Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1695: The Better Angels of Our Nature

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Dodgers signing Albert Pujols and what the rest of his season could look like, Kevin Pillar’s broken nose and the ongoing HBP epidemic, Shohei Ohtani’s latest heroics (and modeling video) and whether he can become a face of baseball and a crossover star, MLB’s rising injury rate, […]

I can see you had your fun, but darling, can't you see my signals turn from green to red? And with you, I can see a traffic jam straight up ahead. You're just like... So hard to get through to you. Trying to run over you. Trying to make you slow me down. And I've got better things on the other side of the tunnel. Hello and welcome to episode 1695 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing pretty well. You know, since the last time we spoke, I think we've gotten at least three tweets requesting emergency podcasts,

and all for different reasons. Emergency podcast for the Dodgers signing Pujols, emergency podcast for William Tostadillo allowing a home run on the mound, and emergency podcast for Shohei Otani, just being Shohei Otani in general, but also hitting a couple of home runs on pitches in very different locations. I'm sure that we will touch on all of these things today, but they can't all be emergencies. No, they can't. But I think that people, while they have not necessarily honed in on the specific events that are going to merit an emergency podcast, I feel like people have a good sense of the general like oomph.

Yes. It's just that sometimes we have to not pod because we have to sleep or eat food or watch baseball. That's the thing. It's like during the season, there's all this baseball to watch. Yeah, I know. It makes it really hard to do other stuff season There's all this baseball to watch Yeah I know It makes it really hard to do other stuff because there's all this Baseball so Well the good news is that people want to hear us

Talk about stuff apparently so that's good They see something happen and They want to hear what old Meg and Ben have to Say about it so they might have to wait A few days but we'll get there So we can talk about those things Now I suppose. Maybe we should start with the Dodgers' new cleanup hitter, Albert Pujols, which is not something I saw coming.

Last time we talked about Pujols last week when he was designated for assignment by the Angels, or I guess that was the week before. week before, but it seemed likely to me that that would be either the end of his career or that he might catch on either, let's say, with the Cardinals just for old time's sake, or maybe with some team that was out of contention and saw him as a draw and a veteran mentor. I did not see him signing with the team that is supposed to be the best in baseball. But here we are. He didn't even have to move. Good for Albert. He got a job, didn't have to pack, didn't have to find a new apartment or anything. He is still in Los Angeles. He is, in fact, even more in Los Angeles than he was before, frankly. So he started at first base and batted cleanup for the Dodgers on Monday, and batted cleanup for the Dodgers on Monday, and he got a seeing-eye single, drove in a run.

So good for him, and good for us, I guess, that Albert Pujols is still in baseball. But I did not foresee this outcome. I understand it upon further reflection, and we can get into the reasons why this happened. But this was not on my board of potential destinations for Albert. No. And there was the very strange visual. I know that Madison Bumgarner's time in the desert is far less new than Albert Pujols being on the Dodgers. But there was the very strange sight of watching Los Angeles Dodger Albert Pujols hitting against Arizona Diamondback Madison Bumgarner. And that still felt strange, still felt weird.

I delighted in how immediately at ease in the dugout Pujols seemed to be. You know, he was doing, he was patting his head when other people were patting their heads. He was jashing around with Dave Roberts. I was like, are you guys the same age? Who could that be? He's Albert Pujols.

He could probably walk into any clubhouse and feel like he owns it. He's entitled to that. This is the thing. It didn't have the big man feel. It had the, I'm a baseball sort and you're a bunch of baseball sorts. Let's be baseball sorts together. it was very very strange yeah but there he was and um as you said especially given some of the the recent injuries the signing now makes a lot more sense but when it initially came came across the transom that he was going to be a Dodger, especially since what we had been told was part of his frustration in LA,

being that he was not getting sort of everyday starter reps. This seems like a very strange fit. And now it seems like a slightly better fit because much like the rest of baseball, everyone who plays for the Dodgers is hurt. Yeah, I know. The Dodgers, the Mets, everyone else, injury stacks left and right. Yeah. So I was still trying to get used to the idea that friend of the show, Fabian Ardaia, my main source for Shohei Otani news and gifts, was going from the Angels to

the Dodgers, where he will be covering that team for the Athletic. And then all of a sudden, Pujols too, following Fabian, who's a real trendsetter. So yeah, I see why this is happening. There were shortages, right? Yes. That was the case on the Dodgers beat at the Athletic. Pedro Moura got a new job at Fox Sports, so you bring in Fabian. And everyone on the Dodgers gets hurt, so you bring in Albert Pujols. And people have compared this to some of the other weird late career Dodgers additions where you forget that some legend wore a uniform like in the last year of his career. And people have comped this to Jim Tomey very briefly being a Dodger.

And yeah, it's kind of a good comp, although Tomey was still a really good hitter at that stage of his career. He was really a good hitter at every stage of his career. Even when he was in his 40s, he was still a good hitter, more so than Pujols, which I think makes this more surprising. But you've got Cody Ballinger's hurt, although he seems to be nearing a comeback. Zach McKinstry's hurt. Edwin Rios is hurt and out for the year. A.J. Pollock hurt himself over the weekend. And then after the Pujols news, Corey Seager got hurt, got hit by a pitch. So he's out for a while. So you have all these shortages. You have some guys who aren't hitting the way they were expected to. And the Dodgers also brought in Yoshi Tsutsugo from the Rays too. So the Dodgers vaunted depth has been tested and in some cases found

wanting. So I don't know where you slot in Pujols long-term, but for now, if you have Taylor playing short, Muncy playing second, you can have Pujols play some first, you can have him pinch hit. They haven't been very successful in pinch hitting so far this season. So there are places to put him. And he has been better against lefties. He's been a very slightly above-league average hitter, I think, against lefties over the past few seasons. So he's not a bad bat against them. It's not like he mashes lefties anymore.

He's not a great option, but if you're as shorthanded as they are, maybe you figure he can hit lefties a little better than Gavin Lux, or at least better than Lux has to this point, and better than Sheldon Noisy has been. So that's kind of what

he's going up against here. I guess long-term, when they get healthy, when they get guys back i don't know whether they cast him adrift again and then we have this conversation about pujols and the cardinals or whether they just kind of keep him on as like a clubhouse potted plant who adds a lot of veteran mentorship like in the late career Chase Utley type role or David Freese even, although he was still pretty good at that point. So, yeah, I don't know if, you know, you invent like a phantom IL stint or something so you can kind of keep him around, adding his wisdom and imparting his pearls to the younger hitters. Not that this is like some young team in need of

guidance or, you know, it's like the Dodgers, they're the defending champions and they have a lot of veteran leaders as it is. So I don't know if Pujols brings the same value in that respect as he does to others, but obviously he is really revered by a lot of other latin players and plays an important role in that community and in that area so yeah i see some value here it isn't huge value and it's not something i was anticipating but the dodgers generally don't do things without some sort of reason right yeah i think that you know we don't it's a little bit like the Dodgers in shifting, right? You don't want to assume that a club is necessarily making good choices. Like we want to have a skeptical posture as analysts, because I think that that tends to serve us well.

But it is somewhat reassuring to see that there's like a good reason for these things, because it was initially surprising. And then you thought about it a little more and you're like yeah i get how that can kind of happen but if you had told me that this dodgers team would be running out a lineup like they did last night at the beginning of the season i mean i guess i would have assumed that they had been like tragically injured in a lot of places which has turned out to be true so yeah i know like an angel's reject that the Dodgers are in need of. That is somewhat strange because of the positions of those two teams. And I do wonder what they told Pujols about his role because a lot of the reporting about how things ended for Pujols and Anaheim and a lot of that was either anonymously sourced or it was coming from the team. And we haven't really heard Pujol's perspective or the TikTok of how that went down from his point of view. So it seemed like he was unwilling to accept a bench role or certainly wasn't enthusiastic about one. And I wonder whether

the Dodgers told him that that might be in store for him. And if so, whether he accepted that because it's the Dodgers and he wants a ring and maybe it's a little bit different with the Dodgers than it would be with the Angels, or it's a little bit different if it's not the team you signed the mega contract with and he still is being paid that money, but not by the Dodgers who get to pick him up for a prorated league minimum salary so not much risk on their end unless like there is some clubhouse discord where he thinks he's been brought in to be the starting first baseman for the rest of the season or something and will get upset when that turns out not to be the case a few months or weeks down the road so i assume they set expectations there and that he was kind of

okay with that and maybe it's just a function of different team, different clubhouse, different contract, etc. matter of sort of clearly communicated expectations and him being in a different position to sort of set expectations when he's a guy who's cleared waivers versus when he is, you know, the seeming starting first baseman on the back end of a big deal. I think you're just in a different place and you probably are able to have conversations that are a lot more candid and that have a different set of expectations that come with them because it's clear he wanted to keep playing and that he wasn't done. If what you're able to sort of muster is a part-time role on a contending club and one where you might end up being able to enjoy a long postseason run after not having been in October for a little while. I imagine that does hit you kind of differently than it does when it's the team that signed you and there's all this discord and sort of – I think that you'd find that to be a lot more palatable. It's like, okay, now I get to go out on a different note than I would. And the Dodgers, despite their kind of slow middle couple of weeks of the early run here, are positioned to be a postseason team.

