Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1758: Desperately Sweaty Energy

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Meg Rowley and guest co-host Jon Tayler of FanGraphs banter about the Boston Red Sox’s victory over the Tampa Bay Rays to advance to the American League Championship Series, including Jon’s experience of the series as a Red Sox fan, Alex Cora’s managerial style, Boston’s particular brand of chaos ball, when Jon knew Garrett Whitlock […]

🎵 Going outside, shoveling snow in the driveway, driveway. Taking our shoes, riding a sled down the hillside, hillside. Hello and welcome to episode 1758 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs-based world podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined today by Jon Taylor, also of Fangraphs. Hello, Jon. Hello, Meg. How are you? I am doing well.

How are you? I'm doing okay. I imagine I'm doing less well than you are, just by virtue of the fact that you're a Boston Red Sox fan. I am. Well, I mean, I'm doing okay in the grander sense of, yay, they won, hooray, deeply spoiled child gets another toy. Less so in the fact that I had forgotten because the Red Sox, obviously, they won the World Series in 2018, but that was an oddly drama-free run with the exception of the final game against

the Yankees in the Division Series, and then that excruciating ninth inning against the Astros during the ALCS that Andrew Benintendi saved when Craig Kimbrell was melting down. Then before that, they hadn't won a World Series in 2013 and postseason appearances had been kind of intermittent and mostly forgettable. I'd forgotten what that anxiety was like of, oh, it's a tie game in the ninth inning to determine whether or not my team moves on. Great. This isn't bad for my heart at all. Also, I kind of recognize when I asked, how are you doing? I'm asking the editor-in-chief of a baseball website in October, how are you doing?

I should just expect the answer is, I don't have lungs anymore. I mean, I have lungs. The number of- Better said, said sleep i don't have yeah awake brain cells might be might be um more suspect at this particular moment it's funny like you you know and it's not as if you you have not also been busy uh in this in this last stretch there's something nice about knowing very predictably when your busiest times of year are going to be? It's like being an accountant during tax season. You know you're gonna be tired.

You might have some preemptive trepidation about that. It's definitely stressful and a lot of work, but it's also, I would submit to you that the playoffs are a lot more fun than taxes. I mean, I personally, I personally, I love taxes. I love filling out forms. I love having to find forms. I love spending money so that more money can be taken from me.

Right, but otherwise. Yes, but I get what you're saying though because for me, I generally, and this is now just something I've, because I've been amazingly known in baseball media for quite a bit. I've just gotten used to telling people in October, hey, you're not going to see or hear from me for four straight weeks. Especially the first week of the season, I am literally not going to do anything else but watch baseball,

or the postseason rather. It's just a predictable bit of being really busy. It's in service of a time of year that lends itself to really cool and spectacular moments. And it's a job that I think even when it reminds you that it is a job that we feel very lucky to get to do. So all in all, not a bad thing. No, no, it's very fun. It's like Christmas for three weeks straight

or whatever your holiday of choice is. Right, it's like a happy high holiday and in that respect also quite different from tax season. So I'm doing well and I'm excited. We are recording this on Tuesday, mere moments before the White Sox and Astros game four kicks off. But I quite liked the rain delay that we got in that series because it meant that we are

now in day two of a three-game day. And I'd submit to you, John, three-game day, better than four-game day. I think it's a superior day. I am not going to disagree with that. I think the problem with the four-game day is you inevitably get two games overlapping. Even yesterday was just a three-game day. We did a little bit, yeah. Yeah, and that was because the schedule was already set in advance and they couldn't move anything. two games overlapping where I mean I mean even yesterday was just a three game day and granted it was a little bit yeah yeah and that was because the schedule was already set in advance and they

couldn't move anything but assuming now that they you know have been able to rejigger things a little bit you know now we're going to get at the optimally at least maybe only an overlap of an inning or so and then you can relate to but like last night with Red Sox Rays because I obviously wanted to watch that to the very end I. I missed the first four innings of Dodgers-Giants because National League playoff baseball either takes two hours to play or 17. Right. So, but yeah, I like the three-game day. I like the even spacing out.

To me, it feels it almost fits the NFL model of the 1 p.m. game, the 4 p.m. game, and then the primetime game. Yeah. And I think that works really well because the other thing is, and I feel almost sacrilegious saying this, but like four playoff games in one day is a lot of playoff baseball. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that because playoff games are just naturally higher stakes and we all get to have the nice sort of collective experience.

It's one of the few times that I think that Twitter is nice. It's like we're all watching the same games. We're all reacting to the same stuff that i think that that twitter is nice it's like we're all watching the same games we're all reacting to the same stuff you do get that sort of communal sense of baseball which can be much more scattershot during the regular season when everyone's sort of off in their respective camps and so you you want to engage with it and even if you're not a fan of the team's playing unless it's a blowout, you feel the stakes of that game. And so four is just, it's quite, it's a lot. It's a long time to have your adrenaline spiking. So I think that three is better. I do better when I'm able to concentrate on one thing. I am not

as big a fan of the multi-screen experiences, some of our contemporaries. So a three-game day is a good day. That's nice. And it's good that you never want a team swept out of the postseason. That's a bummer. No, no. You're always rooting. It's funny because like media,

you're either rooting for the best games ever played or a blowout that's over after the second inning so you can just start writing. And I imagine, yeah, if you're a beat writer writer you want these series over with as soon as possible you don't want to be you don't be crisscrossing the country you are tired it's been a long season you would just like to move on to one thing or the other but yes for us for us relatively speaking fans yeah more baseball more baseball just better concentrated baseball right Right. I guess. More elegantly scheduled baseball. Yeah.

Let's take a refined approach to our broadcasting. So we will talk about the three games that are occurring today and sort of what's left in those series, all of which have the potential to be elimination games. While they are elimination games, whether they do any eliminating remains to be seen. But before we do that, we should talk about your Boston Red Sox. Oh, they're mine now. Okay, cool. Yeah.

John Henry, cut the check, please. It seems like it is only right for fans of a team to get to claim them as theirs when things go well and renounce them when they go poorly. I think that's part of the fan contract that we should have. That's the funny thing for me is I spent so much of 2020 being just that constant Mariah Carey, I don't know her about the Red Sox when they spent the entire season just slip sliding around in their own stupidity. Yeah. I don't know if this is the case with other Red Sox fans.

A brief peek at Twitter last night suggested that a lot of them have, if not short memories, at least have a high capacity for forgiveness because i kind of felt to myself after the mookie bets trade that it's like why do i want to root for this team that very clearly doesn't care yeah about the fan base that supports it because there's no and yeah you know you can make a million baseball related arguments under the sun as to why the red socks actually should have traded mookie bets and why they were smart but i don't care those they're all stupid i don't believe them and i don't care like there's no I mean I'm not gonna I'm not rehashing this trade I'm gonna my blood pressure's gonna spike but point being I had kind of figured that the

Mookie Betts trade might if not kill at least seriously damage a lot of Red Sox fandom at least for this short-term future especially because it felt like this Red Sox team was at minimum like two or three years away from being the kind of consistent contender that wipes away all those bad feelings. And instead, you know, 2021, a year when I think I don't I don't recall at this point if I ever even had a number in mind for what I thought the Red Sox would do this season when it came to preseason estimates, I figured they would be probably around a 500 team. That roster felt very 500 to me. And instead, they've gone full 2013 and just chaos crashed their way through the postseason and that i think has done a lot for the fan base to kind of make the mookie trade more palatable i still think it was a very very bad decision

regardless of what alex verdugo does and everyone else in that trade does for the rest of their careers sure but at the same time like i i do think i mean i'm coming to a point that's not exactly that's a pretty obvious point but but winning solves a lot of problems. Yeah. And winning definitely makes things a lot easier as well. And it helps too that this Red Sox team, I don't know if I want to call them fun, because they're fun in the same way that like, have you ever been behind the wheel of your car, tried to see how fast you could get it to go while still being in control of the vehicle?

