Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 864: A Too-Soon Search for 2016 Trends

Episode Date: April 18, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Rich Hill, Jon Lester, and the no-longer-winless Braves and Twins, then discuss some possibly premature evidence that the game has changed since last season.

Get me back on my feet again, back on my feet again. Open the door, set me free, get me back on my feet again. Good morning and welcome to episode 864 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspective, brought to you by our supporters at Patreon, as well as the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller, along with Ben Lindberg of FiveThirtyEight. Hi, Ben. Hello. How are you?

I'm okay, thanks. Excited to start a new week with a full slate of podcasts. Yeah. Well, thank goodness Rich Hill gives us a running start. Rich Hill had his worst start of his recent return. Very wild. Lots of base runners, lots of runs. If I can, I'll pull up the exact line, but it was ugly. And I am now dropping down to two years. I'm dropping my contract offer to two years. I'm saying two years and $18 million. So I'm under $20 million as well in guaranteed money that I'm willing to give him last offseason. There's a weird time paradox here where every start brings me further into the future, and yet I'm still having this

conversation from the perspective of last offseason. Yeah. But that's irrelevant. That's a costly start. He should have accepted your previous retrospective offer. He really cost himself. He went four and a third, allowed nine hits, three runs, and three walks. Struck out six, but, you know,

had to face 24 batters to strike out those six. And it wasn't, I think that I'm leaning toward, like, he won't have to do too much to get more money put on the table. But, you know, that's two bad ones. He's had two bad ones. Just couldn't repeat that release point. Probably, perhaps. I's had two bad ones. Just couldn't repeat that release point. Probably.

Perhaps. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in other news, the two teams that we talked about on Friday, the two teams that were at the time winless, are undefeated since our Friday episode. The Braves and the Twins both swept this weekend.

I would say that as sweeps go, they were not convincing sweeps. The Twins swept the Angels and the Braves swept the Marlins. So not the best competition and the margins of victory were not wide. They were about as narrow as they could have been really. Of the six games, there were three one-run victories, two two-run victories, and one three-run victory. So they didn't exactly blow them away, but still an incredible reversal in fortune for those two teams that started the season 0-9. So just so I'm clear on the math here, they're now 3-9? That's right. Okay, because you sounded more excited than that.

Well, I mean, one win. They were desperate for one when we last spoke, and now they're just rolling in wins. They're three and nine, right? They are still three and nine. Okay. I believe they're still both in last place. Okay. But still a great improvement in their fortunes.

I won't call it a total reversal, but an improvement. All right. I won't call it a total reversal, but an improvement. All right. And another thing, another running effectively wild theme of last season, we got our first John Lester throw of the season. This was not a pickoff attempt, but a throw he was forced to make by a bunt by the Rockies' Brandon Barnes. And it was, I guess, a typically Lester result.

He did get the out, but it took every inch of Anthony Rizzo to get it, and every second that he possibly could have used to get the out, he bounced it a couple times over the baseline and into foul territory, and Rizzo stretched out and managed to record the out just barely. And so clearly his problems with throwing the first are still around, and it really reinforces for me how fascinating a story this is for multiple reasons that we've talked about before. I mean, one, just your basic yips related fascination is, I mean, it's not unprecedented,

but it is always incredible when someone has this problem, when someone whose job is to throw a baseball and who is among the best in the world at throwing a baseball is not even close to the best in the world, throwing a baseball, is not even close to the best in the world throwing it to a different base, throwing it at a different angle or at a different speed. I mean, when Jon Lester is throwing from the mound, he is one of the, I don't know, 30 best people in the world. And when he is throwing to first base, he is worse than you and I are, basically. So it's an incredible disparity. He's not, by the way, he's not just worse than you and I are, basically. So it's an incredible disparity.

He's not, by the way, he's not just worse than you or I are. He is the rare instance of an athlete who looks like an impression of a bad sports act, which is very rare. I mean, obviously there are people who are better or worse at every aspect of every sport. And then there are people who are genuinely horrible. Like, there are free who are better or worse at every aspect of every sport. Sometimes, there are people who are genuinely horrible. There are free throw shooters in the NBA who are genuinely bad free throw shooters, who

shoot 40-some percent. If you and I were told for our improv group, imitate a bad free throw shooter, we would look artificial and unnatural. The ball would bounce off the top of the backboard, and we wouldn't hold it right and we would, you know, the ball would bounce off the top of the backboard and we wouldn't hold it right. We would do everything wrong. We would look like, you know, the Ministry of Funny Walks for free throw shooting. And John Lester has managed to throw like that impression of a bad thrower when he has to throw. Like it is completely unnatural. It's completely like sort of convoluted in how he even attempts it.

