Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1449: The Nationals’ Lost Weekend

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about audible umpires, Lance Barksdale’s ball/strike calls in World Series Game 5, the Nationals’ offensive outage in Games 3-5, Max Scherzer’s neck spasms, Dave Martinez’s moves, why the series has been somewhat unexciting, the Nationals’ and Astros’ outlooks going into Game 6, the Astros’ retraction of their statement about […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1449 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast with Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello, Sam. Hello, Ben. We are speaking on Monday afternoon between World Series games 5 and 6, so we've got a lot of World Series action to catch up on. We did another Patreon live stream on Friday during game three. But as always, we were somewhat distracted by the talking. And then there were two more games after that. So it was obviously an all Astros weekend.

Is there anywhere in particular you want to begin? Why don't we talk about the microphones on the umpires this season? Yeah, they are pretty loud, aren't they? They are very loud. By loud, I don't mean like distracting to the rest of my life. I mean, like they're very audible. They're clear. And I'm curious to know before Game 5 of the World Series, what you had thought of them. And then we'll probably talk about how they became a central part of Game 5 and what people are talking about how they became a central part of game five and what people are talking about today so broadly speaking before game five of the world series

what was your take on umpire microphones i hadn't thought that much about it except that jesse was watching one of the games with me and she kept hearing one of the umpire strike calls and she said is that the umpire is that his strike? Because it was kind of a notable one. So I was aware that I could hear it more clearly than I usually do. And I was also aware it seemed like there were more players being bleeped, probably for the same reason, but you know, someone pops up or something, and then the audio oddly goes dead for a second as the player throws his bat on the ground in disgust and you get the sense that he was swearing up a storm so i assumed that that was the same mike picking that up but hadn't really thought about it other than that just uh kind of noticed it but not good or bad

i have noticed it as a generally is a very good thing i for one thing have always thought that not have always have always like over the last i I don't know, five weeks have come to the conclusion that umpires should have to tell us where the pitch is. They should have to not just declare that it's out of the strike zone, but they should have to somehow signal that it was low or inside so that I know when they miss a call, how they missed it, what they were wrong about specifically. I want to know specifically what they were wrong about specifically i want to know specifically what they were wrong about and this not every umpire does this but they frequently do and i have actually found it to be sometimes illuminating to know where they thought it missed it's kind of nice when they say like that was low or yeah something yeah you don't otherwise get and it seems uh like a kind of an odd quirk of baseball that they don't that that we never got a tradition of them gesturing where the pitch missed it seemed it seems like you could very easily imagine 150 years ago them saying all right so you're either going to call a strike or motion where it missed

and then that would be how the game is is officiated but somehow that never became custom and now at least we get we we a get the lot more. And B, we know that they are informing players in their vicinity quite frequently, although not always, but quite frequently. But also, I like the way that they all have their own kind of call to me gives you more sense of the umpires character umpiring character than the just the strikeout, the punch out that they have, which i don't notice many umpires punch outs nor do you see that you know you don't see their full punch out on every on every pitch or anything like that but here you you really do have like kind of more sort of like uh droning umpires and then you have more enthusiastic umpires and you have umpires who have sort of funny voices that you think wow that's not a very authoritative voice sometimes you have an umpire whose voice is kind of like uh like a kind of a middle manager sort of voice yeah i think that was what stood out to jesse that's why she asked because it didn't sound like the typical emphatic strike call right it's it's not

a lot of yeah like i was expecting a lot of yeah but instead you get a lot more it's low yeah i guess there's there's like a selection bias because we only hear the ones usually that's true now we're hearing all of them yeah yeah that's true so i have liked that i'm uh i'm i i i feel like it's a quite actually quite an advance in terms of putting you on the field putting you kind of in among the sounds of the game to me it, it's much more useful and probably less misleading than like the microphone on the second base bag, for instance, which also has a nice element to it where it makes the game feel fast and violent in a way and physical,

which it is, but also I don't know. I like that. I don't want them to take that away from me but there's probably it probably is not i don't know i mean you put a microphone in a bag it's gonna sound loud what else is there gonna be but here you get an umpire you get the voice of the umpire you get his character you get characterization of him and you're in there you're in the batter's box with him in the catcher. I have been surprised at how rarely the microphone picks up the

other people around him. You never hear the catcher. Right, which I'm surprised. That's a very precise microphone, I guess. Or maybe they just only open the audio feed for that specific half second and then they make sure they shut it off.

That's probably more what it is. I wouldn't mind having a microphone that was picking up all of that. However, I also have felt for the last three weeks of the umpire's microphone being audible, I've been thinking, wow, this is like Chekhov's gun. This is eventually going to get somebody mad, somebody in trouble. This is too, we do not deserve to know all of this and i cannot believe they have agreed to this and it's only a matter of time and the matter of time has come to pass because there was a i mean one of the big controversies of game five was the strike zone generally speaking a number of calls in in big situations and i would also argue a

number of calls in sort of less obvious, but still important situations. And in one of them, in one of the most visible of them, Lance Barksdale made no call on a pitch that was in the strike zone. And Jan Gomes had very nearly thrown the ball around the horn. And the microphone picked up the umpire basically saying, I forget the exact words, but basically you came out of you came out of it too fast. You know, I didn't you were coming out of that catch too fast. I didn't see it.

And Jan Gomes said something like, oh, so it's my fault. I think he said specifically. And so it's my fault in that tone. and um boy i have you ever heard an umpire acknowledge that they are so affected so swayed by the way the catcher catches it i mean we all know that framing matters and we all know that giving the umpire a good look matters but have you ever heard an umpire say so explicitly it didn't matter where the pitch crossed the plate because you caught it weird. I mean, I was shocked to hear that admission. Yeah.

Was he saying that or was he saying that like, this is presumptuous, like you're taking my call for granted or something? I wasn't sure how to interpret it as bad framing, didn't give me a good look or just like, hey, don't presume to know what i'm gonna call this pitch i couldn't tell which it was either way it's not good yeah well if it's the first one then if it's if right if if what he's saying is that you were too presumptuous in making your throw and now you made me look bad that would be in in line with what i imagine umpires often say. But if Gomes' reaction to it suggests that he took it to be that the umpire was blaming him for not getting the call,

like that Gomes, by saying my fault, you're saying it's my fault. I presume Gomes is saying it's my fault that it wasn't a strike. So maybe Gomes misunderstood the problem with baseball jargon. I don't remember. Again, I saw jargon i don't remember again i saw but i don't remember exactly what the umpire said but it was a little jargony as i recall and the problem with baseball jargon is that you uh if you're not a umpire or a batter sometimes you don't know what the uh what the jargon means so let me say if i can i'll find out exactly what he said but yeah i don't know i took it to mean that he was not saying

that you didn't get the call not saying that he was punishing gomes but that he if gomes wanted the call he needed to give him a better look that's what i thought i might be wrong yeah i don't know but either way it's it's saying the empire is acknowledging That the catcher influenced his call By the way he caught it Or the way he acted after the pitch Crossed the plate So that's not good, you shouldn't do that I don't know if it's worse

Maybe it's worse if it's like A punishment, like a reprisal Saying hey, you showed me up So I'm going to take away the strike from you Either way, it's not what you want. You want them to call the pitch where it crosses the plate based on that only. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't have a definitive answer, but the John Boy's tweet about it was that the umpire said that Combs was taking off on him. Uh-huh. Which, that's what I mean by it. That, to me, that suggests that, like, hey, you're taking my call for granted. Oh, see, that's not how I read it. That's not I mean by it. That to me, that suggests that like, hey, you're taking my call for granted. See, that's not how I read it. That's not how I read it. I read that as he was moving before a good call could be made,

before he presented the pitch right. Could be that too. Anyway, do you think that the umpire Mike is here to stay? I don't know if this is, do you think this is like a negotiated thing? Like, hey, we're going to turn up the gain on these mics in this series and everyone signed off on it? Or it just happens to be a hotter mic than usual? I don't know.

