Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 684: Pitchers and Pine Tar, the Meat of the Order, and Throwing Back Baseballs

Episode Date: May 27, 2015

Ben, Sam, and Dan Brooks banter about Saber Seminar, then answer listener emails about pine tar, the meaning of the middle of the order, and throwing back home runs.

And when they fight, they fight. And when they come home at night, they say, I love you, baby. Good morning and welcome to episode 684 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Gretlin, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives.

Hello. Hi, Ben. Hi. How are you? Okay. We plugged the Sabre seminar recently. We called it, I called it, we both called it the best of the baseball nerd conferences.

I am unfortunately not able to attend this summer because of the Stompers experiment, but I wish I could be there. I've enjoyed being there in the past. Tickets are on sale and you should buy them, but not every ticket has been bought. So we are bringing on the organizer, one of the organizers of the Saber seminar and a friend of the show, Dan Brooks. And Dan's going to do the email show with us and answer the questions and everything. But first, we're going to clear the floor and let him do his best to convince you to

go to Saber Seminar, which should not be a tough sell. But Dan, hello, and convince everyone to buy tickets. Hi, guys. Ben, should everyone go to Saber Seminar? Yes. That was easy. Hi, guys. Ben, should everyone go to Saber Seminar? Yes. That was easy. I convinced everyone. Well, Sam, do you agree? I have never been.

Damn, that was the worst job convincing everyone ever. No, seriously. So I think we have a great lineup of people this year. It should be really fun. Every ticket is a donation to the Jimmy Fund. So 100% of ticket costs go directly to the Jimmy Fund, which is a cancer research charity.

We have just an incredible list of people, basically everyone that you like to read at Baseball Perspectives or Fangraphs or any of the websites that you visit. We have a whole bunch of new speakers who have not been to Saber Seminar before, like Jonathan Tredge, who recently published some stuff with me, but also some stuff with the rest of the stats team on new pitching metrics. with the rest of the stats team on new pitching metrics, and Wendy Thurm, who's done a whole bunch of work on the business of baseball,

and Jeff Zimmerman, and Bill Petty, and just a great list of people. That whole list is on sabreseminar.com. It's two days in Boston. It's a ton of fun. Those two days are August 22nd and 23rd, and you should come. And what teams are attending or what teams are talking at least? It is the weekend that the Royals are in town. So we know we will have people from the Red Sox. Last year we had the GM Ben Farrington and the manager John Farrell

and their senior analyst Tom Tippett. And I think they'll all be back this year, pending schedules and things like that. They can never confirm until that week, but it looks good. And then the Royals are also going to be sending people and it will be great. I'm extremely suggestible in general. And so my opinion, if I had been, would also be fairly irrelevant because I tend to have my opinions, unfortunately, shaped by the opinions of those around me. And so even without having gone, I can say that it is basically universal that anybody I know who's been has said that this is the best of these type of events, the most satisfying,

the most enjoyable, and in a lot of ways, the one that is most accessible to people. And, you know, like Dan is saying, the money is basically like it's free money because it's all going to something that probably should have it instead of you in the first place. What's the farthest that anyone has traveled to attend Saber Seminar? South Korea. South Korea sent some people last year. Is that far enough?

That's pretty far. I'm trying to think. I think that's about as far as people could possibly go. That's far enough. But, I mean, you know, I think the great thing is that, you know, you get to put a name or a face to names and you get to meet people. You know, many of my best friends, people who I'm still working with in baseball. You know, I met at the Sport Fishing Pitch FX meeting, you know, seven years ago.

Or I met at the first Sabre seminar five years ago, you know. And these are good friends of mine. You know, I met Harry and I met Colin Wires and I met Mike Fast and I met Alan, you know, at events like these ones. And it's just great because you get to form friendships and, you know, do cool things, you know, enjoy your baseball. All right. Well, I'm sold. Not literally because I'm not going still, but I wish that I were. Well, you know, next year when you're not managing an independent baseball team, you can be one of our marquee general managers. You never know.

The Stompers might bring me back next year. They might match. They might match Gretland. Maybe the Stompers will be traveling and they'll be the team in town. That could be. That's right. Okay. All right.

So we're going to do a listener email show. Dan, many of you know, is the person behind Brooks baseball, oddly enough, and has written many things for baseball perspectives and other sites and is in many cases, more qualified to answer the questions that you ask us than we are.

