Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1441: It Was the Kersh of Times

Episode Date: October 11, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the wild NLDS Game 5 between the Dodgers and the Nationals and the wild (in a different way) NLDS Game 5 between the Braves and the Cardinals, touching on Clayton Kershaw’s blown lead and postseason career, what Dave Roberts was thinking and what’s next for him, the Nationals […]

10 by 10, 3 by 3, close your eyes and bury me 10 by 10, 3 by 3, close your eyes and bury me Divide and drown Hello and welcome to episode 1441 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined, as always, by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Oh, my goodness. How am I? I'm doing considerably better than I was about 12 hours or so ago, although I have not slept since then.

Oh, dear. Feeling a little loopy. We're recording on Thursday before ALDS Game 5, but after the NLDS Game 5s. And what a wild day it was. Oh, my stars. Just truly, and such different versions of wild presented to us in these games. I, at one point, we will talk about both of them. At one point, when the Dodgers were up early on the Nationals,

I, who was watching this game with Brandon Golowski, who writes for Fangraphs, we both said, ah, I hope that they can stabilize this because after the laugher earlier this afternoon, we need a good game, and boy, did we get one. There was a point in the sixth or seventh inning or so where it seemed like the Dodgers were cruising and the first game was over. And I was thinking, what are we even going to have to talk about? What a dud this day was. We were so excited for these games. And then, oh boy, I felt

things before that game was over and after that game was over. And we had tentatively discussed recording right after that game and I'm kind of glad we didn't because I was like a raw nerve right then. My emotions were surging. I don't know what I would have said at that time and I had some hours to write about things that I was feeling and now we have reconvened here and I don't know that I've changed my mind about anything all that much, but it's a little less raw and immediate, at least for me, although maybe not for Totters fans. Oh my goodness. Should we start with Cardinals Braves just to get it? I don't want to give short shrift to the first inning of that game or some of the interesting decisions that were made

later in it, but should we get that some of the interesting decisions that were made later in it. But should we get that out of the way as it were? Gosh, I don't know. I kind of don't want to wait. I want to get right to the good stuff. Okay. I guess we should tease what we will be doing at the end of this episode.

So we have a guest who will be joining us, Sarah Ziegler from FiveThirtyEight, who is the sports editor there and the host of Hot Takedown, their sports podcast, and also a lifelong Twins fan. And so we invited her on to talk about her pain and her psychological suffering and what it means to be the fan of a team that has the longest postseason losing streak ever in baseball. And we also got into other things like which is the worst way to lose. Is it being a Mariners fan or being a Twins fan? Or is it more painful to be a Braves fan after the way they lost in the NLTS or a Dodgers fan

after the way they lost? And so there's some general interest stuff there as well as some Twins stuff. So that's a fun chat. But before we get to that, there's just so much to discuss. Probably best that we didn't podcast right away because I don't know that I could have podcasted responsibly because I felt about as worked up as I have in the aftermath of any game since I think the 2014 NLCS when Mike Matheny brought in Michael Wacca for no discernible reason when Trevor Rosenthal was ready and warming up and then he said it wasn't a safe situation and then we got on the mic and I got as close to ranting about things as I've probably ever gotten in the history of the podcast which is not really all that close but but close for me. That's what I was feeling basically for this game,

both, I guess, indignation at how it had happened, but also deep empathy for Clayton Kershaw and Dodgers fans, and also complete puzzlement and confusion, and yet also happiness for Nationals fans who won a postseason series. So it was just the full spectrum of reactions. I think the first time I felt something at all while watching this game was that goofy almost home run that Jock Peterson hit. And I like weird stuff stuff i like it when baseball

gets weird and that that had a little weird to it and then and then what was going on with the walls in that game why are the walls so sticky why do they have holes in them what is what is happening this feels like very suboptimal construction yeah and so i thought oh maybe it'll get weird and then max muncy was like no it will not and he hit this home run that was not at all controversial and I thought oh Christ like the poor nationals so I start that was I started to feel something if we were doing a feelings expectancy uh graph or something that was that was the first spike and then and then you know like you said they were kind of moving along kind of cruising and i think uh i think the

next time that i felt a thing was when poor kurt suzuki took a ball oh yes kind of to the face yeah and the the broadcast did the thing that broadcasts do where they replayed it. And generally, I am opposed to those sorts of things just because I just don't want to look at it. But I actually appreciated the replay this time because it allowed you to see that while what happened was, and we should say clearly Walker Buehler did not intend to be Suzuki here, but it had seemed based on how he went down

that he had just taken the ball full in the face and so i actually appreciated the replay to learn that it while still bad it had you know been been muted somewhat by uh by the helmet but then you know they were uh that and then walker bueller was left in and i thought well hey that's a that choice. Yeah, that was the first little tremor, the first little warning sign that something might be about to happen. That decision in isolation was not the weirdest, certainly. And if the rest of the game had gone differently, that was just the first sign that, uh-oh, we're in for something here. Because, right, Buehler went to 117 pitches, which has somehow become commonplace in the postseason all of a sudden. It's like we've flashed back 15 years.

I don't know where all these 117, 120 pitch outings have come from. I think we've already had four or five and there were zero last year in the entire postseason. So that's strange. But he was facing the order for the third time. He got out of a sort of rough sixth inning where he had given up a run and looked like he was laboring a little bit. And then Roberts brought him back out and he got in a little bit of trouble. He put a couple guys on and then lo and behold, who was running in from the bullpen but Clayton Kershaw. So he runs in from the bullpen. Yes. And Adam Eaton goes down swinging.

Yes. And my shoulders dropped. I was like, okay. Yeah. This might be fine. This might be okay. You know? And then the Nationals countered with Rainey and then Patrick Corman eventually.

Yep. And then Rendon comes out and there's Clayton Kershaw again. And it is a funny thing when you have two franchises that have, it is hard to describe either of these as being particularly like bad luck franchises in a more general sense, because I, you know, the Dodgers are the Dodgers. And despite the long sort of inability to reach the CS, the Nationals have had good seasons, winning seasons, and great players. But it is a weird thing when two teams that have a bit of a postseason narrative brush up against each other because they can't both lose. Right. The Kershaw narrative and the nationals narrative yeah and so you are looking for moments when your spidey sense tingles about which which direction the baseball gods are going to to look and i i tend to think that the baseball gods are pretty fickle and uh petty and i think that they engage in their

own myopic weird little bits of business i think of them a lot lot like the gods in Jason and the Argonauts where they're just like, you know, they're moving pieces around on the board and it's as much about their own interests as it is about like the folks who are down there trying to fend off skeletons. And here he stood, Kershaw against Rendon and you were like, I don't know how this is going to go.

And then he got into a favorable, Rendon got into a favorable count, and then it went badly. Yes, it went very badly after that. And then it went very badly after that again. Yep, and then again after that. So the initial decision to bring in Kershaw at all and to bring him in with runners in scoring position when he came in, it was not surprising, really. It was pretty predictable because they had kind of telegraphed this and Roberts had talked about how he was planning to piggyback these guys. I think people raised objections at that time because it just didn't seem particularly necessary to use Kershaw in this way. For the Nationals, it did, to use Corbin, to use Scherzer.

But the Dodgers have a deeper pen with more dependable relievers than the Nationals do. And also, Kershaw is not the pitcher he was when he was doing this a few years ago to great effect when he got the save in Game 5 against the Nationals in the NLDS. He is not quite that guy anymore who you just go way out of your way to get into the game. It's not like we can't lose with Clayton Kershaw in the bullpen. He's a very good pitcher, but he's not best pitcher in baseball, need to get this guy in there, especially because he's not trained for this he's done it before obviously but it's not something he does regularly and so there were other options available at that point and they could have gone to adam kleric the lefty specialist and

he could have tackled eaton and then he could have just been careful with rendon to lead off the next inning and then he could have faced one s with Rendon to lead off the next inning and then he could have faced Juan Soto who he's sort of been the specialist for in the series and faced him three times already and had been warming up a fourth time to face him so they could have done that they could have done various other things they could have I guess gone to Kershaw for one out and not brought him back out for the eighth and instead started the inning with Maeda, let's say, and had Maeda pitch carefully to Soto. Either way, you were going to get at least one platoon disadvantaged plate appearance unless you really wanted to go wild with matchups. But that's OK.

Like Maeda is great against righties, but he's a starting pitcher. Usually he's used to facing lefties. That would be okay, probably. So they didn't do that. They pushed Kershaw and maybe Roberts got a little greedy. And I don't know whether it's just that he still thinks of Kershaw as Pete Kershaw, which his postgame comments seem to suggest. You know, he was saying essentially Kershaw's the best pitcher of his generation. He's the best pitcher in the game or one of the best pitchers in the game. And I'm comfortable having him out there anytime, which if it were purely the post-season narrative and the episodes of unclutchness that he were ignoring, I would sort of applaud that. But he also seems to be ignoring the recent results

and the fact that he throws 89 now and in this outing was throwing his sliders and his fastballs 89 which is not really great when there's zero separation there for kershaw so it was that and i don't know whether he got caught up in the drama of the moment and he wanted to give this guy who's meant so much to the franchise the chance to play a pivotal role here, or to have him redeem the playoff demons, or just to channel the memory of 2016 when he got the save. I don't know what, but he said it was not an analytically driven decision. It was kind of like a gut feel thing, which doesn't necessarily mean that there weren't some numbers underlying it, but that's how he portrayed it and that's how it seemed. And so it was just kind of questionable, I think, to go to him at all and to keep going to him when you had this Fopal Penn and Dustin May and Jansen and Maeda and Rias. And I mean, you could keep naming guys Kelly who, well, we'll talk about Kelly.

