Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 938: Emails, Mejia, and Math

Episode Date: August 10, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about the longest-lasting plays in baseball, then answer listener emails about the Braves with a man advantage, Francisco Mejia’s hitting streak, dealing with Fenway Park poles, new unwritten rules, and more.

We are men at work, we got a job to do. We gotta keep you rockin', keep your soul from the flu. Well, we work all day, and we work all night. We got to keep you dancing Gotta make you feel alright Ten minute workin' Ten minute workin' tonight Hello and welcome to episode 938 of Effectively Wild,

the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by our supporters on Patreon and the Play Index at BaseballReferenceus presented by our supporters on Patreon and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus, who has a quick PSA. Yeah, I could use everybody's help or attention a little bit. I have been searching for the longest play in baseball. There was a play last year that stuck out to me because it took 21 seconds from start to finish, which is an extremely long time for a baseball to stay live because it only takes 15 seconds to circle the bases at full speed.

And so I wondered if 21 seconds was long. I wrote about it. I got some suggestions for other plays and have now bumped the record up to a 25 second play from the moment the pitch reaches home plate until the last batter either scores, stops, or is tagged out. 25.69 seconds. I would like to think that we can beat this still. So just keep it in mind. If there is a play that you have in mind that was extraordinarily long that we can find video for that's fine but otherwise just keep it in mind for the next eight years or so and whenever you see a long play just uh shoot me a note yeah and

the first one the 21 second one was a rundown right and then the the next one was a rundown coupled with multiple errors uh so the yeah well the first one was the triple play that the mariners turned last year um that involved two rundowns uh actually and then the second one that beat it was a three error play where the ball was just going in every direction and then that also got beat by another triple play that was kind of similar to the first one that involved basically multiple, you know, kind of multiple rundowns as well. And I guess that's the only option here, really. There's no other play that could qualify for this kind of length, because even if you have like i don't know uh

inside the park home run doesn't actually take that long even like if an outfielder falls down and the ball rolls around you're just only counting while the runner is rounding the bases right so it takes a comedy of errors or some sort of extended rundown to to make it into this area that's exactly right it takes it definitely takes a comedy of errors to beat 25.69 seconds although uh there there is a play that um i checked that uh was 19 seconds or 18 seconds and that was just josh harrison in one rundown he stayed in one rundown for 18.29 seconds so yeah there's yeah, there's a pretty good chance that the winner will always have a rundown in it, but it doesn't necessarily need to be a comedy of errors.

It could be, I don't know. I guess baseball will have to use its imagination. Would you accept radio submissions? Yeah, sure, if I can time it. What if it's pre-video? What if you're just going by when the broadcaster starts calling the pitch and when he says it's over? Yeah, I'll tell you. I mean, if it's sort of inconclusive, then maybe it will end up being unsatisfying.

But if the radio guy talks for 44 seconds, I'll be excited to hear that. Yeah. Okay. What inspired this search? Is it just that a long play is sort of so antithetical to baseball, which is usually just short bursts of action in between long bursts of nothing? Yeah. I think that what inspired it is the kind of knowledge in the back of my mind that baseballs aren't in play for very much

of the time. You know, like, do you remember a few years ago, I think the Wall Street Journal did an analysis of baseball and also football of how long the play is actually alive. And it's like 11 minutes in the whole game. And most plays take just a couple seconds. You don't notice how fast they are. But you know, a ground, you, but a 6-3 put out is three and a half seconds, and then the play is over. And that's most baseball plays. And so I just remember watching the triple play last summer and being struck by how long it took and how strange it felt to be watching a baseball play for that long. And so then it's just been on my to-do list ever since. Okay. Anything else on the agenda before emails?

No. All right. Then emails. This question comes from Steven. So let's talk about this year's Atlanta Braves. Let's say that we could rewind this season to opening day, where despite each team's 0-0 record, most of the projections had the Braves struggling this season,

which they certainly have. Now let's say that we implemented a rule where only the Atlanta Braves could at all times field 10 players in the formation of their choosing. Be it a five-man infield or a four-man outfield or a shift between these two, they would always have an extra defender on the field. To further assist them, this extra defender would hit in the pitcher spot for all of his at-bats. This extra defender would hit in the pitcher spot for all of his at-bats To be clear, the Braves still have the same 25-man roster So they still have a baseball team full of players that aren't as good at baseball As some of the other teams in the league They just get to pick an extra one to field and bat every game

