Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2066: Moral Tarpitude

Episode Date: September 30, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Shohei Ohtani’s (finally) leagues-leading jersey sales, Mets grounds crew shenanigans, and shrinking minor leaguers, then (28:18) answer listener emails about restructured pitching staffs on which everyone would throw 3-to-4 innings at a time, a speed limit for pitches, displaying error bars for WAR, allowing outfielders only a certain […]

Where do you go in a world of bad takes? For the good takes on baseball and life With a balance of analytics and humor Philosophical music Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2066 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined as usual, almost as always, by Meg Rowley of Fangrafts. Hello, Meg.

Hello. Someone pointed out, I think, in the Discord group that we often say, as always, if we're going to be pedantic about things, which often we are, it's not technically true. Each of us smitches an episode from now and then, so we're not always joining the other. We're overwhelmingly joined by— Yes. Maybe that's what we should say. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined overwhelmingly often by Ben Lumberger of The Ringer. Ben, how are you?

Doing great. That works. All right. ringer ben how are you doing great that works all right i was informed by an email in my inbox from major league baseball that shohei otani had the most popular player jersey in mlb this year for the first time in his career beating out acuna judge tatis bets al tuve julio matt olson alex bregman mike trout freddie freeman yeah does it does it surprise you at all that this was the Tatis, Betts, Altuve, Julio, Matt Olson, Alex Bregman, Mike Trout, Freddie Freeman. Yeah. Does it surprise you at all that this was the first time?

Because I was thinking, gosh, didn't a ton of people buy Otani jerseys in his previous amazing seasons? And he was in the top 10, at least, in two previous seasons, 2018 when he debuted in MLB and 2021 when he was the unanimous MVP. But apparently there were enough people who had held off on purchasing the Otani jersey. I don't know if they were just like, you know what? I'm not sold. You know? Right.

Yeah. Could be a fluke. It's not enough for me. I need to see him do it again. I don't think I can be proud to represent this player. I don't think I can wear his name around unless he has another amazing two-way season that no one else could possibly have. It's got to be a 10-war season or bust. Then I will finally crack and buy your jersey it is so interesting ben because like who are who are the people who are most incentivized to buy an otani jersey in the year of our lord 2023 i feel like on the one hand it can only be angels fans because if you're if you're a fan if you're a fan of another team, and that team spends any amount of money in free agency, you view them as having any sort of gumption at all, don't you wait to buy an Otani jersey?

Even if you're like, look, I just love the guy. He's the best player in baseball. And it's so fun and exciting. But don't you wait to see like whose jersey he's wearing come opening day 2024 because maybe it'll be your team like that's a good point i am not wanting to continue to belabor my experience of the seattle mariners i am given to understand that some people find that irritating but like if i were going to buy an otani jersey i don't think that they're going to sign him. But like, I'd wait, you know, I'd wait until, I don't know, when we think he'll sign at least January, probably, right? I'll just hold out. And why not? He's the he's the main attraction of the winter, even with the injury.

So I would wait because like, maybe, maybe it could say Seattle across the front, right? And if you, you know, let's say you're a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he for some reason signed somewhere else, although I still think smart money's on them, you know, then you can just buy either the team he signs with, or if say that team were the San Francisco Giants, and you don't want to wear the jersey of a division rival, then I'm sure you can find an Otani jersey, an Otani Angels jersey, like on eBay, probably for a discount. So it is surprising to me

that it hasn't happened prior to now. That I can't explain. That suggests a lack of taste on the part of baseball fans. And it is particularly surprising to me that it would happen in his walk year because unless you're like, I got to memorialize this. I was going to say this good time that we've had if you're an Angels fan, but maybe this time that we've had. Maybe, you know, this era of my fandom.

You know, I get that. Although I would also get, if you're an Angels fan, it being too painful, you know, and you wanting to begin to move on and heal, you know. So it is, it's, I don't know. I am flummoxed. I want some sabermetrics on the player jersey sales. Like how much of it is just pure market size? Right. How much of it is how good a season you had?

Much of it is how good a season you had. How much of it is you changed teams or you debuted that season? Because if a bunch of people buy your jersey one year, then there are fewer people in the market for your jersey the following year. I'm looking at previous years emails in my inbox and apparently Mookie Betts was the most popular jersey guy in 2021 and also in 2020. So he did it in consecutive years. But I guess that was like his first year with the Dodgers was 2020. And then maybe people weren't going to games and weren't going out and didn't need to buy jerseys. And so 2021, they all decided, okay, we can go out again. Now I can buy a jersey so I can proudly just represent Mookie Betts. So I guess that makes sense. But

like Otani in 2018, his rookie season, he was the number eight jersey seller. And then in 2021, he was the number nine jersey seller. So does how does that happen how does he go from he debuts in mlb wins rookie of the year he's number eight and he wins his first mvp has his real breakthrough healthy two-way mvp season number nine and then this year he moves up to number one what's that all about because what's that all about? You've already had people purchase Otani jerseys over the previous several seasons. And I mean, I guess he was a bit better even this year than he'd been before, but perhaps a little less sensational in that people kind of got used to the idea of him doing it. I wonder, could it be WBC related? Does this count like World Baseball Classic jersey sales? Maybe? Might that have something to do with it? I wonder. Oh, maybe. Oh, you know.

It doesn't specify, but that would explain things. getting the Team Japan one. I think that if I were a disinterested party, I would like to have him in Samurai Japan or go back to the MPB days because then it's a cool conversation piece. You're expressing your appreciation for his game and you're not in a weird spot where you're wearing another club's jersey if you're a fan of a specific team so that that might be a good sort of way of addressing it if you're an american baseball fan and you're like what do i do yes that's the one i have in fact right i'm not a big jersey wearer or purchaser but i was actually gifted an otani samurai japan jersey by an effectively wild secret santa years ago just the perfect gift. So I'm all set.

I did not buy an Otani jersey this year. I'm not among the throngs who did, apparently. Well, I mean, the good news is, Ben, if you change your mind, there's still time. Yep. So we're going to do some emails. We're going to wrap up with a stat blast and, in fact, a guest stat blast and in fact a guest stat blast, but there's something happening here that I have gotten only the outline of. And you were like, we should probably talk about this. And I was like, maybe you can explain it to me on the podcast because I've seen a bunch

of people talking about it and I've been busy and I have not done the necessary research to find out exactly what happened. But I know that busy and I have not done the necessary research to find out exactly what happened but I know that the Mets have metzed and so I want to know exactly how they metzed. So tell me what's going on with the Mets grounds crew and the Mets and the Marlins. I think that everyone kind of wonders what's going on with the Mets grounds crew And I'm going to try to get this right because I feel like I am missing something here, if only because I know that weather forecasting is not always precise. But, you know, my sense is that like we know when there's going to be like a big dump of rain. They met a couple of times. So for for those not wanting to subject themselves to Mets

baseball right now and perhaps indifferent to the Marlins, the Mets and the Marlins were set to have a tilt, a series. And the Marlins were at the time in pursuit of a wildcard spot and are currently in possession of a wildcard spot. And so even though the Mets are out of it, the Marlins are not, right? And so even though the Mets are out of it, the Marlins are not, right? Like they are really trying to go for it. And they ended up having one of their games on Tuesday night postponed and had to play a doubleheader on Wednesday. Because, well, here I will read from a Ken Rosenthal piece published in The Athletic. This is part one of the Metsing, Ben.

So strap in. There's going to of the Metsing, Ben. So strap in. There's going to be more Metsing to come. Marlins officials granted anonymity in exchange for their candor were told the problem with the playing surface at Citi Field arose because the Mets ground crew did not cover the infield Saturday, the first of four straight days of rain. I am given to understand that you guys are just getting pounded with rain, Ben. So much rain. I know that It just sucked. The entire nation needs to be subjected to New York weather updates.

No, but it's quite dramatic looking. But yeah, the forecast has been, it's pouring for, I don't know, a week. There was one nice day and otherwise it's just been buckets and buckets and the subways are flooding and daycare is closed, which is impacting me personally. But yeah, well, it's wet out there. Yeah. And the Mets themselves were playing in Philadelphia at the time of this happening. Here I am going to continue quoting. The grounds crew eventually put the tarp down, but water got under it, creating a mess. The infield took on so much water from Saturday to Monday. The grounds crew did not have enough of a dry period to get the infield back to a playable condition tuesday both clubs in the commissioner's office then determined the best course of action

was to postpone citing player safety and the importance of the game so they played a double header on wednesday and then yesterday thursday we were recording on Friday, they were meant to play another game. And then, Ben, it started to rain again. It started to rain again in this series finale. And at the time, the Marlins were leading the Mets. It is the top of the ninth. They have pulled ahead. They had sort of rallied back.

it is the top of the ninth they have pulled ahead they had sort of rallied back and based on the sort of the reporting of the athletic and also espn you will be perhaps unsurprised to learn that my attention was focused on the theodore mariner so i wasn't you know clocking the time when this uh stopped but i've been able to piece it together i think that play stopped at 9 41 p.m local time and the game was not officially suspended until 12.58 a.m. You'll notice that that is quite a gap. And here I'm going to quote from ESPN's piece about this. With rain letting up, the tarp had been removed around 12.20 a.m. Miami's manager, Skip Shoemaker, became involved on the field

in an animated conversation with umpire crew chief Alfonso Marquez, a member of the Mets ground crew, and New York senior vice president of ballpark operations, Sue Lucci. A few minutes later, the tarp went back on the field. The Mets vacated their dugout shortly thereafter. We had two or three potential start times, Buckshaw Walter said. We were ready to go, and then it kept closing. It would open, and we would go quick and pull the tarp,

but underneath is wet, too. And then from the athletic, the field was soaked in several places. From there, heavier rain returned. They then covered the field again. And here are the stakes of this. So right now, the Marlins are a half game ahead of the Cubs for the third wildcard spot and one and a half games ahead of the Reds. They are one and a half games behind the Diamondbacks, who hold the second wild card. Miami holds the head-to-head tiebreaker with Chicago and Arizona. They have a tied season series with Cincinnati, but they hold the second tiebreaker against Cincy,

interdivisional record. And so it is very possible that the Marlins are going to have to go back on Monday to complete this game against the Mets to determine whether or not they are in the postseason. What is unclear at this moment is what happens if Monday's action is not necessary to determine in or out, but is necessary to determine where they are seeded within the wildcard field. Philly can't be displaced in the one spot, but obviously there is a set of wins and losses between them and Arizona this weekend that would result in them potentially leapfrogging the Diamondbacks. And then my question for you, Ben Lindbergh, is if that happens, what is Miami's best course of action here? Because they can kind of decide who they want to play, right?

