Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2184: The Biggest First-Half Surprises

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a player/league/umpire spat over on-screen strike-zone plots, whether “K-Zone” and its ilk have had a harmful effect on the game, where they stand on a hitter vs. pitcher dispute about the mid-game use of advanced pitching machines, the promotion of Nationals top prospect James Wood (and the future […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2184 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? I'm okay. How are you?

I don't know, man. Here we are, though. Here we are, though. Here we are. We're doing a pod, because we're podcasters, you know? We are. We are the potters. Yeah, we're the potters of pods. We're the dreamers of dreams.

Yep. Of all the modern jobs, you know, the jobs that our grandparents don't understand totally, where does podcasting rank for you in terms of how stupid that modern job? Sometimes I'm like, what a weird thing that this is part of my job. I say that with love and affection for all of our listeners, because it's pretty cool that it gets to be my job. But sometimes I'm like, that's my job. That's part of my job.

What a weird thing. Yeah, it's up there in terms of difficulty to explain to some relatives, at least in the past. I think now people understand what podcasts are and it's like a radio show. So everyone understands that. We're just talking to a mic. People are listening to it. Initially, there was some podcast.

What a weird name and what does it mean and how do you access it? But I think we've gone mainstream. You know, we've brought this medium into the mainstream. Effectively, Wild has done its bit. We've done our part. When I first started podcasting, I wanted to be like Anakin in Star Wars and go, now this is podcasting. Every time I would pod, but I figured people would be like, that's one of the worst Star Wars. But then they made worse ones after that.

So, turns out I could have done it and it would have been fine, Ben. Immediately after that so turns out i could have done it and it would have been fine ben immediately after that in fact so i have a couple stories to bring up here about the strike zone and about player preparation for games i think they're sort of lightly related one it was written about by evan drelic at the athletic that there was a bit of a dust up over whether the tablets that players use to watch footage in game would include the strike zone boxes from the broadcasts. And this season, the boxes,

the whatever you call them, they all have some branded name, but the strike zone plot that we see on most broadcasts these days was stripped out of the player footage that they review on their iPads in-game. And players were not pleased about that. They wanted to see the Strike Zone stuff. Yes.

And they complained, and now they have gotten their way as they should have. I think there was a grievance that they filed because the collectively bargained agreement is that players get access to the broadcast footage. And the broadcast footage generally includes K-Zone or whatever we're calling it. The EQC Tracer is what they call it on the Root broadcast. Fancy. Emerald Queen Casino. Players were like, we want this back because we want to get pissed at umpires probably, which is the reason. But they're entitled to get pissed at umpires.

They collectively bargained for that. And the reason for it is that umpires were upset, seemingly. were upset, seemingly. So MLB in a memo said this was done in direct response to a perceived increase in the incidence of players and other on-field personnel using the dugout tablets,

in particular the feed that includes the strike zone graphic, to argue balls and strikes, and in some cases to berate, harass, and embarrass major league umpires. And so umpires requested, hey, take away the strike zone box.

And players were like, nope, we want to see the strike zone box. And it was going to go to an arbitrator, but it sounds like MLB just realized that they were in the wrong here, that they didn't really have a legal leg to stand on when it came to stripping this out of the broadcast footage. And so now it's back in and players have gotten their way and they're entitled to get the footage right after the half inning concludes right and then they see it and then if they just let's say struck out looking on a close pitch then after that half inning they can review the footage and they can see whether it was at least within the strike zone plot, which is not always a perfect indication of whether it was in fact a strike, according to the rulebook. But it does give you some way to judge that fairly or unfairly.

And I don't doubt that this has led to an uptick in players saying, hey, I just went back and watched that. You got that one wrong. And umpires, I'm sure, don't love that, but that's the world we live in. So they kind of have to just live with that, I guess. And of course, you get ejected or you are supposed to if you complain about balls and strikes, right? So there is a recourse for umpires if that happens. The one concession that they are making to umpires here is that in addition to remaining

subject to ejection, players can now be fined between $2,500 and $7,500 for a first-time violation with progressive discipline from there. Previously, players were fined, but the amounts were never before specifically codified and were always lower. So steeper financial penalties here, though, I guess for many players still sort of a drop in the bucket. I think it's very funny that they collectively bargained basically their right to be annoyed by something, but not their right to express that annoyance. Like you're entitled to the feeling,

but you're not entitled to any vocalization of that feeling. And I know that's like, you know, that's one way to put it, Meg. That might not be the only way that you could put it. I'm kind of of two minds on this, Ben, because on the one hand, you know, if it's in the CBA that you should have access to a thing, you should have access to a thing, you should have access to that thing. And I don't want the league to sort of unilaterally hem in footage when it was supposed to be and is supposed to be presented in a particular format. Because, you know, like, you can't let the league get loosey-goosey with the CBA like that.

get loosey-goosey with the cpa like that on the other hand i think and this is a belief that i think has been given a very good expression and thoughtful expression by i think craig and patrick over at bp i think that quite often it makes people unnecessarily agitated when when it offers what is i think a false sense of precision as it pertains to the zone and so i can understand why the umpires would be like hey we're already going to be given the business a fair amount in our interaction with players and field staff because they want everything to be depending on what end of the pitch you're on, a ball or a strike, and we are disinterested in that project.

We want to try to call the zone and sometimes we make mistakes, but we get things right a lot of the time, and so get off my back would be the way that they would think about it. And particularly if they're being yelled at for stuff that is either, you know, obviously one or the other, but is being sort of misrepresented by the onscreen zones or is perhaps a borderline pitch and you can understand why it might be a more sort of probabilistic call on their part that is going to go in your direction some ways, but not, you know, be to your benefit at other times. I get why you'd be annoyed by that. So again, I'm of two minds about it. Ostensibly the purpose of being able to review that in-game footage in-game is so that you can use it to improve yourself so that you can judge what you

did wrong or so you can look at the picture you're about to face or that sort of thing. So you can review it and you can correct something. And I guess you could say that the same could be true for the strike zone plot if it helps you figure out your plate discipline and did I take that pitch erroneously or was I right to take that pitch or what kind of zone is the umpire calling today? I guess there could be some sort of advantage there that players are entitled to, but I think I would agree that K-Zone in all of its many implementations has probably made the world worse. in all of its many implementations has probably made the world worse. Yeah.

I think it might be a worse place because we have that. Like the Rickwood game didn't have it, right? Yeah. And I felt free. It was nice. I felt free. I definitely didn't miss it. Yeah. It's the sort of thing where broadcasters must think we like it.

And maybe it even does lead to greater engagement because it just makes us all mad. You know, it's sort of like social media. We can't stop using it, but does it make us happier? So maybe it is kind of feeding that part of our brain that is eager to get upset. Not that we didn't or wouldn't get upset at umpires without the pitch block. That has always been the case, but it arms you with evidence and maybe sometimes misleading evidence that then enables you to get even more righteously upset. Yeah. I think that, you know, we'd be naive to

think that part of what players are trying to do here isn't getting a sense of not just the, you know, their plate discipline and sort of how they're seeing the zone, but how the zone is being called on any particular day, because there is going to be some variability sort of day-to-day, umpire-to-umpire. I get why they would prefer to have those views, even if those views are imperfect, because it does give you some sense. But I do think that a lot of the purpose of the zone for viewers at home anyway is to burn calories, you know, to get agitated because it is a caloric kind of emotion being angry and or anxious about stuff. And, you know, as viewers at home, we have

other recourse if we, you know, we happen to be watching a broadcast that doesn't have a strike zone, you know, overlay. Typically, you're able to like look at game day and get a sense of it, even though, you know, sometimes that, you know, can be for viewers to try to sort of discern the zone on their own and get a realistic sense of it without the assistance of the K zone. And I do think it makes you feel a chiller kind of way. These guys are trying to press an advantage and get a sense of the zone, but they're going to be a little bit grumpy, particularly if, you know, the game isn't going their way and they have a sense of grievance related to a particular call. Like, I can see how that could escalate emotions in a way that maybe isn't totally productive. And it's not just unproductive, you know, potentially for the umpires. But I wonder, you know, how many guys have sort of talked themselves into an ejection unnecessarily by having this sense that like they're getting jobbed when maybe maybe they are or maybe they aren't. But, you know, they're getting worked up because they can point at something and say, look, see, you know, so I do wonder about that. And it can be visually distracting.

