Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 657: The Switching Cities, Dealing Draft Picks, and Trading Divisions Edition

Episode Date: April 15, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about Mike Trout and answer listener emails about trading draft picks and divisions, saving failing franchises, limiting pitchers, and more.

These notes are marked return to sender. I'll save this letter for myself. I wish you only knew good it is to see you, see you, see you. Good morning and welcome to episode 657 of Effectively Wild, a daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hi. Howdy. Listener email show. Yes, sir.

Anything before we begin the emails? I don't believe so oh uh mike trout tweeted without the space before the punctuation today that's right one time and it was the first time i've seen it in a very long time so so he's a listener taking credit well speaking of mike trout we got an email from a listener about Mike Trout that is not technically a question. Maybe it's kind of a question, but I'll read it. We read a lot of Mike Trout emails. So this one is from Andrew, and he says, A friend of mine got tickets to tonight's Angels game and was told that they would be in the Trout Farm seating section.

My first thoughts when I heard that name were, in roughly this order, Really? The Trout Farm? That is the name of Mike Trout's fan section? Is that the worst player-specific fan section name in all of baseball? I need to email Effectively Wild about this. That last thought was almost completely instantaneous. The more Effectively Wild route to go with this is, isn't a trout farm a commercial way to breed raise and kill trout so that people can then eat those fish i think this officially makes the trout farm the absolutely worst player specific fan section in all of baseball nay all of sports it can't come close to the king's court felix

fernandez's seattle section manny wood which was ridiculous enough to fit the ridiculousness of Manny himself, or the all-time champion Vicente Padilla's old Padilla Flotilla. Any other great-slash-terrible-player-specific stadium fan sections? No, but I'm glad you read that. Yeah, me too. I shouldn't have even read the question. It was the comment that I was interested in. Yeah. Trout Farm.

It's pretty bad. Now that we know that he likes weather and meteorology, there must be something better that they could rechristen that. I'll have to think about something that is that bad, but you're right. It is terrible and eat that fish. It's great.

I like fan sections for players who don't really deserve fan sections. Like Padilla. Yeah, like Padilla. Padilla was good, though. I mean, he was good, and if he was starting, I mean, I'm assuming this was one of the,

he was really good for a bit. So I don't mind Vicente Padilla getting one. He was an all-star. How about that? Okay. All right. Yeah. So that's the chart form. All right. Yeah.

So that's the chart form. I don't know. I'm trying to think of, wasn't there one for Sal Fasano? Didn't he have a fan section? Yeah. It had to be called Sal's Pals, right? I think so. Do I have to Google Sal's Pals?

Sal's Pals. Yeah. Sal's Pals. Yeah. I don't know if pals I I don't know if I I don't know Do you like the ironic fan section I think I do No it doesn't bother me

It doesn't bother me either although I guess I feel like in an ironic fan section Most of the people there aren't really fans Of the person I feel like maybe it's just a couple of people who are sweeping everybody into their story. But I do like the Kings court is great. The Kings court is excellently done.

Trout farm, not as well done. No, not at all. All right. Question from Vinit. If Major League Baseball eventually allows draft picks to be traded, and we are not talking about compensation around draft picks as we discussed the other day. We were talking about amateur draft picks and high-level picks. What percentage of trades would involve a draft pick?

What if future draft picks could be traded? What's the furthest out that teams would consider trading what's a first overall pick in 2022 worth yeah the last question is is hard i mean i wonder what percentage of draft picks end up making the majors under the gm that drafted them and i mean i guess that gms like you've written about recently have had a lot of longevity in their jobs recently. And a lot of good GMs, they generally stay with the organization instead of going elsewhere. They move up to president or whatever. So maybe there's a lot.

Like everybody that Billy Bean has drafted in the last, you know, obviously 20 years-ish has. I wonder at what point, like how many years into the future you could trade a pick away or a four pick and have it be unlikely that you would see the fruits of that pick. Yeah. Because you're already talking about a three to six year development time for most picks anyway. You'd probably have some teams that would just do some kind of New York Knicks thing and just get rid of all their picks and just go all in and then not have a draft pick for years. But I don't know how far away it would happen, though. I don't know if the first overall pick in 2022, as he says, would have any value or close to the value that it would actually have in 2022 because yeah what what is the what's the expectancy that you'll even be a gm then let alone be a gm long

enough to see what that player does so i would guess though that that you'd see some teams trade a bunch of picks in i don't know a three-year range or something like that you think so you think that uh pick for 2018 draft would have value right now i think it would i mean you'd probably get a good deal on it i would think that it would just be such a tempting route to go all right but let me ask you a question you've got the number two pick in the draft number two overall pick in the draft and uh the whoever has the 30th pick i don't know who has the 30th pick this year the nationals the angels maybe yeah angels probably so they offer you uh all their picks All their picks for the whole year.

