Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1105: We Want a Hit

Episode Date: September 2, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the strong response to their raffle for Hurricane Harvey relief, the Justin Verlander trade, a new NCAA softball rule, and the Padres relative to the NL’s other worst teams, then bring on FanGraphs writer Eno Sarris and former Red Sox outfielder (and owner of one major league hit) […]

We were one hit wonderful, living the life, playing the role. We were one hit wonderful, and it can't last long. They don't love you, they just love that one song. Hello and welcome to episode 1105 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I am Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs, joined as typical by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. That sounded like I was disappointed. Joined as typical by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer.

Hi, Ben. How are you? Same old Ben Lindberg. Hello. I'm doing well. And update on our raffle, still raffling and raffling really well so far. So if you did not catch the intro to yesterday's episode, we are holding a raffle right now to benefit Houston and Hurricane Harvey relief. Effectively Wild related items, a signed book, signed t-shirt, signed mic that was used for many hundreds, more than a thousand Effectively Wild episodes before it kind of kicked the bucket recently. And Russell Carlton, frequent Effectively Wild guest, has now offered up a signed copy of his forthcoming book as well. So lots of good stuff and people seem to be responding to it, getting lots of donations made to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund and forwarded to us to enter those people into a random drawing. So if you're interested, just go to our Facebook group, facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild, or go to Fangraphs and click on the blog post for this episode, and you will see a link to the instructions.

post for this episode, and you will see a link to the instructions. You don't have to be on Facebook or have Facebook to access the group and just look at the instructions. You just have to go to the website for the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund. It's ghcf.org slash hurricane hyphen relief. Make a donation of at least $10. That's the minimum amount they allow. That entitles you to one entry in our random drawing. Every increment of $10 above that gets you an additional entry. And so the more you donate, the better your chances and the more you help people. So thanks to everyone who has donated so far. We'll keep this going into next week and hope that you all have some extra cash that you can kick in. So thanks to everyone.

People seem to love signed books, but where would be the most annoying place to have your book be signed? I guess just like scrawled across a really important page so that you can't read any of the text. Really thick ink, one of those permanent sharpies that bleeds through. Every page is signed by the author. I won't do that. Later in this episode, we will talk to Eno Saris related to an article he wrote at Fangraphs earlier this week talking about whether Chris Hayes, news anchor Chris Hayes, whatever news anchor, news anchor? Yeah. Yeah.

Television personality. Newsy person and frequent Twitter retweeted Chris Hayes, whether he would ever get a hit in a full Major League Baseball season. We will talk to Eno about average American adults trying to get a hit in baseball. And in addition to Eno, we will also be talking with Alex Hasson, a recently former professional baseball player who made it to the Major Leagues with the Boston Red Sox and generated one hit against Eric Bedard. Happened in his Major League debut. generated one hit against eric bedard happened in his major league debut so we will be talking to alex as well as you know about uh what it is like to try to face professional pitching major league pitching and the likelihood of of getting one hit when you have 600 opportunities to do so a fun conversation but before that we have some time for some banter and i hesitate to do this

but i guess we do have to do some serious baseball talk, right? We do. There's really no way around it because at a very inconvenient time for writers everywhere, on Thursday evening, or for some people, I guess, Friday morning, Justin Verlander was actually traded. Thursday afternoon, I recorded a podcast with Carson Sestouli at Fangraphs, during which he asked me if I thought Justin Verlander would be traded. I said, no, that podcast has not yet been published. So I'm feeling pretty good about that. But Justin Verlander was traded traded. I said, no, that podcast has not yet been published. So I'm feeling pretty good about that.

But Justin Verlander was traded from the Tigers to the Astros. If you didn't hear about this, which, well, you have. But anyway, he was traded from the Tigers to the Astros. Tigers are throwing in a low-level player to be named later, or cash. But they're also throwing in lots of cash. They're throwing in $8 million a season, not counting this season, presumably. But they will pay Verlander down from $28 to $20 million a year for counting this season presumably but they will pay verlander down from 28 to 20 million dollars a year for the next two years for which he is under control

and the astros are sending to the tigers three prospects there is franklin perez good young pitcher there is daz cameron good young center fielder and there is jake rogers good young catcher jake rogers has been described by er Eric Longenhagen, Fangraph's prospect guy, as the best defensive catcher I've ever seen in the minors. That is not a direct quote, but it's close enough. I did not pull up the page where he said it. So pretty good prospect haul going from the Astros to the Tigers. Tigers leaning into the rebuild that I think we've known was inevitable for years and good on them for putting it off for as long as they did. But I don't know, reflections, thoughts on the Verlander trade that are in any way different from what everybody else has already

said about the Verlander trade? Yeah, I don't know if I have different thoughts. Well, what do you think changed for Houston, if anything, in the month since the non-waiver trade deadline when they didn't make this sort of move that everyone expected them to make? I mean, maybe they tried to and they just couldn't and the Tigers weren't willing to do this very deal for all we know, but they were criticized from outside the organization, from inside via Dallas Keuchel for not getting a top of the rotation type at that time. And I think their defenders pointed out that, hey, they're going to win this division in a walk. They don't really need to do anything yet. And maybe Francisco Liriano will actually be good in the bullpen. So I don't know. Do you think that anything changed or do you think that they just waited a month because they didn't need

to do it a month ago? Two things changed, I think. One, the Astros have been bad since the end of July, roughly. They've gone 12 and 19, which they've had plenty of injuries and you know they had an 11 and a half game lead on the next best team in the American League before that so it didn't really matter but they've lost eight games of that ground to the Indians other contenders the Indians and the Red Sox have played very well in the past stretch of time the Astros have been the second worst team in the American League by record better only than the Royals who have also fallen apart I guess that's what happens when you don't score for a week and a half and the other thing in the American League by record, better only than the Royals, who have also fallen apart. I guess that's what happens when you don't score for a week and a half. And the other thing that

changed is that Justin Verlander continued to pitch well. What was confusing about him earlier in the season is that his numbers were not good. His walks were out of control. He wasn't getting the strikeouts you're used to getting from Verlander, but his stuff was the same. It was good. If anything, it was sharper. His velocity was actually up earlier in the year, but he just wasn't getting the same results that he usually does. Well, over the past nine starts, he's been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball. He's looked like Justin Verlander. The walks are under control. The strikeouts are up. The fastball is averaging almost 96 miles per hour. So I think that it wasn't going to take very long for other

teams to be convinced that Justin Verlander had figured something out. And I think that now that he's put together this essentially performance since the All-Star break, since he's done this for about six weeks, I think that that was enough to convince the Astros that, sure, we're giving up these prospects, but we're getting what looks like a number one pitcher again. Verlander's had a lot of transitions into and out of acehood in the last several years, right? Since the time that he was maybe the acknowledged best pitcher in baseball or best pitcher in the league, he then seemed to completely lose it. And everyone thought that was it. It was over.

