Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 947: Cy Young or Bust

Episode Date: August 31, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Shohei Otani, then answer listener emails about running the Rockies (with a twist), a Kershaw dilemma, a time-traveling Ubaldo Jimenez, umpire park effects, and more.

What I know now, I wish I knew then I may have had a clue on what to do then I may have gotten out of these bad situations Running around town with no destination I stay alone, skip the stone From the known to the unknown Heating fires, spinning tires, getting even And for a while, I made you smile

Saw the voodoo in your child Hello and welcome to episode 947 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast of Baseball Perspectives, presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives. Hello. Howdy. We did an email show today. Anything to get to before we begin? I had something... no. Okay. Quick Shohei Otani update. Since we did a podcast about him on July 8th, I think he had about 150 plate appearances at the time, and now he has just over 300, and the numbers have very much held up. He's hitting.333,.435,.631 through 301 plate appearances with 20 home runs and also a 2.02 ERA. So wasn wasn't a fluke. It wasn't a mirage.

Still really good. Yep. And Adam Gutridge, who's a friend of mine, used to work for the Brewers, and now he helps run the projection system, NAFE. He's a consultant to some teams. He wrote a post for Fangraphs about Otani today and looked at the projections and ran some numbers

and translations across the league and that sort of thing. You can go read it for the details, but the conclusion, and this is sort of looking at his peak projections, was it does not seem out of line to suggest Otani could be an MLB all-star on both sides of the ball. This is more distinctly true on the pitching side, where he could legitimately be a frontline starterter than it is as a position Player but Otani now also looks Like he could be one of the best hitters in baseball If he focused his energy on that side

Of the ball of course the more interesting Question is what he could do in the big leagues if he didn't Have to choose and whether he might really Be a potential two way superstar in MLB based on what he's doing this Year the question isn't as absurd As it might sound It doesn't sound absurd as it might sound.

You know, can I tell you, it doesn't sound absurd other than the 150 years of baseball history. Like, it seems perfectly normal that a great hitter would also be a great pitcher and vice versa. Like, it really does feel like Otani is just finally bringing logic back to baseball. Yeah, right. I mean, obviously that's not the case. Obviously, it's very difficult to do both and to baseball. Yeah. Right. So, I mean, obviously that's not the case. Obviously it's very, it's very difficult to do both and to develop. I think the key thing is it's very difficult to develop both, uh, in a sense. I mean, are we, we're not going to talk about Tebow, are we? I wasn't planning on it. I just, I don't want to talk about Tebow, but I need to use Tebow as an analogy. Sure. Go ahead. The fact that Tebow was able to put on a credible showcase, despite not playing baseball at all in 12 years, and having never

played baseball at a very high level, just based on him being a good athlete is, you know, pretty amazing and tells us something about incredible athletes. Like there's the incredible athletes are incredible athletes. And, you know, most baseball players are great, great athletes. So, you know, I think I guess if I were, I almost hate to say this because while I'm saying it, I'm being inspired to write a great baseball piece. wanted to, like if you were an economist or something, and you want to prove the value of player development, it'd be pretty easy to do so just by showing pitchers offense and looking at the way that, you know, that like the sort of vast underrepresentation of pitchers among the game's great hitters. And so I forget where I was going with this, but, oh, yeah, I was saying, I mean, obviously, Otani is incredible and amazing. And yet, you know, if you were designing the sport, you would probably expect a lot of Otanis to be.

It's sort of weird that we had to wait 100 years to get our second guy, like our second Babe Ruth. Like once every 100 years feels wrong to me statistically. Yeah, well, you'd think maybe there's a bias against it. Babe Ruth. Like that's like once every hundred years feels wrong to me statistically. Yeah. Well, you'd think maybe if there, maybe there's a bias against it. I mean, you get forced into doing one or the other usually. I mean, usually it's very clear which one you should be, but there might be some guys who it's not totally clear, but they get pressured to pick a side basically just because no one is able to do it ever. And so you don't really give someone a shot. But I wonder how many people that's true for.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's take some emails. This one is from Michael who says, I'm an eccentric billionaire, hypothetically. I actually got my hopes up. I know. So did I.

