Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1755: Chaos Letdown

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Meg Rowley and guest co-host Craig Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus recap the final weekend of regular season baseball before previewing this week’s Wild Card games. They discuss the Mariners’ decision not to promote Julio Rodríguez, their disappointment at the lack of tiebreaker games, franchise player farewells, the current playoff format, what comes next for Seattle […]

I sing a song, I paint a picture Hello and welcome to episode 1755 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined for this episode by Craig Goldstein of Baseball Perspectives. Craig, how are you? I'm tired. I'm going to be honest. I was going to say I'm good, but also tired. I'm really just tired. How are you? I'm similarly tired. I don't know if you have this experience, but I often, when the end of the regular season is as chaotic and is potentially setting up further chaos into either the playoffs or the need for tiebreaker games. I get caught up in that. I have a lot of excitement and feeling, and then that all ends,

and I have to grapple with not sleeping very well for a month and working a lot. So I have moved through that to excitement about the postseason because who on this podcast wants to listen to me complain about my cool job but I'm preemptively tired I am anticipatorily tired which I think is worse than being actually tired honestly yeah I mean to be fair you'd be complaining about both of our cool jobs yeah but I identify and I think not not to actually complain about the very cool thing that we get to do but I think to, like, there's like a comedown from the high of the end of the season, except for us, like, it's work. And that is also energizing, but you've also just expended all your energy. And now it's like a month long sprint.

Like, I guess, I don't know. I am not an athlete in any capacity. month long sprint. Like, I guess, I don't know, I am not an athlete in any capacity. But I imagine it's like whatever some mile of a marathon or triathlon or whatever feels like where you've just done so much. And then also, oh, wait, you actually have to just push harder now, or something. I don't know. I'm sure many of the listeners are very good athletes and have a better comparison here. But I have to imagine that's what it's like as someone who's like exercising is just making yourself tired. So yeah, yeah. I think that that's a pretty apt metaphor. Well, setting aside the sort of anticipation of being tired,

what is your sort of philosophy on the desirability of chaos? Because part of why you and I are doing previews for the wildcard, and we'll spend part of this episode sort of talking about these wildcard matchups and what we're looking forward to in the playoffs more generally. And part of why it's just you and I talking rather than having, say, beat writers representing these teams talking is that we didn't know what the day would hold today until the evening yesterday. And we want to make sure to get a podcast out in anticipation of wildcard games and what have you. So what is your sort of general philosophy around the potential for chaos? Is that

exciting for you? Are you team entropy? Or do you like to have sort of more decisive and early conclusions to playoff hunts? Yeah, I think despite the nod towards complaining or whatever about our work, I'm very much pro chaos. I don't know that the work actually gets any less tiring or whatever, knowing what's going in. There's a certain amount of preparation that you can do, and it's a little more crammed now. But I think for the most part, it's not that much different. And the excitement is what it's all about, right? The end of season. I mean, being able to go into the last day of the season with four teams in the mix for the AL wildcard and NL West race, still technically undecided. That's, I don't know, that's, that's what it's all about to me. Like, that's, that's the point

of having these exciting seasons. And I think, yeah, I think, look, it's the end of a, you know, being able to prepare is one thing, but it's the end of a long season regardless in the beginning of a sprint. So I'm all for making it as difficult on us as possible if it means the most kind of drama for everyone. If you had to rank your disappointment around the outcomes of yesterday's games, how would you order them? Because we were robbed of tiebreaker games. We were robbed of seeing the potential of the Blue Jays in the postseason. Seattle did not get to even get a shot at stymieing their playoff drought. So they are still dry.

And now 21, which is confusing. No, that's not right. This is the 20th year, isn't it? This is officially the 20th year. Yeah, 2001 to 2021. Well, then maybe next year is better to break the drought. because then they can have a glass of champagne and enjoy it. And your Dodgers were not able to play a tiebreaker game today because those Giants just don't stop winning. We officially have a Red Sox-Yankees wildcard game, which can hit people differently. Some people are excited about

that and the rivalry. Others are kind of bored of that particular matchup. So was there anything that didn't happen yesterday that you were really wishing would have transpired? Yeah, I would have liked to see the Blue Jays, at least in a play-in game. I think they're one of the more exciting teams just to to watch in general I think I'm sure I've said this elsewhere but like their jerseys are extremely aesthetically pleasing to me I just think like they're visually both from an aesthetic standpoint of their uniforms and then also all their just their their various players uh in terms of what they all can and do on the field. Like it's, I really was hoping to get a little more of them. I thought I also wanted to see,

I wanted to see them rewarded a bit for what they did in the off season. I thought obviously the Simeon signing was incredible and I wanted to see that rewarded. George Springer was not healthy all, all year, but you know, coming out in a big game, hitting a couple of home runs yesterday. Like, I would have liked to see playoff George Springer in action again. Robbie Ray acquired him last year and then, you know, brought him back and he turned into potentially the Cy Young winner. Yeah.

All of that. You know, they went and got Jose Barrios, right? They did all the things I like to see teams do, right, as they spring towards contention, and they won 91 games and missed the playoffs. And that's a credit to their division. But I think that tops the list for me in terms of disappointments, I would say, I guess, related, I'm not thrilled about a Red Sox Yankees AL wildcard, not just because I'm writing our AL wildcard preview. But yeah, I just like you and I are the same age. And I think coming of age and when we did in terms of baseball and all of that, like, we've been exposed to a lot of Red Sox Yankees. I went to school in Massachusetts when the Red Sox won their, you know, the 2004 World Series. It's been a lot for me. And this particular rivalry doesn't really hold much appeal, I guess. It doesn't move you.

It doesn't even feel particularly venomous. I think they both hate the Rays more at this point. And it just, it always feels long. Yeah. Just the games are long and difficult and dry. And I say that although the the Giancarlo Stanton home runs in this last series that they had in September were very dramatic and very fun. But it's still difficult. It's kind of like a big capper to an otherwise like just tough road, I guess. I don't know. Anyway, yeah, those two,

I think, are at the top, but the Blue Jays, Blue Jays one and Red Sox Yankees two. Yeah, it's you have to win the games, right? And we want teams to be incentivized to compete hard for their division. I think that that's part of why not seeing Toronto in the postseason is disappointing to your point, because they looked at the AL East field and said, oh, we need to get better so that we can kind of go toe to toe with these other three teams. And just the inability to upgrade their bullpen quickly enough seems to really be their undoing. But they, you know, they're like a plus 183 run differential team like they're you know you can tell that the bullpen was the problem like they underperformed their pathagpat and base runs record pretty considerably and then you have the yankees and red sox which are not bad teams it's not like you know

sub 500 teams snuck their way in or anything like that but um perhaps not quite as strong as their record suggests uh in part because of injury and they've had, you know, the Red Sox have had their own bullpen issues. They really tried to have them at the most important time of year, but held on when it counted. Do you think that it would feel better? So you have Toronto. Toronto did what they needed to do on Sunday.

They won in pretty decisive fashion. And then you have the Mariners who did not do what they needed to do. They ended up losing to the Angels, although our listeners will be happy to know that Otani's home run was not the margin of victory, and so peace can remain between me and Ben for the duration of this podcast. Which do you think feels better the day after, knowing you did all the things that you could have done. And it just, you know, it, it didn't come down to you.

That's too bad. Or knowing you wouldn't have gotten it in any way. So it's okay that you lost. Well, I was going to say, it's not, I mean, they didn't do what they needed to do,

but the Red Sox and Yankees did. And so it kind of doesn't matter. Right. I don't know. I, I guess I'm, I'm one of those people that kind of feel like, I don't know that one is better than the other. It all just feels bad.

Yeah. Right? Like the gradations of bad, I don't think are enough to really separate one from the other. I suppose you might hang your hat a little bit higher or whatever you want. It's a bad metaphor, like on on winning uh and doing all you could but at the same time like i look at these teams and i think toronto was just so much better than seattle oh yeah the fact that they were a game apart at all is a testament to i

mean you talk about bullpen differences like my god and you know, run differential Seattle at a at a minus 51 run differential at the end of the season and went 90 and 72. Yeah, that that is remarkable. And it's not, you know, I'm not trying to call them, you know, I mean, it is over performance, but I'm not trying to say it's unearned. Sometimes this happens. And part of the way it happens is the way this team is built. Yes. But I think if I'm if I'm a fan of of either of these teams, I probably feel better as a Blue Jays fan about what what the team looks like. At the same time, you know, they could lose Semyon. Ray's deal. Did that have an option? I don't remember off the top of my head. I know it was one year. Bear with me one moment. Allow

me to look at the rest of resource payroll pages. He is a free agent after 2021 is my understanding. It was just a one year, $8 million deal for this year. So. Yeah. So I think the scary part of that is, I mean, how many wins are what 12 wins are walking out the door? Potentially, right? Those two guys alone, something, you know, not, not actual wins, but wins above replacement, you know, you have to do, you know, and who knows if you get those same seasons, even if they came back, right? So there's something about squandering, you know, not only those seasons, but Vladimir Guerrero came close to a triple crown, right? Like how many things went right this year and was rewarded on paper to some degree.

