Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 60: Ibanez Pinch-Hits for A-Rod/The Strasburg Debate That Won’t Die

Episode Date: October 11, 2012

Ben and Sam discuss Game Three of the Yankees-Orioles ALDS, the decision to pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez, and A-Rod’s future in New York, then talk about why the Stephen Strasburg debate won’t go away.

Good morning and welcome to episode 60 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives in Long Beach, California. I'm Sam Miller. I'm here with Ben Lindberg in New York, New York, who still has not slept after last night's Yankee game. Is that correct? I did not sleep the previous night either. Goodness gracious. And so tell me about this train ride you had to Brooklyn. I left Yankee Stadium about, I don't know, I texted you, I was leaving or emailed you about midnight or so after doing the clubhouse thing. And then it's a pretty short trip from there to my apartment, but not short enough last night. And I dozed off at some point during the trip and took an

unscheduled detour to Brooklyn, which was not on the way from the Bronx to Manhattan. So I ended up in Brooklyn at two in the morning or so and had to come back and sharing a subway car with some interesting characters. There's going to be a video of you on YouTube of a rat climbing on your face. Yeah, I'm lucky no one took my recorder pen or anything that I had on me. Anyway, we're going to talk about just two series today. We're going to talk about primarily the Yankees game, I think, and somewhat a little bit about the Nationals game. I presume that tomorrow we'll be talking a great deal about the Giants, Reds,

and A's Tigers as both of those games will be decided today in an epic day of baseball. So we're, I think, going to just skip them today. So you were in New York. You were in the stadium yesterday for Raul Ubaña's perhaps greatest game anybody in history has ever had. What was it like? It was exciting.

It was sort of a slow, quiet game up until, really up until his first home run. There wasn't a whole lot to get excited about. There weren't a whole lot of hits. There weren't a whole lot of hard-hit balls, at least on the Yankees' side. And obviously it all changed with that home run and with the second home run and as I wrote in the article that I wrote about it,

there was quite a bit of excitement even I felt among the other writers, not in a partisan way, but in a, hey, we just saw a pretty incredible game way. So it was fun. Obviously, Ibanez is, there's a lot about his story that's great. He's a very late bloomer in his career. He's, by all accounts, a very nice guy.

He's had some great career spikes, and now he has this amazing game. some great career spikes, and now he has this amazing game. But probably the thing that more people are going to be talking about today is the man he replaced. Rodriguez was over three yesterday with two strikeouts before he was pinch hit four. Was there much booing of him? Did you get the sense that this was kind of an inevitability, that this was going to have to come to a head this series?

There was booing. I mean, of course, it could have not come to a head if he had just had a good game at some point. It seemed like Girardi was kind of committed to sticking with him and not giving in to the public pressure, at least, to move him down in the lineup or take him out of the lineup entirely. He supported him, really, in his pregame press conference yesterday and, of course, started him without moving him down in the lineup or anything. But he explained that it just kind of occurred to him in the seventh inning that things might line up this way in the ninth.

And he liked the idea, I guess. It wasn't really a planned thing so much, although he did say before that it was nice to have Ibanez on the bench to come off the bench in a potential situation like that. But I think he was committed to sticking with A-Rod for the most part. And maybe it did have something to do with those first three at-bats where he continued to look pretty lost. And I always wonder what to conclude about that

because, I mean, the studies will show that there's really no way to tell when a hitter is about to become cold or about to become hot um you know a hitter who has been hot recently is is no more likely to continue to be hot it seems like as someone who hasn't been. And so you wonder whether the fact that a guy looks bad in one at bat means that he'll look bad in the next at bat. I don't know. Maybe the stats say you can't tell, but you'd think that's the sort of thing that a manager or a coaching staff could tell,

or at least that's what they're there for partially. manager or a coaching staff could tell, or at least that's what they're there for partially. Yeah. I mean, it really is the case that we probably judge managers a bit more harshly than they deserve when they make these decisions based on the sorts of small samples or niche splits or hot-cold stats, or match-up records, because it is very easy for us to say that the odds are that it is statistical noise and that the odds are it's not a great move. But I just think that anybody who's ever had to make decisions in their own lives knows how difficult it is to take emotion out of it completely

