Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1987: The 2023 Preseason Predictions Game

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs authors Michael Baumann and Ben Clemens play “SEC Baseball Player vs. Figure Involved in the Lincoln Assassination,” banter about two umpire faux pas (3:45) and MLB’s tweaks to replay reviewing (9:45), and then (17:32) each make 10 predictions about baseball in 2023 to be voted on by listeners, followed […]

1, 2, 3, 4! Don't want to hear about picture wins or about gambling odds All they want to hear about might shout hypotheticals And the texture of the hair on the arm going out of one's head Gross, gross Gimme, gimme, gimme Effectively Wild Gimme, gimme, gimme Effectively Wild Gimme, gimme, gimme Effectively Wild This is Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 1987 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Horse. Our producer Shane sent us some lozenges the other day as kind of a getting to know you. I'm your new producer, giving the hosts a little gift, a token of affection. And I didn't know if I was going to be using the lozenges. I'm not a big lozenge guy. But suddenly I'm going through these lozenges left and right.

I don't have many left. I need another shipment, Shane. I need a re-up, please. Joy sang lozenge. The giggling means that we should probably introduce our guests for today so they don't have to giggle in anonymity and obscurity that's your job oh yeah i did the intro i i'm meg rally of fangrass i have one functional brain cell left and we are joined by michael bowman of fangrass Michael. Ben, I'm up to my neck in lozenges.

I lost my voice completely a couple weeks ago. So if you're in need, I can send some of the turnpike to you. Share the wealth. Oh, that's so nice. And we are also joined by Ben Clemens, also of Fangraphs. Hello, other Ben. Hey, how's it going? Well, I have one functional brain cell and Ben can barely talk.

But otherwise, we're doing great. Bauman has excess lozenges, so we've covered everything. Ben, do you feel like playing a quick game of current SEC baseball player or figure involved in the Lincoln assassination? Not at all. Let's do it. All right. Talmadge LaCroix. Talmadge LaCroix. Talmadge LaCroix. LaCroix. Gosh, Talmadge makes me think Lincoln, but LaCroix somehow makes me think SEC.

But I guess I'll go Lincoln. No, I'm certain you're out of practice. Usually you get the misdirect, but he is the catcher for the University of South Carolina. Next name, Thatcher Hurd. Thatcher Hurd. Lincoln. No, he's a pitcher for LSU. Okay.

George Atzerodt, the last one. George Atzerodt. SEC. No, he was one of the conspirators. He was recruited by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate Andrew Johnson, the vice president, the same night that Booth killed Lincoln. And he did America an immense disservice by chickening out. Yeah, too bad he didn't succeed. Yeah. Gosh, I thought you were going to confuse me there once I was 0 for 2.

I thought you were going to go all SEC. I tried to play like 3D chess along with you when I was constructing these. And man, I thought you'd sniff out the first one at least. I was very close. Great showing by me, as usual. That's a good prelude to the game that we're going to spend most of this episode playing, probably. I do have one question for you both. There were two umpire embarrassments on Tuesday. What day is it? Today's Tuesday. Monday?

Today's Tuesday. Yeah. There were two, and I wonder which you think was most embarrassing. There's probably an obvious answer here, but they were both pitch clock related. So the one was, of course, JT RealMuto getting ejected for not actually trying to play a prank on the home plate umpire and too slow as he was handing him the ball in his glove. And then the other one was Sergio Romo's farewell game, his exhibition. He came out

of off-season retirement to pitch one more game, and the ump called two pitch clock violations on him, despite the fact that he's Sergio Romo and he was just there to retire in a Giants uniform, and he hasn't had a chance to practice with the pitch clock. And you could have maybe given him a pass on that one, I would think potentially. So which one is a bigger, come on, read the room. I mean, we don't know if Real Muto said down low and then too slow right before he dropped the ball. And I feel like that would lead to a justified ejection. I thought the Romo was much more of a come on. I mean, come on i think the real muto one was the romo one was just sort of ignorance inability to to read the room and also i've i have like one percent of sympathy for being a hard ass about this sort

of thing because i think what's going to make the pitch clock and shift rules work is just relentless uncompromising enforcement yeah so it's silly and you shouldn't have done it but like there i can sort of see the logic behind this the real muto thing is just like thin skin total cop behavior like it's just disgraceful on every level just the inability to that inability to read the room and then just like the most oversensitive inappropriate attitude for an authority figure you could think of i feel like umpires need need the ability either i don't think that there's anything in the rules that necessarily prevents them from doing this but so perhaps this is more um they need the the tool in their emotional toolbox to like call a mulligan

like admit they were wrong yeah like why would you become an umpire if you ever sure like you ever had to admit you were wrong sure but it's like you know if you well first of all once you go to the ejection i guess you're kind of up a creek anyway but don't you don't you try to ask i mean like clearly you didn't try to ask but shouldn't you try to ask like if it's a goofing i don't know if you can trust the guy if you're if you're worried that he was messing with you and then he says no no no it wasn't like do you trust him yeah the worst thing you can do is say are you messing with me and then they get you even more but part of part of what makes us so bad

is like he thought gt riomuto is messing with him. Yeah. Yeah. He thought he had a sense of humor. This is not exactly like Yogi Berra we're talking about. Right. Yeah. There was – what went on? There was a pitch clock violation, right, just before that. And then there was another throw that was shortly before that.

I didn't watch the entire video, but there was some slight history that was going on there. Before that, I didn't watch the entire video, but there was some slight history that was going on there. But the other thing is that's like a young minor league ump, right? Rookie ump. And so in his case, maybe it was more of an insecurity kind of behavior than like a power mad kind of behavior, right? Because, you know, he feels like he has to assert himself because he doesn't have the status and he might think that someone is disrespecting him. So it's sort of a sign of his own lack of status or discomfort in that situation more so than just lording it over someone. Have any of you guys ever umpired? No.

No. I umpired softball in college and they told you that you should wait as long as possible to make any call so you never had to change your mind and that major league umpires aren't hollywooding they're just making sure that they have the call right that's why they wait so long to make sure the ball didn't drop out of somebody's hands before they call the out and this guy did not follow that rule which i learned umpiring intramural college softball. So that's kind of bad. Yeah, but if you wait too long, then you run the risk of looking indecisive, and then they'll get on you for that.

Yeah, I think that you'd rather risk being indecisive in the service of being actually considered than hasty. You know, it's like you don't want to – I understand that there's only so many places that you can exercise power in your life but don't don't be a tsa agent you know like an overzealous one some of them are fine but like you know some of them you're like this is the only power you have and boy am i on the receiving end of it right now huh so don't don't do that, I think. Maybe don't do that. Especially like JT Riobuto. Humorless would be more my word for him than like prankster.

Unless it's Canada. He doesn't seem to like, you know, really go at anybody. Businesslike. Yeah, businesslike. Yeah. So Kimbrel took too long. There was a violation. And then he asked for a fresh baseball. Rosenberg, the umpire, Randy Rosenberg, threw him one. Kimbrell then threw out that baseball and asked for another, and then Rosenberg tried handing that ball to Real Muto, and Real Muto thought that he was going to throw the ball back to Kimbrell himself again, and so he dropped his glove.

That's another umpire power thing. He gets to throw the ball to the pitcher. Yes. So the person he's really mad at is Craig Kimbrell. Haven't we all been there? That feels about right. Like Craig Kimbrell sort of inadvertently causing a commotion from 60 feet away while not actually really doing anything himself. That fits. My only other question for you before we get to our game, there was an announcement, a clarification about the way replay rules are going to work this year,

or replay reviews at least. And basically it's just you got to make a decision quicker when it comes to whether you're going to call for the review or not. And it's what, like 10 seconds? You have to, the previous rule gave you 10 seconds before you decided whether to give the signal, but now managers have to hold their hands up immediately after the play to signal that they're thinking about challenging. And then once they put their hand up to reserve the right to challenge, then there's a 15-second replay clock.

And the manager has to decide to challenge before that clock counts down. And that's going to be strictly enforced. Whereas before it was 20 seconds and it wasn't really enforced, it would just be kind of like, well, are we doing this thing or not? So that's going to be another form of clock, replay clock here. So basically, you've got to make a decision soon. And some teams are upset about it because they think they might not be able to see the angle that they want before they have to make the decision. And a lot of people have shouted back, that's okay, because if you can't tell that quickly,

then this shouldn't be reviewable. This is not what we need replay for. I feel like this might be a Michael Bauman take. I don't remember, but are you kind of in the camp of it has to be an obvious call and that if you actually have to spend some time studying the replay to decide whether it's challenge worthy that we've already taken replay too far? I wouldn't put it exactly like that, but I think that it should be something, it should be obviously wrong in the moment. So in the very, very early days of the NFL having the challenge, I remember playing Madden 04 when I was in high school, and they had just instituted the replay challenge. But if you

opened the instant replay function within the game, it wouldn't let you challenge the play. And I think that something similar in real life for baseball would be good. Like this should be something that you can decide in a matter of seconds instead of like calling and ordering a pizza from the video room. Like, you know, if the guys look safe in the moment, we can all see that. And that's worth challenging and it's worth getting right. But like, let's just not screw around trying to hope for the two frames where the guy's foot kicks up off the bag after he was safe by three feet. Yeah, I hate that kind of call and overturn as much as anyone does. And I'm in favor of the airspace solution to that that we've discussed at times. But also, I think people,

some people will say, like, you shouldn't even be able to slow it down. Like, you should have to watch the replay at game speed, real-time speed. And if it doesn't stand out, if it's not obvious then, then it shouldn't be overturnable or challengeable. And I'm much more in the pro replay camp, I think, maybe because I don't get exposed to football as much. I don't know. But I like getting the calls right, mostly. And yeah, some of them are ticky-tack, and some of them take too long. But that's improved, I think, at least the time it takes. And this year, in some broadcasts, we get to watch in the Zoom room, we get to see them explain their rationale.

How exciting will that be? From what I understand, that's gone over fairly well in other sports, right? And we get to hear Dale Scott, former Effectively Wild guest, is going to be one of the umps on call explaining these things. Zoom room? Yeah. Zoom room? Right.

