Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2172: No LOLMetsing Matter

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley bring on FanGraphs associate editor Matt Martell to discuss the scenes at Citi Field that kicked off the Mets’ Jorge López saga, the resulting DFA and fallout, and what this silly/sad sequence of events suggests about the potential for player intent to be lost in translation, how off-the-field issues can […]

Effectively Wild is here for you, about all the weird stuff that players do. Authentically strange and objectively styled, let's play ball. It's Effectively Wild. It's Effectively Wild. It's Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2172 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing just fine.

Good. And we are also joined by Matt Martell, also of Fangraphs. Hello, Matt. Hello, Meg and Ben. We're going to do some emails with a Patreon supporter later in this episode. emails with a Patreon supporter later in this episode. But before we do that, we wanted to bring Matt in to chat and banter because, Matt, you fatefully attended a Mets game earlier this week, and boy, did it end up being a Metsy doozy. Yeah. Yes. You were present at Jorge Lopez's last stand, and you're here to give us the blow-by-blow and what was said and what wasn't said and what was misconstrued and what we should be aware of with this whole situation that started out as sort of your standard Lowell Metz case. And maybe in sub-quarters is still regarded that way, but there is nuance. There are dimensions to all of

this. And it's kind of an interesting saga when it comes to just reporting on things and how to report on things and the accommodations that should be made for a player who's speaking in not their native language. And then also off the field considerations that players are dealing with. There's just a lot to get into here that I guess the initial viral tweets about the purported quote by Lopez just elided. So tell us about your experience at that game. I mean, you were covering it. You were in the scrum, in the clubhouse. You were on the scene.

So give us your account. Well, first off, the Mets played a really sloppy game that day. And that's what contributed to, I guess, their eventual team meeting that kept us out of the press conference for roughly 30 minutes after the game. Lindor called a players meeting afterward, and they hashed it out and talked about all the things they're doing wrong, what they can do better, stuff like that. Everybody spoke, or most everybody spoke. So that's the situation that led to this, not the meeting itself, but the play on the field that has been pretty bad and sloppy. At times, it's looked uninspired. On Wednesday night, there were a

couple balls that were hit to right field that it looked like Starlin Marte was not going full speed to get to. There were botched pickoff attempts. I think the Mets had two of them that were botched. One was an error, and one was to third base where Brett Beatty wasn't prepared for it. They're playing poorly. Yeah, it's been a pretty brutal month. Yeah, they won Thursday, right? I guess chalk one up for the team meeting paying off. But I think entering that they had lost 19 of 26, 15 of 19, 8 of 9. It had been bad. Right. So that sets the stage for this boiling point that happens. The Mets are in the middle of a really bad, I think it was eighth inning,

where they were tied 3-3 and the Dodgers piled on. By the end of the inning, it was 9-3. Otani hits a big home run that really puts the game out of reach. Next batter up is Freddie Freeman. He checks his swing on a 2-1 pitch, then it was a 3-1 count. And it wasn't really even close, but Jorge Lopez was angry, frustrated either about the home run, about the state of the game, the Mets, his own pitching, whatever, and he takes it out on third base umpire Ramon DeJesus. He yells at DeJesus. It's unclear what he said to DeJesus,

but it was enough of a targeted criticism or expletive that got him tossed right away. Lopez yelled back afterward, and then he comes off the bound. People have seen the video, but he starts untucking his jersey, then flips his glove into the stands to a very happy Yankees fan who caught it. He was very thrilled to have this glove. And it was bizarre when it happened. I was thinking how much I would love to have that glove for my Saturday afternoon baseball league. But anyway. I was just going to say, like, when I heard,

I'm not saying that was the most professional way to handle the situation. But when I heard that he had thrown his glove into the stands before I saw the video, I was picturing something way worse than that. I was picturing him like firing it into the stands at someone, right? Where – this was not like a Patrick Beverly of the Bucks a few weeks ago, right? Where he just chucked a basketball at someone who said something to him and hit someone else, right, just an innocent bystander. You know, this was not, I mean, the glove was thrown out of frustration, but it was not thrown in anger. I mean, it was a, it was an underhand lob, basically, right? And there was a pleasant tone. Yeah, yeah. Right. It made me think like, gosh, this, this would be kind of a nice thing if players did this more often.

Not out of frustration, but just the way that you toss a ball into the stands after the last out of the inning. Like, what a great keepsake. What a souvenir. You know, I mean, I'm sure given the circumstances surrounding this, that's probably a valuable memento now. So just making clear, like, clearly he was doing it because he was pissed off, but he was not taking out his anger on a fan or something like it. It's it was a much more neutral or, you know, kind of whimsical gesture than it sounded to me initially. interject here briefly and just say that I love that among all the sports with which we are familiar, right, that we might consider ourselves fans of or even just casual observers, I would say for me that like the NBA is probably pretty low down the list. And I love that even so, I'm like, oh yeah, I know what it means to comp a guy to pep if you don't want to be comped to pep. That's a

bad comp to have. Right. Yes, right. Jorge Lopez didn't refuse to speak to anyone who wasn't subscribed to his podcast either, I don't think. So, you know, just defending him there. Like, you know, it maybe is not the best reflection on the organization or something, but it's not nearly as serious in my mind as if someone were

just, like, firing a glove at someone who was unprepared for that. Yeah. Right, exactly. So, I kind of thought it was done at that point. I knew we'd talked to Carlos Mendoza after the game about it. I knew we'd talked to some teammates and Lopez as well. But I mean, I didn't think it was going to escalate to the point where they were considering any real discipline. And then we go to the postgame press conference and Carlos Mendoza says it's going to be handled

internally. Typically, when things are handled internally, it's a manager talking to the players, his teammates talking to the player or players who have done something that deserves to be addressed. Usually there's no further recourse when something like that happens. And I actually thought that, you know, when I was listening to Mendoza say it, that he should have, I don't know, gone in on the situation a little harder as opposed to just saying it was unprofessional and saying it would be handled internally. But I didn't think that they were going to be strict in disciplining him based on what Mendoza said. And then we go into the clubhouse after 30 minutes and this team meeting. Mind you, it was a four o'clock game. And I think I got home from the game

at the same time Wednesday night as I did last night for a seven o'clock game. So it was a long game to begin with, a slog. And then everything afterward just compiled into this fiasco. So we go in, and we talk to Brandon Nimmo. And Brandon Nimmo talks about the team meeting. He says it was productive. He says, we're not playing well right now. We asked him if the Lopez glove throwing had anything to do with the calling of the team meeting. Nimmo said, no, we were going to do it

anyway. Kind of the forces that made the team meeting necessary, he said, were also the stuff that led to Lopez being angry enough to toss his glove. The quote he said at the end of that little scrum that was interesting is he said, you know, I'm not going to crucify somebody for that, which I thought was really interesting. And then Nimmo said, I've sinned before too,

something like that. And it was like, okay, so they're going to stand by this guy. What he did was wrong, and it was unprofessional, but his teammates are rallying behind him. And then we talked to Edwin Diaz, because that was the same day that he got injured or was placed on the injured list. And then we talked to Lopez. And it was weird, because when Diaz was talking, the Spanish interpreter was standing next to him. Diaz is talking in English. And then when we all got around Lopez, the PR staff sort of fanned out. They weren't right next to him. Lopez doesn't take an interpreter, but usually when a player for whom English is their second language is speaking in English, their interpreter is standing nearby in case to clarify a question or to

translate something particularly intricate, confusing, whatever. They just weren't there. They were behind the scrum off to the side, whatever. So the first question is from, off to the side, whatever. So the first question is from SNY reporter Steve Gelbs, and he asks... Carlos Mendoza said that he understands the emotion,

but that particular action of throwing your glove into the stands was unacceptable. Looking back on it, do you regret doing that? No. No, I don't regret it. I think I've been looking the worst team in probably in the whole MLB. So, you know, whatever happened, happened. So whatever they want to do, I'll be tomorrow here if they want me, you know, whatever they want to do. So I'm going to keep doing this thing, you know. So I'm healthy on whatever, you know,

on whatever to do, you know, I'm, I'm ready to come back tomorrow if they want me to be here. So I'll be here. Lopez says, I don't regret it. And then he goes, I think I've been looking like the worst teammate probably in the whole effing MLB. That was my transcript. That's what I heard in real time. But it was tricky because of the accent in English. I was more stunned that he just looked into the camera and basically dropped the F word. And there was kind of, it felt like to me at the time that there was a little pause before he dropped the F word as if he were intentionally doing it instead of it just kind of flying out of nowhere. It wasn't really a slip. At least that was my

read on it. Again, I don't want to say anything about his intent, but it felt like that. Anyway, he says, whatever happens, happens. Whatever they want to do, I'll be here tomorrow if they want me. Whatever they want to do, I'm going to keep doing this thing. I'm healthy. I'm ready to come back tomorrow if they want me to be here. And that was surprising to me. Whatever they want to do, I'm going to keep doing this thing. I'm healthy. I'm ready to come back tomorrow if they want me to be here. And that was surprising to me. I didn't think that there was any indication that he was going to be let go. I also was surprised that he was the one volunteering that information, that there's a possibility he might not be here. Like, that was weird. Mendoza gave no indication of it. And I guess I talked to one of the beat writers after we were going back up and talking about how bizarre it was.

