Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1565: Three Arms, You’re Out

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about 2020 season predictions, picking (and pricing) blueberries, and a cardboard cutout of Meg at T-Mobile Park, then open up the pre-pandemic mailbag and answer old but evergreen listener emails about the best type of game for a first-time baseball viewer to attend, whether the Cubs’ 2016 title came […]

She's a three-handed woman, and she ain't no good for you. Oh, she's a three-handed woman, and she ain't no good for you. Now she's right-handed, left-handed, and under-handed too. And I don't want to Hello and welcome to episode 1565 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. I saw you tweet that you had submitted your predictions for the fangraphs staff predictions post for the 2020 season and i guess i won't ask you to spoil them and maybe we can do some season previewy stuff

next week but did you go weird with any of your picks or did you stick with sort of chalky favorites even though it's a weird season ben i i'm here to tell you that you misread the entirety of that tweet. Oh, okay. I picked blueberries. Oh, you picked blueberries. I have blueberry bushes, and they're blueberries. So my projection for myself is in that I will become a blueberry. Oh, I see. Because I have so many blueberries, Ben.

Ah, yeah. Pictures go with it. i see and you're the willy wonka person yeah i will be up to a blueberry i will be as violet in willy wonka so i have not yet done my my predictions although the prediction sheet is officially out to the fan graph staff i plan to not think about it until the last possible minute. Yeah. I wish I had blueberries to pick, but I do not. I only have very expensive blueberries to buy. I wish I could send them.

I've noticed that the pricing of blueberries is very variable. I don't know what that is. I don't know if it is just a New York thing or whether it has to do with the season or how much they're charging from the particular place that they're acquiring blueberries. But it really seems to go up and down. Total crapshoot. Like my wife and I, when we go to the grocery store, it's like get blueberries if they're cheap because sometimes they're like twice as expensive as they are. And other times, usually it's just like get this or get that if they have it. With blueberries, it's just you never know what you're going to get price-wise, I've found.

I am not surprised that the cost of perishable goods would be more variable, especially now given what I imagine is a somewhat more unpredictable supply chain with the pandemic. But I wonder why blueberries specifically. I wish I could send them to you, Ben, because, Ben, there's some blueberries in the bush. I couldn't get them all. I had to come back in. Yeah, those look good.

There's some reddish ones there. Yeah, there are a couple that are still not quite right, but they are wonderful. I'm going to make a buckle and perhaps a pie. I'll free some, but there's a lot. It just goes to show that if you're sitting there and you're like, how many blueberry bushes should I plant? The answer is one. You should only do the one because if you plant four, then you will turn into a blueberry. But at least you won't be a cake.

Well, I wish I could plant one anywhere, but not really an option for me in an apartment, I don't think. But I envy you being able to pick blueberries for free and do that instead of making season predictions. I have been thinking about season predictions because I assume I will be forced to make some next week. And usually I just make really boring predictions, but that's almost like a defense mechanism for me because if I just pick the really obvious thing, maybe someone will stop asking me to make predictions, but they never do. I just always feel a little disingenuous going for something that I don't think will actually happen, even though I know the purpose of predictions is really just to entertain. So you might as well pick something wacky. But I always just feel wrong actually

predicting something that I don't really believe is the likeliest outcome. And so I end up going with the projections or something. But it will be a dilemma in this season because, of course, the odds of something strange happening are high, and there could be upsets and underdogs. And there's still upsets, though. And so if I'm going to be consistent, then I should still pick the favorites, acknowledging that the odds of some upset are higher.

So I don't know what i'll do but we'll both have to make that decision in the next week yeah and and you know the the season awards who ben yeah will there even be awards wait we don't we don't know i mean well but yeah the guidance that we've heard from the bbwa at least so far is that we will um have awards to vote on but i don't think that that's final like everyone else they have acknowledged the need to be flexible i would imagine at least internally so yeah that's going to be quite it's just going to be so tricky but i'm sure that everyone will be understanding when we get it wrong. Yeah, as always. Well, one thing we can predict with some confidence is that you will not be attending Mariners games this year.

However, a cardboard cutout of you will be. You have purchased a cardboard bag. Yep. So here's the thing, Ben. Sometimes you see something in the world and you're like, that's great. I want it. And then you look at the price and you say, oh, no, not for me. Yeah, like blueberries.

Yeah, I'm but a baseball writer. I can afford blueberries and nothing else. But then the Mariners say, hey, what if you put a cardboard cutout of you in the ballpark for $30? And you go, yeah, I'd get $30 worth of enjoyment out of that. So I hope that I am prominently displayed. Although I don't say that as if I should be granted any special treatment. You're not going to pull any strings to get special placement? No, no.

I would not dream of it. I want to be with the people and wherever the mariners see fit to place me. But yes, my Twitter Abby with the catcher's mask and everything is going to be somewhere. Now, is that for one game only or is it just there the whole season? Unclear to me. I get the sense that it could stick around, although I suppose if there are a lot of folks who want that,

then maybe they'll have to pick some sort of system. They'll have to institute some sort of system, sort of cycle folks through so that no one feels excluded. But the opportunity to look disapprovingly out at the field from behind a catcher's mask was just um you know it was it was 30 worth of fun yeah and i feel good about my purchase and um having admitted to having done this i am sure the i will say i think the odds of me um finding myself on the broadcast go up considerably yeah i wonder because i assume they can't tell you where it is right because

that would be a big hassle to have to inform everyone where their cardboard cutout went. So you'll be scanning the crowd as you usually do. But this time you'll be looking for yourself, a lifeless version of yourself. So yeah, it could be anywhere. I mean, if it's right behind Tome Plate, you'll see it. If it's in the upper deck somewhere, I guess it depends on how many people purchase these things and where they'll, will they have to put them in the upper deck or not? Yeah, I would imagine that it'll be, I would think that they will keep it to the lower

deck if I had to guess, just because I can't imagine the demand is going to be so significant that they have to go to the upper deck, not because people won't enjoy it, but just, you know, like it is, it is an objectively won't enjoy it but just you know like it is it is an objectively ridiculous thing to spend money on even though it is going to bring me great joy so but yeah i i look forward to um i look forward to our wonderful listeners flooding my mentions when they find me on the podcast i know just as you as you have noted sometimes get recognized in ballparks. Perhaps your cardboard doppelganger will also be recognized. But it seems like a lot of labor

to position those things around the park just for the ballpark employees. How do you even get it to stand up? I assume it's affixed somehow or that it's propped up. You wouldn't want people's cardboard cutouts to be falling on their faces. Oh no, that would be terrible. I don't know how you do it. Yeah, and, you know, like what happens if – I wonder how resilient they are. Like if they get hit by a home run, do they need to be replaced? Yeah. Right? Does it do damage to them?

I don't know the answer to that. I really wonder. I don't know. But I assume that they want it to be somewhat sturdy. I think the nice thing, both because of the time of year in Seattle and also because of the roof, you at least probably don't have to worry about water damage, right? You're not going to have a warped, weird. They've got to close the roof to protect the cardboard cutouts. Yeah, are you going to sit out all the time?

