Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 966: Ask, and Ye Shall Receive

Episode Date: October 20, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Ben’s engagement, then answer listener emails about Andrew Miller, playoff tactics during the regular season, renaming the playoff rounds, and more.

It's not that I don't cry It's that I have to hide It's that I have to hide So I won't be let rest So I won't be let rest So I won't be depressed So I won't be depressed No, I won't be depressed Hello and welcome to episode 966 of Effectively Wild, a daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by our Patreon supporters

and the Play Index at at baseballreference.com i'm ben lundberg of the ringer joined as always by sam miller of espn hello hey ben congratulations thank you so uh everybody probably saw but maybe didn't that ben is now engaged to his wonderful fiance jesse and sorry ladies sorry sloan uh and uh so so his proposal video is like, kind of like a online sensation, I would say. You got your very favorite band, the Canadian rock superstars, Sloan, to let you come up, interrupt their show,

propose, and then sing a song. You and Jesse got to sing a song. And if you, I don't know, if you read, if you read our book and you wondered like, wow, how'd those guys get, you know, sport vision to come put pitch effects into this little high school baseball field? Or, you know, how did you get, you know, all this equipment that we got for free? The answer is that Ben just asks. It's an amazing skill. Without Ben, we would have gotten nothing.

But Ben just asks. Like, it's his favorite band. And he doesn't know them. I guess you've very briefly through intermediaries had some very, very brief contact with them. But they're not baseball fans themselves, correct? No, not at all. They don't know you. contact with them but they're not actually they're not baseball fans themselves no not at all uh they don't they don't know you uh and uh and you just ask and they let you sing a song on stage it's an

amazing thing it is an amazing skill so this is my uh just you if anybody ever needs a uh job reference for for ben it's just this this this is an amazing thing that Ben has the ability to do. Yeah, it worked out really well. And I was planning it for a while. So I'm happy it all came together. I was not the first person to ask Sloan to do that, apparently, according to their manager, because I asked him and he said it was not the first time the request was received, but it was the first time that the request was approved. And I think that was probably for two reasons. One is that I had the sort of sentimental story about having taken Jesse to a Sloan concert in that same venue for our first date. So that was why I wanted to do

that, apart from just the fact that it was pretty cool to be on stage with my favorite date. So that was why I wanted to do that, apart from just the fact that it was pretty cool to be on stage with my favorite band. So I had the story to go with it. But also, the podcast helped me make this happen. So this is the difference between you and me, though. The reason that the podcast made this happen is that you have used Sloan's music as intro or outro music, what, 15 times or 21 times or something? 20 times. 20 times. So you were able to get them to let you sing a song on stage because you have previously used a whole bunch of their music for free to promote your own product without asking them. Sort of. It was actually, we have a listener named Drew Yamada, who was in the band,

The Super Friends, whose music I have also used a few times on the podcast. And they came up in the same Halifax scene that Sloan did in the early 90s. And they're also really good. And so Drew emailed me when I used a Super Friends song and said, Hey, cool, you used a Super Friends song. And I knew that I knew someone who knew Sloan. song. And I knew that I knew someone who knew Sloan, and he was nice enough to relay my request to the band, and they were nice enough to accept. So another instance of this baseball podcast helping me out in ways that I never would have anticipated. I think I've heard before that the advice that, or I don't know, the observation that if you ask somebody for help they are more likely or if they have helped you before they are more likely to help

you again and I have my my the way that I interact with people is the exact opposite I'm always afraid to ask for help because I think well maybe someday I'll need Sloan for a different favor. And I just think that there's no way that I could ask for two favors. And you have a very different philosophy, which is, I think, a healthier one, one that is a little bit less, I don't know, scheming. It just feels more natural that, of course, we're in this together and we ask for help. And there's nothing wrong with asking for help. And I think I remember a politician one time it might have been a Roosevelt saying that that good politician doesn't ask or what is it that oh that voters don't

want to be promised things they want to be asked for things or something like that that a candidate actually gets a better reaction if they ask the voters to be with them, to help them. Anyway, I botched that last one, botched the last analogy or the last data point. But before that, anyway, I just, I admire you, Ben. Well, thank you. Anyway, congratulations. Thanks. Anything not about me you want to talk about? No. Okay. So we will get into some emails. And I think I will start with a couple Andrew Miller-related questions.

