17 Burst results for "Borsky"
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"It's tough to say. Torkelson so far, you know, the numbers in spring training don't jump off the page, but the underlying metrics, he has, I think, tin balls of over a hundred mile an hour exit velocity and those are only the ones that have been played in stat cas ballparks. So he's hitting the ball hard. He seems to be having good at bats. I still like to see the guy just turn on a fastball and crush it out of the park. But that time or two at some point. Yeah. We should talk about the other hopefully hitting cornerstone of the tigers, Riley green, who had a less discouraging rookie season, and is being bandied about as a possible breakout hitter, dense and borsky included him on his recent list of breakout candidates, and he wrote no player in 2022 underperformed his expected walk strikeout in home run stats, which are derived from statcast and plate discipline data more than green did. So are you buying the breakout for Riley green? What does he have to do other than perhaps have some let go in his favorite more often? Yeah, I thought those were some really good points from Dan and I didn't previously realize the walk to strikeout misfortune that happened to Riley. I think if you look at just the sheer surface numbers, you look at his rookie years like, oh, he was okay. I think rightly green's a really, really talented player, and I think he showed a lot of good things in the major leagues last year. He had a 430 foot Homer off Shohei Ohtani, it'll walk off Homer to the shrubs and comerica park. He played really good defense and made a lot of highlight reel catches. He's been viewed as a very advanced hitter throughout the time in the minor leagues. There's some swing and miss in his game, but he can use all fields. He also has good raw power. He's also a very intuitive hitter. I think I totally buy Riley green still having star potential in this league. If anything, in addition to good luck, it's elevating the ball a little bit more. His launch angle was oddly low, his ground ball rate was, I think, 56.8% last year. I'm not sure exactly what was causing that. AJ Hinch's theorized a lot of it could just simply pitch selection. I would not be shocked at all if Riley green turns into a breakout performer this year. Speaking of guys with some swing and missing their game, eh? Eh? I wonder where this might be going. Well, we can't we can't very well not talk about Javier Baez, who was one of the big free agent editions before last season. Obviously a guy who we've all watched a lot and have seen the swing and the mist, but also some really spectacular home runs and incredible glove work and he had a pretty disappointing year at the plate, his habit pretty well collapsed from 2021, but this is also a version of Baez that we have seen and that I think a lot of people wondered if we would see. So is there any adjustment that he could be making? And do you think there's any chance that he exercises his opt out after this season? With javi, I think Tiger's knew what they were signing up for. A lot of bad and also a lot of good, the problem last year is there wasn't as much of that good hobby, at least it sure didn't seem like it. And it didn't help that he got off to a very, very poor start, may was one of the worst months of his entire career. And I think that just set kind of a negative tone for the year for hobbies perception with a new fan base. If you look a little deeper into the numbers after I think mid June, he ranked 8th among MLB shortstops in WRC plus. So from June on, he was more like the hobby Baez, we are accustomed to see. He also made a lot of throwing errors at shortstop, led the league in errors that is a little bit concerning, but seems easily correctable. I know we did do a lot of work on his footwork and his throwing this off season wouldn't be shocked that error total comes down a little bit at the plate. I think it's a little naive to expect any major adjustments from javi. I think javi is going to be obvious and I think he's still going to chase sliders down and away. It's actually kind of crazy when you look at the numbers and really strike out rate declined last year. Actually pretty precipitously from 2022. But he's still going to chase. He's still going to strike out. I think the question is, can we see a little bit more of that good hobby? Again, if you take away May of last year, the season was actually more in line with career norms from Javier Baez. So I wouldn't be shocked if his performance ticks up a little bit this year. I think the real question is, how is this guy going to age into his 30s? He has an opt out, but if he doesn't exercise, the tigers are going to have him for 5 more seasons. And my understanding has always been the Tiger's got him largely because they were willing to give him an initial 6 years to pay him into his 30s, whereas other teams were a little bit hesitant of that. So I think bias would have to have a really, really great year to even consider exercising that opt out. I just have a hard time seeing him making more on the open market than he's already under contract to make. Yeah, by baseball reference where Javier Baez was the most valuable Tiger in 2022, which definitely says more about the other tigers and it does about bias, but I think according to fed grass where only tarik skubal led Baez and we know what happened to him at the end of the season. So yeah, it was that kind of year. And it was that kind of year when it came to the other tigers major Marquis off season edition too, right Eduardo Rodriguez, who I guess kind of gets an incomplete grade for the season because of personal issues that caused him to miss a significant amount of times. So what's the referendum on how he did when he was actually on the field and what the outlook is for him? Very weird year for Eduardo again personal issues caused him to miss about two months in the middle of the summer and it was marital and matter, but we never really found out a lot about what was actually going on. There was a time when he was not in communication with the team and I don't think that was great for his relationship with the club, but the good news is he came back after missing two months in the middle of the season and they ramped them up and then toward the end of the year he was he looks like Eduardo roger he is. I think what we've learned about this guy in Detroit is that he's very steady and very reliable in the mound. I don't know if he'll get back to 2019 Cy Young contender Eduardo Rodriguez, but I think this is the guy you can hand the ball and expect 6 strong innings from almost every time out. I think he's a really tends to tends to pound the strike zone tends to induce weak contact. He can miss some bats when he needs to. I think he still has the makings of a frontline starter. Again, I don't know if he's in quote unquote ace if he's really an elite pitcher, but I think he's a really good pitcher and we've almost learned that more from the time Eduardo has missed seeing how easily he seems to just come back right into the swing of things and be ready to take the ball and throw.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"I might rally a fan graphs and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindbergh of the ringer, Ben, how are you? I'm excited because we've got a new entry in the catalog of ways in which baseball is different from all or most other sports. This one comes to us courtesy of the late roger angel and also from listener Jimmy and Patreon supporter Jimmy who brought this to our attention. So this is from an angel essay from 1976 called on the ball where he wrote about the baseball and Jimmy writes a possible additional way in which baseball is unique in the closing paragraphs of on the ball, roger angel notes that baseball is the only team sport in which the scoring is not done with the ball. Oh. Yeah, in hockey, which of course doesn't quite have a ball, but we'll put that aside. In hockey football soccer, basketball, or lacrosse, the ball, or its equivalent, actually scores, or is responsible for the points that determine the winner. In baseball, the score is determined by the runner, while the ball is a long way off doing something quite different. While he does employ the qualifier team sport, Jimmy notes, it's still not common among scoring sports period. I figure any list is bettered by an addition from roger angel. I would agree. He knew that this was going to be catnip for us that we were going to bite on this bait because it's angel, but also it's a good point. So I'm constantly having to reshuffle my Mount Rushmore in my top 5 ways in which baseball is unique or at least weird. Compared to other sports, but this is a good one. I don't know if this is quite cracks the top, but the fact that the ball passing something or going into a net or a hoop or whatever crossing a line that is not how the actual scoring happens, obviously, like the ball is involved, you got to hit the pulse so you can run around the bases, but ultimately it's the runner, stepping on plate that leads to a run directly. So that is weird. Whenever we mention one of these things, we get emails, we welcome emails from people who say, oh, it's not so different from this border or that sport. So maybe it's that unique, but it certainly is unusual. Yeah. And there are plenty of examples in racing based sports where the person crossing the finish line is what it constitutes a win, but I'm trying to think if I'm going to be able to express this clearly. Like if you're a swimmer, Ben. Imagine you're a swimmer. And I can swim. Yeah, but imagine you're like a competitor. Competitively. Although, you know, Ben, maybe swimming is a thing you should explore as a sport option. Yeah, yeah? You're in the market. It's true, yeah. I swim recreationally, but you could do some recreational swimming, but so anyway, you know, like imagine you're a competitive swimmer, you getting to the wall and touching the wall, like that constitutes winning, but you don't have an implement, right? And even in sports like cycling, you know, if you're congratulations, you're now a competitive cycle, or also you're using an implement to participate in the race, but it's conveying you to the finish line, right? Right. As opposed to like baseball where you are using an implement to hit a ball and then have a person score. So there's a degree of