So he's going to help us out. Before we start answering questions, I just wanted to read an email from Evan, who is responding to an email show from a couple weeks ago where we talked about what games or at-bats or events we wish we had video footage for. And Sam told his story about his possibly imagined instance of Will Clark hitting a double and getting to second base and flashing middle fingers to the camera,

which he wishes that he could confirm or refute. And Evan has a couple examples like that. He says, early 1990s, Arlington Stadium, Bo Jackson hits a home run to dead center off of Nolan Ryan with such a low trajectory that Ryan actually jumps in an attempt to catch the drive. My hazy memory of this play involves a SportsCenter highlight from when I was under 10 years old. His second recollection, 1998 NLDS in the Astrodome. The Padres' Jim the King Larritz hits a home run down the right field line against Randy Johnson that slices foul into the stands, then changes midair course somewhere around the 300-foot mark and hooks back fair inside the foul pole. John Miller and Joe Morgan are the announcers.

This memory is more vivid. This memory is more vivid. I'm unable to find any evidence of either play's authenticity on the internet, but I feel confident that neither play was dreamed into existence by my adolescent brain. Validation would be nice, though. If anyone listening remembers either of those events, write in and we will forward your email to Evan. I vaguely recall the legend of the Bo Jackson Homer, although it might be one of those things that I remember it being I might have heard it with different players like I don't know I mean that

sounds like a legend that I recall from that era but I don't know if it was necessarily Bo Jackson hitting it off Nolan Ryan might have been I am reading an article right here from 1989 in which Bo Jackson hit a very long home run, apparently. And the LA Times spent a column talking about how it wasn't as long as Mickey Mantle hit a home run once. And it's pretty strangely aggressive. Like, how many people didn't hit a home run that was as long as one that Mickey Mantle hit once? Like, they all didn't do that. Every player every day. Why are you taking it out on the guy who came closest?

It's really rude. Well, someone at Saber Seminar can ask Alan Nathan about the physics of this and how low a ball could conceivably be hit to dead center and still leave the park well that's it's it's more than just an alan nathan question it's you also would want to know how how low a ball could conceivably be that for a split for you know like like literally like it like in like a 15th of a second or something, less than that probably, a pitcher might reasonably think, oh, I should field that. Like, did you see the play a couple days ago when somebody hit a ball right at Matt Duffy? Kind of, because it wasn't, Matt Duffy like ran away from it. Like he broke

to his right, even though the ball was like probably a couple inches to his left. Like he leaped to his right to field it. and that's not where the ball was. The ball was actually where he had been. So sometimes you pick up strange things from the ball off the bat. So it's possible that this ball was actually just a line drive home run like people have done, and Nolan Ryan kind of just got weirded out by the perception or something. Well, so I have one of these, and I was looking for one of these. and kind of just got weirded out by the perception or something?

Well, so I have one of these, and I was looking for one of these. This has nothing to do with Home Run. I'm sorry. This has to do with weird plays that I wish I had video of. I was looking for one of these like a month ago. I think it was 2006 or 2007. It was like maybe a little earlier. It was like right as MLB video was like starting, right as they were starting to archive every broadcast and every video.

And the game before this one, they have video for, and the game after this one, they have video for, but not this game. And so, I mean, somebody has video. Oh, you've asked me that. Is this the one you've asked me about? Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, it was.

So I don't remember what inning it was, but Julian Tavares is pitching. And I think it's Brian Roberts who's on second base. And Julian Tavares recognizes – Julian Tavares is a weird dude. He realizes that Brian Roberts is like just straying way too far off second. And Brian Roberts just sort of has his back turned looking around. And so Tavares just, you know, he can't pick Roberts off because there's nobody standing on second base to receive the throw.

And the second baseman is not paying any attention and the shortstop doesn't pay attention. So Tavares just books it, like runs at him full bore. And Roberts like screams for a second, like crap, what do I do? And dives back in the bag and Tavares dives at him full bore and roberts like screams for a second like crap what do i do and dives back to the bag and tavaris dives at him and he's safe but the reason he's safe is because time had been called that's why everyone was paying attention to julian tavarez and why brian roberts was wandering around like not worrying about what julian tavarez was doing and i can't find video of this play but it's just a great play it would would have been a great gift, but I can't make it because I can't find video.

So if you have video of that play, send it to me. Speaking of the Mickey Mantle home run, by the way, that would be a very good answer to this question because I don't believe for any seconds at all that that ball went 565 feet. And so I would love to see video so that alan nathan could disprove that one all right well it's the great tragedy of baseball analysis we can't actually see any of these things someone can the headline of this la times piece is literally bo's homer doesn't measure up that's yeah that's so excessively negative i wonder if they ran that after every home run

bo jackson hit in his entire career you're not good enough though you know i wonder uh you know the adrian belchay home run that was hit like down near his ankles you know like i wonder if the trajectory of the ball could ever be such that like a home run that started like an inch off the ground because belt trade went down to its knees and or whatever and and then rocketed up towards the the pitcher's mouth i wonder if it's if it's conceivable at all that that pitcher could catch a home run ball that's alan nathan's topic at saber seminar or it better be suggested to him. No, it's not. It's not. I have his topic. He's going to talk about some experiments that they did in Houston.

