Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1286: World Serious

Episode Date: October 23, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Willians Astudillo, how long it takes to fall asleep, and international signings, then review the end of the NLCS, discuss the worst way to lose, forecast the legacy and future of the Brewers, and preview the Red Sox-Dodgers World Series matchup, including why the series is closer than […]

You're the two that I want You're the two that I want Well, some girls are set for just one They don't know what they're missing They ain't having any fun You're the two that I want Hello and welcome to episode 1286 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello!

I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello. Williams Estadillo is playing for the Caribbean de Anzotec. I'm not going to try. It could be an indigenous word. Anyway, he's batted 23 times. At least he has 23 at-bats. 24 plate appearances, I guess.

He's hitting.261. He's slugging only.261, but most importantly in 23 at-bats, 24 plate appearances, one walk, no strikeouts. Williams Estadio up to his usual tricks. He is the only hitter on his team that has not yet struck out. This is a team that includes names like Luis Sardinas, sometimes Major League Baseball player, and Alexi

Amorista, who has also been a Major League Baseball player. Estadio, I'm not going to say he's doing well, but he's not doing the worst. Yep. Well, that's for all of you wondering about what's going on in the Venezuelan Winter League on the eve of the World Series, which we will talk about next. But I have one more thing to ask you. I was reading your chat at Fangraphs last Friday, and someone asked you who was happier,

Tom Brady or Justin Verlander. And they were trying to use like championship rings and spouses to decide from afar who's the happier person. And as you rightly pointed out, there's no way we can know from outside. But you said the most important thing is how did Tom Brady and Justin Verlander feel in the 30 seconds between when they close their eyes and when they fall asleep? And that made me wonder, do you fall asleep in 30 seconds after you close your eyes? I have a very easy time falling asleep, but I think it's because I'm generally extremely tired by the end of the day. But I also, I look forward to sleep. And as far as I can tell, based on my observations of your routine, you repel sleep. You sleep as water in your oil. You just choose. I think you look at sleep as wasted time,

whereas I look at sleep as the highlight of my existence. Yeah, I don't dislike the actual act of sleeping. There's just often something else I want to do more. But when I actually do decide to sleep, I enjoy it. But 30 seconds, it takes me a while. It's not like an insomnia thing. I wouldn't say I have trouble falling asleep, but there's always an adjustment period there where I go from wakefulness to sleepiness. And I guess my brain wonders, are we really doing this? We're actually in bed? This is happening? So it takes some time where I'm, I don't know, just kind of thinking about the day or the next day or things I've done or have to do. It's kind of a pleasant

time to reflect and gradually drift off. So I don't know that I would want to fall asleep in 30 seconds, but that seems sudden. My wife is the same way, and I always am struck by that because like we'll just be having a conversation and then a minute later she is unconscious it just seems like the the border between consciousness and unconsciousness should be a little harder to cross than that maybe it's just the quality of your conversation that puts her to sleep that could be i think that if i've been looking at my phone a lot then it might take like 45 seconds before i fall asleep because you know you get that electronic stimulation wow huh that's like military training i guess maybe because

you're always hiking and camping somewhere you've programmed yourself to just fall asleep because no one wants to be awake on the ground in a tent out in the wilderness somewhere it's probably pretty unpleasant i don't know it's kind of relaxing when you get the tent up because then that way at least you're not on the ground outside the tent where it's cold and terrible. Camping is great. Well, hopefully we will not put anyone to sleep during this episode. We're going to talk about the World Series. We're going to talk presumably a little bit about NLCS Game 7.

Should we do any final thoughts on that game, which was I think a pretty good one, although in the final tally It wasn't super close But it felt close and it felt tense At the time and there were big moments And fun highlights And the Chris Taylor catch And the Bellinger homer And the Puig homer And Clayton Kershaw coming on in relief

Which is just a playoff tradition At this point if you're going to close out A series you just have to close out a series, you just have to have Clayton Kershaw on the mound. Apparently, I'm fine with it. Any thoughts on that series as a whole or that game specifically? Well, I can at least give you a current thought on baseball in that there's been a small rash of baseball news. It doesn't have to do with the playoffs all of a sudden.

And now some of that is just like managerial hires, which who cares? Brad Ausmus, David Bell. That's great. But also like the Marlins have signed Victor Mesa and Victor Mesa Jr. So the Marlins now have, I don't know, a new core. I don't know what we're doing here.

But I know that you asked me about Game 7 now and talking about the Marlins, which could not be further from the topic at hand. But the Marlins, and they wanted to sign, what was it, Sandy Gaston, who is going to be like the third international player, but they couldn't fit him into their international spending pool. topic at hand but you have the marlins and they they wanted to sign what was it sandy gaston who was going to be like the third international player but they couldn't fit him into their international spending pool but what is what's funny here in a sad way is that the orioles had amassed the what was the greatest international signing bonus pool i think six and a half million

dollars they were finally going to make an effort to get involved in the international market then the marlins made a bunch of trades to amass a bigger signing bonus pool and they signed victor victor mesa and victor mesa jr who are for anyone who's not paying attention they aren't brothers victor mesa jr is uh i think he's 16 victor victor mesa is closer to major league ready far closer to major league ready and he cost more but now the oreoles are just holding the bag of $6.5 million of unspent money, and I guess maybe they could go try to sign Sandy Gaston, but the Tampa Bay Rays are also interested, and they have money to spend, so the Orioles could just come away with nothing. The first time that they've tried to be involved in the international spending market,

and just nothing. Anyway, the Brewers lost Game 7. Yeah. So I think larger thought on this series, I wouldn't say that this was an indictment of bullpenning or that the Brewers showed that you can't win this way in the playoffs or anything like that. I'd say, if anything, just the opposite. I mean, they outscored the Dodgers in this series. They out-homered the Dodgers in this series. They took them to seven games, and they did it without Clayton Kershaw or any other really top flight starters. So I think, if anything, they showed that this can work. It didn't always work. the game where Council did the Wade Miley trick and pulled the Curly Ogden maneuver, and he was doing all this fancy stuff. And meanwhile, Roberts just ran Kershaw out there, and he won with Kershaw because Kershaw's good. So in that sense, it was at once a testament to the power of good starting pitching if you have it, but I don't at all see it as a sign that you

can't win this way. If anything, I think teams that are thinking of trying something like this in the future would only be encouraged by how close the Brewers came. Right. I mean, you go to seven games, and that's kind of proof of concept on its own. I mean, at the end of the day, in this series, the Brewers actually finished with a 678 OPS. Now, on its own, that's not great. But a 6.78 OPS for the Brewers and 6.32 for the Dodgers.

