Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1851: You Say Tyler, I Say Taylor

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the rabidity of opossums and Eugenio Suárez‘s keepie-uppie skills, then discuss the White Sox offense and Tony La Russa’s rationale for batting Andrew Vaughn ninth, Max Scherzer’s oblique injury, and the possibility of a Juan Soto trade, before meeting major leaguers (53:30) Logan Gillaspie (Orioles) and Brandon Hughes […]

I don't bite, but you can't believe it. You can't believe it. I don't bite, but you can't believe it. You can't believe it. I don't bite, but you can't believe it. You can't believe it To put people's minds at ease, opossums very rarely carry rabies. That's so good to know. It is good to know.

Yeah. Just in case anyone was waiting with bated breath since the end of our last episode, that's how we'll start this baseball podcast by talking about opossums very rarely carrying rabies. Sometimes I think the podcast needs a previously on segment. So someone would say, last time on Effectively Wild. And then there'd be a clip of me mentioning that in addition to a pack of feral cats, pack of cats,

clowder of cats. Is that what you say? I think that's a word. The Oakland Coliseum now features opossums in the press box. And then there'd be a clip of you wondering whether opossums carry rabies. And then a clip of me not knowing. And then there'd be a clip of you wondering whether opossums carry

rabies and then a clip of me not knowing. And then everyone would be up to speed. I guess that's what we just did here. I'm glad that they don't transmit or carry rabies. Did you know, this is terrible, that last year, five people in the United States died from rabies and that it was the highest number in a decade, according to the CDC. I did not know that. No. Yeah. I didn't know that either. And then I read a Jenny Gross piece in the New York Times and I was like, that seems

like a bummer. So, you know, once the symptoms start, it's too late. Yeah. I actually got the rabies vaccine at some point when I was a kid because I was in a house upstate and there was a bat flying around. Yeah. And as far as I know, I was not bitten by the bat, but you never know. And we figured, well, why not? Just in case I was bitten by the bat,

don't want to get rabies, easier to get the vaccine. So yeah, I guess that inoculation has worn off by now. So I'm probably not protected. However, I'm not often around rabid or potentially rabid beasts and opossums, I could walk around next to with impunity, seemingly. So in the outro to that last episode, I did explain the difference between possums and opossums, such as it is. And I thought that would save us some emails, and I'm sure it did. But I forgot to follow up on the rabies question. So we did receive several emails about that matter. Yeah, we sure did.

We sure did receive some emails. You know, I think that I'm taking this as our listeners just being, well, in addition to curious as human beings and possessed with information that I don't have, which has been to our benefit at times, right? They just care about us and each other, right? They don't want, there's enough in the world to fret over, and I am a famous fretter.

So they were probably just worried that I was going to worry and fret over rabies, and now I don't have to, at least when it comes to opossums. Yeah, I don't think anyone wanted opossums to get a bad rap. They're actually seemingly a misunderstood and unappreciated animal. Maligned even, maligned. a bad rap. They're actually seemingly a misunderstood and unappreciated animal. Maligned even. Maligned. Yeah. Talking about the North American possum slash opossum, that is, which is maybe not cute by traditional societal standards of animal cuteness, but is useful, is the lone North

American marsupial. So it's sort of interesting. And it also does a lot of pest control. And it actually eats ticks and other nasty things that can infect us with bad diseases, because apparently opossum is pretty resistant to Lyme disease as well. So in Effectively Wild tradition of whenever we bring something up that seems sort of esoteric, we get someone who emails us who's an expert in that subject. We actually got one opossum email from Stephen who says, I'm a public health veterinarian working in One Health, and I did my master's of public health on rabies and post-exposure prophylaxis, so I think about zoonotic diseases quite a bit.

So, of course, there's always a listener. Stephen says, opossums and rabies are a neat story as they are generally thought to be resistant because they have a relatively low body temperature. So opossums have a body temperature of about 94 to 97, somewhere in that range. And that seems to be a little too low to support the rabies virus, not quite to the rabies virus's liking. So Stephen says, that said, all mammals are indeed susceptible and a few cases have been reported. So it's not ironclad. He links us to a summary from 2013, which includes two opossum cases. Disease surveillance

is complicated, he says, especially in wildlife. Suffice it to say, it is possible. However, we don't have to have too much fear. And he continues, Meg, those signs Suffice it to say, it is possible. However, we don't have to have too much fear. And he continues, Meg, those signs in your dorm were right. If you finish your post-exposure prophylaxis before you show clinical signs, you're good. Once you start to show rabies, rabies is almost invariably fatal. So yeah, don't wait too long. There is a Radiolab episode about the rare, vanishingly rare times when it is not fatal, but it usually is. Stephen says, thanks for making an awesome podcast and for being spot on with your public health messaging whenever that comes up. So this is us being spot on with our public health messaging when it comes to preventing rabies and also not fearing rabies in opossums in particular. Well, I'm just so happy to hear that a public health person thinks that we are doing a reasonable job

when it comes to this stuff because, you know, there's been a fair number of charlatans, of fakers around. And we don't want to purport to have expertise we don't have. But yeah, I'm glad we're not leading people horribly astray yeah and opossums apparently their hiss is worse than their bite not just because their bite is probably not rabid but because they are not inclined to bite or attack they just put up a front they make it look like maybe they'll take a run at you but they probably won't and they're generally nocturnal. I guess cats are too typically. So they have the Rome of the Colosseum often, maybe in the middle of the night. Anyway, opossums, not really a public health menace. And in fact, actually beneficial to humanity in many ways, although probably not

necessarily what you want running around a ballpark, but it could be worse is what I'm saying. And to be clear, real differentiation to be made, lines to be drawn, barriers to be erected between running around the ballpark outside and being in the press box inside. I think that those are different states of being, one might say. Yes. And in another follow-up to our most recent episode where we talked about another pressing issue, which is how many baseball players can juggle and how proficient at juggling are they? We also got a number of tweets and emails from people who were responding to Eugenio Suarez of the Mariners,

sort of juggling, juggling with his feet right after we talked about that. Isn't this just playing hacky sack with a baseball, Ben? Yeah, this is- He's playing hacky sack. I guess you'd call it keepy-uppy maybe in soccer. Would we? Oh, this is a soccer thing. Okay, so now my-

That is a term, which I think is very amusing that it's called keepy-uppy. Keepy-uppy? Keepy-uppy. Look, I'm not here to judge other sports because a good deal of this podcast is remarking on the bizarre nature of some baseball traditions. The funk, the weirdness. But keepy-uppy? I'm just saying, you guys want to have your sport taken seriously as like a mainstay of the American sporting landscape. And you're doing keepy-uppy as a serious term. I don't know.

That might be what's getting in the way of MLS like really ascending is keepy-uppy. It sounds like the first draft, you know. What could we call this? Well, you're keeping it up, keepy-uppy. Yeah, let's just go with that. I guess it's also called keep-ups or kick-ups sometimes. Anyway, that's what he was doing here, Suarez. He's from Venezuela. I'm sure he has some soccer playing past and it showed here. And yeah, he was at the plate and he ended up juggling a ball with his feet very casually and pretty athletically

and impressively. Anyway, I saw on the baseball subreddit thread about this, there were a few people who pointed out the Effectively Wild connection. Someone said, this dude listened to Effectively Wild today and saw his chance. But yeah, we were not talking about that kind of juggling specifically. We were talking about the kind where you use your hands, which you are specifically prohibited from doing in soccer but this was a form of juggling and it was a pretty impressive display and if Suarez can do it that readily with his feet then I imagine that there are many baseball players who can do it with their hands yes I think that that is right is hacky sack do people still hacky sack is that a thing that people still do?

Or is this like one of those things? Is it like, it's not like pogs where like young people are like, what is that? What is a pog? I don't know if it's that localized to an era in a region. I really couldn't tell you the rise and fall of hacky sack if it has fallen. I'm sure that if one were to walk across a college quad, one might still see hacky sack occurring these days. Yeah, I guess that that could be true. I guess that that could be true. It's been a while since we've been on a college quad. Yeah. So I have some stat blasts to share.

