Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2186: José, Can You Save?

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Phillies reliever José Ruiz threatening Ryan Webb’s career record for games finished without a save, Aaron Judge’s Hall of Fame case, the Mariners having a .540 winning percentage, just as Jerry Dipoto foretold (sort of), Dallas Keuchel being back in the big leagues, the White Sox, weirdly, dictating […]

🎵 Or Mike Trout with Ricky Martin Hello and welcome to episode 2186 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Meg, we must alert the media. Well, we are the media, but other members of the media. Other members. Well, we are the media, but other members of the media. Other members. Alert, alert. Jose Ruiz's pursuit of Ryan Webb's record for a career game's finish without a save is getting serious. He's getting close.

This is an actual record chase. We've lamented the lack of meaningful record chases. This is the most meaningful. It doesn't get any more meaningful than this one. record chases, this is the most meaningful. It doesn't get any more meaningful than this one. This, for Effectively Wild, this is sacred hallowed territory here. 105, the number of games that Ryan Webb finished without ever recording a save in the major leagues, that's up there with 755 and 714 and 762 26.32 and 56, the legendary numbers of baseball. 105 is right there with them.

And Jose Ruiz is coming up fast. If I were Ryan Webb, he's going to have to start traveling with the Phillies soon, I think. So he could be on hand if Ruiz finishes a game, the record-breaking game finish, so that he can be there and pass whatever the ceremonial plaque for having this accomplishment is and pass the baton. And he's at 91 right now. 91. I mean, that's within striking. He's 14 away. He has 10 this season. He had 13 last season. And these are in partial seasons. He is potentially on pace to do it this year. When he came up, we made some mention of this, and I noted there was an outside possibility that he could go for this this season, he's actually, I think, on pace to do it because he has 10 games finished so

far this season in less than two months because he came up on May 4th. And we have closer to three months than two months remaining in the regular season. So if he stays on this pace and keeps racking up games finished and doesn't record a save, we could have a changing of the guards this year. I'm not prepared for this. I think that you are hardly alone in not being prepared because I think other people are unaware. Not even aware. Yeah.

Well, that's why we're alerting the media right now. Alert, alert. What do you think would be inappropriate? Like if you were to present him with an object, something to commemorate the moment, is there like a token you have in mind, a memento for this truly? Look, things can be historic without being meaningful, you know, like that's not requisite. Yeah, other things, not this. Right. I mean, this is. Because this is both.

Yeah, might be the most momentous thing to happen in the year of Rivalry 2024. Like, I don't know. I can't think of anything else to rival it. Ineffectively Wild's lore, that's not really an exaggeration in my mind. This goes back to the early days of the podcast, relatively early. It was a big thing for those who weren't around back then. Matt Albers had the record. Ryan Webb. It was a chase.

And every time one of those guys would get into a game, it would be a big thing. And then when they would have a save opportunity, Albers eventually recorded a save and took himself out of the run inning. It was huge news in effectively wild circles. And then Ryan Webb has reigned supreme now for several years, I suppose. He has not been in the big leagues since 2016. So his totals haven't changed. And I really did not think anyone would get there. I thought this might be one of those unbreakable records in this environment, in this save era where saves are distributed extremely democratically widely. You don't have to be a closer. You don't have to be the capital C anointed closer to be the guy in save

situations. Everyone gets saves. You could get random saves all over the place. You know, you might have like double digit number of guys on a team with a save. You just pick one up just by happenstance here or there. But when Ruiz was called up, I thought this is the ideal

situation for him to go for the record because he's on a good team and he's in a good bullpen and he's probably not going to be a leverage guy. And so he could come in and he could rack up games finished. And that is exactly what is happening here. So I hope he is aware of this. We're alerting the media. We're also potentially alerting Jose Ruiz. And I don't know whether he wants this honor or not, but it's just always appealed to me, this idea of being the guy who finishes games, but not the guy who saves them. There's something sort of tragicomic about it, maybe, that appeals to my sensibilities. And I just, I didn't think that in my lifetime we would see someone make a run at Ryan Webb. And the fact that it's happening so soon just sort of snuck up on me. So we're officially on WebWatch and RuizWatch for the

rest of the season. We'll be providing updates as they occur. I await the next report with great enthusiasm. You know, I do think it's funny that we, you know, we can only ever be ourselves, Ben. And we're like,

you know, if you were to ask people who, which players has effectively wild talked about the most this year, like there would be, there would be obvious ones, right? Like we? We talk about Shohei all the time. And as well we should. He's one of the best players in baseball. Maybe the best. We debate that all the time. We sit here and we

parse out the threads of his greatness. But then we're also like give me the weird saves or not guy and also the knuckleballer. Like, come on. Let's be serious about who we are.

Let's be honest. Yeah. I feel like Otani, if Effectively Wild had a dating profile. Right. You know, Otani is a guy you lead with because you want people to know that you're in touch with reality. Like, you're grounded in baseball as it's played now. But you want some quirky interest too. Yeah.

Yeah. Then on like the second date, you're like, can I talk to you about our Lord and Savior? And they're like, you mean Otani, right? And it's like, oh, buddy, I do not. I sure don't. Well, he's not a savior. Let's be clear. He's the opposite of a savior, right? Because he just does not save. Jose does not save. Well, he's not a savior. Let's be clear. He's the opposite of a savior, right?

Because he just does not save. Jose does not save. Sorry, Jose. Yeah. He's a finisher though. Yeah. Finisher. Hmm. I don't know. Transporting that word into a dating context feels like it's asking for trouble, Ben. But yeah, anyway, here we here we are effectively wild only ever ourselves. So. I guess I'm rooting for him. I don't know. It's exciting to see a chase and exciting to see history. I'm sort of fond of Ryan Webb.

I talked to Ryan Webb and Matt Albers about this distinction and did an article and played a clip from my interviews with them on the podcast at the time. So they were aware of it after I talked to them, at least, whether they were aware of it prior to that, a little less clear, but they were in on it. They were good natured about it. They're good sports about it. And hopefully Jose Ruiz will be too. So he certainly is welcome to come on the podcast if he achieves this honor as well. So I'd be sort of sad to see Webb displaced, but it's always exciting to see a new champion crowned. So, and Jose Ruiz, he has not turned 30 yet.

He turns 30 in October. He could potentially be racking up games finished without a save for seasons to come. I don't know which is more improbable. Because as I said, there's the era effect that I think makes this harder to accomplish now because it's just easier to pick up saves. But also, Jose Ruiz is not as good as Ryan Webb. Right.

And so maybe that makes it easier for him. Ryan Webb had a 115 career ERA plus. It's certainly not spectacular for a reliever, but Jose Ruiz, 96 ERA plus, which for a reliever, not so great when you having some seasons where he was quite good, still never picked up a stray save. He was still never fourth in the line of save succession, and the other three guys had a day off or something, right? So, maybe it's more improbable that he never got there in that sense. Anyway, I'm pumped that this is something we can follow for the rest of the season. I don't know whether our listeners will be. Yeah. I don't know if they will be,

but I have a feeling that they're going to hear about it regardless, you know? I have that feeling too. Yeah. They can influence the programming to some extent, but they cannot quite decide it for better or worse. Programming to some extent, but they cannot quite decide it for better or worse. Again, we can only ever be ourselves. I mean, we can try for a little while to be someone else, but I find it doesn't tend to stick. We have also talked a lot about Aaron Judge this season. So that's more of a mainstream interest.