separation, remove there. I don't know if I'm articulating what I view to be a clear distinction between those things clearly to everyone else, but so yeah, it is a weird bit of little business there, you know, because normally it's either the thing or the person and baseball is like a weird twisty melange of those, you know. Yeah, update, by the way, on will Ben play a sport and what sport will it be? There's been a vacant lot sort of not a lot. It's like a building, but there's been a vacant storefront, I guess you would say on the corner of my block for years now, just a big space and occasionally there will be some temporary art installation or something we'll move in there for a little while, but nothing of her sticks. But my wife and I just noticed this week that it's about to be a pickleball place. Oh boy. Yeah, right on the corner. And this was a popular recommendation that we should take a pickleball. I played a little in school, so did Jesse and maybe we'll take this up. I mean, the big impediment to my doing something has been like having to go somewhere. Right. So if it's just on the corner and it also seems to be connected to the gym I belong to in some way, like it's branded the same way as a way to ask like is this going to be part of the membership or do I have to pay extra or what? But if I only have to walk like half a block, there's not intense competition for space, then I might be interested in this. This is a major development in my pursuit of playing a sport competitively, but not too competitively. Well, again, I want to voice the same set of pickleball based concerns that I had, which is that I think you are right that there is more casual pickleball to be had, but I am often struck by the intensity with which people talk about pickleball these days. So just be just be careful then as I'm saying. Just be mindful that you don't get in over your head because it seems like people are getting in over their heads with pickleball. Of all thanks, you know. I feel very unoriginal. Like if this is the thing that I suddenly start doing when everyone else in the world suddenly started doing it, it's kind of like, could I have not been more creative than that? You know, you're trying to do something that has some amount of camaraderie. And so it's hard to be, it's hard to satisfy that urge and be truly original, like by definition, you need a bunch of other folks to have been like, yeah, pickleball. Let's go. So I think it's fine. Yeah, okay. Well, thank you. Anyway. Exciting developments. I mean, it's moving in right next door. What can I do? Some people get hurt badly when they play pickleball. Yeah, I know. Or anything. Well, yeah, but we're going to talk to dance and borsky of fan graphs a little later in the show. And he's going to join us to talk about some of the areas that still need work on various major league rosters because free agency is just about petered out now.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"You know that doesn't feel like they undercut him at all, but like they aren't necessarily dealing with the premiums that it sounds like crane is willing to pay, although who knows how involved with this one he was. We don't know, right? We don't know how involved with this one was, but let's assume that he wasn't involved just for the sake of this part of the conversation. You know, it could just be that Jim crane was like, no, I really like Jose Abreu and I'd like him to be an ASTRO and then the White Sox had a number that they weren't willing to go past and this was it, right? So there's that possibility I'm surprised that he has not returned, but I don't know that I suspect Ben that we will have other moments this off season where we look at what the White Sox do and say, they should have spent some more money, but I don't know for sure that this is in that category. It could be. But I don't know if we don't know, right? Yeah, I think rickon said at some point that he expected that the way tax would be more active in the trade market than in free agency, which seemed to suggest payroll limitations and the payroll I guess is up in the one 41 50 range projected, maybe post arbitration raises, but he has just sort of been the heart and soul of that team. So that is a big glass and not just in terms of the projection. And I like Andrew Vaughn and I think maybe if he doesn't have to worry about faking the outfield every day, like maybe that could help him just focus on what he's good at, which is raking in theory, but yeah, between that and I think a brave even said back in October that he just hadn't even talked to the White Sox about a new contract, it just didn't seem like they were being proactive about that. I don't think it's a surprise. I mean, I had read the socks had planned to let him leave. That had been reported last month and that they would just move on back to his natural position. But just saying, even though they have players for that position and even though those players are okay, it's still in theory, at least a downgrade from what Abreu gave them this year because he was just, he was really good. And that was, yeah, from what I read, it was like a rhein story decision to be aggressive in resigning or extending a brave last time. Following the 2019 season and that the front office at the time wasn't totally on board with that and that rainstorm made an executive decision himself and that worked. That turned out to be justified by his production ever since, so I don't know who had reservations now. Yeah, maybe we can say that it's a wag our finger and joint. We've had our fair number of those. I hadn't heard the part about them not wanting to resign them. I missed that in the flurry of, I don't know, the postseason. So shame on me. The closest attention to rivers. Famously not in the playoffs. Despite Jose raised best efforts. Despite his very good season, they did. Yeah. They didn't squeak in Ben, they didn't make it. Yeah, I guess they had a record payroll for the franchise this past season. They were close to 200 million opening day and did not make the playoffs. They were one of the biggest disappointments and then yeah, I think they had something like one 20 in guaranteed money and then they had some options that they exercise and some arbitration raises, so it looks like it'll be down from last year by a significant amount, but still maybe I don't know in the one 70 range or something and I guess we should also note that they signed my clevinger to a one year $12 million deal. So they did do that. They did spend some money and sign a free agent there. And that move, I guess, I don't really know what clevinger is at this point. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what he is either. I'm not sure that that would have been the club I would have been like, you know who's gonna rehabilitate Mike Glover at the white socks. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know with him, whether it's health or whether he needs other interventions or both. It could be both, yeah, but I guess they're signing him to a deal that reflects that uncertainty, right? Yes. But when you're deal, $12 million and for all I know that is what he was angling for, maybe he wanted a make good when you're contract to restore his value and then try to cash in again. And I guess the White Sox don't necessarily need him to be former top of the rotation type pitcher. Like Clevenger because they have don't cease and they have lancelot and they have Lucas do you eat out and they have Michael kopech. So really he just has to be a back end guy for them in theory even if I guess crochet won't be back until what middle of next year best case and then they probably would just use them in relief and I imagine. So maybe there's not a ton of depth, but at least going by the names there. It's a pretty solid top 5, like you would think that's a contending team's rotation. So no harm in adding Mike cleven churches don't know how much you can count on him for at this point. Yeah. I mean, if things don't work out for him, he can always pursue his true calling, which is working in a brewery because that's what he looks like he does right now. Yes. So I guess that segues into the one other thing we wanted to talk about, which is that dense and borsky of fan graphs proprietor of the Zipp's projection system. I think it sounds sort of warm all Ben cans and fan graphs. 'cause as anyone who files did on Twitter knows a lot of people don't know that Dan founded zips and operate zips because people apparently like regularly write to Dan and are like, how do you know what the zips projections are? What is that sometimes? And it's like, I don't know, he knows a guy. Yeah. So evidently, not everyone clear at that point. But fair enough. He and zips jointly produce their way too early, preliminary first 2023 projected standings.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"Think it would be bad. I'm just trying to imagine, oh my God. Oh, I'm like sweating. Tried to play themselves into better playoff position in an ultimately played themselves out of playoff position. I just think that you never, you never want to employ a strategy where someone can look back in hindsight and be like they were too cute. You don't try to be cute. 