and trust in the cold, hard arc of math. And you can certainly see why a manager would just get tired of watching things fail and get tired of waiting for them to correct themselves. And as you sort of allude to in your recap of it as well, there is a sort of a truth to gut I think when we're talking about true experts. I mean I don't know that – I totally want to lean on Malcolm Gladwell's work but I mean … I thought of that when I was writing it. work, but I mean, I thought of that when I was writing it. Yeah. He wrote an entire book about the, um, the, the value of, um, of, of instinct when it is coming from a true expert. And, um, you talked about how Joe Girardi attributed this decision to his gut, his gut, his gut, his gut, his gut and his stomach and his heart and his stomach and his heart. But the, um, but,

and his stomach and his heart. But there was a truth to his decision as well. And he could have just easily perhaps credited his binder. But when you look at what Raul Ubañas and what Jim Johnson's strengths are, and when you look at what the ballpark was playing like, and when you look at the things that A-Rod does poorly and all those sorts of things, there really is a pretty good case to be made for the decision he made. Now, of course, Brian Mattis-Homer was completely bananas and unpredictable. So maybe once you conclude that baseball is simply mind-blowingly unpredictable, It's hard to give anybody credit for anything that they do.

But I guess the bigger question is, what was the difference between Johnson and Gonzalez? Why was Abanez not starting this game? Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know. I don't think he really explained that. I mean, unless it did have to do with those three at-bats, if he thought that there was something especially worrisome about them,

then I guess he could have changed his mind mid-game. But I don't know. That is a valid question to ask, though, certainly. that is a valid question to ask though certainly so some uh Miguel Gonzalez is another very good story um he was 28 he made his major league debut this year he journeyed through Mexico um as a in his in his mid-20s trying to recover his career and um there's something about his success, I think, this season and A-Rod's success that – or sorry, A-Rod's struggles that is really interesting as far as kind of which team you're on. Gonzalez is a – would probably have never gotten this chance if he had been on a team like the Yankees. I don't think that he would be in the starting rotation, the playoff rotation for very many teams. But he happened to land on an Orioles team where there aren't a lot of other great options and he was able to get this chance. Yeah, actually, if I can interrupt for a second, I read something recently that

Dan DeKette said that he felt that was a strength of the organization, that they could offer those kinds of opportunities to people. And that that was, I mean, usually you would think of a kind of a bad team or a team without many stable contributors, you'd think they'd have a tougher time attracting people. But he seemed to think that he felt it was an advantage that he could say, hey, come join us and you will probably play at some point. Continue. Well, that's, yes, exactly. And then A-Rod, conversely, is not actually a bad baseball player. He's a bit above average for a third baseman as a hitter, even this year, even in a year that is his new career low.

And yet, in the Yankees lineup, he has the second worst OPS. I mean, everybody was talking about moving him down to seventh, but you could make the case he should be eighth. And if you look at Russell Martin's last two months, you could maybe even make the case that you would be more confident with Martin coming up right now, although I probably wouldn't make that case. case that you would be more confident with Martin coming up right now, although I probably wouldn't make that case. And so A-Rod on a lot of teams would be a perfectly legitimate third or fifth hitter and nobody would say anything of it. But he just happens to be playing on this team where the standard is so high that he

looks terrible in retrospect. He does. And I mean, he's not really the worst hitter so far on the team, or at least not by any great degree. I mean, Curtis Granderson is not hitting. Nick Swisher is not hitting. For some reason, they just don't inspire the same booze or the same notice. I don't know what it is.

I mean, even as someone who likes A-Rod, and I feel like A-Rod is probably the best player I've ever watched on a regular basis, and I don't think there's anything to the unclutch opinion, still, I have to admit that he looks really bad when he's in one of these funks, which have happened to coincide with playoff appearances a few times. And so you consider this a funk. You don't consider this slow bat speed and a quick career. I mean, I think right now he's – I don't think he's as bad as he looks right now.

