Effectively Wild Episode 2502: The Cycle of Major League Life

Meg Rowley

I just a fan who wants nothing less than effectively wild oh wild, oh

Ben Limburger

wild, oh wild

Meg Rowley

Nothing less than effectively wild.

Ben Limburger

Hello, and welcome to episode 2502 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraph Spaceball podcast, brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Reilly of fangraphs, and I am joined by. Joined by Ben Limburger, the ringer. Ben, how are you?

Meg Rowley

Well, I was just catching up with our old friend Frank McCourt, as one does not the author Frank McCourt, not Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt, the late Frank McCourt, but the current Frank McCourt and the Frank McCourt people might remember as the former disgraced Dodgers owner. Yes, if you knew nothing about baseball, you would probably remember Frank McCourt as an incompetent clown and something of a spectacle and someone who threatened to drive the Dodgers into the ground. And that is not the end of his story, it turns out. It has had several twists and turns since then, but if you weren't there at the time, you might forget or never have known just how much of a spectacle McCourt's Dodgers were. He was a real estate developer. He was heavily leveraged to purchase the Dodgers and then got in big time financial trouble when he and his wife divorced.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

And Bud Selig appointed someone to essentially oversee the Dodgers because of dire concerns about how McCourt was running the team. And they declared bankruptcy at the time. And there were all sorts of assorted stories or silly stories. Who could forget Vladimir Spunt, the Russian mystic who was hired by the McCourts as a sort of psychic faith healer who was paid a fortune to chant final V Energy V for Vladimir, I think to help the team win over the years of McCourt's tenure. So, yeah. And yet he made out like a bandit. He made bank when they sold the team because despite McCourt's best efforts to depreciate that asset, it was still the Los Angeles Dodgers and it was very valuable. And really, what has happened to the Dodgers post? McCourt, I think, only emphasizes how big a failure that was for him because he is sitting on a gold mine here. I guess you can't say that he fumbled the bag when he made, I don't know, 800 million or something in the sale. But he's fine. Fumbled from a competitive standpoint because as soon as they got rid of him, more or less, the Dodgers go on a generational run and become ERA adjusted, arguably the most dominant team of all time, certainly in the regular season, Anyway, he has gone on to have a second act, a third act in sports and. Yeah. And has had at least some financial success. So about a decade ago, he purchased a French soccer club, Olympique de Marseille.

Ben Limburger

Okay.

Meg Rowley

And more recently than that, he is also a big equestrian. You know, not beating the rich guy allegations.

Ben Limburger

He's not himself a horse. He's not a horse so far as we know.

Meg Rowley

No. But he is a horse enthusiast. Yeah, he's a. A horse guy. We don't talk about horse guys enough. You know, it's always horse girls, horse gals, but they're horse guys. And he is one. And he has had some initiatives in the horse arena as well. He was involved in the Global Champions Tour, which is a show jumping series.

Ben Limburger

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Meg Rowley

Bought into that and, and founded a team. And more recently, just this spring, he founded the Premier Jumping League. I don't know how many other jumping leagues there were, but this is the premier one. That's the premiere name, the PJL as we call it.

Ben Limburger

Okay.

Meg Rowley

International show jumping competition, backed by McCourt Global and just started this thing from scratch and it's going to 16 teams across various countries and continents. And they just sold the rights to the first franchise and, and somehow it went for 50 million bucks. And this is, this is a lot for a startup league. I know, it's the premier jumping. Well, sure, yeah, it's not just any jumping, but. But still, that is a lot when you compare it to other startup sports leagues and what the franchises sell for. And this first franchise has sold for 50 million DOL. It will be called the McCarthy Jumping Team, purchased by Jason McCarthy, a trading firm guy investor. So basically McCourt has, has failed his way to the top or has stayed at the top. And it's one of those things where once you reach a certain level of wealth, it's almost impossible to be knocked from that perch. I guess it's kind of a too big to fail, too rich to fail. If you manage to buy your way into a big league team and then despite all of your mismanagement and sideshow clown act, you just parlay that into a massive windfall and then you go on to buy into other things and basically it's just sort of self sustaining and self perpetuating. So if you knew nothing about Frank McCourt except baseball, you'd think, oh boy, what a disgrace. He sullied his name, his financial fortunes ruined. No, he's gone on to continue to be a very rich and largely financially successful guy. And maybe Even rehabilitated his reputation in some respects. Lots of, lots of philanthropy going on and lots of other initiatives. He was trying to buy TikTok. I mean, just all sorts of stuff, you know, that would have been like the end of the story for a lot of people. That was the start of the story for Frank McWhirt.

Ben Limburger

Oh, gosh. What, what is there to even say? Is there a training facility, ordinal direction critique to be had around show jumping? Because, you know, the camelback faces the wrong way, right?

Meg Rowley

Yeah, that. I don't know.

Ben Limburger

I find myself very discouraged by anyone looking at that guy and going, yeah, I'll give him some money. You know, like, I should give him some of the, my money. Presumably people who have a lot of money, but not like maybe endless money. And it's not as if McCourt's mismanagement was private, you know, that was a pretty public business failing.

Meg Rowley

It was.

Ben Limburger

And to your point, one that looks worse as time passes and competent ownership finds a way to not only make a very good baseball team, but one we are given to understand is incredibly profitable. That sucks, right, that, that other rich people were like, but this will be different, you know, surely the show jumping space is ripe for, for investment and, you know. Well, you have, I don't know, are they called, are they called jockeys when they're engaged in show jumping? I'm not trying to be sassy. Like, I, One of my cousins, cousins has a horse and she loves that horse. You know, she's, I don't call her a horse girl because that has like a derogatory connotation and, and she's lovely. I can't speak to the horse's disposition. I've never had the pleasure of meeting its acquaintance, but. Yeah, but Ally's great.

Meg Rowley

I think they're not jockeys.

Ben Limburger

They're not jockey.

Meg Rowley

I think they're writers or equestrians.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, I want to use the correct terminology because it is like a, it's a skill and it's, it's a really interesting. Again, I, I, I do hesitate to call it a sport, but one that I find more appealing than like, like NASCAR or Formula one. Because like that, that's a beautiful living horse, you know, and you're showing it around and getting it to jump the way you want. And it doesn't speak English or whatever language you speak. You know, I don't think all equestrians are English speakers.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, quite, quite a feat of athleticism on the horse's part, certainly.

Ben Limburger

And you have to like, you know, you have to like steer it and there's, you know, there's like a muscle part of that being able to help the horse move where you want it to. And you have to have a way with the horse, not your way with the horse because that would be bad. Now I regret bringing up my cousin, but. But yeah, I, I don't know about show jumping. I will say, I will say this and what a thought to have been inspired by with, with the World cup, which is, you know, like arguably the biggest global sporting event we have. But people love sports with stakes, you know. And I think, and I don't mean this to be disrespectful to show jumpers or their animals and I don't mean it to be disrespectful to soccer fans either, but like the bar's pretty low. You know, they, they, the ESPN shows that, that game where they have like a slippery slope and you gotta climb to the top of it, that's like on tv, you know, and like it's on TV often enough that I have seen it multiple times. Being an equestrian, I would argue a richer tradition and certainly soccer a richer tradition than the weird slippy slidey, climby people. I don't even know what they call it. The funny thing is that they probably call it something really direct and obvious and not slippy, slimy climbing people, but like something adjacent to that, you know, so that you can kind of conjure an image.

Meg Rowley

But anyway, slippery stairs, I think.

Ben Limburger

Slippery stairs. Slippery stairs, yeah.

Meg Rowley

You never know what's going on on espn, the Ocho or whatever. It's like, yeah, pandemic. When it was just all, it was like horseshoes and hacky sack and cornhole.

Ben Limburger

Competitive. Yes, competitive cornhole. But all of that to say that I think people really enjoy a sporting esque event with stakes to it and that those tend to be at least marginally profitable, even if the thing in question is sort of silly. And again, I'm not trying to say that being a competitive show jumper is silly. I do think the slippery stairs thing is like inherently silly, but they know that. You know, I don't think if we have any slippery stare aficionados listening like

Meg Rowley

you, you know, I mean, we were once weaned on Nickelodeon Guts. So I'm primed to watch Slippery Stairs.

Ben Limburger

Yeah. Every time I've seen it, it takes me back to like there was a, like a facility, like a, a gym, a play gym with a bunch of the like tunnels you crawl through and stuff in Bellevue, Washington that was like close enough to Bell Square, which was the fancy mall. And now all the malls in Seattle are fancy, so tough, tough cookies. But my sister and I would get, like, deposited there when my dad and stepmom needed to like, go to Bell Square because we were children and they were like, you're obnoxious. Like, go run around and, and, and climb slippery stairs. It was like a. It's like a kid distraction while shopping kind of instrument. Less that, more that than a sport.

Meg Rowley

Let's go to MO for the rules and, and hear about the Agro Crag. Someday I'll have a piece of the Agro Crag displayed prominently in my apartment.

Ben Limburger

But how many Patreon supporters do we need for you to have the aggro?

