Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2204: Is a Leadoff Walk Worse Than a Hit?

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about how Jorge López has done since his release from the Mets, Juan Soto‘s underrated dominance, George Springer’s post-replay rage, whether the Rangers are a candidate for Angels-esque August waiver shenanigans, whether Dodgers pitchers are particularly prone to Tommy John surgeries, and the divisive value of Salvador Perez. Then […]

How can you not be pedantic? A stab blast will keep you distracted It's a long song to death but the shore to make you smile This is Effective in Why This is Effective in Why Hello and welcome to episode 2204 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley, FanGraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you?

Well, I'm ready to relay an email we got from listener Aaron in Madison, Wisconsin, who says, I think the national audience needs an update on Jorge Lopez, who most probably figure has washed out since the weird episode with the Mets. So you remember the weird episode where Jorge Lopez lobbed his glove into the stands and then he got released by the Mets and we did a weird episode of Effectively Wild

where we talked about that weird episode, and then he got picked up by the Cubs on June 11th. And so if I just set the minimum at 15 innings pitched since June 1st, do you know who has the lowest ERA in the major leagues? Is it gonna be Jorge Lopez? No, it's Carlos Estes. But do you know who has the second lowest ERA in the major leagues. Is it going to be Jorge Lopez? No, it's Carlos Estevez.

But do you know who has the second lowest ERA in the majors? Now I don't trust you. Now I'm worried. It's Colin Snyder of the Mariners. But do you know who has the third lowest ERA? This time, I'm not going to pull the football away. It's Jorge Lopez. He has a 0.46 ERA for the Cubs since they picked him up with a solid 2.42 FIP as well

in just about 20 innings almost. So I guess that's worked out fine for the Cubs and for Jorge Lopez and not so much for the Mets who have the 25th best park adjusted ERA since June 1st and I think the 24th best bullpen war. So they've needed bullpen help, but they have not gotten it from Jorge Lopez. He has provided that help to the Cubs. So that's the coda to that strange saga. He threw his glove, but he's throwing baseballs highly effectively. So thank you to Aaron for pointing out that

Jorge Lopez, as Aaron wrote, has been absolutely nails since the Cubs picked him up. You know who else has been fantastic and who did not throw any gloves into stands as far as I know? Juan Soto, who hit three homers against the White Sox this week in one game for the first time in his career. He had never done that before. And it counts even when you do that against the white socks, maybe there should be some discount rate applied, but in the box score, it's the same number of home runs and I guess Juan Soto has actually ended up being underrated because he is overshadowed by Aaron Judge because he's playing in Aaron

Judge's literal shadow and also he is outclassed offensively by Aaron Judge which pretty much no one else would be able to say about Juan Soto this season. I mean he's having one of the best seasons in Yankees history, he's having one of the best offensive seasons, well, post-Barry Bonds really, if we do like the last 20 seasons since Bonds' 2004 otherworldly year. This one Soto season is the sixth best by WRC Plus, and that's if you count the 2020 one Soto season when he was slightly better in 47 games, which we won't for these purposes. So it's Aaron Judge, 2024, Aaron Judge, 2022, Bryce Harper in his 2015 MVP year, Miguel Cabrera

in 2013, and then Juan Soto. So he's like a top five full season if he sustains this over the past two decades. And yet we're probably not talking about it as much as we would, if not for Aaron Judge, just being even better, being the best hitter over that period and hitting right next to him. So I don't know if Wonsoto Minds being overshadowed in that way, certainly Yankees fans appreciate it, but nationally speaking, maybe he'd be getting even more credit than he is if he were not part of this just titanic, unbelievable one-two combo. Nicole Zichal-Klein I want to offer, if I can do it over the leaf blower idling outside my office.

Sorry, that was loud. I'm going to offer a theory that this is actually the perfect situation for Juan Soto, because you know what I haven't heard? You know what I haven't heard Yankees fans or sport talk radio types or beat reporters speculating about or grousing about or, you know, doing any other sort of bad verbs about whether he's going to sign an extension with the New York Yankees. I feel like this has allowed him to just be incredibly good, continue to build on his wildly impressive resume post a walk year that has to be maybe not exceeding his expectations, but certainly living up to them, right? Like what more could he possibly do to secure the free agent deal that he is going to want than what he's done, but he's gotten to do that and we haven't had to reschedule an interview with Scott Boris even one time because of

leaks about Wonsota's contract status. So I think that this is exactly the right thing. What a lovely gift Aaron Judge has given him. The only downside I suppose is that he's not going to win the MVP. And you know, that would be a nice thing for him. Not only because who doesn't want to win an MVP, but in your walk, you're like amazing. But I think this is working out just fine for him. I think it might be perfect. Oh yeah. I mean, it's his contract year. It's his walk year. Every year is a walk year for

one Soto, but it is his walk year, his platform year heading into free agency and he's going to profit. He's going to make an enormous amount of money. Maybe from the Yankees who having seen this up close and personal and relying on him the way that they have him and Judge this year, they will be pulling out all the stops at least in the current Steinbrenner era. What qualifies as pulling out all the stops for them. They did it for Judge, they did it for Garrett Cole. I get the sense that they will do it for Juan Soto, but yeah, he's just put any conversation

about a mid-season extension aside because it's like, you know, why would you not test the market when you're having this sort of season? This has already been a career year for him by Fancrafts War and we've got several weeks left in the season and it's been an incredible career to this point. So he's already been, I had the sense, I think I said this spring, like I feel like Wonsota is going to just go off. I mean, you know, not that it's a super soosayer to predict that Wonsota will have a good season. But I felt like even for him, not necessarily because of Yankee Stadium, it didn't seem like the short porch

was gonna make that big of a difference for him. But it seemed like he had underperformed as a padre, not that he had performed poorly, he was great, but it seemed like he could be even better than that and that maybe we could see something like he had done in 2020 over a full season. And he's pretty close to doing that right now. So it's just been, it's been a masterclass and yeah, they're

going to do what they can to keep him. He's still just 25 years old. It's unbelievable. Ben, you read my mind. You, we, we've had a, a brain wave moment because I was just about to say that there's so much about Juan Soto's player page that is incredible, right? We could look at his WRC+, we could look at his war, we could look at his walk rate, we could look at his strikeout rate, we could simply marvel at so many things, but I think the thing that knocks me flat every time is his

age. He's still only 25. He is 25 for three more months. What in the world? He is currently tied with Johnny Bench as the 20th most valuable position player through age 25. And he certainly has time to pass Joe DiMaggio and Sherry McGee, the legend Sherry McGee.

And to catch Ted Williams, he's about half a win behind Ted Williams right now, who he's been compared to his whole career because of his patience and walks. And then Eddie Collins is within reach. I mean, he could end up, gosh, he's gonna end up like close to a top 10 all time player through age 25, despite being mostly a bat first player, right?

Not really a defensive whiz or a base runner extraordinaire. He's just doing it with the bat. And he's off to just an incredible start to his career. I saw that Aaron Judge called him the greatest hitter in the game after Soto's three homer performance, which I guess you can say magnanimously if you're Aaron Judge, right? I mean, I don't really see the argument for Juan Soto

as a greater hitter than Aaron Judge currently, right? Judge also said he's the greatest hitter in the world, not just in the game, though I guess that is sort of, it amounts to the same thing, I suppose. But that's, you know, nice of him to say. I don't know whether he actually thinks that Wansoto is a better hitter than he is, or what the grounds for that would be necessarily.

