Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 599: Timeless Listener Emails

Episode Date: January 14, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about the Diamondbacks’ latest quote kerfluffle, then answer listener emails about timeless tickets, home-field disadvantages, and breakout players.

Toyota with the spoiler ace of bass boiling. I play ball like Billy Hoyle. Now I need a Sidney Dean to help me start this raffle in the Philippines. I stay a-flushing like I'm Dylan G. You ain't gotta open a comic book to figure who the villain be. Good morning and welcome to episode 599 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Howdy, Ben. How are you?

Good. How are you? Okay. Excellent. It's a listener email show and a Play Index segment show, but before we begin, we have some banter. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the um the dave stewart thing you saw the dave stewart thing i did do you have it in front of you by chance i do can you read the quote yeah so this is from nick picoro he is quoting dave stewart

the new gm of the diamondbacks in the a Arizona Republic. He was talking about many things, but specifically about James Shields and how the team is interested in James Shields. So Stewart said, I think James is a throwback guy by the way he goes about his business and the innings he pitches. I think the fact that Tony La Russa is here

and that we have more baseball people, he probably sees us as a true baseball team versus some of the other teams out there that are geared more toward analytics and those types of things. Sometimes there are concessions the player will make to be here. It's the case that he likes what we're doing with our organization from our end. All we can hope is that there will be enough concessions that he can be here. Okay. So this was, you know, immediately, you know, for 40 minutes, everybody was, uh, you know, making their jokes about Dave Stewart and expressing their outrage and so on.

And, um, uh, you know, you can certainly, I think it's fair to say that if there was a team that, uh, that eschewed any, uh, any source of relevant information, they would be a subject to criticism fairly. However, uh, I don't really know why he said this. I don't think that it is really supposed to be saying what we take it to mean, because nobody really says what people were taking it to mean out loud. I'm not sure what exactly he is saying there, and why he is saying it, and who he is saying it to. he is saying there and why he is saying it and who he is saying it to. I think that there must be subtext to it that we don't understand or information behind it that we don't appreciate. I just wanted to know what your best guess is for what he's saying and why. Before I

just preempt you, I think that probably there's some justifiable reason. I mean, I didn't find it necessarily to be criticizable because we don't know. Like, I don't think we know the answers to those three things. And if you don't know the answers to those three things, you can't really assume the worst possible interpretation of it, which is what I think we tend to do on Twitter. But what would be your interpretation of it to answer is what I think we tend to do on Twitter. But what would be your interpretation of it to answer those three questions? Well, it's hard to come up with an interpretation that paints them in a very positive or different light. I mean, I guess the- Let me, for instance, though, he doesn't have to necessarily be, we don't have to assume he's

speaking truthfully. He could be speaking directly to James Shields. Yeah, I imagine he is. Yeah, so if it's an audience of one, then we have to think about what message is he trying to communicate to that audience. And so what message do you think he's trying to communicate to that audience? Because I don't think that there's no real... I mean, James Shields loved playing with the Rays. I remember after they traded him, a week after they traded him, the team bus went down to spring training,

left the trop or whatever to go down to spring training. He went to say goodbye to everybody and to like you know be the the wife uh sort of blowing kisses at the bus as it left so he clearly loved being there so it's not as though you're gonna convince him like oh any team run by uh you know wall street guy sucks so that i don't think the message can possibly be that simple so what no do you think the message is simply saying we're going to let you, is this a pitch count issue? Is he saying we're a team, which seems legitimate, right? If he's trying to negotiate with James Shields or to sway

James Shields by saying we're not going to, you know, we're not one of those organizations that's obsessed with pitch counts or that's I don't know, I don't know what conversations he's had with Shields, but some, I don't know, I don't know what conversations he's had with Shields, but some pitchers don't like shifts behind them, for instance. Could be something like that.

So that's one explanation, right? Right, yeah. And he does say that Shields is a throwback guy because of that, because of how many innings he pitches. I mean, maybe you could say why, if you are appealing to James Shields directly, then why even make this comment publicly? Why not just express the same idea to James Shields or his agent?