He was heading downhill quickly. Then he completely regained it and was maybe not quite peak Verlander, but pretty close for a while there. And then he seemed to sort of lose it again. And there were injuries mixed in there too, and maybe mechanical after effects of those injuries. But I don't know what the reason was for his struggles earlier this season. I mean, he started off fine, then he was struggling. Now he's ace Verlander again. So it seems to have changed a lot. Like just, I mean, before the non-weaver trade deadline, it wasn't really clear how useful Verlander would be, right? Like people were talking about him as if he would be a big trade deadline acquisition. And then others were pointing out he's not actually that good right now. And maybe it's not worth paying that sort of price for him. And now we're not very long later and he has that value again, apparently. Yeah. So I don't know what people would say now, but in the off season between 2015 and 2016, I ran some poll posts. Fangraphs love me some poll posts because a poll post is essentially

two posts in one. And for one of them, I don't have to do any work. It's great. Nobody stare too closely next time I run a pull post. Just don't worry about it. So I asked people, I give them a selection of starting pitchers and ask them simply, do you think this guy is an ace or not? And between 2015 and 2016, Verlander was coming off a year which he made just 20 starts. He had a mid three ZRA, but his striker rate was down. He had not been very good in 2014, the season before, but he was coming off having been about a three win pitcher over 20 starts in 2015, but seemingly diminished. And according to the voting results, only 21% of respondents decided at that point in time that Justin Verlander was an ace. That put him between Carlos Carrasco, 28%, and the Marcus Stroman, 17%.

So at least back then, it seemed like Verlander had mostly lost his ace label. Of course, the following season, Verlander came up just short of winning the American League Cy Young. Many people think that he should have won the American League Cy Young. So then that would have presumably vaulted Verlander back into acehood where I guess, at least by the polling, I defined acehood as anyone who got the majority of votes. So you figure that season would have put Verlander back over 50%. And then the first half of this season would have presumably bumped him back under 50%. But if you had to guess, I'm not going to actually poll, but if you had to guess,

where do you think people would, what percent yes vote do you think Verlander would get in a hypothetical poll of the audience, whether Verlander is an ace right now? Our audience? Yeah. I mean, yeah, basically the same audience as thelander is an ace right now. Our audience? Yeah. I mean, yeah, basically the same audience as the Fangraphs audience, right? Right. Yeah. I would guess that the typical average baseball fan nationwide would have a higher percentage

probably than our listeners just because he has that reputation and maybe they're not paying attention to each individual half season. But I would say among our listeners right now, 40% maybe. That's roughly what I would think. I could be wrong. Yeah. Well, I think that's reasonable. Yeah. So do you think it's unusual for this much activity to happen in August? I've seen people asking that. And there is an MLB trade rumors post about the Astros getting Verlander that just said the August trade period has never been so loaded with blockbusters. It did not offer evidence to that end, but it does seem like it's a lot for guys like Upton and Verlander to get traded. I think Grant maybe did a post about just the

quantity of deals that happen in August typically, and maybe this isn't out of line with that, but it seems somewhat unusual to see players of this caliber and fame be traded this late in the season. Yeah, it definitely feels that way. Again, I would like to have some data, which I don't know how easy it would be to get it. But I wonder, even though in the Tigers case, it's not like they were on the periphery of the race a month ago that with Upton and Verlander, that was just shedding big money. But I think that when you have you have this extra wildcard and you have when you have leagues that are so tight that maybe it just takes teams longer

to figure out what they want to do. And so maybe they're just not ready to make a decision by the end of July. I think this is one of the reasons why people have argued that the trade deadline should be pushed back. In fact, I don't know if I have an informed opinion on this, but I wonder what the purpose is of having trade deadlines at all. I haven't read, maybe Stephen Goldman might be the person to talk to, like the trade deadline origin story. I think, yeah, he actually, he has spoken about that on his podcast, The Infinite Inning, which is great. Go listen to it. I like plugging it, but yeah, right. Well, you have a far better memory than I do. So in the case that you've listed that podcast, do you remember anything about the trade deadline origin story or what the argument is for why deadlines exist in the first place? I don't remember the exact origin

story. I mean, it used to be earlier. It used to be what, like June 15th or something. And then it was moved back, but I forget the exact circumstances, but there is an episode of The Infinite Ending where Steve runs through that several episodes ago right around the Astros are not like one of these wildcard contending teams and neither are the Tigers really but does this affect your ordinal ranking of American League teams in any way were the Astros on top for you as it was or had the Red Sox or Indians or someone else made any inroads on best team in the league status in your mind I couldn't really separate them I think the Red Sox or Indians or someone else made any inroads on best team in the league status in your mind? I couldn't really separate them. I think the Red Sox, Indians and Astros are all very good. I even think the Yankees are very good personally, but whatever. I'll just kind of put them on the second tier. I think that the Astros clearly had some issues on the pitching side. So Verlander

makes them a lot better. But what always confuses me about moves like this, and I think that there are people within the Astros organization who would agree if you trade this package for justin verlander of course the idea is you're trying to go for it you're trying to get to the world series because the astros are clearly already going to make the playoffs and there'll be a good team in the playoffs when they have a healthy lineup it is one of the best lineups we've seen in a very long time so they're likely going to score and they make contact so they shouldn't be exploited by playoff opponents but verlander would move their world series odds what a couple of percentage so they shouldn't be exploited by playoff opponents. But Verlander would move their World Series odds, what, a couple of percentage points? It can't be, it wouldn't be like five points.

