Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 705: The Anniversary Emails Edition

Episode Date: July 17, 2015

On the podcast’s third anniversary, Ben and Sam answer emails about how much baseball players work, whatever happened to offensive shortstops, breaking unwritten rules, projecting prospects, and more, then place an impromptu call.

The room started turning without anyone in it I'm lost in this anniversary box Not thinking about all of my calls The time has just run around us now Good morning and welcome to episode 705 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by The Play Index, BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Yo.

Happy anniversary. Your anniversary? Our anniversary? Oh, it's our anniversary. Yeah. Oh, wow. Three years today. Three years.

So it's your birthday, too. Mm-hmm. Huh. Okay. Happy birthday to you and the podcast. Yes. All right. I was thinking that maybe we would make this one free anyway,

inspired by Wilco's decision to release an album for free. People pay what they want. This podcast free. Yeah. All right. Okay. So we haven't done a podcast in a couple of days. We haven't done an email show in a couple of weeks.

So we are going to dig into the backlog of emails a couple days. We haven't done an email show in a couple weeks, so we are going to dig into the backlog of emails a little bit. Anything you want to talk about before we do that? I don't think so. Okay. All right. We've got too many good emails to answer all in one day. Derek just emailed us with a note, a follow-up to our podcast from the other day when we were talking about Ned Coletti. And you were talking about the anecdote from Molly Knight's new book, The Best Team Money Could Buy, about how Ned Coletti cried when the Giants won the World Series. Derek said, I do know that his son was working with the Giants as a scout at that time. Possibly that played a factor in him being emotional when his rival team won which is plausible i mean it's uh it's yeah it's

possible also i mean there was nothing wrong with it i i think we both concluded that it was an extremely logical time to be emotional about the team winning given the other fact so just to be clear uh yes yes to this and also no to any ned shaming on that detail anyway would you have any hesitation about hiring the son of a division rival gm to be a scout for your team um let me think. I'm going to imagine this. So I'm going to think about someone I know who has a son. All right. So it depends how much I, it depends. I guess it's somewhat.

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I could see. Yeah. Yeah, I would. Yeah.

It's a little scary. Not that, not that the scout is just like there to be a secret agent or not so secret agent, but if it comes right down to it, you'd think that there would be a case because his ultimate loyalty is going to be to his dad. For one thing, it's his dad. For another thing, it's the GM of a baseball team. For one thing, it's his dad.

For another thing, it's the GM of a baseball team. So worst case scenario, he loses his job with another baseball team and gets a job with that baseball team. So it's not like he's really endangering his career. Or maybe he's endangering his chances of working for a future team that is not run by his dad. But you'd think that if the dad wasn't, if he didn't respect the boundaries, if he applied a little pressure now and then, you'd think there could be some uncomfortable situations. Yeah, I'm less worried about lack of loyalty and more just thinking, I wouldn't want him, particularly because you figure the dad knows

how to kind of manipulate his son in ways that are subtle. I would just more be worried that they're spending so much time around each other that something might slip. Certainly you could imagine if the dad, for instance, wanted to hack into your ground control

database and you left your password on a sticky note in your office at home and the dad comes over to deliver a chair that he fixed for you or something and sort of slips in and can find your password. I mean, I would not be worried that the kid was going to purposefully hurt the team. I would be worried that there are vulnerabilities, particularly accidental vulnerabilities.

And Charlie sent a follow-up to an earlier episode. You considered in episode 702 whether there had been another scenario in which a manager won a battle with the front office and concluded that such an occurrence was ahistorical. This is when we were talking about Socia versus DiPoto. While I concur that this is certainly rare, given, I suppose, the relative expertise present in front offices

as opposed to expertise among the baseball men typically found in field manager positions, I submit the Tony La Russa versus Colby Rasmus debacle that took place during the St. Louis Cardinals 2011 championship run could fit this mold. To refresh your memory, Rasmus was a highly touted prospect who was never really given a shot under La Russa, and the two had quite public disdain for one another. Despite the front office's dedication to Rasmus, which I thought was apparent given his continued presence on the 25-man roster, La Russa refused to play him, and he was eventually traded. This spat may be overlooked

for a number of reasons, that the trade brought back talent that contributed to the World Series victory, that John Jay developed into a perfectly serviceable, if somewhat frustrating, center fielder, and that Rasmus never really became the player that his prospect status anticipated. I'm curious to hear your opinion on this matter. Going back to the son, the hiring son, people just like to talk, and if you ask people a question, they actually have a hard time not answering it. They have a hard time saying, I'm not going to answer that. Some people are good at it, but they're not great at it. Most people aren't great at it. And particularly, like, I don't know if you just sort of like,

have you ever heard that thing where if you ask for something and you give a reason for why you're asking, people have a hard time saying no? So if you go, can I cut in line because I want to get there sooner? Just that, just saying because I want to. Yeah. Have you heard that? Where did we hear that? Did we hear that together? That must have been like a gist thing or something.

