Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2147: Rising Tides

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Athletics’ intermediate move to Sacramento, the Royals’ failed public funding referendum, a Davis Schneider self scouting report, a wild Diamondbacks-Yankees game that ended with a pitcher at the plate, whether a DH day is really like a partial day off, whether the Triple-A Norfolk Tides are better […]

A baseball podcast, analytics and stats, with Ben and Meg, from Fangraphs. Effectively live. Effectively live. Effectively live. Then do we know? Hello and welcome to episode 2147 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. of the ringer joined by meg rally of fan graphs hello meg hello how excited are you to see baseball in the most intimate park in major league baseball sutter health coming soon to a major league near you well i feel really sad for people in oakland mostly what an end to an important franchise and i franchise. And I know that they're technically

going to be one franchise still, that this is a new chapter rather than a conclusion. But like, isn't it a conclusion though? Isn't it an end? Yeah. Still the A's, still the Athletics, just no city name to go with the team name now. They won't be the Sacramento A's, just the A's. Yeah, I liked that they did that. I was like, I know that this is a concern that isn't shared by many, but like from a data provider perspective, like, well, Oak, you're still sticking with Oak or do you want us to use SAC as your three little acro? We are going to need something, friends. I'm struck by like how unceremonious the announcement itself was it has

felt for a long time like uh john fisher just cannot wait to be done with the city of oakland there wasn't you know when it was originally announced like thank you oakland i don't know if that has surfaced since it wasn't done with a tremendous amount of care, which I suppose is unsurprising given the rest of the track record here. I feel really bad for folks in Oakland. I feel like this guy who has really no charisma to speak of and isn't seemingly all that invested in being a steward of an institution for his community just kind of snuck out of town, which is weird because they're going to still play at the Coliseum for another year. You know, I guess an answer had to be given as to where they were going to play after that, because it seemed unlikely that there could be a productive working relationship between him and the people who

live in Oakland and are served by that municipal government. But it's just a really sad thing. And such a Fisher kind of moment, both big and small, right? Like the idea that this big decision would be announced this way feels very of a piece with him. And then that he would stand up there and talk about an opposing player hitting home runs in his home ballpark. Can't wait to see Aaron Judge play at Sutter Health Park. I made this remark on Twitter. I know everyone loves it when you regale people with your own tweets,

but there is something about these guys just having no juice at all that I really enjoy. It's dangerous, I think, to society when billionaires are charismatic who could think of a couple of examples just like off the top of your head but um it's better when they have no feel for these moments right when they demonstrate that they are in fact either completely lacking in charisma or like weird little guys you know i love it when they're like i'm a weird little guy i'm gonna show you how and then you're like oh i don't think we want to follow that weird little guy anywhere it's better when when that's who they are and who they demonstrate themselves to be and i i don't know what explanation is funnier that he genuinely thought that the assembled media there

presumably to regale people who might have a vested interest in the A's doing well with like how this is all going to go that they they themselves would be excited about Aaron Judge hitting a home run against the A's or or that he just couldn't think of literally even one guy you know it's like yeah Billy on the street uh Giff or it's like name a woman you know name N.A. and just like Brent Rooker just say Brent Rooker he hits say Brent Rooker. He hits home runs. That interview Fisher did at some point where people zoomed in and he had a notepad with like Mark Kotze's name written on it and two players just in case he had to mention an A. So, yeah. An A. And look, you know, there are times when we, as people who I hope have more juice than John Fisher, although certainly

far less in the way of net worth, like, you know, we'll be recording and we know baseball players, you know, famously, you and I could name a lot of them if we were just to start regaling people with all the players we could name like that. That's an entire episode, you know, a series. We'll blank on a guy, we'll blank on a guy's name, and I can imagine a more generous interpretation of that where you're just like, you're nervous, you know that the conversation isn't going to go well because people are inherently skeptical of you because of, you know, your own actions, and you're worried you're going to blank on it in a way that doesn't actually represent the depth of your knowledge but is in fact

going to be embarrassing for you. But also i i think there's just a really strong possibility he doesn't he doesn't know he just doesn't he just doesn't give him the benefit of the doubt on that one you know there's a lot we can say about john fisher and we should say all those things because why let that guy off the hook but i think that this is another good example of like the original sin really just being like, why does this guy get to own a big league franchise? Like, I know that the answer is cynical and cold and that the other owners probably don't want to set the precedent of kicking a guy out

because what happens if they get kicked out? But surely you could say, this guy is engaged in like rent seeking behavior that we don't like, we're paying him to be an embarrassment. Like, why does this guy get to be one of the 30 people who represents this? Like, I don't know, again, maybe it's useful. Maybe it's useful in the same way

that him having no juice is useful, where it's like, this is what it is. There are gonna be guys who are more charismatic. You know, I'm saying guys, because the the front facing people of these organizations are very often men. They're not your friends, you know, which doesn't mean that there aren't some of them who are engaged in better stewardship of their franchises than John Fisher is. It wouldn't be hard for that to be true, but like they're not your pals.

You know, he's not your uncle, Uncle Steve, actually. Like, he's not. No one's making that mistake or getting confused on that point with John Fisher. But you know what I mean? Like, I think that them being understood as they actually are has some utility because you hope as a fan that you aren't going to need to have sort of an antagonistic posture towards your team's ownership group. But it's always good to have that club in your bag. And I think that having these moments where we're reminded of what the real terms of the engagement are, it can be useful, but painfully won. And I wish that A's fans didn't have to keep being our sort

of example of that because they didn't do anything to deserve that at all. So, yeah. But provisionally, tentatively, that seems to be the case. We'll believe anything that happens or doesn't happen with them when it happens or doesn't happen. But supposedly, they will be playing at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, home of the Sacramento River Cats, the AAA affiliate of the Giants in the Pacific Coast League, for at least the next three years. But there's an option for more, maybe four, maybe five, maybe who knows. We'll see. We'll see when they get this Las Vegas situation sorted, which may never happen. So it doesn't even really feel like progress or a step closer to the goal. Like at least let's get this behind us. This is embarrassing. Like let's rip theAid off. They have to play somewhere. Fine. It doesn't even feel like you're really getting closer to deliverance because there's really

no guarantee, no reason for confidence that this will actually materialize in Las Vegas, that they won't just sort of be stuck in limbo forever. And that option only means that we're going to be talking about this for years to come. Like, I'm sort of sick of the guy now. It has been the level of incompetence and the level of just dissembling and deceit. It has almost at times been amusing just how badly they've bungled all of this. But I don't know that I can take four more years, four more years of this. It's, this is enough. This seems like the sort of thing that used to happen. Like you read about, oh, this team was forced to play in a minor league

ballpark for a few years while there was a remodel going on or someone moved out to the West Coast for the first time or all wooden ballpark burned down or something, right? It just feels like archaic. Like this is still happening. This is even within the realm of possibility that a major league team could play at a AAA park for three years or more. And it's not even the attendance.

People have pointed out that the capacity is only 10,000 or so plus 4,000 who can sit on the grass. Not that I think they're going to have huge overflow crowds here, I wouldn't imagine. So that's not even a problem. I mean, that would be the problem long-term, but who's going to want to go see this team? I guess if you live in Sacramento, it's like, oh, cool, we're briefly a big league town. That's kind of interesting. I'll go see this at least once, but they're not even taking your name, you know?

How can you get attached? Like, you're not going to really root. They're just the ultimate transient team. And because they're the A's, it's not like the people of Sacramento don't know what is happening here or how this team ended up there or where it's going. It's just, it's the ultimate mercenary team. It's like they're playing there so that they can keep their TV deal or at least some percentage of their lucrative.

Yeah, a portion of it. Right. And so it's totally transactional. They're just sort of using this place. It's totally transactional. They're just sort of using this place. It was the best of a bunch of bad options if they were not willing to actually pay up to stay in Oakland. And so who's going to have any attachment to that team?

Part of me thinks maybe it's better to just get out of town just because it won't torment anyone in Oakland if they're not physically there. Like we've used the analogy of it's a breakup, but you're still cohabitating. Someone has to find a new place to live and it's awkward and you're passing each other in the halls and it's sad because there was just a big breakup. Well, maybe just getting them out of the Coliseum, out of town, out of sight, slightly out of mind, Maybe that's better.

