Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1870: Please Don’t Put in the Newspaper That Manfred Got Mad

Episode Date: July 2, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the varying interpretations of Bobby Bonilla Day and what may be the last-ever Bruce Sutter Day, then (17:20) discuss what an expansive ESPN profile of Rob Manfred reveals about the MLB commissioner. After that (48:49), they answer listener emails about players jumping straight from college to the majors, […]

Bobby is his name Yeah, I call him Bobby Bobby Bobby Bobby Bobby Bobby Bobby

Bobby Oh, oh, oh, now Bobby is his name. Yes, it is. Hello and welcome to episode 1870 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined, as always, by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm ready to celebrate the long holiday weekend.

The holiday, of course, being Bobby Bonilla Day. The day that everyone loves and cherishes. And I like it too because it's such a rich tapestry of human reactions and emotions because Bobby Bonilla Day means something different to everyone, really. There are at least three possible interpretations of Bobby Bonilla Day or ways of recognizing and celebrating the holiday. Of course, for those who don't know, if there are any of you who don't know, this is the day, July 1st, every year, Bobby Bonilla gets a nice little $1.2 million payout. And this is the beginning of the fiscal year. So this is when

you see a bunch of deferred payments in sports paid out. And he gets this because after the 1999 season when Bonilla was with the Mets, he was still owed about $6 million. And so Bonilla and his agent offered the Mets a deal that they would defer that payment and the Mets could keep that money for a decade. And then starting in 2011, they could pay him $1.2 or $1.19 million every year on July 1st until 2035. So we have many more Pony a Days ahead of us and that would add up to a total payout of almost $30 million. So I think the three reactions to Bobby Bonilla Day, and these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There's the one least fun reaction, which is basically like

players are paid too much or whatever, you know, right? Like he's been retired for decades at this point and he is still getting a neat little one plus million dollar check every July. Players are spoiled and he wasn't even good for the Mets that year, on and on. I think that's probably the least common reaction to it also at this point, which is good. I think there is also the reaction that is just happy for Bobby Bowe. You know that somewhere out there, I guess he lives in Florida, he is cashing that check and he does literally cash it, I have heard. He gets an actual physical check. He takes it to the bank, takes it up to the teller and they maybe say something to him about how big the check is and then he deposits it and he goes on his way and has a nice little day. He is now a millionaire even more so than he was before. So that's good. I think just kind of the back-slapping Bobby Bowe. Hey, get yours, buddy. You know, good for you.

We would all love to be Bobby Bonilla just getting a fat check for doing nothing. And then the third reaction is just the Lowell Mets reaction, right? Of like, the Mets are still paying this guy who was bad for them that year and hasn't played for them for so long. They're still sending him that money every year. I guess maybe there is a fourth reaction, which is actually this deal made sense for both sides.

And it's not actually an embarrassment or anything for either side. And that is actually, I think, the correct reaction. There was a Planet Money podcast episode on this last year, which I will link on the show page and encourage everyone to listen to. They talked to Bobby Bowe. They talked to a Mets fan economist. And basically when you do the math that they did, it made sense for both sides to agree to this at the time because if you consider the compounding interest. Now, this presupposes that the Mets might have wisely invested that money that was deferred, which doesn't seem like they did because Ponzi scheme and Bernie Madoff. So I'm not saying it did work out for them, but in theory, it could have worked out for them. a dumb deal necessarily. If you get a decade to invest that money and you get a decent rate of

return, then ultimately it comes out to just about being right. And who knows, maybe inflation has changed the calculus even further in the Mets' favor over the past year. But when Planet Money did their analysis last year, they concluded that this actually came out almost perfectly, that the money balanced out just because of the compounding interest and the time value of money and all of that. So I don't think it is actually a Lowell-Metz situation necessarily, except for the fact that then maybe they invested the savings in the Ponzi scheme.

Right. I mean, like, look, look, I get it. But also, they invested their money into a literal Ponzi scheme. And not just like a little Ponzi scheme. Like arguably one of the more famous Ponzi schemes. Like, yeah, like a platonic ideal of a Ponzi scheme, you know? Like a really, really big fat Ponzi scheme. So congrats to Bobby Bowe.

And not condolences to the Mets at the time, condolences for the decisions that they made with that money. Of course, Steve Cohen is now paying that check and he has actually seemingly embraced this as a PR opportunity. But it is interesting because obviously when you have deferred payments that go on for decades, like, of course, an owner might make that agreement and figure, well, it's not going to be my problem, right? It's going to be the future owner. It's going to be someone else. So you see how that happens sometimes. I wanted to bring this up, though, because really we talk about this being Bobby Bonilla Day, and it's a lot of fun, but it really should be Bruce Souter Day.

Bobby Bonilla Day. It's a lot of fun, but it really should be Bruce Souter Day. And I know that people have made this point on occasion, but sometimes you'll see articles that say like, oh, the Atlanta Braves have their version of Bobby Bonilla Day. No, the Mets' Bobby Bonilla Day is their version of the Braves' Bruce Souter Day, really, because Bruce Souter came first and his is even more notable. And I think this is the last day that we will be able to celebrate Bruce Souter Day because I think this is his final payment. It may have happened already, at least according to the terms of the original deal. This should have been the final payment. He may have made other arrangements. There was a Darren Revelle tweet.

Yes, I am citing a Darren Revelle tweet. I apologize to everyone. But he said something about how he thinks maybe the deal was restructured and he was paid out before, but Souter seemingly hasn't confirmed that. So if we just go by the original terms of this thing. Now, this probably actually is a case where the player came away with sort of a steal, which, hey, good for him. But there was an article about this by Dan Lewis of The Athletic back in. Well, we could call it ludicrous or not. Depends which perspective you're looking at it from. But I think you could say that it worked out in Suter's favor. So Suter was a closer, a Hall of Fame closer, although kind of dubiously, questionably a Hall of Fame closer in my mind. But he was a closer in the mid 80s. He was making good money and the Braves signed him. And the Braves were not a good team

and they were going to become a worse team. They were coming off an 80 and 82 season. Things were going to get a lot worse from there before they got a lot better. And so they didn't really need a closer at that point. And as it turned out, Suter was basically done at that point anyway. He was injured. He was ineffective. He was actually a sub-replacement level pitcher for the Braves, and they were paying him quite well, although they weren't actually paying him much at the time. It was one of these deferred deals. So even before he joined Atlanta, he had a $975,000 salary, which was one of the highest at the time. He was the second highest paid pitcher in MLB at that point, and I think in the top 10, 10th highest salary overall. So when he became a free agent, there was a bidding war and the winner's curse was in effect

Atlanta won and they were paying him pretty handsomely, too. But the terms were very strange. So Souter, like Bonilla, wanted to use this for a bit of financial planning and retirement proofing. So instead of getting the $9.1 million that he was supposed to get, it was going to be a six-year contract. So instead of taking that then, he said, let's defer this thing. And Atlanta offered about that $9 million total, but he was only paid about $750,000 per year while he was actually under team control. For the 30 years after he retired, Atlanta agreed to pay him no less than $1.12 million per year, potentially more if interest rates spiked above the floor of 12.3%, which I don't think that they did. So that was going to end in 2021. So he was getting that over $1 million check for decades. And there is another term to this that I think makes it even more spectacular.

And Lewis writes, but wait, there's more. Typically, when a player signs a multi-year contract, the total is paid out over the course of that contract in the form of annual salaries. That's the case even when money is deferred. Until the money is earned, there's nothing to defer. In the case of Suter, that means he shouldn't have gotten the full $9.1 million plus interest. He retired four years into the six-year contract. But Suter's contract wasn't typical. For some reason, the Braves agreed to pay Souter the full $9.1 million up front. Think of it as a signing bonus of sorts, but then deferred the whole amount.

So if you do a little bit of math, Lewis says you'll realize that 12.3% of $9.1 million is $1.12 million, which makes sense. That was his annual payout. But what about the $750,000 he got during the six years of the contract? Those two were interest payments. The Braves agreed to pay him approximately 8 percent of the deferred amount during the first six years. As a pretty funny and obviously unintended side effect, Souter ended up getting his negotiated salary in both 1989 and 1990, even though he was retired. And because all of the money he's earned to date and will earn through 2021, this was in 2018, is interest, that $9.1 million in principle has to date gone unpaid. That's right.

It was deferred until 2022. So Lewis wrote, years of being terrible as a member of the Atlanta Braves. Bobby Bonilla, eat your heart out. So I don't know whether Suter actually got his $9.1 million today as we were speaking or whether they worked something out so that he was paid prior to this. But either way, congrats to Bruce Suter, not only for making the Hall of Fame with 24 War or whatever it is is but also for working out this kind of incredible deal wow so here here's a question that i have about how like you know individual banking works and this is perhaps an embarrassing question to to cop to as a person who used to work in finance but like so i'm sure that you can walk up to a teller with a check of any size but it takes a little while for those to clear because over a certain amount they have to like make sure you're not depositing like drug money you know they have to make sure that you're not like laundering

the proceeds of of drugs or terrorism or any other such nonsense so i just wonder like what is the conversation like at the counter? Because you said they probably remark on how large the check is, and I'm sure that they do. Yeah, Bobby Bowe said that because he was on the Planet Money episode, and he said the teller will often, like, smile or say something about it. He did not say anything about an extended clearance process. Yeah, I wonder how long it takes.

I just wonder because I think it's, like, any amount over, like, $10,000 or something they have to, like, do a little long it takes. I just wonder, because I think it's like any amount over like 10,000 or something. They have to like do a little due diligence, although maybe they see like- That is a good deal over 10,000. Yeah, they see like the Mets and then it takes even longer because they're like,

is this a Ponzi scheme? I mean, maybe they're less worried about it now because they're like, oh, now you're owned by an entity that just does like normal financial crime. So- Sure, above board. Yeah, don't worried about it now because they're like, oh, now you're owned by an entity that just does normal financial crime. Sure. Up off board. Yeah.

