Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 655: Lester vs. Hamilton: The Pickoff Culmination

Episode Date: April 13, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about the weekend’s best plays and Mike Trout’s hidden hobby, then discuss the potential pickoff showdown between Jon Lester and Billy Hamilton.

The wind and snow and the rain that blows, none of those would matter much without you. And as long as it's talking with you, talk of the weather will come. Good morning and welcome to episode 655 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from baseballperspectives.com. Brought to you by the Play Index at baseballreference.com. I'm Sam Miller along with Ben Lindberg of grantland.com. Hi, Ben. Hi. How are you?

All right. All right. I have a lot of banter, so I'm not even going to... So do I, actually. Hi, Ben. Hi. How are you? All right. All right. I have a lot of banter, so I'm not even here. So do I, actually. Oh, no. Maybe it's the same. It's probably the same stuff. I have about 10 tabs of banter open. Oh, jeez. I have three. All right. I bet there's overlap. Go ahead. All right. So first, Ryan Webb, outrided by the Dodgers, which I'm bringing up partly because of Ryan Webb, but I'm actually bringing it up more because, as Charlie Wilmoth pointed out on MLB Trade Rumors, so the Dodgers trade a couple of guys for Ryan Webb

and then immediately outright him, and because of his experience, he can refuse that, so he can be a free agent if he wants to he didn't though he accepted ah dog i did that was not clear there's been breaking news since that post he has accepted his assignment to triple a but let's just say that the dodgers see so as charlie pointed out uh this seems like this trade was essentially entirely about the Dodgers taking his $2.75 million that someone was going to have to pay him. And in doing that, they got a competitive balance round B pick, which is what, like 70th-ish or so? Yeah. So in essence, they bought a draft pick.

I mean, I guess it's worth the chance that Webb doesn't refuse the outright and that you might get Ryan Webb, which, you know, considering nobody claimed him or anything like that and nobody wants him, it doesn't seem at this particular moment in history, not necessarily in the next moment in history, but in this one, that doesn't seem like that great of a thing to get.

And so we basically had a team buy a draft pick and kind of give us, I guess it's hard because there's a lot of moving pieces here. They did get Webb and they did give up a couple of very, very, very bit pieces in return. But something like a team valuing a draft pick for us. Yeah. Competitive balance round B pick. Yeah. So I guess like a 70th or 80th pick or whatever,

I guess we can kind of say is worth $2 million roughly. Yeah, maybe so. Is it fair? So that's really interesting. To me, this is fascinating. These competitive balance picks, the only ones that you're allowed to trade, it's so weird that we have – it's almost like – you know how economists – since economists can't set up double-blind studies, They're always looking for these sort of natural phenomenon that create two different groups that are identical except for some fluke of history or like natural borders or something like that has created some variable that they can then test that variable. And these competitive balance picks are kind of like that. Like they're just sort of living among all these other draft picks but they can be

traded and they get traded i we probably don't spend enough time looking at the trades yeah i like looking at the comments sections when there's a trade involving a draft pick because it's it's always mass confusion the same thing with like when rosenthal tweets it there's like seven and then there's other people replying that you can trade these picks and it goes back and forth every time i bet you if you looked i bet you would see in in other articles that were about traffics not being traded because they can't be traded i bet there's there's a growing number of people commenting, yes, you can, this team traded a draft pick. Oh, yeah, definitely.

When I did my articles where I looked at the internet's trade proposals for Giancarlo Stanton or whoever, there was always one that was like, yeah, and we'll throw in a draft pick for this guy. Yeah, but then someone says you can't do it, but now they have evidence. Right. Now they have evidence. All right. Well, Ryan Webb's still teaching us about baseball,

even if he's not playing it at the major league level. Not good for him. This is not good for his situation, though. It's not. He cannot get a major league save in Oklahoma City. He certainly wasn't going to get one for the Dodgers anyway, but I guess waiting out the Kenley Jansen injury is kind of good for not getting a save. Because once Kenley Jansen is back, there's like almost literally 0% chance.

And when he was hanging around Los Angeles without a proven closer, it was slightly, slightly possible, but still not really. All right. Mariners today turned a 2-1 double play. I want you to tell me what that looked like. Okay, 2-1. So grounder in front of the plate, and the catcher tags the runner and then throws to first, and the pitcher had run over to cover first, and...