So I'm very much in favor of getting the calls right. I like replay. I like getting them right. And I don't mind taking a little extra time. I don't mind speeding this up either. Maybe it's enough time. But also, I wouldn't want to compromise the accuracy in the interest of a few seconds here or there, because then it's almost like you're kind of defeating the purpose of replay.

But maybe I just have a different idea of what the purpose is. Yeah. I think once you break it in, like once you break open that seal and go to the booth, like they should be able to slow it down, use every angle they need. I just like, let's just keep this moving, you know, like waiting 30 seconds to listen to the, to wait for the bench coach to make a phone call is, is a bit much. Like if it's an obvious error, then challenge it immediately. Yeah, but if it's an obvious error, shouldn't it not take three minutes to review? Like I kind of understand saying at three minutes, cut it off. And if you haven't decided the call in the field stands, because come on, at that point,

it's clearly very close. I think the one place where there would at least need to be some amount of coordination, and this is part of why we had to have instant replay and replay review in the first place is that there's whatever's going on on the field and there's whatever angles the team has. And then there's what they show on the broadcast. And on the broadcast, they slow things down.

They try to like break the pixels apart, zooming in on stuff sometimes. And so part of why we needed the ability to review more things and potentially overturn them was that folks at home could see a call was wrong and then like just had to live with it for a little while. And I think we still have to be mindful of the balance that we're striking there because yes, I think that you want stuff that is sort of like obviously wrong or incredibly high stakes like those are sort of the two categories of replay review to my mind because there are going to be moments where you

should just challenge because it might decide the game and you know maybe you're right maybe you're wrong who cares like there's you can't take them with you. So you want to challenge stuff, but I do think that there needs to be some thought given to like, okay, we're going to show that at home and then have that stand on the field and have those decisions not in sort of accord with one another. It does affect the viewing and fan experience, I think in an appreciable way. So it doesn't mean that we have to give them forever to decide this stuff, and certainly not long enough to order a pizza, because pizzas are kind of complex now for some folks. But you want to keep that as a factor in mind when you're deciding what you can review, how quickly you have to do it, and how obviously right or wrong you have to think the call is before you can sort of rise to the level of it being reviewable. Yeah, that makes sense. And I am glad that they clarified that you can't just toss out a Hail Mary challenge on positioning and just say, like, hopefully someone was offside

somewhere. Right. And we'll just throw a flag on that thing. Am I using the right terminology here? Sure. It has to be that you challenge with a specific fielder being illegally positioned. Yeah. And if you're wrong about that, then it's fine if someone else was. Isn't it the fielder in the play even? Not just any particular one? Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. You can't even choose one.

It has to be that one. Yeah. Can't even choose one. It has to be that one. Yeah. You are making me realize, Ben, that the replay experience of baseball is, I think, appreciably better than it is in football. It does feel better. You had that initial, how do you define a catch thing that football still has, right?

But that didn't last very long. Because there was balls coming out of gloves on the transfer. And then they were like, OK, this is silly. And then that stopped pretty quickly. Well, they also don't have the, at least not yet, the longtime officiating guys in the booth who just say, well, as you know, you need to have conclusive evidence. How did Joe West not get that job? He's too busy updating his Wikipedia page. But I would like to think that they won't just do the same thing every time in the way that the football guys do. Maybe that's too much to hope for.

All right. Well, much as MLB is endeavoring to keep the replay reviews moving, we should keep the podcast moving and we can get to our activity today, which I can't believe we're doing because this is at least on paper, anathema to me. We're doing a predictions game. Yeah. Yeah.

This is not my idea, obviously. Well, it was kind of your idea. Yeah. Well, I'm proud of myself. I think it was big of me to relay this idea to the rest of the group, frankly, because I could have just sat on this one because this was a listener suggestion. This was a suggestion from Chris Hannell, who is a listener, Patreon supporter, founder of the Effectively Wild Patreon Discord group. And he suggested this to me some time ago, and my initial reaction was, no way in hell.

And then the idea kind of grew on me, and I figured, okay, let's go for it. And then the idea kind of grew on me and I figured, okay, let's go for it. So we're doing a pre-season, pre-opening day predictions game where I guess we're not specifying that they need to be bold predictions. Or how did you term it, Bauman, before we started? Wild ass was the word I used. Yeah. And it appears I miscalculated. I misread the room.

Yeah, you were under the impression that we demand that they be wild ass. I think it's fun if they are. But this is going to be a scored game with some listener and audience participation here. So we need your help. So the way this is going to work, if I can explain it succinctly, is we're each going to make 10 predictions in theory. I hope that when I add up mine, I will have 10, but we're going to make 10 predictions about baseball in 2023. And then we are going to put them in a Google form that you can see right now as you're listening to this listener. It should be linked from the podcast description in your app or on the Fangraphs blog post.

And then you will vote for or against each of our predictions, just yes, no, whether you think that will happen or not. And then we will get points or lose points accordingly. So if we try a risky prediction and we get it right, then we will get a lot of points. But if we get it wrong, then we will not lose a lot of points. Basically, you are going to determine, the audience is going to determine how unlikely this prediction is to come true. And then we will get more points if it's unlikely and we get it, you get the point, hopefully. We can lose points. We can also gain points. I don't know if I've explained this

clearly at all. Someone else, please feel free to do it better. But it's a little like our free agent contracts over-und unders draft, where if we guess in the right direction, we can gain fake dollars. And if we guess in the other direction, then we can lose fake dollars. I am a little concerned because look, here's the thing I'll admit, Ben, I didn't read the instructions for this exercise before we set about making our predictions. And then I was so proud of myself because I did prepare. And sometimes with our drafts, if I get busy, I'm like, I'm going to do it live. And then it's terrible. And this one, I like have a, I have a list. I have some backups. If we were being

like stingy about some of our predictions being too similar to one another, but I'm realizing that some of my predictions are like multi-part, like they have elements to them and so i don't know we'll do the first one i don't have to go first but we'll do my first one and then if you want me to simplify it in the name of it being easier to score i guess then i can do that but you know yeah i guess they have to be unless you want to split them into two predictions. They have to be something that is answerable yes, no, I guess. Yeah, no, they're answerable yes, no. Okay. And ideally objective in some way. We can debate, I guess, whether we think something is too subjective or whether it would be hard to decide whether it came true or not, but hopefully we'll know it. But the way I explained this to

you on Slack, and I don't know that it was clear then either, but I don't know that you need to understand the instructions even other than bring predictions, which you did. But to try to explain this again, if let's say 80% of our listeners say that something we predict will happen, and it does happen, we only get 20 points because it was fairly likely to happen. If 20% say it will happen and it does, then you get 80 points because it was unlikely to happen and it came true. So you get more points. If 80% say it will happen and it doesn't happen, so it's a likely prediction, but it doesn't come true, you play it safe and you still fail, likely prediction, but it doesn't come true, you play it safe and you still fail, then you lose 80 points. And if 20% say it will happen and it doesn't, then you lose 20 points. So basically, you wagered less of your points, I guess would be one way to put it. Hopefully, this is intuitive,

or it will be when you look at the form. Basically, we're calibrating how risky our predictions are here because we could go either way, right? If you wanted to play it completely chalky, which is usually my approach to these things, then you could just take incredibly safe picks and you might actually win because if everyone else takes extreme long shots and even if they're just

losing a couple points on each one, if none of them comes true, they might end up in negative territory. And meanwhile, I'm over here saying that someone plays one game or hits one homer or something. And I, I get my, uh, I guess I might get zero points though, if, uh, if a hundred percent of people say that it will be likely. But I will end up in the negative. Anyway, hopefully people understand. We're just predicting things. Then we will decide which of us was the best predictor. Okay.

Should we predict? Shall we throw ourselves on the mercies of fate in the 2023 baseball season? Let's do it. I guess our guests should go first. I don't know which of them. Are we going to like alternate between us? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. We can go around the virtual table here. So I don't know. Ben trounced us in the minor free agent draft. So Batman gets to go. There you go. All right. My first prediction is that Lance Lynn will finish with more war this season than Jacob deGrom.

Ooh. Okay. Well, that's an on-brand Bauman prediction. I was going to say, how many listeners would have predicted that the first two words out of my mouth would be Lance Lynn? Yeah. I had South Carolina. I mean, that came up in SEC player or

involved in the Lincoln assassination. But also, Ben, you're going to love my next prediction. Oh, no. Yeah. I figured you'd have some very convoluted over-unders of some sort here. I miss doing those with you. But I was thinking, does it make sense for us to explain our rationale here?

Because I think that would be good podcasting. Like, I'd like to hear why you think that. But also, it kind of, like, I'll be cagey about it because I don't want to tank my score. I know, right? If we make it sound like, oh, yeah, of course, this is a slam dunk. It's going to happen. Then if it does, then we get fewer points. So there's like a moral hazard here with wanting to be be entertaining podcasters can you trust the podcasters

i shouldn't have admitted to actually preparing i should have i should have made my nervous sounds and then people would have been like oh meg doesn't have a lot of conviction in this so we're gonna say it's unlikely man i played myself and then then I guess there's, okay, it's time for some game theory, right? Because I guess if each of us sort of trash talks the other's predictions by saying that they played it safe and that was not risky, then perhaps they could sway the listeners. Or are you just trying to convince the listeners that you're not playing it completely safe? yeah wow a lot of layers to this i hadn't considered but but the rationale for this is obvious right yeah lancelin is well you love lancelin and it's but also he tends to be a steady reliable pitcher jacob de grom's career has been spectacular but also kind of volatile. So like, this is basically a bet on will Jacob deGrom stay healthy or not? Right. Yeah. When was the last time that Jacob deGrom

had more starts or innings or whatever in a season than Lance Lynn? Jacob deGrom had more war than Lance Lynn in 2022. Yeah. Yeah. But Lance Lynn was also hurt for the first time in his career. Yeah. Or first time since he had Tommy John. DeGrom threw 64 innings, though. I love that Bauman

just is like, I know exactly when he got Tommy John. Don't test me. Yeah. Okay. All right. If no one else

has any disparaging comments about that prediction, then we can move on to Ben's first one. All right, I'm gonna bring my least controversial of the list, I think. No team in baseball will win more games than the Los Angeles Dodgers. Oh, okay. I think that's not very likely. Yeah. But I think it is more likely than probably everything else on my list. Yeah. Is anyone planning to make a prediction that they think is more likely than not to come

true? I've got one that I think it's more likely than not, but I don't think our listeners are going to think it's more likely than not. Are you listening, listeners? Vote yes. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I probably don't, unless I get desperate and run out at the end oh yeah and a quick which might have a rationale here since we're doing this i think the dodgers are good um they're a good team they're full of good players way out on a limb here and well michael and i were talking about this i I think, before we started this call. Our staff predictions are coming out soon.

