Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2016: We’ve Got Good News and Bad News

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s voice, the arrival of Elly De La Cruz, the similarities between the up-and-coming Reds and Pirates, whether we need a “super-error,” Aaron Judge��s ball- and wall-smashing abilities, the plights of Alek Manoah and Stephen Strasburg, the wonder of Luis Arraez, whether this year’s trade deadline will be […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? Players growing third arms and infields in the tree. Anything is fair game, even Kike's dirty pants. And maybe if you're lucky, we'll cold call by chance. You never know precisely where it's gonna go. By definition, Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2016 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs.

Hello, Meg. Hello. I sound froggy today. I didn't even realize that. I've been on vocal rest basically the entire day in preparation for this podcast because I'm sort of under the weather, as is my wife, and so we've both been communicating via hand gestures mostly. So it's been largely silent in our household, our den of illness today, and I was trying to save my voice until we started the podcast and I wasn't actually sure how I would sound. And now I have discovered that this is

how I would sound. So I guess I've got an extra deep resonant thing going on here, but I've also got a, oh, he sounds sick thing going on here. Yeah, it's your flu game. Well, I've got my day quilt going, so we'll see if I can make it through this episode. I feel better than I sound, I think. Well, that's good. Yeah. And hey, Ellie arrived. Yeah.

So that's something. I was not feeling my best. And then I saw the news that the Cincinnati Reds had called up Ellie De La Cruz. So here we are leading an episode by talking about the Reds. They demand to be discussed these days. They do. A day after Andrew Abbott made his promising Major League debut, now L.A. David Cruz arrives,

a top five prospect in the majors, to say the least. So where does he play, I wonder, is the thing. Yeah, I guess we haven't seen a lineup with him yet, right? No, not as we record. Not as we record. There's a logjam there because Matt McClain, who was called up earlier this year, is off to a strong start himself. Yeah, it's quite the infield that they're working with now. You know, they have McClain.

They have India, who's been on a bit of a tear lately. They have Spencer Steer. They're about to have Dayla Cruz. They have, well,, they have India, who's been on a bit of a tear lately. They have Spencer Steer, they're about to have De La Cruz. They have, well, they also have Kevin Newman. So, you know, like, sorry, Kevin, so ungenerous of me. But, yeah, I mean, look, when we have talked about the Reds the last couple of years, really, it is because our hand has been forced by, you know, certain members of the organization or adjacent to the organization not really covering themselves in glory when they've talked about the Reds.

And there's still work to be done here, right? This is not, I think, a club that we would, even when De La Cruz comes up, even if he is everything that we think he will be, which is potentially great, obviously volatile, 20,000 feet tall, just like one of the biggest men, just one of the biggest, tallest men, right? There is still work here, and they are not, I think, positioned at this exact moment to be a powerhouse, a juggernaut, but it's starting to get, Ben, kind of exciting. It's getting to be kind of interesting over there in a way that I'm sure for Reds fans is a huge relief, but if they can get I'm sure for Reds fans is a huge relief, but if they can get consistent and really good production out of their position players, if they can continue to promote their promising young guys,

if they do a good job of self-scouting and identify for themselves, you know, here are the dudes on that infield on the prospect side who we think are going to be real franchise cornerstones. Here are some other guys who we may trade, you if they god forbid spend a little bit of money like this is a club that i think can be can be pretty good and not just within the context of an nl central that is you know wanting when it comes to really like yeah we're gonna come and get you clubs but but good they're not there and they need things to break their way, and some of those things have inherent volatility in them, not just because they're prospects, but because, as I mentioned,

the prospects are volatile. Ellie has, I think, a range of outcomes as wide as his wingspan, which is pretty wide, but it's cool. I'm going to try to do most of the talking in this episode just for you. Thank you. Do you think I've amped enough? Have I communicated my point? Recovering slowly. My health bar just builds a little bit every time you're talking and I'm not. So I asked Eric Langenhagen about this a couple of weeks ago, how he saw this Reds infield situation shaking out because their top five shortstops, according to Fangraphs and MLB Pipeline, are all infield prospects.

according to Fangraphs and MLB Pipeline, are all infield prospects. Ellie and McLean among them, but also Edwin Arroyo is in the mix. Noel V. Marte is in the mix. Cam Collier is in the mix and others too. I guess Spencer Steer, maybe he doesn't qualify anymore, but it's middle infielders or corner infielders all the way down. And he was saying that he thinks Jose Barrero, who's been in the big leagues, is the best defender of the bunch, but he doesn't think he'll hit enough to be a contender there, strikes out too much. And so for Eric, Edwin Arroyo is a future second baseman. Noavi Marte is a future third baseman. And so it's either Ellie or McLean at shortstop.

And Ellie is mistake prone, but more talented, he said. So that could go either way. I guess McLean has a head start. He's been entrenched there for a little while now and has hit well. But Ellie De La Cruz has been lurking below ever since McLean was called up because it seems like not a day goes by that I don't see Eli De La Cruz hit like a 500-foot homer or something in the minor pseudo. It is. So between the speed and between the power, just everything that he's done there, everyone's excited to see him. Now, according to Roster Resource, as we record here on Tuesday afternoon

before a lineup has actually come out, Ellie is listed as a DH, and I guess he could get some playing time and some plate appearances there. But I don't know if Kevin Newman will be on his way out sometime soon or whether they'll be hesitant to play one of their future shortstops at a corner.

But it's suddenly a really interesting dilemma and a good dilemma and an exciting one to resolve. And with them, so often it's been about players playing out of position or not really having a shortstop or trying to make someone into a shortstop or a center fielder who wasn't really suited to that. And now, as I said on a recent episode, it's a surfeit of shortstops. They have more shortstops, more promising players at these positions than there are positions. So between that and the guys they have at the top of that rotation, it's really exciting. And I guess

the common thread between the Reds and the Pirates, other than having supersized shortstops. And I guess O'Neill versus Ellie is kind of an interesting debate to have, right? But beyond that, I guess the big question is, will either of these ownership groups actually spend on these teams to surround these promising prospects that they've developed and are beginning to promote with other players? Will they actually spend on the rest of those rosters? Because that's the one thing that they don't really have track records of doing. Maybe they've done it more than they are now, but maybe still not sufficiently.

You can build a contending club and you can do it by drafting well and being really strong in the international market and using those consolidation trades to acquire guys who can help bolster your young core. You can do it. But as we've noted several times before, it's a harder road to hoe when you don't have signing talented players as another means of player acquisition. So I think it is, you're right to say, like the big pressing question. You know, we spend all this time talking about the infielders as well, we should, but I continue to be excited about seeing like what Andrew Abbott can do for folks who maybe haven't kept up with our sort of top 100 updates, like, he was promoted from AAA to the big leagues, so it's not like he was just hanging out below that. But he was in a league that was using the pre-tacked balls. And as we've discussed, like, that had some interesting effects on pitchers, especially guys like him who are already sort of talented from a spin perspective.

like him who are already sort of talented from a spin perspective. So I'm excited for him to keep accruing data away from that league just to get a sense of what it's really going to look like. Yeah. Yep. A new StatCast superstar has arrived. So from the Reds to the Red Sox, who despite having a better record than the Reds are not quite as fun to talk about and think about right now.

And they are in last place in a great division, even though they're 500. Did you see the play in the Red Sox-Rays game, which started with Yandy Diaz, and this was a throwback ground beef ball. Ground beef ball. Yeah, this was like a Baltimore chop, except it was a Tampa Bay chop. It was a Yandy Diaz chop. It was a ground beef ball. Ground beef ball. Yeah. This was like a Baltimore chop, except it was a Tampa Bay chop. It was a Yandy Diaz chop. It was a ground beef chop. Yeah.

And somehow. That doesn't make any sense. Somehow, it's a meat chop, right? It's a chop of mutton. I don't know. Anyway. I don't know. Two runs scored on this grounder, and it was one of those just like Benny Hill, Yakety Sacks kind of clips where you just don't understand how many balls are thrown away.

It was like, you know, a chopper threw a hole in the infield, and then things were going fairly normally. There was a play at the plate, but it wasn't really a play. And then the catcher threw it away, and it just went all the way into center field. And everyone looked bad. And I feel like we need some stat for this. Because I want to be able to look up just embarrassing defensive plays. Just mistakes with a bullet. Just mistakes that

you couldn't classify. I mean, I guess there were probably multiple errors on this play. I didn't actually see how it was scored. So you could look up plays with multiple errors, but there are some plays that just rise above or sink below others. Like the outcome might be the same, but just the level of incompetence, the little leagueness of what is transpiring just sets it apart. And I wish that there were a way to isolate those. Like I know on baseball Reddit, they talk about fart slams. Fart slams. It's, you know, it's like a noble tiger, I guess, is another one.

