Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1597: The Frantic Wild Card Catch-up

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

During a brief respite between games, Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller catch up on a week’s worth of wild card action, discussing the experience of being bombarded by an unprecedented amount of postseason baseball, the playoff run environment, and the state of postseason strategy, along with observations and takeaways from every wild card matchup and […]

Yeah, they took that truck, and it's up and parked. I could close my eyes, but the fun might stop. And all those crazy people need crazy time. I can't find the time. I can't find the time, I can't find the time for time Hello and welcome to episode 1597 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello Sam. Hello Ben. Finally found the time to talk.

It's been really hard to figure out when to do a podcast because there's been so much baseball. So much baseball. What a week. Yeah, it is a week. It feels like more than that. I keep feeling like we're deeper into the postseason than we are. And then I keep remembering we've been sprinting and sprinting to get to this point, but we're still at the starting block. This this is when the playoffs begin. Usually we still have that many games left and it feels like we've already been through just like a marathon this week. Yeah, I don't know.

Do I need to bring this into it? There was a day with eight games and people were really excited that there were eight games. And then there were other days there was a day with four games and a day with five games. were eight games and then there were other days there was a day with four games and a day with five games and i have to admit that i don't find the eight games to be any more overwhelming than the four or five i know some people really like that feeling of of of chaos and an overlap but i can only really focus on the thing that i'm watching and i can only watch like the day that there were there were eight games i only got to watch three because I started with the Braves and the Reds. And then they went, because of these new postseason rules where they don't start a runner on second base.

Can you believe it? It's weird. It's weird how they changed baseball. Anyway, because of that, then by the time that was over, basically there were, there were no other games. So then I picked up on the, I think I picked up on the Cardinals and the Padres and I got to see the bulk of that. And then that ended. And then I watched Cleveland and the Yankees. And then that went, you know, five, it was like five and a half hours or something. And then by the time that was over, it was like the ninth inning in Los Angeles. Yeah yeah there's like 10 minutes left in the dodger scheme yeah and so the basically like i remember my experience when i was a younger person

and i would look at music festival shows and i'd be like oh my gosh can you believe how many bands are playing and then you go and you're like oh yeah but i mean like the day is still only like there's still only 24 hours in a day and you just end up missing you want to see her on the different stages at the same time right exactly and then if you accidentally end up in like the dance tent and like then like the dance tent is the equivalent of like a 13 inning scoreless game where like before you realize it you've spent like four and a half hours in the dance tent and you missed all sorts of other shows. So anyway, to me, I actually prefer the four day, the four game or maybe a five game is nice

because then there's just enough overlap that you don't have any empty space, which we would have had on Thursday except for the rain out to the eight day, where I feel like the eight day dilutes all of our collective attention and also you you know you're missing things and so it it's weird because when there are four games you feel like oh I don't want to miss any of it I can't miss any of it like you have you have the FOMO right like a game is happening action is happening suspense is happening you gotta see it when there are three or four games going on at once, which happens in the eight-day game with the staggered starts, you have to, like, you just, there's no way to avoid missing a lot of action. And so you,

you just concede. Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. I, I, you remember that there's a lot of sports you don't watch. Right. And, and you resign yourself to that. And so then none of it feels quite so necessary as when you just have the four day, four four-game day, boom, boom, boom, boom. So anyway, yeah, there was a lot of baseball. But I actually felt like Thursday and Tuesday felt like more and more and more immersive and more enjoyable to me. Now, that's because I'm a more of a – I think that there are people who really enjoy the chaos of a thing. And then there are other people who enjoy the sort of dedicated attention to a thing. And I prefer the dedicated attention to the event, like where everybody's watching the same event, rather than like, oh my gosh, 50 things are happening at once.

Like in the 30 for 30, where it was the OJ Chase day. Did you ever see that? Yes. I don't remember any of those things happening i was very focused on the oj chase and so i was not like the the fact that there was like an nba finals game going on at the same time some people really remember that day because they were there was also an i think an nba finals game or something like that going all i remember is the chase and so anyway all, all right. Yeah. No, I felt the same way. And I guess I watched baseball for really like 13 straight

hours or so on Wednesday, and it's the most baseball I've watched in a day. And I still felt like I've missed a lot of stuff. I mean, I've been really like wearing out my last channel button. I know there are other ways to watch. I watched a little of ESPN's Squeeze Play, which is sort of like a red zone for baseball, and our pal Jason Panetti and our other pal Mike Petriello, they've done a great job with that, of course. But I do enjoy watching one broadcast, but I felt like I did have to keep switching back and forth a bit, and I still knew I was missing out. When I look back at some of these series, it's like, oh, I just didn't see as much of that series because it happened to be on at the same time as four other games and I was going between one or the other and maybe it wasn't

as close and it just sort of ended before I even felt like I had really gotten situated in that series. So I do feel that loss a little bit. It was kind of a fun one-time thing. Anyway, I was going to ask how your quote-unquote fall frenzy went, so now I guess I know. Yeah. And I'm not complaining. I don't want it to seem like I'm complaining or anything like that. I want to uplift the Tuesday-Thursday days, which I thought were also classic baseball days. uplift the Tuesday-Thursday days, which I thought were also classic baseball days. Yeah. Even though it was overwhelming at times, I did have a lot of fun this week, and I'm still enjoying it because we're recording early Friday morning when we have a bunch of games ahead of us later today. And I still think the expanded playoff format is a bad idea for any

other season. I hope this never happens again. And yet I can still enjoy this. I can still see the positives in this. And I think that this has hammered home that I really do prefer two out of three to single elimination. I've enjoyed the single elimination wildcard games and the stakes and the suspense and the do or die nature of it. But two out of three, I really just like better. I mean, it feels a little more telling not that it's that telling and there's time for like a little bit of a narrative to build up or like comebacks to happen or you can sort of sit on a series for a little bit and think about what's coming and one game can be affected by the previous game So there's some continuity and a story builds up over the

