Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1065: A Mountain of Emails

Episode Date: May 31, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about mountain-climbing, Charlie Blackmon’s RBI barrage, starter-switching, the Reds’ still-lousy pitching, a bat-boning shoutout, and Ryan Raburn, then answer emails about Nolan Arenado, Ervin Santana, and Zack Cozart, Nelson Cruz clones, career longevity, gushing broadcasters, Albert Pujols and home runs, Cody Bellinger’s hot hitting, a Padres promotion, and more. […]

Yes, yes, yes, we're the mountain people. Hypernation comes to world this year. Dig the pit, pile it high, let it dry. One last chance, I take the runs. Oh, that chance, just with a mountain bull. Joined by Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs who has returned from his latest travels. How were your latest travels? Hello. I understand that you had a very special guest on the most recent episode. Eh, not that special. He's been on like a thousand episodes. Old hat.

Latest travels were good. The idea was to go attempt to summit Mount Shasta over the weekend with a team. We had to make a team decision to turn around about a thousand feet short of the summit. But nevertheless, it was a wonderful weekend spent at high altitude reminding me that i am more vulnerable than many to perhaps altitude related symptoms it was not my decision to turn around but there i've done some research apparently there's a genetic component to people who are susceptible to altitude problems so it's not all sense luck of the draw but some of it is just luck of the draw and there is some interesting research into the perhaps preventative effects of ginkgo biloba

but it did not come much to my own assistance but anyway long drive all the way down to california and then a few days spent on a mountain trying to get up and then down and had one side of the mountain to ourselves and on the way out got a nice flat tire so i got brand new tires from a wonderful customer service experience at uh it used to be called mount shasta tire factory now it's a different place down in mount shasta city and thank you jesse and i hope that before too long you were able to move to portland as you would like to with your girlfriend was that the same mountain that Rob Nyer climbed not long ago? I don't know if you know, but I remember reading something he wrote about how he was like on his last legs as he was climbing it. And he was worried they were going to make him turn around

or stop climbing, but he was able to power through it sort of in a daze and he made it and he was proud of himself. I don't know if it was that one. I don't remember. Rob Nyer is a member of the same mountaineering organization that I am. He is a few years my senior in that organization. He was an assistant with the class that I was taking this year. So he very well might have done Shasta. It's a 14er. It's 14,000 feet and above. So it's higher than anything in Oregon, higher than nearly anything out West, except for a few exceptions. But yeah, the thing about climbing a mountain like that is you never feel good when you're at the top, no matter what. And you just have to tell yourself

that it's worth it. And then hopefully it is. Sometimes it isn't. How do you make the team decision to turn back or not turn back? Is there like a protocol or a checklist or something? There are a few things that can go wrong. And our team was led by one leader who had done the mountain before, and there were a few assistants. And the idea was that if someone needed to turn back high up on the mountain, then one of the assistants could go down with that person. However, one of our assistants was not able to leave, I guess, base camp on summit approach days. We were already down one assistant and one person started to develop some pretty severe anxiety for reasons I don't need to get into. But there was a traumatic event on a different mountain in the area.

And then when you get high up and the slopes start to get steep, then your mind can start playing tricks on you. And someone became deeply uncomfortable with continuing on. And so the decision was made that we couldn't just leave that person there or have that person go down uh by themselves and so we all turned around but it's no big deal the more turnaround decisions you make then the the easier it gets because you don't want to be irresponsible and just keep going okay well i hate to break this to you but my truck got hurt while you were away that was the i when so we we get off the forest road and my car's making a funny noise and i pull over and see that okay i got a tire out thankfully

though i have service and we were able to call up a local place thankfully also this didn't happen on monday because all the tire centers would have been closed probably but anyway got to go to get new tires at a place in mount chassa city and i turn on my phone for the first time in a few days. And that was literally the first thing I saw was an email from the person in charge of the fan graphs, depth charts that we do behind the scenes. And I'm in charge of the AL West teams. And I'm usually on top of things. But I got an email from this person saying, hey, just FYI, I bumped down Mike Trout's playing time a lot just to let you know. And I saw that and I thought, oh i thought oh no what what in god's good name has happened this weekend and thankfully i guess it wasn't a season ender although for the

angels it effectively is but yeah yeah i missed mike trout getting hurt for the first time and i missed hunter strickland getting remaining super mad about something that happened three years ago i guess so yeah big weekend for baseball yep well we don't have to talk about either of those things because I did that yesterday. Do you have any banter? I don't know why you would or how you would, but do you? Well, I just read what you wrote about Charlie Blackman and his massive RBI total from the leadoff spot. And so while I don't have any particular banter about that, if you wouldn't mind summarizing it a little bit, I think it's pretty neat in the same way that Caleb Joseph's zero RBI story last year was pretty neat. Yeah, I wrote about both of those things and probably haven't written about RBI in any other context, I don't know, in years.

So yeah, we only notice when a player has way more than he should or way fewer than he should. So yeah, Charlie Blackman, Rocky's center fielder, is leading the majors in runs batted in as we speak. And this is very strange because Blackman is exclusively a leadoff hitter this year. All of those RBI came out of the leadoff slot. And obviously it is more difficult

to drive in runs out of the leadoff slot because you are guaranteed your first plate appearance with no one on base. And then when you come up subsequent times, you're coming up after the worst hitters in the lineup, often the lowest on base hitters in the lineup. So usually you're at a big disadvantage in having guys to drive in. And so we've never seen a leadoff hitter get more than 100 runs batted in in a season. Darren Erstad got exactly 100 in 2000. And I looked, there's never been a leadoff hitter, at least going back to 1974, which is when the

splits were available. There were only like 11 guys or something who ever came within 50 runs batted in of the league leader. I think Jacacoby elsberry is the guy who's gotten closest to the league leader from the leadoff slot and even he was like 29 runs behind so it's very weird to see a leadoff hitter leading the majors in this category even at this point in the season it's still a third of the season it's still strange so obviously this has to do with the fact that Charlie Blackman is really good. So that's part of it. And maybe the loosening of the definition of what constitutes a leadoff hitter, because he's a good power hitter too. He hit 29 homers last year. He slugged, I think, 560 something. His steals went down too. And in an earlier era, maybe he would have been moved out

of the leadoff slot, dropped down in the lineup to a more traditional power slot. And this year he's hitting for even more power and has 13 homers and is leading the majors with like eight triples, which is pretty crazy. But no Coors Rockies leadoff hitter has ever come close to this. Blackman already had the Rockies franchise record for RBI by a leadoff batter, which he set last year with 82. And he's on pace for like 138. So a lot of it just has to do with partially there's been a little luck here and there. A lot of it just has to do with partially there's been a little luck here and there. Like he hit an inside the park home run that was just a line drive right at Hunter Pence. And Hunter Pence just completely whiffed on it and it went all the way to the wall. So there's one run batted in. Or I showed a clip from opening day when he bounced into what looked like it should be a double play ball.

But Jonathan VR just bobbled the transfer. And so the runner was safe at first. Blackman was safe at first and Mark Reynolds scored from third. That was Blackman's first RBI. So there's been a little luck here and there, but largely the luck has been in the sense that he's had unbelievable timing. And even though he had only had like the 90th most runners on base, when he has come up, he has converted them at by far the highest rate in the big leagues this year and what would be the highest rate ever if he were somehow to sustain it, which he won't. But he had driven in, I think, 28.4% of the runners on base in his plate appearances this year. And that's really crazy. That's higher than anyone had ever done in the same number of plate appearances. So just incredibly fortuitous

timing in terms of producing with runners in scoring position and men on base. He'd been the best with runners in scoring position in baseball this year and not something he had shown any tendency to do in prior years. He'd actually been worse with Mennon. So just a total weird kind of fluky thing. And maybe it's a small part of what has powered the Rockies to this surprising start. And it's unlikely to last very long. But while it did last, I wanted to recognize it because it's such a strange quirk. I think my current favorite thing aside from his RBI totals as you mentioned there's the Coors effect and Blackman have started 26 games at home and 26 games not at home this season at home he has slugged 840 on the road he

has slugged 430 I'll just repeat those numbers 840 and 430 his OPS of course is massively different and at home he has 24 RBI and on the road 22. So he's nearly caught up on the road with his home total, even though he slugged just about literally half as much. So Charlie Blackman RBI machine, regardless of environment, apparently, for two months. And I should remind the audience, Charlie Blackman, one of the original, I think, Carson Sestouli guys. Yeah, random picks from the minor leagues. I wonder pretty clearly, I think with the Rockies and also the Diamondbacks, they are so off the general public radar that it takes a lot for one of their players to become well

known. Obviously, Nolan Arenado remains underrated. Several Diamondbacks over the years have been underrated, including still to this day, Paul Goldschmidt. Is there anything Charlie Blackman can do to make himself really well known? Or is it more about what the Rockies can do to raise their own profile? And then that kind of, I don't know, trickles down, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was going to answer a question from Ryan who kind of wrote in about this. He said last year, Walt Weiss said that Nolan Arenado is arguably the best player in baseball. Ben and Sam dismissed the idea relatively quickly, based mostly on the idea

that Nolan isn't Harper or Trout. But what would it take for Nolan to be in that conversation if he continues hitting and winning defensive awards? Does he become more relevant? Second, would Arenado be in the MVP conversation

if he played for a better or bigger market team, et cetera, et cetera. And I agree that he has probably been overlooked a little bit and undervalued a little bit, and he should be on the short list of the best players in baseball, if not at the top of that list. But yeah, I guess there seems to be kind of a Rockies blind spot. I think you've mentioned, right, that Fangraphs seems to have fewer Rockies readers than any other team's fan base for whatever reason. Yeah, they're way down there at least. They're near the bottom. as a franchise or what, or because the regime of the Rockies has traditionally not been the kind of forward thinking ownership or administration that would tend to create fan graphs readers. But I don't know why that is, but it seems like if the Rockies were good, I can't think of any

reason why the good players on the Rockies wouldn't get their due, aside from maybe the fact that they're in a weird time zone. I don't know whether that has anything to do with it. They're not on Eastern time. They're not on Pacific time. Maybe they're just out of sync with the rest of the country somehow. But I think if the Rockies keep this up and Blackman and Arenado keep this up, I can't imagine that they wouldn't be more appreciated than they have been in the past. Yeah, and I guess that we can say that Arenado is closer to being the best active player in baseball

than he was just a few days ago. Uh-huh, yeah, that's true. Poor Mike Trout. I should throw in one more thing that I did pick up. Sort of banter, I guess, a half banter, half not quite full stat segment. I couldn't get the research done that I wanted to up. Sort of banter, I guess, a half banter, half not quite full stat segment. I couldn't get the research done that I wanted to in time to make this the stat segment. But I do want to note for everyone out there that last year, I think we've talked

about the Cincinnati Reds became the first team in effectively all of measured baseball history, certainly since 1900. The first team since 1900 to have a negative wins above replacement, a negative war for the pitching staff. At least according to fan graphs, they finished at negative 0.5 war. And the next worst pitching staff over 100 odd years is belonging to the 2006 Kansas City Royals, who finished at plus 0.5 war. So last year, the Reds were a bad baseball team because their pitching staff was a little bit worse than replacement level. And although this year, the Reds have been better, they are playing nearly 500 and they do have a positive pitching staff war. They still, again, according to fan graphs, they rank last in baseball with a pitching staff war of 0.5.

This coming on the heels of I guess may isn't completely over yet but for the month of may the reds rank last in baseball with a pitching staff war of negative 0.8 so the reds are trying to i guess do it again back to back dream team situation so as much as there has been talk about the reds being aggressive with their bullpen and there are some interesting pictures out there we've written about players specifically and the team in general. There are elements to like about the pitching staff, but there are many, many, many more elements not to like. And they are performing as such.

And yet they have nearly as many wins as losses because their position players are first in baseball in wins above replacement. And that just gives me an idea for a post. So I'm going to make a note right here. All right. ball in wins above replacement and that just gives me an idea for a post so i'm going to make a note right here all right few other follow-ups first we got a shout out in the washington post for our bat boning coverage i don't know if you saw this but uh jorge castillo wrote about the nationals and their 38 year old cow femur and uh we Got a little note in there Hat tip to Fangraph's Effectively Wild podcast For bringing up bat boning and

Wallace's cow femur on a recent Episode Hat tip to us We are now the authorities on bat boning And a few Other things first the Trade that everyone Has been expecting between the White Sox

And the Nationals was finally Consummated David I mean Ryan Rayburn was traded From the White Sox to the Nationals And he is Effectively probably going to replace Chris Heise who Hurt his biceps and so

