Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 861: Murder, Remorse, and Major League Games

Episode Date: April 13, 2016

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about whether they would want to play in a major league game, un-fun facts, chyron decisions, GM hypotheticals, robot pitchers, and more.

You're always such a spectacle Guess it was the best you could do Your favorite dress for the world to see through Spilled your drink, but you didn't mean to Hello and welcome to episode 861 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by our invaluable Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Hello.

Howdy. Anything you want to talk about before we start answering emails? No, thank you. All right. So let's start with, well, let's start with one question that was sent in by someone whose email address was suspiciously similar to yours. His name is Sam. And he says, if your favorite team offered to let you play a game, would you? You have to play a position other than first base, and you have to play the entire game. It's neither an extraordinarily important or meaningless game. It's today's game. In fact, so would you? Wow, great. That's a great question. What? Wow. I don't know. I don't know how to answer that.

Yeah, right. I'm just springing it on you. You've never seen it before. on you you've never seen it before so i think we your first thought is like that would be a dream right like we've been we've answered the question for instance uh something along the lines of if uh you know if they auctioned off a spot in the lineup and some like random you know business dude got to play for a game or whatever how how how much he would hurt his team i think and i think we've answered the question of how much we would cost a team over the course of a year and so on. And it's, I think the premise of the auction off one is that everybody would love to play a major league baseball game. Like that's the dream. And yet I was thinking about that, dreaming about it, thinking about it as a dream. And it suddenly occurred to me that

nothing could be less enjoyable. No, it would make me miserable. It would be so gift. You would just be made fun of. Everybody, like, I don't even, I think, in fact, I think this came up. Actually, it did. This came up in my head because I was thinking about playing softball and I forget exactly what, but I, this little, like the little anxiety that I always feel when I'm playing softball, rec league softball on Sunday afternoons with no audience and nobody cares. Uh, I still feel anxiety that I'm going to miss a ball and I'm going to do something embarrassing. And the idea of doing that in front of, you can't even necessarily say millions of people because you have the potential to create a series of bloopers so bad that it would be viewed by billions of people. Yes, of course. I mean,

non-baseball fans would be watching this. This would not be restricted to hardcore fans. Almost anyone would be interested in seeing this. Right, and you would be despised by millions who root for that team, and you would be despised by your team. They would hate you. They would hate everything about you being there, the other players. Every time you botched one, they would hate it. You'd go into the dugout and they would hate you.

Yeah, I think I would do it. I would do it for the story, I think. I would kick myself if I didn't do it. I think, I mean, just as a writer, for one thing, I would want to do it because I like stories where writers get to do things that normal people don't usually get to do, and they write about them.

I try to do those stories sometimes. I think those turn into the best books. Yeah, right. Whether it's taking over the baseball operations department of an independent league baseball team, or going to scout school, or playing the best Super Smash Brothers 64 player in the world, or whatever. I really enjoy doing those sorts of stories. And so it'd be fun to write about even the experience of being mortified and despised. And plus you'd get a baseball reference page. You could play index yourself. And that is worth a lot

of embarrassment, I think, and dread and anxiety. And maybe you'd learn a little bit about, I mean, the hypothetical that we always get asked about how bad a normal person would be in a major league game. We could demonstrate exactly how bad that would be. You could get a firsthand look at things that you could never get a good look at otherwise and good understanding of otherwise. So it would be hard to pass up. I would be miserable. I would dread it. I wouldn't sleep. And it would be hard to pass up. I would be miserable. I would dread it. I wouldn't sleep. And that would be terrible. But I'd have to do it. I think I agree. And I think that there's a lesson there that it is probably an important thing in life, a sign of maturity, a sign of a strong life lived that you do the thing you need to do, even when anxiety is telling you not to do it. And I agree, it would be embarrassing, I would be terrified. The only good thing about

this hypothetical, the only good thing about this hypothetical is that the game is today. And so I can't lose sleep for weeks leading up to it. I think that a big part of any achievement is simply getting over the fear. It's like the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And the idea behind that is that fear is, well, I mean, we all know what that means. Fear is sort of self-sustaining. Fear is a cycle. Fear is a spiral. Fear is before the bad thing has happened, you have already given the bad thing power over you. It's the mind killer. Right.

And so overcoming fear is the flip side of that. And even if the thing you are doing is not a good, is not actually productive or any sort of moral good, overcoming the fear is itself a moral good. It is you reclaiming power over, you know, over the world, over evil, over your own, you know, your own darkest parts of your brain. And so I think that you'd have to, you'd have to do it. The main reason not to do it, the main good reason, is not that you fear the embarrassment, as that you are actually doing something disrespectful to a thing you like. That it is ultimately, you have to decide whether it's a selfish act or not.

