Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1842: Do Not Pass First, Do Not Collect a Run

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MacKenzie Gore and how long a player’s career has to be for something he does to be described as a “career high,” Nick Senzel’s proclivity toward catcher’s interference and the Reds’ ice-cold start, the first-place Los Angeles Angels, the hot starts of Mike Trout, Carlos Rodón, Joe Ryan, […]

Clubs and sticks and bats and balls for nuclear dicks with their dialect draws that come from a park in Lawtown Where nothing lives in the sun Don't make me a target Don't make me a target When he reached back in his mind Feels like he's breaking the law Hello and welcome to episode 1842 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberger of The Ringer. Ben, how are you?

I'm okay. How are you? I'm okay. I have a headline question to ask you here. Okay. This is a question about Mackenzie Gore. There's a story at MLB.com about Mackenzie Gore, who is off to a great start with the Padres. Happy to see him up and doing so well. But here's the headline about his most recent start from Wednesday.

Gore keeps Reds at bay with career-high 10 Ks. Career-high 10 Ks. And later in the story, it also notes that Gore logged a career-high 10 strikeouts over five innings as he yielded just one run on five hits and two walks. Now, Mackenzie Gore's major league career consists of three starts. Three games starts three games yeah yeah so how many games do you have to have pitched to put in the headline that you had a career high number of strikeouts because initially i thought well is this like including his minor league career maybe this is gonna be part of my answer yeah but it's not i looked. He has had 11 strikeouts in a minor league game. So I don't know exactly what that number is, but it's probably like a season.

You probably need like a season of starts before, you know, in his sophomore year, we can look back and be like, wow, Mackenzie Gore, career high number of strikeouts in this game. And then I'll be like, wow, that must be like a fair number. And also it must refer to his big league career.

But if you are a recently promoted prospect and you are must refer to his big league career right but if you are a recently promoted prospect and you are very early into your big league run like you don't want to be saying career because i don't know i don't know what you mean because i'm of the mind and granted my frame of reference for this sort of thing is probably a little bit different than other people's because i you know pay attention to prospects and i edit prospect content. But when I think of career, in that case, for a guy who's had three big league starts, I'm thinking, well, do you mean his pro career? Right.

So I don't know. Also, 10K is good for him, but I think that if everything goes the way that McKenzie Gore and the Padres hope it to go, he will have a bushel, a peck of 10K games and several that exceed 10. You know, he will do many more than 10. He'll do many more strikeouts.

That's a sentence I just said. But yeah, so I get the enthusiasm, but I would perhaps have said something like, and in the best outing in his young big league career or something like that. Or just drop the career high. Yeah. Reds at bay with 10 Ks. Yeah. A perfectly comprehensible sentence without the career high that you lose no understanding or clarity by taking that out. No, he has gone the progression so far. He struck out three in his first start, seven in his second start, ten in his third start. So extrapolating from there, I like where this is going for him. And we may have future headlines in the not too distant future about new career highs that he has set.

But yes, I think it is notable that he pitched well, that he had 10 Ks. But the fact that it's career high, I kind of intuited that from the fact that his career consists of three games. Anyway, just a small note, just saying, just to start on a how can you not be pedantic about baseball tack here. We might need to get how can you not be pedantic about baseball t-shirts. I would wear that. I think that would do pretty well. I think there'd be people who don't listen to our podcast who'd be like, I relate to this strongly. Yeah, I would think so.

And they might be interested in our podcast because we serve that audience well. And in that game in which Mackenzie Gore had his technically career high 10 strikeouts, Nick Senzel had his third catcher's interference of the season, which listener Ellis wrote in to inform us about. He has three of those. I believe that ties the career high that any team has this year for catcher's interferences. And he is actually up to nine for his career, which is a lot because even though he's been playing for four seasons now he only has about a full season's worth of plate appearances he has 658 plate appearances in his career and he has had nine catchers interferences and if you'll

recall a few years back when Jeff Sullivan was still walking among us on the internet and blogging at Fangraphs, he always had his eye on catcher's interference calls. And he documented and tracked Jacoby Ellsbury's trip to the top of the career catcher's interference leaderboard. And Ellsbury ended up at 31. And, of course, he played a lot longer and had many more plate appearances than Nick Senzel has had. And of course, he played a lot longer and had many more plate appearances than Nick Senzel has had. So Nick Senzel's rate of catcher's interference per plate appearance to this point in his career is like almost two and a half times what Jacoby Ellsbury's was over the course of his career. So he is coming for Ellsbury. It's a long way to go, but if Jeff were out there, and he's out there somewhere, but if he were still out there in a public way, he'd probably be blogging about Nick Senzel. So this is something to watch. If anyone doesn't know what catcher's interference is, it's a type of interference that happens when the catcher makes some kind of contact with the batter or the batter's bat during a pitch or impedes the batter's ability to hit a ball in some way. Often it's just the catcher is hit on the swing or something, and then you get to go to first base and the runners advance. And it's quite rare, although I think Jeff pointed out in one of

his latest posts about that, that it had been increasing at the time although that was maybe because of ellsbury but something to watch a little special skill that nixon's l has here yeah special skill do we think of it as a skill i think it's a skill yeah i guess i guess so i wonder if he is aware that he's doing it like is he positioning himself such that he might be able to accrue these? Is there intentionality behind it? We might have to talk to Nick Senzel. Yeah. And Jacoby Ellsbury, for that matter.

Yeah, he's available. He is officially retired now, I think. I think you're right. But he has, Senzel has three catcher's interference calls on the season so far. The Washington Nationals collectively have three, and then no other team has more than one, just to give you some sense of the scale here. And I think Senzel had five in a previous season. So this is not a career high for him, but he may be headed for a career high. I mean, you do, technically you have to stay within the batter's box or else

it's not a catcher's interference, or you could just keep backing up until you run into the catcher and get a catcher's interference call on every point of variance. So you're not supposed to do that technically, but some catchers, they set up forward and some batters, they've set up back. And so I haven't broken down the mechanics of this and how exactly Nick Sinzel has gotten so many catcher's interference calls but this is notable I'm gonna keep my eye on Sinzel working his way on via catcher's interference and frankly it's the only way that he is getting on base these days I was just looking at his player page and it hasn't been going great for him so far I mean it is 42 plate appearances

but he is running a 189 231 324 line good for a 56 wrc plus but he only has a 214 babbitt so surely he's due for a rebound yeah well you can't put a ball in play if you're putting the catcher in play but yeah he has a 555 ops the reds as a whole have not been much better than that the reds you mean to tell me that if you trade jesse winker your team gets offensively worse also at some point we're gonna have to talk about joey otto soon yeah the reds have a 570 ops as a team yeah seems like a yikes ben it is like a yikes, Ben. It is definitely a yikes situation. They have a 65 WRC plus, which is by far the worst in baseball when you're looking way up at the Diamondbacks. That's not the greatest sign. And the Royals and the Nationals.

And so they may want to employ this as a team-wide strategy at this point, just to scooch back in the box a bit, see if you can just nick a catcher. I mean, don't hurt anyone, but it seems to be the only way they could get on pace these days. It's bleak for the Reds. They are not off to a strong start. Can we take a moment to appreciate something, though? Because, well, one of these numbers is being driven surely in large part by mike trout but also potentially by like taylor ward so that that's one thing but leading the league and team

wrc plus right now the los angeles angels you know who's second those seattle mariners ben about that those seattle mariners couldn't score a lick last year second place in wrc plus i love i love early season baseball it's great yeah yeah it's not great for reds fans no but it's great for others yeah the reds are uh 3 and 15 as we speak here on thursday afternoon they sure are wow i haven't watched this i don't know that i've watched a single inning of reds baseball that hasn't involved Hunter Green. Yeah. Well, I can't blame you because Reds fans, according to Reds ownership, may have nothing else to watch and nowhere else to go. But you can watch any game you want.