course of it. So I really do prefer this, I think. And if we just went to two out of three for the wildcard round in the future, which I don't really think will happen, I would be happy about it. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I agree with that. All right. So let's go around the horn here, I guess, and kind of catch up as well as we can. I've jotted down a few notes just to try to keep some of this stuff straight in my mind. And it's hard to switch into this mode where we analyze individual games or even best of three series as if they're very meaningful. very meaningful. I always find that sort of a difficult thing to do when suddenly we roll around to October and it's like, oh, I have to write about a game. I never write about a game. What do you even find out in a game? But of course you learn maybe not a lot in these games, but they still matter quite a bit. So if we can just skim over these series at least, and we'll see if we have anything to say. Dodgers Brewers

wrapped up on Thursday night and I don't have too much to say about that series because the Dodgers just went about their business and the Brewers bowed out quickly and with no Corbin Burns and no Devin Williams it made it feel like even more of a mismatch but Kershaw was incredible obviously and even though the Brewers lineup is not particularly imposing, he was great. And it was just a pleasure to watch him. And I wasn't even thinking about the Kershaw narrative all that much. It just it feels like we're stuck with that unless he wins the World Series. We're just sort of stuck with the Kershaw playoff narrative. And no matter how good he is in a wild card game it's not going to end those questions forever and frankly that's understandable like he really has pitched worse in the playoffs than in the regular season by a significant degree so i get it but it was fun just to sort of watch him be his vintage self i mean not totally his self. He doesn't throw as hard as he did when he was young, but we've talked throughout the season about his resurgence and how he's

gotten some of that speed back. And it's really made a huge difference because now there's actually a separation between some of his breaking balls and he still throws a ton of curves and sliders, like more breaking balls than anyone else, but he can now dial it up at least into the low 90s a little bit and it was just kind of a clinic so I really enjoyed the Kershaw start without thinking about any of the baggage associated with Kershaw starts in October in general yeah the Brewers I mean if there is a memory of the weakened field of a 16 team playoff series it's definitely going to be the Brewers being in it, which isn't to say that the Brewers couldn't have gone somewhere

if they hadn't lost their best starter and arguably their best reliever, as was really hammered home. They might have been able to, but you only need two wins. We talk about this small sample of a three-game series, but of course, this is an obvious point. It only needs to be two games, and the Brewwers could definitely have won two days against the dodgers but when you watch this you know when you when you watched it like on paper and when they show the lineups and when the you know season stats pop up for each batter's first plate appearance and when they show

who's warming up in the bullpen and and when they show the the you know the dugout and all that you just go wow that's like so many of the good players in this game are on the dodgers and the brewers really like will be remembered not they probably won't be remembered but i will remember them as being you know the the a very very poor poor, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is this off season, when we're talking about expanded playoffs, I think a lot of people are going to go, come on, the Brewers made it last year. Like the Brewers last year made it. Can you believe the Brewers made it last year? Do we really want to have the Brewers in the postseason? There were a lot of references. This is a bigger point, but there were a lot of references to the is a bigger point, but there were a lot of references to the Brewers' batting average that they hit.223.

And this was the year of really lousy batting averages across baseball. And it is really crazy to think that a team with a.223 batting average is in the playoffs. And it's not crazy. I guess what I mean to say is that if you told the 2000 version of you and me that a team with the 223 batting average was going to make the playoffs, there would have required a lot of explanation. And the Brewers' batting average isn't even the most.

The Cubs have a lower batting average. The Reds had a lower batting average. 212. The Reds had a 245 BAB which is incredible and so i've been thinking a lot watching these games about like as these batting averages just cycle through like you know gary sanchez had a 150 batting average and i think the the roberto perez the cleveland catchers collectively had like a i think like a 139 batting average. And so the experience of watching the Brewers, oh, that, I remember what I was going to say,

Christian Jelic, who it was, it's been very hard. It's been very hard to watch him all year, to watch him struggle and to watch him try to find his timing all year long. Even from the first weekend of the season he came up in a huge situation i in i think in the second game of the season and like had a batted bat in like a like a really big situation in a late in the game extra innings and ever since then it's just been a struggle to kind of watch him try to find his timing but christian yelich winning two batting titles and then hitting 205 uh might be one of be one of the great low batting average things of this year.

I mean, so many low batting averages. So they would just cycle through. These brewers would come up and be like, oh, you know, here's a pretty good hitter. Maybe he'll get a hit. And then it's, oh, he's hitting 176. Oh, Kesson Hira, he's really good. He's great. Oh, he's hitting good he's great oh he's hitting he hit 212 you know

ryan braun ryan braun bounce back year no no 233 there's a lot of low batting averages yeah and i don't want to i feel bad for saying this but like i'm kind of relieved that the brewers didn't upset the dodgers i mean not that i that I'm rooting against the Brewers for any personal reason or antipathy toward that franchise. It's just like, hey, I want to see the Dodgers. They're the best team. They have all these great players. While it would sort of illustrate the vagaries of the 60-game season and the 16-team playoff format and everything, if the Brewers knocked off the Dodgers, I don't want to see that. I want to see Mookie Betts and Clayton Kershaw

and all these great players play for a while longer. So sort of happy that that happened, I guess. Yeah, I'm not taking this season too seriously, but I will say that I do truly resent that the tiebreaker was best record in your division. And I will always hold it against the Brewers truly resent that the tiebreaker was best record in your division and i do not i i will i will always hold it against the brewers that they made the playoffs because of that tiebreaker i find that tiebreaker to be so so lazily thought out so just such an affront to logic that uh any other

tiebreaker any anything in fact it it is the worst tiebreaker because it is so linked to the already pre-existing imbalance schedule. If they had chosen any other random detail that tells you nothing about the team but throws a little kink into it, if they had said best record on Wednesday, I would have said fine. Those are the rules but this tiebreaker is such a bad tiebreaker so yeah and i i saw ken rosenthal tweet about this but teams from the al central went one and six in the wild card round teams from the nl central are one and four not that 12 games means that much or you know the fact that they're two in 10 means so yes they were actually terrible but there was some weakness i think there that was camouflaged because these

teams were just playing each other all the time right and so you can't tell when you looked at the stats because the stats are against the same players but it's like oh well these teams are just not as good and they were kind of you, feasting on each other all year. Yeah, Jeff Passan had something. I got roped into a thing where Jeff had mentioned me in a tweet. And so then I got all the replies for like four days. And I guess he had maybe said something about the Reds had faced like a poor competition or something and somebody replied if if the division was so weak how come four teams made the playoffs right it's like they're