And I think even more incredible than that is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. Two for four on stolen bases this year. Yeah, it doesn't really matter that he cannot complete this basic act of baseball. And I don't know whether Brandon Barnes was trying to exploit this weakness. It was, I mean, against any other pitcher, it would not have been a good bunt. It was basically right back to the pitcher. But in this case, that makes it an excellent bunt. Any bunt back to Lester is a high percentage play, it seems. And yet we still think of Jon Lester as a really good pitcher.

It's not even like that this very obvious and basic weakness hasn't kicked him out of the league. It's not like we're talking about, well, he's managed to hang on. It's that he is still an elite starting pitcher. It really hasn't hurt his reputation at all. Maybe it hurt his performance a little bit, but not really. I mean, last season was essentially as good as any of his previous seasons, even though he gave up a ton of stolen bases, right? The most stolen bases ever allowed in a season by a left-handed pitcher. It still just didn't matter that much. It's like this very handed pitcher, it still just didn't matter that much. It's like this very obvious weakness that you'd think teams could and would exploit. And they have exploited it to some extent, but you'd think not as much as they could have. And the degree to which they have exploited it

just almost hasn't affected him. I mean, theoretically, he would have been even better last season if guys hadn't been able to run on him so much, but it didn't affect him. I mean, he was still very much a man that Cubs fans wanted to see on the mound. It's incredible. Yeah. It's the most, it is the most interesting part of baseball in this era. All right. Well, what less interesting part of baseball would you like to discuss? I want to do our annual why, how baseball is different this season. Okay. Otherwise known as things that appear to be trends, but mostly are not. Yes, that's exactly right. So I'm going to describe for people who have joined us in the last 363-ish days, I'm going to describe some statistical phenomena league-wide this year that show a notable,

one would say convincing deviation from recent years. And then we're going to talk about whether they're real, whether they're specific to the early season, or whether they are flukes and that they will reverse. And if you're playing along at home, just an important thing to point out if you're playing along at home, sometimes you've got to – these are basically shifts that happened since last year. They are often shifts that – shifts from century you know from a century of of baseball uh normalcy uh but the shift happened in the last year so if the answer that you're thinking of is something

that can be tied to the change in the game over the last 30 years uh that's not what we're talking about we're talking about a change in the game since six months ago in most cases and why that might be. All right. So are you ready? Yes. So this is, in fact, the first one is a good example of what I, of what I was just talking about. All right.

Sacrifice bunts, Ben. Yeah. Not just an all time low. And in fact, I think last year we had sacrifice bunts on here as one of these. Because every year we set a new all-time low. That's not notable. People bunt less than they used to. Managers call for fewer bunts than they used to. You used to have about a half a bunt, a half a sacrifice per game.

And that's been going steadily, very slowly down on the order of like, you know, maybe one 50th of a bunt per game every five or 10 years to the point that last four years ago, we cracked the, the point to the, you know, we got under 0.3 months per game for the first time in, in 2013, there were 0.28 months sacrifices per game in 2014. There were 0.28 sacrificesunt sacrifices per game. In 2014, there were 0.28 sacrifices per game. In 2015, there were 0.25 sacrifices per game, which is a giant drop, relatively speaking, from one year to the next.

Three hundredths of a bunt per game is a big drop. This year, Ben, 0.15 sacrifice bunts per game. It is dropped from 0.25 to 0.15 sacrifice buns per game it is wow from 0.25 to 0.15 huh that that would probably be the the biggest single season jump ever i suppose oh by a lot yeah by a lot i mean a drop of 300 let's see i'm not sure i can find i found a drop of four hundredths from.41 to.37 in 1982, in 1983. And so that might be, and then you have the DH drop, the first year of the DH, of course, it dropped by.7. So this is actually a bigger drop than taking pitchers out of the lineup in half the league. Wow. than taking pitchers out of the lineup in half the league.

