Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 527: The Roster Expansion Email Show

Episode Date: September 3, 2014

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about expanded rosters, waiver claims, hidden perfect games, and more.

I woke up somewhere in the middle. I turned to my left. Oh, man, now all I could see was a question posed as a riddle. I thought to myself, it's a reflection of me. But it's you. Oh, yeah, you all along. And losing this game still won me the bronze. We'll sell both our tickets. We'll sit on the lawns. Good morning and welcome to episode 527 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, brought to you by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com.

I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Ben, how are you? Okay. Great. Guess who's back in the big leagues? Ryan Webb. Ryan Webb. It feels good. Does it? Yeah. I was looking at Ryan Webb's minor league stats from his pretty short stint at AAA Norfolk. He got into 11 games, and in three of them he finished the game without a save. I would say that right now he is in a position in Baltimore to finish fewer games than he's used to now that they have Joe Saunders.

Expanded rosters. With expanded rosters, the odds are just generally against it more. But with Joe Saunders and TJ McFarlane, they basically have two redundant long men. And so my guess is that if there was a blowout, if somebody needed to do mop-up work, Saunders might now be the mop-up guy. And it seems like he's also less likely to get saves because they have like four or five lefties in that bullpen right now. And so if the closer were down, for instance, there would be no real need to keep Andrew Miller in a lefty only role. And so I would guess that Miller would probably get the saves.

Okay. So it's important that we handicap that. Mm-hmm. I mean, he's probably sixth in line for a save right now. I mean, it probably goes Britton, Miller, O'Day, Hunter, Mattis, Webb. So you're saying there's a chance. Not really rooting for it, so I don't care if there's a chance. Yeah. Chris Davis might be ahead of him, actually. Okay. Anything else?

Nope. All right. Then we can proceed directly to listener emails. Got some good ones this week. Let's start with some topical ones, roster expansion-related questions. We got a couple of these. One from Eric Hartman, who says, Isn't the fact that teams can call up players resulting in uneven rosters ostensibly when games are most

important kind of odd and then we also got a question from another different blue jays fan in this case coleman from southampton in the uk who said in accordance with my least favorite annual tradition the blue jays my team of choice find themselves with only a theoretical hope of a playoff berth at the beginning of september five and a half games back of the second wildcard. My question is whether the expanded rosters make it more or less likely for such a large gap to be overcome. Presumably it would take a month of playing well above their true talent while the teams they trail in this case, the Tigers, Mariners,

Indians and Yankees would play below theirs. I assume this kind of outlier month becomes more likely as roster sizes decrease, as team performance is then more easily impacted by a few players having great terrible months. Great slash terrible months. Is it therefore arguable that expanding the rosters on September 1st is actually bad for the most exciting kind of pennant race? The Red Sox or Braves collapses from a few years ago, for example. Might we see more of these if rosters were kept at their normal size in September? So these questions kind of go together.

Is it odd? Is it unfair that rosters can expand, that teams can call up a bunch of new players at this crucial time of the pennant race, which isn't really that much more crucial than any other point of the pennant race, but seems that way? race, which isn't really that much more crucial than any other point of the pennant race, but it seems that way. And Coleman asking whether it makes comebacks less likely. It is odd.

However, it is no less odd than the fact that the October games, which mean even more and are the most important games, are also played under very different rules, such that normal restrictions on rosters in a lot of ways become irrelevant. And so as long as you've kind of accepted that October baseball is not like April baseball, then it's not that odd that September baseball is also not like April baseball. I think that it is weird, and I would probably prefer to do away with expanded rosters in games where... Theoretically, it'd be nice to have it in only games where there are no playoff implications,

where both teams are mathematically eliminated. The problem is that most teams don't get mathematically eliminated until the last eight days or whatever. Really practically nobody gets eliminated until the last eight days. So then what? You're going to have these guys travel around with you so they can make an appearance in the fourth to last game of the season or something like that.

It's not really... You can't really do that and still accomplish what you want to accomplish whether it's unfair it's not unfair at all it's odd it arguably imposes a sort of certain kind of randomness to the whole thing but it's only unfair if one of the teams is allowed to do it and the other is not i, basically any stupid rule that you could think of that would make the game stupider would only be fair if it actually benefited one team more than the other or if it only applied to one team instead of the other.