I know because the way that Gmail like cuts off the... it shows you the first line of the email that just said i'm an eccentric billionaire so excited i think that we must have one listener who's an eccentric billionaire right it's about time that one of them gave us money to do something but no the next word was hypothetically and he continues who just bought the rockies i don't care about winning a world series i hire you both to run the team with the understanding that i only care about one thing cy young awards in your contract you're guaranteed 50 million dollars each for every cy young a rockies player wins under your watch i believe in you both and will guarantee any number of years you want to accomplish this how do you do it and how soon so yeah all right

where do you want to start well the first the first thing to do is to act to tell him it'll take 30 years to ask for a 30 year contract well sure because if you can get away with that yeah well he says he he will guarantee any number of years that i want to accomplish yeah yeah right so that that's a good start who's the high is that uh is marvin uh marvin um demetrius bell wrote a piece for hardball times last week about marvin freeman who finished fourth in 1994 which is a season of marvin freeman's that i just 100 do not remember like i don't yeah like i could name the good Rockies pitchers, I think, you know? Like, you had the Armando Reynoso years, and you had the Ubaldo years, and various pitchers were good, but I just forgot Marvin Freeman.

So, but I think he's the highest finisher. I'm checking Ubaldo, because Ubaldo, there was about a two-month period. He finished third. There was about a two-month period where I would have probably taken Ubaldo over any pitcher in baseball going forward. Like, I thought he might be the, like, he had, he threw harder than any starter in baseball, and he also got more ground balls. Like, he had more sink than any pitcher in baseball. And that just seemed impossible to top. But we're off track now. Yeah, well, no,

it's good to know how close someone has come. So, Ubaldo finished 19-8. Is there, no, it's good to know how close someone has come. So Ubaldo finished 19-8. Yeah, maybe there's a lesson in Ubaldo, but he finished 19-8 that year with a 2.88 ERA, a 161 ERA plus, 222 innings. Yeah, how deserving was he by, say, war or warp or whatever? I'm wondering whether if you take the park adjustments into account, he actually was the best pick or something. He was the second. He should have finished second by baseball references war. He's narrowly behind Roy Halladay, just above Josh Johnson, and then Adam Wainwright, who finished second. Halladay won, Jimenez finished

third, and Adam Wainwright finished second, and he was below Jimenez by about a win above replacement. So it can be done, right? Someone has come extremely close, so close that he could have won it and no one would have been all that shocked. Yeah. So it's possible. So to give you the best chance of doing it, the team doesn't care about winning. So you don't have to worry about hitters. You can just go full replacement level on offense if you want. You have to care about defense to a certain extent, or you probably should. So you could just stack your team with a bunch of the best minor league fielders who can't hit at all, basically, would be one way to go about it. Just trade for every team's defensive specialist who can't hit

and will never make the majors or will never be that valuable because he can't hit, can't play regularly. But you can play him regularly. So you stick him in the big outfield and cores and you hope that he catches lots of fly balls. So that's one way you could do it cheaply. And all the money you save on doing that, you then apply to the best free agent starters, I suppose. Well, I mean, another way to do it would be to just, like the reason Marvin Freeman got close is that he was 10 and two in a strike shortened season.

So if you wanted to, another way you could do it would be to spend all your money on offense, have a team that could score nine runs a game, spend literally zero money on any, have a team that could score nine runs a game, spend literally zero money on any other starting pitchers, and maybe you only have one good reliever, like one fireman reliever who you save to protect your guy's lead. So all your money is invested in having the best offense in the game, one ace, and one reliever to protect his leads.

