Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1738: Molina and the Mound

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Ben Lindbergh follows up on a Stat Blast that generated a lot of listener emails, then (13:04) talks to former major leaguer and current Angels catching coach José Molina about his unparalleled receiving skills, fooling umpires, the importance of framing compared to throwing, blocking, and game-calling, whether stealing strikes can be taught, aspects of catcher […]

You're coming in the morning, looking at your desk, driving in the prowl car, with the nightingale. Pauline, where you going to? Pauline, where you going to? Hello and welcome to episode 1738 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangras. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. My co-host Meg Rowley is on vacation today, and it will take two people to take her place. Later in this episode, I will be joined by RJ Anderson from CBS Sports to talk about the Atlantic League moving the mound back by a foot, which happened early this month, and we'll discuss some of the early effects of that, as well as some of the consternation it caused among players. And we'll discuss how changes like this should be handled, and why this particular tweak caused such an uproar.

Before I bring in RJ, I will be joined by Jose Molina, the former Major League catcher who had a 15-year career with the Cubs and the Angels and the Yankees and the Blue Jays and the Rays. He is currently the catching coach for the Angels, and I'll talk to him about catcher framing and robot umpires and the future and some of the finer points of the position. We'll also talk about his brother, Yadier, and how the Molinas all made the majors. More on Molina in a moment. Before I get to our guests, I must, for the sake of my peace of mind and my inbox, follow up on something from our previous episode. Have you ever been on an email thread that turned into an endless string of people replying all? Whether because the initial sender forgot to BCC everyone, or because the recipients of the email unnecessarily replied all instead of just replying to the sender. It's like a train wreck you can see coming. You get those initial emails that you didn't need to receive, and then there's a flurry of those, and then people start

replying all to those, saying you don't need to reply all, and it goes on and on, and it's this self-perpetuating process, and before you know it, your inbox is clogged with tons and tons of emails all saying some variation of the same thing. Well, something a lot like that happened to my inbox and Meg's inbox at podcast at fangraphs.com this week, and I will tell you why. So on episode 1737, we did a couple stat blasts, and one of them was about intentional walks, specifically the question of whether when there is a pitching change, the outgoing pitcher issues the intentional walk or the incoming pitcher issues the intentional walk. And in the course of that step last, we discovered that over the past five seasons, the percentage has shifted from its historic rate of about 85% of the time it would be the outgoing pitcher, the guy who got in the jam in the first place, would be the one charged with that runner, to now it's about 50-50 or even slightly leaning toward the incoming pitcher. And we noted that one potential explanation is that starting in 2017 when this shift began to

happen, intentional walks went from throwing four balls to just signaling for the automatic intentional walk. And we noted that whereas in the past managers were sometimes reluctant to have a fresh pitcher come out of the pen and immediately throw four pitches out of the strike zone. Now that's not a concern, and so we have seen the shift in the rate, which has coincided with that change to the automatic intentional walk. Now one factor that we neglected to mention, which we should have, is that there has been another rule change that has probably had some impact here, the change in 2019 to the three batter minimum. So now if you bring in a reliever, he either has to face three batters or he has to finish the inning. And thus there is more incentive for the manager to have the incoming pitcher issue the intentional walk because that does count as a

batter faced. And then you have one down and only two to go. Now, I think you're usually hoping the pitcher you bring in mid inning will finish the inning, but not every time. And it doesn't hurt to have that first batter face down just in case things go wrong. The decline in the outgoing pitcher percentage started before the three batter minimum went into effect, and the magnitude of the change has been split about evenly between after the automatic intentional walk but before the three batter minimum and after the intentional walk and after the three batter minimum. Last season was the first year with the three batter minimum in effect, and the rate barely changed at all. It has changed subsequently this season. So I don't think that explains all of it, but I'm sure it explains some

of it. And really, when you factor that in, managers probably should be using the incoming pitcher almost all of the time, because why not? You know, last time we said, well, it might as well be 50-50 because it doesn't make a difference anymore but if you take the three batter minimum into account then it probably does make sense to have the incoming pitcher do it anyway that slipped our minds baseball analysis can be complicated there are all kinds of confounding factors we were focusing on one rule change and failed to bring up another that's also playing a part so i posted this episode i think it was about 4 a.m eastern Eastern, and often I'll do that. I'll post an episode early in the morning, then I'll go get some sleep, then I'll come back.

And I'm always surprised and gratified to find that by the time I get up again, there are already people who have listened to the entire episode and have taken the time to email us about something. Well, this time, I posted that episode early Monday morning. By the time I got up later on Monday, we already had several emails about this one thing. People pointing out, hey, I was just thinking that maybe the three batter minimum has had some effect here. And I thought to myself, uh-oh, because if we already had a bunch of emails about it by that time, I just knew there was going to be a deluge and they were going to keep coming and coming and coming. And you know what? They have.

As I record this, I think we're up to about 40 emails on this same subject. That is not counting the tweets about it, the Facebook comments about it, the comment on the show page at FedGraphs about it, at least one gchat I got about it. For some reason, some of my podcast emails have been getting stuck in the spam filter lately. So after this had been going on for a while, I checked my spam filter and guess what? There were many more emails about this in there. I half expected to start getting telegrams or faxes. Maybe I'll go check my mailbox in a few days and I'll have some letters in there about this.

So to try to forestall future emails, I am mentioning this now, acknowledging the oversight, thanking everyone for pointing it out. We had frequent correspondents writing in. We had first-time emailers writing in. I briefly considered just posting an entire episode, just like a one-minute-long episode, to say, hey, got your emails. Thank you. Should have mentioned the three-batter minimum thing, but I figured I would wait it out and note it here. And really, while it was not fun to get this constant stream of emails about a single subject, each one of which reminded me that we

probably should have brought that up on the episode. I will say that all of the emails were unfailingly polite. Nobody was writing in to say, hey, you dummies, you should have mentioned the three batter minimum. They were all very courteous and people just trying to be helpful. Many people said somewhere in their message, you may have already gotten some messages about this. Oh yeah, believe me, we did. Although, you know, there are other times when people will email us and say, I bet you're getting lots of emails about this. And we're not. They're the only one. So I don't want to discourage anyone from emailing about possible omissions and oversights in the future. By all means, let us know. I answered every message, although I will confess to copying and pasting after a while. And you know, we respond to a lot of podcast emails.

We don't respond to all of them, but we do read all of them. And they actually just go to my regular inbox with a label for the podcast, but I get notified about them the way I do about an email from my mom or my boss. So my phone is kind of constantly buzzing with podcast emails about the three batter minimum this week. Anyway, while there was a certain monotony to the messages, it really made me grateful for our audience and our listeners because all of these people were responding to a segment that was more than an and monotony to the messages, it really made me grateful for our audience and our listeners because all of these people were responding to a segment that was more than an hour into that episode, I think. And it was about the most inconsequential of possible baseball subjects. Which pitcher issues the intentional walk in a small subset of all intentional walks? We're

talking about like 10% of all intentional walks here. And intentional walks are infrequent as it is in this era of baseball. And many people who pay attention to baseball would say, who the heck cares which pitcher issues the intentional walk? And yet our audience cares. And not only are they listening, but they are listening actively and attentively and thinking along with us and in some cases out thinking us and taking the time to write in and that makes me feel good because the only thing worse than not noting the three batter minimum rule in a stat blast and getting 50 messages about it would be not noting it and getting zero messages about it which would suggest that no one was listening and no one cared so i far prefer it this way listener responses are a huge part of this podcast more so than any podcast i listen to

and please please keep them coming. Just, you know, not about the three batter minimum and intentional walks. Now, let me tell you about our first guest today, Jose Molina, the middle Molina brother. Here's how this happened. I contacted the Angels last week to invite Shohei Otani's interpreter, Ipe Mizuhara, on the podcast. And he thanked us for the request, but respectfully declined, likes to stay out of the spotlight. But the Angels say, hey, we like fan graphs. We're happy to help in the future if we can. And so I said, hey, while I have you, might as well shoot my shot. Could we talk to Jose Molina? For those of you who have been listening to me or reading me for a while, you know that Jose Molina

is one of my favorite players of all time, which probably makes me some sort of baseball hipster, but it's true. Jose Molina is my muse. And the reason is that he is the best framer in recorded baseball history. And of course, when it comes to framing, recorded history only goes back to 2008 for pitch FX or 1988 for ball strike data. But in the pitch tracking era, Jose Molina lapsed the field. I'll link to the spreadsheet on our show page, but there are 140 catchers who have caught at least a thousand innings since 2008. Jose Molina's framing, according to Fangraphs, was worth 35.7 runs per a thousand innings, which is roughly a full season for a starting catcher. No one is even close to that. Greg Zahn is the next highest at 25.6. There are only four guys,

