Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 940: Live at Saber Seminar!

Episode Date: August 15, 2016

In their first live episode of Effectively Wild, recorded on Saturday at Saber Seminar, Ben and Sam answer listener emails with help from two players, John Baker and David Aardsma.

So you thought you might like to go to the show To feel the warmth, feel our confusion, let space get glow Tell me, is something eluding you such as Is this not what you expected to see? If you want to find out what's behind these cold eyes, you'll just have to claw your way through the disguise. Good morning and welcome to episode 940 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, about to be joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus.

As Sam and I said we would last week, we did the first ever live episode of Effectively Wild this past weekend at Sabre Seminar in Boston. We closed down the day on Saturday with some help from two special guests who were in the audience. Two guys with a lot of Major League experience, John Baker and David Ardsma. John retired last year. He's now a baseball operations assistant for the Cubs. David's still pitching. He was in the majors with the Braves last year. He pitched in AAA for Toronto this season. And he's been a contributor to BaseballEssential.com. We took some old email questions that we'd never actually answered on a show,

and we asked Baker and Ardsm about them. So I hope you enjoy listening to the no longer live episode of Effectively Wild. And in just a second, you will hear our introduction on Saturday at Saber Seminar by the great Alex Speer of the Boston Globe. Next up, final act of the afternoon, we have Ben Lindberg and Sam Miller. Ben has proven unable to keep a job for any particular length of time. I think that he's now running for the ringer unless you've been fired recently.

That's right. It's still in existence. It's still around, yeah, for now. And he's been with FiveThirtyEight. He's been with Grantland. He's been with Baseball Perspectives. Sam Miller is apparently more stable, thus more attractive and employable

as someone to keep on payroll. He is the editor-in-chief at Baseball Perspectives. They wrote a book together. The only rule is it has to work. They tirelessly do a podcast together when Ben is not doing podcasts for other people who are employing him. It's a great person to subscribe. It is the Effectively Wild

podcast, which is what we're going to be getting after today, and they'll be performing a live and I think largely unscripted performance unless I'm wrong about that. So I'll turn it over to you guys. Thanks. Yes, it's an always unscripted performance. I think this is episode 940, or it will be.

And this is the first time that I've ever been able to see Sam while doing one, which is really strange. Even when we were in Sonoma last summer doing occasional podcasts while we were working on our book, we would sometimes do a podcast in the same house and then go into different rooms, or Sam would go in the backyard while I would be somewhere else, just so we wouldn't have to look at each other, mostly, I think. But we have no choice today. You can now respond to my opening banter. I'm just going to stare at you the entire time. I'm just going to look at the crowd, try to forget that you're there. So we didn't know

exactly what to do, but we figured we would take some emails and take some questions that people have asked us over the years and dive deep into the mailbag for questions that we deemed not good enough to answer three years ago. Well, we might have answered them if we had Major League Baseball players in our presence. That's right. So the nice thing about Saber Seminar is that there are all kinds of smart baseball people here that we can just call up without warning almost, which we can't normally do when I'm recording in my living room. So we figured that since we have a couple of Major League players in the audience,

we would ask them to come up and answer a couple of questions that Sam and I are unqualified to answer. First banter. Okay, go ahead. I wanted to let you know, because we are the only people who are still currently tracking Jose Canseco's career, that our scout Courtney was at a Pittsburgh Vallejo game yesterday. I heard about this.

This was a 19-1 blowout that was only ended because the sprinklers came on at midnight. So that was that game. But before the game, Jose Canseco was in a home run derby against local high schoolers. It was delayed two hours, I think. The start was delayed two hours so that the high schoolers or Canseco could get there. 14 walks in that game.

And so Jose Canseco played against local high schoolers, and he lost. He lost to Cameron Appling, who is going to be a junior in high school. And I mean, I think that, like, a lot of people would think about Jose Canseco being in a home run derby, and they would say, wow, that's, you know, that's really a no-win situation for him. Because if he wins against a high school junior you know not that exciting he was supposed to do it and if he loses then people banter about it on a podcast but i really sort of feel like this is a no-win situation for 16 year old cameron appling too because if he loses he lost but if he wins it sort of says something about what what Jose Canseco is at this point in his life, which is 53.

So it says more about Canseco than it does Cameron Appling. Yeah, well, I sort of feel like it does. I mean, if you're Cameron Appling and you are bragging about this to your friends, they'll go, wow, Jose Canseco, how old is he now? And you say, well, he's 53. And they go, and you beat him? And you go, yeah. And they go, and you beat him? And you go, yeah. And they go, okay. And, I mean, we saw Jose Gontego.

Jose Gontego can still hit the ball a very long way. We saw him hit a home run off a 90-mile-per-hour pitch by the best pitcher in our little league last year. Yeah, who's now pitching for the White Sox system. And in his defense, Vallejo has a steady 30-mile-an-hour win to right field. Jose Canseco is right-handed, and the ball doesn't carry to left field. And Cameron Appling, 16-year-old junior, is left-handed. And so I think that in his defense it helps.

But I just feel like in a way, if you're a 16-year-old going up against Jose Canseco in a home run derby, you want him to beat you. You want him to beat you not too bad. You want him to be close, but you want him to put on a show because then you can really believe that the power of Canseco is still in there. He's still Canseco. I don't know. That's how I felt.