And actually, so can they. It remains a very rude statement on the Iron Party. I guess that's wrong. I watched their Sunday night game when Joey Votto was mic'd up. Was that a Sunday night game? Was that a Friday night game? what day is it who knows anyway i i watched joey vato be charming on national television yes and then i watched hunter green but outside of that i will admit i have not watched much of the reds yeah wow some of the teams that are really bad are

kind of surprising to me no they're not well yeah i not that i expected the reds to be this bad nor do i expect them to continue to be this bad they uh they have the pythagorean record of a 4 and 14 team so they have underplayed their expected record and i'm sure their expected stats but still obviously like when you tear down the roster the way they did, you don't expect great things, but there was still enough of a core there and they've made some late offseason additions just to aim for some semblance of respectability. And they have missed the mark with that goal thus far. So, yeah, I guess they have brought their payroll in line with their resources or whatever the line from Nick Kroll was. But yeah, the results have not been great. I'm sure they'll be better. Anyway, you can all entertain yourselves by watching the Nick Senzel catcher interference. Watch that something.

You know, I had not really looked at the standings because as we talked about the last time we talked to this, like, why would you bother to do that so far? And so I know this doesn't mean anything, and I know it will especially not mean anything potentially after today because of the return of Ronald Acuna Jr., but I know that I expected the Braves and the Diamondbacks to have the same record even at this point in the season. I don't think that I expected the Braves to have as many wins as, say, the Pirates and the Cubs.

That's surprising. The Red Sox socks also same record interesting that interesting anyway it doesn't matter we could do a monthly like let's look at the standings yeah we should do a segment because we're not even a month into the season yet no but yes you know it's small sample and it's too soon to pay attention and yet there are some kind of curious results that maybe we'll forget about by the end pay attention and yet there are some kind of curious results that maybe we'll forget about by the end of the season but still can be kind of curious in the moment and it is good to have Acuna back though because he's he's one of the main characters of

the sport where like when he's not active you just you feel an absence there there are plenty of great players no shortage of great players in great games. But when someone like Ronald Acuna Jr. is missing, you feel that. You note that he is absent. And so to have him coming back, you're still missing Fernando Tatis Jr., who's in that class. But Acuna, it's been a while. And hopefully he will suffer no long-term ill effects of his injury from last year. And I'm curious to see whether he comes back with the same sort of power speed combo that we have known and loved.

Yeah, we're all nervous about that. Yeah. And, you know, whether he still has that speed or not, whether he feels comfortable flashing it the way he did or whether the team has instructed him to take it easy. it the way he did or whether the team has instructed him to take it easy. You know, I mean, often when you have a player who's that good and hits for that much power as they get older, whether or not they lose speed, they start to play it a bit more conservatively on the base pass. And it's just not worth it to lose someone like that for an extended period just to get a steal here or there. But Acuna, when he's going for 30 30 40 40 50 50 whatever it is like that's

one of the most entertaining talent sets in baseball so I do hope that it's intact yeah can I take a moment to appreciate another early season small sample sure I'm gonna talk about the Mariner skin guess who is perfectly on the money on the nose with both their Pythag and their base runs record. Who's that? Those Seattle Mariners. Oh, yeah. How about that?

How about that? The fun differential equals the run differential this year. Yeah, they have a plus 21 run differential. They're not at the very top, but they have the same run differential as, say, the New York Yankees. They trail only, wow, those Dodgers and Giants. They sure are good. They trail only, wow, those Dodgers and Giants, they sure are good.

They trail the Dodgers and the Giants who have a plus 44 run differential and the Mets at plus 33. And then they are tied with those New York Yankees at plus 21. Again, like all of this stuff might shift around, but for those scoring at home, last year the Mariners Pythagorean expectation was 76 wins and they had a negative 51 run differential. So, you know, this seems better. Yeah, I think so. You mentioned the Angels and I was going to bring them up because not to alarm you or anything, but the Angels are in first place. They are leading the AL West. They are sure leading that AL West. AL West. They are sure leading at AL West.

Speaking of the standings, as we speak at least, no guarantee that they still will be by the time people hear this. But yes, they are in first place and they are five games over 500. I believe I saw Jeremy Frank tweeted for the first time since July 2019. So we have to take that success where we can get it with the Angels. Whether or not they stay where they are, they haven't even been at this high watermark for a few years now, and they are really raking. And it's not even Otani so much. Like Otani, he hasn't heated up yet. He did have another two-way game that was pretty fun and special on Wednesday where he didn't have his best stuff and he sort of struggled out of the gate, but ultimately he got it together and he made it through five innings and held the Guardians to two runs. And meanwhile, he had three hits as a hitter, which I believe was his first three-hit

game during a game that he was pitching. So just your average run-of-the-mill three-hit game while allowing two runs over five innings pitch. But he's not even the reason why this offense has been clicking. Mike Trout has been Mike Trout. And I will note that he is leading the American League in Fangraph's war as of now. He is not quite at the major league lead. He's like a tenth of a win behind. But we're on the precipice, though. We're real close to where we need to be.

Yeah. And he looks completely locked in. Like even his foul balls are crushed right now. Yeah. And then you have Taylor Ward, who has somehow turned into Mike Trout, at least temporarily. So that's been a big part of this. It looks like Rendon is coming together. Like that Angels lineup, you know, it's pretty impressive. Like when all of those pieces are in place and everyone's was all for it because, hey, more Otani,

get him more plate appearances, get him more war. But from a batting order standpoint, lineup construction standpoint, I don't know that you want Otani to be your leadoff guy with the power that he has. And now Madden has put Taylor Ward in that slot and he basically hasn't made it out since. So I assume that he is going to stay there. It'll take a protracted slump to dislodge him from that spot. So I don't know. Taylor Ward was decent last year too. He was a little bit above league average.

I don't know that 28-year-old Taylor Ward has the track record of someone who I would expect to have the leadoff hitter skill set or to be anywhere near as good as he has been. So I don't know that this will last and I don't know that it makes sense to have Taylor Ward getting the most plate appearances on a team with Trout and Otani and Rendon and Walsh and all these other good hitters. But for now, at least it's working and it's been just a joy to see Mike Trout being back to his great league leading self and it's been fun to watch and it doesn't take an enormous leap of imagination to see this continuing to work I'm not betting on the Angels winning this division I mean you don't bet on anyone winning I don't I did when I was forced to pick a surprise team. I picked the Angels just out of stubbornness because they've been a surprise in the disappointing direction for so many years at this point that I figured, who knows, maybe they'll surprise us the other way this year.

or Otani at once can be a 10-war player. And maybe Otani has to slump now that Trout is never making it out. But I'm hoping that at some point soon, they will both be firing on all cylinders. And David Fletcher is about to be back. So it's a pretty fun team. It's a more competent team, a deeper team than it has been in recent seasons.

And I don't know if they can sustain this and if they will prove to have the pitching but it's been fun just to see what it might look like for the Angels to be a playoff team at least for a few weeks here yeah on April 6th so the day before opening day we had the Angels with a 44.7% playoff odd chance and they are all the way up to 63.5, Ben. All right. Yeah. Better than 50-50.

What are the division title odds, though? Well, what a fantastic question that you asked. So right now, the Astros still have a pretty firm lock on the win division odds, so they lead with 54.3%. But the Angels are in second place now with 30 percent odds of of winning the division yeah that's not so bad you know it's not so bad ben and the i think the interesting thing to me and this is further commentary on how kind of underwhelming the central has been in the early going despite the fact that they have uh lower odds win the division, higher odds to clinch a bye than the White Sox.

