Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2185: Rise to the Challenge System

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the one (and only one) case where the zombie runner was warranted, why pitchers throw strikes to Aaron Judge (10:00), and MLB’s new Home Run Derby rules (21:11), then answer listener emails about how different baseball would be if runners didn’t have to tag up (34:49), the best […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2185 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Have you ever known me to say something positive about the zombie runner? No. Okay. The next time I do will be the first time, to your knowledge and also to mine.

But I think I have something nice to say. I've never abided by the, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. I've said plenty about the zombie runner and none of it has been nice, but here's the one compliment. I will pay it. This is a one-time only thing as far as I'm concerned. On Sunday, there was a White Sox Rockies game that went 14 innings. And I think that was probably long enough. Yeah, dude. I agree.

I'm all for the long extra inning games, the marathons we used to have. They were fun. But in this case, I would say 14 innings. There might just be a mercy rule when the White Sox and the Rockies are both involved in the same game. That seems like enough that I'm not mad about it ending via zombie runner. I don't want to make the individual participants feel bad because they're just doing their jobs. And, you know, it's not their fault that they're on the teams they're on. they're on the teams they're on like they might be completely unremarkable if they were able to diffuse the less than great that sometimes uh occurs with those two clubs over like a different roster you know if they were like if they could just be elsewhere you know yeah unnoticed it might

go better for everyone i'm reminded of a friend of mine from my early 20s who's like a deeply nice person and doesn't like to say anything mean about anybody. And in a moment of cattiness for her, whilst those around her were engaged in cattiness, she once described someone who was not a conventionally attractive woman as being like, like a little less than awesome in the face area. She was trying very hard to not say that this gal was busted. So, you know, that's maybe what I'm engaged in here. It's just like if we didn't think about the players involved so much, it might be better for them. The zombie runner is not awesome in the rules area.

I don't need to mince words when it comes to my thoughts on that. But in this particular case, I was not watching this game live for obvious reasons. But when I saw 14 innings, usually I celebrate that because I feel like, yeah, stick it to the zombie runner, stick it to the Manfred man, if that's what you call it. Just let's go as long as we can. And then I saw White Sox, Rockies. I was like, you know, you can call it. I mean, maybe this is a low blow, but I feel like many White Sox and Rockies fans would be with me on this. Yeah, I think you're right.

They'll watch their teams out of obligation. They'll try to look for the bright spots, but they're okay with it going nine or certainly 14. And there were some fun plays in that game. There was a great catch by Rocky Center field or Brenton Doyle to save or rob what would have been a Tommy Pham walk-off single in the bottom of the 12th and extend the game. It was a great play. Brenton Doyle, he's been playing pretty well lately. Yeah. So no shots at any individual players or plays. I'm just saying, if you had to pick a 14-inning matchup,

I think there was maybe one previous one this season, but this is not the matchup you would choose. Except for the fact that if you think that long extra inning games are disruptive to contending teams because it screws up their pitching staffs and you might say, I might say skill issue in that case. You got to plan for that

or you used to have to plan for that. But in this case, yeah, this seems like best for all involved. And it ended in the most zombie runner, just the worst way because you fight to a standstill for 13 innings and then top of the 14th, you get zombie runner on second,

sacrifice, bunt him over and then sacrifice fly. And that's it. And no more scoring in the top of the 14th. The White Sox don't score in the bottom of the 14th. So after all that, it ends without the offense, putting a person on base without that just being gifted to them or advancing them without making an out. So a really deflating way to end, except again, in this case, I think I'll allow it. Yeah, you still got sort of the whimper. It was just on a delay. I do think it is important to acknowledge that some of this is context dependent. Like if you're, you know, in the third day of the season and you're yearning for for league contests that matter, you'll just take the sicko shit. You don't care.

I went to a Rockies A spring training game this year. It was a split squad game too, Ben. It wasn't even the best guys. And I was like, you know, this is where I'm at in my baseball consumption. You've been in MLB withdrawal for several months. It's a starving person. Just any morsel of food, any scrap of nourishment. You're dehydrated.

One drop of water, it's the most precious taste in the world. But yeah, Rockies White Sox, you'd be happy to have it in that context. But in the context of June 30th, when both teams are really only in it in the sense that they're playing to be historically terrible, at least the White Sox are, and also to hawk their wares to potential contenders

at the deadline, that's all you have to live for and watch for if you're White Sox-Rockies fans, aside from maybe a few young guys, you hope. There are a couple, but there aren't as many as you maybe want to feel like the tide's going to turn soon. Skill issue sounds so much meaner when you say it. Are you an obviously nicer person than I am? Because you said skill issue, and I was like, damn, that's like the most biting I've

ever heard that sort of expressed. That expression from you. I mean, I am not the progenitor of that expression by any means. Wouldn't it be wild if I was like, yeah, you know, and I hope you credit me every time. I don't know. I mean, sometimes like it's a Monday and you're contemplating like the collapse of democracy and you're like, how are there only three games? True, yeah. If that had happened one day later when there were three games on the schedule, yeah, you would have said, okay, let's make up for this with more White Sox and Rockies. It's not ideal, but we'll take what we can get. We'll take it.

When every team is in action, the scarcity, the demand is not there for that much supply. So I apologize for this break from my regular stance on the zombie runner. I will now forthwith resume my usual strictly anti-zombie runner take. This was just a one-time exception. I think it's important. It adds to your credibility when you acknowledge the moments where the argument is weaker. You know, this is like a classic debate strategy. It's a tactic. So I think you're doing fine.

I don't know that anyone requires like an absolute unequivocal adherence to that position. But we are right to say that it is an abomination. So I get why people would be confused by it. I'm on the record, I think, as supporting forfeits in cases where you end up with just rampant position player pitcher usage. Am I even on the record saying this? I don't know. We've talked about forfeiting. I guess I've mostly just wondered why it doesn't happen because we have kind of quiet forfeiting now where it's just we'll essentially throw in the towel and we'll run out someone who's not actually qualified to do this job. And I do still think that, hey, you got to put on a show of some sort for the fans who actually showed up, even if it's really kind of a terrible show that we're all sort of sick of at this point. But it's just, it looks bad, which is why teams will do the face-saving position player pitcher, if you can even call that face-saving. It's kind of embarrassing, really, but less embarrassing, I guess, than saying,

yeah, we're done. We'll just pack it in. I used to attribute this to ego run amok, and I think that that doesn't get it quite right. Because I do think that if people are going to spend however much they have to spend to come spend the afternoon with you at the ballpark, you should put on a little bit of a show for them. And there are other considerations that can constrain that, right? You don't want to get anybody injured and you don't want to use arms that you might need to deploy to greater effect in a closer game. Well, now you're straying dangerously close to making the case for the zombie runner. I'm making the case for occasionally strategically deploying position players as pitchers. Occasionally.

Occasionally, Ben. It was out of control. And I think it's been curtailed ever so slightly. But it's still, it can be a lot. So I get that there are other things that you have to include in your calculus as a manager when you're deciding who to put out there versus not. But you should try. who to put out there versus not. But you should try. I think our general consistent through line for the podcast is that we are of the opinion that Major League Baseball teams should try.

They should try in the macro in terms of how they construct their rosters, and they should try in the micro in every game that they are playing. Maybe we can talk about a better player and team for a moment, though if you ask some Yankees fans, I'm not sure they would concede that the Yankees are, in fact, better than the White Sox and the Rockies. But they would concede that Aaron Judge is better than any member of the White Sox or Rockies. Yeah. And arguably— I mean, today they would. Yes.

First day of the season. Maybe not at the beginning of the season. No, they were ready to run that bomb out of town. Was my sigh pronounced enough for you? Should I do it again? Yeah. I got it. Continue. Yeah. So he has arguably been better than any hitter in history, any right-handed hitter in history. Important caveats that excludes Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, et cetera. But he just had the best 50-game OPS stretch by a right-handed hitter ever. He had one of the hottest 40-game stretches, as we noted earlier. I will link to

research on both of those stats and fun facts. And so the curious thing, which Mike Petriello just wrote about for MLB.com, is that pitchers are still throwing him strikes, more strikes than you'd expect, given that he is one of the hottest hitters ever. And given that he does not really have much of what you would call liner protection. There's really just not much in the way of that right now for him. And yet you look at the zone rate and if anything, he's seeing more strikes of late. But his full season zone rate is 50.3%. So more than half of the pitches that he's seen have been in the strike zone.

