Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2026: Sound and Furries

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Andrew McCutchen’s latest “furries” tweet, the Pirates playing through a high AQI and the need for a safety standard, Domingo Germán’s perfect game and the state of the Yankees, Yandy Díaz turning back into Ground Beef, Shohei Ohtani lapping his league and strangely struggling at the plate with […]

Upstairs, that's infantry They both mean a lot to me That's why I love baseball Special games, it's preview series Pitching is pure poetry That's why I love baseball Effectively wild Effectively wild

Effectively wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild

Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Effectively Wild Lindbergh of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Happy Andrew McCutcheon tweets about Furries Day to all who celebrate the, not annual tradition,

but recurring tradition everyone was anticipating. It's the start of Anthrocon, the furry convention in Pittsburgh. And so, Andrew McCutcheon marked the occasion with a tweet that just said furries, as he has been known to do. I, you know, I, what do you say, you know? Yeah, I don't know what you say. What do you say about them? He just says furries. Furries.

That's it. You know, maybe that's, maybe that's the best approach because it's like, here's a thing. It exists, you know? Yeah. Got a lot of retweets. So works well for him. The feel good furries tweets unfortunately was soon displaced by the feel bad fact that the

pirates are playing baseball as we speak right now in very smoky conditions which Andrew McCutcheon not thrilled about. So he not only tweeted about furries but he also said some things about not being completely comfortable playing baseball with air quality index in the 200s. He is masked up for that game. And it does seem like there maybe has to be some better process in place.

Like we've seen some games get postponed when the air quality is bad and others not. And it doesn't appear completely consistent. Like it's not just the team's decision. It's MLB's. It's the players association. There were some conversations and consultations there. But I thought it would be postponed when I was seeing photos from the ballpark on Twitter. And it was very clearly smoky. And New York having been smoky like that recently, I would not want to be playing baseball and performing athletic activities in those conditions.

be a recurring issue, then it seems like they've got to get some sort of standards, like a go, no go if it's above this level. Like I know in this case, the Padres weren't going to be playing the Pirates again. Like it would have been complicated from a scheduling perspective and there might have been an off day lost. It would have been a hassle, certainly. But to have players out there in those conditions and then also attract fans who are sitting out there, it's not ideal. I mean, it's not ideal that fires are raging and smoke is carrying across the continent either. But we've got to figure out what we're going to do as we head toward our interstellar-style scenario here of playing baseball in almost post-apocalyptic conditions.

playing baseball in almost post-apocalyptic conditions. Yeah, I mean, I think that unfortunately, the obvious consensus is that this will not just get better over time, right? It is likely to become a more persistent issue that we have to grapple with. So yeah, I think having kind of clear and reliable standards that can be acted upon expediently is in everyone's best interest. Because you just don't want folks sitting out, as you said, to watch those games. You don't want players put in unnecessary risk or to incur unnecessary risk to do so. And it's just going to be a thing that we continue to have to deal with. So I think that, you know, as we look at future iterations of the schedule and think about sort of the ideal configuration of games, it probably does behoove the league to build additional flex

into the schedule so that there is the opportunity to kind of remove that consideration from the table when deciding like, is this a game that we need to postpone or cancel? If you have additional room to make up those games at a later date where you hopefully have better air quality, then you can really just look at the facts of here's where the air quality index is. And, you know, here's how we anticipate that progressing over the course of a game. And I realize that there are going to be times of year where that is harder to do than at others, right? Like, you know, I went to the 18 inning game at T-Mobile last postseason and it was obviously smoky. That's not the time of year that we have come to

sadly refer to as like wildfire season in the Northwest. But I thought about it the whole time I was sitting there. I was in the Oxbox, which was in the Hit It Here Cafe for those familiar with T-Mobile, which is more closed in. But I thought, I was like, gosh, those folks have been sitting out there for a really long time. And I don't think that the air quality was as dramatically bad as it is right now in Pittsburgh. But yeah, we're not going to get off the hook without reminders of what's to come, right? Yeah. I guess the good news is if you're in Pittsburgh for Anthrocon, then hopefully your costume includes a mask already. So you're good to go. But not everyone is as well equipped for those conditions.

Anyway, there was some history made on Wednesday night. We had a perfect game. The first perfect game since Effectively Wild was less than a month old. That is how long it's been since the last perfect game. Or alternatively, that's how long this podcast has been going. That it was August 2012 when Felix Hernandez pitched the previous one. And this podcast started in July 2012. I don't think we even talked about it on the podcast at the time.

You didn't talk about Felix's perfect game? I was looking back at the archive to see, like, we must have even talked about it on the podcast at the time. You didn't talk about Felix's Perfect Game? I was looking back at the archive to see, like, we must have bantered about it. But this was so early on that we were sort of on a rigid, like, we're going to talk about one thing or each of us will bring a topic. And from what I can tell, we didn't actually talk about it. It was a different podcast in those days. Anyway, it happened. And it happened again. There was history.

Domingo German became the first pitcher on record to make 65 consecutive starts without a triple-digit pitch count. That was the real history that I was interested in there. Actually, when I saw that he had pitched a perfect game, I was not watching the game in the moment. I didn't realize it until just after it was over, game, I was not watching the game in the moment. I didn't realize it until just after it was over, actually. I was busy with some other things. I just didn't see the notifications. And then I discovered that Domingo Roman had did this. And the first thing I wondered was, did he throw more than 100 pitches? Because I had been aware that he had this streak going on of just the longest streak of consecutive starts

without ever throwing 100. And then I found that, no, he threw 99. So that streak was preserved. And also when I saw that Domingo German threw a perfect game, I don't know if you have seen Arrested Development, but there is a recurring bit in that show where people go, her? It starts with Michael Cera's character and his

dad and Michael Cera's character is talking about his girlfriend and she's not the most memorable. And so whenever Michael, his father, sees the girlfriend or hears about the girlfriend, he goes, her? And that's kind of what I did, except of her it was Herman I guess but not the ideal set of conditions I suppose for if you were rooting for a feel-good perfect game that was heartwarming and super exciting to be the first one since Felix the confluence of a pitcher who has been suspended for domestic violence and for foreign substance use going against a team that is tanking its way out of town. That sort of sullies, I suppose, not how impressive the perfect game is, but how much fun maybe it is to revel in. But it does also reinforce the idea that these things are just so random and unpredictable because Domingo German threw a perfect game. Like, really? He's the one? All the aces who have pitched in the past decades and could not do it,

and then Domingo German did it, coming off of just a stretch of awful starts. Yeah. Right? He just allowed 10 runs to the Mariners in his prior start. Yeah. Yeah. He was pitching for his rotation spot, basically. There was some question about,

can we keep running him out there? Because he had been bad in that previous start. As you said, he gave up 10 runs, 8 earned, and 3 and a third. The start before that, he gave up 7 in 2 innings. So he entered this game with an ERA well over 5 and peripherals not significantly better than that. So not that you would ever predict a perfect game, but you definitely would not predict it for someone who had that sort of record. So he's up there or down there with the most random and unpredictable people ever to have pitched perfect games like the Phil Umbers and the Dallas Bradens and the Charlie Robertsons of the world. You can add Domingo German to that list. Yeah, I think that it's a moment to feel ambivalent about. It drives home for me sort of, I think, a struggle that we have to keep grappling with when it comes to guys who have served suspensions. I mean, at the time of his suspension, I think it was the fourth longest under MLB and the PA's joint policy, because we know from domestic violence experts that zero tolerance policies for these kinds of incidents tend to have a chilling effect on reporting on the part of victims of intimate partner violence.

We know, I think, on an intellectual level that that is not the right approach if the goal of the policy is to create an environment where victims can come forward and then get the support that they need to reform and to build healthier relationships with their partners and to build mechanisms to have more coherent and healthy and not damaging means of resolving conflict. And I think that that often sits in conflict with the emotional part of it, which is that it feels bad to have this very impressive, even if it is, you know, highly random and dependent on a lot of other people in the field and, you know, the lucky bounces or not of a ball, right? To have this thing that has only been done now 24 times in ALNL history, you know, to have the person at the center of that be someone who we have, you know, at best complicated feelings about, you know, to have the first Dominican-born pitcher who throws a perfect game be someone who comes with that history, right? It is a complicated thing.

I don't know. I struggle with it because on the one hand, I don't want to be a mark for redemption stories, right? I know that in his sort of initial return, there was some dissatisfaction with his prepared apology. And then I think in Herman's sort of Q&A portion, he talked a little more candidly about the work that he was trying to do to be sort of a better partner to his then girlfriend, I think now wife. And, you know, I know there's been some subsequent reported work around that, that, you know, if we take at face value indicates that he's at least trying to be a better person. So I don't want to be an easy mark for stuff like that. But I also find there to be something like kind of fundamentally nihilistic about looking for stuff like that. But I also find there to be something like kind of fundamentally

nihilistic about looking at situations like that and just thinking that there's no chance that the person involved is able to grow in a meaningful and productive and healthy way. So it is a thing that feels tense for me personally. And I think that we just have to kind of sit in that, you know, I, I want to be careful to distinguish the guys who come back and just seem unrepentant. And there are examples of that in baseball's recent history. Um, and this is a big deal. Like even, even though we, you know, on this podcast can appreciate and understand like the, the randomness that does go into something like that coming together. So I think it's just uncomfortable. Um, and we have to kind of sit in that, that this, this guy on the mound is, is the totality of his biography.

