Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 650: Hamilton, Lester, and Preller’s Latest Trade

Episode Date: April 6, 2015

Ben and Sam have an all-banter episode for Opening Day, discussing Jon Lester’s lack of pickoff attempts, the Angels’ statements about Josh Hamilton, and the Padres-Braves Craig Kimbrel trade.

Come on, come on, come on, we're gonna get it started, yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing that's left to do is cure the broken hearted, yeah. Come on, come on, come on, we're gonna get it started, yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing that's left to do is cure the broken heart Good morning and welcome to episode 650 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Hi, Ben. Hi. How are you?

All right. Okay. Baseball's back. Yeah, and you're going to be in trouble. Making me miss Goodwife. Uh, I'm missing Good Wife right now I know Let's quit the podcast And quit writing about baseball

We can't compromise our Good Wife watching I don't understand It's midnight where you are Yeah, but Good Wife was on during baseball Why am I recording right now? Very unhappy We're fan friendly all right missed mad men baseball's back it's horrible missing all my tv shows live k tracker missing where the pitch is sometimes uh-huh what do you think about that, my K-Tracker? I had this weird like optical illusion

thing going on where it seemed to me to be like a window in the screen and everything behind the K-Tracker was brighter than the rest of the screen. Did you have that illusion? I felt like it was like a dirty window and the K-Tracker box was like the brightest part of the screen i don't think that was actually true i didn't but i did feel i just felt unease looking at the screen to have to have graphics all around the screen is already a bit claustrophobic but to have a what is essentially a graphic right in the middle of the screen right where you're looking to have this thing that is artificial uh made it hard for me to watch like I felt unease. I felt cluttered. I felt like I wanted to clean my desk.

I was watching this and I just thought, I need to clean something. I'm not sure. I kind of forgot about it after a little while. It sort of just stopped. I stopped noticing it really. sort of just stopped i stopped noticing it really uh-huh now do you think kind of focuses your attention on the part of the screen that i'm usually paying attention to anyway so i i don't know do you think mike do you think mike winters was as bad as as all the commentary was saying or do you think we were just hyper aware of it because of this thing yeah that that is possible too i it might be that that this will draw attention to every bad call slash good frame or whatever you want to call it so i'm i'm not sure um we're all we're all out of practice right

we're out of practice with baseball watching we're out of practice with baseball watching. We're out of practice with umpire judging. Yeah. Yeah. This was interesting because for all, I don't know, if you were going to say that framing is overrated, tonight might be the night because you had, I guess, Montero. I mean, Montero's a good framer too. Maybe they were both exactly equally good at framing.

But this was the perfect example of an umpire who was missing a lot of calls consistently for both teams and unless they were like i like framing exactly the same you would just say oh well umpire sucked or yeah or maybe just umpire missed some calls i don't know like i said i don't i don't know if he did suck i don't know if it was just that we were aware of it. But anyway, this is why I didn't want... This is where the strike zone, the abolish the strike zone argument came from, is the frustration of seeing pitch trackers, K trackers, whatever they are, on the screen. It just feels to me like you can't have that box up there and still run a league. You have to get rid of the box or you have to have it be called, right? Because it's just too weird to have state-sanctioned technology

telling you that what you're watching is a farce. It's not so dramatically different from having it on the right side of the screen. No, no, of course not. I mean, I'm opposed to that as well. Although, I don't know, I'm sort of opposed to it, but sort of. I'm opposed to the strike zone. Anyway, this is me.

I'm not saying anything. It's spring training for us too, Ben. That's right. For one more, for like a couple more hours. Yadier Molina and Miguel Montero's framing projections are almost exactly the same. Yeah, okay. For whatever it's worth. All right. Well, okay. Anything else? Well, depends what your topic for today is. What's your topic for today? My topic for the day for today

is the winter's extensions. Okay. Well, I guess I have banter then. Can we banter about John Lester for a second? Yeah, definitely. How much, if you knew that, like if you were the Cubs and you were ready to offer him $155 million and you said, but just so we're clear, you can throw to first, right? Right. And he said, you know, to be honest, I can't. I don't know how, and I'll never do it again.

