Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 825: The Airport Angels Edition

Episode Date: February 24, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Angels at the airport, Ryan Webb, and a home-run-hitting contest, then answer listener emails about winning three-game series, the best radio broadcasts, the baseball equivalent of the San Antonio Spurs, and more.

Hello and welcome to episode 825 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Yo! Hey. I bet, you know, it's an email show, but I bet if we wanted to, we could do an entire banter and Play Index show. Probably, because the banter does pile up while we're doing these previews. And we've gotten countless tweets and emails about a couple of very effectively wild, long running topics that we could probably discuss at least briefly. I don't know what you

want to start with. Do you have banter you want to begin with? I do. I went to John Wayne Airport yesterday, late afternoon, about seven hours after you posted the Angels preview. And there was... They had new murals? They did. What? They did. Really? They had added 2012 to 2015. They had added them. How long was the time between Visits to this airport? Two days But more importantly The time between you posting that And my second visit to the airport Was seven hours

The drawings look hastily done No they're not drawings they're pictures It's kind of like a timeline That you would make In your third grade history class, except really well done with good pictures and fun facts and things of that nature. And so, yeah, they had an entire glass display that was now filled with 2012 to 2015, just a few feet to the right of the 2008 to 2011 display. So they had not updated these Angels pictures on the wall for four years or so. And then we mentioned it on the Angels preview and seven hours later,

they brought it up to date. That's suspicious. It is. Yeah. There must be a John Wayne airport employee who is a faithful listener to Effectively Wild. Yeah. So let us know. So let us know. I don't know what it is. I mean, it's conceivable that there's all sorts of possible explanations, but clearly the simplest is right. They heard it. What did they have? Was it just a bunch of trout pictures? There was a lot of trout pictures.

There was, I mean, like Houston Street got his 300th save. They had like what they called the greatest comeback in Angels team history, which apparently took place last year when they came from behind in the ninth inning on like a Johnny Giavatella hit. You know, we talked a lot about Johnny Giavatella when he wasn't playing. And then he basically played all year and we didn't mention it. Our Johnny Giavatella love is uh is not not that strong apparently i think it was always predicated on his not playing yeah it was uh so things like that and you know a lot of trout as well huh well that's very suggestive yeah interesting yeah

interesting not only that but you know we talk about trout a lot too like i bet if it weren't for that they would have left Trout off completely. Yeah, that's true. No, I don't know. I imagine if I had to bet, I would bet that they had up to 2014 there for all those years, and then they took it down so that they could update it with 2015, and I happened to walk past on that day. That's my guess.

Could be. It is spring training season. It seems like the time of year, I guess, when you would update pictures of angels on the wall in an airport if you were ever going to do it. Yeah. All right. I'm filing it away in the category of things that we've talked about

that happened right after we talked about them, which if you do 825 episodes of a podcast will happen a few times. Yep. Okay. I think this is the year for Ryan Webb. I think this is going to be it. Tommy, as soon as he signed Tommy Renzel, sent me a prediction that Webb was definitely getting a save. Yeah. I mean, I think this is it. We got tons of tweets. Of course, Ryan Webb, popular, long-running character on Effectively Wild, has been interviewed,

not for Effectively Wild, but his interview ended up on Effectively Wild without his knowledge. But he is the all time leader in games finished without a save with 98. And of course, he has had some excellent years when he could have conceivably gotten a save, and it's just never happened for him for one reason or another. And this seems like the year the Rays have signed him. The Rays are very egalitarian with their distribution of saves. Last year, eight Rays relievers got at least one save. And of course they've traded Jake McGee, who would have been a strong contender for saves. So he's out of the way. So you have incumbent Brad Boxberger, who was not a closer, of course, before the Rays made him a closer last year. And you have Kevin Cash, who seems very happy to

spread the saves around. And so it seems like if Ryan Webb is ever going to get a chance, this should be a decent team. Pakoda certainly thinks it's going to be a good team. So if that's the case, there should be a fair number of save opportunities to go around. And so this seems like Ryan Webb's best chance ever. He's 30. He's still more or less at the peak of his powers. If it's ever going to happen for him, this is the best shot. He is currently ninth on their bullpen depth chart at MLB.com.