Yeah, I think you've mentioned it on the show before. I think I heard it from you. So it's just that I wouldn't want anybody being that familiar with my employees, I think. All right. Sure. La Russa. La Russa and Rasmus. Yeah.

Yeah, it fits. And Alex asked for a clarification on whether Brett Gardner's selection to the final vote in the All-Star Game qualifies as him being selected for an All-Star Game, and therefore becoming, or no longer being eligible for the honor of being the best player to never have been selected to an All-Star Game, or get an MVP vote. Well, the final vote is not an All-Star appearance. However, he did make the team right was he i don't know if he was voted in or if he was a replacement after the fact uh yeah well

but he was on the team yeah and uh so brett gardner is off the list clearly the biggest threat to nick markakis crown was brett gardner and uh so yeah now it's uh it's much clearer uh so yeah now It's much clearer So yeah Gardner's Not the list you think Gardner Will probably also get an MVP vote Or two this year Yeah he very well might Okay so Questions

Chris asked Some people like to complain about how much MLB players get paid despite having A five month off season thereby Implying that they don't work that much asked, some people like to complain about how much MLB players get paid despite having a five-month off-season, thereby implying that they don't work that much. However, when considering that during the season they work six to seven days a week with no vacation, and I'd imagine even before considering flights between cities, they're at the park for more than eight hours on game days, furthermore, they are expected to work out in the off-season to get in the best shape of their life,

rebuild their swing, learn a new pitch, etc. My question is this. How much does the average ballplayer work over the course of an entire year when accounting for the season and offseason? You have to decide what work is because they spend so much more time doing job-related things than we do, I would think. However, a huge portion of that time is spent sitting in a clubhouse playing Clash of Clans or text messaging ladies, because there's just so much downtime, so much time that they're not really i think expected to be doing anything like like if they're on a flight from uh toronto to miami that's that's work right yeah you're yeah you're you're going somewhere for your employer you're away from your home and your family yeah you would if you were in some other business you would expense that trip or you would mark it down somewhere on a log of hours that you traveled or worked or something.

Generally speaking, they get to a game about five, five and a half hours before the game starts. They, of course, play the game so that's three three plus hours and then they they're usually there for a little bit longer and then that doesn't include uh anything they might do after the game like and work out a lot of course there are a lot of those flights like i just described from toronto etc and this is media media yeah and this is basically seven, you know, six and a half days a week for six months. So no weekends, really. And so, I don't know. Do we want to do math?

Is this a situation to do math? It is, probably. Well, so an average person with a 40-hour-a-week job and a couple weeks of vacation is 2 000 hours a year of work i suppose so i guess we should figure out how much more a player works so if it's so what's the so the season is well it depends so let's say that you don't make the playoffs, so it's still a seven-month season because spring training. Yeah, almost eight now, right? Yeah, right. Closer to eight probably. And so during each of those months, you've got four weeks,

and each of those weeks you've got, you've probably got six and a half work days or something. Well, if we're only counting four weeks in uh, in a month, that's true. That's 28. So let's just consider it four weeks of seven days a week. And then we'll, we'll just, we'll throw the extra days aside for simplicity. So we've got, we've got each week is seven days and I'm saying 11 hours a day. And again, this is not necessarily lawyer hours where you're working, you have to, every 12 minutes or whatever, you bill in 12 minute increments. And so you have to account for all 12, all 80 hours that you're billing. I mean, there is, like I said, there's a lot of time in which they are 23-year-olds doing 23-year-old stuff. And it doesn't look like work other than the fact that they are compelled to be there.

Right? Now, there's other things that are like hard work, right? Like they have to go in front of people who are yelling things at them and perform extremely difficult tasks flawlessly. So that's work. Hard work. Yeah, sure. Much more pressure. If we're just talking time, I'm willing to go 11.3 hours a day. Okay.