'cause you might be too cute. And then right. Yeah. Yeah. Having a fit. Yeah. I think that also like baseball is less susceptible to tanking, at least the type that should be a is susceptible to for a few reasons like when it's just not as advantageous to get a high draft pick and MLB as it is in other leagues. But also, I think it's like harder to lose. It's purpose. Yeah. Once you've assembled your team, you can assemble a non competitive team, but it's harder to say, okay, given the players we have on hand, we're going to reduce our odds of winning today because you have a bigger team in their more players and what are you going to do like your entire lineup? NBA, you can sit like one star and significantly impair your odds, but in baseball, as we know, like having one or two superstars doesn't make you a great team and being down to start two doesn't make you a terrible team, so there's only so much you can do realistically without making it incredibly glaring that you're doing this. So between that and the fact that there's probably not going to be so huge a difference in the standings between the teams that are in the wild card position and the teams that are just out of it, maybe there's not that huge, maybe it's like more of a, this doesn't look good because it's not great to have a team that is not as good, be rewarded for not being as good, so that's not good. Just from a optics perspective. But maybe it's not as dangerous from a competitive integrity standpoint. No, you still shouldn't do it. It's just bad. It's just so bad thing to mess with it and just do your job. Work your head down. Go in some baseball games, play in October, and let me have a happy family text threat. That's all. I want. Yeah. And also, just wanted to briefly salute what Zach gallen is doing for the Diamondbacks. I almost caught myself when we were talking about Keiko and saying that he had played for a couple of bad teams well, arguably he's only played for one. Diamondbacks, not so bad. Now, in fact, they're half a game behind the Giants in the west. How about that? How about that? I guess says as much about the Giants as it does about the Diamondbacks. But they're only three games under 500 or four games at this point and a lot of that is because Zach Allen has a 41 and a third inning scoreless streak going. Spectacular. Yeah, so he's close to entering the top ten score of a streetwise and he has already tied the record for most scoreless starts in a row, so he has tied Don Drysdale in 68 oral hershiser 88 Zac cranky 2015 with 6 scoreless starts. Of course, he has pitched fewer innings than all of those guys over those starts and significantly fewer than Hershey's or drysdale, her shows are streak of course is the record of 59, and this will be fun to watch gallon chase this dense and borsky gives him about a 2% chance, according to his new fan grafts post on the subject, but everyone's talking about gallon, there's a fan grass post about gallon in a baseball perspective post about gallon and people have been expecting big things out of gown for a while, like he was good and then he got hurt. He had a stress fracture in his arm, right? And so he was not so effective last year, but now he's healthy. He is making some changes. He's maybe throwing some higher fastballs and working more secondary stuff in basically like every other picture, I guess, but he's been better and he's been just really great lately and has propelled the Diamondbacks to respectability, so Craig Calcutta raised a question in his newsletter. He said, if gallon does keep going and challenges her scoreless innings record, there's an argument to be made that it's more impressive for it being over more starts. I mean, the more starts you make, the greater the odds you show up one day and simply don't have it or that you'll face a team with their hitting shoes on, right? I guess I understand that perspective. I still think that probably going deeper into games is harder just because it requires greater durability. It requires you to face the same hitters, multiple times in the same game. So yeah, like you're rolling the dice, I guess a little bit that you won't have it one day, maybe, but also you're having an easier assignment in each given outing. So I think if anything I would go with gallons being a tad easier, but it's an impressive accomplishment, nonetheless. And yeah, it's happening when offense is down a little bit, but so did it when drysdale did this or when her scissor did this, like, as we talked about recently, often record or near record setting performances require the conditions to be right for that, which is what makes judge and what he's doing so impressive because the conditions aren't really ripe for it. But good job Zack gallon in the Diamondbacks have been a lot more watchable lately in part because of him. Yeah, I mean, I have been to, so I was present for his start against nola when the Phillies came through, and then I was just at the ballpark to watch burns versus Bumgarner, which went the brewer's way, does not involve Zach Allen, importantly, but not because bunga earner was particularly bad, which is its own interesting, but a business. But there's just like, there are a lot of people at D back games, and they are excited about the D backs. And it's pretty cool. You know? Like, there have been stretches where that is not true. I remember, I remember in early 2021, I went to a Diamondbacks game and I think I had had, I think I had had one of my vaccine shots, but not both. And so I won, and I was like, oh, is this a bad idea? And then I was like, oh no, I'm very socially distanced. This is in fact fine, 'cause you know, it was a warm enough day that they had the roof closed because they wanted the air on. And I was like, it's still a big space, but I don't know. Is this the right thing? And then as I know it's, it's fine. And that hasn't been the experience lately. People are there and they're excited and, you know, you got gallon doing what he's doing and you have some of the young guys coming up and it's cool. It's nice to be there and see the corner start to see them starting to turn the corner, you know? It's the difference between groaning and respectable baseball. That's pretty fun. Yeah. The Diamondbacks headlines are looking up lately and last thing is that Joe Maddon former angels manager was on Jason stark's podcast starkville with Doug glanville and he had some things to say about analytics and managers, perhaps not surprising things he is maybe said some somewhat similar things since his dismissal from the angels, but he is really harping on this. He basically thinks that analytics have been taken too far and teams implementation of them have gone too far. And it's somewhat notable, I think, when he says it just because he was such a standard bearer for more progressive managers who were incorporating front office input when he was with the rays or even earlier in his time with the cubs and things have changed and he has not changed along with them and he thinks that they've changed for the worst and maybe he makes some valid points here.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"So widely reported that way, which brings me to my question, is simply any trade in which major leaguers are swapped for minor leaguers, classifiable as selling at the deadline, or could you imagine a scenario where a team is losing major Uyghurs in an exchange for prospects that wouldn't qualify as selling in your mind. I'd classify it as selling if it negatively affects your short term playoff ads. If it makes you less likely to make it to October in the present season, I think it counts, although they're obviously many degrees of that, just why I thought what the Orioles did was defensible if perhaps tough for some fans to swallow and some players too, although the Orioles have been doing just fine since the deadline. But if you want to make the case, my Goliath essentially said that he didn't think the Orioles had a real chance to make the playoffs this year anyway. Their playoff odds did go down a little bit according to dense and borsky zips calculations, although that was partly because of what their rivals did as much as what they did, but our other Orioles fan writer here, Joe makes the case that maybe they didn't actually get worse even for this season. He says, I'm a big Orioles fan and I wanted to share my thoughts about the trades of Mancini and Lopez on your recent trade deadline episode. You were both kind of implying that those traits were bummers for Orioles fans, but I don't see it that way at all, especially with the Mancini trade. In fact, I think the Mancini trade makes the Orioles better right now and I thought that before the trade was made. With Mancini the Orioles were stuck playing either Mancini or Santander in the outfield where they are both horrendous by trading Mancini they can permanently DH Santander and give it bats and outfield play to either Ryan McKenna, who's 2022 war at the time of the trade was only .3 less than Mancini's despite having only one third of the plate appearances, or Taryn, who is potentially the kind of ob machine that the Orioles never seem to have. It is an understatement to say that both McKenna and wavre are way better in the field than Mancini and Santander, and with this suboptimal starting pitching staff outfield defense can matter a lot. So as much as I love Mancini and what he has meant for this club in city, I think that his immediate replacements actually represent upgrades, stated more succinctly, having to never again watch Santander play the outfield is hardly cause for despair, the Lopez trade does not make the Orioles better right now, but I do like it because one, Lopez has historically not been very good. Two, he has been pitching out of his mind this season, and at least some of that is luck, and three his value may never be higher than it is right now. So let's go get four pitching prospects in exchange for a 29 year old with a career ERA of 5.5 and career fit before .88. Of course there's always the chance that the new Lopez, the bullpen Lopez, is the real Lopez and that it will look bad in a few years, but if I were a betting man, I'd say that these four prospects will provide more value going forward than Lopez. Well, and yes, it makes the Orioles worse right now, but they do have a number of promising arms in the bullpen and I think they can make do. Bottom line, this is exactly how I want the Orioles front office to behave. Yeah, obviously, it's exactly how the Orioles prime office did behave. So
Bloomberg Radio New York