But yeah, to have two of those guys, maybe the two best then, it's pretty nice. It's an embarrassment of riches and the Yankees have always had riches. They just haven't had a whole lot else going for them, but those two have been enough. One player can't carry a team having an extraordinary season, but maybe two, maybe two can. It seems like that has propelled them to first place again. As we speak a couple other things. Did you see George Springer just going completely apoplectic?

He was ejected from a game because he thought and insisted that he got hit by a pitch on his foot. And it was ruled not a hit by pitch and he objected and he said, let's go to the video tape. And they went to the replay review and the replay review did not overturn the call on the field. And he just went wild. He was like, it wasn't even like a hold me back, bro. It was like, they actually did have to hold him back. I don't know what he would have done or, you know, like if you're going chest to chest with an umpire, that can only end badly for a player in terms of suspensions, but he was beside himself and the replay did seem to show that it did hit him. Maybe it wasn't completely conclusive and clear and convincing. In other words, that start with a C,

but it certainly looked like the ball had been redirected by his foot. And I guess if you got hit and he didn't have like a extreme exaggerated reaction to the hit by pitch, he wasn't like hopping around as if he was in extreme pain or anything, but it's got a smart wherever you get hit by a pitch. Yeah. Especially if it's in your weird little bones, if those little weird bones, those ones hurt. Yeah. And so if someone's telling you that you did not get hit while you're still smarting from

getting hit, then I guess I would understand why, you know, that's insult to injury. Like I would, I would be upset. I'd be up in arms. I'd have a righteous rage about that too, but it's interesting. There was an article at baseball prospectus earlier this season called anatomy of a lie by Roger Cormier. It was late last month and I very much enjoyed it because he went through all the examples of times when a hitter pretended to have been hit by a pitch, but then replay review showed that they were not actually hit by a pitch.

You know, like the, the classic example is Derek Jeter in 2010, where he pretends that the ball hit his hand, but it actually hit like the knob of his bat and he goes out there and he's acting and the trainer comes out and is feeling his hand and checking his hand and everything. And you could tell on the replay that he was not actually hit and Joe Madden, it was against the Rays and Madden was their manager and he got ejected for coming out and protesting, but that was pre-replay. And so we knew watching at home that Derek Jeter was faking and there was a rounded discourse about is this cheating? Is this gamesmanship is this bad sportsmanship, et cetera?

And, you know, if you're inclined to like cheater, you're just like, he wants it. You know, he wants to win. And that's all that matters. Right. Although is this really more Bush league than a rod shouting ha or trying to slap the ball out of a glove? Maybe it, maybe it isn't, but maybe it's maybe those are more Bush league, but you know, it's aaking it till you make it,

right? But Roger went through all these examples in the replay era and he found that there were 138 times when a batter was incorrectly ruled to have been hit by a pitch and then the replay overturned that initial hit by pitch call. And there have been more of these in recent years. So he just had a whole lot of entertaining gifts and clips and videos of these guys who, you know, were lying and kind of knew they were lying. And then they get called on it. And for the most part, when the replay overturns it, it's kind of an embarrassing thing, right? Because you know, your acting job has just been exposed to all the world and everyone on the field knows and the umpire knows that you were trying to deceive them and you just get completely called on it.

And most of the time as he documented, there's just kind of like a sheepish smile, you know, it's just kind of like, okay, you got me, you know, like they're pretending up until the moment when the call is overturned. And then they basically cop to it and they just, you know, like they're pretending up until the moment when the call is overturned. And then they basically copped to it and they just, you know, maybe they feel a little bit embarrassed, but I think everyone, you know, this is a pervasive practice, right? And maybe people don't blame you for trying to take your base. And I guess sometimes there's probably actual pain, even if you didn't legitimately get hit by the pitch, because maybe it hit on the knob of the bat or whatever. It stung a little, I guess you might know that you didn't get hit, but still have an

initial ouchy reaction. But it is funny when they get called on it. And having read this article and watched all those clips, I think I'm now more inclined to believe George Springer and his reaction as indicative of his actually getting hit because usually when players are called out and caught on this, they kind of cop to it. And so the fact that Springer, it's not as if they all continued to maintain and pretend that no, the replay was wrong and I was actually hit and here's the bruise or, you know, here's the mark on my shoe polish or whatever, right? The smoking gun.

So I actually inclined to believe because of George Springer's performance here and how angry he was, you know, it's not like he just had to commit to the bit. I don't think having insisted that he got hit, he had to like put on a performance. I buy it. I think he actually did get hit and that's why he was so mad. And why wouldn't you be if you were hit and someone said you weren't? It would be very frustrating because it's like, that's the kind of pain where you're expected to move on from it so quickly as a player, right? Unless it's the kind of injury that's going to force you out of the game and then potentially

onto the injured list later. Like you have a new part of your job that you have to go do like right away, right? Like you reach, you've been hit by a pitch, ouchy, ouchy, ouchy. You get on base and then you have to be a base runner. And like, you might end up jamming that hand against a hard object that is second base later.

So like you have to, you have to move on. And then sort of like me getting over the fact that now the leaf floor is gone, Ben, thankfully gone. Wasn't supposed to come today. Here it is. So, you know, you, you were asked to move on so quickly, but you are given a little reward, a bigger reward really, right? Your awarded first base, you were able to just like skip the rest of this phase of your job and go do the next phase of your job for free. And then to be told, no, no, that pain and the moving on, it didn't happen. And you have to immediately resume your at bat. And I'm not going to give you that much more time as the umpire because I've determined

you weren't actually hit at all. You'd be furious. I'd be furious to be like, look at my little bird bones. I would be tempted in that moment to take off my shoe and show my foot to the umpire and be like, see this emerging bruise you think that it got there from nothing? No, that's a million tiny bird bones interacting with a baseball. What is wrong with you? What if you took off your shoe and there was no bruise and then that didn't corroborate

your story? It's high risk. Yeah, because you don't know if there will be a bruise until you take off the shoe. Right. I'm not saying it's not high risk. I also think we've learned that George Springer not a theater kid because he wasn't able to sell it well. So, that's too bad for him. Yeah, I guess so. And John Schneider, Boudre's manager said, George isn't going to look into the dugout and say he got hit if he didn't get hit. And look, I don't know, maybe, maybe George wouldn't, maybe he's honest George and he cannot tell a lie, but it has happened many, many times that someone has said you should,

happened many, many times that someone has said you should, I guess, I guess in the sense that he initiated the challenge, right? So it wasn't that confidence. Yeah. So if you know, you're acting and faking and then the other team initiates the challenge. Okay. Maybe if you're faking, you're less likely to initiate the challenge, although I guess you've got nothing to lose in that situation. Well, except your challenge potentially.