And then maybe he goes 22 and six, and it doesn't really matter what his BABIP is. Yeah, I don't think that would work anymore. I think the voters are too smart now. That's the problem. It's getting harder to just be a win-loss record Cy Young Award winner. So you actually have to be good now. How many starts do you think a pitcher could make if you never started him at home if you just said you're going to be our road pitcher and you're going to start the first game of every road trip and then we'll get you you know as many as we can on the road but you aren't starting any at home like 27 you think you get him 27 yeah maybe okay so if you did that well of course then he's got only while there's no

core stats in there it's all road stats and road pitchers are worse on the road people wouldn't appreciate that they would actually probably dock him because he yeah they would definitely dock him yeah when in fact he should be getting the opposite of docked because he's pitching on the road all the time which is hard to too. So that wouldn't work. And of course, the way I'm talking is, okay, I've got one good pitcher, but maybe you spend all of your money on, like maybe you just, you draft nothing but pitchers. Yep. Definitely your early round picks all pitchers. Your early round picks all pitchers.

Really your late round picks probably all pitchers too early round picks all pitchers your really your late round picks probably all pitchers too because you you do need to have a credible bullpen to save those wins and i think those wins are going to matter and well although then you're costing yourself runs so maybe i have to now say that those wins don't matter to keep my to keep my position uh all right so yeah your early round picks all pitchers your international signees all pitchers every everybody that you have there's no everybody that you have is you're going to, all pitchers. Your international signees, all pitchers. Everybody that you have, there's no, everybody that you have is, you're going to trade for pitchers. If you have some, if you luck into somebody valuable, you're trading them for a pitcher.

Yep. Okay. So just, you're just collecting pitchers and hoping that, that's it. You're collecting pitchers and hoping that one survives. Pretty much. And then, and then whatever investment you make in your position players, it's on, it's, it's on the defensive side. You're trying to keep runs down.

You're not particularly caring about his win-loss record as long as he doesn't allow many runs. Do you change the ballpark? Well, it's hard to know which change would help in Coors Field because you're kind of out of luck either way because you bring the fences in, there are more home runs, you send the fences out, then the BABIP, which is already the highest in baseball, gets even higher. More foul territory. Yeah.

You could do more foul territory. You could. So, yeah. Okay, so you do more foul territory. That's on the margins, literally. Yeah. And if you did something like build you know, build a giant wall, then I don't think anyone would really give the pitcher credit for that.

Everyone would be focused on the park effect. Okay. But if you build a giant wall, I mean, there's something about Coors that wrecks pitchers too, that it's not just a matter of us figuring out how to put their performance in perspective, but it seems like something wrecks them, like the strain, the stress of it. that it's not just a matter of us figuring out how to put their performance in perspective, but it seems like something wrecks them, like the strain, the stress of it. I mean, obviously there's the effect on the spin of your balls that is a problem that you can't do anything about unless you create some bubble over it. So you can't do anything about that.

But you certainly, I mean, don't you think that if you Allow fewer runs That would be good for the pitcher in a General sense, less strain I guess the thing is that if you're allowing Fewer home runs but more Doubles, that's still just as many Stressful innings

You know, more working with Runners on base and all that Maybe a home run is actually. But you give them a little bit more freedom to pitch in the zone. They're not as terrified. Yeah. It's just if you do something really ostentatious like that, it's going to be gimmicky. Everyone's going to say, oh, well, he's only posting these numbers because the Rockies have a 50-foot wall now.

So I think that just gets you automatically ruled out. Hmm. What about trading? What about getting all of your resources together and trading for a guy at the deadline who is in line to win the Cy Young? Just the best pitcher in your league. Can't do it every year, obviously, because a lot of times that guy's on the Dodgers. But some years you could. So the best pitcher in your league who's on a non-contending team. Probably not many years. How often would the Cy Young Award winner get traded? I guess it happens.

Do you think that your odds would be better if... Obviously, relievers don't win Cy Young very often. But would your odds be better that if you went and got Chapman and Batances and Miller, do they hold up better? Do you think in a way that maybe they could, you know, one of them could still get 50 plus saves, maybe have the best season of his career, and less likely to just be completely worn down by Coors Field in the way that starters are? Yeah, maybe. There is that Coors Field fast ball theory that fast balls are less affected by the altitude. And so if you're someone who throws fast fast balls and throws a lot of fast balls, then you'd be in luck. So you could just

get some reliever who throws tons of fast fast balls, and maybe he wouldn't suffer the same effect that someone else did but if you have five of those guys then do they split the vote yeah you probably wouldn't want five of those guys you'd only have one of them collecting saves maybe you'd only get one of them maybe you'd have him in some like super deluxe fireman role so that you could get to 100 and you know if he got 115 innings if you had do you think if dell and baton says through 115 innings, do you think if Delon Batantes threw 115 innings, he would be a regular Cy Young contender? How many innings does a reliever have to throw for voters to take him more seriously than your standard reliever? Well, I think now, if you got to triple digits, people would really pay attention to that just because it would be such an outlier.