That'll probably be interesting, too. It's a pretty good rule of thumb to always bet the under on a Bo Jackson legend, I think. Because there's so many Bo Jackson legends that they just feed themselves and become ridiculous. I'm back on Bo Jackson, by the way. And so I've just sent you each. I don't know. Neither one of you appears to be online. So I've sent these into the void.

But I've just sent you each a YouTube video of what was described by Google's index as like Bo Jackson hits line drive off Nolan Ryan's face or something like that. And it's got 400,000 views, which is not bad for a baseball highlight from 30 years ago. And then you watch it and it's like, oh, it's he chops one. He chops a grounder back and like Nolan Ryan just like whiffs on it and it hits him in the face and throws the ball and then there's a little trickle of blood coming down his lip. It's like a nothing play. No strength is demonstrated here. And yet 400,000 views

and crazy descriptions about it and people linking to it. So there you go. The spray pattern on the blood is pretty cool. The coolest thing about this highlight is Rafael Palmeiro catching a Nolan Ryan fastball from like 52 feet away in a first baseman's club. All right, I'm going to ask—

I'm not watching this highlight, but judging from the description, it sounds both horrifying and totally benign. Yeah. All right, I'm asking a topical question. This is from Matt. Not Matt Trueblood, because now that he writes for BP, he knows all the answers. He never has to ask us anymore. Not that I'm bitter about it.

Why are so many so willing to just accept that pitchers using pine tar, etc., are actually just using it to get a grip and not to hit batters? It seems obvious why pitchers would say that, and even hitters who want to protect their own pitchers. But why are media folks reporting it as an actual fact? Are there studies that show this to be true? There just don't seem to be very many national reporters saying, wait a minute, this rule was put in place because of the unfair advantage it gives to pitchers.

Why are we now just accepting that this is no longer the case? How many other rule-breaking actions would reporters just parrot the player's opinion as fact without at least looking at the issue critically? Dan, you have thoughts. Trueblood, by the way, is actually writing about pine tar grip right now. He did it like an hour ago. See? Exactly.

All right, Dan. So, well, so first of all, actually, it's sort of topical because we did this study last year prior to Saber Seminar. We had,

Alan was there and Andy Andres was there and some pitchers were there and I'm supposed to present these results this year and the upshot is that to the best we can tell, and actually, have you ever, you've heard the sunscreen and rosin thing? Yeah.

As an alternative grip. Have you ever tried it? Nope. No. All right. So tomorrow, go to the ballpark and just try it. You have rosin. You can buy sunscreen.

Just buy like the spray-on sunscreen. I have sunscreen. Don't worry about that. That's right. You need sunscreen. Just buy like the spray-on sunscreen. I have sunscreen. Don't worry about that. That's right. You need sunscreen. So buy a deferred bottle so it won't waste sunscreen. But seriously, just take some sunscreen, spray it on your arm, pat it with rosin, like rub around a little, and then get some on your fingers and grip a baseball. And you can actually hold the ball such that like you can get it sticky enough so that you can just push the ball into the palm of your hand and hold

your hands flat and the ball will not fall it just sticks to the underside of your hand so it's crazy sticky it's actually way stickier than i people would realize because it's sort of written off like oh yeah it's just sunscreen and rosin, whatever. That being said, if you do this and you tell pitchers, like, cheat as much as you want, of course, these were guys who were very upstanding citizens who had never cheated before and would never cheat again. And they all reported that it really helped,

like it made the ball snap out of their hand better. And as best we could tell there was no clear effect on the the spin so there you go that's all i was going to say uh i'm going to say it again with with slides and better explanations of what we actually did i've just spoiled everything but yeah there you go now in the wild go to send your seminar even though dan just gave away the ending. That's right. There's actually no reason to go now that you know that. No, I mean, look, there's all sorts of reasons why this may not be the definitive answer.