What? The catcher threw to the pitcher who... I could only think of two possibilities. One is a suicide squeeze in which the bunt is popped up and the catcher catches it and then at that point the runner is like already at home and the catcher tosses it to the pitcher who tags him like just because it's a shorter throw than tossing it to the third to third base where you could you could get him out there right the other is that there's a pop-up in foul territory that the catcher and the first baseman both chase,

and the catcher catches it and then throws to first base where the pitcher is now covering in order to double up the runner who was going on the pitch. And it was that one. It was that one. I thought that one was more likely of the two, but also quite unlikely because you'd think the second baseman would be covering. However, the second baseman might have been covering second base

for the possible stolen base. It's also possible in this day of shifts that the second baseman could have been standing over on the other side of the infield. Who is the pitcher? Felix. Oh, heads-up play. Very heads-up play. So 2-1, double play.

I wonder if that was when he hurt his quad. Yeah. All right, my last one, and I'll try to make it quick. Did you see this Mike Trout meteorologist thing on Reddit? No. Dan Brooks sent it to me. I thought he might have sent it to you. Somebody noticed that Mike Trout tweets about weather more than usual.

More than usual. And so then he started looking and he noticed that even though Trout has a device that comes with a weather app on it, with a weather app on it, Trout is, you can tell, using a third-party weather app, and that this guy's meteorology-inclined friends like the one that Trout is using. So Trout has gone out of his way to get a third-party weather app. And so that's something. And then there's tweets of him interacting with a Twitter account that is mostly followed by people in the amateur meteorology community, which only has about 3,000 followers. So it's fairly niche. And Trout's like interacting with them in the middle of the night.

Wow. And so this guy hypothesizes sort of sillily that Trout wishes that he could be a weatherman. If he just hadn't been cursed with this gift of baseball, he'd be a weatherman right now. He posts this and somebody else points out that Trout follows 17 meteorologists and 20 plus weather- accounts uh so as it turns out he is a super weather freak and so this has led to the suggestion which i'm hoping that we can uh that we can promote that trout gets a nickname the weatherman sure all right it's not bam bam but it's the next best thing all right so there So there we go. Trout. That's the most and the only interesting thing

I've ever heard about Mike Trout other than his baseball abilities. I've never heard him say or do anything really that was interesting when not on a baseball field. I wrote about Mike Trout's Twitter once. I forget what I wrote.

It's very bad. It's very bad. Yeah. You must not have been looking at his tweets and replies to weather people. Yeah, it's true. This was kind of early, but still, yeah, it's true. Alright, go ahead. Alright, so there

was an amazing Andrelton Simmons play. I assume you saw that. Yes, I did. Okay, so we don't need to do our our usual uh watch videos that no one else can see while we marvel at andrelton simmons but that was a that was a top tier simmons play i don't know i don't know if that's the best one but no but it's flawless it's the to me it's it's the most andrelton Simmons play. It's not the best, but it's the most. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we did one where he went deep in the hole and turned and threw in the same seamless motion, and that's basically what he did here. But this was, I think, deeper in the hole. It's nice. If you haven't watched it, I will link to it in the Facebook group. Don't watch it if you are commuting to work or in traffic or something, because you should not watch Andrelton Simmons' videos while operating machinery. But watch it when you're safely at your desk.

Okay, the other video that I wanted to ask you about, did you see the George Springer catch? I did. Okay, so the thing that I want to ask you about the George Springer catch, which is a really nice catch. The bases were loaded. It was the 10th inning, 4-4 game, and he saved the game there, and then the Astros won in the 14th, and he made the final catch also. But the thing that i am confused about

if you watch this video and i will link to this in the usual places too and go to about 23 seconds into this video as he crashes against the wall he there's there's water that comes out of the wall he brings forth water from the wall do you see like the top of the top of the wall. He brings forth water from the wall. Do you see it? Like the top of the wall he catches, he crashes in, the wall moves back, reverberates and there is like a shower

of water that comes out of the wall. I don't see it. It's about 25 seconds in. Well we're watching different videos. I linked you to the video. Oh yeah, they seconds in. Well, we're watching different videos. I linked you to the video. Oh, yeah, yeah, the back. What is that?

