Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2262: The Stories We Missed in 2024 (AL Edition)

Episode Date: December 28, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Michael Baumann play “College Baseball Player or U.S. Army Air Forces Pilot Who Took Part in Operation Vengeance,” banter about Jake Burger’s three consecutive seasons with a .250 batting average, the Tigers signing Gleyber Torres, and how the ruling about Diego Pavia’s NCAA eligibility could affect college (and pro) baseball, then (26:59) […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2262 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, not joined today by Meg Raleigh of FanGraphs who had the good sense to take an episode or two off. And so I am joined by someone who did not have the same good sense but is always an able fill in Michael Bowman, also of FanGraphs. Hello, Michael. Someone who doesn't care as much about his family

as Meg cares about hers. To be fair, you initially said you were busy and that you were packing and preparing for a move, but then I dangled the prospect of banter about college baseball in front of you, and you could not resist it. I knew, I knew what would happen. We've worked together for so long.

You know exactly how to press my buttons, how to manipulate me. And how often do I press that particular button where I even extend the invitation to talk about college baseball? I don't know if you ever have. No, so you couldn't pass up that opportunity. So I have wrangled you in, I've wangled,

I've wrangled you to come join me today to talk a little bit about college baseball, but also I'm going to tell you about some things that Meg and I missed on Effectively Wild this year. Because at the end of every year, we do a Things We Missed episode or sometimes two episodes where we talk about one story about each team that we just did not discuss on the podcast, or at least didn't discuss at length. You may not have missed these things, but we missed these things.

And I guess Meg is continuing to miss these things. But- You dropped this on me after the college baseball thing. Because just in case the audience was worried about not having a co-host with massive anxiety, with Meg not on the call. One of my biggest anxieties as a national writer is missing stories that are important to,

just like, and some of this is, I think is built in with my own background as a team specific blogger, raging at the big wigs at ESPN and SB Nation or whatever for not appreciating David Herndon's sinker when he was making the Phillies bullpen as a rule five pick in the early 2010s. So I just, I don't love being on the end of this, even though I didn't actually miss these stories.

No, you can claim to have been aware of all of these things. And it's just the national podcast people just parachuting in and not knowing the intricacies of the local markets and teams, which is true to some extent. And as much as we talk about baseball here, there's a lot of baseball we don't talk about. And listeners have reminded us of some of those things. Ben, I was curious to ask you about your knowledge in a different area, which is the Pacific Theater of World War II? You know, I'm probably- How much of that did you miss? I'm probably more of a European theater guy, but you know, I've watched the Pacific, you

know? I've watched my Pacific theater media as well. Are you familiar with Operation Vengeance? Operation Vengeance, remind me, which one is this? That's the operation to intercept and shoot down the plane carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Yeah, yeah, love a good airborne operation,

love a good assassination targeting mission. Yeah, so how would you feel about playing a little game called College Baseball Player or US Army Air Forces pilot who took part in Operation Vengeance? I feel good about playing. I don't feel good about playing well because I wouldn't say that my recall of Operation Vengeance is so great that the names would spring to my mind. But yeah, unless you hit me with like a Admiral Halsey or something, I might be a bit in the dark here. So do your worst.

Okay, your first name, Murph Gray. Oh, Murph Gray. I can't think of a more World War II name than that. So you're going pilot? I am. No, he's the third baseman for Fresno State. Come on. Murph, come on. All right, fine. Next name, Tom Lanfear. Um, Lanfear. I feel like, I feel like this is, this is a pilot because I don't know, it doesn't fit

a certain archetype that would make me think one way or another. That's right. He was the commander of the so-called Killer Flight who broke radio silence so he could claim falsely it turns out that he was the one who shot down Yamamoto's plane. What in reality was his wingman, Lieutenant Rex Barber, who is not going to show up later in this game. Too bad. Sorry. Okay. Alright, next name, and I will spell this for you if you want,

Delton Gurka. Okay, Delton? Uh... Hmm. I'm gonna... gosh, I don't know that sounds like it would be college baseball, but then maybe that's too obvious. So Delta. Delta reminds me of a plane. It's close to Delta. So I'm going to go with pilot. You're playing well, Ben.

He was a member of Operation Vengeance. Name number four, and this is to clinch a win, Elden Stratton. Oh, come on, Elden. All right, that's gotta be a World War II name. Come on, no one's named Elden anymore. Yeah, I guess that's true. It is a World War II name.

And the last one, Ike Irish. Elden Ring, maybe. This, okay, you're giving me an Ike? This, okay, this has to be a misdirect. This has to be, this has to be mind games that you're playing with me here. College baseball. Yeah, he's catcher for Auburn. Okay, yeah, giving me an Ike. You spotted that misdirect. It's too obvious. Yeah.

Okay, I gotta up my game for the next time I come on. This was sort of rushed because I only had like 24 hours of notice. So I will endeavor to do better next time. Yeah, next time will be your Operation Vengeance as you try to best me in this game. By the way, the Pacific, I think is superior to Band of Brothers.

That might be controversial, but I think that is the better. Has my man, James Badgedale. I love James Bad controversial, but I think that is the better. Has my man James Badgedale. I love James Badgedale. I think it is better. I stand by that take because I rewatch both of them recently in preparation for Masters of the Air

and they all hold up well and all quite enjoyable and perhaps prepared me in some indirect way for this game, but quite like the Pacific, even though, you know, grueling theater. All right. Perhaps prepared me in some indirect way for this game, but quite like the Pacific, even though grueling theater. Alright, well that was kind of a college baseball topic and we will get to more college baseball in just a second. Two little bits of banter before we do, I got a well timed email from a listener and

Patreon supporter who goes by Jabrombo who wrote, I was catching up on the transaction write ups from the winter meetings and caught a line from Bauman's Jake Berger trade piece that I can't recall hearing about elsewhere. Berger has hit exactly 250 in each of the past three seasons. Knowing this, I'm gonna be interested to see if he can pull off a Chris Davis-esque streak. However, do you think this achievement

would be more or less satisfying, given the roundness, no pun intended, of hitting exactly 250, a very common fraction, as opposed to Davis's 247, a much less common ratio. I don't know if it's less common. Unless you're talking about interwar Boeing airliners. Oh, sure. Famous Boeing 247.

So I really was not aware that Berger had this streak going either. I wasn't either until I was writing them up. And I had almost exactly the same thought process as Gibrombo. We are on pace for Chris Davis' situation. And is it better or worse that it's a round number as opposed to something specific? I think it's worse. I don't think it makes it less improbable actually or anything, but yeah, the fact that it sounds like kind of a common round number average, which I'm sure isn't less common. And these days, you know, batting averages are so low, those are both above average at this point if you're batting 247. But yeah, I think it makes it a little less interesting. I guess it also, I don't know, does it make it a little less interesting that in the first

season of the streak, he only played 51 games and so it was 183 at bats or 168 at bats, 183 played appearances. I think that's legit quibble. Although, you know, 100, what'd you say? 183? Yeah, 162. That's still enough that you're not just going one for four and calling it a day. But yeah, I do think it takes a little bit of the shine off it.

Although does that make it less probable either? I mean, I haven't done the math to compute the rates of these averages appearing in certain denominations of plate appearances or anything. But the fact that it's a smaller sample doesn't necessarily mean that it's more likely to happen, I guess. Now Chris Davis's streaks in his four seasons, I think the fewest played appearances he had was 440. He played 121 games in the first season of the streak, which was 2015.

And then it was like 150 games, 153 games, 151 games. So those were full seasons. So it feels like a little less earned somehow, but I don't know that that actually holds up mathematically. S0N3R0 The objection I was going to raise is like any rate stat doesn't feel real to me unless you qualify for the batting title, but I didn't know that Davis didn't do that in one of his seasons. B0N0 Yeah, I guess he did. He fell just short in the first of them. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you say that's close enough. It's still a fun fact.

Yeah, a very fun fact, especially if he does it again. Yeah. And he has, let's see. So Davis's career average ended up at 242. Burgers to this point is 251. So I think it's fair to say that he is a true talent, roughly 250 hitter, or has been to this point. So we'll see. I mean, maybe going from Miami to Texas, maybe this boosts his batting average. I don't know what the batting average park factors are, but

I'm guessing more favorable in Arlington. So maybe this hurts the odds of him continuing the streak, although he did it in Chicago as well. That's where it started for him. So he's done it in multiple cities and parks. So, yeah, I guess this is something to follow. Or less impressive than Luis Araya's winning batting titles with three different teams. Right. And if he gets traded this off season and gets to take a crack at doing it for yet another team, that would be an entertaining storyline. So, OK, the fact that Davis did it does, it doesn't mean we shouldn't give

Jake Berger his shine. This is something to follow in 2024. I'll be rooting for him to get one hit every four at bats on the nose, on the dot. And the other thing is that, uh, even though you're not here to play, what did Jerry DiPoto do because Jerry DiPoto hasn't done anything. He's embraced the Christmas spirit seemingly and taken some time off. I mean, maybe he was still talking trades with the Red Sox related to Luis Castillo and Tristan Casas and others, but nothing has come to fruition. So both he and AJ Preller have defied expectations and have started this

off season extremely slow by their standards or any standards. They just haven't really done anything and we thought they might be waiting for Christmas Eve to drop their big transaction, but nope, nothing yet. Famous last words. However, there was one notable signing since the last time Meg and I recorded, which is that Gleyber Torres is a tiger and he signed for one year and $15 million, which was bad news for me in our off season free agent contracts over under draft because I took the over on 36 million. It's 15 well under that the, the median fan graphs crowd source was three years, 54 million

and Ben Clemens, who is Gleiber Torres' biggest fan, he estimated 5 years 90 million. And this was low on the years and the AAV. This wasn't even like, take a single year, you know, a pillow contract and we'll get a high AAV and hit the market again. This was low on both counts. What is the drawback to Gleiber Torres? I mean, I get why he's not great, but one year 15?