I don't think we're going to get like, you know, ass in the jackpot type video breakdowns all that often. One of the reasons why that went so viral was that we weren't used to hearing that sort of thing, and I don't think most people involved want us to hear that sort of thing. We all want it, of course, but I'd also be worried that if it did become audible, if players and umpires were all aware that they could be heard then they just would stop saying such interesting things so it's almost better that we don't get it most of the time but the rare times when we do get it it's just unvarnished and real uh-huh yeah like we uh i mean you if you figure that when they're not when they do not know they're being observed

when they're not being observed i feel know they're being observed when they're not being observed i feel like they're almost always interesting like i would i would gladly take any random 10 second snippet of audio from the field at random like it doesn't have to be ass in the jackpot it could be anything and i'd be interested in that i would feel like it would tell me something and so if the presence of a microphone though causes them to no longer be in their natural state, if they're constantly presenting themselves for the camera, then right, it would cancel out all of it and you'd get nothing. the i don't know this totally speculating but i would imagine that the umpires maybe signed off on this but i don't know i don't know if the catcher and the batters maybe i mean the players association maybe did so i guess they are the catchers and the batters but it feels like the catchers and the batters would would really not want to have a microphone there even if they know

that it's not usually going to be there you don't want anything recording you all the time. Like, I don't even like having my phone in the room right now, knowing that it's recording me or technically could be recording me, that Siri is at least has an audio track here. And who knows? They say they're not saving it, but who knows? And I mean, I am recording publicly right now, and I don't even like knowing that there's some sort of anyway. Go ahead. Yeah. publicly right now and i don't even like knowing that there's some sort of anyway go ahead yeah

well and the other thing is and i if i'm wrong here please correct me someone because i don't pay that close attention to the audio of the broadcast at all times but we haven't been getting the like sounds of the game explicit excerpts right like where they replay you know the third base coach is mic'd up this game and we're going to curate these selections of things that he said or that someone said to him. And then we will find a break in the game and we'll play this little interesting exchange that these players had. Like we haven't gotten that, right? So it's not like we're going for more of an open sharing arrangement overall here. It just seems like they made this one mic more sensitive for whatever reason.

Yeah, well, I've liked it. If it's gone, then I'll remember this year as the year that we had good microphone. Okay. Anyway. Yeah, so that made the poor umpiring in that game more glaring, as did the results at times. Like if you're gonna have you know carlos correa there's an o2 pitch it seems to be a strike and it's not called a strike

and then later in the at bat he hits a home run or the astros get out of a jam in the seventh because of what seemed to be a bad call you're going to remember those you're not going to be as quick to remember them if nothing notable happens after the bad call. So it did seem to be a floating zone, and some of those calls were not accurate. But I think all the talk about that, all the talk about Dave Martinez's managerial moves, there were lots of things to discuss this weekend, but they all kind of boiled down to, well, ultimately the Nationals lost three games because they scored three runs in those three games. And you're not going to beat the Astros scoring one run against them. The Astros now, I think, have allowed one run to their opponent 32 times this year and only once were they beaten 1-0 by the Twins back in April.

So not the way to win. Certainly not the way to win against the Astros. Well, yeah, but the reason they scored one run is in part that they were having borderline pitches all go against them, right? Yeah. I mean, the Correa one, you can exempt from that. It is true that the Correa home run was ultimately not relevant to the final outcome in terms of the margin but yeah but there were a lot of calls that were that could have gone either way to the Nationals and in particular I think very early on it there was there I would say that there was a

borderline call borderline I don't know how you define borderline but there was a border marginal call borderline call that went against the Nationals in five of the first seven or eight batters, which is pretty significant. They were they were usually they were first pitches. So the first pitch of the game to Turner was an 80 percent strike and it was called a strike, which is good. I mean, OK, so probably a strike and it was a strike, but it went against them and then Turner flied out and then, or something doubt. Yeah. I don't remember what out he made. And the first pitch to Rendon was a 16% strike. It was called a strike. And then Rendon, uh, was behind a one and then had to swing at a slider that was a little bit further outside after that and grounded out. And the first pitch to Soto was a 50,50 pitch and it was a strike sorry that was a 1-0 pitch to Soto and the first pitch to Zimmerman was a 70% strike and it was

called a strike and Zimmerman then was behind in the count and flailed it two more pitches and struck out with runners on first and third and nobody out and I mean again 70% so I guess that's the right call but it implies that if you play the season a bunch of times, then Zimmerman would be up 1-0 in that count a lot of the time and quite possibly gets a run in, which would have been really significant at that point of the game. And then the first pitch to Robles right after was a 70% strike. And then he grounded into a double play. Meanwhile, the entire first time through the batting order, there was not one pitch called a ball that was more than i think four percent likely to be called a strike so they were not they were these were not like a whole bunch of 50 50 calls or even 20 80 calls that were sometimes going against and sometimes going for they just

happened to all go against them in that first time through the batting order cole was in his you know one true jam of the night right then the game was still close, the crowd might have stayed in it, all sorts of things might have been different. And it just so happened that he was giving Garrett Cole two inches off the plate outside, which is where Garrett Cole was pitching, which is where he was commanding his pitches better. And that worked out extremely well for Garrett Cole and really badly for the Nationals. So I don't think that the Nationals can say that. I mean, the Nationals aren't the better team. So at the end of the day, I don't think that they can really say that they were like, if they lose this series, it will be confirmation of a pretty basic fact.

But the umpire was a significant fact, I would say, of that game much more than the final score would necessarily indicate. Yeah, I guess that's possible that there's like a butterfly effect where one call goes against you and that changes that plate appearance and then that changes that rally and then you score in that inning instead of not scoring and then, I don't know, you use different pitchers or you manage differently or there's a different mood or something. I mean, it ended up being such a lopsided weekend in terms of the final scores, but a lot of those runs were late in the game and didn't really reflect how competitive the games were. But yeah, I guess that's fair. I mean, when you look at it and say that the Astros outscored the Nationals 19 to 3, the Nationals scored one run in each game, it doesn't seem like a bad call or even a few bad calls would have actually affected that.