Just based on that, the Brewers scored 24 runs. The Dodgers scored 23. Based on the general indications, the Brewers were at least even in this series, and they lost a seventh game. They lost a seventh game with a big blow. It was a three-run homer by Yiel Puig on a pitch that was good, on a slider that was away and a little bit off the plate. Maybe there was an anticipation there.

I don't know. Now, in this actual seventh game, you can look at it, and the Brewers struck out 14 times, and they didn't draw a single walk. They were the worst team in the last game, but they were also the far better team in game six. This thing was just really even. You just think of the, what was it, the 13- team in game six this thing was just really even you just think of the what was the 13 inning game that pick a game that things could have flipped at any moment the brewers played a wonderful series it's like i don't know if it's harder so do you think

it's worse you go to the the league championship series you're a player you're a coach you're a fan i don't know is it worse to lose in game seven or is it worse to lose in a sweep well i think it's probably more painful to lose in game seven i mean that's that almost the same conversation we've had about whether it's better to lose in heartbreaking fashion in the playoffs repeatedly or never make the playoffs which is something you've experienced as a fan so i don't know whether one of those is ultimately more painful it's like it's seared into your brain when you lose a game seven or any painful playoff exit in a way that like all the combined months of meaningless mariners games are not seared into your brain at least individually like collectively i guess they are but you don't really remember yeah this is that august when nothing mattered at all you may not

even have watched as closely or paid attention if you weren't recapping every game like a maniac so i think i don't know as a fan like when i was a fan of the yankees, it was very painful to have lost in like game seven of the 2001 World Series. I know no one is sobbing for me and fellow Yankees fans for that loss. The nation was rejoicing for the most part, although I guess there was some pro-New York sentiment at that point in time because of September 11th and the aftermath of that attack. But I think I remember that much more strongly than I remember like one of the, you know, Division Series exits a few years later or something like that, that I barely even remember the details of. So I would say more painful, but also more impressive to last longer and make it that close right so is there is there much from game seven specifically that you'd like to talk about because there's always just also just the topic of the

brewers in general where they stand what they what they went through these in these playoffs how they look for the future but game seven ultimately but the brewers had a lead briefly in the first inning and then from there the dodgers seized it and yeah there was the the chris taylor catch on the osseo Puig home run seemed like they were the deciding factors that the Taylor catch was the incredible looking play that wasn't so incredible statistically but still considering the guy moved around constantly it's impressive to see him make a catch like that and it's vaguely reminiscent although he

was running in the opposite direction but reminiscent of sort of the Andrew Benintendi catch just how a series can come down to something that looks so dramatic and tip of the glove. And then Puig went deep on one of those line drives that never got more than like 15 feet above the ground. Just one of those, this is definitely two runs, but oh, it's actually three, whatever. But outside of that, I mean. I wonder whether there would have been criticism for Roberts if Taylor hadn't made that catch I mean bringing in Julio Urias in that situation he was a player who I think was sort of a surprise addition to the roster for this round in the first place and then he was pitching for the first time in like more than a year with a runner on in

the middle of an inning and this was a back-to-back appearance for him right which was another thing that he really hadn't done for a long time because of the injury and he came in and I wouldn't say it was a great pitch he made there I mean it's Jelic he's a really good hitter but that pitch caught some of the plate and to bring him in in that situation know, maybe it's too early in for some criticism that Taylor really bailed him out for, which it was a great catch. I mean, maybe he was positioned in a way that made it harder. I think it was only like a 41% hit probability, but it was probably a lower catch probability given where Taylor started that play. And it's impressive because as you mentioned, he started that game at

second base and he's just constantly going back and forth and it doesn't seem to impair his performance all that much. And that ball sort of tailed back toward left field. And so he almost overran it and ended up reaching back a bit to catch it. And it was a really close call but it worked out ultimately but it's so easy to envision it not working out and then maybe we're criticizing that choice to bring in orius i don't know yeah it felt a little bit like when mike mcthini brought in michael waka in the bottom of the ninth of that 2014 nlcs one of those weird like that that was That was the weirdest and worst. Yeah, right. That's one of the most inexplicable managerial moves I've ever seen in my life. But you think of like,

Urias is in a better position now than Waka was then, where he hadn't pitched in, what was it? 15 years? Michael Waka hadn't pitched in 15 years because of 14 consecutive surgeries or something like that. Anyway, Waka was very rusty and within the span of four batters, gave up three runners in the like that. Anyway, Waka was very rusty and within the span of four batters gave up

three runners in the home run. Anyway, that's a little distant memory for Cardinals fans. Giants won the World Series that year. Giants very distant from the World Series now. But Arias, along the same lines but like a 3 out of 10 on that scale. But still, no, you're right. It definitely was an unusual move

and Christian Yelich hit the ball hard based on every outcome. But the actual outcome, it was a good sequence for the Brewers. Arias comes in. Jelic hits the ball hard. Game should be tied. Game not tied. Yeah.

And on the other side, I think there was some surprise that Council went to Hayter as early as he did. And the Brewers were down by a run at the time. And it was just, well, let's keep this thing close and not let it get out of hand. And I think it made sense, right? I mean, you want to make sure that you maximize your use of Hayter in that game. And he went three innings. He probably could have gone longer, but his spot in the lineup was up. And I didn't really have a problem with just deploying him early and keeping it close and ultimately it didn't matter because the Brewers couldn't score but they kept the Dodgers off the

board for a few innings right and I think that the idea is basically well we're going to bring in Hayter and we're just going to ride him as long as he can possibly pitch so of course you always have the game of where we would like to use Hayater at the point where the leverage is at its maximum, because then you're getting the greatest number of, let's call them, effective plate appearances out of Hater. But, you know, Hater came in in, what, the third inning, and at that point, you've got a one-run game. You can't afford to let it get out of hand, and, of course, it uses up one of your top bullets, but there's also Knable, who you can go to back there and that was a high leverage moment it doesn't it doesn't get much more high leverage than a one run game in game seven of like the l lcs so it is uh in sum josh hater made seven playoff appearances for the brewers all of them very hotly discussed by the announcing teams seven appearances he uh threw 10 innings and he faced 35 batters he walked one he struck

out 16 he allowed five hits no runs he allowed a batting average of 152 and a slugging percentage of 152 so josh hater certainly held up his end of the bargain he threw strikes all the time he missed bats all the time he really was untouchable which is what's interesting is against the i guess the dodgers in game 70 through 31 pitches only missed two bats but anyway that doesn't really matter because he got four strikeouts his last four appearances he got four strikeouts two strikeouts two strikeouts and four strikeouts so Josh Hader was exactly as good as you would think that he would have been and what is interesting on the opposite side of that for the Brewers this season maybe they're like

number four MVP fourth most valuable player. That's stupid. Whatever. Their fourth most valuable player this season was probably Jeremy Jeffress, who at least by some measures was the most important arm out of the bullpen. Now, Hayter was better, but Jeffress arguably more valuable from, like, a win probability perspective. And in the playoffs for him him he made eight appearances through eight innings he allowed a batting average of 410 he allowed a slugging percentage of 615 he allowed six runs and he just threw plenty of strikes but he just generally seemed like he was getting in

trouble all the time he was of course the pitcher who allowed the Rockies to score their only runs of the playoffs or at least of the NLDS and then he had multiple issues against the Dodgers so Jeffress I don't know what happened there maybe he was just tired maybe it was a fluke but Jeffress not reliable Josh Hader extremely reliable I don't know what you do for analysis purposes maybe the I mean you figure if Jeffress were a little better maybe the brewers advance out of that series but i'm not going to put this all on him it's just a solid team effort yeah he was great all year and it just was bad timing on his part i mean i think he probably allowed fewer runs than he quote unquote should have during the season so maybe that raised expectations he's not really In the Craig Kimbrell