All these acronyms, these extremely long acronyms for things that happen on the field, like a toot plan, you know, thrown out on the bases. Like an income poop is one or a noble tiger is a no-outs, bases loaded ending with team incapable of getting easy run. That one, it doesn't flow so smoothly. of getting easy run. That one, it doesn't flow so smoothly. But the fart slam is fielder allows runner to score like a moron, which... Oh, no. Yeah, I don't love that one because it makes it sound like the runner

is scoring like a moron. Yeah. The like a moron is the fielder, right? It's not precise. Right, it should be fielder like a moron allows runner to score or something. But even that, I've seen people make the case that that should be reserved for when a fielder, it's less of a physical mistake than a mental mistake. It's like you're just standing there arguing about a call while the runner is still circling the bases, like kind of the classic Chuck Knobloch sort of mistake or miscue. So this is like, you know, just one that makes it look like you forgot how to field

and never took fielding practice. Like, I don't know if there's an acronym for that or a way to just isolate those plays because I just, I want to watch them on a loop and make my own blooper reel and have those be searchable on Baseball Savant. And I don't know that there's a way to just identify those particularly egregious mistakes. And then I feel like creatively deficient in the face of Reddit. So when this happened, I saw David Lourla tweet, if anyone needs proof that the Tampa Bay Rays are a better baseball team than the Red Sox, we just saw a great example of why at Fenway Park. And I was like, oh, like, was there, you know, like a particularly well-struck ball? Was there maybe like a normal error, you know, not a super error. And then I saw the play and i went oh

no and i think for me the best part of it is that at least the clip that i saw of it ends with cory gloober and his stony face just telegraphing despite his lack of expression what the hell just happened out there as he's like waiting to cover? Oh gosh, poor guy. It's pretty bad. You know, it's one of the ones that you know, I imagine as a player, you're going to be asked about post game and hope that everyone just like gets lost on their way to the locker room maybe. Yep. Yeah. It does humanize them, I think, just because for a moment there's just a lapse or multiple lapses and you actually see what the gulf of skill is typically between the majors and that kind of play, which any of us could make in a weekend softball game or in Little League or some recreational game. But you don't tend to see that at the major league level.

And so it's jarring when you do. But you don't tend to see that at the major league level. And so it's jarring when you do. But I feel like if there were a way to query that and stat blast that, the Red Sox would be up there in recent years, despite not last season. I mean, you had the notorious Jaron Duran play in center where he just lost the ball and sort of stood there. But that was one of many where it was like the Red Sox just seemingly forgot how to track pop-ups for a while. It was weird. Anyway, I saw a quote about this by Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who was not pleased about this play. And he said, I've seen that play too many times in the last two years. You've got to throw the ball to the right base. You've got to back up. You cannot become a spectator. It's just not good baseball. Yeah. And when I read that, I thought, you know, whose fault is that, Alex? I mean,

you are the manager of this team, right? So on the one hand, he could come down harshly and say this is unacceptable. But also, he is the person responsible for getting the Red Sox not to make so many super errors. So some part of his mind when he is blasting a play like this, he must be like, huh, but also if I say this is unacceptable baseball, I'm ultimately the one who's responsible for this. I'm supposed to teach this team the fundamentals, if not directly, then at least indirectly. So the harsher my criticism, the more incompetent my managing looks. So that was like we're all looking for the guy who did this. Not that he was the one committing the errors, but it's ultimately his job to remind his players how to play defense.

You hope that that reminder comes behind the closed clubhouse door and not through the media. But also, what is he supposed to say? He can't be like, no, it's fine, actually. I think that's a good brand of Red Sox baseball. We're sitting here and a very calm crowd is super excited that that's the product that we're putting on the field at this particular moment. So I did want to bring up a better AL East team, and that's the Yankees and specifically Aaron Judge. Judge, as we speak, he has a bit of a toe situation. Yeah. And he's going to get his toe checked out because, of course, he ran through a wall. Literally ran through a wall. Like, you know, sometimes we're prone to hyperbole, but no, no, no.

Ran right through it. Yep. And with some players, the wall would win. But I would say Aaron Judge won this showdown with the wall. But potentially a Pyrrhic victory in that he hurt his toe. And we will find out how hurt it is. But his stats, as Jason Stark, among others, have pointed out, are almost identical to his stats through the same point last season. Through the first 49 games last year, he had hit 19 homers. Through his first 49 games this year, he has hit 19 homers.

Same number of multi-homer games, almost identical runs and runs batted in totals, 29 extra bases this year, 28 extra base hits. That is, last year, same number of plate appearances per homer. He's slugging 674 compared to 660 last year. His OPS is about 50 points higher this year, of which would lead you to believe that he's going to do it again. He's going to make another run for 62 or perhaps higher, pending his toe and whether he will miss more time.

I guess, though, that the balls are flying more this season and better and farther. And as we've noted, it's not like Aaron Judge really needs a juiced ball to hit balls over the fence, but it can't hurt him to have a ball that flies farther. And so some of these stats may be a little less impressive relative to the league than they were last year in a more depressed offensive environment. But what stands out to me is that at this point last season, I don't know that we were really talking about him hitting 62. thing about his 2022 season was that he kept getting better as the season went on. And just when you thought that he would have to cool off, instead he heated up and everyone on the Yankees was either hurt or ice cold. And Aaron Judge was to the extent that any one player can carry a team. He was carrying a team for months at a time and he got better as the season went on. So he was not initially necessarily on pace to hit as many homers as he hit, but he improved his pace and certainly didn't slacken

from the pace, really. So he's not actually on pace to hit 62 this year, even if he misses no more time, because for one thing, while we're comparing his first 49 games in each season, he has missed more time this year because he was on the IL earlier with his hip issue, which didn't cost him a ton of time. But when you're making runs at records, every game matters. Any time lost counts, yeah. Yeah. So between that and the fact that not only would he have to continue to hit at the same pace, but he would have to up his pace the way he did last year, he's probably not going to make another run at a record-setting home run total, even though the conditions, offensively speaking, are somewhat more favorable this year. And yet, like, what, he had a 211 OPS plus last year. He's down to like 193 this year, which is still great.

And Jason said, how many hitters in the last 80 years have spun off back-to-back qualifying seasons with a 190 OPS plus or better? Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Barry Bonds, right? And even before that, it's like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby and Jimmy Fox. And even before that, it's like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby and Jimmy Fox. It's like very few players have done that multiple times in their career, let alone in back-to-back seasons. So he's still having an all-time great offensive season here, even though he probably will not be chasing the same stats that he was last year. Unless he has another gear that he finds as this season goes on like he was last year, unless he has another gear that he finds as this season goes on like he did last year. I have two competing bits of speculation about Aaron Judge's mindset. Are you ready for them?

Yeah. On the one hand, maybe it does bum him out that the ball is a little bit juicier because like maybe he likes the challenge, you know, maybe he wants to just really polarize an anemic, a only afflicted baseball. You know, maybe he's like, this isn't as hard, so's not on pace to match his his home run production from last year or anyone else's you know notable record setting historic production from prior seasons eras times because i have to imagine like this this guy has obviously demonstrated that he can handle the bright lights, right? Yes.

He's been a Yankee his entire professional career. He's had incredible seasons. He had this run last year. He managed to break the AL record. He did all of that stuff. regardless of exactly what pace he's on because he's the most notable player on the most, one of the, if not the most notable club in Major League Baseball. But it's gotta be nice to not be like,

having a microphone in your face about, you know, and have to like spend so much time thinking about and potentially interacting with like the offspring of Roger Maris, you know? Yes, you're no longer being stalked by the of Roger Maris. Yes. You're no longer being, being stalked by the spawn of Maris all season. It's like,

oh my God, they're here again. Like trying to them again and again. So, you know, I'm sure that what he would say and probably what is the dominant feeling in his heart is that he would love to, he'd like to break the all-time record and he'd like to, you know, take his team as far as he can. And if that means

hitting a billion home runs, he'll do it. But I do wonder sometimes if guys are just like, I'm really good, right? I'm in this sweet spot where no one right now, well, I won't say no one because, you know, it's a big country and it's a broad fan base, so there might be someone out there who's having an unhinged kind of day. But I doubt strongly that there is a sizable contingent of Yankees fans that are like, oh man, we're regretting that contract right now, right? He's just really, really good. He's doing incredible stuff. He's having the kind of season where we're going to see him crashing into and through.

Do we know for sure that it was a wall and not the bullpen door? He opened it, if it is the door, to be clear. I'm not trying to diminish the thing. But, like, did he break a wall or is that the bullpen door? That's a good question. It looked like a wall to me. Yeah. But regardless of what kind of architectural purpose it's serving in Dodger State, we're going to see that clip for the rest of his career.

That's going to be on highlight packages forever. When Aaron Judge, if he ends up in Cooperstown, that's going to play the day that he gets inducted, right? So we're going to see that forever. He has this great AL record that he's set. He's clearly so good and talented. No one is regretting the offseason signing, but again, he's not having to like wonder where Roger Maris' son is. Like this might just be the perfect sweet spot. And if they can put together a little run, if the pitching can get healthier slash more effective, depending on who you're talking about,

run, if the pitching can get healthier slash more effective, depending on who you're talking about, like he could still have a magical season, but one that is a lot about him, but a little less about him. And that might be preferable, you know? I don't know. I don't know the mind of Aaron Judge. I don't know the heart of the man. I know he is a really cute dog. I've learned that about him this season also. Yeah. Nothing has made me like Aaron Judge more. I mean, I didn't dislike him, right? But watching him interact with the dog. Pretty an objectionable guy, mostly as far as we know. But yeah, seeing him the other day

in the outfield with his tiny dachshund. Little tiny dachshund. As a dachshund man myself, that warmed my heart. And his whole, like he and Rizzo have bonded over their mutual dachshund ownership. They're both dachshund dudes. That just

obviously makes me feel for them. But yeah, watching this more closely, I think it probably was a bullpen door that he knocked partly open. He forced it open. He did, yeah. And look, I wouldn't discount his ability to just crash through a wall.

Yeah. The way that, I guess the famous just running through a wall is like Rodney McRae, the going to bulldoze and Kool-Aid man right through a wall, it would be Aaron Judge. And I believe Aaron Boone said, we're the visitors. It's not our fault that Judge knocked the wall down. So that's how he put it. And I mean, if you watch it, how could you not view it that way? So print the legend, I guess, Aaron Judge. He ran through a wall.

