Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 471: The All-MLB.TV Team

Episode Date: June 16, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the players they drop everything to watch on MLB.TV.

Good morning. Welcome. Surprised yourself a little bit with that one. No, it was very welcoming today. Yeah. Working on a little bit new cadence in my welcome. Good morning and welcome to episode 471 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from baseball perspectives.

I'm Sam Miller. I'm here with Ben Lindberg. We're both sponsored by the Play Index at baseballreference.com. How are you, Ben? Okay. All right. You got anything, or can I get into my stuff? I don't have a whole lot.

We should mention what Bobby Abreu is doing, maybe. Yeah, how about that? Because we talked about Bobby Abreu over the winter, and he was tearing up the winter Leagues, and what did we... We asked each other whether either of us would want him based on that, or we talked about how long he would have to hit as well as he was hitting for us to have any interest whatsoever in Bobby Abreu. There was a moment this weekend, it's not that way anymore,

but there was a moment this weekend when he had the second highest OPS plus of his career. I mean, this is a Hall of Famer. Like, he's not going to be, but he should be. A Hall of Fame caliber hitter, and he is just now reaching his near peak. Right. Yeah, he's hitting.308,.385,.462 in 80-something plate appearances. Not bad.

Not bad at all. Padding that Cooperstown case. But, of course, Martin Mulder, on the other hand. No luck. I'm trying to remember, who did we talk about as the comeback kids? It was him, Mulder. Was Brad Penny one of them? I don't recall Brad Penny being one of them.

I think I can find the list in our Facebook group here. Comeback Player of the Year. No, no, I don't mean that. What do you mean? I mean that we did an episode, or at least we did four minutes on an episode, about guys who were coming back after a long time away. This mini-trend

in February of guys who we'd forgotten about. Casimir type. I thought Penny was one of them. I'm trying to remember who else there was, but it's just a Brayu hit, right? Just a Brayu hit stuck.

I think so. Brad Penny, Google News, top result. Baseball star Brad Penny sells his Van Buren property. Real estate totaling more than $2 million in Lick Creek Township, three months after he was released from the Kansas City Royals. So yeah, so Penny was one of them. Tomah Oka, Penny was one of them. Tomo Oka, was he one of them? He might have been. He might have been. I mean, certainly he fits, but I think he was pitching in Japan while he was away.

But it might have been Oka. But Oka was a little bit of a separate case, but only a little bit of a separate case. What, with the knuckleball? Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. He married former Oklahoma City Thunder dancer Casey Cook in 2013. So that's what's up with Brad Penny. Happy to hear it. All right. I have a thing to talk to you about real quick. Mike Trout currently is seven for seven in stolen bases this year. And I think with the seventh one, he has passed Chase Utley for the best stolen base percentage in Major League history. He has been successful in about 88% of his attempts. Nobody

with 100 attempts or more is higher than he is. He's the record holder. So, of course, this is one of those records that is in progress, and if he gets caught tomorrow, he will no longer have the record. It's just that easy to lose. I want to know, what do you think are the chances that Mike Trout keeps this record? And I will make the case for whatever you don't say in a second and then you can reconsider so will mike trout keep the all-time stolen base percentage record so he is just just a tiny fraction of a percentage point ahead of utley well it's not a tiny percentage of a fraction

but a tiny whatever you said but yeah i mean he's slightly ahead okay well i will say he does not keep it then because the the impressive thing about utley is that he has made it to the the toward the end of his career with that record right so maybe i don't know what the aging curve for stolen base percentage looks like whether guys as they get slower get caught more often or they get smarter about when to steal and they don't get caught more often i would guess that they get slower get caught more often or they get smarter about when to steal and they don't get caught more often i would guess that they get caught more often so i will say that he does not keep it so you that's interesting because you would guess that they get caught more often i would guess that they don't maybe as a whole they do but that um it seems to me that

so okay so trout's at 88.6%, Utley's at 87.8%. That doesn't help you. But I sort of think about guys being better as they go and not based on like sort of some hypothesis for how they should. I mean, I'm thinking

of like real live human beings. So like for instance, Barry Bonds from age 34 on was like vastly better. He went 69 out of 80. And from 38 on, 38 on, he went like 19 out of 20. So, and I mean, I feel like i bump into this a lot i haven't done any research on this uh any any proper research but i feel like i bump into this phenomenon um a lot where like for instance utley's best year uh he went 23 and uh out of 23 when he was 30

it wasn't when he was 24 uh his worst year actually was probably when he was 30. It wasn't when he was 24. His worst year, actually, was probably when he was 27 and he went 15 out of 19. So when he was 30, he went 23 out of 23, then 13 out of 15, then 14 out of 14, then 11 out of 12. And I noted Barry Bonds, of course. I'm going to look up Albert Pools because Albert Pools, of course, is the slowest person alive, right? I mean, he is slower than anybody. And since he turned 31, he's 20 out of 23. I mean, obviously, the number of attempts goes down. But Pujols' success rate is up.

