it for today. We just got a promising cricket-related email, but we'll save it for next week. You can send us those emails, which we will see,

no matter when you send them, at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. Now up to 1,628 members. You can rate and review the podcast and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Just type in Effectively Wild, go to the page, click on the number of stars you think we deserve, and leave a message if you would like. And that is it for today. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow.