Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1379: There Are Other Leagues Than These

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Robinson Cano hurting himself hustling, Chris Carter dominating the Mexican League, the incredible continuing career of Ruben Rivera, pop-up dekes, a possible fun fact involving Orioles homers, the return of Ryan Feierabend (and an uncommon complete game), multiple improvements for instant replay review, and the significance of Carter […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1379 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Hi, Ben. How's it going? Can I take a little victory lap at the expense of someone else's pain? pain. So I was talking to Michael Bowman on the Ringer MLB show yesterday, and we were talking about Robinson Cano, who's come under fire for his most recent lack of hustle. And I had a stirring defense of Robinson Cano. And I went back to my old article from the BP days that I'm sure we've talked about on this podcast about Robinson Cano's hustle and whether he actually cost his team anything and whether it makes sense in the long run for him not to hustle

because it preserves his health and maybe has contributed to his durability. So I made my case. I suggested that Robinson Cano has been better off, has been more valuable to himself and his teams over the long haul just because he doesn't bust it on every ground ball to first. Just to recap that research I did, which was pre-stat cast, but I estimated based on where he hits the ball basically and comparing to other left-handed hitters that he costs himself like four singles a year or something

in field hits a year. That is worth a certain amount of runs, but not as many runs as it would cost him to miss even like a week during one of his good seasons because he's a Hall of Fame caliber player. And the only two times he's been on the injured list in his career, except for when he got hit by a pitch, is running out balls and rounding first and running hard to second. And he strained a quad one time and a hamstring one time. So he did that once in 2006 and then not again he was not injured seriously again until 2017 when it happened again so i suggested that he's

actually maximizing his value and today the very day after we had that long conversation he ran hard to first and he has pulled a hamstring and he had to be removed from the game. And it sounds like something that could possibly cost him some time. So I feel vindicated. I'm sorry that it had to come at Robinson Cano's expense. And I hope that he didn't cave to all of the hustle shaming and the pressure that was put on him. I almost hope he's faking. He's faking this injury just to teach a lesson to everyone that this is what happens when he hustles. I wonder if Robinson Cano knows that he is basically a video game character in a game that you are playing for pride.

Yep. That's basically it right now. I'm gloating that Robinson Cano has hurt himself because it makes me look smart. You know, the other thing about Cano that I don't know if you got into in your article, but for a lefty, he hits into a lot of double plays. And so you have to include that in your math. Yeah, but it's so many. I mean, the two plays that people got mad at him about recently. Yeah, he had reasons for both of them.

I won't say they were good reasons, but the first one he thought was foul, so he didn't run. And then the other one he said that the scoreboard in Marlins Park said there were two outs, so he didn't run, which isn't a great excuse because it basically just is admitting to not knowing how many outs there are. But those were his reasons. But on both of those plays, if he had been busting it out of the box, he wouldn't have beaten out those hits. And that's what it comes down to so many times is that even if you run really hard, you're usually not going to beat it out. Even if you do beat it out, it's usually not going to make a difference in the game. Even if it does make a difference in the game, it's usually not going to make a difference in the season. So I'm not saying never run hard. There are times when it's worth the risk. But in the long run, I think his durability speaks for itself. And he's had a Hall of Fame career. And I don't think he would have been any more valuable had he run hard. So I hope that when he comes back off the injured list or off however much time he misses, he goes back to his old ways. Although the way he's hitting the season, I'm sure that Mets fans wouldn't be too sorry to see him take some time off. I like Cano. I like a ball player that takes it easy from time to time.

I also like hustle. I generally like hustle, but I like a certain sort of gracefulness. And Cano has captured that gracefulness, in my opinion. And if the cost of that is a couple singles, then I'm okay with that for my video game that he's part of. Right. with that for my video game that he's part of right i understand why it makes people mad because fans want to win the game and they want their players to look like they really want to win the game just as much as the fans do it it's almost like when a player isn't hustling it almost makes you feel silly for caring as much as you do because it's like why why am i living and

dying with every play here when this guy who's actually on the team doesn't seem to care as much as I do sitting at home here? So I think that sort of spoils the illusion that this is really important to everyone at all times. So I get it. And sure, of course, Canoe is making lots of money and that just puts more pressure on him and makes people more inclined to be angry if he is not giving 100% effort all the time. makes people more inclined to be angry if he is not giving 100% effort all the time. But I made this analogy to Michael, but I think it's sort of like the shift, where you get mad at the shift when it costs you a hit, and you curse the shift, and the shift is stupid, and why do we do the shift?

And then you kind of forget about all the times that it saves you a hit. And in the long run, at least in theory, that works out in your favor. And it's sort of the same with hustling on every ball down to first base, because you can see the times when a guy doesn't beat out the hit, but you can't see the times when he would have hurt himself if he had run all out but didn't. But now Robinson Cano has helpfully provided an illustration of what happens in the worst case. I'm just going to state my, I just want to make my position clear on Cano and Hustle and everything else. I'm pro-Hustle. I like a guy who plays hard but doesn't look like it. And Cano is, I will admit that I have not seen every game that Cano has played. I have not seen him the way that Yankees fans have seen him or Mariners fans, and maybe that's where complaints come from, or like columnists who maybe cover him do. But I don't have a mental image of Cano not hustling.

I have a mental image of Cano appropriately paced. And I like that. I mean, there's always been guys who get criticized for not looking like they're going as hard as you want them to go. But there's not actually any evidence that they're not going as hard as you'd want them to go. It seems like there's always a couple of guys in the league who get knocked for taking it easy somehow. But it's a bad knock. It's not real. It's just that they're smooth. They're smooth and graceful.

