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1 | Episode | Submitter & Question |
2 | 2190 | Kyle: I was just struck by an idea while watching today's Guardians/Giants game. The Giants had first and third with two outs, and on the pitch the runner from first attempted to steal second. When the Guardian's catcher threw to second, the runner on third (Matt Chapman) was able to race home safely ahead of the return throw from second. This is a common play, and the question of whether the catcher should even throw in this situation is usually raised in this scenario. My question is -- why aren't catchers trained to try to backpick at third base in this scenario? Obviously an out is an out, but I'm not so sure the risk of not catching the runner at second is worth risking a run. Now, the score was 4-2 and a successful steal would mean a base hit ties the game. But, the runner got an incredible jump off first, which theoretically the catcher can see in the moment, and the runner at third *must* to take a large secondary lead to make his gambit a viable one. So, why not coach your third baseman to guard the bag in these scenarios, and coach your catcher to make the runner at third the priority to nab rather than the runner at second? Like a QB going through his progressions, first read is at 3rd, second read at 2nd. Catching the runner leading off third (which is a shorter throw) seems to me to have a greater chance of success than nailing the runner at second, and does not run the risk of immediately conceding a run if you are unsuccessful. What say you? |
3 | 2189 | Andrew: I would like to make my contribution to your archives of baseball pedantry. I do not like when someone says a player broke out of a slump after one good result. Announcers make this mistake all the time, and I find it very annoying. If a batter is undergoing a prolonged slump and then hits one home run, the slump is not broken. The reason is a slump is a trend over time, and to break the trend you have to be on a better trend. As far as how many good results a player must have before the slump is broken, I am open to ideas. My initial reaction would be at least 2 or 3 games with positive results, but the more positive results the more confidence you have that the slump is over. The main point is that there has to be more than one result that changes the trend. |
4 | 2189 | J. Criscuoli (Patreon): I have a problem with the phrase “not in time.” Isn’t there a better way to describe some attempted tagouts than “not in time”? For example, I was just watching a clip of Juan Soto scoring during a rundown, and the throw from Vladdy was seemingly “in time” (it’s not like it was coming from far away, because of the play) but just not exactly in line enough to get the out. Doesn’t the phrase “not in time” imply the throw, not the tag, arrived late? Am I misreading this phrase and wrongfully bothered by it? |
5 | 2189 | Rob: The Braves radio broadcast does a lot of inning-based giveaways. A couple years ago, they started having the 8th inning be the "strike out the side inning", and if a Braves pitcher struck out the side, a random person would win an ATV. The problem with that giveaway is that they originally used the definition of "all 3 outs in the inning are strikeouts, regardless of other outcomes," and quietly switched to "3 up, 3 down, all strikeouts" without telling anyone this year. The Braves radio giveaways have a new problem now, which is that the 4th inning is a "clean inning" based giveaway. If the Braves have a clean inning, every Braves fan can get a free carwash the next day. The problem here is that they've defined a "clean inning" as a scoreless inning, regardless of how many baserunners or pitching changes there are. I don't think you can call an inning with baserunners and pitching changes a clean inning. Where do you draw the line for a clean inning? |
6 | 2189 | Alex (Patreon): Do umpires ever wear shorts?? Are they even allowed to? When it gets cold it’s normal to see them wearing jackets but when it’s super hot I imagine it might be nice to wear shorts, yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen it! |
7 | 2189 | Kenough (Patreon): In episode #2187 you mention how cool a Mariners-Brewers World Series would be as both teams have never won. I suppose I'm wondering if that's true. Where does a title ultimately live? While the Brewers have never won a World Series the Milwaukee Braves did win the series in 1957. Does that title belong to Atlanta now? Milwaukee fans of a certain age? Nobody? I believe it belongs to the city and the pennant could be proudly displayed in the Brewers ballpark. Put another way, if the Yankees moved to Las Vegas tomorrow I don’t think it would be accurate to say that the Las Vegas Gamblers have won 27 World Series’. But, if the Yankees void made the A’s pivot and move to the Bronx and become the Yankees and donned the pinstripes, it seems reasonable to me to say they’ve won 27 titles and could, for example, retire Ruth’s #3. What say you? |
8 | 2189 | David: On episode 2185, in the discussion of how baseball would be different if ejected players couldn’t be replaced, Ben noted that it would actually be an advantage if a team’s worst hitter or hitters were ejected, since the shorter lineup would then be more wheat and less chaff. This seems axiomatic—the shorter a team’s lineup is, the better it will be. But I’m wondering what the limit to this axiom would be. A hypothetical: through some combination of events, the 2024 Dodgers are allowed to have a four-person lineup: (a healthy) Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, and Will Smith. The team is allowed five designated fielders to make up the positions. I believe, with four batters, they wouldn’t ever need a ghost runner. Would this be the best offensive team in baseball history? Or would the toll of overuse—each player would rack up something like 1500 plate appearances over the season—be so much that it would counteract the benefits? How good would they be? |
9 | 2189 | Julian (Patreon): I have become extremely curious about whether it is possible for an infielder to rob a home run. According to a knowledgable-sounding Redditor [1], the longest known hang time for a home run is in the 6-7 second range. It seems that an infielder positioned optimally in a stadium with a short porch, such as playing first base near Fenway's right field corner, could be 200 feet from the wall or less. If we take Elly De La Cruz's top speed of 30 ft/sec [2], he could cover that distance in 6.7 seconds. Meaning it's just within the realm of possibility? Seems like the kind of thing you or your statblast consultants could be interested in doing a more rigorous calculation of. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/ph9ve1/comment/hbhpt8q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button [2]: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/sprint_speed?min_season=2015&max_season=2024&position=&team=&min=10 |
10 | 2189 | Simon: I was perusing José Ramírez's Baseball-Reference page and noticed that his debut age of 20-349d, when read as a five digit number, was quite similar to his debut number as the 20,516th player in major league history. Checking recent debuts, Brooks Lee is even closer (23-140d and 23,260th). This got me wondering, has any player's debut age matched their debut number exactly? Given that the average age a player reaches the majors is around 23-25 and that there have been a little over 23,000 major leaguers, it would seem that if it hasn't happened yet, we ought to be on the lookout. A few additional thoughts: The ideal window to search would seem to begin on Sept 23rd, 2001. Michael Cuddyer was the 18,000th debut in major league history and I can't recall any Joe Nuxhall situations in my lifetime. As players trend younger, I suspect we are living through some of the best odds for a match. Although I wouldn't rule out a 29-year-old rookie reliever perfectly matching sometime in the 2040s. Perhaps most importantly, the inclusion of 2,300 Negro Leagues players has changed the way that Baseball-Reference accounts for a player's debut number. Databases that I have looked at have generally disagreed on the total number of major leaguers, but not by very much. A match in any dataset would be interesting. |
11 | 2189 | Preston (Patreon): In the era of the All Star Game, there are 100 batters who have accumulated at least 100 walks. Only one was never an All Star. There are 155 batters who were worth at least 50 bWAR. Only one was never an All Star. I can't sort fWAR by whether or not someone was an All Star, but it appears that there are 178 batters with at least 45 fWAR, and only one was never an All Star. In integrated baseball, there are 32 players with 2000 hits, 300 doubles, 50 triples, and 100 home runs. 31 of them have combined for 353 All Star selections (with none fewer than 2), 124 gold glove awards, 72 silver slugger awards, and 82.34 MVP shares. The 32nd player never made an All Star team and only received MVP votes in one season, for a 0.03 MVP share. It's the same player in every instance: Tony Phillips. He's almost certainly the most underappreciated player in baseball history. We now have awards for the best designated hitter and the best closer. We now award a gold glove to the best utility glove. We need an award for the best utility player, and it should be named the Tony Phillips award. I'm not sure we need to go so far as putting players in the Hall of Fame for being good utility players, but if we were to do so, Phillips should be the first choice. By WAR and WAA, he's more deserving of a spot than Harold Baines, Jack Morris, or probable future inductee Yadier Molina. (Of that trio, Yadi has the best WAA at 15.5; Phillips accumulated 21.1.) In fact, there are 43 modern era batters in the Hall of Fame with fewer wins above average than Phillips, including recent inductees David Ortiz and Fred McGriff. Can we start a movement to have the Tony Phillips Award? If it existed, perhaps David Fry would be this year's honoree. |
12 | 2187 | Preston (Patreon): I was reading a musing on pitching wins by Ben Seigel at AZ SnakePit (https://www.azsnakepit.com/2024/7/5/24191371/thursday-tidbits-musing-on-pitching-wins) and that got me thinking about a replacement counting stat for pitchers that is relevant that could replace the romanticism of pitching wins and actually be an individual accomplishment. I got inspired by cricket. Batters in cricket are recognized for reaching 50 or 100 runs in an innings. My proposal: begin treating 10 strikeout games by starters the way pitching wins used to be treated. 10 10-K games could be the new 20 wins (it has been accomplished 85 times since integration) and 20 10-K games could be the new 30 wins (accomplished 8 times since integration.) For relievers, I initially thought 5 strikeouts, but that leaves out so many options I switched to 3 strikeouts, no walks. This looks like it rewards the best relievers (the best seasons are by Brad Lidge, Josh Hader, Billy Wagner, Andrew Miller, Kenley Jansen, Edwin Diaz, Dick Radatz, and Tom Henke. The best career number belongs to Craig Kimbrel, followed by Kenley Jansen, Hoyt Wilhelm, Aroldis Chapman, and Rollie Fingers. There are not really any attainable individual pitching accomplishments that can be rooted for on a game level. Batters have home runs, but a single strikeout is not nearly as valuable as a single home run. Thoughts on 10-K games as a stat? |
13 | 2187 | Carter (Patreon): In the Cardinals game tonight against the Pirates, the Cardinals found themselves down a run in the bottom of the 9th with two outs, and backup catcher Pedro Pagés up to bat. The Cardinals then pinch hit Iván Herrera, who had an off day. This prompted the Pirates’ pitching coach to visit closer David Bednar on the mound to discuss the new hitter, as I feel like always happens these days when there is a late pinch hitter in a tight spot. It then occurred to me: could the Cardinals not then pinch hit a different bench player, and negate the mound visit? The Pirates could not do another mound visit without removing Bednar. A better plan could have been instead to first pinch hit Dylan Carlson, which would seem plausible even if for the catcher because they could substitute Herrera if the game went to extras. Presumably the Pirates would have still visited Bednar, so then the Cardinals could have gotten Herrera the at-bat with no prep for Bednar. The only cost to the Cardinals is burning Carlson in a game one out from over. Assuming this is technically allowable in rules, do you think there is any value in preventing the reliever from getting the scouting report? Is it ever worth burning a bench bat to do this? Do you think you could only get away with it once? If teams held back on a mound visit because they were aware of the threat of another pinch hitter, doesn’t that sort of accomplish the same thing? |
