Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1221: Stay Strong, Ron

Episode Date: May 24, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the banged-up Mariners, Tyler Chatwood‘s wildness, the Astros’ record-setting run prevention, a Mike Trout milestone, Chris Davis and looking strikeouts, Ron Gardenhire‘s ringtone, Michael Taylor‘s walk-off face, settling a game with rock-paper scissors, bad closers, Nick Markakis, and more, then answer listener emails about strike sounds, “three up, […]

And I know you're afraid of falling flat And I know those walls are up against your back And I know there are those who'd say a crack But I know that you're stronger than they Hello and welcome to episode 1221 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello, Jeff. Hello, but as you might have seen, Deadspin actually doxed me. My true name is George Will, so I might as well just come out and let everyone know I'm George Will. And George Will has strong opinions about how wild Tyler Chatwood is. As long as we've been doing Brian Mitchell updates, that's boring. We were doing, I think, a few Chris Tillman updates.

He's not good. Well, we should have a Tyler Chatwood update, because Tyler Chatwood is doing some things that I didn't think that starting pitchers could do. So Chatwood lasted eight outs on Tuesday against the Indians, and he got eight outs, allowed four runs. That's one short of a season high for runs. He had six walks. He had a strikeout.

Good for him. I couldn't strike out a major league hitter. So Tyler Chatwood has started nine games. He's up to 45 in two-thirds innings. He's got a perfectly fine ERA, high threes. That's pretty good. Lots of grand balls, doing the Chatwood thing. But he's got 40 walks and 41 strikeouts.

He's also hit two batters. So I like to fold hit batters in with walks because it's the same idea. So he's got more of those than he has strikeouts. His ERA has indeed gone down. So if you just look at him, you think, well, he's not allowing many hits. He's not allowing many home runs. He's been good. But he's also been very not good because you can't walk this many people and be sustainably good.

His strikeouts per nine, 8.08. His walks per nine, 7.88. You can't do this. When Tyler Chatwood was a rookie with the Angels, I remember watching him and thinking, this guy isn't super good. And he had a decent ERA, but he had 71 walks and 74 strikeouts. He's doing it again, except with double the strikeouts and double the walks. This is bizarre.

It's a bizarre circumstance. And honestly, we've talked a little bit about how Wilson Contreras rates as baseball's worst framer to date. I was just going to say say it's all his fault. Yeah, well, it goes one direction. I don't know which direction it goes in because Wilson Contreras objectively does not look to be a good framer to the eye, but also can't think of many pitchers who are more difficult to frame

than Tyler Chatwood, who throws sinkers at the bottom of the zone, or so he tries. Right. And yet the Cubs are doing just fine, and they are, what, they're not quite in first place yet. They're still three games back, but their underlying numbers are pretty encouraging. Although the Brewers are also good and are the first NL team, I guess, to 30 wins, and they're already, eh, what, the Astros and the Red Sox And the Yankees were already there

But this is a good race We talked about this recently I didn't expect this to be as competitive A race as it seems to be But other than the Reds Every team looks legitimately Pretty good in this division Including the Pirates

Which if that continues That will be one of the stories of the season i think given how they were one of the stories of the offseason for entirely different reasons so if you when you're looking at the nl central standings of course the brewers are in first place if you look at the base runs standings i don't i never know what i'm supposed to explain what i'm not supposed to explain base runs estimates of how good a team is based on how it's so the brewers by base runs the brewers are actually three wins above their base runs estimate the cubs are three wins worse than their base runs estimate according to base runs cubs should be 28 and 17 first place in the division but here's my favorite thing about base runs right now so the

houston astros to date have the third best record in baseball. They're 31-18. They've been really good. Their run differential is actually the best in baseball by a healthy amount. At 31-18, the Astros have underperformed their base runs estimate by the second most of any team in baseball. The Astros, according to base runs, should be 35-14. They should have easily the best record in baseball, and it's because they have what would be, obviously it's only been a third of the season or so, but they have what would be the lowest, I believe, ERA of all time, or at least park-adjusted ERA, lowest park- should have allowed... Well, the hell with base runs. Let's look at actual

runs, because it's just as dramatic. The Astros have allowed 2.55 runs per game. The team in second place has allowed 3.52 runs per game. That's a run difference for the Astros. They're so good. Sorry, that voice

got too high. That's so good. It is really, really good. Yeah, you've reestablished your manliness now. I saw a fun fact floating around that the Astros have allowed the fewest runs through their first 50 games of any team in the live ball era. That's since 1920. Not surprising, given what you just said. But another equally impressive way to put it, evidently they have beaten out the 1968 Indians. Always good when you are beating out a 1968 team in terms of run prevention. So let's stick within the AL West for a moment because I wanted to congratulate Mike Trout on being an average Hall of Famer, which Jay Jaffe pointed out in a post on Tuesday at Fangraphs, Mike Trout has now surpassed the average threshold, the Jaws threshold for Hall of Fame worthiness. And as we know, Mike Trout is still 26 starting to be good in 2012 like it was not yesterday, but like it was, well, six years ago, I guess, which is not all that long ago.

That's how long it was. And somehow he has crammed a legitimate Hall of Fame career into that span of time. So he's like past Carlos Beltran or, you know, like other legitimate Hall of Famers or he's equaled them already. I think Jay was trying to do some calculations in his post. It's kind of tough to do because of the way that Jaws is calculated and the way that war is often recalculated. But as far as Jay could tell, Trout may be the quickest player ever to get to the Jaws

threshold, or at least like since the early days when the Jaws threshold was based on, you know, two players or something, because it was the 19th century. So Trout could essentially retire right now, other than the fact that he hasn't played 10 years in the majors and technically is not eligible for the Hall of Fame. He is a Hall of Famer. You could just seal his stats in amber and he could, I don't know, be hurt for the next four seasons or something and then retire and he would be a Hall of Famer. It's kind of, I mean, even knowing how great Mike Trout is, you still think of a Hall of Fame career as something that takes 15 years, even if you're really good. And it's taken

him six years or so. He's there already. Mike Trout, there's a stretch recently where Trout went something like 0 for 20 or 0 for 19. Something even worse. So over since May 12th, so like a week and a half, Mike Trout actually only has three hits. Three hits in a week and a half. That's very low for Mike Trout. He's batted 115. Now he's in a double, two home runs. His WRC plus over that span is 130.

He's got a 395 OBP, more walks than strikeouts. When Mike Trout isn't hitting, he's still the best player on the Angels probably. You and I would never wish ill on Mike Trout, of course, but because of what Jay wrote, you wonder.

There are the rules. You have to be in the majors for 10 years. But if Trout... Let's not talk about death. But if something happened that ended Mike Trout's career today, prematurely, he gets in a car accident or something, or he's something that isn't voluntary. Because, you know, if Mike Trout was just like, that's it, I'm done. No one would put him in the Hall of Fame. But if something ended his career, would they, do you think that they would make an exception for someone of this level of greatness? I do think so. I think this has been an email question in the past. There was one question about, yeah, if he just voluntarily walked away and took up some other career, would he be a Hall of Famer? And we said

no, because I think the Hall of Fame voters would look down on that kind of thing. But yeah, if he just couldn't continue his career, I think so. I mean, there's no real argument against it other than some kind of longevity-based argument. But who needs longevity when you're that good and you pack a Hall of Fame career into six seasons? Yep. Yeah, incredible.

Yeah, he's done so much in so little. Like, it's not even like, oh, we can just like fudge a year you know for trout to let him in like they'd be fudging four years or something of of service to put him in and the crazy thing is i don't think anyone would be up in arms about it i mean i don't know nothing that we can say is more impactful than mike trout is already an average hall of fame we're like that's it that's that's the line yes and within the AOS for just a moment more, I wanted to bring up the Mariners because the Mariners are now down yet another player and another second baseman.