Come on. So I think Gleiber Torres kind of stinks, and I was shocked. Like you mentioned Ben loving Gleiber. I mentioned when he was asking for general feedback on the list, I said, I can't believe you're putting him in the top 10. And I got yelled at by more people than just Ben.

Yeah. Ben had him 10th. MLB trade rumors had him 20th, but he's not getting paid like either of those rankings. I thought I was the low man on Gleyber Torres. And it turns out that- All front offices are. Yeah. I'm shocked. And particularly considering his age, I guess, I would imagine that anybody with any sense would take a dim view of his defense, but he can still stand at second base and hold the glove in generally the right place. He's a competent hitter. I don't think anybody can take that away from him.

And I think, you know, it makes him a good fit for these Tigers because they just, like, they just need guys who can, they need competent hitters basically. They need more of them and, you know and you know, lengthens the lineup. I think that's a really good fit there. Even if they have to do some, some musical chairs and, uh, have some hard conversations with some high draft picks. Yeah. Yeah.

I guess Colt Keith goes to first. It goes to first. That's what they said today. J.C. Young plays third and Klaiber plays second. Yeah. Spencer Torkelson, you are a Chicago Whitesock. Yeah, this is, uh, he's, he's 28 years old and, uh, he just turned 28 too.

He's a December baby and to be just 28 and okay, defensively not great, but he was like faking shortstop until not long ago. And to be a above average hitter consistently, you know, like less above average lately, but still clearing that bar and giving you a little bit of pop. And he draws some walks and he doesn't strike out a ton and it's like, yeah, I don't know, it seems like he's at least an average player, right? Like that's, you know, that seems like a reasonable expectation for him almost on the low end barring injury or something. I'd rather have him, you know, even considering the scarcity of pitchers, I'd rather have

him at 115 than, you know, any number of the relievers who were signing for one year at like nine, 10, 11, I'd rather have him at 115 than most of the first basemen who have signed for, you know, the Paul Goldschmidt, what was it, one year 12. Yeah, 12 and a half, I think. 12 and a half. And I mean, it seems like the Tigers got a steal. I don't know what I'm missing. It does.

Yeah, no, me neither. It's just given the going rate for everything this off season, which has been so surprisingly robust market and especially for middle of the pack starting pitchers. And for some reason, Gleibor, I mean, good for the Tigers for getting someone for doing anything because they were one of the teams I was most interested in this off season. Which way would they go? Would they rest on their laurels and say, we're great, we just won every game down the stretch and so we don't need to do anything? Or would they recognize that, no, actually we do need to do something and even though we patch together a rotation out of relievers and openers, it'd be nice to also have some

starters like they still have some work to do in that area as well. And so it's nice to see them stop sitting on their hands, and especially when they just got a kind of bargain basement deal here. I don't know whether that means that that's the only kind of deal that the Tigers are going to do. And they're just sort of dumpster diving here. And for some reason, Gleiber Torres was in the dumpster too. But at least they upgraded. And I guess Gleiber hopes he comes off of a stronger age 28 season and gets to get some sort of long-term deal. But just an interesting career for him, being such a top prospect and then the trade and then being successful early on and a well above average hitter at age 21, 22, and then

kind of regressing on both sides of the ball, but not being bad, just sort of settling in as decent, pretty good, okay. It's kind of an odd trajectory. Now his trajectory takes him to the Tigers. He's going to know so much about pizza after being traded from the Cubs organization to the Yankees to... Yeah, all the different varieties. Maybe he'll get another crack at it next winter and he'll do better, but, uh, good for the Tigers, uh, picking up a player that they could use even if he's not a perfect fit for them positionally.

And I guess that does take us to the college baseball banter that I have dangled here. What a thing it would be if I lured you on here and then, uh, didn't talk about college baseball. That would not have been in character for you. You have many faults, but you are generally a man of your word. Thank you. Well, there was a ruling recently that, uh, impacts college football directly, but also impacts other college sports indirectly and college baseball, maybe most of all potentially. So there has been some discussion of this in college baseball discussing circles, which

I don't usually travel in, but this has come to my attention anyway. So what has happened here? I mean, maybe you'd be better off summarizing it than I am, although I could. I will link to some stories about this. But do you want to tell people about the facts of the case and also the import of the ruling related to Diego Pavia? Yeah, so this centers on Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who, first of all, I just want to say I regret that it is

not really possible for baseball to produce a player as cool as Diego Pavia is. He is a dual threat quarterback, basically grinder scrapper in veteran trash talker, has made a career out of personally persecuting Hugh Frees, who for those of you who are not familiar with Hugh Frees, was the high school coach depicted in The Blind Side, who in real life is a real scumbag. And as Friis has floated around various jobs, Diego Pavia has transferred from junior college to New Mexico State, now to Vanderbilt, and somehow ended up running into and beating Hugh Friis multiple times in multiple situations. So he's just a really, really exciting player. And I'm personally very happy, despite rooting for

one of his division rivals or former division rivals rivals that we're going to see him in college football for another season. But the gist of the injunction centers on the question of whether junior college counts towards NCAA Division I eligibility. And if that's determined not to be the case, that in concert with the recent loosening of transfer rules could turn college baseball basically into a career separate from Major League Baseball. The Colin McDaniels write-up on ESPN outlines, like he lays it out, a path for a high school player who doesn't turn pro at age 18 out of the draft, basically floating around from JuCo to major colleges until his mid-20s, basically a seven-year college career instead of

what we consider normal now, which is a three or four-year college career. Jared Ranere That's the dream, I guess. Never leave college. They make movies about that premise. The total van Wilderization of, I don't know, that's a pretty dated reference at this point. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of too, I guess, among others. Yeah, but you and I are both of a specific age that I don't know if that's the... Yeah. And it's not like, you know, you see guys who are throughout all sports, you know, it's very common in college hockey, for instance, for like an 18 year old freshman college hockey player is pretty rare just because of the way the developmental system works. They'll enter college at like 20 or 21 and stay there

until they're 25 or 26. That's pretty normal, but it's still only a four or five year career, depending on whether you, you redshirt and baseball, like these guys could be playing every year and transferring from program to program to and from Juco's. And now in concert with another ruling where the NCAA, it used to only allow you to distribute 11.7 scholarships over 27 scholarship players. As of this year, college teams can have a 34 player roster limit and every single one of them can be on a full scholarship. Oh yeah, Meg and I discussed recently, never let it be said that we don't talk about college baseball here, but we did talk about the potential

implications of NIL and scholarships. Just is that going to make it harder for MLB teams to draft guys? Will there be more leverage for college players staying in college or high school players going to college instead of being drafted or signing? Part of what makes the Pavi rolling so interesting is apart from like generally it's going to give players more options and generally it's going to allow players to float around and make money for longer into their mid-20s, I'm not really sure. It's such a huge paradigm shift that I'm not really sure how it's going to, how specifically it's going to impact certain programs versus others, particularly in concert,

I'm going to say in concert with for the third time in about three minutes in combination with the increased scholarship limits. Baseball players generally aren't making these million dollar NIL deals that you see for football and men's basketball, but they're still making decent money. They're making more money than a lot of minor league players are, the really top end guys at really top end programs. And so I just- And there just aren't as many minor leakers anymore because there are fewer rounds in the draft and fewer minor league levels and all that downsizing just kind of kicks some of that talent to college or gives people incentive to stay in college longer. And now I guess they could do it indefinitely if they wanted to. It's like Neverland, they never have to grow up. They could just stay playing college baseball forever.

It sounds like your dream. Well, it wasn't my dream. I mean, I got out of undergrad in four years, but. It'll be like, everybody wants some, but for life. Yeah, Wyatt Russell and everybody wants some. He couldn't, he was ahead of his time. There was a University of Miami football player who was, I think in his ninth year,

because of various red shirts and injury red shirts and anybody who played in 2020 got another year automatically from the NCAA. And I remember like thinking, at one point, have you any, he like transferred a few times and gotten at least one master's degree. And I was thinking, at one point, are you a college football player who's too old

to ethically date the other undergrads? Yeah, that could become a concern, yeah. It'll certainly eliminate a big reason a lot of guys wanna play college baseball. I guess that's true, yeah. Okay, so the implications then, do you see them as being more for the amateur athletes as opposed to implications for the pro game that we typically focus on here?

One thing with the contraction of the minor leagues, I was against contraction of the minor leagues mostly on the grounds that it takes minor league baseball out of communities. It's somebody whose major childhood interaction with live professional baseball was at the minor league level or the independent ball level, more than the major league level, really until I was an adult, like those are important things for, you know, important resources for developing fandom among young people and, you know, and for making it accessible to to take your family to see a baseball game. And so, eliminating that, I was completely against. I think the developmental arguments for keeping the minor leagues as they were,

even if they were true, I don't know that it's necessarily like taking major league jobs away from somebody because the number of major league jobs is the same. And even if the quality of play is a little bit lower, you know, maybe I'm not positive that that's a bad thing, but it did kick a lot of between that and the shortening of the draft, it kicked a lot of talented players who would have gone pro back into the college system, which I think is good. You know, I like having these really top end athletes in the college environment. I think that in a lot of cases, you know, college baseball is a, is a the college environment. I think that in a lot of cases, college baseball is a better developmental environment. It's certainly a better quality of life than the

lower minor leagues. We've seen the standards just in terms of training, even before NIL. They just went through the roof in the late 2010s. And so all of that I think of as good, but there are future pros and then there are college players, even stars who are gonna go pro in something other than sports. And I don't know if it's good for college baseball as a developmental league to have spots taken up by it at big programs.

