Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1722: One Month Without Sticky Stuff

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the length of the baseball season (and postseason) compared to other sports’, whether Shohei Ohtani ever grows frustrated with his mere-mortal teammates, the prolific predictions of the Rockies’ Mike Redmond, a possible modification to the zombie-runner rule, an update on the Marlins’ run differential, a story about a […]

🎵 What we're having is strong Oh, it's been so long Been so long Hello and welcome to episode 1722 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? I'm alright. How are you? I'm... I'm well. I think we should spread the

baseball events out. Which ones? All of them. They should happen farther apart from one another so that people are less sleepy, including me. Just all the games? You want more off days, longer season? No, I want, well, I actually think that we would all benefit from just having the entire month of August off. Sure. Like we should go European and do that. But no, I mean, like, you know, did you know that the trade deadline is next Friday? Wow. Is it that soon?

That's really soon, Ben. It sure is. It sure is very soon. And, you know, the draft was really just last week, which seems impossible. So, you know, the compression of time seems to be accelerating, and I can't decide if it's age or if it's that they're actually closer together. I mean, I know they are actually closer together, but my experience of them seems heightened even still.

But other than that, I'm well. My how time flies. You know what does not fly? The NBA playoffs. The NBA playoffs are interminable. And I say this as someone who doesn't watch the NBA playoffs for the most part, but can't help but be aware of them. They've been going on for two months. Can you imagine if the MLB playoffs went on for two months?

I don't think you would survive. That's usually your busiest time of year, I know. And that sometimes feels pretty long in the NBA playoffs. They stretch on for twice as long. And that's a sport where you don't even need as many games to get a good gauge of true talent. So you're getting less information for each given game. And they just go and they go and they go.

And I guess that's great if you like the NBA and you like the NBA playoffs, but I'm just imagining what that would be like to cover and what it would be like in baseball. And I'm kind of relieved. So I ain't watching all that. I'm happy for you though, or sorry that happened. Well, as a new lifelong Suns fan, Ben, I'm horrified that you are not more excited for my Phoenix Suns. Yes, you want the season to go on at least one game longer as we speak here. That is true. But yes, they do go on for a bit. And I think the NHL playoffs seem to also go on for a bit.

But whenever I bring this up with basketball people, they're like, isn't your season like 162 games? Yeah, we can't really talk, I guess. Yeah, we're not really in a position to quibble. But yeah, everybody experiences their most special time of year in their own special way. And I think that we aren't really in a position to judge, although it did feel last year like the playoffs went on forever. But that was because we had a day where we had like eight playoff games.

Remember when we did that? 2020, man. We tried some stuff out that I think didn't work the best, Ben. I think it wasn't our finest effort just like as civilization. Well, baseball needs this many games just to figure out which guys are good and which teams are good. You just can't tell. So you really need to play 162 and then another month of playoffs just to figure out which

teams were actually good. And even then, sometimes that's not enough. Neil Payne once wrote about that at FiveThirtyEight, that in terms of the amount of information it gives you about the teams, an 82-game NBA schedule is equivalent to a 458-game MLB schedule, and that if the NBA wanted its standings to provide as much certainty about true talent as baseballs do, it would only have to play 29 game seasons. So, you know, they're the weird ones, not us. Speaking of teams that may not be good, I was wondering this. And he may be a saint. He has certainly performed multiple miracles. But I don't understand how he can maintain his seemingly happy, unbothered air most of the time while playing with a team that seems to squander all of his incredible efforts. Like, he is the major league leader in war, in both wars by quite a bit now, and also the major league leader in win probability added, but it is often not enough.

And I was struck by this, as I often am this weekend, because he performed more miracles, minor sports miracles. So on Sunday, he walked a couple times, he beat out a routine grounder to first base somehow, and then he also hit a home run and the Angels lost 7-4. And then on Monday, he started the game as the pitcher. He threw six scoreless innings, eight strikeouts. Great game. Then he also doubled while he was in the game as the pitcher still and almost drove in a run on that one. And then he moved to right field, as he sometimes does,

after he was finished pitching. And immediately, the relievers completely blew the game while he was still in watching from right field. And it was just like Steve Ciszek came in, and it went walk, walk, three-run homer. And suddenly, what had been a scoreless game up to that point was a 3-0 Angels deficit. And they ended up losing that game too. And so I saw Mike Petriello tweet that the Angels are now 8-6 when he is the starting pitcher, despite how good he generally has been, and 15-16 when he homers, which he does quite a lot. So it's just not enough. And Jeremy Frank also had a really unfun fact if you're an Angels fan or Shohei Otani. Here are the pitching stats for pitchers other than Otani when he has been in the outfield this year for seven and a third innings. He has stood in the outfield. He has yet to have a ball hit to him, which is one of the few disappointments of his season for me so far, but here's how the angels pitchers have done while he has watched in horror after leaving the mound and moving to the outfield.

Seventh, third innings pitched 14 runs allowed and a three 78, four 77, seven Oh two slash line. So it just immediately unravels when he leaves the game. And as patient as I'm sure he is, it just, it's got to wear on you after a certain time when you're having what could be the best season ever and your team just still

cannot climb above 500. Yeah. I mean, I suppose that, well, one, I'm sure he had some understanding of the potential downside scenarios when it came to the Angels when he signed. potential like downside scenarios when it came to the angels when he signed one would hope there is that onion article right that was right shohei otani regrets not researching which teams were good before signing with angels that's a three-year-old article that's from 2018 but it's still applicable yeah and there's that piece of it i mean i imagine that if one is in the market for advice for how to compartmentalize individual success within the context of broader team failure, who better for Otani to speak with than his own teammate, Mike Trout, right? So I imagine that there is some of that conversation. And, you know, like, I imagine that they are more candid with one another behind closed doors than they are on the field. And I think that part of your job as a player is to, you know, try to put on a good face when you're in public,

which isn't to say that you can't express frustration or that that's some sort of moral failing. But I do think these guys try to sort of present a united front as a team, that they are sort of marshalling together to try to move forward. And so you gain experience with that as you progress through your career. So it's not like he's without experience in that regard. And I also think that like, I don't want to call it delusion because that puts a judgment call on it that I don't mean to, but I think that there is a certain amount of unwarranted optimism that probably defines the experience of most professional athletes when they're at work, right? Because you're doing this really hard thing and there's so much that is

outside of your control that affects the ability of you and your teammates to advance to the playoffs and win a championship, right? And sometimes it's the rest and your teammates to advance to the playoffs and win a championship, right? And sometimes it's the rest of your teammates underperforming. Sometimes it's your own ligaments giving out, right? Your own body sort of crapping out on you. And Otani has some experience with that, right? So I imagine that he, you know, he's a human being and he is full of human feeling. And some of those human feelings include frustration

and irritation and perhaps anger at times but you know he probably also just thinks that that stuff should be addressed you know to his co-workers rather than in front of everyone else but yes it is it is sort of surprising just with Otani. I think this is surprising of professional athletes who are playing at the level that he is just generally and perhaps are surrounded by mediocrity that they do more often than not manage to seemingly channel frustration that is visible toward opponents or officials, right? opponents or officials right um and they managed to hold it in so you know we all have the experience of having to put on a good face although over the last year we are perhaps less less practice than we would otherwise be but yeah it was it was it was such a bummer because it was such a love it was such a great showing from him last night. And then it turned so fast. It's so fast.

Got one of those classic Otani fun facts, which I saw ESPN Stats and Info tweeted. Shohei Otani threw six scoreless innings last night and then moved to right field. He's the fourth player since 1900 to throw a scoreless start and play another position in the same game. And the last one wasn't even a real start. That was Cesar Tovar when he was playing every position as a stunt. So he threw a scoreless inning and then played every other position. So it's the classic Otani does something no one has done in decades or centuries, and then the Angels lose anyway.

And here's the most heartbreaking part, the most self-effacing quote I can imagine. This is from Otani after that game. As a pitcher, of course, you want to have a good game and actually win, but that's not always going to happen. I'm part of the fault for that, too. I'm in the lineup most of my starts. And today I was only able to get one hit. Maybe if I'm better, I get more run support for myself.

