Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2312: A Return to Current Events

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about EW’s Ella Black series and catch up on topics they missed during the week away from regular episodes, including: some struggling teams (including the Orioles and Braves), Cal Raleigh’s (and David Rubenstein’s) bobbleheads, an Atlanta kerfuffle involving Brian Snitker, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Jarred Kelenic, recent pitcher injuries, […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2312 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raulia FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raulia Fangraphs. I'm joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. I am wildly out of practice. Ben, how are you? I'm okay. You barely missed a beat on that intro. Thank you. It felt a little stilted, but I feel like I ramped into a more normal cadence toward the end there. I was saying before we got on mic, I'm out of practice. What is podcasting?

This is medium. I'm out of practice speaking off script on this podcast. What do I say when the words are not on the page in front of me? Can I speak without the accompaniment of 1890s scratchy sounding music under my words? Do people even want to hear that anymore? I don't know.

But yeah, this all feels unfamiliar, but we are back to bantering, back to the normal conversational format after our detour, our digression of last week, which seems like people enjoyed. So thank you to everyone who has written in to say nice things about the Ella Black series. If you haven't gotten around to it yet,

I hope that people will check it out. It's evergreen, I guess, given that it's about 1890 mostly. So it's not really getting a whole lot less topical and timely as the days go by here. But yeah, really glad that it's not really getting a whole lot less topical and timely as the days go by here. But yeah, really glad that it's out there and that people seem to be enjoying it. And it was a lot of work.

And if you care to support work of that kind, please do sign up for our Patreon. We've had a number of people write in to say, oh, I hope you do more like that. And give us a little while, just need a little bit of recovery time. But yeah, someday I hope that we can do something along those lines that one of us will have an idea

sooner than 13 years, which is how long it took for the first effectively Wild Scripted series to happen. So yeah, maybe we broke the seal now that we got one out of the way. It'll just be smooth sailing. I feel like those kinds of projects tend to go better when they are inspired, right? When you were moved to investigate something. And also they are a tremendous amount of work and I am happy for you. It seems like the reception has been really positive and also that you seemed wildly stressed the entire time despite having had a good bit of time to prepare.

So with all of that said, no promises, but you know, the spirit might move us. So who knows? Yeah. If you want to ensure that we have the resources to pursue such projects, whether it's some sort of scripted narrative documentary or just our usual nonsense, which in itself takes a lot of time and effort, then yeah, sign up for the old Patreon. We appreciate it. But yeah, that was probably the hardest I've worked on

any individual project other than book projects, I guess, because yeah, that took a lot of time, but hopefully it was worth the effort and thanks to everyone again. So what did I miss? Gosh, I feel like I've been psychologically in 1890 for the past, well, many months, but especially last week as I was crunching

to get that all out there. So, and thanks to Shane also for pulling some late nights with me to get that out of the door when we did. But yeah, I guess, oh, and I will also tease for those who have heard the series, I will say there is an in-person excursion that I'm making if you're in the New York City area on Sunday, May 4th.

I'm tentatively planning to make an Ella Black related trip in the area. And I have a Facebook event set up. You don't have to be on Facebook to see it, but I'll link to it on the show page. I don't wanna spoil the end of the podcast. I don't know if you can spoil a podcast that again is mostly about 1890,

but just in case I'll say that there's an event I'm actually leaving my house yet again in connection with something related to Ella Black. Yeah, that's just how passionate about this subject is. I made multiple departures from my house and even from my city, though this one will be in the city, but outside of my usual bro. But yeah, save the date, Sunday, May 4th,

and you can check the details on the show page at that Facebook event description if you're interested in learning more and maybe accompanying me to that thing. But yeah, I jotted down some stuff while I was out that probably we would have bantered about if we had been doing our normal episodes. And if there were things that you would have wanted

to talk about, then we could talk about them now. I mean, we just talked about 1890 for a week. So stuff that happened last week is relatively, it's fresh. So I think it's okay if there's anything you wanted to revisit any not as old business. Well, I have been struck by movement in the standings. I think that that has been part of my focus in the last little

bit here. Some of the movement, perhaps a bit unsurprising, although surprising given the context of the season. So as we sit here recording on Tuesday, April 22nd, the New York Yankees are in first place in the AL East. Shocking. Shocking. Kind of where you expected coming into the year, except maybe not given all their injured pitching. But here they are, those Red Sox, a game and a half back. Rays in last place.

What's going on with the Orioles, Ben? I feel like things are bad in Baltimore right now. Baltimore, where am I? Yeah, not the best. Davi, what am I doing? Yeah, I saw that Jeff Hoffman, who is of course on the Boudgees these days, he blew a kiss toward the Orioles' dugout after a save.

And there's some history there, some backstory, because of course there was a medical issue that was flagged by the Orioles with the physical. He might have signed there otherwise and so he was sort of sticking it to them. Just you know, I mean, you always say that they should kiss if they want to, but this wasn't that kind of kiss. This was maybe the opposite of an affectionate, tender kind of kiss. Tender, yeah.

But I guess as long as his arm holds up and some other Orioles arms haven't, he has a point there because yeah, I mean, it's been kind of comeuppance. It's been vindication, I suppose, for everyone who was saying, hey, go get some pitching and spend some money. And then some of their pitching falls apart physically or performance wise and Grayson Rodriguez, he's not back yet and Charlie Morton not doing so hot. And yeah, suddenly it's looking like,

I don't know if it's the worst case scenario, but it's not a good scenario. And I saw there was a Michael Iass quote, something along the lines of like, we never anticipated a scenario where Zach Efflin and Grayson Rodriguez were hurt at the same time. Like who could have conceived of those two particular pictures having coinciding overlapping injuries

in what world? Who could have thought? Yeah, why would you even plan? We're all trying to find the guy who did this. Yeah, for a contingency just so out of the realm of imagination. But really it is, yeah, it is a little bit like, well, told you so, it's too early to really say told you so.

Right. But yeah, it's not a great start. And for a while there, no one was really off to a great start in the AL East, but that's a little less true now. I find myself in search of the proper tone for these sorts of things, because I do think that it is important for front offices and ownership groups and where the blame lies for different parts of the Orioles current

fix. There's blame to go around to different parties. You want there to be sort of a, a, a rational cause and effect. Um, so the different choices are made in the future, right? Because we want baseball teams to, to aspire to, to greatness, to world series glory. And the Orioles have so many great players on their team, you know, exciting young guys who I want to see be important figures in the sport. And I do think that those sort of star cases tend to be cemented in October, although not exclusively. And so you want there to be like a rational give and take, but I don't want it to be a

Nana Nana Nana kind of thing because I do like a lot of the guys on that team. And you know, it's not Gunnar Henderson's fault, but they didn't spend money this off season and it's not Cedric Mullins' faults. And so you find yourself sort of in search of the proper tone. It is, it's like Mike, the one thing you can count on in the sport is that you will have starters injured concurrently. And that's before you even get to the particular starters in question who have not exactly a sterling track record of health over the course of their pro career so far. So that part of it is like, you know, what do you do with that? You say, hey, make better choices, maybe. This seems like an opportunity this year.

You're in a very competitive division, but it's not, you know, it's not without its warts. It's not without its imperfections. So like, this is like a, it should have been like a push chips in kind of moment you would think. So there's that, there's the, the current state of, of the NL East. Look at those Mets, Ben. Look at, look at Juan Francisco Lindor. What a little run he is on. So delightful. We love Lindor and we like to see him doing well. Yes. As I understand it, Lindor is still good. Aaron Judge, still good.

I understand that Wendor is still good, Aaron Judge, still good, evidently. Possibly even better than Tyler Soderstrom. I would venture to say that that is even true. May not have as many homers as Tyler Soderstrom. I can't believe you're disrespecting Calralli the way that you are. That feels rude and a little, little pointed. How dare you not put a glory on the name of the Big Dumper? Can we just for a moment, sorry, it's so rare that I get to feel the feeling I'm feeling about the Mariners right now, which is like, huh, don't think this is going to last and

join it though. So can we just say this is a man, Cal Rowley, who has homework from both sides of the plate. That seems very fun. I love it when a guy has a WRC plus in the 160s and a batting average in the 230s because you're like, boy, you're hitting some big tanks, aren't you? But that's how you're doing that. Also, we just should every now and again take a moment to reflect on the fact that a professional athlete beloved by an entire region, one of the faces of this franchise now with his extension just inspires a bunch of grownups to yell, big

jumper. Like that's a, that's beautiful, Ben, you know, we should let that in. There's so much horror in the world right now, but that, that's pure. That's beautiful. We should let that in. Although Ben, I have a little note for the Seattle Mariners. And I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I was made aware of this pre or post our little hiatus for your wonderful scripted series, but I need you to Google

Cal Raleigh bobblehead real quick. Just like I need you to Google it. Oh. It's a little much. Wait, was this the one that did not have the bobble butt that it should have had or did it have it? It had enough of a butt. Okay, Ben, it had enough of a keister. And the way that the Mariner social media accounts talked about this bobblehead,

I like it when we're a little horny in baseball. As our listeners know, I think it's nice for if players wanted to, only if they wanted to, but if they wanted to, I would be okay with them giving each other little kisses. Just give a little, little, you know, only if they want to. The way that this bobblehead was talked about, I think was starting to venture into territory where I'm like, you know, children are gonna have this

in their homes, right? This is about, this is just a, it was a little much, you guys, just I need to dial it back ever so slightly. Or was it not enough? Because I know it was, it was labeled the platinum dumper and he was in a crouch, right, in the stance. But it was still his head that bobbled. And it feels like if you were going to do this, it should have been the butt bobbling.

It has a bubble butt, but not a bobble butt. And so maybe that would be taking it too far because I know he was initially reluctant to embrace the nickname, and then he has, and he's owned it now, and he's come around on that, but perhaps not to the point where he would want his butt to be the daubler. That's fine. I think that that's an okay boundary for Cal to drop.

I think it's fine for Cal to say, look, I'm cool about the big dumper stuff. You know, I'm not weird about it. I understand that there's nothing to be done. It remains hilarious that Jared Gelinick is the originator of that nickname for a number of reasons. But like, I think it's fine for him to say, hey, I'm chill with this, but I don't need my butt to move. I don't need my bobblehead to twerk.