Like if LSU is fielding nothing but 25 year old transfers, where does your 19 year old freshmen who turned down second round money to go you know, where does your, you know, your 19-year-old freshman who turned down second round money to go to school, you know, where does he fit in? You know, did they have to transfer every year? And, you know, even as someone who's generally in favor of player empowerment, like, I don't think it's great for the game

to have a completely new roster every single season. Like, it's just hard to follow for the fans. So, you know, in terms of kicking a lot of the developmental burden from the pro league to the NCAA, the way, the way football does into a lesser extent basketball, I wonder if having these sort of college baseball lifers taking up these starting spots at big programs until they're 25, 26, 27, maybe, I wonder if that's going to have a positive or negative effect on the guys we think of as future stars, guys who are going 26, 27 maybe, I wonder if that's gonna have a positive or a negative effect on the guys we think

of as future stars. Guys who are gonna, you know, Paul Skeens is only ever gonna play three years of college baseball anyway, no matter what the system. So what does that do for players like him? Does it take opportunities away or does it raise the quality of competition and give pro teams a better look

at who they're actually drafting by having them tested better, by raising the overall quality of play. So like I said, I have no idea like what the specific long range implications of this are. All I know is this is huge. Okay. Have we sufficiently discussed college baseball? Do you feel like you were not sold a bill of goods here that we have done what you were brought to do? Yes, we can go talk about your thing now. Go look up Diego Pavia. I just love Diego

Pavia so much. Okay. I will link to some Diego Pavia references for people who want to know more. We're now going to do a little story about each American League team. We can just do the American League this time and then I'll do national league on the next episode. So we've got 15 teams here and 15-ish stories, many of them submitted by effectively wild listeners. I'm realizing now that I should have saved Jake Berger

and his three consecutive 250 batting averages for the NL episode so that I would have a Marlins story. But actually, no, I think I already have something to say about the Marlins. We're gonna have to go back and learn anything about the Marlins. Yeah, well, he's on the Rangers now. Maybe I could just use it as a Ranger story,

but no, I think I have one of those too. Okay, so we'll just go in alphabetical order of team name and have a massive spreadsheet. And I always have to do a lot of digging for the right tab. So bear with me. But the angels story comes from listener Michael, who nominates the debut of Gustavo Campero, a player who would have been a great fit for our Meet a Major Leaguer segment, but I never met him. I was not aware of his work. And now I am thanks to Michael who left this Facebook comment.

The Angels had a player named Gustavo Campero that made his MLB debut in 2024 playing 13 games as an outfielder. He originally signed with the Yankees out of Colombia as a catcher in 2016. He played a total of 74 games in the Yankee system before the Angels claimed him in the minor league rule 5 draft heading into the 2021 season. He got into 41 games at Class A in 2021, and in 2022, he played only six games at AA, and in only one of those, did he get into the field. He was actually basically the bullpen catcher for that team. He was on the developmental list. Are you familiar with the developmental list? This is, it's like in the minor leagues,

there's a, I'll read the Wikipedia entry, minor league baseball also has a development list. I guess it's not developmental, which does not exist in MLB. Players may only be placed on this list for development or conditioning reasons, not for injury rehabilitation or disciplinary reasons. Such players cannot compete in games,

but can remain with the team and can optionally act as a bullpen catcher, batting practice pitcher or coach. Players must be placed on this list for a minimum of seven days. So Gustavo Campero spent most of that season on this development list, just basically a coach. So I just pulled up his entry of that season on this development list, just basically being a coach.

I just pulled up his entry on Eric Longin-Hagan's Angels Top 38 Prospects list, where he's one of the other names of note. He didn't even make the top 38 on the Angels list. He's under the heading Fringe Position Players, along with Cole Fontenelle, who I believe is a veteran of college baseball player or a former TCU standout.

But anyway, I thought when you said he came to the angels out of Columbia, I thought you meant Columbia University. No, Columbia. Yes. Columbia. Not a U. Yeah. Yeah.

So he is 27. He just turned 27 in September and made his major league debut right before his 27th birthday. And again, the fact that even coming into this season, he was not one of the 38 best angels prospects, according to Eric Long and Hager, which is really saying something. Even after this season, this came out in November. Oh man. Okay. Well, all right.

I guess he didn't raise his prospect stock. So Eric's not impressed. Eric knew about him, but he didn't think he was talking about. Yeah, but in 2022 for the Rocket City Trash Pandas in Madison, Alabama, he in the Southern league, he played just six games and caught one and was basically the bullpen catcher. So that tells you what the angels thought of him basically.

And then after that in 2023, he gets demoted to high A for all but two games, but he raked. And then in 2024, he hit well again in 107 games at AA and AAA in the outfield and at DH and wasn't catching at all. So he sort of switched positions or at least specialized as an outfielder, which, you know, probably not the best thing. If he could catch, then his bat would play a bit better. And yet nonetheless, he made it to the majors and played 13 games. Didn't do a whole lot in those 13 games. Didn't hit so well, 74 OPS plus, but he did hit a big league home run, which as Michael said, probably felt pretty good for a minor league bullpen catcher. And then probably felt pretty bad Eric Longin-Hagan put him as an honorable mention or not even a

fringe mention. Yeah, other prospects of note. Fringe position players. Oof. Well, at least he's of note. There's another heading under here, my favorite couple of extras, which includes Caleb Ketchip among other people. Ah, okay. So he's not even one of Eric's favorite

fringy- Not even a favorite fringe guy. … Angel's semi-prospects. What a slap in the face that is. It is, but at least we're giving him a little love here. And also notable, he is listed at 5'6", 183. And I recently went on a little riff about Caleb Durbin, who's listed at 5'6", 185. And basically the same build for Gustavo Campero, at least height and weight-wise. And he's a switch hitter also,

so he's got that going for him, which is nice. So, Gustavo Campero, now we know you and have met you. Thank you, Michael. Now for the Astros. Here's one that was not really nominated by anyone. It was more of one that I came across and don't think we ever talked about this year, but Hunter Brown, who is a player of interest to you, right? For some reason I have the perception that you're interested in Hunter Brown. I believe I called him Framber Valdez in a Justin Verlander shaped container. Right.

Yes. Yeah. So that was what people knew about him early on is that he looks like Justin Verlander, he's got Justin Verlander's wind up in delivery and he played college baseball, so I guess that makes him of interest to you. He's a Wayne State University grad. Wayne State's even off my radar, I would say. Well, he had a no good, very bad, horrible, terrible start early in the season. He actually had a historically terrible start on April 11th. And we talked about some terrible outings this year

where guys got left out there, but he went two thirds of an inning, didn't make it through the first, and he gave up nine runs, all earned, on 11 hits and one walk and one home run, which I believe was hit by Bobby Witt Jr. because he was facing the Royals. And after that outing-

Do you know that or are you just assuming- It's a safe assumption, but I'm pretty sure that it actually was Bobby Witt Jr. But after that outing, he had a 16.43 ERA because he'd gotten lit up in his previous start as well. He gave up five and three innings. So this was a historically terrible start. I don't think that's overstating anything. He was the first pitcher in history

to allow 11 hits while pitching less than one inning. So that's bad. That's, I guess, yeah, it's a testament to only one walk though. Only one walk. Yes, it's true. But, and you know, some of those were bloopers or bleeders. They weren't all hard hits. Nonetheless, 11 hits in two thirds of an inning is rough and you know, he was left out there a long time, I guess, to allow that many hits. Although he faced 14 batters and 11 of them got hits and one of them walked and then he only threw 40 pitches, which doesn't sound

like a lot for that kind of inning really. If you're giving up 11 hits and a walk and nine earned runs and then a homer, like 40 pitches, that's pretty efficient. I think he threw 26 out of 40 strikes. So he wasn't wild. He was ineffectively controlled. Do you have his game score handy from that start? Because I do. Yes is

Well, I'm looking at his yeah negative seven. What's It's not good Maybe we could stat head that quickly and see where that ranks I'm always surprised by like how bad the worst game scores are So I'm always like, oh that's gotta be the worst game score ever and then it's not really because they're just unbelievably bad ones. But yeah, that's that's rough. So, you know, that's you got to leave him out there for a while

if just to accumulate that many hits allowed. But again, he wasn't wild. He was around the plate, which was, I guess, to his detriment. But the happy ending here is that after he got absolutely roasted by the Royals, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball basically from that day forward. I mean he was I guess better as the season went on but even if we start the clock on April 16th which is when he made his next start, he ranked 17th in FanGraph's War among all pitchers from that point forward,

one spot behind his teammate Fr Romero Valdez. And he had one of the best ERAs as well, if we set the minimum to 100 innings pitched. He had the 10th best ERA in baseball from that point forward, which you might not have thought, looking at the 16.43, the unsightly mark from April 11th. So I guess it kind of mirrors the Astros' fortunes as a whole this season, where they started super slow and were slumping and everyone wondered, is this the end of the Astros?

And then no, it was not, and they rebounded and they were their usual division-winning selves again. And a big part of that was the rebound and the transformation of Hunter Brown, who made some changes to his pitch mix and was highly effective. So maybe he learned some things from that day when he got knocked around. So that was the worst game score this season. Okay. But not one, but two Cincinnati Reds had a game score of exactly negative 16 in a start in 2023.

Which ones? Luis Sessa and Ben Lively. Yeah, he was not lively that day, but Hunter Brown was after that day. So Hunter Brown's rebound is the fun fact for the Astros and his absolute shelling is the unfun fact, I guess from another perspective. For the athletics, I guess, from another perspective. For the athletics,

I guess one A's story that we didn't talk about this year could be A's president Dave Cavill announcing his resignation, which we didn't talk about because it happened today, December 27th, A's president Dave Cavill, who's kind of been like, I don't know, like the right-hand man of John Fisher, basically, like the public face of the Fisher ownership regime. He's been the one who talks to the press while Fisher has been largely in seclusion. I wouldn't say face, I would say human shield.