Yeah. A lot of other people have talked about Aaron Judge, not so much Jose Ruiz. After we talked about Judge and why do people pitch to Aaron Judge on the last podcast, he hit another home run. And he is, I believe, leading in all of the American League Triple Crown categories, which is not really something I get super excited about over and above just his general overall excellence and value. Is it because you're a contrarian? Would you describe yourself as a contrarian? Not necessarily, but yeah, we've talked about Triple Crown. It's not just that RBI doesn't always reflect the talent of the player. We've covered how I feel like the Triple Crown categories are sort of poorly chosen because they overlap a lot. Like if you hit a lot of home runs and you have a high average, you're pretty much always going to have a lot of runs vetted in. Those things tend to move in tandem.

Yeah. So that sort of saps from it a bit, but I appreciate the history and it's certainly something that historically people have cared about and probably players would still care about. And so it would be a little feather in his cap. And I was just looking up at Aaron Judge's career stats. We've been focusing on his season stats, which are spectacular. But if you zoom out a bit, he's put together quite the career as well. And I feel like, and we don't have the Hall of Fame discussion all that often. I'm a little less interested in it. I've chosen not to vote for that. So I guess that reflects my increasing apathy about that conversation. But when it comes to just kind of a shorthand, oh, future Hall of Famer, just for he's really good. He's like an all-timer. He'll be remembered that way. Judge is pretty much there already. late start. And I guess he did for a player as great as Aaron Judge has been in the big leagues to not be established until he was in his age 25 season. It's not like Edgar Martinez late or

someone like that, but it's later than someone who went on to be as great as he has typically got their start, especially since other than the very small sample 2016 performance, he came out of the gate as one of the very best players in baseball, rookie of the year, MVP, runner-up, Silver Slunger, all-star, home run derby champion, et cetera. So it took a while, I guess, for things to come together with him because he's a large man and he had to get all the components of the swing coordinated. But he really did burst onto the scene and has made up for lost time.

And I guess he will be eligible for the Hall of Fame as of next season. And if he were to finish this season on roughly the same pace that he has played thus far, and then had another healthy season next year that were somewhere between like a 22 and 24 and 23. Like last year was, I guess, a relative down year, just largely due to availability, but also not being quite as otherworldly when he was playing. But if he had even a 2023, but was a full season and tacked that on to whatever his career stats will be at the end of this year, if he, for some reason, had to retire after 2025, I think he's a Hall of Famer right there, just meeting the minimum number of years that you need to be eligible.

I think just based on the peak value, it would be all peak. Right, it would be all peak. Yeah, but the peak would be so extraordinary. Yeah, like he'll be at a 170-ish career OPS plus by the end of this season. That is extraordinary and with some ancillary value as well as a fielder, certainly. So, I mean, he might be in if his career were cut short for some reason. I am just trying to imagine Craig Goldstein listening to this episode and being like, I cannot believe that you are entertaining Hall of Fame discourse about a guy who is not yet eligible and is just like giving you so many current narratives to contemplate. Because I don't know if there's anyone who hates Hall of Fame discourse more than Craig does, but I think I would agree with you. It is a whole peak,

but it is such a blistering peak. You're right that there's like some sort of ancillary fielding value. I do wonder for our generation of Hall of Fame voters, now, I know you are intentionally not counting yourself among them, but like I plan to vote when I get a ballot. I take it very seriously and look forward to it, but also feel nervous about it. And I wonder how our generation of voters is going to engage with the defensive piece of guys' profiles. Because obviously there are players who, they're standout defenders, like that is a big part of their Hall of Fame case. But I also think there are going to be a lot of guys who either help us think through how seriously we take defensive metrics or by virtue of their versatility or willingness to play sort of up the defensive spectrum, even when that isn't arguably their best position. But they're doing it because that's what their team needs.

How will that play as sort of an unaccounted for but obvious value that they've provided right because like ideally judge shouldn't be playing center field like he's he's fine out there sometimes he's been better than fine but like he's you know that's not like he's not the best center fielder that you could name right like if you were coming up with a list of the guys who are like plus center fielders even though he has had flashes of that he he wouldn't be on that list probably. Though as we discussed, it's a pretty short list these days. I know. This is why I'm so center field defense pilled when it comes to prospects.

It's like if he's really a standout out there, like he's just going to have a big league career. Like the bat has to be catastrophic for a guy to not have a big league career if he's really a plus center field defender. Yeah, I would say he is a solid average in center field. And that is kind of incredible. It's incredible. Being as big as he is and the best hitter in baseball and everything else. I'm not trying to, I'm not like nagging Aaron Judge. I'm not trying to i'm not like nagging aaron judge i'm not trying to like downplay

this i'm saying that this is like a you know it is like remarkable within the context of his profile and i also think that there is there's something to be said for guys who are kind of game you know they're kind of uh down to do it when it's what their team needs from them. And we can't account for that, like, being a good hang part in their value, but like there is value in that. And this is part of why just to pick a guy who is wildly not even average in the field, this is why I was like,

well, I think that there's an interesting conversation for us to have about 2023 Kyle Schwarber. Cause like, even when you take the batting line part of it out of the equation where it's like he's hitting for all this power but he's not really hitting for average at all it's like he was in the field he was in the field because he had to be and it's like he was bad out there but they needed a guy to stand out there and so they were like kyle bad news bud we can't put you at dh so get out there do your best and like you know it it was part of something that

kind of tanked his value from just a pure war perspective but like there's like service in that that i think we should like account for for guys so anyway i don't think you have to work very hard to make a hall of fame case for judge unless you're like really fixated on longevity. But again, like we are constructing a hypothetical in which his career ends as his eligibility requirements are satisfied. And, you know, that doesn't seem likely. So I think that he will probably end up being a Hall of Famer. And it'll be a really cool story because you're right, he did get a late start relative to other prospects because of a combination of him actually needing to do work on the swing and also the perception that someone that big wasn't going to his case, which, I mean, A, the 62, obviously, that's pretty big. If he were to add a triple crown to that, that couldn't hurt.

And then he would have a couple other home run titles and also gets a lot of attention as a Yankee for whatever that's worth. And I think he's worth something. Also has gotten justified, deserved credit for being not just the captain in kind of like a figurehead sense, but actually carrying the team for large portions of multiple seasons to the extent that any baseball player can actually do that. He has done that, right? So he has a little help. He has a sidekick now. That speaks to how good Aaron Judge is. I'm demoting Juan Soto to sidekick. That right there, that's a hall of favor. If I'm describing Juan Soto as the sidekick to Aaron Judge, then yeah, how could you keep that guy out even if he fell apart at age 34 or something, which I guess is a possibility for someone so large and playing center all the time.

Yeah, I have no concerns about sticking him in center now from a performance standpoint, only from a durability, wear and tear, how will this affect him long-term sort of standpoint. But, yeah yeah he can hold his own out there so i just was almost surprised that he has racked up this value so quickly because he's at like 47 48 war and if he keeps playing at anything like his blistering pace for the past couple months he's gonna be well past 50 by the time the dust settles this season. And if he plays at all, like he has like an average of the past three seasons, then you could be looking at a 60 war career by the end of next season. He has to stay healthy. Things have to go right. But that is very well within his reach. What is not within his reach? Look at the wingspan.

But that is kind of the magic number. It's not like you're automatically in if you get to 60 Warbuck. That's kind of like the rule of thumb yardstick baseline. Like, oh, if you're at 60, you merit some serious consideration. And Aaron Judge is not going to be one of these guys where it's going to take like some sabermetric case to be like, yeah, he deserves it. You're underrating. You're not going to need someone sort of stumping for him

based on obscure stats or something. Like he's literally Aaron Judge. Like he is the most prominent and awe-inspiring player in baseball, at least in some respects. So he's not going to need any help in that respect. So yeah, he could do that. And that just sort of surprised me because I've been marveling at like his rates performance and I haven't taken in the full scope of it.