Granted, he has an extremely large strike zone because he's Aaron Judge. But the league average zone rate is 51.7. So he's seen just barely fewer strikes than a league average hitter. And I've been trying to make sense of this. This was also a story in 2022 when he was making his run at the AL home run record. I remember we talked about this. We questioned why are pitchers throwing so many strikes to Aaron Judge? And then no sooner than we brought that up, pitchers stopped throwing strikes to Aaron Judge? And then no sooner than we brought that up, pitchers stopped throwing strikes to Aaron Judge.

And we said, oh, well, you're welcome for cluing you into this obvious mistake you're making. And yet they still seem to be making it. So if you look at the hitters who've seen the fewest strikes, well, one, you've got Bryce Harper, who is also one of the best hitters in baseball. Why would you throw Bryce Harper strikes? They're not.

So he's seen 44.8% of pitches in the zone Bryce Harper, who is also one of the best hitters in baseball. Why would you throw Bryce Harper strikes? They're not. So he's in 44.8% of pitches in the zone before he just went on the IL. The second lowest percentage belongs to Salvador Perez. So that's mostly the fact that Salvi will swing at anything, right? So this is a combination of hitter skill and performance and hitter plate discipline. Right, yeah. Yeah, Salve's had a good season. Not so much lately, but certainly. I was going to say, have you taken a look at the monthly splits for Salvador Perez?

They are stark splits. Because they are cool. The contrasts are being drawn. Yes, so the strategy of not throwing Salve strikes, that does seem to be working lately. But that's kind of your two ways, two reasons why you would not throw someone strikes. A, they're just not very selective and you don't have to throw them strikes. B, they're just really good and you're afraid to throw them strikes. Aaron Judge is extremely selective.

So that's part of it. He's gotten even more selective. And part of it then is that pitchers know he's not going to chase, but that's only part of it. I still think, given the way that he's basically bonzing at this point, that you would think you would, I think he has like six intentional walks or so. It's just not a lot for how great he has been. And I thought Mike made an excellent observation here. His theory of the case for why Judge is still seeing relatively a lot of strikes is that he's not getting line of protection from the hitters behind him, Alex Verdugo et al.,

especially with John Carl Stanton on the IL, which was inevitable, but he was, other than Soto and Judge, Stanton was the only guy giving you consistent power in that lineup, and now he's gone. So why is Judge still seeing so many strikes and punishing pitchers accordingly? Mike postulates that it's because Juan Soto is, in effect, providing protection from in front of Aaron Judge.

So the fact that Soto is always on base in front of Judge, thus pressures pitchers to throw strikes to Judge. Because if Soto's on base before Judge and he's leading the majors in on-base percentage, he's always on base. on base percentage. He's always on base. Well, you can't put Judge on in addition to putting Soto on. Suddenly, you're putting someone in scoring position in the best case, right?

And that is something that pitchers are going to be wary of. Yeah, loathe to do. Yeah, I would argue that maybe even so, just given the disparity between Judge and Soto being two of the best teammates offensively ever and then the rest of that lineup being pretty punchless. Yeah.

I would say maybe be even more careful with Aaron Judge than they've been being. And maybe now that we've pointed it out again on the podcast, all the advanced scouts who do their – they write up their reports after listening to Effectively Wild and picking up on the trends that we've highlighted here. Suddenly, they'll clue their pitchers into the fact that Aaron Judge is having an extraordinary season, maybe the best since Bonds, and perhaps they will pitch around him a little more. But that is sort of an undervalued thing. I don't know how to quantify that. Like, should that be in Juan Soto's war somehow that the fact that he's just always on base then makes it more likely that the hitters behind him will get more pitches to hit? But it does seem like an added dimension of value that helps explain this seemingly mystifying fact. I think that it is a smart observation. I love the idea that there are like scouts listening to this and they're like, we got to go find an outfielder with a hand coming out of his head, you know,

and figure out if the hair matches his arm or his head, you know, we got to unpack this mystery, but that's going to push us over the edge. Just got to wade through the 10 minutes of ranting about the zombie runner, and then it's going to be gold. The nuggets we'll get after that, that will provide a competitive advantage to our team. Yeah, it's worthwhile. Yeah, they're definitely doing that. And also, like, maybe I will revisit the X-Files. While it is understandable to wonder, should we credit a guy with a thing in some way because his good performance leads to other good performances.

That way lies madness. Yeah. Just from a word perspective. And I know you're not actually advocating for that, Ben. I know you're not. You've thought about these things before and you know that madness lies in that direction. But it is an understandable impulse, I think. I get why people are like, I don't know.

Maybe we should be looking around at the guy in that thing. It's a career high, I think. I get why people are like, I don't know, maybe we should be looking around. I'm like, yeah, I don't think. a superior season to 2022. He may actually end up challenging. I mean, he's not on pace to hit as many homers as he hit in 2022, but he is, I think, ahead of or right around his personal pace in 2022. So he's right on track with where he was that year because he finished pretty strong.

So yeah, he's just running back that season and doing it again with pretty good defense. It's incredible what he is doing, but it's almost as incredible that pitchers are not really sufficiently respecting what he is doing. And all credit to Juan Soto for being one of the other best players in baseball. It's just truly a terrible twosome. It's a dynamic duo. It's an overpowering. You can't construct an entire lineup out of two guys. And yet, if those guys are Soto and Judge, you can come kind of close. Yeah. It certainly has enough knock-on effects for you to think of it as sort of like a collective achievement. But maybe the way to think about it is it's not about them not respecting judge enough they just have so much respect for juan soto

really really it's about that um and i i do wonder if you're just like what do we even do with this guy you know when he's hitting this well i wonder if there are pitchers who just even from an ego perspective are like screw it i'm gonna throw him one and see if he can do something with it. And then he's like, yes, I continue to do things with it. I just like, I just, I'm still doing things with it. You know, I'm still, they should just walk him more. You know, they really should. Like, it's not good to walk guys. Walks are valuable. That's my sabermetric insights. Brand new. No one's ever thought of it before, but it might be better than him putting one over the fence. Yes. Make Alex Verdugo beat you, I think would be one way to say it. And he has had a lot of runners on base ahead of him. So excellent is Soto that despite the fact that Anthony Volpe is batting leadoff and had a very strong start, but was really rough in June and overall has just a league average-ish OBP. And yet Judge is still just seeing plenty of hitters on in front of him, almost solely because of Soto.

So all power to those guys. He's 49% of his plate appearances have come with runners on base compared to 39% pre-soto last season. Wow. So it really does make a major difference. And lineup protection, it's kind of a canard. It's something that sabermetricians have taken aim at for decades and basically have said, I guess, the standard sabermetric line is that it's not that line of protection doesn't exist or doesn't matter, but it affects the shape of a player's production, but maybe not their actual production, if that makes sense. Their overall output might be sort of the same, but it might come with more walks, let's say, instead of putting balls in

play or hitting for power because someone's getting pitched around. So it does affect the components of the line, if not what that line amounts to. And maybe that breaks down at the extremes. So if one of the extremes is you have Juan Soto ahead of you, or you have an Aaron Judge or someone batting behind you, and there's a great disparity, then yeah, it'll make some difference in terms of how many hittable pitches you see or what types of pitches you see. But it's something that I think historically has been overblown.

And then maybe there was an initial rush to correct the record and say, this doesn't matter at all. And then there was some nuance that came into it where it matters just less and maybe in a different way than people used to think. Yeah, I think that tracks. Okay, so we have Juan Soto and Aaron Judge conducting their own personal Home Run Derby this season. We also have a Home Run Derby that will be put on in a couple weeks during the All-Star Week festivities. Aaron Judge will not be participating. during the All-Star Week festivities.

