Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 688: Success Without Strikeouts, Strange-Looking Lineups, and Other Emails

Episode Date: June 4, 2015

Ben and Sam discuss their schedule and answer emails about rebellious players, pitching to contact, coaching catchers, and more.

I'm still standing after all this time Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind I'm still standing Yeah, yeah, yeah I'm still standing Yeah, yeah, yeah Good morning and welcome to episode 688 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus,

presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Hello. We haven't podcasted in a few days. People have been wondering where we've been. We've been at Stompers games, mostly. So we're not exactly sure how the Stompers season will affect

the podcast, but we're not stopping. We're probably cutting back a bit, and we'll record wherever and whenever we can. We'll do it sometimes. Yeah. We'll do it as we can. We will have another podcast tomorrow, but today we are doing emails.

Jerome says, has there been an inordinate amount of deep bombs hit this season? Do you suspect any cause for these long home runs so far in 2015? I looked yesterday, and there had been 30 home runs of at least 450 feet hit. 30 home runs of at least 450 feet hit. Okay, so like one every other day. Sure.

Does that, without looking it up, does that seem like a lot or a little too much? It seems like a lot to me. 450 seems like a home run that gets passed around. Yeah, and there have been a lot of those home runs this year. It seems like every day I'm looking at a new John Carlos Stanton home run or Doc Peterson home run or some some home run that went really really far and there was another 450 foot homer last night Chris Carter hit one so there now been 31 this year and there were 50 all of last season wow so it's a lot I

think last season may have been atypical I think the season before that there were 60 or something, and maybe there were more in a season before that, but definitely does seem like we are on pace for more long, long home runs than we've seen in the last couple years at least. I don't know how it compares to the home run era,

probably not all that favorably, but in the last few years when there haven't been as many home runs being hit, this seems like a difference. This is without Joey Gallo. Yeah, I don't think either of his second deck shots got to 450, but that just tells you how long 450 is because those weren't that long. They were 439 and I think 430 was the other one. But the 439 was 114 miles an hour off the bat, which is about the 15th or 20th hardest hit home run of the year. Yeah, so it depends on the angle too.

Stanton hit his highest home run of the season recently. I think it was his highest home run ever. Because he hit his highest home run ever and his lowest home run ever this year. And I think we talked about the lowest one. It was one of those weird line drive ones. And he hit just a really towering one that was in the air for, I don't know. We talked about the average hang time for home runs being 4.88 seconds. This one had to be at least six. This was long.

Was this off of Jon Lester yesterday? No. I don't think so. Maybe. I don't know. I've been watching a lot of Stanton home runs. He's been hitting a lot of them. But you can watch it. Preferably without sound. I'm watching it with sound.

Okay. But I'm going to mute right now. Okay. We've got to stopwatch this. Hang on. I'm getting it with sound. Okay. But I'm going to mute right now. Okay. We've got to stopwatch this. Hang on. I'm getting a stopwatch. Okay. All right.

So here we go. I'm going to time this home run, which was 36 degrees. And I don't know if this is the one you're talking about, but we'll find out. Okay. Here we go. That is very high. It's certainly very high. It's probably the one then. 6 very high. It's certainly very high. It's probably the one then.

6.8. It's a big one. Yeah, that's a lot of hang time. I'm going to do it again. Okay. And connection. 6.9. I think that the second one was a better time.

I think that I was paranoid about missing it coming down and having it hit a stance or something like that. So I think I was too quick. So 693 is what I got. Okay. All right. So now we've added to our regular segment, Ben and Sam Watch Videos That No One Else Can Watch.

We've added Sam Times Videos That No One Else Can Watch. No other podcast. On mute. On mute. You won't even give them audio. They can watch. No other podcast. On mute. On mute. You won't even give them audio. They have audio. Nothing is there. Okay.