And even though your team hates you and the team's fans will hate you, I'm not sure that their hatred is justified. I don't know that you can say necessarily that you are actually bad's fans will hate you. I'm not sure that their hatred is justified. I don't know that, I don't know that you can say necessarily that you are actually bad for the sport or not, but I think it, you probably are, you're probably bad. It's, it kind of creates, it turns the game into a farce. And I don't know that, uh, that is something that the game could ever recover from. Uh, but I, I think I'd get over that. What position would you play? So I can't play first base?

Correct. I'd probably play a corner outfield spot. Probably less chance of having balls hit to me and less chance of getting hit in the face by one. Yeah, I would say that, say there's a hundred baseballs hit to right field on average. 20 of those are hits no matter who the outfielder is. And so you're, you're clear on those.

Yeah. And then I would say of the 80% that are caught, probably three fourths of those are cans of corn. And I do believe I can catch cans of corn without embarrassing myself. And the others, it would mostly be a matter of not having the range and yeah and you wouldn't look as as bad missing those balls like if you if you were running full out and you just couldn't get to them it would be harder to tell that you couldn't get to them

because you were just incredibly slow it wouldn't be like if you have a ground ball hit to you and you actually have to field it you You can't just, you know, not get there because you're slow. The problem is that you would have to run on camera and you look worse running than you think you do. You're, you're, I don't think we appreciate not just how slow we are, but how bad we are at running. I think that we would actually look really silly running, uh, in a place where normally skilled runners run. And I also would be afraid that my arm would be seen. I don't want people to see me throw. And that brings up another interesting thing, which is that embarrassment is such an odd thing,

because say, okay, so say that you, we've never said fart on this podcast. I feel so undignified saying the word. Oh, God. I think I need to for the example. It's okay with me. Say you're in church, okay? Uh-huh. And somebody farts.

Right. And everybody thinks it's you. Uh-huh. Right? That's really embarrassing, and you would not want that feeling. Say that you were in church and you farted, but nobody knew. That's not embarrassing. And you wouldn't mind that feeling. And it is very weird that we prefer to do the thing we consider shameful. And I mean, this is a simplified example. Most of us don't consider flatulence to actually be shameful. But I don't want to get into the hypotheticals that would truly represent shame, because then I'd have to say even more

uncomfortable words. But we would rather do the thing that is shameful, but not be known, not have it be known, than to not do the thing that is shameful, but have it be thought, which is such a weird sense of priorities in our lives. If you replace shameful with evil, we would probably rather be evil and have it go undetected than, like, for instance, I think that most of us, I don't know if this is true, but I think, I'm not sure. Do you think that the average person would rather commit murder but get away with it or be convicted of a murder that didn't happen, that they didn't do? Almost certainly get away with it. Yeah, which is nuts. Yeah.

So that's, and so. The average person might actually murder someone if they could get away with it so that this is now this is a very so that's a very dark assessment of humanity and of ourselves if we think that we fall into that humanity and so the fact that we're talking about being embarrassed uh because of how we run or throw on camera we should by all rights already feel that embarrassment because we know that's what we would look like. And yet we don't.

We don't wake up every day feeling embarrassed of how we would look playing a baseball game, even though we know that we would be horrible at it. We probably should. We probably should all walk around with the secret shame of knowing how many gifts there would be if our team let us play. Yeah, probably.

Because what do we prioritize in this world? We really prioritize. It's crazy. We prioritize what other people think of us, true or not true, over how well we hew to our own consciences. Yeah. That's jacked, man. In many respects.

This is jacked. What a horrible way that we've decided to organize our self-esteem yeah well it depends on whether there are consequences to to being known to have done something if the only consequences is guilt i guess you're saying that the the guilt or the secret remorse should be the greatest consequence of all. Okay, but now what if there was a, would you rather be thought a war hero incorrectly? Like, you know that you're actually Dick Whitlock. What's his name? Dick Whitlock? Don Draper, yeah.

Yeah. Would you rather be incorrectly thought a war hero or to actually be a war hero, but nobody knows it? That one, it seems like you would rather be a war hero, but nobody knows it. That one, it seems like you would rather be a war hero, but nobody knows it. I'm not sure. I'm not sure that the same, that the inverse is true. I do feel like maybe we draw joy from intrinsic assessments of ourselves, but draw shame primarily from external assessments of ourselves. Yeah. Dick Whitman, by the way. Dick Whitman. Thank you.