And some of that is really dark and violent and scary and destructive. And some of it might be something other than that, right? It might be growth. And also in the midst of that is his profession, which is being a baseball player. And so in the same way that his suspension is now a fact of his biography,

so is this perfect game. And I think that we have an instinct in these moments to try to write the legacy in real time, which is part of why it feels so uncomfortable and icky to be like, but he did this horrible thing. And now there's this really great thing that, you know, does it serve to counterbalance that? Well, that feels gross and isn't true. And these are different arenas of his life. And how do we deal deal with that? I don't know that we know what Herman's sort of career legacy is. I doubt

he will be held up in the same way that some of the other authors of Perfect Games are just because of the... Even if you don't bring the suspension in, just like the totality of his career is nothing like some of those other guys.

It's uncomfortable. it's an uncomfortable thing. I think that I don't want to tell anyone who looked at it and recoiled that they can't do that. I think that's on a personal level, a reasonable reaction. I think that if you, you know, are a Yankees fan and are excited that your team just authored a perfect game, like that's a reasonable reaction to like, if you want to center that on Kyle Higashioka, okay. Like, you know, it's just, I don't know. I, I have been, and I think at times we'll continue to be really strident on these issues and I don't want to excuse anything he's done, but I do think that part of our project as we're trying to figure out like, how do,

what do we, what do we do with these guys once they're back you know part of it is sitting in the discomfort and trying to sort that out because i do think that like having a zero tolerance approach to this is likely to you know cause harm to the people in the circles of the perpetrators of an intimate partner violence and i think that that's the thing that we can all agree we want to avoid so i don't't know. It's just, it's uncomfortable then, you know, it's an uncomfy, it's an uncomfy thing. And I don't, I don't want to say uncomfy, like I, I'm dismissing it. It's just, it's uncomfortable, you know, and it can, it leaves a, it leaves a nick. So, you know, we just have to deal with that. Cause I, I don't think that we get a lot

of unambiguous moments. And we want to think that perfect games are going to be those because they're so rare and exciting. And we've just spent the last like 18 months being like, well, someone please just not make me get excited about another collective no hitter. And so we want the perfect game to be this thing where we're like, wow. And you know, sometimes baseball affords us those narrative moments, but a lot of times it doesn't because it's populated by people and people are flawed. And, you know, some of them are going to disappoint you more readily than others. So, you know, that's kind of where I am on it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, even putting aside the specifics of the pitcher involved here and just thinking about the fact that there was a perfect game for the first time in quite a while. Now, if we didn't talk about it on the podcast in 2012, maybe it was because it didn't seem quite as extraordinary then because there were three that season, including Umbers, right?

And then Matt Cain had one between Umbers and Felix's that was against the mid-tank Astros. So it's not unique that a team like the A's would be on the receiving end of this thing. It's obviously more likely if it's a terrible team. Although I will say, as terrible as the A's are, their offense is not as historically awful

as their record. Their pitching. Yeah, and the pitching specifically. Right. I think entering this game, I think Oakland was 25th in WRC Plus They're not as hapless offensively. It's still pretty darn difficult to have a perfect game against any major league quality team. And I think we can say that on offense, Oakland is major league quality. Not good, but their overall records marks them as not necessarily major league quality, whereas the lineup specifically, they're a more credible opponent. And I think also, I mean, I didn't even have time to be notified about this because the end of it played out so quickly.

I, again, wasn't watching live. But when I went back to look, like, the last three outs came on three pitches. Like, there wasn't a whole lot of suspense, really. I guess you could fault the A's for not having more competitive at bats at the end there. But really, they made some quick outs. So that tension of the ninth inning in a perfect game, like the last three outs came in like a minute and a half or something. So there wasn't a ton of time to appreciate that. And also, I'm almost as surprised that the Yankees scored 11 runs. That surprised me almost as much as Domingo Herman pitching a perfect game or anyone pitching a perfect game because

they have been completely helpless and hapless on offense without Aaron Judge. Yeah, it's been bad. No one player can completely carry a team. But gosh, last year when he was as close to carrying a team as anyone can be, like the other Yankees hitters were really, really lousy in the second half of last year. And now without Judge,

and there's a lot of uncertainty about when or even if Aaron Judge will be back just since he ran into and through that wall and hurt his toe, it's more severe than was initially reported or believed. And without him, this lineup, man, it is like there are a few supporting players who could be in a contending team's lineup. Could be in a contending team's lineup. Like, you know, you'd be perfectly content to have an Anthony Rizzo and a Glaber Torres in the mix if you had some other mashers in the middle of that order. But if those are your best guys, it's bleak. Like, there's just a lot of money going to players who are not producing for the Yankees currently, whether it's Aaron Hicks, who's with the Orioles now.

Yeah, producing for a division rival. Right. Yeah. Not that he's necessarily going to keep that up, but- No, probably not. You know, there's a little bit of, what? We got rid of this guy. He wasn't hitting for us for two years and then goes to the Orioles and at least flukily he's hitting for a while. Same with Ryan O'Hearn. Couldn't hit a lick for Kansas City. Now he's raking for Baltimore. Sometimes good teams make players better.

But it's like depressing kind of to watch Josh Donaldson and John Carlos Stanton and Hicks when he was still there and DJ LeMayhew. Like these guys who were signed for kind of a lot of money and are just past it and are just not a whole lot of fun to watch these days and are not really producing. I don't know how long for this team some of those guys are, whether Donaldson will be the next to go the way of Hicks. But obviously some of these guys, LeMahieu, Stanton, they're signed for many years to come. So that roster, it's not like anyone's worried that the Yankees will not be making money. But the way that they have sort of aligned their spending and the fact that they don't seem willing to go full Steve Cohen or even more and blow it out and be like, yeah, we are kind of carrying the contracts of these players who are not producing much for us anymore. But that's fine because it won't hamper us at all. Like the younger Steinbrenner, Hal Steinbrenner, he does seem to impose some spending limits on himself. And so there are kind of self-imposed constraints there that maybe there don't actually have

to be. But if you have a huge amount of your payroll that is devoted to players like that, just it's not going to be great, especially when Judge is obviously getting his fair share and he would be worth it if he were healthy and playing. But he is not. And without him, literally, the Yankees had the worst offense in baseball between the first day that Judge was out. So their first game without Judge was June 4th, entering the perfect game. They had a 67 WRC plus since Judge was out, which was easily the worst in baseball.

The A's had a 91 over that span. So the A's were maybe the stronger of the two offenses in this game. That's wild. Yeah, not by results. This was, I think, the most lopsided margin in any perfect game, 11 to nothing, actually. And, man, that lineup. And they've tried to incorporate some younger guys. Like, they've given Volpe all the time in the world, right?

And he's just not hidden. And I know he made some mechanical changes lately and he contributes on the base pass and in the field. So it's not like he's totally unplayable, but he has not given them the offense that they were hoping for. And I don't know if you call up Peraza and give him more of a shot sometime soon, but they were kind of hoping that this would be like the bridge year where they'd start to incorporate some of those younger guys and the veterans would do enough to get them back to the playoffs. And it's not looking all that likely that that will happen currently.

Of all the teams that I thought were just secure in that division to make the postseason. They were on it. They were on that list. I thought that it would be them for sure. And then not maybe the Orioles this year. But yeah, it's just been a really rough go. And apart from Praza, I don't think that they have a lot of internal candidates to really bolster it. So then you are like, well, are you going to make additions at the deadline? Is this the way you do it? Who do

you let go to do that? You know, I don't think that the decision to like let go of Hicks is one that to your point, they're going to ultimately regret long-term because he's probably just having like the heater to end all heaters. And I imagine he'll kind of fall back to the pack at some point here, but it has to feel bad to be like you can do that well yeah really yeah they certainly gave him a chance to do that yes like they they cut bait too quickly on him but yeah I mean they're in playoff position currently so I don't want to like exaggerate they. They're in the second wildcard slot, but just a half a game ahead of the Blue Jays, a half a game ahead of the Astros and the Angels. It's pretty crowded right there. So they do have 65% chance to make the playoffs according to the FanCraft's playoff odds. But when you watch them without Judge, it does really feel like a lot of that is kind of contingent on whether he is able to return or not. It does seem like a different

team without him to the extent that any baseball team just hinges on one guy. That's about as indispensable a one guy as any team has. Well, and I think that when you look at the clubs that are just outside of that wildcard picture, or even Toronto, both Houston and LA are going to be highly motivated, I would imagine, around the deadline to really try to push in and secure a playoff spot. And even some of the teams that are further down aren't so far out of wildcard contention that they're going to, I would imagine, unless things go dramatically badly for them over the next couple of weeks, like really start to get into sell mode. So if you couple judges sort of indeterminate timeline to return with what at least some of those rosters are likely to look

like after August 1st, I would feel nervous. Like you, I don't want to like overstate the case. It's not like they're, you know, sitting down where Chicago is. You know, they're not the White Sox. They're not the team that they just perfected, right? But their roster and how it might change over the next couple weeks feels like it has downside potential, whereas the Astros,

the Angels, you know, the Twins, the Mariners maybe have greater upside potential if they decide, you know, screw it, we're really going to go for it here. So that has to feel uncomfortable, even if at the moment they're sort of, you know, securely in that second wildcard spot. But again, they're only like a half game up on Toronto, like you said, and Houston and LA are only a half game out. So, you know? Yeah. You know, Ben?

