WSJ’s Jared Diamond: Soaring walk rates in ABS era, Ted Turner’s manager cameo, Brewers defying odds

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Hey, we've got Wall Street Journals sports reporter Jared Diamond joining us right now on foul territory.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: Gired.

00:00:08
Speaker 1: It's good to see a happy Friday work putting out there. Yeah, thank you, dude, with loving the work you're putting out there. We got a few topics here to touch on to kind of dive deeper into some of the stories that people can find in the Wall Street Journal.

00:00:21
Speaker 2: I want to start with the one on walks.

00:00:23
Speaker 1: You know, I like to see what trends are moving with the changes in the sport, and you dove into how walks are flying, they're surging and who did you say to blame in the title of the story.

00:00:38
Speaker 3: There's only one thing that's changed between this season and last season, and that is our good friends, the robot umpires. Clearly, those robot umpires aren't a big fan of pitchers. They seem to like hit or from what I could tell.

00:00:54
Speaker 2: So what are you learning? Why is this happening?

00:00:57
Speaker 3: So the walk rate to this point the seas and is very high. It's about nine and a half percent. So I realized that that number means nothing to anyone, because no one really knows what the typical walk rate is it's typically around eight and a half percent. You know, it's actually been very consistent, outside of a little spike during the heart of the steroid era when pitchers were understandably afraid to throw the ball anywhere in the vicinity of home plate. The walk rate is generally hovered around eight and a half percent for like fifty years. It's been very consistent. Then all of a sudden this year it's at nine point six percent, actually gone up at ten of the percentage. I wrote that story a couple of days ago. And look, if you've been watching, if you've been watching games, you may have noticed the strike zone is just simply smaller. I mean that's number one, especially at the top. The strike zone is lower than it was when it was called by human umpires. So that's certainly a factor. But the other factor is these robot umpires are unforgetting right human umpires and Eric, I mean, you could speak about this way better than I could. You could fool them, you could walk them off the plate half an inch of a pitcher hit his spot, generally we get the call. Obviously, pitch framing played a role, not anymore that one batters could challenge those pitches that are two tenths of an inch off the plate and second of ball umpires are sort of adapting to being challenge and being overturned and not giving you that little that just little smidge off the plate, and the result is we're looking at the highest the first time walks might be over nine percent since two thousand.

00:02:38
Speaker 4: It's called earning the strikes, Jared. You earn those strikes because you've thrown the ball very well, you throw it exactly where you won it, and then the umpire gives you a little bit. We weren't lying to the umpires.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: KYLEA.

00:02:51
Speaker 4: Goshioka is one of the best receivers in the game, and he's like, I'm not lying to him, but I'm not telling him one hundred percent the truth. Do you see this shifted, this shift going back? Do you see it going back or do you think this is our new going to be our new norm with because of the fact that there's robo umps and you're just never getting that extra and the fact that most pitchers don't really command the ball well, they just throw it super hard.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: It's a good question. I'll say this. We have seen historically that the walk rate at this time of the season, it does tend to go down by the end of the season. They are historically always more walks sort of in April early May than there are the rest of the year, probably because it's cold, because pitchers can't drip the ball for whatever reason. So it typically goes down by roughly half a percent. So let's say it follows that typical pattern and goes down by half a percent, we finish at nine point one percent. That still would be among the highest we've seen in like fifty years. So even if it does have the typical decline, we're still looking at really high numbers. Usually Baseball says that this is not a surprise that they saw similar rises in walks in triple A when they introduce the pitch clock, and basically, in their mind, if there's going to be a few more walks, that's a that's a worthwhile trade off one to get accurate calls. But also the strikeout rate is also slightly down. Not not giant numbers, right, We're not going back to you know what it was twenty thirty, forty fifty years ago. But smaller strike zone, more walks doesn't make sense. Slightly fewer strikeouts I think MLB's attitude is all right as long as the walks don't get totally out of control and will take a few more walks in exchange for a few fewer strikeouts and accurate calls. That that's at least that's what they're that's what they're what they're telling me.