Where is that water coming from? I tried to come up with theories about why water would be coming out of the top of an outfield wall, and I can't come up with one. Okay, well, my theory, my original theory when i heard that water came out of the wall was simply that it was waterlogged from you know texas rain but that's not it's not that kind of water so my theory is uh i mean there's a lot of things it could be but my theory is just that there's a guy back there on the grounds crew and he's got a cup of water that he puts up on a ledge there. Well, I guess that could be.

It seems to be coming from the very top of the wall. It'd be pretty high for a guy. I mean, the wall is much taller than George Springer, and George Springer is pretty tall. Maybe that guy has a little ladder and he can watch the game. It could be. I don't see a guy. I don't game it could be i don't see a guy i don't see a ladder i don't see a ledge all i see is a little water coming out of the top of the wall very perplexing it is someone will solve this i think so someone solved the mike trout meteorology thing someone will solve this yeah all right so i will link to that video as well in the blog post at BP and in the Facebook group.

And if you have a theory for why or how George Springer brought forth water from the outfield wall, I would like to hear it. And then finally, yeah. Sorry. The thing I wrote about Mike Trout's Twitter a few years ago is that he and I wanted to see if he would still do this. He always leaves an extra space before end of sentence punctuation. Like, you know how some people do one space after a period and some people do two? He does one space before a period. And he does that with every kind of punctuation every single time. No matter how many exclamation points he puts after a sentence, he's got a space.

If it's a question mark, space. If it's a period, space. And he's still doing it all these years later even when it's like like this one thursday can't come soon and then he ats his girlfriend and so it ends with an at and he still has the space before the exclamation point anyway all right go ahead fascinating uh okay and then lastly we last year we did updates on post-game celebrations right we did the the pie in the face or the shaving cream in the face we did no no did some other stuff i want to talk about the we're not talking about the dunk don't want to talk about the dunk, huh? No. Baseball, I'm getting pretty sick of baseball and their memes. I'm getting pretty sick of baseball being a meme-first industry.

It's like they've moved on. It's like the classic case like PayPal was never supposed to be PayPal. It just sort of accidentally became PayPal. Baseball has accidentally become Uproxx. It's like they're nothing but a meme generator now. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it. I'm especially sick of the A's.

The A's are baseball's first meme-fueled baseball team. And I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like baseball players. I don't think they're fun. I just don't like them. I don't like their jokes. I don't like how whatever meme they do, everybody does it within 40 minutes. I don't like them i don't like their jokes i don't like how whatever meme they do

everybody does it within 40 minutes i don't like the beards beards are big this year man vince scully hates them too the only thing better than vince scully hating the beards is that he just noticed them like they've been this has been a pretty much a beard league now for going on six years right because fear the beard and the giants in 2010 and and the 2011 cardinals were completely bearded completely and then of course the 2013 red socks were all bearded and vin just noticed it and he's just going on and on about the beards he does not it. I was just watching that ad of him from 1962 doing the Gillette ads where he goes up to players and they all shave

as he watches. I guess he approves of that. I saw a reference to that and I thought it was just a, I thought it was a meme. I thought it was like a cut for thing. No, it's a real thing. That's real? Yep. Alright, so we're not talking about Dee Gordon dunking on Christian Yelich.

All right. That's all the essential banter I have. All right. I hate how long this episode is going to be. All right. What's the real topic? The real topic is, and everybody can just turn it off now because nobody wants to hear us talk about this again. But I want to talk about John Lester again. Oh, oh yeah because today is a big day for today's a big day right i want to

talk about it i want to talk about both john lester and billy hamilton that that's my topic okay uh and because today john lester is going to be facing off against billy hamilton and so first off i want to talk about billy ham Billy Hamilton is 7 for 7 on stolen bases this year. One of them on a pitch out. Which puts him on a pace to break the all-time record, I'll just say. And he's doing that despite not being very good at hitting again. But he's 7 for 7.

I think he's been on first base eight times. That's somewhat misleading because he's been on fielder's choices twice, and he's stolen third base twice. But he's been on first base basically eight times, and he's stolen seven bases, which is obviously a much, much better percentage than last year. Last year he was on first base like 160 times or so, and he only stole 56 bases, and he got caught 23 times.