14 | 2187 | Daniel (Patreon): During the 2023 World Series, I think, I asked some of my fellow Mariners fans about the Rangers/Diamondbacks matchup. I wanted to get a sense about whether or not Mariners fans would care about their postseason opponents in a hypothetical deep playoff or World Series run. I don't have the figures in front of me, but my recollection is that most people didn't care and just wanted to see the M's do it. For me, though, I really want to see them slay some dragons. I feel like, to have the Mariners knock off teams like Houston, the Yankees, or even frequent-playoff-opponent Cleveland on their way to the World Series, then to beat a team like the Phillies, Braves, or Dodgers, would be really special in a way that you just couldn't capture by beating, say, the Twins, Orioles, and Brewers on the way to a title. I feel like the baseball world is relatively "meh" about the Rangers' World Series victory last year, and to some extent that actually bums me out for Rangers fans since it's the team's first and they had those two painful World Series losses as prelude. It ought to be a big deal, but I feel like the baseball world just shrugged, said, "well that was weird," and moved on. I'm curious to get your take on the possible reasons why that might be. Is it because the Diamondbacks -- though they earned their trip to the World Series -- were not the marquee franchise coming out of the NL? Was the World Series destined to be overshadowed by the Ohtani sweepstakes? Is it just that the Dodgers became the off-season Main Character with their acquisitions, especially because the Rangers didn't make any real moves to improve? Was Bally too big a story? Is it the relative weakness of the Rangers' record in the first half? I suppose it's probably a bit of everything, but how do you attribute it? |
15 | 2187 | Zachary: I'm writing not with a question, but to complain about something that I truly think could pose a huge danger to MLB. I was recently watching my beloved Seattle mariners play the athletics in Oakland. I haven't yet watched a game in Oakland this season but I was dismayed how awful it was to watch. They had green screen advertisements behind home plate which frequently would cause hitters (or even the pitcher) to look like people on zoom calls with fake backgrounds. Even worse, the ball became very difficult to see when it crossed the plate! This is awful!!! Baseball HAS to be good to watch on TV. I had a similar (but less bad) issue at another visiting ballpark this year. I think it might have been the Astros but I'm not sure. PLEASE SPREAD THE COMPLAINTS A LA THE ZOMBIE RUNNER!!!! update ITS HAPPENING AT THE ROYALS STADIUM TOOOOO AHHHHHH THE BALL JUST FLICKERS AS IT APPROACHES HOME PLATE. HOW IS EVERYONE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS |
16 | 2187 | Brandon: I find the current state of digital advertisements during baseball games this season to have reached a tipping point for me. Ballparks are already coated in ads, which for the most part blend into the stadium, but this year especially, whether it be green screen replacement, the massive patches on uniforms, or especially the computer generated ads plastered on mounds and backstops that result in glitches and clipping of players. (and sometimes they're even on top of other ads!!!) Are either of you as bugged by this? Is there anything fans can do? I really hate to say it, but I'd begrudgingly pay to get rid of them. Or am I just slowly becoming my father as I groan and moan at the tv until I fall asleep? |
17 | 2187 | J Mad (Patreon): I realize this is a very nerdy, “old man yells at cloud” question to ask, but…in all the baseball you’ve watched this season, have either of you seen the end of a pickoff play at first as it happened live? Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like the directors have gotten slower with this. We see the pitcher make his move to first…and then the broadcast cuts to first base just a second or two after the tag is applied to the runner. And I feel like this is a relatively new problem. I watch most of my games on MASN as an O’s fan, but I watch a fair amount of MLB.TV as well and I feel like it’s league-wide. (I also feel like the centerfield camera shot is a split second delayed ever since the remote broadcasts of the Covid era, so maybe that’s a factor?) Anyway, just wondering if you’d noticed this also? I swear I’ll throw a party when I see my first actual pickoff play live in its entirely this year. |
18 | 2187 | Damin: Am listening to ep 2185 and Mike's email question about ABS supposedly helping hitters with the strike zone. I think the most obvious effect would be the opposite - every game has give or take 5-10 sliders that catch the bottom of the strike zone but are called balls because they bounce before reaching the catcher. And everybody expects them to be called balls and if an umpire dared to call one a strike, the batter would likely get ejected because he would lose it. And the moment we go to ABS, those will all be called strikes and pitchers would immediately recognize that and start throwing many more sliders in the dirt aiming to catch the knee with them. And I presume those would qualify as absurd pitches that can't be hit. There are other issues with ABS, which I think you guys understand - calibration and drift are close to unsolvable (Hey, have you ever had an engineer on to talk about that stuff - I think it would be enlightening!). But even if we assume it's more accurate, the problem of a slider in the dirt becoming a strike is going to be pretty apparent right off the bat. |
19 | 2187 | J (Patreon): Regarding “helping hitters:” it would help me in these conversations if it were always clear if we are trying to get more balls in play and reducing strikeouts without significantly increasing home runs, or if we are agnostic about the home run rate. Because when I hear about smaller strike zones, I expect a lot more home runs to result, and that does not feel compelling. Am I wrong about that expectation? |
20 | 2187 | Daniel (Patreon): As I listen to Episode 2185, I’m thinking about ABS, and I have a position or two on ABS that I haven’t really heard. I think using ABS fundamentally changes MLB-affiliated ball from all other versions of the sport. I play in a men’s league, and there’s no way we’d be able to add ABS at that level, and you wouldn’t want it in most little league competitions. Framing would still be important at these levels, even if it wouldn’t be important in affiliated ball. It might incidentally crush the college-level game as a result. Why play pitcher or catcher in NCAA if the job is fundamentally different in affiliated ball? I always felt like challenges add a feature to the game, they don’t change the game entirely. Umpires are still trying to make the right calls, after all. They also have the potential to show the skills of the players involved, which I think is a benefit. To put it in terms of other sports: adding the three-point line is pretty easy to do at all levels. Running a shot clock is a bit harder, but it may be worth it. Raising the hoop another foot would require all of the basketball courts in America to make a change to be playing the same game. ABS also affects the umpire pipeline. Umpires, I imagine, are selected for advancement due to their knowledge of rules and their ability to make correct calls. I’d hate to create an inefficiency where umpires are not rewarded properly for that skill, or you wind up having the best ball-strike umpires get advanced out of the leagues where their skills are more critically important. If you’re not selecting for this skill, I anticipate that umpiring at lower levels would suffer as well, since you wouldn’t necessarily have to work at the skill in order to advance into the pro game. I get the instinct to “get it right” with ABS, but I don’t think it’s good for baseball as a sport. |
21 | 2186 | Jared: If MLB ends up going to the full challenge system, is there a chance that a good framing catcher actually harms a team in the sense that he fools the pitchers enough to challenge calls that are actually balls? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the team loses the challenge if they get it wrong. So hypothetically, a catcher fools his own pitchers enough to make them challenge the calls, and loses his team's challenges all on defense. Thoughts? |
22 | 2185 | John: Thanks to my choosing YouTube Therapy as a way to cope with being a severely burned-out educator (without much of a summer break; to anyone who says teachers have it cushy because they get summers off can shov…anyway), and watching streamers play Football Manager, I have rekindled my relationship with that game. One of the things we know about soccer, which separates it from other professional sports, is the concept of the red card. For those who are unaware, a player who receives a red card is sent off for the rest of the match. My question is a variation of one from Episode 637, I think, where the question is this: Lilian (Hanover, Germany): "How would baseball change if any position player, except pitcher and catcher, that was ejected could not be replaced until the next inning or even the next game? Would player ejections disappear? As you probably know this is the rule in soccer, yet often the penalty is worth it considering the alternative to breaking a rule. Would that ever be the case in baseball too?” My question is…what if the red card existed in baseball, could apply to anyone, and teams had to spend the rest of the game with a man down? (This could apply to managers and coaches as well…if one of them is sent off, the team has to play at a disadvantage). You’d presumably need a pitcher, catcher, and a first baseman. But that leaves any other position available to be abandoned during a game. There is a hang-up with the DH, because let’s say JT Realmuto is sent off; you can’t replace him in the lineup, and you have to replace him on defense. So Garrett Stubbs goes in for defense, and perhaps you lose the DH and the pitcher now has to hit. So that begs the question…would we see an increase in the attempt to develop two-way players to deal with this? Also, if a manager gets sent off, does the other team get to decide what player represents the manager being sent off? Would it be the last batted out? Could you imagine, if Rob Thomson (I’m a Phillies fan, so they are my examples here) gets ejected because Bryce Harper took a dubious called strike three to end an inning? Not only is Thomson sent off, but now, so is Harper, because he was the last out? |
23 | 2185 | Mike: I would love to see you all bring on someone like Joe Sheehan to discuss the pro-ABS side of the debate. The reason I ask that is because listening to your podcast, I hate to say it, but there is a serious gap in the conversation. A challenge system doesn’t fix the existential issue facing baseball which is that balls are not going into play enough. I reference Joe because he has really done a good job of highlighting how it all starts with the strike zone. It is the prime mover of baseball. Pitchers dictate the action but the strike zone is the biggest influence on where the pitcher throws. The current human system is what allows for pitchers to throw absurd pitches that are impossible to hit. ABS would allow for a truly revolutionary rethink of what a new strike zone should look like that encourages hittable pitches. That is the reason we have a strike zone in the first place, historically, to force pitchers to throw hittable pitches. A challenge system will do very little to fix this alarming trend. There needs to be a modern strike zone for the modern game. Everything baseball has done with its rule changes and writers, such as yourself and others I read, keep suggesting avoids addressing the core issue facing the game: Hittable pitches are not being thrown, full stop. Until you fix that, every change is window dressing. It’s changing the blown tire of a car on fire. I really encourage you to book someone to make the pro-ABS case and strongly reconsider your pro-challenge system support because your podcast is influential and I fear the focus on the human element and catcher framing is missing the point. A point the sport can’t afford to miss. |