Don't worry about it. Everything is fine. It is a weird, it's a very strange detail to know about a stranger. And how does the check get delivered to him? I assume it's certified mail, right? You probably have to sign for it. So I want to know about how the check is like physically transferred it's surprising they can't just do like a wire transfer you know like they can't just do direct deposit into his account like here's your

million and change yeah well maybe he enjoys the check depositing process i probably would i mean he doesn't get those giant novelty checks i think no like it's just a normal ass check ben and you don't give him like a big cardboard one it's like how would you endorse it you know they'd like to probably because cohen invited him to city field to receive the check in person last year i don't think he ended up going i don't know if he did what's the owner is in on the joke, it's not funny anymore. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I would think that they would have some arrangement worked out there where it's like, oh, it's Bonilla Day. Like everyone knows it's Bonilla Day. You'd think his bank would know it's Bonilla Day. Like they should know the drill. By now it's been more than 10 years that this has been happening and it's going to be more than 10 years more that it will be happening so you'd hope that there'd be a process in place like maybe a sign posted like a little post-it under the counter at the teller where it's like hey if someone named bobby bonilla comes in on july 1st with a 1.19 million dollar check here's the process and don't hassle him like

it's legit yeah it's pre-approved hopefully he doesn't have to like sit there every time it's pre-approved. That's funny. Hopefully he doesn't have to like sit there every time. It's like, see, okay, here's the story. It was 1999 and I had $5.9 million left on my contract and we worked out this deal. Hopefully he's just like, remember me? I was in here last year. Yeah, the guy with the $1.2 million check. Yeah, that's me. I'm here again.

Yeah. Yeah. Like it's just, it's an odd bit of business and it's funny too because like you know i think that i know that the math kind of worked out specifically here like time value of money would generally tell you that you should take like a lump sum up front because then you can invest more and like theoretically you know realize greater return rather than having a declining dollar anyway so doesn't it suggest something like very intimate about them as people right that that their understanding of what feels best in retirement is like a steady drift it's just like you know small things teach us so much about

other people who will never meet or talk to it's's true. Yeah, no. Bonilla said on that podcast, I think, that he was worried about being set up for the rest of his life. And athletes, you hear stories about athletes who didn't invest wisely and either they got scammed or they were too free spending. They didn't plan for the future. And even if they made a lot of money during their careers, they lose it all. There's a Pablo Torre piece from years ago where I think he wrote about how athletes go broke, that kind of thing. So Bonilla, I think, is now with the Players Association.

He's a special assistant in player operations for the MLBPA. And I don't know, maybe he counsels players on deferred contracts. counsels players on deferred contracts. Obviously, he does not need the money to do this job because we know that he is fairly set up well. So good for him. Yeah. And I'm just saying that we should also congratulate and celebrate Bruce Souter for being the trailblazer. Souter walked so that Bobby Bonilla could run to the bank teller every year, right? I mean, he had arguably an even more favorable deal and a more pioneering deal. And we talk about Bobby Bowe, I guess, maybe because it's the Mets and it's New York and maybe because Bruce Suter is a Hall of Famer and Bobby Bonilla is not. Although, frankly, Bobby Bonilla is probably a more valuable baseball player during his career. Although, frankly, Bobby Bonilla is probably a more valuable baseball player during his career.

Anyway, I just wanted to recognize the day and mark the passing of time with another Bonilla Day. But particularly note that this is arguably the final Bruce Suter Day. And it's been quite a run for him. So should we talk a little bit about Rob Manfred? Yeah, I guess. Like, there's a long profile. So I think we probably should. Yeah. Can I just say up front, like I appreciate why,

this is not a criticism of the profile. I appreciate why like viewing Manfred through the lens of like, does he actually love baseball is an interesting hook because, you know, like this is a question that gets posed by fans a lot like does the commissioner like baseball does he hate baseball this is a question that they ask so this is not like a knock on don vonata jr like that's that's not what i mean here but like i don't think that that is a particularly useful lens through which to view the commissioner i agree i just don't first of all we never going to get an answer that satisfies us, right?

Because like the only person who knows the answer to the question, does Rob Manfred love baseball, is Rob Manfred. Like we're never going to know what's in his little human heart. So I don't think that that's particularly interesting, but there is a long profile of him in ESPN about sort of his approach to the game, both in moments of change that he wants to be leading right around rules and pace and all sorts of stuff. And then inflection points for the game that are not necessarily Manfred's design, but that he plays a key role

in right so the the sign stealing scandal and sticky stuff and most notably and recently, the negotiation around the collective bargaining agreement and you read this in its entirety i read it it's what is your like how do you come away thinking of rob manfred after reading this ben yeah well according to the piece he was somewhat hesitant to sit for this thing it was a series of extended interviews and he doesn't do a lot of press, really. And when he does, it's generally like sort of a state of the game at the World Series type thing or like I'm postponing the start of the season type thing. He doesn't do a lot of human interests pieces, you could say. And he says in the piece that he's just sort of a private person. Perhaps

that's all it is. Maybe he thinks he's not well served by this type of piece. So it is pitched as he is kind of explaining who he really is. That seems to be how Van Etta sold him on this and he bit. And I don't know. I think there are aspects of it that maybe make him slightly more sympathetic, but not a lot. I think on the whole, I came away from it with my opinion not dramatically changed of him one way or another, I would say. And like you, I think that the conversation about whether he hates baseball is sort of silly for two reasons. First, well, three. There's the one you mentioned that we'll never really know also.

But I think it is not likely that he hates baseball. It seems far-fetched to me that he hates it. I wonder whether he loves it. I wonder whether he thinks of profits and dollars more than he thinks of other things that are important to baseball fans. I don't think he hates baseball. I think that, you know, the story goes into some of his history as like a baseball fan, which I guess is the part that maybe is marshaled in his support that he is not just this lawyer who happened to fall into a baseball job. He played Little League and he was a big Yankees fan and it was important to his relationship with his dad, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know all of those things. I wasn't there. I don't know. He says he was bad at Little League, so I don't know whether he liked it or not. But the point is that it seems unlikely to me that you would become the commissioner of

baseball if you literally hated it. I think that he must have some degree of tolerance for baseball and he must enjoy it and like it and appreciate it in certain ways. I think it would be unlikely for someone who hated it to apply themselves in such a way that they became the commissioner and really campaigned to become the commissioner. Of course, he is well compensated for his efforts. But just saying, I also think that it doesn't really matter whether he likes it or loves it or hates it. All that really matters is, A, what he does, what his actions are, and also to some extent his words and his salesmanship.

Like sometimes you say, you know say actions, not words, right? But in his case, I think it is a little bit of both because part of the commissioner's actions are their words. Are they a good salesperson for baseball, a good pitchman? And I think he is unquestionably not that. Not that, no. Yeah. So whether he loves it or not, he doesn't convey that love very effectively. I think that is indisputable. So maybe that is what people are getting at when they say he hates baseball or does he hate baseball. I don't know whether they believe that he actually hates it or not. It's just that sometimes he sort of sounds like he does or at least like he's not that into it. And that is kind of the contrast with his mentor, Bud Selig, who hardly a saint himself and lots of reasons to critique his reign as commissioner, but never really got doubted as someone who loved baseballs, right? And whether that makes him a better commissioner or not is debatable, but he was perhaps a better salesperson for it, right?

Like an anonymous owner in this piece is quoted as saying, Selig was a guy who loved to eat hot dogs at the ballpark, loved the game, just exuded that folksy charm. Manfred didn't have that, still doesn't. And that is it sounds like why he had to campaign very hard to get that job initially because 10 owners opposed him on the first ballot at the meeting to decide on Selig's successor. And some believed the story says he was too lawyerly and lacked the right temperament. And I think those concerns have been borne out to a great degree. So does he hate it? I doubt it. Does he communicate his love for it if he has it?

No, I don't think he does. Right. And I think, you know, Selig is a good example where I think he probably did have a lot of affection for the game. And to your point, that didn't prevent him from doing stuff that I think in our view we would coin

like undermining the game's long-term viability either from a labor perspective or in terms of steroids. So like it is a, I don't know that it is a necessary condition, but it certainly doesn't seem like a sufficient one to be like a good commissioner. And of course we could spend an entire episode debating like, what does that mean, right? What does being a good commissioner mean?

Because I think by the standards of ownership with a couple of exceptions, which do get highlighted in this piece, right? Like they are, they seem quite pleased with Mayfred. I think that 2020 and the way that that delay to the season unfolded was perhaps a notable exception to that. But in general, they have been pretty pleased with his tenure. especially as the sort of TikTok of how he reacted to the CBA negotiation unfolding, not only in private, but in public, that it's, you know, if he has a notable dispositional Achilles heel, it's that he seems to take this stuff, despite his, you know, protestations to the contrary, he seems to take this stuff very personally. And that often inspires deflection of responsibility rather than assuming it, right? Where it's like,

he will in this piece, take responsibility for saying that like the world series trophy is a piece of metal was a mistake, but you know, he's very sensitive to the public criticism that unfolded during the CBA negotiations to the point that he's like saying that journalists were making themselves the center of the story and that the objections of some union members to his public statements were insincere and it's like no dude like they just disagreed with you like and you know i don't know

who he has in mind in particular when he's talking about media members but like the idea that we are not going to scrutinize the public statements of the commissioner or the terms of a CBA negotiation when it's put forth, they're just like not in touch with the way that people are dealing with labor questions and sports in modern journalism. Like it is his answers around that. I was like, is that you or is that, is that bud? Cause that feels like a very like ceiling era understanding of how the press is going to engage with an ongoing labor dispute like that is not the way that we're doing this anymore right yeah i think it's mostly a pretty good piece i think there are areas where maybe it goes a

little easy on him but on the whole i think it does a decent job of presenting the whole of his tenure thus far. It does refer to something called a ghost runner a couple of times in this piece. I'm not sure what they were getting at there. I'm surprised that that got past the ESPN fact checkers. You'd think that they would have asked what that was. I don't know. I love that when I was in grad school, one of my professors would talk about one seminar paper of mine would have sideburns, and he didn't mean that they would have literal sideburns. That's silly. It's a paper. But he was talking about the stuff that you might include in a piece that would end up being distracting to the central writers as an editor myself. Like this is maybe interesting, but should be tabled for a later piece or is not really what you're going for, but is going to be the thing

that readers latch onto and discuss. So why don't we cut it so that they can really focus on what you're trying to convey? And I don't know that anyone could have anticipated Ghostrunner as such a persistent sideburn for us, boy is it one yeah i could barely concentrate on the rest of the piece you were like i don't even like field of dream game whatever it doesn't matter this is a ghost what yeah i mean i know that don venetta very accomplished investigative reporter but it really calls into credibility just the quality of the rest of the reporting in this piece i mean he's referring to the zombie runner by an obviously inaccurate term. How can I trust any of the other reporting in this piece?

Anyway, yes, there are some quotes in here. There's a very like drill tweet and another thing. I'm not mad. Please don't put in the newspaper that I got mad quote here where Manfred talks about how happy he is. I'm a happy person. I literally am a happy person. If I let it not me, I would not be a happy person. Really, I mean that.