That game, by the standards of no-hitters and perfect games where there's always some spectacular, extraordinary play that saved it, even if it was early enough in the game that you weren't really conscious that it saved it at the time, there weren't very many of those in this one. Like there was only one batted ball with an expected batting average over 500, which would make you think that it was more likely than not to be a hit. And even that one, it was more a product of the positioning Volpe. It was like sort of a little looper that could have fallen in over

shortstop, but Volpe was kind of playing back a bit. And in the end, it wasn't that close a play. And then there was one other ball that Seth Brown smacked down the line that Anthony Rizzo made a pretty good play on. And other than that, there wasn't a single batted ball with an expected batting average over 269. So it wasn't one of these, again, I wasn't watching live, but I think compared to most perfect games or attempts, it seems like there weren't even all that many sort of heart in your mouth moments where you thought for a second that it was going to be broken up. But it is interesting that it's been so long. I think it was the fourth longest drought between perfect games in the modern era. There have been 22 perfect games since 1903. I think it was the fourth longest drought between

them. And of course, there hasn't been a no-hitter this year. And it's starting to seem like we just might not see no-hitters anymore because guys don't go deep enough into games, right? I mean, it's completely routine now for pitchers to be pulled in the midst of no hitters. So things that would have like led the talk radio conversation and would have caused all kinds of controversies, decisions to pull pitchers in the midst of no hitters doesn't even make you really blink an eye anymore it happens all the time so in that sense obviously a perfect game is always extremely unlikely and rare and special but these days like it's not even like the ability to get everyone out is the limiting factor as much as it is just like the ability to stay in the game long enough to complete it. Domingo German had never pitched

a complete game before. I think he had topped out at eight and a third before, and maybe that was the only time he had pitched into the ninth. And again, I mentioned the pitch count streak. So on May 5th, 2019, he threw 108 pitches in a game. And since then, he has not done it even once. That's 65 games in a row from May 10th through the perfecto. And the other longest streaks, perhaps unsurprisingly, are also active. So if he were to have had his streak snapped, if the A's had taken one more pitch at some point and he'd gone over 100, then he would be replaced by Tony Gonsolin of the Dodgers, who has had 62 straight starts without a 100-pitch counter more. And then Jaime Barilla of the Angels is at 61, and those are also both currently active. And Chase Anderson

has one going that's close to the top of the leaderboard. Actually, one of the kind of neat things is that he pitched a Maddox, right? That was kind of overshadowed by the fact that he pitched a perfect game, but also he pitched a complete game shutout with fewer than 100 pitches. It's a Maddox. And just looking at this leaderboard on StatHead

of the longest streaks of starts without a triple digit pitchit pitch count. The top 35 or so it looks like are all from this decade or last decade, the 2020s or the 20-teens, except for Greg Maddox, who has the sixth longest streak from July 24th, 2006 to April 13th, 2008. Greg Maddux went 51 straight starts without having a pitch count over 99. So he wasn't necessarily throwing Madduxes all that often during that time. That was late career Maddux, like Cubs, Dodgers, Padres Maddux, where he just wasn't compiling huge workloads.

But it's kind of neat because otherwise it's just totally a product of the era and pitchers not going deep into games and not racking up high pitch counts. But Greg Maddox was a trailblazer in that respect, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. I will miss the Felix meme, though. It was such a big part of baseball Twitter. Whenever a perfect game attempt would be broken up, Bailey at Foolish Baseball

and everyone else would just post the image, the iconic image of Felix, just almost like gloating that the perfect game attempt was broken up. And now we don't get to see that anymore.

We have to see Domingo German picks instead. That's not going to be nearly as fun as a Felix pick. So I'm going to miss that tradition. Felix will always be my king. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the typical pitcher who pitches a perfect game is pretty good.

Neil Payne just wrote about this, and he kind of ordered them all by career war or projected career war in Domingo German's case. And he's down toward the bottom, as I said, with Umber and Braden and Charlie Robinson. But the median pitcher who has pitched a perfect game had 48.2 career war, which is quite good, you know, not quite Hall of Fame, but certainly very solid career. And there have been a lot of great pitchers who have pitched perfect games, but there are also some randos. I guess Don Larson himself, not all that much higher in the career work category than Domingo Germán is to this point. But, you know, you have your Koufax and your Catfish and Jim Bunning and Cy Young and other, you know, name brand pitchers, Randy Johnson, Roy Halladay, right? Like some real marquee guys have done it. It would be weird if they were all completely random. But I do appreciate that there is a lot of randomness to it and that someone like Humber or Herman doing it reminds you of just how many things have to go right or not go wrong for it to happen. Yeah, I think that that's right.

I think that it is a useful way to sort of enter understanding what goes into a perfect game to have that spectrum represented. Because, you know, middling pitchers have great starts. Most of them aren't perfect games, obviously, right? But middling guys throw great starts. They have great outings. Really great guys come close to no hitting or perfect doing a team and fall short. We can say a lot about pitching as sort of a profession as we sort through all the different guys who have managed to author a perfect game or not. And so it's good for there to be that sort of variety.

Right, yeah. It is a very exclusive club, but not the most prestigious club. I mean, I guess at least in terms of career accomplishments. So we were notified by a listener named Joe that Ground Beef is back, baby. Yeah. Yandy Diaz has the second highest WRC Plus of any qualified player after Shohei Otani,

but he's back to being a ground ball guy all of a sudden. In fact, he's been sort of an extreme ground ball guy in June. He's still hitting fairly well. So there's been a downward trend in his season. So March slash April, I guess just April, he had a 184 WRC plus, and we were talking a lot about him and how he was suddenly hitting for power. May, he more or less kept it up in terms of results and also launch angle. So he was at 176 WRC plus in May. In June,

he's at 135, which is still really good. But his batted ball distribution has really come down to earth, literally. He has really doubled down on the ground ball tendencies. In fact, more so even than in the past. His ground ball to fly ball ratios by month this year, ratios by month this year, 1.13 in April. So barely more ground balls than fly balls. In May, crept up to 1.52. In June, 3.5. He has hit 3.5 grounders to every fly ball. His fly ball rate this month is like half or less than half of what it was in the preceding two months of 16.7%. He's hitting grounders almost 60% of the time. It's impressive that he's managed to keep his WRC plus as high as it has been hitting all those grounders, although I guess he did decently last year too.

But now if you look at just his full season ground ball to fly ball ratio, it is actually higher for 2023 than it was for 2021 or 2022. And his ground ball rate is the same as it was last season. His fly ball rate is lower than it was in the preceding two seasons. So he is back to being ground beef again, I guess. I mean, all the effort we expended trying to come up with his new nickname, and he's gone back to his old ways. I think that it just goes to show that our failure to come up with a catchier, sort of more appropriate nickname than we did, and we had many good nominations, but I still feel like we never quite dialed it in. We never landed quite where we wanted to be on that. Maybe he heard and he's like, fine, I'll go back to Grumpy. If I just say I have to put these people out of their misery,

they have to stop. Yeah. Yeah. It is a reminder, though, that sometimes these dramatic, sudden changes, they don't stick. They often do not. Yeah. And I don't know exactly what has happened here that he has reverted back to his previous form. You got to think he was doing something different mechanically to be lifting the ball the way that he was in those early months. And obviously it was working so well for him that you wouldn't think that he would have consciously decided to go back to hitting the way he was. And I don't think that could have been purely a fluke that that happened for a month or two. So sometimes it's just even when you make a meaningful change and you're actually able to implement it and you have some success, you just cannot continue it. You just go back to being the player you were.

cannot continue it you just go back to being the player you were or sometimes it requires constant monitoring to make sure that you're not falling back into those old habits so again i he's managing to be fairly productive even hitting tons of grounders and i don't know what the rest of his season will look like but yeah he's uh sometimes that happens it, wow, is this a completely new guy? And it is for a while. And then you find that it's tough to sustain those things. It's tough to put them into practice in the first place. But then you can just very easily find yourself kind of reverting to who you were for the first many decades of your life. So it does take constant vigilance sometimes to maintain these changes. Well, and you're having to react to what you're being offered having changed, right? That's true too, yeah. You know, it's not like Yandi can go up there and be like, I would like to call my bitch, please. You know, like that's not how that's going to go. So some of this might be him having to, whether consciously or not, make an adjustment

to the adjustments being made to his prior adjustments. Ground beef. Right. Yeah. And I do have one observation about Shohei Otani. I know I've been talking about the man fairly often. We've gotten feedback, Ben. We got one email just saying maybe go easy on the Shohei Otani. But look, everyone's talking about Shohei Otani these days. He's incredible. It's not just me. I actually, I wrote about him for the first time this season, believe it or not.