Dee Gordon has a fractured toe that I guess he's maybe been trying to play through. And now he's on the DL. He, course was moving from center to second to replace Robinson Cano who is suspended and also hurt. Nelson Cruz and Mitch Hanager were hit by pitches and are now day-to-day. This team is basically out of outfielders. Itro's starting to look pretty good right now. You tweeted something about how this has to be an agonizing situation for Jerry DiPoto because he must want to make a trade and yet he just literally has no way to make a trade with the players who are at his disposal. And Mariners are very much in this race and probably playing a bit over their heads. But still, they've gotten this far into the season and been competitive.

And this seems like the time to make a move. But how in the world do you make a move with what the Mariners have in their organization? Yeah, there was an article that Ryan divish wrote recently that talked about the mayor the one thing the mariners do have right now is there they have about 11 million dollars of money they expected to spend that they are not spending because of robinson kind of suspension so they they could i guess buy some sort of bad contract but of course when you're buying a bad contract you're usually not buying a bad contract, you're usually not buying a good player.

But he had a line in there. It was talking about how the Mariners have been interested in Travis Jankowski. Did you know Travis Jankowski is back in the majors? He is. He's playing for San Diego. And they can't make a trade because the Padres don't want anyone in the system. And when you don't have the resources to trade for Travis goddamn Jankowski, I don't know what that says. Well, I do know what that says about your situation.

Like, Jerry DiPoto must be so frustrated right now. He's happy the team is winning, but this is the kind of frustration teams don't make trades of any real meaning before the draft. That's just kind of a rule of thumb. All of their resources are pointed toward the draft right now. That's what everyone's thinking about.

And they don't have a farm system and they don't have that much financial flexibility. This has to be the most frustrated a general manager can feel. I just hope that this doesn't manifest in some kind of self harm. I hope that he has an outlet so that he doesn't just take this

out on himself. He's got a podcast. He can take it out there yeah i don't know anyway they're an intriguing team just because they're kind of it seems like at the end of their rope competitively speaking and yet they have a little life this season and it's gonna be tough to maintain given these hits that they're taking but i don't know what he can do about it. So we will see if he comes up with some creative waiver claim or something. He'll find a way.

He always does. So I don't know if you remember, but I was reminded recently of Chris Davis. He's the major league laggard in Wins Above Replacement. He's been very bad. I don't like to make fun of players when they're very bad because that is terrible and chris davis has got to be feeling pretty down on himself uh last season chris davis was the major league leader in called strikeouts he had 75 of them i wrote a whole article about that yeah yeah i think we both did i think we both i mean yours of course was was better and more thorough and uh got more attention because you were great and I do things quickly.

But there is an advantage to doing things quickly because exactly. So I get the idea out there and then people are like, I want to know more. Here comes Ben a week later with interviews and whatnot. So Chris Davis last year had 12 more called strikeouts than anyone else. And so I'm just going to do this live because I don't know what these results are going to reveal. So let's see how things are looking today. We know Chris Davis has been bad. Who has the most? It's Chris Taylor. Chris Taylor is the league leader in called strikeouts at present. He's one above Aaron Judge. So Judge, at least, is still there. Chris Davis is in ninth place. He's got 18 called strikeouts, and now Ronald Acuna already has 13.

That's unexpected. Anyway, another thing that I did last year, I like to look at zone swing rate in two-strike counts. It's basically a proxy of how often you get called out on strikes. But anyway, last year, Chris Davis swung at only 71% of pitches in the strike zone with two strikes. That's low. That's very low. Of course, you hear that you're supposed to protect in those situations. Chris Davis didn't.

That's why he led the league in called strikeouts. He was three and a half percentage points below the next lowest swing rate in the zone with two strikes. So this year, he's second lowest. He's at 78%. He is above only Chris Taylor, who should be swinging more. Again, this is why I guess Chris Taylor leads the league and called strikeouts at present.

But Chris Davis, on the one hand, has improved. He's swinging 7% more, 7 percentage points more, and pitches in the zone with two strikes. But really, Chris Davis, just swing at this point. Just swing it. Swing away. Because whatever you're doing now, it's really not working for anyone. Did you see the video on Tuesday of Ron Gardenhire's ringtone?

I did not. Okay. So I will link to this. But essentially what happened, he was in a postgame press conference, like maybe in his office. There was a gaggle of reporters, and they were asking him various questions. So he finishes a question, and then suddenly his phone starts ringing,

and his ringtone is stronger by Kelly Clarkson. These guys are game on. They've been doing a decent job, like I said. We just got to score some runs and take some pressure off them. It might help. What kind of quandary are you in right now? decent job like i said we just gotta score some runs and take some pressure on them might help you guys got to get out because it's alabela who he might want to fire my ass so why don't you just go ahead and get out figure out your own answer all right all right hey al i'm in a press conference right now you want to talk to him here i can just put you on speaker right now

you can answer for me everyone starts laughing and garden hire says something gruff and he then points out that the person who's calling him is alavila his boss tiger's general manager and garden hire kind of he seems maybe a little bit embarrassed i don't know he's trying to play it off he's telling everyone to get out of the office because Avila might be firing him or something. And then he asks Avila if he wants to continue the press conference. It seemed like he was trying to cover for the fact that his ringtone is stronger by Kelly Clarkson. So for people who don't know the song, I don't know if there are any such people, but the words to the song go,

You think you got the best of me? Think you had the last laugh. Bet you think that everything good is gone. Think you left me broken down. Think that I'd come running back. Baby, you don't know me because you're dead wrong. Then the chorus goes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Stand a little taller. Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone. What doesn't kill you makes you a fighter. Footsteps even lighter. Doesn't mean I'm over because you're gone. Do you think, A, that Ron Gardenhier set this ringtone himself, or do you think that he had someone set it for him? coming back from not being a manager for a while? Is it that he's overcome his exile from the dugout, or at least from being a manager? Or is this a reference to the fact that he is the manager of the Tigers, and he is having to have a lot of things getting the best of him in this role? I did not think that I would come on this podcast and have Kelly Clarkson lyrics recited back to me.

So I think here's, at least as far as number one is concerned, you saw how much he tried to deflect attention away from his ringtone in the press conference. So given his sheepishness about his own ringtone, I have trouble imagining that he asked someone else to set this for him because that would be admitting to it. However, on the other hand, you and I and probably most of the people in America have our ringtone set to vibrate or silent or something.

No one ever plays the ringtone, but he plays his ringtone. And therefore, if anyone's ever around when the phone goes off, they hear the ringtone. Yeah. So it is public. Maybe he usually has it on silent and something happened. But why would he change it? It's a good question. I don't know why he would has it on silent But why would he change it? It's a good question I don't know why he would change it

I mean, it does seem like the song as ringtone Has gone out of style a little bit I used to have songs as ringtones I do not anymore I don't even want to hear a ring if I can help it But yeah, you'd think I don't know He's an older gentleman

Maybe he's not quite as familiar with setting ringtones to particular songs. It seems like the sort of thing that, you know, a dad or a person of dad age would just have their kid do it for them or something or have it done to them as a prank and then maybe not know how to get rid of it. this much. Ron Gardenhier, look, we're basically stereotyping about old men, but I'm comfortable doing that. That's fine. Old man, he probably doesn't know how to set his own ringtone, but he also probably doesn't know how to set a security pin or thumbprint, which would make it probably easy for let's say a player who

thinks Kelly Clarkson is funny to take Ron Gardenhier's phone and set this for him. So I would guess it's a prank. But I don't think Lloyd McClendon wouldn't have done this. Phil Clark, Chris Bozzio probably wouldn't have done this. Apparently, Ramon Santiago is on the Tigers coaching staff. I would have believed you if you told me he was playing for them.

So doubt. He did it. I don't know who Sam Pallas is.. I don't know who Sam Palace is. So I don't know who might have done. Maybe we can get Ron Gardenhier on the podcast. We could get Grayson Greiner back on here. Maybe he did it. So I don't know.

