Effectively Wild Episode 2463: Filled to the Brim

Cease was effectively wild early, he really settled in and Shohei has been effectively wild the whole game. Hello and welcome to episode 2463 of effectively wild the baseball podcast from fan graphs presented by our patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the ringer joined by Meg Raleigh of fan graphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Let's charge straight into this episode like Jorge Hohler, Jorge Saler charging at Reynaldo Lopez. You're having a really great, totally flawless time. Yes. Yes. No one has heard me make any mistakes when this where this intro is concerned. So we'll just continue to just full speed ahead and throw some haymakers podcast wise. So this mound charge, which was according to John Boyce, who has developed a database of mound charges. This is the first mound charging in the majors in four years. Wow. Yeah, it's it's endangered. It's almost extinct. Obviously, they're stiffer penalties when it comes to mound charging. There didn't really used to be rules against this. There have been rules against it for a while, automatic ejection, but they're cracking down on it now. We haven't seen it as much and maybe that's for the best. Maybe that's nice. It certainly gets people engaged. People are always interested in a mound charge, but we're in favor of a little less aggression and fist puffs in general. Yeah. In this case, we had a double suspension, both Salaire, who did the charging and Reynaldo Lopez, who was the charged. They both received seven game suspensions, which they both appealed. And Lopez is at least has been dropped down to five games and given that he is a starting pitcher, that's pretty toothless. That means he might not actually miss anything. He still loses pay though. That's true. But we got a question prompted by this mound charging that I thought was kind of interesting. This is from Dylan, who says a co-worker and I were debriefing after the Salaire Lopez dust up and came up with a scenario we'd like to get your thoughts on. We found it curious that Lopez was ejected after being involved in the brawl. Of course, this is standard practice by all accounts. And we can't remember the last time a player was involved in a fight and not ejected. But Lopez really had no choice in the matter. Once Salaire charged at him, he had to defend himself only to get run from the game. Also, it's not like he was ejected for the pitch being up and in. He was ejected for his participation in the brawl, which I guess is true. He's not necessarily completely blameless. We can get into that in a second. But Dylan continues, that brings me to our question. Say a team has their ace on the bump in a must win game for the opponent. What would stop a batter on the opposing team from taking faux exception to a pitch inside, charging the mound and getting the other teams ace prematurely bounced from the game via ejection? Would there be any way for the pitcher who did nothing wrong in this case to keep himself in the game? If he just ran away from the charging batter, would he be allowed to stay in? I think he would. But could he live down the indignity of fleeing from a fight because all kinds of macho considerations come into play here. Yeah, I worry that this is an exploitable vulnerability, you know, because the way the way to avoid it is to assert one status as a small bean. And I don't know that many of these many of these men will will opt for that. Now, I also don't think that Jorge Soler is just like looking around going, you know, tonight's a good night for fighting. I, I imagine that there were some words said, you know, I imagine. Yeah, there were definitely some words that we don't know what words, but he's by all accounts of somewhat peaceable man typically. Yeah, yeah, I don't think Jorge Soler has a reputation for being a rabble rouser or an instigator. Now, that doesn't mean that he has to charge the mound. No, our advocates on this podcast of emotional regulation in the workplace where one can offer it. But I don't suspect that he was completely unaware of what might happen, right, you don't. Or if you are, I'll say this and I'm gonna do a swear. Don't talk if you're not trying to start, you know, like don't don't don't do that. Yeah, that's a recipe for problems. So I do, I do suspect that this is an exploitable vulnerability, although I imagine the reaction on the field would be very different. So maybe this is a circumstance that is unlikely to arise just by virtue of the fact that, you know, words, words were said. And so this was, you know, this was a, hey, we're gonna do this. Okay, we're gonna do this kind of a situation and not I'm just standing here. What's your damage Heather? How many references can I fit into one little exchange here, but I suspect it would be somewhat exploitable. But we've also seen, I guess we have also seen players go, what, what, what, what? Yeah, yeah, that's true. They don't necessarily run. They don't talk tail. Crumple, you know, they don't, they don't like, like a, like a, or a roly poly bug. Right. Just curl up in a ball. Yeah. Thank you for knowing what I meant because I'm given to understand that how one refers to that particular kind of insight has a regional flavor to it. Yeah. What do you call those are roly poly bugs? Do you call them roly polys? I'll probably say a pill bug actually, but I, but I know what you mean. That's the split. I think that's the East West split on that. I've got more roly poly, but you probably say caddy corner. Yeah, I, yeah, I guess I do. But apparently the, the pill bug or roly poly bug is from the family Armadillo D-Die. They put Armadillo in the name? That's delightful. Yeah, I love it. How about that? Any kind of bug that curls up as a protective measure? You know what that looks like? That looks like an armadillo. We got to call it that. That's great. So you can do that. You could pull an Armadillo D-Die maybe. And then you're probably, I don't think you would get suspended if you did just sort of, if you just took a dive or just backed away or something. Unless you were seen to have instigated it, which in Lopez's case, so the, the history here, this was not unprovoked. Of course, Lopez says that he didn't throw on purpose and his manager said that he didn't throw on purpose. Walt Weiss, by the way, just, he got in there, you know, he just, he was trying to hold back Salaire. Salaire's a large man. Big guy. Yeah. Yeah. And Walt Weiss is just like doing the holding back. Walt Weiss is in there. Mike Trout is on the other side. And look, we could, we could all, you know, have a moment of concern there. Yes. Just give him how fragile he has proven to be. But I do think that, that an underrated role in the, the fisticuffs. And, you know, we, we spend all this time talking about the bullpen's coming out from the outfield because it's funny. And that's, that's fine. But an underrated role in the, the de-escalation of the benches clearing brawl. And this was as close to an actual brawl as we've gotten in a little while, although there's been some fighting in the early going here. Anyway, is the guy who's built like Trout. And I, I think, you know, just to invoke an AL West comp here, you know, Julio Rodriguez has sort of played this role in various Mariners Astros conflagrations, where it's like the guy who looks like he could credibly play like linebacker, who just gets in there and is like, look, I will lift you up and move you if I need to. But we're going to be, we're going to be done with this nonsense now. And, you know, Trout has just like the, the veteran authority to do that. And also does look like he's, you know, could play linebacker, although I would worry about him getting just pulverized, getting his various injuries over the years. Yes. Yeah. So there's a history here. There's a better picture matchup history, namely that Soler has just absolutely owned Lopez. Yeah. So they have faced each other 26 times and Soler is 14 for 23 with five home runs. Yeah. Wow. It's been a massacre. Yeah. Absolute massacre. That's a 2045 OPS. Beautiful. So Soler has completely crushed Lopez. Yeah. No hitter who has faced Lopez more than seven times has hit him that hard and Soler has, has faced him 26 times. So that's the history. And Soler had hit a home run off of Lopez earlier in that game in the first inning and then Lopez hit him with a 96 mile per hour fastball the next time. And then in this inciting incident, Lopez threw one high and tight. Okay. Yeah. He said it wasn't on purpose and Walsh, Walsh said it wasn't on purpose, but you can understand, I suppose, why Soler would reach the opposite conclusion. Sure. And also Soler was sort of staring at him. And what Soler said was I asked him if everything was okay. And the answer he gave me, I didn't like it. That's why I went out there. So I don't know exactly what the answer was, but he didn't like it. So just saying, you know, Lopez, maybe some, some incriminating circumstances there maybe was not completely innocent. And then of course he did, you could say in self-defense, but he did throw, throw some punches. None of these punches really landed. No. Like in baseball brawls, the connection rate, the hit rate, it's got to be extremely low. And I don't know if that's just because these are not practice professional fighters or because their heart's not really in it. And they're just trying to make a show of it more than they are actually trying to hurt someone. And they recognize the consequences of actually hurting someone. You've probably run that suspension up even more. So even in the heat of the moment, even if they're seeing red, they don't quite pull their punches, but sort of, you know, maybe it's unusual. Let's make this look good kind of thing. But yeah, if you could document that, I don't know if John Boyce has run those numbers, but I'm guessing it would not be, would not be high. But it was sort of self-defense. He still had the ball in his hand as he was throwing a punch. Yeah, he had the line with the whole time. Yeah, but Dylan's strategy here of just sort of having a sacrificial lamb kind of like, you know, in video games, I guess you'd call it going aggro, getting aggro, pulling aggro. It's like when you attract attention from an enemy, you know, and so if you're just like a tank, like a character who can take a lot of damage, then you will go aggro and you'll just get one of the NPCs to attack you. And you're kind of almost creating a diversion, like you're baiting, you're luring the NPC into a trap and then everyone else can go about their business. So if you did that and you could have your number nine hitter, you could have your worst hitter, you could even just have them in the lineup specifically to dupe the opposing ace into getting himself ejected. Now, if it's a must win game, if it's a playoff game, high stakes, the umpires are probably going to go a little easier. Be a little more lenient when it comes to, well, are we going to actually change the course of this game by taking out a great picture in the first inning? Maybe we'll just allow, you know, be a bit more liberal in what we allow here. But yeah, I think if someone charges you and you fend them off and you meet punches with punches, then I think probably you'd be headed for ejection too. So, you know, it's not the worst, it's not the worst. It'd be an underhanded way to win. I mean, I'd like to think that teams just for sportsmanship reasons would not want to stoop to the level of just trying to get someone thrown out in this way, intentionally provoking them. But would it work? Maybe. Yeah. And again, I want to, I don't want to overstate the case. I think the circumstances under which it happens are narrow because again, you need to, you need to be, well, you'd need to be intimidating, right? So it can't just be any, you know, guy in the nine hole. Like you kind of, I think you have to be built like Jorge Salera because if what you're doing is instigating a brawl from first principles basically, right? There's no, there's no pitch that preceded it that was borderline and a little too close for comfort. The guy hasn't said anything. No one's mother has been invoked. Yeah. If you're just like saying, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull aggro. I don't know. I think that's one way to