Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 663: Your Mostly Excellent Emails

Episode Date: April 23, 2015

Ben and Sam answer listener emails about defining team success, four-man outfields, pitcher offensive futility, baseball’s Star Wars trailer moments, and more.

Here comes success Over my hill Here comes success Here comes my car Here comes my Chinese rug Here comes my Chinese rug Here comes success Good morning and welcome to episode 663 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball

Prospectus. Hello. Hello. You know what we never do? What we never did is we never did that thing where like one of us goes, I am Ben Lindberg, and then the other one goes, and I am Sam Miller. We could have done that. Like in episode one, we could have chosen to do that, and we would still be doing it. Yeah, there are a lot of people who it would not have made any difference to. Maybe they would have figured it out. Maybe. I think it would have been more memorable if our names were reversed. Someone emailed us about what we would do if we had a Freaky Friday scenario and switched bodies for a day.

I said I would try the squeaky laugh. Yeah, take it for a ride. Although you have would try the squeaky laugh. Yeah, take it for a ride. Yep. Although you have to wait for the right moment. I guess you can't force it. I would cough a little. Tomorrow I have to go get chest x-rays. Oh my. Yeah. These antibiotics are not doing the trick, huh? They're not doing any tricks. Let me know how that goes. All right. Okay. Anything to discuss? No, sir. Okay. Well, last week we talked about the Mike Trout fan section. We got some emails related to the Mike Trout fan section. Wanted to share a couple of them. Corrine Landry said the early 2000s were something of a glory era for player-specific fan groups at Veterans Stadium.

The stands were so empty that the groups could have entire sections to themselves. You touched on the notorious Padilla's Flotilla as well as Sal's Fasano Pals. But there was also the Duck Pond for Brandon Duckworth, the cringeworthy Tomy's Homies, and the fan group that started the the movement The Wolf Pack for Randy Wolf The greatest of those sections though Was the superbly simplistic Person's People For pitcher Robert Person

If ever there was a long forgotten fangroup Worthy of our love and attention That's the one That's accurate, that is the one How did Brandon Duckworth get a fangroup Do you suppose, other than his name i guess it was his name he never did a whole lot that was fan group worthy brandon duckworth yeah yeah probably not i mean i'm gonna guess if his name was brandon jones he wouldn't have had a fan

section yeah i i'm trying to like he wasn't really a prospect either, right? It's not like he was exciting. Yeah, I thought maybe he was. Yeah, he wasn't ever ranked on a top 100 list or anything. Acquired for Billy Wagner, maybe that was enough. Maybe as the return for Billy Wagner. Although, yeah, could be, could be. Wait, no, that be. Could be. Wait, no. That was the other way.

He was traded for Billy Wagner after the Duckworths, whatever it was called. So the fan section built him up into a tradable commodity. Got a closer for him. Matt said that he liked the Buhner Boneyard at the Old Kimdome. That's a good one. And Brandon suggested that Marlins closer Steve Ciszek should have a fan section called the C-section. Your thoughts? You're asking me? Yeah.

Well, he is. But you shared your thoughts. I already emailed him my thoughts, and you've seen them. Silly to tell you now. Well, I'll tell everyone. You liked it. I did like it Okay, question from Steve

Has everything in baseball happened before? I was thinking about Sam's idea For real time win probability Incorporating all of the stat cast data And how feasible it is That isn't to say the analytical and computing power Can't do it, but I wonder if it can be done at all That is, you'd make predictions Based on precedent That isn't to say the analytical and computing power can't do it, but I wonder if it can be done at all.

That is, you'd make predictions based on precedent. If the full set of actions is defined, e.g. poker, only so many card permutations, then we can draw on those previous events to predict the future. If the action set is nearly limitless, akin to a chess game going off book after so many moves because that game has never happened before, can we predict the outcome? Could we cobble together research on individual aspects of a play, batted ball data, fielder positions, runner speeds, etc., to make one reliable prediction?

