Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 961: Multiple Mike Trout Drafts

Episode Date: October 3, 2016

Ben and Sam conduct multiple Mike Trout drafts and discuss DJ LeMahieu’s batting title, the AL Cy Young race, Vin Scully’s sign-off, and more.

Good morning and welcome to episode 961 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by The Play Index, BaseballReference.com, and our Patreon supporters. I'm Sam Miller of ESPN, along with Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Hi, Ben. Hello. How are you? All right. End of the year, end of the baseball season. Yeah, what is this, our fifth regular season?

12th, 13th, 14th, 15th season, yeah. Yeah, it is. Four and a half regular season 12 13 14 15 16 yeah yeah it is four and a half regular season yeah yeah 40 uh about 42 mike trout war we've been recording yeah yeah it's been a long time yeah so yeah five seasons five seasons uh so i figured we'd just uh have kind of an all banter end of season wrap-up all right if that works for. All right. So I've got a whole list of things that might include one sentence, me saying one sentence and might include a full on draft. But let's start with a full on draft then. Okay. What I'm going to need you to do is I'm going to need you to go to Mike Trout's baseball reference page. All right. I'm there.

And one of the great things about Mike Trout, one of the great things about his player page that's really almost unlike any other player page is that every year he gets new bold ink. And so in his rookie year, he led the league in runs and steals and OPS plus, a very particular kind of player. The next year he led the league in runs and walks. He actually added 43 walks to his total.

So bold ink and walks. Then the next year, runs RBIs. Now he's a butter and egg man, as Vin would say. And also strikeouts and also total bases. The next year, slugging and OPS for the first time. And this year, runs again, walks again, OPS plus again, and now on base percentage with a 441 on base percentage. So he is every year, like is a totally different best player in baseball as we've talked about, but that leaves one, two, three, four, five, six. I'm going to ditch the bad stats. So six,

seven, eight, nine, that basically leaves nine places for him to still get bold ink for the first time. And I wanted to draft in order how likely you think he'll knock that off his bold ink bingo card. And I guess how soon. So you're going to basically draft the bold ink you think Mike Trout will get next. And we're going to just draft these. Let's just take games out of it so that we have eight. So we'll each get four. Those eight are plate appearances, hits, doubles, triples, homers, batting average, hit by pitch, and intentional walk.

Huh. All right. Who's going first? You go first. You go first. Okay. Well, he has been close. He's probably been pretty close to plate appearances, right?

I mean, he had 716 in one year. I think he's been close to He's probably been pretty close to plate appearances, right? I mean, he had 716 in one year. I think he's been close to almost all of them. Like, my guess is he's finished top five in six of these. Yeah, so I mean, he's batting third, mostly this year. So I guess he had a better chance when he was batting second. Of course, he might bat second again someday. He had a better chance when he was batting second. Of course, he might bat second again someday. And he might be in a plausible lineup someday as well. I mean, if you put him in the Red Sox lineup or something, then it's different. Pretty incredible that he led the major leagues in runs scored this year playing for the Angels.

I know. That's amazing. He has finished second, fifth, and tenth in plate appearances. So in 2013, he finished second. All right. So, you know, he's only missed a few games each year the whole time he's been a full season player. So I'll go with that. That seems like the likeliest. All right. So Ben drafts plate appearances. Jeez, what a fun pick. Plate appearances. Jeez, what a fun pick. All right.

I will, I'm going to draft batting average. Batting average, I have this predictions game that I play with my friend every year where we try to predict like everything in baseball, including top 10 for every stat. And batting average is the thing we do absolutely the worst on. I mean, just go look at the batting average any year. There's like one or two names that were at all predictable, and then it's DJ LeMayu and Justin Morneau and all sorts of weird names, especially when you get down to number eight and nine. They'll blow you away every time.