And so I think that it probably does hit you kind of different, especially when you look at the fortunes of the Angels, which are not the best. Yeah, we can talk about that too. that's not albert pool holes this problem anymore so yeah and pool holes isn't their problem if he was a problem for them and jettisoning him has not seemed to rectify all of their ills not that anyone expected it to but yeah we can get into that anyway it's not something we expected to see. But after that initial what, who, why, you start to piece it together. And you can kind of see the sense and the rationale here. So, hey, if he does produce for them and if he sticks and even if it's in a diminished marginal role, it's kind of cool to have yet another former MVP on that bench and in that clubhouse. And

if he gets to make another playoff run and play some meaningful role in October, let's say, I don't know whether he will still be on this team at that point, let alone playing a prominent role. The Touchers probably hope not. But if he's around even even if he's part of the scenery it's nice to have albert pujols still in baseball and for that exit from the angels not to be the end you know as we talked about like i understood why and how it happened that way but it's still sort of sad to see someone go out that unceremoniously and abruptly so I'm not sure if he's going to be in a position to do the farewell tour here or in any subsequent destination either, but at least it won't officially end that way. And if we do get to a point where he's on the bubble again and players

are coming back and they're telling him, hey, Albert, we might not have a spot for you here. If that does come about, then I don't know. I don't want to say that he has to accept that gracefully, but it would be nice, I guess, if he sensed that his time in the majors was coming to an end that, you know, maybe he could take a last curtain call and bow and go out and give everyone an opportunity to come out and see him one more time with the knowledge that that will be the last time. to come out and see him one more time with the knowledge that that will be the last time. Yeah, I think that, you know, it's a lot easier to sort of handle a situation gracefully when you're given the opportunity to, right? And I think that as we talked about last time,

it's really hard to, I imagine I clearly in any number of ways cannot fully relate to what Albert Bowles is going through. So, you know, just to state that very obvious thing up front. ending end of your career in a way that lets you kind of confront the next juncture where you might be let go in a more emotionally prepared way that you'll do that. Like he seems like a, both a appropriately proud person and also like a pretty gracious person. And so, yeah, I imagine that when the time comes, he'll be like, I get it. And I'm glad I got to have another run. And here I am with my family able to, you know, thank this organization and fans more broadly for letting me be a part of their baseball life for such a long time. And we always want people to like rise to the occasion. And I don't mean to say that he like made a fool of himself or was a jerk when he was exiting

Anaheim or anything like that. But, you know, I think we always want people to be like selfless. And it's like, well, I don't know. It's nice to give people the backdrop with the angels A on it and a dais and let your family be there. You know, being gracious goes both ways. So I think that I'm glad that he's being afforded another opportunity to play, that we get another opportunity to both appreciate him and to have his career end on a different note than being sort of unceremoniously released on like May 6th or whatever. And it's good to get a little do-over for everyone involved.

And again, like he hasn't said anything, so he can't have been ungracious. But, you know, the background that we got made it sound like he had sort of unrealistic expectations. And who knows if that's true? You know, it's nice to get another chance to be like, I'm patting my head in the dugout. He seems so happy to be there. He does. Yeah.

I'd be happy to if I got another job with a better team and didn't have to go anywhere. He upgraded, really, and there's no DH to hide him in here in the National League, which is another thing that sort of makes it surprising that he went to the Dodgers. But yeah, I've got to feel pretty good about this, I would think, if you're him and if you found yourself in this spot. And nice to be wanted, even if it is at a weak minimum salary for los angeles so yeah hope he's happy and hope he proves that he still had something left in the tank yeah i don't know like we all we all were on tilt all of last year for a number of reasons not the least of which was that like the baseball we got was different than what we were used to so i can't imagine

what it must be like to try to transition out of this thing that you've done every day for most of your life. I think it's just hard. And I'm glad that he gets another shot to kind of ease into it with time to kind of mourn it, but also get to do it every day. It's a nice, that's a better way to get to go out. Yeah.

So following up on another thing we've talked about recently, the hit by pitch scourge. We've seen some scary ones and some costly ones. Even since we've talked about this and the fact that the hit by pitch rate is at an all-time high and the factors that could be contributing to that. So Seager got hurt, broke his hand, and Astadillo got hit by a pitch. Fortunately, he's okay. But Kevin Pillar, that was a truly terrifying one. That was as scary as, if not scarier than, the Bryce Harper hit by pitch.

And this one was more costly in the sense that Pilar suffered multiple nasal fractures. And of course, when a nose is involved, there's a lot of blood, which made it more scary. And that is like, I don't know if that's best case scenario, but even that seems like a light sentence, having watched that and seen it in the moment. Like, oh man, I mean, we need to stop having these because you keep doing this. You keep testing fate and guys keep getting hit in the head by hard baseballs that are traveling very fast and broken noses or bruised cheekbones or orbital bones or whatever. Like that's not going to be the only thing that happens if if you keep doing this so he got a game-winning rbi out of that but that probably doesn't make up for just the sheer terror that has to come from something like that so this

is scary yeah i had turned that game on and accidentally left the tv on and then i went for a little bike ride because it was it was only 88 degrees ben So you got to take advantage of the days that are only 88 degrees to get a little bike ride in. And then I came back and I walked into the living room just in time to watch him get hit. And it was the worst. Yeah. You're right.

Like really any wound on your face is going to bleed a lot. Really any wound on your face is going to bleed a lot. And noses in particular. I was very grateful for their just complete refusal to show replay of it. We don't need to show you that again. Because that was awful. And we're so grateful that he was able to walk off under his own power. It made me think that they need to have bigger towels in the dugout because you know you don't want to put you you want to put pressure on it to try to sort of staunch the bleeding but also if you have multiple fractures in your nose i can

imagine he was not keen to put any pressure on his nose at all but they should like have a big towel so they can go over your face without having to touch your nose. Yeah. It was so bad. Anytime you have to take a break for the grounds crew to clean up blood on the field, you're in a bad spot. The poor Mets are just so injured, not only on the major league roster, but Pete Crowe Armstrong has to have shoulder surgery now. So it's just been this like really terrible run for them. But that is easily the scariest injury they've had.

And, you know, I know that he is they announced this morning that he's going for a consult with like a face specialist. There's a better word for that that I don't know. But yeah, you just it's like you said, at some point you feel like the luck such that there's been is going to run out. And one of these guys is going to experience damage that is much more long lasting and anytime it's to the face you worry about guys eyes and so it was very very scary and it was clearly in no way intentional you know you don't want to the guy suffering the most is polar but webb did not look happy either you just have to feel terrible if you're a pitcher. You don't know what impact a hit like that is going to have on a guy's long-term health

and career, nevermind what's going on in the game itself. And so, yeah, it was very scary and I don't have a great solution other than the ones we've already talked about, but something has got to change because when it's coming in that fast you just you just don't have time like he tried to turn away from it but you just don't have time to get out of the way and 95 to the head yeah no i've had my nose broken by a baseball as i've related on this podcast and it was unpleasant but it was not by a 90 mile per hour plus pitch and i mean if it were us i'm sure we would be worried about stepping back into the batter's box again after having something like that happen. And obviously that has been an issue for some hitters in the past, but you're just happy that they're able to step backers, although I guess this was an instance of that. But in some cases, it seems to be hitters possibly standing closer to the plate or getting in the way of these pitches more so than they used to or wearing armor.