Meg Rowley

I don't know. I don't know what pieces for the Agra Crag are going for these days since maybe it's appreciated as much as the Dodgers because, you know, less supply. Anyway, the point is. The point is Frank McCort has gone on to other things. I don't know if they're greater things or better things. But yeah, that was, that was not the end of Frank McCort's period as a rich fellow or as a public figure or even as a sports figure. And I guess it just goes to show that the plight of the owners, the financial plight of the owners, it's all relative, really. It goes as badly as it could go for someone, and it still goes great compared to anyone else. So good for Frank. Glad he's doing okay. And it puts me in mind of the. You know how there's the famous F. Scott Fitzgerald's saying about there are no second acts in American lives. It's one of those sayings that people only invoke to take issue with it. No one ever says F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American lives. And by Jove, he was right. No, it's always he said this, but. And then you cite the example of someone who had a second act or third act or fourth act. There are a lot of sayings like that, but I think that's most prominent among them. It's just like a sort of a straw man that people invoke only to knock down. I'm given to understand that even F. Scott Fitzgerald himself didn't necessarily subscribe to that saying, that he used it twice because it most prominently appeared in his last unfinished, posthumously published novel, the Last Tycoon. And he had used it earlier, in an earlier piece of writing when he said, I used to think that, but now maybe I don't anymore. So even he didn't maybe believe it. I think we just need to retire that statement. So Frank McCort has had many acts and I don't know, maybe he'll be the last tycoon. So we can talk about some non Frank McCourt matters because I know that was for foremost on on everyone's mind. Maybe we could talk briefly about two pitchers who pitched on Tuesday and are scheduled to pitch on Sunday and thus will not be on the All Star team, even though they were selected as All Stars. Yeah, Jake Mizrowski and Paul Skin. So two things about these guys.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

One, the Miz, he had a good outing, not among his greatest. He gave up a couple dingers, but he still struck out 11 and and pitched just fine. And the brewers eked out a win. And something that Christian Yelich said about that start struck me. He said of the Miz, all the dominating starts are cool, but starts like today are the ones that show you the growth. Everything's not going perfect. It's hot, it's a day game, a double header, it can go sideways on you pretty easy. And he was able to step up and really dig deep and find a way to get through seven and keep it close. These are the kind of starts that show you how far he's come and what he's becoming in the league. And you hear that sentiment fairly often, I'd say, where it's like, ah, yeah, those are the days when not everything is working. That's what separates the wheat from the chaff. Or that's what really is the mark of a mature pitcher. And I'm not sure I believe that. I'm not. I'm not sure I subscribe to the idea that the start where he was sort of laboring and managed to gut through it is the one that shows you his growth. I would posit that maybe the one where he's throwing 105 miles per hour and nobody can touch him also demonstrates his growth pretty effectively. Like the starts where he's just mowing down everybody and it looks like he is going to pitch a perfect game every time out. And he is setting records and reaching heretofore unseen pinnacles of pitch speed. I think those show his growth just as well, if not better. Yeah, and I get what Christian Yelch is saying here, that maybe there's a mental maturity or you develop a pitch ability to go along with your raw tools and skill and, you know, you're not just a thrower, but a pitcher. That whole, that old saw, I I see what he's saying, but I think that the Miz has reached a new level this year because he has literally reached a new level of stuff and also has adjusted his approach, as we have discussed, to the point where he has just realized that nobody can touch him because his stuff is that great. And his command is pretty good too, and his control. But he just has been firing it in there and saying, I'm not going to mess around. I'm not a finesse pitcher, I'm a power pitcher and I'm going to pitch like one. And that has worked out well. And he's cut his walk rate in addition to the strikeout rate and everything else. I, I think that actually demonstrates his growth pretty well. But I get what Yelich is saying. It's just, you hear that a lot. And I would suggest that maybe it's more telling when someone is just completely untouchable, that, that, that actually demonstrates your growth pretty well too.

Ben Limburger

I do think there's something to the notion though, and at this point in Mizorowski's career, young though it remains, he's probably past this point, but the majors are a different thing and he's honing his repertoire to really decide again what kind of pitcher he wants to be. I think that there is something to players of this caliber demonstrating an ability to weather things not going exactly right. Yeah, they're just the best player in their orbit for much of their lives. Right. Even when they start playing like, you know, high level travel ball, when, when those of them that go to college go to college, when they get to the, you know, the lower levels of the affiliated miners, like, they have been almost without fail the best guy on the field or one of the handfuls of best guys on the field their entire athletic careers. I don't want to overstate the case, and this is something that would be incredibly difficult to quantify. But like, there's, there's a reason that, like, mental skills coaches exist, right. And that sports psychologists exist. And there might be some amount of hokum mixed in with, with those practices, you know, depending on the practitioner. But I think being able to like, bear down and adapt and feel your way through a suboptimal outing, like there is value in that. I don't think it, like, needs to fundamentally change our understanding of him as a pitcher, other than sort of checking off the binary, yes, no, can he muster that and manage it. But I do think there's something to being able to, to do it and, and maybe that's really all or at least a part of what Yelich means when he's talking about it. Because, like, when a guy is cruising and it's easy and the velocity is just there and he's hitting his spots, it's not that that doesn't take effort. It's not that that's not impressive, and it's not that that isn't indicative of skill. Right. Like, I think, especially for a guy like Misarowski, where the velocity in particular just looks so easy, it can conceal the actual, like, strategy and talent and. And work piece of it. Right. Like, it. It presents as the result of primarily, like, natural talent, and it can obscure all the work that goes into it. In the same way that, like, really fast guys who are good base runners, like you can. You can be mistaken in thinking that the speed is all that it is. And we know that's not true. Right. There are other things that go into being good at that. So all of that to say, like, I think there's a little something to it, and I think maybe especially when a guy is still fairly new into his pro career, although less and less new all the time. Wow. He's just really like a four and a half win player. Geez. Wow. Good for you, man. You know, the brewers know what they're doing is a. Is a thing that we can say with some amount of confidence. They. They know what they're doing. So does Jacob Bezrowski. But I think there's. There's something to it.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, yeah, I get what he means. And. And there's a skill to keeping your emotions in check and being on tilt when you don't have your good stuff or you're pitching under pressure and you manage to bear up under that.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And so I'm. I'm partly being pedantic, which is completely out of character for me. Obviously, it's learning something new about my friend Ben. Yeah. It's along the lines of when someone says he's a great player and an even better guy, and then I always think, really, is that possible that he could be. First of all, these are on completely different scales. How do you compare being good at baseball with being a good human? But also anyone who's in the big leagues is, like, you know, upper tier, top percentile player. And so are you that good a person relative to all other people, to really be better than all other people by a greater degree than you are better than all other players as a baseball player?

Ben Limburger

It seems unlikely, but almost certainly not.

Meg Rowley

But also I understand that people are just Trying to say he's a good guy and. And don't let the fact that he's good at baseball overshadow that he's a good guy. Or that's. That's not the entirety of who he is as a person or something. It's just something you say, though. I hear people say it so often that I question whether we're overusing that. Could they all be that great guys? I don't know. I also recall something along these lines that you sometimes hear people say. I seem to recall Roger Clemens deploying this line about how it is those sort of starts in the middle that define your season. And I think Clemens would put it in terms of. In X number of starts per season, everything's working and you just kind of cruise and X number of starts, you've got nothing and you just get shelled. And then there's the X number starts in the middle where it could go either way. And if you're able to make it work on those days, that's what separates a good season from a bad season. Or ultimately. And I guess I get what he means now, he's Roger Clemens. And so I think his baseline was considerably higher than almost any other pitcher in history. And so a bad day for him or a no stuff day for him, it's all relative. And I'm sure he had many more days when it was all working than most people did. And also when it wasn't working, he was probably better than most other guys when it was working. So. Yeah. But stipulating that, I get what he's saying, that you're gonna have that number of starts in the middle and that if you can manage to turn those starts that could go either way, those edge cases into the good column instead of the bad column, then maybe that could be. Make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful season. Though, again, if you just can throw 103 and set down everyone, then I think that's a pretty good strategy and shows growth, too. And touching on the brewers and sticking with that game or that day because they had a doubleheader. Important development in the field of baseball player studies. And by that I mean quotes about people being baseball players, which I covered exhaustively on episode 2500. We had a development here because Pat Murphy, Brewer's manager, who referred to Ildemaro Vargas as a baseball player earlier this year. And that kind of fit the bill of. What do I say about this guy? He's maybe not the most physically gifted. I'll compliment his work ethic and his preparation and his professionalism. He's a baseball player.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

But in this game, he called Jackson Churio a baseball player. And Cheerio doesn't quite fit the mold because he is quite talented and he is young and was a big prospect and came up and sort of set the league on fire right away and then maybe had some setbacks and everything. But he's a very gifted player. And what he did in this game was turn around and bat lefty for the first time in his big league career. And he did it on a dare in a blowout. So it was the ninth inning and the brewers were up 10 to 2, and the Cardinals had surrendered. They had sent in a position player pitcher, Brian Torres. And I kind of like the fight fire with fire, or the opposite of that. When you have a position player pitcher come in and you just turn around and bat with your weak side, where it's just, I don't know, fight water with water. It's whatever. It's like a slap fight, something. It's just like, okay, you're gonna tie your hand behind your back then. Then I will do that too. Or I will turn around and bet with the other sides, the other hands. I guess you use both hands regardless, but you know what I mean. So he. He actually ripped a line drive here. It was not a bad swing and it was an out. It was caught, but still fairly impressive. More coordinated than your average person would look when swinging with their non favored side. And of course, Anthony Rendone did this once. And it's sort of sad that we will always remember Anthony Rendon for not playing, because when he played, he was quite spectacular. He was. He was really great when he was good and healthy. And he did the same thing. And it was in 2022. And he batted against Brett Phillips, the fairly prolific position player pitcher, and Rendon turned around and batted lefty and hit a home run. So that was. That was pretty impressive. Anyway, Churio did that. And the quote from Pat Murphy was. And there's a little more to it. There's some nuance. But Murphy said he looked good. It was the first time he swung the bat left handed in years, he said, but he looked really good. He's an athlete. He is a baseball player. Now, this is, I think, meaningfully different because he prefaced that he's a baseball player with he's an athlete, which is the sort of thing you typically don't say about someone who gets described as a baseball player or a ballplayer. They're all athletes, obviously. But again, we're adjusting for the level of competition here. So prefacing it with he's an athlete, I think suggests that there's more to him than the typical guy who gets described as a baseball player. Plus, he was batting lefty. So I think because he was batting lefty, he was up there maybe as a left handed hitter. He is a baseball player, you know, he's like a lesser talent maybe. And so he was kind of conveying that he just has that essential baseball player to him, that he was able to turn around and bat lefty and still make it look pretty good. So I think given those special circumstances, it doesn't really destroy my grand unified theory of guys who get described as baseball players, but certainly a counterexample. And interesting that it came so quickly on the heels of our discussion.

Ben Limburger

I know, I, I do think that it is a particular set of circumstances. You might be giving a little too much credit to think that there is like a super sophisticated taxonomy at play here. Right. But I think it leaves your theory intact. Now. Now we need to ask players, well, you can be a baseball player, but like, where do baseball players sit relative to guys and dudes? You know, like, what is the, the hierarchy of the boys? How do you, how do you rank the guys who are the best fellas, you know?