If they ended up in a spot where they were tied with Arizona, they have the tiebreaker, so they could go play and try to push ahead or they could forfeit and try to go play the Brewers as the third wild card and let the Diamondbacks try to contend with Philly. And I think that that would melt the internet if they did that. And I don't think that they'll do that. That's like a scandalous thing for me to suggest. And I don't know, candidly, that with the quality of the Brewers' rotation

that you'd necessarily want to face them instead. I don't know that that is an easier path forward through the postseason field. I haven't looked to see how Milwaukee's pitching lines up for this weekend, so I don't know who they would be projected to face in Milwaukee. But anyway, these are all the thoughts that are swirling. And all of it is because the Mets ground crew, like, I don't know, man. Like, I know that sometimes weather is intense. And the rain that you guys are getting does seem like it is really something.

And so it's torrential. It's biblical. And so I think that to be fair to the Mets and their potential Metsing, I'm not sure that there is a tarp in existence that would be able to successfully handle this kind of rain. would be able to successfully handle this kind of rain. But also, it doesn't sound like it was maybe put in the best position to succeed. So a little bit of drama at the end here. And of course, this might not end up mattering much at all because it is somewhat dependent on what the Marlins are able to do this weekend and what the Diamondbacks are able to do this weekend and what the Diamondbacks are able to do.

But it is a little bit of weather-related drama. Miami faces Pittsburgh for the final weekend here while the Diamondbacks have to take care of business against the Houston Astros at home in Arizona. And of course, the thing that everyone is really wondering is, like, how does that D-back series potentially impact the Seattle Mariners? And I'm here to tell you the fact that they lost yesterday, well, yesterday against the White Sox means that Zach Allen has to pitch today.

So I don't know. It could be, you know, maybe their earlier losing could help out. It could be fine. So, yeah, Metsing, Metsing. I made the Metsing about the Mariners. Sorry, sorry. Well, I'm glad the Mets could be a factor in the playoff race.

And does this count as playing spoiler if you just neglect to put the tarp on the field? That's not a you had one job situation because the grounds crew has a number of jobs, but that is maybe foremost among them. It's certainly close to the top of the list. You got to put that tarp down. Well, and I'm curious, what are the repercussions of having goofed up so badly here? Are there repercussions?

I guess they would be fined? questions like can they be i guess they would be fined like they're clearly not doing this to it doesn't seem like this is a purposeful strategy on the part of the mets this just seems like a mistake a potentially costly one for miami to be sure but a mistake but you don't want clubs you know tarping to impact a playoff race like that's a bad... I don't know if it's... It might be worse than umpiring affecting a playoff race, actually. I haven't given thought to my exact ranking, but just because it seems like a much dumber mistake than an umpire making a goof in a game,

even though those are impactful on their own. It's just the sheer silliness of a tarp, coming down to a tarp and for a team that, you know, in its home ballpark can just close the roof. Well, thank you for explaining that. I hope I got all of the little details of that right. And I, you know, I don't want to make the Mets grounds crew feel worse about their situation than I'm sure they already do. But it does seem like you got to have a... Did they just not have to go to the ballpark because the team was on the road over the weekend? Somebody's job isn't like, I got to go take care of that. It's like if you forget to go feed someone's cat when they're out of town.

care of that you know it's like if you forget to go feed someone's cat when they're out of town yeah i saw someone trying to argue that the marlins should be entitled to a forfeit over this which uh seems quite unlikely that that would happen or even that that should happen but yeah that was being discussed at least by the way the Brewers probable starters this weekend are Colin Ray, Jansen Junk, and Adrian Hauser. So not the big arms. Right. So again, I don't know that there would really be much incentive to do the thing that melts the internet because you really want to deal with the best guys that Milwaukee has to offer. I wouldn't. That sounds terrible. I mean, they can't hit a lick, but they sure can pitch. One more thing.

I don't know whether you edited this piece or not, but Eric Langenhagen wrote about the incredible shrinking minor leaguers. Yes, he did. I did edit that piece. Can you explain why many minor leaguers suddenly seem to have shrunk? It's not because they were left out in the rain and the Mets grounds crew forgot to cover them. It's something else at work here. Yeah.

I think, like, so there are two questions. It's like, why are their listed heights smaller, shorter, shorter? Their listed heights are shorter. They're less than they were. And also, why were they incorrect in the first place right and yeah eric uh did some did some reporting on this score you know the i think the obvious culprit for why they would have changed to him and and maybe to our listeners is that you know in triple a and also some of the minor league levels in Florida,

they are using the automated ball strike system to call about half of the game. So for part of the week at AAA, it's the full ABS, is what they call it. And then I believe for the weekend series, they're doing the ABS-assisted challenge system, which we've discussed on this podcast before. And the way that the strike zone was initially determined within the ABS system

relied on taking the listed height of the player and then doing calculations to set the bottom and top of the strike zone. And that is not the approach that they are going to take going forward. They're going to actually use Hawkeye to sort of take checkpoints of the player's height, like 23 percent of the listed height in the top was 51 percent and that wasn't like personalized to the guy in terms of like where his knee is and where the top and the letters are and his belt and all that stuff so now they're going to use hawkeye to to try to bring individualization to the zones but before they had done that mlb sent personnel to spring training camps to measure all of these guys because they had to have an accurate height for ABS and hundreds of them shrunk. has sort of manually maintained heights and weights in the spreadsheets that feed the board and that sort of are used to generate the little tables that you see accompanying every prospect's write-up on our prospect lists. And often, you know, the adjustments that he would make to either of those measurements would be the weights because as we have talked about on this podcast many times over the years,

they can be very loosey-goosey with weights. Like how often they're updated, how accurate they are. And so he would sort of adjust guys where it felt necessary, largely deferred to listed heights, except in cases where guys were sort of like egregiously underreported.

It took a while for O'Neill Cruz's MILB player page to reflect his actual height. But we could look at the guy and be like, well, that guy's giant. So it was adjusted manually. But as we go through our process of doing the lists, Eric will sort of cross-check everyone who's a ranked prospect this year versus what's on their MILB player page. And that is what led him to notice that there had been this shrinkage because he had a data set that allowed him to do that. And so he talked to a bunch of people with teams and with MLB to kind of get a sense

of what role the ABS stuff played in it, and then was sort of thinking through not only why they had changed, which I think kind of became obvious, but also sort of what would have led to this sort of widespread over reporting of height. And, you know, he he posits a couple of explanations, most of which are just, you know, they're kind of slow to update. They're small changes. Players are perhaps overstating their height pre-draft or pre-signing. For shame. I can't believe it. Yeah. And then there's not a prior to now, there hasn't really been a process to verify any of that data. So there's that piece of it. You know, I think that if you look at the big table of height changes that he has, like, you know, there are some teams that have more changes than others. And, you know, without pointing specific fingers, like it's possible that some of those teams were perhaps overstating the heights of their prospects in an effort to influence other teams, pro scouting models models because height is an input into that.

And Eric makes reference to a trade he knows of where a guy's actual height was several inches shorter than what he was listed at, and that would have actually tipped the scales in terms of whether or not he was a trade target. And then some of it is just human error and or guys slouching and trying to manipulate the zone a little bit. But that didn't strike him as a particularly compelling explanation just based on the timing of when the ABS stuff was happening and the fact that it was independent MLB people doing this.

You'd have to be... There might have been some like, hey, you're kind of slouching and not standing fully upright because it does affect the size of your zone but that is probably to the magnitudes of these changes suggest that that isn't probably explaining all of it so i don't know it was like a cool little thing that he noticed and it took a while to report all that out and talk to people with teams in the league and you know it's like it does it impacts our understanding of these guys you know we have sort of heuristics in mind on the position player side and most of these changes were among hitters about like you know the size a guy has to be to do

a thing right like how much time have we spent talking about short stops they're so small they're so big they're so much bigger than they were, you know, those dimensions sort of inform the mental heuristics we have for those positions and pretty loosey-goosey. So, yeah. Yeah. I was wondering what would happen when we got a ground truth measurement and I guess the truth is closer to the ground in many cases. Not in all cases.

There are some guys whose heights went up, but mostly down, I guess, and by as many as four inches in some cases. But yeah, it's kind of a honey hawk, I shrunk the minor leaguers sort of deal. Shouldn't it be shrank? Shouldn't those movies have been i shrank the kids honey i shrank the kids maybe they're both acceptable now but yeah that would be pedantically speaking more correct anyway you gotta send you gotta send rick moranis a note yeah when they get hawkeye and online dating it's over oh boy well and now that and now that Hawkeye is going to be the primary sort of mechanism by which the zone is determined, we might not have need for precision going forward, right? If you don't need, if it can just determine the guy's zone, and there's some detail in the piece about sort of the mechanics of that unrelated to the shrinkage question. Yeah, they were in the pool. mechanics of that unrelated to the shrink, the shrinkage question.