If it is the door, which I think you're right. I think it might be the bullpen door. As I look at it again, I think that's what it is. I don't think this was a situation where it was left slightly ajar and a guy runs through it. That happens. I think he opened the door with the force of his body. I think he opened the door with the force of his body. So I don't know that it those questions every day, even if unfailingly, he always said and would say, oh, it's about winning the World Series. It's about the championship. It's about the team, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I guess we didn't really get

so many stories about his hair falling out, Roger Maris style under the pressure, but I'm sure he was feeling it. So yes, you'd think that having had a season for the ages and won the MVP award and gotten a giant contract and being named the captain. I mean, you've got everything. You won, right? And not that you can take your foot off the pedal and just coast for the rest of your career. I'm sure he still wants to achieve as much as he can achieve. Oh, yeah. But one little day, one little season to enjoy

what you did. I mean, if I have a day where I publish a couple articles or an article in a podcast or something, and I did a lot of work for those, the day after that, I'll just be like, all right, I can kind of rest on my laurels today. I I'll take it. That's not quite the same as hitting 62 homers. So, yes, I think he is entitled to that. If I am Aaron Judge, I'm working really hard. I'm trying to lift my team. But I also would take time to play with my tiny ducks. He picked such a small dog, and he's such a big man. And there are very few things that we consistently enjoy, I think, as much as the contrast between a very big guy and a tiny dog, just like a tiny.

I mean, like they're long, but they're small. They're not big dogs. They're lengthy, but they are wee. They're wee. It's great. Yeah, there was a term I may have mentioned already that Sam Miller introduced me to because he was introduced to it himself recently, There we go. And it's basically like the day after you start, you have a good start. It's just a dig me day. It's like treat yourself, you know, just kick back and relax and enjoy the great thing that you did.

And don't put extra pressure on yourself. So he gets to have a dig me year, basically. And he is playing more or less as well as he was through the same number of games last year. So we'll see what trajectory he takes from now on. Probably won't be the one that he did last year, but you never know. We didn't think he would do that last year either. Is Doxin Dude the accepted vernacular? I don't know. Doxie Dude.

Doxie Dude. Doxie Dude. That kind of makes it sound like you're doxing someone, though. I don't know. You might want to workshop that one. Okay. That makes it sound like you're doxing someone, though. I don't know. You might want to workshop that one. Okay.

What are we going to do about Alec Manoa staying within the AL East here? We got an email from a Patreon supporter the other day that I read on the outro in an effort to improve Alec Manoa's fortunes. And it was all about, like, hey, can you say something about Alec Manoa the way that you said something about Jose Barrios? And as soon as he brought up Barrios, he started pitching much better. Maybe you can work the same magic on Alec Manoa. And the magic did not work in Alec Manoa's most recent start, which was just a disaster, really. And his season was already disastrous coming into that start. So he just looks lost now. It's not entirely clear what the problem is or how many different problems there are or how long he is for that rotation.

I mean, he got one out against the Astros in his most recent start, and he gave up seven runs and six hits. Walks have been his biggest problem. He only had time to allow one walk before he was yanked because he was just giving up nonstop hits and he gave up a homer. There was only actually one walk mixed in there, but he has just completely fallen apart after a Cy Young finalist season. I hate that terminology, but I guess we could just say that he finished third in AL Cy Young voting last year and got MVP votes and was an all-star and was even better than he had been in his rookie year

when he got some rookie of the year votes. And now it is ugly. He's just, he's leading the major leagues in walks allowed. Yeah. He's gone from walking like two per nine to walk in six and a half per nine. He just does not seem to know where the ball is going. And yet it has not been effectively wild.

It has been extremely ineffectively wild. He has a 17% K rate, almost 15% walk rate. Numbers last year were basically 23% and 6.5% respectively. So 151 ERA minus and FIP minus, which that's not what you want. It's not what you want you know it's it's not what you want and like i know there has been some pitch mix changes like around the periphery it's not like he has a new pitch that's going badly like he i think he's throwing his four seamer less and he's throwing his sinker more and like it's just it's he looks lost out there and it really sucks because like he seems he's a great interview he's a super affable guy and yeah when

it's going well it's super fun to watch but when you suddenly start walking everyone and then allowing more home runs it's a that doesn't you know, it's pretty bad. through the end of May. And Alec Manoa was the fourth FIP underachiever, the pitcher whose FIP is worse than it should be or than he has deserved for it to be based on other underlying numbers. In fact, Manoa was just below his teammate Yusei Kikuchi, which could have been encouraging for Blue Jays fans reading that, at least before Manoa then made a subsequent start and looks the worst he has this season. But if you look at the walks specifically, he was at the very top of the walk underachievers list by a lot. His expected walks were 28 and his actual walks were 41. That's a very big difference. And Dan wrote,

if you're wondering what happened to Manoa, Zips is right there with you. It agrees that he should be allowing a lot more walks this year as his first strike and swing percentage numbers have eroded significantly since 2022's breakout campaign. But 15% is a massive number and expected walks only gives a few pitchers every year a 15% or worse. A 10% walk rate for Manoa would be ugly, but would also at least take some of the pain out of some wretched 2023 numbers. So even the upside, he concedes, is still ugly. So that's not a great position to be in. But that at least looked better.

It looked like, okay, maybe better times are ahead. And while he hasn't been great, it's not quite as bad as it's looked, but then he looked so, so bad in his most recent outings. So yeah, now it's not even clear whether they're just going to have him take a break of some sort or what exactly. You always wonder, is there some sort of underlying injury that either he's hiding or he himself is not entirely aware of, right? But it's just affecting his mechanics in some way. John Schneider, the Blue Jays manager, said everything is on the table when it comes to trying to help him regain his form.

So he's slated to start on Saturday against the Twins. But yeah, just across the board, everything has been bad. And it's just a very sudden, disastrous decline without an obvious underlying cause. Although I wonder whether eventually we'll learn that there was one. I guess if I am comforted by anything when it comes to Manoa, and it's as an aside, you know, sometimes when you scroll over the,

the fan graphs search bar, a player's name is there. Cause it's like, Oh, he's so good. Or he just got called up or he's an exciting young prospect. And then sometimes you're like, Oh,

Alec Manoa is third. Why? Oh, people are trying to understand. So I know that when he has talked to photographs in the past, like David Lourla interviewed him in the early part of last season, as I recall. And he seems like a guy who is, you know, he's, like I said, affable, but like also like open to information. And, you know, he's, like I said, affable, but like also like open to information and, you know, he might not be like in the super duper weeds on analytics, but clearly isn't antagonistic to them and is thinking about his pitch mix and grips and thumb placement and all kinds of stuff in like a heady way. And so if you are a Blue Jays fan and you're clawing for some kind of optimism here, and Dan's article didn't really give it to you, like, it does seem like he's going to be the kind of guy who is open to feedback. And so if they can,

you know, come up with a way to like, not only diagnose what ails him, but, you know, suggest tweaks to the repertoire, to his mechanics, whatever. Like he's not Bumgarner, right? Like he is open to information seemingly and will try to enact it. And, you know, that's good. But it does seem like he might benefit from a harder reset than just, you know, the typical time off he gets start to start because it's really not working. Yeah. Well, I hope that there will be better things ahead for him. Yeah, me too. smoking Halliday right and saying maybe he needs sort of a Halliday-esque demotion or break like send him to AAA, send him to the pitching lab and just hope that he comes back his old self or a new better self or concoct some reason to put him on the IL if there isn't some obvious underlying

reason that he and the team are actually aware of, just to give him a break and let him build himself back up again. But yeah, it got to the point where it's uncomfortable to watch in that most recent start. So you don't want it to stay at that point. And that was, I guess, only the second most depressing pitching development or news in the past few days, because there was also the news, if you can call it news about Steven Strasberg, which is that there is no news, really. There's nothing to report. He is not doing anything. And the headline on the Washington Post piece was Steven Strasberg is completely shut down from physical activity again, which makes it sound

like, I mean, physical activity, it's not even saying like baseball activity. Shut down from physical activity makes it sound like he's bedridden or something, like he's just not even moving, which I hope that's not quite the case. But some little anecdotes in the story make it sound like it's not that far from that because it's not even just a matter of can he pitch in the majors? Can he throw a ball again? It's like, can he lead a normal, comfortable life? Because there are bits in here about how just like he couldn't be comfortable, right? Like he was having numbness, you know, like he's had all sorts of issues, like he has nerve issues and he had thoracic outlet syndrome and it's been kind of tough to

pin down what's going wrong exactly. And he said, you know, as recently as last summer, the story by Jesse Daugherty says, Strasburg couldn't stand for long before his right hand went numb. He often had to lie down and press his hand against his chest to be a warped version of comfortable. So that was the line that really got to me because it wasn't just like, you know, he was trying to ramp up to baseball activities and then he was trying to do lower body exercises and stay in shape, and he couldn't do that. Okay, he couldn't do strenuous physical activity. Well, that's a little bit different from he just couldn't even stand without his hand going numb. Like, that's when you start to worry about the rest of his life and the quality of it, as opposed to just whether he'll be back on a baseball field. When the phrase severe nerve damage is being invoked, you know, that you're in, you know, territory where the concern extends for the person even more than the player. It's like, you know, are you going to be able to like pick up your kids and do, you know, normal day-to-day stuff? It would be upsetting no matter what. And I don't want to say

that if Strasburg had had like a crummy career that it wouldn't have been devastating because like this is a person's health and long-term comfort. And, you know, you want to put that in its proper context and put the proper sort of perspective and priority on it, which is it's more important than what he does as a baseball player. And also he was such a good baseball player. You know, it's just, I think it brings home for me that the sort of slow decline, the slide into being ineffective and then unrasterable, like there's maybe a lot more dignity in that than we sometimes appreciate, right? We tend to draw this contrast with Guy's career ending where it's like, you know, you either get the David Ortiz where you go out on a high note, you know, everyone sort of celebrates you and gives you your roses, but you also have a great season in your final season and then nothing.