only playing there is no they're completely isolated from the other divisions there is no way to tell you can't even tell they're in a silo. It is like saying, well, it's not even like it's not they don't really have a bullpen monster or bullpen monsters. Like it's a good bullpen. Everything about the Dodgers has been good. But when Jansen pitched and his velocity was significantly down and then he was not in the same situation in game two, which may or may not have meant anything. Dave Roberts said he's still the closer. And it's not like Jansen was peak Kenley during the regular season anyway. But it's a very good pen. peak Kenley during the regular season anyway but

it's a very good pen there are a lot of good options but even like Gratterall or Jake McGee don't necessarily give you the same feeling of safety and security that a lot of other teams top one or two guys do so it's deep but it feels like it's not quite as elite at the back end of that bullpen. So I wouldn't feel entirely out of it if I were down against the Dodgers late. But, you know, there's so many guys like Adam Kolarik or whoever else they can just mix and match, even if there isn't like a Nick Anderson or a Chapman or a Britton or, you know, someone of that caliber back there. Can I interest you in a Victor Gonzalez? Sure. Do you know Victor Gonzalez?

Yeah, but enlighten me about him. I mean. Well, 20 innings, 23 strikeouts, two walks, a 1.33 ERA, 1.something something FIP. It's very good. I'm not saying that he is your bullpen monster, but you never know who the bullpen monster is going to be by the end of four rounds of playoffs. It's true, and it's hard to say because sometimes someone will have

a dominant 10 or 20 innings in a bullpen, and Jeff Sullivan would blog about them, and sometimes they would continue to be great like Nick Anderson, but other times it would not continue, and you'd wonder what was going on in those 10 to 20 innings. And so it's hard to say because that's the whole season now. It's, yeah, extremely hard. Okay, so Reds-Braves, that's the other NL series that's over, and we were just talking about the Braves and their low batting average,

and they certainly showed that in this series. So credit to Max Fried and Ian Anderson, of course. Those guys are good and were good. But the Braves, you mentioned that this was a matchup of the highest BABIP team and the lowest BABIP team during the regular season. The Braves had a 322 BABIP, and the Reds were at 245. And I do feel like the Reds were a little bit snake bitten all year. And maybe even in this series, like I kept thinking they were going to hit more than they did and maybe I was overrating their offense, but like 245 BABIP, I don't think anyone has a deserved 245 BABIP really. If you look at their quality of contact and their expected weighted on base and everything, they were better than their actual results and better than some other playoff teams.

And even in this series, like there was some lousy cluster luck going on where, you know, there would be hits sort of spread out instead of in the same inning so that they could score. So they did not score at all in 22 innings. And it was sort of a ignoble exit from the playoffs. And they were a trendy pick. I picked them to win this series. I think a lot of people did just based on the strength of the starting pitching. But you do have to score a run at least to win a game. And it's two games games so again it doesn't like mean anything larger about the reds but it was kind of a continuation of a weird thing that seemed to happen with them all year yeah i mean just what are you gonna do yep i don't know yeah so i i think that one game though the the 13 inning game one there were so many strikeouts in that game and so many rallies,

not even rallies, but like threats. I mean, you know, the Reds would get guys in scoring position over and over and it just felt like sort of oppressive for the first time to me, like the playoff brand of baseball that just amps up strikeouts and walks and home runs and everything. Like the three true outcomes rate so far this season has been like 39% in the playoffs, which would be a new high. I mean, it's always a new high. It's a new high during the regular season every year. And then the playoffs are always a few percentage points higher. It's like the playoffs are like a preview of what the regular season will look like

a few years later, basically, just, you know, after all of those rates rise as they continue to do. And in that game, it felt a little bit like, gosh, like no one can score. Like the pitchers are too good. There's so many strikeouts. Even if you get someone in scoring position or on third base with no outs or one outs, like you just can't push anyone across. And like, there are plenty of high scoring games in these playoffs, but so much of it is home run dependent. And I don't

mind that so much when runs are actually being scored, but when runs are not being scored, it just feels like futility and flailing over and over again. Not to discount, I mean, Trevor Bauer's good and Max Fried is good and a lot of those relievers are good, but it just felt a little bit like this is too much maybe of the no contact kind of baseball. Yeah. I mean, I, I don't, I think that pretty much everybody agrees about that and, uh, it feels more true every year. Yeah. You know, I think that watching Clayton Kershaw strikeout 13 in a dominant performance is definitely more enjoyable than it used, you know, than it is watching, you know, Clayton Kershaw strikeout four in a dominant performance from

1987. I think that in, for the extreme pitching performances or for, you know, like when you're seeing the best pitcher pitching at his very best, it can be fun to watch this style of play to see. I mean, it's like watching the dunk competition in 2020 versus watching the dunk competition in, you know, 1989. The level of, you know, athletic achievement is made a lot more clear, and you can really appreciate what these pitchers are doing. But yes, when you're watching eight games in a day

and they all kind of look like this to some degree, it is, I agree, oppressive. Yeah. All right. Well, sorry I don't have more to say about the Reds and the Braves, but it was two games and the Reds didn't score. So that kind of is your takeaway from that series, I think. from a team that couldn't pitch but hit pretty well to a team that pitches great but can't hit or at least hasn't had the results it's like if they could just put those two things together i guess they'd be the dodgers but they're not they're one or the other so it hasn't worked out that well well they can hit i mean they they can hit they had they had a good offense they they

just hit they had a 245 babbitt in the regular season and then they had a bunch of you know bad cluster luck in the postseason i mean they didn't earn they didn't earn victories and so you can't say that they uh deserved any better but if you're looking at them as a franchise as a collection of players and how well they're set up for next year and various other things they do seem to have talented offensive players and it was a good team i picked them to win not just this round but the next round too yeah me too yeah so i guess maybe we uh underrated the braves or maybe not because it was two games so all right there are two series that are still in progress here in the nl cardinals

padres is uh still going i'm glad to say is not over yet. We are getting a third game today. And this series, the Padres were kind of down before it began in a similar way that the Brewers were because two of their best pitchers are not available for this series. No Clevenger, no Lumet, and their status is uncertain for future rounds if they make it there, particularly Clevenger. And so they had to start Chris Paddock, which would have been a good thing last year and is less of a good thing this year. And they have had to fight it out, and it looked like they were on the verge of elimination in that second game, and then they fought back in a very Padres fashion. And while it has felt like it's difficult to come back in the playoffs now, it's difficult to score runs when you have runners in scoring position.

