Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1262: Conquering Coors, with Kyle Freeland

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the surprising home run streak of Kendrys Morales, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, and the fluctuating state of the White Sox rebuild, an unusual Yankees save streak and the changing distribution of saves across the majors, and the Rays-Pirates Chris Archer trade in retrospect. Then (25:41) they bring on […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1262 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. Hello. So we've got a guest a little later in the show, and it's a good one. Kyle Freeland, Rocky's starting pitcher, 25-year-old lefty. He will be joining us and dissecting his success this season and really since he came up last year and Kyle Freeland if you haven't gone and looked at his numbers we will get into them with him and with ourselves after we talk to him but he's having an extremely impressive season maybe the best season ever by a Rockies pitcher by the time it's all said and done it's really just him and

Ubaldo in 2010 depending on how things shake out over the following month. But according to Baseball Reference War, he is up to 6.3, which puts him 10th overall in the majors, not just among pitchers, but among all players. And he's been really successful. And if you look at how good he's been in Coors Field, which we will talk to him about, he has an ERA about half a run lower in Coors than any qualified Rockies pitcher has ever had in a full season. So he is doing something that really are pretty unprecedented for a pitcher for this franchise. Yeah, it's incredible to me. The Rockies made the playoffs last year ever so briefly, and they're right there in the hunt again.

And I don't know what it takes for a team to just sort of fly under the radar because i think that like the brewers have gotten attention they have the smallest media market in major league baseball they didn't make the playoffs last year but the brewers have made interesting moves they got christian yelich they got lorenzo kane the brewers are sort of on the map but i don't know why the rockies aren't and i know i'm coming at this from the perspective of a fangraphs writer who writes about the rockies aren't. I know I'm coming at this from the perspective of a Fangraphs writer who writes about the Rockies sometimes and those articles don't get traffic because people just don't, there doesn't seem to be that much of a fan base there but I've been

to games in Colorado. I know that there's a large community of Rockies fans. You see all the black men in Arenado and story jerseys walking up to the ballpark and people show up. They have a good time. It's a beautiful environment and I guess I don't know what it is that just allows a team to sort of be hidden.

And then when a team is somewhat hidden, then generally from the outside perspective, you're only getting an idea of the top and bottom players on that team. So people know about Noel Neronado, but he's kind of underrated. I think when people think about the Rockies pitching staff, they just think about how bad the bullpen has been

despite all the money that's been spent on it. I don't really know what the consensus opinion is, but there are just these players like Herman Marquez flies under the radar. He's interesting. John Gray is fascinating and really, really good despite the ERA. And Kyle Freeland is just right there putting up a sub-3 ERA on park adjusted in Colorado. And it's incredible because all anyone wants to talk about Is how bad Ian Desmond is Yeah and it really is It's the rotation that is carrying this team

That is making this team a contender We've talked about it recently It's not a good hitting team Even really if you don't park adjust It's not particularly impressive And if you do it's dire It's not a good bullpen Certainly all the guys they spent a ton of money on this past winter

have not delivered. And it's not a particularly great defensive team either. I mean, at certain positions it is, of course, but it's just not all that impressive in any area except for the starting rotation where it's all young, it's all homegrown, it's all good. And Kyle Freeland right now is the crown jewel of that rotation. Right. No, he's a lot of fun. It's fun because also you and I have both written about John Gray before, and Gray is sort of like the obvious guy to write about because he throws so hard, he has his pitches, he gets his strikeouts, and we all love writing about strikeouts. But Freeland is fascinating because he is, if anyone in baseball is a real weak contact guy,

it's kyle freeland which makes him really interesting it makes him fun to analyze because it just feels different and while i know i know that if we did really thorough research we would come down on the side of well you'd always rather have strikeouts than weak contact if you had to pick one i know that we know that to be true strikeouts are great if you're a pitcher you want to rack them up because that means you're going to be good. But it's just I love the idea that someone can be differently good in the way that I'm happy that like Malik Smith has been a good hitter this year. Because like there are enough guys who hit 25 home runs and like slug 470 and get on base 32% of the time and they all have the same approach. That's fine.

I don't need to hear about another Jose Martinez. I just like to hear about Alex Smith getting hits or Harrison Bader becoming good or Joey Wendell doing whatever it is that he does. It's fun to have players who are differently good because it's really easy to just feel like everyone is the same and they're not. Freeland is a great example of how. All right. So maybe a couple of things to banter about before we bring Kyle on. So I just went to MLB.com, looked at the headlines, and one of them says, Kendris's power surge shouldn't be a surprise. I'm going to beg to differ on that one.

I think the fact that Kendris Morales has homered in now seven straight games as we speak, that is a surprise. I think that's a surprise when anyone does it, but particularly when Kendris Morales does it. And the point that I think the article is making is that his stat cast stats were pretty good even before he started this stretch that he has hit the ball pretty hard this year and maybe wasn't getting the results that he should have. But yeah, clearly a surprise. So Jay Jaffe wrote about this at Fangraphs on Monday, and he has the list of the previous players who have had streaks of more than six games with a home run. And it's a really fun list because it is some guys who you would very much

expect to be on that list. It's Barry Bonds, it's Jim Tomei, it's Ken Griffey Jr. These are three of the top eight home run hitters in Major League history. Sure, they would be on a list, but then you also have Dale Long at the top of that list, who is probably more famous for being the less left-handed catcher for a couple of innings, and Kevin Mensch, who homered in seven straight games in 2006, a year when he hit 13 homers total. And then now you have Kendris Morales, who is homered in seven straight games. By the time you are hearing this, he probably either will have homered in eight straight games or will have snapped the streak. But he has homered in seven as we speak. And if you had asked me 10 days ago where Kendris Morales was, what he was doing, if he was still in baseball, if he was still on this earth, I'm not sure I could have told you with a great deal of certainty.

He had a 99 WRC plus before this barrage started. It's now up to 121 after about a week of just hitting home runs every single day. I don't know where this came from but it's pretty fun right you look at his is expected wobba according to stack cast is great it's top 10 his exit velocity is one of the his average exit velocity is top 10 he's above the good chris davis uh he and i remember in in my chats over the course of the year early in the year when the blue jays fans didn't avoid my chats because of how bad the team was that they would come in and ask like when are they going to cut bait on kendris Morales because he was so bad? When are they going to cut Kendris Morales because he's terrible and bring up Vladimir Guerrero Jr. because he's great and he's ready for the majors?

