Foolish Baseball patreon

Patreon Q&A - June 2024 - Collecting your questions!

🕑 Added 2024-06-03 02:50:11 +0000 UTC

Comments

Luke Nicholson

Bailey, you are tasked with making an Inside MLB broadcast (a la Inside The NBA) with the 4 most entertaining and synergistic personalities possible. They don't have to be former players. They don't even necessarily have to know much about baseball. You can pick nearly retired players & current managers etc. Share your vision for such a show, and when it would be best to air it.

Jon Wondrasek

Across all content you've made, what are some pieces that you look back on and just think "That's great stuff". Fpr example, I'm thinking anywhere from a tweet you're proud of, a joke in a video you think is super clever that might be overlooked, or just a piece of research for a video you're really happy with. ((Also pls do more Sporcle videos, either by yourself or with the JM Baseball crew. Love to watch you flex your superior ball knowledge)).

Eddy

at what point do you think prospect lines in the high majors stop mattering when their chances at the major league level, even in bench or mop up/low leverage roles, go significantly poorly. When do you think an organization has to cut bait on these prospects for others in the organization with a not as developed tool, but could benefit from facing better competition in AA or AAA rosters.

Bo Brown

A few days late and you may have already done your prep so I'll keep it quick. What is Foolish Bailey's Last Meal?

Sam Aronow

When should I start the timer for a speedrun by my local collegiate summer team?

dazogog

Hey Bailey, how many perfect games / no hitters would it take for you to put someone in the hall of fame if they had an otherwise mediocre or even poor pitching career.

Will Bergman

As someone in the online baseball content sphere, who is a baseball content creator/podcaster/etc that you enjoy watching?

G Vance

As the vladdy/bo era reaches an inflection point this trade deadline or maybe offseason I find the issue ultimately with this team and the 2016 team was a lack of reinforcements. The front office has failed to develop sufficient cheap players to come take the roles of veterans who have gotten too old or too expensive. Do you think this is a fundamental flaw in the blue jays approach to development or simply an issue with resource management when it comes to team building and what to do with the resources you have, i.e using a top #10 catching prospect and a good left fielder to go get an above average centre fielder who you play in left all the time. Let me know what you think and thanks for all the great content, also Free Palestine

Gaermph

Hi foolish! Red Sox fan here and this mediocre team is hard to root for sometimes, but man Tanner Houck has been special. You think this is a legit breakout or Andrew Bailey wizardry?

gene

If you were Mike Elias, how would you approach the coming trade deadline?

Louis

Royce Lewis Foolish 50 exclusion rationale and what would it take the rest of this year for a 2025 inclusion

Ezra Mendelson

Many years ago you made a baseball bits about which active player will break the career K record. Do you still think that record is ripe for the taking, and which other career records do you think active players have a shot at?

Alexander Abbott

Hey, Bailey! Thank you again for doing things like Q&A interactions. Other than baseball-related ones, do you play games? Video games, board games, pen-and-paper games, phone games, Wordle, whatever else. Would love to hear if you're into any neat stuff. Thanks again!

Francis Alipranti

Hey Bailey, loving the OOTP series. I was wondering since you make a lot of content about all teams, how do you remain a big fan of your braves while fairly neutral on other teams? I personally would like to see the Dodgers burn in baseball hell for all eternity. Do you secretly harbor distain for any teams or are you truly impartial?

Francis Alipranti

Profar >> Prime Barry

Jhk2

How much does good defense matter at first base? Like Christian Walker has all but locked up his gold glove but does that actually matter?

Ryan McGovern

Who do you think is the biggest Cooperstown snub for the following categories? Manager? GM? Owner? Umpire? Pioneer?

Michael White

My mom and I recently debated the Hall of Fame case for Johan Santana. My argument is that Johan Santana is his generation's version of Sandy Koufax and should be in on those grounds. Her argument is that Johan wasn't good enough for long enough and should be left out. Whose side do you agree with more?

ad23

is Julio Rodríguez just a slow starter or is him beating the ball into the ground a bad sign?

Alex

Do you think the Mets will make the Wild Card this year?

Theo

How do you approach the use of peripherals vs results in award voting (specifically Cy Young)? For example, would you vote for: 200 IP, 2.00 ERA, 5.00 FIP or 200 IP, 5.00 ERA, 2.00 FIP

Paul Bauer

If you could have any job for any team in baseball for a guarantee minimum of 5 years, what would it be and why? Nutritionist for the Cubs, first base coach in Atlanta, Manager in Milwaukee, GM in Colorado, etc.