By the way, by percentages, it's even bigger, because back then, that was one-seventh of Bunce that got eliminated. We have 40%, Ben, of Bunce have disappeared overnight. 40% of Bunce have disappeared since last September. And I can't say I miss them. Can't say baseball is more boring without them. Every five minutes I'm tweeting, you know, where's the bunt? Where are all the bunts? Why am I even watching?

Right. There should be a red zone network for bunt situations. about the decline in certain tactics that seem counterproductive. And, you know, it was sacrifice punts and intentional walks and pitch outs. And all these things have become less common, and it really hasn't affected the product at all, if anything. I mean, there are ways in which maybe you could argue that baseball has become more boring with all the pitching changes and all the strikeouts and all that. We've talked about that on the show many times. But in this sense, in losing intentional walks and sacrifice punts and pitch outs, it doesn't seem because it's doing away with these things as long as they exist to some extent. I think the fact that they are options that some people pursue does make baseball a richer tapestry of a sport. I think there's just more variety in what you see on the field.

But these are among the most boring things you can see on the field unless you are sacrifice bunting to John Lester, which isn't really a sacrifice at all. So there are a few possible responses when we talk about these early season trends that could be, you know, small sample and I think it will end up going the other way or small sample and I think it's about right or small sample and I think it is a change in the right direction, but probably a little bit overblown. And this seems like the last sort of reaction is appropriate that this is the way that sacrifice bunts have been trending for years now. And it makes all the sense in the world that they would continue to, but it does seem like a giant jump for one season. I don't know if we could account for this. It's not as if some really prolific bunt calling manager left the game last year and was replaced by someone who never bunts

or something, or I don't know, maybe that happened. I don't think that happened. There are new managers and new managers, and new managers maybe tend to be more anti-bunt than old managers in general, but it still seems like a difference you couldn't really account for just with changes in personnel. Yeah. Let me just give you a little bit of evidence, I think, that suggests that this is real, especially real. And you mentioned it. You mentioned that intentional walks is another one of this category of moves that you lumped together in your argument that, what did you say, sabermetrics are killing bad strategy? Yeah. Yeah. Certain strategies. I think you said bad strategy. I think you had a headline there. Yeah. I may also not have written it.

Yeah. So intentional walks are also down significantly. Also, you know, record low, but, you know, it's gone from 0.2 intentional walks per game last year, which was a record, to 0.17 this year. So we're talking about a drop of 15% year-over-year in intentional walks per game last year, which was a record, to.17 this year. So we're talking about a drop of 15% year-over-year in intentional walks. And I would just think that it doesn't quite, as I've written about, intentional walks don't really correspond necessarily to any philosophy perfectly. But you would sort of, you lump them together, I kind of lump them together. To me, what we're talking about, if this is real, is essentially these are the same thing. This is front offices finding a way to have their philosophy reflected in the dugout, whether that is hiring the manager that they want to have tactics that they approve of, whether it is having liaisons and bench coaches

that are more of a voice of the front office in the dugout, or whether it's sort of doing the Clint Hurdle thing and basically calling the manager in in the offseason and saying, this is the way that you keep your job. The other way is the way that you don't keep your job. Now get to it. One way or another, if this is real, what we're seeing is that this off-season, through a combination of these three factors, front offices are getting their way on tactics more often than not. Now, if this turns out to

be small sample fluke and that it completely goes back to normal, then it would be the opposite. It would be a conclusion that that didn't happen this offseason. Or I guess that maybe you could also plausibly argue that, in fact, front offices are comfortable with the amount of sacrifice bunts and intentional walks that we had last year and that they don't want to change it. My guess is that they do, and my guess is that this is fairly real. I wouldn't expect it. I also wouldn't expect it to be a 40% drop in bunts at the end of the year,

but I will be surprised if... I guess there's also the possibility maybe... I don't think this would be enough to... I'll finish that thought, by the way. But I don't think there's enough to move the needle that much, but it's also possible that since starting pitchers don't pitch as deep into games early in the season, they're getting fewer at bats and therefore there are fewer sacrifices. Yeah, that's possible. Right. We are comparing last year's full season rates to this year's first half of April rates. So it's not quite apples to apples.