And I don't know. You think that the Rays, I mean, last year the Rays were very egalitarian with their saves because McGee was hurt. And I'm trying to figure out if that is the norm or not. I don't know what would be normal for a team, how many is normal for a team. Like in 2012 when they had Fernando Rodney, for instance, who was a proven closer, they only had two guys get saves. In 2011 with Kyle Farnsworth, they only had three guys get saves. On the other hand, you're right, in 2015 they had, did you say six? Six.

Eight. Really? Yeah. This says six six eight really yeah why this says six oh yeah i tried to play index this earlier and it was the rare case of the play index not working perfectly just because some players were traded or changed teams mid-season and so they were not listed as raised they were listed as just total or something just because it was their combined line for multiple teams so the race had brad boxberger who got 41 saves and then they had a bunch of guys who got a few mcgee got six and then it was steve jelts and brandon gomes and

xavier sedenio and kevin jepson got five and matt andrerees and Ernesto Freire got a couple. So there was a long tale of saves in the Rays bullpen. Hang on. I think that I don't want to leave this with even the slightest indication that Playindex can't do this. So hang on. I'm trying an alternate path to this answer. I was trying to figure out whether the Rays had the most guys because I know the Cubs, I think, had seven guys get saves and maybe the Rockies. Okay, so I've got, yeah. So if you do the Game Finder,

if you do Game Finder, then it does turn up your eight. So that has been confirmed. Okay. So then did you look year by year by chance? Nope. Okay. So 2014, they had seven, including unwitting friend of the show, Jeff Beliveau. And in 2013, they had six.

And that year they had Fernando Rodney as the closer. In 2012, they had two. So that was correct. And in 2011, they had three. So it's suggestive to be sure. And Kevin Cash was vocal about not having a closer, at least early in the year. I don't know whether he maintained this throughout the year, but in April and May, he said he wasn't going to name a closer. Even when McGee came back, he said he wasn't going to name a closer. He even said Brad Boxberger wasn't the closer. This was for a month or two. I don't know if he maintained this all year once it became clear that Boxberger pretty much was the closer, but he at least has this willingness to go into the year without anointing one person. All right. I accept it.

Okay. Pretty good chance then. Yeah. Well, what kind of chance though? I mean, first of all, he hasn't made, you know, like he could be cut, you know, in spring training, he could be cut two weeks into the season. So it's not as though you're guaranteed he's going to see the river.

He might not make it um he will i mean what do you think are the chances let me just okay that'll be the question what are the odds i think the odds are i think he has a 30 chance okay that's it yeah i can't i can't argue with that that's about right it's really improbable that he has made it this long that's it yeah i can't i can't argue with that that's about right it's really improbable that he has made it this long that's the thing like it's there's no precedent for someone making it this long it's really weird if you look at ryan webb like relievers they've all vultured a save here and there so it's just very strange that he doesn't have one it's very improbable and random and obviously reflects some of his managers and his team's thinking of his capabilities, but it's also just a fluke that

it hasn't happened yet. Ben, let me ask you this question. This is a different question, but let's say that you're at the Henry Holton Company 150th anniversary party on April 27th. And Kevin Cash is there. Let's say Kevin Cash is going to this fancy pants party and you get seated at the table with him and you get to talking and he says, well, what do you do? And you explain and he goes, oh, great, fun. And then somehow you get on the topic of Ryan Webb and you tell him about this remarkable place in history that Ryan Webb holds. Do you think Kevin Cash responds to that by making sure Ryan Webb gets a save or making sure Ryan Webb doesn't get a save? I think he would not acknowledge that it has affected his actions at all. And I think if

anything, it would make him slightly more likely. I don't know whether I'm really rooting for Ryan Webb. I think I am, but I also like the fact that he is this oddity and has never gotten a save. It gives us something to talk about. And having talked to him about it, I don't get the sense that it causes him any great distress. So I don't think his life would be materially improved if he were to get a save.