And he had said that he heard something from somebody after this happened that they might let Lopez go. But there was nothing really public that would have told you that was a possibility until Lopez volunteers this information. And then I think Joel Sherman asked, do you think they don't want you to be here? And Lopez says, I don't know. I don't know. It looked embarrassing, their faces. I'm proud to be here every day. It's the worst thing to be out. I don't care. I don't care. It's just a bad look. So it's interesting. On one hand, he is saying he doesn't regret doing it, but he's also saying that I look bad doing it. It looked embarrassing. I could see their faces. They were embarrassed. And he's also saying that he wants to pitch. He wants to be there. It was a very interesting two different things here. Anyway, the scrum goes

on. Somebody, I think it was Steve Gelb, circles back and asks. Just to clarify what you said, just because I didn't fully understand. Did you say, I'm on the worst team? Is that what you had said? Yeah, probably. It looked like. And that they were embarrassed by you? Is that what you?

Yeah, they did. So it sounds like in real time that Lopez is agreeing that that's what he said. But listening back, it sounds like he misunderstood the question or was very confused about the circumstances. He was still pretty worked up about everything that happened. As Jake Mintz noted in his excellent column about the whole thing yesterday that he wrote, it looked like Lopez had been crying. And so he was really upset. And in the heat of the moment, even, you know, an hour after the incident, he was still in full uniform. He had not showered. He was upset. I don't know if what he said was what he meant. There's a cool-down period after games for a reason, and it's because people have adrenaline pumping,

their emotions are high, and when something like this specifically happens, regardless of what we know later, which I'll get to, I kind of want to give a guy the benefit of the doubt when he is angry or upset or something, and he was visibly upset about the whole thing. And there were times when he was defiant, you know, the whole, no, I don't regret it. But then there were times when it sounded like he was truly trying to acknowledge that he did something wrong without saying he did something wrong.

It was very weird and striking. And he dropped the F-bomb once or twice more. It was raw. And the reporters, one scalps had said this thing, started asking more and more questions. At some point toward the end of this scrum, the Mets PR people tried to end what was going on, but as more questions were asked, they backed off. Usually when a PR person, as you see in politics or any sport, when a PR person doesn't want the person to answer the question, they say, that's enough,

that's enough. They really jump in. Penn State football is great at this, as somebody who has covered that team. So they got timid. It was weird. So that ends, and we talked to David Peterson about his start, because it was his first start back. That was also kind of weird. So that ends, and we talk to David Peterson about his start, because it was his first start back. That was also kind of weird. Nobody really asked Peterson about Lopez. But then we go over to Adam Adovino, and the questions that are asked to Adovino are, he said he doesn't regret it, that he said that he's on the worst team. And Adovino says, you know, I know it's in his heart. He doesn't mean that, whatever. He's saying he shouldn't have said it.

He probably knows he shouldn't have said it. Adovino didn't hear the comments. So he was going based on what we had supposedly clarified we heard. But Adovino's saying he knows he shouldn't have said it. He's a really good guy.

He's worked up, whatever. He also knows he shouldn't have done it he lives and he shouldn't have thrown the glove into the stands but we're going to stand by him when he's ready to talk to us and work with us and whatever else he's our teammate we're going to stand behind him that type of thing francisco lindor said the same thing when when we'd asked him about it so the players were saying we're going to stand by him as long as he's here. But it sounded like at some point, word started to, I don't know, get around or if the players knew at the time that he wasn't going to be there. But at some point, it turned to more of an uncertainty about whether he was going to be there or not. And I can't remember if it was

because a reporter had asked or had mentioned that he said he might not be here or whatever, but there was a lot of uncertainty and it was really weird and raw and everything else. We go up and we start talking about how bizarre it was that Mets PR didn't step in, that he didn't take a Spanish language interpreter to help him out in this particular situation, even though he, over the last couple of years, has answered questions in English, and he prefers to do it. Everything was very weird. This is when I hear from the one writer who said

that they had thought about DFAing him or they were considering DFAing him before the whole thing happened. Oh, one more thing. Lopez told us that he had not talked to Carlos Mendoza or David Stearns about what happened. It turns out in the reporting that happened within the next 20 minutes while we were in the press box that that had not been the case. They actually did talk to him between Mendoza's press conference and the end of the players-only meeting that led us in.

I don't know what was said in the meeting with Mendoza and Stearns. Some of the writers have reported that they did not tell him he was getting DFA'd in that meeting. Others have said it was probably the case. Again, Lopez volunteers the information that he might not be here tomorrow. But within the next 20 minutes while we were in the press box, it's reported that the Mets are going to DFA him. And it's also reported that he was given a chance to clarify his comments. We reached out to Mets PR to try to get a clarification because when we got up there, we were talking about what did we actually hear? Did we hear the worst teammate or

did we hear the worst team? Some of us thought at the time worst teammate and some thought worst team. When we listened back to the audio, it ended up being pretty clear or as close to clear as it could be that he said teammate. So we're going through this. We're trying to clarify because we want to give a guy who's speaking his second language the benefit of the doubt or a chance to clarify what he is saying through the team. We didn't want the team to sanitize what was happening, which was the risk that goes with trying to have a PR staff clear up something that doesn't look good. But we thought that it was more responsible

to try to get it right or give the player a chance to clarify what was going on through somebody who speaks English as a first language. So that's when the clarification comes in that he clarified after that he meant both, that he looks like the worst teammate on the worst team. At this point, this is when we are hearing information that he is getting DFA'd. So is he in the best headspace to say that the Mets are not the worst team after they are telling him he's losing his job? I don't think so. But this is all happening in real time. And while this is happening, outlets that were not there are aggregating the quote from the video and posting it on Twitter and running news desk stories or

breaking trending viral stories, whatever publications have now, that this is what was said and it became the Lulmets. And your own player is saying that this is the worst team and oh yeah, now he's getting DFA'd for it. Yeah. And I think this would be a story regardless of the team if a player threw his glove into the stands and then said he was playing for the worst team in the world or whatever. Like, that'd be newsworthy wherever it was, whoever it was. But the fact that it's the Mets and you have this whole history of little Mets and also it's just a big media market and a lot of reporters and everything that makes it go more viral, I think. And there was one tweet that was very popular initially,

maybe it was an Anthony DeComo tweet that I think was then deleted when it became clear that that was maybe a misunderstanding or that there was at least some uncertainty about that. And you put out a thread of what you had heard. Yeah. And kind of clarifying that one did not go viral. No. Because isn't that always the way? Right, exactly.

It's always like the attention-getting tweet goes viral and then the, oh, actually, maybe that wasn't completely accurate. That one, no one really notices, right? Right. But then there was a subsequent tweet by Decomo who covers the Mets for MLB.com, which is still up and I guess not inaccurate, but this is another one that was very popular and frankly is funny the way it's phrased. And when I

saw it initially, I was, you know, I chuckled. Regarding confusion over whether Lopez said he was on the worst team or was the worst teammate, I'm told Lopez later explained his comments as a combination of both the worst teammate on the worst team. And as you're saying, that is what you were told through some PR intermediary, right?

Well, there were a couple of reporters who had reached out to the PR on behalf of everyone. And so what DeCoba had tweeted was the official line that everybody kind of got in the press box through whatever. Yeah. And then Lopez himself on his Instagram stories, he denied that. Initially, he put up just a short message that said what he said was that he was the worst teammate. Thanks, media, for making it worse. And then he put out an actual Instagram post, which is still up, which I will read. It's in English and Spanish. But in English, he said, first and foremost, I apologize to my teammates, coaches, fans in front office. I feel that I let them down yesterday, both on and off the field. I also want to clarify my postgame remarks because I had no intention of disparaging the New York Mets organization. organization. During that interview, I spoke candidly about my frustrations with my personal performance and how I felt it made me the worst teammate in the entire league. Unfortunately,

my efforts to address the media in English created some confusion and generated headlines that do not reflect what I was trying to express. I wish the team the best and hope that God continues to give me strength and guidance in my personal and professional life. So you could interpret that as, oh, it's no longer the heat of the moment. He's walking it back. Or you could say this was just a game of telephone that went wrong, right? And complicated by language barrier and clubhouse conditions and all the rest that we just talked about, all that context that could get lost easily. Yeah, that's exactly. Well, I guess both of those things could also be true. It could be a little bit of both. I don't think it's just an either or thing. Um, it just, just like when

we're talking about who's to blame here or what is the actual flaw in this? It's, it's, you know, Lopez shouldn't have thrown his glove. If you want to cut somebody for an unprofessional gesture, especially if you are the bets and you are not playing for this year, that was never really your intent to begin with. You're trying to bring in a new, you know, a new culture, a new regime to change things. If you want to say this isn't acceptable in a year that we're losing, we're not going anywhere. Let's make an example out of what he is doing and say, this is not, this is not acceptable and we're not going to be a team that does this. Okay, I can understand that.

But the way that everything was bungled afterward, the weird messaging about it'll be addressed internally, then he is volunteering information that he's gone, we don't know. And then the way that the quotes were misinterpreted and the language. All of this is like, Lopez shouldn't have done what he did and thrown his glove. Maybe he shouldn't have dropped F-bombs in his answer no matter what, but his emotions are raw and he's angry.