That would be absurd. There are so many good teams in baseball. They're all at the top of their divisions. This is a season that does not have one standout team. I know the Dodgers are way out there, but there are like six or seven or eight even legitimately really strong baseball teams who I could see winning World Series. It wouldn't even be a stretch to me to see the Diamondbacks win the World Series provided Fernando Rodney goes, I don't know, to play

hide and seek somewhere during the games and he doesn't show up. But so you get Verlander and you move your odds just a tiny bit. And of course, you also move your odds maybe a tiny bit for next year and the year beyond depending on on how Verlander ages but what I have trouble wrapping my head around is all these teams know that the playoffs are still mostly unpredictable there as you and I have both examined countless times there is not much you can do to actually guarantee or or improve your own odds of succeeding in the playoffs. So much of it is just you can't fix the randomness of a small sample and that it's always going to come down to that. And so I wonder with a trade like this, of course, it looks good. It looks good for PR reasons, but you're giving up three legitimate prospects in this movie, giving up a lot of talent from

a system that has thinned out. And I just wonder whether these moves are actually worth it once you get past all of the praise they get in the news media for giving the news media something to write about. Like there was a in Jeff Passan's article, I think it was that he wrote about this trade. There was a line, I'll paraphrase, it said something about how the industry had gotten annoyed by how the Astros have hoarded their young players. But like, that's what that's what got them here. The Dodgers have hoarded their young players, but that's what got them here. The Dodgers have hoarded their young players. So I think maybe I'm just coming at it from a perspective where these big blockbusters are celebrated by the people who write about them,

but the people who write about them are biased because it gives them something to write about. And from a team perspective, I'm not actually sold these go for moves or are that useful. Yeah. Particularly if it's the rental type thing where the guy's not under control for a while. What is Verlander's remaining contract situation, did you say? Yeah. After this, two more years and $56 million combined, the Tigers are paying down $8 million of that each year. He also has a vesting option for 2020 that who knows, if it picks up, then presumably that means he's worth it. Yeah, he'll have gone through several transitions between ACID and non-ACID by that time, so no telling. Yeah, and I guess it's worth acknowledging

at least that maybe there's some small influence here from what's been happening in Houston, and maybe the team just wanted to make some kind of public statement. I don't think that that's actually has too much basis. In fact, I don't think that a baseball organization, especially like the Astros would operate in that way, but they will at least try to sell this, I'm sure, as a move that they made to try to bring the city of Houston together. And, you know, it does help in that regard. And one of those soft factors that this is news that people in Houston can wake up to. And if they're paying attention to sports news, which, you know, maybe they actually aren't because there's so much else going on. But if they do and they wake up to sports news,

then it gives some people a reason to smile because Justin Verlander, one of those recognizable names, don't have to be much of a baseball fan to know that he's really good. And so, you know, something there. I would feel bad for not acknowledging it. So some brief trade deadline history here. I was able to just look up while we were talking. It was 1986 that the deadline moved from June 15th to July 31st. And it was apparently where it was before that because of Babe Ruth in part. But going even further back here, there's some research at Sabre by Cliff Blau.

He says, in the early years of Major League Baseball, there was no provision for trading or selling player contracts. The first rule allowing trades or sales was in the American Association in 1889. Even then, teams had to release the player in question and request that other teams not involved in the trade refrain from trying to sign him. In 1901, to attempt to curb defections to the American League, the NL required player approval of trades. The AL had the same rule. This right was eliminated in 1903. So that's interesting. There was like no trade clauses just built into every deal early in baseball.

And then they were like, nope. And the first trade deadline was established in the National League in 1917. After August 20th of each year, players had to clear waivers within the league before they could be sold or traded to another team of either league. The AL established a similar rule in 1920. the Black Sox scandal making headlines that MLB would appoint Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis as the very first commissioner of Major League Baseball. In the American League, among the eight teams, there was a split between those five teams loyal to Ben Johnson, president of the American League, and the three teams that were at odds with Johnson. It was a very strange situation to be in as an all-out civil war in the American League seemed to be a constant threat. So teams like the Yankees and Red Sox would actually go out of their way to make deals with the other teams for purely political reasons. You know, like you can't say that we don't deal with you, we just sold you player X. So when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees for a little over $100,000, plus some other stuff,

the rest of the league was outraged at the idea of the Yankees using their great financial strength to take advantage of the Red Sox to the detriment of the rest of the American League. Washington Sanders owner Clark Griffith, who had also tried to get Ruth from Boston, proposed a rule that eventually prohibited any trade or sale between August 1st and the end of the World Series unless the player had cleared waivers. And then the change to the more recent date came after a collective bargaining agreement in the mid-80s. So I also have one non-serious baseball thing to bring up before we get to our guest. And this is related to our episode from last week and to Sam's article about the skunk in the outfield play and the weird play that we talked about with him. skunk in the outfield play and the weird play that we talked about with him where in an amateur championship game, a runner just ran into right field and stayed there and briefly broke baseball because no one knew what to do about it. So we got an email from listener Amin who says,

while at dinner over the weekend with a good friend and former teacher of mine who is also a division one NCAA softball umpire, I referenced Sam Miller's skunk in the outfield piece for ESPN. He told me that his wife, a fellow NCAA softball fan, had shown him the article after the NCAA softball rules committee had suddenly enacted a new rule about base runners running into the outfield. The rule reads as follows, 12.5.9. The batter runner is out when she runs the bases in reverse order, runs intentionally into the outfield between bases, or runs through first base unnecessarily into the outfield on a walk, drop third strike, or any batted ball, either to confuse opponents or to make a travesty of the game. Rationale, the committee believes this tactic, which involves running out of the traditional base path in order