I had not written about him. I get it out of my system by talking about him on the podcast. But I was moved to write about him by that extraordinary game. Oh, my gosh. Where he hit two homers while also pitching very well against the White Sox and the next highest guy on the leaderboard now is notable at this point of the season. He has since that incredible game, he also had a three hit game the next night, but he's now at 5.9 war and Ronald Acuna Jr. who's in second is in fairly distant second, 4.4. i ran these numbers the the day

before but what i found and it's hard to look up war on a daily basis or a weekly but it's just not really designed to be calculated or researched like that but at fangraphs you can use the custom time frames back to 2002 to look up war. And there's sort of a fudge factor that goes on with the defense. And it's kind of like a prorated defensive measure, I believe. But it's as close as we can come. And over that span of more than 20 years, this is unprecedented for a player through the same point in the season to be leading the number two player in the majors, but also in his league. He has an even bigger lead in his league. and then Wander Franco at 3.4. So Otani is like almost two and a half war ahead of the next best guy in the American League right now.

And like two and a half war gets you in the top 30 on the war leaderboard. So like Matt Chapman has 2.5 war on the season. He's 30th in the majors. That's like almost the difference between shohei otani and the number two american leaguer in war right now so he's about as close as you can come to wrapping up the mvp race in june like i don't want to jinx anything but it really does feel like the only uncertainty now is related to health like can, can he stay healthy and keep it up?

It's not so much like he doesn't have a rival right now. You know, it's not like last year where Judge was matching him or even surpassing him with Judge Hurd and Trout not performing up to his typical standards, although he's been better lately or Jordan Alvarez is hurt. There just isn't anyone in the same stratosphere right now who it seems like could take that award away from him. One thing I mentioned in the article, like it almost seems like small beans to be talking about. Is he the most valuable player in the American League this year? Like the conversation about him is like, is he the best player ever? Ever? But yes, that separation. And that period since 2002, like that encompasses peak PD Barry Bonds and early PD A-Rod and Pujols and Trout

and Clayton Kershaw, like a lot of legendary players who have been at the top of war leaderboards halfway through the season during that span. But none of them has separated himself by as wide a margin through this point as Shohei. So if you can sew up an award through halfway, then he has basically done all you can do to do that. And now it's just like, how high can he go?

You know, can he actually? And baseball reference war has him even higher than fan graphs war does. So it's not like I was even cooking the books or putting my thumb on the scale using the more favorable war for my stats and my arguments. Like, you just can't look up the baseball reference war over certain time spans quite as easily. So I used fan graphs and it's still pretty impressive, even though it's a little lower. My question is this. So, like, Otani, you know, has famously won an MVP, right? And I agree on your premise that he is on his way to sealing second. So, I don't quite know how to phrase this question because he is such an unusual profile of player.

But what do you think the odds are that he like wins multiple MVPs, but never wins a Cy Young? Huh. I did pick him to win the Cy Young award this season. Obviously, it's tough just because of the workload. I mean, he has been worked quite heavily, even more heavily than in the past. Every season I marvel at his combined plate appearance plus batter's face total because it just dwarfs everyone else's. And like last year he had 1300 something and it was the most anyone had had in a season since Steve Carlton in 1980. And it was the most anyone had had in a season since Steve Carlton in 1980. He's on pace for way more this season, and it would be the most since Phil Negro in 1979. So he has a tremendous workload with the caveat that he's DHing, obviously. But it's hard for him to have as many innings pitched as some other guys do. So that holds him back a bit. As I noted last year, if you did like an average of baseball prospectus and baseball reference and fan graphs or warp last year, he may have actually been the best pitcher in baseball last year.

So he certainly has the talent, if not necessarily the bulk innings. Although he's like 15th in the majors in innings pitch or something, too. So he's no slouch in that respect either. I'm saying it's a lot easier for him to win MVP than it is for him to win Cy Young because his MVP case is based on he does both of these things and he's among the best players at both of them, he doesn't have to be the number one at hitting or at being a position player or at being a pitcher to win that award because it's a combination. It's a holistic thing. Whereas to win the Cy Young, he has to be the best pitcher or make a convincing case that he's the best pitcher.

So it's probably not super unlikely that he could win additional MVP awards without ever breaking through and winning the Cy Young, but it also would not at all surprise me if he were to win a Cy Young. I don't know that I actually had an answer to my own question, but I was thinking about it, because it's like, there is, you're right that I think, you know, he has some things working against him. Obviously, there's precedent for guys who haven't thrown like a ton, a ton of innings winning the Cy even recently, right? And I wonder how voters, and I say this as someone who potentially would be one at some point.

I haven't had an MVP vote. I haven't had a Cy Young vote either. I've only had Rookie of the Year votes. Maybe I'll keep her away from the big stuff. I've still had none, so don't beat yourself up. Got to move to Arizona. I know, I got to move to a less populated BBWA chapter. Chapter, yeah.

But what I was going to say was, you know, I think that, and there are exceptions to what I'm about to say also, but generally we seem to have settled into MVP awards are for position players and Cy Youngs are for pitchers. Obviously, it would be funny if a position player were named Cy Young. That would be surprising, like non-Ohtani division. But I wonder how, in his particular case, voters will think about him. He seems like the most likely pitcher to next have a MVP Cy Young concurrent season by virtue of his hitting,

right? But I do wonder if we will get to a point where if he keeps stacking MVPs, voters will say, we got to leave the Cy Young for somebody else. Even if there's a year where he is like, obviously the best pitcher in the American League or the National League, I wonder if World. You know, I wonder if we will start to be like, okay, we gotta like spread some of this hardware around because otherwise, you know, it's just so tiny all the time, which, you know,

sometimes you gotta, I don't know, sometimes you gotta talk about the man who's the best guy. Yeah, not only the best guy, not only on an extraordinary heater, but also an incredibly compelling player and person. So like he's just racking up high workouts here in kind of a workmanlike way. He's doing it in the most fascinating, unprecedented way imaginable.

So the other thing that I learned about him was pointed out to us by a listener, Anthony, who wrote in and made this very astute observation, I thought. Now, I kind of had this sense that Otani, when he has two strikes on him, I have a little less confidence in him. Now, every hitter obviously is just going to be on their back foot to some extent with two strikes. They're not going to be as good. Obviously, they're just going to be on their back foot to some extent with two strikes. They're not going to be as good. But I have had the vague sense that Otani does not necessarily excel as a two-strike hitter. But I had not actually checked the stats and the splits.

And it is true and it is striking. So we're going from Otani is amazing and can't be equaled to I have another note for Shohei Otani here because clearly he needs my help. My previous note, which is Shohei, I think you're throwing too many sweepers, particularly to opposite-handed hitters. Obviously, that got back to him and he has put that feedback into practice. And over the past four starts or so, he's thrown a lot fewer sweepers and a lot fewer sweepers to left-handed hitters. And he's been a good deal better. His last three starts have been vintage Otani pitching appearances, which is exciting if he could keep that up for the rest of the season. I read he also mentioned he made some unspecified mechanical adjustments, which he did not get from me. So it is entirely possible that

he self-corrected and the angels helped him correct and he did not get advice from a podcast. Believe me, I don't have delusions of grandeur when it comes to whether my feedback is making it back to the man himself here. But in addition to that observation, which is maybe the pitch mix could be mixed up a bit better, he's not a very good two-strike hitter. And not just this season, but over the past few seasons, when he has been one of the best hitters in baseball, there has been a marked decline when he has two strikes on him. So I was looking at baseball savant. If you look at performance with zero strikes or one strike and you limit it to 1500 total pitches, let's say only Aaron Judge has a higher weighted on base average over the past three seasons, 2021 through 2023,

then Shohei Otani. Okay. So he's been the second best hitter in baseball before he gets to two strikes. But when he gets to two strikes, then he plummets. He goes way, way down. So, of course, everyone is going to go down. But relative to the rest of the league, it is a striking descent for Shohei Otani. A striking descent. Yeah, I didn't even say that intentionally. But he has a 569 weighted on base average with zero strikes or one strike, which again,

second in baseball to Aaron Judge, who is at 589. However, if we select with two strikes, Aaron Judge still at the top of the leaderboard, much lower number, 313, but he's the best hitter in baseball either way. Whereas Otani with two strikes, 248 weighted on base average, which is a lot lower. Like if you look at where he ranks relative to the league, he's kind of like number two overall before he gets to two strikes and then middle of the pack sort of when he has two strikes on him. And so relative to his own performance, he is a lot worse with two strikes. If you look at it just as a percentage decline, like the typical players

weighted on base average decline from zero or one strike to two is about 41 percent and his is like 57 percent. And there are only 10 guys on this list of qualifiers I came up with, about 288 guys who met some pitch minimums with each number of strikes. He has the 11th greatest decline. And the 10 guys ahead of him are mostly not the best. So, like, Joey Gallo has the worst two-strike performance relative to his earlier performance. And then it's Eric. Yeah, right. Like some of these make sense.