And this really doesn't. I mean, everybody knows this is coming. This is no surprise. This is not a rule that is imposed unevenly. So, no, it's perfectly fair. Dumb, but fair. So if you think it adds randomness, does that imply that you think it makes comebacks more likely? I don't know that I necessarily mean that it adds randomness so much as it is a variable that is sort of outside the normal variable management that you've spent the year working on. Like it's the randomness is sort of

like, well, how good are your non 40 man guys who, um, sorry, are your non active 40 man guys who um sorry are your non-active 40 man guys who you get to bring up um you know how it's sort of random how well do these guys fit how redundant are these guys what are the odds basically that some guy who you otherwise wouldn't be able to use happens to be on your 40 man chilling at triple a when it was never really your intention to have him around for September. He just sort of happened to be there. You know what I'm saying? Like it's an unplanned change. It's an unplanned difference.

And so that's what I mean by randomness. I don't, whether, to Coleman's question of whether the field of, the game itself is more or less random because you have 34 guys in the dugout. I would think, I don't know. I would think that. I mean, it could be a skill, right? It's not an important skill, but it could be a skill to collect the kind of players in your organization who can play some role in a September call-up scenario without being highly rated prospects. Like you wrote last week about the best candidates in each contending organization to come up and be a star pinch runner, just the fastest guy in each organization.

And maybe there's something to having a guy like that. I mean, it's not a valuable skill, even as you wrote a couple years ago, or last year, or whenever it was, about calling Billy Hamilton up to play that role. And from what you can tell, it's not really that valuable a role. Even if you deploy the pinch runner perfectly, there's only so many instances where he can really make a difference. But maybe collecting those kind of spare parts who are good at one thing and aren't really all that useful during most of the regular season

but can play some sort of positive role once rosters expand is one of the less important gm skills maybe uh yeah i mean probably if you had two guys on staff who were in charge of managing your 40-man roster for just this scenario you might be able to squeeze out a run every 10 years and we know that how many hundreds of thousands of dollars that's worth. So it's good. Yeah. So would you do away with it if you were the commissioner? I think so.

Maybe could you argue that it's good for baseball in some sense? That's not like it's good to expose, have a mechanism to expose prospects to the big leagues during a time when the pressure is not on them so much. Maybe it's good for fans to get a look at guys or for teams to have a way to break people in without thrusting them right onto the stage and giving them one of the 25 spots, something like that.

I kind of enjoy the september call-up process getting a glimpse of all these guys and having to get acclimated to the majors so maybe i totally love it yeah yeah i wouldn't i would i spent four minutes calling the rule dumb and it is it is yet a dumb rule that i would keep i i enjoy it i think it's fun it's good for the game it's great if you're it's particularly great if you're not in it. Um, but it's actually kind of great if you are in it too. Like the idea that, um, you're in this pennant race already. And the idea that Jock Peterson might have a, uh, a role in it that you will never forget, um, as a Dodgers fan or whatever, is also kind of fun. I think it's like hearing Christmas music at Thanksgiving, you know, or Halloween or whatever, you know, whenever they start playing it.

It gets you in sort of a different mood for October. It primes you for October. And I think it's basically wonderful. Here's how I would fix it, though, or here's what I would change. I would say that you can use anybody on your 40-man roster during September. However, you only have 25 men per game that you can go to. And I might have some limit of how many of those can be pitchers as well. You'd have to do something about that because otherwise then

you'd have 19 position players or something like that and um well not 19 probably have what 15 or 16 so it would still be unnatural but you so you'd have to have some kind of way of getting around that so that like your four non-starting your four starting pitchers who aren't going that day can't be the four you sacrifice but um like in NPB, Japanese teams have 28 active players, and on any given day, 25 of them are actually eligible to play. Yeah, like that. So I'd do that, because I do want to see these call-ups. Yeah, it's also nice in that it makes more people's dreams come true, right?

I mean, there are a lot of players who get September call-ups, get cups of coffee, and then never make it back to the majors. And if not for expanded rosters, they would never make it. So it's sort of nice. More people get to have a baseball reference page. Yes. I wonder how many people there are who... This might be my play index next week, so I'm not going to look it up as we go.