Kenley Jensen class I don't think He's just a really good Late inning reliever and yeah Things went south at the wrong time And that's that and I mean I think it was a really competitive And fun series and As for the Brewers we've talked

And written about how we hope that Teams will emulate them That they will look to the Brewers, we've talked and written about how we hope that teams will emulate them, that they will look to the Brewers as the model of how to build a successful team without ever really tanking and being bad and how they invested this winter when they could have hung back and said, well, we're not going to beat the Cubs, but instead they went for it and they did. And it's, as we've said, a harder to replicate kind of strategy in that it is reliant not just on being bad for a while, which anyone can do, and trading all of your valuable players, which anyone can do to a certain extent. They found value in all sorts of unlikely places. And that is harder to do, especially now when there are other teams like the Brewers out there who are trying to do exactly the same thing. So I don't know that you can just say, well, this is the Brewers model and let's do what the Brewers did, other than,

I guess, if you're kind of on the bubble in an offseason, spend instead of saving your money. So are there a lot of teams that you think are in that sort of situation this offseason spend instead of saving your money. So are there a lot of teams that you think are in that sort of situation this offseason? And are the Brewers themselves in that sort of situation? How solid is their core going into 2019? So that's what's interesting to think about. Now, on the one hand, the Brewers made the dual edition, The two best players on the team, they acquired in a week, in the span of like three days or whatever. It's like a day, yeah. Yeah, Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich.

That was a very busy day for writing purposes. So the Brewers, I don't think there's any reason to think Yelich is about to fall off, and Cain is on the other side of 30, but he seems like he's likely to age pretty gracefully, to whatever extent we can tell those things. So the Brewers have their outfield set. They're going to lose Mike Moustakas this offseason. They're going to lose a few of their other pitchers.

Wade Miley is a free agent, if that means that much. Okay, so Walker Buehler leads the playoffs in strikeouts right now. He has 22 total. Do you know who's in second place? I do not. It's not Hader, I guess. It's not Hader. Hader's in fifth. So second place is actually Brandon Woodruff,

arguably the breakout star of the playoffs. Brandon Woodruff threw 12 and a third innings over his four games in the playoffs, and he had three runs, three walks, and 20 strikeouts. Brandon Woodruff, of course, was the effective starter in the Wade-Miley-Deke, the Curly Ogden game. I don't know what we're going to call it. We'll come up with something better. The Deke game. But anyway, Brandon Woodruff showed a lot of ability, and he showed it over multiple innings at a time. So we saw a good amount of Corbin Burns in the playoffs. We saw a lot. We saw even more of Brandon Woodruff. And the Brewers, I don't know exactly what the

idea is going to be with those pitchers as far as 2019 is concerned. But, you know, in the playoffs, it was easy enough for us to dismiss the idea that the Brewers didn't have enough starting pitching because they could just bullpen the whole time. During the regular season, they will need starting pitching because you can't adjust to bullpen all the time. So a big question.

Here are the big questions for the Brewers, I guess. Can Woodruff and or Burns be starters throughout the season next year? So a big question. Here are the big questions for the Brewers, I guess. Can Woodruff and or Burns be starters throughout the season next year? And what is Jimmy Nelson now? Because when he was last healthy, he was one of the probably 10 or 15 best starting pitchers in baseball. But that was a breakout season for him. And then he sustained a major injury. So after like five months of pitching at the top of his game,

he required a major shoulder operation, and he was not able to come back this season, even though there was initially some hope that he could come back in like June or July. So if Nelson is back and he's at 95% or 100%, he's great. Brewers have an ace. But he hasn't thrown any innings this year, and they don't know what they're going to get out of burns and or woodruff so i think this will be an interesting offseason where the brewers think about trying to get a some sort of cost

controlled really good pitcher like their version of the garrett cole trade i guess but there are not a lot of really talented pitchers on the teams that would be likely to make trades this winter because baseball is so polarized now and all the good teams have all the good players so you know we can talk about this more as the offseason gets closer but depending on what the mariners decide to do maybe james paxton becomes available or something like that maybe noah cinder guard becomes available but other than that i just saw a report this morning that maybe yusei kikuchi won't be posted in japan, and then there's just not a whole lot of pitching to go around, assuming Clayton Kershaw doesn't opt out with the idea of joining the smallest market

in baseball. Right. So speaking of Clayton Kershaw, we should talk about the World Series, which starts on Tuesday. Red Sox-Dodgers, this is, I think, a really great matchup in some ways, and in other ways, maybe it's two teams that people are tired of. I don't know. I'm judging by the atmosphere in our Facebook group, which does not represent baseball fans as a whole. But I think people are thinking, oh, the Red Sox again and the Dodgers again. The Dodgers were in the World Series last year. They've been in the playoffs for six consecutive years. The Red Sox have won a whole lot of World Series lately. And so in that sense, if you want novelty, this maybe is not the best matchup imaginable, although the

Dodgers have not actually won a World Series in 30 years. But if you want the two best teams or two really talented teams and a whole lot of storylines and links between these two teams, I think it is a great matchup. I mean, these are the two teams with the biggest payrolls in their respective leagues, with really long, rich histories and old stadiums that some of us say are disgusting and some of us say are really nice. And just in terms of the talent matchup, if you look at the regular season win totals, it looks like there's a mismatch here. Red Sox won 108 games. Dodgers won 92 games. It is a lot closer than that. If you look at the 2018 base runs standings for the regular season, the Red Sox are the team that outperformed their base runs record by the most, nine wins.

