Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 661: How Different is Baseball in 2015?

Episode Date: April 21, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about batting around and Bryan Price’s media meltdown, then check in on early-season statistical trends.

You, you're the summer I've been through. You're the days of April I was dead to life, instead I am new. First star in the sky, don't lose that feeling. Better just stay, set the timer right. Good morning and welcome to episode 661 of Effectively Wild, a daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by the Play Index at baseballreference.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Hello, Ben. Hello.

How are you? All right. I guess we have an addendum to our discussion yesterday. I was not aware, I don't know if you were aware, that Josh Reddick also had a little bit of a role in the unwritten kerfuffle. I wasn't. So Josh Reddick, the day, let's see, I guess before Sunday's game, so after we thought everything had been settled,

Ventura had hit. Lori and everybody was cool, said that, quote, there's no need for a season to be ruined between two teams that have something so small that happened that's obviously not going to be forgotten when they come to our place. You never know what's going to happen, or if we're going to retaliate when they come to our place. I hope it doesn't happen because it's a great group of guys over there." And so this was brought up by people who think that we were

too generous to the A's, too harsh to the Royals because this was before Kazmir hit Kane. This is Josh Reddick talking about retaliation. I don't know if you have an opinion. I'll give my opinion, and then if you do, you can give yours, and we can move on. Clearly, Reddick is a jerk here. He should not be talking about retaliation after everything was settled, and I agree that this was a bad move. He should have let it go. He should have seen Laurie take his punishment. He should have seen everybody move on. He should have moved on. He didn't. That was a bad move. I'd call it like a six. Probably a six. And I would say that he is partly any reason to tie that quote to Casimir hitting Kane because, again, I think that the evidence to me is suggestive of Casimir having just gotten a pitch getaway from him. To me, that is the interpretation. But I certainly see why to the Royals, an athletic saying business is not done would heighten everything.

And therefore, I am willing to remove two points from Escobar's score and three quarters of a point from Herrera's score and give them a little bit more credit. Does it really affect Escobar's score? It does. It does. It does. Yeah, because then you can be, if Escobar's sort of caught up in this and thinks that, you know, the war never ended and Reddick is adding fuel to it, then you can sort of see why. I mean, Escobar to me was, his crime was caring too much about this for too long. But Reddick continued to give him incentive to care for too long.

So yeah, I think it lowers Escobar's score. I also, by the way, do not... I have no patience. Patience isn't quite the right word. But I have no sympathy for the argument that Casimir must have hit him because he had control All day and I don't think It works that way I don't think so either It doesn't make any sense to me Guys hit on accident all the time

Even guys with good control hit batters It happens We're generally in favor Of the side that lets things go We are people who tend to Let things go And as we were discussing it It seemed like the royals were that lets things go. We are people who tend to let things go. And as we were discussing it,

it seemed like the royals were less willing to let things go than the A's. And so that's a big part of why we came down kind of on the A's side of the debate. And so this changes it a little bit. It's an example of the A's not letting it go and inflaming passions further. I think you're right. That is a good interpretation of where we tend to stand.

And I think that it is evident that Reddick did not throw any pitches or any swings or hurt anybody or touch anybody. And still we are coming down hard on him for the simple crime of not letting things go. So just put that lens on all of the assessments, and it makes sense why we think that the royals were not letting things go. All right. Yeah, so now we can move on to important matters, like batting around. I'm not going to, I don't intend to get in an argument about this, so I'm happy to give you my reaction to

the to the controversy but whatever you say i'm i'm not going to respond to okay i well it's you know it's one step up from the hot dogs and sandwiches debate which as you know is one of my least favorite things on the internet and this is an equally unproductive debate because there is no official definition of batting around whatever you think batting around is is an equally valid way of regarding batting around and so there's no real point in debating it but i was interested to learn that it was a debate i had no idea that there was any disagreement about what this meant and uh was this was the jared diamond article in the wall street journal the the impetus for this this started it he he brought this to light no well he was he was writing about i think he was writing about a meme that was

