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Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Effectively Wild Episode 2387: GIDPodcast
01:37:52
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley revisit Meg’s experience of Mariners-Tigers ALDS Game 5 and recap the first few games of the Championship Series round, touching on postseason broadcast booths, the Mariners’ mauling of the Blue Jays in Toronto,
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- [00:04]
A
Number one Fangrass baseball podcast. The stat cast is stat blast tops plus when the stats need contrast, zips and steamer for the forecast. Hello and welcome to episode 2387 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer, joined by Meg Riley of fangraphs. Hello, Meg.
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B
Hello.
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A
I will remind everyone that we are planning our first playoff livestream for Patreon supporters at the Ned Garver tier or above this Friday. This Friday night. This Friday evening. Details to come. We will message you if you are at the appropriate tier, but you can sign up any time before then if you care to participate. Let's talk a little bit about games that have already happened because there have been a bunch we are recording here on Monday afternoon. Ish. My time. Morning. Your time.
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B
It's Tuesday, Ben.
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A
That's right. Wow, it's Tuesday. We missed a whole day there. There was a holiday and we didn't do a podcast that day. So.
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B
Yes, a whole holiday.
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A
No, but we had a whole day. Get away from me. At least. Evidently. So here we are on Tuesday. Tuesday, which I should have known because Monday was a day of two baseball games and Tuesday will be a day of just one baseball game, which we are recording before. But I Im that the Mariners being up to nothing in the ALCS over Toronto as we speak, has done a lot to improve your mental state, which people got a glimpse of just a. A snippet in the postscript of the last episode recorded at a very late or early hour. Perhaps under the influence of certain substances and certainly under the influence of a 15 inning.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Nail biter of a game. Delirium. Yeah. That ended up went your way in the end, but now that you've had a few days to decompress and a couple, couple victories to get over things.
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B
Yeah.
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A
How are you feeling about that marathon classic? And how were you feeling then while it was proceeding?
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B
Well, how did I feel then? I was simultaneously begging for it to end and terrified that it would. I didn't have fun. I can appreciate in hindsight that it was a good game, that it was tense, that it was narratively satisfying, that, you know, both of those teams just left everything they had out on the field. You, you, you sit there and you go, who even started that game? You know, like that you feel at such a remove from it.
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A
Yeah. Because all the starters pitched. Eventually.
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B
Pretty much everybody pitched. Yeah. And so you, you can lose sight of a good, a quite good start from Kirby you can lose sight of the. The relief appearance almost heretofore unheard of for. Well, unheard of for Luis Castillo. I think if I remember correctly, Logan Gilbert has appeared in relief one other time and had been in the playoffs. Not these playoffs, to be clear. And so you. You had this very odd experience, or I did, where you're. You're, you know, you have Kirby. Kirby does a very good job. He only gives up the one run. Scubal Magn. You know, magnificent. Ben, like we should. I worry when you have games like that that go on for so long, so long that you have a second seventh inning stretch, a second salmon run with Humpy emerging victorious. Let us not forget the contribution of Humpy. And now there's like a weird, like, mystical decision for Mariners PR to make over Etsy Witch.
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A
It's now the Humpy Mariners haven't lost in the Humpy winning era.
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B
Yeah. And so it's like, do you have him win every time? Do you just let the race run, run straight? I mean, to be clear, they had to have been messing with Humpy prior to. Prior to this. Right? Like, there's no way. You. You never win. I'm on record as saying that they need to replace whoever is running for Randy Johnson in the Legends race at Chase because he should just win much more often than he does. He not. He doesn't never win, but he should win more. Um, I think they need a new runner, but with Humpy, it's become this. This joke, right? You know, and. And Victor Robles, like, raced him during their. In their scrimmage and he won. And he sounded kind of mean about it, candidly. And then. And then you get Brian Wu just delighted at the victory of Humpy. I have a plush Humpy. And so I have a little. I have. This is why I'm leading with Humpy. People are like, didn't they play baseball? Yeah, they did. We'll get to that. Don't worry about it. So, you know, you, You. You fret where you end up doing a round two of all the little ballpark traditions that the starters will have been forgotten. And that would be a tragedy because, you know, Skubal was just so magnificent and really. But for a funny bit of base running and some bad luck, like, wouldn't have allowed a run at all. And Kirby, you know, not quite as impressive, obviously not as dominant a strikeout performance, but. But quite good on his own. And then, you know, we'd be remiss if we did not recognize the contributions of one Carrie Carpenter. Who I don't need to see play baseball again for a while is what I've decided. I don't.
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A
Well, you won't have to. Right.
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B
I don't need to be thinking about Carrie Carpenter anymore. And so, you know, you risk missing those things, but also you have to grapple with the stuff that did end up mattering a little bit more. Like little Leo Rivas having the best birthday of his. His whole dumb life, you know, and not a dumb life, but like a life that included being in the minors for years and years, right on. On this team, sort of in a. In a peripheral bench role. Manages. Manages to tie it up, manages to do what's necessary. And then you. And then you, as a fan, have this moment where you're like, I love Leo Rivas. And then you have this other moment where you're like, I hate Leo Rivas because Leo Rivas doing what he did means they're still playing. Will they play forever? I have multiple very pregnant friends right now, and they were convinced that this game was going to send them into labor.
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A
They.
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B
And like, not in a joking way. They're like, I'm very worried about my heart rate right now. I think that this is bad for the baby. And I was like, that's. That's, like, pretty concerning. And so you. You have all of this, and then you just feel lucky, Ben, that your team employs the best player in baseball, Jorge Polanco, about whom you have never said a bad word, about whom you have only said good words. You've only ever been delighted that Jorge Polanco is in your baseball orbit. You have only ever been thrilled that he came back on a. On a funny little deal that set seemed unlikely, and then ended up maybe defining the trajectory of your whole stupid franchise. Like, that's remarkable. And it just went on. It went on for so long. I was like, surely, you know, one of these starters will have a bad time and it'll end. And, like, you know, it almost did for Jack Flaherty a couple of times. You're like, when was. When. When has. How is Logan Gilbert being asked to do this? What toll is it gonna take it?
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A
Then you're like, oh, God, it really.
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B
Kind of maybe took a toll when you watched him play the Blue Jays. It didn't end up mattering, but, boy, and then you get. You get all this redemption for some of the guys. Although you feel nervous going forward, you feel nervous about Gabe Spire, but then you. You're recording on Tuesday, so you have the benefit of. Of not hindsight but future sight and, you know, hey, Gabe's gonna come in, in a tight game in Toronto. He's gonna pitch great. Gonna be fine. He's not gonna give, not gonna give up a home run. He can have a, he can have a little quick 1, 2, 3 inning. Quick, quick, quick. Gonna be fine. I Ben, as, as listeners who stuck around for the postscript will know I had set it up so that I knew I wasn't gonna be editing that night. We've been so lucky to have Kiri at the ballpark for these Mariners home games. She does such a nice job. She tends to be, because of the, the, the vagaries of the express bus schedule, someone who, first thing in the morning, the next day, which I do not offer as a criticism. Just as like a. I knew I didn't have to engage work mode, Meg. And so I was like, I'll have a little tipple. You know, just like a little. And I'll have a, I'll have a sake. Because then it's like, it's a sipping. It's a sipping sort of thing. It's, you know, be civilized.
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A
And then you got a message from me. Hey, want to record a little note for the podcast?
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B
Here's what happened. I, I had, I've been on a little bit of a socket kick lately. I've just been enjoying it as like, the tipple that I have. And so I had a couple different little. You know, you can get those little, little. Well, you don't really drink much, but you can get these little, like, kind of single serve guys. They have them at various grocery stores. The quality of them wildly variable. But I've had like, I had a couple of the little guy, you know, like papa. They come in a little metal can and they have one of those, like, pop top guys. And the cats always think that I'm getting wet food out for them. They're like, where's our wet food, Mom? And I'm like, no, this is mommy's special treat. This is not, this is not for you. This is for Mommy. And so I opened one of those and then the game starts to happen and go the way it does. And I had an amateur moment. I drank it too fast. And someone who was less feral and nervous than I was in that moment would say, okay, have that be the only one you had. But I, a little bit tipsy and also incredibly nervous, was like, why not just drink another one? And so I haven't gone back to listen to the voice memo I sent you. I don't know how sober I sounded. I wasn't like hammered, but I was not. I wouldn't have been able to edit a game or put it that way.
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A
No, it sounded fine. It sounded like you'd been through a strenuous 15 inning affair, which was exactly the case. And I felt it too. Even with no personal stake in the house.
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B
Everyone was so nervous.
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A
Yeah, it was teeth gritted, white knuckle. It was just, I mean it was great. It was the essence of postseason baseball. It's exactly what you want if you're not directly involved. If you're directly involved, you want a game two of the ALCS where it's just kind of out of hand and relatively anxiety stress free.
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B
I mean, it had its moments early, but yes, it did. It did settle into being a much easier time after.
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A
But objectively speaking, that's just the best baseball end. I'm not gonna come out and use that game as an example, a proof of why we need to get rid of the zombie runner. I mean, I think we do, but quite different to have a 15 minute game like that in a game five in a double elimination game in the playoffs than it is just on some random night during the regular season doesn't quite carry the same excitement. So that was great. And you know, 30 years after another legendary Game 5 ALDS victory in Mariners history and our listener, Patreon supporter, Michael Mountain, I think I've cited this before, he does this way of quantifying the excitement of the playoffs as a whole each year or playoff rounds by just summing the total changes in championship win expectancy.
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B
Right.