91 wins. That's a great season yeah they had a great year but you don't make the playoffs that that's really tough whereas Seattle I mean a significant portion of the roster and I I not not everyone I know it was very emotional but uh is coming back right I don't know I I it's an interesting I again I would still feel better as a Blue Jays fan I think but yeah one one question I had for you, you know, we were talking in terms of doing all you can do. One thing I was talking about with Patrick Dubuque, and which I talked about on Twitter a little bit, was like, where was Julio Rodriguez at the end of the season? In Seattle, but not on the field.

That makes it worse, right? Yeah, I mean, he's back to town i don't know if julio would have been in seattle were it not for when teams give out their minor league awards right he was he was honored by the org for his minor league season which was quite impressive yeah it's i had a conversation with eric longnagin about the julio of it all, because on the one hand, you know, we don't know what Julio would do if he were called up, right? I think that you have, you know, you look at him and you look at the year he had and you look at what he does really well. And the upside potential to that seems advantageous to you as you are chasing a playoff spot, right? Like here's a guy who can hit velocity at the top of the zone for power.

Like the bat is impressive. There is a reason this dude is being hailed as like not only one of the best prospects in the Mariners system, but one of the best prospects in baseball. Calling him up for this little run, that's the go for it move, right? That's the, we are just gonna, we're gonna pull out all the stops and see what we can do because we don't know what Julio is capable of and it wouldn't be unprecedented

even within the Mariners organization for him to like come up and see, I don't know, see some big league sliders and look silly like that's not out of the realm of possibility but it's like you know this is a team that is rostering like dylan moore and not the dylan moore of 2020 and is rostering jake bowers who i will now actually remember was a mariner because of this very conversation right and so i think that there are some guys on the margins of their roster who are just like, certainly don't have the kind of upside,

even as established big leaguers, that Julio does. And so it did seem a little bit strange to sort of leave him out of that conversation, if only because, and I know this is not the way that organizations make decisions about promotions like this, but I would imagine, you know, I had, I had a little stirring of fan feeling around the Mariners, but there are obviously, there's a whole ballpark full of people who were super excited for the way that that season potentially was going to conclude. And you have to imagine that they might feel a little differently this morning if they had looked at that team and were like, well, you know, we, we we got to see julio like it didn't work out but like julio was there and

that's the perspective and sort of posture that this organization was taking to this little run and the potential to break the playoff drought so i don't know i i don't want to assume like a magical performance because we just don't know right right? I think you and I were both of the opinion that because of the way that the organization had talked about Jared Kelnick and sort of where he was, that it made sense for him to be on the opening day roster. We saw how that, you know, early part of his debut went. Like it's not guaranteed even for guys who the industry thinks very highly of and who look like they're going to be meaningful contributors to a competitive club so i don't want to say that like if they had

promoted julio they'd be playing no game 163 today or they'd be in the wild card like we just don't know how that counterfactual plays out but i do think that it's the go for it move. And if any organization should be incentivized to go for it, it's the one with a 20 year playoff drought. So right, that's that's the part and it's under and again, I tried to phrase it under the guise of what we were discussing, which is kind of doing everything you could have done. Sure. And I think trying this is something you could have done. I don't, like you said, I don't want to assume that Julio comes up and is a difference maker for this game that ultimately wasn't, you know, overall that close as a four run game. I don't know that you assume he can come in and make up that difference or, you know, and they did. They won leading up to that in the games leading up to that and that kind of thing. So, so we don't know. But as you said, like, the other option here is like Jake Bowers. Right? Why are we not trying this? And if the answer is

as it was for for Kelnick, like service time, I guess keep them down to more day like and also who knows what 2022 brings, we have a whole new CBA. It seems like there's very limited downside. I think there is a downside. Again, I don't want to ignore that bringing him up into a very pressure-packed situation doesn't have its downsides. You're putting him on the spot in a situation he's never done this before. I've often said that I think the job of organizational management and coaches is to put these guys in a position to succeed. I don't know that that is specifically what would be happening with Julio Rodriguez. It's putting him in a position to succeed or fail, right? Like there's both upside and downside to this. From what I know of him,

he is the type of guy who would not necessarily suffer tremendous adverse reactions to failure in a spot like this yeah he you know he has struggled before his the dominican winter league last off season was not good for him no watched him swing through some not very good breaking balls like yeah a lot yeah and he came back with a tremendous season which i think you know speaks to his his ability to uh you know persevere through some adversity right and you know it didn't mentally weigh him down or you know to whatever degree it did it it didn't overwhelm his his ability to produce you know in the 2021 season yep so i i think you know given what we

know about him which certainly is not everything out there and certainly not everything that the Mariners know about him. But I'm looking at that situation saying, why are we not, you know, taking the chance? I mean, even if it's a pinch hitting opportunity, even if it's something like he's an upgrade over Jake Bowers, who we've seen what he did. Cleveland's offense was one of the worst in the league, and he got cut by Cleveland. Right. I don't think the Mariners were fixing that in the short term. You know, obviously things can change over an offseason. But yeah, I don't know. I struggle to see him not even get, you know, put on the roster and give the manager the opportunity to decide whether to use someone of his ability, you know, just his natural abilities compared to some of these other guys, even though, again, it would

be, I think it's fair to say that, like, there's a relative diciness to the situation. Absolutely. Yeah. But man, it seems worth trying to do when you're ending a playoff drought, you know? Right. And I think, like, you know, if you want to sort of, if we want to be fair to the org, like they're, you know, he's not like a clean, straightforward sub for Bowers, right? There's the handedness difference. There's the ability to play the infield, right? Like Bowers can play for space and did a fair amount of that.

Dylan Moore plays all over the place. He's a righty bat. So like that's cleaner. Like there are reasons, but to your point, it does seem like if you're going for it, you want the manager to be able to look at his sheet, you know, in a critical situation and like have that option and decide, oh, like this is a place where it makes sense to like pinch at Julio or whatever, like just put him out there and see what goes on. So yeah, I think, I don don't I don't think that in the hierarchy of like organizational ineptitude or anything that it ranks particularly high. I get the reasons it didn't happen, but it would have been I think there's a good case for it.

And it would have been nice to see given the circumstances. So, yeah, I'd say that was that you're going back to your initial question. That was a disappointment, you know, not to see them. And again, you know, like this is this team also, they rostered Matt Brash, right? But he didn't see actual game action. I mean, that's up to the manager. And I think that's okay, too. Yeah, I think that it's fine for given sort of how especially that final series played out and the catch up that they had to play at various points.

played out and the catch up that they had to play at various points. I think that it makes sense to me that service would look at those situations and be like, this is a, this is a lot to ask of Matt Brash. I'm not going to put him in that situation. It's too much. We're going to stick with the guys who we know and who, you know,

have sort of been weathering this over the last couple of months, but he had the option, right. And he can kind of exercise discretion there. I did appreciate that if there's one good thing about how sort of the situation played out for them, the fact that they knew they were done once Boston won did allow them a moment to like recognize Kyle Seeger,

which was nice. I don't know what's going on there, but the way that they talk about it, it's like, oh, so he's definitely not coming back. Well, did you see the Heyman tweet about this? I read the piece that I think he was referencing. Referencing. Oh, so it was a quote. It was Divish.

Yeah. Tweeted, right, quoting Ryan Divish. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't had a conversation in years, probably four years. Yeah. Yikes. Not the best.

Not the best. years probably four years yeah yikes not the best not the best at least if what you would like is to to have them like seriously consider a return for him i don't know abraham toro time to shine maybe they'll uh maybe they'll sign carlos cray and move into third place yeah i mean i i think the interesting part of it i look i i don't think it's unreasonable to not pick up Kyle Seeger's option, given his age and the cost of the option and kind of how he's played, which has not been bad, but not really worth the price of the option, probably, unless he goes to, you know, drinks whatever Kool-Aid they have in San Francisco. But it is weird to have that little communication with a franchise cornerstone.