So that's a long home run. So I don't know. Jerome asked what the cause was. I somewhat jokingly replied, Jack Peterson is the cause because he's hit a bunch of them. But I don't know. There's probably no cause, right? Unless we're

guessing that the ball is juiced or something, which hasn't really seemed to affect overall offense, so I don't know if anything's going on. It just seems like we've got a bunch of guys who hit the ball really hard. Stanton has always hit long home runs. Now Peterson is in the majors, and

he clearly hits long home runs. Nelson Cruz hits long home runs. There are just a lot of guys who hit long home runs right now. I in the majors and he clearly hits long home runs. Nelson Cruz hits long home runs. There are just a lot of guys who hit long home runs right now. I'm not sure if it means anything. Yeah, I don't think, I wouldn't even expect to keep up. Probably not. I don't even think it's the, we have a lot of guys who hit long home runs theory. Like I don't, I just think it's nothing. How many were there in 2013? Maybe 2014 was a lot, it might have been. Well, I think I looked. I think it was only 60 or something. I've got 96 in 2012. Huh. That's a lot.

Yeah. 450, would you say? Yeah. Yeah, I've got 96 in 2012. Okay. So then in that case, this is not different from 2012? No. I have 89 in 2011. Okay. So I guess it's the last couple years that were unusual, maybe. There's birds.

The birds are back. Yeah. I'm in the backyard. This is a show with birds again. My birds this time. Alright. Alright. We got a couple questions about what would happen if players refused to do things that they're supposed to do. So Matthew says, imagine that at the end of Mike Trout's first major league season, he'd said, I want more money.

I have my signing bonus. I don't need to play to be financially comfortable. Unless you pay me more, I will retire. What would happen? Are there clauses attached to signing bonuses that prevent this from happening? If there aren't, and if you as a team genuinely believe that the player will follow through, then surely you ought to be willing to pay the player anything, up to the risk-adjusted cost per win that they're worth.

Why doesn't this happen? And we also got a question from Nick. Nick says, What would happen if a pitcher refused to leave the mound when the manager goes to pull him? Does the umpire have the authority to eject the player for this? Would his teammates forcibly remove him from the mound? Also, who is the most likely pitcher to try to stay on the mound in direct defiance of the coach and potentially fight his teammates? So two questions about players not conforming to the rules.

Three questions. Well, yeah. I will answer all of theming to the rules. Three questions. Three questions. Well, yeah. I will answer all of them mostly wrong. Okay. All right. I'll go in reverse order. The pitcher most likely to defy his manager is John Lackey. Clearly, right?

Yeah, sure. You agree? You don't have a better name than that? He suggested Papelbon. Does the umpire have the authority to kick the player out of the game? Yes, he does. Simply because the manager has the authority to declare who is in the game. And if you are a baseball player who is not in the game, you're not allowed on the field. And so it would be no different than if John Lackey, on his off day, ran out and stood on the mound and refused to leave.

You would be ejected. You would be asked to leave the premises and probably fined, and people would mock you. So, I mean, the lineup is not set by who refuses to leave. It's not King of the Hill. It's not musical chairs. It's not the first nine guys who run out. A lot of people didn't know that probably, but, yeah, the lineup is not set by the first nine guys who run out. A lot of people didn't know that probably, but yeah, the lineup is not set by the first nine guys

who claim a position on the field. The manager sets the lineup. He tells the umpire what the lineup is and he communicates this sometimes via verbal and sometimes via nonverbal and sometimes via implied communication, like simply pointing toward the bullpen is considered a, as I understand itpen is considered a as i understand it is considered a

binding act that it is a non-verbal contract that must be enforced and so if a manager points to the bullpen uh i believe my understanding is that the umpire even if he then like change like changes his mind or something i think the umpire says, nope, you pointed. I think that's right. But anyway, the point is that you're not allowed on the field if you're not in the lineup, and the manager and the umpire conspire on who is in that lineup. Finally, the Mike Trout question.

