Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 539: Instant Replay and the Pennant Race

Episode Date: September 22, 2014

Ben and Sam banter about Kolten Wong and the scout who signed Mike Trout, then talk about a controversial call with playoff implications.

You know, Michael, I always, uh, Dillon Batances, and trying to put his year into historical value, and gotta give credit where credit's due, you know, I, you know, I like to read the blogs, and throw out some references, and Brad Lindbergh of Grantland, excellent writer, who did that analysis on Dillon Batances. Or Ben, I'm sorry, Ben Lindbergh. Gotta get that right. I'm gonna give somebody credit, right? Get the name right. But Ben Lindbergh of Grantland. And Grantland's a fantastic site as well. You know I like a lot of sites.

Baseball Perspectives, Baseball Reference, Fangraphs. So many good sites out there. Some of the blogs. Good morning and welcome to episode 539 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Hi, Ben. I prefer to go by Brad now.

Of course, we are brought to you by the Play and Exit Baseball Reference. I enjoy the Play and Exit Baseball Reference. I enjoy a lot of sites. You know, Ben, I like a lot of sites. Me too. I also like a lot of sites. You know, Ben, I like a lot of sites. Me too. I also like a lot of sites. All right. You sound a little husky today.

I've been under the weather. I've got a little sinus thing, got a little throat thing. What about you? I feel fine. Good. You're a trooper, showing up for the podcast anyway. So let's see here uh did you see the colton wong autograph yes with the sums 360 probably my favorite thing that's ever happened i i just think that that's about the best i don't know is there is there any chance so

i find that um that the world we should explain what happened well i will we – so I find that the world – We should explain what happened. Well, I will. We will. But I find that the world is too quick to assume that you're an idiot instead of that you're making a joke. And so if I – occasionally I will tweet something that is wrong or something like that. And instead of assuming, oh, hey, he's being ironic, people will think that I'm an idiot.

And that's fair, but I figure, you know, after you get to know a person, you ought to be able to tell that they're not an idiot and if they're being an idiot, you know, maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. So do you think there's any chance that Colton Wong signing baseballs with a Bible verse that doesn't exist? Is there any chance that we're just not giving him credit for a pretty funny joke?

It's possible. Maybe it was an inside joke between him and the person he signed for. I don't know. We'd have to look for other Colton Wong autographs and see whether he's ever signed like that before. It's going to be harder to find Colton Wong autographs now because if you

look up Colton Wong autograph, you're just going to get sent to the deadspin thing. Let's see here. Let me see. Along with Albers pants. Yeah, I'm looking. Let's see. The thing too is that it's Psalms, it's 316. Right. And 316, of course, very famous biblical, And 316, of course, very famous biblical Bible verse number. So if you were trying to fake it and you had to make up a Bible verse that sounded convincing and you're like really scrambling for a Bible verse, you might have thought of 316. It's almost a slant rhyme with John 316. Yes, exactly. I only autographed baseball cards, it looks like,

on eBay. I'm two pages down. So, I don't know. Matt Albers' pants, by the way, since we're talking about eBay, four bids. Oh, yeah. Up to $31. From $25? From $25, yeah. So, I wonder whether those were podcast listeners, but

you still have some time left if you're listening to this on Monday, you've still got some hours left to get the game used at Matt Albers' pants. So there's also the possibility that it's just a typo, that he was just writing faster than he was thinking. And so I started, I wondered whether he meant, for instance, he might have meant Psalms 3016, but that doesn't exist either. So he doesn't mean 3016. Could he mean 16-3, Psalms 1616, but that doesn't exist either. So he doesn't mean 3016.

Could he mean 1603, Psalms 1603? Which, incidentally, it's the book of Psalms, but I've always thought that when you cite a verse in it, you make it singular, Psalm, because it's the 13th Psalm. Psalms is the name of the collection of Psalms. However, each book is itself one Psalm. So I think it would be appropriate if it existed to say Psalm 316. I see. I'm not much of a Bible scholar.

Psalm 16.3, if he just transposed them, is, I say of the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones in whom is all my delight. Which could definitely refer to the best fans in baseball. Yeah, clearly. Exactly. So I figure there's a 40% chance that he meant Psalm 16.3. There's also Psalm 103.16,

which is, the wind blows over and it is gone. Which also, very baseball-y. Hmm, yeah. The wind blows over it and it is gone. It is gone, man. Yeah, the ball was carrying that day. Yes, exactly.