It's kind of confusing because it's not just more velocity or more movement, but it is probably partly that and maybe hitters just being on their heels and not knowing what's coming because it is so hard to track these incredible pitches that are being thrown now. So it's a whole host of factors that are producing a pretty dangerous outcome. And sometimes it is just a broken hand or a broken finger like seeker like Joey Votto. And it's a bummer when those guys have to miss time, but at least it's not career or life threatening. So these are sort of different problems. Maybe, I mean, the guy getting hit in the head by an unintentional pitch, like, I don't know if that is something that can just be legislated away or whether there's a rule change that can prevent that. That's just probably going to happen every now and then when you have humans throwing

baseballs really hard in the general vicinity of other humans, whereas other things that are more systemic or have to do with where hitters are standing up or where pitchers are pitching, potentially there's something you could do about that. I mean, I don't know that there's any way you can eradicate the random loss of control on a single pitch, which I guess could be related to other things that we talk about, like the use of foreign substances or the lack thereof or the emphasis on velocity and airing it out on every pitch. But again, occasionally that's going to happen. It's just when it happens at the rate that we have seen it this season and in recent seasons, you start to wonder whether something could or should be done. that has a clear solution, which is, hey, stop doing that. Even if arriving at that solution is a little bit trickier. I do wonder if we start to see some sort of a move for an equipment change, right? Do we start to see guys who want to wear batting helmets that resemble more the softball

ones where you have the face mask that can at least slow down or help to diffuse some of the energy behind that pitch? You know, I know that we've seen very scary pitcher injuries with comebackers, right? You think about what happened to Matt Shoemaker, and when that happened, we wondered, are we actually going to see the adoption of the admittedly kind of goofy looking pitcher helmet? But at some point, you have to figure that the damage that is being done, particularly on hit by pitches up around the head, it, you know, might warrant a change, right? That how it looks, if you think it looks silly, is less important than providing some amount of protection to these guys. And I know that while the general hit by pitch rate is,

has moved up that not every hit by pitch rate has moved up, not every hit by pitch is this, right? Not every hit by pitch is to the head at all, let alone one that kind of gets a guy square at a super high velocity, but the risk is so high. And I don't know, I think those helmets look cool. You look like a football player playing a bat to ball sport. So we should maybe just do that. Maybe that's part of the solution. Because like you said, I don't know, you know, an errant pitch, like, what do you do about that? Yeah, right. What do you do, Ben? Fix this problem. I'm not the one wearing the helmet. So it's easy for me to say, yeah, wear the most protective equipment possible. But you know, and I know people are making efforts

to like make those things more streamlined and less oversized and silly looking. And, you know, whatever fashion statement players are worrying about making or not making, you know, hopefully they'll continue to improve those things. That's been an issue with pitcher protective headwear as well. So hopefully they find some sort of solution there that can cut down on this sort of thing. And I realized that how it looks, it's not like the only

consideration for guys. Like I think that I'm sure that it does feel bulky and it would take getting used to and that you're, you know, you're, you're kind of used to being a particular way in the box. So I don't mean to say that it is all a matter of wanting to not look doofy, but I do think that there's like a not small part of it that is about not wanting to look doofy. And I'm here to say you all look great. Very strong. Yeah. So virile. It shows even greater strength in a sense that you would be willing to wear this thing that looks kind of unusual, ungainly, whatever. It shows that you're secure in yourself and your personal appearance.

ask for more protective gear makes what's happened to Pilar or happened to Bryce Harper or anyone else like their fault or anything like that. That's not what I mean to say. But I do think that we perhaps have some equipment solutions that have been under explored as a potential answer to this. And hopefully this ends up being sort of a weird one year blip and we return to a more normal hit by pitch rate in the future but it doesn't seem like that's a guarantee and so perhaps we ought to explore other solutions because like i don't watch boxing you know i'm not into that like it's not my thing and i'm not saying anything about it the people like it like i'm not but that's you know that's not what i tune in i don't tune into baseball to see a guy hunched over with like half his nose blood on the field nose right you know

how there's specific blood so this is like not a thing i need to see more of and we're lucky it hasn't been a bigger and more lasting problem and we don't even know what impact that's a terrible word we don't even know what the lingering effects will be for pilar like he could be out for a while he could not be out for very long at all like surprise there's no concussion if there isn't it seems like i mean i guess the nose got in the way and cushioned the blow to his brain it was so it was just so immediately awful and the sound yeah it made right there's no way to make sports 100% safe and protect everyone all the time.

There's no way to make everything 100% safe. But when you can and when you can do it, hopefully without actually making the sport less entertaining. I mean, this comes up all the time, safety concerns. If it's like the slide rule or catchers blocking the plate or whatever, and people will say, oh, players are too soft now and we don't have to protect them at every turn. But really, like guys getting hurt is not part of the appeal to me. Like I know in some sports, I guess it is, or it's inseparable from the appeal of those sports, you know, whether it be boxing or football,

like you can certainly do some things to make football players safe or boxers safe, but ultimately, guys are punching each other or crashing into each other with incredible momentum. Guys are going to get hurt. Baseball is less of a contact sport, and I guess that's one of the reasons why I like it, or at least one of the reasons why I don't dislike it, is that when guys get hurt, generally, like, you know, they're pulling hamstrings or something. Like, I don't want to see Mike Trout have a calf injury as he does right now, but at least it's not gruesome when he does. And occasionally there will be some gruesome baseball injuries, and we can all summon examples to our mind that we wish that we couldn't that are just imprinted on our memories so that will happen but i think it's in everyone's best interest to minimize it because like you said like it's one thing to get hit in

the butt or something and maybe you can't do away with that but you don't really want to be watching the kevin polar incidents and the bryce har Harper incidents because it's hard to enjoy what you're watching, what it looks like someone just had something happen to them that could kill them potentially or end their career. So no one really enjoys that, I don't think. And it's hard to just forget about that and go back to baseball business as usual, knowing that that could happen. And obviously, that's always been part of the sport. It could always happen. It has happened. It will continue to happen.

But what we can do to minimize it seems like it would be in the best interest of baseball and us as spectators. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Because they're getting hurt enough on their own without getting plonked. We should talk about... It's so upsetting. They're all hurt, every single one. I think we should shut the sport down for a second while we get to the bottom of it.

Yeah, except that didn't seem to cut down on the injuries last year. That only made it worse. It's a real pickle. But yeah, just like very briefly, because what do you say except that it sucks that they're all getting hurt, but it really sucks that everybody's getting hurt. And yet aren't really doing a better job of protecting them on the whole. So we're treating them with kids gloves and pulling them earlier. And that's not just about health. It's also about effectiveness. But all of these measures, I mean, baseball is just like we've removed the durability component of pitching now. Like it doesn't even matter if you can go deep into games. It just matters. Can you miss bats? Can you get guys out for any length of time? And if you can, there will be a spot for you somewhere on a major league roster. And yet, even with that, even with the better protective measures and better surgery and better training and better nutrition and all of it, guys are still getting hurt at an incredible rate. And not just pitchers, of of course position players are dropping like flies too like i don't imagine that my calf muscles would do him much good and then you're like well meg if you transplant your right calf muscle onto mike trout's then he's had surgery and he has to recover from that so am i really sparing him or us any more time and having to wait but um i'm contemplating trying to ignore that Mike

Trout has hurt for as long as I can and see how long it takes for like my job to say you can't do it. You might say this is an example of it takes no time at all. You cannot sustain this illusion, but I'm between therapists, so it might last a little bit longer. Who knows? Yeah. As we speak, the results of the mri are not in so we don't know yet if this is a day-to-day thing or an extended absence and obviously we're hoping it will not be the latter he seemed very upset when he was coming off the field yeah so who knows what that means i mean he he's a competitor and he wants to play baseball and he's having like a really good season so maybe he was just like

I have had a little bit of a slump of late one that has brought can we just talk about this for a second sure so you know Mike Trout has had like a little bit of a slump he was like 3 for 21 or whatever and you're like god what did that do oh it brought his average all the way down to 333

and his WRC plus all the way down to 333 and his WRC plus all the way down to 199. Yeah. Yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah. So get well soon, Mike Trout. But I did appreciate, we will transition out of this now. I did appreciate how Otani was like, I will make everyone feel better by hitting what should be an impossible home run.

Which one? Yeah. an impossible home run. Which one? He's just so strong, Ben, and so tall. And the home run that he hit yesterday was 10 feet above the strike zone. It was literally at his eyes. It was at eye level.

I can't decide. is which is your favorite. Did you prefer the go ahead home run that he hit in Fenway where it looked like he had just flicked like a little fly out and it was over the monster or the one last night where it was literally at his eyes? Which of those was your favorite? If you had to pick between children? Right. I mean, ideally, you don't have to pick because they're best appreciated in tandem. And I've seen many viral videos and GIFs showing like the contact points of both of those swings. And, you know, it's like one is super high and one is low and away and both home runs, same results. And I think probably the 79 mile per hour curve that he flicked over the monster is more impressive to me, maybe because the high homer was actually slightly lower than the pitch that Williams Estadillo hit a home run on earlier this year. And it was the second highest pitch hit for a homer this year, and Shohei Otani considerably taller himself than Williams Estadio. So visually, it was less impressive to me having seen Williams jack that pitch that was even higher, and he is far shorter. But just seeing Otani do both of those, that's plate coverage.