He threw 90 with a 1.4 ERA two years ago And did not get a vote Yeah, when Mariano Rivera threw 107 in 96 He was third place in Cy Young voting But maybe sentiment has shifted enough since then That that wouldn't happen Or it wasn't quite as huge an outlier as it is today. So on the Rocky, if you had the Rocky's budget,

if they're not giving you increased budget and you have 10 years and this is the only priority, do you think you could get it done? Yes. I don't. Okay. I think you could. If you could just punt on offense, I think you'd have a huge advantage. If you have a decent payroll, if you can devote twice as much money to pitching as any other team, really, if this is your single-minded goal, I think you could.

Now, could you get anyone to come play for your team is also a good question, right? Is also a good question, right? We're just assuming you can sign or trade for anyone. But if you're the team who is not trying to win a World Series, you're just trying to win a Cy Young Award, then I'm not sure anyone would want to play for you. Unless you have Clayton Kershaw available to you, I'm not sure that I would take this incentive-based salary for any team over five years. I'm not sure you couldbased salary for any team over five years. I'm not sure you could do it for any team for five years. If this same eccentric billionaire ran the Angels, do you really think you could get it done in five years? And again, Kershaw's off the table. You can't have Kershaw. Well, I guess it depends how much of the eccentric billionaire's fortune he's willing to devote.

Not more than he is currently. Not more. All that is changing is your focus. I think in five years, no, in 10 years, I think so. Yeah, I think in 10 years, yes, I agree. But Coors is obviously much harder than if it's the Angels. So that's why I'm still not, even with the, even in 10 years, I'm not willing to go there with the Rockies.

I think you. 10 years is enough time too that all of your early draft picks have developed. So I think you could do it. Yeah. Okay. All right. So give us a call. Hang on though.

Just curious. Would you, are you sure that you would draft pitchers? Yeah. Okay. I think you would. I don't, I haven't thought this through. Never mind. Go ahead.

You could do the Cubs model, just get position players because you think they'll be more valuable and then trade them for the pitchers you want, you mean? Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, yeah, you'd probably though, you'd probably rather pay a 20% premium on those pitchers or maybe even a 60% premium On those pitchers to let another team Develop them so that you're only picking from the good ones Yeah that's the Cubs model and that's what I was Kind of thinking

Alright question from Ryan I was listening to Vin Scully Call Thursday's Giants-Dodgers game And he mentioned that the teams play their final Three games against each other this naturally Got me excited about the potential dream Matchup of a returning Kershaw versus Bumgarner on the last day of the season for the division. This then led to an argument with my friend about the value of the division versus a potential

wildcard game. Let's say your rotation was made up of a healthy Kershaw plus four league average starting pitchers, and you were tied for the division lead going into the final day with a loser clinching a wildcard spot. Would you rather run out your ace for the division and take the coin toss in the wild card game or take a coin toss for the division with your ace waiting for a wild card would love to get your thoughts plus whatever additional variables sam would like to add in hmm hmm oh okay interesting question yeah i think the benefit of kershaw in the last day is that if he pitches in that game, he's able to come back. If he pitches in that game, the final game, and wins, he's able to come back to start probably game two of the division series, and you get him in two starts. So that's really great work on your part if you do that.

