Effectively Wild Episode 2382: The October Bandwagon

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2382: The October Bandwagon

Date: October 2, 2025
Host: Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer)
Guests: Hannah Keyser & Zach Kram (Bandwagon Substack)
Main Theme: Navigating the Wild Card chaos, playoff coverage strategies, mid-October baseball quirks, memorable managerial moments, and a look at the most intriguing October storylines.

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Episode Overview

In this lively episode, Ben Lindbergh convenes with Hannah Keyser and Zach Kram of Bandwagon Substack (standing in for the ailing Meg Rowley) for a wide-ranging, morning-time discussion on the MLB Wild Card round and broader October baseball themes. The trio explores the frenetic pace of playoff games, the unique strategic decisions emerging from this year’s bracket, nuanced debates over recent managerial moves, and baseball’s evolving postseason landscape. The conversation is peppered with reflections on friendship and collaborative baseball writing, the career afterlives of beloved stars, and the drama of manager/front office musical chairs.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bandwagon Substack, Collaboration, and Baseball Friendship

Timestamps: 01:00–04:00

• Hannah & Zach share their experience launching Bandwagon, describing it as “an extension of our friendship about baseball” and detailing how their mutual excitement for the game drives their writing.
• Fun anecdote: Hannah attended Zach’s wedding, meeting numerous Bandwagon-reading friends and family ([02:44]–[02:59]).
• Ben says: “It takes two of us to make up for Meg...” ([01:12]) as the hosts joke about their podcasting dynamic.

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2. How Writers/Editors Consume the Wild Card Frenzy

Timestamps: 04:25–08:30

• Hannah: “It feels like [a 3-game Wild Card series] is over before it started, but also it can change direction so quickly.” ([05:01])
• The challenge: covering fast series, balancing day games and family duties, and catching the chaotic late-night drama.
• Zach: Focuses on late games (Red Sox–Yankees, Dodgers–Reds), staying up for pivotal moments like Roki Sasaki’s big inning ([06:14]).
• The feeling of whiplash as major storylines abruptly end (i.e. the Reds’ quick elimination after weeks of hype).

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3. Playoff Structure, Division Races, & The Value of Making the Playoffs

Timestamps: 08:32–10:59

• Discussion of the Guardians and Tigers: After dramatic late-season surges and collapses, does it actually matter who wins the division vs. the Wild Card?
  • “That bothers me. Does that bother either of you?” (Hannah, [08:36])
• The group grapples with the meaning and impact of these rapid outcomes, and the perennial debate over whether playoff structures penalize or reward regular season excellence.

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4. Dodgers’ Bullpen, Roki Sasaki, and the Mid-Plate-Appearance Pitching Change (“Strategy”)

Timestamps: 10:17–15:34

• Roki Sasaki’s emergence as a Dodgers October bullpen weapon: “He could come back and immediately look that good in that role.” (Ben, [10:39])
• The “Strategy” move revisited:
  • Dave Roberts once again deploys a pitching change in mid-plate appearance (Alex Vesia for Emmett Sheehan at 1–2 count), a rare and nerd-beloved tactic first popularized by Joe Girardi (“strategy!”) ([11:18]–[14:02]).
  • Zach: “Alex Vessia struck out Will Benson, even though that was not a matchup that ever occurred on the field...” ([13:31])
  • The team dissects its statistical, psychological, and meta-legacy significance.

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5. The Playoff “Bye” and Teams Keeping Sharp During Off Days

Timestamps: 15:40–19:44

• Hannah’s reporting: Observations on different approaches to the playoff “bye”, including Phillies’ and Mariners’ creative scrimmages—and the iconic Ichiro Suzuki cameo in Seattle’s split-squad game ([16:32]).
  • Hannah: “If I could have traveled to any game, I think that’s the one I would have most wanted to see...” ([16:38])
• Debates over the efficacy and risk of these simulated efforts vs. resting banged-up players.

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6. Ichiro’s Baseball Afterlife & Baseball Elders Hanging Around

Timestamps: 19:44–24:18

• The unique charm and grace with which Ichiro remains embedded in the Mariners, contrasted with tricky retirements for players like Albert Pujols and Buster Posey ([21:37]).
• Discussion of the personal dynamics and impact on families as ex-players just can’t leave the game behind: “...they end up...and even if you’re a coach...you're traveling just as much as you were...” (Ben, [23:27]).

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7. The Manager Blender: Boone, Playoff Moves, and the Eternal Hot Seat

Timestamps: 26:16–37:18

• A Medley of Hot Topics:
  • Aaron Boone’s polarizing choice to bench lefties vs. Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet and the resulting fan/media blowback ([27:08]–[32:01]).
  • Is the manager to blame, or the front office for roster construction? Zach dissects the reasoning and fans’ reactions ([28:09]–[30:10]).
  • Hannah: “You can always sort of blame the manager because he did make the decision, but…it’s just impossible for people to separate in their head the process from the results.” ([33:59])
  • The pressure of postgame press conferences and whether managers like Boone are affected by knowing they’ll be second-guessed (“Is he practicing the answers in his head when [the game] is blowing up?” [36:11])

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8. Managers as Scapegoats, Managerial Job Security & Reputation

Timestamps: 38:02–43:24

• Ben: “Even if they win the World Series, it feels like most Yankees fans would think it was in spite of Boone, not because of him.” ([37:49])
• Increasingly short fuses for managers, and the difficulty of maintaining grace with fans even after years of success.
• “...you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. I think that applies to managers.” (Zach, [39:57])

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9. Pitch Velocity Spikes and the “Best Pitch Ever Thrown”

Timestamps: 43:43–51:39

• Mason Miller’s 104.5 mph postseason fastball: the hardest pitch ever tracked in October.
  • “This is arguably the best pitch ever thrown by a human being.” (Brett Anderson via Ben, [45:11])
• Discussion: Could a machine or model simulate “best pitch” criteria? (Hannah: “Could you get the Trajekt [machine]…to throw that exact pitch and see how hitters fare?” [45:47])
• Surge of extreme pitcher velocities in October—has adrenaline raised the baseline?
  • Search for postseason fastest-pitch records past and present ([49:33]).

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10. Open Playoff Field: No Consensus Favorites

Timestamps: 53:33–55:17

• Ben: “According to five different sources, there were five different favorites.” ([53:40])
  • Fangraphs: Mariners; Baseball Prospectus: Blue Jays; Neil Payne: Brewers; Polymarket: Dodgers; FanDuel: Phillies.
  • Consensus: This year feels particularly wide open—there’s a plausible path for many teams.

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11. Managerial Turnover, GM Changes & “Dream Jobs”

Timestamps: 55:17–75:42

• Roundup of the off-season’s huge managerial carousel:
  • Braves (parting with Snitker), Giants (Melvin out), Angels, Rangers (Bochy out), Rockies (GM fired; first ever potential outside search).
  • Analysis of Buster Posey’s decision not to renew Melvin and what it says about ex-players as execs ([57:44]–[60:02]).
  • Rockies search—some executives see this as a dream job: “...Smart executives are tantalized by it. They want to prove they can do it.” ([68:53])

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12. Red Sox’s Unlikely Postseason Run, Devers Trade, and Clubhouse Culture

Timestamps: 76:26–90:04

• Revisiting the controversy over trading Rafael Devers midseason and subsequent “nobody believed in us” rhetoric.
• Hannah: “I think this is a case where the end justifies the means…he was clearly making this decision based on some rationale that was only available to people within the organization...” ([84:28])
• The challenge of judging front-office moves: “We just, we never know anything... we’re constantly analyzing decisions based on what happened after the fact or trying to analyze them based on...what you knew going into the decision, but then never really knowing if we have all the factors.” (Ben, [86:09])

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13. Bandwagon Substack—Sales Pitch & October’s Best Bandwagon Candidates

Timestamps: 90:41–93:46

• Zach and Hannah plug Bandwagon as the “three times a week baseball newsletter from the perspective of trying to help you be a smart fan” ([90:49]).
• Best bandwagon team this October?
  • Hannah & Zach: Mariners.
  • Also praise for Phillies, Blue Jays for “cool environment,” and Shohei Ohtani’s upcoming postseason start.
  • “There are a lot of easy-to-root-for teams and narratives here.” (Ben, [92:41])

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14. Closing Notes: Prospect Debuts, Stat Oddities, and Sacramento’s A’s

Timestamps: 94:00–110:16

• Ben highlights top Guardians prospect Chase DeLauter making his MLB debut—in the playoffs, after months off ([94:00]).
• Listener data: 2025 among streakiest MLB seasons; “the most democratically distributed season” for stolen bases ([97:17]–[102:42]).
• The odd saga of the A’s in Sacramento and local fan perspectives (extended listener letter, [104:38])—reflections on civic pride, fan experience, and the complicated feelings about their adopted home.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It takes two of us to make up for Meg though, so you know.”
  —Zach Kreiser ([01:12])

• “If you’re Dave Roberts and you don’t know what to do with your bullpen, then you might as well do strategy.”
  —Ben Lindbergh ([13:25])

• “Ichiro playing in the Mariners split-squad game—if I could go to any game, that’s the one I most wanted to see.”
  —Hannah Keyser ([16:38])

• “Aaron Boone did not invent platooning. Like, we’re angry at Aaron Boone for platooning? That’s something previous Yankee managers are famous for.”
  —Ben ([27:54])

• “You can always sort of blame the manager because he did make the decision, but it’s so hard... you’re always going off results and not process.”
  —Hannah Keyser ([33:59])

• “It’s like you either die a hero, or you live long enough to become the villain. I think that applies to managers.”
  —Ben Lindbergh ([39:57])

• “This is arguably the best pitch ever thrown by a human being.”
  —Brett Anderson, quoted by Ben ([45:11])

• “According to five different sources, there were five different favorites.”
  —Ben ([53:40])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |--------------------------------------------|---------------| | Bandwagon Substack/Collaboration | 01:00–04:00 | | Wild Card Consumption/Writing Struggles | 04:25–08:30 | | Playoff Structure/Division Races | 08:32–10:59 | | Dodgers’ Bullpen/Strategy/“Mid-PA” Moves | 10:17–15:34 | | Playoff “Bye” Scrimmages/Ichiro | 15:40–19:44 | | Ichiro & Players Who Can't Leave Baseball | 19:44–24:18 | | Boone, Benching, Postgame Pressures | 26:16–37:18 | | Managers, Reputation, Escaping Villainy | 38:02–43:24 | | Mason Miller’s “Best Pitch” | 43:43–51:39 | | No Consensus Favorites for October | 53:33–55:17 | | Managerial/Front Office Turnover | 55:17–75:42 | | Red Sox, Devers Trade, Clubhouse Culture | 76:26–90:04 | | Bandwagon Substack & Best Team to Root For | 90:41–93:46 | | Closing Stats, Sacramento, Listener Notes | 94:00–110:16 |

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Final Thoughts

This episode captures the exhilarating confusion of early October baseball and the perpetual search for meaning and edge in the postseason. With warmth, humor, and analytical rigor, Ben Lindbergh, Hannah Keyser, and Zach Kram unpack everything from strategic outliers to fan experiences, while maintaining a sense of how the game’s culture and personalities shape its biggest moments. For those looking to understand why October baseball feels so different—and why the human element matters even amidst the numbers—this is essential listening.

Transcript

[A]

They say I waste my time tracking all these stat lines, but it's here I found my kind.

[B]

Hello and welcome to episode 2382 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer and not joined today by Meg Riley.

[C]

Of fangraphts, who has fallen ill or has gotten more ill since the last time we talked. You heard how she sounded then, since.

[B]

She has lost her voice and found a fever.

[C]

Terrible timing. Not that there's ever good timing to.

[B]

Be sick, but this week is among the worst ones to be a baseball editor and also be ill. But we will have her back as soon as she's able and maybe next time she will rejoin us and we'll.

[C]

Do some division series preview. But we have two able fil ins for Meg today, which I am also excited about.

[B]

Zach Kreiser and Hannah Kaiser of the Bandwagon Substack. Hello, Hannah and Zach.

[D]

Hello, hello, hello.

[B]

Great to have you both.

[A]

I feel fine and I hope I sound fine.

[D]

It takes two of us to make up for Meg though, so you know.

[C]

We need our full strength big shoes. It's true. And yeah, I hope that I did.

[B]

Not drive her deeper into the throes of illness by to be clear, I did not force her to podcast the other day. She podcasted Own Free Will.

[C]

But hopefully having to talk to me for all that time didn't make things worse. She hasn't blamed me yet at least.

[B]

But I'm happy to talk to both of you and I think this is the first time that you've been on Effectively Wild Together since one of the.

[C]

Year end podcasts in 2023, episode 2105.

[B]

And that was when you were former.

[C]

Colleagues and future colleagues, but not present colleagues I believe, because that was before you launched your substack. So how has the bandwag been going?

[B]

It's been going good for me as a satisfied subscriber, but for you too.

[A]

That's funny because I don't remember there being a sort of in between time of us working together because I think we continued. It doesn't feel that different in terms of our relationship to one another because it's bandwagon is so much an extension of our friendship about baseball, which is just we were already sending each other things, telling each other ideas and when we were writing for other places and still when we write for other places, like bigger picture stuff where we're always talking to each other about it. So I always say about Bandwagon that, like, I simply couldn't do it if I wasn't doing it with Zach because it is so much an extension of the way that we are constantly conversing about baseball. Naturally.

[D]

Yeah. I had to introduce Hannah to a lot of people because I got married this summer and she was in the wedding and congrats. Thank you. I kept introducing her, and someone was eventually just like, isn't she just your business partner?

[A]

I was like, I guess so.

[D]

Yes. That's an easier way to say that.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. I felt welcomed by Zach's friends and family at the wedding because he has such supportive friends and family who are all. Well, not. Maybe not all, but predominantly Bandwagon readers subscribers. They know the bandwagon, and so they felt like they knew me. And I was like, oh, hi. Yes, You. You hear from me three times a week.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you feel about.

[C]

The concept of a work spouse or whether that would be a loaded term.

[B]

At an actual wedding, but I guess that's.

[C]

That's something you could have gone with as well.

[B]

But it's been great as a reader and I'm gl that you got back together again in a professional capacity and.