It wouldn't be anatomically accurate in that moment. Because when you're crouched, you know, it's prominent, but it's not moving around like that. He's not twerking when he's back there. He's working when he's back there, Ben. Yes. So there's that. But one of the tweets about this was, oh my God, Becky, look at that bobblehead.

Now for those of you who aren't aware of the lore of Sir Mixla, Seattle guy, went to my high school, proud alum. Congrats. Yeah, thank you. You know, and I get it, it is part of our musical heritage. I'm fine with it being emphasized over Macklemore because there was just so, we don't need to hear The Ceiling, can't hold us anymore. We can be done with that song. I never need to hear it again. This isn't even totally an anti-Macklemore take. It's just like enough already, okay? He played it every time. The Seahawks scored a touchdown the year they won the Super Bowl. They did

that a lot. I don't hear the song anymore. I used to like the song. Never need to hear it again. Anyway, it's just a lot, you know? And it's like, you can be a little, like be a little tongue in cheek feels like the wrong expression to deploy in this moment, given the subject matter. But I'm just, you know, have a little mystery, you know? Be a bit of a tease. You could be a little less direct

and it would be, you know, candidly sexier. So that's my feedback for Mariner social media. I don't even know if this happened while we were off, but I'm just saying I was thinking about it while we were off. And so I'm bringing it up now. But these Mariners, Ben, they're back, they're over 500. They're only a game back in the West. They are scoring enough runs barely, but they are doing it.

Here though, the Mariners made me think of this, and there were a couple of games while we were off that also made me think of this that did not involve the Mariners. And I wanna alert you to it and ask our listeners to kind of keep track of it. Two phenomena, feel like there are a lot of blowouts this year, feel like there are a lot of games that are getting way, way out of hand, that are

approaching football score territory in a way that's very odd and that I don't know if I care for it. So I want to look, I need to look and see if my sense of it is being falsely propped up by a couple of very dramatic blowouts that are quite wrong. But speaking of the Baltimore Orioles not having pitching and also being kind of underwhelming, did you see Ben that they lost a game to the Cincinnati Reds 24 to 2? I did see that. And I think what, nine of the runs maybe

were allowed by position player pitchers, which means it was still a lot that were allowed by real pitchers. It was not good. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that can really kind of blow up your team pitching stats, especially at this point in the season. But it's- Right, now we're gonna have to like,

we're gonna have to, Reds adjust for the Orioles. It's very irritating, because they're all out of whack now. Yeah, speaking of that, I guess, first of all, well, gosh, you mentioned Jared Kelnick. We maybe should talk about Jared Kelnick in a second, in connection with another controversy that occurred while we were taking a bit of a break from current events.

But also, bobblehead wise and Baltimore wise, I think things could be worse than they are for the Orioles. They could be what they've been for the Braves or even the twins, not so hot. But bobblehead wise, we talked about the Orioles owner, David Rubenstein's bobblehead day, which I think that was the day before that 2042 blowout perhaps.

I hope so. Yeah. We got some people writing in and, and I think there was one person who talked up the philanthropy. He's a, you know, donated to local causes in Baltimore. I understand that. He's a, I'm not saying the man's a monster or anything. I'm just saying that it is a little out of line for an owner to produce a bobblehead of himself, especially this early in his tenure

without any great accomplishments on the field. And we did have some people write in cause I kind of threw it out there. Hey, is there precedent for this? I'm sure there have been other owner bobbleheads at some point and we were talking about, well, sometimes maybe it could be defensible in certain circumstances. There is actually a website with a bobblehead database.

I don't know quite how comprehensive it is, but yeah, bopenbobbles.com, which listener Daniel wrote in and also perused before he wrote in about. listener, Daniel wrote in and also perused before he wrote in about, and he and others noted, so the Dodgers not too long ago had Magic Johnson and Billie Jean King bobbleheads because they're minority owners of the team. And so it was a year or two after they got ownership stakes, they produce bobbleheads of Magic and Billie Jean King. That's a separate category. I agree. Yeah. They are sports icons in their own right. Yes, they're legendary athletes.

That's in the realm of, okay, it's acceptable to have bobbleheads of these folks. Granted, probably wouldn't have if they had not been owners of the team, but nonetheless, that is not so strange. That is not so far from the norm. The Brewers about 10 years ago gave out a Bud Selig bobblehead, which is terrible.

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't do it, but it's somewhat unsurprising. Like they have a whole Bud Selig experience at their park. He was the commissioner for a long time. By that point, he was not yet enshrined in Coopersound in 2015, but he was clearly headed for the Hall of Fame. So, okay, that is a singular case or at least an unusual case. The Rangers a few years ago gave out a multiple Bushes, multiple Bush presidents, first pitch bobblehead along with Nolan Ryan. And of course- Wait, like they were together on the mound in the-

Yeah, it was W, it was George H.W. and it was Nolan Ryan, just like a combined bobblehead, I believe. And of course, W was a Rangers owner. But again, if you are a president of the United States, I think that's a separate carve out category. I'm not saying I would do it. I'm just saying these are extenuating circumstances.

Some might say that it's even worse to have a W Bobblehead. I'm just saying he's in a separate category. He's not a mere odor. He is an odor who also became president of the United States. So, okay, that's, uh, we can sort of set that aside. David Rubenstein has not done that. Daniel also informed us that the White Sox this year, as part of their 125th anniversary, they have eight bobblehead giveaways this year and none of them involve

current personnel of the White Sox, which is sad, but also, you know, maybe that's for the best. But they are having Charles Kamisky and Bill Vek bobbleheads. And look, those are both old-timey, long dead, which as you stipulated, okay, if you're gonna do it, they should be probably, yeah, dead and buried, long gone. And I think I even mentioned, well, if you're gonna do it for Bill Vek, fine, I will allow it for Bill Vek. But you know, Charles Kaminsky, okay,

these are both Hall of Famers also, right? So if these are the best precedents we can come up with for, yeah, technically there have kind of been owner bobbleheads before. These are not the same. This is, you know, one of these things is not like the other sort of situation with David Rubenstein. So it's sort of an immediate kind of come up situation.

I'm not suggesting that this was karmic payback for the owner bobbleheads, just immediately getting trounced by the Reds, but it was kind of cosmically appropriate in a sense. It's not to say that there aren't any owners who are philanthropically minded. I don't know that we need to like go to bat for, you know, the co-chairman of the Carlyle group, but if that's your flavor of private equity, great. You know, like I'm not saying that none of these folks have done things for their communities, that none of them are organized people. I

don't know them, you know, like David Rubinstein and I are not acquainted, but it's just for all the reasons we said, it's a dicey proposition while the individual is, I think always, but especially while the individual is still alive and particularly when you've had an underwhelming off season. It just sets you up to give people a thing they can smash with your face on it. It just seems not strategic. Apart from anything else, it It just seems not strategic. Apart from anything else, it just isn't particularly strategic. And yeah, I think that when you're, you're

giving away a bobblehead of a minority owner of the team who happens to be a beloved sports icon in their own, right? There's like a curve out for that, you know? And I don't think that anyone is particularly annoyed with Dodgers ownership at this juncture. Like you do have a certain amount of, I think, protection just based on the fact that you're signing all of the guys and you just won the World Series. So even if you weren't beloved sports icon, Billy Jane King or Magic Johnson, you would have a little bit of buffer there. And as we discussed, like the Dodgers are like,

we have to do a billion bobbleheads. So, you know, I think they're pressed into service a bit more than others. Right. I wouldn't do a bobblehead of any former president, but I also specifically maybe would do that. But I understand that my view of these things and the Texas Rangers view these things

might be different on multiple levels. Probably you might differ on some points, perhaps, yes. Perhaps. So speaking of Jared Kellnick, former Mariner, but not current Mariner, current Atlanta Brave, and this is maybe the sort of thing that bubbles over when a team is not going well,

but this became a controversy this past weekend. On Saturday, Jared Kalnick, he hit a line drive, he watched it, he did not run out of the box, he thought it was gone. Instead, it bounced off the wall in right field, and he got thrown out at second base. At a certain point, he got on his horse, as they say. I enjoy that expression.

Get on your horse. Yeah, that's a fun one. It's evocative. And he didn't get on his horse early enough, or the horse wasn't fast enough, and so he was thrown out at second base, and he was not punished for this. He was not disciplined for this in any way, apparently.

And Brian Snitker, manager of Jared Kelnick and the Braves was asked about this after the game, asked if he had talked to Kelnick, if he was going to make a point to bring this up with his player and suggest that this is not the way one should play. And Snitker not only suggest that this is not the way one should play. And Snitker not only said that he had not, but he added, was I supposed to? Little bit of an attitude there.

He was in a bit of a snit, one might say. And Ronald Acuna Jr., who is also an Atlanta Brave, though not an active one as of yet, posted on Twitter, "'If it were me, they would take me out of the game.'" He subsequently deleted that tweet, but people had seen it, as is the case. When one sends tweets, they are instantly seen, and then they are preserved.

And gotta say, Ronald has a point here, because he phrased it as a hypothetical. If it were me, they would take me out of the game, but he didn't have to because this has happened. Yeah. You could have said this was me and they did take me out of the game. Because of course, almost an identical play happened in 2019 and Acuna watched a ball and in his case he was not

thrown out immediately. He didn't try to stretch it into a double. He stayed on first but then tried to make up for it by stealing second which was anticipated and he was thrown out easily. And then Snitker took him out of the game and made some comments publicly about each teammate being responsible for 24 other guys and letting your team down and gave him a bit of the business. Which look, it's defensible if you want to handle that with a young player who you hope will be a star in the face of your franchise and you want to send a message, that's okay. But it better be a consistent message because if another player comes along later,

a far lesser player, frankly, does exactly the same thing. And not only do you not handle it the same way, but you take umbrage at the suggestion that you should have, then no wonder that rubbed Ronald Acuna the wrong way. So I have some sympathy here. I mean, you know, I am always, I guess, generally, and so long as it's not like, you know, a case of some sort of serious abuse or harassment or something, I guess I'm kind of a keep it in the clubhouse guy, you know, just like maybe better to handle things behind closed doors just for the sake of the team

and you know, it kind of becoming a story and then hanging over your head and you have to be asked about it and everyone else has to be asked about it. But one also might imagine that if a player decides not to keep it in the clubhouse, then perhaps they have attempted to keep it in the clubhouse, then perhaps they have attempted to keep it in the clubhouse previously, and that has not sufficed. Who knows what other

bad blood there is here? Who knows what history has happened? So, Okunya chose to make it public, and then it became a thing, but he has a point here. I certainly could imagine myself feeling similarly aggrieved seeing this sequence of events play out. I think that trying to resolve conflict within the clubhouse internally tends to be the right move if the goal is to actually resolve that conflict. Because once you have aired grievance externally, then the media, the fan base, they all become weird external partners to that conflict in a strange way, but they don't actually have anything, I think, particularly, not useful, but specific, maybe,

is the right way to think about it to contribute to that conversation and they're not there with you, right? And so I think that it tends to stymie productive conversation. It isn't necessarily the only thing that can stymie productive conversation and you do have to have parties that are sort of willing to actually work through those conflicts with some sort of constructive conversation in mind in order for any of this to matter. So I don't want to say that like there's never a role for airing this stuff.