Maybe if I'm better, I get more run support for myself. So he's publicly at least blaming himself for not getting more than one extra base hit while he was also pitching. That is the problem with the Angels in that game. He didn't do enough. I just have to wonder, when you are as good as anyone at pitching and as good as anyone at hitting and as good as anyone at running. Like it must, after a certain point, as you were watching this string of players who only have to do one thing and can't even do that one thing well, like there must be some point where you just say you had one job. I have multiple jobs. I have all of the jobs. I do all of them well. Just do one well. That's all you have to do.

Again, like I've never seen him show up a teammate or anything like that. And I don't even know if this is going on in his head or am I just projecting. But I would hope that the Angels have some sort of superstar support group where the great players get together to just talk about the bad players every now and then. Just kind of a cathartic venting session. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that you know they have their they have their moments quietly we're doing this again yep but yeah i think that this is among the things that he probably shares with his contemporaries a good deal more than than the rest rest of his very well-deserved accolades. I think that you may have stumbled upon a thing that actually makes him very much like every other baseball player, even if the magnitude of his potential grievance is significantly greater than it is for the

average major leaguer. Yes, it remains just an overplayed story and yet an unendingly unbelievable story that the Angels have been blessed with just the best players in baseball and cannot make anything out of it. And again, it doesn't detract from Otani's accomplishments for me. It's just that I'm sure that in addition to being the best player, he would probably prefer to win. he would probably prefer to win. I never know whether to lead with my daily dose of Otani so that everyone listening thinks, oh, here he goes again right off the bat, or to wait a while and then spring it on people after lulling them into the false sense that I might not talk about Otani today, but I went with the former this time. Anyway, you mentioned unwarranted hope, and that makes a good segue into something else that I wanted to bring up here. This is maybe going to be sort of a strange episode. I have a bunch of little banter

observations and follow-ups and things that we have talked about and we'll return to here. But many people sent us a story about the Rockies calling a walk-off homer. And again, we are trying to stay away from mentioning every single player prediction because as it turns out, there's one just about every day. But this one is extraordinary. So I'm quoting here from Rockies predicted he'd do just that on Sunday. Bench coach slash acting manager Mike Redmond called Blackman's solo walk-off shot in the 6-5 victory over the Dodgers in 10 innings at Coors Field. Hitting coach Dave Magadan also made the fearless and, Redmond admitted, more trusted prediction. Now here's a quote from Redmond. I'm notorious for calling homers. I call them all the time, said Redmond in his third game in place of manager Bud Black, who is out because of MLB's COVID and contact tracing protocols. I might call 50 home runs in a game. 50 home runs

in a game. Maybe this is hyperbole, but I don't even understand how it's possible to predict 50 homers. You don't even have 50 plate appearances, at least for your team in a game. Is he calling homers for the opposing players or is he calling homers? Is he renewing the prediction on each pitch? Is that how he's getting to 50? I don't even know how it is conceivable for him to call that many homers in a single game. Maybe he's exaggerating. So it continues. But Mags and I did sit there and go, Charlie hasn't hit a walk off in a while. And this would be a perfect spot. Starting pitcher John Gray, who went seven innings and struck out seven to move into second on the Rockies career strikeout list, said he called it only a pitch earlier. I called first pitch homer from chuck right there

said gray etc etc i didn't get it then but it was worth it a couple pitches later i picked the wrong one but sure enough he got it out so multiple people calling this improbable homer but really the takeaway here is redmond who just must be the most prolific predictor of all time it has to be it has to be on multiple pitches in the same at bat like so it has it has to be that because otherwise it makes it just makes no sense at all i don't know how you would possibly accumulate that many no even and even then 50 feels like a lot it feels like a lot if you assume that a so much more thought than we need to put into this but i'm gonna do it anyway so if you assume that you modulate the sort of force of your prediction or your likelihood of making one based on the quality of the opponent wouldn't you 50 still seems like a lot of of home runs to predict even allowing for a starter going i don't know 80 pitches on average and then having

relievers come in like don't you unless you're you just have a really subpar opponent don't you at some point say oh he's not likely to to hit this one like does it does the number of predictions in a given game index to the quality of the opponent like do you only predict 10 home runs if you're facing say the mets on a night when de grom is pitching and then most of those you might say for the bullpen or do 60 when you're playing the Phillies and the starter is done and you're in against the bullpen? Is that how it works? I would want to ask more questions, but I'm terrified to ask more because then we will get answers and we'll have to talk about those. One would hope that it would vary from game to game.

I don't know why you would need to keep renewing the prediction. Like if we're talking about the same plate appearance here, granted, the odds are different from one count to the next. But do we really need? It seems like overkill. If you predict it on one plate appearance, I don't know that you need to predict it on every pitch. I get that he is a coach for the Rockies and they play in Coors Field. And so, yeah, maybe he sees a lot of homers, although the Rockies haven't really hit or allowed a notably high amount of home runs this season. But still, this is way too many predictions. People must be so sick of Mike Redman making these predictions. Like, who is sitting next to him on the dugout bench? Are you humoring him?

Like, what is the run environment in Mike Redman's head? I think that's kind of what you're getting at here. Like, how many home runs does he think there are for a game? Well, and just to riff on my same point, but in a slightly different way, like, imagine you are facing DeGrom, and he's there being like,'re gonna hit a home run do you go we're really not like in all likelihood we are super not gonna hit a home run like does

it get to a point really i know you're trying to help like you're trying to you know you're trying to buck each other up and say hey man you're gonna go hit a home run out there and say to your assembled fellows hey i bet he's gonna hit a home run but when you're facing like the best pitcher in baseball i bet it grates a little bit it's like we're really not though in all likelihood we are not going to do that we would be happy with a hit here sir not just a home run but just give us a lousy hit yeah if i were sitting somewhere in mike redmond's vicinity i think I would probably eventually just stop responding, stop giving him any positive feedback for the prediction and hope

that there would just be some classical conditioning that goes on where everyone gives him the silent treatment every time he calls a homer and then eventually he stops. But clearly, if that's what's happening, it's not working yet. Yeah. No, I think that we need to have a bit more. We need to be a bit choosier because being prolific in these moments, it doesn't lend you credibility and it doesn't make anyone excited when you're right. And isn't the point of these things to be excited? At least he owned up to constantly calling home runs so that the story was not, I made this miraculous home run call.

It is, I call every single pitch is a home run and every now and then I'm right. So kudos to Redmond for at least being upfront about it. So unfortunately, or maybe semi-fortunately, I have one more update about the zombie runner rule. If you recall, first, it sounded like it was going to be going away after this season. Then we got another update, not so fast, that hasn't been decided yet. More recently, there has been a report by Bob Nightingale who suggests that the solution may be somewhere in between keeping it as is and eradicating it entirely, which is that maybe starting in 2022, we would have the runner on second, not in every extra inning, but say in the 11th or the 12th and from then on. So you wouldn't have it in the 10th. Maybe you wouldn't have it in the 11th. There'd be

a little bit of a buffer where you would still have real baseball before the zombie runner rule kicked in. So I guess less zombie runner rule is better than more zombie runner rule, though obviously still inferior to no zombie runner rule. So this leaves me not completely deflated, but not pleased either. Can I offer you an interpretation that might make you feel better about it? Yes, please. And I'm not going to recall the specifics of this, which is great. Who needs precision? But my understanding was that the number of games

that actually fell into the category of the very, very long, sort of gr grueling grind through your entire bullpen, have to send three guys down kind of a thing to bring reinforcements up the next day. The number of those games that went beyond 13 innings, a tiny fraction compared to the rest of extra innings games. And most games don't go to extras, right? Most games resolve within nine innings games and most games don't go to extras right most games resolve within nine innings is is that consistent with your understanding that the number of very crazy long games was actually quite small so if that is true and we were to phase in the zombie runner in

say the 13th inning right i and i you know i as i have said to you before i have come i have come around to your position i am anti-zombie runner after not really caring much at all. But I think that there is something reasonable about saying, look, what we're really trying to avoid is overtaxing bullpens and keeping folks in the ballpark for seven hours. And so you get a couple innings to try to resolve your business. But then when you're in the 13th or 14th, we're going to try to move this thing along. That strikes me as sort of reasonable. But because there are so few games that fall into that category, doesn't this effectively

eliminate the zombie runner for you, Ben? Like you're not going to brush up against it very often. You will have successfully run away from it. Yeah, true. It helps. often you will have successfully ran a run away from it yeah true it helps and i think it also helps that i guess the longer you go in the game the less likely you are to have say a one nothing game or a zero zero game that's tied in in extras which i find it more frustrating as we've discussed when you have a great pitcher's duel and then suddenly the zombie runner rule comes along and

ruins it and everyone starts scoring without actually earning those runs in my mind so if you don't start it until the 12th or something then you're gonna get fewer games that were just scoreless up to that point where it spoils this pristine duel that you had going so it's definitely an improvement and maybe it's an intermediate step maybe you can't cut it out entirely maybe you just have to cut it back a bit and then we will cut it out entirely i would prefer to just slash and burn but you're right i would encounter it far less often and when i did encounter it it would be in less bothersome games so progress. Although, to undermine my own point, I do wonder how we feel about having inconsistent sort of rules in one set of innings versus another.