But I think before next week I might look at how many players appear in September and no other month. Yeah, I bet there are a good amount of those. Do you really? I think so. I come across a fair amount of just when I'm looking at players I've never heard of and I look to see when they played and they had maybe one or two September call-ups. I would guess that it's, what percentage of players would it be? Well, let's redo it. How many players per year would you guess it was? Because the percent, I don't even know what the denominator of players is. But how many players a year would you guess it was i don't because the percent i don't even know what the denominator of players right but what how many players a year do you think there are in baseball who come up for

september call-ups and otherwise never play in the majors four i was gonna say four all right it's four then we don't even have to look it up all right i do hear gms every year. There are always GMs. I haven't heard it this year, but I do tend to read GM comments complaining about September rosters or saying that it'll be something that's brought up at the GM meetings, possibly doing away with it. I don't know whether there's any pattern to which GMs suggest that

or whether GMs of certain teams suggest that or are more willing to get rid of September call-ups, whether it's teams who know that they're not particularly deep and thus know that they're at a disadvantage when rosters expand, or whether it's just GMs who, who object on a philosophical grounds. I don't know, but I do see that fairly often. So it's something that could change. But after this conversation, I'm no longer eager for it to change. Isn't it nice to know that Playindex can answer this question that we just had? Isn't it cool that we can just have this question that's practically impossible to answer,

except it's not. It'll take me like 12 minutes. So Jock Peterson, by the way, while we were answering that, it was announced that he will start in center field tonight for the Dodgers And so that is very fun That's exciting And Bill Shakin, maybe the best newspaper writer in the country For my money Writes, if Peterson plays well This is going to be some sort of clubhouse fun for Mattingly to manage

Field staff wanted Jock in centerfield months ago well that has been a problem all season all right another question that's specific to this time of year or maybe last week's time of year hey ben yes it is jock peterson right because both of those names are spelled uh wrong enough that it could be like joke petterson or something you know i think it's jock peterson okay i i sure hope so yeah it's got to be jock but it does feel like we could be embarrassing ourselves with petterson um i'll check after we record all right this question This question comes from Mike D. in St. Louis. I love Mike D. in St. Louis.

With Master Plan? Yes. He wants to know, what is the point of putting a player like Matt Latos on revocable waivers when there is no way that a team is going to trade them? Why subject the player to the thought that they could still be traded in the next few days? I think I know maybe some of the answer to this.

The tricky thing with all this waiver stuff is that my understanding is that the August waivers are... They're kind of governed by unwritten rules. Like, that's the great thing about baseball is that the unwritten rules on the field that we mock, that's just the beginning. Like, the whole sport is unwritten rules all of the draft stuff and all the like what how how much you're allowed to talk to the player and negotiate before you sign all unwritten rules you know it's like just this entire sport of unwritten rules at at every

level um and so in august the unwritten rule is basically that when a player goes through waivers, you don't claim him if you don't think that you're realistically going to trade for him. So Michael Walker goes through waivers. Obviously, 29 teams would love to have Michael Walker. They know that the Cardinals aren't going to just let him go. And you're not probably going to trade for him because the Cardinals aren't going to just let him go. And you're not probably going to trade for him because the Cardinals almost certainly aren't going to trade him. So you might reach out to the Cardinals and go, hey, you know, in a couple of days, you might say, hey, you know, we'd actually would really love him. Is there a match here? And then

the Cardinals would let you know, like, whether it's worth talking about it before you put your claim in. But for the most part, you just let him go because it's not realistic that you're actually going to get walk-up. So, however, that's an unwritten rule. And I think that in different years, it's not, well, I guess as far as, like all unwritten rules, it's not necessarily unambiguous. So you might claim a player and it might be seen by one party as being a jerk and claiming a guy you have no realistic chance of getting, but it might be seen by another party as being strategic and blocking the team that's ahead of you in the standings from claiming him and making a move on him, and that's acceptable. So it's all slightly