And to your point, like, unfortunately, there might be instances where exposing a, like a culture of abuse or harassment or what have you is important to actually getting some sort of resolution, right? Where sunlight does prove to be the best disinfectant. But if you're dealing with interpersonal conflict or if you as a member of the team are noticing that there is some sort of differential treatment between players. I think trying to resolve that internally and then having sort of a conversation about it externally being the final recourse might be the right progression. I do wonder, and I don't know that we're ever

going to know the answer to this, but in moments like this, it's always interesting to me. Like what, if you were going to like a portion out the, the situation, what percentage of Acuna's tweet is his frustration that he's not playing? What percentage of his tweet is the general vibe around the team not being particularly good because they are struggling? You know, we started this episode talking about the Orioles, the team not being particularly good because they are struggling. We started this episode talking about the Orioles. The situation for the Braves is much more dire, not only because they're a greater distance back from the top of the division than the Orioles are, even though they have the same

number of wins, but the NL is just more competitive than the American league. The notion that the Orioles could sort of rapidly regain ground in a league that is kind of soft and has a fat middle strikes me as much more likely compared to a Braves team that has to deal with, you know, the Mets and the Phillies and the Dodgers and the Padres and like a weirdly good Giants team and the Diamondbacks. And you know, so. And so it's like, the day's getting kind of long for them early. So some amount of this is probably, you are just more likely to kind of pick these little fights

when your team isn't doing well. And then there is a part of it that I think is probably the more important and serious question for them to answer, which is like, is there some sort of clubhouse problem here? Are certain players receiving different kinds of treatment than others? What is the reason for that? How much of that, you know, it would be a very different conversation if Snicker said, you know, in the past, I, you know, I might've removed a player in that situation, but I've

thought about it and I don't know that that is like- Exactly, yeah. That was six years ago. Yeah, I've evolved as a manager. Yeah. Right. I don't know that that's actually the most productive way to resolve these kinds of issues. And I think that you get better results out

of your players if you have a conversation with them as opposed to being punitive, whatever. Like, you know, it would be different if his reaction had been that. I don't know if Okunya's reaction to it would have been different. But it might be different for him to say, you know, I've kind of thought through that in my time as a manager and my approach to this stuff is different now. But for him to be defensive about it kind of suggests there might be a bigger conversation that needs to go on there. I don't know that it's necessarily always wrong to see a player loafing it in your opinion and say, you know what, I, I need there to be like a consequence for this.

We're all trying to pull in the same direction. We're all trying to win. And this struck me as actually not giving your best effort as opposed to you would have been out any way you're trying to, you know, protect yourself from injury, whatever it is, right? Um, there are instances where I could imagine that being a completely reasonable action you're trying to, you know, protect yourself from injury, whatever it is, right? There are instances where I could imagine that being a completely reasonable action for a manager to take. I don't know that that's always the case. And I do think that in order for the

impact to kind of be what you want it to be when you see a guy really goofing off, maybe that's the way I'll describe it, and you want to send a message, like you need to articulate the message to the rest of the team because the whole purpose of saying, hey, you got to sit out now, you're done for the day is to say, this isn't how we're going to play baseball. Here's how that instance is different than this instance over here, right? Like you want to actually have it be, if it's going to be a teaching moment, then teach it.

Yeah. And there could be cases where one player might respond to a certain tactic and another player might respond to a different tactic. And as long as you're kind of conveying, I guess publicly, but especially privately why you handled those situations differently. Maybe that's okay. It doesn't necessarily have to be one size fits all. If you know that there's one guy who would react negatively to just being benched

and kind of publicly called on that, and someone else, maybe just a quiet conversation behind closed doors would be all the motivation he needs. So I think that might even be okay as long as you justify it. But it was just the way that he explained it when he benched Acuna where he made it just a blanket policy where he just said, you can't do that. We're trying to accomplish and do something special here. I guess you could say, well, they subsequently did accomplish and do something special. So maybe now they could just relax. It's like, well, we won a world series after that.

So, you know, good enough. I doubt he would say that or even think that, but maybe the pressure's off you a little bit, but he didn't run, you've got to run. It's not going to be acceptable here. So what, oh, is it acceptable now? Have the standards changed? I would say that your question about the percentages,

like what percentage of Acuna tweeting that was the circumstances surrounding him and the team and how much of it was just simmering resentment about the way that he was treated or just the difference here and the double standards seemingly. And I would guess that in one sense, it's 0% related to the current circumstances

in that even if you were playing and playing great and everything was going great for Atlanta, he might've still been miffed by that. He might've just thought, huh, that's curious. I wonder why I was treated one way and this guy was treated the other way. But in another sense, maybe it's a hundred percent in that condition, maybe he doesn't tweet anything about it.

I've got to think that a large part of the responsibility for the tweet was the fact that he was in Florida. You know, like he probably wouldn't just have as ready access to his phone in that moment. If he's playing and if he's playing well, I'll just let it slide and everything else is going well. And I don't want to mess with success and I don't want to rock the boat. But yes, when you're frustrated that you're not out there and you can't help

your team that is not doing well. And meanwhile, the guy who is getting playing time in your absence is loafing it, at least on this particular play, then that's gonna be galling. So yeah, it depends how you look at it. It's kind of either 0% or 100%. Snitker actually said on Sunday that he just hadn't seen the play until Sunday morning,

which, yeah, I mean, that's, I don't know if that's really an explanation or an excuse that makes you sound better because when he was asked after the game, if he had spoken and he said, was I supposed to, he then said after Sunday's game that he didn't see the play until that morning. And then evidently, Kelnick came to him

and initiated a discussion about it, which that seems like even more of a curious explanation because, hey, you're the manager of the team. How did you just not see a play? And then if you were asked about that play after that game, you're telling me you didn't then watch the play until the following morning? That just seems odd. Yeah.

Like, I mean, okay, maybe you had to go to the bathroom or something. Yeah, I was like, was he in disposed? Yeah, you know, maybe you're talking to the bullpen. Maybe you're thinking about other things. I'm not saying your eyes have to be glued to the game 100% of the time, but no one flagged that for you. One of your other coaches didn't say, Hey, heads up. He didn't run there after you're asked about it by the media after the game.

You know what I'm saying? Huh? I guess I better get up to speed here and see that he did not get up to speed. And that's why I'm being asked about this. So yeah, that is an explanation that, uh, I don't know that that's all that much better, but that's one answer. I guess like, you know, we don't have to linger on it too much longer, but one of the sort of more amorphous responsibilities of a manager is to be conscious of reasonable and grounded

worst case explanations that your players or the media might have for your behavior. And there might be completely innocuous reasons, right? And if you didn't see the play, I guess that's one of them. I don't know that that's a great reason, but it is a reason and one that is disconnected from bias, I suppose. But you have to be aware that like one of the things that

people might point to as a reason that you would treat a Jared Kellnick differently than you would a Ronald DeKuny Jr. is that Jared Kellnick is white and Ronald DeKuny Jr. isn't. And so I think you just want to manage that potential worst case explanation so that it doesn't fester as a potential explanation and so that it doesn't fester as a potential explanation and so that it doesn't influence the relationship that you have with the player. And you want to make sure it's not the explanation, that it isn't the reason. So I just think it's, you know, you want to be sensitive to the potential appearance of bias or the potential for bias and manage away from that. And my sense of Snicker in

Atlanta has been that he has, despite being kind of, you know, you look at the guy and you assume he's going to be kind of curmudgeonly because he's got such a serious face and, you know, he kind of like is always squinting. You know, it seems like he has been relatively well liked by that clubhouse and that they have managed to manage a lot of different personalities. They have a lot of really big, you know, name stars on their team. And it doesn't seem like it has been a particular issue.

And so I don't want to assume the worst in the guy, but I do think that if you're that guy, you've been around long enough to know that like that that is sometimes what is being brought to bear in moments like this. So just manage that better if it's not what's going on so that people aren't like, what's going on in Atlanta right now? People are going to be asking, what's going on in Atlanta right now? Because Ben, what's up though?

We know what's up, but it's just like, it's not that they can't pull out of it, but as we've said, the day's getting long early. You know, the NL is too good. The wild card races are too jam packed. It's just, you don't want to be six and a half back at this juncture. Now, Atlanta has had years where they have suffered like the season ending injury to their best player and gone on to win the World Series. So I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but it's just weird that they have fewer wins than the athletics do.

That seems like it's not the best. It's just been such a, quite a come down offensively. I think just, I don't know if the the 2023 juggernaut that was the Atlanta lineup raised our expectations too high, but for them to have been average last year and a little bit below that this year, even though Sean Murphy has returned and his hits. But yeah, it has been a steep decline for that offense. And then you get Spencer Schreider back and he makes one start and then he immediately hurts himself again.

