Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1649: The Energizer Battery

Episode Date: January 30, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the quirks and cancellation of a long-lost (and recently rediscovered) baseball successor to arcade hit NBA Jam called Power-Up Baseball, then discuss the Cubs signing Joc Pederson and the Cardinals bringing back Adam Wainwright and (probably) Yadier Molina, share a Stat Blast about where Wainwright and Molina rank […]

Hey everyone, just letting you know that some big baseball news broke after we recorded the episode you're about to hear. Mets owner Steve Cohen deleted his Twitter account. No, not that. The Cardinals reportedly traded for Rockies third baseman and perennial all-star gold glover and MVP vote-getter Nolan Arenado, who has been, by Fangraph's war, the best third baseman in baseball dating back to 2015. You'll hear me and Meg briefly bring up Arenado trade rumors and speculate about NL Central transaction activity We'll see you next time. Louis, along with Arenado in exchange for a package of non-elite prospects and the exciting centerpieces, salary relief and financial flexibility. There are all kinds of complexities involving no trade clauses and opt-outs and deferrals and an additional year guaranteed and approvals from the league and the union. So we'll discuss all of that and much more next time.

But it seems safe to say that if the deal gets done, the Cardinals will catapult to the top of the projected standings in a tightly packed and mostly mediocre division. For now, I'll remind you not to make the Matt Holliday DJ LeMayhew mistake of treating Arnauto's road stats as a Rocky as his real offensive skill level outside of Coors Field. And I'll leave you with this email we received from a listener named Brett. I think I may be the only Rockies fan that ever sends emails. Allow me to represent the fan base with the following message. Pain. Be back in a moment. Lost, lost and found

Lost, lost and found Lost, lost and found It's my world Tell you about an exciting development in the world of baseball video games. Sure. Not your favorite corner of the baseball world, I know. So thank you for indulging me. I mean, we made you learn about short sales yesterday. So I think that it's the least that I can do. What do you got? Well, as pointed out to us by Patreon supporter Russell Goldstein, there was a discovery of a baseball game that never existed, or I guess it

sort of existed, but never really made it to market. And it was to be the baseball equivalent of NBA Jam. Everyone knows NBA Jam, the incredibly popular 1993 NBA arcade game that really just catapulted sports games into the mainstream and remains incredibly popular and was kind of a touchstone for an entire generation. It's famous, of course, for players being on fire. And there were a few games that were made by the developer of NBA Jam Midway Games that tried to port that arcade-y formula to other sports. So I think most notably NFL Blitz, but there were hockey equivalents and wrestling equivalents. And there was a baseball game in the works, which was not previously known or not widely known at least. And this was just unearthed

by Frank Cifaldi and the Video Game History Foundation, which is a great organization. I've interviewed Frank before, and they have this initiative now that is going back to preserve the source code from old video games, the Video Game Source Project. And so they discovered this abandoned CDR just labeled baseball. There was a developer named Chris Oberth who passed away in 2012 and left behind a big archive of his work. And so the foundation and his family have been working together to document it. And this just a very innocently named CDR is just a blank disc with a tape on it that says Baseball. And it turns out to have been a pretty complete game that Oberth worked on with Midway. Oberth was part of this developer called Incredible Technologies that made Golden Tee Golf. And this is a game that was supposed to come out in 1996 or so.

It was called Power Up Baseball, and I will link to this. baseball, and I will link to this. There's a video of some gameplay and some screenshots and information from people who were involved in the development about how it was supposed to work and maybe why it didn't completely. The code is also available to download, so if you're handy with an emulator, you can get this running and try it for yourself. And it's kind of fascinating to me, I think, both the way that they designed it and the reason that it didn't work. So there have been some baseball arcade-y type games. There have been quite a few of them, of course. And there was a fairly successful series called Baseball Stars that was made in the late 80s, early 90s by SNK. And Midway did eventually develop a series called MLB Slugfest in the 2000s. And that was sort of the NBA gym spiritual successor. And it's very like cartoony and comic and over the top. And you could like punch people in that game, which we don't condone, of course, but it was weird and fun in a virtual way. So this game was supposed to come out in arcades and they basically finished

it and they put it out in some Chicago area arcades. I guess they made like 14 or 15 cabinets and they put it out and it just didn't test well and it sort of flopped. And it's hard for me to tell just from watching the video and reading the description whether this game would have been good or not there are some interesting choices that they made here but uh they like digitized a few players that they borrowed from the south bend minor league team at the time and so it's that kind of cool mix of like semi-realistic looking character models and faces with this cartoony play style. But I think what was most interesting to me is that the game just didn't earn well. When you made an arcade game in those days, you would put it out in a local arcade and you'd see

if it made money in a real environment. You'd just see, did people play it? How many quarters were in the thing? And then if it worked out, you would expand it. And I'm reading from the art director in this oral history here. We put it out on test in a handful of locations. It didn't do well. And then after a couple of weeks, it was yanked and we reworked it and we worked really hard on trying to fix it and make it better and put it out again. And it didn't earn.

So this game, Power Up Baseball, was just canceled. It never came out. And I think what is really interesting to me is that one reason why it didn't earn, why it didn't make sense economically, was that baseball is just not very well designed for an arcade game, apparently. So I'm reading from the marketing director here. The economy for basketball was easy. You can buy a quarter, you can buy a half, or you can buy a full game. You know, the pricing for that, as well as just the whole programming and time basis of the game allowed

it to be fair value, not only for the player, but more importantly, good earning potential for the location. The same thing for hockey. Want to play one period, two or three? And a game designer says baseball plays as long as a piece of string, right? You know, you can show up, you can have a four count on every batter. I don't know what that means exactly, but it's not baseball terminology I'm familiar with. You don't know how many batters you're going to face in an inning. And this was the problem. Yeah. It's like they couldn't predict how long someone would play, like how do you divide up baseball? Because that's one of the great things about baseball, the actual sport, and also one of the frustrating

things is that it takes a long time and you don't know exactly how long it's going to take. So this other programmer says it was too long. We shortened it down to maybe three innings or something like that. And at some point you could buy one inning at a time and who's going to play one inning. It was great if you could be there for a whole game, but that was like the length of two or three NBA jams. And that's tough for anybody to sit through. The marketing guy says, it's one thing to put it in a box for a home console. I don't care how long it takes you to play the game you've made the purchase, but is it a quarter an inning and nine quarters up front? Do I give you a discount and it's $2 to play a nine inning game versus two dollars to play a four quarter basketball game you can have the

greatest arcade game known to man but if it's going to take 10 minutes to play that game and it's going to bring in one dollar versus it's going to take 20 seconds to earn one dollar as a location owner which product am i going to buy and the game designer says you can't predict the gameplay time and that's the hidden part of the business that you have to bring in a certain amount of quarters during primetime at the arcade. And if you can't control that gameplay time, then you're dead. And that was ultimately the big mistake we made. We should have figured it out from the beginning. And I don't know how they could have figured it out exactly because that's baseball.

That's just a challenge that baseball, the real sport, presents, but also the arcade. It's like, you just don't know how long it's going to last. How do you divide it up? So I thought that was pretty interesting that the same challenges would apply to the digital version of the sport. You sent the article here, and I watched the simulated gameplay, and I saw some of the special features that they were planning to incorporate and being able to swing with a lightsaber and do grab and toss and all sorts of stuff. And I, as you've noted here and as our listeners know, am not an aficionado of video games or arcade games for that matter, much to the chagrin of several members of our staff at fan graphs who love arcade games yeah sean dolan r created his

own game indeed and so i i was watching the the simulated gameplay and seeing some of the fun stuff you could do and i i just felt like a real dummy ben because i didn't understand i was like this seems fine. Like, is my understanding of what is appealing about video games so far removed from reality that I'm not able to detect an obvious flaw? And it just didn't it didn't occur to me that this would be the problem until I read on, because when I have seen baseball video games, they've been in sort of the home console environment where, you know you if you don't want to play nine innings you pause it and you come back and and a lot of the time you

want to sit there for maybe i don't know half an hour and and play your way through and so i was like what is going on here but yeah it's such a it's such a funny challenge because even the three inning option you still don't have a ton of predictability about how long that's going to last. And if you introduce artificial boundaries to it, right, like at a certain point, the game says, OK, you've been playing for too long, so we need to get some quick outs so that we can move on. That's not going to be a satisfying game experience for the person playing it.