And maybe it just exposes how embarrassing the whole thing is that they ended up in that situation. But it's going to be protracted. And you're looking at just, I mean, we're going to have to watch this team sometimes when they play like actually good teams. Actual teams, yeah. When Aaron Judge goes to the most intimate park and we want to see him hit homers there i mean it is funny like i think that he you know i gave him grief

about it but i think he did sort of he being john fisher did sort of land on the the appeal that we're likely to see which is other teams and and bigger stars kind of cycling through but it's still like saying it out loud is sure something you know and you know they're gonna have to make improvements to that ballpark like there are standards that have to be met that aren't just about you know it being gussied up um to look good like there are facility standards within the collective bargaining agreement about what the clubhouse has to contain. And I know that there are rules around facilities for various coaches and that sort of thing. And I don't quite know exactly where that ballpark stands in terms of its upgrades. I know that

minor league facilities and minor league parks getting upgraded has been a question separate from concerns about big leaguers playing there, but for minor leaguers playing there under the terms of their new CBA. So there is going to be work to be done to make that a big league caliber facility. You know, we talked about the lights getting upgraded at Chase. Who knows what upgrades are going to need to make to the Rivercats facility. I mean, I'm excited, I guess, for the minor leaguers to come a couple years from now, because they're probably going to be like, well, this visit in clubhouse is really nice. But yeah, the whole thing just feels so cold and calculated. And it's, I don't know, I was thinking about this too, because I saw, you know, as people were reacting to this on Twitter, Mullet Arena, where the Arizona Coyotes play was like

catching strays because they're another example of this, right? Like the most recent baseball example we have of this is the Blue Jays having to kind of play in their various minor league facilities because of the pandemic and border crossings and what have you. But the most recent like good professional example of this is probably the Coyotes playing in Mollet Arena. And I say this as a Tempe voter who voted against giving money to the Arizona Coyotes to build an NHL facility here. So we are likely to not have them in town.

Look, it bums me out that there aren't good circumstances under which this sort of experience can happen because people are like it looks amateurish and the people who say that that watching hockey at mallet arena is amateurs have never gone in person I submit because in person it whips man like it it is so fun but there's there just isn't a good circumstance under which you get that stuff unless like I guess to your point there have been times in the past where teams have had to play at college facilities while a new facility was being built but like you know the Blue Jays had to play on the road because of a global pandemic not exactly a circumstance we

want to replicate anytime soon right and the Coyotes are playing where they are because they like skipped out of town on Glendale so like it's just there aren't there aren't times when you get this and it like feels great, which is too bad. Because like it is it is fun and weird to be like sitting there going like I'm just watching an NHL team play at a place that I can walk to from ASU's campus. And why? Why is that? That's so weird. And it's called Mullet Arena, Ben. After a person, not the hair. It's not a, but you know, it's like, it's cool. It is a cool, weird experience, but we so rarely get the right set of circumstances to feel like unequivocally good. Like I bet that going to these games is going to be kind of fun in some ways, at least like the experience of watching big leaguers play in that ballpark,

but you're not going to feel good about it. Feeling good. You're going to be disappointed. Cause like it sucks. The whole thing sucks. Yeah. Trevor Hildenberger, the former player,

he was with the river cats briefly at least last year. So he's played there and he tweeted no family room, no mother's room, no shade or bathrooms in the bullpens, only one shared batting cage. If you thought the Coliseum facilities were lacking ellipsis. So I just, there's no way you could upgrade that

to be like big league quality. I mean, you can get it up to the bare minimum maybe, but it's not going to be like any other park. And gosh, the scheduling is going to be a hassle figuring that out. And it just, it's going to set this organization back. Like whenever they extricate themselves from this mess, whenever Fisher finally sells the team, this is going to hang over them for a long time because this is the sort of thing where even if you eventually move to a better situation, you're missing out on years of building bonds with fans, developing players with quality

facilities. There's all sorts of advantages that other teams have. Again, not that the Coliseum was state-of-the-art or anything, but at least you had fans who cared about your team and it was a big league ballpark. And this, you're just sabotaging yourself for years to come, potentially, even when you manage to move somewhere that is actually major league and permanent. So yeah, sick of this guy. Get him out of there. I don't know how or when that will ever happen, but it just, it never ends with this organization. And also like the people who work for that team, not even the players, but like the front office, what do you even do? Like, do you commute? Do you move to Sacramento for an unspecified period of time knowing that you might then move again after that?

Or do you commute? knowing that you might then move again after that? Or do you commute? I mean, the uncertainty of working for that team, which probably would make it impossible to recruit any kind of talent, like executive talent, who's going to want to work for this mess of an organization. So you're setting yourself back in that way too. It's just, oh man, it's really bad.

Really a black eye for baseball so yeah or i guess if i go with the simpsons line this is a black day for baseball just amazing that it got to this point think of all of the different twists and turns that this saga has taken all of the possible ways it could have worked out better all of the proposed sites at oakland apparently they were like 35 million dollars or so apart on this particular deal to stay in the Coliseum for a few years. And maybe the relationships there are just irreparable and they could never work together to get a deal done here. But if that's the amount of money, that just seems like a Rob Manfred best interest of baseball clause sort of situation. Just, hey,

every other owner pay up a million or so. Just chip into the fund here because this makes all of us and the sport look bad and affects our franchise values and Fisher won't pay up. So I'll just put a million into the pot. Avert having to have all of the other teams play in a minor league park sometimes. Well, that's enough about that ballpark for now. In other ballpark news, you mentioned voting against a public ballot initiative. Well, Kansas City did that too. They rejected the initiative by the Royals, the Chiefs, to extend the surcharge, the tax that would then be repurposed toward public funding for ballparks.

That is not happening. That got soundly defeated. Yes, it did. 58 to 42, despite the fact that I think the vote to pass it side outspent the other side by 35 to one or something. It just didn't even come close to passing. And it's not clear what the actual ramifications of that will be. The royals, they came out and said, oh, we'll regroup. We'll take some time to process this. We'll figure it out.

They never just concede defeat and say, oh, well, okay. I guess the public's not going to fund our ballpark then. So much for that. It was just an idea. Just throwing it out there. You guys rejected it. So, okay, now we'll just pony up ourselves. I'm sure that they will find some other approach. They will put this back on the ballot. They will do an end around somehow, which happened in Seattle,

I guess, right? I mean, sometimes there's a referendum, which often the referendas, referenda pass, but it's, I think, at least fairer, I guess, if you had some direct say in it yourself. But they pass like 58 percent of the time. I think Neil DeMoss said it filled of schemes and this one didn't, again, because it just doesn't seem to have been handled very well. The messaging just was not very persuasive. And I don't know, sometimes the legislature will then say, oh, well, we don't need you. We'll figure out some way around this. And sometimes they'll just come back and figure out some way to give the owners whatever they want anyway. But it seems like some combination of just how

nebulous this plan was, the lack of detail, just John Sherman not being a very sympathetic figure here, people liking Kaufman and not wanting to leave that place, and just no one really caring about the royals right now. I guess that probably didn't help, and they didn't really have all the local powers that be on board, and it seemed like they were going to have all the local powers that be on board. And it seemed like they were going to have to kick some businesses out of there. It was just very much unspecified exactly how this was going to work. But at least for now, it's not going to work. So that was

defeated. And for the foreseeable future, Royals stay where they are. Yeah. I don't want to overstate the likelihood that things just like work out and by workout i mean that the team ends up footing the bill for new um ballpark construction costs and stays put but i i am comforted by the fact that there have been a couple of these in a row now and not all of them in baseball and so who knows how precedent setting they will feel to team owners and certainly we have you know a team in the midst of relocation even this very moment and we have another municipality potentially on the hook to pay for a new stadium in the tampa bay st pete area they're

the tampa bay i know that it's not i know it's tampa sorry i look you should have named it a different thing you just should have named it a different thing because everybody gets mad because we say tampa bay and that's not the name of the place. And then I do what the A's are doing. Just omit the city name altogether. I'm not trying to make a point. I'm not trying to be sloppy. I'm just saying that you guys named it this thing.

And then you get mad when people shorten it to that thing because it's not the name of the place. It's the name of the body of water. Anyway, so all of that to say, like, you know, this could all turn either in the direction of them finding a way to secure public financing in a different avenue, using a different avenue or them exploring relocation. Maybe this is Pollyannish, but I do feel like the tide is sort of turning on this stuff where, you know, maybe it's because we have other stuff we are obviously needing to worry about, like as a country. But it's just like, really, we're going to spend it on this, you know, like on the coyotes in the flight path to Sky Harbor. Like, no, we're not doing that. And I think it's good that there are increasing examples of these sorts of things, but who knows? Maybe they're going to actually build a ballpark on the strip and they're going to have the good people of St. Petersburg, see? Struggling, Ben. Anyway, good job, Casey.

Good job. It's good. So far. Meant to mention, there was a comment by Alex Cora after the Red Sox beat the A's 1-0 that was so sort of backhanded. Well, not a compliment. It wasn't close to a compliment. direct insult to the A's, though he didn't mean it that way because he basically berated himself and the Red Sox for how poorly they played in this win over the A's. So he said, yeah, we didn't play well. Defensively, we were bad and we ended up winning the game, which is the most important thing. The guys kept grinding, et cetera, et cetera. We hit a lot of ground balls, a lot of non-competitive at bats and all that. We didn't play good defense. We pitched well enough, and we ended up winning. I wonder what that feels like for the A's. I guess they're used to it, but when you get shut out, you lose one to nothing, and the victor basically

comes out and self-flagellates about how poorly they played. Like, we stunk out there. Boy, we were bad, and yet they won the game, which,unk out there. Boy, we were bad. And yet they won the game, which, what does that say about the team that you beat? But again, I guess the A's, they've been through that a few times. I feel like the guys who play for the A's this year

should be entitled to, like, restitution. You know? And, like, above and beyond their base salaries, because, boy, I don't know. Look, we're as guilty of this as anyone. But boy, do they catch a lot of straights, those guys, you know, and like they're just trying to be big leaguers. They're just trying to play baseball. I feel bad for them because it doesn't feel fair to me that they should, you know, have to be this exemplar.