Seven years you're going to have me, and I won't throw to first ones. I might run it over there. The best you can hope for is I'll run it over there. How much does your offer cost? I'm trying to write about this. It's hard to figure out how much it hurts him. Because tonight was suggestive, right? Kind of picked up where he left off in the wildcard game.

The Cardinals attempted four steals off of him. They are not a team that attempts lots of steals. They attempted the fifth fewest steals of any team last year. Of course, they didn't have Jason Hayward then. But so they attempted of steals. They attempted the fifth fewest steals of any team last year. Of course, they didn't have Jason Hayward then. But so they attempted four steals. They were successful three times. None of the guys who stole ended up scoring, I don't think. So I'm curious whether this is going to turn out to be,

if he never does throw to first again, and if everyone treats that as a license to steal on first move, if he makes a move, he's going to the plate. And you know that you can take a nice big lead. I wonder whether this is the sort of thing that falls under the category of pinch running and how that seems like it can be a difference maker. But as you found when you combed through game logs, looking for times when Billy Hamilton at the time could have made a difference

for the Reds and you came up with whatever it was, like a run in a month or something. So I wonder if you have a pitcher who is a good pitcher and doesn't let lots of guys on base to begin with, but everyone knows that he can't throw over and refuses to throw over i wonder what the maximum amount of damage it could do is it's hard to it's hard to figure because there's no there's no group that you can compare it to right there's no like we can isolate this group of major league pitchers who never throw to first and see what the lead batters get against them is and how

successful they are there's no like control group so it's hard to say what a pitcher like that would do because there aren't other pitchers like that and now maybe everyone knows that john lester is a pitcher like that so i guess we'll find out so that billy hamilton though, was if he were used only as a pinch hitter, a pinch runner, which those are all leveraged opportunities. And a lot of times they won't be leveraged, but it's only one of a lineup into Billy Hamilton, that if there's four or eight steals or 12 steals or 17 steals a game off him, then it would be a lot more. So I don't know that the Billy Hamilton thing, which was, yeah, it was like basically a run a month at his expected success rate, would be necessarily very instructive. So I guess I'd look forward to finding out what answer you come up with.

I don't know if I will come up with one. It's like, how do you even, I guess you can look at those guys' leads tonight. And I mean, Matt Holiday stole a base. Matt Holiday doesn't steal lots of bases. That was a double steal, I mean, Matt Holiday stole a base. Matt Holiday doesn't steal lots of bases. That was a double steal, I guess. But see how big their leads are compared to how big their leads usually are or how long it took them to get down to second base or third base compared to how long it usually is.

I don't know that there is an answer that can be had right now. We might just have to wait and watch Leicester for a while. But you'd have to think that there will come a point right i mean there comes a point where no matter how uncomfortable you are throwing the first base it becomes more uncomfortable not to throw the first base right that that point has to come at some point whether it's just the fact that the broadcaster is saying over and over that you never throw to first base and you're aware that everyone is aware of it watching you or just the fact that guys are stealing on you

left and right there has to be a point where no matter how like how unconfident you are in your ability to lob a ball over to first it becomes a risk reward thing where the risk of throwing it away is not greater than the risk of just letting everyone steal on you every single time it would be uh probably the the most and yet and yet yeah and yet we had we didn't we haven't seen him get there no well we've only seen this is like his second start, in which we are all aware that he does this. I know, but the first one took place six months ago. He's had a lot of time. He's had spring training, which you'd think would be the time

when you might approach a guy and say, hey, let's work on lobbing the ball over to first. Yeah, exactly. So it's sort of worrisome that that did not produce a pickoff attempt. And also, let's see. Somehow Wong would have been out if he had. I'm trying to remember. I was distracted at times by pitch tracker.

I missed a little bit because of family Easter stuff. So one base runner got caught, and then another would have gotten caught, except the ball was dropped at second base. Yeah. And he gave up two steals, but they were on a double steal. I mean, he gave up three, but two more, and they were on a double steal. So it is somehow amazing. And also, while we were being told that his delivery to home was slow,

I believe, unless I, unless I misheard that. So I don't know. Baseball might just be confounding. Like it might. Yeah. I mean, the Cardinals are, are not a speed team. So maybe it's just when you run up against the speed team and, and Yadier Molina is not going to go.