Now you're going to say, well, we already have that. But what I mean is right now we have a consistent set of rules by which regular baseball is played regulation non-extra innings baseball is played and and then we have a set of rules for how extra innings baseball is played and now we would potentially be introducing a scenario where you have a different set of rules depending on where in extra innings you are and that might bother some people and not just because we enjoy being bothered by things yeah no that's a that's a good point. But less is still more for me, I think, when it comes to the zombie runner rule. So I'll take it if that's the best I can get. But I would hope to take an even harder line in negotiations and do away with it entirely.

I was reading an article in The Athletic by Steven Nesbitt, who talked to a bunch of managers and players about what they think of the zombie runner rule. And as we have surmised, most of them are fine with it or even in favor of it just because they want to get those games over with. But there was a quote from podcast hero Rich Hill who came through. And here's the quote. When asked Sunday if he'd like to see the runner on second rule stay, Hill immediately replied, no.

He waited through eight seconds of silence before elaborating. Honestly, if we want to go into it more, it's at bats, it's innings pitched. There's a lot of different angles that we could take. It's just like the seven inning double headers. This isn't development league. This isn't instructional baseball. This is the big leagues, which sounds sort of old school. But in this particular case, I am old school. And so I am, as I often am, aligned with Rich Hill. Thank you, Rich. Yeah, I think that he's just famously wise, and we should listen to him. Yes, yes.

The sagacity of Rich Hill is known far and wide. Right, recognized authority. He's like a tenured professor who you all turn to and say what wisdom might we find right so a quick follow-up from last week do you recall that last week i did a stat blast about the marlins who had been unfortunate and that they'd lost a lot of games they had a losing record they were in last place in the nl east and yet they didn't seem to deserve that lowly station because they had outscored their opponents to that point. Well, that was true right up through Sunday, and then they lost to the nationals 18 to 1 and the headline on marlins.com was marlins struggle in opener which seems like a slight understatement but

not inaccurate and with that loss the marlins fell to 40 and 54 and a negative one run differential so i said last week something's gotta give no team has ever had a winning percentage this poor with a run differential in the black and either they are eventually going to be in the red or they're going to get that record up and at least for now it's the former they, as we speak here on Tuesday before most of the day's games, they have been outscored, although still not nearly as much as one would expect given their record. Does it feel good to have some semblance of like baseball as we know it restored, right? A little bit. Although it's... Sorry it came at the expense of the Marlins who've suffered enough, but still. Well, and when you're looking at a score like that, I don't know that I'm really right to say that normal baseball has been restored.

Yeah. So. And in last episode, we also talked to our pal Jake Mintz about his upcoming bike ride across the country. So I have two little follow-ups related to that. For those of you who were not with us in that episode, Jake predicted or stated last year that the White Sox, there's no way that they would hire Tony Russo to be their manager. And of course, they did. And he vowed to walk from New York City to Chicago if they did that. He has amended that to biking. So this Thursday, he will be setting off on about a two- York City to Chicago if they did that. He has amended that to biking.

So this Thursday, he will be setting off on about a two-week journey to Chicago on his bike. And we got an email about a comparable situation that I was not aware of or had forgotten about, but James, our Patreon supporter, sent us a link to a sporting news story from a couple years ago. And here's the headline. us a link to a sporting news story from a couple of years ago. And here's the headline, June 8th, 1989, when the Pirates blew a 10-0 lead, forcing announcer Jim Rooker to walk 327 miles. Or not forcing, but compelling at least. So here's what the story says. Think before you speak, even in baseball and even when something seems well unthinkable. Think before you speak, especially when you speak to hundreds of thousands of people for a living. Jim Rooker can tell you a fun story about that. It's a lesson he learned on June 8th, 1989,

the day the former Pirates broadcaster made a seemingly innocent and safe statement after the Buccos scored 10 runs in the top of the first against the Phillies in Philadelphia. If we lose this game, I'll walk back to Pittsburgh, Rooker told partner John Sanders and everyone listening on the radio. Well, despite Rooker's 13 years as a big league pitcher, plus another nine years as a broadcaster, that point, he apparently forgot that baseball has a weird, sick sense of humor, especially when a team has lost six straight. Pirates players remembered, though. I looked at the umpires and I said, yeah, we finally got a lead. The Pirates, Bobby Bonilla recalled later that season. They said, you finally got a lead in one game. And I said, yeah, but you

know, it's not over yet. Enter baseball's twisted sense of humor. After the Pirates dropped 10 in the top of the first, the Phillies outscored them 15 to 1 the rest of the game. If you want more evidence of baseball's sense of humor, the normally light-hitting Steve Jelts, who didn't even start the game and had two career homers at that point, belted two dingers that night, which ended up accounting for half his homers on the season. The point is that the Pirates lost. Rather than brushing off his pledge to walk back to Pittsburgh as merely a throwaway line played for laughs, Rooker, 46 at the time, stayed true to his word, even making some

public good out of it by turning the track into a walk for charity, just as Jake is doing with his bike ride. The event was dubbed Rook's Unintentional Walk, which is pretty good, with a sporting goods company donating hiking gear and four corporate sponsors underwriting the trip. Rooker and a friend took their first steps from Philadelphia on October

5th and walked through the centerfield gate at Three River Stadium in Pittsburgh at 12.52 p.m. on October 17th, a walk of 327 miles. The pair averaged more than 24 miles a day. I'm okay from the ankles up, but from the ankles down, I feel like I've been stabbed with ice picks, he told Sporting News after the walk. There was good news, though. Rooker's many steps ultimately raised around $100,000 for charity by some estimates. And that's in 1989 dollars with money going to children's hospitals of

Pittsburgh and Bob Prince charities. Still, it was an ordeal. It's something I would never do again, he told Sporting News later. But the response of the people was absolutely tremendous. So let's hope it works out the same way for Jake minus the stabbing with ice picks. I wonder how many pairs of shoes they went through. Yeah, that's a good question. I guess he had hiking gear donated to him, so he didn't have to worry about ruining his own shoes. But yeah, got to be careful what you say. This is why we generally issue predictions on this podcast, or that's one of the reasons why we do, I guess. But yeah, only 327 miles compared to the, what is it, 1,200 that Jake will be riding, but

walking compared to biking. Right. Yeah. You're assisted by the device, which allows for you to move more quickly, as Jake has highlighted. But I don't know. I mean, I think that if one had, you know, six months to walk that distance so that you could go some miles and stop at a bed and breakfast and hang out in a town, get to know it, you know, earn a nickname at the diner and then continue on your way,

then I think that you'd be in good shape walking-wise, but I guess biking is probably better. evaluate managers because, of course, the White Sox have had a very successful season. But how much of that La Russa is responsible for? Kind of tough to pin down. And of course, we know some of the big stories, but we haven't watched every White Sox game. So we got an email from listener Steven, who filled us in on his experience of watching the White Sox this season and his impressions of Tony La Russa's performance. So let me read you what Steven says. As a diehard White Sox fan, I've witnessed the entire La Russa experience. I'd like to give what

I believe is my fair, level-headed opinion on how he has impacted the season. Bunting. Lots of bunting. It's the low-hanging fruit of the Moneyball Revolution that somehow manages to hold on. La Russa obviously loves bunting, and it's been pretty disastrous for the Sox. I thought the poor results may discourage so much bunting, but other teams have stolen some games via the bunt. Tony isn't changing here. Definitive negative so far, and likely all the way through the playoffs. The pitching staff, however, has been a marvel.