Burt Oldirty

40 pitchers drafted by the Braves since 2005 have gone through their farm and made their MLB debut with the team. How many can you name? https://www.sporcle.com/games/cdxxi/braves-drafted-pitchers-to-debut-with-braves-since-2005 (Draft and innings pitched for Braves given)

Jonathan Morales

What will happen first: A.) White Sox’s make the playoffs B.) Dodgers do not make the playoffs

Michael Luker

If the Astros are still below .500 at the deadline, what do you do if you’re Dana Brown? Not sure what type of package you could get for Bregman/Pressly/Valdez at the moment.

Jason Timmerman

Bailey, what’s a good return for Pete Alonso and will the Mets be competitive at any point in his prime to make extending him worthwhile?

Will Sladich

Hi Bailey. If you could place a minor league team in any city and name it whatever you wanted to, what would you do?

Tristan Morgan

Hi Bailey, hope you are well. Do you think Shota Imagana and Javier Assad are the real deal for the Cubs? Obviously both have had great results so far, but I do worry a bit that most of their success comes from hitters being unfamiliar with their arsenal. Also any plans to bring back the livestreams for Wild Card games? I used to always join those and they were great.

Paul

I’m a Twins fan so I’m seeing some very streaky baseball this year (starting 7-13, then 12-0, then 0-7, then 9-3) and this has got me thinking: what is the most enjoyable distribution for wins and losses from a fan perspective? If your team was to win 90 games either way, would you rather have a few long streaks of wins and losses or keep them more spaced out with 1-2 wins in every series?

Alex Sutherland

Any thoughts on some of the Giants recent call-ups (Matos, Ramos, etc.)?

Fred Rio

Something I've been curious about recently that I'd love to hear your thoughts on - how much does the makeup of an offense & pitching staff influence park factors when calculating '+' stats? Feels especially relevant to me as a Mariners fan - on one hand, T-mobile park is one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the league, but could that be influenced by the M's often abysmal lineup, rather than vice versa? Like the dimensions and climate for sure make the park harder to score runs in, but the M's strikeout-proneness & their excellent pitching in general have gotta influence the ballparks pitcher-friendliness to some extent (and obviously Coors is a different case). How do we differentiate cases where the park itself clearly limits/boosts run production versus those that are heavily influence by the quality of the home team? My first thought was to just look at historical data with different rosters in the same ballpark, but this feels irrelevant in the context of calculating single season '+' stats.

genderdruid

In honor of pride month, what are your thoughts on this dataset I compiled of teams ranked from least to most homophobic (aka teams ranked by how much better they perform in June compared to their overall performance from 2000-2024) (made using data from stathead (using code foolish50 at checkout)) https://i.imgur.com/xSbH9if.png

Allen Gary

If you were the gm of the Toronto Blue Jays, how would you handle the expiring contracts of Bo and Vladdy?

Jason Coppe

Rangers vs Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series was a fairly unexpected matchup based on the regular season results. Two months into the 2024 season, what would your pick be for an “unexpected“ World Series matchup that would produce the most entertaining series?

Adam

What’s the future of the 2024 look like for the Cubs? Two further questions; 1. How do you view their farm/prospects? Heard people say it’s a lot of middle tier but no standouts, what about guys like Busch? 2. What is the deal with Morel right now? His statcast is almost bursting with red but his results aren’t good at all. Broadcast said he’s got the widest gap between xWOBA and results. Is it the launch angle?

Evan A

You win the chance to have a meal with one celebrity, one baseball player, and one political/historical figure. All can be alive or dead. Who do you choose?

Henry Goff

Hi Bailey, last month I read The Only Rule Is It Has to Work based on your recommendation. I highly enjoyed it as a fish-out-of-water story, but didn't really have any big baseball realizations from it like you said you did. Could you go further into what you took away from that book and how it made you think differently about baseball?

Alex Kenyon

Before the season began, the biggest question mark for the St. Louis Cardinals was pitching. Now, after being 60+ games in, do you find this to be true? Or is the injuries/ inconsistent offense a bigger concern?

Kamil Sudiyarov

If you had to build a team around a catcher, would you choose Adley, William or someone else?

Leo Thomas

At what level of competitive baseball, all the way from MLB to little league, could Adam Dunn at the peak of his defensive liability lock down shortstop? By lock down I mean he'd be considered good defensively compared to the average shortstop at this level - his coach would be justified in playing him there etc.