You'd really... So, Ben, you might need to correct my misunderstanding of either this question or of my answer. We'll wait and see. But I mean, these things are, for one, okay, so there's two kinds of ways of coming up with one of these things, right? One is to look at historically how often a team wins when they're in X position. And we've got thousands of games, and so most of them have,

most possibilities as far as simple base out states and scores have happened before plenty of times, and you can draw some conclusions based on what happened in those plenty of times. The other way is just to sort of, it's a little bit more simple, but also a little bit more complex. You sort of know the likelihood of scoring a run in any given state, and then you can

sort of extrapolate that, right? So I don't know. I don't really feel like explaining a whole lot more. So in the former one, you can say that everything that needs to be known or that needs to have happened has happened. We haven't had the exact sequence of events that have led to wherever the Giants and Dodgers are in the sixth inning right now, obviously. But we have had a two-run game in the sixth inning at home a billion times. And so that one, yes, everything has happened. The other one, obviously, everything hasn't happened because a pitcher of exactly Bumgarner's skill level

against a team of exactly the Dodgers skill level hasn't happened with exactly this sequence of events that got to this part of the game and might affect what's going to happen further into the game. You know, perhaps something having to do with how many, you know, how many pitches each batter has seen and where they've hit the ball and, you know, whether that makes them slightly more likely or less likely. Obviously, that has never happened. But I think that's unnecessarily complicated. And I don't think you particularly need that.

To me, the former is pretty close. And also, even if you are kind of extrapolating what is likely to happen instead of looking at a historical record based on probabilities and all that, there's a nice generally true, generally true, probably generally true discreteness of each plate appearance. I don't think that what happened to Ignacio Puig's at bat in the fifth has that much to do with AJ Ellis's at bat in the eighth. And so, I mean, it might in a very, very, very specific way sometimes, but for the most part, you don't really have to worry that much about what has happened before. The plate appearance between Ellis and Sergio Romo in the eighth or whatever it is, stands on its own. 99.8% of the information necessary

to assess the likelihood of each outcome in that at bat is wrapped up in Romo, Ellis, and Ballpark, maybe. And it's just not really that necessary to know all the things that have happened before in the game to make that a better prediction. That's what I would say. Yeah, right. So the example that you gave, or that we were talking about last week,

where we would want a real-time win probability where just everything thing that can be measured by stat cast moves that needle some minute amount so the the player's lead on first base gets a little longer and the win probability changes so you could start with your kind of baseline win probability your simple win probability probably the score and the base out state and everything and uh you know the inning and the players who are facing each other and that would get you almost all the way there and then you'd have to you know have lots of processing power so you'd have to say that when runners are on first base and they get

this kind of lead they score or they you know they go to second this often or they score this often and then you would just adjust your your baseline probability just a tiny amount to account for that so it's not like you would need to have a database of games where it was this exact situation and this exact lead by the guy on first. You could adjust your baseline based on what happens when guys in any game take this lead at first base. Your words might be different than mine or your idea might be different than mine. But I actually think of it less as adjusting the baseline of your present state and more estimating what the next, what basically, if you have a win probability for every batter, I'm trying to project based on what is happening in the middle of the play, the process of the play, the process of the at bat and the process of the play,

I'm trying to basically project what it is going to be as the baseline for the next batter. So once the ball is in play, you have X percent that it's going to be a single, and you know what the win probability will be if it's a single. You have X or Y percent that it's going to be a double. You know what the win probability will be if it's a double, and then the percent that it's going to be an out with no advancement, and you know the win probability. And then you're just figuring out the mean or whatever, the cumulative probability, to sort of estimate what the next win probability is going to be. But it would still basically be the standard win probability that you would see for each

play if you went to Fangraphs or if you looked at a box score on Baseball Reference. It would still basically just be based on that. You're just trying to estimate the next one in real time as it's happening. All right, we will huddle with the engineers at MLB Advanced Media and hammer this thing out. Question from David, who has not had enough Cubs prospect promotions. He wants to think about one more. Let's say Javier Baez came up for a full season of baseball and did no worse or better than last year.

