Summary[]
Ben and Sam banter about Mike Trout and answer listener emails about trading draft picks and divisions, saving failing franchises, limiting pitchers, and more.
Topics[]
- Assigning value to trading draft picks
- Hypothetical: Free agency after every season
- Splitting a team between two markets
- Strategies to save failing franchises
- Episode 652 follow-up: Negative WPA streaks
- Protecting early leads
- Value of being able to switch divisions
- Limiting pitchers too address issues in baseball
Banter[]
- Mike Trout tweeted without a space before the punctuation.
- Ben and Sam discuss the best and worst player specific fan section names, inspired by a listener email about the Trout Farm at Angels' games.
Email Questions[]
- Andrew: "A friend of mine got tickets to tonight's Angels game and was told that they would be in the 'Trout Farm' seating section. My first thoughts when I heard that name were, in roughly this order, 1) Really, the Trout Farm? 2) That is the name of Mike Trout's fan section? 3) Is that the worst player specific fan section name in all of baseball? 4) I need to email Effectively Wild about this. That last thought was almost completely instantaneous. The more Effectively Wild route to go with this is, isn't a Trout Farm a commercial way to breed, raise, and kill Trout so that people can then eat those fish? I think this officially makes the Trout Farm absolutely worst player specific fan section in all of baseball, nay, all of sports. It can't come close to the King's Court, Mannywood, or the all time champion, the Vicente Padilla's Padilla Flotilla. Any other great/terrible player specific stadium fan sections?"
- Vinit: "If MLB eventually allows draft picks to be traded, what percentage of trades would involve a draft pick? What if future draft picks could be traded? What's the furthest out that teams would consider trading? What's a first overall pick in 2022 worth?"
- Elliott & Sammy: "My girlfriend and I were watching the Blue Jays walk in a couple runs last night so to quell our misery we started chatting about the contracts of Jose Reyes and Jose Bautista. As a new baseball fan and Bautista enthusiast she can't understand why Reyes' average annual value is so much higher than Bautista's. I explained that it has to do with their pre-contract production and timing of the contract. That got us wondering how AAV would look if the CBA was rewritten to allow one year contracts only. Would the 54 home run year of Jose Bautista afford him a 1 year, $20 million contract and then the ensuing 46 home run year a $25 million 1-year value? With players only having to commit to a team for one year we presume that it would cost even more to have your team's players stick around, especially after a good season or multiple good seasons. The cash rich Dodgers could gamble on a player's breakout year or snap up your team's perennial all-star with big money now."
- Nick: "Why can't a small market team like the Rays play half of their home series in their current city and the other half of them in another city looking for a team, like Montreal, which already has a stadium and a fan base eager to watch baseball. The team could sell half season tickets for each venue, would be expanding their fan base and merchandise sales, would be putting a premium on each home game (increasingly the likelihood that they sell out) and would have a completely new market to sell TV rights to for the entire season. The only downside I see is increased travel cost, but I'm sure the league could manipulate the schedule in a way that would make the added cost minimal, especially if these cities were somewhat close by."
- Steve: "How valuable is a team's position in a division or a league? There's plenty of talk about how dominant the Dodgers and Nationals will be while some divisions seem ripe for the picking. It's not that different in the other major sports. The past few years have seen some historically bad NFL divisions and a serious imbalance in the NBA conferences, but I'm still trying to figure out the NHL's realignment and resulting crazy playoff schedule. Mostly it means that some good teams might not make the playoffs. If a team could use its position in a division only for the purpose of standings, as a trade chip, how much would it be worth? If, for example, the Dodgers are running away with the NL West by mid-July, the Padres are starting to be competitive, and the NL Central is still clustered around .500, there's at least some value in switching spots with a bad team so the Padres could compete for the NL Central crown and a real playoff spot instead of hoping for the coinflip game."
- Remy: "I just finished listening to Friday's show about pitcher dominance and hitter weakness and have a thought. Some of the times in the past where hitters have become dominant are following expansion, as the pitcher pool becomes diluted (ie there are fewer good pitchers). Expansion doesn't seem like a good solution to the problem as it seems hard to believe that there are so many more markets that can support teams. This led me to wonder if there are other ways to dilute the pitcher pool without adding more teams. How about putting a cap on the number of pitchers a team can have on the 25-man roster, say 10? It seems to me that having fewer pitchers available will generally have the same diluting effect (ie there will be fewer good pitchers) but as I said I'm sure this is wrong."
Play Index[]
- The segment is inspired by a Matthew Trueblood tweet about how teams with early leads are winning at a very high rate. This season the team leading after the 2nd inning is 20-4. Teams leading after the 3rd are 30-3, and teams leading after the 4th are 33-3.
- In 2015 the team leading after the 1st inning wins 78% of games. The highest prior to that was 72%.
- In 2015 the team leading after the 3rd inning wins 79% of games. Historically it is closer to 72%.
- This season teams leading going into the 9th inning are 91-1. Over several eras teams leading in the 9th win the game about 94-95% of the time.
Notes[]
- Ben thinks that GMs could get themselves into trouble by letting go of future draft picks too easily. Draft picks could become an easy way to get a deal done and not have to suffer the consequences for several years.
- Sam really wants to see a player that is "so confident in their abilities" that they only sign one year contracts.
- The excitement about exhibition games in Montreal does not convince Sam that they could support a full team.
- The most games played in a season (non-pitcher) with negative WPA in all games played was Steve Demeter's 1959 season with the Detroit Tigers. In 1963 Cal Neeman played 23 games without achieving a positive WPA in any games (12 games with a 0 WPA).
Links[]
- Effectively Wild Episode 657: The Switching Cities, Dealing Draft Picks, and Trading Divisions Edition
- Finley entertained and enraged by Nick Acocella