And it's like, actually like the the smooth decline a lot to be said for the smooth decline relative to the abrupt ending because you know he was trying so hard to get back and i get that but also for the final four years of his professional career and it's not like he's officially done but it sounds like he's done right. In 2019, he threw 209 innings and then 2025. And like, you know, that was a weird year, but that wasn't the reason that he threw just five innings.

And then 21 and a third innings in 2021 and four and a third, four and two thirds, rather in 2022. It's just like, you know, this was a guy who I just remember how amped we all were for him to debut. I remember like Prospect Town sitting there being like, oh my God, I can't believe we get to watch it. We finally get to watch it, you know, for him to be feted the way

he was as a prospect and then to arrive and be so good. And it's just a, it's a profound, and be so good. And it's just a profound bumper. Yeah, I was thinking if this is it for him, I think his career, I don't think you could call it a disappointment. I mean, it's disappointing, obviously, that it's not longer and even more productive. And given that he was one of the most hyped prospects

of all time, I suppose anything short of a Hall of Fame career could be construed as a disappointment, sort of, but got a lot of great moments with him. It's not one of these stories where some young pitcher with an incredible promise gets heard and we just never get to see him make good on that. I mean, gets heard and we just never get to see him make good on that. I mean, he was incredible in the majors at times and for long stretches. Like obviously durability was always something of an issue, but he was from 2012 through 2019, even though he only had two 200 plus inning seasons during that time, or I guess in his whole career. He was a top 10 pitcher in the majors by baseball reference war. Okay, he was exactly 10th, but top 10.

And that's despite the shutdown and the Tommy John and everything. And of course, the electric debut was just a memory of a lifetime. I mean, most players in a 20-year career might not give you as memorable a game or an outing as Strasburg did in his very first one in that first season before he got hurt the first time. And when he was healthy and at his best, he was as good as advertised, right? And then in 2019,

he helped his team win a World Series. He was a World Series MVP! Yeah, he was a huge part of that, right? And then in 2019, he helped his team win a World Series. He was a World Series MVP. Yeah, he was a huge part of that, right? So I think he could look back on it someday, hopefully in better health and say, I had a nice career. It wasn't all I would have wanted or all anyone would have wanted for me, but he didn't fail to fulfill his potential. He perhaps didn't fulfill it quite as often or for as long as he would have liked to, or we would have liked him to, but he was as good as advertised and he had more than his fair share of moments. So it was a great career if that's the whole career. And I think much of the takeaway and the discussion that was prompted by this article was about the Nationals not being covered for this sort of eventuality here because there was reporting in the piece.

I'll quote here from Jesse who wrote, the Nationals do not have any disability insurance on Strasburg's contract, according to four people familiar with the situation. The premiums would have been extremely high, two people explained. And that's assuming the team and an insurance company could have agreed on a policy, given Strasburg's age and extensive injury history. And three people familiar with the situation doubt ownership would have spent on top of the $245 million, even if doing so would have provided some financial protection in a worst-case scenario. So is that ownership being penny-wise, pound-foolish with a pitcher with his track record of injuries, not these particular injuries?

Maybe. I don't know that anyone could have anticipated just how quickly it would have gone south for him health-wise. But to not have that kind of protection, we don't know that much about how insurance works. That whole process is semi-opaque. So I can't say just how ill-advised it was. Obviously, in retrospect, it seems like an enormous blunder not to have disability insurance given what has happened to him. And so they're all on the hook for the full contract here.

I don't really know exactly how anomalous the decision not to invest in that was at the time or just how much it would have cost them given his history or what. just how much it would have cost them given his history or what. But obviously, you know, people have been talking about this being as great and richly rewarding a contract as the Scherzer deal was for the Nationals. The Strasburg deal has turned out to be the opposite. You know, it's like, hey, World Series hero meant a lot to the organization. Lots of other players left before that or after that, and Strasburg was the one they decided to sign, and ultimately that was not the best decision. It's one of those things where I think

it would feel incomplete to not note the contract component, but I hope that certainly when Strasburg looks back on his own career, that that part, I'm sure he's not going to be like, oh man, really took some of the Nationals money. It's like, who cares? But, you know, it wasn't a great deal. But who cares?

Like, I don't, you know, like we don't, we don't care. Yeah. And at the time it came down to Strasburg or Rendon, right? Right. Yeah. I mean, they may have chosen unwisely then, Indiana Jones style, but there wasn't really, like, the Holy Grail wasn't there for them, either one. They were going to just, like, prematurely age and, you know, turn into an old person just having drunk from not the Holy Grail. That's kind of, you know, there wasn't really a great answer either way.

Rendon has, I guess, played more and provided more on field value, but hardly. Not as much as he or the Angels have expected him to, right? No, definitely not. It is kind of like a funny coincidence when you think through, you know, if we are assessing, you know, contracts on the basis of did the player in question sort of provide value and produce war commensurate with, you know, the value of the contract, right? And we're going to do the beep-boop-boop version of assessing that. And that's fine. Like, that has its place. going to do the beep boop boop um version of of assessing that that's fine like that has its place it is a funny coincidence to me that the nationals can boast arguably one of the worst as well as the

very best yeah of these contracts right because when you think about the you know max scherzer as we have discussed on this podcast like when you look at his production for them and the value of that deal, it is like perfect. It aligns almost exactly from a dollars per war perspective, depending on sort of how you're valuing a win in free agency.

And then there's Strasburg. So I guess if I'm the Nationals, hopefully your takeaway is, well, you win some, you lose some. Right, yeah. Yeah. Do you wish you could go back in time and portion that money to Bryce Harper or Juan Soto somehow? I guess. Yeah, probably. Probably.

There wasn't really a great answer when you're choosing between Rendon and Strasburg, as it turns out, at least thus far. As it turns out. Yeah. All right. So I did want to mention, I meant to bring this up after we talked about Aaron Judge, because there's a player who's doing things that are almost as extraordinary in a completely different way,

a totally differently shaped player and a different game, but no less extraordinary what Luis Arias is doing these days. I mean, every time I think that that batting average is going to fall, it goes up instead. It goes up, Ben. It goes up three hits last night. Yeah. It keeps going up at a time when it's supposed to be going down by now.

And he's batting 399. 399, Ben. Given that we're well into June here, I mean, look, I'm not seriously on 400 watch, but even the fact that he's flirting with it at this point in a season in this environment, in this batting average, unfriendly environment, he is absolutely hearkening back to players from earlier eras. I mean, I've seen people listing Tony Gwynn's first X career games and Luisa Rice's first same number of career games, and they have almost identical slash lines. Literally, I saw a tweet through their first 444 career games, each of them. They have a.324 batting average, exactly the same sort of stats. I saw another one. MLB players in the last 30 regular seasons to have at least seven times

more base hits than strikeouts. It's Tony Gwynn several times and Louisa Rice in 2023 thus far. And Sarah Langs tweeted highest batting average in team's first 61 games, qualified hitters in expansion era. It's, you know, the famous flirting with 400 seasons. Chipper Jones and Larry Walker and Paul O'Neill and Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn and Roberto Alomar and then Luis Arise. Like he is putting himself up with those names. Or here's another one. OPS of at least, or OPS plus, I guess, of at least 160, 200 plus plate appearances, strikeouts in fewer than 5%

of those plate appearances. Then you're talking about George Brett, Don Mattingly, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, Luis Arise. So there's a lot of season left. And I assume that one of these days, I'm going to look at the box score and he will not have three or four hits and the batting average will actually start to sink. But the fact that he's kept it going even this long and that he has struck out

as infrequently as he has a 4.8% strikeout rate. This is ridiculous. It's very funny to me that I was obsessed with Williams-Astadio and never really lost my obsession with Williams-Astadio completely. And yet, it's not really Astadio I should have been obsessing over. It was the other Venezuelan infielder who came up with the twins at roughly the same time, Luis Suarez. And look, with D'Astinio, I guess what drew me to him was not only that he never struck out,

but that he never did any of the three true outcomes, basically, right? And he has continued to not do them because since he last played in the majors, continued to not do them because since he last played in the majors, he played in 22 Venezuelan Winter League games, and then he's played in 24 games in Japan in the majors and the minors this year. And let's see, 93 plate appearances in Venezuela, 74 plate appearances combined at the two levels in Japan. And he has struck out one time in all of those plate appearances. And I think he has walked four times and he's hit four homers. Araiz, I guess, walks more than Astadio did. So he walks at like roughly a league average rate, which may be partly because no one wants to face him now that he gets four

hits every day. Well, yeah, like I would simply prefer to not if it were me, you know, or given my brothers, I'd be like, no, thank you. Yeah. It's hard to be a really valuable offensive player and great all-around player when you just don't hit for a lot of power, which he doesn't. He's hit one home run this year in 56 games, 231 plate appearances. His isolated power is under 100. So it's tough to be an offensive force. That's your slugging percentage minus your batting average. It's hard to be an offensive force when it's that low. But then again, I guess it's hard for anything minus your batting average to be very high when your batting average is 399. So he has a 161 WRC+, which is not like league leading, but it's up there. And it's largely batting average driven along with some walks here and there.