Yeah, true. Springer felt bad about how angry he got. He said, I got to be better. There's kids in the stands. I don't want my sons to see me get that mad, so I got to be better. So that's a nice sentiment. But also I do understand why he was seeing red in that moment. I think that you can kind of split the difference and have it both ways,

right? Like to your point, I think that the experience of the ball hitting the knob of the bat and that ricochet, particularly, probably not relevant in this example, but you know, particularly if that happens early in the season when it's still cold out, like that is uncomfortable. And I can imagine experiencing that discomfort and very genuinely believing that you had been hit by the ball. And you know, sometimes the ball like hits the ground and it ricochets in a funny way, but it's really close to you. And so you are experiencing contact from the baseball, but it isn't a hit by pitch. It's

like the ricochet of the ball, you know, landing in the dirt and then bouncing onto you. So I don't know that we have to assume them to be liars. A million voices are screaming about the banging scheme right now. But yeah, I imagine it could be difficult to differentiate those sensations in the moment when the primary experience, physical sensation that you're having is pain. So I have sympathy for this. So something John Becker wrote about for Fangrass this week and Ken Rosenthal wrote about for the Athletic is the possibility that the Rangers might pull a 2023 Angels and wave a bunch of guys before the waiver deadline at the end of this month because they have fallen hard out of it since the trade deadline, right? As we speak, they're nine and a half back in the AL West and 10 and a half back in the

wild card. They're done. They're 10 games under 500. Stick a fork in the defending champions. It's been quite a come down and it's odd, right? You don't usually see a World Series winner fall that far, that fast without doing some sort of fire sale or something. They were certainly trying to contend again,

but things have not gone well for them and they've gone very poorly lately. And so both John and Ken raised the possibility without saying that they think it's likely that the Rangers might do what the Angels did last year, which was anomalous and caused a lot of hand wringing and do we want to change the rules so that this won't happen again? And as a lot of people pointed out, it might not happen again because those specific circumstances might not arise again, where you had the Angels who were kind of talking themselves into one last run while they had Otani and they made a bunch of moves at the deadline and then immediately lost a lot of games and then got rid of a lot of the guys that they had acquired and also some other guys and put them on waivers in their case, largely so that they could just slip under the competitive bounce tax threshold, which they ended up doing by $30,000, which

... That's right. It was so close. Congrats to them, I guess. You did it. It's a nifty little accomplishment that they did there. It would have been nice to win games, but that's something that Artie Moreno at least could celebrate.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that the angels agree with you that winning the games would have been nice. Yes. They certainly attempted to win games before they then attempted to get under the luxury tax. But the Rangers now find themselves in sort of a similar situation in the sense that they also added at the deadline, though not aggressively, but you know, they tried to get a bit better. They tried to stay in it and see how things broke and then they broke. And so now

they could, the option is available to them to try to do the same thing that the angels did. Do you think there's any real risk that that will happen? I mean, there's always a risk of everything, right? Where the sun could go out as we sit here and talk, Ben, that would be upsetting, but it could happen. The answer to this might be a little bit of both. I mean, they do have a couple of guys who are set to be free agents next season. Scherzer probably being the most obvious and expensive among them, right? Because he had a $43 million deal this year and is a free agent for 2025. But a lot of their pending free agents are less expensive. So it's like, what real salary gains do they

get this year? I think that mostly the Rangers, my sense is do not understand themselves to be on the precipice of a huge rebuilds, right? I think that the 2024 Rangers expect the 2025 Rangers to be hopefully a healthier club and a more competitive club, right? This did not go the way that they were hoping that it would. And so I'm skeptical that they have the sort of appetite for a huge revamping of the team. They're also in sort of like a, at least by our estimations of their current sort of luxury

tax situation, sort of in a funny in-between where they're well past the first luxury tax threshold and I think comfortably under the second, right? So like the second luxury tax threshold kicks in at 257 million and I think we have them estimated for 250 million. So it's like, how much could they really shut? I mean, I guess they could try to get rid of Scherzer, but like also is that going to do it for it? You know what I mean?

Like I think that the incentives are a little less clear, both in terms of where they sit from a payroll perspective for this year and then what their ambitions are for next year. I think that the incentives are a little less clear, both in terms of where they sit from a payroll perspective for this year and then what their ambitions are for next year. The Angels looked at the Otani-less future and I think we're like, well, what are we going to do? We're not going to be good. We're not going to be good for a while. That I don't know is necessarily the case with the Rangers.

So it's a different thing. And the Rangers just won the World Series and presumably got some revenue boosts from that. And it would be, I mean, it's embarrassing to follow up a championship with a season like this, I guess, even if there is a grace period and you're kind of playing with house money for a little while.

But yes, I think it would look bad to do that the season after a World Series win. And also John ran through the math and he said like they'd have to shed what? 14 million or something. And it would be tough to do. Like they'd have to, they'd have to wave and, and have claimed Evaldy and Scherzer and Heaney and Robertson and Leclerc and Yates and Chafin and Kelly and Erain. He ran through the math of like how you could do it, but you would have to do it fairly early this month. You couldn't wait until like the last day or two, as the angels kind of came close to doing. So they'd have to be more aggressive about doing it just in terms of the number of guys and also the timing. And so yeah, it does seem unlikely though, if it were to happen again, you know,

then I think that that might be a case of like, okay, we don't want this to continue to happen, you know, and have like this, you know, people just, uh, changing the races dramatically at this point in the season, then you might have to step in and craft some sort of way to prevent teams from doing that as liberally. But yeah, maybe it won't happen. It seems like it probably won't happen, but we'll see in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. My lack of concern around the Angels doing it last year was mostly that, you know, they had, I thought made a real effort at the deadline to try to have

a last hurrah to push forward and get into the postseason while Tony was still on the roster and then it didn't work out for them. So it felt categorically different than a team never having tried to begin with. And then, you know, I just wasn't persuaded that this was going to be a newly rampant strategy. And I think I said at the time, you know, that changes if all of a sudden we have a bunch of teams that go, you know, we could do in the month of August, that's a problem and one that we need to have rules in place to counter because then you're moving from the, from the point of incentives being an effective deterrent to needing actual

regulation to do it. So if we suddenly saw this happening with great regularity, and by that I mean not just like a team every now and again doing it, but maybe multiple teams doing it, although it's sort of like tanking for draft picks where you think that the efficacy of the strategy decreases once a bunch of teams are employing the same strategy. I'm not persuaded that this is a problem and I don't think that the Rangers are going to end up doing this, but I do think it's something that we should just keep an eye on. Yeah, it's funny. We did a discussion on an earlier episode when both the Diamondbacks and the Rangers were scuffling and we said, which one of these pennant winners is

likely to get off the mat this season? And I think we said the Diamondbacks because it just seemed like their path to the playoffs was easier, but also they never lose anymore and the Rangers never win anymore. So forget about the easier paths to the playoffs. You have to win games and the Diamondbacks have been doing that consistently, whereas the Rangers have not. So that sort of settled that question. Yeah.

I don't think that I'll be speaking out of turn here when I say that last year, when it became clear that multiple trips to the desert would be necessary for Jake Mintz as a part of a playoff run, that he was very unhappy. He was happy to see his friends, but just like furious about the circumstances. It didn't help that it was October and like 110 degrees for some stupid reason, which is unusual even for here, right? You're like, it's the desert Meg, isn't it always like that? Not in October.