So it is sort of a weird challenge, which is a bummer because I think that if it had been put to me that I could swing a lightsaber to play baseball, my entire engagement with this might have been different. Yeah. I want to talk about the power-ups in a second because there are some strange ones. Yeah. The way that you played this game is really interesting. I think you play it with a track ball. There's a ball that you roll to do stuff. And so it was this furious activity. So the programmer says, you were one foot from the person you're playing. It's like a one versus one thing. And you're rolling the track ball up as

fast as you can. So your pitcher would go way back and then down as fast as you can. It was just intense. You'd be covered in sweat after a game, and there was so much trash talking going on. NBA Jam keeps moving super fast. In this, you had a couple of seconds between every pitch and every hit. So there was a ton of ribbing in there. And yeah, you pitch and you hit with the track ball,

and it was like the faster you roll the ball, the faster you pitch, which is kind of cool, I think. And the same with batting. Like if you roll the ball really fast, you swing faster, I guess. So people were just like slamming the trackballs as hard as they could, which would have been hard on the hardware, I assume,

and maybe would have given you terrible carpal tunnel or who knows what this would have caused. But I think the image of that, like, it sounds kind of fun that you are actually physically moving something faster to move something faster in the game. It sounds unique, unusual, at least. Let's talk a little bit about the power-ups here because, you know, like, in NBA Jam, you're on fire and you are more likely to hit your shot. But in this one, it's like when you get power up, I guess you get to choose from various special moves, both as a pitcher and as a hitter. And some of them I understand and others I don't really.

So there are like little gifts of each of these here so so the pitching ones there's a vintage pitch and a vintage swing for pitching and batting which as far as i can tell just seems to be that your character model is replaced by like a black and white dead ball yeah person which like i don't understand how that's a power up. It's just replacing it with someone who probably would have hit the ball a lot less hard or thrown the ball a lot less hard. A lot less hard, yeah. Yeah. So there's like an old-timey wind-up. I don't know if that's supposed to be distracting. Looks like there's some flames with the old-timey wind-up that come out of the ball. So I don't know. That seems more like just an aesthetic difference than really a power-up. Now there's a tornado pitch, which that does seem quite beneficial.

It's just like you rotate really, really fast like a figure skater, and then you let go of the ball, and the ball goes fast. It seems like that would be a pretty valuable power-up to have in real life. But then there's a beanball pitch. Yeah, and it's not pulling any punches, that beanball pitch. You'd be in the guy right in the head. Yeah. Which, again, arguable that that's a power-up because it looks like you just hit the guy in the head and then it just takes your base.

So I don't know how that's a power-up. You're just putting someone on base, I guess, like if you're hurting the guy and he doesn't get to play anymore. But it doesn't seem like that's the case then there's an underhand pitch which is kind of cool you know i guess it's like a super ethos type thing i guess it would have been hard to hit if you were not geared up for that and then the hitting ones as you mentioned there's a lightsaber swing which uh the guy just gets a lightsaber for some reason. And from what I understand about lightsabers, it doesn't seem like it would work this way, where you hit the ball and it goes very far.

It seems to me like the lightsaber would just slice through the ball and it would go nowhere. Yeah, it seems like it would cut the ball in half. And so it would be kind of cool if the animation that accompanied this is the ball being cut in half and then dropping just far enough away from the catcher that they can't field it, and so you get an infield hit, I guess. But I suspect that if the ball – well, I don't know.

We don't necessarily – we don't penalize a hitter if he literally hits the cover off the ball. That's not a bad thing. So I suppose if you hit it hard enough to slice it in half and the catcher were not able to field it, you'd probably be allowed to take your base. Yeah, that's true. It doesn't seem to do that, though. No, it does not.

If you could just slice the ball and it was impossible to throw you out, that would be a power up. But this sends it very, very would be a power-up. This sends it very, very far to the outfields. And I share your confusion about the physics that are in play here. The ball is made of Beskar or something. That's a reference for the Mandalorian fans out there. There's also a one-arm swing power-up, which, again again seems like the opposite of a power-up. It's just a two-handed batter who swings with one arm and in the gif at least just hits a weak grounder

from the middle. Seems like he's out. It seems like he's out after this power-up. That seemed beneficial. Then there is something that the game called a karate swing, which in this case looks like the batter just like turns around. So his back is to the pitcher. And then he again uses one arm to just like swing the bat like it's a nunchuck or something. And it appears to be effective in this gift, but it doesn't look to me like something that would be beneficial in real life. Then there's the grab and toss, which I like a lot, where the hitter just catches the ball with one hand, throws it up, and hits it. Again, I don't know if this would be beneficial. I mean, it's harder to hit the ball as hard when you toss it to yourself, but I guess you have much

more bat control and can place it. I don't know how exactly he catches the ball without hurting himself. That's just part of the physics that produce the lightsaber swing i guess is that you could do this it would be quite a like badass thing to do yeah better were to somehow catch the ball just barehanded or with batting glove as just a show of your velocity is so weak that I can just catch this thing and it won't even hurt. Yeah. Although I have to imagine, as you said, that the average exit velocity on a pitch that you are tossing to yourself and then trying to hit has to be notably lower than it would be on a ball that you're barreling up that is thrown to you by the pitcher. But it would be, I mean,

ball that you're barreling up that is thrown to you by the pitcher but it would be I mean this looks cool this looks cool sort of like the lightsaber swing it looks cool I don't know that the physics of it necessarily works in terms of what the game is rewarding but it looks cool yeah and then the last one is what's called a caveman swing which looks like basically a butcher boy kind of thing it's like swinging vertically you know down from above your head and again just seems to produce a weak grounder at least in this gif and it only works evidently if the beanball pitch is happening so it's like i guess they both have to have power-ups and you can do the caveman swing to counter the beanball pitch which is kind of cool i guess but again most of these power-ups and you can do the caveman swing to counter the beanball pitch, which is kind of cool, I guess. But again, most of these power-ups seem like they would be power downs to me, but I like the variety. I like the comic zaniness of it. For some reason, when you hit

a home run, a fountain of baseballs explodes out of the area just behind home plate. They just pop out like fireworks. Don't know why and uh i wish this game had come out and were widely playable again i don't know if it's a good game or not like it seems like among the people interviewed here the reviews differed the art director says the batting portion was okay the fielding portion was in my opinion never super fun and then the marketing person says the game itself was fine i mean don't get me wrong we liked it which is not really a rave review and then the programmer says i like the game a lot so opinions varied i guess and according to the arcade testing it seemed like the market just rejected this so we we never got Power Up Baseball. But I'm glad its existence has been documented, and it seems like they had some interesting ideas at least.

And if you want your arcade baseball fix, you can dig up Baseball Stars or MLB Slugfest or Backyard Baseball or RBI Baseball or whatever. There are options out there, but mostly not as silly as this one seemed to be. But it's a cool alternate history. Like if Power Up Baseball had come out and America had just gone wild for, I don't know, the caveman swing and this became as big a fad as NBA Jam was, who knows how that would have affected baseball history. I suppose that the sort of baseball contest that lends itself best to this would probably be something like a home run derby right like you could have a home run derby arcade game i don't know if anyone would want to play it but you would be able to you know you can you can have a clock because the derby has a clock

and you'd still get the satisfaction of hitting the ball really far hopefully um and you'd get to play as some of the sort of most popular and famous players in the game and you could you could spice it up by having the derby sort of bp be thrown by someone who isn't like the player's dad or you know first uh hitting coach but by an actual major leaguer so you know when this game takes off and someone makes millions, I want my cut. Please. Yeah, there have been some like browser-based home run derby games that have been kind of popular. And there's that Google Doodle a couple of Fourth of Julys ago where you hit thousand foot dingers and you play as food from backyard barbecues.

