Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1216: Let it Ride and Peacock Pride

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Freddy Peralta‘s unique Coors Field debut, Takuya Nakashima’s improbable grand slam, Shohei Ohtani‘s ongoing pitching evolution, Javier Baez‘s perplexing slash line, Jameson Taillon’s creative solution to a finger injury, their disinclination toward gambling, and the hapless (but no longer winless) Saint Peter’s Peacocks of NCAA Division I. Then […]

Settle down, trembling peacock, no I wasn't sent to rock you, oh I just kind of came And then I withdrew, and then, well I guess the rest you already knew Sire did the House of Lords, on the day they declared it bankrupt And conquered land's patriot, to the shifts of your skirt children at play get hurt and wars are won from a foxhole hello and welcome to episode 1216 of effectively wild a baseball podcast from fangrass presented by our patreon supporters i am ben lindberg of the ringer joined by jeff of Fangraphs. Hello. Hello. We have a couple of guests lined up today. We've had a lot of guest-heavy podcasts

lately. I will explain those guests in a moment, but before I do, we talked recently about Eric Lauer, the now-famous-to-our-podcast-listeners Padres pitcher who debuted in Coors Field, gave up a Grand S slam to Trevor Story, got creamed, and had a sort of philosophical expression on his face after it happened. He was just happy to be there. We talked about the history of pitchers debuting in Coors Field, making their Major League debuts in Coors Field as visitors, and it's not pretty. There had been seven before this weekend, and those seven had combined to

allow 28 runs in 29 innings. The best game score in the whole bunch was 50 by Anthony Bass, another Padres pitcher, back in 2011. And this weekend, that run of non-success was broken by a pitcher you wrote about on Monday. So Freddy Peralta making his Major League debut for the Milwaukee Brewers with his parents in attendance there to see him pitch for the first time ever in pro ball. He ran up a 78 game score against the Rockies in Coors Field. He struck out 13. He, like everyone else in the majors this year, had a no-hitter through five. He was brilliant.

What do we need to know about Freddy Peralta, who actually pitched well in a Major League debut as a visitor in Coors Field? Well, he is 21 years old, which is extraordinary. He was called up in AAA because Chase Anderson was sick, which meant Brent Suter wound up pitching on Saturday, which meant the Brewers needed someone to pitch on Sunday in Colorado when conveniently Freddy Peralta was lined up to pitch in Colorado Springs, which since it shares the word Colorado, you can tell it's pretty close.

So Freddy Peralta was called up to the majors to make his debut. His family didn't know what was going on. They realized he wasn't on the field when everyone was stretching. And then someone got in touch and said, actually, he's not starting in Colorado Springs. He's going to be in Denver. So you should get there. I don't know if the Brewers helped with that. Anyway, Peralta, he had no hitter through. I think it was a five and a third. He was pulled after 98 pitches in the bottom of the sixth inning. 98

pitches, 60 strikes, which is fine, but the thing that stands out to me, to you, to everyone else, to Freddy Peralta himself, 90 fastballs. 90 fastballs out of 98 pitches. His fastball is only about 91 to 92 miles per hour, gets up to about 94, and nothing extreme. He's not a flamethrower. But what Freddy Peralta has is two things that are unusual. One, he has some deceptive arm action. You can see in his delivery he hides the ball sort of behind his head

and then behind his elbow before it suddenly pops up, and then it's coming on you. But also, we have talked about extension before we've talked about perceived velocity which is one of those things that i think is intuitive to everyone but i still have to spend a damn paragraph explaining it every single time yeah if somebody throws a ball from 57 feet away at the same speed as someone who throws a ball from 58 feet away. The one that's thrown from 57 feet away is going to look a little faster because it spends less time in the air. Great.

Okay, so baseball savant measures extension. Do I need to go over how we query this? It doesn't matter. Freddy Peralta gets a lot of extension. He gets a lot of forward extension. Very similar, as a matter of fact, to one Carter Capps. Carter Capps now does the famous little jump in his delivery and he barely quote unquote scrapes the mound with his back foot when he's pitching the whole thing is that

it's only legal for him to do it if he drags his back foot on the mound i don't think that he does that but it doesn't matter he's not really pitching right now anyway freddie peralta he doesn't have that that obvious jump you you watch frederalta from the back, from the side, and you don't think this delivery is illegal. Nothing about it seems quirky, but if you look at his feet, he gets so much extension that he actually drags his back foot along the mound so that when his front foot is down and he's pitching, he's way off the rubber. So he gets so much forward extension that his fastball plays up a couple of miles per hour.

And also, it is probably just really confusing to see as a hitter. His fastball has natural cutting action. And so even though he's kind of, he's been a one-pitch guy, he does have a changeup that's not very good. He has a breaking ball that's better than that. But he was just throwing his fastball over and over and over to Colorado. And he got so many swings and misses on pitches middle-middle, like right over the plate, because I don't think that the Rockies hitters could pick up the ball very well. And that's how he's been successful in the minors.

He's been a strikeout machine in single-A, double-A, triple-A. He's one of the three teenage pitching prospects Jerry DiPoto traded for Adam Lind. Whoops-a-doodle. So that's coming back to bite him pretty quick. I don't think that the Brewers thought Freddie Peralta was going to be a factor this fast, but you can't send him down after a start like that. So here comes Freddy Peralta, I guess. Yeah. Well, I guess throwing nothing

but fastballs is the way to win in course field. So it sort of makes sense that he's the one finally to break through there. So good for him. Nice story that his parents were there to see him pitch. And this was his second career home run ever in Nippon Professional Baseball. He, even after that home run, is slugging 247 this season. He is not a power hitter. And yet somehow he hit a grand slam. I watched the video. It was a real home run.

It was, I was told, 369 feet. So it wasn't a bomb or anything, but it wasn't like first row of the stands. And our NPB correspondent, listener, Patreon supporter, Kazuto Yamazaki, told me that Nakashima said he had no idea how he did it. That makes three of us, I guess, but just wanted to salute him for doing that. He is, of course, the player who is famous for just fouling off pitch after pitch after pitch and eventually, theoretically, working his way on. He hasn't actually worked his way on very often. He had a 268 on base percentage last year. He has a 288 on base percentage this year. It's not working, but for one swing, it worked, and even Nakashima can hit a grand slam. You had written the article last year, about 15 months ago, that said the most interesting man in baseball has an equally interesting teammate. Yes. Do you still—do you think that they're equally interesting, Ben?

Well, Otani is still interesting, and they're no longer teammates, so that part's not true. No, I don't think that that's true. I don't actually, I mean, Nakashima's fortunes have headed downhill somewhat since I wrote that article. He was sort of making it work to a certain extent back when I wrote that, and his stats have kind of fallen off a cliff since then. I speculated in the article that it would make sense to shift him very aggressively because he always hit the ball the same way. He never pulled the ball in the outfield, although he did this one grand slam time. But it seemed like you could just put a bunch of guys in the infield and not have a right fielder. And I don't know to what extent teams have done that, but for whatever reason, he has not succeeded to the same degree. But for one swing, he hit a home run and looked like any other high-level hitter,

and I will link to that video for those of you who care to appreciate it. So Takui Nakashima hit a home run and remains a bad hitter. Shoei Otani struck out 11 Major League opponents against the Minnesota Twins. Otani made his most recent start. Of course, last week he homered and doubled and did those good things. He's been a phenomenal hitter. He's also been a phenomenal pitcher. Everyone take a moment to appreciate what we've seen

through the first month and a half. Shoei Ohtani has been amazing. Everything is advertised. He went six into third innings against the Twins. Three hits, one run, two walks, 11 strikeouts. And the new thing he did in this start is that he more heavily featured his curveball. So this was the first game where I think that he was comfortably

and confidently delivering four pitches. This follows a game where he was doing that with three so fastball slider curveball splitter everything was good and as a consequence shohei otani was virtually unhittable at this point seems like he's figured out seams for breaking balls the slider was good again we talked about that a little bit last week but he kept them low got a bunch of whiffs so at this point he has what looks like a very good splitter very good slider a pretty good soft curveball that gives him eight or seven more miles per hour of velocity range and also his fastball is like 99 miles per hour so shohi ohtani is unbelievable yeah it's really unfair i think my colleague roger sh Sherman mentioned earlier today that if he qualified, he would have something like the fourth highest OPS and also the fourth highest strikeout rate as a pitcher. So he is amazing at everything. I'm glad that we didn't overhype him because I was somewhat worried about that. that i'm sure shit tried yeah we talked about him every episode we still do basically but he somehow keeps living it up to it all so i uh i love that this is happening and i will never tire

