Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1446: How Not to Behave

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about their playoff livestreams, the Yankees’ ALCS defeat, why pitchers are allowed to demand new baseballs, and pulling a catcher from the game when a team is leading, then discuss Sports Illustrated reporter Stephanie Apstein’s report about the post-ALCS behavior of Astros assistant GM Brandon Taubman, the Astros’ response […]

The success is a state of mind with a little bit of follow through And then you fail at that too It's a bad man's world It's a bad man's world It's a bad man's world. It's a bad man's world. I'm a bad, bad girl. It's a bad man's world. Hello and welcome to episode 1446 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. It's weird to talk to you after the four and a half hour marathon live podcast for the Patreon supporters.

Yes. There's all those things that, like, I said it, so now I feel like I can't say it again, even though only a small fraction of the people got to hear it. So there it is. It just, you don't, everybody else just doesn't get it. You don't get to hear my take about the We Play Loud commercial, my radical observations about the We Play Loud commercial. Sam liked observations about the We Play Loud commercial. Sam liked it.

I'll spoil it here. He thinks it's a good ad. Yeah, that's what people pay for the privilege, I guess, of getting those exclusive insights. I don't know that there were that many over the course of the four hours that we talked to some Patreon people on Saturday in ALCS Game 6. But if you were not involved in that, you can get involved in the next one because we're doing it again on Friday for World Series game three. And this time we're going to sync our video. Yes, that's always a challenge. Right. Instead of just talking about

how it's not synced for four hours, we thought, well, maybe we'll sync it. Yeah, that's a radical idea. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to sharing my reaction space with you. Yeah. Okay. I mentioned this on the thing. So as it was, you were way behind us and I was kind of in the middle and Meg was a little bit ahead. And then when Eric Langenhagen came and Craig came and I think emma i don't remember what joe i don't remember jordan mentioning the game now that i think about it but the rest of them were all a

little bit ahead of us and so it was this weird thing where like uh something would happen and a bunch of people would go oh and you'd you say you'd know something was going to happen and i i mentioned that it's a weird thing because it feels like the ooh is the spoiler because now you know that something's going to happen. But in fact, you don't know what's going to happen. And so, in fact, it's not really a spoiler. You're still going to be surprised. But all the other times when no one is going, oh, that's the spoiler. Because by them not going, oh, you know that nothing is going to change in the next pitch.

If you're one pitch behind, you just know that every other pitch is just like nothing. It's like a, it's like no, no, no, no set, no set, no finding. What is that thing called? No, whatever. It's like nothing. And I was thinking about how life is kind of like that if you live in a city with, like, I think a lot of people grew up, not me and you, but like maybe our parents grew up with like air raid sirens in case, like, I might be wrong. I don't know exactly what life was like in 1962. But maybe like there'd be a siren if there was an atomic bomb launched, something like that, right?

Sure. Well, people did drills. I i mean we still do drills for different dangers but that was one of them hide under the desk this was this was i think this was specifically a siren i don't know if these sirens existed if not they exist only for the purpose of this metaphor but the siren would like let you know that like oh we're all gonna die in 18 minutes and as long as it wasn't going off you knew that the next 18 minutes were fine and if it did go off which i guess it never did because there was never any nuclear bombs but if it did go off then you'd still be like huh i wonder what's gonna happen happen like that. Now things are interesting. But, you know, in a way, the the existence of the siren made all the all the rest like it enabled you to almost to live in the future because you knew that for the next 18 minutes, no bombs like that.

You could like take it to the bank 18 minutes bomb free, which is very different than like an earthquake where an earthquake just comes out of nowhere. Like, I don't know that I'm safe from an earthquake for the next one second. I mean, it turned out that I was, but I don't know about the next five seconds. You know, there's no warning signal for an earthquake. Now, as it turned out, I was safe then too, but you can't know there's no future warning. So anyway, you guys, uh, not you, but Megan, everybody else were like this, uh, Anyway, you guys, not you, but Meg and everybody else were like this warning that like, it's okay. Life is going to pretty much be the same 15 seconds from now as it is now.

So that's my thought about watching a baseball game 15 seconds behind someone else. So we talked about that game, but we should maybe say something about it now for the many people who didn't hear us talk about it. And frankly, we didn't talk about the game that much during the game anyway. I think what sort of has surprised me or maybe not really surprised me, I guess I should have expected it, is just the outcry that I've seen. I don't even know how to characterize it on Twitter, on various tabloids, people upset about the Yankees losing this series, which sure, of course, any fan is going to be upset when their team loses the series. But to lose a series to the Astros in six games, a series that was not well played always, but this is the best team of the season, probably one of the best teams of all time. The Yankees fought them pretty hard for six games. There's no shame at all in losing to this team.

of all time, then that's okay. That's holding your team to a high standard. But I suppose the Yankees have encouraged their fans to hold them to a high standard. So if you're upset that the Yankees are not the team that is innovating, that has revolutionized player development, that has built this juggernaut, then sure, I can see why you'd be upset about it, but there is just no shame in really losing any postseason series to any team. But losing to the Astros in six games in a fairly tightly contested series, that really doesn't tell you anything about anything. And the whole reaction about, well, they have to go sign some starters. That was their mistake. They didn't sign starting pitchers. go sign some starters. That was their mistake. They didn't sign starting pitchers. I sort of see that because you look at Cole and Verlander and Granke and you think, well, we don't have

those guys and it'd be nice if we had those guys. We have James Paxton, which is a nice start, but maybe you're sort of disappointed in the bullpen performance and think this isn't the way to structure a team. But this team just won a ton of games, and they made it to the LCS, and I don't know that this six-game series is a referendum on anything at all about the way that they approached this season. Yeah, not having read those tabloids, I'm very curious to know just how negative they are. Like, is that it?