But power up baseball. This was like a licensed thing. Like they had the real players in it. You know, they had MLB license, MLBPA license. It was looking legitimate. It was all the real teams. Hawk Harrelson was the announcer. So it had personality. I'm glad it was found, but sad that it was lost. Anyway, I will link to that for anyone who wants to see it in action and hear it and read about it and potentially play it. So we are going to do some emails today. And I guess there are a couple more signings that we can discuss, a little bit of news.

And some NL Central news, actual NL Central transactions. They can happen. I had forgotten that such things were possible. I think when the Cardinals brought back Adam Wainwright on a one-year $8 million deal, I'm pretty sure that deal alone doubled the previous collective expenditure of all NL Central teams on all free agents this winter. So that's how dead it's been in the NL Central. the NL Central. But Adam Wainwright is back with the Cardinals and the Cubs quickly countered by signing Jock Peterson to a one-year $7 million deal. So there's a little life and the Cardinals, Rockies, Nolan Arnauto trade rumors have been revived again. Nothing has happened there as

we speak, but those rumors which have been going on for quite a while now are back again so it seems as if uh maybe there are little glimmers of life in that moribund division yeah some there's some glimmers of life i still would i would still paint both of these signings as sort of being of the the second tier variety in terms of the potential impact that they will have although given you know the way things are going in in that division maybe these are all that you need maybe it's all you need ben peterson was our 17th ranked free agent when we did our exercise in the earlier part of this winter wainwright was our 47th i am going to be curious to see how Chicago plans to deploy Jock Peterson because it sounded like they were trying to give him everyday reps in center.

And he has a pretty marked platoon split. So I wonder what the deal is there. It seems like the Dodgers were really smart in the way that they deployed Peterson. And he's a good player, so I don't mean this as a knock on him, but he is one who benefits from seeing left-handed pitching more than right-handed pitching so i'll be curious to see kind of what they do there it is certainly a defensive upgrade on schwarber from an outfield perspective although they weren't you know it's not like they were playing schwarber in center field because that would be right that'd be wild ben offensively

he's very similar to Schwarber. Like their numbers, at least their slash stats are like almost identical, really. Both their career numbers and their platoon splits and stats, like very similar. Peterson's, if you adjust for the park and playing in Dodger Stadium, Peterson has probably been a bit better. But it would be hard to come up with a closer comp than those guys probably. So they basically replaced Schwarber with a slightly older, slightly cheaper, and more defensively capable version of Schwarber who doesn't have the history with the team and the clubhouse ties and fan affiliation and all of that. In fact, I just went to Baseball Reference

and players on Baseball Reference, and players on Baseball Reference have similarity scores that compare them to other players. And Jock Peterson's most similar batter overall is Kyle Schwarber. And Kyle Schwarber's second most similar batter is Jock Peterson. And Schwarber's most similar batter through age 27 is Peterson. So yeah, you could say the Cubs have a type when it comes to corner outfielders. Wonder if there's a future stat blast in their players replaced by extremely similar players. So that's sort of a lateral move. You know, I like Peterson as a player, but as you said, he has been somewhat limited and he's only played more than 150 games one time. And that was very early in his career. Since then, he's been more limited,

partly due to injuries, but mostly just because that's his role. And he kind of carved out a valuable role with the Dodgers, who just had so many moving pieces and did a good job of working them all in and finding ways to play them to take advantage of their skills or minimize their weaknesses. But it would be kind of interesting to see him get a shot at just an everyday role like at this age you probably wouldn't expect him to figure out how to hit lefties all of a sudden so probably he is who he is but you know he could play in an everyday role and be good enough against righties to make him worth playing yeah i think that's right and again it's good to see them do something yeah and wayne wright with saint louis that's obviously a lateral move to or

not even a lateral move it's just bringing back someone who has been there forever but as dan simborski pointed out in his post about this it's not just like bringing back a franchise icon in the twilight years just for old time's sake. Like Wainwright was their most valuable pitcher last year. Like he is still quite effective. And, you know, he's turning 40 in August and he obviously has an extensive injury history. So not necessarily someone you can count on to be a workhorse but he sure was a workhorse last year and he made 10 starts and he went deep into games and he pitched about as well as he usually does in latter years so he is still like a valuable contributor on top of just being

someone who means a lot to that organization yeah and if you're having to choose between sentimental re-signings in the case of the Cardinals, I shudder to say this because I know how dear he is to their fans, but this is a superior one to bringing Molina back. Sorry, guys. I think this is more useful to your baseball team. So I think that it's fine.

I think this was the outcome that we sort of expected, and if this ends up being we sort of expected. And you know, if this ends up being his sort of last ride for him and that that curveball, then he has a bright future in broadcasting, it would seem. Yeah, as you note, Yadier Molina, not officially back with the Cardinals yet. But it does look like it's only a matter of time and probably not much more time. On Friday, John Marossi tweeted that Molina is expected to resign with St. Louis after the conclusion of the Caribbean series on February 6th, if not sooner. It's taken a little longer than expected to get that deal done.

Molina has seemingly made it clear that he's not going to just take any deal to come back there, but obviously he's played his whole career there. Wainwright, now who's been Molina's teammate forever, is now back. Maybe that makes him a little more likely to sign up for another tour. We will see. I actually have a stat blast on this topic here, Wainwright and Molina related. So I'll do that now. They'll take a dataset sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways.

Here's to Deist of Rust. So selfishly and speaking as a neutral observer, I hope the Cardinals do make it official and bring back both Molina and Wainwright. We've talked before about how, yeah, we support players deciding to go wherever they want to and wherever they get the most money wherever it makes sense for them but it's also nice when it works out that that turns out to be the same place their whole career and you get to be just a legend with that franchise and people get to see the beginning and end of your careers and wainwright and melina have made what 140 150 million plus dollars in their careers not saying that means that they have to take some sort of discount or sweetheart deal but I'm personally not losing sleep over their finances like I assume they'll be okay so I think it would be

nice for them and nice for the fans if they were to finish their careers together and I hope that they do for another reason, which is that they are moving up an interesting leaderboard here. I was curious where they rank all time and among active players in the most prolific pitcher-catcher batteries in terms of most starts made together. Molina debuted with the Cardinals in 2004. Wainwright debuted with the Cardinals in 2004. Wainwright debuted with the Cardinals in

2005. And since then, they have worked together an awful lot. Wainwright in his career has made 326 starts. That's just regular season starts. And 274 of those have been with Yadier Molina, who of course has been a total Ironman himself. And that ranks really high actually on the all-time list. And I went to our frequent StatBlast consultant, Adam Ott here for the list. And it turns out that Wainwright and Molina, they currently rank sixth all-time when it comes to most starts made by a pitcher-catcher combo. And they rank behind only Mickey Lulich and Bill Freehan, Warren Spahn and Del Crandall, Red Faber and Ray Schoch, Don Drysdale and John Roseborough, and Red Ruffing and Bill Dickey.

And then you have Wainwright and Molina at 274. Lulich and Freehan are at 324. So that's the all-time record. If they were to pitch again a full season together this year, they could move up two spots or possibly three or more spots on the leaderboard. It depends. You have Ruffing and Dickey are at 282. So just eight ahead of Wainwright and Molina. That is is well within reach drysdale and roseboro are at 283 so that's just one more so barring injury they would clear those two and they would be fourth all-time the only other one that's within reach faber and shock who are third all-time at 306 technically that could happen they would need to make 32 starts together, which would be

difficult. Wainwright has made 32 or more starts in his career, I think, what, seven times? He's exceeded 32 starts four times. So it could happen, but at his age and at Molina's age, it's not likely. But if they were to stay together for two more seasons, they really would have a shot of being the most prolific battery of all time. That would be pretty cool. And no oneainwright, Molina at 274. Then the second most is actually Carlos Martinez and Molina at 111. And the most prolific non-Molina combo among active players is Danny Duffy and Salvador Perez at 102. Yeah. So Duffy and Perez are less than 40% of the way to Wainwright and Molina. It's just like pretty much an uncatchable count. Madison Bumgarner and Buster Posey were within shouting distance at 226. That's 20th most all time, but that pairing was broken up after 2019 when Bumgarner went