I don't know. It'd be a lot of trouble to take them up and down for the game. I wonder also, I mean, if your cardboard equivalent gets hit by a foul ball, I think they should send you the foul ball. You should get to keep that. Yeah, I know. I think it was the A's are doing theirs as a charity fundraiser. And I think that if your cutout gets dinged, you get, they're going to try to retrieve the ball and send it to you, which also sounds like quite a logistical hassle, but I guess, you know, how many home runs could it be really? Yeah. Well, I like it. I think I would actually

feel more attached to the action if I knew that a cardboard me was sitting there yeah i um i just i like the idea of being able to stare out with my sassy little face and be like did not approve of that home run sir you should not have surrendered that one or if they put me behind home plate i can be like yeah i'm missing the zone don't have don't have that one today switch it up it's of creepy. I'm imagining like a cardboard golem version of me coming to life in the ballpark in the middle of the night. But maybe I just have a vivid imagination. So we should move on to what we want to do today, which is answer some emails. And we haven't answered emails in a while. And I'd say our email volume has been somewhat reduced of late, maybe reflecting some lack of enthusiasm about baseball or podcast listening or who knows.

The questions that we have gotten have been a lot of downer COVID questions, which is understandable. And obviously we've talked about that stuff. a pre-pandemic mailbag and just dig into the archives, look up some questions that are a year or two old in most cases from the before times, even really from before sign stealing in many cases that have just languished unanswered, at least unanswered on the podcast until now. And they're evergreen or maybe they were never really relevant at all so they're no less relevant than they were when we got them kind of timeless questions and weird hypotheticals so i thought this would be a nice departure from all the other things that we've been worried about lately yeah the before time the before time when one of our great scandals was the commissioner insulting the world series

trophy yeah or even before then. All right, so let's start with Mark, Patreon supporter, who says, I attended an Angels game in June, and my wife and I met a family from New Zealand attending their first baseball game. They asked great questions like, who is the best player? Which was great because Mike Trout was playing right in front of them. Then they asked what made him the best player, so I just pulled up leaderboards on my phone and showed them how many different categories he was near the top of. This particular game included the following events,

an inside-the-park home run, ejections, Mike Trout, and a home team victory. This all left me thinking that this family from New Zealand picked a great game to attend in that they saw some fairly unique elements. So the question I would pose is this. If you were to craft the contents of a baseball game someone game to attend in that they saw some fairly unique elements. So the question I would pose is this. If you were to craft the contents of a baseball game someone were to attend, what would you include? I haven't decided what circumstance you should draft for. The only baseball game someone will ever see. Your perfect ballpark experience.

A first-time baseball viewer you're hoping to make into a fan. I thought it made for an interesting thought experiment, if nothing else. And I suppose the answer would be different for us, let's say, than it would be for that family from New Zealand. So maybe we can go with the newbie, the person who is just getting exposed to baseball for the first time or has been exposed to it a little bit, but is still sort of on the fence. What would sell them on this sport? So my first thought, if that is the parameter for the question, is that you probably want something that is more offensively minded. I think that the appreciation for good pitching, you know, there are times when it's very easy, right? So I think that the kind of pitching performance you want is one with like high heat, right?

You want 100 to flash on the stadium gun so that you can go, wow, guy can throw a ball 100 miles an hour, amazing. But I think that some of the other nuances of pitching are probably best appreciated over time. And so you would probably want something that was a bit more offensively oriented. You probably want at least one home run.

I think you want a stolen base, at least one, perhaps some trickeration on the base pass, you know, a little. Yeah. Because I think that baseball gets a bad, a bad rep for being undynamic, for not being dynamic. And so I think you want some dynamism because you're trying to be like hey don't you want to come again don't you want to come and hang out with me at the ballpark again can't we do a second one of these so that i can sit here and talk to

you about curveballs or what have you so i think i think you'd want you'd want some some big fireworks you'd want you probably don't want to blow out because you want to lend the impression that the sport is competitive and interesting and engaging, and you don't want it to be overlong. So you definitely don't want extras. And so you probably also want to keep the run scoring to like a reasonable level, reasonable level. So it doesn't stretch past three hours. And then I think you probably want at least one reliever who just throws a really good hard fastball. And so you can point and go, ah. Because it really is, it continues to be an amazing thing

that a human arm can do that and not immediately fall off. Yeah. So, yeah. I think you want variety. Variety would be good in terms of the types of players on display. So you want like Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge, let's say, and you want to be able to point to them and say, hey, those are two of the best players in baseball. And they're from opposite ends of the human physical spectrum. And they can both be great at this game, which is one of the things that baseball has going for it, maybe more than most sports even.

So that I think you want. And just stylistically, I think maybe in terms of pitchers, like, yeah, you definitely want your flamethrower who's throwing 100-something and putting the big radar readings up there. But maybe you want like a side armor or a submarine or submariner. I never know which to say. Submariner. One of those.

So you want, again, like just the full spectrum, the range of baseball bodies and skills, I think would be good. And you want a nice day and nice weather and a nice ballpark full of fans who aren't cardboard cutouts because you want a good environment and atmosphere and energy in the park. I think if it's a first-time viewer, they will be more likely to be persuaded that this is something they should watch and enjoy if there are thousands of people around them watching and enjoying it. So you want an active crowd that's really into it, I think. And you want a close game, a suspenseful game, but I agree, high scoring. Like the 1-0, the pitcher's duel, that's traditionally, that's something that I think like diehards or purists pride themselves on. Like, oh man, I appreciate the intricacies of this sport. So I love a 1-0 game because I'm not all about the action. I'm just about the tactics and the strategy and the suspense. And there's something to that. But a lot of that may be pretty opaque to a first-time viewer and so they might just say there's nothing happening here no one's scoring no one's running no one's doing anything so

yeah you want scoring and i'd say yes you want like an inside the park home run would be great or some triples just exciting base running plays exciting fielding plays and a comeback i would say a home team comeback i think you want a home team win probably assuming this person has no fan affiliation and maybe a walk-off would probably be good because then you get the on-field celebration i guess i'm just describing a good game in general but you know for us we might want to see some, wacky thing that for a first-time viewer would just be impenetrable. Maybe the things that you don't want are as important as the things that you want. You probably don't want some weird infield fly rule. You You don't want it to seem like a steep learning curve. You kind of want them to understand what they're seeing. Yeah, I think there's a list of things

that you probably don't want to see on the field, one of which is going to be a circumstance where the infill fly rolls. In effect, you don't want a replay of any kind. You particularly don't want to have to explain some of the weird edge cases, like when two runners end up on the same base, because that's confusing to people.

You don't want a balk of any kind. No, please, no. Because explaining that, that's not fun at all. And one of the problems is if you want your friend to say, hey, I've enjoyed this experience. I enjoy baseball. I'd like to come to the ballpark with you again. You want them to have confidence in your understanding of what's going on around you because you're going to have more questions because there's a lot happening and there's a lot to know and you want to sound and feel informed and you want to exude like parental authority in your voice but like in a nice way not in a condescending way but like in a in a way where you're like i will trust you as my guide on this journey to baseball and as soon as there's a buck you're going to be like i am a fraud and i cannot so um i i think that you want to avoid any of those things i I don't think that ejections,

you know, that can go either way. It might, it depends on your friend. Your friend might be someone who likes that kind of drama and they might appreciate the manager. They will likely refer to that person as the coach and you should find a polite way to correct them. And if you can't find a polite way, don't do it at all because it doesn't matter. They might think, ah, he's standing up for his guys or they might be like, that guy's a jerk and all of these people are fussy. I don't want to hang out with them anymore. So very, you know, it's tricky. That one's tricky. Yeah. And I think it'd be good if you got some great historic, memorable performance from a player or from a team, I guess. But, you know, if someone hits four homers or something like that,

maybe that gives them the wrong idea of how someone hits four homers or something like that, maybe that gives them the wrong idea about are they going to be seeing something like this in every game they go to. But I think you want to hook them, right? So you want to give them something good to begin with. And I think you often hear that from people when they remember their first game or the first game that they can remember attending. It's like, oh, I remember so-and-so hit three homers that day or so-and-so stole three bases that day. So some recollection that you can anchor that to and make it easy to look that game up in the future