These guys were not people who were practiced at doing this. And it was a warm day where they would have no other trouble gripping the ball and you know they weren't in a pressure game situation and we were in all sorts of weird test environments and they were you know they're very good pitchers but they weren't major league pitchers all sorts of stuff like that but you know it's not as though you just do this and you add 12 inches of movement or whatever okay well that's a lot more data than we would have brought to this answer, I think. Well, the other thing is that the way the question is phrased, I don't know what study anyone would possibly do

that would show that it was because of an unfair advantage to pitchers. Sorry, giving you an unfair advantage as opposed to helping you not hit batters, right? I mean, I think the idea behind the, it helps you not hit batters is they're going to throw that hard anyway, because every other incentive is for them to throw hard. And if they're going to throw that hard, then you might as well let him do it somewhat safely. But I don't know. I think that nobody likes to be hit. But I mean, is it George A. Hearst

who's been on this podcast before and has been like, of course it gives you an unfair advantage. There's no reason why you should ever believe any other. Pitchers don't care about hitting batters, all that stuff. I mean, look, I don't know what the evidence would be one way or another. Right. It's, you know, pitchers don't care about hitting batters, all that stuff. So, I mean, look, I don't know what the evidence would be one way or another. Right.

It's, you know, pitchers get rosin. Rosin is allowed, and you could say that that's the equivalent of pine tar. The hitters get a thing, and the pitchers get a thing. And it's unfair if the pitchers get all sorts of other things that at least historically have been regarded as possible performance enhancers. It would be interesting. I mean, it's possible that they think it's a performance enhancer and it's actually not like, you know, a fightin' necklace or something. So there's that possibility. And maybe that's what your study hints at.

So there's that possibility, and maybe that's what your study hints at. But yeah, I mean, maybe guys who are skilled and experienced at this stuff can do something with it. And it's a little suspicious that the pitchers go right to the protecting batters argument, because you've got to assume that that is not necessarily the motivation foremost in their minds, or the only motivation in their minds in all cases. There must be more to it. So I can see the argument that says that you should crack down. I can see the argument that says you should just do away with the rules entirely. But that does seem to be sort of a slippery slope with some potential for abuse. Suppose fighting necklaces did work

and the rationale was that they helped you avoid hitting batters. That's a good question. They probably do help you avoid hitting batters because they help you maintain your balance, right? You like fall over if you're not wearing one, so

you've got to have balance not to hit a batter. So fighting necklaces are weird, right because like there's all this stuff about the integrity of the game and like even if you were trying to cheat but you do it ineffectually you know that's still cheating and everything like that it's like well clearly everyone who's wearing a fighting necklace is trying to gain an unfair advantage through the use of uh you know electromagnetic forces flowing through their bloodstream or whatever i mean we all know it's crap but yeah it does sort of seem like like the proof that they don't work is the fact that they're legal like the worst thing that that you can say about fighting is that major league baseball allows you to wear them there you go all right moving on question from

jim it's often said that lefties are good low ball hitters is this just something people say or is there any statistical evidence that lefties are actually better low ball hitters than righties is there any reason why they would be better low ball hitters than righties all right so i did this in 20 seconds in keeping with effectively wild tradition i have humble brag hitting wait why it's humble brag i really did like 30 seconds like i didn't want to put too much work it's like an unhumble brag let's see lefties in the bottom third of the zone so lefties on lefties slug 427, lefties on righties slug 544, righties on lefties slug 498, and righties on righties slug 440. The difference, though, is that lefties face a whole lot more righties than righties do lefties. So the biggest number there is the 544 number, and that's lefties on righties. Was that just too

many abbreviations? So the answer is yes. The answer is lefties are better sort of on aggregate at hitting pitches in the bottom of the zone than righties are, but that lefties also hit against more righties, and that gives them some amount. Left-handed hitters hit against more right-handed pitchers. They see more platoon at bat in that area of the strike zone. And there you go. So relative to their overall performance, are lefties better in the bottom third of the zone than righties are relative to their overall performance?

I have no idea. I do have the middle third and the top third, if you just want me to keep reading numbers. Are lefties better at high pitches than righties? No. Are they better at middle pitches than righties? No. So it's only on low pitches that lefties are better than righties? No. Are they better at middle pitches than righties? No. So it's only on low pitches that lefties are better than righties. But it's only on low pitches against right-handed pitchers. So they're not better on low pitches against left-handed pitchers? Correct. I don't get it still. To this day, I don don't get it and this day includes your explanation wait i just gave you numbers i have no explanation what we would want to have here is lefty ops or

whatever in the bottom third over overall lefties versus righties in the bottom third versus overall righties we just want to know whether the bottom third performance is different for lefties and righties relative to themselves right do also well but maybe maybe this has something to do with what dan is saying maybe do righties throw do pitchers tend to throw down in the zone significantly more when they have a platoon disadvantage which might make. It's harder to get inside on a guy when you have the platoon disadvantage. And so if you're working him away, you might be more likely to work him low because, you know, up and in, low and away. And so it might make sense. And maybe just you're more worried about him as a threat, generally speaking. And so you're not as greedy,

you're not pitching for the strikeout as much. So maybe they do. Maybe that's why. Maybe that brings us back around. 20 seconds, Dan. Can you do the research? No, but I will tell you one other thing that sort of speaks to this, which is that right-handed hitters batting against left-handed pitchers, okay,

batting against left-handed pitchers, okay? Slug 583 in the middle third of the strike zone and 498 in the bottom third of the strike zone, okay? So they are better in the middle third of the strike zone than they are in the bottom third of the strike zone, all right? Lefties batting against righties are 526. Slug 526 in the middle third and 5.45 in the bottom third. So if the question was something about the relative strengths of right-handed hitters and left-handed hitters, maybe there's something there.