Is it just them saying now they need to sign starters, or are they calling them chokers and losers? I don't know. I've picked this up by osmosis just living in New York and I try to avoid it. I'm not like listening to sports radio because then you're just inviting that. But so mostly what I see is just people tweeting about things that people said. And then I don't even necessarily go read the original thing, because why would I? But that sentiment is out there, and I don't think you can really criticize much about the Yankees' approach this season. I mean, sure, you could say they could have been

more active at the deadline. They should have signed a big free agent. They can afford it. They're the Yankees. That is certainly true. And that continues to be true. And of course, they should go try to sign Garrett Cole. Why wouldn't any team try to sign Garrett Cole? But I don't know that there is really anything to be learned here about the best way to build a team based on what happens in six games and running into this just force that does not come around all that often. Yeah. Do you think that trading for James Paxton was less of a move than the Astros trading for Garrett Cole at the time? I mean, James Paxton was also kind of hot stuff. Sure. Paxton was better when they got him. Yeah. And Garrett Cole was coming off kind of a, he had had a sort of a negative trend now if we'd, and we sort of anticipated that the Astros would do some stuff with him

and make him better. But yeah, I feel like the Paxton acquisition was even, was actually even bigger than the Cole acquisition at the time. So you can't even really say that the Yankees failed to go out there. Although at the trade deadline this year, even really say that the yankees failed to to go out there although at the trade deadline this year uh you could say that yes the yankees needed starting pitching it seemed although i argued that they didn't wrongly and they didn't do anything and then the astros did not seem to need starting pitching i mean it's easy it's it's it's hard to remember or easy to forget that at the trade deadline, Wade Miley was really, really good too.

Everything went bad after that. But at the time, he seemed like maybe the third best number three starter in baseball as it was. And so it was really aggressive for the Astros to go out. It's interesting that the Astros, like none of these three pitchers were on their team 27 months ago. And they went and they spent big on starting pitching. Like that's, I don't know, that's something that other teams don't do anymore.

Kind of. Yeah. They did it. Well, the Nationals did it too. They're in the World Series. Yeah, they did. Although, yeah, they did. There's no Aldo there.

They did. Yeah. Okay. All right. Anything else about that game specifically? I don't remember that game at all. and you're actually narrating the action, whereas we were sort of studiously not narrating the action because we couldn't, because we weren't synced up and also because we didn't have express written consent to do that. But yeah, just kind of chatting with your pals during a game and taking questions from people, it's not really conducive to actually forming thoughts or analysis about that game. I will say I saw some people, there was even a thread about it in the Facebook group, for instance, saying that, hey, Jake Marisnyk was on deck when Jose Altuve hit that walk-off homer.

The implication being, how do you pitch to Altuve when you have Jake Marisnyk on deck? Jake Marisnyk, obviously, inarguably a far inferior hitter to Jose Altuve when you have Jake Marisnyk on deck? Jake Marisnyk, obviously, inarguably, a far inferior hitter to Jose Altuve, but I don't think you can fault the Yankees for pitching to the better hitter, given that if they had put Altuve on, that would have put the winning run in scoring position. And even though Marisnyk is not much of a hitter, he is still more likely to hit a single in that situation or any situation than Altuve is to hit a home run. Right. Am I missing anything there? No, he's definitely more likely to hit a single than Altuve is to hit a home run. Of course, Altuve could do other things.

Yes. Like double, for instance. Yes. But yeah, I think that you, I think that just already you would rather face al tuve with a runner on first than maris nick with two on but then you also in addition to that uh if you if you don't walk al tuve as they didn't walk al tuve and then you get al tuve out now you've got maris nick leading off the next inning which is pretty helpful because you know you you'd like to have an out before alex bregman comes on since there's like a 50 50 chance bregman's going to get on base and it's a big difference to have a runner on first with one out

and none out and then you know if you do intentionally walk altuve and you know there's a 10 chance well it's marisnik so it's not a 10 chance but there's a chance you then you do something silly like walk marisnik you certainly can't pitch in any way carefully to marisnik because then you'd load the bases and so it's all intentionally walking players always has negative side effects beyond just saying, well, I like this player more than the other player. And so therefore I want to avoid him. So yeah, I don't think you could intentionally walk Altuve there. You could pitch around him, but can you? Yeah, right. I mean, he swings at half the pitches that are outside the strike zone. Right.

I mean, he swings at half the pitches that are outside the strike zone. Yeah. And that doesn't seem to hurt him. Yeah. All right. Anything you want to bring up before we talk more about the Astros and about the Nationals and about the World Series? I mean, I could say it now or I could say it later. It's all one topic, right?

Pretty much, yeah. Did you know, I don't know if you noticed this. I guess when i i didn't notice it someone said it out loud on a broadcast so i don't know if you heard this or not but early in the postseason garrett cole asked for a new ball or got a new ball it was a pitch in the dirt or maybe a foul ball and he got a new ball and the camera showed him he gets the ball and he looks at it and tosses it away. And right then, A.J. Pruszynski says, Cole does this more than anybody else. He throws a lot of balls out and gets a new one. And just as Pruszynski was saying this, Cole got the second new ball and looked at it and immediately threw that one out too. And A.J. said, well, see, there you go.

He just threw two out and they had a brief little discussion about this. And I've been wondering ever since then whether there's whether that's fair do you should a pitcher be allowed to pick his ball why would he be what is the argument for a pitcher should be allowed to reject uniform equipment that has been issued to him well one argument i suppose would be that it's a safety concern yeah but maybe it's flimsy but let's entertain it so this ball i cannot throw this ball right this ball will hit a person in the face if i attempt to throw it i mean that's the thing that some balls may have raised seams and they may feel better to a pitcher and that pitcher may feel that they have

better control over that pitch but it's not going to be the difference between i literally cannot avoid beating someone with this ball it's going to be hey this ball feels like i can make it break more or yeah you know if you if you believed the argument this is that some balls present a safety issue then given the expense that major league baseballball puts into, I mean, just if you think about how many balls they throw out, how many hundreds of balls they go through, how many cow hides are expended on this, they could probably afford to have, if there was a genuine safety issue, they could probably afford to have an entire employee whose job is to make sure that no balls are too slit to throw safely. Of course, that person would not have a very busy life because all the balls can be thrown safely. But if you believed Garrett Cole, then the solution to that would be to have somebody actually inspect the balls before they are sent into the game and make sure that all

balls adhere to certain safety standards. Because if Major League Baseball truly believed that one out of eight balls was a time bomb that was destined to hit a person in the face, if not for the keen discerning feel of the pitcher, if the pitcher was the last thing standing between tragedy and not, then it'd be a big liability issue. Major League Baseball would just be asking for a lawsuit. They would have to hire somebody to make sure that there was a more official way of weeding out those unsafe balls. So anyway, I'm being flip, but I reject that. Yeah, right.

