Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 674: Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Turning Corners

Episode Date: May 11, 2015

Ben and Sam banter about the Astros and discuss what Bryce Harper’s hot streak means.

And if you care to stay in my little corner of the world, we could hide away in my little corner of the world. I always knew that I'd find someone like you. So welcome to My little corner of home Good morning and welcome to episode 674 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by Playindex at baseballreference.com.

I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Hi, Ben. How are you? All right. How are you? Alright, how are you? Pretty good. How was your TV? Not bad. It's still in progress. I didn't get the full effect last night. No, and you know, I just realized from your list last week, you don't even watch Wolf Hall, which is also a Sunday show, or was a Sunday show. I have seen one episode of Wolf Hall. I have not seen the rest yet. Yeah. All right.

Anything to talk about? Not particularly. I mentioned this in the Facebook group, but I guess I will mention it here also. If there are any Northern California residents who are listening right now who anticipate having some free time this summer, don't have plans for the summer, and are interested in helping us with Stompers-related tasks and activities, please contact us at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Some people have gotten in touch with us already, and we're looking through those responses. Thank you if you've emailed us already. But if you haven't and you're interested, please let us know. Otherwise, actual Major League Baseball stuff?

Not really. Okay, well, I have an actual Major League Baseball thing. Dan Brooks pointed this out to me. On baseball prospectus playoff odds, as of, I believe, two days ago, not today, not Sunday, but I believe after Friday's games, before Saturday's games, the Astros had a 33.2% chance of winning the division. And the Angels had a 33.7%. So the Angels' chances were like one in 200 more than the Astros' chances were. And as far as I can tell, that is the closest that the Astros got to being the division

favorites this year. They have obviously been steadily climbing on the Angels. And then after Dan Brooks pointed that out, they lost the next two games. And they are now considerably behind, considerably, relatively speaking. It is now 38 to 28. So those two games cost them a lot and so i uh i wanted to know if you think like like what sort of odds would it take for you to bet on the astros never passing the angels at any at any point this year we talked a lot about the astros last week kind of like the astros but the angels were my pre-season pick i think if i remember right i don't know that's about those are probably

about the odds i would give the astros maybe like 25 or something but i'm not asking you if the astros are going to win the division i'm asking if at any point the Astros will be ahead of the Angels in the playoff odds version of the standings. Yeah, well, yeah, it's like the Bryce Harper, Mike Trout question. Will Bryce Harper ever be ahead of Mike Trout? I think the odds would be better that they would be ahead at some point than that they would finish ahead right yes so true yeah so i don't know probably like 60 oh oh geez i was like if i if you wanted me to bet on this if you want me to bet against the astros ever being ahead of the angels by playoff odds i would probably need like maybe six to one like i think it's so that would be like 83% I think. I think that they will do it. I don't know that they will finish ahead of the Angels.

But I think that they will at some point pass them on this. It is interesting. I mean, it's not interesting. But it just this is why playoff odds are both appealing instead of looking just at standings and also why some people don't like looking at them. I mean, the Astros two days ago were like seven and a half games ahead of the Angels, I think, which is a lot. And if you just looked at the standings, you'd go, wow, it's a route. And the playoff odds obviously put that in perspective. And then on the other hand, the playoff odds are a real bummer if you're an Astros fan

and someone is saying, it doesn't matter how many games ahead, you're still worse. So anyway, it's interesting how close they got. It's interesting that even at seven and a half games ahead, Pocota didn't like them enough to make them the favorites, although so, so close, so close. I wonder how long it's been since the Astros were a favorite in any division. Yeah, I wondered that too when I was writing about them. close. I wonder how long it's been since the Astros were a favorite in any division.

Yeah, I wondered that too when I was writing about them. I didn't go back and try to figure it out or anything, but I mean, it must be several, several years. When was the last time they... Well, the last time they were any good at all was in 2008. They finished third and they won 86 games. However, were they the favorite at any point in that year? I don't know if they would have been the favorite. They started slow. So if they weren't the favorite coming out of spring training, they started 3-8.

They started 6-12. And then they went on a winning streak, but they were never ... Yeah, then they had a good run. It's conceivable that like May 21st of that year, they were still trailing. And so unless they were the preseason favorite, they still wouldn't have been. Jeez, when's the last time they were in first place? They were probably in first place for a day or two at some point.