say it. Pull aggro. Okay. Well, we're going to leave that alone, but it's going to be, it's going to be in the back of my head the rest of the day and I'm going to be worried about gamers. But if you're going to pull aggro, you have to like in some ways like inspire almost a self-defense reaction from whoever is on the mound, right? To be like, oh, okay, holy s***, we're doing this. I guess I gotta, I gotta respond. Yeah. You know, I wonder if you're, you're almost triggering the, the fight or flight more than you are like a insulting the, the particular brand of masculinity we see most often. In the big league context, we're like, ah, you know. So yeah. So if you had maybe your weakest hitter who was also. Right. I'm just, I'm just envisioning the pitcher like doing the thing that older siblings do where they like hold their, this isn't familiar to you, but like imagine a movie you've seen, you know, where you hold your younger sibling out by their forehead basically and they're trying to swing at you. Yeah. Like, all right, buddy, like, yeah, tire yourself out here. Let's get to curtain and move on with our day. Yeah. You know, like it's, it is, as I talk about it more, I think maybe a narrower circumstance. And I wonder if the umpire would be like, Hey, what are you doing, man? Because sometimes, you know, this is on a rated part of this, of this little fight that Craig Goldstein pointed out. Jonah Hyme was just like, this is not my fricking problem. You guys like, what are you doing? You, you, I'm not getting in the middle of this. And often a catcher will come out and sort of try to play cop. And sometimes the umpire just gets out there right away. The fact that Soler was allowed to charge as, chargey as he was is kind of surprising to me. And I wonder if the home plate umpire was like, that's a big man. I'm not. Well, you guys, you get in there. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Wall, isn't this your problem? And it's funny because Soler, I mean, Soler was a brave for a while. Yeah, it's true. Well, I think if you were transparently trying to do this and drawing someone into a fight, then maybe it wouldn't work so well. Yeah. Or if you did, you have to fight fire with fire, fight fists with fists probably. And if you just sort of stood there and stood your ground on the mound, but yeah, maybe just fended them off. In a fairly nonviolent deescalatory way, then maybe you wouldn't immediately be ejected, especially if they were trying to. Now, if they waited until a pitch got away from you or something and there was one inside just to make it look a little more convincing than maybe. But it's just like, it's just a pitch down the middle and you're like, you know, trying to turn it into a thing. Right. At a certain point, it's like, Hey, just, just focus on your play appearance guy. Yes. This is all this subterfuge, all this potential drunk. Just, just focus on the task at hand and try to hit this guy. That's probably a better use of your time and energy than trying to. Yeah, I don't recommend this. And to fight, you know, like, come on. Be a, don't want to win this way. Be a man, you know, be a grown, be a grown ass man and just do your job. Just do your job. Well, we know a grown ass man who is still a teenager, but nonetheless, we know now the extension is official. Yeah. Connor Griffin is a Pittsburgh pirate for many, many years. And they have not really stuck their, their necks out here. They're, they're giant, thick, massive necks. They have awarded an extension to Griffin that I think if he turns into anything like the player he's supposed to, will work out quite well for the players. Which is not to say that this is highway robbery or anything. I think it's, you know, it's an appropriate term and everything. I think it should work out well for the pirates as long as Griffin turns into the kind of player everyone thinks he will. Then, yeah, I think, you know, they'll be getting him at quite a discount here, but it's nine years. It's 140 million. There are some escalators and incentives MVP escalators could go up another 10 million max, but that's it. And it's pretty simple. There are no options. There are no deferrals. Yeah. Nothing like that. There's a $12 million signing bonus that's paid out over a few years, but basically that's that. And this will make him a free agent after his age 28 season. So entering his age 29 season, this buys out his first three. Free agent years, but he will reach free agency barring a subsequent extension early enough to before he's already. Yeah. A massive mega deal here. And that's, that's on purpose. His agents, I think we're looking out for him there and he can double dip and get even more rich at some point. But yeah, I mean, I'm happy for, for pirates fans who now do not have to start some mental countdown clock here and can just enjoy. Conor Griffin being a Pittsburgh pirate for years and years. And obviously he and his representatives were happy and satisfied with the terms and it is the biggest contract in pirates history, which is not saying much obviously, but. It's not saying nothing. Being Brian Reynolds' records. Yes. Yeah. And it does make me wonder, will this make it easier for them to convince others to stay is Paul Skeen suddenly thinking, huh, okay, well, if Conor's just sticking around for. Years to come, then maybe this is somewhere I would want to be or even other free agents they might try to woo in future off seasons, maybe just having that foundational franchise player locked up for years to come. Maybe that makes that a more appealing proposition. But yeah, the deal is done as we sort of expected based on all the buzz and the smoke that there would be some fire here. Yeah, buzz and smoke and buzz and smoke. So I think a couple of things about this. I do. I don't know that it won't necessarily sway Skeens in particular, but I think that you are making a statement about your credibility as a franchise by committing a dollar amount that big. Now, you need the next big contract to really seal the deal on that, right? If you have a guy, if you have one guy on your roster, making that much, you know, and what a what a strange thing. Can we just take a moment to appreciate how odd it must be to be this young man who is soon to be 20, but is not yet 20, right? To be this young man and to be the highest paid guy in the clubhouse by like a not small margin. That has to be profoundly strange. A guy with 22 big league of played appearances to his name. You know, and you're the you're the guy with the biggest contract in the room. That has to be at least a little bit odd. And imagine being 19 and just being set for life personally and professionally. I can't imagine being married at 19. We won't linger. We're not going to linger on that conversation because it's none of my business, but I'm just saying all the very know it's just get everything done. Just get it all out of the way. It's just generational wealth. You know, sign a long term deal with your employer. Sign a long term deal with your high school sweetheart. A lifetime deal you hope you vow, you know, and term deal. Now there, I suppose that one could argue, well, hey, there, there are guys who are making more money this year in that clubhouse. There's exactly one. Thanks, Mitch Keller, but, but it has that has to be a profoundly strange thing. I guess the other thing I would say is like it does speak to and I'm, I'm not trying to like, this is going to make it sound like I'm like, negging Pirates fans or, or, or given the, the front office, the business and I can just imagine the people in the Pirates front office being like, Meg, shut up. Can't we do anything right? This is not that it, I think it speaks to the profound confidence that the Pirates have. And I think that that is a justifiable confidence. Like we love this kid, right? Everybody loves this kid. Everybody thinks, and I'm saying kid, and I know that that's a silly thing because he's married and like has a hundred million dollar contract. But like he is a very young, young man. Yeah, he is just speedrunning life milestones. But yes, he's still very young. He's still quite young. And I think it speaks to the profound confidence they have. And you might think, oh, that's obvious. But there are teams in baseball and not just the Dodgers where if a large contract goes sideways on them, it's not good, but it's survivable. Pittsburgh has decided they are not in that category of team, right? If a hundred and forty million dollar contract goes south on them, that's like profoundly destabilizing to their future payroll picture. So they, they trust this guy. They think that this is the dude. And I think that they're going to be proven correct on that score, right? I think that Connor Griffin is going to be a franchise altering player for them. I do think it makes it easier for them to say with a straight face to the next free agent they want to sign, hey, we're serious here. You know, we think that we have the beginnings of something really special. The proof is going to be in the pudding on that. And there are bad teams that have like one guy who's getting paid. So they, they do need to continue to supplement their existing big league roster with viable role players. They need to draft and develop well. They need to do other stuff. This is not a sufficient condition for franchise success. But I do think that keeping guys like Connor Griffin around is a necessary condition and they are satisfying that. And I'm sure they're like, hey, bring your grievance now MLB. I'm sure that there's some strategy to it in that respect too. But, you know, giving your, your fan base a dude and saying, you can go, you can go buy this guy's jersey. You can do that and you can feel confident in that choice. That is, I think a really important thing and no disrespect to Brian Reynolds. But I think that the odds that Connor Griffin is relevant to the national conversation of baseball in a way that really only skeens is otherwise on this team. And that's not meant to disrespect their other good pitchers, but like they got two now. That's very exciting. They might, they might be able to, to go do something now, you know, and hey, there, as we're recording this on Thursday, there's seven and five, you know, you have a better record than the Seattle Mariners. We'll get to that later. But Tigers, right? There are a bunch of teams that we thought were going to be like big, big, big, and there's, you know, kind of floundering and early going here, whether, you know, those fortunes will continue all season, I'm sure we'll talk about, but it's quite exciting. 19. I just, can I offer, can I say something? Everybody, the circle of trust ready for everyone. There are lots of reasons why people opt not to consume alcohol. And I think that those are perfectly fine reasons. One should not feel pressure to do that. I do wonder if it's like a not unreasonable life rule to say that you maybe should at least have the option to do that legally. Oh, you're running before you get, I'm just, it's very, I'm just, it's very young. It's very young, but also many happy returns. To your, to your, to your contract, to your wedding. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously the, the success rates marriage wise when you get married that young tend to be a little lower, but probably higher though for big leaguers, right? That young, yeah. Cause especially if you sign a ginormous extension, cause money can be a real source of stress in a relationship. Right. And it shouldn't be now for Conor Griffin. So, no, I would, I would think not. So, um, I hope, I hope it goes well. And yes, I would imagine that the success rates in this particular demo diverged from the average pretty meaningfully. Yeah. Baseball players, they, they have to grow up early in, in a lot of respects. They do. So, especially if you're that good, that young. So yeah, the pirates, they have the sixth most starting pitcher war thus far. It's very early, but it has more or less looked like, yeah, they have far more success rates. Like, yeah, they have good starting pitching and do they have enough of everything else? The bullpen has been quite bad. And the position players have been middle of the pack, but that's why you call up Conor Griffin, I guess, and hope for the best. And Dan Samorsky ran the zips projected terms and zips suggested eight years and 142 million. So one year less. And that year is pretty important because that would be a free agent year tacked on land and he's projected to be a star. And so Dan said that, you know, zips would tack on another 40 million for one more year. So that's why I say it's perhaps a little light. And if he turns into one of the best players of baseball, then yeah, it'll, it'll be a pretty steep discount, but he'll do okay. And also he'll get another bite at the apple. And I am interested because the timing of this is curious, of course, because as we noted last time Buster only reported that this extension was done last week, Thursday. Before Griffin actually made his Major League debut and then he deleted that tweet and there is no more about it. And in Ken Rosenthal's piece for the athletic, he notes a contract agreement before his Major League debut would have nullified the prospect promotion incentive eligibility, as we said last time. But one person briefed on the negotiations said the deal was not completed until 6 30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday night. That one person was Bob Nutik. I don't know, you know, probably someone. Now, I'm sure that's technically true. I'm sure that they didn't sign on the dotted line until Tuesday night or whenever because they wanted to preserve that PPI and I don't particularly care. I'm not the PPI police here. So, you know, like if this deal was agreed to and for all intents and purposes done before he was actually called up and then they held off on announcing it so that they could get the extension while still retaining the eligibility for those incentives. I mean, you know, it's on MLB to crack down on that if it wants to. I don't particularly care. I'm not super scandalized by that. You know, it's it's curious timing, right? When only predicted or reported the exact terms last week before his debut and then that was announced until days later. Like clearly there was some sort of framework in place, right? And so if I were MLB and I were trying to be a stickler for these regulations, I probably would do some investigating about whether this is actually, you know, eligible for that or not and satisfies all those conditions. But hey, if they get away with it, I guess good for them. I wonder and I say this without any inside information, but I wonder if there is a fairly robust mole hunt going on in the Pirates Front office because I mean somebody talked to Buster and delete, you know, you can delete all the tweets you want, buddy. Like we all love that tweet. We saw that tweet. And so, you know, sort of jumping the gun on that leak could have very real implications for that front office. Now, at the end of the day, you've decided that you're going to keep Connor Griffin around so you don't have the like service time consideration that they ended up kind of botching with skeins where he just ended up getting a full year of service anyway, even though he wasn't brought up within the timeframe for a people. So, you know, you don't care about that. You've you know exactly how much service time you have with Connor Griffin. You've you've made a decision about that. But that draft pick is is valuable, particularly for a franchise that still has as we've noted work to do to bolster the big leak roster. And so, maybe I really meant they do have made. So, yes, you don't want to if you're trying to do a little bit of, you know, let's sit on this news until right. Yeah. And then that comes out that could. Yeah, that could be bad. He'd probably be that could be bad. How that happened. But so anyway, be head on a swivel. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's for an office. So one little ABS observation here. There was some question before the season about how this would affect players at the top or bottom of the height scale. Yes. And people were saying, well, will this help Jose Altuve will this help the smaller hitters or will this help Aaron Judge and the big hitters anyone with a notably nonstandard strike zone who maybe was getting jobbed previously. What a lovely way of putting that. What a nice nonjudgmental way of putting that. Yeah, nonstandard. Could be a super size strike zone. Could be a honey eye shrunk the strike zone. But one way or another, you know, you were going to be getting some some pictures called strikes on you that probably weren't quite fair just because it's hard for umpires to have individualized zones for for everyone and dramatically different sized people. And Mike Petriolo wrote about this a couple of times just using the triple a data and the spring training data. And his conclusion was that this would help the shorter guys and not necessarily the taller guys. He just looked at the challenge rates and it just seemed like the shorter guys were having more success with challenging than the taller guys. And so that was kind of his conclusion. And that seems to have been borne out in Jose Altuve's case at least because he's off to a fantastic start. He's one of the top 10 hitters in baseball this year. He has a 204 WRC plus as we speak here on Thursday afternoon in 13 games. And also he is getting a more favorable strike zone called. So this does seem to be playing out the way that one would have expected and not necessarily just directly from challenges he has issued. Although he has been one of the more frequent challengers. He actually said I think coming into the year that he didn't expect to challenge that much but he trails the Major League leader by one. He has issued four challenges and he has been correct three times. So although looking at where those challenges were you might expect that they would have been on high pitches that were called strikes on him. They actually weren't. They were on low pitches or pitches to the side but they have gone his way more often than not those challenges. But I think it's less because of the specific pitches that he has challenged. And just because I think umpires are just more mindful of this now because they know that the challenge system is there and that if they screw this up they're going to get embarrassed in front of everyone. And so you can kind of see it if you look at baseball Savant. So I looked all seasons. This is what 16th major league season. So I looked at just the called strike rate on pitches that he has taken. And this year it's 29.4%. That is the second lowest called strike rate on taken pitches on Altuve. Only 2016 was lower. And then if you get more specific and you do pitches that were not in the strike zone in the rulebook zone that were called strikes on him pitches that he took this year only 4.9% of pitches that he took outside the rulebook zone have been called strikes. And that is the lowest rate of his career thus far. And you know small sample we're talking five called strikes out of 102 total pitches satisfying these criteria. So you know change it by a couple pitches and outcomes and this would look different. But it is I think meaningful maybe that this is the lowest rate thus far of his career. And I think this is actually paying dividends for him. And he has walked more often than he has struck out. He has walked way more than he's ever walked in the full season before. I'm not saying these numbers are going to hold up and that he's suddenly going to be a 200 WRC plus and almost 400 Babup guy or that he's going to be walking a one solo rate or anything like that. It's a hot start to a season. It's 57 played appearances but coupled with the expectation that this would benefit him and coupled with the observation that he is getting more. Favorable calls than he had in the past. I think there's something to this. I think there's some signal amid the noise here. And you know he's obviously on the downside of his career here in the backside of his career. And last year he had a week year at the plate. It was a down year by his standards and he's 35 and so you know almost 36 turns 36 in a month or so. And there is a question of how much does he have left and obviously defense not really his strong suit. I think this could kind of give him a second wind maybe. And help compensate somewhat for declining skills. You know you have this like perfect storm with him where he has a non-standard strike. And also is sort of on the downside of his career and the margins matter more there. Or maybe it's better said that you have less margin for error. And so if you are able to extract small concessions in the count. Well that can matter for anyone and particularly maybe for someone like Al Touve where it's like if you can boost your own base percent. You just have a better maybe more reliable way to have value at the plate. I could see that making a difference. My suspicion would be that it is more about bringing that non-standard zone in line with a standard zone than it is like any particular boost or degradation relative to skill. But it does make sense to me that it wouldn't matter more. Yeah. And Bradley Woodrum wrote this week for BP about the strike zone. And it seems to be a bit taller and skinnier this season as umpires have been more mindful of this. Because really the zone itself has changed. It's confusing because the rules say that it's still a 3D zone. And just if you pass through any part of that space then it's a strike the way it was before. And if you haven't really changed the rulebook definition of the zone it's just that there's this ABS zone which is sort of separate because it is just a flat plane in the middle of the plate. And it's customized more precisely now and calibrated based on the actual measurements of the hitter. And so you do have sort of separate definitions of the zone now. But I think the definition of the zone that umpires are using on all pitches now is very much influenced by the definition of the zone for challenge purposes. Because now they're subject to challenges on any pitch. So they kind of have to call it the way that it is according to the challenge system all the time. So it has been actually a bit taller and skinnier in general. But for Altuve specifically, and there was another BP piece about Altuve this week by Jared Seidler. I think for Altuve it has led to a bit of a lower zone just because he's not having a standard strike zone called on him even though he is smaller. So that's interesting because imagine if it turns out if he does have sort of a resurgence here and it turns out that actually yeah he was kind of playing on hard mode all those years. And not just by being shorter than the typical player but because he was actually having an unfair disadvantage because umpires weren't calling the strike zone on him the way that it should have been called. That would make his career look even more impressive in retrospect. And statistically I mean he's I think a Hall of Famer as it is assuming that he does not get dinged too much for the banging scheme. And I don't know given that Beltran is in now and that there's reporting about Altuve not doing anything to stop the banging scheme but also not really making that much use of it himself and there's reporting about that. Also there's the actual audio and he was not getting the bangs as much during his play appearances as a lot of other players were. If you give him any special dispensation for that or if you just time passes and it's not seen as a disqualifying thing then I think he'd be bound for Cooperstown anyway. But if this sort of props up this decline phase of his career then that would make his accomplishments look even more impressive especially because then we could apply that in theory to all the past seasons and say wow he was that good even though he had this going against him. Imagine if he had had this quote unquote fair zone the entire time then he might have been that much better. So yeah it's just it's impressive you know aside from the banging scheme stain I have quite enjoyed Jose Altuve's career. It's just we're always in favor of nonstandard sized players right and and nonstandard skill sets and everything so I'm happy that a player shaped like him can not just make it to the majors but succeed and be excellent there. So we've said this before but we'll keep saying it it is truly one of the coolest things about baseball that there are so many different kinds of bodies that can you know look and and do