And they know what they're doing. And I tend to like those guys. And in my mind, Cano has always been that guy now maybe other people are like dude sam he is notorious and everybody has a mental image of him like turning and walking to the dugout on a six four three double player something i do not have that i'm pro cano uh-huh yeah well when i came to cano's defense i did not actually make the case that he that he hustles all the time, because I do think there are times when he doesn't, and I think he's acknowledged as much. And's been in the big leagues for 15 years now and this has kind of been a consistent complaint about him going back to the beginning so get over it he's had a whole hall of fame career at this point so if he does cost himself a single every now and then

i think he more than makes up for it except for this season which is maybe focusing this intensity pressure on him even more because it's one thing when he's offering a lot of value on other plays but when he appears to be dogging it at times when he's not hitting then of course that's going to make people more upset okay yeah all right so i hope no other players have to hurt themselves to prove any points i'm making yeah i mean you've been doing this for like 10 years i hope at some point you just feel like that you've made it and that you don't need players to get hurt in order to feel valuable in this field.

Yeah, not there yet. You're about to have your second New York Times bestselling book. Oh, let's hope. Let's hope. I don't want to jinx it. You might be a two-timer. You could be. If you're listening and you haven't pre-ordered, you can help make that happen.

And you're here worried about whether Robinson Cano's hamstrings will hold up. Let's see. Anything else, or can I go? Yeah, I got something. I was referred to a tweet that was sent on Wednesday by Max Wildstein, and this was a tweet. Maybe it was sent on Tuesday. And this was a tweet Maybe it was sent on Tuesday And this was about

Former first baseman Chris Carter Who I did not know about this But he has become a Mexican citizen He became a Mexican citizen in February So that he could play in the Mexican League This year And Chris Carter, at least when this tweet was sent Is hitting 371

503 893 in 39 games In the Mexican League with 21 homers and 48 RBI. He has a 43 to 35 strikeout to walk ratio, which is decidedly not Chris Carter-esque. So this is just a more recent reminder of how good Major League Baseball players are. Chris Carter could not find a job in the big leagues, even though he had pretty recently won a home run crown, but he was just not that valuable player. And that was that. He was only 30 in his last season with the Yankees, but he was done as a big leaguer and he didn't hit in his last season. And then he goes to the Mexican League and he is destroying everyone. And he's not hitting at all like what we know Chris Carter to be in the big leagues. And Mexican League is kind of loosely classified as AAA ball, which I don't know exactly how accurate that is. But it's a fairly high level league. And Chris Carter is destroying it.

Yeah, I'm looking. I'm trying to find the easy answer here. The city that he plays in has an elevation of only 1,900 feet. So this is not a Mexico City elevation or anything like that. He's only slightly elevated. The ballpark that he calls home is 325 to left but 410 to center. So, you know, it's no more egregious than uh the games he played in enron or whatever it was called when he was in houston minute made

and uh so yeah he just looks like he's just hitting i think i had him in the minor league draft last year oh maybe two years ago maybe maybe seven years could have been sometime yeah okay you can go all right let's see this one i'll get it out of the way because it's not at all interesting but ryan firabend threw a complete game the other day did you did you see anything about his complete game i didn't really i just know that he threw the knuckleball okay so he threw a complete game but he was on the losing end of a range shortened game. And so he got a complete game for throwing four innings, four innings, not even five. He threw four innings. And this is rarer than I realized.

I knew this was obviously this was possible, but this is only the 11th time in the live ball era that a player has thrown a four inning complete game it's only the second one this century and only the third one of my lifetime and arguably uh you could make the case that that firabend had the worst complete game or the least accomplished complete game in almost a century because of the other 10 in the live ball era, the nine before him were all better performances. Now, the first one of these in the live ball era was in 1923, and that guy gave up five runs. Fira Ben gave up four, but he had a game score of 33. He had four innings, four runs, seven hits, one walk, two strikeouts. And the nice thing is, I don't know, maybe he's starting right now. Maybe he's starting tomorrow.

I haven't checked that, but that's his only appearance in the majors this year so he could have theoretically he could have the ultra rare season line of four innings pitched one one start one complete game uh which would be you know somewhat worth i don't know something about first game he's pitched in five years went the distance yeah which reminds me wasn't my thing wasn't my whole thing about babe ruth couldn't possibly be real because he randomly pitched in five years went the distance yeah which reminds me wasn't my thing wasn't my whole thing about babe ruth couldn't possibly be real because he randomly pitched a game after six years of not pitching and went the distance to a complete game well fear of end did that too yeah right fear bent he hasn't been in the big league since 2014 he was pitching in the kbo and he comes back as a lefty knuckleballer after five years away from the majors and he

pitches it for an incomplete game so yeah that that happens all the time all right let's see the other day i saw a guy pop the ball up foul like kind of in the catcher's area and uh you know he looked up at it and the catcher looked up at it and the catcher chased after it and caught it. And I thought if he had not, if the batter had not looked at that ball, the catcher would not have seen it and he would not have found it in time to catch it. And so I started thinking, should batters not be looking at their pop ups? Do they need to start deking catchers? And I've been kind of watching for these. I've been watching for pop-ups to see if batters look. And batters always look.

And I've seen this happen like over the last four days. So it's not like I've got a robust sample or anything, but they always look and then the catcher always finds it. And today though, in like day four or whatever of my search, Jake Bowers, I believe, popped a ball up foul and he looked the opposite direction and the catcher just stood there like also looking in the opposite direction like is someone gonna feel that and then he realized that it was actually a pop-up right over him and he did not catch it it dropped before he could correct

himself now i don't know if bowers did this on purpose because it was kind of a weird pop-up it was sort of a weird swing it didn't go very high it was kind of off the knob almost or something so it might have just been accident but i'm just bringing it up that because uh you guys came very close probably to getting an article about this four months from now and instead now you just get to hear that it ended that story resolved i also have a fun fact that i wanted to run by you and you can tell me if it's a fun, fun fact. Okay? Okay. You ready? There are 20 players in the majors this year

who have multiple, multiple home run games. Okay? So they've hit two or more home runs in a game two or more times. Sure. 20 of those guys. Okay? All right.

Four of them had both of their multi-homer games against the Orioles. I don't know if it's fun because the market is flooded with fun facts of that very kind, right? Hasn't, I think, Gleyber Torres, he just hit his 10th homer of the season against the Orioles. The follow-up is that only one player in baseball has had four multi-home run games this year, and they've all come against the Orioles. And that is Gleyber Torres. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty fun. They're allowing almost too many homers for any fun fact about homers against the Orioles to actually be that fun.