Well, they won opening day, their first game in the American League against the Rangers. So they would have been in first place, but they wouldn't have been the favorites. They started slow in... Could have been... Yeah, I'd guess that 2000... Well, no, they weren't good in 2007. I don't know, Ben. It's a tough question. It's been a long time. I wonder if there's a team that has... Well, like

the Rockies and the Diamondbacks probably haven't been favored in a division in a very, very long time. There's probably a bunch of teams. The Astros probably aren't even that high on that list. Because they probably were the favorites at some point. All right. The Rockies and the Diamondbacks both won in, or when was it that they made the playoffs?

2007? 2007, yes. Yes, so one of them won the division, obviously, would have been the favorite. And one of them won the division, obviously, would have been the favorite, and one of them won the wild card. And what's the Mike Trout-Brice Harper wars update today? The Mike Trout-Brice Harper wars update today is the topic at hand. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. So we talked about Bryce Harper because he had hit three home runs, and that made him banter worthy.

But then he went on to be really, and that made him banter-worthy. But then he went on to be really, really good for the next three days. He's on just an absolute heck of a tear. Six homers in three games. Just missed one yesterday and doubled and had a couple of hits. And so the Mike Trout-Brice Harper wars update. By warp, baseball prospectus, full of value metric, Bryce Harper has passed Mike Trout. He is now up 2.6 wins to 2.4. And he is trailing on fan graphs by a considerable margin. Bryce Harper is because of UZR not liking him.

And then baseball reference, they were basically tied going into yesterday. I will update this. reference, they were basically tied going into yesterday. I will update this. Harper's at 2.1. Trout is at 2.1. So they're tied by baseball reference. So by our metrics, though, Harper has been the better player this year. So I wanted to talk about Harper because this is not going to be rigorous or anything like that. But I'm always interested in this feeling of a corner being turned. We always, I think we all talk about corners being turned, you know. You turn the corner, right? That's what we say. And usually corners being turned aren't that significant.

But I wondered whether there is something about what Bryce Harper is doing that has precedent. And so, of course, Harper is not the first elite super prospect. There have been elite super prospects going back for a very long time. Mickey Mantle was, and Reggie Jackson was, and Ken Griffey Jr. was. And then, you know, those guys who I named turned into great baseball players. And so, you know, if Harper turns into a great baseball player, he won't be the first great baseball player either. So I wondered if this trajectory that he has gone on, though, is itself at all unique. And so just to sum up, everybody knows this, but just to make it clear, Bryce Harper comes up, he's a very good baseball player. He is short of a star, of a superstar though. In his first three seasons, he has a 816 OPS, which is a 121 OPS plus, which is good. That's a good above average hitter. And even at a corner, it's an above average

hitter. He had one year that was sort of almost worthy of down ballot MVP consideration. Then he had one year that was like kind of like low end all star. And then he had one year that was kind of like low-end all-star, and then he had one year that wasn't that good last year. And then he started this year doing okay, and as of May 5th, 28 games into the season, he had an 862 OPS. He had five homers. He led the league in walks. He was a good player, probably a star, but short of a superstar. That was Bryce Harper's trajectory, correct?

Mm-hmm. And we could all agree on that. Alright, so then in the last four days, he's hit 625, 647, 1813 for an OPS of 2000, 2.46, what are you doing? I don't know.

24? Yeah, 2460. Alright, he's got six homers in 16 at-bats. His OPS, you didn't see this yesterday, but I tweeted this. In those three games alone, just in those three games, his career OPS jumped 100 spots on the career OPS leaderboard from 317 to 217. He went from the land of Mickey Tettleton to the land of Eddie Murray in three days. It's pretty good.

Yep. All right, so that's Bryce Harper. So I wanted to see whether this happens for other players, other hyped phenoms. So I just did a quick look at some guys' careers, right? So Reggie Jackson, probably a lot of people don't remember how hyped Reggie Jackson was because we were dead or unborn. But Reggie Jackson was one a lot of people don't remember how hyped Reggie Jackson was because we were dead or unborn. But Reggie Jackson was one of the most hyped prospects ever. Dave Schoenfeld ranked him the 10th greatest prospect ever.

