Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1403: Bullhorse and Horsecrock

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Ball Four and Jim Bouton, Million Dollar Coin Flip, Christian Yelich’s pursuit of the first 50-30 season and which combination of power and speed would be most impressive, a baseball scene on Cheers, how the MLB All-Star Game differs from other sports’ all-star games, Bubba Starling and the […]

🎵 Blame it on my juice, blame it, blame it on my juice Hello and welcome to episode 1403 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer with Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Hey, Ben. At what age did you read Ball 4 for the first time, if you've read it more than once well i can give you a definitive answer in uh not that long because um the year that i read it this is very specific here i wrote a blog post on my wife's personal blog about my favorite books of the year that i had read that year and i'm looking at it right now i think this was the year let's see not that year. And I'm looking at it right now. I think this was the year. Let's see. Not that year. Well, you've already sort of answered my question because you were a married man by the point that you read it. That's what you're telling me.

I was, yeah. I think it was probably 2008 or 2009 or 2011, one of those. Okay. Yeah. So I think that was right around when I read it, actually. And that was, I think I was in college at that point. You were a little older. It was 2008. And it was my number two book that I read that year. Oh, what was number one? Nixonland.

Oh, okay. Second time that book's been mentioned on this podcast. Yeah. So, all right. Well, so that's what I was wondering because I've read in many of the remembrances of the late great Jim Bouton. It seems like a lot of people were lucky enough to read it at a very formative time for them. It seems like a lot of people remember reading it, you know, when they were 11, let's say in Jay Jaffe's case,

and it totally like opened his mind to a new type of baseball literature and a new type of player and things that he hadn't thought about before and inspired him to become a writer, which is great. And I think a lot of people had some experience like that. It was just a very influential book for them. And of course, if you were around when it came out and read it at the time, then it was probably really earth shattering in a way that led to a backlash. And a lot of people were upset about it. And I kind of wish that I had read it in that context because I really loved it. And I'm sure you did too. Number two book of 2008. It's fantastic. But it is true that if you asked

me to write a blog post about what it meant to me, I would have a hard time saying what it meant to me because I was already a fully formed brain by that point. Yeah, me too. I don't know if I was fully formed, but I was formed enough. And also I knew what to expect going in. I had a fully formed idea of what Balfour was, and it probably exceeded my expectations anyway. I've read The Long Season, which is kind of a precursor to Balfour, which was good, but after reading Balfour was not nearly as good. So I was apprehensive that maybe reading Balfour, I guess it was about 40 years after it had come out at that point, that maybe it wouldn't really resonate anymore. Maybe what seemed revealing in 1970 would not when I read it, but it still was. It totally held up. I mean, it's just as engaging today. And if you haven't read it and you're

listening to this, go get it, go read it now. It'll probably be one of your favorite books of the year and one of your favorite baseball books ever. I just kind of wish it'll probably be one of your favorite books of the year and one of your favorite baseball books ever i just kind of wish it had been like one of the first baseball books i read when i was old enough to appreciate it or that i had been around when it came out to have it broaden my horizons a little bit and so i'm envious of anyone who read it in that way but i'm still really grateful for it so great book and quite a life that Jim Bowden had. Yeah. Have you ever watched his sitcom? No, I have not. Should I? It's weird, man. It's really, really weird. Probably worth rewatching or probably worth finding and watching. I don't remember how much I've seen. I don't remember if I've seen an episode or if I've seen a clip or what, but it's really weird. It's a baseball

sitcom from the 70s that has no baseball in it it only takes place in the clubhouse which is a novel concept and which emma bacheloree tweeted a couple days ago that she has a what i think is a great idea for a television show which is an office comedy that takes place in the bullpen and that similarly has no baseball in it and nobody ever nobody ever gets called into the game or anything nobody i don't even know if anybody warms up which is also a great idea for a tv show not as great as million dollar coin flip which i've been thinking a lot about and which feels like i i definitely know that i could turn that into a huge smash and it would be the most

million dollar idea well it would it would be utterly sociopathic the way to make the show work would be completely psychopathic and it would just smash it would be such a smash and i hope nobody ever does it it would be the cruelest show and everybody would watch it what do you mean just because of the heartbreak of the people who didn't win yeah i mean well the way that you'd have to do it is you'd have to have you'd have to have it be basically two people and one of them doesn't get anything and the other gets maybe i don't know 20 million dollars and you flip a coin and you that's it you just do that yeah that'd be riveting it It would be so riveting.

How has that not been made? Call me, networks. I guess you can just do it now. No, don't, Ben. You don't want to be part of this. This is evil. I guess it is potentially evil. But on the other hand, some people would make money, and the people who didn't wouldn't lose money.

So maybe it would be a net benefit yeah yeah i don't know i don't want that show to be made low production do you remember do you remember uh the show that was just you got hooked up to a lie detector and if you could make it through a series of questions without telling a lie you got a million dollars and they would ask you just like the most the most personal questions and they like they knew like they didn't pick you by chance like you'd gone through a screening process and if you pass that screening process you probably should have known that you had a question that you didn't want them asking you and they would ask you and then if you lied like great you lied

everyone knows the truth now and of course lie detectors are themselves unreliable technology that was probably peak psychopathic television but i think we could maybe top it okay all right i hope i haven't unleashed a horror upon the world we'll'll see. So I wanted to bring up a few things. First, this was something that I'm surprised I hadn't really thought about, but I hadn't until today, until I was reading an article by Andrew Simon of MLB.com, who wrote a whole article about possibility. Christian Yelich going 50-30. Yeah, Christian Yelich 50-30.

I read it too. Yeah, which I don't know how that hadn't dawned on me because I knew that he was hitting in lots of homers, that he was on pace for the 50. I guess I didn't realize that he was stealing as many bases as he has. I still underrate his speed, I think, even though we talked about that on a, and I think that makes it fun. I think that would make it cool if it happened, because if it were just purely that he were benefiting from the juiced ball, which I guess to some extent he is, of course, but he's also stealing bases at a time when stealing bases is less common than it's been a lot of other times in baseball history. And it's just generally hard to have this skill set. I mean, 40-40 is riveting. We pay attention to 30-30. I guess it's mostly because the numbers are the same is why we're interested in it, but also because it tells you something about the player, and we really like the power-speed combination.

So I don't know whether 50 30 is as impressive as 40 40 or more impressive obviously it's it's more valuable well let's 50 30 guy than a 40 40 guy yeah let's slow down because we're gonna have to spend a little bit of time on this specific question so yeah you've got 40 40 40 40 is like you say you say, it's got symmetry, but it's kind of weird because 40 homers and 40 steals are not like an equal achievement on their own. And neither are they of equal value to your team. Yeah. In terms of rarity, how equal are they in terms of rarity? Probably.