So Mike in Waterloo wants to know, since Andrew Miller's control problems have subsided and he's shown in the playoffs that he can withstand a higher workload, should Cleveland try putting him in the rotation next year what would Andrew Miller 2.0 look like As a starter and I'm curious About this also because I saw a David Lorela interview with Zach Britton

Yes where he basically Suggested that he thinks he could start Now he didn't succeed as a starter before That's why he was moved to the bullpen but Now that he has refined his sinker To the point that he can throw it Wherever he wants, whenever he wants He thinks that would work in the rotation too

And maybe Andrew Miller now Has perfected his craft so much As a reliever that he could now Go back to the rotation and be better Than he was before So I don't know whether it's worth Talking about whether that makes sense For the teams, I mean they're so good In their current roles that I don't know if it really can help you that much

to tamper with what's working right now. But I am curious about whether they could actually do it. Yeah, as am I. And I think Britain, to shift from all the way over to Britain for a moment, Britain is very interesting to me, as was Mariano Rivera, as is Kenley Jansen, where they're so dependent on one pitch. They rely so much on one pitch. I think there's a feeling, generally speaking, that a pitcher who is more suited to the bullpen than starting is a guy who only has two pitches, who doesn't have that third pitch,

to keep hitters. If you have three pitches, you can attack hitters different ways each time you face them throughout the game, keep them guessing. If you only have two, then you don't have that sort of same level of deception and adjustment. And so maybe it's better if you're only facing the guy, you know, once a game and maybe, you know, twice a year or four times a year, or, you know, 12 times in a career career as opposed to a starter who might face the same guy you know 60 times or 100 times in a career or 200 times in a career i think stan musial and warren spawn faced each other like 360 times something like that so uh uh that's not that's

not funny that was like i think that's actually the number uh all right so um but but then when you get to the so that seems fine and that's generally accepted but when you get to the one pitch pitcher i have kind of had this hypothesis that it's it flips around the other way where as it is britain has zero mystery about him he is there's not even enough deception to get through one at bat and he's still incredibly successful like every batter goes up there knowing basically and he's still incredibly successful like every batter goes up there knowing basically what he's going to throw over and over uh and so every at bat already is the third at bat of a game or the fourth at bat of a game uh where you know what

he's throwing if you've ever seen him and then you've seen his whole his full arsenal and you know same with mariano rivera for i mean there were guys who probably faced mariano rivera 60 times in their career uh and uh still you know they were basically it was one pitch over and over and so i almost wonder whether those guys might actually be extra good as starters huh well i mean they're they're all guys who could have been starters and didn't make it in that role but But you don't know if they got better. Right, you don't know if they got better. Rivera didn't even have the cutter when they moved him to the bullpen. Right, yeah.

So who knows? Exactly. And, you know, like Britton is saying that he's changed. It's not just that Britton moved to the bullpen. Britton moved to the bullpen a few years ago, a couple years ago, and he was good, but he's gotten better. And I don't know if he would have said the same thing if you'd asked him that question two or three years ago. 353 times Spahn and Musial faced each other. That's almost a whole season. It's almost a

whole season of his career was spent against Warren Spahn. Anyway, probably not. I'm probably wrong about that, but it seems like a plausible hypothesis. Now, as to Miller, what was the question specifically? Should he be a starter now? Should he and what would he look like, which maybe means how well would he do? So let's rank. We've got Miller, Patonsis, Chapman, Kenley Jansen Jansen and Wade Davis but pretend Wade Davis Didn't sort of fall apart a little

Bit this year so you've got those Five guys who Are all you know Fair like almost indistinguishable in relief Do you want to rank them as starters If they all became starters with You know appropriate time to get used to it Okay I'd say

Miller, Batances. Oh, throw Britton in there too, so six. Okay, Miller, Batances. I think I probably would put, I'd probably go Davis and then sort of Jansen, Britton, I think. But those last two may be tied. I think I am still in the camp that having more pitches helps, even if they are

superlative pitches interesting so you'd go davis even though we davis is the the pitcher other than miller well miller and britain i guess both davis is the one who we had sort of the clearest most convincing evidence that he was not making it as a starter like he got to start for a while yeah there was really no ambiguity about what he was as a starter and there was also no real build-up to what he is now as a reliever it was like flip the switch and he was the you know best reliever in the game or one of the one of the five best so you can't even really necessarily say well he's different now than he was right We at least know that Davis can throw 180 innings in a season and wasn't horrendous when he did that, at least the first couple of years he did it. I guess it would be

hard to say for sure whether someone else can stand up to that workload who hasn't done it. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I just, I think the one pitch thing, I'd love to see it, but Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I just, I think the one pitch thing, I'd love to see it, but it's hard for me to imagine because, you know, people say, oh, Bartolo Colon throws one pitch, but he doesn't really throw one pitch. He throws a fastball, but he throws four seamers, he throws sinkers, he throws some cutters, he mixes in the occasional changeup and breaking ball. And so he is overwhelmingly fastball, but many different types of fastballs with different movement and different speed and everything. So I still think it would be tough. I agree with that sentiment about Colon's fastballs, but mixes in the occasional curveball or change-up, I don't think that sets him apart.

