Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1891: So Long, Jon

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley follow up on Tony La Russa’s suspicious pinch-runner call, banter about Joey Gallo on the Dodgers and Andrew Benintendi on the Yankees, the utility of booing, and the parochial concept of being unable to play in New York, the curious timing of the Rangers’ firing of long-tenured executive Jon Daniels, […]

Do you stay so long? When your book has been pulled? The Lord is inspired Hello and welcome to episode 1891 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Yesterday, we talked about whether Tony La Russa had, in fact, forgotten to insert a pinch runner until he was reminded by a fan who was shouting from behind home plate, as a video seemed to suggest. Well, La Russa has responded to that question, and he says no, perhaps unsurprisingly. So James Feaganin, who covers

the White Sox for The Athletic, tweeted, La Russa said he was slow pinch running angle for Jimenez last night because of a debate with Miguel Cairo and Jerry Nairn about needing Jimenez's bat later in what was still a tie game. He got a kick out of being told about a fan yelling suggestions, game he got a kick out of being told about a fan yelling suggestions but said he didn't hear it yeah i bet he didn't it's loud there you know it is loud yeah yeah like i feel like we entertained this in the spirit of whimsy because we are you know we're proponents of whimsy but like it didn't strike me as probable that this is actually what had happened and I know that there are definitely instances where we're heckling you know it pierces the veil

that stadium noise can bring right where it's like it's just loud enough there's just enough of a quiet there's just this and that but like I'm just going to attribute it to the ballpark being loud and him like being focused on his job and him not having heard it like I think that that's I think that's reasonable right i buy it yeah i mean the fact that many people i think saw

the video and drew the conclusion that he had right then that it was plausible that that was the case again we only got the view of the fan we didn't get the view of larusa we didn't have a camera or audio of the deliberation so we had one shot and then another shot and we were making a leap from one to the other. But the fact that that sort of stuck to him maybe in a way that it wouldn't for most other managers is perhaps a sign of a season that has not gone as planned. Although the White Sox have been winning of late, things have been going better for them. But maybe that says something about just what fans think of your performance in general. Granted, not many managers are super popular with fans. I mean, things have to be going really well with your team for the fan base not to feel like they could be

better tacticians than the manager of the team probably is. But Tony Rissa, because of a few notable instances this season, he has come under fire more than most. So I think this was sort of a perfect storm of a suggestive video and a manager whom many people are primed to think the worst of as a tactician at this point anyway. Yeah. I mean, it is always, gosh, I'm trying to think where I first heard this expression it might have been on you're wrong about like it's always interesting what we don't need evidence to believe right and there's there's some evidence here that he might have done a thing because uh you know we have video we have video of a guy shouting a thing at him and then that

happening but yeah it's not great it doesn't fill you with confidence that people were like yeah that could be true you know that could be you don't want to you don't want that you don't you don't want that to be the baseline opinion of you that seems bad yeah this seems like someone will make a t-shirt about like oh yeah has me you know my my not taking suggestions from the fans in the stands t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt or however that goes but yes i noted that it was possible that there was another explanation when we first discussed it just wanted to get it on the record larusa was asked about it that's just good journalism by

james just go straight to the source there. Get La Russa on the record. And now we know what he says and we can all draw our conclusions accordingly. So another thing I've been monitoring is Joey Gallo versus Andrew Benintendi. Since Gallo went from the Yankees to the Dodgers and Benintendi went from the Royals to the Yankees, mostly I'm interested in how Gallo has done just because I got more invested than I have been in Joey Gallo's well-being in some time. He was someone I was very interested in as a prospect And then he was just a pretty solid, productive player and low batting average, high OPP sort of slugger and lots of homers. And it was fun. And then things really ran off the rails with the Yankees. And we read the quotes, which were much more frank than you typically hear from ballplayers and did not sound like he was in the best state of mind. And so that made me root for Joey Gallo. Now, that made some Yankees fans probably pile on to Joey Gallo and some comments that

were made that were interpreting what he was saying as blaming the fans, which I don't think he was really doing. He was fully owning up to how bad he had been as a Yankee and was clearly quite bummed about it. He was not saying, why are these people booing me? I've been great. So the fact that he was criticized for those comments, I thought probably did not do wonders for his state of mind, which was already not the best. Anyway, since he has escaped to Los Angeles, he's been great. It's nine games and it's 26 plate appearances, so don't make too much of it. But he slugged in 696 with a 186 WRC plus and a few dingers

during that time. Now, he's struck out in almost 40% of his plate appearances, but that's what Joey Gallo will do. And you will live with that if he's stocking some dingers, which he is., that seems like a reason why maybe you might know something that the projections do not. Zips and Steamer cannot take into account the quotes that Joey Gallo was giving to people prior to that trade. So now what I'm wondering is, in a way, this almost confirms the idea that there was something about New York. Like, if you're Joey Gallo in this situation, obviously you want to stop slumping and start hitting and contribute to a great team here. But in a way, if he leaves New York and suddenly a switch flips, it's like he was doing pretty well in Texas. Then he got traded to New York and started slumping and then started slumping worse.

Then he gets shipped out elsewhere. People are going to draw the conclusion, oh, it definitely was New York and he couldn't handle New York, which I suppose is more fair than it often is just based on the things that he was saying to that effect. I love that it's always, look, I don't want to cause any problems for us. You're a native New Yorker. I lived there for five years. I love New York. This is not an anti-New York take. But I love that we're always like, he couldn't handle New York and not like, maybe New York

was bad to him. You know, like maybe New York was the problem, not Joey Gallo. I don't know. I'm just asking questions. I just know that people get so exercised when anyone who has lived in New York and then leaves New York and entertains being happier in other places.

People get exercised about that, Ben. Like they get worked up. And look, you get to love where you're from and you get to have pride of place. A lot of people have pride of place. I think there are places where that is less like an entire personality,

but there are probably other places where it's as much your entire personality. I'm going to get emails. I'm just saying that if some of you believed the John Updike quote like a little bit less, I think the Jets would be allowed to be good.

I think God's saying, no, we need to learn some lessons. We got to teach some lessons. There definitely is a pride of place involved and maybe an excessive pride because I think New Yorkers like the idea, at least some New Yorkers, that there are people who can't handle New York, right? Yeah, they can't take it. And it's like, I don't know, maybe they just don't want every random mishap and inconvenience to cost $500 every time for no reason. You're like, this seems like it should be a minor problem, but I just paid half a month's rent. No,

sorry, not half a month who is paying a thousand dollars in new york joey galley was not complaining about the cost of living as far as i saw although he did complain about the size of the apartments and people got very worked up about that and look yeah he's not part of your crew anymore right he's not on your roster he's not one of your guys and so if this facilitates your transition from him being one of your guys who you yelled out a lot to a different people's guys, group of people's guy who you also are going to yell out a lot, like, God bless you. That's fine.