But also, we need to come at this from a position of empathy that this is a really, really difficult situation. He may have already found out that he was losing his job at the time. And he is somebody who has documented mental health struggles. for the twins, he was placed on the aisle for mental health issues. He was having a really tough time bouncing back from bad outings. He had really negative thoughts about himself, and the twins helped him work through it. So that's something where he does not respond to things in the heat of the moment positively. He lets bad things really get under his skin, really hurt him. The other thing that I didn't know at the time that has since been talked about more is Lopez's son, who is sick.

It's called familial Mediterranean fever. And it is a condition that I'm quoting from Jake Mintz's column column which i said earlier i think i mentioned but it's really good and and he wrote really well on this anyway yeah um the familial mediterranean fever is a condition that causes immense physical discomfort and has required regular hospital visits and multiple transplants those who have been been around Lopez say that his son's health issues have, understandably, weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Mikael, that's his son's name, whose illness restricts him from regularly watching his father pitch, turned 11 on Wednesday, the darkest day of Lopez's career. I think that you're right that even understanding some of the personal issues

and considerations that Lopez had, this is an unprofessional way to conduct oneself. Absolutely. as a person and a player getting to a point where they view the situation as sort of irrevocably broken, right? Where they are trying to provide the support that Lopez needs, but they're not making headway. They have an outburst like this. It's very public and they decide, you know, it sucks, but it's time for us to move on. And maybe they see themselves as sort of being done in terms of their obligations to him because he's not going to be a member of the organization for much longer. And if I could cut in, I guess that's kind of their line or Anthony DeComo, another tweet from him, which he clarified. He said it was based on reporting and I guess also what he's been told, which maybe is part of the reporting. He said, I want to be clear about this.

Jorge Lopez was not DFA'd because of any team or teammate confusion. He was DFA'd because he embarrassed the organization with his actions and words, throwing his glove into the stands, lying about meeting with management and offering zero remorse. That's it.

That's the whole thing. Regardless of what actual words Lopez said, he swore multiple times on camera after having an hour plus to cool off postgame. His tone was clear and obvious, and the furthest thing from contrite Mets officials found it unacceptable. And I guess we could also note, like, he's not a great pitcher. You know, if you were really great, then you are going to cut someone some slack because they're helping your team. And Lopez, I mean, he hasn't been terrible, but he was on three teams last year. He was like selected off waivers. I mean, he's not like an elite

late inning leverage guy or anything. And granted, the Mets are not a great team with a great bullpen either. And they've lost Diaz and they've lost Brooks Raley and things are not going great for them. So I don't think he would have been DFA'd purely for performance reasons, but also his performance was not reason enough, I guess, to keep someone who was doing DFA worthyworthy things in other respects, if you consider that to be what happened here. Right. So the performance in concert with these, I mean, to call them off-field issues isn't quite right, right? Because it's very much on-field.

But the outburst in conjunction with poor performance, I wouldn't necessarily have viewed it as, you know, them sort of failing him or not living up to some moral standard or what have you if the next day we had found out that he had been DFA'd on the back of this, right? Like, this is unprofessional conduct. I think that we've talked a lot on the podcast about how these guys have feelings. They have lives separate from the field. It's very easy for what is stressing them and sort of weighing on them off the field to bleed into on-field performance or conduct. But, you know, adults need to figure out how to have those expressions in a way that is not throwing your glove into the stance, right? Like, I don't quite know where the line is,

but I think that that behavior is clearly past it. All of that said, I think that they kind of hung him out to dry. They left him out to dry here a little bit. I think that there is a difference between a reasonable sort of reaching the end of the line with him and saying, look, you're not going to be part of this organization anymore, but you're clearly amped up. And we want to have an interpreter near at hand. We want to have PR who is, I'm sure, aware of what's going on. And even if they weren't, could just look at

the guy and realize he's still really amped up. He's still very upset. We know what's going on with him off field. We're going to be close at hand to intervene when necessary. Those are very little things to do. And maybe you don't view yourself as an organization as having those obligations to him anymore because he's not going to be part of your club soon. But I think that more could have been done here to sort of minimize the damage. And that doesn't mean that the outcome for him needs to necessarily be different. But put it this way, I think you learn a lot about the character of an organization when their obligations end and what they do after that says something about them. And they didn't cover themselves in glory here. It doesn't mean that they have to roster him and it doesn't excuse tossing your

glove like he did. But, you know, they managed to go into a professionalism deficit, too, even if it wasn't quite as public as what he did. I want to make one more point about what the Mets' obligation is, what it is not, and whether you should go beyond your obligation to somebody. And it's, I don't know if the Mets are going to be offering any sort of mental health resources or support to Lopez in any way. That was a question that was brought up in Carlos Mendoza's press conference yesterday. He didn't comment. He didn't provide really any details. So I don't want to say that that's what the Mets are not doing, but we just don't know. And a lot of the things are still pretty unclear as far as when we know things happen, when we don't know things happened, all of these things. It's still either developing

or it's something that we'll never know. But the one thing we can agree on, whether it's the details, is this was not handled well. And the ultimate outcome is just sad. Meg, I'm also trying to think of what the fan graphs equivalent to tossing a glove in the stands would be. But I think I would lose my job if I did that. So, you know, it's just one of those things that's it's sad. At the very least, there would be repercussions for that, right? Like I, you know, these are tricky things to talk about because you could very easily envision a scenario. And I, you know, I have no reason to think that

the Mets are different from any other team and probably do have mental health resources on hand. I think that's an area that clubs have quite reasonably and admirably realized is an important aspect of on-field performance, because you can't just check what's going on with you at home at the door. I would, if I had to hazard a guess, assume that they have, you know, someone on staff who does deal with that, and you can offer resource, and those resources can not be enough for the person to make the necessary adjustments or be able to handle an acute and very stressful personal situation. And that doesn't necessarily mean that the resources were insufficient, right? Like they can be what you would expect from a best practice

perspective and not be enough for that one person. That doesn't mean that the professionals involved are, you know, bad at their jobs or whatever, right? So I want to be careful about that. And these are hard situations to talk about because you do need to, you know, be able to avoid throwing your glove in the stands, right? Like that can't be a moment that isn't met with some amount of consequence, I think. But also, this is clearly a person in distress and in pain. And for reasons that I imagine the Mets were very well aware of, you know, one could ask, one could also ask the question, like, why was he pitching that day at all? If these circumstances are percolating in the background, why was he pitching that day at all? If these circumstances are percolating in the background, why was he on the field that day? You know, managers make guys unavailable for all kinds of reasons all the time. So, you know, I think that that decision in and of itself maybe bears some scrutiny. I think you're right. It's just a sad, it's a sad thing. And it got, it spiraled for reasons that I think could have been intervened on by the Met staff and weren't.

And that doesn't change the initial behavior that led to him being DFA'd. And it doesn't make the decision to DFA him one that, you know, is unreasonable. But this was made worse. And some of that lays with Lopez, but some of that lays with the New York Mets. Yeah. There are so many Mets stories and some of them are legitimately low Mets and are just silly. There aren't much stakes to them.

Right. And then others are like, oh, maybe we shouldn't even laugh at this one. Like, it's Mets, but maybe it's not low Mets. You know, maybe if we're talking about Mickey Calloway or whatever. Right, yeah. Sometimes there's a sex pest involved, and then it's like, oh, this got unfunny in a hurry. Yeah. Now, earlier this month, it's why is Mrs. Met being silenced on Twitter?

Mrs. Met closes her Twitter account and just says, like, you can follow Mr. Met, and everyone's like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this to Mrs. Met? And that was, you know, mostly kind of funny. That was Lowell Metz. That was Lowell Metz. Yeah. This is, this seemed like Lowell Metz initially, but then the more you hear, it's like, maybe it's not quite.

I think almost anything involving a mascot is funny. I mean, there are extreme examples, but any Mr. Beck giving the finger to the crowd is funny. That's funny. If a pitcher did that coming off the field, that wouldn't be funny. So there is a – maybe it would be. It would depend, right? It would depend. And I think that there are circumstances where that would be – excuse me doing an F-bomb into Mike, which is our equivalent.

There are circumstances where that would be f***ing funny. Yeah. You know? It wouldn't be professional. It would still, it would be unprofessional, but it could also be funny. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

It's funny because a lot of people were linking to a Reddit thread from a few years ago, like, what's your favorite ridiculous Mets story? And I was reminded this situation, somewhat similar in some respects to one involving Adani Echevarria in 2019, who was on the Mets and didn't do so well for them. And then he went to Atlanta, and suddenly he was hitting and was with a better team and everything. And so there was kind of a viral thing that he said on a post-game sideline interview where he said, I want to thank God for the opportunity of removing me from the Mets and putting me on this team. It was through an interpreter, again, though the interpreter kind of smiled as he was interpreting. But again, I don't think he was exactly saying like, thank God I got off the Mets. Exactly. He was more so saying like, well, this has worked out in the end. Right. I'm hitting better and this is a better team. It's a better situation. So thanks, God, for putting me where I needed to be or whatever. But of course, it was reported more as like, thank God they got me off the Mets. So I think there's a little bit of confirmation bias that comes in where we're all kind of ready to jump on the Mets. And they have brought that on themselves in any number of ways, certainly. So they've kind of conditioned us to expect, oh, the Mets just stepped on a rake somehow or put their foot in their mouth or a rake in their mouth. Maybe they combined both. knows but this was a case where yeah i guess that was true to some extent that

there were some missteps but also it wasn't quite as light-hearted in the end so it's a interesting sort of sock i think the expression i didn't have that on my bingo card is probably overused but this is definitely one of those like didn't have devoting a large portion of this podcast to Jorge Lopez today on my bingo cards either. But here we are. And I'm glad you were on the scene, Matt, to give us your vision of how it went down and how you experienced it. Yeah, it was really interesting. That's the final thing I'll say about it. It was bizarre, interesting, sad, but also at the beginning, at least pretty fun. I mean, so you messaged me, Matt, in our Slack and said,

