Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 65: The Impact of the ALCS Rainout/The Strange Appearance of Hunter Pence/Do We Dislike Any Players or Teams?

Episode Date: October 18, 2012

Ben and Sam discuss how the postponement of Game Four hurt the Yankees, talk about how terrible at baseball Hunter Pence appears to be and whether he’s always looked like that, and conclude by revisiting the widespread anti-Cardinals sentiment among baseball fans and examining their own emotional allegiances.

Hello and welcome to Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller in Long Beach, California with Ben Lindberg in New York, New York. Ben, how are you? Good, thank you. How are you? Good. Did it rain where you were? Nope, not at all. Me neither.

Did it rain in Detroit extensively after the rainout? Because it didn't rain at all before the rainout, and then I stopped paying attention to the weather in Detroit. So you think that the rainout helps the Tigers, so maybe it's a conspiracy. Uh, I think the first part is true. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a conspiracy. Um, but I, I do think it helps the Tigers. I mean, not that the Yankees had or have much of a chance in this series anyway, but, uh, it does hurt them in that if there hadn't been a rainout

and they had managed to extend the series to a seventh game, they would have had CeCe Sabathia on short rest, which, as we discussed recently, he does not seem to be affected much by starting on short rest. So as it is, he will only be able to start once on full rest, and then they will have to cobble together that seventh game somehow if they get there. Of course, they would be thrilled to get there and have to figure out what to do, but it would be, they'd have to choose either to go with Hughes if he's healthy enough

or if he's not, to disable him and activate Ivanova, in which case they'd lose Hughes for the World Series. Or they could start David Phelps, or they could go with some sort of all-bullpen arrangement. But either way... You're missing the obvious solution. What's that? Shorter rest.

Sabathia? Yeah, just shorter and shorter and shorter. What's that? Shorter rest. Sabathia? Yeah, just shorter and shorter and shorter. They ruled that out. Did they really? Wow, I didn't even. Yeah. I mean, maybe he could pitch out of the bullpen or something, but he's not starting.

So that hurts them. And, of course, there would be no days off, I guess, for the rest of this series. So you won't be able to go that heavy on your bullpen. It gives Phil Koch an extra day off. He was theoretically available but had worked a lot the last couple days. Not that Phil Koch is some sort of great October weapon that we have to worry about that much.

Proven closer. Yes, well now he is. But anyway, it changes the series a little bit in that sense, but if they lose one of the next few games, then it probably won't have made much of a difference at all. But I am curious about what

the actual precipitation was in Detroit because they did call the game without any sign of rain except the radar. Well, I don't want to talk about that anymore. Okay. So the actual baseball that was played was in St. Louis where the Gi uh lost and the cardinals won and so now it is two games to one um and one of the things that i think a lot of americans are learning this october is just how bad hunter pence looks when he plays baseball

and it is sort of amazing to me that somebody found him and I wonder if he looks this bad when he's playing well when I mean I've obviously seen him play well but I've never followed him all that closely until this year and I'm trying to figure out whether his whether the the impression that you get watching him is a reflection of him being really in a bad slump, or whether this is how he looks when he's going well as well. I mean, I know he's physically kind of awkward always. Yes. But he looks so, I mean, he really looks like, I don't even know, I don't have a metaphor ready for you.

Do you have a metaphor? Can you come up with an analogy? Well, in what sense are you saying that he looks bad yeah well he he he swings as though he is um perhaps blind um and that somebody is calling out to him swing now uh he throws uh with this really weird kind of elbow-y hitch kind of a thing that you would think would be trained out of him by now, but it's not. And I guess those are the main things. He also has no, I mean, he doesn't really have any kind of sense of the strike zone. It doesn't appear. He swings at almost everything and he doesn't seem

to do much better when the ball is in the middle of the strike zone and it is hanging there but that's probably just the slump but there's just sort of a general awkwardness he's got kind of a weird swing he kind of runs a bit weird and he throws a bit weird so he does all these things that are a bit weird and so when he's doing poorly, you look at him and go, come on. Why are you running like that? Well, it leads to a lot of GIFs and a lot of interesting still pictures that people tweet and post. He's actually – it's funny too because if you – he's kind of handsome. When he's not in motion.