I'm sure all of these guys are capable of mixing in the occasional curveball or change up at the rate that bartolo is uh-huh yeah i think i go britain first what was britain's ground ball rate as a starter actually i'm curious what his ground ball rate was in his first year of relief um so his ground ball rate this year was 80%, last year 79%, first year in relief 75%, and then as a starter, basically 60%. Which is really good. If he were a starter right now, what do you think his ground ball rate would be? Well, let's say it was 53% in his full-time starting season, full season, and then it went up to 61% in a partial season. And then it was like 58%. So I think I would say I'll go 65. So you are giving him credit only for a little bit of evolution. Yeah. Okay. I think I'm not. I think I'm saying more credit for the evolution. So I'm going, uh, Britain, Chapman,

Miller, Jansen, Davis, Patantis. Uh-huh. Oh, I forgot to rank Chapman, but I would have had him high. Uh-huh. All right. Uh, was there any other part of that question that we didn't answer? I guess we didn't really talk about Miller. Does Miller, does Miller have a repertoire that you think is, I mean, what is it? So Miller, I don't know if this comparison holds up at all, but I think of Miller as Chris Sale in relief in a lot of ways, and he doesn't have the change up, but Chris Sale didn't really have the change up early in his career. That's really something that has developed into a very good pitch for him. So, I mean, you know, that saying, even bringing that up and trying to use it as evidence of how Miller would do requires that comp to actually be

thought out a lot better than I have. But I mean, he is a, he definitely benefits from the, from the simplified approach. He benefits from really only throwing those two pitches. He benefits from throwing those two pitches that he can command. And he probably benefits a bit from the look that he gives you, which would probably be a little easier to adjust to if you saw it a lot. On the other hand, those were really good pitches. Yeah. We just don't Yeah My constant complaint

We just don't ever get to see The elite relievers going back And I miss it, I want it I know, me too Yeah, and he's been tinkering with the slider You know, Saris wrote about it recently And David Laurel had talked to him about it So he kind of has multiple

Slider shapes and movements Now, which would help him theoretically. So I don't know. He's another guy who we have a very large sample of being a really bad starter. So maybe that's enough to move him down the board. But man, he is so good. It's just, I don't know, when someone is this good in relief, I mean, there's sort of like your average adjustment that you make.

I forget what the percentage improvements are, but going back to some Nate Silver research about pitchers who move from the bullpen to the rotation or from the rotation to the bullpen, and they get this much better strikeout rate and that much better walk rate and all that. And obviously, that is not a one-size-fits-all adjustment. And some guys just do it a lot better than other guys do. But still, when you are as unhittable as Andrew Miller is right now, it's just hard to imagine him going from unhittable to bad. Yeah. So it's, there's two things that change when you switch roles. It's, there's two things that change when you switch roles. One is that the batter gets to see what you throw a lot more. And when you look at Andrew Miller throw that slider, you don't go, oh, well, if you saw it twice, then you'd hit it.

Like, it just feels like you could see it 5 million times. And so in that sense, I think that he would, even as a two pitch pitcher, he would still be able to thrive as a starter. But the other thing is how much you lose by having to throw more innings. And that's probably what, in the current conversation, I am probably underselling. He probably doesn't throw that slider as well if he's throwing seven innings. He probably doesn't throw his fastball as hard if he's throwing seven innings. And he certainly, I would say certainly, probably certainly doesn't command either as well if he's throwing seven innings.

And so probably if you had this version of Andrew Miller and let him go seven innings and he maintained the quality of everything he threw, he would not have any trouble being one of the best starters in the world. But he probably wouldn't uh-huh i guess okay so if we set the over under at uh i don't know a four era as a full-time starter no i'd go i'd say better than that okay so so you're saying he's a what an average starter i think yeah i'll say three seven okay all right I could see it being, you know, 5.2 as well. And I could see Britain being 5.2 as well. But I would probably would set the over-under on Britain at 3.55.

Maybe. Man. Maybe even. Someone's got to just do this once. I know. Just once. I know. Give us one data point.

All right. And the second Miller question is from Fangraph's writer slash Patreon supporter, August Fagerstrom, who says, Remember that time you decided how much you'd pay, I think, David Price for one start in the regular season? Now can you do that with having Andrew Miller in the bullpen for one postseason or World Series game? So you have him for one game and we can assume that he is fully rested. So you could get, you know, you could even say stretch him to as much as three innings if you only have to worry about using him for that one game. Ben, I need a favor from you. Okay. Can you look up what his championship probability added has been in these postseason outings?