I was really excited for Cameron and then I thought about it. Now I'm not excited for anybody. Well, you once drove Jose Canseco. I did. For two hours. Yeah. That's a story not many people can tell. It's not that interesting a story to tell, to be honest. Yeah, I did. And I always try to think of something new to say about it other than he was in my car. Yeah. Big man in a small car. Yeah. The traffic. I mean, it always ends up being a story about the traffic.

So that's how exciting it was. All right. Should we bring up a big leaguer? All right. Okay. So we've got John Baker over here, who everyone saw earlier today. John, welcome back to the stage. Can I sit down?

Yeah. Yeah. I have to say that the other day I received a video from a mutual friend of ours, Jose Canseco throwing knuckleballs on the mound, and apparently walking everybody. The knuckleball was okay. It was when he would go to his, I guess his secondary stuff was his fastball. It was about 72, and it was like a little sort of sidearm job. Like he was trying to,

it was almost like the throw you make when you're the pitcher, you get a comeback and you're turning a double play, but the shortstop's not there yet and you're sort of like, that's how he throws his fastball. The knuckleball was pretty good though. It was credible. I mean, we had worse knuckleball pitchers in that league than Jose

Contigo. That says a lot. Yeah. That says a lot about the – what is the title of the league? California Independent League? Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Teams. Is that right? That's right.

It's actually a – in my view, after seeing all those – after seeing all the professional Major League Baseball games, the stuff that I've been to in my career, going there last year, it took my dad when I went and saw you guys' team play. And I went there last year, and I hate to say this for the rest of professional baseball, but I had more fun at that game in San Rafael with the atmosphere, even though there was that little field out in center field. Yeah, the cooler softball field, yeah. Yeah, there was really good craft beer at it.

The environment was great. I mean, Phil Lesch sang the national anthem. I don't understand how people here, I don't know if you haven't been, that's definitely something I would add. If you ever take a trip to California and you have to go to Napa or something, you have to. If you get to go on vacation in Northern California in the summer, go check that league out because it was

fortunate. Ben suggested that I come up and check it out. I suggested that you come up and un-retire and play for us. He wanted to see how many times I could continue to ground out to second base. Were we close? Because for like a day we thought maybe we were going to get you. Like maybe.

I would have put our chances at like maybe 36% that you were going to play the final series. A little bit lower than that, I think. I would have going to get you. Maybe. I would have put our chances at maybe 36% that you were going to play the final series. A little bit lower than that, I think. I would have had to get some strict prompting from my wife

to say go do it because she was so happy that we were actually home. We had moved. I was telling this earlier. We had moved 27 times in the last 10 years. And so I was finally home.

And I think in her mind, going to play more baseball would have mind, going to play more baseball would have led to going to play more baseball, though I know that wasn't true. That would have been, that would have been, that would have been a good way for me to go out. And in hindsight, that might be my one regret is not playing for local California team. We could have got you a good host family. I could have been in Money Bowl and your book at the same time. You're the only guy ever, right? That's true. No, David Forrest is in our book. That's true.

Really? Yeah, because he gave Sean Conroy a triumvirate. Sent a scout out. Drafts, David Forrest. You asking questions? Am I asking questions? Yeah, I'll ask you questions. All right, so this is actually maybe a top three or four question we get.

We get it pretty steadily every three weeks or so. And we hardly ever answer it because we don't really know the answer. But everybody wants to know if catchers have an advantage when they face pitchers that they once caught. Because, I mean, you've seen the pitches a million i mean partly you know the you know they're thinking but you've actually seen the pitch you've seen the arm slot a million times you've you know you should be able to time them does it work yeah i think that there's an interesting like psychological battle at play because there's more on the line because that's the one relationship like in baseball nobody talks a lot of trash to

each other about how they did like you see some posturing sometimes on the field but if you were out and you ran into somebody that you'd played against in a bar on the street they would never bring up oh that remember that time i struck you out or like you got a hit off me or it would always be self-deprecating in that way like oh man cole hamels i never want to see you again you know but in this situation it's a bit different because that never want to see you again you know but in this situation it's a bit different because that's the one time you'll see some of that back and forth banter and those bragging rights happen so um it's a similar feeling to when you have to hit against the position player like the nerves that get the nerves that come in because everybody in

the crowd expects oh this guy like you know i've had a chance to throw 75 miles an hour on the mound in the big leagues. And I watch people not get hits off of that, and I thought, wow, that's exactly how I felt when I was trying to do that. I had a horrible experience one time in double A striking out against a position player. The guy threw an Ephus pitch, and I took it.

I'll never forget it. Todd Menzik was his name. He was playing for the Frisco Rough Riders. Adrian Gonzalez was the first baseman in that game. And he throws this, like, loopy Ephus pitch, 0-2, and it goes in and strikes out, and it just ruined my life. I threw my bat off the wall. I handled the rook off.

Part of it stuck into the pitching coach's chest. And I was seriously, like, and then we had a couple times in my career where, you know, as the backup towards the end, we're getting blown out, and the Cardinals bring in, like, Daniel Descalso to pitch, and then I get told by the manager, hey, you know, if Welly's gonna, if the other catcher's gonna

hit this inning, you're gonna pinch hit for him. And I was just getting so nervous. I'm like, I was, this is the most nervous I've ever been on the baseball field. So you have some of those nerves when you face one of your friends. And I don't know, it makes it more exciting. So I don't know that you have an advantage because those nerves come into play. And when you're catching, too, you're seeing it from a completely different angle, right? And you also know, you also have in the back of your mind, like, some of the times they've been really good.