No, I'm a nervous driver, so I've never done that, but I can appreciate the experience that you're describing. I'm an aggressive idiot behind, or used to be an aggressive idiot behind the wheel as a youth, and now I'm a bit better. Every now and then, you do get that feeling, what is the fastest I could actually do in this thing while still feeling relatively safe? That's the Red Sox experience.

There's a lot of moments where you're really worried that the car is just, all of a sudden, you're going to lose steering wheel control and you're just going to like roll over 15 times in a row. But man, it feels pretty cool to be doing 100 miles an hour down the highway just flying past everybody else being like, so long, suckers. Yeah, it's an interesting squad. I don't know how to feel about them because on the one hand, them having done this makes our playoff odds look really smart. That's always nice when you can be like, we saw a thing in the projections for this team that we didn't do anything.

Once again, we do not monkey with the projections after they have spit themselves out. Do you hear that, Adam Wainwright? I really do think that he was just joking around mostly. I'm sure he was. You got to get him on an episode during the off season. Yeah, we would love to talk to him and we don't have to relitigate that again either, but I will say, gosh, he is good in the booth, man.

He is just a real treat to watch as a broadcaster. He and Adam Amin and AJ Pierzynski were just, and I'm a former Fangraffser. How do you say a former fan graph or i refer to them as erstwhile fan graphs writers just to be fancy the king of the nerds mike petriello made the point on twitter that it's like they're just having fun in the booth and that's really truthfully beyond the ability to you know accurately describe what is happening on the field like that's really all you need it's just people who are enjoying what they're doing. Yeah, it's at least a good 75% of it. So he has been,

I am sure that he would rather his his Cardinals still be playing. But I think the upshot for the rest of us that they are not is that we get to enjoy him in the booth, which is quite nice. It's funny, you know, the the Cardinals have this reputation for devil magic. And then, you know, we have the Giants, and even your bullshit. But I don't think that we, as a narrative, don't tend to make enough of the Red Sox and their chaos ball energy when it comes to the postseason, because this is like, I don't think that it is a meaningful trend.

It is far from a predictive trend. But gosh, do they do this a lot come October. Yeah. And this is the funny thing for me, because I'm used to the Red Sox either doing this just cannonball run where they set a land speed record en route to the World Series, or they just flop out in the Division Series in three or four games, a la the two John Farrell trips. But yes, I don't know what to make of it.

I mean, the only common denominator here is Alex Cora. And I know that there's the I don't know if you want to call it like a theory or whatever, but the idea that teams essentially reflect their manager's managerial style and their manager's personality. And I think that makes sense because the style and personality that Cora at least presents in the decisions he makes and the way he runs the team is just pure on the hell with it. It's real Fyre Fest, let's just do it and be legends energy all the time. Yeah, and a series marked by that exact energy, right?

We didn't have a chance to podcast after the game that your team won in extras the day before. But when a crucial moment involves a strange deflection off of Hunter Renfro to deny Yandy Diaz a run, you know that you're swimming in very strange waters at that point, right? They got three of the, maybe the three best innings of Nick Pavetta's life. Yeah. of the maybe the three best innings of nick pavetta's life yeah which i i don't like nick pavetta himself who is just a an art of an avatar of chaos on his own you know as all ex phillies prospects must be but yeah everything about the red socks and the way they do things there is a

there is sense to everything that is done like i and this is something where cora doesn't give me the same vibes as it's funny i can't can't even really think of a truly wild manager who just makes gut decisions without even really... I don't really think those guys exist anymore. Yeah, they've largely faded into the background. I think that there are certainly guys who have a better potential for those kinds of moments than others, but in terms of it being a consistent managerial approach, it does not really comport itself

well with modern baseball anymore. No, but I think Cora, especially, and we've seen in the postseason, because we saw it in 2018, too, the way he had to rejigger the bullpen and use starters as relievers and mixing up the lineup and just changing things constantly. I think that that's just, you know, one, that's just his style, I think that that's just you know one that's just his style I think in the postseason because he recognizes this is the time when pretty much everything needs to be done pedal to the metal and there's no real room for just oh we'll wait for tomorrow but at the same time the decisions he makes you can see at the very least the logic

in all of them and for the most part you agree with pretty much all of them I think they're only a small handful of moments throughout the series where I was like, wait, why is he doing that? That doesn't make any sense. And of course, you know, it's very easy to armchair and say that doesn't make any sense. But truly, I think Korra is somehow kind of, if not perfected, at least gotten really good at finding that balance between chaos and calm, logical, rational thought. chaos and calm, logical, rational thought, where it at least feels like all the chaotic decisions at least have some element of logic and rationality to them, so that you don't feel like this is a guy who's just shooting from the hip at every possible angle. It's more that he's shooting, he can see what he's shooting at, and he's got his aim right, but he does that thing where you turn the gun sideways. It looks cooler. It probably makes your aim worse, but it looks way cooler.

The unnecessary gangster movie move of twisting your pistol. Yes, exactly. Twisting your pistol because that's how people talk about gangster movies. That is exactly how they- That's a famous line from Goodfellas where Robert De Niro tells Ray Liotta to twist his pistol. Yes. His entire life, all de niro tells ray leota twist his pistol yeah his entire life all he's been wanting to do is twist his pistol yeah i i mean like the ones that stood out to me have been sort of at the margins even right where it's like so why aren't you

pinch running for christian vasquez sooner with danny santana that that seemed like it took longer than it ought to have but in general it, it seemed like he was doing fine. I want to ask you two specific questions about this series. And then I do want to briefly indulge in a little bit of rulebook talk because it is not effectively wild if Meg does not insist on rulebook talk. I am curious when in your experience of the 2021 Red Sox, you realized that you needed to appreciate and understand Garrett Whitlock.

So that came relatively early for me because I do remember in spring training that he was already getting talked up as being good, not just in the way that a lot of teams talk about rule five players where they're desperately trying to convince everyone listening. No, no, no, no. We're going to keep him. We're going to keep him. We're serious. Right.

But like a legitimate like, no, this kid's actually good and is actually gonna have a role and part of that was because the red sox bullpen isn't good or wasn't good briefly was good got bad again and now has settled into somewhere around okay depending on yeah who happens to be in at any given moment but to me it became really clear early on that like this was not just your average rule five guy who was going to show up when you're down or up five runs and give up a run on the process. This was, if nothing else, the legitimate velocity, working 97-99 with good movement on everything. The fact, too, that...

And I think you definitely saw it in the playoffs. I love the big celebrations. I loved every time Nick Pavetta came off the mound. He was marking out just wild. the chest slapping, the jumping. I love that stuff, especially in the playoffs. But I do find it instructive or at least noteworthy that when you watch Whitlock pitch and he walks off the mound, he just looks like he just finished taking his driver's license test. He's just the most unaffected, like, okay, fine, that just happened.