Yeah, that seems bad. And it seems from what I've heard from people, and I'm sure you've heard the same being a little bit closer to this team, is that it seems like DePoto has a very hard line between his guys and the guys from the previous regime. And that's just kind of where this falls. And I think, you know, I guess I have my views on on that as an approach, which just seems crazy to me. But I guess it's less personal with Seeger than it is just like you're a representative of the front office before me. I don't I don't it seems very weird. And it feels, I wrote about this a little bit actually with regard to Trevor Story and the Rockies, who the team, and I don't know

if it was an organizational wide decision or whether it was just the guys in the clubhouse, but they had him take the field by himself to be applauded in their last game of the season, the last home game of the season, the last home game of the season against the Nationals in Colorado. And I think that's such a great gesture, right? But it's also weird to me only in that they don't have to move on from him. And he actually seems very much like he'd like to be in Colorado with that team, with that clubhouse, not with that front office, to be clear. He's made statements that he's shocked he's still there.

I think both want to move on to some degree. But the reason that it seems like Story wants to move on is it's very clear that he's not wanted by the front office. And some of these things are odd. There's just an odd juxtaposition in that we're making are odd to you know, there's just an odd just juxtaposition. Right. In that like, we're making the choice to move on. But also here, like you are beloved.

You know what I mean? And I look, I know that happens in life that happens in relationships. But it's still sometimes odd to see it play out in front of you. Yeah, I think that I think that that is true. I think that that is true. I guess you don't want to rob fans of their opportunity to sort of say goodbye to a guy, but you're right that it's particularly strange in moments where there is the opportunity to at least endeavor

to bring that person back to the org. So I see why it happens, but it's also just you do feel like it doesn't have to play out quite this way, right? It could be a little bit different if they wanted it to be. So it's odd. I have sympathy for trying how hard it must be to thread that needle, right? Absolutely. And look, Scott Service is not Jerry DePoto. And that this was his decision to give him that moment. It was very much reminded me of in college basketball, they'll take a senior out, you know, their last game,

they'll take them out of the game to give, you know, to stop the game, to give them the opportunity to take in the fans. And it's such a nice moment. To be clear, like, I think it's so great that Scott Service did that and that Kyle Seeger got that moment. Yeah. That is often reserved for pitchers, right? We saw very much the same thing with Felix.

But there's a kind of a different pacing to having guys come out of the game in that sense. So yeah, I don't mean it as a criticism in any way, shape, or form. It's just such an odd kind of, like I said, juxtaposition to have with the way the front office is acting. And obviously, you know, people will say that service and DePoto are, you know, hand in glove kind of thing. But these are, it's a very tangible example that in ways that they're not, right? Right. And I think that the sense I have gotten from Mariners fans in the last year is that they've really kind of turned around on service. Yeah.

I think that, and it's in large part due to moments like this where it seems like he is really trying his best to not only kind of smooth the way in the clubhouse so that the clubhouse is functional, but also really genuinely try to bolster these guys in difficult moments, often not in direct opposition to the way that the front office is behaving, but conscious of sort of where the front office's decision making and DePoto's in particular might diverge from what's going to play well among the players. So I think that he has endeared himself in a way that I've been kind of surprised by because I do think, you know, given the relationship those two guys had, how they came in together, that that was the perception that it was sort of a hand in glove sort of thing. But it's, it's a little bit, it reads a little different now. So, okay, well, the Mariners

did not make the playoffs, so we can maybe stop talking about them. They're very interesting. They are interesting. I think that, you know, them along with Toronto, they're going to be sort of in a category of teams that we all watch really closely over the off season once the CBA stuff gets squared away, because there is obvious need on both of those clubs. And some of it is going to potentially be managed internally, more so, I think, in Seattle's case than Toronto's, but some of it might require them actually reaching outside the organization to address stuff. So it'll be interesting to see how they kind of navigate that as we get closer to 2022. But now we should talk about the teams that can't yet think about that. Although I did end up having to post a Dodgers job posting this

morning. So the planning for the future. They are thinking about it. Yeah, the planning for the future. Well, they have like seven AGMs. So they've got people who can spend time on it. I don't know. Just as a quick aside, I don't know if this has been true of your experience, but I believe that you perform a similar role to me at BP where you're the one who sort of manages team job postings as they come in, right? You help get those up on the site. Yeah, I'm not always the one who publishes them from the CMS, but yeah, I direct traffic, so to speak. So isn't it nice to have a lot more of those this year? They can, you know, it's like a thing you have to do in your day. And so it can be irksome at times. But last year, I felt like I did like five job postings the entire year. Yeah, it's nice. Last year was bleak in so many ways. And this year

is also bleak, but there are some bright spots. Yeah, it's bleak in different ways. And the bright spots are, I think, more numerous. So let's talk now about the wildcard games, because these are, in some ways, the most sort of well-trodden, boring possible set of outcomes that we could have had. But they're dynamic in their own ways, even if you're out on Red Sox, Yankees. But let's start with your Dodgers, Craig. Sure. Start with your Dodgers, who are going to have to take on the Cardinals in their purported double magic. And I guess before we address that particular matchup, I'm going to ask you, is there anything about the playoffs that you're especially excited about and looking forward to? This is, again, I guess by virtue of comparison to last year and a little bit what we do,

but I'm thrilled to have off days again. Last year was, look, October is a sprint regardless. And I actually, there was a lot I really liked about last year's playoffs. I did not like how expanded they were, but I did like that bullpens were more, the depth of a bullpen was more relevant than in years past. And I think then there will be this year. It was basically impossible for a team to do what the Nationals did in 2019 last year. And I actually think that's more based. I really I'm a regular season guy.

Like I like how long the season is and the way teams kind of have to deal with the length of the season and all of that kind of stuff. So that's a little bit, there's a little bit of a contradiction there, but it was just to have a game every single day of the month, essentially, was, boy, I was bone tired by the end. And I just like, I am honestly excited to get back to like a what I view as a regular if they could somehow make it more like like a regular bullpen would matter as much as it did last year but not quite the frenetic pace of it I'd be thrilled but I don't think that's possible but

I am kind of excited about the schedule does this mean that you are quietly rooting for the Brewers and their impressive rotation so as to not have to see quite as many bullpen innings? Is that what I am taking away here, Craig? Am I breaking news that you have relinquished your allegiance to the Dodgers? You are, in fact, now a Brewers fan? I don't know that the Brewers are a great example of not using a bullpen. Their bullpen is freaking incredible.

Their bullpen is incredible, but they just have those great starters. They have those rotation guys up top. We'll get to the Brewers in a later episode when they are actually playing baseball and they are not now. I think I am looking forward to... I want to see

how this Giants team does over the course of the playoffs because I think that we are course of the playoffs, because I think that we are both of the opinion that our respective publications, preseason projections for the Giants were light, albeit in- Did you hear about those at the end of the year? I did. I didn't hear about the Giants quite as much as I heard about literally every other team.

Sure. Yeah, that too. But yeah, so I think that we, we can say that they were light. And I think there are reasons for that that make good sense, but they ended up kind of missing on what the Giants were going to be able to do here. But unlike a lot of teams that find themselves sort of being end of season surprises, like the Giants are good. Yeah.

Right. They're not over their skis. They're not like dramatically outperforming their expected record. Like they're just a solid baseball team that plays good baseball. And yet I still feel some tiny shred of skepticism about how this is going to play out, which I think is probably unfair of me. So I'm excited to watch the Giants play in the playoffs. What happens, Craig?

Yeah. Well, I mean, it is interesting. I get what you mean. I also think they've kind of passed every test that they've been given. Like you said, they had the second best run differential in all of baseball. Yep. I guess, look, did they overperform their run differential like a little bit? Yes.

But like only a little bit. But only a little bit. And again, that like only a little bit, but only a little bit. And again, they were it was the second best in all of baseball. And they had the best record in baseball by one game to to the team that had the best run differential. So like it really it really is not much different. And they beat you know, they won the season series against the Dodgers. They won.

