Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2021: Always Be Closing

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Shohei Ohtani’s latest exploits and career-best WAR pace, the Angels’ playoff hopes, Corbin Carroll’s physique, and Mickey Moniak’s fluky-but-fun hot streak, then (20:55) answer listener emails about how big a scandal it would be if Ohtani turned out to be two twins, when managers would choose to take […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild! Hello and welcome to episode 2021 of Effectively Wild, a Fangrafts baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangrafts and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing pretty well, but not doing nearly as well as Shohei Otani. I try not to start every episode by talking about Shohei. I really do.

I try. He doesn't make it easy. I mean, do you remember on episode 2014? No. I mentioned a mechanical adjustment that Otani had made. Sam Blum tweeted that Otani said, when he goes through slumps, he often notices various mechanical flaws causing the issues.

His recent slump, he said, had to do with the height of where he was gripping the bat, which sounded sort of surprising to me that he might have gripped the bat at the wrong height, at a suboptimal height. How hard could it be to grip the bat at the height where you usually grip it? Anyway, he changed that subtle thing. So since he made that change, Shohei Otani has hit in 16 games. 426, 514, 1033. Always like when the slugging percentage is a 1000+. You think it's an OPS, but no.

It's just the slugging percentage. So in that span, he has a.304 WRC+,.304. That's in 74 plate appearances. The next highest qualified hitter is Fernando Tatis Jr., who has turned it on himself. He is at.228, and that's a pretty big gap. So if you look at it, not WRC+, but WRC weighted runs created. Otani's at 27. Corbin Carroll and Fernando Tatis Jr. are tied over that span with 19.

So he is head and shoulders above the rest of major league hitters. He has been on an absolute tear. It has been sort of scary and sort of wonderful to watch. I now remember you saying all of those things, Ben. There's so many episodes and there's just so much Otani talk. So much. Justified, but a lot of it. You're like, I try not to. And it's like, I believe you that you are exerting an effort. How big of an effort? You know, one could speculate about that if one were so inclined.

But it's not like it's bad to talk about Otani, so why would I bother, you know? Yeah, exactly. I mean, he has been, he had four home runs in that series against the Rangers that the Angels took three of. series against the Rangers that the Angels took three of. And three of them were opposite field bombs, just like the most recent was, I think, the hardest hit opposite field homer in the stat cast era or something like that by a lefty. Granted, I think Giancarlo Stanton hit one harder. And it was like 116 something. But like all of these are like upper deck shots. The longest opposite field home runs this season, I saw the Twitter account MLB Metrics tweeted, are the three that he hit in the past few days. The longest opposite field home run by anyone this season.

Number one, Shohei Otani, 459 feet on Monday. Number two, Shohei Otani, 453 feet the day after. And then Shohei Otani, number three, 443 feet. That was the most recent one. So he's alone on the leaderboard. That, of course, leaves out the additional home run he hit during that span, which was also to the opposite field, but went a mere 388. But it's just hitting them in places where no one hits them. It's just, it's ridiculous. And he's also hitting them more than

anyone else hits them because he's now tied for the major league lead with Pete Alonso, who's on the injured list. So Otani's on pace for 50 bombs. He, it turns out, is pretty, it's pretty, pretty good, you know? It turns out is pretty good. Yeah. Maybe his best season, at least he's on pace right now for a career high war. He is on pace for 9.6 fangraphs war and 10.5 baseball reference war, each of which would be a career high thus far. So he keeps topping himself. be a career high thus far. So he keeps topping himself. You know, you might look at that trend in the opposite field, homers, I just mentioned, and be sort of worried because, you know, he hit

one that was 459 feet and then 453 and then 443. It's a power outage, you know. But fortunately, his MVP or MVP runner-up seasons, they keep getting better. I mean, we thought 2021, how could he possibly top that? 2022, he did, although Aaron Judge perhaps topped him. And then 2023, he is on pace to top himself yet again without even performing as a pitcher the way that he did for much of last season and the way that I expected him to this year. So it's really wild. He has been actually a little bit too wild as a pitcher, but he has been, yeah, quite effective. And since I took him to task for the number of sweepers that he was throwing. Obviously, he tunes in to every episode of Effectively Wild

because he wants to hear about himself, and he can count on that being fairly likely. But he has thrown a lot fewer sweepers in the two starts since I advised him to throw fewer sweepers. I'm sure just not even correlation. That's causation, obviously. He heard the tip and uh and took it in you know stride but he has uh thrown a mere 18 and 28 sweepers in his last two starts and two opposite

handed hitters he has thrown only 12 and 10 in those starts compared to 35 and 32 in the two preceding starts so I think that's an improvement, although they have not been his best starts. I mean, it's like in that game, his most recent game where he hit another Titanic Homer, he threw six innings and gave up two runs and it was like, eh, you know, he didn't miss that many bats. It was like, eh, it was okay. But yeah. It was fine. You know? Yeah. But, yeah. It was fine, you know. Yeah, I watched pieces of that game. And, you know, you sit there and they're like, oh, they're making him throw a lot of pitches.

And they were. Yeah. Well, he still made it through six. And really, the Angels now are 39 and 32, which by Angel standards, that's pretty darn impressive, right? I mean, I think that's the best, maybe the highest they've been above 500 in a season since, I want to say, 2014. They are a game behind the Astros. They're four and a half games behind the Rangers after taking three or four from them. Their playoff odds are 40.7%, which is, for them, okay. You know, like you'd like to think that I just got through talking about Otani's otherworldliness and then 40.7%.

That's actually good and encouraging for the Angels. But a lot of other things have not gone as well as they could have. Mike Trout is having a career-worst healthy season, at least. And the pitching success that the Angelsst healthy season, at least. And the pitching success that the Angels had last season, the starting pitching success in particular, has been much more muted this year. They've been in the middle of the pack. So not everyone else has kept up with Otani, but the depth has helped. The depth has been tested, but we thought they did a pretty decent job of providing some depth over the offseason, and the outlook for them was rosier than it had been at some time, and so have the results.

It's just not enough that they are a probable playoff team, certainly enough that they're in it, and no one's going to be talking about a Shohei Otani trade come the trade deadline unless they lose every game between now and then. People might talk about it. unless they lose every game between now and then. People might talk about it. The restraint that you are assuming, the dedication to measured, quiet, plodding, thoughtful discourse, it's commendable, really.

I won't call it Pollyanna-ish. I'll call it delightful, you know? Sure, yeah. It might come up, but I don't think it would be reasonable to expect him to be retreated as long as the angels are contending and they are and i just want to see him play in the postseason i think that'd be a lot of fun yeah it would be quite fun i um yeah i was thinking to myself yesterday self said, would you rather, would you rather see Otani and Trout in the postseason together? Or would you rather see the Mariners make the postseason? And I, cause those are going

to be oppositional projects, right? Those are, you know, just because of how good the Rangers are, the lead that they have, the number of very good teams, particularly in the East, that they will have to contend with for wildcard positioning. It would be a tall order for both of those clubs to surge such that they could make the postseason. I think it will be difficult for them to not get in one another's way in service of that goal. And so I'm not gonna give my answer, but I want you to know I'm thinking about it, lest our listeners think that you are the only person on this podcast who appreciates our money. Because, you know, like I, what?

Yeah, we just saw the Mariners of the playoffs. What, you need to see that again? Yes, Ben. Wasn't one time enough?, you need to see that again? Yes. Wasn't one time enough? I would like to see that again. Jeez, getting greedy. You know, I'm finding myself in a place where it's like I feel attachment, as we have discussed, to these Arizona Diamondbacks. where my emerging National League fandom really takes center stage in terms of like a team I am rooting for rather than a collection of players across a variety of clubs that I would like to see

get postseason action. So, you know, maybe I'll be able to be satisfied myself and have you also be pleased and see your dudes, you know? I think we don't have to be in opposition, even as the Mariners and the Angels are quite often literally in opposition to one another. Right. Yeah. I like those Diamondbacks too. I like that Corbin Carroll, not just because I drafted him on my 26 under 25 team, but also, look, he's my exact dimensions, Corbin Carroll. Really? Height and weight, at least within a few pounds. Sure.

He is like exactly my size, which makes him small by Major League Baseball player standards, you know? Yes. Makes him like a normal man by non-professional athletes. Normal sounds so judgmental, right? Yes. I don't mean it. An average American male, let's say. But by baseball standards, he looks quite small, right?

I mean, there's some big baseball players, right? So it's not like, you know, look, Jose Altuve has been among the best players in baseball. He's not small like Altuve, but he's, you know, someone I can see myself in physically, right? Just because, you know, gosh, that sounds bad phrasing. You know, Ben? The thing is, when I talk about Otani and often stray into double entendre territory with him, sometimes intentionally. Yeah, I think it's good because we don't want it to feel forced, you know.

Sometimes the horniness reads as a podon. And I think when you stumble into it accidentally, it's just so genuine, you know. Yeah, right. So, what I was attempting to say there is that when I... He feels like a proxy for you. Yeah, right. I mean, Otani, it's like I love the man, but it's

not like I identify with him. You know, it's not like I watch Otani and I'm like... Oh, yeah, he's just like me. Right, yeah. He is unlike anyone in the world, which is why he's so fascinating. Whereas Corbin Carroll, you know, you look at him in uniform or out of uniform and you'd think, yeah, that could just be a normal guy. And he's one of the best players in baseball.