But you watch him and he kind of looks like he could keep doing this, which is, it's maybe sort of deceptive, but he just appears to have the ability to place his hits and hit them where they ain't

and make contact in kind of an intentional way that most players in this era don't try to do and wouldn't be able to do even if they tried. So it's just like he's putting on a hitting clinic, like a batting average clinic every day. And it's been a lot of fun to follow. So on Sunday, Michael Bauman messaged me and he's like, is it too early to check in on a rise?

Like, is it too soon after I wrote about him in April? And I was like, nah, go ahead and do it. And then yesterday he had three hits and I was like, yeah, cool. I just really will never capture this in war, right? And we shouldn't. Like the aesthetic value stuff is so subjective. But it's just, I think, to the game's benefit to have a guy like this, even if, you know, I agree with you, the odds that he actually hits 400 by the time the season is done. Well, he's very small. That's not,

that's probably not going to happen. But I think that having a diversity of looks is exciting. It's fun for baseball. We have so many boppers, you know, We have a lot of guys other hitters in the game. And especially in a year where it's like, okay, we're kind of, we're jazzing it up. It feels like baseball has undergone like a nice, not a home run-out, you know, because the changes aren't that big, right? We don't have new windows, you know. There's no new cabinets. But maybe we painted some of them. And I feel like if I were gonna, you know, really try to lay claim to this as a, like a metaphor for the season, I think it threw better than I just did and maybe not

pick that one. But it's especially fun for me in a year where it feels like we just have a little bit of a breath of a fresh something that you also have a guy like this who he constitutes a breath of fresh air now but is really a throwback to a different time like it's just a very cool profile to have succeeding at this level and what a nice thing to be able to say excited stuff about a marlins position player, right? Yeah, I know. What a cool little change of pace we have there. Yeah, right.

Yeah, you said he's jazzing things up. Jazz Chisholm is not jazzing things up quite as much. Stupid toes. But Lisa Rice is more than compensating for that. So, yeah, and I keep wondering how much can he sustain this? And, yeah, even though we're sabermetrically inclined, which I guess the stereotype would be that we don't care about batting average. And obviously there's some truth to that stereotype

if we're talking about using it as an evaluative tool. But if he actually sustained to run it 400 somehow, I would be pretty into that, even though I would acknowledge the evaluative weaknesses of batting average, knowing how much the odds are stacked against him in this era to make a run at a 400 average in this high strikeout era where even with the positioning restrictions, BABIP and all of that, I mean, it's still, it's hard to get hits these days. And so for him to be striking out as infrequently as he is, he's just a total throwback. He's like a player out of another era. And I like that. I like players who seem to be from the future or from the distant past, and somehow we're still watching them now. And so if you look at

like the expected stats for him, it would suggest there's regression coming. Now, I guess there would always be an expectation that regression is coming when someone's batting.399. He's hitting.399, bud. I mean, it would be weird if

there were... Famously a regression candidate. Right. And probably most of the people who have hit.400, which hasn, like famously a regression candidate. Right. Yeah. And probably most of the people who have hit 400, which hasn't happened in a very long time, they probably got a little lucky along the way. I mean, there were some guys who did it multiple times and did it over a long enough stretch that it was clear that that was probably their true talent level. But also you have to have some luck and some bouncing your way to hit for that high an average. But if you were to look at his expected batting average or his expected weighted on base average, then those things are

considerably lower than his actual thus far. So like, I guess, looking at players with 100 plate appearances, the gap between his weighted on base average and his expected 49 points. That is the sixth biggest gap or the gap between his batting average and his expected batting average is 67 points, which is the third biggest gap. Then again, he did beat his expected batting average by a cumulative 23 points over the previous four seasons, you could convince me that it doesn't work for him, right? Like that the expected batting average model does not quite work for Luis Urias the way that it works for most people. Because yeah, he doesn't hit the ball that hard. Like he's not going to give you a lot of

barrels but i think most of those models are kind of based around the idea that it's good to hit the ball hard and it's good to hit it at a certain trajectory but it doesn't necessarily take into account are you directing the ball laterally is the spray angle such that you could actually beat out more of these balls like you know sometimes it will take into account sprint speed on some weekly hit balls and that kind of thing or if you look at individual plays maybe it'll take into account where on the field it was hit not just how hard and how high, but on the whole, it might be saying, oh, this guy doesn't hit the ball that hard. Therefore, his expected batting average is a lot lower than his actual batting average when in reality, he actually does have this preternatural ability to not only put the bat on the ball, but also to direct the ball in such a way that it goes in a direction where he's more likely to get a hit. So I do, to some extent, believe in his ability to beat those expected stats, maybe not by 50 or 60

points, but by some number that the, I guess, the lift that he has to have in order to keep his numbers up in the stratosphere where they are right now might not be quite as heavy as you might think based on the regression that those metrics would forecast. Yeah, I think to be clear, again, I don't think he's likely to hit 400, but I think that this is an important point to keep in mind as we're assessing that likelihood. This is an important point to keep in mind as we're assessing that likelihood. As Bauman said on this point in his piece, like, if it's a fluke, it's a fluke that he's perpetuated over five years and 1,800 plate appearances, right? And, you know, I thought Bauman put it well. Like, if you're putting the ball in play as much as a rise does, he's giving himself an opportunity to benefit from the vagaries of the batted ball.

And sometimes, oftentimes, those will break in the fielder's favor, but not always. And so, if you combine an actual ability to try to direct the ball with, you know, the fact that fielders are fielders and sometimes they are going to goof or if they're not going to goof necessarily, like they're not going to be positioned optimally,ally you know like that fun and i think that if he does end up doing it it'll be impressive for all kinds of reasons not the least of which is and i hadn't really realized this until bauman wrote this piece but like he's sort of on pace right now to play a full season. And if you look back on, you know, the highest sort of batting average seasons, even among qualifiers, like sometimes they're like just squeaking. They're just squeaking over that line, right? They're

missing big stretches of the year. So. Yeah. We got an email from a Patreon supporter, JJ, who said, how many MVPs would Luisa Reyes win if it were 1963? Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, certainly, like, look, Tony Gwynn never won an MVP. Yeah, that's true. He was playing more recently than 1963. Also true.

Yes. I think if he were playing at an earlier era, you would not have me casting cold water on him by pointing out his isolated power and his WRC+. Not that people in earlier eras were entirely unaware of the fact that it was good to hit for power. That's been known for quite a long time, and most of the big baseball stars of yesteryear also hit for power. But I think, yeah, if he were making a run at 400 again though it's like hitting for this high in average was not quite as impressive back then as it would be now it was obviously always impressive but to do it now would just be otherworldly with just how hard it is in

this environment to hit for that high in average. So, like, if he somehow maintained his stats that he's putting up now for the rest of the season and the Marlins somehow kept up their pace, because the Marlins are kind of, it's like they're a rise writ large. Like, they are somehow defying what we know about baseball and what should be possible because they're second place in the NL East. They're only three games back. They've been outscored by 34 runs.

Sure, yeah, they have, yeah. And yet, they are 33-28 and they're ahead of the Mets and they're ahead of the Phillies. And as we've talked about plenty of times, they have that wacky

one-run game record in their favor. They're 16-4 now in one-run games. So if they could somehow make that work for the rest of the season and Luis Uribe could somehow make what he's doing work for the rest of the season, he'd get MVP votes, right? And it would be justified because even though he is largely a product of batting average, his batting average is so high that he's still a valuable player. Oh, yeah. I guess more so it looks like at baseball reference, according to Ward, than at Fangrass. Somehow at Fangrass, Luisa Rice has like negative five base running runs.

I don't even know how that's possible. That's got to be one of the worst in the league. He has... It has to be about advancing on... It must be, right? Because... Yeah, I would imagine it has to be about ability to advance, right? He's been caught stealing two times in three attempts,

so not much volume there. He hasn't been thrown out on the bases very often. I thought maybe he had a lot of two plans or something, but it looks like he's only made two outs on the bases, but it must be that he has just not taken the extra base. Yeah, Baseball Reference has a metric called extra base taken percentage, and he is down at 24%, which is very low. It's one of the lowest of the qualifying players. So evidently, he's taken it station to station on the bases. Oh, and he's also already grounded into a career-high

10 double plays, which will happen when you put the ball in play so often and you aren't speedy. So that's got to be a big part of why he has baseball's worst base running runs figure. He's been fine in the field, maybe better than expected according to the metrics. So I mean, if you have a 160 WRC plus and you play in most of the games and you're okay on defense, you're going to end up being one of the most valuable players in baseball. So like, I think he would get MVP votes if he somehow kept playing this way, especially if there were some extra narrative points thrown in there, if the Marlins exceeded expectations. And they're in a playoff position right now.

Yeah, right. Like if the season ended today, which would be really weird because it's only June 6th, but if it did, they're in a wildcard spot right now. Yeah, well, I hope that they can each keep defying gravity for a while, especially Arise, because it's really fun to watch. And because of him, in large part, the Marlins now have a league average offense park adjusted, which for them is, that's a victory. That's a big deal. They're at 100, their WRC plus, which is largely a rise. I mean, it's mostly a rise. It's more a rise than anyone else, but it's also resurgent Jorge Soler. Yeah.

