Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 952: Dave Roberts Did What?

Episode Date: September 11, 2016

Ben, Sam, and Los Angeles Times Dodgers beat writer Andy McCullough discuss Dave Roberts’ decision to remove Rich Hill after seven perfect innings on Saturday.

I won't fail, I won't flop, stall or stutter, yes, I won't stop. It takes hard work to be like this, you should know, cause I'm a perfectionist. Perfection. Perfection. Thank you, that's just me. Perfection. Thank you, this is perfection Hello and welcome to episode 952 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast of Baseball Perspectives Presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectives, hello

Yo And we are joined today by Andy McCullough, Dodgers beat writer for the LA Times. Hello, Andy. Hey, what's up, man? AJ Pruszynski might be retiring. Emergency podcast. Yeah, that's why we're here. Did you guys know that, slightly related, did you guys know that Jeff Francoeur was still playing baseball?

Yeah, he's been in the news lately, so I did. I wouldn't have known. Yeah, he's been in the news lately, so I did. I wouldn't have known. I mean, if three weeks had gone by without me seeing his name, I would have sworn he retired in 2013. Wait, why has he been in the news? John Boyce wrote about him. That's the main thing.

I don't know if that counts as news. I don't know. Well, didn't he double off Kershaw yesterday or something? That counts as being in the news i've just i've seen his name like there there are a lot of guys who are acting like i just found out that he was traded so that was one thing that too i just found out tom gorzolani was active and i only found out because it was like a hey did you know tom gorzolani's still active so like frank or could easily fell into that bucket where, like, if I don't hear your name for three weeks, I assume you're retired. But I just keep hearing Frenchie's name.

Yeah, and in relatively, relatively related news, I think Joe Nathan is the Giants' closer now, is it? Is he their closer? He is definitely on their team. He might. I mean, I don't know. There's some symmetry there back to Piers Niskey. This was a great podcast, guys. I'll talk to you next week.

Yeah, I'm glad we all did this after midnight on the East Coast so we could reminisce about Frank Gore and Joe Nathan. So we have convened this emergency weekend podcast. Podcast court is in session because it turns out that removing Ross Stripling with a no-hitter earlier in the season was just the warm-up act for Dave Roberts' follow-up, which was removing Rich Hill from a perfect game after seven innings and 89 pitches. Andy was there. perfect game after seven innings and 89 pitches. Andy was there. We were all there in spirit, either watching or following along in some fashion. And Rich Hill was dazzling, as he often is these days when he is able to pitch. And it was a shock. Let's say it was a shock when he was

removed. This is a unique pitching line. I don't know if that is a saving grace at all for you sam first it's not it's i mean he's he's the first in history who's ever been pulled from it from a true true perfect game bid i mean first in history nobody's ever gone further than five and been pulled from a perfect game for any reason so yeah it's historic so you got a unique pitching line out of this but we did not get a Rich Hill Perfect game or a Rich Hill Perfect game attempt. Instead, we got Joe Blanton versus Jeff Francor. And Andy, you were there. You were following along.

You were listening to the postgame comments. So what was the mood in the press box as this decision unfolded? I think in press box, everyone was not surprised. I mean, I think it was kind of a, you're watching, thinking like, is Hill going to get it, but is he going to get the chance? And that's because of the blisters, because, you know, he's pitched in three big league games since July 7th, et cetera, et cetera. So in the press box, it was, you know, surprising for sure,

but not overly shocking. I think we're going to need, I think I need to interrupt it. I need to know some blister information because I don't, I don't really know how blisters work. Like they, they come up and sometimes they keep guys out for a start and sometimes they keep guys out for many starts, but like is, does a blister start forming at pitch 90? I don't, I actually don't, I genuinely don't know how blisters work for pitchers. I mean, like, was he more at risk in the eighth inning than he was in the second inning? Yeah, because it's a, it's a, you know, thinking about how do you get a blister, it's from, you know, using your fingers or whatever, like to, you know, like when you get a blister on your heel, you don't get it from running a mile, you get it from running 10 miles, right? Yeah.

