Episode 1068: The Error-Prone Podcast

## Summary

*Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Scooter Gennett and Cubs infield positioning, follow up on a Nelson Cruz question, and answer listener emails about defining “homegrown,” home-run league leaders, Liam Hendriks’ charity pledge, an official-scoring decision, the 40/40 club, the Cubs’ reputation, tracking warm-up pitches, the error-prone A’s, how to allocate extra runs, resting players, a baseball prophecy, the mysterious Sam Dyson, and more.*

## Topics

* Terminology - homegrown
* Liam Hendriks charity drive
* Home-run league leaders
* 40/40 club and the Hall of Fame
* Oakland Athletics and errors
* Chicago Cubs' reputation
* Allocating extra runs hypothetical
* Tracking warm-up pitches
* Resting players
* Sam Dyson

## Banter

* Scooter Gennett hit four home runs in a game.
* Nelson Cruz hypothetical follow-up. A listener created a team of all Nelson Cruz's using Out of the Park. The team finished in last place at 54-107.
* Discussion about the Cub's defensive alignment on Michael Wacha GIDP on Sunday Night Baseball.

## Email Questions

* Spencer: "On Tuesday, Dillon Gee made his first start for the Texas Rangers, and the Rangers sent out a tweet sometime in the afternoon describing him as "homegrown". Gee was drafted by the Mets and brought up through their system, and the closest connection he had to the Rangers before this season was he grew up around an hour from Globe Life and went to UT Arlington. I have always considered a homegrown player to be someone who was developed in your own farm system and now plays for your big league club, so the Rangers claiming Gee in this way seems like a misnomer to me. Where do you guys stand on this pointless issue?"

* Andy: The A's broadcast just said Liam Hendriks pledged $200 to an end-hunger charity for every walk he issues. Why would the A's let him do this? Why not say 'Tell you what. Why don't we just give a few $K to your charity, and you don't issue any walks, ok?'
* Ben & Friends (Portland, OR): Myself and five others were in Seattle for the Rockies at Mariners game (Wednesday night & Thursday day games) and as an official scorer of my daughter's little league softball team I tasked myself with scoring the first game. In the top of the third Rockie's catcher Tony Wolters hit a ground ball to third baseman Kyle Seager, who made a great diving play to glove the ball. Unbalanced and on his knees, his throw missed the mark and first baseman Danny Valencia had to take several steps off the bag in an attempt to field the ball which he didn't do. Wolters made it to second on the error and the debate began. Two of us had the play as a single, with the runner advancing to second on account of the throwing error on Seager, but three in the group thought the error should have been attributed to Valencia for failing to at least stop the ball from getting by him, consequently allowing the runner to get to second. One chose to abstain. The play was officially scored 'Single, runner advancing on E-5', but that didn't stop us from debating the call into the wee hours. The box score was even checked the following day to see if the ruling had been changed after the fact. Was the call right? When does it become a fielding error on Valencia, who maybe could have at least stopped the ball, thereby holding the runner instead of a throwing error on Seager? How much latitude does the official scorekeeper have with decisions such as this?"
* Eric:"Why aren't league leaders hitting more home runs? With the rate per game up around 40% wouldn't one assume someone should be hitting significantly more hrs than the league leader in 2014.

* Zach: "It occurred to me the other day that 40/40 may be baseball's most exclusive/meaningful statistical club to struggle to produce a hall of famer. Of the current members, Bonds and A-Rod have the PED issue, Alfonso Soriano has the not-quite-successful-enough issue, and José Canseco has both issues. Admittedly I'm having trouble formulating a question to go with this factoid, but I was hoping it might inspire a little discussion. Is this just a small sample size issue that Mike Trout (and others) will soon correct or could it be that this is not a coincidence, and having the body type to both hit 40 out and steal 40 bases is an anomaly created by the steroid era?"

