Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 290: The Rays’ Under-the-Radar Move/Hot AL Wild Card Talk

Episode Date: September 19, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Billy Hamilton, the Rangers’ “collapse” narrative, the Rays’ pickup of Freddy Guzman, and the AL Wild Card race.

Wait. Wait a second. No, I'm saying, no, brakes! Guys, why aren't the brakes working? Because I cut the brakes! Wildcard, bitches! Yee-haw! What? Good morning and welcome to episode 290 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Ben, how are you? Okay. You know, I meant to ask you when we were talking yesterday about the players with the highest winning percentage and the highest losing percentage in games that they had played.

I actually meant to ask you, but I forgot. Do you think a player like Dunn, who has a record of being on bad teams, basically his entire career he's been on bad teams. Do you think any less of him when you notice that? Not that he's causing them to lose, but just that he chooses to go to losing teams? I get the sense that maybe some people in this world might think you should want to play on winners, and that it maybe says something about him that he doesn't seem to have much interest in winning, maybe. And obviously that's a little bit of a leap. I don't want to say that Dunn doesn't care about winning,

but the record is suggestive as well. Yeah, no, I don't really think so. I'm sure there are a lot of people on that list who just happen to end up on losing teams. Maybe they thought they were signing with a winner and then that team tanked for whatever reason. I don't know whether that's the case with Dunn, but no, not particularly. I don't really care if a player puts going to a winning team first. It doesn't make much difference to me.

I guess I feel the same. Guilty people need lawyers too. Wasn't there, several years ago, wasn't there a thing where J.P. Ricciardi said that Adam Dunn doesn't like baseball or something? Yeah, that was a big thing for a little while. I'm just looking at the quote, he doesn't like baseball that much, he doesn't have a passion to play the game that much. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, okay.

Alright, we'll just stop there. So what do you want to talk about? Do you have anything else? Yeah, there were a few things. A couple baseball things, one non-baseball thing. We got an iTunes review that said that we are like a baseball podcast directed by Wes Anderson. Wanted to get your thoughts on that. Well, I'm a big fan of of wes anderson generally darjeeling limited might be my least favorite movie in the world i aggressively hate it but

um but royal tenenbaums is like my like third favorite movie yeah um so i'm flattered i'm a life aquatic guy well yeah you're, yeah, you're young. You're young. No, everybody's favorite Wes Anderson movie is the one that came out in their sweet spot. It has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. So, yeah, I think I was slightly too young for Rushmore and definitely too young for Bottle Rocket to have hit me. I like both of those movies. But Royal Tenenbaums was my sweet spot and,

I didn't like a life aquatic much and I hated Darjeeling limited, but fantastic. Mr. Fox was a fantastic film. Yes. Uh, yeah. What was that?

What was that? Jeez. Okay. Uh, I don't see the connection though. I, I, we've, I think that we've, at certain points, have noted similarities between internal drama in the show

and freaks and geeks. Yes. And we're both big fans of that, and I could see that a little bit more. Okay. The other thing I want to mention, I take it from our tweets that we have both been watching Billy Hamilton tonight.

I've just been watching the box score. Okay. I'm actually watching the Reds right now, which is, I don't usually watch baseball while we do this, so we'll see how that goes. But I feel like this game is, it's like the best case scenario for Billy Hamilton, or it's what we imagined that he could be, and maybe it's why he has been, you could argue, overrated as a prospect, just because when it works, it's such an attractive player. He just struck out against low and looked kind of bad with just fastballs that he didn't hit.

But in his first four plate appearances, he had a line drive double, a line drive single, an infield hit to third, and a walk and stole three bases. And we both tweeted about how he is already leading other teams in stolen bases or he would lead the Reds in stolen bases if he actually started every game from here on out. And he's playing center, and it's just such a fun player that if he could actually be this guy over a full season, it would be like one of my favorite seasons. So I hope he can be that guy. I don't really expect that he can be that guy on a regular basis, but if he can, it would be wonderful.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the Rangers collapse meme. Yeah. I'm hearing, by the way, I just want to throw out, I'm hearing a lot of hot seat talk on Washington, and I just would like to make sure everybody is on board with this. We are a wobbly chair community from this point forward, okay? Yes. No more hot seat. I would like that to be referred to every time it's talked about.

But I don't really understand. I mean, you can make certainly legitimate arguments that Ron Washington should not be a major league manager, and there are series you can point to and decisions you can point to if you want to make that argument. But the fact that the Rangers have lost some games here at the end of the season and that that also happened at the end of last season, just, I mean, doesn't it kind of strike you

or it kind of strikes me as making too much of it, right? I mean, the Rangers had a stretch this June where they lost six in a row and they lost three in a row right before that. And the record over, you know, a 10 or 15 game stretch was similar to what it has been in September here. And in June, it's a slump. No one pays much attention to it.