What do you mean, yeah? Like, that's how blisters work. Of course, no, that's exactly how blisters work. But once you, well, okay, for one thing, once you know that. You asked me how blisters work, and then you're shitting on my blister knowledge. We brought on a noted blister expert, Andy McCullough, and now you're questioning his testimony? No, my yeah is that I don't actually know anything about blisters. So I'm going to have to – this is like – you know how it is when you're reporting, Andy, and you have to tell the source, talk to me like I'm a third grader?

Here's two things I know about blisters. One, when you get a blister, it is often because you haven't gone hiking in seven years. And so you get that blister, but then you get a callus and then you never get a blister again. Golfers get blisters and then they never get blisters again. So I don't know that I would think that Rich Hill was particularly at risk of a blister right now. But second, the most important thing that I know, or think I know, talk to me like I'm a third grader, is that lots of pitchers get blisters and very few careers end because of it. So I just assume that they just get over the blister.

Like Rich Hill had a blister. He had blister problems. Is this going to be like for the rest of his life he can't go 90 pitches? Like how does it work? I don't think that's true, that for the rest of his life, for the next 20 years, he's in baseball because he's like the greatest pitcher ever. But, yeah, I mean your point makes sense, but I think it's – they're trying to build a callus but i think it's

the idea and they have built a callus but it's the idea that if the callus rips and the blister resurfaces then they are like screwed then they're done for like you know two weeks to a month and that's something they can't afford to do so the idea and there's some discrepancy you know like dave roberts said the blister heated up and got tender. And Rich Hill said, you know, his finger was fine. I, you know, I'm sure there's some dissonance there between, you know, the player always saying he's fine and the manager, you know, trying to look out for him, I guess. But yeah, I mean, essentially the risk is like, if that blister rips, then the Dodgers are screwed and the Dodgers don't want to be screwed. They want to be the opposite of it. They want to be like me in high school.

They want to—wow, that was bad. It's late, late-night pod. They want to win the World Series is what I'm saying, and not having Rich Hill really hurts that endeavor. Does the blister have something to do with the fact that he throws curveballs like almost half the time? So there was multiple blisters, both on the index finger, one caused by the curveball and one caused by the fastball. So those are the two pitches he throws.

I'm just curious. This is kind of a a tangent this is off topic a little bit but does the fact that he's all of a sudden getting blisters off these pitches is this evidence that he has changed those pitches and that like uh like are we are the blisters actually like um like the human body revolting at something that it's not supposed to well i don't mean i don't mean that but but I've wondered why is Rich Hill so much better? How did Rich Hill get so good all of a sudden? Did he change his curveball and fastball grips, and is that why now he's dealing with blisters? Because shouldn't he be calloused by this point? Yeah, I mean, I think that's one I'm not exactly sure on,

because he's gone through so many different reinventions that it's kind of hard to pin down like when exactly he um you know he came up with this particularly grip and style i do know that he throws the living crap out of the wall um you know like he throws it really really hard and that sounds counterintuitive and stupid but um you know he just sort of grips it and rips it, which I think is what can attribute at least a fastball blister to, is just holding the baseball and throwing it as hard as you can. Maybe that's how everyone pitches, but people have said that he notably does that. I don't understand baseball totally.

So he has two blisters. Do you know which one was getting hot? No. And again, it's unclear how hot they were or how tender they were. But Dave Roberts said that it was a concern. And even if the blister wasn't hot, if they were afraid that he was at risk, given the humidity and all that sort of stuff, I mean, it makes some sense. It just sucks, you know? I'm trying to transfer my video game experience over into this blister conversation because

that's basically where it comes in with me. That's what you got, yeah. A hot blister is like when you can start to feel that it's kind of going to become a problem if you keep doing this, but it's not quite at the full-fledged blister point. I read this as, when Andy or whoever said hot, I read it as literal, that they actually put fingers on it and went, ooh, that's hot. Is it not that? Is it not radiating heat?

Do you really know this little about blisters? This really does seem a very foreign subject. Well, it's friction. It's friction. I mean, how do I know? You just haven't done very many repetitive motions in your life. Yeah. I mean, no, I think, yeah, I think what Ben was saying is accurate.