So I think this is game theory. Let's put aside the prorated signing bonus, because that's not really an issue in this scenario. I have heard of people having to give back their signing bonus. But maybe I'm thinking of other sports. I can't remember. Where it's not like the San Francisco 49er. Maybe I'm not.

I don't remember. Anyway, signing bonus is not really an issue. If Mike Trout had to give back a prorated portion of the $1.5 million that he was paid, I don't think the Angels would go, Okay, we got ours. Now, why wouldn't the Angels give in? It's game theory, because you don't want to set a precedent that players can do that. You want to make it very that players can do that um you want

to make it very difficult for them to hold out and you don't want there to be much incentive for them to hold out and so uh if mike trout retires uh in order uh in a misguided attempt to squeeze an extra some millions out of a team early uh then that would suck for the, but it would keep them from having every prospect they ever had and every player they ever had do the exact same thing. There was a time in our lives, in my life, not yours, but in my life, where players held out a lot. It was weird. It was just a regular spring training feature. You'd have some guys who just didn't show up to camp because they wanted to get more money. And this wasn't even like free Kirk Blood.

This was like Ricky Henderson would hold out, right? It's common. Ricky Henderson was always holding out or did hold out. Checking to see if this is true. This might be up there with Will Clark flipping the bird. I think he held out. Google not so good with with 1988 transaction log people would hold out but you don't want people being able to hold out and so if trout did retire you would have to

retire i mean that's the key thing is that you couldn't you can't quit and then just come back unless the teams and the i'm again talking a little bit beyond what I know, but my understanding is that the teams basically have to agree that you can come back out of retirement once you've formally filed your retirement papers. And so I don't think it would be a great upside play for Mike Trout even. And certainly I think the clubs would have more incentive to draw the line there. I wonder how different baseball would be if you did have to stake your claim to a lineup spot

by being on the field. I mean, they'd be, well, so a lot fewer good players would want to play because you'd have like a Phantom Menace thing going on where some like, it's like people would be camping out for 30 days. Right, well you'd still like a Phantom Menace thing going on where some like people would be camping out for 30 days. Right. Well, you'd still have to make the team. You'd have to be on the roster. Yeah. So you'd have to be good enough that someone would want you to play. So it would come down to whether I guess the utility infielder is more dedicated and he's just willing to sleep on the field.

I mean, it'd be pretty if the so okay so say you've got like four classes of player right you've got your utility infielder you've got who's like the 25th man on the roster you've got your kind of general without builder bench player but who's like good enough to have a regular and then you've got your star and so if you're the star you obviously want a system where you don't have to go out early playing your spot if you're a regular you probably also have that so you've already got two-thirds of the team is definitely against this and if you're the front office you don't want this you want to create incentives where you can play your best players instead of having to give it to your scrub.

And so I think what you would see is that the utility infielder who tried to do this would simply be cut. It doesn't provide enough marginal value to support the system. And so if anybody tried it, he would just be cut it would be right against the unwritten rules be against the unwritten rules right and then uh so then that guy isn't going to do it and so then you've got the fourth outfielder who might aspire to be the third outfielder but the fourth outfielder is so close to being a third outfielder anyway he's the sort of aspirational guy like he's like you know how you know how this recent phenomenon of lower-income conservatives who want lower taxes for the rich has been much discussed, and it's because they're aspirational. They see themselves as potentially also being rich someday.

They want to be rich someday. And that's what the fourth outfielder is. He's not going to want to support any policy that uh that probably in decreases his optimistic future earnings so i think he also would support the system so i don't i don't think that it would catch on i think yeah you'd be so unpopular that it would it would ruin clubhouse chemistry probably because you'd have one guy destabilizing the entire team's schedule and and not just the schedule but say you won it. I mean, say you won the spot over Mike Trout.

