Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2160: Mail Call

Episode Date: May 4, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a recent uptick in base stealing and why Mike Trout’s loyalty to the Angels is criticized more than it’s celebrated. Then (16:39) they’re joined by Patreon supporter Alex Levy to discuss Alex’s background as a podcast listener, baseball fan, and mail carrier and answer emails (43:49) about a […]

I want banter with nuance From two hosts who are the guile I'm just a fan who wants Nothing less than effectively wild Oh, wild Oh, why, oh, why Oh, why Nothing less than Effectively Wild Hello and welcome to episode 2160 of Effectively Wild,

a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. That stolen base uptick that I lamented not happening, it's happening, Meg. I think it's happening. I think the steals have started to tick up. As you will recall, one of my bold preseason predictions was that we would have something short of a surge, but another moderate uptick in stealing this year. My contention was that runners will realize that they can take more advantage of the new rules and their success rates are higher than they have to be.

And so they should be running more often. But in the early going, it didn't seem like they were. And we talked about that on episode 2151. And I more or less conceded, even though that was April 13th or so, I accepted that it wasn't happening. There had been no uptick to that point. If anything, there had been a tiny little downturn. And I just sort of resigned myself to the fact that, no, I guess runners have maxed out and maybe pitchers and catchers have countered the runners and this is where the rates will stay. Not so, it seems, because since then, things have changed. So here's an excerpt from former Effectively Wild guest Noah Woodward's fine substack, the Advanced Scout. And he led his most recent entry with,

It's taking a bit of time for the new game to emerge after rule changes and tweaks, but we're seeing the levy start to break in stolen base activity. Here's an update as of Thursday morning. So this was through Wednesday's games. Last year, 3,503 bases were stolen, which was a 41% increase relative to 2022. This year, we're on pace for 3,580 stolen bases, a 44% increase relative to 2022. So, okay, that's just 77 more stolen bases than we had last year. That's basically a rounding error. However, Noah says, I think we're heading for a higher total than that pace suggests. I actually think we could break 4,000 stolen bases this year. And why? What gives Noah that confidence? He says, consider the pace we've been on since mid-April. So,

the pace we've been on since mid-April. So March 20th through May 2nd, I guess that's counting the initial opening series in Seoul. So the pace then through May 2nd was 35.80 with a success rate of 78%. However, from April 15th through May 2nd, the pace has been 38-23 with a success rate of barely any lower, 77%. And Noah says that's not quite a 4,000 stolen base pace yet, but it's getting there. And there's still some margin for teams to chase. The league-wide success rate since April 15th, still higher than league-wide success rates from the pre-rule change era. Still higher than league-wide success rates from the pre-rule change era. So that the success rate is still so high suggests the teams would be comfortable accepting a slightly lower rate than we're currently seeing for a higher stolen base total. So maybe, maybe it's happening.

Maybe I was too quick to throw in the towel on my prediction there. I think that they were cold. I think that they were maybe just cold. They just had to warm up. Yeah. Yeah. Now, one could argue, so run around and then you'll get warm. That's what spring training is for. Yeah.

But also, maybe they're cold and they're like, I don't want to tweak something because it's cold because it's easy to tweak something, you know? Right. And then, like, what do you do? Yeah. And even when I compared year over year to the beginning of last season, it still wasn't up, really. So, it wasn't just a product of the time or the weather seemingly. Maybe it's that offense has been down a bit. Possibly the ball is a bit deader. Teams have realized, hey, we can't wait around for the homer. Got to manufacture some runs. The scoring

environment is different from what we thought it was. But yeah, maybe it's just a delayed steal, you could say even. Start to the stealing. Maybe. Start the steal. So Noah documents then that it actually varies quite a bit by team, which I guess is not that surprising. But it really is kind of a philosophy thing as opposed to a skills thing. He actually broke it down into three categories of like burners and non-burners and just like super slow guys based on sprint speed. And it turns out that it's not just that some teams have a bunch of burners and fast guys who are more likely to go. It's that at all rungs of the speed tier, there's a lot of variability. So you compare team to team and some guys, non-burners, go much more often than other teams, non-burners.

And in fact, the uptick this year seems to be more about the non-burners going for it, which makes sense, I think, that that would be the group where you would see the second year increase if in fact there is one. Because the speedsters, they had confidence, right? They had stolen base confidence and arrogance. They knew they could go. Whereas the slower guys, they maybe needed some convincing, right? They needed to see that they could get away with it for a while before they went all in. And maybe that is happening now that the slower tier of runners are realizing we can get away with this actually. So Daniel Vogelbach has not yet attempted his first steal.

However, Aloy Jimenez did. Aloy Jimenez, he had never attempted to steal a base in a big league game until he did on April 23rd, and he made it without even needing to slide. So, again, the Aloy Jimenez's of the world. Vogelback, Vogue, it's still an opportunity for you. You can get on board in the non-burner slowster. Can we do slowster instead of speedster? Slowster. Slowster. Slowster.

Even the slowsters can run now. So I'm heartened by this, I think, not only because it maybe makes my prediction more likely to come true, because it just made sense to me that this would happen. They were leaving bases on the table. Yes. In an age of optimization, it didn't feel like they were properly optimized. So now, you know, just to describe it in like the gramiest and least fun terms possible. No, they are.

But yeah, it's like they're off to the races. The starter's gun has been fired. Yes. Yeah. least fun terms possible. No, they are. But yeah, it's like they're off to the races. The starter's gun has been fired. Yes. Yeah. And will it turn out to be too much if they get to 4,000? Will we think, actually, this is too much? Or will we say, there is no such thing as too much.

We love steals. We love action on the base paths. We do. Most fans do. But there does come a point where if it's just too easy or it's running too rampant, maybe the thrill wears off a little bit. You do need some challenge, some threat that you might get caught. So we'll see. But then again, if they run more often, they will be caught more frequently on a rate basis. So we'll see more caught stealing, but we'll also see more stealing. So we'll see. We'll continue to monitor this and see if this recent surge is sustained.

The only other thing I have to ask you before we get to a guest and some emails, I thought about Mike Trout, which was prompted by a Ken Rosenthal column and a response to that column by Craig Calcaterra. Trout has suffered some slings and arrows, not only physically speaking, not only in terms of the injuries he's sustained. By the way, Byron Buxton now with a knee injury, seems not super serious, but I wonder if those two, they're like linked in some sort of psychic cosmic way. One gets hurt, the other gets hurt. I guess they both get hurt independently too, but both knee injuries for now, although Buxton seems less serious. Hopefully, fingers crossed, legs crossed. Anyway, Rosenthal wrote a column where he kind of said, well, probably the window has closed now for Trout to demand a trade or to engineer a trade if he wanted to, which clearly he didn't really, which we've discussed.

really, which we've discussed. But Rosenthal was like almost taking him to task a little bit, not like super harshly, but, you know, kind of criticizing him for deciding to stay put. And we've had this conversation before about like, what does this say about Mike Trout's character? Like, should we condemn him because he wants to stay with the Angels, this losing team? Does this mean he doesn't have the will to win? Or should we prize the loyalty or just defer to his personal preferences?

And I kind of came down on the side of like, as long as he's trying to win in any game he's involved in, as long as he's playing hard, I don't particularly care whether he's chasing championships by forcing his way out of the team. But as Craig pointed out, it is an interesting

dichotomy because you have players praised all the time for staying with a franchise. Right. And the idea of like the hometown discount or loyalty, like fans say they prize loyalty. And yet in Trout's case, he's demonstrating almost unreasonable levels of loyalty. He's like, In Trout's case, he's demonstrating almost unreasonable levels of loyalty. He's like, I'm sticking it out. Like, you put terrible teams around me. I can't stay healthy, whether that's the angel's fault or not, I don't know.

But he is not looking for a way out. He's not looking for the easy way out, I think, as he put it, even though it would be totally defensible after all the losing that he's endured. And yet it seems like people are mostly not complimenting Mike Trout for that and saying, wow, isn't that inspiring? He just really wants to win where he was and he's going to find it even more satisfying and fulfilling if it ever happens because he didn't jump ship. Why is it then that we praise players for staying put and then also do the opposite of that essentially for Mike Trout? Does that mean that ultimately whatever we might say about prizing loyalty, we just want a winner? What? Is that what it comes down to?

I think so. Okay. I guess maybe it's as simple as that. Because there are some guys who they spend their whole career with one team, but it was a winning team. Right. So if you're like Derek Jeter or Chipper Jones or something, I mean, yeah, you had opportunities to go elsewhere maybe, but it wasn't like you had to go elsewhere to be in the playoffs or to win. So you didn't sacrifice to stay, but then you have like the Ernie Bankses who were deprived of ever having that moment or Felix, right? And there's something that fans appreciate about like he stood by us even though, right?

And so it's weird that we have these kind of conflicting reactions to this situation. situation i think that like more and more my understanding of fandom becomes easier to sort of reconcile when it's not rational or at least it's not ideologically consistent you know what i mean like and it depends too like if you're a fan of the particular team versus not like i remember when felix was getting ready to sign his big contract with the mariners you know mariners fans wanted him to stay but the yankees fans i worked with were like well he should just come be a yankee like doesn't he want to be a winner right they were doing the trout where it's like well he should just get out of there because like that sucks and yeah the people who rooted for that team were like no he shouldn't because the only way we'll ever be good

is with players like this and also in the interim before we are good we want to be able to watch someone who's like you know good at baseball so I think it depends what end of it you're on right I'm sure Angels fans don't want him to leave. Like, what else do they have kind of to watch? It's pretty grim. Yeah, unless they think that a fresh start for both parties would benefit the Angels ultimately. At this point, I mean, what Rosenthal was arguing was that he has this salary, he has this contract, and if he really can't stay on the field and be productive, then the odds that the Angels are going to pay down enough of that deal to ship him somewhere else get longer, right? But if you were an Angels fan at a certain point, I guess I could

see you saying, well, maybe if we traded him as hard as it would be, it would enable us to start over. It would be like a Harry Seldon and Foundation sort of situation. It's like, we want to avoid the long, dark ages, right? And so maybe if we just expedite that, it might be tough in the short term, but ultimately we'll minimize the suffering between the peaks. I think that we want a winner. Our engagement with it is gonna depend very much on whether we're rooting for the team that the guy plays for or not i also think that you know in some ways like them people being focused on the winning piece of it is reasonable because it's like we don't know mike trout um and so so him prioritizing things, you know, I think he wants to win and I think he wants to win in L.A. and be the reason they did.