On June 5th, this is an arbitrary date, but on June 5th, Kendris Morales had batted 154 times. Not on that date, that would be a record, but through June 5th. And he had an OPS of 571. He was terrible. He's a DH who can't run he's like the worst base runner in baseball like kendris morales if he's not hitting his abs he's just he's killing the team and since june 5th i mean obviously he's been hottest lately but since june 6th he's batted 243 times and he's had an ops of 992 he's just been great now it's all

happening suddenly now but kendris morales is it's not the cole calhoun level but but he's basically having the Matt Carpenter season, except he's just in the American League on a team that isn't good. So Matt Carpenter, of course, had really encouraging stat cast numbers early on, but his numbers were terrible. Cardinals fans were pissed off at him. And since then, he's basically made himself into the, I don't know, prohibitive favorite to be the National League most valuable player. I don't know if that's going to be true, but there's at least a convincing argument

that it could be the National League most valuable player. I don't know if that's going to be true, but there's at least a convincing argument that it could be true. And Kendris Morales is doing that as just a slow, fat slugger who's just hitting the crap out of the ball for, I don't know, kind of no reason because he's got his money and the team is bad and he's under contract through next year and then he's going to be like 37 years old. So I don't think he's going to get another contract beyond this. But Kendris Morales is just great now i guess and that's just part of our baseball watching experience or if you're a blue jays fan baseball hearing about experience because i don't know why you'd

still be watching this team yeah and of course it helps a little bit that he was facing orioles pitching for part of the streak and he was facing some good pitchers on other teams the phillies and the yankees but they have higher than average home run rates as jay pointed out and he's playing in yankee stadium and hit a home run there so it's a little bit park and pitchers and that's part of it but it's it's still impressive and fluky and weird and wonderful right i uh i agree with that so let's see what else happened this weekend? I can tell you there is a, so the Rays swept the Red Sox. It doesn't mean anything for the pennant race, but that's just something to point out.

The Rays have a record of 70 and 61. They have the same record as the Dodgers. The Rays are hopefully, maybe, allowing people to understand that next year they're going to be good, maybe even better. But something that, there are two White white socks things i wanted to talk about briefly so i got excited about lucas giolito this season in spring because he had a good start in spring which was my bad i guess but he looked really great against the cubs and i wrote about him and he's been he came out and he was just dreadful he was like chris tillman level bad in april and then

the funny thing is about lucas giolito is he stayed bad for like a while. It wasn't just April was bad. And then May was bad. June was less bad. And July was not good. In August, Lucas Giolito has been good. He's thrown 65% strikes. And now he's made five starts in the month of August. And over those five starts, he's thrown 31 innings, which is pretty good. He's got 10 walks, 32 strikeouts. His strikes are there. His velocity is playing up. So excitingly for the White Sox, it looks like Lucas Giolito might be figuring something out at last, which is good because I know there had been some conversation about whether he should be sent down to the minors to try to learn because it looked like he wasn't getting anything together in the big so that's one thing to be excited about but more exciting even than lucas giolito michael kopek got to make a real start that wasn't interrupted by weather and now again

this is against the tigers and so who really cares because the tigers are a bad hitting lineup but michael kopek threw 86 pitches and he threw 61 strikes he is continuing his streak he is now up in his last nine appearances counting the minor leagues he's thrown 52 innings with four walks 67 strikeouts and 71 strikes he has not walked a batter since july 31st michael kopeck i will remind everyone i know we just talked about this, but Michael Kopech on June 14th walked eight batters in three innings. He's walked half as many batters in more than 17 times as many innings since the start of VAR. So Michael Kopech is just calling out for an article.

I guess I'll have to write an article about Michael Kopech, but it really does look like the switch just flipped for him he's he's doing last year down the stretch when a few people were noticing blake snell kind of figured it out for tampa bay he had a much stronger second half than first and they were talking about his improved maturity and whatnot but really it all came down to the fact that all of a sudden blake snell was throwing strikes. And it stuck. Blake Snell has 16 wins, and he's with the Rays this year. We don't talk about wins very much, but Jacob deGrom is envious. And as he goes to sleep, he has nightmares about Blake Snell.

But Snell has carried it through to this year, where he's just been one of the best, quietly, one of the best starting pitchers in all of Major League Baseball. And this is all because he figured out how to throw strikes down the stretch last season when a few people were paying attention. Looks like Kopech has gotten there. Looks like Lucas Gilito could be getting there. Which, finally, for a White Sox season that I think has been pretty disappointing, frankly, for nearly five months, it looks like there are at least two exciting things to say nothing of Elo Jimenez to get pretty excited about. Yeah, these things can turn around pretty quickly. Like I remember last year, there was a perception that the Phillies rebuild was just running off the rails because some of their guys in the majors just weren't seeming to progress

and some of the guys in the minors had sort of stagnated and there was some question about them. I think there was question about the Braves probably at some point during this rebuild because not all of their pitchers clicked immediately. We didn't realize at the time that their rebuild is almost more about position players at this point than pitchers at least so far. But I think at every point in one of these roads back to success, there are some stumbles and some bumps and you wonder, well, is this going to be the team that does the full teardown and rebuild almost from scratch and then just never comes out the other side of that tunnel and gets good again? And sooner or later, there will be one of those teams.

They really had such a head start on their rebuild because they had guys like Eaton and Sale on these long-term cheap contracts so they could convert them into prospects who were really good and also pretty close to the majors. And I know that not all of those highly touted prospects have been amazing immediately, but I think they're still more or less on track. And these things can change just in the course of a single season. less on track. And these things can change just in the course of a single season. Just a few prospects seem to find something all of a sudden, and suddenly it looks like, oh yeah, you can envision what this team will look like when it's good again in a few years. Right. Yeah. These things are never really that linear. Very few things in baseball are linear, even though we all want things to be linear. They're not. And one of the, I guess, because the White Sox have been somewhat disappointing this year, nonlinear, I guess, because the White Sox have been somewhat disappointing this year, nonlinear, I guess we'll say, there are things to be excited about now. But maybe we

haven't given quite enough attention to the fact that Yohan Mankata hasn't been good. This is sort of supposed to be one of those can't miss prospects. And I know we all move on pretty quickly. Also, I know, no one needs to remind me, he's 23 years old. He still has all of his skills, very fast, hits the ball hard, all that stuff. But there was concern when Ewan Mankata was coming up through the minors that contact could be a problem for him. He didn't seem to make enough of it. And last year, he struck out 32% of the time as a rookie. And this year, he's at 34% as a sophomore.

His WRC Plus is 91 after last year's 104. And he's an adequate defender. He's neither great nor terrible in the middle infield but you you look at him and there's clearly just something something missing he's not an he's not a hacker he's not like a one of those over aggressive striker all the time because i miss all the time kind of players he's actually quite patient as a hitter but he he just takes a lot of strikes and he does make below average amount of contact. So you think when you trade someone like Chris Sale, of course, they got Michael Kopech in that move, and Kopech is up now. He looks very exciting, which is great.

