Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 741: All About Utley

Episode Date: October 12, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about TBS baseball broadcasts, then discuss the Chase Utley slide in Game 2 of the Dodgers-Mets NLDS.

Good morning and welcome to episode 741 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, brought to you by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com, which I've been using pretty much all morning, incidentally. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Hi, Ben. Hello. How are you? All right.

Good. What about you? What have you been using all morning? I watch The Walking Dead. A television brought to you by an American-made television. Good Wife? Yeah. That's about it.

That was an awful episode. It wasn't the best. It was so bad. It felt like it went forever too, which is not normally a feeling that you get watching The Good Wife. Normally it's one of those ones you look up to see how much time is left because you want there to be more. Yeah, exactly. All right, so a bunch of stuff happened this weekend,

and we're going to mostly, I think, entirely limit the conversation to the Utley slide situation, and then we'll probably catch up with the rest of the ALDS in about, I don't know, 12 hours when we rerecord and release an episode again. But for now, I think we'll keep the parameters tight around a single play. Before we do that, is there anything that is so pressing that we have to banter about it? TBS's Pitch Tracker?

What is going on with that thing? It's the last night's good wife of Pitch Trackers. It really is. What's happening? It's like third base or something. I don't even know. It's not home plate. What is it?

third base or something is like on the i don't even know it's not home plate what is it i it is i i mean really it is like somebody is doing it by hand yeah basic like it it's just it's really really bad like the uh an inch down an inch low looks like it's a foot low yeah uh it feels to me like there's two issues with it one is that the inches off the plate are not to scale so anything that's off the plate either or way it's like half a plate width off the plate like every yeah there's no there's nothing just off the corner really right exactly and so you have this feeling that that either the pitches are way wilder than they are or the calls are way more egregious than they are. And I think the second thing, and I haven't really looked at it systematically, but my feeling from having watched it plenty is that the zone is just too low, too low, too low.

And so, like, they're not adjusting. It seems clear that they're not adjusting it for the batter for one thing yeah uh and but i mean that's probably i don't know that's probably common uh but it feels like there's it's just it's just like i don't know particularly at the high side there's a lot of pitches that are appearing high that look like they're at the belt to me. And so those are the big issues. But yeah, it's weird. It's very odd that you wouldn't be able to get this down because this has been going on for years.

And it's a direct – I mean it's the same – like it's given to you. They hand you a product. Basically, PitchFX hands you a product that is almost foolproof yeah and you're like nah i'm just gonna make a few tweaks to it myself yeah it's really strange if it looked slightly offline and that were the only problem i could understand that like maybe it's just the broadcast view it's not a direct from behind home plate or from center field camera so maybe it would look slightly offline so i could understand if that were the issue but it's not a direct from behind home plate or from center field camera so maybe it would look slightly offline so i can understand if that were the issue but it's not it's just there's something

strange going on it's not like other pitch trackers i don't even remember tbs pitch tracker being like this last year so i don't know what's going on but it's strange that they could all be presumably watching this broadcast along with us and not thinking that there was something to correct there do you have a rankings of national broadcasters not not the people specifically but uh the networks that we have because the national broadcasters we have basically fox uh fox sports one which you might want to separate those i don't know i haven't seen a fox sports one game that those are those are blacked out for me i can see the others but those are blacked out for me so i haven't seen them other than in uh other

than having re-watched some stuff after the fact i haven't i can't say but fox fox sports one espn uh does games of course uh and then TBS and MLB Network. Do you, of those five, do you have an order in your head? Not really. I just have TBS at the bottom. Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel. I feel like TBS is at the bottom, and then ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball is a triumph, right? I mean, ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball is a beautiful broadcast, Nate.