So I don't feel like I have to root for him for that reason. So I think I'm rooting for him just sort of as an underdog story. And I think even if it's subconsciously, at some point in the season, Kevin Cash is going to face a decision where he's going to have a lead to protect and maybe it's an easy save situation. And he's going to have to choose between, you know, two or three guys who are essentially indistinguishable. And if he knows this thing about Ryan Webb, and for all I know he does, I think at least subconsciously would have to influence his thinking a little bit, unless you think that he'd be less likely to do it because no manager has ever done it. so there's you know some risk

associated with it oh like he'd be like he'd take the bayesian approach yeah right like no one has trusted him with this before there must be a reason uh all right uh so this is the part of the show where there's going to be a quick sound effect is this an unboxing of something it is an unboxing of something what are you unboxing you don't know huh is this our book it is our book so you got our book before i did i have 25 copies of our book no 10 copies of our book right now in my hands so it's a jacketed galley so it's not the final product but what does it look like? It is paperback. It's got the actual cover with a little stamp that says Advanced Reader's Edition. And it's got your picture on the back. It does not have blurbs, but otherwise it looks like a paperback book.

It's not clear that this is anything other than a book. Does it have pictures? No, no pictures. Okay. But this is anything other than a book does it have pictures no no pictures okay but uh this is it like you could you could hold this in your hand and read it as a book i will later today so these books were overnighted from new york yesterday and somehow reached you in california before they got to me in manhattan yeah all right fun cool all right another milestone reached yep okie doke all right and the other thing that we got tons of tweets and emails and comments about was the guy who

hit a home run at Globe Life Park and won free season tickets because he got three swings and the Rangers did the competition where people get three swings. And if they hit a home run, they get season tickets. And we had talked about this once or twice before on email shows. People had asked us about it. And we generally thought it was somewhere between improbable and impossible, right? We decided it was impossible for you, even though you have good power, that you don't have good enough power and that it was very un improbable for anybody else but this was a this was a totally different game than the one we were talking about we were talking about with the padres when they padres did it yeah how is

this different well for one thing and this is not the big thing although i will mention it for one thing the padres play in you know Petco Park sure and Texas plays in Texas no yeah Texas uh although at least Texas it's Texas in February I don't know how much the ballpark of Arlington plays as a hitters park in February uh-huh um but the key thing is that as I recall I might be wrong about this so correct me if I'm wrong but as I recall, I might be wrong about this. So correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall, that was one pitch, you got one pitch and we decided that it was like virtually impossible to hit the first pitch you see out. And like, even, I don't remember this conversation that well, but I think that even like Isaac, who's our power hitting catcher would have a very hard time hitting the first pitch he sees from an unfamiliar pitcher, uh, or pitching machine, uh, out, uh, of unknown speed, et cetera. Um,

and so it just felt like really hard to imagine the first, like even guys first pitch of BP is, well, usually they have to bunt. Uh, but i don't know how often the first pitch of bp is even hit out anyway this guy in texas who congratulations he's a better hitter than both of us are for sure but he i think he hit it on the 14th pitch he saw oh really he it was his third swing right third and final swing it was it was his it was reported as his third and final swing I think I only watched it once And I'm a pretty good counter I think it was his fourth swing

I think he fouled one off And I don't think they counted it He began by bunting three Or bunting around three Maybe bunting four And then taking a bunch These are all from a pitching machine But he takes a bunch. These are all from a pitching machine. Yeah.

And he's so, but he takes a bunch, he takes like five and then he swings at a couple, takes one or takes a couple. I thought that he then fouled one off into the screen, but I might, I might be wrong. I might've miscounted. I don't know.

And then he, and then he gets one. So he got 14 pitches to do it. Changes things. And so, no, I mean, he, like, I don't bring all this up to knock the achievement. I'm saying, though, that when we were asked to predict whether this could be done, if you'd said he gets 14 pitches, I would have said, oh, yeah, totally. He'd completely do it.

So I'm more defending myself. Yeah. Okay. That's totally reasonable. Okay. Okay. All's totally reasonable. Okay. Okay. All right. Actual questions.

Let's take one from Sam, who is a British fan. He says, when I was 12, 11 years ago, I went to my first ball game in Shea Stadium for a Mets versus Cubs game. I absolutely loved it and sat with my dad next to a couple of experts. So I found it fairly easy to follow that game. Since then, I've watched countless games and read every book I can get my hands on. I now regale my friends with fascinating baseball facts, and they don't seem to go down that well. However, my question is this. When I originally tried to work out how the season was scheduled, I saw that a lot of teams played each other in blocks of three and thought that probably teams played a series against each other, and then the winner of the season was the team that won the most series. So how do you think teams

would adjust and the game would change if teams played 54 three-game series a year? Also, if this was the system that was chosen, would you decide the winner of a series by the first team to two wins or by aggregating the runs across the three games. The latter would mean that there were no dead rubbers. What? A British term. I assume that that means a game where the outcome is already decided. Rubber match. Dead rubber match, yeah.