Aaron Judge will not be participating. I like that he participated in 2017, right, and won it and then was like, I'm good. That's it for me. I'm not going to tell you. What else do I have to prove? Like, my entire regular season is a home run derby. I don't need a specific sanctioned event to do this. We know he's quite capable of it. However, there are new rules

this year. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like maybe I need to sort of see it in action to assess how this will play, but I think I like it. I think I like these changes, at least based on my initial reading. No, you're not. I'll read what they are. So here's how Craig Calcaterra summarized it in his Cup of Coffee newsletter. Gone are the head-to-head matchups in the first round. Now all eight players will compete against each other in the first round with four players advancing. So I guess that is more of a throwback maybe to how it used to be. There have been so bonus outs, basically, as after

their three minutes or 40 pitches are up, contestants continue swinging until they make three more outs. Players can earn a fourth bonus out with a 425-foot homer in bonus time. For the semifinals, the four remaining players are seeded one through four using first round home run totals. Then it's the same rules as the first round, three minutes or 40 pitches, one timeout, plus three bonus outs with the opportunity to earn a fourth. And in the finals, the two semifinal winners go head to head. Obviously, the finals are only two minutes or 27 pitches with one timeout. The same bonus outs rules apply. So that's a lot of numbers and clauses that I'm throwing at you here. We'll

probably need to see it in action to get this straight in our heads. But I guess the upshot is that players complained or felt fatigued, understandably, because it does seem pretty exhausting because you're trying to swing as often as possible. And you could just tell that guys got gassed even with some breaks between rounds or mid round. By the end, everyone was kind of tottering around on their feet almost, right? They're worn out. So with this, I guess there will be a little less of a rush and you could pace yourself slightly, and maybe that will lead to, A, less injury risk, less fatigue, maybe bigger finishes potentially. So I guess that's the main motivation. Yeah, I'm fine with all of that. And I will say, I think the change that I like the most is the return to an open field in the initial round and then the best guys advancing because I've quite liked the

home run derby in the last couple of years and didn't really feel a need for any changes, although I'm not the one hitting home runs. So if the guys say they're tired and feel worn, then like, sure, like listen to them because they're the ones that have to do it. I just get to sit there and gawk at it. Yeah. And maybe you can attract a stronger field of competitors if players aren't dissuaded by thinking, oh, I'm going to, you know, the old screw up your swing sort of thing that persists. And studies, of course, have shown there doesn't seem to be anything on the whole, but in individual cases, maybe. And then I guess, didn't you have Julio last year who credited the home run derby for fixing him or helping him somewhat?

So sometimes it's the opposite effect. But yeah, there might be guys who say, eh, I'm not going to, you know, it's the all-star break, right? I'm supposed to be on break. I know I'm an entertainer. It's a spectator experience, but this will wear me down. So if they're a little less worried about that, then maybe you get some guys greenlit. Like Shohei Otani said, I think he had to get medical clearance to do this, I guess, what with his ongoing rehab. So maybe you're more likely to get a greenlight for Sho who you would like to see compete later in the derby. Yeah.

But you lose out on that because someone has to advance. So, this just ensures that, like, the four best performances are the ones that move forward. Because someone who hit a ton of homers might get eliminated because he happened to be matched up with someone who hit even more homers. Right. Whereas someone who had a more favorable matchup but hit fewer homers might advance. So this seems more fair in that sense. Yeah. And like you're likely to get, it's another way to ensure sort of like bigger boppers later into the fields than you necessarily have here. Although like,

you know, we've gotten some really good matchups, I think. But yeah, okay, I'm persuaded. I'm persuaded that these are positive changes. It does seem like, whether it was intentional or not, they have stumbled into a very goodped about the derby and it's often an opportunity for players who might be known to their um individual fan bases to have like a real coming out on the national stage like i think a lot of people you know people were aware of pete alonso because he played for the mets he's in a big media market but like you know he's like associated with the derby now and his weird prep um i wonder if his approach would change you know given the the changes in the rules but it's like you know when when julio competed in the derby for the first time like that really he was a well-known prospect but you know he plays for he was playing for a mariners team that wasn't you know necessarily lighting the world on fire

and he did the derby in la and people were like, wow, look at this Julio guy. So I think it's a great event. And I like that they're willing to try some stuff if they think that there are ways to ensure that the later rounds are the ones where there are big boppers. Although I will argue this, there are years where it is more important than others who ends up winning. Because when you have a round, like last year, the two things that I remember the most about the Derby were, one, Adley switching sides in his round. That was so fun and cool. And then Julio's early round where it he was just like, it seemed like every other

ball was a home run. And it was really great. And he didn't end up winning in part because I think this stuff you're talking about here, you got tired, you got wore out. I think I also like the fact that you do get those bonus outs that are not timed. I like that when it's not about the clock, but it's about the execution. Obviously, there has to be some sort of time limit, presumably, but it is more baseball-y. I guess that it theoretically could just go on forever if the guy just keeps hitting homers.

I know that there's a clock in baseball now or a timer if you want to split hairs. And there's always been a rule on the books, or for a very long time, there's been a rule on the books about how long a time you're supposed to have between pitches. It just wasn't enforced until we got the pitch clock. So it's not really that new conceptually. But even though some people will say, oh, this is the sport without a clock and thus the pitch clock ruins the essence of baseball or something. I don't think that's true because the game could still go on forever, right? Like the unit is out still. And even though there is now a constraint on the time between pitches that's actually

enforced, you could keep getting hits. And as long as you have outs to play with, the game can go on forever. Even with the zombie runner, in theory, the Rockies and White Sox could have played on beyond the 14th inning. So I like that. If a guy gets in a groove, he can just keep going, you know? And I think I also like that this will slow the pace a little, not because it will help players stay fresher,

but also, or not just because of that, but also from a spectator perspective, because my biggest complaint about recent derbies has been that it has been too frenetic to follow, right? There have been so many swings at such a fast pace that there have been balls in the air when the next pitch is coming in and it's tough to track, like, was that one gone? I don't know. I got to focus on this next pitch. It's like, it's really hard from a spectator perspective. And you might have multiple camera angles or a split screen. And then the screen is super busy because you've got like stat cast graphics and bottom lines and everything else. And it just

feels hard to follow. And I think a big part of that is that you just don't have time to breathe and follow the trajectory of the ball to see if it's gone. I mean, Chris Berman, I'm not saying bring back Berman necessarily, but at least like you had time to see if it was gone and for him to do his whole shtick when he was calling it. I want to see where the ball actually ends up. That's half the fun is admiring the majesty of these Titanic taters, right? So maybe there will be a little more of this. I was reading Levi Weaver's take at The Athletic and he thought this maybe was just unnecessary complication. Sure. But he said 40 pitches in three minutes is still one pitch every four and a half seconds,

4.44 in the final round. Last year's timed version also allotted three minutes is still one pitch every four and a half seconds, 4.44 in the final round. Last year's timed version also allotted three minutes for the initial round, so I went back and timed the first two hitters. Randy Rosarena averaged 3.2 seconds between pitches, and Adoles Garcia averaged 3.47. Will an extra one-ish second between pitches make a big difference? Maybe. Then he proposed, surely there's a simpler way. How about 30 pitches with a 10 second, sorry everyone, pitch clock between them. 10 pitch swing off if there's a tie in the final. Anyway, I don't need to mess with it that much, but I think even having an extra second, if that's all it amounts to, I think that actually might make a meaningful difference

hang time wise. You might actually get to see some of those balls go out before you have to refocus on the next one. I also think that it's an event and there's just nothing that can be done about this. But I really do think it's an event that does better when you see it live. You know, like the TV of it all does put, I think, an important barrier between you and your ability to enjoy the derby for precisely the reason you're talking about. Now, you still have the issue of having to move your neck and move your neck and move your neck to see where's the ball? Where'd it go? Where'd it go?

And sometimes you're in the auxiliary press box and you're right in the path and you're like, is this how I die? And who will feed the fan cross riders if I am taken out by a home run ball? What will happen? Why do they keep putting the ox box out there? They keep putting it in the outfield

and you're just going to die out there. But if you have an opportunity to see it live i would uh encourage people to do that because it's deeply goofy but i think it's a lot of fun it's just like a really cool event live although if you like the like the commentary piece you obviously miss that in ballpark but i think a lot of people just want to sit there and go ball far, ball go far, ball go far. Yeah. Another thing I like about this is that often the analysis, such as it is, of the Home Run Derby turns into analysis of pitcher pace, right? Yeah. That's been a big source of frustration for me, honestly, when I'm watching the Home Run Derby and pitchers are lollygagging out there. And it's like, guys, you got to hurry.

