Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1567: What We’ll Miss Most This Season

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein banter about Ben’s latest bad dream about baseball writing and the Toronto (or Pittsburgh?) Blue Jays’ last-minute relocation. Then they conduct the first of two drafts that will be presented on back-to-back episodes, beginning by selecting five things apiece that they’ll miss about “normal” baseball […]

I've got it all set up, you see But when I close my eyes it happens to me You're a nightmare and you've made it all wrong You're a nightmare to me, oh You're a nightmare, oh And I just can't see Why you should keep on Happening to me

Oh, you're a nightmare Hello and welcome to episode 1567 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lundberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. And we are joined by our pal Craig Goldstein, the editor-in-chief of Baseball Perspectives. Hello, Craig.

Hello. So we're going to do a draft today. It's actually the first of two draft episodes, sort of paired drafts that we're going to do and release in quick succession. But just a couple of quick things before we get to draft number one. Craig, you already know this because I told you this, but I need to tell you about this, Meg. I had another baseball writing dream. And Craig knows about this because he was featured in it. So this was early Monday morning. And what happened was I woke up, but it wasn't yet time to get up, but I wasn't asleep anymore. And so it was after the time when BP usually publishes its articles.

So I just opened my phone and went to BP just to see what Craig had cooked up for us all that day. And then I fell back asleep, not because the BP articles were boring or anything. Thank you for clarifying that. I was still tired. And then I still- Thank you for clarifying that. I was still tired. And then I had a dream that was related to that. So I dreamed that I wrote an article for Baseball Perspectives about the best projected catcher framers for this season. And the leader was someone surprising.

I had a leaderboard in there. It was like, I think it was like Derek Norris or someone like that. Yeah, that's what he said. A, no longer in the majors, but beyond that, was a good framing catcher, I guess, but not a superlative one. So I don't know why it was someone like that. But I wrote the article, and it was published, and it was leading the site. Thank you for that, Craig, for giving it the promotion. And I was excited to see it because it was nice to see my name up in the bright lights at BP again, just like old times. And then I realized after the article was published that the projected run total for the leader, Norris or whoever it was, was quite low.

Craig to ask him about adding a line about how maybe that low run total reflected the fact that the difference between framers has shrunk and we don't see extreme values in framing anymore, which we've all written about. But then when I went to check, I realized that I had sorted the leaderboard wrong. And the leader was actually Joe Maurer with like 28 runs saved. And the guy I had written about was projected for like eight or something so I had written most of the article about the wrong guy and then I was like freaking out and I was like oh no what do I do and I messaged Craig to ask if we should take it down or do something else and then before I could explain the situation you immediately looped me in on Gchat with the entire BP stats team, and you were like, that was a good article, but if you had access to all of our data,

you could do even more or something. I don't know why you didn't give me access to all of it before the article was published. Yeah. So then it was even more awkward because I'd been hoping that just no one had noticed or read the article yet. So I was about to explain the situation and then mercifully I woke up and immediately was worried about what to do, still was sort of in the dream. And then eventually came to the conclusion that it was not real and they had not written an erroneous article and it was a great relief. It's nice to be the subject of someone's dream but this was kind of more like a nightmare i guess it was and like i was kind of a dick in it so like i don't know unwittingly though you didn't know yet but but yeah it was uh it was unsettling it's like the worst nightmare is that

you write an article and the entire thing is wrong and all those stats are wrong so that was unpleasant but as you said craig that was an incredibly me dream that it was just so specific dreaming about catcher framing articles i i also would say well and not only catcher framing articles but like i don't know to even include derek norris who now that you've mentioned him both i think was extremely bad at catcher framing and then sometimes i think was extremely bad at capture framing and then got better. And then also just to have it be like intense nervousness about publishing an article that had an error in it that it was not even your fault because I was hiding information from you. Well, that's true. But I think I had screwed up somehow. I think I had sorted something wrong. So again, I don't know why Joe Maurer was one of the leaders because Joe Maurer also retired.

But still, that was scary. I think it was at least partly my fault. So that's why I felt so bad about it. Is this your very roundabout way of saying that you were one of the people who noticed that my save of an update to the title of Dan Zimborski's piece on a batter hitting 400 didn't save unless we had top link Tom who's Tom nobody nobody named Tom has hit 400 I did not notice that that's some some nightmare fuel for you except that was real I guess well I was gonna say one one thing I could say here is is I I can give you dream you some advice I I have said to Meg

in in times when I think we've both been stressed about our various websites, which is just that ultimately it's a baseball website. And the worst thing that happens is you're wrong about something in baseball. And it's not – I mean, look, it's vitally important to all three of us. But generally speaking, it's not as – Yeah. Yeah. Craig, this is why you're going to live a lot longer than me. I keep telling you, though, that my heart has other things to say about that.

But yeah. Oh, no. I mean, I don't, I assume. I don't go to the doctor. I mean, honestly. I agree. Well, Ben, I hope that you, you know, you're owed like a good, a good satisfying dream that is less anxiety ridden than the ones you've been having of late.

Like you're just due, I think. I know, but as we've covered, I so rarely remember my dreams that I think I only remember them when it's baseball writing related. So I don't even get to enjoy them. I think this represents some kind of mental growth though, because usually this sort of dream when I've had it in the past is set in the past. It's like I'm back in school and I didn't know there was a test and I didn't prepare for it. And I'm taking the test even though I was pretty good about preparing for tests. But in my dreams, I never know what's going on about anything. And I'm always surprised that

there's a paper due immediately or something. So at least this is reflecting present mistakes that I could be making. Well, I think we are still in history if you're Joe Maurer and Derek Norris. Yeah, that's true. It's like 2012 maybe or something. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I inwardly want to be back at BP, but you took my job, so what can I do? I mean, I'm pretty sure, people, if you made yourself available,

I might be in a tough spot. Well, not if I keep screwing up these leaderboards like this. That's a good point. Okay. All right, so we have a draft to do, but should we talk briefly about the fact that the season we're about to discuss is starting in just a few days, and yet the Toronto Poo Jays do not know what

their home is. What's the latest on where the Blue Jays might play? Because the Canadian government, which has actually handled the pandemic somewhat responsibly and more strictly, has prevented the Blue Jays from playing home games now in Toronto. And so they are scrambling to look for a major league place to play. Yeah, the last thing that I saw was, so I mean, a few days ago it was floated that PNC Park might be an option. And I don't know, that never made sense to me because they specifically didn't want to mix geographic, not that PNC is that far from the East Coast, but it is this, all the central teams would go through it. And now you're introducing East Coast teams or ALNNL East teams. The latest that I saw is that the Camden Yards is being potentially considered.