Like, you can feel it start to, I mean, I think I've had, I'm sure I've had the video game blisters before. And, you know, you like feel and you're like, man, if I keep playing, you know, WWE SmackDown, like I am definitely going to feel a blister pretty soon, but I really want to win the Intercontinental title tonight. And, you know, and then you wake up in the morning and your hand is like in pain and your

mom's like, what happened to your hand? And you're like, I'm just generally an idiot, mom. And it's, yeah. So yes, I did answer your question. Yes. So, um, so, um, forgive me, but if we're not talking about literal heat, do you have any idea whether the, whether the assessment that there, that it was hot, uh, figuratively hot was based on a trainer looking at it or based on what Rich Hill was telling them?

Or is this catch all? I assume it's based on the trainer looking at it or based on what Rich Hill was telling them? Or is this catch-all? I assume it's based on the trainer looking at it. Yeah, because Hill said he felt fine. So Hill's not going to say, my finger feels hot. He wants to pitch a perfect game. So I would assume it's from the trainer taking a look at it. So even after the game, though, Hill was just maintaining he was fine, which admittedly yes players always

underplay how hurt they are and i i think hill recently said he was fine right before a start that had to be pushed back so yeah then he got scratched because of blisters right okay so but still you would think that you know like if he understood this, if he was like okay with the decision, if he wanted to help Dave Roberts out in any way, he might have said something different from I feel fine. I mentioned this in the press box that he could have done Dave a solid there. And then someone said to me, why would he possibly want to do a solid right now? and said to me, why would he possibly want to do a solid right now? So, yeah, I mean, yes, to answer your question, he probably, you know, on board he just could have said, yeah, I was starting to feel that I could have pitched through it.

But, you know, he gave the answer that he wanted to give, and, you know, he probably wasn't thinking about his blister. Like, you know, he's not on the mound thinking, wow, my blister hurts. He's thinking, like, man, if I can get through Jeff Francoeur, I'm going to have a perfect game. So he was kind of, you know, his thoughts elsewhere. You know, you're thinking about competing,

you're not necessarily thinking about your health. What was the score at the time? It was 5-0. So, I mean, if he has two blisters and each one corresponds to a pitch, he could have theoretically gone out there with one pitch. And, you know, I mean, try it.

Like, what do you have to lose? Just try it. Like, stop throwing curveballs? Yeah, like, stop throwing curveballs, right. Like, first base runner, he's out of the game. And so there's no loss there. First base runner, he's out of the game, and so there's no loss there. That reminds me of when Jose Rance popped an oblique with the Mets in 2010. Instead of putting him on the DL, they told him to stop switch hitting.

So we all saw Hill's reaction in the dugout. I didn't. Tell me about it, Ben. It was hot, I guess you could say literally hot yeah he was exasperated i was actually gonna ask you sam whether your reaction was more heated than rich hills when you heard the news but you didn't see it so i was a lot to be honest i was a little scared that he would complete it and then I'd have to stay up all night writing. So this is actually, it was okay. Well, he looked upset and it wasn't totally clear at the time whether he was upset at Roberts, whether he was upset at the frailties of fingers or, you know, fate or what. But it seems clear that he was not happy with Roberts or Honeycutt or whoever

because he was not helping them out with his post-game comments. Did he seem still upset when he was talking after the game? Yeah, he was very, I don't know if you guys have talked to Rich Hill much before, but he was very, very measured and very reserved, like very much like, I'm going to answer your questions and I'm going to answer your questions and i'm not i'm going to praise dave roberts i do not want to discuss this like he dropped uh hold on let me see uh some of these quotes i have here that i'm using my story just like uh uh you know it happened you need to move on and that's really it you know things like. I am not going to say anything about how I am angry at my manager.

You know, like, but, you know, he was like, I get it. I get it. You know, he was very effusive in his praise of Dave Roberts, who I really do think, you know, is a prime candidate for manager of the year. I don't think that's a unique opinion. But, you know, he was upset. He had a chance to throw a perfect game, and he got taken out when he was just, like, destroying a chance for a perfect game and he got taken out when he

was just like destroying the marlins it's uh it's frustrating but uh he you know he stayed sort of under control in the clubhouse uh he was certainly obviously pissed off uh in the dugout to the point where like he was pacing the dugout like three batters into joe was like still you know stalking the dugout and like, you know, swiping his cap at the air and shouting like he was pissed off. You know, he's apparently like a righteous nut when he's on the mound, which is pretty great because he's a fairly mild-mannered fellow, you know, when he's not pitching. You tweeted the consensus from Dodgers players, this sucks, but we need Rich Hill to be healthy in October.