Like it matters the more pitches you throw. I mean, I guess you could say in the long run, they're helping the hitters pace themselves and maybe it'll pay off. But sometimes it's like the clock's counting down and someone's got to make up this many homers and the pitcher's just taking their sweet time getting the pitch in there.

It's like, come on. It really comes down to pitcher pace and strategy almost as much as if not more so than the hitter's ability to hit home runs. And I find that frustrating because it's like, you know, it shouldn't be just a competition between the batting practice pitchers, although that is kind of what it comes down to. A big part of it, yeah. Can they throw the meatiest meatballs? And also, can they throw them with the rapidity that you need to actually rack up the high home run total? So maybe this will place less of a premium on that, which I think would be good if the differentiating factor was the capacity to hit home runs and not so much like luck of the draw or good coaching of your derby pitcher. I do think it makes a pretty compelling argument to have like a productive and open relationship with one's father because they are often the ones

like you need to have good communication with with dad to be able to say, I love you. I appreciate all the times in my life that you have thrown me batting practice, but I need a ringer. I got to bring in a pro for this because sometimes they're like, oh, here's me and my adorable dad. And I'm like, you're going to lose. And sometimes the dads do a great job, to be clear. But there's a real range with the dads. Sometimes the dads, although I guess the same can be said for guys who are on pro coaching staffs. But sometimes I'm like, you should have told dad, like, go cheer me on.

Stand by, Bob. Let's discuss a few emails here because we got a couple of good ones that I wanted to discuss. So here's one that came to us from Taylor, who says, I've watched baseball my whole life, but sometimes my relatively new to baseball fiance asks me questions I cannot figure out how to answer. For instance, we were just discussing tagging up on a fly ball. She kept asking me why they aren't allowed to run while the ball is in the air with fewer than two outs. After explaining the logistics of the rule, she said, no, I understand the rule. I want to know why they're not allowed to run. I assume she's approaching this question from the perspective of someone creating a sport and adding this rule to the game's rulebook. From your perspective, what are the benefits and drawbacks of this rule?

I theorize that it's because the powers that be think or thought it would be too high scoring if people could literally just run on anything. To that, my fiance said, gee, a way to increase scoring and make the game more exciting? Why would they want that? Touche. What are your thoughts on this? To quote my fiance, why can't they run on a fly ball? Taylor from Tampa. later in life maybe, and is seeing it through fresh eyes and is questioning things that we wouldn't think to question because we just grew up with this. And it's like, well, yeah, you tag up on fly balls. That's what you do. But why? How did that come about? Is that actually better? How would it change things if that were not the case? So I threw this one to Richard Hershberger, the great baseball historian and 19th century baseball expert and author of Strike Four and Past Blaster of Effectively Wild. And he also said, this is a great question. So Taylor and his fiance, you got the Hershberger stamp of approval here.

The why question is always more interesting than the what. The why question is always more interesting than the what. And he notes that this is exactly the same sort of subject that his book addresses, in this case, Chapter 10 of Strike Four. So here it goes. He says, I hope you are sitting down. Well, I certainly am. I always sit down when I podcast. I don't know about you.

To set the stage, there were two features of pre-1857 baseball relevant here. The first is that a batted ball caught either on the fly or on the first bounce was an out. The second is that a base runner could advance freely regardless of whether the ball was caught. So consider a runner at first with fewer than two outs and the batter hits a fly ball. The runner can take off running and get as far as he gets. The ball being caught does not matter. So if our hero takes off on contact and gets to third when the ball is caught, he's at third. Or he can keep going and try to score if he thinks he can beat the throw. Now we get to 1857. Okay, so initially it worked the way Taylor's fiance wants it to work. No tagging up. You can just go, go, go. You can be the vroom,

vroom guy, basically, and get as far as you try to get. Maybe stop at some point. Now we get to 1857. The Knickerbocker Club called a convention to discuss revising the rules. One change they proposed was to abolish the bound catch, at least for fair balls. A batted ball had to be caught on the fly for an out. This was known as the fly game in contrast to the bound game, as in like leaps and bounce, as in bounces. Okay. The idea went down in flames. The Knickerbockers, however, enjoyed prestige as the senior club, so their opponents threw them a bone. A ball caught on the bound would still be an out, but a ball caught on the fly would be both an out and a dead ball, preventing the runner from advancing. So kind of a compromise, split the difference sitch.

Right. The idea was to make catching the ball on the fly more valuable, at least if there was a runner on base. So in our scenario, the runner takes off on contact. If the ball is caught on the bound or not at all, the scenario is just as in previous years. But if the ball is caught on the fly, play immediately stops. The runner returns to first at leisure without being liable to be put out. The convention became an annual affair and is the direct ancestor to modern organized baseball and its winter meetings. The fly game proposal resurfaced for 1859 and was

again shot down. But another bone was offered. A ball caught on the fly would no longer be dead. It would still be live and could put out a runner. Furthermore, the runner had to return to his base and he could be put out either by tagging him or by tagging the base. To understand the scenario they imagined, consider again a runner at first with fewer than two outs. The batter hits a fly ball and the runner takes off on contact. If the ball is caught on the bound or not at all, then the scenario is as in earlier years. But if a fielder catches the ball on the fly, he can throw it to the first baseman. Since our hero in this scenario is not up on the new rule, he'll be somewhere around third base when the first baseman steps on the bag for the out. The more modern scenario.

Of course, in the real world, the runners quickly figured out how the new rule worked. So they didn't take off running if they thought the ball would be caught on the fly. So far, so obvious. But even before the 1859 season opened, some clever fellows realized that if the runner stays near his base, he can retouch it as soon as the ball is caught. And the ball being live, there is no reason he can't take off running. So this is the modern rule of tagging up. So this was not explicitly set like, yeah, you can tag up now. This was almost a loophole or an implication that the runners figured out once this rule was put into practice. This would have been the sort of thing, like if we'd been podcasting in 1859, which sometimes it seems like we were, we might have been getting listener emails

from people being like, hey, what if you touch the base and then you ran after that? Why couldn't you do that? And we'd be like, ooh, effectively wild, hypothetical. Maybe they could try that. And then it would have happened and we would have

claimed to be ahead of the game and prescience and everything. So that's basically how it played out. This is the modern rule of tagging up, Richard writes. We know this was not the idea behind the rule because we have records of the discussion around it at the convention. Then over the course of the winter, there appeared, aha, letters to the sporting papers, the equivalent of the effectively wild mailbag at the time, working out the implication and asking for confirmation. The editorial response amounted to, huh, I think you are right. We will see how this plays out and reassess it at the next convention, which is often how we answer Effectively Wild listener emails.

People turned out to like the rule, so they never returned to it. The arguments about the fly game continued. Reading between the lines, the discussion featured shouting matches. The fly game was finally adopted for the 1865 season, and here we are. So, Richard concludes, when we ask why a rule was enacted, the first step is to identify the problem it was intended to solve. In this case, the effect of the rule was an unintended implication of an attempt to placate one side in what is now an obscure argument. I call this the accidental rule. So I really like that. I didn't know that whole history. And it does remind you that all these rules that we take for granted, that we're just kind of handed down on the stone tablets at some

point in time immemorial. Someone had to figure those out. And it probably wasn't Abner Doubleday, right? It was people who were actually legislating and arguing and debating and having conventions about these things and figuring out the pluses and minuses and then seeing how it played out in practice and then deciding to amend the rule further or keep it. So, it is not a, well, Richard says it's an accident, and yet it's also not totally an accident because there was a lot of thought and discussion that went into this. So, that's always fascinating to me. I agree. I think it's funny too because it's like this iterative sort of accidental compromise position but i think it

i think it does strike the right balance right like you you want there to be an opportunity to advance in a situation like that you want there to be you know an opportunity for the runner to like take advantage of a misplay right like you know but i think that if you can just go if you can vroom vroom it's it's a little too easy and i want um there to be incentive within the rule structure for fast guys i want there to be like because you can be like an okayish fast guy and if all you need is like the crack of the bat to be like a starter's pistol basically you could just be scoring forever you're scoring and scoring and scoring and scoring right like and not really right there's still going to be limits to it they're still good fielders they

still get quick throws back in right but like it doesn't it doesn't give incentive to the kinds of athleticism that i want there to be incentives for and it doesn't have incentive to the kinds of athleticism that I want there to be incentives for. And it doesn't have to be the only profile that works. But it is, I think, a good balance between the various things. And it was kind of accidental. Like, that's beautiful. It's like evolution, you know? Yeah.