difficult to parse, and so since you and I don't actually know even really the facts or what the rules are or how they're implemented, there's a long-winded way of saying that I might get this totally wrong. Okay. All right. But I think that the reason that you put Waka through waivers is twofold. One is you can't trade a player who hasn't been put through waivers, right? And so you basically put everybody through waivers so that if you end up needing to make a trade for Adrian Gonzalez later in the summer, in the month, the players who might round out that trade have already gone through waivers and thus can be included in a trade. It makes it easier to actually put

together a trade. Now, WACA is unlikely to be part of that trade, but having these guys who are technically eligible to be traded makes it easier to do the trade that you actually want to do that goes through waivers, right? Does that make sense? Yes. That's one, and I think the other one is that it's basically a way of camouflaging the players that you actually really do want to get through waivers

or that you actually do want to get far enough through waivers that they land on a team that will claim them and that you can move him to. Basically, if you only moved the guys who you actually wanted to move through waivers, it would be a big, dead giveaway to all your competitors that you really want to get Alan Craig through waivers, or whatever the case may be. Whereas if you're just dumping these guys in massive piles out there, then it's like, uh, it becomes harder to find your intent in this big pile of, of, of stuff. And so it's like sort of a, it's a way of disguising your intentions. Yeah. That sounds right to me. Okay. Uh, there was one more question that might lead into the Play Index segment. You have no idea what the Play Index segment is.

I don't. Why would you say that? You have no idea. I have not told you. You have not. But just thematically, it might lead into a Play Index segment. This comes from Russ. He says,

Just set the record for batters retired in a row, 46. That was last week. And then proceeded to give up a double. A long time ago, you discussed which you thought is more impressive, a real perfect game or a hidden perfect game from a reliever. He wants to know whether there's a way to use Play Index and the coupon code

BP, as he helpfully points out, to find out how many times a hidden perfect game has taken place. I'd also be, he wants to know whether it's happened more or fewer times than a real perfect game. And he, I guess I also want to discuss how

impressive you found Petit's record. So the hidden perfect game has to have happened more times than the real Perfect game? Did we look this up once? I think we looked it up. I think we did.

Because we had a long conversation about Hidden Perfect games and whether we thought they were more impressive or not. Let's see. Hidden Perfect games through 2004. Here's BP wrote about it. perfect games through 2004 here's bp wrote about it uh 2004 this is where i heard about the perfect the hidden perfect game it's a big keith woolner hobby wasn't it yeah i think so from 72 to 2003 so three decades uh there were 61 hidden perfect games, seven real perfect games. Eight, if you count Pedro Martinez as a perfect game, or 62, I guess, if you count it as a hidden perfect game. And three pitchers in this stretch had multiple hidden perfect games,

which, of course, nobody has ever thrown two perfect games. But no fewer than three. In just a 30-year period, no fewer than three through multiple. And it makes sense that there would be more hidden perfect games because it's the same feat, but it's not constrained by having to do it within a single game. So it's sensible that there would be more of those.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that what we decided is that a hidden perfect game is technically more impressive to us than a regular perfect game on its own, context excluded. Just knowing that a pitcher could keep his perfection going on multiple days with multiple mounds and all of the distractions that come from having to change.

Actually, you might not have concluded. I think this is what I concluded. That come from, you know, this having it be over the course of time. If you have to stay perfect for, you know, a month as a reliever, that to me seems more impressive. However, the feat itself, while more impressive from the pitcher's standpoint, is far less impressive from the observer's standpoint because you have far, far, far,

you have like 30, 40, 50, I don't know, you have like tons more opportunities for this to happen. 30, 40, 50, I don't know. You have tons more opportunities for this to happen. Every batter is perhaps the start of a perfect game, a hidden perfect game, in a way that only one batter per game is the start of an actual perfect game. So you have like 35 or 40 times more chances

to have a hidden perfect game. So as an observer, it's not nearly as interesting. But from the pitcher's perspective, I bet it's more difficult. You have more chances, but I bet it's more difficult to do. That would be my hypothesis. Now, however, one might argue that the stress of a watched perfect game or a perfect game where people are cheering and you are very aware of it and nervous about it and it feels like it matters, you might argue that that stress makes a regular perfect game more interesting. I would guess that it does not. And a fair number of people were paying attention to Petite Streak by the time it was over.