It's a highly appropriate ringtone, though. And probably someone is already doing a post somewhere about what every manager's ringtone should be. If not, free post idea. There you go. So I also wanted to mention, I don't know whether you saw this, but there was a high school game that someone tweeted us about this morning. It was a high school game in Connecticut and wouldn't have known about it except for this tweeter named Matt. And evidently there's a tournament, the SEC tournament, and there were rounds just being pushed back via rain over and over again, I guess more than once. And these North Haven and Amity baseball teams were sick of not being able to play.

They had a quarterfinal matchup. And so what they did is they played rock, paper, scissors instead of baseball to settle this quarterfinal matchup. They gathered around home plate. There's a great picture of the entire teams just huddled around home plate and they played rock, paper, scissors. It took 11 rounds to settle and the Indians beat the Spartans 5-4. I don't even know which one is which, but there were two draws, I guess,

where two players picked the same thing. So it was 5-4 in 11 rounds. And I don't believe this is an official result. It's not officially sanctioned, but there was a game story about it at gametimeconnecticut.com that treats it as if it was an actual matchup and has like a box score or a play log at the end, I guess, where it chronicles what each player picked in each round. And final round was a paper versus scissors, and that was that.

And I just wonder whether this would give Rob Manfred any ideas about possibly settling extra inning games and whether this is actually any worse than having the extra runner start at second base in the 10th inning. So who got credit for the win? I don't know that the win was—well, let's see. for the win i don't know that the win was well let's see yeah okay it says uh winning pitcher luca lawrence losing pitcher peter spodnik i believe that spodnik was the one who went with paper and lawrence was the one who went with scissors in the final round so i hadn't seen this tweet yet but did you see uh there was a clip from recently there was a college game? I don't know who was playing. I don't care.

But it was pouring. So the teams were in a rain delay. And, you know, you've seen antics that college teams like to do on video when there's a rain delay. They just go out and sometimes they'll do synchronized dances or they'll, like, mock fight or something. So somebody went out and, like, mock hit a long fly ball, I guess. And then he started rounding the bases and his team was cheering him on from the dugout and he's going for what looked like an inside the park home run it's pouring rain this whole time and so he's rounding third

base his team spills out of the dugout they surround home plate and then as he touches home plate the umpire comes out of the other dugout and then calls him out and the team all argues with him and i wonder because the umpire comes out out of nowhere and makes calls him out and the team all argues with him and i wonder because the umpire comes out out of nowhere and makes the out signal for the guy trying to score the inside the park home run and then the teammates all turn and immediately start to argue with the umpire again all for fun but it makes me wonder was this coordinated because i feel like if it was coordinated the umpire would have been out there the whole time. So otherwise, just a really impressive display of improv comedy.

So I appreciated that one. Yeah, and speaking of comedy, one more thing I wanted to mention was the Michael Taylor walk-off face. I assume you saw the Michael Taylor walk-off face. Saw the walk-off face. Blank expression. Michael Taylor won a game on Tuesday with a walk-off hit off the wall, and the cameras found him at second base, and he was just staring completely impassively out at the outfield.

He didn't seem to think there was anything odd about this. A reporter asked him, and he said he thought it was a great face, and he said that he's had a tough time recently. I guess he means baseball wise. And so he was maybe not in the mood to celebrate, even though this was the classic celebratory situation. But he was then mobbed by the team and you can't see his face. He's kind of doubled over. So I don't know if he was still unsmiling in that moment or whether he did finally break into a smile but even after that walk-off he is batting 190 with a 254 on base so i guess that's why michael taylor's not smiling but

it's uh it seems like the situation where you might want to crack a smile at long last that's well here's that's your moment yeah i don't i don't know why anybody smiles when they hit a walk-off because you see what happens to the player who hits the walk-off. The teammates all come and beat the crap out of him. They throw garbage and sticky nonsense all over his skin, and then they just kick him and punch him and tear his clothes off. It seems like you would much rather be the guy who scores the run than drives the run in because that guy just gets pummeled.

I would love to see the performance of players who hit walk-offs the next day because they're probably sore and covered in bruises. like i would love to see the performance of players who hit walk-offs the next day because they're probably sore and covered in bruises just seems like this is things are getting out of hand you know the teams of i don't know if teams are still that they like there was a little bit of a pause after the kendry's morales injury so many years ago where the angels and other teams didn't quite mob the player who scores but i mean that mean, it's over. It's done. Teams now, it's not just that they, like, try to jump with the guy who hits the walk-off head in a circle and it's all celebratory. They just actively pummel the guy.

They beat him up. It's like they're trying to injure him. So I found a headline here. This is unrelated. I was looking at the Tigers coaching staff, and then I saw a side headline. So I clicked on Tigers news. Here's the top headline. Boyd exits with injury in Tigers' fifth straight loss. Okay, I saw a side headline. So I clicked on Tigers news. Here's the top headline. Boyd exits with injury and Tigers fifth straight loss.

Okay, nothing there. Second headline. Clickable article. There's a whole article about this. Garden hire. This is all a quote. Garden hire wants outfielders to stay alert. I thought that was going to be about his ringtone, but it's even less consequential.

What? Alternative? How hard is it to manage a rebuilding baseball team that this is the fundamental that you have to go over? Yeah, and to cover a rebuilding baseball team, that's what you have to write about. Oh, man. The ringtone story was right there for you, whoever wrote that story. Wait. Subheadline.

Okay. Top headline. Garden hire wants outfielders to stay alert. Subheadline. Candelario, open parentheses, left wrist tendonitis, close parentheses, headed on rehab assignment. What? Was that related? Did he fall asleep and hurt himself when he fell or something

and so now he's not even an outfielder i guess it's just packaging together whatever you got ron garden hire didn't have to give leonis martin any lecture about the hazards of letting his guard down after catching a fly ball with a runner on third base monday i see where this is going He's taking a lot of crap in the clubhouse. I can tell you that right now, Gardenhier said, but he embarrassed himself, so that should be enough, wouldn't you think? He embarrassed himself. He knows he got abused there, and it's all about dropping your hands.

Gardenhier credited Eddie Rosario for a, quote, great base running play to hesitate on Robbie Grossman's fly ball since Martin dropped his guard in a break for home, forcing Martin into a hurried, inaccurate throw for an insurance run in the eighth inning of Monday's 4-2 loss to the Twins. Interesting. So, on the one hand, Gardenhier thinks Leonis Martin should be more alert, but on the other hand, good deke by Eddie Rosario to not go and then go.

Because, of course, the one thing that Leonis Martin has always had going for him is he has a really strong arm. A really good thrower. So Eddie Rosario didn't go. Let Martin see that he's not going. And then he went. I don't want to analyze a Twins-Tigers game any more than I'm already doing. But this is, the headline here is more interesting than the actual article.

This turns out to be an actual thing. Whatever it is will make'll make Rod Garden-Harris stronger. So before we answer some emails, do you want to tell me anything about this Colin Moran home run that you're about to write about after we finish this podcast? Well, that'll be the stat blast. So should I just do that?