Molina, Zahn, Paul Bacco, and David Ross over 20, and he is over 35. I didn't even have to set an innings minimum, and he was still the highest on a framing runs per inning basis. So that means even without being much of a hitter, and even before factoring in his other defensive abilities, he was worth three to four wins a year, or would have been if he had played regularly, just from making pitches more likely to be called strikes. And some people wish that weren't a thing. Maybe in a fairer world it wouldn't be, but as of now it is and it matters. And almost no one knew it at the time. So I know it's not the sexiest skill, but Jose Molina was about as good at that aspect of his job as any baseball player has been at anything. Now, part of that is that he was catching at the

advent of pitch tracking technology when there was less awareness of framing and teams were prioritizing it less. And so there were still some terrible framers at that time. Ryan Domet still roamed the earth. And so that made him look a little bit better relative to the average. But even so, he's a framing savant. And he's been a pretty important figure in my professional life. In that, as you will hear me tell him him on my first day as a baseball operations intern for the Yankees in 2009 I learned that framing mattered way more than I had ever suspected and that Jose Molina was much more valuable than I had ever thought and if you look at Fangraff's war right now you can see that Jose Molina in the

pitch tracking era had higher wars than Jorge Posada in his years with the Yankees. Posada, of course, was a great hitter during his career, but once the framing stats get factored in, his war kind of dropped off a cliff. Of course, he was getting on in years by that point too. I went on to write about Molina many, many times at Baseball Prospectus. The first piece I ever wrote for Grantland was about catcher framing and had many Molina gifs. I still have some emails and spreadsheets from when I was an intern in late 2009, and one of them, the result of this early framing study before there was really much public work in that area,

said this, Our best estimates of pitch framing say that a team with Jose Molina catching instead of Jorge Posada gives up 0.58 fewer runs per game. To help put 0.58 runs per game into context, we'll try to answer the question of how much better must Posada be with the bat to make up the difference. A gap of.58 runs per game is equivalent to a 500-point swing in OPS. That means if Posada were to put up an OPS of 840 in 2010, as long as Molina had an OPS of 340 or better, Molina would be the more valuable player.

In fact, Jorge Posada could hit like Albert Pujols, and Jose Molina could hit like Jose Molina, and Molina would still be better. I didn't write that. Another intern wrote that. My friend and fellow intern Alex Rubin wrote that Molina was one of the most underappreciated and underpaid players in baseball. Harry Povlidis at Baseball Prospectus later dubbed him Framing Jesus. And the reason why it made such an impact on me was A, statistically speaking, it was pretty cool to find out that someone I thought was a marginal backup catcher was actually a very valuable player and more valuable than some star starting catchers. But also because aesthetically speaking, I came to appreciate the skill that went into receiving. And I really grew to love watching him work. So I've wanted to talk to him for a long time.

I am happy that I got to do it for this episode. I think I might make this my ringtone. Hey, Ben. Jose Molina speaking here. Although if I do make that my ringtone, I guess I'll be disappointed when it turns out that the person calling me isn't actually Jose Molina. Anyway, this week it was. I have found one of the few people who appreciates catcher framing as much as Meg to sub in for

her. So without further delay, let's hear Jose. I am joined now by longtime major leaguer and master of framing and current Angels catching coach, Jose Molina. Jose, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So I want to start by telling you about when I realized just how valuable a good defensive catcher could be and also how valuable your defense was. In 2009, you were catching for the Yankees, and I was an intern in the Yankees baseball operations department that year. So we both got to ride in the parade after the team won the World Series, but only one of us got a ring, and it wasn't me. Anyway, in late April of that year, you caught a game where the Yankees shut out the Tigers behind Phil Hughes,

and some members of the front office were so impressed by your performance that they started talking about whether you might actually be more valuable than the starting catcher at the time, Jorge Posada, because your receiving skills were so good. And pitch tracking technology was still pretty new then, so they hadn't really studied how much framing mattered. But just before I showed up for my first day at work in early May, there was an intern named Alex Rubin who started to look into that and discovered that framing really mattered more than they thought and that you were Posada, which surprised me because he was such a good hitter and a five-time all-star and was making so much more money. And, you know, I knew you had a reputation for being a great defender and I knew you played an important defensive position, but I just didn't understand how huge a difference it made to have someone who could make pitches more likely to be called strikes. And I'm sure you knew that all along, but when did you find out that people had finally figured out what framing was worth and started to quantify it and that your numbers were so good?

Well, I mean, honestly, I work hard on my defense. People talk about just framing. Yeah, framing is a huge part of the game because you cut 150 100 to 200 pitches a night uh yes it's huge uh but when you work in everything uh and you take pride on everything i think uh the whole game become really important so yes my uh i was good and and what i did and my uh you know, framing skills. But, you know what, I really work hard on it. I work hard on knowing my pitching staff.

I work hard on knowing what type of pitches they have. And I work hard on giving them so much confidence that they trust in me and what to put down and they follow it. And honestly, you know, it's just the skills. on me and what to put and put down and they follow it. Honestly, it's just the skills. You just have to have the skills to receive the ball. Just see the ball go all the way to your glove. In my time, I was really quiet.

I don't know what these days comes with everybody's moving the glove. If you see my videos, and I'm happy for you to see it, I barely move the glove. Yes. I was really quiet. So that's the only difference that I don't,

especially these days, I see from myself. So I really don't know where that comes from. Not from me. I mean, I'm really happy to knowing by a good framing guy too, but for sure not a guy that moves the glove a lot. That wasn't me. Oh, yeah. For a few years after I found out and I realized how important this was,

my favorite kind of baseball highlight was watching you catch pitches because I watched a lot of catchers to try to figure out what the good ones were doing and why they were better than others. And you always stood out because when you caught pitches, your body was so still and your glove just barely budged. And there wasn't any motion that could make an umpire think you had to reach for the pitch. And when you did pull a pitch toward the zone, it was so quick and subtle. You weren't yanking the ball in an obvious way. So were you always able to do that? Or did you learn from someone or have some specific way to train that well it just said the way i got learned how to catch you know that the way i learned how to catch it just to be steady and quiet use my hands instead of my body yeah um you know the less moves

you have in your glove the more uh pitches you're going to get called. These days, I don't know. I mean, it's incredible how guys try to move their glove. And just think about it. Just how hard is it to hit a moving target? You know, we tell them the pitcher to hit a moving target. It's going to cost them. But, you know what, that's the way we're going these days.

I think front office people like it. So we just have to just step back and let them do their job. For me, that's not a way that I will learn. I mean, sorry, it's not a way that I will teach. That's not my way. So it's up to them. You know, let me work the way I want to, or I guess find somebody else to do it the wrong way. Yeah. And I guess you always had this ability and we're always trying to do that. But late in your career, when the computers came along and they finally figured out how to quantify this, were you aware of that? You know, when you were with Tampa Bay or Toronto, did you know that front offices were finally figuring out what that was worth and really putting a priority on it?

No, not really. I wasn't even putting attention to that because I knew the way it cut. I mean, framing is still framing since 130 years. So just the way computers are these days, they can calculate it and they can make that up and then work for the best. So, I mean, to me it's the same. When you know the way, first of all, if you know yourself, that you are a good defensive catcher, it doesn't matter what the computer says.

You're going to be good, you know. So for them, when you have that confidence in yourself to do it that way, that you're good and you can do it that way, then the computer is just for them, not for you. These days, the way they do it, they go ahead, finish a game up, and the first thing they're looking at is to see if their numbers were good. I know my numbers were good, so I don't even have to go to there. Right. Yeah.

And well, your career was kind of unusual in that you played more games and you had your highest single season salary toward the end when you were in your late 30s. And I'm guessing it's not because you got better. It's just because teams like the Rays who signed you in 2011 had finally learned how good you always were. So I wonder if you had debuted later or the pitch tracking technology had come along sooner and everyone had really understood what a difference you were making i wonder whether you would have gotten more playing time or made more money over the course of your career is that something you've thought about at all never uh-huh i always you know the less i think the better i will be so um I know for, because you cannot put yourself in this time of the,

where you're playing or, you know, this new era, you cannot do that. That will be hard for yourself. What you try to do in this new era, just try to teach what you did a couple of years ago, six,

seven, eight, 10 years ago. And because it works for you, but like I say, I mean, it's not everybody that wanted to do it that way. If they go different routes, that's okay.

I don't mind. That's their ways. But I know my way, the way I cut the ball, it really works. And I just wish that people start going towards that direction again because it's how hard it is to move, to hit, like I said before, to hit a moving target. And we're making tougher pitchers try to hit moving targets. But like I said before, that's the way they want it in front offices and analytic people.