And Matt Adams is not going to go. And Johnny Peralta is not going to go and Matt Adams is not going to go and Johnny Peralta is not going to go facing a left-handed starter even if that left-handed starter is not going to throw to first but I I don't know it will be interesting to watch it would be I mean imagine if that's John Lester's downfall that he never throws the first face, that would be the most interesting, tragic comic downfall that any player has ever experienced, I would think. You haven't given me a number yet. How much would you lower your offer? How much would I lower my offer?

And I guess you can think you might be overconfident, and you might say, oh, oh. Right, I would think that I could turn him into a pick-off attempt. But if he looks you in the eyes and says, no, seriously, dude, it's not going to happen. And you're like, I'll get through to you. And he's like, hey, I'll take your money, but it's not going to happen. And so now you've got to...

It seems that teams did not lower their offers, right? That seems pretty clear. i mean he he got pretty big offers he got as big as big as one would have expected him to get if he threw pickoffs i imagine he did not tell any teams that he was never going to go to first again gosh i don't know because i could imagine a scenario where it's like you're complete undoing i know i honestly feel like i might drop to like like seven million dollars like i might give him the yasmani tomas contract and not a penny more i might too it's sort of scary i don't know yeah do you if, did we hear whether he did throw any over in spring training?

I didn't hear that. Someone must have written about that, right? But I don't know. Maybe we can Google it while we record. Someone must have covered whether he was attempting that or whether anyone ever talked to him about it. Before we move on, we have occasionally done a segment on the show where we try to figure out incomprehensible statements by teams and we try to imagine what their rationale

might be do you have any angels josh hamilton rationale for why they uh made the comments that they made after the news that he wouldn't be suspended and everyone wondered why they made the comments that they made after the news that he wouldn't be suspended. And everyone wondered why they were saying anything, and their comments were perceived as insensitive and whiny and inappropriate. And it sounds like some players were upset by it, and it seems like no one was not upset by it. So do you have a theory for how this makes sense or what aim they were trying to further? Well, I think that it's easy enough for me to come up with theories for why their position makes sense.

Like I don't – I think that probably, I don't know, I or a lot of people, given the very limited information we had, generally felt like even their position didn't make sense, that he shouldn't be suspended, that he requires treatment, not discipline, and that the point of discipline is generally to incentivize responsible behavior or keep somebody from doing bad things. But obviously, it doesn't seem like a suspension is the sort of incentive that is going to work on Josh Hamilton. He's an addict. He might walk into a burning building to do drugs if he really wanted to. I mean, that's what addiction is, right? So probably the suspension as discipline isn't going to work in that sense. But anyway, I mean, I can sort of come up with reasons why they might nonetheless want to discipline him

besides the craven, cynical explanation that they just don't want to pay a guy who's not worth it to them, which is a horrible – Injured anyway. Injured anyway, yeah, which is despicable and awful And probably the most likely But also just so Uncaring and awful that I don't even want to think about it But I can think of other reasons

Unless the story is out there And I just haven't read it We don't know what he said to them When he was In the meantime Maybe he was insubordinate Who knows I don't know said to them when he was, you know, in the meantime, maybe he was insubordinate. Who knows? Maybe that we, I don't know. He's, I don't know the story that well. So forgive

me if I'm saying things that are wrong here. But like he gets credit, I think generally in public for having admitted this to, you know, having come clean. But, you know, maybe he was due to be tested 45 minutes later. I don't know. I don't know if that's a factor. And I could just sort of see them thinking, well, we have to have some grounds for accountability. I also don't really know what they were lobbying for. Maybe they were lobbying for a three-game suspension or something like that.

