Episode 1190: The No-Look Podcast

## Summary

*Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Willians Astudillo’s day in the spotlight, Carter Capps’s new look, and Minor League Baseball’s new pace/length-of-play rules, follow up on previous discussions of spring-training celebrations and ground-bound players, and answer listener emails about a front-office saboteur, Steve Carlton’s incredible career balk total, the predictiveness of second-half performance, Ronald Acuña’s next triumph (and the cost of a lifetime Acuña contract), David Price’s opt-out, the strange statistical profile of Hall of Fame pitcher Ted Lyons, how a young Frank Thomas would have hit in the uppercut era, and two official-scoring quandaries, plus multiple Stat Blasts about Pi-themed players and games.*

## Topics

* Baseball operations double agent
* Ronald Acuña
* Lifetime contracts for prospects
* Balks record
* Pi baseball statistics
* David Price opt-out
* Half vs. full season performance comparison
* Ted Lyons and contact pitchers'
* Frank Thomas' hitting strategy
* Defensive indifference and records
* Waxahachie swap and pitcher wins

## Banter

* Willians Astudillo's no-look pickoff
* Carter Capps' updated delivery and rib bone necklace
* Episode 1171 follow up - minor league extra innings will have a runner on 2nd to start the inning.
* Episode 1187 follow up - Spring training walk-off
* Episode 1187 follow up- Dennis Bergkamp & no-fly contract

