Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 304: The Pirates’ Future/Cubs Prospects and Joe Girardi/Listener Emails

Episode Date: October 10, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Cubs prospects and (at the end of the episode) Joe Girardi’s managerial decision, then talk about the Pirates’ loss and answer some listener emails.

Too good. Another game for Millers! Good morning and welcome to episode 304 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I am Ben Lindberg, still out in Arizona, and joining me as always is Sam Miller, calling in on the phone today from somewhere. Where are you? First time. First time ever on the phone. Yeah. Why are in on the phone today from somewhere. Where are you? First time. First time ever on the phone. Yeah.

Why are you on the phone? I'm in far northern California next to a creek. Okay. I can't hear the creek, but I'll take your word for it. Can you really not? That's interesting because it's super loud. Well, I don't know. Maybe I can.

Maybe I was taking it as background noise or static or something. Maybe it's just creak. Yeah, it probably is. I mean, when it's on the computer, you hear crickets that I don't hear. You hear animals that I don't hear. It's interesting how sensitive the computer microphone is, but not the phone. I'll let you know if a bear is approaching. Okay. There are bears here, but not the phone. I'll let you know if a bear is approaching. Okay.

There are bears here, although not really. It's more mountain lions is the worry. When I was a kid, actually, I used to come up here when I was a kid, and once there was a mountain lion that the caretaker nearby here saw and shot,

you know, shot dead, and he hung the mountain lion from a tree to scare off other mountain lions and uh we had some friends who were visiting with us and one of them went out walking at like six in the morning alone and stumbled upon a hanging mountain lion. It was the scariest thing she could ever see. And she ran back thinking that she'd stumbled upon some like occult ritual or something. My childhood was not like this. I have a dachshund. That's the extent of my interaction with nature. I used to hunt frogs and catch and release only. Okay, so we're going to do partial playoffs show and partial listener email show. And then we'll probably do more listener

email shows or more listener emails tomorrow. So you can continue to send those emails to podcast at baseball perspectives.com. I just wanted to do a quick update because I talked about that one Cubs prospect I really liked last week, Amaya. And today we went to our first AFL game and there were three Cubs prospects in that game alone who I liked better than Amaya. There was Jorge Soler in that game. Chris Bryant was in that game. And Albert Almora was in that game.

And they all did impressive things. And Almora had a four-hit day with a double and a homer and a diving catch and just looked like a future five-tool all-star type center fielder. And Bryant hit a home run over the right center field fence, and it was very impressive. Well, this is the question I have about, and I don't know if you can answer this yet, but maybe you can. I always, you know, they talk about scouting the stat line

and scouts who sort of get swayed by, you know, the results, the hits that fall in and the catches that get made. And I always think, though, that it would be almost impossible to not scout the reputation. I mean, you go in there, you know all three of those guys already. I mean, what kind of scout is really going to turn in a report that says, of Almora, this guy sucks? Like, it just feels like there's a, I mean, I would think that if the scouting world was nothing but me,

like if it was like a thousand me's, the hive mind would be just pathetic. It would just be a total joke. Like, once a guy got a reputation, it would be almost impossible to lose that reputation. So when you went out there today, you saw the names in the lineup. It's not like you were scouting uniform numbers. You were scouting names that you already knew. Yeah, and it's the AFL, so I mean, half of the team is kind of top prospects, so I guess that you know going in that you're going to see some some good talent which is not really the case in most of the previous games that we went to but

yeah sure i mean i i expected those guys to be good and uh and they they were good i think i would have thought they were good even if i hadn't known who they were but i can't know for sure um we actually we got i got we got a question related to that from a listener named George who was asking whether at scout school they advise us to ignore their stats before watching them. And he asked whether I thought my evaluation of the second baseman, Amaya, would have been different if I had been aware of his stats before I saw him. And yeah, quite possibly.

They haven't really advised us to ignore the stats. They have just not told us which players we'll be watching. So there isn't really any opportunity to look at the stats before we go see those players. But we can and do look up their stats after we see them, which seems like a prudent thing to do. If I were a real scout, I would do that. But, yeah, I might. Maybe I would have been less impressed by him if I had known he didn't hit all that well.