I respect that. No problem with it. I work with it. And you know what? It's nothing I can do. Just play with it. Was there any tradeoff between framing and other aspects of defense? If you were focusing on framing, did that come at a cost to blocking or throwing because you were setting up at a certain way or trying to present the pitch in a certain way? Or could you do it all? I think I could do it all. I think I was a good blocker, good thrower. I think I threw about 37, 30, almost 40 cuts stealing. Not counting my years in the last year, because you're all, I was 39, so was in my prime, I was throwing 45%, 50% of that ceiling. I was blocking really good, call a good game, frame really good. My hitting wasn't a big part of my game early, then late become a better one. That's probably why I play more games. But at the end of the day, yeah, I consider myself a complete catcher,

not just a receiver, framer guy. So there are stats now for framing, for blocking, for throwing, for fielding, but there aren't really good stats, at least publicly, for game calling or for working with pitchers. So how much of a catcher's contribution do you think is still not being measured? Game calling is the best. It's a huge part of this game. If you don't know how to call a game or you don't know how to read bats, you don't know how to get the best out of your pitcher,

you're in the wrong sport. And it's bad. It's bad because not every pitcher is going to have the same pitches every day. Yeah. You have to, you know, kind of realize when is the time to switch to another one because the other team knows what you throw too, you know kind of realize when is the time to switch to another one because the other team knows what you throw too you know so honestly you know it's it's a it's a mind game you know that you have to play uh with the hitter with your pitcher and uh try to figure out which one is the best uh that he have that day and try to get the most out of him out of you know that day so uh that comes with a lot

of work like i say early it just come with talking to the pitchers literally have it in their side trust you i mean uh you can talk to all the pitchers that i caught in my life and i i believe you i believe that they will say the same they trust the catcher so So I leave that up to you. Just go ahead and ask everybody that I catch. But trust is a huge part of the catcher and pitcher relationship. Yeah. And I've talked to some catchers who think of framing as actually stealing strikes. They're trying to get pitches that are not strikes called strikes. Then there are other catchers who say,

no, I'm just trying not to lose strikes that should be strikes. You know, I'm not trying to fool the umpire. I'm just trying to give them a good look at it and make an accurate call. How did you think of it? Honestly, what I think about it is you try to fool the umpire, honestly, because the umpire know their strikes on. They know, well, most of them know their strikes on. But what you try to do, you fool them with no movement. The quieter you get, the better it will be. But when you move a lot, the guys, the umpire is going to, you know, that's when they're going to have their ups and downs and calling strikes and balls.

And that's not stealing strikes. That's not fooling the umpire. That's fooling yourself. When you try to fool the umpire. That's fooling yourself. When you try to fool the umpire, it's when a pitch is really close to the strike zone and you don't even move yourself or not even your glove. And he thinks it's in the same spot that the strike zone is. That's how you do it. There are some catchers like you and also like current Angels catcher Max Stassi,

who is a very good receiver too. There are some guys who just seem to be good at this from the start almost, but there have also been some cases in the past several years where some catchers who weren't great receivers to begin with have really improved as framers after making more of an effort in that area. But then there are other guys who just never seem to get good at it. They just don't have that ability. So can it be taught? And how do you try to teach it? Well, the first thing is

you really want to have a guy that has a good mind, understand what you're talking about, understand that it's not just about one thing only. If it's a game, it's a complete game. In the case of Max Staffy, if you take a look, he goes in one, he don't go in one knee like everybody else do these days.

So he's a good receiver? Yes, he's a good receiver. The guy in New York, in Shioaka, he's really quiet too, you know, and he don't have to go in one knee to steal strikes, you know, and he don't have to go on one knee to steal strikes, you know. Who else? You know, my brother, the goal is in one knee, you know, but it's just different. You know, Jad has done it for many years that way. At the end of the day, he stays square.

He waits for the ball. He receives the ball. He don't move the ball a lot. You know, I'm not saying don't do one day on the ground. Just make sure you do it the right way. But like I say, I mean, I think Matt Stassi just, to me, is going to be really good on receiving. And he's doing a good job trying to stay with the pitching staff, learning.

I mean, remember, this is his first full year. I mean, catching almost every day. So I think we are going to see a lot out of him in the coming up seasons too. Are there certain drills you can do to get better at framing or does it ever help to show someone the stats and say, here's where you're getting the calls and here's where you need to work on?

Oh, it's a bunch of drills that you can do. It's a bunch, you know, but, you know, you have to, like I said before, you've got to want that. You have to make sure you're, you're concentrating. You are, make sure you are, you really want it. I mean, really, honestly, you really have to put everything into it to be a really want it. I mean, really honestly, you really have to put everything into it to be a really good receiver. But, yeah, it's a lot, a lot of drills that we can do, especially machine.

I always like the picture, catching bullpens. That's how you get. But these days, I think, you know, I mean, I like it more realistic. I don't like the machine as much. but guys just love the machine, the machine. It just hits you in the same spot all the time. And when you're catching bullpens, they go everywhere. So that's how you learn. So you're the catch and coach for a team with a couple of veteran catchers, Kurt Suzuki, of course, and Max Stassi, who, as you mentioned, he's playing more and seems to be getting better with age, but he's been around for a while, too.

So your job must be different from being, say, a catching coordinator or instructor who's just teaching kids to catch at the lower levels. So what does a major league catching coach on a team like the Angels do? Well, just make sure we keep it on check. Make sure they're not going too far away from what they're capable to do. And, you know, when they go away from what they do best, bring it back the quickest we can. So, you know, I know that in the case of Suzuki, he's been in the game for so long, there's not much that you can talk to him about.

You just try to stay around and see what you can do to help him daily. In any case, Stassi, just, you know, make sure he keeps, you know, healthy. Make sure he's doing his thing of doing his little work that he does and just every day because he's a grind every day. So make sure he's staying online every day instead of go left or right, just stay straight up and do his job. Do you help with game planning, game calling, advanced scouting, any of that? No, no, I don't.

I see. So it seems like we might be a few years away from automated strike zones, and if we don't have human umpires calling pitches, then framing doesn't seem like it'll matter anymore. So how do you feel about that? And how do you think the position of catcher would change? Well, it will change completely because now the framing part doesn't become, it really won't matter. Now become the part of the other side of the game, you know, blocking the ball, calling a good game, and throw base stealers, you know.

That's what it's going to do. I wish it goes that way because I always like to a guy that can throw and block, especially, you know, men in third base to strike all the situations that comes and I really wanted to come back but I think we are long long ways away from from have that so I don't think it will happen that's my opinion I don't think it will happen I think it let the umpires do their job good or bad that's that's your job so if you take it away, then the game just becomes more computerized than a real baseball game.

Right, yeah. I mean, I see why people are in favor of it, but I would really miss that aspect of watching catchers and seeing the skill that they have in receiving pitches. And because you were so good at that, I imagine that you would be sorry to see that go, even if it means that there's more emphasis on other aspects of the game, you know, not to have framing anymore. I mean, that changes everything in terms of how catchers have been taught and practiced for decades, for centuries, almost since the beginning of baseball. So would you be sad to see that happen? Oh, very sad. But at the end of the day, that's what, you know, those guys get paid to do and we respect it and whatever it is, it is. And we just have to adjust at the system and can do much about it. You just have to learn how to live with it.

Yeah. And, you know, since it is fooling umpires, I mean, you were a hitter too. And so if there was a good framer behind the plate when you were batting, then sometimes there were strikes stolen against you too, which I'm sure you probably weren't happy about. Do you think it would be better for baseball? Is it fairer to have a consistent zone, even if it means that catchers don't get to show that ability? No, no.

I don't care what people say about I don't like robots taking charge. That's my mind. If we go, we adjust. I'd rather not even adjust. Just let

baseball and we just play the game the way it is and um and see how you know daily take us so um like i say uh before uh the game is baseball let let the umpires call the game and and we yeah there were so many cases i remember watching videos of your career when you were catching, when you would get a call on a pitch that was, you know, maybe a few inches off the plate. And it was just so common to see the hitter turn around and get flustered and get frustrated. And every time I would think, oh, yeah, that's Jose Molina doing his thing again. Was that satisfying for you if a hitter got kind of mad about a call that you got that probably wasn't in the strike zone? But I'm doing my job. Yeah, sure, of course.

Everybody's doing their jobs. I mean, everybody's doing the job that they're supposed to do. So, yeah, umpires are human, too. They're going to make mistakes. They way out make mistakes. You know, sometimes, I mean, let's put it this way. What about when balls are in the middle and they don't call it?

And it's not very often that that happens, but it happens. So, honestly, just go both ways, man. I think, you know, in this game, and you know what? Honestly, what it has done to the baseball, when people look at framing as a really important thing in baseball, what it's done is just the umpires just concentrate more and work harder to it. So I really like that. I really like umpires that work their butt off on trying to get really good calls, trying to get the best out of themselves. Yeah, no, that's true.

