Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 260: Many More Listener Emails, and Our Answers to Them

Episode Date: August 7, 2013

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about the best free agents available, expanded rosters, a world without Tommy John surgery, and more.

I know of no game more fitting than the age-old game of cricket It has honor, it has character, and it's British Good morning and welcome to episode 260 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller Hello Sam Howdy. How are you doing? I'm okay.

It's Wednesday, so it's email show. But there is some news in the world of Effectively Wild, I guess. I will tell people that we have a Facebook group now, which is something that I guess podcasts are supposed to have, and I've always kind of thought about it and put it off. And then finally, a listener just went ahead and made one for us. So thank you to Tan Bao. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly for making a Facebook group for us. So you can get to this group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild or you can go to the podcast

post at bp and click on the link to it uh and there are already some some people in there posting pictures of honda fits and talking about intro sounds and why we chose them um so i'm looking forward to this because uh people send us excellent emails in response to episodes like in response to our cricket topic from yesterday. We probably got 10 emails and comments from people who actually know things about cricket telling us more background information about that. All very interesting stuff, but no one else gets to see it except us. So this is a place where you can go and talk amongst yourselves about things related to the show or not related to the show. And I am in there and will participate. And you are not. You do not know how to log into Facebook. I don't have a password and I no longer have access to the email address that it's tied to.

Okay. Well, for now, it's just going to be me then. And I'll pass along your thoughts to Sam. Maybe someday he will figure out a way to join us. Yeah. Okay. So should we just get to the emails? All right. Baseball show. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So should we just get to the emails? All right, baseball show. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to – before we get to the emails, I want to carry over from last week when we talked about which – it might have even been two weeks ago – which baseball stories in history would provide the hottest takes if they happened today in the Twitter age, hotter than they did at the time, for instance. they did at the time, for instance. And we got so many good answers that we overlooked and that I think are quite superior to our answers, in particular your answers, which, as I recall, you gave one answer. Yeah. And it was something like, what was it? It was like Hank Aaron. Like, that was it. That was like a guy's name.

You didn't even have a story. You just named the guy. It was like Dave Kingman. Ray Chapman. Ray Chapman. That's right. You just stated his name. I'm not even convinced you knew what happened to Ray Chapman. didn't even have a story you just named the guy it was like dave king ray chapman ray chapman that's right you just stated his name i'm not even convinced you knew what happened to ray chapman uh so uh some of the really good answers that we got though um and i'm gonna save the one which i think there is a clear winner in my mind uh just a spectacular answer but um i'll save that so um

i think uh babe ruth's 54 home run season in 1920, I believe the record at the time was about half that. So he was completely unheard of. I mean, what he was doing was unheard of and somebody phrased it, is Babe Ruth an alien? And I do think that it's sort of hard for me to believe that Babe Ruth actually existed in the form that the records indicate. So I imagine to have lived through it. And also keep in mind, he had Dan Brooks, I think, was talking to me about this recently. His ERA Plus in 1919, which is the year before his 54 home run season, his ERA Plus was actually something like, oh, criminy.

I'm going to mess this up i think if i'm not mistaken it was like only four guys since then oh no i'm thinking wait oh what sorry his i'm thinking of his ops plus in 1919 before the red socks traded him sold him what only four players since then have had a higher ops plus in that time so he was already like this incredible phenomenon he had just been sold um and he actually was boston used him uh you know quite a bit as a pitcher in 1919 so it was his first year as a full-time player so anyway gosh this is taking too long. So that's a good one. You'd have so many opportunities for hot takes there because you'd have, should he be hitting

or should he just be pitching or should he be pitching at all? And then you'd have just the marvel of never having seen this before. And then you'd have people saying that it's not the way baseball is supposed to be played and you're not supposed to try to hit the ball over the fence and this is the wrong way to play the game and all that sort of thing and then you'd have the people saying hey