But it is possible that they could have. Yeah, I agree. I mean, the Astros obviously looked better. umpire nor even if you couldn't even see what happened after each swing if you just saw the pitcher throwing a pitch until it got to the plate and then the batter taking a swing it would have been very clear who the better team was the astros were again as they've been doing all postseason i mean their ability to lay off secondary pitches that are exactly where the pitcher wants that secondary pitch to be to get a chase it is like blowing my mind how rarely they're swinging at sliders just off the plate change-ups just below the zone uh those sorts of pitches and they hit the ball harder and they

i mean garrett cole is obviously just a much better pitcher than joe ross and so yeah i mean you play this game a lot of times and you give the Nationals half of those calls that I just rattled off in the first, and the Astros are almost always going to win anyway because they played better throughout the game. Yeah, and because whatever inability to hit in big spots that the Astros were suffering in the first two games of the series,

that just passed on to the Nationals, and the Nationals were 1 for 21 with runners in scoring position over the weekend they only got two runners into scoring position in game five the bigger problem was that they only had two opportunities but they didn't capitalize on them and home teams now in this series are four for 38 with runners in scoring position and not coincidentally home teams now in this series are 4 for 38 with runners in scoring position. And not coincidentally, home teams are also winless in this series. That's just one of those weird things. I mean, it's partly good pitching, of course, but it's partly just fluky lack of clutchness. And there were times also when Garrett Cole gave up some hard hit balls.

There were a few, I think, in the third and fourth innings, he gave up three batted balls, I think, that were 100 something miles per hour and had expected batting averages over 500. I think one was over 600. The other was maybe over 900. And the Astros had fielders in front of them, which they often do because they are really good at fielding and positioning too. So that's partly a skill, but maybe partly also some lousy luck for the Nationals. And I guess we should talk about why Joe Ross was pitching because that was the most notable development. Game five, Max Scherzer was scratched with severe neck spasms. So he has dealt with neck spasms in the past. Back in 2017, he was scratched from a start and removed from a start early and went on the IL with neck spasms. But that was on the other side of his neck, and he said this time was worse.

He woke up on Sunday unable to move his arm, unable to get out of bed without just flopping out of it, unable to get dressed without his wife's assistance So he could not pitch And everyone knows, of course, how much Max Scherzer wants to pitch That's like basically a meme at this point That Max Scherzer always wants to get in the game So if he couldn't do that, then you know it was bad

And Mike Rizzo's description of his symptoms as ungodly pain Easy to believe And so Joe Ross got the start, his first start since September. And what I was wondering is like, how much does this make me think differently about Dave Martinez's managerial moves earlier in the weekend? Because the two big things that Martinez was criticized for, the big one in game three was allowing Anibal Sanchez to hit and then to continue pitching the third time through the order. And he's been very bad at that this year. He got knocked around after that. I think he was like the Astros went four for eight or something with

some extra base hits against him after Martinez left him in to hit for himself. So that seemed like a clear lack of aggressiveness should have gone for the jugular there. And then in game four, there was a similar but less glaring case where Martinez used Rodney instead of Hudson and Doolittle. By that time, he was losing the game. The Nationals were probably going to lose the game anyway. I think their win expectancy was like, I don't know, 10%, 12%, something like that. So you could have made the case that it made sense to save Hudson and Doolittle anyway. But Martinez did say on Sunday that at least in Saturday's game, he was thinking of Sunday's game and game, but Scherzer did say in his pregame press conference that he started experiencing these symptoms and getting treatment for these symptoms on Friday.

So it was something presumably that was on Martinez's mind. And I don't know, maybe even then he was thinking, I better get more innings from Anibal here because we might have Joe Ross going on Sunday. we might have Joe Ross going on Sunday. There's a certain amount of pre-planning that maybe could just be counterproductive if you're giving yourself a worse chance to win because in two days, maybe Joe Ross will have to start and maybe he won't go as many innings

as Max Scherzer would have. You can kind of manage yourself out of games while you're trying to win a future game. But I don't know. Did any of that make you think better of Dave Martinez or did you not mind those moves to begin with? No, I mean, I haven't thought that. We talked on the live podcast about the Sanchez move,

letting Sanchez hit for himself in game three. And because we were conversating the whole time, we were all like kind of disoriented and not that crisp in analyzing the game. And so I had to be reminded that Anibal Sanchez had hit, for instance, for himself and went inning. So I wouldn't say that I'm that qualified to second guess that decision.

But I don't know. I have felt like usually when we criticize manager pitching moves in the postseason, it's because they are not managing with the requisite urgency for the situation. And none of these games in Washington have felt close enough that Martinez was really faced with particularly urgent decisions. and it makes sense to me that if you have basically over the three game span you have i don't know at most maybe eight innings that you're gonna get out of the two relievers that you trust is that about right even that that's probably not even that but maybe eight then yeah you you have to ration them out i mean you just you can't be using them when you're probably when when the game is already sort of getting away from you now i'm not looking at the when expecting to see graphs or anything right now uh if i i

don't know maybe i would go back and look and go oh no yeah you're right that was really pivotal but i mean this is the this has been the dilemma for the nationals is that they don't have many pitchers they trust and you could say that's why it's so important that you go to do little and and hudson when the game is on the line because they're the only ones you do trust and you could say that's why it's so important that you go to Doolittle and Hudson when the game is on the line, because they're the only ones you do trust, and you shouldn't be messing around with pitchers that you clearly do not trust. That's true. Anytime that the game is tied, or within one, or if you're up by two, or three, or maybe if you're up by four, but once you start falling behind that, the math completely flips around at you, and it's like,

don't, you can't use a single throw on a game that you're not likely to win because if you don't have those throws for a later game then you're not likely to win those either so I can't give a really detailed and convincing answer but I have not felt like there were any times where I thought oh no the Nationals this is it but then they're gonna lose if they don't bring in Doolittle or Hudson because it seemed like they were going to lose if they brought in Doolittle or Hudson. Yeah, well, they never had a lead in this homestand. So there was never really a time where it was like, all right, let's bring in these guys and shut them down and preserve this lead. They never had one.

But the Sanchez decision, that was the bottom of the fourth. And the Nationals had just scored their first run of the game so they were losing 2-1 at that point and it was runner on third with one out I believe yeah and Sanchez hit for himself and struck out bunting so that was bad that was no I agree that one is the one that's the one exception i i because because i was so distracted at the time i feel like a fraud saying yeah but i mean that does seem pretty obvious on the other hand they didn't really have a plan to get the next five innings just because the personnel that they have yeah and at the time when we discussed this on friday

night i made the point that if that if they had had Austin Voth who is not on the roster then I think it would have been an easy decision to pinch it for Sanchez and know that you have somebody that you can trust but this because they didn't use Voth for the first two series he was no longer considered I wouldn't consider him trustworthy anymore either because who knows what he's like after three weeks of inactivity and no chances to get used to the bullpen. And they left him off the postseason roster or the World Series roster in place of Joe Ross. And at that point, I wouldn't have trusted Joe Ross for three innings of relief either. And so I mean, it would have they were in a very tough situation. I mean, being down to the Astros with no bullpen and a your fourth starter on the mound is just not a game you're going to win very often, no matter what emergency lever you pull.