Meg, I want Jorge Lopez's glove too. And I was not watching that game. So I didn't know what on earth you were talking about. And then you sent me a tweet of it and my reaction was lol the mets are amazing yeah you know like they're they are terrible terrible and might be strong no it's not they're not a good baseball team right now right like they are a mess in a lot of different ways but you know when they're when they're not hanging guys out to dry they're pretty they're at least funny in the way that they're being terrible. I mean, probably not for Mets fans, sorry, Mets fans. But yeah, I just, you know, each of these moments needs to be met with like individual analysis and guys can be out of bounds and still deserving of empathy. And, you know, players can have worn out their welcome and still deserve to be, have their words

treated with care and with the, as good as we can get toward their intent as we can. And so, you know, I don't fault like Gelb's really, like I think it, you know, it was a perfectly reasonable, it would be weird to not ask about it, you know, especially as someone who's part of, you know, SNY media. But, you know, maybe the real villains here aren't the Mets or Lopez, but the aggregators. Can we get on board with that? Yes, let's do that. And I guess now Mets fans can look forward to finding out who they're going to get rid of next, probably via trades this time as opposed to DFA. But second consecutive deadline where you are dealing, I guess it's maybe that's a good sign in the sense that, well, you must have had some pretty good players to begin with if you can

trade multiple times. Or maybe it means that you at least made a little bit of a run or you entertained ideas of contending, which they did. They went and got some veterans just in case everything broke right for them. And it has not because they're the Mets. So now they'll find out whether there actually is any interest out there for Pete Alonso or if they could flip Severino or Minaya or JD Martinez, some of these guys they picked up over the offseason. But yeah, that's not something really to look forward to either. But I guess if Jorge Lopez had been pitching better, he probably would have been on the move anyway, one way or another.

Just not like this. Yeah. They also made a couple moves today that I think are pretty interesting. They optioned both Beatty and Christian Scott, who pitched, you know, okay last night. And Jose Iglesias is coming out, which is kind of fun. And Omar Nervais was DFA'd today as well, as the Mets got Luis Torrens from the Yankees. So anyway, the Mets are making moves like two months before we expect them to make moves. I expect a lot more to happen

as John Becker wrote for the site this morning, which was pretty interesting. Harrison Bader, anyone? Any takers? Adam Adovino? Yeah, you can have those players and more. We haven't talked that much about the Mets this season, so we're making up for it.

There hasn't been that much reason to talk about them, frankly, but there is this week and here we are. Thank you, Matt. Yeah. Thank you guys for having me. I think it's effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. All right. We are joined now by listener and Mike Trout tier Patreon supporter, Andrew Simard.

We will not talk to Andrew about Jorge Lopez unless he has some pressing, burning Jorge Lopez thoughts, but we can answer some emails and we can ask about him. Hello, Andrew. Welcome. Thank you. Hi, Ben. Hi, Meg. Hi. So you know the drill when we bring on a Patreon supporter. I always start out by asking what could have possibly possessed you to support us at I've been a Fangraphs member since around COVID. And so the prospect of supporting this show, yeah, of course, in this unique way, sort of appealed to us both. I think the people with whom I'm close know that I listened to the show a lot. When I told my girlfriend yesterday that we would be taping today, she said, oh, will you tell them that you fall asleep to them every night? And my sense, Juliana, is that that isn't as uncommon as she might think.

It's true. Yeah, definitely. Sounds like an insult. Sounds like we should be offended because we're so boring. We put people to sleep, but we do get that a fair amount. And I don't think it's because we are so boring or at least mostly or partly not because of that. I think it is partly because people find it calming maybe to listen to the podcast. So it's not like a Northwood's sleep baseball sort of situation where we are trying to put you to sleep. But if we do intentionally and you consider that helpful, then that's great. I guess if you also listen to us when you are conscious, sometimes we're intending to remain conscious, that would also be great, but I'm glad that we can help however we help. Well, you can sort of double dip if you

fall asleep is sort of the thing. That's all. Yeah. I find it hard. I don't usually need a sleep aid because when I finally stop resisting sleep, it comes quickly enough. If you wait long enough to go to sleep, then your body will be like, finally, and won't give you much trouble. But I always had an issue with that where if I fell asleep listening to a podcast, then my app will just play it and archive it. And then I'll have to go back and like, oh, did I hear that? And then I have to figure out when did I drift off? And it becomes more trouble than it's worth. How does Juliana feel about your Effectively Wild Sleep Aid? Are

you using headphones or is she being subjected to this too? Yeah, I'll pop an AirPod in. She did say that it's a bigger part of her life than she expected, which is funny. It's a very diplomatic way to put it. Yeah, gosh. It's neutral. That could be a compliment. That could be positive. It's probably not, but it might be. Well, it's associated with me, so I think it's largely, I would hope, largely positive. How did you find us? And what did you do before you found us? How did you get to sleep then?

Yeah. So I found the show. I had listened to the Ringer MLB show on and off since around it started, as well as Ben's video game podcast, Achievement Oriented. And so when I started reading fan graphs around the summer of 2019, I think they just sort of folded into each other. I would have started listening to Effectively Wild around the off-season of 2019. I used to listen to the same album, jazz album, every night for about five years. And I think that's sort of now been Pavlovian,

like in a Pavlovian sense is tied in. But anyway, yeah. Are we making you sleepy right now? You are getting sleepy, hypnotizing you as we speak. Or is it, do we speak so slowly in person? Because if you're one of the sped up listeners, then people say it sounds like we're drunk, although that might make you more likely to fall asleep. No, I think the sped up thing is crazy. Thank you. Thank you. I don't want to like give anyone a hard time. It's their auditory experience, right? Whatever. But people are always shocked that I listen to podcasts at like 1x speed as if I'm, you know, some sort of time traveler, you know, back from the oldie days when they like had podcasts. And it's like, I want to hear what they sound like.

And sometimes you have different cadences. I tend to speak more quickly than Ben. So I can only imagine how I sound to people if they're speeding up. I'm a 1.2 times listener. So I do a slight speed up and trim silences and such. And I don't notice it. But any more than that, it becomes distracting for me. But we put a lot of content out there. So whatever people have to do to get through it, I understand.

And I'm glad you found us initially as part of the the ben lindbergh cinematic podcast universe i guess but thank you for supporting us and thanks to your brother and thanks to juliana etc thanks to all involved what's your baseball background tell us whatever you want to tell us about you personally where you you live, what you do, and also how you became a baseball fan. I played baseball when I was young and have fond memories of playing catch in our lawn with my dad and my brother. Although my t-ball coach called me Hollywood because I was more into my high socks and my sunglasses and my eye black than the game on the field. And once kids started throwing hard, I was kind of out.

And so I think at that point, I've always connected to Sam's point about sports being a way to talk to grownups. Like as a kid, I was able to watch an entire hour of sports center before school started and you sort of possess this information advantage over adults on the rare topic that you both care about and i think i liked that yeah as far as professional fandom uh it was very easy to be a fan of the red sox growing up i I'm from New Hampshire. My first memory... Not all Red Sox fans historically have had that experience or would say that same thing.

But in your age group, things are different. My first memory of David Ortiz was cheering and chanting for him when he came up to pinch hit at the first game I attended. And I don't have any, you know, memory of like a getting to know you stage.

He was just, he was there and he was awesome. Now I would say I'm much more of a fan of the entire sport. I listen to a lot of radio broadcasts and I think I sort of latch on to crews that I like. So a lot of the Red Sox, but still also Giants and Mariners games too, I would say mostly. As far as what I do, I am a student. I'm a master in public policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, which is Harvard School of Government. I came to grad school

interested in sort of like education and international development, sort of like the method behind those sorts of interventions, which is still a lot of what I do academically. But like today I work for what's called the Harvard Project for Indigenous Governance and Development. My work amounts to negotiation support, really providing research and technical assistance for tribal governments who negotiate with cities or federal agencies. Cool. To date, these projects have to do with land rights and energy contracts.

And with that experience, I feel very lucky to either in my capacity at the Harvard Project or at other sort of research centers at the Kennedy School, I've helped research and do advising work for intergovernmental organizations or like human rights commissions that either are or ought to be concerned with indigenous rights especially around like self-governance what's called aboriginal title like land rights and sort of resource and environmental rights i would say that all this came together just based on some of the professors and the people that I became close to. And it's all been a real pleasure. And I'll see what happens next.

I still have another year of school. But yeah. Cool. Good luck with it. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Should we answer some emails? I mean, yes, but like we got to do more career day episodes because that sounds so fascinating and frustrating and important and really cool. Thank you. I don't deliver mail so I don't know how many follow-up questions. I mean,

look, I will never be as obsessed with anything as the mail carrier, you know, alternate timeline that I'm existing in. But yeah. Well, on our latest bonus Patreon pod, not to do too hard a sell here while we are actively talking to a Patreon supporter right now, but our latest Patreon bonus pod is a career

day episode where we talk to two of our Patreon supporters who have cool jobs. One is an airline pilot, and one is a quality control technician at the Criterion Collection, and we just talk to them about their jobs. So that's something we're doing on the bonus pods now. So it's fun for us, hopefully fun for everyone else. But yeah, some of the things that you all do, even more interesting than baseball, arguably.