The dream of Ryan Rayburn Having an amazing small sample season is back on. He was doing his part in AAA. He had a 419 on base percentage for AAA Charlotte. So he is getting his chance. And the Nationals are the team that's making all of our weird dreams come true, whether it's Matt Albers' save or someone giving Ryan Rayburn playing time. You wouldn't expect it would be maybe the best team in baseball or the best team in the National League or best team so far, but they are a dream factory for us this year. So thanks, Nationals. Other stuff. One follow-up in the last, I think, email show, we talked about sportsmanship and how

it comes into play with managers not doing a switcheroo with starting pitchers where they would say start a lefty get the other team's manager to put a right-handed lineup in there and then switch from the lefty starter to a righty starter and screw everything up and we discussed why that doesn't happen although i noted that it had happened i just wasn't sure i couldn i noted that it had happened i just wasn't sure i couldn't remember when it happened but i knew there was a famous example or two turns out i had actually talked about one of those examples on the ringer mlb show but we got a couple of responses to that joe sheehan of baseball writing fame wrote in to say that the

most recent example he could think of was game six of the 1990 NLCS. And I looked at this, this was Reds versus Pirates, and the Pirates started Ted Power reading from Wikipedia, in the 1990 National League Championship Series, Power made the only postseason appearances of his career. He appeared as a reliever in two games, and he started the sixth game as part of an attempt to defeat the Reds' platoon system. When the Pirates announced that Power would start the game, the Reds started their left-handed hitting platoon. After the right-handed Power pitched three innings, Pittsburgh manager Jim Leland brought in left-handed starter Zane Smith to have more favorable matchups against the left-handed Reds

lineup. Power and Smith each gave up only one run, but the team lost the game 2- series, but they used 15 position players. And from memory, they had some big platoon split guys, Braggs, Duncan, O'Neill, Morris, just another way in which roster construction has chipped away at the range of potential strategies. range of potential strategies. So that's a good point. We also got a note about a really famous example, and this is the one I was vaguely aware of, although I couldn't bring it to mind at the moment. But this is an email from Eric Enders, and he says, the pitcher switcheroo gambit you discussed on the last email show has not only happened before, it's happened in game seven of the World Series, which is when I guess you would expect it to happen if it were going to happen.

But it was one of the most famous incidents in early World Series history Appended to this is an excerpt about it from my book The Fall Classic So I'm just going to read this quickly, it's a couple paragraphs For only the second time in series history, it had all come down to a deciding seventh game Harris, the Washington manager, began the game with a nifty bit of strategy Harris sent a decoy pitcher, Curly Ogden, out to the mound to start the game with a nifty bit of strategy. Harris sent a decoy pitcher Curly Ogden out to the mound to start the game, and McGraw filled out his lineup accordingly. Then after Ogden pitched to just one batter, Harris replaced him with his real pitcher, the left-handed George

McGridge, who had secretly been warming up under the stands. Now McGraw's lineup, designed to face a right-handed pitcher, would face a lefty for most of of the game Bill Terry, the lefty who was New York's Best hitter in the series, was forced out of the game For a pinch hitter in the fifth inning Still the Giants led 3-1, entering the eighth inning Washington loaded the bases with two outs Bucky Harris, the shortstop manager Hit a ground ball to Fred Lindstrom at third base

That looked like the third out, but it hit a pebble In the infield and bounced high over Lindstrom's head Scoring the tying runs, etc. etc. Harris and Washington Bring Walter Johnson in to pitch On one day's rest the infield and bounced high over Lindstrom's head, scoring the tying runs, etc., etc. Harris and Washington bring Walter Johnson in to pitch on one day's rest. But it was a kind of a crazy game, but it started in that crazy fashion. So the Curly Ogden game is a fairly famous example of this happening. So there is precedent. Curly Ogden, that May 1924, he was selected off waivers by the Washington Centers for the Philadelphia Athletics. Fun fact also about that Curly Ogden season, he had an ERA plus of 145, which is very, very good.

He was an exceptional pitcher that year with 58 walks and 27 strikeouts. Yeah. Strikeout to walk ratios are so much different. All right. One more bit of banter. Brandon tweeted us about some legislation of interest to us. The good people of Illinois have proposed a Trampoline Safety Act. And Brandon took a picture of this bill and he sent it to us.

So I'm reading it now. It says that the Trampoline Safety Act synopsis creates the Trampoline Safety Act, provides for the adoption of rules and regulations by the director of the Department of Labor, and specifies further duties of the director, provides requirements for registration and inspection of trampoline courts, specifies the duties of owners or operators of trampoline courts, provides requirements for the use of trampoline courts, specifies the duties of owners or operators of trampoline courts, provides requirements for the use of trampoline courts by patrons, provides an enforcement provision, and specifies compliance for trampoline courts in existence in this

state prior to the effective date of this act, amends the State Finance Act to create the Trampoline Court Safety Fund, which I hope is very large because it'll be having some payouts. So thanks, Brandon, for keeping your eye on Illinois legislation. It stops short of a trampoline ban, unfortunately, but still, Trampoline Safety Act seems like progress. Punishment for any proprietor of a trampoline establishment that does not comply with rules that said proprietor must enjoy his own trampolines and forced to bounce for at least 60 to 90 minutes i guess you'd say it would be good to make all the trampoline establishment owners jump through a bunch of hoops because i guess jumping through hoops is probably safer than jumping on trampolines but maybe they can jump through said hoops off a trampoline. Yeah.

All right. Emails. Let's take a couple on one hitter and one pitcher who are having surprising seasons. And we haven't talked about them. So Ryan says, during all the newfound twins fun, one player you never mention is a seemingly revitalized Irvin Santana. Miguel Sanoa is great. Barrios is finally coming into his own, but even without dominant strikeout numbers, Santana has been one of

the top pitchers in the game this season. Any reason why he never gets a mention for his contributions this year, or is he truly being outdone by the aforementioned youngsters? And then, late-breaking question by Patreon supporter Steven Henriksen, which just entered my inbox, And he says,

I don't have too specific question, but I'm completely confused about Zach Cozart. I haven't seen many people talking about him, but he is now seventh in OPS in the majors as an over 30 year old, formerly mediocre shortstop. What's going on with him? So do you have any thoughts on Santana or Cozart? Okay. Okay. So one reason, the main reason that I think neither one of us or that there hasn't been much attention given to Irvin Santana at all, this is something Santana has been treated very differently than he would have been even, I don't know, 15 years ago. Because here's what I look at when I look at Irvin Santana's player page.

And I don't want to speak for Ben, but I will speak for Ben because he's probably the exact same way. Irvin Santana has a very low ERA. It it's under two he is allowed a batting average irvin santana's batting average allowed is 138 138 he's allowed a batting average as if he's facing pitchers here's the thing his strikeouts are exactly the same as last season his walks up he actually has the highest walk rate of his career at 10%. He has a 19% strikeout. So his strikeout minus walk rate, if you will, is actually at its lowest level since 2006. He has not been particularly stingy with home runs. His home run rate is about the same as it's been for a while.