Yeah, all the picks, their entire draft. Number 30, number 70, number 100, number 130, all the way down to 1,200. Which one are you taking? Well, I guess the necessary caveat is that maybe it depends a little bit on the year of the draft. It's this year. It's a weak draft. Yeah. Weak draft at the top, but also weak draft it's a weak draft yeah so we draft the top but also we draft uh not a lot of depth either right yeah there there could be years where there's a clear future superstar at number two and uh not a lot of depth whereas it could be just an even

draft a lot of other years i think i would not trade my number two pick for all of the picks of a team with a low pick. Okay, what if it were, so you would keep the number two? No, I wouldn't. I would trade it. You would take all the picks. All right, same question, but you're getting all of next year's picks. So I'm not getting anything this year. I'm just getting all of next year's. You're not getting anything in return for number two. You'll still get the rest of your draft. So you give up number two overall, and you get all of next year's. Anything over, say, number 22 is protected. Yeah, I think I'd take it.

I'd trade. All right. Well, I could ask you the same question for 2017, but I guess I quit thinking that you have any relevant intelligence to the baseball listening community. So I guess I'll ask you one more time. Same deal, but you get all of 2017. Some teams all of 2017 draft.

You take it? No, it's too far away. Okay. Yeah. I wonder. I mean, you could check this, right? You could look back historically and see what the average haul from

from the rest of a draft is compared to a second pick or something but yeah you know whenever we think about trading draft picks we always think i i feel like in our brains everybody's thinking about like the top 10 picks but i wonder if like would you seek 35th rounders getting tossed in to trades? Would every trade basically have some kind of, like, equalizing draft pick element to it? Would they all have some late pick thrown in or mid-round pick or fourth-round pick? I mean, would you just see those instead of the throw-in relievers from single A or whatever getting tossed in, do you think? Yeah, I wonder, because I would guess that every, I mean, no team is ever completely comfortable with the trade that it's making, or a lot of times they aren't. Maybe they feel like it's just slightly off or something, but they make it anyway.

Like, asking for another player would be too much. That would unbalance the scales but you know and it's close enough that they can live with it or something but if there was the option to ask for like you know a 10th round pick or something that has like some value like six figure value or something but not so much that it would kill the deal or anything, then yeah, you'd probably ask, right? You'd probably say like, let's just sweeten this a little bit. Let's throw in this low level pick here just to make it completely even. So I wonder if, yeah, you'd probably see that a lot, I would think. It'd be a headache to keep track of who was picking where. And it would

be just so tempting. Like if you were close to a deal and you just really wanted to get it done and all you have to say is i'll give you this draft pick three years from now and you get the player right now and you can play for you tomorrow and he'll you can write them into your lineup tonight and you don't have to worry about it for for three years it's you know you could get yourself in all kinds of trouble like borrowing from the bank or something and finding out that that you can't repay it so that would probably happen to some extent yeah all right let's take sammy elliot and sammy sent us a joint question i guess elliot is the one who wrote it my girlfriend and i were watching the blue jays walk

in a couple runs last night so to quell our misery we started chatting about the contracts of jose I guess Elliot is the one who wrote it. I explained that it has to do with their pre-contract production and timing of the contract. That got us wondering how average annual values would look if the CBA was rewritten to allow one-year contracts only. Would the 54 home run year of Jose Bautista afford him a one-year $20 million contract? And then the ensuing 46 home run year a $25 million one-year value? With players only having to commit to a team for one year, we presume that it would cost even more to have your team's players stick around, especially after a good season or multiple good seasons. The cash-rich Dodgers could gamble on a player's breakout year or snap up your team's perennial all-star with big money now.

I hope this makes sense. Thanks for the daily baseball nerdery. So what's the question specifically? What would contracts look like if everyone were on one-year contracts? So this would imply that they're free agents. Yes. So this is not like the reserve clause where you just negotiate with your team, but they have all the... Right. Everyone's a free agent always.