I don't know. Or maybe I just would have been even more surprised that he looked as good as he did. Yeah, on reconsidering it, it actually seems now like it would be dumb to ignore the reputation. I mean, what the reputation is is essentially it's data. It's the collection of data that other people have accumulated, and it would be sort of dumb to not know that and be aware of that,

and actually to let it sway you. It should sway you. And so I guess when you're scouting a guy who you know whose reputation precedes him like elmora for instance it may be you're scouting against expectations more than you're scouting him like oh is this guy a scrub or or not i mean you know he's not a scrub if you turn in a report that says he's a scrub uh you're ignoring relevant data well but you know know, you just sort of... Maybe it might be better for, I mean, it might be better for a team if all of its scouts were ignorant of the reputation, but they were aware of the reputation. Yeah, that seems right.

Yeah, because if you just, I mean, if the scouts are aware of it, then it's going to have a tendency to kind of pull everyone toward whatever that consensus number is. Yeah, because the scout knows that the GM knows that Elmore is a stud. And if the scout thinks that Elmore is not a stud, he might be afraid to say it because the GM is going to think, why is my scout always being kind of out there? Yeah. It's safer to blend in. there. Yeah. So that they actually, it's safer to blend in. Yeah. They have cautioned us against pack scouting, which is their term for just kind of, you know, going with the crowd. And

like, there are a lot of scouts they've told us who just kind of coordinate with other scouts on rival teams and just will like call and say, who are you seeing today? You know, and they'll like tell each other if, if there's certain guys worth seeing and, and who are you seeing today? You know, and they'll like tell each other if a certain guy is worth seeing. And there are certain scouts who will lie, and you have to be aware of that. But there are other scouts who will just kind of freely share information and sort of share evaluations to some extent, which kind of makes sense, I guess, for each individual scout, because if you want to keep your job, then you, you kind of, it helps to know what other people think. Uh, but it's bad for, it seems like it's good for your organization too.

If you're getting two opinions instead of one. Yeah, right. Well, there, right. There are certain cases where it could be bad if you're tipping off another team to someone your team is higher on than the other teams. Yeah, but you're tipping off one other team. You're not tipping off the other 28. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. You're getting twice the input, but really only diluting your own intelligence by one 29th. by 1-20-29. Yes, that is true. Anyway, it's been an impressive week for Cubs prospects down here for me, and it must feel like Christmas Eve for Cubs fans these days, I would think.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure that World Series is right around the corner. Well, there are reasons to be optimistic. Anyway, what did you want to say about playoffs? Well, I had two questions for you, both kind of about the Pirates, although one is sort of about the A's. The Pirates, I just can't help noticing that, like the Nationals last year, as we talked about, they were the hot young team that had come up and reached the playoffs, got eliminated after one series,

but they were going to be around for a long time. And the Pirates are the hot young team. They made it through one series, but have a lot of reason to be optimistic. And, of course, the Nationals had a down year this year, did not make the postseason. And so I'm just curious, if you had to bet on one of those teams to make the postseason. And so I'm just curious if you had to bet on one of those teams to make the postseason next year, Pirates or Nationals, who's in better shape? Man, I guess my gut feeling is Nationals. I don't know. I mean, last year I thought that the Nationals were well set up to contend for years just based on the talent that they already had on their roster. people on the Pirates who won't be as productive next year as they were this year, but then they also have one of the most, you know, one of the high-rated farm systems with some other

people on the way or some other people who recently graduated, so they have that going for them. I don't know, it'd probably be pretty close for me, because I do like Washington to bounce back, back, so I don't know. Which is yours? My sort of blink instinct is to say the Nationals. I mean, it wouldn't shock me if somebody ran numbers and said the opposite, but it feels to me like the Nationals are the superior team going forward. Yeah, it feels that way to me too.

I don't know. I wonder if we're underrating the pirates just because they're the new kid on the block i mean it usually makes sense to to expect a team that improves by a lot to regress by a bit the next season um okay uh all right i got bet of the day we got a bet of the day coming up. Next five years, how many postseason appearances for the Pirates? And I'm going to use my definition of postseason appearance, which means that you have to win the wild card playing game. All right.