And it's like, even just beyond the stuff, like any, I don't even recall off the top of my head how old he is, but he can't be any older than like 23 or 24, I would guess. He's 25. 25, okay. He's a June 25, though, so he is 25 years, four months, and one day today. Wow, happy past four months, and one day today. Happy past four months, one day. Whatever. Point is, it is kind of crazy to see a 25-year-old kid who's also, and it's worth noting too,

coming off or came off at one point, reconstructive elbow surgery and is way past, I would imagine, any amount of at least performance, if not innings, that he's ever had in his life. He still just looks like this is just the most simple thing in the world to him and that's just like that that really stands out i think especially because he keeps getting put into situations that are absolutely terrifying i mean okay there there is the one core move where and i and i do think this core thing is more about the trust and relationships he has with the players on his team, as opposed to a strictly black and white analytics-based decision, is not using Whitlock in the eighth innings of games three and four,

and instead using Hansel Robles and Ryan Brazier, respectively, and allowing Tampa both times to erase a lead and tie the game. And then Whitlock comes in anyway and throws two innings both times. And everyone's sitting there being like, well, why didn't he just do that to start? Yeah, a good that's a good one that i should have mentioned apart from you know danny santana but and i mean i mean these things tend to get you know when you win all these things tend to disappear into the into the front notes but at the same time i i think that's one of those things where it's like part of it is robles and brazier have pitched well and i think

cora recognizes that and does not want to pitch his 25-year-old Rule 5 elbow surgery repaired rookie six outs every time he has. But I also do think some of that is just trying to boost the confidence of those guys and being able to tell Whitlock, you're not going to have to carry everything. We're going to try to build a bridge to you as opposed to making you the entire Andrew Miller-sized bridge. Right. We're going to try to throw Ryan Brazier's exhausted body over this gap.

When that fails, you will use his body to cross that gap yourself. Right. The first man shoots, and the second man takes his rifle and then begins shooting. Pistol, Jon. Pistol. First man twists the pistol. Yes. I'm being reminded now as I look at um whitlock's player page that he was

a he was a zips 2021 top 100 guy so good job uh zimborski like he was 77th on dan's zips top 100 list prior to the season yeah and i think again that's just i know part of that is obviously the the translations dan gets from whitlock's minor league stats but i think it's like it's the same thing it's like a guy who throws 99 with good command, that is going to work regardless of, well, not regardless, but that's probably going to work. Yeah, that tends to play. Well, that is the Garrett Whitlock of it all,

and we were able to see that coming if we were close observers over the course of the season. The next guy I want to ask you about has been quite good for stretches of his major league career. So I don't mean to say this is coming out of nowhere, but I have sure enjoyed getting to know this particular postseason's version of Kike Hernandez. Yes.

Because goodness, has that been fun to watch? Yeah. And I especially like it because Kike is one of those guys who's always had that reputation more of kind of the funny clubhouse guy who's there for more for like, not more for but as much for his what he brings to the team personality wise and in the clubhouse as for what he provided to the Dodgers in terms of being a super utility guy who killed left handers. who killed left-handers. I won't lie, I wasn't crazy about that signing when the Red Sox made it, which is nothing against Quique Hernandez personally. I really liked that. That was the aspect I really liked,

is yes, this is the kind of team, especially after an awful season like last year, and in a clubhouse that is probably still reeling post-Mookie trade, to bring in a guy who's got that reputation of being a positive, energetic, every team needs at least, I think, two or three of those guys just to keep things loose. But I wasn't crazy about the idea of taking this guy

who had shown pretty well over the course of his Dodgers career that he should not be a full-time starter against right-handed pitching. And that defensively, while he was adequate to good pretty much ever, it was kind of the question of, okay, but is he really someone you want to trust? 145, 150 games at second base or at center field or whatever it happened to be that the Red Sox needed? It turned out to be a lot of second base because that position has been cursed and haunted by ghosts ever since Dustin Pedroia's knee injury. And I think this is another Cora thing, too, because this is something he has come out

and said that part of the reason he wanted Kike on this team, and I believe they have a connection just through they're both Puerto Rican. And I believe Kike has played for the Puerto Rican WBC team under Cora, but I can't recall exactly that. Obviously they, they had a preexisting relationship, but Cora was very adamant that no, this guy can be a full-time player. You know,

he, he, if you give him the opportunities and if you give him the at-bats, he will actually produce, you know, he was a part-time player in LA because he had to be, because there were a lot of other guys in front of him and that was how the Dodgers best decided he would work I wasn't sold on that and there was a good chunk of the season too where it just

seemed like it wasn't really working you know especially as a leadoff hitter he didn't really seem to be clicking their leadoff being a problem with the Red Sox I don't think really truly solved until Kyle Schwarber showed up and now they have very much locked into that which is just the best fit yeah best weird fit. Love it. Yes, leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber, it's perfect. I'm so happy about it. It's funny because the superlatives here really are just like,

he's just a good guy, but now he's also just apparently been possessed by the spirit of, I guess, Randy or Roserana. Maybe they body swapped or something, I don't know. I don't know. Randy wasn't without energy in this playoff series. I think that I don't know if i don't know they randy wasn't without energy that's true playoff series so i think that i don't know if a body swap is quite the right comp but i do i mean i do think it's hard it works that there is again a certain element of if alex cora believes in you that somehow makes you 20 better of a baseball player i i don't know what he does or what it is

he has but i think too it's just a lot of too, I think is some element of he is in the best position possible in that lineup to do damage and to be a guy who can do damage because he's behind Schwarber. So he's got a pretty regular presence ahead of him in the lineup who will be on base and he's got Devers and Bogarts behind him. So if you're a pitcher, you're probably thinking to yourself, well,

I don't really want to deal with Kyle Schwarber, and I don't really want to deal with Rafael Devers, and I really don't want to deal with Xander Bogarts and JD Martinez, but this little dude who isn't very good, has not been very good against right-handers in his career? Yeah, I'll pitch to this guy. I'll be curious to see, regardless of whether or not it's Houston or Chicago that advances what the advanced scouting and approach to him looks like. He was getting a lot of strikes against Tampa Bay for reasons that I am not fully clear

on because generally I think he's been a good strike. And also, you don't really want to give hittable strikes to anyone. But I think I don't know if it's the case for sure because I do not. I know I did not talk to Kevin Cash or anyone. I wonder if Tampa's strategy was just we can just, we're fine if he gets his hits. We just need to keep everybody else down because, you know, this is not the most dangerous guy in the lineup. But I certainly think that being where he is in the lineup helps.