But like he's probably also prioritizing things like, you know, then his family doesn't have to move and he's settled in a place and he is able to, I think, be more sort of under the radar as a star player with with Anaheim than he would be if he even just played for the Dodgers, right? So there are going to be things about it that we aren't going to be able to understand because we don't know him. And so we focus on the thing that we do know, which is that he's a highly competitive guy, as are his teammates and fellows. And so surely they want to win. I think we struggle with wrestling with and sort of they want to win i think we struggle with you know wrestling with and sort of weighing relative to that the other stuff that might be on the table for for someone like trout but i don't think that i expect a ton of consistency between you know the the instinct to like laud guys for staying when there are guys and to want other guys to just like come be a whatever because that's the team that we root

for i don't know i think that fandom the bounds of of logic and sort of rationality and ideological consistency are a lot squishier and that doesn't mean that like we should treat people badly or be obnoxious to athletes in their mentions or anything like that but i do think it helps to understand why we see some of the behavior we do or it's like this isn't about it being ideologically consistent that's not our our mission here right yeah because you do see players a character condemned if they try to force their way out of a situation and try to chase rings and then they become kind of a mercenary or a front runner or something. And yet, if you don't do that, it's like people questioning your character because you don't want to win enough.

You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess is the lesson here. Yeah. And I think like questioning the character, it's just like, we just don't know these guys, you know? And that's not to say that we can't draw some inferences. Like one measure of people's character is, you know, to see what they do. Like those are, those are manifestations of character in the real world. But for something like a pro athlete refusing a trade, I don't know that they're a particularly reliable one. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, we probably should just let them do what they want to do. It's sort of a selfish thing because it's also that we want to see Mike Trout on a better team and see him having signature moments. And so it's like, why are you depriving us of the opportunity to see you play in more important games when the country is paying attention more so than it is to a typical regular season Angels game. So then it becomes, why are you thwarting our desires as spectators? So you sort of hold that against them or you could potentially. Yeah.

All right. Well, we're going to answer some emails today and we've got a guest to help us do it. We are joined now by Mike Trouttier, Patreon supporter. That has a different ring to it these days, doesn't it? But it's no commentary whatsoever on our supporters at that tier who are all just wonderful people we are deeply indebted to

and excited to have on the podcast from time to time. And the latest is Alex Levy who joins us now. Hello, Alex. Hello, Ben and Meg. I am very excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Do you feel any less special to be a Mike Trout to your Patreon supporter now that Trout's star has sunk somewhat? Jeez, Ben.

Well, maybe until you said that, I didn't feel any less special. I think I still feel special, and I definitely felt a twinge of sadness even before the injury news. Before he felt a twinge? Yes. Looking at the name of the tier, I thought, should this be the Shohei Otani tier now? I know, right? We've wrestled with this previously, and after yet another injury, it comes to my mind again. after yet another injury, it comes to my mind again.

It's in recognition of his former greatness. We hope it will be past and future, once and future great, but it doesn't change. Whatever happens from now on doesn't change that he was the best player in baseball and maybe the best baseball player ever. So the tier can still be named in recognition of his achievements, even if he's not currently adding to them. So I think the name sticks. I wouldn't want to do him the insult of removing it from him, just to take away a tier name

or to demote him a tier, even if it were to elevate Otani or someone else. That just doesn't feel right, given all the content he has provided this podcast over the years. It doesn't feel right, given all the content he has provided this podcast over the years. It does feel right to have you on the podcast, given the financial support you have provided the podcast over the years. So tell us a little bit about the reasons for that. I always ask when we have a Patreon supporter on what could have possibly possessed you to support us at that highest level tier.

So how did you find the podcast? What drew you to it? And what made you want to become a Patreon supporter? So I knew this question was coming. Because I ask it every single time. And I've listened to a few episodes since, in fact, all of them since around episode 500. And I can't remember how I found it. Maybe it was the team previews. Maybe it was some other podcast. I don't know. But I found it and I have been a listener ever since. And I cannot take credit, though, for being the one who was possessed to support at the Mike Trout Patreon tier. I have been a Patreon supporter for a long time, but I am very fortunate in that I have a lovely partner and they are the one who purchased the Mike Trout level subscription for me as a present for my 30th birthday. Oh, that's nice. Well, you're not the first for this to be

a beneficiary of someone else's largesse when it comes to the Trout tier. Patreon makes a great gift. Just putting that out there, you know, I guess when the holidays are coming up, someone's birthday, someone who has imposed the podcast on you for years at times when you're like, what should we listen to together? I'll put on my nerdy baseball podcast. Oh, okay. That was on the tip of my tongue too. So if you've suffered alongside someone who has inflicted effectively wild on you,

then well, maybe you won't feel inclined to do them a solid and have them come on the podcast. But that might be the thing that is the most rewarding gift for them. So we're glad that that was a decision that was made in your case. You're really selling it, Ben. You know, you're like this tear.

It isn't what it used to be. And also listening to the pod is a burden for your loved ones. Doing great. Yes. But if you want to pay them back by giving a gift instead of exacting vengeance of some sort on them, then fund their Patreon appearance. So tell us a little bit about yourself as a baseball fan first, I guess. What was your origin story as a baseball fan? It is maybe a bit of a stereotypical origin story for a white man such as myself, which is that

my dad took me to a ball game when I was really young and I fell in love with it. And particularly, this was a spring training game, I think when I was maybe three or four years old, youngest of three siblings. And the plan was just to stay for a few innings. And I apparently demanded that we stay for the entire game. So I guess I fell in love with it early. Wow. A lot of kids do the opposite. They demand to leave very quickly before the game is over. So that's inspirational.

I guess it was a sign of things to come for you. I guess so. And I learned pretty quickly that I was not very good at playing the actual game of baseball. I was cut from my middle school baseball team after tryouts in which they said there would not be any cuts, which was a little tough. If I remember right, I think I showed up in jeans to the tryout. So I kind of had it coming. Yeah. And that was when I realized that my love of baseball would be as a watcher of the game and playing fantasy baseball for a while when I was younger. And a patron of podcasts. Yes, yes, exactly. But not for too much money unless someone else did it for me. Right, right. In moderation.

Yeah. And which team do you support? I am a Washington Nationals fan. That spring training game would have been an Orioles game since when I was growing up, the Nationals were not around. But they kind of came to town at the right time for me to not feel bad about switching allegiances. I was briefly corrupted as a youth

by my family in Massachusetts, which is to say they put a Red Sox hat on my head and I said, oh, okay, go Red Sox. But I grew out of that phase, fortunately, and have been going to games at RFK Stadium and Nationals Park ever since. I grew up in the DC area. I live in St. Louis now.

My partner and I moved here about six years ago. And so I don't get to see the Nats quite as often. But it was the year that they won the World Series that we were here, and we got to go to an NLCS game that was here in St. Louis and be one of very few Nationals fans cheering on an Anibal Sanchez no-hit bid, which was quite a joy to get to see. which was quite a joy to get to see. Yeah. How are you feeling about the Nets these days? Because it's been a rough road post-World Series, and part of that was just circumstances conspiring against them, and they didn't get to take their victory lap with fans in the stands because of COVID, and they lost out on an attendance boost, right? So tough timing and confluence of circumstances,

and things have been tough since then, but are potentially looking up now. That's sort of what I was going to say. It's definitely been a rough couple of years. I think that one of the beauties of baseball that I think you all agree with, and probably many listeners, is that it can kind of be background. And I think that Nationals games have been a little bit more background-y of late for me. I certainly still watch and listen to a lot of them, but I had a bit of a feeling that things might be a little better than they were projected this year,

and I assume that feeling was wrong, but it's been less bad. C.J. Abrams seems to be very good, and we've got Dylan Cruz and we've got James Wood coming. And so it feels... Mackenzie Gore. Yeah, Mackenzie Gore. Ace.

Mackenzie Gore, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a little better than what it's been. And for me, as a fan of all the D.C. sports teams, we had this drought running in all four of the major sports where for as long as I had been alive, I had never seen any of those teams make it to like a championship

series or a conference final. It had just been long lasting ineptitude. And then the Capitals won the Stanley Cup and the year after the Nationals won the World Series. So I feel like I can die happy. I feel more fortunate than many fans of many other teams who never get to see their team reach that level of glory. And I mean, the World Series run was like awesome. You know, we beat the Astros and we had so many good players who are all on different teams now, which is sad. Patrick Corbin's still there. Don't forget about Patrick Corbin. I'd like to, but it was like the headliners for their five-year anniversary. It was like Patrick Corbin and Howie Kendrick.