They beat good team. You know, it's it's not like they only beat up on bad teams and amassed their run differential that way. They beat good teams and often convincingly. But there is still that kind of I want to see it. Yeah. Aspect to them. And it's it's a little unfair to them. Yeah. Oh, it's I want to acknowledge I'm being just a real stinker. Like it's tremendously unfair. No, but I don't think you're alone. You know, it's like, how good is Alex Wood really? Right. How good is Anthony Disclifani really? Like Logan Webb. Logan Webb is just hitting home runs in crucial games and shutting down the opposing offense.

Like it doesn't really make sense, except that when you look at everything they did, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm particularly interested in their bullpen to some degree. They and not not because I think they're going to fail. I think they've Patrick Dubuque wrote about them kind of overperforming their projection and both as a team and individual projections. And their bullpen is a really interesting aspect of that is that they don't have a ton of elite bat missers in the bullpen. Right. Although they do have Camilo Duval there now they have Curvin Castro, who was extremely good in the minors, and came up late in the season and was was very impressive. But you know, so they have some of these late season guys, you know like tyler rogers was fantastic and the numb like no projection system is gonna love tyler rogers

absolutely not yeah and dominic leone or leone i apologize it's leone leone thank you you're welcome like he walks a ton of guys yeah well also missing a lot of like the guys who do miss bats also balance that out with a ton of walks that again like projection systems are not going to like even in season right like even adjusted for in-season performance right so it it will be interesting to see how that interacts with only teams that have good enough offenses to make the playoffs i suppose right but i guess the counterbalance to that is you know they, they've, they've played those teams in one all year as well.

Right. Right. Yeah. It's not like they have, you know, they, they have the D backs and the Rockies, but it's not like they have easy division foes beyond that. But there's like Jake McGee, you know, Jake McGee is like an important part of this baseball team. Duvall has looked, Craig, I'm going to do a swear Dylan.

I'm warning everyone. He's looked great. Yeah. Yeah. And he had a rough intro and then went back down to the minors. Came back and was like, oh, this is. Fixed it. This is different.

Yeah. I think Jake McGee. So Jake McGee is really interesting because the Dodgers, he was great for the Dodgers last year as well. And nominally their closer for part of the season. Jake McGee has not pitched since September 12th. Yeah, that is... Like what?

I don't know. Yeah, because he tweaked an oblique or something, right? He was injured. But I think he was back and they still didn't pitch him. That might be... It looks like he was reinstated on saturday okay so they have one opportunity yeah but you thought maybe maybe give him a chance in an 11 to yeah i was i was surprised to not see him pitch yesterday just given the margin there

yeah that was a bit surprising but yeah the that bullpen has been spectacular and i did not i remember when we had grant brisby on early early in the going to preview the Giants, we did not really think much of that bullpen outside of Rodgers. And even when Grant came back to help us understand what was going on, I was surprised by the competence that they were able to show and indeed the excellence there. So it's been a confusing thing, but it has happened enough now that I like have to acknowledge it. I have to admit it.

It feels like it's reluctant. I know. And again, I'm just not being particularly fair to them. So there are the giants. I'm looking forward to the giants. Okay, let's talk about the wild cards. Yes, we're real good on topic. Yeah, we're doing fantastic work here.

So I guess let's start, as I said 20 minutes ago, with your Dodgers who are going to face the Cardinals. And I guess, what makes you feel good going into this matchup, Craig? What makes you feel like, into this matchup, Craig? What makes you feel like this is going to be easy? I'm going to be able to continue to watch the Dodgers deep into the playoffs? Well, I mean, nothing, right? I am a fan of this team. And I am, as anyone who has followed, and I apologize if you have followed me on Twitter,

I am a fatalistic fan. and I apologize if you have followed me on Twitter. Like I am a fatalistic fan and I kind of just assume the worst because it helps me cope when it happens. So look, they're a much better team than the Cardinals are, but I don't like accepting that emotionally because it's just, it's going to make it hurt more.

If it, look, it's one game. Like it can go, it can go in any direction and it really doesn't, doesn't matter, right. Like it, it just doesn't, uh, them being look, they, they, they, on a standings basis, they, they won 106 games and the Cardinals won 90. Right. They're a much better team. Like rationally that should make me feel better, but all it does is make me think it's going to be so much worse when they lose. but all it does is make me think it's going to be so much worse when they lose. So in that sense, nothing.

In an actual logical sense, Max Scherzer is, you know, a viable option for the NL Cy Young. Had a little bit of a stumble towards the end of the season. Yes. But he's one of the best pitchers of this genre. I mean, it's like him, Kershaw, and Verlander, and I guess Granke. Yeah. And they're all free agents, I think, at the end of this year, which it's like him kershaw and and verlander and i guess cranky yeah and they're all free agents i think at the end of this year which is weird that is weird but those are are the you know like kind of the mount rushmore of pitchers of this generation and they're all pretty effective even at their age and max scherzer you know at this point i not to speak ill of verlander but he's hurt hurt. So Scherzer at this point, the most effective of them all.

Yes. And yeah, that makes me feel very good. I mean, their lineup in general has started to hit. They went a very long time without scoring five runs in a game. And I think the last four games of the season scored at least eight runs in each of the last four games. That has to make you feel runs in each of the last four games. That has to make you feel good. Trey Turner has been incredible.

I mean, Corey Seager has looked like the 2020 playoffs. Corey Seager. Yes. Mookie Betts has rounded into form. You asked me to pick one thing. I've listed a bunch. No, those are good things to list, I think. Those are all the things that would make me feel good. There are things that

would make me feel bad if you want me to go there. I think maybe we should. Then we're going to do this same exercise for the Cardinals, so then you might come away feeling good at the end of it. What is giving you, apart from just the knowledge that it is one game

and that you are unable to accept good things in your life in a way that probably should be talked to a professional about yeah what about what about this current setup makes you feel some trepidation going into wednesday i think the biggest thing at this point is max moncy is not not going to be there if they advance probably not going to be in the next round and it's's just a really rough, you know, again, another guy in the conversation, probably down ballot for MVP, had a tremendous season, is such a key cog in the middle of their lineup. when he is slumping and his patience is and and knowledge of the zone is so remarkable that he gets on base anyway and so like for him it's it's his on base never slumps right i i think that's that's the biggest thing and just kind of the number of guys that are forced into the lineup

because of it so it it seems to me that they're going to maybe platoon Matt Beatty and Albert Pujols in his spot. Gavin Lux left, you know, they put a tape impression of him on the wall in center field after he ran into a wall. He had been actually hitting really well in September. Right. And instead you get Cody Bellinger, which is, I guess, on some level, a nice problem to have. He's an elite defensive center fielder. Right. He can't hit at all this year.

And he has broken ribs. Right. Chris Taylor has a bad neck. So again, like this team is exceedingly deep, but they're all kind of, there are a lot of semi-broken players. Right. So yeah, those are the things. And yeah, look, Max Scherzer's last two starts, one of them was at cores.

I don't know how much to put into that. Weren't ideal, I guess. But I don't put too, too much credence on, you know, just two starts being an issue for someone like Scherzer. Yeah, I think particularly given that one of them is at cores, it's like that's a thing to be mindful of. I mean, I think he can get got by home runs on occasion, but you're right.

He's definitely, you know, Ben Clemens wrote for us today about how Corbin Burns should just be the Cy Young winner in the NL, and I found his argument persuasive, but if people like Scherzer as their, you know, two or three in that conversation, I think that that is a completely reasonable thing. He's had an incredible year, and gosh, what a pickup for the Dodgers

given all of the other stuff, including Kershaw being hurt now, right? Yes. It seems to have been fortuitous on their part. Can I offer a... I don't have conviction in this. I'm not advocating for it. I want that to be clear.

But I have a takey question for you, Craig. Hit me. Is Cody Bellinger a non-tender candidate? I've thought about it. Yeah, I bet you have. He has a 48 WRC plus. Yeah, yeah. He's been really, really bad.

I think the reason he's not is his defense. Sure. And that even a league average bat with his ability in center field is a really quite a valuable player. Right. And I do wonder how much his R figure even moves. Right. Given how bad he was. Right.

