Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1247: The 32-Year-Old Who Only Hit Homers

Episode Date: July 24, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Billy Butler‘s beer league, the Jeurys Familia trade, the red-hot Oakland A’s, Seattle’s extensions for Jerry Dipoto and Scott Servais, the AL wild card race, the Mets’ most recent dysfunction, Khris Davis’s consistency, the FanGraphs trade value series and the long-term prospects of several top teams, the latest […]

And I get pumped every day in the morning I get pumped for dinner time tea I'm dressed in a rag, smell a lot And I have a real good time I'm a genuine example Of a social disease Social disease without service somewhere in the wilderness, I assume. So we didn't get to watch all that much baseball over the weekend, but I do have some things to talk about. The first one I want to talk about doesn't have anything to do with Major League Baseball, so that's fine. We're both equally well prepared to talk about this. On our last episode, we started by discussing Rafael Palmeiro's dominance in the independent leagues. Now I am going to tell you about another more recently retired player who is even more dominant at an even lower level. So recent Effectively Wild

guest Rustin Dodd of The Athletic, he wrote about what Billy Butler is up to these days. Remember Billy Butler, Country Breakfast, DH, just kind of your beer-bellied masher. He is now actually playing in a beer league, basically, and he is mashing, as one would expect. So Rustin wrote this for The Athletic over the weekend, and I will just read here. So Billy Butler most recently was in the majors in 2016, was an above-average hitter for the A's and the Yankees, and that was it. So now he is playing for a local softball team named Farm Grade in the Idaho Falls Parks and Rec Men's League. And the quote from Butler is, obviously, we do well, which sounds like an understatement because Dodd continues, playing games at a local park and against opponents who have not played competitive sports for years,

Butler put his sweet right-handed swing to good use. He crushed dingers at a staggering rate. He led his team in homers, slugging, and we presume pretty much everything else. Like a young Edgar Martinez in Seattle, the hitter he was so often compared to during his years in Kansas City, he carried his team to a place atop the standings. I can hit the ball out of the park every time, Butler said. So there are no actual stats here because, as Rustin notes, the league just doesn't keep stats, or at least officially or in any public way.

So Butler, just last summer his first season out of baseball for a long time he just went to this local softball league and just crushed everyone just a bunch of weekend warriors which is reminiscent of some questions that we have answered in the past about what would happen if mike trout were to play in the pecos league or something this is about as close as you're going to get to that. A recently retired above-average major league hitter playing in the Idaho Falls Parks and Rec Men's League. And it was only two years ago that Billy Butler finished his season

with a 104 WRC+, before that 98, before that 96, before that 117. So very recently, he's been a major league average hitter who can now hit home runs all the time that the article goes on to explain that if a team is what out homering his opponent by five then home runs start counting his outs so then players have to work on their opposite field hitting skills one thing it's a it's a fun article for all the reasons that you already mentioned but one thing that stuck out to me was an Alex Gordon quote. I don't have it right in front of me, but it's something along the lines of, Billy is just a natural hitter, and he also would enjoy a few beers. And so it's fitting that he—

And what I think this is is just like a little allusion. Billy Butler isn't officially retired, but he's retired. And, you know, Alex Gordon doesn't want to throw any old teammate under the bus, but it sure seems like it's saying he's a natural hitter he drinks beer all of the time and he always has yeah billy butler as i recalled not the most popular guy in the clubhouse and there was i don't even remember what it was there was some flare-up when he was with the a's it was about like sponsorship or something and uh i don't even remember who he got in a fight with. Was it Danny Valencia? Danny Valencia. It's right there in the article. Yep.

Man, I have so many useless facts in my brain about baseball here. But yeah, so perhaps not the most popular guy, but probably pretty popular with his teammates in the Idaho Falls Parks and Rec Men's League, I guess. Except it's sort of, I don't know, almost embarrassing, I would think, to have a ringer like this in your league. I mean, this is basically like Simpsons, you know, Springfield power plant level softball team kind of bringing in someone who is way overqualified for the league. bitterness and that he hasn't heard any complaints about his being in the league but maybe that's because people just start talking about it to billy butler but uh yeah he uh that is funny he has to stop hitting home runs he has to actively try not to hit home runs at a certain point or else the the game would be over it wouldn't count i guess only six years ago he was an all-star one a silver slugger he's 32 years old his teammates are apparently his his brothers-in-law and some friends of theirs from the gym so like already this is a team that's

built around loyalty toward billy butler billy butler is the core of this team and some of the other ringers you could say in the league seem to be former professional like very low minor league players because this is Idaho Falls. This isn't even, like, big-time beer league softball. But can you, like, Billy Butler would be the one guy who you could shift your defense, because you always shift your defense in softball, as far as I can recall from softball, which is a very long time ago. But then people would still hit on the shift,

because that's just the way that swings work. But he could actually spray the ball, because Billy Butler was a pretty good hitter in slow pitch softball so the only thing he probably doesn't lead in is triples but i actually now wonder he might be able to read outfield arms i don't know yeah well i'd like to see the stats if they existed but uh sadly we'll just have to imagine exactly the level of dominance that he achieved. But congratulations to Billy Butler and his teammates on farm grade for winning the championship of the fall session and defeating a team called A-plus driving school, which probably did not feature any former major leaguers. One thing I didn't realize, you mentioned it when you were reading from the article, Billy Butler was apparently compared frequently to Edgar Martinez, but I never knew that. Now, as I reflect on Billy Butler's statistics, he walked more than I thought, and I know he didn't strike out.