We may meet some major leaguers. I guess a couple more baseball-related topics than juggling with your feet and opossums with rabies. Or keep you up for that matter. Yeah, there were tenuous baseball connections there. Just a couple things. Did you see Tony La Russa's explanation for why he was batting Andrew Vaughn 9th for the White Sox on Wednesday? This was interesting. You're already like, oh boy. On the one hand, I'm saying,

oh boy, because this feels like it has strong, oh boy, potential. You're telegraphing, oh boy. But on the other hand, I just contemplated the rise and fall of hacky sack and that made me feel old. And I have a feeling this is about to make me feel young. Yeah. Now we're going to get emails about the popularity of Hacky Sack today as opposed to previous eras. Yeah. It's okay. We like to learn. We do. But Andrew Vaughn has been one of the better White Sox hitters this year,

even though he missed a little time and was playing through a little bit of a nagging injury. He has a 131 WRC plus so far this season. And the White Sox offense has surprisingly not been their strong suit this season. We've talked a little bit about the White Sox disappointing start to the year. And a lot of that is offense. They're 27th in runs scored. Sandwiched between the Royals and the Orioles. Not where you want to be.

Not where I would have expected them to be. They're 24th in WRC Plus entering Thursday's games. Again, just between the Red Sox and the Royals. The Red Sox also not where you would have expected them to be offensively. But things have not been going great for the White Sox on offense and just in general, partly because of injury, partly because of underperformance. But Tony Russo has shaken things up a little bit when it comes to the lineup. Anyway, Andrew Vaughn, again, one of their better hitters,

he was batting ninth on Wednesday, and La Russa explained, if you'll remember the times we had a position player ninth in the National League was all because of this. The second leadoff hitter is a reality in the American League. He hits right in front of your best hitters. So if you've got a guy hitting 250, 275, and 300, a lot of managers, including myself, hit the 300 guy ninth. A lot of managers? I think that's not true. Yeah. First of all, there barely are 300 guys in this day and age, but I doubt that many of them would be batting ninth, that many managers would make that choice.

Yeah. Lourissa said, he isn't the ninth best hitter on our team, but it definitely deepens our lineup. And so he is talking about when in the National League, and he was a proponent or pioneer of this strategy, which I wrote about back at Grantland. proponent or pioneer of this strategy, which I wrote about back at Grantland. But often during the pre-universal DH era, you would have your pitcher bat eighth maybe, and then you'd have a real hitter bat ninth. And the idea was that, well, you don't want just an automatic out coming up before the top of your lineup. You want to have someone on base before your best hitters come up. And there is some justification to that. Again, as with all batting order stuff, it barely matters. You're talking about a matter of a few runs over the

course of a season generally with any of these decisions, or at least with any reasonable decisions that you would generally see managers make, perhaps unlike batting Andrew Vaughn Knight. So the principle that Lewis is talking about here, there is some justification for that. But I think he's misapplying it here or taking it way too far. And I saw Tom Tango weigh in about this, of course, as one of the co-authors of the book. He did a lot of the foundational batting order analysis,

and he wrote on Twitter, while it is somewhat true you don't want your worst hitter batting ninth, the most you can say is to put your second or maybe third worst batter ninth. Certainly not anyone in your top six. The second leadoff theory can only be pushed so far. So you want someone who is not necessarily going to make an out so that when your good hitters come up, they can have someone on base ahead of them. But you also don't want to cost one of your best hitters plate appearances because when they're batting ninth, they're going to get a lot fewer plate appearances than if they were batting at the top of the lineup. So this seems to be shooting himself and his team in the foot here based on maybe a misunderstanding or over applicationapplication of a principle that he has applied in the past.

And I don't know if this is emblematic of the game kind of passing TLR by or the fact that he actually was kind of a cutting-edge managerial thinker decades ago, but that times have changed and maybe he hasn't completely caught up with them. But it's a weird one. It is an odd decision for sure. I think that one of the things that I fear the most in my own life is not that I am necessarily wrong in this exact moment. I mean, I do worry about that because, as I said earlier, I have a capacity for concern and anxiety.

But I think that one of the things that I worry about the most is that I am right now. And I will think that I am right in perpetuity, even when I have been passed by in terms of the landscape of baseball or understanding of it, that I will get to a point where I just cannot absorb the new thing, right? Where I am presented with the latest trend in pitching and I can't make heads or tails of it, right? That's one of the things that I worry about at three o'clock in the morning. And I think the only natural and sort of effective countervailing force to that concern, which is something that just happens to all of us in a lot of aspects of life as we age is to be curious and open to feedback and i'm not saying that tony larissa is is incurious and i'm not saying he's

stubborn but he might be some of those things some of the time and that might have led to this particular understanding because i think you're right that and tom is right that there is like a nugget of a principle here that makes sense, but taken to its extreme, you end up batting like your best guy in a spot where he's going to come to the plate that we stopped. And that seems suboptimal. I mean, like, especially if your team's losing

a lot more than you expected them to, you just want your best guys getting as many shots as they can, probably. Yeah. And I feel like La Russa understood this at least at one time in 2011 his last year with the Cardinals Joe Sheehan pointed this out La Russa batted the pitcher a 13 times that year but when he did he didn't have Matt Holliday or Lance Berkman batting ninth

he had Skip Shoemaker or Daniel Descasso or someone like that batting ninth right that's kind of how to apply this principle so I don't know if this was just La Russa thinking, well, we're not hitting, let's shake things up. This is his version of, you know, pulling names out of the hat to set your lineup or something. But he has had some curious decisions when it comes to batting orders. And I try not to dwell on that too much because we do make too much of it. And as you said, these are often very small marginal differences to be had. And you'd rather optimize to score as many runs as you can than not. But I think that you're right that we tend to get overly fussed about this stuff especially when they it's it's a lot like when the that one hit goes through the shift the the vacated spot where a fielder would have been if a team wasn't in the shift like you don't remember all the other times it doesn't matter you remember the time when you have like your least good hitter up in a crucial moment and he like you know strikes out swinging and then the game is over and you're like how how did you not see that coming? And it's like, well, you probably should have.

But also, like, it doesn't really matter that much, you know? Yeah, right. Yeah. This was actually not even the first time that Vaughn had batted ninth. He batted ninth on Monday, I believe, for the first time, and then they repeated the tactic. So, yes, it doesn't make sense to stress too much about lineup decisions in general, but I understand why people do because it's sort of an unforced error.

If you're not hitting, that's one thing. What can you do? It's frustrating, but other players are good too. But you're the manager. You have all the time in the world to set your lineup and all the information that you could care to make use of to make that decision. The game hasn't even started. It's not the heat of the moment or anything. It's not a reactive decision.

You can decide what you want to do there. And even if you're throwing away a tiny fraction of an expected run in any given game, well, why do that is the idea. So maybe because the White Sox have underperformed offensively, that makes you more likely to tinker and get too cute and creative and be like, he batted Larry Garcia a few times, third and second, and I believe leadoff once as well. And look, Larry Garcia, he has his uses, but batting him at the top of the lineup is probably not one of them. And I know that this had Jeremy Frank on Twitter on tilt at the time, and he was posting some stats from at MLB Random

Stats about how Larry Garcia may have been the worst number three hitter ever. He was arguing, at least, because he had entered that game with like a career 660 OPS and he was batting 043 at the time, something like that. And Jeremy said there's no other number three hitter in the last 40 years to enter a game with a sub 700 career OPS in a thousand plus plate appearances and a sub 100 batting average in 20 or more bats. And he also, he had the worst career and season OPS of anyone in the lineup when he was starting in the third slot. And there was a very short list of players who had done that previously. So that was weird. And maybe it's like, yeah, when things aren't going well, then the manager feels more pressure to be like, I'm going to do something manager-y.

I'm going to step in and push some buttons and pull some levers here. And if anything, that might be counterproductive because even if it hasn't worked so far, you just sort of want to stick with probably what makes sense. Not discounting the possibility that at times doing something unorthodox could maybe actually get people out of some headspace that is not productive or something. But I think there's a limit to that. And the limit is probably batting Andrew Vaughn ninth or Joe Maddon walking in a run intentionally while losing the game in the fourth inning or whatever it was. Like when you're talking about one of those kinds of things that's just so completely off the board that it basically has no sort of sabermetric

justification, then I don't know, maybe you've taken it too far. Maybe you've taken it too far. Anyway, the White Sox are 18 and 19 as we speak, and their playoff odds are down, I think, about nine percentage points since the start of the season, and they are just barely below a 50-50 shot to take that division. They're only three and a half games back of the Twins. So again, I'm still not in super worried about the White Sox mode. I feel like they will probably get healthier and right the ship. But it has not been an encouraging start. And it doesn't help to throw away little edges here or there.