Meg Rowley

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was lamenting that I didn't cite the other day because I made some pop culture references and, and had some clips of gu described as baseball players or self identifying as baseball players. And there is a scene in the 1992 major motion picture Mr. Baseball starring Tom Selleck as aging first baseman Jack Elliott. And you'd figure that given that it's called Mr. Baseball that there'd be some quotes in there about being a baseball player. And there are, there is a time when Jack is sitting soaking in the tub and he's wondering where he will go next and what will become of him. And he, he actually says, I'm a baseball player. I've been a baseball player all my life. Even before I was a baseball player, I was a baseball player. I don't think I could be anything else. Which suggests that there's something in the essence. Yeah, yeah, right. It's just, it's inherent to you. It's so ingrained that you remain a baseball player even after you're no longer listed officially as a baseball player. Or perhaps your baseball playerness predates you're actually playing baseball.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

So that's an interesting little wrinkle on

Ben Limburger

this discussion, such A complicated matrix.

Meg Rowley

It is Paul Skians SK he also pitched on Tuesday, and he pitched okay.

Ben Limburger

He pitched fine.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, it was. Maybe it was one of those games where you don't have your best stuff and you got through it. And. And he did.

Ben Limburger

He's been familiar with those lately.

Meg Rowley

Yes, he has. And he has not always gutted through it. And so this was one of those games where enough goes right that you make it through. And he had a quality start, quote, unquote. He gave up two runs over six, and he was helped out by Ryan O', Hearn, who went off and drove in 10 runs all by his lonesome and hit three dingers. Plenty of run support for Paul, which has not always been the case. But this snapped a streak of, I think, nine consecutive Pirates losses in ski starts, and they won 12 to 4. And he somewhat allayed the concerns because the, the numbers were all right, the results were all right. But if you watch it, he did not look really in command. He didn't have great command. He struck out four over six, which is not particularly Skeensian. And, you know, he was kind of getting bailed out here and there and just. It wasn't a commanding, dominant performance by any means.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And it. And it was the Braves, who have had a tough time offensively of late.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And so it's. It kind of reassured people just because there had been a big drumbeat of what's going on with Paul Skeens. And Kiriola wrote about this for fan graphs in advance of the start. So did everyone in the world. I mean, people were really fretting about Paul Skeens, what's going on with him. Because. And we. We talked briefly about what's going on with Skeens recently, too. Of course, he started the season with that one disaster start, which was not entirely his fault. There was defensive miscues. There was o' Neill cruising happening behind him, which prevented Paul SK from cruising, but he didn't make it out of the first inning. And so he had a 67.5 ER after his opening day start.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

But in short order, he got down to the normal SK ERA sub two range because he reeled off a stretch of what, eight starts, I think, where he was just his usual dominant, unperturbable Paul Skeen self. And he had a Gibsonian just barely above one ERA over that stretch, and he was just back to being his usual self. But then he had that run of nine starts after that where he just did not look great. And it. It depends on which Metrics you're looking at. But basically, if we start May 17, when he had a rough start against Philly, entering his start on Tuesday, he had a 5.36 ERA over a nine start stretch and he had a 3.59 fifth, which is, you know, if that's bottoming out for you, if that's the nadir, if that's what's happening with Paul Skin, that's pretty good. That speaks to your skill overall. But he was fairly homer prone and just didn't really look like his usual self. And then he had the start Tuesday where he was kind of somewhere in the middle. Okay. Not pouring few on the fire when it comes to the concerns, but not really completely easing them either. And the big hand wringing thing that has circulated a lot online was the velo. Right. And that led to a lot of concerns about is there something physically wrong because it's tough to untangle exactly what has been happening with him. And it seems like it's tough for him to untangle too, because he's been asked about it and he's sort of vaguely referred to making changes and doing things differently, but without specific ideas, at least publicly, about how he could or should do that. So what's your level of concern when it comes to skiings?

Ben Limburger

Actual concern? Fairly low. Like, I don't think that he has like forgotten how to pitch. I think there are just, there are going to be stretches in every guy's career where you're a little less effective. Even, even the very best guys, I don't imagine that they are concealing any kind of meaningful injury just given how conservative they are with his usage. I'm sure that the Pirates are aware that they cannot goof around here. You know, I think he's a guy who makes and has made a bunch of adjustments over the course of his career, and it seems reasonable to imagine that there would be some where hitters would adjust back.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, Skeets was kind of a pitcher and a thrower from day one. Like, he never had that phase where it's, oh, this guy's got to learn how to pitch. He's got great stuff. No, he, he kind of, he had great stuff, but also seemingly knew how to pitch right.

Ben Limburger

Although he, you know, he did make adjustments to his repertoire.

Meg Rowley

He has tinkered, he has added.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, yeah. Meaningful ones. So, you know, I don't think that he is stagnant in his approach either. So I don't find myself particularly concerned. I do think that the, you know, the fortunes of the Pirates are not entirely dependent on his performance, but they certainly improve pretty dramatically when he is able to. To carry that team. It is nice to see him get some meaningful run support. Right. And you're right that some of his mis. Misfortunes this season have been defensively oriented in ways that aren't necessarily his fault. So all of that to say I'm not particularly worried, you know, if we were to find out that he was like pitching through something, I would be worried less because I think it means that he is like doomed to be sort of mediocre forever and more because it would suggest a malfeasance on the part of his organization. But again, I don't find that to be particularly likely. Again, they wouldn't let him pitch the 9th that one time and maybe they're sitting there going, we'll see. You know, what if we had, Meg, what if we had let him go back out there for the ninth inning and satisfied you maybe you would have had a couple stretch starts where he kind of stunk a little bit sooner. You know everything about that, Meg, clearly you have. I mean, I. Yeah, yeah.

Meg Rowley

I think there could be something mechanical going on because it seems like he's just a little out of whack and the command has been off. And. And of course, mechanical issues can mask some underlying physical cause or can be a symptom of one.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

In some cases, maybe one the player isn't even fully aware of, that they've sort of subconsciously made some alteration to their release point and his release point has been a little bit different. You know, sometimes there's like a. Your arms bugging you in a non specific way and you just kind of. Yeah. Unconsciously try to adapt to that and then maybe you change that and it causes a cascade and suddenly your body's doing something it's not used to. And. But I don't want to be a doomer about Paul Skeens because I don't know that there's enough reason to. And you can point to the speeds. It's not his hardest stuff that has been hit the hardest. He's really had issues with some of the off speed stuff, his splitter, his change up and his sinker. Those pitches have not been serving him well. There's one school of thought that says that maybe his repertoire has expanded too much.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

And with some guys, you know, if it's you, Darvish or someone, maybe you could throw nine pitches and manage to juggle all of them. With other guys, though, there is kind of a point and I. I think Skeens has addressed this where if you have a bunch of great pitches, well, it seems like it could be only additive, both in terms of how many pitches you throw, but also in terms of your effectiveness. Because even if you've got great stuff, if someone could can sit on it and anticipate it, well, that that won't be sufficient for you to succeed. And so, well, why not keep adding on and keep people guessing as long as the pitches are good. But there's diminishing returns at a certain point because maybe if you're throwing your fifth or sixth best pitch, maybe you're just not best served doing that. Maybe even if someone knows what's coming or can guess more effectively what's coming, if it's just a better pitch and the pitch characteristics are more impressive, maybe you'd be better just sticking with that. Plus there might be a lack of familiarity if you're trying to throw six pitches regularly, maybe you're neglecting some and when you're throwing them you don't have as good a feel for it. So there can be costs to that. And perhaps he is suffering that he has sort of put some of them in his back pocket, so to speak, more so lately that he's not had good results with. So it could be that when you look at the trend lines for speed, especially average speed and four seamer speed or sinker speed, it's semi concerning. Or it might be if you knew nothing about Skeens as a pitcher because you know he came into the league throwing hard and then has gradually taken the foot off the gas a little bit as time has gone on and even within this season. And we talked to him about this when he was on Effectively Wild last year and talked to him about how Jacob deGrom was making a conscious effort to not throw as hard, not endanger himself. And do you really need your top shelf speed if you've got stuff that good and you can get by with some slightly lesser stuff? We've talked about that with the Miz as well and I think there's some of that going on with Skins as well. It's a little bit concerning when you look at the trend lines and the graphs and you just sort by game by game. Even if you look at say 26 only 2026 only his first start of the season, he was sitting 98.5. I'm looking at Brooks baseball pitch info data here and in his most recent start entering Tuesday, he was sitting 95.5. That's an average so that's down 3 full miles per hour within a single season. And there is kind of a gradual drop off. And it's less pronounced if you look at the max speed. So when he did have to throw a single pitch hard, he still seemingly had that club in his bag. Why do we always reach for the golf analogy when it comes to that? Or metaphor? But, yeah, he was dialing it down a little bit. And that does seem to be a conscious choice on his part. And maybe we got through to him. You know, maybe we talked to him on Effectively Wild, and he said, you know what? Ben and Meg are onto something here. I don't want to hurt myself. Discretion is the better part of valor. I will take a little off. And he has said, he said in late June at least, that the Velo dip is by design, that he has concluded that he doesn't need it. But maybe he does, because if you don't get the same results that you were getting, well, at a certain point, then maybe you actually did need that speed. Sam wrote about this recently with the Miz. Even with the Miz, there is. At a certain point, there's a threshold where even the Miz can get hit. And so maybe he doesn't need 105, but 102 or 103 is, like, meaningfully different than 98 or something. So there is kind of a. A cutoff. And I wonder. There is a slight bounce back in speed in Skeens's Tuesday start, but that's what leads to a lot of the fretting and hand wringing.