All right. Anything to talk about? There was a bit of banter that we meant to talk about last week, but then we had guests, right? The Angels parting ways with the scout who was instrumental in signing Mike Trout, Greg Morehart, who played a key role in the decision to take Mike Trout, and they are not bringing him back for unspecified reasons. You have thoughts on that? Well, not really, I guess. I mean, just the, there's the question of whether if you are the one responsible for

or largely responsible for signing Mike Trout, do you just get a lifetime pass to do scouting? Yeah. To do scouting. Yeah. You know, as soon as I saw that, I figured much would be made of this. And in fact, when Eddie Bain got fired a few years ago, Eddie Bain was the scouting director at the time, and Eddie Bain, that was a shocking firing for all sorts of reasons. If Mike Trout had never existed existed it would have surprised most people around the angels because he was uh you know he was he was seen as a huge part of their success

and is one of the best in the game and as as having a sort of scouting style that was uh that was intrinsically tied to the angels own um you know philosophies and um of course uh he got he got fired because the that philosophy was different than tony regan's or right maybe his personality was or something but that was shocking as well but when when it happened much was made of the fact that uh he had he had drafted mike trout already it was clear that mike trout was i don't remember if it was 2012 or 2011 when this happened but already it was clear that that was a huge coup and so much was made mocking the Angels for getting rid of the guy who drafted Mike Trout. So I expected that there would be a lot made of this as well. It's hard to say.

It's always a bummer when somebody loses their job. Jobs are precious. So I don't, I don't know that. I mean, it would have been great if he had kept his job. We don't know why he left his job, but I don't think the lifetime pass thing really applies. You were talking about a guy who's probably filed, what, 50,000 opinions? He's probably put 50,000 of his opinions out there? Yeah, well, he was a minor leaguer in the Twins and Tigers system

in the 80s until 89, and the story by Elton Gonzalez on MLB.com says that he then became an area scout and most recently served as a national cross-checker. So if he's been scouting since he retired more or less in 89 then yes many thousands of reports since then yeah so 25 years tens of thousands of reports and

not only that but you he might have it's conceivable that he might have not filed reports that he should have as well it's conceivable that there were guys in his area at certain points that he should have filed. I mean, we don't really know. My point is not that he is great at his job or that he's terrible at his job. It's just that his bosses have access to him giving thousands and thousands and thousands

and thousands of reports. So it's hard to think that anyone, no matter how good it is, could possibly be strong enough to outweigh what might be a pattern in your scouting. I don't know. Maybe he's a great scout. We don't have any idea. My point is just that we don't actually have any idea of knowing whether he's a great scout or not. Yeah. idea of knowing whether he's a great scout or not. Yeah, and yet that one decision, if that one decision,

if the fact that Trout was his guy and he was pushing to sign Trout while other people were scared because he was from New Jersey and no one had seen him and he hadn't faced high-level competition, if they did take Trout because of, or largely because of his word, If they did take Trout because of, or largely because of his word, that's about the biggest swing that a scout could make in a franchise's fortunes, right? So one decision could be the most impact that a scout ever makes, and yet it might just be one decision in so many decisions that it might be a lucky guess. Yeah, you don't really know whether the... If you were evaluating Angel Scouts retrospectively, you would have to say that he was worth a tremendous amount to the franchise.

If you were trying to figure out how much he's going to be worth in the future, you probably wouldn't put all that much value. I guess that's what I'm trying to the future, you probably wouldn't put all that much value. I guess that's what I'm trying to say, is you probably wouldn't put all that much value in that one opinion if you were trying to predict the scout's own future value to your club, right? Yep. So, yeah, I mean, he deserves a statue. He should be remembered fondly in Angel's lore.

You know, they should, I don't know, have a day for him sometime. Like in 15 years or so, they should definitely have a day for him at the ballpark. But it's just we just don't know enough to say whether he's great or not. Right. I mean, if he was great, probably they would have kept him. Probably. We have no idea. Maybe we might have watched it.

Yeah. Right. Somebody. Yeah. how are we supposed to talk about a personal decision i don't know yeah uh all right so um kind of a mishmash of a couple things today um did you see the royals game on saturday i didn't see the part that you're going to bring up, but I did watch a good chunk of it. So there were two things about that game that were interesting. One that got a lot of attention.