Let's say he has almost 600 at-bats, scores 72 runs, hits 25 homers, 60 RBIs, and 13 stolen bases, plays good shortstop at second base, and hits 170. plays good shortstop at second base and hits 170. Are those stats worth a starting shortstop or second base position in Major League Baseball? Could anyone have stats like that and play for 10 years while hitting below 200? You could, but not with all of the stats that he had last year, I think, which is maybe why we haven't seen him in the major leagues this year. I mean, both of the wars gave him negative one win above replacement last year in his 229 play appearances. And that was partially a defensive rating, I guess. He was, you know, negative two or negative three

in the defensive ratings that go into those things. And you could kind of throw that out. He's saying average, he plays good shortstop second base. So if you played a good shortstop second base, if you were an above average fielder and you did what Javier Pais did, maybe, maybe you could play. It wouldn't be great. I don't think you could play for 10 years because at some point you wouldn't be able to play good shortstops second base anymore, probably. And then the bat wouldn't be good enough. So, I mean, he had a 51 WRC plus or a 52 O plus that is awfully hard to overcome just you know 227 on base

percentage is a hard thing to get past even for a middle infielder so i'm gonna say no the uh if you set the minimum for 3 000 plate appearances appearances and look for the lowest OPS pluses in history starting in, let's say post-Deadball, you get Hal Lanier who had 3,900 plate appearances over a 10 year span

Chris Goetz What are you talking about? Is he on there? You were moving into the guessing portion. Hal Lanier is at 50, and so he's worse. I assume he was a heck of a defender, and that's how he kept his career. But at least there is a precedent for an offensive player that bad. So that was from 64 to 73.

Tommy Thiefnail played for 15 years with an OPS plus of 51. Teveno? Oh, yeah, could be. Teveno, could be. Teveno. Also a shortstop. Bobby Wine, 55, also a shortstop. And Ray Ordonez in kind of in the modern times where people would know.

Ray Ordonez at 59 and Johnny LeMaster at 60. Getz? Getz wasn't that bad. How bad is Getz? I don't know. I would guess. What do you want to guess? Okay, we're doing two guessing things right here.

What is his career OPS plus and how much money did he make? Oh, okay. Career OPS plus, all right. I guess I'll say 63. And career earnings, Chris Getz, man, 3.8 million. All right, I'm going to say 74 OPS plus and 7.4 million. Okay. Just to keep it simple.

All right. So OPS Plus, 68. So you win by one point. All right. You said 63? Yeah. You were off by five. I was off by six.

Okay. Million dollars. Wow, Ben. Yeah. What did you say? I said 3.8. Oh, it's 3.3. All right.

Pretty good job. I am a multi-time winner of the Chris Guts guessing game. Uh-huh. Okay. All right. Justin says, let's say Alex Rios is out for more than a couple weeks. He is, right? Omar Infante is still playing at his current level.

At what point would running a three-man infield of Eric Hosmer, Alcides Escobar, and Mike Moustakis in a permanent shift with a four-man outfield of Alex Gordon, Gerard Dyson, Lorenzo Cain, and Terrence Gore slash Paolo Orlando, with one playing short behind the opening on the infield, be considered completely outlandish. Sal Perez and all three infielders are legitimate gold glove contenders, as are Gordon and Kane. Orlando seems to be an above-average fielder, and Dyson and Gore are so fast that they can make up for mistakes.

How insane is this? Doesn't this get it exactly backwards? How insane is this? Doesn't this get it exactly backwards? Isn't the fact that Dyson and Gore and Gordon and Kane and Orlando are basically all center fielders make it wasteful to have four? I mean, they're going to just basically be bumping into each other all the time, right? Like, there's almost no ground for a fourth person to cover. Wouldn't you want,

it seems to me that if you had, for some reason you had to play a man short, I would take one out of the outfield for them. Yeah, right. The two man outfield. Yeah, so that's how I feel. Yeah, okay. So is it outlandish? It's pretty outlandish. It's, I feel. Yeah, okay. So is it outlandish?

It's pretty outlandish. I mean, okay, so let's, I guess, maybe re-ask the question if the names were all different. If you took all the names and replaced them with other names and maybe also took the idea and replaced it with another idea and maybe the email address with another email address. What about that idea, Ben, the one I just asked? If this question were different, how different would it be? Very different, evidently. email address with another email address what about that idea ben the one i just out if this

question were different how different would it be very different evidently yeah i mean uh i don't know would you uh we've i think we i don't know it's hard it depends on the pitcher yeah that's the answer depends on the pitcher yes right and the situation but this is not the team i would try it with what team would you try it with? If you wanted to go with a four-man outfield, three-man infield in the majors right now, given the personnel involved right now, what's your team? Who do you go with? Padres?