Again, these are all things that other people probably know the answers to, and they're like, Sam, you're an idiot. That's not how it was at all. But anyway, long story short, I don't have any idea why they would say all this after the fact. Once the ruling is in, I don't see what you gain by complaining about it. Even if there wasn't a human being involved, I don't see what you get by complaining about it. But certainly he's now a player that you presumably want to keep happy, and you want to keep your other teammates happy, and you don't want to look like jerks in public. And it felt tone deaf and pointless. And I don't have a good explanation. Do you have a good explanation? Are they appealing?

Could they be appealing? Is there any possibility of appeal? I don't but even i even if they were with the public comments help i maybe putting pressure on someone i i don't know it doesn't make much sense to me so how says that according to the beat writers uh he's sitting next to lester did throw over during his minor league start and bounced it in. Well, I don't know. I wonder, I mean, even a bounce is better than nothing, I guess. Well, yeah, it is. Because what, like the guy's going to go to second on your throw? Right.

Huh. Huh. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting. Yes, yes it will um okay anything on the padres trade you know what's brave's trade we're changing subjects i'm not wasting it i'm not wasting a topic on this if yours will work tomorrow we're 17 minutes in okay i got it i got it it's gonna be a whole new topic for tomorrow. Okay. So we can just do an opening day banter episode. That's what we're doing. All right.

So the Padres. Yeah. This was surprising. It was. So the trade for anyone who hasn't seen it, the Padres got Craig Kimbrell, Braves closer, best reliever in baseball inning per inning. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe. No, maybe. No longer clear. He probably is. But if you look at like Jonathan Judge's CFIP work and some other things, Kimbrell actually dropped quite a bit last year. And of course, if you do it by, if you're looking at multiple years,

he probably fares really well and he's probably at the top. But if you look at just 2014 CFIP, he was 17th among all pitchers and really way behind Aroldis Chapman, like double Aroldis Chapman. Yeah, well Chapman. And so anyway, I think that Chapman's record, I wouldn't put Batances ahead of Kimbrell, even though he was ahead of him last year, and I wouldn't put Doolittle ahead of him, and I wouldn't put Boxberger ahead of him, because those guys don't have the record,

the track record. But Chapman kind of does, and he's the one guy that I, like if I were ranking relievers, I would probably now go, I might go Chapman, Kimbrell, Jansen, Davis, Holland. That might be my five. I wonder when Chapman will start to lose velocity because he has only gained it thus far. He threw harder than ever last season and also threw off-speed stuff more often,

which is not fair. I'll be curious to see what he does this year. His change-up whiff rate was 95%. I don't know if that was the exact figure No, I think it might have been I'm going to look, but I think it might have been He threw more sliders too So the Padres got Kimbrel

And Melvin Upton Reuniting the Uptons once more And the Braves got back Carlos Quentin Who they are expected to release And Cameron Mabin And a couple prospects Matt Wisler who is a pretty big prospect

And Jordan Parabek Who is more of a fringe prospect And the 41st draft pick And of course Although no actual money Or cash changed hands Big contracts changed hands. So there was the Kimbrell contract, which is a large three years.

And what did you say, 43? That's what I said, yeah. Yeah, okay. So Kimbrell's on a pretty big contract. And the Padres shed Quentin's contract. And the Padres shed Quentin's contract. And this is kind of the quintessential Padres move of the winter, right? This is the usual Padres move.

They have acquired talent and not necessarily in a way that makes sense. Sort of makes sense more than some of their moves. But they acquired another outfielder, and they had too many outfielders, and they got rid of two outfielders in this deal and upped in. They didn't acquire an outfielder. They acquired an asset. They acquired a contract.