We're used to it, obviously. It sucks. about that. And it can be visually distracting. We're used to it, obviously. It sucks. Yeah, especially the thing where the contrast is different inside that box. And it's just, you can kind of tell that it just looks different in that section of the screen. So if it were a little less obtrusive, maybe if they had, you could say, have a little strike zone graphic in the corner where you plot the pitches after the fact, maybe. I think I've seen that just so it's not in real time and unavoidable. And it's just so there.

Yeah. Like there's no way not to see it. And so when you get a Field of Dreams game or a Rickwood game and, ah, it's not there anymore. I just, I don't miss it. I do think when it first came in, I thought it was kind of cool. The first time I saw it, probably it was an interesting bell whistle. But yeah, I think I just don't need it. It doesn't really make me happier. I suppose you could say it's probably hastening our journey towards Robo-Umps or Challenge System, which for some people would be system, which for some people would

be a plus and for some people would be a negative. It's just hard to have that on the screen at all times and be confronted with umpire errors in a not incontrovertible way, but less easily contradicted way, I guess. And you can't really put that back into pandora's box probably maybe the plot is just here to stay it's broken our brains but it's broken our brains the way that it's broken players brains i guess and so if they want to use it to argue at umps and see if they were right then so do we i suppose so how can we judge them well and you and, you know, here I've been saying like the Mariner's version is called the EQC tracer. But I think the actual tracer that I'm referring to is what you're describing where they give you the little zone in the corner. And they often only bring that up at moments where it's been a close pitch or, you know, where the groan factor in the ballpark goes up.

You know how sometimes you can audibly hear the groan from the crowd. They'll be like, what does the EQC tracer say? And sometimes the groan will happen and the tracer comes up and then Mike Flowers is like, no, that was a strike, you know? And I'm like, thanks, Mike. That was honest. But I do think that it can be a nice bit of confirmation or honesty, depending on the mood of the home booth. But it doesn't need to sit there the whole time. It really doesn't. Because most of the time, I would say, Ben, my sense is like, I know if it's a ball or a strike. And the call tends to sort of align with that. And the call tends to sort of align with that. It's obviously a decent reference. It's usually not way off, but when people do treat it as gospel and don't take into account that it may not be perfectly adjusting for, let's say, the stance of the hitter and it's a 2D box and the strike zone is not 2D and perhaps it's like a borderline pitch, then you probably shouldn't put that much stock into it.

And I don't know that people know that, really. I don't know that most broadcasters do a great job of pointing that out or caveating that it's not official and sometimes it's not the greatest guide. But we're stuck in this world of the strike zone plot, I suppose. The other controversy that has surfaced with players here, it's not an MLB versus players thing, but more of a pitchers versus hitters thing. So we've talked about the advanced pitching machines, specifically the Traject Arc machine, which can replicate gyrospin and has the pitch coming out of a diagram or a hologram almost of the pitcher, just a video overlay of the ball coming out of the pitcher's hand. And it can move and it can quasi perfectly replicate the actual stuff that the pitcher throws movement and release point and spin, et cetera. So I wrote

about this, I don't know, two or three years ago when it was just breaking into baseball and now it's becoming commonplace. And so this is generating some discord when it comes to pitchers who resent that hitters have this tool, this arrow in their quiver now to prepare for games. And the difference this year is that as MLB took away the strike zone plots temporarily from the iPads, it did green light the in-game use of the Traject Arc. And the sticking point before was that the machines had to be always online to be in operation, whereas now they don't. They can be operated

offline. So because there's this ban on electronics communicating during games, the iPads and the dugouts, they can't be connected to the internet, right? You can't be getting real-time data. And that was the sticking point with getting these pitching machines approved for use in-game. Now they can operate offline. So they're not actually showing you what the pitcher was throwing in that game, let's say, but you can still use them during games. Whereas before you could prepare against a pitcher you were going to face that day, hours before the game, let's say, but now you can go during the game and you can hit off of this facsimile of that pitcher. And pitchers don't love that, understandably, I guess. Now, is it having an effect?

Hard to say, right? Because offense is down. So it's not as if there's been an offensive explosion or something that we could connect to this. And if anything, hitters need all the help they can get. Sure. So I'm not up in arms about this personally. Really?

I would have thought Mr. get rid of the positioning cards, get rid of mound visits guy would say, throw those robots out, kick them to the curb, smash them up. No, because I'm okay with between innings. Wow. You know, you can look at your card. You can review your scanning report. You can have all the meetings you want when you're not literally on the field. That is the boundary, the figurative and physical boundary for me. You shouldn't be able to take it out onto the field.

And you can't take the traject arc pitching machine out onto the field with you and take some swings against the machine on the mound before you hit off the pitcher. No. So I'm okay with anything that you do, as long as you're not actively in the game, the game's not going on at that moment. So pitchers don't like it though, because, well, here's Yankees pitcher Caleb Ferguson, who says, it's impossible for a pitcher to mimic the at-bat. We don't even really get the chance at all to try to have that upper hand where you can come in and face a guy and read the results, see what's going to happen if I face whoever, but they could be hitting my fastball for the next three hours.

That's not fair. Now, I see his point. I would also say hitting isn't fair, I guess. It's like hitting is such a reactive activity that hitters really need to adapt to pitchers more than pitchers need to adapt to hitters. I'm not saying you don't adapt at all to the hitter. That's an age-old debate. Do you pitch to your strengths or the batter's weaknesses? And I think generally people agree probably it's some combination of

both, but probably your strengths. And the guy standing there, it's like when pitchers throw simulated games and they just have like a warm body there, they just have someone standing there, sort of crouching, maybe not even swinging. As a pitcher, you're doing what you're doing. You're throwing your pitches, you're throwing them to the intended targets. And the hitter doesn't really change what you do that much. Of course, you might change your pitch selection based on the hitter's reactions or something, but like your actual delivery, you're just throwing your pitch, you know, and hit it or not. Whereas a hitter, like everything is subject to what pitches am

I going to see? Where are they going to be? Can I guess correctly here? So everything becomes about preparing versus that pitcher. So it's not fair, I guess, but it's also not really the same sort of activity. So how would you even, you know, like, I guess if you practiced against a hitting machine that was just like a hitting robot who would swing or not swing based on the hitter's tendencies and swing path and everything. And so you could get a sense of like, will he chase this pitch or can I beat him on this pitch? That would be helpful, I guess, but less helpful, I think, than a hitter preparing against a specific pitcher. I think that in this moment, my sympathy on this particular question does lie with the pitchers

to some degree. It feels importantly different to be able to do that kind of preparation with that degree of specificity so proximate to when you're going to hit against that actual guy right because like before these machines were sort of readily available it's not uncommon for a hitter to like go down in the cages in between innings and like try to get some work in like especially if you're dhing or if you think that you might be getting ready to come in to pinch hit in in the later innings right you might go get warm down there and try to get a sense of what the guy you're going to face is going to throw. But you're just taking generic hacks in that circumstance. And I think that having an ability to so precisely mimic the guy you're about to see, like just you're bringing whatever, and I don't know if what I'm about to say is like especially scientifically rigorous, but like being able to bring that specific close, like short term muscle memory and visualization into the box with you and have it be the guy you're about to see. It does feel like it tips things a little in a way that isn't totally fair. Now, I am sympathetic to the idea that like they are on their back foot whenever they step in the box, right? Because they can't plan it out. They can only react to the particular pitch that they're given. And even if you're seeing the guy's precise repertoire, arm slot, mechanics, what have you, replicated,

it's never going to be exactly the same as the pitch you see, right? There is always going to be a little bit of variation because a human person has to do that motion, and it just is going to look a little bit different. There are nights that a guy doesn't have it or he doesn't have a particular pitch or he's not getting you know the break he wants on something or he's having trouble pronating his wrist in the way he wants or like the way that you know because of the the weather conditions and the way that the air is humid like it coming off his fingers is a little different, right? So, to say that it's exactly the same is, again, to offer sort of a false sense of precision, but it's like-

There is some skepticism about that in the article, by the way, where Jason Hayward says, it really varies. Some look similar, some don't. You're seeing them throw the ball, but I still think it's completely different in the game because there's room for error. Pitchers mean to throw a ball here and they throw it there. They mean to throw it here and they throw it here, all that kind of stuff. So I think that's where it's not very realistic. It's like video game pinpoint every time, but still just getting a visual and idea of what someone has and how that may come out is cool. It's helpful for sure.