to confuse the defense, does not support the spirit and intent of the rule on the runner's base path and makes a travesty of the game. And Amin continues, those rules were passed on August 17th. The publication date of Sam Miller's piece, August 17th. I'm not saying that this one is definitely on Sam, but it's entirely possible that he actually managed to get in their heads and actually prompted rule changes in college softball. Who said baseball writers don't make a real impact on the world? Well, Sam says, because Sam says that it's just a wild coincidence that they added this rule on the same day that he published his piece. I guess he looked into it and asked someone. That is very strange, although I guess it makes sense that

they didn't convene an emergency session of the softball rules committee during the offseason to respond to Sam's article on that very same day. So just a strange coincidence that those things happened to appear on August 17th. Yeah, a strange coincidence because it's something that you would never ever think. Well, I guess I don't need to explain why it's a strange coincidence. But yeah, you wouldn't think that any kind of rule that has to do with anybody like even amateur softball let alone anything else would be able to pass rule in a day probably each one takes about a year and a half just to find some sort of agreement even over something as silly as this but so if for any softball players out there who want to try out the skunk in the outfield i guess you have to do it

in some level that isn't collegiate yeah that's right all right anything else just uh quickly in passing because i'm looking uh this year the podgers have been bad you and i can both agree on that yes podger is bad 59 74 they are playing close to their preseason projection and they were projected to be the worst team in baseball at the start of the year by a couple of games also at the start of the year i mused about how i thought the national league looked kind of boring because i thought that it was going to be set you You would have the Dodgers win the West, Cubs win the Central, Nationals win the East, and then obviously the Giants and the Mets would win the wild cards. Before the year, the Giants were projected to finish 23 games better than the Padres. The Mets

were projected to finish 22 games better than the Padres. Padres currently have a better record than both the Mets and the Giants. Means nothing. Nothing is new here. The Giants have been bad for a while. Mets of every good player on the Mets is currently unavailable due to injury. So it doesn't really mean anything doesn't mean that the Padres are better than those teams, but they're probably going to finish with a better record than those teams, which well, that's pretty incredible. If you think about how you might have responded to that back in March, it's not quite like if the Brewers beat the Cubs for the NL Central, which I don't think is going to happen,

but in some ways it's actually even more incredible, even though it's not going to make a difference for the playoff picture. Yeah, and the Padres, I guess, are the team that has come closest to actually testing out the scenario that we are about to talk about in that they had three essentially A-ball players on their opening day roster, real five pikes that they were just trying to keep on the roster all season. That is not quite the scenario that we're talking about now, but let's take a quick break and we will be back to discuss whether either of us or any of you listening could get a hit in a major league baseball game.

And a center field first major league hit for Alex Hassan. That's got to feel good. Evan Longoria getting the baseball over to the Red Sox dugout for him that's a moment you never forget in your whole life I think every player that plays this game remembers their first major league hit looked like it was a change up that time and able to stay back keep the hands back and drive it into center field for the base hit Alright, so as promised We are now joined by Jeff's colleague and my kind of colleague Also, Eno Saris from Fangraphs

Hello Eno Hey, thanks for having me on Yeah, and Eno wrote a very popular post Called, Would Chris Hayes get a hit in a full season Of play? And this is prompted by a question That Chris Hayes has, which is just If he played a full season of play? And this is prompted by a question that Chris Hayes has, which is just, if he played a full season's worth

of played appearances in MLB, would he get a single hit? And he speculated that he would not, but, you know, talked to some people and dug into some numbers to try to find out if we could answer this question. This is obviously a question that a lot of people have had. I think we've talked about it on this show in the past. And we also wanted to have a player on, someone who knows what it is like to have recorded a major league hit. It's Alex Hasson,

who was drafted by the Red Sox in 2009, made it to the majors in 2014, and got a hit in his second at-bat. So it took him two whole opportunities to get a hit in the major leagues. He is retired now, but he was a career 370 plus OBP guy at AAA, so he knows what it takes to get hits, and we wanted to have him on also to weigh in on this issue. So hello, Alex, and welcome. Hey, guys. Yeah, thanks for having me. All right. So, you know, do you want to describe how you approach this problem or maybe what you're thinking was when you first mulled over Chris's question? It's funny. There are two separate, like totally separate ways to attack this, I think. And one is kind of about the mechanics of trying to hit a ball.

And so I talked about how I've worked with Hunter Pence and did Zep. I did like a Zep thing where we showed my bat speed against Hunter Pence's. And he's a lot better. And it was something like twice as fast bat speed and three times faster to the ball in terms of seconds you know, seconds.

So, you know, in that way, it seems impossible. But on some level, I thought I think I would just be almost closing my eyes and swinging. Like I'd almost just be swinging before or like as the guy released the ball and just think dead red middle. And just isn't there almost like a numbers question here like isn't it just what's the role of luck like couldn't i just throw the bat head out there and if you gave me 600 plate appearances which is like 2 000 plus pitches you know wouldn't i wouldn't one of those uh find grass so that's that's the way i chose to go at it um because it seemed to maybe be able to provide some sort of answer.

Alex, do you want to walk us through the hit that you got in the major leagues? This is the hands-on experience of someone who has a major league hit off Eric Bedard, which is not an easy pitcher to get a hit off of. Yeah, it's funny because I was thinking about the velocity component, like where velocity is today. And it's funny because bedard is obviously not a hard thrower um so you know time to the ball maybe that's a you know the type of pitcher where somebody who is you know obviously not as quick to the ball as a major might have a better shot you know that for me like you know i didn't have great bat speed i could put the bat on the ball i had coordination enough coordination put the bat on the ball but i think you know a guy a guy like that might be you you know, a good guy, a good example of, I mean, obviously not,

not discounting him at all. You know, fantastic pitcher, had a fantastic career, but you know, maybe somebody who's a strike thrower doesn't throw as hard, you know, that might favor, favor somebody who's, you know, like we said, like we mentioned, just not as quick to the ball, frankly, as, as some major leaguers are. Yeah. Right. So, you know, what was the statistical approach that you took? I guess you looked multiple ways, but how did you get into that? I thought the approach that Nafee took was the most fun, which was to try and identify other really bad minor leaguers, I guess. I mean, the thing that I thought was interesting was we do know that this exists, that the draft is so long that there are players that are picked that are known as favors.