I'm sure he was aware of it. Only by the time it was over, though. By the time it... Yes, not right. Nobody paid attention to it until it was at like 37 or something. We got our first email, I think, when it was at 38. A, I don't want to give away any names, but a prominent Giants blogger who we both have talked to on this podcast, not giving away anything here, was unaware of it until an

embarrassingly late. He's slipping. I'm not saying who. Okay, shall we move on? Could have been Ian Miller, for instance. It wasn't Ian, but it could have been. Lots of Giants bloggers out there. All right, so the actual play index. I was looking i was looking at you know clayton kershaw

among the things among the things he's amazing at um is he's very very good at controlling the running game and i always like a guy who controls the running game that to me that's how you endear yourself to me uh as a pitcher control the running game, and I will overrate you. And Kershaw is very good at controlling the running game. And so I was wondering, though, who's the best at controlling the running game? And I was thinking about different ways that I might think about this question. And while I was doing this, I sort of

stumbled upon a fact that I actually had already stumbled upon a couple weeks ago because Doug Thorburn wrote it. But I re-stumbled upon it, and it got me thinking about it. So this fact is that Giordano Ventura has not allowed a stolen base this year. Which is an interesting fact, right? Surprising.

Doug wrote about the pitchers who have done the best job of controlling the running game. And I think he highlighted four of them. The four best. The four guys who hadn't allowed a stolen base and what makes ventura different and i'll just quote doug here but i could quote play index because it also told me uh uh doug writes not only does uh let's see uh the next base runner who attempts a steal off ventura will be the first attempts wow and the fact that no runner has even tested the waters yet is a testament to his intimidation and power. Doug notes that he gets into foot strike at a very rapid pace.

His raw velocity is so hard that it gives opposing base runners even less time. And while he does not use a true slide step, he does shrink his leg lift to about half the usual height while pitching from the stretch. And he'll change it up from time to time, so he's a little unpredictable. So Ventura does these things. It's not random. He also has a great catcher.

We hear all the time about how it's not always the pitcher, it's the catcher. It's not the catcher, it's the pitcher, but it's certainly both, and he has a very good catcher. Anyway, Ventura has not had a single base runner attempt to steal. This is only the second time. If he makes it to the end of the year, this will be only the second time in history. In history? Maybe since 88. I can't remember. Same thing. I think in this I went to like 1960, and then before that, caught stealings weren't recorded reliably,

and besides, everybody was running all the time anyway. So I think he's going to be the second pitcher ever to qualify for the ERA title without a single base runner attempting to go on him. And the first was Josh Tomlin, actually, three years ago, which is not who you would have guessed, but Josh Tomlin is also extremely good at controlling the running game. Stolen bases per inning. He might be the modern record holder.

I didn't check this, but he might be. Eyeballing it, I think he might be. You don't know who I would have guessed. Josh Tomlin was on the tip of my tongue. Who would you have guessed? If I told you it was somebody in the last five years would you have guessed uh what johnny cueto uh yeah andy pettit i don't know he petted maybe uh so uh so anyway this is something interesting uh to watch but beyond that um uh he is uh this is now 167 innings into his career,

and he has not allowed a base runner to attempt a steal, because he didn't last year either. And so I wondered if anybody has gone deeper into their career without allowing an attempted stolen base. And the answer is that no, nobody has, and nobody has even really gotten close. Ventura now has 167 innings in his career. The next best ever, so not active streak. This is not one of those Reggie Willits things

where it can be undone. This is the furthest into his career anybody has ever gone. The next longest anybody has ever gone since 1980 next longest anybody has ever gone since 1980, this one I know is since 1980, is Travis Wood, who made it 124 innings, Randy Wolfe, who made it 115 innings, Chris Sampson, who made it 110, and those are the only four pitchers since 1980

to make it 100 innings into their career without a runner attempting a stolen base. There have been more than 2,000 pitchers since 1980 who have thrown more than 100 innings in their career. So 2,000 pitchers who were eligible to have done this, and only four managed to do it. Ventura is already the record holder, might never stop. As far as stolen bases themselves, successful stolen bases, he does have a little ways to go to set that record. Bob Wolcott from 1995 to 1997 went 196 innings into his career before