Definitely. Umpires have gotten better and more consistent over time. And one question that I get often is, you know, can't umpires adjust? Because if they know that you have a really good framer who is going to be catching that day's game, then can't the umpire just say, I'm not going to be fooled because I know that this is what he does. So, you know, I'm going into this with my eyes open, but it doesn't seem like that's the case.

Like, even if they know that there is a catcher who's good at getting those extra strikes, you know, it's still pretty tough for them not to call them, I guess, just because of the way they make it look. Yeah. Yeah. That's what, that's what it does. So they just concentrate in football strikes and not worry about

the glove or anything else. So I think they're doing a great job and that's why if they continue that route, I think they will be no robot umpire. So I think everyone who plays or works for the Angels has been asked about Shohei Otani at some point

this year and I've got to ask you too because we're talking a few hours before he pitches. So as a pitcher, I mean, he has such good stuff and so many pitches, but he's also smart and he really knows how to hold something back for big moments. And he really adjusts his approach from game to game and inning to inning. So I wonder whether he reminds you of anyone that you caught and from watching him work with Suzuki and Stassi, what do you think are the keys to catching him and to helping him thrive in any given game?

Well, sure, it's special. That's the only thing I can say. No matter, it could be the wall behind the plane and he will deal anyway. So, yeah, I mean, he's special. That's the only thing I'm going to say because it's not other stuff that you can talk or say about Shohei. He's special. What is he like as a teammate, as a presence in the clubhouse?

The best. He's a great teammate. He's a great person, great human being. Does he remind you of anyone you worked with in terms of his repertoire, his pitches, or the way he adjusts? You know what? I can't remember right now. It's too many guys that I've got in my life. It's kind of hard to just put a name right now. But he's special. That's something that's changed, really. Even since the beginning of your career, there are so many pitchers used every game and over the course of a season that it's got to be tough for catchers just to keep track of everyone and I know that you know they have the the little guide that they have on their wrist that they can check maybe which is probably something that didn't exist when you

were catching really but how much of a challenge is that just to know the repertoires of every pitcher on a team when you have so many guys who are coming in from game to game and over the whole year? Well, that's part of the study that as a catcher you have to do. You know, you got to watch videos. Soon you know a guy is coming up, you got to watch videos and make sure you know why he throws stuff to the guy, trying to make him the most comfortable you can be with that guy. So when you and him are in, you know, catching and pitching, then it becomes a lot easier to catch it, you know, and the pitcher is comfortable throwing at you. Your younger brother, Yadier, just signed a contract extension with St. Louis.

So next year will be the 25th consecutive season with a Molina in the major leagues, dating back to when your older brother, Benji, debuted in 1998, and then you followed the next year. So it's still so amazing that all three of you made the majors and had long careers. And I know Benji co-wrote a book about your father and how he helped you all succeed. And Yadi says he plans to retire after 2022, and it'll be a sad day when he finally calls it a career and there are no more Molinas playing big league games.

So I have to ask, is there a successor in the family? Do any of you have kids or relatives who could be catchers someday and carry on the tradition? Well, we have a couple of boys, one of 12 and the other one is just five. That's the only two boys in the family. So, you know, one of them, the big boy, plays, so he could be. We know. Who knows?

We know what the future brings us, you know. We know. Who knows? We know what the future brings us, you know. But for sure, you know, it's been a special ride for, and I know from talking to my brothers and, you know, we never expect to be in this position. We know we work hard, but we never, never thought that we're going to play 25 years as a family in the big league. as a family in the big league. Never. We're always praying God just to thank you for having us healthy and being able to do this for so long. And like I say, Yaddy just signed his last year, last contract, had played a lot of years.

Hopefully people see it as a Hall of Fame. I do see it that way too but you know he uh he's a special and he had done a lot of good things for the people of san luis and and for baseball too so um hopefully people keep talking about uh his hall of Fame career. Hopefully he gets in and we can see each other again up there. But we are proud. We're proud and humbled just to be in the big leagues and spend this many years in the big leagues. That makes us proud.

Hopefully another family, a big family, comes around and, you know, and enjoy what we did and get as big of a ride as we have right now. Yeah. What do you attribute that to? Because obviously you guys had a lot of talent, but was it your dad instructing you? Was it something about the way you were raised? How did it happen? dad instructing you? Was it something about the way you were raised? How did it happen? Parents. My parents were the best. They're still the best. They teach us the right way to care about other people. And he showed us the right way. And at home, when you raise the right way, there's a lot of good things going to happen in your life. And baseball was a big part. But everything was at home with my mom and my dad. And last thing, you mentioned Yadi and his Hall of Fame case.

And I think he has a strong one. And I do think he'll get in. And I think now that especially you can factor in the framing value, which we can measure, and he's been very good at that too. I think that definitely puts him over the top if there was doubt before. But you still always hear about Yachty that there are things he does that still are not showing up in the stats, whether it's the game calling, whether it's how he works with pitchers, whether it's how he sets the defense. whether it's how he sets the defense. I mean, what are some of the things that you appreciate about him that maybe are not as obvious just from the box score or even from some of the advanced stats?

The endurance. He plays. He plays the game. He's not in the bench. He's playing every day. And not many people listen at that. You know, not many people see that. It's a grind. it's a lot easier to play in in the outfield that playing behind the play when you get in foul tips after foul tip after foul tip yeah and have to somehow you have to just come back next day and play mm-hmm you have done it for 19 years so I mean

anyone can tell me whatever they want about other positions, but catcher is the best position in the planet. It's a reason why we are looking or everybody's looking at you as a catcher. So it's really special. And I think Daddy has put it on the map as one of the best ones. And he's done a great job there. Did it take a physical toll on you? I don't know whether you had any concussions during your career or, you know, broken fingers or anything else. But do you have old catching injuries that you're still dealing with? Oh, my knees. They're bad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But that's the part you have to deal with, you know, knees.

And it is what it is. That's the position of shoes. And I know you won't regret anything, Ben. You don't regret anything that happened to us behind the plate. So that's why we're always going to be catchers. And, you know, we're always going to think that catcher is the best position in the game. Yeah, I agree with you there. And you mentioned the importance of game calling.

I don't know whether you've heard about the new system that they're testing now, where instead of just putting down the signs with your finger, it'll be like the catcher will press a button on a wrist pad and then it'll get beamed to the pitcher sort of silently to try to prevent sign stealing. Do you think something like that would work, kind of an electronic system for sending signs instead of the old-fashioned finger method? I mean, the only thing that they're trying to take care of is the stealing signs. Yeah. It won't change anything from calling a game. It's just changing from stealing signs.

So, honestly, it probably helps because, you know, especially if you have guys trying to steal signs from second, then, you know, you don't want that to happen in a game seven of the World Series. So, if that's the case, I don't mind. If the football players use it, why don't we use it? It's not changing anything from the game. I guess they say maybe it'll save some time

if you're less likely to get crossed up and have to go out to the mound to make sure you have your signs straight. I don't know whether that's true or not, but maybe that could help too. I don't know the rule how it's going to be, but I hope it comes. We already saw in the spring training a little bit of what they have.

I think it will work perfectly. But who knows? We'll see what they bring us next year. All right. Well, I will let you get to the game. And I really just enjoyed watching your career and writing about your career and also talking to you today. So thanks very much for making some time, Jose.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Ben. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right. I will be back in a moment with RJ Anderson of CBS Sports to discuss moving the mound back in the Atlantic League. Go down round the snow bank There's a mound A mound that an old man knows good Look who raises his shoe Over this mound Right over the world in another rewind All right, I am joined by my pal R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports. R.J., you are entering in relief of Jose Molina on this episode, which is a tough act to follow.

Only someone I've been wanting to talk to for about a decade here, so no pressure. Right. You know, we were both at the peak of our relevancy about 10 years ago in the Tampa Bay area. So it's big shoes, a big cleats to follow, but I'll try my best. Yeah, you and I are probably among the league leaders in all-time words written about Jose Molina, I would imagine. It's just not that much competition, probably. Yeah, that's things we shouldn't say publicly. So you did not write about Jose Molina this time. You wrote a great reported long-form feature about the Atlantic League and about the decision to move the mound back,

about the Atlantic League and about the decision to move the mound back, which is sort of a joint process just a little more than, well, not even a month ago at this point. And the mound was moved back by a foot to 61 feet and six inches on August 3rd. And this is a subject that is close to my heart. Also, like Jose Molina, I've written about moving the mound back a bunch of times too, but not since it actually went into effect in the Atlantic League and you have done the legwork here and looked at the results and talked to a lot of the players in the league about how this went down so for anyone who is not aware can you just kind of give us a snapshot of what the Atlantic League is you know who are the players who are in this league what are they hoping to accomplish where are they coming from where do they hope they're going and how has that changed since

this became an official partner league of mlb if at all yeah so the atlantic league is i would say the top independent league in american baseball and what that means basically is that the teams are not affiliated with major league organizations. So, you know, there isn't a Durham Bulls situation where the farm team of the Tampa Bay Rays. These teams exist independently of MLB, even if they are a partnership now. And the players go there. Usually it's to revive their careers. Usually it's, you know, players who are of double-A or better

quality. A lot of times you see teams pluck replacements for the triple-A level from the Atlantic League, and sometimes those players do work their way into the majors. It's considered to be a triple-A or quad-A league for the most part, or used to be considered that.