That's power. He can hit anything out. I think the first one was more impressive to me just because like the pitch was not supplying much of the power there. And it didn't look like he was even swinging hard. Like he was off balance and it was like almost off the end of his bat. It was like all hands and wrists and he just launched it over the monster anyway. And this was like after his start got pushed back because Joe Maddon said he looked a little fatigued. like after his start got pushed back because Joe Maddon said he looked a little fatigued.

Like this is Otani looking fatigued, just like going on a tear, hitting home runs every other day. That's pretty impressive. So yeah, I think, and that's a pitch that like last year when he wasn't at full strength, like I don't think he would have been able to do anything with that pitch and being as strong as he is now and having been able to train heavy over the offseason and not have the knee issues that were plaguing him last year. I think that just showed like, even if he doesn't get all of the pitch and even if it's not really a hittable pitch in theory, he can still hit it a long, long way. And yeah, it's pretty incredible. Like he is now leading all hitters in win probability added because he's been both good and timely these were pretty important home runs that he hit and also he is

now so if you look at the combined war leaderboard fan graphs which factors in both his hitting and his pitching he is i think 14th among all players in war this year. And that is, of course, doing both of these jobs and getting the DH penalty in war and not playing the field except for his two one inning stints. So he's managing to rack up that value anyway. And I guess you could say, well, 14th in war, that's not that exciting but the fact that he is producing that value while doing both of these things like i guess it doesn't make him that much more valuable to the angels unless you think there's some added positional flexibility two-way value you know having both of these jobs in one roster spot sort of that is not accounted for by war. Like it doesn't necessarily make him more valuable, but it certainly makes him more astonishing and impressive. And I think that's my favorite thing. Like it's one thing for me to marvel at Otani.

Like my athletic skills, you know, compared to his, I mean, being any big leaguer is inconceivable to me. So like the effective difference between Otani and me and I don't know, like the worst major leaguer and me, like it's not like I could do either job. But I think for me to see what other athletes say about him is like the most enjoyable part of it to me. So you see some of the quotes that have been said in the past few years by other players like Matt Barnes, the Red Sox pitcher who gave up that home run we were just talking about said, I personally think he's the most physically gifted baseball player that we've ever seen. And I mean, how could you dispute that? I don't know how you could. And then Patrick Sandoval said, it's unreal. I don't know how else to say it he hits the crap

out of the ball and throws the crap out of the ball as well i don't think people are grasping how insane what he's doing is it's unbelievable and then jj watt chimed in on twitter to say it feels like a lot of people are talking about shohi otani but still nowhere near enough people are talking about shohi otani what he's doing in baseball is insane and i've seen that sentiment repeated in a few places like yeah we're not about Otani enough. And it's like, don't test me, people. I don't know how I could be talking about him more than I am, but I'm trying to do my part here on our daily dose of Otani. And here we are again. But it does sort of seem like how is he not the face of baseball or the face of all sports? How is he not a bigger story?

And Jun Lee was tweeting about this too and pointing out that there could be cultural aspects to this or language barrier, et cetera, that are maybe standing in the way of the promotion a little bit. in the way of the promotion a little bit. But obviously he has an international fan base and you see just people all across the sports world who are marveling at what he's doing. And did you see he's like the face and the body of Hugo Boss now as well? Is he really? Yeah, he's a model also and like looks like a model too.

It's not like he is getting to model because he's famous. It's like the man can fill out a suit and he looks pretty good. I don't know if he is getting to model because he's famous. It's like the man can fill out a suit and he looks pretty good. I don't know if he has his model facial expressions, like his blue steel needs a little work, I think. But he looks good, great fits. He sold me some clothes, I think, just watching a short video of him modeling some Hugo Boss here. So the man can do it all. Hugo Boss here. So the man can do it all. And I hope this leads to more endorsements because I'm happy to see Otani in all contexts, whether it is advertising or athletic performance. So

I don't know. Is there anything we can do to appreciate Otani more than we have? I doubt it, but is there some way for us to evangelize even more than we have? It's just kind of like a pinch me moment every night with him, which is why I keep returning to it. And I'm wary of harping on him too much, but it just feels like we have not seen this in our lives. We might not see this again. We really, really need to appreciate it while it's happening.

And it's just incredibly fun every night. He does look good in these suits. He has a very youthful face. Yeah, he does. And so I think that that's part of – but he is lit well here. And I don't say that like he's like weirdly baby-faced. He's not like – he doesn't have a weird baby face. It's not like Kyle Seger has a weird baby face.

Anyway, that's not the point of this conversation. But, you know, he is tall and strapping and he looks good in this suit. I also appreciate that, at least in what I am seeing of this, that they are putting him in a baseball context for his suit wearing. They're like, here's Otani sitting in the stands of a ballpark because he is a baseball guy. So that is nice. I don't quite know how we make him more famous.

I think that the Angels making the postseason would really help. So that's a thing. But yeah, it's just a, it's an incredible combination of things. You mentioned our combined ward leader boards. If you filter this down just on the American League, he is currently, he sits at sixth. down just on the american league he is currently he sits at sixth he is tied with jd martinez and nathan yevaldi and john means for 1.8 wins and again like we are still at the point in the year where it is it is silly to get sort of overly fussed about minute differences in war just everyone don't be don't be overly fussed about that Not important to be fussed at this point in the year. But I do wonder if he remains productive like this throughout the course of the year.

And let's assume that Trout's IL stint, assuming he has one, which it seems likely that he will, is brief. And so you have Trout and Bogarts and Guerrero and hopefully Byron Buxton again at some point. But if he's sort of tracking with the position player part of this group, because then we also have Garrett Cole up at the top with 2.64. I do wonder, he's clearly going to be in the MVP conversation if this all continues. Yeah. He was getting MVP chants from Angels fans who also get to see Mike Trout. Yeah. It's not the worst for you all, but it could be better. I want to acknowledge that you get a lot of good stuff, but also there's been a weird hard stretch here.

So sorry, Angels fans. come the end of the year, if he is, say, you know, slightly behind the rest of this group from a total war perspective, and presumably, you know, maybe a win or so behind them from a position player war perspective, how will voters treat what he's doing? I think that a lot of people will be appropriately impressed, even if there is something of a gap between his war and the war of someone like, you know, my trout or Bogarts or Greer or whoever else might, you know, spike from this group because it's just so cool. Yeah, it is. I don't know how to convey that more than we have. I hope our listeners understand why this is so cool.

But just the larger audience that is inexplicably not listening to Effectively Wild every day may not recognize just the level of difficulty of what he is pulling off here. Because it just seems like it could be a kind of crossover story in a way that Mike Trout, much as we love him, much as we appreciate him, is not and probably can't be because you need some understanding of baseball, really, to appreciate the ways in which Mike Trout is good're like, no, he does both of the things. He does all of the things as well as anyone. And I just feel fortunate because this is the peak Otani experience that we are getting here. And yeah, we need to see it extended over a full season

and hopefully multiple seasons. Like he has to prove he can stay healthy doing this, but like, this is what we've been waiting for. Like, I don't know how much better it could be than this. Like this is what we've been waiting for like i don't know how much better it could be than this like this is pretty much the best case scenario what we were seeing him do from week to week here and yeah it'd be nice to see him have his command as a pitcher and go deeper into games as he did in his last start and hopefully that's a harbinger of more work like that but if he can keep that up and keep hitting as well as he is

and sustain that over a full season, this is what we've been dreaming about since he was doing the same thing in Japan. So I really hope this can continue and that he can stay healthy. But I'm happy for keeping the faith and holding out hope that we would see this again during a few years where it looked like we might not. I wonder if part of it is, so like right now, if you look at the starter war leaderboard and you drop the minimum number of innings, right, because he doesn't have qualifying innings just yet. So like the way that you would say it, I would say is, hey, you're a casual baseball fan. You're not a reader of fan graphs. So you're probably not really that concerned with pitching metrics outside of ERA, for instance. You might be like, I don't care about any of the ones but ERA because that's what I

use. You would say Shohei Otani has the same ERA as Max Scherzer. So that would be the first thing you'd say. You'd be like, you know who Max Scherzer is. You remember that World Series because that's the thing that you as a casual fan watch. And so you probably remember Max Scherzer. Well, Shohei Otani has the same ERA as Max Scherzer. And you might go, oh, that's very impressive. And then the other thing you would say is that he has a better WRC Plus because this is a weird baseball fan who knows ERA only, but also knows

WRC Plus. I've constructed a non-person, but here, we're going to go with that. You would say, hey, he has a better WRC Plus than Justin Turner, right? You'd say that. You'd be like, wow. And they go, wow, that's cool. And then you would say to them, and you know another thing he has? He has the major league lead in home runs more than Ronald Acuna Jr. and Aaron Judge. You could throw Mitch Hanegar in there, but again- That's a pretty good selling point. Yeah. Casual baseball fan probably maybe doesn't know Mitch Hanegar, but probably definitely knows who Aaron Judge is and Ronald Acuna Jr.