Hopefully not seriously. And it's not his arm. No, it's his hamstrings, which of course, or one of them, which led to a lot of jokes about the quads and the leg day and the quad to hamstring imbalance potentially. But yes, just to get hurt, plain catch. we've talked about how demoralizing it can be when you get someone back from an injury,

to a team and to fans and to the player himself, obviously, when someone comes back from a long-term injury and then immediately gets hurt again. It's a bummer, but yeah. Hopefully not super serious, but still, it was a lift to their spirits. Hey, we got Strider back and he looks more or less like Strider and then,

oh, he's gone again, that stinks. But that was not the only picture injury that happened during our little break. We also had Justin Steele of the Cubs going in for elbow repair, he's done for the year. That's a big blow to them. And gosh, Tristan McKenzie being designated for assignment. I'm just so sad about what has happened to his career

because I so enjoyed when he was pitching well. And I just don't know if we're going to see that guy again. Nestor Cortez is on the IL and seemingly long-term because he got transferred to the 60 day, right? I was kind of curious about the fact and seemingly long-term because he got transferred to the 60 day, right? I was kind of curious about the fact that the elbow woes that he had late last year, it just seemed like everyone decided,

well, he's fine now. When it didn't at all seem settled that he was okay, like there were all these stories written when he came back in the playoffs about how he was going against advice of his family and friends, and maybe even his doctors had warned him, hey, this could get bad at any second.

Like you have this flexor strain, if you keep pitching, it could tear at a moment's notice. And he was saying, no, I know I'll be a free agent after 2025, but hey, we're in the World Series here. This is the playoffs. Like I'm putting my arm on the line. And if he wants to do that, fine. It turned out that the way he was used in his first appearance, perhaps he would have been better off not coming back or the Yankees, whatever Aaron Boone might have. But I am fine with the impulse to say, hey, I want to help the team here.

But didn't it all sound like he just like was healed? And so I was almost taken aback when the Brewers traded Devin Williams for him. Now Williams himself has been bad for the Yankees, but for a while there it looked like, oh, the Yankees could use innings. But then I also think I caveated that comment at one point of the podcast with not that you can feel secure that you're going to get innings from Mr. Cortez the way that his last season ended. So I don't

know. I'm sure they did their due diligence and they looked at their MRIs and were reasonably certain that he would give them some durability this year, but it just seemed like the way his 2024 ended that I had no confidence in that. You know, knowing nothing, having no special insight other than his comments about how he didn't seem to be healed. And then he just pitched through it anyway. And now he has the same injury again. I don't know whether it is exactly the same or whether he just got re-injured and it could have happened anyway, who knows, but it is the same flexor strain at the same elbow. So yeah, just saying. AMT – We should probably note that, you know, if you were to ask the Brewers, the big get in that trade package was Caleb Durbin more than Faisal Cortez.

But Jared Sussman Right. He got called up, right? Yeah. Yeah. The once and future brewer. I mean, he was just like, his man is a brewer. This man's been a brewer his whole life.

He just didn't know it yet, Ben. He just didn't know it. Yeah, there have been a number of injuries since we last potted. You noted the pitching ones, the Jose Siri is hurt. Yes, the load bearing Jose Siri could not bear the load. He could not bear the load. The leg buckled under that load. That happened. So yeah, there've been a number of guys who've been kind of dinged. And now we have to wait and see what might become of some of them.

I guess you're happy if you're Atlanta, at least it's not an arm thing for a strider. But you know, maybe if he wasn't constantly riding an invisible horse, he wouldn't get dinged like that. I just like the quads are sure something. They're just, and then he's got a stand. He just stands like he's just dismounted from a horse. Pretty prodigious. They are pronounced quads.

And he doesn't go to any great lengths to hide them either. He's accentuating the quads. Why should he? Oh yeah, those are some. He should show them off, but yeah. Tight, tight pants. They are some truly tight pants. Or maybe they just seem that way

because of how prodigious his quads are. But no, I think he is also accentuating how prodigious they are. They're quite tight. They're shockingly tight. All of the pants, I want everyone to know when they mentioned me on Blue Sky about the pants being sheer, you're right. They are. They're still, you can see right through those things.

You can see right through those suckers, all of them, those pants. They're so sheer. It's amazing we haven't seen more really. There was also a report, a rumor that surfaced last week, I believe, from Bob Nightingale, but it's a White Sox adjacent rumor. And he does certainly seem to report a lot of White Sox news. Make of that what you will. But he reported that the Dodgers and the White Sox had discussed a Luis Robert Jr. trade in exchange for James Outman

and a prospect and that those talks are not continuing right now, for one thing Luis Robert hasn't particularly looked like a player that a team would want to trade for to this point, but can you imagine if the Dodgers had traded for Robert over this off season, just what a furor that would have caused what an uproar because gosh, I mean there was so much of a, a Dodgers backlash as it was. And if they had traded for Louise Robert,

who was expected to be good and was one of the best players theoretically available on the trade market. That might have been a bridge too far. That might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Whatever expression you want to use, that really would have dialed up the Dodgers hating to just a fever pitch. That could have been the end of all of us if they had acquired Louise Robert Jr. over the off season. I do wonder if we would have reached a saturation point for Dodgers takes. I wonder. Yeah, I guess it would have depended on the return because the the White Sox are a funny team, right? We're so invested in like, are they going to maximize

this trade? Because like, they got offer other offers over the winter. And some of them were kind of wanting. They might look good now, because to your point, he's not playing especially well. But you know, I wonder, it would have depended, of course, on the rest of the return beyond Outman, but I would have wondered, he could have been the latest Dodger to go to Chicago and just look sad all the time. Like, oh my God, Fargus, okay? But yeah, maybe it would have broken the internet

and then it wouldn't have come back. And then what would we have done, you know? How would we put the podcast out? Where would we have a fan graphs if they had broken the internet? If the Dodgers had broken the internet and destroyed fan graphs, then I would have been mad at them. I think that would have tipped me over into the, they've gone too far.

We got to do something about these cats. They're just too much. I still think he'll get traded this year. Yeah. And you know what? I bet he'll play better at some point. Yes, I would think he'll get traded this year. And you know what? I bet he'll play better at some point. Yes, I would think so. Can I use this as an inelegant segue to the second thing that I want to ask you about

and ask our listeners to keep an eye out for? Sure. Have you felt as if, I'm priming you a little bit here and I apologize for that, kind of takes away from the integrity of the question, but I have felt as if watching Major League Baseball across teams, and now I'm struggling to come up with a specific example, but I have felt as if there have been more near outfield collisions between fielders than I am used to seeing. Has this been a part of your viewing experience at all?

And I bothered our good friend Mike Petriello in an effort to see like, is there a treasure trove of stat-cast data that would allow us to quantify this sense? Because like, at some point, I'll just do the math and see if there actually are more blowouts than there were last year at this point in the season. But because we can look at that, I can figure that out. I just didn't today because I was busy with other stuff then. But for this, I don't know that there is a good way for us to suss out this sense. And maybe I just noticed one that was particularly galling and thought, oh boy.

And then I started seeing it everywhere, you know, like shark attacks or like what is going on with the planes, you know, like are the planes in shark? It doesn't matter. I mean, it super matters like a lot, but like not the point of this conversation. So I don't know if my sense is just I'm noticing it everywhere. Like you know, like shark attacks or cyber trucks. It's like, God, how many haven't all been recalled? How many of these are in my neighborhood? Two is the answer. I don't care for it.

But I just feel like guys are almost running into each other a lot. And it's interesting because, you know, obviously you want to avoid injury. There's that piece of it. But I just feel like guys are almost running into each other a lot. And it's interesting because obviously you want to avoid injury. There's that piece of it. But then I bring this to you mostly because you hate the little cards. You feel like the little cards are cheating. And so cheating is maybe strong, but you don't like them. You don't think that guys should have them. And so it's like, is this, first of all, is it real? And if it is, is it because of positioning weirdness? Are guys, you know, can they not hear? Are like ballparks louder? And so they can't, is it because there are guys like, do we have an unusual number of dudes who are moving to a corner for the first time

or being pressed into service and center? And again, I could be describing nothing, you know, this could be nothing. But I would like to enlist our listeners and you to just notice, like, if you notice a near outfield collision, let me know about it. Because I feel like I'm seeing more of them. Although, as I say that, you know, maybe less and less as the weeks go on. So maybe this is just like an early season thing where guys are still getting used to each other out there. That could also be. Yeah. Miscommunications. Yeah.

Yeah. But there have been a number of times, I feel like guys have had to be like, whoa, and they're pulling up their horse after having gotten on their horse. I like get on their horse because so many of the animal-related expressions we have, I feel like we are rethinking because they are at base depicting kind of animal cruelty situations. You're like, oh, do I want to use that? But getting on your horse, that seems fine. Like, I don't think that there's any negative connotation to that. Sometimes I see expressions now and I have to be like, oh, is this one, is this one bad? And then I asked, I asked Bauman about one. He was like, no, that's from the Bible.

And I was like, oh, I'm just a heathen, then that's fine. I can live with that. I was worried about something. I was like, is this like a, don't have to worry about a bad German having propagated this? I mean, I guess there could be some things from the Bible that are considered bad. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm not saying the books' hands are clean or anything like that. Don't put words in my mouth, but in this particular instance,

this wasn't. Yes, that's not exculpatory in all cases, but perhaps in this one. In all cases, but in this one it was. It was describing, it was the name of a person. I don't even remember. Well, I can't confirm or refute your anic data here, your observation, your anecdotal finding that there have been

more outfield collisions. I've seen some. I don't know whether it's more or not, but if we were to find that it were more, then yes, I think you could come up with some interesting explanations why that could be so. Because we do know that outfield defense has gotten better and certainly the balls aren't falling as much. So whatever they're doing out there, they're doing right from a defensive perspective. And so is it worth the knocking heads if that's happening more often? Is this the outfield version of catchers interference calls going up where it's like, you know, on balance, even though there are more of them and there is some injury risk, teams seem like they're okay with guys playing closer because they are able to see benefits from framing perspective.

Yeah, you're shading or you're more aggressively moving certain guys over. Perhaps you don't have as evenly distributed outfielders as you used to where people were just kind of playing straight up or leaning this way or that but maybe now you're getting more aggressive with no you should actually just like go stand close to that guy and thus you're creating the conditions for more collisions. It could be true, it's possible. It could be true. The Royals also I meant to mention that the Royals also off to a really rough start arguably worse than the Orioles start certainly from a playoff odds perspective.

So no shortage of teams that are having a tough time out there. And also just a couple other things. Wanted to mention the Mets specifically, Pete Alonso, who is not off to a rough start, he's off to a fantastic start. He feels, this feels like the Pete Alonso revenge tour. This feels like you didn't want to sign me to a huge multi-year contract. Look what you're missing out on. Not only his performance at the plate,

but then just one of the all time gifts that he has given us, a gift of a gift that he has given us. Did you see the gift where Pete Alonzo was running and he was running like some sort of- Yeah, he looks like a lizard. Yeah, lizard creature. Like one of those little lizard guys. Yeah.

