Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 238: Picking the Worst-All Stars Possible/Josh Hamilton’s Tobacco Turnaround

Episode Date: July 8, 2013

Ben and Sam pick the worst players eligible for the All-Star Game, then discuss Josh Hamilton’s smokeless tobacco use.

I play. I play. I play. For the National League. For the American League. I play to win. To win. We will win. We will win. Good morning and welcome to episode 238 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. I hope everybody had a very nice long weekend. And Ben, are you glad to be back? Very glad. It's been too long. All right. So we're going to do something a little different today, and then we're also going to have a topic. My topic is tobacco, chewing tobacco, and Ben's topic requires some explanation. So, Ben, why don't you just go ahead and explain? Okay. My topic is inspired by a listener email that we wanted to do a little more in depth than we could on the listener email show. So this question comes from Burke.

He says, Dear Ben and Sam, with all star game voting ending this week, I figured I'd impart a strategy to you and your listeners that I found to be more entertaining than useful. Much like this podcast. For years, I have thoroughly enjoyed voting for the worst players on the ballot in the American League. Perhaps this is my loyal allegiance to the St. Louis Cardinals coming through, but as long as the All-Star Game determines home field advantage in the World Series, I want the National League to win. At the very least, I don't want to cast my vote for the best American League players. This could be a form of silent protest against the current All-Star game

format as I feel World Series home field advantage should be based on regular season record and not an exhibition. This actually seems like a suboptimal strategy to me. It does. It's horrible. You want to vote for the worst

player with a chance. Yes, right. If it's a silent protest, then yes right like if it's a silent protest then i guess uh well if it's a silent protest though you wouldn't vote because otherwise bud seely gets to hold your vote up and say eight million people voted yes whatever automated bot that that collects the ballots probably won't pass on to you uh pass on to bud seely your gesture um so yeah you would want to vote. The machine just starts blowing smoke, explodes. There's a big alarm in Bud Selig's office that says,

somebody is doing ironic voting. Right. Yeah, so you'd want to vote for the person who's close enough to win, but is not as good. So that might actually hurt the team if he made it. But anyway, Bert goes on. That said, I do chuckle each year when I click the submit ballot icon and think of the horrific AL players for whom I voted.

It's usually a mixed feeling of pity and bewilderment over how far some of these guys have fallen to literally the bottom of starter consideration. I'm curious to know if you guys have ever willingly voted for the worst players on an all-star ballot. I have not. I have. For just this reason, yeah. And even more fun, who would be your picks for the worst players on this year's ballot?

So we have made our picks for the worst players on this year's ballot. And I'm always... Well, it's always... I don't know what the process is for picking which players appear on the ballot uh so the team the team chooses the team sends in their their slate and they do this they do it in spring training and so that can lead to some strange

things because a lot of times like kendry's morales i believe was on instead of trumbo one year because in spring training they weren't sure whether he'd be back. And so they submitted their slate with Morales on it. So you'll have instances where there's guys who occasionally you'll get somebody who's not on the team anymore or who's been waived. Actually, probably, I'm sure there's somebody like that this year because guys have been waived. Yeah,'s i'm sure there's somebody like that this year because guys have been waived yeah sure and who haven't played all year yeah yeah guys who haven't played you know cory hart i see jumps out at me as a guy uh so that's the criteria for yeah so a lot of times when i was making my picks i was trying to decide whether whether a player was less

deserving who had not played at all I mean whether it's whether it's better to play not at all than it is to play very very poorly age old question yes right so we'll start I guess I'll just very quickly

read the last name so that you'll know who the options are otherwise we'll probably get emails about why we didn't pick someone. You're going to read every player on the ballot? Is that a bad idea? Yeah. Okay. I was thinking we could go position by position because otherwise we'll get emails from people telling us that so-and-so was worse than so-and-so, and it'll be because he wasn't on the ballot. I guess, okay.