Right. For sure. And especially the fact that like defense tends to be overlooked and tough to argue for in arbitration. Yes. the fact that like defense tends to be overlooked and tough to argue for in arbitration yes i imagine and to be clear i i know that you are not and i am not like advocating for an underpay or anything like that but these are the these are the things that kind of come together to make a guy not really move very much you know if if you're going into your what it's his third year barb right i believe his third year but then he's a super two so he'll have one more after that okay well i think that's a reasonable answer it is a question

that i imagine the dodgers have asked themselves although they probably end up in the same place that you and i just did yeah i mean just this is a quick addendum to that is that like i think the team if you're the dodgers with their payroll and their largesse, I think to me that's worth rostering this guy on the chance that he finds even a league average bat, if not much better, which we know he can do. And also just they build themselves redundancies, right? And this is an expensive one, but it is a very valid redundancy. And again, they have the wherewithal to do it.

So those would be my arguments that I think they would keep him. I certainly would. It's not my money. So it's easy for me to say. Well, and they're in an interesting spot too, because obviously they blew through all of the... They were like the rare team that really did blow through every possible level of the CBT, which we don't see very often despite how much hand-wringing teams seem to engage in but they're also going to drop down pretty considerably granted this does this assumes no more signings which i imagine they will make but like their projected luxury tax number for next year is like 148 million or something like that so it's not like they you know it's not like they, you know, it's not

like they're going to be up against it in quite the same way. Like in theory, they can retain him even if he makes something like he did last year in like the 15 or $16 million range and still kind of have room to maneuver from a payroll perspective, which, you know, we don't, that's not our money either. So we don't need to be overly fussed, but they, they manage that number in a very intentional and I think generally quite smart way. So I suspect that they're going to be conscious of the fact that like, you know, they, they have a bunch rolling off as it were. Yeah. I suspect Kenley is not going to come back or if he does at a very reduced figure right i think you can make you know

who knows with kershaw is at 31 million this year and might need tommy john surgery and you know i don't know if they sign him or just let him rehab separately or you know whatever there are a lot of potential options there and you can get into less i don't know, less savory aspects of if Bauer is suspended, that money is not on the books. And could they reinvest that in Scherzer? Could it go towards some of the these other guys? Corey Seeger is a free agent. I don't you know, I don't know exactly how they're going to to play that out. But obviously, Turner is there as a redundancy to him. Right? Should should Seeger walk, which I kind of expect he will at this point. Yeah, I would imagine that he,

I don't know that he wouldn't necessarily return, but I imagine he will test the market in a meaningful way, right? Yeah, and Chris Taylor, also a free agent. Yeah. So they have a lot of pieces out kind of, you know, to be determined. Yeah, man, I hope Chris Taylor makes a bunch of money.

Me too. That would be nice. Speaking of guys who were in a prior regime that Jerry just didn't care about. But so let's talk about the Cardinals now. Yeah. If you're a Cardinals fan, what makes you feel confident? Can I offer a thing that makes you feel confident? Yeah, please.

I should offer some content to my own podcast, I suppose. Boy, does that defense help their pitching look better. Yeah. I would be excited about the defense behind these guys. It was funny to see people get really happy for Jon Lester, and I guess poor Jay Happ was pitching to the exact same mediocre line and didn't get any love at all. What's that about?

But they've both looked significantly better since coming to St. Louis just because that defense is quite sterling. So that's exciting for them. The fact that Paul Goldschmidt is hitting the way that he is now has to be thrilling if you're a Cardinals fan, realizing that you have to both score runs as well as prevent them. So that would make me feel happy uh if i were a cardinals fan what would make you feel happy if you were a cardinals fan craig yeah i i think the

defenses is probably the the headliner yeah and even if it's not exciting i mean they're just that outfield of o'neill bader and carlson yeah Yeah. O'Neill is, and I think I just more broadly, Tyler O'Neill is one thing that would make me feel confident. Like his breakout is really nice to see after he was kind of like a post prospect. Yeah. He was a buzzy name and it didn't really click for him for a while. You know, he was okay, but not what we're seeing now, certainly. But I know that that organization has loved his,

like the metrics on his swing, just like how long it's in the zone, the type of contact he makes, all this stuff. They were very confident that he would really hit and he finally is. And that's a big difference to their lineup. I mean, obviously, they they brought in Arenado, they have Goldschmidt, they have, you know, they have these guys at the center of their lineup, but that's a that's a you need more than than those guys. And

Carlson has, you know, I think he's kind of in the pre O'Neill stage as a as a bat, but right, there have been some flashes. But to have, yeah, to have that third really big bat is a as a bat but right there have been some flashes uh but to have yeah to have that third really big bat is a is a big difference maker in a lineup like this and and i absolutely o'neill look small sample and all of that but i remember o'neill uh really was very good against the dodgers in their season series and yeah if i'm a cardinals fan i i really like how he played against those you know the dodgers pitchinginals fan, I really like how he played against those, you know, the Dodgers pitching against the Dodgers in general, how he played all season. That's a guy I'd probably hang my hat on. Yeah, I will admit to being, well, I don't think it was an unreasonable

conclusion to reach at the time, but I just was so skeptical that he would ever make enough contact for the power to matter, right? I just really didn't and and that was supported by some truly terrifying strikeout rates oh yeah yeah when he was in the minors but you know he's he has managed it in a pretty impressive way so uh and he's got those big arms we got we get the so fast he's very fast i i feel like he's very quickly gone from like sneaky fast to actually quite exposed as as sneaky fast you know what i mean like right like everyone's like oh he's sneaky fast yeah we all know yeah but he is so fast it's really disturbing to see a guy that big move that fast yeah we have to he's just a fast boy now we have to admit him admit to him being a fast boy in

a way that um is like you said you just would assume that the arms would weigh him down like you just would say that's not gonna work because truly his arms they're just gonna weigh him down but yeah he's he's been quite quite good for them well i'm i i would just also say i don't know if it's a thing to feel good about but like the absolute devil magic guy of the year for them has got to be edmundo sosa right yeah like where come on where did that come from i know he was he look he was on prospect lists and The absolute devil magic guy of the year for them has got to be Edmundo Sosa, right? Yeah. Like, where? Come on. Where did that come from?

I know he was. Look, he was on prospect lists and all that kind of stuff. Like, you find him. But, like, steps in as an above league average bat at shortstop. And, again, the defense has been pretty good. And he's a three-win player. Yeah. Yeah.

It's amazing. It's amazing. a three win player. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing. Tyler O'Neill in the 98th percentile for sprint speed, which is how being in the 22nd percentile for outfield jump doesn't matter. Right. Exactly. That is how that

game's out. What would make you nervous about this Cardinals team? Basically everyone else. Yeah. Like the fact that the pitching is so dependent on the defense. Right. And like, look, Adam Wainwright's been incredible. He's been good. else yeah like the fact that the pitching is so dependent on the defense right and and like look adam wainwright's been he's been good and look the cardinals had a plus 34 run differential and were 18 games over 500 and part of that was winning 17 in a row in a row and like look you

got you you got called out as you are fangraph but they were like 2.6% chance to make the playoffs. I'm very sure we had a very similar. They were like one game over 500. Oh, yeah. It's not personal. That was a reflection of their team at the time. It turns out winning 17 in a row changes your playoff odds. Yeah.

On September 1st, they were four games over 500 and three back in the wild card. And then they went five and five. With multiple teams in front of them. Right. And then they went five and five during their first 10 games of that September stretch and lost half a game in the standings and then won their next 17. Right. Like it took that and then it took the Padres' slow-

And the Reds falling apart. Right. Their collapse like a souffle taken out too soon, too late. I don't know how souffles work, but like a bad souffle, one that hadn't been whipped enough. How do you make a souffle? I've never made one. I don't know.

It seems hard. It seems like it really does people in when they try to become french chefs so you know that stuff happened and they had their their streak and then here here they ended up being so i suspect that they will lose but one game man does the fate of the dodgers in 2021 alter your perspective on the ideal playoff structure? No, because I've felt already that I don't like the fifth playoff team. So you're still ideologically consistent. It's just that you already thought it was bad. Yeah.

And look, I think there's merit to the way that this... Well, I think the one game... I don't know if you saw michael bauman wrote in the ringer uh ranking all the wild card games yes there have been some phenomenal wild games and and i don't hold my i i recognize that my stance would remove a lot of really fun exhilarating baseball right but i as i said i am a regular season guy and I like I like the teams that are good in the regular season to be rewarded right and I do think the Dodgers season being a 106 win team relegated to a one game playoff is I don't know if it's damning to a playoff structure but it's a shame yeah I guess I think there's an easy way to fix this, which is to say, like, just, you know, don't do it based on divisional,

just seed it based on win totals, you know, in the middle, you know, throughout a year. And I get the concern is that, like, some divisions are harder than others. But like the Rays won 100 games in a division that four teams won 90. So yeah, I think it is unsatisfying to some degree to see it the way I'm suggesting, but I think it's more satisfying than the situation that we see unfolding this year and which we've seen unfold in other years as well because of the way that the league structures the game. Yeah, I go back and forth on it because I really like the wild card. But I also, I do recognize sort of the way that this doesn't always guarantee us the best field, right?

