Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 997: The Game Show Show

Episode Date: December 28, 2016

Ben and Sam discuss the seemingly aimless Oakland Athletics and bring on two unwitting contestants (Eric Roseberry and Steve Givarz) to play the first Effectively Wild game show, “Name that Oakland A’s Position Player.”

Your drunken kisses as light as the air, maybe everything that falls down eventually rises. Our house sinking into disrepair, ah, but look at this showroom filled with fabulous prizes. Good morning and welcome to episode 997 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus. Brought to you by The Play Index, Baseball Reference, and our Patreon supporters. I'm Sam Miller of ESPN along with Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Hello, Ben. Hello. We got appointments with people, so we should probably not banter. I don't know, do you have any banter? Did you have anything you needed to talk about?

Well, this might be too in-depth for a banter. I was just reading our friend Will Leach's list of the 10 biggest sports stories of the year, and he had the Cubs winning the World Series as the top sports story of the year. It seems pretty indisputable that the Cubs winning the World Series are the top sports story of the year. Obviously, there are people who just don't care about a baseball team no matter what, but I think in the larger conversation, that makes sense. And I was just trying to think of when baseball last had the top sports story of the year. I don't know whether anything comes to mind immediately, but... Yeah, the Mitchell Report.

I mean, I don't remember what else happened that year, but I don't know. What year was the Mitchell Report? I think it was like 2006? Seven. Yeah, seven. So I don't know. I would guess that might be it. I think that the 2001 World Series probably would qualify. Yeah, that might be it. Of course, the Maguire race, the Maguire-Sosa race would have been. Yeah, it's hard to know without knowing everything else that was going on. 2004, what competes with the Red Sox in 2004? Yeah, maybe that's it. Can we talk about this after?

I have people waiting. It's a work day. Okay. All right. So, Ben, I don't know if you saw this, but after Edwin Encarnacion signed with the Indians, there was some headline that the A's had made an offer that had been rejected. I think maybe they had even offered more. It's interesting that it seems to me that the A's lead baseball in second place free agency finishes. Like relative to how many

free agents they sign, it seems like we hear about every free agent they almost sign. And I wonder if it's because we're just interested in the A's generally and they don't sign that many players. And so it's interesting that they would be bidding for players when they sign so few expensive players. But anyway, I guess that's not really an appropriate topic either. But I started thinking about the A's depth chart. And so, I mean, all these moves of the last, if you look at the A's transactions of the last few months, I hadn't really kind of thought of them as a group, but like they traded Danny Valencia, who was one of their better hitters last year, but is also Danny Valencia. They traded him. They released Billy Butler. They traded

Chris Coghlan last summer. They traded, of course, Josh Reddick for a bunch of young pitchers. They traded Coco Chris. The player that they got for Coghlan, Erezmendi Alcantara, was released. And that's pretty much it. That's their transactions. And then they have one signing that we'll probably end up bringing up in a few minutes. But this leaves a depth chart that I was really struggling as I walked around this morning to fill in in my head. And rather than use me as a gauge or you as a gauge and perhaps embarrass us, I thought, well, I thought we would play a little game show called Can You Name the A's Starter? And so we're going to have two guests on, both baseball knowledgeable, but just they have passed no test to get on this.

They were the first two people to reply to my invitation on Twitter. My invitation, do you know a bit about baseball and want to come on our podcast? So we're going to have them on. And this is partly inspired by a thing that I wrote about Bob Melvin and his face a couple of years ago in which I imagined a family on Family Feud trying to name the A's manager because Bob Melvin seems to me to be one of the most anonymous managers in baseball, particularly for how long he's been a manager. And in this fake scenario, not only could the family not name Bob Melvin, but nobody in the survey did either. And so I am kind of a,

I guess I'm just deciding that the A's are my official game show team. And so we're going to, I've wanted to do a game show on this podcast for a very long time. And so we're going to do it. Are you ready? Okay, I feel sorry for these guys in advance.