He's not a guy who's going to hit 83 with a strikeout every other at bat. But I definitely do think it's different, as I wrote from several years ago when he was struggling. Then it was, I think, I don't think there was really an argument to be made that you should move him down or take him out of the lineup or anything like that. Because his performance had just been so strong. He was a two-time MVP, I mean, just in recent years. But now he's not as bad as this, and I agree that he's probably an above average hitter, it definitely starts to get to the point where you can argue in favor of replacing Alex Rodriguez with a 40-year-old Raul Abanez, and then it makes some sense. So I've got three final

questions for you. They're all predictions, so we're going to look stupid on all of them. But I think they're three fun questions. Alex Rodriguez has five years left with the Yankees. I want to know my three questions. One, how many home runs does he hit in those five years? Two, what will the fifth year be? Will he be in New York? Will he be retired? Will he be released? Will he be somewhere else? Will he be somehow traded? And three is, his OPS for the last five years has gone down. Starting six years ago, it went from $1,067 to $965 to $933 to $847 to $823 to $783. That's a pretty impressive thing to accomplish. And generally, we think that the mean is more powerful than the trend. But I just want to know over or under 783 next year.

I guess I would give him something in the neighborhood of 100 home runs over that time, probably. home runs over that time, probably. And I guess if I'm, I guess I'm tempted to say that they won't all be with the Yankees one way or another. I have a hard time, I guess, imagining him as a 41-year-old or 42-year-old even, just being able to contribute enough to stick on a team that you would expect to be competitive. Obviously, no one's going to take him unless he's basically free. But I guess I would expect him to be somewhere else that last year. but I guess I would expect him to be somewhere else that last year. And over under 783 for next year, I guess I would say over, but I wouldn't expect his playing time to increase.

I wouldn't expect him to be any more durable because that's the other thing about him is that not only has he been less productive when he is on the field, he has not been on the field nearly as much over the last few years. So I don't expect that to reverse. Okay. One more. I got one more. I now I'm going to imagine that this is going to turn into a thing this off season. And Brian Cashman will have to shoot it down and say it's baseless. But what odds do you think there are that they trade him this offseason? Low, I think.

Okay. Yeah, I doubt it could happen. I don't know. I mean, who would... It would have to be just either a massive just eating of a contract or... I mean, you can't even... Usually with a guy with a bad contract, you say, well, we'll trade bad contracts, but there are no contracts this size, really. Well, what would he make as a free agent if he were a free agent this year? size really um well what would he make as a free agent if he were a free agent this year uh man you are full of good questions today um i guess he would not get more than a

two-year deal and i could see him making man i could see him making, man, I could see him making, say, eight or nine million. Oh, wow. That's lower. Both of those are lower than I would think. I was going to say 10. I don't think I would go over 10, though. All right. Well, let's just briefly talk about Strasburg, which we'll do it briefly because nothing has changed.

And that's kind of what is interesting and a little bit annoying to me about this new meme of the Nationals without Strasburg would be winning this division series. The unnamed teammate of his claimed that the Nationals would be up two games to none after the second game had Strasburg been kept on the roster and And then Edwin Jackson got shelled, but it's not like, I don't think, it's possible, but I don't think Strasburg would have replaced Jackson on the roster. You really can't even play the replacement game until game four today with Detweiler. Today is the day, I would think, that would make the difference, unless you think that the order of the games matters. Which Jason Potrachowski might. But the question I guess is did – I mean do you think that the Nationals thought that by announcing this long ago that there was going to at some point be an acceptance and internalizing of the decision

among Washington fans and among baseball followers? Or was it just inevitable that we were going to keep going through this cycle of acting like this decision was just being made today? I don't know. Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm getting at? Um, that, I don't know. Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm getting at? I don't, I guess I don't have the greatest gauge of how Washington fans are feeling about this right now, because I've read things in the last couple of days that suggests that they're tired of hearing it. Um, I mean, when Ken Rosenthal wrote his latest article about it, and he went on that radio show in DC and was kind of berated for it. Um, and I read a couple of things that seemed to suggest that nationals fans were really not the ones keeping