And you'd say, same, has the league lead in home runs better than those two guys. And I think that that would be a pretty compelling case that this is like an amazing abnormality that we should all be appreciating. And it seems to me. Yeah. But also it seems like it should have potential to people who do not watch baseball, not even considered casual fans of baseball, who would say Justin Turner, who Max Scherzer, who? Just even for that level of sports fan or non-sports fan, just because I've had the experience of getting interested in and briefly following other sports that I don't typically pay attention to when someone is really doing something extraordinary. So I enjoy watching Steph Curry or something even as a non-really NBA fan just because he's so much fun to watch and he's doing things that no one else has done. And so that kind of, look at what

Steph Curry is doing, look at what Serena Williams is doing, look at what Tiger Woods is doing. These kinds of figures who transcend their sport because they're dominating the field to such an extent, or they're doing something totally different different or the kind of Bo Jackson who is just crossing over multiple sports audiences like Otani it seems like should have could have that kind of appeal if he keeps this up and I hope that will be the case where people who would not normally pay attention to baseball will be seduced by the story of this guy who throws as hard as anyone and hits as hard as anyone and can just do it all in a way that hasn't been done for decades or centuries. So it seems like there's still some room for growth when it comes to Otani's celebrity.

And he also just seems like a really likable person, at least from afar. We don't get that many glimpses of his personality kind of through quotes and everything. Sometimes we do, but he's very expressive. His face, his body, like he's easy to like and to root for if you watch him regularly and gets gift a lot. So I think there's something there. It's not even just purely the skills.

It's also the personality and the appearance and everything and if you're a fan of fashion maybe you can get into otani now that he is a hugo boss spokesman i was looking i was looking at the angels subreddit responses to this little video of otani modeling suits and such and And my wife was looking at all of the comments of people lusting after Otani. And she's like, how many of these are your burners? And I'm like, I'm not above being horny on mean for Shohei Otani, at least when it comes to his baseball skills. I've been doing that for years. So yeah, I'm just saying he could be a crossover star. So whatever we can do to bring more attention and celebrity to show, hey, I'm in favor of. And it really did drive home probably, I'm sure you saw this tweet, but maybe the best baseball tweet I've ever seen, probably a personal favorite of mine, at least. This was sent by Matt at Mattatomic on Twitter on Sunday night.

And he said, every time I see an Angels highlight, it's like Mike Trout hit three home runs and raised his average to 528 while Shohei Otani did something that hasn't been done since Tungsten R. Moe Doyle of the 1921 Akron Groomsmen as the Tigers defeated the Angels 8-3. That has 3,000 retweets as we speak and should have many more than that because I felt so seen by that tweet because that is exactly the experience of following the Angels this year. And it works on multiple levels too because in this scenario, Mike Trout hit three home runs and the Angels lost eight to three. So all of the runs are coming from Mike Trout. They lost to the Tigers who were supposed to be like the worst team in baseball. This tweet just works on so many levels and it really is watching the Angels. It's like, oh, Mike Trout did his routinely amazing thing. Shohei Ohtani did something that no one has done since

1920 or whatever. And the Angels lost. It's sad that that keeps happening, and it won't be better if Mike Trout is gone for any extended period of time. At least Anthony Rendon is back here so that it could be a trio, not just a duo of players doing great things. But anyway, that just totally captured my experience as someone who pays pretty close attention to the Angels because of these two guys. And it's just, you know, that really drives home like baseball. It's a team sport, but it's, you know, as they say, an individual sport masquerading as a team sport. And it's a sport where one great player is not enough, and even two great players often not enough. And so despite their heroics, you need a rest of the rest or two.

And that has historically been the Angels' problem. That has been the downfall. Yeah, I appreciated. Appreciate might be the wrong word because it bummed me out. But Mike Petriello tweeted not long ago, Trout and Otani are alone worth 64 of angels war this year throw in walsh that's matt walsh and that trio is 85 of all angels war this is by the fangrass version what you want not yep no no yeah it's almost as if albert bullhouse didn't pitch

right a few other things so we were just talking about injuries. And one way to avoid injuries is to not punch a bench and break your hand. Some broken hands are unavoidable, right? And others are avoidable. And yet for so many major leaguers, seemingly not. So I'm talking about Waskari Noah here, who was really a big boon to the Braves who were shorthanded and missing Mike Sirocca. And he was pitching really well and hitting well at times too. And then he had a little bit of a rough outing this weekend, gave up five runs, got pulled in the fifth, and he punched a dugout bench and he now has a fracture and will be out for a couple months. And I think Brian Snicker said something like, you know, no one feels worse than he does, which is true because he broke his hand and that probably hurt. And also he probably feels bad

about breaking his hand because it hurts the Braves and hurts his career and everything. But it really is like not to pile on, but it is amazing to me how often this happens. This happens so often. You know, I joined a long line of distinguished pitchers who have just in a moment of anger punched something and hurt themselves. And I guess it's not surprising because it's just an instinctive reaction and we all get frustrated and not everyone expresses that frustration through a physical action. But it's not surprising that this would happen from time to time.

But if you're a pitcher, I always just think that's your instrument. That is your moneymaker. That is your ticket to a major league job and millions of dollars and fame and all the rest of it. to a major league job and millions of dollars and fame and all the rest of it. And I just feel like if I were a major league pitcher, like I'd be going around with my hand in some sort of protective case or something like George Costanza in the Seinfeld episode where he's a hand model and he's wearing like oven mitts and mittens around. It's like that is your bread and butter. It just seems like over the years, you might have tamped down that impulse to punch things with your pitching hand. I don't know. It's not really a result of conscious thought and deliberation. That's the problem. It's not like he was thinking, should I punch this dugout bench? I'll probably be fine. No, he just lashed out in a moment of anger. But it's happened to so many pitchers, I guess Kevin Brown being the

most notable example, but there are just so, so many over the years who've punched something or other and have broken something or cut something and missed some time. And you would think there'd be some sort of mandatory non-punching seminar for pitchers or something. How do we train them? When you get frustrated and you have to lash out, kick something. Just don't use your hand. Your hand is pretty important. So I don't know. This has been going on forever and maybe it's just something you can't drill out of someone, but it's a bummer for him and a bummer for the Braves who really needed him too. Well, and it's just so funny because I think there are plenty of pitchers who make, you know, like really thoughtful and sort of proactive choices about

activities they don't do during the season to minimize the risk of that. Like I remember, and I wrote about this like a million years ago for Baseball Perspectives on the short relief side. I remember discovering that Sashee Wakuma really loves cooking. He had an Instagram post where he loves cooking and making dumplings, but his wife doesn't let him cook during the season because she's worried he'll injure his hands, right? That he'll cut his finger or burn his finger or whatever. Do the things that we all do in the kitchen from time to time. And he loves cooking, but he denies himself that hobby during the season because he's worried it will interfere with his ability to do his job. And so I think that there's all this careful planning. There are contract clauses about things that guys can't do during the season because they risk injury in sort of an extreme way. And so they, you know, they risk violating the terms

of their major league deals. And they, you know, they ask permission to climb mountains and do all kinds of stuff. And sometimes they're in rodeos and we don't know. And that's weird. But, you know, they do all this stuff to try to preserve themselves. But yeah, in the moment when they are met with extreme frustration, they don't always have the tools to like breathe and calm themselves down and avoid these kinds of injuries. And I'm sure they end up feeling very, very silly because it's just so easy to not punch things. It's funny, like I find it to be pretty easy. I find it easy, but you're right. Like it isn't, maybe it isn't easy for everyone. And so it seems like there should be some, there should be some instruction given to help, you know, like when this is kind of a weird

way to relate it, but like, you know, when, when my parents got divorced and I was a young kid and I went to therapy to like help me process that my therapist talked about like building your emotional toolbox, right? You, you arm yourself with the tools you need to process things in a healthy way so that you're not destructive to yourself and you're not destructive to other people and you're able to work through things in a way that doesn't deny the feeling but allows you to handle it in a way that is healthier and more productive. And so I think that perhaps what it suggests is that there are some guys who would benefit from adding tools to their toolbox so that they don't punch stuff and then end up on the Android list because they broke the fingies. You know,

frustrated at video games, right? And then they break the fingies and then they can't pitch and everyone's like, don't you feel so silly? And it's like, I'm sure they do. But you got to learn, we're not innately good at managing our emotions or regulating them. Sometimes we need a little help to figure out how to do that. Yeah. And I know that we have maybe a job that is less stressful in some ways or maybe not less stressful. I get furious about split infinitives, Ben. Just furious. I don't. That's a dumb grammar rule. Split all your infinitives. Sometimes it sounds better. Yes, it does. But if we fail to make a point on the podcast or something, we're probably not going to sign off and start punching our desk or something. It's just the adrenaline is not flowing in quite the same way. It's not a spectator experience in quite the same way.