Trout has managed in his five years, though, to be second, third, ninth, and fifth. He is the closest thing to a perennial batting title uh well he's not the closest thing but he is one of the he is at the you know near the top of perennial batting title contenders uh so i will go with that okay all right how close has he been to doubles his his career high is 39 he had 39 back-to-back years doubles he's finished seventh and sixth yeah so are we counting at bats as a no no no okay all right i'm just gonna get played appearances and at bats just to cover my bases uh-huh all right so i guess i'll take doubles doubles okay so seventh and sixth and uh yeah it's not the it's not the stat that he has come closest to getting Bold Inc. In fact, it might be the second worst that he's done so far of the eight that we're talking about. However, it seems maybe plausible that he'll keep his double skill longer than he maybe keeps some of the others.

Uh-huh. So on that note, I will, this is kind of a, this one in two or three years might look like a terrible pick, but for the next two or three years, I think it's plausible. I'm taking triples. Triples, he has finished third, second, third, and tenth in his career. So very close perennially. Now, he's also never had double digits, so he hasn't necessarily shown that 16 triple year potential that we talk about when we talk about young players. But he's been close a lot, so I'll take triplets.

Your turn. All right. Well, maybe I'll take homers. I'll just bet on the big Mike Trout home run year. I mean, he had 41 last year, which was close, right? What was the league lead? He's been third and third in home runs. It's a great pick.

So he gets a little older. Maybe he becomes more of a power-oriented player, which it looked like he was doing for a while. Sure, Mike Trout, capable of leading the league in home runs, I'd say. All right, so we're left with hits, intentional walks, and hit by pitch. I will take intentional walks. It's actually sort of surprising that he doesn't do better in this. And if you put a player who was exactly as good as Albert Pujols behind him, but was named Lucas Duda or something, then I think he would have. But partly the righty-righty thing doesn't do him favors. But I think that Albert Pujols still carries a name. So I would bet that suppresses it a little bit.

His speed probably hurts him a little bit. If he slowed down, was the same hitter but slower, I bet he'd get intentionally walked more. But for now, he's finished 7th, 3rd, and 3rd in his career. So I'll take that. So you took batting average, but you're not taking hits. Well, he walks 110 times a year now. Yeah. And he just doesn't do as well in hits because of that.

His hits, he's finished 9th in 2012 and 4th in 2013. But it's too many walks, man. It's too many walks. I still think he could do it. You add 35 plate appearances on there for a better lineup, and maybe you add another 15 at-bats if his walks drop down because he has protection, protection which I'm treating as real in this instance, and his batting average goes up from you know 315 to you know 332 one year and yeah he's there uh-huh it's not a bad all right it's a better pick than what i'm gonna get stuck with so what's left besides hits hit by pitch okay so i'll take it all right and i won't

take uh i'll take i'll take well i'll take it by pitch by the way uh hit by pitch he has in his career finished sixth seventh and fifth so even that one's not bad so he has in his career finished 6th, 7th, and 5th. So even that one's not bad. So he has finished, in every stat he doesn't have bold ink, he's finished at least top 7. And in 5 of them, I think he's finished top 3. So he's good. All right, that draft is done. Okay.

Next game that I want to talk about, Ben, is the Mike Trout 2016 Season in Review.pdf fun fact rating game. And this is the Angels Media Information Shop put out a release on Mike Trout's Season in Review. There's some good stats in here. And I just wanted to very quickly get you to rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being perfect, and then dock points for either not a good stat, like it's not actually that impressive, or convoluted stat. Okay.

Convoluted fun fact. All right. So I'll go through these quickly. So the first subheader is fish facts. Okay? Yeah. Giving that a 1. Yeah.

Thank you. All right. Led the majors in runs, walks, and OBP, and also ranked in the top 10 in several of the AL's offensive categories, including average, sixth, triples, tied for 10th, steals, tied for second, and slugging, fifth. Well, that's your basic meat and potatoes. You're making an MVP case for your player. You want to show that he ranks very, that's right. He is 6'3", 205. I agree. That's solid. So, I mean, you know, it's not trying to lift much. We'll call it a seven.

