MLB History is Being Made (with Foolish Baseball)

Published Aug 21, 2024, 6:14 PM

Talkin' Jake is joined by Foolish Bailey to talk about the biggest risers and fallers in MLB postseason odds, which teams have been hurt the most by injuries, and shining more of a light on this HISTORIC Chicago White Sox Season

Wake n Jake is available on YouTube! Watch today's episode HERE: https://youtu.be/8fip-uB5mTM

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:45 Playoff Odds
3:55 Biggest Risers
15:20 AL West is Weak
21:55 Biggest Fallers
31:05 Injuries
37:00 The 2024 White Sox are Making HISTORY 

#dpshow

Hello, and welcome to Waken Jake, a special edition because our friend foolish Bailey is here to yuck some ball with us and we're kind of see where we land. We've got some playoff odd shifts, the NL West Race, a little bit of white sox chat that the people have been begging for, and maybe some injury stuff. Bailey, how are you.

I'm doing well. Happy to be your semi regular ball yucker.

Yeah. I Me and Me and Jolly got into a little bit of a beef because he's, you know, he's kind of he's his His last appearance was with the One with You, where you two just fought the whole episode. Cherry Cherry Cherry. I think someone called cheery Cherry I saw in the last comment section. So he's still reeling from that. And I thought this would be good, and now the more I've thought about it's bad. There was a guy at the gym this morning who looked like a tall version of you, and I debated snapping a pick, and I didn't do it, and now I'm regretting it. But I also, I don't know snapping picks of people at the gym. That's slightly over the line.

There was a guy on Jeopardy earlier this summer that looked like a taller version of me as well. Okay, and it was not. I didn't want to bring it up because he came across the kind of obnoxious, kind of a little bit of a no at all, and I thought, you know what, for my own reputation, let's not draw some comparisons.

Well, then let's not, and let's talk about what we do know besides those two freaks, some baseball foolish and I per usual. I will defer the kick as your falcons get ready for a big season. And where do you want to start it? First? First, on your notes, I see some odds stuff, but if you want to start anywhere on the floor is yours.

Yeah, I want to talk about playoff odds because it's one of those things where depending on what kind of website you like to go to, you might see different things, you might get different ideas, and you know, I guess the question that I would get from some people is, you know, how do I sort of you know, figure out playoff odds, particularly mid season?

Right?

And I'm just gonna make like a quick and simple pitch for fangraphs. You go to fangraphs, you go look at their standings. They will show you the odds of a team being a wild card team. They'll show the odds of a team outright when the division, the odds of getting that by all those things. And I think what's good about it is it is quick to absorb new information because the system itself is actually pretty simple. They've got their you know, projections from preseason. They've shifted some based on how some players have performed, but the real keys there are you know, for example, my Braves, right, Austin Riley just got injured. So the Braves do have a record, they do have a position within the wild card race, but you would actually downgrade them a bit knowing that Austin Riley's going to miss most likely the rest of the regular season. And what their system is able to do is able to just basically remove Austin Riley from that equation and then look at you know, oh what other infielders are on the rosters, Zac Shortz, you or Shechella. Yes, put those in. And that's why I think it's great. It's a fairly simple system. But the reason it works is because it is quick to react to new information in ways that I think a lot of the other playoff odds aren't, and it can kind of treat these teams holistically based on the situation rather than just viewing them as a record and a position, you know, two games ahead or two games back.

So we're looking here.

At the biggest risers and fallers in terms of playoff odds, and that doesn't mean odd to win the division. That means to make the playoffs, period. So I do want to start with our risers because two of the risers, the top two risers in fact, are in the same division. And this is since the All Star Break, which is about five weeks ago. The Padres at the All Star Break had a thirty nine percent chance of making the playoffs. Right now it's ninety six percent, and then complimenting them, the Diamondbacks forty percent at the All Star break. Now they're at eighty nine percent. These teams are twenty two and six in case of the Padres and twenty two and eight in case of the Diamondbacks. Since the All Star Break. They've also you know, made some ads as well with regards to being buyers at the trade deadline, and it is shaping up to be a really interesting NL West race, and you know, we you know, I'll toot my own horn a little bit here because I guess a couple of months ago, when we did the buying stock in Teams episode, I was all aboard the Padres train. I think I even suggested to you that they could factor into the division race given some of the Dodgers' injuries, and that appears to be happening. I mean, it looks like we've got a three horse race. What I will not give my self credit for is the snakes because I have doubted the Snakes all year and that's probably been you. That's probably been You've been on this, I've been on the Padres train, and here we are at the end of it, right, and it seems like we're both correct.

Yeah, it's you know, it could be interesting to go go back and dig up quotes and stuff. I was on the I didn't think the Snakes would happen like this. I mean, no one does. No one predicts uh, no one predicts a twenty two and eight stretch, just because that's not how baseball works. But you know, for me, the d Backs they were starting to rise and they were getting bodies back. It started with like Perdomo al Thomas, who's now out? Hello, Jake McCarthy, Wow, where have you been all my life? And then they were also getting some pitching back that you know there's a d backs formula, but you didn't think it was gonna look or feel like this, and a little I guess not for the Padres, which is ironic because these are like the post hype Padres that we wanted them to be. They're doing it without Fernando. And meanwhile, the Snakes are the team that won the National League last year that I don't know if there's gonna be any Giants conversation in this, but they're the only team that their roster right now. Like one of our fun conbos the past couple days was like who can give one last throttle in this MLB season? The Giants are the only team that I kind of like because of their rotation. But when you look at the nl wes and I guess this is what I'm going to be interested into transferring to next year. Is like do the divisions matter as much as we think they do with the reduced division games or is it just like, hey, if you are a better team and a better roster, you will prevail. Because the Snakes and the Diamondbacks before you even get to the Juggernaut Dodgers, who are getting a lot of reinforcements back, are kind of showing that like, hey, if your roster talents there and you're good, it shouldn't matter.

