4 Burst results for "Craig Calcutta"
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"craig calcutta" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"To book at the top. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly as hard as it is to write a book, I would imagine, it feels closer to a thing, a rod could actually accomplish as opposed to like the time that he posted a photo of his clearly plowed driveway while holding a shovel as if to suggest he had done all of that in front of his house slash dentist office. I don't understand this is not the point of this podcast. This is this feels like a thing almost for the Patreon bench, but I don't understand these houses because they look like a medical dental building, you know? And I'm like, is that where you want to live in a medical dental building where they do medical dental things? Yes, if you look at ballplayer real estate listings, which I do fairly often because I subscribe to Craig Calcutta's newsletter and he often flags when some MLB veteran sells some massive mcmansion somewhere that's like 12,000 ft² on half an acre plot of land and it's got like ten bedrooms and it's for some reason excessively ornate and very strangely appointed and looks like this is impressive in a sense. It's like weirdly Rococo. It looks like Versailles or something. It's like who would live here for sure? Yeah, it's just very garish. But yes, I don't know that their interior decoration is always to my liking necessarily. I don't know that I would do the same thing with the space, but I envy the amount of space, although even that sometimes seems excessive. But sometimes, yeah, like how many people you got living at that house? Right. But look, I love a rod social media presence, just in general. And this one, you know, him just kind of in casual setting and lightly dressed. The other one that comes to mind may have lightly dressed. Possibly not dressed at all because he has, again, at least has boxer briefs on. I'd like to think so. We can't confirm that necessarily. But there's one that I remember and I forget whether this was from his Instagram or it may have been from J.Lo's when they were still together. RIP, a routed and J.Lo. She seems fine. Yeah, no, she's fine. And he seems to have moved on to, I don't know if he's fine, but he's also dating someone. But there was one where he was just, you know, candid in a bubble bath, which, look, I support the bubble bath, you know? Maybe a bassman? I'm very much a bathman. I have not been a bubble bathman of late, but there have been times in my life where I've enjoyed a nice bubble bath. And again, I appreciate it because it's maybe not the most stereotypically macho image, and he is counteracting that. And I appreciate that about a rod. But the great thing about that one where he was sitting in the bubble bath and the bubbles were tastefully arranged. So that one could only see the upper half of the centaur that is a
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"craig calcutta" 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
"craig calcutta" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"Sometimes there are unintended consequences of aspects of the deal that maybe today we look at and say, well, that's great. That's going to work out well for everyone. Sometimes incentives and loopholes take a while to reveal themselves, although if anyone's going to find one, just going to be a Major League Baseball team. So you don't know that I have a lot more. I do have sort of an overwhelming sense of relief that we will be able to have a year that is normal. I hope that in the quiet moments that they have a way from reporters that the union feels as if it has accomplished, at least some of the goals that it set out to do because as you said yesterday, I think that, you know, when the sport is aligned directionally with the players rather than the owners, we tend to get baseball that we enjoy more, which isn't terribly surprising. I don't think is even a particularly controversial political statement to make. So I hope that they feel like they did what they set out to do, at least in part. So there's that. I can't believe that our first positional power ranking is going to run on March 28th. That feels very soon, Ben. Yeah, along those lines of fans interests at lining with players more closely. I think if there is a disappointment and again, my overwhelming feeling is one of relief and pleasure as well. But I guess you could say that one core concern of players and also fans was that there wasn't really a whole lot done to address whatever we're calling it competitive integrity or tanking as some people call it, although I think that's not quite an apt term at this point, as we discussed last time, there is this draft pick lottery, which is something that in theory would dissuade old school tanking or tanking as it exists in other sports, but not so much as it exists in baseball. And I don't know how much of a problem this is because as we have discussed competitive balance has actually been pretty good. Relative to other sports leagues in baseball. And so I don't know that it's at the top of my list of league wide problems. Now if you're an Orioles fan or if you're a fan of some other terrible team that has not been trying to win for a while, then it's a huge problem for you. I think that there is still a decent amount of competitive balance and parity or whatever we want to call it or teams that still have a chance and now that there are 12 playoff teams that will be even more true. But if anything, the fact that they're more playoff teams and you don't have to get as good to make the playoffs, the players concern was that that would lead to less spending and I don't really want to call it tanking because again I don't see it as teams intentionally trying to lose so much as teams just sort of well, maybe we could call it banking just like banking banking the dollars that they're getting without having to compete and banking kind of captures it also because it's just, it turns it into a financial exercise as opposed to a competitive athletic one and that I think is the issue to the extent that this is an issue and I don't think there was really anything done to address that. And so that will continue to be an issue and that seems like something that the owners were pretty eager to protect, I think they like being able to make money without having to spend a lot on player payroll or try to win that much in the current season. And I do make some distinction between some teams that actually are getting worse in the short term so that they can build back up and actually really be competitive and good in the future, which is not something that everyone has succeeded at, but a lot of teams have had some success with that. But banking as I'm calling it, I'm workshopping this, I'm not sure that I'm going to stick to it. Yeah, but it needs a noun after it is the problem. Yeah. I get that the rhyming is really tempting. But it means banking, it needs another noun. We'll work on it, but we'll work exacerbated by just a new wave of national broadcast deals, right? So we got some news on that front this week and I alluded to it the other day, the Apple TV plus streaming deal, but there's also an NBC sports deal to stream games on peacock. So the apple deal is for Friday night games, the NBC deal is what Monday and Wednesday night games that used to be on ESPN. And so the first deals worth 85 million a year for 7 years and the peacock deal is smaller. It's 30 million a year. But I think this could be part of the problem in the sense that this is more money that's going into teams coffers, whether or not they actually try to put a competitive product on the field. So I think prior to these agreements, the annual average of the league's national media deals was like 1.84 billion, which gets split evenly among the 30 teams and now it's 1.96 billion. So up 26% and basically 2 billion. And just cribbing from Craig Calcutta's newsletter earlier this week, doing the math, that means that each team now gets 65 million plus a year from national TV deals alone, just national deals, not local broadcast deals, which themselves average around 50 million a year, not ticket sales, not concession sales, not sponsorships, not merch sales and not revenue sharing checks from other teams just the national TV deals..