So I don't know. There's almost no point in talking about is La Russa on the wobbly chair or is his squid going to get fried or any of that. Because I would imagine that his job security, what with how he got that job and the relationship with Jerry Reinsdorf and all of that, I don't know that this is a normal situation where you would say that the manager is in trouble if a team that is expected to win handily starts out not well. But yeah, it's kind of concerning, this start for that team. Yeah, it isn't the best. You'd rather bank wins rather win than not.

You'd rather bank wins than not bank wins. And you'd rather have Andrew Vaughn hit higher than ninth than not hit higher than ninth, I think, is our takeaway here. Yeah. In other news, Max Scherzer is hurt. Max Scherzer has an oblique injury. He pulled himself from his last start, and then the MRI revealed that, yes, there is an oblique injury. He pulled himself from his last start and then the MRI revealed that, yes, there is an oblique problem. The estimate is six to eight weeks. You can Mets adjust that to whatever degree you would like, but they've built up a bit of a cushion, right? They are, I think,

six and a half games ahead of Philly as we speak, something like that, which is... Yeah, six, I believe. Okay, six. Not nearly enough for Mets fans in mid-May to feel fine about that. There was encouraging news about Jacob deGrom this week as well, basically just that the stress reaction is healing, looking a little less stressed, but Mets fans are now more stressed because of the Max Scherzer news. So, you know, you're not going to get DeGrom back. I mean, best case scenario is sometime in June. But given the long layoff here and just his history, I don't know that you could count on him even being back before the All-Star break.

I guess you hope that he will be potentially. But without DeGrom, without Scherzer, like, look, some other members of that rotation have stepped up and they've done well in the absence of DeGrom. Losing DeGrom and Scherzer, not so great. But when you are signing a pitcher who is in his late 30s and has missed some time here and there in the past few seasons, it kind of comes with the territory. You just hope that he will be effective when he's healthy, and he has been. And you hope that it won't be a serious injury, that it will just be an oblique and not the kind of oblique injury that really lingers a long time.

Like his MRI had a spritz and was enjoying a day to itself, and now it feels less stressed. Yes, maybe. Can I ask a pedantic thing? It's sort of MRI adjacent. Maybe this is me. This isn't really even being pedantic. I wonder if other people have a visceral incorrect reaction

to a bit of common phrasing. Does it ever strike you as weird that we say the x-ray results were negative, but we mean that as a good thing? Yes, and it does lead to some confusion and Larry David jokes at times about people misinterpreting what positive and negative means. Yes, it is weird. Yes. I think at this point, most people are probably aware of that, even though it seems sort of backwards at times, but it is odd that we did not choose different words for that. Yeah. This is like how I was, well, I solved this problem by moving to Arizona where we just

don't monkey with daylight savings. Our clocks stay the same the whole time. I never have to change my clock. My clock is just my clock. It's always there. It there it's just being the clock microwave is like hey don't have to change rest of the country catching up it seems like with that but yeah yeah a lot of ways in which i don't want the rest of the country to emulate arizona but in this respect i'm glad that we're starting to all come around but it's like the you know you you spring ahead right and you fall back is what it is yes yeah okay but it should be the other way around because you like spring back like you've seen a mouse and then you fall forward like you've tripped on something so i i get it wrong every time and i had to move an entire couple of states

to just be free of it so anyway that's not really related to the mets but how many years i've asked this question once on the pod already this season and and I'm asking again. I don't remember your answer, so you could say the exact same thing and I wouldn't know. But how long do the Mets have to be under a new regime, good, and seemingly well enough managed before we stop injury adjusting or Mets adjusting injuries, I should say. How long? I feel like if we get through this season and they run the table and kind of go wire to wire first place and everything just goes smoothly, if not from an injury perspective, at least from a competitive perspective, I think maybe you could start to put that Metsiness behind you. Maybe it takes a little longer than that to wash the Mets taste out of many people's mouths because it has been so persistent. And I do think, and we've talked about this, but I think maybe that has been a bit exaggerated, the Mets injury relationship,

and that often it's not so much that they are plagued with a biblical number of IL stints, but that maybe it's partly the messaging that they've had and how they seem to downplay injuries kind of consistently. And then they turn out to be worse than they initially said. And so that's why everyone Mets adjusts. It's not just that they are particularly injury plagued, although they have been in some seasons. It's just like how they break the news. It's like they want to cushion the blow or something. It's just like how they break the news. You know, it's like they want to cushion the blow or something. It's like they want to be like, oh, it's not too bad. Don't worry about it.

But then that ultimately has the effect of just like anytime you announce that someone has a scratch, it's like, oh, they're going to amputate. So I feel like that strategy, to the extent that it is a strategy, has backfired. That strategy, to the extent that it is a strategy, has backfired. Yes. But, you know, I think if they got through this season, like, yeah, they've had Scherzer hurt now and deGrom hurt now. But if they could just win this season and if they could win convincingly as they have thus far, I don't think it would take that long to put that reputation behind them. If they won a World Series or something, or even if they just easily just walked to a division title, I think it would not be at the top of mind, that punchline at least. We could start to let that punchline go.

Yeah. On the one hand, I think that you're right about that. And I want to believe you that that's true. But on the other hand, we like boo players for years and years and years for stuff years and years and you know we're like mets adjusting an injury to a guy who's almost 38 like it would be more surprising if max scherzer didn't get injured really i mean i know that he has had durability over the course of his career even if less so lately but it's like yeah of course of course he's gonna get dinged

up. He's older than I am. And he's playing professional baseball. That's anyway, I just think it's a it's a funny thing. I don't know that it's an ill deserved reputation. I don't think they're being, you know, mistreated by us getting our little jokes off. But I do wonder how long these reputations tend to persist and in, and in the other direction too, right? We, we sometimes think that orgs are particularly savvy at an aspect of say player development or whatever for years after they've stopped being like really the leader in the clubhouse because parts of some of the leaders in their clubhouse have maybe gone elsewhere.

So it's just, I don't know. It's just an interesting thing that I'm contemplating along with my own age and why we say x-rays are negative and whether I actually gave you the right order on springing ahead and falling back or if I got it wrong again I don't I don't know you know we'll get emails about that too yeah no I think you got that right spring forward fall back the Mets odds of winning the, I don't know if this accounts for Scherzer's injury yet or not, but the Mets' odds are up by about 32 percentage points, which is second among the gainers since opening day, only to the Yankees, who are up 44 percentage points in terms of winning the division. So pretty good times to be a baseball fan in New York, at least so far in the first six weeks or so of this season. I would imagine that we have not yet updated for that injury news, although I suspect that we will rather soon. Well, it probably won't have a huge effect just for six to eight weeks unless that

absence is also Mets adjusted in the playoff odds, but probably the depth charts do not Mets adjust that way. You know, we try not to sprinkle in anyone's little, we don't try to sprinkle in little thumbs to tip the scale one way or the other. That's why you can always count on us to have accurate Mariners playoff odds, even when they turn grim, because my thumbs staying out of it. If you were to put your thumb on the scale, I don't know which direction that would be in necessarily, even though you may root for the Mariners. I feel like you're pretty realistic about the Mariners in general. Well, yeah. I mean, I've lived with this Mariners team. So I mean, not literally,

but for a long time. And so it's easy to be realistic because you'd have to really be engaged in some flights of fancy to think something else. So while we're on the subject of the NL East, have you seen some of this buzz about trade candidate Juan Soto? Are you buying this? This has become a conversation all of a sudden. I don't know why we've decided it's time to talk about the trade deadline. I guess we're almost at the quarter mark of the

regular season. But not the quarter pole, everyone. Still not the quarter pole. Yeah, that would be the three quarter mark, I think, if I remember my horse racing. But the trade deadline is not until August 2nd this year. It's a little late. It's like a Tuesday. Sure. Which is weird. But I guess we're not going to get probably a flurry of trades until the amateur draft is over, which is what, July 17th is when the draft starts, I think. And then, yeah, the deadline is on August 2nd. So it may be a while before we see any major dominoes move here, but I've seen this mentioned in multiple places lately. Prominently, Buster Olney had a column at ESPN this week just all about the trade deadline and 10 questions about the trade deadline. And the very first one was, will the Nationals trade