In fact, I just saw another one from your pals at espn stats and info the orioles have allowed five plus home runs in seven games the most in a season in the history of the american league and they've done it in their first 49 games pretty impressive but juiced ball plus orioles pitching they're going to cores they're going to cores this weekend oh dear all right let me just scroll and make sure i think that's all i got okay by the way i just fear of end uh pop-ups and is this marginal fun fact kind of fun so we've covered the big news of baseball this week oh i got another one this one this one i like this one i'm a little excited to talk about

not really but there we've all got ways that we could improve you know video reviews replay Oh, I got another one. This one I like. This one I'm a little excited to talk about. Not really, but we've all got ways that we could improve video reviews, replay reviews. And I've been thinking a lot about this one, and I feel like this one might be something that we should lobby, that we should get behind. So the other day, a couple days ago, there was a pitch that appeared to hit Jose Ramirez on the foot. The home plate umpire said, go to first. And then the other team came out and argued and said it didn't hit him. And so then the umpires collaborated and then they said, no, it didn't hit you. Go back to the plate. And then Terry Francona came out and he's like, well, now I have to use a review because it hit him.

And so he asked for a review and one angle seemed to show that it probably didn't. And then another angle seemed to show that it probably did. And so this would be what is known as inconclusive. And so because the play on the field got the call on the field got changed, the burden of proof had now shifted. the burden of proof had now shifted. And so while it probably would have been upheld either way, Ramirez hit by pitch was invalidated because it was inconclusive. And so it was, what do they call that? It stands. It wasn't overturned. It wasn't upheld. It stands. Is that the language? So this would go down as the call stands because it couldn't be concluded one way or the other. And so Francona

loses his his review. And my very small fix is that if the conclusion is stands that that if the conclusion is that it is too close to overturn or to confirm that we can't tell that you don't you shouldn't lose your review because francona i mean what what's he supposed to do if you see a camera angle that says this is that like if your camera guy if your guy in the in the in the tvs says we got an angle here that shows it hit him this is this one you gotta you gotta challenge it it's gonna get overturned and then the another guy in new york's like yeah i see that but it's not conclusive i've got to let it stand like what's frank kona supposed to do now is he not supposed to use his reviews because there's a chance that

somebody else will not find it as definitive as the actual image in front of our eyes tells us to, it feels really weird to then, to penalize the manager of that team for doing a call when he was probably right. Or at least he was as you're not saying he's wrong. Nobody's saying he's wrong. Nobody is like able to prove that Francona shouldn't have called for that review.

It's like the, the challenge stands because you can't prove that Francona shouldn't have called for that review it's like the challenge stands because you can't prove that the challenge was incorrect exactly you can't thank you Ben you cannot prove that the challenge was incorrect so you can't take it away from him he gets it back yeah I agree with that although how often

do teams actually run out of challenges anyway have you ever seen that happen would we know I guess we wouldn't necessarily know because if actually run out of challenges anyway. Have you ever seen that happen? Would we know? I guess we wouldn't necessarily know because if you run out, they wouldn't challenge. A couple days ago, I saw a team lose their challenge early and then couldn't use it later. And yeah, we didn't know why they didn't. I mean, we didn't know if they would have, but it was a play that I thought, oh, are they going to?

Oh, it's a commercial. It just moves on. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I feel like I don't Hear teams say that that often Like oh yeah we would have challenged that but we

Had already challenged maybe they just don't Want to call attention to their incorrect challenges I don't know but that must happen From time to time anyway I agree Let's amend the rule Okay so this is Ostensibly an email show But I've got to be honest I've only got

Like three emails that really moved me right now. So I think we have a little time and I just wanted to ask you about Carter Stewart and whether you had any thoughts on that situation because I think it's an interesting one. And I've been trying to decide whether it is, well, it is precedent setting, clearly, but I'm trying to decide whether other people will follow him, whether he will be a trailblazer, or whether it's more of a singular situation. For those who don't know, Carter Stewart was, what, the eighth overall pick last year by the Braves, and he didn't end up signing because there was an exam and a test that revealed an injury, a wrist weakness. And so the offer was reduced and he didn't take it. So he's draft eligible again, but he hadn't pitched as well.

And he has this injury concern lingering and scouts had said that maybe he was favoring the wrist. And so it looked like he was possibly a first round candidate candidate, but maybe a second-round candidate. Wasn't going to be a top-of-the-draft type. So instead of going back into the draft this year, Scott Boris, who's his advisor, I guess you would call it, has opened another loophole of sorts, a classic Boris loophole, and has had him sign with an NPB team. loophole and has had him sign with an NPV team so he's now going over to Japan and he got guaranteed money for this decision he got what seven million over the next six years so normally if you are drafted by a Japanese team or signed by a Japanese team you can't get posted for I think ten years so he's got a shorter period there so he could qualify for free agency and be posted again when he's 25. So worst case, he has made himself quite a bit of money, probably more than he would have made in the draft this year. And well, definitely more than he would have made in the draft this year. And then best case, he goes over there and pitches well and is healthy and can come back at an age when he could also make a lot of money.

So the question is, is this going to be a path that other players take or threaten to take possibly as soon as a couple of weeks from now when the draft starts? Or is this sort of a Carter Stewart singular situation because he had this injury and he was willing to do this and other players might not be yeah well and other players I don't know other players might not be able to get seven million dollars as 19 year olds I don't know what the market would would be for let's say second round picks or third round picks I I don't know but I mean this seems like it's almost hard to believe that this was just out there in front of us and that we weren't talking about it all the time. It is like undeniably great for him, right? He is in the, you said worst case, best case. Worst case, he makes a lot more money. Best case, he's got $7 million guaranteed, whereas whatever team drafted him, if he's bad, would probably guarantee he'd make double A, but not any further than that. And if he's good, he's going to hit free agency at 25. I mean, like, that's like, that's like the dream right there. He basically has one year. You know, if you do a best case outlook for this, there's basically one year where he's got a little extra risk because he would have been maybe in his first year of arbitration at 24 or 25. And so instead of getting that like $5 million payday that year, he'll have to make it healthy

