Episode 1041: The Fernando Rodney Dinner Date

## Summary

*Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jake Arrieta’s velocity loss, the league’s artificial velocity gain, and whether the Astros won the winter, then answer listener emails about topspin and the turf, the Mariners’ and Blue Jays’ 40th anniversaries/seasons, disagreeing with projections, intentional-walk predictions, Madison Bumgarner’s batting, the negative value of player mistakes, single-game double-play leaders, a pitcher who always throws strikes, forecasting final stat lines, and more.*

## Topics

* Baseball physics and top-spin on artificial turf
* Teams celebrating anniversaries vs. seasons
* Disagreement with projections
* Intentional walks frequency with rule change
* Madison Bumgarner as an everyday batter
* Negative value of player mistakes
* Hypothetical pitcher who can only throw strikes
* Forecasting career stat lines

## Banter

* Jake Arrietta's velocity loss
* 'Winning the Winter' follow up and the Houston Astros

## Email Questions

* Nate: "On tonight's (4/4/17) Yankee broadcast, Paul O'Neill commented that the ball, when it hits the artificial turf actually speeds up. He was saying this in reference to a ball that hit the dirt and slowed down on Ronald Torreyes, causing him to fail to throw out a runner from short to first. This seems implausible based on the laws of physics and the existence of friction, but O'Neill seconds later doubled down, claiming Dave Concepción used to intentionally skip the ball off the turf to speed up throws to first. Since Concepción played in the seventies and eighties, I thought this might be one of those weird baseball beliefs that isn't borne out by science, but do either of you know if there is any evidence of Concepción, or anyone, intentionally skipping a throw off the turf to gain speed?"
* Eric: "The Blue Jays and the Mariners both joined the AL in 1977. Last year the Jays celebrated their 40th season, and this year the Mariners are celebrating their 40th anniversary. Both are technically correct, but which of them is just?"
* Eric: "While discussing predictions on Episode 1040, Ben mentioned that if he disagreed with the projections significantly he'd pick against them. However, he mentioned that he seldom does, so his predictions are boring. Jeff more or less agreed, so I am curious if either of you can imagine a scenario which would result in you disagreeing with projections."
* Lane: "Have you made a prediction about how large an increase in intentional walking there will be in 2017? I've always held my breath when watching intentional walks because it seems a lot of pitchers get a little yippy in this situation. My guess is that a lot of managers perceived intentional walks as more dangerous than they really were as well and worried about messing up the pitcher's mechanics or using up their "bullets". So with these perceived barriers removed I predict a 30% increase in IBB this year. What do you say?"
* Zac: "Do you think that Madison Bumgarner would have value to a major league team as a designated hitter or first baseman if his elbow or shoulder gives out in the next 3-5 years? Given that these are small sample sizes, but also assuming that Bumgarner would improve if he had the opportunity to take more at bats, do you think he has enough raw talent to succeed as an everyday batter?"
* Bryan: "I assume you may have seen the Cards/Cubs game on opening night and if you hung on to the end you saw Matt Carpenter a play in the 9th with one out that got me thinking. To recap what happened, with one out a runner at first and the Cards up by three,  a ground ball was hit to Carpenter. Rather than take the sure out at first because the runner at second was meaningless Carpenter tried to throw to second, promptly bobbled the ball, and couldn't flip it to first in time, so all the runners were safe. This set up Contreras to hit the three run home run to tie the game and me to swallow yelling some swears at the TV for not wanting to wake my sleeping toddler (and because yelling at the TV is stupid). This got me thinking about dumb players and how much their dumbness impacts their WAR. That's probably harsh to say dumb, so maybe they lack baseball smarts or aren't savvy or they're boneheaded. Is it possible to put a number on smarts or dumbs? Like something called DCR - dumb created runs. If you are a really good player with a Troutian skill set, but you're a stone cold knucklehead, you would still be fast, still could hit, and still could throw. But you would be bad on the bases, and not make many difficult fielding plays or maybe botch throwing to a base to get a meaningless lead runner in an opening day game. How good would you be? What would it do to your WAR?"
* Connor: "My girlfriend and I were watching Fernando Rodney implode over dinner tonight and she posed me a great question. She just got into baseball over the past year (since we've been dating), so she didn't think much about it. She asked, "How good would a pitcher be if he only threw strikes?" Two obvious things:  1. This pitcher is NOT Fernando Rodney 2. It's not as simple as you might immediately think. I was inclined to say, "oh well of course the best pitcher ever!" But, if you're the hitter and you get to two strikes, you know a strike is coming, just not which pitch. My question: how good would this pitcher actually be? Would he put up the astronomical strikeout numbers you would expect? Or would he get hit around since hitters know it's a strike?"
* David: "With all the recent hypotheticals about mystical powers and what not, one of them that I feel hasn't been tackled is the following: What if you have acquired the ability to see the end of career stat line for whatever player you think about. All you can see is the single, summation total stat line. You have no breakdown of years or teams played for - none of that. You see the very bottom line of a career totals page. This could be the end of career stat line for a potential draft pick, or end of career stat line for a player already in the big leagues. How long after acquiring this power would it take for you to find a job in a major league front office and how long would it take before you are at the top of the chain and any major-league team? Seems like getting an internship or something fairly low level would not be that difficult to attain but it would take many years for your pics or hunches or predictions, however they are viewed, to come to fruition and for you to move up the chain. Curious about your thoughts- thank you"

## Stat Blast

How often are there games with four or more double plays in a game? How many total innings has a pitcher thrown before inducing four double plays total?

The record for a single game is six double plays. Jim Henderson has the most innings pitched (137) while not inducing four double plays.

## Notes

* Fastball velocity stabilizes very quickly compared to most other stats. Episode 1040 is mentioned in projections discussion
* Intentional walks have dropped over recent years
* Jeff thinks Keon Broxton is underrated
* Chad Bradford has the highest zone rating percentage at 59%.
* Jeff asks Ben when it became the norm for people to ask "wild ass hypotheticals" on email shows

## Links

* Effectively Wild Episode 1041: The Fernando Rodney Dinner Date
* What on Earth Happened With Jake Arrieta? by Jeff Sullivan
* Clayton Richard, the Fascinating Find by Jeff Sullivan