And maybe it's not to James Shields. It could be. Also, we know that he has turned down one team, or at least it's been reported, that he turned down one mystery team that offered $110 million, more than he's expected to get from anyone else. So clearly there is some team, according to this report, if this report is true, there is some team that by its nature is unappealing to him. And so he could, like we were saying sort of along those lines,

he could be trying to set himself as the opposite of that team. Or it could be that he hates the guy who runs that team and he's he's uh he's mic dropping him or something like he's he could be he could be subtweeting some other gm could be possible it's hard to say it's yeah it's possible that the what is this what is the scenario where, like, what happens? Well, I mean, when you have Tony La Russa, I mean, there are some players who might be sympathetic to this viewpoint, right? There are probably more players who would be attracted to the idea of, you know, baseball men making baseball decisions than there are players who would be repelled by the idea of a team

not putting all its stock in analytics. What was it that we talked about? Who was it? Some recently retired player. Was it Ryan Terrio who tweeted that thing about GMs who it was like when Farhan Zaidi was hired maybe and he tweeted something disparaging about a guy who never played the game being a GM and we talked a bit about how many

players actually feel that way or whether there's really any advantage to having played if you're a GM at this point so there might be some players who would feel that way it's hard to imagine it really being a deciding factor in many free agent

negotiations, for instance. But if you have Tony La Russa on your team, he's a respected baseball man. So why not play that up? If he's making your decisions, that's something that a lot of teams don't have in an equivalent position. They have an owner or they have a stat head guy or a guy who didn't play or a business background type in that role. So that sort of sets them apart. And maybe that helps more than it hurts, except in the court of Twitter opinion. Yeah. All right.

But it's nice to know, though, that the well of Diamondbacks quotes didn't dry up with Kirk Gibson and Kevin Towers leaving. It is actually. It's amazing to think that Stewart and Gibson couldn't make it work, given the quote. Right. Okay. By the way, when you were away last week, I provided a Ryan Webb update. It was not a very newsworthy one, but on this podcast it was. Just that he's healthy and will be back by spring training, even though he had surgery shortly after. So John Marossi reported today that there is some Matt Albers news or a Matt Albers update. He's been throwing since December 1st. He's expected to showcase for clubs early next month and

MRIs have shown no structural damages. And I enjoyed the responses on Twitter to that tweet by Morosi, which were wow Matt Albers, who cares? And didn't he sign with the Jays on a minor league deal?

No, that was Andrew Albers And someone who made a Fat Albert reference So the internet was excited to hear about this What else? Oh, the intro sound today was indirectly suggested by Louie Listener Louie who sent it to us today Someone actually sent it to us last July But it's an Action Bronson song.

He is well known for making baseball references in his songs. But this one, if you caught it, it's hard to hear. Go back and listen again. It references Dylan Gee, who is in the news today for being a trade target. So that's an explanation for that. Oh, and our friend of the podcast, Gabe Kapler, is already doing interesting stuff as the Dodgers farm director. He's instituted a policy, the LA Times reported, that the Dodgers have to have a Spanish-speaking

coach on every minor league team. So they've added new positions partially to accommodate that guideline. Seems smart. He's also got me eating more eggs and sweet potatoes than I used to. Yeah, me too. I'm not sure I'm sold on sweet potatoes, but I'm entertaining the idea. Internet questions. Okay.

All right. Let's start with Eric, who says, Today, Craig Calcaterra reported that the Brewers are selling a timeless ticket. Apparently, for $1,000, you get a one-pound bronzed ticket. The ticket may be redeemed for one ticket to any Brewers opening day or postseason game or any nine other home games, excluding opening day and postseason. And this is a new thing. The Brewers started this.

They offered this in October, and it was just the one timeless ticket, the one piece of metal that you could redeem for a ticket to any Brewers game at any time in any year as long as the Brewers exist. And they have sweetened the offer with this additional home games, which makes one think that maybe they weren't selling a whole lot of timeless tickets. So Eric says, if you had to choose one team to purchase a $1,000 timeless ticket, which would you choose?

If you could choose the Cubs and you could guarantee a seat at Wrigley if they were on the brink of winning a World Series, would you choose a team based on a record that might be broken in the future? Are there other factors that would play into your decision? Well, we've already established in an earlier episode that records are no longer being broken. Right. They will start to be broken again. There will be more records broken.