No.

I mean, that's a good point. And and you're seeing more parody kind of across the league because of that balance schedule. And so I think what's really intriguing to see is the fact that the Dodgers, for example, have the best winning percentage in baseball. I think it's a five ninety one that projects to ninety six wins across one sixty two. That would be potentially the team with the best record finishing with ninety six wins. That's something we have not seen a long long time and is certainly a result of that more balance schedule, because you know, it's you're you're if you're in a weaker division, you're you're less able to beat up on the teams at the bottom there. You know, for the Dodgers, that means fewer games against the Rockies, no offense, Rockies, but you know that's that's a big part of it is and I think it's probably a good thing, but it does does it does it feel like it maybe diminishes the importance of head to head matchups within the division because I'm watching and look, it's it's a different outlook right now, but I'm watching my Braves take on the Phillies, and it just does feel like as must win as it normally would be.

You know, absolutely, I mean Yankees Red Sox is you know, baseball strongest series right right or when the sport is right and everything is clicking, it's Yankees, It's Red Sox. And yeah, right now, it doesn't feel like there's enough games. But at the same time, while you were saying that, I was going back. You know, there was a year the Orioles. Was it the Orioles that ran away with or no, the Rays? Excuse me, the Rays ran away with the division and I think they were eighteen and one against the bad Orioles, or it could have been seventeen and two, and again, no excuses for my Yankees, but I believe they were closer to five hundred. And when you look at a lot of numbers, you're like, wait, did the Baltimore Orioles being ass dictate the future of this season because that's not how baseball is supposed to work. But I don't have the solution. There was a couple pisodes ago I was daydreaming about MLB expansion, not daydreaming well, by the way, like not a lot of thought out thoughts, although we talked right before we went live about some of it. But yeah, I'm in a weird spot where I need more Yankees Red Sox, but we need less of the other stuff. But it needs to be balanced. There's not a good answer, otherwise i'd bring it.

Yeah, and you know, I'll echo your sentiment, like just I mean, I'm speaking you know, POV as a Braves fan, but particularly in like the late twenty tens, it felt like they and even early twenty twenties, it felt like they won divisions because they were the best team against the Marlins, whereas whatever team that was mounting a challenge, whether it be Phillies or Mets, would seem to stumble against them. You know, so that yeah, I mean, that's true. You know, you gotta win the games you should win. I don't know, I think that's kind of an obvious generality, but that is, you know, less and less prominent in a situation where you're playing a balance schedule and you play everybody every year.

So in in this riser section, I don't want to give away the rest of it. I love myself some NL West. Well, you've got the al team that's everyone's talking about right now, and then the other guys that have just been under the radar all year and are now I don't know. I had a girl next stoor moment with the Royals the other day that they're starting five. I mean it's like, whoa, Okay, so you've got an MVP, you've got a statue guy, and you've got five guys in your rotation, Like, wow, I should have been I should have been looking at you this whole time.

Yeah, I I.

I'm surprised by the volume in particular for them because I you know, Seth Lugo I should give a shout out to. It's not just that he's you know, successfully continued that conversion from a reliever back to starter. Here's here's the stat for me that's really stood out looking at them. Last year, he made twenty six starts for the Padres. He threw one hundred and forty six innings this year. He has twenty six starts already, he's thrown one hundred and sixty six, so he has added on volume he's throwing. You know, I think that's more than six innings a start. He's throwing six and a third innings per start, which is you know, the average right now is five and a third. So yeah, it's kind of crazy to think not just you know, you can kind of convince yourself like, oh yeah, a reliever can convert to a starter and be like a five and dive guy.

This guy's been a true workhorse.

This guy leads the Major League Baseball actually in fact in innings pitch Like, that's crazy to me, and that's not something I would have ever anticipated going into this season.

Yeah, I'm a future of baseball and trying to protect guys from injuries and we don't have solutions. Something I would throw out in an organization is like eight. Know, if I think they said the UCL isn't fully developed until you're twenty seven, like I would have guys. I know baseball doesn't work like this, but if you could have guys spend a chunk of their time in the pen and then think about stretching guys out to starters. We've seen some success with that between Lugo and I know Jordan Hicks is back in the Giants pen. But there may be something formula formulaically there, And you know, I don't like saying that word.

Can I tell you sort of the problem, you know is they're not going to make that conversion with the team that drafted and developed them, you know, just based on service time clocks. Right, you know you're gonna be converting a guy to a starter when he's already you know, later into his RB ers if he's twenty seven.

So that's you know, that's that's the pushback there.

In an ideal world where you know, the reserve clause was still an effect and you could have any player as long as you want.