So pretty much the only thing that Irvin Santana has going on is that his BABIP has gone from 285 two years ago to 285 last year to 143. He has just basically not allowed hits. And that's the kind of thing that it would make for a fun post probably in July or more realistically August when there's just everything is death and there's nothing that's that interesting. And you just kind of need something to write about on a desperate day but Irvin Santana sure you could say he's limited hard contact and you could point to I don't know maybe he's gotten some pop-ups and yeah I saw something Tango tweeted about how Santana has I think the third best combination of launch angle and exit speed something like that

of any pitcher this season right sure and you know That's great. That's really good and fine for Irvin Santana's first two months, but I don't think that there is a soul on the planet who would buy Irvin Santana as suddenly being a primo contact manager for his career. His ERA and his peripherals basically match up almost exactly. So as much as Irvin Santana has been really, or at least as much as his numbers have been really good, I think that one of the things that drives a lot of our discussions and content is changes that seem to be sustainable. And maybe that's our own mistake. Like, I mean, you did get to write about Charlie Blackman and that RBI thing he's doing isn't sustainable as you address. So maybe, maybe it's a shortcoming and maybe we

should have written something about Santana by now, it's just you look at his his numbers and you figure no there's no way this is going to keep up so it's just not worth our time and investment but yeah I guess maybe that's on us yeah it's it's because we have these exit speed and batted ball stats it's tempting to say that he has earned it, and maybe he has in some way. Maybe he has placed his pitches perfectly during this stretch so that he has suppressed hard contact, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's any more likely to sustain that than we would have thought five years ago when we didn't have that data and we just would have automatically said low BABIP is unsustainable. It can still be the case.

Maybe now we know how it's been happening and why it's been happening. But if he has been doing something and perfectly placing the ball where he wants it to be, that doesn't mean he can keep doing that. So all the history of baseball suggests that he can't. So, yeah, that's basically the reason. And then Zach Cozart has actually been a minor podcast celebrity in the past because he did seemingly just make himself better all of a sudden a couple of years ago, right? Because he had been a terrible hitter. He was one of the worst hitters in the majors for at least one year. And then he became pretty good or at least good for a shortstop. And the story, which we discussed at the time, was that he had been, I think, in spring training, just taking batting practice, and Barry Larkin just told him to swing harder, basically. That was the whole origin story. He was aim for the inside of the ball and swing hard or something and Cozart was like oh okay and then he suddenly was good and it seemed so strange I don't know if this

is related to the whole launch angle revolution or not I think this was before anyone was really talking about stat cast it was just like he wasn't trying to hit the ball hard I guess he was maybe going for more of a contact oriented approach and Barry Larkin just said some magic words, and suddenly Zach Cozart was a pretty good hitter. And that caught my eye, and now he has taken it to another level entirely and made himself a pretty attractive trade target. I haven't dug into the details. How good do you feel as a coach if you're just like hey are you over there swing harder maybe try to hit more home runs and then it happens and then you just kind of like dust off your hands and walk away like i got the magic touch i don't know how is that kozart gets to the age of like i know 29 without thinking what if i what if i tried to hit the ball hard

but you know that's sort of that's kind of where we've wound up trying to explain the league-wide home run spike is maybe just people just figure it out hey home runs are good right do that more kozart has if you look at his numbers since 2015 put it all together you could argue hey he's had three consecutive years of being a pretty good shortstop now 2015 he batted about 200 times. Yeah, he got hurt. Last year, he missed time. And this year, he's almost batted 200 times.

So the actual sample here is still under 1,000 plate appearances. But he's still been pretty good. And he's hit the ball in the air. This year, he's walking a bunch now to go with his pretty good ability to make contact. And that's something a few Reds have done. But I think that maybe the sort of hitter equivalent to santana when you look at kozart uh the underlying numbers is enough there for him to be like a pretty good shortstop he plays good defense and when he is

able to stay in the lineup he makes enough contact and does enough of everything to be fine just like irvin santana is probably like a league average starting pitcher but yeah i can't I have trouble getting around the fact that Zach Cozart just doesn't actually hit the ball that hard he hits the ball hard enough but whenever I look at like pretty lucky or weekly hit home runs I always seem to find Zach Cozart near the top of the list and of course there's no difference between a Giancarlo Stanton home run and a Zach Cozart home run except that one of them feels like the kind of home run that can happen over and over again, and another one feels like a Zach Cozart home run. And so as much as I believe he has improved, and he's probably a, I don't know, roughly average hitter, maybe a little bit better, there is not a single fiber of my being that buys

him as arguably the best shortstop in baseball. And it will be interesting to see this July, assuming the Reds drop far enough in the standings that they will be selling, that they're probably going to try to sell Cozart again. And I just don't know what the market is going to be because they had enough trouble trying to sell him over the winter. I think they got close with the Mariners, but something physical, something, something didn't match up. I think the Mariners probably had a problem with Cozart's physical, but I don't, or medicals, but I don't remember the specifics. In any case, there was a very limited market for short stops over the winter. And even now, just eyeballing things, I don't know

who would be in the market for Cozart really aggressively this season. And while I think the best I could come up with last Friday is maybe the Red Sox try to make one of Cozart or Zander Bogarts a down the stretch third baseman And maybe that could work But I don't know But it'll be interesting to see how much the market buys into this Because the numbers are really exciting But then you look at the player behind the numbers And you see Zach Cozart

Yeah Alright, speaking of the Mariners and the Red Sox We have a Mariners question and a Red Sox question I'll start with the weird Mariners question From William who says, I was having a baseball conversation with a coworker that veered into weird territory, and now it's an email. I was thinking about a Mariners team made up only of eight Nelson Cruz clones, based solely on the fact that he's led the team in OPS last year.

Only the pitching staff would remain intact. Would this team be better or worse than the current Mariners? Nelson Cruz batting instead of Mike Zanino? Awesome. Nelson Cruz catching instead of Mike Zanino? Less awesome. Aside from every game likely becoming a miserable six-hour slugfest, would this team be better or worse? So I haven't run out of the numbers, but the answer is worse. It would be much, much worse.