Juan Soto? And let me just lay out his case here under the prompt. He says, at 23 years old, Soto is already a superstar and there aren't any comparable examples of hitters of his stature being dealt at such a young age. But rival execs say the Nationals might well be compelled and motivated to move Soto this summer. Rival execs say, hey, give me that. Give me it, though. Won't you? Why don't you? Rival execs say the give me that maybe compelled to trade us one soda for pennies on the dollar rival execs say nationals very stupid also smell bad they have already tried and failed to sign him to a whopper contract extension what was it at 13

years 350 was i think that's I think the reported terms of the extension offer he turned down. He is represented by agent Scott Boris, who almost always takes his clients into free agency, which begins for Soto after the 2024 season. And the Nationals are going through significant transitions. The team is reportedly for sale. General manager Mike Rizzo is in the last year of his current contract. And the franchise that won the 2019 World Series is terrible so far in 2022. It's real bad. Yeah.

Oh, it's ugly. Soto is making $17.1 million this season in his second year of arbitration eligibility, and he's likely to earn a record salary through arbitration next season. If they're not going to sign him to a long-term deal, then they'll need to trade him, one evaluator said. The question is when. Rizzo has demonstrated a willingness to be an aggressive dealer in the past. In the summer before Bryce Harper reached free agency, Rizzo had a trade arranged with the Houston Astros that was eventually squelched by ownership. Given Soto's rising salary, the sooner he is traded, the more the Nationals will get in return. And if the Lerner family is serious about selling the team incoming ownership would likely prefer that any soto trade occur before

the transfer of power takes place i mean i bet they would sure i guess if what they want is for you to trade the 23-year-old superstar. Right. But trading a player of Soto's potential is not for the faint of heart and not just because the decision maker's resume might one day contain the ugly line of swapped a first ballot Hall of Famer. Yeah. It's also difficult to glean equal value in a trade for someone as great as Soto. The Lerner family might not want that attached to their legacy. The same could be said for Mike Rizzo. Front office types, some of these rival execs, point to two teams that might be really motivated to move on Soto.

The hyper-aggressive San Diego Padres, who could dangle infielder C.J. Abrams and pitcher Mackenzie Gore. Okay. Makes sense to bet on A.J. Preller being motivated to make a trade. Sure. And the Blue Jays, who can dream on a left-handed star to complement the right-handed hitting Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Imagine that back-to-back. Soto and Guerrero. Geez.

Given that Soto is still a couple years from free agency, the Nationals could set a really high price and just wait for a bidder to step up with an offer of cornerstone prospects. Meanwhile, the Nats have plenty of other pieces to consider trading, Josh Bell, Nelson Cruz, and others. So given all of those reasons. I have so many things I want to say. Say them. Say some of them at least. Okay.

So let's start. Well, let's just start with the Juan Soto of it all, right? Because Juan Soto, I already said this, but I'm going to say it again, because I think it's something that we all need to sit with. Like we need to really sit with it every single day, which is that Juan Soto is only 23. He is only 23. He doesn't turn 24 until October 25th of this year. He is so young. He is so young. is so young and i think that you know he is a boris guy and buster is right to say that boris almost always takes his clients to free agency and of course soto did turn down this 13 year 350 million dollar extension offer but i think that like if you are the washington nationals and you think that you will be competitive at some point in the like not super distant future trading juan soto makes

absolutely no sense to me because you're not exactly like it's not as if you can't eventually sign him to an extension one sort of doesn't have a lot of incentive to go to an extension right now. He's making $17 million in his second year of arbitration. He's a super two guy, so we're going to have the extra year there. He is going to make very, very good money through the ARB process, which takes the pressure off of him to sign a mega deal. But that doesn't mean that he can't sign a mega deal with your team later so that's one thing to keep in mind also like maybe we can look to atlanta as a comp here right atlanta

held on to freddie freeman when freddie freeman was older than juan soto is now as they were progressing through their teardown and rebuild and they did that because they knew that when they got on the other side of it it sure was going to be nice to have a Freddie Freeman around because Freddie Freemans are hard to come by. And Juan Soto's are even harder to come by. And the Washington Nationals have the great privilege of already having a Juan Soto. So why would you trade a Juan Soto when you have a Juan Soto? The odds that you're going to be able to get true equal value from another team just seem vanishingly small to me.

I mean, think about the guys that he listed here as potential targets for the Nationals if they were going to make this deal with San Diego. Mackenzie Gore is only four months younger than Juan Soto. Yeah. And he was listed as one of the guys in that. And I like C.J. Abrams. I think C.J. Abrams like CJ Abrams. I think CJ Abrams is a good prospect. I think he's going to be a really good everyday big leaguer, but like

he is not an, he isn't Juan Soto, right? Juan Soto is the guy you don't trade because he is this incredible combination of being very young and very good. And so the ability of any front office to properly balance a deal in their favor where they feel like we can justify trading a generational talent when we still have him under team control for a number more years and can then extend him if we want to

seems very strange to me. And if I was Rizzo, I'd say you go go screw off i'm not having that be the last thing i do before i i leave town like that's that would be a terrible thing to be tasked with as the outgoing general manager i'd say you you go stand on a dais as the learners and say we're trading one so i don't want anything to do with that. 23, Ben. He's really only 23 years old. And the idea that prospects and very recent big leaguers are going to be sufficient to that purpose,

even if you have a more compelling assortment of guys than Abrams and Gore also seems wrong to me because if you're the Nationals and you are trying to open the next window of contention and you have a kind of meh farm system part of what you'd want in something like this are like impact big leaguers who are going to be able to sort of advance the plot for your organization and some young guys and it's like okay maybe you get a couple of those and maybe if you add them all together from a dollars

per war perspective they come close to equaling Juan Soto but like the thing of it is you could just keep your Juan Soto because you have a very good Juan Soto and you are quite lucky to have that guy and then you figure out how to build around him as a core piece rather than ship him off and like I don't know let the Padres be excited about him which like would be cool but it seems wrong yeah I think that when you have the good fortune of being able to roster Juan Soto, you should keep doing that for as long as you can. Yeah. The Nets are not very watchable right now, except in a rubbernecking kind of way. But I think that Juan Soto is incredibly watchable and entertaining, even if he is

kind of on his own and on an island in terms of talent and performance on that roster. He is not sufficient, just Juan Soto. The Nats cannot live by Soto alone. But I can't really imagine a scenario where Nats fans would be happy about a Juan Soto trade or even just feel OK about a Juan Soto trade. Because, yeah, the Nats are obvious sellers. happy about a one-soda trade or even just feel okay about a one-soda trade because, yeah, the Nats are obvious sellers. And if you have Nelson Cruz or you have Josh Bell or even Victor Robles, I guess, who's only 25, in fact, just turned 25 today. Happy birthday, Victor Robles.