And it's like all the best players from that team are still playing. So it was sort of weird to have an anniversary celebration when, you know, Scherzer and Turner and Soto and on and on weren't a part of it. But the 10-year, I'm sure, will be a banger. Yeah, I imagine it makes it much easier if you're going to go through a franchise fallow period for that to happen on the heels of your ultimate triumph. Now, there must be some whiplash when it comes to that franchise's fortunes

because you get to the pinnacle and then suddenly you're near the nadir. Usually, there's a more graceful slide, right? And you get to enjoy the team being good for a while as opposed to just going from one pole to the other. So things fell apart quite quickly. And yet, it probably bothers you less when you have a triumphant moment like that. So was there a time where you felt like, okay, we're in the grace period? I mean, yeah, they sort of suck and that's too bad, but I can't get too worked up about it because we got there. We made it to the promised land.

Or did you find yourself getting frustrated and annoyed and upset more quickly than you thought you would? Let's see. In the year 2020, I do remember feeling frustrated or upset or annoyed. I don't think it was about the nationals. I was going to say, if the Nats were the worst of your problems in 2020, you got off pretty easy. Yeah, they were not. They definitely were not. So I think that, I don't know, maybe COVID, I don't want to say COVID helped in that way. But the stresses of many other aspects of being alive, maybe outweighed the stresses. Really, I think the bottoming out for me, I guess, maybe like what felt the worst was when Juan Soto was traded. And I recognize that, you know, CJ Abrams and Mackenzie Gore

were pretty good pieces. But what I sort of was saying to folks at the time and talking to other Nationals fans about is like, I kind of don't care if it's better in the long run. And I think that's still arguable because they could have, you know, made a more legitimate attempt to sign him. But I just don't get to watch Juan Soto as much anymore. And like, he's not on my favorite team. And that is a bummer because he's Juan Soto. And I would have been, I think, content to have them suck for longer if it meant that I got to watch him. It does present you with the strange experience of at times wishing they could get out. Like, surely you could escape even if we're all stuck here. But it does mean something to have a really great guy who's your guy and be able to say, like, well, we suck. But I get to cheer for Felix or whoever, you know, just to, like, pick a random player, you know, like out of a hat.

And other than rooting for the Nets from afar, anything else you care to share about what you do, where you are in the world, et cetera? Maybe what has changed most in the last year with my relationship to baseball is that I started a new and very different job. I work for the United States Postal Service as a mail carrier. Which, yeah, it is cool. And it has allowed me to have audio in my ears a lot. A lot of podcast listening time on this route. Yeah, I try not to, you know, be listening to podcasts or music or, you know, what have you all day.

Because I like to also feel present in the world around me and make sure I'm like on the right street or at the right house or whatever. But it does mean that a vast majority of my baseball consumption this season has come exclusively via radio broadcast. And in part, that's because I've always had an affection for Dave Jagler and Charlie Slows, who are the Nationals radio broadcasters.

They've been there since the team came to DC. And, you know, I had rarely ever listened to radio broadcasts of other teams. And now it's like, you know, a Monday, a Wednesday, a Thursday, any day where there are day games, I'm just like, yeah, sure. Let me pop on this Tigers game. Let me listen to the Cubs game going on. And it's, I really love baseball on the radio. It's wild to me that people consume other sports on the radio. I think it's very impressive that the broadcasters of those sports can do such a good job. But like, listening to a hockey game on the radio is really, really intense. And baseball, it's just I mean, it is, it's always been the soundtrack to my summer. But now it is going to be extra, extra the soundtrack to my summer but now it is going to be extra extra the

soundtrack to my summer can i ask a series of um very ignorant questions that i hope don't don't sound either insulting or pollyanna ish yes how hard is it to become a mail carrier and i asked that question because no because here's the thing so i've had you know uh over the last couple of years there have been times where like things haven't been like super the best at Fangraphs financially. And we were like really nervous in 2020. It was kind of dicey there for a while. And I was like, what can I if I had to change careers, like what would I do? Because I don't want to go back to finance.

And I wasn't of an especially effective like nonprofit fundraiser, as it turned out, although that was largely because I was trying to be a baseball writer at the same time and I think it would be really it seems like it would be a very rewarding job and I know that like occupational um like satisfaction surveys may disagree at times uh famously with people loving working for the postal service but I was like being a letter carrier would be, that seems like a great job. Is it a great job? How hard is it to become a letter carrier? Should I count this as on the list of potential fallbacks if stuff goes south in baseball? I think it's a difficult question to answer. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but I can sort of share my journey maybe, and perhaps that will answer some of the questions. So I worked for

almost all of my 20s on and off, but mostly on in hospitality. I worked in bars and restaurants. I was a bartender and bar manager, often at fancy cocktail-y kind of places, which I was passionate about and really loved doing. I have always been someone who has struggled to sit still. I have tried sort of nine to five-ish type jobs. I worked at a mediation nonprofit for a couple years. I actually did some writing and analysis for like a fantasy sports website, to which I thought like, wow, this is something I'm really passionate about. It will fulfill me. And it didn't. And working for the Postal Service as a mail carrier, something that had just kind of always been in the back of doing anything. And so it was like, you apply and then you wait a long time and you hear back and you are conditionally approved. And then you wait a

long time and they do a background check and you wait a long time. And in my experience, I waited so long that they said, oh, it's been too long since you've applied. You'll have to apply again. Did you wonder whether something was lost in the mail? You know, I have learned that if you believe it, the USPS does a lot by using the mail. And sometimes that can slow things down. Although the application process was all online. It was, yeah, that was a frustrating component. And then they like, they called me back six months later, unprompted and were like, hey, can you start next week?

And I said, who is this? Wow. Yeah. Was there a trial route where they were like, you got to deliver, here's a satchel full of mail. There's 10 barking dogs and you got to get back by this time, like an obstacle course for mail delivery. Or was it just like, do you do ride-alongs or walk-alongs with like more experienced mail carriers or did they just throw you into the fire? Yes, to all of those questions. Yes. So, so eventually I went through the application process another time, and it happened at a more reasonable speed. And I was like, ready and willing and prepared to take on this job. And so once you get hired, you know, you go to some trainings. It's sort of like, you know, learning about the history of the post office and what the job is like, sort of more like administrative HR type things. And then you go to carrier school, which is sort of that obstacle. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, nine hours for four days in a row learning how to do the job, learning where

you'll do the job, learning what it's like to, yeah, deal with like, what do you do if a dog tries to attack you or why you should be careful putting your fingers through a door slot? Because not only might a dog bite you, but you got to watch out for cats too, because they have long nails and they are known to swat at things. Yeah, they're menaces too. I say that as a lover of them, but yeah, menace. Yeah, I have two cats and a dog unfortunately, even coming home wearing the uniform has not desensitized our lovely pup from barking ferociously at our carrier every single day. So, yeah, so you go to carrier school, and you learn how to carry mail, and then you go to driver training. You learn how to drive, like, the big modern ProMaster van.

You learn how to drive the old school truck, like the cool one. It's called an LLV. It's a long life vehicle, which they have really long lives. The one I was driving for training, the odometer said it was like 80,000 miles. I was like, wow, this car's only got 80K on it. Isn't it so old? And the trainer said, no, the odometer resets when it goes to 999, 999. I said, oh, this has over a million miles on it. Wow. So you're sitting in the back sweat of 40 years worth of carriers before you. Yeah, it's great.

That electric fleet coming soon. Yes, maybe. Yeah, the whirring Amazon delivery trucks that maybe we'll have at some point. But yeah, you do obstacle courses in the car. You learn how to carry your satchel. There's like a practice street with mailboxes on it that you do. It sort of is how you imagined. Wait, where's the practice street? Is there like a set somewhere? It's like a parking lot, really. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So it's

like a full-scale recreation of a city block like you'd find on a movie backlot or something with like are there passing pedestrian actors like extras to make it more lifelike are there are there paid dogs who are there to greet you with with bared fangs like how realistic are we talking or is it just like here's where you drop this thing and then you go yeah they're okay mostly cones so i mean depending on how that's disappointing how vivid your imagination is, we pretend the cones are things. Ben's creating like the treehouse of horrors. Yeah. It seems like maybe like a VR implementation of this where we could have like a fully realized simulation, you know?

No? Okay. Baseball players do it. Why not? Yeah. I don't know. Once they figure out the application process, maybe they can figure out VR training. So I don't know if this applies to St. Louis as well, but when I walk around New York, sometimes I sort of sympathize with postal carriers because I can't see a visible address anywhere.

Now, granted, we're in the GPS era, and I guess if you get stuck, you can just look up where a place is. But a lot of places in New York, they don't really visibly post the street address, the number. And so if I were going around having to deliver things, I wouldn't really know,

okay, what is the number of this place? So I guess if you're making the rounds on your usual beat, you get to know, but are there ever times where it's sort of inscrutable and you're like, what address is this? Yes. Most days, I would say that is the case for me as a newer carrier. So you graduate male school, it's pretty hard to fail. And then you go and you get assigned to an office and you are what's called a PTF. It's part-time flexible. It is not part-time. I work something like 50 to 60 hours a week right now and six days a week, which is part of what

made scheduling this a little tough for me. It is not the case forever. You eventually become like a full-time regular. You have your own route. You work five days a week, because while there is no mail on Sundays, PTFs deliver packages and parcels on Sundays these days, which was a surprise to me. But yeah, so most days I am doing a different route. I'm doing one I haven't done before. Sometimes you get sent to a different station for the week and you're in an unfamiliar place. So delivering mail in New York sounds absolutely horrible to me, I will say. I think the job probably varies greatly depending on where you are. There's also rural carrying, which is a lot of driving. There are routes in which it's called a parking loop where you drive somewhere, you park, you walk, and then you go to the next place versus mounted

delivery, which is where you're just driving around in the old school LLV. So I mostly do walking, though I've been sent out to St. Louis County a few times to go through the homogenous cul-de-sacs and deliver to those brick mailboxes. But I really enjoy getting to walk around and I hope I get to keep doing that. And it is very challenging at times to figure out what street you might be on or if this is, you know, this street court or lane and where the heck is the house number? Are the house numbers going up by two? Are they going up by four? Where is this apartment building? Where's the mailbox for this giant condo unit? It's, you know, I don't think the job is that hard, I guess. Like I, you know,

for the most part, I'm just like walking around and putting the mail in the box, and it's pretty enjoyable. And there's a learning curve to it. And having done it for four months or so now, I feel like you could just plop me down on any route wherever, at least in the greater St. Louis area, but maybe anywhere. And you look at the mail, and it says where to go. And then you look at the next piece, and it says where to go. And then you look at the next piece and it says where to go. And you just kind of go from there. And for the most part, like the routes make sense. Like you're not going to deliver to one block and then, you know, drive miles away and deliver to the next. But I don't know.