24 | 2185 | Taylor: I've watched baseball my whole life, but sometimes my relatively-new-to-baseball fiancé asks me questions I cannot figure out how to answer. For instance, we were just discussing tagging up on a fly ball. She kept asking me why they aren't allowed to run while the ball is in the air (<2 outs). After explaining the logistics of the rule, she said, "No, I understand the rule. I want to know WHY they're not allowed to run." I assume she's approaching this question from the perspective of someone creating a sport and adding this rule to the game's rulebook. From your perspective, what are the benefits and drawbacks of this rule? I theorized that it's because the powers that be think/thought it would be too high-scoring if people could literally just run on anything. To that, my fiancé said, "Gee, a way to increase scoring and make the game more exciting? Why would they want that?" Touché. What are your thoughts on this? To quote my fiancé, "why can't they run on a fly ball?" |
25 | 2183 | Aaron (Madison, WI): I've been hesitant to email this in because it is as trivial as it gets, but is something I notice every time it happens, which is usually multiple times a game. When a hitter reaches a full count, the umpire provides the service of informing the field of the count with their fingers. Sounds like a nice thing to do. Every single time this has happened (at least from when I notice, and I notice every time I see it), the umpire indicates three balls with his left hand and two strikes with his right hand. This appears as 3-2 from his perspective, but actually 2-3 to everyone he is doing this for. Is that not odd? OK, I can concede that everyone knows this gesture means a full count, that's fine. But what if an umpire did this for a non-full count in the same way, like a 1-2 or 2-1 count? Would that not be detrimental to everyone involved? Is this just the umpire being selfish - not caring what this looks like to the audience he is supposed to be serving? Or are they actually reminding themselves of what the count is? Or I am just being overly pedantic? |
26 | 2183 | Corey: I think I've got a decent pedantic question for you. During tonight's Twins radio broadcast Danny Gladden cut to commercial by saying "after four, it's all Minnesota. They lead six to one!" I feel like this is objectively false. The Diamondbacks had literally just scored a run in that fourth inning. I had noticed he also did this earlier this week against Oakland when he said that game was "all Minnesota" in a game the A's had scored two runs, even immediately coming back to the the game at one after the Twins had jumped out to a quick lead in the first. I'm not saying the pitcher needs to be throwing a no hitter or perfect game to say it's been "all" one team, but it needs to be at least a shut out, doesn't it? At what point would you feel comfortable saying a game has been "all" one team? |
27 | 2183 | James (Patreon): Hello, afraid I have to write in with a pedantic question. Using the "catch up" feature on mlb.tv (which is great btw) for Yankees-Mets on June 26. The first highlight says "Sean Manaea (sp?) leaves bases loaded in the 1st." However he did this by inducing a double play. You can understand my concern. Wondering if you two could provide a little guidance. |
28 | 2180 | Brian: As a Yankees fan, I’ve enjoyed watching Alex Verdugo this season. So much so that I keep forgetting that he most recently played for the Red Sox. But I think my subconscious is working overtime to find something not to like about him. My subconscious thinks he grounds out to second base (and first base, for that matter) way too often. Like more than anyone else in baseball. Like maybe more than anyone ever. If you have the time and curiosity to dig into it, I would love to know where he ranks so I know whether it’s ok to like him or not. |
29 | 2180 | Isaac: Question prompted by the Angels-Padres game from last night. Luis García came in to pitch in relief joining 2 other Luis’ (Luises?) on the field for the Angels (Guillorme & Rengifo) making 1/3 of the defense that inning named Luis. That was in addition to the 2 Luises in the Padres lineup, Arraez and Campusano for a total of 5 out of 27 guys who played in the game with the exact same first name. So my question is, what is the highest percentage of players either on the field at once or in a game as a whole to have the same first name? |
30 | 2180 | Dennis (Patreon): Recent talk about Angel Hernandez, Ramon de Jesus and Jorge Lopez had me wondering about umpires and ejections. Do we know what the most common umpire-player/coach ejection combo is? Like what one guy was ejected by the same umpire the most times? Do we have an answer to that question post-2000 (when umpires stopped being assigned to one league)? And do we know what pairs are disproportionately common (i.e. "Umpire X only had 20 ejections in his career but 15 of them were Player X" or "Player Y was ejected only 5 times in his career but each time by the same ump"). I know Retrosheet keeps this data so someone with more tools and skill than me should be able to query this. |
31 | 2180 | Jimmy: I’m watching the Rays take the on the A’s in the final game that will showcase the word “Oakland” on the field at the Trop and the broadcast noted a very bizarre set of pitching changes. In the top of the 7th, Kevin Kelly came on for the Rays replacing Tyler Alexander who operated in bulk today. In response in the bottom of the inning, the A’s replaced reliever Michael Kelly with lefty Scott Alexander. Is this just a wild one of a kind coincidence? Has this ever happened before in any capacity, better yet within a single inning? Unrelated, but can you help get Randy Arozarena out of this hall of shame run of form he’s on? |
32 | 2180 | Sam: I don’t know how much the two of you have been paying attention to this year’s Red Sox. I know you recently discussed how dramatically they’re underperforming their base runs record, but many fans including myself have been impressed with their remarkable ability to always find their way back to .500. I became interested in historic .500ness last year when they were performing similarly up to early July. I found a wonderful article by Sarah Langs informing me that the record for most games ended at .500 in a season is 35 by the 1959 Cubs with the 2011 Jays holding the record for a team that actually finished at .500 with 33. Last years Sox ended up getting hot in July then absolutely withering in September so they fell well off pace, though this year’s team is now on pace to smash the record with 41, but obviously there’s plenty of time for that to change especially if the underlying numbers are to be believed. However, I turn to you for a different question. Recently the Sox have embarked on an incredible streak of hanging around .500. On Friday May 24 they lost a series opener to the Brewers to drop to 26-25, and since then they have not gone more than a game above or below .500, the reliability of their consistency to lose or win the games they need to get back to even has been astounding to watch even when faced with a 10 game stretch against the worst team in baseball as well as the two best. As I’m writing this on Father’s Day morning the streak sits at 21 games and I can only assume they will drop the series finale to the Yankees to extend it to 22 (which I suppose will inevitably extend it to 23). I went to the effort to look at the 3 teams mentioned in Sarah’s article who spent 33-35 days at .500 and found that the ‘59 Cubs had a 29 day streak which I wouldn’t be shocked to learn is the record but I’m hoping you can do a more thorough search. So what is the most games in a row a team has ever played while maintaining an amplitude of no more than 1 game above or below .500? |
33 | 2179 | Matthew: I was with some friends when we learned about the passing of Willie Mays this evening. As we contemplated his greatness, our conversation turned to the question of who is now the greatest living Hall Of Fame position player. The names that came up included Griffey, Ripken, Jeter, and my personal pick Rickey Henderson. It is not a clear choice at this point. What do you think? |
34 | 2178 | Patrick: I came across an r/baseball post about players who just missed out on being teammates: Alex Rodriguez retired August 12th, 2016, while Aaron Judge debuted on August 13th, 2016. What are some other really good players that just missed each other? : r/baseball (reddit.com) The post notes that Alex Rodriguez and Aaron Judge missed each other by one day on the Yankee's big league roster back in 2016, if only because Judge was called up to fill A-Rod's vacated roster spot after the latter's release. This got me thinking though, wouldn't they have played in spring training together? In fact they did, both in 2015 and 2016. Their first time playing together was on March 4, 2015 against the Phillies. A-Rod started the day batting second at DH while Judge came in as a defensive replacement in RF at the start of the sixth. A-Rod was subsequently pinch ran for in the bottom of the same inning. This raises the question: Were they teammates? |
35 | 2178 | Grant: I'm currently looking through boxscores and a thought popped into my head. Let's say a hypothetical player, we'll call him Loyce Rewis, were guaranteed to hit at least one home run in every game they played, for the entirety of their career. However, they struggle with staying healthy. What would be the maximum percentage of games Loyce could spend on the IL and not get cut? For example, 90% of games spent on the IL would leave ~16 active games for him to hit a homer in, which I feel like would definitely still be worth rostering. I can see this would definitely vary based on salary, but let's consider him a constant salary at 8 million/year for the sake of this conversation. I could also see it varying depending on how often they get placed on the 10-day vs 60-day IL. Also I guess this phenomenon would continue into the postseason, but the team would have no way of controlling which games he's healthy for and which ones he's injured for. |
36 | 2178 | Eli and Christina: My girlfriend and I were having an important hypothetical discussion. Namely, would it be beneficial to have a player on your team who could only hit grand slams? That is to say, if the bases are loaded, this grand slammer has a 100% chance to hit a home run, but in any other case they can never get a hit. |
37 | 2178 | Matt: Probably premature for this question, but I doubt the remainder of his career will change the answer much: Will Justin Verlander go into the HOF as a Tiger or an Astro? |
38 | 2178 | Jeff (Patreon): A favourite segment on Effectively Wild is Ben translates other sports news to baseball. Okay, maybe it’s not a regular "segment", but it could be. So, an NHL team, the Washington Capitals, is buying a popular hockey website, CapFriendly, and shutting it to the outside world. What do you make of this, what would this look like in baseball and are there any popular baseball sites that could tempt a team to do the same? As a responsible Patreon supporter, before firing off this question, I did pop over to the Discord to see if this was being discussed. Found a good pun about CapFriendly by ben e: “guess they were friendly towards the Caps”. And a comp by triumph: “this is like if the Rays bought ZiPS”. |
39 | 2178 | Carlton: I found myself irrationally annoyed over the weekend by a phrase being thrown around regarding the Dodgers/Yankees series. Naturally, I knew just who to call with my pedantry! Do you all find the phrase "potential World Series preview" as irritating as I do? Technically, every interleague series is a potential World Series preview, and although Dodgers/Yankees might be one of the more likely possibilities, it's still pretty unlikely. Furthermore, in our current era of interleague play, we have a "potential World Series preview" every day, which makes it barely even seem noteworthy! I feel differently about saying "potential postseason matchup" later in the season when it becomes more clear what the playoff field may look like. For example, if the Braves and Brewers are playing a series in September and they're currently lining up to face each other in the first or second round, then sure! Go ahead! I'll also say that if I put my rational-thinking-cap on, I understand what they mean and don't have any great suggestions for a better phrasing. I also understand why it's used in this situation but not when the A's and Rockies play each other. My blood is already boiling a little less than when I started typing this email, so even if you don't have a chance to respond, I appreciate the email therapy. |