And I said sort of the same to Richard. I said accidental or not, I think it's a good rule. On a grounder, especially one in the infield, a runner can advance only so far, usually, unless they're like Ali De La Cruz and do something that defies what we expect. But on a high fly with a lot of hang time, a runner can cover a lot of ground. Not only would doing away with tagging up increase scoring significantly, but I think it would be somewhat unsatisfying to see towering pop-ups clearing the bases. And also, I said, if you think batters are trying to hit the ball in the air now, I guess we never would have had a fly ball revolution, but you would have had guys trying to hit the ball on the ground even when the ball was dead, because even if you weren't going to

hit it over the fence, just being able to get some loft behind it would have allowed more opportunity to score. So that was my initial reaction that I sort of sided with everyone that thought, oh, this is playing out really well in practice. But Richard noted, it's a compromise between the runner having complete freedom and his being unable to advance at all. So it seems okay. Often the most fair solution is some kind of compromise. And Richard said, this feels right today, but that is because the game developed with the compromise in place. So he's suggesting maybe we're looking at this with blinders on, we're biased by the game that we've grown up with. And so we conclude, oh yes, this is the way that it always was destined to be, but perhaps not. Perhaps we have kind of a parochial perspective

on this. So he continued, we can play the how would baseball be different game with this, as we often do on this podcast. And really with pretty much every rule, if the game had developed with completely free running on flies, a fly ball would be more valuable, as I said, like a sacrifice fly today, but more so. A good sinker ball pitcher would be worth his weight in gold. And there would be more of them as player development emphasized this skill. So I was going to say maybe we'd have less contact because we'd have like uppercuts and guys trying to hit the ball in the air. But then again, you might have more sinker ball guys who are not trying to miss bat so much as trying to get you to pound the ball into the ground. We might speculate that free running might have led to a deader ball reducing hang time.

Perhaps scoring levels would be higher. They were vastly higher in the amateur era coming down to modern levels in the 1870s. We can imagine this stabilizing at a higher point than it did. On the other hand, a lot of the rules changes of the 1880s were out of concern that scoring was too low. So perhaps scoring would have come down, but the number of balls for a walk or the placement of the pitcher would be different than in our reality. There's a lot of path dependency to what seems normal to us. Sure. It isn't a miracle that they got it right back in the day because what they did back in the day determined what seems normal to us. Sure. It isn't a miracle that they got it right back in the day because what they did back in the day

determined what seems right to us. My personal favorite rules, what if is the fly game? He says, it got adopted only through some very contingent circumstances having more to do with the civil war than the desires of most players. It's not difficult to construct a plausible scenario

where it never happens. And the idea that a ball caught on the first bound shouldn't be an out would seem crazy. a quaint notion bandied about long ago before they came to their senses. So yeah, it really would change a lot. And I guess maybe there would be added suspense sometimes and there'd be an absence of suspense in other times. So for instance, when we have a sacrifice fly situation now and we see the runner on third tagging up and it's shallow enough that there might be a play at the plate, that's exciting. We would lose that because you could just run on contact and there'd

be no suspense or uncertainty whatsoever. But then again, I guess you would get just as many plays, if not more, that there would be injected suspense that doesn't currently exist. Because it's a fly ball where there's really no hope of advancing now unless the fielder were to drop the ball or something. But now you could advance on just a can of corn, a routine fly, not even deep. And you'd say, hey, could he score on this? Could he get to this? fly, not even deep. And you'd say, hey, could he score on this? Could he get to this? So in a sense, like maybe there'd be ever present suspense if someone is not on third and there'd at least be more potential for something to happen. But then I guess it would be less special if there was

always potential for something to happen and runners would run rampant literally. And yeah, you'd have higher scoring and longer games unless you made other changes to try to dampen things yeah it's hard to imagine a game that had sort of adapted very very differently i know we try all the time but i don't know i still instinctively like feels feels right you know i i i think that you want as much balance between pitching and hitting as you can possibly get, if only because the balance introduces the potential for surprise. Because if things are well balanced, you don't know which side is going to end up triumphant in the interaction. And that's, I think, what we're really looking for in baseball in any given moment is like, I want the ability to and the potential for being thrilled, right,

for this being unknown, you know, for the outcome to not feel predetermined. I think that is when baseball is at its most compelling. And so, you know, I don't say that to suggest that this is the only way in which you could achieve balance. And you're right. I think that we would have seen, you know, different kinds of pitchers being developed with in much greater numbers. And we would have had totally different incentives around which pitches are good and kind of what approach you take both as a pitcher and a hitter.

And there could have been balance in that. So it's not like that that is a foreclosed option. But we sure did end up with like a good balance on this particular question for something that was sort of a compromise solution. So that's nice. All right. While we are talking about potential rules changes, I will read this email from Mike,

who expressed the opposing stance on ABS and having a full robo zone. People have thoughts on this. Yeah. Yeah. I will say we got next to no pushback when it came to our somewhat anti-K zone on screen ever present pitch plot position. It seems like people mostly are more or less with us or not strenuously against us, but there certainly is a difference of opinion when it comes to, do we want a challenge system or ABS or no robo-ump involvement at all? So we will provide a dissenting perspective here from Mike, though I will dissent from the dissent on one point at least. So Mike

says, I would love to see you all bring on someone like Joe Sheehan to discuss the pro-ABS side of the debate. And by that, I think he means full ABS challenge system. The reason I ask is that because listening to your podcast, I hate to say it, but there's a serious gap in the conversation. A challenge system doesn't fix the existential issue facing baseball, which is that balls are not going into play enough. I referenced Joe because he's done a really good job of highlighting how it all starts with the strike zone. It is the prime mover of baseball. Pitchers dictate the action, but the strike zone is the biggest influence on where the pitcher throws. The current human system is what allows for pitchers to throw absurd pitches that are

impossible to hit. ABS would allow for a truly revolutionary rethink of what a new strike zone should look like that encourages hittable pitches. That is the reason we have a strike zone in the first place, historically, to force pitchers to throw hittable pitches. A challenge system will do very little to fix this alarming trend. There needs to be a modern strike zone for the modern game. Everything baseball has done with its rules changes and writers such as yourself and others I read keep suggesting avoids addressing the core issue facing the game. Hittable pitches are not being thrown full stop. Until you fix that, every change is window dressing.

It's changing the blown tire of a car on fire. I really encourage you to book someone to make the pro ABS case and strongly reconsider your pro challenge system support because your podcast is influential. You flatter us. I don't know whether it actually is in this sense, but I'll take the compliment, sure. And I fear the focus on the human element and catcher framing is missing the point, a point the sport can't afford to miss. Okay. We have a lot of thoughts, I think, probably on this email. I responded with some of those thoughts via email.

First of all, love Joe, Joe Sheehan, great writer. Always happy to have him on, have had him on before. I'm sure we'll have him on again at some point. I read every word he writes about baseball and recommend that others do as well. His newsletter, joshian.com, sign up. And he is really on the opposite side of the issue when it comes to ABS and catcher framing specifically. He's very anti. He just sees it as purely an umpire mistake mechanism more so than a player skill artifact, I guess, which is how we prefer to interpret it, though obviously it's a bit of both. But I think that Mike, at least in this email, is kind of conflating a couple different issues here. I am not as anti-ABS as I am, say, anti-Zombie Runner or other things that I will occasionally rant about.