The team would hit fine, sure, even though the team would probably have to cycle through a few dozen nelson cruzes because nelson cruz is not the most durable player in the world than if you have nelson cruz play catcher and shortstop and second base and third base and center field in every single position yeah nelson cruzes are going to drop like flies this would be the best hitting team in baseball i mean yeah it would be an outstanding offensive team yeah although they would be very tired and maybe they would start to take their defense to the plate but even assuming that doesn't happen i i haven't run the numbers trying to figure out the positional adjustments but i don't think that the positional adjustments are intended to be used in

this way for anyone who doesn't know what the positional adjustments are in war, it's, I don't know, what's the best way to explain it? It's the estimated defensive change in terms of performance that you would have. That's a horrible explanation already. baseman it's like negative 12.5 runs per season yeah something like that i don't know but let's just say that's that's what it is and the way that you would interpret that is that if you moved a shortstop to first base then the shortstop is docked 20 runs of defensive value based on his position sort of because you would expect him to be 20 runs better defensively because he is now being compared to inferior defensive peers and he's playing an easier position now the way that the defensive adjustments are actually calculated is by looking at how players have done when they have changed positions and the reality is that there is just not enough precedent in baseball history for players like nelson cruz to

just all of a sudden start playing every single position. We've never had a situation where like someone like Nelson Cruz just started catching all of a sudden at the age of like 35 with bad legs. So you would have a horrible, horrible catcher. You would have the worst catcher imaginable. I don't know about Nelson Cruz's throwing arm, but it would be a disaster that would have an effect on the pitching staff as well. Probably on team morale, the manager would quit. Fans would hate it. I don't know. This all gets into stuff that's more complicated, but the defense would be terrible. You'd have injuries all the time. The offense would be good, but the base running would also be a nightmare and the team would be awful, awful, awful, awful baseball team. Best offensive team ever. Worst defensive team ever. Probably worst base running team ever. So it would be a

team of extremes. I don't know. Cause if you are the best offensive team ever, and I think you would be assuming the Nelson cruises don't all break down or you have backup Nelson cruises or something, it would be hard to be like a truly all time terrible team, right? Like if you're the best ever at something, then you might not be like if you're the best ever at something then you might not be good because you're the worst ever at other things but wouldn't it cancel out to a certain degree or you think he would just be i mean if he's catching of course he might just be like failing to catch the ball let alone like being good at being a catcher so there'd be yeah wild pitches all over the place

and pass balls all over the place and no framing, and it would just be terrible, and you'd have the worst range ever at just about every position. So you'd be giving up hits left and right, but you would be a really great run-scoring team. Well, let's see. So we have UZR going back to 2002, and so I don't know how accurate those earlier UZR numbers are. I think the 2005 Yankees, right? They're like the legendary.

I've been wanting to do a retrospective on them because can they have possibly been that bad while still being a really great team? They were still a good team but yes okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna read a few uh yankees factoids here so team ucr 2003 yankees 15th worst out of the what 480 realistically 450 team sample we have so far 2003 yankees negative 60 runs in defense 2004 yankees, negative 69 runs on defense. 2005 Yankees, negative 142 runs defensively. 2006 Yankees, negative 80 runs defensively. I don't know how much you can buy negative 142 runs in the field, but here's the thing. According to defensive runs saved, negative 120 runs in the field. So I don't know exactly what was going on with the 2005 Yankees. One thing I do know is that they made the playoffs because they won 95 games.

I know, right? Because they had a really good offensive team, right? They had 15% better than league average or something like that OPS-wise. So, yeah, I kind of think this Mariners team wouldn't be good, but maybe it wouldn't be worse than the current Mariners. I'm not sure. I mean, they'd be a lot worse than the 2005 Yankees even on defense, but they'd be better on offense. So I don't know. I kind of think they'd be respectable, maybe unwatchable. Okay, someone's got to explain the numbers to me because the 2005 Yankees pitchers allowed a BAB up of 299. That's like completely normal. Yeah.

The league BAB up that year was 295. So that's like, that's something. But what on earth was going on? What? Okay, I don't know if you can trust defensive numbers from that long ago. It just seems to be nonsense. But nevertheless, there's at least, we know that those Yankees teams were not good at defense, at least. And they still were, you know, awesome.

But this Mariners team, if Nelson Cruz would be so I think it took like two innings. I think it was two innings of interleague play this year before the Mariners press corps started to tweet out, get Nelson Cruz out of the outfield immediately. And I think that he came up with some leg stiffness almost immediately as well he's got zero range and that's with nelson cruz playing one position i mean i don't want to undersell like how bad this team defense would be we i don't know if we can believe the 2005 yankees at negative 142 runs but the nelson cruz team would be probably at least twice that bad i'd have to think yeah factor in he wouldn't know how to catch. Oh, my God. I would love to watch it for like three innings, but those three innings would take about seven days.

Yeah. And the promised Red Sox-related questions from Thomas. I had this thought while listening to WEEI's broadcast of the sale return to Chicago. Joe and Tim love him and spend roughly 90% of the broadcast pulling up stats to rave about Chris Sale. I'm a Red Sox fan, but I'm pretty ambivalent. Does this kind of gushing about a player hurt or improve the broadcast in your opinion?

And I would say it depends on the degree of homerness for me. If this is not actually a good player, then I wouldn't want to listen to lots of gushing about his performance. Then I wouldn't want to listen to lots of gushing about his performance. But if it's Chris Sale, who was off to the best start of any pitcher this year and just has really fun stats to talk about, I'd be okay with that because I think the broadcaster's job is to inform the fans, keep the fans apprised of the player's performance and fans should be aware that Chris Sale is amazing. So I'd have to hear it to see if they went overboard with it, but it wouldn't bother me. I don't think if the praise was justified. Yeah. I think that it would be really easy to, we have these weekly stat segments on this podcast. It would be really easy to just have it be a weekly Mike Trout stat segment and or you know maybe back the day of Barry Bonds stat segment that we just do every single week and we try to find some new way to express how good this player is or was and while I would want and I think you would probably also want the numbers to be

meaningful and not just like random splits that mean nothing if you could find a new way to express how awesome Chris Sale has been on a regular basis. I think that that serves the right purpose. And it's not it wouldn't even necessarily be that, I don't know, homery, because the numbers are the numbers. He's been the best pitcher in baseball. There's he has a long track record of being one of the best pitchers in baseball. And the hardest thing to do in this game is to consistently appreciate the players who are consistently great. And so if you can find a way to at least try to help that cause and allow Red Sox fans to appreciate Chris Sale while they can, then that's good because Chris Sale is not going to be good forever. He's not going to be a Red Sox player forever. And you want people to recall this experience fondly because who knows where