So I have two things to offer to this conversation. I find it funny that you're like, yeah, you know, he's not small like Jose Altuve. And my immediate thought was, no, he's small like Alex Bregman, even though he is listed as two inches shorter. Alex, we can see you next to people. That's ridiculous. Okay. That is ridiculous. Okay.

Alex Bregman, six foot 192. Come on. He might be. I mean, like, he's a built guy. Yeah. And, you know, the listed weights are notoriously. Yes, of course. You know, they can be kind of squishy.

They don't get updated super often. We've had entire stretches of this podcast about this fact, right? And Corbin Carroll is in the, you know, happy 165. Like, you know, there's so many zeros and fives as the final digit in listed weights, right? We've talked about this on the pod. I mean, I wasn't there, but you guys talked about it on the pod at one point. And Bregman is listed at 192, which is specific in a way that makes me wonder. But I'm sorry, Alex. I'm sorry. You're not six feet tall. You're not. You're not Altuve's height, but I think you are

corbin carroll's height i think corbin carroll and alex bregman same heights similar heights i will say the other thing you know so like corbin carroll was obviously injured as a minor leaguer the force of his swing tore up his whole shoulder right and he would come to diamondbacks games when he was rehabbing down here in Arizona and he'd sit in the scout section with D-backs personnel and like clearly was talking ball and like watching big league pitching coming in from the scout seats. And there have been a number of stories written about that that are really fun to read. And we've talked about it on the pod and like, you're right. He's a average height for an American man. He is

we by major league standards, but even, even the smaller statured big leaguers, when you see their arms up close, particularly their forearms, you're like, oh, you're doing a different thing. And now Ben, we have had many podcast listeners who have encountered you in the wild and have, in a way that I know they don't mean to be ungenerous, have been, I will say, somewhat floored by the shape that you're in, right? This has been a theme of the Facebook group at times where people will be like, I ran into Ben at an event and like, that guy's built and I'm weirded out by that. I don't sound like I am for whatever that means.

Whatever that means. Yeah. And also, I famously don't go outside or anything. You don't go outside. Yeah. You're content to be at home. And you know what? God bless you.

Yeah, but I can get to my gym without going outside. Right. You don't have to. It connects to my building. Right. You don't even have to, you don't even have to go anywhere. And so I do not mean to impugn

the fitness that you have cultivated. Right. That's not the project here. But I will say, you look at Cordovan Carroll and you're like, oh, you're short of stature, but you're a professional baseball player.

The body looks like you'd expect it to, especially in like the arms and the like traps, you know, because I was sitting a couple rows behind expect it to, especially in like the arms and the like traps, you know, because I was sitting a couple rows behind him. And so that was like the view I had was like his torso basically like from rib cage up and you're like, wow, you're rehabbing and you're still in that shape. It's incredible. I am not. Well, there's our physique appreciation for today. And before we leave the angels behind, I wanted to say there are two Angels hitters who have a higher WRC plus than Plus in four plate appearances. He came up for one game. He hit a home run. He got sent down again. The saga of Joe Adele continues. He will actually come up

later in this episode. Number two is Mickey Moniak. Mickey Moniak has a.178 WRC Plus in 21 In 21 games, 75 plate appearances. He's hitting 319, 347, 681. He's had a number of huge hits. And it's kind of fun. I think it's probably a complete mirage. Oh, yeah. But a fun mirage. But a very fun mirage. That home run yesterday, it went over the fence.

That wasn't a mirage. Yeah, he has power. That was a shot. That was never Mickey Moe's issue. No, but the issues that he has had, I think he still has. But a number one overall pick by the Phillies in the 2016 draft. And then, you know, it looked like he might be a complete bust, which is a harsh way to put it. I mean, at least he made the majors.

There are players who never make the majors, right? But he didn't hit for the Phillies, and it looked like he might never. And then they traded him to the Angels in the Noah Syndergaard deal, and not a whole lot was expected of him. And here he is helping pick up some of the slack for the Angels who are not performing. He's been a big addition for them. And again, don't really expect it to continue because you look at the underlying numbers. I mean, he swings at absolutely everything. There is a good newsletter called Down on the Farm. They had a recent edition where they showed the chase rate over expected for minor leaguers this year. And Mickey Moniak has the worst or the most chases relative

to what you would expect based on pitch location and other factors. And, you know, partly it's just he chases a ton. He just swings at everything. He was in the 97th percentile in swing rate in the minors and chased a ton too. And then in the majors thus far, he has walked 2.7% of the time. He has struck out 32% of the time. So that's not good. You don't really want to see the 0.08 walk to strikeout ratio, nor do you want to see that his weighted on base average is about 100 points higher than his expected weighted on base average. You know, the ex-Woba is better than league average even, which would be a bit of a victory for him. But he is obviously flying high right now. I don't know that this will continue, but it's been fun to just see him have a span of 20 or so games where he actually looks like he's playing like a number one overall pick.

It may very well end up being the best stretch of his career, and there may not be a whole lot of great stretches after this. I don't know. I mean, I hope there are. I don't want to preclude the possibility, but the underlying issues there, the selectivity, et cetera, does not seem to have been improved. It's just that everything is going his way right now. So it's been fun. It won't last a whole lot longer, I don't think, but it's been fun. And like you, you know, you look at a team like the Angels who have the playoff odds that they do and are in the position in the division that they are. And,

you know, certainly it would be helpful to their cause. If we look up two months from now, we're like, maybe Moniak, like what happened, you know? And then we get to read the great,

like explainer articles where you talk to the guy who turned things around and Sam Blum goes in and he gets all this detail and we're like wow but also you know if you can stack stretches of good if unsustainable play from guys then you know maybe maybe you just do some stuff you know maybe you stack it up and you do some stuff yeah the only player who has swung more often than Mickey Moniak, minimum 50 plate appearances this season, is Hunter Alberto. Wow. Yeah. There's a fun fact for you.

Okay. That is a fun fact. So, we have a few emails. And we're going to meet a couple major leaguers. And finish with a stat blast and a pass blast. So, just a few emails here. I guess here's an Otani-themed email from Max. See, people are asking about him.

You're incorrigible. They're demanding that we talk about him. I mean, like, you're putting it out there like, I can't believe we have to talk about, like, you're mad and we're dying about Otani. The most talked about player in the majors. He's the best. We don't have to say we're the best anymore. We can drop the ball.

Okay, Ben. Read your email. Good gracious. All right. Max says, I have a lot of conversations with my roommate Jordan about baseball, and most of them center on Shohei Otani, obviously. Thank you. We're both baseball enjoyers, and she's become a pretty big Shohei fan. She doesn't listen to the podcast, for shame, but does really enjoy the sport.

The other day, we were enjoying a weed-fueled conversation about Shohei. She asked me what I would do if I found out that Shohei Otani was not one baseball boy, but two. One twin a pitcher and the other a hitter. I think it would really ruin my ability to enjoy him, and Jordan disagreed. I guess enjoy them in that case. I'd be really interested to know what you would think of that situation. Would that be considered a bigger scandal than the banging scheme? So, Otani, secret twins.

This is like a conspiracy theory about... Have we answered this question before? Maybe. I don't know. I know we had Dan Byrne on the podcast and he played us a song about Shohei Otani actually being two different guys, although I don't think they were explicitly twins. No, they just happened to look identical to one another.

They were just somehow indistinguishable for some reason. It's sort of mysterious. But Max has the scenario here where they're actually pulling a fast one on us here and they are identical twins. This is like the conspiracy theory about Jose Canseco and Ozzy Canseco potentially at some point switching places. Right. Or Mike Trout and Hunter Renfro. Sure. Yeah, that may have happened for all we know. Yeah. Maybe that's why Mike Trout hasn't been as good.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Maybe Renfro has actually been playing in his place. And having the best season of his entire career. Right. Yeah. That is true. Yeah. Mike Trout's career worst year would be Hunter Redfro's career best year, I think. By a considerable margin. Yeah. All right. So, if they were twins, would this be a bigger scandal than the banging scheme? I think. So, the twins do different stuff? Like, one of them pitches and one of them hits? Yeah, presumably one's the pitcher and one's the hitter.

Why would you need to hide it, I guess, is the question. I mean, like, I understand that it preserves a roster spot if you have two different guys, like, prestiging it. Was that the one where they were twins? Or was that the—remember, there were two. Yeah, well, weiging it. Was that the one where they were twins or was that the... Remember, there were two. Yeah. There were two. We shouldn't spoil, I guess, which I don't know.

Oh, sorry. It's okay. I'm just so excited when I've seen things, you know, that I assume everyone else has seen them. And I think in this instance, like, it's okay. It's a novel. The prestige was when they were twins, right? Yeah. Right.

And then there was the one with Edward Norton and Jessica Biel doing an accent that she couldn't actually do, right? Right. Right. What was that one called? Or wait, was, yeah, was the Prestige, were they twins or were they clones of some kind? No, they were twins. But then David Bowie as Nikola Tesla was cloning people. Right.