That is exactly what the question was. Of course, that's only in platoon splits, and there's a whole bunch of other bats for right-handed hitters, etc., etc. Should we call that inconclusive, or is there enough there that we can say that lefties are lowball hitters? No, not inconclusive. We don't know the answer.

But it sounds like maybe. Certainly, it's either yes or maybe no. You've narrowed down the possibilities. Good job. Okay. All right. There you go.

People ask us tough questions, and we give them the answer. I'd like to watch an entire game in a mirror and see if it... The problem is that then they run in the wrong direction. But I'd love to watch an entire game of hitters in a mirror and pitchers in a mirror and see if my brain imparts characteristics on these hitters that are the opposite of what we would normally impart on them. You know what I mean? Like the aesthetic appeal of the swing?

Like if I would start talking about how crafty Julio Tehran is or about, like, I'd be like, oh, like oh god Carlos Gonzalez typical righty swing you know or if I wouldn't if it would if it would still yeah the lefty righty stuff is all weird in baseball it's probably the weirdest thing about baseball yeah we have had a question about runners running in the opposite direction so we've covered that already okay question from ben uh this is sort of similar to the definition of batting around question i suppose a couple weeks ago it was the fifth inning and posy belt and maxwell were due up the four five and six spots dave fleming says on the radio and the middle of the order coming up, I say what?

Just today or yesterday because the Giants have some sort of middle of the order promo in which when the middle of the order comes up, I think it's the Giants. They talk about frozen yogurt or something. And I've been – it's obviously 3-4-5. I'm not even going to let this, Ben, sorry. Ben says, I say what? I always thought that the middle of the order was 3-4-5, which also usually coincided with the best hitters. I know that math says that 4-5-6 is the middle,

but my baseball logic says that it's 3-4-5. What is the middle of the order? It's clearly 3-4-5. 4-5-6 I feel, is a fairly recent phenomenon. I have heard people referring to it as that, but only in the last few years. It's easier to say 4-5-6 in the DH League, obviously. In the NL, I think you can fairly say 3-4-5 is the middle anyway, because there is no true middle. The pitcher doesn't count as part of the lineup. He's just a statue that exists. All the same, middle is not meant to be taken literally here.

Middle is a synonym for heart. Heart is a synonym for meat. The meat, heart, and middle of the order is always going to be 3, 4, 5. I wouldn't mind if you included 6 in meat. But I agree that if you're going to narrow it down to three spots, it's definitely 3, 4, 5. Yeah, I agree. There actually, I think there's a Red Sox promotion, which is the giant part of the lineup.

Any batter's three, three, six. So they are inclusive of three and six. Okay. I'd be okay with that. That's interesting. Bottom third is sort of its own entity. Yeah. And then it's odd.

The Giants don't have the giant part of the order. I'm looking at that. Well, we have Giant Glass, who I think have the giant part of the order. I'm looking it up. We have Giant Glass who I think sponsors the giant part of the order. I'm looking it up. Middle of the order. Oh, Dixon! Dixon!

Dixon! Oh, Ben. Dixon Baseball Dictionary. What does it say? The fourth, fifth, and sixth batters in the batting order. What? Seaso, top of the order, bottom of the order, heart of the order, and meat of the order. All right.

How could that? All right. So meat of the order, the strongest hitters in the middle of the lineup. If we can get through the eighth, one, two, three, we're not looking at the meat of the order in the ninth said mike they don't actually say they don't say what it is and a heart of the order and i feel like meat can be a little more expansive to me yeah in in the right situation it could be three four five six i feel like you could also be one through four or one through five yeah it depends on the lineup heart of the order the part of the batting order

with the best hitters commonly the third fourth and fifth pitchers test their mettle through quote the heart of the order the next three hitters all struck out swinging if the orioles had a heart of the order it stopped beating see also middle of the order meat of the order why would they say see also middle of the order if it's a different thing this is gonna have to be corrected in the next edition. So heart of the order and meat of the order both have citations, but middle of the order does not have a citation. I think he phoned that one in.