Absolutely, Yeah, yeah, I guess, I guess in my head because this is going to exclude top prospects, right, But you know if you have if you have a young guy get called up into your bullpen, who say, is twenty five and his first two years are twenty five twenty six, Well let's stretch him out this spring and see if there's a third pitch. And maybe I don't know I don't know. I obviously haven't fully calculated it, but yeah, that I just I'll I'll read it off again as my computer freezes on me. Just incredible timing. Let's see, I'm a baseball guy. Top of my head. Cole Ragins, uh Seth Lugo, Michael Waka is putting together another season. We traded for Lorenzen at the deadline. Who's given them a couple good starts in? Who am I missing? Come on?

Jake Florida Florida Sinker.

Brady Singer, Yeah, who's been kind of as good, not as good, but kind of as good as like Cole Reagan's that I don't know, top top if you had everyone's rotation and the five in it presently right now, I mean the Royals have to be top five top.

Yeah, that's fair to say.

Yeah, like, I don't know, and that's like just not the respect we've given to the Royals this year.

Do you maybe take like a Mariners Phillies over them. Phillies don't have Ranger Suarez right now, so that complicates it, but yeah, I mean they're up there for sure.

Padres would have a good argument, but yeah, I mean, yeah, the fact that they are in the mix. I get just not how we viewed the Royals this year. Do you have anything else to add to America's team the Houston Astros.

Yeah, well it's I would relate it to what's happening in the AL Central and the AL West right now is fascinating because the AL West is now the weaker division. It's now the vision, in fact, I think in all of Major League Baseball with the leader with the worst record. And that has some pretty big implications because since this like three wildcard playoff format has been put in the play I guess that twenty twenty one was the first year they did that. You could just kind of count on, like, oh, the Central is going to send one playoff team. It's gonna be whoever wins the division, and they're going to have the worst record of all the division winners. Because of that, they're gonna have to play a best of three wildcard series against whoever the weakest by record wildcard team is.

And that is appearing to be not the case.

It looks like just you know, if if you viewed everything in terms of like coin flips or their odds, right now, it would appear that the AL Central is leaning towards sending three playoff teams, those being the Guardians, the Twins, and the who am I missing here at Royals we just talked about and and so if that's the case, then then those guys have a lot to play for battling for the top of that division, because they're not just battling to you know, for a seeding essentially in a wildcard round. It seems like whoever wins that division is going to get the buy straight onto the DS. And it also means that with regards to the Al West, which if you know, if we just consider that a race between the Mariners and the Astros, that is a race for either a playoff spot or nothing. It is, it seems unlikely that they would send you know, you see a scenario where the Astros win the division and the Mariners are a wildcard team. The record isn't there right now, so that that to me is absolutely fascinating. That's that's really informing some of these playoff odds. That's one reason why the Royals have jumped from a thirty three percent to seventy four percent because of how the records shake out. They're saying they don't necessarily have to win the division to make the playoffs, whereas the Mariners are the greatest faller. They've fallen from fifty seven percent to fourteen percent, and they're saying, you've got to, you know, chase down these astros or that's it.

You're not going in.

Oh wait, this has never happened. I'm having a premonition Seattle misses the playoffs.

No, it can't be God, I that'd be crazy.

Well, I'm human. I don't like to admit that, but you know when I saw the Seattle Mariners, was it a ten game lead in June something like that, and it was gone three weeks later. When they got that ten game lead, I was like, you know what, I have to give these Mariners the love they deserve for this rotation. And you know, Julio's about to go. My goodness, where they are at and where that franchise is at, like historically, it's it's sad. I was going to segue as to the followers list because the Mariners are on that list, but your Brewers are also listed here, and I just, oh, the only thing I wanted to add to that piece was I'm not locking in another an a central team for the second by I think Houston has the juice right now. Okay that I don't know. Maybe there's those teams are beating each other effect. I don't know if the Twins or Royals get in the mix, cause Cardians have been so good this year it's crazy that no one's about it, really, But I think I think the Yankees are the Orioles will be there, and I could be very wrong. Again, these are just opinions, and I give Houston a fifty to fifty chance of catching one of the Central teams.

I'll point this out to the just to play a little Devil's advocate. Sure, because the you know you're talking about the beating up on each other effect, Well, we're playing fewer games. We just discussed this. We're playing fewer head to head games. And so if you want to take the Astros ahead of either one of those teams individually to beat them, sure, I'm totally done with that. But if you view it in terms of the field, like you've got, you know, three teams in the Central there with seventy plus wins, it only takes one of them to take off, you know, to bury the Astros within that, you know, at the at the very least where you have the West winner having to play that wild card series. So and actually looked at this too. The playoff odds currently give the West winner whoever, that would be about a seventeen percent chance of getting that buy, whereas in the National League it's it's much more open because those teams at the top of the division have similar enough records that it could really go either way.

Yeah, and they're kind of they're knocking your Brewers for that. Interesting.

Yeah, I know, because the Brewers record wise are pretty similar. But the idea is that, you know, they have still only thirty three percent chance of getting that buy assuming they win the division, which it seems like they almost certainly will.

Yeah. The America's manager, Pat Murphy, the Brewers with one final hot stretch and the rest of that division just being such a disappointment to the baseball society. Uh, I don't know, break the Cubs. Cubs have an easy stretch coming.

Uh, You're you love a strength of schedule. You're a big strength of schedule guy.

You know, I I want to be more about it and my advanced stat that I haven't come up with that, I'll I'll lock you Eno Saras and Jimmy in a room one day and may happen, and an adjusted strength of schedule with how the team is playing before and after they play you.