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A
And he found that this division Series round was the sixth most exciting by that metric since the introduction of that series in 1995. But that was heavily driven by Mariners, Tigers and in fact, by Michael's accounting, that was the second most exciting division series matchup ever, trailing only the Yankees Mariners matchup of 1995, which was even more exciting. So it was appropriate. And yeah, that game, the runs were driven in by Leo Rivas, as you mentioned, Jorge Polanco, who just can't stop getting huge hits, and Mitch Garver. So it was like, you know, Julio did nothing and looked pretty bad in that series. Yeah. Rebounded to hit a homer against Toronto. Cal didn't do a whole lot at the plate in that game. He walked a couple times, he had a hit. Josh Naylor had a good game, he had a few hits. But really it was unexpected heroes and it was relievers just holding the line. I, I think a lot of People. I saw some people describe the later innings of that game after Scuba was removed as just more of a mess, as just, who wants to lose less? More so than who wants to win more. They did keep squandering all sorts of.
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B
Chances, and they should have been, yeah.
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A
Runners in scoring position and leadoff runners reaching and not being able to plate them and everything. But it read to me less as some sort of farce or comedy of errors or teams throwing away their chances and more as relievers just stepping up and having huge moments and making incredible pitches. I mean, sure, there were hitters who could have capitalized on those situations, but some of those moments, like pitches that Jack Flaherty made after working himself into a hole and falling behind in counts and then coming back somehow to extend it, and just the heroics of. Of Buzzardo, who was just. Oh, my gosh, amazing.
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B
Just like, what an outing. What an outing.
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A
He was so pumped up and so was I. Just watching them and then the starters coming in and. Yeah, guys who hadn't pitched in that situation or had since eight ball. I guess, in Castillo's case, I mean.
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B
Right.
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A
It was incredible. So to me, it was more about each reliever coming in and ultimately holding the line and saying, no, you shall not pass, and just managing to extend it another inning until finally Tommy Kinley had to come in, and that was that. But, man, what a. What a game.
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B
I did have a feeling. Sometimes you have these guys and they're unflappable. I think that one of the things that we've learned about Jorge Polanco in. In this playoffs, and, you know, I. I don't mean to say that he didn't exhibit similar unflappability when he was a twin. I just wasn't paying as close of attention to his flap. His degree of flappability was uninteresting to me that time. More interesting to me now. He just seems so even keeled and in a way that is consistent with his regular season affect. You know, we. I've mentioned his cool sunglasses. He had these cool sunglasses and he just seems like a cool guy. Right. The. You know, I think there is still debate about how meaningful sort of the psyche of the individual hitter is in the post season. Right. We don't want to ascribe too much creditor power to the veteran of the playoffs. Right. Because there are guys who perform well in their first postseason all the time. We get that all the time. Right. But also, I do think that, like, it is a. It has to be some sort of psychological weight on you as a player. How big a difference that weight makes, how easy it is to bear is probably going to vary guy to guy. And obviously it's not the only factor in one's performance. But I would imagine if you had your druthers as a player, you would rather be like chill and even keeled when you're in the box than not. Because you can. He's just not worrying about this new variable.
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A
Right.
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B
Or you can take Randy Rosarena's approach where it's like, how good is his approach all the time? I don't know. And so he doesn't have to have a postseason approach. He's just like Randy. He hasn't had his big Randy moment yet. Loe also has mostly been okay on the bass pass, which is shocking. Never have I enjoyed so much such a frustrating baserunner as Randy or Rosarina is one thing I've learned about myself in this, the 2025 season. I'm going to go back to Jorge in a second, but it is hard to steal 31 bases and have negative base running value. It is actually that is hard to achieve. And yet Randy, he's like, challenge accepted anyway. And so it's just like you got Jorge and he's so unflappable up there. And you have, you know, you'll have starters who are just. They look so centered and even keeled. And then you have guys where you watch them go through it. Right. Jack Flaherty was going through it up there during that, during that game. I, I don't think of him as a, as a self talker, which, to be clear, I am a self talker. So this is not a criticism. This is like when I made fun of. Of Ohtani for having the Michael Buble feeling good, and people were like, that's rude. And I was like, no, I listen to Louis Prima game recognized game over here. So I, you know, he is going through it.
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A
Yeah, he was having a whole conversation. He was doing a podcast on the mountain.
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B
He was doing a podcast up there. Yeah, I was like, I was trying to get a Spotify deal. And so he's. He's going through it in front of everyone for all of us to see. And then, and then you have Bizarro where you just. When, when he, when his outing is finally done, when his, his work is ended and he, you know, he gives way to Castillo and the, just the catharsis of that moment is so obvious. Right? This buildup of not only the responsibility that he had, you know, for two innings, six you know, five outs, right? He has. He strikes out the side in the way that I understand that term in the 13th. And then, you know, he. He gives up a double in the 14th, but, you know, gets two outs around that, and it's just like, you did it, dude. And you pitched quite poorly in the last game, and it's as if it didn't happen. Amazing. Amazing. And then I felt so nervous about Castillo coming in because it's like, oh, my God, he hasn't done this since Abel. He hasn't done it in the majors ever. And it was fine, Ben. It was totally fine.
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A
Completely in command from the first pitch.
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B
I also. It was so satisfying for him to have gotten Carpenter to strike out swinging. Like, there were a couple of moments where I indulged a bit of woo. Not Brian woo. Although I look forward to seeing him pitch sometime. When Humpy won, I was like, they gotta win this game. I think that they have to win. But prior to that, because I think the. I think the second salmon run came in between. Right. It can't. It was. It was the top. And then they did it in between the right. It didn't precede the 15th. I think it. Maybe it did anyway. Humpy winning, I was like, oh, I think they're gonna. Because it also just, like, seemed to inject more energy into the ballpark shift. Yeah. Like, really back in it in a, like, big way after that. Because everybody. Everybody loves Hump. He has a little life preserver. He's a fish, but he needs a little life preserver. Ben. That's adorable. And then for Kerry Carpenter to go down swinging, it was like, okay, okay, okay, you guys. And then Tommy Candle comes in, and I was like, you know, the fact that Jack Flaherty pitched before Tommy Canley suggests to me that AJ Hinch does not feel great about Tommy Canley. And then, you know, J.P. crawford has days getting long for J.P. like, in his career. And you can see it. You can see the decline at the plate, and you certainly can see it in the field. And then, you know, he singles, and then Randy gets hit. And then Cal. I thought for a second Cal got. And then it was like, no, he didn't. But then Randy advances, and you're like, oh, what's gonna happen? And then they walk Julio, and you're like, oh, even killed Jorge. And then. And then they did it. And then they did it, Ben. They did it. That's wild.
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A
It was. Yeah. It was the kind of game that you could just draft moments from that game and do A whole podcast about it, which we're not far from having done here.
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B
Sorry.
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A
You could do an emergency episode if you weren't completely incapacitated by that point.
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B
It wasn't completely clear.
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A
I did not ask to do that. But yes, it was incredible.
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B
And.
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A
And the Mariners, look, they. They earned it. They won four games started by Derek Skubel this season. Quite difficult to do. I would not say that they beat Skubal four times, but they managed to triumph against the Tigers in four games started by Skubal. It's tough. So it was kind of incredible. You have inspired me to do an impromptu step last year because you said that it's hard to have negative base running value if you steal 30 plus bases. That is. That is true. It has been accomplished by AL or NL players 74 times in history, which is not a whole lot as a fraction of 30 steel seasons or all seasons. And Randy Rosarena has accomplished, if we can call it an accomplishment, he has done it twice. And in fact, this season was not his worst 30 plus steel base running runs according to Fangraph season. That was 2022 with the Rays. The worst base running season by a 30 plus bag Swiper was another Mariner. Harold Reynolds.
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B
Yeah.
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A
1988.
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B
That sounds right.
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A
Yeah. Who was almost five runs below average with 35 steals anyway.
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B
Stat blast, Humpy ran. They did the salmon run. In between. It was in between. It was the inning break in the 50.
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A
Okay, important clarification. Yeah, we gotta get the sequence of these legendary events just already locked into Seattle lore. Gotta keep that straight.
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B
Gotta keep it straight.
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A
I feel bad that we're giving such short shrift to the other series that wrapped up in five games. Because look, Brewers, Cubs. It just wasn't that great a series. It went five. Which is normally the hallmark of, oh, this is close, this is competitive. But the individual games just were not all that interesting.