and not just like make it to the majors not just hang on at the major league level but succeed and really thrive there and be you know future Hall of Famers it is one of the profoundly cool things about the sport. I do wonder what Altuve's Hall of Fame discourse is going to be like I don't think that we have we have really gotten like the full flavor of a banging scheme player you know with Peltron it was like he was at the end of his career. You know he hadn't been a participant in that I think there's this suspicion that you know there was malfeasance we didn't know about and that it is kind of coloring the way that some people engage with and understand the success that players on that team had before the banging scheme was uncovered and you know maybe it will continue to affect them in perpetuity I don't know so it'll be interesting to see sort of how we talk about how we talk about these guys and the idea that we might introduce a narrative of like actually Altuve might have been even better if it hadn't been unfair is that is going to short circuit a particular kind of online person's brain I just want you to be prepared for what that discourse is going to be like no pun intended no pun intended I will not make fun of the short kinks he you know it's funny because it's like he he was a party to this massive you know destabilizing terrible thing but he's honest about his height so like who can really know the heart of a man although he did stand there next to Bregman and let him just say yeah I'm six foot and I was like alright buddy but maybe that's just like you gotta you gotta live in a clubhouse you know yeah you see this you see this fellow shortish king over here and this is not a knock on the short kinks okay this is that's not I'm not trying to take any non standard zone beautiful you know we don't have judgment we have admiration it's a harder thing to do you know really really like what you look at Aaron judge you're like of course he's good at baseball look at that giant man all the strict zone thing is ever I can hear the Yankees fans being like his son's been unfair the whole time what if Aaron judges zone has been unfair this whole yes everything to that then yes and I'll talk about that in a second it's true Beltran that was his the last year of his career he didn't do anything to burn his hall of fame credentials when he was with the Astros if anything just the opposite I mean just purely as a player because he was right bad that year he was a sub replacement player so his he was too busy cheating maybe so his hall of fame resume performance wise was set before he got there on the other hand he was seen as one of the instigators and one of the architects of that scheme so that's what really held him back I think but didn't hold him back for that long obviously so yeah when it comes to judge so because that's another where okay he's already established himself as maybe the best hitter ever best right handed hitter ever imagine if he too was and and he was getting jobbed sometimes obviously because of his height but I think not as much as Al Tufay was like if you just so I looked over the past five seasons twenty one to twenty five and looked at the highest rate of called strikes on taking pitches outside the strike zone and Al Tufay was close to the top ten he was eleventh minimum I don't know two thousand pitches there are like two hundred forty qualifiers and Al Tufay was was eleventh with seven point five percent of those pitches were called strikes erroneously on him whereas judge was more kind of he was still elevated but not as elevated as Al Tufay ironically but yeah he was like in the top fifty but wasn't getting jobbed quite as often as Al Tufay was and judge over the same span actually had one of the highest rates of in zone ball calls because he just has such a huge zone that there were balls that should have been called strikes that weren't and then if you look at this year I think there's not as much of a case that he's getting a much more favorable zone to look at just the called strike rate for him on pitches outside the zone it's not notably lower than it usually is it's kind of middle of the pack in all the seasons of his career and and if you look at just the called strike rate period on called pitches this year it's not that notable in fact it's still pretty high it's the second highest I guess rate he's been he's had thirty two point one percent called strikes just on pitches that he has taken this year which is the second highest of his career after twenty sixteen so yeah it's not as notable a difference and he hasn't challenged as much either he's only challenged twice he's been right both times and both times it was pitches just below the zone that and he got them overturned after they were called strikes and they were actually balls but you know I think it should help him maybe a little bit and he's off to a good start I mean he's got a 144 WRC plus which is like ho hum for Aaron judge very good for just about anyone else but yeah yeah given what Petriello found previously I think it seems like this will probably benefit the short Kings maybe more than the tall Kings and in fact the guy who I think had the highest rate of called strikes outside the zone on taken pitches at least if you set the minimum to a thousand was Nick Madrigal who is also a short King and a guy that I was hoping would be good and then hasn't been but yeah eleven point two percent of pitches on Nick Madrigal that he has taken outside the zone were called strikes over the past five seasons so he needs the challenge system to anyway early returns small sample caveats abound but it does appear that that is holding up and that the short guys are getting a boost which you know they need because it's still slight disadvantage you know so they need a boost they need a boost okay so we said last time that we would take a look now that we're two full weeks into the season you know well some people they do the panic meter and the confirmation bias check ins after one week or one weekend even but not us not us here effectively wowed we're very demure very mindful and so we wait two full weeks to do our should you know you panic about these teams and I won't even call it that really we're just looking at the teams that have hurt themselves or help themselves and we'll look at the changes since opening day according to the fan graphs playoff odds and this is largely based on who has won and lost games but also injuries are coming to play here and there's been a wave of pretty devoralizing entries yeah I it's been pretty bad I mean I I Ben I do not care for it everybody is hurt what is going on a lot of stars a lot of load bearing members of rosters as you might say Kate Horton done for the year having for a year surgery I mean that's a good one for the year yeah big blow to the Cubs big blow to the Orioles Matthew Boyd also on the I L for the Cubs with a biceps issue and then we talked about Cody Ponce last time and all the entries befalling the blue jays Alejandro Kirk also out for no weeks with a fracture so that's and then the Astros Hunter Brown shut down for a few weeks with shoulder issues that's always scary and Christian Javier removed from his most recent start with shoulder tightness to and then one Soto not serious but he's on the I L with a calf issue Mookie bets with an oblique issue yeah it's just it's one after another so this is this is not good and that plays into the playing time projections and thus the yes playoff odds as well but yeah let's just look here changes since opening day we've we've have some double digit changes and you know it's it's hard to affect your fortunes one way or another but as Dan Semborski documented in another recent post for fan graphs headlined yes pennants can be lost in April it is true that like it's meaningful to have a dip in your playoff odds this early in the season because there is a school of thought as Dan noted in his piece that it's just variants and everyone's bound to have hot streaks and cold streaks and slumps and so it's just like you're just getting one of those out of the way basically yeah but I don't think that's actually the case I mean that's kind of almost a gambler's fallacy thing just because you have had a slow start to the season doesn't mean you're do when you're going to make it up later and in that you're probably true talent wise more or less the same as you were expected to be it's not as if anyone has really affected their projections of their actual quality but it's just some teams have banked wins and some teams have banked losses and yeah then you just sort of reset more or less and okay now we have the same rest of season projection but we're starting from a different baseline than we were on opening day and as Dan noted that that does actually affect things and I thought was clever of him he put it into perspective by noting that the changes in playoff probability after even one week in April that's essentially equivalent to the changes that you see at the trade deadline so we make such a fuss about trade deadline acquisitions and subtractions but it doesn't mean that much usually because you know it's only a few months with that player and so we've already seen teams now with two weeks into the season have their playoff odds swing about twice as much as you would see for the top teams that change their fortunes at the trade deadline so we should be making as much of these early season results as we do about that and he looked at all the teams so he found going back to over the past 20 years or so that he has been running standing projections with zips he found all 83 teams with a median outcome of 90 or more wins going into the season and he looked at their worst performances in April 26 of them finished the month with a losing record and he says for most of those teams it wasn't just getting one of their faded bad runs over and done with early from a preseason average projected win total of 92.5 wins they had an average finish of 85.2 wins with slightly less than a third of them 8 of 26 finishing with at least 90 wins and only three of the 26 came back and beat their preseason win projections after their slow starts so yeah not to depress anyone whose team is off to a terrible start it's not insuperable but it's also not meaningless so the teams that have hurt their fortunes the most and the teams that have helped their fortunes the most tend to be corresponding ones that are going head to head with the ones that have hurt their fortunes but yeah the Red Sox so they have salvaged their start slightly since we alluded to it last time they've won a couple games but they're still four and eight on the season and it's been pretty rough for them and they're down 13.2 percentage points of playoff odds and they're also in the double digits in division odds and that's rough in the AL East which is expected to be competitive as ever they have been helped by the fact that the Blue Jays have also lost about 8.4 percentage points and are themselves off to a rough start 5 and 7 with the aforementioned injuries so that has kind of blunted the impact of the Red Sox slow start maybe but it has been frustrating I think for a lot of Red Sox fans because the expectations for this team were I think appropriately high yeah I think I picked them to win the World Series before the season started I immediately flush all of my predictions when it happens of all of the teams that have had a bad go of it in the early going I think this is the one that has surprised me the most just because my expectations were so high and I thought that all their pitching would be good if only because of the they had so much of it and yet they have allowed four and a half runs a game they have a negative run differential it's not the words run over and all in the sport. White Sox buddies but then the blue Jays are right there what a weird beginning you know it feels very topsy turvy and I don't mean to discount any of what you just said just really what Dan has said I think that that's right that it you know maybe it doesn't alter your true talent expectation of a team but it's not nothing right it's not nothing in terms of your you know sort of season long expectation of a club but some of these teams I am there what yeah it's not great except for the White Sox at negative 