Billy Butler became a bad player when he was 28. Edgar Martinez became like a good everyday player when he was 27. So Edgar Martinez didn't even have a career really by the time that Billy Butler's career had already peaked. And Edgar Martinez was amazing and Billy Butler was Billy Butler. So I don't – was this a comparison that you heard more? I don't recall hearing that often. No, but perhaps. Anyway, I don't know what the etiquette of this situation is. Like, what are you supposed to do if you're Billy Butler

and you're done in the majors, but you're only 32 and you still want to play some baseball, you still enjoy getting out there and hitting? I mean, is it a faux pas to play in the local softball league? Like, if you want to play in the minors or something or, you know, go to Japan or Korea, presumably that's an option for a player like Billy Butler. But if you just want to be around your family or your hometown, but you still have a desire to play and do something athletic, do you have to bench yourself just out of respect for your opponents who have not played competitive sports for years or can you just go out there and do what billy beltler's doing in a way i don't blame him because hey if he wants to live around here and he also wants to play some sort of sport that allows him to swing at pitched balls well what else is he supposed to

do i guess he can go to the batting cage well okay so i would think usually the etiquette is you go play in the independent leagues or something atlantic league now billy biller clearly wants to be at home in idaho which makes all the sense in the world so now this becomes an old effectively wild question so billy butler says he could hit home runs every time let's take him at his word and he probably can so what if if teams got really sick of playing billy butler giving up up a home run every time he comes up, which might as well be happening. What if the rule was, okay, Billy, you get one home run a game, and then you have to pick when you're going to hit it,

which would be interesting. Now, I don't know what kind of intellect Billy Butler has and what his understanding is of leverage index or whatnot. He might just want to hit that home run the first time he comes up i don't know because you figure maybe you actually want to try for it right away because maybe he can't hit home runs literally every time i don't know he's probably not slugging 4 000 but that would be maybe the if if other players were really quite upset with having to play against a literal major league all-star who is still only 32 years old then i think you pass a rule that says okay you get one home run maybe even zero home runs but

probably you give him one and then you just let him figure out when he's gonna hit it and everything else is in out if he hits a home run so there's there's a way to work this around yeah all right well if anyone played in a beer league with uh billy Billy Butler and wants to tell us about that experience, please write in. So let's talk about one of Billy Butler's former teams, the Oakland A's, who acquired a pitcher over the weekend, traded for Mets closer Juras Familia. And what should we say about this trade? Familia is good. The A's gave up two prospects to the Mets, one of whom seems to be a pretty promising reliever who will probably be in a big league bullpen pitching fairly well sometime soon. They also got a third baseman. I think the consensus seems to be that the Mets didn't get as much as they could have for Familia, but the A's, as we've discussed, are only three games

back in the race for the second wild card in AL so this is their move I don't know if they have any big other moves coming like I don't think this is going to be like a a cesspitous Lester trade kind of deadline for Billy Bean where he's engaging in a whole lot of activity but you never know I mean that was the other kind of activity but in this case he's added they seem to be in a spot where they should add because the Mariners run differential is now sub zero. Is that right? No, it's not really guys you would have expected to be the backbone of a great bullpen. I guess Blake Trinan is a guy that they got from the Nationals who had been counting on

Trinan to be their closer, and that didn't work out right away. So the A's got him. And since then, he's basically been great, right? And then they also have some other guys in that bullpen who are not necessarily brand names, but have also been really good. He's Mero Petit still, hanging around and being good wherever he goes for the most part. So good bullpen just got better, and the A's odds of catching the Mariners just got slightly better. Yeah, this is one of those trades that was supposed to happen Friday

and then it just took forever. Medicals got involved and the Mets were also involved, so you didn't really know when this was going to happen. The other part of the Oakland bullpen who's been absolutely critical is a guy named Lou Trevino, just an internal product that no one actually knows who he is. He's an 11th-round pick from 2013, but he's up. He's got pretty good numbers, not numbers that would justify his 1.36 ERA, but he's good 11th round pick from 2013 but he's up he's got pretty good numbers not numbers that

would justify his 1.36 era but he's good is the point so trevino and trinan have been handling the load they've carried the a's they are two of the top 10 relievers in win probability added the a's i wrote a post about this i think it was last week where i calculated the the win probability added combined for each team's top two relievers. And Oakland was leading baseball with Trinan and Trevino. So Familia, of course, is going to help that. He's going to reduce the burden on those two. And he's also going to make the bullpen deeper. So the A's who have a suspect rotation are clearly building out from the back.

And in terms of the trade return, I don't know what to do with the international money. It obviously counts. The Mets picked up $1 million. The Mets didn't pick up any money. So a's absorbed the money right right yes so the a's gave now the bobby wall is the name of the relief prospect that the a's are sending to the mets and he's a guy who's always gotten strikeouts but he also has like a substantial injury history so you know he could become nothing really fast but as the consensus goes that the return was late, you look at like what Kelvin Herrera got almost a month ago, more than a month ago even, I don't know what it was,

or the return when Alex Colomay was moved with Denard Spann. And there are a lot of relievers who are out there and available, and Familia is good without being amazing. So the returns just seem to be kind of light, especially for Familia is a rental. Yeah. When you're picking up a reliever for just a handful of months, who's good,

but not amazing, then you get a really late return because there are a lot of relievers who are out there. Some of whose names, you know, and some of whom have names that you don't. Well, the Cubs just picked up a reliever who has been better than I thought

or knew, former athletics pitcher Jesse Chavez, who he has been pretty good. He hasn't really walked anyone this year, and he's given up too many homers. But other than that, has been pretty effective and has thrown a lot of innings, 59 and a third innings. That's kind of a lot at this point in the season. So that move kind of went under the radar because, I don't know, the name Jesse Chavez is not particularly exciting, and he hasn't been good in a while. But now that he's not starting, he is pitching fairly well. I was trying to reflect. There was a time several years ago when I remember there being a litany of analytical articles about Jesse Chavez and what he was doing.

And I'm going to guess it was in, I don't know, 2013 or something when he had a really low FIP, really low FIP minus. But the thing that is probably most notable about Jesse Chavez right now, he's got good numbers. Like you said, doesn't really walk anyone. That's his thing. Gives up a lot of dingers. Is that if you look at when he's been used, he's been a really low leverage reliever for the Rangers. Now also a low leverage guy for like his entire career because he's Jesse Chavez. And whether it's surprising that a guy who looks like Jesse Chavez throws a fastball that's in the mid 90s.