It's not like they're going to miss on that entire package. But when you trade, a player like Mankata seemed borderline untradeable a few years ago in the same way that coming into this year, Ronald Acuna seemed untradeable. Untouchable, I guess. Yeah, untouchable. And to have Mankata still now struggling, now that he's, I don't know, 800, nearly played up years into his major league career, it's something that shouldn't be ignored or forgotten. Because of course, we know that these players need more time to develop but this is like a a top three prospect maybe a top one prospect who is just not quite performing and if he doesn't pan out then that is going to deal a significant blow to the white socks rebuild because he's supposed to be the core of it all right well we started this episode with the

rockies and the white socks so if anyone's still there I don't know. But I will talk about a big market, currently successful team right now just for a minute. The last thing I wanted to mention before we go back to the Rockies and Kyle Freeland, I want to talk about a question that we got from listener and Patreon supporter and Yankees fan Lucas Apostolaris, because this is a way into a topic that I wanted to bring up briefly anyway. So Lucas says, I know that saves are not really a main focal point of the pod, but this question is now really itching at me. The Yankees have had four different pitchers pick up the save for them in consecutive games. According to James Smith, who is a listener also and does stats for Yes Network, this was the first time since saves became official, in 1969 at least, that the Yankees have ever done this. But has this happened elsewhere in the majors? When the Yankees got

to three games in a row on Saturday, I scrolled through their team game logs and was surprised to find that it actually happened for them just last August. Patensis, Chapman, Robinson. So I assume four times in a row happens more often Than I initially thought, but I don't really Know how one would go about searching for that League-wide, and it's Hard to do if you can't email Dan Hirsch and ask him to do it, but

Fortunately I can and did, so Dan Hirsch, whom you should follow on Twitter At Dan Hirsch, and Also read his website, The Baseball Gauge He looked this up for me and he says that this is actually the 28th time that a streak of four unique saves has occurred. Only twice has a team gone five straight games with a save from five different players. That was the 1946 Phillies and the 1991 Pirates, but this actually hasn't happened since the 2008 Rays. That was a

fun team, a fun bullpen. Bullpen had a lot to do with their rebound that year. So that year, Troy Percival, J.P. Howell, Grant Balfour, and Dan Wheeler, they got saves in consecutive games. So Lucas then responded to that, and he said, I'll add this, if we extend the Yankees streak to wins as opposed to games, it's actually five different pitchers in a row saving different wins because Tommy Canely got the save on Tuesday night against the Marlins. So Dan went back to his database and he found that it would tie the record, five pitchers, five wins in a row. This would be the 15th time five different players have recorded a save in five straight wins. So neither of these things is unprecedented, but both of them are unusual. And I wanted to bring them up in the context of save distribution as a whole in Major League

Baseball, which I think has changed and is changing to some extent. I wrote about this last year, early in the year at The Ringer, and Joe Sheehan recently wrote about it for his newsletter. It seems as if saves are being distributed a little bit differently these days than they have been in the recent past. So, you know, for the past decade, two decades, whatever it is, basically there's been a designated save getter on each team. And whenever he is available, he will come in in the save situation. And now it seems like that is happening a little less. So Joe mentioned in his newsletter, there were 21 individual 30

save seasons by pitchers just three years ago. And since then, there have been 16, then 11, and it looks like we're on pace for about a dozen this year. So it seems like it's becoming less common for saves to be concentrated in one pitcher's hands. And obviously there are some extenuating circumstances here. I mean, the Yankees are only distributing saves like this right now because Aroldis Chapman is hurt. So if he weren't hurt, he would be getting most or all of these saves. And there are obviously other guys who have gotten hurt, Eratus Vizcaíno, Brandon Morrow, other guys who've been traded. You know, Kela and Rodney, for instance, were traded in the midst of what might have been 30 save seasons.

But in a lot of cases, it seems like teams are more willing to play matchups and to say who's the best guy for this spot. We don't care so much that it's the closer, capital C closer. And so I think that is one indication that bullpen rigidity is slipping just a little bit, which we've seen in other ways too. I think the average length of relief appearances has stopped declining and even started increasing again a bit. We've seen more of the players in the Davinsky hater mold coming along. So I think there's a little bit of loosening in the very strict bullpen hierarchy. Right. I would agree with that. And I'm reminded I saw a quote about

a week ago or so from AJ Hinch, manager of the Astros. This is, he was talking about Hector Rondon and Roberto Osuna and how they fit in the bullpen. Hinch said, quote, for like the hundredth time, I don't care what you call these guys. Rondon is going to be used a little more liberally in the seventh and eighth, which means Osuna would be used in the ninth a little bit more. What guys title them or call them it's on you guys so that's just one example from a team that cares the least about labels and whatnot but definitely i think you are seeing teams diversify and just thinking more about using closures in the highest leverage spot even if that's not in the ninth inning so it of course the average team will still have a closer and the average closer will still rack up most of the saves i mean look at edward diaz for crying out loud he'll just save every game until the end of time so those players do still exist but yeah there's uh i think there's no debating your theory all right you have anything else one last thing just uh one quick thing because i did mention the race i'll just point out so just about a month ago it was on july 31st trade deadline day of course the biggest the big splash of the day was that the red-hot Pittsburgh Pirates traded for Chris Archer.

I would just like to review a few numbers. Because at that point, the Pittsburgh Pirates were 55 and 52. The Tampa Bay Rays were 53 and 53. Now, the Rays were not much worse than the Pirates. But the reason that trade was fake, the Pirates were hot. They were only three and a half games out of the wild card at that point, the second wild card, and the Rays were 10 games out. The Rays were dead in the water, made sense. And even though the Rays and the Pirates occupy almost identical tiers in terms of what they are as

organizations, the Pirates had more to play for in the given year. And so they thought Chris Archer was worth the plunge. So at that point, the Pirates traded for Chris Archer and they thought, let's make a run. I will remind you, at that point, the Pirates traded for Chris Archer And they thought, let's make a run I will remind you, at that point the Pirates were 3.5 out of the wildcard The Rays were 10 out It is now August 27th The Pirates are 8.5 out of the wildcard The Rays are 9 The Rays are 70 and 61

The Pirates are 64 and 67 Since the trade was made, Tampa Bay has gone 17 and 8 Pittsburgh has gone 9-15. The Pirates are toast. Their playoff odds are basically identical in that they are zero. Tampa Bay traded Chris Archer, who has not been very good yet for the Pirates. Tyler Glasnow has been quite good so far for the Rays very early. But if that trade was made in large part because the Pirates thought they had something to play for in 2018. Well, nope, already a bust.

Yeah, right. And since that trade was made, we found out the identity of the player to be named later, who is the pitcher Shane Boz, who is, you know, he's 19 and he's in rookie ball. But as I understand it, he's a fairly highly regarded prospect. So he was a first round pick in last year's draft. So I think that sweetened the Rays return from most people's perspective. And then Austin Meadows has been on fire. Glasnow has been pretty good. Archer's been pretty bad. And as you speculated when the

Rays traded Archer, you wondered whether they knew something that other teams didn't recognize, that they were finally willing to give him up because he had slipped in some ways and what his slider had not been as effective as it had been in the past this year and so you wondered if he was just not quite the pitcher he was and it's too soon to say but the return since that trade yeah if you thought this was a good trade for the Rays or a bad trade for the Pirates when it was made, you definitely think that and have more reason to think that now. Right. Chris Archer is a little bit like the opposite of Kyle Freeland in that Chris Archer seems to be a hard contact pitcher. He's a strikeout guy, but he also allows batters to make really good contact. I don't know what that means,

but I will also point out that Austin Meadows joined the Durham Bulls in August. So April through July in AAA, actually, I. So April through July in AAA. Actually, I should say April through July, just full stop. Austin Meadows hit seven home runs in August. He has seven home runs. He's got an OPS of 1.002. He's looking 651, seven walks, 12 strikeouts. Austin Meadows back on the radar.