I think you should reject it. I just wanted to bring it up. So other than that, is there a compelling reason well hitters get to choose their bats and their gloves and so that's that's not uniform equipment but you could argue that if they get to choose those things then maybe the pitcher should choose the tool of his trade except that of, the ball is everyone's ball. It's a communal piece of property. And he does get to choose his glove.

Yes, that's true. He already gets his pick. Yes, right. So that doesn't really hold up either. So can you come up with a better argument? I don't know. argument or i don't know i guess i'm trying to think like pitchers will often ask for a ball to be changed if the ball hits the dirt or something or or now they will right i mean in the past or often sometimes you would see pitchers want to have a ball that's scuffed up

so pitchers always wanted the one that was scuffed up in the old days and the batter had to ask for the ball to be removed and then they made it they just said well this is stupid let's just have a rule that anytime a ball touches the dirt then it's out and so pitchers will somebody asked us about this recently and said how come pitchers are voluntarily giving up these balls shouldn't they be able to use them and they're just they're just cutting through the the you know the the waste they're just getting rid of it because it's got to be gotten rid of like there's they're not going to get away with it so they're just tossing the ball out so yes it used to be that that there was a little bit more of the batter had a the batter had a little bit of a say about which ball was used because uh he could he could

he could request the ball be removed if it hit the dirt, but that's no longer a factor. That's no longer the way that this works. Right. So yeah, I got nothing. It's tradition, I guess. So, I mean,

I'm trying to think that there's no time. So it's, it's actually costs time. I mean, I was thinking if, if you set up a situation where a pitcher didn't like the ball and he could somehow get a new ball by say throwing pickoffs to first base until it got scuffed or something like that then you might say well we'll

just save the time and have him be able to get rid of the ball whenever he wants but he doesn't really have a way of getting rid of a ball that he doesn't like other than asking the umpire to to humor him and so and if anything it costs time it adds time to the game i guess if what he is really saying is to the umpire you didn't do your job this ball is not rubbed up well enough then maybe the umpire would feel like it would be defensive to go yes it is i i know how to rub a ball. But I don't even think it's that. I think that it's more feeling that, yeah, I think it's more about the seams. It's more about the, you know, I think pitchers sometimes just feel like

there's a balance, there's a good balance to the ball or a good seam grip to the ball. And I can't think of a reason why they should be allowed to inspect the ball and throw some out and the batter can't then also inspect that ball and throw it out. I mean, why can't they? If Garrett Gold throws that ball and he gets the third ball that the umpire throws him and he throws a pitch and it's a good pitch

and the batter swings and misses, why can't the batter go, I don't like that one. Get it out of here. I swung and missed at it. It missed my bat. Right. Yeah, sure. I don't know. Seems totally fair.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't like it though. At the moment, I don't like it. Okay. We'll put a stop to it. All right. That was all.

I have been waiting for two weeks to talk about that. Okay. Have you ever heard that? By the way, there was, here's another one that I had for two weeks to talk about that okay have you ever heard that by the way there was here's another one that i had for two weeks somebody at one point pinch hit for their catcher when they were winning like four to two and the broadcaster said that's a really unusual move you never i'm quoting here you never take your catcher out when you have the lead and um i'm not here to debate the wisdom of that advice but have you ever heard it no i don't think so me neither okay all right what is the wisdom of it that the catcher is uh working well with the pitcher and you don't want to like it's it's too

risky to switch catchers midstream i see so if you're down then you do it because you need to get the bat you need to get the bat. You need to get the better bat in. But if you are winning, then there's no need to. It's not a really urgent pinch hit. It's never really that urgent to pinch hit

if you're already winning, I think is the thinking. And it comes at the cost of the catcher who's in the game already has the advantage of knowing the umpire, knowing the strike zone,

having worked with the pitcher if it's the same pitcher that's staying in. Plus, you don't want to bring your second catcher in if you can avoid it because you don't want to put yourself in a position where a foul tip might cost you your last catcher. So all things considered, you prefer not to take your starting catcher out of a game, and the only real reason to do it is if you're trailing

and you really need the offense, so you might pinch it. All right, so we will get into world series preview stuff if there's anything left to say about these two teams that we haven't already said over the past few weeks but before we do we have to discuss the story that is circulating just as we are speaking now and it's sort of developing on twitter right now. So we'll have to update it later if there are further details that come out. But Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated reported an incident that occurred in the clubhouse after the ALCS, after ALCS game six in the Astros clubhouse that is so stupidly comically cruel and despicable that it's almost

in the category of, well, it's so obviously reprehensible that what is there even to say about it? You just condemn it and move on. But the Astros are not doing that. They are doing the opposite of that. And so we need to address it so i will read what stephanie wrote here she is describing the scene after the alcs this is about an hour after the game she writes and in the center of the room assistant general manager brandon todman of the astros that is turned to a group of three female reporters including one wearing a purple domestic violence awareness bracelet and yelled half a dozen times, I'm going to swear here, be warned, thank god we got Osuna, I'm so fucking glad we got Osuna. The outburst was offensive and frightening enough that another Houston staffer apologized. The Astros declined

to comment. They also declined to make Taubman available for an interview. Now, subsequent to Stephanie's story coming out, the Astros did release a statement, which I will read here. The story posted by Sports Illustrated is misleading and completely irresponsible. An Astros player was being asked questions about a difficult outing. Our executive was supporting the player during a difficult time. His comments had everything to do about the game situation that just occurred and nothing else. They were also not directed toward any specific reporters. We are extremely disappointed in Sports Illustrated's attempt to fabricate a story where one does not exist. This is just appalling.

I would not describe myself as aghast often, but I would say I am aghast at this. The action itself, of course, but also the statement, which in a way is, well, literally unbelievable, I think you could say, but unbelievable that they would put out this statement. Stephanie's reporting has already been corroborated by other people who were there. It sounds like this was a crowded scene. Obviously, a lot of witnesses. Hunter Atkins of the Houston Chronicle just tweeted, the Astros called this Stephanie Epstein report misleading. It is not. I was there, saw it, and I should have said something sooner. I don't even know where to start with this. Obviously, it doesn't shock me that someone

with the Astros thinks this way. They're the ones who made the trade for Osuna in the first place, knowing what the response would be, and obviously not caring enough not to do it, and not caring enough about what Osuna was set to have done. But the fact that the assistant GM of the team would say something like this in public to female reporters. And I get that this was a post-Pennant winning clubhouse. It's an alcohol-infused situation. Presumably that had something to do with lowering his inhibitions here, but that doesn't excuse what he said even a little bit. That is not something you would ever say unless you thought it and believed it. And it says a lot about a person who would think and say something like that. So Taubman, I've never spoken to Taubman.