Using this advantage, as we sit here at roughly the two-thirds point of the season How different do you think the NL East standings would look? Would you expect the Braves to improve greatly on their current record or just marginally? Certainly having an extra defender would save some runs, but not nearly enough to erase a negative 130 plus run differential, right? Likewise, having a position player bat for the pitcher would be advantageous, but enough to pull them out of the cellar in the division. I started out thinking about this question and imagining that the division standings would be greatly altered in this hypothetical scenario, but now I'm not so sure. I'd love to hear your opinions. So off the top of your head, this is actually a pretty easy question that we did. What I'm

about to ask is a pretty easy question that I don't think either of us prepared for. So I'll just ask you off the top of your head, what would you guess a, say, not league average, but let's say a 90 OPS plus kind of hitter is worth over the full season compared to a pitcher hitting? Just hitting. Maybe like two wins. Okay. So 20 runs. Yeah. Could be more.

We could figure that out yeah we could the thing is that pitchers as it is already don't bat that much they usually only bat right twice a game yeah so if you had the same pitcher in the lineup every day that's kind of i was thinking of it as one pitcher but it would be you know every day's pitcher combined so maybe it would be bigger it'd probably be maybe four so think give me a player who you think would be available to these braves as a um you know as a as a freely available dh option somebody like let's just say it's reed johnson okay not active reed johnson but career reed johnson okay okay so reed johnson in his career was a 94 ops plus hitter and by batting runs on baseball reference every 500

plate appearances he was worth about minus two runs okay so we got minus two now i'm going to matt cane who is a career 330 ops and by batting runs on baseball reference every 500 plate appearances he's minus 80 runs okay and so so that would mean if that's true then over 500 plate appearances we're talking about eight wins. Just going from pitcher hitting to, but he doesn't bat 500 times. All the pitchers on your team don't bat 500 times. They probably bat half that, maybe. Probably more than that, but not a lot more than half of that.

Yeah. So let's call that 45 or 50 runs. So four or five wins, yeah. Okay. All right. So that's settled. Now we can do the rest of it so now the Braves are uh what instead of instead of 23 and a half games back they're they're only 18 and a half games back they're they're still in last place now yeah

okay so now you give them a 10th fielder yeah Yeah. And so then that's really the question. How many runs or how many wins is a 10th fielder worth? So if league average BABF is around 300, 295, what would you guess it is batting into a 10-man defense? Choose 60. Well, which one, where are you putting him? Well, it depends based on the batter, I guess, but probably I'd put him in the infield. Okay. Most of the time. So you're putting him in the infield. All right.

So fly balls aren't going to be affected at all, presumably. So other than maybe a pop-up here or there, but basically not affected at all. So you have 27% of batted balls are not going to be affected. And on those 27% of batted balls, you have to be affected. And on those 27% of batted balls, you have all, you know, most of your home runs. Well, obviously home runs aren't going to be regardless. Uh, but you have a 176 Babbitt, uh, sorry, fly balls is I forgot the home runs. So fly balls is a Oh 77 Babbitt. Okay. Uh, all right. And so then you have your line drives and your ground balls, your ground balls, those are all in field and so now you have

five if the babbitt on grounders is currently 243 then what would you guess the babbitt just on grounders is if you have a fifth person 170 yeah i think i would maybe even go lower i mean how many ground balls if you figure they're covering basically 180 feet, linear feet from first to second and second to third. So each, of course, they don't stand right in line, but each of those guys is responsible for 45 feet. Of course, you have the line. And so you basically get to give five feet or so from the line. So, but anyway, 45 feet. So now if you have five people that are now responsible for 36 feet, how many ground balls do you really see get missed by more than nine feet? Plus you have the pitcher up the middle, although you're not going to, you probably would play a guy

up the middle, but how many times do you see a ground ball get missed by more than nine feet? Yeah, not that often. You're still, if you're playing them at relatively normal depth, you're still going to get some squibbers and, you know, swinging bunts and actual bunts that turn into hits. But yeah, you're right. I mean, there's no real hole anymore. There are just small areas that if you spaced everyone out fairly equally, it would be pretty rare that there'd be a ball that no one could get to. Yeah. It'd have to be some really hard hit balls and hit in just the right place.

You also have the reached on air factor though. If you included those, then it would increase Babbitt by about 10 points. So let's say the true Babbitt with those airs is really 10 points higher and those airs would still exist. In fact, it'd be slightly more airs because more fielders would be getting two more balls. I would say that I would put BABIP at like 150. Uh-huh. Okay.