Yeah, but it's not like they have a good, they have a big outfield. That helps. And they have, you know, bad outfield. Right. But it's not like they have extra outfielders. They've got, you know, Upton. Oh, right. So they get more. and they have seen a bad outfield right and but it's not like they have extra outfielders they've got you know upton oh right so they get more uh yeah they do have upton yeah uh i was gonna say they get another bat in but then you said his name uh yeah i feel like uh i mean just the uh

presence the existence of uh anderson sim Simmons makes it tempting to just say, well, go with a six-man outfield. But maybe the Rockies have a good enough infield that I feel like you could take one out. And then that's a ton. Yeah, that's a good one. The Colorado infield is exactly the same size as everybody else's, but the outfield is far, far bigger. And outfield Babbitt has always been the bugaboo for their pitchers.

So it makes sense architecturally, and having Arenado and Tulo is a good start. And LeMahieu. And LeMahieu, yeah. Do it. Why haven't they? They are shifting a lot this year. They were the last place team in shifts last year,

and they're like seventh right now, which seems unfair if they get all of those guys and also Justin Morneau, who's a pretty good first baseman, and they get lots of shifts. That's a good defensive infield. So, yeah, you're right. Coors Field, Babbitt, that's a good fit.ield So yeah, you're right, Coors Field, Babip That's a good fit Speaking of the shift in Colorado

I recently heard a visiting announcer Talking about that, talking about their shifts And he said Walt Weiss is a Sabre-type manager Like Tony La Russa And so, okay I was just going to ask, what would be your reaction

If you heard an announcer say that And you guffawed I did, I scoffed a little I mean in the sense that he Played the percentages That's sort of A sabermetric thing I guess I mean

So he is I don't know if he would consider himself one He hasn't really I mean he is with the Diamond, made it pretty clear that he doesn't want sabermetrics to influence managing or to be part of managing, or so he says anyway. But, yeah, maybe it's a case of actions being a little bit different from words in that he was looking to exploit any edge that he could. I don't know if that's a sabermetric thing or it's just a thing that all managers do and he was better at it.

Yeah, I at first thought about scoffing and then I decided not to. Yeah, okay. I opted to not scoff. I wish I could take my scoff back. You can. You're the editor of this podcast. Well, I'm leaving it.

It's a matter of public record now. Okay. Question from Eric in San Francisco. Last week, I made up an excuse to leave an important meeting at work when someone texted me that the new Star Wars trailer was out. At that moment, nothing else mattered to me. So my question, what would be the baseball equivalent for you? What is the one on-field thing that gets you to a TV faster?

Let's keep it to the feasible so no aliens abduct the cubs. And yet he includes a 27 strikeout game. Yes, right. He says it stretches the band of feasible I I'm Yeah so he offers Five home run game consecutive perfect games

By the same pitcher 27 strikeout game Web Albers save opportunity Web Albers save opportunity If I knew if I knew about it If someone tipped me off and someone Would many someones would Based on just how many people tip us opportunity if i knew if i knew about it if someone tipped me off and someone would many someone's would based on just how many people tip us off when one of them pitches in a non-safe situation um that would be a an instant tv thing for me yeah but sort of like the way that like uh

like the cuban missile crisis was it would be like we would all hold hands we would pray we would you know it would be a hard route against in my opinion yeah because it oh how disappointing will it be when one of them gets a save and it's just like oh nobody acknowledges it it's just a thing it's just an artificial thing that we've been talking about. It will break my heart when the pointlessness of my job is made very clear. I do wonder if either one will break out a save celebration. Remember, didn't we decide, didn't this start because Albers had indications of a save celebration? Yeah, he got a hold or something in the eighth and he had like a proto save celebration i yeah i i uh i organically wrote about uh matt albers in like early 2013 i

think and uh and yeah he had uh yeah here it is uh it was actually last apr. Have we really only been talking about Matt Albers for a year? I think so. It seems like much longer. All right. So Matt Albers threw 14 pitches and got eight swings and misses. And so I wrote about that inning. And yeah, so he had something like a – yeah, he lifted his fist and walked off. He looked like Jonathan Broxson. He had a big fist pump and a woot, a celebration,