The benefit of, and then, you know, if he wins, then you avoid the wildcard game. And if he loses, well he wins Then you avoid the wild card game And if he loses well he might have lost The wild card game anyway But on the other hand You don't get the wild card game Wait you still get the wild card game You've guaranteed the wild card game right Now if you

And the benefit of not starting him Is that you can win without him There's a decent chance that you'll win that game anyway without him. And then he's available to start game one of the division series. So that pushes him up a little. You might get an extra start out of him in the postseason. Maybe. Possibly. You don't know how it's going to play out, but you might get an extra start out of him in the postseason. So the wildcard games last year were Tuesday and Wednesday, and the division series started on Thursday, Friday. So if you start them on Sunday, if this is the NL, the NL's division series didn't start until Friday. And so you could start them on

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, have him on regular rest on Friday to start game one, regardless. So if you're the NL, or if you're the team that has the later start, the AL started a day earlier, so it might actually be different. But if you're starting on the late cycle, then you would have no reason not to start him on the Sunday game. Because the benefits of him winning are roughly the same. They get you to a division series instead of a wildcard game. Although I guess one thing is that if you're going to a division series, if you know for a fact you're going to a division series, then you'd actually probably would rather have the wildcard game because that's, that's like, uh, that's money, right? You get paid money for

that. No, you don't get paid money. The whole league splits up a pool of playoff revenue, I believe, depending on where you finish. So I think that the World Series winner gets a share of that wildcard money as well. So I don't even think that there's a benefit, a financial benefit to hosting a wildcard game. So you start them Sunday, you start them Sunday, you start them Sunday. I I agree or I see no reason to disagree Alright The other thing by the way is if you start him Sunday And the wild card game is on Wednesday It's his throw day you've got him potentially

For an inning or two in that wild card game Anyway potentially Yeah possible Alright well this one actually mentions 2010 Ubaldo in it, so I'll answer it. This might be simple. I'm not sure. But it's from Tim. He says, My friend and I were discussing this as we watched the Orioles starting rotation give up run after run against the Astros.

Imagine a scientist has designed a time machine to go back in time and grab a single person from the past and replace the current version of that person on your active roster. How much would you pay to grab 2010 Ubaldo Jimenez from the Rockies and replace the current Orioles version? You could keep the 2010 Ubaldo on your roster for the remaining five weeks of the season and the entire playoffs. But at the conclusion of the playoffs, he will turn back into current day Ubaldo. So I don't know if there's a more obvious answer than, well, let's think.

Ubaldo is a good one because the Orioles are in it. But if you had to pick any player, forget the team context, forget where they are in the standings. I think I have an answer off the top of my head. Well, I think I have multiple answers off the top of my head that would be better than switching Ubaldo's. Yeah, it's got to be Pujols, right? It would be Pujols, right. I mean, I think it would be Pujols. You're talking about a nine-ish win swing by Warhol.

Although, honestly, Ubaldo's about a nine-ish win swing too from 2010 to now because he's well below replacement, right? Yeah, I would think so. You could also make a case for Jared Weaver if you were looking at pitchers you could let's see somebody who's is there somebody who's

hurt I mean nobody was better than Albert Pujols nope right so but he's also he's not totally worthless now though either he's a contributor on a team. You know, A-Rod. A-Rod? Right.

Well, A-Rod's not active technically. He would be. He would be if you had two thousand and... He's not on an active roster, so you can't replace him with his old self. But other people, like... But I think that's a... It's definitely Pujols, yeah. So that turns out to be kind of a, I think it's definitely poo holes. Yeah. That's so that's a kind of, that turns out to be a kind of a boring question because

it's sort of obvious who was the best player. Who's not good anymore. All right. Now, given where teams are of the, of the, whose playoff odds or whose championship odds, I should say, if every team got to do this with one guy, whose championship odds right now, do you think go up the most? Yeah. whose championship odds right now do you think go up the most?

Yeah, so the pool of potential teams here probably Orioles, Dodgers, Giants, and some wildcard teams basically, I guess. So do the Dodgers do Puig? Blue Jays, Red Sox. Do the Dodgers do Puig? That's a pretty strong contender. Maybe like Matt Cain. Yeah, well, I probably would do Peavy.