Because that was how Hugh Jackman got. Right. Right. The other one was the illusionist, right? Because that was how Hugh Jackman got, right? The other one was the illusionist, right? Yes. Yeah, the same year. Which I enjoyed, you know, to be clear. You know, Paul Giamatti, he can really chew scenery just like he can chew potatoes, but he chews potatoes in that, like, in a restaurant. It's not weird. He's not just sitting there, like, eating a potato. And this has been meg remembers pop culture kinda um so getting back to the otani twins so i get that there is like the roster spot preservation piece

but also if you have two otanis and one of them is just like a really really good starter or in this case uh this year a really good starter not a really really good starter and one of them is like a really great dh don't you just have them each on the roster and then enjoy the riches of two very good players because like in prior seasons you've had to run a six-man rotation to accommodate otani in the rotation anyway so you're already sacrificing a roster spot so just have twin otanis and then like can you imagine the promotions ben can you just like imagine the fun you could have with that if you were like a marketing person working for the angels oh my stars you'd have and then you could have them flanking mike trout right oh it's so good and like you could dive into their

varying interests because like they're twins but i'm sure they like some different stuff. That's how twins normally are because they're two distinct people who get to have their own souls and opinions on things. Yeah. Twins. Right. And you wouldn't have to maintain the fiction that you have to rest him sometimes. Not that he rests all that much. He basically plays every day. But every now and then he takes a day off or they skip a day or something just because, you know, oh, he's playing constantly. And in the past, they've given more deference to that. Right. And when he first came over, you know, he wouldn't hit the day before or after he pitched. Like they handled him much more cautiously back then.

And so you wouldn't have had to go through that just to pretend that it was the same guy, right? And so you could have gotten more playing time out of both of them. Initially, I was going to say, well, you might do it because it's a better story to have two-way Otani doing things that no human has done in a century, if ever. I don't know. I guess it would be a great story either way if you had identical twins who looked like Shohei Ohtani and one was one of the best hitters in baseball and one was one of the best pitchers in baseball and their teammates. That's still a heck of a story. A heck of a story.

Yeah. And I guess from a salary perspective, from an earnings perspective, I don't know. I guess from a salary perspective, from an earnings perspective, I don't know. I guess like the two separate Otanis. If you had two separate, you wouldn't have to DH one of them. He could play in the field. He could play in the field. And so, yeah. Oh, but then he would be removing the other twin on your roster, Hunter Renfro. So what do you do then?

That's possible too, yeah. Oh, man. That's a real twin conundrum. Yeah. This episode's already so much more fun than yesterday's. We haven't mentioned Rob Edford once, except for me just saying that we haven't

mentioned him once. It's great. We just can't say it two more times because then it's like Beetlejuice and one of us has to contend with him. Then he'll show up and give a terrible press conference. I guess if they were two players, they could collectively make more money probably. Even though you'd have to use two roster spots, you'd be able to use the hitting one in the field as well.

And maybe you play them more often and maybe there'd be less of an injury concern, etc. So they could probably make more money as two than as one. Not that Shohei Otani is going to be hurting for making money pretty soon right i mean and i guess if they had come over as two players if they've been pulling off this routine their entire careers i guess this would have had to be going on in npb too right so man what a conspiracy yeah they've been keeping up for so long. And I mean, Ipe must know, right? Ipe, the interpreter, he would have to be in on this, I would think. I don't see how you could hide it from him. Yeah, and would he want to be? I mean, you couldn't hide it. I think that to answer the initial question, like how big of a scandal would it be, I think it would be a meaningfully smaller scandal. See, I don't know. Well, I think it would

be a little less. It would be a different sort of scandal. I think it would be just as big a story. It would be a bigger story, right? Well, because he's so tall. Yes. And now there are two of them. Well, because he's so tall. Yes. And now there are two of them. I think it would be – it would garner even more attention because it would transcend baseball even more than the banking scheme did. The Astros, the banking scheme, that was big sports news, big national news. Yeah, I was going to say. I think you're right that it would be a really big story.

But I think that it would be a big story that didn't—part of what upsets, you know, they were seen as using the banging scheme in service of stealing a championship. Like, that's how fans experienced the banging scheme, So there's that piece. And I also think that like the, the parts of it that like that Evan illuminated so well in his book is that like, this was part of a front office culture that was sort of winner take all willing to sacrifice ethics. You know, it had broader implications for not only how the Astros conduct themselves, but how other teams within the league conduct themselves, even if they didn't have their own trash can to bang around, you know? So, I think that in terms of the what does this mean about where the sport of baseball is sort of existentially, philosophically, ecumenically, like it meant a lot more than just there are some guys banging on a trash can but you're right that like if the biggest arguably the biggest star in the sport an mvp was revealed to be two guys who are twins and are really good like i it would be a huge story but i don't know that

it would read as scandal in the same way. Does that distinction make sense? Yeah. I mean, there would be like, first of all, you know who the most insufferable people around this would be? It would be Astros fans. And you know what? I'd kind of give it to them. They'd be like, wow, we're not the only ones that, you know what I mean? Well, I don't think you could feel that bad about it. You could feel mad for having been deceived for having the wool pulled out. It would be delightful. We would have so much fun. It would be very whimsical. I think the fact that it wouldn't necessarily have conferred

an advantage, the fact that the angels have been mostly bad regardless. So it's not like you'd have a tainted title or something. And also, again, I don't know that the scheme would be advantageous to the team. It might actually be disadvantageous to the team. So I think you might be entitled to be upset. Let's say if you were one of the companies that has employed Shohei Otani as a pitchman, as a spokesman, right? as a spokesman, right? And you had some sort of campaign that was framed around him being a two-way player and doing two different things, then I guess you could feel,

again, you got your money's worth probably while he was believed to be a two-way player. And then he'd be even better known once the story came out, I think, or they would, I guess, because now it's two people. But yeah, it wouldn't, you'd be like, why did they do this? Why did they even go to all this trouble? Why bother? It would be sort of a

silly, wacky, goofy story as opposed to the Astros story, which was the fact that a trash can was involved was sort of wacky and goofy, but that was overshadowed by just the rest of it and the fact that they were cheating when they won a World Series, et cetera. So yes, I think it would be a much less tiresome, wearisome story, but it would be probably a bigger story. This would be international news. This would be probably a bigger story. Like this would be international news. Like this would be huge.

You know, even people who don't care about baseball at all would be riveted, I think, to this story. Yeah, we're like so fascinated by twins. Yeah, right. Culturally. It's just the mechanics of how they did this. I mean, I can't imagine. You were going to say the mechanics of twins.

I'm like, I think they're just people, Ben. You know, they just happen to be the same as one other person. Yeah, no, it's true. I'm married to a twin. Not an identical one, though, but, you know, similar looking. So I do think that a lot of people would have to be in on this, though, because, like, how would they, I mean, just go about their lives in the clubhouse? Do they have one locker? Like, how do they hide this?

Right. I think it would have to go beyond a select number. Like, in this way, you know, the entire team would have to be in on it. Like, you couldn't – everyone from, you know, the interpreter down to the traveling secretary would have to be in on it, right? You couldn't obscure it. And Otani specifically is so observed. Like, I can't imagine pulling it off, you know? There's dedicated Otani cam.

You know, there's dedicated Otani cam. There's an entire part of, you know, the Angels Beat contingent from Japan that is there explicitly and solely to cover Otani. Like, I don't know how you would pull it off unless you had, you know, a giant vat of water under the stage. He, like, murdered someone every day as part of that act. Yeah, so. Again again we're talking about yeah not not sure but he hasn't murdered anyone to our knowledge would never such a such a sweet guy but um you know hugh jackman's character and in the prestige yeah just every night i would be a little disappointed if this came out like obviously I would be fascinated and we'd be

studying the footage and we'd be trying to figure out how this was possible in the short term I mean it would be amazing but I would be a little disappointed in the long run probably just on a baseball level purely just

because the fact that he's one guy and that he does the two things, that is what makes him so singular. Now, I mean, look, if he's an identical twin, then he is automatically less singular. Again, I know identical twins are their own people. They're unique in many ways. They're unique in many ways. But also, it would be less spectacular from a baseball standpoint because there have been hitters as good as Otani and there. I mean, to have the Otani twins and one is a great hitter and one is a great pitcher. It would be incredible. Yeah, that would be amazing. But would it be better or worse?

I think it'd be a little bit worse. We'd be thrilled. We'd be over the moon if there'd never been a single two-way Otani and two guys came along who were that good at complementary skills. That'd be incredible. But there's no better story in baseball than Shohei Otani, the actual being. And I think I would be a little let down that one person could not be as good at all of those things. be as good at all of those things. Yeah.

Although it'd be weird if like, if the Otani twin who's a pitcher just like can't hit and the Otani twin who's a hitter can't pitch. Right, Ken, these are the things that we would have to figure out. Yeah, it'd be almost weird like if they had the physical gifts, I mean, you know, they're identical-ish, right? And if they're both incredibly talented athletes, like, why can't each one be a two-way player? Is the pitcher, like, can the pitcher not hit? Like, that would be kind of confusing, I guess. Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe that is the expected thing, and it's just more extraordinary that the same person can do those things. But I'm just saying, like, if between the two of them, they have those talents.

I mean, Jose Quinceco could hit and Ozzy Quinceco couldn't. So I guess it's not really that confusing, although they didn't look exactly the same to my eyes. There are twins who look more similar to each other, I think, than the Quincecos do. more similar to each other, I think, than the kids it goes to. But it would be confusing if, like, once this was unveiled and we watched, like, pitcher Otani take batting practice and he was just, you know, whiffing and swinging wildly and everything, or, like, hitter Otani throws a bullpen session and, you know, he's throwing, like, 75 miles per hour or something. It's like, how did this happen? But... I really want it to be true now. I mean, I would feel bad because you would be let down

and I don't want to take away a thing that you love. But I think it would be so fun and funny and weird. And we would somehow talk about Otani more than we already do, which feels impossible. Do you think you'd end up finding one of them more attractive? Don't answer that. Move on to another email. But anyway, great question.