I certainly think the fact that he is getting regular at-bats and can be in this position where he can lock into a groove and kind of just relax and know that, you know, the opportunities are going to be there has probably helped. I always did kind of wonder that with Dodgers with dodgers and raise players both that on the one hand they were usually if not often put in a position to succeed based on handedness or pitcher they were facing or whatever the particular situation happened to be but i also wonder how i also thought it must have been so difficult for all those players to be able to keep that level of performance up when you're only being asked to play once every three games or you're getting two at-bats every two days or

whatever it is or you're only coming in to play three innings of defense or whatever happens to be especially in the postseason too I feel like when you do want to get yourself into that space because like granted what after what he did in game two he was never going to come out of that lineup because you don't take out a guy who has five hits and and you know 17 total bases or whatever it was but that is the benefit too there that because he is a full-time starter alex core doesn't have to sit down and be like oh well you know he had a great night last night but we have another hand that started coming up so i'm gonna pull him out of the line and put someone else in there analytically could you argue that's

a better move i mean i'm making up a whole ghost red socks roster now where they platoon kike hernandez but for better said said, is how the Dodgers used him the smart way to use him? It is a smart way to use him. Is the Red Sox way as smart? Probably not because they are letting him take at-bats against right-handed pitchers he probably should not be facing. Although at the same time, the roster doesn't really give them an alternative otherwise. But I think it has helped him reach this level of consistency that he's never really had the opportunity to get to before. And I, and I know this is,

it feels weird to say on, you know, effectively wild the podcast at fan graphs, the analytical baseball site with the analytics and the numbers, but it really, I really do think there is something to be said about playing for a guy who says, no,

you're just, you're just the regular starter, good or bad. You know, you will go out there and you will do your job. And I believe in you. And which is not to say like other managers don't do this. I don't think there's any manager who goes around to his players

and is like, who the hell are you? I don't believe in you at all. The thing I come back to is, in all the post-Red Sox victory pieces won by Chad Jennings over the Athletic, who talked to Garrett Whitlock, and Whitlock's quote was, and it was a great quote, and I think a line that's kind of stuck with me since I read it last night is Alex Cora will get you to run through a wall and even if you think to yourself there's no way I

can actually run through that wall you're also thinking he'll find a way to make it happen for us basically yeah I think that the official stance of effectively wild on on questions like this is is not that that stuff doesn't matter. I think quantifying how much it matters, right? And certainly being able to determine whether it can sort of counterbalance other factors is much harder. But I think that it makes very good sense that human beings respond to motivation and incentives in their workplace in ways that can enhance their engagement with their jobs and move them to sort of really lock in and try to do their very best, which isn't to say that there aren't clubhouses that are weird and dysfunctional

that don't manage to win a lot of baseball games. But I think that that stuff definitely matters. don't manage to win a lot of baseball games. But I think that that stuff definitely matters. I mean, arguably, the strategic part of managing, as we mentioned earlier, is like much better in hand. I think the distribution of talent on that side of things is far narrower than it used to be. And so I'm persuaded that that stuff matters and that particularly for guys who have been in utility roles or who are quite young and are still acclimating to the majors that like a deft hand on the manager's part is probably pretty important to them and has you know that they sort of reap psychological benefit from that how much that can offset you know know, underlying differences in true talent. Like, I don't know the answer to that question,

but I think that that stuff does definitely matter because like we've all had bosses, right? And we're not motivated to do good work when you're working for a jerk. So exactly. And on the other hand, you have a manager who believes in you. And I think, too, just that sense of if even if things start to go wrong, even if I slumped, even if I pitch a few bad innings whatever it is that manager is still going to be there like no no you're still an important valuable part of our team and we're going to

keep using you because i think that that's been the case for pretty much every non kind of established star member of this red sox team has had a stretch at some point this season where they were bad they were ineffective they were unctive, and yet they are still part of this. There really are few guys on this team who have been completely frozen out. I think most every player on the ALDS roster was used with the exception of, I believe, Martin Perez and Adam Adovino, which given that the Red Sox played a 13 inning game is kind of ridiculous to think about. But at same time like alex cora gets it seems like he's very good at getting the most out of his roster even if it is not the same kind of hyper deep hyper flexible roster that the dodgers and rays have made kind of sure or even i think now

the giants too have kind of fallen into that category of the really modern baseball roster where you have 25 guys each of whom can do four different things, or maybe you have three guys, each of whom only does one thing, but they do that one thing really, really, really well. Well, and I think that in a short series, while having the ability to mix and match in a short series is useful, but I do think that it takes a lot longer than five or seven games for the marginal benefits that you're sort of realizing as a part of a deep roster that is deployed in very specific ways. I think it's muted over a shorter series, how much that stuff matters, which isn't to say it doesn't matter, but I think that you tend to see those benefits accrue over half or full season's worth of games rather than just a short

one. So I don't know that it tends to matter quite as much not that people don't need depth in the playoffs as I think both teams sort of experienced in this series when it came to their pitching but I do think that that stuff tends to mute a little bit that's more the thing is obviously in the AL the pitching depth is the thing that matters because you I mean the other part is that Cora really barely touched his bench because he has very few options in the lineup that he's going to pinch hit for really at any point except for the catcher spot maybe. And honestly, that's about I mean, he pinch hit for Bobby Dahlbeck last night after Dahlbeck came in as a defensive replacement.

But that was more just to get the platoon advantage with with Travis Shaw. So how long do you think it will take Bobby Dahlbeck to look as old as he actually is? I would love to know if he's tried to grow a mustache and what it looks like. I don't mean it like, it sounds like I'm knocking the kid and I'm not because he's going to look youthful when he's 50 and I am going to look like Mad Madam Mims from Disney movie when I'm 50. Joke's on me, but he looks like a teen. He looks still as a teen, and especially when you had more grizzled veterans standing next

to him, I'm like, by God, that guy looks young. He is a young man. I had a friend of hers, she's crashing with me for a few days while she's apartment hunts in the city because she just moved back here, We were watching the game last night and when Bobby Dahlbeck comes up, she's like, is he 12? He's a baby. It's amazing to be the baby face on a team that already has Raphael Devers.

Right. Who I don't think has finished high school yet. It's an interesting combination of aesthetics on that Red Sox team. I want to briefly talk about the rule book thing yay just because mostly i i will admit to this i am mostly relieved that this was ruled correctly even if the rule itself is perhaps in need of some revisiting in terms of what it incentivizes

because what i was worried would be true is that we would all dig into the rulebook and we would find the part of the rulebook that pertains to this exact circumstance and they would have sent it to New York and then it would be wrong. And then it would be a disaster because that would be all we'd talk about the rest of the postseason.

It would be how the Rays, you know, the Rays, they got their opportunity taken away from them unfairly. And this was decided correctly. But it sure seems like this rule needs to be rewritten a little bit, doesn't it? Yeah, on the one hand, yes, because that was the thing that blew me away was that there wasn't a... I know that there is the rule that, as you said, was correctly interpreted

that if the ball makes contact with the fielder like that and bounces out of play, it's a ground rule double and two bases are awarded to everybody from the pitch when it was thrown right but at the same time it was kind of weird to me it's like there is no rule in the in the in the book literally that covers this exact like how how in 900 years of baseball has this has this exact scenario not come up before and i guess it has because that rule is in there but i don't know i think this is this is the one thing i was i was a little that i saw a lot of talk about on twitter that i admittedly was a little annoying to me because there were a lot of people saying like well why

does next time this happens just kick the ball into the into the stands and that'll solve the problem it's like well no because at the very least like i don't know exactly what the range of umpire discretion is when it comes to applying the rules, how much wiggle room they have to interpret it. I don't know if this is something where umpires are more like Scalia or you're more liberal justices. Oh, God. We got to get a lawyer on for this. Yeah. regardless like no but if i mean the umpire at least i would hope would have the discretion that if what had happened if the ball had bounced off renfro and just landed in the dirt

and if he had just kind of soccer kicked it up over the wall into the into the bullpen and throwing his hands up and go oh no it went over the wall i would like to hope that the replay would have made it abundantly clear that no that's not what happened and if that is what happened the umpires would be able to say okay because like you intentionally to like toss the ball out of play run scores or whatever whatever the exact scenario would happen to be there so on the one hand like okay maybe the rule could stand to be a tad more specific in terms of that i suppose but at the same time if you do give the umpires that leeway to decide basically intentionality versus unintentionality which i know kind of a gray area right but still like i think it if nothing else the renfro one was really clear-cut he was basically intentionality versus unintentionality, which I know is kind of a gray area.