So Reggie Jackson comes up at 21. He's pretty poor in his first glimpse of the majors as a 21-year-old. He has a 574 OPS. Second year, he's pretty good. He's got a 574 OPS. Second year, he's pretty good. He's got a 768 OPS. He is a sort of down ballot MVP kind of guy, but just shy of a superstar. We're talking about basically where Bryce Harper was. And then his age 22 season, he starts off slow. He goes into the 14th game of the season with a 612 OPS. He's hitting 146.

So pretty good player, just short of a superstar, having a bad start. And then he hits two homers on the 24th, two homers on the 25th. All right? So four homers in two days. Jacks his OPS for the season up by 400 points. All right. Corner turned, Ben? Corner turned? You better believe it. Ooh, turned? You better believe it.

Ooh, okay. You better believe it. After those two games. So excluding those two games, no cherry picking here. He hits 279, 415, 604 the rest of the way for a 1,019 OPS the rest of the way. He finishes fifth in MVP voting. And then, well, that's actually his best year, as it turns out, arguably. But from that point on, he's basically,

he's an all-star every year but one for the next, like, 15 years. Corner turned. Okay, convincing. Okay, all right, I'm going to put an X next to Reggie Jackson. All right, Barry Bonds. Do you think Barry Bonds turned a corner? Yeah.

They all turned corners. Everyone I play turns a corner. You just killed the suspense. So Barry Bonds, first four years, 124 OPS plus. Harper, as I said, had 121, so very comparable. Bonds was a better overall ball player and was at that point probably severely underrated because he was a plus 37 defender one year and in those four years he was like a plus 80 defender cumulatively he was also plus 15 base

runner he should have been getting like serious mvp consideration but this was 1987 he did not get a single mvp vote he did not get a single all-star appearance. At that point, he was in contention for the Nick Marcakis Award, despite having like 20-plus war through his first four years. But for the sake of this, we're going to say that he was somewhat underwhelming as a non-superstar. So then 1990 comes around, and Barry Bonds, as of April 26th, is hitting 208, 304, 375 for a 679 OPS. Not very good, right? No. And then, just like Harper, he has a three-day stretch in which he hits 750, 786, 1583 for a 2400 OPS in those three days.

And from that point on, again, excluding those three games, so I'm not even wrapping those three games into this, from that point on, he hits 298, 407, 558 for a 964 OPS that year. He wins the MVP award. He finishes second the next year but should have won, then wins the next two, and he's clearly the best player in baseball for the rest of his life. So three days he

went from underwhelming super hyped prospect who's been just shy of mvp superstar levels pretty good ball player all-star ball player from that to barry bonds in a three-day stretch amazing amazing incredible ken griffey jr griffey comes up and in his first two seasons 440 for an OPS of 800. Basically the same player that he had been. And then he goes on a run. So he has a five-hit game. And over the course of, well, let me see. Yeah, okay.

So that's right. Now I remember. Griffey, not a good corner turn. So all right. So this is the counter to the corner So that's right. Now I remember. Griffey, not a good corner turn. So all right, so this is the counter to the corner turning. All right, so he goes into July 16th with an 800 OPS, which is about what he had been, very Harper level. And then he has not a clear corner at all. He has a three-game stretch in which he has eight hits in 13 at-bats, a couple of them are doubles, but nothing special. That's really the turning point in his season. That's really the turning point in his career. He has a 1,063 OPS

for the second half, basically, of that season, finishes ninth in MVP voting, and is better from that point on. But it's a very poor corner. So you can say that that is the non-corner example of a player whose growth was kind of less obvious. All right? Yep. Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle doesn't quite fit Harper because he was better than Harper. He was already seen as probably a superstar going into his age 23 season. He had been on MVP ballots all three of his seasons. He finished third once. However, he hadn't won one. all three of his seasons. He finished third once. However, he hadn't won one. I would be surprised if anybody called him the best player in the game at that point, but he was very good. It's fair to say that he was better than Harper was during that stretch. So Mantle goes into mid-May with an

898 OPS, which is very good. Again, Mantle is better than Harper at this point, but he has a huge two-game stretch where he hits four homers in two days, and the day after that, he has two hits, including a triple. So in a three-game stretch, four homers and a triple, and from that point on, he's really like way, way, way above the level that he had previously shown. He has a 1,029 OPS from that point on. He wins the next year's MVP, wins the next year after that, and never has an OPS below. His career high OPS before that was 933.