And so I guess really the question would be would every team think that they were contenders every year? Would you quit seeing teams rebuilding? Would you see teams not knowing whether they're rebuilding until three weeks into the offseason and they look around and see whether they've got anybody? You could imagine it'd be great for players for a number of reasons. You could imagine it'd be terrible for players for a number of reasons uh and you can imagine it'd be terrible for players for a number of reasons but the best case for it being great would be that you'd have 30 teams who would have to think of themselves as contenders basically right i mean if you're not going to think of yourself as a contender what about my i mean i guess minor leaguers what what so this is a problem is that we haven't

decided what we're doing with minor leaguers we haven't decided what we're going to do with you know players who are in their first six years. Is this only applying to players who've hit free agency? Because then you still might have rebuilding, I guess, if you could stockpile young talent. So it's very hard to answer before we've answered those questions. But I would think that you would see, gosh, I don't know, Ben. I don't know. You could see there being a lot more bidding wars for players

because everybody would need every position every year and it'd always be available and it's only a one-year commitment. But on the other hand, you can see there being a lot fewer bidding wars because the players that are likely to cause bidding wars would always be 29 other options behind them. I don't really know. So what did Charlie Finley

Right. This was discussed during the early stages of free agency. That was his proposal. Yeah. That was his proposal because what would it do it would flood the market with with product yeah so i'm looking at an espn classic biography of charlie finley and it says finley was about the only baseball person other than

marvin miller who realized that the advent of free agency could work to the owner's advantage if they allowed all players to become free agents every year, thus matching supply with demand. So that seems to presuppose that this system would keep salaries down. Do you think it would count as collusion if all the owners agreed that they would sign players in an open auction style? As long as they didn't coordinate strategy, no. Well, by agreeing to this,

they would be agreeing not to sign players outside of an open auction system, presumably. That's true. Although maybe they would do it naturally. Maybe they don't need to coordinate that. Maybe they would prefer this. I don't know. But that always seemed to me like a pretty good thing for teams to do.

If you knew that the agent who's telling you that he's got a mystery team was lying because no mystery team has raised that paddle, it seems to me that you'd shave a lot of extra tens of millions off the top of some of these contracts. Maybe. Yeah, that could be. Anyway. off the top of some of these contracts maybe yeah that could be anyway uh so if if there were this system then obviously yeah jose patista would be making more than jose reyes i don't know what the maximum would be people have at at various times done think pieces you know what would a team pay for one year of clayton kershaw or one year of Mike Trout or whatever it is. It seems like people have said, I don't know, what, 50 million or something for a year of Trout.

So let me ask you this, though, because once you know you're in that zone, that 88 win zone, and wins are much more valuable, then you might go even higher, right? It's conceivable that if you, probably not for Trout, but it's conceivable that you might find those wins to be worth $15 million per win. So do you think, who signs last in this situation? Does it go, is Trout the first guy signed? Is Kershaw the second guy signed? Do they hold out a little bit?

Is there a benefit to signing early? Or do you think that in this way of doing things, there might be a benefit to being the last guy available? I would think those guys would have to sign earlier. There would just be no market movement, right? Like if you're at all interested in Trout or you think you're a player for Trout, then you can't really do anything else until you know if you're at all interested in trout or you think you're a player for trout then you can't really do anything else until you know whether you're going to have trout or not right because he's going to be a huge percentage of your payroll yeah but if you're trout you don't care what they think no so trout might wait a while but then everyone else would have to wait

a while i think so maybe it would just be a slow developing market or maybe everyone would just know that that's how it's going to work and then it wouldn't take that long because people would just come with their best offers right away and then they would see where it fell. Sounds like a terrible thing. It does.

It does. I don't think anyone would like this because fans like seeing the same players year after year or at least some of the same players the year after year and and yeah this would be this would be a real nightmare to cover probably might be fun once but i'm still waiting i've been waiting but i'm still waiting for the first player the first star player who's so confident in his abilities that he signs one-year deals every year. There is a tacit admission with all of these long-term contracts

that the player knows he's not as good as he's being paid and he wants to get paid all he can right now. You could say, oh, it's about security. That's fine. But it's basically saying, I'm not confident that you'll give me $30 million next year. So I want to make you give me $25 million this year for next year before you get smart. And I want to see a player who's just so cocky and so confident and just doesn't care and wants to earn it and goes every year, one year deal and goes like everything works out perfectly and he makes $850 million. That'd be fun.