* Brandon: "In case you missed it, the Cubs won the World Series last season. In case you also missed it, before last season the Cubs hadn't won in 108 years and had the moniker of "lovable losers." How many years would the Cubs have to go without winning a World Series to reclaim the "lovable losers" nickname? 5 years is definitely too few. 10 years is still probably not long enough. How about 30? Over 50?"
* Garrett: "If the worst offense in the league was given a 162 extra runs that they could allocate freely throughout the year, how many additional wins would they earn? Would they spread them out 1 run per game and approach league average and hope for 40 more wins, or do 2 per game for 81 games to try and win I dunno 65 more games, would they save some for the playoffs, knowing they're sacrificing some regular season success?"
* Sean: "Is trackman on during warm-ups? If so, could you please any predictive data from a pitcher warming up. I would assume velocity would be a little, but perhaps you could could see how well the pitcher is finding the glove. Today, I attended a game between the Mets and Pirates. Watching Harvey warm up, I noticed that he was missing the glove of the catcher significantly before the first inning. Harvey then proceeded to walk two of the first three hitters he faced. That got me wondering if tracking pitch data during warm-ups would give any predictive info for the following inning. I would would that spin rate stays fairly constant, velocity is lower during warm-ups, but command should be very predictable."
* Aaron: "One day, a baseball prophet comes to you and offers to grant you perfect knowledge of one of the following three things. For each item, on the first day of spring training, he will accurately prophecy the following for the upcoming season: (1)All players' True Talent levels for the season (you'll get their True Talent stat line for whatever stats you request--across the full season, not broken down over time--and with any DL time removed without your knowledge) (2)All players' Luck for the season (you'll get a Luck adjustment--positive or negative as the case may be--for whatever stats you request, though you will *not*receive the True Talent baseline to which that adjustment is applied) (3)All players' Disabled List dates for the season (you'll get the dates on which they will be on the disabled list, though no additional information about the nature of their injuries) How would you rank these three areas of knowledge in terms of what would be most valuable to you?"
* Derek: "Let's say a team has an aging star catcher named Molina, and the GM sets a target for him to sit 20% of games during the upcoming year. They stick to the plan, and he sits about one game per week. Why not apply the leverage concept here?  Set a rule with the manager that Molina comes out of the game anytime the team is up or down by at least 5 runs. Comebacks that large are infrequent enough that downgrading one player may not result in the team losing (or failing to come back) a single one of these games.  As a result of this extra rest, he can start 95% of the games rather than 80%, yet still catching the same number of innings in total. The benefit is that the innings he is catching are now more meaningful. Or a more generic statement is this:  No star player, especially pitchers and catchers, should be in the game if the score is 8-1 in the 7th.  Why don't teams do this?  Am I mistakenly assuming that 9 innings of rest during a week has roughly the same benefit whether it is taken in a single game or not?"

* Sterling (Fort Worth, TX): "As a Rangers fan, I've come to terms with the fact that my existence is that of soul-crushing disappointment and shattered dreams, and it seems that this year, closer-turned-dumpster fire Sam Dyson is an encapsulation of the Rangers' struggles this season. Although his velocity this season is pretty close to his velocity last year and doesn't set off any red flags, the RAA of his fastball and change-up are almost the polar opposites of his numbers from 2016, when he assumed the closer role and to my eyes, it looks as though his sinker just doesn't have the same drop it once did. So my question is this: what exactly is to blame for Dyson's struggles? Is it just a case of the yips or is there a more tangible explanation for his ineffectiveness?"

## Stat Blast

* Oakland Athletics have made 59 defensive errors this season. The second place team has committed 42. The Royals have the fewest with 19. The A's fielding percentage this year is .972 (next worst is .980, league average is .984). How does this compare historically?
* Since 1950 there have been six teams that have had a fielding percentage at least 10 points worse than the league average.
* The 1962 Mets gave up nearly 1 unearned run per nine innings.

## Notes

* Ben agrees that being from the area of your team does not make you 'homegrown'.
* The Effectively Wild listener who is an official scorer confirms that "That play is scored as a 'Single, E-5' in every ballpark all season long every time." Even though Valencia doesn't try very hard to catch the ball, he need only demonstrate "ordinary effort" to avoid being assigned an error, and a bad throw that hits the ground is almost never assumed to be catchable with ordinary effort. Mental lapses are by rule not an error.
* Jeff thinks that for the extra run hypothetical it would make the most sense to take an additional one run per game.

## Links

* Effectively Wild Episode 1068: The Error-Prone Podcast
* Scooter Gennett Hit Four Homers Because the Ball is Juiced
* It's Anyone's Guess What Sam Dyson Has Left by Jeff Sullivan