New York sounds hellish. And I don't want to know what it's like to deliver mail there because it sounds stressful to even think about. Wow. Well, this is fascinating. I know this is supposed to be a baseball podcast and it just suddenly turned into career day. But what can we say? correspondence. So I wondered whether you gave any thought to that as you were pivoting to this career. But also, I wonder, based on your experience so far, has this improved your outlook on humanity? Has this made you more pro-social because you're getting exposed to people and strangers who maybe become acquaintances, at least constantly? And so I

wonder whether you're kind of confronting the worst of humanity and people complaining about lost mail or things being late or giving you a hard time, or whether it's the opposite, whether you feel like a fixture of the community and people are mostly civil and courteous and grateful. Has this made you feel better about your fellow person or worse? It's probably a little bit of both. I think that the, I guess, community-oriented nature of the job in some ways is part of what appealed to me and the idea that eventually I'll be, you know, on a more consistent route and getting to know the folks, getting to know a neighborhood, knowing which dogs I can say

hi to and which dogs not to and folks who are friendly and aren't that I think that there is some, you know, optimism that comes in that I certainly have seen so much more of the city that I live in in the last five months than I ever had before and gotten to know new areas. And I come home almost every day and tell my partner about the weird wacky thing I saw or the man who offered me a cold can of tomato juice yesterday and this dog that got out. Did you take him up on that? You know, I wish I had. It sort of just took me by surprise. He just looked at me and said, tomato juice the first time.

I said, what? And then I looked up and saw he was holding it. But I sort of was, I didn't really even notice him at first. He was just sitting there anyway. Nothing like a cold can of refreshing tomato juice when you're lugging the mail around. Is there a postal policy about not accepting gifts from strangers or tips or something like that? You know, there are a lot of postal policies and then there's what you actually do on the job. And I don't know if I was supposed to accept the tomato juice, but I'm sure I could have if I wanted to. I would have if I wanted to, but I did not because that's weird.

So I think that there's like all these just like little moments of joy and wonder that have made it feel very worth it for me. And there is also, I don't know, not to get too, it's not dark, but it saddens me in a way to see the ways that different neighborhoods and different parts of the city are treated differently based on things like, you know, median income and quality of housing and infrastructure. St. Louis in particular is a very deeply segregated city. You can cross one major road and feel like you're in a very different place. And it feels like the folks who need the mail the most and rely on it the most for things like paychecks or information they need about health care, governmental mail, whatever that might be, seem to get treated, not the worst, but maybe with less care because it can also be more difficult to navigate an apartment complex where there's been four

different tenants in the last two years versus a different part of the city where it's all single family homes and you just go up and down the long block. So there's some good and some bad in there. But on the whole, I think that I'm definitely looking forward to what it looks like when I am working a little bit less, fewer than 60 hours a week, and also, you know, sort of getting to know the same area, because I think that will be rewarding and will lead me maybe more towards that more positive outlook and view of humanity that I'm also sort of a deeply pessimistic and anxious person. So I don't know. The answer might be different from somebody else, but that's been my experience so far.

Wow. Well, thanks for telling us a little bit about your life. This was fascinating. I guess we should. I mean, we can just keep talking about the mail. Yeah, we don't have to. Baseball, whatever. Yeah, I know.

But we get a lot of mail here at Effectively Wild. Oh, that's called a transition. Yeah. So we should answer some letters even if they weren't hand delivered. Maybe we should have a P.O. box so that we could get physical correspondence from Effectively Wild listeners. That would be kind of fun. But we haven't done that yet. So we will just answer some emails.

All right. Let's answer one from Kyle who says, In a recent episode when discussing advanced stats for bench players, this was that Jason Benetti call that he put out for some sort of data, some sort of framework that would account for the usage of bench players like a plus minus in baseball. You mentioned the possibility of measuring whether or not players perform better when they have good or bad chemistry with another player, which got me thinking this is a very common feature of Mario baseball, though this has more to do with off-the-field events

than those that happen during each player's career. Mario doesn't play well with Bowser because Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach. Sure, makes sense. They are kind of sworn enemies in not necessarily a mortal way, but yeah. Can I ask a clarifying question as um a different kind of nerd than this so they're just the the mario characters playing baseball yeah so there are so many mario spinoffs franchises and many spinoff sports franchises and there's one specifically called mario super sluggers and I suppose it's predecessor Mario Super Star Baseball, which might be what Kyle is referring to here.

And Monty Mole has good chemistry with Goomba, presumably because they are both little guys. We've discussed a mole man hypothetical on Effectively Wild, but this is different. From the wiki, Kyle says, an example of good chemistry is when a character throws the ball to their buddy, the ball travels faster than normal, glows purple, and leaves a purple trail. The character who throws the ball also emits a happy sound while throwing. Although a player wouldn't be able to throw a ball better just because they have their best friend

on the other side of the diamond, I have the following proposal. What if we gave players advantages based on their participation in off-the-field activities together? For example, when Trevor May and Mark Canna did a food crawl around Queens, what if that would then allow Trevor to use a stickier concoction when pitching or Mark to use a better bat when they appear in the same game together? When Tommy Pham slapped Jock Peterson,

could that cause him to not be able to take as much of a lead off the bag a better bat when they appear in the same game together. When Tommy Pham slapped Jock Peterson, could that cause him to not be able to take as much of a lead off the bag when trying to steal if Jock is at the plate? I imagine front offices may not want to sign players they know have disadvantages when rostered on the same team. I also imagine there are a lot of other possible modifiers that could be introduced that could cause balance issues. But I think it would be good for baseball as it would encourage players to do things outside of the game itself to show they are building their camaraderie slash getting along. And it would also benefit the organization by spreading the visibility of their team when incentivizing posting these types of activities on social media. Would love to get your thoughts. So if there were some sort of modifier, some sort of bonus that players could activate by taking part in activities with other teammates, I do kind of like the straight up Mario scenario of like you put these players on the field together and there's like a multiplier effect somehow.

Like that would be kind of cool if that happened, which I guess there is in some ways. I mean, like a pitcher-catcher combo, you know, like a personal catcher. That's sort of the same thing. You know, you can almost read the other party's minds and you know their strengths and weaknesses, even if there's no like purple trail when you throw the ball. But what do you think about something to encourage player socializing, seeing each other off the field, some sort of bonus that would accrue to them during the game? I have a question.

In this scenario, would Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andres sharing the field make them better or worse at catching pop-ups? Great question. I think arguably worse, but much more entertaining. That's what it seems like. Yeah. What if you are playing another team

where you have someone who used to be your best work friend? How would that play out? Because I feel like you talk about Beltre. It's like when Beltre was still active and Felix was still active, would they have canceled each other out because they were good friends but now they're opponents?

How would that work? I like it so much when players are friends and when they seem like they're friends. And sometimes they're such good friends that they decide to give each other little kisses. Because they want to. Only if they want to. But if they do decide to give each other a little kiss. Yeah, because they want to. Only if they want to. But if they do, they give each other a little kiss. But I also am going to say a thing that might surprise people, which is I think it's very important to allow people to not be forced to deal with coworkers if they don't want to. with co-workers if they don't want to. You know, especially if you're a baseball player, it's like you spend so much time with one another as is, you know, you're at the field all the time, you travel

so much. And I think if people are naturally friends and they want to hang out and sometimes, you know, their wives or girlfriends or partners come to be pals with one another. And so they have like a natural reason to hang out but i also do think that it's important for them to take breaks away from baseball and that might mean taking breaks away from baseball people uh and so i i like it but i think that we should allow for like camaraderie demonstrated um within the confines of the ballpark to, to, uh, multiply these powers because sometimes you just, you need a little break, you know, you want to hang out with people who aren't picking up a paycheck from the same person that you are. So I, I want to allow for

that separation of, of work and personal life, mostly because I'm curious, like, what would it be like to have work-life balance? We should investigate that as a notion. Yeah, you raise a good point. I'm not a big participator or joiner of group activities, and so to be compelled to do that, and we work from home, maybe by circumstance, but at least in my case, largely by choice, it would be an impediment to my happiness, I think, if I had to work in an office all the time. You know, occasionally, sure, you see your coworkers, absolutely. But to have to, I prefer for that to be optional and elective. So, you're right. And if this were something that conferred advantages, then it would quickly become compulsory, right? It would be like optional, quote unquote, practices where if you don't show up and people are like, why weren't you at practice? Well, it was optional. Yeah, but not really, right?