And in September, it's a collapse and people should be fired. And it's a reflection on your, I don't know, your inner strength or whatever it is. And like even I feel like even stat head people sort of feel this way. Like I was listening to the Joe and Randy podcast and they were saying how, you know, you want Ron Washington as your manager because he's a leader of men or whatever and he inspires players to be the best they can be and everything. And that maybe that makes up for his tactical shortcomings. and everything and that maybe that makes up for his tactical shortcomings,

but that if he is not preventing this collapse, then he's not worth employing because that's what he's supposed to do. That's supposed to be his strength. And I don't know. I mean, it's certainly there is more pressure on players at this point in the season and when things are coming down to the wire, but it seems like kind of a stretch to, you know, if it happened at a different point in the season and when things are coming down to the wire, but it seems like kind of a stretch to, you know, if it happened at a different point in the season, it would be regarded a completely different way.

Yeah, I think in defense of the narrative, which I don't buy, but I don't think this is a matter of, I think one of the reasons it has taken hold so quickly and has some strength is that this was a narrative for many years about the Rangers, and it was not randomly generated. The idea was that Texas is so brutally hot in the summer that players do wear down, and in particular, pitchers wear down, and in particular, pitchers having to basically go through a ballpark that is its own war of attrition wear down. And so there was always a sense until 2010 that you didn't really have to worry about the Rangers if it was close in July because they were going to fold because of the heat. Now, I don't suppose there's really much behind that.

I imagine it was the same thing as this, a year or two that stood out in people's minds. But, you know, this is a somewhat of a franchise long narrative or something like that. If there is something to that, doesn't that make this even more, I mean, of a non-issue? I mean, if there is, if there's some institutional thing that makes the Rangers lose late in the season, then it's even less a reflection of their character or their leadership or whatever. Oh, yeah. If we're just talking wobbly chair issues, then yeah, it would not come down on Washington. If you're talking about what, I think that what people are talking about is whether the

Rangers are, I mean, it's basically a proxy for people trying to talk about who's going to win. You know, I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? People are just giving their expertise on who's going to win. I mean, that's what we're talking about, right? People are just giving their expertise on who's going to win this race. And it's a reason to say that the Rangers aren't going to win this race. Right. And, yeah, they were 2-8 in their last 10, I think it is, last season. And that might be just as random an assortment of wins and losses as this,

but the fact that it happened both years makes it look like a trend. Anyway, my topic is basically the AL wildcard, which is, we were just saying before we record, that we don't tend to gravitate towards talking about actual baseball that is being played. I don't know what percentage of our topics are pennant race topics and breaking down who's going to win and who's not,

but I feel like we tend to be more attracted to either inconsequential things or big idea things more so than the actual results from day to day. But since the AOL card is exciting right now and there's not a whole lot of time left in the season, I thought we could discuss that briefly. All right. And I wanted to talk about Freddie Guzman. Okay.

All right. You want to go first? Sure. I think mine's pretty quick, which is good because we had like a 40-minute banter session today. So the Rays, just before August turned into September, the Rays signed Freddie Guzman. And this was not – I would be surprised if 10 people in the world noticed this. I wish not one of them.

No. Honestly, I'm not sure how many people in the Rays organization knew they had done it. And I'm serious. It's the sort of thing where I could imagine fewer than 10 Rays, people in the Rays organization actually knew. It's totally inconsequential. They signed him to a minor league deal. They did not assign him to a minor league team. They sent him to their compound or their complex in Florida, I guess. And, you know, they had him work out.

But, you know, like, it's a nothing move. And just so that you know the background on Freddie Guzman, Freddie Guzman played in the majors. He had, like... I remember Freddie Guzman because he made a playoff roster with the Yankees. It was right in 2009. 2009, yeah. He came up in September or something and was somehow on the playoff roster.

Yeah, and appeared in two postseason games for them, got one plate appearance, went 0-1. And in his career, he's got 102 plate appearance. I went 0 for 1. And in his career, he's got 102 plate appearances. He's 33, maybe 32. He hasn't played in America since 2009. Actually, that Yankees game against the Angels in the ALCS was the last time he played in America. It looks like somehow took 2010 off. And then 2011, Mexico. 2012, Mexico. 2013, Mexico. Hasn't been particularly good, although he had a good batting average this year and stole a ton of of bases and so he's 30 again he's 33 uh 32 right now hasn't played at any sort of level in many years wasn't a legit major leaguer in the first place and the rays randomly signed him on august 30th so today we find out why they move him onto the 40-man roster.