Maybe the Padres are an exception to that because it really is a very explosive offense, obviously, as they showed. And they're just so exciting. as they showed and they're just so exciting and it was so fun to see Fernando Tatis get to do his thing on the postseason stage and Manny Machado and Will Myers I mean there's so much offense and I almost pity the Cardinals because they made it here too in a less impressive fashion and they're just like the opposite of the Padres when it comes to, I don't know, watchability, how riveting they are, how sensational they are. They're just like a very good defensive team with a lot of the same players we've seen play in the postseason before. Not a ton of stars, just a bunch of, you know, kind of good players who have combined to form a pretty decent team. And then you have the Padres where you're just

seeing all these superstars who play in this engaging way and so a part of me just wants the Padres to keep playing because I feel like that would be good for baseball and good for my own personal entertainment for the next few weeks yeah it's a travesty that Clayton Kershaw didn't get to complete the game by the way he should have been able to complete the game um he only threw 93 pitches yeah he he was within range of like one of the best postseason game scores like of all time exactly my colleague zach cram was looking that up during the game so that would have been nice i think like uh i mean sure you know save his arm like do whatever you can to make him continue to

be good when it really matters but yes i would have liked to see him get up to like 15 strikeouts and a complete game shutout. That would be nice. Yeah. And save his arm. Aren't there like three days off now? Yeah. I mean, there's no baseball till next week if you're done with your series. Yeah. So you don't even really like if assuming that you're comfortable letting Walker Bueller start game one, you don't even need to save his arm. It's full rest for him if he comes back for game two of the NLDS and 93 pitches, you know, he anyway, you got it. I think that when you're dealing with Clayton Kershaw, you have to be respectful of the fact that he is a historically significant figure. And when you give him the chance to make a certain kind of history or to do the sort of thing that ends up being one of the dozen things people mention, let him go get it. What were we talking about?

We were talking about the Cardinals who were boring and the Padres who, when you're watching the Padres, when you're watching, anytime you turn on the Padres at any point in any game, any point in any game, no matter how far behind or how far ahead they are or how boring or how exciting the game is, you would swear that they are no worse than the second best team in baseball. You just, like whoever's on the screen, you know, you put any combination of two Padres together in a shot, you're like, man, that team has a lot of talent. Yeah, it's really fun. And it does sort of like watching Tatis succeed almost instantly in the postseason makes me feel for like Felix Hernandez or Mike Trout, like these players who were also great and have played for a lot longer and just never got that chance. We'd never get

to see them do this. They could do it. They would have these indelible moments if their teams were good enough to get them there, but they're not. And so either they never make the playoffs or they barely make it, and that's a shame. But I should probably fixate less on who is not here and fixate more on the fact that Tatis is here. So this has been really fun.

The other, on the last day of the season, they were kind of, they started polling good players because it was the last day of the season for them. And so the, the Giants were trying to come back and the Padres didn't really care that much.

And so they, they removed Tatis and they removed Machado and then they had, they had an injury to their catcher. And so then they had to bring uh Austin Nola in from DH to catch and so then they lost the DH spot and so now they had they had you know some backup playing for Tatis they had some backup playing for Machado and they had the pitcher batting and I thought well maybe this will now the Giants you know they have a big advantage and then I looked and I was like, the Padres lineup is still really good. Like right now in this state, the Padres lineup is still really good.

They had, they still had six good hitters in that lineup somehow. Did you know that they had an on-base percentage in the ninth spot of 385? I did not know that. That's pretty good. That's a all-time record by 10 points helps that it's a 60 game season but they also didn't it's not like they were doing that thing where they were doing like a second leadoff man in the ninth spot they weren't burying a pretty good hitter their ninth spot was where they put their ninth best hitter yeah i mean their ninth

spot did better than than that this year they They ended up getting a lot of really good performances out of players when they were batting ninth. But they, you know, they threw. Okay, so the Padres are really good in the Cardinals. Seems like Harrison Bader bats 14 times a day. Yeah, yeah. They're all really good at defense. That's what I can say about the Cardinals. Yeah, with the Padres, it's like even Will Myers. Like Will Myers was like the weak link. He was like they were trying to trade spot for him. And it seemed like he was basically being lapped by this new generation of Padres

and that he wasn't really going to be a part of their new success. And then he comes out and slugs 6-0-6. And again, you know, 60-game season or 55 in his case. But he looked like a different and better hitter to the extent that we can tell so even he was great anyway it's a deep team a very fun team and we'll talk about them more after they play again and uh last nl series cubs marlins i really don't have much to say here because there's been only one game and yeah okay Okay. So they played two. That's what we can say.

And I guess the only observation is that they were rained out in that second game. And so they had to wait to see when their game was going to be. Instead of just saying it will be at this time or it'll be on this day, I guess, to maximize ratings. The idea was that we would slot in the Cubs-Marlins game whenever we needed it. So it would be an afternoon game if there was still going to be a night game, a higher profile game on Friday. And if not, then this would slot into the primetime spot. And so they just sort of had to wait, I think, for that Padres game to be over to know when they had to start. And I think they could have had to wait even for the Dodgers game to be over in a different scenario where the Padres had lost. So

that's sort of tough for them and their starters to not know when they're going to play. But I guess that just sort of accentuates that this series has been relegated to the last spot in terms of entertainment just because of these two teams and because they haven't played as much. So we'll catch up on them when they catch up on the other teams. All right. So AL series, Yankees and Cleveland. I thought, I guess, like the Reds and Braves series a little bit, it was two teams just sort of like one was playing up to its talents and showing its strengths and the other was not. I mean, I guess in the Reds and Braves series that kind of played out like you would have expected if you had exaggerated their regular season performance. Like, oh, the Reds are not great at offense and can pitch, and the Braves can hit really well,