As you mentioned on the podcast, I'm pretty indifferent about managers and their impact, but here is where La Russa deserves the most credit. He's let young pitching coach Ethan Katz work his magic. Finally, the Sox have embraced tech like Rapsodo, Codify, etc. While Tony did not spearhead any of this, he has allowed it to happen, and that's about as much as I can ask for. The clubhouse

and the personalities that exist seemed impervious to any outside influence, and I believe that's holding true. La Russa's handling of the Jermaine Mercedes 3-0 homer off of beloved Astadio was awful. The talent and passion of guys like Tim Anderson, Lucas Giolito, and Jose Abreu are so strong, they've easily overcome that. The quirkiness and diversity on this squad is unbelievable. Throw in the maniac Australian closer, and you have a workplace that's seen it all. No matter what La Russa says or does, he's not cracking this. place that's seen it all. No matter what La Russa says or does, he's not cracking this. Additionally, La Russa has been a little hesitant to use Hendrix in non-save situations, which I don't love. He seems to think the second spot in the order must be filled by someone who can run,

regardless of their hitting ability. These are small and likely insignificant, and with a fully or more healthy team, there would be so much talent it wouldn't matter. His frequent lineup rotation and the plethora of off days is frustrating as a fan, but I'll concede that it may be exactly what the players need. Tony seems dead set on the velocity of proper rest now to encourage better performance later, given that they're 20 games over 500, eight games in first place while giving frequent off days. Looks really great right now. It hasn't prevented the major injuries, but the second halves of Anderson, Abreu, Moncada, and Vaughn will be a good measure of the strategy.

So, to sum up, I was unhappy with La Russa higher. I'm still not thrilled he's leading the team, but maybe he can get out of the way of this amazingly fun squad. So, it does seem like there are ways in which Tony La Russa is a little bit of a relic from an in-game tactics standpoint, which would not be surprising having been out of the dugout for a while. I have noticed the number two hitter thing. He's still sort of, or at least has been at times kind of hearkening back to the era where it was more about bat control and hitting and running and that sort of thing than just putting your best hitter in that slot. Although I did run some numbers and email Steven to say that if it's any consolation, the White Sox have not been the most prolific

bunters this season. They are tied for fourth in MLB with 31 position player bunts, although the teams ahead of or tied with them are the Angels, the Royals, the Phillies, and Cleveland. So the White Sox are first among probable playoff teams, and also they have a better offense than the teams that have bunted more often. But that's what seems like a pretty complete and well-rounded picture of La Russa's performance, at least from Steven's perspective this season. Yeah. I mean, I think that we didn't think that it would be all bad necessarily. We allowed for the possibility of it being a complete tire fire and it has certainly had its moments.

And I like you said, I don't think either of us are pleased with the decision now, even if the team has managed to put on the kind of show that it has in spite of injury. But, you know, it's important to think about the totality of a record. I don't know. I don't know that I have more to say about that except well observed. Getting out of the way can sometimes be a very valuable trait for a manager. So to the extent that he's done that, that's good. And I guess some of these tactical shortcomings, if they are shortcomings, could come back to bite them in the playoffs where they might be more magnified.

But stay tuned to see if that's the case. And another email we got from a listener that seems relevant to things we've talked about recently. We were just talking about one story involving the Pittsburgh Pirates of yore. Here's another from listener Nate Horowitz, who says, every time the two of you have talked about stars on the uniforms of players, I've thought about writing to you about Willie Stargill's practice of giving out stars to his teammates, which they put on their caps starting in 1978. But I kept thinking that someone else would bring it up.

Well, no one has. This practice of Stargill's got a lot of attention in that era, but perhaps it took place so long ago that not many of your podcast listeners besides me remember it. Below is anget article about this from several years ago. And it says, back in 1978, the Pittsburgh Pirates were struggling and languishing near the bottom of the division. Lily Stargell decided

to award players with a gold star anytime they had a good game or made a good play. While the stars weren't valuable, they were a symbolic acknowledgement of a player's positive contribution to the team. As the season went on, the team gelled, and the best players earned so many stars that they practically covered the entire cap.

Not only did it motivate players to always give their best, but it helped the team bond and work together to win. As the season came closer to the end, the Pirates surged in the standings, going from fourth place to striking distance from the first-place Phillies. They had a chance to overtake the Phillies in the head-to-head series for the final games of the season, but they fell just a bit short. However, their momentum continued into the next season, and they were victorious in winning the World Series. During that season, they used We Are Family as their team song, and it goes without saying that they were indeed a tight-knit family, partially thanks to the star jill stars so this reminds me of two things we've talked about one which is the hockey practice of awarding stars of the game which fangraphs has sort of adopted and you can vote on that readers can but also the practice that we proposed of putting stars on the regular season jerseys of all stars to indicate which players are

good so Willie Stargill Stargill combined both of those ideas on these hats and you had the pillbox pirates hats which are kind of cool and eye catching already and even more so when they're just wreathed in stars

that go all around the thing so kind of like that idea although I guess it was probably a hassle for some clubby who had to sew the stars on after each game. Yeah, I mean, you need the accomplishment to be sufficiently difficult to attain so that you're not passing them out too willy-nilly. But I don't know. I just think it's just nice to say, hey, that guy's good in a way that's obvious don't know i just think it's it's just nice to say hey that guy's good in a way that's obvious to everyone so i think it's a delightful practice yeah i like that it's something that fans can share in too because of course players you know teams always have their weird like signals they make from the dugout or things that they do that are sometimes

out of public view sometimes they're caught on the cameras, but sometimes they take place behind the clubhouse closed doors or you just don't have a camera on them. But in this case, you could actually see it reflected whenever a player is on the screen. So you could see how he's performed and how his teammates value him. I would be curious if we could somehow research the number of stars that each Pirates player was awarded that season. Would it correlate with their war or with their other stats? Or was Stargill awarding stars in a way that would not quite line up with how we award value? Maybe he's given out stars for selfless acts, for productive outs, for sacrifice punts. Who knows what it was back in the 70s?

But something like that, that'd be an interesting research project if anyone ever recorded how many stars each player received. Yeah. I mean, you would get such a keen insight into his own moral philosophy if you knew precisely what merited a star and what didn't. what merited a star and what didn't. You know, it's a bit like if you read the, you know, if you read the MLB rule book and you read the language that it has around sea sacrifices, like they choose that language for a reason. They are trying to instill that there is something noble

about that act. And they make that clear in the rule book. It tells you a lot about how the game sort of understands itself and prioritizes different actions over others when you look at the language they use to describe it. So I would be fascinated to know sort of what is his moral philosophy of baseball? How does he understand some acts relative to others? And, you know, how do you account for the things that aren't going to be seen by fans on the field at all, right? That occur away from it.

You know, when a teammate says to another, I feel frustrated, but I understand that we're all in this together. And then you're like, shall we get a star for that? You're just a nice guy. Although, again, we will say people can feel frustrated and angry about stuff. That's not a moral failing. We can feel frustrated. It's okay. That doesn't make us bad people. Yeah. You made the mistake of invoking Otani again. And I have

another Otani stat for you, which I did not have when we talked about him earlier, but I was hoping I would get at some point during this recording. I was waiting on this from Lucas Apostolaris of Baseball Perspectives. And we should mention, by the way, if anyone is not yet tired of Otani and how could you be? Our friends at Baseball Perspectives are doing a Shohei Otani week this week. So all week, or at least I think through Thursday, they have new Otani content every day up from some of your favorite BP writers. And of course, every week is Otani week here at Effectively Wild. But still, I think it's nice to set some time aside to salute him. And there have been some pretty fun articles so far.