But still, I think if nothing else, the Renfro one was really clear-cut. He was very clearly not trying to knock that ball into the bullpen. Correct. It was a fluke thing. It was a total freak, weird, conglomeration of his positioning, the reality of how short that outfield wall is, like it is just a strange...

And physics. It is just a very strange set of circumstances. Well, and in the umpire's handbook, because there's the rule book and then there is a separate handbook that is given to umpires to help them further interpret those rules. And there is language in there about if a fielder comes into possession

of the ball, right? So if he had caught it cleanly and then had thrown it into the stands, then the award is two bases from the position of the runners at the time of it being sort of launched into the stands or kicked or whatever. But it does seem as if we have the ability now with replay to determine sort of what is a reasonable advancement based on when the deflection takes place relative to where the runner was because i think that the place where people got exercised and when i was watching it i was like well but he he just would have scored standing up right yeah and that's and

i maybe that's the thing i've never terribly understood why with a runner on first and automatic or ground rule double puts that runner on third. I understand two bases for a double, so two bases for the runner. And I'd love to know the exact percentage of this, and I'm sure it exists somewhere. Most runners I would wager, especially in, of course, the context there matters, but even in a context-less situation, like regardless of whether or not the count is 3-2 and the runner is going with the pitch, most runners

in that scenario score. Right. The only guys who, not the only guys, but the guys who don't are your catchers, your first baseman, your DHs, guys who might be hurt. I know that you can't really ask umpires necessarily to be like, well, it was Manny Margot on first, or it was Andy Diaz, who was at least an average, if not above average runner. And it was three, two counts.

He was going with the pitch. So therefore, based on that combination of circumstances, we must award him for home play because he would have scored anyway. I guess that is the weird thing is like if you're giving the umpire leeway to decide how many bases, then you're also asking to take into account like five different contextual things about the literal game itself that they are not paying attention to or are not really qualified to judge i think necessarily i don't know if i have and i know that's not what you're saying is just you know have the umpire put

runners wherever they feel like it uh chaos rules but i guess that's the thing is like you can either have the rule as is with the locked in two bases and sometimes stuff like this happens where it is just patently unfair because yeah Diaz would have scored easily it should have been a 5-4 game barring that weird little fluke and really even with the fluke you can make like you said you can make the easy argument oh he was going to score anyway so just put him over there right but at the same

time like let's say that scenario happens again but Diaz isn't running with the pitch or it's Mike Zanino on first base sorry Megan not to pick on you. No, slow boy. He's a slow boy. He's a very slow boy.

Would the umpire, would Rays fans still feel at that point that Zanino would have scored on that ball? I mean, he probably would have because if that hadn't hopped, it would have been more likely not a triple for Kiermaier. But that's the thing. If you're putting a slower runner, if there's a slower runner and the count is different and it just becomes the thing. If you're putting a slower runner, if there's a slower runner and the count is different and it just becomes a thing. It's like, how do you decide what the extra base should be unless you kind of have a locked

in like, no, it's just two bases. Or it's, you know, like our example, like with the when Alex Verdugo let off the eighth with a ground ball that Wander Franco threw away. They just gave him second base. It's like, well, you could argue realistically that play kept developing. Maybe somehow he gets the third. He probably doesn't. But there are plays like that where a throw gets away and you could realistically see the runner getting past second or a runner on first who can move past

third if something silly happens i don't know i sometimes i think baseball just has to lock itself into these weird little scenarios where even if the even if the reality is unfair that's just what it has to be because otherwise it just opens the door to way too much potential nonsense and i especially like the idea too that that is like all of that was set rules so that we also didn't have to waste an ungodly amount of time with both managers coming out to yell and argue and plead their case like this is some kind of oral argument in front of the supreme court because it's just right that's not what this is like i don't want to i want the i want the game to be played fairly and correctly i want the rules to be interpreted correctly but i also don't want this to turn into like i said oral arguments in front of the supreme court where we have managers

trying to parse no he should be there and that guy should be there while the rest of us are all trying to figure out where the mlb rulebook even is much less what section we need to turn to right you know we're not we're not all m. We don't have that one memorized front to back. Yeah. Part of why Emma Bagiolari and I are friends is because we are both people who have spent a good deal of time reading the rulebook for fun. Even I had to dig around to remind myself of what that rule was. I think that this one was decided correctly.

I share your appreciation that Kevin Cash was like, okay, that's the rule. Like, here we go. We're not going to argue it. And I am happy for the Rays that that game ended up being decided by more than a run so that we don't have to spend quite as much time looking back on it.

And just like quickly to say, the other part of it too was it happened with two outs so that there was still a chance for Tampa to score a run anyway. If Zanino had, if he hadn't struck out, if he'd made contact or whatever, there was still an opportunity for them to get the run anyway. Yeah. That is perhaps where we can leave Tampa and Boston, at least for now, although I have

a mean question for you. Okay. Are you just very worried about being tormented by Wander Franco the rest of your life? Only up until the point where the Rays decide he gets too expensive, which is when the second he starts making a million dollars. I didn't want to set you up for that, but boy, if you're a Rays fan and you're trying today, on this morning, you're trying to-

The last person I want to hear from right now is me. Yes, make yourself feel better. You're probably like, well, that Wander kid. I will say, for the Rays, I genuinely like the Rays team because I like a lot of these players. Randy Rosemade is awesome. Wander Franco is already a top 25 player in baseball, which is terrifying to think about. For as much as I complain about Kevin Kiermaier collecting every ball hit to center field for the nine years he has been on the race, which is wild to think about he's been on the race, assuming he makes a team or that they don't trade him or I can't

remember what his contract status is anyway, but assuming he's on that team next year, it'd be a full decade of Kevin Kiermaier on the Rays, which is wild. I just, the thing to me, and I saw a lot of this on Twitter last night, and this is, I think, inevitable when the Rays lose, is the immediate anti-nerd, quote-unquote, backlash of, oh, if the Rays were so smart, why'd they lose? Because their ownership doesn't see it fit to spend more money on them.

The Wander Franco joke I make is not something out of, I don't want Rays fans to enjoy Wander Franco. i want them to enjoy one he's awesome he's really cool he's mookie you know he's their mookie right but at the same time if randy isn't their mookie rather but at the same time it is just the reality that this ownership group in tampa and this is just it's this isn't even like it's just the reality that they are going to trade him the moment he gets too expensive they're not going to keep him he gets too expensive. They're not going to keep him. They don't keep anyone. They're not going to keep anyone.

They're spending more time this post. They spend more time this postseason trying to figure out how to make this. And I love this word. And I saw it in connection to this. And this FACACTA Tampa Montreal plan happened. It's just that that I think to me is the real kind of tragedy for Rays fans. They have this brilliant, wonderful team and this incredibly smart front office and coaching staff and player development staff. And the thing that

lets them down time and time again and is going to keep letting them down, at least I imagine time and time again going forward, is that there's ownership that just doesn't feel like having this be anything more than the 25th lowest payroll in baseball. And that just sucks. That sucks really because I don't know necessarily that there was one one extra move the rays could or should have made beyond maybe they should have kept charlie morton that probably would have been smart but it is always a thing to think about what would this race team look like if you just spent 20 million more dollars right that's all you would need to do really i think this is not a team that has to go to 150 million dollars to be

a world series winner very clearly that's not the case, but a little bit extra. Yeah, I find the Rays' discourse to be kind of exhausting because I just don't think that it's sufficiently nuanced, which is shocking for something that happens on Twitter. Wow, can't believe it. I don't think that a team's performance in a five-game series negates the very real talent that exists on that roster. I'm not saying that you think that.