Not counting travel. Okay. So 11.3 times 28 for a month times 7.5 months is 2,373 hours. So we're already over the typical office workers yearly hours. And we haven't even counted travel or off-season. I'm going to say two and a half hours a week on average for travel. So that's another 10 hours a month, although only for six months. So add another 60 hours.

Okay. Okay. And then we've got, you might have post-season. So you're at 2,400. Like you said, you're already at 2,400, and then there's the five months that they spend staying elite athletes and doing various things that are job related. Yeah. Now, again, do we count working out, though? I mean, lots of 24-year-olds work out. Like, people spend hours in the gym as a hobby, right?

I mean, is it required to work out? I guess. I mean, like, I remember when I was on a ride-along with cops once, and I was talking about their schedule, their work schedule. And they come in, and they work out. And I remember trying to, like, I wasn't sure whether that's cheating or not. Like, you work out because like you're a dude and like a lot of dudes really love working out. But then they would say, well, you know, I have to be in shape or I can't, you know, I can't do my job. And that's true too. It's like, Ben, is it work when you watch baseball? Sometimes, yes. Is it always? Sometimes, yes.

Does it always work when you watch baseball? It's not a pleasant work. It's one of the more pleasant types of work. Right. Was it work when I read Molly Knight's book? It didn't feel like work. It didn't sound like it was. No, it didn't feel like work.

It was enjoyable. I would have done it if my job were accountant. And yet my job is not accountant. And I probably could claim that as work if I wanted to. I don't know, though. I don't know that my boss would consider that work. Yeah. It's difficult to say. So I mean, does it matter? It's partial work. If you have to go to the gym or because if you don't have a job that requires you to go to the gym, then you might still feel bad if you didn't do it. If you're in the habit of doing it, you might feel down about it or something, but you don't feel that pressure to perform. I don't think you feel the same sense of obligation that you would if you have to get naked in a locker room every day and then try to hit baseballs so i think i think it's partial i think it's half time half rate work if when

gabe capler was making some sort of like health smoothie for himself like was that work i mean being in good health still does that he doesn't have to do that to be a farm director exactly does sourcing smoothie ingredients count as work that's a tough call but all right so so we're up we're we're we're up around 2500 without factoring in off-season or any of these other things so let's just say what is the ultimate question we're trying to ask are we trying to ask whether this job because you don't get paid a lot of money because you're willing to do the work you get paid a lot of money because your your your skill has value you're selling an asset and that asset your ability

to do a thing whether it's hard or not is irrelevant. It is completely irrelevant to the math of your salary. Nobody is going in and asking for $11.2 million and the team says, we'll give you 10.4 and you go, dude, I worked 77 hours last week. No matter what your hour total is, the salary divided by that number is going to be way, way, way, way, way more than anyone else. Let me ask you a simple question then let's say that let's say nobody watched baseball that baseball you didn't get any of the glory you didn't get any of the fame you just your job was to watch baseball for you

know like i don't know for the russian state or whatever and you had the exact same schedule that a major leaguer has uh but has but you're paid like a normal laborer would do it. You've got a major leaguer's schedule in every way and you can get paid exactly what you're getting paid at Grantland. Which job

do you choose? I think I'd stick with mine. Too much travel. Have you ever had a real job? Yeah. Office jobs? Yeah. Which would you choose?

Office job or major leaguer? I get none of the fame and adoration. Right. There's not even, the Hall of Fame doesn't even exist. Historians will not remember your name. However, you do get to play baseball. Your job is to hang around and tweet and text. even exist. Historians will not remember your name. However, you do get to play baseball. Your job is to hang around and tweet and text and then every once in a while play baseball and then run and work out and be in pain.

Yeah. I'd probably rather do that than any office job I've held. I think I agree with that. Now, I would, let's see, working in a movie theater in high school, I would take over baseball. But, I mean, I got paid like $160 a week. So, it's not, like if you were paying me $160 a week to be a baseball player, I don't know what I would do. It's not that different from all baseball players who are not major leaguers, right? Except there's that sliver of a chance that they might someday be major leaguers. Right. The median salary in the Pacific Association is literally $160 a week.

It is like actually that is exactly what it is, like almost to the dollar. Yeah. So, yeah. But of course, yeah. Okay. So, but without that, I don't, how many, geez, how many hours do you think the average Pacific Association player works? Well, there's little travel.

They get there at about 2.30 for a night game. What time did you guys get home last night? Oh, 11.30. Okay, so you're already at nine. You're already at nine hours. And then, you know, a lot of them work out in the mornings. So I guess baseball is worth it. Although there is some potential upside of a payout at the end that movie theater employee doesn't really have.