And let's just say the Dodgers were not well represented. So that surprised me. Yeah. But that's always how it goes with staff predictions, right? We used to do those at BP. They were always like that. And it makes you look like you're all herding or group thinking or something. Or we're all cheating off of Danon-Borski's homework. Yeah. But also, if there is one answer that is more likely, then in theory, like,

everyone should choose that. Like, it shouldn't be, you know, if one thing is 60% more likely, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to have a 60-40 split in people picking one or the other, right? Like if everyone acknowledges that there's a favorite, even if it's not a heavy favorite, then everyone might pick the favorite. And then it'll look like you're thinking they're an overwhelming favorite, but really it's just kind of a consensus slight favorite, if that makes sense. I think Bauman and I both disagree that when someone asks you to make predictions, you should just pick the favorite for everything. I would say.

Yes. I like picking things that are more likely than are perceived. Now, is that because you are just a chaos agent or you want to be entertaining or because you will get more credit for your prescience if you get something right that was not obvious? credit for your prescience if you get something right that was not obvious. I think it's closer to the second, but I feel like a lot of games and things of that nature really reward you for thinking that something is 20% likely when it's only 10% likely. And I just have carried that line of thinking over. I agree with that. But also after however many years you and I podcasted together, like, I'm like the second most boring man on the planet, but you make me look like a chaos agent by comparison. Yeah.

I don't risk anything when I make predictions because I hate it so. But I'm going to – I'm trying to get into the spirit of it today. I really am. Yeah. I'm going to try to extend myself here. We'll see how it goes. I'll be the judge of that. Well, then, why don't you go, Ben, and we can get an immediate sense of what you mean by that.

Oh, gosh. Okay. Well, I don't know if this is going to be my longest shot, but hopefully it's a fun one. And this was sparked by something we were bantering about yesterday, Meg. I'm taking Daniel Vogelbach steals a base this season. Yeah. So it's not totally unlikely. He has never so much as attempted a steal in the majors, but as noted by the ad and what we know about Daniel Vogelbach, the bases are bigger. Vogelbach is slimmer, smaller, right?

So it could happen. And also, I feel like the pressure is almost on him to do it now. Now that he did that ad, and again, I'm making it sound less, more likely that this happens by the second here, so I should probably stop talking, but it would seem unlikely because he's never done it or even attempted to do it. But now that he's done it in an official MLB branded spot, I feel like it's almost incumbent on him to try. Do you guys remember when he got thrown out at the plate? Yeah. Yeah. I wrote an entire article about that.

I got so much joy from it. And he's not even that slow. That's kind of funny. He's not that slow. That's kind of funny. He's not that slow. He's pretty fast. In the minors, he stole 15 bases in 27 attempts, which is not good, but he stole 15 bases. It's a lot more than zero. Yeah.

I was going to say Albert Pujols, who's the slowest person I've ever seen in my life. He had a 16 for 18 year. Right. Yeah. I mean, he was an uncaught streak for quite a while. Yeah, he was very good at picking on the weaknesses of others. Yeah, I don't know if Vogelbeck has the instincts, but again, we also have more lenient base running restrictions this year. So maybe that's the whole point of the PSA.

Well, maybe this is a good time for me to do my first one because it's stolen base related. I think we will see at least five, 40 or more stolen base seasons this year, but not more than seven. Ooh, okay. At least five, not more than seven. So we didn't have any last year, right? Because John Birdie just fell short. No, Birdie had 41. Oh, he got it? He got it. Okay. He got it on the last day. But to that point, Ben, he was the only one to exceed 40. And then only Jorge Mateo, Cedric Mullins II, Tommy Edmond, and Randy Rosarena had 30 or more in addition to John Birdie's 41. So, you know, not a huge club of guys who were even coming close last year, but there were some, but not a lot. So, you know, that's my prediction.

I don't think we're going to get like anybody stealing 70 or 80, but I think it's going to be definitely more than five, probably more than seven get to 40. Okay. Yeah, I thought about maybe I'm still thinking about going for someone gets to 70 or something like that. It's not out of the question. Okay. Bauman, you want to go again? Okay. My next prediction is that the first two picks in this year's draft will both be LSU Tigers.

Yeah. So the overwhelming favorite for number one is Dylan Cruz, who's at LSU and rising up the draft boards fast is pitcher Paul Skeens, who transferred there this year and is throwing a million miles an hour. There has never been teammates going one and two in Major League Baseball. We've had a one and three. And in the first two drafts, Arizona State had the number one pick in 65 and the number two pick in 66, which was Reggie Jackson. And this has happened in the NFL three times. It's never happened in the NBA. It's happened a couple of times in the NHL, most recently in 21, where university of michigan had picks

one two five and number four was an incoming freshman so will this happen will most likely skeens and crews be the first two picks in the draft that's a fun one yeah when you said it i had no idea whether it was likely or not but now you've explained it we're on the same page all right clemens you want to go yeah i just came up with one uh when you were talking meg okay randy or rosarena will steal 40 or more bases and accrue negative base running runs as calculated by fan graphs i love that one that's great that's very good just for um fan graphs i love that one that's great that's very good just for um for comparison's sake last year he stole 32 bases and was worth 4.3 base running runs below average uh none of that because of stealing he's successful on the base paths he was worth a run above average stealing he makes a

lot of bad decisions uh on the bases he really really pushes really pushes the envelope. So I think that he goes a lot. He likes stealing and he gets on base a lot. So I think that he will steal 40 bases. And I think that he'll also, you know, do his best impression of vroom vroom guy and try to score from second on infield singles and stuff and often enough to end up with negative base running runs. Okay. Good deal. I guess, I mean, now if you're, if you're a bad base runner, I guess the downside is, Okay. Good deal. going to be different. Like I think the success rate is like 80% or something in, in spring training and that's with a much higher attempt rate. So both of those things have gone up. So if you cannot maintain a good success rate now, you're really going to hurt yourself.

Yeah. Yeah. But the fact that it's an 80% success rate, I mean, it reminds me of, I think this was a Sam Miller take. I remember it stressing me out a lot, whether it was him or not. But the idea, if you've never missed a flight in your life, you've been leaving for the airport too early. Yeah. I think of that every time I see what the league-wide stolen base rate is. These people are absolute cowards. Do you think about it every time you go to the airport? I have lots of time to think about it at the airport

because I always get there two hours early. That's right. Right. Well, it all depends on your mental state, I think. There's certainly a way. Anxious. Yeah, right. So if you know that about yourself

and you know you can't change that about yourself, then it may still be the optimal decision to show up early because at least you won't be worried about it. And maybe that trumps whatever time you're wasting because what would you be doing anyway? Worrying. Yeah. All right. My turn again? Yeah.

Okay. All right. I guess I'll go with this one because I was worried that other Ben was going to take it because it started out the same way. I'm going to take no team wins more than 97 games, which would be a first since 2013, I believe. So we've been in this super team era and we've had a lot of terrible teams, still have some terrible teams, but we've also had some great teams every year. And I don't know that we have any great teams now. I mean, it's obviously possible that no one has to get all that lucky to win more than 97 games. If your true talent is 93 or 94 or

something, it's likely that someone will do that, which is why this is at least a semi-bold prediction, hopefully. Yeah. But this does seem like the likeliest year for this to happen or not happen in some time. And I think the top end of the projections is lower than it's been in some time, right? I mean, not just the Dodgers being lower than they've been. But if whatever Atlanta is on top with 93 or 94 wins, I mean, it's probably been a while since the top projected win total team was that low. Yeah. I think this is the single projection that will lose the person who made it the most points.

Because you think it's too obvious? No, I think it's not going to happen. Not going to happen. But a lot of people are going to say that it will. Going to think it's too obvious? No, I think it's not going to happen. Not going to happen. But a lot of people are going to say that it will. Going to think it's going to happen. Well, don't do that, people. Listen to Michael. It's not likely.

I'm really risking it here. I guess I should go. Do I want to do these in order? Do I want to spice it up? Okay, I'm going to spice it up. This isn't very spicy, but I'm going out of order, which is sort of spicy. I think that the NL Cy Young race will come down to Zach Gallin and Logan Webb as the top two finishers in some order, I guess, is the way that we can assess whether I was right. I was going to ask you to define come down to.

Yeah. Okay. So they finish 1-2 or 2-1. Yeah. Do I have more to say about that? Other than they're both really good pitchers. Zach Allen took a step forward. Looks like a legitimate ace.

Logan Webb was not quite as good last year as he has been, but I think is still superlative and will get better because he's really good and the Giants are good at making people good. And it would be fun. It would be fun to have like a new, you know, like new guys up there doing well. It's good to have award race variation, I think, year to year. Otherwise, it gets kind of boring. So I think that in a stacked NLl west those two guys will be a cut above and that'll be uh that'll be what the race comes down to one two or two one in some order

like i legitimately had logan webb win cy young as one of mine did you really get rid of that one now oh that yeah well and you saying that diminishes the value of this one i thought it was a long shot i thought it was a long shot. I thought it was a long shot. I considered both of those guys for my NL Cy Young pick, but too many of our colleagues picked it. I know. It's weird. I still haven't done my staff predictions. Hang on.