he scores runs every time that happens so uh and also yeah and also is he an alien i mean you would have a lot of that uh ty cobb killing a dude is a good one. The only problem is my understanding is that Ty Cobb killing a dude wasn't well known until 50 years later. But assuming that Ty Cobb killing a dude became well known, it would be – I mean obviously there's a current precedent. Except now imagine instead of a guy who plays tight end, imagine it's – I don't want to name a player because i don't want to implicate them in a murder but maybe my trout anyway uh all right uh uh juan marichal uh with the bat in the brawl anybody who took a bat into a brawl would be hot take central i don't quite know how hot to take the uh that generated at the time. He wasn't kicked out of the league, and I'm sure that if he did that today, people would call for him

to be kicked out of the league. If for no other reason than his age, it's absurd. He would be like 80. I think the mound being moved when it was moved a century ago, more than a century ago, and also the mound being raised and lowered would all provide lots of hot analysis, if not hot takes. Hot analysis, a lot of hot analysis. The Eddie Goodell story, I'm going to quote, would be a much bigger deal if it had somehow happened today for a whole variety of reasons. The roster moves involved, the debate over the integrity of the game the debate debate over exploitation etc very good point i think yeah the uh no one was worried about him no one's standing up for his rights

exactly and now that would be uh hot yes um so okay and what i'm going to say is that the winner the best one i think this would be massive, especially because it went on for years. It's not a one-week story, and it involved the best players in the game, and it changed the sport, and it has a huge emotional appeal, and there would just be so much to do with it, is the players who went and fought in World War II. The best players in the world. I mean, imagine. Just imagine that. Just imagine if Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera went to war, like right now.

They just flew off. They just quit playing, and they went and fought in a war where everybody was dying. It's incredible. And for three years. That's incredible. That's incredible. for three years yeah it's incredible that's an incredible and uh you know similarly for korea i mean willie mays basically was mike trout well you know more

or less and uh he did leave for when he was 22 or 21 or whatever uh which is incredible that's an incredible thing when you think about it somebody in fact somebody if you want a really cool project, somebody should just start blogging slash tweeting about that as though it were happening in real time and do that for two and a half years. And I will – I'm hesitant to say I will follow you because if I say that, somebody is going to do it and I'll be the only person following you and I'll feel very guilty. But I think it could be fun. It would be a fun literary exercise. All right. OK. OK. So on to the questions. How's that? Yes, that sounds great. So many, so many cricket responses that I'm going to probably end up clicking on a cricket response or two. So many cricket responses. It really makes me want to talk about cricket more because every time I do, we get just a deluge of emails and

they're all from like interesting places and tell me things that i didn't know um but okay but we'll try to avoid that all right matthew uh asked two quick questions the first is very quick am i the only one who thinks wiki leaks every time somebody says ricky weeks you are not i think that every time somebody says ricky weeks yep i in fact. I think that every time somebody says Ricky Weeks. In fact, I pronounce it Ricky Weeks in my head instead of Ricky Weeks, which is how I pronounce it out loud. His other question is, you could build a pretty functional, old and injury-prone but functional team out of this coming offseason's free agent pool.

Consider names like McCann, Pruszynski, Ruiz, Napoli, Morneau, Elsbury, Cruz, Beltran, Berkman, Garza, Josh Johnson, Lincecum, Uehara. There's a whole team there. I don't have a question, but... And then he asks a question. How many of these characters do the Yankees sign? And why not just buy all of them? Well, that's not what the Yankees are doing. So that's not a very valid question. They're trying to save money and not go over the luxury tax.

Although, wasn't there a story about how they miscalculated the amount that they would save because of that? I feel like I read that they were overestimating. They were going to save $60 million or whatever. They were overestimating how much they would actually save because of that strategy, but probably would still be a considerable amount. But then again, if A-Rod doesn't play, that's a ton of money that comes off the books that they don't have to pay him next year, and that could get them under that, and they could still sign a couple people, maybe.