I don't know Taubman at all. I've heard about Taubman. He's a respected baseball executive. He's someone who has been mentioned as a future GM candidate. I think that is off the table. But the idea that someone would say that to someone is just so horrific. It's such bullying, almost sadistic behavior that I am having trouble getting my head around it. I don't know. What did you think when you read this? I assume the same thing. Oh, oh my goodness yeah i mean you could you could even separate the content of what taubman is attempting to relitigate from just the i mean if he if he made this comment in the tone as it's described and uh as others have described it and noting again that neither Ben nor I has done any original reporting on this

and are not the most informed about the scene. But I mean, I think that it makes a lot of sense that the Astros would have a lot more incentive to downplay this in a statement inaccurately, dishonestly than that a reporter would have an incentive to fabricate it out of nowhere so i mean that's just common sense but even if this were over a matter as like inoffensive as like um you know i don't even know over some inoffensive matter like you know an off

the record conversation from three months ago if that was still lingering and tense between the assistant GM and a reporter and the assistant GM decided that the post-clinch celebration was the time to go publicly and profanely berate a reporter, that would already be disqualifying from any number of roles in a front office. But then you just step back and think about what it is that has apparently made Taubman so emotional, and it is defending domestic violence. And I guess that is probably unfair. It is not defending domestic violence. It is defending, overlooking domestic violence in pursuit of a victory on a baseball field.

And I mean, the article that Stephanie writes about this goes into more detail and has more is, you know, thoughtful as well about what this outburst means. And this is, I think, the key paragraph. But in truth, the Astros front office acts as if it is tired of being yelled at about this subject. They want to be allowed to play their baseball games and pop their champagne without being forced to think about anything that happened away from the ballpark. They want to be allowed to talk about Osuna

the way third baseman Alex Bregman did before the series began when he called him, quote, a guy you want on the mound for you. And I just feel like they don't understand what a baseball team is. A baseball team is fundamentally something that you have some emotional reason to want to see fail or you want to see succeed. That's all it is. This is not a locksmith in your town where, you know, they would hope that you would continue doing business with them, even if they've done something that, you know, they require penance for, or even if they hire someone that you they require penance for, or even

if they hire someone that you have some reason to think is a bad person, that locksmith might say, you know, this is a transaction. I hope that you'll be able to forgive me. And then maybe I will, or maybe I won't. I just don't know. This is not a locksmith. This is a baseball team where every time they take the field, something in my brain or something in the average fan's brain is deciding, well, one team's the good guys and one team's the bad guys. And when you trade for a bad guy, well, it's going to be pretty much forever that people are going to think, well, they're the bad guys. And that's how I view them. That's how a fan views them.

And you can't really be defensive about that. So I don't know. It just feels like, I don't know. I just, I didn't understand the move in the first place. And the response to the move, the zero tolerance statement, which made zero sense. I mean, the whole aftermath of it was kind of incomprehensible. But this, I was going to say to say this unprompted, but I can't imagine what could possibly prompt it that would make it any less awful. I mean, it's even stranger in the sense that someone who is used to being a public representative of a baseball team would say

something like that regardless of whether he thought it, but it's bad enough that he would think it. And the Astros statement doesn't actually deny that he's said this. And hardly the fact that he is, that the statement is saying that an asterisk player was being asked questions about a difficult outing. Presumably that refers to Osuna, right? Who had given up the two run homer in that situation. So strange time to gloat about having traded for Osuna, but I guess presumably the implication is that Taubman was trying to buck up Osuna and say, hey, we're glad that we have you, even though you just gave up this home run or something. But I can't see that this statement

excuses any of that behavior. Like, are we supposed to have sympathy here? Like, poor Roberto, did he give up a dinger? Was he having a difficult day at work? Were the mean reporters asking him questions about it? Which I think removes the ability of the Astros to just pin it on Taubman and use him as a sacrifice. Not that I expected that they would be inclined to do that based on their previous behavior and messaging. So this just seems like they've made it even worse with this statement by now questioning that it ever happened or questioning Stephanie's understanding of what happened, which seems to be backed up by others. Like your response to this report in 2019 is to say, don't believe the woman. She doesn't know what she's saying. She's making it up. Are you serious? That's the approach. This just makes them look worse. This compounds the problem and spreads the blame around in the organization. Beyond Taubman.

And this is a PR department that has been known to act rashly in the past, I would say, when they prevented Anthony Fennec from the free press, from talking to Justin Verlander, which of course was against BBWA rules, and then put out a statement defending their own action, which of course MLB quickly said had not been appropriate. So, I mean, they have a bit of a reputation among writers, I would say. So maybe there's a statement that will walk back the initial statement that is due out. I don't know. I just can't imagine how you could continue to entrust this person to make important baseball decisions, except that clearly this has been the attitude of

some members of that front office for a while now, and that doesn't seem likely to change. some members of that front office for a while now, and that doesn't seem likely to change. When we wrote in the MVP machine a bit about that trade, I had some misgivings about devoting the longest chapter of the book to the Astros and sort of praising their player development acumen. I didn't think there was a way to avoid that because we were writing a book about cutting-edge player development, and they were the cutting-edge player player development team but we tried to note the dark side of the way that they operate i think i put it in the book that the astros are tough to beat but hard to root for because of the way that they operate and the fact that so many people have left the astros in the last year or so and have left the front office is partly of course because people from other teams want to hire