Looks like he could be an impact player soon. The Rays probably feeling pretty good about that trade. Yeah. All right. We will take a quick break and we will be back with a fun and illuminating conversation with rocky starter how free Help me, Kyle Help me, Kyle Won't you stay with me And let me see you smile

So we are joined now by lifelong Rockies fan, career-long Rockies pitcher, and current conqueror of Coors Field, Kyle Freeland. Kyle, hello. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So people who haven't followed your career closely or aren't Rockies fans may not know this, but you are about the same age as the Rockies franchise itself. You were born about a month into their inaugural season in 93. So what are your first memories of following baseball or following the Rockies? What do you recall from your childhood? For me, I mean, it was going downtown with my family during the summer and then going to

Rockies games. I mean, earliest I can remember is probably around five, six years old going down there and, you know, walking into Coors Field and, you know, just soaking everything in and thinking it was the most incredible thing in the world to me. But yeah, those are some of the earliest memories I've ever had. So it's a beautiful ballpark, of course, and you saw some great hitters growing up and it's every kid's dream to grow up and play for his hometown team, of course. But you were watching the Rockies back in the pre-humidor days. Pitchers were getting knocked around. Until recently, there hasn't been a whole lot of success developing pitchers in Colorado.

So when you ended up getting drafted there and signing there, did you have any reservations at all about the history of pitching not really no I mean that was I mean obviously that's that's all that's all the talk uh for the most part and there's been a few pitchers here and there throughout the Rockies history that have had you know a good amount of success I mean Jeff Francis Jimenez Cook those guys you know when I was drafted there I was asked that question a lot you know are you going to be intimidated by the altitude or anything like that and my answer was always no I mean it's it's something that I was happy to to take on and and you know go go see what I can do battling that and uh and hope to come out on top and uh and so far this year I've been able to do

that for better or worse I would imagine that whenever you're doing an interview, talking to anyone, the Rockies and your pitching, it's almost inseparable from Coors Field. And I think that even though park factors might be a little complicated, if anyone knows anything about park factors, they know about Coors. And now I was wondering, I think everyone knows at this point, it's penetrated the public's consciousness that when you have a Rockies hitter, well, then, you know, you take the numbers with a grain of salt because he plays in that ballpark. But the same, the opposite credit doesn't seem to be granted to Rockies pitchers.

So now I don't want to put you in the spot here and make you come off like you are big headed. I don't want you to just talk up your own pitching staff. headed. I don't want you to just talk up your own pitching staff, but how do you think that you and your colleagues might be able to get the word out there that, you know, if you're going to take something away from our hitters, then you have to give that same credit to our pitchers because we're pitching in this impossible environment. Yeah, I mean, when you look at it that way, it's a bit of a double standard where, you know, media will knock hitters, but won't give credit to pitchers. And I think for so long it's just been one-sided with hitters and just because there hasn't been, you know, a ton of successful pitching.

That's one thing. But, I mean, for me, you know, the way I look at it is, you know, I'd love to see everything, I mean, dead even where, I mean, Coors Field is just another baseball park. It is just another team in the league that you can compare, obviously, park adjustments and everything like that. But it's the game of baseball. I mean, it's a level playing field.

You have to make pitches. You have to make good, hard contact with the bat and ball. And you've got to do your job out there. I'd like to see it even and not completely blown out of the water. And you're part of a great homegrown rotation now. All of you in your 20s, it's you and Gray and Marquez and Anderson and Bettis, all of

these guys. Do you think there has been some difference in the way that the Rockies develop pitchers now as opposed to how they used to develop them in the past? Or is this just kind of a collection of talent that came along and you all blossomed together? No, yeah. I believe that our organization, the way they raised us through their minor league levels and the way they teach in the art of pitching to not only us but the guys in our lower levels right now is one, already having success, and we've shown that.

And two, it's going to continue to have that success just because they're teaching the same thing that we were learning coming through the minor league system and uh it's proven to work so i was i was curious if we could dive into some mechanical stuff a little quick uh one of the things i noticed obviously you came up you debuted last year but since last year you have uh being a lefty of course you have an emphasis on trying to pitch and pitch well against right-handed hitters. And one of the things that you've done this year is that you have mostly shifted sides of the rubber. And this is something that you see pitchers go back and forth, and you'll see guys move to either side. And I was curious how you explain the thought process and maybe how easy it was to make that transition. What are you looking to do by standing now on the third base side

as opposed to last year you were over toward the extreme first base side? Is it just a matter of angles, or do you feel more comfortable on that side pitching at Redis? I feel more comfortable. So most of my high school and collegiate and part of my professional career, I actually pitched on the third base side. When I was in my first big league camp,

they had me switch over to the first base side just because that's kind of how they like their lefties pitching over there and righties pitching on the third base side. Just like you said, I'm in for angles and things like that. I got comfortable doing it. Really didn't have a huge problem with it. And then last year, towards the end of the year, when I was struggling, I was put in the bullpen, was tired.

I started messing with some things, and I went back to what I knew was comfortable for me and what I knew I could have success with. So I went back to the third base side of the rubber and stuck with that. And it felt good at the end of the year when I pitched from there. And then going into spring training, I stayed right there on the third base side. And it's just much more comfortable for me. I'm able to see my pitches on the plate longer, and I feel like they stay on the plate longer,

and it's just been much more comfortable for me doing it from that side of the rubber. And something that is less evident, I can look up where you're standing on the rubber, that's in the numbers, but something that's less evident and something I think I've noticed, so you can confirm if if i'm right but i've read every so often the guys like marcus stroman johnny cueto they'll have little hitches in their delivery try to mess with hitters timing and what i think i saw and i could be wrong but it it looks like this year you you have a pause around the the height of your leg lift and last year you had a little bit of a hitch when you when you lowered your leg before you were going to home plate i don't know if that's true but if

that is true i was wondering if you could sort of walk us through through that process as well just sort of trying to figure out when the right time is to try to interrupt timing and and how it feels for you to have maybe your momentum and your delivery arguably pause for a split second before you go home yeah no uh that's absolutely true so last year the the pause was kind of at the bottom of my leg kick, similar to kind of what Kershaw does a little bit. But this offseason, we discovered that I was deloading and I was using much more of my body than I should have been,

and that's probably part of the reason why I got tired last year. So this year, we kind of changed some things in the offseason, working with some pitching coaches and keeping my load up top and then driving down the mound without deloading has helped with stamina control, body control, and a whole lot goes into it. But the hits that I have this year is, yeah, it's one, it can help mess up the timing of a hitter, especially if they have a large leg kick. And two, it also helps keep my weight back on my backside before going down the mound, making sure that I don't leak out early and become rotational instead of directional.