Like, who's happy about that? Right, no one else. You'd get cut because you wouldn't be good enough to whatever value you offer as a bench person would be no longer valuable if you've made yourself a starter by claiming that role and you're sitting some guy who's better than you are. So you'd be cut. You'd be let go for the next best bench player who's willing to accept his place in the world. So yet again, the question of how different would baseball be if it were different? Not that different. Yeah, it would completely, yeah,

I just found that during a contract holdout with Oakland in the early 1990s, Ricky Henderson said, if they want to pay me like Mike Gallego, I'll play like Gallego. I would have liked to see that. Just Ricky imitating Mike Gallego. Well, in a world where you can claim your own position, Ricky could do that. He could do the first one out. He'd go stand at second base. He'd be short in a little squat and would never steal, never, ever steal.

That might be more effective than holding out. I was alive when that happened. Okay. That's true. All right. Question from Matthew, one of our many Matthews. Gentlemen, you let Mike Socha off the hook for his treatment of Mike Napoli far too easily. Yes, Jeff Mathis was the superior game caller by roughly 40 runs over three seasons.

Socha was correct in his assessment of players. However, is the job of a coach to accurately assess players or to help them improve? Obviously, coaches aren't miracle workers, and we generally view them as having marginal impact on changing players' true talent. However, Harry Pavlidis let slip that Napoli improved his game-calling by 30 runs from his final season with the Angels to the next season in Texas. That suggests that Napoli had some hidden potential to be a solid game caller and catching guru sosha was unable to unlock that potential that brings me to two questions how much do you blame sosha for not getting more game calling

value out of napoli and what individual baseball skills do coaches play the largest role in forming for their players i first off would be very of this, of the plus 30 runs or whatever Napoli was worth as a ranger. I mean, I think that Harry conveyed that we should have an appropriate amount of skepticism for all of these things, and particularly one player with one team for one year. with one team for one year in producing numbers that are wildly out of range with his normal career would make me skeptical. Secondly, even if you knew that they were true, it's quite possible that it is the relationship between him and those pitchers that was unique and that couldn't be replicated. I mean, if ever there was ever, ever, ever there was going to be a change in scenery

effect, it would be on catcher pitcher relationships right because it is completely new terrain as far as relationships go so i would say that too i would also note that um so should i mean he that's what he was trying to do he was trying to coach naples i mean it was a constant conversation between socha and the catchers and the pitchers and trying to kind of get them all on the same page and it was as i understood it the pitchers who also had objections to doing an athlete bug game although not entirely they also wanted his bat in the line-up. Anyway, so it seems to me like this is not nearly enough information to say that Socha was simply disinterested in improving Napoli and merely wanted to play his favorite.

I don't think that's the case at all. And from what Harry said, it's not like game-calling is as simple as just saying, call more of this type of pitch, stop calling this pitch in that count, which seems like if it were that, that would be fairly easy to coach. We've seen the same thing in the Stompers season for the last few days, talking to our manager about pitch selection and what catchers call. You can change patterns and maybe a guy is falling into a certain pattern and you can change it. But from what Perry said,

you know, it might have something to do with just your overall relationship with a pitcher, whether you inspire confidence in your staff just through personality or interpersonal skills or whatever it is. So that sort of nebulous and maybe inherent and not something that a manager could just improve by sitting a guy down and talking to him. I don't know, but he is a former catcher. Many managers are former catchers. You'd think that managers who were former catchers

would be able to recognize catching skills better or improve catching skills better or improve catching skills better but maybe not all of them were great catchers in those respects so maybe they don't know how to do it yeah although uh and it's very possible that that's the case it certainly was the opposite of social's reputation i mean that was what it's built on is being very good at that stuff. contact allowed due to the cutter. While the soft contact is measurable and true, the working on pitches explanation for low K rate seems like a team searching for positives in a negative situation. Does it seem reasonable that Waka has some special ability to throw better pitches at

key times? It seems to me that he's just been pretty lucky so far. I haven't looked into Waka specifically, but I do think that in general, in this situation, it's very easy to get yourself into trouble when a guy is succeeding despite striking people out. We know that striking people out is good, that pitchers who strike people out tend to be better, they tend to last longer, and there are exceptions to this. There are guys who get a ton of grounders, and they don't walk anyone, and maybe they allow soft contact and everything. So that is workable, although maybe doesn't tend to last as long. I think Bill James has written about how that type of pitcher doesn't last as long at a high level as a strikeout pitcher.