And I'm not really taking issue with anything that Alex Corr said, honestly. Like, I think he's not wrong all you had to do is look at our positional power rankings to see how poorly this team projects which doesn't mean they don't have individual standouts and it doesn't mean that they don't have guys who might grow into something and you know they have a lot of players who could be complementary pieces on a different roster but are just being you know they're being asked to do something that they aren't really set up to do well, which is be, you know,

first division regulars and a lot of them aren't. So, you know, I was just mean, I was just mean about it and saying we should be less mean about it, you know? Yeah, no, of course, he wasn't trying to insult the A's. He was just, he was saying, just cut talking about the Red Sox. It's just that if the Red Sox played that badly and they won, what does that say about the other side? So it's not Alex Kors' problem to defend the A's. And I'm sure he didn't even intend it that way. It just stood out to me.

I would love to read just the oral history of these years. I love to read just the oral history of these years. Someday when John Fisher sells the team, something happens, that team is pried out of his hands. And the players who are on the team now are not on the team anymore and they can speak freely about it. Just because when Trevor May retired, he came out like instantly

and was on a Twitch stream and said, sell the team, right? And I don't expect people who are currently on the team to do that, but I would love to know what they're thinking. I'd love to have Brent Rooker back someday when he's no longer an A or John Fisher is no longer an A so that we can hear his unvarnished thoughts on the subject. Because those guys, like even if they're trying to focus on baseball, which I'm sure they are, they can't affect the situation.

What are they going to do? So, you probably just put your head down. I mean, probably everyone has been at a bad job or has had a bad boss at some point and you just make the best of the situation. And, hey, you're in the majors. You're making major league money. It could be worse, right? But maybe you try your best to forget about it, but you can't possibly forget about it. Like, how could you even put it out of your mind? It's like, oh, I guess we're playing in Sacramento

next year. Okay, then take that in stride. So they must have some stories, you know, just about how cheap everything is and what it's like to play for this team at this time of uncertainty. And I would like to hear those stories someday. So I hope they get a chance to tell them. Yeah. Okay. Here's another little quote that stood out to me. David Schneider. So he got Josh Hader, right?

David Schneider versus Josh Hader. And after the game, after the big hit, Schneider was being interviewed and he said that he couldn't believe that Hayter had thrown him an off-speed pitch. He said, I'm surprised he didn't throw me a fastball. Fastballs up are kind of my kryptonite, but he just hung a slider in there.

And I was thinking, I don't know how often you hear a player divulge what their kryptonite is. I guess it's not a secret. Anyone could look at his maps and his hot zones and cold zones and look at the data. So maybe it's the sort of thing where what's the downside of saying it, really. But I don't know that I have encountered a player so plainly saying, gosh, he could have gotten me out so easily if he had just done this instead. You know, it was top of the ninth.

This was it was like the Blue Jays were down one nothing and Schneider hit a two run homer to win the game. It was the top of the ninth. So it wasn't a walk-off. But for him to just be like, here's what you should do. Future pitchers who were facing me in that situation, just throw me a fastball up and no problem. I don't know if any pitcher is paying attention to Davis Schneider's postgame quotes. And if this is accurate, then it should be in the scouting report anyway. So I don't know, maybe no harm done. It's endearing. It's self-deprecating. It's humble of him. But yeah, I mean, you're just kind of giving away the game plan there. But maybe it would have mattered more in an earlier era where

the book on you wasn't as objective as it can be now when you didn't have the data to bring to bear. So he's not necessarily divulging any secrets here. And yet, still, why give them the key to unlock a plate appearance against you? I guess, but I think that generally, I would imagine if you're David Schneider, I would imagine this is true of any hitter. If you do get Josh Hader, you probably feel really excited about that but you maybe have a you know a sense that you ought to have display some amount of modesty so maybe this is a way to like have your cake and eat it too you know i don't think there's any you know i'm sure that there are things that a hitter or a pitcher for that matter could divulge about sort of how

to approach them their understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses that would venture closer to something proprietary. But like, you know, how well you hit fastballs versus breaking stuff or whatever, like that's, you know, we can figure that out, you know? And so I don't think that you're really in danger of anything like that. So I don't know. know yeah unless it's all a ruse it's a ploy he actually wants fastballs up and he's just like oh he really made a mistake there because if he'd thrown me that fastball up then he would have gotten me out automatically it's like stories you hear about hitters setting up a pitcher by intentionally looking bad on a pitch so that later in the game they'll get that pitch and they'll punish it, which I never know whether to believe those fully.

And also, even if it were true, I'm not sure that would actually be a wise strategy to sort of concede on a pitch or a plate appearance in the hope that maybe later you'll get that pitch in a situation that matters more. But yeah, that's probably not what's happening here. Still stood out to me. Okay. Another thing that stood out to me, there was quite a wild Diamondbacks-Yankees game.

Yeah. Which ended with a pitcher hitting. Yeah. Not actually hitting, but batting, bringing a bat to the plate, making a plate appearance. Getting called out on a questionable strike three. Yeah.

Yeah. Not totally his fault. Not totally his fault. Although, like, I don't want to overstate things. I don't imagine that if the plate appearance had continued on that Scott McGuff would have had much better luck. Scott McGuff, the crime dog. Yeah. Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you.

So, like, I really want his name to be said Magoo. Like, for some reason, the way that it's spelled just reads like it should be Scott Magoo. And it's definitely not Scott Magoo. And I obviously would never call him Scott Magoo because that's not his name. His name is Scott McGuff. have that thing where you like say a word in your own brain um not out loud or maybe even allowed a lot and then you go into a setting where you have to say the right thing and then you're like don't say i'm a good don't say i'm a good don't say my good don't i'm very nervous that at some point this year i'm going to be in the d-backs clubhouse and be like my goo and then he's gonna be like who is that and why is she allowed in here i worry about it yeah Yeah. That for me, you were talking the other day about how you can tell when someone was really a reader if they mispronounce words, but they know a lot of words. Yeah, I try to look out for that and be vigilant and look up the pronunciation of any word that I might have any doubts about. Yeah. I might not know what I don't know sometimes.

I think I'm fairly good at that. But there was one when I was a kid where I remember misled. I thought in my head was misled. Oh, okay. Misled, misled. Yeah. And at some point, they just seemed like different words to me. And then at some point, I had this epiphany like, oh, misled.

Like, that's misled. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. But there is still, however many years later, and to be clear, it was many, many years ago that I had this revelation. There's still some part of me that when I see that word, I'm like, oh, mizeled. And then I have to remind myself, nope, remember, it's not mizeled, it's misled. You know that. You're an adult. You're an English major. An adult. Yep.

Maybe. Okay. So, this game that we were just talking about. My apologies. I got us off course. Diamondbacks-Yakis. Yeah. It went to extras.

Yes. And the Diamondbacks ran out of players for various reasons. Yeah. players for various reasons. So there was a, well, there was a pinch hitting appearance earlier in the game, which subtracted from some of the depth. It was what, like Jace Peterson pinch hit for someone and therefore was not available at a later point in the game. And then Geraldo Perdomo got injured. He got hurt. He was the shortstop. And so the Diamondbacks needed a shortstop. And they had to move Quetel Marte to play short.

And Quetel Marte had started that game at DH. And so when you move your DH out into the field, you lose your DH. And there was no recourse. They were just out of pinch hitters. They were out of infielders. There was nothing they could do except send Scott McGuff up there. And Aaron Boone of the Yankees knew that. He knew Scott McGuff was coming up. And he loaded the bases to face Scott McGuff. And Scott McGuff struck out. And yes, it was an unfavorable call for Scott McGuff. But I don't know how much it would have mattered really. Scott McGuff had hit most recently in NPB in 2019, I believe.

So he had made a professional plate appearance, but it had been a while. And we do occasionally see pitchers still making plate appearances in extremists like this. I mean, sometimes it's just for fun. It's like Adam Wainwright took a couple of plate appearances at the end of his career or David Robertson a couple of years ago hit against a position player pitcher and they were pals and it was just fun and he wanted to make one plate appearance in his career. So, sometimes it's that, but sometimes there is some wacky situation like this. And I enjoy that now when it happens because it's so rare. I do not miss pitchers hitting as a routine matter whatsoever. And yet I'm glad that this can still happen in some extremely strange situation where you exhaust all your other options. And then you have to send a pitcher up there. And then we're reminded, oh, yeah, they used to do this all the time.

