Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1043: The More Interesting Tim Tebow Precedent

Episode Date: April 11, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Mets’ starting rotation, a Keon Broxton sighting, and the five WAR leaders vs. the five WAR trailers, then talk to Rob Neyer about his oral history of Michael Jordan’s baseball career, how good Jordan was and could have been, the ways in which the Jordan experiment is […]

I see such big bugs, such big bugs, Tom and Pete says I can't imagine getting them in my head. I see such big bugs, such big bugs, Everybody's just trying to get themselves in my head. Hello and welcome to episode 1043 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast presented by Fangraphs and our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello.

Hi. So we are going to talk a little bit later to Rob Nyer, who will be also joining us at our August event with the Salem Kaiser Volcanoes for the Eclipse Fest, but we're going to talk to him soon about Michael Jordan's 1994 attempt to be a baseball player, kind of in relation to Tim Tebow without actually talking about Tebow all that much. Just a little bit of quick banter before we get there. You got something you want to bring up? Yeah, so real quick, I guess the Mets are fascinating, as usual, ever since they've developed all these pitchers. And a couple years ago, pretty much everything went right with the pitching staff, and they tried to make it to the World Series.

In fact, they did make it to the World Series, so they were very successful in that regard. And last year, things went a little more awry. And so anyway, the story with the Mets, the entirely predictable but entirely justified story with the Mets, is that they will go as far as the health of their pitching staff can take them. I think we agree on that. Perfect. I agree. So we move on. Currently, the Mets have played, I don't know, some games, some number of games, six games is the answer. They played six games. They are tied for first place with three other teams in the division. It doesn't matter. They have, of course, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, etc. But the question here is, let's assess the health of the Mets pitching staff based on the following three things.

Matt Harvey is back. His velocity was down a little bit, but he was throwing strikes. So Matt Harvey is in the rotation looking a little bit different. Zach Wheeler started a game. He was not very good, but he still threw kind of hard. Still looked Zach Wheeler-ish. And Steven Matz is currently on the disabled list with God knows what, but something in his arm that he apparently said was something the Mets didn't think it is. And so that's complicated. We don't know when Steven Matz is going to be able to pitch again. So I guess on

a one to five scale, five being most alarming, what is the current alarm state of the New York Mets pitching staff? I'd give it about a 1.5. I don't know. I mean, Mets missing is a problem, but was maybe also the most predictable of those problems given his prior issues. And he is not the guy that you'd least want to lose if you had to choose. So I'd say pretty low at this point. Yeah. I guess if i had to pick an integer i'd go two over one but i think i might be biased because when i start thinking about injuries in my head momentum builds and i think well if it's starting to get one guy it's coming for another one yeah and so when i see this stuff going on with mats that feels very metsy and i see harvey not really

missing a lot of bats and wheeler not really missing a lot of bats. I see this stuff is there. It's great. But I think I have a natural tendency toward a certain amount of pitching alarm because the whole thing is terrible and he should never do it. Noah Syndergaard probably shouldn't throw any pitches

if he wants to take the best care of himself. But he does and they're good. And then maybe one day there will be a reckoning. So I would put it at two, but still feels pretty good. And considering what the nationals just saw happen with jeremy guthrie which i don't know why he was in the major leagues in the first place but maybe they've had a worse event than the mets have had so far this season but i'd put it at a at a two and if i know mets fans properly they might put it at a four yeah well i, there were multiple Cinderguard scares last season, and that bumps

it up, I think, like two digits. I mean, he's the best. He's one of the few best pitchers in the league, and he throws so hard that I would just be perpetually frightened watching him pitch. So as long as he seems to be okay, I think it's going to be at the lower end of the scale. But it's very possible, perhaps even likely, that at some point there will be another Cindergard scare this season. So this could get bumped up very quickly. Yeah, if I remember anything about watching the earlier days of Felix Hernandez, it was that you looked forward to every single start. And then as soon as the start began, you would dread every pitch until it was over and it seemed like the pitcher was healthy because of course you want

nothing more than that young flame throwing ace to remain intact there's few ways to feel completely and thoroughly good about it because even when things are going perfectly you're always a little bit worried so i mean i guess aroldis chapman has been throwing 100 for years and he's been fine aside from the occasional dead arm phases. So I don't know what's going to happen with Syndergaard, but I assume that the feelings are going to be mostly complicated moving forward because I don't know how you can ever feel completely safe with him throwing stuff that nobody else can throw. Yeah. One other quick thing. I don't know if you saw the highlight of umpire Jeff Nelson stomping on an inflated condom on the field during a Cubs Brewers game. I don't know if you noticed who was at the plate during that event. Keon Broxton.