These days, probably pretty equal, right? Right. But at a time. At other times. In 1988, probably. Like in the 80arity. Probably. These days, probably pretty equal, right? Right. But at a time. At other times. In 1988, probably. Like in the 80s. Right. But so the thing about it is that it is much.

So if you were to take 40-40 and you were to say, well, what if instead of 40-40, you could do 39-41 or 38-42 or whatever. And you just keep going. You give all the options where you trade one homer for one steal or one steal for one homer of course in real life a steal is less valuable than a homer but it feels more impressive to have the speed component to me than to have the power component so there has never been a 50 30 guy which christian yel might be, but there has been a 30-50 guy. There might be more than one, but Eric Davis. By the way, in the last episode, I mentioned Chris Davis as the equivalent,

the best career equivalent to Shohei Otani versus Shohei Otani's batting line. And I realized that I did not even bother to clarify which Chris Davis. Chris Davis just, Chris Davis the A has simply become the default Chris Davis in all conversation. Anyway, Eric Davis went 37-50 and I remember that as like an iconic season on a baseball card

when I was a kid but not as iconic as Eric Davis going 27-80. That was the season. So I'm curious to know, like given a distribution of those 80 events, I mean lots of players, lots maybe, those 80 events i mean lots of players lots maybe i don't know lots of play well technically lots of players have had a combined 80 homers and steals uh because

everybody who ever stole 80 bases did it but what's the what take away the symmetry what would be the most impressive if you only have 80 80 on the nose 80 on the dot what would be the coolest distribution of those 80 well barry bonds went 70 10 70 well is he had 73 so did he go 73 10 he went 73 13 wow so is that it is that the one that's probably That's probably the most impressive. It's the most impressive, but is it the coolest? Yeah, I think so. Barry Bonds also went 33.52, which is pretty good. I mean, putting aside the baggage of Barry Bonds, I think it's the most impressive and the, I guess, the coolest.

I mean, 73 tingers. Yeah, but we've decided that something about having both attributes is more valuable than only having one in an extreme. Right. I mean, right. When you hit 73, you don't mention the steals because who cares? Right. Unless if he had gotten 7340 or something, sure. But at that point, the headline is the homers to such an extent that I mean, the fact that-

You have not accomplished a 4040. You have not accomplished a- Yeah, it's not a power speed thing anymore. That is like how Hank Aaron and, well, I guess, is it like how Hank Aaron and Tommy Aaron had the most home runs for brothers ever? Because Hank had 755 and Tommy had like appeared in baseball. Is it like that where it's not in the spirit of the question and so it loses yeah i think so all right so then it's not 73 13 where it has got to be

something else it's got to be is it what's the hardest i feel like 50 30 is getting there 50 30 might actually be the hardest that probably you could conjure up. Because 60-20, it's obviously very hard to hit 60 home runs. I can name all the 60 home run hitters in history right now without any trouble at all. And so technically 60-20 is harder, but we've gone into 73-13 territory there where 20 is 20 all that much. Like Sammy Sosa didn't steal 20 bases

the year that he hit 66 home runs, but he did steal 20 bases in a season. He stole 32 bases. He stole 36 bases. He stole 34 bases. So, wow, he stole a lot of bases. Anyway, 60-20, 20 is kind of cheap. So 50-30, is 50-30 better than 55-25?

Hmm. Well, can we do fives? Is five kind of, if we can do fives? No, you can pick any number you want. You can do 57, 23. Okay. The thing is that like lots of guys can steal 20, but going from 20 to 30 feels big.

Whoa. In some eras it wouldn't have been. Right now, I mean, we're at a point now where like 35 sometimes leads the league. Right, yeah. So for him to do this now I think is very impressive. But in the context of history, are we only talking about what would be the most impressive in 2019? I don't know. It's tricky because the whole reason that it's impressive in 2019 is that it hasn't been done in another year.

Yeah, that's true. A I be more impressed by 55-25? I don't think I would. Something about the 30 steals just makes it seem so rare to me. And then would I be more impressed by like 45-35? Maybe. Maybe I would. But 50 homers is big too. I kind of think it's 50-30. So I just wrote a piece about how Fernando Tatando tatis jr is the most exciting player

in baseball and as part of that i looked at who is the most exciting player or i think maybe i use the word most watchable player in every year since he was born and i i defined most watchable as something like almost certain to do something interesting in every game quite likely to do something unprecedented, shocking, or gif-able, and evokes emotions in you beyond the standard emotions of competitive gameplay. And so a lot of the players that I retroactively gave this title to were speed power guys. And in particular, I think they were more some power, like a good amount of power, but crazy speed. And maybe that's just me. Maybe that's a completely personal preference and I have imposed it upon the ESPN reading audience. But I do think that we would rather watch the player who goes 25-55

than we would want to watch the 55-25 guy. Especially today where 55 is a bonkers stolen base number. Like 55 is like three off Billy Hamilton's career high. That's right. Okay. Well, this is really exciting and I hope he does it. So Larry Walker got to 49-33 in 1997, but of course, but still pretty good. And Alfonso Soriano was at 46-41 for the 2006 Nationals. And

then that's kind of the only people who've really gotten close. Well, Hank Aaron, 44-31, Well, Hank Aaron 44-31, Jeff Bagwell 43-31 and 42-30, but that's it. And Jelic right now is at 31-19, so he's got a really good shot to do it. That was 82 games. Of course, he missed some games, so I would say that if he stays healthy, he's fairly likely to do it. unless he, you know, if the back thing makes him stop stealing or something. But he was held out of like the home run derby, for instance, because of the back thing. So if he takes it easy in some way because of that, then maybe the pace slows down one or the other. But let's hope not. This would be fun. Ricky Henderson had a 2887.

Huh? Wow. Yeah, that's pretty good. Didn't get an MVP vote. Did not get a single MVP vote, which he, I don't know. That was one of his worst years. And in fact, he had in recent years stolen a hundred bases three times and he would go on to steal more. but that was his uh that tied his career high for home runs he had a much better season with 28 homers and 65 steals some years later when he led the league in ops and was the mvp but this year 28 homers 87 steals scored 130 runs not a single mvp vote and the yankees won 90 games that year he's a pretty good player probably underappreciated he's pretty appreciated but not enough all right um you watched cheers in its entirety six years i think ago uh when i was a bp i watched the first season of cheers

and i wrote in my tickler file of article ideas, Cheers. And I remember thinking that I had a incredible article idea and I was going to do it and it was going to make baseball prospectus a lot of money. And I never got to it. And over the years, I scroll past that word, Cheers, all the time. And I have no idea, none whatsoever, what the idea was. Did you maybe, do you know what the idea was? Well, I could confirm that there's baseball in cheers, so you were onto something. But the specific idea, I don't know. Could it have been something about Sam Malone's career, like assessing his stats or something?