[C]

Have entertained us all. And as we were talking about before we started recording, this is a tough time to do a three times a.

[B]

Week podcast or newsletter for that matter, because there's just so much baseball happening.

[C]

That whenever you dip in, you will inevitably be out of date by the time people listen to you or read you. So we're going to do our best.

[B]

To steer clear of immediate obsolete status on this episode. We'll see how we do, because we're recording on Thursday morning.

[C]

This might be the brightest and earliest effectively Wild has ever been recorded.

[B]

I don't know. I'm not much of a morning person.

[C]

I'm forced to be by being a dad, but I'm not really a morning podcast person, especially because Meg is not on Eastern time, but we are all on Eastern time.

[B]

And so we took advantage of that, and we'll actually post this podcast at a normal hour.

[C]

But there are three games on this day and three series still unresolved. So we'll do a little bit of talk of what has happened so far.

[B]

And how have you two navigated these first two days of the playoffs with four games each?

[C]

Are you just sort of vegging out.

[B]

In front of the screen for 12 continuous hours at least as work and life allows?

[C]

Or how do you watch these games? How do you consume this fire hose.

[A]

Of baseball as Work and life allows. Certainly it's interesting. I found the three game wildcard. It's even though during the regular season we cover many three game series, but when it comes to the postseason, I always found the three game wildcard series to be really tricky to cover in person too. When I was at Yahoo. And actually at these games because of the way that it feels like it's over before it started, but also it can change direction so quickly. So somebody wins game one and you're like, oh my gosh, the other team, they're on the ropes, they're on the brink of elimination. Like, you know, is this a Yankee season, a disaster? And then they win the next game and you're like, never mind, it's all evened up. It can be very hard on the ground to write about the three game wild card series as well because whatever trend you feel like you noticed in game one, if you need even sort of like one more data point for that, it could be all. The whole series could be over the next day and it could be rendered in. Rendered moot. So we're missing. I'm realizing that it really behooves you to have a West coast correspondent because I'm watching as much of these games as I can, which means that I am predominantly watching the less interesting matchups during the day. Then I am having to do bedtime and dinner for the baby at some point during the Yankees Red Sox and then I am falling asleep at some point during the Dodgers games at night.

[D]

I know I'm doing the opposite. So this kind of works because I have a day job and so I do not see much of the Guardian series or the Cubs Padres series. But I, I've been intently watching the Red Sox, Yankees and the, the Dodgers Reds. So I, I was up all the way through the end with the Roki Sasaki inning last night. We can. Yes, I imagine we'll talk about the strategy at some point.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

So I've been kind of doing the opposite. I watched. But the three game series is weird because I watched game one of the Yankee series with a friend who's a really big Yankees fan and I left that and it was like, well, their season's over or like, like that was the feeling in the room.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And then, you know, it did all change the next day pretty much with all this for all the same reasons that didn't work Monday or the. In game one, it worked the next day.

[A]

So I was doing, I do some SNY and I was doing SNY during game One of the Yankees game. And I realized, like, right before we went on there, I was like, whoa, no one is going to be watching us, huh? And they were like, no, definitely not. So we had a. We had a monitor in the studio, we were turning on the Yankees game during commercial breaks and had the producers in our ears giving us updates while we were talking. So that has been a fantastic series. And it's only two games, but fantastic.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's some of these series, if they end quickly, then I feel almost silly for the big buildup to that.

[B]

It's just like the NL Wild card race, so consequential. We're tracking this for weeks and weeks and weeks and will it be the Mets? Will it be the Reds? Will it be the Diamondbacks? And then the Reds just managed to pull it out on the last day of the season and they're already gone. That's. That's the end. That's the resolution of that whole race. You never know if it would have happened the same way if one of.

[C]

Those other teams had won. But the Dodgers, for all the fretting about their bullpen, which, you know, that part at least, has continued to look vulnerable in the first two games. But they very quickly dispatched Cincinnati.

[B]

And we would have liked to talk about the Reds. I know we have a long running bit on this podcast about not talking about the Reds. We were, we were willing. In fact, we sort of sang their.

[C]

Praises last time we were talking about.

[B]

Oh, you wouldn't want to face the Reds. Look at this rotation. Oh, Hunter Green.

[C]

Oh boy.

[B]

This could be possible upset. And maybe the Dodgers would have rather face the.

[C]

And now it's over and it wasn't.

[B]

Particularly close or contentious. So yeah, they took care of business quickly.

[A]

I feel that way a little bit though, about the Guardians Tigers series, where it was like this huge Tigers collapse and the Guardians surge and the result is they're just playing each other in the same series. I understand that the Guardians are at home, but I tend not to get too fussed about are the division winners getting enough of an advantage in a wild card world, but that has provided some fodder for the like maybe there should be. Well, really there should be two wildcards. Like the idea that the Tigers got overtaken by the Guardians, but it sort of doesn't matter. That bothers me. Does that bother either of you?

[C]

Yes, except while it might matter, I guess.

[B]

Well, it matters that the Guardians made the playoffs.

[C]

And really the outcome of this day, I think, determines how much it matters.

[B]

Almost in retrospect right?

[A]

Yeah. I've talked about the thing that we're not going to be able to know, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

If the Guardians lose, then the fact that they came back to win the.

[C]

Division and make the playoffs is just kind of a it's a fun fact.

[B]

That they had the biggest comeback ever, but ultimately doesn't amount to that much.

[C]

And then if the Tigers just win anyway, it will be as if they had won the division. So I think that is still sort of to be decided just how much, But I understand what you mean that it felt like last week we were.

[B]

Watching a playoff matchup more or less.

[C]

Between these two teams and then the outcome is that we get to watch another one exactly one week later. But it's fun and it's kind of like who will hit worse in this.

[B]

Series and that will ultimately determine who wins it. But by the time people are hearing this, that will be decided or about to be in that Dodgers series. So we were deprived of a Shohei.

[C]

Ohtani pitching appearance in this series, though we've got one coming up on Saturday with Ohtani versus Christopher Sanchez, which is quite a way to kick off that nlds.

[B]

But we got some other impressive pitching performances.

[C]

We got some impressive Ohtani offensive fireworks. And yes, we got Roki Sasaki continuing to look like the answer for the.

[B]

Dodgers late in the game, which is sort of surprising that he could come back and immediately look that good in that role.

[C]

And if the Dodgers do just sail to a repeat and defend their titles successfully and everyone is fretting about whether they have broken baseball, then I guess that will be part of the pile.

[B]

Of ammunition that actually getting Roki Sasaki.

[C]

Did matter in the end because he turned into an October bullpen weapon. But you alluded to it, Zach. The big news here, bearing the lead at least for effectively wild, is that Dave Roberts did use quote unquote strategy again. This is of course the decade old.

[B]

Talking point on this podcast of mid plate appearance pitching changes, bringing in someone to replace someone else in the middle of a plate appearance, specifically in this.

[C]

Kind of context where Alex Vessia came in to replace Emmett sheehan with a 12 count and that's when it really does count, I think.

[B]

Because if someone is just losing it.

[C]

And goes down 30 or something and you just have to get him out of there before something worse happens, I don't know if that's quite strategy and it's not strategy if someone gets hurt.

[B]

In the middle of a plate appearance and you it has to be a tactical move to try to flummox the batter. And Dave Roberts is really the one guy, since we've been talking about this.

[C]

Ad nauseam, who has actually done it in a big league game, because he did this last July. And we talked about it on episode 2187.

[B]

This was sort of originated by Joe Girardi 10 years ago now, where he did it in 2015 with Dylan Batancis.

[C]

And then famously, in effectively wild lore, just justified it by saying strategy and refused to explain anymore about why he had done that.

[B]

But I subsequently wrote about it and.

[C]

Dug into it, and it actually happens.

[B]

Quite often in college baseball. And it is very much within the rules, which surprises some people every time they see it.

[C]

They just don't know that you can do this, especially in a three batter minimum era.

[B]

I think people are always sort of surprised.

[C]

Wait, you can make a mid plate appearance pitching change? Yeah, you can. And Dave Roberts did it again here with Vessia, and I guess it, it worked.

[B]

Kind of.

[C]

I think it worked. He got the one pitch strikeout and.

[B]

Actually there was a, a pinch hitting appearance here.

[C]

Right. So there was a counter to the strategy where a pinch hitter came in.

[B]

But I don't think that invalidates the.

[C]

Utility of strategy because then you've got someone who's cold and you know there's a pinch hitter penalty and there might be a, a mid plate appearance pinch hitter penalty that's even worse than the regular one.

[B]

Who knows? So I think this was another proof of concept. And if you're Dave Roberts and you don't know what to do with your.

[C]

Bullpen, then you might as well do strategy. So I'm glad you invoked that. Zach, did you enjoy seeing this happen?

[D]

Yeah, I think my favorite thing about this, which I feel like the effectively wild audience is like the audience that saw this anyway, but it wound up that Alex Veccia struck out Will Benson, even though that was not a matchup that ever occurred on the field, but in the stats that Alex Vessi has struck out Will Benson. So I don't know how often that has happened in major league history. I'm sure it's happened mostly because of injuries, but we can add it to the strategy logbook now that it occurred.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then I guess I don't know.

[C]

Whether strategy is just judged, whether the success of strategy is judged by what happens in that plate appearance and that plate appearance alone, because it was partially.

[B]

I guess because Shein had gotten into.

[C]

Trouble in that inning. So if you want to say it.

[B]

Was sort of a desperation thing I.

[C]

Guess you could have because the. The bases were loaded. Right. I forget exactly the. The play by play, but it was like Gavin Lux had singled, right. And then Austin Hayes walked and then Sal Stewart singled. So it was basically.

[B]

And then there was a wild pitch, I think. Cause Lux had scored. Yeah.

[C]

Then there was a wild pitch. Oh, and then Ellie walked too. And then there was a sac fly. So Sheehan was looking shaky, but he did get up 1, 2 in that plate appearance. Vessia came in, struck out Benson, and then after that, Matt McClain walked.

[B]

So it was a little shaky.

[C]

But then TJ Friedel struck out and Vessia got out of it without any further damage done. So Dave Roberts seems to be the guy who will actually implement strategy in the majors these days, and I appreciate that for him, but probably easier if he can just bring in Roki and just blow everyone away. And I will be curious to see how he handles that. And also Kershaw, potential Kershaw appearances. And just sort of the. The bullpen hierarchy there because the high leverage arms have been among the worst and they've kind of had to rebuild that on the fly.

[B]

So that'll.

[C]

That'll obviously be an ongoing storyline in the nlds, but we will see.

[B]

Hannah, one thing I wanted to ask you.

[C]

So as we've been having our hands full with baseball here and trying to decide how to apportion our time, there are some teams that are not playing this week that will be playing as of this weekend. And of course, there's been so much discussion of the buy and whether it's good or bad and whether it makes you rusty.

[B]

And you wrote about this a little bit for the ringer last year when.

[C]

You wrote about the Phillies and how they had a buy and how they were handling that.

[B]

And that seemed to be something that you were kind of fascinated by, just like what teams are doing or doing.

[C]

Differently to stay prepared but not tire themselves out.

[B]

And we've seen some of that this week too, where the Phillies had a.

[C]

Split squad scrimmage which was well attended. I mean, they charged admission. They had fans come. There were like 30,000 plus people there, I think.

[B]

Right. And. And then the Mariners also did this with Ichiro.

[A]

With Ichiro.

[B]

I.

[A]

That's. I just. I think that Ichiro playing in the split squad Mariners game, like, if I was on staff somewhere and could travel to any game, I think that's the one I would have most wanted to see was the Mariners split squad game with Ichiro playing in the outfield. Yes, we're actually going to have later this week, I guess, tomorrow, because it's the only day left in this week. Dan McQuaid of Defector was at the Phillies scrimmage game and he asked me if he could write something, a little something for bandwagon about the experience. And Dan has even better Philly Bonafides than I do, so I said, absolutely. And he actually just sent it to me. So as soon as we're done, I'm excited to read it. Yeah, I'm really interested in this because I'm always interested in rule changes that introduce uncertainty. We're going to get a big one next year that allows teams to kind of take their approach in different directions. And then because by virtue of teams going in different directions, you get different results. And then at what point do other teams think that the results everyone's getting are sort of significant enough to try to conform to whatever's worked best versus just being sort of small sample size noise? So I've been really interested, like, since we got the buy system, in how different teams would approach it, because you kind of only get one crack at it each year, and you only get one crack in it if you were good enough to get the buy. Like, you get the buy, you get to be like, all right, what do we think is the best way to approach this week? And then whatever happens, happens. And then you've got to wait 12 months, win your division again, to be like, we actually don't like what we did last year. Let's try something different this year. Or do you run it back and say, you know, that was only a Data set of 1. We still think that what we did last year was the right way to do it. So I've just been really interested in kind of in how teams. Yeah, I really enjoyed last year talking to the Phillies about that. Somebody texted me about the fact that the Phillies went so sort of realistic with this inter squad game that they even had the Yoan Duran entrance video playing. And they thought that that was kind of eyewash. That was like a bridge too far in approximating a real stressful game. And I was like, if you're going to approximate it, you got to approximate it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So I should have gone. I thought about it. I told them I was going to come. And then they didn't have that much media availability. So I didn't bother going.

[B]

There's some risk to it, especially just the more lifelike you make it, because someone could get hurt, someone could pull a muscle or something. And then maybe that backfires But I. I do understand why there might be some use in sort of staying ready like that. It's not all teams are handling it the same way. As you said, it doesn't seem like.

[C]

Every team, you know, they're doing workouts or they're practicing, or you always have some traject arc or some fantas fancy pitching machine you could train on. But yeah, how do you navigate that.

[B]

Injury risk or just everyone's a bit banged up at this time of year.

[C]

And so actually just not playing might.

[B]

Be beneficial in some cases. It is really interesting and like you said, there's no way to know whether.

[C]

You did it right.

[B]

It's almost.

[C]

It's like analyzing elections or something after the fact, where we know what happened, but you only get one every however many years.

[B]

And how many conclusions can you draw from that, really?

[C]

Ichiro being in right field just was charming regardless.

[B]

And so I love the fact that he's having this baseball afterlife where he just.

[C]

Just hangs around. You know, he's just there, he's in.

[B]

Uniform, he'll just show up at like.