00:04:49
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, first off, let's if you look at that chart. Can we just talk about how the pitchers were just awful in the nineteen fifties. I mean, that was a huge spike, So whatever happened in the fifties, they were terrible. But so let's talk about the walks because you eluded on the league saying talking about let's not let the walks get too high and get too crazy. Well, first off, I mean pitchers can just not worry about throwing so hard and just start throwing some more strikes would be a little bit of a solid to that. But my question is do you think that the zone will will expand a little bit because I think the ABS has been great, But with the walks going up, the dreaded pace of play time of games has also gone up. So that's the league hates that. We all know the league hates that. So, how do you see the league combating it? With abs happening, walks going up, game time is getting longer, even though views are good. It's at an all time high right now. Do you think the league's gonna do something to try to get the game time back down a little bit?

00:05:47
Speaker 3: Yeah? Look, so time of game for the average nine inning game right now is two hours forty one minutes. That's three minutes longer than last year. And it's the highest it's been since the pitch clock came into existence, only by a couple of minutes. Right it's two three four minutes here. But I do understand some worrying about the creep, right you say, oh, it's just two minutes here, and then it's two minutes next year, and then five years from now, suddenly games are taking two hours and fifty five minutes instead of too forty or too thirty five. So I think it is definitely a valid concern in the in the in ABS is absolutely a factor. In fact, there pretty big factor. I mean, more walks, walks take a lot of pitches. It just makes sense. There are other factors why game time is going up, though, Uh you know, one is pitchers are just using more of the pitch clock. Right, we're now been a pitchclock world for what is the fourth year. In our pitch clock world, pitchers just sort of know how to use it to their advantage. Also, the rise of teams calling pitches from the dugout has played a factor. We know that Miami Colorado and other teams sort of that are privately doing this Hendy use more of the pitch in between pitches. So there are other factors, and I do know MLB is monitoring it very quick, very closely. I would say that time of game to them is the one thing, one of the things that gets them really motivated. Right, a few more walks, if it's not really affecting time of game, they're probably not going to care because, like walks are base runners, MLB wants more base runners. More base runners, needs more stolen bases. It means more guys running, it means more action. That's not necessarily bad until time of game starts going out meaningfully and then suddenly they'll go, huh, maybe it's not worth betrayed off anymore. That becomes such an area of emphasis for them. So we'll see where things go over the next four months. The ABS strike zone is obviously changed from when they first started testing in the minors. They've tweaked it a lot. I think it's a reasonable assumption that at some point, or even going into net year, hey, let's see what went well what didn't. Are there tweaks to make, just like they did with the pitchclock after the first year, they made some tweaks. I don't know any panicking right now. And by the way, the thing with the forties and fifties is so bizarre. I asked so many people what happened in nineteen forty nine to fifty that the walk rate with like ten and a half percent, couldn't get a good answer. Probably has to do with World War two, guys coming back from World War Two. But that the whole other storyline we should be pursuing.

00:08:20
Speaker 4: I think Wit played in the fifties, that's how old he was.

00:08:24
Speaker 3: He was still in the bushes.

00:08:25
Speaker 4: But but you talked about four years into the Pitchclock era, we're nine years into the Milwaukee Brewers era. Can we just delete your Microsoft program that you have on your computer and just start getting it right that the Brewers are going to be good no matter what your computer system says.