29 for a run differential perspective you're like that seems right you know that yep that's right it's not great when your your opening day starter Shane Smith has already been optioned to the miners about a week into April that's not ideal yeah they're projected run differential is negative 115 which feels bad I would expect oh no that's the rest of season they're projected full season run differential is negative 144 that's the White Sox not the red Sox but you know what if what if all the socks are going to do badly what if what if yeah the Pope can't you know this is just proof that the Pope is like got has bigger fish to fry the Pope's not like trying to intervene you see the Pope at yes I see they're giving away the Pope at yes doesn't that doesn't feel a little risky doesn't that feel a little I saw it I saw it and I was like slightly sacrilegious maybe but I don't know about that I know they ran it by him I mean maybe he's all for it he's you know he's a sports pope not my princess more than anything that the Pope was too busy doing more important stuff to be like yeah I'll prove the promo I bet they they probably taught to whoever the like Archbishop of Chicago is though I bet they they must have run it up some yeah I mean flagpole right he has been photographed wearing a White Sox cap in the full Pope regalia but not yeah he hasn't altered the Pope hat though no but I'm sure has a specific name anyway the Red Sox yeah it's a Diboralizing start because you start the season and hopes are high right and then you blow a bunch of games and you know Durbin's not hitting and it's just I wouldn't make too much of it even though I just said that it is actually meaningful but I wouldn't but I do think that of of the clubs that had playoff not just aspirations but I think expectations right like I think that Boston probably assumed going into the season we're gonna play in October and to be clear that may well still come to pass but I think that to your point of all the teams that are like kind of Unun shaky ground the ones in the ALE star the ones that I would be the most alarmed by internally if I worked for one of those clubs just because it is such a knock down drag out kind of it and of course a stupid Yankees are up there at the top at 8 and 4 neither of us wanted to draft draft well we said they'd be good just maybe that they would be that fun but that they'd be boring I guess you'd call the Pope had a miter yeah I saw Bowman make a pun about Sergio Mitre which is spelled the same way as the Pope had but not set the same way yeah works better in print Chicago Pope I'm still not used to that Ben I'm still not used to the I'm still not used to the Chicago Pope because every time you know the Pope speaks in an official capacity I will I'm never listening to the Pope not like I'm not listening like I think you know as popes go the I'm in on this Pope so far so I don't mean it like I'm not paying attention to or minding what he says although I don't really like mind the Pope that's not my thing don't disrespect intended but I'm not hearing him right I'm not like listening to audio of the Pope I'm just like reading statements and they read like Pope statements they read like the the puntiff and then I have to remember that he like has an opinion on Jerry Ridesdorff yeah that's wild it's still wild I am not totally convinced because if if if listeners remember I was on vacation when this Pope was named the Pope like when the smoke came out of the chimney and everything and normally when when I'm on vacation something happens online where I just have to as I said pretend to understand it for the rest of my life like the Rizzler still don't know if I have that quite figured out or Rizz generally are those related don't tell me I'm not convinced that this Pope isn't just a big long prank on me but I'm being pranked in a nice way and JD Vance is being is being pranked like in a way that feels like divine retribution so maybe it's all maybe it's fine maybe it's fine you know yeah no did you hear Craig Breslow's I thought you were gonna say something about JD Vance I was like I have and it is the least charismatic terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life that's all you're gonna say though least charismatic is debatable because Craig Breslow no that is the you cannot say that even as a joke that is so mean to Craig Breslow to compare I am sorry this episode is off the rails you can't I've got no problem with Craig Breslow I've interviewed him you know sure but but in terms of just pure speaking charisma I have confidence in Craig Breslow's ability to go into a donut shop and order like a normal human being maybe so but when he talks about his baseball team it sounds it's the most you know how we talk about like front office speak yes he just has the most I know so that kind of the idea of deploying our players in a way that maximizes positive outcomes by creating the most favorable matchups that we can is is a term you know that that I would call optimization and I think that's synthesizing analytical information is synthesizing the real time feedback that we would be getting from our players and our coaches are interacting with each other every single day to ensure that we're doing that and making sure that we're not leaving any wins on the table and it's because he's a former player I know that he was you know analytically oriented and everything as a player but did he talk like this when he was in uniform like in a clubhouse where was it what were the other players thinking is he over compensating for the fact that he's a former player and so he's like I got to turn up the front office speak to to 11 here I don't know if you know this but he did go to Yale yeah I'm aware of because I was mentioned every time he pitched during his career but even so it yeah it's the most like business brain kind of just talking about optimizing whatever you know and it's I think frustrating when your team is off to a slow start and then the guy who's in charge of your team is like coming up with this word salad that you just kind of again you don't want panic you want a steady hand at the tiller you know you don't want someone to be visibly upset because you want to project confidence and they have every reason to be confident it's a good team but but also I don't know if you want a little sort of commiserating or empathizing or something or just acknowledging in some more comprehensible way that things are not going well that you're not just you're not going to get that from Craig Russell so it's right I don't know from a PR perspective. I think a lot about the moment in that Netflix documentary and you're like which one because they're making cuts in camp you know they're they're deciding the final cuts to like send guys down to minor league camp and there are only so many ways to tell a guy you're not making the big league roster right and so I don't want to overstate the case. But because of the fact that we have footage of it we just know that he said the same exact thing like he decided this is how I'm going to communicate this and there's nothing. Necessarily wrong with that it's just that we don't normally get to see that conversation play out and so that you know back to back to back to back to back to back to back and it's just the same. Yeah, of saying it and again there are only so many ways to say it's not necessarily a problem but I think about that scene a lot because I think he is starting to read to people in a way that is very kind of robotic. Yes. And part of this is you know part of this is that the Mariners aren't rolling Jerry out as much anymore right they're having Justin Hollander talk to the media. And so like you know Brezzel is sort of filling a void he's filling out a business tech brain void that typically Jerry is happy to run into. Yeah, it is funny though that they're both former pitchers and so I I do wonder if there is a little bit of I've got to fit in and not seem like a jock or something and so I'm going to go completely in the other direction. Maybe. I do I do think I do think that the you know the Yale the Yale Lee part of this is not to be understated. Yeah, but Jerry Jerry's not even an Ivy League guy he's not a guy commonwealth university guy. Right but he so he might be it's funny it's like what are you what are you overcompensating for you know like Jerry might feel at a place as a former player who doesn't have sort of a prestigious pedigree right whereas you know many as you have written to great effect and I think better than anyone like you know a lot of these former player types who are heading front offices now you know dispositionally and sort of resume wise not all that different from the typical CV of the guys running running the show who didn't come up through the player pool so who knows who knows. Yeah I try to avoid the front office speak where I can I almost referred to MLB right sizing Jose L2 Vase strike zone but you know I always roll my eyes when a company lays off a bunch of people and they say oh we're not downsizing we're right sizing but maybe that actually applies in Jose L2 Vase strike in case that that that whole term yeah it just carries associations that I want to avoid. Okay the team that has heard its fortunes them second most in the early going unfortunately is makes Mariners Mariners off to a four nine start so they're down also about 13% of playoff odds and yeah it's been bad they have not been scoring much cows off to a rough start Julio as ever is off to a rough start when does he ever look good early in the season but he's looked particularly bad thus far one of these years one of these years he's just going to get off to a good start and have an amazing season but not this year seemingly so yeah we actually mini-stap last we got a question the other day about the Mariners and their string of one run losses this came from listener Michael who said April 7th as I'm sure Meg knows the Mariners lost their fourth straight one run game despite a complete game from George Kirby although I'm tempted to ask a stats question about Kirby's knack for paying homage to King Felix what I need to know is this what is the MLB record for most consecutive one run losses are the Mariners chasing yet another historical milestone in futility a cursory Google search didn't turn anything up so I'm coming to the experts well the experts went to baseball references stat head tool and found that this was not a record the record is seven seven consecutive one run losses and that was the Washington well the Washington team I guess baseball reference calls them the nationals in 1919 and yeah they lost seven consecutive games by one run and they lost a lot of games in general they were 5684 and two two ties that year so that's not good but four is not that notable it's rare obviously but nothing historic it's happened 223 times going back to 1898 including six times now in total by the Mariners as recently as 2023 and 2024 so not even really that new for the Mariners the good news is they have snapped this streak because the game after that they lost three nothing yeah so now they've lost five in a row but and also they scored zero runs but but they lost by more which I guess is worse but at least they snapped this streak anyway offensive few utility it has also been a demoralizing start for a team that was seen as maybe the best in the league hasn't been good it's so strange because I was you know I was traveling and then like yesterday it was all day games and so I haven't seen with my human eyes a lot of this futility but it does feel early in the season to be like sure they're leading the Rangers now but it's fine though because generally you know they really do well when they're playing the Astros in Houston so I'm sure that the next run here will will go well I I don't care for it you know I really don't I I feel like I was a really good sport about Joe Adele and the robbing of the home runs because I don't want the young man's career to be a problem but also enough already all right you guys boys boys yeah gentlemen squish runs you know unlike nailer has like a negative WRC plus that's never good you know that's never good it's it's it's bad enough that you don't even have to do the like you don't want your your first baseman to have it no it's bad no matter what position