So everyone, go check that out if you haven't yet. But what I got kind of curious about, we talk a lot about how Otani is leading the league or the majors and this or that. Generally, it's some impressive counting stat. It's war, it's home runs, or sometimes it's even triples or it's total bases or something like that. But also it's playing time. Playing time is really at the root of how impressive his season is this year because they really just let him off the leash. He is very rarely taking games off or resting. And so that's part of the reason why he has accrued so much value.

It's obviously that he has played at a very high level on both sides of the ball, but also that he's just constantly in the lineup or on the mound or both. And so I was wondering how he stacked up in terms of just total playing time. I was wondering how he stacked up in terms of just total playing time. And it's kind of hard to figure out because leaderboards are not really set up for two-way players. So you can't just easily look up like, hey, who has the most plate appearances as a batter plus batters faced as a pitcher? Or who has the most pitches seen as a hitter plus pitches thrown as a pitcher? Like that's just, it's not a use case that you need for many players. And so it's kind of tough to query, but I asked Lucas about that and he did some querying.

So the answer for plate appearances plus batters faced, Otani has a very, very sizable lead. So as we speak, and this is not counting his game on Thursday, which he is playing as we speak, but 364 plate appearances, 305 batters faced, a nice pleasing symmetry to those, almost even. That's 669 combined plate appearances plus batters faced. And the closest player

either hitter or pitcher to that is Zach Wheeler at 539 and that's 497 batters faced and 42 plate appearances so Otani is 130 plate appearances or batters faced

ahead of the next closest guy and the difference in pitches is even more pronounced. So again, entering Thursday, he had seen 1,460 pitches as a batter and thrown 1,155 pitches as a pitcher. That's 2,615 total pitches, I don't know, involved in. How do we even describe that? That's a difference of almost 600 pitches over Wheeler, who has thrown 1,905 and seen 164.

So that's just one way to put it into perspective that he has a lead of 130 plate appearances plus batters faced and almost 600 pitches seen or thrown so no wonder he has racked up the most value of any player in the majors i think that's an mvp for me are you happy that he is now atop the combined board leaderboard at fan i am very happy about that does it make you feel do you just is like a peace has entered you? All things through a fifth-based war. Not as much daylight between him and the next closest guy, although the next closest guy is Jacob de Grom, who unfortunately is on the IL with a firearm issue. And I would never wish ill upon Jacob de Grom purely for the purposes of lengthening Otani's war lead, but that will turn out to lengthen his war lead most likely. So yeah, there's that. Yeah. And relevant to the MVP conversation, a full win now between Otani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

So in terms of the real gap that matters for the award conversation um he is starting to to pull away a bit there although see i would be a really bad sports parent or perhaps i would be a very stereotypical like participation trophy sport parent because i look at these combined war leader boards and i'm like can't we just have co-mbps yeah Couldn't we just have the two of them share it? And I guess like in a voting way, I wonder, is that possible? I don't recall how it is resolved in the BBWA bylaws. There could be a tie. So I don't know if I will have an MVP vote for the folks who are not familiar with the way that this process works, even if you are in

the BBWA as we both are, you are not assured an award vote in any given year, right? Because, you know, the whole body does not vote on every award. I am in the incredibly crowded New York chapter. And so I have never had an award vote in almost 10 years in the BBWA. Right. And I had won my very first year in the BBWA. And then despite living in and being affiliated with chapters that are far less populous than the New York chapter, have not had one since. So you are not assured an award vote. And you don't find out if you have one until later into the season. So I don't know if I have an award vote or not.

And once you get one, you're not supposed to talk about what you did until later into the season. So I don't know if I have an award vote or not. And once you get one, you're not supposed to talk about what you did until they've been revealed. So I will not reveal how I would vote, but I might be ready to announce a campaign by which I lobby individual BBWA members with the stated goal of affecting a tie. I don't know if that violates the bylaws. So if it does, then I will cease my campaign because I don't want to get in trouble with C. Trent because he's got an intimidating beard and we want these things to be by the book. But to all our fellow BBWA members out there,

just talk amongst yourselves. This is terrible. It would be an awful thing to try to affect. You're advocating collusion here. No, you should vote for who you think is the MVP, but I wouldn't mind if it resulted in a tie. Let's say that. You're mentioning Vlad reminds me that the Blue Jays are about to be home for the first time in so long. I know.

They're going to get to go back and play in Toronto. What is it? On July 30th, right? So that's pretty cool. It's a young team with a lot of recently arrived players, and there are quite a few Toronto Bougies who have never played in Toronto. So that's kind of cool. And it's going to cause some hassles for the holdouts when it comes to vaccination. They will be allowed to cross the border, but they will have to quarantine while they're there. And you know what? I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them at this point. So tough. There is a very easy way to circumvent that, which is just to get the shot. But- Yeah. It's one thing if, there are people

who do have legitimate medical reasons that prevent them from getting vaccinated. So we, of course, when we express our, hey, just get a shot, we are always carving out space for those who are not able to do so. But yeah, like, hey, get your shots, please. Yes, it would be nice. And of course, berating people about not getting their shots never really seems to convince anyone to change their mind. And everyone is so entrenched in whatever their position is that there is probably no way to sway them now, unfortunately. And of course, as so many players have reminded us, it's a personal decision. Meg, it's a personal decision. It's a personal decision that potentially affects others.

But still, got to respect the decision. Got to give it more time. Got to gather more information. Got to conduct some clinical trials respect the decision. Got to give it more time. Got to gather more information. Got to conduct some clinical trials over the off season. See if it's safe. Right. Although we will say that seemingly the thing that makes a difference in those conversations

is when you have them with people you know who trust you. And when you can enter them with a spirit, sort of in the headspace and spirit of generosity and take their concerns seriously while also providing them with accurate information. Did you watch the, sorry, I'm going to let you get back on the Blue Jays thing in one second. But did you watch the Dodgers-Giants game at any point last night? I know Otani was a factor. Yes, I was otherwise occupied. Well, it was Walker bueller bobblehead night

and walker bueller's family was there i believe it was his sister who sang the national anthem before the game started and the broadcast the dodgers broadcast took a moment to talk to her and to walker bueller's mom um and walker bueller's mom talked about you know they they got on a plane and were able to come see him because they are fully vaccinated. And, you know, I think they're coming from Tennessee. And anyway, like, I'm sure that, you know, she and I clearly move in different circles. But I imagine that we know different kinds of folks. And so anyway, just, yeah, if you have an opportunity to talk to people about your positive vaccine experience in a way that's not full of shame, then that seems like it is helpful. So, yeah. But also, if you're on the Blue Jays or going to go play them, probably get your shot if you can because it seems like boneheaded to not be there just because you're not getting a shot. Yes, there are many reasons to recommend it.

to not be there just because you're not getting shot. Yes, there are many reasons to recommend it, but I don't imagine that anyone listening is either in the other camp and saying, hey, you know what? Meg and Ben have convinced me. Although, who knows? Maybe we are that trusted source for someone who is listening now.

Really, it's nice to have your shoulders drop a little bit when you have to be close to people at the grocery store. It does positively impact your mental health. So that's the thing I'd say. Anyway, I meant to make that a positive observation about the Blue Jays getting to play at home again. Things are weird out there, Ben. We're just doing our best.

Yeah, look, these are conversations people are having or not having in every walk of life all across the country. Why would baseball be any different? I guess it's just different from a lot of our lives in that you have to be on a team with a bunch of people from all over the world and of differing beliefs, and there's no escape. You are confined to a clubhouse. You travel with the team whether you like it or not, and that may make you less likely to confront someone about this because, hey, you have to see them every day. Although it sure could be a competitive advantage not to have to miss games for contact tracing. Anyway, I'm glad that they get to go home. And I don't know whether they've had a

home field advantage when they're playing in Buffalo or Dunedin, whether how long it takes to cultivate a home field advantage. But one reason why I picked the Blue Jays, you know, regrettably not to make the playoffs this year was that I figured it probably can't be helpful to have three home parks at various points in the season. And I don't know, it's hard to calculate whether there was any impact or what the impact was, but got to be good to just have a permanent place to play. And it's the place that is in the name of your franchise. So that's good. And that'll be good for some fans, hopefully to get to see them again.