Ben Limburger

Well, and I think that, you know, it's. It's useful to keep in mind that, like you talk about the Velo piece of it, and it's not to say that diminished Velo is a good thing. It might be useful, as we've pointed out, to longevity, but it's not like you can't be, you know, if you're. Take the Misorowski example, right. It's not. You don't have to throw 105. Maybe you have to throw 102 when you're throwing the way you're throwing right now. That isn't to say that you can't further adjust your approach to work with diminished velocity and still be very effective. There's a lower bound at which that stops being true, I suppose. But I think for a lot of these guys, it's not like it's one or two or bust, but it might require some work and alteration on your part to find out what is the optimal mix and approach. And can you have the same mechanics and can you throw from the same slot when you're at a slightly diminished velocity?

Meg Rowley

Yeah. It plays into two things that I lament about baseball. One is the scourge of pitcher injuries and elbow injuries, because as soon as a phenom like Skeens or the Miz comes up, we immediately are on UCL watch. And I hate that that happens. But there's always just a part in the back of my mind that's. I just want to appreciate this, you know, because you don't think about that when a position player comes up. You don't think, even if there is maybe some correlation between swinging super hard and certain kinds of injuries, you don't think, oh, boy, he's so good that the gods will be angry that there's an Icarus parallel here? No, you just sort of sit back and enjoy it and say, oh, gosh, we get to enjoy this for the next 10 or 20 years. Which isn't to say those guys are invulnerable. In fact, Skeens, his even younger teammate, Connor Griffin, hurt again and has had multiple extended injury absences this year.

Ben Limburger

No.

Meg Rowley

Which at least, you know, it's. It's reinforcing the idea that the youths can get hurt too, because so often it's like, oh, he's getting up there in years, he's getting old. The body's falling apart. Sometimes young bodies fall apart too. You know, it's like when I was in college, I tweaked my neck in some way. I was 20 or 21 maybe, maybe Connor Griffin's age, and I did something at the gym and I just, like, couldn't turn my head around without it kind of giving me a twinge. And it didn't actually fully fix itself until a decade later or something. When I couldn't go to the gym because of the pandemic, and I was sort of forced not to exert myself, which maybe suggests I should have taken more time off, you know, that could help. But whatever that was, sometimes that happens when you're young, too. So Connor Griffin and making the old people feel a little bit better about their bodies because the young guys can break, too. I hope he'll be fine. I'm not happy that he has injured himself, to be clear. And also, the most recent injury was like a finger fracture. Right. It wasn't some sort of wear and tear injury.

Ben Limburger

I think that there is something comforting about. And again, like, this is a strange thing to say. Everyone will know what I mean. But like there is, there's, there's something comforting about it being like a, you know, a meaningful but minor in the grand scheme of things, traumatic injury as opposed to one something that wasn't the result. Like a non, non contact injuries are terrifying. It doesn't matter how old the player is. And back injuries. I just, it's like when young, when very young men are, are already dealing with back stuff, I'm like, this doesn't seem good. Seems bad to be already doing that. You know, you and I shouldn't have anything in common, you know, other than like that we're both human beings and you know, some other stuff too. But like, from a physical perspective, it should be a, an insurmountable gulf. Does one surmount a gulf, an unbreachable void, a distance one cannot reasonably travel? And there is still obviously tremendous difference between, say, me and Connor Griffin and me and, I don't know, like, Evan Carter. Evan Carter had a bunch of back problems, right? Yeah, but there should. And Connor Griffin doesn't. It's on his ring finger.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. And actually it's not a fracture. It's a torn tendon.

Ben Limburger

Yeah. It's a, it's a labral tear. Right.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. And. And he did it diving for a ball. So it could happen to anyone.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

Any play of any age. Right.

Ben Limburger

And. But my point being like, you know, it's not the kind of injury where I'm like, oh, here we go. You know, where you, you start thinking, are we on a track to this person being the dreaded injury prone player? And no, I don't, I don't imagine so.

Meg Rowley

He had a strained forearm prior to that. That was the cause of the initial IL stint, which is something you worry about with young pitchers or any pitcher. But yeah, this was a, a sagittal band tear.

Ben Limburger

Sagittal band tear.

Meg Rowley

So what is, what is his ring finger? You're right.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

The wedding band is. Okay. The sagittal band.

Ben Limburger

The sagittal band is the problem. That's so interesting. What is the sagittal band? I don't even know how to spell that. Sad.

Meg Rowley

It's often referred to as boxer's knuckle.

Ben Limburger

Boxer's knuckle?

Meg Rowley

Yeah. I love the injuries that are named after, you know, tennis players. Elbow. There's like socio specific golf tennis type injuries that get branded that way.

Ben Limburger

Oh, this is like a whole presentation on the sagittal band. This is more information than I need. Emery, relax.

Meg Rowley

Familiarizing ourselves with the, the gracilis muscle, the sagittal band. Even after all these years we can still meet new injuries, so that's okay.

Ben Limburger

So, so, so, so you say blur for safe search and then I immediately click in and it is unblurred. I didn't like that at all.

Meg Rowley

What I was saying about Skins though is that I hate the fact that when a pitcher who's that young and gifted like that comes up, we're always just on injury watch and I'd like to forget about that. But it's, it's an epidemic. It's a problem. It's, I would argue maybe the biggest problem about baseball these days is that we can't fully understand, invest and get excited by a young, precocious picture because you're just waiting for him to break. And then related to that is the focus on speed and velocity. And I think it's self reinforcing because if you do do it on purpose, as Skins has said that he did, he said it's been by design. It's nothing I've been worried about. If you throw hard, you throw hard, you see it everywhere, it's real and I think there are ways to get around it. But guys throw hard, get hurt. I don't think the line from A to B is straight. If you like, if you throw hard, you're going to get hurt. I don't think that's the case. But the biggest thing that you can do to provide for your team and for yourself is to be on the field. So I like that, I like that idea, he says. I feel that I've gotten better over the last two years. My execution has gotten better even as the fastball velo has gone down. And I don't think in three years I'm going to be throwing 90 at some point it'll kind of plateau, plateau. So if you buy that, and I, I do, I, I buy that he has thought about these things and that there is a conscious effort. And you might wonder, well, if you're starting to struggle though, and the other ways in which you've improved are not compensating for you're not throwing as hard, then at some point don't you have to reach back and fire harder? And if he's not doing that, is that indicative of something he's not telling us or is not admitting even to himself? Who knows? That worry is always in the back of your mind. But.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

I would like to celebrate the fact that he is thinking this way, even though it doesn't mean he won't get hurt. As we talked about with Yuri Perez the other Day you can do whatever you can to protect pitchers, and they might still break because it's a hazardous occupation. But I would like to applaud this. And it's rare that a pitcher decides to do this because the pressures and incentives are such that you kind of do have to throw max effort in order to just stay in the league and outpace your competition. And really, the fact that Skeens considers himself to have the luxury of doing this is indicative of how good he is, because I think most people, they don't even have that choice because it's like, you know, he could take something off and still be throwing 96, someone else that might be max effort that might be even more than their max effort. So he has the luxury maybe of still throwing pretty hard, even when he's not throwing his hardest. But what happens is when a pitcher does decide to do this, suddenly everyone is tweeting graphs and going viral and saying, oh, what's wrong with skins? And it's not an illegitimate concern, sure, but it reinforces the idea that you have to throw as hard as you possibly can or else people will wonder what's wrong with you. And I would like it if we could normalize this behavior, this conscious, hey, I'm taking a little bit off because I want to last. And ultimately, I will help my team more if I am available, if I can provide bulk. And the second someone takes a little bit off and their results don't stay the same, because that's the thing. If he were right, dialing it back a little bit and still thriving, right?

Ben Limburger

It would be totally. Exactly. People would. People would be applauding him, right? People would be like, oh, how. How great is that? But, you know, when you have a start where you give up seven runs, when you have a start where you give up four runs, you know, like, this has been. It's. It's been less good. You know, it's been less good lately. Now, they haven't all been bad, but some of them have been less good.

Meg Rowley

And. And Skeens is starting from such a high point that even when he's bad, the peripherals are still pretty good, but clearly diminished. So, yeah, hoping that he will be just fine, because I have come to appreciate him as a pitcher, even showing some sides of his personality, whether he's a pitch man for a hot dog or he is deploying some dry humor to talk about the selfishness of Ryan o'. Hearn.

Ben Limburger

That was funny.

Meg Rowley

Collecting all the ribies himself and killing rallies. What was it like to see that sort of performance from Ryan, I mean, I think it was kind of selfish, to be honest. Everybody else was getting on and, you know, home runs are rally killers. You had a three run home run or grand slam and it's just like, what now? You know, there's nobody on nobody. Nobody can drive him in. So, you know, good for him, I guess. Long may Paul skin pitch and thrive. And speaking of that old belief that hitters can catch up to velocity if they know what's coming and if they're prepared for it, one of the homers in that most recent Miz start, and I think he was throwing a mere 102 or 103. It wasn't his, his highest octane, but Yvonne Herrera of the Cardinals hit one of those homers. And the way that Herrera prepared. And I like Herrera because I just, I have a thing for good hitting catchers. I have a thing for catchers, period. Also terrible hitting catchers who are great club guys. But it was kind of growing up watching Jorge Posada and not fully appreciating what a detriment he was on defense until we got quantification of framing. And suddenly I fell in love with Jose Molina.

Ben Limburger

But you and I have similar origin stories in a way that is quite funny. There's at least overlap in a way that folks might be surprised by.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. I've written about the moment the scales fell from my eyes because I was a Yankees intern just as they were discovering framing. I'll link to that piece, but it was quite eye opening.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And totally reframed my understanding of catcher value. I'm sorry that was weak, but it was right there.

Ben Limburger

You mean represented it maybe.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. Right. It's. It's not about stealing strikes. It's about not losing the legitimate strikes. That's what they all say.

Ben Limburger

Players do prefer presentation.

Meg Rowley

Good column name. But it was a good. Was a good benefit to those Yankees teams to have a great bat like Posadas at a spot where you don't expect to get much offense. And so I've been rooting for Herrera to keep catching. And he has semi regularly. At least he's keeping his hand in the catching game, which is good to see. But he's a good hitter. And the way that he prepared to face the Miz, According to this MLB.com piece, is he went into the batting cage and he cranked the VO up to 110. So he was. He was facing 110 miles per hour.