already going right okay i don't know i i wasn't aware of it i didn't but did you read the article i did read the article yeah i think he i think he gives the origin of his inquiry within the article he said right in his his local sandlot league or some some guy's sandlot league a meds blogger a meds blogger well yeah right and then everybody was talking about it okay yeah so were you aware that there was disagreement about whether batting around was nine batters or ten batters no although i i guess i would have kind of intrinsically known because i didn't actually have an opinion on which it was i think i've used both uh i i use it when i think i use the phrase whenever i notice that that the has happened. So I think I would generally consider nine to have been batting around on this, on the idea that, uh, to circle something means to come back to the starting point. And, uh, so, which you can take either way. But to me, if you go around the world, you don't have to take a second step in the direction. Uh, but I also, if a guy guy when the 10th batter comes up i will sometimes

think oh now they've batted around right uh so i don't have an opinion i could i could i think i've used both either way i would have leaned toward i probably would have leaned toward 10th man has to bat uh if i'd had to choose um the dixon baseball dictionary yeah i just pulled it out and looked it's very oddly worded isn't it because okay it's like they didn't want to take a side so this is the so this is it's one sentence except it's like kind of two clauses so it starts with to have all nine batters in the team's lineup bat during an inning so that settles that oh wait comma with the 10th batter coming up yeah well now that that's very definitive with the 10th batter coming up. Yeah. Well, now, that's very definitive. With the 10th batter coming up is very definitive.

But that is not what the first clause says. The first clause says to have all the... I mean, the first clause, you could say, oh, well, yeah, no, you have all nine batters and the 10th one coming up. That's what it is. Except then you don't need to say all nine batters coming up. If the 10th one is coming up,

it is presumed the previous nine batted. There is no skipping of batters in baseball so the fact that he included the that clause to have all nine batters in the team's line at bat during an inning uh is a is a strange sort of rug pulling out yeah uh in this argument yeah well i always thought it was 10 i always thought the initial batter had to come up again it never crossed my mind that that was not the case i guess it's just it's probably just whatever broadcaster you grow up watching however he regards the the nine or ten thing then that's what you internalize it as so in this article diamond quotes vin scully as a as a ten person and john thorne as a ten person and John Thornton as a 10 person. And those are pretty authoritative people.

So I'm comfortable with 10, but nine is perfectly okay. I'm just, I'm interested. I mean, it's kind of fascinating that I didn't know. I've been following baseball my whole life and I had no idea that everyone thought that this was something else or a lot of people thought this was something else. It's like the debate about what color people are seeing

when they say that something is green. Are they seeing the same green that you are? I always thought everyone was seeing the same thing, thinking of the same thing when they said batting around. Turns out that's not the case. It is going to be hell if people argue this for very long. Please, no. that's not the case it is going to be hell if people argue this for for very long i mean please no so i resolve that whatever i sense is 50 plus one support i will throw my weight behind that one i just anything to end it yeah because it's fine right now it's a fine one day thing if i hear

one of you people talk about this on thursday i'm muting you. I'm firing you if you work for me. I am ending this Skype call if you are Ben and never returning. It's pretty high stakes. If you email us with this, it is you are being added to my spam filter. Do not do it. Do not try. Okay. Well, you won't hear a word about it from me.

All right. We ready? Yeah. Well, you won't hear a word about it from me. All right. We ready? Yeah. Well, what are you talking about? I got bronchitis, Ben. You've had it for months. No, no. I mean, that's why I've been coughing. Oh, so you've got a diagnosis. I got a diagnosis. I found out that I have bronchitis. I'm taking antibiotics. That is what the coughing has been about for the last two months.

I'm glad you got that checked out. All right. I'm going to be talking. This is the second annual Is This Change in the Game Real episode. Oh, no. This is a good one. What do you mean it's the easy peasy one? I have to make so many predictions.

No, you don't. You just tell me whether you think it's real Nobody revisits these Can we talk about Brian Price for a second? No do it tomorrow Tomorrow? Old news Alright what do you want to talk about?

I assume that you read Brian Price's rant I'm just going to say by the way That I am now dividing this list of things in two and this is also next Tuesday's. I'm getting two episodes out of it. Let's talk about Brian Price. I don't even have that much to say about Brian Price. I just want to say that I'm

really glad that I'm not a Reds beat writer. It seems like... One particular one. Trouble seems to find poor Trent Rosecrans through no fault of his own that i can tell the opposite of fault yeah absolutely as far as we can tell at least that's how it plays yeah there's just a black cloud of reds people saying mean things to him for no apparent reason so this, there is a great transcript,