although there were worries about the Braves' rotation, and that was not a concern in this series. But with Yankees and Cleveland, it was like, all right, you have the team that allowed the fewest runs in baseball this year and the team that scored the most runs in the American League and now has this fully healthy lineup, and so which one will work in these two or three games and will good pitching beat good hitting or the other way around and it was the other way around

so really I mean Shane Bieber had his worst start of the season Brad Hand blew his first save of the season James Karinczak allowed his second career home run, and it was a big one. And meanwhile, Garrett Cole was dominant, and the Yankees slugged seven homers, and that's kind of what it came down to. So again, it's just two games and weird things happen. So I think what was a relief to me sort of in this series, and I wrote about this in a recap after that extraordinarily long game, which lasted almost five hours and was the longest nine-inning game ever of any kind. I think there were people who were demanding the firing of Aaron Boone and demanding the firing of Sandy Almar Jr. in that game for managerial moves. And always switch into like hyper focus on the manager mode in

October which is understandable and I get why we get mad about moves that managers make but I just felt like this should be an afterthought in this series and in this game and I sort of got sick of focusing on whatever it was like Aaron Boone pinch running for Luke Voigt sort of early in that game or, you know, the bullpen moves that he made or didn't make or the moves that Alomar made or didn't make. It was like, I don't want to be thinking about Aaron Boone or Alomar. Like I want to be thinking about, you know, the best players doing the best things or failing to deliver those best things so like in that game it was like you got to see for me it was like about geo or shella and it was about john carlos stanton and you know it was about garrett cole in that series or shane bieber not doing what he was supposed to do or like that

was what i wanted to focus on more so than whether a certain move was made that might have changed the the win expectancy by one to two percent you know like we we focus too much on that stuff and ultimately it is the players it's like Jose Ramirez playing like an MVP or whatever and I think in that series there was a good illustration of that because like with Alomar in game two, he made what I thought was a good move, which was bringing in Karinczak in the fourth inning with the bases loaded and no outs. Like that was ultra aggressive. That was the sort of thing we praised Terry Francona for doing in 2016. You know, Karinczak had never entered a game earlier than the sixth.

And here he was saying, OK, it's the playoffs. All rules are out the window. And then Karinczak gave up a grand slam to Gio Urshela and it backfired spectacularly. Well, because Ben, he wasn't used to being in that position. I guess you could say that too. Yeah, you can't put players in positions that you haven't prepared them for all season. There is absolutely no way to win. If a player fails, there's no way to win if a player fails i know right there's no way to win as a manager yeah and then the other big move in that game which was pinch hitting for josh nailer which like by the way like he's josh nailer like everyone was talking about him as if i said it's like this guy is like jim tommy meets brian giles all of a sudden and it's like

look at his numbers like his career stats i mean it's not a huge. And it's like, look at his numbers, like his career stats. I mean, it's not a huge sample, but he's not a good hitter or he hasn't been to this point. Like he was lousy down the stretch. And then suddenly he goes four for four with a homer and gets a double earlier in that game. And it's like, oh my gosh, he's going to pinch hit for the hottest hitter on earth. It's like, it's still Josh Naylor. Like it's still him so i didn't get that at all and and i kind of applauded alomar for not buying into like the last five plate appearances but then he brought in jordan luplo who you know was then turned around because boone went from britain to luizaga and suddenly luplo is batting against a righty and historically he's been

terrible against a righty and so I don't know if that was actually the right move like aside from the fact that Naylor had had a good game and a half basically but like that worked out great because Luplo had a double and scored a couple runs and suddenly everyone went from Sandy Almar Jr. is you know what is he thinking pinch hitting here to oh he's brilliant and he must know his players and his personnel and you can't question it because it worked out so well so it's just nonsense and if i'm remembering right loop lows double that was the play that like hicks got kind of spun around and could very easily have been caught too so hard hit so even even i mean in in all of these scenarios

not only could a totally different thing have happened in in every case like loop low could have struck out and it wouldn't have made the move any different but you know like even once the play was 85 done it still could have gone the other way like you know hicks could have caught the ball it there's it's just very hard hard to make too much out of what happened. Kevin Cash, I guess I heard this quote secondhand, but was talking about how in these two-game wildcard series, it's like managing three game sevens in a row, which is just on a literal level not true.

It's like managing a game five, six, and a seven. We actually have a precedent for this. Which is just on a literal level not true. It's like managing a game five, six, and a seven, right? It's like we actually have a precedent for this. It's every time a series gets to 2-2 in a seven-game series, then you have a best of three. And so it's not really like managing three game sevens in a row. It's like managing a game five and a game six and a game seven. But I think that Cash is kind of right, that have become that we have become like really obsessed with with treating every game almost as a must win and so you have to bring in your your like we we have very little tolerance for any team ever using their second best pitcher in any situation unless

they're up three games to none in a series or whatever and so you end up with you know liam hendricks throwing 49 pitches because he got brought into a five run game in the eighth inning of uh you know of a the second game of a three game series and i haven't i haven't developed what i'm gonna say next all that well so um it might end up sounding dumb and maybe i'll end up uh recanting but i feel like we have to get more used to teams losing games in the postseason in multi-game series that you don't have to win every one. They aren't must-win.