and it indicated that he had been practicing. In fact, we had been talking about it before this because I referred to this. All right. Anyway, the answer to the question. I stop what I'm doing when there's a chance for it. I stop what I'm doing when a guy has three home runs early enough in a game that I think he'll get a fifth. I will flip over. If I'm watching baseball, I'll flip over to see somebody with a shot at the fourth, but I won't stop what I'm doing necessarily to do it. won't stop what I'm doing necessarily to do it. But a fifth home run, I really do want to see that. Because it feels, and I know we talked about it once, it feels like it should have happened a lot more than it has. And Russell did the math, and it should not

have happened. As I recall, it should not have happened more often than it has, if I'm remembering correctly. But it feels like it should. And I would like to see five get knocked out. I wouldn't be that interested in seeing a 21st strikeout in a game i would be i mean i would i would stop what i was doing to do that but i wouldn't be that interested in it however given the choice of one thing to watch happen that's realistic uh from the beginning it would be a 21 strikeout game i really really want to see a 21 strikeout game a lot uh yeah there are some things that you have to be there from the beginning the whole experience so uh price harper

or andalton simmons pitching extra innings yeah would be thing to me yeah i was gonna say that too like a star star player pitching a star player who we you know talk about his arm strength pitching like when ike davis pitched the other day and was really good and got three grounders i was kind of impressed that just ike davis was pitching like ike davis struck me as a better player than the typical position player pitcher or a better hitter usually it's utility guy or third straight catcher you know some backup guy not a not a starter not an above average major league hitter so that was that felt sort of exciting just to see that so yeah to see a star uh it won't happen because i mean and i was almost you know surprised that like the a's were risking ike davis in that situation um and i think

the a's hadn't had a position player pitcher in 15 years or something like since frank menichino and this was the moment that they chose to have one so that would be one for me i don't know if that rises to the level of star wars trailer for me either. No, no, no. I mean, Star Wars trailer would be Bonds Comes Out of Retirement would be Star Wars trailer for me. It's definitely not Star Wars trailer, but one thing that I would really love is you know how sometimes a game gets suspended

because it's too late or it's the eighth inning and it's tied? And so it gets suspended. I would love a game to get suspended and not be played, not be finished until the end of the year when it has to be played because the suspended game was between two people who finished the season tied for a playoff spot. So to have a game, to have that, basically to have a one-game playoff,

a winner-take-all playoff game that starts in the bottom of the eighth, to me, would be pretty awesome. Yeah, that's a good one. I'd wake up thinking about that one. Between now and December, there might be so many Star Wars trailers that it's not quite as special. All right. I didn't think this one was all that special.

Ah. Because I thought the first, I guess it was a teaser, but it felt to me like 90-ish percent of what you got from the second one was in the first one. Yeah, I thought it was a good trailer. I thought it was well made. Increased my anticipation slightly more. The first shot of the teaser trailer, when that guy, like, you're looking at the desert and the guy's head pops up, right?

Yeah. the desert and the guy's head pops up right yeah so to me that is the equivalent of like the that is the equivalent of the you know the amount of millions that you need before the club no longer has leverage over a player to sign a pre-r extension like that was that was the 6.7 million dollar signing bonus that chris bryant got and once got that shot, everything else is just like, more millions I'll never spend. Yeah. Good Han and Chewy. Okay. Alright, play index? Alright, this one is not particularly,

this one will not advance human understanding of baseball. That's a shame, because that's what I expect out of the play index segment, as a minimum. Yeah, this is more just a classic search. I'm bringing this up because it's somewhat significant. This is actually an organic Play Index in that I did a Play Index a couple days ago and I saw the thing and I thought, oh, I can use that as the Play Index

because the results were interesting. Little did you know, Ben, that this week monday to be exact marked the five-year anniversary of the last time a pitcher got four hits in a game you're right i didn't know that not even a little nobody even mentioned it i almost mentioned it but i decided to hold off so uh so this is yeah this is a a classic case of a thing you can look up on Baseball References Play Index in about a second and a half. And you will take longer debating whether it is worth looking up than it will take to actually look it up.