of talking about it or watching it it's it's incredible too because because of what otani has done i look i don't know i don't have a good measurement of what the internet at large has done but i feel like maybe if it weren't for shohei otani we'd all be like losing our minds over garrett cole yeah and i just on i don't care i don't care about garrett cole because shohei otani is out there i know cole is doing something exceptional and he's like all the narratives about how the astros are going to make him better have come completely true and then some i don't care shohei otaniani. That's the thing. I've thought about Aaron Judge like one time this season because of Shohei Otani. I know. I think I said

this on the Ringer podcast maybe, but I'm legitimately worried that he's just ruining every other player and every other prospect for me. How am I ever going to be as excited about any other player as I am about Shohei Otani. It's just, it's not going to happen. Ozzy Albies is hitting the crap out of the ball for Atlanta. He's like 17 years old. He leads the world in extra base hits. And I just haven't been able to bring myself to like watch him very much because it's Shohei Otani. He's just there. He plays like three days a week and I love them all. I know. I savor every inning, every plate appearance. I hope he plays more. I know Mike Socia said recently that maybe in September he would hit when he pitches on the same days.

So that's something to look forward to. Or maybe, depending on how the Angels are doing in the playoff race, they will actually relax the rest days. I mean, I don't know whether they should or not, but there is a part of me that hopes that they do just because I want to see him more, although I don't want him to get hurt either. So I'd rather have him in moderation than not have him at all. I also want to ask you about Javier Baez because that is another player with a weird stat line this season. So he is playing or just finished playing as we speak. We're talking during the day on Monday. He was 0 for 4 with a strikeout. So that spoils things a little bit.

But coming into the day, he had a 141 weighted runs created plus, which is good for anyone, particularly good for him. He's generally been about a league average hitter the last few years. And I think the hype about him has outstripped his performance somewhat just because he's a compelling player and a charismatic player, and he's fun to watch on defense. And there's been the expectation that there might be more there on offense, but his approach, his plate discipline have just been really lousy his whole career and they still are. and yet he has hit very well this year. So now after the 0-4-4 on Monday, he has a 3.9% walk rate. So if anything, he's walked less than he did last year. He has the highest swing rate in baseball. He is not becoming more selective at all. And so he entered the day with a 4% walk rate and a 141 WRC+.

I just looked back to see if anyone has done this, if anyone has sustained that sort of stat line. And since 1930, there have been only two qualified hitters who pulled that off, the 4% or lower walk rate and the 140 or higher WRC+. 1966, Felipe Alou did it for the Braves. In 1988, Kirby Puckett did it for the Twins. Obviously, good players, good seasons, but this is really, really difficult to do. And I don't know whether what Baez has done this year

is encouraging. I mean, I guess he has a 20% strikeout rate, which would be a career low for him which is good but he's not walking it's just he's been hitting for more power on contact i guess which again is good but it seems like a very difficult thing to sustain javier baez has baseball's highest swing rate i haven't sorted it he probably has the highest out of zone swing rate he probably has the highest in zone swing rate he makes a well below average amount of contact he goes has the highest out of zone swing rate he probably has the highest in zone swing rate he makes a well below average amount of contact he goes after the first pitch a bunch

i was just checking out recently he's seen very very few fastballs that's not a surprise because if you're a pitcher why would you do that to yourself when you could do something else to have your bias against all odds he's still been successful and i like these things i like the players who break the mold of course but yeah i still i just kind of almost as a matter of principle refuse to believe that he can be a good hitter like this and honestly what what i'm reminded of a lot is maybe he's like a i guess he's in a lot of ways a more dynamic or at least prime dynamic like josh hamilton is what i'm getting at is is javier bias just sort of josh hamilton when he was a little past his his like mvp peak but before he

was extremely fragile yeah like uh i think hamilton he got intentionally walked a fair amount so that drove up his uh his walk rates but when hamilton Hamilton in 2012 played for the Rangers, he swung at 44% of pitches out of the zone, 82% of pitches in the zone. Baez right now is at 43% of pitches out of the zone, 83% of pitches in the zone. He's swinging so much, 61% of all pitches he swung at. Hamilton swung at 58%.

That's where he topped out. Now, in 2012, when Hamilton was doing that and he was not making a whole lot of contact, he finished with a WRC plus of 141. So that goes to show it is possible. Now, somehow, somehow, Hamilton that season walked in 9.4% of his plate appearances. I have not one single idea how that happened. However, nearly a quarter of his walks were intentional. In any case, I guess Baez is a little

bit better at making contact than Hamilton was. His swing is a little quicker. He swings early in the count often, so he just doesn't get to as many deep counts as Hamilton did with so much swing and miss in his game. So, I don't know how far this can go, but considering

all this talk we've had over the years about Addison Russell has to adjust this, and he has to to adjust this and he has to adjust this and he has to adjust this and then he can be the super shortstop Javier Baez is adjusted pretty much nothing and He's just good. This is just what he is and he He obviously he's known for the for the tags that he's able to do somehow Somehow we know baseball to such an extreme degree that we can identify baseball's best tagger somehow we know baseball to such an extreme degree that we can identify baseball's best tagger it's Javier Baez and he seems like he's one of baseball's best sliders because he's just a magician with the way he can get into a base so Javier Baez excels at all these little things I

get why he's so much fun to watch and if I were a Cubs fan I would probably wish that he walked a little more but as a matter of principle I'm glad that there are people like him that don't follow the rules. And one other bit of banter I wanted to mention, Jameson Tyone is the latest to have a finger issue. He has a cut on his finger. I guess it's not a blister. That is Rich Hill's territory. Poor Rich Hill has a blister yet again. But Tyone said that he would urinate on the finger if it would help. We've heard that before from plenty of people, I believe, including Rich Hill and going back to Jorge Posada, Moises Alou. The thing I think that Tyone did differently to own this, he says, I said, if it helps, I'll put a sign-up sheet and everyone can come and pee. I don't care.

I just want it to go away. That's something that I haven't heard before. I haven't heard just opening up the offer to just anyone who's in the vicinity. I think that we should have Stephen Brault on the podcast again. That's a good point. All right. Let me set up our interview segments today. So the first one is with Fangraph's writer and attorney at law, Cheryl Ring, who is going to talk to us about sports gambling and baseball gambling specifically. So on Monday, there was some pretty big news that the Supreme Court had struck down the law that outlawed sports gambling. Doesn't mean that they said, yes, everyone should gamble on sports and it's great and we love it. They just said that the rule prohibiting that at the state level was unconstitutional, which now opens up the opportunity for individual states to legalize sports gambling and many of them presumably soon will.

So this is important and we wanted to talk about it. But you and I know nothing about this issue and don't even personally care that much about this issue, which is kind of strange. I don't know why that is, why I just don't care about gambling. I guess it's partly that I figure I'd just lose, so I'm not interested. Like, if I wanted to win, it would take so much time and effort, and I'd probably still fail that I don't even want to devote myself to it. Of course, people gamble just for fun, not really expecting to win. And a lot of people enjoy doing that. And we're statistically inclined to people who are paying close attention to baseball. It seems like in theory, this is something we might dabble in from time to time, but it's not. I don't know why.