Right. You get to be in a book by us. Yeah. All right. All right. Okay. get to be in a book by us uh yeah all right all right okay so kevin says in talking about all-star voting this year many people have commented on how weak the field is for short stops especially in the american league this has led to hand-wringing about the decline of the short stop from the era of the big three the question is why why has short stop declined as

an offensive position my hastily formed hypothesis is as follows. As our understanding of defensive performance and evaluation has advanced, fewer organizations are content putting big bat, mediocre glove guys at shortstop. These guys are being moved elsewhere. In the previous generation, when defense was being undervalued by many, teams were more likely to put up with below average to average defense in exchange for offense up the middle. Just an idea. It might be completely unfounded. Any thoughts? First thought is that that was anomalous, right? To have Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Nomar Garciaparra come up at the same time. That was recognized as anomalous at the time. So it wasn't like that was the historical norm throughout baseball.

And now we are deviating from it. That was the deviation. And now we are returning to it. So that's part of it. And then part of it is just the offensive environment being different. So that the numbers from the 90s look more different from the numbers today than they would if the offensive environment hadn't changed and i think probably kevin is right to some extent about the defense being valued more although i don't know because a rod was a

really good defensive shortstop and nomar was a fine defensive shortstop for a while and jeter say it say it jeter say it jeter wasn't but everyone thought he was it wasn't like they were like oh i guess we can live with jeter there because he hit so well jeter was winning gold gloves like i guess you could say that if jeter were coming up today do you think if jeter came up today and we're exactly the same would he be a shortstop oh that's a really good question ben um oh goodness gracious i the alternative would be to move him to where would you move him where would you move rookie jeter there was always talk of moving him to... Where would you move him? Where would you move rookie Jeter? There was always talk of moving him to center field or something, like a Billy Hamilton kind of move.

So is that what you're suggesting the alternative is? Yeah, that seems like the most plausible. Not second base? He's big for second base. And none of the problems that he has at shortstop would be alleviated by a move to second base. And none of the problems that he has at shortstop would be alleviated by a move to second base.

Yeah. I mean, like the problem was that he couldn't chase ground balls. Yes, not that he couldn't make the throw. Right. I will say center field. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to say he'd still be a shortstop.

Yeah, I mean, because, I don't know. It's a good question. I could go either way. I don't know. I mean, he made so many errors as a minor league shortstop, at least at first, and errors were bad at the time. Errors were regarded as even worse at the time probably than they are now yeah and you still stayed there no because you think that a guy will cut down his errors and and that's probably even true but we know that you don't really improve your defense

for the most part you don't really improve your range like it's mostly a straight slope downward right and uh i'm sure like they're probably well i don't know if there are a lot of guys who had 50 airs and whatever but he didn't have a did he have a lot of airs by the time he got to the majors i mean people talk about that year by then that was low minor that was like his first year right uh i feel like he still made a fair amount early on, but I'm checking. I'm checking, too. 22 his first year, which is a lot, but not extreme. It's not Jose Offerman. No, it's not Marcus Simeon. It's not Marcus Simeon. I'm going to see what Jose Offerman was, because I remember that being a thing.

Offerman made 42 his first full year, and then 37, and then 35. Jeter's career high was 24. I mean, you don't look at Jeter's errors totals and throw up in your mouth. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe center field is enough of a glamorous position that you could, because I can't imagine moving cheater to second base just because he is he's cheater he's the franchise guy and he's handsome and inspiring and a high draft pick and everything so i would guess that there'd still be some desire to leave

him at a important place but maybe maybe that would be important enough so i don't know i'd guess still shortstop just because it seemed like everyone still kind of thought he was a good shortstop at the end i guess why not wait why not third base though i mean it seems like third base would be like he's got the size for third base and there's nothing it does sort of feel like moving from shortstop to second base does kind of feel like you're being put at the kids table but from shortstop to third base feels like like that's where hall of famers go that's that's what chipper jones did and uh that's what matt williams did and yeah well much later yeah but i mean when you move from shortstop to third base, yes, you are being told you're not a shortstop.

However, you're also being told, we think you can hit like a corner man. And whereas if you go from shortstop to second base, it's like, okay, you're weak. You're not as strong as the other grownups. So second base is where they put me when I was, like when I started, I was good enough to play shortstop, but I was tiny. And then I stayed tiny. And every year that I played, the lack of strength became more important than the plus fundamentals. And finally, I just was stuck at second because I was weak. And so it feels like that, whereas it doesn't feel like that going to third.