Ah, sure. Go ahead. Stat blast early. They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to DASTA+. Taste of lost. So a few weeks ago, maybe one week ago,

people were tweeting at me asking about the relevance of a Wilson Contreras single because the pitch was really high. And people were like, is this the highest? Whatever. And so I went looking, and it was a high pitch that Wilson Contreras hit for a single and at least the highest of the season. So I can, using Baseball Savant, I'm going to go over the highest pitches hit for base hits of the season and then the highest pitches hit for home runs. So looking at Baseball Savant, there are two ways that you can measure pitch height there is raw pitch height expressed in feet and baseball savant also has something that's called relative pitch height which i understand to be relative to probably the middle of the strike zone so this would be sort of adjusted for player height which would be

which is useful i think you and i both agree a high pitch of jose altubi is not a high pitch necessarily to aaron judge okay so based on raw pitch height, here are the five highest pitches hit this season for a hit. Matt Duffy, 4.22 feet off the ground. He hit a single. Nomar Mazzara hit a single, 4.42 feet off the ground. Colin Moran hit a home run, 4.45 feet off the ground. Wilson Contreras hit a single, 4.52 feet off the ground. Wilson Contreras hit a single 4.52 feet off the ground, and Max Kepler hit a single

15.69 feet off the ground. This is either a data glitch or the most improbable baseball event that ever has happened. Looking at relative pitch height, Scooter Jeanette

hit a single on a pitch that was 1.79 feet above the middle of his strike zone. Colin Moran hit his home run 1.86 feet higher than the middle. Wilson Contreras' single, 2.04 feet higher. No Marmo Zara's single, 2.05 feet higher. Max Kepler's baby data glitch, 12.52 feet higher than the middle of his strike zone. Got to find that video. Okay, so that's all hits. And you might have noticed that we're looking at four singles,

really three singles, and a home run. So let's look at just home runs because, of course, people care more about home runs than singles. Singles are stupid. Nobody wants singles anymore. We want home runs. Ryan Braun is the fifth highest home run of the season, 3.69 feet off the ground.

Eh, nobody cares. That's like the middle of judges' strike zone. Ioannis Cespedes, 3.82 feet off the ground. Jesus Aguilar, 3.83. Jose Osuna, 3.86. Colin Moran, 4.45. And looking at relative pitch height, it's the same idea. Colin Moran, 1.86 feet above the middle of his strike zone. Second place is a Brian Dozier home

run that's like 1.5 feet above the middle of his zone. So it's Colin Moran by a mile. Now Colin Moran is six foot four. And last season, Mark Trumbo actually hit a higher pitch for a home run. According to Gary Thorne, he tomahawked it, which is true. But I was looking at the video. And in the video where Mark Trumbo hits his home home run he's basically standing straight up and his hands are like at his chest and he's just holding the bat perfectly level just like a perfectly level swing and trumbo hits the ball and you think that didn't seem so weird wait a second that that pitch was literally at the letters colin moran in the video clip his hands are like at the level of his face. They're in front of his mouth, basically. So not only did he go up and get the ball, but his bat was at a steep angle

where the bat head was still below his hands, which seems like it's impossible. But Colin Moran, anyway, hit a really, really high pitch for a home run. I'll write an article that basically puts a thousand words around this for some reason. And one of the interesting takeaways here, not only has Colin Moran been a good player, it's been lost in the mix because while the Pirates have a good Colin Moran,

they don't have what Garrett Cole has become. So at least as long as Cole is pitching like this, it's kind of hard to justify what the Pirates got there. But anyway, Colin Moran seemed to turn it around last year in the minor leagues because he he was kind of a swing changer he became a fly ball hitter dramatic uh he made a dramatic change to unlock some power in his profile and usually when you see a guy who starts to hit a lot more fly balls you think okay he changed his swing so now he's like elevating low sinkers and he's going to be exploitable up in the zone this is like the usual this is common this is what we see the people who have steep bat angles then can't catch up to high fastballs colin moran hit a very high fastball from matt harvey out of the zone he's hit some high pitches for extra base hits this season already even before this home

run colin moran apparently not a steep bat path guy so much as a guy who just now selects pitches up in the zone so taking this analytical there are two ways to hit more fly balls you can either change your swing with an uppercut or you can just only swing at pitches that can be hit for fly balls because of course fly balls come off high pitches more than they come off low pitches. So this has turned into something that's actually serious about Colin Moran. But just to step back, Colin Moran, 4.45 feet off the ground. How do you feel? You're Matt Harvey. You're out there.

You throw a fastball. It's an 0-2 count, by the way. 0-2 count. Matt Harvey's already worked to get ahead of Colin Moran. There's an 0-2 fastball, 4.5 feet off the ground at 95 miles per hour. You look at that and you think, what a perfect execution of a strikeout pitch by Matt Harvey. What could possibly go wrong? Dinger.

Four bases for Colin Moran. That sucks. Pitching is hard. Yeah. That was the only run that Harvey gave up, though, right? So he had other reasons to be happy. Yeah, he did win. I think so.

Yeah, he was pretty good. I believe Matt Harvey the he's only made three starts with the reds but in those three starts he's got two walks and 12 strikeouts and 14 innings only allowed four runs matt harvey turning it around which means he'll be traded very soon yes that fred's didn't even bother to try to hide that like dick williams said something about basically how he is just a collection of ones and zeros and value that the Reds can cash in, hopefully, which, of course, was always going to be the case. But he didn't even make a pretense of having Harvey long term. So I just saw a post that the Braves put on Facebook about the NL hits leaders, 64 hits, Nick Marcakis, Freddie Freeman, 58 hits,

Ozzie Albies, also 58 hits. And it says, these guys sure would look good in all-star uniforms. Braves are trying to ruin the Marcakis fun fact. And so is Marcakis. I'm very worried about this fun fact. I was looking over recent weeks, seeing like, surely Nick Marcakis has slowed down. You know, like numbers are still inflated from the hot early starts like Didi Gregorius

it turns out your interview was poorly timed because now he's terrible but Nick Marcakis no he has not slowed down he has remained outstanding Nick Marcakis will be an all-star this season yeah so follow up that we got about our Spencer question from last

week about hearing strikes and balls so we got a few follow-up that we got about our Spencer question from last week about hearing strikes and balls. So we got a few follow-ups to this, but two corroborating pieces of evidence here. One from former podcast guest Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. He says, Your discussion about the sound a pitch makes as it enters a catcher's glove reminded me of these articles by John Lott of The Athletic from this spring. Based on what he reported in a couple really cool pieces, your hypothesis seems to be spot on. And these were pieces where Lott talked to Russell Martin and Luke Maley about catching, and here is the passage that Ben brought to my attention, quoting, when you get to that moment

where you need a certain pitch and it's close, that's the one you stick, I think this is Martin Quoting, And then Lott says, And then Lott says, all clean and it's super close and it pops, it's almost like it triggers them to ring the guy up. Whereas if you don't catch it cleanly or it makes a muffled sound, then they don't say anything. And to get that persuasive pop, the catcher has to position his glove just so. Oh, you need to catch it perfectly, Martin said. For the ball to pop in your glove, it needs to be caught perfectly in that sweet spot right below the pocket. You catch it there, you get that pop. At that point, Maylee sat down at his locker and tuned into the conversation. Do you agree, Luke? Martin asked. No doubt, Maylee replied. So piece of evidence there that not only is there a difference in sound,

but umpires might actually use that sound to make a decision, which was even further than we were willing to go when we answered this question. And then Charles also emailed in to say, Hi, Ben and Jeff. Hearing a listener claim that he can tell whether a pitch is a ball or a strike reminded me of a story about Nolan Ryan. After doing some research, I found two about Ryan and one about Sandy Koufax. In Tales from the Toronto Blue Jays Dugout, a collection of the greatest Blue Jays stories ever told,

I don't know why all of these are Blue Jays related, it mentions a story of Kenny Kaiser calling a Nolan Ryan fastball a strike. When the batter, Ernie Witt, called him out by saying there's no way Kaiser saw the pitch, he responded, it sounded like a strike. Two similar stories involving Nolan Ryan and Koufax occurred where the batter, Ken Fraling, in the case of Ryan,

and Joey Amalfitano, in the case of Koufax, took a pitch and turned to the umpire saying that it sounded like a ball to them. In both stories, the umpire responded, well, it sounded like a strike to me. And I've heard that kind of story before about umpires saying it sounded like a strike. And I've always just taken it to be kind of a joke just about how unseeable the pitch was. And I didn't really take it seriously as the sound being a good indicator. But that anecdote from Martin and Mailey kind of makes me think maybe there really is something to this and maybe it comes through the mic and Spencer can hear it from his home.