Do you know why? I think it's because that Brad Mills bet you placed didn't pay out the fortune you were expecting it to. So that probably just gave you a sour taste. Could have opened the floodgates, yeah. Anyway, I don't know why it is that neither of us has really ever been all that interested in it. I don't think it's really the illegality of it. Did you? Yeah. I don't remember if I told this brief little anecdote, but I think it was a college junior or something. So we were looking at like 2006 one of

those years and i had i'd been writing about the mariners on a regular basis i'd been consuming baseball prospectuses for a few years so i thought of course it was 2006 and i had a blog so i thought i know this sport like the back of my hand so i'm going to go on the internet i'm going to parlay some games so i went online it wasn't just betting on one game i learned what parlay meant i might have forgotten since then, so in case I used that wrong, so be it. But I thought, oh, I know what's going to happen in this game. I'm going to raise the stakes. I'm going to

include this other game and this other game. And within the span of three and a half hours, I lost $300, which for a college student is an exorbitant sum of money. So in that one afternoon between classes, I decided I'm going gonna bet on baseball like a genius and i lost all of my money and so ever since that day i have not placed a bet on baseball

left a better taste in my mouth and i think just from what we have observed over the years gambling lines have gotten i don't know if they've gotten smarter but they certainly seem like anecdotally they're less exploitable than ever i don't feel comfortable about anything i'm not a man who has strong opinions again about anything certainly not baseball not things that i could gamble on uh so i would not want to put my money where my mouth is literally or figuratively so i am just not a i think gambling is a uh an expression of a strong opinion and I just don't have them. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I think, yeah, that, that sounds sort of like my dad used to tell a story about how he got very drunk when he was

young, I guess in college or something. And he just got so sick. He never got drunk again his whole life. Now he didn't stop drinking. He did drink from time to time, whereas you seem to have gone cold turkey with the gambling, but I don't know. Maybe that's for the best. Anyway, I don't expect to indulge in this, but if people enjoy it in a way that is not unhealthy, then I guess it's good for them. I always thought it was strange that you couldn't do it or that the federal government was telling people that they couldn't do it. So anyway, we'll talk to Cheryl very shortly about that and about the impact that it could have on baseball and the way the sport is covered and subsequent decisions.

The other guest that we have is maybe a little less predictable. So we will be talking to a Division I college baseball player named Willie Kranich. And Willie Kranich is a 6'3", 210, right-hander. He is the ace of the St. Peter's Peacocks. You've probably never heard of the St. Peter's Peacocks. I don't blame you. I hadn't heard about them until last week when we got an email from listener Kyle in Rochester, week when we got an email from listener Kyle in Rochester who drew my attention and thus our attention to an incredible streak that St. Peter's was on. So St. Peter's at the time that Kyle emailed me, they were 0-38 on the season. And I did a little digging. I looked at their schedule

from the previous season. And for a second, I changed the URL from, like, 2017-18 to 2016-17, and oddly, the record didn't change. It still said 0-38, and I thought, oh, okay, well, it changed the year, but it didn't actually change the numbers. No, they were 0-38 last year, too, and they lost their last game of the 2016 season so they hadn't won since then they lost another game after kyle emailed me and so they were own 39 and i was all ready to go see this team because they had about a week left in their season their home games are in jersey city which is close to me my brother and sister-in-law live there. And their final game of the season is this Friday in Albany. And I was thinking of catching a bus up and watching the game, documenting it like I did the Salinas Stockade, the terrible independent league team

last year. And I won't actually be doing that because they won. They won a game on Sunday. The St. Peter's Peacocks won a game. And this is notable. In the lower levels of college baseball, you sometimes see really extended losing streaks. I mean, those teams are barely even organized. Caltech had a 200-plus game losing streak, I believe, some years ago. I don't know. I think it was snapped at some point, but maybe I'm stereotyping here, but California Institute of Technology don't necessarily expect that school to have a great baseball team. And they're in Division III, and teams are just not so good at that level. There's more variability. St. Peter's is in Division I.

This is real baseball here. Division I, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. This is a program that has been around for a while and has had players drafted. They have had, I believe, eight players drafted in the past. None have made the majors, but some played in the minors at least, and this team has been winless for a really, really, really long time. And the stats are pretty sad if you look at them. They are now 1-40. That is a 24 winning percentage because immediately after they won the first game of their doubleheader on Sunday, they then lost 19-2. So, so much for momentum, I guess. But they've had a whole lot of lopsided scores. Their triple slash line on the season is 206-293-281.

The stats are very depressing, as one would expect. But they actually did win a game. It's like you and I were joking that their stats are kind of like what happens when a Division I team plays Major League teams in spring training, except this is a Division I team playing other Division I teams. So something has gone wrong here. But they actually snapped the streak. So good for them.

And Willie Kranich, who is a good pitcher, and if you compare his stats to the rest of the stats, I don't want to embarrass anyone here, but St. Peter's as a whole has a 12.06 team ERA and their opponents when facing St. Peter's have a collective 2.39 ERA. So bit of a mismatchatch there Willie Kranich is a senior he is An ace he has a 4.38 ERA on the season Which is solid and he is the Only peacock who has pitched More than one inning and has an ERA

Under 11.67 So something of an Outlier I don't know what the T-ERA plus there is For Willie Kranich, but he basically looks like Pedro compared to his teammates. St. Peter's University seems to have at least a D1 program. I think this is true, since 1995. And their best record has been 23 and 29. That was more than 10 years ago it's been

uh it's been some time i don't know uh but i was looking over the going over the baseball cube underutilized website i don't know how many people ever use it but the worst record of course in d1 baseball belongs to saint peter's uh second worst new york tech something about the state new york tech is 5 and 36 moving on to division 2 the worst record belongs to st michael's college rivalry between michael and peter the saints st michael's college 4 and 25 division 3 the worst record belongs to the yeshiva maccabees i don't they are uh 2 and 23 they are just a little bit worse than Rivier College. I don't know, somewhere in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Moving on to the NAIA. Morris College, 0-9. That doesn't really count. I don't care about that. So Dakota State is 2-30. Bay Cone, not bacon, Bay Cone College, 5-46. Moving on to junior college teams eastern utah community college no games i don't know what's going on there allegheny boys oh and four don't care about that massachusetts

bay community college is 1 and 15 and schenectady did i pronounce that correct county community college 1 and 30 let them against st peter's. See what happens. Yeah. Anyway, I caught St. Peter's fever over the weekend. I only got to enjoy or experience this losing streak for about three days before it snapped. So I guess I found out about it at the right time. I didn't have to suffer along with them for long, but Willie Kranich was the winning pitcher, as one would expect, in that streak snapping game on Sunday. He is about to graduate. This was one of his last games of his college career, and he is joining us a little later. And he was a very personable pitcher and a very good sport about the whole thing. So I really enjoyed talking to him.

How do you... So this is a Division I baseball program. Yes. I know that, so first of all, did you talk to Michael Bauman about this at all? Yeah, even Michael Bauman didn't know about the St. Peter's Peacocks. So that's what I want. So we live, for all intents and purposes, on the internet. And on the internet, you wouldn't think that there would be so many barriers. I mean, look, I don't care about college baseball. I certainly don't care about college baseball in New Jersey. internet and on the internet you wouldn't think that there would be so many berry i mean look i don't care about college baseball i certainly don't care about college baseball in new jersey

so it's not a surprise that i wouldn't have found this out on my own but how did this avoid all of our attention for so long when you're talking about a losing streak of like 80 games yeah i'm disappointed in our audience for not alerting us to this a full season ago when they were 0-39. It took a long time, but they came through. So thanks to Kyle for drawing our attention to this. And everyone can root for St. Peter's in their final few games for this season. So we will talk to Willie in just a moment as well. The absolute worst thing about the fact that they won a game is that they immediately had to go back out and lose a game by 17 runs.

They had zero opportunity. It's probably like a 30-minute delay between games where they're like, Hey, we did what? We have to do it again? Yeah. I haven't tallied their run differential this season. I'm sort of scared to, but when you look at some of the scores, 19 to 1. Okay, you have it? So at the Baseball Cube, this has the record up to 0-138. This hasn't updated for the weekend. So their run differential, they've scored 50 runs. Yeah. That's 5-0, and they've allowed 322. The run differential is negative 272. Last year, it was negative 316,

but the actual worst school history is negative 403 from 2005 when the team finished 5-45, but with two conference wins. Right, yeah. Yeah, their website actually says they've scored 109 runs, so I don't know where the discrepancy is there,

but when you look at the scores, it's like 19-1, 21 to 1. Those are back-to-back games. 15 to 5, 18 to 2, followed by 18 to nothing, followed by 14 to nothing, followed by 10 to nothing, followed by 4 to nothing, followed by 28 to 2. There's a 29 to 1 in there. I'm sorry. Willie's probably listening to this. I'm sorry, Willie.

It's not your fault. But there are a lot of scores that look like that. 27 to 2, 22 to 10. It goes on and on. Anyway, they broke the streak. It's all in the past. There are presumably better days ahead because there couldn't really be worse days ahead. You say something during our recording with willie that it is an inspiring story and i agree with that i think that there is the element of a movie that's in here now it's not hard to make a movie i pay attention a little bit to movies and it seems like there's a lot of very bad ideas to get billions of dollars thrown at them this one could be it genuinely could be a movie because they won a game and they won it 7-1. It wasn't even a nail-biter. Maybe they would have to dramatize it in the movie.