Because we just really expect that whoever emerges from the West and the East is going to end up avoiding the wild card round. And the Central will be fighting it out with the rest. So, you know, go win a division, Angel. Sure, that could be fun. Or even just scrape into the playoffs, however you want to do it. I'll take it. See, if we aim high and then they just scrape through, we're going to be like, yay. But if we aim low and then they undershoot that, we're going to be sad.

Speaking of league leaders, I believe Carlos Rodon is leading the National League in pitcher war. And we talked about the White Sox yesterday. I don't think I mentioned Rodon. But given their shorthandedness in the rotation right now, boy, they sure could use Carlos Rodon. He'd be a nice little fit in that rotation. So, yeah, he's off to a fantastic start. And the fact that they just let him walk without so much as a qualifying offer made me think that they knew something about the quality of his arm or the state of his arm health-wise that made them reluctant to invest in him. And perhaps they did or they thought they did. But thus far, at least, he has held together and he has looked as good as he did last year when he was healthy and not worn down. other and he has looked as good as he did last year when he was healthy and not worn down so that's been a big addition for the giants and if that continues and he doesn't break down at some

point then the white socks could be kicking themselves for just letting him walk away like that yeah and you know who is leading the league in pitcher war both leagues yeah kevin gossman so you know san francisco is probably feeling just fine about their choices because they have a closer done. But, you know, their neighbors to the north are benefiting north and east from them letting Gossman go, too. So, I don't know. A lot of good pitchers out there. Man, Pablo Lopez, good for you, dude. Yeah, him too.

It's multiple Marlins who were, you know, Cy Young candidates if the season were ended today. I have also very much enjoyed the early work of Joe Ryan, who has been fantastic for the Twins. And he's just someone I've enjoyed for a while because he's got the weird arm angles and the deviation of movement from where you would expect his pitches to go. And he's got deception and he's getting it done without a ton of velocity. Not that he has bad velocity, but he gets more Ks and just weaker contact than you would expect given his stuff. And he also gets a ton of called strikes, which I think is maybe because he is deceptive and it's hard to pick up his pitches. And so he gets swinging strikes too, but I think he had 11 called strikes or maybe even on his fastball alone, I think I saw in Patrick Dubuque's breakdown of recent action

at Baseball Prospectus. And I like a good called strike. Do you have a preference aesthetically between the strikeout swinging or the strike swinging and the called strike? I guess it depends because some called strikes are pretty boring it's just you know right over the plate uh but there are some where like you get a knee buckle oh yeah you know where the the hitter's leaning back away from it like oh right yeah or it starts out somewhere where you don't think it could possibly cross the plate and then it does and you get the call or it's maybe like a backdoor two-seamer or something or one of those sliders that just like dips back across the plate

and you think it's going to go outside and it creeps back or a cutter. I like those a lot. It's great to see the power against power and I'll throw as hard as I can and you'll swing as hard as I can. But I do kind of like the just unsuspecting, did not see that coming sort of strike. Yeah. They can just both be very gratifying. I guess that the swinging strike is decisive in a way, right?

It's just it removes the umpire from the whole thing. So you just get to sit there and feel like, oh, he really got him, right? That's like just the batter and the hitter or batter and the pitcher the batter and the hitter you know there are two guys up there hitting at the same time anyway i don't know all strikes are cool i guess all right so you wanted to talk a little bit about the brawl that we saw on wednesday some of the the beanball wars going on here with the mets and and the Cardinals? Yeah, I think that... So did you watch... Were you watching this unfold live yesterday?

I was not live, no. I have since caught up. So I guess I think that it's mostly an opportunity to talk about human feelings. And we don't need to belabor this too, too much. But I found it very strange but i found it very strange i found it very strange that you would eject nolan arenado but you would not eject joan lopez in this moment i found that to be strange because it's like do you want to run through what happened here for anyone who wasn't yeah i guess

i should do that so the mets lead the majors hit by pitch by like a good amount so they have 19 as a team baltimore checks in in second place with 13 and not only have they been hit by pitch a lot they've been hit by a pitch in the head a lot like they have luckily avoided any really terrible injury but like i can completely understand if one is a new york met feeling aggrieved about hit by pitches i would be monstrously annoyed and if i had been hit by one i would probably be more than annoyed because it sucks to get hit by a pitch and there have been there had been a number of hit by pitch in this series between them and the cardinals i will say the cardinals also got plunked a couple of times. And the Cardinals are not responsible for all 19 of those hit by pitch.

That would be too many in one series. So, you know, feelings were high. Everyone was sort of amped up. They were already dialed up. And then this game is proceeding along. And in the top of the eighth, J.D. Davis got hit by a pitch it was you know it was a three two fastball it got away from him it did not look to me to be intentional I do not think he wanted to hit J.D. Davis but J.D. Davis was hit he hopped around for a little while did not

feel good clearly they had to have Jeff McNeil come in to pinch run for him. So everyone's feeling sort of exercised at this point. And so the top of the eighth concludes. We roll into the bottom of the eighth. Arenado's in the box. He is facing Yohan Lopez. And Yohan Lopez, to be clear, did not hit Nolan Arenado. But he buzzed him high, right? He buzzed him high at the head and then

there were feelings then a bunch of grown men had some feelings nolan arenado basically challenged juan lopez to do it again do it again do it again like if you want to do this let's go and then all hell breaks loose right the bench is clear the you know the bullpens run in gallegos is like the secret hero of this entire day because he went over the bullpen to like sprint across the field to try to back up his guys there was an incident between first base coach stubby clap which yes let us just for moment, let that name sit in the air for a minute. Of course. Stubby Clap. What a great game we have. He kind of tackled Pete Alonso from behind. So that's not the best. So Stubby Clap gets ejected. Nolan Arenado gets ejected. And I

would imagine that the justification for Nolan Arenado's ejection is that he escalated this moment, right right and precipitated this benches clearing brawl except that the reason he did that is because he was buzzed by Lopez in a way that to my eye looked pretty intentional right he was being brushed back as if to say everyone should stop hitting us and so it caused a fracas and And I just think that hit-by-pitches suck. And I think that it is totally, as I said, understandable to be vexed by them and to feel perhaps when you lead the league by that much that you are being maybe targeted for hit-by-pitch.

But I don't think that that is true. And even if it were, that's not Nolan Arenado's fault right so I don't think that we should have you know we shouldn't have any flybys there shouldn't be any buzzing of the tower there should be no purpose pitches and the most amusing part of all of this to my mind was that of course after the game like Buckshow Walter was asked about what had happened a A number of them were, including Pete Alonzo, who had to remind everyone that he was very, very strong, just in case you had forgotten. And Showalter basically said, like, when our, you know,

he was asked about Nolan Arenado's reaction. And he's like, when I, you know, when our guy got hit, he took first base. And I was like, Buck, your guys are so emotional right now. They are so into big feeling that they are buzzing people. And then you're surprised when those people react with feeling. Like, that's going to happen. You know how it feels. You're sitting in that feeling as we speak, sir. So I find the whole thing to be, I mean mean it would be amusing if it didn't involve projectiles

toward people's heads that makes it less fun you know but it remains a strange phenomena to me it is a place where i feel very keenly the cultural distance that exists between me and current and former big leaguers because as i was watching this game i was watching the mets broadcast and the booth was basically like and i'm not quoting here but the booth was basically like well you gotta hit him but you should try to hit him you know you should try to hit him in the butt you should try to hit him in the thigh and i was just like you don't have to hit him at all right like where is the point in this back and forth where one would understand, oh, we have reached the point past which we cannot escalate? Because one would think it would be, you know, buzzing a guy with a fastball up by his head and he didn't hit him.