You said those were due noon yesterday. I did say that. It's now 3.47 on- Special editor privileges when you're the one who puts them together. Yeah, this is me asserting editor privilege. What kind of leadership is this? Tired leadership, Bauman. It's tired leadership. It's one functional brain cell leadership. But I should say, I will forget what of these I did during this podcast so someone is going to look at my

actual predictions and I'm sure notice that these are not in alignment with them and I apologize in advance that's all I got for you you know sorry I do appreciate your confidence in a South Jersey legend Zach Allen yep he's so talented he's just so talented. And now Zach Allen, who played for the Arizona Cardinals, is somewhere else in the NFL, so I will no longer be confused who local sports talk radio is talking about. So that's exciting. Bauman, you're up again. Okay.

More pitchers will appear for the Pittsburgh Pirates this year than will qualify for the ERAsburgh pirates this year then we'll qualify for the era title wow last season the pirates were not the team that used the most pitchers uh that was the chicago cubs used 43 somehow wow um and like it wasn't that long ago it was like in the 90s where teams were getting by using like 12 15 pitch pitchers in the entire season. Anyway, the Pirates were sixth. They had 36 pitchers. Last year 45 pitchers qualified for the Cy Young, or for the ERA title the year before that. It was 39. That number has been

going through the floor over the past 15, 20 years, and I think it'll continue. Yeah, solid. And I think it will continue. Yeah. Solid. Makes sense to me. Yeah. Kind of, kind of chalky. That's, that's the one that, that I think is most likely to come true.

Okay. All right. Okay. I guess I'm up next. Gunnar Henderson, Corbin Carroll, Jordan Walker, Anthony Volpe, all four of them will fail to win Rookie of the Year. Oh! Shocking.

I think that's pretty unlikely. Really? Yeah. It flies in the face of two of my upcoming predictions. Not one, but two. I think all of them missing is unlikely. I think none of them are odds-on favorites. But the two presumptive favorites, the two betting favorites are in that,

what's the right word for it? Foursome, I guess? Yeah. And it's kind of unlikely for both of them to miss and then also some of the next guys. Look, it can definitely happen. That's why I'm picking it. Yeah.

But I think those are probably your four frontrunners for rookie of the year. I think we societally are sleeping on Masataki Yoshida. I hope so. And, oh, I was going to say, and Kodai Senga. I hope so, too. I just went back and looked at our staff predictions and was kind of astonished by what I saw there. So I appear to have hung my ass out on the line there, too.

Go check Fangraphs.com on Thursday. Yeah. Wow. You all are getting to look at projections and predictions that I don't have access to here. It's a disadvantage in my prediction generation. It's probably an advantage. Yeah. Maybe.

Waiting groupthink as we assess our groupthink. Okay. Ben Clemens, you're up now? Is it Ben Clemens' turn? That was you? It's Ben Lindbergh's turn? One of the Bens, go. Okay.

Alright. Okay, since you did a Vulpi-related one, I'll do a One of the Bens, go. This Ben? Okay. All right. Okay. Since you did a Volpe-related one, I'll do a Volpe-related one. I will take Volpe has a better rookie year than Derek Jeter. Wow. Oh, my God. We're going to get emails, Ben. I guess we have to specify what better year means.

I guess that can just be war or whatever. It's kind of boring, but I guess that's the best thing it could be. Then I guess, are we saying Fangraphs War? I don't know. I don't care. We could do some composite. We could just stick with Fangraphs, whatever's simpler. I think his Fangraphs War is lower, Jeter's was, so I guess I should specify because it might actually make some sort of difference here.

But yeah, I'll say Volpe's baseball reference and fan graphs were the average of them is higher than Jeter's was. Okay. Okay. I think we're going gonna get emails about that yeah but i'm still uh predicting that a yankee shortstop will be good so how bad can how mad can yankees fans be about that really seriously you're asking that question in like an earnest way well i used to be one i should know but yeah i cheater won the rookieookie of the Year awards. But if I'm going to argue against myself here, which I shouldn't do, it wasn't that great a year. So I think it's beatable. I'm not saying Volpe is going to be a better player than Derek Jeter. I think that's unlikely. But I think he could potentially have a better rookie year. Can I ask a question that

might derail us ever so slightly sure how do we feel collectively about the hidden camera you're getting called up videos i hate it hate it okay thank you feel better now yeah i you you must think that if you're one of those guys who's on the bubble, you're probably expecting it at this point because it's just become so de rigueur. Like, everyone's doing that now. Although I guess that could get your hopes up even more than if it really is. You're not coming to New York conversation, then that would be even more devastating. But yeah, there have been times when I have enjoyed them, when there was just like pure joy.

Or like Julio's was fun. I think I enjoyed Julio's, as I recall. Julio's just fun all the time. So maybe he's a special case. But yeah, I don't love it because it's kind of like mining their emotions in this squirmy situation for content, basically. It's like, let's go viral just based on your like being upset that you're going to get sent down and then getting good news instead.

Yeah. I don't know. Sometimes I've thought they were kind of heartwarming and then other times it's kind of like, eh. I've thought they were kind of heartwarming. And then other times it's kind of like, eh. There was one last year the Washington Commanders did one where they hidden camera'd Ron Rivera, the head coach, telling all their pro bowlers that they made the pro bowl. And there was one player that like their special teams guy made it and everybody was like happy to the point of tears about it. And that was kind of nice.

But it goes in the same thing.on rivera is so bad at selling the misdirect like the kind of person who becomes a football coach or a baseball coach is generally not a good actor yeah and so just to see it repeated over and over and also like the first video like this that i saw in anything like this genre was the video where the Phillies convinced Kyle Kendrick that he had been traded to Japan and nothing will ever be funnier. Like no version of this video will ever be better than that. And I don't know why it's, you know, it's like going to see a Beatles cover band. I've done that. I had fun.

You can't go see the real Beatles right now. Right now. That's true. Why? What happened to them, Ben? I've seen some of them. Anyway. All right.

Who's next? Oh, it's me. You are, yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, I will do a Rookie of the Year related one here. I think that our number one and number two overall prospects on the top 100, that's Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll Carroll will win Rookie of the Year. And you might say, Meg, that seems so likely as to be silly

given the confines of this game, and I would submit two things to you. One, I'm not entirely convinced I really understand this game. I mean, I do, but it's like grasping at sand. I have to rethink about it every time. It's been a week you guys it's been kind of a week um and then also you know like there are there are uh plenty of players who will surprise us and because um there have been very impressive players uh prospects who made their opening rosters opening day rosters like Volpe and Walker, you know, could sneak sneak right in there and, and scoop them. So it's not,

it's not a totally chalk pick, but it seems like we have not had a one, two rookie of the year win in maybe ever. I did not go back to look. Um, but I assume that we have not had that. Um, and so that's my, that's my one here. Yeah. That's what I'm doing.

All right. Who is next? Uh, it's back to me. Okay. If you were asking when this is going to go off the rails, the answer is right now. Yay. Uh, you know how theillies made headlines by using that terrible dancing on my own cover yeah it's their victory song my prediction is that in at

least one instance during the regular season or the postseason the phillies will use gay bar by electric six as a clubhouse victory anthem wow it's extremely specific the original or are there covers of that no i don't think anyone has that that's not really an easy song to cover no this is like this is betting on one of two things uh that either kyle schwarber knows electric six uh or that like i'm gonna be in the phillies clubhouse a decent amount this season and then i can plant the seed wait so you're gonna accept your own results here yeah i'm just saying i'm not above doing that you can't grab the ox cord to be clear i'm not i'm not gonna do it i'm just gonna start a whispering campaign huh i think brand Brandon Marsh is the guy I need to start with.

I don't know how I feel about undue influence. You're putting your thumb on the scale here. Yeah, what happens if one of you guys has a rookie of the year vote, though? Oh, yeah. I never get any votes. I'm not a BBWA member. I think the odds of me getting a vote two years in a row seem kind of low. I'm just, like, there's award-related stuff, and the odds of, like, of that happening is probably greater than the odds of me convincing, like, Bryce Harper to listen to Electric Six.

As edifying as that would be for him. Okay. All right. But you have to come clean if you— If it happens. If it happens, I if it happens if you played some central role okay okay all right i'm up uh let's go with one that i'm some semi-afraid bowman will take uh kodai sanga and zeo with the most fan graphs war on the mets pitching staff oh that's a good one again Again, definitely not very likely.

Yeah. I like him though. He's going to have competition. Yeah. They have other good pitchers. Just, they do have some good ones, but they're,

they're getting up there in years. I'm not just saying I like Senga because I want to depress your, your point total here, if this comes true, but, but also I think he's a little underrated. Yeah. I like him enough that I had made the pick. I think he's a little underrated yeah i like him

enough that i had made the pick i think he's very interesting uh but i think he might need some help all right somehow i haven't taken an otani one yet none of us has so i guess i'll go with an otani one my initial thought was predicting that he'd have a double digit war season fan crafts war, but that didn't seem bold enough because he's come close. Of course, he's coming off back to back extraordinary seasons. So he'd have to be better than he was in each of those two seasons. So that's fairly bold, but I'm going to go bolder. I don't think that anyone since integration other than Barry Bonds has had a 12-war season. So I'm going to go with a 12-war. And I guess I'll specify Fangraphs War because I didn't look that up at Baseball Reference.

So a 12-Fangraphs War season, I think, potentially the first such non-Bonds post-integration season. And it seems silly to bet against him getting better. Basically, I made the case at the beginning of last year. I laid out why I thought he might get better. And I acknowledged that the odds were probably that he would not get better, that when you win an MVP unanimously and you have an incredible season, typically you take a slight step back at least. And he did not. He took a step forward, a sizable step season, typically you take a slight step back at least. And he did not. He took a step forward, a sizable step forward, at least as a pitcher. And I feel like this could just be the monster year even more than the last couple of monster

years. Like he's made me greedy, obviously. He's already fulfilled my wildest dreams, but then my dreams get wilder each time he raises the limbo bar. So now I'm just imagining him pitching like he pitched down the stretch last season for 180 innings and combining that with his offense from 2021. And I haven't done the math, but I imagine that would probably get him there. So yeah, I think this could be the career year. He just like, he looks amazing. Like at some point he will get old or he will get hurt again. I hate to think about that happening, but right now, like he's not at an age where you

would expect him to improve, right? Just based on the typical aging pattern, but he's, he's so strong. Have you seen him? He's so strong. He you seen him? He's so strong. He throws so many pretty pitches. You're not allowed to send him the Barry Bonds drugs and those little letters you keep sending.