But, you know, like I am someone like doesn't have a problem with positioning cards and i think a mound visit is fine and like a mound visit is a much more immediate and direct intervention than you know having been down in the cage the half inning before or whatever so maybe there's some inconsistency in that position but there is something about it that kind of rankles because these guys spend so much time thinking about sort of how do I deploy my repertoire in the course of a start? How often am I throwing a particular pitch to the same guy? How am I sequencing, you know, my fastball versus my secondary stuff? Am I pitching backwards? And, you know, we've talked about sort of the role that familiarity can play in hitters doing

better as they see a guy more times through the order now some of that's going to be fatigue on the part of the pitcher it's not just familiarity like there's this you know it's a soup and there are a bunch of ingredients in that soup but it does seem like it is positioning you to amplify a potential advantage that you have later into a game just by virtue of um times to reorder stuff something about that's not right but but you're right to say ben you're right to say that it is an uneven playing field to begin with and so maybe it's fine and it doesn't sound to your, like the effect has been so, you know, deleterious to the performance of pitchers because, like, no one can hit first s*** this year.

Exactly, right, yeah. So, like, maybe it doesn't even matter. Right. The article at ESPN says the effects appear to be minimal thus far, just looking at the league-wide batting average and offense in general. The only evidence it cites in favor of maybe this is working is the strikeout rate against relievers is below 23%, 22.9% to be exact. For the first time in eight years, a subtle decline. Some have at least partly attributed to the in-game use of Traject.

I guess it's possible, you know, then again, it could be, well, you're asking relievers to do so much these days and you're cycling through them so quickly and they're throwing so many innings that maybe we're just watering down the quality of relievers, right? So I'm more inclined to think it has more to do with that. But it's a sticky one. I'm kind of torn because there is something about it that feels a little unfair. And yet, on the one hand, pitchers continually get the upper hand when it comes to technology. Like pitcher training technology is always ahead of hitter training technology, whether it's just measuring. you know, we had all sorts of

measurements of pitch quality before we had at least publicly measurements of batted ball quality and the movements of hitters' bodies. And all of that is always like pitchers get stuff first and then hitters have to try to keep pace. So maybe this is the one time when it's like going in the other direction. And finally, hey, we're getting something like a position player anonymously says in this article, this is the first piece of technology we've had that truly benefits us. Before this, we had nothing. That seems like a slight exaggeration, but it is. Ever so slight, yeah. Yeah, it's true that the defense just always kind of gets the upper hand and it's on the hitters to kind of catch up.

And I guess you could say that it's not inherently unfair or unequal because you could build a hitter robot and pitchers could throw against the hitter robot, I guess. Now, pitchers are somewhat limited in how much they can throw versus how much a hitter can swing, for instance. But a pitcher warming up for a game, let's say in the bullpen or something, you could have them facing a hitter robot. There's nothing preventing that in the rules from happening either. It's just that I guess no one has built that. So we don't have one of those. Yeah, but maybe we don't have it because it doesn't seem like it would be worthwhile. It would help all that much, but I guess there's nothing preventing kind of the equivalent happening, technologically speaking.

And even if you said philosophically there's something that seems semi-unfair about it, just so many things have been stacked against hitters. Sure. have been stacked against hitters and MLB seems unwilling or unable to take any drastic steps there that I kind of feel like just in the interest of expediency, like even if I felt sort of squeamish about it, I think we might just need it because it would be one thing if MLB were willing to like move the mountain back or something or really strictly limit the number of pitchers on the active roster. Like we've seen, you know, hitters mostly they just hit. They're bigger and stronger than ever. And yeah, they might have these tools at their disposal, but hitters are mostly used sort of the same way they ever were. Whereas they're facing

now pitchers who are used completely differently than they used to be. You're not getting the times through the order effect nearly as often anymore, so you're not getting that natural advantage that you used to get that has been stripped away from hitters, not through a rule change or anything, but just through optimization of strategy and pitcher deployment. And then pitchers are bigger and stronger and they're throwing harder constantly against,

again, it's not against the rules for them to do that. Now, I guess it was against the rules for them to use the sticky stuff that they were using up until a few years ago. And they got to do that, right, with impunity for years and years. So maybe hitters are kind of owed one here. But between that and, yeah, like it's just different conditions.

I mean, the pitching distance is the same as it was in 1893. And guys are throwing, releasing much closer to the plate and throwing much harder. And just all the conditions have changed. This is like, you know, it's a slight exaggeration where the hitter's like, this is the one thing we have. But it's not that far from the truth. So until we're shown that this were like really having some destabilizing effect, I'm inclined to say it's okay just because it might be better for baseball and for the entertainment product if hitters improved because of this. I have one more thing to say, and it's sort of

related to that point. I mean, I do think that it's worthwhile for us to contemplate how we understand this in terms of fairness before there is technological advancement that gets it to a place where it does destabilize things. And I think like how big an effect it has is a relevant question on its own and so if you know if there's not a wildly large effect well maybe that's enough but i do you know maybe that keeps things sort of in an appropriate balance and so we're comfortable with it but i do think that we should sort of contemplate what role we think it ought to play and whether it sits on the right side of the fair, unfair line now. Because if the answer to that is, well, it's borderline, the technology is only going to improve, right? In theory, you know, maybe that assumes a linearity to progress that isn't

there but generally it's like we start these things out and you know the tech is one thing and then like we get to this place where it has advanced past the point of fairness and then we're kind of stuck because we have this precedent that you can use things and that it's okay and it's much harder to claw that stuff back and then teams get kind of like shifty and shady about it and want to move things around so i do think that it's worth us thinking about like does this feel unfair to us is it something that we're okay with um would we be okay with it if it were able to much more faithfully sort of approximate what the picture look like does that change things because if it does then i don't know man because like we're gonna get like the the company that made this isn't gonna be content with version 1.0 their

promise and i i don't say this like having seen their marketing materials but i say this just having like interacted with the concept of changing technology. I'm sure that what they're saying on, you know, version 2.0 is now even more faithfully reproducing majorly quality hitting, right? Like that's what they're going to. You could simulate screw ups if you wanted to. Like it doesn't have to be the best version or even the average or median version of that pitch. be the best version or even the average or median version of that pitch. You could have it randomized sort of around that mean and have some times when it doesn't move as well. And so you could sort of simulate that more accurately. I don't know if that would be more helpful or not. And it's true

that the effects might just not be pervasive enough to detect yet, because according to this article, 19 teams are using it, 19 major league teams, three NPP teams. There are, it sounds like 40 of the machines roughly in use of some teams also have them at their affiliates. There's some teams have as many as six, one on the major league side, one at every minor league affiliate. It would be interesting to know the complete client roster here, because that might tell you something about who's actually trying to get good, because it's $15,000 a month and requires a three-year commitment, which is pricey, but also kind of a pittance in the grand scheme of things. I mean, it's less than a reliever. Yeah, exactly. So if you think this

has really any demonstrable effect, it would be worthwhile in kind of a dollars per war way. But because 19 teams, just a little over half the league is using it and you can only use it at home now because these machines are so big and bulky that they don't travel.

Sure. By the way, that would make for an interesting stat blaster article. I'm claiming this. I'm calling this topic. No one's doing this. I'm licking this. It's mine now.

You can't do this stat blaster without getting my germs on it. But to look at the times through the order effect split home and away, week-wide, that would give you some sense of whether this is working. Because if it is, then you would see a reduction in the times through the order effect, theoretically, at home, but not on the road, presumably, because that's where players are able to train with these things. So, I will make a note to return to that topic. train with these things. So I will make a note to return to that topic. And there are a lot of other interesting applications of this for training and practice. And the article talks about that. We've talked about that before where some players in lieu of a rehab assignment or maybe in concert

with to shorten a rehab assignment, you could just train against major league quality pitches, right? To hasten your way back to the big leagues after an injury, let's say. Or it mentions catchers before they're called up to the big league staff. They could practice catching the pitchers that they're going to be working with, right? Or any minor leaguer, really, if you think you're going to be promoted,

you could see major league pitching without being in the big leagues. So there are a lot of potential applications here that would be useful, maybe. And of course, there are virtual reality hitting practice, and there are less advanced pitching machines that replicate pitch characteristics a little less faithfully that have been in use a little longer. So we'll see when, if every team eventually has this, and if you're able to use it all the time, if they make this more portable, then perhaps we would start to see more of an effect.