Exactly. He's showing up everywhere these days. He's either getting his nose broken or he is on the field while an umpire stomps on a condom. Well, I'll tell you where he's not showing up. On base. Yeah, that's true. How many games before you start to worry about Keon Broxton? I assume not six games and 14 play appearances, but how long a leash does he have with you? I'd give him, if he's got ugly numbers after a month,

I'll give him a month and then I'll start to be a little bit concerned. But at this point, I mean, if Keanu Broxton had one more hit, and it was a home run, his numbers would be fine. He's going to walk, he's going to strike out, and he's going to hit some balls hard

in between all the strikeouts. That's just his game. And so I think that he is the sort of player, and not unlike Byron Buxton, I guess, but the sort of the player who you can see a slump, a slump, a slump, and then two or three strong games in a row, and all of a sudden the numbers are fine. So I think he's going to be fine. He's going to be the MVP in the player who you can see a slump a slump a slump and then two or three strong games in a row and all of a sudden the numbers are fine so i think it's going to be fine he's going to be

the mvp in the national league and james paxton is going to be the american league cy young and everything is going to be peaches yep just needs to stop breaking his nose well yeah having his nose broken i guess would be a better way to put it he tried to get out of the way and he did a decent job so yeah over the weekend we had an umpire stomping on an inflatable condom then we also had mike trout running down a balloon that popped just at the sight of him so yeah a dangerous weekend on baseball fields for inflatable items yeah they flew too close to the sun and one other thing you can check out as you're listening after you're listening banished to the pen the site started by effectively wild listeners did a post where they simulated a season of a baseball team composed entirely of Effectively Wild meme type players.

So like Rich Hills on there and Matt Albers and Ryan Webb and Kian Broxton and all the people that we talk about all the time. Takuya Nakashima is on this team. that we talk about all the time. Takuya Nakashima is on this team. So they simulated a whole season in Out of the Park 18, the excellent baseball simulator game, and the team did not do very well at all. They had them play in Volcano Stadium in Kaiser, where we will be for our August event,

and the team lost a lot of games and lost a lot of money. But you should go to banishedtothepen.com. I'll link to it in the usual places and check out exactly how terribly it went. I think they're working on an all-time team also so that they can have Ned Garver and Bill Hands and Lenny Harris and many others included. But fun exercise for listeners of this podcast. So I'm going to tell you the uh the top five position players currently in war and the bottom five position players currently in war and i want you to tell me which group of five you would rather have this season okay let's forget about positions we got top five jt real mudo steven susan jr jason castro chris davis athletics

chris davis but it really doesn't matter, either one, and Daniel Murphy. Okay. And on the bottom, we have Jose Reyes, Byron Buxton, Leonis Martin, Tommy Joseph, and Nelson Cruz. Which five? It is pretty close. I think I'd take the top five probably. I mean, Murphy might be the best player in that group. probably just i mean murphy might be the best player in that group and they're definitely i mean buxton could end up being really good or he could end up being completely terrible

so i think the first group is safer probably but it's it's very close yeah yeah having that buxton martin cruz potential outfield that's yeah i mean i guess that's a that's a two and a half man outfield but it's a high risk high reward sort of group interestingly uh the rest of the bottom 10 includes ender and ciarte carlos gonzalez hernan prez whatever austin hedges danny valencia austin hedges so far not building on the promise that he showed last year in triple a but just like kian broxton he has got plenty of time all right We'll be right back with Rob. Michael Jordan That makes me too much fun I'm too much fun to say Why you told me that? And that's just how it goes

Okay, so we are joined now by Jeff's former boss and the former person I used to send ESPN chat questions to when I was a teenager hoping to get something about baseball published somewhere Rob Neier Hi, Rob Hey, did that work? It did, actually.

It worked so well that other people in the chat occasionally complained because you kept taking so many questions from Ben. Oh, of course. Yeah, that's right. You were one of those guys who always sent in really good questions and people got mad. I completely had forgotten that you were one of those people. Well, I guess it's not surprising now.

In retrospect, it all makes sense. Yeah, so I just eventually decided to stop hogging all your chat time and try to answer some questions elsewhere. Wow, that's hilarious. So we did not want to talk about Tim Tebow today, but we wanted to talk about a subject that is somewhat close to it, a predecessor, really a more interesting predecessor. But since everyone's talking about Tebow, we figured that this would be a good time to talk about your oral history of Michael Jordan's minor league baseball career, which you did for Complex last month. And it's fun and long, and you talk to a ton of people. And I was too young when this happened. I was peripherally aware of it, but I wasn't paying attention to it like I would today.

And so there were a lot of things I didn't remember or never knew or remembered differently. So this was a lot of fun. And I guess my first question is just how you think the media frenzy compared to what we're seeing with Tebow and how would it compare to what we're seeing with Tebow if it happened today? Well, look, I think obviously the biggest difference between now and 1994 is social media and in particular Twitter. And I'm coming to terms with and have been for a while what I believe is the reality that Twitter is not nearly as important as those, as those of us who use it,

think it is. But I also think that even if the number of people who are actually active on Twitter is much smaller than we're led to believe, I also think that it does have a real impact on how things are covered because so many people in the media are on Twitter. So they see things and choose to report those things to the people who aren't on Twitter. So if it were happening today, obviously, you would literally have at-bat by at-bat updates, if not more. Maybe every single fielding play would be covered too. There certainly would be a Michael Jordan playing baseball Twitter account, whereas someone would be following every single thing. All the games would be on the internet, whether on audio or video. I don't know, maybe both, probably both. But so that part of it would be different. I have