But I would have pinch hit for Sanchez there. It did feel like you needed the offense in that situation, and then you've got a series of bad options after that anyway. Yeah, and so I don't know whether he was thinking about Sunday's game already. I guess you could say, well, he used Joe Ross for two innings in that game. about Sunday's game already, I guess you could say, well, he used Joe Ross for two innings in that game. So if he had been thinking of Ross as a possible starter for Sunday, would he have used him for two innings in that game? On the other hand, you might say, well, if he hadn't used him in that game, then Ross wouldn't have pitched at all since September. And then you're throwing him right to the Wolves with no recent practice or exposure. So I don't know. I didn't see that Martinez said that he was thinking of it even then,

but Scherzer did say that he was already experiencing those symptoms and getting treatment for them on Friday. So it's possible that he was thinking, I better get another inning or two from Anibal here because if I start dipping into the few guys I trust right now and then I have to use them Saturday, then I'm not going to have them Sunday, and how much can you really count on Ross to give you length? So anyway, I mean, Ross had pitched well down the stretch. His eight starts after he rejoined the rotation

full-time in early August, he had a 2.75 ERA. He only had one bad start during that span, ERA he only had one bad start during that span but obviously he was not really trusted or highly valued by the Nationals they left him off the playoff roster for the wild card game and the division series and the championship series and then they just brought him back for this series and as it turned out they really needed him so tough spot obviously to just throw him in there and I guess he did about as well as you could realistically expect Joe Ross to do against the Astros in those circumstances. He gave up a couple homers and he gave up four runs and he lasted five innings. And I guess maybe if he'd had some calls go his way, it could have been better. way. It could have been better. But obviously, when you have Joe Ross starting against Garrett Cole, you can't really expect a great outcome if you're the Nationals. So I am kind of interested in, you know, Garrett Cole had his streak of his historic unprecedented streak of 11 straight starts with at least 10 strikeouts. And since then, he has made three starts without getting

to a double-digit strikeout total, which is actually the first time all season that he's gone three starts without at least once doing that. And he said after game five that he was tapped out, that that was all he had. I don't know if that's how he feels after every start, but I wonder. He's almost at 250 innings on the season now. I wonder whether this is at all reflective of some fatigue. I mean, again, he gave up one run in seven innings and he struck out nine and walked two. So he was great. It's just that he hasn't quite looked like his most dominant self since the division series, I guess.

look like his most dominant self since the division series, I guess. And I wonder whether he is feeling some slight fatigue that has made him mortal, but still really excellent. And if so, whether that factors into a possible game seven appearance and how he would be coming out of the bullpen if he's called upon then. He just wasn't really getting any whiffs on his fastball. Didn't seem to have great fastball command, but his breaking stuff is so good that he was just getting plenty of whiffs on that. And then like getting called strikes on his fastball anyway, because everyone was so bewildered. So even compromised Cole was really great and better than the Astros needed going up against Joe Ross. than the Astros needed going up against Joe Ross. Yeah, I was making the case earlier in this very conversation about how Ryan Zimmerman striking out with runners on first and third.

You know, it's hard to separate that from getting behind in the count 0-1 versus 1-0. And so I just looked, and Garrett Cole, after 1-0 counts this year, struck out 35% of batters, which is the same as Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander struck out everybody. Yeah. Yep. In fact, I think if he started every count 1-0, then he would have finished third in baseball and strikeout rate

behind Verlander and Scherzer, but only like less than, I mean, you have to go to the tenths to get a difference. He basically would have been tied with Scherzer and Verlander and Scherzer, but only like less than, I mean, you have to go to the tenths to get a difference. He basically would have been tied with Scherzer and Verlander for the highest strikeout rate in baseball if he had begun every count 1-0. Yeah. Okay. Well, so maybe that didn't change anything, but anyway, yeah, he's good. Yeah. All right. So going into game six, obviously the Nationals are certainly the underdog here, just as they were when they started the series, except more so. So I think 538 Fangraphs give them a 15 to 20% chance to pull out this series. you know, you can easily imagine a path through these next two games for them. It's two games. Like the Astros have many times lost back-to-back games against worse teams than the Nationals. Nationals are certainly capable of beating the Astros in back-to-back games in Houston. We have to cast our minds all the way back to last week to remember the last time they did that against Cole and Verlander. So obviously this isn't over, but you've got Verlander and Strasburg.

And I hope that this will be like a classic pitcher's duel because this series was advertised as the World Series with the best starting pitcher matchups ever. And we just really haven't gotten them. Like Cole and Scherzer were not really themselves in Game 1. And Game 2, I guess, was the closest that we got but you know it was 2-2 at the end of the first so it wasn't like these pitchers were throwing up zeros and after that it just really hasn't delivered and Scherzer didn't even get the game five start so we haven't seen that sort of you know old school pitcher's duel that i hoped

we would maybe we will in game six so given how well strasburg has pitched you'd have to be fairly confident that he will keep the nationals in that game and then we'll just see verlander has looked a little shaky at times still pretty effective but not unhittable. So maybe that goes the Nationals' way. And then you've got an intriguing Game 7 scenario, which right now we just don't know what it'll be. So Scherzer had a quarter zone shot on Sunday. He said doctors told him it would take at least 48 hours for it to take effect. And if it does the job, then he may be back to full strength on Wednesday. He may be back to some percentage of full strength that allows him to pitch, but takes away from his effectiveness and or durability.

If he can't go, then I guess you take him off the roster and you bring your boy Austin Voth on for bullpen depth, but you probably hope not to have to use him and you just start Anibal and hope you get a good game out of him and can piece it together with the bullpen so it will be exciting potentially exciting the rest of the series has not been very exciting they're just there hasn't been a lead change like we haven't seen a team come from behind to take the lead since the fifth inning of game one. So this really, I know that the final scores make it look more lopsided than it actually is, but it has not been a very exciting series on the field.