And I'm sure he wasn't trying to hit him. I'm sure he was trying to send a message. But as we have said before, you know, sometimes you miss. And then what happens when you've hit Nolan Arenado in the head? Yeah, I'm generally out on bean brawls as well. I just I kind of tune it out at this point. Like, I guess there was a point where I found it intriguing. Like, hey, all the baseball guys are fighting and they're milling about on the field.

There are aspects of it that I still find absurd and amusing, particularly if there's not actual fisticuffs and injuries. And it's just murmuring around and going, and hold me back. And the bullpens run in and stare at each other for a while. And then they walk back to the bullpen. I enjoy that kind of thing. But the actual animosity, on the one hand, I kind of understand it because I think it is hard to put ourselves in the place of the people who are getting plunked. Yes. Which I am grateful for. And maybe it would be hard to maintain a logical dispassionate remove when I am the one being bruised and I see my friends and teammates getting bruised as well. So it's easy for us to say, just take the big picture view here. And it's probably not intentional most of the time. I do understand that there is just a retaliatory, like a disincentive aspect to plunking people occasionally.

Like if you're not going to retaliate, then are they just going to take advantage of you and the idea of protecting your teammates? And there is something to be said for that. there is something to be said for that. Like if you feel like your team really is being victimized, then I guess at some point it becomes self-defense or at least that's what you tell yourself. But I think players are maybe more willing to chalk up these things to intentionality. And I mean, maybe they're the best position to know just because they are themselves players and they know whether they have intentionally plunked anyone and they've talked to their pitcher friends and they know how common that is. And they're privy to these conversations that we hear about secondhand or thirdhand or not at all. So they have some sense of what's going on here. But I think the emotions of the moment

do tend to take advantage of them at times. And it's a high pressure situation and it's on public view and it's a lot of young testosterone filled people on the field and they're in pain physically. And so of course they're going to lash out at times. And so I think the only way to curb that really is with stiffer penalties and ways to crack down on this kind of behavior just being normalized, just because we've seen this script so many times with just the slightest variations by the season and by the team and by the player, right? It's the same basic framework for any kind of baseball brawl that is touched off by hit by pitch. I mean, it's the same thing. It's the same story. And you could go back time immemorial and just read about brawls that no one remembers now

and everyone involved in them is dead. It's just like, I don't know, it's hard for me to get that invested in it. And maybe that's because I'm not a fan of any particular team. So I'm not aggrieved on that team's behalf because I identify with them to some extent. But it just it all seems a bit silly and overblown often and kind of dangerous at times, too. And as Rob Maines pointed out at Baseball Perspectives in a piece on Thursday, like April leads to a lot of hit by pitches. The hit by pitch rate is high in April because it's cold or pitchers are rusty. And the Mets are getting plunked a lot, but there have been other teams that have been plunked a comparable amount in previous Aprils. And we've just generally seen increases in hit-by-pitch rates in general, which we talked

about on the podcast before. And I think that is potentially a problem. and there are all sorts of reasons for it. Pitchers are throwing harder. They're throwing more breaking balls. They're in pitcher's counts more often where they're expanding the zone and trying to get you to chase. And so you're just more likely to end up hitting someone. Hopefully, you're more likely to end up hitting them somewhere on a foot or something that

is less likely to hurt them in some long-term way than if you're buzzing them up and in, but it's still not great. And of course, the ball has become a part of this conversation too, even in this series, right? Where Chris Bassett of the Mets blamed the ball and the inconsistency in the ball from pitch to pitcher, game to game as a factor in losing command. And then the Cardinals pitcher, Miles Michaelis, said it's not the ball's fault. Take some responsibility for your actions, which I think he has a point. It could be a bit of both, I guess.

If there's inconsistency in the ball, that doesn't help. But also, if you know that, you could take a little off, make sure you're not hitting someone. So there are a whole lot of things kind of tied up in this but it is just the same old story that we've all been familiar with since we first became familiar with baseball and the fact that it still persists maybe means that the crackdowns haven't been steep enough that it hasn't really been a priority to do away with this sort of thing because the players, if it's up to them to police themselves, then that's just going to lead to more back and forth beanballing. Right. And I imagine that, you know, if we were to ask a cross section of big leaguers what they think of the practice of beanballing and these brawls and all of that stuff, that there'd be a variety of opinions.

I'm sure they don't all think one way about it. that there'd be a variety of opinions. I'm sure they don't all think one way about it. And when Bassett gave his remarks about the ball being part of the problem, at least from his perspective here, he said, I've been hit in the face. I'd never want to do that to someone, right? He has had an experience

that I think probably informs that slice of this for him, but it doesn't seem like it is necessarily something that we have a natural end point to if the way that these guys have decided they're going to sort these things out amongst themselves is to keep plunking one another so i just think that you know you shouldn't try to do it and you should like look really sorry when you do it on x just look really sorry and a lot of guys do especially when it gets up by the head like they don't want to you know you'd have to be you'd have to be a really uh kind of twisted person to like delight in that right and i don't think that we have a ton of those in baseball at least not that to that degree but i get being annoyed but

you gotta just i think it's one of those things that you have to say i didn't enjoy this and i will use that to have an empathetic experience with the hypothetical like victim of a retaliatory beanball in the future you know it's just like it's goofy stuff you guys can just have your feelings it's fine have them have them right there on the field be mad that's. I totally understood Arenado's reaction. Like, I'm sure it did escalate stuff. But if I were him, I probably would have been hooting and hollering too because it's like he can't be throwing the ball up there by a guy's head. I really do. I'm seeing Gallegos going over the bullpen wall again.

It's just such good stuff. He was like, I'm going to be in there. If there's going to be a problem, I'm going to be a part of that action. This is a guy you want, your corner. I think he's got it figured out. So anyway, stubby clap. In conclusion, stubby clap. In conclusion, stubby clap. So the opposite of plunking people, I guess, is just throwing it right over the middle. And that leads me to something I wanted to bring up that I think will be interesting to a couple of catcher heads like us.

This trend, apparent trend, toward catchers just setting up in the middle of the plate and saying just fire it in there and not necessarily even moving their target from pitch to pitch. Yes. So this is something that the Orioles have become known for this season. And Justin Choi just wrote about this for Fangraphs, right? The success of the Orioles bullpen and really the Orioles pitching staff in general.

They're seventh in Fangraphs war right now. I'm not saying I expect that to continue necessarily. We'll say again, it's early, doesn't matter. It is very early. Even though Mike Trout is leading the league in wire, it is still early. And the Orioles are 6-12. I'm not saying that things are going to turn

out great for them. And John Means has had Tommy John surgery, which is a bummer now. I like John Means. But a bunch of Orioles pitchers you probably haven't heard of have done better than you would have expected thus far. And I don't know if this is why,

but it has coincided with an interesting change in approach, which is that they have instructed their catchers to just set up down the middle and just put their glove just basically in the heart of the zone, not be moving to the outside corner if you want to throw a pitch on the outside corner, on the inside corner if you want to throw a pitch on the inside corner.

They're just setting up over the middle and saying, throw it in there. And they are trusting to natural movements and just the fluctuation of command to make it so that you're not just throwing meatball after meatball. And thus far, it seems to have worked for them. And they have either the highest or one of the highest rates of pitches thrown in the strike zone and just strikes as a percentage of pitches in general. So it seems to be working for them. And I know that this was their approach. I did confirm this with Alex Vigderman, who is an analyst for Sports Info Solutions and I believe is also a listener and Patreon supporter of Effectively Wild. And SIS has data on catcher targets going back to the beginning of 2012, I think. So a full decade now of this data.