to free agency. So there's like that tiny little bit of risk. Otherwise, though, either way his career goes, he ends up making more money than he would have. And so you wonder, like, I guess it wouldn't make sense for a college player necessarily. Would it? Because a college player is going to make the majors, if things work out, is going to make the majors quicker. Yeah. And so maybe it doesn't work as well for a college player. And maybe you've got to take into account the player development issues here. It might be better for him to be, you know, pitching in A ball under the tutelage of a bunch of really extremely good coaches who only care about making sure he's good four years from

now. I mean, this comes up with college players too, in fact, of the question of whether it's better to be in a minor league farm system rather than pitching for a college coach who's trying to win ballgames. Obviously, pitching in Japan is different than that because I assume that you get a lot better player development attention than you would at college where there's only a couple of coaches um but you've still got incentives that don't necessarily favor your long-term outlook the same way that it does when you're uh in a team's farm system but i mean the money difference is like overwhelming i i know that um jeff pass and wrote about this and he mentioned that scott boris has has mentioned this idea in the past. And so it wasn't invented this week.

And so I guess people were talking about it. But I'm kind of surprised we don't talk about it every June and say, is this the year that six guys jump? Well, so a few things. I mean, I think that there are colleges that are doing a really good job of player development these days, especially the big schools. And in some cases, probably better than even some major league organizations are doing in the minors. So there's that. There are a lot of cutting-edge colleges out there. And then I guess you have to be good enough to attract an NPP team and convince an NPP team to pay you this much money. Normally, Japanese teams are signing Either like quad AAA guys

Who've gotten stuck in AAA For a while and maybe they have a skill set That would work better over there And they're sick of bouncing around AAA And so they go over there And they play at the highest level league in the country And they make more money Or sometimes it's someone who's been in the big leagues

And has washed out Your fear bender Chris Carter type Although I know neither of those actually went to Japan, but that kind of player who just sort of runs out of rope in the majors and goes over there to make more money. So if you're a draftee, like if you're a top of the draft talent, if your top priority is just making the majors, then you're not even going to consider this, although you could perhaps use it as leverage. But your top priority is going to be making the majors. You're going to want to get into the minor league system and move as quickly as you can. So a certain number of guys just aren't going to want to transplant themselves and aren't going to want to possibly delay their major league debut. have to be not good enough to be like a top of the first round pick guaranteed, but you also have to be good enough that a Japanese team would be willing to pay you this much money. So I don't

know how many guys fit into that category every year, probably not a huge number. It's not like a guy who's in the draft is just going to go right over to Japan and start dominating in NPB. Like that's high level baseball. That's like maybe the highest level dominating in NPB. That's high-level baseball. That's maybe the highest-level league in the world. Other than the majors, it's between AAA and Major League Quality. So you're not going to go straight there and be good. You have to play in the Japanese minors for a while, and they can still have some pretty disciplinarian tendencies over there from what I understand, although maybe that's changing, but it's not a cakewalk. It's not

like you go over there and you're just a star instantly. You still have to work your way up. So I don't know how many guys fit this description every year, but I think it's really cool that Boris finds these things every now and then. It's been a while since his last loophole

that I can recall. Lately, he keeps coming up with weird names for contract structures and swell ops and all kinds of complex contracts that are not as fun. But he has a history, of course, of finding this type of loophole. And I'll link to it. Kevin Goldstein wrote a great article about this in 2008, just sort of recounting all the times that Boris found these ways to get his guys more money. And then those loopholes were closed. So it's very possible also that this won't be viable for very long for one reason or another. Yeah. I mean, it all comes down to how many guys there are that could get seven million dollars guaranteed yeah because it makes a lot less sense probably for two million dollars if you're you know even if you're a guy who's

gonna you know sign for 400 or 600 000 as a bonus then then you really start thinking well do i want to you know for all the reasons that you might not want to do it do i want to make make the major league teams mad at me do i want to live outside my comfort zone? Maybe you do. I would, but maybe you don't. Do I want to like postpone my chance to collect major league stats, which is a pretty big thing if you're thinking about your career and your legacy. I mean, that that is the one thing where like the truly best case scenario here is that you know he could have been 21 and a phenom and winning 14 games every year until he's 25 um and then when he's 39 he's got a hall of fame resume and now he will not debut in the majors before he's 26 or 25 or whatever wherever his birthday falls

there and um it's hard to make the hall of fame if you debut in the majors at 26 it's darn near impossible and that's not nothing right the otani by the way the otani the otani precedent makes this kind of interesting too because odani is a guy who said that he would take a lot lot lot less money to play in the best league. And so then we had this hypothetical. I think it was actually about Robinson Cano, which is how much would a team have? How much would some foreign billionaire have to pay Robinson Cano to pay for like their like Dutch national team or something or whatever?

And we said, well, you know, if you have money like Robinson Cano does, you probably right now what would drive you much more than that is playing against the best players in the world and playing at the highest level. And so it would have to be like billions. And Otani kind of proved that, that when he had the chance, he turned down like hundreds of millions of dollars potentially so that he could play with Mike Trout and against Justin Verlander right now and so I don't know how much that factors in

to this for the average second or third round draft pick who still has an uphill climb to get to the majors and who isn't probably gonna be a hall Hall of Famer, but the dream is there. And these are certainly all players who've grown up thinking, who've grown up being the best, playing against the best and probably want to continue to play against the best. And so it might, for that reason,

be unappealing in a lot of cases, some cases. Even though we're talking about the second best. So do you think it's better? Would it be better for baseball as a ecosystem if like you had two semi-equal leagues on different sides of the world or do you think it's better for baseball as an ecosystem to make sure that all the best players in the world you know the very very very top players in the world compete against each other you know all the time i think it's probably better for fans to have them all in one place maybe i'm wrong maybe that's like some ethnocentric

perspective i'm not sure but it would probably be better for players to have two viable competing leagues obviously right there's precedent for that that with Mexican League and other upstart major leagues that tried to compete and poached players and gave them big raises, and then they were able to use that as leverage. And that's why this story is so interesting. We'll be watching his career with great interest, as Emperor Palpatine said, just because this is kind of how you make Money in the draft which is A system that's set up to be Restrictive and suppress salaries and does That very well because you don't have choice

You can either play for the team that drafts You or you can not play at that level And when you do get a choice When it's Kyler Murray which That was a unique case too but That was one and now Carter Stewart Is one as soon as you have Another option out there which that was a unique case too, but that was one, and now Carter Stewart is one. As soon as you have another option out there, it really raises your earning power exponentially.