Trent transcribed Brian Price's rant at Cincinnati.com, and it's mostly asterisks, I think, just from expletives that have been expunged from this transcript. So he's mad about the fact that Trent reported that Devin Masarocco was not with the team, that that is why he was not pinch hitting. And he was also reporting about another player who was on his way to or from AAA, and the team hadn't told the other guy who was getting sent down that that was happening yet. And so he found out about it through this report.

was happening yet and so he found out about it through this report and and price just kind of very illogically keeps asking trent how it helps the reds as if as if it is a beat writer's job to help the team that he is covering and he seems to acknowledge that that's not the case that he knows that that's not necessarily the beat writer's job but he is still very wronged by this report it's very odd i guess it's a just a still sort of inexperienced manager whose team is on a losing streak and he's in a bad mood and he is frustrated that things get reported and Twitter exists and it's not possible to hide things as easily as it once was or the press is not in the team's pocket the way it once was. Very odd. Very strange rant. Go read the transcript if you haven't read it. But I don't have any other thoughts on it, really, other than it's just very very very strange and unlike rants from managers that i've seen before usually the rant is just you know second guessing or something they get mad

about second guessing you but they don't usually get mad at you for just reporting a thing accurately and that was what happened here yeah uh i i think there's something about those those teams that only have like three or four beat writers uh that changes the dynamic a lot and uh i don't know i i i'm i don't know what i don't know what it is i don't know if it's that familiarity breeds contempt or if it's that familiarity breeds a sort of level of comfort that you could even do that. I mean, I don't think it was comfortable to see Trent, but like maybe, I don't know, maybe just not having, I don't know if you, I don't know. I don't know the scene. I wasn't there.

I don't know anything about it, but I'm not sure you feel comfortable as Brian Price. I don't know if you feel comfortable doing that if there's 30 people in your office and you don't even know like 16 of them, which is how it is in a lot of, you know, in some markets. It's a more intimate setting. Yeah. Talk to the same guys every day. people in your office and you don't even know like 16 of them, which is how it is in a lot of, you know, in some markets, uh, it's a more intimate setting. Uh, talk to the same guys every day.

You maybe start to think that they are on your side or that they are, you know, your mouthpiece or something as opposed to people who are just trying to report things. Yeah. Bummer for everybody, but probably see Trent handled the last one of these well, and I'm guessing that

he'll handle this one too, and everything will be okay. Okay, on to the trends, which may or may not be trends. Alright, so we're going to talk about things that are different this year, and decide whether they're different

for a reason, and whether we think that they reflect a change in the game or a trend line in the game that is likely to continue. You remember this game. I sure do. I remember being wrong about things. It's one of my favorite ones that we did last year. I really enjoyed this one.

All right. So first off, Ben. Okay. First off, we're going to do sacrifice buns all right what's funny about that we're starting small okay go ahead small ball all right what do you think up or down up up all right in fact down record record low lowest in recorded history by a mile i mean start good start or well i'm not i'm not really asking you to predict these things but uh less than half of what it was uh in like 1980 and like less than a third of what it was in like 1939 um and like like a fifth of what it was in 1927.

But most importantly,.23 bunts per game so far is a full 500th, a full 20th of a bunt per game less than the previous record, which was last year,.28, which was the lowest ever as well, which was the lowest ever as well, matching 2013, which was the lowest ever as well, bettering 2012, which was the lowest ever as well. So basically this is kind of the third year,

fourth year in a row that we're on pace to have a new record for fewest sacrifice bunts in the game. And, of course, on the one hand, of course, we all know that the bunt is out of favor, the sacrifice bunt at least. I think that there's, by the way, there's a conflating of sacrifice bunts and bunts for hits. Whenever I read an article about the bunt, or when I remember Joe Morgan gloating when the A's won a game because they bunted, but it was like he bunted for a hit.

That's not the same. You can bunt for a hit. Nobody ever had a problem with getting on base. Anyway, so that's one angle that would explain why it's going down. However, the bunt, you would know this better than I, but the bunt has more utility in a low-scoring game, in a low-scoring offensive environment, and you would expect maybe counterforce that would be pushing bunts upward because games are lower scoring, offense is harder to come by,

and games are closer. Correct? Yeah, that's why I guessed up, because I thought there was going to be a reversal of some sort was it because derrick gould wrote something recently about whether the bunt makes more sense now and he talked to a bunch of cardinals about whether it did so okay so so real it's a continuation of a trend and i I wonder if the, you know, sabermetric lineup thing is catching on and teams are using better number two hitters. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe you, you know, number two hitters were perhaps more likely to bunt guys over to get them into scoring position or something because they're good bat handlers in the past. But now that they're actually good hitters more often, you'd be less likely to ask them to do that maybe that accelerates