And I also should mention that we have also received some submissions of former Blue Jays, not so great, but memorable player, John McDonald as another great highlight to war ratio player, just because he was a great defensive player and he had a very memorable Father's Day home run

five days after his dad died. And so there were many memorable moments in what, at least according to some war metrics, was apparently roughly a replacement level career, although a long one. So yeah, John McDonald, another player in the good glove, no hit camp. So one more bit of banter that you brought up just before we started recording, you sent me a tweet to a proposed variant of the cycle. So this is a tweet by at Bravesgasm on Twitter, who said, is this a cycle? And has a screenshot of Eugenio Suarez, whose line in the Cincinnati Reds game. And man, Suarez has really kind of killed the Reds this season. It's not been the best.

They asked him to play shortstop for a while, right? Which was not an easy assignment. That was also not the best. I don't know whether that has affected his offensive performance, but yeah, it's been bad. And in this particular game that was screenshotted, it was also bad. So is this a cycle 0 for 4 with a ground out, strike out, foul out, and fly out? So I brought it to you because I like to raise things on the podcast that we then get emails about for like six months. So that's the

primary motivation. But I looked at this and my first thought was, yeah, that's a cycle. And then you raised what I thought was a very interesting point that you would replace strikeout with lineout, right? Because you wanted to account for all the different batted ball types. And that made me wonder, well, maybe Ben is right. And I wonder what we think we want to represent in the concept of a failure cycle, which is admittedly a not nice thing to think about, but here we are today on Tuesday thinking about it because there are so many different ways to make an out in baseball. I wonder which of them we think are most important

to account for when constructing something like this. Because when you think about an offensive cycle, it's like all the different kinds of hits that you can get, that's more straightforward. When you're talking about this kind of failure cycle, you have to make some choices unless you're allowing for more than four things, I guess. The first question is, do we allow for more than four things? What about four? Do we find for more than four things what about what about four do we find ourselves bound to ben because we have four on the other side because there's so many the the thing there are but there are a lot more things in this case right so yeah anyway kind of bound by the number of plate appearances that you typically get in a game so if you have five things

then the odds are even longer yeah Yeah, this is a fair point. But I don't think I would take strikeout out of here. Strikeout seems like an important kind of out to account for in a cycle, in an outs cycle, right? Because we fret about strikeout so much. It's the most reliable way to secure an out, right? It's the kind of out that the pitcher is in the greatest control of. Now, maybe that's an argument for it not being part of the out cycle, but it is the most reliable means of getting a hitter out. So it seems strange to not allow for it here.

Yeah. I was thinking of this more as like a batted ball cycle than an out cycle because there are so many outs that you could potentially make. So many different kinds of outs. And so I was thinking of, well, you've got your grounder, you've got your fly ball, you've got your pop-up or foul out in this case, and then you're missing your line out. So I know we're in the era of measuring things down to the degree, but if we're going with the four big batted ball types that you could find on the batted ball tab on fan crafts, I guess maybe bunt would be another one. You could kind of lump that in with some others, I suppose. But that's sort of what I was thinking. Although

in that case, it wouldn't even have to be out necessarily. You could mix some outs and some more positive outcomes just as long as you had the full mix of batted balls. So that's kind of the way I was approaching this. There are other types of cycles. I mean, people talk about like the natural cycle. You know, does it matter whether you have the hits in the standard cycle in order of increasing total bases or not? Kelsey McKinney at Defector came up with what she called the saint cycle not long ago so this is like a cycle of selflessness so this is a five outcome

thing hit by pitch walk sacrifice bunt sacrifice fly and productive out oh the saint cycle and i think elias ran the numbers for numbers for Kelsey and found that only three players on record had ever actually achieved the Saint cycle, Tim Flannery, Jose Morales, and Biff Pokoroba. And maybe that is partly because it's a five outcome thing. So that limits your sample somewhat, but that's kind of a fun one. And I guess if you wanted to go with some sort of out cycle as you're proposing, this made me think of Ron Wright, whom we have discussed on the podcast before, the former Mariner who played one major league game for Seattle in 2002, and he got three plate appearances and he struck out, hit into a triple play and hit into a double play.

appearances and he struck out, hit into a triple play and hit into a double play. So that's the Ron Wright cycle, I guess, even though it's only three things. I don't know what a fourth thing would be. I mean, once you have a triple play in there, you're already making it an extremely exclusive group. But that's like if you wanted the worst outs possible, then you got your strikeout, you got your double play, you got your triple play. I don't know what else you could really add to that to make it worse. Right.

But maybe multiple double plays or something. No, it's got to be discrete events. But that's something like that. So those are the ones that came to my mind. I like very much the Saint cycle. are the ones that came to my mind i like very much the saint cycle i like partly because i think that and we have talked about this before in our engagement with sort of the cycle that you know the traditional cycle the the actual cycle that we're all familiar with that you know sometimes part of what makes that feel so special is that there is a rarity to it that is enjoyable and

this is even more rare also i'll just say that if if people haven't read kelsey's book god spare the girls it's really good and i enjoyed it she didn't ask me to say that but i'm just saying it now because i liked it it was nice and distracting on a weekend so you should check that out if you want to but i guess what i wonder about is what are we trying to capture i like the idea of having double and triple plays involved, although then it's going to be very, very hard to ever achieve this just because there are so few triple plays turned. But I like the idea of sort of trying to capture the maximum amount of damage

in much the same way that we're trying to capture the maximum sort of offensive output, which is the home run. But maybe that makes it too, maybe it makes it too rare. I don't know. Yeah. I'm not really in love with the concept of cycles in the first place. It seems semi-arbitrary, like it's kind of cool, but you can have better games and not happen to have a cycle. And so it's always struck me as sort of strange. And then you get those situations where you end up with moral hazard because you have an opportunity to get another extra base hit and you actually need the single or you could get the triple and you actually need the double and then do you stay or

do you go? And so it's sort of strange. So I kind of prefer actually these weird ones where you're not even necessarily celebrating something good, but just a collection of things that are loosely related in some way. like it's being attributed most strongly to the hitter right and you know there are plenty of triples that get scored as triples that are assisted by bad fielding like that definitely happens but like a triple play feels i don't know you really have to you gotta do good stuff on the defense to turn a triple play right like it's not a perfect 50 50 split granted and there's variation depending on the triple play but it almost feels like that ventures too far into really being a defensive achievement than an offensive failing. And it's obviously so context dependent,

whereas the events of a cycle, it doesn't matter who's on base, right? It doesn't matter. You just hit a single or a double or a triple or a home run, and then you're like, wow, I've done a cycle. Whereas you need other people to succeed before your failure in order to, it's like, you know, being really excited about a guy's RBI total is what it would feel like. So anyway, I'm going to think about it a lot and I'm sure we're going to get a lot of

emails. And I look forward to hearing what people want to prioritize because it seems like it would be very straightforward. It would be either like what you said where there is you know a single out of some kind you're striking out or grounding out or whatever and then a double play and then a triple play and then i don't know you become a pastor or something i don't know what the final thing of that is but i think that you have to think carefully about what you want to attribute credit for and what kinds of things you see as having the greatest potential impact while also maintaining the right balance of credit or blame for that event. So it's complicated or maybe it's not. And we'll get an email and it's like, Meg, you're being dumb.