No, he would never. Ben, there are a few things that I enjoy more than hearing you talk about Shoya and Tony because it is wistful. It is tender. It is at times vaguely pornographic um it delights me it doesn't delight me as much as otani delights you but it does no it does delight me i would be concerned if if something i said delighted you that much but i would think that he would be as motivated as he's ever been. Unless he has some

post-WBC hangover, nothing can top that. He said, it's the best moment of my life. So what angel season could possibly top that? But other than that, you'd think he'd be quite motivated. I don't generally believe in the contract year phenomenon, and I don't really believe in it for him. He just seems like he's 120%, as he said, motivated at all times. But it could be the last ride with him in Trout. The Angels could be right on the playoff bubble. Could be, again. And also, if they're not, then he might get traded to a contender and then he'll have lots to play for.

So there will never be a moment where he feels any lack of motivation, I would think, if he ever does. Okay. Your turn. My turn. Okay. Only five players will hit 40 or more home runs, but Aaron Judge will hit at least 50. Ooh, okay. How many players hit 40 last year? I'm so glad that you asked that, Ben. 40 or more, just four. So Alonzo and Trout both hit 40 on the

nose. Schwarber had 46, and Aaron Judge famously had 62. Okay. So assuming they don't change the ball and or balls again, which is never safe to assume. Never safe to assume. Then I guess that's not unlikely, right? It's not that different from what happened last year, I guess is one way we could say it. Maybe.

Maybe. But maybe the ball will be totally different. We haven't gotten to know this baseball yet. It could be rejuiced. Or perhaps last year was the outlier. Right. Maybe it was just dehydrated, you know, and now it's going to be full. Yep.

So there you go. Still believe Aaron Judge, though. That's the takeaway. Yeah. I mean, I think he's very big and strong is one thing to know about him and um i think he will be quite determined to uh try to you know not get yelled at by his fans we'll find a way to be disappointed yeah yeah so yeah there you go there's my very specific one. All right. Michael. All right. Everybody's been very, very precious about the idea of a game or a playoff series or something like that ending on a clock violation. The batter is not alert to the pitcher in time or were they going to change that wording wording or the the pitcher's gonna you know run

out of run out of time before he gets into his delivery my prediction is that no regular season or postseason game will end on a clock violation oh okay that feels spicy to me yeah if you had gone postseason only then i think that would just that would not be enough. Yeah, there are so few of those games. I'm saying there will be 24, 30, the number of regular season games. Not one of them ends on a clock violation.

All right. That's one of your predictions that there will be 2430 regular season games. I guess so. Yeah. There aren't always. It's true. All right. I guess so, yeah. There aren't always. It's true. All right. I've got a few directions I could go here. I mean, no one's picking any of mine,

so I'm just really choosing what order to read them in. All right, let's go with this one. O'Neal Cruz will hit more home runs than Giancarlo Stanton. I actually initially had Aaron Judge, and then I was like, well, let's make it at least 10% likely. So yeah, O'Neal Cruz hits more home runs than Giancarlo Stanton, who is the only man who can really challenge him for how hard he hits the ball. That sounds likely to me. Am I overrating?

O'Neal Cruz is projected for 23 home runs this year by our lovely depth charts projections. Stanton is projected for 32. Okay. I don't know. I don't know how likely either is. Stanton is projected to have a not quite full but not un-full season, about as many PAs as Cruz. So I think it would be very unlikely for him to hit more than Judge. That would be quite bold. But I don't... Stanton, you just never know if he's going to be healthy.

It just feels like penciling him missing 60 games with a hernia. Yeah, he missed 52 last year and hit 31 home runs. It was impressive. It's true. He does still hit some home runs. There's always the possibility that Cruz just goes ham and has himself a season. It's not even close. I guess, yes. I had to think about it, though.

That it was unlikely. That's fair. I think. I want to believe. I do, too. Yeah. Also, he looked pretty good late last season. I think. I just, I want to believe. I do too. That's why I'm thinking that. Yeah. And also,

he looked pretty good late last season. Oh yeah. Right? Look, I keep putting him in the top 50 trade value, eventually I'll be right.

Yeah. All right. Is it me again? Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. While I'm talking Otani, I will take one Soto beats Shohei Otani to the first $500 million contract.

Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. I like that. That's spicy. I never bet against Boris not going to free agency, but I also never bet against the Padres signing someone to a contract that I don't see coming. So it's like an unstoppable force, immovable object sort of situation here. And yeah, I figured, see, I don't know if the Otani sweepstakes, I don't know whether this matters, like whether he will drag that out. Like probably if Soto's going to sign an extension, it'll be either like during the season or, you know, right at the end of the season or maybe at the start of next season or something. So it probably won't be just Otani will sign quickly. Like, I kind of can't imagine him just, like, having a ton of drama, and maybe he would make a decision fairly quickly, but everyone's going to want him and make their pitches,

so it might take a little while to sort out. So you buy yourself some extra time there. Like, that's the story of next offseason is Shohei Otani and where he goes. So, yeah, I'm basically betting that the Padres will just back up the Brinks truck yet again for Juan Soto. I guess I'm also betting that Juan Soto will have a good season, which is not really a huge risk either. Yeah, I think you're pretty safe there. All right, your turn. Oh, right.

Where do I want to go? All right, your turn. Oh, right. Where do I want to go? This one, I hope, hmm, well, hmm. I think the Brewers will trade Corbin Burns this year. During the regular season? Yeah.

Well, yeah, I guess, what are, how, yeah. I had the same question for one of mine, because I have one, I have a thing that I really want to use, but we're not going to know if it hits until the end of November. That's okay. Yeah, I think if it's any time this year, I think that's fine. Yeah, because we'll probably revisit these if we remember to, like around this time next year, right? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think our listeners who are voting along with us will also be scored and ranked based on whether they, yeah, do their yeses and nos correctly or not. So they will remind us, I'm sure, how we're doing if we forget.

But all right. So during the regular season, he has to be traded. Well, no. Before New Year's Day. Before New Year's Day. I thought that. Okay. All right.

Okay. Yeah. If we're allowing a horizon of time that extends beyond the conclusion of the season, then yeah, before New Year's Day. It depends how much you want to risk, how much you want to wager here in this final Burns Jeopardy. How many points do you want to potentially risk? But yeah, okay. Anytime this year is fine.

Yeah. All right. All right. Well, I'll jump right into the one of mine that we're not going to know until later this year. People Magazine will name an active MLB player the sexiest man alive. Ooh. Is there even any doubt about which one it would be? Oh, my gosh.

Well, I was going to say. Be a little less warning. I mean, really, though. I think Otani, like, I think there's a legit, I don't know if this is the kind of thing that Otani would go for, but I think he could get it if he wanted it. Can you decline that honor? I mean, surely. This isn't like, you could decline a Nobel Prize, Ben. I'm sure you can decline this extremely stage-managed PR thing

that a supermarket tablet does. I'd feel more confident that you could decline a meaningful award than one that is intended to sell magazines. That's not a terrible point. It always comes with a profile. They're not going to name – Yeah, they need you to pose for the cover, right? This is not like Times Man of the Year.

People is not going to name Osama bin Laden the sexiest man alive if he won't sit down for an interview. Right. Anyway, I was going to say – Not alive. Meaty little bastard. I was going to say that this is Otani. for an interview right anyway i was gonna say but needy little basket i was gonna say that this is otani but i think there's a chance that julio rodriguez could be in the frame for this yeah because he's also on the commies like got his own come come on now come on now talking about the sexiest man in the world being on the come that was an unfortunate use of words on my part he but he's in a celebrity relationship which i think is uh you know a big part of it says that he's

willing to play the kind of game that would put him in the conversation for this kind of award i do wonder that but maybe both of them are both too young like this tends to be the kind of thing that goes to guys in their 30s and 40s, but I think- 60s. The Otani star is rising, and I think it could get to this level if he plays his cards right. Yeah, I could see it happening. I'm just saying if it happens, I think it's almost certain that it would have to be him. You will buy so many copies of this magazine that it will save print media in this country single-handedly. That's the thing.

Sadly, I don't think there's any other baseball player who would sell enough magazines potentially for them to put him on the cover regardless of his sexiness. Like Otani at this point is probably the only crossover figure in the sport unless something really wild happens this season, right? So I just – I don't know that baseball players are famous enough. And I don't, do they sell a lot of People magazines internationally? I don't even know how strong the brand is overseas, but. I'm going to find out that there's a People magazine, Japan, that is named Shohei Otani, the sexiest man alive, five years running. He must have been named that by someone somewhere other than me.

All right. Every week. It's like this every week. It's fun, man. I'm so glad he's your problem now. I have one that is, I guess, a little less bold than Ben's prediction. So that's lame. I feel like I'm doing okay, my boldness so far.

Well, it's very similar to yours. Okay. And less extreme. Juan Soto will sign a contract extension before December 31st. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, it's not that different, right? Oh, yeah. It's going to be for a lot of money.

Yeah. And then I guess the question is, does Otani sign before December 31st, right? Is also a component here. Mine initially said November 30th, but then you guys said New Year's Day for the other ones, so I figured I would just unify them. I think Soto, like you said, you should not underestimate Boris's desire to go to free agency, but you also shouldn't underestimate the Padre's desire to just send somebody a huge heaping pile of money. Yeah. Yeah. Did you like to do that.

Yep. All right. My turn again. The Guardians sign Andres Jimenez to a long-term extension. Don't do this. You guys saw that happen, huh? Okay. Yeah.

Can't get away with that one. Let's see. All right. I'll go. Okay. Hopefully't get away with that one. Let's see. All right. I'll go. Okay. Hopefully this is fun. I will say Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter give the Padres the National League's leading DH production.

Ooh. So I'll say the Padres lead NLDHs in war or whatever. I mean, I guess I'll just say that. I guess it could be some other DH who comes out of nowhere. I don't want to specify how much of the war is produced by Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter. But the spirit of this is that Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter, the old guys, have one last hurrah at least left in them. And they signed for, I think, a combined $4 million each on one-year deals. But I feel like this could happen. Like, initially, I was going to go really bold and say, like, best DH of any team. And then I remembered that Shohei Otani exists, which I never forget for very long.