so it's not quite apples to apples. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I would be surprised if the number starts with a 2 at the end of this year. I think we're going to crack the teens, which would be significant. If that is true, if that holds up, it will be the biggest drop year over year in this stat in absolute value since the DH left and by percentage value in history. Yeah, I mean, I was not the only one who's written about this. Other people wrote about it this winter. I think Tyler Kettner might've had something about it in his season preview piece recently. And it's been noticed and no one really has pushed back. It doesn't seem like

anyone is really lamenting the loss of these things. And to be clear, we're not recommending that people eradicate them completely. There is still a statistically sound place for these tactics in games. It's just much rarer than it was at one time, and maybe then it still is. But I mean, a lot of people have pointed it out and there hasn't really been any backlash. No one is starting a change.org petition to save the sacrifice bunt, as far as I know. No one really misses it. Even, you know, old school people or people who grew up when it was more common and got attached to that brand of baseball, no one really seems to miss this strategy. And so maybe there is kind of a Gladwellian tipping point where everyone, you know, it sinks to a level where everyone just realizes, okay, well, it's fine. No one objects if I no longer do this. No one asks me an uncomfortable question in a press conference about why I didn't sacrifice bunt there. No one expects me to. So I don't have to do this to keep up appearances. And, you know, players come up and

they see that veterans aren't doing it. And so they don't feel pressured to do it. And maybe all of that sort of stuff could snowball and just come together in a single season where there's a gigantic jump. But I don't know, I would expect, would expect it wouldn't be as jump, but I don't know. I would expect it wouldn't be as big, but I wouldn't be surprised if this does turn out to be the biggest drop ever. That is a really good point. That was, I think, always seen a decade or 15 years ago by BP writers, that there was sort of a performative aspect to a lot of these small ball in particular old school strategies that maybe the manager genuinely wanted to call that bunt or bring in his closer but maybe he was just very subconsciously uh aware of which one was more likely to get him called onto the carpet

yeah by the media or whoever after the game and so so, yeah, that's a, that is interesting. This this way that getting rid of these stats feeds itself and makes it a safer place for a manager to, to not do these moves. And you have to figure, I mean, I don't know that to some degree managers want to call for things like they want to justify their place in the dugout by making moves. And a sacrifice is one of the few things that they can call. On the other hand, you have to figure that to some degree also, a lot of them feel like we do, which is a little bit of a disappointment that they have to give away and out

and that they would rather shoot for the moon and let the guys swing away. And I would imagine that a lot of managers have called for a lot of bunts and always felt a little bit of emptiness in their hearts while doing it. Just because it feels so cautious. It feels so safe and cautious. Who wants to live that way? Not all managers are safe and cautious types. I'm going to give you one last little bit here because I looked it up while you were talking and it's especially shocking.

My early season caveat that maybe it's the weather or maybe it's the pitchers not going as deep, you know? So I looked at in teams' first 10 games going back to 2010, how many sacrifice bunts are there in teams' first 10 games, and the drop is probably even bigger now if you look at just the first 10 games. In 2011, there were 112 in teams' first 10 games. This year, there are 49.

Huh. Wow. And the lowest year before this was 73. So a drop of about 40%. Okay. So there you go. Yep. All right.

Next one, Ben. Yeah. Grounded into double go. Yep. All right. Next one, Ben. Yeah. Grounded into double play. Okay. All right. So there are 0.72 ground ball double plays per game this year. Last year there were 0.77. And on base percentage is pretty comparable.

It's a little down this year, but by very little. And probably if you looked at just April, you would find that on base percentage is a little down this year, but by very little. And probably if you looked at just April, you would find that on-base percentage is actually up slightly this year because that is one of those things that goes up as the year goes on. So I don't think that fewer runners on first is a factor here. But ground ball double plays is the lowest that I can find since 1991. can find since 1991. And the lowest in recent history, not by a ton, there are years, not by a lot. In fact, there are some years where it goes up and some years where it goes down. Generally speaking, though, over the last

six, seven years, you see about.76 ground ball double plays per game. And this year it's.72. And this one is somewhat relevant because I forget who it was, but I saw somebody blaming the shift for there being fewer double plays. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Somebody was talking about the shift, Ben.