The next four years, 104.2, 1169, 1177, 1035. So while Mantle was better than Harper, you can also say that he, at age 23, kicked it up to another level, turned a corner in a three-game stretch. So that's another kind of one. Alex Rodriguez turned a corner. How did you pick these guys?

It was a combination of looking at the most hyped players ever, partly using my own recollections and partly using Dave Schoenfeld's list. And it was partly just guys who turned out to be what we thought that Bryce Harper was maybe someday going to turn out to be. A-Rod, first year, 445 OPS as an 18-year-old. Second year, 672 OPS as a 19-year-old. Third year goes into May 10th with an 880 OPS, which sounds bananas already, and it is. He was 20 years old and a shortstop, and he had an 880 OPS. It is, though, fair to remember that he was playing in the Kingdome in 1996, and so I'm guessing that there were some

serious park factors. Anyway, he has three homers and two doubles in a two-game stretch corner turn. From that point on, he has a 1,045 OPS for the season. And you could really even say that his corner was a little longer than that. He had five homers in a six-game stretch as well, and in those six games he drove in like 15 RBIs. So kind of a corner turn. Baseball reference says the Kingdome is like a neutral hitting park or maybe even slightly pitcher's park.

No kidding. Yeah. Maybe it was just homers but not so much other stuff. Yeah, that's interesting. When they moved, the feeling, feeling as i recall was that they were moving from a hitters park to a pitchers park daryl strawberry first two years 130 ops plus 827 yes 1985 he goes into july 27th with an 810 ops homers twice that day from that point on. And then basically kind of goes crazy from that point on, has a 1025 OPS for the rest of that year. And there was one for Willie

Mays too. All right, that's all. So anyway, so that's Bryce Harper and people turning corners. Obviously, there are lots of examples of players having big three-year stretches that don't become Willie Mays or Daryl Strawberry or anybody else. Clearly, there's nothing about a three-game stretch that Bryce Harper put together that guarantees he is going to be a superstar. However, I think he is because of this. That's what I've just said. So Rob and I wrote a piece after the three-homer game about Harper

and about kind of what his ceiling is now and whether even if he hit – I don't know if I'm putting words in Rob's mouth. But kind of whether the ceiling that Harper has is, even if he hits it, disappointing compared to the ceiling that we thought he would have. we thought he would have. And Rob's made this point before when he, I think it was last year, when he noticed that Bryce Harper, who used to run really well, no longer runs. Like he went from being a 30 stolen base or 20 stolen base guy in the minors and in his rookie year to being two stolen bases last year. This year he's 0 for 3.

He tripled nine times in his rookie year. He's tripled five times in the three-ish seasons since. And his defensive numbers, depending on the number, have also gone down. And so I think Rob's point is that, you know, that regardless of what Harper does, there will be that he didn't turn out to be the prospect that we thought he had been. He might turn out to be a different kind of superstar, but not the superstar. And when we were first introduced to him, he was a catcher and could have also been the best hitter in baseball.

I mean, kind of. When we were first introduced to him, he was 12. Right. He never caught his pro. He wasn't drafted to catch or anything like that. But your point is fine. All right. So what he is, though, and this I don't know that anybody saw coming. He does lead the league in walks. He is

a much more patient hitter, it appears. His swing rate appears to be a reflection of a change in his approach at the plate. Does it matter in the least what kind of superstar Bryce Harper is to you? If he turns out to be a guy who is Chris Davis's 2013 season, but year in, year out, instead of, you know, Mickey Mantle or whatever, does it matter? Does it tell us anything about prospecting? Well, if you were Chris Davis, 2013 every year, that would be a pretty big superstar. That was, uh, that was like a 170 OPS season, third in the MVP race, 53 homers. I know, that's what I'm describing. I'm describing like a Hall of Fame all-time superstar, but a different kind.

Different kind, do you mean worse than the sky-high expectations? No, different, different, different. If a guy who is an elite prospect as one thing turns into an elite prospect as another thing, is that a hit? So like, for instance, I don't know if there's a good example. Sometimes I'm trying to think of a good example, and I don't know if I have one off the top of my head, but sometimes a pitcher, like there'll be some pitcher who's like an ace right now, and you're writing about him, and you're looking at what's been written about him in the past, and you go all the way back to when he was in the minors or when he was drafted,

and there's scouting reports of him in the minors, and they're talking about how he's got a plus-plus curveball. And this guy doesn't even throw a curveball anymore. Like, his prospect status was based on, in large part, of his ability to throw this pitch. Like, you know, it doesn't even throw because pitchers change their repertoires as they go. And they become different pitchers, right? And so you don't really see that as much with hitters.