Yeah, total hair mismatch for Jimmy there by the way.

Yeah, between the two of us, it's a man, I don't know what this is. And if anyone wants to comment or subscribe, that's how the pros do it. Something about Eno Sarahs hits such a weird chord on me that like, I don't know if it's like I just respect that he's smarter than me, or he's seen more life, or that he's like cooler than me. But yeah, I don't know. I turned into like not a troll on Twitter yesterday, but I just like feeding the beast and he called who did he call? He called someone yesterday a k God?

What does that mean?

Oh?

Strikeouts?

Yeah, he was talking about uh, Jared Jones and I and I just like I wanted to poke the bear and be like, tell me, tell me about God and just I just want to know where Ino Sarahs's brain goes with stuff.

Yeah, so that's when he tells you that God is like a craft beer that they make it one brewery in Organ.

You know, I saw it in a sandwich once. I like him a lot. Uh So, where where does that leave us? Now? More more of the Fallers.

Yeah, we can talk about some of these follers, and I guess we can start in that in EL Central and you know it's inter sing. I think you could also compare and contrast the AL West to the NL Central just a little bit, because you had, you know, going back a few months ago, you had the presumptive leader right with the with the Brewers and the Mariners. And what's happened is what ended up happening is the AL West itself ended up mounting a challenge to those Mariners in the form of the astro surging, and that just has not taken place in the NL Central.

And so it's it's the.

And I don't that's not to like say the Brewers are not deserving of winning this division or that they're you know, not better than the Mariners, for example, but that but that is true. They were in somewhat similar positions throughout the earlier goings of this season. And what's happened is that the AL West has managed to rally back in the form of the Astros and the NL Central, it hasn't so. The Cardinals had a forty two percent playoff chance at the All Star Break. Again, this is according to Fangrafts playoff odds. Now it's two percent. They are They are eleven and eighteen Since the All Star Break. The Pirates were at seventeen percent.

Believe it or not.

Now it's sub one percent, and there they're in the last place in that division, I believe.

Don't get me started on the Pirates.

May just be a year early on them.

I'm are we excited about the twenty twenty five Pirates.

There will be a hype train because of the pitching, But I am a in the length of the baseball season, you need hitting in a lineup, and I they again, they have some pieces there. I couldn't believe where keep Ryan was a couple of weeks ago when I checked in My goodness, that I don't It'll be interesting to see how they support that and what does that mean in the NL Central, where the Brewers just kind of laugh at what every organization does. The I think the Reds don't value with the Brewers value, and the Brewers just laugh at them because They're like, well we win. I think the Cubs are more obsessed with looking in the mirror in their front office than the pro on the field. That's pretty that's a dirty thing to say by that. I think that way. Dude.

They twelve o five pm.

Dude, they pissed me off. So I've said there's a ton on here, and I've probably said it to you, but I'll do it quickly. They did their Cubs off season Cubs Fest or whatever, and they copied a a Lalapalooza sign and they led it with Jed Hoyer and Craig Council and meanwhile, it was like ten rows below was like Dansby Swanson Ian happ ten rows below that was Ryan Sandberg and Fergie Jenkins and like the smallest font. I was like, what the fuck are you doing? The how did this get approved? And I just I wear that way too angrily?

No I I first of all, I didn't know about this, but that is hilarious. That is funny that like Jed Hoyer is like the the headliner, like he's yes, Beyonce or the Weekend or something, and then uh, you know, Fergie Jenkins is like a garage rock band uh from Detroit that you've never heard of.

I might have to dig up the tweet. I do this once a month. I had a sneaky.

Hard time finding it.

Oh it's hard to find, but I did find it. I forget found it once for me. Okay, Uh, so we're excuse me? What next, Bailey? That's good hosting. That's good hosting.

Yeah, good hosting. Let's see, is there anything else here we want to hit on?

I guess just in the with regards to the NL wild card, you know, the Padres and the Dbacks have made themselves very relevant in that race, if not the division.

So I think if we're under the.

Assumption that the NL West is sending three playoff teams, then that leaves a wild card up for the you know, NL East non winner runner up. And so what's interesting is, uh, the Mets and Braves are both follers, and I think that's probably because of the surging Padres and Dbacks. But the Mets right now they're at twenty percent odds, the Braves right eighty percent odds, And yeah, I think it's just one of those is going to get a wild card spot and one of those isn't at this point, and so at the fact that adds up to one hundred percent is somewhat satisfying to me.

Yeah, that is nice, and yeah we do have there's the tweet for you to see Bailey.

Okay, Ryan Sandberg and Billy Williams Okay.

I had Ryan, I had I had Ryan lower there is I mean again, I can't see the names. There are guys on that bottom line that are like and I don't know if it's supposed to be ironical.

Like Harry Woods at the bottom.

Harry Wood is bottom row. John Lester is on the third to bottom.

Row the bottom.

Does it get alphabetical once we get to Al's lie?

Is that what's happening here?

No? I guess not, no man, so I and again, just at the fact that Counsel and Hoy are on top, that's you know, I see justin Steele at I don't know man. That uh. For whatever Jake smoke detector sens I have in my body, this has been the one that has lurked over my head for I mean months, ninety months. That's disturbing. Jans.

Don't talk to Boon, don't say boon.