But no, the hitch has worked well in both ways. It seems from looking at the numbers, at least, that you've changed up your pitch selection a little bit this year, too, that you've thrown fewer sinkers. You've maybe gone to the change-up and the slider more often. Is there a thought process behind that? Because you hear often, well, you want to keep the ball on the ground in Coors Field, and so you'd think sinkers might make sense, but you're throwing fewer of them and having more success, more four-seamers too. But what's your thought process as far as pitch selection this year? So change-up has been huge for me. Kind of revamped that pitch and found a way for me to be very comfortable with it in all sorts of situations and all sorts of counts going from last year to this year. And the amount of confidence I have in it is just leaps and bounds

from what I had last year and the year before that. That pitch has gotten a lot of guys off that fastball. And, you know, like you said, a lot less sinkers this year. Last year we discovered after the first half that, you know, guys were looking for sinkers down the way. They knew I would be throwing them, and I started getting hurt throwing those pitches. So this year in spring training and the beginning part of the year, we knew we had a strong glove side command,

and so we started pitching in a lot and very much so to righties, and it makes them uncomfortable. It helps play the rest of my repertoire with you know change up sliders on both sides of play and the curveball and uh you know going inside just hitters hitters really don't like it and it makes them uncomfortable and it it opens up a lot of offense for you as a pitcher one of of course going back to sort of the Coors Field effect one of the reasons that you hear that Rockies hitters struggle so much on the road is that you go to a more neutral ballpark and you're just seeing pitches that are moving differently. They're moving more than they

move in Colorado for all the reasons we don't need to go over here. But I was wondering, as I was thinking about this more recently, does that cause any problems for you as a pitcher? Because of course, you're also used to pitching in Colorado. And if you're going to San Diego or San Francisco, your own pitches are going to be moving differently and they'll be moving more dramatically. So how easy is it for you to adjust to having your pitches sort of playing up when you're not pitching at home? So I don't try to make too much of an adjustment going from altitude to sea level or vice versa. The only pitch in my arsenal that I see any sort of change from both from

altitude or sea level is uh is my curveball it'll obviously have a little more depth uh at sea level just because you know the any sort of humidity or moisture in there is gonna be able to grab better but um other than that the mentality for me doesn't change i still throw my pitches the same way i don't try and do too much or try and do less, just keeping the same mentality. And I mean, it's kind of this, this season has unfolded where I've had a lot of success at home, where it's kind of the book is read in the past that it should be vice versa. You should have more success on the road being at sea level and everything. But for me, it's just keeping the same mentality and keep throwing the pitches how to throw

them. And since you came up, one of the things that's really set you apart is your ability to induce weak contact. You're right up there with, you know, Brent Suter, CeCe Sabathia, Kyle Hendricks, guys like that in lowest average exit velocity allowed. And I don't know that people kind of analyzing baseball always know what to do with that information. It's easy to look at someone who strikes out everyone and say, well, yeah, that's good. It's good to miss bats. But allowing weak contact is really good,

too, if you can sustain it. And so far you have. So what is the key, do you think, to getting so much soft contact? It kind of goes back to, you know, pitching inside and making a hitter uncomfortable. You can get in on their hands, and, you know, a lot of guys in the league, they see that fastball inside, and they want to pull the trigger on it. They want to hit something hard that they can really turn that head around and barrel something up. But, you know, pitching in, getting in on their hands is going to induce a lot of weak contacts, especially if they aren't able to get that barrel around.

And then once you do that, it opens up options to where you can throw your changeup down and away and it comes out of your hand looking like a fastball. And then next thing they know, it's off the end of their bat for a weak ground ball or a weak fly ball. But I think it all goes back to establishing the inner half and making them uncomfortable and making them aware inside. And that has helped with a ton of weak contact. I remember reading a few years ago when James Paxton was developing and he first got to the major leagues and he was watching a lot of film of Clayton Kershaw. He kind of figured obviously he's not on the Clayton Kershaw level, but he saw there were a lot of similarities

between their throwing styles, and he thought Kershaw would be a good role model. And I was going over some information of yours last week and looking at some comparable pitchers, and Dallas Keigel stood out as a guy who throws a lot of similar pitches to you and has sort of a similar approach. But I was wondering, in your own head,

do you have sort of a role model or a close peer that you think you're similar to, someone who can sort of keep you honest and on the level as you go along? Or do you feel like you're sort of kind of blazing your own trail right now? I like to keep the mentality of I want to create my own tracks. Obviously, it never hurts to learn or soak in something that another person is doing. So Dallas Keuchel is one person that I keep tabs on and I watch a little bit. Another person who I've discovered, who me and him have very similar arsenals, very similar ways of pitching, is Patrick Corbin with Arizona. So especially this year, I've watched him quite a bit

in how he throws and how he pitches to guys. And with us having similar arsenals, it's easy to pick up on things and learn some things from him. Do you think there's anything that you and your rotation mates need to do differently because of the altitude from a recovery perspective? And if so, does having been born in Denver and having been acclimated to that your whole life help you in any way? It did when I went off to college, when we started conditioning, but that it wore off after a couple of years. But it's, you know, being traveling as much as we do and playing half our games in Colorado, you just need to have,

and playing half our games in Colorado, you just need to have good body awareness and know when you need to really get on your hydration or start it at a certain time before you get back to Colorado. Because, I mean, you do feel it. Your recovery definitely is not as quick in Colorado as it is anywhere on the road at sea level. And you can feel it. It's usually a day or two after you get back to Colorado where your body just kind of feels a little different than what it would normally feel like, say, San Diego or L.A., anything like that. But it's, you know, keeping body awareness and just really listening to your body and making sure you're doing all the

right steps to be ready for your next start. You've mentioned that you switched sides of the rubber because you just went back to feeling more comfortable on the third base side. You've talked about pitching inside, and your changeup has come along. As you've developed, this is now your sophomore year in the major leagues, so you've been learning a lot, and you've been learning it quickly. But as you've been developing in the majors, has this been kind of more of a feel thing, a gut thing? Have you been driving a lot of this progress or have you been do the Rockies approach you with a lot of their

own data and they they make recommendations or do you try to uh you try to stay away from so much let's call it statistical influence or or interruptions and just try to focus on on throwing your pitches how you feel most comfortable throwing them. Yeah, I mean, I have to say I just like sticking to how I'm feeling and how I'm pitching and, you know, going off that, not looking at the numbers of, you know, you pitch this guy at this location all the time, you're going to get this result or anything like that. Obviously, I have to get ready for a lineup every five days. And so I'll look at their swings and I look at some numbers of percentages of, you know, where they swing it well and where they don't swing it well. But other than that, it's just trusting my stuff. I'm out there on the mound and, you know, being a

pitcher, using my eyes, using my head and learning the game the best I can. So since you came up, you've been pitching in meaningful games. Obviously, last year, the Rockies end up in the wildcard game. This year, you're contending for that again, as well as in the NL West. Do you think that that has affected your development in any way? I mean, if you had come up in a Rockies team that hadn't been in contention at all and you hadn't been pitching with the same stakes, would anything have played out differently? I mean, I'm sure this is more enjoyable this way but

do you think it helps you focus in any sense or maintain a more positive attitude or just even face that pressure that you know at some point all pitchers hope to face yeah I mean a little hard to answer that one not knowing what it's like being on a team that's struggling at this level. I think starting with this team where we immediately had success from last year and now to this year, the learning curve I think has come a little bit easier where the clubhouse is a good place to be. Camaraderie's high, Everyone's having a good time.