You're going to read 270 names? Just last names. It's only 275 words. Okay, no. Okay, fine. All right, so before you email us to say that we missed someone, do us a favor. Go look at the ballot and make sure that that person was actually eligible

before you complain is that fair yeah i mean don't don't email us well about about such a thing okay email us email us love and yeah sure sure um okay so al for space, so You know what, I think this is the reason that I agreed to this, is that Brett Wallace is on the ballot Yes And I just felt like at some point we needed to just Kind of, everybody just Acknowledge what a fun tradition

This all-star voting is That right now Brett Wallace has votes Like he doesn't have a lot of votes. He's not going to make it. But there are people, and not just ironic voters, there are people who genuinely chose Brett Wallace as their AL first baseman for some reason. Astros fans. They're all Astros fans, I would think. They are. Of course, they're all Astros fans.

Just as Brett Wallace. And yet, there are people who don't know brett wallace personally who have no personal stake in his uh you know in his career uh and yet who of all the baseball players in the world of all of them they want to see brett wallace in the all-star game this is an amazing thing can you imagine how good you'd feel about yourself if there were like thousands of strangers who were saying you are the best first baseman in the world, Brett Wallace, it would be amazing. I don't think I would feel that good about it

because that's not really what they're saying, right? No one thinks that. They're just saying, I want my team to be better represented. There are probably a handful of four-year-olds who do believe that. Yes, there may be. Yeah, there are probably people who have seen Brett Wallace hit very well for the Oklahoma City Red Hawks this year. Yeah. And are excited that he's back in the majors and want to see him in the All-Star game.

I mean, just about every team's fans in baseball has rooted for Brett Wallace at some point. Yes, that's true. So we talked about Wallace early this season. It's not a bad time to catch up on him, right? Because he was having, at that point, probably the worst start we had ever seen, the worst performance that we'd ever seen. And he had struck out in 17 of 24 at-bats and had one single.

And we were kind of enjoying it and kind of really not enjoying it and then he he got sent down and and he's back up and he's got a few hits and not quite so many strikeouts um and not even a bad strikeout rate since he was recalled no no not not bad at all, especially for the Astros. And so he's still not doing well, and I would say that he hasn't done anything to make you think he's going to be a valuable part of anybody's team. But at least, you know, he's passed some sort of bar of credibility.

Yeah. Probably. How did he do? How did he do in Oklahoma City? Very well. And this is PCL, obviously, and he's a 26-year-old in AAA. He hit.326,.398,.554. I'm guessing adjusted.

That wouldn't be that great for a first baseman. He almost hit as many home runs in those two months as he's hit in his career as a major leaguer. Yep. Almost. I mean, he got like 70% of the way there. Yeah, so there wasn't really anyone all that close, I don't think, on the ballot. Well, no, there's not. But there is a person I would say arguably is close on the NL side.

Okay, let's do the NL side. So Casey Kochman, sleeper for worst season we've ever seen. So this is where you have to choose between cory hart who hasn't played at all um i think well see casey kachman has barely played and has played poorly in in his very very minimal playing time so i guess that would be worse than cory hart probably but there's also like davis to consider. There is. I think Ike Davis is my pick. He's done more damage.

He's done more damage, but only because he's been given 10 times the opportunities. Yes. I mean, I'm looking at this right now, and Casey Kochman has the same war as Brett Wallace. Well, he's got negative seven war in 20 played appearances. That's like over the course of a season, over the course of a full season, that would be negative 20 war. Yeah, that's true.

We've never seen that before. We have not. Yeah, I think I would still go with Davis. I don't know. I mean, how much of Kochman's negative 0.7 war is defense? This is ridiculous.

Like, what, virtually none? He's played like two games. It's that he's 0 for 20. Yeah, okay. One run is defense. one seventh all right is defense although i guess two sevenths if you included positional the positional factor maybe well you guys i guess you have to he's negative i like that he's he's uh he's negative he's negative one fielding he's negative zero on position So he's not a run yet

But he's getting there He's also negative zero on base running Just to make it clear that you don't look at that zero And see neutral They want you to know that that zero is also On the wrong side of zero It's zero for show only We all know the truth

Well according to Warp He is only negative 0.6. He's also negative zero for double plays. He's got no positive zeros. He has grounded into one double play in six games. Well, I'm not really factoring in... The double plays? Well, no, I'm definitely not factoring that in.