Here's what it is. Right. Last thing I wanted to bring up just banter wise is that there have been a couple of welcome stories in other sports recently that have made me think about baseball by comparison. And that's, as I assume many of you listening are aware, Carl Nassib of the Raiders came out as the first publicly gay player in the NFL, openly, publicly under contract with a team. And just this week, Luke Prokop of the Nashville Predators, he is a prospect with them and is going to be in camp with them this year. He became a pioneering player in the same way in the NHL. And of course, Jason Collins was the first in the NBA. And not that it is a competition or a race or something, but you don't

also want to have the distinction of being the one of the four major American sports that has not fostered an environment where someone would feel comfortable making that decision. And I don't know if this is a negative reflection on MLB compared to those other leagues because we're talking about one player here or there who could make that decision. And it's, of course, a systematic institutional thing. And so the fact that one player felt comfortable doing this or did it despite feeling uncomfortable doing it doesn't necessarily mean that those sports are in some way more hospitable or receptive to this than baseball would be, but it hasn't quite happened in baseball or in MLB, I should say. Of course, there have been gay players in baseball and there have been gay players in baseball who have come out after their careers, but it hasn't happened during their career with someone who is on an

active major league roster. And one would hope that that happening in other sports makes the path slightly smoother for someone to do this in baseball sometime soon, if they feel so inclined. You just kind of hope that the environment is there where if they want to do that, they feel that they can and that they will be supported. And I think that at least publicly, the reaction, the response to NASA and ProCop has been pretty positive. So I sort of hope that this is a prelude to this happening in baseball so that baseball is not the sport where that hasn't happened, where it's kind of an ongoing conversation about when will this happen? When will a player be comfortable doing that?

And there are just more Major League Baseball players than there are NBA players or even NHL players. So if you're just going by the numbers, you would think that there would be a better chance of someone making that decision. So let's hope, I guess, that baseball would be a better chance of someone making that decision. So let's hope, I guess, that baseball can be a place where someone follows in the path that those other boundary baking players have blazed. I think beyond any individual person, it's like you said, you have to create an environment where people feel respected and safe and where they know that that will not

be an impediment to not only to career advancement, but to having a sort of safe and respectful experience of their workplace. And I share your hope that baseball is either nearing that place or already there and that we will see people who feel comfortable being themselves. I hope that the League can really make strides there because it's not any one individual's responsibility to fix that atmosphere. And the fact that it hasn't happened yet suggests that there's still work to be done there.

So I hope that that work is done and done soon, not because any of those people have to serve as a totem or anything else, but because the world's better when people can be themselves safely and when fans can look at a team and see themselves represented. That's meaningful to people. So yeah, I hope that we're headed in that direction because as you said, it isn't as if there haven't been or aren't now gay players in the league. We just don't know about them.

And I think that prioritizing your own safety is a perfectly reasonable choice to make. And I hope that that decision becomes a lot easier for folks. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. We've had some guests on to talk about that in the past and I'm sure that we will again. Yeah. It means something

like my mom. She wears her Mariner's Pride hat. We can and probably should at some point have a conversation about how that stuff gets negotiated and the corporatization of those events. I think that there's good nuanced

criticism to be had there. And at the end of this particular day, it's about people being able to feel safe and respected in their workplace. And that's something that should be true for everyone, whether it's a major league clubhouse or anywhere else. Yep. And the last thing I will leave you with, do you know what today is? And by today, I mean, not Tuesday when we were actually speaking, but Wednesday when this podcast will go up and presumably people will hear it. It'll be July 21st, Ben. Correct. And I don't expect you to guess what I'm thinking here. There's no reason why you would, but it is the one month anniversary of when the sticky stuff enforcement went into effect. Oh, sure, yeah. Remember sticky stuff?

Yeah. We were talking about that every single day for weeks. Yes, we sure were. The biggest story in baseball. And then it became not that, which is not a bad thing, but it almost feels like an afterthought now. It's really been drowned out by a lot of other things, which I guess is a reflection of the effect of that policy or the lack thereof. And I have an article about this that was supposed to be up Wednesday. It might not be because of basketball, but it should be up sometime soon.

So when it is, you can go read what I wrote about it in greater detail. But basically, I think a lot of the hiccups and embarrassments blew over. So the first week friction with Max Scherzer and Sergio Romo and, oh, this is going to be a blight upon the game and we're going to have pitchers pulling their pants down and we're going to have managers doing gamesmanship and challenging pitchers for no reason. Well, that really hasn't happened beyond that first week. It's so routine now that you don't really notice it anymore. You rarely see it on the broadcast. At first, it was like you would stay.

The camera would linger on the pitchers as they got inspected. Now, you pretty much just cut to commercial because it's not interesting anymore. It's just a matter of course. And in terms of the effects on it, I dug into all the numbers and I won't bore people on a podcast by reading long lists of numbers, but it seems like just to sort of sum things up that the foreign substance use was pretty pervasive that 80% or so of pitchers had their spin rates decline relative to either when the enforcement started or when pitchers actually started to wean themselves off of these substances.

But most of those pitchers weren't suffering drastic declines, which seems to suggest that spider tack, these more exotic potent substances probably weren't that widespread. They were out there, but it's really only a small minority of pitchers who have lost hundreds of revolutions per minute on say their four seam fastball. And the effects on offense have been subtle. It's not necessarily something you would notice over and above the typical uptick in offense that we get at this time of year, which if you were to attribute that entirely to the lack of sticky stuff, it might seem like a big difference. But if you look at the difference compared to the typical increase in scoring from

the first couple months of the season into June and July, it's not that much bigger. It is bigger. It is a little bigger than you know i went back and compared like 2016 to 2019 and the combined difference over those years and and it's a little bigger than that but it's not a massive difference it's not something that you would really notice without closely looking at the stats or maybe you would think that you notice something but you would be overestimating the actual effect. So that is very interesting to me that it hasn't been a bigger effect, but here we are just a month in from the inspection starting and it's just sort of

receded into the background, which is not a bad thing for baseball, but does suggest that if you think that baseball's offensive environment or aesthetics or style of play need an overhaul or needed an overhaul, then you probably still think that. I don't want to downplay because any decrease is after 15 plus consecutive seasons of increase, any rollback is an accomplishment, especially if you didn't actually have to change any rules to pull it off. But still, it's not a drastic difference. I think it demonstrates sort of how difficult that kind of thing can be to contextualize within one's viewing experience, because it's not as if every year that the strikeout rate has gone up, it's gone up by

five or 10%. Often those increases are incremental, like a percent a year, right? And so in that way, depending on your view of the increase in strikeouts, perhaps that decrease does strike you as sort of monumental, right? Indicative of something meaningful. But I tend to be of the mind that you aren't going to notice that kind of a shift in one way or the other year to year. It is, as you said, like when you look back on where we were 10 years ago, that you really start to appreciate just how many more strikeouts in any individual game you're really dealing with that you can kind of get the magnitude of it. I think the fact that we haven't seen like a rash of injuries is really

encouraging. I think that was one of our bigger concerns, right? That the shift that this was going to require of guys, the change in mechanics, you know, we heard Tyler Glasnow talk about like what this meant for him and how he thought this precipitated his injury. So I think we were both nervous that that sort of abrupt mechanical shift might result in other injuries. And we haven't really seen that. So I think that part of it has been the most relieving to me. And he's back throwing now yes so that's exciting but yeah it is it does suggest

that curbing sticky stuff is perhaps not the silver bullet that we hoped and that other means of course correcting the balance between offense and you know hitters and pitchers is going to be required if we you know as we have said think that the aesthetics of the game are kind of off kilter right now but yeah it is it is remarkable i do i do think it suggests that like we just get used to stuff you know not the zombie runner rule that's an abomination that we have not gotten used to but i think that abrupt changes in one's routine feel very jarring and sometimes they are over an extended period and i'm sure there are

individual pitchers who if you ask them still feel off kilter you know about all of this but it does seem like people have sort of acclimated to the new environment with sort of a speed that i i was not anticipating i like you thought that we would be getting mad max scherzer for a lot longer and then we didn't you know yeah i didn't think that would continue but i did think there might be he's very intense ben so i didn't know you know like he might be a grudge holder we don't have a great sense of these things all the time so yeah i figured that stuff would settle down after a little while after the shock of it wore off but i did think there was at least a possibility that there would be a bigger offensive boost or decrease in strikeout rate.

And even some of the pitchers who seem to struggle initially after losing some spin, like Garrett Cole and Lucas Giolito, they have put together some vintage Giolito and Cole outings lately. So maybe they won't perform at quite the level they were at before, but they certainly still have the capacity to do that in any given game. And then there are guys like James Caprellian on the A's who's had one of the biggest spin rate declines of anyone, and he's been brilliant for months. So it's tough to draw a direct line from losing spin rate to poor performance. And, you know, the hit by pitch rate is slightly up.