Like he wouldn't expect it could come out of him. But I don't know how the Cubs intend to use him. But the fact that even the Rangers haven't used him in high leverage roles implies that he didn't have a whole lot of managerial trust now. Maybe that's a reason that he's under the radar, or maybe that's because if you put him in a higher leverage role, then he's going to get abused. I don't know. But yes, it was under the radar. While we're on the subject of the A's, we've been getting a few questions from listeners about Chris Davis and his tendency toency to hit.247 Every single year and I guess fortunately for us

Or unfortunately for us if we were Looking for something to write about Neil Payne and Michael Salfino Wrote about this at 538 I believe on Friday And called Chris Davis the most consistent Hitter in baseball history So Chris Davis for those who were

Not paying close attention to Chris Davis's batting averages, they have been 247 in each of the previous three seasons. So 2015, 2016, 2017, he batted 247 every one of those years. And this year, as we speak, he is batting 249, although he has often been at 247. And the year before he started this 247 streak, he was at, I believe, 244. So he's been right around that neighborhood for a really long time now. And Neil and Michael did the work and showed that he has been the most consistent. Now, yes, of course, it's batting average, and we know there are better ways to evaluate players, but of course, batting average can still be a source of fun facts. And

they found that the only other hitter in history to finish with the same batting average in three straight years was Mookie Wilson for the Mets, who batted.276 from 1983 to 1985. And if you look at all hitters over a five-year span, they just looked at the total movement in yearly batting average, just like the absolute value of the difference in each year from the previous year's batting average. Chris Davis at the very top of that list with what at the time was only four points of total movement in batting average over that five-season span.

And this is, you know, it's just a curiosity. It doesn't mean all that much. But as I mentioned in the article, it's really improbable because batting average bounces around a whole lot. So even if his true talent batting average over that span was 247, which I think we can say with some confidence, it's still very unlikely that his actual averages would be 247 in each of those years because batting average, even over the course of a full season, just has a lot of randomness in it and it doesn't really stabilize, so to speak, for more than a full season's worth of at-bats. So for it to be 247 in every year is extremely unlikely and just one of those weird flukes. So yes, he is consistent, but also I guess there was luck and just chance involved in his actually settling on 247 in each of those years. So it's very strange. And I don't know whether it makes Chris Davis more or less valuable. We probably talked about that at some point,

the value or lack thereof of consistency. If you can count on a guy to hit 247 or whatever. I mean, he's pretty consistent just as an overall hitter as well in addition to batting average. So do we know whether that makes him more desirable or not? Well, this is the opposite of the Ryan Rayburn conversation we've had before. Right, exactly. So I would think that teams would place a higher value on more of a known entity

if they believe that he was more of a known entity. I can tell you that Zips projects Chris Davis to hit.253. Steamer projects Chris Davis to hit.241. The midpoint, the FanGraph's depth charts projections, Chris Davis at.247. It's funny also that this is batting average for a player who's defined by his not batting average skills. Chris Davis is all about his power. And if you look at the batting average on balls in play underlying everything, that's bounced around from.270 to.293 when he was a rookie,.290 last season. that's bounced around from 270 to 293 when he was a rookie 290 last season so it is kind of funny to look at how chris davis has hit 247 or around 247 basically five years in a row but these numbers

underneath have moved like his strikeout rate has gone from 22 to 30 he's walked from 6 to 11 like he's done a lot of different things under the hood but he's just wound up kind of the same guy so right that's that's a lot of fun fun. This is definitely just the opposite Rayburn curiosity kind of thing. It's an article that I think would find the most interest during not the baseball season because, you know, you want this in the winter when you're like, can I think about baseball instead of anything else? And they're like, look at this. Numbers are the same.

And all it is is the fact that we round batting average to three decimals. If we didn't, then it wouldn't are the same. And all it is is the fact that we round batting average to three decimals. If we didn't, then it wouldn't be the same. But because of, I guess, how we've always rounded these things, like, I don't know why we always express winning percentage as three decimals instead of an actual percentage. But this is just what we do with numbers because baseball format is three decimal places, everything to the thousands. I have no idea why. Three decimal places, everything to the thousands. I have no idea why. Well, it's, I guess, enough precision to tell you what you need to know, but not so much that you just need to remember more extraneous digits.

I guess it's kind of the happy medium there. But yeah, if you discover this, you can't wait until the offseason to write this post because if Chris Davis bats something other than 247 this season, then it's not quite as fun anymore. So I get why they would want to rush this one out there. But we already know that he's going to hit 247 this season that it's not quite as fun anymore. So I get why they would want to rush this one out there. But we already know that he's going to hit 247. That's true. That's how this works, right? So by the way, we talked about how the A's are only three games back. Both the Mariners GM and manager, Jerry DiPoto and Scott Service have recently received extensions.

They were both in their walk years, right? Or DiPoto certainly was Service have recently received extensions. They were both in their walk years, right? Or DiPoto certainly was, I assume they both were. So they've both gotten extensions. And you have to think that they've gotten extensions, at least partially as a product of the fact that the Mariners are outplaying their run differential to the extent that they are. Now, I know that there is a school of thought that suggests that maybe outplaying your run differential is a managerial skill and that actually being able to win lots of games without outscoring your opponents

reflects well on a manager. I don't know that I really buy that. I don't think I buy that. But if you want to give service some credit for that, I guess you can. But the point is that both of these guys have gotten extensions. It would seem in part because the Mariners have bunched their hits and their runs in this extremely fortuitous way, which isn't to say that either of them doesn't deserve extensions or isn't good at his job. I'm sure they both are. Maybe they both deserve it. But when you're working for a team that has the longest playoff drought in major American professional sports, not making the playoffs or just having a lousy record again is a really good way to get fired or at least let go because you just need to show

results at a certain point or else ownership is going to lose confidence in you. So it does seem as if maybe they have kind of leveraged this wacky season that the Mariners are having to extend their tenures there, right? I mean, is that fair to say? Like if the Mariners were 500 right now and we're not in playoff position and we're just looking at whatever it is, the 17th season in a row without making the playoffs, I would think it would have been a much tougher sell for either of those guys to get an extension and a vote of confidence like that. Yeah, no, this is the Mariners, as mentioned. They've played 100 games.