And it's not exactly where the catcher set up. It's where the target is, where the glove is set. And I asked him to look into this. And so far this year, I asked him to look at the standard deviation of horizontal setup location. So basically, how much horizontally does your target fluctuate from pitch to pitch on average per team? And with the Orioles this year, it's 4.44 inches, which means nothing to anyone because we don't know what the typical one is. This is not a stat that people cite often, but that is by far the lowest by about half an inch. There's a big gap between the Orioles and the next lowest team in terms of variation this year.

And in fact, going back to the beginning of 2012, the Orioles would have the lowest standard deviation of horizontal catcher setup location. That's a lot of words. But they would have the lowest of any team in the data set so far. And I think that's notable. And you might say, well, it's the Orioles. Okay, this is extreme circumstances. They don't have good pitchers. Have you watched the Orioles lately? Maybe this is just the way that you cope with that. If you have a bunch of pitchers who just can't throw strikes and just aren't very good, maybe you say, well, just don't bother with finessing anything. The best we can hope for is that maybe you can throw a strike. So we'll just put it down there. However, the team that has the second lowest

deviation of catcher setup location horizontally, it's the Tampa Bay Rays. And hey, the Rays are doing it. It must be smart, right? but this has been a philosophy of the Rays for a few years as well now and it's usually a safe bet that when the Rays are doing something you can count on other teams to copy them so the Orioles it seems like are emulating the Rays here and maybe

taking it even in a more extreme direction than the Rays have thus far and the Orioles and Rays I think are 7th seventh and eighth in fan graphs pitching war so far this season, just saying. So I don't know that this is so pervasive because I asked Alex for the league-wide numbers going back to 2012 just to see if there had been some change and if there were less deviation now or more setups toward the center of the zone than there used to be and not really it turns out that there has been a slight movement in that

direction this season or in the last couple seasons we've seen less deviation and more setups toward the center at least horizontally but it seems like the peak of that was prior years, really, that back at the beginning of this dataset was when you actually had maybe the closest to the center setups, at least horizontally. What we have seen is that there's been more deviation and farther distances from the center vertically. Now that the high fastball has been more in vogue over the past year, you're seeing catcher set up higher and lower, so there's more variation there. But it does look like in the past couple of years, things have swung back toward more centralized locations and less variation in the Orioles.

And the Rays are leading the pack. And also, actually, the Mariners. The Marinays are leading the pack. And also actually the Mariners, the Mariners are right there too. And we played the clip last week from Matt Brash, the Mariners rookie, who said that also, that the Mariners were just setting up in the middle and just saying, hey, trust your stuff. You're nasty and it will work out. So the Mariners are also quite centrally located this season and have been fairly successful. So it's interesting that this seems to be happening, that particularly with fastballs, there is at least relative to several years ago, there's less variation and more central locations and some teams are really pushing it. So I guess it's a testament to how good the stuff is now. And we talked about this a few months ago, I think, when Justin blogged about it then, that you can get away with middle-middle fastballs now just because there's so much movement and they're so fast.

And maybe you're throwing so much breaking stuff that you don't even know to anticipate the fastball. So nowadays it's just like, hey, fire it in there. Don't get too cute. Because even if it is, here it is, you can't hit it. So this seems to be the new trend, the new market inefficiency, perhaps the new quote unquote smart thing that the Rays are leading the league toward is just setting up in the middle, not moving your glove that much from pitch to pitch. Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, Justin noted that not only is it that fastballs are so good, but also if your glove is being dragged out of the zone and you're already set up, you know, on its edge, you're going to take a strike and make it look like a ball, right? Whereas if you're set up in the middle and you have, you have more wiggle room to kind of still be operating in the general strike zone, provided you able to you know meet the ball where it is so it is an interesting development i know justin linked to a piece by andy costa from the baltimore sun so we'll include that in the show notes if anyone's interested in hearing more about sort of

baltimore's particular adoption of this too because i think that that piece is interesting but yeah you know it's, it's sure something. Some of these guys, you know, and some of them you're like, wow, Paul Fry, really? Right. Yeah. He's been good at times, I guess. He has been good at times. And he's not actually doing especially well right now, I don't think.

You know, there's still intriguing elements. We love intriguing elements. Yeah. So the Orioles pitching coach Chris Holt in this Baltimore Sun article, he says the pitchers under Holt's direction often struggled when attempting to pick out a corner of the zone. There is a tendency to be too focused on a specific location, causing overthinking and resulting in misses. And then I think he also says that maybe there was a tendency for pitchers to vary their mechanics and their deliveries a little based on where they were aiming the pitch and that that could have unintended consequences. And so it's just, hey, pick your pitch. And that's not to say that pitchers are intending to throw the pitch directly down the middle.

It's just that they're kind of trusting to natural movement and random variation because we know that even in the majors, pitcher's command is not that great. And I've talked about this and written about this going back years back when we had command FX data back in the pitch FX era, which was not public, but sometimes I got my hands on it and was able to report that the average miss for a fastball was like 13 inches or something. And I believe that Justin links to a driveline tweet that says something quite similar, that just on average, even with fastballs, that major league pitchers miss by a foot or more.

And I mean, I don't know whether that sounds like a lot or not, like you hear about pinpoint control all the time, but hey, 60 feet, six inches, or you're not releasing it from that far back, but it's hard to have pinpoint control, especially as hard as pitchers are throwing it. We talked about the max effort trend. So you're throwing all out. You're not prioritizing pinpoint command. And then you have this movement that's taking pitches all over the place. So, of course, you're not going to hit exactly the precise bullseye that you're intending to hit. So if you figure that you aim for some location and then where the pitch actually ends up is like a randomly distributed collection of points, you know, like a foot away from the point that you were intending to hit. Well, if you're just kind of trying to lay it in there, then it probably won't be right down the middle.

It'll probably be on a corner or up or low or something. So I think it does make some sense, not for every team or every pitcher necessarily but i think with the right staff and and if the rays are doing it and seems to have had some success for them then maybe there is something to that and i don't know what effect it would have you know maybe it even helps you framing wise potentially right if like the catcher's not shifting around and hopping around and you're giving the umpire a stable target, maybe that could help you. Maybe it could hurt you. I don't know. It could go either way.

I could see that improving umpire accuracy perhaps if they're not having to adjust their frame of reference on a pitch-to-pitch basis also. So it's an interesting trend. It's just something to look at and notice if you're watching games these days. You may notice that catchers are just not moving very much. They're just like, hey, here's my glove. Throw it over the plate, please. And maybe it won't actually end up directly down the middle. So it could be trailblazers.

We'll see if this continues to catch on. And just imagine soon they will pair this incredible catching philosophy with Adley Rutschman. Yeah. They'll be unstoppable, Ben. Let's hope. They'll win 50 games. Yeah.