So I get why players are more prone to that kind of reaction than we might be in our day-to-day. And if it's not something that you can train out of players, then maybe we need to go to padded walls everywhere. Maybe everything needs to be padded. Just pad the benches. I mean, it's probably more comfortable to sit on them anyway if they're padded. Pad all the walls. Make it so that the next time a pitcher punches something, he can't hurt them from punching, then maybe we can minimize the harm that comes to them from punching. And you wouldn't even have to pad that many surfaces because by the time they walk away for a while, they're going to cool down. They're probably not going to punch something when they get home. So you really have to, it's like the prime punching location is right after they come off the field. So if you just pad the dugout, pad the tunnel on the way to the dugout, you're

probably covered. By the time they get past that point, they've probably settled down enough that they can express their frustration in a less damaging way. So, yeah, I think that might be a competitive advantage. That might be a good workplace safety solution. Just pad everything within a few steps of the field. pad everything within a few steps of the field. Within the course of our podcast, we have constructed a designated feelings booth so that folks can have their feelings out loud, but not at someone because sometimes that hurts other people's feelings, but you don't want to bottle them up or they come out sideways. And we've also padded all of the surfaces. I mean, I think that

we're onto something like we just, you know, there's a lot at stake for these guys. And I understand that they can get really, you know, tied into it and worked up. And it doesn't always lead to the most sort of thought through decision-making in the moment. And so we should give them tools and a soft surface. So they can go, and then they'll punch it. And I bet they'll feel a lot better.

You know, there are a lot of people who do, it's like when you lift weights and then you're like, ah, I lifted something heavy and now I feel better. And that's weird. It's weird how our brains work. But sometimes that happens, punching a thing. A lot of people who enjoy, you know, they have a hard day and they might have a punching bag or a little speed bag and they go and do that and then they feel better.

They are able to sort of excise the worst parts of the feeling. I think you're on to something, Ben. Yeah, right. So either protective padding or something that they can punch safely. Like, yeah, hang a speed bag there so that you don't have to do the Brett Gardner and jam your bat onto the dugout ceiling or something. There's something there explicitly for punching. Punching is approved, even encouraged, blow off some steam in a safe and healthy way.

I'd like it to be in the dugout so that we can watch them do it. Oh, yes. Yes, I agree. All right. So just a couple other things. The other thing that we were requested to speak about is Jermaine Mercedes hitting a home run off of Williams-Estadio. So he took Williams' 47-mile- this is Bush League. Absolutely Bush League. He should be beamed. He should be suspended. How dare he swing 3-0 up 11 runs off Williams' Estadillo. off Williams-Estadillo. Normally, I don't make much of a stink about unwritten rules, but when you come for Williams like this, then I turn on you.

No, of course, I'm fine with this. And I think if you're putting Williams-Estadillo in a game to pitch to someone, you are already declaring the game over. You're not going to win. Yeah, you're surrendering. I mean, all due respect to Williams and his repertoire,

which I greatly enjoy. But I think anything goes once Williams has to do is in the game on the mound. So I do not fault your mean Mercedes for padding the score and his own stats here. Although I'm sorry it came at the expense of Williams. I think it was delightful. Everything about it was great. They are both strong squat sorts, and I liked every minute of it. I know that the Twins broadcast got fussy about this, but whatever. You're right. When you put in a position player, and he is a guy who throws like Astadio does, you have forfeited without forfeiting. And so this is a thing that happens sometimes when you forfeit without forfeiting. And it was delightful. And it was one of the things that people ask that we do an emergency pod about. And here we are doing a regular pod about it instead.

But 47, I mean, he was just throwing batting practice. It was great. It's fantastic. Yeah. That may have been a bit slow for batting practice. Yeah, fair enough. With batting practice, he would have been throwing that from closer to the plate, so it would have seemed faster. But yeah, the previous slowest track pitch that was hit for a home run was actually not much faster than this last year. DJ LeMayhew hit a home run on a 48.7 mile per hour pitch, but it's pretty rare. I mean, A, there aren't that many pitches that are thrown that slowly, but also pitch velocity does supply some of exit velocity, although not most of it. So it does make it a little bit harder to hit the home run, but

clearly doable here. And it was delightful in many respects, though not so delightful, I suppose, for the Twins, who we talked about last time. And since our last discussion, they have lost three of four, including that blowout loss to the White Sox. And yeah, it's looking even bleaker than it was the last time we talked. They're 13 and 26 now. Their playoff odds are down to 7.1%, 4.2% to win the division, and everything's going wrong. It's not just the bad luck with

sequencing and Manfred Ball that we've discussed. It goes beyond that, and it's also lack of durability in a fragile lineup, and Byron Buxton is out for a while longer and other guys are hurt and Kirilov was supposed to help and then he got hurt and there aren't that many guys in that lineup you can count on to stay healthy and then the staff isn't striking guys out the way that they were last year and some of the losses seem to have hurt them and the bullpen hasn't been great and Maeda is not replicating his 2020 performance and the absence of Rich Hill is hurting the back of that rotation there. They're giving up a lot of hard contact and don't have the defense without Buxton to deal with that. So it's not great.

And yeah, I don't know whether they're at the point of like becoming surprise sellers or whether it's still too soon for that i i think joshian noted that they have some series coming up later this month against easy opponents in theory and that that might decide whether they cut bait or decide to stay in here i i still think it's a pretty talented team but they have dug a deep hole here and the White Sox are good. And even Cleveland has not been bad. And even the Tigers are ahead of the Twins right now. I don't think that'll continue to be the case. But, you know, do you start to have a discussion about like, you know, trading some guys? And I don't know who exactly.

Like, it's not like their window is closed or anything that they can't come back next year and compete again if this is the end of their hopes for this season. But you look at, I don't know, Simmons or Pineda or Robles or even Nelson Cruz, if there's a destination out there for him somewhere where you start to look at, maybe there are some short-term players on this roster here who might be moved, but maybe possibly premature. I just, I didn't think we'd be having this discussion about the twins, let alone in mid-May. Yeah. It's such a strange, it's just such a strange turn of events and you're right. It goes beyond just bad sequencing luck at this point. And so, yeah, I do wonder if they'll trade Nelson Cruz to the Dodgers. Yeah, why not?

they'll trade Nelson Cruz to the Dodgers. Yeah, why not? But yeah, I do think that they will be a really interesting deadline case, although Joe makes a good point, like who knows what it's going to look like in a couple of weeks. But things are bad, and if they do go on sort of a tear through a soft part of the schedule, I wonder how much that changes their decision making because on the one hand, the constituent elements here in theory should be be good but i don't think that it is just a matter of sequencing so i don't

quite know what their posture will be going into july but man it's such a weird it's such a strange thing like i i get why it's going badly but i still find myself kind of stunned that it is going this badly like the mariners have a better record than the twins you should trade nelson cruz to the mariners okay i've solved it that's the thing that's what we're gonna go with send nelly back to seattle there we go yeah well i hope their fortunes turn around it it really couldn't be worse than it's been to this point so sorry for twins fans who usually save their suffering for October. They're getting it out of the way early this year.

And I guess the upside is that you don't have to worry about a postseason sweep if you don't qualify for the postseason. So there's that. They have fewer wins than the Rockies. Oof. Yeah, it's bleak. That's not the best. I mean, the Rockies have more losses, but they have fewer wins than the Rockies.