"borsky" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"City, here's Michael Barr. Tom Paul, thank you very much. House speaker Nancy Pelosi continued her tour of Asia in South Korea today. She met with senior members of parliament and spoke about the bilateral alliance built from the Korean War in the 1950s. Pelosi avoided making comments about her trip to Taiwan earlier in the week, which angered China, Beijing fired 11 missiles into the sea around Taiwan today. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says he now understands he was irresponsible to declare the sandy hook elementary school massacre a hoax. Jones now says it was 100% real. They mistakes and it's been terrible for everybody involved. Including myself. And so I really do want to kind of change things hopefully be a more positive force when it comes to issues like mass shootings. The jury in Austin, Texas began to liberating yesterday on how much the InfoWars host owes the parents of one of the children killed in the 2012 attack in newtown, Connecticut. Testimony wrapped up after a bombshell from the plaintiff's lawyer revealed that Jones lawyers mistakenly handed over two years of text messages from Jones phone. Republican representative Jackie borsky of Indiana and two of her staffers died in a car accident yesterday. According to the Elkhart Lake count, Elkhart county sheriff's office, a car crossed into their lane and struck them head on. Jim Baird is a fellow House Republican from Indiana. Her straightforwardness and her honesty and she served on the athletes committee as well. So and also gives you some feel about the kind of person she was. Congresswoman was 58. The prosecutor in the WNBA star Brittany griner trial in Russia is calling for a 9 and a half year sentence on drug charges. She is accused of possession of a banned substance when authorities found vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage as the last time grinder will testify in the last day of the trial. Live in the Bloomberg interactive broker studios. This is global news 24 hours a day on air and on Bloomberg quicktake powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts and more than a 120 countries. I'm Michael Barr and this is Bloomberg tombo. I think so much. Michael Barr, I want to talk about the grandson of Walter O'Malley. In the nephew of the great Peter O'Malley, a guy who could have mailed it in, but Peter seidler didn't and in 2012, he bought a team flat on its back except for Tony Gwynn. Yeah. And he bought the Padres. And to me, it's almost NFL like what he's done. I mean, this is a Bloomberg business sports story. It's just going to keep on giving. What Peter's side has done with the Padres is historic. Am I right on that? You got to go back, let's be blunt to like back in 84 when the Padres were playing the tigers for battling for the World Series. They haven't been this relevant and a long, long. But this is like what crafted with a patriots or exactly. Right in my head right now, I don't have the high key analog, but it's extraordinary. I over a decade what this guy has done. We talk about it all the time in the mornings is that these kind of trades that take place now with the Padres, with now you've got, you know, I mean, it's amazing to me. Now we're gonna watch padre baseball like Tom dust. LA is supposed to have a gajillion dollars in razzle dazzle in the New York Yankees. I get it all. There's that small team up north of New England. It's a razzle dazzle there as well. San Diego? Yeah. It was like a minor league franchise. Yeah, no more. Peter seidler. I'll just talk about the Padres. Bloomberg business sports with Michael Barr, an extraordinary story. Futures red and green on the screen, please stay with us. This is Bloomberg,
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"Obvious issue here is so you're don't need to just. This question is making me so happy because this feels like such a normal off season question for effectively wild. Episode 1823. How can you not be pedantic? That should be the slogan for this show. I think people calling it the ghost runner annoys me almost as much. Oh yeah. The fact of the thing. It's not a ghost runner. There is a real runner. I have made this point before, but it just doesn't seem to be landing with the media at large. We already had a thing called the coast runner. It's wet kids play with when they don't have enough people, and so there's just an imaginary runner who advances stationed by station. The point was, there was no actual physical runner on the bases. This is not a ghost runner. There is a runner. There is a flesh and blood, runner on the bases. This is different from the concept of the ghost runner. And I think it annoys me even more because we have such good alternative terms for it, not just the zombie runner, which I have advocated in which I think dense and borsky coined originally. If they have to bring it back, I'm just appealing to everyone. Don't call it a ghost runner. How can you not be pedantic about baseball? I guess at least on this podcast. I mean, it is our sort of MO, isn't it? Super cut. Meg says the ball has ennui, among other phrases, 1857, 1486, 1681, 1700, 1737, 1834, 1838, and sadly players, there's no Powerball tonight. Keep playing. You know, a lot of people are mad about the current state of the ball, and it's relative uselessness. It is not juice less, it is not dead, it is simply more abundant. It is fatigued. It is, it is a ball suffering from ennui. Banging
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"Oh my gosh, first of all, it's amazing that that data exists. So thank you to you and everyone else who has contributed to the effectively what wiki is made it possible to answer that question. Also, that is a wild answer. That was so the episode pages were not very standardized and I built a new little episode box that had all of the crucial information and I basically used an automation system to just go through episode by episode, read the thing, categorize it, and it just took me like two days and just kind of did that. I was really trying to get into python. That's all I can give as my excuse for that. I hope that was helpful to you in trouble. We should provide an opportunity to learn to code and learn to code. What's next? All right, so taking turns. So, okay, so I should one of the things that I find the most fascinating about having this data is the phenomenon that started on Saturday Night Live, which is the 5 timers club. Guests that have appeared 5 times join a special coterie of people that can feel special and can have that figurative smoking jacket to know that they are in the elite group. So alternating between the group of you name a guess who has appeared on the show at least 5 times until someone gets one wrong. Oh boy. Good game. Good game. Meg, we'll start with you on this one. Grant frisbee. Grant frisbee is correct, grant has been on the show 18 times. Wow. All right. Craig Goldstein. Craig Goldstein has appeared on the show ten times. That is correct. Ben. Meg rally. Michael has appeared on the show 9 times. Good on you. He is the information already provided during the segment. Meg. Eric long and Hagen. Eric long and Hagen has also been on the show 18 times. Wow. Yeah, let's get the fan graft staff. Ben Clemens. Ben Clemens has been on the show ten times, Ben. Jeff Sullivan. Jeff Sullivan has been a second. You gave us in this episode already. Lindsay Adler. Lindsey Adler have to go down a bit. Lindsay Adler has been a show 7 times, correct. All right, Dylan. Give me Andy McCullough. Andy McCall has been on the show 17 times. Wow. Ben, Sam Miller. That's last of your give me, Ben. Sam's been on the show 8 times, yes. And the bachelor. Emma bachelor has been the show 5 times. Cutting it close. All right. How about J jaffee? Jay jaffee has been a show 12 times. All right. Russell carleton. Russell carton, 18 times. Yep. Three way tie atop the leaderboard. Yes, the top four are off the board now. Oh no. Pedro Mora. Pedro Mora. These are in ordered by a number of appearances not alphabetically. That's silly on my part. 8 times. Yes. How about Dan's and borsky? Dan zim borsky. Oh, I don't know. Really? Sorry, no time. Four. All right. 15, 26, 16, 17, 1806 and 1820. I sunk my battleship. Yeah, we have underutilized Dan, which I think we point out every time Dan has come on the podcast. We should really have you on here. You can't hear about fun on fan graft audio unfortunately. So are we all done or is just Dylan's out, Ben? Okay. Jason Boyd. 7 times. All right, Meg. Oh
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"For this step last, one thing I have heard a frequent refrain about the angels this year is that they have trout and ohtani having these fantastic seasons and they're still pretty bad. And they're still pretty bad for obvious reasons, right? The rest of the rasters. So actually dense and borsky had a very un fun fact for angels fans at least in his zips update for the AL this week at where he noted that the angels restor has 16 players below replacement level over the last 30 days. So most of their wrestler by a good margin has been below replacement of over the past month, contrast that he writes with the Yankees who have only two sub replacement level players over that same span with one of them, Miguel and duhart, playing in just two games. So yeah, that will drag you down if you have a stars and scrubs rest and your scrubs are that bad. It's hard to outweigh that, but I have wondered what precedent there is for a team having two teammates that productive and still having a losing record, so we could formulate this in various ways right now, ohtani is on pace for, I think, in 8 plus war season, trout has been slumping lately. And so he's down to about a 7 and a half win pace, a mere 7.5 war pace. So if we were just to set the minimum at two 7 plus win players on the same team, there have been, according to Kenny Jacqueline, who ran this query for me at baseball reference, 18 teams in the AL or NL that had two players post 7 plus baseball reference were and still have a losing record. I think only four of them were with two position players doing it, although maybe that makes sense because there are fewer position players than pitchers at least in this era and I guess it's not purely a position player either. But there have been four of those. I'll just put the list online and link on the show page. But just to go down here, starting from the best sub 500 winning percentage to the worst. If we are even going to count this, there was the 1889 Philadelphia quakers Charlie buffington had an 11.1 war in Ben Sanders had 7.5. They were 63 and 64. That's a four 96 winning percentage. Then at four 94, 80 and 82, we have the 1964 Dodgers who are one of only two teams to have two 8 plus war players and still have a losing record, which could very well happen for the angels this year. So Willie Davis had 8.3 war that year in Don Drysdale had 8.3 and they were still 80 and 82. So put a pin in that. They're one of the two. Then we have 1912 Cleveland vien Gregg and shoeless Joe Jackson. They had 7.2 and 9.5 respectively a four 90 winning percentage for them. Then you have the 54 Phillies, Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts. They had a four 87 winning percentage. Recently, the 2019 rangers lent Flynn and Mike minor had 7 plus wins apiece, but four 81 winning percentage. And, you know, this is a product of baseball reference pitching