But I'm not factoring in... I guess I'm not penalizing someone for how he's been played or hasn't played. Yeah, if you remove... Well, if Kochman had been given or hadn't been heard and had been given as many played appearances as Davis, he would have almost certainly been better, as bad as he is. It's a tricky question. It's a pretty tricky question.

If you subtract Kochman's performance from Davis' performance, you still have a terrible performance. So just out of curiosity, though, and maybe it's because you're looking at Warp and I'm not, but why did you choose wallace over paul canerco uh on the list i'm looking at has paul canerco at a uh more negative warp than uh more negative war than wallace i don't know maybe i was looking at a different list or could also also go Todd Helton,

by the way. Yeah, that's not a bad pick either. Yeah, I guess that's maybe kind of inconsistent, but I'm sticking with it. Could also go Brandon Belt, based on the calls to KNBR. Right, yeah, okay.

Alright, let's move on to second base, AL. Okay. Go ahead. Name a name. Okay. I guess we've got sort of the same discussion here. We've got Scott Sizemore, basically hasn't played. We've got Brian Roberts, who hasn't played much at all, but has played well in his limited playing time. We've got Dustin Ackley who played poorly enough to be demoted to the minors, but maybe contributed something on defense and I'm not going to pick him. I think I will go with Sizemore. There are,

there are other bad players on this list. There's gets is on this list. Gordon Beckham is on this list. Jamie Carroll is on this list gordon beckham is on this list jamie carroll is on this list this is a bad list uh yeah but i think i'll go with with size more uh i would like to see this list divided between the good and the bad and then they play each other and that decides who gets home field advantage for the World Series. I would just like to see the worst players go. That would actually be a better all-star game. If they put the worst players, no, it wouldn't.

It changed my mind. It was going somewhere, and then it stopped going there. I'm going to go with Jamie Carroll. Okay. Defensible pick. NL? You go. I'm going to take Danny Espinosa. Oh gosh, yeah, you pretty much have to, I would think. I feel like to some degree I can't decide whether to give more credit or less credit to actual good players who are doing so badly.

Like so for instance, we're not to shortstop yet, although maybe we'll just wrap this into shortstop too. As we talked about a couple days ago, Starling Castro has been arguably the worst player in baseball. Yes, he is my NL pick. But I mean you don't actually believe he's worse than Clint Barmas. been arguably the worst player in baseball. Yes, he is my NL pick. But you don't actually believe he's worse than Clint Barmas. It's the flip side, right? The flip side of the question of

how do you vote for the good players? Which we talked about once a while ago, and my philosophy is more not considering true talent and just rewarding or punishing players for their first half in isolation. Gosh, see, I don't know.

I don't like to do that. It's certainly not in isolation. I like to at least factor in both. So for me... I don't put a full all-star exercise. If I could, I would just take the most interesting players or the players I'd want to see play most. We should answer the question of how a person who wants to protest the All-Star Game should

protest the All-Star Game because I don't actually know the best way to do it. I mean, clearly it seems to me that participating, ironically, in the traditions of it probably is unlikely to get the message across. But, you know, you're also boycotting it. You're only one person. You can't really get your voice out there that way either. Do you think there is a way to protest the All-Star Game if you wanted to? I mean, I'm assuming that the person who asked this question does not have a problem with the All-Star Game in general. He wants it to be better.

He wants to get his message across to Major League Baseball that he would like it to be the way it used to be and so how do you do that is there a good protest format probably not anyway that's a that's a question we won't resolve so i'm gonna go uh i'm gonna go i see I think it's the opposite. I think that in this case you actually choose the best talent even if he hasn't been quite as bad this year because he's more disappointing. He's more pathetic. So I'm going Ricky Weeks. Okay. I think Echevarria might be my second guy on that list. Oh, you're talking second base still okay yeah um

yeah okay uh so who's your nl shortstop then if not castro well i mean by by the logic that i just said i would say starlin castro but i uh i yeah yeah oh gosh i will say i'm actually going to completely just change my way of deciding and say Clint Barmas. Okay. And AL? AL, I would go with Derek Jeter. Derek Jeter's got to make every All-Star team.