So that would, if you, wow. Yeah. So that's a lot. Like that, if everybody in baseball had five infielders all the time, and my estimate, is it all correct? That would take out 3,800 hits this year and then finally we have line drives some line drives would be caught this would probably would be one of a fairly significant advantage of having five infielders but I don't really know how much Babib on line

drives is 633 a lot of these go over fielders as it is and a lot go past them do I don't know 500 would would you give 500 as a reasonable estimate sure okay and are we uh are we giving are we taking off some bunts it's a small enough number that we can probably just ignore that but presumably you'd have a harder time bunting for hits you would yeah all right so here's here's our new new babb, ignoring bunts. Our new BABIP is 225. 225, wow. 225, yeah. That's pretty good.

It is pretty good. Yeah, so that's a lot. That's mostly singles, so it's not cutting out many of the doubles and triples. But that's a big difference, right? Yeah, sure. It's like all your whole staff is Marco Estrada suddenly. Yeah, exactly. So can we figure out, yes, I think we can figure this out, right? How many ground balls have the Braves allowed so far this season?

I think I can look that up. Okay. Okay, so the Braves staff has allowed 1,444 ground balls so far this season. Okay, so 1,444 ground balls so far this season. Okay, so 1,444 ground balls. And according to reference, they have a 260 BABIP on those. Okay. And what about line drives? Line drives, 742.

And according to reference, they have a 582 BABIP on those. So we're just going to give them the standard 150 and 500. So that would mean that they would have saved 159 hits on grounders. Okay. So those are all singles. Not all singles, but... But we'll call them singles because we're probably being generous anyway. And then 61 hits on line drives. So if they were all singles. Okay. Yes.

Then what do we have our linear weights for those, for 220 hits? Last year, the value of a single was 0.7 runs relative to an out. Okay. So that gives us about 150 or 160 runs. Okay, so that gives us about 150 or 160 runs. Okay, so that is 15, 16 wins. So now we're up to about 20 wins. The Braves are about 20 wins better, we are saying, which means that they would be right on the Nationals' heels, I guess,

because they're 23 and a half back right now. So they would be giving the Nationals a run for their for their money i guess they'd be ahead of the marlins and the mets and that's also some of those hits and things would come at the expense of those teams so i don't know maybe they'd be even better because the braves are disproportionately playing their division rivals so the benefits are disproportionately going to come against those teams so maybe they'd all right in first place right now right the nation The Nationals would have lost a couple of, you know, might've lost a couple of wins. Yes. So they would have a pretty good case as the NL East leaders right now. So are there other benefits or lacks of benefit to having a fifth infielder, do you think? Like, as far as like covering bases, like you wouldn't, like for instance, if you had an extra defender in the infield,

you would be immune from the hit and run because the second, you know, the fifth infielder is probably standing near second base anyway and doesn't have to leave his position. So you have maybe, for instance, instances like that, or maybe you have quite possibly you have, it's quite possible that we're overestimating maybe the gain from having five infielders because they would be overlapping. And so a lot of their coverage areas would start to become redundant.

True. Although it's not like we really had any systematic way of figuring out the 150 number anyway. So who knows if that was even a fair starting point but you know like a lot of plays that a shortstop could make you know that maybe the fifth infielder would make are already being made perhaps and maybe it would be more confusing i'm not sure yeah you you also though but you i mean we also don't have to assume that they're playing a fifth infielder maybe maybe they're playing different places depending on the situation and so maybe some of these doubles would be gone maybe maybe some of the extra bases would be gone i don't know you'd have more fielders available

for relay throws i guess is one thing you'd also have yeah you would also have the benefit of by the way of not having to pull pitchers or pinch hit for pitchers since they're not batting. And so you could use your pitchers the way that you actually would want to use them to get outs instead of having to worry about who's going to bat for them. Yeah, true. You might have, I don't know if there'd be a significant impact on injuries. You might have more injuries because you'd have just more people playing all the time in the field although each individual person would have fewer opportunities to hurt themselves doing

something so i don't know maybe that washes out but okay so so are we calling it atlanta brave's first place team with the 10th fielder i didn't get them to first place anyway I stopped when you said On their heels I'm not quite putting them ahead of the Nationals I'd say well of course they would have traded For somebody at the deadline That's true too So they'd be a better team now

Because they would have been in the race So instead of I could see it I'm not though I have them right now leading the wild card race Okay well either way Atlanta Braves playoff team With their current roster Could see it. Okay. I'm not, though. I'm not. I have them right now leading the wild card race. Okay. Well, either way, Atlanta Braves playoff team with their current roster or something very close to it.