It is visually very good. They have the broadcast rotation sometimes is better than others, but Dan Schulman is very good. And it seems like the whole thing is done really well. It's the NBC football of broadcasts. And then I like Fox in the postseason a lot, like the real Fox, you know, Channel 2 or whatever, during the postseason a lot. During the season, it's pretty hit and miss, I think. But there's still some

good teams. But during the postseason, I think they do a wonderful job. And then mlb network and uh and uh presumably fox sports one do a very competent job and then tbs is kind of a mess it really is they got uh i i basically like ron darling and i like and i love dennis eckersley so i'll give them credit for those two yeah it's just, yeah, I never hear about shutdown innings all year. And then suddenly, it's just a deluge of shutdown innings. So Cal Ripken's really bad, too. Yeah. And how much value do you think is added to having a Major League Baseball player that everybody has heard of speaking instead of a Major League Baseball player who only some people have heard of speaking instead of a major league baseball player who only some people have heard of like if instead of cal ripken they had i'm just gonna throw a random name out there but like let's imagine that like luis polonia was like a great broadcaster like really good like a plus

knew the game had lots to say sense of humor everything was awesome about luis polonia but you know a few million fewer people have ever heard of Luis Polonia. How much value is there in having the famous guy? Because otherwise it just seems like there's so many baseball players out there. You ought to be able to do better unless you think, well, no, there's only 30 that are famous enough for this. No, I don't think the fame would matter that much. Maybe it matters a little bit for promotional purposes, but I can't really imagine anyone is tuning in

just because they're huge Cal Ripken fans and they want to hear Cal Ripken. If anything, it's probably destroying their conception of their idol to actually hear him talk. But I mean, they have Pedro, and Pedro's the most famous baseball player, and he's also really good. Yeah, he is. And they Pedro, and Pedro's the most famous baseball player, and he's also really good. Yeah, he is.

And they use Sheffield in the studio, and I don't know, whatever. He's fine. He has interesting suits. So they have some famous people. Like, they have Hall of Famers and Hall of Fame caliber players, so they don't need a token great baseball player. So I don't know why they think he would be good despite all the evidence to the contrary thus far i mean they're like i don't think john smoltz is anything special yeah i don't know ripken he doesn't even give you really the like bare minimum

of player who played the game and has something interesting to say about playing the game like he was doing the outlay game and i felt like he just was a zero when they were talking about that yeah he was yeah that was bad we'll probably talk about that but uh it they must pay him more than they would pay luis polonia right sure yeah and and so it feels weird that they're investing so much money in this one part, unless they don't. Maybe he works for scale. I don't know. But if they're investing so much money in this one part of it that to us feels counterproductive,

then it must be valuable for the broadcast. It just must be that the average fan really wants to hear a person he recognizes. Because all the names you just said are famous people. It's not by accident that only Borderline and Clear Hall of Famers are in these booths. There are others. I mean, there's A.G. Pruszynski was doing a game the other day. Yeah, Pruszynski, he's a little bit of an exception, though. I mean, he's he's famous beyond his the quality of his performance.

And he I think the thing about A.J. Brzezinski is that he was willing to do this while he was still active. Yeah. And if you're willing to do it while you're still active, you get kind of grandfathered and you have more valuable for you have more value for being active, I think. And you kind of get grandfathered in. He is valuable for you have more value for being active i think and you kind of get grandfathered in he is not even he's still active yeah he's he is still active right now he hasn't even been grandfathered in he's just active and active players get to the front of the line yeah i don't know i mean i grew up watching guys like john flaherty on yankees broadcasts which is local local broadcasts true yeah right so i don't know maybe it helps with advertisers maybe if you tell advertisers that you have cal ripken on your broadcast and cal ripken is one of the most beloved baseball figures maybe that helps you get a higher

figure i don't know do you think that cal ripken is running the pitch tracker that would explain why he never says anything oh yeah all right so um speaking of cal ripken uh ripken well what did ripken say about the outlay slide he said it was a good hard slide you know whatever hard-nosed play one of the least surprising things whenever some of these things happen is that the former players who are no longer in any peril whatsoever, all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, but in particularly, are pro-danger. Yeah, although Darling did disagree with him. Yeah, Darling, but Darling wasn't a middle infielder.