His legs are just askew in a way that seems unnatural. Like he seems like an action figure that's not completely screwed on or something. It just, it doesn't seem like his legs should move in that way and he is still motoring and I am well aware, much faster than the vast majority of people who might look more normal when running their gait, their stride might be a little less eye catching.

And yet he's getting the job done. He's covering some ground there, maybe not by baseball standards, but by average person standards. And not that he's had to really run a whole lot cause he's just hitting the ball over the fence. maybe not by baseball standards, but by, you know, average person standards. Right. And not that he's had to really run a whole lot because he's just hitting the ball over the fence. He's just crushing it.

Good for him. And I saw Juan Soto, who is not off to his standard excellent start, he was talking about how he was pitched differently in the Yankees lineup with Aaron Judge. And we talked last year about lineup protection and yeah, generally it's kind of overrated. And if anything, Judge is really benefiting from having Soto hitting in front of him

because now Judge is always hitting with men on base or at least one man on base. And so he's driving in a ton of runs and pitchers have to be a bit careful. It's almost like reverse lineup protection. Soto said that pitcher's approach has definitely been different. I had the best hitter in baseball hitting behind me. I was getting more attacked and more pitches in the strike zone, less intentional walks and

things like that. I was pitched differently last year. Everybody has got a role and I feel as a team, we've got to attack pitchers as a team. We don't have to attack the pitchers as individuals. If they don't want to pitch to me, I just pass the baton and let Alonzo do his thing. If they don't want to pitch to him, he should do the same thing. Anyway, he's not hitting that much worse than Aaron Judge to this point. I know he is not the hitter that Aaron Judge is, but he's producing a Judgian stat line, at least a last season stat line for Judge. So it shouldn't feel all that different for Wonsodo,

but yeah, Wonsodo will be fine. But I get that it's a slightly different situation, even though he has not had to switch cities or anything, or even perhaps accommodations, maybe he switched those. But yeah, it's a little bit different, and perhaps he is lamenting that, hey, if he wanted to keep hitting in front of Aaron Judge, he certainly had the option to do that.

So I don't know that he's crying over spilt milk here so much as he is just making an observation. But there's a slight difference. Like when you look at the plate discipline stats, it doesn't seem to be anything dramatic in terms of how often he is seeing pitches in the zone. It's like 46% instead of 47%, not to question Juan Soto's sense of the strike zone or the way that he has been pitched because I think he probably has a decent idea of that

based on what I know of Juan Soto, but yet it doesn't really show up in the data so much. So I wonder whether it's more subtle. I mean, two pitches can be in the zone, but they could be in different parts of the zone. Or maybe it's more of a psychological thing, just knowing that you have judge behind you. Maybe that gives you a boost,

even if you are the next best thing to judge offensively, you're literally Juan Soto. But yeah, I thought that was interesting. And you know, maybe it's just because he's not off to a hot start by Soto standards, and perhaps that was interesting. And, you know, maybe it's just because he's not off to a hot start by Soto standards and perhaps that's for other reasons and his mind is connecting the dots and saying this might be why. But as he heats up, I'm sure that Alonso will cool down at some point, though it would be fun if he just like ran a 200-plus WRC-plus all season

and was just like, take that everyone. But as he cools down, I imagine Juan Soto will heat up. Michael Rosen looked at this for us and found that it, he didn't think that there was really a whole lot to it. But it also seemed like a story that just kind of got hyped in a weird way. It's like you guys could chill out a little bit over there. No, you can't, you can't do it. You're like, what, we either talk about this or Eric Adams. What do you want Meg? I let it be funny for like a year and then it got very serious. I can't be amused by it anymore. So now we have to talk about Juan Soto and his play discipline. I think

it'll be fine. I think there are seemingly a lot of people in New York who are freaking out about Wonsoto's production and I would invite them to chill. I think that's my, my invitation is that they chill a little bit. Yeah, they won't, but I think the team is doing well. And as other aspects of the team don't perform as well, Wonsoto will and yeah, they're gonna get't perform as well, Wonsoto will. And yeah, they're gonna get their money's worth

from Wonsoto at least this season. Yeah, a little give and take, a little push and pull. You got Lodore out here doing great, you got Alonso doing great. It's going pretty well, I think. What other weirdness happened, I guess? Patrick Corbin got bitten by some sort of venomous creature while we were away.

That happened. Yeah, Patrick Corbin. He missed that story. He got bit by what kind of venomous creature? Like a snake? Maybe, but not- They don't know what it is? Unidentified venomous creature.

Yeah, and he ended up pitching, but it was touch and go there for a while because there was some swelling that happened. So. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Cause I have a, I have a Mets related thing, but now I'm very distracted. So let's wrap this up.

Where did he get, where was he bitten? It was on his foot. Which I guess makes sense. And it swells? Yes. And there waslled? Which I guess makes sense. Yes. And there was venom. Corbin's quote was, they said something bit me, but I still don't know what it was. I've never had anything like that.

It was super weird. And it was, I guess, around his foot. It was around his ankle. He had his ankle wrapped and there was a visible bite mark and there was swelling. A visible bite mark? How visible? I don't know, but he woke up in the morning with a super swollen foot and he threw anyway, which I guess, I mean, that's Patrick Corbin for you. He's going to make his starts. If you give him the ball, he's going to take it even if he has been injected with venom of some sort by some kind of creature, he's going to go out there. So.

So I'm in a, I'm in a strange in between emotionally here because suspected spider bites. Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. My gross out tolerance is very low, as you know, but I also do want to see the bite, you know? Pretty sore still. I just think that if you're foot swollen from a unknown bite, you shouldn't do stuff that day. You should be trying to sort out the bite, you know? It probably was like

a bug if it was on his ankle, you know, because they tend to be able to get you. Right. I guess that would apply to a snake potentially too. I mean, everything creepy crawly that's down there is going to get you somewhere low most likely, but- I would like to think you'd notice a snake though, you know? You'd think, yeah, there are like, there are pretty venomous. This is a mat in, in, in Texas. Did the bite happen while they were in Texas or was it while they were? Cause I know that he pitched in that game against Los Angeles.

So like, was it against, I guess he doesn't exactly know how or when it happened, but he's Patrick Corbin. He cannot miss a start. You hand him the ball, he's going to take it. I mean, right, that's the whole thing. Yeah, that's his shtick, so. I also, so to return briefly to the Mets thing, we're just doing a little grab back here,

as everyone can tell. Yeah, this is a catch up episode. I'm worried about Edwin Diaz, you know? Hot take. I'm worried about the guy with an ERA over five. Guess what? His fibs not much better. It's also over five. They managed to win yesterday against the Phillies, but close to that not being true. I can't believe that like Patrick Corbin has like a mystery bug bite and somehow Bryce Harper doing raw milk has still not managed to be a problem. Anyway, I'm just, I'm worried because I have seen this version of Edwin Diaz before where it's like, you are amazing, but also do you know where the baseball is going?

The answer would appear to be no. So I'm just like a little, I think we, know. So I'm just like a little, I think we, um, you know, he's in that range where you're just not sure if you can trust him. That seems bad. There was a somewhat viral tweet this week that was from at our talk, Mets that said Edwin Diaz takes the mound. You blink. There are now 45 runners in scoring position. A base hit or sack fly will lose the Mets the game. Bam. He strikes out the next three batters. What were you worried about you fool? Never a doubt. Never a doubt at all. That's the Edwin Diaz experience. Right. It's a very roller coaster sort of thing right now in a way that seems suboptimal. So there's that. I'm worried about Edwin Diaz. What other things have we noticed?

Jung-Hoo Lee is good right now. That's so nice. Yes, and speaking of Jung-Hoo Lee, he was one of the players who had sort of a helmet tap. It was a mix up in his case. In his case, there was a miscommunication, a language barrier thing. He wasn't intending to show up in his case. In his case, there was a miscommunication, a language barrier thing.

He wasn't intending to show up in umpire, but it was one of multiple incidents that have happened. One notably involving Alec Bohm, who tapped his helmet repeatedly and pretty demonstratively. It was not really open to interpretation what he was attempting to signal after a call that he disagreed with. And I feel robbed really, as the person who predicted in our bold predictions draft that a player would be ejected or fined for doing a helmet tap to express their disapproval

of a ball strike call, that has happened multiple times that players have done this and yet the UMPs have thus far held off. Now the UMP in this BOM case was clearly not having it and was not happy about this and was giving BOM a stern talking to, but this was an oversight on my part. I didn't predict that there would be a stern talking to delivered. I said, eject it or find.

And that didn't happen. So the UMPs are even as they're, you know, cautioning players, warning players, don't do this. They're giving them a little leeway, which frankly good for them, I guess, but also bad for me because I kind of want that prediction to come true. And I feel like the further removed we are from spring training and the less fresh the memory of having tapped on your helmet to signal for a review is in the minds of players, the less likely that is to be invoked.

It would just be sort of like an out of date meme if you did that in August or something after not having been able to challenge for several months. So this feels like the time to make it happen if it's going to happen. And we've had a number of close calls. And so I feel as if I have been deprived of a deserved correct prediction, but I haven't really, because technically it has not come true.

Don't you think there's a chance though that you're going to get another sort of obvious wave and window of opportunity for this to come true? Because for the big leaguers, they're getting further and further removed from spring training. So the odds of them doing this to come true because for the big leaguers, they're getting further and further removed from spring training. So the odds of them doing this seem to diminish with every day.

You live with disappointment, but there are gonna be more call-ups and those guys are going to come from leagues where there are challenge systems in play because many of them are gonna be coming from AAA. And so they might not in a way that is meant to be snarky or dismissive of the Empire, but just out of actual force of habit.

So a misinterpretation of the intent on the part of the player. Oh, okay, yeah, because I was going to say, if it was a recent call-up, would they be sassy enough to do this? Right, I don't... Maybe not. But yeah, just habitually. Probably not. Yeah. They might just be like,

Oh, ooh, ah, and then maybe you get a guy who's having a grumpy day and he's like, I don't believe you or I do, but I am going to make a little point here. A quick hook before you can explain yourself. Yeah. Huh, okay. So don't give up hope is my, is my point.