I wonder though, whether part of the reason why we wouldn't want to be the falsely perceived war hero is because there is a chance of being found out. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There's no upside. You've right. The minute it happens, you have baked in all the good feelings and it is all downside until you die.

Yes. Yeah. All right. Well, so the answer is you're saying yes. I've changed my mind. I'm saying no. I wouldn't do it. Okay.

I would. I'm sticking with yes. No, I would. Yeah. I mean, some people would think ill of you for having done it. Yeah. Others would think ill of you for having not done it. It does look like a cowardly act.

Yeah. It doesn't. But who cares what it looks like is it cowardly apparently we do apparently everyone does right is it cowardly and is it disrespectful and do you prioritize uh bravery over respect and i guess that depends on what type of person you are, if you're an invisible person or a flying person. Uh-huh. Okay. All right. Question from Andrew Patrick, a Patreon supporter. And actually, this is probably not an entirely unrelated question. He says, let's say you are pre-2015 Billy Bean. And on Thanksgiving weekend, you are pondering whether or not to take the Donaldson trade as offered by the Jays. Just at that moment, our old friend Baseball God comes to you and informs you that if you make this trade, Franklin Barreto will be a first ballot Hall of Fame shortstop that you can lock down to a very team-friendly deal. The downside is that Josh Donaldson will win multiple MVP awards after his departure, though

he will not be as good as Barreto. It is also guaranteed that Barreto will not arrive and mature to superstar status for five years, read 2020, due to some developmental stalls and rough injuries. None of the other pieces you obtain in the deal will give you anything more than zero war each year. As you look at your organization, it seems almost certain the A's are destined to be bad for at least three or four years until Barreto can usher in a new era. Regardless of if you accept the deal, your memory will also be wiped of this encounter with baseball God, so you cannot explain your rationale to anyone. Do you take this trade with that information? How much can you trust your organization to keep you around while the team is bad and you have so

much egg on your face? How many GMs have the right combination of job security And poor organizational state To want to take this deal So this is sort of the same question Almost You want to make the right decision If you know that It is the right decision but no one else will know it For several years

So I think there's three questions here One is would you rather How much better does a player have to be five years from now To prefer him over the player today? Okay. Two is how much job security do you have? Does the typical GM have, and how likely are they to reap the benefits of this deal? Three is, does two affect your assessment of one? Are you a GM who thinks that doing what's right for the organization

is enough for you to sleep at night and that you would do it even if you knew it were likely to cost you your job? And it's not irrelevant, the possibility that it would cost you your job. I don't think it... Certainly, I think that... So the question of how many GMs have the right combination of job security and poor organizational state to want to take this deal, uh, which is, um, basically question number two, it's actually, uh, it's not poor organizational state. I think that, that the poor organizations would probably, the GM would be more likely to be fired if they traded Josh Donaldson

for a prospect who isn't clearly good for five years. It's really like, like the Cubs could have made this trade and it wouldn't matter because the Cubs are going to win anyway. Yeah. Right. And it would, it would, they'd have to answer for the trade. They'd have to, they, it would suck. They would be unhappy, happy that they made the trade and people would think, oh, well, we'd be better if we hadn't made the trade. But at least they would survive to live out the upside part of the trade. So how many GMs, I don't know, I mean, Bean is secure. Although that tangent question, is it conceivable that Billy Bean could get fired in the next five years? Can you describe a Bean could get fired in the next five years?

Can you describe a state of the organization over the next five years that would lead to Billy Bean getting fired? We don't know, I guess, enough. Yeah, I don't know. A sale of the franchise, I guess. Otherwise, I mean, he has an ownership stake, right? Well, that doesn't mean he could keep his owner. You can have an ownership stake but still lose your role as chairman or whatever you are. Yeah, maybe.

It makes it less likely. So, I mean, even if the A's are bad for the next five years, I would think he kind of gets to go out on his own terms right now unless there's a change in owner. Yeah, I think that's true too i'm wondering if there's any scenario where that's not true i don't know it's hard it would probably require a level of specificity that we're not imaginative enough to get to but anyway so bean has the security i don't know how many gms do you think are secure enough that they could trade uh you know one win today for two wins in five years and feel confident enough that they could trade, you know, one win today for two wins in five years

and feel confident enough that they're going to be there? Well, maybe anyone who has a president role, if we're not saying strictly general manager, but what general manager has evolved to mean. You mean because those people tend to be more established in the game, or do you mean because the presidency itself is a more secure position? Both. Yeah, you don't get to become a president unless you have built up a good reputation. And once you're there, you're probably doing enough or perceived as important enough that you can get away with a bad move or a move that seems to be bad in the short term. Well, let's rephrase this question. What percentage of GMs today will be, uh, GMs in five years? What percentage will lose their job?