Unfortunately, as I get into in the piece, it seems like the quality of competition has slipped since the Atlantic League partnered with MLB and became MLB's laboratory. A lot of new rule changes have been tested out of the Atlantic League the last few years since this partnership began in 2019, including this year where you have the 61-foot mound, you have the double-hooked DH,

which basically means that a team loses its DH when it removes a starting pitcher, and just stuff like that. There have been all kinds of experiments ran there, and some of them have made their way into minor and major league baseball, and some of them have not yet made their way. But, yeah, it's definitely changed since, you know, a few years ago prior to the partnership, and it's not necessarily for the better if you talk to the players. Yeah. So about that. So I wrote about moving the mound back in

mid-March and that was before it was officially announced that the Atlantic League would be doing that this year. I think that announcement came, I don't know, maybe in the weeks or months after that article came out. And this was something that they had talked about doing in 2019, that they were going to implement a two-foot move in the mound at the Atlantic League at midseason. And that didn't end up happening. And the sense that I got when I was working on my piece earlier this year is that basically they were worried about players having workman's comp concerns or having injuries occur, and basically that players would not be happy with this change and that there would be a lot of objections. And so they didn't end up doing it that year. And then they did this year, but only half of the distance, just a one foot move. And even so,

it did not go over well. So tell us a little bit about what you learned about how players responded to this, both when it was announced, if they were even aware of it at that time, and since it went into effect earlier this month. Yeah, so I talked to more than a handful of players, mostly pitchers, and I tried to get a feel for what it's like to be in this league that is experimenting in a way that can run countermeasure to your career aspirations, your individual performance, and also your health, because there's a lot about the 61-foot mound we don't know about with regards to what it does to your body and your arm health and whatnot. And I think it's

fair to say the players are not overly pleased with how the league has shifted. When it comes to the 61-foot mound itself, all the pitchers basically agree that they have been able to adjust and it wasn't a big deal anymore. Now, they did mention some of their software-tossing teammates have issues, and there are actual effects on the pitch quality and command quality and what have you, so I don't want to make it sound like there's no difference whatsoever. It's just that they were able to overcome those

despite some, let's say, less than ideal scheduling and logistical aspects to it. But what players are really distressed about is that, yes, the Atlantic League has kind of become MLB's laboratory, and they're fearful that it's going to impact their career prospects. They are skeptical of the study the Atlantic League passed along to them that showed that there's no measurable kinetic difference in throwing from 66 versus 61-6. Actually, it was like 62-6 and 63-6. But there's just a lot of confusion, a lot of animosity.

And what I get into in the piece is that the players had actually discussed a work stoppage, a collective act of labor. And then they were kind of scared off of that by murmurs about the potential backlash. So, you know, if you're just trying to sum it up, I would say the players have kind of come to accept the 61 foot mound. But the larger circumstances and the larger context still very much annoys them. So I know it was kind of murky, the sequence of events and who said what and how that perception got started. There was a rumor going around that the league or MLB or both

had maybe threatened to blackball players, suspend players. They wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere in North American baseball if they decided to stop pitching over the mound move. And the truth of it is tough to untangle as you discovered, but what did you find out about how that actually got started? Like, was there anything official or was it sort of a game of telephone that maybe got blown out of proportion, even though probably MLB and the Atlantic League may have been happy to have pitchers thinking that they had to go along with this. Yeah, so I heard various genesis on that. I heard, you know, one player told me it hurt from an umpire, another player told me it hurt from coaches, and it is unclear whether either of the leagues were behind it, so I'm not implicating them. But I will say that the mechanism that the players described in terms of being essentially banned from playing baseball,

either in the Atlantic League or any other North American league, does sound a lot like the suspended list mechanism. And I asked the Atlantic League presidentick white you know what would happen if a player opted out and i basically said you know can players opt out without repercussions and he described this uh suspended list mechanism where basically the player would go on here for violating their contracts and they would not be able to play for another Atlantic League team. And the other leagues do check on who is on other league suspended lists. And obviously, you know, if you're suspended from the MLB partner league, you're probably not going to get a job in a league that doesn't want to annoy MLB or that partner league. So, yeah, the players were in the situation where after a short grace period pass where they could request a trade, they felt like they were kind of pushed into this.

Although, again, as the leagues have said, as leagues told me, you know, these plans were publicly available and like they were known before the season. And as you mentioned earlier, they actually had been planning this for a few years now when they talked about moving the mound to 62 feet, six inches, two seasons ago. So that's basically what I came away with. It's hard to tell if it was just a game of telephone. It's hard to tell if there was fire to the smoke, but there certainly is a mechanism that would do what the players were fearful of having done to them. Why do you think there didn't end up being some sort of walkout or players protesting? Was it because of those threats or perceived threats or the risk? Or was it because a lot of pitchers just figured, eh, one foot, maybe it isn't actually that big a deal? I mean, why didn't this come to a head? Yeah, I think it's probably a little bit

of both. I think once the pitchers got on the mound and realized, okay, you know, this isn't necessarily the game changer that we were fearful of, then Anamosti cooled off a little bit. But I do think that if you're a player in this league and you feel like maybe your career is already hanging on by a thread, do you really want to risk it? Do you really want to basically end your career voluntarily? And I know one player I talked to said that it was hard

to get the younger players on board with this idea because they didn't want to prematurely in their careers that you know 23 24 years old before they really had a chance to even have a career so you know I certainly have empathy for anyone who had to make this decision and the player I talked to had empathy for those younger players and said they weren't sure what they would have done if they were their age so I think it's a combination of things as these you know aspects tend to be but i believe that's probably the best guess as to why a walkout did not happen do you have an opinion about the best way to implement tests like this because meg and i

have talked in the past about the idea of having like a lab league as meg dubbed it where basically it's just explicitly set up for the purpose of testing stuff like this. And maybe it's just like in a laboratory somewhere. It's not an actual league, but everyone knows coming in. Yeah, I'm signing up for lab league. This is going to be weird. Like, you know, maybe you do it

if you're at the tail end of your career and you don't really have much to lose. But there is obviously an appeal to this from MLB's perspective, because you're getting to test these things in a high level league with players who may be future or former major leaguers in some cases, but it's outside of affiliated ball. There's no union, you know, so it's kind of exploitative in a way. And it is also informative if you're trying to get good data on these things that you can port into the majors potentially without actually just springing it on major league players who would certainly revolt, I think, if you just did that without testing it anywhere and might revolt regardless.

So do you think this is like a viable approach or do you feel like the negatives outweigh the positives and that they should just set up some sort of alternate testing ground for this type of experiment yeah it's kind of funny you mentioned uh what mw players would do because one thought that came that kept going through my head throughout this process was what would justin berlander say if rod manford or you know someone from the league said hey we're going to move the mound to 61 feet because i just can't imagine that going well but you know to answer this question i do think that a lab league would have appeal. I think the key is that you have to allow the players that they have a sense of agency and a sense of input here. You know, maybe you just compensate them better.

You know, the players I talked to for this specific piece, they wondered where did the money that the Atlantic League supposedly received as part of this partnership, where did that money go? Because these guys are still eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they're still living arguably a worse lifestyle than minor league players. So if you're willing to use them as guinea pigs, basically, why not improve their life? Why not make them feel like they're pioneers and make them feel like they're doing something important? And that just means getting them better nutrition and better home living facilities.