No, this was a million-dollar idea, Ben. Oh, boy. I don't know. I don't either. It was like not coin flip TV, not that million-dollar idea, but it was a good idea. There was a Hardball Times piece about baseball and cheers last year. Was there? So you could review that, see if it jogs your memory maybe.

All right. I will. I'm going to do that. I'm writing a note to myself to do that right now. Six years from now, you'll check that out. I did go back today and rewatch episode three of season one, which is, what is Carla's last name? Tortelli? Yep.

Tortelli's Tort, which I remember from watching it because they show baseball. They actually show footage on TV. And anytime they show baseball footage on a TV show, a bell dings in your head and mine. We want to analyze it. And for all these years, I've remembered it for one main reason, which is that the broadcaster on this game that they show is john miller john

miller in 1982 you don't probably know this you probably wouldn't know this but john miller was actually the red sox broadcaster for a couple of years including those years before 1982 and so they show a game but here's the weird there's a lot of weird things this is i wouldn't i would say that this hits many of the kind of like acid trip problems that we often see in baseball where there's not that much consistency from shot to shot which you documented very well baseball in the tv show elementary this has some of the same things going on the situation is that they're carla's watching a game in a bar she's very very tense uh she's messing up everybody's orders because she's watching the game so intently and they're the red sox are losing

five nothing to the yankees in fenway park in the ninth inning there is a runner on second the runner on second is named i forget i looked it up earlier today i don't know billy eichler or something like that what is billy Eichler a famous person? Billy Eichner is a famous person. Billy Eichner, let me see, 1982 Red Sox. Anyway, he's on second base. Somebody's batting. Somebody's pitching. Maybe Tommy John, I'm not sure.

And then it cuts away and bar stuff happens for a while, and then it cuts back, and now Carl Yastrzemski is batting, and he pops out for the final out. So John Miller is the broadcaster, and you hear him very clearly. He's describing the situation in the game. It's 5-0. The Red Sox are trying to rally in the ninth inning, and then it cuts away, and it's just you can still hear a broadcaster in the background, and somebody strikes out,

and then they show the game again. By the way, when they show the game the second time, all new crowd and actually a different camera angle. I don't know why. I don't know why they can't get two clips from the same thing, from the same game. But you do know why because you talked to the producer of Elementary about this exact question. And then it goes back and you hear John Miller say that he popped out to third. But the weird thing is that all the broadcaster in the middle is not john miller it's very faint you can hardly hear it you can barely tell what he's saying you can only pick up words here and there but it's definitely not john miller so they this game by the way does not exist i looked in for the

box scores there was no game in that era where the Yankees beat the Red Sox five to nothing in Fenway Park. The games where the second pitcher, who is clearly George Frazier pitches, did not have any of these attributes other than, I mean, this is real action. He really did face Karly Ostromsky, but the situation is not real. So they hired John Miller to describe the situation and then they used, I don't know why, they had to fill in with somebody else. They didn't just keep, it seems like you'd get John Miller in the recording studio and you'd be like,

all right, this is the scripted part. It's gonna take you 15 seconds to read. And this is the gibberish. It's gonna take you 45 seconds. But they didn't wanna do the second part. So they just use stock broadcaster for the other. It's odd. There's a lot of things odd with this situation. It's odder if you watch it nine times, like I did, probably not conveying that. But I also heard John Miller the other day in,

this was like a real, real thrill for me to hear. It was in a movie called My Neighbors the Yamadas, which's a vignette and the gag is that the husband doesn't want the wife to change the channel. And so he is blocking the signal from the remote to the TV and it is choreographed like a martial arts fight. And the whole time John Miller is talking and it is, I think that, I mean, he clearly recorded it for this. This is not describing, I don't think real action, but I think he probably ad-libbed it or wrote it himself. And it was a thrill to hear. I love hearing broadcasters in movies. Broadcasters in movies are a stealthily good weapon in a game of six degrees of Kevin Bacon because they're in a lot of them and they're in a lot of variety of movies,

weird movies. These are surprisingly, John Miller has been in a bunch of movies, but these are the only two that are credited to him on his IMDb page. Cheers and My Neighbors, The Yamadas. All right, cool. Someone sent me a fun clip of Bob Costas on Cheers too,

which I will link to if anyone's interested in that. Or I don't think he was actually on Cheers. It was just sort of like a promotional spot that he did with the Cheers characters. There are a lot of good cameos and sports people on Cheers, obviously, because of Sam Malone's background. But yeah, go check out that article and maybe it will make you remember what you wanted to write your magnum opus on Cheers. when I see a news headline, I want to know if that was big news. And so I looked and I saw that he had 16 assists in 19 minutes in the 2016 All-Star game, which is a lot of assists for a game and not a lot of minutes for a game. And that led me to investigate NBA All-Star stats. And you know enough about basketball. You know what a high scoring basketball game is, right? Yeah. It's like, like 120 to 112 is a high scoring basketball game. And I think that we've all known the NBA All-Star game has long had a reputation for being no, there's very little defense play. It's high scoring. It's kind of like loose and everybody's having a good time. And so I'm going to tell you how many points were scored in NBA All-Star Games starting in 2000. So this is the average of the two teams. So I'm going to like, for instance, in 2000, the average was 132 points.

Maybe it was 136, 128. Maybe it was 140, 124. I don't know. They averaged 132 points. So the concept is clear. All right. 2000, 132 points. 2001, 111 points. 2002, 127 points.

Then 120, 134, 120, 121, 141, 131, 132, 140. So that's 2010 is 140. That's a lot. That's, I guess, where the reputation comes from. Although they had this reputation even when i was a kid even when i was a teenager uh when it was still like in the teens and 20s regularly all right 145 in 2011 151 in 2012 then 140 then 158 in 2014 so this is a game that I don't know the exact score, but it could have been 159 to 157. Okay. 161 in 2015, 185 in 2017, 187 in whatever the next year was. The game was between two teams that collectively scored in regulation 374 points. My daughter is laughing at this right now. She's never seen a basketball game. She knows how funny it is. It's 187 points. That's a lot of points. Each. And so, like I said, for decades, the reputation has been that the NBA All-Star game was low defense. But they have just, I now know, they have just let it go completely, completely all the way.