It's like Joey Gallo, Miguel Sano is up there. Mike Zanino is up there, right? These are guys who strike out a ton, are just exploitable. And a bunch of other nondescript or not so great hitters you know rugnetto dore and will myers eric haas james mccann chris taylor's been pretty good at times uh cj crone byron buxton i guess would be the the best who's also up there and suffers a similar decline eugenio suarez and then shohei otani so he has managed to do what he has done offensively while being significantly hampered, it seems, as a two-strike hitter. I don't know exactly why. Anthony

speculated that he just gets too defensive. He's taking more defensive swings. From what I can tell, it's not like he's whiffing a whole lot more or less or swinging a whole lot more or less relative to the league with two strikes, but maybe there is some tentativeness there. He's overly protecting the plate instead of swinging away and trying to put good swings on things. Whatever it is, doesn't seem to be working for him. So more impressive maybe that he's been as good overall as he has. I was just going to say, you know what the galaxy brain take is here.

Yeah, that's the positive. It's been glass half full. Wow, he's been so good despite this. And I guess you could say, well, if he could correct this, you know, if he heard on a podcast, gee, I'm not a very good hitter with two strikes. Maybe I should adjust my approach

or my mindset in some way. And then he went back to, if he were suddenly the second best hitter with two strikes also, then that would raise his overall line significantly and he'd be even better. But it does seem to be a rare flaw in failing for him that I had not picked up on the severity of it. So it's surprising. If you look at the players who are in the same range, like two strike weighted on base average that is comparable to Otani's, 248 is his Wobo with two strikes. That is the same as Rafael Ortega, Donovan Solano. It is one point ahead of Adam Frazier and Josh Rojas and Santiago Espinal and Kyle Farmer and Tyler Stevenson.

Aaron Hicks, 247, Woba with two strikes. So that's the class of hitter that he is grouped with, with two strikes. And with not two strikes, he's close to Aaron Judge. It's just – it's really weird. two strikes, he's close to Aaron Judge. It's just, it's really weird. So I, despite my scholarship about Shohei Otani and my study of his stats, I just had not realized this and wanted to share it with the world. And of course with him. I think that Ben, there's like an obvious next step for you, which is that you have to arrange an interview and ask him about it. Yeah. And hope that he has no idea how much you have talked about it.

Right, yeah. You know, just hope for that. It's interesting because there was a time when bloggers, internet people could actually notice things that players and teams themselves had not noticed, right? I mean, Felix Hernandez, we talked about him earlier, right? Like the famous story about Dave Cameron writing for USS Mariner, the Mariners blog, and writing an open letter to the Mariners pitching coach, urging him to have Felix mix up his pitches early on. He was like too predictable. He was trying to

establish his fastball early on and he was throwing fastballs constantly. This was like 15 years ago. This was 2007, I think. And that was an insight that at the time, probably the team was not necessarily aware of and Felix may not have been aware of. right? And wasn't the story, you may know because Mariners fan, right, that someone like handed him a printout, I think, like someone handed Rafael Chavez a printout of Dave's blog posts about this, I think? That might be true. Yeah, it was like it actually got relayed to the team and there was a change in Felix's pitch mix. So that's old school. I mean, now teams have huge staffs. I mean, you don't just have a pitching coach. You have an assistant pitching coach and then you have some liaison with the front office and you have people who are writing scouting reports.

Yeah, someone printed this out, a fan, and handed it to Chavez. And actually, I guess Chavez said that he had been trying to make that same point himself to Felix, or so he said, at least. But there was a notable change, like the next game. And Felix said, I think, like on the internet, they say, when I throw a lot of fastballs in the first inning, they score a lot of runs. I tried to mix all my pitches in the first inning. So I'm saying it can happen.

It is possible for my feedback about Shohei Otani's pitch mix to make it back to the team and him to make that change. I don't think that's what's happening. These days, teams have huge staffs that do these things, right? It's their job to find these flaws and correct them. Now they just hired Dave Cameron to do that for them. Dave Cameron works for the Mariners now. He could just talk to the pitching coach himself.

But there was a time, and there have been times when players have hired sabermetric people sort of as statistical consultants. You know, what am I doing wrong? What can I do better? So yeah, I never applied for that MLB Trade Rumor's full-time Shohei Otani reporter position. But who knows? Maybe Shohei Otani is in the market for a sabermetric consultant.

I'm already spending all my free time just looking at his stats anyway. Might as well make some money while I'm at it. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Possible career path for me post-podcast. It's nice to have options. Yeah, I'd probably have to recuse myself, though, is the thing. If I had a professional relationship with, if I had a formal affiliation with Shohei Otani, then I don't think I could continue to write a podcast. I'd certainly have to include a disclaimer, right? So if everyone is

aware of my connection, which I think they're aware of my connection as it is, but it's a one-sided connection right now. I wouldn't be surprised, Ben, if you are under some, you know, surveillance as it pertains to Hotani. That's certainly possible. Yeah, you'd have to, I guess we just have to talk about the Reds even more, you know, when the podcast gets all out of kilter. And what do we do? What do we do? What a pleasure. Yeah, and we started our last episode by talking about Eli De La Cruz's twin brother, who is 5'8", to Eli's 6'5".

And then next thing we know, Jeff Passan publishes a profile of Ellie in which he talked to Pedro de la Cruz. Again, not influenced by the podcast. It came out the day after we talked about this. I did appreciate people being like, he must have heard of Effectively Wild. And I was like, I don't think you appreciate how long reported it takes. So he must work really fast. But yeah, he talked to Pedro. And apparently when they were kids, Pedro de la Cruz was bigger.

He was taller. Ellie was sort of a late bloomer. And he sprouted up and his smaller twin stopped growing. And then they ended up with this gigantic height difference. But we were speculating about, like, how does he feel about this? But apparently, Ellie is very much the outlier in that family. And everyone else, like parents, siblings, they're all like normal height to on the smaller side, whereas Ellie is a giant. So he is just

the outlier. But when the De La Cruzes have family gatherings, it's not like Pedro's going to stand out for not being super tall. Eli is the one who is going to stand out. So I don't know if that makes it a little easier or not. But it also doesn't seem like he ever harbored any great athletic ambitions. He never had the passion for the game that Ellie had, even when their statures were more in line. So based on what I can tell from this profile, he does not appear to be bitter about it or lamenting his lot in life, genetically speaking. Yeah. That's good. You know, it's good to hear that you can have peace amongst brothers.

Yes. I'll link to that piece on the show page. I have a quick thing. A very quick thing, a very quick thing. Please, please. And I, you know, I will simply offer my own perspective on it. So I am open to being corrected if others had a different experience of it. But I just wanted to say, Ben, did you watch any of the Orioles game last night? I did not not where they did their pride night it was like a they had like the flag on the score bug they had a bunch of like in-game interviews with members of the organization and and community organizations they had the flag on the field it just felt very

like celebratory and like there was a real commitment to doing it. It wasn't just for the sake of it. And we've had to analyze some of the, the decidedly less fun iterations of pride over the last little bit. So I just wanted to take a moment to say like, that was a really, I think that's a nice blueprint for how to, how to do it. And it felt very like it felt very sincere, you know,

it didn't feel affected. And I know that the orioles twitter account like took the opportunity to point out different organizations and also to spend some time talking about sort of what the material reality of the community is right now which isn't always great so i wanted to take a second to shout that out because we've had a dour we've had a dour experience of of this pride And I think that it showed that there can be a different version of it. One that is like celebratory, but also kind of reckoning with the current, you know, moment in a way that I think is positive. So I wanted to say, well done, Orioles.

Good job by you. Yeah, I guess you can kind of tell the difference between the more perfunctory box checking exercise. Like everyone has these, we should have one of these, which is still better than being the Rangers and not having one at all, I guess. But there's still a little bit of a... And Will was far to clear, but an important one too. Yeah. But if you can tell that a lot of care and effort and passion went into it, then even better. Yeah. So good job. Cool. All right. Just a

couple emails here. Read one from Alec, who says, after listening to your podcast with Eric Langenhagen and his comment about someone swinging like an oscillating fan, I was wondering how different would baseball be if giant industrial drum fans were part of the game.

What I'm thinking is a SkyCam system with big ol' fans, not fans as in people in the stands, but fans as in fans. Yeah, down each foul line and maybe also in the outfield stand areas, no cables or fans in fair territory to avoid any interference.

And then players from the bat team on the active roster are in charge of maneuvering the fans throughout the game. My first thought is, would just a couple of these fans have an impact or would there need to be dozens? I'm also guessing that obstructed views and the noise would cause some frustration with fans. But imagine how exciting pop flies would become. Also, maybe there could be enough of an effect to push ground balls around.