[C]

A girls high school game or something in Japan.

[B]

Like he. He'll just be there.

[C]

He loves the game, he loves being around it.

[B]

And everyone loves having him around too, which is the other thing, because sometimes you get a situation where someone just like awkwardly won't leave and it's like your time is over. Like, make room for the next generation.

[C]

I think I've mentioned this before, but.

[B]

I. I kind of did this after I graduated from grammar school, as I.

[C]

Call it, or elementary school, as many people would, or maybe even middle school.

[B]

But I went to the same school.

[C]

From like nursery to eighth grade.

[B]

And so I kind of had trouble adjusting because I'd been there for so long and had been with the same classmates forever. And then all of a sudden I went to high school and it was just a different place, but it was only a few blocks away. And so while I was still sort of psychologically transitioning to this new school, I would just go back to my.

[C]

Grammar school after school.

[B]

And obviously none of my friends were.

[C]

There, but my teachers were, including some.

[B]

Teachers I was pretty close to. And I would just like show up and lounge around. And I don't know whether they thought this was weird or not.

[C]

They didn't say so they didn't like.

[B]

Push me out of the nest, but I probably needed to be pushed at a. At a certain point. But it's not like that with Ichiro. It's not like, oh, poor Ichiro, like.

[C]

He can't let go of his former glory.

[B]

He can't move into his post baseball life.

[C]

It's just like, Ichiro's here.

[B]

This is so awesome. And, you know, and also, he, like, looks the same because he just keeps himself so fit that he just fills out the uniform the same way that he always did. And everyone just seems charmed and delighted by having him here. So there's none of that.

[A]

He has a really charming relationship with Julio. I mean, he's around, like, he's. He's around baseball, but he's specifically around the Mariners. He's in spring training a lot. I mean, it's. I think that is part of what makes it really charming is just the relationship he has with one particular fan base, one particular team, and then even like one particular sort of superstar. This idea that, like, it's like if you went back to your elementary school, but you had like a little brother who was there and, like, everyone was like, that's so sweet. You, like, you're the, like, cool older brother hanging out with.

[B]

Yeah. Not sure your younger brother would like that. That's.

[A]

Well, that's true.

[B]

I'm an only child. But you.

[C]

You have an actual younger brother, so you might know.

[D]

But yeah, I feel like they would. Not like that.

[A]

But maybe not. Maybe. Maybe Julio's like, hey, man, this is my outfield now.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[D]

The whole time we're talking about this, I just thought about how it feels like one of the awkward ones was Albert Pujols, where it's like, hey, man, why don't you just retire with the Angels? And obviously that took a turn afterward for the positive. But I don't know, if you do it long enough, they might make you the principal, I guess, in this analogy, since they want to hire him to be the manager, apparently, I mean, you know, so there might be benefits to just showing your dedication.

[B]

It's possible.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

No, how can. How can anyone resent the presence of Ichiro?

[C]

I think this is a unique case where no one's like, why won't you leave?

[B]

It's time to move on already.

[C]

And plus, he's probably imparting wisdom.

[A]

And, you know, I do wonder, like, is his wife, like, let's retire?

[C]

Yeah, I do.

[A]

I always wonder. I wonder that about sort of all baseball players who fail retirement, who their retirement rebounds and back at them into baseball.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It was like, well, you weren't having fun at home. That sounds so nice to be at home.

[B]

Yeah. It's true. Yeah. This. That life can be tough on romantic.

[C]

Relationships for any number of reasons.

[B]

But probably the.

[C]

The primary reason is that you're just away so often. And I imagine that probably a lot of baseball guys get through that by.

[B]

Promising basically, like, you know, I'll be done. I'll be basically retired by the time I'm 40 or whatever. And then we'll be together forever, and we'll be set for life, and we won't have to do anything.

[C]

But then a quite high percentage of them can't let go of the game. And so they end up. And even if you're a coach or.

[B]

Whatever, you're doing the same thing thing, like, you're traveling just as much as.

[C]

You were and maybe even in less.

[B]

Glamorous conditions with a lower salary, or.

[C]

If you go into a front office role and, you know, become a GM or something, then you're probably even busier than you were before. So, yeah, I imagine there's some baseball spouses who are like, I thought that I just had to stick it out until this time. But no, it turns out this will actually never end.

[A]

We're so far afield of the playoff right now. But I feel that way so strongly about Buster Posey, like, right before he took 2020 off to be with.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

His kids. He's got twins. He's got four kids. They all have, like, between them, they have, like, three names. Their names are all very similar, which is a strange choice as a parent because I find it hard to, like, not say my cat's name sometimes when calling my son. And then I thought that. I thought that was an indication of sort of desire to, you know, treat baseball like the job that it is and then move on from it so quickly. And then since he's gotten into. I do kind of want to talk about the, like, Buster Posey, man, as this is. He's now we should call him Gerald now. That's his real name. Because as a GM or a pobo. Is he a GM or a pobo?

[C]

Do we know he's a pobo? Oh, well, he's Buster Pobo.

[A]

Buster, right. He Buster. To Posey, he is so much less cute and cuddly. Like, did you see his Bruce Bochy comments? He was kind of like, kick Roxel, man. We don't need that background Harsher and text next version.

[B]

In reality, yeah, as a manager, he, you know, extended an invite in some capacity.

[C]

Right. He wasn't like, no, we want no part of him anymore. But, you know, he did kind of throw some cold water on the idea because a lot of People were speculating, oh, Buster will get his own, his old skipper back.

[A]

But I just think he's, he's come off as so dispassionate and frequently to the, to the Giants benefit, although not enough this year. But I just like the Ben, you've written about the retrend of players becoming front office executives. And I think people expect them to kind of be like more touchy feely, more less analytical. And maybe they're less analytical. But like between him and Chris Young Cy in Texas, Craig Breslow and Craig Breslow, they're very competitive. They're very like ruthless in their approach.

[C]

And they do just sort of speak.

[B]

Like most other baseball front office executives speak, which is sort of surprising.

[C]

Yeah, I do want to talk about some of the turnover or non turnover that we've seen this week. I guess maybe the last playoff thing I wanted to bring up. Zach, you were watching Game 1, Yankees Red Sox, you said, and the vibes were bad among Yankees fans, as they often are, frankly, and especially in this game. I think people were ready to come for Aaron Boone and run him out of town on a rail and tar and feather him. The pitchforks were out because specifically, I guess the sin in this game was that he benched a bunch of lefties and Garrett Crochet was pitching for the Red Sox, who is not just a normal lefty, but among the best and just absolutely eats lefties alive.

[B]

And so Aaron Boone decided to sit.

[C]

Some of his lefties and that was kind of controversial at the time because some of those hitters are the best hitters on the team. And then maybe became more controversial in.

[B]

Retrospect because those guys were in the lineup in game two and mostly contributed in pretty important ways. And on the one hand, I think this is sort of overblown in the way that a lot of criticism of Aaron Boon seems to be to me in that it's like the man didn't invent platooning. Like, we're, we're angry at Aaron Boone for platooning. Now that's something that previous legendary Yankees managers are famous for. Is this something that you blame him for? Like, do you think he specifically made mistakes there? It was kind of like the, oh, analytics run amok.

[C]

Like we're benching our good players. As if analytics, which is always a very nebulous term, is just like platoon.

[B]

Splits, I guess, is analytics now. And if it's on anyone, like is it on Aaron Boone or is it on Cashman?

[C]

And you know, Yankees fans, to be clear, are, are quite Happy to come for Cashman as well. But like, if they just don't have great right handed options, then I guess the question is, do you go with your left handed options even if they're the better players, even if they are going to be wor against Garrett Crochet? And then like, whose fault is it? Is it Boone's fault for not having better options available?

[D]

Yeah, I, I thought it was an interesting. I kind of do blame someone. I don't know if I blame Aaron Boone or the front office. I, I think it was too much. Right. I think if you look at this from an analytics lens, if we want to talk about it that way, the analytics would also say that like Ahmed Rosario's six hits against Garrett Crochet might not be the leading. Like, might not overwhelm the fact that he is just overall a worse player than Jazz Chisum and pretty much every other possible way. And in this key playoff game, do you want to, you know, risk that in all the ways? Like, I mean I thought even the play that Jazz Chisholm made against Masa Taki Yoshida in game two was like a carbon copy of the play that Yoshida basically won the game on in game one. And it's, it's sort of tough to. I don't know, I thought it was a little too much. If you want to sit Ben Rice for Goldschmidt, that kind of makes sense to me for a little bit. The infield triumvirate of Ahmed Rosario, Jose Caballero and Anthony Volpe. Obviously Volpe had a home run, so.

[C]

What do I know? But both of these games, where did that come from?

[D]

It leaves something to be desired even when you're just looking at it that way. And it became apparent somewhere in the middle of the game that like, oh, you might not ever get to a right hander. You know, Crochet is pitching so well that you're just not going to get to a right handed pitcher. I think at that point they had to. Perhaps it might have been better if Aaron Boone moved better. Maybe it moved faster, maybe it doesn't make any difference. But I think particularly bringing in Jazz Chisholm as a defensive replacement when his, I think his spot in the order was eight batters away. That was the thing where I was like, I don't know if he gets what he's trying to do here.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I think that substitution maybe bothered me more than not starting Jazz in the.

[B]

First place because yeah, like Jazz is a better player than Rosario, but, but against lefties not necessarily that much. Yeah, maybe not at all. I mean you don't even have to look at the, the head to head versus crochet. A tiny sample. You could look at a bigger sample and like Rosario, career versus lefties, has an.800 OPS. He's actually a pretty good player against lefties and, and jazz career. 665 ops.

[C]

And you know, we know platoon splits need to be regressed and all that, but not tiny samples.

[B]

So I think you could make the.

[C]

Case that it actually was your better lineup with Goldschmidt, with Rosario, etc. But then, yeah, when he put Chisholm in for defense, that was after the seventh and took out Rosario and that gives you another left handed batter with Chapman looming. And so then Chisholm ends up facing Chapman with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth and, and flies out as the Yankees squandered that opportunity there. So it was almost like, like if.

[B]

He had decided on that course, he.

[C]

Should have stuck to his guns all the way. Because if you're gonna not start Jazz because you think he can't handle lefties as well, you kind of have to forecast that he might end up in a big spot against an equally difficult lefty in an even higher leverage moment. But, but yeah, you could, you could fault.

[B]

You know, they had the same issue.

[C]

Last year, really, where in the World Series it's like Jose Trevino is up in a big spot because they just didn't really have a good bench option from the right side. And you know, a lot of teams.

[B]

Have weak benches these days and bullpens are so big and everything.

[C]

But you could fault the Yankees because they are the Yankees and they don't have to scrimp and save and cut corners. And so if they don't have a great bench option and you know, you.

[B]

Could say maybe they should have carried Austin Slater on the roster.

[C]

They have like Jason Dominguez in there and JC Escara and these guys who may not played or kind of like emergency options. And so, so maybe it's, it's helpful to have Slater there. I do think Boone gets more abuse.

[B]

Than he deserves given just the Yankees general success against him.

[C]

There is this prevailing idea that even if they're pretty good under Boone, they'll never be good enough. They'll never go all the way because he will inevitably make some massive mistake. And you know, sometimes he does. The Nestor Cortez decision still flummoxes me from last year, but it's weird because.

[B]

And you know, he takes all this abuse Also for pulling Max Freed when.

[C]

He did, which seemed to me to be kind of a standard decision.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, that seemed very down the line of what most managers would do in that situation. And Freed's not. Has never been a complete game style workhorse. He's. He's not a huge guy. Like, no one has ever thought, oh.

[C]

Max Freed should go eight here.

[B]

Yeah, he wasn't even really dominant in that game.

[C]

He was in trouble.

[B]

And yeah, he'd lost velocity, too.

[C]

Like, he was starting to lose speed. And the Red Sox had a bunch.

[B]

Of righties and switch hitters coming up. Like, that was.

[C]

That was an obvious push button move. And obviously it's going to look bad when you bring in Weaver and then immediately he walks Satan Rafaela, which isn't.

[B]

That easy to do after he falls behind Owen 2 and then there's a.

[C]

Double and then there's a single and then you're, you know, everything is falling off the rails.

[B]

And so that's. The manager's always going to get. Get blamed for that by some contingent of the fan base, I guess. And the New York Post backpage. Just because when you have a starter.

[C]

Who hasn't allowed runs and then your relievers do. Even if Weaver was like the hero, the revelation of last year's postseason.

[B]

So that was kind of unsurprising, but. But a cheap shot.

[C]

You could kind of default him for some other decisions. But as usual with Boone, I, I think it tends to be a bit blown out of proportion.

[A]

I actually wrote about this a little bit in the bandwagon that we, that we just had published about the idea of, like, you can always sort of blame the manager because he did make the decision, but it's so hard. I sort of wrote about this idea like, we don't have expected stats for managers. So you're always just like, you're always, you're always going off results and not process. And we're obviously talking about the process now, but I think it's just impossible for people to separate in their head the process from the results. And it's impossible for them to see. I don't know. It feels like this whole season and we have what, eight managerial openings. So now this off season is a little bit of a referendum on, like, do managers matter at all? Like, there was the Dave Martinez quotes and the Nationals. Like, it's like, are they making any difference? Because it feels like they're making no difference on the, like, grand scheme of things. But then on these individual games, we're so inclined to lay Perhaps an undue amount of blame at their feet, because you can see how the individual decisions played out in a way that, like, gets kind of erased by the big picture. And, like, it obviously seems like it comes down to the players and the roster construction when you're looking at, like, a wide lens view. So I'm just kind of interested. I'm really interested in this way of, like, Aaron Boon. Both is to blame, but also, we don't really know what his process was. Or, like, and we can ask him about it, but he doesn't really give particularly satisfying or, like, illuminating answers. But we also, like, can't see the effort. Like, it's really. It's like you can see Luke Weaver. You know that Luke Weaver is, like, trying to make a good pitch and trying to get through the inning in a way that I think people don't extend that same grace to the manager. They don't think he's, like, trying to get it right, even though he quite obviously is. Like, even when he's getting it wrong. Like, it's in the same way that, I guess we do this with players, too. It's like, people give them a lot more grief for mental errors than for physical errors. And everything that the manager is doing is a mental error. So we feel sort of more justified in saying, like, you idiot. Why would you do that? In a way that, like, we're not going to be like, well, I guess Luke Weaver's an idiot because he gave up. Gave up runs and walks. So I just. I find that to be so interesting. And it's like, it's obviously so magnified in the postseason, it's extra magnified in New York that I now can't watch a Yankees game. As is what I said in bandwagon. Like, when he took Max Freed out, I was. All I could think about is, is Aaron Boone thinking about his post game press conference? Like, is he, like, practicing the answers in his head when Luke Weaver's blowing the game? Like, because he must know that that's what he's like, oh, shoot, now they're gonna ask about this. And, like, and then the next day when he leaves in Rodin, and it, like, started to look like I was like, oh, no, he's thinking about it again. He's probably just thinking about it. He's just watching Rodin throw ball after ball to open the seventh inning and just like, oh, no, each one of these is making my postgame. But maybe it's like, that is. It's a joke, but also a genuine question. Like is. Is. Do you think, do you think Aaron Boone thinks about his post game press conference when these moves backfire? I wouldn't blame him if he does. That's not like a value judgment. That's not like he's not like focused on the game. He's just thinking about his reputation. It just feels like it would be hard not to. So do you think he's thinking about the post game press conference?