I mean like yeah good Lord but so that's bad yeah as long as you're intact because I think the bats will come around you know I think they'll start to score some runs sure and as long as injuries haven't hit you hard there's a limit to how upset I would be but the only other team that is in double digit percentage points down in playoff odds since the start of the season is the Cubs now the Cubs are off to a six and six start which doesn't sound so bad but they're down about 11 percentage points and and they're injured and they're injured yeah and right and those are some serious injuries so that would dismay me more you know I mean I think I'd rather be four and nine with all my guys healthy than six and six and having lost Kate Horton for the year and and boy being injured and everything else so yeah that's that's a double whammy that's kind of a insult to injury I believe it was when they were four and eight it was pointed out maybe by John Cheneer who's a smart guy worse for the team that like they started that same way last year and the season ended up going just fine for them not World Series bond but like a successful season by any reasonable measure so it's not like it can't be done and I do think that you know when you're when you're healthy and you theoretically still have reinforcements on the way and also you know a good farm system I'll be at a top heavy one to trade from like you know you have the means to to theoretically write the ship as long as people start hitting and despite the early success of of some of the other teams in that division I think correctly understood to be a more winnable division than say the A at least so you know but also I can't say I I like it I can't say I particularly care for it how do you sorry we were talking about the Rangers even tangentially how do you feel about these city connects I'm sorry to do you realize but I don't have particularly strong opinions on most jerseys as you know you're not you're not a jerseman really I think they've maybe used up some of their better ideas in in previous years I think we can be done I do like the I like the Baltimore ones I think the new Baltimore ones are pretty spiffy part of that is just that I really didn't like the the last run that they have but I like the Baltimore ones I think that the Atlanta ones are good but like I still think we can just take a little break from that particular shade of blue and it would be okay are there a lot of gamers in the city because these still read to me like streamer like outfits like if you took a team of streamers and sports jerseys or something yeah yeah if they were if they were full aggro what did you say pulling aggro if they were pulling aggro drawing aggro I I feel out of remove from that culture I do I feel it's okay yeah yeah like I'm at a distance but yeah so I don't know I they're they're better I think as a whole but but it's a lot of them they and like many of them all at once I don't like the Brewers once the Brewers once are bad I'm whispering and then the Rangers ones I I guess take the statue about though you know yeah what are we doing here that would be nice yes okay and then I left out one other slow starter that's in double digit negative territory and that's the Tigers you mentioned yeah they're foreign eight they just got swept by the twins yeah they did so and on the other end of things so the the Guardians are eight and five and because the Tigers have been so bad and the Guardians have been good they're up 20.8 percentage points they're the top gainer and then the Rangers who have been the beneficiaries of the Mariners so start their seven and five they're up 16.2 percentage points and the Brewers they might not have great city connects according to you but they are eight and four and they're up 10.7 so again it's you know Cubs are off to a so start and Tigers and Mariners and thus the Guardians and Rangers and Brewers are and the Yankees because of the Bujays and Red Sox so starts and the Yankees being eight and three or whatever they're right and four they're also up about 10 percentage points so those are the big gainers and yeah I again like Tigers how much does that concern me not enormously I still think that these are all good teams so but they are now kind of at a deficit and now they have dug themselves a little bit of a hole that they have to climb out of. Yeah and you know I think that of all the like we don't need to keep harping on how poor the central is but like speaking of winnable divisions you know and I think that's a good club and they'll find their way but I did watch the Diamondbacks like beat Terrick Scooblin person so you know. Yeah you got to see a pitcher's duel as advertised but Zach Allen was even better I guess yeah. How many I should have stop lasted this it was it was funny to watch the Diamondbacks people are like when was that start hey we were we had to take a pause cause I had to travel and I watched it in person left on left home run made the difference in that game how exciting. The other declineers the blue jays we have touched on the reasons for that but they're down about 8 percentage points injured and and then the giants are off to a five and eight start and they're down about 7 percentage points and no one was expecting too much of the giants people were expecting 500 out of them and they've been worse than 500. Yeah but yeah Tony Fattello has been not reassuring anyone who was worried about how he would adjust to the big leagues and I don't want to make too much of this either but and maybe like people are kind of hyper focusing on everything he says because it's such an unusual situation and he's the first guy to really make this exact transition but it has felt like a little lack of feel when it comes to. The way that he talks about stuff because it seems like he hasn't really let go of his college coaching career and he doesn't have to on a personal level like he can continue to cherish that time or hold grudges from that time but he keeps dredging up. These issues from his college career and this was happening in spring training when he was kind of picking bones about just like how it was reported that he was taking this giant's job and seeming to criticize that it was reported that he would be taking the job before he actually decided to take it. But then he did take it and he took it quite quickly after the report I get that maybe it was kind of awkward because he hadn't told people perhaps and so it was the news broke before he had broken the news himself to his colleagues or players or whatever but then. Like he was I think asked for comment in that report and so he had to know that it was coming and and it's also just like old news no one cares other than you know and so for him to and he was bringing up like this gripe he had with you know runners calls on runners in the baseline or whatever and throws and was harkening back to times that he had been upset about this in his college career and he isn't have to pretend that he wasn't a college coach he was an accomplished successful college coach but I just can't help but think that for players in his clubhouse they're just not going to be particularly impressed by that or like yeah might not want to feel like their coaches their managers head is still sort of in college it's like hey this is the big leagues you know yeah and if the knock on him was going to be that he hadn't played or coached at this level. Then would you want to be constantly reminding everyone right that that's your background so that coupled with the slow start for the team and then talking about like little issues I mean there was the Chapman in the mound visit telling Casey Schmidt to catch the effing ball right and you know maybe that's just a veteran with a little tough love for a rookie or whatever but yeah and then Chapman made his own mental mistake and then yeah. If I tell him came out and said like there had been a few clubhouse issues but they were minor but also like why even mention them then and like make it sound like there's a bigger issue than there is and then also him talking about Kanye or I don't know like just it's he's kind of an overshare maybe and I don't know quoting Kanye at this point. I don't want everyone to sound like Craig Breslow so right it's I guess to the advantage of press and fans to like hear the authentic thoughts of these managers I don't want everyone to sound like a robot and be so buttoned up that they never say anything interesting but I don't know it just it doesn't seem like he's helping his case and and this is probably something where if they were off to a better start this would not be a bigger issue but he keeps. He's quite candid and he keeps raising eyebrows with his right it's like he already doesn't have the background of any other major league manager but also he's not sounding like any other major league manager and maybe he's just leaning into well I'm different and I'm going to sound different and if the team were winning maybe that would be endearing and charming and people would embrace it and we'd be talking about Tony ball or whatever right as it is since people were kind of like waiting for. For him to screw up you know and just like also sounding like he is making a lot of the fact that the team is struggling early on and and in kind of a college coach way and like delivering pep talks to the team and I don't know it just sounds a little bit bush league. I think you know part of it is a very dramatic shift in the. Both the current and projected competitive picture for the team he's dealing with like Tennessee is like a powerhouse and also you know there are full time professional reporters who cover college baseball so I don't mean to suggest that the only people he's interacting with are like you know kids on the student paper and also there are plenty of. Really good student journalists so there are any number of ways in which I don't want to sound like I'm being insulting here but like I do wonder how much of this is an adjustment to like hey you. You're standing in front of like a professional beat and they're going to have questions for you every day you know they are often going to concern why your club isn't winning because your club isn't. So I think there are just any number of things separate and apart from the managerial differences of being a manager versus a coach. Which is like the split right you talk about college coaches and you talk about big league managers and I think that there are any number of things that are just different that isn't to say that he can't grow into that role that isn't to say that he's like a disaster or that the higher is a disaster but. It is a little surprising to be seemingly kind of caught off guard by the way that he is you know going to have to interact with the media that the expectations will have some of the potential pitfalls like why why are you why do you seem surprised by this and it does kind of strike me as as him being a little bit surprised at times where it's like hey Tony yeah they're going to. You're gonna have to talk to me every day you know and they're going to want to know about the game you just won like that. You know so I have been a little stymied by it because it did seem at least in the initial going like they were. Trying to position him well you know he traveled with guys from the club like they went to Asia in the off season and. We saw him walking around winter meetings and he and Buster like glued at the hip and. It's just a little bit odd it's like yeah you're guess what it's April 9th no one cares about what the the press coverage was when you got hired like you got to you gotta get into day you know you gotta take care of business. Right now I mean they don't have a game today as we're recording but you know what I mean yeah and and he was talking about how this is like after they got shut out a couple times which is not how you want to start but not that big a deal and he said it's emotional in the clubhouse and there are a lot of try hards he's calling his players try hards as if they're just pressing or something and it's just a little stream of consciousness I guess yeah kind of just says whatever son is my son. I'm just trying to find in this very not media trained kind of way and and just divulging to say like there were a few clubhouse issues and