Astros people because they're the successful team. But that's not all of it. It's also interpersonal stuff. And it's people who are fed up with this kind of thing. And the Osuna's trade itself was very divisive, I understand. And much of the organization and much of the front office was not happy about that. It was not a universally approved decision, but obviously there were multiple members of the front office who were

behind it and now they are exposing themselves. I think the Astros acquired this reputation six, seven years ago for not treating people well, but it's one thing to use your players as guinea pigs for the shift or whatever they were doing in 2012, or even to lose a lot sort of on purpose with an eye toward winning down the road. There was something sort of distasteful about that, but hey, ultimately it made them a better team and a team that is now going for its second title in three years. That plan paid off. It's one thing to dismiss a lot of scouts and old school coaches and then say in public statements that you're going to replace them and you're going

to expand your scouting department again. I mean, those are baseball decisions. The game changes. Certain positions don't work the way they once did. And the Astros are the ruthless team that will actually make that change. But look, that's just business stuff, and they've hired plenty of other people in different positions. But clearly the problem goes deeper than that. It's one thing not to care when the columnist says that this team cares too much about numbers and shouldn't be shifting or shouldn't be losing or whatever. Maybe you're right and the writer is wrong, but this is different. There's nothing right about the Osuna trade or how the Astros have handled it or now one of the highest ranking executives

in the whole organization going way out of his way to rub these reporters' noses in this. The ends never justified the means here and having a good baseball team doesn't give you license to behave in any way you want. Oh man. I mean, berating reporters is unforgivable. The continued passionate smug defense of trading for Roberto Osuna in this time, in this sort of aggressive proactive way is unforgivable. But there's just something so dark about getting about thinking that the way that you're going to get your revenge is by going to a group of women and gloating about

domestic violence i mean the way that you see that as a pressure point in which you can hurt other people i mean that is just the darkest part of this account. I mean, it is really horrifying to think that you see a vulnerability there that you're going to exploit in another person. And I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what the Astros who put out this statement truly believe happened and could confirm or couldn't confirm. statement truly believe happened and could confirm or couldn't confirm. But I mean, the hostility of what is being described, I mean, at the very least, to me, requires something much better than a rapid fire response, accusing the reporter of what is essentially a career ending accusation if you really believed it.

And I mean, even if you were the asterisk and you wanted to be cautious and conservative and give your employee some benefit of the doubt, I don't think this is the statement you put out at all. No, definitely not. And Hannah Kaiser from Yahoo, by the way, has also backed up Stephanie's account. Now there's also a report from the Houston Chronicle from Chandler Rome who writes, Taubman was holding a cigar and standing with two or three other men when he yelled his comments, two eyewitnesses said. The three female reporters were approximately eight feet away and one was visibly shaken.

There were no players in the area and no interviews being conducted at the time. Luno and Taubman did not respond to text messages seeking comment. Jake Kaplan at The Athletic also has a report that quotes a witness saying, I didn't get a good look at whether Taubman stared at them, but he was loud and obnoxious and he said what he said. He definitely was not defending Osuna based on the bad game Osuna had. It was very clear. So this Chronicle

report just contradicts the facts in the Astro statement, which said that players were being interviewed, that players were around. I mean, it just, I don't know Stephanie well. I've met her. I admire her writing and reporting. She's well-respected and I think courageous to report this. It seems, I mean, if it were someone I didn't know, it seems like an incredible thing to fabricate or distort given that this is happening with, it seems like, many witnesses in the immediate vicinity. That just doesn't seem like something that someone really could distort

and hope to get away with. So I just think it's horrible. And this sort of thing happens, obviously. Teams keep trading for these guys. They keep signing these guys. We all made note of it on Saturday when Osuna gave up the home run and then Chapman gave up the home run. It's not just the Astros that would make a move like this, but you kind of live with that. I guess you're upset about it. You keep bringing it up every opportunity you can, but usually teams will either be quiet about it so as not to inflame the response even further or attempt to justify it in some way. Or, you know, as Luno said at the time, I think he said that he hoped something positive would come from the awareness that came about as a result of that trade, which is sort of nonsensical. But, you know, they'll make some attempt to justify it or they'll make a donation. You know, the Astros made some token donation to a domestic violence organization, probably

in response to the backlash. I mean, that's how teams tend to handle it. And you can get away with that clearly, unfortunately. But this is beyond the pale, I think. I just don't see how they could let this stand. And if they do, I would lose a lot of whatever respect I have for the organization. Like, Luno, who just extended Taubman in September, is not so poorly and for reigniting and creating this story on the eve of the World Series when the Astros had some goodwill and the players will certainly

be asked about this. So it's difficult to transition from that to just talking about the baseball and praising the Astros for being good at baseball. It's far from the worst thing about this. It's many, many rows down on the list, but it kind of overshadows everything. It's something that will be in the back of my mind as I'm watching this series, as I'm thinking of this series. I mean, there are many players on the Astros who just happened to be on this team when this trade was made. And you could, I suppose, fault them for not coming forward and saying this is unacceptable but the culture of the clubhouse is powerful it's disappointing but not shocking that the team just kind of closes ranks after this I would hope that

if any players did witness this interaction with Taubman that they would back up Stephanie, even if that's uncomfortable because they're Osuna's co-worker. This really sort of paints what should be just a week when we can celebrate baseball. I don't know. I mean, the Astros are really good at baseball, but it's just it's hard to take much pleasure in that right now, even though most of the people on the field in uniform weren't responsible for the moves that they make or what Taubman says to reporters. But that's the way it is. Yeah, it's really amazing how the notion of the team, of the clubhouse of the team, is used to absorb somebody in when they've done something bad, something that be unforgivable, or that at least requires a very serious accounting. And there's this, like, you know, the players will say,

like, hey, you know, it's, you know, it's, we just try to put our head down, or once we once we go out on that field, we're a team. And you're in a way you're trying to say that the good of the team can overwhelm the bad of the individual act, that he becomes part of the team. As a player, they're basically saying, I no longer see him as a villain because he's part of our team and I know our team is good. Once he puts on my pajamas, we're all on the good side. is good once he puts on my pajamas we're all on the good side and yet they don't see how the same collective the same notion of collectiveness of collective virtue would also apply to collective guilt and that by bringing him in to that clubhouse you all are inextricably linked to that person as well that you are are just as you're supporting him, he is supporting you and you're on the same team, buddy. That's you too.

Yeah, right. Gosh, and you'll hear people say, why are you dwelling on this? Just watch the baseball. Just let us enjoy the innocent fun of the baseball. In this case, you have the assistant GM of the team literally yelling at women about it. I mean, even if you wanted to ignore it, they're the ones inciting this. I mean, we weren't there. We didn't see this. We didn't hear it. We weren't in his head. We can't know with 100% certainty whether he was intending to target a specific group of people or a specific person with these words, but the absolute best interpretation of what he said is still not good. You know, I just, ah, it's just so upsetting. And hopefully we will wake up to some sort of punishment here, at least some kind of inquiry and apology for the initial act and then

for the accusation in the statement. If the Astros are not going to police themselves, then MLB should police them. Even putting aside the immorality of it all, MLB can't be happy to have this be the big story as the World Series starts. So I don't know how to transition from this to baseball, but I guess we should attempt to. There's going to be a lot of baseball that would be a lot more fun if this had not just happened. I don't even, I don't know. Can you make a segue to,

hey, the World Series is starting. Ben, I cannot. Yeah, me neither. Yeah, can't do it. It's, I don't know. Gosh, I can. Yeah. Can't do it. I don't know. Gosh, I can't believe that they released that statement. Just say we're going to look into it. Maybe they had some forewarning that this report was coming out, but otherwise this was like rapid fire.