to say, I didn't really follow it at the time. I just wasn't interested. I thought it was sort of a freak show. And I was also, you know, my job was to follow Major League Baseball. I don't really remember that many people talking about it because he got off to such a lousy start, at least after the first couple of weeks, that in my world, it just wasn't really talked about very much. Do you think in the story where you talk to a lot of people who are interacting with Michael Jordan and they talk almost to a person about how he was such a wonderful teammate and they were able to bond. And, you know, you have this worldwide legend come into town and you don't know what it's going to be like. But, you know, he's kind of like one of the guys to whatever extent that was possible. Do you think that if that were to happen in today's environment, assuming that the circus-like environment would be that much more insane, it would even be possible to necessarily bond with a player like this. Would it be possible for him to just be part of the roster in 2017? I think it would be because I think it's a very personal thing

and was then and would be today. And it's not like his teammates didn't know who he was. They were awed by him just being in his presence in the beginning. You would have to be. It probably helps or helped in that specific case that almost all of his teammates, of course, were, well, I shouldn't say almost, all of his teammates were in a sense, tremendous athletes. So it could relate on some level to having been the best. Now, maybe it was just the best at their high school or a couple of the guys played college basketball and were really good, like Division II All-Americans or something. So

they could relate on at least that level. Now, obviously, they weren't Michael Jordan. They knew they weren't Michael Jordan, but it probably helped that they were tremendous athletes, as teammates would be today. And it also helped, I think, even more that he wanted to be one of the guys. Now, sure, he got to sit in the best seat on the bus. Sure, he had these amazing cars that he would get into after the game and drive back to his rental mansion. Actually, I think somebody let him stay there for free, but they were going to their crummy little apartments and he was going to the mansion on the golf course that he spent the summer in. But within the context of the locker room on the field, he went out of his way, I think, to be one of the guys and everyone sort of fed off that. So as far as what would happen today, I think it would depend completely on

the player. If it were the football version of Barry Bonds and he decided to play baseball, it might not go all that well. But Michael Jordan, not only was he a tremendous teammate, but he was also an amazingly hard worker. And I think his teammates and his coaches all respected him for that as well. And to the extent that you could get a sense of his mental state and his motivation for doing this from talking to people who were around him at the time, it's different from Tebow, obviously, in that Tebow kind of washed out of his primary sport and it was, you know, choosing between baseball and broadcasting or some other sort of media existence, whereas Jordan was obviously the

best player in basketball at the time. So do you think that this was purely a product of his dad's death and the way that baseball had been part of their relationship? Or could this have happened anyway? Was he really feeling so like he'd accomplished everything he could in basketball that he might have entertained this anyway? That is an excellent question that I didn't really address in the piece, as you know. Whether it was me running out of space or not wanting to turn it into a story where I engage in mind reading or whatever, I don't know. But certainly,

I've thought about it. And I think that if, for example, one were to write a book about it, and by the way, Bob Green, longtime Chicago columnist, and who wrote a couple of books with or about Jordan, he did write a book about it back in 95, I think. And he delved into that. I didn't read his book because I didn't want to be influenced by it. But I will say that, no, I don't think that it was purely, he was motivated by the death of his father solely, even subconsciously. I think that was certainly a part of it. His father was a huge baseball fan. His dream was always for Michael to become a major league baseball player when he was a teenager. And he was an outstanding player at, say, 13, 14.

One thing that I didn't know before I worked on the piece was that he had talked about retiring a year earlier after, I believe it was, was it the second straight championship that the Bulls won? I think they won three, right? Before he retired. Is that right? Yes, I think so. But the year before he had talked openly to people about retiring. Now, professional athletes, great athletes talk about retire. Lots of them have talked about retiring and very few of them do, at least not until much later in their careers. But he wouldn't have talked about retiring a year earlier unless there were some things that were bothering him.

And he did, of course, come back. But I don't think that whatever was bothering him the first time, I don't think those things went away. I think they were still there probably to a larger degree when the Bulls were winning their third championship. It was just the pressure to succeed, really. And I think once he'd won three, there was a part of him that thought, what else do I have to prove here? And of course, that's what everyone wants him to do, prove you can do it again. And I think that

looking at his work ethic as a baseball player, it's pretty clear that his drive to succeed is almost unfathomable for most of us. Yeah. Even for other great athletes, he just takes it to a different level. And I think that he yearned for a new, different sort of challenge. And then when his father was killed, the nature of that challenge might have all of a sudden presented itself as, oh, I want a new challenge. And my father loved baseball. Now he's dead. What can I do? I don't think that without those things working together, he would have quit when he did or certainly not quit when he did and chosen baseball as his next endeavor.

This is going to be speculative. So that's just a little bit of warning. But obviously, when Jordan was playing with Birmingham, a lot of people were coming out to watch. And I'm just going to quote here from Steve Cobb, the executive vice president of the Arizona Fall League. So two paragraphs, quote, he had a dramatic impact on us. The non Scottsdale games that season averaged roughly 225 people per game for Scot Scottsdale games, where Jordan played, home and away, the average was 1,788 fans per game, so roughly 1,500 more fans per game on average, all walk-ups, because in those days, we didn't sell tickets in advance. The previous year, our largest single crowd was roughly 3,100. When Michael Jordan came, we topped that mark six times. I remember three of those in particular. Goes on from there, more and more increased attendance. If you had to guess, maybe the thing that is so baffling about Mike Trout is how we all kind of take him for granted, given that he's maybe the best player in baseball history.