to the Diamondbacks. And I should add, Adam also sent me a list with postseason starts included. That actually doesn't change the order of the top six. It does bump up Wainwright and Molina from 274 to 288, and it narrows the gap. So they're only one behind Drysdale and Roseboro, three behind Ruffing and Dickey, and 40 behind Lulich and Freehan at the top. That's with postseason starts included. Of course, there are more opportunities to make postseason starts in this era, but the fact that they rank sixth all time in regular season starts, I think it's particularly impressive that they've done it in this era because on the one hand, you do have more games than you did in these earlier eras. The five combos that are ahead of them are from decades ago, almost half a

century ago, the most recent one. Lulich and Freehand, their last start together was 1975, Spahn and Crandall, 1963, Faber and Schock, 1926, Drysdale and Roseboro, 1967, and Ruffing and Dickey, 1946. In fact, even the prolific combos that Wainwright and Molina have passed recently were all, for the most part, from a long time ago. The only other combos at 250 starts or above, Steve Rogers and Gary Carter last together in 1984, Bob Lemon and Jim Hegan at 264. That was 1957. Pete Alexander and Bill Killifer at 251. That was 1921, their last pairing. And Early Wynn and Jim Hegan again at 250. And they also broke up after 1957,

though there was Tom Glavin and Javi Lopez at 248, last seen together in 2002. By the way, I will put this entire spreadsheet online and link to it from the show page as usual. So when you think of how long ago the pairings close to Molina and Wainwright worked together, for them to be up there in 2020 is really impressive, I think, because despite the fact that there are more games, there are also five-man rotations, right? So it's rare for a starter to get more than you know 32 or so starts these days

and if you look at some of the names above them they were routinely getting totals in the high 30s or even the 40s you know there were i mean don drysdale regularly started 40 plus games so did wallach wallach was just incredible in 1971 Mickey Lulich threw 376 innings in 45 starts. So that was a Cy Young runner-up season. So Wainwright can't do that. With five-man rotations, you're basically limited to 32, 33, maybe 34 at the high end starts and to do it in this era also an era with much higher turnover among players you know because of free agency because there are more teams etc there are just more players changing teams than there used to be and that's rarer among good players like wainwright and melina who would climb to the top of this list, but even good players have had higher turnover than they did in earlier eras of baseball history. I will link to a study that shows that if you want to see it in a graph. It's pretty incredible that they have had this longevity together.

And so as someone who appreciates baseball history and the history that we're seeing in front of our own eyes, I want them to continue to add to this count. So Cardinals, do whatever it takes. Bring back Yadier Molina and let them climb to the top of this list. And to be clear, I don't have any issue with him being on the Cardinals next year. I'm just saying if one were forced to choose. If you encountered a mean genie and he was like, which of these guys will help the Cardinals advance further in a soft central division i would say it's probably on a moiré and and then and then uh i'd i'd make that wish but my my real wish is that cardinals fans as you said get an

opportunity to say goodbye hopefully safely in the ballpark to a guy who's meant a great deal to their franchise and has been a terrific player over the course of his career and is likely nearing the end-ish of it. So I want to make that disclaimer very clear, Ben, because I wouldn't want to tarnish either Molina's reputation or make people doubt that I appreciate him as a player because that is not true. Also, did I say that Jack Peterson hits better against lefties than righties? Because I meant it the other way.

It's just that he had a weird reverse split this year okay so I just felt like clarifying that on the record in case people are like Meg do you know how what hand he hits with and I would say yes I do I just you know I did a little weird thing in my brain anyway sorry I interrupted you Ben no problem yeah if uh if anyone's wondering how Wainwright might perform if Molina were not brought back. So Wainwright has a career 3.26 ERA with Yadier Molina compared to a 3.38 ERA overall. So it seems like his TOPS plus is a little bit better with Molina. So on the whole, he's been a tiny bit better with Molina than with other players, but not a whole lot. It's not as if he's been horrible with Molina. So on the whole, he's been a tiny bit better with Molina than with other players, but not a whole lot. It's not as if he's been horrible when Molina isn't catching him.

Of course, I haven't looked at like the distribution of seasons. Maybe he has happened to be caught by Molina more in his best seasons or whatever. And you would expect him to be a little bit better with Molina just because of Molina's defensive skills and his reputation as a pitch caller and all of that but he's been pretty good without Molina too it's also impressive because Wainwright has missed like four years because of injuries basically like you know all or parts of those years and also the shortened 2020 so despite all of that, he has still ascended close to the top of this list in an era that does not favor that. So really impressive and cool. And I hope that they can stay together and keep making memories for Cardinals fans. Indeed. So one other thing I wanted to bring up that is sort of stat blasty is that Nick Madrigal who has been sort of a favorite of this podcast he made some

comments about aspiring to join the 3000 hits club nick madrigal has 35 major league hits to his name right now so he is a mere 2965 away but he was interviewed this week on the White Sox Talk podcast, and the 3000 Hits Club came up. And Madrigal sounds quite confident about this, as he does about all things. He said, I've seen a lot of great hitters in this league growing up and watching, guys. The 3000 mark is not easy at all. There's very few people that do it, but I feel like that's very reachable. I know that's throwing a big statement out there, but I believe in myself, and I know what it takes to play this game, and I feel like that's very reachable. I know that's throwing a big statement out there, but I believe in myself and I know what it takes to play this game and I feel confident I can do it. I haven't broken it down exactly by season, but I know it's going to take a lot of getting

on base, which is true. That's maybe an understatement, but he says, I'm not big on telling people your goals or saying you're going to do something. Ultimately, you've got to go out and do it. There've been a lot of people that or saying you're going to do something. Ultimately, you've got to go out and do it. There have been a lot of people that have said they're going to do things, but I feel confident in myself and my work ability, and hopefully it comes, God willing. So this is one of his traits as a person and as a prospect is that he is quite confident and he has reason to be confident. And also, I guess it's served him well as a player.

He believes in himself, maybe even more than he should. I don't know, but I guess it served him well as a player he believes in himself maybe even more than he should I don't know but I am rooting for him here I just wanted to put into perspective since he says that he has not really broken it down and thought about what this would take exactly I thought I would point out what it would take and how steep the odds are against him much as I would like him to do it it's obviously quite difficult to get to the 3,000 hits club. I think only 32 players in MLB history have done it. And the problem is that he's already behind the pace by a considerable margin here. Like to be in the 3,000 hits club, you have to play forever and be productive for a really

long time. But it also helps if you debut young and get a head start. And he didn't really do that. I mean, he didn't come up particularly old, but he wasn't someone who's like coming up as a teenager or something and banking those hits. And he came up this past year. He is now almost 24 years old. He turns 24 in March. And so through his age 23 season, every member of the 3000 Hits Club. He looked at like what's the average number of hits that they have had through each age. And through age 23, the average hits total among players who went on to join the 3000 Hits Club is 448. is 448. So Madrigal, who again is at 35 only, he is quite a bit behind the pace, 413 hits behind the pace. And a member of our Facebook group, Chris McClinch, did a little additional research here. And he found that of the 32 players in MLB history to get to 3000 hits, only four of them debuted at 23 or older. So really tough. The four are

Wade Boggs, Ichiro, who of course was playing in Japan before he came to MLB, Paul Wehner, and Hannes Wagner. And those four all played into their 40s and remained productive at late ages. 40s and remained productive at late ages. And I think they all got their 3000th hit either at age 39 in Wiener's case, or once they were in their 40s for the other three. So to replicate that, to do what the only other members of the 3000 Hits Club who debuted as late have done, Magical would have to play for another 17, 18 years at least and be steady and productive and durable, which is difficult. That's why not a lot of people do it. But I like his confidence and I hope he's right.

I would say that of all the things he could claim he might do, this seems like the one to aspire to. Yes. Given his profile as a player, the amount of contact he makes, how little he strikes out, you know, he doesn't walk a ton. He isn't up there saying, I'm going to hit 500 home runs. If he did that, we would say, Nick, we need to have a conversation about your profile as a player and how likely that is given what you bring to the table, which is a great deal, but not that. But yes, it seems to me unlikely that

he will be in a position to do what he is claiming. But I think that having goals and dreams is good, and he seems to be putting it in the proper perspective and have an appreciation for its difficulty so you know so that's a good thing although it does kind of remind me a bit but have i ever told you that the story of mike zanino's um tops chrome 2013 baseball card i don't think so okay so this is this is a you know it was early in mike zanino's career and it had one of the career chase line snippets that you sometimes see on cards. And here's what it said. With zero home runs, Mike Zanino is 762 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.