The only must-wins are the deciding games. Now, obviously, you want to win all of them, and in a playoff series, everything is very tense, and it's not like the regular season. But a lot of managing in the regular season is accepting that there are going to be some losses and you, you have to manage around some losses. And in the post season, there are also going to be some losses. It's okay to lose a game every once in a while. You don't have to bring in Liam Hendricks in a five run game. You can use your second best reliever in that situation. That's okay. We're going to let you

go. If you do that, or even your third best reliever, or maybe even your sixth best reliever. It's okay. So what I'm saying is give managers a lot more leeway to manage over the course of a whole series instead of having to win every single play all the time. So I'm saying that the exceptions are in true win or go home games. Like in a game seven, we can overanalyze manager moves. We can be just as demanding and unforgiving as we are in those games. And then in the World Series,

once you get to the World Series, then we can overanalyze everything. But I think even in the second game of a made-up playoff round, I think it's okay to let managers kind of float around and try to find the right combinations of players and maybe use the wrong reliever or the wrong pinch hitter or the wrong pinch runner without us treating it like the defining moment of their career and they need to be fired yeah well it's a reflection of just how much the emphasis has shifted from the regular season to the postseason i think it's like if you don't win this two out of three made up round like your your whole year is a waste or something like no one gives you any credit for anything. It feels like it was all for naught,

which should not be the case. Like at least in a normal season, if you made the playoffs or if you won your division, then that should be an accomplishment. You should feel like that was a success. It doesn't have to be all about whether you happen to get hot for a few weeks in October, and that's the only thing that determines success. So I don't know. I mean, obviously teams evaluate things that way to an

extent, but I don't know if fans do. I don't know if fans say enough, you know what, that was a good year. And we lost in this weird, fluky part of the year that is separate and this strange tournament that doesn't really reflect true talent but we had a good run to get there and that's impressive and i enjoyed the journey so i think it's okay to to have that stance too all right a's white socks uh i'm happy that the a's won a playoff series i feel sad sad to say this to all the White Sox fans out there, but I did not have it in me to watch the A's lose this series. I couldn't handle it. It was the most sympathetic to the feelings of the team

that I think I've been in a long time. We're going to talk about the Twins. The Twins obviously have this game. In Cleveland, right? They lost 10 straight elimination games. I guess so. With the Twins, though, it's a thing that we talk about and it's a thing that players have to kind of answer the pre-game questions for but it's all it's pointed out and

it's true that none of the twins were there in 2003 none of them not the manager not the GM not the players nobody nobody was there in 2003 it's it is ancient history all they really have for their history is the last few years. And this is obviously disappointing for them to get bounced. And it's hard for the Twins, too. They built a really good team. But with the A's, this really is one long storyline about Billy Bean. And the it's, you know, there's a ton of continuity in that organization. A lot of the people in the in the organization have been there through this whole time. And in some ways, the A's have been like a continual storyline for all of us since they brought us into into that since 2003 and Moneyball and all of that 2002 and Moneyball and all that brought so many of us into this you know online baseball world and i just could not i i i don't i don't i don't know like in 2006 or 2005 or or around that time if the a's had won i would have been like trying to find some old school baseball fans so that i could like do a touchdown dance in front of them and point at the scoreboard and see, see, ha ha, funny ball wins. I don't care about any of that. I'm not like looking for validation or vindication or anything of the sort.

I'm emotionally detached from the A's ultimate success, but the A's continued failure I am extremely not detached from. And if they had lost another first round I just I just don't think that I was gonna enjoy watching that and when it seemed like they were gonna lose that it was pretty painful and I was very happy that they managed to hang on yeah I mean I'm sorry to see the White Sox go I am because that's they're really fun super fun team yeah much like the Padres so much like the Padres. So much like the Padres. Maybe not quite to the same extent where you're overwhelmed by the talent, but definitely in terms of entertainment.

I mean, when you go from like Luis Robert crushing the second longest homer of the year to Nick Madrigal with a completely different but also entertaining game to Abreu and Grandal and on and on, like that is an incredibly fun team. And I guess the solace you can take is that they'll probably be back many times with this core, I would think. So we'll see them again. But yeah, I am happy for the A's that they won. Happy for Atlanta that they won for the first time in quite a while.

Anyway, I guess the notable thing, and you already touched on the Liam Hendricks usage in this series, but in game three, I mean, that was wild because it was very clear early on that it was going to be a bullpen game. And the whole time I was thinking, how are they going to get through this game? Particularly the White Sox, just like looking at the pitchers that they had left. And I just got done saying that we focus too much on managers, but this was a game where the manager mattered. And a lot of people are mad at Rick Renteria for how he handled this game. I feel for him because clearly he was counting on more from Garrett Crochet. You know, I'm sure he was hoping to get at least a couple innings from him. And as it

turned out, he throws nine pitches and has a forearm pain and has to leave the game. And that really just threw a wrench into their whole plan for getting through that game, I think. But even so, like, it felt like he was so aggressive from the start. It's like you start with Dane Dunning and there's a single and suddenly you have someone up in the pen. And if you're the White Sox, like, do you really have enough good pitchers in your pen that you can give Dane Dunning a leash that's like one single long? Like, first of all, a single doesn't tell you anything about that pitcher. It's not like, oh, he gave up a single. He doesn doesn't have it today so if you liked him one batter ago then you you should probably still like him now it's not like you can just bring in your

bullpen monster in the first inning to get out of a gym because there are many more innings left to go after that and i i did predict you know pick that that the a's would win the series based on not very much really but if it was based on anything, it was that I felt like they did have this very deep pull pen and I wasn't as confident in the White Sox staff beyond the top guys. And that came into play here, I think, a little bit. But it was like such a quick succession of pitchers that if you'd had a different team with a different collection of pitchers, maybe you could had a different team with a different collection of pitchers, maybe you could get away with that. But it just didn't seem like the White Sox could

with the guys that they had on hand. And, you know, like they almost did. They didn't get blown out or anything. It could have gone very differently. But that was just so aggressive that I wasn't sure it fit the talent they had on hand. Yeah, yeah. I would just like to note with appreciation that two big rallies were started with two out walks. And baseball, like we were talking about, the strikeouts and the walks and the long grindy at bats and all that, part of the reason that it can feel, I guess one of the times when I feel most kind of bored by it

is when you see a 10-pitch at bat with two outs and nobody on and the batter walks and you're like, well, there's no way he's coming around. He's not coming around to score. Two-out walks feel worthless to me. I just want you to swing for the fences early in a count with two outs. And both of those two-out walks ended up coming around to score. both of those two out walks ended up coming around to score. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, there have been a lot of walks. Like, anecdotally, I mean, in certain games, like the five-hour Cleveland-New York game, there were, I think, what, 19 walks? It was tied for the most walks in a nine-inning postseason game. Feels like there have been a lot of guys with lousy command

and a lot of really bad base running, like guys getting picked off and running into outs neither of us has seen every play of every game and i'm not basing this on anything concrete but i've seen all of them okay well there have been an awful lot of bad base running outs and pitchers who just couldn't find the plate and i don't know if that means anything like i heard broadcasters saying well maybe it's because they didn't have a full spring training and they didn't get to practice this or whatever but i don't know i feel like major leaguers probably should be a little bit better than that it's interesting that right we neither of us has seen all the games or probably

even i don't know i don't know how many what percentage of batters do you think you've seen 30 30 i've watched a lot i've watched a lot i've watched every minute that baseball could be watched i think with i get a few minutes here or there that i missed but maybe 30 or 40 anyway it's interesting because you and i i think have come away with one anecdotal difference agreed on the base running but my feeling has actually been that for the most part with a with a couple of exceptions there have been a couple of um pitchers that have come in and not been able to throw strikes. But I feel like this postseason has really been a great example if you wanted to point out to somebody the difference between control and command and what we mean when we distinguish or when we differentiate. And I think it's long been controversial.