That's what I'd like to see. Okay. Okay. This question comes from Nick. Why can't a small market team like the Rays play half of their home series in their current city and the other half of them in another city looking for a team like Montreal, which already has a stadium and a fan base eager to watch baseball.

Oh my gosh, this is a great idea. Yeah, the team could sell half-season tickets for each venue, would be expanding their fan base and merchandise sales, would be putting a premium on each home game, increasing the likelihood that they sell out, and would have a completely new market to sell TV rights to for the entire season. The only downside I see is increased travel costs, but I'm sure the league could manipulate the schedule in a way that would make the added costs minimal, especially if these cities were somewhat close by.

You might also have to pay... The league might demand some hefty payment for the territorial rights of a second territory. Yeah, although Montreal is not really conflicting with anyone else's. No, but it's conflicting with a potential Montreal team somewhere down the road. I mean, even if it's not conflicting with anybody, you're getting an asset and the other 29 owners currently share that asset and they're going to get paid for that asset. I mean, I remember covering a desalination plant.

Your previous life was so exciting. I was though. This was going to take ocean water, take all the salt out of it, make it potable, serve it to the community. There was one of the notes of opposition that started to One of the notes of opposition that started to coalesce against this plan was that they were going to be taking shared resources, like the resource was the ocean. They were going to be profiting off the ocean and we all own the ocean. It's not like anybody else is using the ocean or that there's any kind of limit on how much ocean can be used. It's the ocean.

Yet, people just found it unfair that somebody would like just get the ocean like how did you get the ocean and that i feel like i forget what we were talking about we were talking about the race going to montreal but even if the rest of the league imposed some sort of fee it still could potentially be worth it right for a team like the race that doesn't draw because of where its park is to go to montreal for half a season of course i mean when the expos were still in montreal they were looking for other places to play right they were playing in puerto rico for precisely the same reason right they weren't they weren't drawing at home, so they went somewhere else.

So they kind of did that, not for half a season, but for some portion of a season. Partially the same reason. But I mean, to me, the genius of this is getting two TV markets to care about you for, you know, you only have to invest half of your days in that city. And yet, theoretically, you'd have, you know, just as as many you'd have double the fans right because you're still going to be their team seems brilliant I mean I don't see any problem with it other than the fact that it's unrealistic and probably

the two you know it'd be like having two boyfriends who it might seem like a great idea until they find out about each other. Uh-huh. Yeah, and I guess you—

Oh, it'd be awkward, too, just the typing it. How would you name them? That's the biggest issue here. Yeah, so that's not great. It'd be like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It would be that kind of awful thing. The travel needn't necessarily be horrible. It probably would be awful thing the travel needn't necessarily be horrible it probably it probably would be worse but it needn't necessarily be right i mean it theoretically you

might even be able to like bunch your games up in such a way but it probably would be yeah well i mean there's only like one place that this would work right i mean uh steve who asked the question said you know you asked it as more of a general question, but there aren't a lot of places where you could do this. It's not like there are a lot of potential markets that could just today support a major league team. I mean, I guess if you're... But they could support half a major league team. I mean, why couldn't the Rangers play half their games in Vegas? Why couldn't the Rockies play half their games in Portland if Seattle, you know, give up the rights?

You need a ballpark. Yeah, so? You probably don't need a capacity, a huge ballpark, because you're not filling out your home park anyway. That's part of the problem. So the Rays are drawing, you know, whatever they're drawing in Tampa Bay. It's not good. You don't necessarily need a park that holds 45,000 people

to make it worth their while. Well, but the Rays per game attendance would go way up if they were splitting half their games with elsewhere. I mean, it'd go way up, right? Because everybody in Tampa Bay who wants to go to a baseball game would now have to cram into half as many games. And they're still going to go to just roughly as many games. Right.