Yes, I would take Jeter as well. Third base, AL. Lonnie Chisholm which uh chisholm is an is sort of the brett wallace of third baseman uh was just so terrible that he got sent down and then he had like a 70 000 ops in triple a and he got called back up and and he has been slightly better, but not really much better. And I happen to have a little bit of a personal stake in Chisholm Hall this year. I don't want to get too specific, but I do watch Chisholm Hall at bats particularly closely,

and he is a disaster of a baseball player in my mind, unfortunately, because I'd still like to see him turn it around. I don't think he's bad enough uh i think happy yeah i think who has played more second base than third base i think but is eligible at third i would take keppinger all right i will give back lonnie chisholm's uh dignity he may he may have it back i apologize to him. And I also will take Jeff Kepinger. All right. And our third base?

I will take Lonnie Chisenhall. No, it's Luis Cruz. As far as I can tell, Luis Cruz is the starter at every position he's eligible for. So at any position he's eligible for. Chris Nelson is a contender. He's, yeah, I don't know. He's on the Angels and he seems to get a lot of at-bats. He's been traded and picked up off waivers already.

Yeah, multiple times. No, Luis Cruz is the captain. Luis Cruz is the manager of the team. He's the trainer. We'll try to have him appear at every position at some point in the game um okay catcher al uh you go montero uh yeah montero is a good one montero fits all the criteria there's something nice about uh jpr and cba is like 230 on base percentage. Yes. I don't know how he does it. Too much power, though, to beat out Montero.

Way too much power, yeah. It's Montero. And Montero is so disappointing, too. He has that going for him also. And on the NL side, how's Buster Posey doing this year? I'm looking at these names and none of them are jumping out at me. Rob Brantley? Yes.

I'm going to take Rob Brantley. I've watched him quite a bit and not impressed by his catching. This is a pretty good crop. The NL has a good crop of third basemen. Sorry, of catchers. Yeah. Yeah, there's Wellington Castillo, our favorite ryan hannigan unfortunately is is having a pretty bad year um he just caught a no hitter yes uh miguel montero down year oh yeah montero yeah montero is my pick really yeah montero is my pick because Really? Yeah, Montero's my pick. Because of expectations?

Because of expectations and also because of momentum. He had a good first two weeks, and since then it's been just insanely bad. Okay, I'm sticking with Brantley. DH? I... um I gosh Chris Young yeah why is he eligible there because they had like 9 outfielders

uh I'm gonna go with I think Nolan Reimold who kind of combines the not playing with the playing poorly when he played. I wonder why... Oh, yeah, Nolan Reimold's a good pick. Oh, my goodness, is he a good pick. He is a very good pick.

I think it's clear which of us did their research before this topic. You could go Victor Martinez. Yes, definitely could. topic. You could go Victor Martinez. Yes, definitely could. You actually probably should go Victor Martinez. You probably should go Victor Martinez. I think that you and I both, we actually have gotten a couple of questions about Victor Martinez and why is he still playing.

And I think you and I are both like holdouts because you saw that one thing that one time about how he's hit a lot of balls that hard. Like didn't like stat man give you some data that he had hit more hard balls than anybody in baseball? But yeah, I don't know how much I trust that. I think that was that. Yeah, that was a Mark Simon stat that he tweeted. But it's more just because he's like never been bad at hitting ever when he's healthy uh so it's just really strange and i can't get over it uh why is chris young so bad that's a weird thing isn't that a weird thing uh yeah it's kind of a weird thing um i mean he's never been been nearly, I don't know, I just feel bad for GMs. That's, I guess, what I'm saying with Chris Young is I just feel really bad

because there's just no way of knowing that most of these guys were going to do this. Yeah, right. Well, there are a lot of Mets outfielders on this list. And they were probably, probably saw it coming that they weren't going to be so good um but yes most of the players on this list were expected to be starting players and most starting players are not expected to be completely terrible so yes so uh Uniesky Betancourt the ballot. Yeah, that was a disappointment to me. I guess people didn't conceive of the possibility that he would play as much as he has, which seems reasonable.