They've won 60 of them. The winning percentage there, that's easy to calculate. It's 0.600. And they have, according to a tweet that I saw from Sunday, they have the worst run differential ever for a team that's won like 60 or more of its first 100 games because their run differential in case you didn't hear was plus one last year the run differential was negative 22 the year before that was plus 61 the mariners won 86 games in scott service's first year and in 2016 they they

narrowly missed the playoff so you could say this is looking at the whole body of work and that the Mariners have won more than half their games under the service regime, far greater than half their games. And I would think that it was about the whole body of work, but for the fact that I don't have the quote in front of me again, but Jerry DiPoto said in the Scott Service press conference that the Mariners, the fact that they have won so many more games than the underlying numbers would suggest reflects on the manager and depoto said

that he said that this is a skill that service seems to possess and i don't want to i don't want to take this too far because again it was only the throwaway line or paragraph or something but depoto at least in the press conference seemed to suggest that the mariners were overplaying their their underlying numbers because of Scott Service. What's funny about that is that in Scott Service's first year, they were basically right on their Pythagorean record. In Scott Service's second year, they were right on their Pythagorean record. In Scott Service's third year, they're very much not. They have a gigantic difference of nearly 100 points of winning percentage between what they have and what they arguably should have based on their run differential.

But maybe more importantly, if Scott Service is there and people are fine with him, why change? Now, I know this isn't just about Service. It's also about DiPoto. But you look at the hand that DiPoto was dealt when he took over the Mariners and he had very, very little to work with. So he has worked at a frantic pace to make the team slightly better than mediocre I guess and last year was disrupted by injuries this year has been less disrupted by injuries has been disrupted by a suspension but as you wrote about some years ago there is there at least has it seems like there's been less

turnover than there used to be I don't know if that still holds true. Some teams have changed managers and executives ever since. But executives and managers are better able than ever to convince ownership that, no, no, no, we have a plan. We're sticking to it. And as long as you believe them, would the Mariners be better if they changed everything? I doubt it. So might as well just stick it out Yeah it's just kind of interesting Because there is a real chance that The Mariners will suffer What I think will be perceived as a

Pretty devastating collapse I mean if they do not win this wild Card then they'll be heading Into a very uncertain Perhaps dark future Coming off already the longest Playoff drought and they will have gone From essentially looking like they had this wild card locked up,

you know, a few weeks, a month ago, to perhaps blowing it. There is a chance that that will happen. And if it does, then it will seem sort of strange, I think, that both the GM and the manager received extensions, because if they hadn't, then that would totally be a formula for getting fired right i mean they would almost like if they had just said no we're waiting till the end of the season to decide what to do and then the mariners blew what was what a seven game lead or so and failed to make the playoffs yet again i think there's roughly a zero percent chance that either of

those guys would be brought back whether they should should be or not. It's just, you know, the perception of a team blowing it and choking or whatever. And given the baggage that the Mariners have, having not made the playoffs for all these years, you kind of have to actually have results to get some job security. So there's a chance that by the end of this season, it will look sort of strange that those guys are getting another chance. And I agree, like there's nothing about what they've done that makes me think they don't deserve another chance. We haven't really seen Jerry DiPoto do a rebuild, I guess, at least to this point in his Seattle tenure, he hasn't tried to do that. He's tried to just mix and match and eke out the last little bits of talent he can out of this roster and patch it from outside the organization. And he's just tried to cling to this team as a competitor, which I think has made sense to this point, but before long might not make sense. And I don't know whether his competitive wiring will allow him to

say, yeah, we're just not going to try for a few years. It seems like maybe it would go against his desire to constantly be improving the team. But I don't know. Maybe he could channel that desire into improving the team four years in the future or whatever it is. Right. I mean, back on June 15th, the difference between the Mariners and the A's in the standings was 11 games. I mean, the Mariners had a seven-game lead over the Angels, but the Angels are out of it at this point. The Angels are just banged up, and they're not very good.

Of course, one should point out the Angels, a far better run differential than the Mariners have, but what are you going to do? So June 15th, that's a month and a week ago. The Mariners were 11 games better than the A's. Since then, of course, the A's have gone 23-7, the Mariners 15-15. Over that span, the Mariners have still outplayed their Pythagorean win percentage by about 100 points. But I'm reminded a little bit of 2002 when, into early August, the Mariners were 73-46. They were very good, right on their Pythagorean record. And they had a four-and-a-half game lead on the A's in the AL West.

And then the A's won not 17, not 17 not 18 not 19 but 20 games in a row they overtook the Mariners and never looked back the A's finished that season from that point out 34 and 8 that was of course the first season in the Mariners playoff drought and now we could have the A's sprinting ahead to extend the Mariners playoff drought might not be the last year of the Mariners playoff drought I don't know I think that if the A's pass the Mariners playoff drought might not be the last year of the Mariners playoff drought. I don't know. I think that if the A's pass the Mariners in this year, the odds next year don't look any better for Seattle. So yeah, I agree with you that if the Mariners lose this, it's not because necessarily they have collapsed. They've won exactly as many games as they've lost while the A's have been hot, but the A's have been really hot.

And there's not a whole lot you can do to keep up with a team that's winning 77% of their game. So the A's have sort of caught them. The A's run differential over the streak has suggested a Pythagorean record of 600 winning percentage, which is good, but they have overachieved. But the Mariners can't really complain about that because they've been doing that all year long. latest takedown of the Mets front office, or really it's the Mets ownership group. And the latest to happen here, I mean, we know that the Mets are now sellers. There's still a lot of question about whether they will really go all in on selling and entertain offers for Syndergaard and deGrom, or whether they will just sell some pieces like Familia. But we know that right now the team is operating with sort of a three-headed GM because, of course, Sandy Alderson is taking a hiatus to treat cancer. And so it's kind of unclear how much these replacement GM trio members have power and how much Jeff Wilpon has power.