Five years, I'll say two. I'll say none. None? I'm going to say none. Wow. I mean, I could see him winning two. I'll say none. None? I'm going to say none. Wow. I mean, I could see him winning two. I could see him making four. It's not easy to make the postseason. Downer? I mean, you've got to figure the Cardinals are making it every year. Yeah, I guess so. What's

depressing? Well, that's depressing. It, uh, well, it's depressing, except that it's not depressing to me, because a year ago, if you'd asked me how many they would make in the next five years, I would have said zero. And at that point, it would have been extremely depressing, because they would have had 27 years, or 20, 24 years, 24 seasons, 25 seasons without a postseason appearance, that would have been depressing. And I might have gone, if you'd asked me 500 record, I might have said, you know, one, but it wouldn't have shocked me if it were none.

So the fact is that they have completely undone the depressing nature of the franchise with the season. I mean, it's an unqualified success. It's not too depressing for me. Lots of teams aren't going to make the playoffs in the next five years. I assume the Pirates will make a lot of playoffs before I die. Yeah. Gosh.

Pretty confident that you're going to be around for a while. I've been living six years. Yeah. Okay. Well, Adam Wainwright happens to the best of teams. Okay. Well, Adam Wainwright happens to the best of teams. The second question is

Garrett Cole started over A.J. Burnett, playing a lot of choice and chose the rookie tomorrow, tonight, today, whatever day you're listening to. Sonny Gray is going to start over Bartolo Colon. Bob Melvin made the choice. And when Justin Verlander had his post-game press conference after losing to Gray,

well, I guess Verlander didn't take the loss, he said something along the lines of like, oh, yeah, it was really impressive to see how calm he was, how well he handled the nerves and how he used it all to make him better. That's not something you normally see out of young pitchers. That's why veterans usually do better in the postseason. That was kind of a self-serving thing to say, although maybe it just reflects baseball conventional wisdom

that veterans are better in the postseason. And so I'm just curious, the gray cologne, to me the Burnett-Cole choice wasn't that tough. Although it is interesting that Burnett has threatened retirement, so that might have been, he might have been forced out of his last start in his career. But Gray-Cologne is a lot closer. And so just curious, and I don't know if the youth age thing has any relevance to your decision, but who are you starting in that game? I don't think it has

any relevance, especially because Gray has already pitched well once. So if he were going to, you know, if the pressure were going to get to him and he were going to collapse, I feel like it would have happened the first time. And since it didn't happen the first time, then he has that confidence going in. And so I wouldn't be at all worried about that, really. And I think I prefer Gray. I would go with Gray. Yeah.

I think there are two things about young pitchers that make them hard to judge against veterans, and neither one has to do with their ability to hold up under pressure uh although i don't know maybe that's a factor but um one is that i think we probably tend to underrate them because we have priced in their risk of injury so like we know that basically all these guys are going to have pumped on in the next three years so if you're talking about like how much they're going to contribute to their team you've priced in the fact much they're going to contribute to their team, you've priced in the fact that they're going to miss time with injury,

that they might just collapse entirely. That Gray might lose three miles an hour of velocity in 18 months and never be good again. So you price in that risk, whereas Colon, you don't. Well, I guess Colon's a billion years old. But with most veterans, you don't have to price in quite so much risk. So we underrate their short-term value because we know that their long-term value is fraught with all these dangers, right?

If you're just talking about one start, we should probably pick the young guy more often than we do. Now, on the other hand, we probably overrate them some because they get this benefit of seeing lineups for the first time. And we know that that helps pitchers, and particularly for pitchers who even haven't been around the league fully one time. You know, it's an edge. And so with Gray, he did just see this team four days ago. And you wonder whether we're slightly overrating his ability to shut them down again because they're going to be seeing them again. I think it's super-duper close.

I don't think you can go wrong with either one. I would have picked Colon. Colon's a lot better pitcher than Burnett is. And I think Colon had the seventh-best fit in the American League this year, better than Verlander and better than Pfister. So, to me, it's not so much about being worried about Gray as a kid. I was just saying, Colon's a really darn good pitcher, and I probably would give him the shot.