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B
Really.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. And so we talked plenty about Toronto beating the Yankees. We talked a lot about how the Phillies Dodgers series ended, and we've talked a ton about the Mariners and Detroit. But this one just drew the short straw. Not just conversationally, but in terms of entertainment value. Those things are related. That's why we haven't talked as much about it. Some of those games overlapped with other games, which I think is part of it. But I watched most of that series. There just wasn't that much to say about it. There wasn't that much controversy. There weren't that many lead changes late. There was just a lot of early scoring so ultimately, I just. I don't have a ton of takes about that series, but I guess Cubs fans probably don't care to dwell on it anyway. And brewers fans will talk about you in just a second and your team. So. So I guess we can move on and maybe we can talk about the ALCs, since there is no game on this day that we are recording and since there have already been two. And yeah, there was this brief reprieve after the Mariners win and advance, and I'm sure there was a euphoric feel. Ah, we were spared stay of execution. But oh, no, now we have to play in less than two days, right? And we have to travel across the country and we have to play a better rested team, a team that just put on a clinic in the ALDS against the Yankees and no problem, evidently. Just no problem whatsoever. I mean, the way it started in game one, it looked immediately like, oh, there's a hangover here for the Mariners because, you know, first pitch thrown to the Blue Jays, George Springer goes deep, and the Mariners just got into tons of trouble. It wasn't even just that, but they were making Miller throw so many pitches, right? Because loud contact, oh, my gosh, loud contact. Deep plate appearances where he ended up walking people and losing them and just racked up like 20 pitches and had very little to show for it. And you're thinking, man, if only Woo could have started this game, that would have been quite clutch. And I'm sure if he had been able to, they probably would have had him do that. And then, as it turns out, that was it. That was like all the offense that the Blue Jays managed to muster on that day. They had one hit, one single in the second.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that was it. No hits for the rest of the game. Suddenly, yeah, Bryce Miller, playoff hero, and the Mariners just make it happen again. And then in game two, they jump all over Tres Savage, who had no hit the Yankees for five and a third and looked like the. The new hotness, the rookie sensation not named Cam Schlitler in these playoffs and not named Jacob Misrowski or Chad Patrick or all the other rookies at the pitching. But he immediately looks hittable and the Mariners got on him. And yeah, Logan Gilbert was not good Gilbert, and it was a little dicey there at first, but then, you know, Blanco did his thing again and other guys and Julio hit a home run and suddenly there was a pretty wide margin there and the boogers are in some pretty deep trouble now. It's not insurmountable, but it has has not been surmounted in quite some time in this specific scenario where you go down.02 in a best of seven in the championship series and the two that you lost were at home. So you, you lose home field advantage. And the two games that's. It's tough to come back from. Not impossible, but. Plus the Mariners have the starting pitcher advantage on paper, at least the rest of the way, it seems like. So, yeah, everything's coming up Mariners at the moment.
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B
Now I feel a different kind of nervousness. Like I'm having to grapple with the degree to which superstition is part of my like, belief structure because objectively they are in a terrific position here, as you said, you know, they have those two games banked. They get to go home. Now I will be curious to see how the ballpark feels. Toronto is on the other side of the country, but Blue Jays fans in British Columbia tend to travel quite well. Although earlier this year they did not because of broader sort of geopolitical stuff. That series was less heavily attended by Blue Jays fans than is typical. So I wonder what the org is doing on that front. Although playoff tickets sort of sell early, so maybe it's less of an issue. But you know, home field, sure, but a contested home field, often they get to sort of reset from a pitching perspective, which is good. Gilbert was clearly fatigued, really gutted through. I did not imagine that they were going to get so many innings out of him, candidly. And then, you know, obviously with the run scoring, it didn't super matter, but he was not sharp. The velo was down, the movement on his pitches was down. The spin was like everything was depressed relative to his season norm. So not super great from him, but enough. And then they got to preserve because of the run scoring, they obviously got to preserve their other sort of highest leverage bullpen arms. Although they didn't. They got some guys in there, you know, but this was a game where you were like, yeah, put Carlos Vargas out there. Let's finally see Emerson Hancock. Like, you know, this is the kind of thing. So they get to do all of that and you're like, okay, good. But you just feel nervous because you never, you never done it. Ben, how can you not feel nervous? Sure, because they've never, they, they've never done it before. They, they've never, they've never done it before. But yeah, I think that I am not going to count out a Blue Jays team that has Vladimir Guerrero Jr. I'm not going to count a Blue Jays team with George Springer. My Hope was that Seattle will come out of that two game set in Toronto having split. So they've dramatically exceeded expectations. For Miller to have done what he did in game one on short rest is so remarkable.
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A
Yeah, that was interesting. They had him on the ropes. It looked like.
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B
I was thinking like, is he going.
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A
To make it out of this inning?
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B
Right. There was, there was a stretch where it seemed like he, he might not even complete the frame. And then you're, you're like, oh God, what does that do to their pitching the rest of the way? Like, this could really be a problem for them. And then he, he settled in and it was gritty. I mean, he, he got hit hard. He, for the first couple innings of his outing, not like a single whiff to be had. You know, he was just not. They were on it even if they weren't putting it in play. And then Cal and then Jorge. Just really gritty and remarkable time. I do want to also make sure we are remembering how much Cal is catching and he hit that home run. Like Sam Dykstra from MLB.com noted that he caught every frame of that 15 inning game. He caught like 200 and some odd pitches like two days prior and he's out there catching again. I didn't care for the part of game two where it looked like he was dinged up a little bit. There was a lot of funny stuff that happened in that game too. You know, like Naylor seemed like he was compromised and then he had a home run. So jokes on me. The ball hits Aohenio Suarez just like hanging out on the dugout step and you're like, is it going to cost the Mariners a base? Is this going to cost them a base? Because the, the ball got away from Jimenez and then it hits a Ogenio and it's like, oh, well, is it, you know, is it actually going to go on the dugout and put him on second? And then they had to do a review and I was like, oh my God, there's a tree down in our yard. And it was a very tense couple of minutes for me personally.
- [31:34]
A
Yeah, well, the Mariners whole staff threw 100 pitches in game one, so that's a nice little break for Cal. Just, you know, the fewest, fewest pitches thrown by a team in a postseason win since 2018. So that's a, a little bit of a breather. That's the closest Cal ever comes to a breather, except for an actual off day, which he doesn't take, but the schedule sometimes affords him. This month yeah, so, yeah, the, the Boo Jays went from being on absolutely everything in that Yankee series and, you know, the apple of John Smoltz's eye and combining contact and power, which they do, they did all season, but not to that degree. And suddenly, yeah, the hot streak just doesn't always translate from one series to the next or one game to the next. And those first few batters of game one, you're thinking, oh, this is completely carrying over. They're just picking up right where they left off. And then suddenly that aggression swinging early in the count, making contact, it was not being rewarded. It was translating into 1, 2, 3, 8 pitch innings a few times in a row. And you know that'll happen when you're a team that puts it in play. And sometimes good things happen, as the saying goes, but sometimes they don't, you know, and it's, man, I don't know if you were even really listening to the commentary on the broadcast or whether you were just kind of tooting it out or in some sort of mental fog where nothing was really registering during the 15 inning game, but I kind of enjoyed the commentary on that game. Just like, you know, the, the wackiness of having Brzezinski and Wainwright, when Wainwright actually got a word in edgewise like, yeah, that, that three man crew with Adam Amin was the third play by play. And it was just kind of fun. Like it led to a lot of memes, of course, because Persinski was, was pleading for bunts on basically every plate appearance.
- [33:33]
B
It was so fun. So I go back and forth on that booth. I like Wainwright, although I think Adam Wainwright at one point suggested like intentionally walking the winning run. And we were like, maybe don't though.
- [33:49]
A
I think that's, well, Pat Murphy might do it, but he's sure issuing a whole lot of free passes these days. And it doesn't always work out so well.
- [33:57]
B
I, I, I don't know. I was okay with it. I was, I was like, this game is ridiculous. Sure, they should bunt. Definitely they should bunt.
- [34:05]
A
The energy was good. The quality of the analysis was lacking. I would say looking for quality analysis, if that happens, great, but you can get that elsewhere or supply it yourself. But I just want people who recognize like they knew what was happening, they understood the moment and they rose to it in terms of just acknowledging that something special was happening and that this game was wild and weird and wow and constantly noting just how much fun it was. And yeah, it was kind of laughable with the constant bunting talk, the constant calling for any other pitch but a slider. Even though the Mariners were just going to throw sliders, sweepers, just nonstop.
- [34:51]
B
It was. It was like a pretty remarkable. I would love to read the advance report they had for that because, like, it was so obviously a strategy and work for them. But it was funny. It was just like, no, I think they're probably gonna spam sliders. Cause that's what they. They're just spamming sliders. That's the thing.
- [35:14]
A
Yeah. So I enjoyed the atmosphere. I enjoyed the mood of that booth. In contrast to John Smoltz, which I just. I still find him to be a downer most of the time.
- [35:25]
B
And he is such a drip. It is.
- [35:29]
A
Even when he's celebrating something. Yeah. Which he was with the Blue Jays bats and their offensive approach and everything, which absolutely was worthy of praise.
- [35:38]
B
Sure.
- [35:39]
A
But. But it. It was very much kind of in contrast to. This is how you're supposed to hit. This is how teams used to hit. They don't do it anymore because baseball is a fallen sport. You know, it's like, even when he's celebrating something, it's as a means of denigrating everything else, really. And so the whole thing is his hobby horses. And he also just doesn't supply the same energy that the goofy guys were giving me, which is what I want. I want some goofiness. Unless you're giving me, like, top tier analysis. And every now and then, Smoltz might say something insightful, like he knows a lot about pitching, clearly. But I just. I don't feel like he's blowing my mind with the quality of his analysis. And it just does not make up for how much of a wet blanket he can be. And I. I hear this from so many other people. It seems to be kind of a consensus in our world, our bubble. And yet he's on everything. He's been broadcasting for years and years. He's on their national crew. Like, there must be some data to suggest that people like him. Right. Unless he's just kind of a personal favorite of some network executive. But I just. I don't get it.
- [36:47]
B
Which we always have to allow for. The best you can hope for is, like a neutral Smoltz game. You know, I don't recall a time where he seems like he has seemed like he was ever having fun except when he was like, like, eating turkey yesterday. Other than that. Also, like, okay, sorry, I'm gonna give a little turkey commentary. You can't just give them turkey, just turkey. You have to have sides. Like what you're just gonna give them dry turkey. No gr. No gravy, just dry. Anyway.