war, which not everyone loves, and I do prefer fan grafts pitching war myself, but 1992 cubs, you had Greg Maddux and ryne Sandberg, they ended up with a four 81 winning percentage, as did the 1987 Red Sox, also 78 and 84, and they were the other team that had two 8 plus war players and still could not break even wade Boggs had 8.3 words that year. Roger Clemens had 9.4 and still always team. Then 1936 Red Sox, west Ferrell and lefty grove four 81, 1890 giants, the immortal Jack glasscock, not immortal, unfortunately, but his name will live on forever. And Amos russi, they were for anyone winning percentage two. Yes. What if what if he had a glass ass too? I believe I may have paid that joke of the class. How could you resist? But you know what? I wanted to make it again. Sorry to interrupt your train of thought. But this is what I had to contribute. Comes up, please feel free to remake that joke. Then we have another unique team, the 1932 giants are the only team ever to have three 7 plus war players and still have a losing record. So how about that? Carl Hubble 7.4 were Mel at 8.3 and Bill Terry 7.7, and somehow they went 72 and 82. That's the 40 68 winning percentage. So maybe that makes the angels look good. You can actually do it with three players. Then you have the 1975 White Sox, goose gossage and Jim cott four 66, 1927, White Sox, Ted lions and Tommy Thomas, four 58, 1977 angels, there is an angel's precedent Nolan Ryan and Frank tanana four 57 winning percentage 2001 rockies Todd Hilton and Larry walker four 51, 1987 Dodgers oral hershiser and bob Welch, four 51, 1965 cubs, Ron Santo and Billy Williams, four 44, second to last, 1996, Bernard gilkey and Lance Johnson, four 38 winning percentage who knew that Bernard gilkey had an 8 war season in there somewhere. And finally, top or bottom of the list, it's another angel's team appropriately the 1993 California angels Chuck Finley, 7.1 were Mark Langston 8.5. They went 71 and 91. That is a four 38 winning percentage. So it has been done before, perhaps it has been surpassed in some ways before, although there is, I suppose, the variability of war and the vagaries of that stat and difficulty of quantifying defense and some of the quirks of baseball reference pitching war and all that. So if you want to say, if trout and ohtani end up with 7 plus four, we can be pretty confident that they were really that good in that valuable, because they're trapped not. We've seen them do that before. So there's not a lot of small samples, statistical uncertainty. It's my trout and Shohei Ohtani. So if they do it, it would be yet another embarrassment and poor reflection on the angels roster composition, but it really is sad because we were watching the angels game as Otani was pitching on Wednesday and my wife who mostly watches angels games when she watches baseball. Every time we watch the angels now, it seems like I am introducing her to new players.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"I do wonder how it'll be interesting to see sort of what his market looks like and what other front offices sort of look at us as value. It's like he's hit for so long and then he didn't and now he's hitting again and which slice of that performance is going to be determinative of his ultimate value in the trade market, but it's nice to see it's good it's good to see you know national fans deserve to have some fun stuff. So I'm glad they have some. Also nice to see. So that same day, may 20th, Joey Votto was activated from the iel, right? He had been on the COVID IL and he had not played since I think the first day of May, and we talked about him on May 2nd, I believe, or shortly thereafter, because dense and borsky had posted a story about fado at fan grafts that day, which was headlined, is this the end for Joey Votto, right? And he had tweeted out that article, and he said, on May 2nd, 5 months to go, enjoy the show. We discussed that. And we hoped that he was right. No one was rooting against Joey Votto, including Denzel borsky. We all want him to do well. And I think at the time, we didn't completely write off the chance of her resurgence because he has resurged before. Quite recently, in fact, as recently as last season, when he started slow and then ended up hitting 37 homers and changing who he was as a hitter and he is just obviously someone who thinks so much about hitting and is so smart about hitting and has proven that he can make adjustments constantly. And so never wise to write him off, but he had started extremely slowly. I think he had a 31 WRC plus when he went on the IL and he wasn't hitting fastballs and he was hitting balls on the ground and he just was not hitting anything hard. And so it was worrisome because he's 38 years old and you never know. Well, if I do my same little leaderboard here of performance since May 20th, minimum 80 plate appearances, so I said you are done Alvarez first José Ramírez second Nelson Cruz third, Aaron judge. I will also be talking about him in a minute. Number four. Yeah. Goldschmidt, Raphael, Devers. Jose Abreu, Nathaniel Lowe, Randy rosarina, and then Joey Votto. So Joey Votto has been the tenth best hitter since May 20th despite coming right off the COVID AL. He has hit two 93 four 11 6 40 since then with a one 84 WRC plus and in his case, a very reasonable and sustainable three 15 babbitt. He has walked almost as often as he is struck out. He's hit 5 homers. He's hitting the ball harder. He's hitting the ball in the air more often. He's hitting fastballs again. It is very encouraging. And it could be because he has gone back to his old bat, so one possible factor behind the slumping to start the season is that he had changed up his bat. He was using a bat with a hockey puck style knob and he thought that was going to enhance his performance and whether it was a coincidence or not, he did not perform well with that model. And so he went back to his old bat and also seemingly straightened out some other mechanical issues and he is back to looking like his old self since he got back from the AL. So I'm happy about both of these players still having a lot of life left in their bats because I very much enjoy them and everyone likes to see older players continue to do well. So Joey Votto also still pretty good hitter. It seems like. It's just such a, it's an interesting and weird job that we have been because I mean, there are look, I'm human. There are players who, for whatever reason, I don't particularly care for them. And when they don't do well, I'm like, oh, isn't that tragic? But that's like a very small list. I am most often just indifferent to performance candidly, and like at people to do well, I guess, but I don't feel strongly one way or the other. And then there are players like Votto, who not only because of the particular profile that they exhibit on the field, but the way that they talk about the game and the way that they think about the game and sort of the relationship they have to analytics, like you really want to do well. And so we find ourselves wanting to be wrong. And I don't know, I guess that's probably not the worst thing to have moments where you being wrong ends up making you happy because so often the opposite is true, but it's a weird little job we have sometimes. Yeah, right. It's the classic regression to the mean, I guess it's like the SI cover jinx in reverse. I mean, we talk about and write about notable performances, surprising performances. And often, those are the ones that are differing most from expectations and therefore you would expect things to come back to earth in one direction or another, so you talk about someone who is hitting incredibly well. Well, it would not be shocking if relative to that performance. They slump a bit and they go back to what they were projected to do or closer to that. The more fun version of that is when you talk about someone who's not hitting it all. And then they started again and if it's someone like Cruz or vado, who were easy to root for, then that's even more delightful. So wanted to just provide an update for everyone. There's still a big pulse and heartbeat left in both of those guys seemingly. Yeah, and you know who else probably has a big pulse and heartbeat is a very tall person named Darren judge. Oh, how's that for transition? Pretty good. Very good. So Aaron judge. Oh.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"But everyone else or most other players are sad about this because their balls aren't going so far. But if you're Aaron judge, and you declined to sign a very lucrative contract extension. And now you are one of the only players who can hit a home run and you must be the real. Because and this is sort of consistent with what we have seen in the variation of the ball over the years, which is the players who benefited the most from the very juicy baseball. Were players who otherwise struggled to hit home runs at all, whereas guys who had thunderous thump in their bets to begin with didn't benefit as much because they weren't hitting wall scrapers. They were just hitting a bunch of home runs because they were big and strong. And so that the opposite would be true as unsurprising. But as I sat there and I watched Jaron judge hit a home run today, I was like, you know, Pete Alonso thought that Major League Baseball was juicing or deducing the ball depending on the upcoming free agent class to rob free agents of potential money. But what if the real caper is that Aaron? Judge. Did you sell the walls? This year because he wants to dominate the free agent market. I would never accuse him of being so decorous and inconsiderate of his fellow players, because I doubt that that is consistent with his values, but he sure is benefiting from a fishy situation. Yes, a few follow-ups to things you just said. First, I guess it would actually be easier to hit a home run in a vacuum if you yourself can breathe. Just because less air resistance. There would be very challenging. Yes, it would. SIS, I believe, classifies certain plays as good fielding place, so maybe I assume that a home run robbery is classified as a good fielding play. And I guess if you're in judge and you get back there and you stick your hand up and you catch the ball, it's a good feeling play. It's not a great fielding play. Maybe you could count it as a home run robbery, but not a good field of play. I don't know. Maybe that's a way to adjust the books, balance the book somehow