Maybe I'll write something about it. It's hard to say because by the time it was widely understood that he wasn't a good shortstop, he was so entrenched there that the Yankees were afraid to move him, not even away from shortstop, but away from the second spot in the lineup, which got kind of crazy in his last year. Have you ever – his war would be higher, right? I mean, normally it's hard to say whether a guy's war would be improved

by a switch because you lose positional adjustment, but maybe you gain in defensive rating at that position. Jeff Sullivan wrote a thing about how he wasn't actually a bad defender. He was a bad defender for a shortstop. For a shortstop, yeah, exactly, which is true. However, he was so bad at shortstop by the war defensive metric, shortstop by the war the war the war defensive metric yeah probably if he'd moved to third uh his career might conceivably i mean he like he trails chipper jones uh in war but i'm not sure he would if he'd been a third baseman his whole career yeah i think that's probably right okay

marcus said what if i were managing a team and instructed my players to break every unwritten rule at every opportunity would this strategy significantly affect team on base percentage how long would it take for opposing teams to eventually disregard unwritten rules when playing against my team and what would those games without unwritten rules look like? That's a broad question, but let's say the OBP question and maybe the unwritten rules being disregarded by the opponent question. Well, you know how in linear weights, I think... Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you know how in linear weights an intentional walk is worth less than a walk?

Yeah. And I think a walk is even worth less than a hit by pitch. Yeah. Because, uh, and that sort of seems weird cause they're all one base. However, usually a opposing team, they choose when to intentionally walk you. They do it when they think it will do the least damage. And, uh, and to some degree they can choose when they walk you, whereas a hit by pitch is usually an accident. And so it's closer to a single where it happens completely against the other team's will, usually. So in a situation where we're talking only about intentional hit-by-pitches, they would get to choose when they pay you back.

There's no rule that it has to be the next time they see you come up to the plate or anything like that. So yeah, you might get your hit by pitches and get on base, but all the opposing team has to do is wait until it's the eighth inning of a five-run game and then hit you in the nose and you're not going to be like, woohoo, we got a base runner. You're going to be like, well, that wasn't really worth it.

So my guess is that as a strategic advantage, it would have first off, very little movement. Second off, teams would probably figure out ways to ruin your life shy of hitting you with pitches. They might just punch you. They might just cheap shot you when you get second base. They might clothesline you when you're rounding the bag.

I don't know what they would do. They might come in spikes up. They might break a pipe in your clubhouse. Because they can do those things on the field without being prosecuted. Exactly. They might poison the team pet. I don't know what they would do. They would do something.

My guess, though, is that they would probably not let you use that to win games for very long. Yeah, okay. Play index? Okay. Play index by baseball reference.

All right. So Chase Utley. Chase utley probably not going to be a hall of famer right probably not i wrote a thing once for the score in canada that looked at all the reasons guys don't make the hall of fame when they should make the hall of fame um and then i uh turned that into a venn diagram of all the overlapping reasons, and the reasons are like, you know, like if you tend to be good at certain stats that are like less visible.

Yeah, or you're good at everything, but not really good at one thing. Right, that's a thing. If you're overshadowed by a similar type player in your same generation like tim raines with ricky henderson uh kind of a thing that's a thing if you uh if you had a short peak i think or i mean a short career but a high peak i think that was one that doesn't do you favors like if you start late for some reason or you you end early even though you might have the wars to do it there's just a perception that your career is too short uh if you play second base that's one um and so all these uh

all these overlapped and in the middle there was chase utley chase utley had all the the reasons that people don't get into the hall of Fame, even though they should. There's a Bill James thing called the Keltner List, named after Ken Keltner, where he asks 15 questions about players that identifies whether they should be Hall of Famers and why certain guys are not, even though they should be. But yeah, similar to what we were talking about. And so when I did this, this was probably 2011, and Utley was, you know, darn near the best player in baseball. Well, probably the second best player in baseball at the time. Just coming just at the very end of his run

as probably the second best player in baseball behind Albert Bowles. And since then he has had four good years of three-plus war each year, which is absolutely not nothing. And yet, you know, he's still probably not going to make the Hall of Fame. He's roughly Craig Biggio's career value by baseball reference. And yet Biggio was a second ballot Hall of Famer, very nearly a first ballot Hall of Famer. And Utley probably won't be. My favorite, one of my, in fact,

probably a top seven fun fact in my opinion, in my life, is that since they were both full-time players, since Ryan Howard's debut, I think, Chase Utley has never had a season with a lower war than ryan howard and he has never had a season where he finished higher in mvp voting than right now that's a good uh yeah it is a good one uh and so anyway uh it's probably gonna end this year right uh he will finish lower than Ryan Howard in war this year. Yeah, it will end. You're right. Anyway, Chase Utley, good player, great player.