But then he also says some days you just say I'm tired of this. Why do I have to listen to this? And clearly he is nettled by some of the critiques. And to his credit, he does seem to accept and state explicitly that he understands that his job is to be a punching bag to some extent, that he is just the cushion who is providing cover for his bosses, the owners, and that therefore he's probably not going to be a super popular person. And what commissioner is really not a lot of commissioners are popular right i mean there's a sliding scale there where some are maybe more respected or more tolerated than others like probably adam silver is uh better liked than rob manfred i guess you could say but i don't know that most commissioners or any

commissioners are anyone's favorite so i think that he clearly is bothered by some of these things, but is also not accepting full responsibility for some things. And I think maybe the piece kind of skirts over the fact that he was there, you know, during the steroid stuff, during the PED stuff, during the strike, right? There's a little anecdote there about how Selig told him to stay out of a room when the strike was going to be announced so that he would not be tarnished by it politically and would not be blamed or would not be the face of that story and that owners would be mad at him personally. So he's had a checkered past, right? him personally. So he's had a checkered past, right? I mean, in the sense that he is just the owner's lapdog and is doing their bidding and is tasked with making them more money, he's done probably an excellent job. And that is probably the most telling quote in the piece, right, is from

Terry McGurk, the Braves chairman, who says there are very few down days looking at the business of baseball with Rob at the helm. If we had to sign up for him again, we'd do it in spades 10 times over. Now, that's not surprising to me. It's a little surprising to me that you would hear someone in ownership say that. Maybe it's because the Braves are the team whose numbers are public. Maybe that's not a coincidence. But ultimately, that is what it comes down to for most owners, I think. And if he's bad at PR, then that's a reflection on him and other owners get to hide in his shadow as everyone talks about this Rob Manfred hate baseball. And meanwhile, he's making money, they're making money. Everyone's

more or less happy behind the scenes. It is interesting, though, because Vanetta talks about how Manfred, at least in his company or in the company of his friends, is a lot less buttoned up and stiff and lawyerly than he tends to be in public, which I guess we'll have to take his word for it because I've never not been a member of the press in Rob Manfred's presence. So I don't know what he's like with his buddies, although I did go to school with one of his kids. His son was in my high school class, but we were not friends. I didn't know Rob Manfred through that. So it's possible like there's someone here who's quoted as saying that he should do media training, right? That a former MLB executive says he should pay for media training. It might be a good investment. So how much of it is that he's just a little stiff when he's in front of the cameras or the recording devices?

How much of it is not? I don't know. Like the thing about him smiling at the press conference when he announced that the season was going to be postponed and that got roundly criticized because, of course, this is a solemn moment and he's saying it's a disaster and yet he's smiling. His defense is that he was just giving a friendly little polite smile to a reporter who was up there placing a recording device on the podium. So if that's true, who knows? They're placing a recording device on the podium. So if that's true, who knows? Maybe it's just one of those unfortunate things where he was trying to be polite and friendly and it came off the wrong way. I don't know.

But he has a track record of saying things that are not well received either by fans or by players. So clearly communication does not seem to be his strong suit. It's an interesting thing because I think that we tend to to learn a lot about his sort of unguarded and unvarnished understanding of the game whether it's the way the play is unfolding on the field or his relationship with the union by virtue of the fact that he is not media trained right like there is something revelatory in the awkwardness and I think the fact that he isn't better at the politics piece of it is in some ways useful because someone who has a better handle on that or feels more comfortable doing the public facing part of the commissioner's job, I think would be able to finesse some of the moments that we have been able to rightly pick up on and say, well, what does that mean? And what does that tell us about the direction that the league sees for

itself or the way that these negotiations are unfolding or what have you? Like, I think that it is journalistically useful that he's bad at this, you know? So there's like that piece of it that I think is interesting, but I also think it is interesting that that sort of insight does not extend into him just saying like, well, maybe the way for me to deal with this is to just be truly transparent when I'm talking about the direction that I see for stuff. I mean, like, it is interesting to see the marked contrast

between the way he talks about the rules stuff and even the labor stuff and even though i think he is often let's say advancing a like a particular interpretation of league revenues is perhaps the most generous way that i can talk about how he views that stuff like it does give us insight there that is all standing in marked contrast to like the way he talks about the ball for instance right where we have on this podcast been like hey buddy just like tell us one true thing about what the ball is doing you know and so i didn't come away from this thinking that it was like overly damning or overly fawning i do think that it does provide insight perhaps insight he didn't really intend to offer in terms of like his understanding of himself and his responsibilities like he wasn't there he didn't

take this job like it was before all of it but i like it was like you wanted to work for union carbide man like come on i wouldn't tell that story after the fact like just a me thing i don't know so i think that even in an interview where he is given a tremendous amount of time and space to sort of account for himself, he does it in a way that requires like multiple bits of pushback from the union. It's just he's just like an interesting he's an interesting guy. There are some encouraging things like the fact that he seems keen to listen to Theo Epstein about ways to make the game more viewer-friendly is good. The fact that he is just willing to say, my job is to stand in front of 30 dudes who deserve to have someone stand in front of them is, I think, less good. I don't know. This is the most that we've really heard from him. So I don't know.

It's just this is the most that we've really heard from him. I would perhaps suggest to him that, like, you should either have a thick skin or should stop talking about having one. But you shouldn't probably occupy the space you're occupying now, which is, like, caught between those two things. Like, he is, you know, I haven't spent a tremendous amount of time around Rob Manfred. I think the most, like,

prolonged exposure in the same place was probably at last year's All-Star game. Because one of the things that both the commissioner and the head of the Players Association do is like they give some time to the BBWA because we have a meeting at the All-Star game. And like, you know, he started in a way that I would characterize as like pretty jovial and ended in a place that i think was pretty defensive and it didn't take very long or very many questions or ones that were even particularly like spicy for him to get there so it's just it's interesting that this guy who is like famous for being a shrewd negotiator and a great lawyer and like super deliberative is like able to move that quickly great lawyer and like super deliberative is like able to move that quickly into a place that's defensive it's like how does you know i don't know i've i've never been a high stakes negotiator but

i would imagine that having some humility around that stuff is probably useful and i don't know that that's a character trait that i would come away from this interview thinking he has in in abundance but right yeah when i talked to bud sel, when his book came out a few years ago and he was on the podcast, episode fourteen hundred, everyone noticed that he called me Ben at the start of almost every sentence. It was like, well, Ben, you know, I think we may have edited out some of the Ben's even just because there were just so many Ben's. It was so distracting. But that was just emblematic of who he was and is, just kind of a glad hander, you know, back slapper type. And I think you can take that too far when it's so noticeable that you're just like making a point of saying the person's name. I mean, then it really does become kind of the ex-car salesman type thing where you realize that, oh, they're trying to put me at ease. They're trying to sell me something here, right? And then it's so transparent that I think it backfires in a sense. But I don't know whether Rob Manfred would even do that.

Maybe he learned that trick from his buddy Bud, but he just doesn't have that ability. And I think that could be helpful to Selig as a commissioner because part of the job is to wrangle the owner sometimes and to achieve some consensus there. And it seems like Selig was pretty gifted at that in part because he was an owner himself, at least initially. So I don't think that Manfred has that skill set. It is interesting that he seems to think that one of the reasons why he is disliked is his pushing to change the game or update or modernize the game. That is not my beef with him, or at least my main beef. Obviously, I have beef over the zombie runner specifically, or some people call it the Manfred man, but I'm sympathetic to his stance that it's slow and we need to speed it up and we need to do some stuff. And that's why when Rob Manfred replaced Selig, I thought, OK, this is good.

He's talking a little differently. He's a younger man. He seems to be open to change. He understands the need for change. And then, of course, he started talking about banning the shift right away. And it was like, oh, no, what have we gotten into here? But I like at least the fact that he is willing to entertain the idea of doing things differently, that he realizes that baseball cannot be a static product

forever. I disagree, obviously, with some of the specific ways that he wants to change it, but I agree with some of the specific ways he wants to change it as well. And like the last line of the piece is about how his tombstone is going to be about that, right? That's going to be on my tombstone. He says he tinkered with the game until they got rid of him. I don't know. I think that if he puts the pitch clock in place next year, which it seems like he's set on doing, that that could turn things around. I mean, that could really burnish his legacy, I think, if he is the commissioner who finally stops the slowdown and brings back a pace of play that people remember. Because, again, this is not even in a way it annoys purists, the idea of having an actual clock that is ticking down there, even if the time limit has been in the rules for a long time. down there, even if the time limit has been in the rules for a long time. But also, it is returning the game to an earlier state. It's like the game that some earlier generations grew up with. It was faster paced. Oh, this is like a new school way of implementing old school baseball. But that's why I guess it was smart of him to enlist Theo Epstein or why some people have suggested that Theo Epstein might make a fine commissioner someday if he wanted to do that job is that he seems to be able to communicate more eloquently

and be personable, right? Like there's the whole cult of Theo kind of thing where people are taken in by his personality in a way that they are not by Rob Manfred. And so Theo Epstein, I think, is a more effective and persuasive communicator of these changes than Rob Manfred. And so Theo Epstein, I think, is a more effective and persuasive communicator of these changes than Rob Manfred is. And Manfred says something in the story about how if you point out that there are problems with the game, then everyone assumes that you hate it. Again, it's kind of like blaming people or saying like, well, what am I supposed to do, right? I'm trying to fix the game and everyone is taking that the wrong way. Well, there must be a way to do that where people would not take it the wrong way necessarily.

And maybe it's not that he's couching the need to change in as much of an affection or outward expressed affection for the game as it exists and as it has existed. as it exists and as it has existed. Like people always talk about the fact that, well, when you hear from MLB about baseball, it's often because they are lamenting something or they are wanting to change something. And that is tough to walk that line because I think there are things that need to be changed. And I think it's good for MLB to advocate for those changes.