it you would also think maybe that given shifts and a lot of shifts do take place with runners on base they're sometimes modified and sometimes they don't do shifts in certain base out states however you you might think that the shift would open up more opportunities for sacrifice bunting, right? Yeah. I mean, if there's a runner on first, and you're kind of already thinking about bunting maybe, or you're on the fence, and the third baseman is pulled way over, and so you think, well, I can bunt, and I got a shot and a hit, because he's not defending me, it makes it more likely that you'd lay down a bunt thinking that there's more possible upside.

So you could see it. However, maybe not. So, yeah. It's also possible that some aspect of this might also be that pitchers, as we know, are getting progressively worse as batsmen. And so some portion of this, because this includes pitchers bunting, some portion of this could include... Oh, I just thought of something.

Some portion of this... Did I think of something? Maybe I didn't. Some portion of this could include the fact that pitchers maybe are worse at getting sacrifice bunts down, and they're costing the tally. I'm trying to think. So now that interleague play is year-round, there would be

interleague games early in the season, but I don't think that would matter. I don't think that affects anything. Right? It probably doesn't do anything. Because you have more games in... Yeah, no, I don't think that matters. Although I guess, you know, actually,

now that I think about it, there's one fewer... There's one fewer NL team than there was three years ago, four years ago. Oh, that is true. And so that might explain why it dropped from, well, it was already dropping. It was dropping very steadily, about a hundredth of a bunt every three to six years. And then it dropped two hundredths of a bunt the year that the Astros joined. And so I'm willing to say that that explains that drop. But now it's dropped five hundredths of a bunt.

And like I said, we're talking about a hundredth of a bunt every five years for like the last 60 years, kind of. And it drops five hundred so a button. So we think that it's real, but not this real, right? Right. If.28 was the previous record and.23 is where it is now, you expect it's going to end up

at.27, don't you? Yeah, sure. Somewhere around there. Alright. Okay, one down. I love this game. All right. Next one is going to be hits by pitches. We are at an all-time high for hits by pitches. We're at an all-time high.

That is tied with 2001. So 2001 also was an all-time high. And it's slightly ahead of 2004 and 2003. So there was a little bit of a bump in hit-by-pitches at the time. However, never before more than this, 0.39 per game. Last year was 0.34. Year before, 0.32. Year before, 0.31.

And, yeah, you probably would want to look at this if you were interested to see the trend. But it looks like hit-by-pitches went up with offense. In the offensive era, it went up. And then it started to go back down. And it was going back down reliably until about 2012. And then suddenly, inched up, inched up, and now big spike, 2015. So, all-time record in hit-by-pitches. We getting there? It's mostly Alcides Escobar's fault.

Wow. So we've talked about... Is it bad? Blaming the Royals again? Wouldn't you say it's more Josh Reddick's fault? He's not blameless. He's lost a lot of respect for you, Ben. So we talked about this before right did we we had a theory for why they were up because you'd you'd think they would be down right because

when it's a low offense era when guys are not getting on base via hits and homers are down and everything's down then it's more costly to give a guy a free base, right? Because he's not going to get on. It's more costly. It's more costly to give him a free base. And you could argue that with A, with home runs down, there's less reason to bust a guy in. Maybe you're less worried.

And secondly, walks have generally been way down over the last few years which sort of implies better control by pitchers yeah right so did we have a theory for why it was up in the last couple years i don't recall huh no i don't know did we i didn't remember what we talked about this i think we might have talked about it in last year's trend check-in but if so i don't know. I didn't remember what we talked about this. We might have talked about it in last year's trend check-in, but if so, I don't know what we concluded. I don't know. The fact that it's been up for a few years is suggestive, that it's not just a too weak thing, but I'm trying to think of why it would be, and I'm not coming up with a good reason for why it would be. Unless it's not like more innings going to relievers and relievers have worse control or something like that, is it?

It probably doesn't make sense. The bottom nine teams have fewer hit-by-pitches than the Rangers. Yeah, the Rangers have been hit a ton. How many of those are Chu? Because Chu always gets hit a lot. Only two. Ruggio Dore is five. Wow.