I mean, even really if you go back to 29, to age age 29 to bring a little bit more into it. But we don't need to bring a little bit more of it because as Trout gets older, he'll attempt fewer stolen bases. But it seems to me quite plausible that he will actually do better. But the other thing, Ben, is that the stolen base success rate league-wide tends to go up, and Trout will be part of that league. That's true. The success rate is not quite like the strikeout rate, but it is a persistent upward arrow,

and Trout will be part of that upward arrow. So just as, for instance, Felix Hernandez's strikeout rate goes up every year, which I don't know, maybe that's not normal, but that's interesting too just in case you ever need a topic shouldn't we yes shouldn't we regress the the all-time stolen base percentage leader to the mean somewhat especially because he is not he hasn't been around for all that long so you say that i mean Utley has been around so long now that even if he were to slip a little bit, he couldn't slip all that much. Whereas Trout has been the best to this point, so we should probably expect him to be a little bit worse than he has been, right?

Well, but we haven't, yeah, I guess. We just, we haven't normalized for age. Right. Maybe Trout for his age is like my, mean you know like we wouldn't regress him necessarily I mean his his war for instance is higher than anybody through his age and we wouldn't just automatically regress it to a league average I feel pretty confident for instance that like Mike Trout has has produced fewer war than Chase Utley as well but I feel pretty confident he's going to pass him and like I don't feel like a great need to regress that. from age 21 to 32 so through this through

2009 he was at that point what did you say trout's percentages uh 88.6 i'm looking in beltran beltran through 25 was 87.2 he was the third best of all time. Well, Beltran through 32 was 88.3. So just a, just, you know, three tenths of a percentage point lower than Trout is right now. Since then, in, uh, from 2010 through 2014, he has obviously gone a lot less often, but when he has gone, he's been caught just like a normal guy. 23 out of 33, yeah. Yeah, that's just under 70% success rate. So that's, I mean, I don't know. We're arguing with anecdotal examples here.

Yeah, because, no, no, we are, because we're arguing about a thing that doesn't matter. I will note that Beltran at age 22, his first full year, 27 out of 35, not a particularly good rate. So Beltran's prime years, if you were really going to bring up the Beltran example, Beltran's prime years were 26 and 27, maybe arguably through 31. So 26 through 31. Maybe you could extend it 23 through 31, but it's not, you know, Trout's not even 23 yet. Well, this research could be done. Maybe we could do it.

Maybe someone who's listening would like to do it and tell us how it comes out. What's the aging curve for stolen base success rate from 23 to 32 beltron's rate was 89.5 uh which is really something yeah that's good good for him pretty good uh all right so ben our topic for the day um a couple weeks ago somebody asked us if there's any player that we sort of switch to automatically on MLB TV when he comes up or when he's pitching, if there's like our go-to guy. And we said, I think both of us said, that it changes, that whoever our guy is this week might not be our guy next week. It just sort of depends who we're interested in that week. So I thought since it's been a month or so, we would update that. And I wanted to hear who your guys are now

and I'll tell you who my guys are now. So I just want to know who are your MLB TV go-to guys right now. So I asked you if you would to think of three-ish and I thought of three-ish and let's hear what you got. Okay. Well, I wouldn't say mine are necessarily based on anything that's happened very recently. I don't know that there's one person I'm really fixated on right now in the majors, at least. I guess if Joey Gallo were on MLB TV, I'd probably be switching to all of his events. Wait. Joey Gallo were on MLB TV, I'd probably be switching to all of his at-bats. Wait, Joey Gallo is on MILB TV, yes. Did you ever switch over? You ever once?