[B]

I think probably most managers are on some level there's, there's some risk aversion there. Probably there's some kind of COVID your ass.

[C]

If I make this move and it backfire, you don't that to come into play. And I would hope that it's not ultimately the determining factor, but I think.

[B]

It has been in many cases historically where you make the move that will get you criticized less or it's just more defensible.

[C]

But I don't know, maybe Aaron Boone.

[B]

Is just used to it at this point and has a thicker skin or.

[C]

Or knows that he can't really win. With Yankees fans, like even if they.

[B]

Win the World Series, it feels like most Yankees fans would think it was in spite of Boone, not because of him. It's a really, it's a, a fraught thing. I guess this kind of relates to our Pujols discussion and the E discussion. Like this is a good move for.

[C]

Ichiro to be in these, to not be the manager.

[B]

Yeah, to be in these low stakes positions because he's beloved, he's a franchise icon, he can do no wrong. If Ichiro became the Mariner's manager, probably the first time he like made some bullpen move that backfired, people would be.

[C]

Like, ichiro, are we sure about this guy? I don't know.

[B]

So you could really. Just because Aaron Boudin was Yankees legend, Yankees hero, gave me my best memory ever as a fan with that home run. And now, you know, that has been.

[C]

Completely supplanted in the minds of most Yankees fans by these perceived or actual managerial sins and failures.

[B]

So you can squander all that goodwill.

[A]

You can squander the goodwill even if you gained it as a manager. I feel that way sort of about Brian Snicker stepping away. I like Snicker a lot and like really respect and admire his career. Every time I go to a minor league stadium, or actually not a minor league stadium, a minor league, you know, like a stadium, but low minor league stadium where there's not like a real stadium, it's just like a field. Every time I go to a minor league field. I think, man, Brian Snicker loves baseball so much more than I do because I simply wouldn't. I would have quit. I would have quit decades ago if I had to. If I had to toil in the minors for as long as he did. But it struck me the couple of times that this season that I saw the Braves, who were having a disappointing season, but the. I felt like a lot of even just seeing them when they would come to New York or come to Philly, it felt like there was like animosity toward, from the fan base towards Snicker in this sense of like this old man is. Well, and some of that was pretty pointed with like the acuna stuff. But like, and he, he. There's no reason for him to not be beloved by that or by that fan base on a grand scale. But you're right. Then they have one disappointing season and it feels like. Like he squanders a lot of that goodwill right before he retires.

[C]

Yeah, you gotta walk away on top. That's the only way.

[B]

I think it's.

[C]

It's like the. You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain. I think that applies to managers.

[B]

Maybe there's then a cooling off period.

[C]

And you can forget about the most recent missteps and you can remember the good times after you go away for a while.

[B]

But no, just come back as the spring training instructor slash right fielder in.

[C]

Split squads post season warmup scrimmage games and then no one will ever be mad at you.

[D]

Ichiro can't be the manager because he wouldn't have enough time to work out is the main reason.

[C]

But. Well, Gabe Kapler did it, so I don't know.

[A]

And he wasn't a very good manager.

[D]

He should have spent less time working out.

[B]

Yeah, kudos to you too. By the way, I received the Fresh.

[C]

Edition of the bandwagon 13 minutes ago in my inbox, which is a.

[B]

It's a disorienting experience to receive an email from the two people you are currently podcast. I'm going to assume that you just had that scheduled for 9:47am for some reason and that you weren't somehow actively writing the bandwagon.

[D]

We were not writing the bandwagon.

[A]

We were struggling to get all the pictures in.

[D]

Yeah, that was fixed.

[B]

I see.

[D]

Yes. But other than that, no one was actively riding the bandwagon.

[B]

I'm sure it would not be the first time that other work was done while this podcast was.

[C]

Was being conducted anyway.

[B]

It feels like Boone has. He's kind of a mix of like.

[C]

You know, he blows up constantly in games but then weirdly doesn't show enough.

[B]

Passion after the games. It's like if he could find a.

[C]

Middle ground where maybe he just blew his top a little less often when he was actually in the game, but then, you know, showed. Showed a little more passion perhaps after the game, maybe that would resonate a bit better with fans. I don't know. I think he sort of salted the earth at this point.

[A]

Point.

[D]

A good point about him. Thinking about the press conference. It seems like he was hired because he would be good at the press conference and it's hard to separate that from everything else about him.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And there's an element of he's too good at the press conference and it seems like he's hiding something or, you know, he's hiding what he actually thinks and he feels like a great candidate to have. Like they should expand the MLB coaching lexicon just a little bit more. I think about this with, with beleaguered football coaches sometimes will tell you like, oh, he's giving up play calling duties or he's, he's got a coach who's in charge of like when telling him when to call timeout in the last two minutes, which seems like kind of the whole point of his job. But I want to see a baseball team be like, we have appointed someone else to decide when to go to the bullpen.

[A]

We're letting Boone continue managing in terms of doing the press conferences, but somebody.

[D]

Else will be delegating that responsibility and he will be deferring questions at the press conference, but he will be the rah rah figurehead leader. I just want to see how that goes. I don't think it would go well, but I want to see how it goes.

[B]

Yeah, it's kind of like the Key and Peele Obama anger translator sketch sort of where it's like he's both of.

[C]

Them though in the sketch.

[B]

Like he is, he's the, you know, calm, cool, collected Obama after the game.

[C]

But then he's like the angry Obama during the game. And maybe he just needs to blend both of them in some way. But I don't know, maybe it, maybe it wouldn't really help at this stage.

[B]

Or, or maybe this is the point. Maybe this is why he has such job security. He takes the blame. He's the guy, he's the punching bag. Not that it's saved Brian Cashman from.

[C]

Being a target too, but it does.

[B]

Take a little bit of the focus off the players. Maybe because everyone's so upset about Aaron.

[C]

Boone all the time that, you know, they're not giving players as hard a.

[A]

Time, like, well, you can't be mad at Luke Weaver. He's such a fun, silly guy. Right? It seems like. Like you could shove him in a locker as the vibe he gives.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[C]

All right.

[B]

Well, last thing on the Wild Cards.

[C]

Mason Miller pitched, and he was impressive, which is nothing new. He's Mason Miller. So maybe some of this is just like a national audience discovering Mason Miller.

[B]

For the first time, perhaps on this stage. But also, he was good, even by.

[C]

Mason Miller standards, as you noted in the bandwagon, which I have skimmed while podcasting. So I guess I'm sort of multi.

[A]

That's even more impressive.

[C]

Adrian Mora Hoan may be the more important reliever, the most valuable reliever in this book, bullpen, but he's not quite as visually impressive, quite as sexy the stuff as Mason Miller, who set a couple records here. First, he became the first big leaguer to strike out the first eight batters faced in his postseason career, which is really announcing your presence with authority.

[B]

And then also, he threw a pitch.

[C]

104.5 miles per hour, which is not only his hardest pitch ever, and that's saying something when you're talking about Mace Miller, but the fastest tracked pitch in the postseason ever.

[B]

And that pitch. So two things about it.

[C]

I mean, first of all, it was totally nasty because it wasn't just the speed. It was also the location, which was just pinpoint on the corner of the plate. And Carson Kelly just went down looking at it, because what else could you do, really? And some people were hyping this up as maybe the best pitch ever thrown.

[B]

So I don't know.

[C]

I have no idea what to do with that.

[A]

Oh, yeah, it's like, right on the corner. I'm watching it now.

[C]

Yeah, it's. It's pinpoint. It's pretty. And Brett Anderson, former big league pitcher, he tweeted, this is arguably the best pitch ever thrown by a human being. He did.

[B]

He did.

[C]

Caveat by a human being.

[B]

So I guess he's not including pitching machines and.

[C]

Or aliens or other species. I don't know. But best pitch ever by a human being. I was trying to figure out, like, how would you quantify that?

[B]

How would you determine that? Obviously, it's.

[C]

You know, he probably wasn't thinking of it as something serious that you could actually determine in any objective way, but how could you even. Because hard to argue. Well, I Don't know.

[A]

You might have to employ robots. Could you get the traject? I don't actually know. Even though we wrote about traject, we did a big feature on this together at Yahoo. But like can you program traject to throw like that exact pitch and then have just like every. We gotta have every batter face to it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And see like of a hundred views, how many times can they make contact? Kind of like that seems to be.

[D]

You're basically you're speed running expected like whiff rate or something is what you're trying to do.

[B]

Yeah, if you could simulate it. So if we had the batter equivalent.

[C]

Of the traject arc where we had robot batters, then we could just have the two trajects face off each other because neither one would get tired and they could just, you know, throw this pitch and try to hit it over and over and over again. Well, and then you'd need to, of course you'd need to because you couldn't even do it against the same batter over and over because then they would learn, they would know what was coming. Yeah.

[B]

So you'd need it to be for.

[C]

The first time every time. Of course, you could probably quantify this.

[B]

In some way with some sort of.

[C]

Stuff based model that takes into account.

[B]

The speed and the movement and the angle and the location and all of that.

[C]

I assume that you could get pitching bot or stuff plus on a per pitch basis and just say like, you know, did this have the highest expected run value or whatever. I don't know if that would satisfy anyone because.

[B]

Because a large part of this response.

[C]

Was about the just visual impressiveness of the pitch, the aesthetics of it.

[B]

And good pitches don't always look like good pitches. Sometimes there's an element of deception there or sequencing or whatever, but this one just.

[A]

Well, often there's an element of deception or sequencing, which is sort of what my thought is, is it's right. It's like how many other pitches are there even in the running for like best pitch in a vacuum? Because there aren't any that many other 104 mile an hour pitches. Like, there does have to be some sort of like standalone property to it. That is impressive because it's not so much about the sequencing when you, when you watch the at bat. Another theme of this postseason though, it feels like already two days in is, is guys hitting new velocity heights because of the postseason adrenaline. I'm sure we get, I'm sure we get that to some extent every year, but it feels like we've gotten a lot of that like if, if you skim bandwagon. I feel like we mentioned this several times just in the bandwagon of like, oh my gosh, Garrett Crochet is still throwing really hard like late in the game and Ted Scubal still throwing really hard late in the game. That guys were really, you could, you could see on the radar gun the stakes, which I think think it's probably always true a little bit, but felt especially true in part because everybody lines up their aces to go these first two days of the postseason. So yeah, I thought that. I would love to know maybe someone has already done this. Have you seen this? Ben Orszak, like peak velocity by postseason? Are we at a new peak for peak average?

[B]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I remember an Enoch piece from some years ago.

[C]

Where he wrote about how there is like a lower standard deviation of. Of velocity in the post season. Like guys are just closer to their max effort all the time. Which, which makes sense. I don't know if that's less pronounced now because just all pitchers are throwing max effort pretty much all the time.

[B]

Even during the regular season.

[C]

But that has historically been something you're going to face more speed in the post season just because the pitchers are better too. Like you're just going to have better pitching teams and better pitching teams are.

[B]

Often going to be harder throwing teams.

[C]

So you're seeing nastier stuff. But also. So yeah, guys are reaching back for a little extra throwing as hard as they can.

[B]

And that was one of the things I was going to ask about this. Like, is it surprising that the fastest.

[C]

Post season pitch is not the fastest pitch period?

[B]

Cause I actually would have expected it is. Yes, it is, right? I mean, the samples are obviously smaller.

[C]

Like there are many fewer postseason pitches than regular season pitches.

[B]

But that doesn't matter that much when.

[C]

You'Re talking about, about individual pitch speeds. Like, you know, it's not really a sample size thing so much. It's just, you know, takes one pitch to throw the fastest pitch and often you are getting the best pitchers and the hardest throwing pitchers in the postseason.

[B]

Like I'm searching on baseball savant right.

[C]

Now for the fastest pitches thrown in the regular season or postseason. And Miller's pitch Here is the 32nd.

[B]

Fastest pitch on record. I don't know. I don't know whether at fan graphs when you have a tie in a.

[C]

Leaderboard, there is actually under the hood it goes out to more decimal places. And that does actually reflect the ordinal ranking of those things. I Don't know whether that's true on baseball savant or not. So maybe it's a multi way tie.

[B]

But either way there have been 29.

[C]

Pitches tracked at 104.6 or faster.

[A]

Oh my goodness.

[C]

And they're from Chapman and Duran and Ben Joyce and Jordan Hicks. And these guys have pitched in the postseason, obviously. We've seen plenty of aroldis in October and some of these other guys too.

[B]

So yeah, it does sort of surprise.

[C]

Me that the fastest pitch is not a postseason pitch.

[A]

And those are not those, those pitches from those other guys are not in the postseason. We know that for sure. Okay.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah, that is surprising. I mean, there are, you know, there are, there are regular season matchups that have a lot of stakes too. And maybe, you know, you guys talk about a postseason atmosphere sometimes in the regular season, so maybe it was one of those. But that is, that is surprising just because I think if you were, if you like, if your introduction to baseball was this season and then you watched these last two games, you would be like, oh my God, everybody, the pitchers just get even better in the post. And like, because they do, it's. They're pitching longer, they're pitching faster, and they're pitching faster, longer.