The Dodgers are the team that underperformed their base runs record by the most, nine wins. So if you base runs adjust their records, then the Dodgers were maybe actually a little bit better than the Red Sox during the regular season. If you just go by run differential, these teams were second and third in the majors, Red Sox and then Dodgers, but not a lot of separation between them. And if you look at the playoff rosters only, I think there's maybe even less of a separation there. I mean, this is pretty even. I guess the Red Sox are probably favored, but it's not an obvious answer. Right. And even when you're

looking at the full season statistics, well, what did the Dodgers do? They traded for Manny Machado at one point. They got David Fries and I guess also Brian Dozier. But like in the second half of the season, the Dodgers had... Got Justin Turner back, yeah. Got Justin Turner back, yeah, absolutely. Second half of the season, the Dodgers led baseball. They had the best Pythagorean record in baseball,

still a worse record than the Red Sox over that span. But whatever. The Red Sox had like the fourth best Pythagorean record in the American League and the fifth-best overall over the second-half Dodgers were better. So as far as I can tell, there's no mismatch here. Both teams have really good starting rotations. Both teams have really good lineups. I guess the Red Sox presumably have a better team defense.

And then for both teams, you kind of have similar bullpens where there's enough talent, but there's no real, like, there's no hater anymore, right there's no josh hater to keep an eye on there's yeah what is craig kimbrell right now and is kenley jansen over his his pedro mora relay that ryan madsen said uh kenley jansen over his hangover is he now like just excited to be back in the world series is i think ryan madsen said kenley jansen season just started Now I don't know what to make of that It could just be somebody talking because somebody put a microphone in his face But you know You can at least understand psychologically

If you've ever written an article and then lost it Because of the window closes Or you just, I don't know, some sort of computer crash And then you're like, oh god Damn it And then you have to redo the whole thing And you just kind of hate it a lot more the second time until you're almost done and then you kind of get that feeling back something like that except

much more impressive and entertaining and uh yeah and important so i mean in terms of like the bullpens are similarly whatever they're the least remarkable part of the pitching staff but i guess i don't know what what does this come down to is Is it going to be how much does Chris Dale have left? How much of his body weight is depleted from his stay in the hospital? I don't know what the X factors are here, but by far, I think the most interesting question right now is what the Red Sox do when they're in L.A. because everything else is just normal. This is at least like every year the American League team faces an interesting question

when it has to lose the designated hitter. But not every year is the designated hitter like one of the two best players on the team. So the Red Sox have dealt with this before, of course, when David Ortiz was their designated hitter. But now it's not a matter of like, oh, does Ortiz play first base instead of whoever their first baseman was back then? Like Napoli or something? Who cares? But now it's, does JD Martinez go to the corner outfield and does Mookie Betts play second base? He hasn't played a lot of

second base in a while, but I don't, it's a hard thing to argue against, right? No, I think it is. Yeah. And unfortunately for the Red Sox, JD Martinez has never played first base in the majors. I mean, I'm sure that he has the skills. He's probably capable of playing first base, but you're not going to stick someone in a position he has literally never played in the World Series. But the Mookie case, I don't want to say it's an easy call or decision, but I know what I would do.

Like if he is comfortable there and he says he's comfortable there and he looks comfortable there in practice. I saw a video of him kind of working on his pivot at second under Dustin Pejoria's watchful eye the other day. So he's working on it. If he looks okay, I mean, A, he's one of the most athletic and best defensive players in baseball. He's young. This isn't like asking him to do something that he hasn't done for a decade. I mean, he played second base in a big league game for

six innings in August when he was filling in for an injured Ian Kinsler. He came up as a second baseman. He was exclusively a second baseman in the minors five years ago. He played a lot of second base four years ago in the minors and the majors. It's not that long ago. And he is, I think, skilled enough and he's such a good hitter that the difference between him and Kinsler or him and Holt, I think you have to do it, right? I mean, unless he looks uncomfortable or says he's uncomfortable, it just seems like in a purely statistical sense, whatever hit you might take from his lack of recent familiarity with the position just seems like it would be made up by the very sizable gap offensively and base running wise. Right. I haven't run all of the numbers here. I don't know if it's worth doing that. Maybe Michael Bauman already did. I haven't had a chance to read that. I don't know if it's worth doing that. Maybe Michael Bauman already did.

I haven't had a chance to read that article yet that he wrote about this very decision. But what is legitimate is that Betts is the best defensive right fielder in baseball. And if you put him at second base, that's not right field. So J.D. Martinez is not a very good defensive outfielder. He might have heard. He's a designated hitter. So Martinez would make the team substantially worse in the outfield and then presumably even a somewhat re-familiarized mookie betts at second base still not as good as ian kinsler ian kinsler is a good defensive second baseman or maybe we

want to talk about brock holt whoever it could be playing second base so the defense gets worse but the offense is of course you're talking about the difference between jd martine Martinez and Ian Kinsler, who looks like just a hollered-out husk of a baseball player. So it does feel like it is a big swing because the alternative would be you start Kinsler, you have Betts in right field, and then you just have J.D. Martinez available to, what, pinch hit once when you're hoping that there's high leverage, but there's also the pinch hit penalty, and it just gets complicated. And this way, you know, if the Red So red sox achieved a lead which is the whole idea you want to inflate your offense then you can always in the later innings put kinsler at second base and move bets back to right field after jd martinez makes his impact or whatever yeah so it does i don't know because it's the red sox this is something that people are going to be talking about constantly but it does feel like it's a

relatively obvious move to make, assuming Mookie Betts doesn't just like throw up out of anxiety when he's fielding second base. If he can handle it, and I'm sure he says he can handle it, then it seems like that is the way forward. Yeah, and on the other side of things, I mean, sometimes when you get an NL team playing in an AL park, they don't really have a DH because they haven't had to have one. Yeah, the Dodgers have too many good position players for their positions, which is why they're just constantly shuffling them around. So they have no problem at all finding a capable DH. So that's not an issue here. As for other things that could swing the series, I don't know.

I mean, there are a lot of lefties in the series, a lot of left-handed pitching, a lot of left-handed starters. I don't know if that favors either team, though, because both of these teams have been worse against left-handed pitching. These are actually the two best teams in baseball during the regular season against right-handed pitching, Dodgers number one, Red Sox number two, and they're both considerably worse against left-handed pitching, particularly the Red Sox. But again, that's true for both of them, so I just don't know how much it matters here. There are a lot of other interesting sort of storylines that will be discussed on the broadcast. Like, there's a lot of banter that Joe Buck or John Smoltz can get out of this series,

whether it's the 2012 blockbuster trade between these two teams that still probably is having some effect on how they look and operate today. There's the Dave Roberts and Alex Cora, former teammates, and Roberts, the Red Sox hero. And there's Rich Hill, his triumphant return to Boston, and just a whole lot of other hypotheticals. I know that the Red Sox drafted Yasmany Grandal originally before he signed, and the Red Sox almost drafted Walker Buehler. There's lots of kind of fun stories like that, and the Dodgers evidently were trying to trade Yasiel Puig for Jackie Bradley before this season. So a lot of links and connections between these two teams. But analytically speaking, I don't know that they have that much bearing on the outcome here. So I assume it will just come down to who chokes more, Clayton Kershaw or David Price.