Okay, so going to the baseball gauge at seamheads.com slash baseball gauge, the 2016 rankings in championship probability added in the postseason, you have Clayton Kershaw on top, then Kenley Jensen, then Cody Allen, actually, ahead of Andrew Miller, and Andrew Miller in fourth with.090. Yeah. The problem is that part of the problem with that is that the Indians have not been playing close series. Yes, that is right.

So just... It was a.221 series win probability added. So, yeah. Who are the other, who was at the top among relievers? Jensen. And what is his? His is about a little over twice what Miller's is,.119. .119 in.

Is Jensen. Like five outings or something like that? Six. Six outings. Cody Allen? .103 also in five games. Okay. So basically all of these are at about 2% of a championship per outing.

Yeah. So August is asking us to have him for one outing. We get one day of him. We don't get him for a whole postseason, but we only get him for one game. Yep. These guys have all been selected to pitch in the games that they were in, which were the closest. There were other games where their championship probability added would be close to nothing because the games were not as close because the team lost anyway without them. Probably Jensen's most recent outing where he was

pitching in what a six nothing game. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, and then you also have the, the probably worth considering that probability added metrics are basically comparing to average major leaguers. And, uh, you're probably, uh, in, in these instances, Miller, Jansen, Allen, all are probably replacing somebody who is, uh, would have been available, who was somewhat better than average. So that might pump it up a little bit, But let's say, I would say that based on this, I would say that each outing from a reliever of this level of success, particularly a successful outing, because we're only talking about players who had successful outings,

although I guess that's self-selecting as well. So maybe that's a problem. But let's just say a hundredth of a championship for each outing, which seems close enough with all the rounding that i'm doing so a hundredth of a championship uh i would probably pay seven hundred thousand dollars maybe maybe a million 1.1 million maybe of course if it's the way if you can hold them for the world series yeah that's the thing if you're if you're holding game is this yeah you know is this world series game? Is this World Series, Game 7?

And if it is, then it's going to be massive. So then you might be talking about triple or quadruple, but again, you might not get that game if you only have them for Game 7 of the World Series and the World Series ends in 6. Or if you have them in Game 2 of the World Series. By the way, I have a question for you. I'll ask you in a minute. But if you have them in game two of the world series and by the way i have a question for you i'll ask you in a minute but if you have them for you know game two of the world series and it's eight to nothing so it's a little bit of a gamble that he's going to be

worth anything but i would say okay i i yeah i'll go 1.1 million i'd pay one point oh man what i yeah just for an average postseason i would pay 11 million for, let's say, an LCS game. No. Yeah. Yeah, sure. A million. A million for an LCS game of my choosing, but I have to choose in advance, and it's Andrew Miller. A million bucks.

Okay. What about the max payment scenario? So it's World Series Game 7. But then wouldn't that mean that I'm paying, that I would, that would mean that I'm willing to pay Andrew Miller, if I'm willing to pay him a million dollars for random game, not random, but you know, one game in advance without even knowing if I'm going to use him, then that would mean that I would pay him that for all the games, which would mean that I would pay 15 million or so to have Andrew Miller on my club for the postseason before the postseason begins. And that seems a little high. Not insanely high, but a little. Like I would say I would pay

seven or eight million to add Andrew Miller before the postseason starts. Does that seem low? Yeah. Well, because you don't know how many postseason games you're going to play. That's true, too. That's true, too. If you get knocked out in the wild card, you're only stuck paying a couple million. So you'd want to hedge your bets and just pay them for, I don't know, the average number of postseason games the postseason team plays, maybe? This might be the only time ever that i would actually read all the terms and

conditions before clicking the box that said i read the terms and conditions because i think that some some of these terms and conditions might affect my answer a great deal but for one game i'll just uh i'll i'll simplify and say a million dollars for a postseason i'll say eight million dollars to have andrew miller okay and if it's World Series Game 7 and it's three hours before game time, so you know the game is going to be played? You've already banked a lot of the value of the championship because losing a World Series is pretty good too. And it's not as good though.

So Game 7 and I can add Andrew Miller, $3.25 million. Okay. Is that too low? Is that too low? That might be too low. I think it's low. Because it's going to be, he's going to throw, he's going to throw six ish of my 27 ounce. He's going to throw, you know, almost a quarter. Yeah. He might throw a quarter of my innings and he's the best pitcher, you know, in, in basically best reliever in baseball. So that does seem a little low.

Like, how much would you pay to have, what do we say we would pay David Price? Yeah, I don't know. Okay, I have no idea. Probably 14. I would guess we said 14 million. So a quarter of that, three and a half. Although you can choose when to use Andrew Miller. It doesn't matter if it's game seven.