They move him up to the majors, and he is going to be, it looks like, their designated pinch runner. And they may use the loophole. It seems like they probably will. Brandon Guyer was put on the 60-day DL, so it seems like they're probably poised to use the loophole to get him on the major league roster. Sorry, on the postseason roster. So Guzman stole 73 bags this year in 99 games for Mexico. He is fast. He never had quite that gaudy of stolen base totals when he was in the States, but always a good base stealer. And I just wanted to point this out because to me this is one of the –

it makes sense and it is simultaneously one of the strangest things in baseball going on right now. That Freddie Guzman, that basically the Rays went out and as – they basically hired a runner. The day before they had to, they went out and hired a runner who has absolutely probably no chance of playing any baseball for them other than running. I would be surprised if there was any situation where he is called upon to hit or field. But he will run. And so I don't know. Just wanted to point it out. Yeah, that's strange.

I was not aware of that. Yeah, that's strange. I was not aware of that. And we talked recently about how pinch running might be a counterproductive strategy, or at least an overused strategy. Yeah. are used, it backfires because you take the better batter out of the lineup and often that batter will come around to score and the pinch runner doesn't actually increase the odds that, you know, there will be a run scored all that much. Yeah. But the Rays went out of their way to get that guy. Yeah, and it's interesting because, I mean, it is true. I think that pinch runners, if you put a guy in as a pinch runner on first

and then he scores on a double the next pitch, there's this sense like you kind of log it away as like it worked. But usually the guy on first, if there's a double, let's say there's a double with no outs, he's going to score anyway. I mean, the pinch runner very rarely does that extra step he gets make a difference but sometimes it does and that those few times it does makes a big difference but i mean when we we talked about this before i talk about this a lot but when i did the hypothetical billy hamilton month where he ran every single time and over the course of like 36

games or whatever billy hamilton as a as a runner would have been worth like a tenth of a win or like basically one run i think and um you know whenever we talk about things in baseball it always gets you know anything innovative can be defended on the basis of well if they're paying five million dollars for a win then you know whatever whatever gets you a run is almost certainly going to be worth it. And I don't know that that's technically true with Guzman. It seems like the expectancy for Freddie Guzman over the course of a month is probably less than a run as a runner.

And I mean, I guess that it's still the cost is low, but they are paying him 50 grand or so to hang around um and if he makes a postseason roster which i don't know if he will but if he does he will come at the expense of somebody who can hold a bat and um you know i mean it is thousands of it is at the very least he's it's 500 000 is the minimum so at the very least he's it's 500,000 is the minimum so at the very least he's making a tenth of a salary so he's making 50 grand at the very least uh to play for them and I'm not sure I'm not 100% sure it's actually worth it yeah I I don't know could it just be kind of a insurance policy like if there's I don't know like if you're in the if you're in the wild card game and

maybe that situation arises where it's one of those rare times where a pinch runner could really be valuable you know i don't know it's a it's a tie game or whatever and there are two outs and you know there's a guy on base who under no circumstances can score from second on a single or from first on a double and you have this guy and you know maybe it could be like a dave roberts signature stolen base moment um maybe it's worth carrying that guy when you don't have to worry about having a a fifth starter on the roster and you know you you're only going to use your good bullpen guys probably maybe maybe it's worth carrying him you might not use him at all but just on the off chance that that situation

arises and maybe he can make a difference there it could be yeah i mean as an insurance policy it could be if you really are thinking that you can envision situations where that one pinch running appearance alone is worth far in excess of $50,000, then that might make sense. Now, it's expanded rosters, so it's not like you're ever going to be stuck with Jose Molina on first and nobody to run for him. They just brought up Tim Beckham. Tim Beckham can move. You're always going to be able to get a competent runner in September. But if it's a Dave Roberts situation, the thing about the Dave Roberts situation, though,

is that that dude still gets caught stealing like a fifth of the time. So it could very easily be that by putting in the pinch runner, you give yourself the ability to send him, he gets thrown out, you know it backfires i mean that's that's why the way that's why the run expectancy of stolen bases is somewhat low because the there's times they get caught um i mean i look the rays have obviously done the math and and shoot maybe for all we know he he might like scout out as being an elite defensive center fielder and we just don't know that i mean he's