And I'm just bringing this up because we still, baseball has an All-Star game that is basically played like baseball. It is not managed like baseball, that is basically played like baseball. It is not managed like baseball, but it's played like baseball. In fact, the pitchers are extra good. And I wonder how long that'll last. I wonder if that's going to be permanent, if pitchers just like doing what they do too much to ever not do that, or if the tradition of the baseball all-star game is such that this is somewhat more resilient. But it does seem like it's maybe the baseball All-Star game is such that this is somewhat more resilient. But it does seem like it's maybe the only All-Star game that is still basically normal, a normal version of the sport.

And I wonder if it's forever. You could definitely imagine them all going out and pro-bowling it, and the pitchers don't throw anywhere near their best stuff, and everybody just tees off. don't throw anywhere near their best stuff and everybody just tees off in fact in the last five years only one all-star has not scored so every all-star has scored except one in five years and so you could like the equivalent would be in baseball that like just everyone gets a hit like we're gonna groove pipe shots until you hit a dinger. And that's the sport. And we end up with games that are like 36 to 27 every time. And nobody worries about, I don't know, pitchers getting hurt. People don't really worry about it, but they might. And, uh, and we all have a different

kind of fun. I don't think I would necessarily like that, but on the other hand, the baseball all-star game as it is, doesn't really speak to me. I was talking to a kid who was really excited about the home run derby and the all-star game on Monday. And then I talked to him on Wednesday and he said the home run derby was really fun. I was surprised how boring the all-star game was. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that was kind of, that's the general understanding now, or that's the hierarchy at least. So a things one the nba is in like a super high scoring era right not like highest ever maybe but higher than it's been in decades i think teams are averaging like close to 115 points a game or something like that i think so maybe that's

part of it but obviously not 180 and then the other thing is that in the nba all-star game i think the starters tend to like play the whole game right I mean at the end of the game they're still in there yeah which I think is kind of cool and that would be why I guess there aren't many NBA all-stars who haven't scored in a game because it's not like baseball where it's a revolving door and you've got to get everyone in the game and you have these giant rosters so So that might be an improvement. I was going to say, as you were going through that, I was thinking, yeah, baseball is probably the only all-star game that sort of is regular baseball or not only doesn't inflate scoring, but probably deflate scoring. And I found an article that backs that

up exactly. So Neil Payne just wrote about that this year actually at FiveThirtyEight. He looked at which sports all-star game is the most ridiculous, like the most different from what it usually looks like, and he writes in that piece, MLB is the only one of the big four whose all-star scoring rate actually decreases relative to regular season games. With 4.08 runs per game per all-star game since 2000, the Stars put 11% fewer runs on the board during their big showcase. He continues that wasn't always the case. From 2000 through 2007, the Stars scored 4% more runs than in an ordinary game. The star scored 4% more runs Than in an ordinary game

But from 2008 through 2017 All-star scoring fell With an incredible 30% decrease Relative to the regular season Perhaps not coincidentally as bullpens Accelerated their takeover of modern baseball And all-star managers began deploying More and more of their pitchers in extra

Short stints So in a way it almost is As if players are taking it easy in the game because they're all pitching an inning at a time or less. And yet in baseball, that has the effect of increasing defense basically and run prevention. Whereas in other sports, it might have the opposite effect or at least taking it easy in baseball. I mean, they could take it easy by just throwing 90 instead of 95 or something, but they don't do that. Yeah, no, they don't do that at all.

They throw extra hard, which is I think that it probably is the way. I don't know. I like pitchers. I like seeing pitchers strike batters out. I know that I'm a little bit of an anomaly in that respect, but to me it's really fun to see a starting pitcher get two and a little bit of an anomaly in that respect. But to me, it's really fun to see a starting pitcher get two and a half extra miles an hour and strike out the side. So I'm all for it in as much as I am all for anything in the All-Star game. But yeah, it feels like in the last

couple of years, the three true outcomes in the All-Star game have been everything, even more than in regular baseball. And that is a natural thing to do if you're telling pitchers to do this thing that they're really good at. So Bubba Starling is a big leaguer now, and I wanted to mention that. The Royals called him up, which crosses off another space on the 2011 first round of the draft bingo card. Love crossing off spaces on this thing. You've been tracking this?

We're almost all the way. Have you been tracking this? Yeah. I mean, not for years, but I was aware that this was an anomalous draft when it came to. So now we've got the first 29 picks, except for Danny Holtson who of course is the Second overall pick but he Is threatening to make it the First 29 picks because he's

Back he's making a comeback he's I think on the short Term injured list right now but he's In AAA with the Cubs and Has a legitimate shot at making the majors At some point soon so I hope he does and The 30th guy has a legitimate shot at making the majors at some point soon. So I hope he does. And the 30th guy has some shot, I guess.

Levi Michael, who is in AAA with the Giants now. He was the Twins pick that year. I guess he's not doing great because the juiced ball is in AAA right now. And so probably relative to the league, he's not hitting particularly well. But he's got a shot at least. He's in AAA. He's still active, so we could get the top 30, and then I guess that would make it the top 31. You know, there are zero war guys. There are sub-replacement level war guys here on the list. But just making it is an accomplishment.

And there are tons of superstars on the list, too. So, of course, you've got Anthony Rendon and you've got Francisco Lindor and you've got George Springer and you had Jose Fernandez. And the list goes on and on. Really impressive players. on and on, really impressive players. But if you look at any first round draft board, I mean, you look on baseball reference and either they have the stats because they made the big leagues or it's just a blank line. And there are always a lot of blank lines. And this was the first year before the draft changed and it became harder to like give out big bonuses and major league contracts and that sort of thing. There are more restrictions and hard slotting. I don't think that's necessarily why this was such a

strange year, such a successful year. I think it probably was just luck of the draw mostly, but it's really cool that this happened because usually, as we always say, it's such a crapshoot even in the first round. And this was the one exception where everyone hit on someone which is great yeah i could not believe when i read that danny holton could be in the majors this year yeah that that got me amped yeah so the baseball reference has the totals on the bottom of the page so, I think, including like the supplementary first round picks, but 60 players, if you count the supplemental, 40 have played in the majors. Total of 264 were already produced by these players who are generally in their late 20s. I think Hultzen's 28 and Starling is 29, or no, Starling is 26. I don't know who I'm thinking of.