the season goes from here, but at least they've seen the best possible version of Chris Sale for two months. Nice job adding player after Red Sox so that you didn't have to say he's a Red Sox which always makes me uncomfortable and I always try to find ways to write or speak around it god I never know how to pluralize it no or like I don't know possessivize I don't know what to do with the apostrophe after the I just hate it i can't believe there are so many teams named after socks it's ridiculous all right you want to do your stat segment sure this was hastily put together because i was gone but i i was trying to pursue some stuff about the reds horrible pitching staff i couldn't find a good monthly war splits because that's probably not sought after very much but reds pitching staff bad anyway actual stats event i just

threw together you inspired me to look at rbi and so i get curious about some rbi and one player who's had an incredible rbi month of may now that we're on the last day of it is one dodgers rookie cody bellinger who has driven in 27 runs in the month of May alone. And so I was curious going to the play index, I wanted to look up the best ever months of May in terms of RBI for players in their first ever seasons because Cody Bellinger is a rookie. He is only recently up. He has played 27 games in May. He's driven in a runner per game. And at present, Cody Bellinger is in a three-way tie for fifth place with those 27 may rbi for a first year player he's tied with earl torgeson whose uh whose player page i appear to have clicked on before i don't know why it is probably affiliated with this podcast and i'm

sure some of you will recall that we probably talked about earl torgeson for a few minutes but that's out of my head uh cody bellinger 27 rBI in May, tied with Earl Torgerson and Tony Lazeri, who had 27 RBI in May in 1926. In fourth place, we have Joe DiMaggio with 28 May RBI in his first ever year. He was outstanding. He's also Joe DiMaggio. Third place, Bob Speak. I don't know who Bob Speak is. I hadn't clicked on his page before. In 1955, in the month of May, he was a, obviously, he was a rookie playing for the Chicago Cubs. And in May, he played in 25 games. He drove in 29 runs. I'm just going to go ahead and click through on his player page. And here is what Bob Speak did in April. He batted seven times. May, he was outstanding. He had a 1.098 OPS in May. In June,

his OPS was 584. Bob Speak, not actually a good player, but he had a fantastic month of May. He played in just 305 games in his career. He had one more year being a regular. I haven't done my necessary Bob Speak research, but he missed all of 1956 after being a breakout rookie sensation in 1955, 1958, 1959. He barely played. Then his career was over. He drove in just about a third of all of his runs in that month of May in 1955. He was good enough to have a nickname. His nickname was Spook.

I don't know why, but maybe because his career was sort of ghostlike. His position is listed as outfielder, pinch hitter, and first baseman. Anyway, Bob Speak, third place. Second place, Zeke Bonura, another player I haven't heard of, but he had a much longer and successful career than Bob Speak. Zeke Bonura had a fantastic month of May in 1934, where he drove in 30 runs. And in first place, the best ever May in terms of RBI for a first year player belongs to one Ted Williams, whose player page I have apparently not clicked on, which is surprising. I will make up for that right now. It's a fun list. If you sort of look from the top on down, of course, Ted Williams shows up Joe DiMaggio and Johnny

Mize and Mickey Mantle. Orlando Cepeda is also on there but then you have other players like Bob Speak who knows where Cody Bellinger is going to go from here there's a Ray Jablonski which is just a fun old kind of name to say and just based on his name you can tell that's probably not a player who would play in the game today but Wally Joyner is up there George Springer had 25 RBI in his first ever May so in in any case, Cody Bellinger will play. Presumably he will play today. I don't know if he's in the lineup, but he will play his last game of May. And if he were to hit a grand slam in the game, then he would slide into a first place tie with Ted Williams. And if he were to have a phenomenal breakout game with five RBI, then he would have

the most RBI in baseball history for the month of May for a first-year player. And as I say that, I already don't know if this would count as a fun fact because it might be too specific. Very RBI-centric episode for us today. Yeah. Not our usual stat of choice. So, okay, let's take a few more. Question from Sean. Hey, guys.

Earlier today, I was playing the MLB The Show video game and my created player broke Barry Bonds' career home run record in his 28th season. This event made me think if a player hits some significant milestone but takes a long time to do it, for example 3,000 hits in 27 seasons, would it cheapen the accomplishment at all to you or would durability and longevity be something that you take into account as part of the player's profile we often get a question oddly about what would happen if someone played at a very low level or modest level for a really long time like if someone were a replacement level player for like 30 or 40 years somehow or or an average player even and we've gotten the question would he be a Hall of Famer? And I've generally said no. He might have an exhibit or something in the Hall of Fame for being some sort of freak and not aging. But he still wouldn't be good enough to be elected because peak value plays such a big part in player perception.

And he just wouldn't have much of a peak so that's a somewhat related question and and when you get guys hanging on for career accomplishments people kind of call them compilers and and dismiss them a little bit or craig biggio is sort of i think perceived to have hung on to get 3 000 hits when he was no longer a great player. That happens to some guys. They kind of limp to the end or when Pete Rose was going for the all-time hits record and he was a shadow of his former self by the end of it. So does it cheapen the accomplishment?

I guess it does or I don't know if I'd say cheapen, but you have to take it into account obviously how long it took the player to do the thing. It's not the same if you do something in 15 years or you somehow do it in 25. So yeah, I think it's something you factor in and you discount the player appropriately, right? Yeah, this is sort of, I guess, the Omar Vizquel question. Omar Vizquel played 24 years. He nearly got to 3000 hits. But even if Omar Vizquel had gotten to 3000 hits, it's not like that's a milestone that would have you recall, oh, yeah, Omar Vizquel, that phenomenal Major League Baseball hitter. That's just not how you think about him. I think the idea with any milestone, it's less about the number as much as it is about the opportunity to reflect on the player's entire career. And generally,

when you are reflecting on a player's entire career, you are reflecting on what that player was at his best. So when Ichiro had his 3000th major league hit last season, that was great. It was a wonderful accomplishment. Everybody seemed to have a good time. And Ichiro, for his part, did have kind of a little resurgent season last year. He hit 291, which was better than he'd hit since 2010. So Itro was having a nice little bounce back. But the idea at the time was not, hey, Itro got the 3000 hits. It was more about, hey, let's take this opportunity to actually appreciate the fact that Itro used to be someone who could get 200 hits in a season all the time. And he used to be a very, very, very skilled player. And this is our chance to sort of reflect on that in the as the player's career

winds down. And if you have this hypothetical player who's never really very good, but he just compiles numbers, I don't know what you would really be reflecting on aside from this player hasn't gone away ever. He's just kind of been here you know obviously if you stick around that long you must be doing something right and in the case of omar of his scale he was he stuck around until he was 45 because he could still play defense and he was a a good leader and and all that but it makes it i guess it doesn't so much cheapen the accomplishment as it does make it a very a different sort of milestone where it's not a milestone you hit that shows, hey, look how good of a hitter you were. It's a durability milestone. And I think that's the kind of thing that people

are less likely to drop everything they're doing and give you a standing ovation for. Related question from Alistair with Albert Pujols nearing 600 career home runs. How many would he need at the end of his current Angels contract for a team to entertain re-signing him with the hope of beating the all-time record? Would the publicity and fanfare for the team outweigh having a declining batter in their lineup? So he has 599 home runs as we speak. He's averaged 30-ish over the past few years. If he somehow managed not to decline any further over the course of this contract, which would be weird, but let's say that somehow happened

and he hit 20 more this year and then 30 more in each of the four more years he's under contract, he'd have a lot of home runs. He'd be pretty close. He would have, what, that's another 20 plus that's like 140 so he'd have like 740 or something and he'd be past ruth and he'd be close enough to to pass bonds with another season at that level now there's no reason to expect that he will maintain that level of hitting 30 something homers a a year. So I don't know.