Yeah, good point. I mean, good point. They could sign a lot of these guys actually because a lot of these guys suck um and aren't going to cost that much so uh a can would be of interest to them i think uh he might be yes good point can i get to the question my question uh he also true i don't he didn't mention true but add true in there so we've talked about what a week free agent class this is and you know somebody does this every year is build the best team you can out of free agents and then try to figure out how many wins that team would win somebody's going to

do it um in november for sure and we should get a head start on them uh based on those names that i just read which remind you include ruiz morneau, Morneau, Berkman, Josh Johnson. I mean, some pretty bad players in that name. And he had to, I mean, you know, these were the best. These are the best names. So, just out of curiosity, an all-free agent team. Robinson Cano's name was not in there. That's true.

Cano wasn't in there, and Chu wasn't in there. Kano's name was not in there. That's true. Kano wasn't in there and Chu wasn't in there. Best guess, before we've done any calculations, what do you think an all-free agent team, the best all-free agent team you can come up with, would project to? I'll guess 85 wins. 85 wins. Okay.

Yeah, it's the rotation, man. That rotation's going to be tough. I mean, it'd be a great bullpen, right? Because there's always a thousand good relievers. Koji Uehara is there, so that's all you need, really. Yeah, you'd have McCann at catcher, Morneau at first, Cano at second.

I don't know who's playing short in that situation, but someone, maybe, I don't know, maybe Euclid or something horrible at third. Yeah. And then Beltran, Cruz, and Chu, or actually, I guess, Ellsbury. Ellsbury, yeah. Ellsbury, Beltran, and Chu, probably. And then that terrible rotation. Beltran, yeah, right.

I might go 92. Utley? Yeah, well, Utley, but he's not going to play anyway. Yeah, you've got Garza. Corota is a free agent. Oh, yeah, Corota. Burnett, Santana, Josh Johnson, Lincecum. Yeah, I think you could put together a pretty decent team.

90 plus. I think 90 plus. Yeah. So it's not that bad. They'd be old and injured and expensive, but you could win. Okay. All right. So even though it's a bad class, there's still enough to make a good team.

If you had the money and you had this class, you could put together a good team. All right. Jim, if Major League Baseball increased the active roster size from 25 to 30 players per team, how many of the extra five would be pitchers and how many would be hitters? That's an excellent question.

That is an excellent question. I'd really like to think that it would skew towards position players, and I think it would. I mean, there certainly could be a team that would just go with the all-bullpen strategy. I think there probably would be a team that would do that. Do you think that the roster crunch is what keeps a team from doing that? You don't think that, I mean, they're already carrying 12 pitchers. Do you think that you need more than 12 to feel comfortable pulling that off?

I think so, yeah. Yeah, I think you'd need a couple more just to make sure that people get enough rest. I'll say on average, I guess I'll say on average teams would add at least three position players, probably. Yeah, if you're not going to an all bullpen staff. Yeah, right, then you should just go all position players. Well, yeah, I think probably, I mean, you know, no manager can resist turning down a pitcher. So I would guess that probably at least one on average. I mean, I would think that a manager would be happy going up to 14 in some cases.

But, I mean, you really are limited in what you can use. And theoretically, you're not really limited in how many position players you can use. There's, you know, teams would love to have a third catcher if there were no restriction teams would i'm sure love to have a pure speed guy if there was no uh limit and yeah certainly i think there are a lot of teams that would like to have more platoons or you know a lot of times your your fourth outfielder kind of has to play center field if you had more so you know that limits your ability to carry uh kind of a corner bat who doesn't have much flexibility or you know a pinch hitter type who um you know can't play another infield position generally in in in this day and age you just can't

carry that guy um you used to be able to and now you really can't if the guy can't carry that guy. You used to be able to, and now you really can't. If the guy can't play at least, you know, one position, you know, second, second, third or short, then you don't really have much use for an infielder. So yeah, I think that you'd see four position players in one pitcher. Yeah. And there'd be some very, very bad players on benches and in bullpens, but that would be okay. I mean, you could, you can have one dimensional guys who are just, just do one thing. They're just fast or they can just hit, but can't play any positions because you can, you can prevent them from having to do any of the things that they can't do. Yeah. I wouldn't, I wonder if September, I mean, in September, I guess there's, you don't see teams that are competing really put any limit on it. So I guess I was wondering if that would give us an indication.