How long do you think it would take before this sort of celebrity effect would wear off, or would it ever? Could Michael Jordan be in the majors for five years and still draw bigger crowds than anybody else? Any other, I don't know, high profile player? I think that the novelty would wear off in the major leagues fairly soon. I don't know if that means after three months or one year. Look, I think in the road games, a lot of people would want to come and see him once in a way that has never happened before. But, you know, we have a pretty good parallel in Bo Jackson now, obviously, as famous as Bo Jackson was. And he was for those who weren't around when he was at his height of fame. He was as famous as anybody. Everybody knew who Bo Jackson was because he was in on TV doing commercials constantly.

And but obviously, Bo wasn Bo wasn't Michael Jordan. One thing I've never seen and would love to look at it sometime is an analysis of Bo Jackson on attendance, on the Royals' attendance. I don't have any idea if more people came out. The tough thing about baseball, as you guys know, is if you go to the ballpark to see a particular player, he might not do anything interesting and you're going to be disappointed. That's why it's true of pitchers as well, which was why, although a few pitchers, a very few pitchers in history have been draws. You know, Vida Blue in his rookie season and Hideo Nomo as a rookie and Fernando Valenzuela. season and Hideo Nomo as a rookie and Fernando Valenzuela. There are a few, have been a few pitchers who really could increase the attendance. Mark Fidrich, another great example. But there are

few and far between. And it's not because they're great pitchers, typically, it's because they bring something extra to the table, a certain charisma that even most great pitchers, for example, like Jim Palmer, people didn't throng the ballpark to see Jim Palmer pitch when he came to, say, Kansas City or Seattle. It just didn't happen. Would Michael Jordan have been different? Probably. I think the first year or two, people would have come just to see him. And by the way, I think the supposition here is that he's actually playing. But even the people who I spoke to who were optimistic about his ability to make the major league someday sort of assumed that he would have been maybe a fourth outfielder. So you couldn't even count on getting to see him play unless he was in a platoon or something. I don't think I put this in the piece, but I spoke to someone, a Sports Illustrated editor, who found the whole affair sort of offensive and assumed, by the way, that if there hadn't been a strike, if the strike hadn't come along in 94, that the White Sox would have brought him up,

Jordan up in September, just to sell tickets. The White Sox were good in 1994. They didn't really need, I didn't look at their attendance. I'm sure, I suspect it was pretty good, but I don't know if they would have brought him up. If they'd brought him up in September, even as a fourth or fifth outfielder and he hadn't played, I'm sure some people would have come to see him take BP and whatnot. But would that have lasted for long? I kind of doubt it. I think if he's not playing and playing well, people would have lost interest before too long. And do you think that the genuineness of signing Jordan, apart from the publicity concerns, was it any different from the Mets and Tebow?

Like if we say that the Mets and Tebow is 99.5% jersey sales and PR, Was Jordan any lower than that, or was it exactly the same? I mean, he was a couple years older than Tebow is now in 1994. So I don't know. Were there any more realistic hopes for what he could be, or was it just, hey, he's the most famous athlete on the planet, so we have to do this regardless? I think it was lower. I really do. I think that Jerry Reinsdorf, if no one else, had such a great belief in Michael Jordan's athletic talents that he thought there was a

chance this could turn into something that could actually help the White Sox down the road. And it wasn't as if the White Sox made out like bandits. Sure, they sold more tickets to spring training, no question. But remember, in 1994, that was before spring training was big business. It was really, at that point, sure, you'd love to sell some tickets, but it's not like it is today where you can fill a ballpark where your ballpark might hold 8,000, 10,000 people. And if you sell it out, that's real money. I doubt if they made a lot of extra money in spring training. They didn't make any extra money when he was with Birmingham. That was all Birmingham's money. Now, granted, it's lovely to give your double A club a boost financially,

sure. But I think that it was a personal decision made by Jerry Reinsdorf because, one, I should say two, I think secondarily, he thought that this might actually work out, that Michael Jordan might become a decent major league player. Who knows? I think his primary motive, whether he's never said this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were basically because this is Michael Jordan. He's done everything for this franchise. I want to reward him with this opportunity, or I want to give him this opportunity so that if he decides he doesn't want to play baseball anymore, he still looks favorably upon us, which he did. He came back and a couple of years later, they won another championship.