So I don't know. I mean, it doesn't have to be 58,000 seats, but I think you'd want to build a full-size ballpark. And so go ahead and do it. I would give you the okay to build a full-size ballpark. Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, then you're adding years of construction time and you're actually locking the team into this arrangement

for some number of years. Obviously, the city or the team is not going to spend many millions of dollars to build a ballpark if this is not a permanent thing i was just thinking of kind of an ad hoc with what we have right now with no no infrastructure required or anything just just what exists already and probably not a lot of places that would work but but maybe one at least so it's a good idea that was not steven who asked that question that was how much would you love a team that played half its games elsewhere would you would it cost you

any any love at all that was nick who asked that question yeah uh i guess it would but if it were the only way that i could keep the team then it might be worth it i mean if i were a diehard fan who actually went to all the raise games then i wouldn't love it. I mean, if I were a diehard fan who actually went to all the Raze games, then I wouldn't love it that there were fewer Raze games, but it might enable the team to stay long-term. So if those were the conditions, that it's either lose them all the time or lose them half the time,

I think I'd take half the time. Would it strike you as betrayal? No. If it's a matter of life or death franchise survival i'd be okay with it uh well what if it was i mean what if you were in montreal or what if you were in the the second city yeah i'd be i'd definitely be slower to adopt the team i wouldn't become a diehard of that team because i wouldn't necessarily count on that arrangement persisting i'd maybe go now and then just because, hey, there's Major League Baseball now.

We didn't have that before. It's fun to go to a baseball game now and then, but I don't think I would catch Ray's fever or anything. Oh, well, it would have to be permanent. I mean, this wouldn't work if it wasn't permanent. You wouldn't get the TV cash, the TV monies if it wasn't a permanent thing. I mean, this would be an investment in a second community. I'm thinking it would pay off 10 years

down the road, or 6 years down the road or something like that. Maybe you could go season by season with a TV contract. Just say we're going to be there for 40 games this year. They're not going to care at all though. Montreal wouldn't care about the raise at all if they came in for one year.

They're selling out those few exhibition games they're having so maybe oh yeah if you had 40 games those are those are those are just like those are one-off things though i mean i don't know this for a fact but i'm guessing that there weren't a lot of people in puerto who were watching Expos games that year, even though they had three weeks worth of games. I don't know. I don't think of the... The exhibition games do not convince me that there is like baseball fever in Montreal or anything like that.

So I don't know. I think that you and I have different ideas about what we're talking about here, probably. Okay. I'm going to say Play Index, but before you do Play Index, I want to update a Play Index have different ideas about what we're talking about here probably okay uh i'm gonna say play index but before you do play index i want to update a play index from last week we did a play index last week about what the longest streak of games with a negative win probability added to begin the season or was it without a positive win probability no it was negative. I think that I left zero did not count as a negative. So zero was a streak snapper.

Okay. So you mentioned in that play index Mike Rivera, who had 19 games of negative or non-positive win probability added in a season. And that was his whole season. One was zero and the rest were negative. That's right. Yeah. And so he did not have a positive win probability added game in that season, which was what, 2003 with the Padres. So I wondered aloud, I wanted to know what the most games in a season was by someone who never had a positive win probability added game so most games by someone who just never did anything in those games to help his team win and we got a email from mike

ma is that how you would pronounce that i don't know yeah listener mike ma and he crunched the numbers he did some database stuff and he found that the most games played in a season by a non-pitcher with negative win probability added in every game played was 11, Steve Demeter with Detroit in 1959. And he also played four games for Cleveland a year later and had three negatives and a zero. So that was his entire major league career, 15 games without a positive WPA. Not a surprise that he didn't get more games, but Mike also found one longer string than the Mike Rivera 19 game sample. He found Cal Neiman in 1963, who played nine games for Cleveland and 14 games for Washington without a positive

win probability added. So it was 11 games with a negative WPA and 12 with a zero WPA. I guess he was a defensive replacement or something. So he got 30 plate appearances in that season he hit 037 103 037 and that was his entire season never did anything useful in that entire season at least by by wpa maybe he did some stuff in the clubhouse that was valuable very poor yeah and that was his last year in the major leagues he did not get another season he was 34 he actually retired after that year in the major leagues. He did not get another season. He was 34. He actually retired after that year. No more minor leagues or anything. Okay, new play index.