October is our reward for this weird bargain that we've made living here, right? So anyway, every time the Diamondbacks win, I think of our friend Jake and go, he could have to spend a lot of October in the state of Arizona because I don't know how happy he's going to be about that. Well, the Diamondbacks never lose, the Padres never lose, and that's put some pressure on the Dodgers, though they've won a few games lately. As we noted briefly last time, River Ryan, one of their replacements for their injured guys is now injured himself and having Tommy John surgery. And I saw a thread that was like kind of semi-serious,

kind of jokey Patrick Doherty who writes about football for NBC sports. He quote tweeted MLB trade rumors report about the Tommy John surgery and said, not a bit. The Dodgers are not good at developing pitching. They're very good at encouraging the things that lead to Tommy John early in a player's career instead of midway through a player's career. The thread continued and he mentioned a bunch of examples and Bueller and Gonsolin and May and Miller, et cetera. And then the thread wrapped up with every March, colon, man, the Dodgers have too many

starting pitchers. Every October 11th, man, the Dodgers who were down two to one to the five seed in the NLDS are probably done if they can't get at least two innings from Joe Kelly tonight, which you know, there's some truth to that. It's true. So I don't know the numbers exactly of numbers of Tommy John surgeries. It varies obviously by the time in the organization and no organization is unscathed, but you do, you hear a lot like, Oh, the Dodgers and the Rays they're good at developing skill, but also they have lots of pitchers get hurt.

Right. And certainly they have had plenty of Tommy John guys. Now they also, I think have a strategy of maybe acquiring riskier pitchers sometimes. Now a lot of these guys are more homegrown guys, but that could even be reflected in who you draft, right? And so it seems like they have a tolerance for risk when it comes to acquiring talent. And so it's hard to untangle that from, well, are they doing something that is hurting these guys?

But I guess on some level level it might make some sense because I mean, we've talked about how pitching techniques and training and usage has led to more injuries overall, Tommy John surgeries, UCL injuries league wide. So it would sort of stand to reason that if there are teams at the forefront of those pitching techniques and developmental methods, if they're the forefront of those pitching techniques and, and developmental methods, if they're the ones who are doing that best, whether it's adding velocity or spin rate or certain types of pitches or whatever it is, right, then I guess you would figure that they might also incur more injuries.

The pitchers on those teams, just cause they're on the literal bleeding edge on those teams just because they're on the literal bleeding edge of that larger trend league wide that is causing more injuries through max effort, et cetera. So what do you make of that? I do think that the talent acquisition piece of this shouldn't be underrated. I would want to see a study about the actual prevalence within the organization of Tommy John relative to other clubs because I don't know that I'm persuaded that that's necessarily true. It very well could be.

And I think that like it is worthwhile to cast sort of a critical eye to the eye, to the notion of like, are you not only developing effective techniques, but sustainable ones, right? You always have this looming threat of injury with pitchers. I do think that the Dodgers are notably an organization, particularly when it comes to the guys they draft, where they are willing to draft guys who they know have either recently had a TJ or are going to need to have a TJ, right? That there is already a diagnosed tear and that the player is going to require Tommy John and will have to do their rehab under the Dodgers watch.

I think they have confidence in their ability to help those guys come back and come back in a way that's effective. And so Bueller's a great example of this. And we know that like once you've been hurt, you're more likely to get hurt again. So I think that there can be a greater prevalence of TJ within the organization. Again, I want to know if that's actually true and have that not be necessarily an artifact of a particular approach to player development and simply a reality of we are willing to take in guys that makes it sound like they found a kitten

on the side of the road, but we're willing to draft guys or trade for guys who we know either need TJ or have had TJ, right? Like they got Glaz now in the off season. They famously signed Otani, right? Like they got Glas now in the offices and they famously signed Otani, right? So there's just like an appetite for that or at least a lack of aversion to that, that I think is notable with the Dodgers, which isn't to let them off the hook. Like I think that, again, it's a worthwhile conversation because you ideally want to, you know, if you're doing something that is both player and organization friendly, in theory, you want these guys to like be good and be able to stay healthy enough to like be on the roster.

Two things can be true at once. I think that teams can be a bit cavalier and this isn't necessarily a Dodger specific observation, but I do think that teams can be a little cavalier with the way that they train guys to velocity and the role, given the role that velocity can play in injury and strain on the UCL. But I also think that like there is a, an upper bound to this stuff because it takes time and resources to help players develop into frontline starters to high leverage relievers to big leaguers, period.

And I do think that there is a limit to how Cavalier, even the most sort of like cynical of organizations could be because if you want to win baseball games, you do have to have guys, you have to have good guys. You have to have guys who can throw October innings. And just because there's a frustration with the Dodgers ability to like have those guys available, healthy, rested, optimally deployed come October doesn't necessarily mean that there is an indifference to their health in the course of their development. It's all a long way of saying that's a really interesting question that someone should look at. Yeah.

I'll take a look at the list of Tommy John surgeries and I'll report back at the end of the episode. I do see that the Dodgers had the most pitchers of any team pitch for them last season who had had Tommy John surgery at some point. They had 15 pitchers they used last year who had Tommy John surgery, not last year but at any point up till then. So they did lead the league, lead the majors in that respect, but I'll take a look at the minor league numbers as well.

You've got to go, let me ask you one quick thing. Do you think that Salvador Perez is the most divisive baseball player playing today when it comes to sort of old school versus new school evaluations of Salvi. Because multiple times this season, I've seen rounds of debate breakout. There was a discussion in our Discord group just earlier today. There was a whole, is Salvador Perez going to be a Hall of Famer discourse that happened earlier this season? Do you think there's anyone, I guess, post-Yadi, maybe this is kind of a catcher thing.

I think it's a catcher thing. That's it. Yeah, you're anticipating my answer. I think it's a catcher thing a lot of the time. Yeah. Maybe it is. Yeah, because there's a big disparity in fan graphs war and baseball reference war when it comes to Salvi because he rates very poorly when it comes to framing, right? So his baseball reference war is like twice as high as his fan graphs war because baseball reference doesn't take into account framing. But even as baseball reference wars, it twice as high as his fan graphs were because baseball reference doesn't take into account framing. But even as baseball reference wars, it's not really like Hall of Fame level, but you know, like maybe by the time he retires, if he hangs on, he's still pretty productive.

He's still hitting. It's kind of confusing because like he's been a bad hitter for certain stretches of his career and then his late career, he's turned it on and he's been a pretty good hitter for certain stretches of his career and then his late career he's turned it on and he's been a pretty good hitter maybe because he like got a break in 2019 and you know he hasn't played and started every single game in every single inning of every single season which always led to him being worn down I guess but yeah it's about the defense maybe but it's also like I like Soutley you know? So everyone likes him, right? Yeah, he's an important player. Yeah, and so I don't want to be on the sides

that's like, you know, arguing against Salvi. I just, I don't know that I see it because a lot of the cases about awards, it's about all-star appearances, which he has a whole bunch, although, you know, Royals fans, they have been prone to sort of stuffing the ballot box for All-Stars in certain years. But also he has a handful of gold gloves too, right? And maybe those at least just based on the framing weren't super deserved.