Maybe Yanni Diaz could employ some fans to increase his angle of batted ball. But I guess also we might need fans to like repel the smoke coming from Canada these days. But a more fun consideration of this question and the impact it would have on teams. question and the impact it would have on teams. Wow. I mean, like, I guess we, depending on how powerful we want to make these hypothetical fans, like we have probably good just atmospheric comps from games where the conditions have been like really windy, right? Yeah. So I think we could probably model it out. I mean, maybe not me, but like someone could theoretically do that and get a good sense of it. I wonder, I guess the central question would be apart from just like the curiosity of making baseball weird, which goodness knows we're in favor of,

at least in short stretches, just sort of like philosophically, do you see this as something that would like, we're down to the benefit of offenses or, or defenses? Because if it's keeping stuff, like if the fans, depending on the directionality of the fans, like if it's keeping things in the field of play, like,

yeah, maybe you have, it's hard for an outfielder, for instance, like figure out where the ball's going to go. And so then you have like a, a Babbitt lift, but also, you know,

then you're not maybe scoring as many home runs. So like maybe it's actually bad for offenses, but gosh, their hats would be blowing like everywhere, man. Then we would just have hats. We'd have hats everywhere. And it was like, would they ever find their own hat? You know, they'd have to put their names in their hats. And then, you know, some, some, you, you just know, Ben, that someone somewhere would

end up with the pitcher's cap and be like, well, there's still sticky stuff on the pitcher's cap. He's got a bunch of goop up in here. You know, it will be some opportunities for some real pratfalls. Right. Yeah. I don't know whether you would have like a specific person on your team who is in charge of the fans, whether it would be like a roster spot, like the designated fan aimer. Right.

Or whether this would be more of a front office role or like someone on the grounds keeping staff or like stadium operations or something. I think you'd have to keep it separate from the grounds crew because you need to maintain our faith in the grounds crew. Like, you know, we have to believe that they're— Impartial, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like that's— Well, I mean, yeah, grounds crews have been notorious in earlier eras for doing things to help their home team, whether it's the angle of the baseline, if it's a team that bunts a lot or how firm the ground is or how high the grass is, right? There are certain things you can do to tailor the field to the traits of your

team. And this would be one of them, I guess, if you just had fans, which actually reminded me, I responded to Alec and sent him a link to a story story which is almost exactly 20 years old and just delights me. And this is an Associated Press story headlined Erickson admits to adjusting ventilation system. Minneapolis Dateline, a former superintendent at the Metrodome, admits he tried to help the Minnesota Twins by adjusting the ventilation system during the late innings of close games in an attempt to get baseballs to carry farther. Quote, if they were down two runs and you're still hoping for them to have the advantage, you'd want to be blowing all the air out and up as much as you can. Dick Erickson told the Star Tribune for Sunday's editions, I don't feel guilty. It's your home field advantage.

Every stadium has got one. And then it continues. Virgil Ofis, who worked under Ericsson and is still employed by the stadium, said he recalls being in the operation center and watching Ericsson come in and turn on various fans in hopes of affecting the game.

He'd start the fans and he thought it'd help. Ofis said he did it when he felt like doing it. He's just like a rogue actor here. Like from what we can tell, no one with the team was instructing him to do this he was just freelancing he's taking it upon himself maybe if i turn on this fan or that fan that will help it says erickson who worked at the metrodome from the time the twins began play there in 1982 until he retired in 1995 said he

would turn on fans behind home plate and adjust the air conditioning. The Twins won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. Erickson said the fans were blowing out when Kirby Puckett hit his dramatic 11th inning game-ending homer in Game 6 of the 91 series against the Atlanta Braves, but he said the ball was hit hard enough to go out without help from the ventilation system. Then it says, neither officials for the Twins nor the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which operates the Metrodome, asked him to manipulate the ventilation, Erickson said. He also said he was never questioned about it. He went rogue?

Yep. Officials for the Twins and the Commission said they have no knowledge of the airflow in the stadium being manipulated and have doubts about whether it actually happened. It's kind of romantic to speculate about it, said Matt Hoy, vice president of operations for the Twins. But in a practical sense, I don't know if it holds a lot of water. Bill Lester, executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, said Erickson was a wonderful employee, a wonderful elderly man, but called his claim a bunch of hooey. Still, some opponents suspected the ventilation system was being tampered with. Bobby Valentine said while he was managing the Texas

Rangers, his players told him that they often felt a breeze blowing out when they were in the field and felt it blowing in when they were batting. I became very suspicious, maybe paranoid, said Valentine. They had such an uncanny way of winning. So this was kind of a conspiracy that was going around and was copped to. And it's funny, like the distance in time, again, like this is 20 years ago and it was happening even before that. And so I find this kind of charming and quirky and funny. But if we found out about it in the moment, I'm not saying it would be like banging scheme level scandal, but if you found out that

the Rays were doing this currently or some other indoor stadium team was actually using fans to blow it out, that'd be a little less charming, I guess, in the present. I think it would be, I don't know, it would be hard to convince me that, like, the air conditioning could do enough. Like, how?

Oh, they must have been so cold. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't take a whole lot of, I mean, like, every little bit of wind, it does make a difference. I guess that's true. But if you could feel the breeze, if it was strong enough to feel it in there, then I guess it's conceivable that it could have helped a little bit. But it feels like it would really take something, you know? It would really take something, you know? It feels like, yeah.

But I don't think we would find it charming if we found out about it now. I think we would be like, excuse me, what did you just admit to? Especially a team that won a couple titles. Yeah. Yeah. We don't take kindly to that around these parts anymore. I guess if it really were just an independent actor, you couldn't necessarily be mad at the players or the team if they really had no knowledge and there was no indication that they instructed the person to do it. There'd be suspicions.

But if it was just like this guy took it upon himself to do that and no one else knew about it, then I guess you couldn't really hold it against the team. It would be weird to figure out who to blame. Who do I hold a grudge against here? Yeah. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. Like, this guy just kind of went rogue, you know?

Like, what do you? I do like the idea of just having people be buffeted by wins on the field. As you said, like, yeah, maybe their hat just gets carried away. It would be like Jesse Orozco, the last out of the 1986 series when he tosses up his glove and you never see it come down, like Prince tossing his guitar up and you never see it come down. It would be the same thing, but with just pieces of your uniform. Yeah.

Like you would have to get really small hats, you know, pieces of your uniform. Yeah. I, like, you would have to get, you'd have to get really small hats, you know, and then they'd get little headaches and they'd be like,

this is, I don't think that the fans are really worth it. Also, Ben, I have a, I have a take.

I hate wind, you know? Oh, yeah. I find it to be among the more annoying features of weather, you know?

Yeah. It feels personal and, like, sensuous in a way that it's definitely not, but it feels like it is. It feels like it's there to wreck your day, you know? And it feels so capricious. It's like, where is this coming from? It's invisible. And so it's like, why are you picking on me? Leave me alone.

Obviously, a nice breeze can be welcome. Sure, breeze, great. Wind? No. Is there a difference between? I mean, it's very dependent on temperature. Like, I welcome wind if it's hot. But if it's cold, then it feels like – because I can tolerate very low temperatures.

I have a high tolerance for low temperatures, I guess. And I welcome low temperatures. But when the wind factor gets added in, then that can be the thing that pushes me over the edge. And that annoys me. It's like, well, where's this wind coming from? I don't know what atmospheric conditions are causing this. Can we not, with the wind right now, let's have this die down?

And nature tends not to listen to me. But I'm with you that it can be personally frustrating. You do take it personally. Like, why are you – stop blowing me. Stop – I shouldn't say it that way. But just let me walk unimpeded down the street right now. I love that your answer was like, allow me to break this down into its smallest constituent elements to try to move away from that. No, I think you have it a little bit backwards though, Ben, because like a gentle breeze, that's lovely.

That's the air moving, you know, it makes hot temperatures a lot more bearable because it's like the air is moving. You know, you feel like it isn't stagnant sitting on you. But a wind, actual wind, much more forceful, blows hats off, makes one feel, you know, very angry. Those are different. Breeze is nice. Nothing is good when it's cold. Everything is worse, you know. I disagree with that.

I am a desert creature, as we have recently established. Yes, on our Patreon pod. But yeah, I guess it's a spectrum. It's a gradation. I mean, a breeze, the dictionary, Merriam-Webster, says that a breeze is a light, gentle wind. So it's obviously a subset of wind. Right, but a light, gentle one. It's obviously a subset of wind.

Right, but a light, gentle one. Apparently, it says there's a second definition that says that a breeze is a wind from 4 to 31 miles an hour. Oh, so there's like a scientific – well, that makes sense. Yeah, because we have to have like what's a gale and what's a – right? I mean, you have to have some cutoffs there, I guess, to qualify. So, a breeze is a type of wind that is only 42, 31 miles per hour. Yes. Okay. All right.

Question from Bobby, Patreon supporter. Speaking of conspiracies here, Bobby says, Louisa Rice got a single on June 28th against the Red Sox. It was the only hit he had that day. Sean McDonough on Red Sox radio noted that the throw pulled the first baseman, who I believe was Justin Turner, off the bag and that it should have been an error. However, it was scored a hit. I want to rise to bat 400 like everyone else, but we cannot make errors into hits. Hoping to hear your thoughts on the matter.