He's got 17 dingers. Yeah. Right? Yeah. The thump has returned. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. And it's a popular breakout pick. Brian De La Cruz has been good. Yeah, he thump has returned. Yeah, very much so. And popular breakout pick Brian De La Cruz has been good.

Yeah, he's been good. Uli Gurriel, I don't know if people have noticed, but Uli Gurriel, who looked done as an Astro, he's been good above average, at least offensively. Well, he's a 109 WRC+, which like, you know, that's not the highest he's had before, but he had an 85 last season. Yeah, I think maybe he's slumped a bit, but still to have given them that. And then, you know, like Jesus Sanchez has given them some good hitting. So, I mean, it's always been the question, like, what's the lineup and where's the offense going to come from? what's the lineup and where's the offense going to come from? And they're getting enough now that if the pitching were as good as expected and advertised, then they actually might kind of deserve to be in playoff position.

As it is, the pitching has been not bad, but obviously... It hasn't been otherworldly either. No, and Sandy Alcantara has not followed up his Cy Young season with quite what they hoped, although there's a big ERA-FIP gap there too. So, yeah, I mean, maybe by the end of the season, their winning percentage could be worse. Perhaps their run differential will be better than it is now. It's been an interesting team, been a fun team to follow. And I am kind of curious to see how long they can sustain this. So we will see. I just have a couple more things to note.

One is that- Before you do, I have some breaking news for you, Ben. You ready? Oh, breaking news. Okay. Brad's lineup is out. Ooh, okay. Where's Ellie?

Della Cruz playing third. Uh-huh. Batten cleanup. Ooh. Yeah. Where's Dilly? Della Cruz playing third. Uh-huh. Batten cleanup. Ooh. Yeah. Batten cleanup in the debut. That's always a bold move. I always enjoy that.

They got McLean at short, India at second, Steer in left, and Newman playing first. All right. Oh, so Newman's still kind of way in there. You know, we're, I don't know. Like we said, it's not all the way there, you know? It's not all the way there. Newman! Also, boy, he's so tall.

He's like tall enough that they have a picture of him next to the lineup. And, you know, there's very little else for reference in terms of his height. And you look at him and you're like, that's a tall young man. That's a tall guy. That's a tall. We need a. They're like, they're all of these like construction crane dudes coming up and in the bigs right now. They're not.

It's different than Beef Boy, as we've noted. We need a construction crane is bad. That's my. So the first pancake. Don't worry about it. I look forward to Ellie's first Ken Rosenthal interview. That's when we can truly get a sense of scale. Love Ken. Anyway, so this was one thing that stood out to me as sort of surprising. in the season about whether the Angels should pick up Gary Sanchez because Logan Ohapi had gotten hurt and it seemed like extremely slim pickings for the Angels in the catching department.

I read some quotes from Perry Manassian and Phil Nevin about how they were happy with what they had. It sounded like maybe they didn't have full conviction in that, but they had to say it. But they also said that they were going to be aggressive about looking for upgrades and everything. And I was citing how the projections for their catchers were quite weak compared to most teams. Somehow I have noticed in the course of my Shohei Otani watching that the Angels catchers have hit better than most other teams in the league.

So Angels catchers this year, which is including a little of Ohapi's hot early work, but mostly not now. Angels catchers have a 113 WRC plus collectively, which places them behind only the Braves, who have Sean Murphy, and the Orioles, who have Adley Rutchman, and the Rangers, who have sudden superstar Jonah Heim, right? And after those teams, then it's the Angels with a 113 WRC+. So I did not see that coming. My mockery of their quotes about how they were happy with what they had, I don't know whether they actually were happy with what they had, but they have to be happy with what they had. I don't know whether they actually were happy with what they had, but they have to be happy with how what they had has produced thus far. So they're only 12th in war. So I guess the defense has maybe not quite kept up with the offense, but didn't see that offense coming from the Angels catcher leftovers. Meanwhile, the Mets and the Padres subsequently have employed Gary Sanchez.

Yeah. And in 30 plate appearances in the majors, he has a 136 WRC+. So look at that. Gary Sanchez is suddenly hitting homers for the Padres these days. I don't think you have to eat crow, but it is a surprising turn, you know? Yeah. Well, I guess I could say that they should have signed Gary Sanchez because he has a higher WRC plus than the Angels catchers do. But I didn't expect either of those numbers to be as high as they've been this year.

And while I'm on the subject of the Angels, I mentioned Ben Joyce's fastball the other day and just how striking it is. And there was an article at Baseball Perspectives by Daniel Epstein who wrote an ode to Ben Joyce's fastball. That was the headline. And one thing I realized about Ben Joyce's fastball from that article, I mentioned just how his delivery looks weird and it's sort of max effort and kind of jerky and odd. But also, it's like almost a sidearm delivery.

So it looks extra strange that that speed comes out of that release point because he releases the ball 4.8 feet off the ground, which, as Daniel notes, only 5% of MLB pitchers this year have a lower release point. And none of them throws nearly as hard as he does. So he's six foot five and yet he is releasing the ball from this low point and yet it is coming that fast out of his hand. And as Daniel noted, he also gets like 97th percentile extension. So he releases the ball close to home plate and also throws it harder than just about anyone else. So he has that Earldest Chapman combo of good extension and great velocity.

So it's really, really on top of you. And it's also in his case, I think extra surprising, probably two hitters because of the low arm slot. So what I noticed is that he has thrown almost exclusively that fastball. Like, I think he's as in love with it as anyone else is because it's basically all he throws. I mean, he has occasionally mixed in one of these cutter kind of slider sort of things, his off-speed pitch, but almost never does he throw that. It's been 94.3% four-seam fastballs so far, and the cutter 3.8%, the slider 1.9% if those are actually different pitches. That's the pitch info classifications at Fangraph. So I was looking for any kind of comp to that, someone who's as four-seam reliant as Ben Joyce has been thus far. And looking back to 2008, the first full year of PitchFX, the only guy who can compare in terms of just reliance on

the four-seamer is Jake McGee. He's the only guy who's in that zip code, that area code, because he, in 2014, Jake McGee threw 95.7% four seam fastballs. And he is the only pitcher with at least 30 innings pitch to equal or exceed Ben Joyce's four-seam fastball percentage thus far. So he's really testing the contention that you need more than one pitch to be a major league pitcher, I guess, especially when you can throw 103. And I still don't know if he's actually going to be good or not. Like, he might not be good. I don't really know.

Like, he's just. He's so wild. And also, Chaz McCormick hit a home run off him that was 102.5 miles per hour. It was the third fastest pitch hit for a home run in the StatCast era. And he's an okay hitter. He's not a great hitter. So we'll, I guess, put that saying to enjoying just this extreme outlier in multiple senses. I hope he's good enough at least to stay in the majors so I can continue to marvel at him. Yeah, you want to see it long enough to see kind of how long it can go. Right. Is that a tautology? I don't know. I guess. I have another bit of breaking news.

It's less fun. Okay. Are you ready? Yeah. Did someone break? Alec Manoa has been optioned to the Florida Complex League. Whoa. All the way down.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you feel like you need a mental break or just a mechanical overhaul. Yeah. I guess that's one way you could do it. That's one way to do it. Yeah.

Just sort of sending the message that, hey, this isn't about having one tune-up start and then you'll be back. It's like, this is going to be a process or, you know, the pressure's off. This is just about getting you back to where you were before, right? Yeah.

I mean, that is the more sort of optimistic way to look at it, right? That it's like, okay, we're going to work this out. We're going to work it out. Right. Yeah. I mean, that was with Roy Halladay, right? He went down to Class A, I think, when he got demoted and he was struggling. And then he worked with Harvey Dorfman, the sports psychologist.

Right. and then he worked with Harvey Dorfman, the sports psychologist, and he worked with Mel Queen and he revamped his pitching mechanics. This was 2001 and next thing you know, he was back in the big leagues and pitching like a Hall of Famer. So it doesn't always work that way, but I guess if you're a Boucher's fan, you hope for the same sort of metamorphosis here. Yeah, definitely. So I mentioned Chapman a second ago. I think Chapman is probably one of the more obvious trade candidates, right?

Just because the Royals signed him and when the Royals signed him, it was sort of like, what do the Royals want with this guy? What does anyone want with this guy maybe at this point given how he seemed to kind of quit on the Yankees and maybe was not the best guy to begin with. So between

the off the field issues and between the infected tattoo or whatever it was or him just just his strange story and him just kind of not showing up

with the Yankees and also having diminished stuff in performance it was like whither oris Chapman. Well, the Royals signed him, and I don't know whether they signed him with the express purpose of trying to rehabilitate him and then trade him.

But if so, that seems to have worked out. And he seems like one of the guys who will obviously be dealt. But it's kind of hard to figure out what the trade deadline will look like at this point, right? And I've seen some chatter to that effect. And Rangers GM Chris Young was talking about how he thinks the trade deadline will be slow to develop. Not that the Rangers appear to need a whole lot of help these days. But I wonder just like when that picture will become clear or whether it actually will be just a very slow deadline. Because we were talking the other day about how much parity there is right now and how little separation there seems to be in most of the divisions and how very few teams are out of it, and the teams that are obviously out of it aren't exactly packed with appealing players that contending teams would be salivating over. So it's sort of hard to see what the contending teams, which at this point is like most of them, will actually be getting when they are picking over the carcasses of these not contending rosters.