And that's kind of a scary thing for Mets fans because the Wilpons, of course, not beloved for their management track record. So the latest things that have surfaced here are what seems like the pattern of miscommunication when it comes to injured players. So Ioannis Cespedes said, I believe on Friday, that he might need surgery on both of his heels that could keep him out for close to a year or something like that, potentially career threatening surgery. And after Cespedes made those comments to reporters, Mets manager Mickey Calloway said that he was not sure what Cespedes had said, and then he was informed about what Cespedes had said, and he said, that's concerning. And so it's sort of the old Metz-style lack of communication where it seems like the front office doesn't know what the manager knows,

and the manager doesn't know what the front office knows, and neither of them knows what players are saying. It's a bad situation. of them knows what players are saying. It's a bad situation. And then, of course, there was the very easy punchline story, which is the latest DL stint for the Mets is Noah Sindergaard going on the DL with hand, foot, and mouth disease, which I think was probably news to some people that that is a disease that exists and that humans can contract. This very much sounds like something you would read about a 19th century baseball team and some player being out with dysentery or consumption or something like that. The Mets have hand, foot, and mouth disease. It's a viral infection, and apparently they're now kind of monitoring other players because it's very communicable. And so if Syndergaard had hand, foot, and mouth disease and anyone touched Syndergaard's hand or mouth, I suppose, that they could now have hand, foot, and mouth disease. So it's just the most Mets story imaginable.

Both of us have downplayed the idea that the Mets are really maybe not the fact that they're a worse run organization, but that the results have been worse because, again, they were in the playoffs recently. They were in the World Series recently. We were just talking about the Mariners not making the playoffs since the early 2000s. I think I would choose to be a Mets fan over a Mariners fan in terms of recent results. fan in terms of recent results, but you do seem to get, and when Lindsay Adler was on filling in for you, she said just having been up close and personal with the Mets and observing the Mets and the Yankees in the same season, there's just no comparison between kind of the professionalism of one organization and the other. This is just the latest example of that, and I don't know what you do because it seems like it's getting to the point where you need new ownership to actually fix this situation. And I don't know that there's any new ownership on the horizon.

There doesn't seem to be, but there almost certainly should be. This is the New York Mets. It's a hell of a brand. This is in part a huge problem of PR. Like how easy would it be yeah to say like okay so i've come to i don't have kids i've come to understand that it's common for kids to get hand foot and mouth disease i know it's a silly sounding illness to to have and it seems like it's one of those things it's a lot worse in adults when they get it but kids get this all the time it would appear i didn't know that noah synergard is was playing baseball with kids or some sort of event during the All-Star break, so he was doing a good thing. But how easy would it just be to say, Noah Syndergaard placed on disabled list, parentheses,

illness or viral infection, and then you don't get all of these articles that are essentially just ripping on the Mets because hand, foot, and mouth disease sounds ridiculous for somebody to get in 2018. It's not. It's not ridiculous. Again, it seems to be common, but it's just one of those like this is fundamental. Hand, foot, and mouth disease sounds funny and weird. You can just avoid it.

You don't need to overshare. We all know oversharers. The Mets don't overshare with anything else. Why are they ever so specific? Anyway, this is of lesser importance i don't know i guess they could just be criticized for not giving that detail right because that's another thing that the mets do at times is downplaying injuries and then you know it's oh he's fine and it's just a little stiffness and then suddenly it's tommy john

surgery yeah people don't need to know where noah sinigard has sores and blisters we just we can just know that he's not pitching for a week. That's fine. There's been criticism that they moved too fast on Familia because the return seemed too late and they could have waited until the deadline. Now there are arguments to go both ways. That's the same argument, same conversation we had about the Royals and Kelvin Herrera. So I don't know. It does seem like this is all coming from the top. Clearly, the leader of the organization has not established a culture of trust and communication and good faith and competence and capacity for betterment.

I know the Mets have, what was it, last offseason or the offseason before they attempted to overhaul their medical personnel or something. Yeah, right. That's the thing. New manager, new trainer, new medical staff. This was all supposed to have been addressed this past winter. And it seems like the same sort of storylines are cropping up again and again. Right. Now, I don't know how much of this is just selective editorial work just because it's the Mets.

And so, therefore, stories about the Mets look particularly Mets- in the same way that yeah we have been through this with the with the Marlins but you know the thing about the Marlins is that they had an ownership change and you see few of those things ever since ever since like Derek Jeter's horrible town hall performance or whatever last November and December I think the writing about the Marlins has been pretty fair if there's been any I don't even know has anyone written about the Marlins in the last eight months I'm not convinced anyone has just JT rail mudo who stands in for the marlins at large the marlins of course having outplayed the mets by a half game to this point so it does seem like this is probably just a an ugly culture that's trickling down from the top and i guess if

you if you wanted to make a broad and general point, you could say, well, no matter what you think about the Mets and whether it's selective editorial work, the fact of the matter is that the people who get closest to the Mets all seem to come away with a sour taste in their mouths. And they write about the Mets such that it seems to be a haphazard operation. So that carries a good amount of weight, even if it's not the most frustrating team to like in sports. It's one of its own character. Yeah. I mean, the fact that they're in New York and it is a big brand at a big market, I guess the expectations are somewhat different or the baseline for success is somewhat different. It seems like the Mets' ownership, according to Passan, has this kind of complex when it comes to the Yankees and this like little brother mentality

where they're rooting as hard for the Yankees to do poorly as they are for themselves to do well. And that's not great because newsflash, the Yankees are not doing poorly and they're not going to be doing poorly for I don't know how long, decades to come. So don't pin all your hopes on the Yankees being bad. Pin your hopes on you being good. And according to this Passen article, teams are sort of smelling blood in the water here because the Mets are poorly run a dangerous position to be in when you are discussing franchise altering they were to trade DeGrom and Syndergaard, I don't know that Mets fans would be all that happy unless they got back some real blue chip prospects. what front office people are saying to pass in that there is this perception that maybe someone