Everybody gets to navigate fandom in their own way. But I'm just saying, like, people live other places and aren't miserable. It's fine. It doesn't mean that you have to feel less proud of where you're from i'm just saying you could like right acknowledge the fact that some people move here and are miserable well that just brings warm feelings to new yorkers hearts i mean we are i think a fairly kind and welcoming people for the most part i think i think we get a bad rap i think new yorkers get a bad rap i right. New Yorkers can be loud, but I think they can be courteous and helpful.

And helpful. Yeah. They look out for each other. They look out for strangers. Sometimes they might give a little ribbon to a tourist who doesn't know where they're going. Yeah. Or a corner outfielder who bats 160. Sure.

But in my time living there, I saw people be helpful and generous and exercise care and have a sense of community. And I think that that is all true. Yeah. So, you know. It's not as if we root for people to move here and be unhappy and fail, especially not if they're playing for our baseball team. Right. You'd rather they be good. So presumably you start out wanting them to do well.

However, when they do fail, it's like, yep, couldn't handle New York like me as a New Yorker. I can say, oh, I can clearly handle New York. Joey Gallo just couldn't handle it. Couldn't hack it. In my high pressure New York job where all of us just go about our business and constantly get booed when we're bad at our jobs. We leave that part of it out. But it's, hey, we're in New York. We can handle it.

If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, et cetera. So maybe Joey Gallo doesn't care anymore because he figures, well, he salted the earth here. He was bad. His rep with Yankees fans is ruined anyway, and he's not playing here anymore. So it's not his problem except when he's a visiting player. But I just think the timing, like if he had gone to LA and continued to be bad, then it would be less compelling. People would be maybe less likely to conclude, or at least would have a flimsier case that the problem was New York as opposed to something else. Whereas if he's great before he comes here and then he's good after he leaves here, then it's like this was the opposite of the sun and Kal-El or something. This is like sapping his powers. New York is his kryptonite as opposed to some other issue that was plaguing him at the time.

So maybe double-edged sword for Joey Gallo. On the one hand, he's hitting again, so that's great. And a new fan base can embrace him. On the other hand, any can't-handle-New-York reputation that he cultivated here is perhaps solidified with every hit he gets as a Dodger. And look, you know another place that people are obnoxious about? LA. Sure, yeah. Who's to say you just can't handle LA people are obnoxious about? LA. Sure. Yeah. Who's to say you just can't handle LA?

That could be hard to handle too. Right. And like, I get to say that because I'm from Seattle and we are programmed to be suspicious of Californians in a way that doesn't reflect well on us either. New Yorkers too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the number of people in Arizona who are like, people in Arizona used to drive well, and all these Californians moved here, and now the roads are unworkable. I'm like, I tend to think that that's probably not true. Like, everyone thinks that everyone from the rival state is a worse driver than they are. People from Wisconsin think that people from Illinois can't drive and vice versa. I'm just naming the places I've lived, you know, is really kind of what it comes down to. Yeah, I think that part at least

is true of pretty much everywhere. But yeah, there's some rivalry or animosity between New York and LA, at least going from east to west. I don't know how strong it is going from west to east, but going from New York to LA and then suddenly things click for him. It's like, oh, to East, but going from New York to LA and then suddenly things click for him. It's like, oh yeah, LA, of course he can handle it there. He can make it there. Or if he had gone to somewhere in the heartland, some smaller city, a smaller media environment, which I guess anywhere would have been a smaller media environment, but a notably small one, then it would have been, oh, can't handle the bright lights. The big city could only thrive in Texas, in Arlington. Anyway, I'm glad Joey Gallo is doing better, at least offensively. Happy to see it.

I just think that all of us would be well served. All of us. This is not about New Yorkers. This is not about Los Angelinos. This is not about Seattleites. This is not about, are they Phoenicians? What are people from the valley called? I should know that, I live here now but what I'm saying is we would all be well served to remember that the ultimate move the ultimate zats we should all be

Don Draper in the elevator talking to Ginsburg saying I don't think about you at all that's the power move, right? It's like, and you know what? Joey Gallo did not exhibit this power move. New Yorkers did not exhibit this power move. Los Angelinos are just excited Joey Gallo is playing well. So they're like, we don't have to worry about stuff. We're very happy. It's sunny here all the time.

He showed weakness in some minds, I think. Now, I would say that it is healthy to express your feelings and your emotions in that way. But for some, it's like, oh, if you acknowledge that you're having a hard time with the fans, then that just goads them even further because now you have shown that they're getting in your head. And look, I'm anti-booing in general when I actually was a fan. I didn't boo. I mean, there were players who did not perform well. I was not pleased by their performance, but I did not express myself via boos. Now you're entitled to.

You pay your ticket. You can boo if you want. Keep it respectful, hopefully, but you're free to boo. But it does seem counterproductive. Now, I think it probably rolls off a lot of players' backs, but Joey Gallo, it seemed to bother him at least beyond a certain point. And if your goal is that you want the player to play better, I don't know that booing has ever been a great motivator. Perhaps there are players who are actually motivated by that. They're so incensed by the fact that you're booing

me. How dare you? Well, now I'm going to raise my game to show that you're wrong and prove the doubters wrong. Maybe, but I would guess that maybe it's just as common to get kind of down in the dumps if everyone in a stadium is booing you. That doesn't sound like much fun. Now, if an opposing fan base is booing you that could be motivation for sure because then it's a sign of respect and fear but if your own fans are booing you well that's just kind of demoralizing right so i don't know what the ratio of like if you have cases where it had any effect on the player gotta be more made him worse than made him better i would think yes right so it seems counterproductive if your actual goal is to have that player play better than being supportive or

at least neutral seems like it would actually get you closer to that goal but i guess it's tough to take that long view when you get the immediate cathartic satisfaction of boo. Boo, boo, boo. Yeah. I like New York very much. It's not, I don't want people to think. It's not like other places aren't expensive. It's not like other places don't involve tiny housing, very small small expensive housing

yep i don't i just i'm just saying like you know it's the top of the heap meg top of the list yeah and it's funny because they're like oh he's exhibiting weakness and i was like my impression of new yorkers while i lived there was not that they were like an unemotional people it's not like they're like we are stoic all of us it's like no impression of New Yorkers while I lived there was not that they were like an unemotional people. It's not like they're like, we are stoic, all of us. It's like, no, they have feelings. Sometimes they yell about them. And it's a huge, wildly and wonderfully diverse place.

So there are all kinds of people who have all kinds of relationships to feelings, yelling, loudness, kind of like I'm kind of yelling now it's a big it's a big beautiful diverse expensive crowded little spot so there you go a sort of state of nature lawless type thing where when you show that it gets in your head at all then it just encourages people it's like if you see a bear and you're supposed to yell at the bear and scare off the bear instead of running away from the bear do I have my bear situation handling right? I don't know. Never really been face-to-face with a bear myself,

at least close enough that I had to decide to do something about it. But generally, you run, the quarry runs, and the predator gives chase, right? So there's almost a very primitive elemental thing when it comes to fandom and someone sort of admits that you're in their head that they have heard you boo and now oh now they're in for it because they have admitted that the booing got to them so it's just uh i don't know it's a funny it's a funny thing must be some some toxic masculinity must be at work somewhere in here i would imagine so i don't even i wouldn't even i've already i've already said too much ben you

know i've invited all kinds of responses do you know i don't know andrew benintendi by the way he is batting 211 as a yankee right much higher than Joey Gallo,.93 WRC+. And not totally unexpected, I suppose. He had a.366 BABIP as a Royal. Now he has a.279 BABIP as a Yankee. His numbers have plunged accordingly. He was not hitting for a ton of power as it was. Not that he can't contribute in other ways.