But when a guy goes from one to the other, as a strikeout pitcher. But when a guy goes from one to the other, or when a guy appears who doesn't necessarily have a history of doing that year after year, I think it's fair to be skeptical. I don't know. I've gotten myself in trouble with that, with trying to find a reason why a guy who's not missing bats

can actually survive without missing bats. I wrote about Derek Lowe, who was doing that a few years ago, and he had like a dead ball era strikeout rate. But he was also throwing really, really low in the zone and he was getting tons of grounders. And I thought, well, maybe Derek Lowe has a way to survive not striking anyone out. He just throws really low in the zone, gets tons of grounders. And that didn't last. Right after I wrote about that, he stopped doing that. And there was like a Deadspin article about Aaron Cook that I remember. Aaron Cook, he wasn't striking anyone out.

And it was like, oh, he doesn't need to strike anyone out. And he did need to strike people out. So I don't know. There aren't that many pitchers who can just break that rule, I don't think, and succeed despite that. I mean, there are guys who allow soft contact, but the range is not that huge, I don't think. Once you get to the major league level, guys who just get crushed all the time have been filtered out and you know what's like the lowest career babbitt for a guy who's been pitching for a while like like jared weaver is around 270 i think something

like that you know which is maybe 20 30 points below league average and he gets tons of pop-ups and he does that every year and there's deception and so that's a real thing. But it's still, you know, 20, 30 points of batting average, which is important, but it doesn't really trump having a good strikeout rate. If you have a good strikeout rate, you're probably in better shape than a guy who does allow soft contact, but doesn't strike anyone out. So in general, I would approach that situation with caution. It's very easy to talk yourself into thinking that a certain pitcher is different or that he can do something that no one else can do. But often it doesn't turn out to be the case. I would agree with all that. And yeah, there are probably exceptions, but there are probably more false positives than there are good exceptions. And so you should have probably a really good reason for thinking this about a person and not a fairly shallow reason, which is not to imply that this was, but you and I don't have a deep insight into WACA at this point.

But let me ask you a question. Clearly, like you gave Aaron Cook cook and derrick lowe as examples and those guys like aaron cook at the time had like like didn't have like two strikeouts and six start yeah it was it was really it was like a tenor row arc type streak that we were talking about earlier this year yeah so those guys struck out nobody at all. Cook never pitched again. That was the end of his career. He struck out two in his first five outings combined, and four in his first eight outings,

and 20 in his first 18 outings, and never pitched again. So you need to strike out somebody. You can't be Aaron Cook, right? You have to strike out somebody you can't be aaron cook right you have to strike out a few people right here's my question for you is the value of each strikeout or say each percentage on your strikeout rate uh is it like a straight line like where like going from five to six is exactly as important as going from two to three or going from 13 14 or do you think that there's like a sort of a range that you simply have to be you have to be above a certain level to be credible and maybe waka is staying above that line by striking out six and i mean we had this conversation with shelby miller too right

it's basically the same conversation we had with shelby miller a couple days ago miller is also maybe above that line i don't know right after we talked about miller he like walked six in his next start so i don't know if there is a line and i don't know if where the line would be but is it conceivable that you simply need to have a credible bat-missing ability and that from there you can work in all sorts of different fashions and be an effective pitcher as long as you basically... It's sort of like the strikeout in... This is kind of a metaphor, but not a metaphor

because I'm still talking about baseball and pitching. But it's like having a third pitch. It doesn't have to be your best pitch, but it has to be useful. It has to have utility. And by having that changeup that you can throw, it makes the slider and the fastball better. Maybe it's sort of the same with strikeouts. You don't need to strike out 10 to be successful,