So I think Reinsdorf played it about as well as he could have. Well, could you give us an approximate retrospective scouting report on Jordan? I don't know if based on the people you talked to, whether you could sort of assign tool grades, like what was his greatest strength or weakness in each facet of his game? Well, his greatest strength was his running speed. Yeah. And I think to some degree, that's really how the White Sox could justify signing him. His athletic ability, if you watched him play basketball,

you wouldn't see anything that would translate to playing baseball except for his speed. And I suppose you could say his quickness, but really his raw speed. And he was, I believe he led or was second on the Barons and steals. It took him a little bit of time to get going, but that was true of Dave Winfield too. Now, Dave Winfield wasn't a big base dealer, but when people look for comparisons, that's where they went. Because of course, Winfield had been an outstanding college basketball player, was about the same

size, maybe even a little bigger than your height-wise. As a hitter, look, when the season began, he had no chance on a good breaking ball. And there was a Sports Illustrated cover, which I don't remember if I put this in the piece. I guess I referenced this in the piece. I looked at some good stuff. I talked to everybody who was involved in that Sports Illustrated story. But I think I ran out of room, Didn't get to use most of it. But Sports Illustrated sent a writer

to spring training who watched him and said, this is a joke. This guy has no chance. And then there was that famous Sports Illustrated cover where they said Michael Baggett. I would love to have gotten more into this part of it, but for people who don't know, Michael Jordan literally has not spoken to anyone at Sports Illustrated in the last 23 years now because of that cover. I mean, you think about that. 23 years, the magazine, the sports magazine, Michael Jordan is the sports guy and still won't speak to them. At the time when that story was written, he had no chance against a breaking ball. I talked to the Barron's hitting coach. He was not wild about the swing that Michael had developed during spring training. So they reworked it. What people will tell you is that his swing got better and better over the course of the season. That might be true. His stats didn't get better. He did hit his only

home runs. All three of them almost were hit. I think the last one was July 30th. The first one was July 30th, and then he hit a couple more. So his power, if you just go by home runs, improved a little bit. People have told me that his defense improved quite a bit, and he became at least a decent right fielder. Obviously, he had a real tough time early on. Who wouldn't? Learning how to judge fly balls and line drives

when you haven't played baseball in more than a decade. But I think he got better. Was he a double A average or major league average right fielder by the end? I kind of doubt it. He did have a pretty good arm. And here's the other thing, and this doesn't really answer your question, but he worked, again, incredibly hard on all facets of the game. He would go in early, take early BP, take regular BP. He would take BP after games. He would take extra fielding practice. I mean, if the coaches were around or were willing to be around, he would be there working on all of these things. So look, Jordan said himself, he actually, he said at some point, even though his stats wouldn't suggest this, he actually said, told someone in the Arizona

Fall League that he was the worst player in the league. And that might well have been true. But I do think that by sheer force of will and effort, he improved quite a bit over those. Really, you start in March and you go all the way through November, basically, for the Arizona Fall League. So what is that? Eight months? Nine months? He really worked at it. And by the end was better. I still don't think he would have been considered him. Even if he had been 24 or 23, I don't think people would have considered him a prospect. So that's a long-winded way of answering the question. I don't think he was a prospect. You have a quote in here from Mike Barnett, who was the Barron's hitting coach that he was talking about. When we started in April, Michael's best bolt was a fly ball to left field. When he took

BP in August, he's hitting 11 or 12 balls over the wall. Then you also have him on the 20 to 80 scale. His arm in April was a 20. By the end of the year, he was a 50. So still some rapid progress, as I guess you'd expect from someone who hadn't played in 10 or 15 years. As I guess a quick question that could lend itself to another long response, Michael Jordan with the AA Barons played the full season, batted 500 times, whatever, and he posted a 5.56 OPS. Being Michael Jordan, do you think it would have been better for baseball, for Michael Jordan to be what he was, or if he had posted like a 9.56 OPS, which would have been better for the league?

Oh, I think 9.56, no question. Because, look, there were some players who were resentful. Apparently, I didn't actually find anyone who told me this firsthand. But secondhand, I was told that there were some players who were resentful of his opportunity and who also, frankly, sort of worried, what does it say about us that this guy can come out of nowhere and succeed when we haven't yet? Maybe I'm in the minor leagues and struggling and this guy's doing even better. What does that say about me? But I think that if he had been great absent the strike because he quit baseball in part because of the strike, not because he was so eager to get back to basketball, he might well have given baseball another season in AAA. But if he had kept playing

and been good, I think it would have generated an immense amount of interest in the game. And this is highly speculative. And I wouldn't suggest that this would have happened. But if you believe, which MLB claims to believe, and a lot of us who love the game, I think believe, if we would rather see more black kids in America playing baseball than, say, football or basketball, America playing baseball than, say, football or basketball. I think Michael Jordan would have been, you know, there was a, I don't know if it's lasted or if it's meaningful, but there were a lot of stories 10, 15 years ago about how Tiger Woods, his success led to any number of black kids wanting to play golf. Now, has that shown up in real life as adults? I don't know. But I do think that if Michael Jordan had been in the major leagues and playing well, some number of black kids would have

been more interested in baseball. Would it have been hundreds or thousands or millions? I have no idea, but it would have been a number larger than zero. And I think that almost has to be good for baseball. Why double A do you think? Because of course, Tebow's in A ball and you'd think that almost has to be good for baseball. Why double A, do you think? Because, of course, Thibaut's in A ball, and you'd think that Jordan's skills would have been better suited for a lower level, at least at first. Was there just concern about having him in such a low profile level? Or were there other factors at play? I never got a great answer for that. But at least one person suggested to me