Or you were wearing jeans, you know? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then it would be like, well, are you just going through the motions of like doing this activity with this person to get the benefit? Or would you get the benefit if it weren't sincere, if it were just checking a box and like, okay, we had to have this many meals with this person and then we unlock whatever it is. But maybe you don't actually gain that advantage. You don't derive that boost unless you actually like them and you're not doing it just out

of obligation, which would be awkward if like one person got the boost and the other didn't because they didn't actually like you, didn't actually like socializing with you and were just doing it because it was expected. So yeah, it would have to come down to you actually wanting to do it. It should be genuine. It should be sincere. And thus, it should be optional. But then, like, what if you don't like your teammates? Is that your fault? Like, do we want to punish players? What if they're with a group of guys who aren't so great, you know? Yeah. so great you know yeah like i guess this would then increase the incentive to have a good clubhouse and good morale and and actually get good guys on the team so that might be a good thing for baseball on the whole there'd be like you know something more than just the ineffable unquantifiable good clubhouse chemistry kind of bonus that we assume exists but is hard to

actually quantify or predict or engineer so maybe that'd be good i guess but but then you'd be at a disadvantage if you just happen to be on a team with a bunch of jerks and then yeah that would make things worse because you're playing a team with a bunch of good guys who all get along great and see each other socially and then get even better. And then that makes you play worse and then you feel even worse. And now everyone's going to be squabbling at each other's throats. So it has the potential to compound clubhouse chemistry problems. You always have to allow for the possibility that people suck. You know, what do you do with that? You don't want to have to hang out with someone who sucks. I bet you're so relieved if you have

a crummy teammate to come home and be like, oh my god, to be away from that guy for 12 hours at home instead. You're probably really jazzed about it. Do you mean to suggest that all MLB players aren't good guys? I mean, they seem like good guys. They're all

heroes and role models and upstanding citizens. Pillars of the community. You know, I guess I should allow for the fact that my definition of a guy kind of being a guy who sucks might not always carry amongst, betwixt and between baseball players. Like some of them might be like, that guy's great. But I'm sure that some of them are like, that guy sucks. You're just not going to like everyone. You know, I feel very fortunate because I really genuinely like all the people I work with. But this is the very first time that's ever happened in my,

you know, almost 38 years of being alive and, you know, however many 20 years of being a working person. So is that right? Am I doing my math right? Yeah. About that long. Wow. It's a rarity. You know, there's going to be a couple of stinkers no matter where you work for the most part. To be clear, I'm with you on that. I think probably like they're mostly stinker. I think there's maybe like 10 baseball players I can think of that I feel pretty sure are a good hang. And there's like at least 100 that I could quickly name that sound like they're not a good hang. like at least a hundred that I could quickly name that sound like they're not a good hang.

That answers my question about whether being a postal carrier has improved your outlook on humanity. It's a narrow subsection of humanity that plays Major League Baseball. Notably, they're all men, which is often a ding for me off the bat. So I think that on the whole, like incentivizing teams to like each other more, like, isn't that it's already good. And I think that the fact that it's not really measurable is sort of interesting, especially in a sport in which like almost literally everything else can be measured, right? I'm sure teams are trying to gain a competitive edge and optimize friendship or whatever. But I don't really think that is going to work. And I think that it is just probably maybe good to have good vibes. I mean, the Phillies, goodness, they have good vibes. They've overachieved.

That seems like something that teams could copy. But yeah, it's tough to think about the chemistry boosts in that sense. I know we do hypothetical baseball things here, so I don't just want to come out as like anti-purple trail on the baseball. That's not what I'm saying. I think that'd be cool. But what if someone's jealous, as you said, that you have the purple? Why don't I have the purple trail? And then it's a whole kerfuffle. Yeah, maybe it'd be better if there is no purple trail and then we're left to try to infer

whether there is some relationship that is boosting both players or not. Like we would have to build that into our analysis somehow, this factor that might be difficult to perceive from afar or to project, but it would give us even more to analyze potentially. We can see if they kiss. Yeah. See if they give a little, a little, a little loving kiss. Just a nice little kiss. Okay. Question from Damon who says,

I was watching the Mets this evening. This is by the way, a pedantic question. How can you not be pedantic about baseball? It's a pedantic home run inquiry. I was watching the Mets this evening. This is, by the way, a pedantic question. How can you not be pedantic about baseball? It's a pedantic home run inquiry. I was watching the Mets this evening and Brandon Nimmo hit a leadoff home run against the Cubs. Pretty standard stuff. This came after Mark Vientos hit a walk-off home run to end the game against the Cardinals on Sunday. Gary Cohen

on the SNY broadcast then posed the question, does this count as back-to-back home runs? So it was a game-ending home run and then a game-starting home run. I'm sure there have been many times that there's been a lead-off homer in one game following a walk-off home run in the previous game,

but can these be classified as back-to-back homers? If we define back-to-back homers as happening in consecutive at-bats or plate appearances, how then do we define consecutive? Dictionary.com defines consecutive as following one another in uninterrupted succession or order. Technically, the interruption happens as a result of one game ending in the next beginning,

not as a result of an at-bat not ending with a home run. So it's true, there is an interruption of one kind, but not an interruption of another kind, but not an interruption of another kind. So are these back-to-back dingers? So like we will talk about like scoreless innings streaks for a pitcher, right? And those almost always occur over multiple games by the time they get to a number that's impressive enough for us to remark upon them, right? So he hasn't given up a run in 20 innings. And it's understood that he has not thrown 20 innings in a weird long game, one long game, right? And sometimes those streaks even span multiple seasons.

Right, right. Yeah. We'll say going back to last year, he hasn't given up a run since last october or whatever and so there is precedent within the sport for us to have it span games and like how different is say a down period um between the end of one game in the beginning of another and say an innings break you know like we we are looking at a smaller time time frame, but it's not as if the play is uninterrupted even within the course of a game. You know, they take their little commercial break. And so on the one hand, I'm reticent to say that it is like back to back because that to me does feel like something

that is like within the confines of one game and maybe even one inning but it is it's like there's there wasn't a break in between in terms of game action so like i think you could do it but i do think it would be confusing to people like they would assume that you were talking about one game if you were talking about like, you know, a back-to-back kind of situation. So I think it would be technically allowable, but it would violate the important rule of like people knowing what you're talking about. And I think that clarity is important when we're deploying language. So I started at one place and I've ended up thinking that, no, I don't know that you could or you could, but maybe you shouldn't, you know?

Yeah. You could defend it, but I'm a thumbs down on this one too. I think the immediacy of it, if it's in a different game or even arguably in a different inning, it just doesn't have the same effect, right? I mean, you're not going to be excited about back-to-back homers if it's two different games. The whole idea is that it happens in quick succession. So you're still jazzed about the first homer and then blow another homer, right?

Yeah. And the guy who just hit the homer comes out and high-fives with the guy who just hit it a few minutes ago. And they could even, like, you know, be back- back physically. Like it's, I don't, they could, they could if they want to, but I just, I think the enthusiasm dissipates with the passage of time. And I think that's the whole key to the back to back Homer. So I, yeah, it doesn't work for me. It has to be, I think same inning even.

Yeah. I'm pretty out on it as well. It feels wrong. You know, it's like something just doesn't compute. And I was trying to think of like another context in which I would say back to back. And then I couldn't think of one because I just listened to a lot of baseball. And so I Googled what happens back to back. And one of the top results was back to back meetings, right? Like people talk about, oh, I've got, you know, a three and a four o'clock. And if someone told me that they had a 5pm and

then a 9am as back to back meetings, I would scoff. Yeah, you'd be like, no. Right, right. Yeah, you're like, no. Yeah, I just had back to back podcasts. I was just doing another podcast and then I'm doing this podcast. No break in between. Whereas, yeah, if it were like the last thing in one day and then the first thing in the next day, not back-to-back, right? I mean, things happen. You can't just go take a shower and get undressed and get dressed again and go home and eat dinner and go out on the town and see your family or whatever and then come back the next day and sleep for could be up to 14 hours if you're you say kikuchi or something and then and then come back and then there's another book yeah and and you say back to back no i don't think so just too much life transpires in between and i think like we should we should contemplate briefly the the purpose of noting the back-to-back And I think you hit on something, Ben,

which is like, you're, you're trying to build excitement, but I would argue that like, if you have a walk off home run and then you have like a, a lead off home run, you don't need to do any work to, to build the excitement of those moments.

Those are inherently very exciting, right? We don't have to like lard them up with other stuff. We don't need to hang extra ornaments them up with other stuff we don't need to hang extra ornaments on the christmas tree we're we're excited because there was a walk-off and like the fact that mark vientos hit it is like kind of wild because boy what a bad year that guy is having and so it's like you have this big well like rush of excitement awesome and then you're at the ballpark and oh my gosh they hit amazing and. You know, you don't need to.

It's enough. It's enough on its own. You know, it sustains itself. I don't think we need to gild the lily. That's a better expression than lard it up. Lard it up. What is that? Lard it up.

Terrible. The other thing is that if it can span games, you could have someone hit a leadoff homer who was not in the previous game. And it would be weird to have back-to-back homers by people who weren't batting back-to-back in the lineup at the time that the home runs were hit. Weirder than that, though, you could have the same person hitting back-to-back homers.

Yes! Oh, this is actually the primary argument against it. Yeah, yeah. You can't be back-to-back with yourself. So someone could hit a walk-off and then a lead-off, which has happened, right? And you can't be back-to-back with yourself. Unless you're Dan Spieswanson and Charlie Culberson. And then I think you are technically back-to-back with yourself sometimes because it's just like the same boy running back and forth really fast.

But otherwise, no, I think you need like the static batting order and lineup. And you have one person like – I don't know if their back is like literally or physically to the other person's back at any point in the process. If you're on deck, I don't know, your names are next to each other on the lineup card. I mean, yeah. You can't allow for the possibility of the same person hitting back-to-back home runs. Yeah. No, you can't. Good.