Not likely to make the Hall of Fame. And I wondered, though, if he did. I don't know exactly how to explain this, but he's having such a bad year right now. Like such a bad year. And so I wanted to know what the worst year that you could have as a Hall of Famer is. And still make the Hall of Fame, basically. And so all I did is I just looked up.

I clicked Hall of Fame members as players and sorted by lowest war. And the answer, if Biggio is currently at minus 1.2 war by baseball reference, the lowest ever is Craig Biggio at minus 2.1, who in 2007, when he was chasing 3,000 hits, hit 250, 285, 381 with like a minus 20 something defense and was at two wins worse than replacement lou brock at age 39 reg jackson at age 37 willie keeler at age 35 carlton fisk at age 38 ron santo at age 34 those are the only seasons currently worse or worse than chase at least current season uh and i one time looked at this actually for uh for fox sports for jabo uh i looked at the worst

year at each age because like i wanted to know what the worst age 27 season was compared to the worst age 20 because like all these guys that i just named in almost all cases were like 38 or older, and you sort of expect to see a bad year at 38 or older. Utley's only 36, and I will say that by baseball prospectus' warp, he's at minus.9 warp, Minus.9 Warp, and the worst ever for a Hall of Famer at age 36 is minus.6 Warp by Jim Rice. And in fact, by Warp, no Hall of Famer has ever had a worse season age 36 or younger than Chase Utley. And so here we have Chase Utley, who in his darkest moment is also, in a weird way, going to be robbed of the distinction of worst season ever by a Hall of Famer because he probably will get overlooked

and not make the Hall of Fame. So even here, he can't even pursue horrible trivia, probably, because he's so underrated so underrated that he can't even have the indignity of being at the top of one of these lists someday Chase Utley having a bad

year for no purpose sad for Chase Utley but good for him, too. Yeah. All right. Play index. Coupon code BP. Get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. Okay. This one comes from Jason.

Ken Davidoff did a feature in the New York Post about the great Yankees' flameout Ruben Rivera. At the end of the piece, Davidoff had a quote from Brian Cashman that I found intriguing. Quote, but I guarantee if you plop him into today's analytic world and you dissect that player and you go back in time with all of today's stuff, there would have been predicted failure. I guarantee it. Instead of people being shocked that he flamed out, how did this happen? He was the next Mickey Mantle. In today's world, that player wouldn't be packaged as the next Mickey Mantle. That player would be packaged as a lot of swing and miss, feasting on garbage pitching at the lower levels, and he would have had predictable trouble at the higher levels. I don't think there are going to be misses on

players like that because the league as a whole has higher ground. It made me wonder, do you think there's any truth to that? Anyway, how would we even measure this? How many prospects with big numbers in the minors are heralded but then miss? And how could we measure whether that number has gone down in the analytics era? So his point isn't that we're so smart that we don't compare people to Mickey Mantle, just that Ruben Rivera specifically wouldn't bet. Yes, you can compare Mike Trout to Mickey Mantle because it works. But a player like Ruben Rivera, you would not compare

because you would be aware of these things that we know are predictive of future success now. However, you can compare Byron Buxton to Mike Trout. And Willie Mays, right? Oh, I haven't heard Willie Mays, but I have heard Mike Trout, and so Transitive Property and all that. The famous one with Buxton, I think,

was a Jason Parks quote that he got from someone, a scout or someone with a team, who said that, I think, his ceiling is Mays and his floor is Torrey Hunter. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. The famous one? would you say that's like the only one i'm aware of all right you probably edited probably did that's why it's

famous for me uh yeah the great thing probably everybody knows this but the great thing about ruben rivera the best part about ruben rivera who by the way was never the number one overall prospect he was number two and also number three and also number nine. But you know this about Ruben Rivera that when they signed him, he said, hey, you should sign my cousin too. And his cousin was Mariano. And so in fact, it kind of worked. I'm looking up Ruben Rivera's stats to see what I would think of a player who did what he is doing or is doing what he did. Yeah, I mean, if you're just scouting the stat line, it wouldn't be that impressive. Like, his age 20 season, he hit.288,.372,.573.