I don't know that I have to listen to him. Well, I agree with you. It's 3-4-5. It's not the literal middle. It's the figurative middle, and the third hitter is part of the middle in that sense all right play index sure so today clay buckholz allowed two runs in the first inning and then he pitched extremely well after that he let's see uh he made it through as we speak he has

gone seven he has not allowed another run. In fact, he allowed three doubles and a walk in the first. He's allowed only three singles in the six innings since with no walks and with four strikeouts. And as Tim Britton has pointed out tonight, Buchholz has struggled in the first inning. After the first inning tonight, he had a 9.7 era in first innings this year a 4.87 era overall and um a 3.68 era after the first inning that obviously got lower because i did this right after the first inning and he threw six scoreless innings right after that so it's even lower and so this calls to mind the uh old expression or whatever the wisdom of certain that is uh sometimes said of certain pitchers you gotta get them early right we've certain pitchers you gotta get them early right

we've all heard the you gotta get them early and uh i've remembered various you gotta get them early guys in my life i remember rick russell was sometimes said to be a guy you gotta get early and tom glavin i remember very clearly hearing that you gotta get him early and there are guys today you gotta to get early. And so I just wondered whether any of these guys has ever had like a, you know, who's had the worst, who's had the biggest discrepancy between getting them early and not getting them later. So I simply went to Play Index and I looked for the split finder. I looked at season splits for the first inning, minimum of, I think, 25 starts ERA. And then I clicked the little box that said display full season totals alongside it.

And then I just went down and looked to see who had the biggest splits. And so like, for example, so Buchholz 970 ERA in the first this year, 487 overall. That's a pretty good one. It'll shrink. I mean, he's not going to be that bad in the first going forward. So that gap will shrink, but that's actually not that uncommon. Going back to 1988, there's kind of a bunch of guys who have been that bad in the first and then not that bad after, and that's somewhat to be expected because it's a small split and because we're talking about thousands of pitcher seasons to find outliers in.

And also because maybe some guys really do pitch worse in the first inning. I don't know. So a couple of the extremely notable ones. These are, you know, maybe two, three in my mind on this list of guys who were really bad in the first would be both came in 2013. Adam Wainwright had a 6.09 era in the first 2.42 after that and the same year you darvish had a 5.91 era in the first 2.28 after that so you truly did have to get them early however delightfully for me the runaway like in an absolute landslide winner of the you gotta get him early award is actually tom glavin it is as i remember tom glavin who in 1995 had a pretty astounding season

in the uh in this split so tom glavin had a 7.76 era in the first inning uh he had a 2.28 era beyond that and so that already right there like whoa that's a big one right that is five runs difference it's well over triple his era uh it's 29 innings in the first and then you know some hundreds of innings afterward but beyond that these are other things about tom glavin's first inning slash rest of the inning split so he had he struck out 18 because this you'd think oh 29 innings all right it's going to be a bad thing or whatever but it's not he struck out 18 and walked 21 in the first inning after that it was 109 to 45 so he went from basically less than a walk a strikeout per walk to two and a half per walk after that. He allowed four homers in the first inning.

He allowed five in the rest of the games combined, like all the other innings combined that year. Is that true? That can't be true. Hang on. It is true. All right. Four homers in the first, five in all the innings after.

He allowed seven steals in the first inning and only eight in all the other innings after. So even in stolen bases, you had to get him early. Every aspect of the game, Tom Glavin came out and was just insanely bad, which is, you know, weird and surprising. And so I assumed fluke year. I assumed a one-year thing. So just to see if he was really bad in the first.

Generally speaking, I looked at all of his years, at least in that. So in 1990, his ERA was about a run and a half higher in the first inning than overall, which really, I mean, when you think about it, that means it's a considerably larger gap because I'm not looking at second inning on. I'm looking at total ERA compared to first inning ERA. So that total ERA is going to include the first inning ERA. You know what I'm talking about. All right, so about a run and a half higher.

And then in 1991, it was about a little more than two runs higher, which is very large, almost double. In 1992, it was double. It was almost three runs higher. 1993, it was about one run higher 1994 it was about two runs higher 1995 is the year that we're talking about where it was you know almost five runs higher and 1996 it was about a half a run higher 1997 it was a run and a half higher 1998 it was a half a run higher 1999 and 2000 he finally got it under control they were almost the same in 1999 and in 2000 he finally had his first season where his

era in the first was better than his era overall so uh in fact i assume everybody will go oh yes because he had not widened the strike zone he He had not done his patented Tom Glavin strike zone manipulation software reboot whatever thing. But I don't know if that's true or not. All I know is that he was horrible in the first at every single aspect of the baseball game and quite good after that. All right. We should mention that the first inning generally is a higher scoring inning. Right, it is.