Yeah. All right. Was the only player in the majors for that 315 with 100 RBIs, 100 runs, and 100 walks, and is the first American leaguer to do so since Miguel Cabrera in 2011. The last player to boast those numbers in a single season before their age 25 campaign was Alex Rodriguez. So this is a rephrase. First player since 2000 to have 315, 100, 100, 100 before age 25.

I'll give it a four. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I don't know. 315 is a little too arbitrary for me. Yeah, two on the nose. And he also, I think he had, for what it's worth, I think he had exactly 100 RBIs. You just know, I mean, they were so mad he didn't get the 30th home run. He ended up with 29 homers. Could have gone all the way back to like 1998 with that fun fact.

Could be that home run. All right. Becomes the first player to lead the AL in walks and runs since, well, since Trout did, but prior to Trout, so we'll say prior to. Becomes the first player to lead the AL in walks and runs. I don't know. I think the fact that he did it himself is relevant. So I'll say becomes first player to lead the AL in walks and runs since Trout did so in 2013. Prior to Trout, the last player to lead the AL in both categories was Frank Thomas and is the first player since Ted Williams, parentheses, five times to lead either league in those categories multiple times. So first multiple walk and runs leader since Ted Williams. I'll give it a six i guess oh i don't walk i don't like it walks and runs like walks walks and runs don't

provide a contrast to each other they have no they're overlapping if you walk a lot you get on base a lot you probably score a lot but the thing about ted williams that's impressive the gold standard of two stat fun facts is the 30 30 club right because they're in contrast they are two different players forming into one super player walks walks and runs it's a little bit like led the league in total bases and slugging uh-huh okay so i'm giving that one with three okay okay one of two players in the al to post a slash line of 300 400 500 this season well i like the 300 400 500 i love it so i love 300 400 500 i love it you should you should the world series should be which which team is closest to 300 400 500 yeah all right so i mean it's impressive that he did it the fact itself is not super exciting but

i guess it's it's. It's worth pointing out. So I'll give it a seven. Yeah, I'll give it an eight. Okay. All right. First AL player to log 115 walks and 115 runs in a season since David Ortiz in 2006. First AL outfielder to do so since Tony Phillips. That's kind of got like four things working against it.

It's AL instead of majors, which is always suspicious. It's the walks and runs, which are correlative, which is not great. It's 115, which is not a round number. It's not, and he's the first AL outfielder. So now we've got position, and the guy who did it last is Tony Phillips, who is not a Hall of Famer or anything like that. Yeah, that's a two. That's a two.

I agree. First, we're now into elite company. Just the second player ever to hit 315, walk 115 times, score 120 runs, and steal 30 bases, joining Ty Cobb. Okay. I like the only Ty Cobb in you. That's nice. Yep. And it's a bunch of different categories. I'm always a little suspicious of the stats when you start stringing together

categories and you can start making the club more and more exclusive because you're just adding on stats. But in this case, each of those stats is sort of telling us something different, right? So I'll allow that. I'll give it a six. Yeah, I'll give it a five. I'll tell you this. You really don't want to go look at Ty Cobb's 1915 season and see how it compares because Trout stole 30 bases, Cobb stole 94. Trout hit 315, Cobb hit 369, and so on.

But, of course, totally different era, and there's no problem. I'm not saying Cobb had a better year. He probably didn't. Just points a little bit to the fundamental, like, eh-ishness of these types of stats. But I'll give it a five. All right. Just the fourth player in MLB history to lead either league in runs four times in a five-year span. And it was the what player uh

he's the fourth and i do i do have the list of players babe ruth mickey mannell and george burns um i mean it's it's impressive because he did it with the angels as we were just saying it's amazing that he led the majors and it runs with the angels this year but it's i mean it's no more impressive than going mike trout led the league in runs this year Angels this year. But it's no more impressive than going, Mike Trout led the league in runs this year. No, it's not. Yeah, so this is a three for me. I don't care. Okay, I think three sounds right to me.

First player since Albert Pujols to log 100 RBIs, 110 walks, and score 120 runs in a season. Which is the 14th player in American League history to post those numbers. First to do so since the Angels' Troy Gloss in 2000. Nah, this is like a two. I don't care. They're really... Walks are doing a lot of lifting on this page.