They were in the pool. That people should, uh, we'll probably find interesting, but like we might not have, we might not have a golden era of accurate measures, uh, unless they decide they really want one. Cause you don't need the guy's listed height. You just need Hawkeye to do its thing. So yeah, I don't know man it's it's interesting stuff though yeah it'll be interesting if we can analyze down the road like the was there more clustering at let's say 5 10 and right six feet uh then then there suddenly is now was was there an improbable number of uh guys who were claiming a round number height that if we get greater precision, we find that maybe it's a little more evenly distributed?

We shall see. I meant to mention, by the way, Kim Eng's quote, Marlon's GM, on all of what you told me about. Without getting into the details, obviously this is an unfortunate incident. It's just so measured, so diplomatic. Very gracious of her not to get into the details. Yeah. She didn't say Metzing even one time. Everyone else said that for her.

Yeah, that's true. All right. Let's do a few emails here. Okay. Ruben says, Ben referred recently to, quote unquote, our problem with starters not going as deep into games. And I wanted to repeat a dissenting opinion. My elbow starts barking every time you suggest requiring pitchers to throw volume in order to deter max effort appearances. However, I also understand I'm probably in the minority and loving the development of small market teams with stock bullpens outperforming rotations of passable starters. Thank you. expectations for starters and relievers. My hope would be that each individual pitcher has a Goldilocks zone of effort level and volume to prevent injury. My question for both of you, would it be fulfilling if decreasing the size of pitching staffs led to more three to four inning appearances chained together instead of the classic starter outings of yore?

classic starter outings of yore it's a good question because it forces us to think about like let's say it's four innings what's the difference between six and four i mean like we know what the difference is but is that a meaningful narrative difference right does it alter our understanding of the game as it's played? One of the reasons we like quote-unquote traditional starters is that they provide a nice narrative anchor to the game. It's not the only reason we like it, but for me, it's one of the big ones. you were going to get, you know, a couple guys piggybacked on a regular basis and they weren't going to just go one inning. So you're not going to get annoyed with a bunch of pitching changes, or at least less annoyed than you would when there's a steady stream of relievers. I don't know. I don't know if that, you know, we get, we get used to a lot of stuff, so I don't want to assume that we couldn't adjust to that, but I do think we'd still be losing something.

And, you know, there's like that's before we consider sort of the obvious economic impact that continued dwindling starter innings have on the player population in terms of what they're able to demand in salary. So I don't know. I could see that being cool and fun. You know, I could see us thinking about it as sort of like a – particularly if there's some stability in the pairings. If you have guys who very often piggyback with one another,

I don't know, maybe we think of them as like they're tag teaming in. We get so many crisscross promos, my stars. We would just get so many. And some creative person would bring in like the Olsen sisters and try to use that. So I could see it building toward something. But I don't know. I still suspect we'd be missing out on some stuff that's pretty cool. And, you know, if this were the shift that we saw across the game, you know, we talked

when we were talking about sort of the George Kirby situation, like, do you end up training guys to the point where like, they realistically aren't well suited to go, you know, 90, 100, 115 pitches. And so it's appropriate for them to say, hey, that's not my job. That's not how I've been developed as an athlete. If you have a bunch of piggyback guys, then you're really going to be hurting if what you either need because of circumstance or want because of circumstance is a guy who's like, yeah, like it's 10 more than I typically go, but like, I'm about to throw a perfect game, so you're not pulling me from this one, right?

So some of, and that's a tiny fraction of starts where that's even a consideration, right? But we would lose those. So I don't know, it's something to think about. Yeah, people have proposed this or wondered when we'll see this or when are the Rays gonna do this? I guess the Rays are kind of the closest

to doing something like this where they will tend to pull starters earlier than most teams and then they'll have openers and bulk guys and good bullpens. But I don't think you're ever going to get a team that will just say everyone goes three or everyone goes four because you're always going to have better pitchers than others and it would be silly to sort of hamstring yourself by saying we're not going to have our better pitchers pitch more innings all else being equal so yeah it probably if some team really dedicated itself to this it would be novel and innovative and interesting for that team in that season. And then if it caught on and everyone was doing it,

then we'd probably get sick of that too. But I guess it might be better in some ways than just the parade, the succession of one-inning guys you've never really heard of in many cases. If everyone's going at least three all the time, then you're at least going to know their names and recognize their faces. And yeah, it would almost be like, then it would be sort of, you'd have probables. It would almost be like when you know who's the bulk guy in the opener, you would know, okay, here's the piggyback

person and here's the guy who's piggybacking on that guy's vac. I don't know. We would have to come up with names for them. But yeah, I guess this might be better than what we have in some ways but maybe not preferable to what we used to have just from a narrative perspective yeah well and it's like you think about um i mean thinking about tampa specifically like there's still gonna be some limit to it just because of the roster limit piece of it yeah and like you know tampa i do think that we tend to overstate how much of what tampa does is tampa wanting to do it and needing to do it because of injury or you know under performance or whatever you know you think about some of the guys on that team that have made sort of the biggest impression this year.

David Lorla had a piece that ran today where he talked to broadcasters and beat writers for the Rays about who's the most underrated player on the Tampa Bay Rays because a lot of national fans don't necessarily know who all those guys are. And a lot of them named Zach Littell. And part of why was that this guy who was sort of a whatever reliever has come in and managed to be like a pretty good starter and one who is often since transitioning to the rotation throwing five, six, in some cases, seven or eight innings right and like that has been hugely valuable to Tampa Bay in part because it has helped them sort of stabilize their bullpen unit and that's also the result of players sort of playing better and Robert Stevenson emerging as like a really good

reliever out of nowhere in a way that is very Tampa but even Tampa like is really happy that Zach Littell is doing Zach Littell stuff. And so, you know, I do think it's important for us to all remember the preference versus necessity equation for the Rays because I think it, you know, I don't want to say that they're not clever. They do great stuff. They have excellent player development. They're able to sort of navigate those situations in a way that a lot of other clubs couldn't.

But I'm sure that, like, they would really like it if you know jeffrey springs were healthy you know they'd be pretty stoked if they had drew rasmussen right now so you know that that piece of it and shane mcclanahan for that matter like you know they're even teams that are willing to get creative with the bullpen starter distribution like are like but like, but what if Shane McClanahan weren't broken right now, though? That'd be so great for us. Yeah. Zach Littell's season has not escaped my notice.

It has perhaps escaped my comprehension, but not my notice. How was Zach Littell not on the bonkers list? He should have just been on the bonkers list all by himself. Like how, how is this, how is it happening though ben it's so remarkable plenty of jake deakman coverage this oh yeah yeah but we should have spent maybe five minutes every

episode just trying to like parse through the zaklet tell of it all because good grief yeah jake deakman with the rays fip update down to 3.21 with a 2.23 ERA. Boy. All right. Question from Tom. Related pitcher usage question. On episode 2059, you said something along the lines of UCL injuries are the biggest problem in baseball and lamented that we can't get guys to exert less effort, even if it means saving their arms. Lots of solutions have been floated that would indirectly influence the issue, such as smaller pitching staffs. My preferred solution. This made me wonder, why not go straight to the source and institute a pitch speed limit

where anything above that speed is an automatic ball? I'm not sure where the threshold should be, but maybe around 90 plus or minus. I'm guessing just about everyone would hate this, especially old school fans. But hear me out. If the reason everyone is getting hurt is that they're throwing max effort all the time, wouldn't it be better for everyone if everyone had to dial it back a notch or maybe multiple notches? Pitchers aren't incentivized to do this individually now because they'd just be less effective than everyone else. But if everyone had to do it, pitchers would all benefit from better health.

It's sort of a prisoner's dilemma. Additionally, this would address the other issue that gets cited as the biggest problem in baseball, the year after year increases in strikeout rates. So I mentioned to Tom, this was asked and answered on episode 449, which was a very long time ago. And I don't know what I said and you weren't there. So I think it's probably about time that we answer this one again. So what do you think? A pitch speed limit. Am I right to remember that Craig and Patrick wrote about this baseball prospectus in the not too distant past? They talked about about the idea of a restrictor plate for pitchers in racing. I don't know if they specifically said

actually making them throw less hard by having a speed limit or a pitch maximum miles per hour, but the idea was we need to get people to dial back a bit. So this would just be, hey, you got your stack cast and it tells you that you threw above the speed limit and you just, you get pulled over and you have to show your license and registration and then you get a ball assessed to you. So it's strict. Maybe there could be some leeway, you know, beginning of the game or something, if you're getting a feel for your stuff that day or or whether the gun is hot in that park or something, maybe you could get a grace period. But after that, you throw too fast, then you pay the price. precise the the thought going through a pitcher's head is when you know either through his pitch

calm or you know the his catcher puts down the sign for four seam like how precise are they being in terms of the thought they're putting into like i'm about to throw 96 right yeah i think there's like an obvious potential implementation issue with something like this, which is that I wonder if they think about it more in terms of like, I'm really going to let one loose or I'm going to hold a little back, right? Where it's a matter of sort of relative degree

to what they know their max effort to be. And I'm sure that they know sort of the general miles per hour range that that sits in. But I wonder how much like re-education you'd need to do, right? To be able to affect something like this practically. Because, you know, a pitcher's fastball velocity is going to generally have a range it sits in it might not always be you know i'm able to lock in on 92 versus 97 you know i think it's probably more like thought of in in terms of like here's the effort i'm putting into it with this particular grip so i think that that would be