And the most famous, of course, is Mike Piazza, in a way, just because he was Tommy Lasorda's godson. But Mike Piazza had good scouting reports. I mean, he was supposed to be able to maybe hit for power. And I don't think he actually counts so well in this, at least as a comparison for Chris Hayes. But there are these favors. And so we tried to identify these favors. And I guess they would normally, the scouting director's son or godson or nephew or whatever. These kind of people that get picked in the 40th round or the 30 whatever. And we tried to figure out what leagues they would go to because they wouldn't be sent

to Dominican or most likely. And we tried to figure out sort of what statistical benchmarks they would reach. So we found a bunch of guys that struck out, you know, half the time in American short ball leagues that were, that were picked low in the draft. So we tried to, that's what we tried to find those favors. And then he basically did what projection guys always do, which is kind of find a major league equivalent equivalence for that, for the production that they gave in those A-ball leagues. Yeah. This is NAFE, for people who don't know, this is started by Adam Guttridge,

who used to work for the Brewers and his former colleague for the Brewers. And now it's a statistical projection system for every player in the world, basically, that they license to teams. So that's just the basic background. Yeah. And I think that Adam really nailed it when he figured out the sort of favors idea. And that group would strike out 83% of the time in the major leagues. And so we said, well, that group probably still has some Mike Piazzas in it. It has some Russell Wilsons. It has some Mike Piazza's in it. It has some Russell Wilson's. It has some athletes. And though Chris Hayes played basketball at his magnet high school in New York City, he wasn't necessarily an athlete and he isn't now. So we had to discount that further. And that's where the guesswork came in.

And of course, there was going to be guesswork in this. But if you push it as far as you can, you give the guy a 97% strikeout rate and you cut his batting average on balls in play in a third and he's just going to get a hit every three balls in play i know every you know more than that like we're going to cut it even further you still if you give him 100 batting average on balls in play you still get 1.8 hits i mean of course you're not going to give the guy 600 plate appearances, but... Right. I was curious about the nature of the learning curve here. Obviously, if you're talking about Chris Hayes, there's a difference between saying 600 repeats of his first plate appearance and 600 plate appearances in a row. And now, Alex, obviously, you're a professional baseball player, for God's sake, but you look at even your major league league debut this is uh you might remember this this is how your first at bat went called

strike called strike called strike so that was the end of it and in the second abet uh you went up there and you got a hit on the seventh pitch of the plate appearance but even there you have sort of the hint of a learning curve that you're like okay i took one at bat to get used to this and then the second one may be a little more comfortable You swung at the third pitch. So when you're starting with someone at Chris Hayes level, which we'll just say is your standard fit American middle-aged man level, how quickly do you think that player could start to at least look almost like a major league player, or at least like an experienced baseball player, maybe not major league player? Right. So once I read once i read this article i started thinking of like okay if i were to prepare somebody for this experiment like how would i do it right so like first of all i would just

eliminate off speed right we're just never gonna get there there's just no sense in really trying to like i mean shoot i made it to the major leagues and like realistically like i was up there looking for fastballs hopefully time went up now when we're talking about the upper echelon hitters, they're going to stay on fastballs. They stay on off-speed. But for us mortal hitters, just frankly, the not-as-good hitters, you're just looking for fastballs. So I would start there. Let's just eliminate the off-speed. Let's just stick with fastballs.

And let's just get on a pitching machine and like incrementally increase the velocity like and eventually if we can get to around 90 miles an hour and you can hit that ball like i would be shocked if you couldn't get one hit in a in 600 plate appearances right like and to your point earlier you know as you improve like okay let's say we start out and we're over 400 which that is just like i mean i can't even like you still get i still get like nightmares about going like over you know 20 then you start looking at like you know other industries and like other jobs you know like yeah okay we're over 400 we still have appearances left right like where if you're starting to like put balls and play around plate appearance 400 that gives us almost like two months of plate appearances left right like so like you know i think if we if we start with fastball machine and we get to a point where

we can put 90 miles an hour on a fastball machine in play i mean we're not talking line drop if we can put the ball in play here i i think i think that would be the best way to go let's just focus on heaters hopefully if we just cannot swing at breaking balls we're getting some advantage counts and we'll get some get some fastballs and i fastballs. And I would hope in the final 200 play appearances we could scratch out a couple of hits. I've got two questions that leap to mind. One is, it doesn't sound like you would think that bunting is the approach here. It's funny. So I was just taking a few notes when I was reading this article.

And I wrote bunt with a bunch of question marks. Is that a play? Bunting is not that easy so like i the ones i got asked to bunt like i think two or three times in my pro career and the third time i broke my finger you know like so i mean look i i knew how to play baseball and i'm breaking my finger bunting so bunting is not like i think we're just assuming it's like this super easy you know skill too so there's something's some level of skill to that. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure if that's in play too. But then you might get like a seven man infield, right?

That's true. Yeah, I guess like, yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. I just look, I would be sure. I don't know. I don't know crusades. I've never seen them swing. But like, there's some coordination there.

Like, have you ever watched NBA players? Sometimes they go in for like a guest appearance and like they either look like hey that guy could figure out or they look like oh my goodness like like that's a professional athlete like as long as they're in like the okay that guy looks okay you know segment of the of that population i think that would be i i mean i personally would just be surprised if they couldn't in 600 plate of beers is gonna hit yeah did you have a second question? Oh, I guess about the learning, the learning curve as it might go the other way. And if we did, you know, coach this guy to hit 90 and he, you know, gets a couple of lucky 88 mile an hour fastballs.

Yeah, I think, you know, there could be a hit in there. But what about if pitchers just start throwing in junk all the time? Yeah, I know. That's a challenge. Here's the deal. Like, I mean, here's the, here's the prayer is that they're going to, okay, let's, let's throw them a first pitch cutter or a slider and they go ball one. And then they get frustrated. All right, I'm going to throw a better one. They go ball two. And then it's like, all right, you know what?