this alive anymore and that it's other people, um, who won't let it go. I don't know whether that's accurate really, cause I don't know that many nationals fans. I mean, I guess it's still something I'm interested in. I don't know that I have that much new to say about it, but I still find the decision itself and all the factors surrounding it kind of fascinating. What do you think about the now counter-meme that Strasburg was wearing down that he probably wouldn't have been an ace

anyway uh verducci wrote in his piece today um that well i just deleted that tab but that in his last 14 starts he had an era of like 3.94 and the nationals went seven and seven in those starts and so the idea that he was even uh going to I mean, Verducci probably was just saying that you can't just say that they were going to have a Verlander quality pitcher in their rotation. But I've seen, it seems like quite a few people talking about how Strasburg was probably not necessarily all that reliable. The counter to that is that in those 14 starts when his ERA was a bit higher, he actually did still strike out 10 batters per nine. He had three-to-one strikeout-to-walk ratio. He basically had a higher BABIP and was a very good pitcher.

Yeah, and there wasn't really a decrease in velocity until his last start, I think. Yeah, his last start was a disaster. Before that, he had nine strikeouts and one walk in six shutout innings. Two starts before that, he had 10 strikeouts and one walk in six innings with one run. So, yeah, I mean, I think is it pretty much can we agree that Strasburg would have been a better option than Detweiler even now and that the Nationalist decision is no more interesting than we probably already talked about it. Yeah, I would agree on that part.

I think, I mean, the only thing, I kind of gave them something of a pass earlier. One of the times we talked about it because I felt like the season had just kind of taken them by surprise. Oh, yeah. No, you made a great point in your piece today. Did I? You did. Oh, right. So that seems like a very long time ago.

Yeah, I mean, the Nationals were predicting that they would make the playoffs or at least saying that they expected to make the playoffs, that they'd be disappointed if they didn't make the playoffs, really in February, really before spring training even got started. And so if they fully expected to be a playoff team, you'd think that they would have thought, well, maybe we would want to have our best pitcher available when we're in the playoffs, although there is the counterargument to that, that maybe they wouldn't have made it if they had held him out. And as it turned out, they only beat the Braves by something like three games, right?

So it wasn't like they just, it wasn't a cakewalk. If they had held Strasburg out for weeks or something or not pitched him as often as they did, maybe they wouldn't have made it or they wouldn't have had the highest seed certainly. So I don't know. I keep going back and forth. today and it's i mean we're not in the room it's hard to say this is all speculation but it seems entirely possible to me that the nationals front office wasn't quite as confident as davy johnson was and that davy johnson didn't actually believe that they were going to shut down strasburg for the postseason and one of the first podcasts that you and i did i think i said something along the lines of you know there's no way that they're going to go into the postseason without their best pitcher um they'll figure out a lot of And I'm sure Davy Johnson probably thought that. Well, I'm not sure. But it would make sense that Davy Johnson might have also thought that.

And so it might have just been one of those things where the communication didn't happen. And it was, I mean, even if Davy Johnson was talking boldly before the season, you know, it's hard to say that you're ever so sure Davy Johnson was talking boldly before the season. It's hard to say that you're ever so sure that you're going to make the playoffs that you don't want to start your opening day starter on opening day. I'm almost rooting for the Nationals to win so that we don't have to hear about this forever. They have to win the World Series, right?

Even if they lose the World Series in Game 7, we will hear about this. Yeah, I think unless it were like they got shut out every game and they scored no runs, but their pitchers pitched well and they just lost every game 1-0. Well, didn't they lose – well, no. I guess it kind of is what's happening. Yeah, it's more or less. They're not really scoring.

So, yeah, maybe. Okay, so they just have to win the World Series then. That's the only option. Yeah, yeah. So this is a compelling podcast. I'm looking for the scores. I can't find the scores. Anyway, let's end it.

Okay. I could use some sleep. All right, so long.