and look at the box score and remember that thing that happened. I think that would be good. Just something really salient so that it's not just a good game, but some standout performance, preferably by some star player so that you feel invested right away. You feel like you saw something special. Yeah. I don't think it's troubling or a problem if it's an aberrant performance,

if it's far outside the norm. For example, I thought that the Mariners would be forever good at baseball because I grew up watching them in the late 90s and early 2000s. And here I am running fan graphs. So, you know, a lot can happen. You can still think that it's a good idea to hang out with a bunch of losers. Yeah, that's something I've wondered about too, because I grew up watching one of the all-time great Yankees teams. And obviously, part of some fanhood's identity is rooting for bad teams and being loyal to them anyway. But I wonder what Right. or whether it's just winning a World Series and getting everyone on board. I would guess the latter. There are probably more bandwagon fans out there, people who are swayed by winning, than people who are more encouraged by a team that loses every year. So yeah, I'd say give them a great game

and something special and abnormal to begin with. And then after that, they can be disappointed, but it'll be too late. They'll be in the door already yeah i think that um as long as you you hook them if they get a good run they will just be like every other fan where they believe that it's just around the corner uh in some ways they will have skipped they will have skipped a whole bunch of steps and are just going to be, I don't know, Mets fans? Yeah, right. On that subject, I have a question about the Cubs here that I thought might be interesting. This is from Alex, who says,

I know this is a fairly ridiculous question given that they already hadn't won a World Series in over 100 years, but did baseball actually miss out on a great narrative opportunity by the Cubs winning a World Series so quickly in the Epstein-Madden run? Obviously, Cubs fans waited forever for the team to win one, but they hardly had to wait at all in the context of this group. There was never any question whether this elaborately built core, their best chance at a title in a generation, would actually result in a championship. They won before the impact of their win now trades became so evident and before their big contracts for veterans really went south wouldn't their late season collapse this year not this year but last year i guess have been an even more captivating story if it's yet another year of rizzo and bryant not breaking the curse no i mean i think that

there are definitely there was already a sense we had and we had gotten over it that they had arrived a little that they had arrived a little bit early. Like they had they had a playoff run, like a year before we really expected them to and they didn't result in the World Series, but they were like, here's here's this team. I think that once your your World Series drought is past the century mark, it's fine. You're just fine. It's fine. I tend to be of the mind that people should get to enjoy things because you never know when you're going to get distracted or disinterested or what have you. And I don't think that it lessened the drama of that moment, especially because the final game in which they won was so dramatic. And I wouldn't trade that World Series game for anything because it was one of my favorite ones in recent memory. So I don't think that they lost all that much.

But I'm a terrible person to ask about this because I don't know. My most salient fan experience in baseball has not resulted in any kind of a World Series appearance. So I don't know what the preferred sequencing of that is. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, Ben. I know what he means because you did have this core

that came together and came up together. And maybe if there had been an even longer delay before they finally broke through that could have been more dramatically satisfying in some ways but again it would have been hard to beat how it actually happened with that series against that opponent and yeah it happened a little faster than expected maybe in that they went from last place team to team that got to the NLCS and then right to World Series winner. And then the trajectory after that has been kind of weird because then they went from World Series winner to division winner that didn't go any further and then second place team that missed the playoffs altogether and then third place team that missed the playoffs and so that whole team trajectory like we thought oh this is the beginning of a dynasty and it hasn't turned out to be that way so that is maybe sort of

disappointing and so if you could arrange it so that it's like they went from last place to third place or second place and then they made it to the playoffs, but only in the wildcard game or something, and then they made it to the NLCS, and then finally they broke through and won the World Series. I guess if you could rearrange those last five seasons or so in that order so that it built up to that crescendo, maybe that would have been even better,

but I hate to say that because like there are Cubs fans who waited their entire lives to see a World Series and some of them died. Yeah, some of them didn't make it. Yeah. So like for any Cubs fan who waited their whole life and their team finally won in 2016 and then, you know, they didn't make it to 2020, I'd hate to say, well, you just don't get to see a World Series. Sorry. So for that alone. Yeah. I think that we tend to get very greedy, and I think we tend to get overly fixated on the dynasty notion as fans. And again, it's easy for me to say that because I don't really root for any teams that could credibly claim a dynasty. So that's maybe part of why I have this perspective.

But it just seems like it would feel really, really great to be able to buy one of those World Series hats. It would just feel really great. And I don't imagine that you have any regret about it being achieved quickly. I mean, I'm sure you want your team to continue to succeed and do well. And so there's some disappointment that they haven't been able to match that World Series run, but that team was legitimately very good. It wasn't like a weird fluky thing that they lucked into. They were just a really good baseball team that won a bunch of games and then won a very dramatic and satisfying World Series. And so I guess it would be one thing if they were this heralded prospect core that came up and they kind of disappointed, but then they went on a late season run and lucked

their way into the wild card and then won a World Series. And then that was it because you wouldn't feel like you got to witness the fully operational Death Star, right? We need a different thing for that because Death Star sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Why do we do that, Ben? Anyway, we're not going on that. I've already subjected our listeners to a cake tangent.

I don't need to do that one. But anyhow, I think that that sense of not getting to see the field full of the guys that you wanted is one thing. Like I have a very distinct memory of opening day, the year Bryant came up. He obviously was not on the roster, but I was a grad student. I was in Wisconsin, and there was a Cubs fan sitting out on the terrace at the union in in madison you know it's a great terrace it's very sad because i'm sure it's empty now he was

sitting there in a real deal chris bryant jersey with a beer in his hand and their game on his laptop and like bryant wasn't playing that day famously but like that guy was ready i don't want to make that guy wait any longer he was he was ready to go so to you know get to get the satisfaction of that i think is pretty incredible no matter what so yeah in a way it was more exciting because it felt like the beginning of something and even if it didn't really turn out to be the beginning of something or that didn't fully come to fruition that added think, to the excitement of it was the sense that, hey, we're going to get to be watching this team and enjoying these players for many years to come. Maybe this won't be the last World Series. So that was exciting. On the other hand,

there's a different sort of satisfaction that could come if they came close and fell short a bunch of times. And if it was the last chance, like if a bunch of them were getting older or about to reach free agency or something, and you knew you really just had one more shot, maybe that would make it even more satisfying in some ways too, because you lived with those players and seen their careers and seen their failures for years and years. And so you'd be maybe even more attached to them. But again, if you were a Cubs fan, it was so new and wonderful for you to have this great core come up that I don't know that the excitement level could ever actually be any higher than it was then.

Yeah. And I can just like feel through my microphone, some Dodgers fan yelling, through my microphone, some Dodgers fan yelling, just win one. Winning them is better. So I think you should just win World Series when you have the opportunity to do that because you just really don't ever know when you're going to be back. Sometimes you root for a team and they win 116 games and you're like, they're going to be good forever and my life is going to be delightful and I'm going to celebrate so many championships. And then don't then you just don't ben yeah you can't count on any future championships a lot of mariner's angst today i don't know what that's about it's probably about your cardboard cut it you're just oh yeah i'm getting right in your spirit into it yeah i'm trying to imbue it with the the essence of meg which is very sassy and disapproving.