There are only two conflicts in the schedule where both would be home, starting with July 29th, which is scheduled to be the Blue Jays' first home series, so July 29th to August 2nd, and then August 14th through 16th. Otherwise, there are no overlapping home dates. So I guess it seems like a decent option, if not maybe a fraught one, because you're just, I don't know, you have to turn over the home locker room more often. You have to turn over the visiting locker room more often. I don't know. It doesn't seem great.

More often you have to turn over the visiting locker room more often. I don't know. It doesn't seem great. I feel like they should have prepared better for this potentiality because the Canadian government never seemed really sold on it. I think that Camden's also appealing because of its proximity to the National Stadium. And they would already have a series against. They'd have series against the nationals anyhow that i think would allow them to get around some of their conflict dates and when they have a conflict with camden i think that the national stadium is fine so i i think that was part of the thinking

there i just wonder if they assumed that things would be better than they are in florida and that they could just play at their spring training facility, which is smaller capacity, but that doesn't matter this year, and is actually up to snuff from a broadcast perspective, right? Because that's the problem with Buffalo is that they can't broadcast there and they would also need to host some of the locker room facilities in the suites because they can't socially distance successfully in the clubhouses, I guess, in Buffalo. So there are all sorts of issues there. But yeah,

I just wonder if they assumed a more competent response from the state of Florida, which, goodness, what an idea that is. Yeah, I think it's sort of surprising that it would be so hard to find a place initially just because you think, well, it doesn't really matter what the capacity is because you don't have to get fans in there. And there are lots of baseball diamonds around the country. So in that sense, it seems like it should be easy. But of course, you need the facilities to be top notch, too. And so they had talked about the home of the Buffalo Bisons, the Blue Jays AAA team being a candidate, and perhaps it still is. But there are concerns about the lighting there. J.J. Cooper reported that no minor league park fulfills the MLB requirements for lighting conditions, which is also sort of surprising.

The minor leaguers are apparently playing in the dark all the time. Well, I think it's about the television quality. Right, it's about the broadcast. They're good enough to play, but not for the way they broadcast on television. Can we get some floodlights in there or something? I don't know. Yeah, I would have thought they could do it. I was talking to Jeff Paternostro, and he made the point that I think they play that

series in Williamsport every year now, they they truck in lighting for that so i would have thought they could you know make it work if they wanted to but sure although they're probably thinking like hey we're in the middle of a pandemic though and that's a good point a week and a half so there are difficulty to everything yeah i would imagine that the logistical burdens are somewhat more insurmountable what with what's going on you know all the happenings in the world i would point out too that there's some potential i mean we can put air quotes around fun but meg pointed out that the nationals stadium is available for when both teams are home the blue jays first home game is against the Nationals. So we could see the Blue Jays' first home game of the season

in Nationals Park against the Nationals. Yeah. Do they bring in their own soundboard guy? Or do they tell the Nationals' soundboard guy to flip his reaction sounds so that he's actually cheering on the Blue Jays because he is now the Blue Jays soundboard guy or gal person. We don't know who that person is. But do they flip it so that they are appropriate or do they get sassy and cheer for the Nats while they're at home?

Sounds like an interview waiting to happen. Yes, I hope so. Yeah, I was kind of excited about the Buffalo prospect just because that is apparently broadcast quality, because those games are broadcast too. So that was an option. And I've seen people wonder, well, why don't they play in some past MLB park that's still standing, like Turner Field or the ballpark in Arlington? But A, geographically, maybe not ideal. And B, those parks have been reconfigured. So Turner Field is a football field now. And the ballpark in Arlington was a football field for the XFL.

And I think now is or will be a soccer field, but apparently has like a 250-foot wall now. So it would be like the Baker Bowl or something, which frankly might be kind of fun, but would be weird for sure. So there aren't really that many MLP parks that are just kind of standing around unoccupied and in good condition. So that's not really a viable option. So hopefully, I guess the best case scenario is that we do get a timeshare, and maybe that'll be complicated for calculating park factors, but at least everyone will have a place to play. And there's some precedent for that, too, like the Yankees played at Shea Stadium when Yankee Stadium was getting remodeled and Yankees and the Giants both played at the polo grounds at the same time for years. So that has happened before. Ben, I'm here to tell you that people do, in fact, watch the College World Series, even though you hate college baseball.

I don't begrudge other people watching it. It's just not my cup of baseball, but I'm glad it is for others. Ben, we outnumber, Meg. It was inevitable. Come on. All right. So let's do a draft. So this is, again, draft one of two two and they can be enjoyed independently but maybe are

even better enjoyed in tandem it's like oracle of seasons and oracle of ages you play them both together that's a zelda reference they're both going to be about the upcoming season so the first draft we're going to do is things that we will miss this season. So things we are being deprived of because of this weird year, because it's a 60-game season, because there's no minor league season, whatever. Things that we would have expected to see that now we won't see or won't see as often

or won't enjoy as much or whatever the case may be. And then for maybe a happier or more optimistic sequel, we will do things we're excited about and things we're looking forward to seeing in this strange season, which may be because it's a strange season or might just be things we were looking forward to anyway, but now the season is actually starting, so they feel real all of a sudden.

And I guess we should just issue a blanket note up top that the things we miss the most are like health and safety and a functioning economy and players not catching the coronavirus and and all of that so hopefully that all would just go without saying we're we're just talking about the baseball stuff on the field i assume here for the most part yeah yeah well i did want to ask a clarification i think potentially giving something away but before i i should have asked this before we started recording, but does like, are we counting like what we're going to see, like on a screen or is like going to a game, a thing we can miss? Sure. Yeah, I think so. Just making sure.

Yeah. In fact, I'd be disappointed if none of us drafted that. That'd probably be bad. I guess, Greg, you're the guest i guess you could go first oh boy a lot of pressure on first overall okay i'm i'm probably going to go with a weird thing for a first overall pick but it's something i extremely love about baseball and so i'm gonna miss the silence in baseball when there is a crowd because of the way it builds tension. I was at Nationals Park in, I think it was 2015, when Kershaw came in for the save the first time the Dodgers tried that trick and it worked. Like there's, you know, that collective like holding of breath and the amount of tension that happens in it because the way baseball works and it's slow build, you know, there's a lot of ambient noise. There's a lot of building of crowd noise. And then when there is that hush, it like it's just something I I've always appreciated.

