Episode 2030: Deadline Dilemmas and Needs

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg's All-Star Week plans, play "Would you rather?" with the White Sox and Cardinals, the Padres and Mets, Carlos Rodón and Alek Manoah, and the Rangers and Diamondbacks, compare the values of Pablo López and Luis Arraez (26:25), discuss starting pitchers who might be available at the trade deadline (29:33), run down the dilemmas facing a few teams on the border between buying and selling, and use projections (44:06) to identify the positions on contending teams that are most in need of an upgrade. Then (1:05:15) they Stat Blast about the most baserunners allowed while facing the minimum, low-scoring division leaders, the Nationals' odd home/away split, Chris Vallimont and players traded right after debuting, the all-time leaders in up-and-down seasons, pitchers' error-prone throwing, whether an official-scoring conspiracy is boosting batting averages, and Shohei Ohtani with and without Mike Trout batting behind him, plus (1:50:21) a Future Blast from 2030 and a few follow-ups.

Topics[]

Would you rather be a Cardinals fan or a White Sox fan for the rest of the season?
Would you rather be a Mets fan or a Padres fan for the rest of the season?
Would you rather have Carlos Rodón ("the guy who has been unavailable") or Alek Manoah ("the guy who has been very available but also very bad")?
Would you rather be a Rangers fan or a Diamondbacks fan for the rest of the season?
Pablo López and Luis Arraez with nearly identical in FanGraphs WAR.
Teams torn between being buyers or sellers at the deadline: Cubs, Padres, Mets, Red Sox, Mariners, Angels.
Starting pitchers who might be available at the trade deadline.
Weakest positions on contending teams.
Most baserunners allowed while facing the minimum.
League-lowest run total by a division leader.
Teams with better road winning percentage than home.
Players traded shortly after their debut.
The ultimate "up-and-down" guys (playing in both majors and minors in a season)
Episode 2029 follow-up: More dumb game-ending plays
How bad are pitcher at throwing to fielders?

Banter[]

Meg's arrival in Seattle to cover the All-Star Game festivities.
Pedantic definition of "first half" and "second half" of the season, and whether the postseason is part of "the season".

Final notes[]

Are official scorers boosting batting averages by assigning fewer errors?
Does Shohei Ohtani hit worse when Mike Trout doesn't follow him in the lineup?
Future Blast: Apple upgrades "Be There" system, record 8242 total home runs, Elly De La Cruz hits 74 home runs and steals 102 bases, Aaron Judge tops 60 homers for the third time, Shohei Ohtani leads Dodgers over Yankees in World Series.
Episode 2029 follow-up on "We Didn't Start the Fire": Michael Jordan wore number 45 briefly as a basketball player, giving basketball the lead in sports references.
Episode 2029 follow-up on softball-style helmets: Dave Parker in 1978 wore a hockey goalie-style mask after fracturing his left cheekbone. It obstructed his vision enough that he switched to a baseball helmet with a football-style face mask.
Episode 2025 follow-up: Marlins send Eury Pérez down to double-A, presumably to protect his health (and hopefully not to manipulate service time).

Future Blast[]

In 2030, baseball fans who attended games in person embraced the upgraded smartglasses branded by each club that offered voice-controlled stats, highlights, zoom lenses, recording times that captured an entire game, and chat rooms where fans could talk to one another as if they were sitting side by side wherever they were in the ballpark. The fans at home fully embraced the new Apple "Be There" system with its Apple Vision Pro 12 goggles, where they felt like they were at the plate and knocking it out of the park themselves. They too could chat with other users, and what many of them were chatting about was the home run season, as it came to be called, with 8242 home runs hit in total, a record eclipsing 2019's previous record of 6776. It was the charismatic Elly De La Cruz who led all hitters and, no surprise, led in total followers with 2.6 million Be There followers, as he knocked one ball after another out of the park carving out a truly remarkable season with 74 homers and 102 stolen bases. The aging, but still powerful, Aaron Judge was next with 1.2 million followers as he hit 62 dingers, marking the third time in his career to eclipse the 60 mark. Shohei Ohtani had 3.4 million Be There followers, more than half of them in Japan as he pitched his way to 20 wins and 55 homers for the Dodgers who felt that their $400 million eight-year deal with the 34-year-old Ohtani was a bargain. Ohtani finished 3rd in the MVP race and second in the Cy Young race. At season's end, Ohtani and his Dodgers teammates beat Judge and his Yankees in six games, Shohei winning twice on the hill and once more with a walk-off homer.