40 | 2178 | Michael: The discussion of Kiké Hernández's error during a midgame interview and what he and Dave Roberts said afterward made me think about if teams could only get their players to abstain from these interviews by matching the $10,000-15,000. My main thought was how many errors would have to happen (maybe 1 per interview starting now for the sake of the hypothetical) for teams to consider this worth it? Maybe the top spenders already would. Either way, would we get a bidding war and find out just how much an interview is really worth? (The pod has me believe it's worth at least -$100/month for at least 3 months). If there is any correlation between payroll and national games, would the impact of the interview error (interrorview?) also correlate? Most EW hypotheticals have a "When would you deploy X?" question, so would teams negotiate for even lower leverage parts of the game? |
41 | 2178 | Jared: I asked a friend who is a Phillies fan why Kyle Schwarber hits lead-off for them, since he doesn't fit a typical mold of a lead-off hitter (not fast, doesn't hit for high average, strikes out a bunch). According to Tom Tango's The Book, a homerun has the lowest run value (not adjusted for plate appearances) out of any position in the batting order. Since Kyle Schwarber is the epitome of a three true outcome hitter, why do the Phillies continue to hit him in the one hole? Is it to minimize the double play chances they'd have since he isn't very fast? Is he simply just better hitting lead-off? I'm hoping that you or some other baseball minds much smarter than I could help make sense of it. |
42 | 2176 | David: As always, I imagine you've addressed something like this before, but Sunday's collision in foul territory between Yusei Kikuchi and Tyler Soderstrom got me thinking: What if this kind of behavior was allowed, or at least tolerated, in Major League Baseball and did not lead to an out? What if teams opted to use their 26th roster spot for a player whose main function was to quote-unquote accidentally run out of the dugout during foul balls and just absolutely flatten the fielder who is running to catch the foul? There are obvious questions about this, like: How would it change game play and total outs? How would it affect the experience of the fielders running for the ball? What would be the best defense against the risk of full-body-contact with the patroller in foul territory? But I am most interested to know your thoughts on what type of player would best be assigned this role? My initial thought was somebody very large who could just put up a wall, but might this be an area where speed and range would benefit more than power? Or perhaps a small player's low centre of gravity could make take-downs more effective, and help the patroller evade detection by a fielder who is looking up at a pop fly? Maybe, in the end, Kikuchi is the perfect foul ball patroller? |
43 | 2175 | Josh (Patreon): I've recently re-discovered the joy of playing Mario Kart with friends and have been thinking about some of the power-ups in the game and how both fun and terrifying it might be for them to exist in real life. I've also been falling asleep listening to baseball games -- so naturally my brain is bridging both worlds. This has me wondering: which Mario Kart power-up item (Bananas, Mushroom, Shell, Starman, or Lightning Bolt) do you think would be most useful to baseball players, and if each team had one Starman to deploy per game (which basically increases all abilities while making the user invincible against threats), when would be the optimal time to use it? |
44 | 2175 | Adam (Patreon): I don’t know if this falls into the “pedantic about baseball” category or not but it’s at least a complaint regarding the unintentional foul tip. I’m referring to those moments when a batter does not attempt a swing but the ball happens to strike the bat and is then deemed a foul ball and a strike. The most egregious of this occurrence is when there is a pitch that is so far inside that the batter is contorting their body to avoid being hit, falling on the ground, or other desperate maneuvers but despite this the ball finds the bat and the pitcher is rewarded with a strike. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if a ball hits a player but he is deemed to have attempted to swing, the hit by pitch is nullified and the pitcher is again, awarded a strike. It seems to me that if the batter doesn’t attempt a swing and a ball hits the bat and the ball is not in the strike zone, it should be called a ball. |
45 | 2175 | Evan: In your recent discussion about Angel Hernandez’s retirement, you repeated the old adage that “the best umpires are the ones whose name no one knows.” But what if that isn’t true? Let’s suppose there was a perfect umpire. He is never overturned by replay review, he always receives 100% on his Ump Scorecard, and he never gets into petty arguments with players or managers. Would this umpire be well-known or even famous? Would he actually be beloved? If that’s not enough, let’s further suppose that this umpire has a flair for the dramatic, punctuating his always-correct calls with a dash of showman-like flair. Perhaps he also has a winning smile and a well-cut jawline. Is our ideal ump now more famous and beloved than even the best players? |
46 | 2175 | Garrett (Patreon): The continued waves of major injuries in 2024, particularly to pitchers, got me thinking about a new version of Meg's dreaded "mysterious being that makes us choose between things for no reason" inspired question. Sorry Meg. Here it goes. You have been visited yet again by a "what if" baseball dementor. This being, praying on your love for all forms of prime Shohei Ohtani, poses a difficult choice. With the wave of his arm and an intact UCL, this dementor can return all pitcher injury levels and, as a result, relative pitcher durability and performance to 2013 levels. Based on some very cursory digging, this (2013) feels like a reasonable tipping point for the steady increase in modern elbow injuries. Please correct me if I am wrong. The cost of this change is steep - all pitchers, for some godforsaken reason, must all pick back up their bats and the DH will be no more. In short - the offer is significantly healthier pitching staffs and less pitcher roster churn in exchange for pitchers hitting. What does your gut say? I don't think I could stomach an automatic out in every lineup every night especially in the current offensive environment, so maybe the tradeoff needs to be more significant. Would you trade an almost injury-free starting pitching staff for the availability of the DH? Could a potential drastic increase in the need for bench bats, pinch hitting, and so forth actually be worth the cost of (sigh) non-Ohtani pitchers hitting against 2024 pitcher stuff? |
47 | 2175 | Brendan (Patreon): Your discussion on outfielder positioning in Episode 2174 reminded me of a rule-change idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a few months as a possible method of increasing offense: Widen the angle of the foul lines to increase the size of the field. As far as I can tell, there's no actual need for the angle to be 90 degrees, or for first and third base to be exactly on the foul line, so nothing else need change. I think this has a lot of potential upsides: 1. The most obvious being that if you increase the area of the field, more balls should drop for hits. I think it's particularly good that it inherently scales to make more of an impact in the outfield, as it would ideally lead to more extra base hits up the line and in the gap. 2. It increases the value of good fielders, potentially giving us a larger variety of player profiles succeeding in the game. 3. It could do away with any need for positional restrictions on defense and possibly offer high-risk high-reward opportunities for defensive shifts. 4. The rule could be that the angle must be within a given range, as opposed to a specific number, allowing for baseball stadiums to distinguish themselves a bit more in an era where new parks are often fairly similar. It would also allow teams to customize field size to help their team in particular. (Maybe that's a downside). Other than potential infrastructure limitations at some parks, I really struggle to find too many downsides to this idea. You can make very gradual changes to see how it goes in minor leagues (lab league!) I think aesthetics are probably the main concern, and while I concede that it may look strange to have differently angled foul lines in different stadiums, I really think it could increase offense, incentivize players to just "put the ball in play" instead of swinging for the fences, and remove any need for moving fielders around. |
48 | 2175 | Craig: I have enjoyed the discussion of mid-plate-appearance pitching changes, but the one that always made more sense to me would be changing the batter not the pitcher. In crucial situations, say with two outs and runners in scoring position and a slugger/high strikeout guy due up, any manager will let the slugger hit away in that situation. However say he goes down 0-2 and you have a good contact bench bat, why not switch the batter to prevent the probable strikeout and give yourself better odds at continuing the inning and/or getting the runs home. Obviously you can dig in the metrics more on this. If you have a batter who is really good in first pitch situations, this could come into effect too. Even though he would be entering the game with two strikes, it would be the first pitch he sees. Or even just seeing the metrics on which players are better in two-strike counts. I've just always scratched my head when seeing a team get a rally going and then a free swinging batter comes up and quickly goes down 0-2. It seems like it would throw off the picture and really give your offense better chance bringing in a solid contact hitter in that situation. |
49 | 2175 | Beau: Looking back through history I am not sure there's ever been a universally beloved dynasty. Unless it's their own team, it seems most fans like to see churn with who's on top. This personally tracks as well; I rooted hard for the Red Sox in 04, the Cubs in 16, and the Astros in 17, and didn't find myself clamoring for them to get back. In fact, it seems most fans are kind of sick of the Red Sox, Astros, Dodgers, etc. And then there's the Yankees, of course. Would it be possible for a team to win the hearts of the country and stay there for years on end while winning year after year? If so, what would it take? Could delightful personalities do the trick? Would there need to be continuity on the roster? Would it have to be a lower payroll team? The only example that comes close for me (a Twins fan) is the 83-93 Blue Jays, who I never tired of and was rooting for in 94 as well. I also believe I would have welcomed a Mariners World Series win every year from 95 to 03. But I can't really figure out why those two examples work for me or any current teams that would fit whatever traits those two teams exemplified. So I'm not sure if this scenario is possible for an entire (or at least majority of a) league's fanbase. |
50 | 2172 | Adam: I promise this is not a new playoff system email. In a scenario that I like to think about, in which all teams who win 85 games make postseason, but for every win above 85 teams can spend their wins like currency to improve their playoff odds or finish their opponents. I imagine an old wheel of fortune style spending spree, “I will take a second dh for three wins, a 1-0 series lead for 10 wins and the new washer & dryer for 1 win.” In this scenario do owners try to limit spending and only shoot for 85 or is the incentive great enough for regular season wins to increase spending? |