Have you ever once switched over? I've watched his at-bats when they were over. It's hard. MILB TV is great that it exists, but it's difficult to navigate. There's no way to switch to an at-bat like you can with MLB TV. So you just kind of have to click through to find when the guy was up, and you have to try to look at the lineup and say, okay, he's probably after this guy, and then you can't really fast forward.

You just kind of have to click around, and it advances by three minutes, and then it goes back, and it's just a pain. Like the radio, like MLB radio basically. Yeah. And, of course, sometimes the camera angles are in weird places or the quality is not very good. But I have watched some of him because he's very exciting. If there were a way for me to just switch over,

I would probably be just watching him only. But as for majorly yours, I mean, I kind of had a hard time deciding between pitchers and hitters because a pitcher can control a whole game that I want to watch, right? Like if I look at a particular starting pitcher matchup, I might just watch that game and that'll be the base game that I am switching to other games from. Whereas no position player really has that power. I will switch to see a position player if I'm in a commercial break in another game and I might just switch to see this guy's at bat. But then I'll switch back again because he's just up for a minute and then he's gone. This guy's at bat.

But then I'll switch back again because he's just up for a minute and then he's gone. But, I mean, probably Stanton is on that list because he's the major league equivalent of Joey Gallo, right? He's got the most home runs in the National League. He's hit the longest home run in the major leagues this year. He is the highest average home run distance this year. run in the major leagues this year. He is the highest average home run distance this year. The Marlins are not depressing anymore, which is, I think, part of it, right? I mean, if I'm going to switch over to a game, I'd like to know that it might be a game that matters as well. It helps, I think. It's extra incentive if I know that this is an interesting team and that maybe I'll want to stick around and see someone else on that team once I switch.

But Stanton, I mean, Stanton's exciting. But just curious, I mean, what are you hoping to see when Stanton comes up? I mean, do you just want to see him hit a home run? I mean, is that interesting to you, like to see him hit a home run? Is that it? That's it. What do you get out hit a home run is that it that's it if he did i want to see him i want to see him hit a 490 foot home run that goes over everything it wouldn't be more interesting for you to see him

be beat by you know some lousy pitcher or by a good pitcher or something like that i mean nope just just a home run huh you just want to see the ball go far yep i know that you're you're not a big fan of home runs generally i know as a as a play uh and i understand that but but his home runs are the best home runs yeah it's true although uh uh i've enjoyed goldschmidt's home runs this year i've by chance happened to see a lot of them. And they're attractive. They're not Stanton attractive.

I'll give you that. They're not Stanton attractive. But Goldschmidt's home runs are fun too. But okay, so Stanton because you want to see home runs. All right, whatever. I mean if we're just talking about like this week, I guess Polanco maybe. Okay. There's no wrong answers here.

You don't have to apologize. Yeah, I mean, just whoever the latest hot prospect who comes up is. I mean, if it's Springer earlier this year or it's Tavares or now it's Polanco. I mean, whoever it is, I'd like to get a look at him. And maybe like Polanco, he'll get off to a hot start and do some exciting things early on. So that, probably that. I feel like my, I mean, Puig is like the default, right? I think I said Puig last time, but I still would say Puig. Because the odds of Puig doing something that if I don't switch the channel to see it,

I'm probably going to have to read about it and watch the video later. Probably higher with Puig than with any other player, right? Whether he's making a great throw, he made a nice throw today. Whether he's finding some new thing to bat flip about, his bat flip on a walk this weekend in which he almost hit the catcher and the umpire? Hang on. I want to back up on that because I find this to be the least talkable thing

that Puig has done. I know that Puig actually does sometimes bat flip on walks. I've noted it. Other people have noted it. It's an interesting thing. I mean, that is a strange time to bat flip. But this I've noted it. Other people have noted it. It's an interesting thing. I mean, that is a strange time to bat flip. But this mini controversy this weekend

about his bat flip after the walk, he was not bat flipping. He was tossing the bat away. There was no flip at all. He was tossing the bat away. It got stuck to his hand with pine tar, and it sort of flipped away from him.

He was not trying to juggle a bat. I feel like the thing that makes Pui interesting is that there is not just unusual motion coming out of him, but that it is by choice. He has agency over himself and he chooses to do interesting things this was not his choice he he's just sort of stumbled it would be i mean it's yet i've never i've never really seen that happen before well of course you haven't but i mean would that have been how interesting would that have been if um you know brendan harris had done it just sort of interesting right i would have i would have watched a gif of you would have watched maybe twice but but there would there would be no

conversation about it though no and and puig didn't do anything that was the least puig like thing that puig has done because it was an accident maybe i don't know are you sure it wasn't i wouldn't call it a backfl In between a flip and a... He wasn't trying to flip. It was the most... He was just tossing the bat away. Like, I don't feel like there was anything unnatural about his movement until it stuck to his hand.