On pace for zero. On pace for zero. So, you know, that is just a funny and not really all that related tidbit but one that i uh remember i also would like to further amend my earlier statement about jack peterson and just point out that he only uh took nine at-bats against left-handed hitting in 2020 which can explain why he was weirdly good against them because you just don't really face them all that often again an important thing that i know small Fairly small sample, yep. But, you know, I just feel like in the pursuit of avoiding emails, I will just lay that all out for our listeners. You should just continue to sprinkle in little Jack Peterson addendums throughout the rest of this episode.

I think that would be a good recurring bit. I'll do my best. Yeah, as you mentioned, Magical totally fits the profile of someone who could do this. Like, he doesn't strike out. He doesn't really walk. And he's had pretty high bad eps over the last couple of seasons. So he could do it. Like according to the

Fangraph's depth charts projections, he has the fourth highest projected batting average in baseball at 297 after Luisa Rice, Juan Soto, and DJ LeMayhew. So if he were to repeat the season that he is projected for, so Zips and Steamer combined have him projected for a 297, 344, 389 line. That's a 733 OPS and a

2.3 war, which is basically like an average-ish player that's in 143 games and 616 plate appearances. So that's not an unreasonable projection. It's not like he plays 162 games or something. If he were to have that line for the rest of his career, obviously that is assuming he never suffers a serious injury and that he doesn't get much better, which of course could happen as he ages into his prime. But if he were to just repeat this projected line over and over again, it would take him between 17 and 18 seasons to get to the 3,000 threshold.

So, you know, he would be somewhere around his 40th birthday. So it could happen. It is theoretically possible. And Magical is a fascinating player because there's so much dispute about him as a prospect. You know, a lot of people thinking he was a really promising player, others thinking that his skill set just wouldn't translate to the majors, that he wouldn't have enough power to keep pitchers honest. And I've been a believer in him just because of his great bat-to-ball skills and contact ability. And I don't know if he will be a star or if he will just be a steady, consistent, solid producer. But I like him because he goes against the grain of modern hitting. And this would be an interesting Cooperstown case, I guess, because if he were to repeat this line for the next 18 years or so he would be a 3000

hits club member but he would also probably have like I don't know 40 or 50 war or something like he would be like a hollow very good like compiler type who was just average every year forever which I'm pretty sure is a hypothetical question that we have gotten and answered in the past. So it would be, I don't know, kind of like a Vizquel-esque Cooperstown case, I guess, without maybe the defensive flashiness, although Madrigal is a pretty capable defender too at second base. So that would be an interesting case. It's like with some of the other players who have been on pace to get 3,000 without being star players at various points. I'm trying to think of who fits that mold, like Starwin Castro or Nick Markakis or Edgar Renteria, players like

that who have been mentioned as like, boy, if this guy gets to 3000, that would be a quandary for Hall of Fame voters. And they never seem to make it. They never quite keep up the pace because if they aren't great to begin with, then they don't have far to fall. And when they decline, they lose playing time. So we haven't had that test case. Like, who's the worst player in the 3000 hits club? They're all pretty good. I guess War would say Lou Brock probably, but Brock wasn't viewed as a borderline guy at the time. He was a first ballot Hall of Famer. So we haven't had the mediocre compiler 3000 Hits Club member with incredible longevity. And maybe that's for the best. The last thing we need at this point, another quandary for

Hall of Fame voters. At least that one would be based on on-field performance and that would be kind of fun to talk about actually. I was going to say, Ben, would love a statistical quandary. Statistical quandary sounds like a welcome change of pace. Can I briefly say that the best part of all of that, and I think that Nick Madrigal should get his due, and if he were to put that Hall of Fame case together, it would be a very interesting one for us to debate to debate but the thing that really stood out in all of that to me is that a guy who is currently projected for 39 home runs is also projected for a batting average over 300 juan soto is a freaking miracle we should appreciate him every single day yeah yeah exactly and that's kind of what i'm talking about like Like Juan Soto, who is still just 22, younger, considerably younger than Madrigal, and he already has 328 hits. So he is well on his way to little bit of news. MLB announced that Ken Griffey Jr. was named as a senior advisor to the commissioner, which produced some very confusing and hard to parse headlines about Ken Griffey Jr. being a senior advisor.

senior advisor to commissioner is MLB trade rumors headline, which is even more confusing because there is a Ken Griffey senior. So it took me a minute to sort this out. But because we talked about and sort of lauded MLB's decision to bring on Theo Epstein as a consultant when it came to on-field issues, Griffey will be a consultant whose emphasis will be on, I'm quoting here, baseball operations and youth baseball development, particularly regarding improving diversity at amateur levels of the game. And he'll be an ambassador at various youth baseball initiatives and events. And I think that's fun and cool because Ken Griffey Jr. is someone who I think there's very little negativity associated with his story. And he was really one of the last baseball players to be a national celebrity and someone who brought together all different cultures and aspects of society. And can the 50-something Ken Griffey Jr. make that happen again?

I don't know. I don't know what his powers will be here or what his plan will be exactly. But I think it's nice that MLB is making an effort to enlist these services of people like this who seem smart and have the credentials and have demonstrated the ability to do these things and at least trying to make an effort to target areas of the game that have been lacking and lagging. So I don't know if anyone can make baseball popular again among the youths and increase the percentage of players who are black, which has been declining for years and years. I have some faith in Ken Griffey Jr. to have some ideas about how to do that. So best of luck to him. Yeah, I think that it's a very smart

hire for any number of reasons. I hope that it comes with a continued and increasing financial investment to make the game more accessible, particularly in the communities that you named, because as we know, there are any number of systemic barriers that are in the communities that you named, because as we know, there are any number of systemic barriers that are in the way of youth participation in baseball, in communities of color, and particularly in the Black community. But I think addressing those issues is going to take a concerted effort from a number of people. And having someone like Ken Griffey Jr. at the head is wonderful. And I hope that it is backed with resources to put him in a position to you know act on all of the great ideas that i'm sure he's

going to bring to the league so yeah um yeah it's nice to have it's nice to have good news and i hope that it's followed up with further good news because i think that there's a lot of potential for this to be impactful in places that would need resources and need sort of direct ambassadorship that is backed with meaningful action on the league's part. Yeah. Of course, Griffey himself, because of the aforementioned Ken Griffey Sr., did not have a typical route to getting interested in baseball. Sure.

Have a parent who is an MLB all-star player. That seems like a good thing. If we could make that happen for more people, then we'd probably get a lot more kids interested in baseball. They could just all have dads who are big leaguers themselves. That would be great. still have some interesting insights based on having been a national figure and talking to so many fans over the years so hopefully he will have some good ideas yeah i know that he remains active with the mariners um talking to their uh minor leaguers and sort of being involved in the organization in that way so he already has some experience as an ambassador for the game and as someone who can give advice and perspective on what it takes and so i'm really i'm really excited to see what he does with this because like you said if anyone can help with this effort it has to be one of the guys who was the last like sort of nationally recognized star not only for his incredible hall of fame worthy career but also for

just his you know his personality his cool he was he was cool we don't have a lot of we don't have a lot of baseball players who have who have sort of broken through in that way and there are a lot of reasons why that's true but this speaks to at least speaks to our generation and i imagine will speak to future generations too. So yeah, pretty cool. At minimum, just having a household name associated with baseball in an official capacity probably can't be a bad thing. Not that kids today would know who he is, but at least their parents would. And speaking of arcade-y baseball games, maybe he can reboot Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest. That can be his method of getting kids interested in baseball again. Yeah. That was a fun game.

Yeah. Video games and increased funding for Little League. Let's go. Yeah. Okay. Let's see if we can sneak in a few emails here. This one is from Drew. He says, I just had a listen to episode 1632 and really enjoyed the interview with Louisa Gauci, who was awfully impressive and well-spoken.