Speaking of long-term injury risk and Tommy John, I just went to the A's official website while you were talking, and there's a big picture of Sonny Gray and his inverted W plastered all over the thing. And I was never sure whether I should believe in that or not. They've taught it as a thing at scout school. So I guess that means it's officially sanctioned now as a risk factor so I can see it and be scared of it. So that's something to keep in mind.

Okay. Someone in our Facebook group, do you remember way back in episode 18, we did a, it was maybe like sort of the original bet or draft sort of style competition thing we did. I read out the names of... I do. I do. I remember who's better than Dickie. Yes. Yes, I do remember that one. Yeah, I had completely forgotten. So Brett Larder, a listener, went back and looked up

how many of those picks you got right. I named starters. Oh, bless his heart. Yeah, I named starters and you said whether Dickkey would be better in 2013 than those starters. So you did pretty well. I mean, you picked everyone except, let's see. Okay, so you picked Dickey over Johnny Cueto, which was not... Yeah, okay, so you picked him over Wainwright, which didn't work out so well.

I think at the time, Wainwright was... There was some injury concern or something, right? So that, and then you took him over cueto and sabathia both of them were better although not not particularly good um and then the only other one was uh jared weaver um he was am i reading this right uh sabathia you okay so you picked yeah you picked sabathia are you sure i didn't pick are you sure i didn't pick sabathia over him yeah i think you did yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and i picked quato over him and quato was worse yes right uh yeah and then i picked him over weaver Uh You picked

Nope you picked Weaver I must have because he was better than Weaver You picked Weaver Yeah there's a Picked other pitcher and there's a Picked Dickey Oh okay alright he bolded it He bolded when you picked

The other pitcher This is very confusing for me Okay so you picked when you picked the other pitcher. This is very confusing for me. Okay, so you picked, yeah, you picked Cueto over Dickey. You picked Weaver and Sabathia over Dickey and also Wainwright. But, yeah, I don't know. Am I reading? I'm still reading this wrong, I think. Let's address this tomorrow.

Okay. All right. Listener emails. I've picked a few. Okay. This one comes from Milos. I'm guessing that's how it's pronounced based on Seinfeld, might the next unexploited inefficiency be found in hiring managers from other backgrounds? Since most strategy moves made by managers are generally assumed to not make too much or a negative difference,

could an advantage be found in finding a better manager of men from somewhere other than baseball, like the military or the tech world? Oh my gosh, I went through this period when I was covering education of men from somewhere other than baseball, like the military or the tech world. Oh my gosh, I went through this period where, when I was covering education, where the big trendy thing was to hire military guys to run school districts. It was just, it was awful. It was, because, well, I don't know that, I don't know if the data shows that it was awful, show that it was awful, data being a plural noun. I don't know if the data showed that it was awful, show that it was awful, data being a plural noun. I don't know if the data showed that it turned out awfully, but it was really uncomfortable for everybody.

I think that the problem with that in baseball is that it's a nice thought, and ideally it would work, except baseball is just such a kind of self-valuing profession that like 85% of what it means to be a good baseball manager is like being a baseball guy. They need to know that you are in a uniform, right? I mean, I just don't think that they would have, no matter how good a motivator you were, the first time there was a disagreement, you'd have like the David Price nerds thing going on, right? I just don't think it would work.

You need to have worn a uniform. It's sort of disappointing. But, I mean, I could see that philosophy working, but you'd have to hire a bunch of Joe Madden types who at least did play in the minors. And even Joe Madden, it took him 20 years of being in a major league dugout before he got a managerial job. Well, I don't know.

What makes baseball different from other sports that have non-playing managers? Tradition? Yeah, I guess so. How did it become a tradition? Why is it a tradition? Well, I mean, I guess it's because, I mean, I guess when you don't necessarily, when you're playing in college, you're not playing for a guy who played pro basketball

or even college basketball. When you're in high school, you don't play for a guy who played necessarily basketball or even college basketball. When you're in high school, you don't play for a guy who played necessarily college basketball. I mean, you're basically playing for the science teacher, whereas in baseball, I feel like you're playing for former baseball players all along. Maybe it's just that there's so many former pro baseball players who retire and then disperse to coach. And so there's enough coaches for every level. So you just never play for a civilian. That could be.