51 | 2172 | Cody: Listening to you guys talk about the automated strike zone got me thinking of a couple of possible options for strike zone multipliers. Not sure if these have been brought up before, but if not I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. 1) The strike zone is setup like a bullseye, where pitches middle-middle count as 2 strikes if they are taken. 2) Prior to a pitch, the pitcher can declare that the next pitch will count double if it is not swung at. That is, a "doubled" pitch outside the zone would count as two balls and inside the zone would count as two strikes. I think that option 2 introduces opportunity for bluffing and mind games from the pitcher. "Is he going to throw this in the zone and try to strike me out in a 1-1 count? Or is he bluffing and hoping I'm primed to swing at anything?" |
52 | 2172 | Ryan: I feel like you may have already talked about this at some point, but just in case you didn't here is a video of Anthony Rizzo moving up in the batters box right before the pitcher delivered on Saturday night.... https://x.com/Jomboy_/status/1794557857054011558 This started a discussion in a DM group chat about why we don't see more batters do this. Presumably Rizzo was moving up to reduce the time the pitch had to break, thus keeping it on something closer to its original trajectory when he made contact with it. I speculated that most hitters not blessed with Rizzo's exceptional strike zone judgement and hand/eye coordination wouldn't be able to really take advantage like Rizzo did here, though I suppose that itself is an open question. I suspect many younger, less talented hitters might actually mess up their own timing more than helping if they tried something like this. Anyways, I figured you were the ones to ask, thanks for the decades of service! |
53 | 2172 | Micah: Let’s get (maybe?) pedantic. So by being in a relationship with me I’ve made my partner a baseball fan and as they continue to learn about the sport they learn the lingo of course. Something that makes me chuckle each time she says it is “double out” when there is a double play. I’ve found myself holding back from correcting and saying “double play*” because technically she’s right, right? I’m sure you two, as I have, will land on the usual “we all know what we mean by the lingo” but I was wondering if you might agree that technically this more correct than double play since the two out happen within one overall play. |
54 | 2172 | Jay (Patreon): I play in a fantasy baseball league with a dynasty format, so we get to keep a core of players for the long term. Before each season, my heart fills with springtime hopefulness for the core of my team and I immediately think of how great a season my top hitters could have in the coming year. The last four years, my mind has immediately turned to Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis, and Pete Alonso. Then I look at my roster and realize, “Oh, yeah, I also have Kyle Tucker. That guy’s pretty good.” So, even though he has been on my own fantasy team for several years now, I unconsciously underrate him. (I feel bad about this because, frankly, he is fantastic.) But my theory of the problem leans heavily toward the name issue: Kyle Tucker is a great name for a financial advisor or an air-conditioner repair guy, but I think a great ball player should have something with more chops. We could do something about this. We could come up with a nickname for Kyle Tucker. Perhaps we could honor professional players from the past by using one of their names. How about Catfish Tucker or Oil Can Tucker? Or we could go with a non-nickname nickname, like Zambrano Tucker or Windbigler Tucker. If the Effectively Wild community got behind it, maybe it would stick (we should not underestimate the cultural influence of the Effectively Wild community.) And maybe Tucker would like it because it would lead to bigger endorsement deals. So, I have two questions for you: 1) if you were to come up with a nickname for Kyle Tucker to boost his profile, what would you choose? 2) Have pitchers historically had better names than hitters? (I just realized that all my examples were pitchers.) |
55 | 2172 | Gray: As a fan of the Minnesota Twins, for the past two seasons a player I’ve really enjoyed watching is Willi Castro. Something about a switch hitting utility fielder you can plug in at most defensive positions really appeals to me. It made me wonder, which would perform better: a team of ultra utility players or a team of ultra specialists. With the utility players I’m not talking elite five-tool guys (obviously if you were given the chance to play a team of all Willie Mayses you would), but rather guys who are average to slightly above average in all tools. This is opposed to the team of ultra specialists, where every guy is plus to plus plus in one or two tools, but below average to mediocre in all others. Think an elite contact hitter with no power, a guy who hits 40+ home runs every season but with 150+ strikeouts; a team of baseball extremophiles, if you will. Each of these one-tool guys doesn’t have to be unique, as there are only so many tools in baseball, but let’s say no more than 3 guys of each tool archetype on the active roster. Which team would be better over the course of a whole season? Which would be better in the smaller sample size of the postseason? It really is the ultimate question of specialization vs versatility. |
56 | 2169 | Dave: Alex Verdugo hit a long home run last night at Yankee Stadium that stood out to me. But it was less about the homer itself and more about how Verdugo reacted that felt out of the ordinary: He stood in the box admiring his shot for soooo long. When it came time for the broadcast to switch away from the centerfield camera to track the path of the ball, Verdugo was still just standing there still as a statue. It looked like a glitch out of MLB The Show and made me laugh out loud while watching. Here's the broadcast view: https://x.com/MLBHRVideos/status/1793458111304343802 And the side view: https://x.com/JLasagna43/status/1793483155518947606 Pimping your homer usually happens on the way to first base right?? Tossing the bat, pumping your chest, yelling over to your dugout -- all while you walk or jog to first. It felt weird to see Verdugo still firmly planted in the box seconds after the ball left the bet. This got me wondering: Have there been any other Statcast era homers where a player spent more time in the box than Verdugo before taking a step towards first base. Is this even measurable? If so, who took the most time to stand there and admire their work before leaving the box? Does Verdugo's homer stand out to you the way it did to me? |
57 | 2169 | Robert: Who he is is clear. He's a twin, duh. He's guile incarnate. Look at his ding dang baseball savant page. Every year he posts elite >80% in BB%, avg exit velocity, GB%, ad infinitum. He's given up zero walks this year and has been part of zero decisions. Ostensibly there's a statblast question here; how many appearances in a row without a walk or without a decision is the record? He's up to 35 straight without a decision and 22 without a walk. |
58 | 2169 | Chris: After a decade of listening, I finally decided to send a question in. I was looking at a box score for the Dbacks over the weekend and they had hit two extra bases in the game and they were both triples. I am wondering how many times in MLB history a team had multiple extra base hits in a game and they were all triples. No doubles or homers, just multiple triples. |
59 | 2169 | Shawn: I listened to your discussion of Ketel Marte's unimpressive stats during his hitting streak from episode 2167. You speculated over whether there was a benefit to never having a 0 in your hit line or whether another distribution of the same number of hits would be just as rewarding. As your listeners tend to do, I decided to take this thought experiment to the extreme. What if you got the same number of hits and outs during the streak, but they were completely clustered together. In other words, your 21 for 85 streak breaks down to 21 consecutive hits, followed by 64 consecutive outs. Or vice versa. First, would the thrill of getting that many hits in a row outweigh the abject futility of the consecutive outs? Or, like football coaches always say, would the pain of losing outweigh the thrill of winning? Would you take this deal for your 85 at bat streak? Do you think most players would? And of the ones that do, would they prefer to get the hits first, then the outs, or the outs first, then the hits. Also, how unhinged would the media and internet speculation about the "cause" of the hot and cold streaks get in the midst of each? |
60 | 2169 | Brandon: In the bottom of the 6th inning, 0 outs, on May 17th, Twins @ Guardians, I feel there was one of the more bizarre results to have come from a shift rule violation. Twins are leading 1 - 0, Andres Giminez is on first, Jose Ramirez hits a ball to the second base side of the bag, and Carlos Correa makes the play ranging to the outfield grass, fielders choice. Giminez gets to second. However, Correa broke the shift rule and Jose is called back to the plate, a ball is added to the 1-2 count, now making it 2-2, and Giminez is sent back to first. Jose goes on to pop up into foul territory, the ball is lost in the lights and dropped. Jose - still in the box after "gift #2". He goes on to strike out as Giminez is stealing 2nd. The throw down careens into center field and Giminez advances to 3rd base. Cleveland did go on to score in that inning, but Giminez did not, due to another fielder's choice. I can't think of other sequences quite like this, where the aftermath of a violation was technically worse - but still resulted in a better situation. The announcers go on to say how this is a great break for Cleveland, but I can't help but feel this could have easily resulted in a much worse outcome, such as a plain old strikeout or a double play, after an original batted ball was put in play and advanced a runner into scoring position in a one run game. The ball in question was most likely only stopped as a result of the rule being broken. Why is it on a catcher's interference (hot topic as of late) we award first base, but on a play like this, a batted ball, send the batter back in the box for a do-over, especially after an exceptional play on Correa's behalf, that most likely would've been awarded a hit instead of an error if a mistake is to happen in the stopping of the ball. As of right now, this rule being broken is the same consequence as a pitch clock violation, which doesn't even create a possibility of a ball getting hit. I'd be interested to see whether you both feel this is the proper consequence, other situations of this violation, or other instances of technically worse outcomes of a violation resulting in actually better happenings. I could go on in all the potentials like - do we give umpire discretion to what is considered the proper rule given the effort of the player in violation, ie - a routine play that the player began in the wrong position vs. an extra effort diving play, that only happened as a result of the violation. |
61 | 2169 | Martin: There was a game last week between the Twins and the Guardians in which a fielder positioning violation was called. It was the first such call I have ever seen. In the play, a man was on first base. José Ramírez hit a sharp ground ball up the middle, Carlos Correa, at SS, ranged to his left past second base, gobbled up the ball and threw to first for the out, bypassing an opportunity to force out the lead runner. The Guardians challenged the play on the grounds of fielder positioning. It was found that Correa had his foot on the median of the field behind second base, constituting a violation. Ramírez was sent back to the plate, where as it happens he ended up striking out. It's this last part that bugs me, and I don't mean the striking out. Why was Ramírez obliged to hit again? Baseball is the game of "no do-overs"! What you see is what you get. There's hardly an NFL game that doesn't have an apparent "TD" called back because of a holding penalty or something. In the NBA many plays are found to be invalid and don't count, including balls going through the hoop. One of the best things about baseball is that when someone hits a double, it stays a goddamn double. Every time. Correa was at fault, so award the base to Ramírez. The Twins actually benefited from the ruling (i.e. the baserunner didn't get to second). I can't think of another instance where a play happened on the field that seemed to all observers to be a proper play, only for someone to say "sorry, doesn't count" and then send the batter back to home plate. Can you? (Obviously time outs or balls later found to have been foul are not what I am talking about here.) I am mildly outraged by this! Don't do re-dos! Boo! What do you think? |