And it was hard to read how much enthusiasm there was in that paraphrase. Do you get the sense that it was the same from those guys? That it was like, well, we're not going to, like, this is not the moment we're going to, you know, say something bad about our manager, but we're pissed too? It was more like, this sucks, this sucks for Rich, but if we lose Rich, we're screwed. Again was more like this sucks this sucks for rich but if we lose rich we're screwed again it comes back to that so but you so you you buy it you buy that i mean like this is the well the dodgers have a lot of grown-ups on their team you know they're have

you know adults on the team uh for the most part and so you know then they and, and like, yeah, I mean, I think you have to be spot childish to not understand what's going on here. I think not to be like spur negative about all the kind of people who follow me on Twitter, but you kind of have to, you know, be dope not to get this. Like, like, I mean, it sucks. Like it, you know, it sucks. It, it totally sucks for, for Rich Hill, you know, a guy who, you know, has come back from a lot, who's still really well liked by his teammates and all that, you know, it, uh, it, it really sucks, you know, but like I was, you know, I was in the, uh, uh, the hotel lobby, uh, walking to to my room, and that song Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton came on. What a beautiful song, right? And then you remember that his wife left him, and then he became addicted to heroin.

And then I got into my hotel room, and I cracked a Coors Light in the minibar. I was like, man, this tastes so good. It reminds me of college. And then I was like, oh, man, I good. It reminds me of, you know, college. And then I was like, oh man, I miss college so much and life is going to end soon. And we're all just sort of drifting towards death. And you remember that life sucks. And this Rich Hill thing was another reminder that, you know, that life is just a, you know, a series of, you know, swift kicks below the belt. And, you know, you try and take whatever joy you can get from it. Look, if, if, if, I mean, I, I think you're, you know you try and take whatever joy you can get from look if if if

i mean i i think you're you know you're probably basically right but you have to uh i mean you're you and anybody who who you know agrees with that is is giving the dodgers the benefit of that or just giving dave roberts the benefit of the doubt which uh dave roberts seems like a like a like a like a seriously stand-up dude and I'm my tendency is to give him the benefit of the doubt but like I still think the pulling Ross Stripling is the worst move that a manager has made this year I just think it was so monumentally stupid like the I mean really I think the lack of perspective that it shows uh was staggering and I mean, really, I think the lack of perspective that it shows was staggering. And I mean, look, like I've been about, I don't know, about six months ago, I got hung up on this idea and I feel like I've become kind of one note in it. But I really feel like teams have to figure out more ways to define success than won the World Series.

There are a lot of ways to find success in one's life. And it is not only one thing. You're probably not going to win the World Series, even if that's your only goal. And if you want to have a full life, you have to accept success where it comes. And I feel like pulling Ross Stripling. I mean, you're talking about a guy who has a chance to do something that has literally never been done. It is truly historic to have a major league debut. A no-hitter in your major league debut,

is unprecedented. It will, you know, I mean, it will make you at the very least trivia for the next, you know, 75 years. And the downside is that, well, maybe there's a little bit of risk for a pitcher whose career is unlikely to amount to a great deal and whose value to the club long term is unlikely to be very significant. That's not true. That's not true about Ross Stripling. No, Ross Stripling's a perfectly fine pitcher. Like, he's actually been pretty valuable for the Dodgers this year. All right, so...

Again, okay, but what is the manager's... I get what you're saying, and I think there's a significant part of me that agrees with it you know that we that we should not be so narrowly defined uh in what we're you know trying to do but i'm not exactly sure how a big league manager uh answers that to his bosses you know when his bosses say why the fuck did you put this guy with a surgically repaired right arm who hasn't thrown more than 100 pitches you know in his entire career why did you put him out there you know for 125 pitches in the rain when he was clearly his you know his command was dipping and his fastball velocity was dipping and you're putting him at risk we're