Ben Limburger

That's terrifying.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. And he said, I think in preparation When I have to play against that kind of fastball, it's just making it look a little slower. So it's the idea of the weighted bat in the on deck circle will make the actual bet feel light, which from what I've read doesn't actually work. And if anything, maybe it just tires you out to be swinging a heavier bat right before you have to go to the plate. But in this case, I guess I, I guess I get it. If you can kind of get your speed up to 110 and then you face the Miz and suddenly 102 is like a change up. You know, he's taking something off. So it seemed to pay off on that day. I don't know if he was using the trajector just pitching machine that was just set at max setting. But that's one way to counteract them is.

Ben Limburger

Do you think that he told anyone he was gonna do that?

Meg Rowley

I know, it's like it's a safety concern.

Ben Limburger

Yeah. Like hey, we, we gotta like, you know, put some cones out in front of the cages or something so that nobody goes through here just in case. Like my goodness.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, I guess the location is predictable with a pitching machine. So at least it's not gonna be a wild 110. It's gonna be a down the middle 110. But nonetheless, can you imagine how scary it would be just to stand in and see 110 that close?

Ben Limburger

I can't, I can't imagine how scary it would be to, to stand in and see 90. You know, like, come on, who are you talking to? I would be terrified the entire time I would fall down.

Meg Rowley

I would like it's fast enough to make a sound. I don't know where the just notice noticeable difference threshold is like 105 versus 110. I think that's equally terrifying. I don't know that you could really, as an unpracticed observer even really notice that up close. But 110 versus 90, I think you could tell. But either would be quite intimidating if you're not experienced in that arena.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, I, I, I don't think it would be a perceptible difference. It would be like if someone was like now we're doing 8K and it's like, well, we can't see that difference, can we? It would be quite startling. I would just assume that something would go wrong and it would misfire and hit me like, and you're just not going to get out of the way. You know, it's 110 miles. You're not getting out of the way.

Meg Rowley

You can't get out of the way.

Ben Limburger

You're just taking, you're just, your, your head is just shaped different after that, you know, like you just have a different head than you had when you went to work that morning. That's a crazy. That's crazy.

Meg Rowley

Well, we've talked about a couple of young pitchers. I figured we could talk about a couple of old pitchers. One, Justin Verlander, is in fact calling it a career. And you knew it when you saw we got a press release on Wednesday about Verlander being named a legend pick for the All Star Game.

Ben Limburger

Yes.

Meg Rowley

And that's reading the tea leaves. It's. We thought the same thing about Clayton Kershaw last year. We were, we were wondering, huh, why Clayton Kershaw is a legend pick and not Verlander and Scherzer? Well, because Kershaw was clearly planning to retire and then made that official. And shortly after the announcement that Verlander would be a legend pick for the 2026 AL team, he did in fact announce his retirement. So it does seem like it's time and I'm sorry to see him go. And we talked about him and Scherzer recently so we don't have to rehash that whole conversation now, given that he is walking away. It does make me, I guess, wish even more that he had called it quits last year and gone out, not on top, but as an effective pitcher as opposed to a struggling, injury prone one. But hey, he'll have his moment in the sun at the All Star Game, I guess, and hopefully he will be able to come back and pitch and maybe even help the Tigers during that stretch run. That would be nice because this has not been really the, the. It's been a bittersweet homecoming. Yes. You know, it'd be nice if it were a good sentimental story and he could actually muster some flashes, some semblance of his old self before it's over. But yeah, it's about to be over one way or another.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, I. Did Kershaw actually get into that game? I don't know that he did.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, I don't remember like the WBC where he was a team but also wasn't exactly.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, look, we don't, we are not here to body shame, dad. Buds. All buds. We're pro buds. But when he showed up to the wbc, I was like, oh, he did

Meg Rowley

transition into retirement modes.

Ben Limburger

He haven't pitched in a minute, have you, buddy? Yeah. Yeah. Whereas like again, and this is what fueled one of my bold preseason predictions. Like, Paxton shows up, and I'm like, he put him on a mound tomorrow. He gave pitch tomorrow. Yeah, I was wrong about that.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, Kersha, he did pitch, actually.

Ben Limburger

Okay.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, he. He actually came in in relief of Polski, and he got two outs in the second inning and, yeah. Didn't allow base runner, so that's nice. So probably Verlander. Well, I don't know. I guess he's physically compromised is the problem, so.

Ben Limburger

Right. Yeah, that's the thing.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. At least with Kershaw, he could have that farewell, which was clearly very memorable and meaningful for you. But, yeah, maybe Verlander doesn't get the. The same treatment in the All Star Game, but at least he will get to show up, I guess, maybe, and doff his cap. So, you know, take a bow. Bask in. In the appreciation. No announcements of. Of Max Scherzer. Not a legend pick.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

Not announcing his retirement. So maybe that means he has not yet come to terms with this being the end. I don't know that he will have the choice, at least as a major league pitcher if he wants to run it back for next year. But I don't know. I mean, if we're lamenting that we didn't get a Kershaw, Verlander, Cerser, Cooperstown class. Yeah, maybe. Maybe they'll just string it out now and we'll have one per year. Or maybe Scherzer will ultimately retire.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, maybe.

Meg Rowley

I mean, well, ultimately he will, but

Ben Limburger

this year, I mean, ultimately, Ben, we all.

Meg Rowley

We all will not we will be

Ben Limburger

retired from our jobs, but from this mortal coil.

Meg Rowley

Yes. Yeah. Anyway, happy trails. Not that he has retired already, but the writing was on the wall. I suppose even he saw it. But it is unfortunate because he was at one time talking a big game about pitching for a really long time and. And trying to go for 300 wins. And obviously that pursuit has stalled out in recent years, and he's stuck at 266, barring some drastic change to rules and pitcher usage. I don't know that we will see someone get to that point anytime soon again, if ever. So, yeah, 266 in this era. Pretty darn impressive. Quite a great career. But someone whose career is. Is not over yet, not by a long shot, is Zach Wheeler, who has been dealing, and he struck out 14 in his outing on Tuesday. And in fact, I was doing a little leaderboard sorting and start dates and end dates. And do you know, Meg, that since the day he debuted this year, coming back from Jurassic Outlet and the rib removal and all the rest, Zach Wheeler has been, by Fangraph's WAR, the fourth most valuable pitcher in baseball. That's starting April 25, when he made his season debut. And if you go by ra9 war runs allowed based war, he has been second only to the Miz in value over that span. So he is right back to being neck and neck for best pitcher in baseball, which is why he was miffed that he was not named to the All Star Game, at least initially. He feels that he has been snubbed. And based on his performance, I suppose he has a case there. But, yeah, I'm glad to see that he. He still has this. That he's this good. And. Yeah, again, like, because of the late start to the season and the dominance of the Miz and Sanchez, though, he's coming off a very rough start.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

That Wheeler will probably, once again, even if he keeps pitching this way, not be in the winner's circle when it comes to the Cy Young Awards. So.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

But he might end up with a. Another close finish.

Ben Limburger

Look, it's just really funny when, like, the agents are doing both on record and on background work and it all kind of comes out at once. And what do you. If you're Zach Wheeler's agent, what do you. What else are you gonna do? You're gonna be like, my guy should be there. And he's not wrong. You know, he's not. He's not necessarily wrong, but the timing of some of the. The various media members who saw fit to draw our attention to that was funny. I assume you're not one of them. I don't know if you're acquainted with Zach Wheeler's agent, but it. It's a very cool thing. And, you know, I. Even though he had the good kind of thoracic outlet, it's like he still had a major surgery that he had to rehab from. And the fact that he's been able to be this effective is incredibly exciting and. And impressive. Gosh, we just had to spend so much time being like, no, this is a good thoracic outlet. You know, like, everybody relax.

Meg Rowley

It's the curb bit. The good Hodgkin's versus bad Hodgkins. They're. They're both bad. It's all relatively good.

Ben Limburger

They're both bad.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, he did thoracic outlet syndrome that was a little less likely to end a career, and he has come back and. And seemingly been the same old guy and. And, yeah, kind of old, but but also same is the key part there. And just a brilliant move by Don Mattingly to bring back Zack Wheeler. I think. I really don't know why Rob Thompson didn't try that. In fact, really a fireable offense not to use Zack Wheeler for the first month of the season. I mean I sort of see why he lost his job. Yeah. I mean you had this guy just. And you're. I don't even. We're not even going to use Zach Wheeler. And then Don Mattingly comes in, is like, why don't we use Zach Wheeler? And then he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. I mean that's just seems obvious. It's an elementary move. So yeah, yeah, that's played a big part in the Phillies writing the ship. So nice to see that Wheeler still got it. I have been a bit dismayed though by the. I don't know if collapse might be a bit strong but the, the season long slump of Stephen Kwan. It's, it's dismaying.

Ben Limburger

It's dismaying. I am concerned about Stephen Kwan. He asked me if, if I were concerned, if I was concerned about Skins and I'm not. But I am worried about Stephen Kwan. Is he hurt? Are you hurt, buddy? What's going on?

Meg Rowley

I guess you can't really tell from like oh, this is concerning. He's not hitting the ball that hard. Well, right. Stephen Kwan, I know he has, has talked a big game about being more of a power hitter and to his credit did become more of one. I mean he went from a single digits home run guy to a barely into double digit home run guy. So that's, that's different. But now he's back into single digits and in fact the digit is, is one. It has been a single home run that he has hit and he has a 56 isolated power as we speak. That's slugging percentage minus batting average which is about half of what he has had in even his lower power seasons. And I think a lot of it is, is BABIP and just the ball's not falling because he's pretty dependent on that as a contact guy. But it's not entirely that and it's just tough to tell because it's like the stat cast percentiles don't look all that different because he was already pretty extreme when it came to like hard hit rate and all that. And so it's like, well maybe he was first percentile before but now he's like really first percentile. He's first percentile with a vengeance. First Percentile with a bullet. He's like, he was already an outlier, but now he's even farther outlying. So I don't know, maybe he has just passed a point where it was working for him, this unique approach, but now he has gone too far in that direction almost like Luis Arias did. Maybe. But he does still have the defense and the defense is helping him and, and he's been fine in center. When he's played center, he's played a lot of left and center sort of split evenly, but he's been good in both places. So he's going to give you that. But he's also given you a, a low two hundreds batting average and that's not great if you're Stephen Kwan.