But if it's someone like that where you think, well, they might make us a little bit worse now, but they're not going to be great for a long time. And maybe they're not that great to begin with. And we can get someone who can be part of the great next team. Well, that is Juan Soto. You know, even though he has been there for a while now, he is one of the greatest young hitters of all time. And so there is no scenario really where whatever players you would get back, you'd think this player will be the equal or better of Juan Soto you could maybe as you said do the dollars per war math and say well we have Juan Soto for this many more seasons and we have that guy or this guy for that many more seasons

and so if you add it up maybe it'll be worth it in the long run but really no there's just no way that trading Juan Soto could really be anything other than a letdown, I don't think, because he just makes it more fun to watch Nats games single-handedly. And he is young enough that he can still be the cornerstone of the next good Nats team. Right. So I just, I don't know. I mean, look, if you write a frequent column and it's the middle of May, then I see why you might as well just bring up some Juan Soto speculation. Why not? And if you do a three times a week baseball podcast in mid-May, you can talk about it there too. But it seems unlikely for a whole host of reasons. I guess the only scenario

is, yeah, if there is some really pressing reason why the incoming owner purchaser of the Nats would not want a Juan Soto contract on the books. It's not like he is locked up long term and there's already some big contract there. It's not a ton of money coming to Juan Soto in the grand scheme of things during his actual team control years. It's a lot by early career arbitration year standards, but it's not a 13-year, $350 million deal. So I don't know that there is really any pressing reason to say, yes, we must trade Juan Soto unless someone overwhelms you. And I just don't know how someone could really overwhelm him for Juan Soto because he is so overwhelming

himself. Even his stats this season, he's off to a fine start for Juan Juan Soto he has a 147 WRC plus he's batting 250 which is low for Juan Soto he's been a 300 hitter lately he has a 255 BABIP and he's a high BABIP guy even though he's not a burner he had a 330 career BABIP coming into this season so add, you know, 70, 80 points of Babbitt maybe onto where he is now. I mean, he's already hitting 250, 393, 471, walking almost 19% of the time, striking out only 15% of the time. So give him some better bounces at some point this season. is going to pick up and maybe it won't be a 2020 or late 2021 slash line when he was like bonzian basically right but it's gonna be kind of close to that like he is that kind of player so and he's made himself just a more well-rounded player too like defensively he's gotten better and even like when we were doing our 25 under 25 ranking going into the start of the season at the ringer, I drew the blurb for Juan Soto, whom we had ranked number one. And I was trying to find like some weakness, like some relative weakness just to mention there. And it's really hard to do with Juan Soto.

I think I ultimately mentioned base running. Well, now he's been like two runs above average in base running so far this season. So maybe in like almost a trout type way, he has targeted one weakness per season to work on. And also like there's a clip that went around, I think over the off season where he was doing a Spanish language interview and he was asked about how he approaches plate appearances and the way that he talked about recognizing pitches or anticipating pitches like we talked yesterday about taylor ward and how his strategy just seems to be like forget everything and just look for a certain pitch juan soto is like he's a computer machine

yeah he's talking about hitting like ted williams used to talk about hitting and they're very comparable hitters so it's I mean incredibly precocious to be talking about your craft at that age but at any age really he just he sees the game in a next level way and plays on another level too so when you have Juan Soto either break the bank for him or just enjoy him while you have him at least this far out so it seems like a long shot. It would give us something interesting to talk about if the Juan Soto trade were to happen, but it seems unlikely. But not like fun interesting, to be clear. I mean, I think that he is like such an incredible combination of a guy who, like you said, like has thoughts on craft, right? He is thinking about baseball in a very deep, studied, learned way,

and he marries that with just preternatural, innate ability, and that combination is incredibly potent. And it's like you think about he is certainly not the defender that Mookie Betts was or even is now, right? I think you're right that he does seem to have made some notable improvements in that regard. But he's, I don't think we're ever going to look at him and be like, among Juan Soto's Hall of Fame credentials are seven gold gloves, right? Like, that's probably not- Yeah, that's probably not appearing on the plaque. You think about the uproar and the feeling of betrayal that Boston fans had when that franchise traded Betts. And I get that there was looming free agency and there was a rejected extension offer. But Betts was 26 and had won an MVP and all this stuff.

But think about how it would feel to be a Nationals fan and watch this like 23, not soon to be 24 year old superstar walk out the door. And I think that we get into this weird mindset around this stuff. And the media is guilty of it just as much as front offices are, at least some quarters are where it's like, we get the sense that you have to move these guys before they hit free agency as if you can't resign them in free agency. And since you have to move these guys before they hit free agency as if you can't resign them in free agency and since you have to move them before they hit free agency the rationale is you're doing that so that you can get something because if you if you don't trade them soon enough you're gonna lose out right you're not gonna get things and it's like but you get juan soto yeah right you get the benefit of juan soto's performance and I don't think that this Nationals team is like a

couple guys away from turning it around. Like I, I doubt we will talk about Washington as a competitive squad for maybe a couple of years, but you know, Soto will still be, as we've said, young enough to contribute to that team, provided he stays healthy. like he is in some ways because so much of his value is derived from the bat and he is such a student and he is so careful in his preparation and he thinks about these things so deeply like he seems very shelf stable to me you know so it's not as if he is deriving all of his value from you know from his base running or from his defense, something where you think that when the rubber meets the road with sort of the natural decay of the human body that he might drop off a cliff.

It's like, no, when you hit like Ted Williams, he tend to be good for a while. So I hope that we are spared this move. If I were an incoming owner and I saw the team I was trying to acquire, trade a Juan Soto, I would think twice about doing it. I'd be like, I'd prefer to have a baseball team that gets to employ Juan Soto, who is famously good at baseball. What kind of moment are you going to have at the ballpark

if you're a new team owner and you're like, i don't know we're here now i'm sure that's just as exciting for you as if that other guy had stuck around so i i think they shouldn't do it ben i think that's my conclusion that they should not do that yeah yeah yeah that wouldn't be a great way to start your tenure if it were there were perceptions that you encouraged the outgoing owner to trade Juan Soto before you took over that would not be the most auspicious yeah to your regime I don't know if a player like Juan Soto sometimes people will say like oh he's only 23 and imagine how good he'll be when he's in his prime I don't know that you can do the typical aging curve with a player like Juan Soto who's such an outlier and the typical aging curve has kind player like Juan Soto, who's such an outlier. And the typical aging curve has

kind of changed anyway, so that players typically come up maybe closer to their peak than they used to. But when you're that good at such a young age, I don't know that you can project and say, well, he will improve by as much as the typical player does, because clearly he is just way ahead of the game at that point. But he doesn't have to get any better. He's already a Hall of Fame level hitter. If he never gets any better, he'd be one of the best hitters of all time. So that's just fine. And yeah, I don't know. He hasn't been in D.C. as long as Mookie had been in Boston quite at the time that he was traded.

The Nats are worse now than the Red Sox were then. There are some differences there. And I always say it's like the law of conservation of energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In a baseball trade, a superstar can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one team to another. So one fan base's loss would be another fan base's gain. For fans of the Nationals, though, who already lost Bryce Harper to a division rival, even though they won the World Series after that, there's just no way that you would not be upset to lose Juan Soto. So we'll see. There are plenty of other players on the market. I don't know that it is a particularly rich trade deadline shaping up,

but certainly you have seven or so teams that kind of seem out of it already and would be likely candidates. Some of them who have sold off players already. But you got your Reds and your Pirates and your Orioles and your Nats and Royals and A's and Cubs, I suppose. And maybe we'll see where the Tigers or the Red Sox or some other teams that were expected to maybe make runs at the start of the season but have not started out that way. There are still a lot of appealing players and Olney and other people who've done trade deadline previews all of a sudden this week for some reason. They've listed a lot of those and players like Luis Castillo, for instance, or Briannolds is a candidate i guess and frankie montas and ramon mariano still hanging around with the a's and then those other nationals we mentioned and any of the cubs who haven't been nailed down wilson contreras wade miley i guess the orioles still have trey

mancini and anthony santander and then you've got Cenk Renki and Ben Attendee. So there are lots of guys. And if the Red Sox were to enter that trade market too with Bogarts or JD Martinez or Nathan Evaldi, not that he would be the most appealing trade target right now, but there will be plenty of names to bendy about. I would guess that when we get to that point, we won't be talking about serious Juan Soto trade rumors, but we will see. Anyway, it's an interesting thought exercise for an idle day in mid-May. I suppose the good news for all of the Nationals fans listening to this who feel just like garbage after hearing us talk about it is that all of the things that we've just said

are going to be obvious to other people too including the people who work for the washington nationals so yeah despite other teams executives thinking that you know you should just give us your best guy just give me it just give me it because you're stupid and smell bad you know like that doesn't mean that the nationals themselves are super committed to that proposition. Kars Correa is listed as another question on this thing here. Could the Twins turn around and trade Correa? But why?