Yeah, 110 walks. No, it's not a milestone. I give it three. All right, now we're under know this. There have been two instances in American League history that a player has amassed 300 total bases, 100 walks, and stolen 25 bags. Mike Trout and Mike Trout in 2013. I actually like this one because walks are not part of total bases. You know, you can do just as much with a slash line, I guess.

But 300 total bases and 100 walks does feel like that seems good. Those seem like perfectly good round number milestones to go. Wow, he's a 300-hundred guy? Like that. Yeah, if you had asked me before this conversation what a good total bases number was, I don't think I could have told you just off the cuff. I would have had to do some math probably to figure that out. So it's not really a number that I think of having a club. It is impressive though. So I'll give it a six, I guess.

I'm going to give it a higher. I love a fun fact that goes only one player, you know, only two players have ever done this, Mike Trout and Mike Trout. Like I like, I just like the, I like the colon Mike Trout and Mike Trout. I like that. So I'm giving that an eight and consider it a nine. All right. Trout scored 17% of Angels runs this season, the highest percentage for any AL player since Ricky Henderson in 1985. That's kind of cool. Dude, that's a 10.

That's a 10. That's really good. I agree. It's a 10. That's the one I'd lead with if I were writing the game story. Yeah, that's good. Fifth straight season with 25 doubles, five triples, and 25 homers.

Longest such streak since Willie Mays. Longest AL streak since Joe DiMaggio. Not bad. I'll give it a seven. Five triples to me is a squish. So I'm saying like, I honestly, I'm going four on that just because of the triples.

If he had 10 triples, like if it were, if somehow he were 10, 30, 30, then, and it was the same rarity even if it was the same willie mays and joe dimaggio 30 10 30 i would give like a like an eight but i don't really like the 25 5 25 okay okay and now we're under saber metrics entered the contest with major league leading 10.4 wins above replacement led the al in that category for the fifth consecutive year first player to lead his league in war for five straight seasons since baybrook yeah i mean i i think i knew that but it's if i didn't know that or and

if i still cared what war was then i'd be pretty impressed so i'd say that's uh maybe a nine even i'd say a nine two i that even. I'd say a nine too. That would make it into my story. His 48.4 war is the best ever by a player before age 25, just ahead of Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle. Yeah. I mean, again, very well known in our circles, but sure. Probably still a nine. Yeah.

I mean, it's a, it's yeah, sure. It's the most impressive stat that you can tell me about a player. Basically, yeah. Sure. How do I knock that? That's a good one. Second career 10-war season, only Ted Williams had more 10-war campaigns in first five full seasons. I mean, I don't know.

It doesn't differentiate enough from the previous stat for me to care. Agree. It's like a three or something. Maybe in isolation if if the other stat weren't there yeah i might i'd bump it up but following that stat it's like a three i'd go probably four uh and led the league in runs on baseball reference led the league in runs created for the fourth consecutive season finished the year leading jose altube by 12 runs created the largest differential between first and second in AL since 2006 well it's uh not like you ever hear runs created cited anymore but I guess that's semi interesting so I guess I'll give it a five yeah I think you got to chew for a long time before you

get anywhere on that one I'm going like a three okay that's not a bad stat but it i think i'd swallow it if i were sitting on it's too hard to convey uh-huh two mastication metaphors back to back for no real reason by me oh yeah all right uh okie doke that's it all right okay i think you probably tweeted better mike trout fun facts last night than we're in that packet oh come on it's minor minor for a niche audience that uh that likes the challenge so it's not i don't think it's that we're playing different games okay all right so some good ones on there okay uh let's see what else do i have on my list? What's your take on DJ LeMayu? Well, on his... Sitting out for... Sitting out.

Basically sitting out four days to win the batting title. Yeah, well, in fairness to him, I suppose Daniel Murphy wasn't playing either, which maybe makes it a little bit better. I mean, Murphy wasn't intentionally not playing. He's hurt and resting, so that's different. But at least he wasn't competing with someone who was in there every day until the last day of the season. So that's something. But the Rockies aren't playing for anything.