[D]

This is not to dunk on the Reds again, but you know, when Chapman was throwing his absolute hardest, which I don't remember if this is still true, I think he, he had the fastest pitch ever for a long time. But I think that fastest pitch came when he was with the Reds and they were very much not in the postseason at the time.

[C]

2010, the fastest pitch on record, 105.8.

[B]

And this is of course like, this.

[C]

Was pre Hawkeye and the multiple versions of Hawkeye. And so this is like Trackman or whatever. And you know, there's, there's enough inconsistency and differences in calibration and everything that you can't really take it as gospel. But yeah, that's a good illustration of.

[B]

This is that Chapman In 2010, he threw pitches 105.8. But in the postseason.

[D]

So the previous, they actually did make it that year.

[B]

But yes, and the fastest post season pitch before Mason Miller's 104.5 was Chapman's.

[C]

104.2 in 2010 NLDS Game 3.

[B]

So even Chapman was not throwing his.

[C]

Hardest pitch that year. I guess you could say, like, you know, some pitchers are going to be tired and worn down by the time you get to October. So maybe that's, maybe that's part of it is that you just don't have.

[B]

That top speed at that point. But it does still somewhat surprise me.

[A]

Well, maybe that's why these last two days have really stood out to me is because I think probably that becomes more of a factor over the course of October. And so that doesn't explain why we don't have more the fastest pitches in the postseason. But these, the velocity of the last few days really, really stood out to me. And maybe that's because by the time we get to World Series, it really feels like everyone's like running on gas and you're not necessarily seeing the best pitches, even if you're seeing the best pitchers. And so these last couple of days, it felt like, oh my gosh, all of these pitchers are so good.

[B]

Well, we will continue to monitor this and cover it as best we can.

[C]

And we can do some series preview next time.

[B]

And I think the only thing that.

[C]

Stood out to me that I wanted to mention that, that I mentioned in a ringer piece, but not on the podcast. It.

[B]

We were talking about how it just.

[C]

You know, it seems like there's no consensus favorite and it's very open, even more so than it typically is in the postseason.

[B]

And one illustration of that was there were, according to five different sources I checked before the postseason started, there were five different favorites.

[C]

So like fangraphs had the Mariners as the the favorite to win the World Series, Baseball Prospectus had the Blue Jays, Neil Payne, also on substack, who has his own model and projections based on Elo ratings, had the brewers as the top team, Polymarket had the Dodgers, and.

[B]

FanDuel had the Phillies. So five different teams and, and all fairly defensible.

[C]

Like, you know, looking at that, I could kind of buy it for just about any one of them that, yeah, I guess I could see that. Maybe they're actually the favorites, whether through some combination of the strength of their roster, how good they were this season, whether they have a buy or not.

[B]

So I like that. I like that that's the case, that.

[C]

It does still feel like there's some uncertainty. I don't know whether the Dodgers dominant performance over the Reds has made people.

[B]

Say, oh, actually, yeah, maybe we sort of slept on the Dodgers or they slept on themselves.

[C]

I don't know. I've heard a lot of talk about just how impressive the pitching performances have.

[B]

Been this postseason and that that's, that's true. But I don't know if that's unusual.

[C]

Because you're going to get your aces going in the first couple postseason games. You're going to get Tarek Scubal and you're going to get Gar Crochet and you know, Snell and Yamamoto and all these guys. So like how bad could it be really?

[B]

But, but there have been some good games and some good performances and I.

[C]

Imagine that will continue, let's hope, because we have to write andor podcast about it. So some of the turnovers that we've seen. You mentioned, Hannah, just how many managerial vacancies there are right now. I don't know whether I'm leaving anyone out, but we've got the Braves moving on from Snitker, which they made it.

[B]

Sound sort of mutual and amicable and maybe they're kicking him up to the front office.

[C]

You know, he's just an Atlanta lifer and has had such an incredible career in that organization and just generally the trajectory of Snit, just being a longtime minor league coach and manager and then getting the interim gig and then making the most of it, taking that team to the postseason so many times and, and winning a World Series and not having been a high level player and all that.

[B]

The Giants moved on from Bob Melvin. The Angels have moved on from both.

[C]

Ron Washington, whose contract was up, and Ray Montgomery, who was the interim guy. And then the Rangers parted ways with Bruce Bochy.

[B]

It is, it's always kind of confusing to figure out how to describe these partings of ways. Like were you fired?

[C]

Were you laid off, forcibly retired?

[B]

Yeah, like you know, ushered into a well deserved retirement or, or your contract was up, which is different from being fired. Obviously if your contract is not just renewed. The language differs, the circumstances differ.

[C]

But ultimately what does not differ is that there's going to be a new.

[B]

Manager and then we still, I guess.

[C]

Technically have a few interim guys, guys hanging around right now. The Nationals who just have a new.

[B]

Pobo and presumably will have a new.

[C]

Manager, Orioles, Rockies and and that's the other notable thing I want to talk about is that Rocky's new GN as well. So sometimes it's the, the baseball operations leader here changing or not changing.

[B]

And then we also had some notable.

[C]

Non changes which we touched on last time, Carl Mendoza staying with the Mets, etc. So, so since we talked about Posey.

[B]

The thing that made the Melvin switch interesting was that his option was picked.

[C]

Up on July 1st and that is kind of whiplash there to say, oh yeah, we want to keep this guy in July and then in late September decide actually no we don't. Not that much changed in the interim. What was interesting Is that Posey essentially said that he picked up that option because he hoped it would be motivation for the team. Like it wasn't so much that he had faith in.

[D]

Yeah, seems like backward it.

[B]

Right?

[A]

It seems like play well or Bob Melvin gets the ax.

[C]

Yeah, I thought that too, actually. Right. Like you'd want to light it.

[D]

Horses a sugar cube. During the Kentucky Derby.

[C]

They whipped them. Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So here's back early at the Athletic, Posey acknowledged what he denied in July, that picking up Melvin's option was an.

[C]

Attempt to instill confidence within the clubhouse house and help the group right the ship.

[B]

We all felt the season was going.

[C]

In a direction we didn't want it to go, Posey said. Our hope was picking up that option provided a morale boost.

[B]

So that, that is an interesting. It does, I get it, I guess. But I could also just as easily understand completely the opposite perspective, which is like things are going in a direction we don't want it to go. Let's not keep going in that direction. Let's go in a new direction. But then I guess, you know, you.

[C]

End up with like either lame duck manager or a new guy in the middle of things. And yeah, maybe if you're worried about like people are losing confidence, we have to reaffirm that we like this group and we like this manager and there's going to be continuity or something.

[B]

So I guess I sort of get it.

[C]

But it's rare to see the option pick up followed by the immediate firing.

[A]

I think that for non people within the actual game, I probably skew a little bit bit more towards the I think managers do matter side of the spectrum because I'm basing that on no special reporting, but simply feeling like, well, my boss makes a difference. Like how I feel about my boss makes a difference in how I feel about my job. So. But this feels like a real testament to believing that the manager is making a significant difference. Because it looks kind of stupid. It looks kind of stupid to do this, to pick up the option and then, and then cut ties with the guy. So you would think if they thought he was even like, like if they thought that that wasn't making that big of a difference, they would just ride with it and then if they're bad, you know, fire him the middle of next year. Like then, you know, you at least you get the, the motivational kick of a mid season firing maybe. But they really felt like they couldn't go into next year with Bob Melvin. And that's not a comment on Bob Melvin by me. It's a comment by Bob Melvin, by Buster Posey. But that feels like a real. Like he's putting a lot of stock in this. The. In both the appearance of commitment to the manager and who the actual manager is.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I. Is interesting. Maybe that's the player in him coming out.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Because this could look either decisive or.

[C]

Indecisive, depending on the perspective. You could say, well, he's not worried.

[B]

About appearances or about making himself look like he flip flopped or he's rudderless or something. He's just doing what's best for the organization.

[C]

And.

[A]

But he also does look like he's rudderless, but also.

[B]

Yeah, it's like he adjusted to new information. Okay. They didn't play that well down the street. They missed the playoffs, but then, like, you know, they didn't miss the playoffs by much.

[C]

And so he was asked also, like.

[B]

What if they had won three more games and they were in the wild card series this week?

[C]

Like, would Melvin be the manager? And Posey said, it's hard to say.

[B]

We are where we are right now. So the hypotheticals don't really come into play for me. It's always. It's nice.

[C]

You can always sidestep that question by just being like, I don't want to get into hypothetical.

[B]

We get into hypotheticals all the time.

[C]

In other areas of life.

[B]

That's what this podcast is based on, is hypothetical. If we didn't want to get into hypotheticals, I don't know what we would talk about.

[C]

But it is a convenient way to.

[B]

Escape a question like that.

[D]

Do you think Buster Posey, when his family's on, like, a road trip, he gets lost, and then he is like, no, no, no, I got it now. I'm definitely sure we need to go this way. And then, like, two miles later, he's still very sure that they need to go a different way this time, but he's very sure still. He seems very decisive, even just. But not consistent in where he's going.

[B]

Yeah, I guess there's some value in projecting confidence even if you don't have it. But it's better to have it. It's better. I mean, it's better to have it and.

[C]

And have it be based on something.

[B]

Because there are plenty of people who are confident irrationally.

[C]

They shouldn't be as confident as they are. But that's something that appeals to people.

[B]

In leaders, is just looking like they're confident all the time.

[A]

Time.

[B]

Even if they have no idea what they're doing. And so maybe Posey has mastered that.

[C]

Who knows?

[B]

Or, you know, maybe it was sunk cost and he perceived that and moved on.

[C]

I don't know. We'll find out. I guess it depends on where's. Which direction they go next with the manager and also with the team and all these major conversations and Boone.

[B]

Like, one thing Boone is criticized for.

[C]

Is basically being a puppet of the.

[B]

Front office, I think, which is weird because it's like, how can you criticize him both for the moves he makes and also for. For not really having any agency in the moves he makes. Like, you gotta pick a lane, I guess. And also it's not like the next guy's gonna be different in that respect.

[C]

You know, Unless, I guess there's a complete regime change with the Yankees, which probably a lot of the people who are calling for Boone's dismissal are also calling for. But seems a little more far fetched given Brian Cashman's seemingly lifetime appointment in.

[B]

That organization, which is, I guess, part of what people are upset about.

[C]

They think, oh, there's complacency and you're not held to any standard and there's no punishment for failure, etc. But.

[B]

But most managers these days, it's not like there's any manager out there who's.

[C]

Really like, kicking it old school and is just like, telling the front office what to do and dictating every decision.

[B]

None of them is doing that.

[C]

There's some variation, of course, but I.

[A]

Will push back a little bit on the idea that, like, if the front office is weighing in, then that means the manager isn't sort of either responsible or culpable. Because I think it's a little bit like the relationship between the owner and the gm where you can. You can say, like, it's hard to judge a GM who has a bad owner because he has a bad owner, unless you think that part of his job is knowing how to work with the owner. And I think that that extends to the manager and maybe especially for the manager. Like, a lot of people be like, well, the manager is just middle management. It's like, well, middle management is a tough job. You have to answer the people both above you and below you. And. And part of what makes you good at that is being able to navigate that push and pull and being able to kind of like advocate for both sides to the other side in a way that doesn't piss anybody off and kind of keeps relationships smooth and the ship moving forward. I think that's like, we maybe allow for that even More so with GMs like, think about like Dave Dombrowski with the Phillies. People say like, part of his skill is getting owners to open their pocketbooks. And it's like, well, that's a really valuable skill to have if you're a gm. And I think probably there's an analogy to be made about managers. If you're a manager who thinks we can't run this team based entirely on analytics, you got to have a little bit of feel for these things or your players feel that way. I think part of your job is to message that to your front office and convince them that there is value in the human element. And if you're not doing a good job of that, I think it actually is fair to criticize Boone for being a public it. If you think he's not bringing any feel to the game and you think like that would be a good skill for a manager to have would be to convince the front office that they need to kind of deviate from the plan occasionally. I don't know. I always, I think about that a lot with like GM's hate when you blame them for things, they kind of always want to tell you what the excuses. And I'm like, part of the job is to overcome those potential excuses. Like, yeah, that's why it's a high paid job. That's why it's like a pressure packed job because you can't control all the elements, but you are responsible for kind of like controlling how those elements are messaged. And that's the other thing about Boone. If he was so good at the press conference, people wouldn't be mad at him all the time because he would. Even if he was messaging moves from the front office, he'd be messaging them in a way that felt more palatable.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah. I don't know if this adds on to your point or counters it. I'll find out by the time I finish it. If you think about the brewers specifically, they have had the same leadership over the past few years, that front office leadership over the past few years. And they've generally operated that team in the same way for many years. Even though the, the, you know, David Stearns left and Matt Arnold took over. But the Craig counsel Pat Murphy dichotomy is like the, they're not similar at all. They worked together the whole time. But until his council left. But council. I don't remember anything he's ever said at a press conference. I can, I can't, I can't think of anything he's ever said other than just like, I mean I have spoken to him and I remember what he said to me, but he never said anything interesting.

[C]

Yeah, I remember George Webb. Burger Gate is what comes from.

[A]

Yeah, that's true.

[B]

He said he whether he was aware of George Webb or not. But. But yeah, when he's talking about baseball, not so memorable.

[D]

But he, he has this like, you know, mad professor look in the dugout. And then you have Pat Murphy, who says memorable stuff all the time. That's pretty much all he does does. He comes out with pancakes in his pocket or whatever and is giving these weird interviews and also has this like gruff old school personality, even though he's implementing. And even the way we view the brewers has changed through the fact of how Pat Murphy talks about it. They have, you know, kind of taken on this idea like, oh, they do all these little things, right, Which I think is not that different from how they've always played. But. But Pat Murphy accentuated that image of them and maybe that helps the players think about themselves differently. I don't know. But. So I'm not sure if that says the manager is really important or the manager just has to work with the front office. And there's multiple ways to do that. But that is just like the clearest opposites can do the same job type proof for me.

[B]

Yeah, I think the most interesting dismissal this week was Bill Schmidt, Rockies gm.

[C]

Because anytime the Rockies actually make a change that is somewhat noteworthy, especially when.