Thank you for lightening up the pod. Delightful. You know, I feel a whimsy that I've been lacking for the last 24 hours. So, God bless you. All right. Question from Josh, who says, I was thinking of this question after listening back to episode 1433, the conversation with Rick Teasley and Yovan Gonzalez about playing through MLB's rule change a one-pitch mulligan they could employ once per game in any non-run scoring situation, what do you think would be the most common scenario

in which they would call for a do-over? And do you think the scenario would be strategically optimal? I'm thinking of the peer pressure a manager might feel to call for a do-over on a play in which a fielder or fielders makes an embarrassing error or when the outcome of a play denies a player for achieving a milestone. Imagine not ever having to read or think about the Mike Miner 200th strikeout debacle. Do you think managers would be more likely to wait to use their mulligan until the most pivotal point of the game or would they cave to the emotions of the people they manage? Obviously, I don't ever want this to happen. I'm enjoying the new pace of play, but perhaps it might be fun to consider. So Josh included the stipulation here that it would be a non-run scoring situation, right?

So that, I mean, that changes things, obviously. If you can use it at any moment, if you can wipe away the grand slam that your pitcher just gave up, then obviously you're going to use it. So if we're taking that off the table, then that limits your possibilities significantly. I think that makes it more likely that they would use it in more of a sparing someone's feelings situation or sparing them the embarrassment. Right. But I mean, you still have important moments and you still have moments that decrease your win expectancy significantly that are not run scoring plays. They just make it more likely for runs to score. So... I think that they would get it dialed in pretty quickly, actually. I think that they would be appropriately sparing.

To do the analysis, like, you have to think about what are the likelihoods of various base states? Because you can, let's say, Ben, non-run scoring situation. But let's say like you have two on. You being, they have two on. Someone has two on. The opposing team has two runners on, right? You know, the game is tied or they're only had by a run or like it's close, you know.

It's not, it's close. It's a non-blowout situation. The pitcher is looking at the guy, and it's 3-2, and he throws a ball. Now the bases are loaded, and it is some number of run margin that makes it tight. You would go, I want a mulligan. And hopefully that guy would like strike that guy out, you know, like that would be a good deployment of that situation. You know, the business strike might go, you know. Right. Yeah.

Josh mentioned he invoked the name of Will Craig, who a couple of years ago was deked by Javier Baez, right, in that notorious play. And that was a run scoring play, though. But Josh is invoking that as a case where you might want to do over when your fielder makes a really embarrassing error to sort of spare them the shame of that. Although part of why that was so embarrassing is that the runner scored while that was happening. So again, if we're ruling out run scoring plays, then you got to rule that one out too. But a situation like that, I mean, that was an extraordinary play. So you're not usually going to get a super embarrassing mental mistake in your typical game. So you can't really save your mulligan.

Right. You don't want to. Yeah. You can't hold it in reserve for the rare eventuality that there might be some play like that. And gosh, I guess in a way, it almost still be embarrassing. Like if there had been that Will Craig play and he got hoodwinked by Javier Baez and then the manager had to come out and take the mulligan and do it over, that would still be pretty embarrassing. Because we all saw it. We all know you got deked and we saw it happen. And then it gets wiped away because the manager comes in and says, no, that no longer counts. But we won't forget it. I guess it's still not officially in the statistical record. So maybe that would spare you some embarrassment in the long run.

But you'd still have the indignity of, like, you know, you're still going to be on a blooper reel even if it gets wiped away officially, I think. Right. Yeah. We're not going to unsee it. No. Right. But, yeah, you can't wait and hold this thing in reserve for one of those plays. So I think pretty quickly, yeah, a norm would develop where you understand that this is a team first measure, that this is for the good of the team, that you can wipe away this. And it's always going to benefit one of your players if you wipe away something bad that happened for your team. I mean, it's always going to be an error or it's going to be a hit that you gave up or it's going to be a strike. Like you're always going to

be boosting one of your players who made a mistake or did something suboptimal. So I think you'd probably just wait for a relatively high leverage moment or the highest leverage moment you think you're going to get or likely to get, and then some other even more crucial situation came up later and you'd love to have that would be like running out of replay reviews but but even more costly right because you would presumably not be granted a second mulligan unlike the replay review stuff where sometimes you're like but don't you want to look at it right like yeah we do yeah you're scoundrels you can't keep giving teams mulligans. Mulligans, no. You could just wipe out the whole game.

What fun would that be? So, yeah, I think you would use this for baseball reasons. And in the process, you would also spare some players' stat lines and egos. But if there were a really – I'm trying to think of a play that is non-run scoring that is not that consequential but is so embarrassing for the player. Like if in the first inning, I don't know, you have a pop-up just bounce off someone's head or something and it's like this is super embarrassing. one's head or something and it's like this is super embarrassing and you know a run didn't score and it's early in the game and it's not super high leverage but this is like the most embarrassing flub you've ever seen and it's gonna get circulated and shown would you wipe that out again it still happened we could still watch the highlight but it it wouldn't count anymore and that might ease the sting a little

bit. So I guess if they were like an extremely embarrassing play, then maybe you might do it out of the kindness of your heart. But I don't know. I think mostly you're just going to use it strategically and not emotionally. And I'm not saying to be clear that like they'd get it right all the time. But I think that they would dial in. And, you know, for all the grief that we sometimes give managers, like I do think they have a good intuitive sense of leverage, even if they don't always act on that intuitive sense with optimal strategy. But I think that they would dial in pretty quickly like, oh, this is like a time that I'd really want to do over but yeah there might be the occasional like hey I gotta I gotta spare this guy and sometimes it would be because of stuff that's obvious on the field I think the ones that would be the most interesting would be like managers know stuff about their dudes that we don't know about their dudes and so there would probably be times when they would want to spare grief and we wouldn't totally get why.

And then it would be interesting. All right. And one more maybe from William, who's a Patreon supporter, says, I can't believe this hasn't been discussed before, at least as an example of pedantry. But it seems to me that the box score is horribly outdated. Now, I think he means the line score because he says specifically the summary of runs, hits, and errors. So focusing on the line score here, I know that people have made efforts to redo box scores as well and have more advanced or sabermetric box scores or things that are maybe more telling and reflective and

comprehensive. So those things are out there. I'll find some and link to them. But asking about the line score, William says, first of all, errors have always been confusing in that chart as they're a bad thing while the other two are good. Additionally, if the visitor has an error that's going to correspond with a greater run scored, which is in the opposite corner. So now that I'm done with the pedantic portion of my email, what would errors be replaced by in a modern version of the mini box or the line score? I'm thinking walks or even RBIs. So I wouldn't put RBIs in there because you got runs in there. So that's just, I mean, it's going to be mostly the same, right? So if we're keeping runs, obviously you've got to keep runs. Runs are pretty important. You've got to know what the score is, who won the game.

But if – I mean we're keeping hits, I guess, in Williams' scenario, and we're just removing errors. I guess if we wanted, we could try to tinker with hits and errors. wanted, we could try to tinker with hits and errors. Because I know that other Ben Clemons wrote about this, actually, for Fangraphs early last year. Yes. Thank you for helping me remember when that happened. Yeah. And it was a headline, Fixing the Line Score. And what Ben recommended doing was having, was having, instead of runs, hits, errors, having runs, singles, and extra base hits. So not even having hits, but just subdividing it there.

I mean, I think he just wanted to keep it as singles. Someone in the comments asked him, would you include in the first base, he had it as the 1b column like would you put hits and errors and walks and hits by pitches you know anything that gets you to first base would that all be lumped in there or would it just be singles and i think ben just preferred to keep it simple and specific but But I kind of like that idea. I kind of like, you know, you could have home runs, I guess, would be something. You know, when you look at a box score, I often look to see how many home runs, who

hit the home runs. So you could have home runs. You could have extra base hits. extra bass hits. Obviously, like from runs and from runs and hits, you can infer or speculate in an informed way about how you got to that point. If you just have hits and extra bass hits or singles and extra bass hits, then you're not getting any of the other ways that you can reach bass, which is, you know, I mean, you're not getting walks or hit by pitches or anything. What if you did like total base runners? I can just like total, you know, players on base would not be a bad one. I could, I could see that, you know, just, I mean, that gives you

a sense of like, okay, was there a ton of traffic? And you can tell the difference between a low scoring game where there were a lot of rallies and players stranded, right? As opposed to one that was more of a pitcher's duel and you just scraped across those runs. You want it to be descriptive if you're just getting a few numbers here that give you a snapshot of the game while runs tells you whether it's high or low scoring and who won and total base runners or i guess total bases or something that could tell you did they maximize their scoring opportunities or not like how long did this game take how much traffic was there was there always someone on base or did you know they capitalize on all their opportunities and get a lot of clutch hits How long did this game take? How much traffic was there? Was there always someone on base?

Or did they capitalize on all their opportunities and get a lot of clutch hits? I struggle with this question in part because I'm a click-through person. Does that make sense? You see the line score and you're like, oh, what happened? I got click-through. Want to see what that was in there? And so I don't look at it as it's currently constituted and feel like i acknowledge that it is somewhat limited in terms of what it is conveying and that there is this weird sort of directional mismatch of like here are things

that's offense but also this bad defense that's happening you know like i get i get the incongruity there yeah but i i don't find myself bothered by it. Yeah. Maybe I'm full. Tapped out. I look more closely. Ben, in his singles comment, it's really like one base events is what he was going for. Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. interference in there, I don't think, or I guess he would because you just lump together a one-base error, catcher's interference is an error that gets you to first base. I think he was not going to maybe include fielder's choices, for instance, but that could be covered if you had a total base runners column. So I kind of like that. I just like runners on base, just runners reaching base, I think would be a good one.