Her story as a trailblazer seemed very much in keeping with some of the themes of the MVP machine. So a question, are there ever incentives in player contracts to promote the use of a data-based approach as a means to improve? So many free agent contracts weigh against the risk of deterioration over time, but I don't hear a lot about actively promoting improvement outside of incentives for awards and sometimes for appearances for those with a history of injuries. So this is interesting. I'm thinking there are limits on the kinds of incentives that you can have. So the rules say that, I'm quoting here, no major league uniform players contract or minor league uniform player contract shall be approved if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching, or batting skill, or if it provides for the payment of a bonus contingent on the standing of the signing club at the end of the championship season.

season. So you can't say we'll give you a bonus if you hit X number of home runs or if the team finishes first or whatever. You can't do that. But I'm not sure that this would fall into that category. I think you can have attendance bonuses, there are awards bonuses, things like that. And this is less of a skills-based incentive or a performance incentive than it is like a practice-based incentive. You're basically like trying to ensure that the players are undergoing some sort of continuing education here. They are trying to apply themselves out the field or incorporate new technologies or ways of looking at the game. So I don't know that this sort of thing exists. I've never heard of it and I don't know if it would fall into a legal gray area, but on the surface, it seems like it might be permissible. So I guess the question is, if it were,

how would you implement that? Gosh, I don't know. It seems like, I mean, during the season, that seems like an easy thing to monitor, right? Because the guy's at your facility every day and traveling with a team. And so if he's engaging in this sort of stuff, you can sort of verify that pretty easily. I don't know how it would work. I guess you can't really have off-season incentives,

but that seems like the place where, you know where working out in front of a machine like this or engaging in pitch design stuff is going to be the most impactful. So I don't know how you would sequence an incentive like that. Am I thinking of this the wrong way, Ben? No, I mean, it's tough because you don't really want to give your players homework homework i guess it would be kind of annoying but i can see the upside of giving players a reason to do this because especially like as you age and maybe some of your skills decline the things that worked well for you before might not work as well and some players are very adaptable and willing to incorporate new ideas and new approaches and others are less so and they cling to what worked well for them before, even after it stops working. mirroring and these things. And again, this is something that players may just do instinctively or they may know about already. But if there are advances like this, maybe if they were like,

hey, if you attend a seminar with our coaches and our baseball operations staff, where they fill you in on the latest advances and the latest tools that are available to you, then you will get some sort of bonus. That happens already. There are already briefings and meetings like that and one-on-one instruction. So maybe it's not necessary in this era when I think most players are pretty receptive to this stuff just because they've seen how well it works for other players and younger players coming up have just been immersed in this environment from the start of their career and grew up in the moneyball era. So it's not foreign or intimidating or alien to them. So it may be less and less necessary as time goes on. And I think if you have a good system set up, then it's just kind

of routine. Like from the second you get into that organization, you're being exposed to this and it's available to you and you're getting benchmarks and all of that. But all I can think of is that like you would give people a bonus for like, you know, completing some training or something. It's like, you know, you have to at least read about it or click through it or, you know, we'll give you a primer about all of this and you have to answer a little quiz or something and we'll give you a bonus. Just basically give players homework so that they're aware of everything that's going on and just give them a little extra incentive to do that

on top of just, hey, this might make you better at baseball. Well, I imagine that it would allow you to tailor it more specifically. And maybe this question has this in mind, but as we've talked about when we've discussed player development, what is going to resonate with a player is going to vary person to person. And what am I trying to say? You don't necessarily want every guy to try to redesign his pitch mix with seam shifted wake in mind, because who knows if that's going to

be complementary to his existing repertoire, if that change is really going to be one that advances his performance. So you'd want to be able to tailor it very, very specifically. And it seems like if you already have that in mind, you don't necessarily need to make it a contract incentive. You're probably already having those conversations with the player and trying to figure out what mode of sort of disseminating that information is going to make it sort of stick and resonate the best way so yeah but it is an interesting it is an interesting thing and then i would want to see and you know i i'm not advocating like broad player surveillance when i say this but i would be fascinated to see, and I'm not advocating broad player surveillance when

I say this, but I would be fascinated to see if this becomes a place where players and writers are the same in that most of their engagement with those resources would happen like four days before they have to report to spring training because everyone does better when they're writing right before the deadline, which they don't encourage, but just like this is how it goes. Sometimes you need the fear before you can actually do the work. So I would be curious to see what the distribution of access to those resources was in terms of the calendar and sort of how likely guys are to push it off and push it off. But yeah. Yeah. And I guess you're right. This

could very easily creep into creepy surveillance territory where it's like, hey, we'll give you a bonus if you wear this sleep monitor or something and we know what you're doing and not doing off the field. Or like, I don't know, maybe, hey, we'll send you a HitTrax machine or a Rapsodo or something so that you have that over the off season and we will know how much you used it or something. that over the off season and we will know how much you used it or something or i guess it could be like uh hey we'll give you a bonus if you go to driveline for a week every winter for a tune-up or you know some some team run baseball academy over the winter or something like if you're going to try to compel players to to do that to put in extra work, then it seems only right that you would give them some financial reward for doing that. So I could see something like that. But yeah, it could easily go into sort of like borderline territory where it would just be like a big brother type mechanism. Yeah. Ben, can I break some news on the pod oh sure you thought this was going to be

really big news this is very relevant to you personally oh okay mike foltenevich threw for teams in atlanta today and he was 90 to 92 but looked to be in fine shape oh all right my number one minor league free agent draftee that's uh that sounds good he's healthy at least it sounds like he was capable of throwing some pitches yeah that's good all sounds good he's healthy at least it sounds like he was capable of throwing some pitches yeah that's good all right i hope there will be a cory kluber-esque bidding war that's uh i think jake arietta is doing a showcase soon right or yes yeah so it's showcase season but all right may fulton evich end up with a depleted rotation where he can get lots and lots of playing time.

You thought I was going to make you talk about Trevor Bauer on the fly, didn't you? I thought it might be something a little bit bigger than that. Or maybe something you just discovered about Jack Peterson's stats. No, no. Okay. This one is in the Mike Trout genre, but it's sort of an inversion or a perversion of the Mike Trout hypothetical. This is from another Ben who says, this is my first attempt at a contribution to the Mike Trout hypothetical genre. What would happen if Mike Trout, like Dr. Manhattan, grows tired of his baseball superiority and decides to set a new goal to accumulate as much cumulative negative war

as possible between now and the end of his career. What would be the best strategy to accomplish this? How much negative war could he rack up before he wasn't allowed to play anymore? Are there sneaky ways he could be bad with no one noticing? So this is the Mike Trout tanking hypothetical. In the past, we've had Mike Trout gets tired of baseball and he just takes up another sport or Mike Trout pretends to be some other player and he has a second or third Hall of Fame career. But in this case, Mike Trout, he just falls out of love with the game. And for whatever reason, he doesn't walk away. He just decides to be as bad as possible until they make him stop playing. bad as possible until they make him stop playing. Ben, you're going to be happy to know that I once contemplated this very question for Baseball Perspectives. I tried to think of situations. Now, they did not have the Dr. Manhattan-esque agency that this question implies. They did not

come with Mike Trout tiring of the game or wanting to plot a strange course but i wondered how we could make him less good at baseball okay and i'm here to tell you that some of these are really weird all right would you like me to run through yeah i wondered what would happen if he carried a bunch of coins in his pockets okay yeah like you know like if he because baseball players carry all sorts of stuff with them on the field they have snacks uh they got batting gloves it looks like they're carrying their wallet back there sometimes just because of the form that those gloves take. And so I wondered how many coins he would have to carry specifically in his back pockets

to make him either more injury prone, like if he slides in feet first, but on his bum into second and then had a bunch of coins in there and it hurt his bum and then he had to go on the injured list or if it would just slow him down ever so slightly because he had extra weight you know he was carrying weight so that was one bit of business that i wondered about i wondered if he thought he had a bunch of spiders on him if it would make him worse like how many spiders would he think he had on him before he went from

being like i think there's a bug on me to being driven mad really by the number of spiders i arrived at six being the number of spiders he would have to think he had on him before he would be replacement level basically i contemplated him trying less hard and i wondered how you know if we would notice him trying less hard just based on how broad his skill set is. You know, he'd have to try less hard in a bunch of different ways. And I think that he'd have to be noticeably less good for like a while before we would ask any questions. And then I think my favorite was like, what would just happen if all he ate was meat?