When he's not in motion. He's a handsome enough guy. He kind of looks like kind of a mix of Jake Busey and Barry Pepper. So, I mean, he's not like the handsomest, but I'd say he's above the median in this series. Anyway, so I went back to – I just briefly before this went back and looked at what we wrote about Hunter Pence prospect. And there was a it does seem like that. I mean, I don't know. This is four minutes of research, so I might be wrong. But it does seem like there is kind of a that he was a sort of a proto stats versus scouts dilemma.

sort of a proto-stats versus scouts dilemma. And I think both liked him a bit, but the scouts couldn't quite get on board with him. And it was his performance that pushed him up the system. He was a second round pick, so it's not like he was overlooked. But some of the phrases that we use, scouts don't like his hitting mechanics. He, quote, has a long swing that won't work at upper levels.

He has a semblance of strike zone judgment. He has an arm that isn't quite good enough for right field. He's destined for left field. And a seaball, hitball approach that withers against good breaking pitches. pitches and in 2006 before the 2006 season nate silver wrote about uh him in his pakoda does prospects thing you know what was that called takes on the prospects there you go so uh i don't know the backstory of this but this is what this is what he actually wrote he said i used hunter pence as my whipping boy in the pakoda essay in this year's book so i won't pick on him too much more here suffice to say that his initial ranking he rated as something like the 10th best prospect in baseball under the old version of Pakoda, was one of the things that prompted us to investigate

and eventually implement the minor league levels adjustment, which is kind of interesting because Pence that year was not on Baseball America's top 100 at all. So if you came up with him as the 10th best prospect in baseball, yes, you would think there was something wrong with it. The next year, though, he was in Baseball America's top 50. I think he was something like 38th. And he probably actually did turn out to be one of the 10 best players in that year's class. I mean, he's a very good ballplayer. I mean, he's in a horrible, horrible state right now. And you can't imagine him ever looking worse than this, but he's something pretty close to a star. So performance really did play.

Yeah, when he was in Astro, I think I called him the worst best player on a team. I mean, he was the best player on the Astros, but probably the worst of any best player on any other team you could name at the time, possibly. But a pretty good player. And I guess it's just that scouts tend to make judgments about players based on other players they've seen in the past, which makes sense. in the past, which makes sense. And so when you have players who look different in some way,

whether it's physically they're shorter or they're fatter or whatever it is, or they're spastic like Hunter Pence, there's some extra suspicion, I guess. And you just kind of have to prove yourself by continuing to hit and continuing to force your way up the ladder looking like a fool. And I actually don't want to, I mean, this is actually, from my perspective, it's actually sort of a coup for the scouts who did see him. I mean, the fact that he was rated a prospect, the fact that he was drafted in the second round, actually speaks pretty highly of the scouting process because you wouldn't look at him in a brief glimpse.

And I wouldn't, I mean, I certainly would not see a ballplayer in that package. He's got the high socks. He does have high socks. I don't know if he always did, but if he did, that's certainly a point in his favor. The fact that scouts were able to look at him, though, and really see a very good athlete and a very good ball player, despite the unconventionality, I think speaks very highly of the process. And the fact is that Pence, despite looking spastic,

did not slip through the cracks at all. He was drafted, he was developed, and he became something close to a star so um yeah so now i guess the question is if this is in in coupled with his bad second half i mean he was a he's arbitration eligible nobody ever would have thought that he was a non-tender candidate um this offseason i wonder if he is now i I wonder if he's a guy who the Giants will want to pay $12 million after watching this in the postseason. So he's making over $10 million this year, it looks like. So yeah, super two. Yeah, so it could be $14 million, it could be $15 million.

That would be, I guess, a lot to pay for Hunter Pence, even when he's looking better. Well, it wouldn't have been a lot in 2010 and 2011. I mean, he was clearly worth $14 million those two years, I think. Well, you said you had nothing to talk about, and we just talked about Hunter Pence for several minutes. You're a podcast hustler. So I got a bit more response to the why people hate Cardinals discussion. And the response was from people who hate the Cardinals.

And I have to say that I got sort of a lot of reasons thrown at me. None of them convinced me. They all, well, I'll conclude at the conclusion. But some of the things that people said to me, one is Fernando Vina, which is tremendous. Because of his studio work. The idea that America as a whole is still whole. Fernando Vinaina grudge.

Also, Jose Oquendo. This was, I think, in reference to the brawl that he was in with the Giants in 1987. The best fans in baseball tag when, I'm quoting some things, when pretty much every fan base has the same amount of great fans and awful fans. I actually have to say that I think that it's always dangerous and probably unhelpful to lump fans together as though they have some sort of significant character apart from other fans.

And so I could see being bored of the idea that the Cardinals somehow are the best fans of baseball. Yes, that makes sense. But I also know that I know three Cardinals fans on Twitter, and they are probably the three nicest people I follow. Well, they're Midwest fans. Yeah, they are. They're good folk.

So Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, both from a Cardinals origin, uh, the machine that turns out, um, that turns mediocre 25 year old triple A players into stars in the majors, which is exactly my point, actually. I mean, that's the sort of thing that every, that you would totally cheer on and celebrate in any other organization and it's it's held the my i mean that's my point is why is that held against the cardinals when i don't think it would be held against the you know the twins or the marlins or any other team it just seems like an ex post effecto kind of a uh conclusion um people are sick of the cardinals

which i don't really accept because... Yeah, we had a few comments on our podcast blog post that basically, I think, said it was because they win a lot and people are tired of it. They do win a lot, but it's not as though... I mean, again, I think I said this in the last... Or maybe I didn't say it in the last podcast, but they haven't been in the postseason 14 years in a row. I mean, they're a good team, but do you see them that much more than you see the Phillies? They've been in the playoffs, I think, as much as the Rays in the last five years.

And not a crazy high payroll team. Not like they're just buying their way to it every year. No, it doesn't seem that way. Pujols-La Russa stink. I mean, I think it comes down to La Russa. Pujols, La Russa, stink. I mean, I think it comes down to La Russa. That's my conclusion. But anyway, yeah. Let's see.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm also told that, I didn't realize this, but I'm also told that people hate Matt Holiday because he never touched the plate. Well, I mean, I guess I know some people hate him him for that i didn't know it was a general thing it's so perilous to be a baseball player you just have you just you're dancing through possible controversies controversies for 20 years do you and do you hold they stick do you hold any grudges or do you have any sort of negative emotional feelings about any particular players i mean i i honestly can't think of i mean when i was a kid and i was more of a rooting fan i guess i resented rivals um but now i don't know i don't i can't think of anyone off the top of my head that I find distasteful really

or root against or want to see fail I don't know what players are like that for you if any? Well nobody really comes up except AJ Pruszynski but not really for an on-the-field thing. I mean, to me, I was a Giants fan who hated him for many, many reasons, and partly because of what he cost, partly because of the story of him punching his trainer in the groin

as an act of uh for some reason retribution um and so i guess aj is a guy who i generally root against and probably that's how he likes it i don't know that there's anybody i hate for kind of or root against for baseball reasons or on the field reasons or anything like that i like i always found it really odd that people bring up um the time a rod slapped the was it bronson arroyo's glove i mean to me that was such a strange strange thing to hold against a guy i mean it's not like it's not like there was some sort of secret conspiracy to knock the ball out of his glove i mean mean, he tried to do it.

It was in his view of everybody, and the umpire was able to call him out anyway. So it wasn't like he cheated or anything. He just tried to do a thing. I thought the same thing about when A-Rod shouted, ha, as he rounded third base. I mean, I was okay with that. That seemed like a smart thing to do, if it works. It does seem like a smart thing to do. okay, with that, that seemed like a smart thing to do if it works.

It does seem like a smart thing to do. And from a teammate, like I could see his teammate or his opponent, I should say, saying that's Bush League and holding it against him. But as a fan, I don't care about Bush League at all. And I sort of celebrate when guys will sort of try to come up. I mean, look, when I was a kid, when I was nine, and I was in the crowd, and a pop-up went up in the air and the opposing team was going to catch it, I shouted, ha! Sure, of course, everyone does that, yeah.

So why wouldn't A-Rod? I mean, it's not, look, it's not like the most, like he doesn't come off looking like a real cool dude, but it's also not like villainy. I mean, I guess maybe you could find villainy if you want about a rod and certainly i mean i have i have a hard time with guys who have duis especially multiple duis and i have a hard really hard time with guys who have domestic violence yes but as far as the kind of touching the plate stuff i don't really mind anything like that well maybe

we can promote greater tolerance for a play certainly for matt holiday i mean what was he supposed to do he tried to touch the plate well i guess people can be mad at him for the slide now if they need to justify their hatred because of the the not touching the plate yeah it's interesting how he's managed to really kind of rehabilitate himself in the last two days since that slide. Fox has caught him multiple times kind of making amends with the Giants. There hasn't really been any retribution. It doesn't seem like there's going to be at this point. So he ended up coming out of that kind of looking okay.

I think that now it just looks like he slid too late and he feels really bad about it instead of he was trying to be a jerk. But maybe he was trying to be a jerk. Maybe this is all part of the plan.

He's fooled us all. All right. Well, there's going to be a couple games today so we'll be back tomorrow. Yeah. We've kept this thing going long enough

to call it an episode. Okay. All right.