Maybe I was thinking of Levi Michael. But the other thing I always think of when I think of Barbo Starling is the great study that Randy Gisarelli did for BP in 2011, October of that year, not long after this draft. And I think it also appeared in Extra Innings, the sequel to Baseball Between the Numbers, but he realized and documented that for high school

picks, age is everything. Age matters so much, and he made that call. He really totally nailed it. He ended, it was a two-part series, and his kicker was basically, hey, just noticed that the Royals picked Bubba Starling with the fifth pick, and Cleveland took Francisco Lindor with the eighth pick. And wouldn't you know, Bubba Starling is 15 months older than Francisco Lindor. And so if these numbers are right, boy, that may not have been a good pick. And that turned out to be very prescient so i will always associate bubba starling with that study although at least now we won't think of him as a bust because he's a big leaguer did you edit that piece no i don't think so i guess i was i was there but i don't think i did so what do you think is normal for a first round how many do you think is the

normal amount of players that will make it to the majors huh because it seems like really incredible that the top 29 and that you know theoretically all 30 30 for 30 that would be fun we're all rooting for that i know the answer but i had a i had a feeling uh midway through like is this cool is it really cool like is it just a thing like is it you know like like so like for instance chris davis hitting 247 four years in a row is incredible like that what what come on what are the odds like that's crazy you don't even it's not even possible to hit 247 in a lot of plate appearances and so that's like crazy like i'm all on board that fun fact. But then you have the one that was going around the other day, which is that his career batting average through 999 plate appearances was 247 repeating, 247, 247. And I was trying to think, is that cool? I don't know. Like you're gonna, you know, he's got a career batting average of around 247. batting average of around 247 right the fact that he is at 247 repeating is really just isn't that mostly just the fact that it's possible to have like that there is a number where another number

divided by it is 247 repeat so now are we really impressed by chris davis doing this thing or is this just a math nerd kind of thing and yeah i was not impressed by that i didn't really i i decided i was impressed because he could have if he had not gotten one more hit then he would not have done it and so the fact that the stakes were extremely high the stakes of this thing that he is not tracking but we are and yet he managed to come out in the clutch and get it done like i was pretty stoked so i decided i was impressed but it was really on the border so anyway so is the fact that all 31st rounders get might make to the majors or the top 29 might or the 28 of the 29 might, is that really cool? Or like just rolling, you know, rolling coins and rolling dice. And it's

like a little bit of a, an interesting thing to see these things um kind of these outcomes cluster this way but that it's not that rare so what do you think which one is it because i then i had that doubt and then i looked it up and now i know okay i will say of the top 30 is that what we're saying top 30 top 30 i'll say 21 is the average dude it's 21.9. Wow. You're on it. This is according to a Baseball America study of 1981 through 19. I lost the tab.

Through 2000 something. 1981 through 2010. As far as I can tell, it is only the top 30 because the context clues really suggests the top 30. So 73% of first round picks makes the majors. That's 21.9%. I have found, for instance, the 2008 draft, the top 21 made it to the majors. And 27 of the top 30 made it. Now it makes the 2009 look, not 2009, 2000, whatever year we're talking about, look not quite so extreme, just a sort of more perfect. It's a perfect circle. It's like,

it just, it's beautiful. It's beautiful more than it's shocking, I guess is what I'm saying. Right. Yeah. It's very pleasing to look at the page and see so little blank. So I hope eventually there's none. All right. So the other thing is that there is more Atlantic League experimentation going on. We talked earlier in the year about some of the Atlantic League measures. They have now put some of them into practice because the second half has started. So they had TrackMan installed for a while, but it was not being used to call pitches. Now it is. They did that for the first

time. It seems to have gone off fairly well. Evidently the system malfunctioned for half an inning. So the umpire was calling the pitches and there were some pitches that people were not used to being called strikes and were not thrilled about it. But, you know, the world didn't end. It looked like a baseball game and things go on. Especially because it's not like there's ever been a pitcher or a batter who made it through a game without thinking there were some strikes that were called that they were not used to having called strikes. Like that is a universal experience of being in baseball. Yes, that is true.

So that will be going on and I'd love to get my hands on some of that data at some point and really examine it. We'll see whether they will actually be forthcoming. I know that not even MLB teams have gotten it yet, so we'll see. But they also announced some new rules, which they've announced so many things now that it's almost hard to keep track of what they are already doing and what they haven't done yet. But now there are four new things that I guess are now implemented or will be for the second half of the season. Not sure what the status of the mound movement is. Is that happening now, too?

I don't know. But the new things are the headline was stealing first base etc a batter may run to first and try to beat the throw after any pitch not caught in flight pause so yes okay we will talk about this more but the thing that has been driving me crazy all day is seeing this referred to as stealing first base. This is not stealing first base. This is declaring, this is broadening the definition of a wild pitch. You steal on the pitch. You steal on the pitcher's movement.

So if you could just run, that would be stealing first base. But you have to wait for a wild pitch. That's a wild pitch. This is not stealing first base. You do not, if you had to, if you waited for the ball to get

past the catcher when you were on first base and then you went to second base they would not give you a stolen base they would not say this is now stealing second base this is not stealing first base that's all i'm saying it's a different thing it is a new it is an expansion of wild pitches move on yeah you're right i don't know that you'll stop this from being called stealing for space because everyone wants to call it that because we've all been saying forever that you can't steal for space and people like to say now you can so that's going to be a tough sell but i think you are correct the other things pitcher will be required to step off the rubber for pickoff attempts a batter will be allowed one foul to strike bunt before a strikeout

is called. And lastly, plate umpires will define check swings more favorably for a batter. So all of these changes, I suppose, seem of a piece. They all seem intended to make the game more dynamic, to get guys running, to decrease strikeouts i guess just more on base events more excitement and i continue to think that there may be just doing too many things at once and this is it's so many things that it will be hard to a it's hard to keep track of all the things b it's hard to assess the impact of any one of them. C, it's getting to the point now where it must be pretty overwhelming for these players. Well, I mean, look, let's be honest. God love it.

We're probably going to come out in favor of it on this podcast. But that stealing first base thing is stupid. Like, that's a, like, I'm not saying it's not going to work. But, like, imagine going in and telling the players, now you can do this. Yeah, I know. What are we doing? Yeah, we're going to have to have an Atlantic leaguer on the show just to talk about what they think of this because it must be jarring. It's not even, I mean, you play the game for your whole life under certain rules and now they're changing so many of them all at once.

Especially something like a pitcher will be required to step off the rubber for pickoff attempts all of a sudden that's like uh that's muscle memory that's like deeply ingrained probably right that's got to be a hard thing to just suddenly say okay this is what you do now so i don't know if they're gonna suspend bulk calls until people get used to this or what but anyway it seems a little overwhelming, but I am interested in all of these rule changes. And I've seen backlash to why are they tampering with baseball? Baseball is perfect, et cetera. This is making a mockery of the game. This isn't baseball anymore. People seem upset about this, at least some people. And I'm not upset about it. I like it. I love that the Atlantic League is being used as this laboratory.