All right. William says, I really enjoyed listening to episode 1487 where you recounted some guys and would like to suggest a random, effectively wild player of the podcast episode segment. It was really interesting to hear Ben and Sam recount Paul Conurco right after Carlos Pena. And after I reflected on each of their careers,

I was gobsmacked by the statistical comparison of the longtime fan favorite veteran stalwart versus the guy who kind of had the failed top prospect label and just became a generally professional hitter to wit, and then he shares some of their stats, which in some cases look very similar. So career OPS plus, Peña 117, Canerco 118, career baseball reference war, 25.1 for Peña, 27.7 for Canerco, and other stats, playing time stats, very far apart. So Peña, games 1493, Canerco 2268. At bats, 49.49 for Peña, 83.93 for Canerco. So the question continues, I know it is becoming gross to define players by their contracts, but Canerco. So the question continues. I know it is becoming gross to define players by their contracts, but Canerco made nearly $130 million over his career, while Peña did not

break $50 million for similar production over nearly five fewer full seasons. Most interestingly, perhaps, Peña was worth a whopping negative one Fangraphs War over his final two seasons in the big leagues, while Canerco totaled negative 4.1 FanGraphs War with five different seasons coming in the negative. Granted, two of those were as he was getting his feet in the bigs and two of them at the end, but even still, it just had me wondering if you could choose the career of Paul Canerco spread over that number of games versus the career of Carlos Peña, presuming it is all with your team.

Do you take Peña? Would Peña be remembered more fondly if he did play his whole career with one team would people remember that he was worth more baseball reference war and fan graphs were per game he played than conurco oh gosh i think you wanna avoid wherever possible the failed top prospect label yeah i think that that while very unfair because we heap these expectations on young players and we don't do a good job of updating our snapshot of those expectations over time, I think that there are very few things that baseball fans dislike more than fail-taught prospects. Like the sense that something that like promise was stolen from them, which is so bizarre because I'm sure that like Carlos Pena, which is his career was different too, right? Like no one cares about it more than he does.

But I think that there's something about that, you know, like talk to, again, we're just going to do Mariner stuff, I guess. Like talk to Mariner's fans about Dustin Ackley. And he had a worse career. So that's kind of a mean comp to poor Carlos. But I don't know. I think you want to avoid being a quote unquote fail top prospect. I'd rather be overrated than underrated, I guess, right?

Canerco is beloved. He's like a local institution, local icon. Some people even think of him as like a Hall of Fame caliber player. I don't quite, but I think a lot of people perceive him that way. And he's really well liked and loved. And I think that is partly because of his skills as a player and partly just because he was such a institution. And I think if you're with one team your whole career, obviously that helps. And I think part of it is probably just the skills, the way that certain skills are valued. So like Canerco was a pretty far inferior fielder and base runner. And so that's a lot of why maybe

their wars are closer than one would think, and maybe also the offensive environment too. And Canerco was, you know, doing a lot of his offensive damage during a really high offense era, and that could be part of it too. So I think it's maybe just that Canerco's back of the baseball card stats are more impressive than Peña's, and that Peña broke through as late as he did and he had some great experiences too and you know he kind of came out of nowhere and it must be fun to

come out of nowhere especially when you have been labeled something of a bust to then finally break through and justify that hype and show that no you really great, that must be nice in a way too. And if you really had to struggle and you became a journeyman almost and then finally you made good, that must be fulfilling in a way also. But, I mean, I'd rather make more money, all else being equal, and I'd rather play longer, right? So I don't know what the Peña-type career really has going for it over the the Canurco type career, other than the fact that Peña was better on a per game basis. So yeah, we should maybe recognize that Peña was better than he's often given credit for. But in terms of the actual experience for the player, I would definitely opt for the Canurco. I would definitely opt for the Canerco. And when you move around like that, there's no one to really,

when you do have that weird season where you sort of live up to what people are maybe expecting, there's no one to really claim you in the way that you would want. I would imagine that of all the fan bases that Carlos Pena played for, the Rays fans were probably the kindest to him because he had his good years years with them but like it's not he's probably not their guy right they don't list him I do wonder this is a thought that I don't know if it's a good one or not do you think that non baseball fans have a better impression of Carlos Pena because of how he's characterized in the movie version of Moneyball yeah I don't know likeña, I feel like he's respected and liked as a person. And I think he was seen as a leader on those Rays teams when they finally got good and won a pennant.

And he was like a great clubhouse guy and all of that. So yeah, but I guess if you're someone who's only read or watched Moneyball, you just know him as the guy who was playing over Scott Hattaberg or in the movie that Billy Beane had to trade so that they would not keep playing Carlos Pena, which in the long run, Carlos Pena turned out to be a better player than Scott Hattaberg. But, you know, it took a while. Yeah, but in the Jonah Hill version of Dave Podesta says he's going to be like the rookie of the year right casual true like oh i bet that i bet that carlos had a quite a career yeah that's i shouldn't despair i'm sure race fans think very highly of him and he's he seems like a very nice person so i don't mean like it's like he's a bad guy or anything but i don't think you have the sense of

loyalty and you're not as quick to be like well but he had those good years so don't forget those good years if you're a guy who bounces around i don't think that you have quite the same you know it's not the same it's not the same thing i wonder what the coverage was like of him in 2012 when he returned to tampa i don't know i but kennerko's kind of in that like never have to buy a beer in this town for the rest of your life category, essentially. So I'd rather have that career. But Carlos Pena, good career, too. Good job, Carlos.

All right. Question from Richard. I've always felt that breaking a bat should bear a greater penalty to the hitter. If the pitcher breaks your bat, I think you should have to finish the bat with your broken bat as a penalty for your bad swing. If this were the rule, would this change baseball? Alternatively, if Mike Trout always had to use a bat with a hairline fracture, what percent of Mike Trout would he be? I feel like we've answered this question before. Have we? Maybe we have. Yeah. It's possible. It it seems very dangerous it's a terrible idea people would get their their little their little thingies all crushed it would be very bad i still think

that mike trow could hit a home run with a broken bat yeah so i found a similar question in episode 1424 about francisco lindor chipping his bat and a questioner named Sean said he thinks it would be fun to see how players would try to use a broken bat to their advantage and how the defense might play that particular situation. Oh, maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Well, I think it would be very dangerous. I think we would see hand injuries. I don't think it would be fun to watch that, really. That's the problem.

Because you're just like with a little nubbin of a, you'd just be up there with a little nubbin of wood. It would be sharp, you know, that you might get splinters. Everyone would have to wear batting gloves. I guess that would be one thing that would happen as a result of this. And I don't, yeah, I don't think that it would be very fun to watch. And I don't really know if it's penalizing anything that I feel the need to penalize, I guess is the real problem I have with it, because I don't really have a problem with that particular, you know,

when a pitch hits that particular part of the bat, and suddenly you're, you're in need of a new one, like, I don't really sit there and attribute that as a thing that the batter then has to contend with over the course of a right of the rest of the at bat like when a guy gets injured mid plate appearance and the guy who comes in for him like inherences count like that makes sense to me because you don't want to you don't want to rebalance the scales in any kind of a unfair way but what are we what are we really penalizing yeah it's not like you took a terrible swing or something i mean i guess you didn't take the best possible swing you could have taken the pitcher beat you in a way you didn't hit it on the sweet spot probably but the penalty for that is that it's a foul ball right or it's a it's weak contact it's

a weak ball in play so So I think that's a sufficient penalty. It's not so bad to just barely miss the sweet spot or hit a ball off the handle or whatever causes the bat to break that I think you should have to essentially forfeit the rest of the plate appearance. So it's a credit to the pitcher if they're able to saw you off like that. But really, if you go up there with a broken bat, what's the best outcome? Like, A, there's the safety concern, but B, probably just nothing very exciting

is going to happen after that point. So it would just be kind of boring for all of us, I think. Right. I think that it would be, it would quickly become the sort of thing like, you know, Miggy hitting a home run off, actually throwing like the four pitches for an intentional walk. Like it's just not a thing that happens very much. Like the exciting event would be so rare as to be unfun all the rest of the times.