then he's like and we were able to keep them from you guys which is great couple things we were able to keep from you guys which was great but then you're you're revealing that you kept things that were happy why even say them then it's so I don't know maybe he'll get used to it and the team will start winning a bit more and it just won't be that big a deal. And it's like you know I I appreciate that the separation that we're implying between the majors and the college ranks is like perhaps not quite as clean as we're suggesting you do you're dealing with professionals and I understand that the distinction between a professional and an amateur these days is is less stark than it used to be but you know they're still coaching that goes on at the big league level you still have to mentor you still there like there are aspects of being able to do that. And so I think that being a college coach that I could see being an incredibly valuable in a big league setting even as you're having to navigate the reality of these being professionals and many of them on that roster big league veterans. You still have an opportunity to to teach and to coach and to bring guys up like that that still happens there and it's not like he's the only one on that coaching staff so you have other people who have experience in that context. But surely you didn't disclose every like unflattering or contentious moment at Tennessee right and you know they're a bunch of college kids they were probably being knuckleheads in ways that would work. Knowing the vibe of that clubhouse I wouldn't be shocked. So and by that clubhouse I mean the Tennessee clubhouse so I just think that like you know we're seeing the rough edges and we are particularly mindful of them because the team isn't playing especially well and it could all sort itself out but it does feel well like a less professional outfit than you might expect from a big league manager but you know. Yeah. Okay. And the pirates are up about nine percentage points to for reasons we have touched on. Twins are up a little bit Marlins are up a little bit even though they had some clubhouse discord to because Clayton McCullough pulled Sandy Alcantara from a start Alcantara was going for his second consecutive Maddox which would have been quite special. I think the first pitcher to do that since Maddox himself but he was not able to finish that out and he got pulled when he got in a little bit of a jam in the ninth and then Marlins bullpen coughed it up and Sandy was displeased that he hadn't been consulted before being yanked and made some comments to that effect. Also I'm confused about what they're doing. Joshi and pointed this out in his newsletter but they're pretty strictly platooning Owen Casey and just not having him start against lefties which just seems weird because you know why not see if he can hit them. He hit them okay in the minors and you're bringing in Austin Slater who hasn't even hit lefties himself that well lately and isn't a big part of your future and Casey is like a cornerstone you just made a big trade for and he's hit perfectly fine so it's weird to platoon a guy like that. That's strange. There is weird. There is kind of a weird there maybe a little bit of a weird work you know like I like they're trying stuff but I don't like the stuff they're trying. Do you know what I mean? Yeah the pitch calling from the bench is spreading the twins are now toying with it in the minors and it's like not rooting against any particular players involved in this it's not their decision and some of them are fine with it but since I don't really want this to catch on I'm kind of like well if the Marlins weren't doing so well maybe they would decide to stop this but they're doing fine. I think I saw that several players on the Dodgers were like that's a bad idea and I was like listen to them. Oh yeah and some of the Yankees have said it. Right listen to them. And look again I think it might benefit teams that try it and the Marlins are off to a good start and hey the Rockies are off to a good start for them they have not changed their playoff odds one iota. No. But they're six and six. They're six and six. Point one percent chance to make the playoffs but it took them until May to win their sixth game last year so they haven't gotten. This is like their best start since like twenty twenty two. Two I think. Yeah two or three. They're five hundred through their first twelve games yeah they haven't done that since twenty twenty two when they started eight and four and even that year they lost ninety four games and we're a last place team but if they only lost ninety four games this year that would be a success so good for them you know they've been playing like a credible baseball team lately so that's exciting but yeah and you know we'll talk maybe about some surprising players to like Jordan Walker is this the real Jordan Walker he's hit five homers are we finally seeing the blossoming of Jordan Walker but the Cardinals haven't changed their playoff odds fortunes that much but they're seven and five that's nice but yeah it's the the veteran teams it's like the Dodgers the Yankees yeah they've said they don't want to change their playoff odds they don't want to change anything in call pitches from the bench because well they have a lot of experienced good high priced players and teams are playing well so sure they're going to say that and that's why I think this started with the Marlins and the Rockies like these are teams that didn't have as much writing on it or just were desperate or didn't have established players who could push back on it and I get that you know it's kind of a collaborative process it's not purely an edict but even so I think there's a lot of pressure on young players even if you say this is a suggestion it's not a demand well how often are you going to go against that especially if you haven't developed the knack of calling these pitches yourself really so anyway we will continue to track this and we'll do periodic check ins on the playoff odds fortunes I did want to ask you since we talked about New Look jerseys and we talked about the Pope hat what do you make of this incipient trend toward brimless hats which you may have seen our pal Jake Mintz so far. Snapped a pic of Edwin Diaz. Yes. Who was wearing a brimless hat and Diaz said that Tanner Scott also of the Dodgers started this trend and it is not a beanie it's just a cap can you even call it a cap it's a hat with the brim just sliced off. It looks sort of like a fez hat. It does it looks like that. Yeah. Did you see Jordan's version which you know credit where it's due Jordan did not do the same ripping there his lovely wife Bailey did shots to Bailey hi Bailey. Okay so first of all if I'm if I'm Edwin Diaz I'm not following any trend that Tanner Scott starts until such a time that I feel confident that that doesn't involve like you know cooties or a curse or bad vibes sorry Tanner you were very good and then you were not. And I don't know where you're going to fall this year you know I I feel nervous about following you know it's gone okay so far it's gone okay so far so to your a but so for four and two thirds you're confident after four and two thirds that you know what the implications the vibe implications of following a Tanner Scott trend or I know I wouldn't feel confident in that. Get a era over for last year stay away from him Edwin also just turn your cap around what are what is the what is what are we solving for. Okay. Ken Griffey junior is one of the coolest people to ever live and he just turned that way are you so offended by foul territory that you have to cut the thing just off. That's a little dig at foul territory which I don't mean as a dig but maybe I do what are you guys doing over there what's with all the backwards baseball caps what's going on. Yeah it's definitely a different look and I know that there was a it's like a kind of viral video several years ago where a guy had a Yankee cap with no brim and some I don't know if that was the inspiration because that was like 2020. Probably so there was a long lag there but I have not seen actual big leaguers in pulling this look before I don't know I don't hate it I don't I don't have strong opinions on this because much as I'm not a Jersey opinion have her I don't wear caps I'm not I'm not a hat wearer and I'd probably be more likely to wear one if it didn't have a brim maybe just because I feel like you're just describing a beanie that doesn't have a function like I think that's true it's like why not just wear a beanie. What is it doing. What is it meant to do. Are you cold. If you're cold. Where something designed to actually insulate you I'm skeptical you are cold because yeah. You tell me in Los Angeles. Yeah. You know it's not like they played all their games at home and it did rain that one day but but still what is the purpose because you're not you're not shielding your eyes the the backwards baseball cap in addition to having a tradition of being cool also like it can you know it like shades your neck which is you know an area that sometimes people forget to sunscreen and then they get they then they get burned back there and that's not good. So OK but you're not shading anything it looks weird it looks it looks weird for now and then if it becomes common it won't look weird anymore. It's like you know the really big hats have you seen these really like the what are those about what are what's that about. I don't know. It doesn't offend me though. I think it's just I mean there's no utility to it clearly you're you're moving the part of the cap that offered some utility to players. But I think it's purely just a fashion statement it's purely like wouldn't this be silly and perhaps fun. I get players are they can be copycats I'm I'm guessing that this will catch on to some extent. Why. I don't know. Why. It's stupid. I mean I don't know. I don't mind it. I'm taking I'm taking a stand against this. I think it's I think it's doofy. I think you're you're ruining those caps. You're ruining them unless you think you're improving them. Also did Tanner Scott like bring a seam ripper from home. Who's doing the alteration. Is this something that you're imposing on a poor clubby to to take the brim off your and what he. How do you explain it. Like I know that I know that Edwin Diaz did it and we know that because of Jake and that's fine but he did it because Tanner Scott did it. Why did Tanner Scott do it. What is Tanner Scott's justification for this. I don't know. I don't understand. Yeah. I don't like it. I think it looks dumb. I mean the whole just having a cap is not strictly necessary. Right. I mean you know people were wearing caps on night games. I guess OK. Maybe the lights could get in your eyes or something. But I think the utility of the cap is probably a bit overblown anyway. It has it has all utility. It has all utility in other contexts. It's part of the uniform which is why you wear it at night. I understand that it has different lesser utility at night because sure maybe you're worried about the lights but you're you're probably not worried about the lights. But it's part of the uniform. You would look naked without it. And you know we already have pants. Right. You're already basically naked out there because they haven't fixed the pants. They're doing all these city connects still have transparent pants. Yep. They still have sheer pants that they were always like that. They are. They were not like that. No. I'm slamming my keyboard down. I don't like it. I think I understand that there are a lot of kinds of hats and not all the hats are about utility. Some of them are about beauty. They're about it looking pretty. They're about it looking. This is why I don't wear hats mostly because I don't care about making fashion statements and I wouldn't make good ones if I did. Probably. I'm going to say something and I I I I want to preface it by reminding you that we are friends and you are dear to me. But if I could speak to Edwin Diaz and Tanner Scott and anyone else who's this man doesn't care about fashion. He just said that. And he thinks this is good. So like that what you will. Just like take that piece of information in and I am no fashionista. Okay. And I famously like very ugly hats. Sometimes I'm like that. That hats ugly. Give it to