So I'm hoping that game six and seven, if necessary, will give us some of that that we've been lacking. It really is an extraordinarily bad coincidence or or bad timing i mean obviously but like if scherzer's you know neck had i mean he has five months where his neck could have locked up on him at any day and no one would have cared like all he had you know all all that the universe had to do was just let him get through sunday that was it yeah and this thing that is not a common thing it's not like this comes up once a week for him or anything like that it just suddenly appears at like literally the the very worst time in his entire career like the literal worst day a day earlier and you know what a day earlier he gets the cortisone shot and

he's fine at least by game seven. A day later, maybe two days later, then he's got the start. And all it does is maybe cost him an inning out of the bullpen or two innings out of the bullpen in game seven. Any other day of his life before or after now. And it's just not that big a deal. And instead, it happens that day. So when I heard the 48 hours or uh at least 48 hours i immediately thought i started doing the math and yeah oh my gosh and so uh who knows maybe it's 48 hours maybe it's 49 maybe it's 56 maybe it's 63 but you can almost script it like the perfect thing is uh what time

do they start on the east coast i guess it's eight o'clock all right so in houston it'd be six o'clock six or seven six six right all right so 5 30 he still can't go hasn't kicked in so you know sanchez starts corbin's warming up from the first pitch and then 6 45 all of a sudden it all clears out you know like it just move again all the pain drains out of his body and he his head snaps up and he looks around and he just like he doesn't even tell his his manager he just like runs onto the field and he's like i'm going coach i got it and then like he pitches the final seven innings i mean like you know pedro style right like that would be that would be the timing is almost perfectly set up to create the maximum drama.

Yes. Or the maximum like stress for him and for Nationals fan. But for us, it's like, well, we won't know probably in advance. It's like either he will or won't be able to go, but we won't find out until like pretty shortly before that game. You won't find out until right before the game. Probably, maybe, probably. Unless it's a yes, and then you'll find out maybe ahead of time. so you won't find out until right before the game probably maybe probably unless it's a yes and then you'll find out maybe ahead of time but you won't find out and if it's a no then you won't find out it's yeah and all the way no until the final pitch i mean he could come out for the ninth yeah he could come out for the eight he could come out for the

seven difference yeah i just hope that he's sitting in the dugout not the bullpen because my very very very favorite thing about postseason baseball is when the starter walks out to the bullpen. That's my favorite. Yeah. So we'll see. Is there anything else to say about this series? Yeah. I don't remember who told me this.

So it might have been you. It might have been on the podcast. I don't remember. But somebody asked me if or somebody mentioned to me that they had just heard Garrett Cole's voice for the first time and they had been surprised. Was that you? I think it was maybe on our first playoff live stream. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, it probably was. Well, it wasn't me, but with someone. I will just confirm that. Yes, it is. It is a it is a surprising voice is not a voice that anybody should should look down upon. It's a fine voice, it's just not the it's not you know i think somebody in the live cast basically said like you you watch garrett cole and you convince yourself that you're watching a texan and then he speaks and you remember that you're watching a californian but what he really sounds like is badger from breaking bad and so then just watch his starts and just imagine that you're watching Badger who got his life together and is now a pitcher. Yeah.

And that like every all of his internal monologue is in Badger's voice. Like when he's mad at the umpire, Badger voice. When he's mad at himself, when he's cussing into his glove, Badger cussing into his glove. Yeah. cussing into his glove, Badger cussing into his glove. Yeah. Well, I think the other thing about this series, because of the home team losing every game,

and it's not just that the home team has lost every game, but that the home team has been out of every game, really, except for game one in the late innings. So I think it actually affects my viewing experience because it's so quiet. I don't know if it affects the players. They may be beyond actually being amped up or let down by the crowd noise. But a big part of the postseason baseball experience is that it is so loud and you can feel the anxiety and the excitement. And even if you don't have a rooting interest you're just on

the edge of your seat because the crowd is and the crowd has just been completely taken out of these games it's very quiet from you know middle innings on which is sort of a bummer i mean it's a bummer for nationals fans who had not seen a world series in their lifetime and then they never have a lead to celebrate but even just for us watching from home it really does take something away from the experience when it's just sort of silent yeah no i totally agree and yeah i mean there's there's the fact that the games haven't been close i i haven't looked at this but i would imagine that the average leverage index for these games has been considerably lower than the typical World Series. And so that's already kind of a bummer.

But yeah, you're right. It isn't very loud. I've had to turn the game up midway through the game because usually I started a little bit quiet so that I don't disturb the rest of my house. But it just isn't loud enough for me to feel like I'm watching. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think entering game five, Martinez had avoided the pitchers that he doesn't want to use

except for 19 innings. 19 innings across 14 games to that point, which was pretty good. And in those 19 innings, those pitchers allowed 13 runs. And that includes the two scoreless that Ross pitched on Friday so 13 runs 19 innings that does not make you want to use those guys anymore than you have to and

Sunday was really the first time that he had to because for once the system broke down and his ability to keep using these starters in relief and to ride them deep into games didn't work because Max Scherzer was unable to go, had to use Ross for five innings, and maybe that did them in. But again, they scored one run. So, you know, I don't know whether it actually did anyway, unless Scherzer had been dominant, it might not have made a difference. And Scherzer was asked, by the way, about whether postseason usage could have contributed to this. And he said, absolutely not. Now, I don't know that he actually has any way of knowing that. I don't know that he knows why his neck locked up the way it did at this particular time.

But he was very eager, obviously, to take any sort of scrutiny off of Martinez and say that, no, it's not because I've been used in relief. It's not because of the weird postseason schedule and the days off and all of that. It's just one of those things that just happened to strike right now at the worst possible time. So heading into these last two games, I guess the Nationals pen is set up as well as you would want, right? I mean, you only care about two guys in in that pen and then the starters so corbin would be available for an inning presumably in game six oh oh in game six yeah yeah and then you know as many as as you could realistically use him probably in game seven you might almost like piggyback sanchez and corbin if scherzer is unable to pitch in that game you could probably get a few

innings out of Corbin if you needed to yeah so and then obviously Hudson and Doolittle had Friday and Saturday off and everyone had Monday off so they will be pretty well rested Hudson didn't pitch well on Sunday of course and he ended up throwing 35 pitches or something like that but had the previous two games off and monday off so those guys should be ready to go so the nationals should be able to get through these two games without using anyone they don't want to use especially if scherzer is able to go but even if he's not you could probably cobble together these games yeah just using you know the the front line guys yeah i mean if they right if they like if if one of their pitchers gets knocked out in the right third inning then

they won't but that probably then makes it so that we are not really watching yeah anymore anyway uh yeah i mean then the really the the hope that the the nationals are in a situation very similar to what they were in with the dodgers, which is that they were down in the series against a seemingly more talented, more accomplished team and on the road. And that's all really bad. But what they had then was Strasburg and Scherzer going in the final two games. And there's just something about Strasburg and Scherzer, If you having those two that can neutralize every other strength that the opposing team has, I mean,

you, you, you cannot rule out either one of those ever throwing a perfect game and making it so that you, you know, you could be facing an all-star team and it won't matter, which is basically what they are facing in Houston. The difference here is that they,

a don't have, uh, they don't have clarification on scherzer and so that might be a problem and uh b that that that even with that they were still underdogs to the dodgers and they were still underdogs the outsers i i feel like this is not predictive of anything what i'm about to say now next but the thing that has really struck me about the nationals run through this postseason is so they're losing to the brewers and then they finally break through against josh hater and if you were to describe the brewers the strengths and their weaknesses the first strength you might say at that point especially at that point in the season was the bullpen and maybe they're

particularly their closer who just won the reliever of the year award strikes out half the batters he faces is etc etc and so they did not just beat the brewers they they actually beat the brewers because they beat the brewers strength they beat the brewers very best thing and then they go to the dodgers and they beat the Dodgers because they won games four and five. And the Dodgers strength, I would argue that the Dodgers strength is because of the depth they have. And also because of some of the stars that they have, their strength is hitting right-handed pitching. They are, they were, I think the best team in baseball against right-handed pitching this year. They were a 112 win team against right-handed starters they were

a 93 win team against left-handed starters so they're good regardless but 112 win team against right-handed starters they went 76 and 34 they had you know i mean they have they have jock peterson and cody bellinger and cory seager and they had gavin lux and matt baity and they just crush righties and so the nationals throw strasburg and scher Beatty, and they just crush righties. And so the Nationals throw Strasburg and Scherzer at them, and they win both games. And so again, they beat the Dodgers strength. And then against St. Louis, well, they swept St. Louis. So they beat everything about St. Louis.