Let's just throw this guy heater. That's the goal. That's the, that's the plan here. Like how well that would be executed. Who knows? But like if guys could execute every single pitch like there wouldn't be as many good you know as many many guys you know putting up the numbers they do but also i guess these guys are these guys are competitors right so if they actually have a guy who's like oh for 400 right you know they're gonna throw him a fast call because there's like no way no way this guy cannot hit my fastball right i mean so the fact of the matter is that the last four years bartolo cologne has 15 hits and he's only seen about 75 fastball so even he isn't just getting like junk all the time i think pitchers have a tendency to want to come right after guys who they think

can't hit the question is if they just, if they had a five-man infield and then brought in two outfielders, because you're not going to hit for power. Will you get a hit? I don't know where the room is anymore. That's true. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, this is different even from Bartolo Colon

in that Bartolo Colon has been a big leaguer for many years and he gets lots of plate appearances and he has hits. And this hypothetical person, whether it's Chris Hayes or you or me, would just be kind of a sideshow and it would be extremely embarrassing for a pitcher who gave up a hit to him or her, you know, just even like if it were a legitimate attempt to retire the person. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, you wouldn't want to pitch around the person because that would make you look weak right like you're afraid to to face this nobody but you also just wouldn't

want to take anything off i guess because you you wouldn't i mean you wouldn't want to be the one to give up the legitimate hit to this person so i was also curious i have a feeling they wouldn't actually change defensive alignments for this guy. I just think teams would be rolling their eyes so hard that it would just be a sideshow thing, and the competitive teams would be like, we don't even care. If this guy got the random single, we're not going to be moving our outfielders in for this guy, for this situation. But I think an also interesting part of this, and you touched on that with the 0 for 400, is this would be a terrible thing to do.

I think across the board, everyone would feel badly eventually. Imagine the guy's 0 for 400. The fans are all booing. I mean, they hate this idea at this point uh everyone's just sort of like can you get a hit and get it over with the player himself who's trying to get the hit it's like will i ever happen and yeah maybe that's the question could chris hayes last 600 plate appearances before he quit yeah yeah right you'd have to have a heck of a movie deal you know in place i think well what there was a there was an article i forgot who wrote it and i wish that i remembered

but it came out a few months ago about the the baseball writer who just wanted to be able to hit a home run did anybody see that wanted to be able to hit a ball out of a major league park sports illustrated maybe i like a batting practice or something yeah yeah i wish i remembered more details because it was good and now I feel like an idiot for not remembering who wrote it but he did eventually manage to hit more than one pitch into the Crawford boxes in Houston and this is

like I think a 40 something year old dad who just kind of gained strength and learned form so maybe there's a little bit of precedent there for being able to not only hit but also hit the ball pretty hard. Yeah, you know, Hayes said himself that the whole reason he came up with this idea was that he'd been ramping up the pitching machine to 70 plus. So, you know, I think he was kind of fascinated by the idea of like, could I learn to hit that 90 and could I get there?

But I also think that a lot of this is luck. Like we're talking about the role of luck. So, you know, just putting the bat head out there 600 times or 2000 times, actually. And how many how many are going to, you know, chaos their way into into play? And, you know, these guys are so good in the major leagues. I just wonder it made me also wonder how many of their hits are just random ass luck. I mean, that's something we study. Right. But it's

probably a little bit more than one. Yeah. Well, Alex, I don't know if you can put yourself in our place, but I would think that the difference between you and, you know, with one hit and the guy who has 3000 hits is, you know, maybe sizable, but probably a lot smaller than the difference between you when you were, you know, in the majors and me or, you know, or Jeff. It's just a huge gulf in ability and also preparation, even taking the fitness aspect out of it. What do you think would be the most, I don't know, the most intimidating part of getting up there? Because it's not just the heat. I mean, it's, you know, probably the fastest pitches you've ever seen. Obviously, it's the movement. It's all the things that pitchers can do. It's also the environment. Like, this is taking place,

presumably, in a big league ballpark. You're on TV. There's pressure that anyone of us would not be accustomed to, certainly during our athletic endeavors. So what do you think would be the most overwhelming part of trying to do this for a civilian yeah i mean there was look there's a lot of overwhelming like you know aspects of this right like one like you've touched on i mean these guys are really good yeah you know the thing that stuck out to me is like the guys in the major leagues they're really good athletes like we talked about bartolo cologne like look the guy i mean i know i know how he appeared but he's a really good athlete right he moves really well maybe not in like the you know the most the traditional sense of like a sprinter or the most graceful but he's

he's coordinating his body to deliver a pitch like you know pretty much where he wants pretty often like that's that takes some really you know incredible coordination so even like the the guys that you might look at and say hey those, those guys don't look like great athletes. They have like really good coordination. So, I mean, look, there's a lot of overwhelming factors about this. I think the best play would be to take somebody who is the best athlete, whether you have a good swing or not. Let's just take the best athlete and and and hope for the best here it's i mean there's just so it's just so multi-factorial in terms of what is going to be overwhelming i think the crowd aspect of it or the atmosphere look like yeah that's intimidating

but we're talking about 600 plate appearances so i mean that's month i mean months will go on you adjust to the setting that you're in so i think it's just going to be the sheer the talent athleticism of those guys trying to trying to able to scratch out some performance against that level of competition, I think would probably be the most challenging aspect. Let's ask the panel, I guess. What do you think would take longer for someone like Chris Hayes to be able to get a hit in the major leagues or for someone like Chris Hayes to be able to pitch and get a strikeout in the major leagues? I would say hit, personally personally i don't know i have this theory and this is like completely subjective like you feel free to throw this out like just eliminate this but like i believe there's a lot of people walking around the streets who have possessed the physical ability to throw the

ball hard who just don't know it who have never like picked up a baseball and thrown it right they're like just might have the coordination might have this you know strength might have the whatever you know factors impact velocity that they just have never really done it so i would i would i would send one of those guys over to driveline and just say like all right let's just like throw these heavy things and figure it out and then eventually like i think that would come quicker as if if someone had some of the innate um or some of the physical attributes that would lend themselves to the law i think i totally i totally agree because i also think about trick pitches right right like like knuckleball like just try knuckleball you know you could even if you didn't have a great knuckleball you'd get a strikeout eventually and would you would you if you're just if you're just