But currently, there are no records being broken for a variety of reasons. And it is very difficult to predict what the next great record is going to be. So I think that in another era, if this were 10 years ago, you could certainly... I just remembered my bet with Andy McCullough. Remember that one? Yeah, he got some runs. I owe him a buck, probably. Not giving up.

I owe him a buck, probably. Not giving up. Anyway, so there's not really a good ticket for a record that I can think of. Can you think of any ticket for a record? I mean, the problem is that nobody's putting up any... In this era, in this environment, nobody's going to do any offensive stats, any offensive records, any offensive records. And pitchers don't pitch long enough. Pitchers don't pitch enough innings to set any good pitching stats, career stats.

They don't pitch enough and they don't pitch enough innings. There's great stat head records being broken, but it's not like they stopped the game because Kenley Jansen had the highest strikeout rate of all time or anything like that. So that's not really probably going to help. But so far as I can tell, you're pretty much stuck with team achievements at this point, I think. And the Cubs is so far ahead of every other possible team achievement, and also relatively likely, considering.

Well, the thing about this timeless ticket is that, as far as I can tell, I read both Brewers' press releases, it says nothing about where the ticket is, or where the seat is located, which is an important consideration. It's in another park. It's actually in Oakland. Yeah, you have to sit on the roof across from Wrigley no matter what team you buy the ticket for. I don't know.

Because if it's just a generic ticket, it's not behind home plate or anything, at what point, I mean, what game could you not get a ticket for a thousand dollars to you could get a ticket to any game for a thousand dollars you get this punk of metal i mean i don't want to talk too much about this because i've asked zachary levine to write about and he'll write it better than i will and i don't want to accidentally uh mangle arguments that he's going to make better but um you do get nine other tickets. You get nine other games.

Yes, that is essential. That's 300, 400 bucks probably-ish right there. And this is forever. I assume, Zachary I think is going to address this, but I assume that ticket prices rise faster than inflation. If you have this 10 years from now, $1,000 for a World Series ticket in Yankee Stadium, probably not unrealistic 10 years from now. Even a bad seat, even a so-so seat. Sure. You'd want to do it for the team with the most expensive tickets that you expect will win a lot? You want to do it for the Cubs.

Really, it's just that's the answer. Like I said, in another era, there would be more interesting answers. I think if you foresaw, I would love to have been Vaughn's 756th, for instance, or 71st.

I would love to have seen Jeter's last game. I would have loved to have seen Mariano Rivera's last game. I would have loved to see... Well, you wouldn't know this, but there have been some great World Series games in the past. But at this point, you've pretty much just got the Cubs. You've got to take the Cubs.

Yeah, I don't disagree. Okay. But here's the thing though. Say you get this and your intention is to see the Cubs clinch their first

World Series title. What do you think are the odds that you play it right? First of all, you've got to get, they've got to win one. So there's some odds that they'll never win one, that the game will expire before the Cubs win one. You've got to be alive for that to happen. So there's that element.

There's the actuarial table involved here. People don't like it when I talk about people love it when you talk about But also They could clinch on the road they could clinch They could come home up three games to two and you've got to decide whether to go see Right, they could be up three nothing You never think you could they could be up 3-0. They could have many chances to clinch. They could have many chances to clinch.

You could blow it on the wrong one. You could also be worried enough about missing it that you simply take that when game five of the LCS or the LDS pops up, you might take that opportunity to at least lock in a good game rather than the clinching game so if you bought this if you were a cubs fan and you could get this for the cubs what would you guess are the odds that you see the club cubs clincher world series i'll say five percent oh i was gonna say 18%, and I thought that was low, but yeah.

No, I mean, what are the odds? Just the odds that they will win one. Pretty good. I mean, you're 14 years old, Ben. The Cubs are a much, much better than 50% chance to win a World Series in your lifetime, I think. Okay. Much better. Like I would say, what are you, really, 28?

Yeah. So let's give you 63 years of general awareness. Okay, thank you. I would guess that, I will guess that Major League Baseball exists for 63 years. I think that's a pretty good, I would say say there's at least an 85% chance of that. And if it happens, I would guess that the Cubs are at least a

95-ish percent chance to win one of those World Series. Well, okay. I guess so. There are a bunch of ifs there, but pretty high probability ifs. I don't know. You'd have to have the discipline to hold on to it long enough for this to be worth it. Are you a forever stamp owner?