## Email Questions

* Jesus: "This Reddit post got me thinking how this would apply to baseball. Let's say you were Dave Dombrowski and he were secretly a Yankees homer. What could he do to sabotage the Sox yet still keep his job for as long as possible? Would it make more sense to only ruin the games they play against the Yankees, to try and maintain competitiveness (or the illusion of)? What type of success would make up for having a horrendous record against an arch-rival? Is an ALCS appearance worth the embarrassment, or do you have to win it all?"
* Scott: "The Ronald Acuña mystique stems in part from his improvement at every level in 2017: .814 OPS at high-A, .895 OPS at double-A, and .940 OPS at triple-A, all as a 19-year-old. What if Acuña can continuously improve at every level he plays? Should Acuña post a **.**950 OPS during the regular season, that would be a hall-of-fame level debut for someone who can't legally drink. What's the next level up after the big leagues? MLB playoffs? Okay, say Acuña's so good in 2018 that he leads the Braves to the playoffs, and he produces a .975 OPS in the postseason. How could we continue to test Acuña's kaizen after that? The All-Star Game is too small a sample size. Is there a Space Jam style intergalactic tournament he can play in?"
* Craig (Charlotte): "To ensure Ronald Acuna is in the Braves opening day lineup, why doesn't the team just sign him to a lifetime contract? If this were a possibility, what would would it take for both sides to actually think about it? 15 years/$20 million? 15 years/$25 million? 20 years/$30 million? If Acuna really is the next elite level player, he'll likely sign a massive free agent contract in down the road that could exceed $300 - $400 million. If he's merely a good player -  a Justin Upton or JD Martinez level player, he's not sniffing that much money. Could the Braves actually be talked into committing that much money to one player who hasn't even had 1 major league at bat? Would a player even want to lock into a contract, knowing how much money you'll make for your entire career? Who balks at the idea?"
* Connor: "I was browsing Fangraphs pitching stats leaderboards just now and saw something that I found very interesting.  For some reason, the all-time balks leader, Steve Carlton, has twice as many as any other pitcher in MLB history.  He has 90, second place is Bob Welch with 45.  Why did this happen?  Has there been a drastic rule shift?"
* Jamal: "Your recent discussion on how good got Jason Heyward would have to be to opt out of his contract got me thinking: how good would David Price have to be in 2018 to opt out of HIS deal?"
* Ranger: "When a player has dramatically different halves of a season, it’s always tempting to believe that there is some reason that can explain away the bad half—health, mechanics, etc. Is there any evidence to suggest that players with very different halves in one year will in the next year outperform players who had similar overall production, but a more even distribution between halves?"
* Dylan: "I was reading Roger Cormier's Fangraphs article about the history of the bullpen car. The first guy to ride in one was apparently Mickey Haefner. Obviously, I had to go to Haefner's Fangraphs page and dissect his career stats with the off-kilter enthusiasm of a guy who is definitely not procrastinating an important essay on ancient Chinese monarchical structure.  Haefner managed 13 WAR over a 1500ish IP career despite only striking out 3 per 9 and walking over 3.5 per 9. Perhaps it's just my modern sensibilities but that is just gross. To determine if it was just my modern sensibilities I reached for Play Index. Found out there have only been 83 pitchers to throw 1000 innings and walk more than they struck out. 82 of 83 pitched no later 1961 save Greg Minton who pitched from 1975 to 1990. Indeed my sensibilities were modern, other than Minton who uhhhh... why? Then there's Ted Lyons. Lyons threw 4000 innings over 21 years with a 0.96 K/BB ratio and about 67 WAR as the *only* HOF pitcher ever to walk more than he's struck out. He even went and fought in the Pacific theater of World War 2 at age 42 despite being draft exempt *and*pitched another season for the White Sox three years later once the War was over. I guess a few questions: 1) How? 2) How? 3) Will we ever see this breed of extreme contact pitchers again? 4) What circumstances would allow for a pitcher in today's MLB to walk more than he strikes out and still perform above league average (2-3 WAR min. per year) for an extended period of time? 5) With the current state of hitters' approaches is it even possible to induce tons of contact and like no strikeouts ever?"
* Ben: "...They summarize Hriniak was strict in his philosophy, head on ball, swing to hit up the middle, and that Ted Williams at the time preached an "uppercut, get-the-ball-in-the-air style".There's this great section of the sun-sentinel article here: "Marzano`s point on the younger players has caused a stir in Chicago as well as Boston. Last year, the White Sox flew first-round draft pick Frank Thomas into Chicago from Sarasota for a promotion with fellow Auburn alumnus Bo Jackson, who was in town with the Royals. After Thomas returned to the Class-A team, Al Goldis, the team`s director of scouting and player development, was aghast at his swing and asked the young first baseman about it. "That's how coach Hriniak told me to do it," Thomas said." I'm a lifelong sox fan who grew up with Frank Thomas. Hriniak was his mentor, Thomas used him as his exclusive hitting instructor even when he was no longer the team batting coach. It was often written about how Thomas, despite his mass, was not trying to be a home run hitter, but to spray it over the field. This changed around 2003, as he got older and (Thomas was obsessed with his own numbers) wanted to get to 500 HRs and beyond. (Admittedly this is off of memory, struggling to find much google support). Frank Thomas is a first ballot Hall of Famer. Frank Thomas in his prime hit 40 home runs a lot. Is it crazy to think that Ted Williams taught Thomas instead of Hriniak, Thomas would have been better? Looking at the massive man he was, slow and lumbering, could you pick a crazier candidate to say "try and just hit a line drive up the middle for a single"?
* Nathan: "I got to thinking about stolen bases and, as I understand it, the official scorer can decide that a successful steal attempt was due to defensive indifference and it doesn't go in the books as a steal. What are the limits to this? I assume there must be some that I'm not able to find, but my thought was whether or not the A's could just decide to never contest Billy Hamilton's stolen base attempts. Maybe he's able to actually start getting on base and is 20 shy of the record, so the A's, having a vested interest in preserving Rickey Henderson's record, could decide not to throw, leaving the scorer to claim indifference. Could that happen? Shouldn't a steal attempt be either a successful steal or caught stealing? Am I crazy?"
* Adam: "For a starting pitcher to be awarded a win he needs to complete 5 innings, but do those innings need to be pitched consecutively? If his team took a first inning lead that it never gave up, could a pitcher throw 4 innings, waxahachie swap to the outfield for a bit, come back in and pitch another inning later for 5 innings total and be awarded a win? Or would his short starting segment mean the most effective reliever gets the win? But what if the starters relief segment was very effective? Is he somehow prevented from being the winning pitcher due to the short start?"

## Stat Blast

* Maxime: "What is the most “Pi” game ever in terms of run scored per inning? Has a team ever scored 3 runs in the first inning, 1 in the second, 4 in the third, 1 in the fourth, 5 in the fifth? I doubt that a team has ever scored 9 runs in the sixth after scoring, 3,1,4,1,5 runs in the innings before but we never know!"
* Three teams have scored 3, 1, 4, 1 runs in their half of the first four innings.
* There has never been a game when teams have combined for 3, 1, 4, 1, 5 runs in the first five innings, respectively.
* Jeff wanted to find hitters and pitchers with Pi related stats (batting average and ERA).
* There are three players who had batting averages over a season of .31415929, including Jim Thome.

## Notes

* Including spring training, Ronald Acuña has an OPS of 1.130.
* Kirk Rueter has the most career innings pitched (1,918) with no balks.
* There is specific language in the MLB rule book to prevent teams from using defensive indifference to deny a player a record.

## Links

* Effectively Wild Episode 1190: The No-Look Podcast
* Analysis of a No-Look Pickoff by Jeff Sullivan
* Slow-Mo gifs of Carter Capps' delivery
* Balks: An Illustrative & Quantitative History by David Venturi