Yeah. I wonder if that's a thing. He was hit five all of last year. He's hit five this year and a ninth of the plate appearances, an eighth of the plate appearances. Wow. I wonder if he has moved closer to the plate or something. He was a little bit of a hit-by-pitch king in the minors.

A little bit of one. Not a huge one, but 16 times as a 19-year-old. 10 times as an 18-year-old. Well, I don't have a good explanation for this one. So probably we'll say that it's going to go, eh, I don't know. I think it's going to go back down. These are the last, so these are the last seven years. 0.32, 0.31, 0.34, 0.32, 0.34, 0.30, 0.2, oh wait, I was the wrong column. What were we listening to? Sacrifice hits. What were we listening to?

Sacrifice hits. 0.34, 0.33, 0.32, 0.32, 0.31, 0.32, 0.34. That's pretty freaking reliable. Yeah, that's flat. And then this year, 0.39. So I'm going to say down to 0.34. I'm calling it flat. I agree.

It goes back down. Once the Royals and A's don't play each other for a couple months, it'll come back down. So let's see. 0.05 times 368. This is always a good thing to do when we do this. Right up there with reading the wrong column is calculating things. We're talking

18 extra hit-by pitches this year. Always a good reminder when we do this that we're usually talking about small numbers. All right, Babbitt. As we've talked about multiple times on this show, Babbitt strangely seems to be immune to the shift. Even though the shift, there's all sorts of evidence, it seems,

from video scouts and such that the shift works. It has not affected BABF. We've talked about why that is. Our theories all are terrible. But maybe we just weren't being patient because BABF is down 10 points this year. Wow. It is down, well, it's down 11 from last year. But over the previous five years, it was a 297 league average BABF and very reliable. I mean, never more than two points off of that. And really, if you look at BABF year to year, there aren't usually swings. There are dips that tend to sometimes go in like four, five, six year cycles sometimes, but not a lot of like one year that's five points off or anything like that.

This year, though, 11 points off. It's dipped from 298 to 287. That's huge. I wonder what historically that would be in terms of drops. Well, so if it's stated an 11 point drop yeah well let's see uh there was a nine point rise that in 1993 when offense started again there's nothing close to that as a drop since then i think the biggest drop is uh three points four points guess. From 2000 to 2001, it dropped four points. There was the nine-point rise in 93.

There was a seven-point drop in 88, which was the year that offense, 87 was the year that offense randomly spiked. And then so when it went back down, Babbitt dropped seven. And there was an eight-point drop in 81, which was the strike-shortened season. an eight point drop in 81 which was the strike shortened season seven point drop in 78 so you if you uh look there are some years that uh that things have changed somewhat rapidly it's not unheard of for things to change rapidly particularly you know as we saw like 87 offense goes way up and then way down very quickly i mean there's usually a reason for

it but it happens right and it doesn't look like there's any monthly trend in babbitt at least looking back at last year babbitt in march and april was no different from your june or august so it's not like a just an season effect, I wouldn't say. Well, I can answer if you want. I can give you like the last 25 years, see if there's a seasonal thing. As long as you don't actually read them all and read the wrong column first. I did that one time. Well, now it's a thing.

All right. Well, now it's a thing. All right. So BABIP by month since 1990. Okay. I'm not going to read every year. This is a cumulative. Okay. 293 in April is the lowest.

296 in May, 297 in September, and 298 in the three summer months. So a few points. Five points points so that's significant Yeah okay Alright Now you know all the facts So I will say that it's Part April and Part Fluke Let's see so if it's 11 points right now

And April is five of that Let's say Then I will guess two points is real. All right. Two points is real. So it's going to go from $2.98 last year to $2.96 this year. Yeah. All right.

Wild pitches. Highest ever. Tied with 2013 and just ahead of 2014. So this is clearly a trend. Technically not true. Technically in 1871, there were three times as many wild pitches as there are now. However, for the modern era, 2015, 14, and 13 are basically the

three highest years on record. It's been a fairly steady climb as well. And I think it's fair to say, like this one's a gimme probably. Although, this is odd. Wild pitches dropped from like 2000 to 2012. They actually dropped from where they were

at the end of the 90s. And then they've been moving back up. But over the long haul, wild pitches have been pretty steady with a very, very, very gentle slope upward. Are pass balls also up? Do we know? I can look that up, I think. Well, you'd think that guys are throwing harder.