But, like, I mean, I remember there was a year where I think the Yankees were carrying 19 pitchers at one point in September. So I guess if there's no restriction, you probably would see some teams just... You know, similarly, it used to be that the draft was just... You would draft until teams quit picking players. Like, there was no limit. And, like, in the 80s, this was the case. And so you might think, oh, well, like, if teams had five more draft picks, what would they do differently?

But, like, if they had infinite, they just... Some teams just pick forever. Like, the Astros would pick, oh, well, like if teams had five more draft picks, what would they do differently? But like if they had infinite, they just some teams just pick forever. Like the Astros would pick like a hundred. They would be the Astros at the time. This was kind of their strategy was to just draft a billion players. So they would be the last team picking for like 30 rounds. They would just pick and pick and pick. And, you know, some teams would quit at 35 rounds and then the Astros would go 110. I mean, you need you need teams to put those players on, theoretically.

You do, yeah. I wonder when, yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I guess you do, but you don't necessarily. I mean, you're not necessarily going to sign all those. I wonder how many of the 110 they signed. All right, John, I have a question about when teams pick up or eat salary and trades. Let's use Alfonso Soriano. When next season rolls around, is Alfonso Soriano going to actually be on the Cubs payroll

and receive a paycheck signed by Tom Ricketts twice a month along with a Yankee paycheck? Or did the Cubs just cut the Yankees a $13 million check on July 26th? That brings up my hypothetical question. Could the Mets somehow trade off the Bonilla $1 million a year until 2035 contract to someone? How would that work with the payroll totally transfer over? I assume they couldn't just cut a check this year because of inflation and things like that. Okay. So I asked Jeff Houston, who runs COTS, about this, and he confirmed that the team that trades for a player pays his salary. So right now the Yankees are signing Alfonso Soriano's paycheck, and the team that trades generally, when it picks up the contract,

it just writes a check at the beginning. And that's why the commissioner is required to approve these things because cash is being transferred. So by this logic for Bonilla, if they tried to trade that, it really wouldn't work because the money is actually deferred from seasons in which he's already been employed by the Mets. So the Mets have to keep writing that check, even if they hypothetically traded the contract. And so that's my understanding. So Jeff says, that's my understanding too. An exec has told me that each individual club is free to handle the accounting the way it sees fit, provided the commissioner's office approves a particular transaction. So I believe there are exceptions. For instance, I think the Rangers continued

financing an annuity for deferred portion of A-Rod's salary after he was traded to New York, but before he opted out during the 07 World Series. But in general, that's spot on. So now you know. Talking accountant over here. The daily podcast about accounting from a baseball perspective. So for Soriano, you're saying that the Cubs paid the Yankees what they are going to owe Soriano for next year already? Yeah, I think that if the Cubs are paying that, I don't know what the terms of that trade were. What are the terms of that trade? Let me look up what I wrote about it, but I think a lot of that was covered by the Cubs. Yeah, I would imagine that, well, I would say that my understanding is the Cubs will write a check to the Yankees, not to Alfonso Soriano.

Next year, though? Well, that would probably be part of the discussion. The timing would be part of the discussion. That would be slightly better for them, I guess. Yeah, a few $10,000 in interest payments or whatever. Yeah, right. Okay. Okay. All right. Aaron, this is a long one. Where

am I going to edit this? Okay. So there's a few situations in baseball where it seems it might be a potential benefit in taking advantage of the opposition's assumptions. The situation I think about most is the automatic start that runners get on 3-2 with two out. Now, I know in theory that they only start once they see the pitcher going to the plate, but especially if a few pitches get fouled off and everyone has to keep resetting, it looks like the runner can get pretty lazy and doesn't pay that much attention to exactly what the pitcher is up to. Is there a time when the pitcher might try to pick off the runner at first if he jumps his start too soon? I could be completely wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen this happen. Would this be frowned upon as poor form?