How did it take us this long to come up with, not even come up with, but just to have this even occur to us via somebody else's suggestion? I mean, we've been thinking about pitch framing and catching for years. You were writing about framing in like 2010 or 2011 or something, and yet it never even occurred to me to think about the sound. But it makes so much sense now, except for one part, where umpires have been reluctant to call, I think for a while, they've been more reluctant to call high pitches strikes as opposed to low pitches.

The zone has gotten lower and lower over the years, and the upper boundary has been more flimsy. But you'd think that at the upper boundary you'd be getting a lot of high fastballs, which would be relatively easy to catch in that poppy way, right? Whereas with the low fastballsballs you're mixing in some fastballs change-ups two seamers a lot of movement i don't know if you get the same pop with your glove because if you're if you're catching a pitch down there you're catching it probably backhand where if you if you're catching a pitch at the top of the zone it seems like that would

be the easiest to just get right where you want it in the glove so i don't know seems like it would be easier to pop a pitch that's higher than lower but obviously i'm not russell martin or luke mailey and uh for the record i've never i never knew if it was luke mailey or luke male because i've never had reason to say that or even listen to that out loud so thank you for enlightening me you're welcome so john says as of this moment kyle schwarberber sits atop the Fangrass leaderboard for ultimate zone rating per 150 games among all qualified outfielders. Is there any reason to think there's anything here? Or should we just say this is UZR weirdness and ignore it completely?

And I will add to this question that Kyle Schwarber no longer sits atop the Fangrass leaderboard. He is now third on that leaderboard, which reminds us that it's a small sample, but he is third with a two defensive runs saved and a 3.2 UZR. He is negative one according to stat casts out above average, but last year he was negative eight, and his sprint speed maybe also relevant is 27.3 feet per second this year up from 26.9 last year and 24.9 the year before although in 2015 it was 27.2 which is basically where it is now yeah so i was looking at this and on the one hand i think schwarber is one of those guys who makes enough clumsy plays that you look at those and you think that he's bad but you go into

you know he'll drop a ball or he'll like fumble a ball by the fence and then you think oh there's all clumsy kyle schwarber out there looking like he's playing out of position and i i really i don't think he's a great defensive corner outfielder but here's the thing he was a catcher he has a strong arm and it's the arm that is currently propping up his defense by defensive run saved by ucr he's not an above average range runner out maker stack cast agrees he's like right there around average a little bit below that's what his history has said however this season by defensive run saved saved his arm has been worth three runs according to ucr his arm has been worth 2.4 runs he's got a strong arm he's always had a strong arm that's why he was

a catcher and when you have a strong arm in the outfield it can make you a lot better because you can throw people out Schwerber so far he has only no he's got three assists three assists and 33 starts in left field that's uh it's pretty good right that puts him on pace for a lot more than three assists over the course of a season so i don't know i haven't looked at this closely i don't know if this is people are running on schwarber more than they should or if schwarber is just doing a great job of throwing out runners even though they're not acting aggressively but when you have a strong arm it can make up for a lack of range and when you have a weak arm it can negate good range that is uh that's why defense is about more than one thing yeah all right and

question from tim so this is a lexicon question we haven't answered one of these in a while tim wants to know about the phrase three up three down and he says for three up three down does it still count if the pitcher induces a double play? For example, fly out single double play. Only three batters faced, but not in the spirit of the phrase in my opinion. You have an opinion? No, I'm fine with it. Three up, three down.

That, hmm. It's tough. Initially, I was very much with him, and I thought the same thing, that it has to I mean, one two three inning is a similar phrase that also sounds like it's retired in order which is another phrase that kind of means the same thing and I'm having the same issue here so I would you can definitely say that he faced the minimum right there's There's no argument about that. So that's something you could say if you want to have no ambiguity. But with all these others, three up, three down, one, two, three,

retired in order, I would take them to mean generally that no one got on base. But in a way, it should apply to this situation that Tim is describing because it's still one, two, three, it's still in order. So, you know, like it, I guess, historically, I would say that it probably means that no one gets on base, but maybe it shouldn't. I don't know. The Dixon Baseball Dictionary says that this is said of an inning in which the three batters are retired in order, but that doesn't really help because in this hypothetical, they are still retired in order, just not exactly in the way that one would usually mean. Okay, so face the minimum.

We know that. That's fine. I think a 1-2-3 inning, for me, I think that means one out, two outs, three outs. I think that means you go down in order. I think retired in order also means 1-2-3 inning. However, three up, three down, I think that specifically leaves room for a double or even triple play because just by the words

three up yes three down correct three people made outs right now yeah no i'm comfortable with that so i think three up three down leaves that and face the minimum leaves room for a non three consecutive outs inning but one two three retarded retarded in order, I think that should require three outs in a row. Yeah, I think so too. It's kind of the same as the struck out the side debate. We've had that before, right? Like struck out the side, doesn't matter if guys got on base, struck out the side in order, that means that you just had three consecutive strikeouts and that was it.

So there is some nuance to these, and I think I agree with you that three up, three down, if you use that to mean this situation Tim is describing, I don't think I'd throw a linguistic red flag on you there. But you definitely might mislead people who see it a different way. So if you want to be absolutely clear, face the minimum, probably the safest way to go here. All right. Question from Lendl or possibly Lendell. He says, watching the Angels game and Otani hit his sixth home run of the season, he's allowed four home runs as a pitcher.

Is that still accurate or did he allow another one because he gave up one to what Josh Field? That's Johnny Field. Oh, Johnny Field. Yeah, Johnny Field. Sorry. Even funnier, I think. Sounds like something John Boyce made up. Best name in that genre since Josh Outman or Bob Walk or Ron Batter classics.

So does he have four? Five home runs allowed. Okay, so he's hit six and he's allowed five. Lindell or Lendell says, Got me wondering if he's more likely to hit or allow more home runs. I was thinking he would allow more home runs since it seems more common for pitchers to allow multiple home runs in a game than for someone to hit multiple home runs. Then again, Otani is an extreme outlier. Wondering what you guys think.

Okay, let me load up a different page than the one I'm looking at. So off the top of my head, I like it's he's likely to allow more however i don't base that on anything that's okay so right now his home runs per fly ball allowed as a pitcher is 13.5 that's going to be roughly where the average is as a hitter his home runs per fly ball is 31.6 okay he's going to allow more as a pitcher that That's where this is going to come, unless he gets injured. So if he gets injured and he can't pitch, obviously that's going to affect things. But I think that as a hitter, I mean, right now he's got five doubles,

one triple, six home runs. I think he's going to end up hitting home runs at a lower pace. I don't think he's going to keep his isolated slugging around 300. Whereas as a pitcher, I think he's going to keep his isolated slugging around 300 whereas as a pitcher i think he will have just enough splitters to kind of hang up there enough curveball sliders that back up in the zone he's going to get a lot of strikeouts but i don't think his strikeout rate is likely to go up it's already so good i think he'll allow like three more home runs as a pitcher then he'll hit yeah it could change i guess if he starts more often, if he just gets more plate appearances, if they stop giving him days off on either side of his starts.