So I simply went to Play Index. I went to the Game Finder. I went to the Batting Game Finder. I selected Pers only, and then I looked for batters who had at least four hits in a game, and I sorted by date. And it was just that easy. It was that easy, Ben. And within seconds, I knew that the next day, as it turned out, was going to be the five-year anniversary of the last time a pitcher got four hits in a game. So five years without a pitcher getting four hits in a game.

What does your gut tell you about whether that is notable or not? Well, it's funny. I was just writing something about pitcher hitting, which has thus far this season reached new levels of incompetence. Never before seen pitchers right now as a group entering Wednesday's games in about 500 plate appearances had a negative 36 WRC plus. Their worst ever was negative 19, which was last year. So they are quickly, it's kind of becoming almost

sadistic that we are making pitchers do this at this point so but that hasn't always been the case clearly i will say a four-hit game by a pitcher i would say five years is an unusually long time because pitchers are worse now than they've ever been offensively. I would say at one point, pitchers had like a 40 WRC plus and all the pitchers hit. So although there were fewer teams, but it was probably more common then. So what am I, am I guessing the average time between this and baseball history or something? I don't know. You're guessing whether five years is significant or not, I guess.

I would say it's longer than the average gap. All right. So you're right that pitchers used to be a lot better. And I think both of us have written about this. Up until like 1960, they were considerably better. And then they've been on basically a straight downhill slope ever since then. And I don't know what happened in 1960, to be honest.

But something happened because even though the progression to getting worse has been somewhat steady since then, there does seem to be a cliff that they fell off where they quit being competent hitters and they became incompetent hitters. And they weren't as incompetent as they are now, but they were incompetent. Like starting in 61 or so,

they just abruptly became incompetent. You quit thinking of them as threats at all. And then they get worse and worse. But anyway, so there used to be lots of these, right? In the 40s, there would be a few a year because everybody was pitching complete games and they were relatively

good with the stick. And there'd be some guys who were actually pretty good with the stick. But since 1960, it's actually not that unusual to go five years. I thought that... My first thought when I saw this was, oh, five years. I bet that's a record. I bet this is a sign of the times. And it's not at all.

There was a one in 2008, three in 2007. But before that, there was a six-year gap. And before 2001, which was at the end of the six-year gap, there was a five-year gap. So there was only one in a decade. And then there was one in 97, one in 96, one in 93, one in 91, one in 88, one in 86. And before that, a 15-year gap, which I don't know how to explain because this was starting in 1970, which was prime complete game territory. Now, there was the DH, so something happened between the late 60s and the mid-80s that made it less likely

during that stretch than there would have been before. But all the same, you had pitchers throwing complete games and going deep into games and not as bad at hitting, and yet they went 15 years without. So in fact, the lack of four-hit games is not a sign of the times at all. So then three-hit games, I wondered, well, maybe there's fewer three-hit games.

And there's actually, the number of three-hit games has actually been fairly steady too. There were five last year, but there were 11 the year before, which is the most since 2001. And 11 is actually the second most since 1974. And so, in fact, in 2013, you could have written a trend piece about all the pitchers getting three hits in a game.

And that's kind of odd. Why would that be happening? It doesn't seem to make any sense. So then I kept going. getting three hits in a game. And that's kind of odd. Why would that be happening? It doesn't seem to make any sense. So then I kept going. Because I know that these hits have to be disappearing somewhere. Somewhere pitchers aren't getting hits because they're horrible. So then I went to two-hit games, and finally we find it.

Two-hit games are way down. Last year was an all-time record for lack of two-hit games. There were only 44 by pitchers in all of baseball. That was a drop of 20 from the year before. It was a drop of 13 from any year in history previously. Sorry, 12 from any year in history. And so in fact, we have seen the lack of pitcher hitting manifest itself mostly in lack of two-hit games. By the way, if you want another anniversary, June 20th, two months from now, basically, will be the 20th anniversary of Terry Matthews

being the last reliever to get three hits in a game. And strangely, this is kind of odd, but it makes sense. It takes a minute for it to make sense. But strangely, that used to be really common. It used to be in like the 60s, 50s, 40s, I guess 50s and 40s and beyond. There were at least a couple of those every year where relievers would get it, which is weird because you think, wait, there weren't back then. But of course, if you were a reliever, you were probably in until the end of the game and or you were quite likely in for the end of the game. You weren't being pulled the first time a lefty came up. So the relievers were pitching much longer stretches of games.