And it's basically already been close to a Hall of Fame career. That's how good he has been in a fairly short span of time. Pretty impressive. It's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. Okay. So we've reestablished Aaron Judge. He's good. I guess we can do regular check-ins about that too.

We need to say it because, you know, I know that they've calmed down, but it just doesn't take very much to panic Yankees fans in this regard. It's kind of remarkable. Like, are you guys okay? fans in this regard. It's kind of remarkable. Like, are you guys okay? So I couldn't help but notice that your Seattle Mariners, Meg's Mariners, are sitting on a 540 winning percentage right now, which to me is amusing. I don't know whether it's as amusing to you, but it's amusing to me. It hasn't been super amusing lately with them. Like if I had to pick a way to describe them,

that particular adjective would probably be far afield from where they sit at this juncture. It sure is a winning percentage that one can attribute to them at this particular moment in time. Yeah. Yeah. And I bring that up, of course, because of Jerry DePoto's notorious, maybe misinterpreted, but also ill-chosen.

We're not. We don't have to hand it to Jerry. We just don't. You know, we're under no obligations, contractual or otherwise. Yeah. He came out and sort of set the target and said, if you have a 540 winning percentage over, what did he say, a decade or something or whatever the span was, then you'll have done pretty well. And that is true in some senses. We did some stat blasting on that at some point and looked at spans like that.

And yeah, teams that did that for that long had a lot of success, even post-season success typically. But also, it kind of came off as setting a less than lofty target for accomplishment in the regular season. And that seemed to be the site that the Mariners were setting kind of collectively as an organization, ownership-wise, spending-wise, they were not really aiming higher than that. And as we said at the time, you kind of have to aim higher than that. And then if you end up there, maybe it'll work out. And I guess that's what's happening for them so far this season, because they remain in first place. Their position there is in some jeopardy relative to earlier this season. How many games up are they now,

Ben? They're a mere three. Would you count them as only needing one hand instead of two like they did earlier? Yes, yes, I would. They're a mere three games ahead of the marauding Houston Astros, so their lead is not

safe there at all and so 540 might not cut it by the time it's all said and done but to this point i guess it has happened third first place with a 540 winning percentage i don't know if it's a you do not in fact have to hand it to them situation but okay okay okay here's i want to say two things because i want i want to be fair i am interested in giving a fair depiction i do think i do think that the individuals who populate the mariners front office had for a while one understanding of what they were going to be able to spend. And then they were informed sort of late in the game that they, in fact, had a very different number that they had to manage to. So I want to be fair in that respect.

This wasn't like a calculated bait and switch on the part of Jerry DePoto. I think that he got a really unpleasant phone call at some point in the offseason and then had to kind of scramble around to do things a little differently than he had maybe intended to. So I want to say that in fairness to Jerry. And I also want to say that, look, I, too, say a lot of words on record every week and then immediately forget them. on record every week and then immediately forget them you know not every time and not all of them because you know we can call back to what we've discussed on the pod before but sometimes we'll get emails and i was like well maybe i did say that and maybe i didn't but i couldn't tell you just from memory one way or the other um but the problem is that like jerry runs a baseball team that has fans with expectations and i like um have podcasts and

our listeners have uh expectations but also like we're engaged in different projects you know and his project comes with much greater stakes than mine i would say so i think that jerry should should sometimes say less or having taken his team to the postseason one time in his tenure, as exciting as that was, perhaps think about how his comments will read with a fan base that is rather starved for postseason, not just participation, but success. So that's kind of where we sit with Jerry. And I think that there is like a disingenuousness to the idea that like, oh, well, like, of course, these teams that have a 540 winning percentage over a 10 year span are good. And to your point, it's like, yeah, but they're aiming for much more than that. And quite often are posting seasons with quite a bit more in terms of wins um than than

what he was seemingly aiming for the pitching remains superlative the uh hitting is deeply stinky uh is kind of the way that i would sort of go about describing it i know he's only very recently back from the injured list, but Jorge Polanco looks pretty cooked and quite bad in the field, Ben. I was sitting there watching them yesterday try to beat the Orioles

and I'm watching Polanco just be kind of a doofus in the field and then when they had runners in scoring position, an opportunity to maybe mount a rally just swing at the field and then like when they had runners in scoring position an opportunity to maybe mount a rally just like swing at the first pitch he sunk ground into a double play in the inning and i thought to myself you know ryan bliss probably would have done the grounding into a double play part but he might look like less of a doofus in the field so i just don't know what to

make of them and i think that the problem that they face is that it's they're more than um one good bat from being a potent offense like they're farther away from it than that and also as we've discussed like what bats are really going to be on offer in this trade environment so i don't know man like i'm just sitting over here with a panic in my voice and a feeling of resignation. And I'm trying to get my way out of that feeling of resignation, maybe in multiple facets of my life right now. But this is one where I feel like it would be nice if they could do a better job because it feels more achievable than some other things, the other races I may be tracking right now. Man, I really want an explanation for what's going on with Julio, though.

That's the real puzzle, Ben. I saw a stat circulating that since the start of last season, Julio and Jared Kelnick have the same WRC+. 112, I think it was. Sorry that you're spending as much time in Mariner's Twitter as I am, Ben. To be clear, that feels like a more active choice on your part than it does on mine. But yeah, I also saw that stat and then I stared at the wall for a minute. It feels bad. And look, I want to be clear. I think that Julio will be fine eventually. I think he'll find his way out of this. And I am having a struggle right now. I wonder if you're having this problem. I was talking about this with other Ben where I'm having a little bit of a hard time this season parsing like for guys who are underperforming relative to expectation or how they've performed even in the last like calendar year like how much is a true shift in profile and maybe true talent on the part of the

hitter and how much is the broader sort of only that we find the offensive environment in and i'm struggling with that you know having to parse those things because sometimes it's really hard to tell like what's wrong like what's wrong what's wrong with him right now you know and i know that they keep tweeting about how he's sitting you know he's there with his private hitting coach and also edgar and their figure and stuff out but then like you know he got dropped to seventh in the lineup yesterday and it feels bad to like see literally julio rodriguez who i think is so talented and so important to this franchise and such a light you know when things are going well and be like yeah that makes sense that sucks ben you know so that's where i'm at with my seattleers, trying to stay out of the panic register in my voice, but also I'd like to get out of the basement, like, resigned register.

I want to be in the Goldilocks zone, you know? I want to be in the happy place, and I'm not. Can you believe Dallas Keuchel's back in the happy place, and I'm not. No. So. Can you believe Dallas Keuchel's back in the big leagues? No. Like, what are we? I can't believe that's happening. What a weird, like, apart from anything else, Ben, what a strange season we are seemingly living through. I brought up Keuchel because he was with the Mariners

in Tacoma, AAA. And now he is just a major league Milwaukee brewer. We have talked about the brewers pitching struggles, despite the fact that they've been successful as a whole. So they're at the, we're ripping the cord. We are breaking the glass. We are trading for and starting Dallas Keuchel, which has gone okay so far, I guess, or at least went okay one time, which is more times than I would have expected it to happen at all this season. I mean, it's not going so well that they're not trading for Aaron Savali.

Right. Yes. They, the team won two games that Dallas Keuchel started in the year 2024. And yes, he has a 6.75 ERA in those games with a 6.37 fit. But nonetheless, he just made it through five and a third, gave up two runs, five Ks, vintage Keichel. It's just amazing to me. I mean, it's sort of nice. He's 36.