It doesn't matter. I guess not. It matters a little bit. All right. So can I now ask the question that I meant to ask? It has nothing to do with anything, but let's say you add a 2-2 series, and so you've got three games to go,

and you've got Clayton Kershaw. But I'm setting a rule here you cannot use him in relief in another game under any circumstances he uh is one game and then he's he's burned okay do you use him in game five game six or game seven do you have any opinion at all or do you have you know do you absolutely not care i think if there's no chance of bringing him back, so you're tied 2-2, I guess, well, you don't have to worry about, I guess, save him for the first elimination game you have. What's it matter, though? It doesn't matter. No, it doesn't really matter.

I mean, maybe, I don't know, maybe psychologically it matters. But psychologically, maybe it matters to get ahead and put the elimination on the other team. Yeah, sure. You could make either argument. Yeah. So no, it probably doesn't matter. Good. Me too.

All right. Just wanted to have that on record. Okay. We will forget by tomorrow what each of us said, so it's not even really on record. All right. Okay. Another playoff-related question from Justin. How beneficial is the all-out style of play in playoff baseball?

They can't do it all year long because it would fatigue everybody. So say you take 30 or whatever you feel is optimal games per season and just forfeit them to give everyone extra rest and easier travel. You'd likely lose 12 or 17 of those games anyway. You can select the game strategically to benefit the teams that aren't a threat or to give extra rest to a team by not facing them just before they face your division rival. Then when you play, you play hard like it's the postseason.

Short rest, heavy reliance on best relievers, etc. Could this strategy work in your favor? We can decide what number of games you forfeit, but in his scenario, you are dropping, I don't know, if you're a good team, if you're a playoff team, but maybe you get some benefit back from playing all out in your other games. I mean, look, if you are, pick a winning percentage for this hypothetical team in normal circumstances. I don't know, 540. 540. So if that team plays like it's game seven of the World Series What is their winning percentage against a League average regular season team now? 5

60 Then you're improving by 1 50th of a win So if you forfeited Let's say even if you forfeited 3 of these 30 And it freed you up to play like a World Series team You're losing 3 wins And gaining 3 quarters of one win.

So your math is not working out for you. Yeah. I mean, if you did this all season, you could just have a four-man rotation. You could bypass your fifth starter, never have to use him. You could just lop a couple guys off your bullpen depth chart and just use your best guys, and that would help somewhat. And maybe your offensive players, you know, they wouldn't have to take days off because you're building in days off, so you'd always have your A lineup out there, and maybe they'd hold up

better over the course of a season. Maybe you'd have fewer injuries. I don't know. So there are all of these possible benefits, but still seems like it wouldn't be enough to overcome all of those certain losses. Yeah. Now, forfeiting a game that you say are down 6-0 in the second, maybe that makes sense. I mean, Henry Dreschel wrote about this recently, whether baseball is sort of under-forfeiting. And of course, one of the problems is that even if it is strategically sound and makes sense from a leverage standpoint and win probability standpoint and all that,

it's not in the culture and you'd get roasted for it. So it's not realistic, but that would make sense because then you are, in this scenario, you are picking, he says you're going to lose 12 to 17 of those anyway, but you don't know which 12 to 17. And so you're just adding, you're still going to lose a bunch anyway, even the ones you don't forfeit because you can't pick what your losses are going to be in advance. But if you're down six, nothing in your win probability in that game is, you know, down to two or something, then of of course, you sort of can select so that they overlap with your losses. And that would make sense, probably.

I think that from a strictly rational perspective, if there were no fans, if nobody watched these games, if they were not paid for, I think that there's a fairly strong case that teams would forfeit a lot more of games that they're trailing. All right. I mean, we've all played pickup basketball,

and we know, you know, like when you're down 8-0 in a game to 11, you sort of conserve your energy. You're not making your best plays at that point because you want it to be over. Play index? All right. Play index. So pitchers running the bases. I forget what got me thinking about this, but I looked up

every pitcher since 1988 who got at least 50 plate appearances in the majors to see how they were as base runners using baseball references, base running runs metric. And I think we all agree that pitchers are bad base runners, but I wanted to get a sense of how much they actually cost their team by running the bases as opposed to some other player. And so I looked them up. I have 632 total pitchers. And first, I will tell you that the worst base runner in that era is Tom Glavin, which is partly because the more plate appearances you get as a pitcher, the more likely you are to rack up negative runs because most pitchers are negative base runners. But also because apparently Tom Glavin wasn't that good running the bases.