So it's, I think, it's been a long time since I've read Huck Finn, but I think there's a part where what they con like half the town out of their money. Like they put on some dumb show or something. Or somebody puts on some dumb show and they con like half the town out of their money. And then they know that the half of the town that got conned is going to tell the rest of the town what a great show it was because no one wants to be conned alone. And it sort of feels like this, like if you're, if you have to put up with this dumb violence for your entire career, well, then you're sure as heck going to make sure that everybody else has to go through this dumb violence for the rest of your career. And so as soon as you're out of it, then, uh, yeah, like all of a sudden it's no

longer a problem and you want to make sure that the younger people have to go through the same thing. It's weird because I get that older players or previous generations, they always think that the next generation is soft and they always want to have them go through the same trials, the same trials as they had to go through. And they want to make them, like if they had to go through adversity, they want other people to have to go through the same trials as they had to go through and and they want to make them like if if they had to go through adversity they want other people to have to go through the same adversity but it's not like we're talking about like having to do extra work or having to be somewhat uncomfortable we're talking about things that injure players and is there really anybody who's

pro injury is would anybody say yeah the game's better when a lot of guys get injured and can't play for that like it's not like tahat is faking it it's not like he's out there like just i don't want to go on i'm scared like he's not laying there going take me out of here it's too scary out here he's not weak-willed he's not he's not acting like a child something disrupted his body in a very serious way and he cannot physically move on. That's not like a, that's not a generational thing. Like ligaments and bones and tendons are pretty much like non-negotiable. So it feels very weird that anybody would, like in this specific case, would treat it

as a generational thing at all. Like injuries are just flat out bad, right? Yeah. But you could also see why what Utley did would be praised or prized at a different time and a different place. Because what he did, even if we object to it because of the result and because of the danger it put another player in, what he did showed hustle, right? I mean, he was giving 110% or whatever. That's a quality that we prize in players. He showed bravery, I would say, in a certain way. I mean, he put himself in harm's way. He got hit in the head very hard in a sort of scary looking way and those are things that you want a player to do and it was a pivotal point in the game the fact that he was safe instead of out may very well

have won the game for the dodgers and you want your player to just put his body on the line and give every iota of effort he has in a postseason game so you can see why Utley would be praised he'd be a hero for that sort of thing like if uh I don't know if Tahata hadn't been hurt um then we might talk about this in a different way or at least there would be less outrage if there hadn't been a broken leg involved oh so you think that it's more about defending, it's more about praising Utley's character for doing, you don't think that, like, so do you think that most players, if that were, because most players know that's an illegal slide, right? Yes, but you can usually get away with it. get away with it but a you don't always get away with it i mean tahata was probably not going to turn that double play and it utterly risked uh having it become a double play right yeah true but what was i mean when was the last time a thing like that was called i mean i don't know what the

happened in the stompers game yeah that's like the only, I don't know what the percentages are, but it's much easier to come up with examples of times when nothing happened than when there was some sort of penalty. Or where the penalty is simply getting thrown at the next game. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. So, all right.

So do you think that, how do I phrase this? All right. Let's start with a pool of 100 baseball players who aren't Chase Utley. Okay. How many of them make a slide that egregiously? First of all, of those 100 in that situation, how many do you think make that slide? 20. 20.

Okay. So of the 80 who don't, break down their reasons for not doing it i would say mostly the desire not to hurt someone and not to hurt themselves wait wait those are two very very very different things yeah well those are probably both big big parts mean, Utley wasn't trying to break someone's leg And maybe he was just more willing to risk that than the typical player would be He was very careless about whether it would break somebody's leg Yes, definitely Especially as a second baseman

Right And he's shown this tendency before As people have pointed out with screenshots of previous Utley slides, not even that long ago. And, you know, years ago, him getting in trouble for things like these, like this. So he clearly is more, I don't know what you want to call it, reckless. If you if you want to say it's irresponsible, you could call it reckless. If you are one of the people who thinks it's good baseball, you call it daring or something. I don't know, or one of the people who thinks it's good baseball, you call it daring or something.