While we're on the subject of the White Sox, just want to do my daily update of Yasmany Grandal's slash line. Spectacular. White Sox catcher Yasmany Grandal is now batting 132, 387, 316. That is good for a 117 WRC+. So he's been 17% better than a weak average Hitter while batting 132 that's pretty impressive Wild stuff

Courtesy of a 29.5% walk rate Like you'd think eventually Like he will have to prove that he can Hit some pitches Oh yeah you would think that So that pitchers will not keep throwing balls to him No matter how selective he is Like if he doesn't you know Oh, yeah, you would think that. power this year on the rare occasions when he hasn't been walked in his actually had some batted balls. So it's a strange one. It's like partly a product of just how out of whack the

offensive environment is that batting averages are lower than ever, but you know, he's still batting like a hundred points below the already low league average and making it work for him. So it's a weird one. I hope he can sustain this because it would be weird to see him do something like this for a full season. I imagine his BABIP will come up from 128 as the season wears on. Maybe the pitchers are intimidated by his 390X WOBA.

They're like, oh boy. Got some hidden WOBA in there. Got to be on the watch for that hidden Woba. I just enjoy saying Woba. I do, too. Ex-Woba. Ex-Woba con. Yeah.

Yeah. Although, I will point out to all you stat writers out there, the correct stylization is for the con to be in lowercase. You can't sneak an O bacon through. I know you're all trying. I know you Van Graff's ones are in particular, but the correct stylization, the con is lowercase. Sorry. If you insist. And while we're talking about White Sox hitters and White Sox home runs,

we should just briefly mention that Nick Madrigal hit his first major league homer, which now that I think about it, someone I think also requested an emergency podcast about. Don't think we have an episode's worth of material on that, but I was happy to see him hit it. We know now that he does not just have warning track power. And just to follow up on our flopping framing discussion one more time, probably, we thought we had dispensed with this last time, but we talked on a recent email episode about the difference between flopping in basketball, diving in soccer, and framing in baseball. And one of the distinctions we drew or that a listener drew that we read the email from last time was that flopping, at least according to this listener, is basically trying to get

away with something that you shouldn't get away with, whereas framing can often just be an action that's taken on a deserved strike. We talk a lot about framing as it applies to pitches that should not be strikes that are made into strikes, but often it's about not surrendering strikes and making pitches look good that actually are good and presenting them in such a way that umpires recognize that, yes, they actually are in the strike zone. So you can frame any pitch, whereas the discussion we were having about flopping sort of presupposed that flopping takes place when a penalty is not deserved, when there isn't actually physical contact. And that's what a number of people wrote in to kind of quibble with that. And I will just read one email here from Shyam who wrote in to say

in episode 1694, there was a point discussed that flopping in basketball, soccer, et cetera, is exclusively a means to steal a call, unlike in baseball where it can preserve a strike, which could be obscured by poor catcher presentation. I'm not sure I fully agree with that, that flopping is a strictly negative action. While I don't have the data to back this up, I'd argue that the degree of contact between players during at least some flops does warrant a foul being called. And the foul is only called because of the exaggerated reaction by the fouled player. It's no secret that over the course of a soccer match or basketball game, there's plenty of foul worthy contact that goes uncalled for any number of reasons. called for any number of reasons. So isn't this the same principle that a flop or any physically exaggerated reaction to a legal contact is also just preserving the call? We tend to lump all

exaggerated reactions together as flops, but I think the reality is that a decent number are, in fact, fouls and at least a portion wouldn't be called without the referee being forced to process the player's reaction. So I think that is a good point. Here is what I wrote back to him. I said, I guess it depends on your definition of flopping. Right. That sentence cites an article at NBA.com that defines flopping as the art of falling down when little or no contact was made in an effort to trick referees into calling a foul. Those definitions make it sound as if flopping can only occur on plays when there wasn't a legitimate foul, whereas framing or receiving or presenting or whatever we want to call it can occur on any pitch, including deserved strikes. It can occur on any pitch, including deserved strikes. So if the player hands it up a little more than he has to, but there really was foul worthy contact when there actually was, but they might not have recognized it unless you, you know, sort of exaggerate your these definitional nuances because you need a word for flopping as we commonly understand flopping. But I think that we probably also need a word for assisting the ref with a call they should have made, but that's a mouthful. So we need a word. Right. Yeah. Also, as is so often the case,

when we talk about something on the podcast, there is almost immediately afterward a perfect example of it happening in baseball. So this happened in a game where Elvis Andres kind of flopped, basically, for lack of a better word, where he drew a call. He was tagged or there was contact made. He was in a rundown between third and home. And the catcher kind of made contact with him, but like barely. It was very weak incidental contact and he flopped basically. He fell, you know, he made it look like he was just bodily shoved in a way that he wasn't. And he drew the call. He got the obstruction call from the ump. So it worked in that case. So that

was kind of an example of flopping in baseball, which is rarer. You see deception in baseball, you see guys trying to sell a catch when they actually just trapped it and they didn't catch it. That's an example of trying to pull the wool over an umpire's eyes. This was pretty much straight up flopping and it worked well for Andrus and this just happened to happen right after we talked about it. I enjoyed how sheepish he looked at the end of it. He knew he kind of got away from it. Like, oh, I didn't expect that to work. Yep. And last thing as we speak, Nick Castellanos has not yet been suspended, I don't believe, speak, Nick Castellanos has not yet been suspended, I don't believe, for his actions or I guess inactions. But this was kind of entertaining too. On Saturday night, Castellanos hit a home run

against the Rockies in Colorado. And after the homer, he fist bumped a Reds fan who was sitting close to the field. And it turned out that just before the homer, the fan said something to Castellanos and no one knew what it was at the time. But after the game, Castellanos had a postgame interview with the Reds postgame show. And rather than answer himself, he had the fan come up and speak for him. And the fan said, so I told Nick when he got up there that he should imagine that Rob Manfred's face was on the baseball. And the next pitch, he lit it up over the fence, baby. And Nick Castellanos just stood there smiling and with his arms folded, trying to kind of get the message across without saying anything that would get him suspended. So as we speak, he has gotten away with that too. I don't know whether Rob Manfred will allow this or whether he will crack down on Castellanos for appearing to sanction the idea of smashing Rob Manfred's face, which to be clear, whatever quibbles we have with the commissioner, we do not advocate hitting him with a baseball bat. But I appreciated the cleverness of Castellanos getting his message

across here. And Castellanos, of course, took issue with MLB suspending him early in the year for some over-exuberance, perhaps, which helped incite a bench-clearing incident against the Cardinals. But he didn't actually do anything. He didn't get his hands dirty, didn't hit anyone with a baseball bat, and did not love the fact that he was suspended while some others were not. So he has a bone to pick with Rod Manfred, and clearly he approved of the fans' message here. So it was a creative way of expressing his disapproval without actually bringing the ban hammer down on him, at least for now. I think he was just facilitating reporting on the part of the Reds postgame show

and also was engaged in some fan engagement in the process. And yes, we do not sanction the hitting of faces with bats or balls or really anything. But I imagine this will get left alone because sometimes the way to get people to stop talking about something is to not escalate it further. Yeah. It seems like a suspension here would kind of cause a Streisand effect where everyone would view this clip many more times than it has already been viewed. Exactly.

Sometimes we should be strategic and just let things go because they don't matter. I have never failed at this charge. I am perfect in every way. Oh, and I also enjoyed Chris Bryant leaving a Twix bar for Kyle Schwarber in the outfield. Did you see that? He left the Twix bar for him in the field and Schwarber picked it up and ate it and he hit a home run shortly after. So I think this was nice. Like sometimes you see fielders will bring a glove out for someone. They're not allowed to leave their gloves out there anymore. That rule changed years ago, as we've discussed.

But that's nice. Leave a little present for a teammate, a little mid-game nourishment. And it seems like the sugar rush may have helped him hit that home run. So I think we should be leaving little treats around the field for our teammates and i guess it would be bad if a ball bounced off the twix bar or something but the odds against that are pretty good so i enjoyed that just uh seeing a snack left on the field for a player who seemed to enjoy it yeah there were a couple of nice reunions in the in the first game of that series, so it was nice.

All right, well, that's all I've got. Hopefully we can avoid any emergency podcast-worthy incidents between now and the next time we talk. Everyone behave yourselves. And keep your face out of the way of any pictures. Protect your face. Take care of your face and behave yourselves. Well, a lot has happened since we finished recording.

The good news is that Shohei homered again, his 14th of the season. He also singled and walked. The Angels lost anyway, which made it even more appropriate that The Onion published a story on Tuesday night with the headline, Shohei Otani regrets not researching which teams were good before signing with Angels. Pretty apt at this particular time. But that loss wasn't the worst news for the Angels, unfortunately. Mike Trout got the results of his MRI, and they were not great.