Okay. So if baseball were different in this way, it would actually be pretty different. The other thing is that the Braves lineup is so generally bad that the runs that we gave them for having a dh for their pitcher they wouldn't well it's not just that they wouldn't have reed johnson although that might be true i'm guessing though that you could get a reed johnson today if you needed to for a million bucks i mean especially as a dh you don't have to worry about his feeling at all but i'm more saying that the runs that a basic model gives his offense might be, his offensive value might be lower just because he's generally not going to have many guys on base in front of him and he's not going to get driven in very often just because the players around him are so bad. Okay, question from Paul Garrity, a Patreon supporter. He says, my son and I go to Fenway Park a lot, and usually our seats are

behind a pole. Each of us has a preferred seat based on which player, first baseman, second baseman, etc. They miss watching the least. If you had to choose, which player would you choose not to see because you are sitting behind a pole in Fenway Park? Logan Morrison. Logan Morrison. Which player would I... That's a... I would generally say... That's a tough one because...

I would generally say a corner outfielder because... Yeah. Because the crowd is going to tell you very clearly and immediately what is happening. And so if the corner outfielder can't catch it, the crowd is going to erupt. And then you get to watch the action, which is the runner anyway. The runner maybe going to second or maybe going to third. And so you're probably getting the most information if you don't see the left fielder or you don't see the right fielder, but you can see the rest of the field. However, the stakes are lowest if it were like the first baseman, right?

Yeah, because the first baseman is almost always going to catch that ball. Yeah, exactly. There are very few instances where you need to see the first baseman to know what's happening. And the first baseman is also probably very rarely going to give you the memory that you'll take home. You know, the first baseman is not going to make the diving catch most of the time. On the other hand, the call at first, the close play at first, is something you want to see. The base runner, if you can't see the base runner

because you can't see the first baseman, that would be a problem, although I'm assuming you can see the base runner, but it would be weird. So maybe third base would be better than that. How about catcher? Although then, again, if you can't see the catcher, you have to assume that it's going to be annoying to try to watch the hitter. Yeah, you can't see the pitch. So I think it comes down to either third base or right field.

And I'll say third base. Third base probably touches the ball less than any other infielder. And yeah, third base. Okay, yeah. And maybe if you have Nolan Arnauto over there or something, maybe you want to watch him. But maybe it differs depending on the day and if you have some star you want to see. But I think that's right. I don't know.

I might go for a left fielder or something on the whole. But one of those two makes the most sense, I think that's right I don't know, I might go for a left fielder Or something on the whole But one of those two makes the most sense I think Anyway, you and I are going to a game in Fenway Park This weekend So maybe we can test out our theories then Alright, question from Nick I was thinking about this as I saw Francisco Mejia have his hit streak rise In the minors

If an average caliber baseball player Such as Jordy Mercer went on a tear and had a hit streak Of 55 games and was ready to tie Or overtake Joe DiMaggio's streak Would MLB tell umpires to make Bad calls and ensure the streak remains Basically, would MLB Tarnish a streak so that an average player

Doesn't hold the record that a Hall of Famer Does currently By the way, Mejia's streak I believe is still active And is up to 48 games, which is a modern minor league record. Wait, he has a 48-game hitting streak? Yeah, he hasn't had a hit list game since May 27th. Oh my gosh. He's in high A, the Carolina League.

Oh my gosh. Pretty impressive. The question is, if you're the Indians, have you purposefully not promoted him because this streak means something? Well, he's, yeah, that's true. I mean, you could promote him to the next level and it would still count. Oh, he actually, this is across multiple levels. Oh, it is. Okay.

Yeah, he was promoted 24 games ago. Even more impressive. So he's had half of it at a higher level he'd never been at before. That's amazing. Just to, I mean, but adds to this question, people are suspicious. Like, no, of course they wouldn't. No way would they, like they would be risking, I mean, certainly dozens of people, including the commissioner would be at risk of losing their jobs, perhaps going to jail. I don't know if that would constitute fraud. And really tarnishing an entire generation of baseball that they were working in service of and perhaps threatening the very existence of baseball as a big four sport for just to keep Jordy Mercer from getting a hit streak.

No, they would. I think that they would. And also, by the way, this would be like huge ratings, huge attention. This would be a big story. Baseball would love this. Right, they would love a chase. Now, would they like somebody other than Jordy Mercer to do it? Yes.