If they make a if they make a Yankees vest you can't be at the top.

You know. That's I think my Yankees would have that graphic figured out, although they don't have a lot of other stuff figured out. Unfortunately. Where are you at with your braves? Bailey Benbers?

You know, I really win a Kunya and well Strider first, and when they went down, I was really hoping that like they could kind of play the role of scrappy team, underdog team in a way that they really hadn't been able to because they've been, you know, front runners for the last couple of years, and that hasn't really come into fruition in this regular season. Philly still have a pretty sod lead on us. It seems like we're resigned to scraping our way in via the wild card. There's still a chance to do that in the playoffs, right like they you know, who knows, maybe they could, maybe they could do what the Phillies did to them the last couple of years. But yeah, I don't feel great about it. But I also I'm willing to excuse them a little bit because I just and well, we can maybe transition now to the injury talk. Sure, this team lost the cy young favorite and MVP favorite within the first like month and a half of the season. Like, I don't like what other team would be willing to, you know withstand that, So I'm okay with like where they're at. I do think what's been exposed though, is that they haven't prioritized depth much these past few years, because actually, if you look at it in terms of like twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three, let's say twenty one post Acuna a cl tare they have the guys have played. If you go look at their twenty twenty three line up, the record setter like everyone played at least one hundred and thirty nine games. That was the minimum, And so you didn't have to worry about, how's my bench situation, how's my fourth outfielder, how's my bench infielder. You didn't have to worry about that because everyone played every single day. And this year that hasn't been the case, and there's been a lot of they just grabbed you or Sheela and they're with meryfield is in the lineup as an everyday player, like guys who's just been kind of cast away or waived or whatever. And I just you know, I kind of wish maybe they'd prioritized it a little bit different in the offseason, just looking at some of those spots, getting you know, maybe young optionable talent or something like that, and that has not been a priority for them because they haven't. They've they've literally had roster spots that they don't use, you know, like that's kind of been their mo because everyone plays every day.

Well that was the and again the Braves very much end up on top of this, but von Grissom was their depth piece, uh, and they flipped them for this injured pitcher that hadn't thrown a lot of innings the past five years or whatever. Yeah, it was making a lot of money too, and then they extended him even though he was making a lot of money. And now he's going to win the cy Young.

Yeah. Now he's the one guy who's healthy on the team all year.

So that's I don't know, Bailey, we were we're gonna put a fake mustache on you one day, maybe glasses off, maybe contacts and will we need to you to find out what the Braves Foundation really does because I I think I don't know, man, I don't know if they're getting stem cells from Germany. I don't know what what goes on there, but something's happening, because how is Chris Saale doing this?

I also I joke about it constantly, like like if I'm talking to a Braves player, which is that often, but I'll be like, just so you know, one percent of this conversation will go to the Braves Foundation at the end of it. You know, just everything I do in life, I don't know how, but one percent of it will go to the Braves. If I buy a box of cereal, you know, a few little pieces of cereal will go to the Braves Foundation.

For another day, for another day. Okay, what other what other injury notes do you have? You mentioned your Braves and how much they've been affected. I was surprised today when I brought up the one one run game records how low the Braves were on that list, which I it's hard to make that a glass half full in truth, but you also can because that's luck in theory. In theory, obviously, how you're how you're performing does tie into that. But it's something that big league teams have tried to control for years and they can't, which makes us say luck so I don't know the fact that the Braves I'm always gonna be I'm gonna have a level of blinders on that. When I saw they were six games out today, when I saw the one run game record, when I saw they were on a little wind streak, I was like, wait, these there's still like a yeah, there's a body in there of the Atlanta Braids that could still beat you up.

And they're and they're playing the Phillies right now, and I think they still have the majority of their games within the season against the Phillies yet to come.

So who knows, I don't know.

It looks like your Dodgers have also been dealing with the injury bug, which is insane to think about.

Yeah, so I mean and and so this is what's interesting. So I was looking particularly at Baseball Prospectus. They have an injury tool that will basically just try to estimate how many wins team has lost via injury or iele stints. And it's pretty interesting too, because there's a couple of ways you can look at it. You can say, well, the Braves and the Dodgers, they're missing nine and I'm going to use the Baseball Prospectus terminology here because it's their tool.

Warp nice not warp warp.

But you can you can think of it as wins as well for the folks back home, especially my Dan Patrick listeners out there. So the so the Dodgers and Braves are both missing about nine wins this year based on who's been on the injured list. For the Dodgers, that is kind of been in bulk. That's class now Kershaw Yamamoto in the rotation bets of course miss some time and it's just now kind of getting back into the group of things months. He's missed some time and he's been good for them, so they missed out on his production as well. For the Braves, it's a little more obvious. It's Strider or it Sekunya, but also I'll Be's and Freed have missed time and now Riley is set to miss some time, although that isn't built in yet like it'll be more like the more games they play without Riley, the more wins they will lose because they don't have Riley. That's you know, it doesn't necessarily project it, but what essentially is they're saying here is okay, those teams are losing you know, twenty percent of their projected warp because of those injuries. But the thing is, you can really look at injuries, you know, a couple of voice You could look at it in terms of those total wins.

But obviously the teams that lose.