Peavy, yeah. Giants have a bunch of those guys, I guess. Pence. But Peavy was probably the best of all those guys at his prime, and he's probably the worst of them at this moment. So that would be good. I would take the Giants over the Dodgers just for that, like in that swap, if we're just comparing those swaps. All right. the Giants over the Dodgers just for that, like in that swap. If we're just comparing those swaps. All right.

So Giants over the Dodgers. PV is the leader, the one to beat. The Cubs don't really have anybody? Cubs don't need anyone. I guess Hayward. The Cubs would have Hayward. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

I'm thinking of people who need to make the playoffs. Cy Young, R.A. Dickey would be a good guy to get back. Adam Wainwright would be a good guy Yeah I don't know I think we've talked about this enough Now that I think about it I like the question

The Nationals have gotten Jason Wirth back Yeah Now they might rather have Bryce Harper back Well that's not really true Marlins could get Prime Ichiro That'd be nice The Mets could get David Wrightiro. That'd be nice. That'd be nice. The Mets could get David Wright back.

Yeah. There's a lot of those guys. Yeah. All right. Okay. Playing decks. All right. All right.

So today, as of today, there have been roughly 550 starts made by rookies, by rookie starting pitchers this year. 72 different rookies have made starts. Only three of those 72 have a complete game. They are Michael Fulmer, Luis Perdomo, Zach Eflin. All right, fine. Play index, $30 promo code BP. No.

So it is, of course, very common for rookies to not be allowed to complete a game. This is not one of those things that it used to be a rite of passage. Like I one time wrote about how nobody bats cleanup in their opening, in their major league debut. Like really no matter how good they are and no matter how bad the team's lineup is, it just hardly ever happens because managers don't like to put that pressure on guys. And so I looked at, you know, the best prospects and the best hitters ever and saw how long it took for their manager to move them to the cleanup spot. And it is sort of, I think, maybe arguably the same with complete

games. Most guys are allowed to throw a complete game eventually, but not when they're rookies. And that didn't used to be the case at all. In fact, there were, through 1980 and there had been 565 rookie seasons in which a starter through 20 or more games more 20 or more starts so 565 rookie starters basically and of those 565 all but three through at least one complete game so all but three right all? They all did. And of the 163 rookies who made at least 30 starts, all of them threw a complete game. So it was not seen as being a thing you had to earn. But now it is. You go a ways into your career, usually, before you're allowed to throw a complete game, before your manager lets you do it.

And what that has created are careers that go fairly deep without a complete game even. Not just rookies, but even entire careers are elapsing without complete games. And so right now, Bud Norris has 184 starts. He's still going. He probably won't go for much longer, but he is still going. And he has no complete games. That is the record. Nobody has ever had a career longer than his without a complete game.

And he's quite likely to retire with this record intact. I personally don't think he's going to start more than a dozen or two more games, and he's not the sort of pitcher who's good enough to throw complete games anyway. He's probably going to retire with his record. He's got a big cushion on the next one, who has 136. But this is a record that I would posit has been continually broken, like every couple years since about 1960. Not just because records get broken, but because the way the game is played is constantly changing in this

particular respect. And if you go back to, for instance, 1980, the record holder in this particular record, most career stars without a complete game, was Mike Thompson, who had only 29. 29. And I think if you go to 1960, it's like even, I think it might actually even be single digits. Although I got a little bit, I got a little disoriented in my play indexing. Sorry. So I cannot confirm that. But I think it was single digits in 1960.

1980, it was 29. Here in 2016, there's a pitcher with 184 starts in his career without a complete game. And my guess is that record is not going to last long. Wei-Yin Chen has 136, creeping up behind him. Travis Wood has 133. Nathan Eovaldi, young pitcher, relatively young pitcher, 26 years old, has 127. He's got room to, I mean, you know, it's not inconceivable that Nathan Eovaldi could go, you know, another 200 starts without this. Like the record is just going to keep going up. Marco Estrada, 122. Tom Kohler, 114. Hector Santiago, 110. Jake Odorizzi, 93. I bet he'll throw a complete game. But the point is that complete games are obviously more and more uncommon.