It's like, yeah, the A's are sellers, I guess. Yeah, but okay. Yeah, they can't seem to sell Las Vegas on a publicly funded ballpark. But can they actually trade any of their players if they want to? Because famously, they just don't have a lot of very good players left they have dealt them already yeah didn't they release Jesus Aguilar the other day I think I saw yeah I think I saw that transaction come across the transom plus it's like you have you know you have a bunch of guys who are hurt is the other thing I mean we always have injuries

but we sure have a lot of injuries and we have a lot of injured pitchers. So it's like you throw that into the mix and yeah, I don't know. I don't know what it's going to look like. Of course I say that. And then the monkey paw is going to curl and then I'm going to be awake until 3am on deadline day. So like, you know, what do I, what do I even mean? What am I, what am I rooting for Ben? You know, what are my incentives? Who knows? But yeah, I do think it's going to be odd. I'll be curious to see what Chapman's market develops into, both because I'm curious sort of how his off-the-field stuff is sort of contextualized by teams, but the stuff that's further in the past,

which was more alarming, and the stuff that's more recent, which I think, unfortunately, baseball people are probably going to put greater store in. And I'm also curious, like, how real people perceive this to be. I mean, like, the velo uptick is very real. Like, you can't – it's throwing two ticks harder. It's throwing two whole ticks harder, Ben.

Yeah. Like, what? He's not giving up a single home run. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. There are always teams that look like they won't be motivated to offload and then things happen and then they do.

Yeah. So we've got several weeks to go until we get down to deadline crunch time. Yeah. So stuff will happen, you know, and someone will fall out of it. And maybe the White Sox are completely out of it by that point. Or maybe the Cardinals are, right? It's hard to say because these central divisions are so weak that you don't actually have to be, I mean, like, you know, you look at the Guardians and their slow start, as we've talked Divisions are so weak that you don't actually have to be.

I mean, you look at the Guardians and their slow start, as we've talked about, but then suddenly Tristan McKenzie comes back and beats the Twins, and they're only three and a half back. And it's like, oh, they could very easily overtake the Twins. And even the White Sox are only five and a half back. They could talk themselves into contending. So if they have a bad next several weeks, if the Cardinals do, maybe, gosh, it'd be weird to have the Cardinals be a team that was looking to deal players at the deadline. But that could happen. Because you have, like, the Royals and the A's who have already dealt a lot of guys. the A's who have already dealt a lot of guys. You have the Reds who already dealt a lot of guys and now are playing better to the point where they could talk themselves into potentially contending in that division, or at least they might not have a lot of players left they would actually be

interested in trading at this point. You have the Nationals, okay, but again, how much do the Nationals have left that contending teams would want? You have the Giants, potentially. Potentially. You have the Rockies, but no one ever knows what the Rockies are going to do, right? They're going to trade for five relievers. What are you talking about? We know exactly what they're going to do. They're not going to move anyone of note, and they're somehow going to have more dudes in the bullpen. That's how it's going to go. Yeah, they might trade four guys or they might

do absolutely nothing. There's just never any telling what the Rockies are going to do, right? So there's only like a handful of teams you can kind of count on for teams to come flocking to and say, can we have this guy? And there aren't that many guys on most of those rosters. So it's shaping up to be a very dull deadline, but I've been surprised before when it comes to deadlines being more or less active than I thought they'd be. So I don't feel like I have a great ability to forecast that. It just seems like given the standings and the state of everything,

that's just a formula for not that much movement. Yeah, it does feel like there will be a lot that gets determined around that is going to unfold over the next couple of weeks. Because right now, you're right, there's just too many teams that are in it or in it if you squint or not good, but in a way that makes them uninteresting. So, you know, like who, who knows? Listeners detecting escalating panic in my voice when I realized how soon that is. I mean, like, you know, that's another thing that we will see over the next couple of weeks. We'll judge as, as things unfold. And we're not, we're not worrying about it right now.

Why would we, it really sucks that it's on a Tuesday, Ben. Tuesday. Ben. Tuesday, yeah. I feel like the trade deadline, it should have to be on a Thursday. I'm advocating for this selfishly. I want to acknowledge that my incentives around this are completely different than other people's. But like, if the trade deadline is on a Tuesday, you do all this stuff on deadline day, and then you have to work three more days in the week, you know? And I anticipate being very tired. So, I feel like we're dropping the ball here. Make it, you know, it's like, it should be one of those holidays that's on a set day

of the final, you know, the final Thursday of the seventh month of the when you sacrifice the this and the that. Yeah. Why do they not consult the managing editors on these things before they schedule them? I mean, they barely consult their own teams in terms of when they schedule the draft. So I understand where I fall in the hierarchy. I'm not suggesting that anyone should listen to me, but what if you did? Yeah. It could be a better world. And lastly, I guess some people may have seen that Albert Pujols picked up a couple new jobs. Yeah. So he is now a special assistant to Rob Manfred with a focus on player relations in the Dominican Republic.

And one wonders if he will be part of trying to persuade players to support an international draft. part of trying to persuade players to support an international draft. He has also been hired by MLB Network as an on-air analyst and will appear across multiple programs. And if you're like me, you saw this news and wondered, how does this affect Albert Pujols' existing employment with the Angels? Because, of course, he has that personal services contract. Sam Blum of The Athletic did investigate that. And he tweeted, in case anyone was wondering like I was, and I in fact was, Albert Pujols

does still work for the Angels as a special assistant as part of his personal services contract. There is some precedent for people working for both the team and the league. So Pujols now has at least three jobs in his post-retirement and two or three different employers in addition to, I guess, making Cardinals-related appearances every now and then. So if you were worried that being on air on MLB Network or being on Rob Manfred's special assistant speed dial would distract him from his important duties with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Not the case. He can do it all. He has the bandwidth for all of these special assistancies. Albert, you're not a millennial. You don't have to embrace the grind set. Yeah, it's just gig work, just left and right. He's picking up gigs.

I imagine if you've been a baseball player for a really, really long time, it's hard to let the game go. And you clearly care about it. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of these guys look at their post-playing career time and are like, well, I'd like to still contribute something and have an impact on the game that I love. But if it were me, I would have zero jobs and would simply, like, be on a beach or something. I'd be, like, reading, you know? I'd be, like, not working at all because he's done well for himself, you know? Yes, he has. Yeah.

And I know very invested in his philanthropic work, you know? But I don't want to yuck his yum because if he thinks he has something to give, okay, that's fine. But you could have fewer jobs, you know, you don't, you're not obligated to have so many jobs. Don't feel like you have to have so many jobs. Yeah. I'm sure some of them are fairly low intensity. I would think that just the number of hours required. I imagine he gets to set his own schedule to some extent, especially because he's juggling so many different employers. And I said of Anaheim, I know they dropped the of Anaheim from their name, but really, we're just going to let them get away with Los Angeles Angels. I mean, it feels like truth in advertising. You really

should append the of Anaheim, even though it's not technically part of the name anymore. Also, one more question for you. Do you think that players will be more fatigued at the end of the season than typically because of the pitch clock or less fatigued because they will not be on the field for as long? because they will not be on the field for as long, cumulatively. So more fatigued because they're playing at a more rapid pace and they get less of a break between pitches. I guess this could be different answers for pitchers and for other players potentially, but more fatigued because of that,

because they're just rushing, rushing, hurrying, hurrying while they're on the field, or less fatigued because, I mean, think of the catchers and how much less crouching they're doing over the course of a season. Or the fielders not time on the field. Can I offer a really boring answer? I think it'll be the same. Like, I think that those two things are going to push and pull in such a way that they offset one another in all likelihood. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I think that, oh oh i have a very i have a galaxy brain it's not it's just a another take for you which is that like for playoff teams they will be even more tired because they play more games in the playoffs now if you're going a long run you've played some more games wow genius but i think it'll be about the same because you're right that like, particularly for pitchers, they have less time between, but also in general, like everybody's playing less. I mean, I guess it depends. Okay, now I have to complicate my answer. So maybe the pitchers will be more, a little more tired on average and the position players who aren't vroom vroom guys will be less tired does that make sense right because the pitchers like you're you're sure the game is shorter but like if you're a starter who goes five six innings like that doesn't matter for you the game being shorter doesn't affect anything for you if you're a reliever and you go an inning at

a time like it doesn't you know you're just dealing with the pitch clock and it's like, what is the, what is that contributing to your baseline fatigue level? No, no, no, no, no. I don't, you know, probably making you a little more tired. And we haven't really seen fastball velocities decline. So I don't know that we can say, oh yeah, like it's not like, you know, they're starting to throw less hard as a result of having less recovery time. I don't think we've seen that borne out yet. Right. No, no.

Although you could think that maybe that will catch up with them later in the season. Oh yeah. So then, but then do they become less tired because they're more tired? That doesn't seem how fatigue, like how fatigue works, at least in my experience of it. But I imagine that for the position players, you know, maybe they're a little less tired. I imagine it'll be an imperceptible difference to a player though, right? I think they're all pretty exhausted

by the end of the year. Yeah, they're all banged up. But I can imagine a little less so. Just the less time on your feet over the course of a season, it's got to add up, I would think, for catchers. I was just about to say. Yeah, it's the same number of pitches you're catching. But less time on your, you know, we'll see if that means that catchers decline a little less offensively as the season goes on or or maybe they need fewer days off. I guess it could also manifest itself that way where it's maybe your freshness is is kind of compromised by then teams deciding that they don't need to give you as many days off and then you end up just as tired, but you played a little more. So we'll see how teams handle that.