So I confessed to the world my anxiety on behalf of strangers. And so how I ended up feeling in this moment is very inconsequential compared to how Clayton Kershaw ended up feeling in this moment. So I'd like to state that for the record up front. But one of the knock-on effects of this sequence was that a whole bunch of people on Twitter were like, hey, you must feel terrible. And I was like, I really do. I really feel very terrible. And then he gives up the first home run. And you go, oh, no. Yeah, not no. Yeah.

Not a terrible pitch. Not a terrible pitch. This is the thing. And so in that moment, in that not terrible pitch moment, you think to yourself, well, this doesn't have to mean anything. I mean, it means something. It means that now the two run deficit is now one run deficit. But you think to yourself, it wasn't a bad pitch

he could be fine maybe he'll get a little he'll get a little uh ground ball out and then and then Juan Soto will go back to the dugout and Howie Kendrick who again we'll talk about in a minute will come up and he's having just a totally terrible series, just the worst time, and Kershaw could make work of him or maybe they'll actually go to someone else in the bullpen. But then that Soto home run happens and you realize then in that moment that you believe that even though the Nationals bullpen is terrible,

that you think that they are going to maybe win this baseball game. That was the moment where I thought, oh, so the Nationals are going to go play in the championship series. That was the moment because you just feel that that is the way that petty baseball gods obsessed with their own picky and concerns are going to roll this one. That's where you start to think it's true. Yeah. And Kershaw had looked so pumped and so excited when he got the out, when he got eaten out to end that inning.

And then the contrast between how he looked in the next inning where he was just the picture of deflation i mean i think tbs went about 50 50 for the next inning between like actual shots of the game and shots of sad kershaw oh yes i i have feedback on that broadcast because here's the thing about it. One time is enough times. One time looking- It's enough for us to get the screenshots, write the GIFs, make it a meme. We know, we know. We know where he's at.

That is a, there is so little about being a major leaguer, let alone a major leaguer of Clayton Kershaw's caliber, whatever he is right this minute of his caliber, there is so little about him and us that is the same, except for this. This is the same. This is how this looks. We know that feeling.

We've all had that. I mean, not exactly that, but we can look at that and say, yeah, man, I know. And so for them to continue to go back to him, and then you start to wonder, is this the way he wants to be? Does he want to be by himself? Is this a moment that has to be self-contained? Because having to engage with other human beings will either result in him crying, which he will feel embarrassed about, or yelling, which he will also feel embarrassed about, because it's just not a moment where you are at your best. Or are his teammates horrible?

Now you're starting to wonder what kind of people the rest of the Dodgers are. And I tend to think that they probably knew that he just needed a minute by himself. But you're wondering if all of these guys who you've come to like are monsters. It was just so many times. It was 10 more times than they needed to do. I didn't count

how many times they actually did it, but I'm confident it was at least 10 more than they needed to. Yeah. And I don't know whether baseball's a zero-sum game in a lot of ways. One team allows a run and the other team scores a run. I don't know whether suffering is also zero-sum so that the suffering of Clayton Kershaw is equal to the elation of Juan Soto, let's say. I don't know if it cancels out in a cosmic sense. I'm happy that Juan Soto was happy, and I'm happy that he's having all these clutch hits in the playoffs, and people are getting introduced to Juan Soto on a national scale. That is wonderful.

I'm also just sorry it had to come at the expense of Clayton Kershaw. And I think we all root for Clayton Kershaw in a way, not that we're rooting for the Dodgers, really, but we're rooting for him not to keep having this football pulled away or to pull it away from himself or however it's happening. And I think initially it was because we were all very frustrated about what we called the Kershaw narrative and the way that that was blown out of proportion and the way that he acquired this reputation perhaps before he deserved it. And people would not account for the fact that his bullpen kept letting him down

and Pedro Baez gave up runs every time he stranded a base runner or he kept getting put in positions where he was sort of set up to fail which keeps kind of happening or you know various other factors that could sort of explain his performance in the postseason and of course we remember the bad days but he's had many really fantastic days too which is hard to square with the idea that he is unable to perform in the postseason. Because if he were, then wouldn't he always be? Why would it only apply so selectively? I don't know.

But when I've been saying the Kershaw narrative today, I don't really mean it in that dismissive sense because it's a legitimate thing to talk about at this point like it's not small sample it is small sample compared to his entire regular season career but it's a thing that has happened and there is a big gap between how he has performed in the playoffs and how he has performed during the regular season especially in in terms of runs allowed, which matters in the playoffs. So it's not at all like we shouldn't even be dignifying this discussion with our own discussion. Like, no, it's a thing. Maybe this was the time when I sort of accepted that this is a thing. This is always going to be a thing.

Doesn't necessarily mean that there is anything inherent about him that makes him less able to perform in the postseason but this is just gonna be a stain on his permanent record like it's not going to keep him out of the hall of fame or anything it's not going to affect how great i think he was at his peak but it is a thing that's going to come up whenever you talk about Clayton Kershaw in the future assuming of course that the Dodgers don't make the playoffs for the next seven years in row which is entirely possible and that he has some big moment in Windsor World Series and kind of puts it all to rest at some point but as of now it's just one of the things that comes to mind when you think about Clayton Kershaw, which is unfortunate.

I think that he, I don't know that I, I don't know how much I believe what I'm about to say. Always a good, always a good start. I might need to demonstrates that it is possible to feel worse than it is possible to feel happy. It is possible to feel more worse. That's great writing, Editor Meg, than it is to feel very happy. Because I remember one of the last times that I felt very nervous for a starter coming into relief was in that 2016 DS against the Nationals when Jansen had walked two. He walked Bryce Harper. He walked Jason Wirth.

Remember when Jason Wirth played baseball as an aside? He walked Jason Wirth and out runs Kershaw. We all had a moment of panic and fear on behalf of a person we do not know. And then he got Daniel Murphy to pop out and he just mowed down poor Wilmer Defoe. And you thought, this is fantastic. It has shifted, right? The narrative will be no more because he did this great thing. And I was very, very happy. Right. will be no more because he did this great thing. And I was very, very happy. And I was less happy than how sad I felt yesterday

when he gave up that second home run to Juan Soto. On the not good pitch. It wasn't like that first one, which wasn't a bad pitch. It was a not good pitch. And I just, I made a noise. I was in public. I was in a local pizza place that has a bar. And I'm sitting there with my friends watching this.

And I made a sound in public that I didn't even feel embarrassed by because the entire bar, some of whom were baseball fans, but many of whom were just there enjoying a pizza pie, all cringed and felt sad and looked up at the TV and saw TBS cut to him for the 19,000th time. And it was just, it just made you, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry. I felt guilty that I couldn't cry because I felt so sad that I thought I should be able to cry and was not able to produce tears,

but wanted to because I think it's possible to just be broken by something like that and i'm sure clinton kershaw will rally and time will pass and he will he will go into next season and maybe he'll have a chip on his shoulder and it'll all work out but man like people should leave him alone for a little while he should go wander in the woods because it's just devastating gosh i feel we're being so mean to strangers and recent acquaintances on this podcast today yes well yeah i think sam wrote something to that effect and the only rules it has to work something about how losing is worse than winning is good i'm not phrasing that well either it's kind of a hard thing to phrase in words out loud but yes losing is is

is bad to a greater degree than winning is good i guess and that seemed to be the case there and it was sad to see just the acceptance for him after the game in some of the quotes where, I mean, not that he's ever someone who just like makes excuses or says like Trevor Bauer will sometimes after a bad outing that he made good pitches and he just got unlucky or whatever, which is true at times. But most players don't say that. And I don't think Kershaw would say that and kershaw said that you know like whatever people say about his performance in the post season is true like yeah he he didn't try to hide from it at all which is just really sort of sad like you have to wonder whether it is in his head at this point, even if it wasn't before. So I hate to have that happen to one of the best and easiest to root for players of this generation. It's a big bummer

aside from any team rooting interest, just on a personal level. So Dave Roberts. just on a personal level yeah so dave roberts before we get to that can i yeah can i uh can i ask you about a thing that does not matter at all to just like give us a little we're gonna allow ourselves a little emotional breathing room because we're devastated on behalf of a stranger did you notice i sometimes worry i watch baseball in a really weird way. Did you notice how Dave Roberts had one of the like silicon wedding rings and it was Dodger blue? I did not notice that, no. Okay, so like athletes wear these, they wear these silicon wedding rings. And I, as an aside, I understand when athletes do it, although less often with baseball players, it's fine. Because they don't want to get stuff caught and tangled, right?

Like it gives and if it breaks, it doesn't matter because it's just a piece of silicone, like it doesn't matter. I don't understand when managers do this because like what are you worried about, Dave? You're in the dugout the whole time. You're not going to, unless you're planning to wrestle, like you're going to do fine. But I find it very strange that these guys

change their wedding rings out to sort of match, right, to be in team colors because you're not married to the Dodgers. You're married to your wife. Right. Yeah. I wonder whether his wife has to get a matching one. I don't. Yeah. Does she swap out for it?

Because, I mean, like he doesn't really have a reason to have, you know, a sporting approved wedding ring, but she would have even less cause because she's not there at all. I mean, she's probably in the ballpark, but she's not in the dugout. Anyhow, I would read a long form piece interviewing the wives of athletes on their feelings about the seeming confusion of pledges and loyalties involved with switching out the wedding rings. That is a thoroughly unimportant observation. I like that topic too. Yeah.

Assigned to someone out there. Get on it. But now we both feel a little less sad, so we can now soldier forth into the remaining sadness. All right. Here we go. Here we go. We're plunging into the depths of Dave Roberts' decision making in this game.