I don't know. Whatever it is, he does this more than most players. So I think, yeah, I think it's partly a disregard for his own safety, which you could say is a positive, maybe, if all you care about is winning the game and you just want your players to play their hardest, then you want your players to kind of put their bodies on the line sometimes. And probably a disregard for the opposing player, which is not a positive quality, or at least I wouldn't regard it as one. So going back to the 80 who don't do this,

some of them don't do it because they don't want to get hurt. Some of them do it because they don't want to hurt a fellow opponent. Some of them do it because they don't want to hurt a fellow opponent. Some of them do it because they're lazy. Is this like they're just lazy? They don't want to put that much effort into it. Yeah, I'd call it self-preservation more. I mean, I don't know if someone really wasn't running and wasn't in a position to slide because he wasn't even that close to the base yet. But being aware of the situation and knowing what your role is, what is legal,

what you're likely to get away with, like, is it conceivable? Like, would some of those 80 would you describe as simply not being tuned in enough to the situation? Like, they would do it. They're not opposed to hurting another person. But they're just sort of like,

you know, they're just running a second like it's something normal. Like, is anybody, are any of the 80 That I think so sure I mean this was a This was a veteran awareness Right it was a veteran like the Dodgers Acquired Chase Utley

In part because they wanted his Veteran you know know-how or whatever And this is kind of part of that To realize that this is a really important Situation and you have to pull out all the stops in this situation. So yeah, I think there could conceivably be players who just didn't, you know, weren't thinking and were just saw the ground ball and thought I'm out and that's it. And weren't thinking this is a situation where I have to go the extra mile. Okay. So dozens of percent of baseball players today, in fact, wouldn't do this

slide for reasons that, in fact, we can praise Chase Utley for being willing to do it. Like, non-sociopath reasons. I think so. Okay, so that's what Cal Ripken et al. would be responding to, is they're saying there is an aspect of this that not every player does. And in my delusional view of the past, every player did it then, even though that's not true. But in the present, I see too many players not doing it. And let's stand up for the Chase Utleys, who are willing to go to this length in a positive way to help their team.

Yes. Okay. So then you get to the two aspects of it. Well, to the fact that there is a rule that enables this that is completely unnecessary, and if you took that rule away, then you would prevent it. So there's no... Is there a reason to have the rule uh in any sort of nostalgic

way that you see which rule are you talking about the rule that essentially allows this that just uh you mean the rule that prevent prohibits it but is not observed like yeah exactly rule 5.09 a 13 yes there's a lot of right there's a there's always a difference between the the statute themselves and the actual way that the game is played and enforced and uh major league baseball can enforce their rules selectively and as long as they are you know choosing not to really enforce this one it's not not really a rule. Yeah, right. And the rule does explicitly prohibit this. It is exactly written to prohibit this type of play. Can you read the rule?

I can read the rule. So, okay, so it says, a batter is out when a preceding runner shall, in the umpire's judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play and then there's a comment or an explanation the objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate unwarranted unsportsmanlike action by the runner in leaving the baseline for the obvious purpose of crashing the pivot man on a double play rather than trying to reach the base obviously this is an umpire's judgment play yeah

and and i love obviously this is such a strange authorial voice in a rule book yeah obviously uh but if you if you acknowledge that it's a judgment play, you could very easily say that this would, in an umpire's judgment, outlaw 90% of the slides we see. Because if you are out, for instance, if the fielder has caught the ball and is in process of throwing it, there's really no need to slide in at all. Yeah. And the slide exists primarily to be disruptive.

The slide exists primarily to introduce violence into the fielder's efforts and primarily to physically interfere with his ability to throw the ball. So there's very little actual cause for sliding in the second base on most double plays except to break it up. And so you could arguably say that 90% of what we see is outlawed. You could very easily say that some portion that's much lower than 90% is on its face flagrantly should be outlawed, and Utley falls into that. And maybe, what, one in 500 of these slides that I consider 90% of them is penalized, is dinged, maybe. Yeah.