The most wins are gonna be the most talented rosters to begin with, right, you have to have the wins on your roster in the first place in order to lose them the injury. And so what's interesting is if you look at in terms of the percentage of warp, the White Sox are the worst team because they have lost twenty seven percent of their projected warp even though they've only lost four warp. And it's really the simple fact of the matter is it's like you look at them and you're like, yeah, well, Luise Robert missed two months, and that's like they're only really good player so or at least who only would have been projected coming into the season as they're good players, you know, shouts to Garrett Crochet. But I did not see that coming necessarily. I don't think projection systems did either. So that's that's two ways of looking at it. Is you can look at it this percentage, or you can look at it in terms of total wins. But I think if you look at in total wins, then it's gonna be biased towards the teams with the best rosters in the first place. But it is intriguing though, because I will say the Dodgers have lost nine wins, the d Backs and the Padres are at five and four wins, respectively, so they have stayed healthier, and those are the teams they're going against in the division. And then the Phillies have only lost three wins according to Baseball Prospectives, which surprises me because they have had their star players miss time. The difference between them the Braves is that when the Philly star players missed time, they only missed a little bit. So Turner missed a little bit, Harper missed a little bit. Real Mudo missed the most out of these guys. I think he missed a maybe five weeks or something like that. And now Raininger Suaz is on the injured list, has missed you know, a couple of starts. But the point is, you know, for the Braves, when you lose guys in April in May, it's catastrophic because you don't have them for the whole year. The Phillies, you know, they it's more like, you know, fifteen day ile stents and then you're back. But they both of those teams have missed guys, but the value of it has manifested itself in different ways. And it's interesting to think, you know, the Braves are at nine wins, the Phillies are three wins lost. You said yourself, there's six games but behind you know, so maybe things are even if if the injury luck is a little bit more even.

Now again I'm newer to warp, but does it take into effect their performance this season? Like real Muto hasn't been playing at a real Muto level, but his his war would go off his projected war this season.

For the way the Baseball prospective tool functions in this case, it's it's looking at warp based on the preseason projection only, which is why the White Sox are so deemed, for example, by losing you know, Luis Robert. But yeah, it's that, yeah, so that's that's what's happening here. In effect is you know, uh, it's we're only looking at the preseason projection. But I we'll point out priorly, the preseason projection for real Muda wasn't that great in the first place to begin with, because he had kind of a rough twenty twenty three by his standards.

And he's old Bailey thirty three.

Is great, and the and the defensive metrics for him had gone down a lot too, and that's that had an effect on that warp worp.

Okay, it's always fun finding out a new stat Does this lead you into more of your White Sox talk?

Yeah, I suppose it, does.

I have Okay, I actually I won't let you cook yet. And I can't believe that's become a fucking part of my verbiage. It's so dumb. Dan Rourke just went to me, nice, I was going to ask you a second ago, and I forgot you had White Sox stuff prepared. If the White Sox weren't out of the bay out of the park baseball franchise, do you like their current moves uh? Or where they've gotten to uh since they've decided that they're awful, And then that that probably just gets in the way of a whole conversation you had prepared, So maybe I'll forget about it.

Yeah, I mean the I don't envy them.

The Crochet thing was kind of unprecedented, you know, like this obviously would have been the year to trade them, and with the breakout everything, I don't really know how they should have handled that situation necessarily. I don't really have like a positive or negative association with what Crochet did.

I just think that it's like.

I think, for him, if it's like it's if going forward, he's gonna be like one of those I want to win types, then that's clearly not his top priority because he could have gotten out of Dodge and but he was looking out after his own self interest, which is fine, which as fine as a player to do, but it is I don't want him to turn around, you know, later on and when the White Sox are bad again and say I want to get traded. I want to go to a winning team when you had your chance, you know. But yeah, it's yeah, I guess it's fine. I don't necessarily feel like they were pressed to trade Louise Robert like maybe some people were. I think that's that's their decision to make. And if he were having a year like he was last year, then maybe right, But he wasn't he had he had missed a good bit of time, which I think sort of drums up the chief concerns about him in the first place. So if they want to try to sell high on him next year with better timing, I think it's fine. I think they've conducted themselves fine. It's just the team sucks, so there's no way to really dig out of that hole.

Yeah, I for me, and we've done this a little bit. I'm a little opposite on both. Well, Luise Robert, you would have been selling low. Yet I would have pulled Louise Robert in and say like, hey, man, I get it, this is probably tough, but if you're out there for the rest of the season and you get your OPS above one hundred, you probably can be playing on another team next year, and that would probably be a good thing for you, to be completely honest, Right, So I understood the Robert part. I was, and I'm putting it as a feather in my hat that maybe I don't deserve. But early on the Crochet thing never made sense to me because we flew past whatever fake innings limit you would have or whatever the book would say is the right thing to do that you know, the white Sox are going to value him. They're trading an ace with a couple of years of control where half of the equation was smart. Teams could not pencil Garrett Crochet into their playoff rotation this year, like there was months of baseball to go. And then Crochet, I mean kind of nuked the whole thing because even if you figured out, like, hey, all right, he's gonna be a pitching weapon for us, you almost viewed him as Ray's style and then we have an ace the next couple of years that you can start to get really close to whatever the right package is. And then he nuked the whole thing when he said I'm not willing to pitch out of the bullpen, which I do respect that part of it, Like, okay, so I've flown past whatever my innings are going to be this year, and now teams could be asking me to pitch three straight days when I see myself as a future ACE in this league. I kind of shown I can be. I did respect that side for him, and I didn't think the trade value part of it worked.