That's part of what a commissioner is for, ideally, is to be the one who comes in and says that we have to do something different here. But there's got to be a way to communicate that without also crapping on the product or giving people the impression that you hate baseball. We talk all the time on this podcast about ways that baseball could be improved or issues with baseball. And I don't think anyone comes away from this podcast thinking we hate baseball, right? Well, say not. I think they're, I mean, they might not like us for other reasons, but I think they get the sense that we love this sport and care about it. And so it's coming from that place, which it doesn't

seem like people have gotten that sense with Manfred. Right. And, you know, I have some sympathy for him on that score in particular, just because I think it is a confluence of factors within the ecosystem that he he doesn't have total control over that that lead to that impression. Like, I don't think that Rob Manfred can like the sins of John Smoltz on a on a World Series broadcast probably can't be laid at Rob Manfred's feet, right? Like that's not his fault that like Fox has decided to put a grump on the World Series broadcast and like make the marquee event a thing where people are like, well, do we like it here? I guess. I don't know who could say, right? So like some of that stuff that contributes to it is being laid at his feet just by virtue of his job title and less because of stuff he has actually done but i do think that one of you're right that like one of the problems with being a guy who is seemingly unable to perform being gregarious in public is that he's

not gregarious in public and so when we hear him, it's either because there is a crisis, there is a labor negotiation that has gone wrong, or because he's being awkward in a broadcast booth somewhere. And, you know, I don't know if the solution to that is for him to change his public speaking approach or for him to like make better use of other people in the commissioner's office who are charming, for lack of a better word, right? Yeah, he needs like an earpiece where Theo Epstein talks into his ear and tells him what to say. Or just put Theo out there. Put Raul Ibanez out there. He's super charming and enthusiastic about the game. And his quotes in here about going with Manfred to clubhouses to talk to players about the potential rule changes that might come down the road. Like those are some of the best quotes in this piece about how they're experts and they should be consulted on this stuff because they know what it's like to play

baseball right now. It's like you have people who you can put out there as other champions of the game. You know, I think that there is is gonna forever be a piece of this that is just like irresolvable where you're like your job as the commissioner is fundamentally divorced from what fans think your job as commissioner should be right like they they view you as someone who should be like an oms bud person can't believe i said it right did i say it right that's hard to say don't think you did i didn't i think you said um ums bud um buds right damn it but you know what i mean like uh it's a tough one they think that the person who occupies that role should be a champion of the game full stop and like the concerns of ownership should be secondary or even

lower on the list and that's just not what that role is going to be he might be more candid about what he views his primary responsibility as being but like if you know you gave truth serum to adam silver i doubt his understanding of his job is actually that different from rob manfred's right he might do the public hype up piece better and you know some of the the questions that he has faced that have challenged that public perception have been i think more fleeting or less important to fans which isn't to say that they shouldn't be but like there's just always going to be a ceiling i think on how go to steward for the game the commissioner is going to be because of that delta that exists between what his actual job is and what fans want his job to be. But like you could close some of the gap potentially, you know, and if you can't, maybe you want to empower people within the organization to do it. And I think part of the problem that the league will always face,

and I think that in years where there isn't a CBA negotiation, they do a much better job of sort of threading this needle. But the really best ambassadors for baseball are baseball players. Fundamentally, they will always be the players because that's who people care about. They don't care about the commissioner. I am shocked by how many people in this piece are said to have wanted his autograph i mean like we're media members so we're not asking for audio autographs regardless but it's like why do you care about that like this is not the guy anyway i mean his autographs on the baseball itself you already got it let's get one of those yeah you already got it don't worry about it but so i think that like this is going to be part of the problem that

management faces when they have an adversarial, which is appropriate, relationship with their labor because like that's who they really should be championing. And it's hard to do that consistently when you're also like subtly messaging to the media that like those guys are greedy and suck. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough because he is expected to speak on behalf of Major League Baseball because he's the commissioner. Right. And so if he does not make himself available, he does sometimes get criticized for that. And because he will get criticized for not speaking. But then when he speaks, inevitably, he seems to step in it. So I don't know what the solution is there. Ideally, it's to have a commissioner who is actually good at being a representative for the game in the public. But yeah, maybe it is just a matter of delegating. And I don't know that Theo Epstein wants to be like Rob Manfred's spokesperson either.

Like he's got other things to do too. Right. That's not what he is there for, right? Right. So, yeah. There's one tiny tidbit about the ball in here, which is kind of confusing, right? The paragraph says, There are ongoing questions and complaints over whether Rawlings, now co-owned by MLB, is purposely modifying the manufacturing specifications of the baseball either to juice or deaden the balls. Nope, says Manfred. Quote, our baseball is a handmade product. There is always going to be a variation

baseball to baseball because it's natural materials and it's made by hand. This maybe is the piece doing a bit of a disservice to Manfred. I don't know because I doubt he's outright denying that they have done the ball because they explicitly sent a memo and said that they did. So I don't think that he would deny that now. I assume that he is denying that they are like juicing and deadening it from game to game at this point. But that paragraph is a little misleading because of that, because it sounds like he's saying that MLB has not deadened the ball when it absolutely has and has said that it has in its roundabout leaking a memo type way

but that's the only thing about the ball in here I guess there are just so many issues to get to so many potential problems and things that he has been criticized about that the ball gets one kind of confusing paragraph. Anyway, so that's Rob Manfred. We will link to the piece. It's a long read, but it's a worthwhile read. It is illuminating in some ways, I think. Speaking of things that are tough to pronounce, I believe I said Picks Mitch the other day

when we were talking about Clay Holmes and his pitch mix. Picks Mitch. Pitch mix. That's a tough one. Almost as tough as ombudsman. All right. So maybe just a couple emails here. We got one from Adam who says,

With the emergence of name and image rights in college sports, MLB coaches deciding to return to coach college teams and Congress reviewing MLB's antitrust exemption potentially shaking up the minors, will we see more players jump straight from college to a big league team? With a quick search, Wikipedia shows that only three players in the last 22 years have debuted in MLB without playing in the minors. Xavier Nady in 2000, Mike Leak in 2010, and Garrett Crochet in 2020. From what I can tell, Nady played in the last game of the season before starting 2001 in the minors, while Leak won the fifth rotation

spot this spring after being drafted and unfortunately got hurt. Crochet is the best example of what I think might happen more often moving forward. He was drafted in June 2020 and added to the roster in September and so far has not played in the minor leagues. If the top-tier college teams are getting better coaches and players can make money through NIL, will more players opt for a college career with the hopes that they can skip most or all of the minor leagues? I don't expect to see more than a handful of guys do this all of a sudden, but could it start to happen more often? So you would need two things to happen simultaneously for this to become a trend that we actually like call a trend rather than just like a handful of guys. So first, you need the potential for NIL deals in college to be lucrative enough to sway, I guess, players to go to school rather than signing out of high school, right?

You'd need guys to be incentivized to pursue college careers in a way that they deem to be more remunerative than just getting drafted out of high school, right? So that would be one factor. And I think that there will be players, they might all be in the SEC, but I think that there will be players for even college baseball players

for whom there are meaningful deals to be had. I think that will happen far less often than it does say in football or basketball just because of the profile of those programs, even in places that are more baseball obsessed relative to other collegiate programs. So you'd need that part to be happening. And then you would need those guys to be players who can reasonably get sent right from basically their draft year in July to the big leagues. And I think that those are going to be in conflict with one another, because if we think

about the kinds of players who sort of are thought to be like having the potential to be really fast moving through a system such that they might crack a big league roster almost immediately, I think that those guys are going to, in general, be pitchers and often relievers. And those don't strike me as the guys who are going to be bringing in big NIL money. Does that seem like a reasonable problem there? I would imagine, when I think about the guys over the last couple of years

who seem like obvious NIL beneficiaries, it's like Kumar Rocker or Jack Leiter, right? So it's like starters at big high profile programs who have some, who have really meaningful draft pedigree. And like in Leiter's case also probably benefit from their personal lineage. I'm trying not to say bloodlines. I think we should stop saying that. It's weird, you guys. It's weird not to say bloodlines. I think we should stop saying that. It's weird, you guys. It's weird that we say bloodlines. I know what we mean, but something about that always makes me go, eh. I think that there have been hitters who benefit from the same name recognition stuff or who are viewed to be like slam dunk high draft picks but i think that

the profile of guy who is likely to to garner meaningful nil money and the profile of guy where you're like yeah just put him in a big league bullpen probably i don't know that that's the same kind of guy you know yeah and i think just as the caliber of play and the quality of competition continue to increase in the majors, just it's hard to do even if the college development pipeline has improved as well. And even though some of those programs are really advanced, it's still just tough. Like if you're a hitter especially, there's just some value in seeing hundreds and thousands of pitches and being able to pick up on that pitch recognition skill. And maybe you can get to that a little quicker by doing the right drills with the right tools. But I don't know that there's a perfect substitute for just playing games against good competition. Even crochet, that was 2020, right?

So there was no minor league season. Yeah, so that's probably why that happened for him. Yes, I was just about to say. Obviously, he was good and talented and rose quickly, but probably he would have had an intermediate stop there if that had been any other year. If that had been a normal year, I imagine, I mean, maybe it still would have happened, but I think the odds are a lot, lot lower. He probably would have been a guy who followed a normal trajectory or where he had some minor league play, went to instructs. And then we're talking about him as a guy who's like set to make the big league roster out of camp the following spring, perhaps.

Pitcher stuff just tends to be as good as it's ever going to get once they get to the big leagues. Cameron Grove, our former guest, had a tweet the other day where he showed the aging curves for his pitching grades. And the raw stuff seems to be as good as it's going to get on the whole when pitchers get to the big leagues. And then there's a plateau. And then later in their 20s, it starts to tail off. However, command improves from the time they make the majors. And thus, their overall performance and even just stuff grades improve because they're improving their locations. Even if they're not throwing harder or nastier pitches, they're placing them better. They're learning how to pitch. So there's really value in that. And if you were to skip from college to the majors, it's just an enormous gap. I mean, look at how we've seen some incredibly skilled and seasoned players struggle this year, at least initially, upon making the majors. as is in your Bobby Witts and who else has gotten good since they started slow. Adley Rutschman, you know, he slumped initially and has been hot lately.

So even some players like that, it takes them some time to acclimate. And these are the very top players in the minors who have spent some time down there. And then you have your Jared Kellnicks and others who just have some failure to launch over a longer period. So going from college, even a great advanced program, it would be a very short list of players who I think had the aptitude and the desire and the financial wherewithal and all of those things that would have to happen. Like, look, if they could skip the period of riding the buses and not making much money in the minors and all of that, I'm sure a lot of players would be happy to do that.

But others, they might not even be mentally, psychologically ready for that too. Forget about the skills, but just like you're figuring out who you are as a person and as an adult and how you handle yourself and imagine how that could go to your head, right? If you go straight from school to the big leagues, that's just a lot to handle. So I don't think this is going to become common by any means and I'd be surprised if it happens with any regularity. It would just take a really polished, mature, and gifted person to do that. So they're not going to come along every day. Right.

I mean, I think I don't want to pick on him by any means, but think about Spencer Torkelson, right? The profile there was that he was an incredibly advanced college bat one of the best college bats right and that he despite the you know sort of limitations defensively would be carried by his offense basically and i don't think that i don't say that like the book is written on torque and so he's done and he'll be terrible forever and whatever but like he has not he has not arrived in the way that we, I think, hoped and expected that he might. And that doesn't mean he won't. But he is probably, if you were going to point at a guy who on the hitting side could just rock it through and would be the dude, it would be Twerk.