Would this not be allowed for some reason? Would the pitcher just not want to waste mental energy on this? And so he wants to know if we have any assumptions. And I'm curious what you think about, well, if you have any thoughts about his example and if you have any examples of your own. I'm trying to think if I've... I have an example of my own. Do you want me to say mine and then you can think? of your own. I'm trying to think if I've... I have an example of my own. Do you want me to say mine, and then you can think?

Yeah, sure, go ahead. So the example I always think of is the defensive indifference in the ninth inning when you're up by three and the guy just moves on down to second to avoid the double play. I mean, obviously that base doesn't matter, which is why they let him go. But the theoretical out would matter a great deal. And, you know, I mean, it's like it's Jim Tomey running down there, not expecting a throw, probably being kind of careful not to get picked off

because he knows there's not going to be a throw coming from the catcher. And I just feel like I'm waiting for Joe Maddon to nab some guy because the out would be just tremendously important. I mean, a lot of times, you know, that might be the tying run is on is, is up to bat, you know, that the run on first doesn't matter, but the run at the plate does and, and out would just be huge. And it really does feel like, like there's probably a free out to be gotten there. Now, you don't get to do it twice. That's the thing.

Once you do it once, it's probably going to be a long time before anybody lets you get away with it again. So you deploy it carefully. But, yeah, I mean, I'm waiting. I think Joe Maddon will do it at some point. And so the question is, would this be considered a violation of unwritten rules? Which, as we know from yesterday, I'm all in favor of unwritten rules, and I'm even more in favor of breaking them to gain a competitive advantage. I think that a lot of unwritten rules do rely on this idea of doing what is expected of you of you i mean they're basically manners right manners in general are about kind of not surprising people doing things the way that

they're done so that people don't get surprised so if it's been 10 000 times that defensive indifference has gone you know that these sorts of situations have gone unchallenged, it clearly would be kind of a violation of etiquette maybe to win on that. But I don't know that in a situation like that where the game is on the line, like I could see if the game, if you were up by six and the guy jogged down to second and you threw him out, I think that would probably be considered a violation or poor form and i could see there being some retribution at some point if you were up by two and the guy jogged to second and you threw him out i think you'd be on solid

ground and so every time this situation comes up i'm waiting i'm thinking this is going to be the time that some smart manager or some smart catcher maybe just pitches out, does a slide step, pitches out, guns the guy out at second. I mean, it would just be so amazingly unexpected and beautiful and I would love it. And I think you could do it. I think you could get the guy. But it hasn't happened yet. Well, the obvious one that I was thinking of is is the hidden ball trick uh which takes advantage of the assumption that the fielder no longer has the ball that the pitcher has the ball um and zach levine wrote an article for bp at the end of may about how it seems sort of surprising that this isn't tried more um and someone someone did then try it after that but

it failed right someone do you remember someone tried it this season but the umpires and and it would have worked but the umpire said that the the pitcher had gotten back onto the rubber before the tag was applied uh i don't remember who that was but but that happened um But I'm surprised that that doesn't happen more often. It really hasn't been done successfully since, do you remember when the last time? I'll look at Zach's article while you're saying the next thing because I think he mentioned it. But that's something that, I mean, there's no unwritten rule against that, right? I don't think anyone really objects to that. It doesn't seem like no one considers it cheap.

It's like you should be paying attention, and if you aren't, then it's your fault. I think my guess for the reason... My suspicion for why the hidden ball trick is not considered cheap is that you grow up doing it almost every game. And it just is such a like it's part of i think it's part of the lore like it i think the fact that it's like even called the hidden ball trick you know like it's got this charming name and it's just so like so kid friendly you know i mean they anytime someone pulls it off you can like you can imagine their face right now whatever face you're imagining is exactly the face that everybody makes it is a joyful thing i think yeah runner has gets a little bit of a kick out of it unless it's a significant moment so i think