- [37:20]
A
It's not the most appetizing meat. There's a. There's a reason why a lot of people eat it once a year and with copious condiments and sides, things to douse it in.
- [37:30]
B
Yeah, stuffing, dressing, whatever you want to call it. So. So there's that part of it. But yeah, you, you only ever really get a neutral Smoltz. That's the ceiling at this point. And it is particularly galling, it stands out when the approach that he is denigrating is the one that is currently winning the baseball game. Right. Like that's the part of it that I always find so flummoxing. Like, I do think that the Blue Jays it's nice when a team has like a quote unquote balanced offensive approach. I like to see a mix of contact and power. I think that every study we've seen on this question demonstrates though that, you know, being a home run dependent team does not present an obstacle to you in the postseason. Indeed, those teams tend to do a little bit better because hits are just hard to come by in October. We've talked about this before. Seattle is at this juncture like an extreme example of home run dependence. Part of that is that they have a guy who hits 60 during the regular season. Like they have two between two dudes. They have a, you know, they have 100 home run hitter. But they, you know, they had that graphic up on the, on the screen yesterday that like something like 50% of their runs have come via the long ball.
- [38:51]
A
I think only the Yankees had a higher GN number. That's what she and dubbed it years and years ago the percentage of your run scored on homers. And I think the Mariners might have even been number one after their midseason moves. After they're right, Naylor and Suarez, etc. They were even more home run reliant.
- [39:08]
B
And so I think that if you want to make a case for an aesthetic preference for contact and small ball, I'm not going to begrudge you an aesthetic preference. Right. And I think that it is good to have some amount of diversity. Like you know, if you like that stuff, like you're really happy the brewers are, are in the cs, right. Because they. Not that they don't hit home runs, but they, they are a contact D based runny team. Right. That plays to the strengths of their, their guys. We always talk about the, you know, the Orioles having like a bunch of the same dude. I Don't. I think we're sleeping on the brewers in that respect. But, but so all that to say, like, it would be one thing if the approach that he is so flummoxed by, so offended by, was also losing, but when that, when it's not, it just seems ridiculous. It seems so obstinate.
- [40:11]
A
Right.
- [40:12]
B
Like, I'm sorry, John, but you're watching a team that is, you know, making its way in the game. You're literally calling via the home run and you're being a crab ass about it. Like, what is the, what is your understanding of this? And it, it is so funny, though, that he is that way. And then like, it's, it seems clear to me that John Smoltz, I think he even said this, like, he thinks the Cal Raleigh should be the mvp, which is so funny because I'm like, what do you, you know, what Cal does? I mean, he also plays good defense, so there's that. But it's like, you know, you have this, this, you have this game where, like, Julio hits a three run shot and Polanco hits a three run shot and Naylor Taxona a home run late. And the team that didn't manage to do that, the team that had, I think, what, one extra base hit in that game yesterday.
- [41:07]
A
Yeah.
- [41:07]
B
You know, you do have to, you do have to generate offense, and one of the most reliable ways to do that is to hit a home run. Mitch Garver hit a triple. That's right. I forgot about that. That's great. Good for you, Mitch. He always looks so relieved when he gets a hit. I'm like, you're really going through it, buddy. I'm glad for you.
- [41:24]
A
Yeah. And it's, you know, you could say, well, just mute him. And sometimes I resort to that. But I do find that even if I don't love the broadcast crew, I just, I like having the commentary on.
- [41:37]
B
I do, too. Yeah.
- [41:38]
A
And part of it is just so that you have something in the background. If you're not glued to every pitch, you can still follow what's happening. You can get those audio cues and know when to look up. And also, the ballpark environment at these games has been fantastic. Obviously, the, the Mariners fans absolutely showed up and as the broadcast noted, just rarely seemed to sit down in the 15 inning game. Oh, yeah. And. And the Blue Jays crowd was loud when it had a reason to briefly be. Right. And so you want to hear that now. If you could do the ballpark sound and not get the commentary, then maybe that would be worthwhile. But if it's either silence or having all of the sound and everything that comes with it, good or bad, I'm going to opt for the commentary. And all I want is for it not to annoy me. I don't need for it to just elevate the game. The game is good enough. All you have to do is not bring it down, not distract me. That's all I want. That's all I ask.
- [42:36]
B
And we've talked about this before, before. You know, I think that folks who view the game through an analytical lens can sometimes get a little precious about their expectations of the broadcast, especially in the postseason where you are attracting the broadest possible audience. I have friends who I follow on social media primarily for other things. And they are like hooked on this Mariners team. They are in the weeds on this Mariners team. And so sometimes they will post things that betray that they are at best a casual baseball fan. Right. Like they will express frustration that a pitching change hasn't happened. I'm like, well, he does have to face three guys. Like there are, you know, like, so you, you have this very broad audience. And I think that having an. A former player in the booth can be really great in those situations. And they do have insight into baseball and they have insight into the game and they can, they can communicate stuff about the experience of that moment potentially that like, is just gonna hit differently than it would if it's someone who's never played. Which isn't to say that there isn't also a role for, you know, the, the sort of non player analyst or non player play by players play person. You know, I think Joe Davis does a good job sometimes he can get a little precious with narrative, but. And I don't know if he knows how to carve a turkey, but like he's good in there. But if you want a former player, give me someone who is stoked on the game as it is currently constituted. And there are a lot of those people, like it's. Even if they, even if they aren't like super analytics, even if they have an aesthetic preference for small ball, you can have all of that and still be like delighted by baseball. And SMOS just seems over it. And I'm like, surely you have enough money that you don't have to keep doing this.
- [44:38]
A
Like just, just golf. Be happy. Yeah.
- [44:41]
B
He doesn't seem like he's having a good time out there, so I just find the whole thing very perplexing. And you know, it is hard not to think that this is about him playing Golf with somebody. And. And I think that there are a lot of. I wish that there were easier sort of alternatives for folks. Like maybe you have an MLB TV that has an unblocked out login. And so this is easy for you to do because you can just layer the radio over the broadcast. But, like, it would be nice if they could make it easier, particularly for fans of the team, to hear their crew in these moments. You know, we. We default to the national guys or you're a Dodgers fan and you get both. But like, we default to the national guys come playoff time and that's fine. But I also think that we're missing something. You know, we really.
- [45:37]
A
Very much so. Yeah. Even if the national guys are good, it's still. It's not the same because they're broadcasting for a big tent of people who have not watched this team all season.
- [45:48]
B
Right.
- [45:48]
A
And so you're just. Just battered with the same stories over and over and reminders about how cal rally hit 60 homers this season and just things that if you are following the team all season long, as a lot of the people watching these teams are, they know they could tell you in their sleep. And so it's sort of tiresome to have to be subjected to that as if you're just hearing it for the first time. I mean, I want baseball to be accessible. I want people to bandwagon baseball teams in October. I want people to be able to get on board and have their hands held and be caught up quickly. But it would also be nice if there were an option to say, listen to Jason Benetti. Call Tigers games if you're still watching the Tigers. So speaking of my hobby horses that I get cranky about. Not as cranky as Smoltz, hopefully. Did you catch when Victor Robles in game one of the alcs, he misplayed a ball while holding his outfield positioning cards.
- [46:47]
B
I. I did see in his mouth.
- [46:50]
A
Yeah. Many, many people informed me that this happened. If I had not already known, I was tagged by. By plenty of people looking out everyone. But. Yeah, I don't know if this was why he misplayed this ball, but he was studying the alignment card.
- [47:05]
B
Yeah.
- [47:05]
A
And so he, I guess, got a late break on this ball hit by Santander and he just. He had the card in his mouth and the ball clanked off his glove and went. Went by him. And so Santander motored into second. That was. That was amusing.
- [47:22]
B
Yeah. I think the combination of the card and then also, you know, the surface there plays so fast. So that Combo. It was just like, oh, no, Victor. No. But yeah, as soon as that happened, I was like, oh, we're gonna get emails about this.
- [47:37]
A
Yep. Okay. So in the Dodgers brewers series in game one, of course, we have to talk about the play, the weird, wild play that satisfied everyone's desire to see something they've never seen before in a baseball game. Yeah, this was so weird. It's a close game, and it's a decisive play. It ends up being 2 to 1, and it's, you know, the fourth inning, and no one knew what to make of this. Obviously, it's, you know, crushed by Max Muncie to the wall would have been a home run in nine parks, I think stat said. And Sal Frelich catches it almost, but not quite. It goes off his glove, it hits the wall, then he catches it. But of course, that does not count now. This was almost a fart bat, right? This was. He almost propelled this ball over the wall because, you know, it almost hit the yellow line. And so it came. I mean, it hit the yellow line, it almost went over the yellow line. And so he could have propelled this into being a grand slam, but that didn't quite happen. So, yeah, the. The brewers luck out there, and then they continue to luck out because free, like, screwed up, essentially. I mean, it was a tough play, of course, high degree of difficulty, but this worked out perfectly for them. If he had made a better play on this ball, it would have worked out worse for them, right, because it ends up being a double play. If he had caught it cleanly now, it could have been even worse. Of course, as I just mentioned, he could have turned it into a home run, but if he had caught it, then one run would have scored because there would have been a tag up, and it would have been a sacrifice fly, and that didn't happen. So instead, he starts a double play that took a while to actually sort it out. Like, once the dust settled, we had to get a review. We had to just all kind of consult with each other and umpires with each other. What was that exactly? Frilich said after the game. I didn't really know what happened. I really had no clue what was going on until like, an inning later when I could see the replay. And he was directly involved in the play. And his facial expression accurately conveyed that he had no idea what was happening. I mean, that was exactly what his face. That was the signal his face was sending there. It ends up being scored. An 8, 6, 2. Fielder's choice grounded into double play. The. The Scoring alone is an interesting conversation.