And you're right, I guess, get ahead of it and decide whether you're comfortable with this philosophically as opposed to just reacting to the results. But we're just in such an extreme of hitters being disadvantaged by so many things going pitcher's way that I'm almost just like, you know what? Even if it is unfair, like it's not against the rules because MLB said it's not against the rules. So give them a helping hand, you know, like we could move the mound back and pitchers don't want to do that. So let's give them a choice. Okay. Well then you have to live with this. Like, we're just trying to even the odds a little bit here. And if that means that this is going to be kind of unequal in this specific way, well, you know, deal with it.

You know, people might think that the zombie runner is your, like, real crusading issue. But the mound is low-key your thing, Ben. I haven't given up on that. It's an uphill battle, but I still do. That and lowering the number of pitchers on the active, if I could do those two things and the latter, it probably would be easier to sell and fewer unintended consequences maybe and might just help more across the board. That's my number one. So I don't mention the moving the mound back quite as much because it's been sort of supplanted in my mind by, oh, no, this is the way to fix everything. Well, you're a realist.

Yeah. I still believe in both to some extent. And yes, I understand it's tough to persuade people about the move the mound back thing. I don't think that you're necessarily wrong, but I don't know that you will ever be successful. Yeah, hasn't stopped me before. I don't think I'm going to be successful with the zombie runner either, but that's a lifelong crusade for me, most likely. mentions that like the diamondbacks have a, a traject, but they can't use it really because the indoor batting cage at chase

field is not big enough for the traject to be stationed more than 54 feet from home plate. Whereas usually you put it at least like 57 to simulate where the pitcher is releasing the pitch. And so it's, it's like, I guess, you know,

there's high velocity training where you're facing even faster than you're going to see in game. It's like a hitter using a donut in the on deck circle, which I don't know that that actually works, but you know, make it seem even harder train against even harder pitches to hit. And then the actual thing will be easy, but they just like,

haven't used it really because it's just too close to them and probably there are a lot of teams where just certain players have not fully embraced sure so even if like 19 teams are using it that doesn't mean every hitter veteran hitters who aren't accustomed to this and think i don't like this or i don't want this even though players are much more receptive to technology these days than they used to be, there might still be some holdouts who don't see the value in it

or aren't comfortable with it yet. So who knows what actual participation and engagement the machines are getting. Man, that DVAC story makes me feel better about forgetting to cancel Paramount Plus for a couple of months. Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of money fallen by the wayside. Well, wherever you come down on the great in-game pitching machine debate

of our times, one thing that should help offense relative to defense is that the best prospect in baseball who has not been in the big leagues yet is about to be. James Wood coming up for the Nationals on Monday. I like it, by the way, when a team announces that a top prospect is coming up a few days in advance. I know that's not always possible. Usually they're reacting to someone got hurt. You need to call someone up and replace someone. But if it's like a franchise cornerstone type player like that, it's nice if you could give them a heads up. And it's also nice if you can give fans and media members a heads up that that's happening. Family.

Yeah, family. Oh, yeah. But we could also just spend the weekend anticipating, oh, this is exciting. We get to see James Wood on Monday. So, Wood, who is generally ranked as the second best prospect in baseball after Jackson Holiday, who was up earlier this season and did not distinguish himself in his first taste of the majors there. Wood has been great this year. He has been the best hitter in AAA, qualified hitter at least. He has a 168 WRC plus there in 225 plate appearances 346 458 578

that's really good and he does everything well he has walked just about as often as he has struck out he's been a good base runner what doesn't he do he's been playing center right but he will be playing probably left i guess for the Nationals in the immediate future. So we've certainly learned that we can't count on every top prospect would be great immediately. And that has more been the case because the aging curve has changed and players seem to be coming up to the majors as more finished products. You know, they're training against those traject pitching machines before they even get to the big leagues. That's why they're just getting good instruction. And also the aging curve has changed on the other way where it seems

like hitters, they come up closer to their peak. They maybe descend from that peak a little sooner, but we've certainly seen with Holiday and with Wyatt Langford and with some of the sophomore slumpers that it's not automatic. So I don't want to raise expectations too high for James Wood, but he's raised them quite high himself by being as good as he's been. And by being like 6'7", you know. Yeah, that too. Elevates them. He is another of the construction crane mold that we have seen popularized lately.

Like, I don't want to say, certainly I don't want to say before he has debuted in the big leagues, and I don't know if I even want to say it after he has, but it never feels good to trade Juan Soto, despite it having happened a couple of times now. But I think that generally it's accepted that if you have a Juan Soto in your organization, you want to try to hold on to the Juan Sotos you have because Juan Soto is really good at baseball and is definitely going to make some money on the open market when he hits it. But if there's anyone who I think has the potential to at least tilt the scales back in the favor of Nationals fans being able to, you know,

think about different things at three o'clock in the morning. It might be James Wood. He can fall on his face. And boy, if he does, it's a far way to fall. And, you know, he hasn't done anything in the majors yet. And like you said, we've had some recent examples of guys. All of that said, I think he has the potential to be a pretty special kind of player at the big league level. And as you kind of look around at that Nationals group that came over from San Diego, like some of those guys, it took a while and not all of them have panned out but you know if they end up with this version

of cj abrams and james wood and james wood does what we think he can and mackenzie gore you know it's like it took a while either because they had to make adjustments and figure stuff out do that for some of these guys at the big league level right right? Like Abrams was just up so early and then he was still up for the Nationals. But, you know, it took them a while because either they had to do their developing at the big league level or they had to grapple with injury or they just had to like get to the majors as Wood, you know, is about to. But I don't know, man, like that trade in retrospect looks different than it felt at the time. Again, I think my general position, like, in a vacuum, my opponent-neutral, like, projected standings of trades

would lead me to say that don't, you know, trade your Juan Sotos. Like, hold on to your juan soto's because those guys are pretty special but um like it would be i would be really happy for nationals fans if they could look back on that and feel like you know we we reignited and jump-started a new window of contention and we did it with this group which is um you know has the potential to be special like that's cool there's still a lot of work to do in DC. I think that there are still things from a dev perspective that

that team is behind the curve on. But some of those guys are you know, like I'm making a face. I'm making a face you'd make in a gangster movie. I look like Joe Pesci right

now. I don't know why. It happened. You know, we all become Italian men at some point in our lives. I fear what this will mean for my man Joey Manessis in the long run because... Ben, you're... Man, you're great. You're great, Ben.

Don't ever change. I know, that's what everyone's worried about. James Woods coming up. Oh, but what are the implications for Joey Manessis? Yeah, I know. But Joey Gallo is on the IL right now with a straightened hamstring. Yeah. And so when he comes back, Manessis, he has not hit well at all.

Winker is DHing right now, I guess, and he's been surprisingly good. And Jacob Young has been surprisingly good for the Nationals out in the outfield. So, yeah, I might get a little crowded there for Joey, my pal Joey, one of my pals Joey on that team. Yeah, one of the Joies. But take comfort in this thought. Apparently, Jesse Winker might just fight someone. Yes, right.

That'll open up playing time somewhere. But I'm interested. I'm excited to see Wood. And we'll see. Also, I wonder when Holiday will return because you figure he's got to be back up at some point. That audition went so disastrously that you don't want to jump the gun again. Just because, you know, 10 games, 36 played appearances. But he just seemed so overmatched, oddly.