He's still hanging in there. I thought he was done-zo after his struggles. I was sort of surprised that he had hung on as long as he had. I think that was a bit maybe for a while on Effectively Wild where he's still hanging around. He's still bouncing around. How many more teams are going to give a shot to Dallas Keuchel? Is it the fact that he's a former Cy Young winner? Is it that? Is it the halo effect from that that they think that that's going to happen again? Because 2022 to 2023, he had almost an eight ERA. He had a 7.96 ERA in almost 100 innings and a five plus FIP, which is not as unsightly, but is not sightly either.

And it's not like he was good the previous year. So it's been quite a while since he's been effective. If we just lump 2021 in there, then we get 260 innings pitched over the past three seasons with a 6.29 ERA and a 5.20 FIP. The FIP actually gets worse over that span. And yet he's still sticking it out and he's still getting some opportunities.

And he pitched decently well in AAA, I guess, PCL to have, what, 3.93 ERA, 4.56 RA there. That's not terrible. That's playable. It's good enough that he got the call, which I am marveling at. It's an opportunity to marvel at how odd things are in Milwaukee right now. This team is doing well and scoring runs and has historically leaned very heavily on really good starting pitching and is starting Dallas Keuchel. And things are going fine.

What a strange time, you know? And what a transition to the journeyman role he had, because he was in the Astros organization for a decade or so. He was drafted by the Astros. He was with the Astros for many years and did not know what it was to play for another major league organization until he was 31, I think. And since then, he has been with the Braves. He's been with the White Sox. He's been with the Rangers. He's been with the Diamondbacks. He's been with the White Sox again. He's been with the Rangers again.

Wait, was that multiple since? I don't know. Maybe not. But he has also been with the Twins. He has been with the Mariners. He has been with the Brewers. So for a guy who was with one organization for his whole adult life to have moved around this much, what an odyssey Dallas Keuchel has been on. Yeah. It's kind of cool because he was, at least for a little while, a really prominent, successful, well-known pitcher. And not everyone would probably want to endure this phase of their career. They'd probably say, you know, I won my Cy Young.

I won a World Series. It was the 2017 World Series. But still, I'm a multi-time gold glover. I'm a multi-time all-star. I don't need to bounce around like this. I don't need to do this anymore. But he does. I guess it's for love of the game. the 2017 of it all scans, you know, you can't win a World Series without offense. So if you view all of that as tainted, which I think is fine to do, like maybe it just stays tainted because you're like, I wasn't banging.

I wasn't part of the scheme, but like presumably knew and also, you know, benefited from even if it was tangentially. So maybe there's a, hey, I want to win one that is quote unquote clean. And maybe, yeah, he just really loves baseball. Maybe he just really loves baseball. Maybe it's hard to let go of the thing that has occupied so much of your time and life. I like that. There was an era where maybe that was more common because the financial gap certainly between the minors and majors or some minor leagues and majors was not nearly as great. I mean, I'm talking long ago in baseball history.

And so you would have guys who would sometimes choose to stay with certain minor leagues. It was just more convenient and the level of play wasn't so dramatically different and better quality of life and the salaries were kind of comparable. And so you'd just have guys who were even prominent players, stars in the major leagues for a while, and then they'd just bum around in what we would think of as the Bush leagues. But maybe they didn't think of them that way for years and years. But now you probably don't see that quite as much because you just don't need that anymore to ensure your financial future. If you were a prominent player like that, you get demoted. You don't need to do it for the paychecks to stick around if you're Dallas Keuchel. So you must be doing it for competitive reasons, for enjoyment reasons to some degree. So I kind of like to see that, you know? Yeah.

You find out what someone really feels, I guess, about the game. Not that you need to do it purely out of love for the game. No. You can do it. It's a job. It's a profession. But it is kind of nice when someone shows that that's the case. And they don't have, like, such a big ego.

Right. when someone shows that that's the case. And they don't have like such a big ego. Right. They're like, I'm above this or I don't want to endure being tattooed like this. I'm a former Cy Young Award winner. He's just like, yeah, you know, I'm just going to try to make it work.

I guess it'd be kind of cool if he hung on and managed to stick with the Brewers and the Brewers won their first ever World Series and Dallas Keuchel got a ring with them. That'd be kind of an interesting story. Yeah. I was also thinking that if anything, the degree to which the White Sox are commanding the trade market has only increased maybe since the last time we talked because, again,

pretty thin, pretty slim pickings pitcher-wise if the Brewers, a first-place team, are picking up Dallas Keuchel. And a couple of the non-White Sox options that would have been appealing to teams have back injuries now of varying severity. So, Jesus Lizardo may be more severe, maybe won't be back before the deadline. maybe more severe, maybe won't be back before the deadline. And now Flaherty is out for some amount of time and has been bothered by this too. And he would have been, I mean, we talked a little bit about the season Jack Flaherty has had in Detroit,

but quite a bounce back for him. So he would have been among the most appealing pitchers for teams to try to pick up. So you take those options off the board, you're just looking at Garrett Crochet and Eric Fetty just gleaming on top of the pitcher pile. And I guess Luis Robert with the position player side too, I guess, unless the Blue Jays really do decide to sell, which they certainly could. And then that would inject a few more players into the market, but it's still looking pretty

slim because there just aren't a lot of teams that are out of it. And it's just such a strange situation for a team this terrible to command the market the way that they do. And I don't know whether Garrett Crochet will have to be shut down at some point for workload-related reasons. So you might have to be worried about that if you were picking him up with an eye towards a deep postseason run.

You might have to give him a spell at some point. He just hasn't had those innings totals and obviously has injury history. So that might affect what you could get back for him. But he's not just a rental either. So, yeah, those two guys, like we've noted, or three guys, if they want to entertain offers for Robert, like that's, man, they could really run that deadline if they want to say, yeah, we will increase our risk of being maybe the worst team of all time but it will pay off because we could get a haul here and and some of the other there's like the pitching part of it i know that like louise robert has like his own injury stuff

but like some of the teams that maybe had appealing guys on soon-to-be-expiring contracts are just in it enough that they're not likely to move them. The Twins aren't going to move Max Kepler, right? They need Max Kepler. They're not going to move Byron Buxton. And there were times where it was like they seemed like they were fading and maybe they would consider it, but I really don't think that's likely. So I can't imagine the pressure you must feel if you're in Chicago's front office right now because you have just an absurd amount of leverage in this moment. You have guys who I think are going to be seen as really impactful. You're right that the crochet innings thing is probably lurking in the background for a lot of teams. But you have such appealing options.

You have some of the only appealing options. You have such profound organizational need. Better get it right. Yeah, really. Yeah, this is sort of a franchise-altering decision. Trade deadline, potentially, yeah. Potentially, yeah. Who else is there?