So bring them on. We're going to call Eric and Steve. So our first guest, our first contestant, I should say, on this game show that he doesn't know that he has just joined is Eric Roseberry. Eric is also the host of a baseball podcast called On Baseball Writing, and Ben has been a guest on it. Eric is also, he wrote a piece that last week when we went over some of the articles on the Patrick Dubuque spreadsheet of every author's self-selected favorite piece of the year. Eric's piece on rooting for a bad team, the Reds, was the last one cut. If we'd had 10 more minutes, that would have been what we talked about.

But instead, by chance, he's here. Hello, Eric. Hey, how's it going? It's good. So, Eric, tell me, what's your first baseball memory? My first baseball memory is the 1991 World Series, the Kirby Puck at home run in game six. Did you have an interest in the outcome of that game,

or was it just the first one that you watched and it left a memory? First one I watched and it left a memory. All right. Eric, let me ask you also, when you go to the park and they have the hat game on the big screen where there's a ball hidden under the hat and it's like a version of three-card Monty and you've got to guess where the ball is, do you play along?

I do. I don't know if I want to admit that, but yes, I do. All right. Well, Eric, we're going to be playing Can You Name That A's Position Starter in a moment. First, we have to get our second contestant. His name is Steve. He is a member of the BP Prospect team. He is here also to play our game, Can You Name That A's Position Player. Steve, welcome to the show. What is a scouting report of you as a ball player? I didn't play baseball growing up. I was a culinary student for quite a while.

I picked up the game late. I can't really explain why and i burned out on culinary school went to business school and never really picked up or threw a baseball what's the scouting report of you as a cook or as a chef i wasn't fast but i was i was accurate i did a lot of uh asian specialties oh interesting uh and uh did you ever collect baseball cards i think i might have some like old expansion, Tampa Bay Double Race expansion cards, but that's really it. Who's your least favorite baseball player?

For a while, I can't tell you why. Julio Lugo, I was not a fan of. All right. But to give you like a better answer, probably Vicente Padilla. Okay. All right. A lot of people don't like him. All right. So we are playing, Can you name that A's position player? I forget what the name of

the game is. I've said it differently every time, but I'm going to give each of you a position. You are going to tell me who the starting player is for the Oakland athletics at that position. If you can't name it, or if you name it incorrectly, your opponent will have a chance to steal. If neither of you can name it, Ben and I will move on. These are current players, I'm guessing? Yes. Okay. So these are the players who are currently projected on the Oakland A's depth chart to be the starting player at that position. And everybody who's looked at depth charts is sort

of aware of this phenomenon where sometimes the same player will be at multiple position. And everybody who's looked at depth charts is sort of aware of this phenomenon where sometimes the same player will be at multiple positions. So in one case, I had to choose which position I think he's going to play based on who's higher. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. You don't have any real incentive to get this right anyway. So we'll just go on ahead. All right. So Eric, you will be our first. You will go first, Eric. head all right so eric you will be our first uh you will go first eric i should mention that uh just because being put on the spot on the podcast can be nerve-wracking whenever uh sam quizzes me on something i i say uh for 45 seconds and then edit it out later just so you know so feel free to to do that as well wonderful do you have a time limit to answer or just discuss? Yeah, I don't

we don't have any. This is this is definitely just the pilot. So it's OK if we get some things wrong. All right, Eric, you're going to go first. Eric, name the Oakland A's shortstop. That might be one of the only ones I know. Marcus Simeon. That is correct. You got the round one question correct, which I thought would be the easiest one. And that's why it was number one. For that, you get five points. Marcus Simeon, I believe the A's all-star. No, he wasn't. He wasn't. I don't know who the A's all-star was last year. Simeon is a shortstop. He had 27 home runs last year. He is a known major leaguer, acquired in a fairly high-profile trade. If I were asked to name an Oakland Athletic position player,