Yes, a contract that no one wanted, that the Braves didn't want. Right. And he happens to be an outfielder and and probably the team's best defensive outfielder for whatever that's worth uh unfortunately you also have to have him hit if you want him to play defense most for the most part unless you use him as a defensive replacement only so they got rid of a prospect who everyone had kind of congratulated them for not getting rid of all winter as they were making all of those many moves but they got one of the best relievers in baseball but they had

one of the best bullpens in baseball already so they demoted a couple useful relievers and so this was like kind of the the preller move and that he acquired a good player but doesn't totally fit with their needs like they if they were going to make a trade you know they have a pretty awful infield still and a pretty pretty bad defensive outfield and this just kind of strengthens a strength and gets rid of a log jam a little bit, I suppose, but doesn't really address their areas of weakness. And it's like the most unexpected thing, which is what they've been doing all winter to trade for Craig Kimbrell on the eve of opening day

is just another in a long line of double take worthy preller moves. The Braves had sort of insisted that they were going to hang on to Kimbrell it seemed like while everyone was wondering why they were hanging on to Kimbrell while trading everyone else they seemed like the sort of team that doesn't really need a closer who's making lots of money and that seems like the logical guy to move if you were doing a partial rebuild and they didn't for a long time and then preller i guess was the one who convinced them to this is not the question that any gm would have been asking in this situation but just curious uh let's say will myers plays first base for them

or eventually uh and so you need a center fielder you're the padres Would you rather have Upton or Mabin at this point? Huh. Well, I think probably Mabin. Yeah, I think so too. He might get hurt and not play, but Upton might not get hurt and play. That's probably worse. So, yeah.

I think Mabin. So, I don't know. They have a really, really good bullpen now. And more cash on hand. I picked the Padres to win a wild card. In part because I just felt like the Padres are never done. And Prelator is never done. And that having done as much as he did this winter he would continue to do things and so he has done a thing and i would not be i would not doubt that he will do more things this

winter as this summer as he needs to do things so it's uh i don't know it kind of puts a nice cap on their winter because it's the same sort of thing that they have been doing since he took over yeah so like last year when the angels uh at the trade deadline traded for houston street one of the criticisms was they don't really need houston street what they really need is a starter and they said or maybe they didn't say maybe other people said but they said well we didn't really have the resources to get a good starter we We weren't going to be able to trade for David Price. We weren't going to be able to give up Addison Russell and get Jeff Samarja. And we tried and we kicked every tire and eventually we just, it couldn't make it work out. And so they got Houston Street and then their bullpen was dynamite and it was arguably the

best part of their team in the second half uh and they survived uh without that starter and in fact without even garrett richards uh as you remember and uh so i wonder if and we speculated at the time i think that maybe they were doing that with an eye on toward the wild card game just stacking their bullpen just with with late inning relievers and so that they could just do an all reliever thing if they had to, if they had a crappy starter. So you could say, I mean, given what we know about, given what we talked about earlier with Preller where he had kicked the tires on 200 players by the end of November. And I mean, it certainly doesn't sound like he's not doing due diligence. Is it conceivable that there just aren't infielders available? That shortstops...

I guess Rollins was available, and maybe conceivably Eric Ibar would have been available at some point early in the offseason. But at this point, it's not like there's any surplus shortstops in the world or in the game. And so, I don't know, maybe he just figures that as long as you're improving somewhere on your team, you don't have to worry about where you look worst on a depth chart.

You can just worry about whether you can get best on your next depth chart. Which is probably true, but it seems like it would be a be a tough long-term strategy because if you are never worried about maximizing the amount that a new guy makes you better than you are i mean theoretically the the team that trades for a guy is usually going to be the guy who well or often would be the team that stands to benefit the most from that player right and so the team that is trading that player is not going to trade him for any less just because he's not

upgrading your roster as much as he would some other roster so you are paying full price for this guy but you are not getting the full impact of this guy because his his wins above replacement player on your roster is lower than his wins above replacement player on someone else's roster who doesn't have a good bullpen already in this case so that seems like it would be a it'd be a tough thing to do and they took on a lot of money in this they gave up a fairly valuable package of prospects slash draft picks for a fairly marginal upgrade probably which just seems like it would be a tough thing to do over and over and over again maybe not in the short term in the short, it makes them a little bit better,

and they've obviously sunk a lot into being successful right now. Yeah. In this case, they probably had almost no competition. Like that construct of is this guy more valuable to us than anybody else is almost irrelevant on the eve of opening day because of the 29 other teams, 28 if you exclude the one who's offering the trade, like, I don't know, somewhere between zero and three are going to even be able to conceive of having the money available. Most of them have their budgets set by now,