Yeah, for sure. If such a thing is possible. All right. Let's answer some questions about baseball. Here's one from listener Gray, who says as a fan of the Minnesota Twins for the past two seasons, a player I've really enjoyed watching is Willie Castro. Something about a switch hitting utility fielder you can plug in at most defensive positions really appeals to me. It made me wonder which would perform better, a team of ultra-utility players or a team of ultra-specialists. With the utility players, I'm not talking elite 5-tool guys. Obviously,

if you were given the chance to play a team of all Willie Mazes, you would, but rather guys who are average to slightly above average in all tools. This is opposed to the team of ultra specialists, where every guy is plus to plus plus in one or two tools, but below average to mediocre in all others. Think an elite contact hitter with no power, a guy who hits 40 plus home runs every season but with 150 plus strikeouts, A team of baseball extremophiles, if you will. Each of these one tool guys doesn't have to be unique as there are only so many tools in baseball. But let's say no more than three guys of each tool archetype on the active roster. Which team would be better over the course of a whole season? Which would be better in the smaller sample size of the postseason?

It really is the ultimate question of specialization versus versatility. So the jack of all trades, but master of none versus the specialists who excel in one respect, but suck at some others is the question. Which would be better? And maybe which would be entertaining is also a question we could ask. I feel like it would depend at least some on what the standout tools are. So, like, I'm pretty obsessed with centerfield defense of late. Like, in the last year, I've just been spending a lot of time watching centerfield defense. Wow, Meg, what an idea to

value center field defense. Real pioneer over here. And there are teams where the aggregate skill makes it so you can kind of punt there, even though it is one of the most

important defensive positions on the field. And then there are other times where you can't. Think about the Phillies, man, and all the DHs they had in the outfield and what a difference it makes to have competent defenders out there. But you do have to score runs. So I think it will kind of depend on like is one of or a couple of the guys you have guys who can push runs across or are all of them specialists in the sense that they, you know, are like a really standout defender in center? They're really, you know, they're a slick gloved shortstop or what have you. Like, I think it would really depend on the tools in question.

have you. Like, I think it would really depend on the tools in question. Yeah. So if you're saying we can have no more than three guys of each tool archetype on the active roster, then we pretty much have to have every sort of specialist on the team. So you just have someone who has a great arm. I don't know that there are any baseball players who are only good at throwing if they're not pitchers, as that is, because you kind of have to be good at some other stuff to hold a job. But relatively speaking, that's kind of your carrying tool, if that can be a carrying tool. Initially, when I read this question, I was thinking it was just about specialists versus utility guys. And so I was thinking specialists as in like, well, you have a great late inning reliever and you have someone who's the best at a certain thing. But in this case, it's not necessarily that you can just collect the best guy for each position. You have to just get a specialist at a certain tool.

But that player might not be that great overall. They might be Joey Gallo. And Joey Gallo was good when joey gallo was good but you're not going to have well-rounded guys who are superstars for the most part necessarily and you're going to have to expose them sometimes and the things that they're not good at you can't just deploy them as specialists and use them for the thing that they're good at. So there is a case for the Castros for just people who are generally pretty good at a bunch of things. Really, I guess it kind of depends because you could probably make a team of specialists that was very good and you could also make a team of generalists that was

pretty good. So if you could collect from the absolute best available in each category, I kind of lean toward the specialists probably being better if you could complement their skills somewhat. So you have like the guy who's got great contact and maybe he's on the bench and you can pinch it when you need someone to make contact, but you also have the power guy when you need an extra base hit. And then you have the great glove guy specialist. So that person can be a defensive replacement for the DH type that you're carrying on the roster. So maybe the mixing and matching would allow you to avoid the worst of their weaknesses. You'd have to have a good manager i guess to make

the most out of this squad yeah it reminds me of the questions about sort of like lineup sequencing and having sort of uh about average on base guys versus boom or bust guys and i feel like most investigations into that it seems that it all comes out in the wash, especially in the playoffs. And that's sort of the frustrating thing about analyzing the playoffs. And so my sense is that it would be all pretty comparable. Yeah, I think the Boomer Bust Specialist would be more entertaining, too. Yeah, I do, too. Yeah.

No shots at Willie Castro, who inspired the question because Gray enjoys Castro's work. But yeah, I think to have the person who's like the best at something and also terrible in other respects, that's more interesting probably than just having generally pretty good guys. If we're not talking like with the generalists, with the well-rounded guys, if we're not talking like a Ben Zobrist at his peak or something, like someone who's just a superstar, this is jacks of all trades who are masters of none. So we're excluding the guys who are masters of some in addition to being good at a bunch of stuff. So yeah, I think just being able to deploy players in a particular way, you would have a higher ceiling squad with the guys who are extremely good, who have elite tools and talents that you would just have to figure out how to deploy optimally. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Question from Micah, who says, let's get maybe pedantic. So by being in a relationship with me, I've made my partner a baseball fan. And as they continue to learn about the sport, they learn the lingo, of course. Something that makes me chuckle each time she says it is double out when there is a double play. I found myself holding back from correcting and saying double play because technically she's right, right? I'm sure you two, as I have, will land on the usual, we all know what we mean by the lingo, but I was wondering if you might agree that technically this is more correct than double play since the two outs happen within one overall play. And yeah, I mean, if we called it a double out,

that would be fitting. Maybe we should. Maybe that's more sensible than double play. You could have a bunch of plays that involve more than one aspect to them that don't result in two outs. So maybe double out is the more logical lingo. Double out. That doesn't sound good, though. It's offensive to my ear. Double out. Double out. Double out.

Double out. But probably only because you're used to double play. No, I think it's because it's objectively bad. I think it's because it's bad. You know? Double out. Double. What?

Double out? Can you imagine hearing that on a broadcast? That's a double. No, because like. But a double play. It's because the ball's been put in play. A double out. What? Is it because it's been put in play? It's a double play.

It's, yeah. Now double play doesn't sound like it means anything either. There are a lot of balls put in play. It's not two balls put in play, then a double play. That might make more sense. I think double out is a thing in darts. Well, that's another reason to not do it. It already has a specific context. Yeah. What do you think, Andrew, about double out versus double play?

Yeah. My big brain interpretation is that double play sort of refers to the event is that there's two sort of the fielder and the runner are sort of have their moments at second and first yeah and so double out sort of refers to a subset of those double plays in which two outs are made yeah because because you could what if you attempt to double play and you don't get the second out? You still had just as many plays. You just didn't have as many outs, right? So it's a double play, but not a double out. I think this is a good distinction that Micah's partner is drawing here.

I think generally you have to walk a fine line with correcting someone who is just getting into the game. correcting someone who is just getting into the game. If they welcome that, if they're like, yeah, tell me when I say something that sounds off or I want to know, I want to learn what the standard term is, fine. But also, you don't want to do away with their enthusiasm by correcting them on every point, right? You don't want to well actually someone who's making a good faith effort to get into the game or meet you where you are in your interests. Right. And if they're like making an effort to get into something because you care about it and then you just jump all over them because they said double out instead of total play. Yeah. That discourage their efforts to share your interest. To be clear, I advocate people having appropriate social skills.

I'm just saying that, like, my approach in that moment would be to let it go, unless they are someone who has sort of indicated that they want that correction, as you're saying, so that they know what the terminology is. And then the next time there was a double play, I would make a point of saying that. But I wouldn't like look at them like, hey, dummy, you know, you got that wrong last time. Double out. Some gal on a podcast thinks you sound like an idiot. Like I wouldn't do that.

That's quite rude. Yeah. Is it a double out if you line into a double play? I doubled out. I don't know. You're doubled off. Doubled off. Yeah, probably.

Right. Yeah, probably. Right. Yeah. I wrestled with this recently because I was talking to the great Joanna Robinson, my sometime podcast partner at The Ringer, who is not a big baseball fan, but is making an effort, much like Micah's partner here, because Mallory Rubin is an enormous baseball fan and I'm a big baseball fan. And so we were doing some baseball podcasts and Joanna was trying to study up a bit. And in one of the podcasts she was doing, she did a baseball trial royale on her excellent podcast trial by content where they did a baseball movie bracket and had me on for one of those episodes. And in the first episode, which I was not on, she was saying the MLB.

And I was listening to that and thinking, should I say something? Nah, I don't want to. She's trying to get into this. I'm not going to rain on her parade and say the MLB. But they got an email from an Effectively Wild listener. Ben must have liked this slip. Yeah, I didn't put anyone up to it. That's so funny. We have these foot soldiers out there just spreading the word whether we want them to or not.

I don't think it was a rude email. And I don't know whether it was like, you know, Ben's coming on next week. Just FYI, you might not want to say the MLB in his presence anyway. I was spared having to deliberate about saying something. But then when I went on House of R and we were talking about baseball again, Joanna said home base. And so I was internally thinking, do I want to say it? Should I say it? Should I tell her it's home plate, not home base?