a guy trying if the learning the knuckleball is clearly incredibly difficult because no one does it. No one can pick it up even at the end of go-nowhere careers. Alex, do you think it would be difficult to just face someone who sucked in the middle of everyone who's major league caliber? Like if you're facing a bunch of major league pitchers and then suddenly I'm out there, you know, like throwing 60 or something, would your timing be so off because i'm so bad oh like maybe would that help yeah like and a lot of times what happens in those situations so like when we face position players like i would either i was generally like either trying to walk or like i yeah you know you're not like you don't really want those situations number one number two at that point the game like the umpire is like all right let's just get this going right like so

like the strike zone becomes subjective again subjective but it seems like when a position player or somebody who's at that point in the game game's probably out of hand like the umpire side to open up in the strike zone or you know you take a huge swing and you're following off and then a bad call or something like that so like i can totally see i can totally see a scenario i mean look like position players come in the game and i I remember Darnell McDonald, like striking guys out, struck somebody out or something. You remember like a few years ago. So, you know, I think I could totally see that, you know,

kind of throwing you off or some factor there, maybe a bad call or something like that, you know, causing a strikeout. There's the idea of hitting speed, right? Of throwing below hitting speed. I mean, Alex Claudio is out there, you know, throwing. Oh, yeah. For sure. And then, yeah, for sure.

And someone might just have like, like Claudio. I think I faced him and he's got a weird, like just the ball comes out really weird. Right. So like somebody might have just innately like this weird arm action or weird delivery just by default that you're like, what the heck is that? Like, I just don't see this very often. And I think that's sort of the issue with like guys who throw submarine like so you actually don't see a lot of those guys in the minor leagues just because like they're not like traditional prospects so like when you see it it's not like they're throwing it's not like you could figure

it out if you face it routinely but you just don't so i'm like i'm assuming somebody out there would just have a you know an unorthodox way of delivering the the ball effort in a short sample and a one at bat. Like, yeah, that could definitely throw you off. Did you ever play with anyone who was just extremely raw? Like in the pros, like, I don't know, maybe in the Sally League or something, someone who was just drafted or signed because he had great physical tools but had barely played baseball or something like that, who was just like learning the game on a more elemental level than most people were. You don't have to name names if you don't want to, but if anyone comes to mind, I'm curious about just that adjustment, because that's maybe the closest we can come to a real life test case. Yeah, we had a guy from the University of Washington. I won't name his name. I think

he's in the NFL doing doing really well um and he he struggled to put the ball in play but again he like it was such a short sample it was like 40 30 at bats or something like that like you take a guy like that i mean yeah it looked like it looked raw um but look if i mean we're talking 600 at bats i just i just i'm praying that no one would have to you know experience an over 600 um it's just like unfathomable yeah right i guess how could do you think if as long as we're going to think this one all the way through you would start horrible i think we we've all agreed to that you would start i don't know over 100 over 200 just something disastrous you'd be getting better your form would be getting better but at some point does maybe the the psychological aspect of it start to overwhelm whatever progress

you're making like could you expect we'll just keep using chris hayes's name could you expect chris hayes to keep his focus even when he is over 250 over 275 and people are throwing water bottles at him yeah the best play is like as soon as you start taking if you if he starts taking this seriously like it would just i mean wear you down you know it's hard because from my perspective right like my livelihood like at some level not for the rest of my life but at that time in my life my livelihood depended on how i was performing so like there was just inherently more pressure i mean probably more pressure i was putting more pressure on myself than probably ch Hayes would be if,

if he somehow ended up in this situation. I don't know. Like, it's not like he's auditioning for his next year. Right. Like, um, so as long as he could keep it light,

like, and just understand we're not expecting much here. And you're like, you know, you're, you're, there's nothing really riding on this. I suppose you could get through it,

but as soon as you, I mean, you're competitive, you're going to start expecting some result at some point and i think it would really be challenging mentally i i have a hard time it just be it would be hard to it would be a really hard grind mentally i think maybe it would turn around at some number maybe actually by 400 you're a cult hero yeah yeah everyone Everyone's just like, oh my God, get this guy a hit. Throw him a cookie, please. Yeah. I wonder at what point pity would enter the equation here, right? Because there has to be just like on a human level.

I mean, most pitchers are competitive and they're not going to be the one to give him that first hit. But on the other hand, just watching that suffering game after game, you would think that maybe eventually like in a blowout or something where it just doesn't matter. It might be like a big name pitcher, right? Because a big name pitcher would have little to lose. And, you know, maybe they are pitching the last inning that they're going to be out there for a 7-0 game. And they're like, you know what?

I'm Justin Verlander. You know, this is not going to be a stain on my on my on my career and this might make everyone's day if i just also maybe end this yes because maybe when he gets his hit in that case can you imagine how horrible it would be to then try to hit after you get your first hit and all the pity goes away yeah God. You're still here? There was a guy who was in the Red Sox organization at the same time as you, Alex, although I don't think this is who you were referring to because he was drafted a few years after you. But Shaq Thompson, who is now a linebacker for the Panthers in the NFL, and he was a college football player. Maybe this is who you were referring to. That was the guy.

Yeah. college football player maybe this is who you were referring to that was that was the guy yeah yeah so this was in 2012 he was 18 and he was playing in the gulf coast league and he got 39 at bats and did not get a hit he struck out 37 times which uh is rough he somehow walked eight times which i don't know if he had a tiny strike zone or pitchers at that level can't throw strikes or what the deal was there. But yeah, he has a career zero batting average in only 13 games. It didn't last long. And obviously he was just, you know, extremely athletic and they just wanted to give him a chance. But that's, yeah, maybe that's the best example of a guy who just had no baseball background but was athletic.