All right, citation needed. Yeah, I forget. It says citation needed, yes. I forget who said it, but I saw somebody talking about the shift. Maybe I just heard an announcer talking about it, but it is true. Ben, why do I need to cite anybody? We had this experience. We had to try to figure out how to put on a defensive shift while also having a plausible plan in case of a double play. And it's not always easy, depending on where you put your middle infielders,

to have a guy who's there to take the throw, especially depending on which guy it's hit to. And so it does seem plausible to me that the shift would be costing teams double play opportunities in the field. And so I guess what I'm bringing this up to see if it seems plausible to you and also whether you've written that or have read anything about that. I don't think I've written or read that. I did notice when I checked a day or two ago that shifting rate was up very much yet again. I guess that's another trend we could talk about. I can get those numbers. But that doesn't make as much sense to me.

What about Utley rule ramifications? Oh, well, you would think that would raise the level of double plays. Yeah, I guess that's true. What about no neighborhood play exemption anymore? Right, yeah, that would decrease it theoretically. It would, although it's not like you and I have both watched enough baseball to know that there's not an outbreak of neighborhood plays being called against defenders. Like, I haven't seen it yeah

i will also point out that the shift uh last year was the huge spike in shifts league-wide and ground ball double plays went up from the year before and also from the previous five years before so if there was a real disadvantage to the defense in turning double plays with the shift, it did not in any way show up last year. And so it would be a little bit of a stretch to claim it looks like shifts are actually on pace for their largest percentage increase, if not ever, at least for a couple of years. Yeah, at least since 2014. Last year, it went from 13,300 to 17,700, which isn't actually that big a jump. It seemed like it might be slowing down. Like maybe everyone who was going to shift had decided to shift already, but the numbers at least still suggested that people hadn't reached the optimal shift rate. And it looks like this

year, uh, so last year was 17,700. And right now teams are on pace For 30,300 Which is Really, yeah, I mean it's almost Almost doubled from a pretty High level Real increase in Broadcaster backlash to the shift too

I'm hearing a lot more Broadcasters talking About how It's being overused. I think that there's a tendency to, well, I think this is maybe the biggest misunderstanding among broadcasters. They'll say, to just throw a random example out there, let's say that Joe Panic was being shifted, which I don't think he is, but let's say he was. And then the broadcasters go, well, see, now this is where I think it's gotten out of hand. I

mean, Joe Panik, he's not a dead-pull hitter. I'll see him. He's got power to the left center field gap. You saw him yesterday hit a double into the left center field gap. Well, there's a difference between fly balls the other way and ground balls the other way. And they're not shifting the outfield, most likely. They're the in-field defense. And I think that that is still a misunderstanding with broadcasters. They don't know the difference between a ground ball the other way and a fly ball the other way. And hitters have defined tendencies that are different on the ground than they are in the field. So I'm hearing that, and I'm also hearing the, well, you know, a good hitter can adjust,

and partly that is bemoaning that more good hitters aren't adjusting, and partly it is critical of the shift as a strategy. Like, I think there's a feeling that the league is simply going to adjust, that this is a temporary bump in shifts because the league as a hive mind, collective offensive hole is going to figure out that all you have to do is go the other way. And maybe I think a lot of people feel that way.

I think that you probably used to feel that way, right? A little bit. And then you, you and Chris, in particular, Moshe, wrote a lot about guys trying and how much the defense adjusts back and all that. And you more or less feel like, for most hitters,

adjusting is somewhere between difficult, impossible, and not all that productive, even if you can do it successfully. It's definitely taking longer than I expected. At the same time, Tommy Lyons, our mutual friend and the Stompers' former first base coach and still a player in the Pecos League this year, he texted me the other day to ask whether I thought

the shift would be as effective if it had been implemented earlier at some point in baseball's history. If people had started shifting in, I don't know, you know, the seventies or the eighties or something, would people still be shifting? And on that kind of timeline, it still seems improbable that shifts would be as effective as teams at least believe them to be now. It's just taking longer than I thought. By the way, Joe Panik has been shifted according to BIS in 7% of his played appearances this year.

Another possible explanation for the drop in double plays is that strikeouts have spiked. They go up a little every year. I don't think they've gone up at least a little every year since 2005.