And this was the most flagrant kind. So if you're not going to rule that, if the umpire's judgment is that this doesn't violate that rule, then almost nothing does. that this doesn't violate that rule, then almost nothing does. So baseball is, in some senses, a violent sport in that you have a pitcher who is throwing a baseball that is perhaps likely at some point to hurt a baseball player, a hitter. And that is unavoidable. The point of the game is to throw pitches toward home plate and as a natural

result of that, you're going to sometimes make contact with the batter and hurt him. It is along the route of playing baseball, this thing happens by accident for the most part, right? There are other cases where there might be

collisions. If a runner is running to first base and the pitcher is coming over to cover first base on a ground ball to the first baseman, they might collide. That is another sense where baseball players can accidentally and in the course of natural baseball play crash into each other. This one, the breaking of a double play, does not in any way

advance the natural playing of the game. Your goal as the runner is to get to second base. It is not in any way to, it shouldn't be in any way by the natural way the game is played, be to come into contact with or hurt or really in any way interfere with the fielder, except that this is what tradition has done. But there's no reason that it should be thus, right? You know, if the third baseman fields the ball and is getting ready to tag you, we don't say, well, crash into him. That's not allowed, right?

And so this feels like a... So we used to say that for home plate before the recent rule change. But we don't say it at third base, and we don't say it at first base, and it's a fluke of history that we say it for second base, right? There's nothing natural about this exemption. No, I guess not. I mean, it's been going on forever, so in that sense, it is,

but it doesn't have to be. Yeah, it's been going on forever for no intrinsic reason, though. Right. It is not unavoidable. It is not natural. It doesn't make sense, necessarily. It just is a thing that has been done. So there's not really an argument

for having these slides, other than that they've always been this way. Now, how much does the it's always been this way argument carry in your head? I mean, we have a pretty good sport. And it has been a pretty good sport for 150 years with this pretty bad rule. 50 years with this pretty bad rule. So are we worrying too much about it just because we didn't like seeing the outcome of it once or more than once? Yeah. Well, I'm trying to decide why it is that it bothers us now when it hasn't bothered baseball fans enough for them to get up in arms and change the rule in the past maybe that's just because we can see it now everyone can see it the second it happens in slow motion and high definition

and we can re-watch it 20 times and maybe it's because then we can all just get on twitter and say how terrible it is right away and you couldn't have that sort of groundswell in the past when you were just reading about it in a newspaper or something and there was no way to respond immediately. So I don't know whether it's that or whether it's just that there's kind of a higher value attached to human life now than there once was. Just, I don't know, we live a long time relative to how long we used to live and our lives are pretty good and most of us don't have to deal with violence as a routine event to the extent that we used to. And so this sort of thing is distasteful to us more than it used to be,

and these guys are making more money than they used to, and so there's more at stake for them. And arguably much less at stake though right because they have already made so much yeah the first the first dollar you make is by far the most valuable one and and if you have if you are working because it's your career and otherwise you'll be homeless as many baseball players did for a century then then your livelihood is extremely valuable. If you're working because you're going to get another million dollars next week, like another one, whoa, like how many millions, like does this cost the super millionaire? Now, Tejada, that is somewhat exaggerating because Tejada is not a person who is extremely

rich. But Tejada is also, incidentally, extremely rich. Like he is not going to be, unless he blows it, he is not going to be worse off than your average person after this, no matter what happens. And so that doesn't mean, I'm not in any way suggesting we shouldn't have tons of sympathy for these players and for what it means for their career. But if you're saying that we have a more emotional response to lost income or to a ruined career because these guys are making more, I'm just arguing that it's quite possible that the emotional response could

logically or in fact be the exact opposite. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think American society has evolved faster than baseball has maybe. And we are just less comfortable with violence than people used to be, especially when there isn't a reason for the violence or it's not a necessity. I wonder whether our response to this one in particular is that they blew the call in a key situation and that in fact in fact we're not responding so much to the violence as the overall incompetence of the situation and that i think uh like a million more people are rooting for the mets than the dodgers a million a million does is not that many people i think like a million times more people like dodgers fans are rooting for the Dodgers and everybody else is rooting for the Mets. And I think that there is,