Like, is there even a difference between control and command? controversial like is there even a difference between control and command control being uh generally used to to refer to the ability to avoid walking batters and command being the ability to locate pitches and to you know be put the ball where you want it within the strike zone or on the edge of the strike zone and those two things seem like they're describing the same skill basically being able to put the ball where you want it but in a crucial way you can choose to pitch in a way that leads to walks a lot of walks or a fair amount of walks even if you have good command and i feel like i've seen a a lot of pitching in this postseason where the pitcher had good command very good command maybe even great command but because they're so cautious they're so afraid of

getting beat on one mistake over the plate that there's a lot of refusal to come into the strike zone a refusal to avoid the edges and a lot of very cautious pitching where the pitchers almost seem to accept that walking two batters is the price of avoiding two home runs in an inning. And so I have actually felt like we've seen a lot of really great pitching, but a strategic choice to be very risk averse, a particular type of risk averse in pitching style. Yeah. Well, batting averages have gotten so low that, well, in one sense, you can be a little less afraid of that because it's less likely that teams are really going to string together two or three hits and score someone who's on first. On the other hand, you don't want them to hit a two-run homer or a three-run homer

either. But it just feels like, don't know if if people have adjusted to that like joshian was talking about you know he doesn't think third base coaches have been aggressive enough in letting guys try to score because like having someone on third or second like it's scoring position but scoring position doesn't mean what it once did really i mean you're a lot less likely to get that base hit that will actually drive you in from that base and meanwhile there are more likely to be homers that can put you in scoring position anywhere but really like you're you're less likely to see that string of hits you're always less likely to see that in the postseason but particularly today yeah yeah i think i i would

just i might be totally wrong i might might be imagining it, but watch. And I think you'll see two things. You'll see a lot more pitchers basically dotting fastballs off the edge of the strike zone on like 1-0. They're like, they're not trying to get back into counts in the same way. And the other thing is that there's a lot of talk about pitching backward and pitchers throwing breaking balls on 3-1. And that's, I think there's some truth to that,

but it's not that they're throwing sliders in the strike zone. They're throwing back foot sliders on 3-1. You see a lot of swing and miss breaking pitches in hitters' counts. And that, to me, is like doubly backward pitching. And it's really interesting. Yeah. Well, I thought it was entertaining when hendrix came in i really didn't think he was gonna come in in game three i mean

49 pitches and looked gassed when he came in in his earlier appearance and you just don't see many teams bringing back relievers period on back-to-back days that's getting rarer and rarer and to do it after that kind of pitch count is maybe unprecedented this season, I think. So I get that it's the playoffs and everything, but that's the point where you just have to wonder, A, are you endangering this person because he's not conditioned to do that? But B, is he going to give you what you think he's going to give you? Is he going to have anything? And he was kind of wild. Like he was all over the place, but he was still throwing really hard. And that was good enough.

And it was like fun to watch him sort of, you know, dig deep and rear back and do that and everything. But also like this is the wild card round. You know, like there's a lot more baseball you hope to come. And so you don't want to gas your best guy this early on. But, you know, that was a must-win game. That really was one. So I guess that's what happens. All right. Astros twins. Poor twins is the big takeaway here. I think a lot of people picked the twins to win the series. I did. They were the favored team. They were the better team during the regular season. And it just didn't happen.

Yet again, they came up short, 18 straight playoff losses. And that's like the dominant storyline, which is kind of a bummer for everyone on this team because it's not like they lost all those games. It's not like they had anything to do with most of those games. And yet they have to hear about all of those games forever until they win one or get a playoff series under their belt. And the Astros, I guess what I was saying before the series started is that a lot of these names are still pretty impressive on the Astros. And they're kind of the ultimate team where if you look at their stats from this year, you think, eh. But if you look at the track records, you think, hey, these guys are still pretty good. Like, what does it mean that Altuve didn't hit this year or Bregman didn't hit this year or, you know, didn't hit as well as he usually does or that other guys had down years? And of course, everyone is thinking along right now. Well, it's because they didn't know what was coming.

Of course, everyone is thinking along right now, well, it's because they didn't know what was coming. Regardless, I don't really believe that was the main factor there. And you kind of could envision a scenario where, well, those 60 games aren't really all that predictive, and it's more predictive to know what they did in the previous two or three years. And so they still have most of the lineup that won a World Series and made a run at others. And there's no Verlander, there's no Jordan Alvarez. Like it's not nearly as deep or as talented a team. And yet it's not at all improbable that they could make a run. And, you know, like they did have some guys step up like Frambois Valdez, for instance, who was great and totally bailed out that staff that was really shorthanded all year long because of injuries and illness. He was great during the regular season. He was great in game one in relief of Granke. And they've had a lot of success in the past with bringing in starters and using them in relief.

And that seems to be their strategy again here in the playoffs. So they could totally compete with anyone it's you know not quite the same asterisk team that we saw for the last couple years but it's also probably not quite the asterisk team that we saw for the past 60 games either yeah i think if we were more used to this sport being 60 games and 16 teams make the playoffs and the regular season doesn't really matter much. And you can kind of just sort of, you know, coast on talent if you're one of the top teams and then make it to the playoffs.