And you know, like, oh, man, I'm facing Josh Johnson or something. I remember having that at bat where I caught him a bunch. And then I faced him and I got to the batter's box. And I was a little, not intimidated, but just not sure of myself the first day of being there. I saw a couple pitches. And then I was okay and I was normal against him again. But, yeah, it's a weird, weird place to be. I think that for me, the number one guy that I can think about is Joe Blanton, because

we came up together with the A's. He moved out to Northern California, and I caught him every offseason. And then we found ourselves in the same division two different times, where he was with the Dodgers, I was with the Padres, and he was with the Phillies, and I was with the Marlins. So I got a ton of bats against him with limited success. And so I would say that it's probably more difficult to hit somebody that you know really well than somebody that you don't know. It's easy to point your hate on people that you don't know.

The moment you know them, you start to worry and you build up this idea that he's better than maybe he is. So when you pitched, you pitched in a game that mattered. It was the 16th inning, according to my computer. And you faced three batters. You got the first guy out, you walked a second, and then you got a double play. And so Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs has written about the sort of bizarre success that position players have had pitching collectively.

Like, I think they have a collective ERA of, like, seven, which is, like, Jose Lima had, like, multiple worse than that jose lima was a very good pitcher and um so is that that by the time position players come in nobody's trying anymore is it because it's just so different that like it takes you a plate appearance or two to get used to it or is it that major league position players are actually, like, have good enough arms that they could carry a 7 or 8 or maybe a 9 ERA persistently? I think it's because, like, if you watch batting practice in the big leagues,

you'll watch guys like, we used to always joke about Chase Hedley. Chase Hedley hits the same in BP that he does in the game. Like, he hits, like, 260 in batting practice. He would go up, he'd give him a hard time. The year he hit, the year I played with him, he hit 31 homers and led the National League in RBIs. And if you watched batting practice. He would go off and give him a hard time. The year he hit it, the year I played with him, he hit 31 homers and led the National League in RBIs. And if you watched batting practice,

you'd be like, that's the worst player I've ever seen. We just broke a bat. We'd laugh at him in the outfit. Like, oh, there goes Chase again, breaking bats and beating me. But the point being that it's even, like bad batting practice is a real thing. That's a real thing. Like you'll hear hitters complain about it all the time. You'll watch major league players that, you know, even like bad batting practice is a real thing. That's a real thing.

Like you'll hear hitters complain about it all the time. You'll watch major league players that, you know, hit 300 on the season and hit 35 home runs and have these great years. And you watch them take BP and you see things like Chase Hudley. So like when I got to pitch, that was my thought in my head was like, I've heard so many of my teammates complain about somebody throwing 50 mile an hour batting practice that if I can throw

bad enough batting practice, I've got a real shot at being successful. And so that's basically what I did. And I think that that's the fact. You know, you have this weirdness factor and then the added embarrassment of making an out against a position player or, in my case, striking out looking.

You add that embarrassment to it, it adds just like a bizarre, stressful situation that you never practiced for, and I think it lends itself to some certain success like that. All right, the next question is about trick plays, and this question is not in response to the play that I'm going to describe, but I was just watching a play from, I think, last year, where somebody's singled, Juan Uribe went around to third, ball comes in, James Loney cuts it off at the mound, everybody's done with the play, it's like the play's over, and Loney just casually tosses it to the shortstop, and the shortstop casually

tosses it to Evan Mongoria, who's standing two feet behind Uribe, and his foot comes off the bag, you know, tiny bit, and Mongoria tags him out. And it's this brilliant play where they got the out the umpire saw it coming and it's sort of like a modified hidden ball trick and obviously that has to be planned you have to practice that or talk about it at least and so this question that we got some time ago was how many teams of the 30 have, in this moment, some trick play in their arsenal? And if it's normal, like every team has a trick play that they're just waiting for the right moment or that they at least rehearse once in spring training, how broad or how varied are they? I think that often or defensively like that, I don't think that there's very many.

I bet you one or two teams have actually thought about it and practiced it. like that, I don't think that there's very many. I bet you one or two teams have actually thought about it and practiced it. I would argue that they in that situation with the Rays, that is probably something specific for someone like Juan Uribe being on base. That's one of the ways to look at this, seriously. You'll have times

where you'll know there's guys that don't pay attention on the bases, and those will be highlighted in meetings ahead of time, and then they'll say, okay, that's an opportunity where if we can get him, especially after some success, a guy hits a double and he's on the mound you know doing like the whatever their horns or whatever that's going on now once that happens we just hold on to the ball maybe for a little bit and they step off we might tag him out now they definitely every team has him on offense every team has him on offense a lot of teams

especially run that uh left-handed pick off to first on a first and third situation. The guy runs home. I think we at the Cubs executed it like 10 days ago. They ran that play. We had that same play with the Marlins when I played there. We had the same play when I was in San Diego. So there's a couple offensive trick plays, like trying to steal extra bases or extra runs. But the hidden ball trick, in my experience, I never saw practice once.