So you know that MLB has got to be displeased about this development, and will do whatever it can to prevent this from happening in the future. Of course, if they paid minor leaguers more, that might help, and there'd be less incentive to go elsewhere. Or if players could collectively bargain earlier free agency agency but maybe they'll just make a rule against it yeah yeah well you know i like i like the idea of having two co-equal leagues because i'm all about dilution right now i want to dilute the talent pool i want to spread them out so yeah okay by the way chris car Carter is leading the Mexican League. I just looked at the Fangraphs minor league leaderboard.

He has a 198 WRC plus. That is tops in the league. And number two in the league, Felix Pia. Our old friend Felix Pia at the age of 34 has a 188 WRC plus in the Mexican League. And he hasn't been in the big league since 2013. 88 WRC plus in the Mexican league. And he hasn't been in the big league since 2013. I, I once wrote about somebody who had a crazy line in the Mexican league.

And I looked at his, he, what, how was I able to do this? It must've been like a five-year-old line or something like that. Cause I looked at everybody on his team and not one of them ever played again in the majors. So there is, it is fun to look at Mexican League stats,

but it tends to be more of a one-way direction when you're talking about the older guys. It's not quite... I don't know if it works the same way that the Atlantic League works where you go there as a veteran to get some swings and get looked at and hopefully signed again by some team I don't get the feeling there's a lot of veterans

getting signed out of the Mexican League but I could be wrong well it's been harder to do that historically right just the player movement between those leagues because there are various restrictions and agreements and you can't always do that and I guess Chris Carter had to become a Mexican citizen evidently to to play there unless he just decided to do that. And I guess Chris Carter had to become a Mexican citizen, evidently, to play there, unless he just decided to do that because he wanted to anyway. I don't know. But I think it's a little harder to move both ways. Actually, I think Jeff Passan reported last year that MLB had banned transactions with

the Mexican league because of corruption and fraud. So yeah, you're right. I just like it when guys disappear off the major league radar and you just be the best player it's like superman coming from krypton to earth and suddenly he's like the same guy but he's superman it's kind of like that when you go from the big leagues to the mexican league so why would you not enjoy that feeling not having to worry about your roster spot every day just destroying the league just being the mike trout of and also really high level league just not the highest level league it sounds like great fun ben yeah ruben rivera is still playing yeah he's still this is the guy i was thinking of yeah he's he's been playing in the mexican league since

2006 2005 2004 he's been playing in the mexican league since 2004 he's now 45 years old and last year as a 44 year old playing for monclava which is isn't that what chris carter same team is chris carver right carter is that the aceros he's withos. Last year, he hit 253, 413, 396. So he had an 810 OPS, 413 on base percentage. He's basically like Bobby Abreu at age 45. For him. We got to make a trip down there. Yeah.

That'd be fun. Number two overall prospect in baseball, according to Baseball America, in 1995. Isn't this... Right. Well, and isn't the story that he's basically why the Yankees got Mariano? Because they were cousins and he's like, hey, you should sign my cousin.

And they wanted to... Yeah. Yeah, I don't think Ruben was a huge profile signing, but yeah, he was a big prospect. But anyway, I think that they wanted Ruben and he's like, you should sign my cousin too. And then two years later, he was the number two prospect in baseball. And then two years after that, his cousin was a Hall of Famer.

Yep. A lot of longevity and Hall of Fame career. And Ruben is still playing and Mariano's done. Although I'm sure if Mariano wanted to, he could go down and dominate the Mexican League for a while. What a great bottomless baseball reference page he has too. 28 professional seasons, often with multiple stops per season you just keep scrolling down and the career continues man what a good career this is this is a great career when you so he's now played about 1522 games he's got 6500 played appearances in the mexican league in the mexican league wow yeah yeah that's great

i'm gonna look up real quick who had 6,500 plate appearances in the majors i mean it's a lot it's it's ten full seasons that like that would get you on the hall of fame ballot in if you had that i mean easily so let's see. 60. I don't know why I'm doing this. Like this number, it's not like anybody needs help putting the number 6,000 in perspective. How many is that, Sam? It's as many as J.J. Hardy had. Is that a good?

Daryl Strawberry. He's the Daryl Strawberry of the Mexican League.J. Hardy had. Is that a good... Daryl Strawberry. Oh, okay. He's the Daryl Strawberry of the Mexican League. Okay. Alright, let's answer a few emails here. You had a replay banter, so here's a replay question. This is from Jennifer.

She says, I don't know why I never thought of this question before, but why can't the StatCast tracking system be used for instant replay, at least on things like Fair foul? If it tracks objects on the field well enough to show the routes taken by fielders and the trajectory of home runs, why does it not track the ball well enough to determine fair or foul? Of course, it might miss a play or two, but shouldn't it generally work? Why do we rely on TV cameras, which sometimes have terrible angles? Further, why don't they just install TV cameras down both lines in every park? So this sounds like an excellent suggestion,

but I don't think it's a workable one yet. My understanding of StatCast and batted balls is that it doesn't exactly track the full trajectory of the ball. It tracks the initial trajectory and then extrapolates from there. And so it's not perfectly accurate. And I don't think it's up to the task of, say, projecting whether a ball will be fair or foul once it's down the left field line or something. And you have to decide whether it hit the chalk or didn't hit the chalk. I don't think it has that level of precision with projecting batting balls. So that's one problem. And then the other thing is if there's like a super high fly ball that goes over the foul pole, I think very often that would not be tracked. You would not be able to tell whether that was fair

foul at that point. So I don't think the technology is currently up to this task, or I don't think it would be an improvement over even the current tv cameras let alone optimally positioned tv cameras yeah i wonder how consistent the foul line is drawn i wonder if if you have an inch of variation from game to game or if it because because it could be a problem like sure you can put track the ball in space, but the foul line has no concern for your radar. Like it can, it can go wherever it wants. And I don't know if they're perfectly consistent.