he would be the first one I would name. So congratulations. You get five points. Somewhere John Chenier is keeping score. All right, next question to you, Steve. Steve, name the Oakland A's catcher. It's the guy listed on the depth chart catcher, even if he doesn't catch that much. It is the, well, yeah, it is. I was going to say it's Vogt, but I don't know how much he actually

catches. Stephen Vogt? It is Stephen Vogt. And last year he caught 113 games and started 103 of them. So I think that is an accurate portrayal of his role. So good job, Steven Vogt, one of my all-time favorite players. And he was the A's all-star last year. In fact, he was the A's all-star each of the last two years, or an A's all-star each of the last two years. A two-win player, a 31-year-old with a career OPS plus of 103. We have exhausted two of the A's nine positions. All right, Eric, round two to you. Who is the A's first baseman? I won't draw this out very long. I have no idea. Yeah, you got to guess. You got to guess. The only requirement here is a name must be offered.

Because he's the only A's first baseman. I know it's not Scott Hatterberg. It's not Scott Hatterberg, but that's a good guess. That's my guess. I have no clue. All right. Steve, you get a chance to steal. Do you know the A's first baseman?

It's kind of like the same thing I had. I think he plays first base, but I think he plays other positions, too. Give me the... Is it Canna? It is not Canna. Yeah, I was going to say Jason Giambi. That's my next guess. Okay.

All right. It is Yonder Alonzo. Yonder Alonzo. Alonzo, of course, is in that way that sometimes a trade tree can be worse for a manager or for a general manager than a trade itself. Yonder Alonzo was traded for, uh, was acquired for drew Pomeranz and then Pomeranz like five months later was traded to Boston for Anderson Espinoza. And just the world looks so much different if you have Anderson Espinoza under your control rather than Yonder Alonso.

But the A's didn't do that. Alonso last year as a first baseman hit 253, 316, 367. That's an OPS plus of 91. His war was minus 0.1 and he is the A's projected starting first baseman. All right. Mark Kenna did play five games at first base, so he's not at the top of the depth chart, but he's on the depth chart. I thought his real

five-year, he played a lot first base. Yeah. Mark Canna played first base two years ago. Pretty good. Pretty good. Not bad. All right. Steve, it's your turn. Steve, name the Oakland A's designated hitter. Well, it's not Billy Bowler anymore. They cut ties with him. They did. He is released. Is, it's not Billy Bowler anymore. They cut ties with him. They did. He is released. Is it Chris Davis? It's Chris Davis. Okay.

Okay, well, I kind of get rid of who I think is going to be their left fielder, but that'll be a while. Guess later. Chris Davis, yeah, Chris Davis is a tricky one. He is projected to be both the designated hitter and the left fielder. However, there is another player listed at left field as well. There is no other player listed at DH who isn't also a primary position somewhere else. And Chris Davis played 50 games at DH last year.

53 starts last year with Billy Butler there. So I would imagine that that probably makes him the DH. Chris Davis is, I don't know, if you had to bet on an A to make the All-Star game this year among their position players, probably it would be him. He hit 42 home runs last year. He has developed into a very fine hitter, 2.8 war last year. And he's also, this is his first year of arbitration eligibility, and it makes you wonder how long he will be an Oakland Athletic.

But for now he is. Steve gets the points. That is 2-1, 10-5, however we're doing. All right, Eric, they're getting tougher now, okay? Just want to let you know that we got the easy ones out of the way. All right, Eric, who is the Oakland Athletics right fielder? I'm going to think twice before responding on Twitter to a request like this again. Oh, geez, I have no clue. I'm going to think twice before responding on Twitter to a request like this again. Oh, geez.

I have no clue. I will give you a hint. He has never played a game with the Oakland Athletics. Oh, Matt Joyce? Matt Joyce. It's Matt Joyce. Good call. Very good. Very good.