I would say that, uh, maybe 50% will still be there. 50% will still be there. And if you knock off an MVP from their team's performances over two or three of the next five years, then some of the 50% that are still there would drop down into fired land. Yes. I don't think it's 50%, though. I think it's less than that. I would guess it's like 35%. But let's bump it up to 45%. So let's call it a coin flip that you're going to live to recoup the benefits of this trade. So that's an easy answer.

All right. Now, what was the second? What was my first question? How many future wins? Is there a benefit to the trade? If you're trading multiple MVP awards for a Hall of Famer? Well, the premise is that it is. The premise is that Barreto is better than Donaldson.

And of course, he'll be cheaper than Donaldson for the first few years. I mean, look, we have to trust that the point of the question is that Barreto is... If he's not, then this is not an interesting question. So let's assume that he is. So then how many wins, what kind of discount do you need five years from now? How many...

If Donaldson in this scenario produces 30 wins in the five years between now and then how many wins does Barreto need to produce in the six years of service time for this to be worthwhile to you and keep in mind you are losing the cachet of the MVP awards which have some marketing value but you are gaining the cachet of perhaps having a franchise hall of famer yeah which is even further down the line right by which point you might not like baseball anymore. I'd say you probably need like 45, 50 wins. Sounds about right.

That's where I was going. 45, 50. That's like a very good Hall of Fame peak, I guess. That's like an eight-win player. You basically need him to be Trout to want to trade Donaldson for him. Yeah. We're assuming a Donaldson, a version of Donaldson where he's this good pretty much for five years. What if it were, what if it were 20 win Donaldson?

Then, yeah, you know, probably like a 30 wins or something. So you would, okay. Yeah. So you, you're, you're, you need to basically get a dollar50 in five years for a dollar spent today. Okay, good. Now, question three, how many GMs or I don't know, we don't know. We can't look inside their souls. I don't know how you want to answer this, but would the typical GM make that trade?

Let's say the typical GM knew in this promise that he was going to get two wins for every win, two future wins for every win, two future wins for every win, but that he was certainly not going to be there, that he would get fired, that this trade would loom over him and he would be fired. His reputation may or may not be salvaged 10 years later when everybody reassessesto trade to the probably casual fan who only remembers you for being fired. It will probably not. The first line of your obituary

will probably focus on being terminated and not on making one of the great foresight trades of all time. Do you think that the typical GM makes that trade? Well, I think Andrew's stipulation that this person gets the sort of men in black treatment and gets their memory of this interaction with baseball got erased, makes it unlikely that anyone would want to do this. It'd be one thing if you could harbor in your heart the knowledge that you are making the

right decision and that you were always making the right decision. Be another thing if you forgot. Wait, no, but you remember that you were making the right decision and that you were always making the right decision be another thing if you forgot wait no but you remember that you made the trade you remember that you made the trade but you forget why you forget that biff came back with the with the almanac you you forget that you got to cheat yes it's the best world is that you get your memory wiped because now you just think that you were a prophet. Maybe. Yeah, but for that five years or ten years or however long it is. For five years you think you were an idiot. Yeah, so that's no fun. But would you take it?

Plus it could always just be, I mean, you could say you got lucky. I mean, you gave up the MVP and you happened to win the lotto ticket with this guy who turns into a Hall of Famer. I don't know. No, the point is that this is clearly good for your franchise. You've decided that $1.5 per dollar is a good exchange and I'm giving you $2. So for the franchise, this is a clear win. Your owner wouldn't want you to do this. But you're getting fired. But you're getting fired.

You're getting fired and you don't even get to console yourself when you're getting fired by saying that i know i made the right move right no you'd feel lousy the question is i don't think anyone would the typical gm choose lousiness out of integrity no or or if not integrity out of genuinely wanting to see their team win that they enjoy the sight of their team winning and they know that in the long run they are just as a fan of the team going to be happier to have Barreto than Donaldson. Yeah. But will they still be happy to see that team win after that team fires them

because they made the move? Good question. I don't think so. I mean, you'd, you'd feel happy that your reputation was being restored a little bit, but you probably wouldn't be rooting for the team the way that you were before.

I don't think anyone makes this move If they know they're getting fired And they don't get to remember why they made the move Okay Alright Question from Well this is kind of a question Kind of more of a comment from another Patreon supporter

Josh Wilson who says Just listened to the podcast on unfun facts And wanted to submit my opinion that the least fun facts are those that simply ignore changing times. The obvious example is playoff numbers records, such as Derek Jeter's record for most playoff appearances, which whenever mentioned is always followed up by, of course, they play a lot more rounds these days, immediately negating the already highly fortuitous circumstantial accomplishment. Also in this category are any statements about record contracts, since, of course, no headlines about two or three hundred million dollar deals ever sound that exciting if converted to, say, nineteen fifty dollars to compare them to past contracts.