- [50:18]
B
Yes.
- [50:18]
A
So the Elias Sports Bureau said there had never been an 8, 6, 2 double play in the postseason. The last one in a regular season game was April 16, 2004, in the fifth inning of a game between the Cubs and the Reds, where Sammy Sosa hit a ball to Ken Griffey Jr. Who caught it and started a double play, and Todd Walker was thrown out at the plate. So these are the names. This is how long it has been. You know, it's a 10 pitch and it. So it bounces off his glove and then the ball comes in. And I guess Wilson William Contreras was kind of the hero of this play because he actually kind of understood what was happening.
- [50:58]
B
What was happening.
- [50:59]
A
That there was a force at home and he caught it as if.
- [51:02]
B
And then Durbin was like, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here.
- [51:05]
A
Yeah. And then they got the out at thirds also. And so this just kind of worked out perfectly. Ortiz cuts off the throw. Turing is telling him where to throw, and he's watching. And Teoscar Hernandez is just like, I don't know what he was doing exactly.
- [51:22]
B
Honestly, I don't know what any of the Dodgers base runners were doing. Like, no one, no one covered themselves on the in glory on the basis if they hadn't gotten that one of those outs, it sure looked like Muncie and Edmund got, you know, mixed up. So they might have had another out there because he didn't re. Tag.
- [51:41]
A
Yeah. We got a question or a comment from listener Patreon supporter Chris, who said in light of Teosco Hernandez's tagging technique opening up an 862 double play, do you think base running errors should be officially scorable? It seems unfair for the box score to credit Max Muncie with that.
- [51:59]
B
So.
- [52:00]
A
So yeah, as a number of people pointed out, this goes down as a grounded into double play.
- [52:05]
B
Yes.
- [52:06]
A
Which seems to make no sense on the surface because the ball was not hit on the ground. It was hit very far in the air. And I get why you can't call it a. Like flew into flight into a double play because Freich didn't catch the ball.
- [52:22]
B
Catch it. Yeah. They, they asked the official scorer, Tim Oderskull, who was there to, to sort of like explain why this is. And here I'm, I'm quoting from a Jason Stark piece in the Athletic, like it's a ground ball double play. He said, because once the ball hit off the glove and off the wall, the ball wasn't caught. Then there was a force out at home and a force out at third. And because the ball wasn't caught in the air, it becomes a, quote, ground ball. And here I'm, I'm reading Jason. We asked if he understood the irony in that. He couldn't help but laugh. But he had more explaining to do, saying there was no other way he was allowed by proper baseball authorities to categorize it. When you fill in your official score sheet, you can't say, yeah, it was happening. Caught, deflected, grab in the air. It has to say ground into double play.
- [53:08]
A
Yeah, it's. It's weird. And I, I emailed a listener, our anonymous source sometimes for official scoring questions, who is an MLB official scorer? To ask just what would you have done? Or why can't you call it something else? And he said, a scorer's nightmare. So here's the deal. Because Freich doesn't catch the ball as it hits the wall after making contact with the glove, the outs are made elsewhere. I talked with all of my peer veteran scorers in my city and none of us would have gotten this correct in real time because the outs are made that doesn't include a catch. The system only allows for scoring this a ground ball, as you just said. Therefore the oddest looking GIDP in history. I could see some rule modifying as a result of this attention in the off season, but I've had similar plays on line drives that are knocked down and hid in a way where two outs are made. Those are odd. Grounded into double plays too. It's certainly unfair to Muncie, but this is how the MLB rules account for this type of play. If this type of double play is made by having the ball hit something in fair territory. G I D P however, odd is how it is scored, and I guess it's mostly semantics, but it. It does seem like there should be some provision.
- [54:22]
B
Yeah.
- [54:22]
A
Made for this.
- [54:23]
B
Sure. Tough luck for Muncie, you know.
- [54:25]
A
Yeah. I mean, you know, even just to say hit into double play instead of grounded would make it seem less discordant visually. But. But also, couldn't you just say something like, you know, someone flies into a force out and then someone else is out at another base. Right. Like Max Muncie flies into a force out and then you say who threw where? And then TE Oscar's out at home and Will Smith's out at third. Like maybe you don't even have to. Yeah, maybe call it a certain type of double play. There are other plays like that where two outs are Made that. I don't think the. The play log says double play. Anyway, it was, yeah, super weird. And credit to anyone who understood what was happening in the moment, because.
- [55:08]
B
Sure. Did not include Sal Frehlic, who.
- [55:11]
A
Right. Not at all.
- [55:12]
B
Has resting, confused face.
- [55:15]
A
Like he's got a little bit of Bellinger going on.
- [55:17]
B
Yeah, like, no, but it's more. More actively confused. And I don't mean to suggest that he is confused all the time, simply that he has the look of a man who is, like, trying to decipher, you know, traffic rules in a foreign country. And it's most notable when he's in the box where he just has this, like, worried, confused expression. He just, you know, I. Again, I'm not trying to give him the business. This is another place where I feel a sense of kinship, and not just because he's, like, deeply Italian, but an expressive face. You know, he's just got a really expressive face. And the thing he seems most keen to express is confusion, but, like, it was just the bewilderment of him gesturing. Like, what? And he said after the game, he's like, I had no idea what was going on, but I saw everyone else leaving the field, so I did, too. And it was just like, yeah, out. Like, sure, buddy. Like, no one knew. No one knew, except. Except seemingly Contreras.
- [56:22]
A
So the umpires got it right. I mean, there was a. There was a conference and review and everything, but, yeah, they didn't screw it up and mess it up in the moment. And, yeah, the. The quotes about the players, like, Dave Roberts said, it happened fast. I didn't know he didn't catch it.
- [56:39]
B
Yeah.
- [56:40]
A
And talking about Teo, we go over that rule. Teo knows the rule. I think right there, he had just a little bit of a brain fart, appreciating that when it does hit the glove, you can tag there. But then he tagged, did it correctly, then saw he didn't catch it, and he went back. That was the mistake. But he owned it. And after that, there's nothing else you can do about it. And Will Smith said he didn't know what happened until after he was called out, whereas Contreras said that he had a good view of it from where he was and he could tell what had happened right away. Quinn Priester said, I was thinking, that's probably the luckiest play I've ever seen from the pitching side. Realistically, that ball could be three runs and probably should have been. If we don't have Gold Glover, Sal Freelich out there, we play Defense, it's part of our identity, which is true. But it's almost odd to cite that as an example of good defense, because he didn't make the catch, of course. So it's. Yeah, it was. It was just one of those random. I mean, we talked about the randomness of baseball and the randomness of playoff baseball, and that was sort of an exaggerated illustration of that maxim. But. But it's as illustrative an example as any of just one little, you know, game of inches. Ball bounces differently or is caught cleanly or not, and everything works out differently. But, yeah, I don't even know how much credit to give to the brewers there. It's just, you know, ultimately they made the most of it, but you can't even say it was really a cleanly executed play that they planned from the start. So that was weird. And that's a consequential play. And of course, you know, Freddie Freeman hit a home run, too, and I mentioned Pat Murphy's proclivity of late for just handing out lots of free passes. I. I understand not wanting to face Shohei Ohtani, even though he hasn't hit much this postseason, but, you know, you're walking him to get to Mookie Bets. Mookie Betts also a pretty good player, and you just put so much pressure on a pitcher when you load the bases, and there's just no margin for error there. And it's just so easy to walk in a run, which we've seen happen more than once in this post season. So I, I probably would not keep pursuing that strategy. But, yeah, it has been backfiring at times.
- [58:56]
B
I think. Don't. I think don't intentionally walk people.
- [58:58]
A
No, not if you can help it. Unless, you know, if you're setting up a double play in a certain do or die situation. Okay, but. But otherwise, yeah, even if it's Ohtani, it's just. Be careful.
- [59:10]
B
Yeah, it just. It doesn't. You feel so tense doing it. And even. And, and here's, here's. Maybe a.
- [59:19]
A
This is a.
- [59:20]
B
This is a Vibes based argument, so I, I want to acknowledge that. It's not, you know, rigorous, but it's like when the Phillies intentionally walked Ohtani. I didn't feel good about that. I felt bad about it. And Duran was on the mound. And Abner Uribe is a good reliever, but he's not Yonderan. And so if it feels bad when a better reliever is on them. Yeah. If you didn't do it the other time, you Know.
- [59:45]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:46]
B
Especially because you have such a great, like, okay, maybe it's a home run, then he got you. But, like, if you put some on, play your team, they're gonna. They are gonna field it. They're good at.
- [59:59]
A
Yeah, the Brewers. Hannah Kaiser noted in the bandwagon that both the brewers and the Blue Jays, another point of commonality between these two teams, we've talked about how they're both good defensive teams. They both won the Team Gold Glove, which I think many people do not know is a thing, but it is Team Gold Gloves. So Brewers, Blue Jays. And, you know, they can glove it. And we've also seen. And I'm writing about this, and I'm not the only one to note it, but it is striking just how many starters have been pressed into service in relief, which is not a new tactic, but it has been employed, really more than we've seen in any season in the wild card era. Like, 2017 was pretty close, but it's mainly or mostly the Dodgers, who have been doing a ton to try to make up for having a bad bullpen and having excess of starters. But it's not. It's not just the Dodgers. I mean, it's both of the teams in the NL Series, because the brewers are doing it plenty, too, with Mizraski and Chad Patrick. And then we're also seeing it in some other series, too. And, you know, it's not always like the shutdown guy in the late innings, like a Roki Sasaki style. Sometimes it's more of a bulk guy, but Quinn Priester does it, too. You know, the Blue Jays did it with Eric Lauer, with. With Chris Bassett. Even the Mariners got in on that action with Emerson Hancock. And so everyone's really putting their starters into the. The bullpen. And it's just been a high percentage of all postseason innings, but especially relief innings that have been handled by pitchers who were primarily starters during the regular season. And. And to good effect in many cases.