It's higher scoring because you're facing the heart of the order, though not frequently the middle of the order, as I'm told. That's true. But you are facing the meat of the order. Can I ask a question? Okay, so everybody's heard you've got to get them early. That's a common thing. Could you rerun the same query for guys who

give up like a lot of runs in the third inning? Sure. And do you think that there would be any more variance in like first inning guys than third inning guys? You know, because nobody says, oh, you got to get them in the third. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. I was actually going to get there before I found Tom Glavin. I didn't know where this was going to go. And then I found Tom Glavin. And so it went to where Tom Glavin took me.'t know where this was going to go, and then I found Tom Glavin, and so it went to where Tom Glavin took me. Sure, so like, I mean, I could. I haven't measured the variance of

these. But I was just wondering, who's the guy who you had to get in the third? Yeah, I'm going to do the third. I want to see who's the guy you had to get in the third. People have looked at the first inning issue by home starter and away starter also because some have speculated that it has to do with the mound that the away starter is not comfortable in the first inning

he's got to get used to the mound but i'm pretty sure it's been found that the effect is pretty much the same for home starters who are presumably used to the mound as it is for away starters. It's just either a, I don't know, first inning thing that affects all pitchers. They're not comfortable yet or their velocity is not as high or whatever it is. Or it's the order effect. All right. How many? Do you want me to do career?

I'm going to do 200 starts. 200 starts. Probably I'd say the guy that you want to get in the third is Shane Raleigh. Okay. What's the split? Oh, no. This one's better. Pedro's brother, Ramon.

Ramon Martinez. Okay. Ramon Martinez. Yeah. 4-9-1 in the third. 3-6-7 overall. That's a big difference. that's 285 innings you have to get him in the third you have to you got to get him in the third don't even don't even try in the

first and the second you're just going to tire yourself you're going to punch yourself out sabathia's a get him in the third guy funny because ramon could have been such a good pitcher had he only gotten to skip the third inning. Yeah, like the 13th floor in a hotel. So it does look like the first inning has larger variance to me. Just eyeballing it, looking at career stuff. But I haven't done, who knows. But maybe other than Glavin, like Don Robinson was a get him in the first guy.

He was in his career two runs. Matt Morris was two runs difference in his career. There's some really big, there's much bigger gaps in the first. I will say that. There are clearly, it does seem to me that there are clearly true get him in the first guys in a way that we were only joking about get him in the third guys. I'm going to see who you get in the fourth. I'm going to see who you get in the fourth.

You should, I mean, a team ought to figure this out and just stock their whole roster with guys that you don't get in the first and you don't get in the second and just have one for every inning. This word remotely real, which is not. Ben Sheets was a get-em-in-the-fourth. This is not real at all. This is the best market inefficiency ever, though. Jose Lima was a get-em-in-the-fourth guy. Jose Lima was a get him in the fourth guy.

Jose Lima's career ERA in the fourth was seven. And overall, it was barely 6.8. No. It was overall his ERA was two runs lower than that. Fourth inning, not Lima time. Opposite of Lima time. Very nice. Good, good, Ben.

Thanks. Alright, Play Index. Okay. Coupon code BP. Dan demanded that we do one weird one before we end. This Play Index ended up being pretty weird, but I will ask this weird one,

which is part of a question. It's the second part of a question that Dominic asked. He wants to know. Tim Britton just tweeted, Buck Holtz ERA is 9.9 in the first and 2.86 afterward. Sorry, go ahead. Got to get them early. Got to get them first.

You got to get them. Go ahead. Dominic says, If a home run could be thrown back into play by fans, how much greater an advantage would be gained by the home team, who currently win at about a 56% clip? Actually, what, 54%, right? So if fans in the home park could throw the ball back into play, and presumably it would just be a live ball, I guess,

the play would just continue, how much of a home advantage would just be a live ball, I guess. The play would just continue. How much of a home advantage would there be? By the way, what would the average home run be in a home ballpark? How many bases would the average home run go for if the crowd could throw it back? That's a good question because there's always a... There's a lot of home runs that don't get caught by a fan. Right. There's a lot of home runs that don't get caught by a fan.

Right. Although in this scenario, there'd be all sorts of pressure on the team to sell tickets to its... I mean, there would be pressure on the fan base, because the fan base would almost be like an extra fielder, in a sense. So you'd have more incentive to block out all the other team's fans by buying your own tickets. This might increase ticket sales significantly. I don't think it would decrease home runs as much as you think. I think that fans' arms are so bad and they would panic and they'd be dumb. They wouldn't just flip it to the outfielder. They'd try to chuck it in. They would definitely try to chuck it in every single time because you could get an assist on the play.