Yeah, let's just release a statement right after a respected, credentialed reporter makes this very serious acquisition about this heinous incident. Let's just put out an immediate statement saying that she's wrong and disingenuous. Yeah, and also, I mean, the article says the Astros declined to comment. They also declined to make Taubman available for an interview. And so, you know, they... They knew, yeah. They knew, but they also did, they were protesting this article. They did not choose to make their case to the reporter.

And that tells you something a lot of times. Again, I mean, we didn't report this article, so we can't know. But a lot of times it tells you something when an organization would rather make their case in a press release after the fact than in the reporting process itself. And, you know, it's usually not a good thing that it tells you about the party that is at issue. What I'm saying is that I think they should have not declined to comment, and I think they should have made Taubman available for an interview. Yeah, I mean, I just don't see how they can continue to employ him in such a senior capacity. I mean, it would hang over every move they make as long as he's in that front office as it should. So I would think that the organization itself, people within the organization, would not be okay with that.

Look, we'll see. This is all happening as we're talking about it. Maybe there will be a better development here. Hopefully some better PR here at the very least. Hopefully it will bring about some change because having it out in the open like this, I mean, look, lots of teams will make that trade and treat the suspended player as an undervalued commodity and make that trade, make that signing. They have defended themselves after that in a way that has not precluded them from open so maybe having it out in the open leads to some sort of positive change indirectly in a way that the osuna trade itself i i don't think did despite what luno said at the time but we will continue to discuss this as more occurs it's too

overwhelming not for it to be the focal point of what we're talking about right now. So look, beyond that, I don't know. It's two historically great rotations. People have written about that. It's two teams that have played the best in baseball since late May, since the Nationals got healthy and good. I think a lot of people will be rooting for the Nationals now who had not chosen a side before this series started. I don't even know really what to say about the series because it almost seems frivolous to say Astros in six or whatever now, which of course is the most likely outcome. But I don't know. It's just baseball and this is something more. A couple years ago, Mike Axisa came up with minimum inning. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Huh. In 2017, in a chat on River Avenue Blues, an emailer asked, the concept of immaculate inning made me think of how often a pitcher has a three-up, three-down, three-pitches inning. All three batters retired. No double plays, pickoffs, et cetera. I'm betting very rare.

And what should we call such a feat? Mini innings? And Mike replied, minimum inning? Flawless inning? I'm not sure what to call it. So he did come up with minimum inning. He did not realize what he had. What did he have?

He had a hit. He had a smash. He had an inaccurate way to describe a three pitch inning oh i cannot believe you have been swayed by people saying but you could have a two pitch inning because of an intentional walk why would you why would you intentionally walk someone with nobody on uh i guess that's a good point but theoretically in my opinion we all know that's a in my opinion we all know that that is true that is fine it is a um it is a unfun pedantic objection to the phrase and so while i give a nod yes got it i also thought of it we all thought of it we're all savvy baseball fans

i'm saying that in a tone that sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not. That's right. We've got this thing. You and me, not you and me, Ben, but you and me, emailer, we look at baseball similarly enough that when someone says a minimum inning, we both think, well, you could intentionally walk them on no pitches and then get a double play. We are the people that you don't want to talk to at a party. I got it.

And I like it, but I am saying that that is too pedantic of an objection to what is a great phrase. So even though it is not technically a minimum inning, we also got a question earlier in the postseason about something John Smoltz said, which was relayed by Justin who says Eddie Rosario was up in the first inning of game two for the Twins.

Joe Davis and John Smoltz started going back and forth for Rosario's pension to swing. Pension? Pension. Pensioned. Yeah. Now I mean the pedant. Pension to swing at a lot of pitches, and then Smoltz made the following statement,

in this time of year, that's when it's difficult because guys that swing a lot in the regular season may get away with that, but the tension and anxiety of the post-season amps that up a good 10%, I would say. Justin then says, are guys really swinging at least 10% more in the post-season versus the regular season because they're amped up? This would probably result in one or two more swings per game. What say you? Does Smoltz's statement have any validity? And so I looked at the 2018 stats. I took all the players who were in the 2018 postseason. I got their collective swing rate in the regular season. And then I looked at what the same player's swing rate was in the post season and the swing rate on pitches in,

I, and then I broke it up in this, in the strike zone and out of the strike zone. So the swing rate on pitches in the strike zone stays exactly the same. So that is the same, but that maybe is, maybe that should be the same, right? Maybe you're swinging at an optimal percentage of pitches in the strike zone. And so you would just carry that forward. maybe you're swinging at an optimal percentage of pitches in the strike zone. And so you would just carry that forward. The swing rate on pitches outside the strike zone goes up from 26.97% to 28.19%, which is an increase of 4.5%. And so, in fact, it's not 10%, and it's only on pitches outside the strike zone.

But I would argue that pitches outside the strike zone are the only ones that you should care about for this. And 5% is still something. So it kind of got close. Yeah, right. Pretty good. Yeah, that's not bad. All right.