and maybe a pitcher who can strike out 10 can be just as successful or roughly as successful striking out eight if he's shifting uh his approach uh around you know whatever feels strongest at the time i don't know i'm just asking if you think it's conceivable yeah there's well there has to be a threshold i don't it it might still be a linear relationship just the more strikeouts you have, the better you are. And beyond a certain point, you're not going to be good enough to stick around. So I don't know if there's a spot where a strikeout is worth more than something else, but maybe there is because if you look at guys who strike out for something per nine or whatever it is in recent years and managed to pitch a season

it would be because they had just a crazy high ground ball rate or you know carlos silva control or something like that and and even they wouldn't have been able to do it at you know two or three strikeouts per nine or whatever so there has to be some kind of cutoff, and the cutoff depends on what your secondary skills are. Your control and your ground ball raid and your hardness of contact allowed. Depending on those things, each person

probably has a level of bat-missing ability that would allow them to survive. Playindex? Sure. So I went to a game two days ago between the Vallejo Admirals and the San Rafael Pacific

in the Pacific Association of Baseball Clubs, and Vallejo had a very interesting lineup. They had let me get this right, they had their catcher batting second, their second baseman batting third their dh batting eighth and their right fielder batting ninth and i was particularly noticing

that the catcher batting second and the dh batting eighth seemed like it would probably be a pretty rare combination don't you think yeah and so i was I was wondering why, what that would say about a club, because on the one hand, and maybe not for Vallejo, or maybe not at every level it would be the same, but for a major league club, if they had their DH batting eighth and their, say, catcher batting second

or their second baseman batting third, on the one hand you can go, oh wow, that's quite the powerful lineup that they have, I mean, they can have their DH batting eighth. It's amazing. And that kind of goes along with the idea that you sometimes hear where someone will say, oh, it's amazing if you can get your power from second base because then you can afford to sacrifice a little bit somewhere else,

which doesn't really make any sense. But, yeah, I mean, you do have a catcher who's good enough to hit enough or shortstop who's good enough to hit third like you know that guy's a stud right alternately you could say wow their th sucks they they like they're not getting any power out of their traditional hitting spots and presumably unless he's a super super superstar like troy to lewiski presumably you wouldn't think that their number three hitter would be that good if it's from a defensive position you know he might be good but like even a good hitting second baseman isn't usually a great hitting second baseman robinson canoes is superstar he's as

good as they get but he's not nearly the hitter that you know that like some of the elite number three hitting first baseman have been in their careers right so i was trying to think well good or bad to have this line say something good or does it say something bad so i went through the play index and i just put in a couple of these different scenarios to see whether the teams that have had them. And I just did one position, one batting spot at a time. I didn't do any complicated. Like I didn't find, I didn't look to see if there was ever a team that had this exact lineup or anything like that. But in Major League history, there have been 22,000 games where a second baseman batted third to start the game.

And those teams have a winning record. They're 605 games over 500. Pretty good. So second base, batting third. Pretty good. All right. DH, batting eighth. There have been 3,500 of these in history.

Those teams also have a winning record. 18-02 to 16-8787 115 games over 500 pretty good so i started thinking ah i found something this is a thing and then i kept going and it's not a thing uh catcher batting second losing record 7 000 times in history about 160 games below 500 if you start your catcher in the second spot. Right fielder batting ninth, surprisingly common, about 10,000 times in history, and 500

games under 500, bad losing record. You don't want your right fielder batting ninth, apparently. Shortstop batting third, I thought would be a good one, and it's not. There's 300 games under 500, and then strangely catcher, so then I thought under 500. And then, strangely, catcher. So then I thought, oh, I found it.

It's the opposite. I definitely found the trend. But in fact, then I went one more and I looked at catcher's batting cleanup for no reason at all and they're 400 games over 500. So catcher batting cleanup, good. Shortstop batting third, bad.