Matt Joyce, who one year ago hit 174 for the Los Angeles Angels, but then had a career resurgence in a platoon role with Pittsburgh, hit 242, 403, 463 in part-time play. Good for 1.6 war. He has been the A's big signing to date this offseason, thanks to Edwin Encarnacion's choice not to go there. What did he sign for? What did Matt Joyce sign for? I think it was like $2.5 million. I think it was like two years and 11, I think. Yeah, two years and 11. Yeah. So it was two

years and 11 million. Okay. All right. So we are at two to-2 But it is Steve's turn He has a chance to retake the lead Steve, who is the Oakland Athletics Third baseman? It's not Valencia, who they got Who they got rid of For beating up For something with Billy Butler

I think it was Butler they got rid of for something to do with Billy Butler I think Valencia hung on for the rest of the year He's a Mariner now. He is a Mariner now. He is not on this depth chart. I know he's going to be on, at least he's slated to be on Team Israel. I know that. Oh, is that right?

You know more about Team Israel's depth chart than some of us know about his. I've done some work. I did some work for Team Israel going to WBC. Oh, it's the third baseman. The guy they called up, Healy. It is. Ryan Healy. It is Ryan Healy.

Ryan Healy is my favorite kind of player. It is the player who gets promoted to the majors and does better in the majors than he had done, even unadjusted, even not adjusted for competition, does better than he had been doing in the minors. Healy was basically, I mean, Steve, you would know better than I would, but a non-prospect. For the most part, he was just a...

He was a fairly high draft, like third, fourth round. He was a third rounder, but not a name that really most of us, any of us knew a year ago. Unless you really love the Oakland Athletics. Yes. Mid-season call-up, hit 13 homers in 72 games, 305, 337, 524. Slashline, he also struck out 60 times

and walked only 12 in almost 300 plate appearances. And so that is a troublesome... I actually just acquired... So I have a philosophy that the nicest thing you can do in this world is to accept somebody else's fantasy trade proposal. And so I'm in a league that I have... Any league that I'm in, I've basically quit doing anything in, and I'm just sort of grandfathered in, and I hit the accept button every year. And so in this league that I do very little managing, and somebody made me an offer, and it was one of those offers where there were like five guys coming over for one,

and all of that. But I thought, eh, he made this offer in good faith, so I accepted it, and I am now the proud owner of one Rion Healy in an on-base percentage league. And now you all know what I'm going to be rooting for in April. All right. Steve is up three to two. We have three positions to go, if you can believe it. Eric. Eric, who is the Oakland Athletics second baseman?

Oh, Jed Lowry? It is Jed Lowry. Yes, yes. When did Jed Lowry become an athletic again? He was traded almost exactly one year ago, last offseason. Houston traded him back to Oakland for Brendan McCurry, and Lowry had the worst year of his career with the A's this year. His OPS plus dropped to 79. His war was negative 0.4. His defense rated out as minus eight, and he had two home runs all year so he is their starting second baseman according

to this depth chart they also have joey wendell who is probably a bit more promising in the long term to be fair i would not have gotten the third baseman so some of this has been luck of the draw uh-huh well that's a big part of baseball game shows all right steve who is the oakland a's center fielder if you get this just i mean if you get this then you get my job oh man now you really give me uh you really make me want to look now uh i have zero clues i'm just gonna name the guy they traded billy burns it is oh i forgot they traded billy burns it is uh jake smoke i'm sorry ste sorry, Eric, I was supposed to give you a chance to steal. It's really okay.

If you can even say the last syllable of the name. Or his last name. It's Jake Smolenski. Jake Smolenski, 28-year-old this year, was selected off waivers in June of 2015 from the Texas Rangers. He played 99 games for the A's last year with an OPS plus of 80, 238, 299, 345 slash line, one steal, seven homers, a war of minus 0.3. And he is projected to be their starting center fielder at the moment.