What is going on? Hoping to hear your thoughts on the matter. What is going on? So there's a conspiracy that MLB here is conspiring to artificially raise Louisa Rice's batting average by giving him generous official scoring decisions. I'll send you the link to this play, and we'll put it in the show notes for everyone to assess themselves. And you can see whether you think this is suspect or not. And it's not, I think, the most egregious example

I've ever seen of really. And also, I should note, this was in Fenway. So this was not an example of home cooking, which I think happens less than it used to. And MLB has made an effort to sort of standardize official scoring and have it be a bit less biased. But this was a visiting player, so it's not like the official scorer there would have had a reason necessarily to give Arise a hit unless he's just a big fan of 400 hitters too. I think this is fine. I think it's fine. Do you think it's fine? I think this is fine. I think it's fine. Do you think it's fine? I think it's fine because the shortstop part of the play was certainly not an ordinary effort.

Yeah. Right? I mean, who was it? David Hamilton, I guess, who was playing short for the Red Sox. And the ball was pretty deep in the hole between second and third. And he had to make a diving stop and kind of gloved it when it was already past him a little bit and then he got it over there in time now i guess the thing is that you know the empire made the gesture the kind of sideways sweeping gesture off the back yeah i don't know whether the throw actually pulled him off the bag because the throw was more or less on line, right? It seems like the mistake was Justin Turner's maybe just with his positioning and not having his foot on the bag. Anyway, I emailed an official score listener of ours whom we've consulted before and I asked him what he thought about this ruling.

And he said, due to the extraordinary effort of the shortstop, they are going to say the throw pulled him off the bag. Had this been a more routine play at shortstop with this throw and foot pull, E6, error on the shortstop, this is a very consistent scoring situation and would be scored in this manner every time. I understand the point being made, but this is how MLB applies it. So he doesn't think there's anything fishy or unusual about this. And I said to him that it kind of looked to me like the throw didn't really pull him off the bag, even though the gloving of the ball by the shortstop was pretty extraordinary. That the throw, it seemed like more of a footwork issue. And he said, you aren't wrong, but I will say MLB and all levels won't apply that.

wrong, but I will say MLB and all levels won't apply that. They will assume because of the extraordinary play by the shortstop, the throw didn't allow the first baseman the opportunity to get his foot where it should be. Honestly, if it's routine at shortstop, they likely still score at E6, especially the umpire's physical gesture. I do see why this is a question, but this would be scored the same way for anyone in any park. So he would know better than I, I guess, but he says any player that had this hit would be credited with a hit here. This isn't about a rises chase, I will say. And he repeated his point about it would have been an E6 if it had been a more routine batted ball. But he said the footwork and failure to touch a base has to be clear and nearly deliberate in order for it to be E3, error on the shortstop.

In the course of action like this, it's going to be assumed it is beyond ordinary. It does make us like kind of sit with the fact that in every stat at the end of the season, like we're flattening out the events that contributed to that stat, right? And we just have to treat them all the same. And there are going to be, I think in general, like everyone benefits from it a little bit somewhere. And so it's probably fine. Like if you're a, you know, a guy who has 3000 hits, we don't look back and say, well, you know, 15 of those came against position players pitching. So actually you got a little further to go, right? Like we don't say that home runs

hit an important home run chases that are on pitches, mistake pitches that are just like right down main street don't count because you happen to take advantage of a mistake on the part of the pitcher, right? It's like that's baseball. Yep. And there's always just a variability when it comes to official scoring decisions and what's a hit and what's an error. And definitely, especially in the past, I'll link to an interesting piece on the show page about how Joe DiMaggio probably had some help during his 56-game hitting streak. Some generous, charitable scoring decisions that helped him extend that streak. helped him extend that streak. And in fact, the official scorer who was working at Yankees games at that time was like a friend of Joe DiMaggio's and, you know, maintained that he had been unbiased. But can you be if you're friends with the guy? And also, if there's so much pressure

on you, everyone wants the streak to be extended, right? So there are some examples in the past of, yeah, that was clearly kind of fishy, but I don't think this is. Yeah, I think that this is fine. All right. And Jared says, I should have brought this up earlier when we were talking about Ellie, but like others, I have enjoyed watching the rookie class light up MLB this year, especially Corbin Carroll, because I get to watch a lot of Diamondbacks games in person. this year, especially Corbin Carroll, because I get to watch a lot of Diamondbacks games in person. It occurred to me that the reason that the Reds brought up Eli De La Cruz instead of trying to keep him down for most of the year to manipulate his service time is that this is such a strong rookie class. With the success of Corbin Carroll and Uri Perez in the National League, do you think

it's possible that the Reds decided to bring up De La Cruz because they thought it wouldn't be as likely that he'd finish in the top two in rookie of the year voting and therefore wouldn't get the full year of service time that he would be credited with if he did i'd like to think that the reds are just capitalizing on the week nl central but with that organization i wouldn't put it past them so i haven't really thought about this a whole lot i've just been sort of glorying in the arrival of L.A. Dela Cruz and not thinking about any negative aspects of it. But I guess it's always a question worth considering.

Again, I don't know that this was among the more obvious cases of this guy should have been up earlier and they were clearly yanking him around. Yeah, I mean, like, I think that, you know, we might look back and see it as a promotion that ends up being kind of around like the Super 2 stuff. But the rule, let's make sure that I remember and that our listeners remember the rule, right? You get the full year of service if you're in the top two, You don't have to win, right? Right. So, will he finish in the top two? I mean, I think if Corbin Carroll doesn't win, it's because something terrible happened. yuri perez came up and and looked great maybe they thought okay well he's uh less likely to finish top two now if you call him up because there are all these other good national league guys who

might be ahead of him i think it would be naive to say that like the even in our current environment with the incentives that exist within the cba for promotion that it isn't one of the considerations that teams look at when they're trying to decide guys' promotion schedules. Like, even now, I'm sure they're doing that. And there is sort of the Super 2 stuff. But it didn't rankle, you know? Yeah. Particularly since they're so crowded on the infield, you know?

So there's, and that's true in the minor still. So that I think it's it's probably in there, you know, can't say it's not. But I it didn't it didn't strike me as an egregious abuse. Does that make sense? He was called up. MLB trade rumors said should De La Cruz be in the majors for good, but not accrue that full year of service time. Based on rookie of the year voting, he'd accumulate 118 days of major league service in 2023, placing him on the cusp of Super 2 status following the 2025 season. So that may have been a consideration. But also, he's so young and he didn't have a ton of upper minors experience, right? ton of upper minors experience, right? He played 47 games in AA last year, and then he was at AAA to start this season. And there are still things for him to work on, right? I mean, he was striking out 27% of the time in AAA, and as great as he's been in the big leagues, he's struck out 32% of

the time in the majors thus far. So it's not like he might not have some contact and plate discipline stuff to work on there. And also, I think the Reds in the past, I don't know that they have been one of the main offenders when it comes to this. Guys like Jonathan India and Hunter Green and Lodolo and Stevenson and Alexis Diaz, and Hunter Green and Lodolo and Stevenson and Alexis Diaz, like these guys weren't held back. I don't think they've been called up when they were ready, seemingly. So, yeah, I don't think there's a clear-cut case that anything nefarious was happening here. Yeah, I think that that's right. Okay. And then related question from Gordon. Given the weakness of the two central divisions, despite Ellie's best efforts, where both the current leaders, Reds and Twins, have weaker records than any wildcard contender, should teams be playing for the third wildcard spot? Seems an easier ticket to the division series is playing the central winner rather than a stronger wild card team.

So if you're in the playoff mix, are you sort of setting your sights on one of the weaker central division winners that you hope you can feast on and get past as opposed to lining yourself up to play one of the other wild card contenders that may be a better team despite not being a division winner. I think that it is definitely something that as you get closer, you think about a little bit, but given the margins this year, like how tight those races are and I think are likely to remain until the end of the season, I think your only real consideration is just get in, right? Because it's going to be, you know, it's going to be too close to risk gaming it in that way. You know, that's my, that's my initial instinct. If, if suddenly the margins get bigger, like, like maybe, but

how do you, I don't know. I continue to think that, like, show me the front office person who walks into a clubhouse and persuasively says, can you lose a little bit so that we can face weaker competition in the postseason? Didn't we talk about this during the stretch last season with the Mariners? And it was like, let's not mess around. Let's just get to the playoffs. And there were obviously idiosyncratic things with that club that made it particularly important that they just get in. That they just get in, right? Yes. And I don't think that that is hanging pulling on the same rope in the same direction.

And I do think that we have gotten to a point where the front office nerd can not all the time, but talk to players, again, not all the time, and make persuasive cases to change your you know, your approach, your repertoire, you know, grip, mechanics, whatever. Like, I think we're there. But I don't imagine walking in and being like, can you lose a little bit though? Like, have you thought about losing? And then how is that, like, how do you then put that forth as like an actionable strategy? Yeah. Right.

It's way too early for that to be a consideration because again, the difference could come down to a game or two. So what are you, right now you're just trying to win as many games as you can. You can't just be like, let's put the pedal to the metal, but not quite just like leave it a little. Is that how driving works? You don't have to press the pedal all the way down. Right.