00:08:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're incredible. They're really an unbelievable organization. Just defies everything that should be true about baseball, everything about their organizations that they should be terrible. They're in literally the smallest market in the major leagues rolls consistently, maybe not the very very bottom of baseball, but in the bottom third sometimes even like in that twenty five range. They don't spend very much money. You go up and down their roster, like I think even like reasonably big baseball fans haven't heard of like two thirds of the guys that are running out there every day. And yet we're sitting here. They made the playoffs seven in the last eight years, and they're going to be good again this year. Looks like, I know that division has been really crazy and they're like in fourth place or whatever, but they're on what they're nineteen and sixteen. Anyone good at math? What paces that? It's like eighty eight wins something like that. I don't know. I'm terrible in math. When you look it up, eight yeah, eighty eight wins. I'm good at math, got it exactly right, first try. Eighty eight wins. It's incredible and it's a testament to the organization obviously. But what I found so fast in what I wrote about why we're talking about this is all the smartest peaceful in baseball, all these brilliant minds that make these models in prediction, which by the way, are usually very accurate, things like Pakoda, things like Fangrass. This really surprising. I had never really looked into this that closely. They're generally really accurate. Something like twenty five teams of the thirty Fangrass is accurately predicted on average within like three to four wins a year over the last ten years. Like they are good, but not with the Brewers. They no one predicts the Brewers. Every model says they're not going to be good, and every year they're good. At some point, like you said, you just got to say, maybe there's something we're just not seeing.

00:10:36
Speaker 4: But let's let's make sure that everybody knows Pakoda and all those things. Three to four wins. You know the difference between three to four wins the Mets still have all of their coaches in their organization. That's one win they would have made the playoffs. Three to four wins, you're talking about a team that has been out of the playoff race for you know, a week at the end of the season and in it, you know, so I get it that the Brewers nobody's been able to predict it. But do you think this year because all the models have them going higher? I mean, I think the last four years the Brewers have been seventy seven or less wins predicted, and this year a lot of the models I think had them anywhere from eighty one to eighty three wins. Do you think now the computer's gonna be wrong and they're gonna below those wins?

00:11:25
Speaker 3: I think they're gonna be above. They're on pace for eighty eight right now, and they've got they're on pace for eighty eight with like so many of their big players injured right Chario just came back. They have been totally sneaked earlier this season. I think if you told them, like when they started having all these guys go down, their attitude is like, let's just try to tread water until they come back, and if we're sort of still hanging in there when those guys come back, we'll be fine. They did better than that. They're three games over five hundred, Like they're not running away with it again, they aren't fourth placed in that really bizarrely competitive and al central, but they did more than just tread water. And now those guys are starting to come back. And you know, from talking to a lot of people about this, and the Brewers just fascinate me for so many reasons, not least of all sort of the labor implications of all of this, which is obviously always front of mine for me at the Wall Street Journal. How are they doing this? And it's actually very interesting, right, how do these projections work? Right? They look at players, they predict how players are going to perform, and based on that, it spits out a number. And those models followed like a pretty usually a rule that's pretty hard and fast, which is players that have been good in the past will continue to be good and players that haven't been so good in the past will continue to be not so good. That's generally what happens in baseball. Of course, like aging curves happen, but generally you are with the back of your baseball card says you are. The Brewers have had this unbelievable track record at digging through the dumpster of other team's rosters, finding guys that never done anything in the major leagues, seeing something that apparently no one else sees, acquiring them for next to nothing in a trade that no one even notices when it happens, and suddenly that guy is awesome, Right, it was Quinn Priester, It's Kyle Harrison. It seems like every year they like find a guy or two that had never done anything previously that gets to Milwaukee and is suddenly really good. So of course production models, can't you acknowledge that they see Kyle Harre, they see Kyle Harrison, they see a guy that's been in the big leagues for three years as the era of like four and a half, they saw Quinn Preserve, a guy that in the era of like six up to the point got to Milwaukee. Suddenly they're really good, And that's a testament to their scouting. Like the things they are doing, they are clearly seeing things and players other teams are not, And like, if you're gonna spend as little as them, you kind of have to do that.

00:13:52
Speaker 4: I guess, Jared, you just you just complimented me more than you know the fact that the Brewers went into a dumpster to get me in a trade from Triple a with the Yankees, So I could not I could not appreciate that more saying that I was dumpster diver fodder.

00:14:09
Speaker 3: So hey, they wanted you on that team for a reason, and it worked pretty well for you guys that year, so they.