- [61:45]
B
Yeah.
- [61:46]
A
In some cases, not so much. And we did finally see some faltering from Roki. So this. This was, you know, because.
- [61:53]
B
Because guess what? If you don't swing at it, it's not always in the zone. Ben, you know.
- [61:57]
A
Yeah, right.
- [61:58]
B
Listen to me.
- [61:59]
A
He walked a couple, and the command was. Was not the best. And. And yeah, as people have been pumping the brakes a bit and saying, yeah, he's looked incredible, and. And he is new closer and everything, but pretty short track record of him.
- [62:12]
B
Yes.
- [62:12]
A
Being in this role, having success in this role. And remember, how bad he looked early in the season. And, yeah, he looked a little shaky in that outing. And who knows if it's fatigue or just a better approach. We did mention that the brewers, they're. They're good at plate discipline and not swinging and holding off, and maybe that's part of it too. And then Blake Tran comes in and just barely manages to hang on and. And get that save. And it's. It's funny. I wonder how it feels to be Bryce touring and. And have a bunch of people wishing that you had been hit by a pitch instead of ultimately striking out after you contorted yourself to get out of the way. It wasn't like the most extreme case I've ever seen of someone trying to get out of the path of a pitch. And you are supposed to do that. Obviously not. Not just as a means of self preservation, but by rule, you are supposed to make a real effort to get out of the way. And, you know, it wasn't like the most inside pitch ever, but I guess it was a natural reaction, and maybe he misjudged that. It was a breaking ball, and it was just reflexive, and he. He got out of the way. I find it hard to fault someone for not taking one for the team and so to speak. But I guess given the way that that played. Appearance in game ended, then of course, you wish that he had had a hopefully not too painful plunk. Yeah, that would have tied the game.
- [63:37]
B
Yeah, I do. I was like, oh, you gotta lean in that one, buddy. You gotta lean into that one, Bryce.
- [63:43]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [63:44]
B
That was too bad. I feel like instinct just takes over in that moment.
- [63:49]
A
I think so, too.
- [63:50]
B
I was like, oh, God, he's gonna get hit. And then it's gonna be like Nathan Lucas in the Jays, where, like, it would have. I feel like it would have gotten him right on the knee. And that hurts badly.
- [64:04]
A
It's funny how much Murphy has been playing up the underdog aspect of things. It's like, relax, he's a character. I enjoy him. He's always quotable. But, yeah, he's really been embracing that mentality or. Or that Persona. And that's just something you do, and maybe it fires your guys up and it's something you say to the press, but really, it's maybe a message directed at your clubhouse now. I guess there's a fine line because you don't want to pretend that you're such an underdog that you feel overmatched or something like, oh, we don't even belong here, because it's really like looking at how these two teams performed in the regular season. The brewers are not an underdog at all. They won the most games in the majors this year. And sure, the Dodgers today are scarier than they were for much of the season, but even so, the brewers were arguably the best team in baseball. And it is funny, though. So his latest on this subject was, I'm sure that most Dodger players can't name eight guys on our roster. No offense to them, they shouldn't have to know the names. But these are some guys that hopefully they know their names by the time it's over. How many names do we think they actually know? Cuz he's saying they shouldn't have to know the names. They probably should know the names. Actually, if they're reading the scouting reports, then probably they need to know the names. I mean, I guess they could just know the numbers or, or be able to recognize someone on site. But you'd think if you're doing your homework to prep for this series, you would probably know more than the names of eight guys. And the Dodgers and Brewers played each other six times in July. It's not like this is the World Series and they. I mean, even the World Series, we have interleague play all season long. So I know that, that players have a capacity to be oblivious to the existence of other teams to some extent, because they're just not watching all those other games because they have games going on at the same time and they're worrying about what they're doing. So they're not, you know, maybe doing the homework that, that even people who do podcasts about a team are, are doing most of the season. But you'd think with all the advanced scouting that gets done and you're. You're preparing for one opponent, I think you'd. You'd probably need to know more than eight names also.
- [66:23]
B
I'm sorry, but, like, they won 97 games this season. Like, it wasn't. Like this was some plucky wildcard that, that snuck into the playoffs. Like, they had the most wins in baseball this year.
- [66:37]
A
So, yeah, if you're comparing payrolls, if you're comparing preseason expectations or even playoff odds, then absolutely, the brewers are the underdogs, the little team that could. But at this stage, they're not really. And so he's, he's playing that up for effect, and perhaps it's playing well in that clubhouse if it's not taken as an insult of sorts. But I'm going to give the Dodgers enough credit that they know more than eight players on their playoff opponent.
- [67:05]
B
Yeah, I think that that's right. I think that that's right.
- [67:09]
A
I am sort of already sick of the Goliath versus David narrative that's happening here. Because, look, the Yankees lost. The Yankees are out. So at least we can stop talking about the Yankees briefly, because there are certain teams that just take up all the oxygen in October. That's just how it is. They have the most fans and just reputations and storied franchise history and payrolls and all the rest of it. And so they're going to get a lot of ink and they're going to get a lot of airtime and. And now the Yankees are out of it, the Dodgers are still in it, and they're the only team standing in the way of having a World Series between teams that have not been on that stage for some time. And, you know, if you had Mariners, brewers, that would be ideal for anyone who wants a first time franchise victory, obviously, which, again, we haven't had since 1980. A guaranteed first title for a franchise in a World Series matchup. But. But even the blue chase, it's been more than 30 years now, so, you know, you can start to talk about them in terms of their due or it's been a while. And so. Oh, I said it, but you didn't sing it. You missed the cue. I'm glad that you miss. You miss your slow on the uptick occasionally, too. Or maybe you just went easy on me this time.
- [68:28]
B
No, I got a news alert that d' Angelo died and I was distracted. Well, all right. Pancreatic cancer sucks.
- [68:35]
A
That's the worst.
- [68:38]
B
Well, sorry to bring us down.
- [68:41]
A
Just brought down the mood in a Smolt esque fashion. But we will attempt to. To carry on here. But yeah, like, the whole idea that this is sort of emblematic of baseball's haves and have nots, which of course it is to an extent, the brewers and Dodgers are representative of those camps. But I don't know that it means more than that, really. And I already find it a tad tiresome to be subjected to that. Now. Look, if. If the Dodgers lose and just kind of clear out and let us enjoy teams that we haven't seen on that stage for a while, then I think that would be fun. And I'm sure network executives would rather have the big stars, sure. In the World Series, but it's nice to have new blood, too. And it would be nice to be spared the fretting and hand rigging that will happen if The Dodgers manage to. To go back to back here or even win a pennant, perhaps. But you know, Jeff Passon, I, I picked on his use of must win the other day, and I, I think highly of his work in general. But his piece on the NLCS was basically framed this way, like, yeah, the labor battle will swing on the outcome of this series. The headline, which Jeff probably didn't choose, was how a Dodgers brewers NLCS defines MLB's labor battle. And then the lead, which he probably did choose the first few paragraphs. The winner of the National League Championship Series could determine whether Major League Baseball is played in 2027. Wow, that's. That's a bold opening. You have my attention. So mission accomplished, I guess. But that's. It's a big check to cash in terms of opening lines there. Tough to back that up. This might sound far fetched. Next sentence. Okay, acknowledging that it sounds far fetched, but then third sentence, it is not. Ooh. Okay. Doubling down, what looks like a best of seven baseball series, which starts Monday as the Milwaukee brewers host the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1, will play out as a proxy of the coming labor war between MLB and the MLB Players Association. Owners across the game want a salary cap. And if the Dodgers, with their record $500 million plus payroll, win back to back World Series. Wait, $500 million plus? I guess that's. That's counting penalties and such, that's a big number. It will only embolden the league's push to regulate salaries. The brewers, consistently a bottom third payroll team emerging triumphant, would serve as the latest evidence that winners can germinate even in the game's smallest markets, and that the failures of other low revenue teams have less to do with spending than execution. And the piece goes on to provide the appropriate caveats about how, no, this single series probably will not be basically kind of contradicting the hook there. That, okay, this probably will not actually be the decisive factor in whether we have a work stoppage or whether we lose a season or whether owners want a salary cap. It is certainly true that people will pile on and will make this case and people will talk about it. And so I guess Jeff is sort of pre. Talking about it. He's just getting ahead of what the narrative will most likely be anyway, or the complaints that a lot of people will be making. But of course, ownership have wanted a salary cap forever for as long as there have been owners, for as long as there's been free agency and a union or a need for a salary cap from the owner's. Perspective. They want that. They want that now. It's hard for me to imagine that they will push for it any harder, really. And, you know, people understand, like, there's no way that the outcome of a best of seven, which is basically a coin flip and subject to randomness, as we saw with the double play in game one, that that should actually decide anything, really, like who wins. This does not tell us all that much. I mean, we could draw conclusions based on who made it to this point, but whether the brewers or the Dodgers wins this best of seven does not actually give us much more information in terms of, like, does baseball need to be fixed? Is baseball broken? Is it bit too imbalanced? And it may shape public opinion to some extent, but I kind of doubt that public opinion will actually shape the outcome of that labor battle because I, I think it's pretty, pretty ancillary. It's, you know, maybe it's like it's on the margins. Maybe it has some influence the way that it's covered, the way that players perceive it and all. But really, the stakeholders here, they have their desires, they have their incentives. Those things aren't going to change based on the brewers or Dodgers winning one series.