that in part it was because Birmingham had, and still has, they're in the same stadium now they were then, a ballpark that's equipped for large events, big press box, big locker rooms, more so than almost all the other double-A ballparks, let alone the single-A parks. I think there was at least some notion that this would become a huge media event and you could overwhelm smaller ballparks. So I think that was a lot of it. But I also think that your instinct is a good one that it might have been considered beneath him to go to class A. I don't remember what the, this is from memory. I think that their full season A ball team might've been in Indiana or someplace. I don't know what, even what league that would have been, but you know, they would have had one full season A ball league, probably

two, and then the AA league. And I think that certainly he would have played better. And by the way, the other thing is that whether it's effective or not, we might argue that it's not. He probably had better coaching at AA. Certainly, everyone says he had the ideal manager in Terry Francona. So I think that maybe they lucked into it, but Birmingham probably was the best place for him. Well, so I think this story kind of changed my perception of the success of the experiment. Not that you could say it was a resounding success given his stats at the end of the season, but maybe I was remembering that Sports Illustrated cover that came midway through spring training and just remembering it being completely embarrassing and a sideshow and all of that, but it sounds like it wasn't really that, or maybe it started out that way, but he did make enough real progress throughout the season that he looked like a baseball player more or less by the end of it. Not a good one, but a credible one maybe. And

the no strike hypothetical scenario is a really interesting one that I hadn't thought about before. So if you had to put some sort of probability on him making it, and I don't mean making it in purely a ticket selling stunt, but making it for a legitimate reason, however minor the role, if there had been no strike, what would you assign that probability? I think that his chances of making it to the majors in a meaningful role, which is to say not just a September call-up. Because, look, he could be useful in a pennant race as a pinch runner. That's how fast he was, maybe even as an outfielder.

But I don't think there ever would have been room for him on the roster unless there was an injury crunch or it was September. To me, he didn't make enough progress in those however many hundreds of bats he had. And if he had started when he was 23 or 24, maybe. But I think he was 31 when the season ended, maybe 32. And I just think it was too late. You sort of alluded to this question, was the experiment a success? And I think that depends on your perspective. If you were the Birmingham Barons or any other team in the league, it was a huge success. If you're one of his teammates, all the ones I talked to anyway, it was a huge success because you got to spend the summer with Michael Jordan. Yeah.

And ride a nicer bus. Ride a little bit nicer bus. Right. Wind up with some really cool autograph stuff that you still treasure today. Have these great memories. I think for me, you know, I told you, I mentioned the Sports Illustrated guy. People thought that they were making a mockery of the game. For me, the only downside to all of this, and I might say the same thing about Tim Tebow, is this guy taking something from someone more deserving. And certainly he took a roster spot

from someone who would otherwise have been playing right field most of the season. So it's not a success for that guy, whoever he was was and you could also argue that if he's taking time away from a legitimate prospect then you're hurting the organization i i don't think that he was um i didn't do a lot of research to try to figure it out but i don't think that there was some you know i don't think the white socks would have allowed that to happen i don't think they would have allowed jordan to hold back some good prospect that, you know, keep somebody else in class A all season while he's playing right. I think the White Sox, and again, I should have checked, but the White Sox, I think, just basically had an open spot for an outfielder at that level. And why not let this guy try it? But I think,

generally speaking, it was successful. You know, it would have been even more successful if Terry Francona had wind up becoming a Hall of Fame manager with the White Sox. Because I think that, you know, he speaks very positively about the experience. And he gained a lot of basically major league experience, at least when it comes to dealing with the media and that sort of thing, being Michael Jordan's manager. at least when it comes to dealing with the media and that sort of thing, being Michael Jordan's manager. I wouldn't suggest for a second that Terry Francona wouldn't be a great manager if he hadn't managed Jordan, but Terry Francona believes that it helped him. And when you have something that's as obviously strikingly successful as Terry Francona, I always think it's fair to give credit to just about everything that went into making that. And those five months with Michael Jordan are a part of Terry Francona. And this is something Sam and I talked about at some point last year, but what do you think

of the chances for another athlete to make it to the highest level of two major sports simultaneously or in quick succession? Because so much has changed since Bo Jackson, since Deion Sanders, even whether it's just how much better the competition is or the awareness of injuries and health risks and just the year round training. I mean, do you think that we will ever see someone do this successfully? You know what it'd be fun to do is to make a list of the things that seem unlikely but could happen. Right. Yes, right. That is one of them. A woman in the major leagues in my lifetime is another one of them. We could probably come up with another five or six. And all I would confidently say is that one of those six or eight things will happen.