I think we can pretty much deduce there's no trend here. Is that right yeah so uh so in the very brief look at this it does not seem to matter uh what the roster construction is or how it leads to your lineup whether your offense is is congregated in traditionally defensive positions or not doesn't seem to be a factor. However, just curious, I might someday, if I have two hours and I'm bored, waiting for a game to start or something, I might do this for every position. I'm going to try one more. I'm going to try first baseman.

Should I do first baseman batting eighth, or should I do first baseman leading off? I'd like to see batting eighth. I'd like to see the Doug Minkiewicz lineup. All right, so first baseman, batting eighth, has been involved in 5,163 wins. Okay? 5-1, 6-3 wins. Now, we're going to do the exact same thing.

Let's see how many losses they've been involved in. We don't have an answer to your WKVD question. The answer is that they have been involved in 4,976 losses. So they're slightly, slightly successful. They're ahead of the game. First baseman batting game, do it. Reds, do it. Call Tango and MGL. We have a new optimal lineup for everybody. Doesn't matter who your first baseman is, bat at me. I'm sort of surprised that this is not more telling. I am too. It means that you have a bad hitter at a normally good hitter's position,

but his position is filled by a good hitter at a bad hitter's position. So as you were saying, it maybe kind of balances out. First baseman batting leadoff, almost exactly five. Okay. All right. Let's wrap up. A question from Andy. Andy says, I feel it's fairly accepted that steroids equal more muscle mass,

equal more strength. The final translation of more strength equals better offense could have been a little more blurry. Still doesn't make you recognize pitches better. Still doesn't make you square up the ball blurry, still doesn't make you recognize pitches better, still doesn't make you square up the ball better, still doesn't make you actually hit the ball. But I don't think the argument was ever that it wouldn't make you hit the ball harder if you actually hit the ball.

It seems like the new information we have from StatCast this season links the two directly. More strength equals increased batted ball speed when you make contact equals better offensive players. Doesn't make you see the ball better, etc. But who cares? If someone can hit the ball harder, they will get better. And it sounds like a couple miles per hour make a big difference in OPS. And so he's referring to our interview with Rob Arthur from a few weeks ago.

And Rob said something like he found the relationship between batted ball speed and OPS. And it was something like every mile per hour added adds 18 points of OPS. I think off the top of my head, that was what it was. And so Andy is saying, does this give us more insight into the PED era when guys were using things that presumably made them somewhat stronger and therefore made them hit the ball harder and therefore became better players. Does this new information tell us anything that at the time we were skeptical about because we didn't have data? we were skeptical about because we didn't have data well the logic that peds would help you hit baseball uh baseball is better to me is completely untouchable it is perfect it is perfect logic

there is it like it has to it seems like you know like if you just think about it then of course doing steroids would make you a better hitter And that's why everybody assumes that they do. And that's why ballplayers do them. And that's why you and I are open to it. And generally sometimes come down on the side that they did. And the only reason that we dispute it is that there's not evidence. And people have looked there. You would think there'd be clearer evidence.

You would think that enough people have looked at this, that we would find some causation, right? He would, it should be there. It should be there in the sets. And, and other than anecdote,

it doesn't seem to be stats, right? Isn't that about right? yeah, I mean, of course it would make you stronger and make you hit the ball harder. And that would make you a better hitter. It's so obvious, and that's why it's frustrating to have to continue to hold this position that we don't know,

because we don't know. Like, there's not really evidence, and it's not like there—I don't know. If there was evidence, it should have been—seems to be found. So I think it's still ambivalent uh on the topic yeah i well i don't know it just it seems like it it varies a lot by player i mean i'm not so skeptical that that i wouldn't be comfortable saying that steroids helped some players hit better i'm you know pretty confident that that is true but you don't really you wouldn't really get the kind of effects that we saw from certain guys based on what you know rob found or what you would see in the stat

cast data like if it's 18 points of ops for every mile per hour of batted ball speed i don't know how much harder mark mcguire was hitting the ball or Barry Bonds was hitting the ball than they would have been otherwise. I mean, do you have any, do you have any guess of what the average batted ball speed of Barry Bonds was, you know, in, in our timeline relative to a timeline where he never takes anything and he just is 38 or 39 and he's playing baseball i i don't know but i mean probably not so much that statistically it would explain how he became the best hitter ever at an age when guys are declining i mean even if it was what five five miles per hour or something which is a lot like that would take you from you know a low place on the leaderboard to a high place on the leaderboard, probably. That itself would not explain how he, you know, just reached a level that no one has ever been at before.