Well, not a rubber. Rubber match is where it decides the series, and I think dead rubber must be where it's a rubber match that doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. I mean, right. So do you think it's got to come from the same route though, right? Yeah, I would think so. But it would also mean that Americans had to get used to tie games

in the first two matches, or if one team was ahead going into the last match and that match was level. So how would strategy change if it was just a series of best of threes and you just had to win the best of three? Well, it's probably been hundreds of episodes since the last time I mentioned that one of my favorite things about old baseball, pre-modern baseball, even older than that,

like pre-dead ball baseball, is that they used to play the bottom of the ninth regardless. Yeah, right. And sometimes when I'm bored bored i will sit and think about how baseball would be if they had to play that like how they would treat it whether we would have any expectations for that bottom of the ninth inning uh or whether the i don't know i honestly don't know how it would it would play and so in, in this case, you could, the, the, the way that this is significant is almost entirely in that, uh, you wouldn't have to play the third game a lot of times. Like that's, that's what would change baseball. And you could sort of make the case that there's

too much baseball and that if you can sort of accomplish the same thing with games, which is a sorting mechanism of trying to figure out which teams are the best. If you can accomplish the same thing in fewer games, that would maybe be better for the sport, if not for the TV contracts and so on. So you would have like 25, 30 fewer games, at least that matter. And the question then is whether they would still go out there and run these games like farcically or whether they would cancel them. And if they cancel them, that would be interesting,

and I'd be fine with that. And I think that might make baseball a little interesting. If they didn't cancel it, it would suck. Yeah. that would be interesting and I'd be fine with that. And I think that might make baseball a little interesting. Uh, if they didn't cancel it, it would suck. Yeah. I guess they play, you know,

I mean, if the Marlins and the Phillies get eliminated, uh, on September 4th, they still play their three game series. Uh, so I guess they would probably play. And so then you'd have,

you'd have, you'd have just these games in the middle of the season that wouldn't matter. And I think that to some degree, part of what baseball has to overcome is us discovering how much of it doesn't matter. They need us to believe it matters. And so having something so explicit, explicitly meaningless, would probably be bad. so explicit explicitly meaningless would probably be bad it would probably uh chip away at our belief in the stakes of the sport yeah probably not good i think don't do it no definitely don't do it i don't know how it would affect team construction i mean you would you would want to rest your starters a lot more probably unless you think that it gets them out

of their rhythm or something and so and not only would you want to rest them but you wouldn't care what the bench guys did basically like the bench guys would almost always be playing in these meaningless games other than injury substitutions and so it really wouldn't matter that much so i guess you would i don't know if you'd have more, either more pitchers or more position players. I don't know if the composition would skew one way or the other, but yeah, I would guess that you would see a lot more money invested in the,

the talent because you would, there'd be more of a benefit to having a stars and scrubs team. You, since you know that your stars are going to have plenty of rest, that they're going to rest basically the third game of every other series, more or less, you would probably be able to get away with a lot less true depth, a lot fewer players that you actually need to call on

because your Stars would be healthier. They wouldn't need that rest when it matters. They could play every inning that counts. And to some degree, same with your pitchers. And so you would really want to invest a lot more at the top of your roster. And then you could go as cheap as you wanted. You could have the accountant play at the bottom of the roster. So that would probably happen.

Now, what about in the total of runs? See the, the meaningless. You now make every inning significant, regardless of who has won the games. You could make the case, you could design a baseball season that is entirely determined by runs scored and runs lost, runs allowed. And then you would have much more of the season be significant. Every run would count. Even if you were up 10-0, you'd still have an incentive to bring in your closer because that run hurts you regardless. And so that seems to me, and I think we've talked about various iterations of that question before, where that puts probably too much strain on the players. Like there's just not, the grind is enough as it is,