And, like, before the year started, we just weren't sure that anybody would ever catch Billy Hamilton. And, like, the way that he stole as a rookie and the way he stole in the minors, like, it made you think, well, I mean, he could steal 100. I think Pocoto, didn't we talk about how Pocoto had him projected to steal, like, 80 or something? And Pocoto never does that. piccotto didn't we talk about how piccotta had him projected to steal like 80 uh-huh yeah piccotta

never does that and so it just seemed like to me the most disappointing part of the 2014 season was that billy hamilton not only did he only steal 56 bases which is just flat out not special like he didn't even lead the league but then he also got caught so much like he wasn't a very good base runner and 23 times 23 times and it was just incredible i didn't think that they could catch But then he also got caught so much. He wasn't a very good base runner. 23 times. 23 times. And it was just incredible. I didn't think that they could catch him,

and I didn't think that they could stop him. I didn't think either of those two numbers would look like they looked. And so then this year, he's kind of running wild. It sort of feels like he's figured it out again, that he's unbeatable again, and that 90 feet is not long enough, and they're going to have have to make it 92 or else he's going to ruin the game. And so I wanted to point that out and see if you would have, have you ever read any analysis on why last year was sort of so lackluster,

why he only stole 56 bases and got caught so much, why all of a sudden he wasn't a very special base runner i did i read a jeff sullivan post about that and i'm trying to recall what the conclusion was uh i found it i am sending it to you we can both reread a jeff sullivan post live on this podcast and refresh our memories of what he said. Yeah, this was from last November. Why wasn't Billy Hamilton a base-stealing dynamo? So you have an answer?

It's not a conclusive answer, but I have Jeff's conclusion here. So partially the fact that because we were all expecting Hamilton to run like crazy, everyone was paying lots of attention to him. Throwing over often, there's no, I don't think there's any number in here about the rate of pickoff attempts on Hamilton compared to everyone else. That would probably be interesting. But he did get picked off a bunch of times. And yeah, I mean, we were all excited to see what Hamilton would do And of course, all the pitchers and catchers were well aware of what Hamilton could potentially do

So that's maybe part of it Of course, we always kind of expected that I mean, that was always part of the deal We always expected everyone to be very attentive to Hamilton And we still thought he would steal lots of bases. Right. That doesn't quite explain the drop off from the previous summer when he was so invincible. Yeah. So Jeff looks at some of his cut stealings and he times them and he finds sometimes when Hamilton just didn't get a great jump. And refers to that J.J. Cooper article at Baseball America from 2012 or 13 that we all read and and J.J. kind of made the case that when

Hamilton does things right or does things as he is capable of doing no one can possibly catch him because just the math works out such that if he makes it down to second as fast as he can make it down to second it's almost impossible for a normal pitcher catcher combo to to get him but that was just sort of assuming that hamilton was always making it down to second base and you know 3.0 or 3.1 seconds or something and that is not always the case sometimes he just doesn't do that and jeff has him at 3.3 and 3.4 and so his conclusion is just that he was kind of raw as a base dealer and got caught in the minors sometimes too and maybe just hasn't learned all the moves and has the the raw materials to be a great base dealer with experience,

assuming that his speed doesn't decline. So do you think that—how confident are you that, say, he gets 80 this year? I'm pretty confident. I would guess that in the—we talk about what can you tell from the first week or two of the season. I would guess that steal attempt rate is a thing that you could tell. Like I would guess that maybe if there's a big change in steal attempt rate, that is something that stabilizes quickly. You know, like it's something that's largely within the player's control. He can decide to go when he wants to.