And look how that has turned out. Now, he is one guy. And that doesn't mean that there aren't to your point guys who could defy that trend and wouldn't be amazing right away and there are hitters who come up and they are just like good from day one but it is not a given and i think it makes the the interaction at least with the nil stuff a little more complicated. I think that generally the calculus that's going to happen for guys around, you know, the money they're being offered out of high school versus the money they think they will be offered when they are draft eligible as a college player, like the NIL stuff

might change that a little bit, but I don't think it's going to change it super dramatically. And if it does, that doesn't necessarily mean that like they're doing it with the idea that I'm going to get paid and then I'm going to go right to the majors. Like, I don't think that's, there are two trends that have to sit together and I don't know that they necessarily will. So. Yeah. All right. Here is a question from another Adam, a different Adam. He says, based on John Carl Stanton's last six hits, which at the time were all home runs, he has since singled a couple times. But Adam says, what if there were a player who only hit home runs, but not in the way where every time they made contact it would be a home run, just that they were a normal power hitter who didn't hit singles, doubles, or triples. They still walked at a league average rate, struck out at a league average rate, flew out, grounded out. Say this person leads the league in home runs every year.

For this hypothetical, they'd hit 50 to 60 homers a year and could also play a league average defense. Basically, you have a player who gets a hit every third game and it would be a home run. Would this player be playable every day or even on a roster? Would he be considered good? So again, we have someone who's leading the league in dingers every year. He's playing decent defense. And other than that, nothing. He's walking.

He's striking out. He's not getting any other kind of hit. I don't know how this is possible exactly, but let's say that this were to happen. I messaged Ben Clemens about this because I thought this would be up his alley, and indeed it was. So he did some math on this, and he said, call it 650 plate appearances. This guy hits 55 homers. He has an 8% walk rate. He concluded that they'd be awful. So he calculates that that would be worth about a 230 weighted on base average, where 310 is currently league average. So this guy would pretty much be unplayable, I guess. I mean, he'd be a notable player because he might make a run at Aaron Judge like home run totals.

But you do have to have some other hits. I know that we are in a very home run happy era in the past several seasons and a single averse era and not a ton of triples and all of that. But even now, your home run reliant sluggers they do occasionally hit some singles and doubles and even triples and those are pretty important too so yeah even if you hit tons of dingers it's just it's not enough to only hit dingers and walk sometimes now ben if if you had a guy and he guy and he replaced all of his singles and doubles and the rare triple with home runs, I bet that player would be pretty valuable. Yeah.

That's true. I'm here to tell you that if you – pick a really good hitter, Ben. Pick one. You pick one. Can I pick Giancarlo Stanton? Sure, you can pick Gian. You pick one. Can I pick Giancarlo Stanton? Sure, you can pick Giancarlo Stanton. Okay. Let's pick Giancarlo Stanton.

Let's have my website go. There it goes. Okay, so, like, Giancarlo Stanton last year had 139 hits. I bet if he hit 139 home runs, he'd be pretty valuable. Yes, in that case. In that case in that case but like if you as john carlos stanton you know last year for instance john carlos stanton had 35 home runs if you only had 35 hits and they were all home runs pretty bad pretty bad baseball that's the analysis you

you all tune in for for me saying you only have 35 hits in a year you know the thing is you're not going to be very good even even if they're home runs. Now, what if there's a situation where, like, I guess there's a situation where you need a home run, basically, to win? And he's guaranteed to hit a home run? Well, no, he's still not guaranteed to, but he does hit a lot of home runs. I mean, he's a good home run hitter. lot of home runs i mean he's a good home run hitter so there are certain situations where sometimes all you need to do is put the ball in play and in other situations you need a big fly so is this guy keeping around for the rare situation where i don't know like you're

chilling by a lot of runs or he might hit a home run yeah or even like you're you're down by a run and it's two outs and it's the bottom of the ninth and you know you're basically asking like what probability threshold do you have to pass like on a per plate appearance basis for this hitter for him to be rosterable purely for the home run potential is what you're asking yeah in in some limited cases i i think there might be some value if you if you had the spare roster spot. If we have restrictions on active pitchers and you have room for actual bench players and dedicated pinch hitters, I could see some situation where maybe you just need the guy who can give you dingers and nothing else, but it would be a luxury to carry him, I think.

and nothing else, but it would be a luxury to carry him, I think. What if instead you had a bunch of guys who could hit, say, doubles fairly often, and you just roster a vroom-vroom guy? Because then you're going to score a run because they hit a double, and then he goes vroom-vroom-vroom. Yeah, that could work. All right, well, somewhat similar, we got a question from Ethan. I forget whether we've answered some version of this previously. Possibly we have. But he says, with the NL having now adopted the DH, we are left with only a single two-way player. So that raises the question,

for me at least, if baseball went all the way and adopted nine DHs per team, how many players in baseball would remain two-way players at all? If a team had the option of having nine hitters and nine fielders, and let's assume for now that we adjusted roster sizes and rules to accommodate this, would teams end up having these nine players be completely different? This is basically how it works in the NFL, of course, where essentially zero players play both offense and defense. Would this be the result in baseball? Obviously, if the rule were implemented tomorrow, we would not see this happen

since there would need to be an adjustment period. But once the rule was entrenched and around for a decade or two, do you think anyone would end up both hitting and fielding? Would anyone even be good enough? How many people are genuinely one of the 300 best hitters

and 300 best fielders available? Oh. Huh. Hmm. I don't know yeah i wouldn't want this to happen and i think that the idea that the universal dh is like a slippery slope to this sort of scenario i think that's overblown because you know pitchers are their own entity when it comes to offense even compared to catchers or shortstops. So I don't think we're in any danger of this happening. Wouldn't want this to happen.

Don't need it to happen because no other position embarrasses itself while batting as often as pitchers did. But if this were to happen, one argument for it, I guess, would be that, well, you'd get to see the very best baseball at all times, right? Because you would not have to stick someone out there in the field just because they're a good bat. Right. You could get the best glove out there and also still have the best bat. So you would see very high caliber baseball.

You'd never have someone who was playing because of something else they did well and you're just living with the thing that they don't do well. It would be someone who does everything well at all times. So the question is, how many of those players are there who do everything well or at least enough things well that they would still be playable in this scenario i don't know that's not a satisfying answer i'm like thinking about like the offensive environment. Yeah. I mean, you've got better defenders out there, but you have the best hitters at all times.

I mean, like if you're Christian Pache, this sounds great, right? Because you just play the field. You don't have to worry about the fact that the swing and miss might be disqualifying, right? So. Yeah. This is going to juice offense, I think. But I think that there would certainly be some. Yeah. I mean, think of some of the best defenders in baseball.

Like Byron Buxton. Yeah. They're often some of the best hitters, too. Like Byron Buxton. Yeah. Byron Buxton, Nolan Arnauto. I mean, you know, Matt Chapman. Sometimes. Maybe he's not one of the best hitters anymore. Formerly Matt Chapman. But he was a pretty not one of the best hitters anymore. Formerly Matt Chapman. But he was a pretty good hitter.

Formerly both of the Mets. Sure. Like there are definitely a lot of like AAA shortstop or AA shortstop glove guys who can't hit, who would be better than some of the major league shortstops. And so they would be benched. They would only be hitting. They would only be hitting. They would only be hitting. But I'm going to say, gosh, I guess the easiest way to put a percentage on this or if we say 300, if we take his numbers here, Ethan's 300 hitters and fielders, like how many of them are the same guy? I don't know. I might go as high as like –

I don't know. I might go as high as like – see, the thing is that how many like offensive guys do you think there are? Like there are more defensive specialists who would be promoted I think than offensive specialists. many major league quality hitters in the minors who are unplayable because they're bad fielders, especially in the universal DH era, right? And in the shifting era, right? Where you can kind of hide some guys. Yeah. So you're not going to see that many big bats promoted who could not crack rosters before but are among the best hitters i think almost all of the best hitters are in the big leagues already so it would be a matter of how many defensive specialists who can't hit their weight or whatever right are you going to bring up to play the field instead of those sluggers huh yeah sorry just separate to this i've i'm looking at the like oaa leaderboard and some of these names are surprising to me defense in a in a in a short

little slug it can be weird yeah who knew huh uh i'll say i think there'd be – because there's a correlation here, right? It's not like these talents are completely disconnected from each other. Like if you have the talents to be one of the best fielders, you may also have the talents to be one of the best hitters and vice versa. Like obviously you have some level of athleticism and strength and speed and all of that. So often these skills do go together. Like, are you going to have Mike Trout play center? Probably not, I guess, right? Because, you know, he's the best hitter, but he is not the best possible center fielder

you could put out there. So Mike Trout, now a one-way player. So how many, like, truly superlative, and Trout's, like, not a bad defender either. But so how many truly superlative, like, this is the best possible person I could put out there guys are there like that? There are some, but I'm going to say 50 maybe. Because the other thing is that like there are guys in the big leagues who are just like on benches. It's not necessarily like calling up some great glove guy from AA. It's also like your fourth outfielder is just going to be an everyday outfielder now.

Right, right. Right. So that minimizes the degree of the change so if you're talking about just how many people are going to be a two-way player i'm going to say i'm going to say like two per team like 60 ish does that sound completely unreasonable i i don't know if i were to scan rosters and eyeball it you think there would only be two out of the 26 who are on the field all the time i mean i guess like it's not really two out of 26 because you have to remove the pitchers the pitchers yeah and and even the pitchers in the field and the dhs so i'm just talking about the

other defensive positions of the eight that are out there you think there'd only be two i think there might only be two i think the number might be a little bit higher than that i mean it's hard to know because we are comparing it to the existing player pool right and there are guys who are being selected out of the existing player pool because there's a disqualifying tool one way or the other. And so it's hard to think about like an average org are there really that many guys in the high minors who are better or just on benches like they're rostered right so i mean like a lot of teams have you know you have your fourth outfielder you have your utility infielder maybe yeah right your backup catcher who probably can't hit for excuse my swear can't hit for that guy in most cases yeah but now he's gonna be playing catcher so it doesn't matter in this scenario like you still need a time share right like they can't

play every day in the field presumably although if they're not hitting obviously there's less of a strain on them but like your catcher you're still gonna need multiple catchers here because you can't have the same catcher catch every day even if he's not hitting well and it would be so fascinating to see like what the like because like we're gonna get a robo zone right and so now you're gonna have offense maybe not offense, but offense forward catchers that begin to emerge where it's like as long as the arm is sufficiently good to sort of control the run game and they can block reasonably, like who cares how they frame? Yeah. That's the other thing. Like think about first baseman, for instance, like very few people can become first baseman just because the offensive bar at that position is so high. Take that away. You can put anyone at first base now. And not even people who have been playing first base. You could convert your shortstop to play first base. Or Evan White.