It's pretty cool if you're DJ LeMayhew to win a batting title. It's your first black ink of any kind on your baseball reference page. And you lead the whole major leagues in batting average. Of course, it's Coors Field. So, you know, discount batting average there more so than anywhere else, but still pretty cool to do. So I don't really mind. I can put myself in DJ LeMayhue's place and save, you know, and it's not like the batting title is like a national story anymore. As we talked about with Rob Mains recently, it's not something that everyone is like hanging on. And so you're kind of ruining everyone's fun by sitting out in the last few days of the season. No one really cares. Didn't really impact anyone's enjoyment of baseball's last weekend that DJ LeMahieu wasn't in there. So it's pretty much a shrug for me. I mean, it's, I, it's pretty much a shrug for me, but that, does that almost make it, well, I think it's really embarrassing. Like I, I don't, I'm not, I'm not going to hold

it against them, but if I were like, if I were his, his, uh, his image consultant or whatever, if I were doing his debate prep, I'd tell him this is like just objectively speaking, this is like super embarrassing for you. Like you should not. Like it's not even like a couple days ago I mentioned that, not here but somewhere else, that since Colorado baseball started, there have been 18 batting title winners. Like 18 different players have won a batting title in the NL

and eight of them were Rockies. So like those include like the aging husk of Justin Morneau, the the, you know, final, you know, the final spasms of Michael Kodair. So it's just I mean, it's already like, even if this were the most prestigious awards still, even if everything was equal, and like, you know, DJ LeMahieu was really, you know, could hold his head up at the end of this and say that it was a fair fight to begin with. I would still, I still think that this is not a good look. Like this hasn't been a good look for all of baseball history. I think you're right about Murphy that the fact that he's out makes it a little bit more justified, but not really. I mean, it's, you know, you got to, you play the season. Makes it a little bit more justified, but not really.

I mean, it's, you know, you got to, you play the season. But the fact that Colorado. I mean, LeMahieu played four more games than Murphy and had like 50 more played appearances than Murphy. Yeah, no, but you play as many as you can play. Like, I don't quite know how to argue with those numbers because, sure, he played more. But it's not a, like, you just do what you're asked to do. Like, you play your contract out, I think. And if a B stings you and you have to miss a game, like, then it's not like the other guy should then go, oh, I'm going to go get stung by a B, in my opinion.

Like, that's not where the equality comes in. Like, you just try. Just go for it. Just try. I mean, I don't, like, again, like, I don't think he prioritized what he prioritized, and I don't begrudge him that, but I do think it looks silly. But also Colorado is just, I mean, it's a stupid award if you're winning Colorado batting titles. Like they shouldn't even, they should barely count.

They do barely count. They actually barely count. They barely count for anything. Like he doesn't get a better, doesn't get a better interest rate on his home. Now he doesn't get probably anything. He just, he gets a, he just he gets a he gets a plaque and he he gets bold ink same as whoever led the league in in triples gets bold ink and then you know some sometime 16 years from now someone's flipping to his page and they will use

this batting title as a data point in how crazy colorado was not of how crazy good dj lemay he was so i don't i don't know maybe Maybe that might be why I don't care about this really is because, I mean, even if DJ LeMayhew had played all of the final games and had beaten Daniel Murphy by one point, I would be thinking, well, if Daniel Murphy played in Colorado, he would have beaten DJ LeMayhew anyway. He would have had a higher average, at least by a few points, probably. So I'm already thinking of it as an asterisked accomplishment. And so this is just adding an additional asterisk. So it doesn't really bother me anyway. I guess that's what I would say. And I'd also say that the fact that he had a good season, like he had a good length season. He didn't just sneak in with the minimum number of qualifying at-bats or anything.

He cleared that by a lot. He cleared Murphy by a lot. And he also had a really excellent season. This wasn't one of those empty batting average years. Even if you do park adjust it and all that, he had a great year. So I'm okay with it. It's silly. It's silly.