Yes, yeah, meat bag, yeah. He's basically been that, and he is resigning from his role he announced on Friday in order to pursue new business opportunities in California, which I guess will not include being the president of the Sacramento A's. And you know, sorry to see him go. Happy trails, Dave.

You did a great job and your capacity as president. I can't really say he took much heat off of John Fisher. I guess maybe he took some heat off, but there was plenty of heat to go around really. Yeah. You think of like absorbing heat in the same way that the ceramic tiles underneath the space shuttle absorb a lot of heat. The ablative shield. Yeah. Yeah, they're both flaking off as the A's reenter wherever they're going.

Burning pieces of Dave Cavall spewed across the desert. Yes. It's like the moment of radio silence where we're not in contact with Houston until we get below that area. So yeah, I don't know. What can we say about the legacy of his job? I guess mission accomplished. He got them out of Oakland, not at all the way that they intended to. And I don't know that this will even work out to the benefit of John Fisher, but-

Via Condios, ass. Yes. Well said. The actual storyline here that was proposed by listener Megan is that the A's were the only team whose regular catcher had a faster sprint speed than their regular center fielder. That's fun. Yeah. So that was mostly, Megan says, a testament to Shay Langelier's being surprisingly fast. Yeah.

He is not built like a fast guy. Yeah. It's less because JJ Bleday is especially slow, but still, it's pretty hard to have your catcher out sprinting your center fielder. So the A's had that distinction, I guess. Let's see. So among catchers, Langoliers, if I can work the sprint speed leaderboards here at Baseball Savant while we talk. So Langleyers ranked

eighth on the catcher sprint speed leaderboard at 27.8 feet per second. And then on the center field leaderboard, Bladet was down at 52nd, which is fifth from last among the qualifiers here. And he was at 27.6. So we're talking a 10th of a foot per second. That's not fast at all for no, it's not fast, but a 10th of a foot per second slower than Langley years, but only TJ Friedle. He was the slowest of the center fielders, Aaron Judge, which makes sense, makes more sense, I guess. Trent Grisham, the other Yankee center fielder, or one of the others, and Cal Stevenson of the Phillies. Yeah, and then Bladay was fifth slowest.

So I guess bragging rights for Shea Langleyers. You can stick them in center. I pulled up their Fangrass player pages. They were drafted five picks apart and born eight days apart. So happy belated birthday to both She Shay Langleyers and J.J. Bladay. Also, I was thinking that that Shay Langleyers is, like I said, not doesn't look like he's built for speed. He looks like like if he is fast, he's one of those guys you describe

as he can scoot rather than he can fly. But he's listed at six foot. He's not six foot. He's going on the, he's going on the Alex Bregman All-Stars of guys who were lying about being six foot. Yeah. I wonder if Langleyers and Bladet have raced, have gone head to head. I wonder whether Langleyers taunts Bladet about this. Hey, you're a center fielder. You're supposed to be speedy. And here I am right next to you on the sprint speed leaderboard. We should, we should arrange this. I'm sure they've got nothing better to do next season.

Well, Brent Rooker was, was on last week. I should have asked him about this, but speaking about, uh, of catchers, I, I, uh, blew Meg's mind with this last week. Do you want to guess what Travis Darno's listed height is? Well, I don't think of him as a tall man. So is, is he in the six foot Bregman All-Stars too? Is he like a six one? He's listed at six two.

Wow. He can't be. Yeah. They just let you lie in the newspaper like that. Yeah. Well, you're not going to be able to get away with that for that long. It feels like that generation of player maybe because well, as soon as like ABS comes in, as soon as we get challenge system and everything maybe set via stat cast, you're not going to be able to lie about that as effectively.

Longin-Higgins written about that with the minor leaguers. So maybe this is the end of- This is the, or is the players association going to veto ABS because it means that all these hundreds of major league infielders aren't going to be able to lie about being six foot one in their Tinder bios anymore? I know whoever signs Alex Bregman, maybe he hasn't been signed yet because he's about to lose a couple inches or a few inches in the process and they want the six foot tall Alex Bregman, but not the actually five", or whatever he actually is. We'll see. AC I'd be surprised if he's even 5'9". We'll put him out there on roller skates and then he'll be

six foot. CB Yeah. Okay. We're up to the Blue Jays and listener Patreon supporter Bohan has submitted a good one here. He also submitted a correction, which I was not aware of this, and I've definitely mispronounced this. The Blue Jays reliever, I guess, former, past and future Blue Jays pitcher, whose name starts or is spelled Y-I-M-I, how would you pronounce that? Oh, Jimmy. It is, it is Jimmy Garcia.

I got corrected about that, and I got corrected about Jordan Romano's pronunciation by Rob Thompson. Really? At the winter meetings, yeah. Oh, wow, I'm learning a lot about these booties. So either it's Romano or Topper is playing a joke on me that I'm now propagating to everybody I talk to.

He said it's a Canadian thing, so you know. Yeah, okay. Well, I have definitely mispronounced Jimmy Garcia, so my apologies, and this is the correction. No one corrected me about this when I've said his name multiple times in the past. You all just left me hanging out here, just saying his name wrong,

but thanks to Bohan for correcting me, and also for submitting this story. So on episode 2210, the message reads, you talked about Ernie Clement's incredible high pitch home run. Do I have to check this? Is it Ernie Clement or something? Is it?

Do I have this? If it is, I'm not aware of it. No, okay. Incredible high pitch home run. That is true. We talked about the fact that Clement had the highest pitch hit for a home run, not only this season, but I believe on record in the pitch tracking era, aside from some

data errors. And we marveled at this because he's not that tall a guy. Maybe he's also in the Bregman All-Stars. I don't know, but he's listed at six feet at least, but this was way up. However, the message continues, he also had an incredibly low pitch hit for a home run this year, and it was extremely low. And Bohan says, I would guess that Ernie Clement

managed to have the highest difference in pitch heights for home runs in a single season, maybe even career in the pitch tracking era. I would love it if you could reach out to stats folks and see if that is the case. And I actually did do that. And I was surprised to find that the MLB stat cast data hotline was manned on this slow week of the holiday season.

And I got an instant response to this and Manny Randawa, he responded quickly and was able to confirm that in fact the Clement home run differential here, so he hit the highest pitch hit for a homer this year and the sixth lowest pitch hit for a homer. The gap between his home runs was 3.69 feet, so the low one was like 0.9 feet off the ground or something and the high one was 4 something off the ground. So it was reaching up and swinging something at your shoulders and then golfing one out. And Manny confirmed that in fact that 3.69 foot difference was the largest gap by any player in the same season since Statcast began tracking in 2015

and also in a career over the same span. And I asked for the next biggest gaps. The runner up for both categories is Corey Dickerson in 2016. He had a 3.41 foot gap. And then after that, Jock Peterson since 2015, the, uh, 3.37 gap for him was, uh, that was on April 12th, 22.

He hits the lowest hit pitch hit for a home run in the stat cast era 0.68 feet. And then he also had a 4.05 footer on August 19th of this year and then single season Evan Gaddis, I miss Evan Gaddis, he had a 3.16 foot gap. He hit a 4.38 on July 8th, 2015 and a 1.22 feet off the ground on April 24th, 2015 and Clement also hit the fourth highest pitch hit for a homer this year in addition to the highest. And so I was wondering if he was just like outdoing Vlad senior and he's just like a bad ball hitter

and the worst thing you could do is actually like throw him something out of the strike zone and maybe you should just pound the zone. 2.4% walk rate this year. Yeah. 9.1% strikeout rate. That says bad ball hitter to me. It does.

His, his heat maps don't seem that strange. Otherwise, like those were the outlier homers, those three, the two high ones in the one low one, and then like, you know, more or less his hot zones are, you know, middle of the zone, a little low in the zone, but it doesn't look at first glance extraordinary. So it's not like he's the kid who only hit homers if they're like super high or super low, but he does possess that skill, which it is a skill. Like when you watch the highest pitch hit for a homer this year, it was actually off

of big Mike Bauman. And of course it was. Maybe this was one of the things that convinced him it was time to go to Japan perhaps, but you know, like 97 mile per hour pitch from Big Mike Bauman, high heat, and Clement got around on it and hit it out. And so that and the fact that like he has that kind of power

high in the zone and low in the zone, it does kind of impress me in a way. And yet I guess the fact that he's swinging at those pitches at all is probably a bad sign. So how does speaking of pronunciation, how does Bohan spell his name? Bohan spells his name B O H A N. Oh, yeah. That's a new one for me.

I was wondering if it was Boyan. It was B O J A N. But I hope I am getting this one correct. Yeah, it's probably a spell on. Yeah. Okay. So that was a good one. It was a little mini stat blast there embedded in our things we missed. The height, by the way, was 4.60 feet for that high one that Clement hit. So basically one Alex Bregman off the ground. Almost definitely most of an Alex Bregman and then the low one that he hit was yeah 0.91 feet off the ground.

Okay, so he's got great range. Now we are up to the Guardians and Jeremy wanted us to talk about the lack of length that the Guardians got from their starting pitchers. He thought that was sort of under-covered. Now we certainly talked a lot about how weak their rotation was. Did we not have enough length in the coverage of their starting pitching? I guess mostly we were focusing on how incredible their bullpen was, but part of how incredible

their bullpen was was that they had to pitch a lot because their rotation was weak. So I have done a little research and Jeremy wrote, I haven't done the research, but I don't think that any Guardian starting pitcher went beyond seven innings in a start this year and there were probably no more than a dozen times all year that a starter went beyond six. The lack of pitching deep into games wasn't a function of pitch counts as Guardians pitchers almost never reached

a hundred pitches in a game. Is this the least length that a playoff team has ever gotten from its starters? So I did some searching, did some stat hitting. 28 viewers just gonna throw that out there. Well, so I looked up, I guess a couple of ways to look this up. One was Jeremy was correct that the Guardians did have some starts of seven innings, but did not have a single start of more than seven innings.