and they're just not adding players. They don't have the payroll space in their kind of owner-determined payrolls. And so probably they don't actually have to worry about any competition. So this was almost like a free trade if they were willing to make it. The question is whether it was a good trade, just because they and only they could take it doesn't mean that it was a good trade. It does seem like if you think that what they gave up, just the package they gave up, that's a net. If they gave that package away to somebody, lots of

teams would take it. The prospects are worth the money that is owed to Quentin and Mabin. Quentin and Mabin are owed like 20-some million for a couple of years each, I think, or maybe just three years total. Yeah, it's like 24 million combined, I think, something like that. Yeah, and neither of those guys is good, but they're also not total zeros. So you figure, I don't know, maybe for three years of those two guys

with a mutual option on Quinton that will get rejected, I don't know, maybe those guys are worth three wins over, jeez, if it's three wins between them all, that almost pays for it. Okay, so then you've got the prospect, then you've got Weisler who's good, and then you've got the draft pick which is worth, I don't know, $7 million or something like that in surplus value. So they had to give up stuff, and what they got back were Kimbrell and Upton, which is essentially Kimbrell for $85 million in commitment. So that actually does seem like a really bad trade, doesn't it? I like the Braves end better. That is definitely true.

That's okay. So that's interesting because this does not look good to me right now. And I haven't not liked any of his trades so far. I've liked all of them, and I like the Shields deal, even with the draft pick that they gave up. I thought that was good enough. So this is the first one that I don't get. Yeah, I wonder how this came about. I'd love to know how this came about on April 6th, I mean, or April 5th. Was this a, I mean, the Braves must have had talks involving Kimbrough with other teams over the winter. I would think other teams must have inquired

and none of them must have had an offer this attractive. And how did it come about that this trade was made on the eve of opening day when rosters are essentially set? Was this being worked on for weeks? Was it just one of those things where Prowler picks up the phone and catches someone by surprise and they make a trade by accident before they hang up? I don't know. But it's kind of fascinating that it happened when it did. Someone's probably going to get a deal on Quentin, right? I mean, Quentin is a pretty good hitter. he's been in the worst possible situations for

someone like quentin who should be a dh but uh on a on an al team that picks him up to to platoon dh or something i mean he's not a bad hitter he was a bad hitter last year right he was a good hitter before then yeah. Yeah, you're getting a half a season of a DH who might... I mean, you could see a team being worried that he wasn't just bad last year because it was a small sample, but that the injuries have taken their toll. He is 32. He's a big, slow guy. Old player skills.

Yeah, player skills. he's he's a big slow guy old player skill you know yeah players close and uh and you know he best case is you're going to get you know three or four hundred plate appearances worst case is that you're either not or that he's actually in a very rapid decline i mean i you could see quentin being out of the league in a year or two yeah but i could see him working out pretty well for someone who doesn't have to pay him much. Pay a minimum whilst the other team is paying him and might get something useful out of him. So is it presumed that the Braves are going to flip him? I guess. I guess they'll see what they can get.

I don't know. It was, he's right, he's going to be designated for assignment so i guess they will look around for someone but at the same time it seems like they are gonna maybe release him any either way it doesn't seem like they have a whole lot of leverage not that he has a ton of value to begin with why do you think that the braves should have traded kimbrough i mean i know they're very bad at baseball right now but he's signed for three Not that he has a ton of value to begin with. Why do you think that the Braves should have traded Kimbrell? I mean, I know they're very bad at baseball right now, but he's signed for three years more than this.

So why would you say they should trade Kimbrell but not Freddie Freeman and not Anderson Simmons? Just the role, I guess. What do you mean the role, though? I know that a bad team doesn't need a closer, particularly, but a bad team doesn't need anything. Once you accept that they're a bad team and they're playing for nothing, then they don't need anything.