But I like the runs and then the one base events and then the extra base events. That's pretty good. But errors, yeah. I mean, I don't think we need errors in there for any number of reasons. I mean, A, errors are sort of imprecise to begin with. And also, there are a lot fewer errors than there were when the box score was developed. I mean, when Henry Chadwick was deciding what these things would look like or when they first had line scores, there were a lot more errors per game than there are now. I mean, people had barely had gloves at that point and the fields were not well manicured, et cetera. So there were many more errors, and that was a more telling statistic than it is now.

Yeah, it was a more, it was meaningful in a way that it has sort of, you know, it's receded to the background now. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm going to say if we want to keep runs and hits and just substitute something for errors, then I'm going to say base runners or total base runners. Runners reaching base would be a good third one, I think. And yeah, if we can do multiple redos, then I kind of like the way Ben did it. So that's one base events and extra base events and runs. That's pretty good too. But I like the total base runners. That gives you a good feel for the game

that sometimes just the runs doesn't. And even if you have hits in there, you're missing a lot of potential on base events. Right, yeah, exactly. Exactly, Ben. Okay, all right. So we are meeting a couple major leaguers. Major leaguers.

Major leaguers. Meet a major leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer. Do you want me to go first? Yeah, you could go first because we have sort of a theme here. Yeah.

Each of our Major Leaguers who debuted just recently got a save in his Major League debut. Yes. So that is the thing that is linking the two today. We don't always have a theme with Major League. We do not always have a theme. Today we have a theme. And your player was listener nominated. Yes.

So listener Evan nominated Keaton Wynn, who is a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. And I'm going to skip ahead to one of the fun little facts about his debut. And then I'll tell you a bit about Wynn as a player. First of all, incredible name. Just like, you know, like a kind of name for a pitcher. And the reason that his debut drew some interest apart from the fact that it was a big league debut. And that's always exciting. And that he, you you know garnered a save in his outing and that's exciting too was that keaton win is from a teeny tiny little town ollie iowa population 200 and so when he earned his save

in his big league debut it was the first time he had ever been to a major league stadium because Ollie, Iowa is about four hours away from the closest big league park, which is Bush, which is where he debuted. And because it was, you know, close-ish, but still obviously far, I'm quoting Evan, there's a decent chance that at least 10% of the entire town's population was on hand to watch wind pitch, which is remarkable. What a remarkable thing. And I wonder, like, how many of those folks had been to a big league park before? Probably some perhaps meaningful percentage of them, which is a meaningful percentage of this town, had never been to one either. Yeah, right. Plus, with the MLB TV blackouts in Iowa, they may never have seen a major league baseball game. Yeah, if they don't have cable, they're just kind of stuck, right? And so now I shall read to you a bit about Keaton Wynn.

We have already established that he is from a tiny town in Iowa. He went to Iowa Western Community College. He was a fifth-round selection of the Giants in 2018. And here I will read from his prospect report published at FanGraphs earlier this spring. And I should point out, he lost two seasons of development, one to COVID and another to a Tommy John surgery, but rose through the minors quite quickly in 2022, was added to the 40 man this off season. And here I shall quote from his prospect report after working just two or three innings at a time early in the year. And this is in reference to 2022,

to be clear, the giants began to stretch wind to five or six innings per outing, starting in mid July, promoting him to Richmond after he continued to dominate deep into games. While his stuff wasn't as crisp at double a, he showed a three tick bump in fastball velocity compared to his 2019 season across the entire season. And it has one of the nastier splitters in the minors he's a little bit stiff and despite relatively strong strike three and performance the eyeball evaluation of

wins delivery tends to funnel him toward the bullpen limited end zone fastball utility his heater has downhill angle and run adds to this the winds repertoire depth should enable him to work multiple innings of relief if it turns out he can't start. Because he has shown he can handle a pretty big innings load and is an optionable pitcher, Wynn is more likely to begin 2023 as a spot-starting sandbag. Regardless of the specifics of his role, Wynn's velocity and splitter would fit somewhere in the meaty middle of a contending team's pitching staff. And he came up on June 13th. As we said, he pitched in St. Louis, earned the save. He pitched four innings. He gave up one earned run. He struck out two and walked

three. He has since been optioned back to Sacramento, but he was struck by the whole experience. He said, it's been a whirlwind, Wynn said. I went out there and sat out there for like 10 or 15 minutes and just tried to soak it in and picture what it's going to be like. This was prior to him arriving when he got to his first big league ballpark. And I imagine that we will see Wynn again, and hopefully he will, I don't know, maybe start and get a win. Mm-hmm. Wynn.

It is W-I-N-N, just in case anyone was wondering. Yeah, W-I-N-N. It would be kind of funny if it was just the one end, but I think it plays well enough, you know? It sort of plays well enough. So he is currently sitting on a 2-2-5 ERA and a 5-2-8 FIP for his big league line with just those four innings.

He has thrown 41.1 innings in AAA this year with a 4-3-5 ERA and a 4-1-4 FIP. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Evan mentioned that as part of the postgame celebration, his mouth was doused with toothpaste and sriracha. I have notes. I'm also shocked. Can you try to imagine a concoction that evokes Kapler less than that? Yeah, that's true.

Did he sit there and go, oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder, Evan wondered about this too, that just how many players who make their MLB debut, it's their first visit to an MLB stadium or their first MLB game, at least. And as he noted, there may be many international-born players who had even less access to MLB games than Keaton Wynn did. So it's probably not unheard of, but it's got to be unusual by the time you get to that point. Particularly for guys, even if you're someone who hails from a part of the country where you don't have easy access to a big league ballpark, which is, you know, that's not a small

percentage of the population. Like if you're a domestic player and you're drafted and you're drafted high, like they often will fly you out to the big league ballpark and put a uniform, at least a jersey on you and like take pictures and stuff. So I think that it is probably a bigger percentage of the eventual big league population than you might think, particularly when you consider international players. think, particularly when you consider international players. But I do think that there are a lot of opportunities even before the debut where they'll be like, yeah, come on down and see this stuff. Yeah. And it's unusual for a player to get a save in his MLB debut. It's obviously not unprecedented, but it is quite unusual. Keaton Wynn was the first Giants pitcher to record a save in his MLB debut since Jim Duffalo in 1961. And of course, the save was not even an official MLB stat until 1969. So it's weird. But what is even weirder is that it happened, I think, back to back days, right? Because of my guy. Right. My guy is Ricky Karcher of the Cincinnati Reds, who also got a save in his major league debut. And he was the first Reds pitcher to get one since Art Jacobs in 1939, which was 30 years

before the save became an official stat. But they debuted so close together and they did things that it's very unusual for a player to do in their debut. Karcher debuted on June 12th and Wynn debuted on June 13th. Now, Wynn's debut save, as you said, it was a four-inning outing. Yeah. Now, I think that is maybe a little more common. Yes, I think so. Among these uncommon outcomes,

which is getting a save in your MLB debut, that's probably the more typical way to do it because you're not coming into a save situation. You're just getting credited with a save. The other way that you can get a save, right, by pitching more than three innings in that situation, because it would be quite unusual for a pitcher to, in his MLB debut, be asked to come into a standard save situation, right? Because, I mean,

when does a player ever come up and instantly they're at the top of the bullpen pecking order? That basically never happens, right? You have to, you know, there are players who debut like Eli De La Cruz, right, the other day, who debuted in the cleanup slot in the order, right? I think you told me that that happens sometimes. But no one ever comes up and instantly they're the ninth inning guy. They're the designated save guy. That's something you kind of have to earn typically. I guess there might be exceptions, but Ricky Karcher, he got a one-inning save. It was even weirder in that sense. I just stat-headed it. There have been 107 instances on record of a major league pitcher getting a save in their debut in the AL or NL. Of those 107, 33 were three innings or longer. 45 were one inning or shorter. However, if we look since 1969, since the save became something that people were aiming for, there have been only 40 saves in big league debuts and 20 have been three innings or longer. Only 13

have been one inning or shorter. The last time we had a save in a major league debut that was shorter than a three inning outing was July 24th, 2020, when Kwon Young Kim did it for the Cardinals. And of course, he was a KBO veteran in his 30s. Before Kim, you have to go back to Kyuji Fujikawa. He did it in 2013, but he was an NPB veteran in his 30s and also had a lot of closing experience. Before him, you have to go back all the way to April 29, 2004, when Frank Groszowski got an out and a save in his big league debut for the Marlins. So it's really been almost 20 years since someone like Karcher did what he did in their debut. And this was just wonderful.