It often overlaps, but it does not guarantee us the best field. And I think that if you, like, if we're going to expand the postseason, maybe that sort of inadvertently takes care of this problem, but it also brings other problems. So maybe it doesn't. But the other thing that I would know, I think to argue kind of against my own point, or not my own point, but my own feeling is that I don't think the Dodgers acquire Max Scherzer and Trey Turner without this particular playoff structure. And I think as a Dodgers fan, it's better for me to have them do that. But I do think in a broader sense, it's

better for the game for teams not to rest on their laurels and to incentivize winning the division. And the fact that we got a 107 and 106 win team in the same division is to some degree a byproduct of the wildcard being such a dicey proposition't, I certainly don't think that the Giants necessarily go out and get Chris Bryant, right, the same token. So on that front, I think it was a very exciting thing. And to see these teams load up on talent, despite kind of a relative assuredness of making the playoffs more broadly, I think that's a real bonus and something to commend this structure, even though I, in general, kind of don't have the greatest feelings for it. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay, now let's talk about the AL.

Oh, I guess I'm going to make you make a prediction. Ooh, okay. For the NL wildcard. I do think... You won't be held responsible. You're going to make me speak it into, I do think the Dodgers will win. I think they are the better team. I think Max Scherzer is a better pitcher.

Although, I mean, this year, again, Wainwright has been incredible. I think they're a tougher lineup even without Max Muncy. And frankly, one thing I didn't say that i feel good about but i actually feel weird that i i do feel relatively good about is is the dodgers bullpen has has weirdly been very good and it's quite deep yeah so i i think you can have that that short leash if you need to uh even with scherzer yeah i i think the dodgers will win but yeah it would not surprise me as st louis did yeah i think that that's fair. That seems reasonable.

That seems very level-headed. And you're a fan of one of the teams, so that's impressive. Okay, let's talk about the AL because we've been going for an hour. Yes. Sorry, everyone. That's fine. This is what happens when baseball pals get on to talk about baseball. So you're the Yankees.

Congratulations. That's exciting for you. I need to stop hitting into double plays. baseball pals get on to talk about baseball so you're the yankees congratulations that's exciting for you i need to stop hitting into double plays the turtle didn't solve that problem that turtle's not gonna make it do we know that turtle's okay do we know that the turtle's fine because like no i don't know and in fact i'm fairly confident it's not okay you're worried about the turtle because they posted their picture from the, you know, what always looks like a basement murder room this time of year because they have to tape up the locker room with visqueen

so that it doesn't ruin the clubhouse. And, you know, there's like all of this unaccounted for liquid on the ground. There's just loose fluid. I didn't see the show, but I assume this is just what Dexter was. I would imagine so. And I was like, is the turtle part of the fluid? Anyway.

So you're the Yankees and you have to face. I need to interrupt. I do appreciate that the Yankees are kind of bringing Brockmire to life. I don't know if you watched it. I was not a Brockmire person, which I don't say because I like people have to think I'm, it's not a, it just wasn't my show, you know I didn't I didn't get into it I know that people like it I know I think Ben likes it he talked to Hank on this very podcast so this is not an anti-Brockmire

stance it is more a there's so much on man and I yeah that is true like I still haven't watched Succession me neither don't worry okay that makes me feel better or Billions which is to my mind they might be the same show I think that Billions probably is more relevant to baseball people because I believe that the lead character in that show was supposed to be based on Steve Cohen so right you're right yes yeah so anyway that it's a baseball show, I think. But so is Brockmire. Anyway, I'm behind on Bake Off too, you guys. So I'm just behind on the shows.

But you're the Yankees. You have a turtle. You're playing the wild card at Fenway. What makes you feel confident, Craig? Garrett Cole? Yeah. Look, I'm not here to over... Why do you sound so fervent about that? That's not a bad take.

No. Well, because I was. Yeah, it's not. I'm not here to. I know we want to go beyond the obvious, but like Garrett Cole is is the very obvious answer here. I don't think we have to be overly clever or cute. Sometimes the obvious answer is just the right one, you know? Yeah.

I think it's Garrett Cole. one you know yeah i think it's garrett cole and i and i think the the 1b to his 1a is the health and productivity of aaron judge and john carlos stanton yeah uh just in general they've they've been they had very very good seasons aaron judge in my opinion carried this offense uh substantially obviously stanton was was there too but but judge especially and the the last the the third thing i would say that's made me feel better is glaber torres this last weekend seemed to be maybe finding a little something seemed to be more at home at second base with geo or shella at at shortstop i don't know that i feel great about the defense in general uh But that little aspect of it, getting him right would seem to be a big deal for New York. Yeah. I think whatever ends up happening in this game, the fact that Judge

played in 148 games and Stanton played in 139 has to feel like a tremendous win for those guys as individuals and also the team as an organization. And I think, you know, if you wanted to tell me that the DH penalty is a little too strong and that Stanton has been worth more than 2.6 wins, I'd be like, yeah, I can. Sure. That's fine. In general, this is another much deeper topic. I think we need to readjust our positional adjustments in general, just as a, you know, broader community.

As an industry. Yeah. Makes it sound so official. I think that there is probably room for improvement there too. I will say that I agree with you. But yeah, those big beef boys, they're the beef boys. They're the beefiest boys.

I want all beef boy outfield. I want the beef boy lineup. I know that you might say, well, Luke Voight is hurt, but don't underrate Anthony Rizzo as a beef boy. Give him his beef boy. The Italian beef. One of several. Yeah. I mean, my people are really well represented. It's shocking. So there's that. Those things make you feel like you got the wind at your back, but then you have to grapple with the things that might bring you down.

So if you're the Yankees, what's making you nervous, Greg? Yeah, I mentioned the infield defense. DJ LeMayhew is out with a sports hernia, right? Yeah. Yikes. Yeah, look, he has not been the guy he was when he signed the initial contract with them. So it's not as dramatic a loss based on the season he's had. It's still not great. And he has been a good defender over his time and is quite versatile.

So I think when you're playing Torres at second, he certainly fits better there. think when you're playing Torres at second he certainly fits better there but Urshela at short and and Rugnett-Odor at third is not ideal and I think that extends to Gary Sanchez and I don't yeah you know I this is a well-trod uh ground for criticizing Sanchez so I don't mean to dwell on it but I think just when you're talking about things to be concerned about in a one game sample I that's that's part of the infield defense. That's one thing you have to consider. You know, I was, like I said, I'm writing about this game for us. I was putting together his, you know, we have a section on the catchers.

He's a negative in framing, a negative in blocking, a negative in throwing this year for us. It's going to be relevant. But, you know, he can obviously change the game with one swing yep but yeah i i think that's that's the the big thing that would concern me yeah i i think that's the one that stands out for me what about you i the the the defense thing would really concern me i think that you know when you have cole like you don't have to worry that much i mean i know that he has had his moments but he's

terrible he's quite good i think that that bullpen is pretty stout i know that it has also had its up and down moments in the second half but it's in general quite good but the the defense would concern me the the fact that there are stretches where the yankees seem to not hit particularly well maybe concerns you a little bit but you know it's been better of late and you have a double place i mean like yeah it's it's like a shot it's kind of is it historic you've started your preview is it a historic rate i hadn't gotten that that far into i i did uh i want it i know there was that stat going around and i don't have it off the top of my head but like gallo had basically never hit into double plays.