62 | 2169 | Dan (Patreon): I have what I hope is a fun question for both of you, that I have also sent to Jake and Jordan at Baseball Bar-b-Cast/Cespedes BBQ to hopefully see where your thought processes align or differ! This question revolves around MVP chants, and chanting for awards in general. I found myself thinking about fans chanting, "MVP!" for their team's best player or even sometimes for a role player who is having a great game. This feels very much like an NBA thing, but I know there are examples of it in baseball and other sports. I also find that the acronym works very well for chanting. "MVP! MVP! MVP!" sounds a lot better than hearing an entire basketball crowd chanting "6th Man of the Year!" or "6MOY!" This led to me wondering what both of you would find to be the funniest award that fans could chant for? It doesn't have to sound as smooth as MVP, in fact, part of what makes it funny could be the clunkiness! Imagine an entire crowd chanting "Manager of the Year! Manager of the Year!" as Aaron Boone walks out to make a pitching change? Or maybe it's chanting "Platinum Glove Award Winner!" or "PGAW" after a good defensive play by a notoriously bad defender! I'm interested to hear what you think would be the funniest, craziest, and/or strangest award to chant for in a baseball game. |
63 | 2169 | Michael (Patreon): How can you not be pedantic about stadium chasing? I’m very slowly on a quest to see games in all of the MLB stadiums. I had a ticket to see the Mets play in Citi field on June 23rd, 2011. This was a day game; scheduled start time at around 1PM. However, the game went into a rain delay before the first pitch was thrown. My then partner and I wandered around the stadium, got lunch at one of the concession stands, but eventually decided we needed to leave to catch the subway back to the city; we had tickets for a show on Broadway that night. We left around 3PM. The game started at around 3:30 PM; and was played to completion. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN201106230.shtml So the question is, does this count when it comes to stadium chasing, i.e., seeing a game played in every MLB stadium? I think it’s pretty clear that the answer is no; despite the fact that I did my best, I did not actually see any baseball played that day. However, others I have told this story to believe that this should in fact count. We need you to be the arbiters! |
64 | 2167 | Phil the Geezer: As a follow-up to your (always illuminating) discussion on why a FIP-based WAR for pitchers is preferable to an RA-based WAR, wouldn't it not then make sense for the offensive portion of a batter's WAR to be based on FIB (fielding-independent batting)? If what happens to a batted ball (other than a home run) is out of the pitcher's control, isn't the same true for a hitter? FIB would strip out the prowess (or lack thereof) of the opposing defense, just as FIP strips out the teammates' defense. Perhaps, for the Statcast era, xwOBA would be a better metric than FIB, but, if so, wouldn't xERA be better than FIP? |
65 | 2166 | Daniel: I was listening to the Cleveland radio broadcast of Tanner Bibee's start against the Tigers on Wednesday when they announced that the batter requested a timeout and the ump granted it just as Bibee was starting his pitching motion. You can imagine what they said next because every announcer says it every time a timeout is called just as a pitcher is winding up -- "You see a lot of injuries when that happens." (Paraphrased) I never really questioned the wisdom. I can imagine a pitcher being surprised, trying to stop their motion, trying to aim differently or take something off mid-windup. It all seems like a possible injury factor. But I don't think I've ever seen or even heard of an injury in that particular situation. Maybe one time like 30 years ago someone slipped off the mound trying to stop his motion? I know everyone says there's no way you can look this up, but I'm pretty sure there's no way you can look this up. Is there even any anecdotal evidence of an uptick in pitching injuries (or of any pitching injuries at all) when a timeout is called? Is this secretly behind the pitcher injury crisis? |
66 | 2166 | Paul (BC): I enjoyed your conversation about the need to identify an article of clothing or equipment that can be used by players to vent their anger or frustration without risking injury to themselves or others. I am old enough to remember the furor when Dámaso García burned his uniform after a game. At the time, I remember speculation that this is a brujería practice (Latino voodoo) but could never find reporting on this. Possibly, it was Garcia’s judgement that it was safer to light his uniform on fire and risk third-degree burns than to kick a water cooler or punch a wall. Could this be a solution to both the pant issue and the need for an "objet de vent”? |
67 | 2166 | Alec (Patreon): In high school, my team ran a play with runners on 1st and 3rd where the 1st base runner would get a massive lead to get picked off, flop on the ground, and roll into right field. The idea is that while the first baseman is chasing the runner on 1st down, the runner on 3rd would have enough time to score. On the defensive side of things, my team ran "The Grand Illusion" pickoff, where the pitcher would fake a pickoff to one of the bases, and all the fielders would act like the ball got away. Then the runner would be tagged out when advancing (College World Series example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j45ztPQ6i2I). Why do you think we don't see as much creativity in baserunning and pickoffs at the major league level? Is it the fact that they would look silly if they do not work out, or the fact that those would be considered "Bush League"? Or do you think it's something else entirely? |
68 | 2166 | Jonathan (Patreon): Today, Ken Rosenthal wrote an article on "Why top hitting prospects are having a harder transition to the majors than in the past." He talks about how the stuff of MLB pitchers is a lot better the MiLB pitchers. Three years ago, Ben wrote about advanced pitching machines being able to replicate the pitches of MLB pitchers. I think Bryce Harper used something similar when he decided not to go on a minor league rehab assignment. I've seen other articles since Ben's about these pitching machines. Though it seems like these machines aren't used at the minor league level, so why is that the case? Having hitters be able to practice against MLB-level pitching from a machine seems beneficial in making the jump. Are they still just too new and not enough of them? If that's the case, when they become more ubiquitous, would you expect this to make a difference in hitters transitioning from MiLB to MLB? |
69 | 2166 | Kevin: On Episode 2157, you were discussing pitcher fielding and DRS when you made the point that lots of pitching defensive value comes from "controlling the running game." Understandably, this is a term that mainly refers to pitchers and catchers, but how much value could be attributed to the other fielders involved? Is Christian Walker so good at holding opposing runners that they take shorter leads and that's why Gabriel Moreno is tied for the lead in Stolen Base Runs Saved Above Average? Was peak Javy Baez SO good at tagging that runners were more reluctant to steal? How many daylight play back-picks at second would a shortstop need to pull off before it was worthy of mention in an advance scouting report? How good would an infielder need to be at these things before it became noticeable, and how many run(s) could the most valuable infielder save? |
70 | 2166 | Brad: I recently attended a St. Paul Saints game, where I saw the ball-strike challenge system in practice for the first time. Overall, I appreciated it! It was quick, efficient, and used effectively about 10 times in the game across both teams. However, there was one component that I did not anticipate being an issue that I found to be different once I actually saw it in person... There were several higher-leverage moments in the game where the pitcher got a big called third strike with runners in scoring position. Under "normal" circumstances, the crowd would have been sitting in nervous anticipation pre-pitch, then exploded with excitement when the batter was called out. However, with the challenge system we still experienced the first half of that equation, but the explosion of joy never really happened. As quickly as the umpire called strike three, the batter tapped their helmet to challenge the call. It essentially cut out the opportunity to cheer at that moment. Even when the call stood, the cheers were certainly more muted when not preceded by the nervous anticipation of the pitch being thrown. With replay the call is made on the field and the crowd cheers (or groans). You know the call may be challenged, but the time needed for the manager to decide to challenge and review still allows for the initial excitement of the call on the field. Overall, I still stand with the idea that we ultimately want to get important ball-strike calls correct and the challenge system provides the best way to do that. That being said, I did not anticipate missing this "immediate cheering" element in big moments. Have you experienced similar things? Is it something that I (and the crowds) get more used to when you experience it more often? |
71 | 2166 | Ethan: I've noticed something this season that I think warrants more conversation. In his 2023 MVP season, Ronald Acuña had a massive, basically unprecedented, drop in strikeout rate from 23-30% each year to 11.4%. This was discussed on the pod but it still may have been an underappreciated aspect of his MVP season. However, this year it's right back to his career norm at 24.9%. There was a Jay Jaffe article last week discussing Acuña's struggles with contact compared to 2023, and suggesting some lingering knee health issues could be contributing. But if you look at his career, it really seems to me like the 2023 season needs more explaining than the current struggles. Strikeout rates are one of the quickest stabilizing offensive numbers. Hitters almost never see the kind of drop Acuña had, especially if they're already well established in the majors. On top of that, he cut his strikeout rate in half without sacrificing power for contact. Besides Jaffe article, the only commentary I've seen is some nebulous cheating accusations from online posters (with little to no explanation of how he could have been cheating). I'm really curious about what's going on and what could have really been the key to success last season. Can we have a reasonable, measured discussion about this? |
72 | 2166 | Patrick: The Pirates rotation has generated a lot of buzz these days (not something I'm used to) and recently this was around a short-lived 6-man rotation. Quinn Priester was sent down to the minors, and when I checked his page I was pleasantly surprised to see a 4.33 ERA over his 27 Innings. Not bad! Not great, but not bad. However.... FanGraphs said this performance was worth -0.4 WAR. My question is why does Fanraphs use FIP in their WAR calculation instead of ERA? I understand the theory, but the practicality is that the stat is simply misleading. Did 27 IP of 4.33 ERA ball really contribute negative value? Did it hurt the team more than it helped? It feels like the stat is more misleading than it needs to be. |
73 | 2166 | Peter: I've been added to a group Whatsapp chat with friends of friends who I'd say are baseball normies, the kind of guys who play daily fantasy and think Judge is a bum for his poor postseason performance. Anyways I feel like I'm in a time warp because there are still loud discussions about how WAR is a garbage stat. It feels like I'm in 2012 arguing about Trout vs Cabrera or something. For example, one recent conversation involved incredulity that Juan Soto has been worth "only 2 WAR" so far this season (despite the fact that 2 WAR is very very good, especially this early in the season!), compared to Judge's 1 WAR at the time (who as mentioned above is a bum apparently). However, one reason I think this continues to be an obstacle for WAR adoption is the focus on "wins." No individual player can be worth that many wins because of the nature of baseball. And wins are another level of abstraction/projection away from runs. The rough rule of thumb of 10 runs being worth 1 win doesn't always make sense either -- it sure feels like 10 runs should get you much more than 1 win. Finally wins just feel small, which ends up with hair-splitting over tenths of a "win" rather than whole numbers of runs. So my question is: do you think the focus on wins in WAR as opposed to runs makes it harder for people to adopt? Should our focus be on run production instead of win production when describing player value? |