Ben Limburger

Yeah. And I, you know, I, I know that he earlier, earlier this season like had family matters he had to attend to and was put on the bereavement list. So you always want to be careful about like this stuff and who know, we don't know the particulars of his circumstance. He hasn't, I think chosen to share them publicly, which is his prerogative. But you know, you don't want to attribute all underperformance to that. But also there might have been, there might be things operating in the background that we're not aware of. You know, players are people as we've established. So there's, there's that piece of it and it's worth mentioning. But yeah, it's, it's sort of a, a mystery. I think that one of the things about his profile as a player, you know, when he was, was first coming up, when he was in his rookie season and he had been on our top 100. And part of it was Eric wanting to acknowledge that like some of these guys who have elite bat to ball like they do end up being Luisa Rice. They end up having such a strong contact profile that they are incredibly valuable at the big league level even though they aren't hitting for power. That's exciting. It is a skill set that has I think narrower error bars. And so when things aren't going well, you don't have, you don't necessarily have, you don't have home runs to fall back on to still be boosting your value. Which isn't to say that he's not doing anything right. Like his, you know, his walk rate is, is a career high. It's never been higher than it is right now. So he is still getting on base to a certain degree. But like you can see the bite out of his on base percentage that having such a low average has taken. Right. Even though he's walking more. So it's just, you know, there's, there's less margin for error I think with it and who knows.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. And sometimes maybe a walk rate spike like that can be a negative indicator.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

It's, it's not a bad thing to walk a lot to be clear. And that helping prop up his value such as it is. But also sometimes it might mean that you're less confident in swinging or something and you're just going up there looking for a walk. Or yeah, maybe there's a mechanical issue or a physical issue and you're just trying to work your way on or your approach has gotten somewhat screwed up and you're a little too passive or something and you're not swinging it at non strikes but also you're not swinging at strikes as much as you you should be. So yeah, he just seems a little out of whack and he's still giving the Guardians some value, but not as much as he did when he was a a well above average player and a a fun player to watch. So hopefully he gets back to those ways Cleveland could use the offense that he was previously providing. Also speaking of offensive outages, so Paul Skin did beat the Braves, but the Braves have reached the level of offensive ineptitude where they really are breaking glass in case of emergency. They've reached the sign Andrew McCutcheon stage of offensive ineptitude. And I hate to put it in those terms, those terms. Who doesn't love Kutch, right? But at this stage of his career.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

Not someone you sign.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

If your offense is firing on also

Ben Limburger

coming the way you want it to. Yeah, yeah.

Meg Rowley

And it's a minor league deal. He might not even get into a game for the big league Braves, but it's been pretty dire after they started the season so hot. We talked about their swoon and the newly competitive annual east race just recently. But yeah, the Braves have been among the worst hitting teams in baseball for months now. I mean it's really been bad. And if you start at the start of June for instance, then the only team worse than the Braves WRC plus wise is the Reds. The Braves have an 81 WRC plus roughly quanian 81 WRC plus over that span, which is now going on a month and a half or even if you go back to the start of May, they don't look great. Even over that span they are 27th better than only the Reds, Padres and Diamondbacks. So that's Been rough and I doubt Andrew McCutcheon will help. But what is interesting to me about that is that Andrew McCutcheon slated to play a minor league game in the Brave system on Wednesday and it is his first minor league game since he made the majors. He has not been back to the minors at all. So he has not been in the minors since 2007. So it's, wow, almost 20 years. Think about how different things were in the minors back then. And Andrew McCutcheon suiting up not just for any minor league team, but he's going all the way down. He is playing for the FCL Braves, the four Florida Coast League Braves. So that's a treat for those fans and those players to be graced with the presence of Indian Andrew McCutcheon. But no kidding, I always think of that sort of full circle shape to a player's career. You don't always see the full circle, but sometimes you do. Which this applies to, to people, not major league baseball players too. The idea that often, not always, but often old age is sort of a second childhood in some respects, right? I mean, you know, the physical infirmities and you need assistance to perform tasks just the way you did when you were a baby, let's say, or a toddler. And you know, physically, I mean, maybe you lose a little hair, you know, you go back to the hairline you had when you came out of the womb or so it's just like there's kind of, oh, we're going back to the beginning here, not in a Benjamin Button way, but there is a resemblance sometimes to extreme young age and extreme, extreme old age.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

And sometimes that is true of athletes as well or, or baseball players where you have your aging curve and it goes up and then what goes up must come down and there's kind of a roller coaster shape to it. And so you start at the lowest level of the minors and you reach the highest peaks if you're Andrew McCutcheon. And then if you stick around long enough, which many players don't, then you end up back where you started, back in the minors again. So I, I wonder if he has been thinking of that. And it takes a certain humility maybe and love of the game to even keep playing at that point. Right. I did a stat blast not that long ago about Brandon Phillips being an indie baller for years after he was a big leaguer and how it's become less common for long tenured major leaguers to keep playing in leagues or levels other than the majors after their big league Careers just because they don't need to anymore, financially speaking. But this, you know, to stick it out this long, to have struggled at the plate the way that McCutcheon has this year and in recent years and to kind of have been spurned by the Pirates. Not unreasonably, given McCutcheon's performance and the Pirates since then. But yeah, I wonder, wonder what is going through his mind just returning to the minors after almost two decades here at the tail end of his career.

Ben Limburger

Maybe he just wants to make sure that the guys on the FCL Braves roster get a really nice dinner, typically

Meg Rowley

get a glorious spread.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, yeah.

Meg Rowley

When.

Ben Limburger

When big league veterans like that go down to the minors, they typically will put on a. A bit of a. A nice time for the guys down there as a. Yeah. As a thank you and a pat passing it on.

Meg Rowley

I would kind of enjoy that, I think, being able to be magnanimous in that way. Oh, my God. You know, because. Because not all big leaguers, I'm sure some of them, they don't want to be there. They resent being there. Sure. They're bitter about it. Maybe they just show up and get in their game and leave and they don't want to just hobnob with the bush leaders, but I think a lot of them do and they take that opportunity to pass on some wisdom and hold court and answer questions and. Yeah, to treat those guys. And obviously the minor league conditions are better now than they were when Andrew McCutcheon was formerly in the minors. Thanks to commitments, teams have made unionization, you know, all the improvements when it comes to housing and nutrition and such. But even so, meaningful difference between the majors and the Florida Coast League. So. Yeah, I would enjoy that. Not. Not in a big league in every one way. Not in a. I'm coming in and making it rain and, you know, splashing my cash around and showing off necessarily. But just, hey, I've had a lot of luck and success in this game and now I can pay it forward and pay it back a little bit and, and show people a good time. That's nice. I'm always a. I'm always a sucker for the, like, veteran takes a rookie under his wings and. And takes him out to buy his first suit. That sort of story, you know.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, it's.

Meg Rowley

It's a baseball tradition, so. Oh, yeah, it's one of the, the timeless, classy ones.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, man, if I won the lottery, a lot of Gofundme is getting fully funded. I'll tell you what.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. And also nice when you've fallen on hard times at the highest level to go down to an easier level and be able to strut your stuff again. Because I always think the guys who do decide to carry on and they go to the Mexican League or they go to one of the Asian leagues or whatever, like, I'm constantly coming across names that I haven't thought of for years and thinking, oh, good for him. He's still flourishing at that level and is hitting like an absolute star.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And, and that's, you know, I, I would like that. I think after I was no longer a star at the big league level, if I then went to Taiwan or whatever and was just like suddenly a superstar there and it's still professional baseball and people care about it and everything. But, you know, I was, I cop it to like the, the yellow sun. It's like you go for from Krypton to Earth and suddenly you have superpowers like.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

You drop down a level or three and suddenly it's like old times. Again, not quite the the pay is not the same, the crowd sizes are not the same. It may or may not be televised, but when it comes to the box scores, it looks like old times.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, I don't know that I would have put a Superman comp on it, but I suppose it's not that different.

Meg Rowley

What do you make of this Baltimore Orioles season? Because we have not talked about it that much. Maybe mercifully from, from Orioles fans perspectives. We talked a lot about the Orioles last year. There was a lot of attention, a lot of scrutiny. And then it's been kind of quiet, I think, on a national level this year. But I was seeing people circulating unfun facts for Orioles fans about how through Tuesday's games, the 2026 Orioles were 42 and 50, and the 2025 Orioles also started the season 42 and 50. So identical records through their first 92 games.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And that is not. Well, it's not how the Orioles drew it up in either season. But certainly heading into this year, the idea was, hey, we were big spenders and we were active over the winter, and last year was a huge setback and a disappointment. And a lot of people took us to task, understandably, for not being aggressive in spending. And so we're not going to make that mistake again and we're going to go get guys, or at least some guys, and it'll all be different. And maybe the homegrown guys who fell on hard times last year, they will rebound. It just hasn't happened. And. And that that loss on Tuesday dropped them into last place in the AL east. And so I guess it hasn't garnered as much attention because it's less surprising because we all thought the Orioles were going to be good and the second year in a row that you're not good, it's just, it's not quite as shocking as it was last year. But I did expect some improvement at least and there just hasn't been much.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, I. They're. They're very mid. You know, all of their, if you look at their sort of aggregate team statistics, their offense is in the middle of the pack and their pitching is in the middle of the pack and the relievers are a little better than the start starters, but they're all kind of floating in that middle tier and

Meg Rowley

it's the middle of a mid pack in the AL at least.