He seemed overmatched. 170 OPS, 18 strikeouts, two walks. That's just not what we thought we were going to get out of Jackson Holiday. It didn't go well, Ben. No. And Holiday's like a year younger than James Wood, who is quite young himself. So I'm not making too much of that. Now, Holiday, I guess he struggled at least like Babbitt-wise initially upon his return to AAA,

but all told, he's been fine there. He did have a seven-day IL stint for elbow inflammation, so that interrupted his season down there a little bit. But since he came back on the whole, including prior to the injury, he's got an 856 OPS, 424 on base. He has struck out 48 times and walked 45 times. So the walk to strikeout ratio that was so disastrous

during his big league stint, that has gone back to normal, almost what it was before his call-up. So that aspect of his game, at least, seems to be intact. That was just very odd that he just looked like he was late on everything and just was totally getting blown away. And now that he's sort of stabilized things, he's been doing pretty well since he returned from the injury, I think. Well, I guess he just got back from the injury, really. He just got back from the injury. Yeah. But I wonder when he'll get another chance because obviously Gunnar Henderson,

doing great. Jordan Westberg, doing great. Doing great. Do still have Ramon Rios, who is replacement level, right? So, the Orioles would probably be eager to replace him with Jackson Holiday if they thought that Holiday would be ready. So, he's going to get another chance at some point, but you don't want to double down on his struggles because then it might become really disconcerting for him. So, you want to be sure that it's going to go better the second time. I guess it's tough to be sure because no one saw that coming. Like we were all like, well, yeah, Jackson Holiday, best prospect in baseball off to an incredible start. It's going to go great. And that didn't happen. But there's still a need for him up there. And I guess there are other

infielders who could fill that need too, but probably not Rios long-term. My guess, and I don't say this with any particular inside information to be clear, but I think that they will kind of take their time with it. I know that they are in this sort of pitched battle with the Yankees for first place in the East. So they do have some amount of urgency. And so it is a thing that they'll have to balance but my guess would be that they will they're gonna want to see a couple of things from him first i think they're gonna want to really feel like he has figured out some of the batted ball stuff like his his spray chart looked i just edited the orioles list so this is like top of mind for me but like his spray chart looked really

different you know this year than it had in the past, particularly after he went back down to AAA. And so I think that they will want to have Eric and Travis were sort of going through their film study of the Orioles for this most recent org list, like, it didn't look comfortable swinging, looked like there was a lot of effort. I think that some of the throws in the field were out of whack. Yeah, he's still DHing for now, right? He's not throwing yet. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, they have every incentive to take things slow with him. And I think that because the big league debut went so poorly and again, you know, in a fairly small number of games and played appearances and, you know, we have not moved off him as the top prospect in baseball. I know that he's gotten reshuffled a little bit at some of the other outlets,

but it's not like he fell even, I think, out of the top five for anybody. So he is still a very well-regarded prospect. I know, but he still has him number one also. Yeah, we have him number one. I think he may be moved down for Kylie. I think Skeens may be scooched into the top spot for him. BP hasn't done their midseason update yet, but he's in, depending on where he is from a level perspective when they do that, like he might not even qualify for that list because they don't include guys on the midseason top 50 who are in the majors at the time of publication so you know there's been some some shifting around i don't remember where ba has him right now but um i think all that to say because the the first go went so poorly they they're in this position i'm not going to call it

an enviable one because i'm sure from balt's perspective, they would love their top prospect to just be like up and crushing in the majors. So this isn't like what they want, even if it does maybe put them in a more advantageous like service time position. But because the first go around went so poorly, I think they have the, it's not even cover, they have the latitude to kind of take their time with him and see how he's progressing, see how the elbow is doing. Is he able to come back and kind of field in the way that they need him to so that they can slot him in? I think they'll be pretty slow and steady with him. Now I say that young. He's not even 21 yet. But you want to be mindful of the guy's development, not only as a player, but what the up and down means and what the pressure means for him as a person. And, you know, he talked very candidly, I thought, and with a good perspective when he was asked about his struggles. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't wear on you. You know, you have all this expectation. Like, he was a guy where we were all like, oh, I guess we know what we're doing the day he debuts. We're going to, well, if you're me, you're going to build an Ikea filing cabinet and watch jackson holiday debut and then listen to the broadcast talk about how actually or not actually indistinguishable from one another all

of their big young position player prospects are but i think giving him some space to feel like when he comes back it will click and work and be you know even if it's not lighting the world on fire, a comfortable debut where you're not saying like, should we be playing him every day? Should we be sending him down? Because like they are in a pitched division race and, you know, they need to, I think, also feel confident that they're putting their best dudes out there every day.

And he's among their best dudes. Like I'm not sitting here taking a contrarian position on jackson holiday but he's still only 20 and they want to make sure you know i i said at the beginning of the year if you think that this guy is one of your best dudes just put yourself in a position where if he wins rookie of the year places in the top two that you get a draft pick and all of this stuff and you know i think they they brought him up with the expectation that he would be ready and he needs a little more time to cook and you know that happens so yeah that's fine i do think they need to make more trades maybe well they certainly have the prospects to do it because boy that system is fathoms deep and has a lot of top end talent talent and a lot of talent that's all smooshed together in the same positions.

And a lot of guys, Norby and Kerstad, et cetera, who are just coming up and down and up and down. And that can't be great, right? So maybe they're one of these teams that could trade some of their surplus players, some of whom would probably be useful to other contenders. Sure. Just to kind of clear room so that they could get them out of there. Yeah. Use that talent to shore up their bullpen or something else.

Right. So looking forward to seeing Wood and Holiday whenever we see him. Also semi-excited that the Rockies called up Riley Pint again. Like I know he's not a prospect anymore, but I'm happy he's still a baseball player because first rounder, fourth overall pick in 2016, flamethrower, kind of burned out, actually retired. And then unretired, he's still just 26, made his debut last year, and it was kind of representative in that he had a short outing and walked a bunch of guys. That's what he does, and they've called him back up now. And that's still what he does. So he's like a three true outcomes guy as a pitcher, or at least a two true outcomes guy. This year in the minors, mostly in AAA, 19 innings, 18 walks, 37 strikeouts. So basically he just walks a batter an inning and strikes out two batters per inning.

So it's worked down there. I'm excited to see the Riley Pines show, I guess, in Colorado. It's not quite as exciting as James Wood, I know. I love that you were like, I'm going to get the order on this right. You know, I want to. I'm not going to lead with Riley Pines. I'm going to lead with Riley Pine. I'm going to lead with Riley Pine. And also just wanted to shout out that there's been a Byron Buxton sans lately.

Yeah, there sure has been. We haven't talked about him a whole lot this year. We've talked about Royce Lewis a whole lot. But Buxton has kind of been under the radar a little more because he started the season not so great, right? So he had a 97 WRC plus through the 1st of May, and then he went back on the IL with a knee issue, which was of course disconcerting because Byron Buxton, knee, you never want to see that. However, since he returned, he has done quite a bit better. He has a 130 WRC plus since he came off the IL on May 18th, and he has a 150 WRC plus in June. And he's doing that while playing center and playing a good center, perhaps not as elite a center as he did in the past. It's hard to say small sample defensive

stats and all of his seasons were small samples, but his numbers were even more off the charts in some of those previous small samples. But he still seems to have most of his physical skills, even though he is 30 now and has had so many injuries. He is still super fast. He's still one of the fastest players in baseball. He is ninth in MLB in sprint speed this year, still averaging almost 30 feet per second. He's maybe a second slower than he was almost a decade ago when he came up and was the fastest player in baseball, but he's still top 10 fastest and I think second fastest in home to first time this year after the Royals' Dairon Blanco. So pretty impressive that he still got those wheels after the wheels have been broken this many times. And for him to have 61 games played, to have played in most of the Twins games, that's a bit of a victory in itself, right?

Yeah. 61 games, that's how many he played in all of 2021. His high, of course, is 92 going back to 2017 when he played almost a full season for really the only time. So that's the number to beat for him. And I guess he's obviously on pace to beat it, but it's, you know, I don't even want to say on pace with Byron Buxton because the pace can be curtailed quite quickly. But things going a lot better for him lately and that's exciting to see. Yeah, I think that you want so many things from him and it's easy to get distracted

by how hard the availability piece has been. But what made him so special was this combination of elite fielding with a really special hit tool and bat. And so it was like, oh, well, he's on the field, but he's also like not very good or he's only DHing. And so for him to be in a position where he's really contributing and able to, you know, I feel like knocking on wood actually, like, be there most days is very exciting. Okay. So, before we finish, I have a little math to share with you here. We are speaking on Friday afternoon at almost the exact halfway point of the season. So, there have been 1,217 of 2,430 scheduled games played. That is 50.08% of the regular season

schedule. So we're two games past the exact halfway point. This is as close as we get after a day of games to being smack dab in the middle. So I just compared teams and players to their preseason projections to see who has exceeded or fallen short of preseason expectations win totals from fan graphs and then their current win totals and extrapolated the pace basically and uh some teams have played as many as 83 games and i think the mets have played only 78 so there's some range here but i sure i looked for just kind of extrapolating from how they have done thus far and compared that to their projected. So this is an on-pace, not what they are currently projected to finish at, which would take into account projections as well as how they have played. I'm just essentially doubling how they've done thus far, but also accounting for some slight

differences in the number of games played. So the greatest differences on the downside, teams that are furthest from their preseason projected pace, the three at the bottom are teams that were projected to be bad and yet have been even worse than that. So I guess that's kind of depressing. I mean, usually the worst teams in any season are worse than they were projected to be, and the best teams are often better than they were projected to be, because some teams, they get a little lucky and things go their way, and some teams, everything goes against them. So the Chicago White Sox, not a surprise to anyone. They were obviously projected to be bad, but they have been oh so much worse than that. So they are 23.4 wins behind their projected pace. So that's very bad.