Okay, so he gets out of the eighth because he brings in Kenta Maeda belatedly. Yes. And Kenta Maeda strikes out everyone. Yes. Which, of course, makes you imagine an alternative history where you bring in Kenta Maeda from the start. Yep. And it's just a routine inning. But it would not necessarily have happened that way facing different batters, but it

probably would have, or at least the odds would have been better. Anyway, after that ninth inning, Dave Roberts goes to Joe Kelly and Dodgers Twitter is gnashing its teeth and wailing. Twitter is gnashing its teeth and wailing. And to be fair to Dave Roberts, Joe Kelly has been quite good for the past few months. He was extremely not good in his previous outing in this series. He gave up a couple of runs on a few walks and a hit and did not record any outs. That is not good. But he had been really quite excellent, maybe even the Dodgers' most reliable

reliever from June through September. So it's not like this was out of nowhere. If you look at his full season stats, they look considerably worse because he started the season a lot worse. And Joe Kelly has had kind of this confounding mercurial career, but he was a playoff hero last year for the red sox so it wasn't the worst decision except that maybe you have other people there and maeda was pinch hit for i don't know if there would have been a better double switch to do so that they could have kept maeda in longer but assuming that you have to pull Maeda It's not indefensible To bring in Kelly to Start that inning because

Kenley Jensen like Kershaw Is not quite what he was Like they're both coming off their worst Seasons they've both lost Velocity they've both become more Dependent on off speed stuff But he's still a good Pitcher and you still had other guys. You

still had Dustin May. You still had Kolarik, etc., but that inning worked out great, and Joe Kelly gets through with 10 pitches, and he looks good and maybe looked too good because he looked so good that he convinced Dave Roberts to bring him back out for the 10th. And Joe Kelly is not a guy who gets asked to go multiple innings very often. He had not pitched more than an inning, I believe, since August. And when he has gone longer and thrown more pitches this year, it has not turned out well for him. and it definitely did not turn out well here. And I think bringing him back out for the second inning was bad enough. Sticking with him in the second inning for as long as he did was worse.

This is the part of the decision-making where you really – I mean, I agree. The decision to bring him back out on its own seemed very questionable. I have not listened to Dave Roberts' postgame, so he may have addressed this. I wonder if part of the thinking here on his part was, well, we don't know how long this is going to go, and he's been good, so maybe we need to save guys for later. Yes, I did scour his transcript from the press conference and he did intimate that that was part of it.

Like he said, we don't have that many guys lined up behind Kenley, which is kind of that classic managerial mistake where it's like worrying about a crisis that has not occurred yet when there is a crisis occurring currently yes and the scenario that you're worried about will never occur if you don't get out of this current jam yes so often that's like the saving someone for a save situation canard and and here it was i guess worrying about going to many extra innings. Although, again, you've got friend of the show, Ross Stripling, out there. You've got some other guys who can give you some length. You've got Dustin May. So I don't know that that was such an acute concern, really.

So also in his press conference, Robert said basically that he went by the eye test and he left Kelly in because Kelly had looked so good in that first inning. But Kent and Maeda looked so good in his earlier inning. He didn't get another go around and he is a starter. Yeah. I don't know why I'm yelling at you. You didn't do it, Ben. It wasn't your fault at all. No, I'm not defending Dave here. Although I have in the past and even now I'm abandoning him. So I don't know if anyone's really on his side. Yeah. I mean, Maeda's lineup spot came up. So he pinch hit for him. And again, I don't know, because he did a double switch when he brought in Kershaw.

and I don't know if he could have double switched a little later so that he could have kept – I'd have to think about how that would have worked. Yeah, that's fair. But regardless, I just – I don't think – I mean, I don't know. Kelly for a second inning there was like – I don't know where that ranked in Dave Roberts' options at that point, but it was not number one, let's say. So that was not good. And then it started off not well, and it just kept going and going.

Right. This is the thing. So he brings him back, and maybe he thinks in his head, you know, Joe's look good, and he'll do great. Yeah. Go batter by batter, maybe. Yeah. And then Joe Kelly walks out of meeting. And at some point, you got to be like, oh, roh, roh.

And then he gives up a ground rule double to Anthony Rendon. And you're like, row, row, row, row. The thing about it is that whoever is available later in a theoretical championship series, that's future Dave's problem. Present Dave's problem is getting there. And so at that point you're like okay so juan soto's up guess what he does well hit baseballs i should maybe potentially not let him face him and and and dave clearly thought so because he then intentionally walked

him yep and then with the bases juiced was like, this will go fine. Now, in his defense, Howie Kendrick had been not good. But also, the bases are loaded, it's extra innings, and it's an elimination game. And all he has to do is- A control pitcher on the mound. No, he's not. So set aside, even if you're able to set aside the potential risk of a run scoring just on

a wild pitch or a pass ball, all Howie has to do is send the ball to the outfield. That's it. And they're going to score a run. And Howie said, yeah, I'm going to do that. I'm going to send that ball to the outfield. That's not what Howie Kendrick sounds like, but that's sort of my generic baseball player voice. This was an instance where the amount of joy I felt outweighed the sadness I felt, unlike the earlier thing, because Howie Kendrick has had a rough series.

The fielding has been quite poor, even just away from the errors. It's been bad. And then he had that totally inexcusable two plan. And he's just he's been something of a liability yes very much so when it mattered the most yep so instead of putting soda on you could have brought in cleric again yes to face him because that was his job and he did it as well as you could do it the first time he was asked to do it the first three times he was asked to do it and you didn't use you didn't use him earlier right and famously and roberts was quoted as saying like earlier in the week like basically yeah this is what we're going to use cleric for

like it's great to have him for this matchup it was like he was the designated Juan Soto specialist. And he had done as well as you can do in that job. And he didn't get a chance here. And so Robert said that he wanted to get a ground ball. He wanted to set up the double play, I guess, and keep Kelly in because Kelly gets a lot of ground balls, which is true. Although Cleric gets even more ground balls and so if he had faced soto then he could have still gotten a double play and he wouldn't have had the bases loaded and having to worry about a wild joe kelly on the mound so yeah just just not good even if you're gonna put soto on right i still don't think you should stay with kelly even though he is a ground ball guy and you

want a ground ball it's it's still like he's still also joe kelly and you don't think you should stay with Kelly, even though he is a ground ball guy and you want a ground ball. It's still like he's still also Joe Kelly and you don't want him to walk a guy and you don't want him to give up a dinger. Granted, Kenley Jansen is dinger prone these days, too. But still, I just I don't see how you can let Kelly stay in there after he's worked himself into this jam in his second inning of work, which is not something he normally does. And so then you get the grand slam. And why not leave him in for a couple more batters? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and the nice thing is, well, it's not nice, but, you know, there is something satisfying, I suppose. I wonder, well, this is here. Dylan, cut out all my hemming and hawing. I don't know. I don't know. Up is down. I don't know.

As we sit here and think about the best and worst ways to be sad, because this is really the theme of this episode. Frequent topic of discussion. Is it better to have a former Dodger hit that Grand Slam or is it way worse? Oh, yeah. Good question. I can't decide. It's probably worse, right?

Yeah, I think it's probably worse. The guy who got away or not that they've missed him terribly. But I don't know. Unless you formed a very close attachment to that player. If he is a player who was with your franchise for a really long time and you loved him and then maybe the team decided not to resign him or something and then he has this big moment, you might feel happy for him. And if it has to be someone killing your team, at least it's this guy you like. But I don't think Howie Kendrick has that status among Dodgers fans. Certainly not among Dodgers fans.

Yeah. I can't. I just can't. I still am in awe of it happening. I know. It really was nightmarish, just like this slow motion train wreck that you can see developing. And then, right, Kelly stays in for a couple more batters. developing. And then, right, Kelly stays in for a couple more batters. And then Jensen comes in and gets back-to-back infield pop-ups, just like Maeda had come in and gotten three consecutive

strikeouts. So it was like, hey, here's what you were missing. Or at least that's the way that you inevitably think about it. And that was that. So, I mean, that cemented the Kershaw thing in a way. I don't know that it would have been meaningfully better if Kershaw had blown the lead, but then the Dodgers had come back. He still would have been the GOAT, even though it wasn't as catastrophic, and he would have had a chance to redeem himself in the NLCS. But either way, it just would have cemented the idea that he can't pitch in the postseason. So it's just, it really was kind of incredible to watch. And I don't want to put it all on Dave Roberts because he wasn't the one throwing the pitches and he was not Corey Seager and AJ Pollock going three for 33 with gazillion strikeouts or whatever they were. So if some of the Dodgers players had played better, we would not be talking about Dave Roberts as much.

They wouldn't have even been in that situation. Generally, we dwell on managers' moves too much, and sometimes the right ones backfire and the wrong ones work out. fire and the wrong ones work out. But when it happens this way, you can only be so upset with someone who just throws a bad pitch because he didn't decide to throw a bad pitch. It's hard to throw a pitch exactly the way you want it. It's hard to hit a ball. You can only get so upset at someone who just is trying their best and is not performing because baseball is really hard. Whereas with a manager, it's just an unforced error. It's like you had time to think about this. This was a decision that you consciously made.

Clayton Kershaw did not decide, I'm going to give up some dingers now. But Dave Roberts decided, I'm going to put Clayton Kershaw into this game and I'm going to put Joe Kelly into this game and I'm going to leave Joe Kelly into this game. He made a whole sequence of suboptimal decisions that could well have worked out but did not. And because they did not, this is now going to stick to him too. In his piece, we think of how Roberts as a player for his five minutes of postseason heroics. And now maybe we think of Dave Roberts, the manager, for his, I guess it was more than five minutes of making bad decisions in the playoffs. But I've defended Roberts in the past because he's kind of come under fire every postseason for something or other, as most managers do if you play long enough to get to the World Series. But I just, I couldn't even really twist myself into knots and put myself in his place and come up with a great rationale for why he did the things he did. Yeah. And I think, you know, whenever a manager makes decisions that are questionable, he tends to obscure the questionable or at least, if not questionable, sort of not inquiry proof decisions of his opposing manager. I mean, it didn't end up mattering.