Do I think we'll see another Bo Jackson? It's been so long. It's been 30 years since Bo Jackson got to the majors. I guess he got to the majors first, right? And then he played in the NFL. I think that was the sequence. But Brian Jordan did it basically Deion Sanders three guys did it within the space of about six or seven years that suggest and that wasn't that long ago that suggests to me that it certainly could happen the reason I think it's unlikely to happen anytime soon is that nobody's trying right it would be one thing if you had some guys well I get Tebow's trying so I shouldn't say nobody's trying but nobody who's playing at a high level on both sides, like, for example, Danny Ainge did, or Bo Jackson did. Nobody's really giving it any effort. And I think that

certainly the off-season training programs, which are basically requirements now that every player has, makes it a lot more difficult. It's just when the culture demands, almost nearly demands that you do something, it's very hard to fight against that culture. It isn't like it was where 40 years ago, you played baseball until the end of September, and then you messed around and did whatever you want for the next four months. And it just isn't really like that anymore. So I think it could happen, but it would have to be someone with a real force of will and had the personality to go against the grain and basically tell not one, but two employers, you know what, I'm just going to do this. And you can either deal with it or not, but that's what's going to happen. And very, very few professional athletes

have that sort of independent spirit, especially these days. Well, salary wise, I was going to say, uh, salaries are so high in every major sport now that there's probably not much financial incentive to do it. You can be more than secure forever, just playing one sport and, you know, want to jeopardize the payday you're already getting there. So, yeah, but I mean, do you, I I mean, I don't think many players who have done it did it for that reason. I think back in the 60s, sure, Ron Reed played Major League Baseball and played in the NBA at the same time, right? He probably actually was worried about making a living. He probably had an off-season job, needed an off-season job and figured I could either sell suits or I can play basketball.

But I don't think that's what motivated Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders. I think that they were driven to succeed. They were driven by ego. They were driven by the passion that they had for the competition. I mean, when we were kids, we played sports all year round because it was fun. And I think that some athletes just enjoy doing it so much. But, you know, it is more of a grind now because of the training regimen and the scheduling and the travel. So I think it would take, look, you can't really say it would take a special person because it's always taken a special person to want to do that, at least since the 50s and 60s when

guys did it because they needed an off-season job. But you wonder, well, we see that. Why isn't there another Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders out there? And there probably is, but it's going to, everything's going to have to, you have to have this confluence of events that we might never see again. I mean, there was what, Drew Henson gave it a shot, but the other one recently, Kenny Rosenthal has written about him, Sanders Cummings, right? He played with the Chiefs. He's left football. I think injuries sort of ended his football career early,

but he was drafted by the Diamondbacks out of high school. And I think he signed a contract with the Braves. So that's fairly recent news, but you know, we could, there's something there. Tebow is not the only guy going. Yeah, I mean, I think that there are certainly guys who have the physical talent

to do both. Josh Booty, not that he was a good baseball player, but he certainly played both sports at a high level, if not particularly well. I think we'll see that again. I think we'll see a player play at the highest levels. Doing them concurrently, that's something we may never see again. So I guess just related to something we did discuss earlier, but to put more of a specific spin on it, I guess we talked about Michael Jordan, you tried to put some probability on his making the majors and you have in your article, the quote about him maybe becoming a fourth hour field before too long. So you have Michael Jordan, he's making rapid improvements, still not so good at double A, but making rapid improvement, getting good enough to maybe climb the ladder to triple A

the next season. So let's say Michael Jordan does climb the ladder, but you know, he's into his 30s and he ends up having a major league career as I guess we can say, JB Shuck. He becomes the next JB Shuck, or I guess the first JB Shuck is maybe a better way to put it. How much of a success story is that for him and for Major League Baseball? If he's a fourth outfielder and J.B. Shuck specifically has batted about 1,100 times and he's been J.B. Shuck. Well, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about this question before, but hearing you pose it, I realize or I suspect that Michael Jordan would not have hung around long enough to be J.B. Shuck. I think that he probably would have gone back to basketball eventually.

Maybe. And look what happened later. I mean, he had multiple comebacks. So clearly it was difficult for him to stay away. By the way, the story goes that he didn't play in 1995 because of the strike. We don't know if that's true. We just know what he said. He didn't want to be a replacement player, but he could have kept playing baseball, practicing. Nobody was going to force him to be a replacement player. That was not going to happen. The White Sox were not going to give him an ultimatum, be a replacement player, we're cutting you. That wasn't going to happen. So it's tempting to believe, and quite possibly true, that he used the strike as an easy excuse,

whether subconsciously or consciously, to return to basketball. If he had stayed in baseball in 95, played in AAA, made some progress, I think he would have hung around. I think he wanted to play in the majors. I think he would have loved to put on that uniform again. He got to put it on for basically, there was one big game. There was a game against the Cubs right at the end of spring training where he got a couple of hits. And by the way, the stadium was full for that game. But it's hard for me to see him hanging around for three or four years as a fourth or fifth outfielder. I don't think that would have satisfied his craving for competition. I think sitting on the bench, can you imagine Michael Jordan sitting on the bench all for three hours most days? That's just hard to imagine. So I think supposing that he did

improve in AAA and did get promoted and did actually make the majors as a bench player in 96 or whenever, late 95, early 96, I don't think he sticks with it too long. I think he realizes, you know what, I made it. Dad would be thrilled to see this. Now I'm playing basketball again. All right. If we could end with a completely unrelated single question. All right. If we could end with a completely unrelated single question, I know that you and Joshian were tweeting over the weekend about the 10-day DL, which is something that I'm still trying to wrap my head around and Gary Sanchez. And I think Joe was tweeting and you were echoing that it could possibly be something that teams could use to manipulate rosters. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Did you have some sort of ironic mark when you said