i imagine it would be really challenging to, even if you got buy-in from, from players to be like, Hey, we're really concerned about your health. We understand there's like a, a collective action problem here where your incentives to be the first guy to decelerate are really low because you're going to be at a disadvantage, but we're going to bring it all down together. And then, you know, it's going to be okay. Cause none of you are going to be able a disadvantage but we're going to bring it all down together and then you know it's going to be okay because none of you are going to be able to go above 95 without penalty like even if they were like awesome it's so good to not have that pressure anymore way to go my arm's going to feel so nice tomorrow morning like even if that were true i think it would be

really hard to to affect in a way that didn't just devolve into like chaos on the field all the time and you know they're gonna there would probably be plenty of guys who would say look my stuff plays way better at 97 than it does at 93 and the way that my you know fastest hardest fastball interacts with my secondary pitches i like the way that works the way that it is right now. So sorry, but I don't think this is a good idea. I mean, I think that having an automatic ball be the penalty would motivate people to attempt compliance, but I just don't know how easy that would be even with buy-in. Yeah i don't think people would like it there would be an advantage i think for pitchers who had enough feel for their stuff that they could totally

creep up close to the line yeah if the line is 90 or if the line is higher than 90 wherever you set the line some guys who maybe don't have quite as as precise control over their speed would have to make sure that they left a bit of a buffer and yeah they would throw even slower than they have to just to be safe whereas other guys maybe they would know you know like maybe zach granky knows yeah i'm gonna throw this one 89 and this one 87. And I know exactly what that feels like. Right. So I don't know for sure, but I feel very comfortable speculating that that guy knows. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. All the stories about how he, you know, tried to hit specific numbers on the radar gun to got to catch them all. Right. And Kyle Hendricks and guys like that. Obviously, this would favor finesse pitchers who have already mastered the art of putting a little on, taking a little off, as opposed to the guys who are just max effort all the time. on off-speed stuff. If the VLO ceiling is lower and if it's the same for everyone,

you can't differentiate yourself. If it were 90, almost everyone can at least touch 90 sometimes. So then at that point, there's no such thing really as a flamethrower anymore. You can't really differentiate yourself by throwing harder,

at least not with your fastball. And that does make a huge performance difference now. So there would just be a great flattening, I suppose, of pitching performance. I wouldn't actually like that, really. I wouldn't like just everyone to sort of throw the same speed because the caliber of play in baseball is high enough

that everyone would just be bumping up against the ceiling all the time. And it would just be kind of boring, like everyone throwing the same, at least, speed with their fastball over and over and over again. Now, yeah, everyone throws pretty hard these days, but there's still some significant variation. There might be as much as 10 miles per hour or even more in some extreme cases between a guy's max fastball speed. So I wouldn't want to completely take away that weapon from someone who can throw triple digits. It's fun to see triple digits sometimes when you really need it, which is the thing.

I guess you could relax this in the way that the pitch clock is a little more lenient with runners on base you could maybe relax the speed limit a little too like in situations where you gotta reach back for a little extra as they say but that would be tough too that would be even harder than to recalibrate from pitch to pitch and better to better and inning to inning. So, yeah, I don't like it. I think there are just more elegant solutions to this than just saying you are not allowed to throw above a certain speed. I would prefer to just have some incentives in there

so that pitchers are encouraged not to throw as hard as they possibly can. But when they really need it, you know, they have to make that calculation of here's where I can coast and here's how much I have left in the tank as starters used to back in the day when they were expected to go deeper into games. So I guess it would work, but it's a very sort of brute force solution. And I think it would have some aesthetic consequences as well and i just again i just think it would be chaos people would be so you know we should we should try very hard not to make people who are already hyper competitive and very emotionally

invested in what they're doing a little bit pissy, you know, because they're already in such a state to like do this impossible thing. Like let's not make them a little pissy, you know, then you end up with benches clearing and guys running out and everyone getting grumpy. It's terrible. Yeah. Declan says like many music nerds, I like giving numerical ratings to records as I listened to them a lot pitchfork. Declan says, 2022 was Big Thieves' Dragon New Warm Mountain, I Believe in You, great album, which I gave a 9.7 plus or minus 0.25. As sometimes there's not a better song in the world than Simulation Swarm, but other times I'm not horribly in my feelings, and it's merely one of the best songs ever. This contrasts to a more volatile listen, such as Soul Glow's Diaspora Problems, which I gave an 8.8 plus or minus 0.7.

those diaspora problems, which I gave an 8.8 plus or minus 0.7. This record is amazing, but so abrasive sonically that it's really, really, really good when you're in the right mood and a challenging listen when you're not. All of this is to say, I was listening to episode 2065's conversation about Ronald Acuna Jr. v. Mookie Betts for MVP. Meg usefully pointed out that Fangraft's War has some error bars that should be taken into account when talking about players' amazing individual F-War totals. Any war does, right? My question is, why don't we formalize that?

Why present war as a single number that implies a level of specificity that we can't really have when we could calculate the exact plus or minus error bar score like I do on my subjective music rankings, except using the objective mathematical error derived from war calculations and include it on leaderboards? Well, Ben, did you see that I responded to this email? Yeah. I sent a little response. So I like this idea idea and i'm not opposed to it it's not without precedent in terms of data presentation like on our site and certainly isn't without precedent in other people's data presentation like i think that if you look at an individual player's pakoda projection i think that they show you sort of what the distribution of outcomes is.

Our playoff odds at FanGraphs have a mode that you can view that in, which we should tell more people about because everyone's always surprised every time I tell them. They're like, you do? And I'm like, we have for years and years. We've had it so many years. You can go to display options distribution and i'll tell you right there i mean like everything's like really tightly clustered right now because

the season's almost over but there's you know a bigger range when it's earlier and so i think that having that as like as maybe a view would be interesting to people but i said in my response and i i do suspect i'm right that like declan is maybe uh has greater optimism than i do that this would like tamp down and cool down the conversation because i i think that the i think there's sort of two camps of of folks who get sort of irritated and irked this time of year with war when it comes to awards discussions. There's like the group of people who are mad, not because they struggle to understand the limitations of war, but because they think that we have, we being the analytics community, have overstated its precision. And I don't know that that perspective is one that can be sort of negotiated down. So there's that. I just think that, candidly, I think that some of those folks are arguing with people from 10 years ago, even though that hasn't really been the perspective of the people who initiated the war era. I think they were pretty honest about the precision or lack thereof when you're talking about very small

differences in In Winds Above Replacement. And then I think for folks who are less familiar with war and how it's derived, I don't know that that adds clarity. I think it would be perhaps more confusing to see this range. And it's like, what does that mean? Like, are you saying your numbers are bad? Like, you know, I think that part of the challenge that analytically inclined baseball fans and writers have is like striking this balance between being sufficiently sort of humble and inviting when asked, like, what does this mean? And also having the appropriate level of confidence about it, because I think you can overstate the case too. Like, war isn't perfect, but again, why did we should have named it? If I have one gripe, Ben, we should have named it something else. Because of course, war isn't perfect. War is terrible. But wins above replacement, not a perfect metric. But I think it's a good metric. And I think that it's an incredibly useful framework to understand the relative contributions of players on the field and the shape of those contributions.

So we don't want to undersell it either. So that's a tricky thing. But I take Declan's point, and I think that maybe having some kind of, at least when it comes to the projections, that might be a place where it's more practical than on the actual war leaderboards to like give people some sense of the range even going into this season might be a useful thing for folks i don't know yeah baseball prospectus also does list this for some other stats like deserved runs created plus their offensive stat and deserved run average if you look at their leaderboards at baseball respects us.com like i'm looking at the the

hitting leaderboard here and they have ronald acuna 176 drc plus and then there's a column that says drc plus sd standard deviation that says 17 and they have Mookie. They have him with a lower DRC plus 148, but a 15 standard deviation. Otani, 162 with a 24, a bit of a wider range, I guess, because he had fewer plate appearances maybe, right? So I think they have been doing this for a while. And I don't really see people citing it very often. I don't even see baseball prospectus writers citing that very often. I'm fine with it existing. Yeah.

I wouldn't object to being able to look at that. But I don't think anyone's done it with war. Because I guess you'd have to quantify the differing degrees of error when it comes to like offense and base running and defense i'm sure i'm sure that could be done but but yeah i think it would mystify people yes i think declan is maybe assuming a level of statistical literacy here that uh perhaps is over-optimistic, right? Right. Like someone who doesn't know or, you know, he said it might help non-Fangraphs War literate

folks grasp that we're talking about a range of possible values. I guess so. But if you're non-War literate, then I feel like it's even a bigger ask to be like, it's not one number. Standard deviation literate? Yeah. Yeah. Because people, yeah, they just might not understand the concept of a range. Like, is it that or is it not?

And are you saying there's error? Why don't you fix the error so that it's right? And people sometimes already get upset about the fact that there are multiple wars. Oh, sometimes get upset about that fact? Very often get upset about that fact. Quite often get upset about that. Yeah. And they'll say, oh, well, if they can't even agree on what the war is and this site has that war. Why should I take it seriously?