the hidden ball trick is is immune now you know what move worked a lot in little league that you don't ever see in the majors and i want i always kind of want to see it tried but i don't think it makes sense because the field is too big is when the runner on second has a big lead and the center fielder sneaks in you remember that one that was so that was devastating in little league like you could get guys like five or six times a year you could get guys on that one it was a beautiful play so when zach wrote that article in may he said that the next week so the first week of june would mark six years since the last successful hidden ball trick so that's that's too long that's a long time yeah i mean and it would be it would

be so effective obviously the more you use it or the more you try it the less effective it gets but after several years of of not not successfully pulling it off and hardly even attempting to do it, I mean, it would be almost automatic, I feel like, a lot of times. I remember a hidden ball trick in spring training when I was growing up, which reminds me that there was some play this spring. And if it comes to me, that would would be great but i can't quite remember but some player did something sort of sneaky and based on the other team's assumptions took advantage of it and it was this really awesome play and he did it in the middle of spring and he actually even

mentioned in his post-game interview like yeah i can only pull it off every few years they were napping it's like yeah it's spring training idiot like of course They were napping. It's like, yeah, it's spring training, idiot. Of course they were napping. It's literally the time to nap. They're sleepwalking through games that don't matter. Why didn't you save it? I think it was a giant. I'm pretty sure it was a giant who did this.

I'm going to have to find this. It was an awesome play that he totally just completely blew. I'm kind of disappointed. I would like to see, I guess, slow runners or non-base stealers try to pick spots to steal maybe more often. Like earlier this year, David Ortiz stole third base for the first time in his career. I think he didn't even draw a throw. And he's been playing for 17 years.

He's 37 years old. No one thinks he's a base stealer. He's actually stolen four bases this year, which is his career high. So it's almost as if he's established this reputation as a guy who's never going to go. And now in his twilight years, he is making the most of that. He's occasionally going when no one expects it. I'd kind of like to see that more often uh yeah i'm googling various uh uh like phrases like yeah spring training sneaky running good look with that uh all right i'm gonna ask one more

and and i don't know if you know the answer i consider you my tommy john expert but i know that you don't consider yourself not at all your own tommy john expert so i i'll ask if you don't have an answer we can maybe ask it next week with uh like maybe we can get cory dawkins to help sure uh but it's an interesting question so at least we can throw it out there. Blah, blah. PEDs like Tommy John surgery. This is from Michael. I think there's an argument to be had that if certain substances

determine to be performance enhancing are banned, so should taking a ligament from your leg and putting it in your elbow. And it got me to wondering what if Major League Baseball banned Tommy John surgery tomorrow? Would pitchers just pitch through UCL tears?

Or would teams just ride an arm until it blew out and then toss it aside and I feel like some of the other rhetorical or the other questions that he asks are kind of more clear but I am curious about what you think about that question specifically would I mean you would a pitcher like what's a pitcher's alternative to Tommy John if he has a UCL tear? Does it ever heal? Like could you take two years off and it would heal?

Or are you stuck with it for life? I think it depends on the degree of the tear that there is a certain point at which if it's torn that amount, and I forget the percentage, there's some kind of rule of thumb, If it's torn that amount, and I forget the percentage, there's some kind of rule of thumb, but if it's torn beyond that amount, then it won't heal on its own. Even if you rest and rehab and take time off, it can't fix itself. There is a partial tear or some degree of tear that will. So I think, I don't know, I would think that pitchers would just do what they did before there was Tommy John surgery, right? Which is just hope that they can pitch through it

and take some time off and come back and try to throw again and probably not pitch very effectively and eventually wash out of baseball. That's what tended to happen. And I guess, I don't know, I wonder whether this would change pitcher usage much, whether teams would handle pitchers even more carefully and delicately than they do now if they know that there's no coming back from this ever. than they do now, if they know that there's no coming back from this ever. I don't know. Maybe they would, but it seems like even now it happens very often anyway,

even with guys hardly ever going over 100 pitches. So I don't know that there's that much you can do. We'd just be deprived of a lot of really good careers pretty much yeah you've yeah and so you figure offense would be bananas at this point um uh you know sort of out of control probably and uh you probably would have i don't you think it would get crazy i mean yeah i do why well because there's 200 pitchers who wouldn't be pitching sure i mean it wasn't before tommy john surgery it wasn't out of control um no but like we've i mean like we've talked about my sort of theory is that barring substantial changes every so often offense continually continually. No, wait, it's the other way. Pitching continually, huh?