And I think that if ever there was a player where you decide to shell out for him, that Wander Franco might be that guy. I do agree that when you as an organization foreclose an entire avenue of improving your team, it's risky and it does sort of limit what you can do. Now it is a testament to the talents of both these players and the people who work in that front office and on their scouting side that this is still a remarkably good ball club.

And I think that if you have more avenues to bolster your roster, you're better off, right? That's why the Dodgers are the Dodgers because they do all of the good player dev and analytics work and have really talented guys like Tampa does, and they allow themselves to spend money. I share the frustration. I do hope, though, that we can at least say, this is a really good ball club. Yes, and they were a legitimate 100-win team, legitimately the best team in the American

League, legitimately. I think there are moments you can point to in that series where the ownership and transigence towards spending money, I think especially in game four where you have Shane McClanahan on three days rest as a rookie at the end of the longest season of his life being asked to get out in a, I believe at the time, a scoreless game against the most difficult part of this Red Sox order on the road. That's definitely a scenario where you feel like maybe if you had an extra starter, if you just paid for one extra starter, if you kept Charlie Morton, if you hadn't traded Rich Hill, if you'd just gone out and gotten like a pick, pick a starter from the from the from last offseason who would have been available on a cheap one to two year contract and would have been at least league average. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head, but that was probably a moment where

you're like, OK, this is where this team's cheapness really comes back to bite them. But otherwise, like all the stuff that happened in this series that kind of didn't go the Ray's way was just variant stuff. It was that fluke play. It was Manny Margot being called out on that stolen base because he came off the bag by an inch. It was, you know, it was a thousand other things you can point to that that made the difference in this series that had nothing to do with the quality of the race because

they're a super super good team they're terrifying to face they're exhausting like it felt like wander franco and randy roseriner were at bat every inning and they weren't but their players in that lineup were nearly damn as good anyway right and so that's like yes legitimate five game series teaches you nothing about the the actual goodness of that team but it does really feel like one of those things where it's like if you want to make sure that those variant moments hurt you less it probably helps to have a roster built up around you that can weather those moments a little better because you have guys i mean this this was the thing with last year like you just said basically the the 2020 world series was the rays against the rays but with superstars

right so i i just i feel a lot for the rays and i especially feel for them now too because it's very clear this franchise is actually going to pursue this idiotic montreal plan and i i don't know like what what do you do when your team's eliminated and the first thing you hear about franchise wise is well sorry guys it was a really. Tune in next year when we're going to try to spend half our time, when we're going to spend all our time trying to convince you that actually Canada's where we want to be playing, not this dump of a stadium next to a highway.

Yeah, it's a rough way to wake up the day after you've been eliminated for sure. And so my condolences to Tampa. They're a very good, very fun team. I make jokes about them online all the time because it's very easy and because I can never resist easy shots, but they are so much fun to watch when they got it, especially when they're just clicking, when you just see all the pieces fall into place and you're like, oh, this is basically a perfectly built baseball team from top to bottom. That's

terrifying to think about. Yeah. Well, we leave that series behind right now as we record. We are in the bottom of the first of Houston White Sox. Carlos Rodon threw 99 in the prior inning. So, you know, that is at least a good sign for his early going here. So we will wait the conclusion of that series to find out who the Red Sox are playing. So we'll wait to preview it until we know what their opponent looks like. But let's briefly touch on the NL here. The Brewers stand on the brink of elimination, as do the Dodgers, which is surprising, perhaps. And I guess I will ask, which of those two outcomes is the most surprising to you, John? Probably Dodgers, and not so much because I picked them to win that series.

No, I'm sorry. I picked the Gi them to win that series no I'm sorry I picked the Giants to win that series so I don't know because I guess I don't really know why I'd be surprised but I think it's it's less about the surprise that the Dodgers are losing and more about the Brewers being down 2-1 and having scored a grand total of two runs in three games like yeah that that scans yeah that part everything that's happened with the Brewers so far has played exactly out as you would expect it to. They've gotten two really good pitching performances.

Three, really, although Freddy Peralta's start was shorter, obviously, than Corbin Burns's and Brandon Woodruff's. But they've gotten excellent pitching and no offense to speak of, which was pretty much the case all year. I mean, pulling from Kevin Goldstein's Game 3 recap, a team that finished, I believe, much the case all year. I mean, pulling from Kevin Goldstein's Game 3 recap, a team that finished, I believe, top five in the NL in runs, but toward the bottom in both OPS and WRC+. So, you know, peripherally, not a good team. And as KG mentioned, like it took a Willie Adamas hot streak, the likes of which he had never experienced. Plus guys like Luis Urias and

Rowdy Tellez kind of catching fire for a bit for them to get even that far yeah and that's the thing you look at that lineup going to that series and you kind of you ask yourself who exactly here is the guy you can rely on to do damage like where where is the chunk of the lineup that a that a pitcher is scared to face i know that's like a this sounds like an extremely like sports talk radio way of referencing it but it really is just an average offense at best that doesn't really have consistent power threats a lot of these guys are more contact oriented hitters like colton long or luis urias or adamez or you know and especially with christian yelich continuing to have disappeared sometime around the end of 2019 and never having come back yeah the fact that the brewers are where they are

against a team in atlanta that doesn't pitch as well as they do but still pitches pretty well and has a much better offense to boot yeah it doesn't surprise me that they are where they are against a team in Atlanta that doesn't pitch as well as they do, but still pitches pretty well and has a much better offense to boot. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that they are where they are and that they are in this position because it really I think it really was going to take either Burns, Woodruff and Peralta are all Madison Bumgarner together. 2014 Madison Bumgarner rather, or they need one to three of those guys in that lineup to go just wild over the course of five games. They need a Kike Hernandez type performance because that lineup just is not consistent enough to put together offensive rallies on the regular.

There are way too many dead spots in that lineup. There are way too many guys who are not capable of doing really anything other than like ripping a single between first and second, which, Hey, you're on base, but you know, and I think we've seen this.

It's really hard to build rallies in the post season. Yeah. Um, unless you are a hyper either you're on base, but you know. And I think we've seen this. It's really hard to build rallies in the postseason. Yeah. Unless you are a hyper, either you're, unless you're the Astros and you just have a lineup that goes seven deep somehow, or you're a hyper contact oriented team that's really good at executing fundamentals and small ball, which the Brewers are,

but that I think obviously works better against bad teams, certainly, than it does against a Braves team that is genuinely legitimately good. And I think the other surprise, bad teams, certainly, than it does against a Braves team that is genuinely, legitimately good. And I think the other surprise, if there is a surprise to me, is that Atlanta is as good as it is despite the fact that the Braves lost Ronald Acuna and their outfield was a mess and they don't have Mike Sirocco and their bullpen is a mess. Yeah.

Same kind of Red Sox vibes over there. They make it happen regardless. And I think it's just they have enough above average stars where they need to be to kind of carry the parts of the roster that don't really work right now. The links in the chain are a little weak in some places, but the other links are strong enough, I guess, to make up for it. That's a terrible metaphor, but I'm sticking with it. I think that that works.