I speculate that it might just be that we're really mad that they had this play that they got completely wrong, that they botched about seven different ways. It seems like, and we should talk about that as well. But that it's particularly egregious to see the whole play get messed up. Like if Utley had done this and then Dejada was injured,

but Utley had been called out and maybe the runner at first had been called out too, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it, like I know that it would have been a tweet storm. Like, I know that we would be writing columns about it, but I don't know that there would be quite the same volume. to this chorus of people who are saying it's terrible. And then when MLB issued the suspension on Sunday night for games three and four, that kind of confirmed that we were right, that there was something to be outraged about. But it also then led to another wave of outrage because it essentially confirms that the umpires got the call wrong. And yet the game stands the

result stands and so that's an inconsistency and the fact that he was suspended without even you know for something that he wasn't even ejected for he wasn't even punished at all in the game and then he was suspended so it seems like sort of this you know post-hoc roger goodell style penalty that is a response to the public response and yet doesn't correct the initial wrong in that the mets still lost the game and they still lost ruben tahada and so it just seems like i don't not that there's sympathy for utley really but that it just seems like, not that there's sympathy for Utley really, but that it just seems like an inconsistent application of the cuff that is not disproportionate but is inconsistent with the previous punishments or lack of punishments can you explain why Utley was safe uh well I think the idea was that he was responding to the umpire's call and the umpire

said he was out and therefore he ran off the field and that you can't call him out because he was responding to what the umpire said and that it's a judgment call that the replay official can make and he can say that if the umpire had ruled him safe then he would have been able to touch the bag and the only reason he didn't touch the bag is because he was called out. And the same idea, though, would apply to the defense, right? The defense chose not to tag him because the umpire had made the out call, right? Couldn't you just easily say that if the umpire had not called him out, that the defense would have had the opportunity to tag him?

Yeah, you could say that too. Good rule. It's a really good rule. When you think about it, it's the best rule. Yeah. And why was the neighborhood rule not... I think the neighborhood rule was not in play because it was not a routine play. Like the throw was wide and Tejada was not in position.

I mean, he was turned around and sort of off the bag. And so I guess it wasn't routine enough to be a neighborhood play. Do you agree? Not really. Not really You think Tejada was In the act of turning a double play And could have touched the base With no extra effort

Given the throw that he got Well Extra effort It would be extra effort relative to A throw that was right at chest level Without having to reach for it. So in that sense, it's extra effort. I think it was doable.

Doable, but did he not touch second base by choice or not by choice is the question? Probably not by choice. So then that would mean it's not a neighborhood play. Well, I think he was trying to touch it but couldn't because of the throw and where it was and where he was yeah so that so that rules out the neighborhood play yeah i guess so all right so so you don't agree or you do agree i'm okay with it not being a neighborhood play okay all right and so then lastly the, is there any justification for that? I mean, it feels really weird to, as you say, suspend a player for something that wasn't even deemed illegal on the field. But just because it wasn't deemed illegal on the field doesn't mean it wasn't illegal.

Maybe the umpires messed it up. Maybe in review it seemed particularly violent. And anyway, the umpires have bosses, and their bosses overrule them. So it feels very weird. I don't know. It doesn't seem justified here, but it doesn't seem like it couldn't be justified in slightly different circumstances. Yeah, well, when Ken Rosenthal was interviewing Joe Torre on the broadcast last night, he asked him why suspend Utley when you haven't suspended Utley in the past for doing this or many other players for doing this. And Torre basically said that he can't change the past, but he can change the present or the future. And so they're doing this because they think it's the right move in this specific situation. And I guess it's a positive in that it's sending a message that this type of play

will not be tolerated. And maybe it is just sort of a messy transition between this being widely permitted and it being actually banned by some sort of real rule that addresses this and is enforced. And as Tori mentioned, they're, you know, trying to do that too, and maybe have some sort of base or some sort of rule about the runner having to go into the base and not go after the, the, the fielder, you know, something that makes this actually enforceable and enforced. And so maybe this is just sort of the messy, necessary transition from the way it was to the better way that it will be. And that's the positive interpretation of this, I suppose. The tendency to only punish when something bad happens from your bad action bothers me, and I know it bothers you too, and it feels silly to decide, well, because Tejada got hurt, he has to get suspended. If Tejada had not gotten hurt, then he wouldn't have to get suspended. It feels inconsistent, and I don't like it. But I will say that this is not, the Utley's slide to me is not comparable to many of the other ones that were brought up, like the one that knocked out Gong, for instance, or the one that sparked the brawls between the Royals and the A's earlier this year.