So that's one thing. One other thing that we saw last year that was a record by a significant margin, well, kind of, last year there were only two pitchers who got five late appearances or more in a game. And so that was an all-time low uh the year before there were three that had been an all-time low and i think there had only been one year in history where fewer than five before that it had been pretty reliably going down for obvious reasons but still it was like eight nine a year before that. So suddenly the five plate appearance game disappeared. And I wonder if that's because it's not always the case, but I think that

nowadays if you're throwing a shutout and you're cruising and your pitch count is reasonable and your team's up by 11, I think now they pull you. And I don't think it's very long ago that they let you go. If your pitch count was reasonable, I think there was a feeling like, oh, well, rest the bullpen, nail this down. It's a status thing to have shutouts. Even in the pitch count era, I still think that there was an idea that if the guy could do it without straining himself, let him throw some pitches. But I think now people are smarter and realize that the number of pitches a starting pitcher throws in a year, they really do add up. And if you have a chance to get a guy out after 80 pitches instead of 110,

it probably is more to your benefit to save those 30 pitches from your starter than it is to save it from your mop-up man. And I don't think there was a real... I don't know. I don't think that there were actions taken along those lines until fairly recently. So that might be why the doom of the five plate appearance thing is gone. Because you would only get five plate appearances

if it was a blowout and you were pitching well. And I think that now when there's a blowout and you're pitching well, they get them out of there. Yeah, and maybe think that now when there's a blowout and you're pitching well, they get them out of there. Yeah, and maybe it's more awareness of how guys get worse as they go through the order. No, Ben, it's not. These are blowouts.

If you're a pitcher and you bat five times, your team has scored 14 runs, guaranteed. Because the leadoff guys get in the sixth plate appearance. It's a blowout. It has nothing to do with whether Wainwright was good the fourth time through the order. Wainwright was cruising. He was way up. They pulled him because they didn't want Wainwright to get tired.

That's the story. All right. Good play index. Coupon code BP. Get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. The same Brandon who told us about the C-section asked us about pitchers hitting. He's a very ardent DH supporter, as am I. I wonder how bad would pitchers have to get for even people who just love pitchers hitting

and are still staunchly anti-DH for them to turn on pitchers. It's easy. It's as soon as they quit pretending. As soon as you see a pitcher just go up there, never swing the bat. That happens. We see teams instruct their pitchers not to swing once in a while. Hardly ever, and you usually don't know. They usually stand up there and take a hack.

And I feel like if pitchers thought that it was more likely to get them hurt than any benefit they'd get from swinging the bat, then it would be a farce. Then it'd be the equivalent of watching an intentional walk, right? I used that very word, farce, in my thing that I wrote about pitcher sitting today. Uh-huh. Yeah. All right, good. So I'm there already all right good okay all right miles in north dakota says in sports we

often hear that team x has not won a championship in 10 years and that is such a long gap of success as it as if they are supposed to win at least every five years or so. How is success and disappointment gauged for baseball teams since there are 30 teams? Should a team be satisfied with winning twice in 30 years showing they're ahead of the curve? Or is every season an entity in itself with one team receiving a passing grade and 29 failing? If only one team can win per year, what is the appropriate standard of satisfaction that your team is succeeding? Are playoff appearances enough? Since the Giants have won three of the last five championships,

when is the next time they should be expected to win before it becomes a problem? We talked about once we did like an estimate of when every team will have won for the first time. And it was, probabilistically speaking, it was like, what, in the 2070s or 80s or something, assuming that the teams actually are still in existence, same teams at that point. So, I mean, you know, randomness alone, there's going to be long stretches where a team doesn't win maybe not cubs long stretches but not winning for 10 years or something is what you should expect unless you are maybe the team with the best payroll biggest payroll you know best everything biggest market even in that case though i wonder what the baseline expectation for how many years should elapse between championships would be my answer to this is if they've won one in your lifetime uh that is half of it so so that means that it's it's

subjective right i mean for in your conscious? In your conscious lifetime, yeah. You have to have gotten something out of it. You had to have experienced something out of it. So that, I mean, to some Yankees fans, the Yankees have not been successful. But to you, they have been. No, that's only half. That's half the equation. So they are successful if they've won in your lifetime.