Or Evan White. Or Evan White, yeah. Or Evan White. We set that almost in sync. But yeah, like people who would not have even been under consideration to play certain positions, like you would expand the potential player pool for those positions so much because now you have removed the offensive burden entirely. burden entirely and you can just have your most athletic defensive specialist at every position even your offense first positions which is why i'm thinking that most of the players out there are not still going to be out there i don't know maybe i'm i'm not confident that i'm not persuadable what what does that mean what does that mean? What does that mean, Meg? I might change my mind, too, if I actually thought about this for more than two would be identified early as like oh we're gonna in the same way that like football players

get drafted as middle linebackers right like you would change the way that you were thinking about roster construction. You also wouldn't you need bigger rosters? Need bigger rosters? Yeah, he specified that. Okay, sorry. I forgot that you need much bigger rosters. But like all of a sudden you are going into every draft year and every international free agency signing period thinking about your roster construction totally differently. free agency signing period thinking about your roster construction totally differently so i think that the number would start to shift over time because you'd be like oh well that guy can't field

and that guy can't hit a lick but he's he's christian posh right like he's a hell of a center fielder you gotta put him out there he's gonna win a gold glove every year and so it would change over time as you basically started drafting the way that NFL teams draft. Right. Yeah. Okay. Last regular email here. This is from Jason, who wants to ask us about a new baseball innovation, the catcher's chair.

I wanted to know what you two thought about an idea I had, the catcher's chair. Instead of having the catcher have to squat for the grueling three hours of a Major League ball game, we give him a chair that he could leisurely relax in behind home plate. I was picturing in my head one of the fully mobile and reclining gaming chairs. He could use the lever at the bottom to raise and lower the chair depending on the pitch he is calling, and he can swivel from side to side to throw out base runners. Thought this would be a net positive for the game. But you would end up being so squatty i don't know that it would like actually like the the side to side part of it would be good right like if you although like an office

chair isn't gonna it's not gonna like glide super smooth on the dirt so like that that would be very funny i want to see it because that part would be super funny but you would still need to get like down like you'd need to lower the like the little you know the little hoochie jigger thing on the side i'm like jiggling mine as we stand here, but I think I have, I think I have the gain down low enough on my microphone that hopefully people couldn't even hear it. But, um, Oh, we heard it. Oh, you did. Okay, good. Right. You need to use that little lever to get really low to the ground such that I think your knees would still be at a uncomfortable angle, right? Wouldn't you still be orthopedically compromised in some way?

Now, it wouldn't be as bad as like squatting back there as they do now. I think your knees would feel less filled with lava than I imagine catcher's knees do. But I don't, first of all, I don't think you'd ever convince a catcher to use one. I don't think you'd ever convince a catcher. It would have to be in the rules you'd have to decide right this is a quality of life safety issue catchers now get chairs because like pitchers won't wear the helmet things and so i don't think you're convincing a catcher to use the little chair and they probably feel like they i think they would probably feel like they have better lateral quickness on their own feet than they do

in the little chair and like what is the chair tips that were and then you're like help me i'm a turtle beyond wobbly chairs sometimes and like and what if you roll over the feet of the umpire it's going to be bad for umpire catcher relations like there's going to be a lot more just right and then like do you raise and lower the chair? If you do that from pitch to pitch, then are you telegraphing location, right? Yeah, because they'll hear that sound that you're making. Like sometimes catchers, they will try to disguise the sounds like where they're setting up. And sometimes they will even try to throw hitters off the scent.

I remember talking to Eric Kratz once because he did like a little clap or something like on one side of the zone and then like shifted over to the other side of the zone. Like he was trying to deke the hitter into thinking it was going to be inside and then it was outside. Yeah, right. They could peek or they could even just hear. So if they're jiggling the handle of the chair and then they're going side to side, up and down. Like old time like radio theater like so that's an issue you're kind of telegraphing location potentially that's the only issue i can think of but i don't know i mean they have knee savers so this is just the logical

catcher's chair do you have the little knee savers. I think that they would say, no, thank you. That's embarrassing. I find it to be unmasculine. Not all of them, but some of them would probably say that. And I think they'd end up falling over and rolling over people's feet, and they'd never get the height quite right. Think about how many times you mess with your office chair so many times. I do think that a fun way to watch baseball is to just sit there

and try to count how many hitters in a game are peaking. It's fun to be like, he's a peaker. He's a peaker. It should be a little stool, just like a little three-legged stool back there. Oh, it could be like those stools that someone's always trying to do Kickstarters for where they're attached to you, and then you're like, I have sat you out, and you're like,

who is this for? And you're like, oh, and now you can walk around in your stool when you do the dishes, and I'm like, is this a thing we need innovation for? Yeah, yeah. The pass ball and wild pitch issue,

it's going to be a bit of a problem because even now when catchers tend to go down to one knee, often for framing purposes, it may restrict their lateral mobility slightly at times. And here, if they're in a chair, even if it's a swiveling chair, it's going to be a bit of a problem unless the chair just blocks the pitches. If that's okay, if the chair just goes down to the ground. You'd have to have chair ground rules.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if this is one of those college dorm rocker chairs that's on the ground. What? In your college dorm, maybe you had a little rocker chair that's on the ground and it rocks. No. No. I didn't have that. Maybe it's on the ground?

Yeah, like, you know, on the ground. I demand that you find one of these on Google and show me what you mean, because I'm sure I'm going to go, oh, that. But right now I'm, I don't know what you're talking about, Ben. Yeah, not like a rocking chair, but like a rocker chair.

Like a floor rocker. A floor rocker chair all right i'll i'll like a floor rocker no floor rocker okay i'll send you a picture and i'll share it with the listeners but yeah like i just sent you one different i i you got kumar rocker instead no it's kumar rocker i did let's see. College Rocker Classic Dorm Chair. I've never seen a chair like this. I'd like to point out that the images in the one that you sent me are all of tiny children, presumably in preschool. So I feel better about not knowing what this is.

This one says right in the name. This is dormco.com. College Rocker Classic Dorm Chair. Available in three colors. And a dormco.com college rocker classic dorm chair available and here's one same site dorm furniture rocker seat adjust to 15 plus positions oh that might not be just for sitting i mean like i have seen chairs like this it's not like i'm like wow a new kind of chair but what i am trying to say is that i don't associate this with like classic dorm chairs i don't know maybe we just did it different experiences were very different well i did go to brydmar so you know yeah maybe that's why anyway if it's like that where it's like

ground level and there's no space under the chair, then you'd have to figure out like if it gets stuck in there. Is it like if the ball gets stuck in the outfield fence? Yeah. You have to have a process. You have to have a contingency plan for that sort of thing. Anyway, maybe this would help catchers extend their careers, but also it would hurt their ability to catch. Yes. Which is an important part of the job after all.

And throw as well because they would have to get up and throw from a seated position or just throw while seated. This would help the running game probably, so there's that. Well, and it would save their knees, which is really the goal of it, although I still think you'd end up with your knees in a kind of weird, in a weird, at a weird angle where you'd get up and be like you'd make that sound the sound after you made the sound right all right let me give you a timely stat blast here We'll take a dataset sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+.

And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to DASTPLOST! Taste of rust. two zero, you can get a $20 discount on an $80 subscription. I have said in the past, 80-year subscription, I believe. That is not accurate. Truth in advertising, please don't hold StatHead to my potentially sometimes saying 80 years instead of $80. But even for one year, it is a very valuable tool, not only for looking up all manner of baseball stats, but also other stats, too. So this one I was just kind of curious about, and I will relate first. I was looking this up for a reason that perhaps will become clear on the podcast later.

But I wanted to know who has had the most unique uniform numbers in Major League history. Just the most different numbers. So not wearing the same number for different teams, but actual different numbers. So among active players, it's Tommy Hunter. Is Tommy Hunter still active? I don't know. He is listed as active. He is. Look at that.

He's still with the Tampa Bay Rays now. Tommy Hunter. How about that? Good for him. Good for Tommy. Wait, no. He has. No the Tampa Bay Rays now. Oh. Tommy Hunter. Tommy Hunter. How about that? Good for him. Good for Tommy. Wait, no. He has a Tampa Bay Rays headshot. Poor Tommy.

But he is or has recently been on the New York Mets. He has pitched four innings for the Mets this season. All right. Sorry, Tommy, that I lost track of your whereabouts. But he is the active leader for number of different uniform numbers. He has had 10. Wow. So he's worn 35, 39, 29, 21, 48, 41, 49, 40, 96. Whoa. Yeah. I think I hit them all there. 34. I don't think I said 34. I don't know. I guess Tommy Hunter is the type of player you would probably expect to have a lot of uniform numbers. Sure.

Because a bit of a journeyman, clearly. I cannot keep track of where he has played, but he's played for a bunch of teams. And he's not the caliber of player maybe who just commands his own uniform number wherever he goes. And maybe he just personally doesn't care that much about it. So he is willing to change. So he's the leader among active players. You also have Ross Detweiler with nine, Phil Gosselin with nine, Mark Melanson with nine, Austin Romine with nine, and then a bunch of other players, including podcast legend

Rich Hill. Now, among all-time players, the leader is actually 15, 15 different uniform numbers. Yeah. And this record is held by two different players, Bob Miller and George Brunette. And I wanted to mention this just so that people would know about George Brunette. Fortunately, Mike Petriello has done the research for us here and wrote a long piece about George Brunette a couple of years ago at MLB.com, which I will link, but really a fascinating career. I will just read Petriello's lead here. The most interesting player you've never heard of pitched in at least 33 consecutive professional seasons from 1953 to 1985, and that's just what we can verify.

He holds a share of the major league record for most uniform numbers worn. Mike did this research too. And a share of the Angels record for most losses in a season. He owns the minor league record for most strikeouts. He is a member of the Mexican League Hall of Fame. This is all just barely scraping the surface of an incredible baseball life. He threw two no-hitters 21 years apart. He was once signed by the Philadelphia A's, but he also pitched as recently as the Reagan

administration, a career span that roughly coincides with the two time period settings of Back to the Future. He once issued five bases loaded walks plus a hit by pitch in a single inning. Wow. It's probably the worst inning in Major League history, but it's hard to say if that's better or worse than the time he went more than a month in the minors and over 50 innings Wow. his boyhood idol and didn't even realize who was hitting against him until he was ahead 0-2. He did all of this and more while refusing to wear underwear or a protective cup on the mound.