Well, because he's only signed through the end of the season. So got to get rid of those impending free agent guys. Yeah, no, I think if the Twins are in contention, as they are, that would be a weird one. I guess, like, look, if there's an international draft at some point and draft pick compensation is abolished in exchange for that, then maybe that makes teams even more motivated to trade their impending free agents before their team control years expire just because you're not getting that draft pick back. Maybe by the time Juan Soto is actually really nearing free agency that is relevant I guess you could say that's extra incentive to deal him right but we're not at that point yet no we're not at that point yet I just think that um you know I get it you got to fill column inches sometimes but I think it's um we don't need to fill them with this we'll fill them with other stuff all right let's meet a major le't need to fill them with this. We'll fill them with other stuff. All right, let's meet a major leaguer.

Could fill them with meeting a major leaguer. Yes. Meet a major leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this nascent Major Leaguer It's the thrilling debut of somebody new Let's meet this mysterious Major Leaguer Okay, I will give my guy first here, I guess.

My Major Leaguer, whom I met this week and was quite excited to meet, is Logan Gillaspie, who debuted for the Baltimore Orioles. He is a 25-year-old right-handed pitcher, 6'2", 220. He's from Oxnard, California, and he made his debut out of the pen on May 17th against the Yankees. And he did well. He avoided allowing any of those Aaron Judge dingers. He pitched two scoreless innings, three hits, no walks, one strikeout. Good for him. Logan Glaspie caught my eye because he is a former Sonoma stomper. So this is a man who is close to my heart here. Now, he was not a 2015 Sonoma stomper when Sam Miller and I were running the team,

helping run the team and preparing for our book, The Only Rules It Has to Work. However, seeing any Stomper in the majors is pretty exciting. He is the first Sonoma Stomper, former Sonoma Stomper, to make the majors, I believe, and maybe the last, hopefully not the last, but it could be a while because the Sonoma Stompers are now in a collegiate league. They're a collegiate team because the Pacific Association is no more, sadly. The Stompers are more, so that's good, but they're not having professional players currently play for them. Anyway, Logan Glaspie, he played for the Stompers in 2017. He pitched nine games for them and I think also pitched a few innings in the championship game that year. He pitched quite well in the regular season.

He threw eight and a third innings, 10 strikeouts, only allowed one earned run. So he was quite good and he had a short stay there. So he started that season, 2017. He actually pitched for three different independent league teams and independent leagues. So he started that season playing for the Monterey Amberjacks, Monterey, California's team in the Pecos League, which was the lowest rung of the Indy League ladder. And then Sonoma signed him. Sonoma signed him. And that was back when my friend and supporting character in The Only Rules It Has to Work, former GM of the Stompers, Theo Fightmaster, was still running the team. And so I asked Theo to tell me how they signed Logan Gillaspie. And he said they used stats.

They used the Ben Lindbergh-Sam Miller method. They were desperately just digging through stats for pitchers who were in the area and who had been effective. And he'd been pitching in that Pecos League. And his strikeout rate was really great. He had struck out 30 batters in 23 innings in the Pecos League. And so that caught the stomper's eye. That caught the stomper's eye. And Theo found video on him as well and liked what they saw. And Theo just sent him a Facebook message. And he was in Sonoma the next afternoon because that's how things work at the lower levels of Indy Ball. You get a good offer to move up. And there they are. And then he didn't stay long with Sonoma because the season ended. He was with them through the end of the season.

day long with Sonoma because the season ended. He was with them through the end of the season. And then he actually, I guess, in between pitching for those teams, or maybe even before he had pitched for the Pecos League, I forget what the sequence was, but he actually pitched briefly for the Salinas Stockade that year in the American Association. So double the Ben Lindbergh connection here, because that was the year that the Salinas Stockade were bumped up to the American Association from the Pecos League and were a traveling team all year long because that league just needed an extra team. And so they were terrible and they actually came up on the podcast then. And then I went and watched them and did a big ringer feature on the 2017 Salinas Stockade because they were really beaten up. They were 18 and 82 that season.

Not so great. I don't think Glaspy was still with the team when I went and visited them and wrote about them. But he really had the twofer with the Stompers and the Stockade that year. Then the following season, he went to yet another Indy League. He was with the United Shore Professional Baseball League. He was pitching for the Eastside Diamond Hoppers, and the Milwaukee Brewers signed him out of there. And I was kind of curious because a former Stomper, a Stomper that Sam and I signed, curious because a former stomper, a stomper that Sam and I signed, Santos Saldivar, he had been signed by the Brewers, partly as a result of our efforts, because he was so good for us that we

brought him to team's attention and the Brewers actually signed him and he was in their system briefly. And I was wondering like, okay, Logan Glaspie, another example of the Santos Saldivar stompers to Brewers pipeline. And I messaged someone in the Brewers organization to ask how or why they signed Logan Glaspie. And the person said, nothing specific, just part of our indie ball scouting that has gotten us some other players. And I said, so you're saying I can't take full credit for drawing the organization's attention to the prospect-rich Sonoma Stompers. And the person said, it's possible. That's what happened. I just don't know the details. So it's possible. I will take it. It is possible that Logan Gillespie was signed by the Brewers because of the Ben Lindbergh-Sam Miller-Santos-Saldivar connection. It's not likely, but they're saying there's a chance.

He was with the Brewers, and then the Brewers released him, and then there was the 2020 season when he wasn't playing. And then the Orioles signed him, and I guess somewhat unexpectedly, he was added to their expanded roster last year during an Arizona Fall League performance when he had a 9 ERA, but struck out a bunch of guys and apparently impressed them with his stuff. And so he was on the 40-player roster, started the season at AA Bowie, pitched well, got bumped up to AAA Norfolk, pitched well there too for a little while, and then all of a sudden, there he was. He was called up to the Orioles, who were always in need of pitching and I think maybe also had lost some players and pitchers too. So Logan Glaspie, now a major leaguer, and just reading some Masson coverage of his debut here. He said, it was the best experience I could ask for.

I waited my whole life to get here, and it finally happened. And I'm glad they, that's his parents, were here for it. Just never gave up. I never gave up. It's just another day of baseball. But when they were announcing my name, saying it was my MLB debut, I teared up a little bit. I was like, it's just another game. But it really wasn't.

And he got out of it without giving up a home run to Judge or Stanton. So he was happy about that. He said his father gave him the advice, do what I love, which for him was playing baseball. He said it was emotional to get the call to warm up because he didn't know if his parents were in the stands or were getting food or a beer or something. He was hoping they were watching. And he said that he hopes he has the same feeling the next time. So what kept him going throughout all of his trials and travails and indie leagues? The love of the game. I just love playing. I wish I was still a catcher, but I'm pitching now.

That's another thing I didn't mention. He's kind of a converted position player. He had maybe relevant to your major league. Yeah, but he had played some first base and catcher and I think even played a game at shortstop in that 2017 season when he was with a bunch of teams. He was four for 23 as a hitter that year. So interesting story. Great, relevant to this podcast and my past and interests. And he throws, you know, upper 90s as does every right-handed reliever these days so he fit right in so congrats to logan glaspy and to the stompers and the salinas stockade for uh fostering a future big leaguer that's so cool it's like when a member of your family does

something really exciting you're like i didn't do this specifically myself but i feel i feel it in a more proximate and real way than i would if it were a stranger that's really cool ben i'm happy for you all right yeah all right who's your guy well today today we are going to meet brandon hughes brandon hughes brandon hughes of the chicago cubs so hughes was from royal, Michigan, was drafted in the 16th round of the 2017 draft out of Michigan State. And in his first season at short season ball, he was an outfielder. He was drafted as a position player and he notched a 91 WRC plus that dipped to a 76 WRC plus in a ball in 2018 on the back of a 237, 303, line and that's not the best and here i'm going to be quoting from uh tim stebbins piece for nbc sports chicago in the final few days of spring training

in 2019 the cubs gave brandon hughes a choice it was either get released or become a pitcher for them hughes said then cubs director of player development jaron madison said there wasn't going to be any at bats really for me anywhere in the system, Hughes added, so I could either get my release papers or become a pitcher. And Hughes had actually pitched previously, but a shoulder injury had moved him off the mound into being a position player full-time. So this was like a reconversion, really. And right around the time he was converting to pitcher and here i'm i'm quoting from stebbins again cubs reliever scott efros was switching to throwing sidearm i just got to see how he went about his business because it was a big switch for him as well huge