It might end up being okay. You know, you just don't know. All right. point. It might end up being okay. You just don't know. Good point. All right. I will hold out hope. I mean, I want you to fail because I want to win, but I do think that the possibility exists that it could be all right. And it's funny, when I was making the Ella Black episodes, I was thinking about how laborious an hour of a scripted pod is.

Yeah. Comparing that to a typical pod where we go into some episodes, not knowing what we're going to talk about. And then I look up and somehow an hour has passed, which hopefully is a good thing. It's a reflection of the fact that we enjoy talking to each other and it's an easy conversation, but boy, it just breezes by when, when you actually have to plan what you're saying and have to have it mapped out to the second

and choreographed and produced. Ooh, boy, it takes a lot longer than it does to, when you're just riffing, just. Gabbin'. Yeah. And look, like don't sell a short baton, you know, it's not like we never prep for the pot or anything like that, but it is a different...

Just today we didn't. Right, today we were, well, we knew we were gonna have a lot of this's and that's that we had to get caught up on. Another incident that we missed was the run-in that Mike Trout had with the fan who grabbed the foul ball and initially it looked like it was gonna be a bad Mookie-esque situation where they really tried to pry it out of his glove.

And it was that initially, but then very quickly the fan felt contrite. And so it ended differently and much more happily than that incident with Mookie and the Yankees fans had. And this involved Mike Trout and Astro's fans. And it was a dad and his kid. And who knows maybe the fact that the kid was there, had something to do with the dad thinking better of this.

But it also seemed a little less voluntary where the Yankees, Yahu's were essentially admitting at first before they tried to like come out with a campaign to be like, people stopped picking on this, but also we're gonna keep doing national press about this for some reason. But that was more premeditated where they're like, hey, if we get a chance, we're gonna try

to have some home field advantage here by basically assaulting a player. In this case, it didn't seem like that. And you could see the guy, the dad in the stands who had initially grabbed the ball, he, he like tried to give it back. He was like, Oh no, what did I do? And whether he realized that it was my trout or he just, he thought better of it and a little too late, but not too late ultimately because Trout kind of forgave him and waved it off and met with the fans after the game.

And you know, that was nice. Mike Trout seems like a nice guy, seems like an understanding guy. One thing, and Trout said they were really apologetic and ultimately it didn't affect the game. And he met them and they had a nice conversation and everything, so, you know, all's well that ends well, I guess.

But one thing I thought was funny was that Trout just like didn't know the ground rules for fan interference. He just didn't know the rules because he's been playing center field his whole career. And so he said- Right, yeah, he doesn't have to deal with that. Yeah. He's like, I jumped in and the ball was in my glove. The guy just literally took it out, but he was really apologetic.

I learn new things every single day. Once I go into the stands, it's free game. Being in right field, it's a little different. In center, I don't really get that play. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I mean, I guess he probably hasn't played corner outfields at any level, right?

Because he's always been Mike Trout. I know he was not the prospect that, uh, you know, commensurate with his skills famously, but still he's always been the best player on a field in Millville or whatever. Right. And so he's probably always been in center, which was part of why he clung to that position as long as he did. And so I saw it as sort of a status symbol

and hey, this is my spot. This is where I've always been. And that probably dates back to the first time he picked up a glove. Who knows if he was ever in Red or left field. So he just never needed to know. And it was true that the ball was over the boundary. It was in the stands.

It was still too aggressive, but it was a fair game ultimately. But I just think it's amusing that Mike Trout, like guy who lives in Breeze baseball has his whole life has been an outfielder and yet just like doesn't know what you do and what fans are allowed to do in that situation because he just hasn't played an outfield corner until now. And, and then he like explained, cause he, he was told by the first base umpire, Alan Porter, that once he leapt into the stands, it was no longer

fan interference and that he thought the fan touched the ball before it went into his glove. So it might not have been ruled a catch, even if the angels challenged it. And then he's quoting Porter here, paraphrasing Porter. He said, it doesn't matter. As soon as your glove hits the stands, it's free game. Free game. What is it?

Free game, fair game, right? Like, was this mistranscribed or does he think that fair game is free game? It's, this might be another thing that Mike Trout does not know. And if it hits their finger or the ball hits their hand, I guess it's ruled dead. I guess if he saw the replay, it hits his hands first. So they could have challenged it. What other sort of fundamental rules does Mike Trout not know, I guess, just because it hasn't been part

of his lived experience as a player? This just fascinates me. I know that there are certain players and personnel who pride themselves on being experts on the rule book, and they're gonna be the one who's gonna know that loophole or that little known rule is going to run out there and I got you on this one. And then there's Mike Trout who just does not understand fan interference because he

never had to. And the umpire basically had to tell him that like, if a boss in the stands, fans can reach for it. And he's like, huh, an almost 34 year old career outfielder did not know that. You learn new things every day. Who knew about this fan interference they have these days? Who knew? That's so wild. I wonder what Wash said to him after he heard that quote. I'm like, what? Yeah, that could have been part of the primer for the position, like, hey, you're a right fielder now, here's what you need to know.

I just think that you've highlighted the ways in which this feels importantly different than what happened with Betz, but I just, I think that everyone needs to act more like these are hot potatoes, don't touch those potatoes. Those are not your potatoes. You know, it's just like everybody's getting too comfortable. You know, like we have some sense out in the world. Although I'm glad that this guy was like, ah, because that would be, that's the appropriate response. Oh no, what did I do? What did I do? What did I do? Because there is a part of it that is instinctive, right? And that you might then look up and be like, oh no.

Right, exactly, yeah, you want a foul ball for your son, you want to be the hero for your kid, and it was in the stands, and so you reach for it, and then you realize, oh, I reached a little too much and too hard for that one, and oh, that's my trout right there, he's mad at me. Oh my gosh, what did I do? Oh no.

Can I take this back? Can we rewind a few seconds? Oops. Those emotions all flitted across his face. So I was much more understanding and forgiving in this circumstance than the previous one. Totally, as opposed to being like the human embodiment of like, I'm walking here.

Yes, exactly. How all New Yorkers are. Yep, just like me. That's what I sound like clearly on this podcast. Yeah. And well, we missed the whole Jackie Robinson Day press release kerfuffle. And look, we talked about sort of similar stories

before that when Rob Manfred and MLB and removing diversity and inclusion mentions from the website and various programs that they're either discontinuing or de-emphasizing. And then of course Rob Manfred met with Donald Trump this week to no one's shock. And then there was something of an uproar on Jackie Robinson day, because as anticipated, I think people were ready for it. People were very ready to comb the press releases to see whether MLB was trying to couch its language very carefully. And it did.

So, so on the one hand, people were ready to go, just raring to go like, hey, we're watching you. And you'd think MLB might have known that that energy was out there and might've been prepared for that. And maybe the league was and just didn't care. But I think what was partly illuminating for me was not so much how vague the language was in some of the press releases and the MLB one that we got where it just kind of didn't specify why Jackie Robinson

was special and was just like, Jackie Robinson debuted on this day. He played first base, like, huh, yes, but why did that matter? No explanation here. And I think looking back as I did and others did at previous years press releases, I think what stood out to me most

was that they were always kind of vague, not to quite the same degree. There were certain lines that were excised and there were certain words that were removed from some press releases. And there were teams out there that did specify. And look, I think everyone knows just about why there's a Jackie Robinson day.

If you're aware that there's a Jackie Robinson day, you probably know why there's a Jackie Robinson day. But even so, it's nice to say it and to make that clear. And we and others have taken MLB to task in the past for sort of celebrating Jackie Robinson, which we should do, absolutely, but also without kind of acknowledging what he had to overcome

and why he was barred from baseball before that and baseball's role in that. Yeah, who put that barrier in place? Right, and I get that it wasn't like the current MLB administration that did that and it wasn't even the current entity known as Major League Baseball. And this was a while ago and everything. But still, if you don't acknowledge that, then it reads as if you're trying to

avoid acknowledging that. And so it's good to just to state it explicitly. And so, yeah, what stood out to me most was that in previous years, they were very vague about a lot of these things too. And maybe more so, I think probably certainly more so this year, at least with certain language and words that, ooh, this is sensitive now. We don't want anyone to get upset because we said the magic bad words that people will send out executive orders about now. And clearly, I think there was some bending over backwards there to comply with that kind of cultural shift, that at least subset

of the cultural shift. And that I think deserved to be derided and lamented. But yeah, that was my main takeaway even more so than that wishy-washiness, which I was sort of expecting was that, hey, they were always wishy-washy about this stuff. It just didn't become quite as big a story. Yeah, I think that there's always been kind of an allergy on the league's part to really kind of digging in on

Why the moment is necessary to commemorate? Why this person is necessary to acknowledge? it's a weird bit of contrast right because I think that there is a more concerted effort on the league's part to, I mean, less in the way that they talk about it in official channels, but certainly in the way that their sort of representatives talk about it to really grapple with the Negro leagues and why they existed and what it meant to maintain segregated baseball in the United States. And so there's been this sort of lurching, inconsistent, but I think on the part of the people

who are actually doing work related to these questions, sincere effort to be more frank about the league's legacy and history and the country's legacy and history. And so yeah, I got the press release. I posted about it. The language there is always pretty anodyne and removed. And I do have some sympathy for the notion that this is a press release talking about

like, what are the activities of Jackie Robinson day. And so you're not going to be able to do justice to the entirety of this man's legacy or the circumstances that necessitated him breaking the color barrier in a press release. But like racism does not appear anywhere in there. Segregation does not appear anywhere in there. Barrier doesn't really appear anywhere in there. There's no acknowledgement of, the color barrier just isn't in there. It's incredibly distasteful. I think that the piece of it that made it feel so icky is that like they simultaneously want credit and they want you to want to buy merch related to this, right? That this is this sort of moment of overcoming, but they don't want to actually like put their arms around

it. Now that again, isn't true of everybody involved in the commemoration of Jackie Robinson day. It wasn't true of everyone who spoke about Jackie on the day, but for the league to have this like careful, you know, I don't imagine that they actually focus grouped that, that press release, but like focus grouped feeling, you know, it's like, what did he overcome? MLB? Why did he have to do that? Who could say, you know? So I just, you can be cowards or you can try to sell me a hat, but please don't try to do both things at once. You know? If you're going to be a ranked capitalist,, that's a good way to do it. You gotta be, like, be a, if you're gonna be a ranked capitalist,

at least be a brave one, my goodness. Yeah. Do you think, by the way, this is unrelated, Aaron Judge announced that, very unrelated, to be clear, transition. I'm so excited to see where this goes. Don't have a segue here, but just switching topics.