I've always appreciated. And so the fact that it's going to basic, I know they're going to pipe in crowd noise, but like that it's going to always be silent just means that we're not going to have that. Yeah. That's a good one. There will just be like a perpetual hush or just fake noise constantly, but you won't really get that same sense of like dramatic tension and building

up based on the crowd reaction, unless the PA people are really good on the crowd reaction unless the pa people are really good and the crowd noise is really convincing i just don't know that it could convince me though because if we're seeing empty seats behind the plate and around the stadium i don't know that i can overcome the cognitive dissonance and actually suspend my disbelief like i'll be hearing fans and seeing no fans and it'll be like i don't i feel like i'll get seasick or something it'll be like when your eyes are confused and your balance is confused because you're moving and you don't know how to handle that it'll be kind of like

that where we'll be confronted constantly with these two jarring sights or sounds i think i'd have an easier time suspending my disbelief if there were greater fidelity of proportion in the cutouts behind home. I noticed when the Yankees and the Mets played and the Mets had their fan cutouts, many of which were delightful. And I get why you're like, we're just taking whatever picture you send us because trying to sort all of that out sounds like a logistical nightmare. But, you know, there were some people who were like people sized, like the like people who would sit in the seat, people sized. But then there were people who were like, you know, fathead sized. And it was very disorienting and trippy for me.

So I think I'd have an easier time if they were all actual people sized, rather than there being some people and also giant dogs, like the dogs would be giant, if they were the actual dogs, they'd be giant dogs. So that would that also kind of, you know, it shattered the illusion for me. Yeah, well, I was gonna say, did you I someone noticed this on a Dodgers broadcast I was watching a couple games ago ago but the so there's a man holding a baby in one of them and then directly next to the man holding the baby is just a full-sized cut out of a baby and so that was that was tough for me to get past at that point because i mean i know we all saw the large baby uh on the internet but like I don't know maybe they could just like put a smaller cut out there or so I would I agree with you a greater fidelity to to dimension and proportion would be nice look we don't need to go down this road because this is a draft episode they're already going to be tangents but that baby

is not a baby that baby is a toddler We need to stop calling it a giant baby. It is still a big kid, but he is not a baby. He is a toddler. He has some baby-like features is the scary part of it. I understand, but there is category fraud going on here, and I will not stand for it. Yeah. Well, Craig, you have a baby,

so you're the authority on babies on this podcast i guess hopefully your baby is not abnormally large i hope he's appropriately large but well i will he's i was gonna say he's large but not not quite like large baby and i'm sorry meg like i don't know what else you say large toddler and we don't know who we're talking about at this point i understand but the the whole and now we're this. So the whole objection to the large baby was that a baby, meaning a younger child person, was that big. And people were like, whoa, it's like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. No, it's just a really weird toddler. He's just a weird toddler.

Meg, this is the second medium in which you've maligned a child. That's right I did spend 500 words at BP one time Shitting on a baby who were being grabbed If anyone doesn't know what large baby we're talking about I will link to large baby Although be careful about clicking We'll just tell you it will haunt you Yeah although it hasn't yet appeared in your dreams Ben

So I'm kind of surprised not that i recall okay meg you want to go next sure well speaking of faces and fans i i will miss fan faces this is both a you know a distraction for me personally but also just a font of professional inspiration and so i will miss fan faces but that's not really my pick. My pick is related to that. It's I will, I will miss, this is kind of melancholy. I will miss having like an unreserved sense of whimsy about this year. You know, we're all forced by circumstance to grapple with the strangeness and the stakes

of this season. And we need to grapple with those things because the stakes are very high and they extend beyond baseball. And that is important to do. And I also am kind of struggling both as a person who enjoys watching baseball and then as a person who tends to engage with baseball from a writing perspective in a very particular way with how to do that right this year. And I've had a lot of moments watching these intra-squads and these tune-ups between teams where it has felt really good to have baseball on and to have that sound in the background while I'm editing and to be able to delight in guys doing cool stuff on the field. and to be able to delight in guys doing cool stuff on the field.

And I'm able to maintain that emotional space for a little while, and then I remember everything that's going on, and I feel icky about it. And I don't think that that's necessarily the wrong balance of things and the wrong set of feelings to have about this season, but I wish that we had done better so that not only these guys could play under safer conditions, but so that we could enjoy it more unreservedly than I find myself being able to right now, even though I do still enjoy it. feeling good about whimsy. It's sort of my brand, the whimsy. And I feel unsure of what I should do with myself in 2020. So I guess I could apply to any number of things. But as it comes to baseball, it's going to be an odd thing to sort of feel our way through, even though we're not touching

anyone. We're staying hands in, not touching anyone we're staying hands in not touching anyone because that's bad yeah that's a good one i hope that at some point during the season we will be able to revel in the whimsy which is dependent of course on how the pandemic is going in general across the country and how mlb's testing program is going if it it does go smoothly, then maybe perhaps we will get to the point where we will have fewer reservations about it, or at least we'll be able to think or hope that it's not worse than it would be not to play, but we're not at that point yet. So yeah, whenever we celebrate something, there's a voice, I think, in the back of our heads going, maybe this shouldn't be happening at all, or at least we can't enjoy it unreservedly. Yeah, I'm a little surprised you guys aren't looking forward to a continuing, like a continued nagging sense of conflict that like bleeds color out of everything and

weighs upon us in ways of, I don know i don't know causes on we and sadness yeah i just you know craig you know me i'm already disposed to on we and you know how much i love twitter discourse yeah well so i'm gonna i mean you guys put it in this draft i'm gonna take it off my things i will look forward to, I suppose. The discourse you were hankering for it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. I guess I'll go.

We plan to draft five things apiece, but we'll see how it goes and how many we have. And I actually had an easier time coming up with things that I am excited about or looking forward to than things that I am missing or sad about, which I guess is a good sign. Maybe it's just opening week excitement that I'm able to put other things out of my mind right now. But I have a longer list for that one. But for this one, I think I'll take this just to block you, Craig, in case you would take it, although maybe it would be a homer pick for you.