I hope the players are more or less okay with it. But other than that, I think it's a valuable thing for MLB to have this place to experiment with real players as long as those players are not terribly upset about it. So yeah, I mean, rapid fire. I kind of, I think I like the two strike bunt one.

I don't I don't really see any reason why you wouldn't be allowed to. I mean, the reason that you can't bunt on two strikes is because the way the game was played in the 1890s, there were people who had who had taken advantage who were exploiting that as a loophole. But that loophole no longer exists. And it seems kind of like it makes sense to me that uh if you are two strike offense two strikes is already such a difficult situation for the batter that it makes sense to not like compound that by saying oh by the way you can't do the like the one trick that a hitter has and so i'm

pro that i i in fact uh i don't know I probably would be open to the argument that you should have a limit on how many foul bunts you can have in two strikes but instinctually instinctively what's the word instinctually my gut reaction is that let them bunt however long they want the

you're right that the step off the mound rule is going to be jarring it'll be somewhat jarring for base runners but it'll be really jarring for some pitchers because that is like all the moves are with your foot on the mound for the most part. Like you kind of quit stepping off the mound to throw to first when you're in Little League and that's going to definitely be new. I also don't mind it. There's a certain logic.

There's a certain logical coherence to the idea that, well, we have a rule in the rulebook that says the pitcher can't deceive the runner. And if he's standing on the pitching mound, which the word pitching is right there, as though he is going to pitch and he then throws to first, that seems to defeat the idea of a pitching mound. And so step off. That seems fair.

I mean, it's different because we haven't played that way for a century and a half, but it's, I don't know. Sure. Like I get that. That seems fine. And I like stolen bases. Yeah, right. And I like big leads too.

I don't just like stolen bases. I like big leads. I think I like big leads, big leads more than I like stolen bases. If there were no stolen bases, I would still root for big leads. The checked swing one, I can't for the life of me figure out what that means, but fine. I mean, it does seem to me that the whatever standard for a swing that was set in, I don't actually, I was going to say that was set in, you know, 1910 or whatever. I was watching Javi Baez at bat the other day and Javi Baez swings so hard. He swings so hard.

He starts swinging really early and then he swings super hard. And when you watch him check his swing, you feel like his, his, his hands are going to fall off. And so the plate appearance I watched, he actually, by chance, this is not why I was watching it, but he checked his swing, and then he spent the next five pitches trying to, like, flex his hands because he had hurt his wrists. And I just feel like they swing really hard.

And so it makes sense to liberalize what is a swing. I don't know. I don't even know what I think a swing should be, but they swing hard. On the other hand, I watching al simmons bat the other day too and his swing is really outrageous and now that i think about it guys from the 1920s and 1930s were doing like full pirouettes on every swing so i might be wrong about this entirely what i'm saying basically is that check swings are the great disaster zone of baseball rule interpretation as it is. And so let's see. Now let's, all right. If we're going to screw it up, which we are, you know, unless you

use technology to gauge whether the bat crossed the plane or something, if you're just going to go by eye test, then it's going to be somewhat inconsistent and, and that's going to be frustrating from time to time. i kind of feel like yeah i feel like if you stop your swing if you decide midway through that you don't want to hit the ball and it's clear that you're not going to hit the ball if you do hit the ball like that even if you make contact like you're going to be mad at yourself to me that's not it i i think that we should figure out a way to make that not a swing uh-huh yeah well if we want fewer strikeouts and and fewer whiffs then if we're going to err on the side of toward the pitchers or toward the hitters, then I guess we might as well do the latter. Even if pitchers are going to be upset wild pitches yeah so first question is why are they

doing this this doesn't feel like not without any judgment on whether it will be fun or not this does not seem consistent with the idea that major league baseball is testing possible things right this is not in consideration for the major leagues they're not going to suddenly say that you can run to first on any wild pitch in any count. That is not on the board. So what are we doing here? This feels really like signing Jose Canseco for two days, kind of indie ball behavior,

much more than it feels like we're experimenting on the future of Major League Baseball. Yeah, it kind of does. Like Rob Nyers' league, Rob Nyers, he's the commissioner of the West Coast League. And one of the teams, I think it was the Pickles, did like a future baseball night a week or two ago. And they tried some kind of wacky things. And one of the things they tried actually was something that has been discussed on this podcast.

The lead runner, the first batter in an inning getting to decide whether he wants to run clockwise or counterclockwise. They tried that and a bunch of guys got out because the first guy in the inning went to third base first and then the other guys forgot and ran to first and they were automatically out. That is not why I would think that that idea would fail. Well, that's one of the things that we've talked about on the show that's like very far-fetched and there's some precedent for it that I think we talked about at the time. But this kind of feels like that where no one was really clamoring for this and it doesn't directly address it.

Have we ever talked about this on the show? Because I know that we've been asked about it and an emailer reminded us that he had emailed us about this five years ago christopher and we answered it i saw he did answer it and we uh but it was a different this was much more of stealing first so christopher whenever you want you can go yeah you could go on the pitch and we concluded that it would not be successful i don't remember what else we concluded but we concluded that it would not be successful. I don't remember what else we concluded, but we concluded that it would not, you just wouldn't, it would not be an efficient way to get to first base that you wouldn't be fast enough. I don't remember why we thought that. I only know that we thought that because Christopher said this in another forum.

So apparently we just didn't think that it would, it would work. But to me, there's some logic to that. there's some logic to that like that is it's not a great rule but like the idea that you can run on the pitcher and you can advance a base in the time that it takes him to throw home is consistent with what you're allowed to do on first base and second base and third base i guess yes then technically that so is the wild pitch anyway yeah, yeah, Christopher did it. Why did I interrupt you? I don't know, but we did talk about that sort of, but I was saying that no one was really calling for this. Right, except Christopher. Yes, right.

So I don't dislike it. Again, I don't know that it gets at the core problems or what are perceived as problems. I guess it's more action. It's running. It's potentially exciting. I think it's kind of interesting from a strategic perspective because you have to decide based on the count and the outs and the situations and runners on base. And you aren't going to go maybe if you're up 3-0 or something,

but if you're down 0-2, you're more likely to go, and it depends on the hitter. It depends on the situation. You'd have to have this, I guess, in the back of your head as a hitter. I don't know whether you'd be thinking before every pitch, okay, new situation. If this one gets away, am I going to go? Obviously, it depends on how far it gets away some of the details are not totally clear to me still like this AP report that I am reading here says that the batter may run to first and try to beat the throw after any pitch not caught in flight so does that mean that any pitch with a runner on first with runners on first and second, what happens if the batter runner goes to first, then the other runners are also obligated to advance?