You know, Ben ben what would happen so in in 2015 mike trout in response to a question about his diet told the los angeles times as for food i'm eating better and better my parents taught me to eat my greens but i was always meat meat meat and now i'm more balanced eating protein and vegetables and staying away from candy and i just wondered like what if all all he ate was meat? Because because Russell Carlton has done some good work on the potential effect that improved nutrition can have on minor leaguers and how it can, you know, elevate their game because they're healthier overall. And we've all eaten too much meat. Those of us who eat meat have eaten too much and then like had weird meat

sweats and, you know, felt yucky. And, you know know you get kind of irregular sometimes and so i think that that would make him less good if all he ate was meat if it was just meat meat meat meat meat like he got one of those protein bowls they have at subway now which to me is just a i think it's just a bowl of meat ben i think subway is selling you a bowl of cold cuts what if mike trout ate only mike trout super pretzels right that would I think he would start being less good at baseball because he'd, first of all, too much sodium. He would be all carbs. He wouldn't be getting nutrition he needs. You know, like I think that his gut would feel funny.

So I don't know if that answers your question, but this is one of those things where I was like, know it's really nice that sam lets me do stuff so just to bring it back around this was a nice hey it's nice that sam let me write this yeah five grams per serving in the uh super pretzels it looks like of protein more than i would have expected actually but all the sodium ben yeah all the sodium, Ben. Yeah. All the sodium. A lot of sodium. 38% of your recommended daily value, and that's just one pretzel. Yeah, you should be dried out, dehydrated, full of carbs. Yeah. We've done Mike Trout hypotheticals along those lines. We've definitely had Mike Trout weight gain hypotheticals. There is a long list of all our Mike Trout hypotheticals on the Effectively

Wild wiki, which is wonderful. And we did have what if Mike Trout gained 65 pounds during the off season? How much of a weight burden handicap would Mike Trout need for Ben and Jeff to beat him in a foot race? We've come up with various other ways to torture Mike Trout or make him worse at baseball. Like what if he had fewer fingers was a memorable one. What if he had to wear noise canceling headphones? I think one was what if it was just raining on top of Mike Trout only all the time. So we've come up with all kinds of ways.

Like if we want to stick to the realm of the realistic here, which we rarely do when it comes to Mike Trout hypotheticals because that sort of defeats the purpose. of the realistic here, which we rarely do when it comes to Mike Trout hypotheticals, because that sort of defeats the purpose. But I guess one way, if you wanted to do this sneakily, I mean, one way, I guess, is that he could be unclutch on purpose. So he could be his regular self in low leverage situations, but he could be terrible in high leverage situations. If he were to do that, it would not actually affect his war, but it would make him a lot less valuable. And yet you would continue to play him because his overall stats would still be pretty good. And you just think, well, he's getting unlucky in these clutch situations and it'll all even out. So he could hurt a team that way because

it's not like he could make himself even better probably in the low leverage situation. So he would be worse overall, but he'd be disproportionately bad in the moments when it counts the most. So I guess the other thing he could do if he wanted to like keep playing but accumulate negative war is do the opposite of that so he could be clutch and so he could then provide value to a team but he could be bad at all other times and so his war would still be lousy even though he would be providing some real value and he might still be playable like if mike trout still Mike Trout in high leverage spots, but were just a bad player at all other times, I think you would probably still roster him, right? I mean, his overall numbers might not be great, but you'd be getting the best player of baseball at the most important

moments. So of course you would still want Mike Trout, but his war would suffer because most of his plate appearances would be not the highest leverage ones. And so it would seem like he was bad and hurting a team. It's kind of like the Albert Pujols scenario in some recent years where he has been pretty clutch and he has driven in a lot of runs. And yet his overall stat line is lousy and his wars have been bad. So that's one way he could do it you know i guess another way is just to like be bad on defense which would be a little less noticeable or like a little less credible i mean his defensive stats have fluctuated and they haven't really been elite since early in his career

for the most part so if he were to take it easy on defense, then his defensive stats would suffer. But for a while we would be saying, oh, well, defensive stats and small sample and all of that, unless it were very apparent that he were not trying and not running at all. So that's something he could do, but really he could be bad for a while and he would still be getting chances because he is like to this point, basically the best player ever. So if you show some skill and talent, like you will keep catching on, you'll keep getting opportunities because teams will think that there might be still something left. And if he hasn't let himself go, like if his skills are still intact for the most part, then he would keep getting chances

indefinitely, hoping that he would bounce back. So he could probably be bad for quite a while before they would stop letting him be bad. I mean, again, not to pick on Pujols, but you don't have to look far from Mike Trout to find another player who has continued to rack up a ton of playing time without producing a lot of value, mostly because he has a track record of being great and is being paid as if he is still great. I like your scenarios because none of them involve maiming. Even the coins thing has the potential to cause some amount of injury and who knows if his digestion would ever recover from all of that meat or all of those

pretzels right yeah i think the most interesting thing about these questions is always just how you get a sense almost immediately of just how long a leash mike trout would be given because he has been the best player in baseball for such a long time that i think even though like hey take a couple games off to like get your head right like I think that he would probably not be granted that opportunity even if it were beneficial to him in a non-Dr. Manhattan I'm trying to accrue negative war scenario but just in a you know like stuff happens in guys lives they get a little hurt like they would benefit from a couple days of rest to reset and sort of get their heads focused

on baseball again if they have stuff going on in their personal lives that's distracting them, understandably. And I think that he might end up pushing through the point at which a rest period makes sense just because he is the best player in baseball. He's the best player on the Angels. And you want that guy in the lineup every day just based on the potential of all the things he can do, even if he hasn't been doing them recently.

So I like how even in Mike Trout hypotheticals where we are either making him worse or he is making himself worse, we still walk away saying, wow, Mike Trout's really good at baseball. Yeah. I guess he could allow Hunter Renfro to substitute for him. They could do a swap.

Ben, you shush. Okay. Okay. You be quiet now. Yes. All right. There may be more on that topic coming. All right.

So I'll do one more here because it is also a hypothetical about making a thing that we love worse. And I don't know why people are asking about this, but we'll entertain the questions. So this is from Simon, who says, I was just finishing up episode 1625 and was inspired by the questions on overnight baseball and a universal strike zone. To ask the following, what would baseball look like if you made it as terrible as possible without removing the core structure of the game? The baseball community often discusses how to make the game more enjoyable for spectators, so it might be worth it to talk about the opposite for a bit. Worth it in what way? I don't know.

But Simon says my favorite proposal to reduce the aesthetic quality of the game would be to force all of the players to wear uniforms from the big and tall store. Good callback. that's fantastic okay well if i were coming up with some that were like a little more serious i suppose i think that and we'll like set aside the really icky like structural changes that you could make to baseball that we won't entertain because we've progressed past them but like the ones that are like i think that if you mandated pitching changes like if you said after every inning after every three outs after how if you if you took a small stretch of time in the game and then required that the pitcher change i think people would stop watching baseball yeah because they would just the games would just stretch and stretch and stretch and we wouldn't we'd we'd very rapidly start seeing less and less talented guys and you would end up with position players pitching all the time and the novelty of that would wear off entirely and it would just be a terrible slog and so i think that would that would be a really

detrimental one i think that if you if you shrunk or expanded the strike zone comically so that it is either so wildly tipped in one side's favor or the other that people would would rapidly lose patience for that because you'd end up you know you'd end up with no one getting on base or everyone getting on base and that would be that would be detrimental one change that i know that brendan galowski has suggested which i actually think would probably make things better and so i will take the opposite of it he has he has wondered if we if we shouldn't make fielder's gloves smaller so that it's harder to catch the ball and thus you would end up with more balls in play because it's harder to catch them so then what if we made them really really big i mean it would be funny for like a day and you probably would still end