- [73:33]
B
Yeah, I tend to agree with that. The Dodgers remain. Right. And Toronto remains. So we have two top five payrolls, and this is just their actual payroll. Even this doesn't count the luxury tax stuff, though. They're far enough over the third, the last threshold that I think they are in a dollar for dollar tax. So it is close to 500 million if you count their penalties. But, you know, the Dodgers are number one. They're comfortably number one. Like, they, you know, they're 50 million clear of the Mets. But the top five, at least by roster resources, accounting of it, which I tend to think is the best there is, it goes Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, Blue Jays, and two of those teams are still in it, and two of them have been eliminated and one didn't even make the postseason. So, like, you know, I'm not trying to give Jeff a hard time, but, like, if this were really motivating owners, surely they would have to account for the fact that two of those clubs have already been eliminated. Right to the top five. Surely that would matter too. So I just, I don't find it persuasive. And I think that folks are right to point out that the brewers do not run a significant payroll. We had them 22nd in baseball this year. Again, this is just like straight payroll, not their luxury tax payroll, but like they, you know, they had $123 million in payroll this year. That's not a lot, but it's like a lot more than the Marlins, who checked in at 70. So, yeah, they're a small market team and they are payroll constrained, but I, I feel like they are. They're still putting like a winning team on the field. I don't know. It's just, it was a weird. You can just write a preview. You know what I mean? Like, you can just write a straight preview. You don't have to do this part.
- [75:34]
A
Sort of straining for significance from a single series, which I understand the urge and the pressures to do that. And. But yeah, it's. We're going to hear enough of this as it is. I'm sure if the Dodgers advance and.
- [75:49]
B
We'Re going to have a whole nother postseason before we get into a potential stoppage. That's the other thing where I'm like, is this, this is the one that's going to make the case? What? Just because they happen to go back to back, the fact that they've been in the World Series like, like for the last decade, isn't the pro. You know what I mean? It's just like, I don't find it particularly persuasive that this is like the tipping point. I just don't.
- [76:16]
A
Yeah, I don't know. I think plenty of people tipped already. So. So this will only confirm the feeling. And sure, the Dodgers payroll is a big advantage and it has certainly been a big buffer for them. And we're seeing now the fruits of that, that they have this excess of starters, this wealth of pitching talent which was absent for much of the season and has arrived right on schedule. And yeah, most teams don't have that wealth and don't have that luxury. And you know, the other thing that has been said about the Dodgers sort of all season, but has intensified lately is the notion that they were kind of taking it easy.
- [77:00]
B
Yeah.
- [77:01]
A
En route to the playoffs. And, you know, there was a comment that was getting some discussion in our Patreon discord group by a defector commenter who described it as them being on battery saver mode basically, for, for the regular season. Which is a fun way of putting it, but it, it elicited some debate because once you start getting into the specifics of, well, how did they do that exactly? Because the idea of it, I think is. Is sort of a load management thing. Right. Not that they weren't at full strength and health, which is indisputable, but that they were actually Taking it easy. Right. Like they were taking their feet off the pedal because they knew that they just had to make the postseason and that's all that mattered. But where was that lack of urgency manifesting really? Like what specific moves or non moves or decisions would one point to to illustrate that strategy if it was one? And this isn't just uninformed people making this point. Craig Goldstein, Dodgers fan, wrote a piece for BP about this back in September about how the Dodgers are taking the long view and, and it leads to a diluted on field product. And I think that's true in a sense. Like I, I do think the Dodgers care more at this stage about winning a World Series than they do about winning a division title. Sure. And I think if they end up winning another championship, then they will declare that a successful season, even if they didn't blow everyone away in the regular season the way some people anticipated that they would. But was that because they decided not to or was it because a lot of things went, went wrong for them? Right. Like they, they had a lot of pitchers who were legitimately injured. Unless you think that those were phantom IL stints or something. And I'm not putting it past the Dodgers to have done that.
- [78:59]
B
Doesn't. It doesn't make sense from a strategy perspective for them to have done it. You know what I mean?
- [79:04]
A
Yeah, that's the other thing. First of all, it's, you know, it's hard to question injuries because we don't really know. And, and these seem to be pretty real injuries in a lot of cases or pitchers who weren't performing or had some tangible physical complaint and like, you know, yeah, they didn't rush Ohtani back, for instance. They were taking it fairly easy and had him on a pretty tight leash innings wise. Was that because they just didn't have the urgency to win in the regular season or was it because it was his second elbow surgery and they made a huge investment in him and maybe it would have been irresponsible to rush him back or to have him have a heavier workload, I don't know. And, and the other guys, like Snell and Glass now and all these other guys have long injury track records both with the Dodgers and with their previous employers. It's not like that kind of came out of nowhere. And I don't know what else you would point to, like Roki Sasaki. I mean, his injury seems sort of nebulous for a while, but his velocity was down. He was pitching poorly, like in the majors and in Triple A. So it Wasn't as if they had a fully healthy and effective Roki Sasaki and they were just sort of sitting on him like he was actively hurting them when he was in the majors for most of the season early on. So I don't know what you would point to, really, like, maybe not upgrading Michael Conforto's spot. They could have been more aggressive in doing that. Then you're.
- [80:34]
B
I guess, yeah, but then how do you torture Craig? You know, like.
- [80:37]
A
Yeah, you have to torture Craig somehow.
- [80:39]
B
You have to do it somehow. He can't just have an easy time. It's already so easy to be a Dodgers fan.
- [80:45]
A
You're faulting the Dodgers for not flexing their financial muscle even more than they did or the way that their bullpen fell apart? Well, well, that wasn't because they had a lack of urgency. I mean, they. They spent a ton on their bullpen. They've extended Trine, they got Tanner Scott, they got Kirby Yates. They seem stacked. And then all those guys were bad. So that wasn't the plan, certainly. And ultimately, even though they survived the wild card series, I think they would have strongly preferred not to have to play it. Right, right. Because if you say they care about the World Series, well, then they don't.
- [81:21]
B
Want to play in the wild card.
- [81:22]
A
Yeah, they don't want to play a best of three. They want to avoid that. They do want to win the division. Now, maybe they don't care if they win the division by 50, 15 games or by two games, but they do want to win it convincingly enough and have a good enough record that they get that buy. And they didn't do that. So I don't know how much that holds water. The idea that they were just sort of sandbagging, taking it easy, and then just flipped a switch and that was the plan all along. I mean, yeah, I think they absolutely would have signed up for not having an overwhelming juggernaut season if they got all their guys back for the postseason. So to that extent, that was the plan. And they had the buffer and the financial wherewithal to just carry a bunch of highly paid injured guys all season long and still make the playoffs. Most teams could not do that. Absolutely. But was that the plan? Like, from a roster construction standpoint? Sort of. Because you could anticipate that some of those guys were going to get hurt, but it's not like they could have put a much better team on the field on a day by day basis and they just opted not to. I didn't get that sense.
- [82:29]
B
At least Yeah, I think that the observation that their payroll affords them wiggle room and, you know, first and foremost, it affords them tremendously talented baseball players. Right. But beyond that, that it affords them redundancy on the roster or the ability to survive and move on from bad signings, and that that is an asset to the club is a correct observation to make. But the idea that this is the way that they would have preferred for that advantage to manifest seems like a misdiagnosis to me. Right. Like, I. I think you're right. They probably don't care in the grand scheme if they win the division by five games or 15, but they would absolutely prefer to win the division. Right. They would. They would absolutely prefer to win it decisively enough and decisively enough relative to their other division winners that they are able to rest their guys and have a bye. You know, I think that this club, like, cares about winning the World Series and understands that to be their project in a much more real way than most other teams. But I think that that probably heightens an appreciation for regular season play rather than diminish it, because I think they understand the value of the buy and because they are willing to sign guys who have injury concerns.
- [84:03]
A
Yeah, it's kind of complex, but, yeah, I think there's a distinction between how you construct your roster with some sort of safety net built in because you can afford to kind of carry two pitching staffs worth of pitchers, and then how you actually deploy those players as the season goes on. So I think that's a distinction worth drawing. Though perhaps people might say, well, no one else really has the luxury of just having that much slack built into the payroll and the roster construction that they could have a bunch of things go wrong and still make it here. All of that said, Blake Snell was totally filthy and has been a lot lately. I mean, we praised Tarik Skuble and he was totally dominant, but I'm not sure he was better than Blake Snell was against the brewers in game one. I mean, when he is on, he's pretty unsurpassed. There are absolutely days and extended stretches where Blake Snell looks like and has been the best pitcher in baseball. And even as people who have complained about the Blake Snell Spectator experience more than once. Yeah. Also have to hand it to him for. For being fairly efficient lately and not nibbling so much, or at least getting the chases, getting the swings and mowing down these lineups and. And being able to go deep into games, which was one of the knocks on Snell it was. Yeah, he's dominant but he's so inefficient that he can't go deep into games or he gets hurt a lot. And yeah, he still gets hurt sometimes and he still has those days when he's nibbling and it's frustrating but boy, lately he has been on and he's just really tough to beat on those days.