Do you practice the offensive ones in spring training? Is it something you rehearse more than once, or does everybody just know their role and somebody goes, you do this and you do that? Usually it happens a couple times in spring training. I'll have a day or two where they work on it. When I was playing for the Marlins, it was called the Hawk play because Andre Dawson brought it up one day. When's like when he brings something up in spring training whatever your schedule was when he starts talking and he's like we don't run this play

and they're like yes we are so everybody to field one really quick and we run over and we ran that play because he had run it successfully and the sign was like the third base coach actually ran it I think unsuccessfully in a game but yeah you practice it I would say

just like fun plays or something they practice it two or three times in spring training and then they just don't think that they're ever going to use it until they do I know that you know being with the Cubs organization now all those players understand that literally anything could happen in the game so they're always they're always-aware that a play like that might be on because Joe's not afraid to roll dice at any time in the game. Is it at all considered Bush to do a trick play? I don't think so. I don't think so.

You know, that's an interesting thing to bring up, like what's Bush and what's not Bush, especially in the context of competition at the highest level. And I used to be somebody that thought that guys shouldn't steal at certain times or you shouldn't run plays like that. But the older I've gotten and the more I've watched baseball, the more I've realized that 27 outs are precious. And anything that you can do within the rules of the game to make those plays or get outs,

in my opinion, should be game on and fair. And it should be regardless of what the score of the game is. I've gotten more and more into the idea of I don't understand why you don't just steal if you want to steal if that's there then you should take it um you know it could be like running the score up in college football um but at the same time why not it's easier to play baseball if you play the same way all the time instead of having to limit yourself to different mindsets and different situations and this guy when he comes in, now we've got to throw all the fastballs because we're up by 10, I think that's BS now. And I also think that all of those trick plays are fair game and they're on, because when

you're trying to do something like we're trying to do, or you're trying to win a World Series for the first time since 1908, then you've got to do everything that you possibly can to win. And I believe that 100% wholeheartedly. It sounds a little bit funny, but no, I think those are in, and you're dumb if you get caught in that play. All right, and the last question for you is, what's the deal with box?

So I actually, no, to get a little more specific though, the idea behind a boxalk is that you're not supposed to deceive the runner right that's like what you know is like the one sentence description of what is a balk and the other day santiago casilla had a walk-off balk where he was delivering a pitch his spike caught and he sort of staggered and then you know the pitch was like unnatural there's no deception there There's no gain on his part. He threw a bad pitch. It's weird to think that the runners deserve an extra base for that.

And it's also sort of weird to think that there would be a prohibition on deceiving runners because a lot of holding a runner on is deceiving runners. So what is the deal? That's a great question. I don't know. I'm trying to think about when they conceived that and what the idea was. Because, yeah, there is a lot of stuff that goes on to try to deceive the runner, like intentionally trying to deceive the runner.

You watch guys come set and bob their head a couple times. I mean, there's a move to first base that's called a bach move. Like, that's the name of the move. It's a bach move. And it's when a right-handed pitcher comes set and he slightly buckles his left knee right before he throws the ball to the plate or slightly buckles one of his legs before he goes, trying to give the

runner the idea that he's going to go to the plate. That's why you see the back leg bend, like he's going to drive home, and then they spin and throw the ball to first base. And that rarely gets called a bach. That rarely gets called a bach. And guys do that all the time. If you were going to follow home, and then they spin and throw the ball to first base. And that rarely gets called a balk. That rarely gets called a balk. And guys do that all the time. If you were going to follow the letter of the law, I think that there would be that law.

There would be a lot more balks in baseball. And I think that a lot of the umpires disregard a lot of them. When I was catching a lot of times, the other big one that they get people on all the time is they don't come to a complete stop. He's not coming to a complete stop. And if you're on the field every once in a while, you can hear the... That's one of the things that gets shouted out of the dugout, just out of nowhere. Make him stop! Make him stop!

They want to get him out of second base. You hear that yelling. Most of the time, how the umpires handle it, the home plate umpires, they would tell me in my ear, hey, listen, he's not coming to a complete stop. Call timeout and go tell him so I don't have to call Bob because they don't want to deal with me either. Except for Bob. Bob's the one. Bob Davidson. That was game on for him. He loved it. Which is, Bob Davidson and Joe West are also my arguments against robot umpires. So today if you don't have those two guys, it's like, who are the people in the stands going to yell at?

The hate is going to turn towards the players more. So let's keep those big umpire personalities around. I know a lot of people, like I see Keith on TV, he doesn't like the ump show. I'm a huge fan of the ump show. I want Greg Gibson with his mask off just yelling in the dugout recklessly and ridiculously because I feel like that's a big part of baseball, and that's what makes it fun, that back-and-forth banter between the coach and the umpire and the players and the fans and the fans and the umpire. I saw somebody, some poor fan got ejected the other day from the all-in Bob Davidson.

But, yeah, so to answer your question in a really long-winded, tangential way, I have no idea what the hell is wrong with Bocs. Would you, if you were writing baseball's rules from scratch, would you have a Boc rule? Would you have any Boc rule? Are there things that you think are necessary? I mean, you ran the bases. It's not like you were Billy Hamilton or anything, but you ran the bases. Did you appreciate Boc rules? Or if they left, would it just be part of the strategy, the game? I think it would stay part of it. It it just be part of the strategy of the game? I think it would

just be part of the strategy of the game if they left but I do think it's a good idea to have somebody come set on the mound in the stretch with a guy on base.