Number eight is Greg Maddox, which I only bring up because of two things. One is that Greg Maddox, in my mind, is one of the great base running pitchers. He used to steal a bunch of bases, a bunch being relative. He stole 11 and was only caught twice in his career. But in fact, he also was a negative base runner. The other reason I bring it up is that Greg Maddux is interesting because he is considered one of the smartest players ever, one of the wisest, most efficient players ever. And it's interesting to see what he valued in his career. Like he was, I remember him just absolutely not caring if base runners

stole against him. He would just let, he would almost just let them go. Whereas you see other players who are considered wise and smart pitchers get credit for shutting down base running. And Maddox's feeling was just that it wasn't worth his attention. It wasn't worth his energy and his effort and getting himself distracted. So two different views. The other thing though about Maddox, and this is now way off topic, but the other thing that always amused me about Maddox is that he won all these gold gloves, even though he was one of the worst in the game at holding on runners. So I guess I think gold glove voters don't care about holding on runners from the pitcher's perspective. They consider that maybe part of pitching, not part of defense,

but for catchers, it's almost entirely what they get credit for, uh, stopping base runners. Anyway, back to the topic, uh, at hand on a kind of among among players who had like many hundreds of at bats plate appearances uh cole hamels seems to be probably basically the worst on a per plate appearance basis uh but that's not the point the point is to know how bad they are exactly so uh i can tell you that of the 632, 523 of them have negative base running. So five and six, basically, were negative. I'm actually surprised it's not more, I think. Well, we can talk about that in a minute.

But a few were exactly at zero, and then 69 were positive base runners. Finally, though, my point is that to the cumulative, cumulatively these 600 pitchers had 145,000 plate appearances. They reached base 22,500 times, not counting home runs. I would like you to guess how many runs they were worth as a group in these 145,000 plate appearances. Okay, so... This is like a question that you would be asked at a Google job interview.

Yeah, I know. All right, so 145,000 plate appearances. So let's say that's like roughly 300 full seasons for a hitter. But of course, they're getting on base a lot less often than a hitter gets on base like how much less often like uh they get on base uh what a third is often or something like that the average on base percentage for a pitcher is like in the 220 ish range to 200 actually probably it's less than that it's uh yeah sub 200 it's probably 180 190 yeah so all right so half as often yeah call it half call it okay so i would think like like a really bad position player base runner i'd say would be something like

negative eight ish over the course of a season and let's say a pitcher is is getting on base half as often as that guy so he has half as many opportunities to do damage on the bases. So let's say if he were as bad as the bad base runner, he'd be a negative four base runner over a full season. But I'll say he's worse than the bad base runner, so I'll say he's like a negative six over a season. So I've kind of's like a negative six over a season. So I've kind of lost track of my math, but I think if I negative six,

and then I said this was like 300 seasons or something. So I'm going to say negative 1,800. Negative 1,800. It's actually way less than that. It's negative 488 runs cumulatively uh so maybe it's that pitchers are so cautious that they do less damage than your your billy butler yeah right i mean you you get demerits for not advancing but you also don't get demerits for yeah not getting picked off or or getting caught stealing so yeah why else could it be lower than you thought?

Besides the possibility that your math was, that you carried a one somewhere. But why else might it be? Do we have a per plate appearance? I have a per plate. I do have a per plate appearance. In fact, what I have is I have a per times reaching base. I can give you a per plate appearance if you want.

Per times reaching base is good. So they give up a run. They give back a run every 46 times they reach base, which seemed crazy low to me. Yeah. That was my conclusion here. Okay. So can you compare that to Prince Fielder, let's say, who I think of as a very bad base runner?

Yeah, sure. So Prince Fielder, using the same estimate, it's hard to know exactly how many times you reach base because, you know, Fielder's choices, for instance. But using the same way of doing this that I did for the pitchers, we would have like 2,200 times reaching base-ish. And he was a negative 37 base runner, which would be one every 59. So they were a little worse than Prince Fielder. Okay. But not much worse. Not much worse. Well, okay. So I was thinking that

the average bad base runner would be like two-thirds as bad as the average pitcher base runner but i was also thinking that the average base runner was way worse than prince fielder was yeah because prince fielder's base running runs per year he actually was never minus eight he was minus one minus three minus five minus five minus seven minus five minus four minus three minus minus 7, minus 5, minus 4, minus 3, minus 0, minus 3, minus 2. Yeah. So on average, about minus 3 or 4. All right.

So maybe I was just overestimating how bad a regular bad base runner is. Yeah. Butler was never worse than minus 5, for instance. Uh-huh. All right. So anyway, I'm still surprised, though. uh i'm still surprised though if you put a pitcher on base 46 times he will only cost you one run relative to an average major leaguer and it certainly feels like they're uh more fragile than that that they're more station to station that they're just bad uh at it and i guess they

they are just bad at it but not quite as bad as I thought. It would take, I guess what I'm saying is it would actually take, you'd have to sit at the field for a very long time before you saw a pitcher cost his team a run with his base running. Yeah. And that's kind of unusual. Yeah, that's interesting because they are so bad at hitting relative to people who hit. And so you'd think they would be, I mean, it makes sense that they're