And there's a logic to it that I understand given the state of their bullpen. But, you know, like Steven Strasburg arguably was left in too long perhaps especially given the at-bat that he ended up having where he you know fouled out uh on a bunch so there are there are always decisions within the course of a game where they could potentially go a couple different ways and you you know you end up judging a lot on results and sometimes we take a moment to remember you know the bad process, good result decisions, but those tend to fade even in the most picky observer's minds. But I think you're right that some of these end up sticking.

And I think that the Dodgers are likely going to be in a position to win the West again next year. And this could all end up not mattering if they some, if they find their way to a world series win soon and, and Robert's at the helm, but you know, there's already been whispering that his chair is wobbly and I don't know if he'll be around to sort of get another shot to, to switch this up and try to redeem his own narrative.

And I think you're right that sometimes tough decisions go the wrong way, but you understand the logic. But some of these were, they were questionable in a way that I think folks are right to criticize. So it's a bummer because I've been a Roberts defender in the past too, but these ones are harder to square. Right. And we're not the types to be out here calling for firings based on single tactical decisions. Goodness. manager's job and a big part of the manager's job is to just keep control of the clubhouse and keep everyone relatively happy and make sure the ship is sailing smoothly and just get to this point and i guess you could say that the dodgers were so good this year that they could have gotten to this point under virtually any manager but you could also say i guess that he's been the manager

there for four years he's won the division four. There hasn't been a whole lot of drama and discord in that time. And even though he has been criticized every postseason for various moves with varying degrees of legitimacy, the Dodgers front office has always seemed to back him fully because even last year in the World Series when he was getting booed, the Dodgers responded to that by extending him for four years. So clearly they had no misgivings at that point. And this season was probably the best season in franchise history, at least regular season wise. So I don't know. Do you go from this is a great season from a guy who we were just very comfortable extending through 2022 to, oh, this guy's got to go based on two or three innings here of questionable decision making? On the one hand, like the bulk of his work is really good. On the other hand, this is a team that keeps winning the division every year and now they really want to get over the hump and so if you can't have confidence that your manager is not going to throw a wrench into things when it comes to that moment and when probably the best team that the Dodgers have assembled now have had the earliest exit then that does put the pressure on so I don't

know whether Roberts will have his squid fried and be the what is it ninth manager let go because gabe capler was let go today too so it's the the body count is getting high these days so i don't know what will happen there but if they were to do it i would not have like a really ringing defense because this game was really that perplexing. But modern managing is such a collaborative exercise that I think it really comes down to whether he deviated from the script that he had discussed with the front office beforehand and whether there was something that he knew and they knew that we did not know. That's probably what matters more than public opinion. knew and they knew that we did not know. That's probably what matters more than public opinion.

But, you know, he said after the game, I feel that my job is to put guys in the best position to have success. So judging him by his own description of the job, I don't think he really lived up to it in that instance. I still can't believe it. I still can't believe it. When Howie Kendrick came to the plate in the 10th, I turned to Brendan and we had another buddy there, our friend Andrew, and I said, what if he hits a grand slam, though?

And I asked it in the way that mortals ask questions in front of the gods before they're like, we're about to tell you. Yeah. But I still can't quite believe that he did it. I can't believe that that ball got out and will smith's you know very well hit ball the inning prior didn't result in a walk-off you know that that was i thought that i thought that ball was gone and that the game was done and uh and it wasn't yep yep i don't know i guess we've gotten it all out here i don't know i feel drained i'm not sure if i have anything else left to say i mean i'm very happy for nationals fans and for

the nationals like yeah we will have some more discussion of bad playoff streaks and droughts later uh in this episode when we talk to Sarah, but it's quite the monkey to have on your back. You just feel like everything, you're being judged by a totally different set of criteria than your compatriots. And granted, every team wants to, well, most teams want to make the postseason in any given season, right? And every baseball player wants to win a World Series. And that's the whole thing of it. That's why we're

here. But when you have these long droughts and everyone, you know, it's the first sentence in every paragraph, you know, it's the lead every time time you're being judged by criteria that is similar but slightly different in a very important way than the rest of the Nationals fans who went to the ballpark and watched on the big screen in D.C. when it's cold and it's late and you've had years and years of telling you that, nope, the baseball gods are going with someone else tonight because they always do. Like that is a, that's tremendous. I still don't think it's as tremendous as Clayton Kershaw was sad, but it is still tremendous. And it's a wonderful thing that they get to, and now they get to, you know, strike out and form a new narrative. Maybe this team will be the one that gets mowed down

by the Astros in the World Series. You know, by the time this comes out, that might be a very silly sentence. Could be true. It seems unlikely, but it could be true. This outcome seemed unlikely. What do we know? We know nothing.

Right. Yeah, I don't mean to neglect the Nationals or to fixate more on how the game was lost than how it was won, but we will be talking about the Nationals for the next week. Exactly. We'll get other opportunities to remark on them.

But it is a cool thing that they get to do that and we have learned a lot about sean doolittle's vertical jump yes um which is a lot of great gifts and the scherzer sprinting from oh my gosh that was a good one yeah i think he could have i think he could have uh qualified as a dangerous moving vehicle he was just sprinting out of there. I'm so thrilled for him. I wonder how many innings it would have had to go before he would have just sprinted out there middle of the game. I'm just doing it.

And just forced Martinez to make a pitching change. Oh, Lord. I guess we'll never find out. Much to Nationals fans' delight. So there was another National League Division Series game. We're not going to spend as much time on this one, but we have to talk about it a bit.

So this game, a friend of the show, Dan Hirsch, I think, found that this was objectively, statistically, the least competitive, entertaining playoff game ever, just in terms of like total change in win expectancy, because this thing was over in mere minutes. Like I was finishing up a piece or editing something and I was thinking, oh, I'll just I'll miss the first few batters or something and then I'll see the rest.

And by the time I got to the TV, it was I don't even know what the score was, but it was out of hand already. So I'll just read out the sequence of events here. So, all right, here we go. Top of the first, Dexter Fowler leads off. We go walk, sacrifice bunt, which is hilarious, given what came next. They were playing for one run in the first inning with no outs. Next, single, single, fielding error, walk, double, intentional walk, walk, double, double. And the double was Colton Wong, who was the one who had done the sacrifice bunt.

The double was Colton Wong, who was the one who laid down the sacrifice bunt. So between Colton Wong's sacrifice bunt and Colton Wong's double, no one was retired. It was the entire lineup, reach base. Including the pitcher. Including the pitcher. Walking. Yeah. between the first Fulton-Evich start and this Fulton-Evich start, I think it was like a game score swing from like

76 or 78 to 16, I think, which has to be among the biggest in back-to-back starts, I would think. We know nothing about baseball, obviously. No one expected him to be quite so dominant as he was in his first start, and then

this was just an utter disaster and even after faulty was out of the game it got worse and it kept getting worse and it never really got better it is so many things happened that on their own you would sit back and say i can't believe that that just happened yeah right. Right? And then they all happened together. I would put the sacrifice in that list. I would put the opposing pitcher not only having a plate appearance in that inning, but walking before he had ever thrown a pitch at all. Yep. That's on that list.

The whole rigmarole on the Marcelo Zuna drops, third strike, wild pitch, which scored Colton Wong. Where McCann, who retired after this game, not because of this game,

but it might not have hurt, was not only not able to corral it, but then fell down. Yep. He fell down, and that hurt your heart. You look at the win expectancy graph on fan graphs, look at that chart, and it is very rare to see a chart

where the opposing team reaches basically zero after the first inning the only the only thing because it was one of the bigger swings like the that that edmund double is on here but then after that it's just no place no plays are noted because none of them mattered. There were people probably still parking. They didn't see any of this game. They walked into the ballpark and they probably thought, excuse me, what's going on here?

Go right back to the car. Going to turn around, just get on out of here. I suppose we have to talk. It is a testament to how strange a decision this ended up being that it quickly became the thing that people talked about the rest of the game rather than that 10 run first inning but I suppose we need to definitely need to talk about the decision to have

Jack Flaherty not only pitch at all which I guess was a topic of conversation although one that did not merit quite as much consideration as the decision to have him throw, what was it, 114? 104, I think. No, not 14. 104, I think it was, six innings, right?

Yeah, I should stop. I shouldn't charge him for more wildness. Yeah, so, well, these days everyone throws throws 114 he threw 117 last time out but yeah 104 i think it was that's more reasonable and he had to like he was in the game so he had to face someone that's a rule that you have to face one batter right but you could have pulled him after that you could have pulled him after an inning You could have pulled him after an inning. You could have pulled him after a couple innings, treated it basically like a bullpen back for Friday's start unless you really did remove him immediately. Like, you know, he faced one guy because this was Wednesday, so that's obviously extremely short rest. And you have a guy go through his routine, and he warms up, and you maybe don't want to totally disrupt his schedule.

On the other hand, maybe you do want to set him up to pitch as much as possible in that next series because he is your best pitcher and he's been on quite a roll. And beyond that, so he's scheduled for what, game three now, I guess? And it would have been pretty easy to slot him in for game two, at least. And even beyond that, even if you didn't really want to bump him up a day or a game, I think you still have to be conscious of just his workload because he's a young pitcher. He's passed his career high in innings for a single season by a considerable amount.