Yeah, maybe. I did find it impressive how quickly he just abandoned the bat, though. Like, if I had tossed the bat like that, I think I would... First off, my hands would definitely go up in that oh no kind of kind of thing and then i i would at least make a move to pick up the bat and then i might think twice and then go no bat boys are here to do that but

he just he watched it and you could see his shoulders tense just a little because he had he was worried about it hitting the umpire and then he just left like he did not even think for a second i'm going to correct this problem no and i'm kind of conflicted about bat flips in general i mean i like i worry that that we're depreciating them you know like they were they're special when i yeah i'm not a bat flip guy i i agree i i feel like baseball can kill a meme like no other yeah right baseball players in particular yeah i like i like i mean i enjoy watching that that video of the really extreme npb bat flips i love that video of the uh the minor leaguer in 1994 with the bat flip have you seen that one uh all right i'll try and find it as we talk but that's a great one and and i i mean i like uh but you know when you bat flip on every fly ball initially it's amusing

like the first time it happens like oh he bat flipped on a fly out that wasn't even a good thing that happened but then every subsequent time that happens it's it becomes routine it's not interesting anymore so yeah i'm completely off off team bat flip if that's a team. So John Carlo has 18 home runs. Last year Coco Crisp had 22 home runs. And John Carlo's 16th longest home run this year would have been Coco Crisp's longest. 16 of his 18 are longer than any that coco crisp

hit last year right yeah when he hit 22 yeah and crisps were all like famously just enough home runs right just like right over the wall um famously named devaluating my knowledge um anyway i didn't name any pitchers but I feel like I should have named some pitchers alright so yours are Stanton Puig and some guy like maybe

Palunga yeah whoever the latest top prospect debut is alright fine I give you 9 hours to prep. That's fine. Look, I'm not fickle with my choices. I want to see what I want to see.

I want to see Stanton hit really long home runs. I want to see Puig do Puig things, and that doesn't change every week. There might be someone else I'm interested this week or that week, but those guys are the pantheon. But doesn't the fact that Puig, you know that like, what we were just talking about with Puig, you know that anything he does is going to be retweeted into your timeline immediately. I'm never on Twitter. You don't want to have, but I mean, you're going to see it. I'll see it somehow, yeah.

Nothing sneaks by you with Quig. Don't you want to have any, like don't you feel any desire to be like kind of off the beaten trail and find your own little game to have ownership over? Yeah, but no. No, okay. All right. So here are mine at the moment. My three at the moment. These are all going to be like really cool indie picks

they're not they're not i thought they were gonna be i thought we were gonna have two of them the same in fact uh and i don't even remember who my third is i'll have to remember it before i get there oh the third one's pretty indie i'll give you that the third one the third one's dumb. All right. So, Del and Batonsis. Ah, okay. I love a hot reliever. I just, when a reliever is on, I am in it to win it. I love it. So, Batonsis was very recently on pace to break Craig Kimbrell's strikeout per nine record. He is no longer on pace, too. He's now on pace for the seventh best strikeout per nine of. He is no longer on pace two. He's now on pace for the seventh best

strikeout per nine of all time. Although Kimbrel himself is very close. Kimbrel himself is number two currently. And let's see, one, two, three, four of the top, sorry, three of the top eight of all time are currently in this year. And that's not counting Aroldis Chapman, who is like really, really, really doing something incredible

right now. So he just doesn't have the innings to qualify. But Chapman is currently on pace. I tweeted this out yesterday, but Chapman's last nine innings, He has 19 strikeouts, one hit, one walk, 34 swinging strikes. And so he's on pace currently to break the all-time strikeout record. So basically we have four people challenging for it. But Batonsas is interesting because, A, he's new. B, because he was very recently better than anybody else. I mean, at this point, just a couple of outings where you only strike out one batter isn't enough to take you off the pace, but he was there.