trying to win the world series why did you do that and you know to say like well i thought it'd be a good moment for the kid you know yeah andrew free would be like jesus christ like get this guy out of here like you know what are we doing so i get what you're saying the point of the endeavor is to win the world series like that's why they assemble all these people together point is to try and win the world series you know that's i mean you know i don't know maybe that's not the point for every individual player uh maybe for some you know it's a way to make money and there's nothing wrong with that but in general the point of the team is you try and win the world series so you can make money for your owners and make your fans happy and continue to

make money in that way you know so i don't know how as a manager you're supposed to you know get past that yeah well i mean i i think is i think well for one thing i don't think that the only point is to win the world series i don't think that guys who don't win the world series retire and immediately you know like commit harikari and say well i didn't do it like there's a lot of ways to be successful in this sport so i don't know that i would define it in such a limited way as that. And I also think that you don't have to look at every... Look, if something lowers your World Series odds by, I don't know, a 40th of 1%, that doesn't mean that you avoid it at all costs if there's some value to it.

And that's where i would i mean i think that pulling rich hill is much more justified in my opinion than pulling ross stripling i think that was you know it's what's interesting about that is dave robertson tonight that pulling rich hill was much much tougher than pulling ross stripling do you think that that and and again you know you know you know dave roberts a lot better than i do and so like as a stranger to me i can just you know go out whatever he said you know, go out or whatever. You know, he's saying what. But, I mean, there's the fact that Rich Hill has the service time,

that Rich Hill has, you know, some pull in a clubhouse simply by being a veteran who's pitching well. Is that, do you think that's a big factor in why it was hard for him? I mean, you do not take away the veteran's perks. Yeah, I think it's the fact that, that you know they know kind of his story and his history and what he's been through to get here so to do it to that guy you do it to stripling it's you know like and there's also there's the difference between a no hitter and a perfect game yeah yeah maybe he just appreciates the perfect game which i can respect yeah right and i you know and i'm like i'm pretty shitty at my job but like i knew there

were more no hitters than uh perfect games but i kind of forgot how few there were uh like there's only been 23 yeah which which seems low uh so yeah when i saw that i was like oh man i thought there was like 50 i could probably name every perfect game in my lifetime. Like, they're a big deal. Yeah, I mean, I can't name one of them except for Sandy Koufax. But, yeah, I mean, what was the last perfect game? Seriously, when was it? Probably Matt Cain.

Oh, yeah, okay. I don't know. I don't remember. But, yeah, so I think the perfect game aspect of it played a bit of a role for sure. But with Stripling, you know, it was like – because with this one, with Stripling, he was at 100 pitches. He was like pitching worse. It was a two-run game, and he had just walked a guy.

So like Roberts was like, I'm trying to win the game, and I'm trying to keep this guy healthy. And this one, like Rich Hill was just carving up the marbles like they had no chance uh and then uh you know yaziel puig ruined roberts night by making this like insane catch in left field when puig's playing left field for the first time in four years um just ruining his manager's life i want i want to ask you about both of those things because i know you you listen to this podcast so you've been hearing the raves about rich hill for a year or so every few days but it seems like you didn't become a complete convert until you have actually

been watching him in person and during this outing you tweeted something about how you acknowledge that he's what the the best pitcher you've ever seen or something like that he's the best pitcher i've ever seen and i've covered clayton kershaw and mariano rivera and you know healthy way davis i mean he's he's incredible uh i mean what was the the actual outing we've we've only discussed the end of the outing, but the outing itself, what were your impressions? His ball has so much life. His ball moves just like incredibly. His ball moves so much. He was getting these looking strikeouts by these fastballs

that were just tailing in. These guys had no chance. These four-seamers that looked like two-seamers, they were moving so much. His curveball, he can throw it from five different arm angles, and he can throw it for strikes, he can throw it for balls. Man, yeah, he's amazing. I guess I'd never really seen him pitch until these past couple weeks, and I've only seen him pitch three times, but he's the best pitcher I've ever seen.

I love when he drops down. That's the best. Oh, my. He threw a curveball to, I want to say Brandon Belt in his first start where I was literally like, what the? You know, was that? I can't remember someone throwing that pitch. Yeah, he's great. Give him $100 million in free agency.

Go for it. Yeah. We'll get to that question, too. What is the sort of general feeling around that trade? Because Redick has obviously not been good, and Hill wasn't available until three starts ago. I don't follow the L.A. media quite so much as I used to, but are they having to answer questions about that trade, especially now with Cotton debuting and everything?