But I'm going to take the Dodgers dominating over a full season, which is something that I was looking forward to seeing. I guess all extremes like that, you could say we're going to be deprived of potentially a historic record-setting terrible season by the Orioles or someone else too, but I wouldn't anticipate that with the same glee. So I'm not a Dodgers fan or anything but I appreciate the way that the Dodgers have constructed their team and sustained this

winning for so long and they were the best team in the National League last year and then they added Mookie Betts to it and David Price and yes they also lost some players but I will ignore that for now and they were coming into the season as potentially the best projected team of all time. They were getting triple-digit win total projections, which is unusual. I believe that in the before times, they had the best Pocota projection ever, which goes back like 15 years at this point.

So I really would have been interested in seeing that lineup work all year long, just totally stacked top to bottom. Two of the best players, probably the two best players in the National League and other good supporting players, and then also really exciting young guys like Will Smith and Gavin Lux. It's just everyup spot on that team Is either great or interesting Or maybe both And now we're not going to get that They might dominate over 60 games

Certainly but we're not Going to get the full effect of how good They could have been over 162 game season And we don't get David Price Being part of the team either So I'm sort of Sad about that I wanted to see how good the Dodgers could be. And now we won't exactly get to see that. Yeah, I was going to say they lost

David Price as well as gained him. And also just semi-breaking news, they aren't going to start the season with Gavin Lux on the team. So they optioned him just, I don't know, within the last 20 minutes or so. Okay. Yeah. I, I will admit I didn't have that on my list, I guess, but it's, it's one I immediately, once you said it, I regret it not having it on my list. Yeah. I think of full season dominance.

Honestly, I think the, the Yankees were projected exceedingly well too. And I think it would have been interesting to kind of see them go head to head over the course of a full season on what, what they could do just because depth is such a big part of what those teams do and in a lot of ways it's muted in a shortened shortened season um you could certainly argue that right yeah covid can make it just as important because if you lose three or four players especially three or four key players it it changes everything. But in a lot of ways, just having the shorter season, it means there's less room for that depth to shine through and to separate themselves from other teams. So yeah, I like that one.

And I could see having some super team fatigue because we've seen so many really great teams lately and this sort of stratification in baseball between the great teams and the terrible teams. So if you're sort of sick of just seeing certain teams lay waste to the league, I get that too. But there's still a part of me that appreciates how teams can construct themselves to be good year after year, especially the Dodgers, who win the division every single year and just seem like a perpetual motion machine because they just keep working in like another core on top of the core that they already had and I was excited to see Bellinger and Betts in the same outfield for a full season and granted maybe Mookie will stay

and we'll see those guys playing side by side for years and years to come but that's not guaranteed so I would have liked to guarantee that. Yeah. I mean, I will say that there was a sense of loss, even though I was watching the very first exhibition game they played, the non-intra squad game they played against Arizona. They trotted out what looked to be a mostly regular lineup. And the first two batters walked, there was a single, and then Cody Bellinger hit a grand slam in the the first two batters walked there was a single and then Cody Bellinger hit a grand slam in the in the very first inning and you kind of thought like boy it would have been nice to see what this this the this team would do this lineup would do over the course of a full season because

and I think they put up another 11 runs yesterday including a they had like a I don't know they have a you know a slaughter rule or something like that where they just ended the sixth inning because they scored too many runs. It's an all-time historic offense that we are not going to get a full sense of in any capacity. All right. Craig, you want to go? Yeah, I was curious if this was maybe the inspiration for this draft or these drafts,

but I'm going to miss the shaming tour of the Astros. Sam wrote a great article about it and I would really recommend everyone read it. If you're not already reading Sam at this point, I don't know what to tell you, but yeah, I don't know that I need to explain it much. It's just, it was, it seems like five years ago, even if it, I don't know. I miss we're not going to get that particular offseason into regular season, I suppose. Even if we had 144 game season and fans were allowed, like it just, March was five years. And I just feel like there's so much lost in the process of that, that even if fans were allowed, I don't think it would be the same kind of vitriol or level of sustained booing that

we might otherwise have seen. And I was honestly, I was looking forward to it. I don't think it would have been as throaty. The cheers would have been less, they would have been, you know, muted and masked, but I still think that people would have been less they would have been you know muted and masked but i still think that people would have gotten hyped about it fans still boo ryan brown that was like a long time ago now it was a lot you know he's not a very good baseball player anymore or he's not as good as people are gonna be mad at me so i think that people will i think people will remember and they're going to save it up. I am curious, speaking of soundboard folks, I am curious if there are mandates from MLB

about what home ballpark soundboard operators can do when the Astros come to town. Are they allowed to run a boo track? Simulate the booing, yeah. Good question. They should do it. I had this on my list too, and not because I'm so eager to stick it to the Astros. I mean, they deserve to be stuck to some extent, although I feel a little bit bad, frankly, for the guys on the team who weren't there during the years when they were cheating.

That's kind of unfortunate for them. the years when they were cheating. That's kind of unfortunate for them. But I think beyond that, and I'm not so motivated by vengeance, I don't feel personally aggrieved in that I wasn't rooting for a team that they beat or something, but I totally understand why they would be booed. The parts of it that really got me going were A, the for fan creativity so i wanted to see beyond the booing you know would there be chanting would there be signs would there be people making trash cans like if you're gonna continue that for a full season then you're gonna have to bring some variety to the taunting right so i would have liked to see what fans came up with to make fun of the Astros. So that's one. And two, I was kind of interested in it as a psychological experiment. Like,

what happens when you're the team that everyone hates and everywhere you go, everyone boos you mercilessly? Does that affect your performance? Does that affect your morale? And I guess we never would have been able to say conclusively whether, you know, if they did suffer some decline in performance, we couldn't have attributed that to the rooting necessarily, but it would have been interesting at least. And you would have had quotes and interviews and, you know, not that it necessarily would have been fun to see them all just get worn down and depressed over the course of a season. Probably for a lot of people that would have been fun. But I think I would have still been interested just to see, you know, can you embrace that heel role and feed on it? Would it actually become part of the team's identity that it's us against them?

Or would it just beat you down over the course of a season? Eventually you'd get really sick of being hated everywhere you went. Can fans who buy cardboard cutouts in other AL ballparks have a sign on their cutout that impugns the Astros? Yeah. Inquiring fans want to know. That seems legitimate, I would think, but it's not the same effect if you have to read the text on a silent piece of cardboard, I don't think. No, but... Oh, well. We lost that, at least for now.