All right, so outfield. Okay, in the AL, I'm going to take Francoeur. Seems like a gimme pick. Ankyl seems pretty automatic to me. And I think I'm going to take Viseado over Hicks for my third spot. Yeah. All good. Yeah.

I got no problem with any of those. I don't have a strong replacement candidate for any of them, so I'll concede. Okay. And National League. Is Tyler Moore on there? He's not, I don't think. Is Mark Kotze on there? Nope. Bummer. I really, really

want to vote for Mark Kotze. I actually want to put Josh Hamilton on for the AL, so I'm going to take Vecchiciato off. Okay, I thought about that. Certainly relative to what he's being paid and what people expected out of him, he's deserving.

Is Eric Young on there? No, he wouldn't be. No, I don't think so. I'm going to take... There are multiple players who haven't played or have barely played. I mean, there's Adam Eaton, who hasn't played at all, so he's a candidate'll take Eaton, and then I'll take Kirk Neuenheis, I think. Just feels like there has to be a Mets outfielder on the team. Yeah. And for the final spot, I think, I mean, certainly if you're going to put Hamilton on,

I feel like you kind of have to put B.J. Upton on. Yeah, Upton's an easy one. But I'm not going to put Hamilton on, I feel like you kind of have to put B.J. Upton on. Yeah, Upton's an easy one. But I'm not going to put him on. I think I'm going to put Juan Pierre on. Just, I don't know, Upton is a, he's still a center fielder. That matters to me. You know, early in the season, we were talking about Upton and Justin Upton and whether it was too early to declare victory. It it was, it was, which is what exactly what we said. We were, we were right about that

one. But one thing that I said in that discussion was that I bet that BJ Upton will have a month this year where he has a better OPS than Justin Upton and how different the narrative would have been if that month had happened to come in April instead of, you know, June or whatever. And I think I'm 99% sure that that happened in June. Well done. Um, I'm going with, uh, with Upton and, uh, Cameron Mabin and, and, uh, I mean, yeah, you gotta go with new and heist, right? I think so. Neuenheis might be the worst hitter in baseball who has as many plate appearances as Neuenheis has this year. Yeah. Mike Baxter is also on this list, but Neuenheis is worse.

Is Luis Cruz by chance? Not eligible. Could make a little bit of a case for Delman Young, but it's a stat head case. not eligible. Could make a little bit of a case for Delman Young, but it's a, it's a, it's not a, it's a stat head case. You know,

you have to, no, he's, he's hit too well to be on. He's hit too well to be. Yeah. But he has performed poorly enough to be on this list. Well,

you're right. Cruz is the, he's the Mariano Rivera of this team. Like we have to get him into the game at a prominent, at a prominent time. All right, let's end this team. We have to get him into the game at a prominent time. Let's end this conversation. What was your tobacco topic? Josh Hamilton

is apparently back to chewing tobacco after taking almost a year off from it. You remember last year that he blamed some of his slump on tobacco withdrawal. And there was even some criticism, although maybe not from legitimate people. Although I think I vaguely recall from a couple of Rangers writers,

but maybe it was just Rangers fans that he shouldn't have done it during the season, that it was unfair to his team. And so anyway, now he's back on it. And an LA Times writer, Mike DiGiovanna, who's very good, noticed this. Also noticed that Hamilton's hitting better. And so he asked Hamilton if he was chewing again, which he knew he was. But he asked Hamilton, and Hamilton said no comment and then he asked Hamilton whether

he felt, whether the player felt that there was a correlation between his hitting better and tobacco use and Hamilton was kind of snippy at him at least according to the words that were quoted he said I don't know what you're talking about it could be anything, it could be one of those protein bars

is this really a story and so i just want to know whether you think that there's uh whether hamilton has any i mean generally i think that we feel like players deserve some degree of privacy do you think that they deserve any privacy on an issue like this where he has both talked about it publicly in the past and whether he has or not, it's something that he is doing on the field of play in front of everybody and that he has previously – well, I guess we're back to that he's talked about it, but where he has previously linked it to his performance. So do you have any issue with a reporter bringing it up and do you have any issue with Hamilton chewing again, I guess? I don't know. And do you have any issue with Hamilton chewing again, I guess? I don't know. I have no issue with it being brought up, no.