I think we would probably be used to this Astros season as kind of an archetype of a great team underperforming until they get to the postseason and turning it on. We don't have that history in baseball. We don't have that archetype in baseball. And so we assume, which we might be very right to assume that the Astros aren't very good this year, that their sub 500 record reflects a lot about them. And if you just simply do the math and start ticking off the players who aren't there from their team last year, you realize there's a lot of them. But I'm not I did not pick the Astros to win this series. I won't pick the Astros to win the next series either, I don't think.

And there is, in fact, I mean, this is just subjective. But I mean, I totally agree with the broadcasters. You kept noting that, like, they just don't look, they don't look like the team that has, I hate to even say this, but they don't look like they have swagger. They don't look like they're having a great time. They don't look like this is like their march to celebration. So while watching them, it does lull you into this feeling that they're not, they're not all that anymore. But, um, you know, this year I didn't do my two player fantasy draft because of COVID. Um, and, but I had to have some, like, I needed some sort of competition to have to continue having a rooting interest.

So me and my friend would just every day each of us would pick a game. We would pick one winner. Well, any game, pick a winner. No odds, no anything. You just pick a team you said was going to win. And then we kept track to see who picked better. And really, up until the last week of the season, we were still picking the Astros a lot. Like you could pick any team in baseball.

And and yet you see Astros a lot. Like you could pick any team in baseball and and yet you see Astros Mariners and like some part of your brain knows like that's that's a mismatch. So like I think that there is there is still like plenty to fear. We know that we know that the Astros could be good and it would not. I don't know know it wouldn't shock me if the Astros won the next nine games it wouldn't shock me if the Astros won 100 games next year with basically the same roster I think the Astros have have have tipped into their decline as a franchise for sure but not for sure for sure yeah well there was that Carlos Correa quote that everyone shared right I know a lot of people are mad I know a lot of people don't want to see us here, but what are they going to say now? So it was like he was trying to have that sort of chip on his shoulder attitude. It was different from the like, they never believed in us kind of thing that you hear teams say. In this case, it was like, they hate us. They don't want us to be here, which is true. Like this was an accurate quote. i think a lot of people don't want to see the astros here but

they're here and uh if there's an us against them mentality that they have to motivate themselves that's fine but i wonder if their heart is entirely in that like i i wonder if they've been worn down a bit just by being hated for for six months or or more you know even without having fans booing them constantly at the games, like, it's got to be pretty tiresome to feel like no one ever wants you to win and everyone thinks you're a cheater and, you know, like they were. So they brought that upon themselves. But still, like, mentally, it must be a bit draining. I think that it goes on for as long as it has gone on. be a bit draining, I think, that it goes on for as long as it has gone on. So they're through,

the Twins are out. I did enjoy seeing Max Kirilov make his Major League debut in a postseason game. He was the first player to start a postseason game as his first Major League appearance, and the first position player to get his first hit in the postseason. So that was weird and kind of fun. And that was like, I heard a report that he was like hitting 800 or something at the alternate site. And you know, you have no stats to go on at all, at least publicly. It's like, what has Max Kirilov done all year? I don't know. Apparently he's been pretty impressive. And then suddenly he's in the starting lineup in a must-win playoff game. that was entertaining. Always enjoy when someone shows up in October and ideally make some kind of impact, which Kirilov, you know, had a good game,

but didn't really have a chance to do. Anyway, Rays-Jays we haven't talked about, and for me at least that's kind of the Cubs-Marlins AL equivalent. Like just for whatever reason with the timing of these games, with the fact that they weren't super close for the most part i just did not see as much of the series as i did of the other al series and as i would have liked to but you know it went the way that i think a lot of people expected and the rays are really impressive and have incredible depth and and mix and match and have a ton of bullpen guys that maybe you haven't heard of, but they're all good and they all get saves. And, you know, they have different lineups for righties and lefties and everyone is good somehow and they piece it all together. And it's kind of impressive that

they make it work as well as they do. Yeah. Not much to say about the Rays. The Rays are really good. Yeah. They, you know. Are the Blue Jays good? There are certain unanswerable questions that the 60-game season was just not equipped to answer, and are the Blue Jays good? It's not one of them. We don't have any way of knowing, but I think everybody, every single

person in the world picked the Rays. Nobody was saying coming into this, I don't think, you know, the Blue Jays, boy, they could be dangerous. Not because they were, not because nobody thinks they could be dangerous, but because this was a big mismatch. The Rays look dominant right now. The Rays look hard to beat. And I think the short, in a way, the shorter the series, the more dangerous the Rays look. I don't know why. I don't know. Because I've heard the other,'ve heard the opposite that the longer the longer well yeah i mean their depth helps them you got

to understand ben a lot of things i just say because i think maybe it'll sound good and it'll go somewhere and then and then and then i just hope nobody else says anything against it okay well uh sorry for for observing that uh other people have said something against that yeah i don't have any opinions about whether the race lane about the race i truly do not know whether the razor are more dangerous in a three five or seven game series uh i don't know it doesn't make that much of a difference they're they're just really good they're gonna have a chance to prove it you know in all three of them. I don't know.

Yeah, I didn't see any of this series. Okay. Well, you do get intriguing matchups. I'm sure people who write about these sorts of storylines or networks are happy that you get A's Astros and Mike Fires maybe pitching against the Astros and Yankees, Rays, and the bad blood between those two teams. I don't know what anyone's expecting, really. Is there going to be a brawl or something? I mean, I hope not, frankly, but it gives people something to talk about that these teams don't really like each other in the kind of public performative way

that we can tell what any baseball players think of any other baseball players. So we will reconvene. I'll talk to Meg about how these series wrap up after the wildcard games, and we'll do a little division series preview. And then after this, it won't be quite so difficult to keep pace and actually see all of the playoff baseball. So we will talk about that next time. Okay, that will do it for today. Thank you for listening. It was hard to find a time when we were not watching or writing about baseball and could talk about baseball without everything we said immediately being obsolete and outdated. So hopefully we handled it okay. And as I mentioned, Meg and I will be back with one more episode before the end of the week to talk about yet more baseball and look forward to even more baseball.

Lots and lots of baseball is sort of the theme of this week. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. 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. Dave Line, Sirion X, Phil Thomas,

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We'll talk to you then. Don't want to chide your beat Left lagging far behind All right Well, that's it