I think they still would. Even if you inflation adjusted new contracts, they would still outstrip old contracts by a good degree, I think. I don't think contracts are fun facts anyway, though. Yeah, right. But yeah, any fun fact that depends on not doing an era adjustment that you really should be doing, I think is not particularly fun. The playoff, I mean, playoff records, I think is not particularly fun. The playoff, I mean, playoff records, it's still, I guess, worthwhile to know who had the most playoff appearances or whatever, even if it's just because they happen to be on really good teams in an era when teams play a lot of playoff games. It's not useless information. It's not that much fun either. But yeah, any, anything like that, where, you know, the league run environment has changed, and you're comparing offensive stats to recent offensive stats or

something, and it's really a different environment, or, you know, anything like that, that's just dependent on cheating kind of is not as fun for me. Most, I think that that one of the cesspit boys made this point but most fun facts that start with has the most and that's the entire fun fact are not actually fun facts they're just facts yeah i get a leaderboard like right i remember they they were making the case that like you know realistically the greatest barry bond's fun fact is he hits 762 home runs, which is more than any player in Major League history. But that's a record. And so, but I do, I agree with the sentiment here. It is true that postseason facts or fun facts, I don't blame the broadcasters.

I think they're worth saying out loud. fun facts. It's, I don't blame the broadcasters. I think they're worth saying out loud. And I think the broadcasters immediate caveats are recognition that, that, that they're giving that we're in a tricky space with playoff records. We don't really know how to phrase them. It is difficult to phrase a playoff record in a way that, you know, neither undermines it nor oversells it. And we do have now 23 years of this playoff format minus the wildcard playing game, but basically this playoff format, uh, 22, how long until we can quit with this caveat and just say, well, a huge part of baseball history, uh, has taken place under this format. And there have been enough Bernie Williams's and, um, and, uh, Joe Girardi's and so on that we don't have to act like Derek Jeter has no competition for this particular record.

Yeah, I mean, at some point when everyone's just grown up with the current system, then you just stop even thinking of the prior system and you stop adding that stipulation. So yeah, at some point it will be a more valid thing that someone has the most playoff whatever's i wrote down a great fun fact from i think opening day it was uh the red sox and it was dustin pedroia reached base in 43 straight has reached base in 43 straight games against the al east which is already complete gibberish yeah but what the reason i liked it is because that is the second longest in red sox history not even a record and this was another one that came with an immediate caveat it was actually was preceded with kind of an obscure note is how they described it which which is what it is. And it's not a fun fact.

It is kind of an obscure note. And broadcasts have room for obscure notes as well. I don't think we need to, like, I'm not in any way saying that they, well, maybe I am, but you say things. I had to do a broadcast for the Stompers, and I got to do a broadcast for the Sompers. It was tremendous, but you say anything you say, I was saying all the things that I roll my eyes when announcers say, um, you know, like talking about, uh, getting the runner over and talking about how this guy

has done against this pitcher and everything. You just say it all. And, uh, and as long as you don't, as long as I, and that's, that's partly because the strain of the activity forces you to be worse than you would otherwise be. So it's not necessarily good that you say all this non, you know, non-important stuff, uh, in a better world where you had, you know, maybe you'd have in a better world, maybe you'd have, you know, you'd edit have in a better world, maybe you'd have, you know, you'd edit the three hour game down to an hour and 10 minutes and only save the good stuff like a Christopher Guest movie. But as it is, you have to say all this stuff because you're just you're trying real hard. You're trying your best. And as long as you're, I think that it only tips over into, uh, into, into, into badness if you're using it to insult people or to, uh, degrade people.

And, uh, most broadcasters aren't. Right. Okay. Play index. Sure. Just, uh, two quick, I have two quick play indexes in fact. All right. Uh, and neither one is a traditional play index.

They're both about, uh about early trends in the season that you can watch for if you want to. The first one was noticed by Daniel Rathman, BP editor and writer, and I apologize if he's planning on writing about this. But, all right, so Daniel noted that it seemed like a lot of players were getting caught stealing bases. And he wanted to know if that, in fact, there was like a 40% caught stealing rate, which is way higher than we usually see in Major League Baseball these days.