switch dropping down he said i got to see that in action and it gave me confidence like hey he's going through a switch so what's different about me? I'm ready for this switch. And so that was sort of underway at the start of 2019. And here's what Eric Longenhagen said about Hughes in August 2019, when he was a 35 future value. Hughes threw all of six innings as a freshman at Michigan State and had been a full-time outfielder before his conversion. He's thrown 30 good innings across the AZL Northwest League and for the last few weeks of the season, South Bend. He turns 24 in December, but Hughes already has a fair three pitch mix, 90 to 94, a delivery that's tough on lefties, an average changeup and a fringe breaking ball. And he's throwing a lot of strikes. He's 2020 rule five eligible. And Hughes now has a three pitch mix that fastball and changeup and has added a slider after the Cubs had him switch from a curveball to, you guessed it, a sweeping slider. I don't know if he classifies it as a sweeper, but it is a sweeping slider,

and he credits that as a big part of his success. He has said recently, my mechanics have smoothed out and they're more repeatable now, and there's a little more velo in there. In 2021, he had a 1-7-1 ERA in 26 appearances between South Bend and AA Tennessee with a 12.9K per nine. Before he was called up, he hadn't allowed a run in 10 appearances between Tennessee and Iowa this season, striking out 22 with three walks in 16 and two-third innings. He was called up on May 17th. He threw an inning and two-thirds, registering walk, and five strikeouts, including one to Brian Reynolds and one to Daniel Vogelbach. And here I am quoting again from Stebbins. Once I had that first full season of pitching under my belt, it was kind of like, I'm a pitcher and I'm no longer on offense. Hugh said that said he could

still play the outfield. If Cubs manager, David Ross needs, I already told him, Hugh said, laughing. I told him I could play a little outfield if you need. And then Russ apparently chuckled and said, I told him I could have used him a couple of times this year, a little insurance. I'm happy he's here, happy for him, his family, his hard work. I think he's got a chance to really help us win some ball games. So, yeah, Brandon Hughes. Welcome to the big leagues, Brandon Hughes.

Yeah, I saw a fun fact from at stats by stats that said, Brandon Hughes of the Cubs is the first pitcher in the modern era to get five plus outs in his MLB debut with all of them coming via strikeout. Yes. So that's something. Yeah, it was a good outing for him. Sometimes we're like, meet a major leaguer. He had a rough night.

And, you know, it's about meeting some guys we don't know and being excited for them because just getting to the show is like the big thing. and being excited for them because just getting to the show is like the big thing but his one and two-thirds inning of work proceeded with as such Reynolds struck out swinging then Ben Gamble struck out swinging then Daniel Vogelbeck struck out swinging then Yoshi Tsutsugo struck out looking then Michael Chavis walked because he did issue that one walk and then Rodolfo Castro struck out swinging and then his night was done and I bet he felt like a million bucks. Well, I wanted to give you kind of a combination meet a major leaguer slash stat blast here because we were lamenting just the profusion of tailors and tilers the other day. So many.

A new Tyler dropped this season. He was one of those guys whose debuts didn't augur a long stay, an extended stay in the majors. Hopefully he'll be back. But Tyler Holton debuted for the Diamondbacks on April 28th. He's a lefty reliever, and he pitched a scoreless inning in his debut. But he was in the majors, I believe, for less than 24 hours because he was optioned just immediately after that debut. But, hey, he's 25. Hopefully he'll be back.

I will link to an article about Tyler Holton if you want to know more about him. But that's just going to be my excuse here to talk about Tylers, and to a lesser extent, Taylors in the majors, because what prompted this was our discussion of Taylor Ward, who is a teammate of Tyler Wade, and it's impossible to keep those guys straight. And then you have Tyler Anderson and Tyler Alexander, or I guess really the poster boys for Tyler and Taylor would be the Rogerses, right? Tyler Rogers and Taylor Rogers, the twins. So I got some stats on this from frequent StatPlus consultant, Ryan Nelson, just about the Tyler Taylor takeover of the major leagues

because it has been swift and complete. But not Taylor Swift. No, not Taylor Swift. It has just been such a rapid rise, such a steep ascent in the number of tailors and tilers in the majors. It's kind of incredible. I will share the data here, but basically I got data from Ryan, who is on Twitter at rsnelson23, on just common names, just the most number of any type of names that have

been in the big leagues in any season or just a percentage of all names. And they are mostly the ones that you would expect. Like if you are curious about the most players with the same name in any given season, it's Mike in 1995. That was peak Mike. Everyone wanted to be like Mike at that time. And they all just were Mike. So you had 60 Mikes in 95, you had 58 Mikes in 96, and 58 Mikes in 98. The top of the leaderboard, it's just dominated by Mikes, basically. If you sort it by percentage of all players, as opposed to number of all players. Then you get Jack at the top. In 1903, there were 368 major leaguers. 26 of them were named Jack. That is 7.07% of all big leaguers were named Jack that year. So we missed peak Jack, which must have been confusing. And if you go by percentage after Jack, there are a bunch of Bills. You had almost 7%

Bills in 1901. And then in the 50s, particularly, you had just tons and tons of Bobs. And Bob has kind of fallen out of favor. John Boyce did a whole two-part documentary about the Bob emergency, how we're just not seeing as many athletes named Bob anymore. But for a while there, We're just not seeing as many athletes named Bob anymore. But for a while there, particularly in the 50s, you had basically 6% or more of major leaguers were named Bob. That kind of lingered into the 60s. So it's all kind of the names you would expect. I mean, you had Jacks and Bills and Bobs and Jims and Mikes and Johnnies. They've all had years when they were five or more percent of the league.

Now, Taylor and Tyler, they haven't quite been at that level, but we see names come in and out of Vogue. So, you know, we don't get Reds and Rubes anymore so much. Those used to be big. And, you know, names will show up as the demographics of baseball change. So the highest ranking Latin name, Jose, in 2001, checked at about 2% of players. But the thing about tailors and tilers, there was not a tiler in the major leagues until 1993. What? Yeah. No.

Not a tiler prior to 1993. Not a single one? Yeah. No. Not a Tyler prior to 1993. Not a single one? No. The Tyler in the coal mine, the trailblazing Tyler, was Tyler Green, who debuted for the Phillies in 1993 as a 23-year-old pitcher. No Tylers before that, and barely any Taylors. There had been some Taylors long before that. But it's just amazing because in the past couple of years, if you combine them, which is unfair, I guess. They are two different names. They are. But they do confuse us because they rose at the same time and they sound similar.

And so to me, it's just like a whole lump of Tylers and Taylors, really. Why even differentiate? A rat king of Tylers. Yeah. There are other names like that. I mean, I guess you got your Brandons and your Brendons. Yeah. But there aren't that many Brendons, actually.

There are a lot of Brandons. There are just a ton of Tylers and a fair number of Taylors, too. And so when you put them together, they have actually become the most common name. Like, again, I'm cheating here because I'm 1992, there were no Tylers or Taylors. 93, there was a Tyler and no Taylors. So as late as 2003, there was only one Taylor or Tyler in the majors. That was Tyler Houston in his final season in the majors was the lone Tyler or Taylor that year. was the lone Tyler or Taylor that year. So 2003, one guy named Tyler or Taylor. 2019, 33 Tylers or Taylors appeared.

And it ramped up so quickly. So it grew gradually. Like 2012, you had 14 Tyler Taylors. 2014, you had 16. 2015, 20. 2016, 27. 2017, 30. That was the first year that Tyler Taylor, if we lump them together,

became the most popular name, the most common name among major leaguers. And then 30 as well in 2018, 33 in 2019, 29 in 2020, and 2021 in 2027. So I guess you could say that we have passed peak Tyler Taylor, despite the arrival of Tyler Holton. Maybe there's kind of a parabolic shape to this, where it's been just a steep upward rise. And maybe we have gotten over the hump now and we are on the downslope of Tylers and Taylors. But it's not a mystery about why this has happened. I guess it mirrors the rise of Tyler Taylor as popular names in the U.S. for boys or sometimes in cases for girls as well often. But that happened really like it started, I guess, in the late 80s, mid to late 80s and peaked in the early to mid 90s. Like Tyler Taylor, those are kind of your quintessential 90s names, really.