It's funny because the Dodgers just came out of the series with the Brewers where two years and two months ago, the Dodgers and Brewers were talking about trading Yeltsin Puig and Brandon McCarthy for Ryan Braun. So we could just have a postseason. They talked about trading Puig to everyone, I guess. A lot of Puig trade talk. So just every series the Dodgers play, you can just talk about, well, here's the team that Yeltsin Puig was almost traded to.

So with the Red Sox and Dodgers, it is funny. You so rarely have an NL team that's so set up for AL baseball, but the Dodgers have everything covered. I don't know who they'll DH, but it's either Matt Kemp or Max Muncy because those are two real defensive lie, but they're going to be fine. They'll figure it out. I wanted to ask, so there's the idea. I think maybe it started with Pete Abraham.

I'm not sure. But the idea of Dave Roberts, manager of the Dodgers, conceivably throwing out a ceremonial first pitch in Boston to Alex Cora. Where do you fall in the debate? I don't know if this is a debate. We're making it one now. Between trying to play up, like inflame the sense of rivalry and competition in the World Series versus promoting, I don't know, bipartisanship. Like what do you want out of this? Yeah, as a fan, as a spectator, I don't know. I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing if

there's more bad blood between the Red Sox and Machado. As everyone knows, there's a history of the beanball war between them last season, and Machado called them cowards, and he criticized the entire organization. And we know what Machado's been up to lately in these playoffs. And he's doing crotch grabs and Puig's doing crotch chops and all sorts of crotch, crotchal activity going on here. and brawls or at least benches clearing and then just standing around for a while. So on the one hand, as long as no one gets hurt, I'd be kind of into that. On the other hand, if you're MLB and you're trying to defuse that, if you think they are, if you think maybe they want more bad blood and heel turns, I don't know. But if you want to try to defuse some of that simmering tension before the series starts, I guess having the two managers throw to each other as a ceremonial gesture might help. It's kind of hard to pretend that these teams are bitter enemies and they hate each other if the managers are pals.

So I don't know. Maybe that's not a bad move. It seems like it's such the idea of an objective observer i mean if this did start with pete abraham i know he's like a boston area columnist but still he's a columnist not a fan you and i we aren't fans of the dodgers or the red sox so we're looking at this like oh it would be nice to see people come together in this time of polarization but if i were a fan of the red sox i'm looking for every reason to be pissed off the dodgers and vice versa so we would and just the optics of the Red Sox, I'm looking for every reason to be pissed off at the Dodgers and vice versa. And just the optics of the other team's manager throwing out the first pitch in Fenway.

I don't know. Maybe there's a precedent for that. I haven't done a lot of research into historical ceremonial first pitches that weren't thrown by country stars or former presidents or something. But I don't know. I think it's a cute idea because it is funny that Dave Roberts is going to be in the stadium, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I think that you choose someone who inflames. Nick Ponto, just someone who comes out or just like a big suitcase full of money. But I guess, I don't know, maybe that's what ceremonial first pitches already are.

Yeah. So I don't know. I assume it'll be a really competitive series. I assume there will be a slide at some point or a gesture of some sort that will piss people off and that will become a storyline. I'd be kind of surprised if that never happens at any point in the series. But you get Kershaw and Price. I guess they probably won't be going head-to-head, but that's a compelling narrative,

if not because of the postseason narrative, because of the opt-out question that's lingering over both of them. I'm going to stop you. Is there an opt-out question looming over David Price? Is there? I guess not. Probably not.

Kershaw there is. Price there's not. I don't, therehaw there is. Price, there's not. I don't. There's no way. Yeah, unless he's decided that he just wants out of Boston at all costs, it wouldn't be financially advantageous for him, I wouldn't think, to do it. You know, unless, as I think you said in one of our Patreon chats maybe, that if he comes out throwing 98 or something, but barring that.

if he comes out throwing 98 or something, but barring that. But the bigger question, I think, surrounds Chris Sale, who we just really don't know. I mean, I wrote coming into the playoffs that Chris Sale was the big question hanging over the Red Sox and that it would be hard to have a deep playoff run without a really great Chris Sale. Obviously, they've had a deep playoff run, mostly without a really great Chris Sale. Obviously, they've had a deep playoff run, mostly without a really great

Chris Sale, so it can be done. But their bullpen, I think, was surprisingly a strength to this point in the playoffs. And I don't know whether that unit has changed your opinion of it at all, the workmans and braziers and barnses of the world. But there's the question of whether that luck will hold, whether they will continue to be so effective. There's the question of whether Craig Kimbrell has fixed a pitch-tipping issue and whether the pitch-tipping issue was even responsible for how ineffective he was. And I don't know.

There are definitely bullpen question marks there still. If we thought there were two weeks ago, we should still think there are now. And so it is important for Cressel to be able to pitch well and go somewhat deep into games. And right now we have no idea whether mechanically and health-wise he is up to that task. Coming into the playoffs, I was a little higher on that. There was so much conversation about how bad the Red Sox bullpen was, which, what a nut. I guess when you get to the playoffs, you have to go all Amazon product reviews of everything. Everything's either great or everything's terrible. But the Red Sox bullpen on balance this season wasn't bad. Kimbrell was

good and Barnes was good and there was help elsewhere. But it's funny, you look at it, highlight Matt Barnes, for example. In the the playoffs he's made seven appearances he's only allowed one hit but he's got five walks and five strikeouts you and i know enough to say that doesn't look great ryan brazier who also has made seven appearances has four walks and six strikeouts craig kimbrough six walks and eight strikeouts eduardo rodriguez three walks and four strikeouts this bullpen has not been good in terms of walks and strikeouts brandon workman is 3-3. Keith Hembree is 4-2. Forgot that he was even on the team.

You know, the only Red Sox reliever with a decent-looking strike-to-walk ratio is Joe Kelly, who is unreliable. So, looking at it, I like Matt Barnes enough. As far as Craig Kimbrell goes, his last outing was good. I'm not—you never really know what to do with pitch tipping but like his was really unconvincing there was an article I almost wrote about it on Friday and then I decided I didn't want to but yeah I did some video research on Craig Kimbrell because he made an obvious change in his delivery between appearances he lowered his hands in his set position similar to how Rich Hill raised his hands when he was beginning his delivery recently.