But Jack Flaherty was Bob Gibson in the second half. He was their strength going into this postseason. He was the one thing that you would point out and say, here's why the Cardinals could do it. They've got Bob Gibson slash, you know, 2015 Jake Arrieta. And, you know, that's enough. Maybe that's enough to get you two or three wins a series. And they crushed Jack Flaherty.

They gave Jack Flaherty his worst start in many months. And then they go to the Astros and they beat Garrett Cole and Justin Verlander in games one and two, which was undeniably the Astros strength among many many many strengths that the astros have but having the greatest top two tandem in at least 17 or 18 years in baseball and one of the top two tandems in history and they beat them both and so they they again they beat the very best part of their opponent and so now they've got you know they've got verlander they've got like they're they're underdogs. This is going to be very hard. But in every case where you've thought, well, this this particular moment does not favor them even more than any other moment. This is where it's really bleak for them. That's when they want. And so who knows, maybe they'll go back to Houston and, you know, do the thing. Back to Houston and, you know, do the thing. Yeah, could certainly happen.

Two other quick things from game five pitcher things. Since we were talking about Martinez and his aggressiveness or lack thereof, I guess you could also make that case about letting Ross hit for himself in the third inning, bottom of the third. So he had gotten through three and it was, I think, one out at that point when Ross came up and top of the order coming up after him by that time it was two nothing Astros but close enough that you might want those runs and you might want a real hitter in there again like I found it hard to fault Martinez because it was like how are you gonna get through this game if you take Ross out now arguably Ross is the worst pitcher on the roster, you could say. He was the last guy added to the roster. He was the guy the Nationals decided they didn't want in the earlier rounds. So maybe it's fine to bring in Fernando Rodney or Javi Guerra

or Tanner Rainey or whoever if you take Ross out. Wander Suero. Wander Suero, your guy, Wander Suero. So yeah, I mean, maybe they could have pinch hit for him even then. It would have been aggressive, but you should be aggressive. And Joe Ross is Joe Ross. So that's another spot where I guess you could point to it and say, yeah, maybe there. And it struck me also that Cole hit for himself in the seventh inning, top of the seventh, of course, and then was brought back out for the bottom of the seventh. And maybe you think, well, yeah, it's Garrett Cole. He was pitching well, and he's the ace, and so you stick with him. But that's not a move that I think would have been made a year ago, probably. Or if it had been

made a year ago, we would have raised our eyebrows a bit. And now we just don't even notice because as it was, he did run into a little trouble in the seventh and he ended up throwing 110 pitches, which just seems routine at this point. And last year, no one threw 110 pitches even once in the entire postseason. And now it's just like someone does almost every day, it seems like. So you don't even think about it. But given that you're thinking about bringing back Cole for game seven, and given that at that point, the Astros had a four-run lead and they had enough bullpen guys available that they shouldn't really have had trouble piecing together three more

innings with fresh arms, that sort of surprised me or at least it would have surprised me last year or the year before and now i just kind of take it for granted because every starter there's a hundred something pitches and goes seven innings these days except joe ross yeah i we i will update the earlier in the postseason fun fact and just note that now if you look at 2018 and 2019 together the 12 longest outings by a starter in those two years have all come this year 12 to get to the i'm going to rephrase that to get to the long to get to 2018 you'd have to go to 13 and then that's not all ben 19 of the top 20 which is crazy when you think about it because i already took the top 12 away from 2019 and then they still after that have seven of the next eight yeah wow gosh it's

changed so quickly and in the direction that we were expecting it not to go it's really wild it really is i mean it it is wild it is also simply by the way i've taken 19 i've taken the top 19 away in the top 20 and they still have six of the next 10 yeah it's nuts it is i mean it is wild in the macro sense but of course as we've said and as everybody else has said it is easily explained by the people involved. This is I don't I don't feel like this is I don't know, I was gonna say I don't feel like this has been a strategic shift so much as a reflection of the people involved in the rotations and in the in the bullpens. But on the other hand, some of it is I mean, some of it some of these moves clearly cannot just be explained by well, they a weak bullpen like the garrett cole one that you

just talked about and like the cardinals continually going deep with uh with their you know relatively mediocre rotation so yeah i know i think it's a it's a mix of both i mean some of these are are moves that just reflect that tanner rainy's the third name on the bullpen chart and then some of them really would have looked outlandish even if you shipped all of these same exact players to the 2018 world series or maybe even the 20 like 17 16 15 world series and one last observation we talked last week about what the astros would do with jordan alvarez in the nl games whether they would bench him and they did bench him for the first two games of that series but then they started him in left field in game five,

and he's the one who hit what turned out to be the game-winning homer. His first homer in 21 games and 71 at-bats. This was just a very long, powerless streak for Jordan Alvarez. And he finally snapped it, just flicked a low-and-away sinker over the left field fence. Then he added a couple more singles later in the game. So I don't know if it was fatigue that caused his slump or contributed to it. But if so, maybe a couple days off helped him. He seems to be back.

And that's pretty big for Houston now going back to AL games, getting the DH back. Now their DH maybe is back to being a difference maker again. All right. So I guess one side effect, one consequence of this being a less than intriguing series is that we have had more mental energy to focus on off the field issues, which should have been big stories regardless. But I think just to update, not necessarily to end, but to bring us up to speed on the whole Astra situation, because we left it in our last episode last week,

that there had, as of yet, been no retraction of the Astros' original statement about the Sports Illustrated report and Stephanie Epstein. So on Friday, after Meg and I recorded, Jeff Luno met with Stephanie Epstein for 15 minutes in the dugout, did not promise her a retraction, which set off another round of what are the Astros doing? How are they mishandling this? And then on Saturday, Jim Crane sent Epstein a letter and did retract it. So it was a short letter. He said, Stephanie, on behalf of the entire Astros organization, I want to personally apologize

for the statement we issued on Monday, October 21st. We were wrong, and I am sorry that we initially questioned your professionalism. We retract that statement, and I assure you that the Houston Astros will learn from this experience. So ultimately, they did the thing that everyone was saying they should do. They fired Taubman. They apologized and retracted the statement. It took them so long, and there were so many fumbles in the process that it's hard to really say bully for the Astros because they mishandled this in so many ways and clearly were content not to do this until they were just dragged for several days about it and then seemingly reluctantly

finally did it. But they have done it, and I suppose from their perspective, that ends this saga. So now we will see if the MLB investigation turns up anything else, leads to any additional discipline, but it seems like the Astros will not, of their own free will, be disciplining anyone who was involved in issuing that statement or doing anything more wide-ranging. So for now, I guess that ends the constant updates about this. But ultimately, I guess we got where they could have gotten days earlier. They could have not gotten themselves into that situation at all where they'd have to issue a retraction by just never issuing the statement in the first place. He says that they'll learn from this.