Glad we settled that. Everyone was wondering. Okay. Ross has a question about protecting bird bones. Ross says, I was watching Challengers and had a realization about baseball players punching walls. I think part of the impulse of frustration-induced destruction among top athletes, which he calls FIDATA, F-I-D-A-T-A is our acronym for this, is to destroy the implement they use for performance. So for tennis players, it's the racket.

For pitchers and hitters, it's the hand. Granted, there are bats as well. We've seen the knee bat snap before, but it's so embarrassing when it doesn't work. So why bother? Also, I like to think most players have the presence of mind to know that a baseball bat is a deadly weapon and not something to go whacking on things willy-nilly with. They don't, though. They whack on things with the bat quite often. But for tennis players, it's the racket. For pitchers and hitters, it's the hand. Tennis players have a perfect way to deal with their frustration.

Rackets are perfect for smashing. There's a big buffer in terms of impact zone and hand placement. Plus, it's very satisfying to see the racket destroyed. All this is to say I don't think punching bags in the tunnel, my proposed solution, either that or padding the walls everywhere in the vicinity of the field, are enough. Players want to destroy something, but there's no baseball equipment that is as safe or as satisfying to destroy as a tennis racket. This is where it gets wacky. What if pitchers and batters started wearing a piece of gear designed to be destroyed?

Ideally, the product has some balance band-like claims that make players think it helps with performance. To be clear, it does nothing to help or hinder performance. It needs to be non-invasive but does nothing to help or hinder performance. It needs to be non-invasive but prominent enough to create a buffer from destruction. Is such a product possible? What would it look like? So something like the crumple zone on a car, basically.

Right. Wow, you used a car analogy. I can't believe that. I know, I have a character for me. But something that is basically built to be destroyed in such a way that preserves the health of the occupants or the people, right? And so it would be something on a baseball player's person that they could trash and they could – almost like punching a pillow, screaming into a pillow if you're really mad. But they don't have pillows on their person on the field. Well, now that's an idea.

A pillow contract, I guess you might call the bases pillows, but actual pillows. Or impair their performance but would just be there for them if they had to take their rage out on something without hurting anyone else or themselves or the water cooler, I guess. Sometimes water coolers bear the brunt of this, which I guess mostly a victimless crime. The water cooler is not sentient. Although sometimes they hurt their little hands on the water cooler. Yeah, right. You could hurt yourself kicking a cooler, punching a cooler. That has happened. So what could they wear or carry around

that would be breakable by design? But they can't know that it's for that purpose, I guess, according to the question. It's like a placebo rage receiver. It's like when they used to wear the fightin' necklaces, you know, kind of the junk science, like magnets, blood flow, whatever. But that wouldn't be very satisfying to destroy.

I feel like part of the satisfaction of destroying something is that it's not supposed to be destroyed, right? Like if that's a tennis racket or in football, a player throws their helmet or a rocker smashes their guitar. I guess some bands sort of had that intention. But there's plenty, there's lots of equipment in baseball. I think that what's wrong with throwing your glove or really tossing off your batting gloves or a helmet?

There is stuff that you can throw and maybe not destroy, but it feels like we're just feeding into this need for rage. And I understand the importance of being able to kick or punch something and not break your little bird bones. But maybe we should just encourage players to be more creative in what equipment they already have. You know, it's like a challenge almost. Like, I bet you can't, you know, have your glove tear apart if you throw it really hard at the wall. And then they're just throwing something really hard. And that's not so bad sometimes.

Yeah. You see some spiking of the rosin bag sometimes. Yeah. So that's a solution. Yeah. Hmm. I don't know what you could wear around all the time that wouldn't affect your performance in any way.

And it wouldn't be clear to anyone that it was there solely for the purpose of you know like taking right taking the the brunt of your attack also isn't a bat the implement you know i gotta go back to this in the initial question like if the if the tennis players racket is their implement then i think the bat is the implement for hitters. I get that for pitchers, it's the ball, probably. It's probably your ball or your glove, maybe. But if we're displacing the idea of an implement, they're not wrestlers. If you're a wrestler, your implement is your body or a gymnast. Maybe they should do rage art therapy.

There should be an easel set up. Yeah, they could do some like Jackson Pollock style flinging. Right. That'd be good. What if the baseballs like exploded a little bit? Like into paint and you paint, you got an easel and you're like exploding baseball paint thing. Needs a better name. You've got an easel and you're like exploding baseball paint thing. Yeah. Needs a better name.

We finally have a good use for like all the gender reveal party nonsense. It's like this is actually art therapy for angry baseball players rather than this, whatever this weird phenomena is. Yeah. I like that. They could have like a cute little shared team easel. And like at the end of the season, they frame it and they put it on display. And if they want to, they all kiss. Yeah, or they auction it. Yeah, they do art together and then they all kiss.

And they're all in therapy together. We're creating a better baseball, I think. Group therapy. Wow, this sounds so healthy. It does sound healthy. Although, again, I think that it is important to have space away from one's place of work to do that kind of emotional processing. So maybe we should just limit it to the art therapy, you know, because you don't need to have, like, group. It's only if they want to.

Only, I guess it's true, only if they want to. Wow, we embrace so many good concepts on Effectively Wild. Okay. Well, we'll accept further suggestions if you want to write in and let us know. All right. The people who work for teams who listen to this podcast are going to be like, what are you even talking about? I know. I think about that sometimes, the front office folks who listen to Effectively Wild. I think about that a lot.

Why? And you know what? I feel like they chose to be here, so they must like our kooky dicks. What are you getting out of this? Yeah. Has there ever been a time when someone who works for a front office or a coach or a player development person was like, you know, I heard this thing on Effectively Wild and I know it's kind of out there, but what if we actually did did this i really hope that it is encouraging them to kiss if they want to but only only if they want to hey nationals front office members hey listen up promote james wood just just do it just call him up just do it it's so weird we

listen to effectively wild and rather than calling up james, we started a poly cue and everything went wrong. Okay. Question from Zach who says, I have a thought for you all to discuss for if baseball were different. And this one is probably only one alternate universe away from being implemented. I thought about this when watching a game where at one point there was a pitch that barely grazed the strike zone. It was a borderline pitch called a ball. And the announcer said, you know, with ABS, with robot umps, that would be a strike. But if we do full ABS, we wouldn't have to do that. We could make the rules that if your pitch is 25% in the strike zone, there's a 25% chance it's a strike. If it's 100% in or out, it's always a ball or strike. They could even display on the diamond vision the percentage chance and create very unfun animations.

If a less than 5% chance hits, you can roll a d20 and say, crit. How much would this decrease your enjoyment of the game? How long for shuffle truthers to emerge? So if they had it be kind of probabilistic, which it is now. It is. That's why what we have is satisfying to me. Yeah.

So what if they modeled that then? Do you think they should? If we get ABS, which I know you'd rather we didn't, but if they tried to, we've gotten other questions about this, like what if you built in basically the shape that the umpires called us in currently, or what if you even changed the zone based on the count the way that umpires do now? And I don't know, my thought is always like, well, if you're going to build in these imperfections,

could we just keep the imperfections that we have already, right? Would it be, I mean, it would be less jarring. It would be less of a disruption to the way that people play and follow the game. But also you don't need to do these things just because it's the way it's always worked. But yeah, what if you had just a probabilistic thing where it's like, well, that was partly in the strike zone. So you have a chance. Would that be better or would that be ultimately frustrating for fans that there was kind of like a randomness that was built into the system as opposed to just an

inevitable byproduct of human fallibility? I wouldn't say I didn't listen to the question, but I would say that I was thinking a little bit about how to invite Stone Garrett to my baseball polycule while it was being read. So what exactly are we doing here? Deliver a letter to Tom. I just need his address. We're doing probabilistic balls and strikes. Is that what it is? If the pitch is partly in the strike zone, then you have a percentage chance that it will be called a strike that corresponds to how much of the ball actually passed through the zone as opposed to just some tiny portion of the ball nicked the zone.

Therefore, it's 100% a strike. Y'all already touched on it. We already have that. And as a listener to games on the radio now, I especially think that that would be just like a deeply confusing product to watch and even more so to try and listen to and describe. We've talked about an important part of my answer here before, which is that I think as soon as you introduce technology

to a situation like this, particularly if what you are saying is we're going to have a full robo zone, by which I mean every ball and strike is going to be called by the computer and not by the human umpire behind home. Because there would still be a guy back there as we've established, or in the future, maybe not exclusively guys. But there will still be a person back there, right? Because you have to have someone to call plays at the plate. And so you're going to have a person standing back there, despite my initial hope that we would have like an actual robot. right. And that's part of why it's appealing to people. All you have to do is look at Twitter after there has been a bad missed call to understand that people think you're just going to get it right every time. There's going to be no problem. And I think we have seen as

the league has worked through implementing and adjusting ABS in the minors that we are not there with the abs zone which is part of the reason that i don't want it in the majors i don't think the tech is as close in terms of it being able to call a full game as people expect it to be and so the idea that we would then introduce on purpose imperfection to a scenario where people are like we want this because it will be perfect and it will be infallible is going to make people very angry, just like they're going to be really worked up. And I think that they're already going to be worked up because the zone is going to look so different from what they're expecting because you really don't have to nick it with very much of the ball for it to suddenly be a strike. And so I'm going to take this opportunity to once again say, what you want is the challenge system. You think you want the full robo zone. That's what you think you want, but you don't. You want the challenge

system because the challenge system is perfect. And it already allows us to do this probabilistic thing with the strike zone, which I think, you know, when you think about pitchers who are really nasty is what you want, right? Because like that is kind of, it's a borderline pitch and you want it to be borderline. It's like the intent behind the pitch, you don't, you want to be able to avoid big mistakes because big mistakes make us really angry and they tend to be pretty obvious, right? And so you want the challenge system and then you'll be happy. You'll be happy, you know? You will.