But bodies change, positions change, approaches change. Certainly anything having to do with legs can be tough to project. Because I don't think anybody saw Harper getting slow this quickly. I mean, the dude's 22. He's not thick particularly. He hasn't been catching, so there's no reason that he should be so slow. And yet all of a sudden at 22, I think what nobody could have really seen coming, he's already changed the type of player he is.

So, I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's a prospect hit or not, but like, I don't know, is it significant, I guess, at all that Harper is becoming a completely, completely, at least partially different player than we saw him being? I don't think it would be fair to count it as a whiff for scouts if he turns out to be a really, as a whiff for scouts if he turns out to be a really really great player who is great in a slightly different way than they thought he would i think a lot of the scouting and the projection and the ceiling is just sort of an overall athleticism and makeup and just a general aptitude for all things baseball and so maybe that can manifest in different ways. If he has an early injury, as he did, he had that knee surgery,

and then he came back and he tried to play through it, and maybe that has something to do with the lack of speed since then. And if that's the case, that's not really something that you can project probably but if he then finds a way around it and he's suddenly more patient and he gets on base a lot instead of stealing more and he's still the same overall value then i think that definitely counts and he is uh i wrote about him at the end of april April before the three homer thing or the six homer thing, just because of how he was leading baseball in walks and walk rate at the time. I didn't really expect that to continue because he had something like five intentional walks

at the time, which could partially be pitchers being scared of him and everything. But it was also Ryan Zimmerman, I guess, not being scary and hitting behind him and maybe certain situations coming up more often than usual. So I didn't really expect that to continue, but he did clearly seem to be different, more selective somehow. And Jeff Sullivan has written about him too and about how he is going the other way more often,

especially on balls in the air. then has written about him too and about how he is going the other way more often, especially on Balls in the Air. And, you know, if you do the thing where you compare video from year to year, it seems like there are differences, although you never know whether you're just sort of talking yourself into seeing them. But I kind of wondered, you know, it's probably not fair to say that patience at the plate or discipline at the plate is reflective of some overall mental maturation or willingness to slow down. aggressive Harper, just willing to take risks, but not take silly risks and wait for his pitch, whether that would also carry over into not crashing into outfield walls or not sliding headfirst or something like that. And I don't know whether it does or not. He hasn't done those

things yet this year, but I don't know that he'll never do them again. But that was the big fear for Harper. It seemed like after the last couple of seasons because he'd generally been good when he'd been healthy but he hadn't been healthy because he kept doing these really hyper-aggressive things and not showing any willingness to stop doing those things. He would, you know, say this is how I play and I'm not going to change

and you can't take that out of me and everything. And so maybe if he found a way to take that out of him then that really improves your expectations for him because now he's good Harper and he's also judicious Harper so I think it totally would count if Bryce Harper turns into one of the most patient hitters in the league and doesn't run I think he would still totally count as a wind for people who projected him to be a superstar yeah it's sometimes I you get the feeling that these guys there are you know some skills that they don't necessarily go well with each other, particularly as you get a little older and particularly as size and speed kind of counterbalance each other. And also the type of swing you take might make it easier to hit for batting average at the expense of power and vice versa.

How aggressive you are at the plate might give you some added on base percentage but at the expense of contact. some added on base percentage, but at the expense of contact. And so you do sort of get the feeling that everybody, not everybody, and not to this extent, but that everybody has a little bit of that each row he could hit homers if he wanted to thing. Like each row is the one that we all said it about. But I feel like probably most guys could add power if they wanted, or they could add whatever skill they wanted,

but it would just come at the expense of another. And so when you're describing what a player is going to be and you say, well, he's going to have this power, this hit tool, this speed, that is maybe the path that he's likely to take. Maybe that's the optimal path that he's likely to take that given his training and his preference and what's best for him in total value, that might be what he's likely to take. But say that's a 7, a 6, and a 5. You might be able to shuffle those around and still get to a 6, a 6, and a 4

or something like that, which is basically the same player. Maybe it's a little bit worse, but it's basically the same player. It's still a star, but it's a different kind. And so I don't know this, and maybe I haven't thought about it a lot with Harper, but I don't think the fact that Harper is perhaps focusing on those two dimensions of his game, the patience and the power, at the expense of the others, is necessarily an accident. It's very hard, especially as you get older, especially as you get bigger, to maintain all five of those at the same level. And so you kind of do have to choose.