Just everything about this was wonderful. So now Keaton Wynn is 25 years old, right? And Ricky Karcher is also 25 years old. And Ricky Karcher is a right-handed pitcher. He's a big guy, 6'4", 230. He was a 13th round pick by the Reds in the 2017 draft. And he came up, it was basically like an emergency situation that he was used. Like the bullpen was shorthanded. They called him up from AAA Louisville on Friday. He didn't get into a game over the weekend, but the bullpen was shorthanded on Monday

and the game went to extra innings. And so they called on Ricky Karcher with the Reds up by one over the Royals in the bottom of the 10th. And he was wild. We actually got some tweets about him to the Effectively Wild account because it was like, hey, here's your new avatar. Like, here's the new Mr. Effectively Wild. He threw 21 pitches. I saw some sources say five of them were strikes or in the strike zone. I think nine of them were strikes, but five of them were in the strike zone, something like that. He was extremely wild, which is not unusual for him because in AAA, before he was called up, 9.27 ERA, and he had

9.27 ERA, and he had walked 34 guys in 22 and a third innings. 34 guys, and he struck out 31. Somehow he got called up anyway, despite having more walks than strikeouts and many more walks than innings pitched. And this has been an issue for him all along. His minor league walk rate is 8.8 per nine innings, over 165 and two-thirds innings. He's got a 6 ERA in the minors. So he's extremely walk-prone, and he showed that immediately. And yet he got out of the inning and then he gave an interview where he said, I don't know, seven times. He was the postgame interviewee. It was like a two-minute interview.

He said, I don't know, seven times. But he also dropped a curse. He dropped a curse just on live TV. Oh, then he really is the effectively wild pitcher. Yeah. I'm going to play a clip. With the entire team waiting for Ricky Karcher to do this interview. How's this feel right now?

It's like a, it's like a movie, bro. I feel like it doesn't even feel real, man. It's incredible. Holy shit. All right.

Live TV. We're good. We're on cable. How were you able to manage through that? I don't know, man. I mean, confidence in my slider, I guess. So, yeah, that was live

TV. You could maybe tell the inexperience there with being the post-game interviewee on a major league broadcast. He was not ready for that. But it was, you know, he almost threw the game away, like he threw a fastball a foot over the head of Michael Garcia with two outs. And Kurt Casali, who was catching, managed to snag it somehow and prevent the tying run from scoring. managed to snag it somehow and prevent the tying run from scoring. And Casali's message to Karcher after the game, like when he greeted him, he said,

congratulations. And then he said, I was just like, we've got to work on your fastball, buddy. So the pitch plot is ridiculous. There are three pitches above the batter silhouette's head. There are two at like chin and neck level or three. Again, there are just like maybe five in the actual strike zone plot. So he was just everywhere. But everyone loves him. Like the Reds love him.

All the Reds stayed in the dugout to watch him do the post-game celebration tj friedel said ricky's an awesome dude and uh moments like that and a win like that with so much back and forth everyone's just energetic and rooting him on it was an incredible debut and karcher said you can only dream to go in a save opportunity in your first big league game obviously there was some adrenaline there so yeah you might say he was wild because the adrenaline, except that he's always wild. That's just kind of how he was. I've worked my whole day for this. It's awesome.

He said he almost teared up in the bullpen when it looked like that he might go into the game. He throws 99. I mean, it's got to be scary to face him because he throws 99. He throws 99. I mean, it's got to be scary to face him because he throws 99. He's got a nice slider, and it's just wild fastballs and wild sliders. It's just the steady diet of that.

He said the fastball was wild thing, I guess, tonight. So he's the new Rick Vaughn, basically. And he said it's like a movie bro he's uh david bell the reds manager you know he said uh ricky's got a long way to go kind of alluding to the lack of command and control there but this was a good beginning for him and a nice win for the reds. So it was pretty awesome. It was pretty great. So I really enjoyed the post-game interview and just the whole spectacle of Ricky Karcher's debut was just wonderful. and then got optioned almost immediately. But, you know, I mean, to come in in that situation when, you know, most of the guys that you would have had in a save situation had already been used or were injured or unavailable or whatever it was.

Kasali said when he went to the mound to greet him, he said, congratulations, you did it. You're here. Go have some fun. Things are dicey as they are right now. Got a guy on second base, tight game, but try to enjoy it as much as you possibly can because you only get one. So, yeah, it was pretty great. That's really nice. There was one ball that was like heading toward his face and he got the bat in the way of the ball. He also there was a pitch clock violation that he got help with. I think one of the batters, Edward Olivares, had a pitch clock violation. So I think he he helped out Karcher a little bit, a little bit there. there. And Casali said, I'm sure I've had some pretty loony games back there, but just coming in, not starting the game, coming in and unfortunately giving up a game-tying homer, guy pitching his debut with a one-run lead. It was tough. I'm not going to say it was easy.

Most importantly, we got the win, and I don't want to do that again. Thankfully, we had his slider, which was a nice way, backhanded compliment, I guess, because the fastball was he just had no idea where it was going at all. He actually at AA last year, he used the song Wild Thing as his walkout music. So he's self-aware. Just like Rick Vaughn in Major League. Yeah. So I think his father said the Reds asked him what he wanted to use as his music, and he said he'd be fine with using that again. And yet David Bell said, Karch has a long way to go.

He has really good stuff, the kind of stuff that could get any major league hitter out. He'll continue to develop like a lot of players in this game. He's got a long way to go, but it was a great way to start it out. Very memorable. And Casali said, he is an interesting dude. We love him to death. And his parents were there, too. They were able to.

And his mom said, that's just Ricky. So I hope we see some more of Ricky Karcher despite his walk in the ballpark every time he's out there. He walked the leadoff man, too, but he worked around it. You know, sometimes you need a learning experience and then maybe to turn around. Could happen. Yeah. And I meant to mention, by the way, Keaton Wynn coming up and contributed to this, but I noticed this at McCovey Chronicles. There was a post by Brian Murphy who noted that the Giants have had the best bullpen in baseball lately. If you look at the Fangraphs leaderboards and look over the last 30 days,

the Giants' bullpen war is by far the best in baseball, which is not primarily because of Keith Wynn, but he made some contribution to that. Yeah. See, this is what happens when you embrace twins. Yeah, exactly right. And those were our official meet a major

leaguer guys for today. But I did just want to give a shout out to one more guy, Joe Jakes, spelled, you know, Jacques or Jacques, but I believe he pronounces it Jakes. And he had a historically notable debut, too. And he'd be a good full meet a major leaguer candidate. But he was a walk-on in college. He got no Division I offers. He was a 33rd round draft pick. He was a minor league Rule 5 guy. He's 28 years old. He's who wrote in about it, but in his debut on June 12th, he faced one batter, allowed him to reach on an error, and that was it. And he is the second, according to Dennis and Stathead, the second player to have that line in his pitching debut, just one batter faced, reached on air. And the first was Stan Musial. And there's an interesting story that goes along with that. If you're wondering how Joe Jakes managed to do that, it's despite the three batter minimum and everything, it's because it was raining. So he came in, he had an immediate pitch clock violation, and then he got a grounder

to first, and the first baseman made an error on the play, and then the rains came, and there was a rain delay, and he didn't come back out after the delay, I believe. And so that was his whole line. He subsequently had a more normal and extended outing. But it was weird. Only Stan Musial had ever had this line in a pitching debut. And I looked up why that was. And it happened on the last game of the 1952 season for the Cardinals, September 28th. Stan Musial had his only pitching appearance of his major league career. And Stan Musial, he was signed as a pitcher. He pitched in the minors his first couple of seasons. He was like a two-way guy in the minors and would hit on the days he didn't pitch. And then he hurt his shoulder trying to catch a line

drive in center field. And after that, he didn't pitch anymore. But he was like a promising pitching prospect, a lefty pitcher initially. And so he got into this one game. But the story was, it was the last day of the regular season and the Cardinals were out of it. And it was sort of a stunt that, you know, he won the batting title as he did many times. did many times. And he entered the game with a league-leading 336 batting average. And the Cardinals were going to play the Cubs, and they had an outfielder named Frankie Baumholz, who was also in the running for the batting title that year. So technically, it was mathematically possible, like if Musial had gone 0 for 5 and Baumholz had had a whole bunch of hits, like if he had gone 5 for 5 and Musial had gone 0 for 4 or something, then Baumholz could have overtaken Musial. And so as a stunt, as a box office promotion, they advertised that Musial was going to pitch to Baumholz, the two technically batting title contenders. And Musial was going to pitch to Baumholz, the two technically batting title contenders.

And Musial was going to face the other one on the last day of the season when both teams were out of the playoff race. And apparently, the Cardinals got permission from National League president Warren Giles for Musial to pitch against Baumholz. These days, you wouldn't need permission. It's just constantly position player pitchers. But Musial, in his autobiography, said he was persuaded to do it as a box office promotion. And he came in. There was a crowd of 17,422 at Sportsman's Park. Harvey Haddix started as the pitcher, and Musial started in center field. as the pitcher and Musial started in center field. And then Haddix walked the Cubs leadoff batter,

and then Baumholz came up. So Musial came into pitch. Haddix moved to right field. Hal Rice went from right to center. Musial took a couple warm-up pitches. He wrote later, I didn't relish the contrived show. I didn't like it,

particularly because the one batter I'd face would be Baumholz. I didn't want to give any impression I might be trying to show him up. And as he was warming up, the Cubs manager, Phil Cavaretta, said to Baumholz, they're trying to make a fool of you, Frank. And Baumholz said, he replied, I don't think so. I think it's just a gimmick to get a lot of people in the stands to watch two also-rans on the last day of the season.

Baumholz was a lefty batter, but he batted from the right side, which he had never done, just to kind of get in the spirit of the thing, like as a gesture of sportsmanship because he didn't want to get a cheap hit against a position player pitcher. And Baumholz, he got a fastball. Musial said, I flipped the ball. Baumholz met the ball squarely, and it bounced on a big hop to third baseman Solly Hamis. And figuring on a double play, he fumbled the ball. He then threw late and wide to first, and Brown took third. And so he was safe on an error. And that was that. And everyone returned to their original position. So they went on with the game, and Musial said, I'm not proud of that circus. So it takes strange circumstances to come in and face one batter and that batter reaches on an error.