The other that didn't get a lot of attention, but was in Annie McCullough's game story and I thought was very interesting. I'll start with the one that was smaller. Did you see any of Nori Aoki getting booed for sacrifice bunting no so i'm going to read i'm going to read a pretty good chunk of this uh article so uh it starts with uh aoki coming up in the first after a lead-off double he uh bunts on his own says quote if i was a cleanup hitter it would be a different situation, but the type of hitter I am and what's expected of me, I've got to get the guy over.

In the past, people have told me in that situation I need to get the guy over no matter what. So he bunted on his own accord. He insisted he was trying to fit his game within his team's style. He also revealed a window into an offensive philosophy that vexes observers. Quote, you can probably tell, too, just watching us play, Aoki said. We're always playing for one run. We're playing for that run as opposed to trying to get two or three. All right, so the run did not score. Third inning, first two guys get on, first and second, nobody out.

Aoki comes up. This time the dugout calls for a bunt, and he lays it down, and his anti-bites. In a big league ballpark, the advancement of runners usually invites polite applause. This time, a steady stream of jeers. They're booing, they're bunting. Wow. It's a smart fan base, I guess.

Yeah. Or a frustrated one that's sick of watching the Royals offense. Must have been a lot of Cardinals fans drove home from the state. Yeah, so I thought that was really interesting. You very rarely, in football for instance, if you see them punt on fourth down, which is kind of the equivalent

the football equivalent of bunting safe and probably counterproductive in a lot of cases, the crowd will boo. You find that in football, the crowd is not very conservative. They seem to think that the coaches are too conservative in a lot of cases. But you never see that in baseball. I've never seen a bunt booed, I don't think.

So that's interesting. I wonder if it's something specific to the Royals of the past couple weeks, if it's something specific to the Royals of the past couple weeks, if it's something specific to the Royals of this year, if it's something specific to the Royals, or if in fact it's none of that and it's something that we'll see more of. If there is a growing awareness of fans that punting is something to be booed, just as punting is something to be booed. Maybe it was just Rennie was there booing really loudly. Could be, yeah, leading a wave of boos. Did you ever start a wave when you were a kid?

No. Did you ever try? Nope. Really? No, it's not in my nature. No, but as a kid, I assume your nature was a bit different as a kid. Nope. I tried.

I never got one going, but I would try. If I was out in the outfield, I'd run. I'd do the running wave. Never picked up. Sorry. All right. So, of course, that game will be remembered. Maybe the most, let's see.

What's going to be the most memorable play from this year do you think hmm sounds like a podcast topic yeah so maybe we'll do a podcast topic of it later but does it does anything jump out at you i mean somebody getting injured could be one but if you took away the injuries uh is there any play that we'll remember from this season in 10 years as having happened in this season? Maybe the Cespedes throw. One of the Cespedes throws that he messed up and then recovered by making an amazing throw. as a group will remember the transfer plays and the home plate collision plays that were strange and seem to go against, against the evidence of our eyes,

but we probably won't recall any specific one. Yeah. I'm kind of blanking. Uh, yeah, I can't, I can't really think of one off the top of my head. So maybe it'll be this one.

the runner on third, sorry, runners on second and third, line drive to the second baseman, he catches it, throws it to the shortstop covering second, and in a poorly thought, conceived attempt to double up the runner, the throw gets away, runner on third runs home, but had not returned to the bag. So in essence he was uh attempting to tag up but had never gone back to tag the bag that was sal perez and so the tigers noticed this

appeal he's out standard play except that the umpire got it wrong um and and initially called Sal Perez at third safe, saying he had tagged the bag and the Tigers were not allowed to appeal this. That's controversial, partly because it seems like they should have been allowed to appeal it based on what is and isn't allowed to be appealed, partly because it's always weird when something can't be appealed, especially something like this where there's not a – I guess there is a reason I haven't – I didn't be appealed. Especially something like this where there's not a... I guess there is a reason I didn't read it yet. Ken Rosenthal, I guess, wrote a column saying what the reason was. But it doesn't

feel like there's any reason to make tag plays not reviewable. In fact, tag play might be the second play I would make reviewable. Like the home run... Tag is in tag up. Tag is in tag up, yeah. I mean, that's the perfect time to have a replay.