But just something I was wondering about. It would be nice if at the end of it, all the catchers were like, you know, I feel spry. I feel better. I feel better than I have in years. I really worry about catcher spend. Yeah, I do too. I'm worrying about them more and more lately, actually. I'm like, because sometimes I watch them, and I'm just like, you guys are, are people worried about you enough?

I think we should worry about you more. I've been worrying about them. I worry. Yeah. I don't worry as much as I worry about Alec Manoa, but I worry. I guess the Complex League, that's where teams tend to have their pitching labs set up, right? So that's a natural place to send someone. Yeah.

their pitching labs set up, right? So that's a natural place to send someone. Yeah, I think that it's less for me about the level as it is that where it's like, okay, you're really going in for a full overhaul because that's where your dev stuff tends to be based. So, yeah.

All right, just been here now. It is time for the pass blast, which is usually provided by David Lewis. However, David, like me, is not 100% healthy, so this Pass Blast will come to you from 2016 and also from me. In the second half of the 2015 season, scoring in Major League Baseball spiked largely because the home run rate spiked. Quoting from an article I wrote with Rob Arthur for FiveThirtyEight in 2016, the home run on contact rate last August was higher than it had been in any month since August 2009, and the rate last September slash October was higher than it had been in any month since August 2004. On the whole, the percentage increase in second half home runs on contact relative to first half home runs on contact was higher for the 2015 regular season than for any previous season since

at least 1950. Potential explanations abounded. Some people chalked it up to warmer weather. Some people thought it was an influx of hard-hitting rookies in 2015. Some thought it was pitchers being shut down early. But none of those explanations seemed to explain what we saw. And as the home run spike continued into 2016, more articles were written, not just by me, and more and more people paid attention to this increase in home runs. And some of them asked Commissioner Rob Manfred about it. So in his annual session with the baseball writers at the All-Star Game in 2016, Manfred was asked whether it could be PEDs, and he quite reasonably downplayed that possibility. So what was the answer? Manfred said,

This article at ESPN by Jerry Krasnick continues, Manfred also discounted the theory that changes in the baseball used by MLB might be contributing to the rising power numbers. He said MLB has done extensive testing on the baseballs and found no changes. In 2013, Nippon professional baseball commissioner Ryozo Kato resigned amid a scandal over livelier baseballs in Japan. Manfred said, there are certain mistakes in life that if you pay attention to what's going on around you, you are not inclined to make. There was a scandal in Japan over the baseball being changed that cost the commissioner his job. I like my current gig, so I think you can rest assured that the baseball is the same as it was last year. And this is where the Ron Howard Arrested Development narrator says, No, it wasn't.

MLB did do testing, but it evidently didn't do the right testing. It didn't test the drag. In May 2018, a report was released by a 10-member committee charged by the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball to identify the potential causes of the increase in the rate at which home runs were hit in 2015, 2016, and 2017. That committee concluded, stat cast data show that the increases in home runs are primarily due to better carry for given launch conditions, exit velocity, launch angle, spray angle, as opposed to a change in launch conditions.

The better carry results in longer fly ball distances for given launch conditions and therefore more home runs. Analysis shows that the better carry is not due to changes in temperature, but rather to changes in the aerodynamic properties of the baseball itself, specifically to those properties affecting the drag. There is supporting evidence that the aerodynamic properties of the baseballs have changed, both from laboratory measurements and from analysis of StatCast slash TrackMan trajectories,

both for pitched and batted balls. Additionally, a physics-based model for the flight of the baseball shows that small changes in the aerodynamic properties of the baseball that are comparable to the measured changes in the drag coefficient since 2015 can explain the observed increase in home run production over the period studied. Suggestions that changes in batter behavior, such as pole hitting or trying to hit the ball at a higher launch angle, might be contributing to the surge are not borne out by the StatCast data. There has been no significant change in these aspects of batter behavior that correlates to an increase in home run hitting. The committee did not determine exactly what was causing the reduced drag, and of course,

it did not determine that MLB had intentionally produced a lower drag ball. But this was a vindication of the many public analyses that seemed to show something suspicious about the ball's behavior, even as MLB maintained that the ball wasn't to blame. The drag was further reduced in 2017-2019 when the home run rate peaked, and although MLB did deaden the ball after that, as we discussed recently, it remains extremely lively by historical standards, And Rob Manfred remains commissioner. After we recorded today, Luis Arias went two for four, raising his batting average yet again to 401. Also, Elie de la Cruz announced his arrival with authority, hitting a 112 mile per hour double

that was the hardest hit ball by a Cincinnati Red this season. He also showed off some elite sprint speeds and walked a couple times and scored a run in the Reds' 9-8 walk-off win over the Dodgers. There was evidently a boost of about 6,000 fans relative to the typical Tuesday game crowd this season in Cincinnati. Fans were chanting his name, were watching every pitch, and he didn't disappoint. Love when the rookie shows up and instantly does something that no one else on the team has done all season. Also, as a follow-up to last week's stat blast about home teams winning extra inning games less often than they win non-extra inning games and the effect the zombie runner has had on that, Ben Cummins wrote about it for Fangraphs, and he suggested the same explanation I did, which was that home field advantage is cumulative, that it accrues the longer the game goes, and thus it stands to

reason that it would be less pronounced in extra game goes, and thus it stands to reason that it would be less pronounced in extra innings, especially if there are fewer extra innings in the zombie runner era. The difference is that Ben brought some data and evidence to that effect, so I will link to that on the show page. Lastly, two injury updates after we recorded. Aaron Judge did go on the 10-day injured list with a bruise and ligament sprain in his injured toe. The Dodgers are apparently reinforcing the fence that he crashed into and also adding a strip of padding on the concrete portion where he jammed the toe. And finally, Jacob deGrom's UCL sproinged. It was very disappointing news, but not entirely unexpected news. You may remember my mini-rant

about Jacob deGrom and the uncertain outlook for his elbow back when we talked about it in late April on episode 2001. Here's a short compilation of some comments I made then. Just following him and feeling like he's always on the verge of breaking and not wanting him to. But just being like, gosh, just put us out of our misery. Just get it over with. If you're going to get Tommy John again one of these days, just do it already. Just stop putting us through this. I don't want him to have to do that, obviously, but there's always something that is nagging that is possibly going to cause his demise. It's just, ah, I can't take it anymore. I just,

I want him to either be healthy or just like, man, it's just, it's so stressful. I'm sure more for Rangers fans and obviously more for him than for me. But even for me, I'm just like, I'm worried when he's pitching that day, instead of being excited, I'm like, what's going to go wrong and what's going to give him pain this time. So now there's no more uncertainty, but there's also no more Jacob deGrom for quite some time, most likely until at least late next season, if not 2025. And as you could tell from his tears when he was talking about this, he's very disappointed. He's been through this before. He knows what's in store. We'll probably talk about this more next time.

I will be writing about it for The Ringer, but my immediate takeaways are relief that there's a definitive diagnosis and treatment plan, coupled with dismay that we may never see peak deGrom again. He is about to turn 35. There are also the implications for the first-place Rangers, who have amassed the fourth-most fangrass pitching war so far this season, even with only 30 and a third excellent innings from deGrom. This obviously makes it more difficult for them to hang on to their lead and to advance in October. If this is the end of the great DeGrom, it may preclude the possibility that his peak could carry him to Cooperstown someday. It's a heck of a peak, but his late start combined with his intermittent unavailability over the past few seasons means that there's a lack of volume there. We may also need to anoint a new best pitcher in baseball, a title that deGrom has informally held for some time now. I'm not sure he has an undisputed successor. And finally, there's the aspect of this that

could be a cautionary tale for other pitchers, as I'll be touching on in my ringer piece as I've written about and talked about before. Throwing max effort seems to amplify injury risk. And season by season, DeGrom has thrown closer to his personal max, as has the league as a whole. So he's sort of MLB's pitching injury issues in microcosm. Unbelievable stuff combined with a tendency to break down and not even his relatively light workloads in recent years could prevent him from hurting himself. So year after year, we see lower pitch counts, lower innings totals, more rest between outings, and seemingly just as many arm injuries because the pitches and the innings that these guys throw close to the top of their speed ranges just take too much out of them. I've been wondering aloud for years whether

throwing just a little slower might help DeGrom avoid this outcome. And of course, there's no way to know whether it would have. But I hope that the league can put rules in place that would make it a little less tempting to throw as hard as possible at all times. I think most pitchers would gladly give up a UCL and all the time it takes to come back from a UCL replacement if it meant that they could pitch at Jacob deGrom's level for years. But deGrom was dominant when he was throwing 96, not 99. So who knows? Maybe he could have kept doing that even longer. By the way, deGrom's contract, like Strasburg's, also reportedly uninsured because of high premiums. His contract does include a conditional option for 2028 that is triggered by this Tommy John surgery. So unlike, say, Luis Garcia's Tommy

John surgery, this is one where we can't say we didn't see it coming. And yet, as deGrom himself said, this stinks. Here's something that doesn't stink. Our listeners supporting Effectively Wild on Patreon. You can be one of them by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay almost ad free and get yourself access to some perks. Thanks for watching. expedited answers to emails, discounts on ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more, patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter,

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at r slash Effectively Wild. The outro theme you're about to hear was submitted by Alex Eichler, inspired by Night Shift, the classic song by his and my favorite boy genius member Lucy Dacus. Thanks to you all for enduring my voice today. I hope it'll be better soon. And one way or another, we will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you all for enduring my voice today. I hope it'll be better soon. And one way or another, we will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. I'm gonna listen again if I can help it In five years I hope the stats are still numbers Dedicated to you players