You will. I promise. Yeah, there's always going to be some margin for error, obviously, as there is in tennis with Hawkeye, with the in and out calls, right? But here you'd be actually modeling that error or just building in a certain probability. And I think that might be frustrating for people. And Zach, who asked the question for the record, said that he thinks he would hate it too,

but that it would be maybe fun or at least fun to talk about. And they have tweaked the robo zone in ways that are more like what we're used to. So some of the tweaks that we've seen so far have been about the dimensions of the zone or like does it have to pass through at any point or is it at this point like front of the plate or back of the plate or whatever. And so they have changed things to be not kind of computerized perfect precision. things to be not kind of computerized perfect precision. Yes, technically it passed through some portion of the strike zone, but in a place where it's basically unhittable and would never have been called a strike. So they already have adapted things to be more like the way that it is currently called. So I don't think it's so far-fetched that this could happen, but no, it would be, I think, very frustrating if the outcome of the game of the season came down to like a literal dice roll as opposed to just the umpire making their best judgment. And they're going to be right sometimes and they're going to be wrong sometimes, but they're not consciously saying, eh.

Or at least you hope they're not just kind of random number generating in their head and saying, well, this will be a strike and this will be a ball. But that's what we're talking about here. So, yeah, I think even if the effect were palatable, the mechanism would not sit well with people. Maybe you could combine it with the challenge system, right? So when you challenge a pitch, then it's a dice roll or a card draw based on whether that pitch would or wouldn't have been called a strike. Probably still no. All right. Two more. This is another one about officiating. This is a question from Ray, who says, your discussion of replay review earlier this week reminded me of a conversation on the TIFO football podcast, non-American football,

It reminded me of a conversation on the TIFO football podcast, non-American football, regarding VAR, the soccer version of replay review. And Ray says, I can't find the podcast episode where this was discussed, but I found a tweet that echoes the general sentiment. And the tweet from John McKenzie says, refereeing in football exists as a means of allowing the game to happen. Both teams play on the understanding that a neutral arbiter will rule one way or another when rules are broken. The referee then is a facilitator of the running of the game, nothing more. The problem with modern discussions about refereeing is that the conversation has fixated on rightness or wrongness of decisions when that's not the point. Refereeing isn't about perfection. It's about functionality. This is the lesson we should have learned from VAR,

but we haven't because we're all done. So Ray says, I think the idea is that without the neutral arbiter, the two teams would be at an impasse whenever they agreed about an on-field issue. As such, by having both teams ceding authority to a ref, you create a framework whereby play can actually progress in a way it couldn't without the arbiter. So it's not just one side saying safe and one side saying out and they argue back and forth, right?

You defer to someone who rules one way or another and then you can keep playing. And Ray says, curious what you all think of this idea and whether it changes your thoughts about the clear and obvious clause in video replay. In my opinion, the clear and obvious clause is meant to keep authority firmly in the hands of the on-field umpires as much as possible. If we allow replay review to more easily overturn calls on the field, the overall accuracy of calls may increase, but I worry that the stripping of authority from field umps may erode the social contract on which the game lives. What if teams begin to refuse to accept certain ball slash strike calls or refuse to accept an ejection? Say Aaron Boone. I feel that perhaps the gentle fabric of respect and authority that holds together the game

may be more important than very edge case close calls. than very edge case close calls. So what do you think of this concept of refereeing or umpiring? That the important thing is that they're there to keep things moving, to enable the competition to proceed more so than to get 100% accuracy, though I might argue that some high base level of accuracy

is necessary to create the perception of legitimacy. And then what do you think of the idea that outsourcing those calls, high base level of accuracy is necessary to create the perception of legitimacy. And then what do you think of the idea that outsourcing those calls, that stripping that authority from the on-field ump to someone else who's not even physically present would then degrade the authority of the ump in a way that might lead to less confidence in that neutral arbiter? I appreciate, if I'm understanding correctly, the idea that we don't focus enough on the referee or the umpire as the, I guess, sort of the steward of the game,

you know, the one who makes it all happen. And I will speak from my own experience as someone who is still chasing my middle school baseball dreams, I play in a couple of recreational softball leagues. And I play volleyball as well. And I think that the folks who choose to umpire those games are doing truly some of the most thankless work there is. Nobody cares that you are the umpire in a softball game that's a bunch of people in their 30s trying not to pull their hamstrings, but that person is there. And without them, maybe we could still play. We'd probably argue about calls, but they do things like, you know, just like call the play dead or understand the rules. Obviously, these things are inherent at the major league level but i think from the amateur you know

we all start somewhere in little league or t-ball or whatever the version of that is for other sports and without a referee or a coach or an umpire maybe a parent sometimes you you never get to start playing or participating in that sport or that thing i I think that, I mean, extends well beyond to thinking about teachers and educators and things like that. And it's easy to get distracted by the ump shows of the world that we get at the professional level. But I do think that, gosh, I wish it didn't sound sort of like saying back the blue to say we should respect the umpires in baseball. But I do think maybe the individuals themselves mostly deserve respect and also that nature of the job that they are there to say the game starts now and it ends now and this is how it works and these are the rules. We don't think about that because these are billion-dollar entities at this point. But

as they say, they are just playing a game out there, and you need someone in charge of the game. Yeah, I think I mentioned, I mean, that is one reason why umps are prickly so often is because they are often given a hard time, and their authority is constantly under assault, and people are always advocating for ceding some of their responsibilities to machines. And so I understand why you might feel like everyone's against us and we kind of have to maintain this air of authority no matter what. Now, some of them take it too far because they refuse to admit their mistakes in a way that, if anything, actually undercuts their authority by pretending that they're always right. Well, we know that they're not. And so that makes them a little less credible and authoritative.

But I get the impulse behind it. I think in this case, I don't know that you would really jeopardize the umps authority as long as you clearly signal what is reviewable and what is not. If ball strike calls aren't subject to replay review, then I don't know that you would really get players arguing more about that just because the on-field umps ruling is less prioritized when it comes to other kinds of calls. And it's not like players and coaches and managers haven't given them grief about ball strike calls forever, even when there is no recourse whatsoever, right? So I don't know how much it would actually change.

I don't think it would interfere with the ability to continue to conduct the game. I don't think people would be like refusing to recognize the authority of the umps and just sitting and not playing in protests, you know? I don't find you credible as a neutral arbiter and so I'm just going to sit down and go back to the dugout and

sulk or something. I doubt that things would get to that point. Yeah, I think that that's right. Last question, and I'll apologize in advance because this is only tenuously connected to baseball. Is it about the mail? No, but it's tenuously related to baseball because it's inspired by a conversation we had that was itself inspired by baseball. But I found it very illuminating and maybe other people will too. And this is a question from Nicole who says, how can you not be pedantic about summer sausage?

Oh, yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. Except Nicole probably would say, how can you not be pedantic about summer sausage? Right. That is what this question concerns. So, Nicole says, after listening to Effectively Wild episode 2158, where we discussed the twins' summer sausage home run celebration, I have a small beef, I don't know if that was pun intended, probably, with your pronunciation of summer sausage. was pun intended, probably, with your pronunciation of summer sausage. In spoken English, compound nouns are denoted by a greater emphasis on the first word of the compound to distinguish them

from mere combinations of adjectives and nouns. Hence, greenhouse, as opposed to a greenhouse. This is true even if the compound noun is written as two separate words. For example, the Lindsay Lohan film about a cruel female clique is pronounced mean girls and not mean girls. Okay, I'm with you so far. The former pronunciation indicates that the movie is about a particular social group of high school society, while the latter pronunciation would suggest the movie is about some girls who happen to be mean. In the same way, a summer sausage, or I guess I should read this as Nicole would, a summer sausage is a particular type of sausage, not just any kind of sausage

that makes its appearance in summer. Hence, it should be pronounced summer sausage and not summer sausage. If you haven't tried it, Nicole says, I recommend a summer sausage sandwich with Munster cheese and strawberry jelly. Now, when this email came in, Meg and I both objected to it. Our initial reaction, I think you said something along the lines of we're pro-pedantry here, but not this degree of pedantry. This was pedantry too far for us even, which is really saying something. And I experimented with it. I appreciated the pedantry and I appreciated the devotion to linguistic and grammatical consistency. Yes. But I tried it out.

I said it out loud a few times, summer sausage, summer sausage. And it just sounded very strange to my ears. It just sounded unnatural. I couldn't bring myself to say summer sausage instead of summer sausage. And then I looked up, well, how do the authorities say it? So I went straight to Hickory Farms' YouTube channel. And Hickory Farms says it the way that we say it, summer sausage. Summer sausage.

Not that selling and making summer sausage makes you the ultimate arbiter of how to say summer sausage, but that's how they do it, summer sausage. Not that selling and making summer sausage makes you the ultimate arbiter of how to say summer sausage, but that's how they do it, right? Anyway, to settle this, I brought out the big guns. In this case, Ben Zimmer, who is the ultimate word nerd, a linguist, language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, big wig in the Word community. And I get the opportunity to email him quite frequently about Effectively Wild Matters, which is wonderful. Frankly, I love to do that. I do this baseball podcast so that I can constantly pester Ben about Word stuff.