The umpire simply cannot watch two things at once. It is impossible for an umpire, in a lot of cases, to watch two things at once, to look in two directions at once. And you're not expecting there to be a controversy over it. Bet runners usually know to wait until the ball has been caught. And so it feels like the perfect, perfect time to have an extra set of eyes. For some reason, you can't review tag-up plays. However, this was not a tag-up play because he never tagged up.

Anyway, that was weird. Then what was really weird is that when the Tigers asked for the review, the umpires gathered to see whether they could review it. The video board operator, perhaps thinking that the review had actually been filed and was going ahead, went through the standard review replay protocol of playing the play on the big screen. So he's playing, he or she is playing the play on the big screen at Kauffman Stadium while the umpires are talking about whether they can review it. The league office tells them, you may not review this play. And they say, OK, we will not review this play.

But arguably having seen the play on the screen, perhaps, it's not clear that they did, but quite possibly haven't seen it, they decide to simply confer with each other and get the right call, and they call Perez out. So there's a lot of things happening. One is that the replay system is revealed in this case to be weirdly illogical and problematic. Two, Sal Perez, oh my gosh. The worst play ever. The Royals won today. So if we assume that they would have won today again, just like nothing had changed, they would be in first place right now if he had just tagged up. So that's the other thing.

And then the third thing is whether unfairness has happened, whether this is an injustice because the umpires got the call right for perhaps reasons that should never have happened. So this is the lead, Andy McCullough's lead. Inside a losing clubhouse, the Royals exhibited gloom and confusion. A team official contacted MLB headquarters to see if the club could protest Saturday's defeat. A few players raged at the injustice of the decision and wondered if the Kauffman Stadium video board operator had betrayed them. So let's start with the third one. Do the Royals have any cause to feel victimized in this?

Obviously they can feel as though they nearly got a very lucky break, do they have the right to feel that they got an unlucky break? Are these players who are raging at the injustice and wondering if they've been betrayed missing the sort of point that this was a very obvious play for Perez? Right. And so, I mean, you could say that the video operator or whoever's controlling the screen sort of screwed them over, right? Screwed them over, but that's not the same as betrayed. maybe because umpires are supposed to avoid checking the video board on a non-reviewable play or maybe because he was a bit embarrassed about the fact that he had peaked.

Wait, so he is now admitting that he did peek? No, he did not admit that he had peaked, but he also would not say who actually saw the play. The umpires said that they reached a consensus of information, saw the play. The umpires said that they reached a consensus of information, but it's not clear whether any of them actually saw it live or whether they did happen to see it intentionally or otherwise on the board. Yeah, is there any reason they shouldn't have peeked? I mean, the replay system, it's almost like a totally separate process. That's the boys in New York. The rules say you can't have the boys in New York look at it. The way that the replay system works, it's like once it goes to New York,

it is out of the field umpire's hands. It creates this entire different government agency that now has jurisdiction. Once that happens, the umpires on the field are out of it. However, if that does not happen, then the fact that the boys in New York can't look at a replay has nothing to do with whether the boys on the field can look at a replay, right? They're a different government agency. Any rules that govern New York do not govern on the field. Yeah, exactly.

It's states' rights. Exactly. And this has not been litigated or legislated, and the Constitution is silent on it. So I don't actually see why, to me, you can argue that the Coffman Stadium guy goofed, and he did. It seems pretty clear that that was a goof on his part, but he probably didn't have good communication. He didn't know what went on. As Rosenthal points out, the umpires went to their headsets, which usually means that the play is being reviewed. And at that point, you would think it'd be fair for the replay person at Kauffman to conclude

that it was safe to show the replay. And that wasn't the case this time, but this is a weird exception. Yeah, and so if Vanover and his crew and the crew had simply turned to the scoreboard and watched the play. Would that have been inappropriate, do you think? Well, Rosenthal says yes.

He asked Vanover if they're allowed to look at the video board, and Vanover said, no, the umpires cannot look at the board. That's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. I mean, you would think that, I mean, if it's a reviewable play, then theoretically there's no reason for them to look at the board because the decision is sort of out of their hands at that point unless you want to just make the entire review system that the umpires in the stadium look

at the stadium video board to review the play then the better vantage point is probably coming from the people in new york who can watch it from 10 different angles and slow motion and manipulate it any way that they choose. So theoretically, there's no reason for them either to look at it or not to look at it, I guess, because the decision's out of their hands. Right, yeah. So in the case where it's not reviewable by replay, I guess they're not allowed to look at it because then in a way it's almost a backdoor into making that play reviewable if they see it on the board and it's not appealed to New York and they're just looking at it from afar from one angle in regular speed or whatever the whatever angle the video board operator chooses to present, which might be the angle that's most favorable to the home team.