And if a player suddenly starts going a lot more, then maybe it is reflective of a new philosophy. And so he's going a lot. And I don't know how much to trust the success rate so far, but I buy the attempt rate, I guess. So I'm kind of confident that he'll get there. Yeah, I would bet that it stabilizes pretty quickly, but not eight times on first quickly. Like if he had just gone two times fewer, we wouldn't be that excited right now. But yeah, I mean, I was probably, I think I was probably pretty

confident anyway, because it takes more than one year for me to change my mind about anything because I'm stubborn. And, uh, I don't know, maybe I'm just optimistic and maybe there's just so the stakes are so low for me being wrong that I just picked the, the, I picked the answer that is most pleasing to me. Uh, so how, what, give me odds. What are the answer that is most pleasing to me. So give me odds. What are the odds that a healthy Billy Hamilton steals 80 this year? And what are the odds that a healthy Billy Hamilton steals, let's say percentage chance,

that a healthy Billy Hamilton steals 100? And meanwhile, I'm going to send you a Mike Trout tweet. Okay. I'll say healthy Hamilton. I'll say 60-40, he steals 80. Okay. And then 100, I'll say 15-85. Okay, and what are the chances he steals 15 and 85? All right, so Billy Hamilton today will face John Lester.

And the reason I'm bringing up John Lester again, this topic that we've talked about a lot, is because there's this amazing article in the Chicago Tribune. I don't know if you read it. And it was like, I don't know, hard to access for me. So Google, go through Google, and Google is criticism of John Lester's pick-off move, Much Ado About Nothing.

Google some combination of those words and then click on it. Okay. All right. So the idea of this article, not of the article, but of the man who's quoted in this article, is that nobody should be paying attention to this because it wasn't a big deal until people started paying attention to it. That's actually what Lester said.

That's what Lester said, yeah. He is the person quoted in this article. There's an article about what Lester said. So he's got these quotes, and I liked John Lester, and I will like him tomorrow, but today I just find him so frustrating because none of these quotes make any sense. So he's talking about how

he didn't give up many stolen bases last year. He said he allowed eight or nine or ten. Last year it was 16, which is not the same as eight or nine or ten he gave himself three chances and 16 is kind of a lot it's not you know out of control but for a lefty it was like the fourth most by a lefty starter or something exactly yes okay and so uh wasn't a big issue until somebody brought it up on tv uh Now I'm sitting here answering questions about it. But that's the thing is that, right, it's not an issue until everybody knows about it,

at which point it becomes an issue. And so I guess we have to decide how much other teams knew about this, like if John Rogel discovered it or if all 29 other teams discovered it. By the way, it wasn't on TV. Let's give credit to who deserves credit. John Rogel, he's the one who discovered it. Anyway, but now that people know about it, that is when it becomes a problem.

And so John Lester keeps on sort of making statements that kind of seem clueless to the fact that now people know. That's when it becomes a factor. So I didn't really have to do it over the past year. He says that he attributes it to being a thing about moving to the NL because there's more runners being part of the game, I guess. And then he says he called it a, quote, slow news day when people ask him about it and he says there's nothing really to talk about at the beginning of the year so you need to talk about

all the negative stuff so now it's just haters as opposed to the most fun fun fact in like the last five years this is the most interesting fun fact. Like, I mean, you remember where you were when you heard it. We all remember where we were the first time we heard it. At my computer. I remember I was in school and the teacher stopped class and we turned on the TV to watch them say it on TV. And this was, I think I was in fifth grade at the time. And like we all just, and then our parents came and picked us up.

It was huge. It was huge news that John Lester hadn't thrown a pick-off move in more than a year. This article refers to the website Grantland. Yeah, I know. That's you. That's me. So he said that the stolen bases on Sunday, last Sunday, quote, got kind of blown out of proportion because it's a lot easier to double steal off of a left-handed pitcher, which is true.

It's also a lot easier to double steal off of a pitcher who doesn't throw pickoffs ever. Like, ever, ever. So that's another thing. So I don't know. It just seemed very weird that – oh, he also said that – this is a paragraph. One reporter asked Lester about a report he had, quote, the yips when throwing to a base. Lester said the report was, quote, out of Boston, apparently meaning it was not to be believed. Even though we all saw ESPN played clips of his most recent pickoff throws, and they were awkward, and you wrote about it, and they were awkward and you wrote about it and they were awkward.