Email Questions[]

Nat: In a perfect game, a pitcher faces 27 batters and gets them all out. But a pitcher can face 27 batters in a non-perfect game if each baserunner is erased by a double play or is picked off. Has it been asked what is the maximum number of baserunners to have reached in a 27-out start?

Dylan (Patreon): The Brewers have the NL's lowest number of runs scored but are (tied for) 1st in the division. Is this something?

Jesse R. (Patreon): For some reason I am still following the Nats. After watching them lose four straight at home to the Reds, they have lost 14 of their last 15 games at home. Their home record is 13-31 (.295) and their away record is 21-22 (.489). I've heard of large home/away disparities but usually they skew towards home being better.

Has a team ever had this big a gap favoring road performance? This is a bad team, so I suppose anything goes, but this seems bad even by 2023 Nats standards.

But I can't think of a way to more demoralize fans than a "win half as many games at home than on the road" strategy, but here we are.

Even Patrick Corbin seems to have been caught up in this. He had his best outing in years (7 innings, no runs 9K, zero walks) but did it in the furthest possible place from Nats Park, Seattle.

Andrew: Excepting 2020 when there was no minor league season, Tommy Milone has pitched in both the minors and the majors every year since 2013. He also did this in 2011, his debut year. This means he's been up and down in 11 seasons, including 10 straight since 2020 was an impossibility. Has either the total or streak been topped for a pitcher to pitch in both the minors and majors? Is he the ultimate up and down pitcher?

Stat Blast[]

Most baserunners allowed while facing the minimum[]

Inspired by Nat's question, Ben uses Stathead to look up the most baserunners allowed while facing the minimum in a complete game. Editor's note: Ben incorrectly says, "I don't think that has been asked." This question was also asked in Episode 1880.
The record is five, which happened twice. Bob Milacki (April 23, 1989, 3 H + 2 BB - 4 GIDP - 1 CS) and Orval Grove (August 3, 1946, 3 H + 1 BB + 1 E - 4 GIDP - 1 K/CS).

League-lowest run total by a division leader[]

Ryan Nelson found that no team has won their division with a league-lowest run total.
The closest is the 1973 Mets, who had the second-lowest run total in the NL.

Teams with better road winning percentage than home[]

Ben used Stathead to find teams with the worst home/road split over a whole season.
In absolute terms, the widest split between road winning percentage and overall winning percentage belongs to the 1994 Cubs in a strike-shortened season. They were .537 on the road and .434 overall, for a gap of .103. The Nationals gap is currently .097. For a full season, the record is held by the 1908 Pirates, and for a 162-game season it's the 1998 Royals.
In relative terms, the Nationals currently hold the biggest ratio. Their road winning percentage is .488 against an overall winning percentage of .391, for a ratio of 1.25.
Meg says that if the team were out of contention, she'd be willing to sacrifice 3 or 4 road wins to get a few more home wins. Ben would make the tradeoff if the team had either locked in or been locked out of a playoff berth, so the change wouldn't affect whether the team makes the postseason.

Players traded shortly after their debut[]

Ben: "Next question comes from me, Ben Lindbergh, co-host of Effectively Wild."
Ben noticed that pitcher Chris Vallimont debuted for the Orioles with a decent relief appearance, then was designated for assignment and ultimately traded to the Guardians three days after his debut.
Kenny Jackelen of Baseball Reference found that there have been eight players who were traded within a week of their debut (not counting Vallimont). Full list linked below.
Three players were traded five days after their debut: Wilson Alvarez (1989), Rich Surhoff (1985), and Hugh Poland (1943).
Five players were traded three days after their debut; Jean Segura (2012), Jared Wells (2008), B.J. Ryan (1999), Bob Sadowski (1960), and Joe Giannini (1911).