And they were starting from a low point as it was. Then the Marlins are 22.7 wins worse. The A's 14.2. I know you can't win fractions of a game, but we have both the projections had fractions in them and we're not working with perfectly even numbers here. So those three teams are all bad and not a surprise that they're bad, but it's perhaps surprising just how bad they've been. The first team that you get to that was not predicted to be bad and has been worse than expected, the Houston Astros, who we talked about last time, who are trying to change this. And if I had run this a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure it would have looked a lot worse for them, but they are merely nine and a half wins behind their projected pace now. So, you know, bad, but looking up.

And then the Angels, they're at about 8.8 wins behind. The Blue Jays, also extremely disappointing this year, 8.7. And then the Braves, 7.8. The Rangers also 7.8. And the Cubs, 7.2. So that tracks, I guess. You've also got the Rockies, 7.2, even worse than expected. The Diamondbacks, 7.2. You might be surprised that the Diamondbacks aren't even lower on this list, but I guess the projections didn't fully buy them preseason either.

And then you got the Giants, the Rays, et cetera. Okay. So those are the big team surprises on the downside. On the upside, the Cleveland Guardians. Not a surprise that they show up as a surprise. We've been surprised by them. We've remarked on our surprise. They are 24.3 wins ahead of their preseason projected pace. The Phillies, 21.1. I know we curse them again because we just talked about how great and how

healthy they've been. And now Schwarber and Harper both on the IL, but it doesn't sound like it's anything serious. No, they sound like they'll be back soon. Yeah. Then the Orioles, 17.8 wins ahead. And, of course, their projections were not really rosy. I took the over on their projections as it was, but we've talked about Orioles projections probably enough for you, at least. So, they've exceeded them.

Can't get enough. More, more, more. Always. Forever. The Brewers are 15.7 wins ahead of projections. And the Yankees, 14.1 despite their recent struggles. And the Nationals, who we talked about earlier, 12.4. recent struggles and the Nationals, who we talked about earlier, 12.4.

So the Nationals, even though they're not in first place or close to it, like the Brewers, the Yankees, the Guardians, those teams have gotten a lot of the attention because they're actually in good playoffs position. The Nationals, they're three games out in the wildcard race like every other team in the NL. That's still pretty solid given they were expected not to be that close. And as we said, they kind of have a core forming here. They've had some players like Cabert Ruiz who's been disappointing, but there's enough there that you can kind of look and see, okay, there's something to build around there.

And now James Wood joins them. The Royals, 11.8 wins ahead, though they have come back to earth a bit of late. And the Red Sox at about eight wins up. You know, we haven't talked a whole lot about the Red Sox in season, but yeah, you know, I thought, gosh, Netflix is making this documentary about them.

They seem like maybe the least interesting team in baseball. It's like, they're not good. They're not bad, but they've turned out to be more interesting than I thought they would be at least closer to playoff contention, some surprising players and the way that they've kind of reconstructed their pitch selection and that that seems to have paid off for them. So some interesting stories surrounding those Red Sox, more fodder for Netflix to work with than I would have anticipated. And then the Dodgers are actually 7.1 wins ahead of the pace, even though I don't really think of them as exceeding expectations this year. I don't either. They've had injuries and everything, but yeah, they weren't really projected to be a super team.

The Braves had better projections than the Dodgers did. Even though the Dodgers kind of dominated the offseason, there were still some holes, some flaws in that roster. So I think I'm almost more surprised, I guess, by the Brewers and the Yankees. I really, I kind of thought the Yankees were going to flop. And then especially when Garrett Cole got hurt and they are regressing right now, but they're still comfortably above what I thought they would be at this point in

the season. And the Brewers, I really didn't foresee this. You know, they've almost made it look like Craig Council, who needs him? Because the Cubs steal Council from the Brewers and suddenly, I don't think Council's a bad manager or anything now, but it does kind of show you the limits of how much does a manager matter, right? Because if he is the best in baseball or one of the best, well, he just went to the Cubs and they've been quite disappointing and they've regressed in a number of the best? Well, he just went to the Cubs and they've been quite disappointing and they've regressed in a number of ways. Bullpen, which was something that

council got credit for rightly or wrongly with the Brewers, his bullpen management. Cubs bullpen, not so great. Cubs defense, not so great. Cubs offense, that's a lot of things about the Cubs, not so great. So even though they made the managerial splash of the winter, it hasn't really

translated into in-season performance i just thought that the brewers pitching or lack thereof would save them you know i i thought that they would not be able to sustain any kind of a real rotation and historically have been a lackluster offense, right? They've been sort of, their offense has been dragged kicking and screaming into the postseason where it has met a bad fate and their pitching hasn't been able to do enough and that they would just be, that they would be sort of bad. And now we have like the Yellich Renaissance and Joey Ortiz is really good. And that part, I'm not surprised by because, you know, smart people told me he'd be good, but. It's not that the pitching has been good. Like the rotation at least has been as bad as anticipated. Like it's been, it's, it's really surprising actually that the Guardians and the

Brewers are two of the teams that have surpassed expectations the most. These are two teams we think of as like pitching factories or, you know, they can get more out of pitchers and they've had these strong rotations. And that has not been the case this year. The Guardians, 28th in Fangraph starting pitcher war so far. Brewers, 26. So that's actually been a big weakness for each of them. And yet they've both been really good.

And yet, Ben. And yet. It makes it even more surprising that they've surprised in that way. Right. So the Brewers, sixth best bullpen and the Guardians, number one best bullpen. And that can be kind of a common theme when it comes to surprise teams because we all know we can't't really project bullpen performance all that well that's where you're going to have a lot of potential for variance either positive or negative depending on you know yeah and those teams they've had success in the bullpen so it's not that shocking that they've been good i guess but

that has helped make up for the fact that their rotations have been so bad i guess part of it maybe is is bulk because their rotations have been bad. Like the Brewers have, their relievers have thrown the second most innings because their starters just aren't going deep into games. So yeah, that has managed to make it work. And we've talked about the Guardians offensive, can you call it a resurgence?

They hadn't surged for the first time. It's just a surge, I guess. And yeah, for the Guardians to be, what, 10th in WRC Plus and Milwaukee to be 9th. Right. That's not amazing, but it kind of amazes me. I mean, I thought that there was an argument to be made that like Yelich was just cooked, you know, that they weren't going to get anything out of him. I liked Ortiz because people who knew told me to. So I was like, sure, Joey Ortiz. But like he has a 138 WRC plus, Ben. He has a 138 WRC plus.

And that's, you know, that was Ortiz for Burns. Like totally made sense for the Orioles to trade Ortiz. It's not like they miss him. I mean, I guess. Yeah. And they had to. They still have to get rid of guys, it seems like. Yeah, they still have more position players than they know what to do with.

Corbin Burns, ace of their staff. He's been what they wanted him to be. So, they got what they wanted, too. And Terang's been good. And Adamas has been good. And Hoskins has, you you know Hoskins hasn't really hit enough to justify playing first base. Hoskins is a big trajectory arc user so yeah yeah well maybe the trajectory arc can help him have more than a 107 WRC plus but it's

so funny they've been a lot of what I thought they'd be and they've still managed to like dramatically exceed my expectations so what do you do with that? Yeah. And as often is the case when you have a surprise team and you look around and you're like, how are you doing that? Well, sometimes it is a good timing, good fortune, clutchness, whatever you call it. That's certainly been the case for the guardians, but also defense still,

I think is something that is not just immediately as obvious as we look at pitching stats, we look at hitting stats, maybe you look at base running even. Defense, you just, it might go under the radar a little. The Guardians second in DRS, the Brewers seventh. So that also helps if your starting staffs are not holding up their end of the bargain. Well, if you can get good defense from your defenders, then that makes up for that somewhat. So the teams that are closest to expectations, it's kind of funny. The team that is the least deviation, its current pace from its preseason projected pace, the Mets, who we just talked about last time as like, well, the Mets, they were out of it and now they're good again.