That was supposed to combat a pitch tipping issue. Craig Kimbrell lowered his hands because apparently Eric Gagne was watching and texted Alex Cora or something that, hey, Kimbrell is tipping his pitches. But Ben Harris of The Athletic and I guess soon of a baseball team front office wrote an article. He also wrote a Luis severino pitch tipping article i found the severino one much more convincing because he had an obvious tell when there was a runner on second base he was like playing his day and with kimbrough it's like angle of the hand and the glove yeah but also that i couldn't see it right and i i mean ben did a good job of like presenting it visually but but even so, I was not convinced. Like he highlighted like, okay, here's how Kimbrough was holding his hand on a fastball and here's how he's holding a breaking ball.

And you can see that the angle's different and it's like, can you? I'm not sure. And this is looking at a still image from the center field camera, which presumably if there's some difference from that angle, there might be some difference from the hitter's angle, but not definitely. And it was like, you know, his glove is maybe covering a little bit more of the ball with when he's throwing a breaking ball. It was, I don't know. I guess a team found it convincing because they hired Ben almost immediately after that article, but I was not totally convinced. And it's hard to say because on the one hand, it looked like Kimbrel's command was just off and he was missing by a lot. On the other hand, he probably would look like that if

he were tipping pitches because he throws a lot of pitches outside the strike zone. It's just that people swing at them because they don't look like they're going to be in the strike zone. So, I mean, we saw the pitches that Giancarlo Stanton swung and struck out on in the ALDS, and they were not near the plate. So if Stanton had known, OK, this is going to be a slider and it's not going to be in the strike zone, I'll just take it. It might have looked like Kimbrel wasn't throwing the pitches where he wanted to throw them, but really he was, and he just gets people to chase. So I don't know. It seems like he had bigger issues than pitch tipping going on, but maybe that's what pitch

tipping would look like in his case. Anyway, it's probably just safest to assume that Craig Kimbrell is still pretty good. I think that's the real takeaway. You're right. The article was presented well, and I guess there was something there. But of the three or four pitch-dipping articles I've read recently, and I guess I'm responsible for one of them, so I'm biased, but of the pitch-dipping articles that I've seen,

it was definitely the least convincing of all of them. I don't know what Eric Gagne was saying, and maybe it was something completely different that nobody picked up on except for the very insightful Eric Gagne watching from home on his television. I don't know. But my belief is more that Craig Campbell was just kind of missing. You're absolutely right that if any pitcher didn't get swings out of the zone, then that pitcher would look bad because every pitcher needs swings out of the zone. Pitchers who don't get swings out of the zone are pitchers like chris tillman then you're like oh no he can't

we can't let him throw pitches for us anymore or we'll sign him resign him to a one-year contract and then he'll do the same stuff and and then we'll get rid of him so it is hard to tell the difference between a pitcher who is just missing like craig campbell is not trying to throw his breaking ball in the zone very often so if people aren't swinging at the breaking ball, then it's going to be a ball. And then that's bad because balls are bad. But if you look at Craig Kimbrell also, very small sample in the playoffs. That's the other important thing to keep in mind. But he has not been elevating his fastball the way that he did during the regular season.

He gets a lot of swings and misses on his fastball at and above the belt. And it wasn't until his most recent appearance that he was really doing that very much so something got fixed or at least addressed or ironed out but you have to remember that over the course of the season like every closer has a three or four game stretch where he doesn't look so dominant kelly jansen has gone back and forth these are just the things that pop up and playoff reputations start to feel real really quickly it only took like two bad outings for craig kimbrell for people to be like oh no one of the best closers of all time has lost it but like he's craig kimbrell he's still throwing 98 miles per hour still has the breaking ball maybe he was

tipping pitches probably he was just missing with pitches and he's been facing the yankees hitters and the astros hitters in the playoffs who are great. So outside of that, Kimbrell probably is fine. I don't think he's in a better or worse position than Kenley Jansen. And I guess if we figure that in Fenway, the Dodgers player most likely to be booed is Manny Machado because why break with precedent? What Red Sox player is most likely to be booed in Los Angeles? There aren't really any hated like heel type Red Sox player is most likely to be booed in Los Angeles? There aren't really any hated, like heel type Red Sox players, right?

At least not active ones. I don't know. I guess they could be mad that Nathan Uvalde didn't reach his potential in Los Angeles. Yeah, I don't know. Are they mad at JD Martinez for being so good with the Diamondbacks last year? I don't know. Gotta kind of reach there. So maybe there isn't.

And, you know, like Mookie is the best player, and usually the best player draws the most boos, but it doesn't seem like Mookie has really been the focal point of it. You can't boo Mookie. You can't boo Mookie. Has Mike Trout ever been booed? I don't know. It seems like it would be hard to have any anger at Mike Trout either.

So, yeah, most people just don't even know he's good probably, so they wouldn't boo him. But, yeah, I don't know. So there's Cora versus Roberts. I don't know if there's a clear managerial edge here. I mean, I think Cora's gotten a lot of credit for how he's managed this postseason, but for things that it seems to me aren't extraordinary. I mean, yeah, he's used starters as relievers. He's used Porcello out

of the bullpen. He's used Ivaldi out of the bullpen, but that's kind of standard playoff MO for a lot of teams, right? I mean, the Dodgers have done the same thing. They've used Kershaw in relief. They've used Rich Hill in relief. I mean, I don't know. That to me is not like out of the ordinary playoff managing. So I guess Cora hasn't made a lot of mistakes that stand out. Like generally his managing has been pretty unobjectionable and Roberts maybe has had some more questionable calls, but I don't know. I don't see a huge difference here, managerially speaking. I thought Roberts getting Walker Buehler out of Game 7 when he did was the right time to pull him. I don't know whether Rios was the right person to bring in, but Buehler was about to start facing the third time through the order, and he had struggled against the Brewers the third time through the order his previous start in the series. So I feel like, I don't know, maybe Cora's a little bit better, but it's hard to say. It does feel like the Dodgers have a little more depth in the bullpen, and when the Red Sox play in the NL ballpark, there'll be more pressure on Cora to figure out what he's doing with the starters. But, you know, if you get to have Rodriguez or Uvalde out in the bullpen probably rodriguez then that gives you a little extra flexibility i don't know who has the edge in the later innings here and it will

be interesting because cora has so little experience managing in nl ballpark but cora has plenty of experience playing in nl ballpark so it's not like he's unfamiliar for every rep that mookie betts is taking right now at second base a Cora is going through some sort of game simulation so he can get used to double switches and all that stuff yeah really hard to imagine but bringing on Tom Tippett maybe to do diamond mine Tom Tippett probably still has access to the databases or whatever it is that the Red Sox have but you know there's always the potential that Alex Cora makes some weird Gabe Kapler mistake and forgets how to manage it in an NL ballpark once or twice because it all turns on one decision. But yeah, it's so hard to find any sort of meaningful edge.