00:14:15
Speaker 4: Were weren't not great for me. I got another half a year in the big league, so that was great. But my question for you is the column that you just released this morning about somebody that we lost in Ted Turner, another baseball fixture. But can you talk to us about your favorite part of that column about Ted Turner, the owner of the Braves.

00:14:36
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, yes, So I h you know, like I guess, like many has always heard this story about Ted Turner managed the Braves. Once. Didn't really think much of it. It just sounded very weird. But in the way he give his death, I said, all right, this is a good time to sort of dive into this. How did Ted Turner end up managing the Brave? So over the last couple of days, I've been tracking down a you know, any of the players that were on that and not Braves lineup that day May eleventh, nineteen seventy seven. Thankfully, almost all of them are still alive, and all but one is still alive. They're all in their mid seventies or so. I was able to track a whole bunch of them down, and I didn't know how much I remember what they would have to say. This was fifty years ago. To a man, they all had the most unbelievable not only recollection of this, but just stories of this insane day where they show up at the ballpark and Ted Turner's wearing a brave jersey, has a big thing a chaw on his cheek, and he's wearing Cado Gaston's shoes. They didn't have any spikes of his own, and he says he's going to manage the team. And what was so crazy about all these conversations? And I always bring it back to Labor. I know it's crazy to bring this back to Labor is fifty years ago. I talked to all these guys about Ted Turner, former players, and to say that they loved Ted Turner is a complete understatement. And this left me absolutely shocked. This guy was the owner of the ball clay and if you talk to any players about owners now, first of all, they're not going to put their name behind and talking about any owners. Probably now, you do not hear this kind of sort of positive talk about an owner of a baseball team like you do. Ad these guys talking about Ted Turner, you know, guys telling me that Ted Turner put the down payment down on their first house because they couldn't afford it. I'll take care of it for you. I want you to live in Atlanta so you could be near of the team. Guys saying that like to it like the whole team. They worked at his TV stations in the offseason those days. Guys weren't making a lot of money. A lot of them needed extra money in the office. That come work in my DV station. I'll make sure that you have a year round income. He would play poker with them on the back of the plane, go out drinking with them after games. That's the owner of the team, right, So I expected when I talked to all these guys, they were all gonna like make fun of him for thinking they could manage the team. It was the opposite. A couple of guys telling me they wish he was allowed to manage the team for the full season because they think he would have done a good job. If the league had led him. I was just shocked to hear that sort of positive talk from former ballplayers about a major League Baseball owner. Kind of makes you wonder, like, man, things have changed a lot in the last fifty years in this game.

00:17:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was that was gonna be. My question to you was is what kind of field did you get from the guys, Because I mean, I know they It's one thing to like your owner and to be a fan of them, but to have that guy come in and step into a baseball specific role that he's probably not familiar with at all. They still felt like this was the guy that could come in and manage the team, that they were looking forward to him being the manager, even though it was just one game.

00:17:42
Speaker 3: I think they knew that, look, he had a lot to learn. This is the guy that knew really nothing about baseball. And look, for the most part, he was manager and name only. In many ways, he handed off a lot of the strategy to his coaches. At least he was smart enough to know what he didn't know, which is about baseball very much nothing. You know, one guy, Jerry Royster is the shortstop on that team, said, you know, he wanted to defeat he did this because he really wanted to know really what a manager did and what it actually took. The team was on a sixteen game losing streak at the time, and he just wanted to get a first hand look at all, Right, what is this job right? Because clearly the guy I have doing it is not working. We've lost sixteen games in a row. I mean that makes the Mets of April. That's you know, that makes him look good. Sixteen games and sixteen losses in a row. And he learned. He learned very quickly that, like there, it is a hard job and you do need knowledge. But Ted Turner was a pretty smart guy. After he was told by the National League you cannot manage right, the league kibosh at the next day, I said, you cannot do this the violation of some obscure role who knows He apparently from what I was told, asked the commissioner and the Nation League president. Can I go down to the minor leagues and manage for the whole year so I could learn the job and then come back next year? And they told him no. Was the idea that this guy who's like was at least theoretically willing to go like manage in double A for a whole year, just to like learn what it takes to manage. That's the guy with a lot of confidence. Maybe it takes that kind of confidence to become a billionaire, you know, I don't know. He obviously was pretty good at a lot of stuff. Considering at least are the business man, he was pretty good. Maybe you could have figured out managing too. Is there an owner?