Because what an understandable mistake to make. Why wouldn't it be home base? 100%. It's first base. It's second base. It's third base. Of course, it would be. Just as why wouldn't you say double out if you got two outs? It's two outs. It's a base, it's second base, it's third base. Of course, it would be just as why wouldn't you say double out if you got two outs?

It's two outs. It's a double out. It makes complete sense. Ultimately, I did gently offer that piece of wisdom. But Joetta was welcoming that. I was like, do you want me to do this sort of thing? Because I could. I could turn this part of my brain off happily.

Sure. You have to read the room when you're being pedantic about baseball. Here, we can do it. You know, everyone who's listening to this podcast is opting into the penitentiary, right? But in other contexts, you want to sort of suppress that.

Yeah. Okay. Question from Jay, who is a Patreon supporter and was responding to our discussion about Kyle Tucker being underrated. And Jay says, I play in a fantasy baseball league with a dynasty format, so we get to keep a core of players for the long term. Before each season, my heart fills with springtime hopefulness for the core of my team, and I immediately think of how great a season my top hitters could have in the coming year.

The last four years, my mind has immediately turned to Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis, and Pete Alonso. Then I look at my roster and realize, oh yeah, I also have Kyle Tucker. That guy's pretty good. So even though he's been on my own fantasy team for several years now, I unconsciously underrate him. I feel bad about this because, frankly, he's fantastic. But my theory of the

problem leans heavily toward the name issue. We did bring this up in our discussion. Kyle Tucker is a great name for a financial advisor or an air conditioner repair person. But I think a great ball player should have something with more chops. We could do something about this. We could come up with a nickname for Kyle Tucker. Perhaps we could honor professional players from the past by using one of their names about Catfish Tucker or Oil Can Tucker. Or we could go with a non-nickname nickname like Zambrano Tucker or Wind Biggler Tucker. If the Effectively Wild community got behind it, maybe it could stick. We should not underestimate the cultural influence of the Effectively Wild community. And maybe Tucker would like it because it would lead to bigger endorsement deals. So if you were to come up with a nickname for Kyle Tucker to boost his profile, what would you choose? Have pitchers historically had better names than hitters? I just realized that all my examples were pitchers. Maybe. I've been wondering about the name issue, too. Yeah. It's not just the name with Kyle Tucker. It's also at least perceptions of his personality or his appearance or even his skills.

Like he is one of these well-rounded, good at everything guys who, at least until this season, was not really leading the league in so much. I guess he led the league in RBIs once and triples once, but he's one of those just jack of all trades, but master of many, I guess. He's just good. Someone else, I think, comped him to Trout, maybe in our Discord group, like a less good model of Trout.

Like Trout, his game is not super scintillating necessarily. It's just that he was so surpassingly good at everything that that really catapulted him to more fame than he would have had otherwise, just because he was kind of in a class of himself production wise. But overall, the particular skills didn't stand out as much. It's just that we all realized, oh, wow, he's maybe the best player ever. Whereas Kyle Tucker, again, like he's good at a lot of different things, but not trout level good. So what do you hold on to with him? How do you sort of sell Kyle Tucker? Maybe the answer is a nickname. He needs a nickname. Doesn't he have, isn't, I feel like I've heard him called King Tuck. I feel like I've heard him called King Tuck. Baseball Reference has King Tuck on his page, which I was not aware of.

King Tuck. Has that caught on? Astros fans would know better than I would. King Tuck. I think it's because Kyle Tucker, he seems nonplussed about it all. In the CS last year, I think the Astros were losing, so I think it's why. But I remember he robbed a home run. I forget who it was off, but he robbed a home run and he came down with the ball and he just looked. He just, no satisfaction, no nothing. It was awesome because it was a spectacular play and he just came down totally stone-faced.

Uh-huh. Yeah. I understand that the Disney short classic, The Legends of Sleepy Hollow, doesn't mean as much to other people as it means to me. I understand that, like, objectively. And I understand that from the neck down, Ichabod Crane is not a good comp for Kyle Tucker. And, you know, his features are far less comically pronounced than the cartoon version of Ichabod Crane is. is, but I think he should lean into that for me. And, you know, he can like work on his Bing Crosby impression. And he seems like a nice guy, unlike Bing Crosby, who was kind of a dick. And so he should do that.

You know, he can come up to bat and go, like Bing Crosby did in The Legends of Sleepy Hollow. It's great. It's great. Yeah. I've been trying to think of how much name matters. Yeah. Because if you think about some of the best players of all time, a lot of them do have good names or at least nicknames.

Like Babe Ruth is memorable. George Herman Ruth would not be particularly memorable. I don't think. George Ruth, if it were. But Babe Ruth is memorable. He would have been memorable one way or another. I think, whatever he was called, because he was the Babe. But to be able to say he was the Babe, oh, that's just George, you know? It's just not the same.

Or Walter Johnson, the Big Train, right? Like Big Train, that's a good nickname. Walter Johnson might not be that memorable. that's a good nickname. Walter Johnson might not be that memorable. But then you go down the list, and I guess most great players have good nicknames, or at least nicknames of some sort. Like, just looking down the all-time war leaderboard here at Baseball Reference, Cy Young, I mean, you know, called Cyclone, like it kind of works with a pitcher. Barry Bonds, though, didn't really have a nickname, but maybe that's because Barry Bonds is kind of a cool name. Barry Bonds, like it rolls off the tongue.

And then if you just keep looking down, like Ty Cobb, Henry Aaron, Hank Aaron, whatever you were calling him at the time. Roger Clemens needed Rocket. Eddie Collins, I guess, is kind of boring, maybe. But Alex Rodriguez might be boring if he weren't called A-Rod. So maybe there is something where if you have a boring name, kind of, to begin with, then you need something. You need an A-Rod, you need a babe, you need a rocket, as opposed to like if you're Mickey Mantle or Barry Bonds or someone whose name has this sort of smooth alliterative sound to it. I just, I don't know. I guess it's tough not to have either a very memorable name or a memorable nickname or a particularly memorable appearance, unless you're a big fan of the Headless Horseman, apparently.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Ben. Yeah, sorry. He doesn't look like the Headless Horseman. The Headless Horseman famously doesn't have a head. It would be memorable if he looked like the Headless Horseman. That would be terrifying. Has that been an email question? Probably.

No, but we've talked a lot about the hand coming out of the head and what kind of hair it would have. It remains a banger. What if he signed with the Padres as a free agent and then we could call him Friar Tuck? Ooh. Another character in another great Disney movie. Yeah, because King Tuck, if that's a play on King Tut, is it because he's kind of impassive? Like he looks like a mummy? Like we can't read his expressions?

Because if it's just that it sounds like King Tut, that's not so great. But if it has a thematic resonance to it, then okay. The syllables aren't right on that's not so great. But if it has a thematic resonance to it, then okay. It doesn't, the syllables aren't right on that. King Tuck, you know, it's not, that's not, he could come up to the song though, you know. But I don't know if that's the best choice either. So, it's a tricky one. Does he want to be famous? You know, this is the question we. Right, he might not want to.

Right, this is the question we had when we were initially considering his sort of underrated status, which is maybe this is perfect for him. Maybe he likes that he can go to the store and everyone in there assumes that he repairs air conditioners for a living. You know, that might be exactly what he wants. I would prefer that if I were a pro ball player i'd be like don't look at me don't perceive me i'm i don't exist wow there's a king tucks court at no all right look look i i try really hard to be fair to astros fans i i make an active effort to be fair to astros fans because you know that feels like a principle I should have, but get out of here with that. Get all the

way out of here with that one. Mariner's fans don't own King and Quartz, but they do have a memorable one. But it is, it's gotta be a rip on the no-fly zone. Yeah, I don't care for, I don't care for, I'm gonna swear, I don't care for that

at all. Get that, get that out of here. No, no. All right. If anyone has any excellent nickname suggestions, I also think that the best nicknames, they have to be kind of organic or it's better if they are. It can't just be, some of them are just some sports writer invents something, but often it's something that comes up because it was actually like lived in, in some way. It was a family nickname. It was a teammate nickname. I

don't know that we could sit here and pronounce a nickname and really have it stick. It just, it has to have a good origin story, not just they suggested it on a podcast. So, but if you have the perfect nickname suggestion for Kyle Tucker, please write in and maybe we'll make it happen. Probably not, though. King Tuck's core. What the? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm being tested. You know, it's like, hmm, they're going to play this on the big board when I go.

Was I mean to Astros fans? And I'm going to be like, look, yes, but I was right. You know, sometimes you have to draw a line. This is mine. King Tuck's cork. Get the f*** out of here with that nonsense. I'm furious. Ryan says, I feel like you may have already talked about this at some point.

That's a safe bet for almost any other subject. But just in case you didn't, here's a video of Anthony Rizzo moving up in the batter's box right before the pitcher delivered a pitch on Saturday night. I'll link to it. This started a discussion in a DM group chat about why we don't see more batters do this. Presumably Rizzo was moving up

to reduce the time the pitch had to break, thus keeping it on something closer to its original trajectory when he made contact with it. And Rizzo's done this before. There have been some viral Rizzo moments. He's entertaining in the box. It's A, he's standing on the plate, basically.

And B, he does have more of a two-strike shift in position than most hitters do. Ryan says, I speculated that most hitters not blessed with Rizzo's exceptional strike zone judgment and hand-eye coordination wouldn't be able to really take advantage like Rizzo did here, Ryan says, Should more hitters be doing what Anthony Rizzo is doing? And to be clear, it was with two strikes. So you have a two strike count and he anticipates a breaking ball and he did get one and he moved up and it was a low pitch. And maybe by virtue of having moved up slightly, he was able to get the bat on it and flip it into right field. So it worked out in this case.