However, they then lose by 17 runs on the same day. So, what do you... If you are directing the movie, do you make it like a comedic twist? Do you completely ignore the fact that they lost a game the same day?

I don't know. It's sort of like Moneyball just ends after the winning streak, day? I don't know. It's sort of like Moneyball just ends after the winning streak, right? I don't really... Yeah, so maybe it's just like you end it there. Or I don't know, if you want to make some sort of larger point about life, maybe you do actually have them getting blown out immediately after that. But I can't imagine that really having a crowd-pleasing effect. I think people want to see the Peacocks win, and they did.

So let's end on that note, I think. Yeah, this would be a John Boyes short. Yes, probably. All right, so we'll take a quick break. We'll be back with Cheryl. Then we'll take another quick break, and we'll be back with Willie. It's a legal matter, baby. Marry, it's no fun.

It's a legal matter, baby who covers legal matters for Fangraphs, as well as other matters on occasion, and is currently pulled over on the side of the road in a car with a storm going on all around. And maybe you can hear the rain in the background. It's kind of peaceful and pleasant. One of those meditation sounds, probably not as pleasant in Chicago where she is in the storm, but we are glad that you could join us, Cheryl. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. And yes, for anyone who is listening, it is very, very wet outside. Yes, your story checks out. So we want to ask you about sports gambling and the legalization

of sports gambling. Jeff and I know next to nothing about sports gambling. We are not sports gamblers, whether it is legal or illegal. But I just want to know, we know that on Monday, the Supreme Court struck down this law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. This was not entirely unexpected. You've written about it for the site not long ago. How did this rule come into being? Because that's the thing that I'm confused about, how it ever became the province of the federal government to prohibit gambling or permit gambling on a state level. Well, to be perfectly honest, and first of all, it's a great question, but to be perfectly honest, how gambling became the province of the federal government, and I think I talked about this a

little bit in the article I wrote for the site, has a lot to do with, of all things, marijuana, when the Supreme Court held that the federal government has the right to regulate purely interstate commerce. And by interstate, I mean commerce happening only within one state. And so after that, Congress was allowed to pass laws that addressed all sorts of things, addressing interest, interstate commerce, and gambling was one of them. In terms of the history of this particular law, for a long time, various sports leagues were very opposed to gambling in any form being legal, partly because of events like Pete Rose, and they were worried about the integrity of the game, and partly in a more cynical way, because they didn't have a way to monetize it. But after,

and actually the decision from the Supreme Court today talks about this in some detail, after the success of Atlantic City and Nevada, generally Nevada was the only state grandfathered into that law. In sports gambling, you started to see more of a push to legalize it. And this particular case arises partly out of websites like FanDuel and DraftKings, which repeatedly over the last couple of years, appeals courts have found constitute gambling in a way that other fantasy sports don't. And that created a problem because here you have this federal law outlawing gambling. And on the other hand, you have these very successful websites and states that are making a lot of money from basically skirting around the edges of this law.

And that's when the state of New Jersey a few years ago actually came out and passed a law that attempted to legalize sports gambling. And so there was a protracted court battle over whether or not the state had the power to do that. And it culminated in the court's decision earlier today. One of the one of the comments that I have seen very often in the aftermath of this decision. And again, want to restate for the record, as many as often and as strongly as possible, I know nothing about this entire field of conversation. But one of the recurring comments that I've seen on Twitter

and on Fangraphs, just comment section, all over the places, well, this ultimately isn't going to change very much because people are already gambling. So now they're just going to shift the way they're gambling or now they're just going to do it legally. So obviously, when something is just struck down, it's going to take a while to see what the implications are. But how much of this do you think is going to drive, I guess, newfound gambling traffic versus people are just going to alter or maybe even not alter the way that they are presently gambling?

That's also a very good question. And let me start by saying that I am not a gambler myself. I don't even play the lottery, but I am a lawyer. And so I do read Supreme Court decisions for fun. And yes, that makes me a geek. But the interesting thing about this particular law is that this may be one of the rare cases where you don't have to wait a while to see the effects of a law being declared unconstitutional. And that's because you already have states like New Jersey and West Virginia passing laws legalizing sports

gambling that on their face were preempted by this federal statute. And all they needed to go into effect was the Supreme Court saying the statute was unconstitutional. The bigger question, I think, now that sports gambling is legal and it's going to be up to the states to regulate, is how big of a piece of the pie are leagues and unions going to get? The most interesting thing about sports gambling is that leagues in recent years have sort of realized that it's going to go this way, that this is a losing fight. And they started talking about the needs to get some kind of fee added to gambling revenue that goes to states, some kind of fee for intellectual property and things like that, licensing fees and the like. They call them integrity fees because ostensibly the money is supposed to ensure that

gambling doesn't affect the integrity of the game. But in reality, it's just a licensing fee for intellectual property. The problem is that arguably the unions should be getting that cut of the pie and not the league because it's the MLBPA, for example. It owns the intellectual property of the players and not the league. The league just licenses it. So one of the really interesting legal questions I think to come out of this is going to be who gets that cut of the pie and how much, because that's yet to be decided. And I thought that that was very interesting in the way that the MLBPA statement today read in response to this. They were talking about intellectual property, and it seems to be sort of a shot across the

bow of the league saying, well, about these integrity fees, we want a cut of what you're getting. And in terms of what kind of revenue stream this could be, this could be huge. You could be talking about literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year, even if half the states in the country were to legalize sports gambling. And if all of them did, you could be talking about over a billion dollars just based on what you see in terms of the gambling you see in Atlantic City, in terms of if it's anything comparable to off track betting or if it's anything comparable to what you see in Las Vegas. So you could be talking about a gigantic revenue stream that is going to be large enough that you're going to have, I think, a fight in the next CBA in every league over who gets this money and how is it distributed. And at some point, if the players don't get their piece of that pie, it's going to be the kind of

thing where we could be talking about labor unrest over this because this kind of cut would be so large. I imagine this comes down to being something a little bit similar to how there's all the MLBAM, I guess. I don't really know how to say it out loud. MLBAM? Is that what we're doing? Whatever. All the BAM money that owners are collecting and that the players aren't getting a slice of necessarily, even though at the end of the day, it's the players who are the entertainment. Now, that's a little bit different because there's the overarching software conversation. But I understand this is a broad question and maybe a difficult question to answer. Hopefully, it's a simple question to answer. But how do you negotiate with a state exactly what that slice of the pie is going to be? Because as you've written about, you could be talking about hundreds of millions, billions of dollars, where if you were looking at this from the league's

perspective, the quote unquote integrity fee need not be nearly that large. So what leverage does baseball have even just in general, nevermind splitting the owners and the players? And how do you negotiate that with the state? The reality is that in terms of leverage, MLB really has next to nothing, especially in states where, for example, there is no Major League franchise. So West Virginia, I think, is a great example. Major League Baseball and the NBA, who kind of jointly invented the integrity fee, originally were talking about 5% of all revenue as an integrity fee, and the state basically told them to go to hell. And there was really nothing MLB could do, especially since there is no Major League franchise in West Virginia.

Now, it's going to be more interesting, I think, in states like Arizona, where you've already had threats from Major League Baseball to move the only franchise there to a different state. Portland has been mentioned as a future home for the Diamondbacks. Diamondbacks. And what's really interesting about that is whether or not Major League Baseball would use the status of a franchise as leverage to get a larger chunk of that pie. And obviously, there's some franchises that they just can't do that with. Nobody believes that the Yankees or the Dodgers would ever move. But with clubs like the Diamondbacks, it's theoretically possible. I think that in terms of leverage, the union actually has more leverage than the league does because it's the union that owns that intellectual property. But even still, there have been cases that have held that player statistics, which is basically

what you're betting on, isn't intellectual property that's protectable. So even still, you're talking about whether or not the state would be willing to include an integrity fee, not necessarily out of the goodness of their heart, but simply because MLB is a pretty powerful lobbying group and they pay a lot of money to lobbyists to do things just like this. have to pass the Save America's Pastime Act, but they did because Major League Baseball lobbied so hard for it. So it's going to come down to what kind of relationship MLB has with the individual states, whether Major League Baseball is going to play hardball with these states in the future, and what they're willing to do in terms of leverage, whether they'll put these teams on the table in terms of trying to get that extra money. It's going to be very interesting to see how far they're going to go because we are talking about such a large pot.

