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Episode 1466: Slapdick Podcast

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Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about covering transactions past and present, the latest eye-catching comments by Scott Boras, the Tommy Pham trade and Blake Snell’s candid real-time reaction to it, and what the busy signing season so far augurs for the future of free agency and labor relations, then answer listener emails about players with more times caught stealing than strikeouts and team TV networks airing classic losses, with additional discussion of the weird and wonderful Nick Madrigal, the forecast for a fun White Sox team in 2020, an increasingly intriguing crop of two-way players, and the evolving look of baseball broadcasts.

Topics[]

  • Blake Snell's reaction on Twitch and subsequent apology to the Tommy Pham trade
  • Two-way players
  • Recent transactions and resurgence of free agent signings
  • Potential impact of recent free agent signings on upcoming CBA negotiations
  • Players with more times caught stealing than strikeouts
  • Excitement about the Chicago White Sox in 2020
  • Would team TV networks show 'classic' losses?

Banter[]

  • Meg recently got back from vacation, she and Ben discuss the flurry of transactions recently and FanGraphs' exhaustive coverage of them.
  • Ben is curious about how much FanGraphs tracks traffic numbers on certain posts given that it is something he does not know about for his own articles. Meg says that while it is something they look at it, the data is not a key influence on what they write about.
  • Meg and Ben examine Scott Boras' response to Mark Lerner's comments that the Nationals could not afford to sign both Stephen Strasburg and Anthony Rendon. Boras said that the Nationals were having a 'revenue festival' and that they could easily sign both players. He said that "special cherry trees create revenue bloom."
  • Ben's pet conspiracy theory is that Boras hires writers to develop his comments. He is also baffled at the minimalist Boras Corporation website, consisting only of the company logo and an email address. It's either because they can't be bothered to hire a web designer, or it's an intentional power move.

Email Questions[]

  • Leo: "Recently my uncle told me that in 1927, Indians infielder Joe Sewell stole 3 bases and was caught 16 times! Knowing if Sewell’s legendary ability to avoid strikeouts, I had a hunch that he had struck out less than 16 times, and I was correct, Sewell had only struck out SEVEN times! How often does this occur, and will we ever see it again?"
  • Dan: "A good offseason question: Would a team's network ever show a "classic" game where they lost? I'm in MASN country, and now they're showing Nationals and Orioles "Classics", typically a game with a dramatic walk-off home run (e.g. the Nats Sept 2019 11-10 walk-off win featuring a comeback from down 10-4 in the bottom of the ninth).  This was posed to me, and I thought for a while and kind of doubted it. All I could think of was, perhaps: a game with an unassisted triple play; a game where a player hits 4 home runs and loses (has that ever happened?), or a no-hitter loss, which would be quite the rarity.  Any thoughts?"  

Notes[]

  • Meg, on what she thinks Scott Boras thinks of his own comments, "Do we think that Scott Boras is a guy that says 'Crushed it!'?"
  • Ben did a newspaper archive search for 'slapdick' but it only yielded two results. The earliest was from a 1912 article referencing a person named Edward Slapdick.
  • Ben notes "the most Rays-type player I can imagine" who was sent to the Padres: minor leaguer Jake Cronenworth is listed as "shortstop, second baseman, and relief pitcher" on Baseball Reference. His pitching numbers are not particularly noteworthy, but he would come in handy as a position player pitcher. Ben notes the recent abundance of two-way players, including Christian Bethancourt, Michael Lorenzen, and Shohei Ohtani.
  • The last time a qualified player was caught stealing more than they struck out was Nellie Fox in 1951. He struck out 11 times and was caught stealing 12 times.
  • Nick Madrigal, a White Sox prospect who Meg calls "deeply weird" was almost caught stealing more times (13) than he struck out (16) in the minor leagues in 2019.
  • Ben thinks that periodically team networks could air classic games from other teams as a way of introducing fans to the players and culture of another team market.

Links[]

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