And that is not quite a first. Now obviously you had five 2020 teams that did not have any starters go deeper than 7 innings, but if we exclude them from the list, then there was one previous team in a full season that did not have a starter go more than 7, and that was the 2023 Dodgers. So you can be a good team in this era and not have starters go deep into games. Who knew? So they were following in the still fresh footsteps of LA in 2023. So not quite unprecedented, but the second team to do that. And then I also looked up, because it's not that they got the fewest innings from their starters. There were other teams that got fewer innings from their starters, even this season, especially the

Tigers within their own division. But I did look up least war from a starting rotation for a playoff team. And there again, you have a bunch of 2020 teams, obviously short season. And then you have a 1981 Brewers, not the Brewers team you mentioned, but strike short in season and then 1886 team short season and then more 2020. And this was the second lowest war by a starting rotation or starting staff in a full season, just a 6.03 fan crafts war, which was worse than only the 1992 A's who had 5.9, so almost the same, like a tenth of a war, basically worse from their starters. And they played 162 games, whereas the Guardians played only 161. So maybe if the Guardians had had that one extra game, they would have

been the worst rotation all time in a full 162 game season. But yeah, in both cases there was one other team that trumped them, but it was certainly one of the least productive rotations ever and one of the best bullpens ever. I think they had the highest bullpen win probability added on record at FanCrafts, which goes back only so far, but still. There was a second submission for the Guardians, and this one was a little bit on the lighter side, but are you aware of the fact that Austin Hedges hit his 69th career home run this year? Wow, nice, I should say.

Yes, and that is basically what the Guardians all said. And they celebrated. They gave him a hero's welcome back to the dugout. I actually have a little clip of Hedges that I will play here from him talking to Chris Rose and explaining what went down here. David made, got champagne glasses, filled them up with beer and we did a beer champagne toast to celebrate my homer. I got the ball authenticated. I got the jersey authenticated. The whole thing. Is there a part of you that wants to hit once for you to hit pause on

your career home run total and you just finished with that? No, that's what's going to happen. I told everyone like if I do it, like I'm going to miss home plate on purpose. Sorry, boys. That's incredible. This is these are the little things that keep us going for for Oh, that's what's gonna happen. I told everyone like if I do it like I'm gonna miss home plate on purpose. Sorry boys That's incredible. This is these are the little things that keep us going for for 162 games Okay, like if you can't have a little fun doing that then like you're gonna be miserable playing this stupid game We play so yeah If you watch the video Hedges is rounding the bases as if this was like some Extremely momentous moment and in fact, it was a mid September game against the white socks in the third

inning with the guardians already winning. So it was quite low leverage all told. And yet there was a great rejoicing and it turned out that it was purely because it was his 69th home run. And they had a whole celebration as if they had clinched something meaningful here. Austin hedges to remind everyone is 32 years old. So, you know, I've made the joke and I'm 37.

I've made the joke too. Yeah. I, I feel, I feel bad every time I do make it. It's just obligatory. I don't feel like I've said something clever in particular. I just do it out of habit almost. And this was like a team wide celebration. Now, you know, Austin Hedges probably should be celebrating every home run he hits this way because he doesn't get to do it often. This was his second home run of the season. It was on September 11th. He hit his first in early May.

And that was that for this season. This was, I think his worst- 69 on 9-11 is like a- Yeah, no. Dangerous combination. And this was the worst offensive season of Austin Hedge's career, probably, which is saying something,

because he's one of the worst hitters of all time. I mean, you know, with as many plate appearances as he had, and he's framing God and great catcher defense guy and great clubhouse guy, probably for things like this. He's bringing the mood in a positive direction. And as he said in the clip, like, you know, you got to do silly stuff to get through the grind. And I guess this is what that was. So, you know, celebrate any offensive highlight when you have one hedges. And they've already brought him back.

They've resigned him for another season, even after he had a 21 WRC plus or whatever it was. So we'll see if he gets to- It's like $6 million too. I mean, 21 RC plus is not that bad if you look at the free agent catching market. Yeah, they should get, was it Joe Buck who called, uh, McGuire's 70th home run. If, if hedges hits his 70th,

we should get Joe Buck to do the seven day seven day, cause it will be just as, as huge a moment, I think, for him to get to that milestone. Okay. Mariners. This was suggested by Jim, who wanted us to note that the Mariners adopted air quotes there. Really, they sponsored a hammerhead shark named Chum, and they drafted Bryce Miller to give periodic updates about the whereabouts and wellbeing of Chum. And I will play another clip here of well-being of Chum and I will play another clip here of Bryce Miller talking about Chum. What's up y'all we

got a team shark his name is Chum he's a hammerhead and here's some facts about him he's not very fast so we got a slow shark, but yeah, we're gonna talk about him a little bit. Okay, so we adopted him and he was in South Carolina. He's kind of adventurous, so he's kind of hanging out by Delaware. Don't know why he's hanging out there. There's no one there, but I don't even know if that's a real state, but he, yeah, he's hanging out over there. So I don't know.

I don't really know what he's doing, but if you're in Delaware, don't go to the beach. From what I can tell, Bryce Miller has no personal connection or attachment to Chum and was basically put up to this by the Mariners PR people. and they thought it would be funny. And you know, it's kind of funny because Bryce Miller is kind of funny. He has this like laid back, you know, kind of draw almost like this laconic way of speaking

and he's sort of a funny guy. And a shark is, you know, there's been a lot of team mascots in some cases living ones so a hammerhead shark is kind of creative as these things go obviously not like in an aquarium in in the dugout or anything that would probably be taking things too far but somewhere in the sea there's a hammerhead shark named chum. Sharks traditionally not allies of mariners. That is true. I guess that is true. Although Bryce Miller warned people to stay off the beach. I don't think hammerhead sharks are particularly

dangerous to humans. You know, unless they confuse you for a seal or something. I don't think they're gonna go after you. But maybe if you have a trident that might not go over well. So they tried to make this more of a thing than it was. I feel like they kind of tried to make fetch happen with chum here. And then they kind of dropped it at a certain point because it didn't really catch on like a lot of these social media phenomena do. But for a while there, the Mariners- Tried to chum the waters with it? Yes, exactly. And so we got to learn a little bit more about Bryce Miller and this was another case of an in-season turnaround,

not that he was bad early on, but from the day that he first brought the news of Chum to the world, which I think was July 10th. Chum to the world. He was one of the best pitchers in baseball from that point forward. So he's like, you know, we talk so much about the other members of that Mariners rotation and Bryce Miller, he's almost like the unsung guy, he's the forgotten soldier of that rotation.

He's the Pete Smith. Yeah, and that's what we do here. We talk about stories that we didn't really talk about that much this season. So Bryce Miller from that day forward ranked 16th in Fan Graphs War. So again, you know, trailed Logan Gilbert in that category, but still really good pitcher. Maybe it was all thanks to the heartwarming story of Chum. I also learned that Miller nicknamed the Mariners rotation and named each member of the Mariners rotation after cheese, different types of cheese. So do you have the list? Of course it come prepared. Bryce Miller, nicknamed Luis Castillo, the big cheese, which I guess makes sense. You know, he's the nominal ace and big contract guy. George Kirby is sharp cheddar. Logan Gilbert is sandwich cheese.

I don't even know what that means exactly. It's like, this is grossly disappointing. So is that like, if it's you're making cold cuts, you put some, it's still like, that's not a kind of skews still be any one of dozens of different kinds of cheese. Yeah, you got to get more specific. And then he named himself string cheese. Maybe that's because of his build. I don't know. And then Brian Wu is Parmesan. I'm not sure exactly why, but he is. So now we know. All right. Next up. Terrible. We need to

we need to get a cheese guy down to Seattle and straighten things out. Yeah. I was hoping it was like, oh, did somebody, you know, I'm thinking Logan Gilbert's Red Lester or something, but no, we're not even close to operating on that level. No, it doesn't sound like a dairy connoisseur there. All right, Orioles, this was submitted by Alex,

and it is that Tony Kemp, after he was designated for assignment to make way for Jackson Holiday, the hot prospect. Okay, I remember this. Yeah. I remember this happening. I don't remember it. All right. Tony Kemp tweeted, this was April 10th, in the fall of 2010,

our college had a series against the Longhorns. You would remember this because it involved college baseball. Our college had a series against the Longhorns for a three game set. Our hitting coach at the time was Josh Holliday and his brother, Matt, brought his kid to our early practice.

I remember watching his son at Jay Holliday seven with a sweet lefty swing, go get him kid. Which, you know, you talk about class acts and classy gestures. That's right up there. Like the hot prospect who just took your roster spot. He was only on the Orioles for like five games or something, and he's jettisoned for the kid with a bright future and says,

go get him, kids. I mean, that's pretty nice. His very gracious exit is the only thing I remember about Tony Kemp's time with the Orioles. Yeah. Not much of it was memorable, but that was really nice because how many times a veteran, there's some bitterness and there's bad blood and you got to prove yourself and I've put my time in and all that. And Tony Kemp, maybe he's never attained the status in a major league uniform that he feels assured in that way or like, you know, he's entitled to that spot.