These are two great teams. There's two of the four or five best teams in baseball. That's kind of it. And I know sort of when I saw somebody tweeting the effect of as soon as the Dodgers won game seven, like, oh, well, tune in out. I'm not going to watch the playoffs anymore. Red Sox, Dodgers, baseball seven like oh well tuning out I'm not gonna watch the playoffs anymore Red Sox Dodgers baseball got what it wanted first of all I don't think baseball cared one way or another I'm not sure how much more the advertising revenue is going to be the same the people are

paying for these commercial spots well in advance of the World Series and if the Brewers made it whatever realistically people who are going to watch the series are going to be fans of the teams in it anyway so yeah if you're rooting for the Brewers of course you who are going to watch the series are going to be fans of the teams in it anyway. So, yeah, if you're rooting for the Brewers, of course you're not going to watch. But if you're rooting for the Dodgers, you probably weren't going to watch if the Brewers made it. So what are you going to do? They're not fresh. I know they're not fresh. The Red Sox have won seven World Series in the last eight years and the Dodgers won their division like six years in a row. And they're just constantly going deep in the playoffs. So I get it.

But I don't know if you're on the fence or if you're just repulsed by the reality of this World Series. Think less about the teams and more about the players on the teams. Mookie Betts hasn't won a World Series. Clayton Kershaw hasn't won a World Series. David Price has barely won anything. There are players here to root for. Root for Kenley Jansen.

Root for, I don't know, root for the manager. Root for old people who root for these teams or root for very young people who root for these teams. I don't know. I don't care. My grandmother lives in Los Angeles. I guess she doesn't care about the Dodgers, but that would be a reason for me to want them to do well. You can root for Chris Dale.

There are just so many individual players who have interesting stories who have never won a World Series that you just have to think beyond the logos on their hats. Because, of course, if you focus on the businesses, the corporations, and the hat logos, the uniforms, then you can find – and I've experienced this with every sport that I've ever followed – you can find reasons to hate everyone. Every single team over a long enough period of time will do something to piss you off and then that is always going to be there associated with the name and the logo but of course as we've all experienced and as ace fans know better than anyone the players who wear the uniforms change all the time the stories change all the time the story changes all the time and so just go into this and if you were at all open-minded about the series as a fan of a team that isn't the Red Sox or the Dodgers, there is still plenty here to root for. And I am looking forward to it beginning and I am looking forward to it ending.

Yeah. Well, they're some of the most charismatic, watchable players in baseball in this series, whether it's Puig or Kershaw or Sale or Mookie. I mean, these are stars. These are like era-defining players who are matching up here. So I think there's a lot for a neutral fan to watch. And I wonder whether it would make any meaningful difference to the unaffiliated fan. I mean, is a neutral fan less likely to tune in to Red Sox Dodgers than Brewers Red Sox or, I don't know, Brewers versus some other team that hasn't been in the World Series recently? Does it actually matter? I kind of doubt it. I mean, people say that they feel that way, and I assume that they're speaking in good faith and that's what they would actually do,

but I kind of wonder when it actually comes down to it and the World Series starts, are you really going to base your decision on who's playing? Or are you going to base your decision on, hey, it's the World Series. This is deciding who the champion of baseball is this year. So I don't know. It seems like everyone knows these players at least and these franchises. And maybe you hate the Red Sox. Maybe you hate the Dodgers. Maybe you hate both of them.

Those are reasons to watch, too. But it seems like kind of something that the super plugged-in baseball fan, as they say in wrestling, like the smart fans, those of us who are appreciating it on a level that your casual fan who just tunes in every now and then is not maybe it's trendy for us to say yeah we just want a new team in the world series every year but there's something to the storyline of teams coming back again and again and trying to win which is the dodgers case i mean they've been in the playoffs but they haven't actually broken through in decades so So that's worth watching too. Right. Who would have been an equivalent of the Brewers? It would have been like the Royals from a few years ago, right? Just kind of a small market team living on a prayer. And in 2014,

when the Royals played the Giants, those games drew an average of, God, I don't know how to read these metrics, 13.9 million viewers for each game of the Giants Royal Series and that series went seven uh compare that to 2016 when the Cubs played the Indians Cubs bigger market and Indians I guess similar to the Royals and Brewers but still a bigger deal more established team or something I don't know I'm just talking but yeah that series drew an average of 22.8 million viewers per game that was the ultimate because that was like, you know, the two longest droughts and the Cubs trying to break their curse and the Indians going almost as long. I mean, that was just a perfect meeting of storylines.

Right. So what was the last World Series that was just like eye rolly? We're tired of these teams because it wouldn't have been Astros Dodgers because Astros were still a little new, like Red Sox Cardinals 2013. Maybe people. Yeah. Red Sox had already won and Cardinals made the playoffs every year. Okay, so that drew 15 million viewers per game, which is still a million more than Giants-Royals the following season.

Of course, Red Sox-Cardinals did not go to seven games. Game six of that series drew 19.2 million viewers. Anyway, these are just a whole bunch of numbers, and maybe it's not that interesting, but there is plenty to root for in this series, as already discussed. I don't think it's going to drive that many people away. Even if it does, you're not going to notice because Boston and L.A. have such giant markets. But no, you're right.

I think you look at it as there are so many era-defining players, in your words, who are participating in this series. And it's going to be good. And I think the only disadvantage, or maybe this isn't the disadvantage. So the last two World Series, won by the Cubs and the Astros,

what happened after the fact is people used those teams to celebrate the teardown model, right, of the rebuild. Now, had the Brewers made the World Series, the upside would have been celebrating the not-all-the-way-teardown-to-the-studs kind of teardown. It would have been celebrating the not all the way, tear down to the studs kind of tear down. It would have been like the tear down but don't get terrible. But with the Red Sox and Dodgers, no matter who wins, guess what?

They followed the same model. Get good players and pay money. Like, it's annoying because it feels a little like when the Yankees would win all the time 15 years ago. But it's also good in that it's a reminder that the team can win by just investing in the on-field roster all the time. Just dump money into baseball and then you can win a World Series. That's kind of what this is going to come down to. There's no meaningful distinguishing factor, except that I guess the Red Sox have been more liberal trading their prospects. Yeah, right. And that's kind of a post that people write every year, like what's the correlation between

payroll and wins? And there was a time not too long ago where it was like the lowest it had been for a while, and now it's back up a bit more. And so there's, I think people want to think that it's not that directly connected, that you can't just buy yourself to a championship. And you can't. I don't think you can. If you could have, the Dodgers would have by now. I think what you can buy or at least give yourself a much better chance to buy is a playoff berth. If you outspend everyone else, you are, I think, more likely to

end up in the playoffs. And if you're in the playoffs, then you have a shot to win the World Series. But it's so—because of baseball's built-in randomness in the playoffs, it's sort of a defense against buying your way to a title because you can't. You can have probably the best team in baseball, the Astros, and you can lose in five games because a bunch of things don't go right for you in that series. So I think that's the case. I mean, there are only so many teams. It'd be great if, like, the Marlins and the A's looked at the Red Sox and Dodgers and said, aha, so we just have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and we too could be in the World Series. I mean, there are only so many franchises that can do that or are willing to do that.