could just swoop in and sort of steal one of these guys just because it's not clear really who's in charge or maybe they'll do something for PR reasons that don't make sense for baseball reasons. It's sort of a scary time, I suppose, to be a Mets fan as the deadline approaches. Could it really be perceived as a good PR move to trade jacob de grom or noah syndergaard yeah syndergaard i don't think so tradable at this point no one's gonna take a guy who's diseased but and he's on a deal through the through the trade deadline right but jacob de grom conceivably could be moved but if anything i would suspect the mets would now be more convinced than ever they need to quote unquote win the trade and that's just unlikely

to be something that would happen because you think well we have this guy we want like three top 20 prospects in baseball which maybe nobody has besides i don't know the padres but you wouldn't be able to to do that like if you if the mets traded jacob degram and said we're going to start a rebuild i see how you could get people somewhat excited about, like, here's our new direction. We're going to start over from scratch, even though the owners are the owners and that hasn't changed. But it's a really hard thing to start. The worst part of the rebuild is the beginning. Second worst part being if you never come out of the rebuild.

But if you start now, the team in disarray, and you have the same ownership, and you trade Jacob deGrom, the best player on the team. And if you don't get a huge blockbuster return, if the Mets don't win the trade, which they would be unlikely to do given the standards, I think a move like that would be less likely. I can see them cashing in other assets if you want to call them that. This Dribble Cabrera can go. Who cares? But deGrom, that's too important. I don't think the Mets are to call them that. This Dribble Cabrera can go, who cares? But DeGrom, that's too important.

I don't think the Mets are going to do that. Yeah, no, you have to get a lot back for those guys because they do both have a lot of trade value. In fact, Kylie McDaniel has recently completed his trade value series at Fangraphs, which he took over for Dave Cameron. And he has the Mets, DeGrom, and Syndergaard ranked at 25th and 29th in the game in trade value. They are among the highest ranked pitchers because I think hitters tend to have higher trade value. It's kind of interesting to look at the very top of that trade value list because you see a lot of teams that have two or maybe even three of the top guys.

And you get a sense of, oh, yeah, that's why these teams are good. And that's why these teams are well positioned for the long run. So we talked last week about Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor. And how they are on pace for one of the best combined season by two teammates in history. bind season by two teammates in history. Well, Kylie has Ramirez and Lindor ranked as the number one and number two players in baseball in trade value. I haven't gone back and looked at previous trade value series to see if that has happened before, but I'm going to guess it has not, that one team has the two top guys by trade

value. I think both of those guys are under team control for, what, three more years, I think, after this season. And neither of them makes a ton of money, and they're both among the very best players in the game. So to have those two guys, and Kylie also has Corey Kluber as the number 12 trade value guy on this list. So the Indians have number one, number two, and number 12.

And if you look at the other guys at the top of the list, you have the Yankees with Aaron Judge at number three and Luis Severino at number 10. You have as well the Astros with Alex Bregman at number seven and Carlos Correa at number five. So the Astros have two of the very top guys. at number five. So the Astros have two of the very top guys. Then if you want to look at the Braves, they have number nine, Freddie Freeman, as well as number 15, Ozzie Albies, and number 17, Ronald Acuna. And it kind of works out that way. If you want to mention the Yankees also have number 20, Gleyber Torres. So you have the top teams in baseball With the top trade value guys in baseball Which leads one to believe that these teams are going to be good for a long time Because for the most part, to have a top trade value guy

He has to be under team control and locked up for quite a while The exception, I suppose, is Mike Trout Who has just two years remaining on his deal And makes more than $30 million in each of those years and yet is still number four on the trade value rankings just because he's Mike Trout. For the most part, though, these guys are pre-arbitration and arbitration guys who are signed long term. This is how teams are building winners right now. And you look at the best teams at baseball right now, and they are also positioned to be the best teams for quite a while. I could talk about the Red Sox too.

They have number six, Mookie Betts, and number 14, Andrew Panettendi. It's just an embarrassment of riches for a small group of teams at the top of this list. Yeah, Fangraph's commenter Sean Corr had a tally down in the comments, just counting kylie ranked the top 50 trade value players and and the astros won with five of the players in the top 50 the indians yankees red sox nationals all had four there's also a total score here that that gives teams credit for where those players are ranked within the top 50 and so from from the top the indians just narrowly edge out the yankees then the the astros

are in third place followed by the red socks then the braves teams that only had one player show up the a's the blue jays the brewers the marlins the reds the rays the bodgers the giants the twins so there were a handful of teams that didn't have anyone show up in the top 50 and those teams are and i will read these off according to another fangraphs commenter the orioles the white socks the royals the tigers the rangers the cardinals the pirates the diamond backs and the rockies and that's interesting because you have the chicago white socks who were hoping to come out of a rebuild pretty soon but there's no you on moncada in there none of their other big prospects made it royals that's not surprising they suck the orioles it's not

surprising they also suck tigers not surprising they suck rangers suck cardinals don't suck pirates diamondbacks rockies also all don't suck those last four teams are all alive in the race right now but those are teams mostly alive for just a wild card berth save for the diamondbacks who were struggling to keep up with the dodgers first place in the West. But, yep, it definitely gives you the sense that we have an order, and little about that order is likely to change. So, I mean, if you just did this division by division, of course, as you project the AL East forward, the Red Sox and Yankees are likely to be at the top. You project the AL Central forward, obviously it's the Indians.