Right. And he had like four within the first three weeks of being a Yankee. It's not something I would say is necessarily predictive, but like it has been a story of their season. And obviously, you know, it's a thing that's going to create some dissonance between kind of what their offense looks like in aggregate and what it's actually done right if that makes sense like their ability to get on base their ability to hit it helps to explain the scoring gap between what you would expect given their other sort of

rate of getting on and what they have actually scored they currently they lead the american league and ground into double plays with 154 although for the the Yankees fans, we're like, but Meg, I will note that the second and third plays teams in the AL are the White Sox and Houston, both of which have very good offenses. And again, these aren't really, like you said, I don't think it's terribly predictive. So, you know. But is it a thing that would concern me going into a one game? Yeah, I mean, I think that's there. Yeah, I was, you know, I briefly considered talking about the bullpen. But I think it's honestly pretty, pretty good when you get to thin out, you know,

the guys you don't need, you know, when you're when you're playing every day, when you get to rely on Loaizaga and Chad Green, potentially turn Luis Gil loose in a bullpen role. I think that could be exciting. Brian Menendez, for us, wrote about Clay Holmes and the changes he's made since arriving in New York. And he's been really, really good. So yeah, I think every team kind of has some level of concern about their bullpen. But I guess Chapman might be the way you caveat that.

He's been a little bit concerning right this year in general while the shaky yeah uh so i i think that that is a valid answer while the bullpen as a whole is not necessarily particularly weak right yeah i think that that's fair i i think aaron boone might be something i'd be concerned about as a yeah it's a hard it's a hard conversation to have because on the one hand, you know, the instinct when a team... I think that there is an instinct

to sort of call for the manager's head when the team is underperforming relative to expectation. And the Yankees have had long stretches this year where they have underperformed relative to expectation, right? Like we thought at Fangraphs, we had them projected to be the best team in the American League.

They've obviously not been the best team in the American League. And there's a lot of that goes into that, that we can point to with the Yankees, not the least of which is injuries. They've been injured for stretches. But I think that there's this instinct to like call for the manager's head. And that isn't always really tied to the the direct role that the manager is having in securing those outcomes yes as the yankee owner would tell you it's on the pliers right which like i mean that's not wrong it's not no no it's a complete explanation right but it is

you know like there's something to that right yes and all of that said there have been some moments where he has made decisions that have been sort of strange strategically and i would imagine that in the aggregate like it doesn't matter that much but the place where you really do start to worry about managerial decision making is the because you don't have 162 games for it to all smooth out, right? Like you just don't. Hey, I root for a team with Dave Roberts. Yeah, what is it?

I mean, it's a fascinating case study. It's a persistent enough thing every year that you wonder if there's something to it. Now, I guess the flip side of that is that you're paying such close attention and the stakes are so high that a misstep is going to be magnified in a way that you just don't remember from regular season play, at least not generally. I also think it's just like what actually happens ends up being what everyone remembers, regardless of whether the choice was a valid one or a tough one or not. I mean, you know, we can relate this back to the Julio Rodriguez discussion at the beginning, which is like, there are reasons to do it and reasons not to do it. And this is kind of

where we fall on it. But like, you know, if he came out, came out in big situations and only struck out or whatever, like it ends up looking really bad, but it doesn't mean it was an indefensible choice or, you know, whatever it might be. But yeah, I think there are valid gripes with what Boone has done or not done in game situations. I'm very much of the persuasion that like for a manager, I care much more about what they do in a clubhouse compared to specific X's and O's in much of the time. But like, come the postseason, that's where that preference kind of breaks down, because you want someone who calls on the right guys and all that kind of stuff. And I don't,

I think there are some similarities between Boone and Roberts. And but you know, to that point, like Roberts won last year, and it doesn't preclude him from making the right calls. But I think it's been a source of frustration and some unfair, like you said, especially in the first half of the season, when there was a lot of kind of up and down and maybe more down than up kind of stuff happening that that was kind of placed on Boone. But I think there's also a lot of valid gripes to have with kind of the way he operates as well. Yeah, I think that that's fair. Okay, Red Sox.

What makes you think we're going to win? Boy, I don't know. Red Sox don't make a lot of sense to me. Say more about that, as my mother would say. Tell me about your Red Sox confusion because I think I maybe share it, but I also think that I am potentially not underrating them, but not giving them sufficient credit

for being good at some stuff. Yeah, I guess I think they're a solid team that banked a ton of wins early and just never felt very convincing to me as a top team. Look, the Red Sox are here and the Blue Jays aren't. I think the Blue Jays are a better team. Yeah, I think that's right. And Nathan Eovaldi has been good. I don't think he's a reason I would feel good about winning this game, especially matched up against Garrett Cole. I guess the reasons, again,

would be the very superficial ones, but like Xander Bogarts, Raphael Devers, and Kyle Schwarber's been fantastic for them. That trio would, I guess, make me feel pretty good as a supporter of their lineup. But I don't know that it's exceed, like this lineup as a whole makes me feel better than I do about the Yankees. Yeah, I mean, we can get into concerns later. But yeah, I just don't, we can get into concerns later. But yeah, I just don't everything feels very thin to me. I don't necessarily mean on a depth level, but like in terms of the margins for this team. And so I don't, they've just kind of

defied my expectations all year, right? I actually said coming out of the the trade deadline that it wouldn't surprise me if they were the fourth place team in the AL East. They weren't that far from being the fourth place team in the AL East this year, as it turned out. And they had a considerable lead at that point. So, yeah, I guess I just where they stack up from a team leaderboard ranking perspective like this is a good this is a good baseball team it's a good baseball team even if to your point you look at it from the perspective of just the second half where they have not necessarily been quite as sterling as they were in that early hot run. Like they are hot run.

Like they are, by our version of war anyhow, they are tied with the White Sox in the second half. Although the White Sox, you know. Had some guys missing. They had some guys missing. And look, Luis Robert came back and everything like that. But they kind of, they built, you know, like a 10 game lead. Right.

Sometime in July and just kind of coast a 10-game lead sometime in July and just kind of coasted to some degree. They're fourth in the American League by WRC Plus in the second half. They're pitching, which I feel like every time I see Red Sox fans engaging with their baseball team, they just think that they're the worst staff in the history of baseball. And they're like a pretty mediocre staff, right? In the second half, they're like seventh.

But again, these are like minute war differences. Like this isn't, you know. Right, right. I don't know. Like Chris Sale came back, but he wasn't pre-injury Chris Sale. Yeah. He definitely wasn't White Sox Chris Sale.

He lost to the Orioles in a pivotal game yeah eduardo rodriguez has was i think you know look good in aggregate yeah but kind of shaky uh at times tanner hauck is like a five inning version of chris sale yeah and chris sale might be the five inning version he's like a righty he's been good too but again it's it's kind of not the most reassuring you know like i don't know i it's it's like garrett garrett richards yeah uh completely fell apart post sticky stuff crackdown and then shifted to the bullpen and has been remarkable yeah as as a bullpen guy like is that real like do you feel comfortable with that i don't know he did it i'm not trying to yeah to invalidate it he did it but i don't feel great about it i think the other part

that makes me less confident i shouldn't say less confident but but let more skeptical of their their lineup to some degree is like i've never really been a hunter renfro guy, but he's good. He's got a 500 slug this year and he's got a 114 WRC plus and that's just plain good. I can't argue with it, but on a visceral level, it doesn't make me feel comfortable. How do your guys' defensive metrics feel about Hunter Renfro this year? So they really like him. It has him at plus 6.9 in FRAA. Okay. They didn't love him last year, but basically on par with his last season in San Diego in 2019. Okay. Because R... Yeah, I was just looking at that. I noticed it didn't particularly like him.

Yeah. UCR doesn't care for him. I think... Fenway's kind of weird, right? Fenway's kind of weird. I mean, like, he's just an interesting guy because, like, you can't deny the arm. Right. Right? Like, the arm is incredible. But, like, Outs Above Average doesn't love him. Which I tend to... I mean, look, we have our own metrics and all of that but right i i find outs above average compelling i suppose i would say yeah i do too it doesn't care for him in either right or center i mean he's only like a little bit negative but he is a little

bit negative i don't know he's he's kind of confounding to me because you can't deny the arm and that's why he's where he is but i do i do sometimes feel like the routes he takes up balls are kind of just so so i don't know he's he's a defensive mystery to me because i feel like i had i had established a view of renfro in san diego really in his early going when i think pretty much every defensive metric thought that he was pretty bad. And then he got better. And he like worked to get better. And my perception of him did not adjust quickly enough, like I, or really adjust at all, in part because like he was on bad Padres teams. Right. And so I wasn't engaged with him as a fielder because I wasn't really engaged with him as a baseball player because he was playing for some pretty crummy Padre squads.

You know, like the on base is like 300 sub 300 for his right here. Like, yeah, it's just right. It's a tough way to be a good baseball player. Right. And so I he is the kind of guy where I feel very open to potential correction because I don't think that I ever quite caught up to where he was. And then I think I kind of overcorrected to the point where I was surprised that his metrics had sort of trended back, not universally, obviously, but had sort of trended back in the negative direction again.