What's a reasonable expectation for Pujols in four and two-thirds seasons, essentially? Oh, God. I mean, he's going to be terrible. He's going to be a very—I mean, he'll be like 42 years old. Way worse, but he still is hitting home runs. Like, he's way worse in a lot of other ways. He doesn't walk anymore he doesn't have the plate discipline he once had but he still has power and he hit 40

homers just a couple years ago and 31 last year and he's on pace for more than 30 this year so that one thing that he does is still more or less intact so it's hard not to just think about how alex rodriguez went from his like big bounce back 2015 to being one of the worst hitters in the world yes right well at least in the major league world in 2016 he couldn't do anything at the age of 40 albert pujols clearly his body hasn't wanted him to play baseball for like a year and a half at least he's been like just hang him up man you've got enough money money. Just dedicate your life to your foundation or whatever. But if he is at like 730 home runs somehow going into 2022,

which is going to be the next year that he's a free agent, my God. I mean, what's realistic right now? Probably like maybe 100 over the rest of his contract, four and two-thirds seasons. So it's like a 20-homer pace or something like that. Is that realistic? I mean, something like that. I guess it is because he did hit 40 a few years ago last year at 31,

and he's had some foot procedures. I don't know how much better his body feels, but whatever. There's enough there, but he can't play defense anymore. He can't run the bases. He can't do anything. He doesn't even walk like he used to. He's basically just trying to hit the ball hard in the air and pulling the ball all the time.

Classic old player profile. Yeah, he could just completely go belly up one of these years and be totally unplayable. So that could happen. But I don't know. I mean, if he, say he does get 700 or so by the end of this contract which would be probably slightly optimistic but not crazy i don't think that that would be close enough to anything because no one's gonna sign him to chase ruth

because that's not the record anymore even if some people would probably consider it the quote unquote real record. So like if he were within a season striking distance of Bonds somehow, which was completely improbable, I could see someone doing it like whoever the Marlins are of that time, which probably the Marlins, you know, if they're willing to have Itro and carry him and kind of a reduced role and have him have the hits record and everything. And, and he's been a pretty good player for them at some points, but not at other points. So, you know, whatever the worst team in baseball is the most publicity starved team, I could see giving it a shot. So if he were something like 750 or so, I mean, thing is to be anywhere close to that, he'd have to have aged very well from this point forward. So it wouldn't be as hard to imagine him continuing to play. So if he were close, then I think someone would give him a shot because he'd have to have been good to do that. But I just don't see any way that that could possibly happen. Yeah, the Marlins were my easy first guess as well. God knows what they're going to be in five years. But the other trouble is, is he going to be worth, even if he's within 10 home runs somehow of the record, is he going to be worth starting?

Because you kind of have to start him to get him there. Because if he's coming off the bench, even Lenny Harris couldn't hit 10 home runs in a season. Right. Coming off the bench as a pinch hitter all the time so it would be difficult and you'd have to weigh you'd have to try to figure out somehow how much money you could bring in promotionally I guess for this home run chase and you know if he's not with the Angels or the Cardinals it's not like there's going to be any sort of long-standing history of having Albert Pujols around in this area just like again I guess Itro in Miami there is no history of Itro as the classic beloved Marlins player I don't think there is such a thing except for maybe Jeff Conine and so like you know if Albert Pujols wound up on I don't know the White Sox I don't know why

they come to mind but they do if he's with the White Sox and he's coming up on home run 763 or whatever the number is, then how much can you bring in from that pursuit versus how much are you giving up by playing Pujols in the first place? You know, if you're giving up, I don't know, a win by that point, maybe a win is worth $10 million. Are you going to bring in $10 million? And I don't know the answer to that. Yeah. to bring in $10 million? And I don't have the answer to that. Yeah. I mean, there would be, I think, considerable public sentiment behind a Pujols pursuit just because there's such an anti-bonds segment from a large portion of the baseball fan base. So, you know, I think it's

a storied record and people would like to have someone who is perceived to have been cleaned and done it through talent alone. And so, you know, people would really be rooting for Pujols to break this record, and maybe they would come out and support him, and there would be a real attendance boost. I don't know. It's also, this is all based on record home run rates, too, because that's something that's propping up whatever sliver of a pursuit he has here if if that changes for any reason then that would uh further drive a stake into its heart one interesting thing about albert pujols career is that according to baseball reference he's

already he's just barely surpassed 100 career war which is a very high threshold however a question we commonly get at fangraphs is will albert puj reach 100 war? Because as things stand, he is at 91.4. And if you look at it like that, he's almost certainly not going to get there because that he's going to be on both sides of the 100 war threshold, which is, of course, and very obviously arbitrary, but it's going to be that is the kind of thing that will cause much consternation and people are going to be quite upset about it because there's not going to be agreement on whether or not Pujols surpassed 100 career wins above replacement, which is a hell of an accomplishment. Obviously, he's already achieved a lot, but which is a hell of an accomplishment obviously he's already achieved a lot but that is a that's going to be weird when it comes to alper puhol's hall of fame time because some people are going to say that he is a hundred war player and some people are going to see he was

not yeah by the time puhol's is eligible for the hall of fame and of course he'll be a shoe in no matter what he does between now and the end but but people are going to have to be reminded how great he was because he started so young and was so amazing immediately and then tailed off fairly early. I mean, by the time he retires, he will not have been a great player for a decade, basically. And then there's the five years of waiting for eligibility on top of that so by the time he actually gets inducted presumably on the first ballot it will have been like 15 years since Pujols was in his prime at least and so you know you're not going to remember seeing him as a great player unless you're like in your mid-20s so it's gonna take a lot of reminding to be like hey you know for 10 years or so there

albert pools was one of the best hitters and players ever so yep yeah he was basically a he was a perfect hitter he was as close to a perfect hitter as i think we've seen in a while he never quite got to uh i guess a 200 like wrRC plus or I'm going to guess OPS plus. But he walked and hit home runs without ever really striking out. He struck out about as often as, I don't know, who doesn't strike out now? Jonathan Lucroy, I guess, all of a sudden. Whatever. He didn't strike out.