Project the AL West, obviously it's the Astros. NL West, Dodgers, yes. NL Central gets a little more interesting, but probably Cubs, maybe Brewers. NL East is where it gets fun. The NL East is probably going to be the most competitive division for the near term because the Phillies and Braves are obviously up and coming. They have up and came, if you want to put it that way. And the Nationals, even though they're having a down year,

even though they're probably about to lose Bryce Harper, they also have Juan Soto, who's there. They have Victor Robles. Trey Turner showed up pretty high on the trade value list this year. So the Nationals have a core, and they're unlikely to become bad. So if you were looking for a competitive division with two elite teams, it's the AL East. Obviously, it's always the AL East. But if you're looking for a division where there's more of a mix-up and one

of the teams might even miss the playoffs it's going to be the analyst probably i know that predictions like this can go wayward but analyst looks like it's the only real division in question for the next little while until maybe the padres ascend and try to overtake the dodgers i don't know if that'll ever happen yeah of all the contending teams right now that seem ticketed for playoff spots there isn't really one that you would say this is the last run, except for maybe the Mariners, I suppose, who may be headed downhill after this soon. But otherwise, I mean, there are definitely divisions where you can see a challenger arising, but none of these teams right now looks like they are kind of at the end of their rope or the window is closing.

It seemed like that was always something we could say about some team in the playoffs, whether it was, I don't know, the Tigers or the Royals, or there was always someone who was kind of nearing the end of their competitive window. And right now, of all the teams that are likely to be in the playoffs this year, it doesn't really seem like there is one that fits that bill. They've all kind of set up these, I don't know, self-perpetuating machines that are good right now, but will probably continue to be good for a while. Except for the fact that maybe other teams will arise that will be even younger and better and will challenge them in the next season or two. Yep. That sounds about right. We are reminded once more of what Sam Miller wrote about, I think it was the 2014 or 2013 Texas Rangers.

One of the last teams we thought was going to be good forever. They were not. They became bad. Then they became good again. Then they became bad. So, you know, we never know these things with any real assurance. Just look at the Mariners this season. Teams can do weird things.

And I can also say, speaking of teams doing weird things, I don't know if you noticed, the Pirates have won nine games in a row, and they're in the race. The Pirates are 51-49. So now we can say, to put this together again, there were three teams that I think fans were displeased with this past offseason. The A's came in with the lowest payroll in baseball. People were not happy about that. I should say socialist baseball Twitter was not happy about that i should say socialist baseball twitter was not happy about that the rays made moves that made it seem like they were cost cutting and

tanking the pirates did the same thing the pirates are two games over 500 the rays are one game over 500 the a's are 14 games over 500 combined there are 17 games over 500 that's a hell of an accomplishment for two mid to small market teams who people thought were Cutting costs and tanking over the offseason They were not, they were trying to be average And they have succeeded in being average Or in the ace case, even better than that Yeah, although I guess you could say that If they had also decided to spend

That they could be even better than average And so if you want to take some of those owners To task for not spending more of their money And putting a more competitive product On the field instead of increasing their profits. I guess you could do that. But these teams have all operated in that fashion for years, and they're still doing a pretty good job of it, all things considered.

And as discussed the other week when we were doing the anonymous player survey, I'm not sure anyone would want to take free agent money from Oakland anyway until they get a new stadium. That place seems like it is not going to attract top tier talent. Yeah. All right. Last thing I wanted to mention, we've talked a bunch about position player pitchers and how they're just more and more common. We have now officially set a record for the most position players ever to pitch in a single season. And if you haven't noticed, there are more than two months remaining in the season. So going to blow by that record.

But it was the Brewers who officially set this record on Sunday. And it was Hernan Perez and Eric Kratz who pitched for the Brewers in a blowout loss to the Dodgers. And they were the 31st and 32nd position players to pitch this season. That is, again, a record. Both of these outings were sort of interesting, even though these outings in general are less interesting all the time because they're so much more common. Kratts, like Alex Blandino, who pitched for the Reds recently, showed off a pretty good knuckleball. So again, we are considering talking to a position player about how they develop good knuckleballs. But it seems like Kratz has one. Long time backup catcher.

I have podcasted with him before, I believe, or at least interviewed him before for articles. And he's kind of a smart guy. He has evidently developed a knuckleball on the side too. It's not the best time for knuckleballs in general because who do you have? You have Stephen Wright, I guess, is kind of carrying on the knuckleball legacy right now, except that he was suspended earlier in the season under the domestic violence policy. and so he is now not so rootable anymore. And then I guess you've got Mickey Janis is a 30-year-old knuckleballer in AA for the Mets, but just not a lot of knuckleball prospects around these days in R.A. Dickey's absence. I don't think Dickey ever officially retired, and he was actually pretty good last year, but he's not pitching and probably won't pitch.

So I don't know who the next great knuckleball hope is, but guys like Blandino and Kratz just seem to have knuckleballs in their back pockets. And because of the way that position players are being used to pitch more often than ever, they're actually getting a chance to show off those pitches. So that was one of the outings. The other one, Perez, was notable because he threw a 48-mile-per-hour pitch. This is perhaps one of the slowest pitches on record. He hit Austin Barnes. Actually, it was a 47-mile-per-hour pitch, I think. He hit Austin Barnes in the back, and Austin Barnes asked what this felt like, said it doesn't feel like much.

And Austin Barnes asked what this felt like, said it doesn't feel like much. And listener Matthew emailed us to ask what mile per hour pitch would we be able to be hit by and not be in excruciating pain? I guess 47 is one answer. I don't know how high you'd have to go before both of us would break down and cry. It kind of depends where we're hit, right? There are certain areas where i could withstand greater velocity than than others but i think i could take 50 50 is nothing 50 is not nothing but 50 slows down to about 43 by the time it gets to you i think maybe 44 that's not that's like i don't know what's the what's the velocity of a punch i've never been no i've never been but have ever been, have you ever been in any sort of physical conflict? I have not been punched. I have never been punched. I, I hope that means