He's been worked hard in September and October. He's been pitching a lot of high pressure Must win games Why not give him a little break And hope that it means he has a little left in the tank Because you're hoping that he's going to make Four more starts at least If all goes well

And maybe come out of the bullpen too So given all that I think you would just want to go a little easy on come out of the bullpen too so given all that i would think you would just want to go a little easy on him regardless of the schedule and just hopefully save some of those bullets but that was not what happened he just kept going and going the energizer flarity and i just don't the part of this that i find so strange is that, and, you know, in our preview of the championship series, Dan Zimborski noted this, and many people noted it at the time, so this is not an original thought, but why do you have, you know, Genesis Cabrera and, you know, Ponce de Leon, why do you have those guys on the roster if not for situations like this you're generally bringing them in in much sadder circumstances right they're the guys that are there to eat up some innings when a game has gotten away from you and you want to you know

preserve the rest of your bullpen and starting rotation for another day when you might win but that's why they're there daniel ponce de leon which remains just an 80 grade name that's why they're there. Daniel Ponce de Leon, which remains just an 80-grade name. That's why he's on the roster. That's why Cabrera's on the roster. And then he ended up pitching anyhow, because somebody did have to pitch that ninth inning. So it was a real head-scratcher after that initial couple of innings. I guess you do reach a point at which if he's thrown 60 pitches, he's not good for a game to start anyhow. Then you just let him go, but you can pull him at any point before that. Right. You could have him face a couple guys, get some work in, treat it as a bullpen day, and then there he is, fresh and tall. He's very tall. Yeah. Trying to look. I'm looking at Schilt's post-game press conference, and it doesn't seem like he was really grilled on this.

I saw a tweet from Mark Saxon who said, Some in the St. Louis Cardinals front office contemplated the idea of pulling Jack Flaherty early to use him in game one of the NLCS. I quickly put that to bed saying, win the game, John Mazalek said. I think when you start getting cute and trying to manipulate things, it gets dangerous. And I do wonder, not that there isn't some real risk to disrupting a guy's routine, but I do wonder how much just risk aversion plays into this, even though you know it's extraordinarily improbable that the worst could happen here. Like this is, I think people pointed out that the Cardinals scored as many runs in the first inning as Flaherty allowed in the entire second half. Like, it doesn't. And I know the Cardinals have had some bullpen blowups, but there just aren't comebacks of this magnitude.

But if you're Schilt, if you're Moselec, maybe there is just like this tiny voice in the back of your head that's being like, I would never live this down if we somehow blew this game. Or even if it got really close and people were scared, like it would look like the ultimate just celebrating before you reach the finish line, getting your comeuppance, like that would look terrible. And so maybe it's just the easier, simpler decision to default to this guy's the starter. So he's going to start and we're just going to treat this as if it's a normal game even though it obviously isn't i understand that logic i still think that i well it's very easy for me to say that i would have been brave and strong and pulled him earlier because i'm never going to end up making that decision so i will admit that this is i'm a little

bit i'm being a little bit silly and shirty when i say this but i understand that hesitation and think that you're you're right that likely they looked at this and they're like man we will never it's a it's a much smaller scale version of the you don't want to be the general manager who trades mike trout right because it'll just be the first thing in your obit i mean maybe not this but is again smaller version so it's like paragraph five. So I totally understand them saying, look, he's gotten warm. He's gone through his pregame routine. There is some amount of stability in that routine that is useful for guys, even if we have a hard time saying exactly how much and exactly what.

But then they scored more runs. But then the thing about it was they scored some more runs they scored three more runs and and then it was you know it's the third they're up 13 to zero and you could say look this is your last this is the last inning you're gonna get three innings of work in you're gonna go in and feel good the odds that they come back down 13-0 are very small it feels really different even though it is not appreciably different from a win expectancy perspective to be in the third up 13 then having just come off this wild first so i i think that we can look at it and say yeah like you have him go a little bit because he's

already gotten warm he's already done his pre-game routine but then at some point you have to say all right it's 13 runs even if we gave up seven runs we'd still win yeah right yeah i don't know why i picked seven but i just it felt like a number that you know that could happen for a team that has ronald acuna among others well the transcript here so someone asks him if they thought about pulling in very early he says we thought about it he says that's a really good team over there so you don't want to sit there and take it lightly you want to make sure you bring it home so sort of what we were saying hard to start managing for the next series before you win this

one but i understand the question and we thought about it and once we got to the sixth it was clearly enough yes i would say so he says that uh jack jack he typical jack he wanted that sixth inning someone else asked, did you think about treating it like a bullpen session and completely pulling him? And he says, no, no chance. You pull him after one or two and something crazy starts happening in your

bullpen. No, it's not the play. He says, I did not think about that. Always thinking, but did not think about after the first pulling him. That would have been pretty brazen. Which it have but also justifiable so but the reason that people don't start thinking about the next series in the series they're in which as an aside i do not think that we can take as a as a given because i think that there is some of that when people make pitching decisions and some of the some weird managerial choices are them maybe future casting a little bit.

But I understand that idea. But mostly people don't think about winning anything other than the game that's in front of them because they're not often up 13 runs after three. Right. The thing about it is you had – Important distinction. Yeah, you were given this rare and beautiful gift. and because you didn't know what to do with it now you're in a worse spot later and you could have had a you had a gift and then and then you put the gift on the ground and

walked away from it i won't say you stomped on it because that uh ascribes a motivation to it that i don't think is here but it's just like you had this you had this cool chance and then you said nah yep i'm still very worked up i'm glad we didn't record yesterday either i would have been a mess yeah this is me on this is me on a day's rest right well what else i mean there was nothing else to talk about from a competitive standpoint in that game really one thing i enjoyed was seeing the players celebrate at the end, because by that point, the outcome had been determined for hours, and yet they still had to go through the charade of being exhilarated when they won, which maybe they were,

but I can't imagine it's quite the same as when the outcome's in doubt till the last minute. So people sort of jogged out onto the field, the cardinals came out, they gathered around home plate, and they didn't really do a dog pile, but they were hopping, but almost out of obligation, So people sort of jogged out onto the field. The Cardinals came out. They gathered around home plate. And they didn't really do a dog pile, but they were hopping, but almost out of obligation. Like, we have to hop, but we're hopping half-heartedly. They couldn't really muster the sheer joy of winning when it comes down to the last minute. And then on the other side, usually you get the sad shots of the team that just lost, just staring out at the field. You didn't really get that with the Braves this time, because I guess they had had hours already by that point to contemplate their fates.

There were some other things in and around the game that I guess we could touch on. There was Acuna getting, I don't know whether to say drilled or hit, drilled, maybe ascribes intent. don't know whether to say drilled or hit drilled maybe ascribes intent and i don't know whether to ascribe intent or not but before flarity finally left this game he did hit ronald acuna in the bottom of the fifth and he denied that it was intentional although clearly it sounds like there's no love lost there between him and the cardinals and ronald acuna because he is talking about his antics and him taking exception to something that he shouldn't have taken exception to.

I don't know. Obviously, it was a blowout. It was a two-strike pitch. People were using that as evidence that this was not intentional. I don't know that it actually was. Maybe you just wanted to make it look good if you wanted to make it look accidental and give yourself plausible deniability because you don't want to risk a suspension. Then maybe this is how you would go about it.

Just a parting gift for Ronald Acuna. I don't really know. But the whole Acuna discourse in this series was somewhat tiresome. Yeah. I just can't believe that he would have actually done it on purpose. Yeah, I just can't believe that he would have actually done it on purpose. You just don't want to mess around. Well, I was about to say, you just don't want to mess around with Flaherty's availability,

but I don't know, maybe you do. I don't know how to tell what was in Flaherty's heart at that point. Yeah. But it revived what had started to become dormant. So we got another round of Acuna controversy and then of course we had the chop which was hanging over this game in some perhaps could interpret as positive progress ways but also not so this was prompted by Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation. And he spoke up and he said he thinks that the chop is disappointing and insensitive and disrespectful and a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general. And so the Braves,

in response to this statement, essentially said, all right, we won't tell people to do the chop while Ryan Helsley is pitching, but only at that particular time. So they didn't distribute the foam tomahawks and they pledged not to play the music or use the graphics while Mr. Helsley is in the game. Quote, as stated earlier, we will continue to evaluate how we activate elements of our brand yikes that's almost the word most offensive part of this just the way that was phrased as well as the overall in-game experience we look forward to a continued dialogue with those in the native american community after the postseason concludes which if you want to be cynical that is them saying we will not do it while helsley is in

the game but we will certainly continue to do it at all other times when he is in the ballpark and we are acknowledging in a sense that it is offensive and everything he said and yet we're gonna keep doing it just like not when he's right out there on the mound which is like sort of just calling attention to him like i'm kind of glad he didn't pitch because i don't want to know what would have happened had he and what the response would have been in the ballpark but it's just like either it's offensive and something you don't want to be associated with or it's not. It's not only offensive while Helsley is literally standing on the pitcher's mound. some sort of concession. At least they said there will be continued discussion about this. Maybe it's a prelude to something else. And this is a tradition that goes back decades there. So okay, it didn't change overnight, but maybe it will in the way that one team extends its netting to the

foul line. And you wonder why everyone didn't do that already but then suddenly everyone gets on board hopefully that's the way that this plays out yeah i hope that's the way it plays out but i think that we are right to to take a beat to acknowledge them kind of goofing this because you're right like once you acknowledge that the chop is insulting and racist. You've acknowledged that, and it remains true whether a particular pitcher is pitching or in the ballpark or in the continental United States, right? You have conceded this point, which people have been saying to the organization for a very long time.