I mean, there's Tyler Anderson, who's having a bounce back with the Angels. Gosh, it's just like, who is out there pitcher-wise that would— I mean, it really depends on how aggressive a team, like say the mariners are gonna be because you know if they really want to push chips in and go for it like they have great starters ben don't know if you've heard but like what yeah they didn't even need dallas keitel they're like yeah you can have dallas keitel which is funny because now it's like with Wu's up and down health, it's like, maybe they do need Dallas Keuchel. But I think that they're in a spot where if you're going to move, I don't imagine they do it, but if you're going to move George Kirby, you got to get a big

return for that. And where is that? That's not on offer, I don't think. So, yeah, man, like it's sort of White Sox or bust. And I don't know. I just don't know, Ben. I just don't know. I feel so nervous for everyone in that front office because like if you don't nail it, I don't know, that might be a career altering deadline for that front office. Cal Quantrill, you belittled as an all-star candidate the other day, but as a trade candidate. Sure. Yeah. Look, look, look, look,

it's different when you're getting them out of course in like a profound way and a real way on a permanent basis, but also like Cal Quantrill is not as appealing as, as either of the potential White Sox guys. I mean, like you're not breaking down the farm for Cal Quantrill. Sorry, Cal. Sorry. No offense. You know, I like Cal Quantrill. I feel like he hasn't been fully maximized as a guy yet. I mean, he was good with Cleveland, but what a weird deadline it's going

to be. I feel like it's going to be tense because it's always tense and you're like, I'm prepared to work a lot, but am I going to have to? Who could say? No, it still seems likely to be slower than usual, but there are some teams now where you're looking at Toronto and the other Chicago team, which I did not expect the Cubs to be potentially in that position, but not looking so great for them. So as we said last time, inevitably there will be some teams that slightly separate themselves from the pack in a good way or a bad way. And then there will be maybe some more players that people would actually want who will be available by the deadline.

But it's really the White Sox deadline to determine. You know, it's like everyone's waiting on the White Sox, which is just so, so weird because they're the worst team in baseball and yet have the most appealing players at the deadline. This is boggling my mind. Yeah, I consider my mind boggled. Good, I'm glad we agree on that.

Here's another mind-boggling fact for you. This is not a fun fact, at least for the players involved. I just did a little math on the Boris 4 and the Boris 5, if we want to include JD Martinez. Which, if we're trying to be generous to Scott Boris, we should. Yes. Any little bit of production helps here. Because Jordan Montgomery just went on the IL right after another disastrous start. So, look, I'm not here to salary shame these guys.

They should get what they can. And I thought, if anything, they didn't get as much as they should have or could have. If anything, they didn't get as much as they should have or could have. And yet the return on even the lower than expected investment so far. So Fangraph's war is higher on these guys than baseball reference war, of the five. Yeah. Cody Ballinger, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman, and J.D. Martinez. They have combined for 4.9 fangraphs war and 3.2 baseball reference war. Oh, no. Yeah.

And they are making, I think, a combined $117 million this season. Wow. Yeah, there might be options or escalators or something in there. But if there are, I don't know that they're going to trigger them. Yeah. So if we just do an on pace here, we're like 52 point something percent of the way through the season. So these guys on pace, not looking at projections, obviously they would project to be better the rest of the way than they've been thus far. They could hardly be worse, but they would project.

They're just on pace. That is to accumulate 9.3 fan graphs war and 6.1 baseball reference war. So if we do a little division there, that would be 12.6 million per win fangraphs wise, which is not so bad. You know, that's not disastrous. I don't know what the going rate for wins on the free agent market these days, but generally it's said to be something like nine or 10 or something. So that's not so bad, I guess. If you take the baseball reference, the 6.1 on pace, then you're looking at a 19.2 million per win, which that's not the return on investment you hope for. This is sort of salvaged to some extent. It's brought closer to respectability by the position players,

or at least the couple of the position players, right? Because JDM, he's only making 12 million this year and he's been solid like as a DH, obviously. So it's not going to be an enormous amount of value, but 1.4 war for a DH making $12 million at this point of the season. That's good. That's a, yeah, that's, that's a bargain. I would say even, and then Matt Chapman, he's, he's been good too, right? Yeah. He's, I think, making only $18 million, and he's either a two-win or a three-win player, depending on which war you look at. So that's perfectly fine. And Ballinger, he's like a one-war player.

Yeah. And he's making $30 million, so that's not exactly what you want, but at least he's in positive territory. So it's really, it's really Snell and Montgomery. Like I just lumped them all together and that's not a rosy picture. But if you drilled down to just Snell and Montgomery, then it gets really, really ugly. And I don't even want to do the math. In fact, it would be difficult to do the math because they're in the red combined, at least by baseball reference war. They've combined for negative 2.3 baseball reference war thus far and are making collectively, what, 57 million or something this season? Yikes. So I wonder whether this will change anything about future free agencies for teams or for players. Do you think that this will put pressure on either side or both sides or agents, Scott Boris or otherwise, to not have it going down to the wire.

And it could be just a correlation, not causation. We'll never know for sure. There have certainly been examples of guys who signed late and were their regular selves once they got going. But between the fact that a pitcher needs to get ramped up and probably doesn't want to risk getting ramped up before they're actually signed, because you could get a sproing at any second and then no one's going to sign you so you want to get that guaranteed money and then get yourself ready for the season which means that you're going to be late starting the season and the way that things have gone for those two guys so far i guess maybe their teams would have been better off if they'd taken even longer to get there

even though the giants as we covered have apparently been eager for Snell to get back on big league mounts. So I just wonder whether this will make teams more hesitant to wait like this or players more hesitant or agents to sort of play the game of chicken, knowing that this is a possible outcome and knowing that their clients might be looking at this and being like, well, I don't want to be the next Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery, both contract wise and performance wise. It's hard for me to know because I think that as we discussed when we were trying to gauge like, what does this market really tell us about free agency as a broader institution? All of these guys had sort of obvious flaws in their profile. And so I am reticent to use them as a real sort of standard bearer for a particular understanding of free agency. I mean, I think that like the, the idea that you as a pitcher

want to be signed early, or at least with enough time to have a normal spring and ramp up is like, that's always been true and obvious, right? I don't think that anyone has looked at guys who have signed late and thought like, that's an enviable position to be in like that, enviable position to be in like that you know so i think that where it it perhaps creates pressure is on the agent side to have a very firm and real understanding of the potential market for their guys because i think that if boris had had a better read on on these, they probably still sign for less than they want, but they sign much earlier, and you don't have as much opportunity for their performance after a weird spring and a late signing to sort of vindicate the market's perception of them. So, I don't know. Now, they could have very easily signed on a normal timeline and then just sprung in the spring or been bad. There were reasons to feel trepidation about their ability to replicate their most recent good performance.

were like they were flawed dudes in a weird market and you know you had this influx of talent from japan that was like really appealing to teams and like they just were stubborn and boris you know misjudged kind of how the market was gonna unfold and so i don't know i'm i i don't want to say like oh yeah we've learned everything we can and you know i don't want to say like, oh, yeah, we've learned everything we can. And, you know, I don't know. Guys want to be with their team in spring, you know, fill them at 11. Right. And then does it confirm the fact that they were seen as players with flaws? Well, now, gosh, the flaws were even bigger than we thought. Or is it the circumstances that accentuated whatever flaws that they had and obviously didn't put them in the ideal position to succeed. I think it's hard to know how they would have done if they had had

a normal spring, but it can be a little bit of both, right? Like it can be a, we have a couple of guys who had a flawed profile or who had profiles where, like with Bellinger, it's like, yeah, it was pretty easy to construct a case that like there was some amount of mirage to what he did last year, right? Well, things will almost inevitably look up for them, hopefully the rest of the way.