You can just press it part of the way down. Right. But you can't really do that when you're trying to win as many games as you can now because, yeah, the margins are so small. So if it got to the last weekend of the season and maybe you were confident that you were going to get in one way or another and there was still a clear disparity in the talent of the potential teams you might match up with, then you could start to say, oh, maybe we rest this guy or we give some

starters a day off or something. We don't go all out to win this game, something like that. But that's an end of season consideration. It certainly will or could or will likely be the case that you would rather face one of those division winners than another wildcard team when it's all said and done. It's just that you can't really chart that course. Also, I like to think that I'm generally not a superstitious person, but I would feel very nervous about doing that, even if the strategy worked in like you're sitting there. And it's, you know, it's game one of a wildcard series against a crummy, what you perceive to be a crummy NL Central competitor. And I'm like, we're gonna lose. We invited chaos. And now we might be on the losing end of the chaos.

And I'd feel nervous. I'd feel nervous about that. Yeah. All right. Last one. This is from Ezra. Not sure how familiar all your listeners are with the video game MLB The Show, but one feature of the game that I've been thinking about recently is the inclusion of real 99 cards. These cards, for those unfamiliar, cards in the show are used in the game's fantasy slash team builder slash ultimate team mode

called Diamond Dynasty. They are exclusively available to any player affiliated with an MLB organization who wants one and features very good attributes. Naturally, only one of each card exists with only the professional player having access to this version of themselves in game. My question is, could a player with an inflated Real99 card who

plays as himself in a video game have their real-life ability distorted in their mind and thus negatively impact in real-life performance? For example, Michael Harris II, who began the season in an extended slump, has a real 99 card of himself. His slump, which he has subsequently broken out of, featured him attempting to pull almost every pitch thrown to him. Could this have been a result of him pulling bombs constantly while playing as himself in the show. So Michael Harris II, he has a real 99 card of himself. His attributes are inflated, artificially enhanced in the show. So when he's playing as himself, his character model is capable of doing things that the real life Michael Harris is not. So if he's playing as the show Michaelael harris then could he carry that into

the game and attempt to do things that he can do in the video game but cannot actually accomplish in real life you're gonna make me the non-video game player be the first person to answer this question i don't know whether my video game expertise gives me any great insight into whether this could happen but um is the term i want here larping ben is that that that is a term that you could use i suppose so your your tone makes me think that it's not the one i want though your tone makes me think that that's a that's i guess it's not applicable here unlike that right it It's like carrying your fictional characteristics into real life. So, say he'd be LARPing as the MLB The Show version of Michael Harris, and thus he would fail because he's not as good as the real 99 version is informed by something that really happens, right? Am I understanding this correctly? The attributes of the players in the game are somewhat modeled on their actual real-life performance.

But I think the real 99 card is inflated. It's just like maxed out, right? Got it. is inflated. It's just like maxed out, right? So he'd be playing with a juiced version of himself, digitally juiced, right? I mean, I think that like, he's probably trying to max out already. I just would feel very strange playing a video game version of baseball if I were a professional baseball player. I would find that really disorienting. I would never play as myself. So maybe I'm struggling because I would be someone else, I think, if I were him.

If I were playing the show and I were Michael Harris II, I'd probably be a pitcher, actually. I don't know how to answer this question. Would you try? I think he's already trying. He's probably conscious of the gap every time he takes the field. I mean, I hope he's not, but he's probably conscious of the gap between how he's playing and how he wants to be playing, which is, I imagine, better than how he's showing right now. Yeah, it's kind of a clever marketing thing, I guess, to give players versions of themselves in the game that are exclusive to them so that they feel some ownership, they feel special.

And also, like, if you encountered a real 99 player in the wild playing online, then you would know that you were facing that actual major league player, which would be kind of cool. But also, then those players would feel some affinity for the game. They might be more inclined to promote it and to play it. And then that aura of, oh, real major leaguers approve of this game and play this game IRL,

then fans will want to get into it more. So it is kind of clever. But yes, could you get high on your own supply of the video game version of you and then start to do things? You're not staying within yourself. You're trying to stay within the Real99 version of yourself. Could it happen if you were a particularly devoted MLB The Show player? I mean, I guess. You know, if you're taking more batting practice in the show than you are in your actual body, then perhaps as it gets more and more realistic, you might be swayed by believing that you are more powerful than you are. But I'm going to guess probably not.

But maybe. I can't rule it out. Yeah, gosh. Imagine playing a video game as yourself. That would be weird. It would be so weird. Yeah. Do I need to learn more about LARPing?

You know, you watch one stream with, like, Canadian Magic the Gathering slash video game players, and you get over your skis, Ben, you know? All right. We will end with the future blast. All right. The future blast comes to us from the year of 2026 and from Rick Wilber, an award-winning writer, editor, and college professor who has been described as the dean of science fiction baseball. And this time, Rick writes,

On the field, the new designated pinch runner rule combined with the new one disengagement rule to double the number of overall stolen bases across both leagues. Teams where they'd honed their craft in 2025 moved right up to the big club and established big leaguers like the well-traveled Estiore Ruiz benefited as well with 127 steals for the season, helping the White Sox earn a wildcard berth. Power hitting wasn't forgotten in 2026 as the 32-year-old Shohei Otani seemed to be reaching his prime with the Dodgers. Oh, well, that answers that question. I guess I'm not the only one writing Otani fan fiction. His 21-win season and a stellar ERA of 1.92 on the mound, combined with 47 home runs, 128 RBI, and a.322 batting average won Otani the Cy Young, along with a second MVP award. Well, there you go. We discussed this hypothetical earlier in the episode. Asked and answered.

Yeah. Now we have an answer from the episode. Asked and answered. Yeah. Now we have an answer from the Oracle. Okay. That's good to know. 2026 was also the year that women made inroads into ever higher levels of the game, starting with Olivia Pichardo, who made history as the first woman to play Division I varsity baseball in 2023 for Brown University. for Brown University. Immediately after finishing her senior season at Brown, she was signed by the Orioles for their single-A Delmarva Shorebirds, where she had a solid season at the plate, hitting.253, played stellar defense in left field, and even came into relief pitch in blowout games, giving up two singles and no earned runs in two innings of work. Also,

Australian ballplayer Genevieve Beacom continued her solid career at Stanford University, where she'd been the first woman to get a full-ride scholarship on the Cardinal baseball team in 2024. More success for women baseball players seems sure to come, especially as a half-dozen world-class women sprinters signed with super agent Scott Boris, with big league baseball's new designated runner slots in mind. A lot of exciting stuff happening here in 2026. Yeah, and the Dodgers still getting the best free agents. So much is the same. Yeah, funny that he mentions Estere Ruiz. I know a lot of people are wondering, will he bunt?

Will he try to break up the perfect game with a bunt, herd around the world, break the unwritten rules? Would have been kind of fun if he had tried to do that, but did not happen. This also makes me think, Shohei Otani, 32 years old in 2026, his birthday's next week. Happy early birthday, Shohei. He's going to turn 29. So as much as I talk about him, I do feel like there is kind of a window. I feel like I focus on him in some part because how long can this possibly last, right? Like, he keeps having a career year, year after year. So 2018 blew my mind, and then 2021 blew my mind, and then 2022 was even better than that, and 2023 has been better than that. But that progression can't keep going forever, right? I mean, he's 29 and who knows how he will age. Like no one has really any ability to project how a two-way player will age,

but will he be able to handle this sort of workload or even a slightly reduced two-way workload deep into his 30? Like this is obviously a question a lot of teams will be asking themselves as they prepare to bid $600 million or whatever for the services

of Shohei Otani this offseason. You have to figure out how long you think he can actually play like this and how long his body could sustain the sort of strain that it does. And I have no idea. Like, it's entirely possible

that it could end at any moment, that we could be watching his peak right now. And so that's why part of me feels like I can't miss a single start here because we're probably not going to see someone else come along like this. And so the memories of what this looks like will have to sustain me for the rest of my life. And we might just have a window of a few years here where he's actually capable of doing both at this high level without having to cut back a bit or breaking down inevitably. So I didn't get to see him play every day when he was in Japan. Then there were the two, two and a half seasons when he was hurt and wasn't pitching. It's not necessarily like Trout where we had a solid decade or more of seeing him play in his prime.

Savor it while it lasts is what I'm saying. Not to end on a dour note there, but just saying it's so special. And also, it won't last forever. It can't possibly. The one guy who sent us an email is going to be so mad, Ben. Yeah. Hey, we talked about a lot of other teams, too. We did. We talked about a lot of things is the thing. We do talk a lot about Shohei Otani, but we also talk about all the other big news. We just talk a lot is the thing.

As a percentage of what we talk about, it's higher than probably any other single thing, but it's not that high. All right, we will end there. All right, that will do it for today. After we recorded, by the way, Shohei Otani homered again,

number 29. And guess what? It was with two strikes strikes already working on his weakness incredible you can support effectively wild 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 and get themselves access to some perks doug Graham, Brian Kelly, Ethan Lutzky, Tom Lasko, and Pearl, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, as well as access to our monthly bonus episodes. We just published one of those this week. It's our 20th. This time we answered questions from listeners on all manner

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Talk to you soon. Sometimes I still feel like that little girl Hearing grandma's handheld reading Collecting baseball cards before I could read They say I waste my time Tracking all these deadlines. But it's here I found my kind. I'm all effectively wild.