Not an active player to my knowledge, so I appreciate that there is a difference from the perspective of the organization on, you know, a person basically saying, Hey, don't be racist to me toward me in my workplace, even if it is not my home park. So I appreciate that there is maybe to their mind, a distinction to draw there. But once you have acknowledged that this is offensive, it remains offensive regardless of how physically proximate to the mound one guy is or not. They were down 12 runs and they played the stinking chop. Yeah. They did it.

They were losing badly. They were about to be done for the season and they still played it. And I understand that fans are going to behave the way that fans do. And you can try to mitigate that, but you will likely not be able to control fully the behavior of fans. I mean, there were still people with the foam chops, which as an aside, I'm going to phrase this in a way that is a little bit yucky, but they should stop doing it. But since they insist, there is something satisfying

about how flaccid those foam chops look when they're being put to their trash purpose. So anyway, that's a thing. You can decide if you want Dylan to leave that in or not. But people brought them with them because they've been distributed before and you're you're always going to have to negotiate that relationship with your fan base and I think doing that takes a steady hand because you don't want to inspire people to behave worse in retaliation for being told what to do and so I

appreciate that that is tricky but they have complete control over their music cues and the branding and the hashtag they still do chop on yeah so and you know you sit there and you're like how many individual people would it take telling you that this is offensive before you abandoned it wholesale because you're acknowledging it's a problem for this guy and that you're going to sustain a dialogue but that dialogue hasn't borne anything prior to now so anyhow right i will say i i really i respect helsley yeah for saying what he did because particularly as a rookie pitcher a young not established guy in the league a lot of the times they would want

to kind of keep their heads down and not make themselves the center of attention and not inflame the fan base of the team that you're about to play. And, you know, the whole like rookie should be seen and not heard kind of ethos that has been in baseball or a lot of professions for a long time. And he spoke up. ball were a lot of professions for a long time. And he spoke up, and I think in speaking up, he kind of made it impossible to ignore this because you always heard from some people who would defend this that, oh, well, no actual Native Americans or people of Native American descent are upset about this. It's just the PC police and it's concern trolling. And his making this prominent

statement, I think, made it impossible to pretend that that's the case. Not that he was the first, but the fact that he's a baseball player and he was playing in this series just drew a lot of attention to it. And I guess, you know, one statement that he made produced a more meaningful effect than decades of activism and protest. So that just really goes to show that, you know, sometimes it takes one person to stand up and say something to actually change something. Not everything, but one little thing. thing but but one little thing well and i i agree with you i was i was relieved that he didn't pitch just because you know when people are upset and i don't say this to excuse bad behavior but it just it seemed like he would have been put in a spot where he might have endured some some nastiness by braves fans who were upset about the fact that they were losing. So I'm glad that he wasn't put in that

spot and that he will then get, you know, further opportunities to pitch and participate in the postseason after this. So it's not like that had to be the end of the road for him. But yeah, it's impressive. I can't imagine as a rookie, it's an easy thing to do, especially when you're going to be going on the road and facing a group of people who even if they aren't engaged in in this like super insulting and insensitive act are just not inclined to like you because you're an opposing pitcher so yeah it was it was impressive and hopefully they will abandon the brand language and just talk about this like people and don't activate your brand in this way yeah like what a call it activating your brand what a gross what a gross thing um so yeah i i'm

i i hope that this will be the beginning of a productive dialogue and that the way that they decide to talk about it as an organization will very quickly catch up to our expectations, put it that way. Right. Yeah. And he did quite a good job of articulating why he felt this way. Not that he was obligated to, but I think in the interests of possibly persuading people, if anyone out there is actually persuadable about anything, he did kind of lay out why he thinks it's offensive and disrespectful etc instead of just saying that it was which again he would have been perfectly entitled to just say i feel this way right and that would be a good enough reason but the fact that he very clearly in sort of a nuanced way explained why.

I feel like maybe that will change some minds or reach some people. I don't know. Maybe that's over-optimistic. But anyway. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. One last thing I want to mention just to follow up to something Sam and I talked about on the last episode, which is the ball and whether it's juiced or not.

I mentioned that Rob Arthur was doing some research on that subject. He has now done it. He has published it. And it shows fairly persuasively, I would say, that the ball is not behaving the way it did during the regular season, that there has been a sudden and somewhat dramatic change in the postseason. Even though it's a fairly small sample still, it's enough of a sample to say that it's very unlikely that this would have happened by chance. The drag, the air resistance on the ball, which Rob measures by looking essentially at the loss of speed between home plate and the pitcher's mound, is higher. There's more drag, more air resistance than there was in any equivalent point in the regular season. It's like back to 2016 levels so far. And the change from like the pre-playoffs week to the playoffs

week is also like three times bigger than any in-season week-to-week change. So something fishy going on here. I emailed MLB about this. They sent me a statement while we were recording, and it's sort of a boilerplate thing that I will read out. It says, the baseballs used in Major League Baseball are manufactured in batches. Balls that are used in the postseason are pulled from the same batches as balls used in the regular season. Regular season and postseason balls are manufactured with the same materials and under the same processes. The only difference is the postseason stamp that is is, I think, yet another case of undermining consumer confidence when it comes to the baseball, like to the extent that people are aware of this and reading Rob's article and listening to this podcast, it's just hard to

have much confidence that MLB knows what the heck is going on with the baseball and why it's behaving the way it does. And it's jarring to go from regular season to postseason and suddenly see this big jump in a way that quite possibly is affecting the outcomes of games and series i was expecting it to go in the other direction where we'd see some like fluky looking homers and we'd think oh that was not really a legitimate way to win instead it's sort of the opposite where at least relative to what we have come to expect this year we're seeing a bunch of balls hit that look like they should be gone and are not gone and it's hard to say conclusively with any single batted ball that oh yes that definitely would have been a homer or not

but you mentioned will smith's apparent homer off the bat i mean imagine if that had gone out that would have been the series right there and imagine if that just comes down to some completely random fluctuation in the baseball that no one knows or can currently control it's like it makes it all just seem sort of arbitrary to me even though both teams are presumably playing with the same ball although can you even count on that from from game to game and series to series so i just i don't know it's uh it's i'm still enjoying these games obviously but it's something that i can't help thinking every time i see a fly ball right now i think that this has this is a very good example of the biggest problem that their approach to talking about that mlb's approach to talking about this stuff has posed,

which is that because their answers have not felt credible till now, they don't have much of a leg to stand on that's going to be persuasive to people. And so I think regardless of what they say, absent, hey, we realize that we just don't seem to have as good a handle on this as we need to, given how instrumental to our entire sport this thing is. Just like so important that we're going to launch an investigation and really get to the bottom of it. I think that that's probably the only answer that they could have given that would have been remotely satisfying to people. And because we are sort of conditioned at this point to be skeptical of their responses, given how they've addressed it in the past,

I think they really need to sort this out because I think it does undermine the way that we experience the game it would be nice to feel like we could trust what we're seeing on the field more than we all seem to right because the fact that there were fewer home runs was something that everyone noticed right away in very few postseason games and immediately felt fishy and that's that's not good for the sport so yeah right yeah and you worry about it affecting certain teams more than others or in different ways or if you construct your team in such a way that it excels with one type of ball granted like it's not like a team's going to go from terrible to great because of the ball, but it can affect teams and players disproportionately.

So you don't really want that. Like we're playing under these conditions one season and then they're different the next or even from the regular season to the postseason. It's like we're deciding the champion based on conditions that are different from the regular season. deciding the champion based on conditions that are different from the regular season they're always a little different but like not not this different not different in this way so it's just it's kind of like we talk about how when replay is available it becomes untenable to not have replay review be part of the game And maybe we're heading in that direction with robot umps, where when we get these instant readouts on the accuracy of pitch calls, it then becomes untenable to have humans calling the balls while everyone can see that they're getting it wrong a

lot of the time. Now it's kind of become that with the baseball itself, where we can check from like week to week, oh, the ball is flying differently this week and when you get these sudden spikes you know 10 years ago there just would have been no way to confirm that or a little more than 10 years ago and so you would have written it off and so maybe it's always happened to a certain degree but obviously not to these extremes. So I just, I think they have to figure out a way to get it under control. And I don't think it's a conspiracy. You can't rule it out. I just think that they don't really have a handle on what's happening here. And that's not encouraging either. Yeah. We've talked about this before, but at various points, the commissioner has seemed to

suggest as if it would make us all feel better that no, it's not that we have intentionally altered the how aerodynamic the ball is. It's just that we have very poor control over the manufacturing process of the most important piece of equipment on the field. And I'm like, hey, but Rob, that doesn't make us feel better. Yes. make us feel better yes that that answer uh does not fill me with confidence that what i am seeing is representative of the talent of the guys on the field or a step forward by hitters or a step back by pitchers it just feels like you're kind of goofing around in the dark and you know the whole point of buying the plant or this stuff was manufactured was that they were going to have better control. And we so far have not seen that manifest in a way that feels good, right? That makes us feel confident. And as much as we are data people and like to be able to say with certainty, like, yes,

the ball is different. So much of this is just about how we feel when we're watching the sport. And you want there to be fewer times where you look up and say, huh, he hit a home run or what? That didn't go out, right? Like we would like to focus on how sad Clayton Kershaw is. That is what we need to be focused on today. Exactly.

And when Rob built a model to predict how many home runs there should have been based on regular season launch angles and exit velocities and the results of those. He found that there should have been like 50% more homers in the playoffs, which is a very large number. Obviously, Clayton Kershaw wishes that the ball were more de-choosed than it was, but there have been a bunch of balls that just anecdotally it seemed this way to me. The data seems to back it up. So we'll see what happens next and what ramifications this has but yeah just the latest chapter in juiced ball gate

yeah all right we've talked about all the baseball we've talked for a very long time we will have to get to other news next time albs game Game 5 and Championship Series previews and Gabe Kapler's firing. Can't fit it all into one episode, but we will be back in just a moment with Sarah Ziegler to talk about the Twins and postseason suffering and the best and worst

ways to lose. The hardest bit Everything drags and drags Looking funny You ain't laughing, are you? Since two Since two Since two Since two All right, so as promised, we are joined now by Sarah Ziegler, who's the sports editor for FiveThirtyEight and the host of Hot Take Town. And such a true Twins fan that she has a picture of TC Bear as her Twitter header.