He's got, I think, something like the fifth or sixth best BIP of all time right now. And I don't know, he's interesting because he's got, you know, he's got, I feel like the curveball, particularly from a reliever, is pretty unusual at this point. And he not only has the curveball instead of the slider, which by itself is unusual, but he just throws it so much. He throws it a ton.

It's unhittable. His, I don't think I have it in front of me oh wait i do here it is his curveball this year um he's thrown 283 of them yeah his four seamer and his curve are almost equal usage yeah yeah exactly it's about half of the pitches are curveballs. And his swinging strike rate on the curveball is about 60%. His slugging percentage against on the curveball is 0.095. You know, it's just, it's a ridiculous pitch. And I don't know, it's interesting to me that it's not a slider. I know there's not that much difference between a slider and a curveball. They're part of the same spectrum, more or less. But I like that he throws a curveball.

I'm sick of the slider. I don't like the slider. I'm tired of it. So I was thinking about Batantes, and he's big. He's a huge guy, and he throws hard and he strikes everybody out. And so for those reasons, it kind of reminds me of Jonathan Broxton when he was this dominant. And, of course, Broxton just basically lost it. Like over the course of, you know, a couple years, he went from unhittable. Actually, over the course of a couple weeks, he went from unhittable to being hittable to being on the DL. And so you – I'm going to bring a couple of things together here.

When you talked to Glenn Fleiss a couple months ago, maybe a year ago, you asked him about pitch counts, and you said basically Fleiss's position is that pitch counts are important, but they're too simplistic. And you asked him, so is it fair to say that there's no such thing as too many pitches or something

along those lines. Fleissig said, basically, yeah. It's more about having rest. If you can handle those pitches in the moment, that's fine as long as you get enough rest. Corey Dawkins has written before that, or at least he's noted in his writing, I don't know if this is his research or somebody else, but he's noted in his writing i don't know if this is his research or somebody else but he's noted in his writing before that uh relievers get hurt at a higher rate than starters and you know relievers of course don't get that much rest and so i started thinking uh i i don't know how

i'm gonna get to where i'm going with this but i started thinking that what everybody hates, that basically the reliever parade is the baseball equivalent of the intentional fouling in basketball in the final two minutes, you know, where it's just boring and, you know, the casual fan doesn't like it and even the hardcore fan doesn't really like it other than maybe for some strategic benefit. And so let's add a few of these things together. Everybody likes starters. The starter is the cowboy of the sport. We like them.

They're the lone gun on the mound. We don't want to see the starter go away. We all, for strategic reasons, think and wonder about the possibility of an all-bullpen pitching staff, and I think some teams should do it. However, we all emotionally have an attachment to the idea of the starter. So we have that.

We have the dislike of the reliever parade at the end, and the sort of fact that loogies are basically the punter of the sport and nobody respects them. We have the fact that relievers get hurt more, which it might just be because relievers are selected because they are more injury prone and don't have the durability. We can't say that relieving is necessarily more dangerous, but you know, it could be relievers do get hurt more. And we have, I don't know, I forget where else I was going. So I'm just wondering whether in fact fact, the solution for all of these

things might not be, as we've proposed, having the all-reliever bullpen, but rather going the opposite way and having seven-man rotations, which you can't really do with the rosters that we have. But here's the thing. Seven-man rotation and only three pitchers allowed per game. And you have to name your pitchers before the game. So you have your starter, and then you have two relievers that you identify before the game. And only those three guys are allowed to pitch. And so pitching staffs don't have to be that big because you're not going to be doing every batter as a new pitcher.

If it goes extra innings, you can have a fourth one. If it goes past the 12th or something like that, you can have a fifth one, and so on. But in a nine-inning game, you only get three pitchers. You can use them however you want. And then we preserve the starter, which I think everyone wants. We end the loogie, which I think a lot of people want. We still have a lot of pitching jobs in baseball, which the union likes, and nobody gets hurt. How about that? Yeah, not bad. I'm talking about this with Batances because we all know Batances is going to be hurt in