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"craig calcutta" Discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
"Then it turns out oh, it's because Frankie frisch got all his friends in or whatever. So that kind of thing. You put one of those in then suddenly it's like, well, now you can make that case from the lowest common denominator that if this guy's in, then that guy should be in and this player is not actually one of the best players ever, and so now what is this group of plaques anymore? So that's kind of what it comes down to with the PD stuff to me. I think that you can certainly make a case that especially the post testing players. And obviously, steroids were legal in baseball and in the country. When people were taking them in the 90s, but it was a much more permissive atmosphere certainly where players were if anything almost encouraged to take this stuff. But yeah, if a rod's not in, like, a rod at least until recently. I mean, during my years as a fan at least, he was the best player I ever saw. You know? And so if Alex Rodriguez is not in the Hall of Fame, then what is the Hall of Famer? What is the black part? Especially because he's on Sunday and 8 baseball every week and gone pre game shows it's like he's very much around baseball already. So he's not exactly like banned or ostracized or anything. And so to keep him out, I don't know, like I certainly see the case, but it almost just chips away at the legitimacy or the purpose of the entire exercise for me. I get that. I mean, I do think that on the point of prior users have been inducted and we know that we don't know everyone who use. I would maybe encourage you to knock it over really fus about that part because there are a lot of bad Hall of Fame votes to your point, but that's not your problem. Those people's bad choices aren't your fault, like you don't have to, you know, you are coming to the exercise with a completely clean record, right? And so you get to decide with this ballot. Here are my parameters for voting. And if those are a little inconsistent with the parameters that other people have had in the past, I don't think that you need to worry about that overly much because the body changes and the people who vote change and what matters to us change and the stats that we use to evaluate those cases change over time. And so all you can do is the best with the ballot you have in front of you. And if, you know, you decide that it is sort of important to our understanding of the game to include Alex Rodriguez, even if we know that some of the seasons he had were likely tainted from a statistical perspective by PDs. I think that's a defensible position. I don't think that you need to worry about the entire exercise being sort of pointless if he's not in because I do think that it's fine to say, yes, there were likely rule breakers who sort of made their way into the hall without us knowing. And there are guys who we know used other stimulants in the hall. But we know that this guy did. And so regardless of who may have in the past, when we are confronted with someone we know to have violated the rules in a way that we think is meaningful, we're going to say, sorry, but you don't get to be a part of this very special group. I think that if you say, you were a Hall of Fame player before we know you were using steroids and it's weird for you to not be in here because you were in addition to the best player, like one of the most important players in terms of free agency and our understanding of what players can ask for and receive. I think that's fine, too, but just worry about yourself. Just worry about your job. Yeah, that's a good advice. You know, other people's jobs? Not your problem. And I think I'm a little less of a believer in the power of PDs than maybe some people are, which is not to say that I don't think that they helped Barry ponds and co, but I do think that they're hardly automatic improvements. Sure. Many players and that those players in particular would have been Hall of Famers anyway is what I think of course it's impossible to know. And I do believe that there's some utility in the concept of having a Hall of Fame. I mean, obviously, the museum part is invaluable for the preservation of baseball history. And I suppose you could say that the plaque part probably helps the museum part because the museum part is a museum in a little town in upstate New York, where most people don't actually get to go, or don't get to go often, whereas the plaque part brings a ton of attention to the museum part, and you could have the museum part without the plaque part, but I don't know if there would be issues with attracting people to the museum or attracting funding or what have you. And I think that there's some value in just the conversations that the Hall of Fame starts. And I know that a lot of those conversations can be repetitive and tedious. But I do think it provides a prompt for us to talk about these players and talk about the past in a way that we wouldn't otherwise like I think a lot of people are of the opinion that will where should I care, why should we collectively care about who these writers decide our Hall of Famers or who some small subset of people on a committee decide our Hall of Famers and that makes sense to me? I mean, like you were just saying, you know, you can reach your own conclusions about that. And so if you think that someone was one of the best baseball players ever and the baseball writers disagree or the veterans committee disagrees, you're not bound by that. I mean, that's sort of my attitude about awards votes. It's like, yeah, I guess I'll be equal. I'd rather have them reflect my understanding of value. But it doesn't change my thoughts about how valuable a player season was necessarily if some subset of baseball writers decide that it was or wasn't valuable. So I think that there is some value in just shedding light on these players and I know Craig Calcutta, for instance, has expressed the point of view that he thinks that the Hall of Fame debate and discussion actually deadens some discussions that we should be having about players who are not in the Hall of Fame. You know, he thinks that whether you're a Hall of Famer or not decides whether anyone remembers you or talks about you, and so if you are not in the Hall of Fame, then you are sort of unfairly neglected because all the oxygen in the room is sucked up by the Hall of Famers who perceived that stamp of approval. I disagree. I don't think we would be talking about those players more if there weren't all the same. I think we would just be generally talking about former players a lot less. I don't think that the Hall of Fame like crowds anyone out of the spotlight so much as it is that each generation tends to forget and think about and care about earlier players less and that's just the way human nature and memory work. And if anything, having some players be Hall of Famers means that their names get mentioned every year and they get dredged up and you get some curiosity and you think, oh, I'll look up that guy. There's more attention shed on them, or even a player like, I don't know like Lou Whitaker or Bobby gritch or someone else who's always mentioned as oh, he should.