But again, like he could make up for that in other ways. But you know, he's won some silver sluggers too. Like it's just, I think because some people see him as more of a Yadi defensive level catcher and I don't see him that way. Right. Right. So Yadi like was divisive, but I think he's going to get into the Hall of Fame easily probably. And that won't upset me. Really. I think he's, he's, you know, close by any standard at least. And if you give him credit for some intangibles or whatever, I'm not going to get mad about it because I understand that argument.

And certainly he shut down the running game and everything. Salvi, I love the man, you know, and he won the world series and he had big hits and he's been with the Royals his whole career. How can you not root for Salvi? So I almost hate that it turns into this sort of like statistical culture war with him because I don't want to denigrate the guy, but also I don't know that I see him as quite as valuable as some people see him. I think that the way out of this conundrum is simply to, even if we don't, I don't know

if I think this is true of him, I guess I do. It's simply to say like, well, the thing he's good at is the thing we can't quantify yet. And you know, he does have to work with some young pitchers. They had guys come into the organization in the off season who were new. Like it makes sense that he would be connective tissue there in a way that would matter. Clubhouse leader, mentor. Yeah, definitely those things, you know, I'm sure very important for the young guys in that organization. So I think that's the way to try to avoid the fight.

But yeah, I do think that there's just going to be the combination of different approaches to trying to quantify catcher value between a couple of the different sites is one thing. And then, you know, I think part of the thing here is that you also get, folks, this is probably less true with Salvi, but like has been true with catchers generally in the past where I don't know that fans are necessarily good at making the mental sort of adjustment to league wide catcher offense, right? So when they view their guy in relation to other position players, they maybe are judging their catcher too harshly because what they should really be doing is looking at how terrible a lot of catcher offense is across the league and then being like, oh, well, he's hitting

250, he's doing great. There's just a lot of mental adjustment and indexing that one has to do when assessing a catcher. And I think that that makes people tired and cranky. And so they just like to fight after that. And I guess it's just that the thing that saprometric sorts tend to value like walks, right? That's obviously a deficiency of his and then framing more recently.

So that's why you're going to get a difference in opinion there. I saw on Reddit that Salvador Perez in his career has the same number of walks that Barry Bonds had in 2004, just that season. We talked about his 2004 season earlier. So if you use, say, FanGraphs War, maybe Baseball Prospectus Warp, you might end up with Russell Martin or Brian McCann ahead of Salvi. But I don't think that's going to be the case on Hall of Fame ballots. He's lacking in the areas where a stat head might be more likely to hyper focus on certain stats and DACA player, you know, fairly, but okay. So we are going to hand over the rest of this episode to a guest stat blaster.

Her name is Bailey Hall. She is a 17 year old high school student and she just gave a very well received poster presentation at Saber 52, the convention that just happened in Minneapolis. And she tackled a topic that has been of particular interest to our audience over the years, which is worse, lead off walks or lead off singles? Do more runs score in an inning after a lead off walk than a lead off single? We've gotten that question at least eight times, which I know because I have a stock response that I paste to a listener. Whenever we get that question, I've, I've assembled several links to

old research and studies. I don't usually just copy and paste email answers. I give bespoke answers, not just form letter responses, but we got this particular question so many times that I have sent that little grab bag of links at least eight times. And now I will add a new link to it, to Bailey's poster. So she will be here after the Stratblast song

to school us on lead-off walks. Well, we're joined now by Bailey Hall, who just won the Convention Poster Presentation Award at the 52nd Saber Convention for her research on a topic that I know many effectively wild listeners will be interested in because many of them have asked us about it, leadoff walks versus leadoff singles and the scoring that follows each. Bailey, congrats on your win and welcome. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to have been invited on to talk about this. I'm happy to have you. Happy you addressed this subject, which people never tire of being curious about. I'm curious about your background too before we get to this topic.

How did you become a baseball nerd like us? Well, I'm about to be a senior in high school and I'm from Austin, Texas. And my whole family is long time Texas residents from all over. So we've just always been Astros fans and Colt 45 fans before that. And so it almost like kind of ran in my blood, like I think it is for a lot of kids who start watching baseball and caring about the sport. So yeah, it just seemed like the natural path. People will sometimes lament,

oh, young people don't care about baseball anymore. Maybe that's slightly changed post pitch clock. And MLB has bragged a bit about how audiences have gotten younger, ticket buyers have gotten younger, but you're a young person. You love baseball. Do you find that to be a valid critique in your peer group? Do you have any ideas about how to bring baseball to your generation? I do definitely think that the sport is struggling to bring in young viewers. I don't have any statistics on that. That's just from growing up in a high school. Everybody likes to watch the World Series

and stuff like that. But I don't think a lot of people take the time to really like read articles about it and get super interested in it. Like I think a lot of older generations did. But one thing that I think is important about getting young viewers involved in the sport, and this might be controversial, but I think that a lot of times we like to focus a lot on just the baseball. And I think that's not really what it's all about. Like I work at the AAA stadium here in Austin, well, it's in Round Rock actually,

which is like a suburb of Austin. And I think one of the biggest draws to get people interested in the sport is when we do like theme nights or we have like meet and greets of cool people come to the stadium and stuff like that. Things like that really do get people interested in coming out and coming to the stadium and then they get super interested in watching the sport and stuff like that. So I think it should never be seen as like it's not important to care about kind of everything else around the sport, which I think sometimes is lost. So yeah, that would be my suggestion if people want to get more young viewers involved.

Just making you speak for your entire generation here. And, you know, once folks kind of get a taste for baseball and enjoy watching it and have a desire to understand the game better, one of the ways they can do that is to become affiliated with an organization like Saber. I'm curious, when did your involvement with Saber start? How did you find your way to them? Because I don't know that it's maybe the most popular way for high schoolers to spend part of their summer vacation.

Probably not. Yeah, so I have, you know, been a baseball fan much longer than I've been a Sabre member. I joined Sabre almost two years ago. It'll be two years in December, I think. And I was kind of reaching the age where I was interested in more than just kind of watching it. And I felt like I was old enough to like really understand what some of like the statistics meant and all that kind of stuff. And so luckily I have quite possibly the most amazing parents ever. And so my mom had been a member of Saber when she was a kid and when she was my age and she remembered it.

And so she gave me a oneyear membership as my Christmas present. So that's how it started and then we've just loved it ever since and kept going with it. So yeah. Wow. I don't know what's more common, 17-year-old baseball fans or 17-year-olds who say they have the most amazing parents ever. But you're maybe the exception in multiple respects.