But just saying, that's a storyline I will be following, which is not to say that if Gallo the Dodger out hits Benintendi the Yankee, then we will point and jeer at Brian Cashman and say, oh, see, you should have stuck with Gallo because, again, there were extenuating circumstances that I think dictated a trade perhaps. Yeah. I mean, like maybe we look at this, maybe the way to interpret this so that we can all embrace a new paradigm is to think of trading him as an act of generosity, right? Toward Joey Gallo. Maybe he was saying this isn't a matter of weakness. Like some places are just not a great fit for everybody. And that's not, you know, that's nobody's fault. That's just the way things

go sometimes and you like many others will strike out west see what's what i mean he is probably still gonna strike out west oh yeah he's joey gallo but you know to to move on and and then it's about showing human kindness and not about booing so we can just reframe it we can do a little switcheroo. There's no kindness in baseball. What are you talking about? And it's like there's nowhere to sit down when you're at restaurants. You're all crammed into the bar. I wrote

about this for short relief a billion and a half years ago and got like a lot of Twitter responses from people from New York and I was like it's fine. I just had a different experience of it than you. Gosh. So speaking of former Rangers, we talked about one yesterday. I don't have a generous interpretation of this move. Sorry. I can't do a switcheroo.

Can't salvage it, I don't think. So last time we talked about a Ranger's managerial firing. This time we are talking about not a general managerial firing, but a head of baseball operational firing. John Daniels is not running the Rangers baseball ops department anymore for the first time in almost two decades. What was his tenure? 17 years, something like that. I believe he was the fourth longest tenured head of a baseball operations department after Billy Bean and Brian Cashman and Kenny Williams. So Daniel's reign was long lasting, brought some success, not a lot lately, and that seems to have gotten him canned. And the former Ranger whom he brought in as his lieutenant, as his GM,

Chris Young, he's now the top person in that department. Seems like a capable guy. But this is interesting timing, right? It's interesting, I think, to talk about a head of baseball operations being dismissed immediately after a manager is dismissed, because usually there's like a little bit of a grace period between those two things where it's like whoever's running the front office, you can jettison the manager and maybe that buys you some time. There's some scapegoating that goes on there. Oh, it's the manager's fault. So now we'll get a new manager and we'll try our luck again. And then if you continue to struggle, well, now the head of the Baseball Operations Department, their head is on the chopping block.

But this was just rapid fire one after the other, which is interesting because it seemed as if Daniels had been involved in the Woodward firing to the extent that I could tell. Like he seems to have commented on it. So I don't know what was dictated from on high or whether the hammer just fell on him immediately after it fell on Woodward. It's just sort of a strange sequence of events, right? It's so weird.

Yeah. Yeah. And the quotes that have come out after, they're not great, Ben. that have come out after they're not great ben like it seems to not be popular with rangers interim manager tony beasley who said and here i'm quoting joseph hoyt from the dallas morning news seems like a reasonable outlet to be covering the rangers who said that he was grateful for john daniels and called him a friend i don't take any joy in speaking about this today. Usually I don't mind answering questions, but today I do. It's like, okay. And then he informs, he being Ray Davis, informs Daniels of his decision and then told Young, so Young didn't have an opportunity to talk him out of it. And so it seems like there has just

been some sort of breakdown of communication from the ownership group to the front office. And a lot of what we said about Chris Woodward, I think, applies here, but even more so because it's not like Daniels is responsible for on-field, in-the-moment decision-making the way that Woodward is. We had said maybe they've looked at his managerial choices, particularly in one-run. And like they found them wanting and wanted to move on. And maybe that's true. But for Daniels, like I guess the fundamental question is for me, what was ownership's expectation of how good the Rangers were going to be coming into the season? Because as we said, when Woodward was filed, like I think that we looked at their offseasonseason moves and assessed them as they like these

free agents. They know those free agents will not be available to them a year from now when they might think they're better or anticipate being better. And so they're going to sign those guys now so that they have them two or three years from now when they anticipate being good again. And yeah, they're going to have to kind of like eat salary for lack of a better term for the interim, but that's fine because they really like these guys and these guys aren't available every year. So you got to get them now. And if that's the case, then this makes very little

sense to me because if everyone was on board with that plan, like we're getting better, but we still have holes. How do you end up in this position? Cause like Because I think you can look at some of the Rangers' other potential additions, aspects, and players you thought you were gonna be like maybe some but probably not super dramatically because the binary you're dealing with is probably are we a playoff team or aren't we and so i just find myself kind of mystified i just find myself kind of mystified by this less chris woodward but still chris woodward i find myself a little like did ray davis think they were going to be good? Well, I guess it depends what he was told and what he was sold, right? And I don't know what conversations went on.

I mean, if Daniels talked him into making those expenditures because he said that they were ready to compete and ready to be good, then I guess it might make sense that Davis was upset with the actual results this season. So I don't know if that is the message that was delivered to him, but I guess that is conceivable. I mean, it is fairly rare, I think, for teams to make big expenditures the way that they did, not intending to be good until a year or two or whatever down the road, right? I mean, maybe they should do that more often. I don't think it was completely off base or just impossible to fathom what they were thinking there, as you said, but it's not common, right?

I mean, usually teams, they start spending when they're on the cusp of contention or they see themselves that way, right? And then it's like, okay, we need to go get some big free agents to put us over the top. And so I think there was maybe some consternation over like, wait, did the Rangers see themselves as good right now? Like, do they think they can contend currently? And if not, does it make sense to make your moves now? Maybe it does if you look at the players who are available, but who knows, maybe someone will be available the year after that and you never know who's going to be a free agent and Carlos Correa opts out or whatever it is, you know, things can happen. sequence, I think, that they did that. Again, I'm not saying it didn't make any sense, but it raised some eyebrows. It's like, oh, look at the Rangers. They're going for it, it seems like, and yet their roster does not seem fully rounded out yet. So often it seems like to convince an owner to open up the pocketbook and to spend big, they probably have to be convinced that they're going to see some real returns right away or the team is going to have a big attendance boost or they're going to contend immediately, right?

Or otherwise, sometimes it can be tough to pry those funds out of them. So I guess to me, how perplexing it is, I think it's sort of perplexing just because I don't know that the long-term outlook for the Rangers has changed all that much since the season started, right? I don't think it has. Yeah. So if Davis's expectations were upset by their results this season, then I guess it makes more sense. And maybe they would have been unrealistic expectations. And then I guess the question is, was he given

those unrealistic expectations by Daniels and or Woodward? Or did he just come to that conclusion himself or get impatient? I don't know, not having been privy to those conversations. But, you know, like just big picture, I mean, Daniels has been there a very long time and they have not been competitive for the past several seasons. And they had a bunch of issues with replenishing their farm system, right? And developing players and turning prospects into productive major leaguers. Speaking of Gallo, he was like basically the only one of that crop who really did pan out.