And would they like Jordy Mercer to fail on 55? That's another question that you could ask. If secretly they would like him to get to 55 and stop, we can answer that. But would they actually commit fraud in opposition to Jordy Mercer playing a fair game of baseball? No. Goodness gracious, no. I kept waiting for this email to then caveat like a parentheses. I know, of course, they wouldn't, but I'm just curious about the thought experiment. But he doesn't, like he keeps getting more and more suspicious. Yeah, right. It wouldn't happen. And by the way, I mean, it might be worth mentioning that DiMaggio had some help during his streak. From everything I've read, there were some very questionable

official scorer decisions during the streak that may have helped extend it. And Jordy Mercer or any modern player would probably have a tougher time just for that reason. I think there's less hometown scoring now than there used to be. Have it held by someone Who is a baseball legend but You know it was many many years ago And it's all Black and white and it's old and maybe You know the new generation Doesn't it's not real to them In the way that it would be if we actually Saw it happen with a current player However unremarkable otherwise

So I don't know I think if I were The commissioner I'd probably Just want the new guy to do it Even if the new guy wasn't a superstar I'd much prefer it to be a superstar But I don't know I mean if you get to 55 Then you've gotten most of the benefit of it anyway

So I guess there's a decent argument For having the legend hold the record And just being able to get Most of the publicity value out of this anyway. All right. So let's say that the standard game that Jordy Mercer plays is viewed by 60,000 people. Okay. By the time he gets to 40, how many people are watching every at bat in your opinion are watching it live? I'd say like only 80 or something. Like I don't think it's much higher.

I think, you know, maybe people are reading about it, but they're not tuning in. Okay. By the time he gets to 50, how many people are watching it read back? Or watching, at least watching some of the game. Yeah. Part of our original 60, you know, whatever qualification got us to 60,000. How many are watching at 50? 250.

Okay. At 55, how many people are watching? So he's got 55. He's going, well, he's got 54. He's going for 55. Yeah. I think it's like an exponential increase. So I would say like, I don't know, uh, like 5 million, something really big. I was thinking like 800,000 for 55. Now, 56, I would say maybe 5 million. 57, higher or lower than 56? I feel like I would be less interested, I think, about 57 than 56.

I don't know if that makes any sense, but I, yeah, I'd say about the same. Probably if you're interested enough to watch at all, you're probably watching for the tie. So I think about the same. Okay. Now 58. I'd say it falls back down to like a million. Okay. 60. Yeah. I wonder what the shape of this would be because that's what i'm going for uh because like at some point you would think that it would maybe tick up again like when you start wondering if this guy is just a wizard or something uh i'll say 58 and 60 are roughly the same i'll say it just i'll say it stays fairly level for indefinitely. I think, I think it's fairly level.

So you think a million people are watching game 75? No, at some point, even though it gets more and more amazing, I think we'd be less and less amazed. So probably like by the time he gets, I don't think it's, it's never going to go back down to 60, I don't think, unless he's, like, doing it for years or something. But, you know, within the realm of possibility, I mean, this is barely within the realm of possibility as it is, but I'll say it stays at, I don't know, like, maybe 400,000 or something. Okay. Yeah. Last one, 135.

Yeah, I'm going to say it's back down to like 80 or something. Yeah, okay. That sounds right. All right. Okay. All right. You've already done a lot of research for this episode, but play index? Yeah.

I don't know if you saw, but I wrote a piece yesterday at BP on, well, I wrote a piece about Ken Giles striking out 23 batters over his previous nine innings of work. And then I got to wondering if that was a record. First piece was sort of bemoaning the fact that we don't even notice reliever dominance in the right way or in any interesting way. But then Rob McCune helped me figure out what the record is. And I tracked the record through time to see what it was before Ken Giles, what it is since Ken Giles. Anyway, long way of saying that I looked up the most strikeouts over nine inning

stretches by various pitchers since 1950. Okay. And one of the interesting things that I was not expecting to find, but that I noticed, was that the record was 21 for a long time. Until 1999, the record was 21. And a bunch of pitchers had done that, including Dick Raddatz, who as a reliever in 1965, struck out 21 in a nine-inning stretch and seems to be the first person who had ever done that. And the next person who did it, so he was a reliever, which would make sense. He was amazing. Yeah, he was amazing. Yes. And so then the next person who did it was Nolan Ryan, who's a starter. And then another reliever, Ron Davis did it and then starter, starter, starter, starter. And then, so through 2001, seven people had done this, and five of them were starters. And that sort of struck me as interesting, because as I get closer,

as I get higher, once I got to 22 strikeouts per nine, which is the record that Billy Wagner set in 1999. It was reliever, reliever, reliever, reliever, reliever, reliever, starter. So only one starter out of seven has ever done 22. Who is that? Corey Kluber. Okay. And then that was broken in 2011 by Kenley Jansen, who struck out 23 batters per nine, Kenley Jansen, who struck out 23 batters per nine, and other players who've struck out 23, reliever, reliever, reliever, reliever, all relievers. And then this year, somebody else,