I don't know whether it has something to do with the fact that the season is so much longer or whether maybe it could just be the fact that managing in baseball is easier? Because it kind of, I mean, tactically at least, strategically, it's sort of easier, right? I mean, it's harder to be an NFL head coach or something. I mean, there's more strategy involved there, whereas in baseball, more of it is, I guess, interpersonal skills and leadership. Yeah, it circles around to the question.

The question is saying if the tactics don't matter, then why don't you hire somebody who can motivate men? And the answer is that that's who motivates the men, is the ballplayers, the former ballplayers. So in football, the tactics matter, so you don't necessarily need a motivator as much. So you go get the mathematician, basically. And so in baseball, the best motivator is usually someone who has played before.

I mean, that's certainly the perception. I don't know if it's true, but it's the perception, and I would guess that at least at the major league level, it would be true until someone really broke through the idea or a few people broke through the idea. It's certainly conceivable that in 50 years, it's all non-ballplayers who are managing. It's hard to imagine the first step along that way. The first guy who does it is going to have to succeed immediately

and get really lucky along the way and make it really easy for the next guy. Yeah, right. The first team that tries it will have to put up with a lot of scrutiny and probably some of its players second-guessing the move and a whole lot of stuff that, I mean, the person that they hired would have to be significantly better than the best baseball background manager. It won't benefit the first team that tries it. It'll benefit the 10th team.

The first team that tries it will benefit the 10th team, but it will not benefit from it itself. It will lose that experiment. And so no one wants to be the first team. Yeah, but I feel like you can, you probably get good enough leadership out of a former player that as long as that former player is willing to take some input from the front office and the real tactical minds, then I feel like that's, that's probably okay.

Maybe you could do better, but I don't think it's a huge inefficiency in that case. All right, next question comes from Greg. During Tuesday night's wild card game, the Pirates fans were very active and seemed to disrupt the Reds a bit. Coordinated crowd behavior plays a meaningful role in creating a home and field advantage in college basketball and professional football, among other sports. On the other hand, we rarely, if ever, see crowd action in baseball that would seem to influence play.

This seems surprising. Do you think home field crowds in baseball could do things that would tilt the playing field in their team's favor? What could they do? Do you see this on the horizon? You know, it's interesting. I might be wrong about this. I'll look tomorrow and I'll correct it tomorrow if I'm wrong.

But I'm pretty sure I saw something recently that showed that free throw shooting, that we might have talked about it. Did we talk about this? I don't think so. I also might have dreamed it. But the idea that the home team trying to antagonize the visiting team shooting free throws actually backfires. And I don't remember how they conducted this study.

I don't remember anything about it. That was just a takeaway I had from it, that there was actually like this idea that the thing you should really do to get a free throw shooter to miss is to just go silent so that he's stuck thinking about his own failures in his life. And the louder you yell, the easier you make him. I'll try to find it. I might have made that all up.

Well, maybe it's because they're so used to people waving stuff and making noise that a disruption from that routine would be, would hurt them. Yeah. So when I was a kid at Giants games, there was a very short period where I remember going like, like a few weeks in the summer of one year where I remember every time the visiting team pitcher would throw, the crowd would go, and then when the catcher would throw the ball back, the crowd would go, and then for like two innings at the end of a game, we did that every pitch.

And I thought that would be, like I could see that really affecting a certain kind of pitcher if he is all of a sudden become aware of a coordinated sound that is like very precise, it is not loudness. It is a precise sound and it is coinciding with his movement. When, you know, like they, they always say, you can like, you could screw up a golfer by asking him whether he inhales or exhales at the point of contact because he just starts thinking too much, you know, about his swing and i i could see something like that if it were very cute and deliberate and and it has to be precise i think that's the key like you can't get loud enough to rattle anybody i don't think at that at that level

yeah i don't know maybe with thunder sticks or something um i guess but i mean the thing about loudness is that it's neutral loudness is it's just volume the home team is playing in the same volume and I mean maybe they're more comfortable with it because they know it's in support of them but basically it's the same thing

if it keeps you from concentrating because it's so loud then it affects both teams, I would think. Yeah. Okay. Well, I can't really think of any great ideas. Something coordinated like you suggested could work. I'm not suggesting anybody actually do this, but there was a moment in, I believe, an early series game with the Pirates and the Cardinals this week, where

somebody had a laser pointer, or like some sort of light, like a flashlight, or like some sort of beam that they were shining at the hitter from outside the stadium. Like it was actually from like a building across the street. And the hitter stepped out and tried to get something done about it, and the umpire was like, I can't do anything. It's not in the park. So don't do that because that's like serious jerk behavior. But if you did. But it probably would work.