I'm taking minor league baseball. Yeah. This will be my version of going to games in person. parks all that often, but there is something very specific about the atmosphere there, especially when you get down to like, you know, when you go see the aqua socks and you have host families in the crowd, which like as I said, they should be paid enough that they don't need host families, but the host families are there and they're cheering for their guys. And some of those fans are like, they're fans of the aqua socks. They're not fans of the Mariners per se. It has a much more intimate feeling to it. You get to see guys very early in their careers.

Some of the baseball is very, very bad, just like atrociously bad, but it is still, you know, it's affordable. It's close. You get to be so close. And so I will miss minor league ball because we don't really get it. And we don't even get to go to the campsites or see what's going on there. So that's my pick. Can't argue with that one.

And I don't just say that because both Craig and I are somehow going to have to still edit lists. Let's have a conversation after this about what the hell we're going to do. Yeah, let's have a conversation after this about what the hell we're going to do. Maybe if you just all collectively decide not to do prospect rankings for a year, you can all just skip it. Oh, sure. Yeah. I want to be in the room when you tell all of our prospect people, like, don't write lists. It's fine. I want to see how that goes. Honestly, my prospect people probably wouldn't hate the idea of not writing lists, but not getting paid to do things is different. Yeah, that's not good. No, I think that's a good one, Meg.

I think an extension of that I think you hit on at the end is just not even getting to follow the progress of prospects. And like a lot of these guys, we don't – you go to minor league games, I go to minor league games, but we don't see the vast majority of these guys, but we do get to kind of play along as they do and see development or adversity or whatever it is. And that's a huge part of both of our lives. And it's one I love. Obviously, I was the minor league editor at BP for a while, and I am absolutely going to miss that. That's a great, great choice. Thank you. All right. Well, I'm taking Trout. I can't believe that it took us six picks on this podcast to take Trout. Trout still exists, but Trout's stats and what he could have accomplished in a full season, that is what I am sorry to miss. And specifically, I am sorry to almost certainly lose the best fun fact going in baseball right now, which is that Trout has the highest war ever through a given age.

So he, of course, has the highest war ever through age 27. He was ahead of Ty Cobb by almost five wins. But Ty Cobb had a good year after that, and Trout's is being cut short. So unless Trout has a truly incredible next two months, which is conceivable, I just wrote an article for The Ringer that was made possible by Fangraph's data and Fangraph's assistance, and we looked at the most war that anyone has ever amassed in a period of 60 games and Trout right now trails Ty Cobb by about five wins on that war leaderboard and that is within his reach he he can do that the most ever war in a 60-game period, at least since 1974, which is as far back as we could go, is George Brett's 6.5 in 1980. And Trout, his personal best is 5.6, which was in 2012. So this is possible.

He could conceivably catch Cobb, but it's fairly unlikely that he will do that. He's only projected for about three or 3.3 wars. So he'd really have to concentrate his hottest two months in the next two months. And if he doesn't do that, or if he misses any time for any reason, then we won't have that fun fact anymore. And I guess he could conceivably catch up after that, but really enjoyed being able to say that Mike Trout is the best ever through a certain age. And now we probably won't be able to do that, although we can certainly distinguish between, you know, pre-integration players and Mike Trout. So that's still a really impressive accomplishment.

term, it's not as if the whatever, three or four, whatever it is, war that Trout would be deprived of this year will meaningfully affect his career total. But if he stays on this trajectory, and if one day he is contending for all-time records, whether it's home runs or the highest war ever, or whatever it happens to be, at that point, when you're talking about small margins, half a season or two-thirds of a season could actually potentially make a difference. So we might not even know what we were deprived of in Trout's career for another 10 or, you know, 15 years or however long. I just brought down the mood. Yeah. But he's still, I think one of my favorite things is that he is still projected for almost a full win better than the next position player by our depth charts projections. In a 60-game season, a whole win better. Yep.

A whole win. It only drives home how significant the loss is. But also, Ben, don't worry. We're still going to get some moments, I think. I think we'll still get some moments. And the odds of a Trout playoff appearance are higher. Way higher. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're somewhat higher. Yeah.

All right. Well, we mourned that enough i suppose all right craig number three pick for you yeah i'm gonna pivot from what i had at the top of my list to piggyback on what you said about trout a little bit i'm gonna miss knowing with confidence like what counting and also war numbers mean in context oh that's good craig that's so good yeah i just like what's a what's a good home run season i mean and because variance is is going to be so large i mean we i can understand you can prorate you know what a good number would be for 162 games down to 60 and all that kind of stuff. But you still have to do the mental math on that a little bit. And even then, you kind of have to blur the edges even more because of variance. And that's already been happening because the ball is weird and changes situations a lot. And so it's been happening to some degree, but it just is a radically different situation now.

And I've been doing these preview podcasts for divisions for five and dive. And I keep talking about guys as like two win players. And like, that's astoundingly good in a 60 game season and not just like a regular, like, you know, an average regular

over the course of 162 game season. And like, even if you prorated it down to, I don't know, whatever it would be, like 0.8 wins, then you sound ridiculous. So, yeah, I'm going to miss all of that. That's good. That's really good. Zach Graham just wrote about that for The Ringer, just that it will be really his most recent newsletter made the case that we just kind of have to turn off our brains a bit this year and just enjoy baseball in a way that we typically don't because we analyze everything.

Some would say overanalyze everything and we're constantly looking at wars and we're constantly looking at projections. And this year, those things will be less helpful than usual. So I don't know whether that's something I will miss or something that I'm happy to miss for one year, at least. I guess it's both. I could make it a pick in each of these drafts. I don't know whether it's more of a positive or a negative, but it's definitely different. whether it's more of a positive or a negative but it's definitely different yeah i just i think that for like guys who are less good at baseball it'll be a nice bit of grace right because the number of segments on this podcast that i can do where i say hey ben ben yeesh have you gotten a look at this yeesh are gonna you know because this is not that yeesh isn't gonna land in the same kind of way so many other things to yeesh at. And also, like Craig said, that immediate, what does this mean will not present itself.

We know when looking at, I guess we're going to enjoy stats that are inherently already league adjusted the most, right? Because they will do that context adjustment for us but yeah it's gonna for you know the the chris davis's of the world are probably sitting there going oh gosh we're gonna get a pass yeah i mean the orioles one just to be clear it would be wouldn't it be great if the other chris davis hit for 247 this year though oh he has to yeah that that stat will count. We're all agreeing right now.