Yeah. I'm not sure exactly how often it happens. I think one of the stat companies tracked this or has tracked it in the past but as the question of whether it would change baseball like does it happen often enough that you would see pitchers coming inside more or hitters backing off the plate maybe to cut down on broken bats because it would be a huge penalty like if you swing and you break your bat on the first pitch of the play appearance or your first swing then that's pretty much it. You could almost walk back to the plate or you might just be better off standing there and not swinging and hoping that

they walk you or hoping that they don't know that you broke your bat if it was subtle enough that you could maybe just work a walk or something. But otherwise, I don't know that it happens often enough with the materials that they use to make bats now that it would actually be worth changing your approach in any way. So not sure that it would change baseball other than making it worse for spectators. And more dangerous for the players. And more dangerous, yeah. For the little fingers.

Yep. All right. I'm anti this rule. I think we can both agree on that. Yep. All right. Question from John, Patreon supporter. this rule i think we can both agree on that all right question from john patreon supporter what if humans evolved to have three arms instead of two but baseball still existed as it does today

with all of the same rules what would hitters pitchers and fielders do with the extra arm which position would benefit the most well my gut instinct is to say fielding that you you would benefit most as a fielder by having an extra arm both you know i think probably the infield and the outfield you just your margin for error once you get used to fielding with the extra arm would be greater so i think that that would be good i feel like you would be very tippy at the point yeah kind of i suppose it's where the arm is it's not dead weight right it is imbued with muscle and i assume so yeah but but where is the arm though that's pretty important right because oh yeah very important yeah i mean if it's sticking out of the center of your chest or something that's a

little bit different than if it's just like dangling off your leg or something. Or what if it's on the top of your head? Like that really changes things because, you know, if you're on the top of your head and you're an outfielder. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Or amazing. Or a pitcher. What if you can throw from that angle?

The angle you'd get would be yeah would be nutty on the other hand so to speak what if you had two adjacent arms and imagine the deception right because the the hitter wouldn't know which arm was holding the ball if you disguised it well so if you had two arms right next to each other they wouldn't be able to pick up the release point because it could be anywhere whereas if it were on the top of your head and in the normal place then maybe that would cut down on the deception a little bit but on the other hand you get that steep downhill plane right which would be really valuable but and if you're like an outfielder or even an infielder having the arm on the top of your head

would be great because you could rob home runs you could catch line drives lay out yeah right but if you had the arm i guess can you wear multiple gloves i guess is the question or would you even or would you just want to keep both of the arms free for throwing because that would be good because if you had arms like on the opposite sides of your body where they are now, but also another one next to that one so that you could make the throw from any angle, that would help, I guess, with like the prohibitions on which handedness can play certain positions or are best suited because if you had arms on either side, then you could make that throw from any angle no matter. And also like would you be right-handed left-handed or third-handed mid-handed mid-handed like are you still have a dominant hand are you just ambidextrous and yet

you you can use any of these arms that's the question lots of questions i'm envisioning it being like in the middle of your back like a a scorpion stinger. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So, and like you think about what baseball players' arms look like. Like, you know, this is a place where you see a baseball player on the street and you might be like, oh, you are a dad. Your job is dad. But one place that I think for a lot of them it becomes rapidly apparent that they are a professional athlete of some kind

is when you look at their forearms, you're like, holy Moses. So then I guess the question is like the placement of the arm becomes very important because what if you have your big old – you got your big old baseball player arms and then you have two of them on one side of your body and only one on the other side. I do think you would be tippy. I think you'd be kind of tippy. Yeah, maybe. Like I'm a little teapot.

Yeah, I mean, if you had evolved this way, maybe you'd adjust for that in some way. But I don't know why we designed baseball the way we did, even though we've evolved with three arms in this scenario. Or do they all wake up one morning and they're like, ah! Yeah, if that were the case, I don't know that you would use that third arm because you would be so unpracticed with it

and you would be so undeveloped potentially that you might just carry on as usual. And if you're a hitter, is it helpful to have the arm? Because if it were in a place where you could swing with three arms at once, then maybe you get some extra force behind that swing or maybe you get some extra reach. Or if you are, I don't know, I guess if you're dominant with that arm, would you be able to do away with the platoon adventures somehow because you could just switch from one side to the plate or the other? I assume you're still bound by like you have certain arms that work better than others.

I don't know. But I'm going to say pitchers benefit most just because of the deception or the different angles that you can come from. I don't know. Fielders, maybe a close second because of the reach and the ability to throw from certain angles. But I would say pitchers. I think like every now and then you see one of those trick windups where the pitcher does the thing where you can't tell where the ball is coming from and it just looks impossible to hit.

So that would just be par for the course in the three-arm world. I think it would really depend where on your body it was. I think that that materially impacts the answer to this question because I think that if itially impacts the answer to this question. Yeah. Because I think that if it's on top of your head, and then like, does the... Oh, no, Ben. So then like, if it's sticking out of the top of your head, does your arm hair match your head or does it is it still like your arm hair where it's shorter do you have really long

i would like to i'd like to say the following which is that i slept very little last night because i was working on positional power rankings. And I think that given that, I'm pretty pleased with my podcast performance so far. But this might be the place where it's the most evident that it's gone over the rest. A lot of variables here. It's been seven months or so since John sent us this question,

so get back to us. Let us know where the arm is. Yeah, because I want to give this very serious question the consideration that it merits. And it materially changes my answer depending on where the arm is. If it's in the middle of your stomach, then I have questions about whether the hair on your arms

is now on your stomach. But I also think that that would change. Like imagine if you were a catcher and you had an arm sticking out of the middle of your stomach. Yeah. Are you allowed to put a glove on it? Does that help or hinder you? Because now if you are trying to frame stuff,

do you run into your own hands? Ben. That's a good question too. Yeah, I don't know which of us one of us answered this question via patreon at the time i think it was sam probably and it's just a two-word answer and it says huh flummoxing i just i i appreciate i have found like know, sort of like body horror movies engaging lately. Who could say why? Who knows?

Is that a comment on our broader moment? Who's to say? But this feels like to hear Cronenberg sat down and was like, you know, I'd like to try a sports movie. Yeah. Yeah. If you can place the arm, let's say if you can choose where you want the arm, then I would say pitchers benefit the most. Sure. Unless you could put the arm on the end of one of your existing arms.

Oh, and then have a super arm. Right. And then you get great range in the field. So that might be useful too. That would be useful. But you know, one of the complications if you could have a super arm, think about how many guysnames would be stretch yeah it would be everyone and then do you have the arm hair on the end of your other arm that seems to be the question that's most occupying you where does the arm hair go well it's just i'm gonna forget the comedian now so i feel bad but like there's a comedian who has

a four-part thing on netflix and i've only seen the preview he's a british guy and he has a whole bit about why the the skin on your lips is different than the rest of your face skin and i've thought about that every day since i've seen the preview for it and so then i just want to know like because like i have a lot of hair on my head and i'm wondering if i then would be like a weird cousin it with like a tall but very narrow okay moving on tom says my cardboard cutout would be really weird oh yeah that too i'm wondering if managers should think about players having good days or bad days I would not want my favorite team's manager to bench a superior player Because he's having a bad month

So long as there is not a causal story to accompany the downturn in performance But for some reason I feel different about bad games It just seems intuitive to me that games are an organizing unit That actually contributes to how events cluster And you hear pitchers say stuff like I just couldn't get a feel for my curveball today But you don't like, I just couldn't get a feel for my curveball today, but you don't hear them say, I couldn't get a feel for my curveball this week.