They're like 0.2 wins off of their projected pace. So they were like expected to be 500-ish and they've been 500-ish. It's just that they didn't get there in quite the way that we thought they would get there. And then the Cardinals barely behind the, they're also like basically right on their pace. And that might be semi-surprising too, maybe just because they started slow too. And it looked like, oh, is this going to be another lost year for St. Louis? And then they've kind of turned things around and been decent as well. So, yeah.

Man, good for baseball rocks. It does, yeah. The Padres are not far from expectations either. It just seems like the Padres are constantly defying expectations in some way, but they're only like a win projected off their pace. So those are the big team deviations, and some of those will be reflected in the hitter and pitcher deviations here. So what I did for hitters and pitchers, again, I looked at the projected preseason war on the fangrass, death charts, combining zips and steamer. And I looked at the pace, basically, like the projected war per 600 plate appearances. And then I looked at the current war per 600 plate appearance pace and just took the difference between those things.

And I also limited it to players with 200 plate appearances this season because if you have no minimum, then you'll have someone who had like 10 great plate appearances and it looks like their pace is incredible, right? the greatest hitter deviations from what was projected. Not surprising, I guess, given that we just mentioned that the Guardians are the number one surprise team. The top two players here are Guardians, whom we have lavished a fair amount of attention on this year. Steven Kwan is like 6.1 war ahead of his pace. So his war per 600 pace now is like 8.7 and projected it was like 2.6 or something. So he's like six wins ahead of his projected pace. So that's why we've had so many conversations this season because he just keeps bringing himself to our attention. And then David Frye.

Frye. David Frye. Yeah, Frye is almost five, like, yeah, rounding up to five war ahead of his pace. And he was projected to be, like, worth less than one win over 600 plate appearances. And instead, he's, you know, on pace for your 5.7 war season. So, David Frye So David Frye. David Frye. And then number three, Gunnar Henderson.

And now we're in the territory of someone who is expected to be really good and just has been that much better than that. Even better, yeah. Yeah, so he was like 4.8 projected war per six underplayed appearances. And instead, he's at like 9.7. So it's a difference of 4.8 projected war per six underplayed appearances. And instead he's at like 9.7. So it's a difference of 4.95. So he's basically been twice as good as expected and he was projected to be like an all-star level player. So yeah, Connor Henderson, I guess he's pretty good. And then number four, another player whose success we've marveled at, Jerickson Profar of the Padres, who's like 4.4 war ahead of his projected pace. Connor Wong of the Red Sox.

I didn't even just mention a moment ago when we were talking about reasons the Red Sox have been interesting and have exceeded their pace. Connor Wong, 4.4 war pace ahead of his projection. And gosh, Jaron Duran, I was looking to see where's Jaron Duran? Because he's got to be somewhere here too. He is 12th on this list and he's been pretty amazing too.

3.9 War ahead. So yeah, they've had a couple guys kind of, you know, who were prospects at one point, but it was like, is this going to work out? How well is it going to work out? Really well, I guess. Really well, it turns out. Sometimes it works out. Really well, I guess. Really well, it turns out. Sometimes it works out. Not always, but sometimes.

Not always. Sometimes. In these times, definitely. And then, okay, this is, I didn't really see this coming, but Elias Diaz is next of the Rockies, right? I think you mean All-Star MVP. Yes. And I guess on track for mean all-star MVP yes and uh I guess don't be disrespectful another all-star appearance I I mean who else who else would it be I yeah good question I mean we're gonna have to make fun of of Elias Diaz all-star MVP less if he's back-to-back all-star

appearances but yeah who else I think we will find a way to make fun of that, just to be clear. I guess so, but I mean, you know, Tovar's been pretty good. Ryan McBain's been pretty good. Cal Quantrill, I guess. Sure. You know. You're not putting, I'm sorry, are you advocating putting a Rockies pitcher in the all-star game? Is that

what we've come to? Have we reduced ourselves to this? Are we debased in this way, Ben? Okay. I won't advocate for that. But Diaz, not only does he have a 107 WRC+, but I'm guessing the framing. Yeah. So the framing, he was an absolute disaster framing-wise the last couple seasons.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It was brutal. Yeah. Negative 15 runs 2022, negative 16 and a half last year. That's a wild, that's wild. And this year,

plus 2.3 runs above average. That's an enormous turnaround. Like he was just terrible at, he was negative 22 runs total entering this season in more than 4,000 innings at catcher and this year 353 innings at catcher he's totally turned it around and he's been above average good for him

and then we have Ellie who despite being somewhat inconsistent has been like 4.3 wins ahead of the pace Joey Ortiz who we just mentioned Shohei Otani still managing to surpass expectations. So stupid. Four wins ahead of his projected pace.

That's stupid. How could expectations have been any higher for Shohei Otani? And yet he has exceeded them. He was underrated, I guess, as a hitter, as a DH only. And he's been like, no, I'm actually maybe just still the best player in the league, even as a DH. You know, people didn't know about the little backpack. That's the problem.

They didn't know about his dog in the little backpack. The doggie bag. Yeah. Yeah, they knew about the, I mean, they did know about that weird dog, but they didn't know about the, I'm back to thinking it's a weird dog, but I am still back to thinking that I like the little backpack. It's just got this little backpack. I'm so excited for two way Otani to be back next year.

Like that's what I live for at this point. So just if we bring in, and I know there are going to be people who are like, don't mess with success. Like he's been amazing. He's been so great as a hitter these last couple of years. He was pitching for most of last year while he was doing that, by the way. But yeah, come on guys. Yeah. I, I just don't, I don't want to get into it. You are itching to get into it. You are begging to get into it. I love that you, a married man and a father, a homeowner is like, it's all I live for. I know. I'll save this for, I'll save the rant for the next time the refrain surfaces because I'm sure it will.

Yeah, don't make up a guy to fight with, Ben. We got enough of that on the internet as it is. It was being said, I was hearing it earlier this year. I haven't heard it lately. I'm not just making it up, Meg. It was real. He's in the room with me. It's a real man, not a man made of straw. I promise. But, you know, if he wins an MVP as a DH, you know, there will be people who will be like, just let him keep hitting, right? Or let himail, you know, you did math. We had to wait half an hour to record so that you could do some math.

So, like, I don't want to disrespect your math. I want to let you do your math, Ben. But would you be satisfied if he was, like, a very good right fielder? No. I mean, I want to see that. I'd like to see that. Let's say he pitches for a few more years and then he's like, okay, fine. You know, I've done that.

Now I will show you that I can be a great defender in the outfield as well. I guess it'd be nice to check that box too, but not yet. Not yet. You're not ready. You're not ready. Let's just see if it works. Because the thing is like the downside is not that great because if he were to hurt his elbow again, let's say, well, he did that and he's like an MVP DH.

So it's okay that he can keep pitching. Like, it doesn't cost him time as a hitter, really. Look, look, I understand what you're saying, Ben. I'm not doing anything but trying to get you riled up, you know? I'm trying to give you a shot in the arm. You got a debate to go in, son. Simmer down. Just be excited that Shohei Otani has exceeded expectations.

Yeah. Just be grateful. And then after Otani is a player who we seem to get an email from a Twins fan about every day, Willie Castro, who is— It would be funny if Willie Castro was emailing us every day. Hey, have you guys noticed how much I'm exceeding my projections? I'm so good! Yeah, 3.9

wins out of the pace. Then I mentioned Duran, Colton Couser of the Orioles is next, Jacob Young, we mentioned, of the Nationals, Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals, another guy who was like, yeah, we know he's good, but what if he's better than that? What if he's even better? Yeah, the rare ranger to's good, but what if he's better than that? What if he's even better? Yeah.

The rare ranger to exceed expectations, the rare ranger position player, Josh Smith. Yeah. That Martel just wrote about for Fangraphs. You should go check it out. Aaron Judge, another one who's like, we know he's amazing, but no, he's maybe better than the projections thought. Christian Jelic, who you just mentioned. Marcelo Zuna. Bryce Harper. JD Martinez, we talked aboutuna, Bryce Harper, J.D. Martinez,

we talked about last time, Tuck Everblasting, and then Bryce Durang, who you just mentioned as well. And hey, IKF, Isaiah Kiner-Falefa. Yeah, good for him. He's on there. How about that? A blue jay who's doing pretty well. And Jackson Merrill, Ezekiel Tovar, Jose Miranda,

Blake Perkins, Alec Boehm, Carlos Correa. All right. It turns out that if you can, in fact, play a big league quality center field, you will exceed expectations. Yeah, that goes a long way. It does, unless you're Julio, and we expect you to do that and also be amazing offensively, and you only do one of those things. Okay. On the downside, I guess I got to briefly just name the guys who have been worse than expected. I guess, but I'm going to. I did the math.