Okay. All right. I should probably edit that out before someone actually does it and credits us with the idea. They're not going to do it. If we tell them not to do it, they won't do it then. I don't know if they're that obedient. Pretty sure that if we say don't do it, they won't do it.

Okay. Don't do it. Pretty sure. All right. This one comes from Zach. Let's say you could clone a player in MLB enough times to field an entire roster. Which single player with their current abilities would make the best team? Would you choose a good hitting pitcher like Carl Zambrano,

a crossover type like Rick Enkiel who has shown some success in both hitting and pitching, an elite hitter who has some past experience all over the diamond, I think Buster Posey played all nine positions in one college game, or a freak athlete like Puig who would excel at hitting, be good defensively at all positions, and has a good arm, but probably have to learn to pitch on the fly. Let's say we held a tournament. Who would you put your money on?

Yeah, so this question doesn't really give us the terms of the situation enough. I think if we have a year to train them, it's a totally different answer than if we have to start tomorrow. I think it's tomorrow. I think it's today. Okay. Well, today, I mean... Wouldn't you just go with Trout?

Because it's Trout, and he pitched in high school. He apparently threw in the low 90s in high school. All right. I actually was going to go with Harper. He apparently threw in the low 90s in high school. All right, well, that's, I mean, how could you? I actually was going to go with Harper. Hmm. Why Harper over Trout?

Did you see Doug Thorburn's piece about Harper's pitching? Oh, yeah, right, I remember that. He's got a way better arm than Trout. I mean, I don't know if that necessarily translates to better pitching. And he'd be a better catcher. He could catch. That's right. He can catch.

But he's left – wait, is he left-handed? I can't remember. No, he throws right-handed. Throwing, yeah. Yeah, so I can never remember. I can't remember how anybody throws. That's the most embarrassing part of me is, like, I can't remember how anybody throws. That's the most embarrassing part of me, is, like, I don't know what anybody throws or hits.

We can look these things up. Who needs to remember them? It's awful. Anyway, Harper... The best advantage, he can do the two most specialized things better. Uh-huh. But I wonder whether Trout would make it up

by being better hitter, being a better hitter. Yeah, so Trout was a shortstop until his junior year. Do you think that that has any relevance? Do you think Trout is a better shortstop than Harper because he played shortstop when he was 16? Or is that a total non-issue? Yeah, probably not. A lot of major leaguers who don't play shortstop played shortstop at 16.

I think the answer, oh gosh, yeah. I want to say the answer is probably going to be a pitcher, though, because right now, if we're starting tomorrow, a pitcher who's been hitting every fifth day for his entire life, a pitcher who's been hitting every fifth day for his entire life, a good hitting pitcher is better at hitting than a good pitching hitter is better at pitching. I mean, those guys haven't done it in so many years. I don't know about that.

We talked about this recently, and I think I went the other way. Did you? Yeah. Well, what about Chris Davis then? I mean, we know Chris Davis canis can pitch we know chris davis can hit he can't play shortstop right no i think i'd go harper it's got to be harper uh posy's not a bad one though yeah posy's okay um i don't know. I'll take Trout. I mean, he's Trout. He can do everything. Kickstarter.