What? He still managed to have three children. Great lead from Mike. Yeah, terrific. There's much more there. I won't steal his thunder. I will just link to the piece. Check out George Burnett, the man of 15 uniform numbers. Wow.

Yeah, that was just a sample. I mean, what a life. What a life. Yeah, no one has had 14 uniform numbers. A few guys have had 13. Ken Brett, Bobo Newsome, also quite a character. Juan Pizarro, Cy Johnson had 12, as did Jeff Manto and Jamie Wright and then a bunch of guys have 11 I will link to those lists for anyone who's interested but the real stat blast that I wanted to give you here this is timely this is uh related to a game that is going

to occur on the day that we are recording here. This is from Patrick, who says, normally I don't pay a ton of attention to pitcher records, but this one caught my eye. Today, the 0-5 Blake Snell of the Padres is facing the 9-0 Tony Gonsolin of the Dodgers. I'm sure it isn't noteworthy, but is it? What is the largest differential when a winless pitcher faces a lossless? That can't be right, he says in parentheses, undefeated. There we go. What's a backspace key pitcher? Lossless

is okay. I think you could say lossless, but all right. So he wants to know if this is notable. He says, I'm sure it isn't noteworthy. Well, actually it is. It actually is pretty noteworthy to have an 0-5 pitcher facing a 9-0 pitcher. So I should say that the uniform numbers results came from Kenny Jacklin, a baseball reference, who helped me out with that query and also helped out Petriello for his piece. Petriello also, by the way, he did a piece with Kenny's help about the most career war accumulated by uniform number. It's more of an estimate than perhaps a perfect accounting. But if anyone was wondering, number five is the highest combined career war produced by players who wore that number, which Petriello was sort of surprised because he thought it

would be a higher number that pitchers might have worn more often too. But you just have a murderer's row of Albert Pujols, George Brett, Jeff Bagwell, Brooks Robinson, Johnny Bench, Joe DiMaggio, and on and on. At the time that he wrote this a couple of years ago, it was more than 1,900-year war produced by number fives. Numbers five? Number fives in baseball history. And after that, it's six, 24, 11, seven. That's the top five. I will, again, not steal Mike's thunder. I'll link to that piece too. But back to the stat blast at hand, Ryan Nelson, frequent stat blast consultant, find him on Twitter at rsnelson23. He looked this this up for me and he found that this is actually the third most lopsided matchup ever of a undefeated

pitcher and an unvictorious pitcher i'm gonna come up with yet another way to refer to this so the number one is a differential of 18 wins so this s Snell and Gonsolin, this is 14 wins. So the record is 18. And that was on August 2nd, 1941. Howie Christ was 8-0, and he faced Lee Grissom, who was 0-10. And I believe by the end of that day, Howie Christ was 9-0, and Lee Grissom was 0-11. So that went the way that you would expect it to, unfortunately, for Lee Grissom. Lee Grissom was on the Phillies at the time. Howie Christ was on the Cardinals.

The next most lopsided is 15, and this was Chuck Stobbs versus Don Massey. Don Massey, famous for having large ears. But also on June 21st, 1957, Chuck Stobbs was 0-11 and he faced Don Massey, who was 4-0. So that was 15. Good news for losers, though. There was an upset in that game. Washington beat Cleveland 6-3. Chuck Stobbs beat Don Massey. So after that game, Stobbs was 1-11. Massey was 4-1. Massey went three innings. Stobbs went the distance.

And those are the only guys who are ahead of this matchup between Snell and Gonsolin. So, yeah, it actually is pretty darn notable there. Wow. And there were a couple of others in that range. There was a 13, which was the previous third place. That was August 21st, 1973, Steve Dunning, 0-6, against Roger Moret, 7-0. So not only is this the third all-time,

but it's the most lopsided since 1973. Wow. Or, well, before that, I guess. So this is pretty impressive, I would say. And we talked recently about how pitchers are factoring into decisions less than they used to. I did a stat blast about that. I did note that they are losing more of their decisions proportionately these days and went into all the reasons why that is. But still, even just to have a lot of

decisions is fairly rare. So how about that? We have a former Cy Young winner here and the Dodgers new hotness, Tony Gonsolin, and they are teaming up to do something pretty historic here. So we will see if history is any guide here or if Snell can pull off the upset. So I did ask Ryan also to check just the greatest differential in number of net wins, like without the constraint that you have to be lossless or winless. So just looking at the differential between the two respective starters' win-loss records. And if you do that, then most of the top entrants are from early baseball. So just because pitchers factored into a ton of decisions those days. So September 27th, 1904, George Mullen, who was then 14 and 21, faced Jack Chesbrough, who was 37 and 9. That is a differential of 58.

So that was a different time. Yeah. But I think post-World War II, it's September 25th, 1963. The great Sandy Koufax was 24 and 5, and he was facing Roger Craig, who was 5-21. So that was a differential of 45 net wins. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. All right. There it is. All right. So I will end, I suppose, with the past blast. So as always, this comes from Richard Hirshberger, saber historian, researcher, author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. Now, he did write in to us about the weird fourth outplay that happened this week in the Nationals game, which we didn't talk about. Everyone has talked about it.

It's a weird one. I know that you're fond of weird rules and the rule book. I love it. So this was up your alley. I don't know if there's a way to quickly summarize what happened, but I think Richard wrote about it. And maybe in the course of this email, it will become clear what happened. He said, anticipating that you will be talking about the Nationals fiasco, handing a run to the Pirates in what turned out to be a one run game. Most of the hot takes I've seen miss the point. The interesting point of rules is what constitutes an appeal.

Yeah. The ball was caught on the fly for the second out, then thrown to Adrianza, the Nats' third baseman. At this point, Zawinski, the Pirates' runner from third, had crossed the plate. Adrianza tagged Park, the Pirates' runner from second, who was standing on third, and immediately after this tagged third base. The play on Park was an appeal play based on Park having no right to third base without having tagged up at second. This was the third out.

Had Adrianza appealed Sawinski's failure to tag up at third, this would have been the virtual quote-unquote fourth out, taking priority over the third out, and Swinski's run therefore not counting. The ruling was, however, that Adrianza did not make this appeal. By the time Dave Martinez figured this out, the Nationals had left the field of play, and it was too late. Most of the accounts I've seen don't quite figure out what the issue is. What should Adrianza have done differently? Why does his actions constitute an appeal on Park but not on Cewinski? Here's the relevant rule in a note to 509c. An appeal should be clearly intended as an appeal either by a verbal request by the player or an act that unmistakably indicates an appeal to the umpire. A player inadvertently stepping on the base with a ball in his hand would not constitute an appeal. The ruling seems to have been that

Adrianza's act of tagging Park unmistakably indicated an appeal on Park, but his subsequent stepping on third base did not similarly unmistakably indicate an appeal on Sawinski. Presumably, had he touched the base before tagging Park, that would have been the appeal, and any appeal against Park would be moot. Had he tagged Park, then tagged the base, and said, Mr. Umpire, I hereby appeal Swinski's advancing to home without tagging up at third, or words to that effect, then this would have constituted a second appeal, canceling the run. Also, presumably, had he waited some indeterminate period of time after tagging Park before tagging third, this would have indicated that he intended tagging the base as a distinct act constituting a second appeal but because the tagging of the base while clearly not inadvertent followed immediately

upon the tagging of park it was ruled not a separate act and therefore not unmistakably a separate appeal following that everyone so on the one hand he said this seems awfully vague yeah it was not a triumph of statutory draftsmanship. On the other hand, we are on pretty safe ground speculating that Adrianza had no clear intention other than tag everything and let the umpire sort it out. It is a bit much to expect a player to immediately interpret an obscure point of the rules in the heat of the moment, which brings me to the essential point, the assignment of blame. That goes solidly, Richard says, on Dave Martinez's shoulders. Here is a guy who is compensated very well to direct a team of players on how to do baseball. At any point before they left the field of play, he could have called out in a firm and manly voice,

Gentlemen, I pray thee, remain at your stations while I discourse with these most excellent umpires and cogitate upon the matter. Or words to that effect, but he did not. This is outright managerial malpractice. words to that effect but he did not this is outright managerial malpractice credit where credit is due raymond chen in the effectively wild facebook group directed me to the correct rule which i had managed to skim right over without its making any impression on the cerebral cortex so extremely complicated situation but i guess richard has a point here right if he had just like extended his arm and like gestured at the umpire would that have constituted an appeal if he had been like you know he had been like umpire like as if to say i know there's

stuff going on here won't you please sort it for me like would that have been sufficient i guess like we really do need clarity on like what because it seems like having a specific requirement of like particular words that have to be spoken that seems like it would not be what they would go for here because like you want you want it to be language proof right you want first of all you don't want like even native english speakers to have to remember like a particular sequence of words as they are trying to do multiple physical things at once like that seems like too much to ask and you have players from all over the world and some of them you know you want you want them to be able to appeal in a way that is obvious and doesn't require you know what i'm trying to say like you don't want something

that would benefit from an interpreter being there because that's not fair to them so like if he had gone i'm doing a gesture that no one can see but i'm like holding my hand out to a theoretical umpire like palm outstretched as if to go here is a need for appeal would that have been enough you think maybe think, maybe, yeah. This seems like the sort of situation that would come up in a pass blast from like 1868 or something and they would have figured everything out after that

and we would laugh at how arcane the rules were at that time. But, you know, sometimes they still are. So the fourth out rule, who knew about that? Very few people. Apparently very few Washington Nationals. So the actual pass blast. This is episode 1870. This is a pass blast from 1870. Richard says, as usual, there were many possibilities. I was tempted by the gradual working out of why infielders other than first baseman should not be lefties. be lefties. Then there was the first recorded example of switch hitting, not for a pitcher match, but to avoid George Wright, the best shortstop of the era. Then there is the horizontal curve of Candy Cummings, who surprisingly enough really did invent the curveball. He is reputed to have done that and seemingly actually did. Actually did. But Richard says, I went with

Charlie Mills, the catcher for the mutuals, when catchers were manly men, giants striding the earth. This is the Athletics of Philadelphia versus the Mutuals of New York, September 15th, 1870, reported in the New York Dispatch of September 18th, 1870. In the beginning of the second inning, an accident occurred to that general favorite, Charlie Mills, the ball tipping off McBride's bat and inflicting a fearful smash upon Charlie's eye, which it completely closed in a very few seconds. Oof. This is no concussion protocols at that time.