Do you think it's perfectly consistent? What do you think the variation is from game to game on the foul line? I would guess it's pretty consistent, but obviously it's going to be like millimeters off or something, but I would think that's pretty close. But of course, the StatCast system has calibration issues from park to park supposedly will be even more accurate so perhaps when that is installed and is being used as the primary system maybe that would be up to the task because that system will be able to measure like limb movements which is interesting because right now it's like center of mass with players bodies so you can't use stat cast for instance to see if someone slid in in front of a tag or or to look at the mechanics of a pitcher's delivery or batter swing or something.

And with Hawkeye, you might be able to do that. So maybe you could also do fair foul. I don't know. Maybe we'll see umpires on headsets talking to Tom Tango and Darren Willman to ask them where stat cast of the ball went. But there aren't that many cases where you can't tell based on the camera. There aren't that many cases where you can't tell based on the camera. No, certainly not many cases that you can't tell that aren't within the, you know, two or three inches that you would expect the system to be unable to do. Now, I will say this, though, which this may be, I don't know if StatCast would be the answer. It wouldn't seem to me the intuitively easiest answer, but my feeling, my sense is that the play that is most miscalled

or that is the hardest to call and that, in my opinion, is most miscalled in baseball, not counting ball strike stuff, is the ground ball right over the bag. I feel like nobody's got a good look on that. Even the cameras don't really usually give you a good look. They're not reviewable, the cameras don't really usually give you a good look they're not reviewable uh which is like i don't quite get that seems like a weird one to say we're not reviewing this one but maybe it's because there's no good camera angle on it but i feel like like

i'm in constant disagreement with with that call with that call of right over the bag and it does seem like you could do something about that but i'm not sure why what you do yeah yeah it's hard to put a pole in the bag with a camera looking straight down i mean you'd have to you'd have to somehow be looking straight down on the bag right yeah it's like straight down so maybe stat cast could do that because that's possible like we do know what we do know where the bag is every game like i know that there's no variation on where the bag is and uh and uh that's a great that's a great place where it can tell you where it is in space at any given second and can probably do better than i

don't know maybe not but it seems like you could probably do better than the umpire who's trying to guess not guess but intuit where the ball in the air that's moving laterally across an object that the umpire is not standing at that's a hard call yeah well you're full of good fixes for instant replay tonight yeah i brought him i hope mlb is listening all right do you have a step left yeah i do all right let's do it All right. Do you have a step list? Yeah, I do.

All right. Let's stat blast. This is a classic example of a stat blast that is not going to teach you anything new. It is merely going to put into perspective something that you already know. That thing is that strikeouts are up um and so this stat blast came up because i was watching a game the other day or actually i was looking at the box score of a game i should say the other day between the astros and the red socks and

the astros pitchers walked more batters than they struck out. And the Red Sox pitchers also walked more batters than they struck out. And I thought that's for both of these staffs. I bet that's pretty rare. And I wondered how rare. And so I'm just going to, this is what the stat blast is. I went and looked at what the record is for the, this is not a record, we're calling it a record, the record for the fewest games in a season by a team pitching staff walking more batters than they struck out. So I'm going to just start by telling you that in 1926, the St. Louis Browns walked more than they struck out 112 times out of 154 games. So that's how baseball used to be, and now it's not like that.

And so I'm going to track this, and the way I'm going to track it is I'm going to tell you the progression of this fake record that I just made up. So in 1920, the record for the fewest games where a team walked more batters than they struck out was Brooklyn with 33. So 33 games they walked more than they struck out. And that was not only the best in the league, it was the best in history. Now, I'm going to tell you something. I started this search in 1920. So it was actually the best that year. It was the same thing. But that record managed to hold on for 20 years. No team for 20 years did this fewer times. And so then in 1940, Brooklyn again had only 28 such games. So for 20 years, no team did fewer than

33. So then Brooklyn does 28, and that record stands for almost 20 years. And then in 1957, the strikeout to walk ratios really started to change a little bit. Philadelphia had 17 such games, new record. So the record is kind of weirdly going down in big, big leaps. So 33 to 28, now to 17. And then in 1961,

it went down to 15. And then in 1962, it went down to 14. And then in 1965, it went from 14 to 7. And then in 1965, it went from 14 to 7. And then that record held on for 36 years. And then the 2001 Yankees only had six times. And then that record held on for 11 years.

And then the 2012 Phillies only did it two times. So six to two. And actually, one of our first episodes, maybe one of our first five or so episodes was I think about the Phillies team strikeout to walk rate. And what do you know that year is 2012. If you don't remember. Yeah. And so then that record held until last year when a team had only one of these games and that team was the Houston Astros. And so sure enough, it was very rare. And in fact, the Red Sox only had two last year. So between them, they only had three all season in 2018, but then they did it against each other. By the way, the Dodgers also only had one last

year. So they, they tied the record with the Astros. So the record is currently one. There's only one other place that that record could possibly go and it is to zero. The Astros will not do it this year, and the Red Sox will not do it this year. They each knocked each other out of the race, but there are three teams that currently have none of these games. The Rays, the Dodgers, and the Pirates in 2019. None of them have had a game where they walked more batters than they struck out. So we could see this record a century in the making from 33 down to zero. And I will just note one last thing, which is that this year, teams that have done this, what would you guess their winning percentage is? Oh, 320.