And it is going to get to the point where we might start betting that the average career will not produce a complete game. Like probably, you know, if you have your aces, if you know a guy's going to turn into Jose Fernandez, I would still bet that he's going to throw a complete game. But I'm curious how good a pitcher, how good a career starting today, how good a career would it have to be for you to say that you would bet he will throw a complete game? If Tom Kohler made his debut today, for instance, Tom Kohler, you know, number four starter, Miami Marlins, 114 career starts starts Probably will end up with 220 or so In his career as a slightly below average pitcher

Would you bet on Tom Kohler today To get a complete game during his 9 year career I probably would Or I probably would have Before we started this play index segment Now I'm doubting that Let me see I'm doing a little play indexing myself right now just to look at the selection of pitchers who've had

a complete game this season. Perdomo, you mentioned. Anthony Disclifani. Ivan Nova had a complete game this year. Ivan Nova was not having a good year overall, though he's been better in Pittsburgh. Was not having a good year Overall though he's been better in Pittsburgh Kendall Graveman Kyle Gibson there are a lot of Suspect names near the Top of this list so It's not not solely

The domain of very good Pitchers Colby Lewis Certainly not but yeah I mean of course there's A lot of not very good pitchers and Jeff Locke and most likely In five years that list will be even sparser, and in 10 years, even sparser. And your hypothetical Tom Kohler starting now is going to be on that slide.

Yeah, there will come a point, I would think, at which you wouldn't forecast at least a sub-all-star starter to do it, but we're not there yet. Uh-huh. So Julio Urias, you would bet, is going to have a complete game in his career? Yes. Okay. What about, I'm on our mid-season top 50, what about Jake Thompson? Right-handed pitcher, Philadelphia Phillies, number 36 prospect. Do you bet that Jake Thompson will throw a complete game in his career? Well, the sum of my knowledge about Jake Thompson is what I just said. Yeah. But I would think, well, I mean, I don't know what the track record of a number 36

prospect even like having a long career is. Yeah. All right. Forget I asked. Let me ask you a slightly different question. Everybody who's debuting today is part of the next generation of baseball there. You know, let's call this, you know, this is a new generation starting today. And in 15 years or so, that generation will mostly be done. A few guys will still be going. The very best will still be going, but most will not. So in 15 years, what will the record for most career starts without a complete game be how how high will that number be 243 243 all right there we go it's all i needed play index play index coupon code bp jose fernandez by the way has not yet thrown a complete game he's

at 72 what sort of odds would it take for you to bet that Jose Fernandez retires without a complete game? Wow. I would put the probability of him doing that or not doing that at 10%. Okay. Yeah. I was thinking like six to one or so. And most of those scenarios where he doesn't are not, yeah, they they're not he makes 300 starts there he makes three more starts right yeah all right question from eric hartman how different would baseball be if every stadium had its own umpiring crew i assume that they're professional enough that there wouldn't be any intentional favoring but i wonder how this would impact park factors and perhaps even the utility of a good framing catcher.

Let me know what you think. So it's just a feature of the ballpark. Those same umpires are there every day. It's like the walls or the grass. It's the umpires. So I wouldn't think there's much benefit to knowing your umpires. Like, I don't think that you play the game much differently because, you know, you're so familiar with the third base ump,

or even with the home play ump. I think for the most part, this is a non-issue as far as how you approach the game and how you play, even for the pitcher and the catcher, for the most part. So I would say that difference would be minimal. I would think home field advantage would probably go up though, because I suspect the umpires would uh sort of start to feel a little bit of uh stockholm syndrome or something uh they wouldn't want to be booed by the same i'm really like you just i there's a tremendous pressure i think in the average person to be liked by the people he is spending time around yeah and uh you know you see this i think in every field where you have some supposed what is it regulatory capture right this is regulatory capture isn't it i don't know define it i will get you a good definite definition of it regulatory

capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Ah, okay. And so it's like, it's basically like saying the SEC, you know, the SEC quits, you know, being a watchdog and becomes just sort of part of the industry or like, you know, bond ratings and things like that. Yes, right.