If a team brings in its best reliever and he throws four straight balls, should that change how the manager believes he will perform the rest of the day more than a bad outing did in a previous game? Should a manager be worried about wasting pitcher's stamina when they are having a bad day? So I think that this does affect, I think this affects manager decision making now.

And I tend to think that it is backed by more sophisticated data. It is a more rigorous decision than just like feeling it out. And four consecutive balls might, I mean, four consecutive balls might raise some eyebrows. You're like, oh, what's going on with that guy? But I think that managers have a pretty good sense of where their guys are day to day, whether it's performance related from watching bullpens and sort of seeing how they are, or stuff that we never end up finding out about, a small injury that nags and they're not feeling great or

something that's going on at home that's maybe going to affect their performance because they're distracted by, you know, their kid being, getting bad grades or they had a fight with their spouse or whatever it is. So my go-to in situations like that is someone being sick and now we can't do that. It's like saying, catch the fever, please don't. Yeah. can't do that. It's like saying catch the fever, please don't. So I think that it does factor into manager's decision making. Now, I would imagine that sort of older school managers might look at it and say it might overestimate the degree to which they have this pegged as being a good day

or a bad day. So I think there's danger in that. But I think that, you know, whether it's through data or conversation or what have you, that they tend to try to get a sense of where their guys are on any given night or afternoon before they, you know, know who's available out of the bullpen or what have you. Yeah, I think it's an area where in theory, managers or on field personnel could really add some value, but also an area where they could potentially do some damage because you might read too much into something you think you see in that picture is more meaningful than it actually is because i have seen some research that suggests that like how a starter begins his outing doesn't actually predict how he finishes it all that well or how he pitches from that point forward so if someone starts off rough you might think oh he doesn't have it that day but very often he will

have it like if he comes out for the next inning or even the next pitch or something even if you've lost it you can find it again or you might not actually have lost it and it might just be sort of deceptive but also maybe you are picking up on something and you're right maybe it can be data-based maybe you're actually seeing like a release point slip or movement is decreasing or spin rate or something. And I have seen analysis that suggests that some days pitchers spin the ball better than other days. And whether that's because their grip is different or they don't have a feel for it or just because they're cheating more that day and using some substance more, I don't know. But I know Rob Arthur has also done some research for FiveThirtyEight about pitcher hot streaks, like there are also times

where you might lose that pitch in the middle of a game or you might get that pitch back in the middle of a game. So if it's like a tiebreaker and you're trying to decide, do I bring in this fresh arm or do I stay with the starter? And statistically speaking, it's not that big a gap, then maybe you give some weight to it. But if it's like you have your ace out there and you're going to a much inferior pitcher because the ace looks like he maybe doesn't have it that day, well, maybe stick with the guy who's been better over the long run because he might pull out of it. Right, exactly. So I think that the good version of this is driven by some more rigorous analysis or an understanding of injury or personal stuff

that is not going to show up in data, but is probably easy to identify as like distracting or likely to impact performance. And the bad version is I had a feeling about a guy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Or if the pitcher says something to you about how he feels, which is probably pretty rare, but when they do say that Probably pay attention Alright Justin says I've just learned About Formula E racing In the UK basically electric Formula 1 anyway take a look at this

And he links to a story apparently Boost zones are going to be installed Around the racetrack like some sort of Real life Mario Kart my question Is obviously what if these were installed Around a baseball diamond? Where would they be placed for maximum impact?

Would the end result simply be more face-first collisions with the field, 20 foot diving catches? So this is like kind of the opposite of Sam's put a pit on the field, which would totally stop a player's forward motion.

This is like putting a boost zone on there. And I read a little bit about this this is like in december 2018 they were planning to put these boost zones on the racetrack where apparently like it would kind of juice the car like i'm reading about it attack mode raises a driver's power level from 200 kilowatts to 225 kilowatts once they've traveled through an offline activation zone it is intended to increase strategy and overtaking options now that the championship no longer features car swaps during races so sure yeah if you were to put a boost somewhere on the field where would you do that

okay so now we have a guy who has three arms one of which is covered in head air and has had a booster pack installed i think it's just it's on the field somewhere so like when you run over it you get a boost yeah but how i don't know like maybe it's like one of those uh moving sidewalk things at the airport okay that's much better so so now we have a guy three arms arms, who wants to cover his head there. I think he's got a moving sidewalk. Sure. Gosh, where would be the most... You want it to be a place

where it's sort of occupying the same purpose, where it's a strategy decision. So you want it to incentivize advancement, to facilitate advancement, right? Like to facilitate advancement, but to have it be close. Because we like bang-bang plays. That's fun. And we like strategy.

That's fun. I think that you just go, but you want it to be used frequently. Right. Well, maybe not. Maybe not. I think you put it between third and home. I was thinking that too. The only steals of home you like plays at the plate you like guys rounding third and deciding to go for it instead of holding up and i guess the boost

would help although maybe the boost just cheapens it if you're getting the boost maybe that takes some of the fun out of it i don't know and i kind of thought like maybe somewhere in the field, like initially I was thinking like put it somewhere out deep in the outfield so that like, I don't know, maybe it's like out in the gap or something so that you might think that a ball was falling. And then suddenly a guy hits the boost and he's able to leap and cut off a ball in the gap. You wouldn't want him boosting into the fence. That would be bad. But if you're able to boost and have more home run robberies or just more leaping catches, that might be good and also a little less dangerous than on the base pass. I don't know. Or maybe you have it only operating one direction and it's for part of the distance of center field so that you could have guys doing like a running throw into home to try to nail right guys at the plate that that'd be cool

yeah um i don't think we have to worry about catcher collisions because you have a third arm well sure yeah yeah very dirty though because it's covered in head air oh my god maybe the boost would only activate if there were no other players in proximity you could have it rigged that way so that you would not

have people colliding with each other that would be good so yeah I don't know I think more acrobatic catches is what I would want to see the most. Having guys soaring through the air, it's one of my favorite plays as it is. So if you're able to get a speed boost and cover more ground, maybe that takes away some of the variation between defenders. If everyone gets the boost, or do you give the boost to guys who

need it? Or probably not. You'd want everyone to be able to get the boost, but that'd be my favorite. I think just leaping through the air because you got that extra speed. I think that we've learned that what I want more of in the game are close plays at home plate, which is surprising for me given that I worry about catcher safety a great deal, but I think I would want it either between third and home or in the outfield somewhere to facilitate trying to nab

guys as they're coming in to score. I think that's my preference. Yeah, yeah, I get that. All right. Keaton says, I enjoyed Sam's coverage of Mike Trout's rise through Hall of Fame war rankings. It's obvious that once Trout hits 10 years of service time, he will be a lock for the Hall of Fame, even if he never plays another

game. My question is, what if Mike Trout for whatever bizarre reason seriously wanted to enter the Hall of Fame twice as a player, what would he need to do? Do you think he could fake his death, adopt a new identity, reenter the sport at age 30, and complete a second stint with enough

ability to earn himself another spot in the Hall of Fame. So I looked this up. I looked up how many hitters have accrued at least 60 war. I forget which war I was using, which is like kind of the minimum that a non-catcher needs for a real shot on the bbwaa ballot so from age 30 on only nine hitters have gotten 60 war bonds wagner maze ruth aaron cobb anson musial and speaker so talent wise trout is obviously in a class with those guys so it's definitely not impossible and the way that players are aging in this era maybe it would be a little difficult it seems like the aging curve is steeper these days so it's maybe still unlikely barring a harold baines style scenario but i think he could

potentially do it on pure talent and performance i just i don't know how he gets away with the faking his death or changing his identity such that no one knows that he's Mike Trout. I mean, a third arm would probably help, but. Covered in. I guess he could shave it, right? Yeah. Wearing a mask. He's already doing that.