I don't know how many slides were worse than Utley's this year, but I'd be surprised if the number was higher than one like this was way way beyond what we normally talk about as controversial slides uh in my opinion it was i mean it was it was completely absurd it had nothing to do with uh going into the bag it had nothing to do with um anything other than uh attempting to interfere with a fielder's defensive act by committing violence on him. And that's weird. That's weird that it exists. It's weird that it's in any way allowed. But if you're a player and you're going to have this sport that you police yourself

and that therefore the sport doesn't police you, the governing body over it doesn't police you, you have to know when to chill. And Utley went way over the chill line, way over the chill line to me. This is like on its face was absurd and you lose your privileges. So he shouldn't be suspended. I don't think, I don't think that it's, uh, I don't think that it's necessarily unreasonable to suspend him or to think about it in a situation like this. I don't think that it's necessarily unreasonable to suspend him or to think about it in a situation like this. I don't think he should have been. But, you know, it's obviously dumb and obviously Utley is the bad guy no matter what the rules say and no matter how they're enforced. And I hope that, I don't know, I hope they change the rule.

Like I've wanted them to change the rule for a while. Yeah, and I'm sure that they will. But the... What do you think the rule will be when they change it? Well, from what Tori was saying, it sounds like it would be something like the runner has to go into the base, or maybe he has to make contact with the base

before he makes contact with the fielder. Something like that. Yeah. So, I don't know. And I don't know how much of the suspension is a desire to forestall any additional blow-ups like if i don't know whether the dodgers would have played utley in these games anyway but if they can't play him then that rules out the possibility of him being retaliated against and then it's in new york and so things could get

really ugly and all of new york hates him right now and so you might just want to avoid that situation and i don't even know i mean by the time people are listening listening to this for all we know the the suspension might have been appealed and reduced or eliminated. We don't even know because he is appealing it and has grounds to appeal it. It seems like MLB is trying to rush this through. Although the hearing is not going to be heard

today, so I guess he's eligible for Game 3 anyway. Anyway, it's a weird case, but I guess often we have to have these cases. We have to have the Buster Posey broken leg if we want to have the home plate rule changed. And we have to have the Ruben Tejada broken leg if we want to have this rule changed. And maybe we have to have some serious pitcher injury getting hit with a line drive to mandate pitcher heads being protected.

I don't know if this is the way that it works in baseball. And you have to have Mike Kuba getting killed by a foul ball in order to get, you know, base coaches wearing helmets. And it's just always a very reactive thing. I wonder why Major League Baseball doesn't just do the broadcasts themselves and then give the broadcast to whatever network wants to broadcast it? Because don't you sort of feel like, especially with MLB Advanced Media, as awesome and developed as it is now, that they could put together a pretty bang-up broadcast and just whoever wants to pay for the rights to broadcast it, pay for it. Like, why is there such a big difference between, you know, TBS and Fox? Like, why is TBS even trying to do this? How does TBS think that they have the ability to put on this, like, awesome national sports telecast?

Like, that's not really, like, what they do. And that they're just going to, like, pick this sport and do it seems weird to me. Yeah. I guess maybe they think that they can do it. Maybe it's brand building. Maybe they figure part of the benefit is that you have your distinct brand that people start to feel comfortable with. You are the network that sucks at baseball broadcasts. Maybe it is a network that sucks at baseball broadcasts. Or maybe there is some kind of overlap in what they do in baseball with what they do in other sports or what other Turner broadcast affiliate networks do with other sports so that they do save on labor and equipment and they can share resources.

I don't know. They reach the bare minimum of competence. Like I can see the game. They're not like missing whole innings or anything so uh no that's true they did yeah they missed a they missed a batter the other day and it was awkward because they they i think they were coming back from a highlight and they came back just in time for the play to be seen, but they hadn't done the, like, welcome back. And so everybody just froze, and nobody said anything for the entirety of this play.

And awkwardly, it was like, well, that was a... Okay. Anyway. Yeah, you're right. All right, see ya. Okay. All right, so we'll be back. We'll talk about non-outly subjects. And you can send us emails at podcastatbaseballperspectives.com. Join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. Rate and review us on iTunes and support our sponsor, The Play Index, by going to baseballreference.com

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