I used to want to hoard gasoline. That would have been a bad plan. I don't believe in this. I don't believe in gift cards either generally speaking because you lose them it's a bad investment anytime you're giving money to a corporation that you can spend later

you are inevitably well yeah, stores love it because many people will not ever spend it and they get to keep the money so I I'm not a forever stamp hunter. But I could say this one though is I could see it being a good deal financially. And assuming a ticket will be available to you, I mean in game seven in Wrigley would be a tough ticket and you'd have one. Yeah. Okay. All right. Presumably though, how do they guarantee you one? How do they know and how much time do you have to give?

That is a good question. It says there's something about the procedure. You have to say, to redeem the owner just needs to contact the brewer's box office with their unique timeless ticket information as well as a photo ID and the date of the game he or she would like to attend. But it doesn't say how long a warning. It says, oh, okay, all ticket redemptions are subject to availability. Oh, come on! That spoils everything. Yeah!

I'm out. This is like when Columbia House would tell you that CDs cost $8.99 and up. Right. Oh, really? And up? Owners of the timeless ticket are advised to contact the Brewer's box office with their selected game as early as possible. Man. Well, that ruins the whole thing. If I can't count on strolling up to the box office five minutes before first pitch and getting my timeless ticket fulfilled. I mean, they're not promising anything in that language, right?

Not really, no. Nothing. Like, nothing is guaranteed. Pretty much. It's conceivable that if you told them now that you wanted Game 7 of the World Series, that they would say, well, those tickets don't exist yet. And then by the time they existed, they might tell you they were sold out because they had been promised season ticket holders. That's right. I loved this until two seconds ago.

I was just going to ask you, but do you love this? And you can't actually reserve it ahead of time or far ahead of time because it says that redemptions for the timeless ticket will become available once dates for public ticket sales have been announced. So you couldn't say I want a World Series ticket for 2017 right now. You'd have to wait until everyone can buy one. Huh. And I wonder if it's just a voucher, in which case,

but what I'm saying is I wonder if you would have to stand in line just like anybody else. Like if this is just essentially good as cash, but not necessarily first in line. Uh-huh. I wonder. I mean, they give you the implication of this is like, because this is a, what is it? It's like a foot tall.

It's a bronze ticket that's a foot tall. Yeah, it's a trophy basically. The implication of making a big coin like this is that you can walk up and declare, it's mine. But in fact, that's all. Very ostentatiously. The more ostentatiously

you can do it, the better. But you actually do not display this bronze ticket at any point. You call the box office and tell them you're a bronze ticket holder and they send you a real paper ticket.

So this bronze ticket never leaves your house. It's worthless. It's an optical illusion. You get to keep it, but you don't want to keep it. It'd be better if you could lord it over everyone who didn't have the foresight. Why does this one have Doug Melvin's name on it? They gave one to Doug Melvin?

This feels like the one person who needs it less than anybody. That's right. Well, he won't be a timeless general manager, so whenever he's gone, he can use it after that. God, just like everything. Just too many caveats. Too good to be true. Just like everything.

Right. The fine print. Everything else just let me down. Just like my daughter. Okay. All right. Let's take a Vinit question. Vinit questions are always solid.

Always. Never let me down. Vinit's a Brewers fan too, right? Except for last week when he asked us a question that had already been answered. But otherwise, any Vinit question we have answered has been a good one. And yes, he's a Brewers fan. So, what if there was a distinct home field disadvantage in baseball?

Owners would still want more playoff games at home for revenue, but their team would be more likely to win on the road. Would MLB offer a choice to the best record team to play on the road? Or I guess would there ever be a point where

a team would choose to play on the road? Or I guess would there ever be a point where a team would choose to play on the road and give up the playoff revenue? So I guess the question is, is the soul of ownership most interested in making money or winning. Yeah, if the size of the home field disadvantage is equivalent to the size of the actual home field advantage, I can't imagine that that would make anyone change their decision. You're not going to give up a chance for, not only for the revenue, but for your fans to experience a playoff home game for a small percentage swing. Oh, was this question about the playoffs, not regular season? No, it didn't specify.