Sarah, welcome to the show. Yeah, yeah. You know, I had forgotten that I had put that up there back in April. And, you know, it just stayed with me the whole season. Yeah, I guess that was an optimistic stance that you took back in April. Well, it is TC Bear sitting alone in some, like, upper deck. So, you know. So I feel like since we asked you to come on the show, there's been so much other suffering from other fan bases that the Twins pain is almost old news. We should be talking to a Dodgers fan now or a Braves fan maybe.

But we should give due time to the Twins suffering, which is extreme in its way. So how did you have the fortune and or misfortune to become a Twins fan? Well, I, so I grew up in South Dakota, which according to all Twins marketing is Twins territory. So I grew up a Twins fan, have lived through the highs and the lows this whole way. Yeah. And what has been sort of the stages of grief for you over the past couple days since the defeat? Has it worn off a bit? Is it still raw? Have you come to terms with the latest loss?

You know, since the beauty of the Divisional Series is that you have three games. You know, it's not like the wildcard game where it's just one and done. So I, you know, was building to the understanding of what would happen you know after game one they lose it's unfortunate but you think well they have a chance still but you're starting to get used to the idea of maybe this isn't gonna happen and so by the end of game three it was like yep that's that that feels right. I'm curious. So I suffer a different kind of sad fan affliction in that I am still, as much as I am a fan of any team, a fan of the Seattle Mariners. So we will talk more about what we might prefer in terms of our various states of sports disappointment a little later. as someone who has embraced and loved a franchise that has this sorted postseason history,

when you go into opening day, what are you thinking about on opening day? Are you able to greet each season with sort of the same sense of optimism or does the lurking potential of another postseason loss – gosh, we're just being so terribly mean to you. I'm so sorry to make you articulate this. But how does that impact how you feel at the beginning of each baseball season? So I'm a very lucky baseball fan because some of my earliest baseball memories were the Twins winning two World Series four years apart. So I had that from a very young age so you know every season is still joy and optimism and you know I don't I remember that those feelings of of hope more than like the despair that comes at the end so I'm still very very hopeful every season and I still you know this season was it was a great season far exceeded

expectations so for me the ending doesn't so much define the season as it might for some people yeah I guess the order of operations is pretty important when it comes to defining your feelings about a team like I guess fans of the Red Sox who grew up when they were cursed and losing all the time I think a lot of them still haven't really shaken that feeling of impending doom, even though everything has gone right for them for now the past 15 years or so. It's just like they imprinted at a certain point on this is what it is to be a baseball fan, and they're just stuck with that for life. So I guess you kind of got the ingrained optimism before there was such a reason for pessimism. So you're kind of inoculated against the losing a little bit. Yeah, I think that's right. And even within the past 20 years where we haven't won World Series,

obviously, we have until this recent really, really bad stretch. I went to a playoff win in 2002 for the Twins. So right now we're in the midst of something terrible. But it hasn't been that way for that long. I'm curious. I don't know if we want to delve into this now. And I hate to make people compare their pain as if there's a right way or a wrong way to experience this stuff as a fan, because obviously even Dodgers fans with their amazing run in the last couple of years are disappointed today after their loss yesterday. But I'm curious if, and this may be hard to answer because this is the version of the Twins that you have known,

of the twins that you have known. But do you think that you would rather have had maybe a less storied recent playoff past, even one that has met with defeat for the payoff of another win? Would you rather have long stretches where you're just out of it entirely and able to enjoy other teams' success or failure? How would you rank your current, your current postseason

experience versus the the alternatives? And I will tell you that long absences can be sad, but also nice in some ways. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, my thought Tuesday morning was, okay, so that's over. Thank God. Because I was so nervous through through all of this that it was actually very, it was a relief to be done. And so I can definitely see that where if your team is out of it, and again, the Twins have been out of it for many seasons, last season, in fact. And so there is something that's, you know, the pressure is off. And so it's a little bit easier to enjoy baseball as a concept instead of baseball as a fan. But I would rather risk the pain for the shot at glory. I think that I want this team to do the best that it can all the time,

even if that means that it will inevitably lose to the Yankees as the end of its season, which is apparently the timeline we're living in right now. But you know, I'd rather it didn't diminish for me the amazing run they had and the things that they did. They have a home run record right now that may live forever if the ball has suddenly changed again. So I'm cool with that. That in and of itself is a great cosmic joke. So I enjoy that one. So yeah, I would always rather face that pain for a shot at winning the World Series. And again, because I know how exciting that was to have happened. I feel like that's always going to live with me. Yeah. Well, does it feel like the Yankees own you? Do you feel like there is something, even though you know intellectually that there's nothing supernatural here going on, that these are different rosters and different regimes and there's no logical reason why there should be any carryover? Still, it's gotten to the point where even just statistically, it's very unlikely that this degree of ownership would have occurred over this period of time.

But do you feel that? Like if we have the same matchup next year, would you feel worse going into a series against the Yankees than you would against an equally talented team that is not the Yankees? Oh, no, 100%. I would have much rather faced the Astros this year. Much rather. You know, I think, you know, the players and, you know, we have a new coach this year who has not been involved in any of the previous losses to the Yankees. Now he knows it.

But they were all very, you know, no, this has nothing to do with the past teams. And, like, I get that, but that's not really true. I mean, I think you can't help but have know that especially because you know all of us in the media talk about it i mean you can't you can't ignore it and fans obviously feel it but also i i think that there was some deal with the devil at some point that had to do you know the um you know the the precursor to the minnesotains was the Washington Senators, about whom there's a great musical called Damn Yankees, written about a deal with the devil to try to break the Senators' streak of losing to the Yankees. So I think this is a long running

universal thing that someday we'll solve, just not this year. I guess that inspires me to ask, is there anything that this Twins organization could do that would make you feel like you could let your shoulders down before the 2020 season kicks off and you're faced with having to win the Central again and potentially face the Yankees. Is there a thing that they could do where you would say, aha, now we're going to get them. Devil deal be damned. We're going to be able to get them this time. Yeah, absolutely.

And it's the thing that I wish they had done at the trade deadline, which was sign a good starting pitcher. Pitching was a bit of an issue for us in the postseason and throughout the season. You know, the pitchers outperformed their expectations, but still not to the level of, you know, I was so hoping we would sign Noah Syndergaard or a pitcher of that caliber to really be the ace of the team. So that would definitely give me a lot of hope for the next time we face the Yankees if we had a true ace. I was going to say, so you are all in on the Garrett Cole bandwagon then, I suppose? Yeah, Garrett Cole would be great. I mean, I'd take him, you know, I wouldn't throw him out or anything. So we kind of touched on this, but what was your preseason expectation? Or I guess because

two of us are current or former 538ers, we should say, what was your prior? That's what Nate would want us to do. So yeah. So in February, my husband went to Las Vegas and bought me a futures ticket for the twins that was to win 83 and a half games. And I was like, I think they can win 84 games. So I won some money and they did way better than that. But that was my prior. I was expecting them to compete for a wild card. I wasn't really expecting them to, well, no one was expecting them to do what they did right out the gate. I wasn't expecting them to overtake the Indians. Although after the Indians off season where they, you know, kind of shopped Corey Kluber and they weren't signing anyone, I thought, well, you know, there is an opening there because the Indians are sort of

being dismissive of the rest of the AL Central as one does. But yeah, they definitely exceeded my expectations. Yeah. Well, I guess that kind of gets to the heart of the question, which is that if a team exceeds your expectations for six months or so, they bring you a certain amount of joy during that time. And is it negated to any extent by the way it ends? If it ends in disappointing fashion, obviously it doesn't retroactively wipe away whatever pleasure you felt as the season was going. But does it color your perceptions, your memories of the season in a way that sort of tarnishes it?

You know, I think I'll remember the playoff losses in the grander scheme of the 16 consecutive playoff losses, but not necessarily tied to this season. This season, I'll remember for the home runs and for just, you know, Nelson Cruz and for the joy that the team brought me. And I was lucky enough to go to a game towards the end of the season in Minneapolis. And I'll remember that for a long time. So for me, the way the season in Minneapolis. And I'll remember that for a long time. So for me, the way the season

ends does not negate what happened in the season. Because remember, you know, all but one team is going to go home happy. All but one of the fans of all but one team are going to go home happy at the end of the year. And so, you know, if you can't be that the fans of that one team, that's OK. It doesn't mean that point. As you look ahead to 2020, apart from the prospect of hopefully signing a Garrett Cole or a Strasburg if he opts out, what things are you most looking forward to for the next twin series or season, I should say? I'm really interested to see what Raghabal Dali does in the second season. in the second season. And, you know, I've been mostly impressed with his analytical approach to baseball as particularly in the context of previous twins managers. That's been, that's been, that's been fun. And the whole organization seems very focused on using data to make them better. And that, that's exciting because I think that they'll, they'll be able to come up

with things that, you know, will will make these teams better. I mean, I've already been the hitting obviously has been great, the pitching, they did, I think, a great job with the parts they had. And so I'm interested to see in the steps that these guys can take next year, but also the players that they might bring in. Yeah, so I'm really, I'm just interested to see how they all do in kind of the second year of that regime to see what steps they take. Yeah, I'm excited.