I'm not very punchable. Either that, or it means I'm a coward who is avoiding fights all the time. I don't know what it means, but, uh, I'm pretty non-confrontational. So I've, I've never really been even close to being punched. Okay. Yeah. No, I, I, I grew up with an older brother, so I've been in some conflict. I don't think I've ever been punched as hard as possible. Cousins, you know, I've had like family skirmish type things

or like kindergarten brawls, but not like actual punch. Right, okay. So I think we could both take 50 and it lets a goddess like maybe right on the back of the elbow or like, you know the look if it's the face there's no velocity where it's good to get hit by a pitched baseball right yeah face is

bad yeah i i broke my nose getting hit by a well not even a pitch it wasn't even a pitch we were just playing catch in the park i was in eighth grade and a ball bounced off a tree root and took a funny hop and hit me in the nose and broke it and that was bad it wasn't uh the most painful thing to break if you're going to break a part of your body but there was a lot of blood so if you get hit in the wrong place it almost doesn't matter how hard the ball is going it can be pretty bad yeah i guess we just answered one for our email show another fun thing about position players pitching is that recently the cubs lost to the cardinals badly in that game the cubs used not one not two but three position players to pitch that was tommy listella victor caratini

and ian happ they became the first team since the 1979 brewers to use three position players to pitch in a game brewers used sal bando jim gantner and buck martinez but this is something we're starting to see a little more of is teams using multiple position players to pitch in a game there have been i think four such instances already this season and of course it only makes sense that as you start seeing this more and more often and you're going to start stacking them because if you're going to use one why not not use two? There was a team recently that used a position player to pitch in the fourth inning, whoever it was. So when you have this happening so often, then you're going to have them stacking. And then when you have them stacking, you're going to be setting new weird records.

And you're generally just going to end up with less and less interest in writing about this. But we do need to talk to some position player about his knuckleball. writing about this, but we do need to talk to some position player about his knuckleball. Yeah, and I think you did a stat blast not long ago in which you said that no player had ever pitched and caught in the same game, and listener Jennifer emailed us to point out that just a few days after that stat blast, Jeff Mathis did. He pitched and caught in a Padres-Diamondbacks game on July 7th. So yeah, lots of position player pitcher firsts are being recorded. And I actually emailed our recent interviewee, Nate Freiman, former major leaguer, about this question about getting hit by pitches. So I asked him, you know, how does, I guess,

the velocity and location impact the pain? And he he said holding Quality of impact constant If you plotted the pain versus velocity You'd have an r squared of about one So not many major Leaguers would express Things in terms of r squared but of course That's why we love Nate Fryman so He is saying that pain and

Velocity pretty much a direct correlation There but he also continued I actually had two Evan Longoria style hit by pitch broken hands. That really sucks. Elbow is bad, but everyone wears Evo shields now and those jaw extensions. The hand is scary because that's four to six weeks. Anywhere else pretty much just hurts a lot. He also added, putting all that aside, you need to correct the model for getting hit with two strikes, especially on 0-2. Those feel great. So there's a count-specific component to the pain. That's good. We would have to figure out the major league leader getting hit on 0-2 pitches. I never know what's worse is giving up an 0-2 hit or giving up an 0-2 hit by pitch.

They both reflect poorly on the pitcher. o2 hit or giving up an o2 hit by pitch like they both reflect poorly on the pitcher but the o2 hit by pitch is also probably the most evil way to get retribution if you're looking to hit a guy because then yeah you know not only can you argue it away but the hitter is just completely defenseless at that point so if uh if any of you are sociopathic pitchers out there and there's a guy that you want to hit on the other team get ahead of him o2 then hit him then uh you'll be able to excuse it and you're also gonna probably hurt him worse so free advice for those of you who are cruel cruel human beings i also meant to mention that uh all of this talk of more position player pitchers excludes mike socia who still refuses to use a position player to pitch i don't think

he has ever had a position player pitch. Is that true? I know that the Angels have the longest gap since their last position player pitching, but I believe that Socha has never used one, which is interesting that he is just old school in that way, that I guess he thinks that pitchers should stick to pitching and position players should

stick to position playing except for Shohei Otani, although he hasn't actually played a position. I think we just solved the mystery of why Shohei Otani signed with the Angels. Yeah, right. All right. Well, we can wrap up there. You know, it occurs to me now that Jeff and I neglected to banter about the demotion of Williams Astadillo, whose thus far brief big league career came to an end on Sunday when he was sent back to AAA Rochester to make room on the Twins Major League roster for Logan Morrison. I think we both blocked it out of our minds. Williams, we hardly knew you. Actually, I feel like we knew you really well, and I hope like hell that you'll be back soon.

You're too good for AAA. Maybe you're too good for the Twins. Williams will forever be in our hearts wherever he's playing. But as of now, his career totals at the plate, 19 plate appearances, zero walks, one strikeout, no homers. So he lived up to his billing, albeit in not a lot of playing time. Also, after Jeff and I spoke, a few things happened. The Mets lost 3-2, another brilliant Jacob deGrom start, resulting in a loss for Jacob deGrom, making it even more likely that he will finish the season with more wins above replacement than wins. Also another injury to add to the Mets' catalog, Tim Tebow, out for the year with a broken hemate bone. I don't think that makes much difference to the Mets' fortunes, but add it to the list. In other news, the Pittsburgh Pirates, whom Jeff mentioned, had won 9 games in a row, well, now they've won ten because they beat Corey Kluber and the Indians. Also, we had yet another position player pitcher. In your daily occurrence at this point, Anthony Rizzo became the

latest in the litany. And last update, Chris Davis went three for six. He is now batting.253. Chris Davis getting delusions of grandeur here, thinking he's a 250 hitter. But he helped the A's win yet another game, so they now trail the Mariners by only two and a half. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Following five listeners have already signed up and pledged

some small monthly amount to keep the podcast going. Patrick Houlihan, James Morris, Alan Kramer, Doug Baradon, and John McGinley. Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. Now over 8,200 members strong. You can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. Thanks to Dylan Higgins, as always, for his editing assistance. And please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastatfangraphs.com

or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. We will likely answer some emails next time. So thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you again soon. I've been living from hand to mouth But don't you worry Honey, don't you worry Somehow I'll get along But don't you worry Honey, don't you worry

Somehow I'm walking along. Don't you worry, honey, don't you worry, I'm walking along.