And then also Jordan Alvarez exists, although he doesn't always DH. So that probably is too bold for my blood even. But NL, I could kind of see it. I mean, they could also both completely collapse and be done and be hurt, but I could kind of see it. It'd be a really fun, productive platoon if it happens. Yeah, I like that one. Okay, well, here's a very Seattle prediction. I predict that the MLB draft will get rained out and have to be relocated within the city of Seattle. Where is it? Wait, are they going to hold that outdoors? Is that T-Mobile?

We don't know where they're going to hold it. There's a lot of risk attendant with this pick because we don't know. They haven't said. They haven't said where they're going to hold it. I know that they held it outside when it was in L.A. because there was a little while where I thought that the league was trying to bake the entire media row like a kid with a you know micro microscope that's not the word i want help magnifying glass thank you good god oh man yeah um here i am so and like we were little ants you

know that's what i thought it was and then we we didn't die. That was nice. So, um, I imagine with all of the lovely vistas that can exist in Seattle in, uh, the month of July that they, they might try to have it, uh, down at the waterfront. They might try to have it, uh, you know, somewhere else outside. They had that park. They had the nhl expansion draft at that park with all the pipes yeah they could have it at gasworks you're right they could try to yeah that's what it was yeah they could try to have it at gasworks i think that they will show ambition and then um seattle will stymie their ambition now how do we we don't know where it's going to be held so i i will say this that if they declare that they

are holding it inside from the beginning that does not count i don't get any points i think in the interest of fairness just waved off and you don't get you don't get uh any points if someone gets hit by a fish and it doesn't rain yeah they might hold it at pike place that's another good potential outdoor location uh bowman that so it has to it has to relocate yeah it has to relocate okay it has to move to a second location okay you know they're probably not going to do the draft in the rain that seems unlikely to me you know yes um because uh i don't know him but i imagine imagine that Rob Manfred is a fussy enough guy that he'd be like, I'm getting all wet. I don't like this. Those two LSU gentlemen whose names you said earlier would get all wet.

I thought I'd done some amount of work. You know, that's what I thought had happened. And then I'm revealed to have done no successful work with you at all. Wasn't there an LSU person in the Lincoln torment that you subjected me to? Yeah, it was another guy. Man, okay. You're aware that LSU has three

baseball players, but you can't name any of them. I might even build a whole team. Wasn't one of them vaguely French? Because I was thinking LSU, maybe he's Cajun or something? South Carolina, I felt ripped off too oh yes right yeah right that's yeah that was

from South Carolina come on yeah LaCroix right yeah come on all right that was that was cruel one of the like biggest shocks I've ever had in in like learning about baseball was so DJ LeMayhew played baseball at LSU and I just assumed like LeMayhew finished, played baseball at LSU.

And I just assumed like LeMayhew, that's a French name. I assume he's Cajun. He was born in California and went to high school in Michigan and somehow ended up at LSU. Anyway, it's the, I'm still getting over it.

Yeah. You could have gotten me with that one many years ago. All right. Okay. It's many years ago. All right. Okay, it's my turn again. All right. Eight teams from the two East divisions will finish with more wins than any team from the two

Central divisions. That's good. That's good. Okay. I like that. I feel like this is in a perfect sweet spot of difficulty. Yeah, that's a good one. I feel like this is in a perfect sweet spot of difficulty. Yeah. That's a good one. I feel like six is like-

Too few. Not guaranteed, but like very likely. I think seven stretches and eight, like you need two out of the three of the Red Sox, Orioles, and Marlins to finish in the 80s. Yeah. I like it. That's a good one. That's quite strong, I think. And if this happens,

then maybe my campaign to move the Marlins to the NL Central will, MLB will finally start picking up the phone on that one. Yeah. All right. I've got one last not completely ridiculous one, and then three that I think are pretty unlikely. So we'll go with Juan Soto wins the National League batting title.

I think he hit, like, not very well last year. Like, batting average-wise. Which we don't care about. I kind of do care about it. It's cool. I like knowing who won the batting title. Juan Soto batted 242 last year. That's bad. He did. I predict that he who won the batting title. Juan Soto batted 242 last year. That's bad.

He did. I predict that he'll win the batting title. He has won a batting title. It was in 2020, so you know. That's true, yes. He did hit 353 that year. That's good. Yeah, and he hit 313 the next year.

He's certainly capable of it. I don't think he would be the betting favorite, but he could do it. Yeah, I believe in him. Okay. All right, it's my turn again. Okay. Acuna 50-50. Ooh.

That's it. I think this is unlikely, but he has set it as a goal for himself. Unfortunately, he set it as a goal for himself in 2020. So he did not achieve that goal. And then he got hurt and he missed time and then he was not fully himself, but he seems to be fully himself now. but he seems to be fully himself now. So I probably would have said, obviously when he was making a real run at 40-40 in 2019, he just came up short on the steals. And you would expect him probably as he gets older,

typically players, whether or not they lose speed, they just maybe run a little less if they're power guys like he is. But if he does run any less, and they're power guys like he is. But if he does run any less, and I don't know that he is inclined to, he will get a boost from the easier base running environment this year. So I feel like he could do that if he still is intent on doing it. And then 50 homers, it's hard to hit 50 homers, at least if the ball is not juicier than it was last year. But if he's back to full strength, then sure, why not? He's 25 years old now.

It's the 50 homer breakout. That'll be fun to root for, if not less. Yeah. Bonds had his 40-40 season at 31. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we might have to era adjust to some extent. Like if, if stolen bases are up like 30% or something like that's obviously going to make it easier to do,

but if he is the first to do it, it'll still be pretty cool. Okay. I, this one's fun to root for too. And not just for me personally. So this one's fun to root for too and not just for me personally so this one's fun a team that has never won a World Series will win it this year oh get lost what was that gonna be one of yours I consider that Seattle Mariners

will continue their streak of never having played in a World Series but I decided not to. Oh, well, I think it's good to have a little friendly competition within our predictions. All right. It's a fun one to root for. I generally root for that by default. Yeah.

And to be clear, it could be any of them. But you mean the Mariners. I mean, it would be nice if it were the Mariners, but I do not. It could be the Padres. True. Yeah, of the teams that, I mean, like there is an easy, relatively easy out here for me. The Rockies?

Is it the Rockies? No. But like to remind people, you know, the Rays have not won a World Series. The Rockies. The Brewers, the Mariners, the Rangers. The Brewers are going to win the World Series after they trade Corbin Burns midseason. Yeah, the Padres. It might be tough to have both of those things happen.

There are some more likely and less likely teams here. And no one is super likely to win the World Series, even when they're very good. So I think that everyone should use that as they're gauging the true likelihood of this. And they're giving me credit for my bold vision. They should keep in mind that as of today, two days before opening day, the Braves lead baseball by our playoff odds as having the highest odds of winning the World Series. And it's like 14%. You know, it's not a lot.

It's hard to do. Making lots of sounds. Yeah. I'm going to nap for so much of opening day. I mean, I'm not going to actually be able to do that because I'm going to have to get work done. But I'm going to want to nap for so much of opening day, you guys. Trying to add up all the non-World Series winners, World Series odds to see what that

actually comes out to. Some amount that should give me a lot of credit if I'm right. That's what it adds up to, Ben. I've already done the math for you, and it's coming up, Meg. Well, the Padres, big chunk of World Series odds for you there. I think it's like a one in four shot, something like that, that this happens. Yeah. All right.

All right. Ben, do me a favor. Okay. Name the player you think will finish ninth in Major League Baseball in doubles this year. Starling Marte was the first name that came to my mind. Is that your final answer? Does he hit a lot of doubles, or am I just saying a name at random? I guess he has sometimes.

I don't know. Yeah, sure. All right. I guess he has sometimes. I don't know. Yeah, sure. All right. 20 seconds is how long it took you to decide on an answer after blurting out Starling Marte.

I said it very quickly. So will Starling Marte hit more than 20 doubles this season? I guess that's the – my prediction is that he will not hit more than 20 doubles this season. Bauman massaged that one a little bit. Your initial answer was in 3.25 seconds. Yeah, that would have been any fun. This is an entertainment show. The first draft of this was that I could, in my head, was I could get you to hem and haw about who the stolen base leader would be long enough that like nobody nobody would steal that many bases so you did better than I expected yeah I'm proud of myself for having an answer it may have been a terrible answer I don't know why

he came to my mind how far down the list of projected doubles leaders according to the depth charts is like I'll get back down? Is he like hundreds down? Like how off am I here? Oh, Ben. Starling Marte is 112th? Starling Marte doubles machine in my mind for some reason. I'm sure there are ties. But to be fair, with 25 doubles,

we just are projecting a lot of doubles this year. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of doubles, I guess. All right, this one is the same thing that Batman was going to try to do, and it'll make me a real hater, but that's fine. No player will steal 50 bases. Wow, that would be a bummer. Be a bummer and shocking.

Yeah. I would say. All right, let's hope that doesn't happen, I guess. Okay, all right. My turn. The Rockies make a trade at the deadline. What a snarky pick. My goodness. What a feud with snark. I like this more the more I thought about it because I couldn't decide

whether the Rockies are more likely to be a buyer or a seller at the deadline. I'm actually not sure which is more likely. Like, is it more likely that they decide that they want to part with someone in order to maybe get good at some point in the future? Or is it more likely that they just decide that they like some dude on some other team and they just want him for whatever reason or they just uh talk themselves into being contenders even though they're 10 games out or something i don't know my gm and i saw you across the bar and we liked your vibe yeah that's how the chris bryant signing happened as far as i can tell but like years and years earlier so yeah they did not make a trade as people may recall last deadline i think they were the only team not to they are perennially kind of confounding at the deadline or at least at many

deadlines they i believe justified their not making a trade at the deadline last year by saying that they were the only team also to sign a player to an extension at the deadline, which was not true. But that was the explanation. I don't know if that really made any sense anyway. But yeah, I will say that the Rockies continue to confound us at the deadline. Okay. I think that the Orioles will beat their win total from last year and still miss the playoffs. Let's go. Are we just going to be like fighting? No, I'm agreeing with you. Okay, okay.