So let me ask you this. Let me ask you a few follow-up questions, hypotheticals. So let's say that this is at Comerica, and they keep their eyes averted, they keep their hearts and their minds pure of sin and temptation. And they show it on the video board. And the crowd's response is unambiguous. The crowd sees it, sees how obvious it is.

And you can tell by the crowd response what has been seen. Is that against the rules? They should want to get the call right and like what if let's say let's say there's four umpires and two of them say no i saw it it looked like he left early and then the other two go i saw it it looked like he didn't leave early isn't the crowd i mean they're already consulting with each other doesn't the crowd make it obvious who's right? And shouldn't the umpires then, you know, like, won't that affect them? Won't that influence them in some way?

I'm not saying whether they necessarily will feel they should or shouldn't be swayed by it, but it would sway them, right? Probably. I mean, the crowd is biased. Maybe the crowd is not seeing it that clearly either because they're just walking around the concourse and there's a TV above the concession stand and it's far away and you can't really see but it looks so close that they'll just groan anyway we're assuming that it's not an ambiguous thing i mean this was not

every single person saw it and immediately knew that it was black and white no no ambiguity no judgment call whatsoever you can imagine a situation where it would be good. So let me now take this a step further. They don't even show it on the video board. Or maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Maybe they show it, but it's at Kauffman Stadium, so there's no crowd reaction.

But again, you have two guys who go, I think he left early. I think they left late. So they've already agreed that they are negotiating, that they are conversing, that they are going to try to get the right call based on all the information. Brad Ausmus comes out and goes, look, I've always been straight with you guys.

We looked at it in the room. You're going to be embarrassed. You're going to go back to your hotel room tonight. You're going to be embarrassed. You're going to cost us the season. I'm telling you, he didn't come within five feet of the bag. I mean, look, you can trust me. And Yost goes, hey, now, you can't do that. And Ausmus goes, look, you can trust me. And Yost goes, hey, now you can't do that.

And then Ausmus goes, Ned, you saw it. You want to tell him the opposite? You want to tell him that he did touch it? And Ned Yost goes, well, and kind of shirks away because he doesn't want to be a jerk liar. Can the umpires consider that? Well, yeah. Then you have a preponderance of the evidence, right? But it's evidence based on replay. They are seeing reflections of replay. That's what the crowd is. The crowd is a reflection.

It's like you're trying not to look, but there's a window. And you see the reflection in the window. Or you see the reflection in the pool of, you know, a puddle of water. And you can't help it. You saw it. You can't pretend you, you saw it. You can't pretend you didn't see it. It's like in court when one of the lawyers reads out something that he's not

supposed to read and then the jury is instructed to forget that they ever heard about that. But of course, they already did hear about that. So technically, yeah, an umpire should ignore all of these things. But in practice, when you've got a big decision hinging on it in a pennant race and lots of scrutiny headed your way if you get it wrong it would be difficult to ignore the other evidence even if it's not admissible i feel like we're short lawyers on this show we could have so many lawyers here right now. Yeah, we should have had Jason Wojcicki. Yeah, this is his kind of topic.

Although he's biased. Yes, that's true. As an A's faithful. All right, so the conclusion is we feel good or feel bad about this call being made? Well, I feel bad about it not being reviewable. I'm still not totally clear on why that's not the case. But we're starting with topic three or the third part of it. So just in general, the way that it happened, we feel good or bad.

I feel okay. Okay. I just feel good. I don't feel at all not good. I mean, you know where I stand. It's pretty clear where I stand. Yeah. I mean, right. If we're only looking at it in this limited way and not questioning why the system is that way but how they responded under the rules of the system, then I suppose it's all right. Okay, so now let's skip back to the front,

the rule itself, that you're not allowed to review tag plays, which, again, this was not a tag play. This was a double play. And I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to review a double play. However, you can't review tag plays uh the answer according this is ken rosenthal the answer according to baseball officials