And then that's the end of your day. Right. So it took this stunt between batting title contenders and then it took rain and Joe Jakes all these many years later. So another notable debut. All right. We'll finish with a stat blast here. And analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's today's stat blast. Okay, so our stat blast is presented yet again by Tops Now, our sponsor for the stat blast recently. by Tops Now, our sponsor for the StatBlast recently. And as we have explained, you can go to tops.com or you can click on the link in our show page,

which will take you directly to the Tops Now page. And there you can see a selection of all of the cards that are available when you click. And it's for a limited time only because something notable happens, not necessarily the kind of notable thing that we talk about on Stat Bless or in Meet a Major Leaguer. I'll have to check, but I'm going to guess that Joe Jakes did not get a top snout card for having the same pitching line in his debut as Stan Musial.

Probably not. And I don't know if Ricky Karcher and Keaton Wynn getting saves in their debuts on back-to-back days. I mean, you know, could that be now worthy potentially? But, you know, often it's a little more notable to the common fan, probably. It's, you know, your walk-offs and your exciting situations and your just individual exploits or team exploits that are really eye-catching and notable. You know, Shohei Otani, he got a Tops Now card for his game where he pitched well and also hit another Titanic home run. That seems right.

Yeah. Shohei Otani, he gets more than his fair share of Tops Now cards. Or actually, he does get his fair share. It's just unfair that he's as good as he is. But you could go to Topps now, Topps.com, and you'll see all the cards

for that day. And they're available that day. And you can go get them. Got to catch them all. No, you don't. You can get just some of them if you want. You can collect them all.

Catch the ones you like. Yeah, right. You can get ones for players you follow or teams you follow or just accomplishments that you think are cool. And then you can add them to your collection.

And it's just a limited time, only limited quantity. So go check out the selection before the selection changes. And hey, what do you know? I just checked the archive. Ricky Karcher did get a Topps Now card. So how about that? In addition to everything else, he got himself a baseball card. Not Keaton Wynn, though.

The four-inning save in the debut. Not quite as unusual. So he'll have to wait, but maybe his day will come. All right. So got a couple stat blasts here. One is prompted by an email. And this is an email from Nathan, who says, I just finished the most recent Zach Granke Stories article published on June 7th in The Athletic.

Among the many nuggets that made me giggle or gasp was one about how it is entirely possible that Granke has thrown a pitch at every miles per hour increment from 50 to 100. While I agree it's possible, is it true? How many unique speeds has Granke thrown a pitch at over the course of his career? How does that compare to the league average for starters and who else might have a similar number? So I went to Lucas Apostolaris, semi-frequent StatBlast consultant for this one. Lucas is involved at Baseball Perspectives and Pitch Info, and he sent me this data. Now, obviously, this only goes back to 2008, the beginning of PitchFX. Zach Greinke's career started in 2004. So we do not have every single pitch that he threw in his major league career.

However, we have most of them and he has gone not from zero to 60, but from 52 to 100. So his minimum pitch speed, 52, his maximum 100. Recorded, obviously, sometimes when you throw extremely slow pitches, they just don't even get tracked. But he's been tracked everywhere from 52 to 100, and he has missed only three miles per hours in between 52 and 100. He has not had pitches tracked at 55, 56, and 57. But everything else from 52 to 100, he has hit at some point. And if you told Zach Greinke that he's missing 55, 56, and 57, I almost guarantee that he would go out there next time and he would throw a 55, 56, and 57 because he definitely likes this. And I've heard from his friend and former teammate, Brian Bannister, that he used to,

I mean, there are many stories about Granke doing this, but he used to have it be a challenge for himself to throw super slow pitches or to hit precise increments, right? And we did a previous stat blast about the biggest differentials from one pitch to the next right and cranky had some big ones there but this is just all pitches so he has had 46 different miles per hour readings that he has been tracked at and that is a lot it is the most among active pitchers however it is not the most all-time and by all time i mean since 2008. so alfredo simon he just barely exceeds granke he has had or had 47 different radar slash computer readings so he went from 46 to 99, and he was missing 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 55, and 60 on his pitch

speed bingo card, but he had a lower minimum. However, the champion, and I believe he was also the champion in the previous stat blast about pitch-to-pitch differentials, is Vicente Padilla. Vicente Padilla was really the king of this. And it's even more impressive because he pitched in the majors from 1999 to 2012. So most of his career is not covered by our data set here. And yet, Vicente Padilla, he went 53 different pitch readings in just 2008 to 2012. 53. He went from 45 to 99 miles per hour and was missing only 46 and 47. So he basically had them all just in a sliver of his career. And I don't, you might've had a 46 and 47 in the years that weren't tracked. I think probably you, I would wonder just like over the

course of a career, you know, you're probably going to hit your hardest miles per hour readings early on before you lose velocity. I like as you go you might be more likely to have some slower pitch speeds although i don't know even the young granky i mean he'd throw a slow curve in there right right and you know his hardest pitch readings obviously he's not hitting 100 anymore so that was some time ago but even when he was young he was throwing some pitches slow so it's not like he had to lose lose his top range in order to hit those lower readings. But yeah, Vicente Padilla, he's the champion of really exploring the studio space when it comes to speed and miles per hour. And I did look just to see what's typical. So among active pitchers with at least 500 pitches thrown. And I don't know how quickly exactly

you fill the slots on your bingo card. Obviously, the more you throw, the more likely you are to fill out every blank. But also, you probably fill it out fairly quickly, I guess. It's not like you necessarily need to pitch years and years to check off the different readings. You could do it fairly quickly. But of all the active pitchers with at least 500 pitches, the average number of pitches is like 24, or average number of radar readings that is so your your typical pitcher and you know

obviously it's going to be higher for a starter probably on the whole than a reliever but on average 500 pitches minimum yeah it's like 23.6 so granky basically has double the the number of the typical pitcher who's thrown at least 500 pitches. So, yeah, he's extraordinary, and we knew that. But he is not the most extraordinary. And after Granke, then it's Henderson Alvarez, 45. Yu Darvish, 44. Christian Bethencourt, 43, despite not having thrown that many pitches. How about that?

Yeah, so on a rate basis, Christian Bethencourt, he's the top. Fernando Abad, Jeremy Guthrie, Randy Wolfe, Chad Billingsley, Roy Oswalt also. And of the 500-pitch minimum, guys, the fewest number of discrete readings is 13 by Brandon Hughes and Penn Murphy of the Mariners. And, you know, not that many pitches for these guys, but it's most relievers down there. It's those guys, Domingo Acevedo, Richard Lovelady, Elvis Peguero, Tyler Rogers, 15, James Karinchak, 15.

So yeah, if you, you know, if you're like a fastball slider guy and you're not doing anything super wacky, I guess you're generally going to be in the same range. So that's one stat blast. Now, the other one was prompted by – do you remember on episode 2012 we had an email that we discussed the scenario of the player who is amazing at AAA and terrible in the majors? Yes, I do. Like a quadruple A player, but more extreme than anyone actually is. Like gets on base constantly in AAA, never gets on base in the big leagues.

But that did give me thinking about the players who actually had the biggest differential between those two levels in their production. And I looked that up. I think there was a previous stat blast maybe about the biggest gaps in stats, like in the majors and the minors in a single season, because I was thinking, gosh, it's got to be weird to like dominate AAA and then come up and be terrible in the majors in the same season. You must feel great. And then also completely overmatched within the span of a few months. But this is career level.

And for this, I went to also semi-frequent stat blast consultant Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference. Baseball Reference has AAA stats going back to 1946. I don't know whether it's every single game. Obviously, we're missing some major league games maybe, even at least play-by-play over that span. But I asked Kenny to send me everyone's AAA OPS and MLB OPS, and then also did it with ERA and innings pitched for pitchers. And then I looked for the guys who have the biggest gaps in OPS between the majors and AAA. And I set a minimum of 500 plate appearances at each level and 180 innings pitched for pitchers. And obviously, there are some players who never play at AAA or don't spend much time there. But this is among players who had a significant sample at both, at least like roughly a full season or so worth of plate appearances.

And the number one gap, and I'm not adjusting for park factors or anything like that here, but Elrod Hendricks in his career. Now, this is, you know, including maybe some rehab stints and everything. It's not just prior to your promotion, but he had a career AAA OPS of 101 and a career MLB OPS of 656. That's a gap of 405 points of OPS, and that is a lot more than anyone else. And he had a nice career. I think he's in the Orioles Hall of Fame and went on to coach with the Orioles for years and years. But, you know, you knew him as like a defensive defense first catcher.

And in AAA, at least, he raked. So 400-point gap, that's big. And if you're wondering, by the way, what the typical gap is, it kind of depends how you weight it. But it's roughly like 100 points you lose going from AAA to the majors in terms of career OPS. It's a little more than 100 points if you wait by AAA plate appearances. It's less than that if you wait by MLB plate appearances. Obviously, if you got a lot of MLB plate appearances, then you're more likely to have hit well in the majors and vice versa. But yeah, you know, 100 points is not a bad guide, I think, for the typical gap.