So if you look at the Social Security website where you can look up all kinds of baby name data and you can look at the frequency of these names, like going back to 1900 or so. What makes this stand out, I think, is that, you know, you have your Mikes and your Jims and your Johns and all these names that kind of are perennial favorite American boy names. And so, yeah, there are a lot of them, but that has been the case for so long, at least relative to like living memory, that we all just take it in stride. Like, yeah, of course, there are going to be a lot of Johns or Jims or whatever, Chris's or something. What makes the Tyler Taylor thing so notable is that it kind of came out of nowhere. So these were not popular names. And then suddenly they became among the very most popular names. So if you look at Tyler, for instance, like in, I don't know, 1951, Tyler was the 837th most popular boy's name, and it didn't crack the top 100 until 1981.

And then it kept going up and up and up and up until it peaked around 1993, 1994. Tyler was the fifth most popular boy's name in the US. And Taylor, I guess for the same reasons, peaked and rose at the same time. So in 1993, you had Tyler as the fifth most popular name, and then Taylor as the 51st most popular name. That was the peak of Taylor. And so those babies who were born in 93, 94, you know, they're what, 27, 28 in that range, 29 now. So that's why we are getting peak Tyler Taylor because that was the hot period for Tyler Taylor. And I don't know why exactly there was such a Tyler Taylor frenzy at that moment. Like I looked up a couple of websites that had some theories, which were not all that convincing to me. But like one of them says the popularity of the name Tyler in the 1990s and early 2000s might be attributed to several factors. might be attributed to several factors. Steven Tyler, lead singer of the rock band Aerosmith, was a household name at the time. Okay, maybe. The cult favorite movie Fight Club came out in 1999 and featured a character named Tyler.

Okay, but that was post-peak Tyler and Taylor. That was probably more of a symptom than a cause. And then it says a successful comedy series called Tyler Perry's House of Pain also ran on television for eight seasons starting in 2006. Well, I don't think the series that started in 2006 was why everyone was naming their kids Tyler and Taylor 13 years before that. So I don't know if you want to go with the Tyler, Stephen Tyler theory or the Jonathan Taylor Thomas theory. the Jonathan Taylor Thomas theory, or there's another website that said the 90s were all about the rise of surname names from Madison and McKenzie to Hunter and Cameron. So traditionally,

Tyler, Taylor, those were surnames and you had famous last name Tylers. You had your Watt Tylers and your John Tylers and so forth. But to just switch that to a given name, I guess that was a 90s trend and Tyler and Taylor got caught up in it. Anyway, those names have tailed off in popularity pretty significantly. The Tyler-Taylor boom is basically over at this point. So 2021, Tyler was down to the 157th most popular boy's name in the U.S., and Taylor was down to 643rd. So we are way past peak Tyler Taylor. So it is going to tail off, and I guess the wave has already crested, and we are on the decline now when it comes to Tyler Taylors.

But what just a craze for people being named this and many of them becoming major leaguers. And that is what we are responding to here. Just the swiftness and the completeness of the Tyler Taylor takeover. So no wonder we've had a hard time keeping the Tylers and Taylors straight. I'm going to blow your mind. Okay. Are you ready?

Are you ready for something that might be even worse? Maybe. I don't know anything about this person as a human being. I'm sure he's fine. But the Padres, I'm thinking about this because we just ran the Padres list of fan graphs. They have a Kyle Tyler. No. Kyle Tyler.

Wow. He's in AAA El Paso right now, so you don't have to contend with him. But he's been in the big leagues before. He had big league time with Los Angeles, and now he's in the San Diego system. And I'm just by Tyler Kepner, who wrote all about how Tyler was an uncommon name when he was growing up in baseball and just the U.S. in general. And then suddenly Tyler's were everywhere. And that was the year, the first year that Tyler Taylor became the dominant name in the majors. Although he does confess at the end of this article that his real first name is John. Tyler is his middle name. So I don't know if he's a legitimate Tyler or not, but he's been going by Tyler for a long time. So I guess we'll give it to him. Anyway, he did a whole thing of just like,

you know, making a fantasy roster out of Tylers because they were everywhere. So I will put the data online. It's all there if you're interested in the popularity of names, either by raw total or by fraction. But basically, it's just out of control. Tyler or Taylor in 2019 peaked at 2.34% of major leaguers, which is not that many compared to earlier eras when there were just fewer major leaguers in general. But of the 1,410 major leaguers that year, there were 33 named Tyler or Taylor. And it's just out of control. But fortunately, it seems to have gotten into control a little bit lately. So that's good. We're going to have fewer Tylers and Taylors to remember. Just one note on Tyler Green, the pioneering first Tyler in the majors. I was looking at his baseball reference page, and he was an all-star in 1995. And I was looking at, well, why? He was a rookie that year. He had a 5.31 ERA in 140 and two-thirds innings pitch. That's a 79 ERA plus. He was actually sub replacement

by baseball reference war. And yet somehow he was an all-star. And the reason that he was an all-star, well, holy first half, second half splits, Batman. In his first half, he had a 2.81 ERA in 96 innings. In his second half, he had a 10.68 ERA in 44 and two-thirds innings. And I used StatHead, thanks to our friends at StatHead, to check this. That was, among all players with at least 100 innings pitched in a season and at least 40 innings pitched in the second half of a season. He had the highest second half TOPS plus and also the greatest differential between second half ERA and overall ERA. So that was in fact a historic decline. And it was not injury related. Seemingly, he is someone who did develop arm injuries later in his career, but that was not an issue for him at the time. It seems to

have been a mental and psychological thing. And I'm reading from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, September 1995 here. I haven't heard a player describe being in the zone and then losing the sensation of being in the zone the way that he did here. He basically just like had incredible focus in that magical first half and then he lost it. So here's how he did here. He basically just like had incredible focus in that magical first half and then he lost it. So here's how he described it. When things were going well, he said, I'd put my head down and take some deep breaths, try to relax. And then when I looked up, it's hard to explain. I wouldn't see the field or anything. All I would see is like light. It was kind of like on Star Trek when they go into hyperspace. Excuse me, that would be

Star Wars, Tyler, but going to warp, going to hyperspace here in Star Wars, all the light coming at you like that. I've never heard a player describe that flow state quite like that. Yeah. Just like going to warp, going to hyperspace. He was like seeing the Matrix, basically. And then suddenly he lost that. And he said in his second half slump, what was happening? It's a player's worst nightmare. When you get into your head, it's so hard to get out.

And so these days when he looks in for the sign, he sees the glove, the catcher, the batter, the umpireire the backstop and the vendor selling hot dogs in the grandstand so it wasn't like the yips exactly but it was like sensory overload yeah i guess like that's more what you would think someone would see when they look up the things that are actually there as opposed to like yeah streaks of light but he was like so zoned in that he was just like punch it chewy like it's just like the stars streaking it he was like so zoned in that he was just like, punch it, Chewie. Like, it's just like the stars streaking in. He was not even seeing the batters or anything. So, yeah, that was an interesting and weird way to describe what happened there. But seems to have been a psychological fault. But whatever else happened in his career, which was not a long and distinguished one other than that all-star appearance, he was the tyler he was uh at the vanguard of tyler so that's a distinction of sorts well look at that

do you think that he thought does he know star wars and star trek and he just got them mixed up in the moment maybe yeah yeah you go up there and it's like i have to follow the prime director that was next generation era not really a Star Wars rich era. So maybe he was thinking of Star Trek and he just got the terms confused. Yeah. And like a really excellent Star Trek era. So, you know. Yeah.

So that's the skinny on Tylers and Taylors. And we don't have anything against any of you personally. It's just that, you know, we can, we like, look, I am a Megan, you know, that is my given name, and you're a Ben, and there aren't a lot of Megans in baseball writing, but there are a lot of them in the world, many of whom were born in the 80s, and we are just lousy with Bens in baseball writing. So, you know, you could say we shouldn't, we're ones to talk, but also you might say we're really familiar. Yep. Yep. So in 2019, the most popular names were Matt, Ryan, Jose, and Tyler.

And the Tyler-Taylor combo would have been number one in 2017, I think, number two in 2018, number one in 2019, number one in 2020, and number one in 2021. I don't know whether this year we'll break that streak or not, but Tower of Holton, just add him to the pile. All right, that will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up

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