00:19:26
Speaker 4: And I know you don't know all the owners, but do you feel like there's an owner that you see on the surface that could possibly do this. I'm not saying have success, because being a manager is a difficult thing, especially if you're the same one that's writing the checks to the players and you just had to tell a player you're not getting the same amount of money as you wanted. But is there an owner? Do you feel like there's an owner out there now that you've seen that would step in or that could or have the have the brass to be able to step in and be a manager?

00:19:57
Speaker 3: Zero percent? Literally you want to observe I knew that, zero hopes. Don't you know? You know these guys, you know some of them? Could any of these how many of these guys know anything about baseball. Not most of them know anything about baseball.

00:20:13
Speaker 4: The best one anything or care about the game. Are just big fans. That doesn't make you a good manager. That is that is totally different to be a good owner. Look, being a good owner.

00:20:26
Speaker 3: It's actually it's a very important job. Like you need you need a good owner to be a successful baseball team as any team of the bad owners fan based guite right. But here's how you be to be a big owner. You spend money, you hire smart people, and you do nothing but sign the checks. That's what you need to do. If you could do that, you're a good owner. There's plenty of owners that spend money but then to think they know more about baseball than they do and start meddling and meddling. And there's plenty of voters that won't spend. Only the good ones will spend. But let the baseball people make all the decisions. I think it. You know, these guys, if you're if you're a billionaire and you have enough money to buy a baseball team, I think you have a you know, I think you kind of think you know a lot about a lot of things because you've made billions of dollars. I understand if I had a billion dollars, I'd probably think I was pretty smart too.

00:21:16
Speaker 1: My guess is I mean and this isn't for manager, this is just for knowing the game. There's probably like five out of thirty owners that I feel like you can have.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: Like a really good ball talk with.

00:21:26
Speaker 1: I've had a couple. John Middleton knows ball. Philly's Milton you can you can get pretty nitty gritty wit nos. Jim Crane noseball Astros owner, you can get real nitty gritty with him too.

00:21:36
Speaker 2: Those are just two that come to mind.

00:21:38
Speaker 1: One that I've had a conversation with where I'm like, oh, this person could just get a mic for an hour and talk right. Maybe broadcast would be better for them than managed. Still a different story.

00:21:48
Speaker 3: Knows how knows how knows baseball?

00:21:51
Speaker 2: Yep, Okay, so we got we got a few guys.

00:21:53
Speaker 3: Could have been around the game. We've been around the game long enough. Guy like Hal he was basically born into this, right, you would think, right, just by Osmosis, who would pick up something over the last you know, fifty years.

00:22:04
Speaker 2: Right, you grow up with it.

00:22:05
Speaker 3: Maybe the new Padres guy is a baseball genius possible, Probably not, but you never know.

00:22:13
Speaker 2: He's been watching a lot of soccer for years. Baseball.

00:22:17
Speaker 3: We're not in on him. We'll find out.

00:22:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he might be a good owner. I'm not sure. Yeah, and yeah, I'm not sure about his ball knowledge yet. But TVD TBD I like this for a segment in the future, so we'll have to have jired back on which owner is actually no ball might be a perfect love, perfect love all Street Journal, Jired, great stuff, dude, awesome, awesome catching up with you.

00:22:39
Speaker 2: Have a great weekend. We'll catch you soon.

00:22:40
Speaker 3: Okay, thanks, Guy's good chatting with you.