What do you do for Round Rock? It is very low stakes. I would say. I'm part of the event staff, which basically means that depending on the day, I'm an usher or I work in the kids section or I work in the private event space that we have or I'll work the front gate, that kind of stuff. So they're all important jobs, but I move around the stadium, I would say. Not that you need to know what you intend to study or what you want to do down the road,

but is this the first step in trying to work in baseball in some capacity or are you interested in other things too? I'm only 17, so there's lots of things that seem interesting to study. And I think one thing that I fear my generation does a lot is trying to pigeonhole themselves into only being able to do one thing. But it would just be absolutely amazing if I was able to work baseball into my career. And definitely working at the AAA stadium is one of the first steps that I've taken

to really kind of explore that. And I think one thing that's important is to figure out all the different avenues and how you can work in baseball because there's so many different ways you can do it. And I think sometimes it's hard to realize all those different paths when you're just watching the game or looking at the stats and stuff. So I definitely think working there has really helped me see all the different ways and all the different, you know, like sales, marketing, like all this stuff that's

involved in running a team and stuff like that. So yeah, if I could work in baseball, that would be amazing. Well, it's not a bad entry point. Our lead prospect analyst, Eric Lagenhagen, got his start in baseball working for the Phillies AAA affiliate, the Iron Pigs. Yeah, that was his first baseball job. So yeah, you're on a good path. And I think one of the other ways that folks tend to find their way to teams is to do the kind of work that you're doing, right? To do public facing research that other people find interesting. So tell us how you landed on trying to answer this particular question with your Sabre presentation.

Well, back to, you know, my whole family being baseball fans. Ironically, my older brother, who's the only male grandchild is like an avid baseball hater. He's like the only one in my family that is just would never sit down and watch a game. Wow. On what grounds? Too boring or what? I think it's he's in his, well, he'd probably be mad at me for saying this, but I think it's because he wants to be different and wants to like not. That's the form of rebelling to be anti-baseball. Okay. So he's a teen is what you're saying.

Yes, that is what I'm saying. But he did, he's a huge, I don't know if y'all know what Quiz Bowl is, but Quiz Bowl is like, it's like Jeopardy kind of, but like as a team. And he's like, he's very good at it. He's, I don't want to sound my brother short. He's, he's very good at trivia and things like that. But I will say that our baseball, just always watching baseball and always having it on,

definitely has helped him with his trivia stuff. So he can't say that he's never gotten anything from us liking baseball. But yeah, so my family was just super interested in baseball and we would always, every night we'd have the game on and stuff like that. So my dad, every time we would watch a game, he's like screaming at the TV about a lead off walk.

That's like his least favorite thing ever. And he's always like, I could pitch four balls for half his pay. That's his, that's his thing. Only half? Yeah, I could do it for a lot less than that. That's pretty good? Yeah. I could do it for a lot less than that. That's pretty good. Yeah. So basically my dad kind of spurred the idea because I was always like, I don't feel like leadoff walks are that bad.

I feel like they're overhated in the baseball world. And I think it's kind of like this age old question of like, which is worse, a leadoff walk or a leadoff single? And I think if you ask any old sage baseball watchers, everybody hates a leadoff walk or leadoff single. And I think if you ask any like old sage baseball watchers, everybody hates a leadoff walk. Like it's a thing that a leadoff walk is just the worst way to start an inning. So I guess I kind of just wanted to put that to the test and almost prove, prove my dad either right or wrong, see if he was valid in his hatred of leadoff walks. So how did you go about testing the contention?

and his hatred of lead-off walks. So how did you go about testing the contention? So, well, that it was, I'm sure for people who have done more analysis and stuff like that, it probably wouldn't be that difficult. But for me, who has never done any sort of statistical analysis work before this, step one was just like figuring out how to find the data, which actually ended up being, for me, pretty difficult

because I wasn't really sure how to like kind of approach that question. So I ended up using two different like massive data sets and kind of combining them together in like in Google Sheets and in Word and stuff like that. And so I got it from Baseball Savant and Retro Sheet. And what did you determine? I determined that when you look at it from just a macro perspective and you just say of all the leadoff walks and leadoff singles that have happened, the data set that I used was from 2008 on, from 2008 to 2023, the regular seasons. And I would love to expand that to be more than just to 2008, but it was really difficult to find the data for that.

That's how far back baseball savant goes, right? So I kind of hit a bit of a wall there, but I would love to keep working on that and figure out if I can make it expand earlier. But I found that if you just look at the overall question, which is worse, a lead-off walk or a lead-off single, there's practically no difference between the two. So that kind of debunks the whole lead-off walks are the worst thing ever theory. You want to give us the exact numbers here

because we're a numbers friendly podcast if you have them handy. Sure. So overall, since 2008, in innings starting with a leadoff walk,.94 runs score, and compared to leadoff singles,.93 runs score on average. So your dad was right. Barely. Barely, yes. Yeah, not really. It's a pretty insignificant difference, but kind of just interesting overall. And I thought

it was just interesting to see how on average, regardless of comparing the two, just on average how many runs score off of them, I thought was kind of interesting to learn. I think one of the reasons that lead off walks, because I maybe don't have quite as strong and allergic reaction to them as your dad does, but I think that part of the reason that they rankle is that it feels like a battleman almost, right? If the pitcher, the base is empty, he's just got all this opportunity ahead of him, puts the first guy on because that's how we tend to think about walks, right? As a failure on the part of the pitcher rather than the hitter doing something good, which isn't, I think,

quite right, but that's intuitively, I think, how it strikes many people. And it feels like if that happens, if he succumbs, if he puts the hitter on rather than the hitter just, you know, getting a good swing off that further misfortune will befall him, whether in that inning or in future innings. So I'm curious if there are other questions that you're interested in asking off of this. Like, does it indicate a greater likelihood of future run scoring? Is there anything like that that you want to maybe expand this research with? Actually, when I presented the poster at the National Saber Convention, there were so many people who were asking amazing questions and trying to help me figure out where a next step would be, or just genuinely asking for certain clarifying things.

And so one thing that I think would be interesting to figure out, and I think this could kind of help because I agree with you that it's kind of this thing where if the pitcher gives up a leadoff walk, it's like he has no control and he's going to struggle in the inning versus a leadoff single doesn't always have that same connotation, I feel. So one thing that I thought would be interesting was to analyze the amount of pitches in the at bat, because I think that could really tell a lot. So it's like, was it four straight balls or was it this like, you know, super long drawn out at bat, like that kind of thing, because I think that could also help answer some of like those mental questions, because I could imagine that for a pitcher, having a 10, 12 pitch at bat would be taxing.

So yeah, that's one of the first questions that I think would be cool to expand it into. How does your dad explain his distaste for the leadoff walk if he has explained it? What is it exactly that gets his goat about this? Good question. I think he has this thing and I am speaking for him on this on his behalf. So maybe I'm butchering this. Well, you've already spoken for your entire generation. That's true. That's true. So I'm speaking for a lot of people. But I think he always he says the same thing about a batter who doesn't choke up on strike

too. He just doesn't like when he feels like players aren't being smart about the way that they're playing and it kind of feels like giving up a leadoff walk like you have you have a clean slate at the start of an inning right like you don't have anything against you yet. And so I think his thing is always like to start poorly in a way that tells everyone like, oh, this pitcher has no control. This pitcher can't seem to like get it together. It's like the worst way to or the worst message, I guess, to send out to the team, kind of.