But still, how often do you see a public gesture like that? Go get him, kid. That was really nice. And coming from a guy who's also well known for not being in on the banging scheme or refusing to bang or to accept bangs. He was the celibate member of the banging scheme team. He has no documented bangs during his plate appearances based on the sounds that Tony Adams has done. And he said that he was offered the chance to receive the signals and he opted not to. So, you know, he didn't sound the alarm or

anything. He didn't, I guess you could say it might be snitching. I don't know. Would that be the moral thing to announce that it's cheating? I mean, put yourself in that place. Like, yeah, certainly ethically you could say, oh, he's obligated to tell everyone that this is happening. But I don't know how many people would actually do that in that situation. You're the new guy on the team and you come in and you find that they're cheating. Are you going to go public immediately? I mean, send a tweet out like you did congratulating Jackson Holliday. So he at least abstained from that behavior. I was like, Tony Kemp has a reputation for being the kind of guy who would send a, you know,

congratulatory tweet to the guy who's replacing him. And I think that's got something to do with why he's been in the major lease as long as he has. Probably. Yeah. Although honestly, he might've hit better than Jackson Holliday did this season if they had held on to Tony Kempf.

Tony Kempf hit 0-100-0 in his 10 play appearances. Yeah, but a small sample. He's camp hit zero, 100, zero in his 10 play appearances. Yeah, but a small sample. I don't think he's ever had a larger sample season where he hit as badly as Jackson Holliday did this year. So yeah, you know, could have hung onto him. Good clubhouse guy, clearly. Ironically, 37 WRC plus in 2017.

So that's more evidence that he was not in on the- Yes, exactly. Also listed at five six, but 160 pounds. Yeah, I think honestly five six. Yeah, I believe it. He's not in on the banging, I trust him. He wouldn't lie about his height. Tony Kemp could not tell a lie either.

All right, and a Rangers storyline here. This one is a little heavier, but also uplifting in a sense. This is submitted by Patreon supporter Wondering Winder, who told us about Nathaniel Lowe, no longer a ranger, but he was one, being the face of a local charity because some of these stories are silly and absurd and fun facts or statistical quirks or weird games or call-ups that were overlooked. Some of them are kind of sad but heartwarming off the field story. So Nathaniel Lowe's mother, Wendy, had a aggressive brain tumor and was undergoing

treatment. And this was obviously tough for Nathaniel and his brother Josh. And the first time that they played each other as major leaguers, their mother Wendy was in attendance and passed out in the suite while she was watching that game. And they all thought it was just exhaustion or I don't know, the emotion of seeing your two sons play each other. But then after subsequent symptoms, she got checked out and it was an aggressive brain tumor, which is, you know, not what you want to hear, obviously. And she continued to have treatment and this novel highly activated oxygen treatment to up your oxygen levels so that the tumor, at least in theory, can't grow.

And that seemed to have some effect. So best of luck to her and their family. But Nathaniel was inspired by this to give back because his mother was doing better and they got more time with her. And he said, life is a big give and take. Now it's time to give. And therefore he became the face of the,

what the Communities Foundation of Texas called the largest community-wide giving event in the nation, North Texas Giving Day. This was in mid September, I believe, and they accumulate tons of money. It's a North Texas Giving Day connects donors with more than 3000 local nonprofits each year. In 2023, this program which runs every year

or this year from September 1st to 19th raised more than $63 million. In the 15 years since its inception in 2009, more than $566 million has been raised. That is, yeah, that's really a lot. Like whenever you hear about a charity and then you hear how much they raise and it That is, yeah, that's really a lot. Like whenever you hear about a charity and then you hear how much they raised and it's like, oh, that's nice.

I was, I don't know if I was prepared for No. That number to be within two zeros of where that is. I know, yeah. Usually you're like, oh, any amount helps. So that's, you know, that's nice. But no, they're not kidding about this maybe being the largest community wide giving event

in the nation. Everything is bigger in Texas. I guess, I guess so. Yeah. So he was the face of that as a ranger and I guess they, they got 68.3 million this year, which was a record in the 16th annual campaign and Lo helped, he helped spread the word and was the ambassador. And, you know, was affected by the fact that when his mother was getting treatment, the doctor said to go with the treatment you can afford and not the treatment that is going to bankrupt you, which he said is pretty disappointing.

Who's to say somebody working an hourly minimum wage job versus a gazillionaire is going to get less access to medical care if they have the same condition. That's super unfortunate. And unfortunately, the climate that we're stuck with. So for a group like CFT that gives that much back to the community to be involved was pretty special and it made sense to be a part of it. So you have Luigi on one hand, taking matters into his own hands. And then you have Nathaniel with a much more peaceful approach to the underlying problem perhaps. So I think we can uncontroversially celebrate

Nathaniel Lowe's approach and response to this problem here. Yeah, I hope it makes it I think incumbent upon, I don't know, Jock Peterson to step in and lead the charity drive next season. know, Jock Peterson to step in and lead the charity drive next season. Yeah, Jock Peterson suddenly billed as like a big clubhouse guy, which I was not really aware of. Like, wasn't he, he was the guy like with the Giants

where there were all these stories about like they introduced the Filipino poker, the card game that like swept the clubhouse, took the clubhouse by storm and derailed everyone's attention to baseball, which was a very silly story that I think maybe was one of our over-the-liq stories that we didn't talk about in a previous year. I must have missed that one. Filipino poker is like the game in the one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation with Ashley Judd where Commander Riker downloads porn basically and

destroys the enterprise. Right. Now Jock Peterson has graduated to his veteran mentor phase, which I like that for him. That's been floating around him since his time, at least with Atlanta, I feel like. Yeah. He seems like a laid back guy. Seems like happy-go-lucky. Jockular. Jock like. Yeah, seems like a laid back guy. Seems like happy go lucky. Jocular. Jocular, yeah.

Very nice. He's the guy on the receiving end of the slap, not the slapper, he's the slappy. All right, we're up to the Rays. And the Rays here, I think we have a repeat appearance because Pete Fairbanks, I think this was our overlook story about the Rays last year maybe that he had suffered a black eye

while trying to dunk on his three-year-old son in a swimming pool, on a swimming pool basketball hoop. And so that was a weird injury that we discussed. He's tall enough, he should be able to dunk on a normal basketball. Yeah, well, maybe he can, but... Yeah, I guess.

Maybe he can, and that's why we don't hear about it. This year, the weird injury that he sustained was that he cut his finger opening a water bottle. So this was, I think, he had just returned from the injured list and he missed a game. He was unavailable for a game because, and I'll quote from the Tampa Bay Times here, Fairbanks said he sliced his right index finger, removing the cap on an aluminum bottle of Mountain Valley spring water, rendering him unavailable to pitch against the Red Sox, quote, just twisted the cap.

And I looked down at my finger that night and I had a cut basically the width of the finger pad. Thankfully, I was able to get a day for that to heal and then it felt good. And the problem was the Rays stocked the water in glass bottles at the trop, but had the metal bottles on Sunday's flight to Boston. Fairbanks brought one to the hotel where he opened it in the dark and was done in he thinks by the little ring underneath for freshness or whatever it is. That's a very funny turn of phrase.

So that is exactly what I would have speculated. That little ring will get you. I guess so, it's never got me. Yeah, I didn't think it would get you that bad. Placing it the width of the pad of your finger, that takes more than a day to heal. Right, that's the other thing. And then I think he pitched.

On his throwing hand? Yeah, I think it must have been. You're pitching after it now. I know, right? I'm getting serious. Yeah, his right index finger. Jeff Kent washing his truck vibes from this. Maybe, yeah. But if it, why even mention it then? serious Jeff Kent washing his truck vibes from this.

Maybe, yeah. But why even mention it then if it's not a serious cut? And then he said, and this is one of the reasons why I chose it, he said, just as a kind of public service for everybody, watch out for the metal mountain valleys, not the glass ones, the glass ones are good, and there's no microplastics, much better for you. So thanks for that PSA. It's a very Pete Fairbanks summation of the situation. It is, yeah.

So just looking at the little metal ring for freshness or whatever, it looks pretty similar on both bottles. So I would urge caution with any kind of mountain valley spring water. Well, what's funny is that he came back and he then worked a one, two, three inning. I think he maybe pitched in consecutive games after his comeback and Kevin Cash said it.

He could be well hydrated at that point. Yeah, true. Kevin Cash said it was the best he's looked all season. So maybe he should have done this earlier because he had just returned from a nerve-related condition and he was pleased with his outing. He said, it's nice when things go well and you don't suck. So it was good. I felt good. And I guess another maybe more notable Pete Fairbank story from this year was when he did suck and when he was extremely frank about how much he sucked. That's where I thought this was going.

Right, because this was in April, I guess very shortly after this incident with the water bottle, he had a post-game quote where he said, I thought it generally sucked. I didn't think it was a specific suck. I thought it was like an all-encompassing type of suck. And he just had a very frank take on how poorly he had pitched.

So I just generally enjoy Pete Fairbanks very much, whether it's his deer in the headlights terrified look or just his frankness in his quotes. I wish I could bet somewhere. I don't bet on baseball, but I would bet on Pete Fairbanks having a podcast after he retires. Yeah, it seems like you should. He's welcome to come on this one. And the other Ray story that might be worth mentioning here is the offensive futility of Alex Jackson.

Alex Jackson, I think I underrated, you know, we talked about Austin Hedges and how bad a hitter he's been. Now, I guess, holistically speaking, Alex Jackson was probably not quite as bad as Hedges this year, but it was close and he's been worse than Hedges on a career level. I mean he is now at 124 games played, so basically a full season-ish except you know 340 played appearances spread over five different seasons for a couple of few different teams, but he was with the Rays this year and he batted in 58 games, 155 played appearances, 139 at-bats, 122, 201, 237. And that's not really new territory for him batting average-wise because he's been that low before. And I think Jason Stark had this stats just about like how and probably low the batting averages have been for Alex Jackson. But like he has the lowest

career batting average ever. And it's, I think I did minimum 300 plate appearances and you might say, oh, it's a low batting average era. Even if you do average plus and adjust for the era relative to the league, it's still the worst batting average ever. And also the highest strikeout rate ever. So he does walk a little bit and has like a little bit of pop, but he has a career 132 batting average and he struck out in like 41% of his plate appearances and you know, 340 plate appearances. So that's enough where to bat 122 this year and 132 career,

he's really like, this is the gallow zone, but like plumbing depths that even Joey Gallo hasn't plumbed. So this is fascinating to me because Jackson was, he was a really high first round pick in 2014 in the same draft as like Kyle Schorber and Trey Turner and Carlos Chardón and the book on him, he was a high school catcher and they're like, oh, we're just going to move him straight to the outfield, you know, give him the Bryce Harper or Joey Vato or

whatever. And, and he did because his bat was so good and his catching defense was, you know, give him the the Bryce Harper or Joey Vato or whatever. And he did because his bat was so good and his catching defense was, you know, nothing to write home about. And that's what he was for the first three years of his minor league career. And only after that did he move back and eventually make the major leagues. And like, it's so bizarre that he is completely the opposite type of player that he was supposed to be when he was drafted. opposite type of player that he was supposed to be when he was drafted.