This was not like break glass in case of emergency. They were in the starting lineup. Like they hit in every game. That happens. They played like that for a really long time. And then I'm relieved that that doesn't happen anymore, but still sort of tickled that it happens every once in a while. I guess I'm glad that they're not completely extinct every now and then you see one in the wild, a pitcher hitting. Well, and then you can get the circumstance that we got yesterday where in addition to having to hit and striking out, McGuff also took the loss in this game.

So he kind of doubled up on that in a way that I'm sure he felt particularly bad about but yeah it was a it was a wild one and it was so wild the game in fact that part of me even though this is absolutely not how like reality unfolds was like well surely he's gonna just you know he's gonna he's gonna get him here and tie it up again and they're gonna have to keep playing because in this game like you know they had gone to extra innings alex verdugo had homer to put them them being the yankees up four to two in the the top of the tenth and then arizona just managed to to retie it and force it to the 11th which is why mcguff was up there to hit it all you know judge had doubled to put them being the yankees back ahead a bit in the, in the bottom of the 11th. And then obviously like they came close, like they came, they came close, Ben, you know, like, and, and like, because of Jorge Barroso of, of all people who, you know, doesn't have

a ton of big league experience. And it's just like a little wee, he's just a little wee guy, you know, he's actually my height. He's listed at my height, which is spectacular. Yes. He's quite small. Yeah. By his quick league standards.

Or by average man standards for that matter, but especially by big league standards. It was Blaze Alexander who Jace Peterson had pinch hit for. Alexander was the starting second baseman. The thing, is though the reason

why they ended up, or one of the reasons why they ended up in this weird situation was that Quetel Marte was DHing instead of starting at second. Right. And I thought this was interesting because I assumed that he was DHing just to get the proverbial half a day off because he had started every Diamondbacks game to that point. It was only six previous games, but it's early in the season. He was starting at second base every day. And so I assume they wanted to just give him a partial day off but keep his bat in the lineup. And so that set up this situation that eventually developed.

And Russell Carlton at Baseball Perspectives just did some research into the partial day off, the DH day off, and whether it actually does anything. Because Hannah Kaiser just wrote a story for The Ringer, which I had the pleasure of editing, about the DH and how the universal DH has been a bit of a letdown, offensively speaking. offensively speaking. Again, way better than pitcher hitting, but DHS have not been particularly good in the past few years or really the past several years. If you look at like rolling five-year averages of DH production, this is actually the worst ever. And part of that is just because, well, they doubled the number of DH spots. And so you're diluting the talent pool a little bit, probably. NL team's still struggling to put good DHs out there. So that's part of it. But another big part of it is just that we've gone to the timeshare DH and fewer teams have dedicated DHs than they used to. It's

sort of a rotation now where you just cycle guys through that spot, the idea being that you give them a bit of a break. And Russell just did some research to show that giving a guy a full day off really does help. It does sort of reset you. It makes you better offensively. If you play a bunch of games in a row, you hit worse, accounting for various factors. And if you get that day off and then you play feeling fresher, it actually does make a difference. But however he looked, he could not find any effect for the partial day off, which is really interesting because it suggests maybe that a big part of the benefit of the day off is not necessarily physical. I mean, even if you're taking a partial day off,

there's still some exertion going on. You're still, whatever, taking batting practice and you're taking swings and maybe you're getting on base and you're running around and you're staying warm between plate appearances. So you're exerting yourself a little bit, but you're not standing out there in the field. But what that suggests maybe is that it's not even as much about just standing out in the field because depending on the day and what position you're playing, it might not be that strenuous to stand out there in the field. knowing you're going to be in there, doing your whole pregame routine, the pressure of just being a big league player, which is just sort of a baseline for all these guys. Maybe they're not even totally conscious of how stressful it seems as it would be for anyone else in the world. But still, maybe it's that. Maybe it's the psychological strain as much as anything else.

Maybe it's the psychological strain as much as anything else. And if that's the case, if the whole timeshare DH plan is premised on the idea that getting that half day off is actually restorative and it's not so much, then maybe that plan isn't working so well. Maybe that plan should be reevaluated. Maybe someone should go sign Brandon Belt to DH for them. He was really good at that last year, you know? So like teams are increasingly thinking, oh, we don't want to clog up that DH spot. We don't want to take up that spot because we need it to give guys partial rest days.

But if the partial rest day is not actually that restful, maybe you don't. And maybe you do just want sort of a slugger that you stick in there. Because Russell has also found that the DH penalty, where hitters tend to hit worse on the days they're DHing than the days they're playing the field, that seems to go away when you regularly DH, when you're used to it, when you develop a routine. And so maybe you're impairing players' performance if you don't allow them to get into that routine because you're constantly cycling guys through there. So I thought that was really interesting.

And also, sometimes Scott McGuff ends up hitting. So that's not good either. And, you know, I think I'm not suggesting you're saying this, but like it's not I don't think the D-backs were engaged in sort of like some sort of roster construction malfeasance here. Like the reason this any of this was a problem was because Perdomo got hurt, right? Like if Perdomo doesn't get hurt, then you don't have to swap Cattell into that position and you don't lose the DH. And then like he just, you know, the part that I was surprised by, I want to return to the idea of the DH stuff that Russell found in a second. But like there isn't another pitcher on the roster that's a better hitter than scott mcguff like really there's not even one guy who's like you don't have a starter who you can just be like

well i guess uh you know zach allen go take some hacks up there um i don't know if that would have been a better uh solution but like really scott mcguff's the best okay it's the best yeah i mean at least again he had a professional plate appearance it's the best yeah i mean at least again he had a professional plate appearance on his resume yeah yeah i mean some teams you know they might have like a guy who was a two-way player in college or high school at least or something but a lot of teams it's going to be pretty slim pickings at this point because they just haven't had to hit for a long time right exactly probably increasingly slim pickings as time goes on, and that becomes even less of a thing that pitchers do. But it tracks to me. I think that we, just as human beings, put too much faith in the restorative power of short breaks. Like, I took two days off at the beginning of this week because I was like, I am very tired. And am I glad I rested?

I am glad. And should I have done that? Yeah. But, like, am I actually less tired? I mean, maybe a little bit, but it's like the stuff compounds over time. I think the place where you probably could see some benefit theoretically, and it's going to depend on the guys. Like, do you have more time in that working day before you have to play to like commit to,

you know, getting treatment or what have you. Right. If they tell you the night before. Right. Yeah. As opposed to you show up at the ballpark and you've been doing your regular routine

and then, oh, I'm de-aging today. You're de-aging today and it's like, oh, well, I guess I would have done a different morning. Also, do you think the Norfolk Tides are better than the

Colorado Rockies? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I think they might be. I honestly think at least offensively, at least the lineup, I honestly think they might be. The Baltimore Orioles AAA affiliate versus the Colorado Rockies major league team. I mean, forget about like long-term.

That's not even a question I'm talking about. Today. Today, right now. Could the Rockies out hit the Tides? Because the Tides have been completely crushing it. I mean, it's five games, but they are setting the minor leagues on fire here. They have, as a team, in their first five games, hit 379, 438, 772. That's a 1210 OPS as a team.

So, Heston Kerstad has been killing it. He's got a 1785 OPS. I now know how to say his name. I will not say Keston Kerstad anymore. And Jackson Holiday. Yeah, now you're going to say Scott Magoo. Yeah, maybe. And Connor Norby is killing it.

And Kobe Mayo is killing it. Kyle Stowers is killing it. Yeah. So, all these guys who were on the verge of making the roster out of spring training or are top prospects, they are very much looking like they're big league ready. And they are trouncing their minor league opponents. And so on Wednesday, they beat up the poor Knights by a score of 26-11. Yep. And the Rockies, they actually had a decent offensive game.

They scored eight runs. They still lost 9-8, but that was a good offensive showing for them. But just looking at that lineup versus the Tides lineup, I honestly think the Tides might be better. I looked up the WRC Plus projections for the respective players in the starting lineups in those two games on Wednesday. And the Tides have the worst two projections. So David Banuelos and Errol Robinson are down there at like a 60 WRC plus. So that's the lowest. But the Tides have the best projection.

It's basically like Nolan Jones is the only average or better hitter in the Rockies lineup, projections wise. Yeah. I mean, which is not hard to believe because he was kind of like the only average or better player of like, Diego Castillo 85, and then the two lower guys that I mentioned. Whereas the Rockies, it's Jones at 107. Then you got Charlie Blackman 96, Ryan McMahon 89, Chris Bryant 98, Ezekiel Tovar 77, Michael T Toglia, 73. Brenton Doyle, 63. Alan Trejo, 72. Jacob Stalling, 73.

If you just did a straight average of those numbers, then the average of the WRC Plus projections for the Tides is 90.6 and the average for the Rockies is 83.1. Yeah. I was mixing and matching projection systems. I was using the depth charts projections and Steamer for some guys who didn't have Zips projections online. But, man, it's too close for comfort. I love that at the beginning of this episode, Rocky's fans were probably sitting there being like, they're just going to talk about these. I don't have to worry.