No. I mean, I think Redick has turned it on in the last couple weeks. He's actually been pretty good for a week or so, which is about right because he wasn't a natural 430 OPS guy or like 130 OPS guy. He was horrible for most of August. I think once Hill started, you know, Hill took them out, I think it was like August 23rd or something like that. He was so good that they didn't really have to answer questions for a while.

But yeah, I mean, there was kind of a sense of like, hey, is this guy ever going to play? And with Redick, it's kind of hard because he was bad for two weeks. But again, grown-ups understand that baseball players might be bad for two weeks, and that's not a sign that a trade's the worst thing ever. So I think on days when Rich Hill pitches,

no one really complains about Jarrell Cotton being up in the majors. And with Puig, I listened to you and Pedro talk about Puig a couple times on Sportswriters Blues. And I think when you were much lower on Puig than Pedro was, you were, or Pedro was making the point that you hadn't seen the prime Puig. You weren't watching him on a day-to-day basis when he was having really excellent seasons and that maybe you would feel different about his

hopes of coming back to that level if you had witnessed that. And, you know, you talked to scouts who told you about his declining athleticism and the body's not where it was and all of that. And now you've seen a signature Puig moment. And I know you'd been impressed by his defense before, signature Puig moment. And I know you'd been impressed by his defense before, but this moment, just not only playing left field, as you mentioned, for first time in years, and that isn't that easy to do if you talk to outfielders and they'll tell you that it's hard to go from one corner to the next. And, you know, there's different tail and slice and different angles and all of that. And he went a mile to get this ball and then totally laid out, not quite Jim Edmonds angle, but almost. It was really an incredible play, not even taking into

account the context of preserving the perfect game. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was a great play. I still think you can talk to scouts, you know, his, is still uh pretty limited at the plate and that's you know continuing to be an issue but yeah i mean that was a really that was a great catch um for sure i mean there's no there's no arguing that yeah did robert say anything about what he was feeling when that ball was in the air because uh hold on i can uh i can pull that up he said there might have been a little bit of me that wouldn't have been upset if the ball had dropped. He said that with a rueful smile on his face. Yeah.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, though. Oh, I'm just saying, if he was already thinking of pulling Hill, when did the blister get hot i'm feeling like the story is breaking down did he what was he already planning on pulling hill before the catch and therefore was this based on the sixth inning hotness they're thinking about it andy i need to know what i need to i need to know how they examine this blister like did like i genuinely have no idea what the extent of their examination was. A trainer comes and looks at his hand, and he says, go away. In the sixth or in the seventh?

I mean, I assume in both, but... So it was kind of... Maybe it was like 85%. It was like the... It was the mountain climber on the Price is Right, and he was getting close to the cliff, and then they got the... A member of the front office you know said to me we're not you know the thought is that we are not out of the woods with hills blister in that you know they feel like they need to be monitoring it at all

so you don't think that they just went into this game with a 90 pitch pitch count and that was it and that there was no hotness at all they just said hey got to 90 i mean do we really like do we really just think the manager is just going to make something up? I mean, I know it's possible, but I tend to go against outright lies based on just like Hawkins Razor. I don't really think that the manager is just outright lying. I think that it's too easy for him to get caught, especially in this era, especially in a heightened situation like this. So there's definitely just some dissonance between what the player thinks about the severity of the blister and what the team thinks about the severity of the

blister. And this isn't anywhere near AJ Ellis trade levels of Dodgers discontent, or where does it rank on the scale of one to AJ Ellis trade did Kershaw cry tonight oh man no he did not cry uh thrilled that Rich Hill didn't pitch a perfect game no I would don't say that yeah I mean the Ellis thing was just like a blindside sort of like they were just completely blindsided so, they all acknowledge basically that it just sucks. And, you know, they wish that it hadn't gone the way it did, but I think there was definitely an explanation for why it did. And it's hard to, again, like, I just think it's, you kidding,