been playing he's been playing all over the you know he's been he's an outfielder and he's been playing center left and right uh in mexico but you know maybe wow he played almost exclusive actually he didn't play center this year at all in mexico so presumably he's not an elite center fielder uh but maybe he is who knows yeah he's 32 so i feel like if he if he's valuable in this role at 32 then at you know 26 he would have been worth that's the other thing yeah yeah that's the other thing is that he is 32 i mean he's he he old like you could see this if he were if he were 23 you could you could probably take there's probably i don't know there might be 100 guys in Mexico

in the Mexican League who are like insanely fast and have been playing enough baseball that they know how to, you know, how to base run better than Herb Washington could. I don't know. But I mean, you know, he's still 77 bases in 99 games. So maybe we shouldn't doubt his speed. Dave Roberts was old too. Yeah. It's yeah. Okay. Interesting anecdote. So wild card. The results tonight, Baltimore beat the Red Sox in extra innings. The Yankees came back to beat the Blue Jays four to three. The Rays beat the Rangers, another extra inning one-run game, and the Royals beat the Indians 7-2. So now we have a very tight cluster. We have one, two, three, four, five, six teams within, I guess, three and a half games with, you know, 10, 11 games remaining in the season.

So my preseason picks for the wild card were Tampa Bay and Texas. I'm pretty sure I probably got both of the division winner picks wrong. But I'll just skip over that. I'm certain of it. Yeah, I definitely did. But I still have a chance to pick the wild card teams. So my inclination... just to stay consistent. And I legitimately would pick Tampa Bay

because they have a shot at either of those two spots. They have a one-game lead on the Rangers and a slightly bigger lead on everyone else. And I think they're just the best team of the bunch. So I see no reason not to pick them, which is not to say that their spot is assured or anything. Obviously, the margins are so small here that anyone could conceivably win or lose this. But I see no reason to not pick Tampa Bay. So they would be one of my picks. So the question then is whether we believe in the Rangers. And we've already, we've talked about the collapse narrative and how we don't necessarily buy that, but, uh, you know, they're not a great team. Um, they have a good pitching staff. They have a good bullpen. They don't have a great offense. I think their offense

probably looks better than it actually is because of the ballpark. And it's, you know, it's not great and it's missing Nelson Cruz and it's missing Nelson Cruz, and it's not a great run-scoring team. And then you have Cleveland, who is one back in the loss column and, of course, has the schedule advantage in that they are playing the Astros for four and the White Sox for two and the Twins for four to finish the season, which is about as... That's it? That's the last ten?

That's their last ten, is the three worst teams in the American League. So that's about as well as they could have drawn it up. Six at home. Six at home, yeah. Six at home. Six at home, yeah. So I guess the question is how much of a difference that makes over a 10-game stretch. It's a factor.

It matters. The actual expectation for how many more wins they will have over 10 games playing those teams as opposed to you know 500 teams probably not not much what would you say it like a win is it even a win maybe i i it's the astros the white talks and the twins yeah yeah i would say that's a win i i don't i shoot i mean i feel like i feel like if we did the ast there, I mean, yeah, the Astros are, well, okay. So the Astros, geez, I don't know. I mean, basically you're talking about three teams with a combined expected winning percentage of about 440. And who are the Rangers playing? The Rangers have, uh, one more against the Rays and then they have three against the Royals on the road and then they

finish up with six at home against the Astros or seven at home, three against the Astros four against the Angels Okay, so that's not a big difference It's not huge You're comparing the Angels and the Royals to the Twins and the White Sox

and then the Astros are basically a push Yeah So that's a difference but not a huge difference that's about maybe 40 that's like 50 points of expected winning percentage from your opponents so over the course of 10 games uh with a neutral opponent you would expect the royals and the twins to win a half a game fewer but it's not 10 games it's seven so now you're talking about 0.35 games fewer yeah i don't know do you have to do you have to cut that in half because now they're only half of the equation i'm not sure if you i don't think you do yeah no maybe a third of a win even so uh it's probably not enough to neutralize the fact that they're i mean maybe it's

a enough to neutralize the fact that they're a half game back or you know one back in the last column but essentially even i guess so then it comes down to you know i mean it it's sort of silly to even project this really because i mean it's you know 10 11 games and who knows but I guess it comes down to which team you like better really and then we haven't even gotten to to Baltimore who's also I mean tied in the last column with Cleveland one one fewer win. And the Orioles schedule, they have one more against the Red Sox and then four against the Rays on the road. And then they have three at home against the Blue Jays and three at home against the Red Sox. So that's pretty tough. They've got three against the Red Sox and four against the Rays in their last few series here. So that's not easy.