But is this something that hitters should be pursuing more broadly? It was a Dylan Cease slider, I believe, too, which I'll note I think is important. Yeah, he probably wouldn't do it. I haven't conducted an exhaustive video review, but I don't know if he does this on every two-strike count against everyone. It might be pitcher and repertoire specific. I feel like I see guys moving back in the box more often than I see them moving up.

Yeah. If it were me, I'd probably be backing up as far as I possibly could at all times. Yeah. To get as far away from that pitch as I could. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think they should move the mound back so that that's the closest I could come as a hitter. I'll just move myself back. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how far you can legally move back because all pitches would be too fast for us. So we would want to just get every extra inch there. I'm not going to hit a breaking ball anyway, so it doesn't really matter where I stand. But for him, I mean, I think it probably works for him, I guess, is what he's comfortable with. It obviously worked in this specific case. But I don't know. It could be that hitters are too rigid and that they should look at Anthony Rizzo and say, oh, maybe I could learn from this. I could pick up this trick of the trade. But I could also imagine that this would sort of screw you up potentially.

It might not make that much of a difference. that this would sort of screw you up potentially. It might not make that much of a difference, but if you're not someone who likes to think that much in the box, if you're one of these see the ball, hit the ball types, and you just kind of want to focus on your mechanics, and it's probably not enough of a perspective shift to screw up your depth perception or anything. Like, I guess if you had always only hit from one spot and then you moved

a few inches back like would that be enough to mess with the muscle memory and your timing and everything i don't know but maybe for some guys it could it's very much like i guess some pitchers they move side to side on the rubber and other guys don't bother with that and right maybe it depends on your skill set. Again, if you're like going for certain angles and your stuff works that way and other people may not derive as much of a benefit from that or they just might think it's not worth the trouble. I just want to focus on repeating the same thing over and over again and get in a groove here. So it's very much a case by case thing. I would help if we knew how many people do this.

Probably Rizzo's not like the only guy on earth who might benefit from this. So if he's the only guy on earth doing it, then I would say, yeah, maybe this strategy is underapplied. But it's hard for me to gauge whether it is. Do you think Cease noticed? That's a good question because if you notice someone doing this then you you give away what you're looking for right like and if the pitcher can't tell you'd think maybe the catcher could tell right potentially signal pitch come that's hey because that's the other thing is that pitch selection is not very predictable these days you can't bank on yeah the guy's gonna throw a fastball

to get a hit in the count and then finish you off with off-speed stuff. It doesn't really work that way. Pitchers, they throw their pitch in any count. They confound your expectations. They're aware of the game theory considerations and implications. back anticipating a breaking ball or move up anticipating a breaking ball you might get the heat and then you'll be even less prepared for that both mentally and physically and it could be a tell yeah they could take advantage of that potentially yeah you think to your point you think the catcher at the very least would be like hey you're in like in a different spot than you were a couple of seconds ago what's up with that what are you doing what do you see you know yeah i would think that it's somewhat either especially pronounced when rizzo did it or particular to rizzo because i i remember the whoever was calling the game i think for the yes booth called it out as it was happening which i thought i thought was one i thought it was a nice pull, first of all. And I guess I would suggest to me that it isn't as common.

Yeah, there was a case, I think he hit a home run having done the same mid-plate appearance adjustment a couple of years ago, and that gained some attention too. So yeah, and I guess it could also be, could be like layers upon layers. It's like, they think I'm thinking this, and and I know they're thinking then it really becomes game theory. So you try to like sucker them into throwing you the pitch that you actually want by making them think that you're expecting a different pitch. And then you really could think yourself into knots. So, yeah, this might overcomplicate things for some guys, but others, maybe they could learn a thing or two from the YWEE veteran, Anthony Rizzo here. We got another question from Cody that's also about pitching and responding to pitching. It's about strike

zone multipliers. So listening to you two talk about the automated strike zone got me thinking of a couple of possible options for strike zone multipliers not sure if these have been brought up before but if not i'd be interested in hearing your thoughts one the strike zone is a setup like a bullseye where pitches middle middle count as two strikes if they are taken and then two prior to a pitch the pitcher can declare that the next pitch will count double if it is not swung at. That is, a doubled pitch, not doubled out, doubled pitch outside the zone would count as two balls and inside the zone would count as two strikes. I think that option two introduces opportunity for bluffing and mind games from the pitcher.

Is he going to throw this in the zone and try to strike me out in a 1-1 count? Or is he bluffing and hoping I'm primed to swing at anything? So what do you think? The bullseye strike zone? And if it's middle-middle, it's two strikes, but everyone knows, oh, there's an advantage to throwing middle-middle, and therefore the hitter can just look middle middle and get a fat pitch but if they take it two strikes or the double or nothing i guess it's not quite double or nothing but you can declare that the next pitch counts double if it's not swung at so if it's outside the zone it would be two balls if it's inside the zone two strikes i think you answered a question a few years ago about doubling the hit by pitch penalty.

Yeah. Making it the two bases instead of one. And my thing with that is I think there are just, there are too few bases and too few strikes that to double the penalty or reward is just a very big swing in the outcome of just sort of like the the probability of of of the plate appearance so to have two strikes as the penalty to the batter reward to the pitcher based on a middle middle pitch i mean that that might be the whole plate appearance right there right in a probabilistic sense i guess the strike zone does almost function in that bullseye way this is accentuating that it's a more pronounced version of that where if you throw one down the middle you're more likely to get the called strike if that pitch is taken than you are if you throw on the borders somewhere on the margins on the edges and so this

is just increasing the reward even further, doubling the reward for throwing in the middle to make the trade-offs, the cost-benefit analysis would be different. But I think that if you can declare it, now, I guess in this situation, the strike zone is just always set up like the bullseye. So it's not calling it out that, oh, this particular pitch or this particular plate appearance. I do kind of like the idea of just activating this multiplier mid plate appearance because from a spectator perspective, that's kind of exciting. It kind of raises the suspense and the stakes on that pitch, right? When you say, oh, next pitch counts double if it's not swung at,

risk rewards, that's kind of interesting. I'd be like on the edge of my seat paying attention to that. I wouldn't want it to be a permanent feature, but if you had maybe once a game or something or every now and then you could activate, you could trigger this, that might be kind of fun. And I know they do this with cameras or radar or whatever, but I like the idea of the catcher having to wear a bullseye with his gear becoming bullseye colored. Yeah. So, I hate this for so many reasons. I think that you're right. I think that you're right. The shift in balance between the pitcher and the hitter is too severe, right? We want there to be equilibrium in these moments, right, where you aren't sort of debiting the offense or the pitching side too much with your penalties. And I think that this is out of whack from that perspective. I love, you know, when we can introduce new strategy to the game.

I think that that's fun. But I think this would be wildly confusing for fans. It has the spirit of like the, I'm going to do a swear, but this one I think we have to leave in because it's it's quoting it like has the spirit of that shut the fuck up i'm calculating when probability jesus christ tweet right where it's like it's almost too abstract of a of a strategy for for the moment like it it takes something out of the the pitcher hitter interaction in a way that adding strategy often will like enliven that interaction. I feel like this sucks something out of it because you're sitting there and you're like,

do I remember how to do game theory from grad school? And then this would get optimized so quickly. I think it would destroy baseball on its own. Cool question, but like disastrous outcome? Yeah, just because they could. They didn't stop to think they should. Yeah, but I like the idea of having kind of a Savannah Bananas golden batter style thing where every now and then we've answered golden ball questions. Sure, sure. That might be fun to introduce every now and then, certainly in exhibitions. I guess with this bullseye strike zone, it would, I guess, have to be a permanent feature because you couldn't

call it out on a particular pitch because if you knew that middle-middle pitch is counted as two strikes if they're taken, well, then the batter's always going to swing because you're telegraphing that it's going to be a middle-middle pitch. And also also they know that the cost is steeper unless, again, you're trying to psych them out. You're like, yeah, I'm totally going to throw this one right down the middle. And then you don't. But I guess even if you didn't, they could just limit their view to middle, middle. And if it's not middle, middle, they just wouldn't need to swing.

Also, like having to declare it feels like it would just make everything so like, you know, it's like an old stop motion animation, right? It, like, interrupts the cadence of the at-bat in a way that would not be good. Can I admit to a cranky opinion? Sure. Can I lay bare maybe my crankiest crank opinion? Mm-hmm. I don't know that I care for the Savannah bananas.

You know, I don't think that's for me. I'm not saying that they should like be disbanded. I can understand why people like them and I hope that those people continue to, but it's not for me. You know, it's too gimmicky. It's too much. I don't think I...

You're not policing other people's fun no you're just saying you personally don't find it fun it is i right i'm not saying that they should like be abolished i don't think that they're like evil i'm not saying that this is like of the devil i am simply saying it's not for me and I hope I never have to go. I hope I don't ever have to do it. Thankfully, they've been written about so much that there isn't a pressing journalistic need there. There have been a great many features written about the Savannah Bananas. And I think that there are parts of it that are cool, I guess.

