Effectively Wild Episode 1845: Bang Bang, Maxwell’s Sunday Homers

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a Madison Bumgarner ejection, players having to be held back, and sensual sticky-stuff inspections, the historically slow start of the Reds and Joey Votto’ s response to a FanGraphs article about his season-opening slump, and a study on which teams improve pitchers. Then (24:10) they discuss how John T. Brush of the 1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers discovered the “times through the order” penalty, implemented midgame pitching changes, and was forced to abandon the tactic, as an object lesson in how change happens (or doesn’t happen) in MLB and beyond. Finally (53:10) they provide a potpourri of Stat Blasts on pitchers with a higher ERA+ than sum of batters faced, Kyle Schwarber and the best offensive performance by a player on the losing end of a no-hitter, Juan Soto and players who drive only themselves in, the highest-scoring game where every run scored on an out, the winning streak of Max Scherzer ’s teams, “hitting your weight,” and home-run rates by day of the week, capped off by a cold call (1:11:10) to 95-year-old former major leaguer (and Stat Blast subject) Charlie Maxwell , who discusses learning from, throwing batting practice to, and being blocked by Ted Williams , hitting a pinch-hit grand slam off of Satchel Paige , helping the Tigers win more often when he was in the lineup, being clutch, hitting homers on Sundays, his many nicknames, how baseball has evolved since his playing days, and more. Audio intro : AC/DC, “ Hold Me Back ” Audio outro : Red Hot Chili Peppers, “ Charlie ” Link to Bumgarner check video Link to another Bumgarner video Link to Bumgarner’s postgame comments Link to Dan Szymborski on Votto Link to Votto’s tweet Link to Cameron Grove’s pitcher dev tweet Link to Ben on pitcher limits Link to John T. Brush’s SABR bio Link to Brush’s B-Ref Bullpen page Link to articles about Brush’s experiment Link to 1889 Hoosiers schedule Link to The Only Rule Is It Has to Work Link to Ben on La Russa and the opener Link to Hershberger’s SABR author page Link to Hershberger’s book, Strike Four Link to John Thorn’s foreword to Strike Four Link to Stathead Link to Stathead webinar info Link to Tim Burke Stathead query Link to story on Mets combined no-no Link to Charlie’s SABR bio Link to no-hit leverage-adjusted RE24 leaders Link to no-hit RE24 leaders Link to no-hit WPA leaders Link to pitcher team win streaks Link to highest-scoring “runs on outs” game Link to “hitting your weight” data Link to data on dingers and days of the week Link to “with or without you” Stat Blast data Link to “with or without you” Stat Blast episode Link to story about Charlie’s 4-homer day Link to story about Charlie’s Sunday slugging Link to Charlie’s w/RISP split ranking Link to story about Charlie’s Opening Day visit Link to video about Charlie and Paw Paw Link to average game time by year Link to oldest living former major leaguers Link to Ann’s obit Link to EW wiki page on cold calls Link to Cease prediction video Sponsor Us on Patreon Subscribe to Stathead (Code: WILD20) Facebook Group Effectively Wild Wiki Twitter Account iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!) Get Our Merch! Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source