Well, valiant attempt to change the subject. I think you did all right there. I guess before we end, I will say that I think that the fact that the Nationals wrapped up their series so soon benefits them quite a bit in that they have worked their pitchers, their few trusted pitchers, quite hard. And the fact that they now have Scherzer and Strasburg and Cole on a few days rest, extra days rest, I think might help refill their empty engines. That could be a factor here. I also note, because I wrote something about this, that it's sort of interesting to me that this series, in addition to all the other storylines at play here, the positive ones, that is, this series also features potentially the top trio of free agents in this year's class in Cole and Rendon, who seem very likely to become free agents, especially in Cole's case, and then also Strasburg, who is the least likely to actually hit the open market,

but certainly will at least use his opt-out as leverage coming off the season that he has had. And if he doesn't get what he wants, then maybe, you never know, he will become a free agent. These are all Scott Boris clients, by the way, as is JD Martinez, who would probably be the next best free agent if he decides to opt out, which I think is still fairly likely, if less likely than Strasburg's

case. And he's an older DH and not coming off a career year, et cetera. But we've never really seen this. I looked back with some help from Baseball Reference at the top trios of free agents each year going back to the beginning of free agency. We've never had all of them playing in a World Series in the same year. We've had one, certainly. We had Manny Machado in the World Series last year. We've had two, even. There have been three World Series that have featured two of the top three free agents in that year's class, but we've never seen all three of them at once. And not that anything that these players are going to do in this series is going to meaningfully sway front office's opinions about these players,

but it is sort of fascinating to see them on the precipice of what could be a change in teams in allegiances it's something that you kind of almost don't really want to fixate on during the world series because you want to think about these two teams and these two groups of teammates that are like bonded together and battling it out but of course rosters get broken up and that's natural and that's the way of things and players should go get paid and play where they want to play and work for whomever they want to work for as we all get to do and so you you kind of want to think well we'll worry about that after the world series but baseball transitions so quickly from world series to okay it's off-season business time i mean it's

the day after the World Series that players become eligible for free agency, and then there's that five-day period where you can only talk to your own players, and then it's a free-for-all. And granted, the market moves slowly these days, but technically it opens as early as ever. And so you're just getting, I guess, one last look,

one last reminder about why these guys are going to make a lot of money and why they are entitled to. But you really couldn't ask for, I guess, a better scenario if you're Scott Boris than having the three top clients and your three top clients having great postseason so far and then ending up playing on the World Series stage, so far and then ending up playing on the World Series stage, which raises their profile at the very least and maybe convinces an owner to pay a little more and maybe even makes a GM a little more willing to make a serious investment. Even though people are aware of recency bias, that doesn't mean that they're immune to it. So if I were a GM who were about to offer someone 200 million something dollars and devote a significant proportion of my payroll to that and also link my future to that player's performance, I don't know. It might give me a little more confidence

if I had just seen that player succeeding in the highest stakes situation against the top competition, even though I know that realistically that shouldn't sway my projection much at all well i will first say that ben i will not be thinking about free agency at all during this world it just never ever comes like i'm when i'm watching the world series and someone is a free agent it never crosses my mind i just think of them as that team forever yeah at that point right and so this is not a storyline that i would have even noticed if you hadn't brought it up and uh you have brought it up and i will not be thinking about it at all but yeah wasn't there that for a

few years on baseball twitter there wasn't there a joke about something that somebody some one of the rumors reporters had tweeted about how like cj wilson was either making or losing like 40 million dollars every time he started in the postseason because yeah you hear that well or not right and i think that that uh that was i think that that became sort of a little bit of a meme because uh we don't really believe that it makes that big of a difference but like i was every time i look at steven strasburg right now i look at his regular season numbers and i'm like huh they're not that good like they're really good they're good he might win the cy young award i don't even i mean they're good but just three weeks after the regular season ended i mean i think steven strasburg's like the fourth best pitcher in baseball. And it's because of these three weeks. So he has like really, really, really, really changed my impression of him.

I mean, I thought he was good, but I might have put him like 12th. And now I think he's like fourth or something. Maybe best. He might be the best for all I know. Well, if you look at baseball prospectus's deserved run average, he is literally the best pitcher in baseball this year, regular season, I think with more than 60 or so innings, which is, you know, I don't know if I totally buy it, but I mean, his, his served run averages are always good, but this year was a career year for him in that stat, which if you look at most of his peripherals, it just kind of looks like a standard Steven Strasburg year, except that he didn't get hurt.

And if you count his postseason appearances, he has thrown a career high number of innings this season, which is very good, of course, because you wouldn't have thought that he would opt out after last year because he was on the IL twice with shoulder inflammation and a nerve impingement in his neck. And he kind of had a rap as someone who gets hurt sometimes. So the best thing that he could have done this year was to be durable, and he did that. And otherwise, it looks like just sort of the same old very good Steven Strasburg season. But if DRA is to be believed, he's even better than that. Wow. Very interesting. Well,

the, yeah. So the best thing he could do is to, to, to stay not hurt. But the second best thing he could do is to do this in the postseason and look like the ace that every team needs. Yeah.

But Cole will get, Cole will, Cole will get more, right? Like, are they, are they going to be, be is it gonna be in the offseason are we gonna be linking them as though they're like gonna get the same contract

like are we gonna be linking them like Machado and Harper or is it gonna be pretty obvious that Cole is the number one and Strasburg is is one small tier below. Well, if anyone is going to challenge Cole's earning potential, shouldn't it be Rendon? I don't know if it will be, but shouldn't it be? Well, yeah, but they're not going to be linked because one's a hitter and one's a pitcher. That's true, I guess. No, I think Cole would definitely make more than Strasburg

if they were to both become free agents. I mean, for one thing, he's a couple of years younger, right? And for another, he's coming off what seems to be a better season if you look at anything other than deserved run average. And the Astros haven't lost a game that he's pitched for months now. And he's looked even better than Strasburg in the postseason, as good as Strasburg has looked, Cole has been even better. So yeah, I don't really see an argument for, and Cole's been more durable, I think, and he seems to be just getting better all the time. I don't really see an argument for Strasburg over Cole as good as Strasburg is. I have now used this. This will be the third time

I've used this. Once in my World Series MVP prediction, which I don't know if they were going to use that. And so then I felt like I could use it in my preview of all 50 players in the World Series piece that's running on Tuesday. But now I'm going to use it here again, which is that in making the decision to pick Garrett Cole for MVP, I thought, well, okay, he's going to start twice. And what do two Garrett Cole starts look like? And I looked at any two consecutive starts that he's made since the 1st of June. I would say that any two consecutive starts, any pairing of two since the 1st of June would probably win him the MVP award. His worst consecutive starts are probably August 28th and September 2nd

when he played the Brewers and the Rays, both playoff offenses. So the Brewers and the Rays, he went 12 and two-thirds in those two games, and he allowed five runs. So that's a 3.55 ERA, which is why it's his worst two starts. In those 12 and two- two thirds he struck out 28 and walked three that's his worst yeah there maybe his worst might be june 2nd and june 7th which to us that would probably look worse but that june 2nd and june 7th he faced Oakland and Baltimore. He went 13 innings. He had a 2.08 ERA because he only allowed three runs.