His right calf strain is expected to cost him six to eight weeks. At least. It sounds bad. He's on crutches. Joe Maddon mentioned August as a possible return time. Just in time for his birthday, I guess. And the injury itself seems so innocuous if you've seen the footage. He was on second and there were two outs and there was a pop-up and he

just started toward third. He wasn't going all out. He was just kind of running out a routine out and somehow he stepped the wrong way and got this serious muscle strain. That's obviously a big blow to the Angels and a big blow to baseball fans and us because we like to track Trout's career so closely. He entered Tuesday tied with Byron Buxton for the lead among position players for war at Fangraphs. He was leading in OPS, and now he's going to be gone, possibly for a couple months. And the injuries are really adding up. He is still as great as ever when he's on the field, but he misses a chunk of games every year. From 2013 to 2016, he played 157 games, and then 157, 159, 159. But since then, 114, 140, 134, and then 53 in the 60-game season last year. assume that he comes back at the early end of that range

after six weeks he will have missed 24 percent of possible games since 2017 and 34 percent if you add in the missed games because of the pandemic so you're talking about four or five seasons there a big chunk of his prime where you're lopping off a quarter to a third of his potential playing time and that's bad because we want to see him on the field and we want to see him make the playoffs, which will be tough for the Angels to do if he is missing this amount of time. And we want to see him challenge records. We want to see him set single season war records and go after career war records. And that's tough to do when he's not on the field. That best through age X fun fact that was so good for so long with him doesn't work anymore, both because of the

injuries and because of the pandemic. There are others ahead of him. So that's a shame. I don't know if it is age related or if it's conditioning related or if it's just a bunch of bad luck. I don't know if the Angels would make the playoffs with him. So the real cost is to the Mike Trout fun facts and to Trout himself and to fans who enjoy watching him play. So here's hoping he'll be back as soon as possible and pick up where he left off. I should note that home run records also at stake with Trout. We tend to focus on the war with him, but he has 310 homers too, so he's going after some big numbers. Anyway, I hope that the lack of durability in the second half of his 20s is not a sign of things to come in his 30s. Because again, game for game, he's as good as ever, if not better.

I just wish we could see him really max out that productivity by playing every day. Oh, and there was also another no-hitter, Jan. No, congrats to the Tigers' Spencer Turnbull. But really, I've lost count. What is this, five? Not counting the Bumgarner seven-inning non-no-no? This is the second time the Mariners have been no-hit, and they're now batting 199 as a team.

I don't know what else to say. Move the mound back? Have you heard me say that before? The other bit of news is Tony La Russa-related. I was kidding earlier when I trotted out the Bush League unwritten rules stuff related to Jermaine Mercedes' home run off of Williams-Estadillo. Meg and I really didn't dwell on it, I think because we were both thinking and hoping it would just be a non-controversy. It certainly was one to us, but boy has that surfaced again, and I know that Williams maybe wasn't pleased with that home run, but the most displeased person appears to be Tony La Russa, which was of course completely predictable because he had exactly the same reaction to Fernando Tatis' infamous 3-0 swing last year when La Russa said it's just not sportsmanlike,

and he reiterated that at his introductory press conference as White Sox manager. Going on about sportsmanship and you don't run up the score, so he certainly told us what his priorities would be, and the anti-3-0 swinging reaction to the Tatis swing was just so swift and forceful that I allowed myself to hope that we wouldn't keep having to have this same conversation every time this happened. And I thought we might get away without it this time too. But Tony La Russa, of course, comes from a different era of baseball and he carries that era's sensibilities with him.

And so in his pregame Zoom on Tuesday, he said that Mercedes made a mistake. There will be a consequence that he has to endure here within our family, but it won't happen again because Joe McEwing will be on the lookout and I will be too and we'll go running in front of the pitcher if we have to. Curious to see what the consequence is that Mercedes will have to endure within the family. Sounds sinister. Mercedes, for his part, said, I'm going to play like that. I'm your mean. I can't be another person because if I change it, everything's going to change. And La Russa said, I heard he said something like, I play my game. No, he doesn't. He plays the game of Major League Baseball, respects the game, respects the opponents, and he's got to respect the signs. So apparently, Mercedes swung through a take sign. And to be fair, swinging through a take sign is a little less acceptable. The manager has to maintain some authority, so you don't want your players in open

revolt like that. But then again, why are you putting on the take sign there, if not for the unwritten rules, which are pretty silly. Anyway, Mercedes said, we're just having fun, it's baseball. But La Russa, not having as much fun, and can't just let us all have fun. Watching Mercedes, who's been one of baseball's best stories this season, it's sportsmanship, respect for the game, respect for your opponent, now he's got a clue, La Russa said. He apologized to the Twins. And I saw some people suggesting, well, maybe he's just trying to appease Minnesota so that the Twins don't throw at Mercedes. Maybe he's protecting his player in a way. Yeah, I don't think so. Again, he told us coming in how he was going to handle

this sort of situation, and then he handled it in exactly that way. And the pregame comments weren't the worst part. So in the game, which the Twins won, so hey, Twins won a game against the White Sox, good for them, despite two more walks and a home run by Yasmany Grundahl, but Twins pitcher Tyler Duffy threw behind Mercedes, wasn't at his head or anything, but obviously sending a signal there, and somewhat riskier than a typical pitch, Duffy was ejected. Rocco Baldelli was ejected. And did La Russa defend his player? Object to the Twins' treatment of him? No, he did not.

Just the opposite, in fact. He said, I don't have a problem with how the Twins handled it. So just to recap here, La Russa publicly called out a player who's been great for the White Sox all season, took the Twins' side both before and after they threw behind Mercedes, and talked about punishing him more than protecting him, even in the aftermath of all of the hit-by-pitches that Meg and I discussed earlier in the episode, and all of the injuries that have happened because of them. I just can't imagine that this went over well in the White Sox clubhouse,

which reportedly was already dissatisfied with some of Lurusa's moves. You have Lance Lynn, for instance, who came up with the Cardinals under Lurusa, who said, the more I play this game, the more those rules have gone away and I understand it. The way I see it is for position players on the mound, there are no rules. Let's get the damn game over with. And if you have a problem with whatever happens, then put a pitcher out there. That's the way I see it. Can't get mad when there's a position player on the field and a guy takes a swing. I 100% agree with Lance Lynn. You can't talk about the sportsmanship of swinging on 3-0 when you're putting a backup catcher on the mound. You're already not taking it seriously at that point, and why should Mercedes sacrifice his

stats? Which affects how he gets paid, just for the sake of not running up the score. Rocco Baldelli was running up the score when he put William Tostadio on the mound. Anyway, this is so silly. I saw White Sox pitcher Evan Marshall had liked some tweets that were critical of La Russa before the game. Tim Anderson commented on Instagram, the game wasn't over, keep doing you big daddy. I'd have to think that this clubhouse is more on Mercedes's side than La Russa's, so we will see what the fallout from that will be. Maybe Meg and I will discuss this at greater length next time, but you know, someone tweeted at us to do an emergency episode on this too, so figured I'd better bring it up here. All right, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash

effectively wild. 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. Mdub, Kate Kraske, Kellogg Horn, Matt Hawkins, and Matthew Moon. Thanks to all of you. You can rate, podcast going and get themselves access to some perks mdub kate kraski kellogg horn matt hawkins and matthew moon thanks to all of you 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 via email at podcast of vangrass.com or via the patreon messaging system if you are a supporter you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. I never say this, but you can follow the podcast on Twitter at EW pod. You can also follow Meg at Meg growler, or maybe me growler, and you can find me at

Ben Lindbergh. Smash Mouth just tweeted an article of mine. Big day, almost emergency podcast worthy. They're effectively wild favorites from a long time ago. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. I will play you out here with Minor Threats in my eyes in honor of Kevin Pillar surviving a pitch to the face, but also in hopes that hearing this might improve your MLB TV viewing.

We got an email from listener Ed who said, I hope someone has already pointed out that the annoying MLB TV bump riff is nearly identical to the guitar riff from Minor Threat's 1981 straight edge punk anthem, In My Eyes. You might hate hearing the bump less if you associate it with a great song. I know I do. I don't know if I will, but Ed is right. It's quite close. Just listen. You tell me you like the taste You just need an excuse You tell me it comes in handy You just think it looks cool

You tell me you wanna be different You just change for the same You tell me you want to be different. You just change what I say. You tell me it's only natural. You just need the road.