What are we at normally, like 74% now or something like that? Yeah, somewhere around there. And so it's like 60% success rate. And he wondered whether this was an early season sort of trend, if it's like 60 success rate and he wondered whether this was a um an early season sort of trend if it's often like this so i looked at um how many stolen bases and caught stealing in each of the past five years in teams first eight games which which counts which collects almost everything that we've had to date. There are a couple teams with nine. There are also some teams with seven. So, of course, this would be 240 games a year.

For 2016, we only have 216 games. So we're a little lower. We're like 10% actually lower than the norm in terms of games played to date under this search. So, in fact, Daniel is completely on to something. There have been 58 caught stealings this year, which is as many as there have been in any year over the past five years in the first 240 games played.

And again, just a reminder, we have not reached 240 games played, so it should be less. But there are as many as there were in 2012 and way more than in the other three years. 58 caught stealings. Last year, there were 53. The year before, there were in 2012 and way more than in the other three years. 58 caught stealings. Last year, there were 53. The year before, there were 40. Meanwhile, in all those years, 140 steals, 145 steals, 136 steals. This year, only 96 steals. So as I put it to Daniel, the norm through this point of the year last year was 29% caught stealing.

It was 40%. I think it might even be higher because as Daniel and I were talking about this, we watched three people get caught stealing yesterday. So let me see. As of now, the caught stealing rate, still it's about 40%. So that's something to watch. Lots of people getting caught stealing and fewer people running as well, but not by much.

More lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of caught stealings. All right. I can't immediately think of a reason why that would be. Nor can I. Interesting. There isn't a good one. Good explanation. The other thing, and it's way too early for a record watch,

but I was noticing one other thing about Rich Hill's performance since he came back, and it's that he's been hitting a lot of batters. whatever that you can go back pretty far. The record for hit by pitches in a season in the non dead ball era is 21. That was set in 1969. And it was not even really approached in any way for a long time, like it took 25 years before anybody else got to even 19? And then in the early 2000s, there was this boom and hit by pitches. And so in 2001, 2003, and 2004, six people hit 20 batters in a season. That is six out of seven in history did it in a four-year period, which is notable. It's pretty interesting. Two other things that make this even more interesting. None of the six did it twice.

So these are six different pitchers who are in the top seven all-time for hit-by-pitches in a season in a four-year period. And two of them were named Zambrano. Two of the six. Anyway, Kerry Wood in 2003 matched Tom Murphy with 21 hit by pitches. That is the modern era record. 21 hit by pitches in a season. Again, it is way too early to say Rich Hill is going to challenge this, but Rich Hill does have that. You basically need two hit by pitches for every three starts in order to tie or break this record. Uh, and Rich Hill hit two

batters in each of his first two games. Only, I believe, five pitchers in history have ever done that. And Hill, even before this, was a hit by pitch kind of guy. In his career, going back to 2007, when he had his first full season. He has thrown 385 innings. He has hit 24 batters. Now that's not a good enough pace to get there, but it is quite high. He did hit 12 in a season and he also hit two in his four amazing starts last year. So it seems like part of what has brought Rich Hill this far has also caused him to start hitting some more batters. And, you know, he's got a good head start on this record. And so, you know, four, four and two starts, he needs two every three, something to watch.

Rich Hill record watch. All right. And you can check on that yourself by subscribing to the play index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. All right. Let's take one from Milos, who says, after how many games into a new season should the Chiron start showing current year stats instead of previous year stats? If there were a way to display both, I would want to say both immediately. I mean, from the second game on, I'm kind of curious about what the hitter has done thus far, even though it's not necessarily, you know, predictive or anything. But I always want to know last year.

And I would like to know, I mean, even a few games into the season, if a guy is, you know, over the season or something, I'm interested. Or if he's had an incredible Trevor Story-like start, then I want to know about that too. So I'd be interested in seeing both for a couple of weeks at least or something. And if both isn't an option and we just have to switch over at a certain point, an option and we just have to switch over at a certain point then i guess i would say uh i don't know maybe i'd make it a plate appearance minimum more so than a day minimum so definitely plate appearance minimum yeah so i guess maybe like uh 30 i also think that there's a difference between rate and counting stats counting stats don't mean much unless you have enough context to know how much they mean. And I don't think intuitively we know whether seven RBIs in the first 17 games is a lot or not.

And so I think I would... I don't know what... I forget what most TV broadcasts have right now, but I assume it's still something like batting average home runs, RBIs, and maybe they have something else on there now. And so if, if we're limiting it to that, I would kind of probably, yeah, I would probably want that more than new stats for quite a bit longer but ideally i think that i would be content to know what a guy's slash line is and how many plate appearances i would want that from day two and if if that's all i can, I'll take that on day two.