Is it somehow more painful to lose because your first baseman sucks than to lose because your closer sucks? I don't know. Ask Brewers fans who had to watch Uni play first. Maybe. your first baseman sucks than to lose because your closer sucks i don't know ask brewers fans who had to watch uni play first maybe but i i don't i don't know it just seems like um uh you know reliability of relievers and uh and also if you're if you have the ability to experiment you're much more likely to find a much more likely to find a closer who's really good, like some whatever AA failed starter who's really good and ends up being a valuable asset,

then you're likely to find an unheralded first baseman who turns into an all-star or an unheralded shortstop who turns into an all-star. I guess when you're losing is the time to be experimenting with closers and experimenting with your bullpen and cashing those guys out or just being happy that you have them for the minimum. So I guess maybe that's a good reason. And if there is some sign that he's starting to be less otherworldly, maybe that means it's a good time to get rid of him before everyone catches on.

And also Freeman and Simmons are also signed for longer than Kimbrel was. And they're younger. Yeah. So it's not the same time frame. And they're younger. But boy, I mean, I don't know, man. If I were a fan, I'm not sure. Okay, Simmons I would rather have.

But as a fan, there might not be like eight guys i'd rather have on my team than craig kimbrough just to watch just to like see him come out and do the thing i'd rather have chapman though yeah okay well look at this we bandered our way through a whole episode this is this is what we can do during regular season yeah i have to ask you this did this change did this change your predictions at all? Did the Padres do anything more now than you already had them doing? Well, I had them winning a wild card, and I still do. So did I.

And it didn't change me. Do you have the Braves dropping behind the Phillies yet? Hmm. I haven't looked, but I think not. I don't think so. So this changed nothing. Like this was a very exciting 25 minutes, uh, having this, uh, emerge. And then I went to my predictions that I have to do and I was like, yes. Oh no. And then just closed it again. Like nothing changed. It's really hard to change things.

Yeah. How are you feeling about the, uh, we talked We talked about the Dodgers rotation depth on Friday. How are you feeling about it now that they signed Scott Baker? Really, I was hoping another team that I like more would sign Scott Baker. He fits. I love that they signed Scott Baker. He's one of the group. I declared it immediately. I was with somebody when he read on his phone that Scott Baker had been released. baker he's one of the group i declared it immediately i was with somebody when we when he read on his phone that scott baker had been released and then somebody said this somebody said they should the giant should get him and i said they should and then a minute passed and then i

said the dodgers are going to get him and then we kept eating yeah it's amazing. Just another guy. Yeah. What are they? Minor league deal. Just a minor league deal. Yeah. And, uh, we should do, since we didn't do a reliever league is we should do a,

uh, starts for the Dodgers league. You can draft any human being alive and, every start that he makes for the Dodgers is worth, uh, you know, excellence. Right. Yeah. And the last thing I wanted togers is worth, you know, X points. Right. Yeah.

And the last thing I wanted to mention is the Joe Maddon tampering investigation. Still ongoing. What would you imagine could be prolonging this past opening day, which is a time that they initially said they would not go past? Like, they are continuing to gather facts what facts do you think they could be continuing to gather i would imagine six months five months after this happened yeah i imagine they have gathered no facts and they're just holding out hope that some fact at some point somebody might walk whistleblower yeah and be

like i've got your facts but i don't know there's no fat there nobody's gonna say anything i guess that's how the the old blue ridden blue ribbon bud ceiling ballpark panel in oakland worked it just went on for years and years without ever making a decision hoping i, that someone would wander into the conference room with a solution. So, same deal. All right. So, hey, look how easy this is. Once baseball is going on, we can just talk and talk.

Don't even need a topic. No, sir. Let's do it tomorrow. We will. All right. So, support our sponsor, the Play Index, at baseballreference.com. Use the coupon code BP when you

subscribe to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. And please send us emails for Wednesday's listener email show at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Late post-recording edition for you, we left you hanging on that Aroldis Chapman fun fact

about the 95% whiff percentage. That is true. Aroldis Chapman threw fact about the 95% whiff percentage. That is true. Aroldis Chapman threw 63 changeups last year. He got swings on 19 of them, and he got swings and misses on 18 of them. So Aroldis Chapman did actually have a 94.7% whiff per swing rate on his changeup. Just so you know, just in case you were wondering. All right, episode really over.