74 | 2166 | Samuel: Joe Davis on the Dodger broadcast just said "44 of 51 pitches have been in the zone for Yamamoto." Of course, what he meant was "44 of 51 pitches have been strikes," including some, presumably, which were out of the zone but induced a swing. If we want to be even more pedantic, some of those strikes may have been out of the zone but called strikes, and perhaps even some of the balls in the zone. I wouldn't pile on Joe Davis for an off-the-cuff remark to mix up the vocabulary, but I do hear this from announcers often enough that I know I've had this thought before. First of all, am I crazy or have others heard this? And second, is this pedantic enough for you?? |
75 | 2166 | Philip: I have a bone to pick with 670 The Score's Cubs broadcasts. It is not that they have approximately 7 million sponsorships they read during gameplay (I understand that is part of the business). It is not even necessarily the sponsors they choose (having opposing pitcher walks sponsored North Shore Adult Diapers, "for even the heaviest control problems" might actually be my favorite sponsorships ever). My problem is this: every game, the start of the Cubs' half of the 3rd inning sounds like this, "[the guy due to lead off the inning] is 'on deck.' Who's on deck in sponsored by On Deck Business Loans..." Am I crazy to think that that guy is explicitly not on deck? I would always describe that player as "due up" and the guy hitting behind him as "on deck." This genuinely confused me the first few times they read it because I thought I misremembered their last inning. Would you ever describe a player as on deck if there was no one set to hit before him? |
76 | 2164 | Rion (Patreon): On May 12th against the Mets, Ronald Acuña Jr. got on base twice, which is good, but was picked off both times, which is not ideal especially considering the Braves was eventually walked off. Then, on the very next day he was picked off against after walking in the bottom of the first. So, he was picked off in three consecutive times reaching. This makes me wonder what the record of being picked off in consecutive times reaching is. Three sounds extremely high. Is this stat-blast able? |
77 | 2163 | Michael Eisen (Patreon): Were you aware that last year Austin Cox set the record for most outs recorded before allowing a hit to start a career? It got some mentions out there but I hadn't heard it. I came across this because a friend asked me if Cole Winn's 18 outs (and running) were unusual, and so I parsed the RS data and Cox was at the top of the list. I hope he takes some pleasure in this fact as he toils in AA. In any case, here's the full list. It's a lot of no-names. Most accumulated this innings in relief, but my own personal favorite Billy Rohr remains the closest to going a full 9 hitless in his first appearance. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wWVhzG0CNWGzfX5Ptx92qugpPXlE36YjF124o9QSWuI/edit?usp=sharing |
78 | 2163 | John (Patreon): I don’t play immaculate grid, but I still found myself on the BR page that lists players who have played for both the Rockies and Pirates. This unimpressive list has Denny Neagle at the top of the WAR leaderboard with 10.7. I got to thinking about how the Pirates have been mostly irrelevant for the entire existence of the Rockies, and the Rockies have been the Rockies for the entire existence of the Rockies. So in addition to not sharing a lot of good players who have played for both franchises, they also have not played a lot of important games against each other. How could we measure this? I’m thinking of something along the lines of championship probability or something like that, but on a team and game level. Maybe we could find which two franchises have played for the highest stakes, on average, over the course of all their matchups in history. The flip side—I am just guessing—is something like the Pirates and Rockies, who have played each other year after year with very little other than pride on the line. |
79 | 2163 | Wilson (Patreon): At the conclusion of today’s games, the Marlins and Rockies have a combined record of 16-48. Is that the most combined losses in a series played this early in the season (using the point at which every team has played between 30-35 games as the rough benchmark)? This seems like a particularly futile series between two teams who fell on their faces right at the starting pistol, but I’m sure there have been even sadder early season series, I just can’t find any in cursory googling. |
80 | 2163 | Jacob: Some friends and I were talking about Alek Manoah’s callup, and I joked that he’s either going to get 12 strikeouts or let up 12 earned runs, to which my friend responded “or both”. That got us wondering, what pitcher has had the most of the lesser in a single game? For example, has a pitcher ever had both 10 K and 10 ER in a single outing? Feels like you’d have to era-limit it, because there’s probably some Tungsten Arm O’Doyle type in the 1890s that pitched a 13-inning complete game and got like 15 of each. I suppose a simpler, but less interesting question would just be who has had the most combined. But then you’d probably just get a pretty bimodal distribution of starts with a lot of Ks and a few ERs, then some starts with a lot of ERs and a handful of Ks. Not totally sure what the balance between those would be though. |
81 | 2163 | Joel: After last night's game, the Tigers are now 1-3 in games that they went into the bottom of the 9th up 1-0*. What are the worst team records and most losses in a season by teams in games where they had 1-0 leads going into the bottom of the 9th? For the Tigers -who have scored a disproportionate segment of their runs late- that record seems strange to me. |
82 | 2163 | Craig: I was playing a game in my dynastyLeaguebaseball.com league in which TJ friedl hit for the cycle. It was a road game for me, but he had previously hit for the cycle in a home game earlier in the season. I know you've done a stat blast about the rarity of cycles in the past, but My mind was racing and I became very curious about something…has any player in the history of Major League baseball had a single, double, triple, and home run in every ballpark? Not necessarily in a single game, but have they had each type of hit over the course of their career. Obviously this would mean every ballpark that was around during their career. We hear talked about as an accomplishment when players have homered in all 30 ballparks. But what about the cycle over their career? Maybe ballparks isn't the best way to look at this, but against every team they faced? I would be absolutely shocked if someone did this unless it was from a very long time ago especially with the lack of interleague play. If the answer is no one, what player has the highest total? Or did anybody in the past do it against just the teams and their respective league? |
83 | 2162 | Matthew (Patreon): If a full ABS system were implemented, where and how should catchers set up? What becomes top priority, blocking, throwing, setting a target, being ready for pop ups/ground balls, or something else? |
84 | 2161 | Richard: Is it really necessary to remove someone from a game immediately upon being traded? A minor leaguer was pulled off 2nd base and had to get his stuff and walk off the field! That seems like eye wash. Couldn’t you tell him at the end of the inning and he could sit on the bench until the game was over? |
85 | 2160 | Nicole: After listening to Effectively Wild episode 2158, I have a small beef with your pronunciation of summer sausage. In spoken English, compound nouns are denoted by a greater emphasis on the first word of the compound to distinguish them from mere combinations of adjectives and nouns. Hence "GREENhouse" as opposed to a "green HOUSE." This is true even if the compound noun is written as two separate words. For example, the Lindsey Lohan film about a cruel female clique is pronounced "MEAN girls" and not "mean GIRLS." The former pronunciation indicates that the movie is about a particular social group of high school society, while the latter pronunciation would suggest the movie is about some girls who happen to be mean. In the same way, a "summer sausage" is a particular type of sausage, not just any kind of sausage that makes its appearance in summer. Hence it should be pronounced "SUMmer sausage" and not "summer SAUSage." For further examples of compound noun pronunciation: https://pronuncian.com/compound-word-stress If you haven't tried it, I recommend a summer sausage sandwich with Muenster cheese and strawberry jelly. |
86 | 2160 | Rei: Your discussion of replay review earlier this week reminded me of a conversation on the TIFO pod regarding VAR (the soccer version of replay review). I can’t find the podcast episode where he discusses this, but I found a tweet which echoes the general sentiment: https://x.com/jon_mackenzie/status/1367090898417385472?s=46 I think the idea is that without the “neutral arbiter,” the two teams would be at an impasse whenever they disagreed about an on-field issue; as such, by having both teams ceding authority to a referee, you create a framework where play can actually progress in a way it couldn’t without the “arbiter.” Curious what you all think of this idea, and if it changes your thoughts about the “clear and obvious” clause in video replay. In my opinion, the “clear and obvious” clause is meant to keep authority firmly in the hands of the on-field umpires as much as possible. If we allow replay review to more easily overturn calls on the field, the overall accuracy of calls may increase, but I worry that the stripping of authority from field umpires may erode the “social contract” on which the game lives. What if teams begin to refuse to accept certain ball/strike calls? Or refuse to accept an ejection? (Aaron Boone!) I feel that perhaps the gentle fabric of respect and authority that holds together the game may be more important than very edge-case close calls. |
87 | 2160 | Zach: I have a thought for y'all to discuss for If Baseball Were Different, and this is one that is probably only one alternate universe away from being implemented. I thought about this when watching a game where at one point there was a pitch that BARELY grazed the strike zone. It was a borderline pitch called a ball and the announcer said: you know, with ABS that would be a strike. But if we do full ABS, we wouldn't have to do that! We could make the rules that if your pitch is 25% in the strike zone there's a 25% chance is a strike. If it's 100% in or out, its always a ball or strike. They could even display on the diamond vision the % chance and create very un-fun animations. If a less than 5% hits you can roll a D20 and say crit! How much would this decrease your enjoyment of the game? How long for "shuffler truthers" to emerge? |
88 | 2160 | Damon: I was watching the Mets this evening and Brandon Nimmo hit a leadoff home run against the Cubs, pretty standard stuff. This came after Mark Vientos hit a walk-off home run to end the game against the Cardinals on Sunday. Gary Cohen on the SNY broadcast then posed the question: Does this count as back-to-back home runs? I’m sure there’s been many times that there has been a lead-off home run in the game following a walk-off home run, but can these be classified as back-to-back home runs? If we define back-to back home runs as happening in consecutive at-bats, how then do we define consecutive? Dictionary.com defines “consecutive” as “following one another in uninterrupted succession or order”. Technically, the interruption happens as a result of one game ending and the next beginning, not as a result of an at-bat not ending with a home run. |