Batting titles are silly. It is silly. It's all silly. Right. I also think the fact that the final series was at home and the rockies haven't given their fans much to to pay attention to this year and certainly there was not much to pay attention to in the final weekend of the series of the season but to have everybody cheering dj lemay who had bats would have actually

added spark every uh you know 80 minutes or so or 55 minutes or so of the game uh and uh couldn't you argue that having him win the batting title and have that be assured is like important to the franchise in a way that it wouldn't be for a better team for instance like when jose altuve won the batting title in 2014 when the astros were still pretty bad they made a big deal of al tuve winning the batting title and you know it kind of makes him more marketable and it's say we we had a batting title winner or something it's it's not that much to brag about but it's at least some individual notable accomplishment you could point to and say this was on the astros this year this was on the rockies this year you can put dj lemahhew on your media guide next year, I guess.

Yeah, no, if you argued that to me and convinced me, then yes, you could. But you would not convince me. I don't believe the Rockies franchise value is up a nickel for this. But I do think, and I think that whatever benefit that you're trying to convince me there might be, would be abstract and unconvincing. But this is like to me very, it's very concrete. You had some thousands of people that paid money to watch baseball, boring baseball this week. They, you know, they knew what they were getting, I guess.

But you could have given them a better entertainment experience. You're an entertainment company and you could have provided them four exciting moments game, as well as everybody who's watching something to watch for. And so to me, that's very concrete and not hard to imagine is real. So, I mean, you're right. If that were true, then yes, that would be part of the math. I just don't think it's true. I don't think that the Rockies were cashing Justin Morneau checks for the last two years either. But maybe I'm crazy.

Maybe I'm wrong. And DJ, the other thing is like DJ was really super awesome this year. And so I like, I don't think that the, I don't know, maybe, maybe it's, it's, it's sort of weird because he will not get enough credit for how super awesome he was overall. And now he will, but he will get that credit in the form of basically fool's gold, like basically a kind of a silly award that doesn't reflect that much. And maybe that's a push. Maybe it ends up being just,

that DJ LeMay who got exactly what he deserved for this season, even if it was in a somewhat dishonest roundabout way. I don't know, maybe not. Yeah. All right, let's see. What else do I have on here? Who's your AL Cy Young ballot then i know we're doing i want just this one just the one because it's in it like you i i honestly don't know if there's ever been a moment in baseball history where there was less objective truth about a thing yeah i mean i i haven't given this

any thought surprisingly even though this has been something people have been talking about for a month or more. I haven't had to write a column about it. I haven't had to cast a vote. And until someone makes me think about it, I don't think about it. So here I am, and someone is making me think of it. Rosenthal's pick was Britain. And I think Britain is going to win. Do you? I do. And I just think that it's a combination. Well, it's mostly that there's not a great starter and there's not really a clear pick from the starters. It's very messy. Even the starters who by one metric or the other stand out, like Chris Sale, for instance, leads the league in baseball

prospectuses version of warp because he has you know great dra and he pitched a lot of innings but also it was sort of a lesser chris sale season in some ways and like a lot of a lot of the top dra pitchers had bad eras like chris archer is a top dra pitcher and seen as a failure this year. Bad ERA. David Price, near the top of DRA. Bad ERA. Who else is there? There's another couple on here. Pineda actually does pretty well. Bad season. Bad ERA. And so that even complicates it more. But bottom line is there's not a clear starter. And I think that Britain will be. But my question is is this for you let's say that you were a voter and you came to the same conclusion that this was a year to pick a

reliever not a starter is britain your pick or is andrew miller your pick because i would i think that i would i i think that miller would be on my ballot might be my cy Young, might be ahead of Britton. Well, I mean, I do think that Miller is a better pitcher. I think he's more dominant. I don't know if he had a better season. I don't know if I could make that case. I think I'd probably give it to Britton over Miller. I mean, Miller has a few more innings, and if he were to replay that season a thousand times, I'm sure Miller would have ended up being better, you know,

preventing more runs, whatever you want to say, probably. But I think I'd probably give it to Britton. I think, I don't know whether what team you're on plays any role in this. I mean, Britton really did have a very, very important role all season long, which is not something he was responsible for creating that situation, really, but he was in it. And I think that would maybe at least be a tiebreaker for me if we're talking about another reliever. So I'd probably go Britton over Miller. So you, by saying Britton over Miller, you're either saying that you're an ERA over FIP guy.