Yeah. They don't even know what they're doing. They can't even get on the same page themselves. So why should I trust them? Right. And of course, you know, it's different assumptions and different formulae. And there are some advantages to having different calculations of these things. And you can use the one you like. But I fear that there would be a similar reaction to showing it's 8.0 war plus or minus 0.7 or whatever. It's like, what is it? What does that mean? You know, people aren't comfortable with uncertainty like that. They aren't. And like, I want to be very clear. I'm not trying to make anybody feel badly about that, right? But I just think about some of the conversations that we have on a pretty regular basis as a community around, you know, like what our

playoff odds mean and how to engage with probability as like a concept. And we're having to have that conversation with like people who work in baseball, in marketing and PR roles, but they're in the game. They're in this stuff every day. We still have to have that conversation every year. Fox Sports retweeted our playoff odds for the Orioles on opening day. They were so kind to tag us, so I'm sure that John's dealing with really great menchies right now. That conversation is one that i feel like as a community we have very often and we're still having to do work to help kind of get people on the same page in terms of like what we're trying to do and what what feeds those odds and how are they different from Vegas and you know like how do they why how and why do

they change over a season and how are our playoff odds that are based on dynamic depth charts different than like the playoff odds you see on baseball reference and you know we have to say the same thing a lot around that stuff and so I think that there probably is a part of the broader community likely people who use fan graphs fairly often and baseball perspectives and reference right who would appreciate something like that but i think that the idea that you're gonna put you know like we'll let's use the baseball prospectus example again like you're gonna put a guy's drc plus and then say well it's standard deviation number 17 so you got it right you know like i just don't know that that's the most effective strategy if what we're trying to do

is just bring everyone's understanding to a common place so that doesn't mean there's not a place for it on the site because we got a lot of stuff on Fangraphs that people would be like, what the heck does that mean? Yep. But if the purpose is to try to kind of calm the waters and make clear that we know that war is not precise to like the 10th of a win i don't know that that for that that

solves this project because i don't think that the people who are again i don't think the people who are like those nerds are gonna be persuaded by the presence of standard deviation you know i can't imagine the old school uproar about what was the error bars on batting average or the error bars on RBI. At least we know what it is. I don't have to give you a range. We can count it, right? Right. Other than like ancient baseball history when sometimes often that stuff was wrong and had to be corrected later.

Or I guess, you know, with Negro league's data that's incomplete there's still uncertainty but but yeah that would be i think another arrow in the quiver for people who are anti-advanced at because uh already we've talked about how like milestones sometimes a little less fun with advanced stats because they can change you know you get to a certain war milestone you could go back under it so or the war calculation could change retroactively. And that doesn't happen so much, at least these days, with your standard counting stats. Yeah.

Yeah. I have been, I mean, I don't want to say I'm amused because he seems like he's having a pretty rough COVID. But like, you know, I think I mentioned this when we talked about Acuna, that there's been some pushback on J.J. Effie for his Mookie Betts piece. And I feel like there's this sentiment among Braves fans, like Fangrafts is ignoring Acuna and they're ignoring his home runs and stolen bases. is and i do feel discouraged when i see stuff like that not only because it's just kind of reactionary in a way that i i don't think is necessary based on either our content as it

has existed or like the real stakes of something like this but i'm like you know that war thinks hitting home runs is good you know like that's good it's not you know we're not ignoring it it's it's in there he's his base running value it's in there you know we war thinks that's good you know war thinks ronald lacuna jr is good breaking news on effectively wild so i don't know it can it can feel a little bit like we haven't really advanced the ball to use a football metaphor, but I am probably not giving enough credit across the non-reactionary Braves contingent on Twitter. Because I think a lot of people have, even if they're not incorporating all of this stuff into their thinking every day, like they at least, you know, they're hearing it and and sort of being shown it enough on broadcast and what have you that like i think people's baseline understanding is okay but maybe not so much that like standard deviation on the leaderboards would be persuasive yeah i don't

know but you don't have to the thing is you don't have to care about war i mean like i think most of the people who listen to this podcast again we need a different acronym you everyone should care about war as like a human struggle but wins above replacement you don't have to care about that like it makes no never mind to me that is a useful architecture for me to understand baseball but if like you don't that doesn't grab you okay just don't yell at people you know we don't have to yell people all right let's finish i've got uh these two will go together, I think, some hypotheticals to close out the week. This is from Taman, who says, In video games, it is very common to have power-ups that have limited charges,

such as the boomerang flower in Mario Kart that can be used only three times. What if outfielder's gloves were considered a power-up with five charges, with a charge being consumed every time the ball makes contact with the glove on the fly? So simply fielding a line drive single would not consume a charge, but when the charges run out, the outfielder must play with their bare hands, assuming they don't get subbed out as soon as their glove disintegrates into a cloud of pixels. How would this impact baseball? I imagine this would make games a lot more boring, as outfielders would be much more averse to diving for the ball and risking consuming a charge without making an out if

the ball bounces off their glove. And imagine droves of 2024 Angels fans heading for the exits after Mike Trout is removed from the game in the fourth inning after he records five quick fly outs. It's like fouling out in basketball sort of, right? Yeah. I also have the amusing mental image of an outfielder with all five charges calling off the outfielder with only one charge remaining on a lazy fly ball.

Would a team risk keeping their barehanded, slugging outfielder in the game and moving him around the outfield to minimize his odds of having a chance because they need his bat in the lineup during a late and close game? Would this incentivize teams even more to develop multi-positional players

who can move between the outfield and infield once their outfield charges run out? Please add this to the pile of fun yet obviously terrible ideas. So if when you switch gloves, if you can change gloves when you move between positions and you get a fresh charge, then that would definitely make it more advantageous to have multi-position players. It already is. You already see a ton of that with benches being limited by giant bullpens. But yeah, although with the infield gloves, with their charges, I guess those would have to be used up by ground balls, right? As opposed to balls on the fly,

which would not use up a charge in the outfield. So it's got to work differently, I think, with the charges. But it hurts to catch a batted ball. Yeah, it does. It hurts to catch, even like if you catch a home run or like a foul ball, I'm not talking about like pre-nets when it was like lethal speed. You know, you could be sitting out in the bleachers and that ball has been traveling for at least several seconds and it's lost a lot of speed. You know, you could be sitting out in the bleachers and that ball has been traveling for at least several seconds and it's lost a lot of speed.

And it's still smart. You see people catch the ball, like they're shaking their hand. It's red. They could injure themselves. Like it hurts to catch. And obviously in the early days of baseball, before they had gloves,

or at least gloves with good padding, it was expected that you would do this. And they did often. So they must have built up tough palms and calluses and probably they hurt themselves sometimes. And probably balls were not hit quite as hard back then because they weren't thrown as hard and the batters weren't as big and they weren't swinging for the fences. So maybe the exit speeds were not what they are now. But in addition to the fact that it's just harder to field without a glove, it hurts. It'd be a big injury risk. So I don't know if you would keep someone in once their charges were out because not

only would they be drastically reduced effectiveness as a fielder, but also there would be injury risk there. Yeah. I imagine that you almost certainly wouldn't put them back in because the injury risk does seem meaningful. You're right. People do underestimate the degree to which that hurts because you see those guys out there and they're shaking their hands and they're struggling. They're having a struggle. So I don't know. And even if it's a lazy like pop-up, it's still easy to catch with a glove. But it's coming down, you know, from high up in the air.

It's gathering speed. Like it's still, unless you catch it perfectly where you can kind of move your hands with the movement of the ball and cushion cushion it kind of then you could still potentially you know you could break a bird bone right you could break a bird bone ben and then and then you're mike trout and you might never be the same again yeah so obviously yes i i think what tamaman was saying here, you would be more conservative. You'd probably see fewer diving plays in the outfields. Of course, if someone's going to use up their last charge, if you don't have a backup or you need that guy's bat in the lineup, I don't know. I guess it depends on the situation. You'd have to make some quick calculations on the fly, on the fly ball to calculate, like, should I let this drop here because they need my bat in the lineup?

Is it like a low leverage situation? Is it two outs and nobody's on base and it's just going to be a single? And maybe is it worth it for me to drop this? I guess it usually wouldn't be, but, yeah, I don't know. It wouldn't be fun to see just everyone pull up and wait for the ball to bounce, you know? Yeah, I wouldn't be in favor of it for all of those reasons. It would be, if you were like a really good late inning defensive replacement, you'd suddenly be much more valuable as a bench option though, right? Because you could, I don't know, if you can,

do you have to dive to use up a charge? No, but if you catch it on the fly, it uses up a charge. Right, that's right. Yeah. If you could go back to the very early like vintage baseball where you could catch it on the bounce, then you'd be okay. I guess you wouldn't use up a charge. Yeah, but if we let people catch balls on the bounce and have that be an out in baseball,

that's the end of civilization. We're done at that point. There's no fixing that, Ben. But yeah, I think that rule changes in general, you want them to add. I think it's good when they add strategy. I think that that is a positive, but you don't want it to add. I think it's good when they add strategy. I think that that is like a positive, but you don't want it to add strategy at the expense of good play.

And I think this would do that. Like you would, I don't know. And people wouldn't do it right either. You know, that's the other thing. People's sense of when they should do it and when they shouldn't. I don't know how finely tuned that would be.