I don't have to worry at all. And then we get here and they're like, oh, no. I have to contemplate my own crummy baseball team. I mean, I'm always reticent to say that this is like an easy answer. Like, yeah, of course they would. But like, that's a very talented team. And there's a lot of there are a lot of guys who are either at the very beginning or the very end of their career in Colorado. And I don't know that it's going to go great for any of them. I mean, apart from Jones, I think he'll have a nice year. So put it this way.

My answer to that question is, you know, you definitely have to think about it. And if you're in the realm where you're having to think about the answer to that question, I think you've already lost. Right. Like it is indicative of a deep sickness. Like, please, my team, they're very sick. Help them, please. It maybe makes you think about how some of those guys on that AAA team for Baltimore should probably be up on the big league roster. I guess so. There's not that much room at the end, but yeah.

There's not that much, but it doesn't mean there's none, Ben. It doesn't mean there's zero room. There's one of those rooms that has the weird two double bed thing, and then you're like, I don't know. Yeah, you've got to get a cot from the front desk. Yeah. I mean, look, they're going to have to resolve the positional log jams at some point. The answer isn't just to leave all of these guys at AAA forever. So, you know, like, chop, chop.

You got a competitive division on your hands. We're out here almost getting crushed by Cole Reagans. I mean, wow. Cole Reagans. How good did he look? He looked really good. You see that? You watch that Cole Riggins story?

Goodness, wow. He's good. Yeah, he's, yeah, you know? I don't know how unusual it is for a AAA team to be better, at least in that one respect, than the worst major league team. Like, it's not unheard of. I mean, there are some truly terrible major league teams and also there are occasionally

some teams like this where you have a whole bunch of prospects who are sort of stocked up at once at one level and they're all close to major league ready. This is AAA. It's not that huge a leap. So it's, I don't know, it's not unprecedented

if you had a AAA offense that was better than the worst major league offense probably, but it's, I don't know, it's not like unprecedented if you had a AAA offense that was better than the worst major league offense probably, but it's not good. because he has taunted the Rockies on one or two occasions that I can recall, but usually fairly. But he had the Rockies with a very slight edge in OPS Plus and war, but without any waiting or anything, he said maybe he'd do some more tinkering and let me know. But he said either way, it's close. It's closer than it should be. It's like very much a debate.

You know, this is not some wild hypothetical. I am very realistically, very plausibly, very seriously suggesting that if you just slotted in the Norfolk Tides lineup in place of the Rockies current lineup, at least on those days for the rest of the season, that the Tides turned Rockies would hit better. So, yeah, that, it's not great. It's sort of an indictment of your organization maybe, but. Yeah. Again, if you're, if you're asking the question with some amount of consternation, like I gotta go, you know, track down an answer here, cause it seems plausible. Like that's, that's not a great place to be you know and yeah and there are teams look the orioles themselves were a team that quite recently was so bad at the big

league level that we could have maybe asked this question about them right yeah and so the tide can turn like you can i didn't i didn't even you know what i didn't even do it on purpose you know that's how natural it is it just comes to me right yeah um but you know what, Ben? I didn't even do it on purpose. You know, that's how natural it is. It just comes to me, right? But, you know, like these things can move around. But I think that it is also indicative of like, they don't just move around all on their own, right? Like you can have obviously very talented guys. You can go draft those players.

But like you're going to have to do a little helping them grow up at some point here, right? Like for all my, you know, sassiness when we talked about the Orioles and how they need to sign another starter, and I still need to sign another starter in my opinion, but where I was like, are they actually going to play or development? Because I was feeling contrarian that day, which is not maybe the best posture to have.

But you get an Adley Rutschman. You're probably going to get a good big leaguer, but you still need to help them out a little bit. These guys do require development along the way. It doesn't have to be hopeless do that. And you too can turn it around and then, you know, have me say, I think you need another pitcher. You know, like you have something to aspire to, Rockies, which is me constantly haranguing your otherwise talented team for not having enough starters. Because you know what? I submit to you the Orioles still don't, you know, but they got all these other guys. They're so good. Better than the Rockies I hear, even down at AAA. Possibly. Possibly.

Wanted to ask you about a couple of injuries. One is Josh Young out eight to ten weeks following wrist surgery. Pretty rough. Rough. Pretty rough for him. Pretty rough for the Rangers. And I wanted to, like, when does a guy click over for you in your head? To being injury prone?

To being injury prone. Yeah. Because, and does it matter what injury he incurs? And yeah, because, you know, so many times it's like, yeah, a lot of injuries, but oh, they were freak injuries. Right. And you never know if that's actually accurate. Like, if you had substituted someone else's body in that exact situation and they had sustained that same force, would they have broken in the same way that that player did? We don't know. We can't know. someone like Young who has had a bunch of injuries now. So he missed a good amount of time last season because he had a fractured thumb and he's had a stress fracture in his foot and he had a torn labrum in his shoulder. And now he has a fractured wrist. And again, like he was just hit by a pitch. Right. Hit by a pitch that he swung at to add insult to injury, I guess.

Literal injury, yeah. Yeah. Had the surgery. They were hoping it was going to be a six-week thing. And then they were like, actually, it was a little more complicated than we thought, which usually you don't hear. Usually it's like everything passed with flying colors, like the surgery was a success. This time, not so much. But hopefully he'll be back and fine.

But, you know, you get hit by a pitch, you kind of think, oh, that's just blunt force trauma. Like, it's not that he has bird bones. This wasn't even in a bird bone. Everyone has bird bones. So certain hit by pitch and break something injuries feel like, oh, that could have happened to anyone. And so maybe it's just bad luck if it happens to someone who has also had other injuries to the

point where you were already thinking of him as like, hope he can stay healthy, right? But what does it take, I guess, for you to sort of think of someone as more than the usual? And maybe it's not a binary like, oh, he flipped over into injury prone now with that one injury it's a it's a scale right it's a gradient but yeah what are the criteria for you how do you decide whether to kind of mentally classify someone that way i think that the the kind of injury does make a difference but we're're assuming so much, right? And what other option do we have, Ben, but to assume so much? Because I don't know the state of Josh Young's bones. I don't know if he needs to take a calcium supplement. I don't know, right? But I do think that you end up kind of bucketing these mentally, right?

Where like, if a guy misses a couple of turns, he misses time because of a hit by pitch, right? Because somebody collided with him, you know, in a way that wasn't his fault. It feels of a different category to me. it feels of a different category to me, but there does come a time where I think that things start to cascade over into those injuries having contributed something to our understanding of a guy's injury prone. Because like, okay, so we're going to make up a player. We're going to call him Josh, but he's not Josh Young because I'm not trying to put evil onto this young man who's already having a bad month. but you have a guy named Josh? And let's say you have another guy named Stan and Stan runs into Josh in the outfield right Josh

Gets blindsided by Stan. You know like Stan. Oh, no. Why did you do that Stan? What is wrong with you Stan and And now Josh has a knee injury. You know, he got blown up and now he has a knee injury. He needs surgery on his knee. It's extensive. He misses a good stretch of time and he comes back. Now, I interact with that injury mentally in a different way than I interact with you got hit by a pitch in your weird little bird bones and you need ouchie surgery and you're going to miss time because what are we to know of the structural integrity of Josh's knee going forward right is it is he vulnerable is he compromised is he one bad stand day in the outfield away from

another debilitating injury is it gonna make him slow it going to make him less good afield? You know, we don't know. And so I think that you end up having to adjust on the fly to these things because sometimes a guy just has some bad luck. You know, he gets hit by a pitch, he gets run into. It doesn't suggest that he is necessarily internally compromised until it does, you know, and then what do you, then what do you do have to sort of mentally adjust your expectation of their playing time on a going forward basis. And with pitchers, I just, you know, I both assume that the guys who have been hurt are going to get hurt again. I assume every pitcher is going to get hurt, though, that they're all just ticking time bombs waiting to get hurt. Sometimes I find myself thinking they're less likely to get hurt in the immediate aftermath of a return from Tommy John, because I'm like, well, he just fixed what's in there, you know? He's got a new one. He's good to go. I don't know how scientifically sound an assessment that is. you worry the most about, to my mind, for position players, are the non-contact injuries. So when a guy just crumples and something is wrong,

I am both worried about him in the moment, and then I am the most pessimistic about his health on a going-forward basis when he suffers a non-contact injury. And the same is true of the, like, you know, undone-by-your-own-strength injuries. Like, I feel nervous every single time Corbin Carroll swings because he has already shown that he is able to just destroy himself with his own body by swinging very hard, which he still does. So non-contact, too strong for your own good injuries.