So, you know, that might make someone in a little bit of danger. Right. That might make your chair a little wobbly when you've been there for that long. I mean, in some of these cases, like these guys were in those positions for so long that it's like they're an institution. Right. Like obviously the A's are terrible right now for reasons not directly related to Billy Bean. Like they just refuse to spend on anything. But no one's thinking like, oh, Billy Bean's going to lose his job. I mean, Billy Bean, like, is that franchise at this point, right? And Cashman to an extent with the Yankees too. And Williams has been there forever. And all of them have just been through so many ups and downs already that it's like, well, it's just another down cycle. It almost seems like a lifetime appointment with a few of these executives in a business and in positions where turnover is frequent and expected. So I guess you could say that in that sense, like Daniels has had a really good run, right? He had a long time in that job and hasn't won a world series and hasn't been competitive in the past

few years. And, you know, maybe the farm system, I mean, I guess it's getting better, right? But it was fallow for a while there. And maybe once Preller left and some of the international talent dried up, I mean, there are certainly like quibbles you can have with Daniels. I don't know whether he's done a great job or a passable job or a below average job or whatever. Like he's not necessarily like the model executive over the past several seasons, although people seem to like and respect him quite a bit. But I guess those are my thoughts about how confusing this is. Like I certainly did not expect to see today that John Daniels had been fired right after Woodward. I mean, it's weird. The timing is definitely weird. And Davis said he had decided to do this

before the Woodward news, but had not told Daniels and Young about it. So yeah, there does seem to be some kind of communication issue going on. There's a sequencing issue, perhaps. Well, and I think it's important to note, and Davis has also said they're not going to spend like they did last winter. And they did commit to a significant increase in payroll, but also that payroll increase brought them from having a payroll in the bottom third of the league to being in the middle of the league. So it's not as if, you know, like that's a big market. They have a new ballpark. Like I just, I get that the sequencing in terms of roster construction is a little different than what we often see, but it's not unprecedented. And for some of the teams that have done it, it has worked out really well. Like we didn't think that the Padres were going to be ready to go when they signed Manny Machado and then they were better than they expected to be.

And they were like, wow, it's really nice to have this Manny Machado line around. Cause he's a really good baseball player and we're like ready to go a little earlier than we anticipated. They're quite literally 15th right now. And then you say you're not going to spend this winter, but you clearly still have holes in your roster. And even if you didn't know that at the beginning of the season,

despite the fact that you should have, it should be clear to you now that you need reinforcements, that you need additional arms in that rotation, among other things, even if you are keeping Martin Perez. It's just, I don't know. I find it flummoxing, Ben. I find it weird. And you're right.

It's not as if Daniels is above reproach. And it could be that he was just like, look, we're not moving in the direction that we want to. But it seems as if you should have a better handle on what that direction is going to be like on January 1st instead of today. Right. Yeah. If Davis is thinking, hey, I signed all these big free agents and we're not doing well and I you're not going to get good enough with just those players.

So look, their farm system is up to sixth, I believe, on the board at FemGraphs now, it looks like. So that has really ticked up. And so that's why you might say it's odd timing, just even apart from the Woodward timing, just because if you were committed to Daniels enough that you were going to have him be the one to decide how to hand out that money over the past offseason. Although they still have to prove that they can turn prospects into productive big leaguers. But it seems like not even a full season after doing that with what seems like some pretty lousy luck that is suppressing their record here. I don't know what Ray Davis's understanding of Pythagorean record and run differential is, but hopefully that has been communicated to him, you know, and hopefully he's not just being like, oh, don't give me those excuses. No, there's something to that excuse. I mean, they've only been outscored by five runs. So if they had the record that they quote unquote should have based on that, then maybe these moves were not made. Right. So if you are making moves based on just a historically bad performance in one run games, and I'm not saying that's the only issue there.

But if you are putting so much stock into that, that you are making wholesale changes, then that might be rash. So it's odd. I'm not going to come out and say that it's a terrible firing or something and that this will plunge the Rangers into further disrepair. And that this will plunge the Rangers into further disrepair. I just I don't have enough information to know what was going on behind closed doors and what was being said or if there was some kind of communication issue or personality clash. Who knows? Right. But just from the outside, it does seem odd in certain ways. Seems odd. So I was going to bring up that they had started to play him less, that they had not quite benched him, but basically demoted him from being a starting player, which seemed fishy. I mean, fishy is maybe even making it sound too ambiguous. Like, it's pretty clear what was happening here. He had a vesting option. So his contract had a vesting player option for next season that would kick in if he

got to 550 plate appearances. And for quite a while, he was on pace to get there. And then they started playing him more sparingly. And now they have released him. Now you're entitled to release whomever you want and you still get your guaranteed money for that season. But this does seem like I don't know what the grounds for grievance are exactly. But like, yeah, seems like you might be exploring your options here because the thing is, Elvis Andrus has been good, like at least A's good. at least A is good. Right. He is the third most valuable player on the Oakland A's this year, according to Fangraphs War. Now, that's a low bar.

I mean, there aren't many good players on the A's anymore because they traded them all. But still, like, it is kind of odd to just release one of your best players. I mean, it's pretty transparent

what is happening there. So I don't know, like know how defensible that is. He's their second best position player behind Sean Murphy. And actually, I think Frankie Montas was in between Murphy and Andrews. So Frankie Montas is no longer an A either. So I believe- He might just be the second most valuable A at this point. Yeah, he has. Current A? Well, not anymore.

No, but he had and still has the second highest wins by replacement total on that team. Wow. So again, you can release whomever you want. They still have to pay him for this season, and someone else can pick him up and pay him the league minimum if they want to. But that seems very fishy that they just suddenly stopped playing him as he was on pace to get to that threshold. And he's having a pretty good year. I mean, he's not a star or anything, but he's having a bounce back year. He's 33. He's turning 34 later this month. He's been basically, you know, a league average hitter just about as a shortstop, still seems to be competent defensively. So like, again,

he's, you know, at least like an average major leaguer at this point, which makes you one of the best Oakland A's. So what's your grounds for saying, no, this guy is not playable for us? I know they have Nick Allen, who is, I suppose, the heir apparent at that position. He's 23, but he's gotten a good amount of playing time this year and he has a 75 OPS plus. So like, you know, yeah, you could make the argument, well, he's the shortstop of the future and Elvis Andrus is not. So we're going to give him reps now, I suppose. But you can't exactly make the case that he is like pushing Andrus from a performance perspective here. So I don't know.

I don't know whether an actual grievance is a possibility here, but I would be aggrieved, I think, if I were Elvis Andrus. Well, and it's interesting because it's like last year he got, am I remembering this right? He got hurt like maybe on the last day of the season, very late into the campaign. Am I remembering that correctly? I don't recall. He played 146 games for Oakland last year. So when he got hurt,

and I think he like tore up some stuff, it was not great. It was pretty late in the year and he was not good last year. He was worse last year than this year. He had a 72 WRC plus. He basically accumulated as much war as he has so far in the 2022 campaign and all of 2021. It's like, if you're going to do it, don't you just do it after the guy's hurt and then bad? And so it makes it seem as if the vesting stuff is particularly motivating at this point in the deal. So it's just a weird, it's not the best.