And I think that you've said in the past that you're kind of a blend guy. Or you're saying that FIP doesn't capture what Britton does because he's such an extreme batted ball profile. So many ground balls, et cetera, that so many weak hit ground balls that he's just different. And you can't measure him based on FIP. So as it is, Britton had the better ERA. I mean, their FIPs were also really close. Their FIPs were close, right? And so that's what my question is.

They were close, but they were also different. Miller's FIP was 168. Britton's FIP was 194. I don't know what XFIP would say. I don't know if it matters but uh how big a difference would the fips have to be for you to say that it's not a matter of britain beating his fit because he's britain but a matter of britain beating his fit because he had a fluky good luck year yeah like i think if if britain had like a at least a two and a half i think it would take For me to say that it was just Largely luck Like it's so close it's like

You know within three tenths of a run In FIP and When it's that close it's You know it's basically a push And Britain did allow A lot fewer runs For various reasons so I think I would give it to him

Alright it's close enough. So we disagree on this. If we were voting for a reliever for the Cy Young, you'd pick Britton. I'd pick Miller. If you're voting for a starter for the Cy Young, who would be your pick? I won't make you go five, but who would be your pick? Man, it's so close. It's like Verlander and Sale and Kluber and Porcello.

I mean, they're just all basically identical. I mean, you could, at least according to some stats, I think I'd probably pick Kluber. Yeah, I'd pick Verlander. Is there ever a year where, could you imagine making a decision based on wins in the right year? Like in a year like this where it's close, where you can make a case for a bunch of people, where Porcello seems clearly to be a little bit behind those guys in war, but nobody's like knocking you over the head and making you vote for them. It's not like Porcello was bad.

If he had gone 25-1, do you think you'd vote for him based on the wins? you had gone 25 and one, do you think you'd vote for him based on the wins? Or are you like, are you just is that a total non issue does not register might as well not exist. And no matter what, it's not going to come up. Yeah, I think it's total non issue. When I was just looking at those players furiously trying to compare stats. Yeah, I didn't even glance at the wins and loss columns. So yeah, yeah yeah it's nothing all right robin ventura i i don't know if this is still current when i jotted this down on my list of things to talk about he was going to resign uh and what was interesting is that according to the article ventura intends to resign but the white socks will try to change his mind so before before

the season started i wrote up the Internet Baseball Awards voting, which is what BP readers and everybody else can vote on the awards at the end of the year. And so manager of the year voting is always silly, no matter who's voting, because it's hard to vote on a manager of the year. And it ends up being, as it always is, the team that won more games than we had projected because we were bad at projecting. But I decided to look at the three-year, the combined three-year voting

to see if that correlated pretty well with what I think good managers, you know, the actual rankings of managers. And it wasn't perfect, but it was pretty close. It was pretty solid. You know, Herden, Madden, Showalter, Francona, all top five. And at the bottom, Freddy Gonzalez, Ron Renneke, Robin Ventura, and Walt Weiss. Ventura was second to last in voting over three years. And I said, it puts Ventura's continued employment in perspective, though.