So, yeah, I think that's and versus a leadoff single, which is like, I guess, to send out to the team, kind of. So yeah, I think that's versus a leadoff single, which is like, you know, maybe it was a good pitch and things happen. Yeah, it feels like an unforced error, I guess. As Meg was saying, there's just this perception for so long that a walk was a mistake the pitcher makes, not something good the batter does, which is why for so long people paid attention to batting average and not on base percentage. Because that wasn't really seen as a skill, working the count and being selective and drawing walks, even though obviously it is. And it's not just your dad. I'm picking on your dad here, but you hear this constantly, right? You hear this all the time on baseball broadcasts, on your poster. You had examples of Keith Hernandez and Larry Dierker bemoaning the leadoff walk and claiming that it's

worse. I mean, if you've watched any number of baseball games, you've probably heard someone saying this, so it's a widespread complaint. One thing you looked at that I thought was interesting, you sort of drilled down to look at top pitchers only and also closers specifically. And you found that for them, it has been true that lead off walks are worse or portend more scoring than lead off singles. And I don't know that that necessarily means anything or is significant or has a sufficient sample that we can draw any conclusions from that. But have you? Do you have any suspicion about why that might be? Or do you think that is

a real thing or just kind of a mirage? To me, and now I am not a major league pitcher, so I guess I don't really know. But I do think that for the top pitchers in the league, giving up a leadoff single doesn't shake them as much because they know that like, that was just a fluke or not like a fluke. But you know, that wasn't a reflection exactly on how I'm pitching this game. It's more of like a one offpitch things happen kind of thing versus I think for a good pitcher, when they know they're having control issues, that shakes them a lot more, you know, because

they know what it feels like to be in that situation and like have control versus not. Whereas I think some of like the newer pitchers in the league or some of the worst pitchers in the league probably have a similar worst pitchers in the league probably have a similar mentality about giving up a leadoff lock because it's like either way someone's on first base, which isn't the ideal scenario. So it would probably shake them regardless. That's kind of where my head, I think that there's a lot more than we give credit to that can be chalked up to to the mental game of baseball and the

fact that the pitcher is standing out there completely by themselves and all they're thinking about is what's going on inside their head. That's how I think about it at least. That sounds possible. I was thinking maybe if you're a really good pitcher, what separates the best pitchers from the less good pitchers is not necessarily their ability to prevent hits on balls and play at least, right? Because we know that that is kind of random and even the good pitchers, they tend to give up roughly the same number of hits on balls and play. And so maybe your walk rate, whether you're stingy with walks, that's something that really separates the best pitchers and closers. And so if they don't have their stuff or commands that day, maybe that is more

indicative of the fact that they actually won't be there best than just giving up a single, or maybe it might mean that there's a hitter's umpire, right? It's like a tight zone back there. They're more likely to give up a walk with a umpire who's not It's like a tight zone back there. They're more likely to give up a walk with an umpire who's not going to give them the calls or something. It could just be random and we're coming up with explanations. But another thing that could be analyzed further is kind of splitting it up by type of pitcher. So if it's like Kyle Hendricks or somebody who pitches around the edges and is a bit

more tactical rather than just relying on pure speed, I think that could change it. They're known to give up more walks anyway because that's their whole MO is that sometimes the calls go their way and sometimes it doesn't because they're nibbling around the edges. So I think that could be another way to analyze the data further and kind of see if that has an effect on, you know, leadoff walks versus leadoff singles. So yeah. One thing I asked you via email is whether there's any difference for winning teams and losing teams. If you're playing a good team or playing a bad team or you are on a good team or a bad team, is there any apparent difference there? I don't know if you had a chance to look into that or what you found.

Yes. So I did look into that. I looked at the top four teams since 2008 that have the overall best win percentage, like combined win percentage since 2008. And so for the best teams, which were the Yankees, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, and I'm forgetting the last team, but they all made sense. Like when you see the teams, you're like, yeah, those are the good teams. But yeah, it was pretty much the same. It was for leadoff walks, 0.86 and for leadoff singles, 0.87. So a little interesting. It's like slightly skewed the other direction, but not in any way that makes a significant

difference, I would say. For the worst teams in the league, it was 0.97 and 0.97 for leadoff walks and leadoff singles. So yeah, so not much of a difference, but it is kind of cool to see the fact that I mean, we all know this because this is why the good teams are better than the bad teams. But it is kind of cool to see that the top four teams in the league have like 0.86 runs scored off of it versus 0.97 runs scored off of it. So I think that's kind of interesting is just like to see the actual scoring difference that makes a winning team versus a losing team.

Yeah. That's one reason why they're a better team. They give up fewer runs. It helps. Yeah. And you also broke it down post 2020, right, with what we call the zombie runner, the automatic runner on second to start extra innings. And you found that since then it seems like lead off walks maybe have produced a little more scoring. And I don't know if that's because of rules changes or because batting average has fallen and hits have gotten rarer over that time or what. But I guess you also found like late in the game, maybe that goes hand in hand with what we were saying about closers who are often in the ninth inning. And in the

ninth inning, you found that a leadoff walk is maybe a little worse than a leadoff single, right? So once you start looking at splits and subdividing, I guess you get into smaller samples and it's hard to know whether it's real or not, but were there any other zoomed in views that you thought were interesting? I looked at some of the fastest pitchers in the league. So it was like Chapman and Hicks, I think. Can't remember. It was like a few of just like the fastest bitches in the league. And for them, lead off walks were like significantly worse, like by far significantly worse.

So that was kind of an interesting dynamic. And I'm not really sure. I don't know if I have the analysis of that nailed down in terms of like why that is, but I just thought that was another thing that was just interesting. So, yeah. CB 0 So do you think there's anything that you could do, we could do to get this message through to people? Because we've been asked about this for years and there have been some earlier looks at this that didn't seem to find much of a difference either. And really, it's almost odd

that it's such a pervasive belief. There's a saying, a walks as good as a hit, not a walks better or worse than a hit, because again, it's a runner on first in either case. You wouldn't think necessarily that it would make much of a difference, but many people believe that it does. So do you think this will ever go away or will we just keep crying in the wilderness about it, not mattering that much and people will keep crying at their TVs? Well, here's the thing. I think that one of the reasons why baseball is so loved to begin with is because we all know that the stats are there and that the stats are just such an amazing way to like be able to analyze the game further. But equally as importantly is the wisdom and the history and just like the overall feelings about the sport. And I think that almost makes it more fun to watch and talk about and stuff. So I don't know if this message will ever get across, but is that really

such a bad thing? I don't know. I think it's fun to listen to my dad scream at the TV about it and hear him get so excited about the game and stuff like that. And I'm sure that lots of other things that we yell about and get excited about could probably be debunked like this one can. But I don't know. I think that's one of the fun parts about baseball is that when you're watching the game, sometimes you forget about the stats in particular and the feelings just take over. And if you hate a leadoff walk, you hate a leadoff walk. So I hope that the message gets across and that people realize that maybe it's not quite as horrible as they think. But if it doesn't, let's just let people enjoy the game.

CB That's a healthy attitude, I think. It's a fairly low stakes matter, right? Yeah. If you believe wrongly that lead-off walks are way worse than lead-off singles, what are the stakes really? What are the consequences, I guess, of that? If you're having fun, you know, yelling at the pitcher who just gave up a walk via the TV, the pitcher can't even hear you, you know, no one's feelings are getting heard and you're engaged. You're enjoying, yeah, you're interacting.