So we are tied going into the final position. There's a position left? So whoever says the correct name first i guess can have this one so fingers on the buzzer who is the oakland a's left fielder oh is it the guy they got from kansas city no and chris davis does not apply here uh chris davis does not apply then i have no idea that's appropriate uh is it canna it is canna and uh the guy they got from kansas city is brett eibner and he is uh he is third or second at all the outfield spots uh but he is uh only third in left field behind canna and chris davis it is mark canna who i believe

batted 20 he didn't play a lot last year He batted 44 times for the A's last year. He hit 122 without a walk, struck out 20. So 41 at bats, 20 strikeouts, no walks. I'd say it's not a good ratio. In 16 total games, 44 total played appearances, he was minus 0.4 war. And I don't know what injury he was dealing with because he wasn't playing in the minors either. Hopefully it was just a blip and he'll be back because he is projected to be the A's left fielder. Thank you both for playing. Steve, you were the winner of the A's depth chart game. And we will never call either of you back again. That's unfortunate. What does Steve win?

He wins fourth place in the AL West ahead of the A's. I'll take that. Okay. All right. Well, you can find both of these guys at Baseball Perspectives, by the way, at the prospect team for Steve. He's on Twitter also at Steve Guyvers. And Eric is on Twitter at Eric Roseberry.

And you can listen to his baseball podcast on Baseball Writing, which I subscribe to and recommend. So they will hopefully get a few followers to make up for this torture. Good talking to you guys. Thanks, guys. So, Ben, in all seriousness, it is an interesting, I mean, this is a very interesting roster for how kind of uninteresting it is.

We are so, I think we're so used to teams that, you know, start to fall off, start to fall out of contention. It almost lately seems like there is a race to be the first one to acknowledge that you need to rebuild. Teams that I think you could even make the case could compete, like we talked about with the White Sox, are tearing down. And the A's have generally have not done that. They have never done a full rebuild, at least in the last many years. So part of this is the result of making trades that were intended to keep them

respectable in the short term. The Josh Donaldson trade, for example, is a case of that. And part of it is the ripples of going, quote unquote, all in 2014. But I guess what's interesting, like I said, what's interesting about this roster is that there isn't like, I don't know, it's like not, it's not exciting. It's not an exciting bad team. It's a team that just sort of feels like they got backed into a lot of players at various positions. And so if I were running this team, I honestly don't have any idea what my goal would be. I don't know what there is here. So I don't know how to even follow the A's this year. Yeah, the most exciting A's offseason story was that Matt Holiday put them on his no trade list.

They were the only team because he just so didn't want to be back on the A's, I guess. So other than that, it's been pretty quiet. Yeah. And it's been, I mean, they've been kind of a confusing team for a few years now because they haven't really had a discernible plan. The last time they got good, which surprised everyone, we kind of came up with reasons why they were good. one we kind of came up with reasons why they were good like there was the they signed lots of hitters with fly ball breakdowns high fly ball percentages and and that was a good thing because uh there

were more ground ball pitchers and so maybe they were ahead of the game and getting fly ball guys who would be good against ground ball guys or something. And I don't know, we talked about them like positional flexibility. They were getting guys who could play all over the place and that was something they were doing too, but they just kind of got good unexpectedly. And then, yeah. Yeah. And probably all those things that we came up with to explain why they were good, probably to some degree was just trying to think too hard, come up with something counterintuitive. If you look at the teams that, had when they were good, they made a lot of good decisions, and they had a lot of players get good. And so Brandon Moss, for instance, they got for basically nothing, and he turned out to be really good. He was a very good power hitter for a number of years for them.

And Josh Reddick, they traded Andrew Bailey, they get Josh Reddick. It's not like everybody saw them get Josh Reddick and went, well, that's a three to four win player for the next of years for them. And Josh Reddick, they traded Andrew Bailey, they get Josh Reddick. It's not like everybody saw them get Josh Reddick and went, well, that's a three to four win player for the next five years. And he was, and they signed Cespedes. He turned out to be the best version of that. Josh Donaldson developed after that position change. So that was big.