It might, I don't know. You'd have to override so much instinct. Can you imagine? You've like worked all your life to be like the best fielder you can be to you know you're you're trying to run everything down you've stopped eating chocolate so that you can play a good center field those aren't that's not a perfect like one-to-one but like you you've done all this stuff and now you're being told gotta pull up sometimes you know gotta let that fall in i think that that would cause like an existential crisis for some of these guys they'd be like but i've worked my whole life yeah yeah i wonder whether this would increase offense or depress offense because you'd have more balls falling in i guess but then also

you'd have your starters would be fouling out right out of charges so you'd have your starters would be fouling out. Right. They'd be out of charges. So you'd have backups. Maybe this would lead to less max effort pitching because you'd have to have smaller pitching staffs to make room for all your defensive substitutes who are going to go in. Right. Or would it lead to even more emphasis on strikeout-oriented staffs because fewer balls in play, you're using fewer charges. Right. That's a good point yeah i don't know i don't know man change things it's a it's a real conundrum but i do think it would end the sport you know but i like the idea and you will know the correct words to describe the phenomena

i am trying to describe because you're you're video game man. I do like the idea of like, I don't know, being able to bounce on a mushroom or something and then have that, you know, like we could do that. Like you could have like stuff come up from underneath and you're like, oh, I'm going to use the mushroom. We got another question about placing trampolines in places, which I guess we could answer now that Jeff Sullivan's not here, but we'll save that for another time. But that reminded me, I was raving about the late Brooks

Robinson's defense last time. And he's surprisingly a natural lefty, which is weird because, you know, he's a third baseman. And he had like, when he was a child, his dad taught him to throw a ball right-handed before it was obvious that he was actually left-handed. And then he started hitting righty, too, swinging a broomstick at pebbles. And so he just got used to doing those things right-handed, even though he did everything else in his life except baseball stuff left-handed. he did everything else in his life except baseball stuff left-handed. And it's probably a good thing because if he hadn't, then he wouldn't have been able to play third base. He probably would have had to play first and wouldn't have been such a defensive standout.

He maybe wasn't fast enough to be a great outfielder. But what Craig Wright pointed out in writing about this, I hadn't considered this, but Trish Speaker was another guy like this. There are a bunch of guys who like they'll have a childhood injury, like they'll sprain a wrist or they'll break an arm or something. And rather than just wait for that arm to heal, they'll just like learn to do stuff with the other one. And then they'll do that for the rest of their life, which sounds kind of

amazing to me. I broke a clavicle and I wasn't like, I guess I'll just, yeah, but I just, I fell off a seesaw. I had like a seesaw miscommunication with my grandma when I was five or so. But while I had the broken collarbone, I wasn't like, well, I guess I'm a lefty now. But these athletes, I wasn't like, well, I guess I'm a lefty now. But these athletes, they do sometimes and somehow they make that work. But Craig postulated that Trispeaker and Brooks Robinson, two of the greatest fielders ever, it's possible, he said, that their expertise in fielding was enhanced by having their glove on their dominant hand, their natural hand. And Brooks Robinson himself suggested that that was a possibility. So like, because their maybe more nimble hand was the one that actually had the glove, whereas with most people, you're throwing with your dominant hand and you have your glove on the other hand. So like maybe part of how nimble he was at picking up grounders, like he never had the greatest throwing arm. He had a really quick release, but he could just stab everything. And maybe it was because he was actually like he had the glove on his dominant hand. I had never thought of that. So if we could all just learn

to throw with the other hand and have the gloves on our more dominant hand, then maybe we'd all be better at fielding. I love how those kinds of stories always fall into one of two buckets they're either like incredible stories about the you know resilience of of the human body and the plasticity of the human mind or this guy had a terrible dad made him do either yeah and some maybe sometimes it's both but like some of them you're like wow that's so cool and then other times you're like are you okay buddy you need some therapy though yeah trish speaker he threw righty until he was thrown from a horse when he was 11 and so he he broke his right arm and he's like i don't want to wait for this to heal i gotta get back to

playing baseball. So he just taught himself to throw lefty and that was that. That's incredible. That's incredible. I just think about, I don't know. I know that I'm good for one of these every like 15 to 20 episodes, but they're really remarkable, these dudes, you know? They're really something because I could not do that. I could, maybe I could have if it had happened early enough in my life, you know they're really something because i could not do that i could maybe i

could have if it had happened early enough in my life you know like i said those brains they're plastic yeah if you had the brain plasticity that that helps you like learn languages when you're young i i don't know if that applies as well to handedness but i could imagine you know sure if you're a toddler maybe but 11 i. I'll take it back to 11. I was pretty set in my ways, handedness-wise, at that point. You're like, I was already smoking and drinking coffee by that age. Yeah. Mickey Lulich, another one.

Very durable pitcher, threw every pitch lefty, but he was a natural righty who had a childhood accident. And he's just like, yeah, I'm going to be a lefty now. I guess it speaks to either great athleticism and or love for baseball that they weren't just like, I'll just wait for this to heal. Right. Get out there like everyone else would. No, I will completely rewire my brain and body to get back to just a little bit faster. And somehow I'll be amazing at that, too. All right.

Last one. This is from Jscape, Patreon supporter. Last one. This is from Jscape, Patreon supporter. He says, just read Joe Posnanski's story in his new book about the Warren Spahn versus Juan Marichal marathon matchup. Tough to say Marichal marathon matchup. That's quite a mouthful. So imagine workhorse pitcher lives up to the cliche where he gets stronger as the game goes on. So each inning he pitches, opponent batting average against declines. Or I guess we could use whatever metric. For our purposes, he recovers video game style. So video games, the commonality here. And is always ready to take the ball in a regular rotation. How big does the inning by inning improvement have to be for the team to take it seriously? If it's like 10 points per inning so that if hitters start by batting 250 in the first inning, they hit 160 in the ninth. How many starts go by before he's

allowed to throw a potentially ridiculous number of pitches in a game? Does he have to do this for three to four years before he's allowed to settle down after a rough start and throw 200 pitches? And related to number one, how bad could he be early and still be allowed to go late? So could batters hit 400 in the first against him if the drop was 50 points and you knew he'd be lights out in the eighth and ninth? So he gets better as the game goes on, like legitimately, not just as a cliche. Right. How long would it take to legitimately, not just as a cliche. Right. How long would it take to recognize that? He's a starter?

Yeah, he's a starter. I guess he has to be a starter, right? Yeah. How long does it take? Two months? I don't know. Yeah, I wonder. I guess, as always with these these questions it comes down to like

does his stuff get better right does he look better does he throw harder or is he just better right how and and like how is the better manifesting like is the like you said is the better uh an uptick in his stuff? Does he feel better? Does he say, I feel like I'm getting stronger? Is he suddenly demonstrating pinpoint command? Or is it purely results-based assessment? I think that that would matter a good amount. All of these questions are so interesting because they all kind of assume that like front offices and and and coaching staffs are like open to the idea of magic right because you you would have to kind of hang around

for a while before you would be doing it consistently enough consistently enough that you would be like oh this is uh this is i don't know if skill is quite the right word but like this is a persistent pattern of performance that is like meaningful it's not just a weird fluky thing that yeah like you'd have to believe in magic i think you have to if his stuff improves and he doesn't get gassed, you'd notice that immediately. Oh, yeah. Right. He would just never lose any stuff.

And he'd say, yeah, you don't need to take me out. I feel better and better as the game goes on. Right. But if he was as mystified by this as anyone and there wasn't any obvious sign, then, yeah, at least months, I guess. wasn't any obvious sign then yeah at least months i guess yeah statistically speaking it would take me a while to believe it because like times through the order splits for individual pitchers in individual seasons are pretty volatile like very volatile yeah and you know sometimes like if a guy has more pitches a greater number of pitches. He may be less susceptible because he just has more different offerings to show people as the game goes on. But generally, that can really bounce

around a lot. So it would take me a while to buy into, yeah, this guy defies the typical pattern for pretty much all other pitchers. And as like how bad could he be at the beginning? If you know that he's going to get better. Right. You'd have to fully buy into this. Right. You'd have to know that he's going to it's worth it to just get through the first few innings when he sucks. Right.

Because he's going to be like lights out later. So, yeah, that that's going to be like lights out later. So yeah, that would have to be, I think, you'd have to have the demonstrable uptick in stuff. Yes. And then probably they'd be perpetually trying to figure out, well, how do we just make it better from the start? Yeah. It's like sometimes pitchers will struggle, especially in the first inning, like league wide pitchers do tend to struggle in the first inning, but even more so than most. And, you know, they'll be like, do we need to

change the way you warm up in your pregame routine? Or is this just a fluky random thing? But with this guy, I'd be like, well, if you can dial it up and get great in the fourth inning, then can't we just, you know, can you throw like a simulated three innings before you come into the game and then you're going to be good from the start? But I guess if it's magic, then the answer could just be no. It has to work that way. Yeah, I don't know that you'd be given enough rope to really show that it was a skill. And yeah, like, man, man oh it would be so frustrating can you imagine this is like this would be a terrible thing to wish on someone right because you know in there is like really high

quality stuff and command and you can be the you can be this incredible pitcher but not for a couple of hours. All right. Well, we will leave it there. Enjoy the last weekend of regular season baseball, everyone. Next time we talk to you, we'll be talking about the playoffs. We'll be previewing the playoffs. I'm unwell. It's that time of year. I am unwell.

I am unwell. I am unwell. Ben, after last night, look, we're not going to, and who knows what'll happen in the hours between when we're done and when the game, and then it's available for everyone to listen to, but I just want everyone to know,

not well, unwell. We'll debrief, we'll decompress next time. Whichever way it goes for you, we'll talk it through. They'll take a data set sorted by something Whichever way it goes for you, we'll talk it through. Amazing ways. Here's to dastardly. All right. We're going to wrap up with a stat blast, which will be a little out of the ordinary today. We're going to be joined by a guest to deliver a guest stat blast, which we are sort of squeezing into the rubric of a stat blast because we were planning to talk to him anyway so that he could promote his new labor of love, his magnum opus, his masterwork.

Chris Hannell, who has joined us before, he is the founder of the Patreon Discord group. He is one of the people who keeps Effectively Wild's stats and keeps track of all of the guests who have been on Effectively Wild, including himself. And he is now the creator of a documentary, a full-length, almost two-hour documentary called The Minnesota Twins and the Cruelest Streak in Sports, which you all know the Minnesota Twins have not won a playoff game in a very long time. They've lost 18 in a row, in fact, and Chris has dug into how exactly that happened and how improbable it was. So Chris, welcome. We wanted to talk to you about this before the streak is snapped, and I have every confidence that that will happen soon.