Maybe they'd be advancing anyway because the pitch got away. Well, let's presume that that is not allowed. I would assume that that's not allowed, that that's just ambiguous writing. But if it were allowed, so what? I mean, the runner on first is allowed to advance on a wild pitch even if a runner on second and it like you just have to not be an idiot yes okay yeah so the thing that i do like about it i guess is a that just added strategy and something else to consider and analyze and be as Joe Sheehan pointed out this has some effect on the pitcher and on the catcher because maybe the pitcher won't throw a certain pitch that he might have thrown otherwise you know pitch in the dirt lots of pitchers are throwing balls out of the strike zone these days they're throwing breaking balls all the time that's part of the reason why we're seeing many strikeouts. So you're disincentivized to throw that slider in the dirt because there's a greater chance that it gets away and then the runner gets to take that base potentially. moving toward taking away the defensive value of framing and receiving because we're going to have robot strike zones at some point then this gives a little bit back toward the catcher receiving and blocking matters a little more i mean blocking still would matter in that situation but it would

matter even more so you wouldn't be able to just stick you you know, like you're a left fielder back there necessarily just because it doesn't matter how you catch the pitch anymore. You'd still have to have someone who's pretty agile and can block pitches and has some experience. So I like that because I don't want catchers to be completely interchangeable defensively. Yeah, I don't think we're doing catchers any favors here, to be completely interchangeable defensively yeah i don't think we're doing catchers any favors here to be honest though i mean it is already a tough job an exhausting job a physically laborious job and if you now tell them every single pitch it's like if there's a runner on third like you have to treat every pitch like it is a must block. That feels just exhausting. And I do not know if you could do it.

I don't know if a catcher could do that for 130 games a year. And really in a way it's the stakes become even higher, maybe not higher than when there's a runner on third, because that's a run if it gets past you. But if you have a two strike count and you don't, well, I guess this is already true with two strike counts, but if you feel like you're going to get the batter out and you let him get on base, then that's turning an out into a base runner, which is a much bigger deal than just letting a runner get to second or letting a runner get to third. Now, maybe it's not as big a deal as letting a runner get to second or letting a runner get to third now maybe it's not as big a deal as letting a runner score but the point is that it is a it now turns the the job of catching into just

like like non-stop adrenaline like you every single pitch every single pitch you have to block and if you watch a baseball game like there's they don't when there's no one on base that's like that's me time for the catcher like there's a lot of balls that get past him and uh and and good for them like that's a hard job uh and now i have to worry about framing that's that's a load off your mind too uh well catch the ball any old way i guess i don't know it's to me it seems like maybe it's instinctive anyway but yeah and it's it's uh i don't know. To me, it seems like... Maybe it's instinctive anyway, but... Yeah, and it's... I don't know. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But those two things don't necessarily have to be tied.

So I believe that catchers would hate it. That's one bullet point that I have here. The thing I like about it, let's separate this question of would it make the game more interesting from the question of would I want my baseball, the game I grew up with and love and have made a career of analyzing? Would I like to see it change? Let's separate

those two things. What would make it more interesting is that there would now be an extra layer of tension to every pitch. There would be just more ways for the game state to change dramatically on every pitch. You'd have to, uh, you, you, it wouldn't just be, is this guy going to drive a run in or is he going to get a hit, but is the catcher going to block it? Could, is it going to get away from him? And so you're, I mean, when you're watching baseball, you're trying to find things that could change. You're looking for all the ways that one that the score

as it is could change in the next moment. And this adds an element, it makes it more dynamic. And so I think that it would probably would make the game more interesting so long as it wouldn't be so common that it would just kind of like change, like don't know i i'm not sure that nine eight baseball games if like the average game was nine eight i don't know if that would be more interesting than five three i i don't know it could go either way but it is so i think it would be more interesting there'd be a lot less margin for air for the catcher there'd be like you say there'd be a lot more plays where the batter would have to do that calculus really quick in his head which i think would be interesting watching a player decide

is always interesting here's i think the big problem though is i don't know how they would define the body language of the batter when because you can get you get thrown out if you go batter when because you can get you get thrown out if you go so if you take one step are you do you now have to go i don't feel like this thing that's happening so fast i don't feel like we can ask the batter to decide that quickly whether he wants to go or not i think there'd be a lot of like one step oh nope it's not that far away but if you're out at that point, then- Because if you leave the batter's box, right? So then, well, that's one step, right? And I just, I don't know. I feel like that's a, like one step happens

before you've processed the whole situation. And you can't really do it any other way than leaves the batter's box or takes a step or makes a move. And so I feel like what you would end up having is a lot of batters tagged out at home because they turned. Because they turned. And that wouldn't be fun.

It would be really annoying if your guy is up at the plate with runners on second and third and there's a wild pitch and his shoulder twitches and he gets tagged out at home or he now feels like he must run, but he gets thrown out by 65 feet. And then there's a replay where somebody in Chelsea decides whether the shoulder flinched

or not. I just feel like there's too much ambiguity in the intention here. In every other situation in baseball, the rules are very clear. You are on the base or you are off the base. There is only one ambiguity in the whole running of the bases, which is you can run through first base and then go back safely to first base. And if you make a move to second base, then they can tag you. And about once a year, that ambiguity comes back and bite somebody because they, maybe they started to go to second base when the throw got past the first baseman. And then they

realized they didn't have time or maybe they would just, yeah, that's it. They flinched and they didn't realize it. And then they get tagged out. That happens like once a year across all of major league baseball. I feel like this ambiguity where you are like, it's not clear. Like you don't have a base. There's no base at home. Like when you're batting, you're not on a base. You can't be safe. If you're on first base and the ball gets past the catcher and you start to go to second and you decide you don't want to, that's okay. You go back to your base. The base is your space. You're free to stand on the base. You can leave it and you can go back to it. But

here there's no base. There's no home plate. There's no home base for you. And so I feel like that ambiguity of not having anything to retreat to is a real problem. Does that, that, that seems to me like they have not thought that through or they have not expressed it yet. And I look forward to hearing what their solution is. Yeah. We're going to have to do a round table episode At some point if you're an Atlantic leaguer Who listens to the show let us know We're going to have to have like a pitcher on And an infielder who

Hits and a catcher also Just to go over how all these Rules were actually what they were Like in practice so I will leave you with this which I meant to bring up earlier. I thought we would talk about more, but you never know where these episodes will take us and you're going to be away next week. I had a topic today, Ben.