not as bad at base running as they are at hitting because everyone has run in their lives and gets a fair amount of practice at running. And pitchers run. I mean, pitchers jog and the pitching is endurance and they all run as part of their training. So it makes sense that they wouldn't all be slow pokes, but yeah, the base running instincts obviously are not there, but the best, the best base runner of our era is apparently Jason Marquis, uh, who was worth three runs in his career. But the third best is Sean Estes, which, uh, is interesting to me because the single most damaging piece of pitcher base running that I have ever seen in my life was Sean Estes, like the one pitcher base running

example that I remember as good evidence that even if you don't have a DH, you should maybe have designated runners in the 2000 playoffs when Estes basically he got like forced at second but he like didn't slide until too late and then he injured himself and then he was out of the uh out of the rest of the series and it was very bad for the Giants and very good for the Mets this was from the AP article about the game which actually led with this base running Estes this was the third inning it was a one run game Estes led off uh the third inning with a was a one-run game. Estes led off the third inning with a walk. One out later, Bill Miller grounded the ball into the hole between shortstop Mike Bordick and third baseman Robin Ventura. Bordick tried to force him out at second,

and Estes, who didn't attempt to slide, jammed his ankle into the bag. Estes jumped off the base in pain, limping toward the Giants' dugout mid-play. Mid-play. He just started walking to the dugout mid-play. He was safe. Then fell and was tagged out. He then left the game. This was not only significant because the Giants lost their starter in the middle of the game,

but in a one-run game, they were about to have runners on first and second with 2,000 Barry Bonds coming up. And instead, it was a second out. He was off the field and out of the game. That's embarrassing. Yep. Yet, he was apparently one of the good ones. All right. Coupon code BP.

Get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription to the Play Index at baseballreference.com. All right, question from Julia Martin. I married a baseball fan 11 years ago, and it followed the Braves faithfully through an uninspiring decade. After so long, it is rather embarrassing to admit that I just this year figured out which division series is which. No thanks, of course course to the Braves, I wonder if it could be time for MLB's marketing department to add a tagline or slogan or cheesy subtitle to the alphabet soup of NLCS, NLDS, ALCS, ALDS that tradition has imparted. I know every one of your listeners will roll their eyes at such stupidity, but I think for the good of baseball, it's time to be outsider friendly.

I actually had a conversation with another fan spouse recently that went like this. It's a big day in our house today. If the Orioles win the game today, they get to go to the thing. It's not just me. The casual fan who did not grow up watching playoffs first has to remember what each letter stands for, then remember the difference between the division and the championship,

then they still have to ask a stupid question like how many games do they have to win to move on? NCAA basketball has perfected the art of entertaining the clueless audience with clear titling. All you need to say is Elite 8 or Final Four, and I can at least evaluate the game's significance semi-intelligently. Wild card game and World Series are meaningful. Do you have any shortcut title suggestions for the games in between? That's a good question. It is a good question. I've had this recently. I play tennis with this German guy in my building who knows nothing about baseball. And so he keeps asking me if I can play. And I

keep saying, I'm busy. I have to watch this game or that game. And he's just kind of asking me, when will the playoffs be over so that you can play tennis again? And I don't even try to explain to him what round we are in or how far it is from the end. Whereas if we could just say, like after the wildcard round, if we could just say, oh, it's the Elite Eight, there are eight teams left. He would understand that. Anyone would understand that.

And then you could say Final Four for the NLCS and everyone would understand that. So it would work. Yeah. I am still not comfortable saying LDS either. Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not uncomfortable.

I'm like not worried about offending church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or anything like that. Like it just doesn't flow off my tongue all these years later. Yeah. Um, where LCS does LCS, I'm fine, but yeah,

no, it's a good, it's a fair concern And division series is a meaningless Means nothing It's not for the division title It's not a division opponent The LCS was a division series

Yeah right So it makes no sense So I agree That we could do better than that I mean if we wanted to just borrow Elite Eight and Final Four, it works. Those are the right number of teams. So why not? Because they're theirs.

Because that's another sport. Why not call it the Super Bowl, Ben? Is it only a basketball thing? I mean, people use those terms for other things. No. I mean, sure, they do now. But they're just ripping it off, and they're probably violating a trademark.

Okay. Well, that would be bad. So can we come up with anything else on the fly? I don't know. I mean, you could just call it semifinals. Yeah. I mean, that's boring. Football calls it the conference championship game, but then I don't know what they call the round. I guess they call that like, I think they, do they call that the bye round? Or wait, how many? I don't know what they call it.