And last year was pretty flat though. Last year was the smallest increase. It went from 7.70 to 7.71. Uh, although, uh, that is slightly undersold by the fact that there were slightly fewer plate appearances per game as well. But yeah, last year was basically flat, but it did manage to keep that trend line going up. This year it's up by a half a strikeout per game. Wow. It's gone from seven, I'll just read the last, I'll read this decade. 706, 710, 750, 755, 7 770 771

8.21 we are now in a world where 8.21 strikeouts per nine is average wow yeah shouldn't be mind-boggling but it still is and so to put that in perspective Bob Gibson

one year Bob Gibson struck out that many, Bob Gibson, one year, Bob Gibson struck out that many batters per nine. One year. I think that we went over this last year, too. Partly, it's an April thing, right? Because, for one thing, hitters are at a disadvantage. For another, isn't Velo higher in April? No, it's lower.

It's lower? Mm-hmm. Okay. Hmm. Okay, so then that wouldn't be a factor. More innings being thrown by relievers in April, and presumably more pitchers healthy in April. Yeah.

Because they've had the whole offseason to get well. I know that there's the Tommy John spike in the spring, but those guys aren't there in August either. And so it would just make sense that you would have more healthy pitchers in April, I would think. Although maybe you have dead arm guys in April too. I think we talked about this last year and it regressed, I think. I might be wrong.

But this is a big, big, big spike. Do you think that this is going to, at the end of it, are we going to look back and see this as a significant year? Well, I think we've talked about how there has historically been a tendency for strikeouts to just keep climbing unless someone counteracts it, unless someone changes a rule and suppresses them. so there hasn't been a rule that I think would suppress them unless the, you know, I don't know whether the strike zone is any different this year. Obviously the growing strike zone has been a big part of the increase in strikeouts over the last several years. But yeah, I mean, I don't see any reason why the apparent pause last year would have been any more real or lasting than the so-called global warming pause. So I would expect the climb to continue. I don't know why this year would be any bigger

than a jump in a previous year, but it wouldn't shock me. I'm going to play index real quick and see how april normally compares just to confirm that i'm remembering any of this right so i'm going back to 2000 i'm looking at total spanning season i'm doing mlb teams together and i'm choosing split type by months and i'm doing strikeouts per nine it actually looks like normally the rate goes up. In fact, the highest month is September. The second highest month is August. Then the third highest is April, March. The fourth highest is July.

Fifth highest is June. Sixth highest is May. So strangely, this is sort of odd. I don't know if we've ever noticed this, but it is a perfect straight line up from May to September, with the lowest strikeout month being May and the highest being September. And every month that you go, it goes higher, except randomly April is in the middle.

And that's going back since 2000. So that is to say that there is something funny about April, which makes sense. Maybe it's just as simple as hitters don't have their timing yet. that there is something funny about April, which makes sense. Maybe it's just as simple as hitters don't have their timing yet. Hitters haven't seen really, truly live pitching yet. And so maybe you get an April bump, but that April is not usually the highest. And in fact, more or less, roughly speaking, April is about what you should expect the season

to be. So if there is the April effect that I described that works exactly how I described it, then you would expect it to be the most notable in the first dozen games or so. And so it is still possible that this is a early April effect. It's also possible that there is no April effect and that we are about to see it go really crazy. I mean, I think that we would agree. Like, we expect strikeouts to go up. Everybody expects the strikeout trend to go in that direction. It's simple incentives for both the offense and the pitching defense. But if it jumps a half a strikeout at this point, I think that you are going to have, I mean, it becomes obligatory

for every single person you read to write about what the trend means to them and their family. And so get ready, perhaps, for the year of the strikeout think piece. It might be, like we had one a couple years ago. Even more so than the last few years have been right exactly we had one a couple years ago i think this year might be the real year like saber might actually have to have to introduce a new category for its annual award contemporary

analysis history and strikeout era think all right. All right. All right. I've got a few more, but they group together nicely and they're actually sort of quite a bit different. Okay. And so I'm going to wait until tomorrow. Oh, all right. So save your banter. We'll banter tomorrow

and then we'll do the second half of this, which is a little bit of a different one. And that'll be fun. Sounds good. Okay. So that is it for today. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Today's five patrons who have taken that plunge, Tom Elmer, Brennan Jordan, Lane Maddox, Andy Young, and Kevin Seale.

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