Episode 1718: MLB in the Multiverse of Madness

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the 10th anniversary of Mike Trout’s promotion to the majors, Rey Ordóñez and other players with high highlights-to-value ratios, opting against an Albert Pujols pun, MLB wisely forgoing the humidor for the Home Run Derby, and a quibble with the Derby bracket, then follow up on a discussion of mid-inning coaching visits for hitters and answer listener emails about the value of an above-average broadcast crew, letting All-Stars wear a special patch on their regular jerseys, how baseball would be different in a multiverse scenario, the differing levels of outrage that resulted from MLB’s assorted cheating scandals, and when rooting for individual players crosses over into rooting for teams.

Topics[]

Trading players for broadcast teams
Uniform patches for All-Stars
Ted Chiang short story and alternate sports timelines/realities
Would fans care about alternate timelines? How would they be valued?
Public perception of cheating
How many players do you have to follow before becoming a fan of a team?
Pete Incaviglia rule and trading players the year they are drafted

Banter[]

Ben and Meg note the 10th anniversary of Mike Trout's debut and that his 30th birthday is approaching. Ben refers to Trout as the patron saint of Effectively Wild, as his rise coincided with the start of the podcast.
Episode 1717 follow-up: Other players with high highlight to WAR ratios
There will be no humidor used for the baseball in the home run derby. Meg finds the bracket to be uneven.
Mid plate appearance coaching visits to batters in college baseball

Email Questions[]

Jeff (San Francisco): In episode 1714, Ben shared his experience of watching Shohei Otani face the Yankees in person for his and his wife's tenth anniversary. The image I have in my mind is Ben wearing a Shohei Otani shirt while watching him face the team he rooted for as a child. As baseball writers, both of you have had to abandon fandom for specific teams. However, you have numerous adopted sons that you root for as individual players. This can range from stars like Mike Trout to personal favorites like Willians Astudillo. My question is how many of your adopted sons would have to be on the same team before you'd admit to rooting for that team. Having all your adopted sons on the same team would probably mean you'd be watching that team more than all others on a regular basis. Genuine fandom of that team should theoretically spawn from sheer exposure. The rationale is simply that the team's success would be the result of the cumulative success of your adopted sons' individual success. The answer is obviously not two, because both Trout and Otani play for the Angels. Alternatively, how many Otani-like players would have to be on the same team before you'd admit to being a fan of that team? Will your answer be affected if your adopted son played for the teams you rooted for growing up?
Ben (Patreon): I'm a Cardinals fan and find my broadcast team basically unlistenable. I would gladly part with something of value to get Benetti & Stone or Davis & Hershiser; when I'm flipping through non-Cards game options on MLB.tv, I first consider the quality of the booth. I look forward to series against the Mets and Dodgers and Giants so that I can listen to the other broadcast. I could describe why I don't like our guys, but who cares. My real question: is it idiotic that I would trade on-the-field WAR for a better booth? I think it isn't, mostly because I doubt that White Sox nation would accept my offer: Tommy Edman and his likely 1.5-fWAR season for their TV booth in perpetuity. I vaguely recall a draft or ranking of the broadcast teams deep in the EW archives, but I think it's worth a revisit, perhaps with listener polling. Would you trade a player (his production & contract) for a broadcast team and what would your price be for your own team? How does this change as you become more competitive than the Cardinals are?
John (Patreon): If the all star-game was designed as entry point for casual fans, all-stars should get a star on their uni or cap, like how gold glove winners get a special patch. Maybe it’s a special patch each year, or guys get a star with a number in it for number of appearances. Either way would make it easier to tune in casually and say “ah he must be our big guy”
Dan: I’ve been thinking lately about a Ted Chiang story, “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom,” and the implications its ideas would have regarding baseball and fandom in real life. The spoiler-free premise of the story is this: when a choice is made, it creates a new universe branching off of one’s own so that there is one universe where the alternate choice was made. The story invents a device called a “prism” in which people can temporarily glimpse into other branches. Eventually, each prism runs out of storage and can no longer be used. Over time, even small divergences (like weather) can create tremendous differences. The story contains a sports-specific passage I want to call attention to: "In the private sector, entrepreneurs realized that while the information obtained from prisms had limited instrumental value, it was something that could be sold as content to consumers. A new kind of data broker emerged: a company would exchange news about current events with its parallel versions and sell the information to subscribers. Sports news and celebrity gossip were the easiest to sell; people were often just as interested in what their favorite stars did in other branches as in what they did in their own. Hard-core sports fans collected information from multiple branches and argued about which team had the best overall performance and whether that was more important than their performance in any individual branch." Maybe I just want an excuse to talk about this story more, but I do have some specific questions I’d love to hear your thoughts on: Do you think fans would actually care about their team’s performance in other timelines? Would a heartbreaking World Series loss feel better (or worse) if it went differently in another one? Would we use the aggregate results of all known timelines to assess team or player value instead of just our own? Might a player’s performance in another timeline impact their free agent value or treatment in this one, such as through significantly better or worse performance or injury history? Would we have cared about things like the World Series droughts of the Red Sox or Cubs if there were timelines where they weren’t so significant? Would players use their results in other timelines to influence their training and approach in this one? Are there other interesting implications I’m not thinking of? My instinct is that players and executives would not take much interest. “Useful” information, such as player development, would take a long time to see, at which point too many other changes might be able to explain the difference in outcome. Maybe a slumping player would see an idea for a swing adjustment or something, but players’ resistance to things like analytics has me questioning how common that would be.
Matt: Your discussion of the banging scheme longevity popped a couple of questions into my head… Over the last couple of decades there have been a few cheating scandles with varying degrees of public outrage - sticky stuff, banging scheme, other sign stealing stuff, steroids/hgh, and amphetamines - and I wanted to get your thoughts on a couple of questions: Which of these cheating schemes just bothers you the most on a gut level? Which of these had the greatest impact in helping the cheaters get better than they would’ve been otherwise? The general public outrage seems to be that steroids was worst, then banging, sticky stuff, other sign stealing, and then amphetamines. Why do you think the different forms of cheating resulted in such varied levels of outrage?

Notes[]

Against the Mariners Mike Trout has hit .326/.430/.656. He has 47 home runs against them and a tOPS+ of 115.
Ben thinks that people would struggle to find meaning (in sports or elsewhere) in a universe where every alternate reality exists and is accessible.