But then again, I guess they might also just have him pitch more frequently, too. So that's probably just as likely. I think I am with you there, although I'm rooting for the opposite. All right. Tim says, different Tim, I believe. I'm wondering how frequently a starting pitcher type could pitch a one inning appearance to start a game instead of a reliever like sergio romo who would be worn out by throwing every game i'm wondering if a david price type would succeed

in that role so could you have a regular starting pitcher be an opener almost all the time i don't think so but you could do it a lot i think that you could probably have him go honestly maybe two out of every three uh it kind of depends because you even though you like let's take david price or maybe someone who's healthier so let's say chris sale and if you have chris sale throw one inning to open is he doing it like a starter or is he doing it like a reliever where he's just throwing every single everything that he's got with maximum energy because you know as a starter this is the difference the starters have to pace themselves so if he's going out there and he's just airing it out for 15 or 20 pitches or whatever then i think he's likely to get a little more tired but

if he still just throws chris sale pitches then i think that he uh he'd be fine i think that you could go back to back days probably it would take some getting used. I think that you could go back-to-back days probably. It would take some getting used to, but I think you could do it. Now, after a while, that starter buildup will start to deteriorate because you're just not getting that kind of exposure. But this does leave open the possibility of pitchers learning to throw specifically in a role like this one. But then I guess that's not really that meaningfully different

from just being a reliever, right? Relievers usually don't make more than 70 or 75 appearances in a season. So maybe 100 max, but that would take a freak. It's a different kind of durability. I mean, innings-wise, yes, a starter could handle that, but starters are even less conditioned to pitch on back-to-back or back-to-back-to-back days than a reliever is. Relievers actually do that sometimes, although increasingly rarely, but I don't know that it would be a seamless transition. I mean, you'd have the arm strength, I guess, to pitch more innings if you have been a starter, but it's just not a usage pattern that a starter has had or really that anyone has had.

So it's kind of hard to project, and as you say, whatever endurance that you've built up would go away. So I'm not sure. It seems like the sort of thing that would probably increase the odds of someone getting hurt, but there isn't really data that we can point to. I mean, someone like Josh Hader, who has a starter background, he is pitching more innings currently than any reliever has for quite some time. But, you know, that could be because of his starter background. But even he, he's going like two innings in almost every appearance at this point, but he's getting a couple days off after each one usually. So I don't know that there's anyone, A, that you would really want to do this with or B, that could, but I guess a starter might be better able to do it than Sergio Romo. So last year, the two leaders in games were Peter Moylan and Brian Shaw.

They tied with 79 appearances. And over the past 10 years, the leader is Pedro Feliciano. In 2010, he threw 92 games for the Mets. The year before that, he threw 88. The year before that, 86. I can't believe his career didn't last longer. So Pedro Feliciano, 92 appearances

being sort of the recent baseball baseball high and now there must have been games where Feliciano warmed up and didn't pitch because that's just one of the things that you have as a reliever that you wouldn't have to worry about as the opener as the opener you only warm up when you're going to pitch you know that so I think you could get up to 100 I don't know how often guys get up and then sit back down i don't know anyone who tracks that it would be great to have that information that's something that anecdotally i think managers are increasingly aware of they don't want to do that to their relievers because it is work so yeah i i don't know if feliciano got up eight times and then sat back down but that would have taken him

to 100 if he pitched in every game so 90 for sure 100, 100 maybe. 162, no. Tim Wayfield, yes. All right. Alex, Patreon supporter, says, how much do you think today's game would change if MLB re-legalized the fair foul hit? So I will just say what the fair foul hit is for people who weren't watching baseball

in the late 19th century. I'm quoting here from the baseball reference bullpen page for fair foul hit. It says, in the early days of baseball, it was legitimate to hit a squib that hit fair territory at first and then rolled foul. That, called a fair foul hit, counted as a hit. Ross Barnes specialized in it until the league changed the rules following the 1876 season and made it a foul ball. So Alex wants to know how much baseball would change if we brought this back. He says, would speedy light hitters such as Billy Hamilton turn into superstars? Would the

launch angle revolution be trashed in favor of a ground chopping strategy? Would teams be less incentivized to use defensive shifts as liberally as they are today? And could this potentially help reverse any of the recent trends toward more three true outcomes style baseball? Specialized in it? How do you specialize? Okay. That's what I was going to say. This sounds really hard to do.

There's one specific thing that this would change and people would bunt a lot more. I think people are comfortable bunting. The worst bunters in baseball can get the bat on the ball but it's hard to get to bunt the ball fair to the area that you want especially when the ball is moving all over the place however it would not be nearly so hard to bunt the ball fair first and then have it roll foul how many times you see a bunt that's just rolling down the third baseline and then the defenders don't pick it up and then it rolls foul true you would see a lot more bunting so shifts would look very different

you would have that shortstop or third baseman playing over toward the bag to cover for the bunt because they would just be more common i think that would be the only real implication because generally speaking you don't there would be some more doubles and triples down the line or whatever but there's not that many of those uh bunting, I think, would be the clearest impact. Yeah. I mean, pitchers were throwing underhand when Russ Barnes was doing this, so it was probably a little easier to do then than it would be today. So I don't know how many people you'd see specializing in this.

That sounds like not a winning strategy. Maybe Joey Gallo would finally bunt. Yeah. Just once. Well, speaking of that, this question is about that sort of. Anthony says, I was wondering if you think teams should or will encourage their prospects to bunt to the opposite field. Seems safe to assume a guy like Joey Gallo wouldn't have bunted much in A-ball and probably saw more conservative defensive positioning in the minors, so asking him to learn how to bunt against a guy

like Charlie Morton would be unfair. But what if teams mandate a quota for their best prospects to bunt? Nothing extreme, but something like once a week you have to bunt against a guy throwing 95, even if they're not shifting you. It might be ugly for the player's ego and could hurt the minor league team, but the minors are about player development first and foremost. Would this be worth doing so that guys feel more comfortable bunting against extreme shifts in the future yes yeah i guess so i mean bunting has always been kind of a very rote part of batting practice so after you actually do the things that you want to do in batting practice you like lay a couple down and it's just kind of you know obligatory and no one puts that

much care into it unless that's actually something they do do in games but actually mandating that it happened in game i mean players wouldn't like that i guess it's like when a pitcher gets his best pitch taken away from him in single a or something because the team wants him to work on the pitches that are not as good it can be frustrating i'm sure but sure it wouldn't hurt it would possibly help yeah i mean it's not sometimes you'll see in the minor leagues that the team asks the pitcher like all right we want you to throw 40 change-ups and that's like the quota that he has to hit and that's got to be difficult but of course the minor leagues are all about player development so it's not like you would be asking someone to go out like bunt once every

single game that's too much bunting because you do need the guy to get experience hitting as well but if you're just like over the season we want you to attempt 50 bunts that's doable and you're not sacrificing that much so yeah teams should do it i don't know who has measurements of minor league bunting attempts so i don't know who's actually trying this maybe there is a team maybe you and i will race to write an article about the team that is getting their players to try to bunt, assuming that team exists. But in reality, that team probably does not exist. All right.

Question from Mike. This was posted on Reddit the other day. In 2005, Indians closer Bob Wickman intentionally balked in an effort to prevent the runner on second from stealing his signs and location. Cleveland was up two in the effort to prevent the runner on second from stealing his signs and location. Cleveland was up two in the ninth with only a runner on second. Wickman's logic was that the runner was inconsequential, that the batter mattered more. We already have intentional walks and intentionally dropping a pop-up for a favorable force or double play. Are there any other unorthodox intentional baseball moves that could be practical?

I am reading an account of this game from the News Herald, and it says the intentional balk. Wickman says, I did it on purpose. If he, Michael Kadir, is on third base, he can't call pitches. I'm not saying he was tipping my pitches, but with a two-run lead, it didn't matter if I balked and moved him to third where he couldn't do it. So Wickman, pitching out of the stretch, lifted his left leg, froze, then put it back down. Stopping a delivery like that is one of the ways a pitcher can balk.