Ben Limburger

I do want to give them credit for the, the moves they did make, the ways that they did push on. And you're right to say that like in 2025, I think the, the general expectation was that even if they weren't going to win that division that they would be competitive within the East. And I think they, they were a playoff team for us from a preseason staff prediction perspective. Now for me, I've been a hater and was I right? You know, and, and they did make, you're right to say that they did make moves more of them than they had previously. I still found those moves to be insufficient and one could argue. And that has been the reality. Guess what, you need and, and some things now to be fair to them because we do endeavor to be fair. Even if we do want to remind people when we're right. You know, some of the things that have happened I am surprised by like I don't know what's going on with Gunner. Yeah, I can't account for, for the Gunner of it all. And so that's disappointing. You know, and it's not like he's been terrible. He's still playing good defense, so he's been a two win player. But like he's a slightly below league average hitter. I wouldn't have thought that I, if you would ask me to choose between the 120 WRC plus he put up last season and the 1:54 he put up the season before that, I would have had him closer to the 1:54. I just assumed there would be sort of a natural recovery. You know, things have gone better for Adley. So like that's good.

Meg Rowley

Yeah. If you had told me that they'd get the Adley Richmond rebound that they,

Ben Limburger

you're like, oh, well then surely they're at least, least a wild card team. Yeah.

Meg Rowley

And maybe he's not all the way back to how good he was as a rookie year in his second year, but he's most of the way back and he is leading that team in war, but that's not saying much. And yeah, it's, it's not like all the new additions have been bad. Like, Peter Alonso has been pretty good. Like as good as you would expect Pete Alonso to be. Good to be, I guess. Right. I mean, he's more or less lived up to expectations and you know, it's just like overall, it's not impressive. Taylor Ward's been fine. He's been his usual Taylor Ward self. They did make a lot of moves and they spent a lot of money and we certainly had a lot of quibbles with the precise moves that they made and whether they were the best ones and whether they should have made

Ben Limburger

more and, and where they chose to concentrate that money they spent. Because you're right, they did spend a lot of money. A lot of that money they spent is Pete Alonso. Yeah. And he's, you're right, he hasn't been bad, but he's like a 125 WRC plus first baseman. So is that the, the best use of your funds?

Meg Rowley

Yeah. And they had to get growth or, or at least progress or breakouts or something from the homegrown guys or rebounds. And other than Adley, they haven't really. And Jackson Holliday has just stagnated and, and it's just that core that seems so promising a few years ago. It's looking lackluster now and I don't know what to do at that point. Colton Kauser, I mean, it's just, no one is really impressing particularly and some of them have taken steps back. So yeah, the haters said they couldn't do it and they were correct, honestly. Great call from the haters. So you can put them.

Ben Limburger

Thank you.

Meg Rowley

In the column along with the Mets of winning the off season does, does not necessarily lead to winning the season, but it's more than that. It's the, the homegrown guys and their lack of development or they're going backward. And in some ways maybe it's more demoralizing than the first time because when last year happened, you could say, well, maybe this is just a fluke and you can write it off and, and they will bounce back. And yeah, it could be just a one Year blip, but then the second year, now suddenly it's looking like maybe this is just who they are. And even if it's not as noteworthy or as noted because it's not as surprising that they're struggling this year after having struggled last season, it, it's maybe even more concerning from a long term outlook standpoint. So I don't know where they go from here.

Ben Limburger

And there are parts of their struggles this year that maybe would lead you to believe that a bounce back could still be coming.

Meg Rowley

Right?

Ben Limburger

Like you're right to say that Jackson Holiday hasn't taken a step forward. He was also hurt for, you know, all of April and half of May. So, you know, what kind of year would he have had if he had been fully healthy? I mean, we'll never know, but there's definitely injury stuff there and you might expect some movement, positive movement in that direction for those guys. But yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't seem great. And you know, part of, I don't, I don't want to over index on it because if you had signed a bunch of pitchers in prior years, you know how that works out. But it's like all of these guys are getting older and closer to free agency. And I think part of the reason that we had had so much critical feedback for that front office was, hey, these, you don't have this group playing as well as it is forever. Like, I understand that on a relative basis, these guys are inexpensive. Use that as, use that. Like the fact that Adley is not making market rate, that Gunner wasn't making market rate. Like, that should inspire you to, to supplement and to spend. And it feels like they got that figured out a little too late. Now, some of that was ownership and that's not necessarily the front office's fault, but some of it is, I think, a way that Elias likes to build a team, and it's one that isn't necessarily dependent on payroll. So I think that there were obvious weak points even in years where they were a much better team, where they were performing much better. And now, you know, more of the roster is injured or ineffective and you're kind of like, what do you do now if you're them? Because adley's like an arb2 guy, you know, like Gunner, Gunner's in his first year of arbitration, but like he, his free agency is going to be here any minute and you know, I do expect him to play better than he's played this year. So it's like your, your best guys are, are on the precipice. Like, if you let them walk, where are you? And maybe, you know, for some, for some number of their young core players, quote unquote, you know, all the various sort of white guys who looked like letting some of them move on might end up being a perfectly defensible decision. I'm not saying that that's going to be true for Adley or Gunner necessarily, but like, you know, some of these guys, maybe you decide you can live without. But your whole justification for all the suffering you put your fans through and all the trades that you had made was, well, we're going to have this great group and it's going to go on a run and we did get a taste of that, but it just hasn't borne consistent fruit and certainly hasn't been effective in the postseason. So it's just kind of a bummer because, like, this club, by all rights seems like it should be better. But then you think back to the years where they were doing well and like they were a little over their skis from a projection perspective, not like disastrously so, but in a way that helped to account for why our playoff odds were lower than you would think given how they were performing at the time. And then they ended up being bad in the postseason. So I don't want to be like salty about the Orioles. I think that like there are a lot of guys on this team who I really enjoy watching play and I find it frustrating that like the, the stop and start nature of their roster construction has been such that like we just haven't gotten to see that group all together and affect effective. And it's like, you know, and now some other other dudes are hurt and you got, I don't know, like a load bearing Chris Bassett and that's only a one year deal. But it's like Helsley looks like the way I don't wanna. I know that Ryan Housley is getting a second opinion on his elbow, but like the way that that guy was holding his arm in the dugout after he had to exit, it was like, oh, here we go again. So they've had all kinds of, they've had all kinds of stuff.

Meg Rowley

Us. Yep, it's been a bummer of a season. And I, I do wonder what job security Michael L. Enjoys these days. Or will, if this continues. Okay, maybe we can close with some quick comedy here and just salute the Little League homer that we saw. Now, if you knew that there was going to be just a pretty peerless Little League home run in a game the Mets were involved in. And you'd probably assume that they were the culprits.

Ben Limburger

You would.

Meg Rowley

But no, they were not. They were in fact the beneficiaries, though they did end up losing the game.

Ben Limburger

They did end up losing that game though.

Meg Rowley

Right.

Ben Limburger

Like this is the thing they did. They did end up losing that game.

Meg Rowley

Yeah, so. Yeah, so there was a three run infield single, essentially. And on episode 2481, we debated the definition of a little league home run. And there's no debate about this one. This clears any possible bar you could have for a little league homer. And it's worth watching, it's worth listening to the call. I have watched it many times. Little tapper, left of the mound. We'll go fielding, throwing on the run. And it gets on by Caglion. That'll bring in the game's first run as Ewing scores. Bichette to third. And all the way to second goes Ben. Now it's thrown to the back stop and bte digging for the play. He scores. Now the ball gets away again and Ben will score. Oh my God. A little league home run for Carson. Ben. Three separate errors on one play by the Kansas City ras on the Ms. Move. Three nothing. Now here comes the circus. Bring on the dancing Bears. It started when Carson Benge just tapped a ball back to the mound and to former Gold Glover Seth Lugo of the Royals. And Lugo did not have a good throw and he bounced it to first. But it could have gone so much better after that point. It really ran off the rails after that when Jack Caglion, Home run Derby participant yeah, I just saw that. Not only failed to glove the ball and it was a pretty manageable scoop, but then after the ball dribbled into foul territory, he retrieved it and he threw to a target only he could conceive.

Ben Limburger

Only he knew where he was throwing the ball, no one else.

Meg Rowley

That was the most humorous aspect of the play because he threw a ball just in no man's land, just kind of between third and home and it just sailed and there was no one anywhere in the vicinity of it. And. And then it was really off to the races and Nick Lofton, who was playing third base, retrieved it and then he threw wildly to home and Ben came around all the way to score. So three errors, three wayward throws and it just like no one collided, no one fell down, no one ran into each other. So it, it could have been even more amateur hour maybe, but it was about as well executed a poorly executed play as I'VE ever seen. It was. It was just a classic kind of archetypical, pure Little League homer. So. And yeah, and the Mets, they were not victimized by it. They, they touched it off. Not a gifted defensive team. Seems like the gods are always against them. The Royals did win the game anyway, but yeah, maybe that's the most. Maybe that's the most m thing about it. But yes, but it was quite an amusing play, and Sam did a full breakdown of this at Pebble Hunting, and he called out an aspect of it that maybe some people didn't appreciate. And Sam wrote, for my money, the unsung chaos hero in this play is the right fielder, Tyler Tolbert. Yes, and I have other things to say about Tyler Tolbert, but Tyler Tolbert played an important role here too. And continuing to quote from Sam, in a way, Tolbert is the first error that is E R R E R the first who aired even before Lugo has unleashed his wild and unnecessarily offbounds throw. Tolbert has jogged in the wrong direction to back up the play, taking a path not toward where a wild throw would go down the line, but straight in toward the infield. You wouldn't even call his initial route backing up. You'd maybe call it being curious and wanting to get closer. Actually, possibly worse than that. There were two outs in the inning and the visiting dugout at Citi Field is on the third base side. The right fielder's first few steps are directly toward his own dugout, suggesting he was jogging in because he was counting the inning as already over possible. He didn't know how many outs there were. After that he becomes a wandering observer. He sprints in to kick it with Jack Caglion. For a few minutes it's Tolbert, not Caglion, who throws his arms up like what have we done? When Caglion air mails a throw, then both of them start walking calmly toward the infield, toward first base. For some reason, before realizing that there is still backing up to do, Tolbert starts running toward the plate, his moment of backup redemption approaching. Alas, he is too late to anticipate the wild final throw. He, the right fielder, does somehow end up holding the baseball at the end of this three run swinging bunt. So it is one of these plays that the statcast fielder diagrams are are made for. You know, it's like print this out and frame it or burn it and pretend that it never happens. But sometimes you fail to appreciate. It's like in soccer. It's like what's Going on, off the ball, away from the ball is sometimes pretty important. And Tolbert was, he ended up holding the ball, I guess, but he didn't do much touching of it beforehand, but still played a part, you know, a subtle but important part in reinforcing the hilarity of this play.