And then like on the very other end of the spectrum are you got hit by a pitch and it's like, well'm not gonna hold that against the the guy and then there's well actually so sorry i'm adjusting this and i'm doing it visually i'm gesturing which you can't see and neither can our listeners but like if if at the extreme right end is like uh hit by pitches guy you know and it's like well you know sometimes you just get hit by a pitch. Although to supply a caveat to that, there are guys, there are guys where you're like, oh, you know, hit by pitch could happen to anyone. But then you look at them and you're like, sir, have you considered not leaning so far into the zone? Like, and often I think it's because they're guessing like this was this is kind of.

Don't swing at that pitch get out of the way Players are better at getting plunked than others. Yeah, and some some guys I think I'm like you like tie tie France Hey, yeah, watch out for yourself friend and he's doing better at that so far this season But it's like he would get so close cuz I think he was trying to guess anyway So there's like, you know, there's the hit by pitch guy and by that I mean the guy who gets hit in a way that isn't at least partially the fault of his uh own batting stance and proximity to home plate so there's that guy at one end and then at the other end you know there's gonna be like you're sort of undone by your own strength guys right where you're like very nervous about them and then there's gonna

be like your non-contact injury guys and then there's gonna be like byron buxton you know at the uh it's it's unfortunate that some of our leading injury prone guys are twins what's up with that wire i know two the two i think most injury prone guys to my mind playing in the majors right now i mean not one of them isn't playing in the majors right now are both minnesota twins in buxton and and royce lewis what's up with that you know yeah twins fans are not pleased about that i said a lot of stuff i don't know how much of it was good or even really uh coherent but i did say a lot i i hate how often some of them seem But I did say a lot. I hate how often some of them seem to get hurt, right? Like, I was just reading, just doing some half-assed mid-podcast research,

and there is real variation in bone mineral density among players, and a lot of it is genetic differences. So it is quite possible that someone would get hit with the same pitch and not have a fracture. And so it's maybe not totally a freak thing, or again, yeah, someone would get out of the way or just wear it a little bit better than someone else wore it. But yeah,

there's just been so many like back injuries and like hamstring strains and stuff like that. Yeah, the back stuff is like really, you're getting, you're just, you're on a path to being compromised at some point, even if you're not missing time're on a path to being compromised at some point, even if you're not missing time. And that's the other thing, it's like, you have these guys where you think of them as injury prone, and then you have guys where like, you didn't get an IL placement, right?

It wasn't severe enough to merit you going on the injured list. But like, at this point, when was the last time like Carlos Correa played healthy? You know what I mean? Like have guys where they get hurt but they're they're in the lineup but they don't look quite right and you're like are you hurt should you be you know is it it's literally a 10 day you know yeah yeah I'm not even really talking about pitchers because that's a whole other thing obviously when they're just their elbows and shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of which, that was the other injury that I wanted to bring up. Aerie Perez, the injury that we were dreading.

He is indeed having Tommy John surgery. It was one of those situations where, again, he was kind of in elbow purgatory and he had inflammation. And at first it seemed like, oh, well, that's positive. I guess they don't know that there's ligament damage. And maybe, who knows, maybe he'll be okay. But no, he's not okay. So he is having Tommy Jan surgery, which means that not only is he out all this year, but probably will miss a significant chunk at least of next year, just because teams tend to be careful with players these days.

of next year, just because teams tend to be careful with players these days. And a player as young as Avery Perez and as high as the expectations are for him. Remember that anonymous scout who said he'd be shocked if he doesn't win two Cy Youngs before he's 30? I wonder if this changes that projection at all. But this sucks. I mean, it's not super surprising as soon as he started having elbow injuries. Like your mind always goes to, oh, no, like it's the worst case scenario. And it's not always that, but it is all too often that.

And I wrote about pitcher injuries this week. And I did a little reporting and some data analysis and such. And I'll link to it on the show page. But the upshot of it is that things really have gotten out of hand, no pun intended, when it comes to the pitcher injuries. There has been really a dramatic uptick, even relative to position players and relative to past years. players and relative to past years and however you slice it, it's tough to work with injury data because IL placements and IL days, it's dependent in part on, well, how long is an IL placement? That depends. Is it 10 days? Is it 15 days? And also just pitcher usage is completely different and you have so many more pitchers, but you have the same number of innings more or less in a season. And the number

of UCL surgeries has just continued to climb. 2021 was the worst on record just after the pandemic, but 2022 and 2023 have both been higher than any pre-pandemic year. Just doesn't seem like it's getting better at all. And something has to be done at this point. I've made the case recently that I think this is the biggest on-field issue facing baseball. Did you know, I was not aware of this stat until I was writing, and Joel Sherman actually dug this up. Of the 166 players on opening day injured lists, 132 were pitchers. Wow.

132 of 166. That's 79.5%. Wow. That's ridiculous. Joel Sherman, he quizzed some people in baseball, which I considered doing with you, but I decided to spare you. Thank you. All the people he quizzed in baseball were too low by a lot, even though they knew it wasn't going to be 50-50. They were like, okay, well, half would be this, so let's tack on a bunch more for the

pitchers. And they were still all way too low. And the news, if you can call it that, is that MLB is actually doing something about this or at least deciding to try to do something about this, though there's a long way to go between deciding to try to do something and actually doing something effective. But the league is currently conducting a comprehensive study of pitcher injuries. This is how I wrote it in the article. This ongoing deep dive, which began last October, has consisted of data analysis and approximately 100 interviews with informed figures, including doctors, trainers, independent researchers, college coaches, amateur baseball coaches, and stakeholders, former pitchers, front office members, pitching coaches, and current players.

They don't have an exact end date for this study. They're still sort of following leads and one person tells them to talk to someone else and then they talk to that person and they tell them to talk to two more people. So they're kind of going wherever it takes them. But whenever they finish the study phase, which will probably be at some point this year, then they're going to transition to the task force phase. So they will have a formal official task force about pitcher entries, not UCLs specifically, but obviously that's a big part of it.

And the task force will then be charged with making recommendations for protecting pitchers, preserving pitchers' health, helping restore the role of the starter, et cetera. So based on everything I heard, everyone I talked to, they are making a real effort here to gather information,

to not just kind of do this for show, but to really try to figure it out. Like they're trying to take the same approach that they took with pace of play issues. And okay, we will figure out what would work and we'll try to be semi-scientific about this and then we'll test it in a lab and then we'll test it on the field. And eventually, though, they do want to develop really concrete recommendations for how to address the situation. Just, it's going to be hard. You know, I think it's going to be harder than just, I mean, I said, like they solved the pace problem and now they need to solve the ACE problem. I think it's going to be harder than just, I mean, I said like they solved the pace problem and now they need to solve the ace problem.

I think it's a harder thing to do because in retrospect, pitch clock was really simple. Like I know people doubted that it would be and doubted that it would work and even doubted why games were getting longer, which in retrospect seems silly. How was it not super obvious that players were just taking longer between pitches? But there was some uncertainty and disagreement about that. But once they started testing it, it was pretty clear that it was working well. And it's not like it was super advanced technology. I wrote last year and have talked on the pod about how they had pitch clocks like 60, 70 years ago almost and just never really committed

to it so i think that as as painstaking a process as that was i think that was a lot easier than what they're trying to attempt to do here whenever we talk about this i don't have a good answer you know because it's like how do i solve pitching and the injuries to it i don't know if i If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't have to do a podcast with a patron probably. I think that they would just hire me to fix it for them. I think that when you have the dual threats of like reduced start, and these are maybe in tension with one another, but starting pitcher use, and then you have really exciting starting pitchers just losing time because of serious injury, you do have like a narrative hole emerging in the center of the game that is like not the best.

You know, it's not the best. 55% of major leaguers last year were pitchers and they just all feel fragile. They just feel like the season's hanging by a thread, hanging by a ligament and their season individually. And then also the team's season, you're just waiting for the bad news, basically. And it could come at any time. There's not necessarily a warning sign. It's not like, you know, the best predictor of future injury is past injury, but it's not like being durable in the past is any guarantee of anything. And also, at this point, there have been so many injuries that basically everyone has had a past injury,

which is another thing. It's a compounding problem. Like the past couple seasons, half of the pitchers have been on the IL the previous season. So it just builds on itself. And it's a problem that starts when you're an amateur, when you're young. Like they put the pitch smart recommendations in place, Little League through college. It seems to have helped maybe, like it kind of bent the curve, I guess, like not the curve ball because I don't think they actually said

that that was worse for you, but the slope of the injury rate decreased for a while, but then it's back up again. So, if anything, it had a temporary effect. And so, I mean, I talked to Jeff Passon for the piece because he wrote The Arm eight years ago, and I was like, are things any better than they were eight years ago? And I mean, not clearly, you know, like some surgical techniques have been improved. It's nice that you have the internal brace sometimes and you can have the recovery time, but that's treating the symptom, not the cause.