It's 170. So you're really bad if you're doing this. And we know that. We know how it works. But even in 1920, when there were so uh hang on i'm gonna do a little math in the 1920s one out of every five games a little bit more than one out of every five really about every four games uh team did this so it was very common and even then teams that did this were really bad they were were horrible. And so it was all right there. Like

even then they should have been like, seems like these strikeouts are helping us. Because whenever we walk more than we strike out, we lose. But they just kept doing it. They did it a long time and now they don't. Yeah. They stopped. Well, it was hard to do then. Anyway, Rays, Pirates and Dodgers. The Rays and the Dodgers played each other tonight. So I'm long time and now they don't yeah they stopped well it was hard to do then anyway rays pirates and dodgers the rays and the dodgers played each other tonight so i'm going to check by the way cody bellinger yeah under 400 under 400 never coming back it's over sorry yeah all right well that's something to watch i like it weird effectively wild record that we'll all be paying attention to now i have sort of a stat plus two it's really a listener email answer but

it fits into the stat blast category so this is from steve and he says tonight the orioles will use their 49th different lineup in 49 games is it possible to tell the most unique lineups in a season and to start the year what are the chances the orioles set a new record or even go with 162 different lineups. Ben, before you answer this, can I just tell you that when I used to cover the Angels, sometimes beat writers are obsessed with this, with how many lineups. Like they, at least the beat writers that I was around, they were like every time, every season there'd be like a tally of how many lineups that socia had used and i

always would be like why i okay and then i looked one time and it was just normal like every team has 110 lineups right there's nothing uncommon about using 110 lineups yeah no not at all well that's uh that's actually makes this interesting to me because I learned a little bit while I was looking this up with the help of Dan Hirsch of Baseball Reference, who I asked. I didn't even ask him to send me this data. I just said, is this on Baseball Reference? Because I thought maybe there was a page where I could look at this and there wasn't. So he just sent me everything. He sent me all the unique lineups for every team ever.

the unique lineups for every team ever. So the interesting thing here I can tell you right now is that if the Orioles do have 162 lineups this year, it will not be the first time that's been done. In fact, it won't be the record. The 1965 Mets had 164 unique lineups, which is weird because if you look up the 1965 Mets, they went 50-112. That's 162 games. But they had 164 lineups because they played two games that were not completed and they had different lineups in those two games. Oh, get out. Like they had suspended games? Yeah, with different lineups. So these were games that weren't suspended these were games that were ended in a tie and were remade were played from scratch i guess that's what it was i don't even know what it was yeah i guess that might have been it yeah so 164 and it's not a it's probably not a good thing i i didn't look to see what i'd like to do i I didn't get this data from Dan, but it would be perhaps interesting to look at offense and see if offense is correlated with your number of lineups and whether it's

a bad thing to have a lot of lineups. I would guess it's a bad thing, right? If you have good hitters, they tend to be cemented in certain spots. So I would think it's a bad thing. And the fact that the Orioles are doing it this year, that would support the idea that it's a bad thing. And the fact that the 1965 Mets did it would support the fact that it's a bad thing because that was a bad team. On the other hand, it is not always bad because, and I'm looking, so I did a comparison just all NL teams because this is including pitchers and it's simpler just to compare NL to NL. because this is including pitchers and it's simpler just to compare NL to NL. And I looked from 1962 to present just because that's when the NL went to a 162 game season. So just in that time, there have been four other NL teams that had 162 unique lineups. So even that is not really all that unusual. The Dodgers did it last year and the Dodgers are good.

They had 162 lineups in 163 games. Then you had the 2014 Padres did it in 162 games. The 1993 Expos did it in 163 games and the 2013 Padres, the Padres were doing it every year at that point. They did it in 162 games. So it's been done. It's been done a fair amount. And there are lots of teams with 161 and 160. And it's just not that unusual. 166 White Sox had 163 lineups in 163 games. So it's not that unusual. But what is interesting is I looked at the yearly average, again, just for NL teams and just since 1962 to keep things consistent. We're in peak unique lineup era. You've never been more likely to see more unique lineups than we are right now. So last year, yeah, the average NL team last year had 154.9 lineups, unique

lineups. So, I mean, that's like almost a different lineup every day. That's the average NL team. So this is kind of interesting because, you know, like, let's see, I took out all the strike years because you'd have fewer lineups when you have fewer games. But, like, in 1962, the first year of the 162-game schedule in the NL, you had 143. It was, like, you know, low 140s, high 130s in that era. And there have been some lower outlier years, but it's definitely up.

It's up like, you know, 10, 15 unique lineups per season without any increase in the number of games per season. So what's your theory? I haven't thought this through, but why would it be? Do you think, would it just be maybe guys are getting rested more often? Maybe teams are taking guys out of the lineup more often to give them a breather. Maybe lineup spots just are less static than they used to be. Guys just move around more. You're not cemented in a certain lineup spot. I don't know.

Do you have any other ideas for why that way? Or I guess another thing, probably there are more pitchers in the rotation, right? More starters making starts. Pitcher doesn't count. I think the pitcher does count for this. Yeah. No, baseball reference does count batting orders for teams. Yeah.

And they do not include pitchers. Yeah, for this, pitchers are included. This is, Dan said it was more complicated to remove pitchers. So that makes sense, right? Because there are just more pitchers probably starting. So that's probably a big part of it or all of it right there. in the DH era, there's also a sizable increase. The numbers are lower than in the NL, but they're higher relative to what AL lineups used to be. So in 1973, for instance, the average AL team had 111 unique lineups. 113, 108, 111, 112, that range. Last year, 138, a record by quite a bit. That's even though you tend to have smaller benches these days because bullpens are bigger. So maybe it's partly player movement because there's so many guys getting optioned and just shuffled back and forth between AAA and the majors. Mostly pitchers, but hitters too. So you're getting more unique lineups these

days. Ben, I'm going to tell you the most painful thing that ever happened in baseball history. Okay. In 1965, the New York Mets were playing the Philadelphia Phillies. The Mets were 50 and 110. The Phillies had a better record than that, but they were in sixth place. And this was the final weekend of the season. They were 12 games back. This game did not matter much at all.

And the Mets lost the game six to nothing. And that was the first game of a doubleheader. And so then they played the second game of a double header and that game was scoreless through 18 and that's when they ended it and the next day they started over from scratch oh no and also played a double header that went 13 innings in the nightcap. So they went, they ended up going 50 and 112 because they played all this out. They played 49 innings in two days against another team. The most meaningless baseball imaginable. Totally meaningless.