I think that's a good one to keep. Not just for the base runner but because that kind of signifies to the defense when to be ready to play and

if you just Pedro stroked it and went right through it all the time guys will get caught off balance on defense. I think it kind of helps the rhythm of the baseball game is the guy coming set. So that's the one. I don't mind that one. I don't mind it. And I think, too, for the hitter as well, because when you have guys that are quick to the plate, you know, guys that are one second to the plate, and you're

in the batter's box trying to time the pitcher, if that guy goes really fast, just, you know, throws the ball from his hip, like I believe it was Luis Ayala, box trying to time the pitcher. If that guy goes really fast, just throws the ball from his hip, like I believe it was Luis Ayala. He used to be the closer for the Nationals, Luis. Anyway, he did that to me one time where he threw a ball. I looked up and the ball was coming. I got freaked out because I'm not going to get hit. I wasn't even paying attention.

There it is, strike three. Like, that sucks. That's like almost too much trickery as opposed to straight up playing. And I'm all for hitting ball tricks and stuff like that, but just giving the guy enough time to be set. Everybody, the whole field, enough time to be set. Now the play can happen. I do respect that Baccaro. You can't just roll through your set and throw the ball because it throws the timing of the whole game off, in my opinion.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Play Index. All right. So every week we do this Play Index segment. It's partially because Baseball Reference pays us to, but not really. It's mostly because we love Baseball Reference and the Play Index, and we'd probably do it for free.

Hopefully they're not here hearing that. But usually, often it's inspired by a listener email. So in this case, it was. This was an email from Brian, who's been waiting over three years for an answer. Sorry, Brian. He said a couple weeks ago, maybe a couple weeks and three years ago, you talked about the 21 pitchers who had zero career innings pitched in the majors, including the inestimable Larry Yount, who hurt himself warming up and never faced an actual batter.

I was wondering what the shortest possible career was for a position player, and if anyone has actually achieved it. My best guess was a player who was announced as a pinch hitter, but then replaced by another pinch hitter before he actually got to bat and then never appeared again. Does this guy exist? Yeah. So, I mean, I think most of us have some familiarity with very, very short careers, like guys who only appeared on defense, who only appeared as pinch runners. But I was interested in Brian's question specifically. I'm also very interested in the pinch hit or no plate appearance as a phenomenon. So this was like really my sweet spot. So I went to see if anybody ever has had a career that was a pinch hitting appearance in which he

was pinch hit for and nothing else. And there are 23 guys whose major league debut was a pinch hitting appearance where they were then immediately pinch hit for. Just like, that's a crazy debut, right? Like, does your dad call you? How many text messages are waiting for you at that point? And the most famous player on this list is Bobby Abreu. And by far the best career is Bobby Abreu. But most of these guys, a lot of them, I know their names because they had reasonably long careers.

And I went through all of them, the 23, and there were some short careers, but there was none where that was the only played appearance. And the closest by far to what Brian is describing, and maybe arguably the shortest career by one way of looking at it, is Sean Mulligan. And so Sean Mulligan is a extremely handsome man who debuted with the San Diego Padres in 1996. Does anybody here know why Sean Mulligan is famous? Otherwise, anybody? No. All right, good. There's a little twist at the end of this. Little tiny twist. So Sean Mulligan came up for September call-ups in 1996. And in his first game against the Expos, he pinch hit.

They changed pitchers. He was pinch hit for. He went home. And that was his career up to that date. And then five days later, he got his second appearance. And this time he actually got to bat. And so this ruins it for Brian's sake. But he pinch hit in the ninth inning against Danny Jackson and swung at the first pitch and grounded to the pitcher, which is the fewest pitches you can see in a plate appearance and really kind of the fewest

amount of hitting you can do. And he was thrown out, and he never appeared again. He played a couple more years in the minors after that, and then he played four years in Indy Ball, and then he ended his career playing in Italy, and that was his career. And so that is two games, one played appearance, one pitch. And so that's probably the closest that I can come to an answer to Brian's question. And so I will say that Sean Mulligan is the answer. The other reason that Sean Mulligan is famous is the next year Kevin Towers traded him for a treadmill.

And not a very good treadmill. And not a very good treadmill. This is the quote from Kevin Towers not long after he got the treadmill. Quote, damaged goods. Kevin Towers complained, that thing broke down in about a month.

It would stop and you'd go into the wall. But he only played seven games in double-A or seven plate appearances, I think, in double-A for Cleveland. So it's not like they got a ton out of it. Who won that trade. Yeah, exactly. Who filed the grievance.

So, I don't know. I love these little careers. Have you ever talked to John Sanders? John Sanders is a scout for the Dodgers. He's one of the great scouts in the game. And he's a friend of BP. He, uh, anybody who's read Nate Silver's book, Single and the Noise would recognize John Sanders as a scout that Nate watched a game with. And he had a career that was a one pitch, pinch running appearance. career that was one pinch running appearance. I always love those plate appearances and they seem so profound. Then I always try to find more and the story just kind of dies.

I don't know. It always seems like it has more potential but then John Sanders goes on and has a 50 year career. It's like a really super valuable part of a really great organization. Sean Mulligan I could not find a single thing about after his career. That was it.