And arguably, the more all in Major League Baseball goes on this, the more money they get, the harder it's going to be for them to argue for salary caps and things like that, especially if this turns out to be as big of a revenue stream as we think it will. So we've been talking a lot about the integrity fee. And as one report that you quoted in your post said, it describes it as an effort to fund enhanced efforts to promote player integrity in the event that legalized sports betting expands nationwide. expands nationwide. So obviously, integrity has been an issue for baseball historically a century ago or more. And it makes sense to be vigilant about that sort of thing. But in recent years, it seems like gambling and point shaving and throwing games, that's been more of an issue in maybe lower profile, lower dollar sports, sports where employees and players aren't paid or are paid a lot less or individual sports like tennis, college sports, et cetera. It doesn't seem as if it's been an

issue for baseball or that this would make it an issue for baseball, but has Rob Medford offered any justification of this integrity fee or explained what that money would be going to? Because you did mention that Adam Silver sort of maybe inadvertently or ill-advisedly essentially admitted that it's just a royalty, that there's no real purpose to it other than that the league wants money. And presumably that's the same for baseball, but has Manfred, has anyone else just even tried to justify it? To this point no i mean not to any great extent and the reality is it's pretty hard to imagine what all of that money could possibly be used for to protect the integrity of the game and what i mean by that is something like this

the collective bargaining agreement and the rules of baseball already obviously prohibit betting on the game in the kind of way that would even be allowed supposedly under the Supreme Court decision today. So it's not like all of a sudden players can go out and bet on themselves or bet on their teams in a way that they couldn't before. Nothing has really changed for players in that regard. And it's not like Pete Rose would not be banned now because this statute didn't even exist at the time that his suspension was handed down. So nothing has really changed in that regard. Major League Baseball and the NBA have both talked about measures to educate people to protect the integrity of the game

through things like education and outreach about gambling. And there's actually been some talk about gambling being addictive and protecting children. actually been some talk about gambling being addictive and protecting children. But again, this is something that it's hard to understand why that much money would be required to do it, first of all. And second, I think what Adam Silver said was pretty telling in terms of at least what the NBA plans to do with the money. The problem is when with a royalty, royalties are typically used for, again, the licensing of intellectual property. And unless MLB can come up with a pretty convincing explanation for what they're doing with this money, increasingly, I think it's going to fall on the union to say, wait a second, you don't even own the thing that you're licensing.

And if the union were to be rather vocal about that, going back to the question before, it could actually raise an issue with whether or not states would be willing to pay it because states aren't going to want to hand out money if they don't have to, theoretically, especially with current budget crunches. fascinating thing because if you're talking about outreach to kids about gambling, really, you don't need a few hundred million dollars to do that. And it's not something that Major League Baseball does right now anyway, even with respect to gambling that's already legal in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. So you're talking about programs that really none of the leagues have at this point. And it will be interesting to see if they start them, if for no other reason than to show sort of good faith in terms of what that money would be used for. So if you had to, I guess editorialize isn't the right word, but prognosticate here, and you have this future situation where there might be a huge swath of

money available to baseball, and then maybe some huge swath of that will go to the owners. Maybe it'll go to the players. So much of the conversation that's come out of the previous offseason has been the coming labor dispute because the union still has to fight through a few more years of the CBA, but then it's going to really dig its heels in and try to negotiate the hell out of the next one, et cetera, et cetera. Or else there could be a work stoppage. Do you think that there's an opportunity here for the owners and the union to sort of see eye to eye

and sort of support one another to help tamper down those disputes and sort of approach the next CBA conversation in coming from a good place? Or is this just going to be another area where both sides want as absolutely as much as they can? The union is going to be even more reluctant to make any concessions than they've already been before. You know that that also is going to remain to be seen. And here's why, you know, as somebody who has settled far too many cases to count, I can tell you that nothing makes people more intransigent than money and nothing makes people more willing to compromise than the possibility of getting a lot of money. The problem that we have here is at this point, it's not clear how this pie is going to be divided or even if the owners will be willing to divide it at all. if the owners will be willing to divide it at all. My guess is that if the owners were to extend an olive branch and say, here, we are willing to share this revenue stream with you, it would

really be an opportunity to solve a lot of these problems moving forward, since so many of them were related to spending and the sluggish off-season. The problem is if owners decide that this is something they want to monopolize or attempt to monopolize, there's going to arguably be a smaller stream because it will be a lot easier to get these integrity fees if the union is on board. And also, it's going to be yet another revenue stream that the players have no access to that's going to cause more strife in the future. This really is an opportunity for all parties involved to sit down and talk about what the revenue streams of the future look like, because the revenue streams

of the future are going to be a lot more like this and a lot less ticket sales, simply because this has the potential to outstrip ticket sales by an order of magnitude, especially among millennials, people who tend to gamble more. And if FanDuel and DraftKings and companies like that do continue to be ruled as gambling, then all of that ends up subject to these integrity fees also. And all of a sudden, you have massive amounts of how popular fantasy baseball is. You have massive amounts of people playing those games and all of a sudden that's another revenue stream also. So realistically, there is an opportunity here if everybody's willing to sit down and share the wealth that is coming, because this is going to

be potentially a really big pie. The question is going to be whether you have a bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are willing to share this money. And the really sad part of all of this, I think, is this decision comes down right after the Save America's Pastime Act was passed. And you have a very large revenue stream that minor leaguers aren't going to see any part of at all. And that's something that also needs to be addressed in the next CBA. But that's something that I don't know if the union is willing to address at this point. Yeah, you'd think that minor league baseball would be more vulnerable to integrity concerns than major league baseball, given what players are making at those levels. Exactly.

Yeah. So again, none of us is a gambling expert. I don't know that this will change our lives or our careers in any way. I doubt that any of us is suddenly going to be providing our picks every week or anything like that. But can you project from a legal perspective what this might mean for the coverage of the game and the fan experience, just in the sense that there are going to be a lot more media outlets now that are comfortable covering this just because it's a legal endeavor or soon

will be. So will we soon be seeing gambling columns springing up everywhere? Will we hear about this on baseball broadcasts, on TV and radio? If you thought that daily fantasy advertising was intrusive and obnoxious before, is it going to be 10 times worse? What do you think are some of the ramifications in that area? I think it's going to depend on how many states pass laws allowing sports gambling and how many states like New York, for example, with FanDuel take further measures to restrict it. The interesting thing is that nothing in today's decision requires states to allow sports gambling. It simply says they can. So I think how prevalent this becomes is going to depend on how many states enact laws allowing it. I don't think every state will simply because you have different states that still

legislate morals more than others. But I do think most will simply because it's such a large revenue stream and states are hard up for money. In terms of whether or not this is going to take over sports, I think you could end up seeing betting at ballparks because it's another way for states to get revenue back from the ballparks that they build. And if you look at it this way, you see betting at racetracks, for example, I could see something like that springing up in a ballpark because it's so easy to get revenue there, especially in the age of the ballpark as a multi-entertainment center as opposed to just a baseball stadium. But I also think that we're going to have to see what sports gambling is allowed and how it's allowed.

Sports-themed lotteries are something that I think more states will do. In terms of actually allowing betting on games directly, some states might be more reticent to do something like that. And in terms of whether or not we're going to see a whole bunch of ads for picks and things like that, that may end up being a state-by-state thing. And that's something where it may come down to what the people in each individual state are willing to agree to. What is interesting is that most of the states to pass laws so far, at least before this decision came down, were states that didn't have major league baseball franchises like West Virginia and New Jersey. Now, that doesn't mean that they have no major franchises at all. Obviously, that's not the case with New Jersey. But

I think that it's really going to depend on what a state allows. And this could end up being a patchwork where you have 50 different sets of rules. And then you have litigation concerning what the different states can regulate, given you're going to end up being talking about interstate transactions. So what I've taken out of your answer is that the Marlins are going to bring people to the ballpark by turning it into a live action casino. You know, it wouldn't surprise me. And it also honestly wouldn't surprise me if states, given municipalities, are looking for ways to make sure that they get this revenue from stadium building. If states included things like that in a ballpark, because it

guarantees at least some revenue will come in. I mean, if you look at how Miami ended up faring with their stadium deal, which is to say not very well, it sounds weird mean, if you look at how Miami ended up faring with their stadium deal, which is to say not very well, it sounds weird, but if you included a few slot machines and some betting on games where you had to pay the county a fee for every bet, that pretty much guarantees they'll get a much better share of their money back than whatever 5% of the sale price would have been. Same thing with the Arizona sale that you're seeing, the potential Arizona move that you're seeing right now with their new ballpark. Maricopa County spent $250 million building that park, and now they're concerned they won't get that money back. Slot machines and game betting are going to look really good to a jurisdiction that wants to make

sure they get that money back and don't have to depend on the word of an owner, given recent history. And I guess, lastly, this doesn't open up MLB to any other issues. I mean, this won't raise the antitrust exemption or something like that, just as an indirect result of this decision and of the federal government saying this isn't our area. Would there be any possible secondary effects or knock on lawsuits or cases that could have an impact on baseball here? It's highly unlikely. The only way I think the antitrust exemption could come up is if somehow somebody decided to argue that their bets were being fixed because baseball has a monopoly and is deciding the outcome of games, which I think is going to be pretty hard to argue. I don't see the antitrust exemption coming up, honestly, in anything related to this law.