100% meaningless. There were 18,000 fans in attendance for that second day which is pretty good and they put on a show can you imagine playing 18 innings and then saying we're going to start over from scratch tomorrow as part of a double header

oh my goodness yeah that's it you found it that's the saddest thing in baseball history a couple days earlier they had a crowd of 2,000 Yeah, that's it. You found it. That's the saddest thing in baseball history. Wow. A couple days earlier, they had a crowd of 2,000. Huh. Yeah. Okay.

Well, all right. That's all. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. You're done? Okay. Yeah. I got one that I've been putting this in my email spreadsheet for weeks now. Can I ask this one?

All right. It's not long. Yeah. All right. It's not long. Yeah. All right. Jeff, Patreon supporter, says, Last season, one of the many Bartolo Colon highlight videos showed him beating D. Gordon in a race to first base on a grounder to the first baseman. Who are we talking about? Bartolo Colon.

Bartolo Colon, yeah. D. Gordon, yeah. Given that we know that an overweight old pitcher can run 60-ish feet faster than a speed demon can run 90-ish feet. Do you think we will ever see a full shift against Albert Pujols, or insert slow hitter here, with the pitcher having the responsibility to cover first on any infield grounder? I would guess that roughly 100% of MLB pitchers could get to the bag in time to get set and receive the throw, although a pitcher's muscle memory is only set to cover the bag when the ball is hit to the right side. Maybe a lefty who naturally falls toward first anyway at the end of his delivery?

Do you think this could happen? No first baseman shift? We did it in slow pitch. Yeah? Yeah, this is what we would do in slow pitch. If you were understaffed, the first thing you'd do is you'd cut out an outfielder. Second thing you'd do is cut out the first baseman

and have Lev cover the bag. He was our pitcher.'s you'd get you'd just get hurt it'd be too dangerous it's way too dangerous i've i mean i've i already don't we've already talked to him before i think maybe not but i wrote about my favorite double plays and the ones where the pitcher covers already are so terrifying for me i just do not like watching a pitcher sprint over and try to cover first base. So the idea that he's going to sprint over and then turn and get a throw from the third baseman that certainly was thrown before he has turned,

no way, never, not a chance. Yeah, I mean, it could be done if all the conditions were right. I think the clone play does demonstrate that. But yeah, that's, I mean, A, there's an unwritten rules component to it. You're totally showing the guy up, which, as you've noted, teams have very much showed up pool holes by just playing incredibly deep against him. So that's bad, but it's not quite the same as just having no first baseman and saying our pitcher will get over

there so i don't know that any team would be quite that insulting to do that i don't think the insult is a factor to be honest um i mean we're we're well past that in shifting i mean what it's no more insulting than having the four guys on the right side for a left-hander except that in making the you're saying that you're gonna shift him so aggressively even though it will quite possibly get your pitcher killed that's how much you want to show him up like and so then you go well wait a minute we should have stopped on get our pitcher killed. And you wouldn't do it for that reason. I mean, really, think about it. A ground ball down the line. The third baseman fields it, turns, throws.

The pitcher's 48 feet, you know, along his journey to the first base at this point. He has to sprint to first base, stop on a dime, spin around, find the ball, keep his teeth. And he's probably going to be beating the base runner by three feet so there's going to be two runners getting there at the same time as well from different angles it is nuts yeah this is a you kept this for three weeks and you didn't think about this uh yeah good point good point this probably won't be done. All right. Addendum on the lineup thing, because I think I dismissed Steve's premise too quickly here, because I was talking about lineups, including pitchers. And Steve is talking about the Orioles, who team in the DH era were to use a different lineup every day. That would be something new because the record for an AL team in the DH era. Can I guess it?

Yeah, 1973 on, go ahead. Because I think I looked this up and I did it the Sam way at the time, which is manually clicking every team for every year, which is a good way to say, I do like that. You love just spending an entire day. And I want to say it's like 157. It is 155. Okay.

And that was done by the 1985 California Angels in 162 games. And last year's Blue Jays did it 154 times. So yes, if the Orioles were to have a different lineup every day this year that would be something new and probably not something to brag about but i'm guessing they won't get there but they'll make a run at it you want i mean you don't even think robinson cano should run out grounders and you want to make your pitcher do this so that you can get an extra six feet of range from your first baseman?

Yeah, not fully thought out. Okay. All right. All right, that'll do it. See ya. I always wonder, if you submit an email question, do you never miss another email episode

because we might answer that question? Sometimes I answer questions that are weeks, months, even years old. You never know when I'll answer your question. So once you submit one, you're kind of locked in for life. You've got to keep listening just to see if it ever gets answered. Not that you should ever miss an episode anyway, but I'm just saying you've got some skin in the game. Sometimes I let people know via email if we answered their question, but not always. You've got to tune in.

You can help support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild, as have the following five listeners who have signed up to pledge some small monthly amount and help keep the podcast going. Nate Mann, Sam Levine, Sam Isaacs, Brian Beyer, and Brandon Kuhn. Thanks to all of you.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. Please keep your questions and comments coming via email at podcastandfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please preorder my book, The MVP Machine, the story of the current revolution in player development in baseball. It comes out on June 4th. It's less than two weeks, people. Running out of pre-order reminders here. I'm sure you're all sorry to hear that. But if you're on the fence, get off the fence on the right side,

on the pre-ordering side. Pre-order the book anywhere and send us your receipt or your pre-order confirmation at themvpmachine at gmail.com. Qualify for pre-order bonuses when the book comes out, an extra chapter, a conversation between me and Travis, and more. Can't wait for you all to read it very soon. Your orders are appreciated. So I'll be back with Meg to do another episode later this week. Talk to you then. Listen to my heartbeat, yeah.

Listen to my heartbeat, yeah. Listen to my heartbeat, yeah Listen to my heartbeat, yeah All night, all night Whenever things get complicated You run away to Mexico I'm never gonna let you go.