He was great. And he was a really good defender, which is going to be easily overlooked. But he was super incredible. And yeah, you were right. Albert Pujols fantastic baseball player Yeah even a pretty good Base runner early in his career too He did everything

Victor says my friend alerted me To a promotion the Padres are offering called The Padres 5 win pass For $99 a fan gets To attend the first 5 Padres Wins of June in a Designated section below the scoreboard in left field at Petco Park. There's 16 games at Petco in June, which means someone who purchases

this pass can attend anywhere from five to 16 home Padres games during the month. It all depends on how long it takes them to reach five victories during June. Have you guys ever seen a promotion like this before? Is it smart? Is it dumb? Somewhere in between. It feels extremely desperate to me, but maybe I'm missing something. I love it.

Yeah. I haven't thought, I don't know about the economics of it. So let's say you're playing in Padres home games. You would expect just on average, you'd expect five wins in what? 11 or 12 home games yeah something like that like that might be reasonable and so then if your expected outlay is like you're giving away 12

tickets for what was it 99 dollars yeah okay so you're giving away cheap seats for something like i don't know eight dollars a pop which is you low for the team, but it's not low to a degree where you're actually going to worry about the money you're losing. Not a whole lot of people are probably going to use this pass in the first place. The Padres, by the way, have beaten the Cubs twice in a row at home. So who knows what the Padres are going to do now. Maybe they'll take off and become a dominant baseball team. It could be as little as five games you know they uh starting in june they play three against the rockies and then three against the royals at home followed by three against the reds so it's not like they're as much as the rockies are pretty

good they're much worse away from home as always so you know the padres could get their five wins pretty quick but what i also like about it is that it gives i mean the fans already have an incentive they want the team to win no matter what, but this gives them something to like really cheer for. They'll kind of get into it because as much as people love to cheer for wins, people really love to cheer for saving money. You know, like a baseball team has a promotion where it's like, you get a free cheeseburger if the team hits two home runs in a game or whatever. I know in hockey games, teams have had promotions where it's like,

if the team scores four goals, then you get to go get free pizza and people lose their minds you start getting chance for like pizza pizza pizza when the team has scores their third goal so in a case like this i think you would have people getting i don't know maybe kind of ironically loud by chance but you'd have this section of people who sound at least like they're devoted, energized fans, because who wouldn't want, well, actually, hold on a second. Let me walk this back. They don't want the team to win. Well, it depends.

I confused myself. They want to see more games, presumably, which would mean that they need the Padres not to win, although I guess the question is, do you want to go to more Padres games or not? Maybe you don't want to go to more Padres games. Maybe you just want them to put you out of your mercy and use up those five wins. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're buying this, you want to go to as many games as possible. You're someone who likes going to Padres games. So you root for a loss in the short term in order to...

games. So you root for a loss in the short term in order to, like, is the ideal outcome of this that you just get to go to 16 Padres games in a month? Does anyone want to do that? I mean, San Diego's nice and Petco's nice and all that, but boy, that's a lot of Padres games for one month. Yeah. I talked myself right into a circle. What I was talking about is completely incorrect. Yeah, I talked myself right into a circle. What I was talking about is completely incorrect. Yesterday's Padres starting pitcher was Denelson Lemaitre. And I get that that's like a prospect they have. And I'm sure he's better than my not recognizing his name. But I'm pretty sure that I just saw that the Padres position players have been worse than replacement level this season.

Yesterday, their leadoff hitter was someone named Alan Cordoba. And I don't just say someone named Alan Cordoba because about a week or two ago, I got a message from, yeah, I got a message from Dave Cameron, faceoffangraphs.com, who sent me a message saying, do you know who Alan Cordoba is? So that's both of us who are like, who is Alan Cordoba? But wait, I'm not done.

Batting fifth for the Padres yesterday, Franchi, not Frenchie, Franchi, Franchi Cordero, batted fifth, followed by Corey Spangenberg. Austin Hedges was there. He hit a home run. He's got nine of them. He's good. I like Austin Hedges.

Good framer. Doesn't walk. Chase Darnot is apparently their shortstop. I didn't know that was happening. Who knows what's going on with the Padres, but they're not good. So I don't know what you would want. What do you cheer for what what are the incentives here as a fan because uh I don't know I guess it's complete I like it as a promotion but I don't know what

you're actually making the fans do yeah it's clever I mean it definitely draws attention to the fact that they're a bad baseball team right like the whole thing is based on the idea that we don't win much and that's why this is a good deal. So it's sort of self-deprecating or something, but I guess it's clever. I guess it can't hurt. So I don't know. Padres fans, anyone who has taken advantage of this offer, write in and tell us what you're rooting for and what you're feeling as you are attending Padres games this month. What if you sold a ticket for, I don't know, let's say $20, $20, a ticket for $20, same area of the stadium, and you sell a ticket for 20 bucks, and maybe that's more than it already is, but the $20 ticket, and then you say, if the Padres win, you get to sit in the same place, or you get another ticket for the next home game for free, and it just going until the team loses that might be more fun because they're probably not going to

win consecutive games or at least certainly not three no because they're a terrible baseball team but then that would give you pure incentives and again i don't know how many people would actually take you up on it but then it becomes like a little bit of gambling or even if it's maybe i don't know a dollar or two more than the ticket costs, you have the potential for technically unlimited, infinite free tickets if the Padres never lose another home game. So that could be kind of fun. And you could do it and you could say that with this promotion, you're not admitting that your team is bad because it's just like, hey, we could win. We could win free. We could win baseball games and you get free tickets.

So that would be that would be a fun one. Yeah. All right. Well, I've got a few more questions, but we've been going a while here. So I will table them for next time and we will talk again soon. Great. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already pledged their support include John Giles, Alex

Levy, Sam Raker, John Hines, and William Marshall. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild, and you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. Subscriptions, ratings, and reviews all help bump us up the iTunes leaderboards, make us

more visible to potential subscribers. Paperback version of my book, The Only Rules Is It Has To Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team is out now. Find out more about it at theonlyrulesithastowork.com. You can get the paperback for less than $10 on Amazon. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for editing assistance. Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system.

We'll be back later this week.