As I did it, I'm thinking to myself, there it is, dude, call it, said Wickman, referring to home plate umpire Rick Reed. Making it even more noteworthy was the fact that it was the first bach of Wickman's major league career so one of only two yeah so he had the idea for this intentional bach I guess earlier in the season during a blown save Darren Erstad was on second and there was a case where he thought that the location might have been signaled to Garrett Anderson. And he says, I said to myself that if that situation ever came up again, I might balk the guy to third to get him off second. So it actually happened. I don't know whether this is the only time it has happened,

but Bob Wickman, the intentional balk. So we have that. We have the intentional drop of a pop-up. Is there any other intentionally doing a bad thing because it might be beneficial i mean well so there's there's the one about dropping a fly ball in foul territory where it could be a sack fly right we'll talk about that every so often that's still that's always a case-by-case basis but this is i mean let's see there's the what was it there was the old story about was it was it greg maddox who i'm not going to remember these anecdotes well at all.

So hopefully I trigger you and your incredible memory to then pick up where I'm leaving off. Greg Maddox telegraphing sequences so that he could use them later. Or there have been anecdotes of old hitters in the past intentionally, at least they say, intentionally swinging through hittable pitches so they get it again. David Ortiz supposedly did that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like just doing it in low leverage situations,

but in such a way that it leaves an impression. Now these things are always hard to actually track and see if they work or make any sense. They're usually explanations given after the fact. But I mean, when you're in a low leverage situation, you can kind of get away with a lot because the situation really doesn't matter.

Or like Wickman balking the guy to third. Who knows if that did anything, you can kind of get away with a lot because the situation really doesn't matter or like wickman balking the guy to third who knows if that did anything but i like it because you know it's a how often would you have a pitcher out there being like i have to protect my era but you're bob wickman you've never really cared about your area that much you're just like i'll give up a run if i have to but that run doesn't matter it is ultimately about winning the game that's clever i like that thinking yeah i just want to spend the next five minutes thinking about bob wickman uh yeah he was a fun guy the indians always had those closers who were not good but they were closers anyway i mean wickman was good sometimes but like joe borowski was the classic closer who

was not actually good and had that season. What was that one season where he had like five plus ERA and just a bunch of saves because they didn't care? And who is the, gosh, who was the Pirates closer that one year? He was the all-star. Remember, I've finally forgotten his name. It took me about 10 years. Sean Chacon? I don't think it was Sean Chacon.

It was, we're going to come to this. Joe Burewski, I have it up here. 2007, that was actually his second to last year in the majors. 5.07 ERA. That's an 89 ERA plus. 45 saves led the American League with 45 saves and a five plus ERA. That is excellent. And then the next year, he still had six saves, but he had a 7.56 ERA. And that was too much even for Cleveland. And that was the end of his career.

I am still here searching for one of the most laughable All-Stars that ever has been named. And I don't know, maybe it was Matt Capps. I mean, Matt Capps, I can at least tell you that in, let's see, All-Star 2010. No, it wasn't Matt wasn't matt caps but whatever in 2009 matt caps had 27 saves and a 580 yeah right maybe it was sean jacone but i'm pretty sure it wasn't no i'm just gonna no this is this is dissatisfying well i was thinking of sean jacone a because he was a pirate briefly but also because he had the classic one of these seasons, 2004 with the Rockies, 35 saves, 7.11 ERA. Even in Coors Field, that is a 70 ERA plus.

And somehow 35 saves. He had 7.4 strikeouts per nine and 7.4 walks per nine. 7.4 strikeouts per nine and 7.4 walks per nine we are uh i think coming up or just past the 10 year anniversary of sean chacon beating up ed wade by the way so celebrate that however you want but i had completely forgotten about that one yeah uh okay this is this is now frustrating me. I am. Mike Williams. It was Mike Williams. Okay. Okay. So I'm sure many podcasts, this is going further back in history than I thought.

Mike Williams was an all-star in 2002, saved 46 games for the Pirates, hit a 2-9-3 ERA. However, the next year also an all-star for the Pirates. He had 28 saves and a 6-1-4 ERA. And at the all-star break, which is more important, of course, Mike Williams that season had an ERA of 6.44 with more walks than strikeouts. Tyler Chatwood would be proud. I'm trying to find now Bob Wickman's second career buck because i would like to know if it happened under similar circumstances so while you say whatever's coming up next i'm going to find this buck okay well stacy says i'm sure there have been emails about jordan hicks or other very hard throwers being dangerous before but it seems like in hicks's case it's definitely

warranted as evidenced over the weekend by his 105 or 106 mile per hour fastball that was extremely out of the zone, how wild or how hard does a player have to be to be considered legitimately dangerous to hitters? Could the league do something about him and say, nah, he can't pitch, find something else? Would someone that consistently wild ever actually get a shot at pitching in professional baseball to begin with, even if he throws 108? If guys can Oh, dear. Yeah. I'm blanking on the name. It wasn't Nick Neugebauer, but there was some Brewerers prospect not too long ago who walked the world in the minors.

He could just never find the strike zone, but he also threw really hard. There have been a few of these cases over the years. Yeah, it's like the Steve Dalkowski kind of case. Someone who is so wild he throws to the backstop and, you know, that intimidates hitters. It's like the real life Rick Vaughn. So, yeah, I mean, we are at a point now, Rob Maines wrote something about this for Baseball Perspectives last year, I think, about how this could potentially be pretty dangerous because hit-by-pitch rates are up and speeds are up as well. And when you combine those two things, now, maybe hit-by-pitch rates are up partially because pitchers are throwing fewer fastballs and these are guys getting hit in the foot, which is not quite as dangerous except for Dee Gordon, I guess.

But it's maybe something to be concerned about given that it's harder to get out of the way of a 105-mile-per-hour fastball than it is with a 95-mile-per-hour fastball, I suppose. But I don't know that anyone is really at the point where you would just ban them from baseball because they're too dangerous. I mean, potentially you could get to that point, I guess, but you'd have to have an extremely high hit by pitch rate. I think you'd have to have a demonstrated history of that. And Jordan Hicks, well, he's wild. He's hit three guys this year in 22 innings. His minor league numbers last year in 105 innings across multiple levels, he hit 15 guys. That's a lot of guys. And the previous year, 60 innings, seven guys. So I mean, you know, there's a higher risk for him than for most people and when he hits people it's with harder pitches but i don't think he's at the point where you ban him from baseball because he's too dangerous yeah you don't even when you have somebody who

is wild you don't usually see that many fastballs that end up so wild that you hit a guy in the head obviously it does happen but it takes a lot for a fastball to be left that far up and that far inside. Oftentimes, the wildest pitchers will just hit you in the back or the side or something. So now there would be a line, like if you have a guy who never throws a strike, but he throws the ball 150 miles per hour, then, I mean, first of all, that guy wouldn't get a job, at least not for very long.

I guess he probably would get a job, but in the low minus where you can sacrifice the bodies because you don't care about them very much yeah they're low cost or something yeah yeah right or you just have him throwing icbms during missile tests or something but i i don't know there's been talk off and on about pitchers needing better protection which they do need better protection out there on the mound because they're facing balls coming back at them even harder than the balls that are leaving their hands and you have this insufficient hat protection but i don't know how good helmet technology is in baseball players do still get concussions it's good and you see more of the uh more of the like the side yeah panels i forgot yeah c-flap yeah C-flap, yeah, that's what it's called. You see more of that.

I think most of the Mariners wear them now, and that's only going to increase safety, even though some players say that they can't pick up the pitches quite as well, which makes it therefore counterintuitively more dangerous, if that's true. But yeah, it's just going to be one of those reckonings eventually if baseball players keep throwing harder and harder.

But hopefully we're approaching a physical maximum where i don't know if it's possible to throw harder than chapman and hicks it means something that nobody else does i found the buck in 2007 june 15th bob wickman had a one run lead dangerous uh against the braves or was he on the braves well look i don't care who he was pitching for at that point because that's not what matters. He was for the Braves facing the Indians, turned it around. So Ryan Garko struck out, then Josh Barfield singled, and then Wickman balked Barfield to second.