I understand the pro-ABS stance. I think it might even make sense for the majority of people. and us, because we're kind of aligned on this issue, that we like catcher framing, we like that aspect of the human element and would be wary of the way that it would change the catcher position irrevocably. And also just some of the finesse and the strategy that goes into planning around an umpire zone or trying to expand the zone or trying to account for the rubber banding effect that happens if a batter or pitcher is behind in the count, then the umpire either subconsciously or not kind of gives them a helping hand and makes the plate appearance more competitive in a way that I don't

know that we fully factored in the implications if one were to do away with that and have the zone be completely consistent from pitch to pitch regardless of the count. All of that, right? factored in the implications if one were to do away with that and have the zone be completely consistent from pitch to pitch regardless of the count. All of that, right? And all of the analysis that we can do about these things because there is some nuance and it's not super rigid. But I do accept that all of that is kind of personal preference. And I do think there may be ways in which the game would change that pro-ABS, full-ABS people are not fully factoring in. But I accept that that might purely be personal preference and that most people might actually

enjoy baseball more if they just call it the zone consistently. It's not an extreme, irrational stance in my mind. If you're pro-ABS and you're just like, it's the strike zone. They should call the strike zone, they should call the strike zone as accurately as possible. Why should we default to fallible humans doing this if we can come up with the technology to do it more accurately, if not quite perfectly? And that makes sense to me. Why not have the players decide things? That's the way Joe will often put it. Why not have the players decide which way the game goes as opposed to the umpires?

And I think even when the umpires are involved, I think the players are still involved too. You might have pitchers who are really adept at exploiting an umpire zone or catchers, et cetera. But yeah, there's certainly something to that. Umpires do make mistakes. It's frustrating when they do. So if you are pro full ABS, I get it. And I might try to persuade you of my point of view.

But if you stick to your guns, I'll say, yeah, you know what? That makes perfect sense to me. I get it. I can't condemn it. However, I don't really see the ABS argument being the same as the changing the strike zone argument. I think that's my big complaint or nitpick about Mike's argument here is that if you want to make the case for full ABS on the basis of fairness and accuracy, I think that's a pretty strong case. But if you want to make the case that we need full ABS to help hitters or to change the size of the strike zone or the shape of the strike zone, I don't actually see that as a full ABS argument. To me, ABS is almost agnostic of where you put the zone. Like full ABS could help hitters or it could hurt hitters.

It all just depends where you set the zone, where you set the dimensions. And that's been something that the league has constantly been tinkering with, right? So you could have full ABS and the calls would be more consistent and fair and accurate, although umpires have gotten better

at all of those things too. Yes. But it would lead to less offense and more strikeouts, right? If you just made the zone bigger. And yeah, you could use ABS to make the zone smaller. And if you say that you think the strike zone should be smaller because hitters need some help here and we're not moving the mound back, it doesn't seem like,

and we're not drastically lowering the number of pitchers on the active roster, so how are we going to help hitters? We can shrink the strike zone. That's been done before. There's precedent for that. I listened to that argument. I think that makes some sense, but I don't see that as an argument for full ABS. We could shrink the strike zone without ABS, right? This is kind of conflating how the zone should be called, like how it should be enforced and what size or shape it is. Yeah. And you don't need to change one to change the other, right?

Like changing the former, what size the zone should be doesn't depend on changing the latter, how you are actually enforcing it, computer or human. And changing the latter doesn't necessarily affect the former. So you could say, yeah, let's

make the strike zone smaller. And you could just tell umpires to call a smaller zone as has been done in the past. Right. So you could do that independent of any change to how balls and strikes are currently called technologically speaking. Those are very, very good points. And I agree with all of them. I also think, if I can offer sort of like a more philosophical notion here, like when you think about the pitches that are the ones that tend to frustrate fans the most, which I think are pitches that exist sort of very close to the strike zone, so they're either in it a little bit or they're out of it by a little bit, like they're in that shadow zone, as StatCast understands it.

The way that those pitches get called uh i think tends to be one of the things that bothers fans the most depending on if their favorite team's pitcher is throwing them or not i think about that part of the zone that area adjacent to and butting right up against the zone as an area where you can see really cool, nasty pitches and you got to execute them, right? You got to sell them a little bit. So like put the framing piece of it aside, like that part of the zone being somewhat probabilistic and dependent on execution and sort of selling it to the umpire, which is sometimes a byproduct of framing, but is also sometimes like that pitch being good and nasty or not, right? Like I like

there being a bit of give there that the pitcher has to cover the distance of to get a strike. I do think that we are often over rating how like perfectly ready for prime time the tech is right like they are still figuring out the tech around this stuff and i know that the tech that is feeding a full abs is feeding the challenge system and you're all thinking well make you like the challenge system so why would you that's a fair response to me but i think that there is a difference between relying on it to course correct on either egregiously wrong calls or really high stakes calls versus being completely reliant on it.

As they have adjusted the zone in AAA, the numbers around this in terms of like the difference between the strikeout rate and the walk rate, the called strike rate has sort of depended on which version of the zone they're dealing with when it comes to full ABS versus challenge. But to me, the notion that the zone as it exists now being called by ABS is going to improve things for hitters just seems very wrong to me. Because such a tiny part of the ball has to nick the zone for it to be a strike man like if you think that it's going to explode hitter offense i really just don't think that that's true because so it's just it's an embarrassed little you know whisper of a kiss it is it is it is the kind of kiss that two ball players have when they both want to kiss but they're like

nervous about it and they haven't done it before. They're like doing a tiny whisper of a kiss. Like that's the kind of kiss that the ball has to have. People have understandable frustration with egregious missed calls, particularly in high leverage moments, but just generally. And we feel like we have this big technological solution to it. And we can debate how ready for primetime that technological solution is, but we feel like we have a technological solution to this annoyance. which is their guys striking out on little whispered kisses of strikes. And to your point, if what we really want, if what we really want is to make things easier for hitters,

we need to redefine the zone and then figure out the proper way to enforce that new zone versus leaving the zone as is, introducing tech that is and isn't ready and then you get these little whisper kiss strikeouts and everybody's going to lose their freaking minds and we're not going to be able to go back as opposed to the challenge system where you you still get that like cool probabilistic you have to execute pitches piece of it you get the umpire dynamic you're talking about where umpires are kind of keeping at bats competitive in a way that

people i think find compelling even though they don't know necessarily that that's happening and when you have a an ump that's having a bad night or has like a particular weakness or just misses one, right? Just misses, you know, a ball right down the dick. You have a means to address that problem so that in high leverage moments, you aren't having the game turn in a way that is going to kind of color your experience of it for the rest of the contest or potentially decide the outcome of the game, you have recourse. You know, you introduce, you interject strategy into this moment. And so often rules are there to take away strategy.

But no, no, this interjects strategy. I'm going to start calling them whisper kiss strikes and no one's going to know what I'm talking about. And then I get to do the voice and hopefully the pantomime because I'm doing a whole little thing with the whisper kiss and you can't see it, Ben, and neither can our listeners, but it really helps to sell like the little whispers of the, it's just like a little whisper of a kiss. Yeah. I do think that all else being equal and it wouldn't be necessarily if you just rigidly enforce the rulebook strike zone, then all else wouldn't be equal. You would have curveballs that barely nicked or whisper kissed the system to mirror the zone as it's currently called, so an oval, basically. And we've done the hypothetical about, like, well, you could program it to have a probabilistic outer range of the zone, right?

And I think we were kind of down on just sort of randomizing it, even if that is in effect what umpires do. But if you programmed it so that the zone mirrored the way that it's currently called but was just more consistent, I think that that would help hitters, just the added predictability of it. I think that would help hitters more than pitchers. But I don't think it would be a big difference. I think to provide a big boost to hitters, you would then need to shrink the zone. And again, you could do that without full ABS. Now, granted, in fairness, I guess if you did decide we're going to reshape the strike zone fundamentally, it might be easier to affect that change by just programming a computer to do it

than by saying, hey, umps who've been calling the zone a certain way for your whole career, now call it this way, right? I mean, that would be an adjustment for them to make, obviously. And computers would be more perfect, closer to perfect when it came to actually implementing that overnight, right? So I guess you could make that case. But I just don't see helping hitters as in itself a justification for full ABS. If you like full ABS for other reasons, I understand that. And maybe it could be like a little added perk, but I don't see it as like, we have to do something and this is the only way we can do something. I think there are a bunch of ways that we could help hitters, and some may be less palatable than others.

But I think what I object to, you know, Mike had this line in his email, the current human system is what allows for pitchers to throw absurd pitches that are impossible to hit. So, the idea that pitchers can sort of exploit the weaknesses of umpires and catchers in concert with pitchers can do that. And they can throw pitches that could never be hit but would be called strikes potentially because of the imperfections of umpires. That's true in certain cases, of course. Every now and then you'll see a pitch that really the hitter just could not hit if they tried to. And it's just kind of unfair. But that's not what allows for pitchers to throw absurd pitches that are impossible to hit. What allows for that is improved player development, is optimized training and pitch design and pitch selection and pitcher usage and all of the above, right?