Yeah, I think that they will beat their win total from last year, but they will still fall short of making the postseason. Yeah, that would be sad. I guess it'd be a fun season, but it would be a sad ending. Would it be fun or would it be sad? Who could say? We'll find out. It would definitely be sad.

Yeah. All right. Is this number nine? Yes. Yeah, for me it's number nine. Which one of these two do I want to end on? Okay. An animal will kill another animal on the field of play during the course of an MLB regular season or postseason game.

Oh my gosh. So we all know, for example, we all know rally squirrel. What this prediction posits is the emergence of rally hawk at the same time as rally squirrel. Are we specifying mammals? No, any kind of living, any life, anything that's visible. So like, I'm sure. What about, what about gnats? Not gnats.

It has to be something that it probably won't show up on the broadcast the way the goose did. But like, it has to be something that's noticeable and either like filmed from the stands or taken note of by the broadcast crew or the beat writers or something. No midges. No midges, no like swatting mosquitoes. Something on the scale, something visible from the seats. Something you could pet potentially. You could pet a mosquito if you're really careful. Yeah, I guess so.

Gosh, well, that is literally morbid. It's a hard act to follow. Okay. All right. Seiya Suzuki will lead all qualifying hitters in the NL Central in weighted runs created plus. Everybody. Wow.

Okay. That is bold. That is bold. That is bold. No, no, no Cardinals. They're fine, I guess. Yeah. Some of them are okay. Brewers, they don't even have any hitters.

I think they're just two starting pitchers and then 24 empty spots in the roster. Can't even name the other teams in El Central. So, yeah, say a Suzuki. Soon to be 25. I take it you're a big believer. I was last year and it didn't really pan out. But honestly, he looked great. Yeah, me too.

And so, yeah, I'm in again. Let's do it again. Yeah. He's rehabbing already. Yeah, but if he's got to qualify, then he's got to get back soon and not get hurt again. Oh, I guess I did say he has to qualify. Ugh, error. Yeah.

You did say that, yeah. Folly. Well, that just made it bolder than you anticipated. Okay. That division sucks. Yeah, it's not that bad. I know I just made a prediction of that effect, but I like this on the basis of both central divisions.

I mean, the Cardinals do have a lot of people who might have high weight around the screen. Plus, they got some good hitters. Their pitching is not good. Well, they got Jordan Montgomery. Their pitching is not good well they got jordan montgomery their pitching is not good all right for mine okay let me try this one here because i don't know if this one will be acceptable so i may have to pivot and i have a backup but trying to think of a way to frame this i this may not be decided this calendar year is the problem, but what I want to predict is that the change in BABIP as a result of the shift is meager enough that we get the pie slice next season. So they decide that this was not enough.

It did not achieve whatever the intended effect of the positioning restriction was it wasn't really perceptible whatever they didn't uh juice batting average or babbitt enough and so they will decide that we have to go further and we have to impose the pie slice restriction next season which would force fielders not to stand right at the bag, just not going past it. But they can still stand right up to it. But they would have to really be sort of standard old school straight up defense. The problem is we might not know that until next calendar year. They'll announce that before.

They wouldn't let – They probably would, right? Yeah. Yeah. They announced announce that before. They wouldn't let, they probably would. Right. Yeah. They announced, they announced these rule changes in September. Yeah. Yeah.

They're always, sometimes they tinker right up, but, but I guess that would be a big enough one. Yeah. This is not, this is not tinker. Yeah.

I think you'd be, I think you're fine to, to do that one, Ben. Okay. All right. Yeah. That was cause I wanted to have one that was just like, it didn't

do whatever it was supposed to do. And it might, I really, I don't know at this point what it will do. And I don't even know how we'll be able to decide what it did exactly. But I guess this is my best way to kind of come up with a holistic projection prediction here related to that, which is just that they'll decide it didn't do enough we have to do more i'm imagining after a decade of railing against the shift like me looking at the pie slice and going oh god what have i done yeah all right okay so i get two more? Yes. Oh, boy. Okay. We will see at least one mid-season managerial firing.

Ah. I considered we will not see any. Yeah, because there were a few last year, right? There were, which means. Tend to go in cycles. Yeah, this is risky because we have a bunch of relatively new guys, newly installed. Seems unlikely that they will be in trouble. We have a bunch of established managers who are well thought of.

We have a bunch of teams that are going to be bad, but know they're going to be bad. And so presumably are not going to play the let's fire the manager and see if that helps kind of game. So this, I think, is my lowest, maybe my lowest probability prediction. I have a couple that are kind of like on the low end. But I think this is one of the lower ones. But could pay off big. Who knows? Yeah.

Okay. I couldn't think of a favorite. Like who's the hot seat i can't either yeah i'm doing it anyway whose chair is wobbliest right now aaron boone maybe yeah i mean aaron boone might be a sneaky he might be sneaky you know he might be a sneaky high pick in this yeah but mid-season for the yankees it doesn't feel like their style. It doesn't unless something catastrophic happens. Like if they really, you know, if a bunch of their rotation gets hurt, if, you know, the Volpe experience is bad,

if they end up and they're in a tough division, despite the, you know, the Red Sox being bad. So it's possible that they have just like a collapse. It doesn't seem likely to me, but there's a path to it. And in that case, maybe he is on a particular, a newly wobbly chair, but yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I said hot seat.

I should have said wobbly chair. Yeah. Read the room. Yeah. I don't know. David Ross? Like if the Cubs are starting out terribly? I thought about him.

You know, that's a good one. I don't think expectations are high enough. Yeah. That was my thought. Yeah. Maybe. They did some stuff this winter. They did some stuff.

Yeah. All right. All right. A collective bargaining agreement will not enter into force in minor league baseball during the 2023 regular season. Okay. Yeah. I can't tell if that's bold or not because these things do take some time, as you well know. So will we be able to read the MLB collective marketing agreement?

That's a point. Shit. Yeah. I don't know. I've tried. I'm still, I'm not, uh,

I don't know. I'll tell you something off. Okay. Rocko ball, Delhi. Oh, I was like, he's good.

He's going to give it to me. I mean, wobbly chair. That's a good one. Okay. Now, Ben, don't react too quickly to this one because it's not Otani targeting. There's an Otani exception.

No player will top eight pitching or batting war according to Fangraph's calculations in 2023. Either or. No one will cross eight batting and no one will cross eight pitching. Yeah, it would be hard for Shohei to do that. It's going to be a starless season, I'm saying, except for Otani, who can do it in two ways. Do you have a particular reason for thinking that the season is likely?

No, I just thought it hasn't happened for a while. So wouldn't that be interesting? Yeah, I just thought it hasn't happened for a while. So wouldn't that be interesting? Yeah, I don't know what the percentage of seasons in which that doesn't happen is, actually. Certainly neither do I. What are we doing here? Right. Well, everyone can just decide whether they think that sounds bold or not.

That's basically my feel for it. Is it bold? If you think it is, it is. Okay. All right. My last pick then is I am predicting that there is going to be a minor league game fixing skin. Ooh.

Ooh. Yeah. Not as... I want this so bad. Really? I don't. This thought never occurred to me until 10 seconds ago, and now it's the only thing I want this so bad. Really? I don't. This thought never occurred to me until 10 seconds ago, and now it's the only thing I want. I don't know if I want it, but I feel like it could happen.

Now, I'm obviously a little out of my depth here when it comes to gambling and match fixing, but I read about this every now and then, and it seems like this happens in the most obscure athletic endeavors. And it seems like this happens in the most obscure athletic endeavors. I mean, I'm constantly reading about like the number 300th ranked tennis player in the world was throwing a match or like Snooker had a match fixing scandal going on or, you know, like sports where you wouldn't necessarily think there would be a big betting market or a ton of action. And I don't know that there is surrounding the American baseball minor leagues either. I doubt there is. I googled quickly just to see if there's anywhere that even offers lines. I think there are. I don't think it's common. And I don't know if there's enough money in it to make this worthwhile. I just sort of assume everything is being bet on somewhere constantly just because there are people

who can't get enough of the betting. So I would assume that you could bet on those things. I don't know whether it would be worth a minor leaguer's while enough to jeopardize your career like that, but it's based on the idea that they still don't get paid very much and

there's still no CBA. So someone might be tempted, right? Especially if they don't think they have a big league future. Like there are a lot of minor league games and mostly people don't care that much about the outcomes and don't pay that close attention to them and wouldn't really raise an eyebrow if something happened in one of them. So there's not enough scrutiny, I feel like, to catch someone. And there are a lot of players who know they probably have no big league futures. I'm just saying, like, if the money's out there, I don't think you should do this. I'm not rooting for it to happen the way that Michael Bauman is, but I'm just saying, like, I don't know. It seems like it could. saying like i don't know it seems like it could okay uh francisco alvarez will hit 20 big league home runs well at least 20 not exactly 20 not exactly 20 at least 20 big league home

runs maybe this is my least likely one so it's like when do you think he comes up? When do you think? But is it because I have Francisco Alvarez on my Diamond Mind team? Who knows? Who knows? It's good to have things that you can doubly root for. He just, when he does hit a home run, I think we overuse the expression, it sounds different now. I think that we are overusing that expression, that it sounds different coming off his bat. They can't all sound different.

I agree with you. They can't all sound different. And I would submit to you that several of the people who are using that over much have not heard what it sounds like when it comes off of his bat. Because it sounds different. I guess if you really drill down into the waveform, probably if you back crack. I bet it does sound different. It's its own special unique snowflake.

That's a fun piece for someone. I don't know how you do it, but you should go find the one that actually does sound the most different. Rob Arthur used to do bat crack analysis at Baseball Perspectives. I guess that's true. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Well, we did it, I think. I think we did it. We did our part. We now need the listeners to pitch in and do their part. Their part. So run, run, run. And hopefully you're hearing this before opening day. If not, hopefully you enjoyed it anyway, but it's too late to vote.