Now we're talking about him. There you go. All right. That's the play index. So are there any major league pitchers in the house? Oh, there's one. All right. All right.

So while David Artsma joins us, I know we're over time here. Dan said we could do that. Normally, we're a podcast, so you can just press pause and we'll stop talking. Or you can delete us and we'll never talk again. So if you have to, you can always leave. But we're going to keep talking for a little while longer. So David Artsma, I believe, what, eight teams in a nine-year career? You've seen quite a bit of the major leagues.

We have a couple pitching questions for you now. First, I guess we should ask what you think about box. Have you balked? I have balked. I don't know if I've balked a run-in, but personally, I hate box. You shouldn't be able to stop. You can do whatever you want.

Screw that. Do anything you want. These guys take their time. No, but you know what? I do agree with being able to stop I think should be a standard. But after that, man, cross your leg. If you can get the ball over the point and get somebody out, good for you. If you've got the talent to be able to go and move any way you want and cross your leg and throw it off the top of your head, go for it.

If you want to look like an idiot, but as long as you're getting outs, go for it. I like that attitude. Yeah, because the thing about Bucs is that i don't know if this is the case with players but just watching from home you often can't tell what the buck was or you know sam did an article a few years ago about just trying to identify a box and he found that a lot of the time no one realizes that a buck happened like literally yeah like there are times where the announcers don't even realize a buck has happened and like 12 minutes later they'll update you that a balk happened first? Like, literally, yeah. Like, there are times where the announcers don't even realize a balk has happened, and, like, 12 minutes later, they'll update you that a balk had happened.

Like, they just think it was a delayed steal. The worst is when you're down in the bullpen, and the game stops, and all of a sudden you see the runner go to second. You're like, the hell just happened? Like, that's a crud. Like, what? Make him go back.

And then on TV, yeah, it always happens about three pitches later. Like, oh, yeah, so he picked up his leg a little too quick. You know, there's no explanation. What I love is the 45-degree rule. The left-handed pitcher 45-degree rule that we all know that's the rule, but yet nobody, it's actually no rule. There's no rule that you can't go 45 degrees. It's almost a made-up, like, we've got to think about it right there.

And then, honestly, an umpire will look you in the eye and say, no, there's no 45-degree rule, but I'll call it on him. All right, so do away with box. That's the David Artsman solution for fixing baseball. All right, so we've got a question from Mike, who has been waiting a little more than three years for his answer. He says, in games where there's a drizzle going, pitchers have an infinite amount of moisture

available to manipulate the ball. Not the same kind of greasy moisture that suntan lotion would provide, but a completely natural source of liquid solution. How much of an advantage does rain give a pitcher? As beautiful as it sounds, no, it's miserable. It's the worst thing ever. No, no, because you want the tackiness.

That's the key. That's what pine tar gives you. That's what sun, you know, a lot of people use sunscreen, but it's sunscreen and rosin. That's the key. If it's just sunscreen, it's no bueno. But no, you need the sunscreen and rosin.

You need the tackiness. So a lot of times, though, that drizzle is actually pretty miserable because it makes the ball a little too slick. You know, it's great if you're, you know, maybe throwing knuckleballs or you're back in 1980 and you're trying to move the ball over the place when you're actually trying to throw it straight or struggling with control, like I usually were.

You know, I need to know where that ball is going. And when it's raining, I've got no chance. Okay. All right, we've got a question from Jerome who says, in the lifetime of a major league pitcher, how many overall pitches would you estimate he will throw from his birth until death? This includes every level of competitive baseball and every practice, warm-up, and game. I won't ask you to predict when your death will occur, but...

How many pitches do you think that he has thrown in competitive baseball? We could break this down, I guess. This is like one of those Google interview questions that you have to come up with a huge number off the top of your head. I don't know if we could break it down into, I guess, what percentage of your pitches are in-game

pitches? Well, I would say for every pitch I throw in-game, I'm probably throwing two to three beforehand. And you're playing catch, and I'm a person that I was – I had to be – I'm having to be dragged off the field. You know, I want to throw all day long, and I remember this year with Bob Stanley as my pitching coach. He was, like, going to wring my neck.

Because I think a lot of pitching coaches hate me because they actually have to be on the field longer than they want to be. And they're having to sit there and watch me, and I'm still out there and they're like, dude, seriously, come on. It's about time to get off the field. But I'm saying probably at least twice, three times more I'm throwing off the field than you're throwing every day.

And last year in Atlanta, I'm warming up five times a game. With the Mets or Terry Collins, I was warming up a lot. So there's know, with the Mets, with Terry Collins, I was warming up a lot. So there's triple as many throws I'm going right there. Can you see how many pitches David has thrown? Yeah, that's 12,000 as a professional, including minors and majors. So that's 24, and then, you know, what, 36 probably.

Yeah. You know, 36 and just probably a pro. And then I'm looking at high school. That's not good. You could get hurt doing that. That's not one of those things you suggest. You think about it. I've got a couple kids. My kids are 3

and 6 and I'm thinking, God, I want them to be pitchers obviously. You start filling out numbers like that and you go, God, no wonder why people get hurt. And now you've got all these kids just going crazy in all the travel leagues and throwing as hard as you can all the time. You know, when I was coming up and when I was a kid, it was about getting outs and it was about throwing to your spot and trying to get an out as fast as you can.