Maybe they will. I guess we'll see. Yeah. At the very least, you hope that they will learn that by behaving horrendouslyously draggings will follow yes and uh i mean that is not that is not the ultimate lesson that you hope they or any other team would learn from it but i mean it is a it is at least encouraging to see that this was not something that was a one-day story that public pressure did cause it to stay in the public consciousness for a long enough time that we could discuss many different aspects of their behavior so that,

you know, the underlying issues could be re-raised and talked about and not forgotten. And so that some, at least some notion of accountability looked more inevitable than the reverse which is how i think we often feel these days yeah just that you know sometimes it feels like we've never had less power out here it sometimes feels and so it's it i don't know i mean i'm encouraged to know that when when a chorus of criticism lasts for a few days that it doesn't dissipate without consequences and that you can't simply ignore it until it goes away or at least at least the astros can't and that's one lesson that hopefully everybody should should uh should should take because it's very very very damaging when people take the opposite lesson that you can simply dig in and everyone will move on right which is by the

way the lesson of the astros took from one year ago yes i think that's true and i sort of assumed that they would get away with it again because the world series was going on and i figured well everyone's going to be distracted by this but no it kept coming up and people kept talking about it and writing about it and the astros if anything kept fanning the flames by reacting so inadequately to it at first and so yeah ultimately they were pressured into doing something that i highly doubt they would have done otherwise so lastly we'll have plenty of time to talk about all the hirings and transactions that have taken place over the last week got a long off season to talk about all that stuff but any reactions to the more notable stuff we got managerial hirings joe gerardi going to the

phillies and jace tingler to the padres and david ross to the cubs and Jace Tingler to the Padres and David Ross to the Cubs. And then the Pirates at long last actually cleaning house and GM Neil Huntington, who was one of the longer tenured GMs in baseball, is out. And Frank Coonley, the team's president, is out as well. And then you also have the Red Sox hiring baseball prospectus alum Chaim Blum from the Rays, which is pretty significant too. So I don't know that there's anything shocking there. Maybe it's shocking that the Pirates actually changed their leadership, although I think people have long pointed to Bob Nutting and ownership as the problem there. They just haven't spent and probably will continue not to spend. So I don't know that it will matter all that much who's running the show, but they certainly had plenty of chances.

And it's interesting that I think Nutting said something to the effect of, you know, we took a hard look at this because it seemed like our players were not performing up to their potential here. And I think he specifically cited guys who've gone elsewhere and excelled elsewhere. Like all the guys in the Chris Archer trade who went to the Rays. And Garrett Cole and Jordan Miles, I think he mentioned. So in just a short span of four or five years, the Pirates went from the place where people would go to get better to the place people left to get better and now instead of having a book written about them they lose their jobs yeah i say this

totally non-snarkily it would make a great sequel yeah it probably would yeah i mean things change so quickly i guess i guess the mvp machine was that sequel in a way. The Pirates just weren't in it, which was kind of all you need to know, that they were not at the second wave, I guess, of that movement or the first wave. I don't know. They were at the end of the previous wave, whatever it was. The game changed very quickly and then Searidge was gone and now Coonally's gone and Huntington's gone. gone and now Kunali's gone and Huntington's gone. And so now the Red Sox hiring Haim Bloom, who is 36 years old and he's widely respected, of course. I saw a lot of writers saying, you know, or media people saying, oh, great hiring, you know, perfect hiring. And like, I guess I have reservations about saying that about anyone from my perspective. Like bloom certainly appears to be the ideal hiring like he he seems to be the person that if you gave me a team and said you have to hire someone like there's a good chance knowing what i know that i would have hired hi bloom but you know i don't know exactly what he was responsible for the razor sort of secretive i've had some interactions with him. Obviously, he has good taste in podcast co-hosts.

He's the one who hired Jeff. So we had some exchanges about that. And I've talked to him from time to time for other articles. And he's always been very helpful and polished. And he seemed to be genuinely guilty about hiring Jeff away from the podcast which I I sort of appreciated that uh he actually seemed to care that he was disrupting our little show here but if he really cared he would have as his last act he would have fired Jeff right set him free yeah well anyway he's you know he's like if you surveyed every front office and every media person, like he'd be close to the top of the list to like who should be your chief baseball officer. It would be Heimblum. He's just, you know, he oh well of course the the red sox

fired dave dembrowski and they hired heim bloom because they don't want to spend money so they hired the guy from the team that wins without spending money and they got rid of the guy who won by spending the most money and there's certainly something to that i think you know when bloom i think said something about building a, you know, when Bloom, I think, said something about building a sustainable, you know, competitiveness over the long term, etc. And you could translate that as let's get lots of cheap players. And that's part of it. But it's also just like the player development aspect of things. Yes, that is about getting cheap players. It's also about getting players who you can count

on to be good for several years in the future because they're young and they're good already, and you can plan around them and plan for them to be your core for years to come. So now you have the Red Sox essentially importing one of the people primarily responsible for their division rivals success you'd almost think like if you're the Rays like that's like worst case scenario right that Bloom goes to the Red Sox and brings his know-how to the team with a higher payroll much like Andrew Friedman going from the Rays to the Dodgers it's like the the rich teams hire the executives who have been honed by having to succeed with a low payroll, essentially, and having to be creative and innovative. And then they just get snapped up by the team that has a big payroll so that then they get the smart executives who

also have a lot of money. And then it's like, well, there's no stopping them now. So I don't know what you you can't really do anything if you're the rays because this is kind of the convention among teams that if someone is offering you a promotion then you know it's kind of an agreement that you let them interview and you let them go and title inflation can only do so much like bloom is going to be the head of that baseball operations department there and he couldn't have been in tampa without them just you know jettisoning the the people who are in charge there already so there's no way you can keep them but i guess you you hope if you're the

rays that he does not go to one of the teams that you are perennially trying to beat with a much larger payroll but that's what happened yeah yeah i guess i guess if you're really looking for a silver lining about it you might say that you would want that person to go to a market of which i would say there are maybe two or three only where a even a very good gm is likely to be spit up and rejected if a couple of things go against him early like you would kind of maybe want him to go to boston because good gms get fired in boston at like a moment's notice or um you know like friedman has thrived in los angeles where paul de podesta was quite i mean i my recollection is that quite unfairly was not