Right. I can't imagine that he, he seems like a family man based on everything we've heard from him. So I can't imagine he'd fake his own death. No. It would be very distressing. I think that the one thing, so like, let's imagine for a moment that there were a non awful way for him to achieve this. I think that of all the really amazing players he would be one where i could see him perhaps realistically assuming another identity for

while he is incredible and as soon as you put stats on him you'd be like oh so are you mike trout right is your name actually mike trout but i think that he could get away with it for a small stretch of games without a statistical sample that we would look at and and see as as especially meaningful because this is the thing about him right he's so good at so many things but he's not you know he doesn't hit he's he's not flashy in his in his on-field affect in a way that is particularly distinctive. He does not play in a way that is imbued with a lot of personality. So I think he could get away with it for a little bit

before we were all like, so sir, you are suspiciously like one Mike Trout. Yes. But I don't think that he would ever do anything to sustain that ruse for very long. And I think it would be very difficult for us to not ask a bunch of questions and be like, so you look like my trap, though. Yeah, I know. Does he change his whole body?

Does he change the way he moves? Does he change his batting stance? I don't know how you could fake those things and still perform the same way, because I think he could do it just based on pure talent. still perform the same way because I think he could do it just based on pure talent but if he had to change his whole mechanics and appearance and everything then that would come with like I don't know some sort of

prosthetics or just like different mechanics that would probably mess with his performance as a player so I don't know that he could do it but it would be quite a thing to just unveil yourself and say I was Mike Trout all along and I had two Hall of Fame careers. Because people say that that's like the Bill

James line about Ricky Henderson, that if you split him in half, he'd be two Hall of Famers. If you actually did that, like imagine at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, you remove your mask and you're like, no, I'm Mike Trout. I was Mike Trout all along. Both of those careers are Mike Trout. That's how how great i am i made the hall of fame twice that would be such a flex that i would really respect it yeah but like we would go through this whole period of mourning of losing i know that too where did he go the unsolved mystery of mike trout's whereabouts yeah yeah um so i would be furious actually if after after mourning the loss of mike trout he then revealed himself a decade later and was like actually it was here all along and was totally

fine yeah um i would i would hate him yeah good point i would sort of spoil his wholesome image yeah okay but i do you think he'd get up there and like immediately be like, I hate the weather. It's thoroughly uninteresting to me. And people would be like, why are you saying that? Yeah. That might give him away, I think, if he were trying to be the anti-trout. Just lots of like really outrageous quotes. Maybe he witnesses

a mob crime and he is put into witness protection along with his entire family. I'm just trying to get around the idea that that Mike Trout would fake his death because he seems like a nice man and one who loves his family a lot. I can't imagine him putting them through that. Let's say he witnesses a mob crime. Not one where anyone dies because we're trying to not have casualties in this scenario.

He's put into witness protection and they tell him he can't be a baseball player and he's like, aha, I have a good disguise. Then he launches a new career now here's another problem with that which is that while mike trout is amazing and one of the things about him that is incredible is that he is done all he is done at a young age is he emerging into the league as an unknown 28 year old almost 29 year old i assume so right unless he's adopting or stealing someone else's identity so that would be a very sensational story in itself yeah and then he and so then you have an age scandal on top of everything else and teams would be like why didn't we know about this guy where did he come from how did he not show up anywhere so even if you worked your way through

all of that i still think that he would would be taking a very significant risk every night because those mobsters are after him. there'd be so much interest in who this mysterious man was that people would try to piece together the backstory so don't know if he could pull this off but on talent and ability i think he probably could yeah i think that on talent and ability he absolutely could and if you're sitting there wondering meg why did you get caught up in the details of this hypothetical I don't think you've listened to the podcast before. Yeah. All right. Maybe we can do one more. This is from a listener named Ben, a different Ben, who says, for some reason, a parable I once heard popped into my head the other day. There were two businessmen who hated each other, and one day a genie offered one of them a wish of his choice. There was a catch, though. Anything that he got for himself, his hated rival would get twice as much. Filled with petty anger, the businessman wished for half of his business to be destroyed. The point of the story is about the destructive nature of hatred,

but I'm curious how this would apply in a baseball context. If the average baseball fan were allowed to wish anything they wanted for their team, but their most hated team would get twice the wish, how would most fans react? Would the majority wish for a World Series and accept watching their bitter rivals win two rings? What percentage of fans would make a negative wish, knowing that the team they hate will suffer even more? Do most fans even have a hated team? team. If one fan of each team were granted this wish at random, I'm assuming the wishes are granted sequentially in the order of wishing, what would the next 30 years of baseball look like? Would there be more parody or less? Would baseball be a happier or less happy place? I have to wake up for work in five hours and I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. Hope you can shed some light. This was sent in January. So Ben, I hope you got some sleep. You got some sleep, buddy. I think that most diehard fans, diehard is loaded. Most fans who consider themselves to be big fans have a team they dislike. Although I think that often they mostly have another fan base they dislike.

True. That's a wrinkle to the the fan disliking thing i think that we would be surprised by how many people were actually comfortable with wishing a world series for their favorite franchise even though the other franchise gets gets two because i think that fan would sit there like if the baseball genie appeared and was like, your wish has been granted. And you, Red Sox fan, you get a World Series and the Yankees get two. I think there would be many fans for whom that would just be a non-starter. But I think we would be surprised by how many of them would delight in not only having a World Series themselves, but in saying the only reason that the Yankees got two was because of me a red sox fan

so i think that some people would delight in that i don't know what it would mean for for parody granted in order just seems like it would lead to chaos i think we'd see a lot of weird nonsense yeah and does it happen within the same like what is the time frame over which this stuff occurs i suppose it depends on the wish that's what i was wondering like if you wish for a world series and you get it does that mean you get it this year and then does that mean that your rival wins the next two years and you know you're not going to win those years and you know no one else is going to win because sort of spo spoils the suspense. If that's the wish, if the wish is just a championship, then once you win that one, it really kind of ruins the next couple of years, right?

Because there's just no point in watching. You already know what's going to happen. Right. That would be – and is everyone aware of this wish construct? That's another good question. Because I think that our understanding of how weird or not weird the events on the field would be would depend a lot on whether or not we knew about the wishes because if things like championships are just unfolding in their normal time first of all we're not going to get to very

many people's wishes and so we might just look at it and say oh well you know that team had to run a good luck good for them a dynasty, if you will, right? Like, I don't know that we would necessarily notice. I think that the scale of the game is where it would lead to a lot of nonsense because if you wish for a home run and then they hit two or you wish for your team to, like, hit a triple and then they had two triples, you'd be like, wow, a lot of triples in this game.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I would wish for anything triple and then they had two triples you'd be like wow a lot of triples in this game yeah yeah i mean i don't know that i would wish for anything or a championship at least because if i knew that my team was winning only because of this supernatural force or that i had guaranteed it by wishing for it then is it fun then it's just kind of cheating right it's like i don't know sign stealing except wishes right it's like you're not really know, sign stealing except wishes, right? It's like you're not really winning it legitimately. You're not really earning it. You just got some super power to grant you a championship. So would you even feel accomplishment? I don't know that I

would. But putting that aside, or let's say that you forget that you made the wish, right? Or that, you know, you don't know that it was because of the wish, but it was. So you can still enjoy it as if it were a regular World Series. I think I'd probably wish for it because I'm just thinking back to when I was a kid and I was a fan and I rooted for the Yankees and I wished for failure for the Red Sox,

but I didn't wish for failure for the Red Sox even half as much as much as I wished for Yankees' success, right? Because I rooted much more intensely for my team than I rooted against the other team, assuming that they weren't playing each other. It brought me much more happiness if my team won than it brought me happiness if the other team lost. I could take some solace in that maybe, but not nearly as much. It's not like I would be celebrating just because my rival lost if my team didn't win. I might wish for my team to win because I probably would enjoy my team's championship more than I would hate my rivals' know they're not going to do that, so you'd be fine. You'd be like, this is normal.