Aaron Judge announced that he's not only gonna play for the WBC team next year, but he's gonna be the captain. Right, yeah. Do you think that there's anyone who was on the previous WBC team who feels at all like their feathers are ruffled because, hey, he just walked onto this team and he's the captain

after he decided not to play last time. And he just, he wasn't hurt or anything. He just sat out the last WBC. Yeah, he just sat out. He had signed the big contract, right? And so he basically said, you know, like my responsibilities to the team and I want to focus on the Yankees and whatever.

He can do that, that's fine. Sure. And I'm not saying I don't want Aaron Judge to be in the WBC, I want all the stars to be in the WBC. So absolutely come on down. But I wonder whether there's anyone who played for that team or previous teams, who's thinking to themselves like, hey, yeah, you can't just sit out previous WBCs

and suddenly you're the captain, you can't just walk out, you gotta earn it. Now maybe he's earned it by being the best hitter since Barry Bonds and that's I think a defensible stance also. If you're just like, he is the best player from this country and if he's representing the country then he should be the captain, that's fine and he's accomplished all these things in the game. I think probably most players feel that way. That they're just like, yeah, he's accomplished all these things in the game. I think probably most players feel that way that are just like, yeah, he's Aaron Judge. Like he's the captain of the Yankees, so he'll be the captain of the WBC dream. Sure. But I just, I wonder if anyone's like, he wasn't even there the last time we were, you know, we, we struggled, we sweated, we bled for our country and there was

Aaron Judge just bleeding pinstripes. Where was he last time? And now he thinks he can just stroll right in and be the captain of the WBC squad. Not so fast, Buster. But he did. And look, ultimately it doesn't matter. I have no inkling that anyone was at all aggrieved by this. I just wonder whether anyone felt like, you know, I've earned the captaincy.

Aaron can come, I'll allow him to be on my roster, but I don't recognize your leadership, Aaron. Your Aaron come lately here. Aaron come lately. Let me answer your question with another question. What percentage of the people who might be mad probably are thanking them to themselves? What are the odds that there is a WBC?

It's not an unreasonable question, Ben. Yeah, but it's like, oh, now that the WBC is cool, and everyone's into the WBC, now you want to be the captain. Where were you in past WBCs? Where were you? When it wasn't the new hotness. And I guess, you know, he was like, what a rookie or it was very early in his career, the prior WBC, but 2023, where were you, Erin? He was in Yankees camp. I'm just saying. He was in Yankees camp.

Yeah. I mean, maybe there might be some ruffled- Where's the Ronald Acuna tweet about this? The equivalent of the Ronald Acuna tweet, someone who sends out and says like, oh, it's not me who's captain. That's what I want to see. I want to see the dirty laundry aired. I would imagine that the cross section of a player who is passionate enough about the WBC the WBC to be bothered by this is also aware enough to be thrilled that that bat's going to be in the lineup, you know, and that that feeling probably is overwhelming whatever sense of grievance they might otherwise have. They're just like, oh, we get, we get to feel judged

like, oh, we get to feel judged for this. That's so great. So I suspect that that's the real vibe, but I could be wrong. I've been wrong before and people care about being the captain of stuff much more than I would have assumed. So, you know, I could be, I could definitely be wrong. Mike Trout was the captain last time. And I guess that's the latest sign that he's passing the torch that Pete Trout is behind us. He has had a, or maybe it's a rotating thing. Maybe it's, hey, you got to be captain once and now someone else has a shot.

Trout has had a weird slash line. Yeah. It's like 184, 289, 513, which I guess is, I mean, that's kind of the player that he's morphed into lately where it's like lots of strikeouts and still some pop. And I guess that's not an atypical aging hitter type of profile. I hate to apply that to Mike Trout, but yeah. He's just like, he's hitting basically everything over the fence or not getting a hit more or less. Like he has a 133 babiff right now.

He's got eight dingers and five singles. And I think six non-Homer hits. It's just like, what is happening here? He's struck out like 28% of the time, still taking his walks. I mean, yeah, I hope this is not a sign of decline. And I hope that his line will be a little less gallow-like as the season proceeds.

But I mean, look, ultimately I'm just happy he's out there. He's playing outfield. He's learning about fan interference. And that's, it's great. I love that for him. Just familiarizing himself with the rule. I love that for him. I love that. Yes. Okay. Was there anything else on my little list here? Okay, one thing Buster only sent this tweet the other day. There is lots of talk among execs about the enormous disparity between the two leagues, how the NL is markedly better. One small example, six of the top position players, six of the seven top position players

in FanGraphs were are in the NL. Corbin Carroll, Pete Alonso, Geraldo Perdomo, he was here. I mean, good for him, you know, newly extended Geraldo Perdomo, but I don't know that that would be like my number one piece of evidence to cite that, hey, this league is superior because it has Geraldo Perdomo. Everyone except Aaron Judge is in the NL. And I guess there was a little bit of that going on last year too, when like the top players other than Judge were in the NL.

That's not necessarily reflective of the league as a whole. You want to look at inter league results primarily. And I guess all star game in the world series to a lesser extent too, but you want to look at the bigger sample. So I wouldn't make that much of this yet, but I wouldn't even cite like a handful of guys from the top of a war leaderboard. I'd be like, yeah, like look at the teams, the teams are just better. I mean, it's not a shock either.

It's not like, Oh, we thought all these AL powerhouses were going to be out there. And no, like we kind of knew the best teams were in the NL. And thus far, yeah, the Dodgers, the Mets, the Padres, and the Giants, that one is sort of surprising, have the most wins in baseball before you get to the Tigers and the Yankees and then the Cubs. So yeah, like I don't know that if I were an exec,

I would be talking that much about it because I don't know that if I were an exec, I would be talking that much about it, because I don't know that I have that much to say, but I guess it's notable, briefly. Like, it stood out to us prior to the season. Hey, like, you know, the two best teams clearly are in the NL. Well, we thought one of them was the Braves, so maybe not so clearly, we'll see. But it seemed like the best teams were in the NL.

Whether that means anything, whether that's lasting, who knows, and these things, they fluctuate and one league's on top and another is not, but I guess it probably reflects the long period of AL dominance. And there have been extended stretches where one league or the other was on top and they've both had their turns.

But for a while when it was the AL on top for a long time during our formative years as fans and media members, it was often suggested that, well, it's the Yankees effect and it's the Yankees and then the Red Sox and other teams that are trying to keep up with the Yankees and they're spending more. And so more good players come into the AL and that's why. And maybe now you could say, well, it's the Dodgers are that now, the Dodgers are doing that and the Mets are doing that for the NL. And they're the big powerhouses. And you certainly have some not so prolific spenders in both leagues, but you could name some AL

teams that fit into that category. So I think it's probably a temporary state of leagues, but you could name some AL teams that fit into that category. So I think it's probably a temporary state of affairs, but it is a real one, I would say, at this juncture. I'm working against myself when I say this. It is April 22nd. What day was opening day, Ben? Do you remember? Less than a month ago, is it the 28th or something?

27th. Here's the thing. I recognized Rocky's opening day. That was my opening day. So that's why I thought 28th. It wasn't real until the Rockies played. Right, until the Rockies had played. Okay, but so here's the thing.

If I could, if I could, I can't. We also need to do some business. We've got to do some business as a website. But if I could, Ben, I wouldn't show anybody war for like two months. Yeah. Why don't? Look, it's not to say that the broader point is wrong. To your point, we knew this coming into the season.

I feel like I'm in a really high register right now. I don't know what's going on. Out of practice. Out of practice. Do you think the people were like, there's a disturbance in the force. There's less live, effectively wild. It wasn't that there wasn't effectively wild though. Even in a week where there were still podcasts.

Yeah. We took a break, took the week off. I worked harder on those episodes than anything else I had ever worked on on this podcast. Right. I was going to say. Yeah. But there was plenty of podcasts to go around. Yeah. Lots of podcasts. But so you just can't. Now, I think the broader point is a sound one, which is that the NL appears and the early going has done nothing to disabuse us of this notion, even with the Braves playing the way they are. But the NL appears to be just a much stronger league at this juncture. That's not to say there aren't good teams in the AL.

That's not to say anything can change. But like right now, that's not to say there aren't good teams in the AL, it's not to say anything can change, but like right now that's sort of the state of play and that was what we thought it would be coming into the season and the early going has not really disabused us of that notion. And I think that, you know, the, the project of all of us in the early days of the season is to try to separate the noise from the signal, right? Like there are going to be guys who are in our top 10 for war right now, who will tumble their way out of that part of the leaderboard as the season goes on. And then there are guys where you look at

what they're doing and you say to yourself, I need to understand how they're doing this. What they're doing constitutes a departure from their typical showing. And so in that group, I'd say, let's keep our eyes on Spencer Tworkleson and see how long this sustains. But boy, what a boon it would be to the Tigers if even a 20 or 30% less effective torque was the version of torque they had for the whole year. That would be fantastic, right? You look at this and you're like, maybe Harald Perdomo isn't going to be one of the best position players in baseball, but he's been good for stretches. We know the Diamondbacks really

like him. There's a reason they signed this guy to an extension. How cool. How nice to see Cedric Mullins kind of bounce back like, wow, look at what Cedric Mullins is doing, right? Look at what Corbin Carroll is doing. Off to a tremendous start, tremendous start for the Diamondbacks after having like a god-awful first half last year. How exciting. So you know, part of our project right now, Brendan Donovan is really in the top 10 for war. Wow.

Good for him. I like Brendan Donovan, but I'm surprised by that. So all of that to say our project at this juncture is to try to separate, is a hot start or slow start from what is something that is sustained. What of this really suggests a change in our understanding of a guy's true talent versus him being dialed up in a way that will dial down, but he'll still be good, et cetera. And all of that to say, don't look at war right now. Just don't, just don't do it. You know, like you don't have to do it. Right. Like we, we got some bills to pay, so we're gonna, we're not gonna like take a month off. That would be so funny if

we were like opening day, see ya. I'll be back. I don't think that would be a good business model. I think that would probably be not sound, but I'm just saying like, these things are gonna change over time. And some of the, again, some of these guys are gonna be here when the season ends, but I wouldn't say that all of them will. So yeah.