And the symptoms are just getting worse and worse and more prevalent. And a lot of it really is like amateur ball, like the number of players who have had a UCL reconstruction by the time they get drafted. I had a stat in there that from 2011 to 2013, six pitchers drafted in the top 10 rounds had histories of UCL reconstruction. And then 10 years later, from 2021 to 2023, 24 did, four times more, which maybe was partly about teams being like, oh, we can fix this. We can cure this. Yeah.

It's not a deal breaker. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also that it has become more prevalent. Right. And it was like 35.6% of pitchers who appeared in a major league game last year, other than position player pitchers, had had Tommy John surgery at some point in their past. And that percentage has kept climbing.

So it just keeps getting worse and worse. And part of it is probably damage done when you're young and no one's really monitoring it and it's not a big story if there's pitch count abuse and travel teams and showcases and you're trying to throw as hard as you can to impress people and who knows what kind of cumulative damage you're working up there. So like even if you could snap your fingers and fix everything now, it might take a little while for it to actually show up by the time that generation gets to the big leagues.

So it's not going to be like the pitch clock, you put the clock. I mean, that's it. It's that you're done. Once the clock is done and the clock. I mean, that's it. It's that you're done. Once the clock is done and you enforce it and everything, you see immediately the problem is solved. Whereas it's probably not going to be like this. It's going to be something that has to start from lower levels or maybe you can help influence from the major league level, but you just have a whole infrastructure of scouting and development now that is just predicated on throw as hard as you can.

And that is not good for you. So, I don't know. It's just the incentives are not really aligned. And it's not like players wanted the pitch clock. They mostly didn't. but it wasn't as disadvantageous to them as saying don't throw as hard when you know that throwing harder makes you better until you break. So it's hard to get a player, careers are short as it is, to say take something off and to get a team to say that.

Yeah, like if you could convince a team that, hey, being available is good even if you're throwing a little. Maybe there won't be as much UCL strain here that I can't actually see or detect and won't know whether it ever made a difference. Whereas if I throw really hard, I know that that made a difference right now because I can see the radar gun reading. Well, and you know, it's hard to, I think that like a care should be taken. And like, I want to be clear about that before I say what I'm about to, but I'm not unsympathetic to the, to the frustration that pitchers will exhibit when they're being told, like, we have to manicure your innings so carefully. We have to, you know, you shouldn't throw so hard. It's like, think about how carefully the Marlins managed Perez. Like, so carefully, right?

He, you know, he got brought along slowly. He got brought along slowly to the point that we were like, there's only a little service time manipulation going on here. But like, you know, whatever the motivation for the number of innings he threw last year, he didn't throw very many, right? Like, he was sent down and he didn't throw very many, right? Like he was sent down and he didn't throw when he was sent down. You know, it's just like you have this guy so promising and so exciting and they handled him with kid gloves to try to, you know, keep him healthy and

it didn't work, you know? It just didn't work because it's like fundamentally a destructive act that we're asking these guys to do so it's like how do you reconcile those things with one another it's like if if you're gonna end up going under the knife anyway well maybe if you're a competitive guy and you want to have a lucrative big league career you're like screw it i'm just gonna throw as hard as i can and get on as many guys' radars literally as I can so that I can try to be up there and pitch in big league innings. It's a problem, Ben. Real conundrum how to solve that issue. Yeah, I had a stat in my article last season. There were 68 pitchers who worked exclusively as a starter, made more than 10 starts, and recorded a better-than-average park-adjusted FIP.

The Marlins had the one with the highest number of innings pitch per start, Sandy Alcantara, and the one with the lowest number of innings pitch per start, Uri Perez. And both of them ended up having Tommy John surgery. So what do you do? Those are the two extremes, and neither one worked out. But the thing that they had in common performance-wise was that they ranked third and fourth, respectively, in average fastball velocity. And below. Starters with at least 50 innings pitched. Yep.

I mean, I took a little sip of my iced coffee and my straw made a little farting sound. So apologies if that came through on the track. It made a little straw fart noise. Yeah. It was the straw. I believe you. BP had an anonymous active professional pitcher write a column for the site recently. A pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery and wrote about this elbow injury epidemic and said explicitly, like,

there's no solution, which seemed a little, like, defeatist, I guess. Yeah. I mean, you know, I, at least, I guess, approach it with the hope that there's something you can do about it. But I get why, if you've experienced this personally, and the person wrote, I think I speak for the dominant portion of pitchers when I say that most of us will take the higher injury risk associated with throwing harder in exchange for a better chance of getting hitters out. The goal of pitching isn't to avoid injury, but to avoid losing. Now, again, you could say that's a short-term view and you get hurt, then your team will be more likely to lose and you lose that time when you're not available down the road. But you just, you never really know.

It's just more concrete and predictable that if I throw this particular pitch really hard, then I will have a better expected outcome. And if I don't, who knows? I might get hurt anyway because sometimes players do. So, and, you know, they said like the reason that pitchers get hurt so often is simple. The human body is not meant to do what pitchers do. And they said the reason that pitchers get hurt so often is simple. The human body is not meant to do what pitchers do. And that's true. I mean, we are meant to throw. We kind of evolved and got good at throwing, but not throwing that hard that repeatedly.

But if it is true that injuries are up, which based on everything I could tell, they certainly seem to be, then it's not only the human body. It's the way that we're deploying the body and using the body, which suggests that, well, maybe we could go back closer to what it was not that long ago. Because it's not ancient history here that this wasn't quite so bad. So that makes me think like it's maybe, you know, don't just throw your hands up and throw your elbow out and give up and say there's no solution. So I'm glad that MLB and the people it's consulting are looking for an answer instead of just completely saying, well, we're screwed. There's nothing we can do about this. It doesn't mean that they will actually find an answer, that they can implement a solution. But I do appreciate that they're at least attempting to. Yeah, I just think it's going to be tough, but I

think they have to try. I suspect that where they will end up landing is focusing on, eventually focusing on better treatment and rehabilitation procedures. You know, I think that that which isn't to say that we shouldn't try to prevent the injuries because, you know, we should try to do that. And, you know, we do know what causes them to get broken. It's often that they're throwing really hard. So like continuing to sort of noodle on that, I think, is useful.

But the one benefit I see to kind of getting a definitive answer on can we intervene pre-injury is well if we can't then you shift your research focus to treatment and rehabilitation procedures that will hopefully get by guys back and get them back healthier and get them back sooner and that would be good but it would be nice if we could i think we've gotten to this place where guys are able to come back from tommy john so reliably which doesn't mean there aren't exceptions to that there are but you know they're able to come back pretty reliably they're able to come back in a reasonable time frame but i think that like it's really hard to rehab back from a major surgery you know particularly when your livelihood is at stake and, you know, the livelihoods of your family.

You know, from the sounds of it, it's a pretty lonely thing, you know, even when you're doing it within the ecosystem of your big league club. So, you know, it would be good to be able to spare guys that, you know, because I think it sucks. So, it would be good. But I don spare guys that, you know, because I think it sucks. So, it would be good. But I don't know. I'm, I don't know. I'm pessimistic. I worry that there is sort of a Peltzman effect going on here, like a risk compensation where because we do have a treatment for this, pitchers in the back of their minds, like, are not limiting themselves quite as much maybe because if they had one UCL for their entire lifespan and that was it, you snap that thing, it's broings, you're done, there's no recourse,

then maybe you would either consciously or subconsciously take a little off. Whereas now, not that you wanna go through that whole grueling process, but you're at least thinking- You're able well, yeah, it's not necessarily career ending. It's probably not career ending. So that might be a case. Again, like it's still obviously good that we have a treatment.

It's better to have a treatment than not have a treatment. But I wonder whether that has only contributed to just that all out max effort effort mentality because it's not a career death sentence. So it's tough. I mean, I thought of Rob Manfred and his comment about analytics being an arms race to nowhere. Someone shared that quote with him and he liked it and repeated it. But this is the real arms race to nowhere. and he liked it and repeated it. But this is the real arms race to nowhere,

where it's just everyone trying to throw as hard as you possibly can and you end up with no healthy pitchers. That's slight hyperbole, but it does feel like anyone could be not healthy at any given time. So, yeah, I had a lot of stats and facts and quotes in the piece, so I will link to it if anyone wants to check it out. But it's going to be a tough one to fix. But I really hope that at some point it can be addressed,

that this can be ameliorated at least. And just so we don't end on a depressing note, can we take like a minute to marvel at Mookie Betts? Oh, yeah. He's just lapping the league. Like his fan graphs were his double anyone else's as we record here on Thursday just like okay can I just say something some people pointed this out and I was

like why are you looking at war like because it's fun I know but I'm just like you know we could have like a really significant bug in war and I wouldn't notice for the first two weeks of the year because like, I'm not looking at that. Why are you looking at that? That is ridiculous. That's you silly gooses. But also he has a 313 WRC plus right now. Yeah, it's 485, 595, 1091. He's hitting like a Norfolk Tide.

Yeah, there you go. Five homers. He is playing shortstop. He's a like a Norfolk Tide. Yeah, there you go. Five homers. He is playing shortstop. He's a 6-0-6 ISO. Yeah, that's the other thing. He's getting that good boost. He's walked nine times and struck out four times. Yeah.