Thank you very much. You have no idea how much pressure there was on me to get this video finished before the postseason started. Talk about a deadline. Yes, you were keeping me posted on the progress, so I know that you were working very hard on this. And yeah, you had to get it done before the streak is snapped, which we all know will happen next week for sure. Absolutely. And I've said that the other 17 times, but you know, what's one more? Right. So Tops Now is presenting our stat blast as always, even though this is an unusual stat blast. And we've

told you about Tops Now before. We'll tell you about Tops Now again. But Tops Now is a product that enables you to purchase baseball cards on a very tight turnaround. They are available the day after things happen. You can go to tops.com. You can find a new selection of baseball cards every day that are themed in some way, some statistical accomplishment, some team accomplishment, a debut by a player, whatever it is. I know that you, Chris Hannell, have taken Topps Now up on this product. I have. Advertising works on Effectively Wild. You heard about Tops Now on the podcast. Yeah. You purchased a card. I forget which card it was.

I bought the Drew Maggi card. That's right. Yeah. I was so excited for Drew Maggi because when he was with the Twins, I was so excited for him to get a time in. And if there's one thing I'm angry at with the Twins is that they didn't put him into a game.

So I was so happy that he got into a game with the Pirates. I got the card. And I am currently awaiting the Royce Lewis Hits for Grand Slams Tops Now card. That should be showing up any minute now. Excellent. All right. We didn't even put you up to this. Nope.

I had no idea this was about to happen, but I was ready. Yeah. I looked at the Tops Now site. There are actually 23 Twins cards this season. I mean, most of them are sold out. They're gone. You missed your chance, but there's been an awful lot of Royce Lewis and also some Pablo Lopez and gosh, there's even some Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa. You don't have to have your best season to get a Tops Now card. You just have to do something at some point that is notable. And the most recent Twins Tops Now card is the Twins clinching the Central. And I'm sure that there will be a Tops Now card next week, not to jinx anything, when the Tw twins finally end the drought and win a postseason game so what made you want to document this drake you are not a documentarian right your

youtube channel includes one previous video that was about four minutes long so this this is a little bit of a departure for you. You're just going straight to the feature length documentary here. I do have a confession to make. In a past life about 20 years ago, I was a filmmaker. I worked in visual effects. You have done everything. You've had every kind of career.

Yeah, every job. During one job interview ages ago, I got a call back from someone who said, we're calling only three people. You're one of them. You're by far the least qualified, but we just got to know what's going on with you. And I was like, okay, well, this will be a plane flight. That's interesting. But yeah, my resume is a bit hard to nail down. But yeah, I was- We talked to you about score bugs, people may recall, on episode 1895 about a year ago. And you're a Twins fan, obviously, so you've suffered for your art here. Yeah, and I've wanted to do something like this for a long time, like the Tigers and the Guardians had like

one team had won 20 in a row and I tacked on them like, what's the longest postseason streak? And you were, because I knew it would be a Twins answer. And that was around August of 2020. And then the Twins lost to the Astros in the 2020 playoffs. And around December of 2020, I started kicking around this script idea after writing an article doing some of the math. And I just worked on the script for like two years, two and a half years, and just never having the courage to do it. And then finally started learning enough 3D again and dusting up the skills.

I'm like, I'm going to take a shot at this. It'll be maybe a 20-minute video. You know, maybe. That feels really long. But, you you know we'll see where it goes and now this week finally released it's an hour and 50 minutes long the feedback has just been phenomenal like i'm just kind of like awestruck i don't think it's really hit yet just how much this is kind of struck a chord with twins fandom because a lot of people like why would i put myself through two hours of that trauma and i'm like no it's a hopeful story but you gotta we have to process our trauma together in order to get to

the good stuff at the other side so that's kind of the spirit of where it came from and and thankfully that's the spirit that people are taking it in. I wonder if it speaks to some, you know, perhaps dormant, hard to look at, afraid it will skitter away if you think about it too long or hard optimism on your part or the part of the broader Twins fan base

that like, you got to deal with this now because they're going to win next weekend. Yeah. And then it's not gonna be relevant in the same way although i i still think it would be quite interesting to folks because it is such a i feel like i can say this as a mariners fan right we have a we have a kinship yes that's exactly what i was going to use yes like it is um it's such a long time, so it would still be interesting to people, but perhaps a little less newsy after next week. I mean, if things go the way I want them to this win two, and then Texas wins, then we face this team. And I'm like, I just want to get to game one, please. I can't. I know we're not getting the two seat anymore. Let's just get to target field on Tuesday.

I know we're not getting the two-seat anymore. Let's just get to target field on Tuesday. So speaking of spreadsheets, this is ostensibly a stat blast. The stat is not just that the Twins have lost a lot of games in a row, a record number. It's a little more complex than that. You do some math to try to figure out exactly how improbable it was. And I guess there are a number of ways one could calculate that. And you have brought a precision to this that has maybe made it look more improbable, not necessarily inflating the improbability, but just capturing the full extent of the improbability.

but just capturing the full extent of the improbability. So would you care to walk people through how you figured out just how unlikely it is that the Twins have lost 18 playoff games in a row? So the thesis behind it was such that I was having trouble communicating to people who weren't Twins fans just how painful the streak has been. Because 0-18, yeah, that sounds really bad. But bad but then it's like yeah but that's over two decades and then it's like okay yeah but it's like you know what are the odds of that and so the coin flip method if you were to flip a coin it'd be i think 266 144 to one against i don't know why i don't have that number in front of me right now uh but it's it's in the 260,000 and then a tweet that was shared by andrew

woodruff uh after the 2020 series basically said that if you went by the vegas betting line where the twins were underdogs in 13 of the 18 games you get a number that's like 28,000 to one against and i'm like that number is not reflective at all because in most in a lot of these games the twins were heavy favorites in six of the 18 games they reached a win expectancy of 75 percent or more win expectancy that is brought to you by fangraphs.com go to fangraphs.com be a fangraph supporter like me they reached 85 percent win expectancy in four out of the 18 games they reach 90% in two of them they reach 96% in one of them and in so many they were they were in even reach it was there just closed the game out they led in all but one of the games against the

Yankees in the streak they scored first in all but one wow and so what i was thinking about because and i go into this in the movie i used to be a poker player at one point and they and we have a thing that's like called sklansky dollars which it helps you understand well i got my money in while i was ahead so even if i lost i can keep track and see i'm playing good poker and so i was like well what if i knew when to place a wager on the twins based on the win expectancy if they were to lose every single time i found that exact moment what are the odds that they would do so and i am very sad to tell you that i have that number is 69,052,227,309 to one against. Wow. That's a good number.

And I compared that to other losing streaks because I wanted to make sure that I under, I'm like, okay, so I've created a big number. Does this big number mean anything against other losing streaks? And I'm here to tell you, yes, it does. Like, for example, the 22-game win streak that Cleveland had in 2017, if you were to look at their minimum win expectancy, and they still won, they're only 293 million to one. The Orioles' 19-game losing streak in 2021, 1.6 billion to one. The closest that I could find was the 21-game losing streak by the Orioles in 1988, which has three more games in it, which that's what I keep trying to stress to people. It's like they have more games to work with to up the odds because you're at least doubling

it every single time. They come to 10.6 billion to one, which is still seven times more likely than the twins postseason losing streak. And I was like, I have found my stat. I have found my way to communicate my pain. Here you go. And I now share it with the world. And it seems like people are receiving it well. I don't know whether it's commiseration or catharsis or, yes, you're our champion and you have captured the pain that we have felt here. Here's a nice almost two-hour documentary I can send to people if they just want to get a sense of how it has felt to be a Twins fan in the playoffs. It's been a little bit of everything. There's been a lot of Twins fans

that are like, okay, I cried a bunch during this this is a amazing i someone understands me there's been a lot of people who aren't twins fans that are like i had no idea i'm now rooting for the twins in the postseason it's been a lot of very sweet messages from people just basically it's a group hug it is an online group hug and the energy feels really good going into next week and i think that the team feels like there's been some words about it like in 2017 brian dozier came out and basically said yeah we lost the twins have lost against the yankees historically but that doesn't you know that was. So what? And the fates just basically like, oh, would you like to know? So what? We will tell you. So what? We will let you take a three nothing lead in the first inning and then yank that football right out of Charlie Brown's grasp.

But this team has been very like, no, we understand what this means to fans. We take this very seriously and we're going to go get that win. This streak ends right now. And I'm like, that is the energy that I've been looking for. And with the young core that they have and everything that's happening with their playing, the second half they played like a 98 win pace over the second half. It's like, the energy is good. The momentum is great. Let's go.

This ends now. Well, boy, I hope that you didn't just Brian Dozier this yourself. No, I think that dismissing it is the wrong way to go. I think embracing it and being like, yes, this is the identity that we're dealing with. This is the reality of the situation. I really wish that it was a best of five instead of a best of three. We had one more shot, but they're all at target field. So I got to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Does the fact that it's not going to be a Yankees-Twins rematch matter one iota? Do you feel, is there any part of you that feels like we not only have to win one we've got to beat the yankees at some point or are you content with just let's let's get on the board here let's get a w i think that 80 of me is like let's just get a w because obviously there was the series against oakland in 2006 and then there's the series against the astros in 2020 if we get the astros this year then that will be a little nice you know little extra bonus point to be able to get past that way and gets a little bit of a revenge quote unquote but there's a little part of me that is like man it would be really nice if we just swept the yankees like 40 to nothing over three games and really just

exercise some demons a little bit that would be really nice but i don't want to tempt the wrath from high atop the thing so i'll i'll be thankful that we're not we're not having to have that extra baggage on top of it right so it's not just that they've lost 18 in a row, it's that they really should have won a lot of those. They were well on their way to winning a lot of those, and so it's extra, extra improbable.