Also, who cares about leagues anymore? Like if we talk about individual teams and why certain teams are spending more are better than others, but leagues, I, maybe it matters in the sense that like, yeah, you're talking about divisions and division rivals. And if, if the impetus to spend and be good is that you have some powerhouse in your division, then by extension, you're talking about leagues, even if you don't really care about leagues as an entity anymore, now that there's constant interleague play, and there's no significant difference from a rules basis or any of the other things that actually used to make

those separate entities just don't exist, those barriers have been torn down. And so why even think of things in that way? Oh, the NL is better than the AL. Okay, so what? Like what meaningful difference does it really make? But I guess it matters in the sense that you do still have the same number of playoff spots for each league.

And so- Yes, so this is what I was about to land on. Like I don't think it matters in so far as like still have the same number of playoff spots for each league. Right. Yes. So this is what I was about to land on. I don't think it matters in so far as like I'm invested in maintaining a grand tradition for the senior circuit or whatever. Like that's not, but you know, we opened to this episode talking about the potential like differential diagnosis for the Orioles and the Braves by virtue of the league that they play in.

So I don't think I used differential diagnosis correctly there. I think that was wrong. But their fates might diverge in a yellow wood. Why don't I get back to something closer to my experience? Because of one of them playing in the NL and the other playing in the AL. So it matters in that respect, not because we have like some attachment. Can you reliably remember which logo is for which league and which one is it?

Cause you know, don't they have like separate little logos, national league logo major? It's like a eagle on it, right? They're both very evocative of Americana. Yeah, it's the American league has the eagle. Yeah. The eagle. No. I think they both have an eagle, Ben. Do they both have eagles? Okay. They both have eagles. Oh yeah. They have different eagles though.

It's different eagles. The eagle is represented. Yeah. The National League's eagle looks like it's taxidermied. It looks like it's a dead eagle that has been pinned to the wall, basically. Whereas the American League's eagle looks much more alive. It's like standing on a ball and looks like it's poised to take flight. Whereas the National League's, that looks like an ex-eagle, right? The National League's eagle is pining for the fjords. That eagle is notining for the fjords. That eagle is not a living eagle.

That's not a natural pose for an eagle. Candidly, they're sort of disjointed in their appearance because one of them looks like it would be on like an old timey stamp, you know? Is everyone glad we're back? I'm glad to be back. We're back. I enjoyed spending a week with Ella Black,

but I missed my week with Meg Rally, so this is good to be back. All right, a few other follow-ups for you. First of all, forgot to say congrats to Shohei. Shohei became a dad. Welcome to the club. He had a daughter a few days ago. I mean, he didn't deliver her.

He's very talented. He can do a lot of things, but not that. Two-way player, not two-way parent. Congrats to Shohei, congrats to Mamiko. I enjoyed that Shohei's Instagram post said, to my daughter, thank you for making us very nervous, yet super anxious parents. Very nervous, yet super anxious.

Could not tell if that was a joke or a translation issue. I'm gonna go with the former. Very relatable either way. Also, Jackie Robinson Day was also mentioned or allude to Effectively Wild on multiple baseball broadcast day. Thanks to Shocker for the tip about this moment on the April 15th Tigers broadcast.

Jason Benetti and Andy Dirks. I was gonna ask you, how did you learn to pitch? I never really had to learn, I just threw the baseball. I was effectively wild. Okay, like the podcast? Yeah, it was definitely an experience. Can always count on the great Benetti for an occasional effectively wild reference,

just as you can always count on an occasional Jason Benetti reference on effectively wild, much appreciated. Also on the same day, listener Max reported this moment from the Brewers TV broadcast. This is Vinny Rotino and Jeff Levering. So I'm listening to podcasts about, you know, whatever about baseball and the off season. And I'm listening to one about John Brebbia. He is a spreadsheet enthusiast. Whoa. Like spreadsheets. They'll do them for fun.

What? That one's low and Oliver Dunn draws a walk. Everybody's reached safely. How are you a spreadsheet enthusiast? I don't know. He said he likes the equations and the different cells and the things you can do with the spreadsheets and how powerful the software is.

I don't know, but that's a funny guy. But what kind of fun stuff can you do with a spreadsheet? Now, Effectively Wild was not mentioned explicitly there, but I'm gonna guess there weren't that many baseball podcasts that discussed John Brebbia's love of spreadsheets earlier this year. Vinnie, we love that you're listening, but say our name, it's good for the brand

to promote the podcast. But also, I play this because Vinny's broadcast partner asks, well, what can you do that's fun with a spreadsheet? I can think of a lot of things. But also, we might have the man himself, John Brebbia, gracing us with his presence on the podcast sometime soon. So we can ask him that very question. Been wanting to have him on for a while. He got off to a great start this season. He's on the IL currently. I think we might make it happen. Stay tuned. Listener Emil writes in to say as if the Taylor-Tyler-Turner-Ward-slash-Wade conversation wasn't confusing enough, there is now a Taylor Ward in the NHL on the Los Angeles Kings. He

even scored in his NHL debut. So brace yourself broadcasters, more potential confusion awaits. And sticking with hockey, listener Noah writes in to say, I remember long ago, there was a fascination on the show with baseball coaches referring to the conquistadors burning their ships when making inspirational speeches. That's right, it was not just confined to baseball coaches or managers, it was really all sports. Speaking of which, Noah continues, the tradition is alive and well in hockey at least.

The Montreal Canadiens head coach Marty St. Louis apparently gave a speech about the burning of ships and having no way to turn back early in their season. is alive and well in hockey at least. The Montreal Canadiens head coach Marty St. Louis apparently gave a speech about the burning of ships and having no way to turn back early in their season. It resonated with the players too, except that the player who relayed the story in this article from the Athletic said it may have been about the Vikings. That's right, here's the passage from the Athletic. St. Louis gave a speech, it was one of many that have resonated with his team. Every speech is an amazing speech, rookie defenseman Lane Hudson said. The one that stuck with Hudson came very early in the season and made him

understand the commitment St. Louis sought from his group. All these months later, and after the Canadians, I never know whether to say Canadians, Canadians, clinched a playoff spot Wednesday night, Hudson still remembered that speech. Well, you be the judge of how well he remembered it. The one I remember is the one about burning the boats, Hudson said. I think it was something with soldiers or vikings maybe, but they're going to an island and everyone's on the boat.

You get to the island and you burn the boat so you're there. Everyone's there and you're in, you're bought in, everyone's gotta do what they've gotta do. That was one that stuck with me. It was really early in the season like, hey, we've gotta do it, everyone's got to do what they've got to do. That was one that stuck with me. It was really early in the season, like, hey, we've got to do it, there's no going back, we burned the boats, it's not like we can turn around and go back. That was a good one. Well, I guess the message stuck with him, if not the specifics. But yes, it is incredible the staying power of that anecdote in sports speeches. We've been tracking it on this podcast for more than a decade. Also, we talked about the strip of dirt being removed from Comerica Park. It was the last park in the majors that had one. The Diamondbacks had one before they removed it in 2019 when they went from grass to synthetic turf. So now they're all gone.

I wasn't quite sure what to call it but apparently it's called a keyhole. That's what the AP calls it and Tarek Scoobel said, I might get some heat for this but they asked what we thought of it and I said I didn't really like it. I wasn't we thought of it. And I said, I didn't really like it. I wasn't a fan of it. Obviously I understand from a fan perspective, it's unique and stuff, but just from a visual perspective, it's so much different.

The story says that this feature was common in the 1800s and early 1900s. So I like it in the traditional sense, but yeah, I'm not sure if I like it in the abstract sense. It's just nice to have an outlier. What's amusing is that some tigers didn't even really notice or barely cared. They asked a couple of guys, but it didn't bother me.

Right-handed reliever, Will Vest said, "'It just doesn't really move the needle too much for me.' When lefty Tyler Holton is on the mound, he said he's locked in on the catcher's target with or without a path of dirt in front of him. I think if you're noticing things like that, you're probably not focused on what you need to be focused on," Holton said. Ooh, shots at Tarek Scoobel. Seems to me that Scoobel's pretty focused on what he should be focused on. So maybe he can be focused on that and also notice

the keyhole at the same time. Riley Green said, I'm going to be honest, I didn't even notice it. Somebody told me that it was being taken out and I was like, oh cool, I'm probably not even going to notice it. And I haven't even noticed it. Maybe we can ask John Brebbia what his thoughts on the keyhole are. And finally, we talked about the Netflix Clubhouse series, the documentary that followed the Red Sox. Listener Terry pointed out that we didn't mention some precedents for that series. The 2012 behind the scenes documentary, The Franchise, which followed The Marlins, that didn't go great. Terry writes, at the end end of July the fire sale was on and the camera crew packed its bags. I guess the first season of the franchise followed the 2011 Giants. And then

there was MLB Networks The Club, which followed The White Sox, I believe. So yeah, we've seen some series in that vein before. Reminder to check the show page for details about an upcoming Ella Black excursion in the New York area. I think some other people from the podcast will be there. Ben Zimmer, Ellen Adair, hopefully lots of listeners will join in. I'm being kind of vague about the details just because I know some people are still catching up on the series, so I will be more specific soon, but you can go get the details if you want them right now. Sunday, May 4th, circle it on your calendar. You can also support the podcast and our narrative series adventures on Patreon

by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Dan H, Theodore Litberg, Ted Kragwall, David S, and Graham Petzold. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers,

personalized messages, autograph books, discounts on merch, and ad-free fan crafts, memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. We will be recording a bonus episode for this month soon, and I think producer Shane McKeon may be joining us to talk about his work on the podcast and also about the L Black series. So if you have questions about the series, send them in.

Believe me, I'm happy to talk about it. I had to wait a long time to talk about it at all. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email, send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can find the effectively wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. And you can check the aforementioned show page at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance.

We'll be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Pontificating pedantically, bantering bodily, drafting discerningly, giggling giddily, equaling effectively while...