What I do see as possible is a situation where you have so many different rules applying to different teams that it forces Major League Baseball to adapt to a bunch of different scenarios all at the same time. If anything, this could fragment different sets of actions among different teams simply because state regulations are going to be so different. But I don't think that that's going to have any impact on potential litigation against Major League Baseball, but it very well may have an impact in terms of negotiating the next CBA and what players are and are not allowed to do as Major League Baseball tries to comport with state law. All right. Well, Cheryl is an attorney and the director of fair housing at Open Communities, a nonprofit in Chicago where it is raining very hard right now. Somehow she finds time to write very regularly

at Fangraphs as well. And you can find her on Twitter at ring underscore Cheryl. We wish you clear skies and a safe rest of your commute. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me. All right. So we will be right back after another quick break with Willie Kranich, ace of the no longer winless St. Peter's Peacocks. Then a sharp breeze kicks up. I hug myself hard. How come there's peacocks in the front yard? So we are joined now by Willie Kranich.

He is the starting pitcher for the St. Peter's Peacocks. He was the winning pitcher on Sunday's game against Iona. And in fact, he is, I suppose, the only Peacocks winning pitcher for the past two years, roughly. He is a senior and he is joining us now. Hey, Willie, how are you? Good. How are you doing, guys? Doing well. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself as a pitcher? Are you more of a power pitcher? I know you're a pretty big guy. Are you more of a command control type? I kind of try to get a mixture of both. I try to be more power. I try to do more things on my own and try to have those stronger pitches.

But I like to pitch to contact a lot just so I can last the whole game and go the full length of every single game for the guys. So coming into the game on Sunday, what is your mindset like? I mean, you've been on this team now your whole college career. They have not had a whole lot of success in recent years. That is sort of an understatement just in terms of wins and losses. I guess you come into the game having lost 78 consecutive games. What is the mindset? Do you still feel like I can go out there and win if I pitch well, or are you just sort of resigned or are you not even thinking about the results?

What's going through your head? A lot of stuff goes through your head, but I just try to go out there and enjoy my career. That's the one thing that I made sure this year, especially after last season, just go out there and just pitch every game like, you know, it's going to be your last and just trying to have an open mindset. It's really difficult and frustrating. And then the one thing too is that I wanted to pitch on Saturday. We were supposed to have the doubleheader Saturday.

So it was just really strange that it just got pushed back to Sunday. It was beautiful Saturday. It didn't even rain. And then we got all that rain on Sunday and we had to push through the rain. So I was a little annoyed at first that it had to get pushed back. But then at the same time, I'm like, let's just go out there. It's Mother's Day. All of our mothers were big supporters of us. They were all there. My mother too. And it was just really good to go out there and pitch and play in front of them. So it felt really good to have the game pushed back then to Sunday. Obviously one of the major functions of college athletics is that it draws attention

to the institution because maybe you wouldn't have heard about it otherwise and I'm out here in Oregon so I wouldn't have heard of St. Peter's University now granted I don't think that this is how the university maybe wanted to get attention for itself with the long losing streak but presumably you pitched in high school, and presumably you pitched pretty well in high school. So what was it that drew you to St. Peter's program in the first place to play your college ball? Because you've been playing for all four years.

I had a couple of friends that went to St. Peter's University, and I had a coach that reached out to me when I was a senior. I was going into my senior season, and probably like the first week of us, you know, practicing and getting into the season I tore my labrum and uh I mean it was a difficult time for me because I had a couple other colleges interested and then when I did that I just I couldn't even pitch my whole senior season and I had a couple guys reach out to me and tell me to try to you know go on a visit at St. Peter's

when I came here I really liked the place it was it was close to home so I knew my parents and my siblings could come and watch me play which was really cool. I knew it was going to be a good place to get a degree from, so it felt right. Everyone else got rid of me being hurt, which I totally understood right away. I was real nervous trying to come back and the grind of being hurt. I didn't get surgery or anything. I did a lot of rehab. It made me feel like they didn't give up on me. So I felt like I had to come here. I don't just want to sit here and call attention to the long losing streak, but I am curious. It is, it's fascinating, but you know, if you, if you're a major league franchise and you, you lose a bunch of games in a row, and then when you were in your hometown, you're likely to be booed and people aren't going to be too fond

of you as a team. But was it, what is it like being a college athlete on, I mean, I would assume that word has probably spread around the university about the baseball team, but what is the atmosphere like in terms of like how competitive are the students? Are they forgiving? Do they make fun of you? Is it a more, I would hope it's a more sympathetic crowd, but what is your engagement with the other students? It depends on the group of people. There are a lot of our close friends outside of baseball that support us and they help us and tell us it's going to be all right, you're going to get one. We laugh it off like, yeah, all right, when? One day.

But we really don't get that much negative attitude from people around campus. They're pretty much supportive. They understand. We kind of laugh and joke about it because that's what you have to do at this point, you know, before the win on Sunday. And it's pretty hard. But you just look past it and you go out there every day and you just practice and you enjoy your buddies and you enjoy the struggle with each other. And that's pretty much what we did to get through all of it. And a lot of people supported us.

Our families are a big thing. I couldn't thank our parents enough, our baseball parents. They're there every game, freezing cold at our home field. There's porta-potties in bathrooms. It's gross to even walk out to some of the games with the mud and everything. Honestly, if it wasn't for them, I don't

know how we would have gotten through this as a team. Our close buddies, we stuck together and pushed through those hard times, especially being our senior season, a bunch of us really wanted to win. But it wasn't for them. Honestly, it had been a lot harder to get through all that. But we had a lot of support from the university. And I mean, a lot of backing up from our parents that definitely helped us. Yeah, I was going to ask about the clubhouse chemistry aspect of this. I mean,

is there a point at which it brings the team together and then stops bringing the team together? Does it go beyond that? I mean, did you guys get closer the longer this went on, or at a certain point, is it hard to maintain the same motivation? It's definitely hard to maintain the same motivation. You know, going out there and giving your all every single game, and then the same result is you're getting smacked by a team. You know, it's definitely difficult. But we grew together as a group, especially last year. We lost a good group of seniors, and it was just unfair to them that they went out like that.

So, like, this year, a bunch of our senior class, when we stepped up and we tried to make it more of, like, a family thing. Last year, we were very close, but we just tried to make sure that we all had each other's back. And, like, no matter how hard it is out there, just let's focus on each other and let's enjoy moments and yeah at times it got real rough you know teammates will be teammates towards each other you know bickering but we really stayed strong throughout this whole year I could say towards each other and we just made sure of like just do

it for each other just go out there and play hard for each other don't worry about the end result you know just give it your all when you're on the field and try to enjoy it that was the hardest part I think was trying to enjoy every game. The outcome probably wasn't in our favor. But I think we did a good job of that. As seniors, I could definitely say our senior class, we definitely did a good job to tell our underclassmen. And they followed our roles. But they did a huge job stepping up and making sure that they followed us with a certain attitude.

Like, you know, just brush it off, things like that. It definitely brought us together, I could say. It's just I can't even explain how it was to go through that. You know, other people look at it from the outside, and when you're on the inside, it's really difficult to explain to people the amount of, you know, people that are depressed about it or the people that, you know, are struggling and they don't know what to do. There's no, like, you just try to guide people in the right way and you just kind of just

look at it with an open mind frame. But other than that, if we really didn't stick together like we did, I really don't think we would even had a win, to be honest. Yeah. Well, I don't want to dwell too much on the dark days, but for people who weren't watching the team, haven't been following the program, how does that happen? Is it a matter of funding, scholarships, recruiting the area the school is in? I mean, is it a bunch of different factors? Oh, yes, it's definitely a bunch of different factors. It's really difficult for baseball players to stay here.