In my head, Yeah it didn't.

It wasn't conducive with the deal being done at the trade deadline.

Yes, so what what else do we have on your white sox? I don't.

I just don't think there's been enough coverage. Like I just and we we we go. Everyone frequents different places for their for their baseball coverage. They could be here, they could they might watch MLB Network or ESPN. They might have other podcasts that they listened to, which, of course will be cheating. You can't cheat on us. This is the only podcast you're allowed to listen to if you're listening right now. But uh, I mean this, so here's what I compare it to. And maybe, you know, maybe maybe it's because baseball was in just a different place twenty years ago, like when.

I was a kid.

Yes, the two thousand and three Tigers, it was a big deal.

Yeah it was.

It was You're right, they were they it was a big deal. It was talked about every day. What they were particularly going for or trying to avoid, I should say, was the most losses in you know, the modern era, in American League slash slash National League history. They lost one hundred and nineteen games, won forty three of them, and that put them just short of the mark set by the sixty two Mets, who won forty games and lost one hundred and twenty games, So it was about the total losses in this case. And I remember when the Tigers clinched not having the worst record ever, they celebrated on the field. Yeah, they like they just clinched the playoff spot or something like that. Like it was like, and you know, I mean, I was a kid. I thought it was nice because it showed that it meant something to them not to be the worst team ever basically, And your call. By the way, they were back in the playoffs, like I think two years after that or something crazy, like they turn it around pretty fast after that. I don't know if the same fate is ahead for the White Six, but the White Sex right now, they have, by winning percentage, the second worst win loss record in in what I'm going to refer to as as al NL history. So since the American League was founded in nineteen oh one onward, and for the it's it's two thirty six, and so because of that, they're pacing for one hundred and twenty four losses, which would be the most losses we've seen that in that modern baseball era. And it just feels like like the the two thousand and three Tigers got so much grief all year and so much coverage, and I would even compare it to the Oakland Ace the start they had last year where everyone was writing their worst team ever column in May you Know. And it just feels like, I don't know if if it's just because this White Sox team is just sad, is it because they're just sad? But it just it just feels like it deserves more coverage, and it feels like I don't want to like put that much negativity in the world, but like, it's very interesting that a baseball team in this era of parody, in this era of the bounce schedules, in this era where the most winning team this year is on pace for ninety six wins, that there might be a team that loses one hundred and twenty four games and they're not even playing in a small market and they're not even necessarily owned by someone that's trying to tank the team to move them.

Right, I mean, this team, in theory, should be with in the current affairs of baseball, one of the biggest market teams in a division that every other team complains about being a small market, and we can't keep up. How the White Sox have landed here is insanity.

Yeah, And the thing that always that I found most startling about this team is and I like this, this is a good episode because we're going fangrafts, we're going baseball prospect this I did a little statthead earlier. Now we're going back to fangrass. The position players as a whole, the batters have been worth negative five point eight f WOUR. That is just unbelievable. That's the very definition of replay level is that is that the worst It should be a zero, right, because you should be able to call up the quad a guy and he should be worth exactly zero WAR. He should be replacement level.

They're there.

Lineup as a whole is negative five point eight WAR. They have the worst offensive numbers, which is fine, like a bad team is allowed to have a bad lineup, But they are also the worst defensive team in the league. And that's what's strives me crazy too, because generally, like, yeah, a bad team might have, you know, bad hitters in the lineup, but there's some sort of reason why they're big leaguers and maybe they play really good defense or something like that, and that's the way you cheap out and try to build the winningest team you have with the with the you know, the chips you have available.

That's crazy to me.

That that they're this bad, that they that they're they're the worst hitting team, and they're the worst fielding team, and that they're below well below replacement level, when that shouldn't happen.

It just shouldn't happen.

I I hate to expose myself on this. Have any of you baseball video freaks done anything on this Tigers team yet?

No?

I have done something on the and I want to get the year right here. It's I want to say eighteen ninety nine Cleveland Spiders, which was it's a franchise that no longer exists, but basically they they are the you know, before that modern era, they're the losing his team. I think they lost like one hundred and thirty four games in the year, and it was basically because the owner of the Cleveland Spiders bought the team that is now the Saint Louis Cardinals and then literally transferred all the good players from the Spiders over to the Cardinals or the they weren't called the Cardinals at the time. But so that's like a different situation obviously, But yes, I mean someone absolutely, someone jolly myself, I'll shout out a few other sports storms. Someone like that should should do a little a deep dive on those two thousand and three Tigers, because I I mean I was a kid, but like I lived it and remember it, like very clearly, like watching this team try to avoid infamy.

Well that's what let me do. Baseball people porn quick and start reading names, because that's what guys Brandon Inch behind the dim.

Right, and he and some of those guys, by the way, stayed around to be on good teams.

Carlos Payana one hundred and thirty one games on that team, Craig Monroe, Dimitri Young balled out best player on the team by far, nine nine ops. And then you know you've got your.

We got a Bobby Higginson on there.

Yeah, Omar and Fonte played a little bit, uh him Boca Chica. Nope, no Maglio on the pitching staff, I mean Mike Maroth, Jeremy Bonderman. Uh, it really doesn't get better. Steve Sparks was knuckling for them. A young Fernando Rodney had a six e r A.

Oh that's good.