Ben Limburger

Yeah, Davey wrote about it for us at Fan Graphs. He was, he was similarly amused and included the, the chart, the stat cast chart, because it is, it is really something. You know, it's really something.

Meg Rowley

Or Keith Hernandez, he's a man who appreciates the fundamentals and, and hates to see this sort of baseball. And even though this was going the way of the team whose games he called, he was, he was aghast by display.

Ben Limburger

He couldn't believe it.

Meg Rowley

This was like a throwback to 2000s royals. This was like 20 years ago. Kind of comedy of errors, farcical miscues and misplace in the field. However, the better news for Tyler Tolbert is that he was in the midst of a streak of 12 straight plate appearances with a hit.

Ben Limburger

Incredible.

Meg Rowley

Now that streak was snapped before the end of the game when he flew out, flied out. I never know to little league homer Carson Benge. So that, that snapped the streak for Tolbert. But I continue to be amazed and mystified by the club of players who, who belong in this group because it is not a particularly distinguished group of guys who have done something like this. And I am still just trying to figure out why that's the case. It just. So There are only three players in history who have had hits in 12 consecutive plate appearances and they are Tyler Tolbert, Johnny Kling in 1902 and Walt Joppo in 1952. And then there are a couple other names who crashed the party here because if you go with 12 straight at bats, which is a meaningful difference, I'm in club plate appearances are different from bats. And so, so if you have some non at bat plate appearance in the midst of that, you could still have a 12 at bat streak of hits, but it's not a 12 plate appearance streak. Then you throw in Pinky Higgins in 1938 and most recently Jose Miranda in 2024. And I know we talked about this when Jose Miranda pulled it off in 2024 and Tyler Tolbert joining this club only reinforces the mystery of this for me because what an undistinguished group of players to have set a. A remarkable hitting accomplishment record here. Johnny Kling in 1902 was a slightly above league average hitter. Walt dropo in in 1952 was also a slightly moderately above league average hitter. These guys were league average or below for their careers in terms of WRC plus. Dropo, you know, that year was his career year. He had a decent year, good power year, but that was, you know, pretty much his peak as a player. I guess 1950 was actually his peak his first full year and he was something of a rookie sensation and hit 34 dingers, but he was not that guy mostly. And then Pinky Higgins in 1938 was a 99 WRC plus hitter, basically a league average guy. And then Jose Miranda had a 114 WRC plus in the year that he did that. By the way, this is like the year when they had 12 straight hits. And so like when they weren't doing that, then they were. It's, it's kind of a selective sample. It's like they, they had those 12 hits in a row in those years. So that kind of inflated their stats of anything. Hussy Miranda was a decent hitter that year, but now is out of the league. I think he just got released by the Padres in May and he was struggling to hit in aaa. So these are not great hitters. And Tyler Tolbert, I mean I, I hate to knock him down at his moment of triumph though I guess defensively it was not a moment of triumph for him. But it's probably safe to say that he's not a very good hitter either. He certainly has been this year and has been to this point in his brief major league career. He was up last year and was pretty Pinky Higgins esque. He had a 92 WRC plus last year. He's at 171 WRC plus this year in his first 32 games. Well, that's good. But obviously, you know, there's a 459 BABIP in there and if you look at his minor league numbers, they're not so hot. And if you look at his projections, the fan graph's depth charts project him to be a 76 WRC plus guy in the majors. He's a 28 year old who debuted in the big leagues last year and was a 13th round draft pick and worked his way up like not a prospect. I mean, why these guys? Why, why Cling and Dropo and Higgins and Miranda and Tolbert. Why would they be the ones in this club of, of great consecutive hitters?

Ben Limburger

Yeah, I, I couldn't really tell you.

Meg Rowley

I don't get it. I mean, I understand. I cite Vorosa's law and any player can do just about anything in 60 at bats or play appearances or whatever it was. And this is an even smaller sample. So, sure, any player can do just about anything in 12 at bats or plate appearances, but you'd think that there would be at least like one great guy in there. I mean, mean, it's not nothing to have hits in 12 consecutive plate appearances. That's. That's pretty impressive. And, and obviously not all of his hits have been convincingly struck. And he's a speedster. He's in that kind of slappy, speedy Royals mold. And so he has beaten out a bunch of infield hits and, you know, like, he's had some dribblers that he beat out or. But, you know, speed is a part of it. So. Fine. But like, I would think that even with a sample this small, that if you're selecting for the guys who had runs like this, like, if you look at extended hitting streaks of getting a hit in a game and you look at the longest streaks there, those are good hitters. Right? I mean, there are a few. You know, you might have a Luis Castillo in there with a. But he was a high average hitter, at least at times. And then you look at the really long streaks. It's. It's a compliment hitters. It's George Sisler, it's Pete Rose, it's Joe DiMaggio, like, hard to fluke your way into that. And, and granted, if you're getting a really long hitting streak, you're usually not getting one hit per day. So usually you're having a great run while you're doing that. And it's a little easier to do 12 plate appearances. So there's plenty of randomness and plenty of bloops and bleeders. But even so, I would just think that it would be a better caliber of hitter who would have done this.

Ben Limburger

You would think so. You would think so.

Meg Rowley

But if anyone has theories about why it would be such an unremarkable group in such a remarkable club.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

Then I would be happy to hear it because doesn't seem to me that there would be something that would make kind of meh hitters more likely to do this. Like, the odds are still that a better hitter is going to do it.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

So.

Ben Limburger

Right.

Meg Rowley

Weird.

Ben Limburger

You. You wouldn't be surprised by there being like some. Yeah. Hitters or some mediocre hitters that seems, you know, like it properly accounts for the vagaries and variants of the sport. But, you know, not everybody.

Meg Rowley

No. So strange. I kind of hope it continues. I hope we never get just one of the best hitters in baseball crashes the party because I kind of wanted to remain and this group of people whom most people never would have heard of were they not members of this club. I want it to be like membership is barred to anyone who is a particularly accomplished player in other respects. But yeah, yeah, if anyone has theories about why it is such a seemingly random group of guys, then I am, I am all ears because I am consumed by that mystery. All right. And since we started with the Dodgers, I will end with a note on the Dodgers, which is that they finally played an extra inning game. Their first. Yeah, their first extra inning game of this season.

Ben Limburger

Yeah.

Meg Rowley

We have been updated on this regularly by Patreon supporter Avery who has been tracking this and was not the only one. But yeah, they, they finally played their first extra inning game and it was the second deepest into a season that any team has ever gone. So I guess not the, the longest stretch necessarily within a season or across seasons, but second deepest into a season that any team has ever gone without an extra inning game. After the 2005 Red Sox and they were, they were all almost there. It was their, their 92nd game. So they had gone 91 without an extra inning game. In the 2005 Red Sox, they have the mark at 99. So they got, they got so close and they didn't quite make it and they won it. So even though they were unfamiliar with extra innings in 2026, they took to it readily and they won. And Dalton rushing was the walk off hero. So funny. Yeah, he needed a win I guess, even if the Dodgers didn't. And I guess when your run differential is that good, nine innings is enough for you. Usually it's like Dave Roberts said, the games that we need to win, we win. And if there is a bottom of the ninth at home, we find a way to finish it off. So they just, they haven't had to go to extras. Usually they win in regulation. But yeah, that was kind of a strange streak which is now snapped though. Not as strange as Tyler Tolbert's I don't think.

Ben Limburger

No, definitely not.

Meg Rowley

All right. I meant to mention another reason that it's so surprising that Tolbert has joined this club is that you'd think that hitting home runs help. I guess ultimately you want a high batting average if you just want a hit streak. But if you've got some pop then that helps cuz you're a little less reliant on luck in the defense helping you out. And Tolbert actually hit a couple home runs during his streak, which was surprising because he had hit zero in the minors before being called up. But it does help to hit homers, all else being equal. So he is just not the player you would peg as the likeliest candidate. And he himself said, I'm truly lost for words. He also said, it's been fun. It's been a journey of a ride. There is a lot of luck in some of those hits. It was just fun. Honestly, I like that. A journey of a ride. Oh, and one other thing to add to my baseball player studies, and by that I mean my studies of when people are called baseball players. I was thrown for a loop by Jackson Turio being identified as a baseball player. But this one. This is a little more in the baseball player wheelhouse. I was tipped off to this by listener Patreon supporter JD this was on the Wednesday Twins broadcast and it is a Friday. Former baseball player Justin Morneau Talking about the other Clemens, I invoked Roger earlier. This is his son, Cody Clemens, Quoth Moreno, and he's got such a good feel for the game. He's, it's. He's a baseball player. You put him anywhere you trust he's going to do a good job defensively. He could do a lot of things in the batters box. It's been a great pickup for the Twins over the last year and a half. Yeah, that's more like it. Cody Clemens, he fits the mold. Not a bad player, a useful player, a versatile player. But unlike his dad, far from a star, he is a baseball player. I'm now a little worried that I will be hearing and seeing and receiving reports of people being called baseball players left and right. We will be inundated now that I have broached this subject, but that's okay. You can keep them coming for now. And while you're at it, you can help us extend our journey of a ride here at Effectively Wild by supporting the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners, Chad Stolper, JRM Jr Daniel Myers and Jen. Thanks to all of you, Patreon. Perks include access to a third unrestricted episode every week, including our next episode, as well as monthly bonus episodes, exclusive live streams, membership in our Discord Group for patrons only, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, shout outs at the end the day of episodes, potential podcast appearances, Fangrass memberships, and more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectively wild if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastan graphs.com you can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook group@facebook.com group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit @r effectivelywild and you can check the show notes in the podcast posted fan graphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. Romantic, pedantic and hypothetical. Semantic and frantic. Real or theoretical? They give you the stats and they give you the news. It's a baseball podcast. You should choose. Effectively Wild is here for you about all the weird stuff that players do. Authentically strange and objectively styled let's play ball. It's effectively wild it's effectively wild it's effectively wild.