It is, but it's not drastically increased. It's not notably more dangerous than it was. And any increases is not great because it was already at historic levels. That it's just going to be guys getting drilled left and right and pitchers won't be able to control anything. Like my suspicion was that some of the pitchers complaining about how this was just something they couldn't adjust to, especially in the mid season, and they wouldn't be able to get a grip on pitches anymore, whether it was pitchers just rationalizing these things and just feeling withdrawal from not having these substances or actually trying to spin, so to speak, this as something more serious than it was to try to keep using that stuff. And look, ultimately, we may very well still be headed for some legalized substance other than rosin or a ball with a tackier cover and maybe that would be for the best but at least in the short term it's not as if baseball is unrecognizable and the balls are just flying off out of pitchers hands in unpredictable directions like for the most part the pitchers are still pitching and it pretty much still looks like baseball and if you were to watch a game today,

you know, interspersed with games from two months ago, you would not immediately notice something amiss. So that part has been a relief, although also semi-surprising to me that there haven't been a bit more pronounced effects, I would say. Yeah, I think that given some of the pieces that we saw in advance where, you know, total novices are not throwing fastballs that have spin. Ah, you know, we maybe thought that it would would matter a lot. And it's mattered some. And, you know, like we talked about incremental changes, you know, our calculus around the acceptability of incremental changes takes into account how incremental they are. But just because they're incremental doesn't mean that we have to be okay with them, right? We can still say, this crosses a line for me.

This is moving away from the spirit of what we've allowed in the past. But it is interesting that it did not result in this huge precipitous decline in, or not precipitous decline, but what am I trying to say? That it didn't result in more boom, boom offense. More boom, boom. There we go. Those are words. Boom, boom.

You came up with the most eloquent way to express that thought. Well, you know, like it was just rattling around there. Sometimes you got to let the idea simmer. It's got to marinate and cook a little bit. And then you're like, boom, boom offense. That's print it. Cut. Negative.

There we go. Yeah. And, you know, the spin rates have returned to like 2015 levels or even before, which is interesting. There we go. to maybe like 2019 or something when it comes to offense and strikeouts and that sort of thing, which is something but not nearly as dramatic, which seems to suggest that if we have flashed back to the dawn of the stat cast era when it comes to spin, but we have not flashed back to that level of offense or contact, then there is more contributing to the offensive downturn and to the uptick in contact than just spin. It could be the ball.

It could be many other factors. It's probably a bunch of things put together. But yes, it's not a panacea. More work remains to be done, but I'm still in favor of them doing it, especially now that it has turned out to be, I think, a lot less disruptive than some of the worst fears suggested. And we're now just past the point of noticing or even recognizing that it is the one month mark past the day when sticky stuff inspection started. It's a delicate ecosystem, Ben. That it requires some really precise analysis about what's impacting what and how issues and factors that interact with one another, how that interaction happens and what effect it has. Because we thought maybe they won't have to move the amount.

Maybe this will be boom, boom offense. But then it wasn't just that. Yeah. Takeaway from this, I think, on The Indicator, the NPR podcast, they sometimes have economist Tyler Cowen on to play this game called Overrated or Underrated, where they just throw something out there and he pronounces whether he thinks it's overrated or underrated, as the name says. And I think cheating is overrated. That is my takeaway from this series of scandals.

We have this, where it was the biggest story in baseball for a while, and then the effects have been more muted probably than like the Astros derived some overall benefit from that scheme. And their sign stealing scheme was more sophisticated than the countless lower tech sign stealing schemes that preceded it that perhaps were equally ineffective. And just all of the other scandals and cheating things that come up, we've talked about PDs and steroids and how, yeah, they probably seemingly helped some players, but not others. And I think people attribute a lot of the PD era offensive environment solely to PDs, whereas I think a lot of otherves international signing scandal, you know, they went to all this trouble. They broke all these rules to pick up this crop of prospects. And I was just slacking with Eric Langenhagen about all of those players that they managed to promising prospect, at least as like a star level or even everyday type player. So I'm not saying that all of these things are not morally reprehensible or that the league should not take steps to prevent them. I'm just saying that in terms of the on-field impact, I think it's often smaller than one would suppose given how much attention they generate. You fixate on these scandals. I mean, they're juicy stories. But I think ultimately, the game itself is more impervious to these schemes than we think. And a lot of it just kind of comes down to talent and legitimate performance and approaching the game in an intelligent way, more so than cheating.

I'm not saying cheaters have never prospered. Of course, sometimes they have in baseball as well as in every other field. But just saying, we probably pay outsized attention to these stories because they are so scandalous. But often, I think the effect is smaller than we give them credit for. but often I think the effect is smaller than we give them credit for. Well, and I think that, you know, like you, I think we can, like, we can be upset about multiple things at once, right? So I don't, I mean, to say that we have to pick one, but I do think that, you know, it's

useful to think about those and sort of put the part of it that is perhaps the most scandalous in its proper context, right? Like if you look at what happened with Atlanta, the part of that whole situation that is the most concerning is like the abuses that go on in the international amateur market, right? It's like the kids, the literal kids who find themselves sort of in the crosshairs of major league organizations. So I think that we should just be mindful of that perspective. And that doesn't mean that the rules don't matter or that we shouldn't enforce them or that, like you said, there aren't instances where a real advantage is pushed in a way that is unfortunate. And in a game like baseball, marginal advantages can be what matters, right? That can be sufficient.

The sort of benefit you gain being small might be enough. So I don't want to downplay that part at all. But I think depending on the scandal, I think it's useful to try to hone in on the part that has the biggest impact. And sometimes the part of it that when we look back, we ought to feel really the most scandalized by isn't about the impact on the field at all. It's about the people involved, right?

And so I think, yeah, being able to both be clear-eyed about the competitive implications of all of this and the folks who are sort of pressing an advantage that is unfair and in direct contradiction to the rules, like that is an important thing to be able to do and i think that we have had experience as a sport where we haven't trusted the competitive environment and so being able to maintain one that feels solid i think is really important to fans experience of the game as like a legitimate pastime and a thing that it makes sense to invest time and feeling and money into. And sometimes what these scandals reveal are other related violations of moral codes that are about stuff that's more important than baseball.

So we can keep all of that stuff in mind too. That is true. I feel like I've recovered nicely from boom boom offense. Like I did that was a good like minute i did a good minute there that's much better than boom boom off leave it all the message across i think i'm making the case for playing by the rules really because you can be good without cheating and often i guess it's the good teams or the good players that do end up doing the cheating because, I don't know, they're the ones who have the most to gain from it, at least in some ways. Or if not that, then they're the ones that whatever quality has pushed them to be the best also pushes them to gain every last edge that they could possibly seek out. But you don't have to.

gain every last edge that they could possibly seek out. But you don't have to. The Astros were a really good team without the banging scheme. Garrett Cole was a really good pitcher without sticky stuff, although I suppose he might not have made quite as much money. The Braves' rebuild went just fine without all of the prospects that they weren't supposed to have been able to sign. Barry Bonds was an all-time great player before he started taking stuff. So in all of these cases, it's like you run the risk of hurting others, ultimately hurting your own reputation. Yeah. And you're probably deriving less benefit from that than you think you are

because you're already good and that gets you most of the way there. Yeah. Plus it's way there. Yeah. Plus, it's more satisfying. Yeah. It's more satisfying when you come by it honestly. So do that. All right. We have ended cheating on this podcast.

Yeah. See, we've both recovered from boom, boom, boom. You didn't need to, but here you are. We have covered a lot of ground on this podcast. We can leave it there. when Tampa Bay played Baltimore. Speaking of things MLB got to after the men's leagues and the three other major American sports, the NBA and NFL and NHL all had all-woman broadcasts before MLB. But better late than never,

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Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming via email at podcastoffantagraphs.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 soon. Talk to you then. Can you hear it? Like an imitation Can you feel it? you then.