he allowed his first stolen base. Dave Johnson from 1987 to 1990 went 259 innings into his career. So that's the record. He's got 90 more innings to go before he can top Dave Johnson. And only 18 pitchers have ever gone 100 innings into their career without allowing a successful stolen base, again, out of 2,000. So this is

pretty significant as far as these things go. I mean, he is doing something unprecedented. And I will forevermore overrate him because of it. Yeah, this is a cool one. I like this. So everyone now has a reason to watch the Royals because they weren't exciting before. But this, this is a good hook. So go watch the Royals. Make Ned Yost happy. Yeah. That's probably why their attendance has been down is that the club's marketing department hasn't made a big enough deal out of this record. Yeah. I wonder if opposing teams knew about this record, if it were publicized, if we are now

bringing it to the national consciousness to some extent, whether a team would be more likely to attempt to steal just to break this up. Uh-huh, right. Or whether it would be like bunting to break up a no-hit or maybe nobody would ever. So what do you think are the odds that anybody on any other team was aware of this? If there was an advanced scouting form that said whether base runners get good jumps on them, and it just noted— I'm sure there is.

Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, a lot of teams have those printouts of stats against every team or against the day's starter. And sometimes, I mean, there will always be or often be a base running section in the advanced scouting report. And maybe even in some of those statistical reports, we'll say how successful runners have been against him. And in this case, there's no sample so i don't know i i would bet that some some advanced scout or some stats person has noticed it at some point and i would bet that it's been in a manager's binder or in a maybe it's been mentioned i would i'd be surprised actually if it hadn't even even been mentioned in a pre-series scouting meeting of players that he is tough on runners or something.

Well, certainly that he's tough on runners, but would it say that he has ever attempted a stolen base? I wonder how many players have ever attempted a stolen base against him, but the ball was fouled off. I wonder if that's happened. I also wonder whether this is in the Royals' media guide or their media notes before a game. We'll have to ask Andy. Yeah, right. Andy McCullough probably listening. Maybe he can do a whole article on this now. Josh Tomlin, by the way, in his career, 450 innings, six stolen bases against him, which is really phenomenal, and a 54% caught stealing rate, which is also phenomenal.

And his catcher has often been Carlos Santana. Uh-huh. And I guess what this tells you is that this is not a skill that makes pitchers very good on its own. Or maybe it's a skill that keeps you in the majors if you are not very good in other ways, as Josh Tomlin is not. I don't know. I think Josh Tomlin's role in the game is appropriate for his skill level.

I don't think he's... He's not that bad. He does okay. He's worth a roster spot. I mean, what? It's not like he's finishing fourth in cy young voting or anything he's a guy who he pitches uh he pitches okay at the highest level and uh doesn't walk anyone he doesn't he's got eight strikeouts per walk this year he's got 17 homers allowed and 10 unintentional walks. It's interesting that he's actually struck people out this year

because he never used to do that at all. Yeah, no, it's true. 8.3. Well, he had Tommy John, you know. So it could be that he was pitching hurt all this time. I mean, I'm trying to remember. I met Josh Tomlin once in Texas. He and I talked. And I'm trying to remember what he told me. I met Josh Tomlin once in Texas. Okay.

He and I talked. And I'm trying to remember what he told me. I think that I remember him. Ah, it's on the tip of my tongue. I probably have told the story, whatever it was. I vaguely recall something about him saying that, yeah, he was rehabbing. He was rehabbing from Tommy John. And I think he said, he was rehabbing. He was rehabbing from Tommy John, and I think he said that he was pitching her.

I think he said he was pitching her for a while because he knows he's the kind of guy who might not necessarily have a spot in the rotation when he comes back. And I'm pretty sure I remember this being true. He's also a guy who got... The thing I like about josh tomlin uh is that he um this was a while ago i'm trying to remember what i like about josh tom he was he was a position player and then he converted to pitcher,

and something about his draft status. I'm going to have to remember this and come back to you in another episode because I liked this anecdote. All right. Well, that's a good hook. That'll bring people back. All right. Tune in next time to maybe hear the conclusion of Sam's Josh Tomlin story.