Edwin Diaz, did 24, which was the point of the whole thing. And Edwin Diaz, of course, is a reliever. And so it used to be that the biggest strikeout stretches, even across multiple appearances, were starters, and now it's relievers. And I wondered about that, and I think I realized that it's because good pitchers simply weren't funneled into relief the way that some types are now. Like, I would imagine that 30 years ago, Kenley Jansen, Ken Giles, Aroldis Chapman, Delon Betances would all be starting. They might be bad starters. Some of them might have flamed out. Some of them might have gotten hurt. Some of them might have been great. Some of them might have been bad. But if you threw like them,

you probably would have been a starter. They would have kept trying to figure out a way to make it work. And so relievers actually are coming from a better pool of pitchers these days as we increasingly allow relief work to be a worthy occupation. Fair enough estimate? Yeah, I think so. So then this got me thinking about how strikeout rates for relievers have changed relative to strikeout rates for starters throughout history. And so I went back and I looked at starter strikeout rates per nine for each decade and reliever strikeout rates per nine for each decade. And there is a very, very straight line upward where relievers strike out a higher ratio of batters relative to starters.

So it used to be that relievers barely strike out more batters than starters at all. In the 1930s, relievers struck out 3% more. In 1940s, they struck out 4% more. In the 1950s, they struck out 4.5% more. This is a perfectly straight line upward, by the way. Not a straight line, but a direct line. In the 1960s, they struck out 6% more. In the 1970s, they struck out 9% more. In the 1980s, they struck out 13% more. In the 1990s, they struck out 15% more. In the 1970s, they struck out 9% more. In the 1980s, they struck out 13% more. In the 1990s,

they struck out 15% more. In the 2000s, they struck out 16% more. So relievers have always struck out slightly more than starters, but every year they strike out an even higher rate relative to their starters. And this has finally stopped going up. And this year in particular, although in the last few years, but this year in particular, reliever strikeout rates are much lower relative to where they have been. Relievers have only struck out 11% more batters than starters this year on a rate basis. And for the decade, it's at 15%, which would be the first decade that it's ever dropped if it holds. And it looks like it will hold because the last four years have all been going down. It went from 18% more in 2012 to 15% to 15% to 14% to now

this year, 11%. So relievers gain or lead on starters has dropped. And the reason that I bring this up, the reason that this was interesting to me is that starters, it feels to me like starters have been maybe, well, okay, we've talked about how the giant strikeout leaps over the last decade and a half have been, were mainly tied to relievers and not starters. That starters weren't striking out a ton more batters than they used to. They were going up, but not as much as relievers were going up. And this doesn't really make sense when you think about how the role of the starter has also changed. And they're no longer asked to go as deep into games. They're no longer asked to throw as many pitches. And they ought to be able to air it out a little bit more, and particularly to not be quite so concerned about pitch efficiency and to not be so concerned about pitching to contact in order to get early outs in at-bats. If pitchers, starting pitchers are kind of aware that they're,

the expectation is no longer that they throw nine innings, they ought to be able to pitch more for the strikeout than they used to. And it feels like maybe they weren't doing that, that that lesson had not actually clicked in starters yet, and they were not pitching more for strikeouts, that they were still holding on to this lingering strategy of getting early at bat outs that was becoming a little bit more and more outdated. And if that were the case, then you could imagine that at some point it would click in that maybe at some point when starters are, they are aware that

they're only going five or six innings on average, which this year in particular, innings per start are down, that they would have a big strikeout bump. And so if you're worried about the strikeout rise in baseball going ever upward, there was almost like this tinder that was waiting to be lit, which is starters realizing that, hey, they can pitch for strikeouts too. And when that happened, there might be this potentially untapped strikeout pool waiting to be released. And so maybe this is the year it's happening. Starting pitchers are striking out 7.7 batters per nine this year, which is up from 7.4 last year, which is up from 6.7 just seven years ago. It is by far a record for starters and seems somewhat significant.