So that was Bob Wickman's only other block, putting I in position to relay signals with a one-run lead. Now, greatest eyes more struck out. David DeLucci walked in. Then Casey Blake struck out. Wickman nailed down the save, but his only other block did the opposite of his first ever block. All right. Okay, we are

approaching the end here. I've got two more on my sheet. Chris says, ESPN released the 2018 edition of the World Fame 100 athletes, and for the second year in a row, MLB failed to have any baseball players present. It's been talked about at great length how MLB has failed to market its superstars and find better name recognition in the general population, so I will do what all good Effectively Wild listeners would do in this situation

and phrase this as a Shohei Otani question. Do you think that with his international fan base and current performance exceeding expectations that he makes the list in 2019? And I somewhat regretfully clicked on the list so that I could see how they made the list. There is a proprietary formula that involves search score, so basically googling the person, search score, so basically googling the person, endorsement dollars or estimated endorsement dollars, and social media followers, so taking like the highest populated social media account that they have. And I don't know, they put all of this into some sort of formula and they end up with this fame rating. And I guess no baseball player was in the top 100 so can Shohei Otani crack this list

and I don't know how Shohei Otani's social media accounts are doing these days does he have them I don't know uh so that's gonna be a problem for him Shohei Otani's gotta get on Instagram or something if he wants to make this list yeah I. I mean, would Itro have made this list? How far back does this list go? I've never cared about it or seen it even. Yeah. I think this is the third time that they've done it. Okay.

So, no. Itro, prime Itro wouldn't have made this list. But look, the proprietary formula exists. It's probably stupid. Also, I don't care. Also, mostly I i don't care also there's i mostly i just don't care i think i would there's also no nhl players on the list i believe even though there are some very prominent nhl players mostly because not that many people care about hockey worldwide

and not that many people care about baseball worldwide that's just kind of it we there's no real meaningful baseball access into china or ind. Most of Europe doesn't care about baseball. These are big population centers that just don't care. So therefore, if a baseball player were to ever make it, I'm sure it would be somewhere around the bottom of the list with the formula that whatever it is. I don't know what Otani would have to do to make it. Maybe hit a bird. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. He has the Japanese fan base going for him and he is obviously intriguing. He has some kind of crossover

potential even for casual fans, but yeah, I don't know that he's going to crack this. I mean, there are people that are like badminton players on this list and people in sports you wouldn't necessarily think would be on here. But you're right. I mean, baseball is an international sport, but not in many of the most populous countries. So it's tough. And even within this country, I mean, you always hear that refrain about how MLB has failed to market its young stars. And I always hear that.

I rarely hear suggestions for how it should be marketing its young stars. And I mean, maybe there's something to it. I'm sure there's something more they could be doing. But it's also just kind of a tall order because baseball is this regional game at this point. And I don't know, maybe you could blame that on MLB to some extent. But that's the way people watch baseball. That's why the local ratings are really good and the national ratings are not as good compared to other sports. That's

one of the many reasons anyway. So I don't know what you can do to get people who are not interested in a certain player's baseball team to be interested in that player or to get non-baseball fans interested in a baseball player. It's probably more than just a matter of like putting even more commercials and buying more airtime. I mean, I guess that would help, but it's more of an underlying issue, I think, more than a marketing issue. Gambling. Yeah, maybe gambling will do this. Gambling will save the day. Sure. Yeah. All right. And last question. Curtis says, I believe the next market inefficiency to be exploited in the baseball world is the

recognition of the sunk cost fallacy. I'm sure most are aware of it, but I think baseball is more guilty of it than most. The idea is that once you have invested in something, you're more emotionally attached to it and therefore less likely to make a rational decision about its future value. The current example that leads me to this is the Blue Jays' Kendris Morales. He is bad, but he is under contract through the end of next season at $11 million per year. If the Jays were to act rationally, they would release him and promote a younger player to come up and add real value to the team. They are paying his $11 million salary regardless,

so it would be better to add a league minimum or similar salary to that in exchange for a replacement player or above, not to mention the need for a flexible DH spot in the lineup. My question is, do you think that there will come a time when teams more freely release players who are no longer providing value, regardless of contract status? How much better could a team be if the front office could rationally think about the future value of its aging stars? Yeah, so we did just see the Twins drop Phil Hughes. I think he has only 22 million left on his contract. Now he was trying to come back from, I think, a second thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, so that's not good news. So teams know about sunk costs, and I have a hunch that Kendris morales will go away when the blue jays

decide to promote vladimir guerrero jr just seems to make the most sense there will be room i don't think this is on the front office i think this is an ownership problem i think the owners are the ones who are most attached to the money they are the ones paying the money and one of the things i hear over and over is owners hate paying money to players on the disabled list and owners hate paying money to players who aren't on their roster and it kind of makes some sense even if it also doesn't but if you are the blue jays owner the gigantic international corporation rogers communications yeah maybe it's a write-off to them but nevertheless whoever is actually looking at the books is not going to be thrilled by the idea of oh we just cut this guy with like i don't know

18 million dollars left on his contract why did we do that? Is he still good? I would rather get something for this money. And even though front offices can try to explain that to their owners, and I think that increasingly we will see more and more of that. It's just ultimately when it is the people who are paying the money, who don't like to pay the money to players who aren't on the roster, those are also the people who don't know as much about baseball. And so they're just not as informed as the front offices are. So I'm sure that if you are the Blue Jays front office, you probably don't want Kendris Morales on your roster very much longer, even if he does have one of the best ERAs on the team. But ultimately, you have to sell that to the people above you, and that can be more difficult.

ultimately you have to sell that to the people above you and that can be more difficult. Yeah. And it's probably always easier to get rid of the guy if you were not the regime that actually signed or extended him. So that's the case with Phil Hughes, right? I think he was extended. When was that? Was it in 2014 that that happened? I think it was. And so that was obviously before the current twins front office was in place. So you can get rid of a guy like that and it doesn't really reflect poorly on you because you didn't commit all that money to him. That was your predecessor. So that's part of it too. Wealthy teams are making lots of money. So in theory, this should happen more often maybe than it used to. But yeah, I mean, there are still going to be times when it should, but doesn't happen. Imagine being the Twins.

It's 2014. You get Phil Hughes. The Yankees didn't want him anymore. He gives you 210 innings. And he walks 16 batters and he strikes out 186. Then he comes back the next season. You extend him. Five-year contract. What a great trade the Twins made.

This is going to usher in a new era of Twins. No. 16 walks the next year. 94 strikeouts. Half as many strikeouts the next season. And almost double the home runs for the same amount of walks. Just Phil Hughes is a great example of how baseball sucks. example of how baseball sucks and even good decisions can just go horribly wrong for just no i mean of course injuries are a good reason but nothing the twins could have ever done to foresee

what was going to happen to phil hughes they thought they had a breakout they did have a breakout and then his body betrayed him and that sucks baseball is so much about luck and we can never figure it out there's nothing we could anyway this podcast is over yes it is kudos to listener grant by the way who did a custom jersey in the mlb store with vroom vroom on the back to honor our player from uh last week's email show the vroom vroom guy vroom vroom guy is a big hit i don't know whether he bought this jersey or not but i hope so i love that guy. And there was another, I think it was a tweeter who was right that teams would just always intentionally walk this guy because he just can't help himself.

Yes, that's a problem. Alright, well, we will end there because unlike the Vroom Vroom guy, we can eventually stop. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so.

Joseph Garino, Simon Pinchensky, Sandy Cantor, Matt Thompson, and Dylan DeThomas. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group, which now has 7,800 members, at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes or your podcatcher of choice thanks to dylan higgins for his editing assistance and please replenish our mailbag keep your questions and comments for me and jeff coming via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging system provided of course that you are our patreon supporter this is our third episode of the week but we'll be back with one more so we will talk

to you very soon. I want to be big and strong To drive a foster car At the touch of a button I can go anywhere I want to go And drive around my foster car I will settle for nothing less. I will settle for nothing less.