And we've seen the same thing with Trout. And it's not problematic or anything like that, but Trout no longer is the same electric defender slash runner that he was when he was young because he's bigger and he's got a different approach to the plate. He doesn't hit nearly as many, probably if I looked, this would be wrong, but he doesn't poke nearly as many Jeter line drives to right field. He's a lot more likely to air it out and take the power,

and he's trying to swing earlier in counts so that he's less of a leadoff hitter and more of an attacker and all that. So I don't think that the fact that Harper is a different kind of player probably means anything at all. I think it means that he is channeling his energies into those areas of his game that he thinks he is most likely to succeed at and that are most beneficial to him. And if it turns out to be an eight-win player who's slightly different than the eight-win player we imagined, I think it's probably a complete non-issue as well. Now, let me ask

you one more thing, though. Did you want to reply to reply to that well i was just going to say that trout so far this season has pretty much done everything as well as he ever did right i mean like he's back to i mean his defense who knows small sample but it's back in the positive range whereas last year it was negative for the first time. He's back to hitting over 300, which is a thing that he stopped doing for the first time last season. He's got seven steals, whereas he had 16 all last year, and he's like at plus three base running runs already. And he's also just hitting better than he ever has, which is kind of amazing. I mean, it's really, you know, looking at how pitchers have approached him completely differently over the last year and are just throwing such extreme rates of high and inside stuff just like doesn't even compare to

anyone else in baseball. And yet he has completely done fine. And I don't know whether it's that he has gotten good at hitting those pitches that he has gotten good at hitting those pitches that he wasn't good at hitting before, or whether there are just enough mistakes that he can take advantage of. I've certainly seen him hit plenty of low pitches hard this year, so he's still getting enough of those. But he is, I mean, right now he is, to this point, he has this season been as good as he has been at any point in his career which is nice because after last year i wasn't sure whether we were seeing some evolution like his strikeout rate was up and his average was down and he seemed to sort of be becoming an older

type of player and this year that has pretty much gone back in the reverse. He's back to just being amazing Mike Trout. Good for him. Yeah. It'd be fun if Trout had just like radically different albums or like radically different seasons, but they were all the best in baseball. If he were doing like the, you know, like, I don't know, some artists change their style. Like Prince or something. Yeah, exactly. Like more like Prince. Exactly. That'd be great. All right. Like Prince or something. Yeah, exactly.

Like more like Prince. Exactly. That'd be great. All right. Last thing about Harper. I'm sure every once in a while you remember those amazing scout quotes about his makeup before he was drafted. As Kevin Goldstein quoted, he's just a bad, bad guy.

Said one front office official is probably the most memorable. He's basically the anti joe mauer difficult to find one scout who doesn't genuinely dislike the kid one scout is one scout called him among the worst amateur players he'd ever seen from a makeup standpoint so does this is there a lesson to be learned from this or do we just is this just a fun curiosity from a 16-year-old kid's past that we can't really extrapolate from? Always take anonymous quotes with a grain of salt. Not that there was really any advantage to other teams in bad-mouthing Harper at that point. He was locked up with the Nationals.

The worst they could do is make his extension cheaper for the Nationals at that point. He wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't like they were going to have a chance to sign him anytime soon. So there wasn't necessarily a self-serving motivation, I don't think, for those kind of quotes. So maybe it's just that makeup is hard to assess and it's easy to confuse. You know, I don't know what kind of guy he was at that point. I'm sure he was cocky and brash and that sort of thing. And maybe that can seem like makeup that could actually negatively affect you as a player to some people.

Whereas maybe it just makes you a less fun guy to hang out with, but it doesn't make you a worse baseball player. Maybe it makes you a better baseball player in the long run. So people mature, like Russell Carlton has written about how players at 18 are not the same as they are at 25 or 30 or whenever your prefrontal cortex actually fully matures so that he can change he can become more mature over a few years that it takes him to get from the draft to the big leagues yeah it's true i i'm sure the scouts are much better at this than we are but i think that we out here tend to conflate makeup with likability and they're really not not the same except as it affects your teammates, probably. All right. Okay. All right. So send us

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