The Mariners have the average location, at least for fastballs, closest to the center of the zone. And then the Orioles are right behind them and the Rays are a few teams behind them. The Mariners are also pretty high on the leaderboard of the least variation in setup horizontally from pitch to pitch. The Marlins are down there too and the Royals. So again, this could be a catcher specific thing. There might be some catchers who just naturally do this and have done this already. It doesn't always have to be some catchers who just naturally do this and have done this already. It doesn't always have to be some progressive team philosophy, but it seems like they're taking it to

new heights or new lows, however you put that in. I would guess- Yeah, new middles, sure. I would guess this also is related to the ball just to tie everything back together because the fact that you had pitches kind of like migrating away from the center of the zone in the years that the ball was at its most juiced and now those targets are moving back toward the center of the zone perhaps not a coincidence that the ball is deader now than it was a few years ago. And obviously, if you know that the ball is flying the way it was in 2019, 2017, then you're going to be even more hesitant to just lay one in there because you know that your mistakes are going to go a long way. Nowadays, you might feel like you

have a little more leeway. You have a bigger buffer. You can get away with some pitches you leave over the zone because those pitches might not travel as far. So I would guess that that's driving this as well, these league-wide trends and that movement back toward the middle. Both the horizontal variability in catcher target and the horizontal average distance from center of catcher target this season so far are the lowest since 2014, which was the year before the ball seemingly first got juiced. So perhaps not a coincidence. Although maybe that has to do with the weather and the temperature and offense being down because of that as well. And of course, all of this data is just a proxy for the pitcher aiming. We can't know exactly where the pitcher wants to put the pitch because we can't be in their head. We can only assume that they are trying to throw it where the catcher has the target, which is

usually generally true, at least for fastballs, but maybe it exaggerates the misses somewhat. Yeah. I would imagine that if we were to see a sudden change in the character of the ball that you'd probably still see some teams migrate toward the middle on this, but you might rethink it a little bit because it's like the potential stakes of getting it wrong are a lot higher when you're dealing with like a 2019 ball. Yeah, right. And maybe this will be good for, well, I don't know. We'll see if this helps with the rise in pitches per plate appearance and the number of pitches per game, which lengthens games as we've talked about. It's all connected. It's all connected. So one more thing. Raymond Chen, who is a longtime listener and has been one of the most active updaters of the Effectively Wild wiki, he posted something in the Facebook group that is quite intriguing. And it seems like it could be a way around the zombie runner. I'm not going to get my hopes up here, but Raymond pointed out. You've already gotten my hopes up. Yeah, sorry.

Well, Raymond got my hopes up a little bit too. I'm trying to restrain them here because I don't think this will be an actual loophole that could be exploited. But going by the letter of the law, Raymond notes that according to the rulebook, and I'm looking at the 2021 rulebook here. I don't know that the 2022 one has been publicly released yet, but I don't think it has been. Yeah, I look forward to that day every day. Yeah.

So according to rule 5.08, how a team scores, which is pretty important, pretty fundamental to the sport. It says 508A, one run shall be scored each time a runner legally advances to

and touches first, second, third, and home base before three men are put out to end the inning. Now, it does have a comment here. It says, exception, a run is not scored if the runner advances to home base during a play in which the third out is made. Buy the batter runner before he touches first base. Buy any runner being forced out or buy a preceding runner who is declared out because he failed to touch one of the bases. But this is saying that in order to score a run in the sport of baseball, or at least in Major League Baseball, the runner has to advance to and touch each base in order. First, second, third, and home. Now, I don't know whether when the zombie runner goes out there, they typically touched

first on their way. I wouldn't think so. They almost certainly do not. I don't think they do. I think they cross right through the middle of the diamond. I would think that is what they do. Again, usually you're not watching. We're in an ad break at that point, and I can't say that being at the ballpark, I have paid close attention to that. But I would venture to say that most zombie runners, when they go out there, are not making sure to touch first on their way. Does that mean that technically these runs should not stand and that some brave manager should go out there and point out to the umpire when the zombie runner scores, hey, I don't think he touched first base there because uh he started on second base and according to rule 5.08 that is not how you score a run in major league baseball and raymond even noted that there are

times like uh okay rule 5.09 c to comment b yeah So batter hits the ball to shortstop who throws wildly into the stands. The ball is dead. The batter runner misses first base but is awarded second base on the overthrow. Even though the umpire has awarded the runner second base on the overthrow, the runner must touch first base before he proceeds to second base. You can appeal that. So even if a ball is thrown into the stands and they signal you towards second, you have to touch first on your way to second or you can be ruled out. So do we just need a manager to go out there and play a game under protest? Now, I guess you would be protesting to Rob Manfred or the MLB rules committee that instituted the zombie runner in the first place?

Yeah, he would just say no. So that would probably end this thing. And of course, the union approved the zombie runner rule too. So I think they understand the rules. Everyone's on the same page here, except me and many fans. But maybe at the very least, we could get a new entrant to the Stanky draft and they'd have to amend the rulebook to say you have to touch first and second and third and home unless it's a zombie runner. Does the zombie runner rule supersede this very fundamental rule in the rulebook or is this just a little loophole that hasn't been closed? It's an oversight that is waiting for someone to exploit. Well, see, I'm struggling because I'm trying to find where in the game they talk about the ghost runner at all. Ghost runner? How dare you?

I'm imagining that's what they call it. What do they call it? Technically, it's an automatic runner. Automatic runner. But I don't think that's in the rule book or at least the one that I was looking at. I guess it's like a special addition or amendment because it's supposedly a temporary thing for health and safety related reasons. I guess the thing that we don't know is like how is it written in the yeah how is it written in that rule because it could well be that they address this very issue it could

because they are nothing if not lawyers yes that is true and yeah those lawyers famously fastidious about stuff uh although you know entire cases have been won or lost on appeal because of small technicalities like this. So I imagine that what would happen is the manager would come out and appeal it, and then the ump would go, come on. And then I'd go, all right. Probably. And there is some provision in the rules where the ump can just rule on things that are not

specifically mentioned in the rulebook. But this is mentioned in the rulebook but this is mentioned in the rulebook it is it's there it is mentioned in the rulebook but i don't think that you and you you know you can ask for review of things like you know whether a guy touched the base in the course of scoring. Yeah. But I guess the question is, does this even count as a situation in which the runner is required to touch the base? Because it's not as if, you know, they're just there. They're just there at the start of the inning. Right.

They're allowed to be there, but are they allowed to score and for that run to count without having touch first? That seems to contradict the very fundamental rule about how you score a run in Major League Baseball. Here's what the MLB.com glossary page says. And I don't know if this is written exactly the way it's written in whatever the rule officially is. They tend not to be. They tend to be a little more user-friendly in the glossary than they are in the rulebook. Sounds rulebook-esque.

Anyway, the entry is for automatic runner, although the URL is designated runner to add extra confusion to this. So it says, as part of MLB's health and safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic, all half innings after the ninth will begin with a runner on second base in the 2020 regular season. And then it says this rule will not be in place for the 2020 postseason or the 2021 campaign, which, of course, it was in the latter case. The runner placed on second base at the start of each half inning in extras will be the player in the batting order immediately preceding that half innings leadoff hitter or a pinch runner so if the number seven hitter in the order is due to lead off the number six hitter or a pinch runner for the number six hitter would be placed on second base if the automatic runner comes around to score an earned run will not be charged to the pitcher so it says basically hey here's what this is There's a runner on second base at the start of each half inning in extras. It doesn't say, by the way, we know that in the rulebook we said that you had to touch first base in order for the run to count.

This is an exemption to that. We're amending that rule here. It's just kind of on top of that rule, I guess. And again, this may not be the official language that was distributed to teams. So we don't know what that says or whether it specifically references rule 5.08 and this being a new exception to that. All I'm saying is I don't think this is going to be the thing that rids us of the zombie runner. But if I were a manager in my ongoing efforts to discourage this rule, I encourage any major league manager to go out there and throw the book at them and say, hey, I was just perusing the rule book and I noticed that

it says you have to touch first base. And I was watching and I don't think that that zombie runner touched first base on his way to second. Therefore, I'm appealing. We're throwing over there. I mean, I guess you can't throw over and force out the zombie runner because the zombie runner is allowed to be at second base right without having touch first but is a run allowed to score without that runner having touch first is the important question here i don't know i don't know either i mean i don't know. I don't know either. I mean, I don't know, Ben. I mean, I think the answer is, yeah, of course he's allowed to score. Yeah. They've established that. You really do need those t-shirts.