Big short. Yeah, there you go. So I would think that would happen. Yeah, there you go. So I would think that would happen. I would guess that the home field advantage, which is currently about 53.7, right? Okay, I would guess that baseball's home field advantage would go up. I think it would not only be that, but I think you could start getting some utility out of scouting umpires because right now there's not that much point. It's a new person behind the plate every day. You're not going to drastically change your approach day by day. But if you had the same umpires

and you were playing your 81 home games with the same umpires and seeing the same home plate umpire, you know, 20 times or whatever it was, I think there might be some things you could do. I'm not sure. I mean, teams scout umpires now, or at least they have the data, they have the reports. It's in your advanced report in your binder on your iPad in the dugout. I don't know how much they actually use that, and if so, how much it helps,

but if you were facing the same guy 20 times in a season, I think you might get a sense, I can get strikes called in this part of the zone. Maybe I'll stay outside. Maybe I'll stay down, whatever it is. I'll call for more pitches in this region. So I think you could probably exploit that if you had that kind of time to devote to the problem. So between that and I agree, probably even the bigger factor is that you don't want to be hated by your home crowd. I think there would be a big, pretty big bump. Your home crowd. And I think also your home team. I think the players and the coaches themselves. Yeah, I mean, maybe they'd be extra vigilant against this just because it's the obvious repercussion of this arrangement. And so everyone would be watching for it, this favoritism.

And maybe you'd go out of your way not to be favoring that team. But it would be hard, I think. So I agree. And I also agree that there would be some effort made to, say, pitch to the umpire a little bit. But I think that already happens. I don't think the amount of information gleaned from this would be enough that it would dramatically increase that.

That's more what I'm saying. I don't think there's a ton you can do now, but, you know, there's some. And I don't think that there's a lot more you could do if you had the same umpires for 81 games. Yeah. Right. Okay. Last one. This should be quick from Corey. He says, how does organizational depth help if a team trades for a guy whose realistic ceiling is a double A starting pitcher? How does that increase the value of the franchise? And the answer is probably that it doesn't. Well, I mean, marginally, but most guys, look, 10% of the league's ceiling was a double-A pitcher.

So sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes you're just wrong about a guy's ceiling. And sometimes, even when his ceiling is double-A pitcher, sometimes all you've got is a single-A pitcher. You've been beaten down by injuries and someone's got to make a start and that guy could still be your best guy at the moment but yeah it's it's small but valuable yeah you have to have someone to start games so there's value in that it could be anyone and you know you could go get that guy and any other team could probably go get that guy so it's not Changing it a whole lot but it's like

Most of the people in the draft are drafted Because the really top Prospects need people to play against So you actually need A double A starting pitcher so So that's it and Realistic ceiling if you could get someone who's Unrealistic ceiling is higher than that

Then there's some slight value in that because you never know. He might reach it. So that's it. And if he's like a veteran mentor type or you think he has the makings of a great coach or manager or scout or front office person, then there's extra value

there, but that's about it. Okay, so that is it for today. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild five listeners who have already made that wise and much appreciated decision are Michael Adler, James M. Gannon, John Sagal, John McGregor, and Robert. Thank you. You can also buy our book, The Only Rules It Has to Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team.

Check out the website at theonlyrulesithastowork.com for more information. And please leave us a review on Amazon or Goodreads if you like the book. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. I had an episode of the Ringer MLB show yesterday with a couple big league veterans, Josh Paul, who is the Yankees catching coordinator. Talk to me about Gary Sanchez. And then we actually did talk some Tebow with David Ardsma, who was on the effectively wild live show.

He pitched a Tebow at the tryout yesterday and a couple of times previous. So he gave us a scouting report. It was actually pretty interesting. And I say that as someone who came into the story with very little interest in Tim Tebow. I'll have another episode of the Ringer MLB show up tomorrow. You can contact me and Sam at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Please replenish our mailbag, who's drained by today's episode.

You can also message us through Patreon. We will be back with another show later this week. Won't you take care of your own? Colorado Think I'm coming home Wanna come home Won't you let me come home