like if I was the manager, I probably would have let him keep pitching, but that doesn't mean that what they did was not without thought and not without reason. And I think you write what their reasons are and then, you know, if you think they're wrong, you can think they're wrong, but I don't know. There's a lot of other stuff to, to really get upset about. I think that's all, I mean, that's all exactly right. Like, I don't think that they made this decision frivolously and, uh, I don't think that they would consider it a poor decision based on what they prioritize. I don't know. I think that it's worth interrogating their priorities just because,

you know, I'm not totally in love with the priorities that stat head front offices bring to the game. I mean, to some degree, it seems like being a good stat head means doing the thing that nobody else had the guts to do, but maybe they didn't have the guts to do it because it's a dumb thing to do. It's like not fun. It's not like it's not fulfilling the humanity. We talk so often though about how people make decisions because they're afraid of getting criticism. I respect them. I mean, look, I totally respect them. I respect the decision. Why did I pitch my guy in that spot? That's his spot, you know, like, and if you it, to deviate from Southerwise subjects yourself to criticism. I think

there's one thing you can say about Dave Roberts is he is willing to just completely put it on him. He is 100% willing to say, this is me. I'm the one making the decision and I'm not going to hang my players out to dry or I'm not going to subject them to the risk.

He's done it before with Clayton Kershaw in various games, you know, so he's willing to just say, like, I'm, you know, I'm doing something and this is my decision. And if you want to, you know, if you want to rip me for it, rip me for it. But, you know, I'm taking ownership of it. Yeah, I mean, look, I respect Dave Roberts, particularly in this situation. I respect the Dodgers front office. I respect everybody who's just out there trying to do what they think is best. I don't think anybody went into this with malevolence or even with a lack of consideration for other people's feelings. My personal feeling is that letting Rich Hill go batter by batter at most six more batters, at most probably 21 more pitches,

probably risks, my guess, back in the envelope, one 350th of a World Series title, okay? Because they're probably not going to win it anyway, and even if Rich Hill throws a perfect game, they might still win it. So it's maybe one 350th of a World Series, and Rich Hill had, I don't know, just blind guess, a one in four chance of throwing a perfect game today. And to me, a perfect game for Rich Hill is more than 1 85th the value of a World Series. That's my own personal math.

And, you know, you can disagree with it. Have you seen Rich Hill pitch? I mean, he might do it on his next start. They'll pull him 8 2 3rds. Yeah, there you go, with Goldschmidt up. By the way, actually i wish i wish my back of the envelope math had been more convincing because i'm actually not sure that i think that a rich alberga game is 185th i should have if i'm if i'm just making up numbers why

didn't i go like one four thousand and one and i don't know like i could have gotten i could have been so much more convincing with the final result you know one thing i found interesting about being here in los Angeles, and especially coming from Kansas City, obviously the front offices have kind of different pedigrees, but like, man, a lot of people on the internet hate this front office. It is, like, they just accuse them of the most nefarious sort of stuff. It is really, it is really goofy to me. Like, there is a level of antipathy for this front office that I just, I don't totally know where it's coming from.

And it's been interesting, you know, over the course of this year to try and figure out what's at the heart of it. I assume most of it is just kind of anti-intellectualism. But, man, it's like really, really strong and strange. Well, there's a contingent that loves them too. I guess there's just two extremes. No one's like, yeah, I guess they're okay. Right. The last question we have to end on is the Rich Hill contract question.

I think it's time to revisit that. Rich Hill is about a month away, two months away from becoming a free agent, and he gets more and more impressive with each start. I think in this start, he passed Clayton Kershaw for lowest ERA of the season. So assuming he actually makes it through the rest of the season and keeps pitching, it's going to get very interesting. I know that you talked about this on your most recent episode, but that was before seven perfect innings so it's time to revisit and we haven't gotten sam's figure in in quite some time i quit updating we we went through we i mean look we brought out we brought out comps ben like we had the final say i mean unless you think things have changed like you

could ask me if things have changed because the blister and all that but i was ready i was considering that settled until the end of the season and where did you end i think we ended at 365 365 okay oh my god what did uh what did uh grinky get uh six to ten i think maybe six and 21 7-245, then? Does that sound about right? Well, because Pedro set the over-under at 49, and you've been strong under. Because Pedro suggested it to me. Pedro, I don't know how often you guys listen, but Pedro has some of the dumbest opinions imaginable about baseball. They're thoughtfully wrong, I would

say. God bless Pedro. He's the best. This was in June, and we were talking about free agency, and he was like, yeah, Rich Hill's going to get $50 million this offseason. I was like, what? Rich Hill? That loser? No chance.