Like he was supposed to be able to do one thing really well and the other thing not at all and it completely flipped at some point during his pro career. Yeah, this is the nice perspective that your attention to college baseball gives you. Well, he was a high school player. Like I was only aware of him because I was, yeah, I was terrified that the Phillies were going to

draft him instead of Aaron Ola. Yeah. It's nice when you have that perspective, whereas I as a non-prospect hound, you know, I'm aware of the big guys, obviously, but some guys I don't have that complete picture of how they were regarded at the time or what they were scouted as at the time. And sometimes when they turn out to be something completely different, that is fairly fascinating. So that's- And this would have slipped past me too, except I remember somebody early in his career describing

himself like, oh, he's a defense first guy. I was like, oh, there's another Alex Jackson. Isn't that weird? Well, now we'll see what he does because he was traded by the Reds. The Yankees in the Jose Trevino deal because he had signed as a free agent with the Reds in November. Never got to be a Red. And now I guess he's the Yankees problem or maybe he won't be a problem, who knows. But yeah, Jason Stark said,

it was the worst batting average in the modern era among position players who got at least 150 play appearances in a season. Just four hitters in the last 50 years have even come within 15 points of that 122 average. And one of them was a guy named Alex Jackson, because he hit 137 in 2021. And that wasn't even his only time because he hit 157 in 2021 also, or that, no, that was one of his stops. That was just part of his seasons, yeah.

You should look up how incredibly similar his lines were in 2021 and 24. Yeah, you're right. Exact same number of home runs and RBIs to within, like the same within one of hits. Four played appearances apart, yeah. He hit 043 as a member of the Atlanta Braves for 10 distinguished games in 2021 as well. So, you know, if there's one place where

people are really tolerant of guys who hit 132, it's New York. So best of luck to him. Yeah. Went great for Joey Gallo. So good luck, Alex. Okay. Just a few more here. The Red Sox is the existence of Kam Buoser, who really we should have talked about at some point. We definitely considered him for a Media Major Leagueer segment at some point, but I don't think he was actually the subject of one, but for the name alone, really. But he debuted back in April and had just, you know, one of these great stories that we talked about in our made a meter Laker segment. He thought he was done with the game and he walked away for years, right? He had a lot of

injuries, he had Tommy John surgery, he had a broken back when he was hit by a car while riding his bike, and then he also had a 50 game drug suspension and he devoted himself to carpentry. He was constructing acoustical ceilings and yeah, he was, he was good at it, but not as good as the guys he worked alongside according to the AP. And he never totally forgot about baseball. And by 2021 he was pain free and he started throwing and it didn't hurt and his velocity came back. And next thing you know, he was debuting with the Red Sox as a 31 year old and he actually

pitched pretty well. So you know, he struck out Andrew McCutcheon after giving up a triple to the first hitter he faced, Alika Williams, but then struck out McCutcheon, throw in 95 and got a shower, celebratory shower in the clubhouse of ketchup and other condiments. Got baseballs as keepsakes. It's by far the best moment of my career, something I will always remember. And now do you see the latest misfortune to befall him?

Well I saw that he's no longer on the Red Sox. He's on the White Sox. He traded Sox colors. So I mean it's good I guess from a playing time perspective. That's the saving grace if you're someone like Ken Puzer. He came along around the same time, he came along in the majors around the same time as the University of Kentucky had as their Friday night starter, a guy named Trey Poozer. And I kept getting these two confused.

Yeah. Well, he's now 31, or he's now 32. He turns 33 in May. But he actually, he pitched pretty well, given that backstory. He ended up getting into 43 games. So this wasn't one of those like cup of coffee or one game feel good story and he never comes back. This is like cup of coffee or one game feel good story.

And he never comes back. It's a big cup. Yeah. 127 ERA plus in 42 and two thirds innings struck out more than the batter per inning. Not bad. Can't booze her. Not bad at all.

Yeah. And yeah, people were pushing him to be an athletic trainer. And then like he was an independent league player for the Chicago dogs. And then the diamond backs took a flyer on him. And then he got released by the Diamondbacks and he went to Indie Ball again. And then he went to the Red Sox

and then suddenly he was good. And then he was a big leaguer and a productive one. Okay. He's gonna be the White Sox closer by Memorial Day. It could be. All right, Royals. This is another heavy one, but also heartwarming one. And we might've touched on this at some point, but Lucas Erceg's story, his sobriety story.

This was, you know, even though this wasn't new, I think a lot of people got to know Lucas Erceg as a pitcher this year because he was good and because, you know, he was part of a playoff team and, you know, traded down the stretch and was good and because, you know, he was a part of a playoff team and you know, traded down the stretch and was good and everything. And so he was retelling his story and telling it in a more prominent public way. And he has on his glove the day that he got sober and this And he had to get a Royals model of the glove, but it says 610.20. That was the last day that he had a drink. And you know, pandemic was a tough time for a lot of people and alcohol consumption was up widely and it was just a dark time for him.

And he had a girlfriend at the time who kind of gave him an ultimatum because when the minor league season was canceled, his girlfriend Emma would leave him at the house and he would basically not budge until she got home. He'd just be playing video games and staying inside all day. I can identify with that part of the story, but also piling up 12 to 15 beer cans next to the PlayStation. Not so much that part. And Emma said, I'm going back to California

and basically gave him a week to sort of get his act together and straighten things out or else she wasn't coming back. And that was the wake up call he needed and he just went cold turkey, he says. And that worked for him after obviously a period of considerable hardship. But he got his life together and got married to Emma, I believe. And, you know, had a lot of temptations, like when he's back in baseball and a teammate poured him a glass of bourbon, put it on the video game console,

and he was frightened because the bourbon looked good and he didn't want to offend his friend. But then he said, "'I'm just going to share this with you. I'm three months sober.'" And the friend was accepting of that and approving and apologized. And that was that. And it brought them closer.

And he said it was such a scary moment, but that kind of solidified my sobriety and where my head was, and he has been able to keep this up. So he transformed his life off the field and obviously on the field as well, going from being an infielder to being a pitcher and a successful closer for a playoff bound team. So congrats to Lucas Erceg for just reinventing his whole personal and professional life and wish him continued success. This is, it had a lot to do with what derailed his career as a position player because he

was a really, really good college third baseman for a while at Cal. And yeah, I talked to him during the playoffs when I was down in Baltimore. He featured pretty heavily in my coverage down there and was just a delightful person to talk to and it's a really fun picture to watch. And I'm really happy that he's having the success he's having. He said, it was, everything was so dark, mentally, physically, it was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. And when he woke up the next day after having decided that he wasn't gonna drink anymore,

everything was beautiful, everything was euphoric, everything was brighter. It's weird, it sounds cliche, whatever you wanna call it, but it was like, wow, this is day one of the rest of my life. And then there was withdrawal and detox and all of that. And maybe things weren't quite so bright and beautiful during that process, but he came out the other side, fortunately.

So. Yeah, it's hard for a reason. So I'm glad we got through that. All right, Detroit Tigers. Well, we talked about Gleyber Torres, but the other story that listener Peter and Patreon supporter Peter suggested, and I guess I can play a clip here too, but the Tigers had an anthem during their improbable run to the playoffs,

which escaped my notice, but this was by the Detroit rapper G-Mack Cash, who seems to have made a bit of a cottage industry out of pumping out anthems for local sports teams and celebrities and politicians and people when things are going well for them. Much of this is sort of not safe for work, but maybe I can play a somewhat safe part of it. I don't think there's a radio edit of the song, Tigers Win again here, but that said it all about the Tigers and the way that they finished that season. So this was sort of embraced by the team. He threw out a first pitch. He did a post-game performance of Tigers win again.

Would have been awkward if they had lost that game, but I don't think they did. I think they won again. There is a video of him on YouTube of his throwing out the first pitch experience, and it's edited in such a way that you can't actually see the first pitch, which makes me think that it was sort of a 50 cent situation, but he like winds up and he's about to release it and then it cuts to like him walking off the mound. So they gave him the summer catch treatment. Yeah. I'm guessing it didn't go great, but at least he got to do it and became a little local hero here. It's nice to have your local music figure and maybe it's Macklemore, maybe it's Ben Gibbard, who's more than a local figure,

but maybe it's whoever it is associated with your team and can just crank out an anthem. And has since had such tunes as Lion's One Again. So that's- They've been doing that too. They have, yeah. And he dropped a second Lion's song called We Run the North. And he also, he's had a Governor Gretchen Whitmer song called Big Gretch. Yeah.

So yeah. I'm a big fan of Big Gretch. As a former constituent of hers. So is G-Mack Cash. So I just was not aware that the Tigers had a song, but they had us all hyped whether we were. Noticeably absent from his discography is the song Pistons When Again. Yeah, well, I'm sure he has that in the hopper just in case it's ever needed.