It doesn't look good. And, you know, he's not, like you said, it's not like he is so spectacular of a player. it's not like he is so spectacular of a player. You know, if Elvis Andrews was a Yankee and he were released at this point in the calendar, we probably wouldn't think a lot of it because it's like they got a whole bunch of other guys that they got to find room for. You know, if he were a Dodger, we'd be like, eh.

You know, but with Oakland, like you said, there's just not a lot of talent on that roster right now. And I think that generally when teams are in the position and sort of point in the cycle that the A's are, I get the argument for like seeing what you have in young guys and in giving young guys opportunities and seeing how they do at the big league level. But you don't want to do that like and do shady labor stuff at the same time.

That seems not the best. The A's are like strangers to pushing the envelope when it comes to not spending. This is totally in character. No one's under any illusions about the A's trying to compete this year or anything. They've stripped that roster down to the studs, but just having that vesting option there.

And speaking of, well, another former Ranger, I guess, and the Yankee shortstop you just invoked there, Elvis Andrus has double the fan graphs war that Isaiah Kiner-Falefa has for the Yankees this season. Yeah, how about that? How about that, right? And then you look at who they recalled in his stead, and I think they brought up Sheldon Noisy,

who hasn't been superlative at the big league level. I know his AAA numbers this year are good, but also he's not spectacular. So when you do that, it really makes it feel like this is about the money. It's like all of these moves taken in concert are like, oh, you really just didn't want him to hit his vesting numbers. That's kind of gross. Yeah, it's pretty transparent. It seems transparent.

Right. I mean, look, Andrus is going to be fine. He's making a cool 14 plus million this year. He's made $134 million in his career. I'm not saying that he necessarily needs the money personally, although I don't know, maybe he does. Maybe he is a wise investor or a great philanthropist or something, but it's the principle of the thing, at least from the Players Association's perspective or from the players' perspective, right? He's entitled to

the money that he got in his contract. And if he's playable, and he certainly is, especially on that team, then it just seems like you can't just not play him just because he might make more money. Anyway, I don't know. We'll see whether any action is taken over that. But it was attracting my attention even before he was released. And now that he's released, it's like, oh, well, okay, you're not even going to pretend. but that's just what happened there. So we'll see whether

that is actionable, but kind of got a raw deal because he was having a nice year after a few years of offensive struggles. Well, and can I say the following? It's like, you never, it's always a shame when the best pun associated with a person's name is Maine. Because you don't want to say Elvis has left the building. This sucks for him. You're not going to enjoy that pun. That's like the 97th most important thing about this particular sequence of events.

But I have a pun brand to maintain. Yes, you do. That's a thought that occurred to me. I was like, oh, I wouldn't tweet that. It's tacky. And in other contract news, I guess we tweet that. It's tacky. And in other contract news, I guess we should note that Atlanta signed yet another player to an extension. In this case, Michael Harris II signed to an eight-year extension, $72 million, which will take him through the 2030 season with club options beyond that. I have not really crunched the numbers here myself

and arrived at a conclusion about the club friendliness or player friendliness of this deal. I don't know whether you have either or whether Fangraphs will be publishing content on such a topic. It's funny you should ask that. It's so funny you should ask that question, Ben, because we indeed will be publishing something about that very question tomorrow. I said to Dan, I was like, can you zip this up for me?

And he was like, yeah, I can. Has he yet? No, he hasn't. So I don't know what his conclusion is. So this buys out all of his ARB and pre-ARB time. It must, yeah. Plus two years of free agency with the option for two more years of free agency am i thinking about that math correctly three years of free agency because it's eight years

with options yeah after today after this year rather so he starts this extension i think yeah yeah in 2023 which would have been his second pre-arb year and i don't know where he stands from a super two perspective i think he wasarb year. And I don't know where he stands from a Super 2 perspective. I think he was probably not Super 2. I don't remember. It doesn't matter. So I don't know. It'll probably come up feeling kind of late because these often do.

But I guess the good news from his perspective is that he is still only 21. It is buying out arb years. But he also might just be the rookie of the year in the NL. So he's probably taken a pretty meaningful haircut even on his arbitration years if he keeps playing the way that he has, not to mention the free agency years. So I started this going, I don't know,

and I'm ending it thinking, why'd you sign this though? But I don't know if that's fair because it's still $72 million. I don't know. They sure get these a lot. They sure get these done a lot, don't they? Yeah.

Is he the rookie of the year or is Spencer Strider the rookie of the year? I don't know. It's one of the two of them probably. I haven't thought a lot about it yet. No, neither have I. I think it's probably one of those two. A lot of deserving rookie of the year discussions and candidates in both leagues, candidly. Yeah.

I mean, Harris has been really good and has probably exceeded expectations for what he would do as a rookie. He's got a 126 WRC plus. He gives you good defense and speed. He's really been a big boost to that team. I guess you could say that there's some risk in that he's a free swinger, certainly, right? He's swung at- That was the knock on him as a prospect.

Yeah. And it has turned out to be true, although he's been just fine anyway. He hasn't struck out significantly more than the league average, but he doesn't walk. He's hit for power and he's stolen some bases and he gives you a good defense. So it all works out. And so I guess there is perhaps some downside risk if maybe the plate discipline catches up to him as he continues to make trips around the league, et cetera, possibly. But it's obviously a good sign to come up at 21 and be this good. And even if he doesn't

hit this well, he should still contribute in other areas. So that kind of cushions you. Yeah. The defense gives him some meaningful wiggle room because it is so good. Man, yeah, like really a lot of strong. Adley Rutchman, man, he sure did catch up to Julio, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. Turns out he's pretty good, too. Yeah. I don't know. It's almost like he was the number one prospect in all of baseball or something. I don't want to take away from the Michael Harris of it all, but I do want to just run through at least the position player side of the rookie leaderboard. And this is qualified hitters, so there might be a couple of guys I'm missing.

We got Julio at 3.1, Ad at 3.0 and then you know who is second or third rather steven kwan oh of course kwan penya kind of fell off a little bit huh yeah look at that anyhow i don't know how i feel about this deal i think that the appropriate default posture entering contemplation of extensions like this is one of skepticism with like a soussant of understanding that when you're a very young person and you're presented with the opportunity to like bank $72 million, that that's going to be pretty appealing and that a lot of people are willing to take a discount to ensure that. But I do wish that we were maybe better about thinking about the potential enriching value of arbitration because these guys like they make really good money in ARP, you know, and these pre ARP extensions,

I don't know that they're realizing as much as they could. And maybe like clearly he's comfortable realizing exactly this much, right? Like if he doesn't earn a dollar more than this deal, he thought that was a good enough sum to sign for it. But, you know, like it can be a good thing to go through arbitration. You can make some good money that way. And I understand that like the defense is a big part of the profile for Harris. So maybe there was concern there that like that wouldn't be rewarded quite the same way, but it's not like he's not hitting. So don't know.