potentially? Because I couldn't hear it, but I'm guessing it was there yeah i i guess i mean i i don't know like there are definitely cases where you'd think it could be a legitimate use of roster rules and there are guys who should go on the tend to deal but as we know there are phantom injuries all the time there was one episode of the stat cast podcast I remember last year when Ross Stripling was on and he just outright admitted that the Dodgers had manufactured a fake injury basically just to keep his innings down, which I'm sure is something that happens somewhat routinely, although you don't usually hear players acknowledge it quite like that. about a month in AAA with lower body fatigue. Is that sort of like because of sort of this new method of kind of more of a drop-and-drive approach? Or what was that, you know, was it just a way to conserve innings? What was going on? Yeah, so no, all that was was an inning limit.

And I'm not even really sure what I'm technically allowed to say or not, you know, but yeah, that was nothing but an inning limit. Nothing was hurt. You know, they had to put me on the DL, and I guess a leg injury looks better than an arm injury. What do you think of this? How is it going to be exploited, and are there legitimate uses of it? Well, look, anybody who has been around a baseball team will tell you that basically every player is a little hurt all the time. And it's probably doubly true of pitchers. So it's

probably rare that they completely fabricate an injury. Everybody's a little sore sometimes. And yeah, they might make up a name for whatever's wrong with them. But sure, he's feeling a little less than 100%. You're never 100%. Pitchers don't work that much harder now than they did 40 years ago, 30 years ago, when a team might go for a whole season and use 10 pitchers total, starters and relievers. Look, in one respect, I like the 10-day DL because there are lots of times when a player is hurt, he can't pitch for eight days or he can't hit for eight days or nine days or whatever it is. And it's kind of a shame

as a fan not to get to see him for those other five or six days when he could play. And you don't want to leave the team with a short roster for a week and a half. So in the abstract, a 10-day DL makes perfect sense. I mean, maybe an eight-day DL. I don't know why 10's a magic number or 15 was. I don't know why 10 is a magic number or 15 was. The effect, obviously, is going to be for teams to run even more relief pitchers back and forth between AAA and the majors. So you effectively have managers have not four or five relievers, which is what they had when I was growing up, or seven relievers, which is what they have on their roster typically now, their 25-man roster, they've got 11 or 12 or more. I mean, I've seen sometimes teams will dip down into double A for a relief pitcher. And what that leads to, of course, is simply more use of relief pitchers

and more pitching changes. And I don't see how anyone could reasonably argue that fans want to see more pitching changes or that it's somehow good for baseball, whatever that means. I think good for baseball means you have an attractive product that people want to pay good money to watch. So to me, it's encouraging to hear some of the things that Rob Manford says. One of them being, I think he's alluded to at least the notion of limiting pitching changes somehow. Ultimately, if you're going to have a 12- or 13-man bullpen, which you effectively have now, the only thing you can do to limit pitching changes is to limit pitching changes and draw some hard lines in the sand and say every pitcher has to throw to two guys or whatever.

There are a million things you could do. But to this point, baseball is unwilling to deal with any of them. And of course, it gets more difficult all the time because the more pitchers you have, the more power the pitchers in the union have. And if the union doesn't want you to make a rules change, it's difficult. Not impossible, but it's difficult as Manford has found out. So I just, look, I don't care if they do fake injuries I just want to see fewer pitching changes nostalgia wise I miss note being able to remember all the

guys in the majors which I used to be able to do it's impossible now because of all the relief pitchers they're going to be 100 guys who pitch in the majors this season whose names I literally have forgotten by November 1st but that's okay okay. I mean, that's just, things change. Jeff will probably post about almost all of them. I hope so, yeah. I mean, the interesting ones anyway. And, you know, half those guys will throw 95. It's a different world.

I do think that the number of pitching changes has gotten out of hand just from a fan's perspective. All right, well, we can wrap up there. I'd encourage everyone to go read the oral history because there's a lot that we didn't touch on. So we will link to that in the podcast post and in the Facebook group, all the usual places. And you can find Rob on Twitter at Rob Nyer to follow him and find out what he's going to be working on next. And always nice to talk to you and not have to do it in an ESPN chat interface. So thank you, Rob. I'm a huge fan of everything you guys do, obviously. So it's been a real pleasure.

Thanks for having me. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already done so include Joshua K., Kyle Lobner, Dan Anderson, Tim Moore, and John Salona. Thank you. You can also join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on itunes thanks to dylan higgins for editing assistance if you want to check out his

podcast it's called field of streams and it's back at fangraphs now it's fantasy oriented so maybe it can scratch an itch that effectively wild doesn't keep your questions and comments coming to me and jeff via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging system we will be back to talk to you soon I need a fire show Some kind of creature Some kind of creature Oh yeah Oh yeah I ran the circus out of town

But the ringmaster said Boy, you can stick around.