I think that it's still possible for the Angels. Yeah. I think if they win all 10, they get 84. Yeah, they're not. And so Texas plays the Royals. So if they win one, they get to 83. The Royals would be to 82. I think the Angels can pull it out.

Okay, that's an unpopular pick. And then there are the Yankees who have one more against the Blue Jays on the road, and then they also have three against the Astros. So everyone has the Astros here. They have three against the Astros on the road. They also have three against the Giants at home and three against the Rays at home. So their schedule is not as easy as the Indians, but I guess it's about the same as the Rangers and probably easier than the Orioles schedule.

And maybe we're overanalyzing schedule just because it's one of the few things that we can analyze here. Yes, so you're picking, I mean, we're both, I guess we're both saying the Rays. Yeah, sticking with the Rays. We feel pretty good saying the Rays. Yeah, sticking with the Rays. We feel pretty good about the Rays. And then you have basically Texas, Cleveland, and the field. You have basically Texas, Cleveland, and the long shots.

I mean, you can't really pick Kansas City or New York. Or maybe Baltimore is close. Yeah, so you could pick Baltimore. Yeah, I mean, the Yankees and Royals, they have real chances, but I can't think of a reason why you would pick them, really. I mean, over 10, 11 games, a two-and-a-half game deficit is pretty significant, and it's not like they're the best team of the bunch that's somehow underplayed expectations. The Yankees are worse than their record, probably, and the Royals are

probably not much better than theirs. So yeah, they have real chances, but I can't think of a reason to favor them. So then it comes down to texas cleveland baltimore so who you got uh well with the caveat that whatever name i say in the next 12 seconds is going to be randomly generated uh i got cleveland i got cleveland i I got Cleveland because I looked Jason Giambi in the eye. Yeah, you know they're not going to be collapsing because he's there. I fell in love. I did, yeah. I think, yeah, I guess I'll go. I guess I want Cleveland, so maybe that's why I picked Cleveland. I guess I want Texas because I feel like they're probably the better team.

I don't know. I might be overrating them just because they've been a good team in the last few years, and I don't think they're as good a team now. Why aren't they better? Yeah, why aren't they better right now? I mean, yeah, Cruz missing hurts, but why aren't they a better team right now? Why are they only going to win 86 games this year? Well, I mean, they didn't have the greatest offseason, right?

I mean, like, a lot of the things they did were defensible, but kind of made them worse in the short term. Like, the plan was to have sort of a, it seemed like the plan was to have sort of a transitional year where they weren't going to bring back Hamilton and they weren't going to go crazy with free agents, although they wanted Granke, it seemed like. But they weren't going to just, you know, bring in Kyle Loesch or whatever. They were going to just kind of go with what they had and hope it was good enough. And, I mean, like not that they should have brought back Hamilton or not that he even would have made them better if they had brought him back,

but losing what he was last year and not really replacing that made them worse. So they're, I mean, they have the 10th highest true average, or I guess tied for 10th among all teams. So they're, I mean, it's just not a great offense. Like, I mean, it's Beltre, who's wonderful and we love him. And who else is it, really? It's like Kindler's having a down year, and Profar hasn't really given them much,

and Cruz isn't there, and Andrus has had a down year, and David Murphy has had a bad year. I thought Berkman was going to work work out and that didn't work out yeah i didn't love that move because they paid a pretty high price for him um so it wasn't like a i didn't think it was going to be a total bargain but i thought he would be much better than he's been i didn't see the i didn't see the combination of 300 plate appearances and that line for profile. Like I figured one or the other, like,

you know, he'd, he'd play a lot and be good or he wouldn't play. I didn't expect him to be part of the problem. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean,

Persinski has actually been better than I thought he was, would be probably. And yeah, David Murphy is his head lousy year. So it's just not, I don't know, not a great offense there. So maybe I'm thinking that they're better than Cleveland just because they've been so much better over the last few years and don't really love the Indians pitching or haven't for most of the season. So I guess I'll stick with the Rangers.

Yeah, I changed my mind. I'm going with the Rangers. Okay. All right. I'm going with the Rangers. I think it's, you know, 52-48 or something in favor of, of Texas over Cleveland. But, um, but yeah, I'll, I'll stick with my preseason, my preseason choice. Um, okay.

So we talked about current events. Yeah, we did. I had the Rangers winning the wild card and I had the Rays tied with the blue Jays. So could have been a wild card. Could have been a division. Didn't, didn't explicitly stay.

Okay. All right. That's enough for today. I think. All right. Okay. We'll be back with one more tomorrow.