And now I'm more and more convinced. But I would say Hill is going to get two years, 36. It's two different questions, really, because Sam would have given him like 50 million last offseason. It's like, what would you give him if there was someone bidding you up? At what point would you stop and say, fine, you can have Rich Hill? And then the separate question is, what is he actually going to get? But what would you give him? Am I the Dodgers doing this or am I just sort of a random team?

Well, I guess you're, I don't know. You could be the Dodgers if that changes things. If I was the Dodgers, I mean, I would just, you know, I'd go up to like two. Still two. You're starting with two. Yeah, I'm not giving a, this is, you know, I'm not giving a three-year contract to a guy who's going to be 37. I know he's probably going to win like five more Cy Youngs. And he's just so good when he does pitch.

But, you know, he's throwing like 95 innings this year. It's hard for me to marry if you started ritual like once every two weeks and he was just this good and you yeah do you blister time to heal i yeah i mean we the last time we did the last time we did this ritual was still i think he was still pitching uh so it's been basically two and a half months of total inactivity since the last time we talked about this and i don't feel like the blisters are troublesome like i if i signed him in this offseason i would not be like well geez you know the blisters might come back like i again like i have experience with blisters as a human being they just quit coming

at some point but i think that his inability to demonstrate... I don't think you have experience with Bliss. His inability... I mean, I was kind of anticipating that he'd have 170 innings under his belt this year, and it would be kind of proof of concept, and the fact that he's going to end this year with 108 innings, or 106 if Dave Roberts has anything to say about it, is kind of a problem. Yeah, I'm perfectly fine giving him a two-year contract i just and and giving him 20 million dollars a year i guess but three years is a long time you know it's a really long time i don't know i just it's hard to it's hard for me to commit three years to a guy who's going to 37 like remember how good r a dicky was r a dicky yeah he was one of he was our prime comp he was

our prime comp on this. Right. I was going to look out for you. Oh, you know what? It's working out pretty good. He throws 205 innings a year as a league average pitcher, which at $18 million a year is not that bad. I want to believe in the magic of Rich Hill. I want to believe in him. I don't know.

I don't know. I hope he makes a ton of money. He seems like a nice guy, and he's the best pitcher I've ever seen. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I hope he makes a ton of money. He seems like a nice guy, and he's the best pitcher I've ever seen. So, you know, I don't know. Maybe he and Dave Roberts can, like, tour the memorabilia circuit. Like, you know, what was that guy's name? Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga. They can write a book together like those guys did.

This is really revealed that Andy does not listen to us. That is two in five minutes. Even listening occasionally, he would have... He has his own podcast now. He doesn't need us anymore. I'm surprised you came on. Weekly. I'm a pretty dedicated listener.

I've kind of fallen into a pattern, though. I've been a little out of touch for the last couple weeks. I'll be honest about that. I think I've been, as I mentioned before on this podcast, I've been pretty focused on the election. And so I've been spending a lot of my podcast hours, you know. All right. Okay. Well, we appreciate you coming on late at night, even though you have your own five-star rated podcast that you've now scooped and you'll have to rehash everything you said on your next episode.

Rated by all seven people at five stars. But people should listen to it. It's really good. It's called Sportswriters Blues. Sam named it. Sam named it. It's a good name. That's part of it, too.

And you can go yell at Andy for criticizing the people in his mentions tonight at McCullough Times, and obviously read him regularly in the L.A. Times. Andy, thanks a lot. Hey, have a good one, guys. All right. So we will end this there. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already done so.

Eric McEvoy, Colby James, John Liu, Evan Haldane and Hugh Hansen. You can buy our book. The Only Rules It Has to Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. Check out the website, theonlyrulesithastowork.com. Leave us a review on Amazon Goodreads if you like the book. You can join our Facebook group, where there are roughly 20 Rich Hill threads going on right now, at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild.

And you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Email me and Sam at podcast at baseballperspectives.com slash groups slash effectivelywild, and you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Email me and Sam at podcast at baseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. We will be back with another episode soon. I got blisters on my fingers!