I guess the part of it that is the most surprising to me about LA finding themselves in the position they do is not that the Giants are not a good team, because they certainly are. There's realness to their record that I think we often don't see when a team outperforms its projections as significantly as San Francisco did. But that on a night where you get kind of a vintage Scherzer start that you still manage to lose that game. Sometimes I guess that is literally just how the wind blows. Yes, I love that baseball and football, the two sports where you can just lose to the wind.

Yeah, you can lose to weather. And I don't say that to discount the performance that the Giants put up last night because they had to compete in those same conditions, obviously. And good gracious, did Evan Longoria hit the snot out of that ball. Yes, he did. But it was surprising. And I guess I didn't realize just when the Santa Anas blow through, but here we are.

I'm going to ask you, you made your staff predictions. I do not remember what they were, John, and I'm not going to look it up. Neither do I, actually. It doesn't matter. I'm going to give you the opportunity to either reaffirm your very smart predictions or recast them entirely what what do you expect we are going to get as our our championship series matchups and then our world series matchup so it's funny you mentioned that just quickly with the Giants they are going to be hoisting the commissioner's trophy and celebrating on the field and I'm going to be

sitting there going but are they actually good yeah we we have talked about this a good deal on the podcast i i admitted to being skeptical of them in a way that did not feel fair and i think i still have some of that skepticism just because you know the dodgers are capable of going on an offensive run even without Max Muncy, but then you watch Cody Bellinger again and you're like, well, maybe some of this makes a bit of sense. I think it's fair when you have a team where 85-year-old Buster Posey and 76-year-old Brandon Crawford and 93-year-old Evan Longoria are leading the charge for there to be at least some skepticism about like,

wait a minute, that doesn't scan with the last five years. What the hell? Yes. As to my predictions, I had the Rays in the World Series, This isn't about like, wait a minute, that doesn't scan with the last five years. What the hell? Yeah. As to my predictions, I had the Rays in the World Series, so we're just going to act like that didn't happen. The one year I finally decide I'm tired of betting against them. I'm tired of picking against them. They always make me look stupid.

I'm just going to buy in 100% on the Rays. That's what I deserve. I think we're going to end up, my prediction would be, obviously, the Red Sox are one half the ALCS. I think Houston will be the other half. If only because coming back from 2-1 in a five-game series is very, very difficult. I don't really think the White Sox have this lined up particularly well either, even if they win today, tomorrow, or yes, they would be playing again tomorrow. So that's the other thing. There's a really quick turnaround for everybody. I think, especially because I don't think they can rely on Rodon.

Watch him prove me wrong. We'll see how many innings they get today, but I think obviously they're going to have to keep leaning on the bullpen. And then the situation in game five, it's either Lance Lynn or it's Lucas Giolito, neither of whom pitched particularly well in games one or two. And Lynn in particular with his super fastball heavy repertoire does not seem to be a good guy to go up against this Astros lineup. I don't really know what the White Sox, I don't know if the White Sox even have a

plan that far I think it's just win today and we'll figure it out from there right I think if it is a Red Sox Houston ALCS I do see Houston winning the pennant that offense is just way too strong it's so good it's like and the thing is so good for as much as I say the Rays are a great top to bottom team there were points in that lineup, especially once the relievers started coming in and Tampa had to start adjusting its platoon-heavy strategy because they load the lineup one way and then they have to keep flipping and flipping and flipping. And because you only have so many hitters,

you can't really get away with that forever. There were spots in there. Kiermaier, for the most part, Zanino, the G-Man Choi, Jordan Luplo, Yandy Diaz triad of interchangeableness. There were points where you could kind of take a break and there were points where you felt a little more comfortable and it helped that you had guys like Nelson Cruz in a bad slump or that Austin Meadows wasn't able to do as much this series

because there were just a lot of left-handers he had to face. Whereas Houston... Or that you had Brandon Lau in just a slump to end all slumps. What is it that happens to him when the postseason starts? I don't know, man. I think it's just, I don't know. I don't have a good explanation. I mean, guys slump all the time.

It's not a postseason phenomenon, but his cold streaks sure run real cold. So yeah, I felt bad for the guy. He was like, I think he was 0 for 5 when he came up with runners in scoring position. And did he get a single hit in that Boston series? I believe no. No, I guy he was like i think he was over five with when he came up with runners in scoring position and did he get a single hit in that boston series i do i believe no no i think so he was hit listen i think he struck out in half his plate appearances yeah so he really had a bad time that was rough yeah whereas with houston it's like your your weak spots are martin maldonado who

yeah weak spot but every catcher is a weak spot yeah and your choice of jacob myers or chas mccormick, and I really like Myers. I like him as a number nine hitter, that kind of fast contact-oriented guy who just seems to give teams fits from that position. Yeah. On top, I mean, the thing I think Houston does not

obviously have going for it is a bullpen that is kind of eh all the way around with the exception of Ryan Presley, but that is less finish, I think, against Boston, whose bullpen is also very eh all the way around with the exception of Ryan Presley, but that is less of an issue, I think, against Boston, whose bullpen is also very all the way around with the exception of Whitlock. But I do just think offensively, it's just how do you keep that offense down for at minimum four games? Right. Yeah. When you have Kyle Tucker in the seventh spot, you know that things are pretty strong top to bottom. So I think that I I agree. Then who do you have emerging from the NL?

I'm banking with the folks in the lead. I think we do get Braves-Giants because, again, 2-1 is really hard to come back from. I have way more faith that the Dodgers can do it than the Brewers can, especially because if the Dodgers do manage to win today, tomorrow, I've completely lost track. They play today. Yeah, they're the nightcap game today. I don't know what day it is anymore.

You're getting thrown off because we have AL baseball today, which we were not supposed to have. So I think that's what's throwing me for a loop. My internal brain calendar has been reordered.

But I do think the Dodgers are probably in the best position of either of those teams to come back, especially because if they do win game four, they have a fully rested Julio Rios in game five

ready to go, which would be really, really big for them. Whereas Milwaukee, I genuinely don't know what they plan on doing going forward. None of Woodruff, Burns, or Peralta can start this game. I believe they have who even is starting this game for Milwaukee? Eric Lauer. Eric Lauer.

Lauer. Roger. Even beyond Burns and Woodruff and Peralta not being able to start, they're really not available for anything other than the most emergency of emergency relief outings. If Craig Council gets through this, he's going to have to do it with the lesser parts of his rotation, the middle chunk of his bullpen, and as much Josh Hader as Josh Hader can provide.

That's a really, really tough strategy, especially against a Braves team that is pretty, pretty good. Then they have to do it all over again in game five. Although I guess at that point, they would be bringing out either Burns or Woodruff or whoever it is on, I guess it would be Burns on regular rest at that point. But I just, I think the Dodgers just have the better shot in game four to do something, especially because the giant starter is Anthony DiSclefani, who one, they already absolutely ripped to pieces earlier this season. And two, who is just not probably the weakest starter of anyone going in that series, which is no disrespect to Tony Disco,

but just a realistic reflection of how good both these rotations actually are. And yeah, and also it is just the Dodgers. I have more faith in the Dodgers generally. I have more faith in the defending World Series champions I do the the NL Central team really yeah I controversial take I'm done believing in Central teams just generally fair enough yeah I I think we're gonna get a Giants Brave series just because again they're both up to one and they're both in really good positions anytime you get two shots to move on as opposed to having to fight for your life both times. I think that's just much better.