here. And also, yeah, Aaron judge, that was his 19th home run. Of the season. That's a lot of dingers. It's a lot. As we speak, I guess between Yankees games, maybe he has a one 97 WRC plus on the season. So yeah, that bet on himself that he made, at least through almost the first two months of the season. Working out pretty well. So I think he got a decent offer if the reported terms of that offer were accurate, but thus far, it seems like if he were able to keep this up, he might do even better than that as dense and borsky just blogged. I think had some zips projections in there and judge has raised what his contract recommendation would be, it's still not as high as I think what the Yankees reportedly offered him just because of his age and his health and durability and so forth, which was probably on the Yankees minds when they were crafting their offer? Yeah, I likely would be on other teams minds when they were crafting their own offers. Right. Yeah, and you figure judges, maybe a bit more valuable to the Yankees than two other teams just because he has a reputation in New York and has sold a lot of jerseys and brings some marquee value with him. But yeah, he is having a fantastic start to the season. It's like he's the only one tall enough to go on the ride now with the new bubble. So he's just not having to wait in line. He is just writing it over and over again. Although the balls and offense in general have picked up a bit, but they are still down historically speaking. There's one jar of olives on the uppermost shelf and he is the only one who can reach it. Right. So I wanted to mention while we were talking about outfield catches, another pretty special outfield catch, and this was from a college game this past weekend and was brought to our attention by listener and Patreon supporter Ryan. And we were talking about hidden ball tricks and the lack thereof and other types of defensive tricks and trickery that fielders could practice. And this is a great one because I have not seen or heard of this being done before and I applaud the innovation in the boldness and just the, I guess the slate of hand happening here. So this happened in a regional final game in division two. So I guess it was a regional tournament and Tampa was playing the Tampa Spartans and they were playing nova and what happened here. I'm cribbing from a Tampa Bay times piece, but Tampa was about to be eliminated. There was a 9th inning fly ball to deep left center and the winning run was going to score. I think it was maybe first and third and one out. And so this seemed like a certain sac fly, and it was going to be maybe not a strict walk off situation as we discussed recently in a pedantic segment, but not a pedantic walk off, but at least kind of technically a walk off and certainly a game ending play. So the Tampa coach Joe urso, he said, you know the game's over, I kind of put my notes down, put my head down, told his associate head coach, man, that's it. I start walking down the dugout, and then I started hearing he left early, he left early, so the runner tagged up here and expected to just go as soon as the ball was cut and not even have to hurry home necessarily because this was a pretty deep fly and it was a fast runner, but what happened was that the nova runner tagged up and left early and then was called out on appeal and so the game went on and eventually Tampa won the game in 12 innings and this was.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"And this suggests that perhaps the tactile is the most important part. So anyway, Madison Bumgarner got mad about something hardly the first time a mad bum indeed, but it was sort of illuminating to me that I perhaps had a failed expectation or I was misapprehended how this would go. And so you've learned about it, but if you were me, I wouldn't recommend getting tossed in the first after the first inning of your game. That seems like it's not the best. And he said that in his comments after that he kind of put his guys in a hole and the deep rallied to beat the Marlins. So yeah, maybe he fired him up. Yeah. Bumgarner, he's throwing about 91 these days. So he's not handling anything all that explosive at this point in his career. But I guess on the inside, at least I don't know, maybe not just that he wants to look you in the eyes and take your measure as a man. Can you meet my gaze here? Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you're not using sticky stuff right now? But I would imagine that there's some history here, maybe some recent history here. But it is true that on the whole, there was that freak out for a day or two when they first started doing the sticky stuff inspection last year where it was like, oh, this is a farce and baseball will never be the same. Surgery or Romo took off his pants or started to. Right. And various people were upset. And then everyone got used to it. And maybe the enforcement got lax, which I guess is just a lesson that applies not only in baseball, but everywhere, like, any precaution you take, people will find a way around it, or the enforcement, the standards will slip, and that's why they are feeling each other's hands at this point, right? This was a corrective measure put in place to do away with those cursory perfunctory pro forma type of checks and now maybe this type of check has devolved into basically the same thing. So there will have to be another step another layer that is in post here. But that's really the whole thing, right? I mean, that's like when they try to impose piece of play restrictions and everyone cracks down for a season or part of a season and oh we just saved some time and then people stop enforcing it and people stop paying attention to it and lo and behold, game times go up again. And so you need to have something that there is no way to get around an actual clock that counts down, let's say, not that there aren't ways potentially to game that too, but you can't have a human there who's just going to say, oh, I don't want it the confrontation. I don't want the pain of doing this right now. I'll just let it slide. Yep. But we did get another veteran player who I think had a healthy reaction, maybe, to being questioned about something, which was Joey Votto, right? Joey Votto. Social media star. Not performing on the field, as he would like to the season or as anyone would like him to, but fang grafts published a post on Wednesday by one dense and borsky about whether we should worry about fado, is this the end for Joey Votto, the headline was. And Dan went through some disturbing some concerning stats in there, not just not just about the surface performance, but about how hard watto is or is not hitting the ball these days, and which pitches he is swinging at, and so forth, and Dan, much to his dismay, and regret came to the conclusion that he wasn't really feeling a Joey Votto bounce back based on what we've seen so far. But Joey Votto, P quote tweeted his extremely online these days. And I'm sure there are probably people out there saying, oh, he's on every social media. No wonder he's in a slump now. And I don't know that we would recommend being on Twitter, but I'm sure there's no correlation there. Anyway, he tweeted out the article and he said, 5 months to go, enjoy the show. Now shortly after that, he was placed on the COVID IL, unfortunately, so the show will have to wait a little longer, but that was a good response, I think, right? Yeah. I'll say, Ben, he didn't just quote tweet the article. He tweeted a link which suggests to me that he visited fangraphs dot com. I'm sure he does regularly. Yeah, and we've heard that from him before. And I just want to say, Joey, if you are out there and you happen to be a listener of the show, if you want to tweet all of our articles, that would be fine. I wouldn't object. I'd hold myself back from objecting, you wouldn't have to hold me back at all. Yeah, I think that I have so much sympathy for how strange it must be to have random people on the Internet like constantly appraising your performance at work, you know? Like accountants don't have to deal with that. I guess maybe they're real reviews, but they're not. Get audited. Yeah, they're not sitting there every day. You know, if you're the ice cream scooper at an ice cream shop, you know, you're probably not getting your performance reviewed every day. Gauging the efficiency of your scoop or the similarity of the scoops you sir. We're just eating our ice cream. So I try to keep in mind how I would feel if someone were constantly evaluating my performance at work on the Internet, which just happened from time to time, but it doesn't happen with a great deal of regularity, and it can feel kind of icky, even and perhaps especially if someone is right about something. And so when players get worked up about something they see at the site, I don't do this perfectly granted, but I try to take it in stride because I'd feel uncomfortable if someone were talking about me on the Internet and I have in the past. So I really admire people who can kind of take it in stride and are able to acknowledge that it exists without getting defensive about it or snippy at the person writing it. I mean, I'm sure it helped that Dan just seems devastated this entire post at what he was finding. This is not a gleeful excavation of the stats on his part, and so I'm sure that that probably greased the wheels for this particular reaction from vodka but yeah, he was very gracious. He's an interesting guy and one who I am thrilled to learn reads the site and I hope that we can in the future talk about the great turnaround that he exhibited as the season progressed. So it would hardly be the first time that he had turned around to see it in midstream and I won't go into all of the analysis and did or my own which would be inferior to his, but I am certainly surprised that he has started to cease in this way and that the reds as a whole have, not that I expected them to be good after the off season they had, but then it is. It's been ugly. Really quite grim, shall we spend a moment on this? Because, you know, we've talked several times in the last couple of weeks about how we're not really paying attention to the standings yet, and we check in every now and again, but it's not really our focus. Oh man, so Cincinnati is last in baseball by WRC plus. 68 team WRC plus you listeners will be unsurprised that they trail the league in war offensive war..