Is there a specific game that caused you the most pain? 2009 Game 2. 2009 Game 2. 2009 Game 2. That's the only only answer is that also the most statistically it's not it's not okay so 2004 game 4 oh i need to look it 2009 game two, I think they were 91.7% to win, but that is the Joe Maurer double. The Phil Cousy, it's the top of the 11th. Joe Maurer comes to bat to lead things off, and he hits a ball down the left field line it glances off the left fielder's

glove in fair territory lands fair phil cuzzy because it's the postseason they have two extra umpires down the foul lines phil cuzzy is 15 feet away and he calls it foul this ended up leading to so it would have been a double it would have been a ground rule double he ended up getting a single instead then they hit two more singles mauer absolutely would have scored and now people like well they would have pitched to the next hitters you know differently or something like that just let me have my mom okay they mauer gets to third it's like kubel singles and then the batter after kubel singles it's bases loaded nobody out and then immediately the twins go line drive pop fly dribbler and the twins don't score and then immediately in the bottom of the 11th mark to share hits a home run to walk off the

twins oh it's a tough one that is that is the game that haunts haunts me and it i know that i'm not the only one there was also like a carlos gomez running error earlier where we would delman young would have scored on a hit but carlos gomez got thrown out on the baits paths on a total toot plan before Delman Young could cross home. That would have been the winning run. There's just so much in that game that if you had hair at the beginning of that game, you have less by the end. I mean, you knew we were going to ask you about it being painful, but I love how Ben's like, so relive your worst baseball trauma. I've been reliving it for the last few months.

Do you remember what it is? I made a movie about it. Do you have a specific one in mind? And of course you're like, here is the exact moment when my hopes and dreams ended. Yes. What you were saying about how you can't assume that the sequence of events would have been the same if other things had gone differently. events would have been the same if other things had gone differently. That, in my mind, because I grew up watching the Yankees beat the Twins sometimes, is always my mind immediately goes to, oh, that's the fallacy of the predetermined outcome, because that's what Michael Kay calls

it. And I don't know if anyone else calls it that. I don't know if he coined that. If you Google fallacy of the predetermined outcome, every result is Michael K. related. The Urban Dictionary definition comes up and it says it's Michael K. It's just he coined that. I mean, he didn't coin that concept. There must be a more technical name for that, but I like his branding there's just a whole generation of yankees fans and maybe baseball fans who think oh yeah fallacy of the predetermined outcome it's it's michael k's lingo for that i'm just sitting i'm just sitting here stewing right now like uh i there's there's a i i keep waiting to hear when you get to the uh the yankees horror montage i keep waiting to hear back from you and be like, ah, yes, yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, I was on the other side of that.

It was not horror for me, maybe, at the time. I've been always very nice and not brought it up with you. So I encourage people to check this out, ideally, I guess, before the playoffs start over this weekend while the streak is still alive and has not been snapped or extended. But of course, you can watch it whenever. It's a good retrospective. And if you like a John Boyce style sports documentary, then you will certainly enjoy the Chris Hannell style sports documentary as well i hang a lantern on it it is it is a very like john boyce is like my filmmaking hero and there's there's very much like i wanted to make a film this was the language that i understood i started to work out my own voice and whatnot i got a lot of people being like you stole from john boyce and it's like this i cannot make it stressful yes i'm absolutely

drawing from that influence and loving working in that space and doing my own stuff with it. But yeah, like if of all the people that could be like, hey, I watched your film. It was really good. If John Boyce did that, I'd melt into a puddle. So yeah, absolutely. either about the video or about the twins streak and fans suffering any fun facts or extremely unfun facts or stats that you came across during the making of this video. I do want to say like genuinely just kind of in Meg's direction, like fan graphs made this video possible in a lot of ways. There's so many stats that I was able to dig through and I used the fan graphs when expectancy instead of the Baseball Ref win expectancy because it has another magnitude of precision. There was a lot of defensive stats that I dug into for the 2017 argument about the Joe Maurer first baseball glove that never was.

But Fangraphs is all throughout this video. And so thanks to Fangraphs for making it possible. I appreciate that very much. Glad it was a good resource. It was an excellent resource. I would say hug your local Twins fan because they're going to need it over the next few days in the lead up to all of this. And yeah, I continue to be blown away by how much people have enjoyed the film and the feedback that I've gotten. I continue to be blown away by how much people have enjoyed the film and the feedback that I've gotten.

And anything that I could say about the twins is probably in the video because it's all there. Trust me. Yep. All right. Well, we will link to it. You can find it on YouTube or on our show page, The Minnesota Twins and the Cruelest Streak in Sports by Chris Hannell. And we hope for your sake, I or at least i do meg i do reserve judgment to to see who the twins more than one team can have post-season success at the same time it's okay yeah but not if they're playing each other i mean i guess you gotta understand

if the twins win one game yeah right that's catharsis. So if for some reason, God forbid, it's Twins Mariners and the Twins lose two games to one, there's still gonna be so much celebration in Minneapolis. That's not what I'm rooting for. But I'm will, it's going to be so much cheaper than therapy is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. That, that sounds sort of like a nice mindset to go into October with. Like just, I would say low expectations, except that the twins have failed to satisfy that expectation of winning a game for a very long time. It's not a fan base. It's a support group. Yeah, I guess that's true. But most fan bases will still be upset even if they had a good season.

If they lose, when they lose, every team but one eventually loses will be upset about that. I'm sure Twins fans would be disappointed, obviously, if they get knocked out. But if there's the consolation prize of at least we won one and this monkey is off our back, then- They'll be able to enjoy success again, is what I'm trying to say. It's like when every victory comes with that looming dread of, well, yeah, but we're still just going to run into a brick wall in the playoffs, you can't fully embrace the the good moments and that's what i want back for this for this franchise again is being able to do that will you be making an addendum to the video

one way or another if if the streak ends or if the streak is expended i've gone on record in some places and been like yeah i think i have to i don't know like it really depends on what happens and also like this video just about killed me man uh just in terms of the amount of the amount of energy i put into it and the emotional energy it's like i i really need to see what's gonna happen and then maybe i do the addendum maybe i don't but hey you, who's to say what the future holds? Well, I hope if you do, it's a happy addendum. So best of luck with the video and best of luck with the Twins playoff run. Thanks very much. I'm three-fifths of the way to meeting my own metric of joining the Effectively Wild Five Timers Club. I was going to say, you're always the first and only person to notify new entrants to that club.

So you will be the first to notify yourself if that happens. Yes, exactly. Well, I guess you've all got to decide whether it is better to have played and lost than never to have played at all. Mariners were barely in any playoff games over that span. They didn't even have a chance to have a long playoff losing streak. It's the eternal question whether it's worse, whether it's more heartbreaking cumulatively to just be bad and miss the playoffs every year or to be good enough to get there, but not good enough to win when you do.

There's definitely a more acute kind of pain when you make it and have your dreams dashed than when you never really had any hope or expectations at all. We recorded this episode prior to the news that the Giants were firing Gabe Kapler. One of Meg's preseason predictions on the Preseason Predictions pod was that there would be an in-season managerial firing. Just got in under the wire with that one. A semi-surprising firing. Not a great Giants season, but then not a great Giants team.

Perhaps we will touch on that more next time. And in other NL West matters, got an email from Patreon supporter Josh in response to our discussion of Josh Hader's usage and insistence on pitching only in save situations for an inning at a time. He said he agreed with just about everything we said, but he reminded me of one quote from Hader that I forgot to mention. He said, ultimately, what rubbed me and many others the wrong way was neither Hader's failing to appear in the game nor his playoff race comment, because it's true

that despite somehow still being alive, the Padres are effectively eliminated. It's what he said after, quote, you guys want me to do everything, end quote. Definitionally, because of the way the Padres deploy Hayter, he's neither asked to do everything nor to do anything more than any other closer pitching today is asked to do. The comment came across as a shot at the fans and media for being unreasonable, even though we only expect that Hader will do the bare minimum as a closer 95% of the time and hope that he will get out of his comfort zone to help the team the other 5% of the time. It's true. Wanting him to get four outs instead of three on occasion,

it's a little different from wanting him to do everything. Meg and I want you to support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay almost ad-free aside from our stat blast sponsorship,

and get themselves access to some perks. Chiplock, Jason Eades, Will Labadee, Cameron, and Chris Baber. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, access to monthly bonus episodes, one of which we'll be recording this weekend, playoff live streams coming up soon, discounts on ad-free Fangraphs memberships and merch, and so much more.

Check out all the offerings. Sign up now to get in on the playoff live streams, patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. Anyone and everyone, though, can contact us via email. Send us your questions and comments at podcastatfangraphs.com. You can send us your intro and outro themes, too, if you want to join our listener rotation. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectivelywild. Shane McKeon is off today. Filling in for him is our old friend back in the fold, Dylan Higgins. Thanks to Dylan for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the last gasps of the playoff race and the regular season. And we will be back to talk to you early next week.

Does baseball look the same to you as it does to me? When we look at baseball, how much do we see? Well, the curveballs bend and the home runs fly. More to the game than meets the eye. To get the stats compiled and the stories filed. Fans on the internet might get riled, but we can break it

down on Effectively Wild.