Yeah, this is a second example of being pedantic about baseball. Look, I'm grasping at straws here. I want someone to be hoisted on their petard for the zombie runner, and I think this would be a very entertaining way to do it, or at least for them to point out that there's some inconsistency there. Because really, this kind of gets at the fundamental thing that I hate about the zombie runner, which is that you're supposed to have worked your way on in some way. You're supposed to have done something to get on as opposed to just being placed there. And rule 5.08 really kind of touches on that fundamental aspect of the sport, which is that in order to score,

you have to go around the bases. You have to go around all of them. You have to touch them all, as they say. And the zombie runner does not touch them all. And therefore, it contravenes this very core part of the sport. And I think that is what offends me about the zombie runner rule in general, or one of the things that does, in addition to the fact that you're playing the first nine innings under one rule set. And then you're suddenly changing things to wacky baseball for the 10th when things are exciting. So I'm just saying, worth a shot. Worth a shot. Almost all protests don't work, but might as well try it. Why not? What do you have to lose other than annoying some umpires and probably some people in the league office?

I mean, you'd be a hero of this podcast. Yes, you would. You'd, of course, have to reveal yourself as a listener of this podcast. No shame in that. No shame in that. It would make me weird after it, though, because, you know, I don't like to hold on to that fact it makes me we know there are front office people out there who are listening so uh just saying some front office people when i was an intern one of my jobs was to send little memos around about like weird rules

in the rule book which manager okay now let's play a game which manager would be the most likely to be like yeah i'll give that a try sure Sure, why not? Tony La Russa. I think probably Tony La Russa. I think that is not the answer, but I want it to be. Yeah. For once, I'd be totally on board with Tony La Russa just being a stickler for something that I don't care about. If he were to do this, I would say, well done, sir. Wow.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know who i think the answer would be i think we're gonna get emails that answer my question but boy it sure would be it would be something i don't think they'd even they wouldn't even put the little headset in they'd be like this isn't a reviewable play no they'd wave them off they go that's what they do yep but it would be fun too, because this is such a wackadoo way of engaging with the zombie runner. I would love to hear the broadcast booths having to speculate about what the issue is, because they'd replay the runner scoring, and they'd look really carefully,

and they'd sit there and say, I mean, he touched the plate, so I really don't see what the issue is here. And then the poor umpire has to get on the mic and explain to a ballpark full of people, okay, so there's this podcast. Let's start there. And then, you know. But would we have the right, the proper subject to verb agreement in the sentence when they announce the results of the review. That is the important thing.

I don't know, but I think we'd get ejected from home somehow. You know, they'd be like, they're out of order. The things that we get interested in on this podcast. So speaking of Tony Russo, last thing is that I have to follow up on our stat blast from the last episode. Ben, we got so many emails. So last thing is that I have to follow up on our stat blast from the last episode. Ben, we got so many emails.

Well, before you follow up, I'm going to say two things. The first is that I feel some responsibility here for not, especially as someone who watches football, that I did not think to ask you if this was an example of the running back phenomena where there are guys who end up with all of this yardage and people will be like, Oh, well when that runner runs, rushes for more than X number of yards, the team wins.

And really it's that the team is running in garbage time because they have already scored several touchdowns and are winning. And so I feel like I failed you that I did not, as we were sitting there and say, did he start all of those games but I didn't and so uh here we are uh with many many many emails yes just uh I don't know that we've ever gotten so many emails about one subject there is at least one this is I think the most mail we've gotten in any single subject since the deluge that followed, I think it was episode 1737, when we neglected

to mention that the three batter minimum rule may have played a part in the fact that when there's an intentional walk that coincides with a pitching change, it's become more common for the pitcher who issues that walk to be the one who's entering the game, not the one who's leaving the game. And we didn't note that now that you have the three batter minimum in place, the pitcher who's entering the game issues the walk more often potentially because that counts as a batter faced. And hoo boy, let me tell you, did we hear it from the fans on that one? And I mean,

these are the hot button topics of our times. So, I mean, who issues the intentional walk, the outgoing pitcher or the incoming pitcher? Why did the mid-1980s White Sox win so much more often with Mike Squires than without Mike Squires? Like, you wade into these waters, these controversial subjects. You have to be ready for the response. So thanks to everyone who did respond. And yes, the stat blast was prompted by a tweet, a purported fun fact that was publicized by Jeff Passan about how the Twins had a much better record in games that Byron Buxton played than games that Byron Buxton did not play. And I was not questioning the fact that Byron Buxton, very good at baseball, but was questioning the construction of the fun fact because it suggested that basically the twins were like a hundred plus win team with Buxton and a 75 win team without Buxton and a 75-win team without Buxton. And obviously, no one is that good. So I wondered whether this was historically significant. So frequent StatBlast consultant Ryan Nelson ran the numbers. And we found out that when you look at just games played in,

which I think was the way that the initial Buxton fun fact was framed, yes, it was, The initial Buxton fun fact was framed, yes, it was, that Mike Squires of the mid-1980 but I hadn't done enough research. It didn't dawn on me at the moment what that confounding factor was. And what it was, as people pointed out, is that Mike Squires- Many, many, many people. Hey, it shows people are paying attention and they're listening and they're engaged and they care enough to write in. And we do appreciate the interaction. But Mike Squires was a defensive replacement during that point in his career. And really, like only Tony Russo, I feel like, would have a defensive replacement first baseman.

Like, who has that? I mean, I guess that's from an era where you didn't have gigantic bullpens and there were actually bench players. So you had that luxury. But a defensive replacement first baseman is kind of a rarity. And I knew Squires to the extent that I was aware of him because I believe he's the most recent left-handed catcher in baseball. He played a little bit of left-handed catcher moving from first base, and I think he played some left-handed catcher in baseball. Like he played a little bit of left-handed catcher moving from first base. And I think he played some left-handed third base too. Actually, he's the second most recent left-handed catcher. He's the most recent in the American League. Benny DiStefano is the most recent in the National League or in the major leagues, but hopefully not the last. Anyway, that's a noteworthy thing about Squires. So sometimes you will hear him mentioned in that context, but he was largely a first baseman and he was a gold glover in 1981. And so La Russa had a habit during the 80s of putting in squires to protect leads, basically. the greatest differential of team record in games that they played and did not play account for that, Buxton will be even higher on the list. And I assumed that too. But here's the twist. Buxton at times has himself been in the Squires role. He has himself been a defensive replacement.

Right. He went 9-0 for the Twins or the Twins went 9-0 in games that Buxton didn't start but did play in in 2019 because I think there was a period late in the year where he came back from injury and they were using him in a limited capacity, just putting him in as a defensive replacement when the Twins were up already. So there was a 9-0 in 2019 and then a 4-0 in 2020. So he went 14-1 over that, or the Twins went 14-1 from 2019 to 2021 in games that Buxton played in but did not start in. And so when you strip away those games and you look only at Buxton and the games that he started versus the games he did not start, he falls all the way down for that span to 558th on the list. So 2019 to 2021 twins, 104 and 68 in games that Buxton started. That's 605, 106 and 106. That is a 500 record in games that he did not start. So that is a solid differential,

but not quite as worthy of a wow. And he falls well down the list. And he's now 558 out of almost 10,000 qualifying spans. And this was using various qualifiers about how you had to have played for the team in all three seasons and a certain minimum number of games, and you also had to have missed a certain number of games over that span, et cetera. So that's the twist, I guess, is that Mike Squires is not a wizard, in fact. However, Byron Buxton, not quite as special in this respect either, as it turns out. Twist. Conclusion, which was that there is a lot of randomness to this and you don't have to be a superstar for your team to do better in games you started versus games you didn't start. That is still true. And if you look at the names at the top of the list right now, and I'll link to the updated spreadsheet, but Eddie Murphy and Jack Barry are on the top. I mentioned Murphy last time. They're there for the 1913 to 1915 Philadelphia A's. And the reason why they're there, I think there is a bit of a bias with them too, because in 1915, there was a famous fire sale with the A's and Connie Mack sold off all of his players. And so in 1915, Murphy and Berry, they started the year with the A's after some other players

had been traded away, but then they themselves were traded away in mid- year with the A's after some other players had been traded away, but then they themselves were traded away in mid-season for the A's. And then the A's completely tanked down the rest of that season because they had no players left basically. And so the 1915 A's went four and 20 in August and five and 27 in September. They were barely a big league team at that point. And so that's counting toward Barry and Murphy's without you stats. And they weren't actually still on the team at that time. It's hard really to construct this query in a way to avoid that kind of thing. But the real legitimate leader, I would say now, is Charlie Maxwell for the 1958 to 1960 Tigers. And during those years, the Tigers were 199 and 169. That's a 541 winning percentage in games that Maxwell started.