And Michael, did you have any additional comments you wanted to make about how much you want there to be a minor league game fixing scandal? No, I just want it really bad. Okay, you went away for a second. Remember how easy our jobs got

when the Astros stuff broke. Terrible for the country, tremendous content. I'm not convinced it was that bad for the country. There was other stuff going on. Yeah, there's that. Do you think this, it wouldn't be nearly as big a story as the thing. So I don't know that we would get as much content out of it. What if it was a minor leaguer who was either a top prospect

or had a really great name? It wouldn't be a prospect. Like Sicknar Flukestock. I mean, he's not an affiliated ball. All right. So hopefully everyone enjoyed this. Thanks again to Chris Hannell for suggesting it and for administrating things on the Google Form backend.

And voting will close as of first pitch on Thursday, because probably Daniel Vogelbach will steal that base on opening day and then it'll be too late to vote on these things. So got to get your votes in before opening day. And then this is something we will monitor throughout the season. Don't you think that he's more likely, I mean, like the passage of time makes this true, but I think he's more likely to swipe a bag later after people have forgotten about the commercial. People are going to be on their guard. You know, they just saw him exhibiting a desire to be crafty.

Right. They're probably thinking stolen base thief over there. Or while it's top of mind, he'll draw a throwback to the tag and just be footloose and fancy for it. I had almost no leftover predictions here because I maxed out. I can only generate so many predictions, so I basically generated the number I needed. The only one that I was considering was a game just not being broadcast at all this season.

I was trying to figure out if that could happen just because of the whole mess with valleys and everything. Just like, is there a way that a game just might not be viewable like anywhere by anyone unless you're in the park? I don't know if that could happen. But I considered that. I considered some sort of Fernando Tatis bounce-back-centric one, but I couldn't come up with one because I was like, he'll have a career year. And then I went back and looked at how good his 2021 was,

and it seems unlikely. Career year seems tough for him. He's good. I had one that I didn't use. We will see the fastest pitch of the StatCast era. Ah, okay. That's good. Yeah, nobody's gotten within a mile.

Well, Jordan Hicks has thrown two pitches within a mile and an hour and a half of the record. And nobody else has gotten close. I think there's a small chance that Ben Joyce comes up. Yeah, Ben Joyce, I was just going to say. That's what I was thinking of, but I don't know. Yeah. 105.7 is really fast.

Yeah, it's really fast. Or all the shabbins not doing that anymore. No. So I had one that felt too homerish and also too mean that Otani would lose MVP to Julio Rodriguez. I had one that all three AL Rookie of the Year finalists will play in the AL East, and that just feels very likely to me and also felt duplicative with some of my other stuff.

I had one that I couldn't decide what the order of magnitude should be here. And so I didn't go with it, that the three true outcomes rate for the year. So last year it was 33.44%. If you don't include hit by pitch, it would be 34.56 with hit by pitch, it would be 34.56% with hit by pitches, that it would decline somewhere between a half to a full percentage point.

But I don't know if that is remotely the right order of potential magnitude for rule change this and that to have an effect on what we see, either in teams being more contact oriented or pitchers not striking out as many guys because they're not throwing quite as much max effort as they were before because of the pitch clock i just don't know so i decided not to do it but i'm putting it out there as like here's the thing i thought about oh man i thought about a lot of ones that didn't come up like a thrown ball will hit a bat you know the sam miller one uh the sam miller i would really like to see that

um jt real moodle will be ejected from at least one game this year i would absolutely love to see that as well i want to know what it's for um i guess those are the top two and then you guys took some of mine too all right we will wrap up with the pass blast i have the usual one from david lewis i also have a listeneritted one I've been sitting on for a while. So I'll do the listener one first. This one came from Patreon supporter Alan, who sent this a while back and said, so I was watching a Mets game from 1987, as one does in February. This was in February.

And the broadcast interviewed Daryl Strawberry, who had been ejected a few days before for charging the mound. He mentions that in his defense, the automatic ejection was a new rule, and he didn't know about it when he ran at the Pirates pitcher. So I went down a rabbit hole, this is Alan speaking, about the then new rule, and apparently on May 1st, 1987, Bart Giamatti, the commissioner, issued an edict that charging the mound was an automatic ejection. So if you ever wondered when that

became more or less a rule, there's your answer. Digging into it further, it seems to have been a response to Sean Dunstan charging the mound and there being no ejections in the game. And he goes on to say that there was hand-wringing in the media about not being able to charge the mound anymore, which is sort of amusing that people were worried about that being banned. But there's a LA Times piece about this that Alan links me to that's pretty interesting because this was the rabbit ball year, 1987, when the home run rate spiked and then it went back down the next year and it sure seems to have been because of a lively ball. And so this LA Times piece from July 12th, 1987 is saying that perhaps that is why there had been so many charges of the mound that there had just

been a lot of home runs hit and a lot of bean balls and retaliation because of the home runs being hit. By the way, Bart Giamatti, I said he was the commissioner. He was not yet the commissioner. He was the National League president at that point. But Andre Dawson had been hit in the mouth by a pitch by Eric Schau on Tuesday in Chicago. And after that, Giamatti said that the upsurge in home runs is at least partially responsible for an increase in batters being hit by pitches. So he's basically suggesting lots of people hitting homers, people are pissed about the homers, then they're beanballs, people are pissed about the beanballs, and then suddenly they're charging the mound. So on May 1st, he ordered that any player who charged the mound should be ejected, that it would just be an automatic ejection. It came 12 days after umpire Doug Harvey did not eject anyone in a bench-clearing brawl, in which Sean Dunstan of the Cubs charged the mound after Expos pitcher Andy McGaffigan threw too high inside pitches to him.

So I think this is still basically a rule. I don't know if it's like a rule rule, but it's a custom at the very least that when you charge the mound, you're kind of out of there. At least I don't really remember a recent mound charging. And I guess usually if you're charging the mound, you're probably doing something that would get you ejected anyway. Like the act of charging the mound, even if it weren't an automatic ejection, it would probably just be an ejection because you're charging the mound. But I guess it wasn't always in baseball history. There was maybe more leeway granted for that sort of thing until there was suddenly an epidemic of mound charges in 1987.

And Giamatti put his foot down and said, no more mound charges. No more. No more mound charges. Get out of here. If you charge, you're out of there. And he said, when you have all the allegations about lively balls and the numbers of home runs, you have a certain number of pitchers believing they've got to brush people back and own the plate. I understand that. But the margin between a pitch that is a brushback and a pitch that hits somebody is slight.

Interesting. So perhaps the juiced ball of 1987 was partially responsible for there being an automatic ejection for charging the mound. Maybe, yeah. Okay. There's also an amusing quote in the piece by an American League spokesperson who said, charging the mound seems to be becoming the vogue. Charging the mound seems to be the thing to do these days. There had been a lot.

This was mid-July, and it says, so far this season, there have been eight bench-clearing brawls in the NL and five in the AL, including six in the NL since June 13th. Of those 13, nine started with a pitcher throwing a brushback pitch or a beanball and the batter charging the mound. rate or total of bench clearing brawls and what percentage of those brawls is typically accompanied by or initiated by a mound charge, but sounds high. So they decided it was too high. All right. Here is the Pass Blast proper from David Lewis, our frequent Pass Blast consultant, who is also an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. And he writes, 1987, Phillies look across the pond for pitching help. In 1987, the Philadelphia Phillies, we should have kept Bauman on for this one,

had a surprising invitee at spring training. Ian Pont, a 25-year-old cricket star in England, was with the team trying to make the big league roster as a pitcher. According to a March 20, 1987 Florida Today article, Punt's journey was unprecedented. Writer Deborah Sharp reported, if Punt wins a place with the Phillies, he'll be the first player to bridge the gap between the British passion for cricket and the USA's national pastime. Although he's a crack bowler or pitcher in his cricket league back home, Pott is unschooled in the art of baseball. He doesn't even chew tobacco. Yeah, it's immediately disqualifying in 1987, I guess. Pott was open about his lack of familiarity with the game, but did not lack confidence in his own abilities. When asked why he decided to try baseball, he responded, I saw a couple of baseball games on TV and thought,

I like the look of that. Let's give it a go. Wow. Sounds like a confident fellow. Yeah. Sharp reported that the Phillies were actually the fifth team that Punt had tried out for, beginning with a failed tryout with the Yankees in 1986, in which the club gave him 90 minutes, then said thanks but no thanks.

This was followed by unsuccessful attempts with the Dodgers, Rangers, Blue Jays, and Cleveland. The Phillies had a bit of a longer leash with punt and evidently liked what they saw at least enough to give him a spot in minor league camp. Phillies pitching coach Bob Tiffenauer was quoted as saying, in throwing the baseball like a fastball, you couldn't tell the difference

between him and the other boys here who've been playing all their lives. He's got the fundamentals, but it takes more than a good strong arm. You've got to be able to put the English on the ball. Aha. Aha. Aha. I assume that was a play on words. I don't know. The Phillies did not end up giving Ponte a roster spot at the conclusion of spring training.

He eventually returned to England to continue his cricket career. He currently serves as a cricket coach and seems to have recently begun a foray into singing and songwriting. I hope that goes more successfully than his baseball career did. But if he was the first, which I don't know for sure, but if he was to attempt to make that transition, he was certainly not the last. Because periodically people will try to make the cricket to baseball or vice versa conversion. And it seems quite difficult to do. You'd think that the motions are analogous enough that someone would be able to bridge that gap, but it never really seems to happen.

Yeah. I feel like there should be a Smith song about a cricket player who tries to play baseball. Doesn't it feel like that would be something they would have done? Yeah. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. And thanks to Ian Phillips for today's Effectively Wild theme song submission. Longtime listener and Patreon supporter. A Ramones-influenced take. Loving the variation in musical styles.

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That's a wrap on off-season Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. That's a wrap on Offseason Effectively Wild. The next time we talk to you later this week, we will be recapping opening day and perhaps doing some drafting. So thank you very much for helping us through yet another offseason. Sticking with us. Welcome back to those of you who may have taken the offseason off from Baseball Podcast. Enjoy the festivities, and we will talk to you later this week. Fast minutes of future and now past. Enjoy the festivities, and we will talk to you later this week. It's all future and no past. Yeah, it's all future and no past.