But that's an A ball. That's in the sally. Mike Trout was winning the—well, not winning, but should have won the MVP award when he was 20, right? Yeah. In the majors. I mean, Rivera was never that far ahead. I mean, Rivera was really like one year ahead of schedule, maybe, as far as the promotion schedule.

And he was striking out 30% or almost 30% of the time, which was way more then than it is now. Was he? It doesn't look like he is. Wait, am I looking? Maybe I'm looking at his major. or almost 30% of the time, which was way more then than it is now. Was he? It doesn't look like he is. Wait, am I looking? Maybe I'm looking at his major league stats. Yeah, it's more like 26%, 27%. Yeah, okay. Which is actually not bad for a minor league. In 1994 or whatever?

In 1994, it probably was pretty bad. But yeah, He wasn't Look I mean I see a lot of Good minor league lines In my line of work And this is fine It's not The tools would have had to be

It must have been incredible So in the Sally League 1994 he was 20 so his Age relative to the level was minus 1.3. So yeah, he was about a year younger than the average player at that level. And then the next year, or later that year, he was in high A, and he was about two years younger. And then I guess the next year he was in double a and he was three years younger so i mean so mike trout had almost the same line in a ball okay uh rivera had actually it was even better but

rivera had a 944 ops in a ball and trout had a 970 79 OPS in a ball and Trout was two years younger. And then Trout was better in high a again, two years younger. And then Trout was better in double a again, two years younger. Uh, so, and it's not,

Rivera wasn't a huge, he wasn't a huge signing. I don't think like, I think he was like a $10,000 bonus or something like that. There were more hyped, lots more hyped international signings even back then.

So pretty much I would guess that the Mickey Mantle stuff was probably coming all from what he was doing stateside at age 19, 20, 21. And it's not that great it's good he's a good prospect but and this is was he playing he was he was playing center field at least yeah and he he also had the the negative trajectory that you proposed might be a bad indicator for

prospects and that rob arthur's research seemed to confirm that it was well his first appearance on a baseball america list he was at 76 and then he went from 76 to 2 which is a gigantic so how did he go from so before 1994 he was number 76 yeah and then he has the 1994 season which which he went 33 homers, 48 steals I would bet 90% of this came from Those two numbers I bet if he had 29 homers Yeah

48 steals, it wouldn't have been as good Yeah, and he went from 76 to 2 Wow, I mean I'm sure it was Backed up by positive Scouting reports also, but still 2, and then he went 3, 9, and 40 I mean, I'm sure it was backed up by positive scouting reports also, but still, two. And then he went three, nine, and 40, which is probably a bad thing. But then again, by the time he was 40, people probably weren't comparing him to Mickey Mantle. But generally, you would think Cashman is right, right?

He should be right. Theoretically, I mean, there's been so many studies done about the importance of your age relative to the level and what stats are predictive for minor leaguers, and there's so much more information on what guys are throwing and what guys are hitting. So it seems almost impossible that prospect rankings or projections wouldn't have improved over the last 20 years. I don't know that that's convincingly been demonstrated. I've seen various studies that look at success rates of Baseball America lists over the years, and from what I recall, there was some improvement relative to the very earliest lists,

but it wasn't massive. It wasn't as big as you'd probably think it would be based on how much more is known now. But I would guess that, and part of it is that you can't see what the success rates were for the last several years because those prospects didn't make it yet or not make it. So I would guess that once we get a little more perspective, we'll be able to see a noticeable difference.

You know what's a fun minor league career to look at? What? Gary Sheffield. Alright, I'll take a look. He has a fun entire career to look at. What is fun about his minor league career? Oh, it's just that when he was

17, he was in the Pioneer League and he had 1,052 OPS. When he was 17, he was in the Cal League when he was 18, and he was good. He was in AA at 19, and he was insane. It's hard to imagine Gary Sheffield ever not hitting, which I guess he never did not hit. As a 19- old in AAA he hit 344, 407, 561. Hmm.

Pretty good. Yeah pretty good. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Yeah. In the Cal League again when he was 18 he had 48 strikeouts and 81 walks in a full season. Remember in our recent podcast where we were talking about the Daylight Play

and talking about why it was called the Daylight Play? Yeah. We got an email from a listener named Devin. Subject line, Daylight Play. Yeah. Text of the email, call me if you want an explanation, followed by phone number. Did you call Devin?