- [85:49]
B
Yeah, I mean like no walks, just dominant. And you know, despite the emergence of Roki, I think that people are right to think that that bullpen is still a vulnerability for them. So for him to go 8 is really spectacular. And yeah, he just, just was stifling. You know, they didn't really get anything going at all. So.
- [86:10]
A
Okay, well that's our postseason update. It's a lot of non playoff related news, but we can get to that in the future. We have a whole off season of podcasts to fill. But there has been managerial movement. We have a new Rangers manager, Skip as a skipper again. He was waiting in the wings as the heir apparently to Bruce Boi. And now Skip Schumacher, a manager again. Mike Schilt has retired seemingly it was described in a lot of places as retired as the manager of the Padres. And I was kind of confused because what does that mean?
- [86:46]
B
What does that mean?
- [86:46]
A
He resigns. But, but I, I guess he has also seemingly retired or at least for now. He is not seeking another job. And, and credit to him, he, he took that team to the playoffs twice and would have been back for more. And he just said it's hard being a major league manager. It's a grind and it was tiring and he just wanted a break. He said I was sick a lot, I wasn't feeling good, I was run down, I wasn't sleeping. It's just day to day stress. It's unhealthy. And so now he's gonna go have some me time and just be on the beach and good for him. And I guess if he decides that he wants to come back to managing, there will probably be positions for him at some point. And then you had the, the Tigers sort of stealthily revealing that AJ Hinch had already been extended. I love the, the reveal of a move after it has been made. Yeah, we got that with. With Michael Lias having been secretly promoted to pobo and no one knew about it until many months after the fact. And then there was the Tigers dropping the. By the way, we extended AJ Hitch. I, I never know. Is that like a, a testament to the lack of leaking in that organization? Is it is It a. A bad reflection on the beat writers or the people who cover that team for not uncovering that news. Ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter that much when you find out, but it's, it's odd because so many things are reported that second and then there are other things that we just do not find out about for ages.
- [88:14]
B
I always find it to be kind of funny too because it's like, you know, it's not that the extensions mean nothing. They're on the hook for the money if they fire the guy. Right. But I just don't view those contracts as necessarily just positive on them getting fired.
- [88:30]
A
Right.
- [88:31]
B
Like if, if at the end of this the Orioles decide Elias isn't the guy, extended or not, they'll just can him. Right. Like, and they'll pay out the deal and they'll be content to do it. I'm not suggesting he's going to get fired, but, you know, so it's like it matters to the, to the guy. And I don't think that it means nothing, but it's, it's not like guys never get bought out. So it's like, so just announce it. Like, what's the problem here? It's such a strange, it's a very odd little thing. But yeah, I didn't think that Hinch was really in much danger of not getting extended. Like they, they seem to like him quite a bit.
- [89:07]
A
So despite the collapse which they ultimately recovered from in Trent said that would, would get a lot of guys fired maybe, but because it kind of had a happier ending at least. Yeah. Because of the track record and because of the expectations for the team in the first place and all the rest. Yeah. But you know, I talk about other sports now and so I did do a segment, hang up and listen today about the, the James Franklin Penn state buyout for 49 million or whatever it was. So a couple years of a manager or a pobo, you know, that's chump change compared to a college coach who's being let go with that much money due to him. Maybe we'll, we'll have more to talk about with Bill Belichick one of these days, though he denies it anyway. The only other thing is that Pete Alonso is seeking a seven year deal.
- [89:52]
B
He sure is.
- [89:54]
A
Yeah. Do you think this is going to go any better for him this time around? I don't think so either. Really.
- [89:59]
B
I don't think so. And I'm so confused because I've seen consternation among some methods fans about like, you know, don't bring him back. The people. I haven't, I haven't seen anybody react to this with anything like, other than good luck with that buddy. Like, I don't imagine that this is going to happen for him. He had a good season at the plate, but he's still the age he is. He's still, you know, not particularly incredible first baseman. The back end of a seven year deal for him at this point, point is going to be bad. And I, I feel for Pete Alonzo in terms of like the trajectory of his career was such that he never really, you know, he should have taken that extension is what should happen. But having made the decision not to do that, he wasn't really in a spot to like get the big free agent deal. But sometimes that, that's just how this stuff goes. I don't think that he is so indispensable to that team that they're going to say, well yeah, sure, let's sign you up for seven. Although maybe they will now that I've said that. But I don't, you know, I, I see a lot of Mets fans very nervous that this is going to happen. I don't think this is going to happen. I don't think anybody thinks this is a good idea. But also sometimes you just do a little posturing, I guess. I guess, yeah.
- [91:20]
A
I've cited the Sam Miller research about seeking. When players seek a certain number of years or a certain dollar figure, what do they actually get? And it's, it's significantly less, of course, than they are seeking. But, but yeah, no harm in, in trying to put a big number out there. No help perhaps sometimes too. It wasn't a big help to Pete last time either.
- [91:44]
B
Right.
- [91:44]
A
He had a better year. Yeah. And so you'd think he might be better positioned for free agency this year. Except now he's a year older.
- [91:52]
B
Older.
- [91:52]
A
That's the math.
- [91:53]
B
That's the thing about it.
- [91:54]
A
It's kind of tough because like, you know, now he's turning 31 in December and obviously he's still the same sort of profile as a player still.
- [92:04]
B
Right, Right. First baseman, like this is not a profile that ages particularly well. He's not good in the field on.
- [92:12]
A
The basis, yeah, he's just gonna hit and, and he hit better. He had a bounce back to basically his 2022 production after a couple of relative down years. But I don't know that he totally changed anyone's mind. It wasn't like a completely different profile or shape to the production or anything. So I don't know, part of this.
- [92:33]
B
Too, is that the Mets have, like, realities of their roster that they're going to have to grapple with, and maybe not tomorrow, but at some point they had a lot of guys on that team who are going to be DH only at some point. Most notably among them, Juan Soto. And so if you have Pete, if you bring him back, you're committed to him playing first base and he's not getting there. And I just think that there's. You're going to get to a point in his late 30s where he's maybe not playable, at least not in a way that isn't going to potentially produce negative value. I just think it's not going to happen for him. Like, they, they need to maintain some amount of flexibility in their roster and he doesn't allow them to do that. He doesn't seem particularly flexible. Yeah, more flexible than me, but just.
- [93:24]
A
Kind of playing in the wrong era for a player with his skill set. But yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Sam did find that when players sought a certain number of years or dollars they got the median was 87.5 of that total. If he got six years instead of seven, you should probably be happy with that. But we will see whether the market will greet him any more warmly than it did last year when the season started. Remember we were talking about how, oh, it's a new Pete and he's different and he's proven all the doubters wrong and maybe he will go get himself a big deal and then he sort of settled into being more or less the same guy the rest of the season. Anyway, wish him well. I enjoy him, so hopefully he'll. He'll get what he wants.
- [94:06]
B
I have a little bit of bad news for you, and it's reminding me of one thing that we do have to talk about. Although we can put a. A pin in it, potentially. Apparently many protein powders and shakes have a lot of lead in them, so you be careful about. About inadvertent lead consumption. But remind me that we got to talk about the swole baseball Blue Jays fan.
- [94:29]
A
Oh, yes, there was.
- [94:30]
B
You know, what's that guy, the butt.
- [94:32]
A
Plug guy and the guy behind the butt.
- [94:34]
B
I wasn't gonna bring up the butt plug. I was gonna let. I was gonna let him go because.
- [94:39]
A
He, he did cover up the shirt eventually.
- [94:42]
B
I think he was probably asked to cover up that shirt. I think the Blue Jays were probably.
- [94:45]
A
Like, hey, yeah, maybe. Or maybe people in his personal life advised him to do that. I'd be interested in what led to that decision.
- [94:54]
B
No, I was talking about the Super Jack guy that was right behind him.
- [94:57]
A
Man. Like looming over his shoulder. Yes. Yeah, that man was men was very large. All right, in case this wasn't clear earlier when I referred to the team Gold Gloves, those haven't been handed out for this year. The Blue Jays and Brewers each won in their respective leagues in each of the past two seasons, and they may very well win again this year. Just hasn't happened yet. Also, fun stat on the grounded into double play play from J.J. cooper of baseball America. According to Retro Sheet game logs, before NLCS game one, there had been 1266862 plays. Thirty of them were double plays. Zero of them were grounded into double plays. So that really was something no one had seen before. Nothing quite so wacky or controversial in Game 2. As it turned out, though, there was something unusual in this era. A complete game. Yoshinobu Yamamoto went nine shut down the Brewers. So much for starters pitching in relief. The Dodgers didn't need any relievers in that game. First postseason complete game since Justin Verlander in the 2017 ALCS. So five one victory for the Dodgers, who go up two zip in the series. And now both series have started with the road teams taking two in a row. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com effectivelywild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners Jordan Holland, Hees, Freak Toes Bean and Sam Sorscher. Thanks to all of you, Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams coming soon, prioritized email answers, personalized messages, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad free Fangrass memberships and so much more. Check out all the offerings@patreon.com effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us the slightly more old fashioned way via via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcastangraphts.com youm can join our Facebook group at facebook.com group effectivelywild. You can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and other podcast platforms. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectivelywild and you can check the show notes at fan graphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKeon for second a his editing and production assistants. We'll be back with another episode a little later in the week. Talk to you soon. Does baseball look the same to you as it does to me? When we look at baseball, how much do we see? Well, the curveballs bend and home runs fly more to the game than meets the eye. To get the stats compiled and the stories filed, fans on the Internet might get riled, but we can break it down on effectively. Wild.