Okay. However, if there's room for both, I would not start the full transition from last year to this year until game 15 or so. Uh-huh. Yeah. All right. So it's a tough, this is the sort of thing where I don't really know the answer in the abstract.

I would need to watch it and see how it feels. So this might be, maybe I'll start watching with this in mind and see how I feel when Josh Fagley comes up today and I see his stats and I'll see if I feel like I am happy with that offering or not. I also kind of don't care anymore now that it's so easy to look up a player's stats for current season or past season on whatever other screen you are looking at or that you have within reach as you're watching the game in most cases. Sure. I don't need it.

Yeah, but they're doing it. And the question is, what is the best way to do it? And so maybe that comes into play if you know that the person who actually wants better stats is probably looking for them anyway. And maybe, I don't know, I'm not sure what those stats are doing. What is the point of those stats? Is it to tell you whether he's good or not? Or is it to sort of just prime you for an event? Well, I mean, showing the previous year's stats at all,

the fact that they do that at all suggests to me that it is to show how good you are. Because that's the only reason why you would want to know that, really. And showing the current year's stats is sort of helpful for, I don't know, just like a storytelling narrative context. Just to see how well a guy has been doing heading into this game, whether he's, you know, feeling bad about himself or feeling good about himself. So I think it's a combination of both. But when you show the previous year stats, I think you're essentially trying to telegraph how good this guy is. Yeah. I'm sorry. My answer is unsatisfying. I need to think more about it. Okay. All right. Miles says Rob Rob Manfred, excited by DeepMind's victory in Go, decides to introduce computers

into baseball. He allows the Miami Marlins to employ a pitcher with a robotic right arm such that it is able to throw a pitch with excellent control to any location with great movement and a speed anywhere from 65 to 105 miles per hour. However, the robot requires manual adjustments that are only allowed after each batter has had his turn. As such, it throws to the same general location for every single pitch of a plate appearance. If the pitch is a 98 mile per hour heater up and in, but barely catching the strike zone, the batter knows that it will go to that same place for

every pitch of the plate appearance. It might vary by a mile an hour or an inch of location or two. My question is, is this robot any good? It's probably a better pitcher stuff-wise than anyone who has ever lived, but the batter gains a huge advantage after the first pitch. It has the complete arsenal of pitches that have ever been thrown and can be trotted out every day, though it might go down for repairs. Is that enough that enough well not only does the batter gain an advantage after the first pitch but the batter might know the outcome of the plate appearance after the first pitch that's true if it's a ball you would always take the first pitch you would always take the first pitch you yeah you would oh without a doubt well well yeah why wouldn't you well because if it's a 99 mile an-an-hour fastball right down the middle

and you sit on it, you know you have three chances to hit that pitch. And it might not. But odd or it won't be that pitch. And if it's not, then you get two more chances to hit that pitch if it is that pitch. To sit on it, yeah. To know for a fact it is coming. I don't know.

I think it would be a bad pitcher. I think so too It just depends, if it could throw 135 Then it would be a good pitcher Otherwise it would be a bad pitcher Yeah, if it can only throw pitches that have Humanly been thrown Even if it's every conceivable type of pitch I think

The thing is that off-speed pitches Like the really great secondary pitches Aren't strikes. And even if you had, Syndergaard's slider might be the test of this. If you gave it Syndergaard's slider, but it had to be a strike for it to have any value, but it's right at the bottom of the zone, could you hit it? Or is it conceivable that you could actually throw a secondary pitch that is basically forever unhittable?

Yeah. In the strike zone. I don't think you could. I think that if it were right at the bottom of the zone and away, it wouldn't matter if it was away because then you'd just crowd the play that you'd know was coming. But if it were right at the bottom of the zone, you could convince me that was a hard pitch to hit. But my guess is it wouldn't be a hard pitch to hit if you knew it it was coming. But if it were right at the bottom of the zone, you could convince me

that was a hard pitch to hit. But my guess is it wouldn't be a hard pitch to hit if you knew it was a slider. If you didn't even have to worry about identifying it, if you didn't have to worry about timing it, and if you could cheat on location, my guess is that's an easy pitch. Yeah, I think this pitcher is pretty terrible. I mean, you could never get anyone to chase. You'd always have to throw a pitch in the strike zone because if you threw a pitch outside the strike zone then the batter would just take that first one and then continue taking them until he walked so you could only throw pitches in places where batters can hit them and you lose all of the element of surprise and the element of deception from contrasting from

one pitch of one speed and type to the next. So I think this pitch is pretty terrible. I think he's a very bad pitcher. Yeah. All right. And one last very quick one, which might be just as easy to answer. Eric Hartman says, how good would a player have to be to win the Rookie of the Year award while maintaining rookie eligibility the following year, leading to the possibility of winning the award twice?

