Episode 1098: Pham is Fam

## Summary

*Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about their upcoming eclipse event, Jered Weaver’s retirement, a Tommy Pham tweet, and two recent examples of unorthodox positioning, then follow up on player nicknames, odd fields, two-touch fielding, and Khris Davis’s arm and, finally, answer listener emails about the Indians’ record and run differential, the Giants’ disaster season, whether javelin throwers would make amazing pitchers, Chris Davis striking out on pitches down the middle, whether Albert Pujols is underpaid, a blind free-agent market, the deadline acquisitions that have paid off the most so far, and more.*

## Topics

* Cleveland Indians' run differential and record
* San Francisco Giants' collapse and outlook
* Javelin throwers pitching baseballs
* Striking out looking on pitches down the middle
* Is Albert Pujols overpaid on a career-long basis?
* Blind free agent contracts
* Howie Kendrick's strong season
* Jered Weaver's retirement post

## Banter

* Ben encourages listeners coming to the eclipse event to leave early to allow for extensive traffic. Ben and Sam will be staying with Jeff the night before. They wonder if they'll be able to record a podcast episode while in traffic.
* Jered Weaver retirement
* Episode 1096 follow-up: A listener wrote in with a story of his little league team where a player whose arm was hurt had to lob the ball to another player when fielding
* Episode 1045 follow-up: Tommy Pham tweeted out his FanGraphs baserunning runs
* Episode 1097 follow-up: Listeners wrote in with player nicknames based on other players including Ronnie Belliard (Mini Manny), Josh Gibson (Black Babe Ruth), and Bill Hands (Little Froggy)
* Changing position alignments: The Cubs used a four man outfield against Joey Votto (he hit a double)
* Listener Peter wrote in about the baseball field he plays on in Scotland which is all grass. He recently played a game where the grass was almost 1 feet tall.
* Khris Davis refers to the yips as "the creature" and was quoted that he is continually worried about overthrowing when in games.

## Email Questions

* Matt: "As a Cleveland fan it's been an interesting season. They should be about 6-8 games better than their record. Why have they lost so many more games than they should have?"
* Luke: "I continue to be surprised that more hasn't been made of the Giants' collapse this season. Can this team contend next year or is a big rebuild required?"
* Billy: "I've been watching the World Athletic Championships this week. While watching the javelin competition my girlfriend mentioned that the best way to throw the javelin is similar to how you throw a ball. This made me wonder how the best baseball pitchers would do in the javelin competition."
* Bobby: "If you total up Albert Pujols' career from beginning to end, is he overpaid or underpaid relative to the value he produces? If he's underpaid, is that still likely to be true even after his current contract runs out? If it will be, how much longer would the Angels have to pay him before he's finally overpaid on a career basis?"
* Chris: "What would happen if players did not know what team was bidding for them? They would receive a handful of contracts that only included dollar amounts, buyouts, etc. but the contracts themselves would say nothing about the team, league, state, or country they're playing for. Let's assume that local, state, and federal tax rates are not built into the contracts so that players could not deduce what state they're playing in. Would this add even more parity to MLB? What would the difference be if the rule were implemented immediately or when baseball began and never changed?"
* Ryan: "Are there any other under the radar trades that have gained more importance than the Nationals' acquisition of Howie Kendrick? No seriously, Howie Kendrick has been good this year. I promise, look it up."

## Stat Blast

* Chris Davis is currently leading the MLB with 54 called strikeouts. He has struck out looking on 8 pitches this season that were right down the middle.
* Since 2008 Clayton Kershaw leads MLB with 46 called third strikes on pitches right down the middle.

## Notes

* Joe Maddon first employed four-man outfields when he was a rookie manager with the Devil Rays in 2006.
* This season the Indians have been one of the worst teams all time when hitting in high leverage situations.
* Alan Nathan estimated that the best javelin throwers may be able to throw a baseball around 90 MPH with a run-up and crow hop.
* Albert Pujols now holds the MLB all time record for most grounded into double plays.
* Jeff estimates that Albert Pujols has been worth about $500 million over his career.
* This answer is expanded upon in Episode 1101.

## Links

* Effectively Wild Episode 1098: Pham is Fam