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"That's not the main reason I would recommend it, but nice to see miles there too. Yeah, I mean, Pujols is historically his decline phase is incredibly prolonged and we've talked about that before. And so it's rare for someone who was that good to fall so far. I mean, that sounds cruel. And then keep playing for so long right. And so it's a really, really long time and a lot of people who have come of age as fans who know Albert Pujols. You know, it's not like they missed Albert Pujols, but they missed the first Cardinals go around of Albert Pujols and they know only the angels, Albert Pujols. And it's not quite the same guy. So yes, and Cabrera is kind of following that same pattern in a less extreme way. But it is nice, at least to see the highlights and Michael Clare at MLP dot com just did a little retrospective on Mickey's lone bunt hit of his whole career, which came back in 2006 against Chris young and compare has been joking about maybe laying another one down one of these days. I don't know if it is entirely a joke, but yes, it's good to have the opportunity to appreciate them and to see those old highlights, but also it's going to be quite a while, I think, before we see another player reach the 3000 hit threshold like a really, really long time potentially. The last time we saw one was Pujols who got his 3000th in 2018. So it hasn't been that long since then and before Pujols it was Beltre in 2017 and then it was etro in 2016 and it was a rod in 2015. So there's a whole flurry of them, but there's not going to be one for quite a while and dance and borsky wrote about this for fangraphs last September and he ran the numbers and he pointed out that the number of active players with 2000 or more hits is like basically at an all time low unless you go back to like the World War II post World War II era where players lost a lot of peak years or before that. I mean, you just had fewer games and fewer teams back then, of course, fewer players in general. So we just don't have a lot of active 2000 hit guys at this point. I mean, you have Cabrera. You have Pujols and Yadier Molina, who are on the verge of retirement. You have Robinson Cano and Joey Votto. Who have chances, although they are what 40 and 39 at this point or 39 and 38, and they are batting a combined one 53 thus far this season. They are not off to the strongest start, so I don't know who's going to do it, but barring some improbable late career resurgence and I wouldn't put anything past Joey Votto at this point in that respect. But it's probably going to have to be one of the younger players and it'll be someone, but no individual player looks like, I mean, forget a lock, but even likely to do it when Dan ran his numbers with his zips projections, Jose Altuve was the highest projected likelihood of getting there and he was at 34% probability at the time. And after that it was Freddie Freeman and then tatis and Soto and Acuna guys like that who are just so far away from doing it that obviously they could, but there's just many years to transpire before that could happen. So someone will do it like Dan said Zipp's projected that I think 1.6 currently active players would eventually get there so it's not like the 300 wins conversation where people have been kind of false alarm like are we going to get another 300 win guy for decades and we have, but at this point we really might not just because of the way that pitcher usage has changed, we'll get another 3000 hit kite, but it might be a decade or more. And less like Cano or vado does it, it's just going to be a really long time and probably the longest gap between players getting to that threshold since just eyeballing the list, I guess it was like a 12 year gap between Stan Musial in Aaron, 1958 to 1970, and that was because of the post World War II gap in players getting to that point. But since then, we've never gone ten years or even close to that. And I think we will. Yeah, just settle in. I guess enjoy it. I mean, we're not like super milestone centric people around here, at least when it comes to counting stats and round numbers, but it can be a cool thing, and it's going to be a while before we see it happening again. Well, and I think my thought on the milestone Chase is a lot like my thought on Hall of Fame stuff, which is that it is not the most important thing to me, but I think it really, really matters to the players involved. I think it is quite meaningful to these guys when they are able to sort of say, I am part of this, you know, this part of the baseball Pantheon is now open to me. And I am stepping into that role. And I think that means a lot to them. And so in so far as I care, I think a lot of it is just like, I bet it'll mean something to Mickey. Like it'll really mean something to him. When Pujols got his 3000th hit, he did it in Seattle against the Mariners, and I happened to be at that game and like, you know, he was an opposing player reaching a milestone and they stopped the game and they like put stuff up on the video board and everybody, like he got a standing ovation in an opposing ballpark to mark this moment. And you could tell it meant something to him that these fans who want they were like you are actively working against our interests here and the angels won that game. And so everybody was kind of annoyed. But we stopped and we stood and we clapped and it's like, I think that outside of the postseason, we don't always do as good a job as we maybe should in marking the moments during the regular season that are not just like that wasn't an angel's moment, right? Like that was a baseball moment, like a capital V baseball moment. And I think that milestone Chase has given us an opportunity to do that to be like, wow, I just saw, I saw history. That was so cool. You know, I've got to a ballpark a lot of times in scene. I mean, not nothing, but nothing good, right? It was just like a day I spent, and this was a day where I was like, I got to see this guy, not just 3000 pit. That's really cool. And it was nice that, you know, everybody seemed to have an appreciation for that. Nobody was booing him. Like, we all stood up and cheered for an opposing team's player. It was. It was nice. So I think that it affords us those opportunities to kind of pause and be like, huh, this is part of a story that people are going to tell about this game and the players involved for a long time. And I got to see it. And that's neat. Yeah, I'd say so. And you know, of course, we're in a low batting average era now historically so. And also a high walk arrow, which does make it harder to get to 3000 hits..
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"And so it's tough to just leapfrog a lot of levels. It's like notable if you make it even to double-A or the Arizona following the year that you were drafted. So to go all the way and to totally hit the ground running. Not only did he have that hot debut that year, but then he was rookie of the year, runner up the following year, didn't really have a big sophomore slump, and then eventually just, you know, made a couple of all star teams and got some down ballot MVP votes in a few years and didn't really lead the league in anything, not a lot of black ink except for games played one year and double plays another year, but I think it's pretty admirable that later in his career, he pretty seamlessly transitioned into a part time role, even though he was mister national and he had once been the best player on the team, he embraced the reduced playing time as far as I can recall and he was pretty productive in a part time role. Some players egos don't allow that, especially if in the same place where they were once a star. Just a really solid career, just no knocks on him meant a lot to a franchise in two city and what more can you ask than that? Yeah, I think that you don't have to be the best player in the league or even perennial all star for your career to be very meaningful to a franchise in the people who root for it and I don't say that to diminish the quality of player he was because he was a very good player. But yeah, I think really an end of an era for the nationals. And I don't know that there are those kinds of retirements I think are pretty rare actually where you're like, wow, this is really marked an entire era of a franchise. So I hope he gets to enjoy retirement and I'm glad that he got to have some really notable and exciting moments toward the end of his career, especially the championship. It's just very cool. Yeah, I will also always remember him for the year that he skipped spring training, which might be relevant this year because we don't know how much spring training there will be. But I think it was 2018. He didn't skip entirely. He showed up, but he just didn't play games. He was just like on the practice field and getting his wind sprint center or whatever, but didn't play in games and I think he started that season very slow, but he ended up okay, you know, one 14 OPS plus in his age 33 year. And it was just like he'd been a bit banged up and he was getting on in years and had had some injuries, and he just figured I'll take it easy. And the nets went along with that plan and yeah, I don't know whether you could say it worked because he did start slow and didn't hit so well in the first half and was abysmal in March and April. He had a 6 23 OPS heading into May when he finally turned it on, but I don't know whether that was related to that or not, but it was an interesting experiment just something that sticks in my mind. Yeah, definitely. Speaking of the nationals and franchise players, there were some news on that front this week as well, right? Because there was a report of an offer to one Soto that predated the lockout, but just came out now and he confirmed that there was an offer, although I don't think he confirmed the specific terms, but what was reported was 13 years 350 million and he turned that down. And of course, whenever you get a case like this, there will be some contingent that will say players are spoiled. They make too much, how could you turn down $350 million? We get it, but he is, if not the best player in baseball and the most valuable player in baseball, certainly in the top handful. And he noticed his worth. And his worth is a lot. So I don't think this is like a ridiculous offer. I don't think it's like an affront or anything. But I can see why he said no because given where he is in his career. A year or two ago? Yeah, maybe he jumps at this sort of offer, but now given his track record, given that he's off to one of the best starts of any player ever, certainly offensively. I think he could get more. So, you know, if it's an opening offer, it's not so far from the ballpark that you can't envision getting something done here, but I think if you kind of run the numbers, he is in the right, probably to hold out for more. I asked dense and borsky, what zips his projection system would pay. Give away content. That's running at that sight tomorrow. Well, they won't be plunged before that. So that's okay. But he told me that for 13 years, zips would offer 483 million instead of three 50. So, you know, not so far apart that perhaps they couldn't compromise, but and I suppose he could if he wanted to hold out for more years than that, right? Because he's so young, what is he just turning 23 or just 23? He turns 23 last October. And Bryce Harper was a few years older than that. When he got his 13 year deal, so if soda, wanted to say, give me 15 or 16 years then he probably could for a slight discount in average annual value. But yeah, I mean, he could get a $500 million deal, probably if he.