and they need these meaningless ninth innings in 10-run games, part of the way that they get through the long season. And so that would probably be too much, and then the first one would probably be not enough. Like there's actually kind of a nice balance of meaningful baseball, probably in the season as it is, um, where you do have to, if you're a competitive team, you do have to treat every game the same, but you don't have to treat every inning the same. Uh, and, uh, going in either direction, having some games be irrelevant is too casual and having all innings be life or death is too stressful. And so they've kind of

got a nice balance. Yep. Agreed. Okay. Question from Shamit. I have been a San Antonio Spurs fan for eight or nine years now. I recently got into baseball, but don't particularly support the team. I was wondering which team is the Spurs-iest team in baseball. Neither of us knows a whole lot about basketball, but based on what I know, I think the Cardinals are the clear leader here. They are good every year. They have a system that seems to work and that players are expected to buy into and conform to.

They are known to be boring, boring in a competent way, but their star is boring and good but not flashy and that's something that the cardinals get either praised or criticized for by people who don't like the cardinals is that they are sort of proud of their boringness and lack of controversy and they're good all the, and people say they play the right way and all those kind of cliches. So it seems like the Cardinals are clearly the baseball spurs. Okay.

All right. This one is probably more for you than for me because I don't think I listen to enough radio baseball to have an informed opinion here. I don't either, by the way. No. The question is who are our favorite radio broadcasters yes and kevin san diego and i um i have a heart i i do like listening to the radio baseball on the radio a lot and i so i probably do have listened to every

team's radio broadcast over the last couple years but there's something about radio broadcast that um makes it harder to sort of tell them all apart. One thing is that you're paying less close attention, probably. It is more likely to be background noise. That's what makes radio so great, is that you do it while you're doing chores and stuff. And so it's more background, and you don't ever see their faces, and so you don't ever see their faces.

And so you don't have this visual image. You just have a voice. And to some degree, most broadcasters have similar timbers and so on. So they all do blend together. So I don't really have a good answer. I think maybe Carson did the TV broadcasters some years ago. I think Carson did the TV broadcasters some years ago. I think Carson did radio also. Yeah, so I would be interested in his. Maybe I'll ask him.

Maybe I'll send him an email and see if I can get an answer before it ends. But it would be a fun project to do, to repeat Carson's, or just to do it for fun. But it's clear that the Mets and the Giants have the two best by a mile. They're the two that really stand out. And there are other teams that are good and others that are bad. But I don't feel comfortable enough with my rankings to say which ones are bad. So I've always liked the Astros.

And for some reason in my head, I have Brewers being good. I don't know why, but I do. But it's the Giants and the Mets are both just completely dynamite. Yeah, Carson's crowdsourced radio ratings at Fangraphs. This is 2012, so some of these teams may have changed, but the top five at the time was blue jays number five indians number four rangers number three brewers number two and giants number one interesting uh what does it say who did it say the mets were at the time they are not in the top 10

they were 16th howie rose and and Wayne Hagen. Oh, yeah. So since then, Josh Lewin has taken over and Josh Lewin's a treasure. Yeah. Okay. All right. Play index? Sure. So I don't think I've done this one before.

Even if I have, I have all new information. information. The one of my back pocket fun facts from a few years ago involved Raphael Bettencourt's percentage of walks that were intentional versus Jonathan Sanchez's percentage of walks that were intentional. You have one guy who has got perfect control and never walks anybody. And another guy who has horrible control and walks everybody. And so their percentages are very different. And, uh, the juxtaposition of those two is interesting. Anyway, I wanted to see, I don't want to give those answers away yet. I'll get in, I'll, I'll get their percentages to you in a minute. But first I wanted to see who the ultimate intentional walker is relative to his overall control. And so first things first, just to give you a baseline, 7% of all walks last year were intentional.

And so I looked since 1961, I think, to see who had the highest rate of intentional walks. For total walks, I want your guess. What is it going to be? And I set the minimum at like, I think the minimum was like 20 intentional walks delivered. Sanchez has, I think, allowed, yeah, Jonathan Sanchez intentionally walked 15 guys in his career. I think I did set this at 15 in recognition of Sanchez has, I think, allowed... Yeah, Jonathan Sanchez intentionally walked 15 guys in his career. I think I did set this at 15 in recognition of Sanchez.