Just because it was a story before. Hamilton, I guess, helped make it a story before. So, no, seems like totally fair game to me. Also, don't particularly care. I really don't care whether he does that or not i mean what's the idea is that what children are gonna get the wrong lesson that you that you chew tobacco and become a major leaguer and then the next generation of americans gets throat cancer i mean mean, kinda. Like, I don't know. As long as he's not endorsing it,

as long as he's not coming out and doing commercials for chewing tobacco and saying, hey kids, I'm Josh Hamilton, major leaguer, and this is why I made the major leagues. It's not something I would even notice. Like, players are just always chewing and spitting stuff,

and I don't really draw any distinction between what they're chewing and spitting. I don't really notice whether they're doing gum. I mean, I'll notice if it's sunflower seeds or something, but if there's just a wad of something that they're spitting, I'm not really aware of what it is i don't particularly care what it is yeah i yeah i agree i agree with all that but so let me ask you if you agree that it's a fair question to ask yes you you also don't really care so if you were a reporter

if you were the la times beat writer for the angels would you ask it yeah probably which is why i'm glad i'm not a beat writer i guess i mean you have to you have if you're a beat writer you have to write constantly you have to cover every every piece of minutiae about a team or probably one of your competitors will um and you're just always looking for material and this seems like a story that's fair to write about so yeah if i noticed i would probably bring it up and then hate my job yeah yeah well hamilton's pretty available to the press too i think i'm not sure i mean probably mike's mike's really good so probably mike would but like i think a lot more reporters would probably be comfortable bringing it up with

hamilton than with some other players uh i don't know do you think 10 years from now there will be tobacco and baseball do you think 50 years from now there will be tobacco and baseball i don't even know how much tobacco and baseball there is now is there i i don't know yeah i don't even know how much tobacco and baseball there is now. Is there? I don't know. Yeah, I think there's a lot. So what was the new CBA banned like making it visible or something? Wasn't there a rule about not like having to leave it somewhere or something? Like you couldn't take it on the field or display it or there was something? Do you remember anything about like that

uh i just googled quickly the takes me to a craig cacaterra post called the new cba requires players to hide their smokeless tobacco um so i don't know what the final cba said but this is uh kind of an old story players managers and coaches will be prohibited from using smokeless tobacco during televised interviews and club appearances. In addition, at any time when fans are permitted in the ballpark, players, managers, and coaches must conceal tobacco products, including packages and tins, and may not carry tobacco products in their uniform or on their bodies.

Individuals who violate the policy will be subject to discipline. The parties also agreed upon an extensive program of education and public outreach regarding the dangers of smokeless tobacco. I, yeah, I don't have a, I find it a strange thing to watch, not because I have any great personal concern for these players. It's just that I, it always sort of blows me away that like these are their jobs and their jobs are so different than other jobs that like they're like you you know you know me i'm also very obsessed with the fact that they chew gum all the time like it seems so weird to me that they're the one job in the world where they all chew gum like they're seven-year-olds

it's so weird to me that they're just constantly chewing gum. And not even like Wrigley's. They're chewing bubble gum. Old men, like managers, are all chewing gum all the time. So that's mainly what I think the tobacco thing is weird. I've worked in a lot of offices and I've never seen anybody chewing tobacco. It just feels weird to me. They also use profanity and they yell at each other and they get in fights. These are all such strange things to me. And that's why I'll never probably be a GM. The culture is too different. That's the only reason.

That's the only reason, though, yeah, because you just couldn't get your head around the gum thing. Yeah. Okay. The end. All right. Okay, so send us emails at podcast at baseballperspectives. Yeah. Okay. The end. All right. Okay. So send us emails at podcast at baseball perspectives.com. We will get to them in a couple of days.