And that is what you happened when you when you throw that person into that situation and that's rookie ball so yeah yeah i bet he's in our sample actually yeah maybe so that's it's not a encouraging comp i guess for any of us because i'm sure we're a lot less athletic than jack th. Not playing in the NFL, correct? Yeah. All right. Well, I guess you have determined statistically that probably we would fluke into a few hits here and there. Dan Heron weighed in on Twitter, and he opined that we would get a hit somehow. Alex seems to concur that it would happen and do you think we would

only get blue pits though like would they only be cheapies would they be like some kind of squibber that just happens to go somewhere that a fielder wasn't standing i mean could we ever make solid contact or is that just too much to ask my My guess is this is, again, completely a guess. If there were hard contact, it would probably be like a pull side ground ball. Yeah. Or maybe a little bit out front out. You know, you caught it out front on the barrel and kind of top spun it maybe in like the sixth hole. Or something down the line, third baseman hits off his glove or something like that.

Hit that way. That's my guess. Who knows? I mean, you guys might be like super coordinated too like i've golfed with like i'm terrible at golf but like i'll sometimes i'll go with somebody who i'm just like this guy he's not a good athlete but he has some coordination there i you know who knows like yeah i honestly don't know but i should have asked chris hayes if he can play video games yeah yeah right yeah and then the speed element comes into it too because as mentioned, if you're just kind of hitting weak grounders or something, maybe a big leaguer with big league speed could beat that out. But maybe we couldn't. You know what might happen is a ball you don't hit well and a third baseman says, this is going to be do or die for me. I'm going to barehand it. And they awarded a hit. I wouldn't back it up.

Yeah. And you know that the official score would be on your side oh my god yeah yeah can you quantify the the difference between just your average major leaguer and your average american male i guess just in terms of i mean obviously the experience element is huge and just the years and years and years of seeing pitches is an enormous part of the difference but also it's just size and speed like it's hard to tell on tv because you're looking at major leaguers versus major leaguers and so we notice jose altuve or aaron judge but everyone else just looks like a regular person but when you're up close to them that is not the case i mean you're you're

6'3 220 at least or you're listed at that i assume i you know i don't know if you were fast by by big league standards you weren't like a huge base dealer but i'm guessing relative to the typical person you were because like even guys who look slow on tv are not slow relative to people who are just you know jogging on the weekend confirm yeah like look like i i was the athleticism in the major league stands out even like guys who don't really like even like i remember watching eucalyptus like he you know had a weird body like he was a not a tall guy and short and sort of stocky but he could move like he was really fluid and really had some quick twitch in him. And so even those guys, like the guys that don't jump out at you

and like, Oh, you know, he like you, Chris probably didn't look, you know, like the prototypical big leaguer, but he had, he had fast twitch. He had the ability to, to really move quickly and move pretty fluidly. That stuck out to me in the big leagues. And frankly, like I wasn't a very good athlete. I didn't move very well. And I think that, you know, that was a challenge for me. But yeah, like I would say the guys who are everyday big leaders, they are, they are some really, really good athletes. So I think like you, like you mentioned that, that sort of gets lost when everybody up there is a pretty good athlete, but when you're coming from one, myself not being a very good athlete and two, like, you know guys in minor leagues you know there there is a there is a pretty clear

jump in terms of athleticism that at least i i thought i saw a few years ago the rob and i wrote an article where he uh he had several months before writing this article he had said aloud that he bet he could outrun david ortiz long story short he invited himself and myself and other part-time baseball writer matthew cory to go get ourselves timed by scouts at a nearby playing field. And we had a devil of a time. Well, we actually had trouble even staying on our feet. We tripped a lot, but we had a lot of trouble as well, just even trying to outrun David Ortiz to first base. So there's no question here, but just for everyone's frame of reference, all of us are not unathletic and not old men.

And we had trouble outrunning the guy who was probably the slowest or one of the very slowest major leaguers in the game. So that's kind of the other factor here, not just making contact, but also you have to buy yourself like an extra half second in some cases, or even a full second relative to the really fast runners

just to get the first base. All right. Anyone else have any thoughts on this topic? topic any questions it might actually have to be we were talking about good contact it might actually have to be good contact to get the hit because you're so slow yeah that's a problem this thing about adrian gonzalez got uh challenged to a foot race by david vasay who's like a beat writer and radio host. And Adrian Gonzalez destroyed him. So there's not only, like you guys were trying sort of time trials, basically.

There's the swinging a bat and running on the actual field effect too that probably makes it even harder. All right. Well, I'm glad we could hash this out. I'm glad there's some hope for us. Not that we'll ever get an opportunity. Alex, thanks for joining us and weighing in. Yeah, thanks for having us. It was fun.

You can find him on Twitter at AlexHassan27. You have left baseball behind now. I'm curious about how you decided to do that because so many guys are just baseball lifers. Even if they don't last a long time in the majors, they get into coaching, they get into player development, which you briefly did with the Dodgers after you stopped playing last year. So what made you decide to just go cold turkey? Yeah, it was multifactorial. The last few years of my career, I was moving around quite a bit. One season I got designated five times and claimed five different times and moving all over the place. You know, I, my wife was with me for, for all of that. So I think, you know, I was looking for a little bit more of a stable lifestyle

and number two, like I just, I started to just, I wanted to like explore other things that I'm passionate about that I'm interested in. And, um, technology is one of them. Um, and just, you know, I thought it was going to be a new challenge and really starting, you know, starting over and being a beginner and trying to learn something new was really appealing to me. So those are, you know, a couple of factors that sort of led me to sort of moving on from baseball. So your first day working at Dell, were you as overmatched as we would be on a major league field?

Yeah, yeah. It's an adjustment for sure. Definitely an adjustment, but I'm learning a lot and I'm working hard and I'm really enjoying it. All right. Well, Eno, thank you for joining us also and for writing the article. Oh, thanks for having me. You guys are awesome.

Oh, well, thank you. All right. Okay, so we will wrap it up there. Another reminder, you can find our raffle in the Facebook group, which you should join anyway, at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. You don't have to be a member of the Facebook group just to see that post, which is pinned to the top of the page, read the instructions, make a donation, forward us some confirmation that you did that,

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