So if they finished strong, maybe it'll look a little better on the whole. But yeah, it doesn't look so great so far. One thing that I wanted to mention because we talked about the challenge system yesterday, I just remembered that we got an email about that from listener Jared, who wrote in to say if MLB ends up going to the full ABS at some point or the full challenge system, I guess, not ABS on every pitch. Is there a chance that a good framing catcher actually harms a team in the sense that he fools the pitchers enough to challenge calls that are actually balls? Correct me if I'm wrong,

but I believe the team loses the challenge if they get it wrong. That's right. So hypothetically, a catcher fools his own pitchers enough to make them challenge the calls and loses his team's challenges all on defense. So he just makes the calls look so good, I guess, that the pitchers are deked into challenging. Right. Like, so I guess how would this work exactly. Like the catcher would receive the pitch so well that he would make it look like a strike to the pitcher. And then the pitcher would impetuously say, that was a strike. And then would issue a challenge because the pitcher or catcher or hitter can call for the challenge and then would waste a challenge because the pitcher got as confused and misled by the catcher as the umpire did, right? So is that a real risk? So I don't know that you can always tell in the moment from the stands who called for it, but my response to Jared was just from my research. I don't have any data on this. I don't even know if data is kept. I assume it is. I would assume that either teams

are keeping it or the league is keeping it or both. But what I found is multiple articles saying that teams have already decided that catchers are better at this than pitchers and that they should be the ones to challenge. For instance, I found an article from last May that said one week into the ABS challenge system. So this was early on. AAA teams are developing their strategies. This was the Clippers. Tracy, for instance, encourages players to use the challenge system only in high leverage situations, usually later in games. No other player or coach except the pitcher, catcher, hitter at the play is permitted to make a challenge. And while pitchers have the ability to make challenge calls, Tracy prefers for challenges to come from catchers and hitters because pitchers can lose the path of the ball on a violent windup. Right, yeah.

So that's one reason, I guess, just a little less stable perspective depending on the pitcher. Maybe not the only reason, though. Here's another article from last May, and this was the Bisons, and they were interviewed about what they do, and it says, only the batter, pitcher, and catcher can challenge. The Bisons have their catchers institute challenges

when they're in the field rather than the pitchers. And here's one pitcher, last name Lawrence, said, we're so far away as a pitcher. And it's tough sometimes in certain situations, depending on the pitcher trying to execute to really tell, did that pitch catch the plate or did it miss by just a little bit? Was it a strike or was it a really good pitch? They're two different things. So I like relying on my catcher back there who's sitting there following it in with his eyes. I haven't personally challenged anything. If it was something in a big situation,

you know, seventh inning with the bases loaded, striker ball, I would think about it, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. And then another pitcher says, I leave it to the catcher. I think as a pitcher, we can at times get a little prideful when it comes to whether it's a strike,

if it's a good pitch. And then you go back and look at the iPad or when the report comes back and it's a ball off the plate. So it's a good pitch, And then you go back and look at the iPad or when the report comes back and it's a ball off the plate. So it's a good pitch. Yes. But if we're out here challenging, they, the catchers are a lot closer to home plate. I trust them and trust their judgment.

The catchers we've got here are really good. So that's multiple reasons cited. One is violent delivery. You might just not be able to keep your eye on the ball if you're the one throwing the ball. You're farther away. And also you might be more biased, I guess. And there might be kind of more riding on it for you personally. And so you might let that get in the way of your objectivity.

And then I found another article from this March. So a little more experience with the system. This was the Nats, and it says, based on what AAA players and managers experienced last year, there's another unwritten rule that is gaining steam. Only catchers should challenge calls, not pitchers. And then there's a quote from Nats manager Davey Martinez who says, the thing they've told me, presumably minor league staffers, the thing they've told me is don't ever let the pitcher challenge because they're 0 for 1,000. 0 for 1,000, Ben. 0 for 1,000. Might be hyperbole. Only slightly, I imagine. They're 0 for 1,000.

The catchers are really good at it. So, yeah. Interesting. Apparently, that's kind of become not the actual law of the land, but the rule that people have followed is that catchers are better. So, you could, in the heat of the moment, still get a pitcher. They still retain the right to. And I guess if it were high leverage spot and the catcher made it look really good, yeah, you could kind of confuse your own pitcher potentially. But I guess as this gets standardized, if it is true that catchers really are so much better at this, then that will just be the prevailing practice. And you probably just, it'll almost be like in a front to the catcher if the pitcher were to signal, right?

Like it'd be like, hey, know your place, like, stay in your lane or something. So, maybe it really is an unwritten rule, not just in the sense that it's advantageous, but also, like, maybe you'd ruffle feathers. Like, maybe your catcher would be like, hey, that's my thing, you know? Pitchers with your pitchcom, you can call your own pitches now. Like, let me be the guy who challenges because I've got a better look at this thing. I think that that's right. And I think that I doubt they'll meet much resistance on that score. Like, even if the reason for taking it out of the hands of pitchers is that they might not be great at self-assessment in the moment, hopefully removed from like the heat of game action.

They'd be like, yeah, that's the right thing for us to do here. Yeah. I would like to see the data, hopefully removed from like the heat of game action, they'd be like, yeah, that's the right thing for us to do here. Yeah. I would like to see the data though, see how close to 0 for a thousand it actually is. And also whether the rates at which the different players at those positions have changed significantly since this system was instituted and they've kind of learned their lesson. That would be interesting. I'll see if I can get any info on that. All right.

Shall we finish by meeting a couple major leaguers? Let's. Meet a major leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer. I am going to be introducing us to Spencer Bivens, who's a right-handed pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. And we always link to supplemental material when we do these, but I'm going to be borrowing heavily from Zach Buchanan's 2022 profile of Bivens, who has had to call his career nomadic.

I think is not quite doing it justice because this guy has been all over the place. Yeah. We like a convoluted origin story for a media major leaguer, but even by the standards of players we pick for media major leaguer, this guy has been everywhere. Yeah. To the point that like, I'm going to quote heavily from Zach's profile, and I am not remotely doing it justice, but I figured it was better to quote rather than just sit here and read a whole article to you. But to quote from Zach, he'd started about as far from baseball's epicenter as possible. His professional career began in France, where he was paid in cash and where games were played only on the weekends. After a journeyman collegiate career, which we we will get into going overseas had been the best and only option available to him since then he'd gotten

closer to the majors geographically bouncing around a variety of stops in american independent ball yet his dream of playing in the big leagues felt just as distant as it did across the atlantic so that's like the beginning of zach's profile and it is at the point where Bivens has signed with the Giants out of the independent honey hunters of the Atlantic lead but when we say that his journey was winding we aren't kidding Zach noted in this piece that in a recent interview simple stop-by-stop retracing of it takes 13 minutes to complete Bivens grew up in State College Pennsylvania which is famously home to Penn State and he wanted more than anything to pitch for the Lions. He has a tattoo of Pennsylvania with a star marking his hometown adorning his left wrist.

He played in junior college before he got to Penn State at Lewisburg College, where he pitched to a 3-1-4 ERA as a sophomore in 2014, and then he transferred to Penn State. He's getting ready to realize his dreams, right? He makes the team on his first fall on campus, and then he failed a drug test. He tested positive for weed. The NCAA has since raised the threshold for a positive test. So had this happened years later, he probably would have just been able to pitch for Penn State, but he was disqualified. He stuck around Penn State. He ended up having shoulder surgery. He was throwing to a couch in his basement as a way of trying to build back from surgery when Rogers State, which was once an NAIA program and then was elevated to Division II, brought him in without actually having seen him pitch. One of his JUCO teammates recommended him to the coach there.

And he ended up earning a rotation spot. He recorded a 1-4-7 ERA in his first year and a 2-3-7 as a 24-year-old senior. But it was like, what's going to come next? And that's where France answers the picture. Baseball hotbed, France. He had another teammate who had signed overseas and he kept pestering this guy over Snapchat and eventually signed with the Lions, who played for, and my God, do I have to apologize to every French teacher I've had in my life. 78, so orange?