I mean, there's just probably just rounds of eight and rounds of 16 and other sports and stuff like that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't have a good idea here, but I agree that there's a need to let us know. Yeah. Let you do the work yeah it's not just you julia all right last one i guess from brendan it's a follow-up to one we answered last week on your recent podcast you discussed whether you would prefer batting against a major league pitcher throwing a batting practice session or throwing at max effort i too would prefer max effort just to say i did it but I would probably remind the pitcher not to hit me before each pitch.

With that fear being hit in mind, would you rather stand in the box with only a helmet and try to hit a Noah Syndergaard pitch or try to catch for him? Catching, of course, you gain more protective gear, but now the ball is thrown directly at you. What do you think you could achieve quickest, making contact in the batter's box, foul balls count, or successfully catching a pitch? Would it make a difference if you knew which pitch was coming? I believe that if you worked your way up, if you said throw the first one at 80, throw the second one at 85, throw the third one at 90, throw the fourth one at 95, throw the fifth one at 100. the fourth one 95 for the fifth one 100 i think that by the time you got to 100 this might be totally delusional but i think you could catch like one of the next five yeah i don't know i

mean a fastball yeah um i think it would be hard to catch something with a lot of movement especially if you didn't know it was coming yeah but catching is just easier than hitting right i mean it's just there's less coordination required i think you just have to you just have to put a thing in the way of another thing and it's a bigger thing right like yeah it's a lot easier though to not hit a noah cinder guard pitch than to catch one. Like one of them you're fine. Like you don't even have to succeed. You're just being asked to try. And then the other one you have to actually catch it.

Yeah, well, that's right. So I think I would be better at catching the pitch than I would at hitting it. But I think I would maybe be more afraid to catch it than to try to hit it. Yeah. Do you think it hurts with the batting? I think it would hurt us. I think maybe if you're a catcher and you've been catching that sort of velocity for a long time, you are used to it and maybe you've built up some roughness in your hands and

some calluses and all that. So I think, yeah. And plus I'd probably catch it in the wrong spot in the glove and it would probably hurt more than it should. So yeah, I think it would, it would hurt, wouldn't hurt. Like getting hit by a pitch would hurt, but you might also still get hit by it. I, yeah, I actually don't mean would it hurt to catch it? I mean, would it hurt to, if it hit you in the chest or if it hit you in the knee pads, the shin guards, or if it hit you in the mask. I think, yeah, I think in the mask would hurt. I think if it hit you in the chest protector, it would maybe take the wind out of you a little, but I don't know if it would be painful.

It would be very dangerous to get hit in the mask though correct yeah very like no different than i mean that's it's no no no different than a foul tip that gives catchers concussions right do you think you're less likely to break a bone or something i think because your whole face is is masked but you could still get a concussion sure i think i would rather hit however if it were a uh if it were like a three-month project as part of like a magazine article i would rather catch i would rather learn to catch and work my way up framer yeah yeah that'd be fun all right one more related quick one from nathan how much better at hitting would a major league umpire be than the average person of the same age and physical stature would seeing so many pitches give him much of a leg up?

Good question. I think in the first 10 that he sees, undeniably much better. Because again, you would be so scared. You would be so flinchy, that just being around the environment and around pitches and hearing them would give you as the umpire a huge, huge leg up. Now, if you got to C50 and that's when the competition started, would an umpire be better because they've seen a lot? I don't know that he would.

It's a different angle. Yeah. I mean, if we're literally comparing to an average person, then I think the umpire is better just because the umpire is more likely to have more baseball playing experience than the average person. But if we're talking about just average person who has played plenty of recreational sports or played in school or whatever, then I don't think

the difference would be that great after those initial adjustment. Agree. Agree. I'm saying no, no difference. Okay. All right. So we will leave it there. By the way, we recorded that bit about Andrew Miller's championship win probability added before his most recent appearance. So after his sixth game of this postseason, he is now exactly tied with Cody Allen at.107 championships added. And he's also an ALCS MVP. You can support the podcast on Patreon at patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Today's five listeners who have already pledged their support are Greg Gersh, Sam Raker, Joram van der Schans, John Hines, and David Moore.

Thank you. website at theonlyruleisthastowork.com and please do leave us a review on Amazon and Goodreads if you liked it. Michael Bauman and I did an episode of the Ringer MLB show earlier this week you might enjoy. We talked to John Thorne and Stephen Goldman about some historical strategies that teams might consider bringing back. You can contact me and Sam at podcastatbaseballperspectives.com

or by messaging us through Patreon. We will be back soon. Gonna settle down and we're gonna be So long as you take the rest of my life And settle down Then I guess you'd probably lie to yourself Okay. Here's what I expect from him. He's going to watch that house, see who comes and goes, and follow them. I need to find where that merchandise went.

Now, last night was strike one. You get one more chance or I send my blood samples to the FBI. That is not how strikes work I never had much patience for baseball