But actually, I don't. I think it's just not for me. You know, it's not for me. Yeah, I guess I'm pro-bananas. I'm certainly not on the ban bananas platform. But I mean, and neither am I. I want to be very clear about that. I'm not like suggesting a banana ban.

Right. Yeah, I was contacted about co-writing a book about the bananas. And I did not pursue that opportunity. Yeah, I was contacted about co-writing a book about the bananas. And I did not pursue that opportunity. Someone else did, and it subsequently came out. I find that I enjoy it in small doses. Like whenever I read about something the bananas are doing or I see a clip or something, I think, oh, that's kind of cool. That's funny. But I haven't attended a bananas game and I haven't tuned in to watch full Bananas games.

So I guess that does suggest that my appetite is limited. But I guess I'm glad it exists. I think it's nice to inject some whimsy. I don't know whether anything the Bananas do will really transfer over into Major League Baseball. But I like that people are taking the piss out of the sport a little bit, as the Brits would say, you know, just having a whimsical approach to things. I am interested in cosmic baseball, the experiment that's about to happen on June 1st, the college summer team, the Tri-City Chili Peppers, where they're doing what they're calling cosmic baseball. It's a

baseball game played under black lights, and they've got a glowing ball and glowing bats and glowing uniforms and glowing bases. And it looks kind of cool. And I'm very curious about what the effects of it will be, because on the one hand, you can see the ball more clearly, arguably. It glows in the dark, literally. But I think at least with the initial ball model they're using, you can't see the seams, and so you can't tell the movement. So what matters more for pitch recognition, just the ball standing out or the seam movement? And maybe it's different when you're a college summer team level team as opposed to big leaguers, but that seems like it's going to be kind of a cool experiment.

But they're not playing on the moon. They are not. I got excited for a moment that they're not playing on the moon. They are not. I got excited for a moment that they might be playing on the moon. And then I thought for a college team, that's expensive. It would be. I would welcome low gravity or zero gravity baseball someday when we have settlements on other celestial bodies. I'm so optimistic of you, Ben. Yeah.

Well, we've done a future blast about that. Okay. Last one, Ben. Yeah. Well, we've done a future blast about that. Okay. Last one, sort of similar. This comes from Adam who says, I promise this is not a new playoff system email. Thank you, Adam. We do get a lot of those. We get so many. Very detailed. Yes. That's what I will say about them. Very creative. In a scenario that I like to think about in which all teams who win 85 games make the postseason, but for every win above 85, teams can spend their wins like currency to improve their playoff odds or finish their opponents. I imagine an old Wheel of Fortune-style spending spree.

I will take a second DH for three wins, a 1-0 series lead for 10 wins, and the new washer and dryer for one win. In this scenario, do owners try to limit spending and only shoot for 85? Or is the incentive great enough for regular season wins to increase spending? So you have power-ups, optional power-ups that you could cash in, you know, in a video game when you collect coins or whatever and you trade them in and you get some sort of tool that enhances your abilities or maybe some kind of cosmetic upgrade that would work that way for baseball now where 85 is the bar for entry and you clear that you can then spend your surplus wins on other stuff that could maybe help you advance in the postseason? I feel like the big market elite teams now would spend their extra wins for significant upgrades. But I don't know if the sort of Guardians 85, 86, 87 wins would...

I feel like every team would spend their extra wins for upgrades, wins would, I feel like every team would spend their extra wins for upgrades, but I don't know if every team would alter their off-season behavior to bank more wins. Because already having a better baseball team increases your odds at winning a title. And I think the conceit that strengthening those odds is a little too generous to the owners and to the decision makers behind teams. I guess it depends on how crazy the upgrades are. Right. Yeah. Well, first of all, I'll have you know that the Guardians are on pace for 107 wins.

Oh, they'll get there. Yeah. I think they'll, you know, don't pay attention to their base runs record. No, don't. Which is not bad either. Just, yeah, not quite as good. Yeah, it's a little like I was going to say in the previous hypothetical about the strike zone multipliers that you already have kind of a cat and mouse dynamic between batters and pitchers. That's how it's often described. And so maybe we don't need to add to that. It's already sufficiently cat and mousy. Maybe you say, oh, that's the best thing about it. And we want to double down on that aspect of it. But maybe it's enough as it is for many people.

And so with the postseason, yeah, I guess the better you are, the better chance you have anyway. But there's not a very clear connection there. Yeah, better teams do better in the postseason, but only to some extent. This would clearly enhance the differences. This would help you in the postseason more so than just merely being better at baseball. Then your opponents, you would not only be better at baseball, but you would also get to enhance your capacities with various power-ups. Not sure how that would work with other, what if your opponent is also, yeah, don't they have some wins to spend?

And then I guess you'd have to like outspend them or something. Like if you want to get a 1-0 series lead for 10 wins, well, what if the other team says, no, we're going to spend our own surplus. So it'd have to be a big mismatch in regular season win total, or maybe you would have What if the other team says, no, we're going to spend our own surplus? So it would have to be a big mismatch in regular season win total, or maybe you would have to have like 10 net wins so that the other team could put some of their 85 or over wins toward blocking you from employing that particular power up. But it would be nice if you were able to select from a suite of options that would give us a lot more to analyze. Maybe the ideal choice would be obvious most of the time, but it could depend on your strengths and weaknesses as a roster. I would offer a tweak to this completely foolproof system, which is that you wouldn't be able to purchase wins within the postseason, I think that you could spend your wins to borrow players

from non-postseason contenders. I feel like that would be a more practical system. But seriously, a more practical system, right? Where you still have sort of, you know, a common pool of power-ups. And yes, maybe you can outbid other teams within the playoff pool for those power-ups. But it's something that's less, I feel like, would cause fewer problems than being able to be like, well, you know, we have to spend our wins so that you can't get a series win. We have to spend our wins so that you can't get a series win. I think you want to keep the postseason structure intact, but by making sort of every player who isn't on a postseason roster available to borrow, we've talked about that many times on this podcast, you kind of get the best of both worlds where you enhance your team, you make your team better, like finding a rucksack. If you're in a video game, I don't know what you do with power-ups in video games.

You get a rucksack and then you put other stuff in it and then you're like, ah, I have what I need. It's like that. That's the way it works. Yeah. It's always a rucksack. I enjoy a rucksack and then you put other stuff in it and then you're like, ah, I have what I need. You know, it's like that. That's the way it works. Yeah. It's always a rucksack. I enjoy saying rucksack. But I think it allows for the play to be enhanced, but it doesn't alter the fundamental structure of the playoff series themselves.

Because, you know, in theory, you want a souped up team to play as many games as it possibly can. And if you're able to sort of buy advantages from a series record perspective, you're kind of up two games or, you know, where, you know, a seven game series is just automatically three, two? Or would you rather, you know, get to build to that, but all of a sudden there's, pretend he's not injured, there's Mike Trout, like finally in October, you know? So that would be my approach. It's really the quest There's Mike Trout, like finally in October, you know? So that would be my approach. It's really the quest to save Mike Trout. Yes. But this entire podcast is about. Do you think there's much desire among fans for more deterministic

playoffs? Like I understand that for players and for the league, like expanded playoffs is kind of a bargaining chip. And I think I feel the way that you both do is that I'm not really a fan of that. But I have a sense that among most fans, I feel like most fans either appreciate the parody or appreciate having their team in the playoffs or having a greater chance to see their team in the playoffs, that having this system is solving a problem that most people don't see. Yeah, I think you're probably right about that. I think certainly the past trends toward playoff expansion, yeah, that's driven by MLB and by owners and by a desire for TV revenue. But it does seem like something that most fans are fine with, if not in favor of.

I think the last couple Octobers, maybe it's risen to the level of people getting upset about it. There was enough unrest that MLB even, I think, said like, well, we'll think about this. that MLB even, I think, said like, well, we'll think about this or, you know, we'll think about whether there's some tweak we could make to this system, which was maybe just sort of a sop to the critics at the time, because it seems like if anything, they just want to keep pushing things further in this direction. So you're right. I think people get annoyed about it when their team is eliminated after a strong regular season. But on balance, it seems like people have sort of signed up for, yeah, the postseason is what matters mostly. And it's good to be in it, even if that really removes the focus from most of the schedule,

unfortunately, or I see it as unfortunate. All right. Well, this has been fun. It's been a pleasure for us, at least hopefully for you as well. Thank you for joining us, Andrew. Is there anything you would care to plug or anywhere you want to tell people how to find you if you want to be found? I would not. Okay. That is your prerogative. I guess they could if they really tried. Sounds like you're issuing a challenge but uh no i think i would encourage people to support the media and the ball writing that they like i

have and it's been a real pleasure especially as more writers that i feel like i enjoy a lot are writing independently or for smaller publications. It's been a pleasure for me, too. Thank you again. Thanks to you. And thanks to Christopher and Juliana for funding and tolerating this entire exercise. Yeah, thanks so much. All right.

Well, I hope having to listen to himself on this episode doesn't keep Andrew awake. He can sleep soundly knowing he's helping fund our efforts. And so can you. If you follow Andrew's lead and support us on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild, the following five listeners, like Andrew, have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Sam, John Haug, Daniel Goldblatt, Janet Green, and Gordon Balfour. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include potential podcast appearances, plus access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only. Now more than 1,400 members, monthly bonus

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production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. It's the zombie runner Bobby Shands Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands Effectively wild It's the zombie runner Bobby Shands Bobby Shands, Bobby Shands Effectively wild