Right. The nice thing from an Atlanta fan's perspective is that you can just kind of get used to this team because it's going to be around for a while. Yeah, it's going to be around for a good minute. Jeff Passan tweeted the list of the Braves' current core that is just under team control for some time, whether it's because they came up recently or they've already signed an extension. So Austin Riley through 2032, Matt Olson through 2030, Harris through 2030 with those options, Acuna 2028, Von Grissom 2028, Ozzie Albies 2027, Strider 2027, William, 27, William Contreras, 20, 27, Kyle Wright, 20, 26, Max Fried, 20, 24. So no guarantees of anything, but nice to just be able to pencil in large swaths of your roster for that long in advance and almost makes it more curious.

Not that it wasn't curious at the time, but you kept everyone except Freddie Freeman, it seems like. The one guy who seemed like he was extremely likely to be a lifetime Atlanta Brave, he's the one who left somehow. The guy you kept for so long, right? The guy who you were like, no, no, we're not trading him. We're not moving on from this guy. We want him to be part of the next good Atlanta team. And then there he went.

It's probably it helps, I would imagine, if you, I don't know, it's like dominoes falling exactly. But if a bunch of prominent players on your team sign extensions, it's got to help you sign the subsequent ones, I would think. I don't know if there's, yeah, I don't know if there are enough case studies that we could actually prove that yeah but it seems like instinctively that it strikes me as as right correct as the right instinct if you're a young player who came up recently and you see that acuna and albies and all these other guys have signed these big deals or you're more established stars and Riley and Olsen, et cetera. Like there's probably maybe a peer pressure element to it and even just sort of a subconscious. Well, they all stage, right?

And it makes you more confident that, well, this team is going to be contending and I want to be part of this. And if I like being part of this team now, I have some certainty about who my teammates will be. And we can just keep the gang together here and it'll be fun. And we can have a long period of sustained success. It's like everyone else is signing extensions. Maybe I should sign an extension too. So I don't know. I would imagine that that makes it an easier sell as opposed to, you know, if you're the Nationals trying to talk Juan Soto into staying,

let's say, with all the uncertainty on that team, that roster, obviously easier if you're currently contending and you don't have ownership uncertainty, et cetera. But yeah, that's got to help. You know, the more extensions you sign, probably the easier the next extension is to convince someone to sign. Yeah. Because, you know, it's like you think about this to take the most extreme counter example, you know, you think about like, you're Juan Soto, and you're offered all this money for a long time. But you look around and you're like, what, what is this team gonna be? You have no sense of it, because you don't have any idea, like what the next ownership group is going to be willing to commit to. so you don't know if

you're signing a deal to just like be on a loser for a long time whereas if you're michael harris the second you're like i don't know a lot of these guys are really good and they're sticking around so maybe i want to do the same thing yep all right i had a couple emails maybe i guess we should also note that joey vato is done for the year. Yeah. So that's unfortunate. Yeah. I really am surprised by the season that he had this year after the season that he had last year. No one wants to see Joey Votto struggle or get hurt. So that's rough.

And it's a torn rotator cuff, which could be a pretty serious injury, maybe more so for a pitcher than a hitter, but can't be good for either. And this is apparently a problem that has been plaguing him to some degree since 2015, although it's gotten a lot worse lately. So obviously last year he was having no trouble banging, so it could not have been bothering him as much. But, you know, he should be roughly ready for the start of next season in theory, hopefully. I don't think we know what the quality of his

banging was, Ben. I don't know that we were. It was not high this season. I was making a, I was doing a double entendre, Ben. I figured. Yeah, double entendre. Well, we wish you well, Joey, and we will follow your viral TikToks till then.

So one question we got, which is Braves related. This is from Christian, Patreon supporter, who said the Braves recently posted yet another quarter of significant financial gains, presumably aided by post-World Series hype. I meant to mention, by the way, the Rangers kind of maybe missed out on the new ballpark bump just because of the pandemic. So that was unfortunate timing for them to anyway could be contributing to the frustration. And the question continues. their books from the past five years and continuing through the next five years, which one would you choose? Would you attempt a strategic choice to make a point about league-wide financials or would you just try to absolutely embarrass a particular owner by disproving their ridiculous license? So Atlanta's like the one window.

Yeah, right. You could probably kill two birds with one stone there. Why are we killing birds with stones? Why are we doing that? And with baseballs, by the way. I guess it happens if you're Randy Johnson. But I think the Braves are the one window we get into team finances because of Liberty Media just being forced to release some numbers. And everyone else, they can sort of say what they want and it's tough to disprove them. So, yeah, I would try, I guess, if you only get one, make the most of it. Right. So the thing is that, like, you don't have to search that hard to find an owner who has probably said something about baseball being bad business. I mean, it seems like most of them have said that at some point, especially in the past few years, what with the pandemic and collective bargaining and everything.

A lot of them have given voice to those ideas. So that's a pretty big potential pool there. As for what would be most valuable to make the point that, hey, this is a viable business for almost anyone, even if it's not a big market quote-unquote team. Probably the pirates, right? Pirates or the A's would be top of the list there. I think that if we want to achieve both goals, I'm saying that instead of killing birds with stones, because just leave birds alone.

Birds are great. That probably would do it. Yeah. Yeah, my initial inclination was the Cubs because. Oh, sure. Yeah. That would be a good one too. You have the biblical losses quote.

Right. Yeah. Which is probably the most visible one. So if you could prove that the losses were not biblical or perhaps were not losses at all. Right. Then that would probably go a long way. Sure.

To puncturing the facade. And that would probably go a long way to puncturing the facade. And then also just the way that the Cubs have behaved with tearing down that roster rather than adding to it. Right. If you wanted to do maximum shaming or pressuring of owners to contend, which is in the best interest of many fans for owners to spend, then I think the Cubs would be a pretty decent one. I guess the thing is that because the Cubs are a big market and because they draw well even when they're not winning generally, maybe you wouldn't get as much bang for your buck in terms of proving that, yeah, the Cubs have made money or that they could have spent more. Maybe that's obvious even though they have said things to the opposite effect. terms of proving that, yeah, the Cubs have made money or that they could have spent more. Maybe that's obvious, even though they have said things to the opposite effect. But

I think that would be good because it's a high visibility team, big fan base, lots of frustration about the lack of investment in the team at times. So I think that might be my pick. I'd have to think about it a bit more. Yeah, but see, here's the thing, Ben. We didn't name an entire segment or phenomena after the Cubs. We named that after Bob Nighting. Yes, right. But he's such an object of scorn already as it is. I mean, I don't know.