is that two cameras typically are required to see both the catch and when the runner leaves the base at the moment baseball cannot verify that all cameras are in sync in some cases league officials have even noticed cameras that are several frames off from one another. Wow. Lying to us all these years with all those split screens. Yeah, that would be totally justified if that were true. Do you believe that's true? I mean, it doesn't seem to be an issue in any other sport. It doesn't seem to be an issue on baseball broadcasts. And so it's surprising. However, I've always been of the belief that it's better to let 10 guilty men walk than to put one innocent man in jail. In the sense that in introducing new technology, the first rule is to not introduce mistakes in the system. Even if mistakes are going to now exist organically because we're all flawed,

you don't want it introducing mistakes. We're very nervous about robots doing us harm. So is that an acceptable? I suppose so, yeah, if that's really the case. I never had heard that that was an issue before all the years of of split screens purporting to show us when a runner left in relation to when the catch was made but i guess we wouldn't really know if those were off so if they know that sometimes they are or could be then i guess that's an acceptable answer. It just seems impossible that they can't get.

It's hard to believe. Isn't it really hard to believe that they wouldn't be able to tell? I mean, look at what StatCast is going to do. In like 40 minutes from now, every single thing about baseball is going to be known and they can't get two cameras lined up? It seems like a stretch yeah they've got the whole facility on the other side of the country watching these plays from dozens of angles and they can't tell if they're synced well perhaps right as it is now if this is the case then it's case, then it's actually a problem because a lot of these plays, well, maybe they don't.

A lot of these reviews seem to already hinge on a presumption that these cameras are synced because you can't necessarily see where the tag is. A tag tag, a baseball in a glove touching a baseman. You can't really see when the tag gets the guy and when his hand is so you kind of triangulate and you go okay i can see in this angle where the tag touches him and then i see in this other angle when the when the hand touches the bag and you kind of line them up right don't aren't you aren't we already syncing these things maybe or although maybe if if that sort of mental adjustment is required, then technically you're not supposed to overturn a call on the field.

Maybe that's not considered conclusive. Okay. All right. And so if New York tells you that something is not reviewable and it is reviewable, is there not a review process for the review decision? There should be, right? Because if the Tigers had lost this game,

if that run had been allowed to score, you would think that they would have a pretty amazing case that the rules had not been followed, that a decision was made not to follow baseball's rules, that that decision cost them the game, and that they would, I guess that the review process then is a protest, but nobody likes protests. Nobody likes to pretend that baseball that was played never happened.

Nobody likes the fact that it creates this weird situation where if the Tigers were right and the league overturned it, they wouldn't have to replay the game if the Tigers had won anyway. So it creates this two universe situation where the Tigers can't possibly lose unless the league overturns them, which the league never does, or unless the league doesn't overturn, which the league never does. I mean, protests are just awful. Protests are terrible.

Like one protest per decade is actually allowed, even though many rules are broken. So it's dumb. Protests are dumb. So there needs to be a better way to get reviews themselves right, right? I would think so. Rambly, rambly, rambly. Yeah.

Alright, last thing. Sal Perez. Does this stick at all to him? I mean, maybe it will be remembered. He's got a pretty sterling reputation. He does, right. So does this affect his reputation? Because if this were A-Rod, it would stick forever. If it were Puig, it would have been, you know,

Puig seems to have outrun a lot of that reputation from a few months ago, doesn't he? A little bit. A little bit, not all of it. He sort of started that crazy play where the Dodgers threw the ball all over the field and that brought it back up again. Yeah, and he had a bad throw a week ago that cost the dodgers a win a run and manningly i think manningly i think manningly somebody called him out over it oh yeah there was a matt kemp and puig confrontation in the dugout oh yeah there's

the matt kemp and puig confrontation there's the yeah the the whole bubble thing is becoming a thing and i feel like that it's becoming a thing largely because puig's in that dugout becoming a thing by which i mean everybody in the world hates it except for the daughters and it looks really tacky um especially when they're up like 14 to 1 and they're still doing it for like aj ellis that's pretty dumb but um but perez already has this incredible reputation you love him i love him I think probably almost everybody loves him. They love him specifically because he doesn't do things like this. He seems like a really smart player, really aware. Does the opposite of this.

Is always in just the right place. And so does the reputation take any hit? Or is it... Tarnishes legacy? Is he still our favorite player? I think so. I think everyone gets one. Even if they miss a playoff game?

Even if it's a really, really big one. Yeah. I think if people are going to start arguing about single games that cost the Royals the playoffs, then probably Ned Yost will take the bulk of that blame. Oh, yeah. All right. That's all. Okay. So send us some emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.

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