I think we know that it's that and not the human umpires because balls and strikes have always been called by human umpires, but we didn't always have strikeout rates this high. Something else has changed. They're this high now because the humans on the mound, that's the human element. The humans on the mound throw 94 mile per hour fastballs on average with just the nastiest off-speed stuff you've ever seen. So moving the mound back, constraining the number of pitches, et cetera, that could suppress their stuff. And Joe Sheehan and I agree on that, but I don't think ABS alone can. And I think we know that even more because umpires are closer to a computerized system now than they used to be. Umpires call pitches much more consistently and in line with the rulebook zone today than they did 15 years ago, but strikeout rates have risen over that time. So that alone won't stop that trend, I don't think. And gosh, if you made the zone even smaller and didn't change anything else,

you might encourage pitchers to throw even more max effort if that's even possible. It's like, gosh, we can't even rely on as many chases and off-speed stuff anymore. Let's just try to blow it by everyone on every single pitch because we have this smaller area. You could also say, I guess, well, they'll have to aim for that smaller area. That's the case that Joe made. And so they'll have to trade off speed for command, and maybe it'll actually take some stress off of their arm. So that's possible, too. Anyway, I'm just saying I almost don't make the ABS case or pro-ABS case or have someone on specifically to argue the pro-ABS case because I feel like it's almost self-explanatory and it's pretty persuasive.

Yeah, why would you not want to get the calls correct? Like, I'm in favor of replay review. So why not full ABS, right? So I'm almost providing a different perspective on the pod that I feel like you don't hear as often. Like, well, what are the potential problems with that? I guess if you believe the survey polling data that MLB released, it seems like people are actually much more in favor of even the current system, let alone the challenge system relative to full ABS. So I still kind of question those numbers. I wonder, maybe they only surveyed people who went to games with the challenge system or something and like saw it in operation. So people who knew what they were talking about?

Right. Sorry, that's like way more aggressive than I mean, because I tend to agree with you. I think that the like the stated preference for a zone that doesn't have ambiguity, you know, forget game to game, sometimes inning to inning that is consistent and predictable for both parties involved, I think is a completely rational, like expressed desire. There is nothing about that that I think makes you weird or a gremlin or stodgy or any of that. I totally understand why people want that if they have a different aesthetic preference than I do in terms of pitches in the shadow part of the zone, or if they have a different preference around pitch framing. I think that that is a completely on pitch framing, like I think that that is a completely reasonable thing. I do think that they are overestimating or overstating the readiness of the tech. And so there is that piece of it. But like, it's a fine thing to want that. I just think that part of it is that a lot of people haven't seen the challenge system in action. They haven't seen it, Ben. They haven't seen it. And when they see it, they love it. They love it. They throw parades. They go crazy. They're crying. They're throwing

up. They're just like, oh my God, the best thing there's ever been. I guess if you are surveying people who are at those games, well, they're maybe the most qualified to weigh in on that because it's not purely hypothetical. They've seen it in action. So maybe if they watched games with full ABS and then were polled on that. I guess, though, if they're polling people at AAA Games this season when both systems were in operation on different days and those people have seen each, again, I just need to know more about the methodology there. Who exactly was surveyed and how many people. But yes, I think, as you say, it makes sense on a number of levels to advocate for that. But this particular argument for me doesn't even seem like the strongest one, right? If you're

going to make the case based on just fairness and accuracy, fine, that is quite fair. But if you're going to say we have to do that because it's the only thing that can help hitters, yeah, I don't buy that. I don't think we necessarily need to do that to help hitters. We could even change the zone without doing that. So that's our take. Yeah. All right. Last question.

This comes to us from John, who has another question. In this vein, if baseball were soccer, how different would it be? Now, that could go in any number of directions and we've certainly considered a number of those directions, what with promotion, relegation, et cetera. But John wants to know, thanks to my choosing YouTube therapy as a way to cope with being a severely burned out educator

without much of a summer break to anyone who says teachers have it cushy because they get summers off can shove anyway. I'm just reading John's email here. That's his little rant to start this email. And watching streamers play football manager, I have rekindled my relationship with that game, football slash soccer. One of the things we know about soccer, which separates it from other professional sports, is the concept of the red card. For those who are unaware, a player who receives a red card is sent off for the rest of the red card. For those who are unaware, a player who receives a red card is sent off for the rest of the match. My question is a variation of one from episode 637, I think.

Excellent research that you've done there consulting the listener emails database, which is always linked from the show page on email shows. But this question from that long ago episode from Lillian in Hanover, Germany, how would baseball change if any position player except pitcher and catcher that was ejected could not be replaced until the next inning or even the next game? Would player ejections disappear? As you probably know, this is the rule in soccer, yet often the penalty is worth it considering the alternative to breaking a rule. Would that ever be the case in baseball too? So John's question is, what if the red card existed in baseball could apply to anyone and teams had to spend the rest of the game with a

man down? This could apply to managers and coaches as well. If one of them is sent off, the team has to play at a disadvantage. You'd presumably need a pitcher, catcher, and a first baseman, but that leaves any other position available to be abandoned during a game. There's a hang up with the DH because let's say JT Real Muto is sent off. You can't replace him in the lineup and you have to replace him on defense. So Garrett Stubbs goes in for defense and perhaps you lose the DH and the pitcher now has to hit. So that raises the question, would we see an increase in the attempt to develop two

way players to deal with this? Also, if a manager gets sent off, does the other team get to decide which player represents the manager being sent off? Would it be the last batter out? Could you imagine if Rob Thompson, I'm a Phillies fan, so they're my examples here, get it subjected because Bryce Harper took a dubious called strike three to end an inning.

Not only is Thompson sent off, but now so is Harper because he was the last out. I'd like your takes on this if you wish to indulge. So the idea of having some equivalent of a red card when a player gets ejected, you're just deprived of a player at that position for the rest of the game. So you play shorthanded, which is just not really a thing in baseball, right? You forfeit if you don't field a full team. And how would baseball be different or would it be better if you actually had a lasting impact there,

not just through losing your first string player, the guy who got ejected, but losing a player at that position entirely? I think it would incentivize a lot of good behavior because you sure would not want to play down. So you get to pick, am I understanding that right? You get to pick who you play down or you just play down at that position no matter who it is. I think you play down at that position. Yeah, he was saying if you lose a manager or something, maybe you don't lose the manager, but you lose a player in lieu of the manager. But maybe you just

have no manager whatsoever. It's not like the bench coach is suddenly the manager. You're just managerless. and if this is the consequence then i think you have to have some mechanism to challenge the judgment of the umpire because it's such a consequential decision right like now you toss a guy like that's it like a guy's gone he's gone you know and then they bring in maybe a a less good guy or a guy who's tired and was supposed to be getting a rest but you like can fill the spot if you can't fill the spot if you can't it i mean like what do you you can't not have a catcher you know like there there would have no you're saying yeah you'd have to have a pitcher a catcher first baseman at least but yeah but beyond that like you know i so i think that you would have to have a mechanism by which you can sort of overrule the umpire or decide that he's being too hasty or whatever,

because it would be so consequential. I think it is disproportionate to the average ejection at the very least, right? In terms of consequence, like if this is the consequence for being a little bit like shirty about balls and strikes, like that's way out of proportion to the actual offense, right? I have proposed in the past an escalating system of penalties like they have in hockey rather you know and and that you have timeouts um and that you're you know you can have the equivalent of like major penalties where you're absent for that particular player is absent for maybe a whole inning um but not the rest of the game um they can return at some point that seems more feasible to me than or and workable than this but yeah like can you

imagine can you imagine people are like oh we can't we can't possibly have the umpires call balls and strikes but we're gonna imbue them with this kind of the power of petty tyrants. What? It's part of their official acts as an umpire and they just get to do whatever they... You know what? I've actually kept it together pretty well, considering how stressed I am about other things,

Ben. I feel like I've done a good job. But you would need recourse for being like, hey, can't we figure this out? Because you're maybe overreacting, at least relative to the size of the, you know, infraction and consequence. It would be a really significant penalty. I was trying to figure out if it would be more or less significant than in other sports. In soccer, for instance, you have, what, 11 players on the pitch to a side? I have no idea, Ben. I don't know. Well, we're well qualified to answer

this question clearly. But yeah, I think you have 10 players plus the goaltender. And so I guess you have more players on the field than you do at any one time for a baseball team. So maybe proportionately the impact would be greater because it really would be a big loss. Inevitably, you would just shuffle things around so that you would play without a left fielder or something. You know, you would just not station someone at the position where you get the fewest opportunities and you'd spread out your remaining guys. It is something that would be kind of fun to see just the strategic implications of it. And we've, I think, considered sometimes you'll hear a proposal instead of a zombie runner, instead of other artificial ways to end a game sooner or prematurely, arguably, you could subtract a defender with each extra inning or starting with a certain extra inning. And so you would just play shorthanded, essentially, and more and more shorthanded as the game went on.