And I mean it's not really out of Boston. So anyway, like I'll like Jon Lester again tomorrow. But it just seemed weird that like this is a thing that is freak show level entertaining. And it seems sort of weird that he's the one least interested in it. He's the one going through it. You'd think he would also be interested in it he's the one going through it you'd think he would also be interested in don't you think he'd be like i know isn't it weird well i i'm mystified as you man i don't know why i don't do it i listened to this interview because when i was

working on my article last week i was writing back and forth with jesse from ESPN Chicago about whether Lester had talked about this or whether he had thrown over in spring training. And Jesse was talking to Lester that day and he sent me the audio from that interview. So I listened to this and it was pretty uncomfortable as you might imagine. I mean, you're asking him why he doesn't throw over, and is he uncomfortable, and is it some kind of mental problem? And yeah, the out of Boston thing, I think it was Jesse who said, you know, there was a report out of Boston that said it was the Yips, and Lester just said, out of Boston.

And that was it. That was like his whole response to the question. So yeah, it, out of Boston. And that was it. That was like his whole response to the question. So, yeah, it was kind of uncomfortable and kind of disingenuous. I mean, he said like he can throw over there anytime. It's not a problem. It's never been a problem. But it has clearly been a problem in the past, and it's been talked about years ago. You know, Lester is working on his pickoff move, even when he was with, with Boston, it was kind of an issue at times. Um, so, I mean, it's, you know, it, it's true that like, it's not, uh, you know, it's not a career-killing problem. He's been just fine.

He's coming off his best year ever, and it was the first year that he never threw to first. So maybe it fairly seems like a nitpick that everyone's going crazy about this lack of pickoff moves when he just came off the best year of his career with no pickoff moves. So why are we complaining? I can see why that makes sense from his perspective and i could also see you know if this is a real problem or a mental block or something then he he's not gonna come out and you know be like help

me i don't know what to do i'm never gonna throw over to first again because uh it's not in his best interest to tell every runner that he can't do it so he's you know it makes sense that he would pretend it's not an issue even if it is an issue but i think i think it's in his best interest to smile and act coy and you know be as amused by it as we are and sort of imply that the next runner who takes a lead is in for the surprise of a lifetime and and smile and then say but i'm not going to get into strategy and you know act like he's always maybe he said too much like this is weird like this makes him look like like a guy who's like really anxious about it like doesn't this seem like the kind of guy who's

he might be a little snippy because he doesn't sleep anymore because he's up all night worrying about it uh-huh yeah a little bit yeah he was he was stone-faced during the whole thing so um but what you were talking about you know whether teams were aware of this or when teams were aware of this i wrote about that a bit in my article and i i mean there's no way that that john's tweet or discovery you know he he brought it to the internet but there is no chance that that he was the first to discover this in baseball i mean every every advanced report going into a series has you know something about how the starter controls the running game or a rating of his pickoff move or something right but if you unless you put it

together though unless you have all of those advanced scouting reports you just think it's a day that he didn't need to right you just think yeah you know he he's goes to slide step you know he you didn't you didn't get a look at You know, you didn't get a look at it. You just would write didn't get a look at his move. You might, yeah. There are, I mean, you know, some of those reports, like, populate automatically with stats. Like, you know, if it's like a team tendencies report or something,

it'll have, you know, how often the team does a hit and run or something. You know, it's just It's just all automated. There will be some numbers, and then there will be a scout comment. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of those actually had a pickoff attempt count or a rate or some sort of stat in there. But it's possible that maybe none of them did. And, yeah, you could imagine that the scout who's writing up the report hasn't seen Lester's whole season.

So maybe he knows that he doesn't throw over there often, but he doesn't know that he never, ever throws over there. And but but I would guess that someone was aware of this. Someone with the team. I assume so, too. I'm just saying that not all 2019. I mean, there's a huge difference between 0 and 3, like a massive difference between 0 and 3, and you'd have to know the 0.

Like if John had tweeted 3, I wouldn't have retweeted, you know? I'd be like, oh. Yeah, right. 3, interesting. 3, that seems low. Yeah, and I would guess that, I mean, even if the report said he is not going to throw over there take whatever lead you want players are going to be reluctant to do that I think for a certain amount of time just because he's a lefty and players are conditioned to be wary of lefties and to stay close against lefties

and even you know I mean some players just ignore the advance report probably, others just skim, and others might read it, but, you know, they're trusting a scout who is, you know, hasn't played the game maybe, and he doesn't know what it's like to be on base against a lefty. And when you actually get on the field, even if the advance report said he never throws over there, you know, it looks like he might throw over there, so better be careful. Some of those reports are populated automatically, I've heard, by computers. That's true. You can't trust them. So I would guess that we will see runners be more aggressive now if he continues not to throw over there, now that it's a well-established thing. But maybe we should end with a prediction. Do you think he will throw over today?