And of course, he had another bad year. Well, he. And of course, he had another another bad year. Well, he didn't. The White Sox had another bad year under his charge. So the fact that the White Sox are trying to convince him to stay or were trying to change his mind, do you read that as a nice thing to say about the guy on his way out the door? Or do you read it as, wow, the White Sox are really crazy about this bad manager? Or do you read it as, wow, no matter what his win-loss record is, it really sure does say something about Ventura's skill as a manager that even after all this, his bosses who know him best are trying to convince

him to come back. So there's three ways you can read it. I think I'd probably read it like the second way, just because of where the White Sox have been for the last several years and how it seems like they never really know what they're doing or have a very coherent plan. And they just kind of keep aimlessly drifting and picking up a slugger here and there and hoping things work out and they generally don't so because of that and my pre-existing knowledge or or understanding of the white socks i i sort of think of it as just part of that general aimlessness or you know accepting the status quo, even though it's not been very successful. But it could be either of those other things too. Yeah, I think there's a little one

and there's a little three and a lot of two. Yeah, it's I would guess that it's okay. I try to be generous. And I should probably say that it's a lot of one of those and a little of the other two. But to me, a lot of three and a little one and two seems least likely. A lot of one and a little two and three seems more likely, but this was anonymously sourced. And so, I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily expect that to be anonymously sourced, although maybe it's more convincing if it's anonymously sourced.

So, yeah, I agree. Two with a little one and a little three. All right. Did you watch Vin Scully's last inning? inning yeah i was listening to it on the radio they had a simulcast and it seemed there were like three or four innings where the uh radio audio came on before vin seemed to know that they were on and so i think they might have had an issue with the simulcast it all i also can't say that maybe they had an issue on both but at the end vin scully says his final thing.

I think, I think the thing that he said that the final thing he said live where he goes, uh, I've said enough for many, many lifetimes. Yeah. For a lifetime.

Yeah. I thought that was great. But so then he goes, uh, so, you know, whatever, good night and good luck.

And then, you know, somebody flips a switch and then on the radio, at least you hear Ben go, all right. And I thought that that all right was just like i want to listen to that all right on a gif and i don't know i'm not even sure what i think the all like i don't know if it was like an exhausted all right a resigned all right a

thank goodness it's over all right or just just remember that i should uh i can look that up and play it right now right it should be, right? It should be archived. Yeah, it should be archived. Yeah, exactly. So I just want to throw a plug out there for Vin Scully's final all right, or however the tone should be. That was awfully nice. The umpire just stood up and said goodbye, as I am saying goodbye.

Seven runs, 16 hits for the winning Giants, 1-4-1 for the Dodgers. The winner, Matt Moore. The loser, Kenza Maeda. Seven runs, 16 hits for the winning Giants, 1-4-1 for the Dodgers. The winner, Matt Moore. The loser, Kenza Maeda. I have said enough for a lifetime. And for the last time, I wish you all a very pleasant good afternoon. All right. And last thing, I'll get real quick quick, Jim Johnson multi-year deal.

Baseball is so crazy. I saw that headline and I thought, wait, that Jim Johnson? Yeah. Multiple years? I didn't even realize he was doing anything. So yeah, baseball's weird. Baseball's weird. Final thing, I have about two minutes.

I was thinking about this and I'm curious if you agree. If I were the Giants going into a wildcard game and you could give me any pitcher in baseball to choose from, I would choose Clayton Kershaw last, and then the second to last guy I would choose is Noah Syndergaard. And if I were the Mets, I believe right now, at this moment, if I could choose the same thing, I would choose Kershaw last and Bumgarner second to last. I believe that these are the second and third best pitchers for this game right now. And I think it's just a little bit of a little bit of a miracle that baseball is giving us this. Do you disagree with my assessments? No, I don't disagree. I mean, I don't know if I'd call it miraculous in that you end up this time of year with the best teams playing each other, and the best teams often have the best starting pitchers, or some of them do. So it's nice. But yeah, no, I don't disagree that those would be the players I would most dread seeing.

So it'll be fun. All right, that's all. Good season. All right. We can end with a Scully all right. All right. That's all. Good season. All right. We can end with a Scully all right. All right. So you can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have done so already.

Cameron McSorley, Daniel Wilson, Chad Jobin, Paul Griesmeyer, and Dustin Schickler. Thank you. You can buy our book, The Only Rules It Has to Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. Go to the website at theonlyrulesithastowork.com for more information. Please consider leaving us a review on Amazon Goodreads if you like it. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. We are fewer than 10 new members away from the 4,500 member mark. You can also rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the Play Index

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