Okay. Worst, Jack Zawinski of the Pirates. Okay. He was briefly demoted, right? He was sent down earlier this year. And that was kind of shocking because it seemed like he had broken out, solidified himself. But yeah, he's 5.5 wins behind the projected pace. Andrew Benintendi, five wins behind. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. K. Burt Ruiz, who I just mentioned, of the Nationals. And then since we just sang the praises of Elias Diaz, I guess we got to mention that Alau Reese Montero of the Rockies. He's way down there too. And then Tam Anderson, sadly, of the Marlins. Tork, another guy who's gotten optioned. We talked about that. Spencer Torkelson of the Tigers. Jeff McNeil of the Mets, you mentioned last time.

I did not. Nice WRC plus. Yeah. Ronald Acuna, who of course is hurt, but even then, you know, even the war pace he was on was well behind the projection. It was not good.

Corbin Carroll is next. Yep. Corby. And then another guy who I guess James Wood might steal some playing time from, Eddie Rosario of the Nationals. Oh, and then here's our man Julio, who I just mentioned. See, even if I hadn't taken a shot at Julio,

I would have inevitably gotten to Julio here on this list. Rounding out the list of the underperformers, Wilmer Flores of the Giants, another Mariner, Mitch Hanegar, Jake Berger, Bo Bichette, who really like Bo Bichette even. What is going on in Toronto this year? I thought I could count on Bo Bichette at least. Gleyber Torres, Michael Harris II, Jonah Heim, Xander Bogarts, Randy Rosarena, though he's kind of turned things around. Okay, those are the hitters.

Pitchers, the pitchers who have most exceeded expectations for the head of their war pace. A national, number one on the list, Trevor Williams, actually, is 3.7 war ahead of his pace. Tanner Houck of the Red Sox, who, is he still leading Fangraph's War, all pitchers in Fangraph's War? Oh, yeah. I think he was the last time I looked oh I want to wish a happy pride to Trevor Williams by the way I'm capable of snark yeah Tanner Houck is still very much leading all pitchers

in Fangraphs War good interview that ran with him today from David Lourla talking about how his pitching has evolved. But yeah, just sitting right there at the top of the leaderboard. I am surprised. Those Red Sox, it's just like, you know, they bring in Bailey from the Giants

and they have, you know, new regime. And it's like, what if we just stop throwing these fastballs that aren't very good and we just throw a lot of breaking balls that are good and off-speed stuff? And yeah, that'll work for us, for some of them at least. Garrett Crochet, currently of the White Sox, is next on this list. Albert Suarez of the Orioles. Christopher Sanchez of the Phillies, who we talked about recently. Reynaldo Lopez of the Braves, who we talked about recently. Cole Reagans of the Royals. The projections had not fully factored in his breakout last year, so he's exceeded expectations. The pace, about 2.3 war ahead.

Ranger Suarez of the Phillies. Eric Fetty of the White Sox. How about that? Just like two White Sox pitchers in the top 10 of exceeding expectations here, even though the White Sox have been the worst. Garbo. The worst. Yeah. Ben Brown of the Cubs. a Cub who has exceeded expectations.

Jack Flaherty of the Tigers. We haven't talked about Jack Flaherty really, and we probably should have because, yeah, he's been quite something. He has been. He's one of the contender bait players out there right now. Another gnat, Mitchell Parker. Gnat. Chris Sale of the Braves. I'm enjoying the Sale-a-sants.

Sale-a-sants. The Sale-surgeons. We got- That's me singing that song. Peak Sale back again. This has been fun. Matt Waldron. Yeah!

Of the Padres, effectively wild favorite. Yes. Reese Olsen of the Tigers, Sonny Gray of the Cardinals, Simeon Woods Richardson of the Twins, Tanner Bybee of the Guardians, Jake Irvin of the Nationals. He's been quite a surprise. Ben Lively of the Guardians, I believe a minor league free agent draft pick of mine who's doing well, and Gavin Stone of the Dodgers. All right.

On the bottom of the list, the pitchers who have fallen furthest behind their projected pace. Two guardians bringing up the rear here. Sadly, Tristan McKenzie. Yeah. Dead last on the list and, like, by a full win. Yeah, it's not going great. Yeah, 3.8. I'm not qualified to give medical advice, but you might got to get the surgery at some point, maybe.

I appreciate why there's hesitation there, though. It was so hard for that guy to come back. He had to work so hard. It took such a long time. I get it. But, yeah, I do wonder if we're going to look back and feel like they just delayed the inevitable. So, that's a bummer. Yeah.

So, almost four were behind the pace there. Logan Allen, also of the Guardians. I know. Michael Soroka of the White Sox. I'm surprised his projections were even good enough for him to show up here, but I guess it was taken into account long ago Atlanta performance.

Every time I hear Michael Soroka's name, I want an almond roka with the candy. That's a positive you could take away from this. Griffin Canning of the Angels. Kenta Maeda of the Tigers. I like that signing. It hasn't gone so great. Hasn't gone great.

Tyjuan Walker of the Phillies. Kyle Hendricks of the Cubs. At least he's had a couple decent starts lately since he returned to the rotation. Carlos Rodan of the Yankees. Yikes. Yeah, things have taken a turn. Yeah. I guess he had good projections because he was so good a couple years ago

and then just didn't pitch last year. Yeah, he was hurt. Yeah, things have regressed a bit there. Jordan Montgomery, who we just talked about at the Diamondbacks. Trevor Rogers of the Marlins. Disappointing, I guess, again after last year. Brian Baio. That's interesting that he shows up here because so many Red Sox pitchers have exceeded expectations.

He hasn't really been driving that. Andrew Rabbit. Keaton Wynn. Jose Barrios. Graham Ashcraft. Jesus Lizardo, which I guess is a blow to the Marlins' deadline plans and to contenders who might have been interested in trading for Jesus Lizardo, because it seems like he's going to be out of commission basically right up until the deadline. So that's going to make him tough to trade. This was minimum 50 innings, by the way, because I was just looking at starters. If you

wanted to set the minimum at 25 innings and bring in some smaller sample guys, some relievers, then you could. And then you would get Kirby Yates and Matt Strum and Justin Statton and Cade Smith and Hunter Gattis and Kenley Jansen and Jeremiah Estrada and Jeff Hoffman and Craig Kimbrell. How about that? Got to hand it to him. I guess he has exceeded the war pace. And then at the bottom, and hey, David Robertson, he's up there. I just, I love it. David Robertson is eternal. He's like one of the last links to when I was still like a fan, and he's the first player, active player I think I ever interviewed, certainly in person,

and he's just still trucking along. He know, he's just been good for so long. And then at the bottom of that list, you've got Scott McGuff of the Diamondbacks, Hector Neris, Chris Davinsky, Roderick Munoz, Rafael Montero, Aroldis Chapman. Walker Buehler then shows up on that list. Not a reliever, obviously, but his comeback from Tommy John, at first he looked rusty, and then it was like, hmm, maybe it's more than rust. That's sort of worrisome.

So, Maton, Tower, Kinley. I've probably read enough names. I did my math. I'll put these spreadsheets online if you want to look and see how your player of choice compares to their preseason projections, but those are the guys who have exceeded expectations by the most or have fallen for this short of them.

A lot of surprises. The only thing that's not surprising is that there are a lot of surprises. Yep. Well, after we recorded, we had another misplay involving a mic'd up player, the Apple TV Plus game. There was a pop-up in the infield that landed between Astros third baseman Alex Bregman and shortstop Jeremy Pena. Pena was mic'd up and had been speaking just before the play. He drifted over and then the ball fell behind Bregman. It was probably Bregman's ball,

though maybe it's on the shortstop to take charge. So I don't know whether to pin this mishap on the mic'd up player. Can't have helped. Maybe Pena would have been more vocal about calling for the ball or saying, you got it, if he wasn't being eavesdropped on by the entire broadcast audience. Might have happened anyway. Plenty of similar mistakes happen involving non-mic'd up players. But I did see a lot of people assuming that the in-game interview was responsible, and I'm happy for it to take the blame. All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going.

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And you can check the show page or your podcast apps for links to upcoming Effectively Wild listener meetups at MLB Ballparks. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode next week. Talk to you then. Discussing baseball news pedantically And the party's semi-erotically Thank you.