You know, the day after your team is done is like, oh, it's winter now, you know, it's just sad, dark time. But I'm already getting really excited for March, you know, and spring training and the pitchers and catchers reporting. How many days is it again? I think I need my tracker. Yeah. And the countdown to the number of days

until the Twins lose in the LDS. Hey! Oh, goodness. Wow. Wow. I mean, harsh but fair. We so rarely use our guests to ill like this i'm horrified i feel like i must apologize that's okay it's okay i've gotten a lot you know i live in new york so

um it's been a little tough the past couple of days yeah i can imagine yeah well that's an interesting point that you raise about how the Twins kind of got on board with modern baseball just within the last few years here. Because these days, like almost every team talks the same way. They sort of evaluate players the same way. And that can kind of be a drag when everyone is doing things almost identically, at least from afar. almost identically, at least from afar. But for a few years there, the Twins were one of the few laggards left, like one of the last two or three teams to just kind of say, okay, we're behind the times and now we have to hire a bunch of people from other teams and start doing the things that they're doing. So was that something that as a statistically analytically minded person enhanced

your enjoyment of Twins baseball when they got on board and started looking at things that way or did it not really matter on a game-to-game basis because you're just watching baseball or you know also there are examples of teams that are very backward and that can make some fans more passionate maybe because they take such umbrage at the way that their team operates that they start blogging about it. And then the next thing you know, there's a thriving community of sabermetric bloggers covering a team that is not at all aligned in that way. Yeah. For me, it made me like slightly less embarrassed about how the twins were like when

they would make, you know, they just, they would make kind of weird decisions in the past. And it was like, do I really want to try to defend this? No. So and also just as you know, I'm a I'm a fan who wants her team to win. So I would like her team. I would like my team to use the best means possible to do that. So it felt to me like, OK, they're really trying to do the thing that I wish they had done several years ago but they're at least not ignoring it still so you know better late than never it's a it's a it's what it's trust the process I think is what you got to do right yeah well and you guys are are the twins I should say, rather. I never know how people prefer to use their pronouns.

I've definitely lapsed into some wheeze here. Wheeze, yeah. Which, you know. You'll be forgiven. This is an interview about fandom, so I can get to that. Right, right, right. Yeah. But arguably, the twins are even leading in some ways, right?

Hiring Wes Johnson away from the college ranks to sort of re rejigger all of the pitching is you can finally say you're on the the cutting edge pulling coaches up from where they have not previously been pulled from yeah exactly and that was that's the kind of move that could in you know that wouldn't have happened in previous iterations of the twins so I really like that even though I also understand that like that's not the end all be all he's not he's not magic he can't right you know it's a it's an interesting move and i'm glad they weren't afraid to make that move also if it it's been a couple years and it doesn't really work i hope that they'll be you know ready to to let go of that where that was a problem in the past too where I think they took too long

to move on from ideas that weren't working so yeah so I'm it seems very encouraging to me that they're thinking about baseball in a more modern way I should have asked is one of the 16 losses or the various serious losses do you hate them all equally are they they're like your children that you can't pick one you hate them all that's how parenthood works right yeah um the one the wild card game two years ago against the yankees where they went up they they um they they went up like well they scored several runs in the first inning off of Severino. And then Irvin Santana gave up like the same number of runs in the bottom. That one was that, that did some damage to my soul to get up so much.

And then it was like that, that was, that was a tough one to handle. And again, since I've lived in New York, every New York loss stings a little bit more, but yeah, they're all, they're none of them were great. Let's just say that. I hate to ask the flip side of that, but I guess I will. Is there a good way to, not that there's ever a good way to lose a playoff game, but is there a less bad way to lose a playoff game?

Is there one where you look back and you're like ah well what can you do well you know if if they had won the next game after any of those i would feel better about them the fact that they were all you know if the game on friday against with jose barrios pitching that one was one i felt like oh we let that get away from us we should have won that game but you know come back tomorrow it'll be fine but then it was not fine and they did not come back tomorrow so there are ones that like I didn't

hate as much there have definitely been ones where you know they've given up the seventh run in one inning and I feel like I maybe don't need to watch baseball anymore for a while there's that too yeah so it sounds like we're all agreed that it's better to be sarah than meg fandom wise that you'd rather root for

the team that keeps getting cracks at it than the team that never gets there even though that occasionally means more acute heartbreak instead of just the low level depression that plagues mariners fans at all times. But I have seen people asking, and we were just sort of talking about this, but if you had to compare, say, the way that the Braves lost on Wednesday to the way that the Dodgers lost on Wednesday, or I guess we could say the Twins instead of the Braves, except that it wasn't blowouts, it was just sweeps.

So would you rather have the non-competitive loss where it's clear from the start that you're done and you don't even really get your hopes up, but it's also sort of embarrassing and you just got completely wiped out and you never had a chance, so you feel bad about that too? Or would you rather have the one where it looks like you have it locked up and you're counting your chickens and then something awful happens? I think both are embarrassing, right? Like the, you know, giving up 10 or 10 runs in the first inning. Is that what that is?

Yep. That's obviously not great. not great but i don't i think now after both of those games you know the dodgers i'm sure dodger fans are feeling a little embarrassed too but also both fandoms are just sad so um sad about what happened not sad as a characteristic of them um so i think i for me personally, there is something where if I know this is done, they're not coming back from 10 runs down. That's one. I mean, that's maybe a little bit less hard to take than thinking you have this in the bag. It's the eighth inning. You're going to win and move on. That's pretty brutal. But let's be honest, the real way to do this is to win the game and to not feel this way the next day or at all. So that's really what I'm going for. Well, thank you for coming on and indulging us and letting us exploit your pain for entertainment. You know, if other people can't use my pain, then really what's it for?

Right. You're bringing some good into the world out of a bad situation. Absolutely. So Sarah Ziegler is the world out of a bad situation. Absolutely. So Sarah Ziegler is the sports editor at FiveThirtyEight. She is the host of Hot Takedown, so you can hear her every week talking about sports and hot takes. And also the president of the American Copy Editors Society, which I feel like the three of us could have done a whole podcast on that probably just as a former editor and Meg as a current editor and you as a sports editor. Do you have any pet peeves with baseball copy editing or things that you find yourself copy editing most often in baseball pieces

and you want to ring your writers next because you fix them over and over again? Oh, that's interesting. I'm sure Meg has a long list. No. Yeah, right? All of my writers are perfect. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. I'm sure Meg has a long list. No. Yeah, right? All of my writers are perfect. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, yes. All of their hyphens are perfectly placed. Yeah. But a hypothetical sports writer who you might edit, what makes that list? Yes. Hypothetically speaking, for baseball specifically, that's interesting.

We always struggle with how the expected knowledge of our readers, like how well they know certain stats, because yeah, it's tough when you have a lot of advanced metrics and explaining them or over explaining them sometimes is also a problem. Like let's really explain what a run is here. You know? No, thanks guys. Yeah.

So that's, that's like, that's something I'm constantly having to edit around how, how much we explain those kinds of metrics. Right. Well, if you're like me or Neil Payne, we just link to everything.

Yeah, exactly. That is, that's the best, always the best policy. People can click the link if they want to know. Exactly. Then they don't have to. Yeah. Always good to over rather than under link. Always a good idea. Definitely. Very jarring when you then switch to writing for print and find that you can't

link to anything. Yeah. It's always fun to see, you know, read more about this here in print where it accidentally stayed in from the web version. I love that. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks again and better luck next year. Thank you. Yep. We'll just wait until next year. All right, we have reached the end of this extremely long but hopefully fun episode. And as I record this, the Astros have vanquished the Rays, so we now know the matchups. Yankees, Astros, Cardinals, Nationals. We'll get into all of that on the next episode.

And by the way, happy retirement to Brian McCann. I wrote something this week about McCann and Russell Martin and Yadi Molina as potential Hall of Famers, all three of them. So I will link to that if you want to check them out. It's heavily reliant on catcher framing. But since we talked today about the Braves' ignoble exit from October, I thought I'd read a nice email that we received about them and about the experience of following them this year from a listener named Kyle, who wanted to share this with the Effectively Wild community. He writes,

I am not a Braves fan. I am a born and raised Texas Rangers fan, but I recently relocated to East Tennessee with no family or friends or social network or any real community. I have been very lonely. East Tennessee is Braves country, and the nightly radio call from Atlanta is crystal. This season listening to the Braves gave me a little bit of normalcy. More importantly, it gave me a window in the larger community. It gave me some small talk with other in the larger community. It gave me some small talk with other folks at the bar. It gave me, if however tenuous, some kind of tie to this mountainous post-industrial Dolly Parton-infused corner of the country. I've been a year in East Tennessee now. I'm very slowly building a life. I have a few numbers in my phone

that aren't co-workers. When 2020 rolls around, I don't know if I'll still wear my Josh Donaldson jersey. Online impulse buy of the decade. I may return to a myopic focus on the Texas Rangers. The Braves could go back to being just another team. But the 2019 Braves, with their balletic combination of strength and grace, with the small but real comfort they provided me on countless lonely nights in a new city, will stay cherished for many years. Thanks for sharing, Kyle. And glad the Braves and baseball made your world a bit better. If this show makes your world a bit better, you can support it on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get yourselves access to some perks, including a couple of

upcoming playoff live streams. Following five listeners have already pledged their support. Spencer, Allison, Evan Thiesing, Mike Mineo, and Eric Ensminger. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review,

and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. And you can keep your questions and comments for me and Meg and Sam coming via email at podcastwithfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance.

You can find my book, The MVP Machine, How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players. Leave it a rating and review if you don't mind. And we will be back to talk to you again very soon. And you could see ruins inside my head The start of the meltdown, this time we're dead Fabled last season

Oh such We bled