Well, let's see. Okay, so we're going to predict two things. Actually, we're going to predict one thing. Okay. Two things. Okay. Over, under, on throws over, one half. Just for this start today, Monday?

For this start, yeah. Man. just for this start today, Monday? For this start, yeah. Man, I mean, he's gone 66 straight without one, so it seems like the best bet would always be under. If you would bet the over in any of his previous 66 starts, you would have been wrong. Yeah, but if you bet the over on any of the previous 250, you'd have been right yes that's true random events sometimes cluster in seemingly patterned ways yeah i don't think that's what

this is i wonder what the odds of that are um i'm gonna say i'm gonna say he does it i'm gonna take the over you're taking the over all. And then second prediction, bigger number. Number of pickoff throws and number of stolen bases by the Reds today. Stolen bases by the Reds. All right. I'm going to take the over and I'm going to take pickoff throws. Wow. So you think he's really going to bust it out?

I think when he throws one, he's throwing nine. I think that the first one is the one that matters. Depends how it goes. What if he bounces the first one? Then we might not see another one for years. It might be like Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow or something. If he bounces a pickoff attempt, it'll be six more months of no pickoff attempts. Could be. Could be.

He's got to do it, though. I mean, it seems like he could be he's gotta do it though i mean it seems like like he said that he's working on it and madden said that he's working on it and there was video of him throwing working on it pick off but there's also video there's also audio of him denying that he needs to work on it yeah well billy hamilton though this i know so if he okay one more billy hamilton beat him you're saying if he goes he throws the first and billy hamilton though this i know so if he okay one more billy hamilton beat him you're saying if he goes he throws the first and billy hamilton goes first move and beats it anyway that could very well happen very well happen well what okay what one more let's say he doesn't do

it today so he all the the stars are aligned here. Hamilton is running. Everyone is paying attention to this. So he doesn't throw over today over under on zero for the rest of the season. Say it again? Like if he doesn't do it today when we're both expecting him to finally do it. Then he will never again. Yeah. Will he do it? If he doesn't do it today, are you just giving up on him forever?

I mean, if Billy Hamilton's on first base twice, Billy Hamilton might just go for three against him. Right, if he's on there and he doesn't throw over. If he doesn't throw over with Billy Hamilton on first base, then I will rule it out. Okay, so there's a lot at stake today. What time is this game? I'm looking forward to this game.

I saw it referred to as Monday night. All right. Okay. So tune in. Reds-Cubs. Yeah, you know, I saw an opening day. 7.05 Central. Not on opening day.

Remember in Billy Hamilton's first season? I think it was his first season. It might have been last year, but I think it was his first season. When it was the first game that Billy Hamilton went up against Yadier Molina. Yeah. And it was like, stop what you're doing. This is it. This is the ultimate.

We have become this perverse culture of sandwiches where the bread is fried chicken. This is now what appeals to us. It is no longer excellence against excellence. It's John Lester's yips against Billy Hamilton. Yeah. Well, to be fair, Hamilton has disappointed so far. Yeah. Okay, so 505 Pacific?

705. Oh, yes, 505 Pacific. All right. Be at a TV or a computer. All right, yes, 505 Pacific 705 Oh yes 505 Pacific Be at a TV Or a computer Alright yes 505 Pacific Alright Alright I'm excited

We have something Riding on this now We both took the over Okay So that is it For today Send us some emails At podcasts

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Springer water mystery at our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. We will be back tomorrow. Did you forget to record? No, I just thought of a better trout nickname. What is it? The Millville Meteorologist. Oh, so good. So good.

It's so good. Oh, my gosh. It's so good. So good. It's so good. Oh, my gosh. It's so good. Had to call you back. Oh, my goodness. It's so good, Ben. I just don't expect this from you. Thanks.

You expect it from Weedmasse. I do. Oh, that's so good so good now it makes me wonder if i some no i feel like i need to go back and click on those links in the reddit because this could be a setup this actually could be that somebody had this joke in mind and is doing a long setup for that no don't take this away from me all right okay it's good bye good night