The ultimate "up-and-down" guys[]

Kenny Jackelen of Baseball Reference looked up players with the longest streaks of playing both in the majors and minors within a single season. Full list linked below.
The record is 10 seasons, by Corky Miller (2001-2010), Todd Greene (1996-2005), and Paul Shuey (1994-2003). Miller and Greene were backup catchers.
If we give credit for 2020 (even though there was no minor league season), then asterisk 11-year streaks are Erik Kratz (2010-2020), Tommy Milone (2013-2023), and Javy Guerra (2011-2021).
For total number of up-and-down seasons (not consecutive), the record is held by podcast legend Rich Hill with 14 seasons, or 15 if you count 2020. The non-asterisk record is a tie between Hill and Rudy Seanez at 14.
Ben notes that any minor league appearance counts. We are not distinguishing between demotions and rehab assignments, due to poor recordkeeping.

How bad are pitcher at throwing to fielders?[]

Ben investigated the common belief that pitchers are bad at throwing to fielders.
Throwing errors as a percentage of total opportunities (putouts plus assists) is higher for pitchers than position players. Pitchers have 5.1% of their errors as throwing errors. Second is third base with 4%. Lowest is first base at 0.6%.
Throwing errors as a percent of total errors are also highest for pitchers, at 77.2%. Catchers are second at 61.2% (because they don't get many opportunities overall).

Are official scorers boosting batting averages by assigning fewer errors?[]

Ryan Nelson investigated trends in error rates.
Today, errors per game is 0.52, an all-time low. However, there are also fewer balls in play, so fewer opportunities for error. A better reference would be errors per ball in play.
Today, the error rate on balls in play is 2.12%. In 1871, it was 18.25%. Of course, back then, they didn't have gloves, and field quality was poor.
The error rate fell quickly at first, and has continued a slow decline ever since, though there was a slight uptick in 2020, followed by a more recent fall-off. A graph is linked below.
According to the Chow test (a test for whether a change in a trend is statistically significant), there is a 0.0001% chance that the recent fall-off is statistically significant given the reduction in balls in play.

Does Shohei Ohtani hit worse when Mike Trout doesn't follow him in the lineup?[]

Ben noticed that in late 2021, with Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Justin Upton all out, the batters following Shohei Ohtani in the lineup were significantly worse, and Ohtani's batting performance also went down.
Lucas Apostoleris from Baseball Prospectus and Sean Dolinar from FanGraphs collaborated to gather the information for this Stat Blast, comparing Shohei Ohtani's batting from 2021 to 2023 when he was and was not followed by Mike Trout. (Plate appearances where Ohtani was the last batter of the game were excluded from the sample.)

Statistic	With Trout	Without Trout	Difference
AVG	.295	.275	+.020
OBP	.371	.378	-.007
SLG	.649	.574	+.075
OPS	1.019	.952	+.067
BB%	9.4%	14%	-4.6%
K%	26.9%	24.8%	+2.1%
HR%	7.5%	6.5%	+1.0%

These numbers align with classical sabermetric theories on lineup protection: With a strong batter behind him, Ohtani is less likely to walk and more likely to strike out, but there is little effect on balls in play.
Lucas Apostoleris found that with Trout behind him, Ohtani sees slightly more pitches in the strike zone, and he swings at balls in the strike zone more often.

Notes[]

Meg is recording from her hotel and apologizes for the construction noises across the street.
This is the first time Meg experienced airport security inquiring about her microphone, and she wonders how they know that all of the electronics inside are harmless. She also knows that you probably shouldn't ask them.
Meg would prefer to be a Cardinals fan than a White Sox fan because they are more likely to have a resurgence in the second half that may not be enough to get them into the postseason but at least will make the season bearable. Ben also picks the Cardinals because he feels their long-term prospects are better.
Ben and Meg agree that they would rather be Padres fans than Mets fans. Their postseason chances feel significantly better.
Meg picks Carlos Rodón because the mystery about Alex Manoah is too great. Ben also picks Rodón.
Meg feels that the choice between the Rangers and Diamondbacks is a toss-up, but she picks the Diamondbacks. Ben picks the Rangers.
Listener-submitted dumb game-ending plays: Pitcher drops throw from catcher, runner scores on error (Oakland, August 11, 2005). Left fielder makes impressive foul ball catch, runner on third scores (Dodgers, July 1991). Catcher uses mask to pick up the ball, runner awarded one base (Dodgers, August 12, 1995). Pinch runner picked off first base after fake throw to third (Oakland, June 30, 1998). Pitcher airmails routine throw to first (Marlins, July 5, 2023).
Ben contacted the podcast listener who is an official scorer, who says that there has been no league pressure to reduce the number of plays scored as errors.