me. But I'm here to say this is a bridge too far even for me a person who doesn't who isn't turned off by ugly hats. Some hats are ugly and I'm like I don't know. I kind of need that. I have some hats and I've been told I'm like I need that hat and then someone will be like you're not going to wear that. And I'm like yes I will. And then I don't but I have it and I look at it and I'm like that's all ugly. Yeah. I don't know if it's good. I'm not necessarily endorsing it. I'm neutral. I'm indifferent. I think it's fine. I need an articulation of what about it you not you Tanner Scott what do you like Tanner what and the problem is the Tanner is pitching well in like limited action certainly but he's pitching he's pitching well and I'm sure the bad is a great relief to him and a tremendous relief to the Dodgers and a really great relief to Dodgers fans but it's like what do you why did you do it what did what why did you do it what inspired you to do it. Why were you like I should do that. And again did he do it or did he make someone else do his crafts for him in which case why if this catches on presumably they will just start selling hats like this right and people just have roomless hats that you can buy. I am making such a why face about that. I just don't understand so many like baseball caps are great and there are so many good ones and even the ugly ones will keep the sun out of your eyes. And it's like if you're going to do creative stuff with hats then move off of the cab genre entirely. There are so many different kinds of hats. It's true. And other caps. Yeah if you're removing the bill other caps probably be more comfortable anyway. Right. So that's one reason. Yeah. Yeah. A couple final follow ups here on things we've discussed while we're talking about pitchers and fashion statements. We got an email from Eli Sussman of Fish on First the Marlin site responding to your comment that we don't usually see pitchers wear sunglasses. And Eli says on episode 2462 you guys very briefly discussed why pitchers never wear sunglasses. Well the unorthodox Marlins have a prospect who does. I was in attendance for their spring breakout game last month and noticed them on right hander Aiden May. Here he is after that game explaining that they are prescription lenses. He found out at the 2024 draft combine that he had impaired vision but was quote to stubborn to address it until now and has turned it into a fashion statement. He has continued to wear them during the minor league season. And there's at least a little precedent for this because I was reminded that Kay Agawa used to sometimes wear sunglasses when he was with the Yankees. And I think in his case he did it because in Japan he had pitched much better in night games than in day games. And so when he pitched in day games he wore sunglasses not to block out the sun necessarily but to simulate night games. We have replicate the experience of a night game. Yeah. I'm not sure how well that worked in his case but but yeah in both of these cases though it's still there's some reason other than just wanting to block the sun. Which is the reason why a lot of players wear sunglasses. You need more than that if you're a pitcher. I guess that it's it's not sufficient. You need you know either you need a prescription so you have to wear some sort of glasses. So you might as well or you're trying to make it look darker to fool yourself into thinking that it's a night game or something. There's always some sort of explanation some extenuating circumstance but yeah it's not totally unprecedented. Also we talked last time about Patrick Corbin. He's actually starting Friday for the Blue Jays so it turns out not a long lead time there. He's just about ready already which means yeah bump up the innings estimates accordingly. But John Schneider Blue Jays manager. This was posted by Keegan Matheson who covers the Blue Jays for MLB dot com. John Schneider on the feedback he got about Patrick Corbin from old teammate Max Scherzer. I think Max actually called him a sled dog. It was the first time I've heard that I guess he just kind of does what he's told and pulls the sled. So Patrick Corbin a sled dog according to Max Scherzer. I guess that's what we were saying more or less he takes the ball you know he just stays in harness. You tell him to run and he just runs and I guess that's what you want when everyone else on your staff is injured. That's so funny. Yeah also sled dog. Yeah we talked about Carter Jensen and his oversleeping and listener Paul wrote in to say when you were wondering if Carter had a person at home and later noting it's often these players first times living alone. It reminded me that when Jensen was a late season call up last year he lived with his parents for at least part of that time since he's a Kansas City native. And Paul says my siblings and I were joking that this wouldn't have happened to him last year because his mom would have woken him up. It's true. That's probably part of why this doesn't happen more often. Also Paul says it seems like the Royals have moved on to the friendly razzing stage of this story because since the incident the team hit celebration has become the nighty night laying your head on the pillow move which I think is pretty funny. And Jensen did that himself the other day and other players have done that too. So now they're doing the you know put your head on your hands thing. Yes. After you you get on base. So that's fun. I like you know message was sent and they did the rebuke and now everyone can laugh about it hopefully and they've incorporated it into their yeah and for Jensen to poke some fun at himself a little self deprecating humor. I like that. So you know that's a happy ending to the story maybe. And then also an email from listener Jonte who wrote into say the discussions on episode twenty four sixty and sixty two about starting pitchers staying eye washingly serious during ring ceremonies made me think of a game back on August twenty seventh twenty twenty one when Andre Jackson then of the Dodgers was warming up for his second big league appearance after having made his major league debut eleven days prior Sportsnet L.A. the Dodgers RSN did a segment about him on their show backstage Dodgers. The stadium will often play segments of backstage Dodgers before games and the one about Jackson's debut was playing on the day he was set to make his second career appearance. This was happening while Jackson was in left field doing some early warm up tosses endearingly Jackson stopped to watch himself on the big screen. My partner Linda was there for the game and captured the moment and he sends us some photos of this. Of course this is not nearly the same level of pomp and crowd attention as a ring ceremony but I appreciated Jackson showing us he's a normal person just taking it in. And in retrospect I always had an inexplicable little fondness for a guy who pitched thirty nine innings for the team I follow. I think this little human moment explains it in a post script. And a post script. Andre Jackson ended up playing for N.P.B.'s Yokohama Bay Stars for a couple years and in twenty twenty five while wearing number forty two he hit a home run and his celebration was infectiously joyous and I will link to that too. He was a pitcher because they still have pitcher hitting there and yeah he was quite happy. So he's a man who enjoys his triumphs and takes a moment to drink them in and that's nice because you know if you're Andre Jackson and you're not going to be there that long maybe. I mean I don't know if he was thinking that but he should have savored that moment because you can't count on there being many more. Yeah I think that's right. I think that you know it can be so fleeting so so good in. OK congrats to White Sox right hander Duncan Davit my guest on episode twenty four nineteen back in December as you might recall he is not just a pitcher he's also a sports writer on the side had a great conversation with him and expected that at some point I would be able to wish him congratulations for making the majors this season and I didn't have to wait long he has been summoned to try to improve that White Sox run differential so a newly minted major league we have already met. Another fun little mini blast by Patreon supporter TRW in the stop last channel of our discord group. Well not so fun if you're a Tigers fan as TRW is but the Tigers won on April 4th bringing their record to four and four since then they've lost five straight meaning that their record was four and five on April 5th which is April 5th in month month month month day day format four and six on April 6th four and seven on April 7th for an eight on April 8th and four and nine on April 9th this is the longest such streak since the 1904 Philadelphia Phillies who went from five and 18 on May 18th to five and 23 on May 23rd and that streak of six ties the longest ever streak of record matching date in month date format if you go by day and then month format the record is eight set by the 1939 Yankees starting on May 14th 1949 ending on May 21st and they went from 14 and five to 21 and five TRW says the schedule makes these streaks impossible in certain years basically the entire second half of the 20th century they became possible again only in recent years and they've really flourished 2020 is the only season in which a month month day day or day day month month streak happened in August in month and then day format all other streaks happened in April or May in day and then month format there were a couple that happened in June otherwise all in April or May usually an early season phenomenon so if the Tigers lose again on Friday they could set a record a record related record and one more late breaking follow up on the outro to our proceeding episode I talked about how Andy Dirks has been referring to some pulled batted balls and pulled hits as good pieces of hitting or nice pieces of hitting counter to the convention that that phrase be reserved for go in the other way not trying to do too much etc Jason Benetti informed me that Dirks is not doing that on purpose to try to reclaim that phrase however listener Brad wrote in to say Boog and JD in the Cubs TV booth had an extended conversation last year about the phrase good piece of hitting how it's typically used when a player has a weak hit away from his pull side then they started saying it when someone hit a ringing double or Homer because that's when we actually should be complimenting a hitter well done Boog and JD Boog went to my high school so you know he's a great guy and we'll know that you're great if you support this podcast on Patreon which you can do in time for our next episode which will be a subscriber only full episode by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some month your yearly amount to help keep the podcast going help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners Andy Kims Adam Barber Wiley McLeod Ben Etter and Shane thanks to all of you Patreon perks include the aforementioned weekly subscriber only episode our monthly subscriber only bonus pod our discord group for patrons only our exclusive live streams personalized messages prioritized email answers fan graphs memberships and much more check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild I am grateful for you all other podcasts that I have done have come and gone always subject to the whims of other decision makers but not this one and that's thanks to the listeners who have stepped up to support it and also now to get some good stuff too if you are a patreon supporter you can message us through the patreon site if not you can contact us via email send your questions comments intro and outro themes to podcast and fan graphs.com you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild you can rate review and subscribe to effectively wild on Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube music and other podcast platforms you can find the effectively wild subreddit at our slash effectively wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast post at fan graphs or patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we've cited today thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance we will be back with one more episode before the end of the week which means we will talk to you soon.