Thought about it. Very suspicious. We should have called Devin live on the show. Do it. Yeah? Why not? Okay, here we go. Give it a call.

When he was 17, Ben, when he was 17, playing against mostly college graduates and 20-year-old Dominicans. He had 14 strikeouts and 20 walks in 253 plate appearances. He was striking out every 14 at-bats. Uh-huh. I love Gary Sheffield. Every 16 at-bats. Well, every 16 at-bats.

Every 17 or 18 plate appearances. That's a 17-year-old. All right, I'm calling Devin, possibly for an explanation of the daylight play, possibly for some sort of identity theft. We'll find out. All right, here we go. Hello?

Hey, Devin. This ben lindberg and sam miller calling for an explanation of the daylight play okay um whenever i see a palmdale area code i assume that it's skype right so you're on skype right now yes okay so the day of play is essentially when the runner is on second base and there's a gap between the runner on second base and the shortstop. The pitcher sees the daylight when he looks back over, and then once the pitcher faces back toward home plate, he takes off toward third base. The shortstop takes off third base to run a bunch play. In my idea of the daylight play, I think of it as

a way to cover a sacrifice bunt on third base where the third baseman can then go cover the bunt that is intentionally given towards the third base to find when a batter sacrifices with a runner on first and second.

Wait a minute. You're talking about the rotation play. In my mind, I would think that's the daylight play because the pitcher goes home once he sees daylight in between the runner on second base and the shortstop. And that's the daylight. Interesting. I guess I've heard it as the daylight play and the shortstop. And that's the daylight. Interesting. So I guess I've heard it as

the daylight play and the wheel play. So I've heard it have multiple names. Yeah, okay, so hang on. Because I don't think I've ever heard the wheel play described as the daylight play. And now I'm checking this. Hang on. You might be right. Hang on.

Daylight. I do see... Wait. Your don't know. I'm not sure I see this. goes, takes a step towards third base, and the pitcher sees daylight in between the shortstop and the runner on second base. Once he sees that daylight, looks towards home, the shortstop breaks towards second base, and then the pitcher picks to second base. That could be the daylight. That's what we decided, the daylight. Did you listen to our show? Yes.

And I think I may have gotten confused between the time the two of you talked about it on your show and right now. So I think that may be what it is. That's more definitively what I think it is, is when the shortstop takes a step towards third, the pitcher sees the daylight in between the runner on second and the shortstop. He looks towards home to put the runner on second at ease. And once he looks home, the shortstop breaks towards second base yeah so our explanation of the daylight play gave you completely the wrong idea of what the daylight play is in other words good job pretty much but i think that doesn't seem like this second explanation would make more sense or is that the explanation the two of you arrived at i think that it's i i feel like it's what we said yeah i think so okay

was there a reason in particular that i guess the two of you um wanted a more definitive answer around it we were curious we were curious what you were going to do. We were wondering why you asked us to call instead of just saying what the daylight play was.

I think at the time I thought it would be easier just to have the two of you call me instead of trying to write that out. Yeah. As it turns out, I am not sure you were right. Because nobody calls anybody anymore. It's 2015. The other day I saw a kid on the phone.

He was waiting at a bus stop, and he was talking on his phone. And I just stared at him with nostalgia because there was a teenager talking on his phone, and I just stared at him with nostalgia because there was a teenager talking on a phone as opposed to staring at a phone. And I just thought, this is what America used to be, teenagers talking on phones and ignoring everybody around them. But we've lost that. With your help, we've brought it back.

We have. It was nice to talk to you. The terseness of the email was... It did feel like there might be a reverse mortgage involved. It felt a little bit like a hostage situation, maybe. Yeah. That's funny. You were going to make some demands. Well, I hope I was able to provide a little bit more clarity.

And I don't know. I mean, I guess it's nice to talk to people more. And I guess, like you, I notice the reverse when I see, I guess, people particularly at lunch. And it's a group of small people, and all of them are on their phones. So I think that the time of night that took off cognitively for me. All right. Well, thank you, Devin. All right.

Have a good day to the both of you. You too. All right. So that's daylight play. There was no risk, as far as I know, unless he was somehow hacking us while we were talking to him. We came through that call okay. Yeah.

All right. So that is it for today And this week which we are ending On a multiple of five And you can email us questions For next week at Podcast at baseball prospectus dot com You can rate review subscribe

To the show on iTunes You can join the Facebook group on facebook dot com Slash groups slash effectively wild We hope you have a nice weekend And we'll be back on Monday