Yeah, I kind of did too, but oh well. Mine is a little less evergreen perhaps. So I wrote an article about this. It's up at The Ringer on Friday and it's just about the trade deadline and what this trade deadline will look like, because I'm kind of fascinated by this difference, this unified deadline and what effect that might have. So I'll just say, and you can go, I'll read the article and see the graphs and the charts and the longer explanations. But here's the basic data, just 2012 to 2018, the second wildcard era. About 29% of all trades have happened in July, and just almost half as many trades as that have happened in August. So August has been 47% as active as July,

just in terms of total trades. But many of those tend to be smaller scale depth moves. And so in terms of like total full season war of the players moved in those months, August is only like 19% of July. So if you just assumed that all the trades that used to be made in August will now be made in July because there's no waiver deadline anymore on August 31st, then you would expect July to be about half again as busy as it tends to be. You know, like 47% more trades and about 20% more value exchanged in those trades. And that'd be cool. That'd be really fun and frantic, and we'd have a lot to follow. Of course, that won't happen. You won't just move all of those August trades to July.

It is not that simple. I mean, for one thing, there is the decreased certainty. Teams may not know whether they're buyers or sellers on July 31st. Some of them may have known on August 31st I guess the classic example is the Verlander trade that the Astros made in 2017 they didn't do anything on July 31st they felt pretty comfortable but then the team went 11 and 17 in August and Dallas Keuchel was mad that they didn't do anything and they had some injuries and meanwhile Verlander was pitching great and things changed enough in that month that they made that major move and wouldn't have otherwise. So there will be some moves that aren't made just because teams don't know what they are yet and they aren't willing to commit to one course.

There will be other moves that aren't made because guys get hurt in August and teams have to make trades because guys get hurt in August and now they won't be able to do that they'll be stuck with whatever they have already so that's some things and then you know generally maybe front offices don't have time to talk about 50% more trades it takes a while to make a trade so that's probably part of it too and you know it's not as if all of the trades that might've happened will necessarily move from August to July. Some of those trades might happen over the previous off season or in June. Jerry DePoto made a couple of trades in June, although he probably would have anyway, because he's Jerry DePoto. So those are all the reasons why you

wouldn't just see like a one-to-one movement of August trades to July trades. But do you think that there will still be a significantly, will we notice, would we know that this was different if you didn't tell us that there was not going to be no August deadline this year? Would we even be able to tell? And the other thing that I write about in here is that we might not be able to tell from this single summer because this single summer is kind of weird in certain ways. You just took away my answer. Oh, okay. Well, go ahead and say that and I'll back you up. I would say there's enough variation from year to year just based on the contenders that you would not notice. And in particular, this year

is an extremely weird year. I do not know whether to expect more or less trades. It's very weird. And this was going to be somewhat what my topic was going to be. However, we're going to talk about that in probably a week and a half instead, because there's always a need for topics. I don't think you would though. Like I think think that if you added i think honestly even if you did add 47 more trades who would notice you would notice because you like do these queries but nobody else would notice it just everything gets lost in a flurry yeah well baseball writers who had to write about no you but you specifically are the only one who noticed because they all feel crazy like there was never a trade deadline where we made it to the end. There was never a trade deadline where we made it to the end without the crazy period. Like there are times where we say, oh, this is very slow or what's happening. But by the end, there is always a flurry. There's always a crazy period. Yeah. And I don't know whether people even know something I wrote about last deadline, which is that the last couple of deadlines have been really busy in terms of total trades.

But a lot of those have been reliever trades. Everyone is making reliever trades these days. Many more of those, they're just more relievers for one thing and maybe more value placed on relievers. So, yeah, I think you're probably right about that I do like the idea of unifying the deadline But the standings are strange right now And so I tend to think it would lead to fewer trades But we still got almost three weeks until the deadline

So some things might shake out But like one thing I mentioned And this won't be applicable in a week and a half necessarily because this is all star break but right now there are only six teams that are more than seven games out of the closest playoff spot and that is the fewest in any year during this current playoff format like by far usually it's it's many more that. So you only have those six teams that are like way, way, way out of it. And most of those teams have already stripped their rosters and gone into their rebuilds and done a bunch of trades so they don't have a whole lot left. the average playoff odds of the current favorites, like the division favorites right now, have higher odds, higher average odds of holding on to win the division

than they have in any previous year in this current playoff format. And the wildcard favorites right now have lower odds of winning their wildcard spots than in any previous year in this format. And so I don't know what that means you have you have division leaders who this is the topic ben okay all right we're on the same page what are the odds this is exactly what i wanted to talk about well i guess we're usually thinking about the same thing so hey can i read you something yeah

we can talk about this again before the deadline i want to read you something okay this is the wikipedia page for ball four the sitcom the jim bouton's income ball four aired at 8 30 p.m which was during the family viewing hour an fcc mandated hour of early evening family friendly broadcasting consequently the writers had some trouble with the network's standards and practices in their attempt to portray realistic locker room scenes, especially the language used by the players. Pseudo profanity, such as bullpimp, was disallowed, while horse croc and bull horse were approved. and bull horse were approved so bull horse okay horse croc a-okay bull pimp not on my network that's interesting i wonder how they decided i would love to read those memos because these are not real profanity bull pimp is not a profanity it's as wikipedia says it's pseudo profanity so how did they decide that it sounded that pseudo profanity was too convincing?

Unfortunately, the link to this article is a dead link. Although I think I can find it. Maybe I'll read this and come back to you with more in a week. Maybe you can't say pimp by itself on FCC Family Friendly Hour. Yeah, it could be. Horse crock. Horse crock is just so close though to

other words yeah all right well have a nice week off and we will reconvene to talk about what we were just talking about at greater length all right after we finished recording Sam informed me that an article at the time about that Balfour sitcom said that

horse spit is pending with the censors. I guess that didn't pass muster. Horse spit, probably too close to the real thing. That will do it for this week. Thank you for listening. Sam and I did pre-record our first episode of next week. So you will hear Sam next week, and then we will have multiple mega episodes to make up for her absence this week. It all evens out. You can buy my book, The MVP Machine, How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players. It's the story of baseball's current player development revolution,

and if you like it, please say so. Tell a friend. Leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. You can also support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up to pledge some small monthly amount, help keep the podcast going, and get themselves some perks. Alex Brar, Ben Bailey, Matt O'Donnell, Finn Marceau, and Jacob Bickman. Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild,

and you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Your reviews and ratings are appreciated and they help us attract new listeners. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. We will be back to talk to you early next week. We'll see you next time.