Okay, so please support the Play Index by using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. Again, as I periodically mention, you can try it for free. You will be frustrated by the fact that the results are limited, but you can at least see how the functionality works and see if you can do the things that you want to do. And then you can sign up. And if you aren't satisfied, you can get a refund. Oh, wait, no, save it for next time. No, no, I think that this is what it was.

I'm pretty sure this is what I remember is he was drafted by the Padres as a shortstop or a third baseman, but it was late. He was drafted in the 11th round. He did not sign, and then he converted to pitcher the next year because his college needed a pitcher. drafted in the 19th round and so it actually dropped his his draft stock and uh i remember him saying i think i remember him saying that it was the best thing that ever happened to him because he was an 11th round hitter he never would have made it to the majors he like he actually that was his true talent like he would have been lucky to make it to double a he would have hung around for four years wasted four years of his life chasing this dream that he was not nearly qualified for. But as a pitcher, even though he got drafted in 19th round, got a smaller offer, had to sign for a thousand bucks, it ended up being the great thing because he actually had the ability to grow as a pitcher and that's why he made the majors. So in fact, it was better for him to be drafted in the 19th round than the 11th. That's what I remember.

That's why I like Josh Tomlin. Okay, good story. All right, well, this episode is pretty long. We have fulfilled our obligation, as Carson Stooley says, but it is customary to have a post-play index question, so let's just do one here. So this question comes from Steve, who says, is it ever good to be the best at something bad? Oh, I've got a good one for this.

Oh, good. And he says, I learned a little bit about hockey stats this year and was surprised to find that good teams often lead the league in giveaways. It's a proxy for possession, since you can't give the puck away if you don't have it in the first place. As far as applying the information, it's probably better to use time of possession, but it's interesting to think that it could be good to lead the league in something bad. Does this work for baseball? Does this year's grounded into double plays champion team earn the crown because they have the best on base percentage? This is obviously not something to strive for, but maybe interesting in retrospect. So what's your good example? This is a tweet from me from July of 2011 that Colin Wires retweeted and I was really

excited about at the time. The team with more men left on base wins 56% of the time. Announcers would not have you believe this. Yeah, that's a perfect one. Along the lines of what Steve suggested with the grounded into double plays, putting more guys on is generally a good thing. And we actually, didn't we find once that the team that has more caught stealings in a game tends to win? So I would guess that the caught stealing leader in a given year is more likely to be a good team than a bad team. All right. Let's see, Ben. Pick a number one to five. All right. Am I telling you or am I not? Yeah. Tell me.

Four. All right. So I'm going to look up teams that hit four double plays in a game and see whether they have a winning record or a losing record. All right. I'll go back to 88. Live play index demonstration. All right. Teams that hit four double plays in a season, I mean in a game, 238 wins and...

Suspense. 434 losses. Too bad. Four is a lot. Still. Yeah. I mean, I guess. Still.

Yeah. I mean, I guess. There's no rule that the double play has to come at the beginning of a rally, though. It could come after the big run scoring hit. Should we do three? Yes. All right. Let's see. 2,243 losses.

Let's see. 2,243 losses and 1,732 wins. All right. Maybe not. Heartbreak. Okay. Well, that's the end of this episode. Sorry it ends on such a down note. I made a cup of piping hot tea at the beginning of this episode and I forgot to sip it once every time this happens to me all the time it happens to me every time too

because I sit up against the counter with my back to the counter so the cup is behind me today because we're recording during the day the cup is in front of me so I'm drinking it but let me ask you this, Ben. Will you reheat it? Will you microwave that tea?

Actually, I don't need to. It's still warm enough to drink. One of the best things about working for Grantland is that I got this cup, this ESPN cup that's like a thermos slash mug, and it keeps things really hot so i can still drink this tea huh okay so that's it for today probably was too hot at the beginning yeah that might be one reason why i didn't sip it okay so that's the story about my tea all right uh so that's it for today we will have a guest tomorrow, I believe.

But thanks for your questions. There are some good questions that I have flagged for next week that we didn't have time to answer. But please send us some more at podcast at baseball prospectus dot com. Please join the Facebook group at Facebook dot com slash groups slash effectively wild over seventeen hundred listeners now in the Facebook group. And please rate and review and subscribe to the show on iTunes. We will be back with another show tomorrow. Just stuck in my head all day. Oh, no.