89 | 2160 | Ross: I was watching Challengers and had a realization about baseball players punching walls. I think part of the impulse of frustration induced destruction among top athletes (FIDATA) is to destroy the implement they use for performance. For tennis players its the racket. For pitchers and hitters it is the hand *footnote 1*. Tennis players have a perfect way to deal with their frustration. Rackets are perfect for smashing! There is a big buffer in terms of impact zone and hand placement, plus it is very satisfy to see the racket destroyed. All this to say, I don't think punching bags in the tunnel are enough. Players want to destroy something but there is no baseball equipment that is as safe or as satisfying to destroy as a tennis racket. This is where it gets wacky. What if pitchers and batters started wearing a piece of gear designed to be destroyed. Ideally, the product has some balance band like claims that make players think it helps with performance. To be clear, it does nothing to help or hinder performance. It needs to be non invasive, but prominent enough to create a buffer from destruction. Is such a product possible? What would it look like? Footnote 1: Yeah, bats, duh. We've seen the knee bat snap before but it's so embarrassing when it doesn't work so why bother. Also I like to think most players have the presence of mind to know that a baseball bat is a deadly weapon and not something to go wacking on things willy nilly with |
90 | 2160 | Kyle: In the latest episode when discussing advanced stats for bench players, you mentioned the possibility of measuring whether or not players perform better when they have good or bad chemistry with another player. Which got me thinking: this is a very common feature of Mario baseball. Though this has more to do with off the field events than those that happen during each players career. Mario doesn't play well with Bowser because he kidnapped Princess peach. Monty Mole has good chemistry with Goomba presumably because they are both little guys. From the wiki: "An example of good chemistry is when a character throws the ball to their buddy, the ball travels faster than normal, glows purple, and leaves a purple trail. The character who throws the ball also emits a happy sound while throwing." Although a player wouldn't be able to throw a ball better just because they have their best friend on the other side of the diamond, I have the following proposal: what if we gave players advantages based on their participation in off the field activities together? For example, when Trevor May and Mark Canha did a food crawl around Queens. What if that would then allow Trevor to use a stickier concoction when pitching or Mark to use a better bat when they appear in the same game together? When Tommy Pham slapped Joc Pederson, could that cause him to not be able to take as much of a lead off the bag when trying to steal if Joc is at the plate? I imagine front offices may not want to sign players they know have disadvantages when rostered on the same team. I also imagine there are a lot of other possible modifiers that could be introduced that could cause balance issues., but I think it would be good for baseball as it would encourage players to do things outside of the game itself to show they are building their comradery/getting along and it would also benefit the organization by spreading the visibility of their team when incentivizing posting these types of activities on social media. |
91 | 2158 | Mick (Patreon): I know Russell Carleton has done some analysis of when is a small sample size no longer small and it varies based on what stat you are looking at...but I wanted to know what you guys thought was a good, general threshold for batters and pitchers to no longer use the SSS excuse for good or bad results? |
92 | 2157 | Reggie (Patreon): What if anything gets undone in baseball that we have seen change in the last many years? Does the Manfred Man die? Do week night games go back to 7:05 starts, where many teams right now start at 6:40 or in some cases even at 6:10 in April and September? What if anything besides the Zombie Runner would you undo and take back to baseball of 2005, 1995, 1985? |
93 | 2157 | Jeremy: I thought of a question for you while watching a Mariners game recently. It was Bryce Miller’s latest start (a young pitcher known primarily for his four-seamer’s exceptional spin rate and “ride”, which makes the fastball keep its horizontal plane so as to appear to move “up” from a hitter’s perspective rather than dropping down), and on a pick-off attempt to first base, his throw appeared to clearly have the unique ride and flat shape of his signature fastball. So this made me wonder, do you think pick-off throws could put a pitcher at a disadvantage by giving away his pitch selection in a given situation due to their grip? If the pitcher is in a pivotal count or situation, and they plan to throw a 2-seamer to deceive the batter, and then throws the ball to the first baseman and it tails arm-side just like a 2-seamer, would the batter then be able to know what was coming? Should the pitcher then change his selection for the next pitch? Are pick off throws so different from pitches that it wouldn’t matter at all? Could the pitcher change his grip mid-throw to avoid this? |
94 | 2157 | Michael: While enjoying brunch with my beautiful wife, I was perusing the always well edited Fangraphs.com, and I read one of Michael Baumann's stories about the Ohtani Imbroglio. Among the many nightmare outcomes of this situation, Baumann describes an unknown ne'er do well saying to Shohei, "swing over this 1-2 changeup or your buddy gets it." It is a little hard to imagine a situation where Ohtani would know for sure that the malevolent forces need him to make an out in a particular spot, but let's posit that the situation exists: he has been told that he is not to hit a second homer in a game, say, where the prop bet on him is set at 1.5 homers, and he already has one in the game. My question is, could he do it? I think that it would be relatively easy to intentionally swing low when your eyes and brain have told you it will be a high one, and just claim you were fooled. But let's also argue that these shadowy figures have also made it clear to the hitter that they have to make it look good, because they don't want attention coming to their (non banging) scheme. When David Ortiz was asked once why he didn't simply go the other way when faced with severe shifts, if I am recalling correctly, he said that it would mess him up too much- that it would be better for him to keep doing what he always does, and if the ball happens to go the other way to beat the shift, so be it. (I also vaguely remember reading that Ted Williams said something similar when asked the same question.) So the question is: hitting a baseball in 2024 is incredibly hard, even for someone as gifted as Ohtani. Could someone intentionally make an out, and leave the illusion that they were trying as hard as they could not to? Isn't there some danger that muscle memory would take over? Or perhaps that in trying to miss it, you instead accidentally hit it on the screws? |
95 | 2157 | Sean (Patreon): As a Phillies fan, it's really interesting to see an apparent focus by the team on pitcher fielding. Having two gold glove finalists (including the winner) last season, while many observed that Suarez would've won had he met the innings limit, has led me to believe that the team is either focusing on pitchers who field well, the team is good at training pitchers to improve their fielding, some happenstance, or a combination of those three. My question is: So... How much does pitcher fielding matter? It seems like it may be the least consequential fielding position and the hardest one to improve, as it seems to focus almost entirely on the position you end in at the end of your delivery and your reflexes. |
96 | 2157 | Ethan (Patreon): One more pedantic question for the pile. I'm watching the Dodgers about to play the Nationals in the last game of their three-game series in Washington. The pre-game show has called this a "getaway" game for the Dodgers. I am curious what you think the parameters are for calling something a "getaway" game. To me, the most obvious and undisputable version of a getaway game is a game that is (A) the last game of a series (this one is absolutely required for it to qualify), (B) the game is a day game or otherwise scheduled earlier than normal to give the road team more time to pack and fly out and (C) the next day is on off day (meaning the team has at least 48 hours between games). In the game I'm watching, (A) and (B) are satisfied (its a day game), but the Dodgers are still playing tomorrow. So they still have games on back to back days. Does this still qualify as a getaway game? I am torn. One the one hand, they are playing back to back days so it doesn't feel like they are "getting away" from anything, but the fact that this game is taking place earlier than normal (albeit starting at 4 PM ET isn't actually that early). What do you think is the minimum requirement to be considered a getaway game? Is there a variable I'm missing? |
97 | 2157 | Markus (Germany): I was riveted by your discussion on Episode 2147 about whether the AAA Norfolk Tides were currently a better team than the Colorado Rockies. Instantly, this made me think what the effect would be if MLB were to adopt the promotion/demotion scheme which is standard in most sports leagues over here in Europe. Despite some variations across nations and sports, the general principle is the same: At the end of a season, the 2 or 3 worst teams get demoted to the next lower league, while the 2 respectively 3 best teams of the lower league get to play one level higher the next season. Applied to baseball, it would mean that the three worst teams would go down to AAA (in 2023: The Royals, Rockies and As), while the Norfolk Tides and two other AAA teams would become Major League, and so forth with Double-A and Single-A. Of course, minor league affiliations with MLB teams would have to cease, and each club would be on its own. The upside of such rule is that it keeps the entire league exciting over the course of the season: No team can let up half-way once they realize they are not going to make the playoffs, and the late season race for the last places safe from demotion is typically as thrilling as the run for the championship. Lower leagues do not serve as mere talent pools but have exciting seasons in their own right. No team (not even the Oakland A’s) could afford to lean back and rest on past glory. Also, there is no strict segregation between pro and amateur levels, so as a lowest level league amateur team, you can dream of making it all the way to the top tier over the years (if you wonder if this ever happens: It does. The baseball club of my youth, the Baldham Boars, made if from lowest (5th) league to first league. Took us 12 years). On the downside, with promotion/demotion in place, clubs are more focused on short-term success, and patience is not rewarded … teams are in a constant struggle for survival, and they never get the chance for slowly grooming talent in a multi-year rebuilding effort. I wonder how such rule, knowing it would never be seriously considered for MLB, would change the game of baseball, and I would be profoundly interested in how you think this would play out. |
98 | 2154 | Terry (Patreon): Dodgers rookie Landon Knack gave up a homer to the first batter he faced. Doesn't it seem like that happens a lot or at least more than would be expected? The batter is probably sitting on a get-it-over fastball and blam. Is there any way to easily check that? |
99 | 2154 | Cam (Patreon): I have an odd Statblast request. My fantasy baseball leaguemates and I have terms for two very specific and frustrating pitching performances. The first is a 'Paddack', when a pitcher is pulled in the 6th inning while being in line for a Quality Start. The second is a 'Darvish', when a pitcher enters the 7th inning in line for a Quality Start but allows enough runs to finish without one. Through the power of Stathead, I discovered that while Chris Paddack does have a knack for it, Jake Odorizzi is the undisputed king of Paddacking. However, the Darvish is more difficult to query. Would it be possible to figure out who has blown the most Quality Starts in this way, both all time and in recent history? And is this something that Yu Darvish does indeed do more than most other pitchers? |
100 | 2154 | Kellan (Patreon): The first four Marlins starters of the season will be LHP (Jesus Luzardo, A.J. Puk, Ryan Weathers, Trevor Rogers, Max Meyer ended the streak)…has that happened before? |