It's enjoyable as to where if you're on a team that's struggling, you might walk into that clubhouse and it's not too enjoyable to want to go learn or have that drive to learn. So having the success that we've had over the past two years, you go into the clubhouse, you go into the game wanting to get better and knowing that the better you get the more success this team is going to have so in that aspect you know it's it's been a little bit easier I think for me being on a successful team two years in a row one of one of the great luxuries you have you know people don't usually refer to pitchers

pitching in Colorado as having luxuries but one thing thing you do get to do, especially as a lefty, a lefty pitcher faces a lot of righties, still generates a lot of grand balls. Grand balls, of course, by righties tend to be pulled. And pulled grand balls by righties against you end up pulled toward Nolan Arenado, which is not something a lot of pitchers get to say. So I was wondering, I don't want to speak ill of anyone you had at third base while you were coming up through the farm or when you were pitching when you were younger but i'm going to guess they weren't quite on the nolan arenado level so does that does that get in your head at all do you pitch differently ever is there ever a situation where you think because i have this guy behind me i'm going to throw this pitch instead of this other one or do you just pitch pretty much independent of the guys who are playing behind you i'll pitch independent of the guys who are behind me

obviously it doesn't hurt to have uh nolan arenado and trevor story on the left side of the guys who are playing behind you? I'll pitch independent of the guys who are behind me. Obviously, it doesn't hurt to have Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story on the left side of the infield, especially being a ground ball pitcher who's facing a lot of righties, like you said. Definitely don't shy away from trying to get a ball on the ground to the left side to get a double play or get a weak contact out. It's great having those two over there. They both will wow you every single night. It's great having those two over there. They both will wow you every single night. It's truly incredible to watch those two play the game at their position,

and it's nice having them there, having your back. I know you said that you don't like to vary your pitching approach too much depending on where you're pitching, even though you've had a lot of success in Coors Field. But do you think that there is an organizational emphasis on certain pitches or certain locations that are tailored to Coors in some way, or is it just, you know, let everyone do what they do? I think every pitcher needs to find out kind of what works best for them at Coors Field. For some, it might not be changing anything. For some, it might be, you know, having to come in and change things drastically. I guess it depends on your mentality.

For me, it's really been the change-up. That was one thing that was truly pressed upon me right when I got in this organization was to learn a change-up, love it, learn when to throw it, learn how to throw it, get as comfortable as you can because if you want to be, one, a big league pitcher, and two, pitch at Coors Field, you need to have a changeup that is going to give you success. So that was pressed upon me for the two and a half years I was in the minor leagues, and it's still pressed upon me today. It's a pitch I'm still learning how to throw in different ways, but it's given me a lot

of success, especially over this past year. Back when you were in high A, you pitched in Modesto. Modesto is basically a C-level town, even in a hitter-friendly league. When you were in double A, you pitched in Hartford, Connecticut, pretty much a C-level town, got a river running through it and everything. Then you went up to triple A and you made 12 starts in Albuquerque, and Albuquerque has an elevation that is very comparable to that of Denver. So now, of course, you being from the Denver area, you are very accustomed to pitching at elevation. It wouldn't

have been too much of a shock to you, but do you remember what it was like for your teammates to have the experience of pitching at that kind of elevation as a sort of a preparatory step before making it to the majors? Were there a lot of lessons that you saw the guys who were learning in the moment so that they would be able to be better equipped to come up to the majors and make a seamless transition? Yeah, I think that might have been looked into as the Rockies organization as a whole to, you know, have a contract with this team and with this park just because, I mean, they are at elevation and Coors Field is at elevation as well so it's a good final step for pitchers to figure some some last few things out at that

altitude that they need to get done before taking the final step to the big leagues and yeah I mean there's definitely guys who you saw, you know, struggle with learning or were definitely asking questions about it. I mean, I was, like I said, I only made 12 starts there, so I wasn't there a whole lot of time. But yeah, it's a good final step and a good last place to be before coming to Denver. Does a ball from a humidor feel any different? I know it travels differently, but does it impact your grip or anything like that? For me, I haven't been able to feel any difference between a ball at Denver coming out of a humidor compared to a ball down in San Diego. You know, when we're in a

really humid place, you know, the leather might feel a little bit softer just because the amount of moisture in the air. I know when we were down in Atlanta, the amount of sweat that I had lathered up and the amount of humidity that was in the air, you could feel a little bit of difference in the ball, but I'm sure that was just attributed to the absurd amount of moisture in the air. Is it any different coming up and playing for a manager who was himself a pitcher and a pitching coach which is still pretty unusual in the major leagues does that help at all does he kind of pitch in in

ways that a typical manager might not yeah i mean him being my first manager um i really really couldn't speak on you know other managers about how they pitched in about it but um him being a pitching manager it's it's nice it's another person that us as pitchers can go ask questions about i mean we have our obviously our two pitching coaches uh foster and homie that are there to you know help us every single day with whatever we need but uh bud being a ex-pitcher and and now now manager he he's another guy that you can talk to about pitching. And he'll come over to you as well and talk to you about certain hitters or certain pitches or how you're feeling just because he's gone through that before and he knows what it's like.

The last thing I wanted to ask you, and this is something that I like to ask to pitchers, but of course when you are not pitching, every so often you will get to come to the plate and there was a game in particular last year may 21st this is a remarkable game that you had at the plate because you walked you doubled doubled the left field as a matter of fact and you hit a home run he had a home run on an 0-1 count i was just wondering where you rank among your own career highlights where do you put that home run how good does it feel i know you didn't hit a home run in the minors you didn't hit a home run in the minors. You didn't hit a whole lot in the minors. I don't know what you did in high school, but what is that feeling of just connecting as a major league pitcher who, of course, you know, a lot of people think that

you shouldn't be batting at all. So how good was that, basically? It's a good feeling. Hitting is not easy, and I've really, really understood that this year with my struggles at the plate. But being able to contribute to the team offensively in any way that you can, whether it's getting a sack punt down or getting a base hit and turning the lineup over, it's a great feeling knowing that you're helping the team from another side other than just pitching. And you're really pitching in as much as you can trying to win this game for your team. And being able to connect with a ball like that and get a home run, it's a pretty incredible

feeling. So my last question, a lot of players don't like to talk about their own accomplishments and praise themselves. So I will say it for you. I mean, you are having one of the very best seasons that a Rockies pitcher has ever had. You know, you look at the numbers and it's kind of you and Ubaldo Jimenez in 2010, kind of in that same class. And certainly in terms of how you pitched at Coors Field, I think you stand out on the all-time list there. And having grown up rooting for this team and watching this team and now excelling for

this team as much as anyone ever has, I mean, that has to be a pretty special feeling. And you don't really even have to kind of Coors adjust your numbers. I mean, when you have a sub-3 ERA, that's good anywhere. And when you do it, when you're pitching half the time in Coors Field, that's even more impressive. But I don't know, how does it feel, I guess, if you can sum it up to go from watching this team as a kid to excelling the way that you are? It's a great feeling. Obviously, we still have about five weeks left in the season. So I've got about six, seven stars left.