That one counts if it happens. I know that's his true talent. Yeah, that counts. We're just going with that. All right, Meg, you're up. Okay, I guess this is a good pick to piggyback off of that. I'm going to miss meaningful second half turnarounds. We will have fluctuation in this year. We'll probably have at times wild fluctuation in terms of

guys' production on the field. But I like very much stories about guys who have something that they change over the course of a year, whether it's a swing adjustment or a new pitch grip or what have you, realizing that they have sleep apnea and getting that fixed or being like, oh, I should have been wearing contacts this whole time. And it's like, how did you take you getting to the pros before we knew that? But anyhow, so that story of adaptation is very interesting because it so rarely ends with the player, right? It's often indicative of an organizational approach that could be cool or a veteran who teaches a younger

player something and sort of passes on institutional knowledge that they have that helps to course correct someone's season and potentially career. And, you know, if a player has a dramatically different second 30 games, like what are we doing, you guys? That's not going to land in the same way as a guy who comes back with obviously different mechanics or finally dials in that third pitch and is suddenly able to be like a viable starter. That's not going to feel the same way. And I think those stories are so cool because as we've talked about on this

podcast, many times baseball is impossibly hard and every strikeout is a miracle and every hit is a miracle. And when guys are able to find their way to a new version of themselves, that is more effective. I think those stories are great and I don't think we'll get as many of them, or at least the ones we get won't feel as meaningful, and I will miss them. So that's my pick, second half turnarounds.

Yeah, that's a good one. All right, I'm going to take something that we won't really be conscious of missing specifically, but we'll know that we missed it, even if we don't know exactly how. And I think Sam may have mentioned this on an episode long ago, but there will be players who will not debut this year.

There will be prospects who don't develop because of this year of misdevelopment time, at least in games. There will be guys who didn't get time to play because they were slated to start the season, let's say, on the opening day roster in the lineup. Guys like Clint Frazier, who maybe is now out of a job again and would have had a job if the season had started as planned and other people had been hurt. So there are some number of people who would have been major leaguers, would have been called up at some point this

season, would have gotten to say that they achieved their dream, would have been major leaguers, would have been called up at some point this season, would have gotten to say that they achieved their dream, would have gotten their big league baseball reference page, etc. We would have gotten to know them, however, briefly. And now we won't because the season is not as long. And granted, there will be bigger rosters, at least for part of the season. So that's something that might help some players get jobs who wouldn't have otherwise. But because the season is so much shorter and because the September rosters are now down to 28 people instead of 40, which was going to happen anyway, we will just see fewer new blood

in baseball. And again, there will be prospects potentially who have long-term consequences from missing this year of development. And granted, everyone is kind of in the same boat, at least to an extent. I mean, if there's no minor league season, as we know there isn't, but if there's no development league or anything like that, then everyone will be dealing with that. But some guys might be affected by it more than others or some teams might do a better job of developing guys in the absence of competitive games and so there might be guys who who knows like maybe they never pick up the plate discipline that they would have because they didn't see the hundreds or thousands of pitches that they would have seen this season and we'll never know you know i don't know whether 10 20 years from now we'll be able to look at aging patterns for this player generation and actually discern some difference that we could attribute to this weird year. But undoubtedly, there will be guys like that. And maybe there will be some guys who would have made major league debuts this year, top prospects who won't, but I'm thinking even more of the long-term there. So that's a

loss that we won't be able to see because those are things that just won't happen, but we'll be kind of conscious that they're not happening. Yeah. I was going to say it's a bold choice to start off a pick in a draft with like, we're not going to be conscious of this. But I think you got there. I was nodding my head at the end of it i agree i think the tangible example of like the like guys like clint frazier or whoever would have an opportunity in an otherwise crowded spot who then now get squeezed out i definitely that makes sense to me i really like clint frazier and i was hoping to see him more often. Man, Editor Craig can't turn it off. Jeez.

I just thought it was a bold move. Ben, this was a really good start, but I have a couple of things that I think we need to tighten up. Yeah, where were you when I was sorting that catcher framing meter board with this feedback? I was laughing with the stat slack about you not having all the information. Oh, no. Yeah.

All right. Okay, so I'm up you are up i'm gonna take home run celebrations and elaborate high fives there will still be celebrations i'm sure the players with a lot of time on their hands will creatively figure out a way to do this and i'll i'll enjoy those too but i really i enjoy the elaborate high fives especially like carlos santana i think has like a specific one with each person on a team and i don't know i'm gonna miss those yeah i guess there's possibility that we could get really creative non-contact celebrations which might make up for that i mean if there are elaborate air high fives would that replace the the contact for you yeah i think to some a percentage but we won't get hugs yeah yeah i mean just kind of it goes along with

like the the carefree aspect that meg had but where you just like don't it's just not the same right and and even if they do like i'm sure they will high five. It's hard to break that habit. But you're kind of like, then I'm going to think, oh, they shouldn't be doing that. Right. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, if someone just reflexively does hug, then like, you know, we'll get a bunch of hug scolds, you know, reasonably. But you know, there'll be screenshots of guys hugging after a homer and we'll all be going, no, keep your your distance which is like the opposite of the emotion that a hug is supposed to prompt yeah i mean i did this to meg last night i think that you know social media was commenting on on the giants who were kneeling during the anthem and in my head because i've read the operations manual i and i for some

reason i chose meg to dump this on but But I was like, aren't they supposed to not be touching? Person who routinely reads 100 page manuals, I can't imagine why you came to me. But I was like, aren't the rules say they're not supposed to be touching? But like Brandon Crawford was supporting two people like he was doing a nice thing. It was a good thing that I just should have enjoyed. And instead, my stupid broken brain was like oh i don't know if he should be doing that yeah so i don't know i'm gonna miss like the the yeah both the celebrations and also my when there is an actual celebration that happens like it would have in the before times my brain not being able to say that shouldn't be happening yeah yeah that's a good one did you see

when cleveland to do their you know high fives at the end of the game did like the heel taps? No, I missed that. It looks like they were playing hacky sack. Yeah. Do you remember hacky sack? I'm excited about something like that, that maybe will be a long-term staple. Like the high five was invented not even all that long ago, maybe even in baseball or so the story goes. And so maybe we'll get some new standard greeting.