And that would be kind of fun, I guess. It would probably serve a similar purpose in that it would end the game sooner. I guess there'd be more scoring and there would be a lot of strategy that came down to who are you going to take out and how are you going to position your remaining defenders and everything. So that'd be kind of fun. Again, I'd like them just to continue playing the game under the same rules until it's over or failing that. Just say it's a tie. or failing that, just say it's a tie. Right.

But if you had to inject some sort of ending like that, I'd probably prefer that maybe to Zombie Runner or like Home Run Derby or something like that. I don't know. It's hard to say which would be more of a divergence from the game that you're playing for the first nine innings, but that would at least be interesting. And this would be kind of interesting too, but it would be a big, big imposition.

Yeah. Like a baseball power play. I guess it is something that separates certain sports from others. This is not a way in which baseball is unique, but the leeway, the flexibility when it comes to the number of players on the field or the floor or the ice or whatever it is. Some sports are just like, yeah, you can play with more or fewer. You can pull your goalie. We've talked, I think, about what would the baseball equivalent of pulling your goalie would be. It would be kind of nice if you could just pull out all the stops and at great risk to yourself and make that cost-benefit analysis and the tradeoff.

That would be fun if there were a way to do that. But there's just no real leeway when it comes to that in baseball. You have to have a certain number of players on the field at all times. Now, in hockey, you only have six players to a side on the ice at any one time, I believe you have the goalie, and then you have five skaters, typically. And so if you remove one of those, as often happens, or even more, then that, I guess, proportionally would be an even bigger loss maybe than for a baseball team to lose a defender. So if it works in hockey and it's exciting and it's a big advantage but not a totally destabilizing, sport-breaking one, maybe it could work in baseball too. You just lose a defender for an inning or something. The thing in hockey though is that it's only a couple of minutes.

And I guess in baseball, depending on how quickly the inning goes, it might only be a couple of minutes too. It's only a few outs. You get 27 maybe. right but it it does feel like it is more fleeting like it's again it's balanced right and i don't know that that that would necessarily be true with this i mean i i know that it wouldn't be true with this so we should do we should make it more like hockey than like soccer i think is my my takeaway and am equally well-versed in both and know enough about them to say definitively that I've considered all the edge cases. And yeah. I like hockey. I could use a little more hockey in my baseball.

I would not object to that. Yeah, I'm open to proposals for some sort of baseball permanent penalty or at least longer lasting penalty and actually playing a person down having a real defensive disadvantage. Or I guess you could lose a hitter even, right? Sure. You could just lose that spot in the batting order. The question mentioned the losing the DH idea, but you could lose a hitter and not have to substitute someone in for that spot in the batting order, but you just lose a hitter. Except that I guess that could be an advantage. Sometimes you'd probably want to get your worst hitter ejected so that you would just get your better hitters to come up more often. So maybe that didn't work.

We might need to workshop an offensive implementation of this. But on defense, yeah, I think potentially it could work. I mean, there are fewer balls in play than ever these days anyway, so it wouldn't be as big an impact probably, especially with data-driven positioning and everything. We've talked about maybe fielders and outfielders specifically, they're getting too good. They've got their positioning cards and everything. We've talked about maybe fielders and outfielders specifically, they're getting too good. They've got their positioning cards and everything. So don't just take away the cards, take away the position entirely. That would be a drastic solution, but maybe it makes some sense. All right. A few quick follow-ups for you. On the preceding episode, I ran some numbers to

compare players' performance at the halfway point of the season to their preseason projections to see who was overperforming or falling short by the most. For the hitters, I set a cutoff at 200 plate appearances because I had to set a cutoff somewhere. David Fry just made the cut, but Elliot Ramos did not. And so listener Jacob wrote in to inquire about where Ramos sits on those rankings. He was just under 200 plate appearances. He's had a heck of a season for the Giants. I did link to the spreadsheet on the show page, and you can change the minimum to whatever you want. But if you set a lower minimum, Ramos would have been second overall behind Stephen Kwan among hitters outperforming their preseason projected war pace.

So yes, he has been excellent also. Didn't want to give him short shrift. And speaking of players who've been excellent, follow up to a stat blast on episode 2146. This was back in early April after Jesse Chavez had been a buzzer-beating Braves signee. And we noted that Chavez had historically pitched much better, both ERA-wise and FIP-wise, as a member of the Atlanta Braves than he had overall. And so Ryan Nelson ran a stat blast to see how the difference between his overall ERA and his ERA with Atlanta compared among all pitchers with at least 200 career innings who had spent at least 10% of that albeit with a 3.96 FIP. But still, I wondered how the continuation of that trend had affected his ranking on that list. Ryan reran the numbers and found that among players

with at least 200 career innings pitch, at least 10% of his innings pitch with that team, Chavez has moved from 43rd place all time to 29th. In terms of the difference between his career 2.77 ERA with Atlanta and his 4.21 figure overall, among those with 500 or more career innings, he's gone from 16th to 10th. However, his FIP with Atlanta has actually worsened. So he's dropped down the leaderboard there. But yes, that magic spell that seems to make Jesse Chavez excel at run prevention when he pitches for Atlanta has not worn off yet. for Atlanta has not worn off yet. Finally, I got an email from former major leaguer, published poet, and two-time Effectively Wild guest John Poff, who was on the show on episodes 1739 and 1860. He has, in the past, raised money to bring baseball and other activities to the

Standing Rock Reservation, and Effectively Wild listeners supported some of those efforts, which he was very touched by. So he let me know that he has a new GoFundMe up now. I will link to it on the show page, but it's brief, So I'll read the description. The Rock Creek VJ Day celebration in Bullhead, South Dakota is a remarkable event. For 79 years, missing only the COVID year of 2020, this village of approximately 300 on the Standing Rock Reservation has been remembering and commemorating the end of World War II with a particular focus on honoring veterans. The three-day traditional Lakota Wachipi, or powwow, is held the second weekend in August.

I've attended at least portions of it nearly every year since 2008, and I've always felt lucky just to be there. I've also done a few things in recent years to support the event and community, usually involving youth baseball and softball activities in the week leading up to the powwow. This year, I asked standing rock artist Gilbert Kill's Pretty Enemy

to create a design for a t-shirt. The result is included above, and in conjunction with reservation radio station KLND, which will be broadcasting the opening ceremony, we're planning to give away 78 t-shirts to honor the community and event. So I'm asking people to buy a t-shirt for 50 bucks. I honestly think it's a good deal. You'll receive something that recognizes or acknowledges an authentic slice of Native Americana, and you'll also be donating one t-shirt to the Pow Wow. Again, if you'd like to help out a former major leaguer, former Effectively Wild guest,

and members of the Standing Rock Reservation, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. Check the link on the show page or in your podcast app. And if you'd like to help out me and Meg, and Fangraphs, and our producer, et cetera, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks.

Ian C., Brandon, Ryan Martineau, Nigel Livingston, and Caitlin Ainsworth Caruso. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, the 32nd of which we just posted this past weekend. We did some low stakes rants and celebrations and life updates, and then did a draft of 90s TV shows. You can also get potential podcast appearances, prioritized email answers,

discounts on merch and ad-free fan crafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can still contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast

platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at ewpod. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page and your podcast apps for links to the Effectively Wild listener meetups that could be coming to an MLP ballpark near you. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then.