17 months. Right. So I'm trying to think of a way to protect him, and so I'm thinking maybe instead of having pitchers be used the way that they're used now, maybe there's space to have a little bit more. Yeah, I thought you would go with someone like that because i i know how you feel about kimbrel and i i like watching batances but i i don't know i don't think i would switch to see him or kimbrel because what they do what they're

doing now it's it's uh it seems so inevitable to me i if you switch over to see it, it will be exactly what you thought it would be. They'll just strike out two guys and that'll be it. They'll just throw really hard and they'll throw the curveball with two strikes and the guy will swing and miss and that'll be that. It seems so predictable to me. it'll be that there's it's just it seems so seems so predictable to me like if i i almost yeah went with strasburg who's i think has the highest strikeout rating starters but i don't know with starters it's a little more interesting to me you've got three or four pitches and you've got to pace yourself a bit and you face guys a few different times and everything with the reliever

they have more or less the same game plan against every batter. And it's so effective for these guys that it would be interesting if they did allow a run. When Kimbrel allows a run, it's kind of exciting. It's interesting that you, because you chose Stanton because he's powerful and he's able to do a dominant thing. But he probably won't. And I chose Batantes who's powerful's able to do a dominant thing, but he probably won't. And I chose Batantes, who's powerful and able to do a dominant thing, and he probably will. And it's interesting that you choose the guy who's unlikely to do the thing that you're tuning in to see. Yeah, because it's more special.

Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? I thought about Wade Davis, and Wade Davis I find interesting at the moment. But the thing about Wade Davis is not just that he's dominant, it's that we know exactly how undominant he is as a starter. And it just reminds you that, like, okay, so when you see at the end of the year, this year, probably some relief pitcher will get some MVP vote from some columnist, and that columnist will explain that relievers, you just can't overestimate how valuable they are at the end, and the club's morale depends on them.

And I really think that a lot of these guys think that they're channeling the conventional wisdom within the sport, and that they're reflecting what the teams think as well, and that they are the defense against us rabble out there who don't understand what teams know because we're dumb. And yet, if relievers were nearly this valuable, like we know that every single team has a reliever better than Craig Kimbrell. And they choose not to have it because they want that guy starting. They all have a reliever better than Craig Kimbrell. And they choose not to have it because they want that guy starting. They all have a reliever better than Craig Kimbrell right now. And Wade Davis is the proof. Wade Davis is the worst starter in baseball.

He might actually be, of the 150 people in the rotation right now, he might be worse than all 150 of them and right now he has a 1.14 fifth he's got the 14th best strikeout rate of all time he's totally dominant and uh and he sucks yeah anyway uh sorry so that's one. One is Chris Sale. Okay, yeah. Because Chris Sale is insane right now. So Chris Sale, I mentioned, I tweeted this a couple, not the start, but the start before, I think, or maybe last. So I'm going to just name you some numbers.

So Chris Sale's whip is.67, and Koji Uehara last year was.57. It was.61 when I tweeted this, but Koji Uehara had the best year I've ever seen from anyone. It was the most fun year I've ever had watching a pitcher pitch. And Chris Sale's numbers are basically the same. His strikeouts are slightly lower. His walks are ever so slightly higher. His whip is a little bit higher. He's doing it as a starter instead of as a one-inning reliever. Chris Sale right now feels as dominant

as I've ever seen a starter. I have proof, sort of, kind of, a little bit. So from 1914 to 2014, the best half that any pitcher has ever had by whip is Pedro Martinez at.703 in 2000. And that makes sense because Pedro Martinez that year was the best pitcher we've ever seen for a year. Chris Sale's whip in the first half this year is better. And Sale has to make it another month to preserve this. But currently, Chris Sale has a better whip than Pedro Martinez had than any pitcher has ever had in a half.

That's how dominant. Plus he looks funny. Plus he looks funny. Plus he looks funny. And he never gets hurt. That's a crazy thing. Kind of did. Barely. Just like three weeks.

Okay. He's definitely going to have Tommy Johnson. He's completely certain of it. So here's an interesting thing that I learned while looking up this interesting thing about Chris Sale and Pedro Martinez. Number eight, all time, the eighth best half that anybody has ever had as a starter. Actually, no, I take it back because number three and four were Hoyt Wilhelm, who was a reliever, although he pitched enough innings to qualify because back then. But I'm going to take