And as you could, you could be in the history book. And they would do poorly. And I just think, I think that at least you're talking, even for the average ball that is caught by a fan, so excluding the ones that go into a tunnel, I'm saying average triple at least. Yeah. Maybe worse.

And I was going to say that you'd be quicker to get to the ball than people currently are because there's always a scrum now and people are fighting over the ball because they get to keep the ball. And I was going to think that maybe if you don't get to keep the ball, there's not as much reason to fight over it and you would just – whoever got it first would just get it and wouldn't have to fight through a crowd to get it. But I think in this case, there might be more competition than there would be if you can keep it. Because if you can keep a home run ball, most home run balls are not worth anything. It's an okay story, but that's it. Whereas if you get the home run ball and you can throw it in and you can nail the guy at a base, that is a great story. That's the rest of your life. You're on TV, you've got a guaranteed replay. You've got screen time. So that is a big prize suddenly. So I think there'd be even more

fighting among fans for the honor of reclaiming the ball. There'd definitely be more fighting between fan bases. There'd be major violence going on. Yeah, there'd be like Hunger Games-style brawls in the crowd, right? I mean, like, you know, it's like, you know, imagine Bryce Harper hits a home run in the top of the ninth in Yankee Stadium, and it gets caught by like some guy in, you know, Nationals gear. I mean, I would think that this wouldn't matter that much because what's the average hang time of a home run, would you guess?

Not the weird Giancarlo Stanton home run that gets out in three seconds right over the wall, but the average. Yeah, four and a half. I would say more than that, right? Like there are those long, majestic home runs. I'd say six seconds maybe. Six is a very – all right fine maybe i don't know something like that and and someone could tell us the answer to that question a certain percentage of the balls are not in the stands right they just go into the bullpen i guess

the bullpen can throw it back though but you know they go into some tunnel or some place where the ambulance is or whatever and you're not gonna get it back so that rules out a bunch of the home runs and then there are the long home runs if you figure it's five six seconds and i mean what's the average time to round the bases because in this case there'd be there'd be no such thing as a home run trot anymore there would be no more home run trots every home run would be no more home run trots. Every home run would be a sprint because you never know if the ball is going to come back onto the field. So players would be at home. Yeah. Even at home, you'd have to worry about the one saboteur in the crowd. Yeah. So players would be busting it right out of the box. So you wouldn't see a 20 second home run trot. Guys would be going around the bases in what, 15 seconds, something like that.

Is that way off? I don't know. But there's just not a ton of time there. And factoring in most fans' arms being weak and inaccurate, I'm going to say that this increases home field advantage from 54% to 55% or less. So here's this one question. So if fans are going to be throwing things back onto the field, like a ball, do they have to... Well, first of all, there's going to be a whole lot of other stuff onto the field.

But second of all, do they have to play with the ball that was originally... Yeah, good point. I mean, yes, but how could you ever verify that? I don't know. You know, like, I mean, you know, what if it wasn't the real ball? And what if like multiple balls were thrown back? That would be so confusing. You'd have to have replay review on every single home run.

You'd have to have cameras pointed. This was a terrible idea and we shouldn't do it. You'd have to have cameras pointed at every section so that you could go back and verify. You'd have to track. You'd have to establish the chain of custody of the ball. It would be fruit of the poison tree on every one of these things. And yeah, between the replay review and the violence and death that would result from this and the lack of a home field advantage addition,

I think we can safely rule this idea out. Congratulations, Dan. You made it just long enough to hear Ben make a good wife reference. I was going to say, that's just like a rule of evidence reference, right? Yeah, but good wife loves that. So that's it for this show. There were some other good questions. I will star them. We will get to them soon.

And Dan is at BrooksBaseball on Twitter. You can go to SaberSeminar.com to buy tickets to the Saber Seminar. And of course, BrooksBaseball is the best resource for all sorts of pitching and hitting and pitch effects related statistics.

We use it all the time. Dan, thank you for joining us. Well, guys, thanks a lot. Coupon code BP. Go to Baseball, thanks a lot. All right. So coupon code BP. Go to baseballreference.com. Use that. Get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. By the way, we haven't plugged the Stompers merchandise in a while, right?

Coupon code BP at stompersbaseball.com, too, if you want to go buy Stompers gear in time for opening day. And you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. Send us emails, podcast at baseballperspectives.com. And we will be back soon. In the middle of this, Ben starts instant messaging me. I was responding to your instant message. Nothing. Not what I'm talking about.

Not like your sounds. What is even happening in this podcast anymore? It just starts IMing me like I wonder what Sam's up to. You IMed me 10 minutes ago. Hello. of me 10 minutes ago. Uh. Hello.

Yeah, we're waiting for you. I think you should edit that out. This is not your outro, okay? All this, I'm declaring all this to be unusable.