New play index. This one is partly inspired by Matthew Trueblood, who, well, it's probably entirely inspired by Matthew Trueblood, who noted something interesting a couple days into the season, not necessarily, as he acknowledged, not significant, but interesting. And I'm going to, now that we have a few more days, go a little farther with it. So as

Matthew noted, there was a ridiculously high, basically conversion rate of teams leading going on to win. And so this was true even early in the games. I'll try to find the exact tweet if i can but basically teams that were leading in the second were just like totally

winning like they were winning everything and you know as we've talked about before my opinion is that the lack of offense gets troubling when games feel like they're over in the second inning with a two-run lead. And so that's sort of interesting. So I'm going to get the exact. While you look, what was the finding that you had in your Fox Sports article about the closeness of games? Yeah, so that's right. And I'm glad you brought that up. So when I wrote, I wrote for Fox Sports, I don't know, six months or so ago, that maybe it seemed like it was a hypothesis

that maybe low offense was actually better because more close games means that you're more engaged in games and you feel like smaller margins make for kind of a more interesting life of watching baseball, even if you don't get the home runs and the flash and the doubles and the triples and the things that people like to put highlights of, if you are watching a three-hour game and you are engaged for those three whole hours, it is kind of building sort of a foundational happiness in your life. And so that was the hypothesis.

And it turned out not to be a very good hypothesis. It turned out not to be true. And one of the reasons that it turned out not to be true was that there were fewer lead changes in this low-scoring environment, which is also a thing that makes sense if offense is down. There are fewer lead changes.

And so you might, if you're kind of, like you might fool yourself into thinking, oh, this game is close, I'm enjoying it, because they're only down two. But eventually your brain would probably figure out that down two is more daunting than it used to be. There's no runs coming, it's boring, let's all get out. And therefore, hypothesis unproven, different hypothesis proven, right? So Matthew's tweet at the time, teams leading after two innings are 20-4 this year, which is like an 83% conversion rate.

After 3, 30-3, which is like 91% or something like that. After 4, 33-3, samples minute, meaningless, just noting it. All right, so I have now some numbers for you. Okay. In fact, we are, what are we, a week, a little more than the weekend of the season? A weekend of the season, because these numbers are through Monday's game. Well, a little more than the weekend of the season,

because they're through Monday's season. And in fact, we are still way, way, way over the rate of teams leading going on to win. And you can do this on Play Index. There's a special thing, there's a special thing that is kind of an unusual little corner of Play Index for runs scored per inning and this stat, how often teams leading in each inning go on to win. You can do it for individual teams in individual years.

You can do it for all teams. I did it for all teams, and that's how i have these so in 2015 if you are winning after the first inning so going into the second inning you are now winning 78 of games which is kind of crazy right i mean i mean maybe you're up by six some of the time and so then that makes sense but a lot of times you're only up by one and you're winning 78 of the time, and so then that makes sense. But a lot of times you're only up by one, and you're winning 78% of the time this year. To put that in perspective, I looked at 5, 10, 15, 20, like 25 years from the past, spread out over a number of decades, including the last five years before this, but also around the turn of the century, in the early 90s, in the late 70s, in the early 70s, late 60s, early 50s. All right, so 78%. The highest that I could

find in any year was 1968, which is a freak show year. That was 73%. The next highest was 1992, 72%. 1952, 72%. So 72% is basically the high that I found. More typically, and there's not a lot of fluctuation. There's more fluctuation in these the earlier in the game you get, but there's not a lot of fluctuation. Typically, you're looking at about 68%. Fairly steady, fairly reliable, usually 67%, 68% around that area. So we're already basically 10 out of 100 fewer comebacks just after one inning. So then third inning, 79%, and that's usually about 72, historically speaking. Sorry, so that's after the second inning. After the third inning, 82%, and now we're getting into much more consistent numbers.

So we're at about 74, 75 historically. After the fourth, 87%, historically about 79 or 80%. And really where it really spikes, where it really jumps, is going into the ninth. And there's almost no fluctuation. So I counted it like 25 years. So this is going into the ninth. This is how often teams have won that game.

95.3, 95.1, 95.0, 95.1, 95.5, 95.4, 95.0, 94.7, 95.3, 95.0, 94.3, 95.5, 94.6, 94.2, 94.4, 94.4, 95.2, 94.4. So once you get far enough away and you don't have modern closers, then it basically drops from 95% to 94%. And that is it. Every other year is exactly 95%. And in the pre-closer years, it's basically every year is exactly 94% or maybe 95%. This year, 99%. We are one game out of 92% thus far far the team going into the ninth inning has lost now