Okay. Twins, we got a few submissions for the twins, one from Paul, one from JD, one from a different Paul. One was just about Joe Ryan and his affection for his dog. It's just a boy and his dog story. And Joe Ryan seems like a likable sort, a lot of reasons to like Joe Ryan, but he- Very handsome man. Yeah, very handsome man, but- To be honest, I'm not that interested in hot guy with dog.

I think we can do better. Well, okay. It's not the only one that we've talked about in that genre this year, but he has been cited and glimpsed and photographed long after games are over on the field hitting fungos to his dog. So there's a tweet by the twins beat writer, Toeyoung Park, who says bark in the park redux. It's 10 26 PM. The game has been over for more than an hour and Joe Ryan is alone on the field

hitting fungos to his dog. So that's kind of cute. That's nice. Right. And if I, if I had a, unless you're trying to put the tarp up. Well, true. But yeah, if I, if I had a dog who was with me on the road and I were a big league baseball player, then this would be a nice thing. You know, hopefully potty trained. So you're not adding to the groundskeepers groundskeepers load literally. But if the dog can just catch fungos, I mean, my dog is a huge catch and fetch fiend. So to have a full ballpark to play with, that would be pretty special, I think. CBeran McIlwain Take your dog quite a long time to traverse

from foul pole to foul pole, I think. BF Lutz Yeah, you know, she's surprisingly speedy. She's like Chez Langelier's. Dachshunds, they get a bad rep for their lack of athleticism. They're actually, you know, pound for pound. You wouldn't think it given the leg size, but they can motor. She can scoot. Yeah, she can. And also Griffin Jacks, we got some Jacks family flyover content here. This is obviously a military family Griffin Jack's relief pitcher for the twins and Air Force Reserve captain. He received the

ceremonial first pitch on September 11th from his brother Carson and meanwhile there was a flyover of four fighter jets. I believe they were f-35s. I'm sure you would want to know that. You probably could have guessed that. Well, not if there were four of them. Getting four of them in flying condition at the same time is I believe they were F-35s. I'm sure you would want to know that. You probably could have guessed that. And- Well, not if there were four of them, getting four of them in flying condition at the same time is- Yeah, well, they had four for this big event.

Flying two of the planes were Griffin's brother Parker and Parker's wife, Chandler. So this was just a family affair. Very specific set of first names in that family. I guess so, yeah. So Griffin was, as I'm sure you know, recruited to the Air Force Academy to play baseball. And he has not flown like the other members of his family, but he was part of the Air Force's world-class athlete program, which allowed him to play baseball and train for the Olympics while he was on active duty. And then he completed his two-year commitment there, transferred to the reserves in 2019.

We've probably talked about that on the podcast, but Carson, who threw a strike from the mound, is stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California. And then Parker and Chandler's unit, the 388th Fighter Wing, is based in Utah. So all four members of the family are captains and they were all contributing to this flyover scenario in some way. Lastly, the twin submission, and I don't know how I was not aware of this, but this is a fun one. Were you aware of Manny Margot's pinch hitting futility? He had a record streak of not being able to get a hit as a pinch hitter. So he went 0 for 30 as a pinch hitter, Manuel Margot this season, which was a record for

most at bats in a season without a hit as a pinch hitter. He had 35 plate appearances. That was also a record for most pinch hit plate appearances in a season without a hit. He did walk five times, so he had a 143 OBP, but he beat Johnny Gomes in 2011. The record was 28 hitless pinch hit at bats. I would not have guessed. I would have thought Johnny Gomes would be a good pinch hitter. Yeah, you'd think, but definitely got the clubhouse guy rep. But yeah, 30 times he came up empty as a pinch hitter. Yeah, that's not good. And she's like, keep running him out there. I wonder

at what point you conclude maybe he's not made for this. He's not cut out for pinch hitting, or do you just say, ah, pinch hit penalty, everyone's bad, and also, you know, it's a small sample. I guess, lifetime, he has 121 pinch hit play appearances, 91 at bats, and 437 OPS, 143 batting average. So not good, but I guess if you subtracted his 0 for 30, he wasn't quite as futile entering this season. So I played little league with a kid who like clockwork would like walk everybody into the run limit in this first inning that he pitched

and then be incredible from the second inning on. And so what the coach had him do was an inning before he wanted him to come in, he would take him inside and just have him pitch like even beyond the normal warmup, just like throw an inning basically on the side. And I wonder if they should just have, like they should just try to convince Manny Margot that he's been hitting the entire game

when they want to use him as a pinch hitter. Yeah, right. Yeah, his lifetime as a starter, 102 TOPS plus as a sub 64. Yeah, it's a 696 OPS as a starter, 562 as a sub. That's actually pretty good. Maybe when he comes in as a defensive replacement, he's not quite as futile when he gets to hit. But yeah.

Figure out when he's going to come up, like the half inning before. I will be curious to see if he continues to get pinch hitting opportunities often in his career. All right. Elsewhere in the AL Central, we didn't get a lot of White Sox submissions, which maybe White Sox fans didn't want to think about this team any more than they already had to. And we did talk a lot about the White Sox this year.

So the one we got was from Luca who says, I'm just querying how in such a wild year for the White Sox, I haven't heard any mention of one of their starters, Jonathan Cannon. There's literally a pitcher who pitched 120 plus innings in 2024 named Cannon. It's true. You'd think a pitcher with a Cannon for his arm,

we'd hear more jokes about that. And just generally like a competent pitcher. He's good, yeah. He pitched, I was watching one of their games when they were going for the record, when they went on that inexplicable winning streak and he pitched really well against the angels. So, you know, take that for what it's worth. Right. Yeah. He's not the first major league cannon. There was a Richard Cannon, there was a Joe cannon. There was a cannon ball Barry, but, uh, Canon it's a fun name for a guy who throws for a living. Six, six, two 25. He's a large man and, uh, the white socks, third round drafty in 2022 university of Georgia. You probably do that. Yes, university of Georgia, I did. Yeah, he's 23 years old and yeah,

he did have a good season. It's not saying much, but he had the fourth highest war on the White Sox, according to fan graphs, after Garrett Crochet, Eric Fetty and Chris Flexon. So. At 1.1. Yeah, 1.1, I was gonna omit that part to make him sound better, but you know,

4.49 ERA, 4.65 FIP, 124 and a third innings, uh, 23 games, 21 starts a respectable showing as a rookie. As a rookie? Yeah, that's pretty solid. 1.3 home runs per nine. Got to get that under control probably. We'll figure it out. But, uh, yeah, by White Sox standards, that was, that was encouraging. There weren't a lot of rookies who really could make you think, yeah, this team is terrible,

but just you wait until these guys get good. And he was one of the few, so. I would say, fan graphs the website on September 26th posted an article by David Laurella, Jonathan Cannon has been a promising arm in a dispiriting White Sox season, which I think tells you, David sometimes gives away

the entire story in the headline, which is diametrically opposed to my philosophy on headlines. But I really do think that sums it all up. No puns at all in that one. Yeah. And then lastly, for the Yankees, I noted this at the time, but I guess we didn't actually talk about it. This was submitted by Sam S, Patreon supporter. The Yankees use of turtlenecks, their throwback turtlenecks in the World Series, which was a good look. You're not a uniform guy. I thought this was not your-

No, I'm not really. And maybe this is why we didn't actually discuss it on the show, but I did cross my eyes and I noted it. And it was kind of a throwback to the old school. I'm not a turtleneck guy either in real life. Well, you're a 90s kid though. Well, yeah. Yeah, like World Series means mock turtleneck

with the logo on it. Exactly, yeah. So this did bring me back. It's not my personal fashion choice. I'm kind of in the Mitch Hedberg, you know, you wear a turtleneck and it feels like a very weak person is trying to strangle you, camp. But this was not only just throwback,

old school Yankees turtlenecks, but they were literally old school. Like they were the old turtlenecks that were just in storage for years. And they just brought them back because the players liked them, not even just the look necessarily, but the cotton material,

which was kind of vindication for George Costanza. Everyone was making the Costanza jokes about finally, he was right all along. They just needed the cotton uniforms. So it didn't work for them, I guess ultimately in the World Series, but hopefully they were warm and comfy and I do like the look.

There is like, I feel you with the, like just wanting plant-based textiles after so much like synthetic performance fabric. Like sometimes the skin just cries out for cotton. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it definitely brought me back to the core four days and was nice to see. But I think Brett Gardner and Clint Frazier were them in 2020.

So it's not as if they were completely hibernating since the 90s, but for the most part. So maybe they should make it a permanent part of the look, or maybe this was partly rebellion and protest against the 2024 uniform materials. Yeah, I mean, they're going to bring him back and they're going to be Ray on and the Yankees logo is going to be a decal that falls off. Yeah. Okay. Well, we've come to the end of the American League team. So you have fulfilled your obligation as Carson Susulia used to say. I hope the brief banter about college baseball was worth the hour plus that you endured about non-college baseball stories.

I saw Carson at the winter meetings. Oh, nice. How's he doing? He's doing, he's in rude health and in rare form as you might. Excellent. Oh, I'm glad. But he talked about Ernie Clement, of course, as he would in his- Oh, yeah. I'm sure he enjoyed the extreme home runs.

In his capacity as a, I believe the vice president of the Toronto Blue Jays now, or whatever he is. Yeah, something like that. He's, yeah, he's, he's disconcertingly high ranking over there, I would say. It makes me question everything really. I know. Well, it makes me question where the Blue Jays ended up in the standings a little bit less. But.

Carson, we kid because we love. Assistant director of player personnel, not assistant to the director, assistant director. There's only, well, I guess he's co-assistant director actually, that's not his title, but there is another assistant director. But at least he doesn't have final say when it comes to player personnel.

There are some other people ahead of him. You do want a firewall. Yeah. Like you. 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

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If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can still contact us. Just send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes via email to podcast at fancrafts.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 groups slash Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild, and you can check the show page at fan crafts or the episode description on your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. I'll be back with

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