You know, we have to do a lot of field maintenance ourselves. Our field is kind of in a swampy area. So it's really hard to have stands there, to have people there watching you who want to come uh it's hard just the atmosphere but we really don't have the indoor facilities that any other divisional program has i mean i'm pretty sure there's division three programs that have better indoor facilities than us uh it's just like that struggle of keeping people here because you kind of like lose the hope you're like oh i'm gonna lose all four years i'm just gonna go transfer somewhere else so like that's the hard part keeping people here we lost a lot of uh i lost a lot of teammates uh in my class too

in the class after me that we definitely you know needed them here and they just didn't like it it didn't feel right for them and they went their own ways and i have success other places which is the struggle we just can't get people to stay here and stay focused because we don't have all those facilities the money and any of that to actually keep people here and make people feel comfortable we recently had uh some guests on to talk about the 1988 baltimore orioles i don't know if you have any uh any knowledge of the 1988 baltimore orioles but they lost their first 21 games and uh and we were talking to a couple of writers about what the atmosphere was like around the team

when they finally got that first win. Now, again, the circumstances in the majors are a little bit different than in D1 college ball. But what was your own environment when you actually, when you knocked off and you got the win? Was it more of a celebratory room or was it just kind of a deep breath

like we finally effing did it? There was no celebration coming from me. I remember I threw the last pitch, and the kid fortunately popped it up. And I closed my eyes. I didn't even look anywhere. I knew it was in the infield. I closed my eyes. I didn't say anything.

And my roommate and one of my best buddies on the team, Anthony Asante, he told me, don't look, don't look, don't look. He was playing first base. And I heard the catch of the glove, and it was like a weight was just lifted off my shoulders. I didn't even, I didn't know how to react. I was speechless. And it actually really didn't hit me till last night when we, uh, we got back to campus, like the whole ride. Yeah, we were feeling good, but then we had to deal with the loss of the second game that I know that, that always stings too, especially after a big win. And then, win and then you know we lost like that the second

game but it's it was more of a relief I think because we really didn't celebrate it you know it's you're supposed to win games like that especially the way the team played behind me I mean I thought my part was easy they hit for me they fielded for me their energy behind me was absolutely amazing so it was more of a relief that I had them and like, I got the job done for them because the way they played behind me was tremendous. And it was a seven inning game, I guess, because of the double header and the makeup. And so you went the distance, you pitched really well. Yeah. Three hits, one walk, one run, seven strikeouts. Did you feel like your stuff was better than usual? Were you doing what you usually do and things just worked out in your favor?

At first, the first inning, I would say I was all right. I didn't have enough pop on my fastball like I wanted to. I couldn't command my changeup, so I was like, oh, God, that's my pitch. I needed that. So right away, I got a little nervous. And then I settled in a little bit after I let up that home run. I saw the way my team was playing behind me, and I was like, no, I can't do that today.

So right after that home run, I kind of got in my zone and my groove. And it was really hard, too, because it was raining, and the mound, I mean, I had two inches probably of mud on my cleats. And I was like, don't be one of those guys that makes an excuse for it. You know what I mean? When they're playing that good behind you. So I just try to focus on all my pitches more and, like, like all my grips and stuff so I didn't even think about the mud or anything and it actually really helped me it helped me control everything better and I my stuff was

pretty good and like I said my team just they really backed me up they made plays for me and and it was a really good game yeah so I was going to ask you when you sort of realized that this was going to happen it sounds like not until the the final out was actually recorded was when you were kind of confident that that this would really happen oh yeah yeah i i don't know if uh if you guys were aware of it in the uh the top of the seventh inning uh i sit i'm sitting down in the dugout and i have my headphones in you know because i try not to get distracted or i try to stay in my own zone and not let other things affect me you know and all of a sudden i like open my eyes, I got my head down, my towel around my head, and I'm listening to one of my songs.

And I look up, and I see my team running out of the dugout. There was a brawl between us and Iona. And now it took, now between the rain and everything, I'm sitting there in the sixth inning, all excited. I'm like, all right, I just three outs away, and we can do this. And then the whole brawl happened, and it just took forever for the umpires and the coaches to decide who was objective, what we're going to do. If anything else happened, I was just like, this is St. Peter's baseball.

You know, it just has to be so dysfunctional that we couldn't even just get out of that seventh inning. You know, I have to go out there. We had to wait another half hour and I was sitting there like, Oh my God, what happened to, you know, I'm too cold and I can't go go out there. We had to wait another half hour. I was sitting there like, oh my God, what happened? I'm too cold and I can't go back out there. It was just, thank God, luckily no one really got hurt in the brawl or anything like that. What was the brawl about? Just a little bit of bickering.

Emotions were definitely flying for Iona. They're a good baseball team. They just struggled that game. The rain and everything. It was a hard atmosphere to play in, and I think their just emotions really did get the best of them. No one wants to lose to the St. Peter's Peacocks with our losing streak, you know, and with our resume. So I think they were just – it was hard for them,

and then a bunch of our guys, you know, we really didn't know how to act exactly like we were going to win yet. You know, we have a little bit of immaturity on the team, just trying to grow. And it just, we bumped heads, you know. Everyone was like, we wanted to win. They wanted to come back. They didn't want to lose. And then it was just a little bit of bickering.

And then it just led to a bench clean and brawl. Yeah, I guess sometimes they usually say to you to act like you've been there before. But I guess for many of the players on your team, maybe you hadn't. A couple of the guys were saying that. And I was like, I'm trying to make sure they know I've been there before. It's difficult. Now, when I pitched in high school, I was not very good, and I think that the players in the other dugout usually knew it, and so I would go out there, I'd warm up, throw my warm-up pitches, and then they would just mouth off. This guy's got nothing, let's go

light this guy up, whatever. Yeah, the good talk, the baseball talk. Yeah, all the good stuff. So a certain amount of that is sort of expected no matter who you're playing under any circumstances but do you feel like you guys got it maybe a little a lot stronger like you you talk about a team like iona who you just had a little brawl with because the emotions are running high because of course for them they're feeling frustrated because they know they shouldn't be losing that game. And then for you, you're feeling frustrated because you feel like they shouldn't be that embarrassed by losing to you. But how much were you hearing from the other teams when you were before games, as games were going?

Were they just mouthing off the whole time or did they figure there's really no upside for us? Because we basically have to win this game or else we're going to be clowns. We really didn't have any issues with any any teams you know throughout the year uh we had especially in our conference a bunch of our players we got a lot of friends throughout other teams so everything's fine when they play us if it's a little bit of a tight game you know they really don't no one acts like okay we can lose to them you know like they handle themselves in a very professional way and they go about just playing baseball you know and sometimes it's hard for us because we feel bad in a way

because some games just take forever and they get stressed they get long and i feel some teams just are like you know why are we playing them why are we bothering but we really never dealt with any of that you know after games every team is polite to us shaking our hands saying good luck you know and of course we giggle and say thank you you know we need it we appreciate it you know um but uh i just i felt like the emotions got the best of both teams that on sunday you know when we had that little bit of bicker and but they were they were fine after it you know they they came back and they played their baseball game and you know they gave it to us the second game so uh they really no more issues after that as soon as you know we broke everything up the squash no, no retaliation, nothing like that.

And we just played baseball the rest of the day. Were there times during the streak where you came close and you thought it was going to end and then something wild happened and it didn't? Yes, there was so many times. Even last year, we were beating Siena at home last year. It was one of the last weekends of the season. We were up by three. It's the top of the ninth. You can't even make this up.

They get bases loaded. Their hottest hitter, I believe he got drafted. I don't know his name, but I'm pretty sure he got drafted last year from Siena. Very good baseball player. Solid outfielder. He can swing it. He had to be six for six that day. Comes up against us and hits a grand slam, puts him in the lead.