Imagine as great as he has been, and he's probably a Hall of Famer if he retires today, I would imagine. Like he's basically there and obviously has the peak. And basically as the career wore, he'd be like a little short, but I think people would give him a pass if he retired for some reason at age 31. But incredible, potentially even inner circle sort of Hall of Fame career. Just imagine if he just had like even a Mookie year for the ages. Right. He's had years for the ages. But like imagine if, you know, just allow yourself to just play along with the small, simple extrapolation of it all and say, yeah, what if he literally was twice as good as any other player and

was way better than he was even in his MVP year or any other year and just was like the best hitter in baseball as a shortstop. Yeah. And let's say he's a decent shortstop at least. And he's looked decent so far, yeah. Yeah. And he's got Otani and Freeman hitting behind him. And yeah, lineup protection is overrated in some ways, but this is sort of an extreme situation. So like, man, I just, I want him to just completely go off and just have an amazing year, even by Mookie standards. That would be fun.

to like dream about that with a guy who you know not that he's been overlooked he's mookie bets like we talked about mookie bets all the time but you know last year it was like he had this incredible season but like a kunya had this incredible season right and they had the same war basically right they had basically the same war yeah and then way more steals yeah yeah and like look everyone in in Atlanta, relax. We're not trying to knock Acuna. But it's like, you know, he for so long, it was he was dealing with Trout and the American League. And then he comes over and it's like he has to deal with Acuna. And it's like, OK, Otani can't pitch this year.

So, like, go get your go get your hardware, sir. Like this is and it would be really cool if in that year where I am, I will admit sort of mentally adjusting my expectations of the NL MVP down just because Otani can't pitch, you know, it would be so cool if he was like, hey, screw you, you know, and just put up and put up a two way Otani season, but his Mookie, that's a shortstop. That would be amazing. It would be so cool, you know, like in this year where he thought he was going to be a second baseman,

and then it turned out he had to be a shortstop. He's famously mostly been an outfielder. Like, you know, go do it. It would be spectacular. Like, it would be great. That is one of the coolest things. It's not quite up there with pitching and hitting, but it's the next best thing to have that sort of positional versatility. And maybe it's even cooler when the guy's constantly moving around during the season, like peak Zobrist or Chris Bryant or someone who's like playing all over the place and you never know where he's going to play on any given day. And Mookie is not really doing that. He did a little bit of that last season, but he's

sort of a set it and forget it shortstop, at least in theory right now. But it's just like, yeah, okay. Have glove, we'll travel. Have whatever kind of glove you want me to have. You need me to be an amazing right fielder? Sure. You need me to be a second baseman, which is maybe my natural position? Sure, I'll do that. You need me to be a second baseman, which is maybe my natural position? Sure, I'll do that. You need another emergency shortstop second season in a row, except this year it's for the entire season, maybe?

I'll do that, and I'll probably be fine if not good. I would not be at all surprised if by the end of the season he is an average to plus defensive shortstop. That would not surprise me. I don't think he's going to be bad out there. He'll get the hang of the season he is an average to plus defensive shortstop that would not surprise me and i don't think he's gonna be bad out there like he's he'll get the hang of it he's mookie bats he can do anything mookie bats he's probably except but but he can bowl if he can bowl really

well he can bowl really well yeah i think it spectacular. I think the it's so cool because for me, generally, when I think about a guy who is like performing a service for his team and that he is playing out of position in the field, it often looks like, well, it looks like the Phillies more often than not. Right. Where it's like we've assembled this team of DHS. I know that they are not that anymore but they still have guys who are playing out of position a little bit right like you've seen the cassianas in the outfield lately but it's still not good you know it's still bad out there it's still pretty bad out there but that's what it looks like more often than not right it's like schwarber last year having to be in the field night after night because you know until harper was at first like he had to dh and so you're you're just like the guy is doing his team a solid by doing this thing but it's it's bad generally like it is him being pressed into service in a way that like ends up diminishing his performance because he should just be dhing they should all just so many of them should just

be dhing they should just be dhing i hear that if you do it regularly it goes well but it's not actually a day off so you know like you should de-age some research to that effect just do it every day so you can have a routine we all just want a routine but that's what it looks like more often than not and so when a guy is like hey by the way it turns out that we don't think gavin lux can play short maybe we should have planned better there who can say but then it goes well like that's so exciting it's such a treat we don't we don't get and of course it's the dodgers that that happens too because enough good things don't happen to them like they're you know they're very put upon a lot of the time well i'm glad we could end on a positive note yeah Yeah. Thanks, Mookie. All right. A few follow-ups for you.

By the way, anyone else have Eminem's song Stan stuck in their heads ever since Meg's hypothetical about the fielder named Stan? Because I did. We talked about the very sweaty uniforms last time. There was an article in The Athletic about this and other issues with the jerseys. And in a statement, Nike acknowledged that they had received feedback from teams and that they are, quote, testing different options to lessen the moisture-related aesthetic color differences. Yes, the moisture-related aesthetic color differences.

That is the most PR-speak, anodyne way to describe sweat stains I've ever heard. I gotta steal that one myself next time I get super sweaty. Please pardon my moisture-related aesthetic color differences. Also, it seems that there was no substance to the conspiracy theory. What? No substance to a conspiracy theory? I know. About the A's, Estee Ruiz and Brent Rooker wearing wristbands to support a local fan group and being punished with a demotion and benching, respectively. That seems to have just been an April Fool's joke.

Nothing more to it. Not that we really bought it. Anyway, as discussed earlier on this episode, that organization is enough of a joke without having to bring April Fool's joke. Nothing more to it. Not that we really bought it. Anyway, as discussed earlier on this episode, that organization is enough of a joke without having to bring April Fool's into it. They're the April Fool's on any day this month. We also got an update on the White Sox forgetful first base coach situation. Jason Bourgeois, late getting out to the field after a rain delay the other day, caused a slight delay of game.

Meg and I talked about it. While friend of the show, James Feagan, tweeted, Pedro Grafol said first base coach Jason Bourgeois was in the clubhouse with his headphones on reviewing the team's outfield positioning when he was late to get out to the field after the rain delay yesterday. Quote, I'm good with it because I know what he was doing. End quote. All right. Doesn't explain why he was still putting on his pants, but hey, maybe he removed his pants during the rain delay. Maybe they were wet. Maybe he didn't think he'd have to go out there again. So he was still pantsless when he was reviewing the outfield positioning.

Still buckling up when he was getting out there. Okay, now we know, I guess. Also, last time we talked about intentionally horny minor league team names and how the calculation of it makes it a little less entertaining to us. Well, we were alerted to the story of an unintentionally horny minor league team name, or nickname at least. So the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, the Dodgers single-A affiliate, they chose the name the Chiquitas as their nickname for minor league baseball's Copa de la Diversión series this season. The Fun Cup, which is a series of events spread throughout the season that celebrates the culture and values of the team's local Latino communities. So they take on

a new identity for these events, and they chose the Chiquitas Latino communities. So they take on a new identity for these events. And they chose the Chaquetas to memorialize retro Cucamonga resident and Dodgers pitcher Joe Kelly wearing a mariachi jacket to the White House after the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020. Mariachis was taken, apparently, so they went with Chaquetas. Only to learn that that is evidently slang for masturbation. Oops. But they're sticking with it. Not quite Grand Junction chubs, but not bad. And finally, I discovered that there is an official website for the Mariners' salmon run that we've discussed a couple times, and it contains a backstory for the salmon, which is, and I quote, the Mariners and Microsoft are proud to introduce four unsuspecting salmon. This is a sponsored event. Infused with the caffeinated chemicals

of a spilled triple shot espresso, grew to monstrous size to fulfill their destiny, race for the delight of baseball fans in the Pacific Northwest. So it seems to be sort of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Salmon situation. There was a chemical spill. The salmon grew very large. Not sure how I feel about this. I feel like the salmon run is kind of ethically compromised. These salmon were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they just have no choice but to race for fans entertainment. I think I preferred not knowing this much about the ostensible origins of the salmon run. But you know what I do like knowing? That listeners support Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. And the following five listeners have already signed

up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Sloncado, Sam Cleveland, Walter, Tom Mattern, and Malcolm. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships prioritized email answers signed books so much more check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild if you are a patreon supporter you can message us at the patreon site if not you can contact us via email send your questions and comments to podcast fangraphs.com you can rate review and subscribe to effectively wild on itunes and spotify and other podcast platforms you can follow effectively wildively Wild on Twitter at EWPod.

You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes for a link to this season's Effectively Wild MLB Ballpark meetup events, which have already begun. They'll be taking place across the country throughout the season. Check them out. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week which means we will talk to you soon effectively wild it's the only show I do hosted by Ben Lindberg and Meg Riley I want to hear about Shohei Ohtani

Or Mike Trout with free money