We don't win every year. We are not the Yankees. I mean, I know in your specific scenario, you'd be describing a Yankees fan, but I think that people would find that quite satisfying. I hope that the answer is that they would just wish for a lot of good stuff and be like, well, now there's more good stuff in the world. Instead of being like, I am going to cut off my nose to spite your face, which is basically what this is.

That seems terrible. Those people should not get to make wishes. We should say, you don't get to. You can't be trusted. You're not a good person yeah good person privilege only right and like in the parable that ben mentions here like the businessman wishes for half of his business to be destroyed because he wants to put his rival out of business and in the real world maybe that would benefit you in the long term because yeah

you take your losses now but if you get rid of your rival maybe you have a monopoly and you just make bank for years to come and maybe you don't like your rival anyway and so you get some personal satisfaction out of that too but in baseball like you wouldn't wish for your rival to be disbanded or go out of business or something because yeah you want the rival like baseball would be worse if you didn't have rivals so you want your rival to lose but you don't want your rival to cease to exist and i don't think you would wish for your own team to fail because your rival would fail twice as much so i don't think that really applies so much it's not like

you're gonna get rid of your rival or that you would even want to in baseball. So I think you have to wish for happy outcomes, hopefully, and be okay with other people getting some pleasure too. Yeah, I mean, so the closest that I can come to this is to describing the sensation is like maybe one of the most satisfying sports wins I've ever watched as a fan was when the Seahawks beat the 49ers in the 2013 NSU championship. And it was satisfying, not only because that meant that the Seahawks were going back to the Super Bowl and it was this really tense and incredible game, but there was something very satisfying about beating them, beating the Niners on the field as a Seahawks fan. You're like, not only did we get to do this thing, it came at their expense, but you wouldn't want to deny yourself that moment. Like the victory in that moment is all

the sweeter. So I think you want success so that it means something. i mean i don't know i've i have not had a similar baseball experience and so i'm not quite sure what the feeling of fans of very successful franchises would be but there's something you know it's like you get amped up you're like yeah i'm gonna go get them yeah yeah you want to go get them by the way i just saw a tweet that is relevant to something we were bantering about on our most recent episode This is a quote from Dusty Baker on the fake crowd noise during Astro's Intra Squad games It doesn't quite sound like crowd noise yet I thought somebody left the water faucet on to tell you the truth

Everybody's like, hey man, you hear that water running? Which is sort of what you were saying about the Mariners' fake crowd noise And maybe this explains it I have another here. This is from Caleb Noe, who is a TV guy. And he tweeted, this is specific to the Reds, but apparently applies to every team in the league will use artificial crowd noise this season. It's mandated and supplied by MLB. The crowd noise will come directly from the video game MLB The Show. So I don't know whether what you were hearing in that intra-squad game that the Mariners were playing was this, because it did sound like a non-baseball crowd. And MLB The Show,

I think, sounds like a baseball crowd and is, I don't know exactly how they tape their crowd noise, but might be real crowd noise so evidently that's what they're going to be doing during regular season games but i don't know if that answers the question that you had about what that particular crowd noise was well now i now i have some questions about how good a game mlb the show is they're going to be people who are grumpy with me about that i i don't know i've i mean i've listened to some of our live streams of of dan and ben and paul calling games in mlb the show and have been really impressed with the reality of it it's freaky actually i think we've

talked about that but they have had the crowd noise just sort of turned down not off but turned down while they're doing that because obviously you want to hear them talking. So now that I think of it, I don't know if I find the crowd sound in that to be either the same or especially realistic. I'm going to have to do a little digging, I guess. I think it's pretty good. When Ramon Russell was on the show to talk about the latest edition of the game, I asked him about that. And he said that they put a lot of care and effort into it. And it's kind of like customized by stadium and situation. So if you have a specific situation, it's based on what that would actually sound like in a real game. So I know they've attempted to make it as realistic as possible. So I don't know whether they will be using like customized by ballpark yeah with this that will be interesting we'll maybe have to talk to like a pa person yeah on the show about how they're handling empty stadiums that that would be interesting yeah i

think we're gonna have to get a sound person on to to talk about it because the the sound i guess one way that we could test this out is for me to go back and listen to the reds inter-squad and then the mariners one and see if it's the same or if they're you know they're using a sort of a temporary sound until they get the appropriate file from from the league but it didn't sound it just didn't sound like a baseball crowd. It sounded like a concert crowd almost. I don't know. All right. So thanks to everyone who submitted these questions from one to two years ago.

Don't give up hope. You never know when we will finally get to your question. And I've saved some others here in case we want to do another pre-pandemic mailback sometime. But this was fun. So thanks for indulging us and uh thanks to everyone who sent these questions long ago yes thank you for your questions i will do my best the next time we do one of these to be less fixated on the possibility of head hair on one's arm um we're almost i mean we're not almost done with positional power rankings it's a little lie i'm

telling myself but um you know the next time we do this, we probably won't be in the midst of positional power rankings. So the brain will be firing a little bit better than it is at the moment. Okay. Well, I enjoyed that aspect of the discussion personally. Okay, that'll do it. If you are interested, by the way, in which questions we have answered in the past, there is a database of all of the Effectively Wild answered emails put together by enterprising listeners. I will link to that on the

show page. You can also find it in the file section of the Facebook group and on the Effectively Wild wiki. To avoid duplicate questions, it's helpful if you go check out whether we've answered something there before, or maybe you'll just see something interesting and want to click on that episode and listen to our answer. In many cases, even I have forgotten what we said. I should mention, by the way, that I have completed the first season, the only existing season of the Korean baseball drama I recommended on last week's shows, Stove League. It was wonderful start to finish. I think Meg will be starting her binge sometime soon when she gets out of positional power ranking jail. And then hopefully we will talk about it on the show. But really, I give it an unqualified recommendation. It's heartwarming.

It's pretty realistic. It deals with all sorts of aspects of the game that we talk about all the time. It's a drama, but it has a lot of comedic elements. Just probably the best baseball show I've seen. So again, I watched it on the streaming service Viki, V-I-K-I. I will link to that on the show page. Please go check it out. You can watch the first two episodes for free. And if you like those, you can sign up for a free trial. And if you are industrious, you can potentially get through the whole season in that free trial period. And it has English subtitles and they're mostly pretty decent. So please, please go check it out. I have heard from some people on Twitter and in the Facebook group

who have already watched it or binged the whole thing and they loved it too. So I think you will as well. And we can do a TV Club podcast about it at some point. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild.

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You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. We'll see you next time. back with that last episode in the series a little later this week. Talk to you then. We'll see you next time.