So yeah, I'm I'm gonna leave dibbs on that for you for like a month, and then I'm gonna kick Jolly, cause man, there's other other things of note here. Uh we are one in seventeen out of the gate. Uh, that leads to three and twenty five. Uh, that leads to eighteen and sixty one. That leads to thirty three and ninety nine and then and spoiler for this video that all everyone's gonna watch you make or Jolly or sports sports motion what's the name?

Yeah, sports motion, a sports storm.

Sports storm. Excuse me? Uh, spoiler spoiler spoiler if you're if you need to see them do this video. They win the last five out of six, and they've done nothing close to that throughout the season. So yeah, I'm glad they celebrated. Yeah they should have what an absolute electric factory.

I'm gonna leave you with with one more thought too, And again, a part of this, diskuy is, you know, baseball's kind of in a different place in the American zeikeeist than it was twenty years ago. Maybe that's why there's more interest in this Tiger's team than this White Sox team. But last year the Pistons losing streak I found fascinating. And I don't really care much about NBA, especially not regular season, but that was something that was covered and they kept on losing and losing and losing. And then when the White Sox put together a similar streak, there just doesn't seem to be any interest. And I don't want to sound like I'm oh, I want to promote this terrible team, but I kind of do, like it's interesting, you know, just like that that Tiger's team we're going through is interesting. Twenty years from now, we're gonna look back at this White Sox team and be like, wow, Luis Robert was on that team until you know, he became a Hall of Famer with the Orioles second State, you know, right, like we don't know, you know.

Yeah, no, you're you're absolutely We're gonna do exactly what I just did. Woll Wait, Crochet was great that year, and ye.

They were like Crochet was a starter and now he's the closer for the world this series winning expansion expos.

Wait, they they called up Duke Ellis well foolish. Maybe America is over losing. I don't know, that's not what this country is built.

On well, based on these Olympics, certainly not. We're all about winning well.

And that's why I wanted to bring up the election. Uh No, we'll circle back on that next time I do. I'm gonna put you on the spot for one thing, and as we always try to do, and I want to do this earlier when they got brought up, you said you have a snake's video in the work, So you know, I am one of the pillars that that franchise is built on, so excited for that to come out. I wanted to ask you because it's I asked you how you researched your last time. If you had, if I said, foolish, and I'm putting you on the spot, and I feel rude about it, but I don't. If I said, give me three prospects that people are not talking about that are now Juicy Lucy in the foolish Bailey world. And if it's not three, I understand, but prospects that weren't on these preseason top one hundred charts that are now guys that you are about.

So he's he's made his debut, but now he's certainly currently still retains prospects as Zebbie Matthews has made a big h Zebbi by the way, short for Zebulon. So that's that's pretty good. I do want to get this guy's name right, uh, because I think I have it right.

You're kind of putting me on the spot.

I know, I'm sorry, Yeah, oh got it.

Chandler Simpson of the Rays, Okay, Just he's doing kind of the Billy Hamilton, Uh rise right now, just in terms of the speed and the stolen bases. So if you're just looking for like a fun uh you know, one or two two tool guy, like, here's the guy who's gonna make a lot of contact and steal a lot of bases, that's gonna be Chandler Simpson of the Act BBD. If you want to bring up his minor league numbers right now, I'm.

One step b out of you, two steps ahead of the CIA. He had ninety four swipes across A and High A last year. He currently has eighty four in High A and Double A this year, with an eight oh seven ops in A four to eight on base the speedster we've dreamt of.

Yes, this is this is the man who's coming to say baseball from itself.

Oh my god, can you imagine if he comes up and he's good and just all the conversation people will have around that.

Yeah. Third prospect I'll give you.

I'm gonna say Alex Freeland, who is a shortstop slash just infielder in general and the Dodgers system. He's he's a guy with helium this year. He's gonna be on top one hundred prospects lists next year when he wasn't necessarily this year.

Wow. Uh yeah, he's putting up some numbers and the stolen bases too. We love, we love an athlete and foolish. Thank you again. Putting you on the spot for that was was tough, something that we just fell into after recording Talking Baseball. Uh with Hassan Kim going down? Is that the and we're we're tagging it. But you can steal or maybe piss off Trev with it at some point. Uh. The Padres are a team full of shortstops without a shortstop right now. Yeah, It's it's unreal. Tyler Wade has been playing shortstop the past couple games. Uh. Well, meanwhile, literally the rest of the lineup minus the freight trained David Peralta and their d h of Louis Arise are not shortstops.

Yeah.

Well, and and Kim, you know, he'd been a little bit below his uh hitting standard that he set last year, but he's I think he's still one of their absolute top players by wards just because of what he gives with the shortstop defense and then in the base running. So he's a huge loss, even if they're only losing like a league average.

That, uh, that will be interesting. That will be interesting. Bailey. You have been nothing but interesting, delicious. Excited for you to get through the dog days. Take care of yourself, golly, take care of yourself, and we'll probably uh, we'll see it come September, Labor.

Day somewhere around there.

Oh my god. And then it's gonna be the postseason. We're almost there, Bailey. Pretty crazy to look at like five weeks out. Yeah my god. Hey, thank you so much, brother, I appreciate you. Everyone go follow and check out Foolish Bailey Snakes Alive. We will see you next time. Beebes tell them about Uncle Dan Waking Jakis a production of Dan Patrick Productions, John Boy Media and Workhouse Media.

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