That's the league, not the team. The team was the Lions. He had a 2-1-5 ERA for them, and it looked like his baseball career was actually going to continue in Europe. He signed with a team in the Czech Republic, and he was very excited about it. It was going to come with an apartment in Prague and a bigger salary and flights in and out of Europe covered. And he signed for the 2020 season. So that didn't end up happening

because the entire season was canceled because of COVID. After that, there were a lot of steps. So here again, I'm going to quote from Buchanan. There were the Washington Wild Things in Pennsylvania and the Lexington Legends in Kentucky, both of whom were among the non-MLB teams to play baseball at all in 2020. Former Reds star Brandon Phillips recruited him to the ladder. When the Wild Things released Bivens early in the 2021 season, a friend lined up a bullpen with the West Virginia Power, which like, guys, that's a terrible name, of the Atlantic League. Bivens drove down from Pittsburgh, pitched, got back in his car, and was halfway home when the job offer came through. Bivens joined the Power at the start of a two-week road trip and was traded to Gastonia, which is a domestic team.

It's not back overseas. I know with a name like that, people might be confused. On the last day of the road trip. Gastonia. Yeah, Gastonia. He didn't wind up back where his car was for a full month, which I think is a delightful anecdote. And then came a lot of repertoire tweaks because when you're in your mid-20s and you've played in France and are bouncing around indie ball,

you have to make changes to your profile. So again, from Zach, Bivens had added 25 pounds of muscle. He signed up for Tread Athletics, a pitching development company that offers training online. He junked his four-seamer in favor of a sinker that had wicked arm side movement and Bivens

picked up a new slider grip from a post he ran across on social media he showed up in Gastonia that spring sitting in the mid 90s with nasty movement and then he was you know continuing to sort of bounce around and play an indie ball and then was signed by the Giants as a 28 year old in 2022 at an indie ball and that year that year, he reached AAA. He went to Fall League. He pitched in the Fall Stars game. He went back down to high A the next year, spent most of it at AA, where he posted a 3.69 ERA and a 3.51 FIP. And he had thrown 41.2 innings of 2.81 ERA ball in AAA this year when he got called up on June 16th. He debuted in relief against the Angels that day, allowing a run and striking out four across three innings of work.

And he said after, as he was describing, getting called up, we were in a game and I got a call in the bullpen to come down to the dugout and our manager was kind of dancing around the fact that I wasn't available that day. Then he told me I was going to the big leagues and I was just kind of in awe, he said. He hopped in a rental car, drove from Reno to meet the team in San Francisco. And just a few hours later, he made his big league debut. His parents were there, although his dad wasn't able to get there in time. He said, my dad actually got there. His flight was delayed. So he got there in the seventh. But having my mom there meant the world to me. It was a moment we'll all have for the rest of our lives. And I'm just super grateful.

And he was sort of, you know, just pitching in relief and doing okay, like one to two inning stints until then, the big day, June 30th, when he was called on to start for the Giants because they had played an 11 inning game the day before and they had completely exhausted the bullpen. Things were so desperate that they ended up DFAing Spencer Howard so they could call up Landon Roop, who hadn't pitched for AAA Sacramento since May 16th because he had an elbow issue. And he traveled to San Francisco directly from a rehab assignment in Arizona where he was pitching down here on the complex. And who is he facing in this start, this emergency start, but the vaunted los angeles dodgers so this is from andrew baggerly's gamer i was hoping it would be the the steel city slamming sammies no it was much

more exciting than that um here's here's andrew's gamer bivins retired shohei otani on a hard ground ball to start a seven pitch first inning he got three quick outs on 10 pitches in the second he pitched around a double in a 13 pitch third inning He retired three of four batters on 15 pitches in the fourth. And with the Giants pouring it on against their arch rivals, taking a 9-0 lead thanks to a record setting flurry of extra base hits, manager Bob Melvin decided to let Bivens take the mound in the fifth and try to qualify for the winning decision. And he gave up a home run. He had Chris Taylor on. And then he struck out Otani.

He threw three pitches, a well-located sinker, a high four-seam fastball, a slider that veered onto Otani's hands, and the feared slugger swung through all of them. It was a big spot, Bivens said. Didn't matter who's in there. I didn't want to give up that run, but it happened to be Shohei. And this was actually his second strikeout of Otani, his first coming on five pitches in the third. Said Bob Melvin after, he's pretty confident in what he does, Melvin said of Bivens, who picked up his first major league win when he made his debut on June 16th. on June 16th. He's got a much better pitch mix now with the changeup, obviously, to let him go through Otani three times. We had a lot of faith in him. Two times top is what I'm looking at, but wanted to get him the win there. After a couple outings, he's got control of his emotions,

and we leaned on him today pretty hard. He's rewarding us almost every time he goes out there, and Patrick Bailey, who caught this start, said, that was awesome, man. It's kind of humbling just thinking about it, talking with guys in the dugout, everyone saying, man, this couldn't have happened to a better guy. His story is just awesome. To have that emotion on the mound, you could just see his life, see his story out there. It was really cool and special to be a part of it. And then he went on to say, with Bivens, his stuff's been good the whole time. And today he was locating the sinker, locating the cutter, the slider. He threw some good change-ups. It's as good as he's been. He's lined for the day.

Five innings pitched, one earned run, three strikeouts, no walks. And he was, of course, asked about his journey to the big leagues after this, his first start. Probably his first start in a couple of years because he had pitched in relief since being signed by the Giants. How much time do you guys have? Right. Today, I didn't think about it

at all, he said. I'm a major leaguer. I try not to think too much, go day by day, just blessed to be here. So that is Spencer Bivens, who I think has one of the better stories of the 2024 season. He does. He is a major leaguer and we met him and he turned 30, I, a couple of days before that start, June 28th. And gosh, I mean, he averages 95 with his fastball, which is like ho-hum these days, I guess, who doesn't? But still like 95, 6'5", 205 pounds, like big guy throws hard by historical standards, and still it took that sort of like incredibly long trek for him to make it. It's really hard to be a big leaguer is my takeaway from these segments often. And he is on Twitter at Mocha Bivens, and he is on Instagram at Bivs Marky. And actually, according to his Twitter profile, and his header is the Michael Jordan, I took that personally meme, but his Twitter profile says that he is a type one diabetic on top of everything else. What a story.

What a story. Bivins, this is pretty awesome. So he was nominated by podcast Hall of Famer, giant fan, friend of the show, Jesse Thorne. Thank you for bringing him to our attention. Because man, just like any undrafted guy who makes it, but if you walk onto your JUCO team and then you transfer to your four-year club and you get cut and then you go to france and then indie ball and then you wash out of indie ball yeah what a journey so yeah spencer bivins okay well i'll give you two names and neither of them can quite compare to spencer bivins although one of them can compare on age at least so the one that one that I'll say first, I was concerned that he was too good,

which is why I kind of have a backup here who's more in the mold of a meet a major leaguer. But I wanted to shout out Jake Bloss, who just debuted for the Astros last month, and he skipped AAA. And he's like, actually a prospect. I mean, he's not a top 100 guy or anything, but Eric Langenhagen seems to be very high on him. Higher than the consensus, I take it. MLB Pipeline had him as the number 10 Astros prospect and Eric on his Astros top 40 list that was just published last month, had him second, number two. So when I saw that, I was like, oh, the prospect pedigree here is too rich for my blood. But the reason why I wanted to single out Jake Bloss here,

and he was nominated by someone I went to school with, Andrew, because he is a Georgetown guy. Yeah. And I'm also a Georgetown guy. And as I think I've said, I don't have a lot of school spirit for Georgetown. I went to Georgetown. Right, yeah. As more of like a transactional relationship.