Because I don't think you get, I don't think playoff revenue goes to the home team, right? I think it gets split, all the postseason revenue goes into a pot, and then it gets split by teams playing in each series. So certainly in the postseason you would choose to play on the road if this were true. Although, like you say, you do owe it to your fans. It would be an investment in the future to give your fans some use. But would your fans revolt if you told them, we're going to make this have this game

so that you can come see it and we will probably lose because of you that would be like this would be to go back to wow i mean this would be like telling the kids yes we got divorced because of you we did it because of you yeah you were the one who did it to us. I don't know if you would do it in that case. I don't know if you would. I'm not sure. Maybe it depends on how long a drought you've had, how long it's been since a fan base saw its team play at home. The question is playoff games, Ben.

It mentions playoff games, but it asks about playoff games. But presumably it would apply to any game. I think that in this case, I think that it would always be hoarding home games, other than the playoffs, where the revenue doesn't come directly from hosting it. Although some revenue does, right? Because you would still get the concessions revenue and all that. Yeah. But I think that owners would always take the money.

I think so too. All right. You want to do play index? Yeah. So this is a quick one, quickish one. want to do play index yeah so uh this is a quick one quickish one uh everybody knows that well as you know last week um craig biggio was nominated or uh elected to the hall of fame you saw that i'm sure yeah and so is randy johnson and so is pedro martinez and so is john smoltz and everybody knows that craig biggio is the hit-by-pitch king, right?

In fact, we've already had a play-in-deck segment about it. I genuinely don't remember that. What was it about? Zachary Levine's play-in-deck segment last week was about Craig Biggio's hit-by-pitch rate and who's had higher hit-by-pitch rates among players who haven't been hit by pitches as often. Yeah, that's okay. So this is not an issue then.

I'm okay. I'm on safe ground. So everybody knows that Craig Biggio is the hit-by-pitch king. He got hit by more pitches than any player in the Hall of Fame. He also got hit by more pitches per plate appearance than any player in the Hall of Fame by a considerable margin, in fact. He, over the course of 1,000 pitches, he would have been hit by 22.

Nobody else is higher than 17, which means, you know, that's a big gap, right? If you think about it, that's like 30% more than number two, and then number three is 14, and number four is 14. So, actually actually you know what how about that frank chance actually was hit by more pitches how did that happen i might be wrong about that anyway frank chance might everybody knows that craig vizio is the second highest hit by pitch Among Hall of Famers, famously the number two.

We're going to call it number one. We're going to assume that there's some data error because Frank Chance predates 1901 and Play Index only goes from 1901 onward. But what many people might not know, Ben, is that the Hit By Pitch king from a pitching perspective is? I don't know. I'm one of those people. In the Hall of Fame? Who do you think has the highest hit-by-pitch rate in the Hall of Fame? John Drysdale.

Number two, because number one is Pedro Martinez. Pedro Martinez is the hit-by-pitch king for the Hall of Fame. He would have hit 12 per 1,000. Don Drysdale, 11 per 1,000. Technically, ever so technically, they both trail George Sisler, who pitched 111 innings and hit six batters, but he's not in the Hall of Fame for his pitching

or his hit-by-pitching. So we're calling Pedro Martinez. So on the same day, the arguably all-time hit-by-pitching. So we're calling Pedro Martinez. So on the same day, the arguably all-time hit-by-pitch king for hitters will be elected, as will the all-time hit-by-pitch king for pitchers. So this got me wondering about the flip side. Who are the players who are the hit-by-pitch peasants, I guess, who don't hit batters and who don't get hit by batters i will go through very quickly because i wanted to see if uh who who is the champion of having hit nobody and the answer is not that interesting um the from the pitching perspective there was a

guy named john cumberland who faced 1400 batter, which is like, I don't know, a couple hundred innings, not much. And he never hit anybody. The active contender for that, if you want to call him active, is Andrew Bailey, who is at 872 batters. So he is about, I don't know, a good year and a half or two away from becoming the all-time hit-by-pitch peasant. But he might never pitch again, in which case the best bet would be Corey Rasmus, who has only faced 328 batters. He is not even within 1,000 of the record. But you can watch that.