And we're like, no way. And there was two outs when he did it. And we were just, what can we do? I mean, there was a couple times this year, too, you know, where we were in a couple games. There was a decent amount of games where I was on the mound and we were in them. And we just struggled, you know, to get run support or if there was errors

or, you know, when they needed me the most to get outs, you know, to get run support or if there was errors or, you know, when they needed me the most to get out, you know, I kind of like walked a couple of guys, let up a good hit, you know, and stuff like that. But there was other games too when I wasn't even pitching and we were in them. And it's just, we just were like, all right, let's, you know, fight through this.

And there were some positives, obviously more than more negatives, but it's just like, can you make this up really? Like, what did we do? You know, like we always were wondering, like, did we really like make the baseball guys angry against us you know like we always thought that and we made sure we did different things and i remember one of our uh our senior captain mike i got to his mother she's one of our our biggest fans you know she's at all the games and stuff and she got us to do this we were lighting um just like it was something like to like get the demons or

like the bad luck out. You know how it is. So we lit one of those in the dugout and we were trying to see if that would help us out. And we were close the next day in the game and then we wound up losing it in the eighth. So we're like, ah, that didn't work. And it's just a lot of just pushing through it and just trying to stick together, honestly. Other than that, nothing else really worked. So you figure you have one more start left in your collegiate career, and I would assume that, like anyone who's wrapping up a chapter like this, you're going to look back on your time in the program with a lot of positive memories,

but clearly two extremely frustrating years for the juniors and seniors, last year's seniors, this year's seniors. So essentially, the program is going to continue. What is the message, you being a senior, one of the team leaders, what's the message that you would want to leave the underclassmen with so that they can go forward into next season and hopefully not just expect to lose every single game? Hopefully that never happens again. A lot of it is just the way I carry myself.

I think I helped motivate them in a lot of ways. The way I just prepare myself day in and day out. You know, at one point, everyone was asking, like, what's the point of working hard? What's the point of doing all this little stuff if you know you're just going to go out there and lose? And a lot of it was just to tell them the respect of the game. I've loved this game since I was a little kid. And no matter what, no matter how much you lose or anything like that, I made sure that I showed them that you have to respect this game or it won't respect you back.

So to work hard, put in the work every day, and just to see the look on everyone's faces after that actual win, I said to them, I was like, that's what you work hard for, that one thing, that one win that you could actually get. It was just an amazing moment just to see them actually be a little satisfied with a baseball game. You know, it's been a tough year. actually get. And it was just an amazing moment just to see them actually be a little satisfied with a baseball game. You know, it's been a tough year. So I would definitely leave them with that just to keep working and you never know what could happen. You mentioned trying to change the luck.

Were there any other kind of team wide efforts, superstitions, everyone growing facial hair, anything like that? Actually, it was a little different this year so last year i was a big mustache guy i i grew uh i grew the fu manchu i had a big goatee at one point and i just had the regular nice mustache i tried to curl it a little bit but i didn't have that great of facial hair so it didn't look that well but uh i tried doing that for a couple years and then last year i had it all in the beginning and pretty much like to the middle of the season and then i was like you know what this year i'm not shaving you know i'm i mean i'm gonna shave i'm not growing it and then i grew out my hair over the summer i've always been a shortcut guy so i tried that too and uh it didn't work and then i recently actually just cut my hair it's probably down to like the beginning of my shoulders

it was really long and then i decided to cut it a couple uh maybe a couple weeks ago and then like there everyone was joking about it yeah it was your hair that was bringing up the bad luck. We need you to cut it. Right, it's like a Samson in reverse. A couple other guys, yeah. A couple other guys, they're not that superstitious. I happen to be a really superstitious guy. I always like to get a brand-new baseball in the mouth,

and I like to smell it and make sure. We always did stuff like that. But other than that, it really wasn't that much superstition with us we just try to change things up honestly that was really it so what did you study in school and do you know what's next for you after graduation a business management major uh I'm really I'm not sure what's next for me after graduation I don't want to give up sports just yet uh yeah maybe try to get into coaching somewhere I'm gonna try to go to a just yet. Maybe try to get into coaching somewhere. I'm going to try to go to a couple of tryouts and maybe play independent ball.

Hopefully, you know, that I'm blessed enough to do that. Other than that, I don't know. Just try to keep playing the game. Yeah, I hope that works out well. And, you know, it's great that this happened for you right just before the end of your college career ended. I'm sure that you wouldn't have wanted to go out on a two-year losing streak. So to end it this way. I did not want to do that. Yeah, no way. I was trying really hard not to do that. I mean, emotionally, like you mentioned, I mean, it's coming on the heels of this long losing

streak and then you lose right after the win and that makes it hard, I guess, to savor it. But is there a level on which you kind of feel a satisfaction that you had that goal to end the streak and you achieved it oh yeah there's definitely that satisfaction i mean more of a leaf yeah definitely though it's it's just when you have that record and you have uh people you know coming up to you and asking you how it is and there's people in jersey city when we go to a store or we go out to eat or we're at St. Peter's baseball stuff, like, oh, where do you go? Where is that?

It's like two blocks away, but yeah. They have a baseball team. So it's really good that we finally ended the streak. I know a lot of people rooting for us to do it, and I'm happy that we can give them that, and especially our parents, too. I'm happy for them. i can't stress it enough you know they dealt with a lot for the past two years and they never batted an eyelash about it they always had our backs and i'm really i'm really happy that we could do it for our parents yeah you know i realize in retrospect

you had you had mentioned i mean you're starting pitcher you're the best starting pitcher on the team but you said that a few years ago you tore your labrum. That can be a really dangerous injury for any pitcher. That can be a career death knell. It sounds like you're not having any long-term effects here from that injury? No. Of course, as a pitcher and thrown for four years in college,

you're thrown a lot. You have your little aches and your pain in your arm. I try to stay up with a lot of recovery for it and making sure I do the right thing day in and day out to keep the shoulder okay. I really grinded senior year of high school with the rehab. And I didn't realize how hard it was actually to come back for an injury or even, you know, the prehab before it.

Just trying to make sure that you're okay, you know, and just doing the little things. And I realized it's not easy. So I made sure every year I just kept up with it and worked hard every single year and just made sure I was doing the right thing to keep my arm healthy. And I make sure I don't sleep on it at night. You know, I stay away from that side of my shoulder, especially after dealing with that injury. It really took a toll on me senior year.

And I just try to do the little things for it. And, and I'm blessed, you know, that I've, I've gone four years in college with no serious issues with my own. Well, we're happy for the team and happy for you personally. Glad you broke the streak. And I hope that you're able to continue your career if that's what you're

interested in. And thank you for joining us. I'm sure it's not the easiest thing in the world to talk about a two-year losing streak, but you've done it and it was inspiring, I think, to hear about the whole attitude of the team and how you managed to transcend this. So, thank you

very much for coming on, Willie. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for rooting for us and I'm glad that we snapped the streak for you. Alright, well everyone can go see Willie maybe one more time pitching for St. Peter's on Friday, hopefully.

And you'll be in Albany that game is against you at Siena? Yes, at Siena. At Siena College. And you can find Willie on Twitter at WillieK32 and hopefully someday you'll be seeing him in IndieBall. So thanks a lot, Willie. That was great.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys. All right. Thank you very much. Bye. I meant to mention this, by the way. Fun fact from friend of the podcast, Dan Hirsch of The Baseball Gauge. He tweeted on Monday, Yankees and Red Sox are both 28-12.

This is the first time two or more teams have had at least a 700 win-loss percentage on the same day day minimum of 40 games played since May 19th, 2001, when the Twins, Indians, and Mariners all had winning percentages of at least 700. That's somewhat surprising. Made me say wow, so thanks for that, Dan. Okay, so that will do it for today. If anyone was wagering on the St. Peter's Peacocks to win on Sunday, congratulations on your windfall. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have recently pledged their support are Scott Hackman, Jason, Michael Downan, Gordon Christen, and someone who goes only by

deep BS. No wonder he or she appreciates the podcast. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild, And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. We are very happy to have new reviews. Helps us seduce other listeners. Thank you to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Of course, he is also providing editing assistance to Carson Sestouli on Fangraphs Audio. So he is doing double the editing these days. You can keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastoffangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system.

Our current plan is to do a full-length email episode next time, so we will get to your questions soon. Talk to you then. Because I come from a long line of peacocks. I come from a long line of peacocks. Give thanks to the Lord that we can afford to bear such a burden of feathers Well, there's no need to tell our endeavors There's no need to tell our endeavors There's no need to tell, no need to tell, no need to tell