What am I guessing here? The highest percentage of walks that were intentional for an individual pitcher. How high would it be? What would be the highest percentage that a pitcher has had? So just, again, 7% is the average last year. And I use Jonathan Sanchez's career total as my minimum. 12%. All right. Good guess. So not remotely close. So first I set the Play Index to, this Play index as a little tool where you can have you can search by set. So you can see, well, sort by home runs, right, or filter by home runs.

Only players with 340 home runs or more in my search. OK, or you can do the proportion of. So in this case, I set it so that the percentage of intentional walks was at least 10% of total walks. And that gave me 1,042 pitchers since 1961. So then I set it to 20%, and that gave me 200. And then I set it to 30%, and that gave me 29. So at least 29 pitchers, well, exactly 29 pitchers have had at least 30% of their walks be intentional. Then I set it to 40%, and there are three.

Dan Quisenberry is the king of this for the long career crowd. Dan Quisenberry had 43% of his career walks were intentional. That's crazy. It is super crazy. 43%. At the same level, but with a much shorter career, there's a fellow named Dave Eilers who had 45% of his. But the king, Ben, the king is a fellow named Don Dennis.

Now remember, league average seven percent you guessed 12 percent dan quizzenberry the master 43 percent don dennis though 64 percent so what did his career look like all right so don dennis uh, and partly this is because his career was not long enough for this to wash out. But Don Dennis walked 33 batters in his career, 21 of them intentionally, 21 intentionally. He had he Don Dennis pitched in the 60s. He was a right hander in the 1960s. There are a few interesting things about him beyond this. But focusing on this for a second, he threw 115 innings in his career as a middle reliever and only unintentionally walked 12 batters in that time.

So you would say a control specialist, less than a walk every 10 innings. But he intentionally walked nearly twice that many of the 21 16 came against right handers he was right-handed and so that's unusual yeah three were against ernie banks two including the last were against uh willie mays and the typical don dennis intentional walk was much less about the batter, much more about two guys being in scoring position. And they just decided to put the guy on first, either because it was somebody good up

and there were two outs in the inning, or because they wanted to apparently set up the double play. So Don Dennis, other things about Don Dennis, in 1965, he won the St. Louis Rookie of the Year Award which is a very specific award this was apparently an era you know everybody talks about the everybody gets a trophy era that we're in right now and they all complain in the 60s everybody got a trophy even when they were in the majors so I think there's a little bit of revisionist history here. They were given awards for the St. Louis Rookie of the Year.

In his two-season career, he had a 3.69 ERA and eight saves in 79 games. He died of cancer seven years ago at age 65. Things I learned about him thanks to his death and obituary. Things I learned about him, thanks to his death and obituary, he was, quote, an avid vacationer, which is what I aspire to be. It doesn't say he traveled a lot. He was an avid vacationer. He took a lot of vacation, which is every year. He might not have even gone anywhere.

His employer gave him three weeks. That dude took six. He was not have even gone anywhere. His employer gave him three weeks. That dude took six. He was avid about vacation. That's probably why he went into baseball. He figured he'd get more of the year off. Maybe. Another thing about Don Dennis is that he made his major league debut on June 18, 1965. He got married on July 12, 1965.

He got married in the middle of a season, which doesn't happen anymore. He got married 23 games after his major league debut. One day after pitching in both ends of a double header, in which he walked two batters, one intentionally. In one of those games, he replaced Bob Gibson, but Bob Gibson was also pitching in relief, which is another weird thing about this era. Bob Gibson at the height of his stardom, he won 20 games that year, just came into a game in relief and threw four innings. And then they replaced him with another pitcher. So that's Don Dennis. The flip side, by the way, Raphael, I'll get to it. The flip side of this, the all-time non-intentional walker, is one of two answers, one of which is not that fun and the other one is because then we can keep watching it. So I did the same thing but with the lowest percentage of walks being intentional. And it won't surprise you that with intentional walks going down as a genre, that they're

fairly recent players. One answer is Felix Dubrant, who walked 219 batters in his career and only one of them intentionally. But Felix Dubrant is not exciting. In a larger career, the answer is actually the number two pitcher on this percentage list. John Lester, 592 walks in his career, only four of them intentionally. And so he is, unless he starts intentionally walking people,

he will go down as the king of the unintentional walk or the king of the non-intentional walk or whatever. To put John Lester in perspective, again, Lester, John Lester in perspective again Lester John Lester famous player you've heard of him for a long time has four intentional walks in his career Tyler Olsen a rookie who pitched 13 innings with the Mariners in 2015 has seven in 13 innings in 13 innings he has twice as many almost twice as many intentional walks as John Lester in his career. Tyler Olsen also only has three unintentional walks. He is, for the moment, essentially the only pitcher ever with a higher percentage than Don Dennis. But with only seven intentional walks, he does not clear our minimum filter.