I gave them a lot of money and they gave me a degree and we went our separate ways. Like, I don't have. You and fellow Georgetown alum John Mulaney you're like all right like yeah the business is done we've we've completed our transaction yes we've concluded that portion of our time together I didn't like dislike it I made lifelong friends there and everything but I I don't know I don't have a special fondness for it the way that maybe I would have if I'd gone to other school. Not that I was ever like a big rah-rah school spirit guy, but much more so with my high school, Regis High School, where I

was actually legitimately excited when Declan Cronin became the first Regis Raider ever to make the majors and actually had him on the show. I'm not going to go that far with a Georgetown guy. I'm not like a Hoya Saxa person. What is that? Wait, what does that mean? Hoya Saxa? Is this like a special Georgetown thing? Like when more people say Anasikata? Yeah, it's the college, Yale College kind of thing.

I'm not going to make fun of it. We say Anasikata. We're like, you know, we're weirdos too. I get you. Yeah, I married a Syracuse grad. Yeah, I married a Syracuse grad, and when we went out the first time or two and she brought up the rivalry, I was like unaware that it existed. Ben, come on, Ben. I mean, I was very vaguely aware that there was like some enmity. How do you not know that?

Because I just, you know, my affinity for college sports. I mean, I can't even rouse myself to care about college baseball, let alone other college sports. So I was like, okay, I understand. Like it rang a bell. Yeah. Did you spend four years at Georgetown walking around being like, what are all these people up to on the weekend? I don't know. Like they seem enthused about something. Won't investigate. Who could say? I never attended a college sporting event.

I don't think just the level of apathy, maybe this is why my relationship with Georgetown is like, yeah, it was fun. You know, I went there for a while. I learned some stuff and then I left. But it is notable because it's not exactly a baseball hotbed. Maybe if it had been a baseball hotbed, I would have been a college baseball guy. You never know. Maybe I'm not a college baseball guy because Georgetown is not really the place to get into college baseball. college baseball. So the history of Hoyas, who have been big leaguers, is not long or rich or recent, at least. It's been a while. So I'm just going to look up here the recent history until Jake Bloss made his major league debut. The most recent Georgetown guy to make the majors was one Tim Adelman, I assume. Adelman, Adelman, Adelman, who briefly was in the big leagues in 2016 and 2017.

And then there was Sean Maloney, who was in the big leagues 97 to 98. And then before that, you have to go back to like the 60s and then even further back to find some. And those are some position players there. Like if you wanted to find pitchers, it's Bloss, Adelman, Maloney, and then you got to go back to Don Brennan in 1937. So yeah, it's not really a great pantheon of baseball talent. And so it is notable. If I have a Regis Raider on the show, I feel obligated to at least acknowledge that Jake Bloss, who also went to one of my alma maters, is now a major leaguer for the Astros, 6'3", 223. And he's a young'un by the standards of this segment. He just turned 23

in June, I guess, right after he was called up. Yeah, he's from Greensboro, North Carolina. He was a third round pick last year. So again, like he's moved quickly. So it was not really in doubt that he would be a big leaguer at some point the way that it was with Spencer Bivens. But the rave review, the glowing report that Eric gave Jake Bloss and listed him as a starting pitcher with a future value of 50. He was taken 99th overall in the 2023 draft out of Georgetown after spending his first three years of collegiate ball at Lafayette College. So that's another thing. He transferred.

He was only at Georgetown for one year. Oh, false Hoya. Yeah, false Hoya. He coasted through A-ball, was given a quick hook to AA after the first month of the 2024 season. Is hook a thing you say about people being promoted? Hook I associate with being removed from a game. Yeah. After the first month of the 2024 season, is hook a thing you say about people being promoted? Hook I associate with being removed from a game.

Yeah. I've heard it used that way, though. Yeah. Bloss throws from a high slot that, along with his plus extension, generates significant carry on his 93 to 96 mile per hour four-seamer. The pitch has a 31% miss rate so far in 2024. He also has a deep secondary mix to back up the fastball. His 76 to 81 mile per hour curveball is a very vertical breaker. He'll adjust the amount

of depth on it, sometimes throwing a deep freeze type while others, he'll shorten it up for a more drastic snap action. Gosh, Eric knows

everything about everyone. How does he know all of these things about thousands of players? I just, this also boggles my mind. He watches them. That would help, probably.

And then it feels very tired. I mean, I clearly thought Hook was fine there because I left it in when I edited it. Bloss is a fairly explosive, whippy-armed athlete with below-average body control and frame composition. We're skeptical the improvements he's made as a strikethrower in 2024 will stick, but the way his fastball plays doesn't make that a strictly necessary aspect of his profile. He's trending up and tracking like a mid-rotation starter. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Jake Bloss. Okay. So the more meet-a-major leaguer-y guy was nominated by listener Riley, who is Jacob Basiokovic. Jacob Basiokovic, who, like Spencer Bivens, is 30 years old, but an older 30. And he, as we speak, has not technically made his major league debut yet. He has been called up, though, and is just waiting to get's been bouncing around. Obviously he's from Delaware, Ohio, which is kind of confusing. Yeah. He was drafted by the Rockies originally in the 2016 draft out of the Ohio

state university, which always throws me for a loop, but I know you got to say that. And one thing that is interesting. You don't. Well, they will tell you that you have to. I know, but look, you don't have to listen to extremists.

Play by their rules. Yeah. Okay. We're going to get emails about that. The thing about Jacob Baskiovic, there are just more letters and syllables in this than I expect every time I attempt to pronounce it. But if you look at his baseball reference positions, and he is also a big guy, 6'5", 240. He is listed as a relief pitcher, third baseman, and first baseman, which is not a profile you see every day. And that is a clue to the fact that he is a converted position player. Yeah.

Or, wait, converted. He's a converted relief. I'm not going to go down that he is a converted position player. Or wait, converted? He's a converted relief. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole. He is a pitcher now, and he did not used to be. He was not a pitcher in college. He was drafted as a first baseman, and he played for some time in the minors as a position player. Low A, A, high A. He was a position player. He didn't do particularly well, as one would imagine, hence the conversion. But he made the conversion in 2019 and has been pitching at various levels since then with the Rockies and then with the Cardinals. I think the Cardinals signed him as a minor league free agent this year, although he was already in their system.

And so you will not find him on top prospect lists at any position, probably. But he is at least in the majors right now, and hopefully will officially make his debut sometime soon. So love a converted position player who becomes a pitcher or vice versa. I don't know which direction is more fun, if it even matters, but I think it's kind of cool to do both. I guess I'm maybe, I don't know, am I more surprised by one transition or the other? I guess like sometimes you have the guy who can't hit, but he's got a great

arm and so you make him a pitcher. That's what happened in this case. I guess maybe if I see someone who has a great, I don't know, maybe that's more impressive to me going that way. Maybe it doesn't matter. They're both pretty impressive. So he was also in the Atlantic League for a while. He was with Charleston last season and then re-signed with St. Louis and had a pretty decent start in AAA. And he's got control issues, big time walk rate in Memphis this season. But Cardinals needed a fresh arm. And so they called him up and hopefully they will actually use him in that capacity, right-handed pitcher. So congrats to him for making it. He's not quite the odyssey that Spencer Bivens, not at least like in terms of number of leagues and places and geographically

speaking, but positionally speaking, an even more adventurous route to the majors to have been a first and third baseman and then to become a pitcher. So congrats to our three newly minted major leaguers. And thanks to our nominators. You can keep the nominations coming. Yay. That will do it for today. 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, help us of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly

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