That is something you can watch. If you expand it to guys with simply small numbers of hit-by-pitches, the modern standard bearer would be Raphael Betancourt, who hit one batter in 2,600 plate appearances, which came within about 500

innings of the all-time record for most batters with only one hit-by-pitch. That was set by a fella named chubby dean who wasn't very good uh if you do three or lower uh that was no that's not interesting uh greg holland has only hit one batter but he's a long ways away uh if you go at the hitting side mark lemke is the record holder for zero with 3,664 plate appearances. And then, strangely though, and actually not and then, because Mark Lemke is included in this next fact, strangely, nobody anywhere near the top participated in the 2000s. Everybody who is

kind of near the top of the zero hit by pitch list predates 2000. And in fact, to find somebody who even appeared in the 2000s, you have to go all the way down to Kurt Schilling, who is not a hitter, he's a pitcher, and he's at barely a quarter of Mark Lemke's. No active player is within 3,000 plate appearances of Mark Lemke's 36-64. The active leader is Pete Cosma at 578. Ender Inciarte is at 447. It is very difficult, apparently, in this day and age to avoid getting hit by a pitch. And it's not that hit by pitches are down. They're up.

Right. Sorry, it's not that, well. Well, sort of up. I was going to say, it's not that hit-by-pitches are up, though they are. Because they're up a little, but it just seems like they're up... The randomness of them maybe is up. This is what this indicates to me, is that maybe the randomness is up. Because even if you are a guy

who doesn't get hit-by-pitches very much, you just can't avoid it anymore. There is going to be one, And I think that makes sense. There are a lot more pitchers who throw 99 and 102 and so on. And eventually one of these hard fastballs is going to clip you. And so there are, of course, there are batters who are trying to get hit. There are batters who are not trying to get hit, but are bad at getting out of the way. There are batters who are not trying to get hit, but are good at getting out of the way. There are batters who are not trying to get hit but are good at getting out of the way. And there are batters who are very, very, very much not trying to get hit, like their entire life's goal is to avoid getting hit because they're

sensible, smart people who went to Princeton. All of those groups of people are, though, prone to the 97-mile-an-hour fastball that gets away from somebody. And so it does seem like the extreme no-hit-by-pitch guy has disappeared. There might not ever be another Mark Lemke, is what I'm saying. The closest thing to elite active hit-by-pitch avoiders would be Coco Crisp, who has only been hit five times in 6,000 played appearances. And this one might surprise you, Ben, with three hit-by-pitches in 3,700 played appearances, Nick Punto.

Wouldn't you guess that Nick Punto has been hit by about 150 pitches? Doesn't he seem like that's his deal, is getting pain where other players would not choose pain and doing things that other players would choose not to do but in fact no huh okay that's right all right well that's why we do these play index segments so that we can find these things out you can do your own play index segments at baseballreference.com. Use the coupon code BP when you subscribe to get the discounted price of $30 on one-year subscription. We are short on time, but let's see if we can just cram in something here. Jared says that he is fascinated by the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings.

We talk every now and then about how good players at various points in history were or how good they would be if we could transplant them to the future. So Jared wants to know what do we think the competition was like back then? How good would this team be today? He would not be surprised if they lost to his high school team. So this is famously the first all professional openly salaried team. They went 65 and 0 in 1869 traveling around the country. It was controversial at the time to pay people to play baseball and turn away from the amateur aesthetic and all that. So 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, how good are they in 2014? I agree that they would lose to his high school team. Depends on the high school.

There's no reason. There's no reason. I don't know. High school athletes, I mean. They've never played, Ben. These people made it to, these people probably didn't even play the game until they were 15 true and they're probably what catching the ball on the bounce with uh with no gloves or these things always come down to the ground rules right are they allowed to use modern equipment are

they allowed to train for a while first or are they just plopped down into a game with no preparation i'll let them train for a while but not not 10 years but yeah i mean i'm i'm gonna assume that they have the same equipment and that they are given a chance to to learn the rules okay but uh they're just these were just random adult men that's essentially who these people were. They were, you know, they were guys in good shape. Yeah, that's it. That's why they were chosen. You look strong. You look like you could carry a sack of grain. Would you like to join my team? That's what the game was. You know, the rules were throwing underhand at that point. If you hit the ball, you actually had to run the first carrying a sack of grain. So that was mostly what they were chosen for.