I don't know that he would care about being shamed is the thing. Like if you were to release the numbers, I guess it might limit what he could say, but I don't know whether anyone's buying what he's selling anyway. So maybe he'd just be like, yeah, you got me. I'm making money here because I'm not spending on my roster. Like, I don't know. I assume that like the players association has access to some figures and that comes up in grievances when teams don't spend even the minimum amount that they're supposed to spend what with revenue sharing and such. So I don't know, maybe it would almost be like they're too obvious a candidate it's like everyone kind

of knows what they're up to already so i'm gonna stick with cubs but i mean cubs is a very good one i don't mean to say that that's uh that's not a good choice yeah yeah all right good question won't happen as far as we know but but good question. I mean, we just need a brave whistleblower to release the books. Not an Atlanta brave whistleblower. Any other team. Thank you. Thank you. So here's a question from Andrew.

Please leave my weird laugh in. Please leave it in. Don't take it out. Wouldn't dream of it. Okay. Andrew, Patreon supporter, said, This past week was the MLS All-Star Game, something which I wasn't very familiar with, but it was in my hometown of Minneapolis, so I familiarized myself with the event.

In the MLS All-Star Game, the MLS All-Stars compete against the Mexican League All-Stars, the Liga LX All-Stars, as opposed to the traditional conferences versus conference setup most other leagues have. This got me thinking, what if the MLB All-Star Game worked the same way? opposed to the traditional conferences versus conference setup most other leagues have. This got me thinking, what if the MLB All-Star game worked the same way? What if MLB put together an All-Star team and competed against, say, the NPB or KBO All-Stars in a friendly exhibition instead of the current All-Star game format? This would make the Midsummer Classic a lot more meaningful to fans while not being meaningful to the actual

season at hand. There's precedent for this, right? I mean, I don't think that it's taken the place of the actual All-Star Game, but there have been times when MLB has sent a roster of guys to Japan to compete against MPB teams, right? Am I completely misremembering that? Yeah, there have been exhibition games, and obviously there have been many barnstorming tours in the past. And you have some international competitions as it is. And you have the WBC coming up, I guess you could say. That suffices. But I see the appeal of having only the best involved in the competition.

Yeah, I think it would be really fun. I guess the trick of it, the thing that would perhaps make it unappealing to some is that you're going to struggle to feature a guy from every team. And even if you decide you don't care about that, right? It's unimportant to you that whatever, you know, that the Reds have an all-star or whatever. It seems like it would be hard to get everyone in to play in any kind of a meaningful way. But that's fine. You just have to sort of change your understanding of what the All-Star Game is supposed to accomplish. But I think that that could be kind of cool as a way to mix it up.

You know, maybe the way that we want to approach the All-Star Game is to have a couple of different formats that we sort of like cycle through and try stuff like, yeah, this year gonna play against you know npb all-stars and you know next year we're gonna let team captains draft a roster of guys so there we just pick a bunch of all-stars and then they get to decide how they play against each other and we don't have to hew to the al nl thing or we do but or you know like we could just try a couple different things and make it different every year right or skills competition type things I mean you could learn probably from like the KBO

all-star game has that sort of fun events zany stuff that happens so yeah if you wanted to shake things up I guess my reservations well first of all we're just assuming depends where the game is held, right? Right. Like, you already have a lot of MLP players who choose not to play, you know, just because they want that time off or they're nursing some sort of nagging thing or plausibly are or, you know, everyone's tired at that point and could use some time off. So if you say,

not only do you have to play, but you have to fly overseas and there's jet lag and all of that. So and you're assuming that the schedules line up and I think they'd be pretty close. Like I think the NPB All-Star game this year was like right at the same time as the MLB All-Star game, if I remember right. But, you know, if they have to come here, do they want to? Like, do they want to be tired? Maybe they would enjoy facing game without having to fly to the U.S. to do that. So there's that kind you know, kind of clash of different leagues. That would be entertaining. I don't know how competitive it would be. I mean, if you look at like the league quality of KBO, let's say, compared to MLB, like, I don't know that KBO All-Stars or, you know, anything can happen in one game.

But sure, that seems like it would have the potential to be pretty lopsided against MLB All-stars. I don't know whether it would be more lopsided than just taking a typical MLB team versus KBO or NPP team. I guess maybe the gap would be slightly smaller, I guess, if you say that perhaps the best players are less far removed from MLB talent than just the average player on those rosters, I suppose. But like, let's say, you know, would you want to see MLB All-Stars versus AAA All-Stars? Well, maybe you would, you know, I mean, maybe that sounds enticing to you. It doesn't sound nice to do to the AAA All-Stars. Although they might enjoy it, getting to test themselves and, you know, play for bragging rights as unlikely as it would be. But that's basically what it would be. Now, I mean, obviously, if you have, like, one of the best pitchers in Japan, then, you know, I mean, they have a few absolute aces over there who may or may not make the majors someday, but obviously would be pitching at an extremely high level in the majors if they were to come here. So that kind of balances the playing field if you're talking about a single game. So I think it would certainly be competitive,

but I don't know whether that gives people pause at all. I mean, there are just some logistical issues with the travel and everything. And maybe you say we have the WBC and we have other kinds of international competitions where you can get that if you want it. And maybe you enjoy seeing MLB All-Stars face other MLB All-Stars. And also, like, does this mean that you would have to have fewer All-Stars because you only have one MLB all-star team instead of two, right? So then do you have fewer players who make the all-star team? And is that bad? And you wouldn't even have enough players to have a representative from every team in theory if you only had one roster?

This is what I was saying. Right. So yeah, there are some issues. I like where your head's at here, but I don't know. I guess I'd rather just see, well, this is an exhibition. I was going to say an exhibition. It would be that, but mid-season always presents some complications. Challenges, right. Yeah. No one wants to stick around after the season, which is- Right. This is the other problem.

You end up doing WBC during spring training, which is maybe the best you can do. It's always going to conflict with something or find people at a part of the schedule where they're not prepared to play. So, you know, like people are always going to put their baseball day job first, right? So even if fans would be entertained by seeing something like this. Although I have to say, and this was brought to our attention by All Bad Mitch, who brought a Cespedes Family Barbecue tweet to our attention. Right. We're going to have quite the lineup for Team USA for the WBC.

Have you seen this? Yes. I mean, they don't have a full roster yet. No. And these guys had to play in Canada. A lot of them couldn't go. But they're going to play it it here so it doesn't matter question mark

anyway we got Real Muto catching we got Goldschmidt at first base Trevor Story, Arenado, Mike Trout Bryce Harper, Pete Alonso at DH like that's a pretty good couple of guys there you know definitely still need a

like a left fielder and a shortstop, but I assume that they will not field just a couple of the positions. I think they'll probably do all of them, Ben. Probably. Yeah. It's got to be on their to-do list. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's end with a

past blast. This is episode 1891. So we have a past blast from 1891 and from Richard Hershberger, saber historian and researcher and author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. And today he has for us two ideas ahead of their time. He says the first is a tale told in 1891 from a few years earlier. George Dickinson, the Sporting Life's New York correspondent, a few years earlier, George Dickinson, the Sporting Life's New York correspondent, tells the story of Bill McGonigal, the Brooklyn manager from 1888 to 1890, as reported in the issue of July 18th. Quote, a good tale is one I heard recently about manager McGonigal.