Yeah, it does. Someone, my friend Will was asking me earlier today if it's possible that in today's pitching climate, the strikeout could become overrated because it isn't pitch efficient. And when you're limiting starters workloads as much as teams are, then, you know, maybe making those pitches count becomes even more important. But I would think that given the size of bullpens today, teams would still just rather have their starters pitch for the strikeout and only last five or whatever it is. And between having tons of relievers and recognizing the third time through the order effect and all of that stuff, I would think teams would and maybe the numbers show that they are, you know, happy to have their starters go for strikeouts. And even if it means that they have to leave the game early because there are maybe better options anyway that is an interesting point by will though that the new reason to be

pitch efficient or the new reason to want to throw fewer pitches is not about getting deep into games but about getting deep into seasons and about getting deep into careers uh-huh true that's a that's a very interesting idea from will right right? Yeah Like if you Have him write something about it for Baseball Perspectives I should, I'm going to email him Okay So we are finished with Play Index You can do your own Play Indexing Using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30

On a one-year subscription when you sign up at baseballreference.com All right, question from Tom Who says, after hearing you guys Banter about unwritten rules and replay In close proximity on Monday, I'm wondering if there are any Unwritten rules regarding managers' challenges For example, if you're up 8 in the

Ninth inning, is it unsporting to challenge A close play at first? I would like To know if it's possible for baseball as a whole to Collectively formulate unwritten rules to React to new phenomena. If so, what Are the most recent additions that you can think of? And there was an example of managerial replay challenges coming up in relation to unwritten rules earlier this year. It was in late May. The Cubs and the Cardinals were playing, and the Cubs, Joe Maddon challenged late in a blowout, and he challenged a play at

first. And of course, Joe Maddon challenges a lot. That's something that he's done the last couple of years, and it seems to have worked out pretty well for him. So he did that in a blowout. And then the next game, Mike Matheny of the Cardinals played the Cardinals infield in in a blowout. Also, the Cubs beat the Cardinals 12-3, and yet Matheny was playing the Cardinals infield in late in the game. And there was a tweet from Jesse Rogers, who covers the Cubs for ESPN, and it says, Madden assumed the Cards played the infield in in the ninth last night, basically in response to him challenging the play at first in a blowout. So apparently, at least Madden assumed that there was a reprisal for his challenging a play in a blowout, is that Matheny played the infield in in a blowout. So that was kind of a fun unwritten rule story.

Unwritten rules off. Yeah, right. So I love that. Unwritten rules story. Unwritten rules off. Yeah. Right. So. I love that. I love the idea that instead of retaliating by hitting someone with a baseball, you retaliate by violating unwritten rules and slightly shaming them back. Yes. I like it a lot. That is really phenomenal.

I love that. Me too. From now on, that's what they should do. If somebody pimps their home run then the whole team steals bases up by you know nine runs the next time you face them right yeah like you just steal all the bases yeah so that steal home steal home with up by nine and i don't know does anything else come to mind do you any other recent i meanflipping and that kind of thing has become more of an unwritten rules issue lately, I think. I think that regarding managerial challenges late,

managers challenges late in games, whether it's an unwritten rule or not, I think that it would be fair to expect managers to respect the viewing audience. Like I remember watching uh when i did my uh worst game of 2012 it was a uh it was an indians game and i remember just being so mad at terry francona bringing in like five pitchers in a four out stretch up by or down by like nine and it was it was like the eighth or ninth inning it was like an 11 to 2 game and he was playing matchups and i don't know if i consider i mean i guess from an unwritten rules perspective maybe that's a violation but it just seems like common decency that like is it an unwritten rule that you pay attention to ben won't understand this reference but that you pay attention to the stoplight so that when it turns green, you go and the person behind you doesn't have to honk.

I mean, is that an unwritten rule? It's like you just generally try to stay out of people's way as much as you can. I've tried to stress this to my daughter. But to me, one of the real great goals in your life as a person in this society is to just not be in people's way in any way, like literally but also figuratively. Just let everybody – you should not stop somebody from getting to where they need to be in their life. Very libertarian. So it's not intentionally. It's more personal responsibility.