So nothing for sure is going to happen. And we don't know what the future holds but um this season so far for me it's been great i've learned so much about myself about my team about this league about pitching at this level and i just want to continue to learn about this game as much as i can because you can you can really never stop learning about it but this season it's been truly great to me. And I hope to keep having the success that I'm having through the rest of the year. All right. Well, it has been a pleasure talking to you. We wish you the best of luck for the rest of the season and the same

to the Rockies. And thank you very much for your time. All right. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you. So I wanted to just take a few minutes to dissect some of what Kyle said and talk about his season. As we said in the intro, he is, according to Baseball Reference, one of the 10 most valuable players in baseball, period, this year, not just pitchers. Now that will vary depending on which war you're looking at. If you're looking at a war that is looking primarily at runs prevented, which of course is the point of pitching, he does very, very well. If you're looking at one that prioritizes strikeouts and walks, he does well, but not as well.

So I'm curious about how good you think Kyle Freeland is essentially. He's obviously very good. Is he elite? Is he one of the very top pitchers? Because as we said, weak contact is the kind of thing that it's very valuable if you can get it but i think we're still sort of figuring out how consistently you can get it right yeah i was i was looking at this just last week trying to figure out sustainability

of weak contact and all that stuff and i mean you've you've looked at enough of this research i'm sure you've done some of your own you can think of who have been like weak contact pitchers in the recent years that we can talk about Clayton Kershaw has been there Jake Arrieta has been there Kyle Hendricks Dallas Keuchel these are names that kind of stand out and and I think with when you look at Kyle Hendricks and when you look at the the stat cast information on Kyle Hendricks he hasn't just done this for one season he's he's done this now for for two which feels like it's significant and I I'm comfortable saying that Kyle Freeland has a

real skill to generate weak contact what i am less comfortable predicting is how long he will will have that skill i think that if you are a strikeout pitcher you can keep that for longer than whatever it is that allows you to to generate your weak contact maybe your command slips a little bit i don't know but i think that his answers are pretty convincing when he talks about how he's he's getting that weak contact you you know like you think well if you're a lefty pitcher facing a lot of righties how do you get weak contact well you you pound the hitters down and away that's where hitters are least successful but then as as freeland said in in the conversation he sensed that hitters started to look for that pitch down and away and so he started busting them

a lot more often inside and so when you can do that and then go down and away one thing that's really impressed me about freeland certainly the heat maps all bear it out he has really good command of of his hard pitches on either side of the plate i think that when you when you have that skill and he has a good blend of movement i'm i'm comfortable saying that freeland is better than his fit i wouldn't i wouldn't call him one of the 10 best players in baseball right now. There are some really good players, but he is a pitcher I feel bad for not having examined closely yet in almost any detail because he's just really flown under the radar, as have many other Rockies players. Yeah. I mean, John Gray gets more attention than Kyle Freeland does, I think,

for good reasons. I mean, we were all writing and talking about him earlier this season because he had such a mismatch between his peripherals and his runs allowed, and then he got demoted, and then he's come back up and been great. And he's more of the prototypical ace, you know, the harder thrower who gets lots of strikeouts. But Freeland has just been more successful in terms of the goal of pitching, which is, again, preventing runs. And it's curious. I mean, it's not only that he's holding his own in Coors Field and a 310 BABIP on the road, which is not enormous, but it suggests that either he's been a little lucky in Coors Field and a little unlucky on the road, or he's been better at getting that weak contact at home

because he would expect to see a higher BABIP in Coors Field, even with some home field advantage. It's just the park with the highest BABIP in baseball because in addition to allowing lots of home runs there, pitchers give up lots of base hits because the outfield is enormous. So it's definitely not what you would expect to see. And I was kind of hoping he'd say, yeah, I throw, you know, more sinkers or whatever at home because I'm going for more grounders or I'll pitch lower in the zone or whatever. It doesn't sound like he has a philosophy that is specifically tailored toward Coors Field, or if he does, he's not giving it away. Right. And I think that when you talk to pitchers generally, almost any baseball player will tell you, I just go with what's feeling good. I'm going with what I'm familiar with. I'm going

with what's comfortable. And then if I'm really feeling good, then I'll throw my pitches where I want. They'll move how we want. Then I'll get hitters out more often than not. I don't think that we've ever talked to anyone who said, oh, yeah, no, when I'm facing this guy, I throw 80% fastballs up here. And then when I talk to this guy, I throw 60% curveballs down here. So I think that what's kind of fun, the neat side effect of what we get to do is that we sort of get to analyze how pitchers think about themselves even just sort of implicitly.

They might not be aware of how they're pitching, what their philosophy necessarily is, but then we can see it. And so we can look at what Kyle Freeland's patterns are and we can, if we wanted to, we could tell him what his pitching philosophy is and whether it does change when it's at home or on the road. I couldn't find anything real meaningful in the data, but generally pitchers will, how they throw or how hitters hit will tell you exactly what their approach is. So you don't always necessarily need the words to back up what the data says. Yeah. And he is clearly a guy who thinks about pitching. I mean, you always wonder going into an interview, A, are they going to tell you anything that they're actually thinking? And B, are they the sort of person who really thinks about what they're doing?

Or are they just kind of going out there and throwing until they actually have to think about it because what they're doing stops working so well? But it sounds like he is a guy who has put a lot of thought into this. And you kind of have to be when you throw as hard as Kyle Freeland does which for a lefty is fine and would have been great years ago but now you look at the velocity and he's averaging 91.5 this year which is actually down from last year he's not blowing anyone away and so yeah in terms of career outlook maybe you would opt for the gray type pitcher over the Freeland type pitcher because I think it's been shown in the past that, you know, you want the guy who misses bats even more than you want the guy who gets grounders.

They're both good. But in terms of career longevity, you do want the flamethrower and the guy who gets strikeouts. And so he is kind of fighting an uphill battle in that sense. But that doesn't mean that you can't be as good as any strikeout guy when you're at your peak and when you have everything working. And stats, they don't pop out quite as much as they should. And it's really impressive what he is doing. And he was a prospect, but he wasn't a top, top prospect. And so I think to have him come out of the gate and do as well as he's done, you know, he wasn't like a top 10 or even necessarily top 50 guy. I think he was like a bottom half of the top 100 guy. And to do what he's done despite that and despite the history of Rocky's pitching is

really impressive. Yeah, I agree with that. When I think of Kyle Freeland now, I kind of think of some sort of Dallas Keuchel or Kyle Hendricks blend. I think that Keuchel is maybe a little bit better than Freeland if you look at the balance of the work. Keuchel gets a lot of grand balls. He's like a real soft contact guy.