So this is why I mentioned Joe Adele earlier because he came to mind. Now he did raise his MLB OPS slightly with his homer this year, but he still has a 273 point gap between his AAA and MLB OPSs, but that's only 41st all time. So there are a lot of players who had bigger gaps.

So just reading the top ones, Elrod Hendricks, Ron Kittle, Josh Rojas, Mike Marshall, Louis Brinson, you know, that's the kind of name that you might be like, yeah, that makes sense that Louis Brinson would be here, right? Yeah. Isan Diaz, Greg Brock, Billy Sample, Sean Rodriguez, Monty Irvin. Isan Diaz, Greg Brock, Billy Sample, Sean Rodriguez, Monty Irvin. So some good players here, too, but also a bunch of guys who just never made it in the majors or haven't. Louis Brinson being one of them.

Brandon Wood is number 18. That stands out. Jared Kelnick is still number 25, despite his greater success in the majors this season. William Opeña, number 27. Frenchie Cordero, number 29. Then you have Bobby Gritch, who should be a Hall of Famer. He's 32nd, so you could still be good. Taylor Ward right after that. Bob Uecker.

So we could go on. Again, I will put the full list online for anyone who wants to look at this. I did look for guys who had higher OPSs in the majors than in AAA. And number one right now is Aaron Judge, who had a AAA OPS of 781 in 689 plate appearances and has a MLB OPS of 983 in more than 3,000 play appearances. That's a gap of 203 points. So obviously the gap is going to be smaller here at the extremes than for the guys who were worse in the minors than the majors. It's atypical to be better in the majors than in the minors. But Aaron Judge, you know, and probably his MLB OPS will decline as he ages, but still a big gap. For a retired guy, it's Moises Alou, who has a 191-point gap. He had a AAA OPS of 693 and an MLB OPS of 884.

And after that, Frankie Austin, Kevin Mitchell, Piper Davis, Artie Wilson, Jose Akendo, Manny Ramirez, number eight. Piper Davis, Artie Wilson, Jose Akendo, Manny Ramirez, number eight, David Justice, number 10, Vinny Castilla, new Hall of Famer Fred McGriff, Juan Gonzalez, George Brett, better players. Joey Votto is 19th. Obviously, if you exceeded your AAA OPS dramatically and your AAA OPS was good enough for you to get the call, then there's a better chance that you were a pretty good MLB hitter. And there are a bunch of good ones there. And then just quickly for pitchers, for pitchers, the typical ERA gap is actually sort of small. It's like 0.4 or something worse in the majors than in AAA.

But I think that's because a lot of pitchers wash out as starters, right? So they have some struggles at AAA as a starter, and then they come to the big leagues as a bullpen guy and are better in that role and lower their ERA. So it's sort of skewed in that sense. But if you're wondering, minimum 180 innings pitch, the biggest gap in a bad way for ERA is Scott Klingenbeck, who in the 90s, he had a AAA innings pitch to 538 in the third innings pitch.

He had 3.69 ERA in triple A. And then in MLB, he pitched 217 and two thirds innings with a 6.99 ERA. So that's a gap of 3.3 runs. That's a rude awakening. So Scott Klingenbeck, followed by Cotton Pippen, Jeff Johnson, Logan Kensing, Mickey Calloway,

Herman Bess, Bert Smith, Matthew Boyd, Fernando Cabrera, Sean Armstrong, Zach Stewart. I could go on, but I won't. I will link to the list.

And if you want to know the guys with the improvements going from AAA to the majors in terms of ERA, then it's the mad Hungarian Al Hrabowski, who I guess fits into that starter to reliever transition. seven innings pitched in AAA. He had a 5.92 ERA. And then in the majors, 722 innings pitch. He had a 3.1 followed by Joe Nathan,

Dillon Batonsas, Seth Maness is up there. Daryl Kyle, Mark Fidrich, David Clyde, interesting Hoyt Wilhelm, Scott Shields. So interesting names,

but yeah, a lot more starter to reliever conversions there. So I will put the full list online. But thanks to our substitute stat blasters. And I will be back with our pass blast and without Meg. Sadly, farewell. Meg, talk to you next week. Bye. It's raised more than $70 million since then. And this year, each Home Run hit in all games starting May 20th and leading up to Father's Day, which is this Sunday, June 18th. It is not too late to donate. You can go to pcf.org slash Home Run Challenge and pledge a donation for every Home Run hit through the weekend. You can also make a one-time donation. So we will link to that on the show page. Something I support. I have members of both sides of my family who have had prostate cancer.

It's something that I'm going to have to keep a close eye on. One in eight U.S. men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their lifetime. I am probably at higher risk than that. On Father's Day, players, managers, and coaches will wear blue to raise awareness and quote unquote keep dad in the game. I'm a dad now too. Obviously, Rob Manfred does not feel that any players and their personal beliefs need to be protected from wearing blue. There may be some players who would not want to support pride, but I suppose no players are pro-prostate cancer.

Anyway, I wanted to do a stat blast on players who have hit home runs during the Home Run Challenge, dating back to its beginning in 1996, and I wanted to find out who has hit a disproportionate number of home runs in the games that counted. Once I dug into it, though, it became complicated because there have been different periods that counted in past seasons. And the foundation was not able to provide me with the specific games that the promotion was in effect for those years. So I couldn't really calculate it. But even though they couldn't dig up those records of which games counted toward it and which didn't for earlier years, they do have an all-time leaderboard on their website. And because of that, I have learned that there is a tie at the top between Albert Pujols and Paul Goldschmidt. 26 home runs apiece hit during home run challenges.

Not a surprise to see Pujols at the top of that leaderboard, but Goldschmidt can still pass him. After those two, it's Anthony Rizzo, Edwin Encarnacion, Nelson Cruz, Freddie Freeman, and then a couple names that surprised me a bit more, Jock Peterson and Jonathan Scope. They and Freeman and Kyle Schwarber all have 21, so they are tied for fifth on the leaderboard. As a team, the New York Yankees are the leaders with 41 home runs hit during home run challenges. So whatever you may think of the Yankees, at least they have helped fund prostate cancer research by hitting lots of dingers in the period preceding Father's Day. Can't completely vouch for these stats, though, because it would seem that Paul Goldschmidt is considered not an active player for the purposes of this leaderboard. They seem to think that Paul Goldschmidt is no longer playing.

They have Byron Buxton, Mike Trout, and Vlad Guerrero at the top of the active player leaderboard with eight piece. Anyway, go donate if you're so inclined. There's still time. And speaking of time, we will close with the pass blast, which comes to us from 2021 and from David Lewis,

an architectural historian in Boston and a baseball researcher. He writes, moving the mound. In 2021, the independent Atlantic League, quickly becoming a professional guinea pig for Major League Baseball,

announced an experimental rule change for their upcoming season. The pitching mound, set 60 feet 6 inches from home plate for more than a century, would be pushed back 12 inches to 61 feet 6 inches. The 60-foot 6-inch mark was instituted in 1893 reportedly to curb the growing influence of overhand pitching and limit the number of strikeouts. In 2021, the idea was again spurred by a desire to keep balls in play. In the opening weeks of Major League play, batters were striking out at a 24.7% rate, up more than 10% from the 14.7 rate 20 years prior. Hall of Famer Jim Palmer weighed in on the idea, suggesting it's going to take a long time to actually get hitters to adjust their swings. He continued by saying that he liked that MLB was trying to do something, although he conceded, I'm not sure I'd like to be one of the guinea pigs.

Others voiced concern about injury risk and how the experiment would affect players trying to advance through the system of professional baseball. Former MLB and Atlantic League pitcher Tim Adelman shared this opinion, saying, If you are somebody who'd like to pitch an affiliated ball or who's trying to get back to the big leagues, then it seems to me like it's hard to really feel comfortable doing that if the place that you want to be has the mound that's 60 feet, six inches. All the more reason for a lab league, I'm sure Meg would observe if she were still here. While some were quick to assume this would only help batters, others suggested the opposite. Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said, there will be both positives and negatives on both

sides of it. The amount of room to create shapes and movement for a pitcher will enhance. You just might deaden some of the velocity from the distance that we're talking about. New York Times writer Tyler Kepner summed up the rule changes saying, for a rapidly changing game, there is nothing to lose by creatively trying to generate more action and reduce dead time.

I talked a ton about this and wrote a ton about this at the time. And after that brief experiment in the Atlantic League, which was only in effect for half that season, as I recall, I wrote about the results with Rob Arthur at The Ringer, and we found that they were fairly inconclusive. I wrote, all in all, the mound move wasn't a clear-cut disaster or triumph. It may be that more time, a bigger backward shift, or a season without the confounding effect of a

midstream strike zone change would be needed to accurately assess its effects. It hasn't been tested since. I've moved on more to roster limits on the number of active pitchers as a way of combating strikeouts and encouraging other positive developments, but I'm still something of a mound move believer. I would be interested in seeing further testing. And there weren't any indications at the time

that it had caused injuries, which was in line with prior research that suggested that it wouldn't. But pitchers keep getting bigger. They release pitches closer to the plate. They throw them even harder. It may make some sense to move them back a bit. It may also make some sense to support Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going

to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free aside from our statast sponsorship and get themselves access to some perks. Mark, Chris Wicke, Karina Longworth, Michael Cohen, and Andy, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only. An inclusive, supportive, engaging environment for baseball fans of all kinds. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, discounts on merch, and ad-free Fangraphs memberships. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams,

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That will do it for us for this week. So we hope you have a wonderful weekend and we'll be back to talk to you next week. I'm out.