Uh, so if you're, uh, if you're a manager and you're the, the replay is, you know, not really necessary to, uh, the competitive aspect of the sport, uh, you could probably just let it go. I think the reason that you might do it anyway is that your obligation is first and foremost to your team and your shortstop wants that hit on his record. Yeah. And so that's fair going to be my response i would think that it's probably more important to you to have your players feel like you're protecting them you're looking out for every extra hit than it is to please the greater number of people who are watching but don't work for you. Yeah. All right. And I guess we can just wrap up with one quick thing.

David in Ottawa emailed us to respond to episode 937 about A-Rod. And we touched on this in the episode that Jeter was kind of this exemplar who was held up all the time to point out A-Rod's failings. And A-Rod didn't do this as well as Jeter. You know, he didn't manage his private life as well as Jeter. He didn't succeed in the postseason as much as Jeter. He didn't, you know, whatever, treat the media the same way as Jeter, whatever it is, there was always Jeter. We touched on this, but David really wanted to dwell on it. And he wondered whether if you could remove Derek Jeter from the record and there's no Derek Jeter, how would that affect A-Rod's perception right now? Would he be less reviled? Would he be

beloved? Would it not make that much of a difference? I don't think it would make much of a difference. I wrote one time about A-Rod in a piece that has disappeared from the internet because the score, the Canadian website, the score, did a redesign and ate all of the work that I did for them. So I sadly can't refer directly to it, but I wrote a piece one time about draft picks and first overall draft picks. And I had a section about A-Rod in which there was this article from when he was in high school. And the writer of this feature on him in high school noted that everybody in the stands hated him. Like they were all booing for it. They were booing him. They wanted to see him strike out. They would cheer when he struck out. And like at this point, A-Rod was like just a 17 year old who was the best player for his age in the world. He didn't have a public

persona. He didn't have, you know, obviously Derek Jeter to, uh, to compare him to. He didn't have, uh, a contract. He was just a high school baseball player who was really good at baseball and everybody around him hated him. And so I think that there was just some negative charisma about A-Rod that doomed him from the start so the cheater thing i think is it possible that a rod boosted cheater maybe maybe the only thing i can think of is that because they were so closely linked all the time and they were good friends for a while at least you know until reportedly cheater was miffed about some comment A-Rod made, and that kind of hurt their relationship. But unless A-Rod felt some added pressure to perform or to ingratiate himself because he was close to Jeter and he saw Jeter winning people over more than he was.

more than he was. And so if that played into whatever lack of self-confidence or need to be loved or, you know, whatever it is that he had that made him do certain things, then, you know, maybe he would have felt less pressure to take PEDs or, you know, whatever he did. I don't know whether he did those things because he wanted to be loved or because he just really liked baseball and wanted to be the best that he could and played as long as he could. I don't know what was going on in his head. But it's possible, I suppose, that having that comparison made all the time just kind of fed into whatever complexes, you know, made A-Rod do what he did. Yeah. I think this is probably a topic that's best explored using barely concealed fiction

Like different, you give them different names And yet everybody knows, like, you know, like There needs to be the, you know, the good wife of Cheater and A-Rod Yeah, I'd watch that I'd watch it too Okay All right, so we will leave it there. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild.

Today's five listeners who have already pledged their support to the podcast are Nicholas Karsner, Carl Sandrich, David Rifkin, Brett Larder, and Seth Resnick. Thank you. You can buy our book, The Only Rule Is It Has To Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. Check out the website at theonlyrulesithastowork.com, and please leave us a review on Amazon and Goodreads if you like it. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild, and please keep the ratings and reviews coming on iTunes. You can email us at podcast

at baseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. If you want more me, I did an episode of the Ringer MLB show this week. I spoke to Brian Cashman of the Yankees and David Stearns of the Brewers. It's always hard to get a GM to say anything interesting on tape, but I think they were both occasionally candid at least. So you can check that out if you're interested. The song you're listening to right now is called Say Good Night by Earth Girls, a Chicago band fronted by Effectively Wild listener Liz Piniella. Liz let us know this past weekend that Earth Girls put out their first full-length album, and Sam and I have been listening to it a lot since then.

We really like it. It's good kind of poppy punk music. Garage pop is one label a person could apply. Whatever you want to call it, it's really catchy. It's really good. Go check out the album, which is called Wanderlust. Support your fellow Effectively Wild listener at earthgirls.bandcamp.com. Sam and I will be back with another show later this week.

Talk to you then. Say goodnight, but only for a while Say you'll love me for a while Take your time, but don't ask me why I don't want to take your mind So you hold me, so it goes I know what I'm chose I walk away

Like he wishes that you beg I stay to watch his ball But tonight there's nothing I can do To make you love Bye.