Mack has one great hobby, which overshadows every other idea he has about things pertaining to baseball. He is a veritable crank on the subject of watching battery signals and making use of them. When he was manager of the Brooklyn Club, he resorted to every possible device to keep his batters posted as to the kind of ball the opposing pitcher was about to deliver. Regular patrons of the game will remember Mack's habit of tapping the bats and waving his scorecard, but he had far more elaborate schemes in that nut of his. Circumstances, however, were against his putting any of them in execution. One of them was what the boys called his electric heel tapper.

I'm not going to say his electric nut. Mack wanted to place a small metal plate in the batsman's box, which should communicate by means of an underground wire with a button on the player's bench. The batters were to place on foot over the plate in the box, and it was Mack's idea to instruct them by shock what kind of a ball Mr. Pitcher was about to deliver. He went so far as to send for an expert in electricity to make an estimate on the plant. The electrician's visit was discouraging to Mack. He gave the Brooklyn manager a quiet jolly at first, but finally explained to him how utterly impracticable the idea was. In the first place, said he, you would have to use a pretty strong current to make

it of any value for the purpose, and that might prove dangerous. Then again, it would not take long for the opposing batsman to get onto the metal plate in the box, and that would spoil the scheme. And Richard says the Phillies famously actually implemented a similar scheme, but wisely substituting a buzzer for an electric shock and placing it under the third base coach rather than in the batter's box. That was, I think, something that happened in 1900, perhaps. So that came up often when Astro's sign-stealing gate was happening. I mean, these proposed solutions date back to the very beginning of baseball.

So not surprised that manager McGonigal's nut was stuck on this idea. So that was one of the ideas that was ahead of its time. Perhaps not safe, not practical at that point. The second idea ahead of its time was a better idea, not practical at that point. The second idea ahead of its time was a better idea, Richard writes, again from The Sporting Life. In a letter to the editor published in the June 20th issue, a fan made a suggestion, quote, kindly permit the space necessary for a suggestion that will, in the writer's estimation, add greatly to the interest in our national game. Not only those who go occasionally, but the steady goers,

lovers of the game, and even quote unquote fans find it difficult to recognize the visiting players and call them by name, even by the aid of the scorecard, as very few keep the score so that after the first or second inning, they are completely mixed up and questions of this kind are heard on all sides. Who is that at the bat? Who caught that fly? Who made that long slide? Etc. Particularly so is this difficulty found with the average visitor who constitutes the majority at most games. This trouble can be overcome by having the name of the player in large letters across his breast, either worked in his shirt or on a band that can be buttoned across his bosom.

This, the writer thinks, will add greatly to the convenience and be appreciated by everyone interested in the game. Signed, a fan. And Richard writes, while this was a good idea, baseball was not yet ready for it. Some teams would start putting numbers on the backs of uniforms in 1919, and this would not be universal until 1937. Names on jerseys would first appear in 1960, and even today, not every team is on board with the program. Personally, he says, I agree with our correspondent from 1891. As do I. We were just talking about this the other day and our inability to remember uniform numbers, right? Tell us who the players

are. Just give us their names. Don't shock them. I think just avoid shocking them. Look, we're going to end up with a baseball where the mound moves up and down and we're shocking guys and it's all kinds of... Yeah. Especially in 1891 where you couldn't Google a guy. Yeah. I mean, identify them.

Come on. You were going to say, or you can't be confident you're not going to kill him if you shock him, which like, you know, famously a sport played outside most of the time. So it seems dicey. I actually have a stat blast addendum, not from Richard. I'm freelancing here, but I've been waiting to share this little chestnut because, as you will recall, July 22nd, the Blue Jays beat the Red Sox 28 to 5. And some people pointed out that that was the first game that ended 28 to 5 since 1891. And here we are finally in 1891. So I wanted to read you this one paragraph account provided special dispatch to the St. Louis Globe Democrat. This was August

26th, 1891, and it was a game between the Chicagos and the Brooklins. So that was the Chicago Colts at the time. They beat the Brooklyn Grooms 28 to 5. So that is the future Cubs and the future Dodgers. So here is the account filed from Chicago, August 25th, 1891. Young Anson's Colts played with the Brooklyn team today. They might even be said to have toyed with it. They batted round and round and ran round and round until bats were splintered and the scorers goaded to drink and death. And the cabbages in the field that skirt the horizon all about the south side grounds lifted up their heads and sang. Just an interesting image. Hemming pitched for Brooklyn, but more for Chicago.

That is a devastating put down that's a good one yeah the cults hit him whenever the glowing inspiration came and at nightfall each man in the crazy stands took home a nice succulent bass hit to show to his family it's a spicy little account there. It's delightful. I am loving it. It is great. Sadly, unbylined, so I cannot give posthumous credit here, but I tip my cap to whoever wrote those words. Yeah. All right. That will do it for today.

All right. I'll leave you with a bonus question and answer. This is a question from Patreon supporter Tristan who asked, I was talking to a coworker today about my favorite hat. It's a tan hat with a blue brim with an embroidered image of the very same tan hat with blue brim on the front. A hat on a hat. My coworker said it reminded him of the classic Baltimore Orioles cap, which features the Oriole bird wearing a black and orange cap that says O's, we lamented what a missed opportunity it was for the Orioles to not feature a hat on which the Oriole bird is wearing a hat with the Oriole bird on it. This got me thinking, are there other baseball hats past or present that feature hats

on them? Jerseys with jerseys on them? Bats with bats on them? How deep could the recursion go? Now, I am neither knowledgeable about uniforms nor a hat wearer, so I was completely unqualified to answer this question. So I outsourced it to the baseball writer Cliff Corcoran, who is a baseball hat enthusiast. I figured if anyone would know, it would be Cliff. And he wrote back, I can't think of any other regular season examples from the major leagues

of a cap with a cap on it, but there are some spring training or BP caps that apply. A Royals cap with a crown over the KC or R insignia, for example. Mets featuring Mr. Met. Reds featuring Mr. Redlegs. This year's Cardinals, though that last was rendered so poorly you'd never know the Cardinal had a cap on it if it wasn't an old logo. Better versions of which exist. There are plenty of examples from the minor leagues where they are more likely to feature a cartoon mascot wearing a cap on their caps.

In fact, it's almost commonplace. The Clinton Lumber Kings jumped to mind because I used to have one of those. That's another crown on a cap. The Hillsborough Hops may be the best example, however, very similar to the Orioles situation, but there are countless others. I don't know of any in which the character on the cap

is wearing the same character on his cap, however. So Tristan has stumped Cliff with this question. If anyone listening can think of a recursive baseball cap, a cap featuring a character who is wearing the same character on their cap, please write in and let us know. In the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free, and get yourself access to some perks. Ross Lambert, Brian Goldgeier, Nick E.D., Michael Melia, and Morgan Gray. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild patrons only discord group. It's a great group. I'm in it. You can

be too if you sign up for Patreon. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes with me and Meg, plus discounts on t-shirts, playoff livestreams, and more. Anyone can contact me and Meg via email at podcastfancrafts.com. You can also message us through the Patreon site if you are a supporter.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. It's all about the timing It's not about the plan It's all about the timing It's not about the plan