that is also the one that is because of the you know it's kind of the one that's most prone to small sample size fluctuation is if there was three more i think four more there were four more that had been blown which wouldn't be that shocking but if there were four more that had been blown we'd be at like average at average for going into the ninth inning. And so I don't know. I'm sure there are some cases like, for instance, the Yankees were trailing in the ninth inning of that 19th inning game, right? And then they came from behind, and they got the tie,

and then they blew it later. So they did come from behind. They just failed once they were tied. And I think, what, the Fernando Rodney game yesterday was the same thing, right? He blew a four-run lead or something like that. And then I think they came back. They ended up winning anyway, if I'm remembering that correctly. So in each of those cases, it would have been very easy for the team that blew the lead

to then also lose the game, and they didn't. That's not that interesting. That has nothing to do with offense so still in small sample early season territory so now here's where i ask you the question i always ask you small sample early season stuff is this real well definitely the magnitude isn't real i'll say i kind of buy it to a little extent but I'm much more skeptical about this than I am overall scoring Or something like that It's just does seem like a few games could really knock this off a lot

Like I don't know like that Matt Latos game Where he gave up like seven runs before he got two outs or whatever it was But of course there's there's always a few of those so i'll say no i'll say more no than yes yeah i would probably i don't know i'm gonna write about it i'm not gonna give an answer yet because i'm gonna write about this in the next couple days i have some thoughts okay uh the dodgers at the, the, this month, maybe this is a different game. What game did Rodney blow? I don't know.

It might've been this one. No, it wasn't this one. All right. Play index. Good play index. Coupon code BP. Get your discounted price of $30 on a one year subscription.

Okay. So question from Steven. This one is from Steve. Uh, how valuable is a team's position in a division or a league? There's plenty of talk about how dominant the Dodgers and Nationals will be, while some divisions seem ripe for the picking. It's not that different in the other major sports. The past few years have seen some historically bad NFL divisions

and a serious imbalance in the NBA conferences, but I'm still trying to figure out the NHL's realignment and resulting crazy playoff schedule. Mostly it means that some good teams might not make the playoffs. If a team could use its position in a division only for the purpose of standings as a trade chip, how much would it be worth? If, for example, the Dodgers are running away with the NL West by mid-July, the it does go to, I guess, maybe a fundamental question that is under a lot of these, But it does go to, I guess, maybe a fundamental question that is under a lot of these, which is, do you like teams to be playing for their situation, for their window, for their competitive

situation, or do you just want teams to go out and win games as much as possible? And so if you did this, it would just raise the level of tanking, right? Because now the bad teams would be going into divisions where they're even less relevant. Like if you were the last place team in the Central and you traded something to the Padres in order to switch, then you'd be, now you'd go from like 18 games down to like 27 games down. And you've, I mean, you've admitted that you are a loser.

You are the loser. So I don't know. I, I kind of think that like all this kind of gamesmanship about when to win your games, uh, was interesting for a while and is now kind of boring. Now I just like to see teams win games, but that doesn't answer the question. The question is how much would you give in order to switch? And what if you had to do it before the trade deadline? Yeah, he attaches a little addendum to this. What if there was no deadline? If you could steal a playoff spot on the last day of the season? How much would that be worth? Right. That's the question. Instead of trading a prospect for a veteran and potential wins to

put you in the playoffs, just trade a lesser prospect and guarantee the spot. So, well, yeah, I guess that's the thing. So I wonder how many teams would it benefit? Like on the last day of the season, how many teams would there be typically that could trade, you know, divisions with like the last team, last place team in the weakest division and make the playoffs instead of missing the playoffs? Probably a couple, maybe.

What year do you want to pick? Pick a year. Well, I guess the last couple of years are different from all the years before those years. So if we want the current playoff format, then I guess we should look at 2014. All right. So basically, all the division winners won more games than all the wildcard teams in the A. So it would have had absolutely 100% no opportunity. In the other league, same thing. So that's interesting. All the wildcard teams last year won fewer games than all the division winners.

So there would have been no trade. 2013? Oh, okay. So there would have been no trade. 2013? Oh, okay. 2013, the Pirates could have gone to the West and won the division there if they had wanted to. But what about teams that didn't win a wild card,

would have won a wild card if they were in a weaker division, but didn't make the playoffs at all didn't get any spot must have been some of those right what do you mean they would have won the wild card if they were in a weaker division uh no that doesn't make sense does it not really yeah not unless you take like quality of competition into account or something which would be a different thing so it's going going to be very, very rare that you would have an opportunity to make the playoffs if you didn't otherwise make the playoffs. Like nobody in the NL that year.