you know able to thrive Paul DePodesta was not long for that job and so maybe maybe you would rather him go to Boston than to Toronto or Baltimore is the sort of strange big shot galaxy brain take or that or I guess you could, well, if he goes to the team that already has the ability to outspend everyone, they probably would have been good anyway. So maybe the marginal upgrade that you get from Bloom in Boston is not as big as if he had gone to, I don't know, Cleveland or something, right? Like, you know, Red Sox have been pretty successful and they've kind of gone back. This is like more of a it's like going from Charrington to Dombrowski and then going back to more of a Charrington style executive, I most years even with a less able executive and the dodgers even if they didn't have friedman maybe they wouldn't win seven consecutive division

titles but they started winning those division titles before he even got there so that's one slight consolation too i'm just i think that the best thing about all of this is that the best way to make a good off season for us is to have a whole bunch of new GMs like that. That is like, that is fuel for a good off season. You want a bunch of new GMs who are, well, for a bunch of reasons, it's a lot more interesting to analyze a move when it is the first or second or eighth that you get to see from a new GM. the first or or second or eighth that you get to see from a new gm and new gms are acquiring are inheriting teams that are filled with players that they have no you know no no long-term ties to and so they might be uh you know like eager to start acquiring new players we've seen that with with various gms your depotos and your zaidis. And then you also might have the new GM might

have been brought in specifically to take the team in a different direction than they were to sort of change the direction of the ocean liner. And so for a lot of those reasons, I just think that an offseason with a couple or a few new GMs is going to be interesting. I mean, Brody Van Wagenen was the only interesting part of last offseason. to be interesting. I mean, Brody Van Wagenen was the only interesting part of last offseason. Yeah, right. And Bloom was a finalist for that job. I don't know whether he wanted it as much as he wants the Red Sox job. That seems like a better job, even though there's been a lot of turnover there too, or a more desirable one. But he was in strong contention there, and it was very clear that he was going to get this position somewhere in the near future.

And it is kind of cool that there's a former baseball prospectus person who is now running a baseball operations department. Granted, he was an intern for BP, and I think he wrote about eight articles in total. But still. Wow. Is that really all? They have been dining out on that for way too long. Yeah. You know, he may have written for the annual, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure he only wrote like eight articles for the site. How were they?

I don't remember. I'm sure he probably helped out behind the scenes too. Well, now this says his first article was in 1997, and he continued writing for them for it until he joined the Rays. And so that had to have been. So that was eight years. Well, that can't be. So, yeah, there's the first one is 97. The last one's 04. But that 97.

That's what it says. How old was he in 97? He's 36 now. 14. What? the bend how old was he at 97 he's 36 now 14 that's uh okay i don't know i think didn't dave cameron start writing for vp when he was like basically that age so i don't know i think he was a little older i don't know maybe a maybe a timeamp got screwed up in a migration or something. But I don't think he was.

He wasn't there like continuously for that long. Maybe he contributed an article and then he joined on a more regular basis later. I mean, so this, yeah, it could be. You're right, because his second article isn't until 2001. Yeah. This is, and so 97, I wonder if we looked into this if 97 if like that's the default if everything like reverts back to the first date that there were articles in the in the this on this website or something like that could be on this construction of the website

or something like that but let me see i'm gonna look and see if there are any players named in this. This is an article about something. Spring training. John Popper. There's a John Popper reference. There's a John Popper reference, which I believe rules out 97. Because wasn't, didn't that album with the runaround come out in 98? I mean, he could, obviously John Popper was a big thing but would a 14 year old know about pre-breakout john popper that seems unlikely it seems unlikely that a 14 year

old would be writing for baseball prospectus in the first place but yeah i'm saying john popper significantly reduces the likelihood i'm gonna keep looking for clues in this uh mel no uh there's no other there's no other proper nouns here that i can but anyway then it goes four more years until until his second one and yeah he wrote like two a year until what how do you get that job yeah i don't know oh well okay but, the second one, the second article on this refers to this being the second in a series. And the first article in that series does not show up in the archives. So we can confirm that the archives are incomplete. Okay.

So there may have been more. Yeah. I have to correct something. I said that John Popper's big hit runaround was in 1998, but I actually got my summers that I spent visiting my grandparents in North Carolina confused. That was not 1998 that Runaround was on MTV. It was 1995, which would make the 1997 article that Haim wrote, or may have written, who knows, peak Popper. So, in fact, it doesn't disqualify it at all, but strongly suggests that maybe it did come out in 97. But I think that it might be safe to assume that that byline is wrong.

All right. So, you know, regardless of what his status was at BP, it's nice. I think it's a nice thing for Internet people that one of our own, to a certain extent, got this top job because obviously, like... The first in the series is now credited to jonathan bernstein oh and so yeah we've got some problems here all right so but anyway it's you know dozens of internet analysts and writers have been hired by baseball teams now that's hardly even makes us notice unless it's someone you co-host the podcast with but no one to this point had gotten that job. Like we'd have, we'd had internet people running R&D departments like Keith Wollner,

who once co-authored an article with Haim Bloom at BP. He's running Cleveland's analytics department. So we had people in management positions, but not like public face of the team, ultimate decision maker. That was still, I think think a barrier that hadn't been broken so now bloom has broken it yeah the san jose mercury news had an article about farhan's id looking to hire a gm for the giants and they listed 10 10 names 10 possible candidates and as you read this it's it seems i didn't read it that closely but this seemed to be the writer kind of

like informed speculation but these are not named candidates or anything like that. These are not people who had like interviews or anything of the sort. But one of the 10 names was Kevin Goldstein. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's certainly possible to envision. Yeah. And, you know, when I said like, it's hard for me to full-throatedly endorse any hiring. It's not because I have any reservations about

Haim Bloom. It's just like, you know, I don't know him personally all that well. We've talked a few times, but I could vouch for his character or for his acumen as an executive because I just don't know exactly what he has done because so much of that is shrouded in secrecy. So looking from afar, you can only assess with so much accuracy. It's like voting for manager of the year or something. Maybe we're a bit better at knowing how good executives are than we are at managers, but only to a certain extent because there's so many people in a front office and it's kind of a collective effort, but it certainly seems like the person that you would want to pick.

So smart hiring as far as we can tell, which is not that far. All right. So we will end there. And next time we talk, probably we will be recapping the World Series. So talk to you then. All right, everyone. Thank you for listening. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wildild. The following five listeners have signed up to pledge their support, help keep the podcast going, and get themselves access to some perks. Wes Payne, Elijah L., Andy S., Justin Barleben, and Anne-Marie. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can rate, 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. Keep your questions and comments coming for me and Sam and Meg via podcast at fancrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will be back

mid-week to talk about the end of the World Series and then we'll have another episode at the end of the week, maybe summing up the season, looking forward to the off-season, deep thoughts, or maybe just emails, who knows? One way or another, we will talk to you soon. Best pick up your pace And run, run, run, run You must Cause if you walk, you rest You rest. You get crushed from a diamond into thorough dust.