Yeah. We need a Kickstarter to get this happening. Because I genuinely do want to know who wins this one between you and me. Yeah, me too. I wish it could be someone who was just like a really versatile player, you know, like Zobrist or something, who just had experience at a lot of positions, but that probably isn't as important. No, I mean, the gap between catcher and the other positions is way bigger than the gap between any other two positions,

and the gap between catcher and pitcher is way, way, way bigger even still. So, you know, utility is pretty pointless. Okay, and let's see. I'll make this the last question. Which of the future Hall of Famers currently playing is most overlooked by fans and media? In other words, which current player is most likely to elicit a lot of WTF comments

when he is enshrined in Cooperstown? I'm interested in mid-career guys, not some guy who is overlooked because he's a 21-year-old who played in five games during his September call-up from Scott. The fans and media that we follow are not necessarily the fans and media that this question is asking about. Right. Yeah, so I feel like it's probably got to be Beltre, right?

Yeah, it's probably Beltre. Beltre is the first guy I thought of, and Beltron was the second guy I thought of. Yes, and maybe Utley is somewhere in there, but yeah. Yeah, I don't think Utley's going to make it, is the thing. No. Yeah, Beltre has gotten a lot of internet love over the last few years, so he wouldn't qualify in our Twitter followers, I guess, and the people that we follow. But in the mainstream media or mainstream fandom, I would expect that a lot of people would be very surprised

if Adrian Belcher were a Hall of Famer. He's long gone, but, not long gone, but he's gone, but Scott Rowland would fit. Yep, yep, but Scott Rowland would fit. Yep. Yep, I like Rowland. Okay. I think I've figured out this Dickey thing. So the four picks that you were wrong on, you picked Dickey over Wainwright,

and then the other three were all pitchers that you picked over Dickey who were not as good as Dickey this year, Cueto, Weaver, and Sabathia. Weaver, though? Apparently. You can go back and listen to episode 18, but according to... No, but I mean, how is Weaver not better than Dickey this year? Oh. What metric did we use?

Warp. Warp doesn't like Weaver. Yeah, Warp doesn't like Weaver any more sometimes. It was close, 1.2 to 1.6. Yeah. All right, fair enough. And then Sebastian and Cueto missed a lot of time, but you were... How many pitches did I pick?

Looks like 19. Goodness gracious. You can predict baseball, man. Yeah, pretty good. All right. Pretty good. Okay, so I guess we are finished. Send us some more emails at podcastatbaseballperspectives.com.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild, and you can rate and review us on iTunes and subscribe on iTunes, and we will be back tomorrow. Hello? There is one more question I meant to ask you. Oh, come on. Yeah, it won't be as topical tomorrow. Okay.

Based on our discussion of Cubs prospects, if you were Joe Girardi and you were picking between the Cubs and the Yankees, and you probably would have been guaranteed, Cubs said they would have matched the Yankees offer, Yankees give you four years and lots and lots of money. So either way, you have tons of job security and tons of money. How much does each team's respective position influence your decision of where to go? each team's respective position influence your decision of where to go? Yeah, okay.

I mean, that's way too convoluted a question. I mean, if you're asking me which team I think has a better chance of winning the World Series in the next four years, I would take the Yankees by far. I don't think it's even that close. Really? But, you know, I have no ambitions. I just want to be happy and quiet. I mean, I would take the Cubs.

I would actually take probably the Rays if I could. Actually, I probably would go for like maybe the Arkansas Travelers if I could have that job. But if you're asking like if it's between the Cubs prospects and Outlook and the Yankees, Outlook, I'd take the Yankees. Okay. All right. I don't know.

I feel like if you're a manager and you go to the up-and-coming team, then you have a good – especially if you can be the manager that takes the Cubs to win a World Series. Yeah, the reward is greater than the Cubs. There's all sorts of reasons that you'd rather be in Chicago than New York. Yeah. Well, I'd rather be in New York than Chicago, but job-wise, I think I probably, I don't know, I might have, unless, I guess there's a legacy boost to being a longtime manager with one team,

and he's already got several seasons in with the Yankees and a World Series there so there's that to consider but with the potential to be the first Cubs manager to win the World Series in quite a while that probably would have been pretty attractive to me as well as the fact that they are sort of an up-and-coming team whereas the Yankees are old and don't really have the greatest outlook over the next year or two although they are still the Yankees are old and don't really have the greatest outlook over the next year or two although they are still the Yankees I might have waited for Cano to sign before I yeah that might have been smart all right uh you can go back to your creek now okay