Like hasn't Anthony Fauci said that we should never shake hands again or that he would be happy if we never shook hands again? And I don't know if we can actually break that habit. But imagine if there were some new fun replacement for the high five or for some kind of contact celebration. That'd be kind of cool. That would be kind of cool. I'm just saying that sounds like something someone who has a weak handshake would say. Putting it out there. I just hope that the handshake thing extends to the unwelcome hugging of strangers.

Yeah. I'm with you on that. All right. you're up. So I hope that this is not too similar to your Dodgers pick. I am going to miss not being able to watch the Twins play the AL East, which Cleveland is still projected to be or was before the season sort of came to a grinding halt, was still projected to be or was before the season sort of uh came to a grinding halt was still projected to be in the mix and obviously the white socks have done a great

deal uh to try to improve themselves and then there are still the tigers and the royals but i i enjoy that twins team i think that they are uh very good i am uh impressed with the way that they as an organization sort of conducted themselves throughout the pandemic and i wanted to see them more often matched against other sort of al heavyweights many of which reside outside of their division and now we won't get to see that and the you know the nl central is just sort of murky and soupy and uh and so i i will miss them being able to get on a plane and fly all the way east as if it's all that much safer whatever it's fine so i i mourn a more competitive Twins season specifically against AL opponents because they're going to end up in this strange spot. You know, a number of teams

will where they will be competing either for, you know, if they fall out of their division race, they will be competing for a wild card and potentially will not have played one another in the regular season. And I, there's something about that you know that one game play in where if you have the reference of how they've matched up it's even if statistically it's not all that meaningful it's just it sets the stage in a way that is nice so i expect the twins to win the central but if they don't it's just like it's you know it's strange that they won't have played like the rays that's weird yeah so yeah I'm fine with that one I don't think that overlaps with Dodgers too much unless Craig you have any editorial notes on that one no that one

that's clean to me okay good okay all right well for my penultimate pick hopefully this doesn't overlap too much with things we've already discussed but I'm taking the asterisk conversation which is uh I guess not something I will miss but something I'm sorry to have to have but I am not really eager to keep having it for months and maybe years to come. And so I think maybe when we get to the playoffs, who knows, maybe it'll all feel as real and legitimate and meaningful as ever. I don't know, but you will always have haters out there who will say that, oh, you won only because it was a 60-game season. Or if some team like Cleveland or the Dodgers or whomever, if they break their streak and their drought and actually win a World Series, then I don't know if that would be considered as special. Or maybe some people would say there was a caveat attached to that.

So I don't think there will be literal asterisks, but there will be that in our heads. And as we write articles and do analyses in the future, we will always have to filter this year out or make some special treatment for it, and that will probably get a little bit tiresome. So I will miss just being able to say, yeah, you won fair and square or as fair and square and non-random as it ever is in baseball and just accepting that on its face. Yeah, gosh, there's just going to be such discourse. Yep. Oh, yeah. Going to have a lot of discourse this year.

Oh, yeah. Going to have a lot of discourse this year. I brought that up to some degree with Stephen Goldman on Infinite Inning and FiveThirtyEight published an article by Robert O'Connell that I thought was really good. I think the Dodgers are really interesting in that way in particular because they've won their division so many times. They've lost in the World Series. If their run extends for a while, but this is the only world series they win like how they

get viewed historically right seems really interesting to me yeah and as a dodgers fan probably rather not have to deal with that right all right i mean i guess you'd rather want a world series than no world series but if you could choose your ideal circumstance in which to win the first one since the 80s it probably would not be this year i imagine yeah i mean at this point having lived through two losses i'd take it without without a lot of complaint but i do think it opens up the conversation about you know and i the dynasty conversation is both extremely tired but it's also this is like a new wrinkle on it to some degree. So I think it's interesting in that context.

And I agree, the historical, I almost tried to tie in like the historical presentation of all of this, which you and Zach have both kind of written about and around, I think. Like just how we're going to have to consider this year when we're looking for multi-year trips. I mean, even multi-year park factors and stuff like that. You mentioned it with Toronto and stuff like that, but they're all going to be weird in a short season. I don't know. It's going to be a mess. All right. You have one more? I have one more, and I brought up before we started going to games, I don't think we've picked it.

Yeah. I'm not going to pick it. Okay. So I'm going to put pressure on you guys to do it. Bait and switch. I'm going to pick something that is just, it's a small thing, and it's going to be complicated by not just the fan list season, but by a change in the rules. But I am going to miss fans being shown asleep on TV in Extra Innings.

a change in the rules, but I'm going to miss fans being shown asleep on TV in extra innings. It's just, it's just a true joy. And I don't, it's, it's a tradition. You know what I mean? Like it's just, it's always happened throughout my, at least my whole life. And I, I really take a lot of pleasure in it for some weird reason. And i'm gonna miss that not just because there aren't fans there but also the change in extra inning rules i think would uh if if they hold would make it extremely unlikely to happen in the future yeah gosh and like um you know i I'll miss, can I, it's sort of related to that. I will miss my unearned and ridiculous sense of superiority for living in the Pacific time zone in moments like that because, you know, games that go super late here,

they still go super late and you're like, well, I'm going to feel it a little bit tomorrow. But when you're on the West Coast, you're like, I'm going to be marginally more tired and now I get to drift off to the sound of weird silence in the ballpark and people on the East Coast are like, I am forever altered. I will never be the same. So I'll miss that too. I feel so fancy and I didn't do anything at all.

But that's not your pick, correct? No, that's not my pick. My pick is kind of sentimental and not really about baseball at all. And I've made a version of this pick in other drafts, but I think that it's okay because it's my pick, so I get to, and I, I realized that the specific way I'm going to talk about this is not as relatable to our listeners, but I think versions of this are why say we're going to miss going to games, which is, um, you know, baseball has brought me a great many people who I care about very much. And I get to see them a lot less often now. And that's necessary because we all need to help keep each other safe but like

it you know it it made me feel sad that the day our positional power rankings launched was like the day that i was supposed to be getting ready to go home from la where i would have well i would have seen craig and finally been able to return a book i borrowed from him like a year and a half ago that i keep forgetting to bring to stuff and And I would have gotten to see all my Fangraphs pals. And I would have, you know, gotten to see folks who were in town to cover the All-Star game who live in parts of the country that I don't visit very often. And there are just all of these ways in which baseball provides a community. And we've done our best to sort of bridge those gaps in quarantine but it's not quite the same as getting to sit down with a pal in the seat right next to you and watch a and watch a