But Hendricks, even though he's a righty, is kind of a similar sort of approach, similar overall profile. And, of course, because Freeland pitches in Colorado, we don't know what his numbers would look like if he pitched in a neutral, normal environment. It's one of the great shames that we can't live in a world of infinite counterfactuals where we can look at what Freeland Summers would look like in an alternate path. But in any case, I'm sure he's delighted. He's maybe the one guy who is delighted to be pitching in Colorado because it is where he grew up. And it's probably, even though he won't admit it, it's probably a great feeling to be dominating opponents in Coors Field. Because if he can do it, it's one of the least achievable things in Major League Baseball. Yeah.

All right. So we'll take one more quick break, and I will be back with some closing thoughts. Well, the Kendris Morales streak was stopped at seven games in a row. He ran right into the David Hess Express. So, no record for Kendris. Although something just as special happened on Monday night. The Orioles won, which also ended a streak for them. They did have an eight-game streak, an eight-game losing streak. And I saw a tweet from Stats, at Stats by Stats on Twitter,

that noted that the Orioles have now completed a single-digit losing streak cycle. At least one losing streak of exactly one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine games in a single season. Only three other AL teams have done this, the 1904 Senators, the 1939 Browns, and the 2003 Tigers. That's a fun fact. And elsewhere in the majors on Monday, Jon Lester recorded a pickoff, and not even on a bounce pass. He threw on the fly to first base. So well done, Jon. Conquered the pickoff yips for at least one night. While we're on the subject of the Cubs and on a slightly more serious note, I do want to say a few words about Daniel Murphy. Jeff and I talked about the trade last week purely in a

baseball sense, but since then there's been a lot of deserved discussion about Murphy's past homophobic comments and whether he still stands by them and what that means, how we should think about the Cubs' decision to acquire him. From our perspective, the timing of the trade was somewhat unfortunate in that we had Billy Bean on the show just before that trade was made, and Billy Bean has been a big part of that story, so I wish that we could have asked him about it. For those who haven't been following this, back in 2015 when Bean visited the Mets, Daniel Murphy said, I disagree with his lifestyle. I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual. That doesn't mean I can't still invest in him and get

to know him. I don't think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect, getting to know him. That, I would say, you can still accept them, but I do disagree with the lifestyle 100%. He has not really repudiated those comments. When he had his introductory press conference with the C 100%. He has not really repudiated those comments. When he had his introductory press conference with the Cubs, he mentioned that he has since become friends with Bean, which kind of comes off as a, I'm not homophobic because many of my friends,

or at least one of my friends is a gay person, that kind of defense. He talked a good game, I would say, about inclusion and that people should feel welcome at the park. But when he was asked what he would say, about inclusion and that people should feel welcome at the park. But when he was asked what he would say to Cubs fans who might not be willing to support the Cubs because of his presence, he said, oh dear, and he seemed to dismiss that idea. He said, I would hope that they would root for the Cubs. And as Whitney McIntosh reported at SB Nation, the writer Kelly Wallace of Expanded Roster said that she contacted Daniel Murphy's agent, Seth Levinson, to ask about

this after the trade. Whitney says she saw this email exchange with Levinson and that Levinson was talking about mob justice and people who were judging Murphy for his comments being hate mongers and, quote, I am deeply uncertain whether speaking to anyone in the media will ever fairly serve a good man's best interests. He said he was deeply disturbed by those in the media who have taken his words of three years ago out of context and twisted them to create a problem where none exist. Murphy said on Sunday through a team representative that he stands by those comments. So I don't think it matters that he said them three years ago. They obviously still express his views. This is not one of those situations where we're talking about whether something a player tweeted seven years ago is something he still believes.

Murphy is still trying to strike this balance between essentially professing not to be homophobic, but still saying that he disagrees with the lifestyle. I know there's been a lot of discussion about this in our Facebook group and elsewhere, and some people are of the opinion that this is just Murphy's opinion, and he disagrees with the the lifestyle and we can't police people's beliefs and he is free to disagree and he is free to disagree, but of course we are free to condemn him for his quote-unquote disagreement. The problem, of course, I think is that you can't say that you accept someone and then also say that you disagree with a core part of their identity. You can't say, I accept this person, but I disagree with their lifestyle if that lifestyle is an essential part of them and not a choice. This, of course, seems to be a product of Murphy's religious beliefs, and that may explain why he feels this way, but it doesn't

excuse that he feels this way. And I don't think it's fair to say that his stance here is justified because we're all entitled to our opinions. This is, I think, an inherently intolerant opinion, even if he doesn't see it that way. So I can understand why Cubs fans would be upset about this. No matter how hot Murphy's hitting is or how many games the Cubs win with him, I can see why it would taint that experience just the same way that Earlds Chapman

going to the Cubs in 2016 did. Now, Murphy, as far as we know, has not committed any acts of violence here the way that Chapman did or threatened to do and the way that Roberto Osuna did or threatened to do. There are, of course, degrees of terribleness, and he hasn't physically barred the clubhouse door or physically persecuted someone because of this lifestyle that he disagrees with. But he did make a choice to say this. He could have thought this and not express the thought, but he chose to express the thought. And as much as he might say he's interested in inclusion, expressing this thought is, I think, inherently exclusionary.

So it's unfortunate that he thinks this way. It's unfortunate that he chose to tell the world that he thinks this way. It's not surprising that a team would want to trade for him because he is good at baseball. And we've seen over the years that being good at baseball excuses a lot of sins from a baseball operations and ownership perspective. And although this is in some sense old news in that Murphy made these comments three years ago, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to be thrust back into the news now that a new fan base is reckoning with those comments, which again, he hasn't retracted. This has also been a bigger story because the Cubs have the first openly gay owner or part owner in Major League Baseball,

Laura Ricketts. She made some comments or some tweets on Sunday saying that she approved of this move after various discussions with people with the Cubs and with Billy Bean. She may know more about the situation than I do, but it seems that what we know is sufficient to say that Murphy's words are inconsistent with his professed acceptance. And I'm sure he is hardly the only person in Major League Baseball clubhouses to think this way, but the fact that he has expressed this view means that he has this coming to him. As I understand it, the Cubs have generally had a good relationship with the LGBT community, and they just recently had their 18th annual Out at Wrigley event. That was also on Sunday, and the founder and organizer of that event has condemned Murphy's comments and said that he can't root for Murphy, and I wouldn't quibble with any Cubs fan who

feels that way. So that's what it comes down to. You know, Murphy is not saying I wouldn't play with a gay player. Gay players should be kicked out of baseball, but he is essentially saying that if there is a gay player, that should change his identity because murphy disagrees with it and i think that's the kind of attitude that may prevent players and may have prevented past players from feeling comfortable and expressing themselves and that's a shame so if you'd like a forum to continue to discuss this please head to our facebook group where there is a thread going about it but i didn't want to leave it unremarked upon. And having said all that, you can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so. Chad Jobin,

Jed Martin, Michael Christopher Tortoro, Ethan Lutzky, and Brian Kelly. Thanks to all of you. You can also join the aforementioned Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. And please rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes or other podcast platforms if you are so inclined. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. Hoping that we'll get to some questions on the next episode. Thanks for listening and we will be back to talk to you soon. More than safe Anything is hard to find When you will not open your eyes

When will you accept yourself? When? When? When? When? When? I'm I'm I'm I'm