In the other, 92, nope, nobody in the AL the other. In the AL in 2013, all the division winners won more games than all the wild cards cards and nobody missed the playoffs obviously who won fewer games than a division winner so so far we're two years in and we've got at best one team one team in one year could go from wild card to division winner so this maybe isn't really that relevant it'd be more relevant in fact you actually as it turns out you get a lot more action if the trade deadline was the trade deadline for this because then there probably would be a lot of teams that would see opportunity

right arrest me uh now let's see the uh no again uh yeah let's see uh okay so in 2012 the angels could have made the playoffs by moving to the central and instead they missed the playoffs completely uh-huh and so could the rays but the rays would have beat the angels can you trade for two can you wait for the anyway whatever well it would be worth a lot potentially if you if you did it in the middle of the season or something, there'd be a bidding war. You could extract a lot for that, right? You could get, I don't know what you could get.

I don't know how to compare that to what you could get for something else, but it would improve your, it would probably improve your playoff odds more than any player a team could acquire at the deadline right i would think yeah i mean it's such a lousy way to win though who would be into this yeah yeah it wouldn't be very satisfying to do the division switch but aside from that it probably would improve your chances as much as any actual trade you could make. So think of what teams give up for good players at the deadline and say it's the same thing

for good rental players who only last for the rest of the season. It would be the equivalent of that, let's say. Okay, there was one more from Remy who says, I just finished listening to Friday's show about pitcher dominance and hitter weakness and had a thought. Some of the times in the past where hitters have become dominant are following expansion as the pitcher pool becomes diluted, i.e. there are fewer good pitchers. Expansion doesn't seem like a good solution to the problem as it seems hard to believe that there are so many more markets that can support teams. This led me to wonder if there are other ways to dilute

the pitcher pool without adding more teams. How about putting a cap on the number of pitchers a team can have on the 25-man roster, say 10? It seems to me that having fewer pitchers available will generally have the same diluting effect, i.e. there will be fewer good pitchers. But as I said, I'm sure this is wrong. Well, it would address a lot of problems. It would be a pretty drastic thing if you did anything to limit either the number of pitchers on the roster or the number of pitchers who could be used in a game, which would effectively limit the number of pitchers that you have on the roster. That would be probably the most dramatic, drastic rule change that the game has seen since, I don't know, since the 19th century maybe.

But it would also address a lot of the problems that we talk about these days. Because if you had fewer pitchers, then you would have guys who went longer between pitching changes. guys who went longer between pitching changes, you'd have longer outings. And therefore, you would probably have guys pacing themselves, at least to some extent, more than they do now, which might mean lower velocities, which might mean fewer strikeouts and more scoring, and might mean fewer elbow injuries, if guys throwing at max effort all the time is part of the elbow injury problem and it would mean faster games because you'd have fewer pitching changes so it seems

like it would kind of hit a lot of the areas that are potential problem areas in baseball today if you were to do that it does be a big change what do you think the union would think of not restricting roster spots? You'd have the same number of players, but putting a cap on the type of players, a number of a type of player you could have. Obviously, you would alienate some portions of your membership and also welcome in new membership who wouldn't mind at all. So it would be a temporary upheaval. New membership doesn't get to vote, though. Potential new members don't get to vote that's true yeah so you might have a hard time getting it passed or getting enough support yeah because every pitcher would

vote against it and i think that i think i guess every hitter would have incentive to vote for it although if you're like a star hitter you're probably not going to carry their way. Your roster spot is pretty assured. But yeah, you'd have half the union against it. I think you'd have a hard time convincing people that it wasn't going to lead to a lot more pitcher injuries. Like you wouldn't have a hard time convincing me, but you would have a hard time convincing people that it wouldn't lead to a lot more pitcher injuries.

Yeah, if anything, I would guess fewer. I know, but I mean, you and me, we're the easy ones to convince. We're suckers. You once wrote an article saying Jose Molina was worth 50 runs of crank. Yeah. Okay.

So are we done? Yeah, I guess. I'm sorry about that. I like that article a lot. That was great. I once headlined an article about Bud Black or something, that he was the 30-run manager. That was like two weeks ago. Joe Madden said it, right?

It was a Joe Madden quote, I think. Okay. So that is it for today. We will be back tomorrow. And send us emails for next week at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.