[B]

They signal that they are actually going to make an external search for his replacement.

[C]

Now, this quote came from a Monfort Walker Monfort, who is the team's executive VP and also the son of owner Dick Monfort, and said we are setting.

[B]

Our sights on finding the right leader from outside our organization who can bring a fresh perspective to the Rockies and enhance our baseball operations. With a new vision, innovation and a focus on both short and long term success, this change delivers an opportunity to.

[C]

Shape the future of our club and move forward into a new era of Rockies baseball. So exciting.

[B]

Sounds like the Rockies are ready to turn over a new leaf.

[C]

We'll see whether that becomes the case or whether this outside search uncovers some.

[B]

Heretofore unknown Monfort, who has not been working for the Rockies already, perhaps, or I think they've done this before where, like they conducted an external hitting coach search and then they ended up hiring Clint Hurdle, who technically was external at that point was the former Rockies manager. So maybe they'll just rehire Dan o' Dowd or something. I have no idea.

[D]

Can Bud Black be the gm?

[B]

Yes, exactly right. But I think what's interesting about this.

[C]

Is the idea that maybe this actually.

[B]

Is a plum assignment. Maybe this is a job people would want. I saw Jared Diamond.

[A]

I was going to reference Jared's tweet.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So Jared tweeted, I need you all to understand how many very smart people in baseball view running the Rockies as a dream job. It's the ultimate challenge trying to figure.

[C]

Out how to build a winner in that environment.

[B]

Smart executives are tantalized by it.

[C]

They want to prove they can do it.

[B]

You know, Saras also said, an executive once told me this was his dream job. I was surprised. Said something like, it's the toughest job in baseball. That park the altitude, SAPS 7 or.

[C]

8 wins from your team every year. If you win there, you're a genius.

[B]

So this is interesting because it is very much kind of the Arrested Development meme. Like, well, did it work for those people? No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but.

[C]

But it might work for us.

[B]

So other executives are maybe eager to go into this meat grinder. But it's true.

[C]

Like, do it for the story.

[B]

Just, yolo, let's run the Rockies. And maybe if I actually win here.

[C]

You know, it's not quite maybe Theo.

[B]

Winning the World Series with the Red Sox and the Cubs, but it's the next best thing. In fact, I remember an old, effectively wild conversation where we were thinking, what could Theo do next?

[C]

What.

[B]

What would be a worthy challenge for him?

[C]

And we. He should now be the Rockies gm.

[A]

He should be the Rockies gm. He should definitely be the Rockies.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It's apparently a beautiful place.

[B]

Oh, sure. Yeah. On the one hand.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So Thad Levine, formerly of the Twins, has been one of the people connected with this early on, has expressed.

[A]

He has a podcast now. He's coming for your job.

[C]

Yeah. Well, we got to get him off our corner. He should.

[D]

He should keep the podcast if he gets the rocky job and just tell us all about us.

[B]

Jerry Depot did it. You can do both. You can multitask, be a GM and.

[C]

A podcaster or a pobo and a podcaster.

[B]

But.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So there are a couple of things.

[C]

I think that are appealing about this.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

A, there's the podcast.

[B]

Yeah. We'll. We'll workshop it. There's something there. But you could sell this based on. Yes.

[C]

It's the ultimate challenge. And this team has never won a.

[B]

Division title, let alone a World Series. So you could do it.

[C]

You could get the glory. You could be Hailed by everyone for fixing the Rockies, solving Coors Field, etc.

[B]

Also, yeah, it's a pretty place.

[C]

It's a nice place to live. You know, it's a good ballpark environment even when the team is historically terrible. And historically, there's been great job security. Right.

[B]

There has not been a lot of turnover here. Even if you sell, you can keep your job for years and years and years. That's especially true, I guess, if you're.

[C]

Kind of, you know, you've been groomed for the job, you've been promoted, you've been with the Rockies forever. So maybe there wouldn't be that same.

[B]

Sort of loyalty if you're an outsider who's brought in. But still, you look at this and you think, well, they're probably not going.

[C]

To be too quick on the trigger here. But the downside, of course, is that, yeah, like, no one has really won there, so will you actually do it, or will you just be the latest to fail? And then there's, I guess, the question that a lot of organizations might have.

[B]

Just about, well, what's the institutional investment going to be? And will there be meddling? It's not like a pirate situation. You know, Dick Monford isn't Bob Nutting.

[C]

He's, like, incompetent in a different way.

[B]

Sort of where he. He will spend more but not wisely and doesn't seem to be great at hiring and, you know, just has too much.

[C]

Much faith and internal promotions and nepotism and everything. So, yeah. Are you going to be wondering, like, well, or is there going to be one Manford or another breathing down my.

[B]

Throat if I take this job and.

[C]

How long a leash will actually have, and will they let me really revamp.

[B]

The organization and clean house?

[C]

Or will it be like, I'm the.

[B]

One new person, but I have to.

[C]

Inherit everyone else who's unfirable?

[B]

So it is pretty intriguing. I wonder what kind of person they will hire.

[C]

But even expressing a willingness to just do something completely different, I guess is good. Can't get worse.

[A]

For a while, I tried to get executives to talk to me. I had this. Like, this was. This is the peak. People don't want to talk about hypotheticals. I wanted executives to talk to me for a story that I had an idea about for a long time, which was, if you could design the ballpark to be especially extreme and then build your team to fit it would, like, could you be extra? Could that be advantageous? Like, if the GM got to design the dimensions of the ballpark, in addition to setting the roster. And the Rockies are kind of the only version of that in real life where it's like, you. Could you. It's not the dimensions, obviously, but right there is an element of like, well, could you tailor your team to your ballpark specifically in such a way that. I mean, that's. Everyone knows that. That's. That's the trick with the Rockies. I will say, however, they didn't want to talk to me about this, so I don't know who these executives are that Jared spoke to. Are so excited to run the Rockies. But whoever they were, they were not the same ones that I was asking about, asking this question about, because they did not want to engage with this hypothetical of, like, what if you made a giant ballpark or a tiny ballpark or an uneven ballpark? Couldn't you, you know, like. Like, hey, wouldn't that be a market inefficiency that you could exploit to build your roster to. To suit it? Can I. Can I interrupt with some not news, but maybe news? The Athletic just tweeted ranking mlbs open and potentially open managerial jobs. And then they have a little asterisk next to some of them, and then at the bottom it says, jobs not yet vacant. And they put the Astros on here. Are they. Are they firing?

[C]

I would be more inclined to give Joe Espada manager of the year than I would be to. To fire him.

[B]

Not that those things are mutually exclusive. Sometimes you can get a Joe Girard.

[C]

Party Manager of the year gets fired.

[B]

But.

[C]

But no, that seems like a. A great job of managing.

[A]

Joe Espana has been in the organization forever. They. I thought they loved him. They thought he was kind of, you know, low key, the de facto manager for a long time, even. Like, I am intrigued by that.

[D]

Is there a James Click situation happening there where secretly Jim Crane doesn't like him?

[B]

Yeah, you never know.

[C]

Maybe. Oh, I left out the Twins, of course. The Twins. The Twins rundown of managerial real vacancies. Yeah, because that seems, you know, Rocco Baldelli is out, which is another case of sacrificial lamb, I guess. You know, it's just, you're going to.

[B]

Get fired if your team has poor results.

[C]

But in this case specifically, it's hard to pin it on Baldelli, just given the lack of investment in that roster from that ownership group over the past couple years. So I imagine that he will get interviews and other looks elsewhere. But, yeah, that's. That's a lot of managerial openings or presumed openings right now without even getting into hypotheticals, as some people hate to do so.

[B]

Yeah. I am fascinated to see which way.

[C]

The Rockies go with that and whether.

[B]

They actually do kind of have their pick of the litter when it comes.

[C]

To execs or whether that's a harder sell for some than you might imagine.

[B]

It's it is tantalizing though to if you think that you have the secret to Coors fear and I don't know that there is one to be clear, it is it's possible that it's not like, oh, someone just has to crack that case.

[C]

It might just be a disadvantage that you can maybe minimize or ameliorate, but you can't actually turn into an advantage for you.

[B]

But because, you know, I know the.

[C]

Rockies have looked into that and Dan o' Dowd talked about how much time they spent trying to figure that out and maybe someone can do it better and maybe it is just like a certain mix of pitch types or I don't know. You know, it's training to, to try to counter the course field hangover or whatever. But it's not like they platoons. Yeah.

[D]

Just guys who don't play on one or the other.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Two entire rosters and just you have a home Rockies and a, a road Rockies.

[C]

I'm sure plenty of great players would want to sign up for that arrangement.

[B]

So we will see. I did want to follow up on Alex Cor Cora's comments the other day because Meg and I talked about this.

[C]

Last time and we gave Cora some grief for, for pulling the Nobody believed.

[B]

In us about the Red I picked.

[A]

Them to win the World Series.

[B]

Many people believed in them.

[A]

I picked them to win the World Series. Yep.

[B]

Before the season started.

[A]

You did before the season started.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. So. So you were among the many who believed in the Boston Red Sox and.

[C]

He got some pushback on this not just from Effectively Wild. I think people came with receipts and he did take some criticism for so emphatically stating that.

[B]

Because you can't get away with like in some cases. Okay.

[C]

It's sort of strange belief that you play the nobody believed in us card. But this, this was among the most egregious instances of it. So I think it was the day.

[B]

After the follow up comments were not.

[C]

As widely reported as the initial comments.

[B]

Which is so often the case case. But so I think the day after.

[C]

He came out, and I'm quoting here from Red Sox reporter Max Rulo, Alex Cora jokingly clarified his nobody thought we were going to make it to October statement from yesterday to open his pregame.

[B]

Remarks quote after the Trade after the trade. My bad, my bad.

[C]

I got emotional yesterday. Sorry. So I don't know, is he jokingly.

[B]

Clarifying or is he he joking while clarifying? Is he actually saying that that's what he meant and he was misinterpreted or taken out of context, or is he laughing it off and trying to reframe it and walk it back now?

[C]

I don't know.

[B]

But he's now claiming that he meant.

[C]

That nobody believed in them after the trade, which is a little more defensible, certainly, than the nobody believed in us before the season. Because I think at the time the Red Sox traded Raphael Devers as I, I, which was mid June, I think they were 37 and 36, and their playoff odds according to Fangrass were 31%.

[B]

So their odds were worse than they.

[C]

Had been at the beginning of the season. And also they just traded Raphael Devers, their best hitter. So that's not something that usually does inspire a lot of confidence. Like, you know, it usually sends the signal that you don't believe in you if you trade your best hitter.

[A]

But here's the thing. I don't believe that that's what he was talking about, because who was issuing picks that, like, what was the. What was the Met like? Where was he receiving this message that people didn't think that he was going to make, that the Red Sox were going to make the postseason? Like, maybe people were like, wow, surprising trade. He's such a good player. And I guess that could be interpreted as like, you guys just got worse. But they did just get worse, and that's fine. They still overcame it. But I don't believe. Yeah, no one was. There were no, no one was issuing any kind of prediction predictions at that point.

[D]

This is like an editor's note that explains why. Actually there does not need to be a correction.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

But we just found a reason.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And there was another follow up featuring.

[C]

The Red Sox and Craig Breslow in.

[B]

This case, because one of his quotes at the time that he traded Devers.

[C]

And this was one of the ones that didn't really resonate well is I.

[B]

Do think that there is a real.

[C]

Chance that at the end of the season when we're looking back back, we'll have won more games than we otherwise would have, which was a suspect.

[B]

Yeah, it was a suspect quote at the time because, well, he wasn't just saying we might win more games without.

[C]

Debers than we won with him, which is true. I mean, they ended up doing that, I guess winning percentage Wise and maybe just pure wins wise, but that kind of thing.

[B]

That's not the same as what he.

[C]

Seemed to be claiming, which is like, actually we will win more.

[B]

More than in the hypothetical, the alternate.

[C]

Possibility where we had kept Devers.

[B]

We'll actually do better than that.

[C]

Not just, you know, because you could.

[B]

Trade your best player and just go.

[C]

On a run and that could be completely random and have nothing to do with the trade. But he was actually suggesting a cause and effect there.

[B]

And you know, he said, I think.

[C]

There is a real chance. I guess he didn't guarantee it, but even so, it is an unusual thing to trade your best hitter for people who probably aren't going to help you nearly as much in the short term and express some confidence that you'll win more games this way than you would have. I think that was, you know, seen as somewhat outrageous at the time.

[B]

Ultimately, though, the Red Sox did do.

[C]

Better without Des than they had done with him. And I guess the Giants did worse with him than they had done without him. Not because of him, to be clear. I. I don't think we can pin.

[B]

This on Des because he hit just fine.

[C]

Ultimately he slumped at first in San.

[B]

Francisco, but then he turned out to. To hit just fine.

[C]

I think he did hit better then.

[B]

Red Sox DH's hit the rest of the way.

[C]

And of course he ended up actually.

[B]

Playing some first base with the Giants.

[C]

Which was funny after all the rest of it. But Breslow was asked about this just the other day by Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe, just, you know, revisiting his quote from after the Devers trade and asking how he felt about it now, I guess. And so he said, says it was.

[B]

Not at all intended to be a criticism of Raffi and his talent and.

[C]

What he adds to a lineup, though hard not to interpret it that way. To some extent, the best way for.

[B]

Winning the most games is oftentimes having the most talented guys you can possibly have. But there is a roster building, team.

[C]

Building component to that. There's a versatility and flexibility that afforded Alex and afforded us in terms of moving guys around and being able to use the Dharma spot to maximize the matchups, getting outfielders off their feet and a clear Runway to keep Roman Anthony and Willard Bru and Zidane Rafaela in the lineup.

[B]

When you put all those things together, we have a chance to play really.

[C]

Competitively and constantly make sure we're creating the most beneficial matchups than we can. So, you know, that was sort of a word salad. As is often the case with baseball.

[B]

Executives and Craig Breslow specifically. But, you know, he's not walking away from it.

[C]

So how do we. You think about that now?

[B]

Because this is another. It's like we were talking about with.

[C]

The scrimmages to prepare for. For a playoff round.

[B]

You don't know. You can't. No, no. Yeah. You get one trial, and then you have to draw whatever conclusions you can from that.