But in those 13 innings, he only struck out 18 against two walks. So that might actually be his worst. Probably peripheral's worst might be actually later in, maybe later in that month, he starts against cincinnati and pittsburgh 12 innings two runs 1.5 era but he struck out 11 and walked five so maybe that's his worst but i think any two starts that he has made back to back since then would be world series mvp quality starts yeah and i should say about the free agent thing, even though I don't think GMs are really, for the most part,

going to change their valuations based on what happens in a single series or even that much in a single month, although, look, a month of performance is somewhat meaningful, whether it's in October or not. In October, it's probably more meaningful because you're facing good teams and you're facing intense scrutiny and advanced scouting. And if the best teams in baseball cannot find a flaw in you that they can exploit, that

speaks well of your talent, probably. But there are occasionally times, like last year, I think is probably the best example where I don't think that you would have had Steve Pierce and Nathan Ivaldi going back to the Red Sox if they had not done what they did in the World Series. a career journeyman and is constantly floating around, hitting three homers against the Dodgers, winning World Series MVP. He's not really a guy who you're going to say we need to bring him back. Or Nathan Evaldi, who was great and he had those two scoreless eighth inning relief appearances. And then, of course, the legendary extra inning, six plus inning outing in game three of the world series last year that turned him into a hero without that you certainly wouldn't feel the same pressure to bring him back but that's something that we've both written about that world series trait that tendency for the world series winners to keep their rosters more intact than the World Series losers because, seemingly, you kind of want to keep the gang together.

You went all the way with those guys. So, yeah, let's bring them back and run it back again. And maybe there's a bit of a halo effect where you overlook some flaws with your roster, some potential regression, and you think, hey, we're so great, we just won with the same group of guys. Let's try it again. What could go wrong? And then with Nathan Evaldi and Steve Pierce, everything goes wrong. And. They're among the very best players in baseball. So it's not as if you're going to make a rash investment in these players based on one series

because we have multiple seasons telling us that these guys are great. Best DRA in baseball. Wow, I've got to rethink some things. Yeah, I don't know what, but something about either the stat or Strasburg. Not sure which. Yeah. And I also wonder with Rendon what kind of, I mean, this is something we could talk about when the offseason actually starts. But I guess the one comp for him would be the Nolan Arenado extension from this February, which was what, seven years and $234 million, I think something in that

vicinity. And that was a little different in that Arenado is younger than Rendon. So that's a pointless favor, but that was also an extension that was signed a season before free agency. So there's some extra risk that's priced in there. And Arenado is just not as good as rentone i mean i think his best season aronado's best season would be rendon's fifth best season i wouldn't say that that's their general reputation or that you ask the typical fan to compare them that they would say that rendon wasn't even an all-star until this year he's of, of course, the perpetually underrated, but not really as underrated anymore, but still sort of underrated.

Oh, yeah, definitely still underrated. Yeah, he's not underrated anymore in the sense that no one knows who he is or that no one would say he's not a good player. But according to Fangraphs, over the past three years, he's essentially tied with Christian Yellich behind Trout and Betts as the best position player in baseball.

So I don't think that many casual fans are thinking of Anthony Rendon as that kind of player. I cannot, Ben, I cannot believe I just got, I just got tricked into giving an opinion about whether a player was underrated. I am so embarrassed. Yeah. It's not something I love to weigh in on because. And I said it so enthusiastically.

Like I couldn't wait to jump in and be like, he's underrated. Yeah. I leapt for the opportunity. What was I thinking? Yeah. Well, anyway. All right. So we will be back and we will talk about the series as it unfolds. you discuss this on the podcast, and I can tell you that it certainly wasn't because I used to work at Grantland with Jonah or he used to write for Fangrass. It was because his actions were so

self-evidently awful, obviously just heinous behavior, and because that severe transgression was swiftly and severely punished that it felt inessential to say something. Justice was done, or at least in the process of being done. For those who don't know, prominent sports writer, author of multiple books, has been on this podcast. A reminder that you never know what goes on behind closed doors and how a person's private behavior may differ from their public persona. He was charged with three counts of assault, causing bodily harm, and uttering death threats over an extended period, three separate incidents over a year or so involving his pregnant wife at points in this process. But there were consequences for this, immediate

consequences. We became aware of this because he had been arrested and charged with crimes. And immediately his employers dropped him, the Athletic dropped him, Sportsnet dropped him, wherever else he was contributing at the time put out immediate statements saying, we are looking into this and this behavior isn't acceptable and suspending him and we'll see whether the legal system handles this. But you didn't have someone putting out a statement saying that it was untrue and defending him and continuing to employ him and give him a platform. That was all taken away as it should have been. And the difference between that and baseball is not that it's a reporter versus an executive or a reporter versus a player. It's that in baseball, these things linger and they go unpunished.

And the justice system doesn't handle them and teams continue to employ them. And so it's an ongoing, ever-present issue. You know, how do you handle the fact that this player did this thing and he's still suiting up and he's wearing the uniform of the team that I'm rooting for? Fans have to wrestle with that constantly. And especially in this case, where the team is outright denying the report, or at least the significance of it, that's just not something that you can let stand without saying something. I want to end with one more very inconsequential question that we got from a listener, Andrew, Patreon supporter. You may be wondering this myself when Andrew brought it up. I started wondering it. He says, I have an incredibly important question for you guys.

Games two to six of the World Series are scheduled to start at 8.07 p.m. Eastern. Games one and seven are scheduled to start at 8.08 p.m. Eastern. Why the one-minute difference? And I actually did pester multiple Fox Sports PR people with this question because I wanted to know too. And the answer, I guess, is not all that surprising. This PR person says, nothing really unique slash interesting to share. Production simply requested an extra minute of airtime for games one and seven.

So I guess you have a longer pregame package. You have more drama. You have more setup to do. And so they asked for one more minute, just like sometimes a sitcom or a TV drama will ask for one more minute and they'll shorten the theme song or something just to pack a little more plot in.

Same thing with Fox and series start times. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Justin Milhamans, Jose Luis Cubria, Clay Mallory, Antonio Casazza, and Patrick Ray. Thanks to all of you. And another reminder that we will be doing another live stream for Patreon supporters at the $10 level and up on Friday during World Series Game 3.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. You can contact us via email at podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance, and we will be back a little later this week. For what you did to yourself Don't fall in love if you're in it for your health If you drink all night, you'll be thirsty all day Don't say you love me when you take me this way