And now it's like, well, let's see how hard we can throw first and then maybe get some outs along the way. So I can't imagine those kids growing up like that your whole life. When you were 11, how many pitches do you think you would throw in a week, including in your backyard? Well, okay, so if I was 11 and I'm playing probably two games a week and I'm pitching probably five, you know, five innings, you know, each game, so probably 15 pitches that game and then next game probably about 15 more, so probably 30.

No, seriously. You're looking at, you know, but then I think it was great. I actually got really lucky. I found some great people, some great coaches, and my parents were awesome about it. I was not one of those kids that just ran out there. I wanted to be a third baseman for some stupid reason. An outfielder, that was my goal, and then I realized that I was way skinnier and way taller than the third baseman and the outfielder,

and I happened to have an arm and I couldn't hit. I moved over to pitching once I was really kind of like sophomore year in high school. I always pitched on the side, So I would have a pitching coach. We worked on mechanics and did all that stuff. And so I would probably throw 30 pitches, you know, 30 pitches in a bullpen, probably another 30 pitches warming up, 30 throws warming up. But I didn't actually, I never pitched a game until my sophomore year in high school.

Wow. But I was always pitching. I was always throwing, and we were practicing. I had great pitching coaches and ex-major leaguers teaching me how to pitch, but I never pitched. Then it kind of came in that transition time when I realized I was 140 pounds that I wasn't going to, you know, our other third baseman was like 220 pounds. I wasn't going to out-pitch him.

So I had to figure out some way to stay on and play baseball. All right. I got one more. This one comes from Danny. And he says he was watching a game. He saw something that happens all the time. He decided to finally ask someone about it. And we finally decided to answer. So he says Clayton Kershaw threw a pitch.

It was a fastball. It was dead center. The x-axis of the zone up and down. But maybe an inch too far inside. I think he has his x and y axes reversed. It was almost perfectly placed, but it missed. It was a ball. It was called a strike, while technically it shouldn't have been. It immediately cut to a shot of Clint Hurdle chomping on his gum next to the steps of the dugout between hollering something about the call at the umpire. He was set down in the dugout so that just about everything from his chest up

was above the playing field, the way most people in the dugout are, I guess, essentially leaving his eyes about exactly as high off the ground as the strike zone. How the hell do coaches and players in the dugout know that a pitch is off the plate by inches when it's within the boundary of the zone on the y-axis? What are they responding to?

Are they responding to the reaction of the batter? Are they reacting to the movement of the catcher? Are their eyes that finely tuned after watching thousands of pitches? I don't understand it. You know, I'm rarely in the dugout. Usually, if I come down to the dugout, I'm usually being sent right back into the locker room. From the bullpen, I think we have a great idea of exactly where every pitch is. But no, I would say honestly it has a lot to do with, one, when you see something thousands and thousands of times, you know, what did you say, 12,000 times from my throws, just me, you start getting an idea of where things are, predictability, right?

You know, that's how hitters hit, is predictability. You see it more often, you know, the better chance you can have. But what we're really watching is you're watching the reaction of the catcher. I'm watching their arms. I'm watching their shift. Even if they're set up inside, I can see right where they're set up, and I'm watching their butts and their knees. And if they shift a little bit over to try to get that ball more centered on their body

and make it look like a strike, that's a ball. You know, they're shifting over to catch it, to square it up, to give the appearance of the strike. I watch a lot of times a lot of people go, God, where was that bitch, you know, outside corner? You know, what's that strike? Well, no, watch his arm. You know, when the catcher's having to kind of move just a little bit in,

he's trying to pull it back. Watch the body. Watch the arms. Watch how they shift and watch how they move. And that's how you get the ideas. Or even the hitter, you know. And sometimes, you know, Clint's probably going after it and backing his hitter. And that's a good thing about Clint.

I've heard a lot is he's right there for his players and people love him. And so when the hitter reacts to a pitch, he kind of has to react. He can't sit there and be stone- faced and be like, well, you know, obviously my hitter's wrong. Even if the hitter's wrong, he's got to kind of jump out there and be like, no, no, no, that's a ball. Come on. You know that's a ball, even though he

knows it's probably a strike. You have to back the player in and be the manager. Be that guy. I have a somewhat similar question, and I don't know if you ever had to chart pitches from the dugout, but are those, those seem like useless to me because of the same, you have the same problem. You're, you're, you have a kind of a bad angle. I mean,

I would watch guys chart with the stompers and like they were calling fast balls, change ups. And I mean, like you're kind of faking it. Does anybody actually look at those? I think, I think the idea behind that, and it's not really nowadays. When you start getting into higher professional baseball, because now we have every number we know. We know exactly what every pitch was in minor leagues down to A ball pretty much, or whatever track man is.