So I don't know that it's actually going to change that many minds. making it feel like the whole competitive balance of the league is off because all that matters is whether you can spend $200 million on payroll or not, then it's not a bad thing that spending is connected to winning because it should encourage at least the rich teams to spend, which lately has not always been the case either because some teams, including the Dodgers, have been so mindful of the luxury tax and going above that threshold and paying the penalty that even they have been kind of watching their wallets.

And it's been the case with the Yankees, too. And, you know, the Dodgers are here in the World Series and the Yankees were in the Division Series, so it didn't really hurt them all that much anyway. I guess what do you look at what might be the distinguishing factor between the Red Sox and the Dodgers is that be the distinguishing factor between the Red Sox and the Dodgers is that depending on who wins, the Red Sox have used most of their prospect capital to trade for really good players, like, for example, Chris Sale. And the Dodgers have used their prospect capital to hoard their prospect capital aside from, I guess, the Manny Machado trade.

But other than that, yeah, kind of the same principles. If the Dodgers win, then what you have to do as another team is be the best organization in Major League Baseball and then you too can be rewarded with a World Series championship and then if the Red Sox win I don't know then people will celebrate Dave Dombrowski's aggressive maneuvers and getting Kimbrel and sale and throwing money at David Price all these things so you know that is likely to be the big takeaway. But the team model-based takeaway is an annoying one because I'm not convinced that many teams have followed what the Astros and Cubs did. Teams are going to rebuild anyway. Rebuilding is not a new principle. Now, what the Royals did introduce with their own success was

the Super Bowl pin. They weren't the first team to ever do that but it was at least a a recent reminder to show how deep you can get without a very good rotation and hey look at that the brewers who were kind of the same team just made it really really deep they just didn't make it to the world series so it would have been more fun if the brewers had made it and won and then you could say well teams should tear down responsibly and then get aggressive when they're close like the Brewers did. But otherwise, I don't know. I guess we're due for a huge market team that's been good forever to win the World Series. And it's still going to be a good series because these are two amazing baseball teams.

Like the level of talent in the series is an absurdity. Yeah. Yeah. I guess one other time when the Dodgers traded a prospect was the Logan Forsyth-Jose DeLeon trade, which it's easy to forget because, I mean, both sides of that trade have been pretty forgettable so far. And DeLeon missed this whole season with an injury, and he's 26, and maybe he'll come back and still be good, but hasn't cost the Dodgers very quickly, and now Logan Forsyth's just an afterthought. So I don't know, I guess that's another time, but they had many opportunities to trade Buehler or Bellinger or Verdugo, not that he is playing a role on this roster right now, but they had those chances and they held on to them because, well, for one thing they could,

because they could just spend themselves out of the bad contracts that they handed out, but also because it's smart and it sets you up for the long term. And Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi, I mean, they came up with teams where they couldn't spend, and so they've taken some of that mindset to a team where they could spend, and it's kind of the best of both worlds. Yeah. And I guess if you're looking for a reason to root for either side, just remember that if the Dodgers win, it's something for the entire front office to celebrate before they all go to prison. Yeah, that too. And one other thing I mentioned, I'm working on an article now that may be up by the time some of you hear this about just the Dodgers' positional flexibility and versatility. Nothing new. This was the case with them last year, but they've really taken it to an extreme

this year. They're kind of the most flexible team of all time, I think even more so than the recent Cubs-Joe Maddon teams that have been known for that. The way in which they move Bellinger around and Hernandez and Taylor and Muncy and Machado to a certain extent. I mean, these guys are just going back and forth within games and from game to game, and it hasn't seemed to hurt them defensively. And it's helped them in a lot of ways because they can just kind of always have a good player ready. That's another area like where we talked about the Brewers, the importance of getting the buy-in from all those pitchers who maybe aren't used to starting and getting one out or two innings. They've all bought into that philosophy.

Hey, we're just pitchers and we're just going to go however long council tells us to go. Sort of the same thing with the Dodgers where it's just, well, we'll play wherever Roberts tells us to play and we'll move from position to position within games and from game to game and no problem. It's just part of the ethos of this team. And I think that's something that we're seeing more and more around the league, this idea of like positionless baseball for various reasons. You know, for one thing, bullpens are just so gigantic now that there's no room on the bench for multiple bench players. So you almost have to have someone who can play multiple positions competently. And then there's the shifting and positioning.

You can kind of minimize a guy's weaknesses at a certain position, and then there are fewer balls in play to begin with. So maybe it doesn't cost you as much to have someone who's not a natural at a certain position. with. So maybe it doesn't cost you as much to have someone who's not a natural at a certain position. So league-wide, we're seeing more and more teams that have players like this in this kind of Bellingerian, Taylor-esque mold, but the Dodgers really take it to an extreme. I know you have another podcast to get to, and when we're finishing this podcast, then generally we conclude with some kind of unplanned but closing statement. But in this case, well, let's close with something that's methodological, because I'm curious. I'm going to be out of the office all of Monday, so I don't know when I'm going to get a chance to read your article. So in lieu of

that, I am only curious how you have measured the most flexible team of all time. So what'd you do? Well, I did as little work as I could, and I piggybacked on an article that Randy Giserelli wrote for the ringer two years ago that I helped him a little bit with the research for but he came up with this metric just called flex score which just basically adds up the number of games played by position players at positions other than their primary position not counting counting DH and lumping the outfield spots together. But it's basically just how many games did this team have from guys who were not at their most common position? So it's not super sophisticated. I'm sure there are other ways one could do it, but I think it does pretty much reflect how we feel about these teams and

their willingness to move guys around and with some help from the indispensable dan hirsch i was able to go back to the very beginning of major league history and i found that the 2018 dodgers have the highest flex score ever okay so now i uh thank you for explaining i will let you get to your other podcasts and in conclusion ben lindenberg has predicted a dodgers sweep of the World Series. So everybody, Ben says Dodgers in four. That slipped my mind already. I do tend to forget my predictions

as soon as I make them. You should get more sleep. When you are ready to close your eyes, we know that you will be unconscious very quickly. All right. Well, we will be back to talk about this series

throughout the week as it proceeds. Tom Dolan, John Leary, and Ryan Brown. Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Please keep your questions and comments and other feedback coming for me and Jeff via email at podcast at fancrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system. If you are a supporter, We will get to your questions

sometime soon. Playoffs make scheduling difficult. Our regular editor, Dylan Higgins, was off today. He'll be back later this week. So all fault or credit is mine. We will be back. Talk to you very soon.

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