Pass balls are not up. Pass balls are actually down a little bit. You'd think that guys are throwing throwing harder batters are missing more balls catchers would also be missing more balls less reaction time harder to block something that's way outside because it's going faster it gets there quicker yeah good point i don't know why past balls wouldn't also be up in that case unless there's been some sort of scoring change. Yeah, it could be a scoring change. I personally like this. I like wild pitches.

I think that if so much more of the action is going to take place in the batter's box without bats being swung and balls being put in play. I like that there is attention to every pitch. To me, you could triple wild pitches and baseball would be more exciting. There's probably a point where it would become a farce, but many, many more wild pitches to me would be much, much more exciting. I love the wild pitch. I love the threat of a wild pitch.

I love worrying about a wild pitch. I love the threat of a wild pitch. I love worrying about a wild pitch. Wild pitches are good for the game. Yeah. Then you get exciting plays on the base pass and there's throws and there's pickles and rundowns and yeah, it's all good. Okay. All right. Complete games are way down for this time of year. So I looked at in the team's first 12 games since 2000, every year since 2000, and there are two this year and one last year. So those are both very small numbers. And it really is unusual because, like, in 2013, there were seven.

2012, there were five. 2011 2013 there were seven 2012 there were five 2011 there were 10 there were i mean the the the starters not going deep thing is not a new phenomenon and in the very recent history there would be like 14 13 12 complete games to this point in the year and this year there's only two and last year there's only one. And this year it sort of seems particularly interesting to me because the season started a little later and I would guess

the pitchers, I mean spring training obviously started a little later too, but I would guess the pitchers probably would have been I would have expected them to be slightly more ready because the season started a week later. So complete games very oddly are way, way down. I don't really have a good reason for this, for why it would be so much different than it was two years ago,

three years ago, four years ago, five years ago. Do you? Well, I mean, you'd think as offense goes down, it would be the opposite. It would be the opposite, exactly. I mean, two in this day and age is like none. Yeah, well, I guess it's just just more caution and one of them doesn't even count man one of them was a loss it was an eight inning loss mike leake he only had to go eight because he was a revisiting team and he lost so really one who's the lone complete game josh

colementer that's right just who you would guess so huh well huh. Well, I don't know. Maybe it's just a combination of greater caution and awareness that pitchers get hurt earlier in the year and you want to be careful with them. Combined with greater awareness of times through the order and teams carrying tons and tons of relievers. All right. All that stuff. Combine. Give me a pitch. Give me a... At least it's just all that stuff combining. Give me a pitch number, a number of pitches. Just a number of pitches that you think is like kind of a lot,

but definitely reachable at this stage of the season. 98. No, more than that. Like we're doing like 108, like where you'd think, oh, wow, that guy threw a lot of pitches for this early, but not a lot. 108 is rarer these days, I think fine good perfect so 108 uh is the lowest it has been in the past decade by a considerable amount there have only been 20 pitchers who have thrown at least 108 pitches this year uh through their sorry, not this year, but through their team's first 12 games. Whereas last year there were 47. So like almost a 60% drop from last year, the year before 46,

the year before 45. So this is actually pretty significant. There's a huge drop overnight in the number of pitchers that were allowed to throw 108 or more pitches this season. Now, well, I was going to say, now some of them might have completed the game in less than that. Not the case. That is the exact opposite of the truth. So somehow 108 became, like since last year, became taboo in the first two weeks of the season. All right, so now I'm going to look at your number 98 and see if the same is true. 98, 121 this year and there were 169 last year, so there was a drop. But closer to previous years, I'll try, I'm going to try 88. Let's see. 88, basically right in line with historical

trends. In fact, more than in 2006. So somewhere between, so the bar, the line moved almost overnight from it's okay to throw 95 or 100 pitches this early in the year to a lot more guys getting pulled at 90, strangely. That's an odd one. Yeah, I guess everyone read my article about early season elbow injuries. All right. I'm done. Okay. Are you cutting yourself off? No, I have one more, but I'm not going to use it. I'm not going to turn it into a whole new episode next week,

but there is one that I think we'll talk about another time. Okay. All right. So we are not going to do an email show tomorrow. We have something else planned, but we will do one probably Thursday, I'd imagine, unless something else comes up.

So send us emails at podcast at baseballprospectus.com. 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 we will be back tomorrow.