So the Greg Jeffries question. the following year leading to the possibility of winning the award twice so the great jeffries question essentially could you be good enough to deserve or to win the rookie of the year award without exceeding 130 at bats or 50 innings pitched or 45 days on the active roster so jeffries greg jeffries finished sixth in 1988 and he hit21, 364, 596 with six homers and five steals in 120 at bat. So basically a 30-30 pace and 1,000 OPS. And he finished tied for sixth, but that's basically he got like, it looks like he got either three third place votes or one second place vote so it's not like there was some like massive movement to draft greg jeffries for rookie of the year yeah uh it you know he got a guy maybe put put it on the it depends a lot on your

competition for the award uh if your competition was that year's Chris Sabo who won it, I think that you wouldn't have to do as much as if your competition was 2012's Mike Trout, in which case probably 130 homers and 130 at-bats would do it. Probably. If that would do it, yes. But let's say you have 129 at-bats in an average year for competition. I'd say if you hit 20 homers, then you'd win. A homer every six and a half at-bats. Yeah, I mean, even if you played at a Mike Trout level for that period of time,

you probably shouldn't win because even if you're playing at a 10-win pace, if you're playing at a 10-win pace, if you're playing at a 10-win pace for a fifth of a season or something, there's going to be someone who deserves the award more, unless you get special credit just for having it concentrated in such a short period of time. Maybe playing at a Mike Trout pace for a fifth of a season is more appealing than playing at a six-win pace or something for a full season. season is more appealing than playing at a six win pace or something for a

full season. I don't know, but I don't think you could do it unless you were incredibly clutch. Like every hit you had was like a game winner or put your team ahead or something. And you know, your team qualified for the playoffs by one game or something. And you, you came up and the team surged with you and looked like it was out of it or it would have to be some sort of really compelling narrative like that because it'd be almost impossible to statistically deserve the award well the other thing is that it's they do it by at bats instead of plate appearances so if if you were to draw an extra 40 walks, for instance, if you had a 25% walk rate, you could play, you know, almost a third of a season, certainly a quarter of one.

And if you were a 10 win player, now that's maybe you're a three war player. And that's, that's not a bad argument for a three win player. Anyway, a two and a half win player. Anyway, that guy's already in the conversation that many worse players have definitely won in full two and a half win seasons. Uh, and so then, yeah, if you were, if you were destroying triple a before that, but you were held down for service time reasons and you know, he gets in the conversation that, you know, well, why should he be penalized? Because his GM's a cheapskate, for instance, I think you'd win. I don't think you'd have to be that good. Just for fun, I pretended that Barry Bonds in 2001 came up as a rookie, just to see what he could do in 130 or fewer at-bats. And I just picked May 1st randomly, and I went until I got to about 130 at-bats, all right? He played 40 games, so it's a quarter of a season. He hit 382 with a 557 on base percentage and a 1049 slugging

percentage. He hit 25 home runs. Now this is Barry Bonds. This is not a normal human, but he actually is a human. Most people don't know this, but he actually was born of woman and has the same DNA that we all do and has proven that a human being can do this. You know why, right? I do know why. So if somebody came up and did Barry Bonds for 40 games, then that would do it. There's no doubt that that would win it, right? If you played 40 games, but hit 25 homers with a 16-06 OPS. Yeah, that would do it.

All right. So that would do it. All right. So that's what, that's the, that's the, that's, that would do it. There's probably a line slightly worse than that. You can do it. I think if you hit 18 home runs while keeping your rookie eligibility, you're good. I'm saying 18 home runs. I don't think that any other stat matters. Maybe if you hit like 480, but otherwise it's just going to come down to the home runs. Do you hit 18 home runs and keep your rookie eligibility if you do you get it all right so that is it for today you can support the podcast on patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and becoming a patron five listeners who have already become patrons matthew whitrock nick willwert dj short jeremy reynolds and brenda block young thank you you can also buy our book, The Only Rule Is It Has To Work,

which comes out on May 3rd. You can preorder it now in hardcover or Kindle or Nook or audiobook at Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore. It is, of course, the story of how Sam and I tried to impose our will on professional baseball players last summer for the Sonoma Stompers, an independent league team in California. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild and rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Keep the questions coming via email at podcastbaseballperspectives.com or via the Patreon messaging system. We will be back with another show tomorrow. Turn it into convention Don't know what I've done But I feel the same