So they are successful if they've won in your lifetime. And as long as they have and are continuing to avoid being a team that players don't avoid going to. So if you go through a losing cycle that is long and pathetic enough, which might only be three years or two years, but usually it's a little longer than that, then you are unsuccessful. The Warriors, I don't know if this is actually true for basketball players. I don't know how they choose where to go. But the Warriors were unsuccessful for a long time because they did have their championships under their belt, although not in my lifetime. But they went through a period where they were just generally seen as losers. And if you were a marquee free agent, I imagine you would go, well, I'm not going to go to that team. They're losers. And anytime you get to that point where

people start saying, oh, they have to overpay to get free agents or whatever, that is unsuccessful. But otherwise, I don't think you need to win championships to be successful. I don't think you need to win one every 10 years. Maybe if you're the Yankees or the Dodgers, then you do. They're held to a different standard. But if you're the Tigers, you know. I think the Tigers have been very successful. Yeah, that's an extremely successful franchise in my opinion.

Yeah, right. Wouldn't have said that in 2004 because they had to overpay to get free agents. But since then, I mean a Tigers fan has got to be pretty thrilled. So I would say that I would consider, and all franchises have had successes so I don't want to throw any franchises under the bus. But if I'm thinking about it, I would say Angels, successful franchise. A's, successful franchise. Astros, not currently a successful franchise. Blue Jays, very, you know, kind of borderline, but I would say successful franchise. Braves, successful franchise. Brewers, not successful franchise.

I have to say Brewers are not a successful franchise by my standard. Cardinals, yes. Cubs, close. I would say no, not a successful franchise. Cubs are not a successful franchise. You're agonizing over that one. That seems like a gimme almost. I mean, they've had good teams from time to time.

The thing about the Cubs is that the lack of a championship is part of the allure. And it is the not having a save but having closed a lot of games, finished a lot of games of baseball teams. So Cubs, I kind of like if I were a Cubs fan,, I think that my dad might sit me down and say, don't go running off with a championship. Think it over. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Just be happy with what you are. Be like a prom night talk.

You know what I mean? And I think that them not winning a championship kind of has some benefits. They will write me mean emails about that statement. But all the same. Dodgers successful. Nationals. Nationals are successful because they're the Nationals. If you think of them as continuous

with the Expos, they're unsuccessful. But 10 years without a championship is not enough time to say that they're unsuccessful. Giants successful. Indians unsuccessful. Giants, successful. Indians, unsuccessful. Yes. Mariners, unsuccessful. Mets, unsuccessful.

Orioles, unsuccessful. Padres, unsuccessful. A lot of, wow. Pirates, unsuccessful. Phillies, successful. Rangers, I'm going to say successful. They did not win a championship. And I probably have recency bias on their good years.

They were the model franchise within two years. Those really were their golden years, though. And it was a two-year run of getting close. So I could see the argument. They're game 90s years of getting there every year patra and those those groups uh-huh yeah yeah uh reds uh close but no red socks yes royals no tigers yes twins yes No Tigers yes Twins yes White Sox yes Yankees yes Rockies no And Rays yes

And Diamondbacks Oh man Diamondbacks I think Diamondbacks yes I think they went so quickly From expansion to good That that I think kind of just gives them A long grace period

and it has been long but yeah Diamondbacks yes and Marlins no Marlins no interesting Marlins are horrible they're the least successful in a lot of ways I know they win World Series every so often but that's not enough

that's only half of my math okay well you really went above and beyond on that question. You pronounced every franchise successful or not. I got to go now. All right, so that's it for today. We've got some good ones. I will save them for next week. Jeff Beliveau has been diagnosed with a torn labrum in his shoulder.

He will undergo season-ending surgery with Dr. James Andrews. Get well, Jeff. You have been an Effectively Wild character in your time. And that is it for this week. Send us emails for next week at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Our Facebook group is at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. And please rate and review us. We will be back tomorrow.