The game was delayed for a few minutes to see whether he could resume his position or not. But although he came up to the mark very pluckily, he found it was impossible to continue, the sun shining full in his good eye and entirely preventing him from seeing the ball. Perhaps he was having concussions. He therefore retired, and Billy McMahon was put in to make up the nine. A consultation was held among the mutes, that's the mutuals, the result of which was that Hatfield took Charlie's position behind the bat while Eggler played shortstop in McMahon's centerfield, when Billy McMahon muffed the first two balls that came to him, a general feeling of disappointment prevailed, as it was evident that what would otherwise have been a close and exciting contest

would now be a regular jug-handled affair. Without interest to anyone except those who had invested in athletic stock as being a test of the merits of the respective teams, when therefore Charlie Mills came up to the scratch at the end of the third inning, he was greeted with the heartiest applause. He had had his eye lanced and bathed with hot water until the swelling had considerably decreased, and he brought a large tin can of hot water along with him

in which he dipped a cloth at intervals when a foul hit was made, so that he might be enabled to keep the swelling down. So long as the sun shone out warm and brilliantly, he was all right. But as the afternoon advanced and the air began to feel chilly, the bruised eye began going up again. And if the game had lasted a few minutes longer, he would have been compelled again to retire. Oh my God. So he had his eye lanced and bathed

and then went right back out there with a can of hot water. He's like the tin man with a thing of oil. Yeah. Richard concludes the catcher's mask will arrive in 1877. Oh my God. It will be widely held that the catcher looks ridiculous wearing a cage on his face, but will nevertheless be universally adopted almost immediately. This excerpt shows why.

You know, it's just remarkable that we've persisted as a species as always. Yes, it is. Your eye is swollen shut you cannot see the word lance is about to come into play with your eye area and you're like yeah i gotta get back to work you know what are you gonna do yeah i mean they only had so many players to go around back then so what could you do if only he'd had a catcher's chair probably probably would have come in handy that day. I actually don't think catchers started squatting until the 1880s. Before that, they were farther back and sometimes standing. But still, if anyone deserved to take a load off, it was Charlie Mills that day. All right, so that'll do it.

Just one note to everyone. We do have an anniversary coming up in not too long, actually. This is our 10-year anniversary month effectively wild started in july of 2012 july 18th to be precise and so we're going to do a week of anniversary festivities maybe not solely that but a lot of that and i think it'll be fun and we have some interesting things planned that i think people will enjoy but we do want listeners to participate a little bit in the festivities because listeners have been a huge part of this show almost from the start. So one thing I've heard other podcasts do and we would like to replicate is we would like some listeners who feel so moved to perhaps send in clips of themselves, short clips talking about the podcast. Maybe a favorite moment from the podcast, maybe the part the podcast has played in their lives, what they value about the podcast.

You don't have to say, I love Ben and Meg and they're the best and they're my favorites. But if the podcast has meant something to you and you've been listening for a while, or even if you haven't been listening for a while, your recent arrival, whatever it is, if you have something that you feel that you would like to say about the show and the place that it is played in your life, then we would love to have that. So I'd ask anyone who wants to do that to send in a short clip. Let's cap it at 30 seconds or so. And you can just record it on your phone, a a voice memo or you can do something fancier if you feel like it and you're set up to do that but just email us a podcast at fangraphs.com and

i have no idea how many of these things we will get so i can't guarantee that we will play all of them on the show yeah but we'll make them available at least in in some way we will share them so that people can find them hopefully we will be able to play a lot of them on the show, but we will see. Maybe no one will send us some. Maybe everyone will send us some and then we will have to turn some people away. But whatever you feel moved to say, if you feel moved to say something about some Effectively Wild memory you have, that would be great. We would like to include other people's voices on an episode that week. So by the time his contract is up, some major changes may have been made and the response to those changes may dictate the public perception of Rob Manfred. Perhaps he will have salvaged his reputation by that point if those changes are well received, or if not, perhaps his reputation will be even more in the cellar and he'll be on his way out. But one way or another, now that a work stoppage has been averted, his legacy seems to rest on those innovations that are instituted and how well they work.

Now, I have to leave you with a few important updates here. First, we were wondering whether the players who served as spokespeople for CarShield and were labeled as real CarShield customers in the ads were actually real CarShield customers. Well, Corey McCartney, who covers the Braves, has apparently asked Austin Riley that. Important journalism here. He just tweeted, I would have additional follow-ups there. Was he a CarShield customer before he repped CarShield? Is he doing it just for appearances sake?

Just so his endorsement could be considered genuine? Inquiring minds want to know. If you're wondering what happened in the great 0-5 Blake Snell vs. 9-0 Tani Gonsolin showdown that inspired this episode's stat blast, well, both pitched well. Each pitcher gave up one run, but Snell went 5, as is his want, and Gonsolin went a career-high 7-2. When Snell left the game, it was tied at 1, so he's not on the hook for the loss, but Gonsolin left with the Dodgers up 3-1, so he was in line for the win, which would move him to 10-0. So no upset here, at least in terms of who is in line to win the game, by the point that

both pitchers had been pulled. Gonsolin, by the way, in the regular season, 224 innings into his career spread across four seasons, and he has a 2.37 ERA, in line to move to 20-5, if you care about that kind of thing. Not too shabby. And I also have a huge break for you in the ongoing Taylor Ward, Tyler Wade phenomenon. Listener Tomo unearthed a video from May when Taylor Ward went on MLB Network's intentional talk after he won the player

of the week award. And he was asked about this very issue by Kevin Millar, who, as you will hear, immediately screwed up his name. All right. so how often do you get called Tyler Ward, or does Tyler Ward get called Taylor Ward? Tyler Wade. The Wade, sorry. Wait, what? Amongst our clubhouse, I feel bad for the guys with the Walsh, the Wades, the Wards, the Marshes.

I feel bad for them. The Walsh, the Wades, the Wards, the Marshes. I feel bad for him, but being called Tyler outside of the clubhouse, that happens all the time. It's probably 60% of the time people mess my name up. 60% of the time every time. Got it. And I just did.

I just did because there's a lot of Wades and Wards and Wards and Wades. So how about that? I've been surprised by how often broadcasters have made that mix up, but Taylor Ward evidently would not be at all surprised because this has been happening for a long time. Well spotted, Tomo. And finally, on episode 1860, we were joined by former major leaguer and two-time now effectively wild guest John Poff, along with John Bravebowl and artist Taken Alive,

and they told us about their efforts to raise money to bring baseball to kids on the Standing Rock Reservation in the Dakotas. And they have raised more than $3,000 so far. It would appear mostly from Effectively Wild listeners. John wrote to me and said, first of all, the podcast worked great. Almost all of the donors came one way or another from there. It makes it pretty clear what to do, at least from my point of view, in talking with John and Artists. Counting what I can afford to put in, aside from travel expense, I've got $4,000 on hand. The plan is to leave in a few days and try to have a big day Thursday the 6th,

giving away equipment, a community softball game with a cookout, jumpstart, youth baseball and softball plans, etc. Spend at least half the funds raised on that and then see where we are for the VJ Day celebration in August. Just wanted to let you know, we are for the VJ Day celebration in August. Just wanted to let you know, quite grateful for the podcast opportunity. And I wanted to let you all know, partly to say thanks to those of you who have supported John, but also to tell those of you who haven't yet that you still have an opportunity to. The more you donate now, the more he'll be able to do on Thursday the 6th and then that second event thereafter. So go check the GoFundMe. It is linked on the show page. It's GoFundMe.com

slash F slash old time hyphen baseball hyphen part hyphen six, the Roman numerals 6VI. And John has more info about his efforts to bring baseball to Standing Rock there. Please check it out and help him out and help that community out. And of course, you can also help us out by pledging your support for Effectively Wild. To do that, you go to patreon.com slash effectively wild. And there you can sign up to give some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free aside from our stat head sponsorship and get yourself access to some perks. Doesn't have to be a selfless act. There's something in it for you, too.

The following five listeners have already signed up. Cochino Chai, bringing the boys into bang all right cam kane meharaba maria and johnny chen thanks to all of you perks for our patreon supporters include access to the effectively wild discord group solely for patrons just to give you a sense of the vibe in there there's a whole stat blast channel in the discord group where for instance someone noticed that Nolan Aranato had just hit for a cycle for the Cardinals on Friday in a game when the Cardinals had three runs on seven hits. That led to a couple other Discord group members looking for the least offense in cycles. Zach discovered that the fewest runs scored by a team with a cycle was two in Jim King's cycle

on May 26, 1964. Jim King's Senators lost 3-2 to the Red Sox. This is the seventh time since 1901 that a team with someone who had a cycle scored three runs. The lowest number of hits for a team that had a cycle is six in Shohei Otani's cycle on June 13, 2019. So Arnaud of Cardinal seemed to have had the second fewest hits of any team who had a player hit for a cycle. And Ryan Nelson chimed in to note that the Yankees scored three runs on October 14th, 1904, and all three were scored by Sam Mertes, who hit for the cycle that day. He's the only player who hit for the cycle and also scored

all of his team's runs. So how about that? You don't have to email us. You don't have to wait for the next episode where we stat blast about something. Just join the Discord group. They will lift the velvet rope and let you in there along with almost 700 other Patreon supporters. It's a great place to talk baseball and everything else with fellow listeners of the podcast, people of refined taste, clearly. You also get access to monthly bonus pods, one of which Meg and I just posted this week.

We did another AMA episode. It was a fun one. And if you sign up now, you get access to the back catalog. There are now eight bonus episodes. That'll get you through the back catalog. There are now eight bonus episodes. So that'll get you through the long weekend. There are also playoff live streams, discounts on t-shirts, and more. Keep your questions and comments and voice testimonials

coming to me and Meg via email at podcastfancrafts.com or via the Patreon nesting system to our supporter. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can find Effectively Wild and follow it on Twitter at EWPod and the Effectively Wild subreddit is at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins as always for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, whether you're celebrating Bonilla Day

or the 4th of July or anything else or nothing. And we will be back to talk to you early next week. So many people need me I've got so much, so much to do But when my traveling is over I'll be back with interest. I'll be back with interest. Hello and welcome to episode 1870 of Effectively Wild.

I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Wait, I goofed it, Ben. Yep, you did. Wow. It's been a little while since I've really goofed one. let me try that again here we go it's been at least two episodes yeah but i got the read right i just started late that's different you didn't notice that i didn't record yeah that's different i was sick that doesn't count okay here we go sorry here we go