Jed Lowry was a much better ball player at the time. They got Derek Norris in the Gio Gonzalez trade and he developed into something good. And basically they made a bunch of positions, they made a bunch of transactions where the players they got were either better than the industry was evaluating them at, or they made trades where the player they got was better than the player they gave away. And I mean, I think that like this is just the opposite. They've made a bunch of trades or a bunch of moves in the last few years that haven't worked out. And sometimes they've made the other kind of trade. I think like the Rich Hill signing obviously was a great signing and then they got a good return for him. But I mean, if you just look at their trades themselves, it's not so much a matter of like,

well, what philosophy are they following here? Or what edge are they trying to work here? It's just, well, you know, they traded a player and they got a worse player. And sometimes that happens. And it seems like it's happened a number of times. I mean, the Alonzo deal, the Donaldson deal, the Cespedes deal. Well, I guess the Cespedes deal was explainable and made sense in the moment for what they were prioritizing. So I guess not the Cespedes deal, well, I guess the Cespedes deal was explainable and made sense in the moment for what they were prioritizing. So I guess not the Cespedes deal, but the Samarja deal,

maybe, arguably, they've just sort of not really gotten a lot of exciting pieces when they've had things to trade. Yeah. And the one signing that perplexed everyone was the Billy Butler. And that worked out about as well as the people who were criticizing that signing thought it would. So they haven't showcased their brilliance lately. Yeah. Some people have written articles about, like, you know, have they been overtaken by other teams kind of following the A's model and signing lots of stat heads and having internal systems and everything. And if you look at the A's website or media guide, they don't have a huge analytics department, although they're sort of secretive about who is and isn't in it.

But it's hard to say exactly where they stand in that kind of hierarchy of teams that are into stats also now. So I don't know. They're one of those teams that's very hard to pin down right now what they're trying to do or what their philosophies are. Yeah, and it's, I mean, they have gotten good. Like they got a good return on Zobrist. I think they got a good return on Rich Hill. It's just that they're all pitchers.

And so when you're looking at their depth chart around the diamond, none of those guys are reflected in that. But like I said at the beginning about the fact that sometimes a trade tree can look worse for the GM than just a single trade. And if you look at like kind of the four moves that in a lot of ways define the last three years or so for the A's, it's not necessarily that trading Cespedes for Leicester was bad, but then to see Cespedes get traded for Michael Fulmer and you imagine, oh, well, geez, it'd be cool to have Michael Fulmer. And then the Addison Russell trade and then almost immediately trade Samarja for Marcus Simeon. And so it sort of looks like a Russell for Simeon swap. The Josh Donaldson trade was already going to be bad enough, but then to trade Brett Lurie for very little, very soon after, a year later, makes that look even worse.

And then the Pomeranz trade where the Padres would, I mean, that's probably the single best move that the Padres have made, turning Yonder Alonso into Espinosa in the Prello regime. So all of those have just aged worse as other transactions have happened around them. Well, I'm impressed by both of our guests. What did they get?

Seven out of the nine positions. That is, it's pretty good. Yeah. And yeah, they did. It's very good. Yeah.

So, all right, we'll have them back on tomorrow and we'll say, can you, can you name the A's AAA relief depth? Okay. All right. Do you want to finish talking about the Will Leach thing or are we done with that?

I don't have an answer, so. All right. Sounds good to me. Okay. All right. See you. All right. So that will do it for today.

Five listeners who have supported the podcast on Patreon at patreon.com slash effectively wild are Ben Wilber, Miles Johnson, Kylie Lukoski, Scott Andrews, and Amanda Rose. Thanks to all of you. You can buy our book, The Only Rules It Has to Work, our wild experiment building a new kind of baseball team. For more information, check out theonlyrulesithastowork.com. 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. Contact me and Sam at podcastatbaseball at baseball perspectives.com or by messaging us through patreon and we will talk to you soon Here come the Oakland Bays.