game and so i will miss getting to do that i will even miss winter meetings which i can't imagine we're going to be allowed to have in which I often emerge from, speaking of altered, certainly tired and probably missing years on the back end of my life. I will miss that. I miss the opportunity to go to Dallas and sit in a hotel ballroom. I am very sad I won't get to do that. And if you are a fan listening to this show, a listener listening to the show, and you're like, Meg, we don't do that. You're fussy and have weird specific industry concerns. Just think listening to the show and you're like meg we don't do that you're fussy and have weird specific industry concerns just think of all the games that you were gonna go to with your pals or with your family and so i i miss the the physical proximity of community even as i spend

a lot of time when in the physical proximity of my community being like please don't hug me so uh that's my pick yeah i'm gonna miss that book i will mail you the book maybe if i get my knit i might send you a new copy of the book it's really okay i can't believe i forgot to bring the book to san diego because you reminded me before i left you're like hey bring my book why don't you and I was like yes I certainly will and then I got to my friend's wedding which preceded the winter meetings and I was like you know what I don't have here at this wedding that book what's the book can you disclose the book yeah uh Eve Babbitt's what what is it something fast days slow company yes slow days fast company one of those two. Yeah.

Okay. It's her essay collection about Los Angeles, and it's wonderful and sparkling and funny. And in Meg's possession. And next to her property. And maybe mine forever at this point. Yeah. Related, I was going to say that I'm sort of sad to miss the access reporting-wise, which for me, granted, I do a lot of my reporting remotely anyway,

but for a lot of people who are in the park more often than we are, it's going to be a problem. It's going to get in the way of stories that they would want to tell and people they want to talk to because Zoom interviews to a mass audience are not really that conducive to sharing interesting personal stories or anything emotional or really revealing. So there will probably be plenty of stories that we just don't get to tell or don't get to read this year because of that lack of access. So that's a shame. But that is not my final pick either. But that is not my final pick either. I will salvage our reputations in this draft and take going to games as the final pick in the draft of Things We'll Miss in 2020. And I think probably the fact that we didn't take it up until this point, A, maybe it's just too obvious, or B, maybe it reflects the fact that we are homebodies and are not going to as many games as we have in the past. And we are experiencing baseball as a TV entertainment more so than an in-person entertainment these days.

And, you know, when I go to games these days, often it's for a work purpose. It's because I need to talk to someone. And it's fairly rare that I just go to hang out with friends now, although on the occasions when that does happen, it's very nice. And I'm sure it's very nice for you. But I'm sad not only for myself about this, even much more so than for myself as for the people who do this very regularly and consider it a great joy and pleasure. And again, this is something that potentially has long-term ramifications for baseball. If you subscribe to the idea that either playing or going to games, seeing the sport in person really has an impact on whether you become a fan of the game for life, which I've seen at least allusions to some research that suggests that's the case. If that is the case, then cutting people off from ballparks, and again, not just big league ballparks, but as Meg mentioned, minor league parks too, which is the access that a lot of people have to professional baseball, then there may be just fewer fans made.

I mean, how many stories do people have of, oh, I fell in love with the game when I went to the ballpark, and was a beautiful day and it was great company and I saw something spectacular and I was hooked. And that just won't happen for some number of people this year. So that's a bit of a bummer. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the reasons I didn't pick it was I, some of it was the obviousness and some of it was that you do, you don't replicate the experience of going to the game but you do replicate the experience of having baseball by watching on tv and so like it is a thing i'll miss but it's also a thing i'll have you know to some degree right yeah we've talked before about how at least if you're writing about or covering something there are advantages to not being there because you get to see all the camera angles and you get all the

access to information and everything so yeah i mean i don't even know which i prefer as a spectator experience in the park or watching on some giant high def screen i guess they both have their moments and it depends on where you're watching and whom you're watching with yeah you miss having the choice or i would anyway right yeah. Right. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, I noticed none of us took pitcher hitting. I will miss the fact that it allows us to gauge how much better all the other hitters are getting by how much worse the pitchers continue to get at hitting. That is the part of it that I will miss, but not so much the pitchers hitting itself. When Ben Clemens was estimating the impact of having Chico in left field for the Dodgers full-time, pitchers hitting,

especially rookie pitchers hitting, was indispensable to him trying to come up with some sort of an estimate. And so we can let that be a fare thee well to pitcher hitting, and then we can never watch it ever again. I'm curious, how many things do you have still on your potential lists? Me? Nothing. Let's see.

I think I exhausted it, or we did together. Yeah, I think that I, yeah, I guess the ones that I am really going to miss are, yeah, I think we got them all. I would just throw out, since I didn't pick it, but it was one I liked, was the indifference to, like the choice to be indifferent to a game and the laziness that comes with a long season. I did have something about like missing meaningless baseball, which you could argue that it's

all meaningless. I mean, just tune into an Orioles game, I guess. Right. Yeah. I think that you're going to get plenty of opportunities to be like, oh, this. Oh, no. Yeah. I wasn't sure whether to draft that because I might very well take the opposite of that

as something that I'm excited about. Yeah. I think both are true. Yeah, they are both true. Don't worry, there will be plenty of games that you can vacuum through. All right. Well, I think despite the fact

that this was sort of a depressing topic in theory, it was a pretty fun draft and conversation. So hope you all enjoyed it and we will reconvene again shortly for the even more upbeat companion to this draft about things we are looking forward to all right that will do it for the first installment of this draft double header just to follow up on our discussion from the beginning of the episode late on tuesday night hazel may of sportsnet tweeted can confirm the blue jays have been told they will be calling pNC Park home this season per MLB source.

That's not official as I post this podcast, but that report seems to suggest it's a done deal and that the Blue Jays will be playing their home games in PNC Park this season. Thank you for listening. And thanks to those of you who have supported the podcast by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some small monthly amount and help keep the podcast going while getting themselves access to some perks the following five listeners have already done so Cameron Evans Adam Kuhn Dan Kenny Kyle Rowan and Brian Boger

thanks to all of you you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild you can rate review and subscribe to effectively wild on iTunesunes and other podcast platforms keep your questions and comments for me and meg and sam flowing into our inbox at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging system if you are a supporter you can rate review and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes and spotify and other podcast platforms

thanks to dylan higgins for his editing. We will be back with the second draft soon. Talk to you then. Now when it's getting dark I walk beside our ghost out in the park Oh, we sure did leave our mark I sit around and wish you well I miss you.