up with some some odd like errors in the field that would result in guys getting on base because those are cumbersome. Yeah. How big would you have to make the gloves before it would cease to be an advantage and would actually be a detriment to you? The glove was so big that it would just cover the entire outfield, and you just stuck your hand in the side of it in some way so that you could literally catch every ball. That would be cheating, I suppose. That goes against the spirit of the question. If we assume that you have to be able to lift the glove and move it, and it's made out of leather and would be heavy, then there is a point at which it would just be hard to run with the thing. So if you're carrying just like a fire department life net size glove, then you're just like teetering under the fly ball. I don't know exactly where the trade-off is between size and surface area and weight and agility. If you had like that Jeff Francor novelty glove that was way

oversized, like as big as maybe his chest to the top of his head, but it still fit on his hand, that would probably be beneficial. I think that the answer to this question is that in a spring training game, we should have a variety of gloves on the field and they should increase in size by like 10% each. And then, because you need to, you know, we need it as an experiment. We need to do an experiment. And then after size has been determined, then we can start monkeying with weights and it's spring training. This doesn't matter. Like let us, let us enjoy something. Yeah. There are a lot of ways I think to make baseball worse. So it's easier to ruin something, I think, than to make something that we already like a lot better. So we talk a lot about making baseball better. We talk less about making baseball worse, both because we don't want it to be worse and because there are just so many ways you could do it. completely dead right like making it a little more dead than it is right now might actually

be better that seems like a good idea but making it so dead that it's like deader than dead ball and it just is like a sopping piece of paper and it doesn't go anywhere then that would kill baseball pretty quickly so there are a lot of ways you could do that sam actually answered this one because this was sent back in December. And he wrote, my, as far as I know, never mentioned favorite proposal to make baseball terrible has been that all fielders must be in motion when the pitch comes in. They can be anywhere they want running in any direction they want, but they have to be running, which I could see why that would make baseball worse. Although I would imagine that it would soon be exploited by players who just like, what is running exactly? Is it like you're making a movement?

A lot of players are in motion to a degree when the pitch is thrown. They're leaning one way. Maybe they're taking a step or something. I guess it depends, like if you had them have to reach a certain minimum speed so that they really had to like get going and back up and then sprint to where they would normally be in their position and be in motion as the pitch was crossing the plate. That would be pretty fun and would also probably make them worse. It might help if the ball happened to be hit in the right direction, but the momentum would be carrying them in one way. And if the ball did not go that way, it would be pretty difficult. So yeah,

that would probably make baseball worse. Yeah. Yeah. But again, like for the first couple of times we saw it, we think it was great. Yeah. It would be like a line of scrimmage sort of situation where you'd,

you'd have to like, you can't cross a certain point before the pitch is thrown or like you have to attain a certain speed before the pitch is thrown and then what happens if you don't is a flag thrown on the play is there just a ball assessed because the left fielder wasn't sprinting at the right time or something I don't know that that would be bad I think that would be fun for a little while for a spring training game. But after that would be bad. So trying to come up with like creative ideas to make baseball worse, but also fun. But you mentioned when we were talking about this before,

just like screwing with the strike zone in a weird way, which Sam has actually suggested that as like a thing that he wants like having no strike zone at all but uh but if you did make the strike zone huge or or tiny there could be some effects there that you would not want if the strike zone were just uh like the width of one ball or something then everyone would walk constantly yeah and if it were huge then probably everyone would just strike out. So, yeah, you could ruin the sport very easily. Yeah, it doesn't take a lot, which is why while we invite experimentation and trying things, we also think that those experiments should have a relatively short leash. When they show ill effects, say, no, no, that didn't do what I want. Let us move on.

Or you could just have all the players have a lot of coins in their pockets. Or only eat meat. I mean, I would never mandate diet to anyone because there's all sorts of things that go into that. But only eat one thing. That seems like whatever that one thing is. I mean, there are probably exceptions to this. I'm not a nutritionist. Talk to a real nutritionist before you decide to only eat one thing, but probably eat a lot of different kinds of things, I guess, except not dolphins. We've established that on this show before. Don't eat dolphins. They think about stuff.

Any last Jock Peterson stats you want to slip in there? Let's see. One time Jock Peterson wore a knit beanie and giant mittens in a postseason game when it was like 60 degrees and i worry about how he will adapt to chicago based on that i think that los angeles may have thinned his blood so that's a concern i don't know what do i have to say about jack peterson this year well i wish that

offensively it had gone a little bit better for him but he did hit two postseason home runs and had a 168 wrc plus in 37 postseason at bats and so if we're going to give uh marcus simeon a little bit of grace for his postseason line and what that suggests about his overall performance i think that we have to do the same thing for jock so um cubs fans he's a good player that hopefully your team deploys well to put him in a position to succeed and uh yeah it's nice to see the cubs doing a thing as we'll say again maybe every player could wear giant mittens and a beanie like jock peterson that would probably make baseball worse yeah that would probably make i mean maybe not the beanie they already have hats on yes and um and and in

april they they might be grateful for something a little bit warmer than, uh, than just a baseball cap. Although I suppose they do fit the little hoodie deals up under there, the little, um, you know, athleisure, I don't know what they're called, but you wear them when it's cold and you have to be outside, but you need something that, uh, is in bulky. So yeah. Huh. Breaking Cubs news.

As we finish up here. Sources have confirmed to David Kaplan that Tom Ricketts has recently increased the Cubs player payroll for 2021. This has allowed Jed Hoyer some flexibility to reshape his roster in a division the Cubs view as winnable. So how about

that? Slightly loosening the purse strings, perhaps. Not like to sign someone huge but uh i guess bruce levine tweeted that the cubs are in pursuit of some veteran arms listing carlos radon and jeff samarja as two possibilities they will be throwing for the cubs and uh jake arietta too so don't get too excited to cubs fans but uh they might actually do something i guess we no longer have to say that Daniel Descalso is their biggest position player free agent signing of the past few years or post

Hayward era because Peterson is probably a little bit better than that, but still been slim pickings in the post Darvish deal years. So perhaps they are not quite done adding. On the one hand, I want to be snarky about this decision coming, or at least being reported, will be fair, on January 29th. But on the other hand, there are still a lot of very good and serviceable free agents available to sign. So maybe it doesn't matter. Yeah, they should pick up Fulte maybe and that they can further their goal to have the

slowest throwing rotation in modern baseball history. That would be fun. It would be fun. All right. We will end there. One quick correction. I got a tweet from someone who said, did people yell at you for calling them assistant captains in hockey? That was in episode 1648.

Answer, no. No one has yelled at me about that yet. But I'm correcting the record regardless. It is not assistant captains or assistant to the captain or assistant to the regional captain. It is alternate captain. My apologies to the hockey heads out there. I have great respect for your sport. Lastly, I want to extend my congratulations to Craig Edwards, late of Fangraphs, who got himself a new gig.

Craig had been at Fangraphs for six years. got himself a new gig. Craig had been at Fangraphs for six years. He has joined us on the podcast several times to talk about prospect evaluation and baseball economics and various other topics. And as he announced Friday, he is leaving Fangraphs to join the Major League Baseball Players Association as its senior analyst for economics and collective bargaining, which sounds like an exciting opportunity. He's going from writing about economic issues in the sport to actually influencing them. So my best to Craig, he really had a knack for explaining complicated subjects in digestible ways,

and obviously the Players Association picked up on that ability that he has. So it's always sad to see an established and valued member of the baseball blogosphere move on and take their work behind closed doors. But I'm sure he'll continue to do great work, and maybe we'll be able to have him on again sometime down the road to talk about what it's like on the inside. And if you want to try to be the new Craig Edwards, Fangraphs is hiring part-time writers. I will link to Meg's post about that in case you're interested in applying. That will do it for this week. You can all support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going

to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Sam Raker, Mike Lehrman, Jan Walrus Langhammer, Klaus Vestergaard, and Kelvin Brum. 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 iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming.

They don't all have to be about baseball and my trap being worse than they are. At podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will be back with another episode early next week. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will talk to you soon. You and me by the side of the road in the morning feeling bright. Oh, looks like we're sticking together. Oh, looks like lasting forever.