[C]

So do we think that the Red Sox were better because they were able to use, I think, 11 different DHS.

[B]

After the trade and just cycle players.

[C]

In and get guys and, you know, then there's the club clubhouse component, which looms over all of this. Whether or not, you know, Devers is a bad clubhouse guy. It was obviously something that was hanging.

[B]

Over this team and was a distraction.

[C]

And Trevor Story said the day of the trade was such a surprise, but I feel like we pulled together afterward in our minds. It didn't mean the season was over. I think we felt like we had something to prove. This is interesting strategy. Maybe all the teams should trade their best hitter and then all the remaining hitters will. Will pull together and rally because, you know, they want to prove that they can win without that guy. I guess that's sort of Ewing theory to reference one of my boss's famous, famous lines. So what do you think?

[B]

Should we look back and say, yeah, that trade made sense. These guys were right all along, or.

[C]

Do we say, no, Actually, we're going.

[B]

By process, not outcomes here, and we still think it was weird in some ways, at least in the short term. Or do we say, well, we'll never.

[C]

Know, and good for them, they made it, but hard to draw conclusions from that one way or another.

[D]

I think they could have tried firing the manager first to see, you know, if we want to really come full circle on all the things that might have affected it, but, you know, we won't know. He didn't fit into that team as it was in the process of being constructed defensively, if he wasn't going to play anywhere. But I think they'd be a better team with him on it. But there was also just this element of the relationship breakdown kind of had to happen. So, yeah, I respect the decisiveness of moving on from that.

[C]

It.

[D]

It's like if we're. If we're starting the story from this is already broken, then, yeah, I think they had to do what they did. It just ideally wouldn't have been broken.

[A]

I think that's a great way of putting it, Zach, because I think that when I look at the Red Sox overarching what happened with Raphael Devers, I put a lot of blame at Craig Brooks. But I actually think this is a case where the end justifies the means. And to be consistent with everything I've been saying about, like, the GM has to work with the owner and the players and the manager has to get like, in the situation he was in, he made a very bold, potentially disastrous choice based on information that you can't have outside the organization, which is like, what was the dynamic? And I think if it works, then, and we have to give him credit, like, even if, even if there's a world in which it doesn't work and then we don't give him credit, like, in this world, he was clearly making this decision based on some rationale that was only available to people within the organization like that, based on information only available to those people. And he was making a decision that he thought was best. And Maybe there's only 51% chance that it works out this way, but there's at least 51% chance that it works out this way because it did. And then I think we have to say, like, well, then, okay, you, you, you looked at the information in that moment and you made a bold choice and that choice panned out. So, like, you are correct. You deserve the plaudits of having made the choice as opposed to just like letting that situation, like, right, if Raphael Devers could have traded Craig Breslow, maybe that would have also worked, but he couldn't do it that way. Like, I, you know what I mean? I think, does that, does that make sense that it's like, if everything we're saying is true and like you, there is some additional special sauce that just is like, what is the dynamic and how are these people getting along? Then I think you have to say, like, if you're, if you're the one who changes it and it works, then you're. You were right to change it.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

This is why watching the post season.

[C]

Is so fun but so frustrating to analyze because we just, we never know anything. Not that we know that much during.

[B]

The regular season, for that matter, but.

[C]

We'Re just constantly analyzing decisions based on what happened after the fact or trying.

[B]

To analyze them based on, on what you knew going into the decision, but then never really knowing if we have all the factors and all the intel. Because it's. I've written about this before, but it's just, you know, people second guess and.

[C]

First guess things in the playoffs and.

[B]

We never know what those decisions are.

[C]

Based on and teams have more information there. Inevitably there's always the case of like the day after the postseason ends, seven guys have surgeries on things that we didn't even know were injured.

[B]

Right. So there's that.

[C]

We don't really know what the state of anyone is for one thing.

[B]

And then I think fans often still.

[C]

Assume that matchup decisions are made based on very simplistic information, head to head records or maybe like platoon splits or something. But it's so much more sophisticated than that. It's based on similar pitchers that you.

[B]

Faced and swing planes and which pitches.

[C]

The pitcher throws and arm angles and all, all this stuff that in the public sphere we don't really have that great access to.

[B]

And so we're working with incomplete information.

[C]

And no one knows how it would.

[B]

Have turned out otherwise. So we can always speculate and say that was the wrong move because it backfired. And therefore this other move that I would have advocated, it couldn't have gone worse. Maybe it could have gone better.

[C]

So it's a tough environment when it comes to actually trying to apportion blame or credit. And yeah, this is sort of similar. You know, I think, think the Red.

[B]

Sox, what has changed for them since then?

[C]

Maybe I don't know how many people.

[B]

Are really lamenting the loss of Raphael Devers because in the moment it was.

[C]

It brought up old wounds and reopened them. And so, you know, you couldn't help but think of, of the Mookie trade and then Bogarts being allowed to leave.

[B]

And other things and, and people were pointing out even then, well, actually maybe.

[C]

Letting Bogarts leave was the right move and maybe it will work out in the long term to let Devers go because we won't be on the hook for that contract and maybe he won't.

[B]

Age well and everything. But also, gosh, you look at the.

[C]

Red Sox lineup right now and it.

[B]

Would be better with Raphael Devers. Like they, they weren't a great hitting team without him, especially once Anthony got.

[C]

Hurt like in September. They were middle of the pack, offensive team at best. And, and you'd sure like to see Rafael Devers big bat in their.

[B]

So who knows because we can't really quantify the clubhouse stuff either.

[C]

And then yeah, if that's like a self created problem, then do you reward.

[B]

Breslow for getting out of a problem that he himself had a lot to do with causing? It's just, it's very, very confusing.

[A]

I mean, I think the reaction at the time, it is not invalidated even if they like go on to win the World Series. Because I think it's fair for Red Sox fans to say like, this organization really like mishandled three young potential superstars in a way such that now we have none of them and one of them we don't have because he was so personally offended at the way he was treated. Like, that's sort of, I mean, we're kind of just restating the same thing. But it's like, I think it is fair for fans to say, like, I wish we had not gotten to this point. Maybe because they wish they had kept Mookie or they wish they had kept Bogarts, although maybe they don't wish they'd kept Bogarts or because they wish that they hadn't offended Rafael Devers in this way. And that's not invalidated, like, even if they win the World Series. But again, it's like you do have to try to like move forward in such a way that puts like I actually do commend Breslow, but also the rest of the Red Sox. Like, that is a tough spot. That is, that is the your front office doing a thing that makes it feel like they've hamstrung your on field ability a little bit in an effort to kind of free you up to play better. And they responded by playing better. And that is impressive.

[B]

Yeah. And I thought they could have even.

[C]

Done more at the deadline to help with the versatility and the roster construction, everything. And I guess the Anthony extension also.

[B]

Helps from a PR perspective, so that'll that'll ease the sting of losing another great player. All right, well, I will let you.

[C]

Two go and hopefully not take ill after this. And we've all got.

[D]

I don't think it transmits that.

[A]

No. Is that way.

[B]

No, probably not.

[A]

Not.

[B]

And we've all got baseball to watch and cover and Zach has a whole other job about to begin, so I guess so if you want to just.

[C]

Give a little sales pitch for the Bandwagon before you leave, tell people where to find it and what it is and why they should sign up as.

[D]

I have the Bandwagon is a three times a week baseball newsletter from the perspective of trying to help you be a smart fan, we try to make it very easily digestible during the regular season. It was Monday, Wednesday, Friday. As as Ben now knows it it we're going to respond to the flow of the baseball. So it will still be multiple times a week, but we're going to do it at times that make sense for the baseball if this is if you're not a subscriber yet, this would be a great time to try and give us a spin. It's bandwagon.substack.com yes, and we have not.

[A]

Decided exactly how we're going to navigate the rest of the postseason. We only really got through the wildcard, but we do know that we're going to be even more regular come World Series time. We want to be reacting to games really quickly because we know that not all content can do that. So we're going to try to do that come World Series time. So it would supplement an effectively wild listen, which will still be, you know, put out three times a week and thus be more bigger picture. We will try to be more immediate in the World Series. But yeah, subscribe now and enjoy the postseason and then we'll do fun stuff in the off season.

[B]

Yeah. And you sometimes respond to things we say on the podcast in the newsletter and vice versa. We sometimes talk about things that you wrote. So we're kind of in conversation even.

[C]

When we're not literally in conversation as we have been today. This is tough to answer because there are three teams that will be eliminated.

[B]

By the end of the day.

[C]

But what is the best bandwagon team this October? Just snap judgments.

[D]

It's the Mariners. It's the Mariners.

[A]

Yeah. It's like so much obviously the Mariners. I'm both rooting and not rooting. My dream World Series matchup is probably Phillies Mariners, and I don't know if I want that or not. It's almost like one of those things where it's like then everyone will get excited about it and they'll be like, no, stop. This was my very special postseason matchup that I was rooting for.

[C]

Yeah. As we talked about last time, there are a lot of easy to root for teams and narratives here. It's just know whether the guardians advance or not, how they got in and then the Padres and Brewers also not having one and the Guardians not having one for even longer and just.

[B]

Yeah, there's a lot of fun stuff.

[D]

So I'll give you a sneaky one. The the Blue Jays fan environment at home is so cool and I think people have kind of forgotten that because they've keep getting not they keep not winning any games in the post season when they get in. But you know, the 2015 Level Blue Jays playoff games would be really fun. So I could see them being a good answer too.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I also I got my parents tickets to the Phillies Division Series game one because my dad turned 70 recently. And so as a gift, we got them, him and my mom tickets. And now that's Shohei Ohtani's first postseason Major League Baseball start. And I can't believe that they're going to be watching it in person live. So, like, also just like that series is going to be so much fun. I can't believe we're getting like that many big personalities this early in the postseason facing off.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Lots to look forward to. All right, Kaiser and Kriser, Kriser and.

[C]

Kaiser, always a pleasure. Thanks to both of you.

[D]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

All right, a few closing thoughts and updates and follow ups for you.

[B]

Meant to mention the debut of Guardians.

[C]

Prospect Chase Dilater in Game two of the Wild Card Series. He's one of the top prospects in the sport. He, he's number 29 overall according to.

[B]

Fan graphs, number two in the guardians organization. And he made his major league debut in Game two.

[C]

Now, that's not unprecedented, though. It is one of my favorite postseason phenomena, the MLB debut in the playoffs. He was the sixth player to play in his first MLB game in the playoffs.

[B]

However, I think this was an especially difficult assignment for him because not only.

[C]

Did he have to make his debut in a postseason game, but he had not played in any professional game since.

[B]

July 11th because he had hamate surgery and he was just off for all that time.

[C]

So he had been building up, preparing, he thought, for the Arizona Fall League, not for the playoffs.

[B]

And so he hadn't seen any sort.

[C]

Of action in a very long time in months and months.

[B]

He also had not played center field since the previous season. He didn't play center field at all in 2025. He hadn't played since, I think August of 2024 in the minors. So this was tough in any number.

[C]

Of ways to just be promoted to the big leagues for the first time.

[B]

To play for the first time anywhere in months, and to play a position.

[C]

That you hadn't played since the previous season.

[B]

And perhaps that showed on his first.

[C]

Opportunity when in the very first inning he got a ball. He kind of lost it in the sun and it clanked off his glove. And he said at the time that when that ball hit the ground, I was in shambles. Right away was his post game commentary and I felt bad just watching it. You had to feel some sympathy.

[B]

But he recovered and later in the.

[C]

Game he had a long extended at bat that resulted in an out. He drew a walk.

[A]

Walk.

[C]

He hit a ball very hard that.

[B]

He did not get a hit on. And also he got an outfield assist, he threw a runner out at third base, so it all worked out. He was able to make light of.

[C]

It after the fans gave him kind of a joking ovation when he caught a ball the next time he had an opportunity and he played along with.

[B]

It and seems to have a good head on his shoulders, which is maybe.

[C]

Why they felt comfortable promoting him. But boy, that's a really difficult position to be put in. And I guess if the Guardians had better position players and better hitters, they probably wouldn't have tried it. But between that and thinking highly of.

[B]

Him, they did threw him right into.

[C]

The deep end, and at first he floundered, but finally he floated. Also Speaking of Cleveland, we got an email from Listener Preston, who directed our.

[B]

Attention to a photo from After Cleveland.

[C]

Won in 1948 Game 6 of the World Series in which Bob Lemon and Jean Bearden full on smooched we talk.

[B]

A lot, and by we I mostly.

[C]

Mean Meg about how the players should kiss, but only if they want to to. Well, as I said to Preston, looks like they wanted to. And as Meg replied, nothing little about that one.

[B]

This was not just a little kiss. This was not a little peck. This was a full on lip lock. Lemon started that game.

[C]

Bearden saved it.

[B]

So clearly there was some gratitude there and that was expressed in a way we typically don't see these days, let alone 1948.

[C]

I will link to it also got.

[B]

An email from listener Patreon supporter Russell Goldstein who sent along some interesting data.

[C]

That I wanted to share.

[B]

Russell writes, this past weekend as I was watching my Mets crumble yet again, I started thinking about how not only.

[C]

Were the Mets extremely streaky this year, but it felt like many teams in MLB had a lot of long winning or losing streaks. I set the minimum streak at 5.

[B]

But also broke down streaks longer than that. So I went down a long rabbit.

[C]

Hole of winning and losing streaks in 2025 compared to MLB history.

[B]

There actually were some interesting results and my suspicion was correct that this was an extremely streaky year.

[C]

I'll link to his data, but here's the summary.

[B]

2025 delivered 179 combined win or loss.

[C]

Streaks of five plus games, just three shy of the and 2019 record of 182.

[B]

Good for third all time.

[C]

The season's 98 streaks of six plus games were five short of the all time high one, 03 in 2001 and.

[B]

2019, slotting 2025 in fifth place overall with 53 streaks of seven or more games. 2025 matched the fifth highest total ever recorded and came within six of the 1978 benchmark of 59. The 30 streaks of eight plus games.

[C]

Tied for the seventh most in history, maintaining 2025 inside the 95th percentile even as it sat six back of the 1998 record.

[B]

The New York Mets became the first team since the 1966 Reds to post three balanced six plus game winning or losing streak pairings, balanced meaning three or more six plus game winning streaks and three or more six plus game losing streaks, tying the second highest total ever. New York also joined the tiny 26 season group with two matched seven plus.