I mean, gosh, isn't that a small ask? So I think that you really have to treat these players or, you know, if you're doing lab league, treat the participants as human beings who are very important, arguably the most important part of the experiment, right? You know, you can't just, you can't make them feel like they're less than human and they are simply fungible widgets in a great machine. And I think that that's ultimately what the players feel like, that they have no say here, that this is going to happen regardless of what they say or do. And that's not really a good position to be in when it feels like the system

is working against you and robbing you of your career aspirations, robbing you potentially of your health, and just putting you in an unwinnable situation. So what did you hear from players about what adjustments they made, if any, after this actually went into effect on August 3rd, both batters and pitchers? So the batters actually had a pretty clever solution, and that was to move up in the batters box. And when you think about it, if you move up to the front of the box from the back of the box you're negating the effect that the extra foot is having on pitches right you know you're basically seeing the pitch at the same distance that you would otherwise so that was pretty clever and that's the one i heard from batters that's that's funny because if they did that then that suggests that

they think that the extra foot of distance would not be an advantage to them, right? Like that they must believe that the additional break that would happen over that extra foot would not be outweighed by the extra foot, the extra tiny bit of reaction time that they would get. So in a way, it's like it almost defeats the experiment if enough batters are doing that. It's like it almost defeats the experiment if enough batters are doing that. And so if the mound moves back by a foot, but batters are also moving forward by a foot or some fraction of a foot, then you're kind of like back where you started in a sense. Yeah, and I think we saw that piece by Rob Arthur. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. The strikeouts are actually up since this experiment happened. So it might not be having the effect that MLB anticipated.

As for pitchers, though, they really talked about adjusting their sight lines. And it makes sense, because if you're accustomed to essentially aiming for one specific area, well, if you move a foot back, now you have to adjust that sight line in relation to gravity and the extra movement. So that was the major one, but I know that one pitcher also mentioned they had to adjust how they released their breaking ball because otherwise it was ending up out of the zone too often. So I think those are probably the two or three biggest differences that these players have had to make to their game since the implementation of the 61-foot mound. Yeah, so you alluded to Rob's piece at Baseball Perspectives from this week. I will link to that as well as your piece at CBS Sports.

But Rob kind of found that at least in some ways there didn't seem to be much of a difference at all or the difference isn't what was hoped for. It seemed like the league or the leagues perhaps told you that the difference had been what they wanted, right? So what are they saying about what the effects have been and how does that match up with what Rob seems to have found? Yeah, so Rick White, again, the president of the Atlantic League, said he didn't have the numbers on him,

but from what he had observed, he felt that there were more balls being hit into play, meaning fewer strikeouts. He felt that pitchers had changed their pitch mix to throw more fastballs and fewer breaking balls. And again, that kind of makes sense because when you think about it, fastballs, specifically high spin fastballs, are less likely to be impacted by that extra foot. And he also said that umpires had told him that league-wide control had gotten worse,

specifically over those breaking balls. And again, that's where the extra foot of movement and perhaps some of those mechanical adjustments come into play. But when you looked at Rob Arthur's analysis, he said that strikeouts were up. He said the home runs were up. He said that batting average on balls in play was static. And I think he did mention that the batted ball profile had changed a little bit, but I'm forgetting what exactly that entailed. So I would encourage everyone to read that for the full landscape of these changes. Yeah, I'm looking at his piece now. He says fly balls are up, but line drives are down. Pop-ups are also higher. This suggests more fly

ball contact up in the zone and also accords with the idea that fastballs have been downgraded, breaking balls upgraded due to having more space to move. Of course, this is only a few weeks and there aren't so many teams in this league. So I guess it's not an enormous amount of data yet. And as Rob mentioned in his piece, there are some possible confounding factors here in that this was not the only change that the Atlantic League made this season. They also have the automated strike zone, which was present in the Atlantic League in 2019 as well, but they changed the definition or the configuration of the zone this year. Although that happened from the start of the season, right? This year. And so- I believe so. And I know the pitchers hate it. I mean, if you want to talk about something where

the pitchers were absolutely against it, it's the automated ball strike system. They hate it. Hate it. Yeah. So the fact that you have these multiple changes happening at once makes it tougher to tease out the impact of any individual one. Although I guess it helps a little bit if you had at least no mound move for the first half of the season and then the mound moves for the second half of the season. But still, there's a lot going on there. And yeah, the automatic strike zone. So we had a couple players on the podcast back in 2019, I guess it was, to talk about the first season of the automatic strike zone in the Atlantic League, and they didn't like it then either. And there's been an experiment with that in the lower levels of the minors this year too. And from what I gather,

that didn't go great either, at least in the first half of the seasonors this year too. And from what I gather, that didn't go great either, at least in the first half of the season. And I think they have subsequently changed the borders of the strike zone, which has got to be tough for batters and pitchers too, to adjust to that in the middle of a season as well. But I think, you know, they're trying to use that to get feedback because if you use the rule book strike zone, then you're going to get some called strikes that no one is accustomed to having called strikes. And probably most people don't even think should be called strikes. So it makes sense to adjust it as you go, even though that's got to be hard on players. But from what I saw in the level where they were testing that in the affiliated minors this year,

like walks were way up, strikeouts were way up, like everything was totally out of kilter, you know, much more so even than other leagues at that level so it seems like we're getting closer to the automated strike zone but it seems like there's still a lot of kinks to work out in that system which would make jose molina happy because as we just heard he's not a huge fan of it but really like i guess that's the point is figuring out how to make it better. But even if the technology is ready in terms of the accuracy and the quickness of making calls, it seems like we're still a ways away from actually having players be satisfied with the system or feeling like it's fair or an improvement over the human element. Yeah, and I think it kind of gets back to a theme throughout my article, and that is who gets to determine what progress is,

who gets to say whether it's always good, and what happens to those who are left behind by it. And I think Jose Molina is a good example of the human cost of progress. If and when, I should say, they implement the automatic ball strike system at the major league level because I think Jose Molina was one of our favorite players, and Jose Molina would not be employed and would not have become one of our favorite players if we had robot ups throughout the last decade plus right so another thing i was kind of wondering about with this i don't know whether this came up in your reporting at all but one of the obstacles

to doing a mound move on a large scale is, of course, that you have to physically move the mound or move the rubber, at least in some way. And that's not easy. I mean, depending on the configuration of the field, I mean, you might have to dig it up. You might have to use all kinds of tools and everything, and this could be viable at the upper levels, but that would be tough if you did it on a sweeping basis and you have hundreds, thousands of baseball fields all over the country and all over the world where you would

have to move the mound. Not that you'd have to do it at every level of baseball, at least initially necessarily, but did you find out anything about that or hear anything about the actual work that was required just to move the mound? I did not, but I will tell you that I heard this story from Rick White. He told me that until two years ago, there had been a major league team whose mound was actually 10 inches deeper than it was supposed to be. And he said that no pitchers had ever noticed or complained, and they didn't know about it until they actually went and measured. And he also said that that was true of one of the teams that the Atlantic League but the difference was only two inches so it just goes to show that you know as as professional and you know we assume these

teams are so professional that everything is measured to a tee and then when you actually get out of the tape measure sometimes it turns out you've actually been throwing on, you know, farther than 60 foot six now. Right. Yeah. So I'm pretty torn about this whole thing, because on the one hand, I think it's a good idea to move the mound back, or at least that it's a good idea to figure out if it would have the effect that I suspect that it would have over a long period. Cause as I've said before, it just makes sense to me that you have pitchers who are throwing harder than ever. They're bigger than ever. So they're releasing the ball closer to the plate. There's just a lot less reaction time. So it would seem that,

you know, you're using a distance from 1893 and so many things have changed since then that it just, it makes sense to me that this might be a way to change strikeout rates, contact rates, offense, you know, even more so than has already happened with the sticky stuff, crackdown and all. And yet I am somewhat concerned about the circumstances here and the way that this was implemented. more information to be able to say whether this had the intended effects and also whether there were any unintended side effects you know when it comes to injuries and everything which i hope and think wouldn't be a huge problem and there are those studies that suggest that but again it's not mimicking these real life conditions so that's still sort of uh we have to wait for further

information here so what do you think is the next step when it comes to this? I mean, I guess the games have gone on. There was no widespread protest. It's not a complete disaster or embarrassment so far, but it's also too soon to say that it has actually been a success in terms of the stats and the results. So do you think there is any viable pathway toward porting this over to affiliated ball, whether it's in the minors and then kind of working its way up the ladder? Or is this just going to be a non-starter? I'm going to guess that they're going to give it another full season.

And I want to note to people who haven't read the article and who will not read the article that this was implemented in a way that really didn't allow pitchers time to adjust. Most of the pitchers I talked to said they did not actually get the chance to throw off 61 feet until they were in a game. And I think that that's inexcusable, and I think leagues should have scheduled an all-star break-like event or at least a few days off for every team so they could have thrown a Vulcan session before getting

out there in an in-game environment. So I think that, you know, just because of how it was implemented, there might be some skewing of data that wouldn't have existed otherwise, and my guess is they are going to view that and realize, you know what, we probably need at least a full

season, maybe multiple full seasons before we can really make big time conclusions from this data. And at that point, you know, we'll see. Honestly, I go back to what I said about Verlander earlier. It's hard for me to see them taking this to big league pitchers, you know, veteran big league pitchers and having Max Scherzer say, oh yeah, sure. Move the mound back a foot. Like I just don't see that happening. I think we're far more likely to get the automatic ball strike system. I think we're far more likely to get some of these ever fixes at the big league level.