One more direction to take this. filter. One more direction to take this. Raphael Bettencourt is probably the king of the very modern era for issuing intentional walks, but with intentional walks going down, that's only 24%. So I looked at active pitchers and there are basically three guys at the top for percentage plus number, total number. But Betancourt is just barely active, if he is at all. Ronald Bellisario, who is barely active, if he is at all. He pitched, I think, eight very poor innings last year. I would not expect to see him again. And the third, which arguably is the

last one standing, is Ryan Webb. All right. It all comes full circle. Exactly. Okay. Good play index. Use the coupon code BP when you subscribe to play around with the play index yourself. Get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year

subscription. Okay. Quick one from Jenny, who says, I was checking out the Baseball Perspectives team depth charts earlier today and noted that in the NL Central, Pakoda has the Cubs winning the division 92-70, followed by the Pirates at 83-79, the Cardinals at 82-80, and the Brewers and Reds at worse than that. I was curious as to what your opinions are

on how the NL Central will turn out this year. I'm a Pirates fan, and I certainly could not have predicted a 98 win season for them last year, or that the best three teams in baseball would be in the NL Central. So who do you have winning the division, and will the NL Central dominate this season

as it did last season? I would say it's unlikely that it will dominate to the same extent. The Cubs have gotten better, probably. They won't necessarily win more games, but they've gotten better. The Cardinals, I guess, have gotten worse, but are still good. The Pirates, I don't know. They probably won't win 98 again, but they are still good too. And the Brewers and Reds are still bad, possibly worse. But I would say that things like the NL Central dominating like it did last year or the NL East being dominated as much as it was last year, probably the sort of thing that you would expect to regress. I mean, not dramatically, maybe. I mean, there were years where the AL East was just the best and beat up on everyone. And that was several years in a row,

many years in a row. So it's not as if there's so much turnover in a single off season that you wouldn't expect the best division one year to still not be good the next year but i i don't uh really differ from pakoda's at least rank order of those teams at all do you no i think it seems like a reasonable rank especially when you consider that the cardinals and pirates are you know basically in a tie i think pretty much every i think i think almost everybody who is who looks at this is surprised by how low all three of those teams are in total wins. I was surprised that the Cubs were not projected to be the best team in baseball. And 92 feels a little light, but we all always get caught up by offseason activities. But the Cubs feel like a team that was a legitimate 97-98 last year,

and even with a little regression, they improved substantially at three spots on the diamond, and they have youth on their side. So that felt low. The Cardinals I can sort of see because the raw numbers suggested a team that had, uh, hit and pitched into a lot of luck last year. Uh, and they did take some hits to their roster. Uh, and then the pirates, I was trying to figure out why I would, I'm trying to figure out why the Dakota doesn't really like the pirates.

They haven't for the last few days, but for the last few years, but there hasn't, as I showed last week, there, there isn't really a trend of Dakota not liking teams, uh, for multi-year periods. Uh, there isn't really a tendency for Dakota to miss the same team the same way, multiple years in a row. So that doesn't seem to be any particular evidence against Dakota. And yet 83, I mean, they, they had a legitimate 90, what? 97, 98 last year and didn't lose much, lose Burnett, lose Walker, but it's not like team took a lot of hits, right? Walker, but it's not like the team took a lot of hits, right?

Nope. So if I had to pick a projection that stood out across baseball, the Royals one is obviously the one that gets the attention. But if you imagine a world where Pocota had projected the Royals to win 86, I bet we're all talking about the Pirates projection right now. Yeah. Okay. We've done enough, I think. You can send us emails for next week at podcast at baseballprospectus.com.

If we are able to work out some scheduling stuff, we'll have the next preview tomorrow, which should be the Royals. It should be of interest to some people. And you can rate and review. Subscribe to the show on iTunes, and join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. We will be back soon.

All season they come with your luck, just been with them and all that you have is a memory. All season they come with your luck, just been with them All right, man.