They were 25 and 69. That is a 266 winning percentage in games that he did not start. That is a disparity of 275 points of winning percentage. And he actually also shows up close to the top of the list for the 57 to 59 Tigers and the 56 to 58 Tigers, the Tigers during Maxwell's era. They just won a whole lot more with him starting than without him starting. And we actually were hoping to do a classic Effectively Wild cold call and talk to Charlie Maxwell today because he turned 95, 95 years young earlier this month. And he was at Tiger's opening day and he's actually had maybe a little known career outside of the teams that he played for, but a fascinating career and a lot of interesting stories. And he is the oldest living Tiger and I think the oldest living white sock as well. And I will never pass up an opportunity

to talk to a nonagenarian on this show. So I did find his number. We did call him and we did speak to him for a minute, but he told us that he was feeling a little under the weather and he asked that we call back. So we will wait a little while and we will try to connect with him again. And if we do, hopefully you will hear Charlie Maxwell on an upcoming show. you play cannot necessarily dictate the fortunes of that team to any great extent.

So Buxton rules and the twins are better with him, but not that much better. And in fact, like you could go back to Jacques Jones for the 2001 to 2003 Twins. The Twins were 230 and 153. That's a 601 winning percentage in games that Jacques Jones started. They were 39 and 63. That's a 382 winning percentage in games that Jacques Jones did not start. So, you know, you can look for various samples here and scroll down the list if you want. But I think we've learned something here today.

It took us two episodes to learn these things and many emails, but hopefully that satisfies everyone's curiosity. We've learned that you're all very, very good listeners. Just like really, really very good. Very good. Yep. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening.

And I've got to give a shout out to whatever Wikipedia editor has amended the Mike Squires Wikipedia page to include this fun fact from the other day. His Wikipedia page now says defensively he recorded a 995 fielding percentage.

Notably, between 1982 and 1984, the White Sox went 242-120 for a 6.69 winning percentage during games Squires played. And without Squires, the White Sox were 18-106 for a 145 winning percentage, a split of 523 points, the highest winning percentage split with or without a single player over a three-season span in baseball history. And the citation goes to episode 1841 of Effectively Wild. Fact check, true. Somewhat misleading, but technically true. And while you're reading Mike Squires' Wikipedia page, you can also check out our former guest Neil Payne's article on

Buxton and the Twins' performance with and without him at 538, which just came out. He gets into some of this too. And do check out Ryan Nelson's spreadsheet, which again, I will link on the show page. He also included some career numbers as well. Just looking cumulatively at all seasons in which a player started at least 50 games, you see some Hall of Famers and Hall of Fame caliber players toward the top of that list.

Shoeless Joe Jackson, Gil Hodges, Honest Wagner, Roy Campanella, but also some much less notable names. And our friend Charlie Maxwell in the top 20. I sure hope we get to talk to him again soon and at greater length. By the way, the first way that Ryan ran the numbers with games played instead of games started, at the top of the list, you had a bunch of defensive replacements. At the bottom, you had a bunch of pinch hitters and some good ones. Hall of Famers Johnny Mize and Enos Slaughter, they were toward the bottom because they were pinch hitters during their years with the Yankees. And so often they would tend to play and to pinch hit in games when the Yankees were trailing. So that was another source

of some skew there. It's hard to do this completely correctly because you're always going to have players who maybe they didn't spend the whole season with the team or maybe they missed more time disproportionately during a year when the team was very bad. And so that makes them look better because they played more in games when the team was good or their absences happened to coincide with other absences, which I guess is kind of the case in Buxton's situation with the Twins. He was not the only one missing at times last year, right? Anyway, it's a fun spreadsheet to check out. So thanks to Ryan for the research. After we recorded this episode, the discipline for the Cardinals-Mets mess was handed down. Nolan Arnauto was suspended for two games and fined. Cardinals pitcher Henicis Cabrera was suspended for one game and fined. And Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty and Mets pitchers Yohan Lopez and Tywon Walker were also

fined for participating in or contributing to the incitement of the incident. So there you have it. Also, the Angels won again. So that's another day in first place. Check out Jay Jaffe's piece at Fangraphs Published Thursday on Mike Trout and how great he is and how he seems to be even getting better in some respects as he always does. Apparently he's picked up his performance against breaking balls now. It's funny, I don't think anyone thought Mike Trout was necessarily declining or definitely in his decline phase. I think much of the concern was about his durability, the fact that he hadn't played. When he got hurt last year, he was among the league leaders in everything.

And at some point, you figure those absences and injuries and age take a toll. But until we actually saw a healthy Mike Trout playing at a diminished level, I wasn't ready to say that he had seeded the title of best player in baseball, except in the sense that he might not be on the field as much as some other players. Anyway, he seems to have reclaimed that title with a vengeance so far this season, even Otani said so. It's been a ton of fun to watch. And in fact, I was just reminded that as I record this on April 28th, it is the 10th anniversary of Trout being promoted in 2012 and of Bryce Harper making his Major League debut. And in those 10 years, those guys have combined for two Rookie of the Year awards, 15 All-Star appearances, five MVP awards.

Trout has almost doubled Harper's War, but they've both been fantastic and lived up to the billing and we have been blessed by both of them. So here's to 10 more years for each. Which reminds me that we are coming up on our 10th anniversary as a podcast a little later this year. And with that in mind, you can support Effectively Wild on Twitter by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Blake Gammon, Vicky Ho, Matt Thompson, Sandy Cantor, and Jason Nassi.

Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, Discordantly Wild. Even if you're not a Discord person, I'm not a big Discord guy, but I like lurking and sometimes participating in that group. It's a bunch of fellow Effectively Wild lovers. What could be bad about that? And people are talking about all things under the sun there in every game that's going on in every team. So it's a great little community.

You can also get access to monthly bonus pods. Meg and I will be recording another one of those soon. And you get not just the new ones, but all the ones that we already have recorded and published, plus a couple of playoff live streams later in the year and more. You can all, of course, join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group

slash effectivelywild. You can contact, of course, join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can contact me and Meg, hopefully not about Mike Squires anymore at this point, though it depends. If you have more to add, feel free, but you can reach us via email at podcast at fancrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. If we missed a time when it was announced that the zombie runner rule was overriding what it says in the rulebook, maybe all of our listeners can get together and appoint one person to notify us about that. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance.

And we will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. That was my mistake. I didn't spot the setup. That was my mistake. I didn't spot the setup. You were Prince to give me a chance. I didn't spot the setup. That was my mistake.

You were Prince to give me a chance. I'll do better next time.