But I don't know. I just have a hard time. We're seeing a situation where teams willingly allow their prospects to throw from 61 feet in the next year or two. Yeah, it's a situation, I guess, like a lot of others where there could potentially be some benefits for the sport, for the game, if this did produce more balls in play. But I guess for any individual player or any individual team, there isn't really much incentive to take the risk. I mean, no one knows exactly what the risk is. Maybe there is no real risk, but there's a possibility that there could be a risk. And so if your career is at stake or one of your prospects careers is at stake, then

why are you going to volunteer or be enthusiastic about that? So it's another case where like MLB, I guess, is always kind of, you know, trying to find some middle ground where the incentives of the sport are not always perfectly aligned with the incentives of the sport are not always perfectly aligned with the incentives of the players or the teams who are just, you know, understandably looking out for themselves, even if, you know, teams constantly optimizing performance may actually make it a less fan-friendly or interesting to spectators sport. Right. And you have to balance that baseball is ultimately in the entertainment business and unfortunately a lot of times they can tell against the players well you know the teams in the league also own in that and they have to keep that in mind i mean

gosh i just saw i mean just this week there's a conversation about an owner and whether you know they should be running their team as a fan and And I'm just thinking, in whatever industry would you say, well, this individual running this company is failing because they're trying to build the best possible product and also energize their consumer base? I mean, isn't that the name of the game? You know what I'm saying? It just goes to show that we're in a weird place in baseball history,

and hopefully the powers that be can figure it out and get the game back on the right track. Because when you look at the young talent, you look at the technology and the data we have access to nowadays, it's really a wonderful time to be a baseball fan. And it's just a shame that we spend so much time talking about the negatives. Yeah, it's similar really in a lot of respects to the sticky stuff situation, because it's something where you think it might possibly have some benefits for baseball but pitchers obviously were not happy about it and were not pleased and part of it was as you said like guys kind of going cold turkey it's sort of

similar to just moving the mound back by a foot now i guess with the sticky stuff matter at least there were warnings there were memos like you can practice without sticky stuff in a bullpen anytime you want to. Whereas with the mound, you kind of need a mound that is moved farther back. I mean, I guess you could stand farther back, but if the rubber is not in the right place, I mean, you know, you need to be able to practice in that situation. So if that didn't happen here, I think that's bad. able to practice in that situation. So if that didn't happen here, I think that's bad. But it's also maybe sort of similar in that post-crackdown, like initially you had friction and you had people being mad about inspections, but that died down right away, you know, after a few flare-ups. And then since then, it seems like, well, actually some of the safety concerns,

the control concerns, like walk rate isn't up you know hit by pitch rate isn't really significantly up and it does seem like it's have some benefits so that seems like it's kind of been a success for the most part even though there were sort of similar concerns about the way that was implemented mid-season so i guess i guess that could be a model a guide for the way that this could potentially work. It's just that there were issues with how it was put in place and whether people actually had time to practice. But, you know, just kind of, you know, pitchers are going to make us think about these things, like probably no matter how you do them, which makes sense from their perspective. But maybe after a while, it'll just die down and be okay, at least in some

cases. And in other cases, who knows? Maybe it would actually have negative effects. And I think that the sticky stuff situation, again, highlights the need to get the players input and make them feel like they have agency in it. Because I think if MLB had went to the Players Association with a proposal where they would talk to the pitchers about what substances were okay and what were not, they probably would have walked away with an agreement where, yes, pitchers can use rosin. Maybe they can use

one or two other substances. They just can't use the slide attack and stuff that is clearly impacting the quality of pitches. And I think that that would have led to much less complaining, much less complaining much less you know angst about the situation it probably would have been a better outcome for everyone so i just really wish that the two sides and i think this is something that mlb needs to hear more than the

players association would work on compromise because i think that there were valid points for banning spider attack and stuff like that but why go about it in the most ham-fisted way possible? Why not just work with the players and do this for the betterment of the game rather than it being a power play? Is there anything else that came up in your conversations with players or your reporting that we haven't really touched on, either about players' reactions to this or about some of the effects or what the effects could potentially be?

Yeah, I think, number one, we mentioned the studies, and I just wanted to touch on that a little bit because the studies that the players were given were done at ASMI, and basically they had 20-something college kids show up, grow eight max-effort fastballs from three different distances, 60 foot 6 inches, 62 foot six inches, 63 foot six inches. They were only throwing fastballs. They were only eight pitches. And, you know, the players obviously picked that apart because they said, okay, what if I'm throwing sliders? What if I'm on the second night of a back-to-back? What if I'm 105 pitches deep in the game? What if I'm 105 pitches deep in the game?

What if I'm 32 instead of 22? And I think those are very valid concerns, and I think that it kind of shows the limitations of just relying on one data point or one laboratory study. And I think it gets back to what you said earlier about maybe needing like a lab leak where these things could be conducted. And that was another point actually that a player raised it's you know why are they doing this in

the Atlantic League why not do this in the Frontier League or you know one of these college leagues or what have you where the players kind of are you know just looking to get their name out there maybe they're not considered top prospects and maybe they're you know not going to play professionally you know why do it here and i don't really i don't know the answer you know i don't have a good answer for that but i think those are probably the main points that came up i'm trying to think if there was anything else off the top of my head but yeah i think that's basically what i would say is you know there's a lot of concern but the studies that were given are inadequate for the real life implications

are inadequate for their real-life implications, and that also the league has so prioritized becoming MLB's laboratory buddy that it is losing its charm and it's losing what made it so attractive to players. Yeah, I talked about those studies in my piece too and linked to them and talked to Glenn Fleissig at ASMI who had a hand in overseeing those studies. And, you know, they were sponsored by MLB. So you can take that with a grain of salt. And he was pretty open about, you know, it's what we could do kind of in this setting that we had or with the resources we had. Like it's not necessarily, as you noted in your piece, there are caveats in there about what you can actually predict from

that. But that was encouraging. But I can also see why if you were a player in actual games, you might think this is not analogous to my situation. Yeah. And I want to note too, before we move on, is one of the final lines, and there's a four-page study, a four-page paper they produced. One of the final lines is something something like it would be nice to supplement this study with test pilot data from an adult baseball league and it's like oh there you see where they got the idea yeah although it's funny like as you noted like atlantic league players are maybe like do this in the frontier league or just you know like there's always a smaller fish i guess so if you're an affiliated ball you're like do it in the atlantic league and if you're in the at League, you're like, do it in the Frontier League. And no matter where

you do it, the players are going to be facing the same sort of risks and everything. Now, I guess if you do it at a low enough level where these players don't have realistic professional careers anyway, then maybe the downsides are smaller. But then if you did it at that level, then you're back to where you were with that study where players might say, oh, well, those are college kids. And so it's not the same as us. That's why I think what you said about the lab league, like have the players know what they're getting into,

compensate them for the risk they're taking, and give them agency and do it for real and do it in a player-friendly way in a way that you know builds trust not only with the players in the lab league but also the players you know in the minor leagues or in the independent leagues or even in the major leagues should this someday work its way there i just think that that's the way to go about it instead of making it feel like these leagues are essentially using these players, regardless of their talent level, as cannon fodder. Yeah. So I guess lastly, with the CBA negotiations going on and all of these ongoing discussions about changes to baseball, like there's a perception that baseball is stuck in its ways and that it doesn't change things quickly enough compared to other sports. And I think some of that is MLB's responsibility.

Some of that is the players' responsibility, too, because sometimes they oppose these things and sometimes they have good reasons to. But, you know, you have a union in MLB, which is strong and that's a good thing. But it also means that Rob Manfred can't just reach down and change things unilaterally. Or if he can, he has to wait a while to do that or he faces potential blowback for doing that so it has to be a collaborative effort and there are like on-field playing committees and rules committees that have representatives from players in the league and so you would hope that it'll be just kind of a good coordination between those two parties because it would be bad if MLB just

imposed these things without consulting the players it would also probably be bad if the players just reflexively opposed any change you know so at some point like you do have to concede that there are certain things about the game that are maybe not ideal and there are things we could do to address them but it is going to take some willingness to change and some risk i suppose you know unless you're able to test it in exactly a similar environment before you implement it so i don't know do you have any final thoughts about i guess whose responsibility it is to make these decisions like you know how does progress happen or how should it happen in baseball usually it happens because that's the most lucrative path right but yeah i guess

it's just kind of a repeat of what i've said is you know you need to remember that you're in the entertainment business you need to remember that this is a partnership you don't want to risk having three consecutive compromised seasons and that means you know you need to be really sincere and approach this with good faith you know you're trying to improve the game that should be the priority improve the game if that means you know introducing more run scoring and more offense because the equilibrium's out of whack by all means let's experiment but at the same time you don't want to endanger players and you don't want them to feel like, again, that they are just laboratory rats. You know, that's not going to be productive.