So I sent this question to him, other, other Ben, I guess this Ben would be. And he had a fascinating, I thought, response. He said, this opens up a fascinating can of worms. You're not alone in saying summer sausage. In addition to Vivian from Hickory Farms, who was in the video that I sent him, there are plenty of other examples you can find using the handy site Youglish, which finds snippets of YouTube that

match search terms. Pretty cool. I didn't listen to all 32 examples for summer sausage, but it's clear that the majority agree with your pronunciation of summer sausage. Nicole is invoking what is often called the compound stress rule, and it holds true for most English compounds, like her examples of greenhouse and Mean Girls. But there are notable exceptions, and many of them are food terms. Consider apple pie, for instance. It's never apple pie. In fact, Nicole happened to supply more examples

in the last line of her email. One would typically say, Munster cheese and strawberry jelly, with the stress on the second element, not the first. What is happening here? That was what I asked him. The linguist Bob Ladd noted this phenomenon in a 1981 paper, English Compound Stress. He sent me a PDF, which I will link to, later anthologized in the collection,

Intonation, Accent, and Rhythm. Ladd considers how often culinary compounds break the compound stress rule, instead putting stress on the second element like apple pie or chocolate cake. And here's the key bit. So he sent me a little excerpt from Bob Ladd's 1981 treatise, which I will read here. A second set of cases involves the classification of culinary terms, as can be seen from just three cases, chocolate cake, apple cake, apple pie. It is futile to try to explain the exceptions to the traditional compound rule in terms of individual lexical items,

since apple can be either stressed or unstressed in attribute position, and cake can be either stressed or unstressed in head position, depending on the compound. Moreover, since all three seem to represent an underlying relation, B made of A, the stress cannot be explained in these syntactic terms. Instead, what seems to be involved here is classification in terms of what one might call flavors versus categories. So things to eat often come in a variety of flavors.

Ice cream, milkshakes, sandwiches, and souffles are all examples. For most purposes in the culinary taxonomy, the different flavors all count as the same. That is, in the terms we've been using to discuss compounds and deaccenting, naming the flavor further describes but does not further categorize. This is why many of these culinary compounds have phrasal stress. So in chocolate cake and apple pie, in other words, cake and pie are the categories, and chocolate and apple are merely flavors. In apple cake, on the other hand, we do have a different category. The deaccenting signals something like this thing is cake only to the extent circumscribed by something else in the context, namely apple. The effect of the deaccenting here is thus like what we saw in greenhouse. Okay. Are you still

sort of with me? Bob Ladd concludes, if this seems too facile, there's a simple pragmatic text that seems to suggest that the distinction between flavors and categories is a real one. If the head of such a compound can be inserted into the frame, do you want a, insert thing here, or do you want some, whatever, without misleading the addressee about what is being offered, then the attribute is a flavor. For instance, do you want a sandwich? Is fine, even if all the speaker really has available is, say, a cheese sandwich. On the other hand, if both the attribute and the head must be included in order not to mislead the addressee, then a separate category is involved. Do you want some bread is decidedly infelicitous if what the speaker has in mind to offer the addressee is banana bread.

So that's Bob Ladd's take on this. That's Bob Ladd's take on this. So, Ben Zimmer concludes, in the case of summer sausage, it can be thought of as a flavor of sausage rather than a distinct culinary category. The same would go for, say, German sausage or Polish sausage, both of which would have primary stress on the sausage element. And Ben says, hope this is pedantic enough for you. And you know what? It is. It is maybe the maximum amount of pedantry that we have ever entertained on this podcast, but not beyond the maximum, at least for me.

And Ben says, an addendum, stress patterns in food terms can change over time. So old-fashioned iced cream eventually became ice cream as it became recognized as its own culinary category, not just as a flavor. And as Ben said, that was really just an excuse to include a classic Simpsons clip of Mr. Burns saying, I'm really enjoying this so-called ice cream. Well, that's the answer. That's why we say summer sausage. And, Nicole, I hope you will accept. You want to fight pedantry with pedantry.

So we came right back at you. We matched your pedantry energy here and maybe even went beyond it. So I'm glad that we have experts and fellow listeners like Ben Zimmer to call on in these situations. I couldn't really tell the difference between the different ways you said summer sausage. Like, I know you were saying it differently, but... Yeah. It's hard for me to emphasize it the other way. It just sounds so unnatural if I were just to say summer sausage, summer sauce, like summer salt, sort of, instead of summer sausage. Summer salt. Summer sausage. And I definitely heard the difference that time.

Yeah. I emphasized it even more. I exaggerated it to make it more clear, but now we know. So, Summer sausage. Summer sausage. Summer sausage? Summer sausage. See, if you say it enough times, then you achieve that sort of, you know, you forget, right? You get the semantic satiation,

and it's hard to even hear the difference anymore or say the difference. I mean, it effectively becomes a non-word, you know?

Right. I'm just like, what is this? Like, you know, what is it? What is it? What is a summer sausage? It's degrading much like their summer sausage. I think we should go back to calling it iced cream. I like the sound of that. Iced cream. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice. It's old

timey. Well, Alex, you paid for the privilege of listening to that. Most people got that or endured that for free. But in fact, you enabled that. You helped make that possible. So I hope you're happy. I hope you're satisfied. I hope you feel like you got your money's worth. And is there anything else you'd care to plug? Can I plug a cause or organization?

Is that acceptable? Yeah. Okay. So I will try not to stand on my soapbox too long, but we do live, I do live in a state that can make it challenging to be a queer or a trans person, such as myself and my partner. And that's the case in a lot of states in this country. And there's a really lovely organization here in St. Louis called Thistle. That's the trans housing initiative, St. Louis. And so if you feel so inclined, dear listener, once you have signed up for the Mike Trout level Patreon subscription,

which has been described by some podcast hosts as not that special. If you have any funds left over to donate to Thistle, or if you would like to reach out to me to find a similar organization in your state or area, their website is thi-stl.org. And you can find me on all forms of social media at I am Alex Levy. Thank you. You're not the first Patreon guest to make a similar plea. And everyone, please clearly letter the labels and addresses on your mail so that Alex and his co-workers can discern them.

And be nice to your postal carriers. If you live in an apartment, put your name on your mailbox. Just put it on there. Put it right on. You can put your initials on it. You can put it inside the box. Just let us know. A lot of people have lived in that apartment. You don't want their mail. I know you don't want their mail. Just put your name. Just write it if you want to.

And I would, in fact, prioritize your charitable request ahead of being a Mike Trout Patreon supporter. I feel comfortable with that as the appropriate set of priorities. Yep. But if you have a little leftover. Yeah. Both important. Yeah. They're both important.

Debatable that this one is all that important in the grand scheme of things. To different degrees. To different degrees. Sure different degrees, sure. But they're both important. The levels of urgency are radically different from one. What would you listen to on your mail route if not for us pumping out podcasts like this? So thank you, Alex. Thanks for the support.

Pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. This was amazing. I had a lot of fun. All right. A little late-breaking news for you, and when there's late-breaking news, you know who must have made it. The Maverick. San Diego Padres GM AJ Preller, he's at it again. Padres and Preller have traded for

Louisa Rise of the Marlins on May 3rd to DH for them, mostly. AJ Preller doesn't need no stinking trade deadline. No artificial cutoff could place more time pressure on Preller than he places on himself. So yeah, he'll trade a reliever he just signed in January. He'll trade his first round draft pick from last year and two other prospects. Where do these prospects keep coming from? How does he seem to have an inexhaustible supply of them? How many infielders and former infielders can one team possibly possess? And yes, if you're wondering, Luis Arise, former professional shortstop. Otherwise, they wouldn't let him in the door. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I will miss Preller when he's no longer at the helm of a major league team making trades like this that no one saw coming, though it was previously reported that the Padres had talked trade with the Marlins over the offseason about Arise and Jesus Lizardo. I shudder to think what sort of fire selling the Marlins may get up to over the next few months. That franchise is really a revolving door, historically speaking, for its prominent players, sadly.

But yeah, yet another well-known player, yet another nominal infielder, at least, yet another player with shortstop experience, however incapable of actually playing shortstop presently. May 3rd. It's very rare. I mean, a rise after consecutive batting titles is maybe more famous than he is valuable, but he's a good player. He's a fun player. He's a well-liked player. Is he the best fit for their roster? Do they need him the most? Eh, maybe not. Didn't the Padres just spend most of the offseason trying to trim payroll? Eh, maybe so. But is Preller going to let that stop him? Heck no. Padres may

not be a great team, but they sure are a watchable and star-studded one. Tip of the cap to Preller for once again, on a Friday night, making us all sit up and take notice. Most likely more to come on that topic on our next episode. Oh, and another little bit of late breaking news. Didn't generate nearly as many headlines, but we spoke recently about the reliever Jose Ruiz, who, as we noted, is second on the all-time list of games finished without a save. Ryan Webb, who also has a Patreon tier named after him, a lower tier.

He's the all-time leader with 105 games finished, zero saves. Jose Ruiz, 24 behind. He has 81 games finished without a save. And when we brought him up, he was in AAA. But now the Phillies have brought him up. He's back in the big leagues, which means he can keep adding to his total of games finished. He can close the gap with Webb. As long as he doesn't get a save,

it would be tough for him to get a save in this stacked Phillies bullpen. Though, as I noted, lots of pitchers get saves these days, even if they are not anointed as the primary save-getter. Still, he's got a chance to rack up some games finished. For a good team with a deep pen, to paraphrase Chancellor Palpatine, we will watch his career with great interest. We're also very interested in your support on Patreon. So if you want to be like Alex Levy and help fund the podcast at any tier, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing

up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks like Alex and like the following five listeners, Thomas Whale, Colin Sauter, Kelly, Aaron Teachman, and Classic Noob. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild.

If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. You can also email us your questions and comments at podcast at fangraphs.com. Thank you. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. Thanks to you for listening today and this week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. Romantic, pedantic, and hypothetical Semantic and frantic, real or theoretical They give you the stats and they give you the news It's a baseball podcast you should choose Effectively Wild is here for you

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