Yeah, you're right. I got back. Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe not. You might be right. I guess there would have. Well, okay. All right, so then let's rephrase the question.

If we don't think that hitting would be out of control, even though 200 pitchers who are currently in major league rosters and being awesome uh are not uh why not why would how would how would the equilibrium be maintained uh i don't know i would expect it to be i mean it would have to help offense somewhat it would be like uh like expanding by a few teams or something, just watering down the pitching by that amount. So it would have some effect, I would think. So I don't know. I guess before Tommy John surgery, I don't know.

Trying to think of a good reason why when pitchers got injured more. And I guess, I don't know. We don't really have great data that lets us say whether pitchers are getting hurt less often. It seems like they are sort of, but they still get hurt all the time. like they are sort of, but they still get hurt all the time. So maybe that's why things haven't gotten out of control now with pitchers much more healthy and able to come back and pitch longer. But I don't know. I'm trying to think of why that would be,

what force would counterbalance the sudden loss of pitchers. Can you think of anything? You know, I can't really. I mean, maybe one possibility. I haven't thought this out and it might fall apart completely. But let's say the top 1,000 pitchers in the game, let's say 200 of them get Tommy John surgery. That leaves 800 who don't. Now, as it is, we treat those 800 somewhat gently because we're afraid they're going to get Tommy John surgery. But if there were 200 fewer pitchers and you know, there were, I don't know,

maybe, maybe what would change is that those 800 would, would be written a lot harder and we would find out that they, that you can ride them a lot harder than in fact, those 800 have each have between 20 and 120 more innings that they could throw every year without being put at risk. Now, 200 would be gone. They'd be toast, but the 800 would be picking up those innings without substantial loss. I guess what I'm saying is it could be that we're underutilizing pitchers because we can. And if we couldn't, maybe we wouldn't underutilize them. So maybe that's one

perhaps idea. Yeah, that makes some sense. I also wonder what, I mean, it seems to me that contracts would be different and the union probably would have fought for different things over the course of, I mean, the first Tommy John surgery was just as, you know, basically just before free agency, just as the union was getting strong. And if pitchers, if, you know, an entire class of pitcher essentially was, I mean, an entire class of player was essentially having their careers, uh, cut short this quickly. Um, you wonder what sorts of different things the union would be fighting for. If, uh, you short this quickly, um, you wonder what sorts of different things the union would be fighting for. If, uh, you know, there would be, uh, I don't know if they, if there would be more of an emphasis on longer contracts, fighting for longer contracts instead of, uh, fighting for more

lucrative contracts, or if there would be, uh, I, you know, I don't really know. I don't even know what they would fight for, but I mean, But you just think there would be so many players whose careers would be – I mean so many top players' careers would be cut short before their first payday so that you might not have the six-year service time thing because you'd want to give young pitchers a chance at a big payday immediately. So maybe that's what it would be. You wouldn't have the six years. That could be. Yeah, that would be something that the owners would not be happy to give up.

No, but they'd get something else. They might get something that they liked a whole lot more. Maybe they'd get their salary cap. And so then salaries would go down for hitters. Yeah, sure. All right. Let's do this again next week, Ben. I plan to. So send us some emails that we can talk about then at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Join our fancy new Facebook group and rate and review us on iTunes. A lot of you have done that lately.

And I have to say that if I were someone browsing baseball podcasts and didn't know anything about them except the reviews, I would give us a shot based on those reviews. I don't know that I would give us more than one episode, but I'd give us one. So thank you for that. And we will be back tomorrow.