[C]

Game streaks matching the all time benchmark for that category.

[B]

The Rockies 12 separate five plus game losing streaks equaled the 1909 Senators for.

[C]

The most in MLB history and marked the first modern club to suffer that many.

[B]

Also I put a stat blast request.

[C]

From listener and Patreon supporter Ben Zimmer to Russell.

[B]

Ben asked, besides the 2025 Braves, how many teams have had a winless road.

[C]

Trip of seven plus games and an undefeated road trip of seven plus games in the same season?

[B]

And Russell responded, besides the 2025 Braves, two team seasons match the seven plus game road trip double. The 1968 Phillies who had a seven.

[C]

Game road winless swing from July 19th to July 25th, 1968 and a seven game road undefeated swing from July 11th to July 15th. There were two double headers in that.

[B]

Stretch and the 1991 Mets, who had a ten game road skid from August 9th to August 18th, 19911 and a.

[C]

Seven game unbeaten stretch from July 1st to July 7th thanks to Russell. And Ben. Zimmer said, I remember that epic 0 and 10 death spiral by the 1991 Mets.

[B]

And yet somehow this season was even.

[C]

More dispiriting for Mets fans. Indeed, listener and Patreon supporter Michael Eisen also sent in some data in response to a recent conversation we had about the democratic distribution of stolen bases these days that it kind of feels like anyone can steal a of bunch of bases.

[B]

Juan Soto led the National League in.

[C]

Stolen bases and we talked about is it too easy? Is it cheapening the accomplishment?

[B]

To some extent, but mostly we wanted.

[C]

To know how different is this?

[B]

And Michael found it is in fact different.

[C]

It is an outlier.

[B]

So he wanted to find out how widely distributed stolen bases are across the league. And this turns out to be a.

[C]

Bit tricky to answer because we looked at say what percentage of steals were recorded by the top 100 base dealers in each season. But that gets distorted because of course there are more base dealers, there are more players now than there used to be.

[B]

So he had to account for that.

[C]

And he found a way to do it that controls for the number of players.

[B]

So he looked at what fraction of.

[C]

Plate appearances you need to reach a certain fraction of stolen bases.

[B]

So if you sort all of the.

[C]

Players by stolen bases and you look at how many plate appearances they had, compare the fraction of the overall number of plate appearances and stolen bases and say to get to a certain threshold of steals, a percentage of league wide steals, what percentage of plate appearances do you need? Because if you need a higher percentage of plate appearances to get to the same percentage of stolen bases bases, then it's because the stolen bases are more democratically distributed. So you need more players to get to that total. The steals aren't all concentrated among a small elite group of base dealers.

[B]

And he found that 2025 stands out.

[C]

In the post war era.

[B]

1946 on this was the most democratically.

[C]

Distributed season when it comes to stolen bases. So for instance, this year to get.

[B]

To 10% of stolen bases, you needed 2.6% of play appearance appearances.

[C]

That's a lot higher than the percentage from 1946 through 2022, just before the rules changed, when on average you needed 1.5% instead of 2.6. Or to get to 20% of steals.

[B]

This year you needed 6.3% of plate appearances.

[C]

The historical average was 4.1. And that stays consistent at basically every cutoff for stolen base percentage up to 50%. It's hard to explain it, but it does support what we were saying and thinking. I will link to Michael's spreadsheet and also some of the graphics that he made.

[B]

He also found that there is only weak correlation between the total number of steals and how democratically they're distributed. So he says the annual rate of stolen bases per plate appearance is independent.

[C]

Of the stolen base democracy. Which puts to rest the argument that this is somehow just because there are more steals. It's not that it's genuinely a change in who is stealing.

[B]

So good to know, good to get confirmation on that. It's not a value judgment. This isn't necessarily good or bad, but.

[C]

It is in fact new and unusual.

[B]

And finally, the Athletics announced that they will sometimes wear a jersey next year.

[C]

Here that says Sacramento.

[B]

I know, real big of them to.

[C]

Actually represent the city that they are playing in. We took them to task a bit for that early this season and we talked about how even if there is.

[B]

An inherent impermanence to this arrangement, even.

[C]

If you have your eyes set on Las Vegas, A, there's some uncertainty about whether that will work out.

[B]

But B be good guests. Don't shy away from the fact that you are, for now, playing in this.

[C]

City instead of the city where you.

[B]

Were or the city where you hope to be.

[C]

And we talked about how people in.

[B]

Sacramento must have mixed feelings because, hey, you get a Major League baseball team, that's cool. But also, that team has gone out.

[C]

Of its way not to brand itself.

[B]

As a Sacramento baseball team.

[C]

They just call themselves the Athletics.

[B]

They don't want to be known as the Sacramento Athletics.

[C]

They don't want to have Sacramento on their jersey. How could you not feel a bit spurned by that?

[B]

And there was a recent feature by.

[C]

ESPN's Tim Kewan who wrote about how John Fisher has, true to form, sort of salted the earth in Sacramento and everyone's mad at him and they're out.

[B]

Of Oakland but not much has changed, etc. Well, when we talked about this going.

[C]

Into the season season, we got some good emails from people in Sacramento, some.

[B]

Of them A's fans, not all of them, who wrote in to talk about.

[C]

How Sacramento was perceived and how they're.

[B]

Thinking about this and how they're kind of cautiously optimistic. In some cases they're going into it with their eyes open. They know that maybe this is a fling, but they'll enjoy it while it lasts if they can.

[C]

But they also feel bad about the franchise having left Oakland and not really.

[B]

Putting down roots in Sacramento. Anyway, in the wake of Kean's feature.

[C]

And this first season being in the back books, I followed up with a few of those listeners who had written to us back then in March, and.

[B]

I thought I'd read one lengthy response.

[C]

Here from one of them, a woman who wants to be identified as EJ.

[B]

And had some interesting, wide ranging thoughts about this unusual situation. And EJ lives in Sacramento, pretty close to Sutter Health Park. She's not native to Sacramento, but she went to college in the Bay Area.

[C]

Has family around, so this was kind of a homecoming for her. And here's what she had to say.

[B]

My feelings about this whole season I are I feel the need to defend Sacramento from people who talk smack about it. The A's themselves have a lot of fun young players and some interesting things going on.

[C]

Even though the team performed poorly this.

[B]

Year, having Major League Baseball in Sacramento.

[C]

Is very strange, very cool, but very temporary.

[B]

As for the A's themselves, the team, I've grown to love them Brent Rooker, Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson, Shay Langaliers, Lawrence Butler, Tyler Soderstrom, Denzel Clark, Mason Miller when he was here. All these guys are so fun and exciting.

[C]

Oh, and that former Padres prospect Leo.

[B]

DeVries is incredibly interesting.

[C]

Intriguing.

[B]

I keep thinking about kids in Little League and the Sacramento area who get.

[C]

To see their favorite players.

[B]

I keep thinking of kids who see these dudes hit bombs to Tower Bridge and fall in love with baseball. All that said, the team wasn't good this year. I think the hot start was pretty exciting as well as the strong finish.

[C]

But you can't not win games for an entire month so it's a mixed bag.

[B]

Love the players, love the promise, but.

[C]

Obviously the A's were not successful.

[B]

I'm not an A's fan, so I regard their poor performance with emotional detachment.

[C]

And I latch on to cool players I like who make circus catches and.

[B]

Hit dingers and that there are multiple.

[C]

AL Rookie of the Year candidates on this team. There is promise here. Then she links to the meme where one person is saying literal coolest thing ever and the other has their thinking.

[B]

Cap on and says this effing sucks.

[C]

Actually, EJ says that's kind of how I feel when I hear from people who've never been to A's games here and really experienced how electric it got during some games.

[B]

Clearly they didn't watch Nick Kurtz hit multiple walk off homers in a row up close for a reasonable price. I felt a lot of resentment for people who say bad things about Sutter.

[C]

Health park without having gone on there. It feels like SFGate, the Bay Area newspaper, just has an F Sacramento beat going on.

[B]

There's been a couple articles about how season ticket holders lose money every game.

[C]

As if selling the tickets to turn a profit is the purpose of season tickets. Actually, this is a classic Bay Area.

[B]

Capitalist grind culture mindset I always complain about and that the season could not have gone worse if the only people interviewed were scalpers who felt burned by not being able to turn a profit. They're going to be bitter and angry.

[C]

And reading these kinds of articles. There's so much talking negatively about Sacramento, but basically zero about the players.

[B]

It's like they don't want to get excited about the actual baseball and would.

[C]

Rather just talk smack about sack. They aren't representative of regular people who watch these games living here. What I see is that there are.

[B]

A lot of young baseball fans who finally get to see the majors up close and more often, even if it's.

[C]

In a minor league park. To be completely honest too, from a.

[B]

Fan perspective, the smaller park gives such a great up close view you wouldn't get anywhere elsewhere for for a similar price. And the home run lawn seating is so charming.

[C]

I mostly watch A's games through day of $25 lawn tickets. If I can't find a reasonable price.

[B]

For a seat, which I often can.

[C]

I feel like a lot of the ticket pricing talk at the beginning of the season has totally stabilized.

[B]

It's really cool to see how packed that hill can get with families who.

[C]

Want to have a good time.

[B]

That's the side that people don't see.

[C]

When engagement baiters come to games and take pictures of empty seats 40 minutes before first pitch.

[B]

All that said, I'm not trying to cape for John Fisher or the A's organization. I hate the system that allowed John.

[C]

Fisher to just move this team because he wants to and then pretend it was all fans fault.

[B]

Don't get it twisted. I think he is a terrible owner.

[C]

I get that there are facility issues.

[B]

With playing in a minor league park and all the issues that players have been vocal about are totally valid.

[C]

I think Luis Severino is completely in.

[B]

The right for feeling upset that his routine is messed up by pitching at Sutter. I get that. And it's absolutely ridiculous that the A's.

[C]

Still have comments turned off all their social media. I was waxing poetic about all the.

[B]

Kids seeing the young A's core hit home runs around earlier, but those same kids won't be able to comment about.

[C]

How much they love the A's young core.

[B]

Disallowing people from even saying wow, Nick.

[C]

Kurtz hits dingers on social media because they're afraid of negative comments is silly and stifles new fans for baseball fans.

[B]

Living in Sacramento who aren't A's fans. I just think the fact that MLB is in Sacramento for a couple years.

[C]

Is still so weird, but it's pretty.

[B]

Interesting that Sacramento area fans of teams who don't ever really get to see.

[C]

Them play can do that now.

[B]

It's hard for me not to be.

[C]

Excited about being able to see that, even temporarily.

[B]

I think it's sad to say that.

[C]

Part of the draw of going to an A's game in Sacramento is for the the away team's fans. It's out of touch and an insult to Oakland fans. I get that it's hard to say a part of it is not true though.

[B]

Phillies fans here were excited to see Bryce Harper. I'm a Cubs fan and I was stoked to see my team run up the score. Historically, I attended multiple Mariners series and it was incredibly fun to see Cal.

[C]

Rally in action next season.

[B]

I'm sure that Shohei Ohtani coming to.

[C]

Sacramento for the Dodgers series will be a story. It's hard not to acknowledge that part of what makes Sacramento baseball fun is.

[B]

That I am an away team fan.

[C]

And just a general baseball fan.

[B]

I also see that back in March.

[C]

I had some pie in the sky optimism that maybe MP MLP could stay in Sacramento.

[B]

But after this year I know that.

[C]

Won'T be the case. It does feel temporary and it does feel like they're going to leave town in a few years. I think maybe the Las Vegas stadium will get delayed and the A's will stay here longer than planned, but I know they don't want to stay forever. We get constant reminders that the A's are moving to Las Vegas and there's this billboard at the back of the park for Las Vegas.

[B]

I get it.

[C]

They're leaving. Which makes the state of Sacramento's relationship with the A's kind of weird. I've never seen anything like it.

[B]

There's Sacramento merch in the store, but I know there's those are just curiosities.

[C]

That will be rare in a few years. And the A's are going to wear.

[B]

A Sacramento Gold jersey on Saturdays next season, which kind of feels akin to buying expensive earrings for a platonic best friend. But that jersey is clean. I unfortunately have to hand it to them. It looks cool. Cynically, I know this is probably a money grab directed at people like me.

[C]

General baseball fans who live here and feel defensive about the city and feel some Sacramento pride. But I think it's going to work. That is going to pull in more Sacramento fans and make them some money. Some of the most popular giveaways were Sacramento themed games gear.

[B]

We know what this is.

[C]

It's temporary.

[B]

It's weird.

[C]

It's a novelty. And in 20 years I'll have a Sacramento A's crew neck and be like wow, what a strange three to four seasons that was. It's all just a weird little perfect storm.

[B]

It's an anomaly that the A's are here.

[C]

They should not be here, but they are.

[B]

And I'm excited to see Major League.

[C]

Baseball here next year too.

[B]

Thank you ej and maybe the A's.

[C]

Will play a bit better in Sacramento next season because they did have a pretty pronounced home road split. They were better when they were away.

[B]

You can support effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectivelywild where you can sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners, Paul Strawberry Jams, Nick Devlin, Jenny Lynn and Joel Hashimoto.

[C]

Thanks to all of you.

[B]

Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly.

[C]

Bonus episodes, playoff live streams coming up.

[B]

Later this month, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, discounts on merch and ad, free Fancrest memberships, and so much, much more.

[C]

Check out all the [e-mail] effectivelywild if.

[B]

You are a patron, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email.

[C]

Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com youm can rate, review.

[B]

And subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook [e-mail] group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit @r effectivelywild and you can share. Check the show notes and fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and.

[C]

Stats we cited today.

[B]

Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode before the end of the week, which means.

[C]

We will talk to you soon. Say Effectively Wild Effective Moral Sauvage.

[B]

Effective Mon Savage hello and welcome to Effectively Wild.

[C]

Wait, that's not how I say this.

[B]

I almost started doing an intro for one of my other podcasts and got.

[D]

You got the words right just midway.

[B]

Yeah, I started with the hello and. And that's the way I usually start. Okay, let me do this again.

[C]

I'm all out of sorts.

[B]

Meg is not here.