No, these were just grown-ups. I mean, I think that if you chose the all-star team of the typical slow-pitch softball league, they would beat these guys. Okay, that sounds reasonable. I think now, 10 years later, a little different. But not super different, but pretty different 10 years later. By 1900, I'm willing to give them AA status.

Okay. You have to go. Can we do a one-minute question? We can do a one-minute question. Okay. It comes from Mike. He says, all this talk about Hall of Fame voting by sabermetric savvy writers versus old school PPWA writers got me to thinking. I passed on Corey Kluber and John Lester in 2014, taking CJ Wilson and Dan Heron ahead of them.

In 2013, I passed over Alex Cobb and Andrew Kashner for PV and AJ Burnett. Somehow I'm missing it, my fear being I am of the less effective old school method. Can you share three or four stats you guys use to identify breakout types? And maybe even a couple of names for 2015. I'm finally willing to listen. So I don't have breakout types off the top of my head. Every spring, I know I'm going to be asked about breakout types. So at some point, I actually make a list of people who I could convincingly argue could be breakout types, even though I have no confidence that I can really pick out breakout players with any reliability or I would be the most sought after person in baseball. an old school guy can't be that old school because he's listening to our podcast, but, but what would you recommend for his preparation this year? That would be different from his,

his methods of just sort of taking a well-known guy. I, it, there's, it varies so much. It's really kind of hard to say. Um, but,

oh, geez, I don't know. I mean, I didn't think Lester was a breakout type no neither did I but I did think Kluber was so maybe that just means guys who Carson Sestouli is unnaturally obsessed with

you know FIPS that are better than ERAs and I you know strikeout rates basically if you have good strikeout rates good swinging strike rates those are good for pitchers if you have a guy who has been moved from an environment that seems like it got better that's that's you know that's just free money a lot of times although oh man never never had a worse fantasy season than the year Alfonso Soriano got traded to the Nationals. And I was like taking Brad Wilkerson in the third round of every league.

I was so, so interested in Brad Wilkerson. Oh, man. That was a Brad Wilkerson-y year. Oh, man, that was a Brad Wilkerson-y year. So that stuff and then power. I have a kind of very loose hypothesis that power drives everything else. So if you just draft home runs exclusively, the rest of your team will fall into place very naturally. So just whoever has home runs is an easy one for me. Yeah, just if you haven't in the past,

look at projections and read the people who are writing about fantasy full-time and looking at all of these stats so they can almost save you the effort of looking at the stats yourself if you're not sure what to look at. Find someone who seems to know what he's talking about and go with that person's recommendations. I don't know, buy the BP annual, which is something that I used to do for fantasy preparation before I ever wrote for it.

So that's helpful. I don't know. Listen to us. We'll be starting our season preview, team preview series early next month and going team by team. And in the course of those podcasts, we often talk about people who could be getting better. So, I don't know. Look at velocity. Look at new pitches. Although that can always be deceptive. Look at people who seem to change something last year

and do something better at the end of the year, although that can also be very deceptive too. But yeah, the BABIP stuff is always kind of a gimme-all at this point. I don't know whether anyone is not looking at that anymore. But the breakouts are tough because a true breakout, when you're talking about someone who just gets way way better than he's ever been before with no real indication that he's going to get better those are the ones that can make your season and they're also the ones that one can consistently

predict yeah so like last year just a very quick and this is not a me telling you about my fantasy team thing although it will sound like it. Last year, two seconds ago, I said something about Kluber. I was in my two-person draft, right? And because if anybody remembers the rules of the two-person draft, eliminations are a big part of it and you want to get, oh gosh, I'm talking about my fantasy team. I ended up with Kluber, but only because Kluber and Masterson were both available. And I was willing to take whichever one he didn't take. And I had them essentially identical in my mind.

And so he ended up eventually getting Masterson, and I took Kluber. And one won the Cy Young, and the other had a 7 ERA in St. Louis. And yay, I won. ERA in St. Louis, and yay, I won! But, like, it's not like I saw any difference between the horrible guy and the great guy. So it's all

total nonsense, in a sense. Yes. Okay. Alright, so that's it for today. We'll be back on Friday, episode 600. I think we'll have something enjoyable to listen to. So be back then. Send us some emails for next week at podcasts at baseballperspectives.com

and join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. Rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. We will be back in a couple days.