The idea is to keep the pitcher involved in the game. Keep them actually watching. Because I know if I'm down in the dugout and I'm a starter and I've got nothing to do for three hours and the pace of the game, I'm not paying attention to many pitches. It's going to be tough for me. But if I'm given something and they're like, David, you have to watch every pitch, I'm like,

well, now I've actually got to pay attention. And so it helps you. And actually one thing I really liked was, you you know Greg Maddox used to do that but a lot of major league pitchers do this is go to the locker room and watch the game on TV because you're actually watching it from the angle that you're going to be seeing so instead of sitting in the dugout

which is great because you get to have the conversation and you get to talk and you're paying attention you're getting the flow of the game and now you can talk to the catcher, how are people looking, how are people appearing. But you want to see it from your – you're seeing something different, and that's the same angle you're seeing from the mound. So I want to know how they're reacting to the pitch.

I want to know are they looking to try to go away, and I want to watch their feet, and I want to watch their shoulders, and watch their hands, and see how they're looking, and see what they're trying to do. And a lot of the best pitchers like to watch from that angle so they get a reaction when they're on the mound, how to approach the hitter. And also, I got a question. What about Adam

Greenberg? Adam Greenberg? Adam Greenberg, the Cub, and Marlon. Where he had one at bat, got hit in the head. Oh, jeez. Got hit in the head. That was his only at bat until the move made him get him in the one at bat, got hit in the head. Oh, jeez. Got hit in the head. That was his only at bat until the movement and get him in the second at bat. Yeah. I don't know.

If he wouldn't have had that second at bat. That would have been a category. That would have been the guy. He would have been in the category for sure. You never balked a runner on. No. I check. Two balks.

Both times he's a runner on second. Yes. You know what here's the problem is um without giving up my proprietary information um what i'm trying to do the what boxed me especially with runner on second is the catcher and um i can have a probably probably a private conversation i want to tell everybody what my signs are from the catcher because I think mine are pretty unique. The way my signs are from the catcher... That's a challenge. I think it's actually really simple. The beauty is in the simplicity.

It's that it doesn't matter. Everybody can be watching. All you need is that one millisecond when they don't watch and you know what the pitch is. But the idea is that if a catcher pauses to think about what the pitch is, because a lot of times, like, okay, so outs plus one. So one out, you're giving the second sign. Or, you know, strikes plus one, whatever normal the standard is.

Some catchers will pause and think about the pitch and then give you a pitch. Well, that pause, that might have been, you know, for me, whatever the last sign was, was the sign. So I'll start coming up, and then they give me another sign, and it just catches you off guard. And you don't think to just continue and come set and then go. You want to get the sign, and you don't think anybody saw you, but everybody sees you. Everybody sees you, and everybody's yelling at at you and you're getting made fun of. No, for me, that's always what it is. It's actually the catcher gun.

I'm looking out your box to see how you find it. No, because the beauty of it is you need the perfect angle to know exactly what it was. All right. Yeah. I don't know what I'm going to tell you now then I'd have to come up with a different sign all three listeners

give me about five years when I retire maybe John will tell me do you know it? I know, it'll have to be figured out that's the beauty though. Do you know it? I know. It'll have to be figured out. That's the beauty, though, is anybody can actually know it, but to actually catch it is different. All right.

Well, thank you for your insight. Well, thank you. All right. Thanks to John. Thanks to David. Anything else you want to say before we wrap it up? I just have one question for you. This was an email that I found that we never answered.

This has been in the years since you have been choosing, so I can blame you for us not answering it. I don't know why we didn't answer it. But the question is, if a monkey could be trained to bat in the field and have a positive war, should it be trained to bat in the field and have a positive war. Should it be allowed to play? I mean, I don't see why not. I think the key is how positive is the war.

I think it's like a one and a half win player. To me, the restrictions that you put on these, like, if you're a, like a, like a, if you're a boxer and you're boxing in, like, a 160-pound class and you're, like, 130, you're still allowed in the 160, right? You just can't be over it. So if the monkey was, like, below average, I think it would be hard to keep the monkey out and it would be... Be a good draw. Yeah, it'd be a good draw.

I mean, people love their bud, so I think he'd be good for the game. Yeah, sure. I'm in favor. Dan? Oh. You didn't have to say that. We were done. All right.

All right. Thanks, everyone. All right, so I hope you enjoyed listening to that. I've been kicking myself ever since for not answering that last question with a reference to Ed, 1996, Matt LeBlanc classic, which would have won all the Razzies that year,

if not for Showgirls coming out the same year. Ed's about a chimpanzee, not a monkey, but still very much a baseball movie, probably relevant to that question. Thanks to Dan Brooks and Chuck Korb for having us and for putting on Saber Seminar. I had a lot of fun as always. The event raised a lot of money for charity as always. If you went to Saber Seminar, hopefully you'll be back next year. And if you've never been, you should go. Go to saberseminar.com for more information. It's every August in Boston. It's always a great time.

Don't miss it. And by the way, that question about trick plays was from Luis. The question about box was from Paul. So thanks to everyone who sent those questions long ago. And thanks to John and David for helping us out. You can find John on Twitter at ManBearWolf. And you can find David on Twitter at TheDA53. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. Five listeners who have done so already,

Eric Sorensen, Jonathan Arkless, David Medcalf, Daniel Gordon, and Ben Clemens. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild, and you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

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You can buy our book, The Only Rule Is It Has To Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. Get more information at theonlyrulesithastowork.com. Please leave us a review on Amazon and Goodreads

if you like it. And you can contact me and Sam by emailing us at podcastatbaseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. So we'll be back with our answers to more recently sent emails later this week. Scored in through the foyer You will resume your callow ways But I was meant for the stay