Hoyt Wilhelm out. the sixth best half that any pitcher has ever had as a starter by whip is marco estrada last year in the second half and now he's losing his job right so all right last year crazy right and and of the six in front of him two were dead ball era and one was joan santana uh sorry six ahead of him one two three four five five ahead of him because he was six two dead ball era pedro chris sale and joan santana so at the time only four ahead of him and two of them were dead ball anyway chris sale all right i chris sale i feel i didn't have time to look this up but he feels so unhittable right now it's like you see good pitchers who have really good eras but like you know occasionally someone you know gets two hits in an inning and then they pitch out of the

jam chris sales never in jams it feels like when he gives up runs it's always like just this like lightning strike that happens and all of a sudden three runs scoring you're like where did those come from and the entire rest of the game he's perfect if I didn't have time to look it up but it feels to me like he has had a perfect game in the fifth inning of every start this year and I'm pretty sure that's true you don't have to look it up. Nobody can check. I'm sure he does. All right. The last one of mine is Brandon Crawford. And Crawford's interesting because I like to watch for his defense. I like a strong-armed shortstop. And I feel like everybody likes a strong-armed shortstop. I feel like there are two things. We're not very good at evaluating shortstops, I've decided. We think we are. We watch them a lot. We feel like we have a pretty good idea.

But I think that's the position we're actually the worst at judging because we don't see their starting point and we don't see their jump. A lot of the other positions are rangey. I mean, not rangey, are reactionary. So either the infielders are reactionary and so we can basically see, you know, the third baseman got that play. We see it. We have that sort of isolated camera on him,

and he makes the play or he doesn't make play. Same with the first baseman. Catcher, of course, is always in our sight. Outfield is pretty easy to see. You can just see the way they move and the way they throw. It's pretty easy to see. Shortstop and second base are a little tougher. Second base's biggest challenge is that play up the middle,

and you can see either has the arm to make that play or he doesn't shortstop though we're basically judging them on plays that we don't see the most crucial part which is where they're set up and how their jump is and we don't really have a good way of assessing that so instead we evaluate them based on two things their arm and how smooth they are basically and smoothness means nothing smoothness is style points style points don't count omar viskel who i think I think is an excellent shortstop. I don't want to take anything away from him. I think he's legitimately amazing and all that. But he was smooth.

That's why people loved him. And smooth doesn't count. The other thing is the arm. Derek Jeter had an arm. Lots of guys have arms. Arms are really important to shortstop. But we probably rate them mostly on the arm instead of the other things. Brandon Crawford has a great arm and like the last month he just makes play after play after play

every time i'm watching a giants game it feels like he's taking away hits he has been spectacular and i love watching him now here's here's the thing though i love watching brandon crawford i click over to watch brandon crawford defense. It's great. It's awesome. The numbers say he's not that great. Like, he's just average. And I went over to, like, Inside Edge to see all their, you know, see how he does on, like, the unlikely plays, which are rated as, like, 1% to 10% likely. And he hasn't made one yet this year.

And I looked at how he does on the 10% to 40% likely. He's not that distinguished on those either. And I looked at how he does on the 10 to 40% line clean. He's not that distinguished on those either. And I looked at how he does on defensive runs saved, and the baseball reference. And it's like, he's like a plus two shortstop, which isn't that great. So this is a situation where I get tons of enjoyment out of watching Brandon Crawford play defense.

And yet I don't necessarily argue in favor of him because I don't trust myself. But I do really feel like he's great at it, and it's fun watching Brandon Crawford. And I think the thing about it is I think everybody who's watching him this year is having fun watching him. He's been really fun to watch. He looks great.

He's got the arm. He's got the arm. That's the thing. Last time we did this, one of my provisional pick was Andrelton Simmons, if I could switch over when he was about to field a ball. That was my condition, but of course you can't do that. So you will switch over to watch a Giants game just on the off chance that there might be a Brandon Crawford play.

Don't get too hung up on the language, Ben. Okay, all right. By the way, Andrelton simmons uh last year of course he set you know every record for every defensive metric in a single season and everyone wondered if that was just his true talent because we watched him and he looked really really good and everyone thought well maybe he just is a plus 40 defender so far this year, not really. Jeff Sullivan wrote about that though and I think he did a good job. Yeah, I don't

It's too, you have to go. It's 9.29. You have to go. I do. I have other media commitments. You do. You have a show to go to. So I don't want to get into it but I don't feel like Simmons' true talent has been obscured and it's actually a good piece that Jeff wrote,

and it's probably worth looking at. Okay, I will do that. All right, so that's it for today. Please send us emails for Wednesday's Listener Email Show at podcast at baseballprospectus.com. And please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference. Go to baseballreference.com, subscribe to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30

on a one-year subscription. And we will be back with another show tomorrow.