77WABC Radio
"borsky" Discussed on 77WABC Radio
"Have these government contractors working for the feds Who are moving illegal aliens throughout the country including young males who do not have families with them In some of whom have criminal records and some of whom they have no idea what kind of records they have We're paying for them We're paying for their transportation Some of them are being flown to locations Some of them are being bust a location Some of them are being both And apparently in many cases they get to choose where they want to go I am virtually speechless about what's taking place in this country And so we have these government contracts They're at the Westchester airport I remember when I was a young guy Westchester New York was a rock rid Republican area Wasn't it Not any more Said Democrat era And as the former executive there Robert astorino's told us it was targeted was targeted by the bureaucrats the zoning issue about destroying the suburbs really started in Westchester Used as a Guinea pig and all these other things And now the course they're dropping off illegal aliens into Westchester They're doing this all over the country Except perhaps Wilmington and Delaware I wish these governors I don't mean the Larry Hogan types in the clown baker in Massachusetts I mean real governors Republican governors would get together have a plan and do us descent to suggest that just bust them all into Wilmington And I know even affiliate Wilmington and I apologize but hey beanbag brain came out of Wilmington There's nothing I can do about it So you're going to hear it's a little hard to hear And if it's too hard to hear I'll circle back as the pussy likes to say You're going to hear a contractor then you're going to hear Westchester police sergeant And then you're going to hear the contractor And you're going to hear the sergeant again So turn up the volume excuse me cut 7 go Yeah look And who's that by DHS Yes That in the United States Army Anyone pick a woman that's right there Yeah I'll take your name I don't care if you say that You know what I'm saying Yeah Technically we're not supposed to show IDs or anything like that Like I said what are they supposed to be Well you know what If I show you my idea I'm up in front of you the next time you see me hey I know who he is Yeah he's easy See what I'm saying And if you don't I could just not let you out So I'm like I don't play that game you know He's the easy peasy You got a job to do I got a job to do We all got jobs to do All right And we have another clip but let me break that one down So these contractors show up out of nowhere They just show up Contractors says we're not allowed to have our picture taken when we get on base Westchester sergeant Michael on borsky and who's that By DHS contractor Yes and the United States Army You're on a federal installation but DHS wants everything on the down low Contractor I can give you my state ID but work IDs were not allowed to let anyone take away Yeah we're not allowed to All right so let's stop there So they're operating in secret This is a subterfuge And they've been told in advance local law enforcement or whatever Don't reveal yourselves Don't reveal yourselves Go ahead Then it says let's see here Okay I'll take your name says the police sergeant I don't care Your state idea is fine Contrary yes state ID is working Contractor listen my thing is I like to comply and you heard the back and forth But there was more Cut 8 go.
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"borsky" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"His website that has purely statistically based version of the Hall of Fame who is the most deserving of being enshrined purely based on the stats and at the time that we talk to him, the hollow stats did not yet include Negro leagues players. And now it does. And that is largely because of the work of our guest today. He has been on Adams podcast. Now he is on our podcast. He is Eric shellac hey Eric. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. So we are talking to people who have tried to measure the unmeasurable this week and really if there's anything that is unmeasurable, it is the hypothetical question of how would Negro leagues players who were barred from playing in the ale and NL during their careers? How would they have performed if they hadn't been barred? That is a very difficult question to answer and one that will never know the answer to for sure. But you have taken a crack at figuring out the answer to that question as best as we can determine it. So this work relies on the concept of major league equivalencies, which is an old Bill James idea that has been applied for decades in various ways. So for those who do not know, can you explain the concept of NLEs and how they have been used historically? Sure. So Bill James created the MLE and wrote about them in the 1985 baseball abstract. And at the time, he was talking about minor league players. And he used examples of dick scofield and Tony Fernandez. And since those were guys that I grew up following, I feel really old. Anyway, he showed that if you look at the run context in which they're playing and the park in which they're playing, then with a certain multiplier or discount, you can get a pretty good sense of what their seasons would have looked like in the major leagues. And danson borsky has done a lot of work with that with zips and a lot of other systems do too. So people have been evolving that method as you said for decades. The hard part with the Negro leagues is that not only is it difficult to measure, but you need multiple measuring sticks and ways to think about how to use those measuring sticks. And so what I've tried to do is to look at a Negro leagues player and begin by asking, what is the outcome that I want to get from this? And the outcome is if I dropped, say Josh Gibson, into the national league in 1933, what would his performance from the Negro leagues look like translated to 1933 national league? And the answer is that to get to that answer, we have to strip away as much of the context as we can from his documented play against top teams, and then we need to recontextualize it into the national league of 1933, so we need to account for his part, and we need to account for the value of a run in his league and we need to account for some pretty nichey things like the standard deviation of performance in the league, because the Negro leagues weren't as uniform top to bottom, as the major leagues were. In fact, there is quite a bit more variance. So there's a lot of little nuance that goes into it. But in the end, we come back with Josh Gibson, being able to put out this much value, and then we can take that value statement and actually use another Bill James tool from the historical baseball abstract, the new one, new 2001. And use the method he outlined in the Willie Davis and Sam Crawford comets in that book to then project what stat line would look like a traditional stat line would look like. So we can do an awful lot more than you would have thought based on what looks really stats look a little eccentric to our sort of to the eyes that are used to major league stats because major league sets are so uniform and there's totals for everything and everybody plays a team member of games, yada yada yada and in the Negro leagues we just have to make some different sorts of different sorts of decisions about how they work with the numbers because they didn't all play the same number of games. And they had different levels of competition. And they had sometimes a different parks during the same year, all kinds of wacky stuff. I can appreciate why translating to a sort of familiar context is useful to us, particularly within the context of trying to assess the Hall of Fame cases of these players. I am curious how you thought about what the absence of Negro leagues players for the major league means in terms of our understanding of the quality of play there, right? Because obviously there were great many players who were very good who were playing in the majors and the reality is that they did not have to play against the players who were kept in the Negro leagues because of the color line. So how did you think about sort of the question of difficulty and quality of play when it comes to that sort of interchange? Because I imagine it's quite tricky. That's a great question. I have wrestled with it quite a bit, and it's actually two questions that you asked in one. One is what's the quality of playing the Negro leagues, and then the other question is, what does that mean for the quality of play in the baseball universe, of the time? So I'm going to take it in the opposite direction I just said. In terms of how it impacted the major leagues, and that segregation did in how segregation affected the quality of playing the Negro leagues, I've done I've done a study on my own that suggests that we're talking an effective approximately ten runs over the above average over the course of the year. So if Ted Williams was worth 100 runs in the 1940s and of course, he's probably worth more. But a hundred runs in 1940 AL, in reality, if we had had integration at that time, we're looking at more like 90 runs. And the same is true for players and eager lakes. If someone was worth a hundred runs there, they'd be worth 90 runs instead when you bring the two leagues together. And it has to be that way, as you suggested, because we're bringing that we bring together the two leagues and now we are putting the best of the Negro leagues in with the major leagues, which was a much larger talent pool, and we're talking about displacing something like 30 to 45,000 played appearances and innings pitched. I should say, out, pitching out. But we're talking about a lot of playing time. And so it's actually a pretty pronounced effect. And I did a really basic study where I just replaced players from the major leagues with MLE players and just directly. And I'm sure there's probably a more scientific way to do it. But that was the one I had at hand. And like I said, suggested about ten runs a year for like 600 plate appearances. Now the other question about the quality of play in the Negro leagues is thorny too..
The Larry Elder Show
"borsky" Discussed on The Larry Elder Show
"Back to mister Coley. Tomorrow, Disney will reshape Pocahontas. But was Pocahontas, a racist movie? You damn right away. The little daughter of the original people fell in love with a foreigner while the other white men sang savage's savages. My little African daughter came up to me and said, daddy, we will never have a poll behind us and our neighborhood. She only 5 years old. So I think Disney for making it plain. But Disney is doing Pocahontas damn self because if you go to Harlem and see something called Harlem USA, you will see that while Disney's playing Pocahontas in the public, they're being Pocahontas up in Harlem. I went to Harlem to fight against Time Warner and Disney from penetrating a 125th street for what they're calling Harlem renaissance PAR-2. Harlem renaissance part one was a diversion from the penetration and street power of Marcus garvey. So it isn't just that a movie is a movie or an industry is about employment. Everyone that's in the media have values that they are first responsible for protecting. And then they can make a movie. White men who do not told the line of white supremacy and the way they believe it is appropriate. Like borsky or milliken, are punished and set down the strength in the butt. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, these people didn't just jump off the planet. They got pushed out the planet. Colin Powell, who spent a lot of time going around the country saying how it wasn't no conspiracy, but when he was the number one candidate for president, he backed down because his wife made him aware of the forces that will you up in America if you ain't on the list. So why would a group of white men take the pyramid and all C and I and put on the top of the dollar bill because you see they still borrow into the king and the queen today and even when the little white woman dipped over on the black side you saw racism. You know that so you know they whack where that's not tonight's subject. But you understand the principle. So I'm sitting here listening to Steve Coke Lee's opening comments about racism in Hollywood and the media. And I have no idea how to respond to this idiocy. And the way people are reacting to this. I mean, honestly..