It wouldn't explain it all, basically. There'd have to be something else. It wouldn't have harder contact, but still, you'd have to, you know, not swing at bad pitches. You'd have to have the basic hand-eye skills to make it work and everything. So, I don't know. It's still weird and confounding. But I don't think anyone ever argued that taking steroids would make you stronger, and I don't think anyone ever argued that taking steroids would make you stronger. And I don't think anyone ever argued that being stronger wouldn't help you hit the ball harder if you, if you did hit the ball. So it's that other stuff that is still sort of unexplained. Yeah.

All right. Did we ever answer a question about why guys don't take their glove off and throw it to try to knock down a home run ball automatic triple yeah but what if it's a home run ball nick wants to know why outfielders don't try to throw their gloves at home run balls well what's your guess your guess would be that the umpire can play at a home run anyway probably and i guess he could i I mean, it's hard to do, for one thing. You'd look foolish. You'd look foolish.

You'd have to have your, I mean, you'd have to have someone go get your glove. It would be, I mean, in the GIF era, it would make you an instant sensation if you did this regularly. This would be like the Bartolo Cologne batting of outfielders. If an outfielder did this consistently that would be great that'd be really fun i'd love that so i don't know it would be really hard to do and you'd look sort of silly and maybe it would be considered bush league or against the unwritten rules or something it's not uh it's not an automatic triple, by the way. It's three bases. And so presumably the runner's already got a base, right? Yeah, that's true.

So in that case, it would be a home run. That's correct. I believe, because yeah, when I was a kid, we also had this scheme in mind. And somebody convinced us that it doesn't okay and we didn't we weren't worried about gifts like we weren't worried about being bush league we weren't worried about gifts somewhere along the line a grown-up convinced me that in fact there's no edge so i'm gonna i'm gonna go with my what i just said. That sounds like a reasonable explanation. All right. We are finished. We'll have a podcast tomorrow,

probably at the regular time that you're used to podcasts appearing. You know, what's weird though? What? Two bases. If you, if you touch with your cap. Huh?

So why would it be three for a glove and two for a cap? Caps are hard to throw. It would be really hard maybe that's why maybe they looked and thought about how how likely it is that outfielders would throw things at home run balls two bases if a fielder two bases if you throw out your glove at a thrown ball so that's interesting two bases why would you even want to do that? If the throw was wild. I mean, if there was no penalty, then you could see wanting to do it, right?

Yeah. Wild. It needs to be something. But somebody put a lot of work into deciding whether it would be three or two for each of these scenarios. And you wonder why. They probably did some field testing. They went out there, they threw various articles of clothing and equipment at balls. All right, I need to correct myself. The two base for the cap is also for a thrown ball.

It's three bases if you throw your cap, mask, or any part of uniform detached from its proper place on your person at a batted ball so two bases at a thrown ball three bases at a batted ball that seems appropriate all right it's also interesting that they specifically say cap and mask they don't specifically say shoe now shoe would fall under any part of his uniform to detach from its proper place on his person. But I wonder why they decided to specify cat, but not shoe. I'd throw a shoe. Yeah, people throw shoes in other walks of life. Yeah.

Has there been a Sonoma Stomper eavesdropping on this entire conversation? Oh, no, he's asleep. Sleeping Stomper in the same room? Other room. Hmm, okay. Other side of the house. Right. Okay.

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