Dan Russell

When was the last time you went to a ball game and did you enjoy it?

G

What do you think James Wood’s ceiling is? What would be his ~80th percentile career outcome?

Chris Waind

Would prime Mariano Rivera rank in a Foolish 50 if he played today? How consistently good would a reliever have to be to be included, would it take multiple years of great production to make the list as relievers are subject to a lot more variability due to the relatively low number of innings pitched compared to a starter?

JP Stroman

Profar's first two months have geniunely baffled me.

JP Stroman

As you know, many traditional counting stats such as pitcher wins have lost much of their value in the sabermetric era in favor of other stats that tell us more about players' actual performance, such as FIP or ERA+. One such stat that has been reassessed is RBIs, as baseball analysts have rightly concluded that they are far too teammate-dependent to be of much value (you've gotta have teammates that get on base to drive them in). I was thinking the other day that runs scored is more or less the same, though I haven't read many pieces that argue that point. Runs scored seems like the inverse of RBIs... besides home runs, you need to have teammates that can drive you in in order to rack them up. Should we be reassessing that stat the way we did RBIs? Have we been doing that and I just missed it because I wasn't reading the right writers?

Luke Heberer

Is bad umpiring happening on purpose? What do you think of umpires wearing Apple Vision Pro or similar (AR headsets to accurately see the strike zone and see slow-motion POV replays) instead of giving way to robots (like Will Smith)?

Henson Burk-Fawcett

Which current players would be the best for a baseball space jam type of movie?

Will

Bill James recently tweeted that you could make an argument that the 2016 Cubs had the greatest starting rotation of all time, looking at total starts with a Game Score at least 6 points over expected. What do you think of this measure of pitching staff greatness? And how would you rank the 2016 Cubs in terms of 21st century pitching staffs?

Leo Barlach

Is WAR a good metric for evaluating catchers? I feel like if a position is so physically demanding that most players can't play four games in a row, it's not fair to compare it to a corner outfielder in production.

bobby witt jr truther

if baseball commissioner Rob Manfred was a data file format (think .jpeg, .txt, .stl… etc) what would he be and why? This assumes that he maintains his sentience when his life essence is converted into this data file format.

Paydon Tyrrell

What are a couple players you are surprised with wether good or bad so far this year

freddie martin

Seeing as expansion to 32 teams is likely coming sooner rather than later, would you rather see each league consisting of four divisions of four teams, or two divisions of eight? Almost everywhere I see people talking about expansion, I usually see the four division proposal, but I can't help but feel that four teams is just not enough. What are your thoughts kind Mr. Baseball?

JonJonH

Have you played Yerr Out (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963360/Yerr_Out/) and if so who are you prioritizing in the draft? Also you mentioned on a recent Wake n Jake that you watched a lot of Arthur as a kid. What are some of your other childhood classic TV shows?

Jimothy

How would the 2025 Rockies have to perform for you to say they’re on the right track towards contending again?

Noah Dorroh

Congrats Bailey, I have just named you the GM of the Houston Astros, how do you handle the Jose Abreu situation? Any other corresponding moves you’d make? #PayKyleTucker.

Nelson Chen

Cubs fan here. What the hell is happening right now? Where'd my team go?

Richard Rodriguez

I've heard announcers say that a manager getting ejected can fire up a team; is there any data that suggests that might be true?

Big Al

Excluding the veritably talented Mackenzie Gore, is the young pitching staff of the Nationals for real? Is two months long enough to make meaningful conclusions?

Ian Hembree

With pitcher injuries on the rise and an intriguing switch pitcher expected to be selected in this year’s mlb draft, how much more valuable is a good switch pitcher than a good traditional pitcher? Could switch pitching be treated like switch hitting in the future when it comes to young player development, or is this phenomenon too much of an anomaly and too difficult to be worthy of consideration for younger pitching prospects?

Andrew Pippin

If you had to manage a 'bad' team (losing record for the last 2-3 years) who would it be, and why?

Matthew Hearring

Bailey why don't we talk about the massive revenue disparities in MLB as opposed to focusing on the payroll disparities and comparisons of owners net worth? NFL, NHL, and NBA have caps and we never hear things like "Cheap billionaires won't spend! Bad!" Wouldn't understanding revenue disparities better help us understand payroll disparities as well?

L3on L1ur

does Bailey know hoop? In baseball you evaluate the potential of a player w/ underlying stats like LA/EV and even bat speed now, do you see this kind of analysis being done in basketball? Or any analogy of this in other sports?