So I don't know. Hunter Renfro, I also just, mostly my experience of Hunter Renfro is still to this day being momentarily confused that he is not Mike Trout every single time he is in the batter's box. he is in the batter's box. Yeah. Well, to your broader point, like his, you know, if you look at B ref, like his defensive war metrics, there are generally negative. It's weird too, because the off season he went from San Diego to Tampa Bay, I feel like the conversation was, well, he's a really good defender. Right. Who also can hit for power right but you know if you look at our metrics really liked him that year again like fraa had him as a plus seven that that year from his last year in san diego had and then he went to tampa but b refs don't really you guys fangrafts did you know he was plus five right from negative five to plus five but then back to negative in Tampa we had him slightly negative in Tampa so did so did B-Ref I don't have that's above average up

but like yeah I don't it's it seemed like there was very quickly a consensus that he's like a power and defense right outfielder and I don't he might just be a power outfielder right but this year that's been good enough for a couple wins. Yeah. For us, it's three wins with the defense, but even without it, it's right around two. Right. We have him right around two. He's an above average hitter.

He's hit 31 home runs. He might just be. What if he is just Mike Trout, though? What if he's just hurt Mike Trout? Damaged Mike Trout? Yeah. What if Mike Trout was like, the Angels won't let me play those scamps, but you know who will? Boston. Maybe it's a conspiracy.

Mike Trout with a calf injury. Yeah. I mean like- Yeah, sure. If you stood them next to each other, I would not be convinced it is two people. I would think it was one person moving back and forth very fast. Like they just are the same thumb. They're the same thumb.

Okay. So I think that we've kind of done justice to the Red Sox because the thing we're worried about is that they might just be the Red Sox. Right. Well, I was going to say the thing that worries me is J.D. Martinez. Can we just very briefly say he hurt himself tripping on second base going out. I mean, when going out to play, to play defense. Yep. The concern with JD Martinez has always been his defense, but I didn't think it was like this.

Yeah. Yeah. It is. Have we heard if he will be available? No, I have not seen one way or the other. Yeah. But he twisted the ankle right yeah and it's it's quite you know there's quite an impact there yeah if not he's been you know he was awful

last year but i guess maybe he got the in-game video back on his ipad and he's he's back to being basically jd martinez right and yeah that that's a tough blow if he's not available. The other thing was in my preparation, I was talking to Ben Carsley, one of our writers and a Red Sox fan. And I said, why is this team? Why might they carry three catchers for a wildcard game? Because that doesn't make sense to me. And he said, I regret to inform you that Alex Cora likes to pinch hit Kevin Ploiecki.

Yeah, he really does. It's very strange. That makes me feel not great. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, it doesn't mean that it's bad or wrong or any like, I don't know the results as a pinch hitter. I could pull it up. I don't know. But like, I, yeah, that makes me concerned. Well, and I guess the other thing that we should make mention of here, just because it's a strange result of the way that major league rosters are constructed and the rules around them. This team, I don't think I'm wrong here. This team will be without Jose Iglesias because he's not postseason eligible for the Red Sox. Right, right.

Right. So now you're stuck with like Christian Arroyo? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. They ran out Bobby Dahlbeck at second a couple times. Right, to try to see how that was going to go. But yeah, Iglesias, who was underwhelming for the Angels in 114 games, which is the sample we should likely pay better attention to, but was I had some sympathy for them because, you know, their wildcard race was

so tight that it wasn't like given how he was playing that they could really seemingly afford to bench Iglesias. But then then what do you do? Yeah, I mean, they're stuck in a situation where it's either Christian Arroyo, I think, at second. Or Quique Hernandez at second. Right. Where he's not been nearly as good as he has been, at second. Yeah. Or Kike Hernandez at second. Right. Where he's not been nearly as good as he has been in center field.

Right. I have a lengthy history with Kike, and that's very weird to me. Yeah. Because he was not a bad defensive infielder for the Dodgers. I cannot say that I have a strong mental image of what Kike in the field looks like for Boston. Have you watched enough to say if you with your experienced eye feel like that fits your eye test interpretation of him? Is this like small, you know, single season defensive metric vagaries?

Like what do you attribute that to? I don't have a great answer on what to attribute it to other than like, I wonder if I wonder if it's a positioning thing with the Dodgers and Red Sox, just like a difference between the team. It could very well be that. quite good in the Red Sox outfield. So it's possible that it's something for him that they're doing in the outfield that's very successful, whereas the Dodgers maybe had an edge on positioning in the infield. I'm not entirely sure, but he can play the position. He obviously has for extended periods before. They could put him at second, but then center field gets very dicey. And you put, I guess, Kyle Schwarber in the outfields, which is like, then you're playing, I guess, Alex Verdugo in center or Renfro, I guess, which, as you said, like has not

gone great. It just gets really kind of ugly quite quickly. Yeah. So that's a thing to watch. Yes. As they would say. Who do you think emerges victorious in this one? I give the edge to the Yankees. I think I do too. Yeah. I just have a general lack of belief in Boston. I don't feel great about the Yankees, but I do think they have. I think they should be favored. I'm curious what our, we have not run our single game projection yet. Yeah, ours will be up tomorrow morning. Dan does his game by game stuff,

sort of similar to your guys's single game thing. So we'll see what the numbers say tomorrow. But yeah, it's I feel like, again, in a one game playoff, anything can happen. But my perceived my perceived gap in the talent between these two AL squads is significantly narrower than it is for the NL teams. But I think a gap still does exist for me, even if I can't quite put a good finger on why. I mean, I can, but it doesn't fill me with confidence. I hate having to do the predictions.

I haven't done mine yet. I hate having to do the predictions. I haven't, I haven't done mine yet. I made our staff do theirs and then I'm going to have to aggregate them together this evening and like get our, our playoff prediction post ready. But, um, I don't feel super confident, but we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Well, Hey Craig, uh, we've been talking for an hour and a half now. So I think we should wrap up, uh, for the sake of, you know, of Dylan more than anything. But Craig, what would you like to plug and where can people find it? Yeah, just Baseball Perspectives at Baseball Perspectives dot com, our website in general. Yeah, it's a it's a good website, as people are fond of saying.

If you like fan graphs, I think you'll like what we're doing as well. And I also do a podcast. You do. Five and Dive. It's generally twice a week. And I will be recording. I will actually be recording that tonight on Twitch, I think. I'm a bachelory.

So I'm sure I will get to say a lot of the things that I just said to you. But yeah, it should be fun. And yeah, just check us out. And I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah. And you can find Craig on Twitter at CD Goldstein, even though his username changes all the time in a way that is confounding to me. His actual at at remains the same so check him out on twitter you can see him suffering through a likely dodgers win uh i hope for your sake they do although i don't know are the playoffs easier from a work perspective if your team isn't in them i don't know what it's like craig so i need help i'm sorry uh yes i think it is I think it is if they're not in it. There's, again, like I said, there's a calm down to every game, basically.

And to not have to go through the processing of those emotions of that particular kind of exhaustion certainly makes kind of dealing with what's coming up uh i think a little easier or i guess maybe just a little less time consuming sure i just i like a look i did this last year in the dodgers won the world series and like i felt like there was like an hour to 90 minutes after every dodgers game where i was useless yeah Like I just needed to kind of like process. Yeah. And it's not ideal for me to be useless in that time. So yeah, I think easier, but it's obviously there's a benefit to being, you know, as engaged and all of that.

So I'm not going to complain about it. It's yeah. I guess what I think our takeaway here should be that you can't lose as an individual because you either get to watch your favorite team advance bar or you get to have an easier time at work. And both of those things are good. So, well, Craig, we will have you back to help fill this Ben-less month. But in the meantime, thanks so much for joining me. It was an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

That'll do it for today. Thank you for listening. 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 access to a few special perks. Alex Kobayashi, Carlos Steinman, Davin Laurel, Adam Davi, and Nate Jord. Sorry guys if I said any of your names wrong.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. That is when Facebook is working. And you can rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for us coming via email at podcast at fangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you're a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance i'll be back later this week with new guest co-hosts and new episodes but until then enjoy the wildcard games whatever your rooting interest may be But who knows, walk it in and walk it out All of these nights I'll sleep with the windows down But not until that creature is in the past