I guess you also mentioned on the poster that lead-off singles just happen more than twice as often as lead-off walks. And so I wonder if it's the scarcity, the rarity of it. We're just deconditioned. When we see a lead-off single, well, that happens fairly often. But a lead-off walk, it's a little rarer. And so it bothers you more. I don't know. Was I the only one that was somewhat surprised by that? Or did that seem comment, or did that seem expected to y'all? Because I did not realize that lead-off singles happen so much more frequently than lead-off walks.

Yeah, I don't know. If you would ask me, I don't know what I would have said. But I guess it makes sense in the sense that there are even now more hits than there are walks by a wide margin. So I guess it tracks. But how did you, by the way, because it wasn't just the quality of the research you did, but the design of your poster, I think that stood out like it's a very aesthetically pleasing, well laid out poster. So do you have a background in design or did you have help or how did you go about

presenting this information once you had compiled it? So I don't have any design experience and I also, well, I mean, I definitely did have help. Like my whole family looked at it once I was done, but I would say that most of the design choices were kind of just based off of what I thought would look good. But see, this is why I think it's important to get the next generation involved in baseball, because I have to do things like this for school all the time. And this is a very common medium that we like I just use. I don't know if you all have heard of Canva, but it's like super common to do school

presentations and stuff like that on Canva. And so I think that if we brought some younger audiences into the sport, they would totally be able to present information in such a, in a way like this, using, you know, tools that technology has to design things well and have the right color combinations and stuff like that. I don't know, I just kind of looked at it. It was like, is this cute or is this not cute? And I just messed

with it until I thought it looked good. Yeah, well it does. So I guess you were right. So a true DIY project. A couple of people said this at the conference, but they said that it kind of emulated like the look of an old baseball card. Yes. Which I think was sort of the goal of like the... Yeah. So anyway, I just thought that would be kind of a cool way to display the information. Yeah, it definitely was. Yeah, I guess, you know, graphic design is your passion when you grow up doing that more often. Not that Meg and I are that old, but when we were in high school,

if we had to make a poster, we probably would have just had to get actual poster board. I mean, I know you did that eventually to prepare and present, but we didn't have Canva probably, so we would not have been adept maybe at laying this out. At least I wouldn't have. Well, we've helped get the word out. We'll see if it changes any minds. And it's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for doing this project. Thanks for coming on. And we hope that if working in baseball remains a dream of yours, that you get to fulfill it. Who knows, maybe coming on Effectively Wild, you wouldn't be the first person to go work for a team after being a guest on this podcast,

get the Effectively Wild bump. That would be pretty amazing if that happened. We'll just see. But thanks for inviting me on. I'm not going to lie, I was definitely fangirling a little bit when you guys emailed me. All right. Thanks and best of luck to Bailey. After we finished recording, she said she was surprised by how much interest her presentation had generated. I think the topic touched a nerve. And yeah, it doesn't hurt that it's heartening to see someone her age who's so excited about baseball, but also she did quality work, not grating on an aging curve here. She came up with an interesting question and provided an interesting answer. She also said that as heartening as it has been to members of the baseball community to have a

teen, a youth who's been bitten by the baseball bug. It's been just as heartening to her to be welcomed this way, because it can be a bit discouraging to be one of the only ones in your friend group or your age group to be into something. But that's one of the nice things about the internet and also sometimes one of the downsides. There's a community for every interest. You can always find like-minded people who share your passions. Back in the intro, I promised some Tommy John surgery stats following up on our discussion of the Dodgers and the Rays and whether teams that are kind of on the cutting edge pitching development wise are also pushing their pitchers right into the operating room. Well as I mentioned the Dodgers had more pitchers appear for them last year who had at some point had Tommy John surgery than any other organization but a lot of those guys did not

go under the knife while they were Dodgers. Daniel Hudson, Ryan Brazier, Lance Lin, Shelby Miller, Noah Sendergaard, etc. Can't blame the Dodgers for those particular injuries. Again, just speaks to their tolerance for risk. Maybe they think players who had been injured were undervalued. Maybe they just have the payroll room to absorb the inevitable injuries. So they had 15 guys top of the list there. The Reds and Yankees had 14, the White Sox and Tigers and Rays and Rangers had 13. But that's not really the most telling list, right? What we want is the number of surgeries that have actually happened on that organization's watch.

So using researcher John Rogley's indispensable Tommy John surgery database, which you can find online, I'll link to it on the show page. I pulled all the Tommy John surgeries and internal brace repairs since the start of 2022, limited it to pitchers in the majors or the minors, excluding high school and college injuries. That left me with 235 surgeries in total. I also excluded position players, by the way, this was pitchers only. That's 235 surgeries including minor league pitchers, 90 if we limit to major league pitchers only. So if we look at MLB only Tommy John surgeries and internal brace repairs since the start of 2022, the organizations with the most surgeries, the Angels, seven, the Marlins, A's and Pirates, six, the Orioles and the Rays,

five, and then the Reds, Dodgers, Twins, Yankees, Mariners, and Nationals with 4. So Dodgers in a 5-way tie for 8th there, not particularly remarkable. The Phillies, Cardinals, and Giants, by the way, have not had a Major League Tommy John surgery or internal brace repair since the start of 2022. The Tigers, Royals, Padres, Rangers, and Blue Jays have had only one apiece. If we look at all professional pitchers, lumping in minor leaguers now, most surgeries since the start of 2022, the Mets with 14, followed by the Guardians, the Tigers, and the Marlins with 13, the Braves and Red Sox with 12, the Orioles and White Sox with 11,

the Cubs, Angels, Pirates, and Rays with 9. And then we get the Dodgers, Rockies, Twins, Yankees, Rangers, and Nationals with 8. So the Dodgers are in a 6-way tie for 13th in that category. Again, not really remarkable. The Cardinals have had only 1. I guess those soft-tossing innings eaters pay off in some way. Diamondbacks have had 2. Phillies and Giants have had 3 apiece. So if you go by injuries incurred by

pitchers who are actually in the organization, the Dodgers don't really stand out over the past few years. More middle of the pack. So that's some data in the Dodgers defense. Of course UCL injuries are not the only type of pitcher injuries. Oh, and River Ryan was not included in those numbers yet because he hasn't had his surgery. So you can bump up those Dodgers totals by one. Even so. I don't know if that backs up the contention that this is a Dodgers or Dodgers and Rays specific epidemic. 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 stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Andrew M, PJ Wessels, Nick F., Kenny Jacoby, and Paulina LaPerry, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers,

potential podcast appearances, 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 contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fan graphs.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 effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild.

And you can check the show page or the episode description in your podcast app for links to upcoming effectively wild listener meetups at MLB ballparks. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Effectively wild, effectively styled distilled over chilled beats, effectively mild. Chris Davis' 247 tattoos are the new mnemonics. Scott Boris' nautical analogies are tragedies.

Keep them honest. Vroom vroom. Here's your primer. On beef boys, baseball's in, Roger Angel and super pretzels. Lillian's Astadio and Mike Trout hypotheticals. Waiting for the perfect bat from a volcanic eruption. Ladies and gentlemen, the effectively wild introduction.