It's not going to be fruitful, and it's going to build distrust. And I think that we can agree there's already a lot of distrust in the game. And I think I had a note, excuse me, a sentence in the article where I said that the Atlantic League is like the convergence of baseball past, present, future. Because in the past, you know, before Branch Rickey created the modern farm system, this is how teams would get their talent. They would purchase their contracts from independent teams. And the present, well, the labor strife, I think we can agree,

that is very much a part of present-day Major League Baseball. Then in the future, you might have some of these rules pop up. What I would like to see is just the league take this opportunity to rethink the game, but don't do it on your own. Don't do it just with your consultants. Reach out to the players and actively figure out solutions because the players know the game better than anyone else. They're the ones playing it. They're the ones seeing these things up close and personal. They probably have some pretty good ideas as to how to fix or how to correct some of the issues. Now, are they going to be doable? Are they going to be the easiest to implement? I don't know. But I think that the path forward for baseball, for any sport, is compromise and remembering that you're in the entertainment business. This is about improving the game, not just what's most marketable,

what's going to make us the most bang for our buck in the short term, stuff like that. Don't be myopic about this. Take a sincere long-term approach, long-term view. All right. Well, on that note, I will let you get back to work. And congrats on the piece. It's a really good one.

And I'd encourage everyone to go read the full article, which I will link to as always on the show page. You can find RJ writing regularly at CBS sports and you can find him on Twitter as well at R underscore J underscore Anderson. Thank you as always, RJ. Thank you for having me. All right,

before I leave you, here's the last thought on robot umps, which I think are inevitable and which will probably have the kinks ironed out eventually. Framing specialists like Jose Molina and framing appreciators like me are not the only ones who have mixed feelings about this. I want to play a quick clip from a March 4th episode of Fangraphs Audio in which David Lorella interviewed Mitch Hanegar and asked him this question. which is part of the game. And also too, like the umpire, in my opinion, as part of the game, if this umpire likes to call low and away, well, you should know that in your scouting report and you should pound that.

You try to exploit that. I think there is a human element to baseball that I think it makes a sport great. And I don't want to see that being taken away. And I also don't want to see pitchers just pitching to trip the zone as opposed to how the game's always been played. Yeah, I would, I'm really against the thought of electronic strike zone. So you'd think a hitter like Hanager would be

in favor of robot umps. Seems like it would probably favor offense, and I'm sure it's no fun to be framed. And yet he still prefers the old-fashioned way. And I got an email this week from listener Mark, who drew our attention to a just-published preprint in the journal Telematics and Informatics. The paper is called Who Made the Decisions, Human or Robot Umpires? The Effects of Anthropomorphism on Perceptions Toward Robot Umpires. This is a write-up of a study that was conducted at a university in South Korea. I'll link to it on the show page. But basically, the researchers had people watch footage of Atlantic League games, and they described the umpires in different ways depending on the participant and then gave them a questionnaire and their hypothesis was the ball strike decisions made by a human umpire are perceived as fairer than those made judged by robot umpires, thus people may believe that ball strike calls require human knowledge and skills to make accurate decisions because human umpires have acquired those abilities based on their hands-on experience on the field. This argument

is similar to the notion that people believe that expert individuals can make more accurate decisions than those who have just started their jobs. Of course, people who watch baseball are convinced that umpires are terrible at their jobs, so I don't know how well this applies here, but here are their findings. People perceived ball strike decisions as fairer and more credible and had more trust in the umpire when humans made the judgments than those judged by robots. Similar to our findings, recent studies have demonstrated that source bias effect associated with new technology disappears or diminishes when human knowledge and skills are mainly required to complete a task. In addition, the concept of algorithm aversion was also proposed by some scholars, which can be defined as human tendency to distrust an algorithm or negatively evaluate decisions

made by an algorithm even when it outperforms humans. Likewise, in the context of baseball, when a robot umpire replaces human umpires, the use of new technology did not intuitively enhance the credibility and quality judgments. Rather, the participants evaluated more negatively the decisions made by robot umpires than those by human umpires. Now this is interesting. The negative effects of robot umpires on how people evaluate ball strike decisions and game consumption were attenuated by the incorporation of human-like characteristics in robot umpires. Particularly, people found greater credibility in ball and strike calls and trusted robot umpires more when robot umpires were humanized, which could be because anthropomorphism helps users in creating closer psychological distance with a humanized AI agent.

For what it's worth, they did find that the effects of anthropomorphism were moderated by a person's age and gender. The source bias effect was particularly evident in men and younger adults. Individuals in these groups evaluated calls made by a human umpire, robot umpire, and humanized robot umpire as similar. In contrast, when women and older adults evaluated decisions made by robot umpires, the judgments made by humanized robot umpires had greater credibility and trust than those made by non-humanized robots. In other words, once robot umpires are perceived as similar to a human umpire and possess human-like physical shape and personality, older people and women trusted and developed credibility

in the calls of humanized robot umpires similar to those in calls by human umpires. So they suggest that rather than impetuously adopting robot umpires to replace human umpires, marketing directors of baseball leagues should focus on creating positive perceptions of robot umpires before their adoption in the league. For example, embedding human-looking characteristics in robot umpires could be an effective marketing tactic that could result in more positive perceptions from baseball fans, similar to humanized AI assistants such as Amazon Alexa. Furthermore, the findings suggest that baseball fans generally prefer human umpires over robot umpires. Therefore, the managers of baseball leagues should actively create press releases So if we are to welcome our robot overlords, maybe they have to be humanized.

Maybe they should be cute and look like BB-8. Or maybe they should speak like Cortana. However, they also found that while the effects of different types of umpire were significant on how people evaluated ball strike decisions, in terms of fairness and credibility and their trust in the umpires, the umpire type did not significantly influence game enjoyment and future intention to watch a game. So your confidence in the umpire making the calls may not actually affect whether you want to watch baseball or how much you enjoy watching baseball. Interesting study. Check it out. Last thought for today. On Wednesday night and into early Thursday morning, the Padres and Dodgers played a classic.

The Dodgers won the game 5-3, but it went 16 innings. And this is something we have not seen in the era of the zombie runner. The longest a game had gone since the start of last season had been 13 innings, which had happened only four times. And this game didn't go 14 innings or 15 innings. It been 13 innings, which had happened only four times. And this game didn't go 14 innings or 15 innings. It went 16 innings. And there were playoff implications. There was a great pitcher's duel between Walker Bueller and Blake Snell. The Dodgers had a combined no-hitter in the middle of the game for nine or 10 innings. They also issued a major league record eight

intentional walks in the game. I think 47 of the 53 players on the two rosters were used. And there were some super exciting moments and extras. The Dodgers scored two in the top of the 15th. The Padres came back to tie it in the bottom of the 15th on a Fernando Tatis Jr. home run. Off the glove of right fielder Chris Taylor, the game went five hours and 49 minutes. I'm sure everyone was exhausted. This is the kind of game that they put the zombie runner rule in place to prevent. And you know what? It was wonderful. And

yes, I am using this as another opportunity to rail against the zombie runner. But man, I have missed this kind of game. These games make memories. So much was on the line. It's a back and forth affair. It's a game of attrition. It's an endurance effort. It was great. And yeah, I'm sure a lot of people probably had to leave and some of them had to go to sleep before it was over, but that's just one of the signature games of the season between two teams that have played a lot of great games this year. And yeah, it's a little harder on the players and the people who cover the game, but for at least some subset of fans, it is great fun. I know it's sort of strange in this day and age that no one knows exactly how long baseball games will last,

and theoretically they could go on forever. People have plans to make. They have other obligations. There are other entertainment options. But I think we can cater to casual fans and also reach out to non-fans while also still serving the diehards once in a while. I enjoyed seeing these two teams beat the odds, stick it to the zombie runner rule for one day at least, and I still hope that that rule goes away because I want to see more games like this. They were always rare, which was what made them special. Teams carry plenty of pitchers these days. They'll survive. So please, long live long games. At least this kind of long game. Bring back

extra extra innings. 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 keep the podcast ad free and get themselves access to some perks daniel shattuck michael zadra joe stitch james edmiston and greg colgan thanks to all of you you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild you can rate review and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes and spotify and other podcast platforms keep your questions and comments for me and meg coming via email at podcast thefangraphs.com or via the patreon messaging system if you are a supporter dylan higgins was off today so i assisted myself with editing meg won't be back till next week but i will be back with another episode

before the end of this week. Talk to you soon. And maybe all the fights will never happen Maybe nothing's gonna change Maybe I'll be always laughing Nothing's standing in the way Nothing clouding up the future Not the faintest thread of rain

Nothing clouding up the picture But a finger in the frame