And then who is our, what is our World Series matchup? I think it's Giants Astros. Oh boy. Which would be, I don't know what to make of that matchup because there's no real narrative that it fits. Yeah. Which is not to say

that every matchup needs a narrative, aside from us writers and editors who really like narratives because they make things so much easier. It does make for a more satisfying game story. It does. But that is just a matchup of just I mean, just on a purely baseball fan, that's just two

really, really good teams. That's almost like, who cares? You don't need the narrative. You don't need any narrative behind that. It's just two really good teams. That's almost one of, who cares? You don't need the narrative. You don't need any narrative behind that. It's just two really good teams head-to-head for hopefully seven games. I like the idea of, I think that narratives emerge. Series tend to lend themselves to that. I like the idea of us being able to discover a new one.

Dodgers, Astros would certainly give its own. I am not on the internet for even a pitch of that series. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do you anticipate that the discourse will be bad about that, Jon? I can't imagine why you would do that. The discourse around just the Ryan to Paris stuff was already so bad that it just reminded me, right, this is why beyond the whatever aesthetic stuff

you have with it and just whatever your rooting interest may be, this is why the Astros being in the postseason is now just completely exhausting because it is the only thing anyone will talk about with them and understandably so. Yeah. But it's just too much. It's certainly something.

It is a lot. It's a lot of something. Well, I am conscious of the time. There will be more Effectively Wild this week, so we will be able to react to the actual matchups for that later. But before we go, John, I have to ask you a really, this is an upsetting question. This is, I can't believe I'm making you engage with this.

Do you see this Broadway promo that MLB Network did? You see this theater kid moment that baseball had? Why is there such a huge, why is that pipeline so big? Theater kid to baseball fan. Like I've noticed that. There are a lot of like, there are a lot of folks on baseball Twitter. I'm like, you were in a high school production

of Our Town, weren't you? I was in a high school production of Our Town, weren't you? I was in a high school production of Our Town, Jon. See, that's what I'm saying. Yes, I am double trouble when it comes to the worst possible kid to emerge from high school because I was both a theater kid and a debate kid. I was both kinds of kid. I feel comfortable saying as a former theater kid, although I was not a musical theater kid

because I cannot sing even a little bit. We don't need it. It's okay. We can move on from this. What is the Venn diagram overlap of baseball fans and people who are fans of Christian Chenoweth? There can't be that many people. Well, and it's just, you know,

for folks who have not seen what we're referencing because MLB Network did pull it down from Twitter. And look, we at Effectively Wild do not endorse bullying, but there are exceptions to every rule. So maybe that's what we saw here. But there was a promo for the ALDSs, the serieses. ALDSs? The AL Divisions series.

Where four theater kids and I will say a very talented pianist came together to sing a musical tribute to these teams. And it did feature rapping. You could not possibly put air quotes around wrapping that are big enough. It's not possible. It also featured hands dancing, hand dancing, where they're not really going to dance,

but they're going to do hands. Yeah, jazz hands. And it was one of those things that I was horrified to watch and then could not stop watching. I am not a musical theater person at all. I've done maybe two. I went to, weirdly enough, the one musical I have seen is Starlight Express,

the Andrew Lloyd Webber one about trains, which is really one of the more bonkers productions you'll ever get the chance to watch if it ever, for some reason, escapes the subterranean jail that i imagine andrew lloyd weber threw it into after it's run on broadway was over yeah because even for him that one is yeah i was gonna say really andrew lloyd weber there is some cheese associated with that guy and then there's starlight express yes that thing

is craft singles all the way down. It's not even so much that they chose this way to do it, which to me, it didn't even make full sense because it's like, if you're going to do a Broadway thing, why wouldn't you do that if it's something New York related? Right, there weren't even any New York teams. Right, they didn't bust this out for the wild card. They could have at least made some pained Bronx references. No, no. Featured no New York teams.

I just find the concept of the baseball hype video that networks do so weird because I don't really know who it's supposed to be for. The folks who were already planning on watching that game were going to do it regardless of whether or not you had the guy you contacted when Lin-Manuel Miranda said

no. They don't care. It does not matter to them you had uh the guy you you contacted when Lin-Manuel Miranda said no yeah like they that doesn't they don't care it does not matter to them literally what the hype video is because they're they're there just for the game if you're a hardcore fan you're there if you're a casual fan what about that is enticing you to watch the baseball game coming yep like I that's what I just don't get like I I don't have any ideas myself as to how Major League Baseball or MLB Network or whatever whatever network can do a better hype video because I I don't know I don't have any ideas myself as to how Major League Baseball or MLB Network or whatever network can do a better hype video because I don't know. I don't really know how you hype baseball and do a hype video that isn't just guys pounding their chest after they make an outer hit a home run.

There's just not a whole lot else baseball wise you can really kind of dramatize in that sense. And the ones where they have them just kind of staring into a camera, like holding a bat or like pretending they're pitching or the even weirder one during the world series we see where they just put them in the room with the commissioner's trophy and are just like stare at this like it is the most important thing in your life and like you were in love with it and like you were going to marry it i just find very strange too especially because invariably there are guys there who have won at least one if not multiple world series and you've got to imagine for them especially this is probably not all that

crazy yeah and they're also probably guys who it's like i don't really care about this like if we win we i mean obviously they want to win but it's like right i don't fetishize the commissioner's trophy or the concept of you know whatever it is yeah it's it's just very confusing to me why that existed i get the sense that there's this constant push within MLB's offices of we have to promote, promote, promote. And yeah, of course, they have to promote. But they just choose the weirdest ways to go about it sometimes where you just wonder. It's like either someone up in the league office just doesn't watch enough baseball and so is not really sure what exactly they're supposed to be promoting and so that's how something like kristen chenoweth singing about various cities happens or someone up there is super disconnected from popular culture at large

yeah that's kind of the other thing to me is like broadway is not some aspects of broadway are popular and are broadly popular like the hamilton stuff which is why i imagine they had the rapping and whatnot. But Broadway itself is not really something that carries, I think, a whole lot of cachet beyond folks who are already into it. So I don't really know who that was supposed to win over. Who is the casual fan who likes Broadway but isn't sure about this whole baseball thing?

Well, and I think part of why I found it so funny was that because they only did the MLB Network games. And so there was no NL answer to this. And I realized that that is a result of the broadcast, right? Yes. Because MLB Network didn't do any NL games, right? Am I misremembering that? No, they only did.

I mean, the only one I remember is Ray's Red Sox. Everything else is as distant to me as the fall of Rome and has been blended into a fine paste of playoff baseball anyway. Let's see. But I'm pretty sure that they only did that AL game. Look, we're lucky. At least they didn't have Jim Cott and Buck Showalter singing. Oh, man, yeah.

Although maybe Jim Cott should have been singing. That probably would have been better than what he ended up saying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was better than what he ended up saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it was. Let's see. We had. Yeah, we had.

We had raised Red Sox. And then we had that that fateful broadcast of White Sox Astros. And then I think MLB Network exited the stage. So we didn't have an NL answer to this. And so I realized that they they just did it because MLB Network was like, this will be fun. But I like to imagine that someone representing the NL was like, oh, we're not doing that. No. Excuse me.

We are uninterested in that particular bit of nonsense. Go to hell with that. Yeah. I mean, it does just all. I mean, I like nonsense. And I like the baseball. I like the baseball braces nonsense. I just wish that it would be a little more thoughtful about what nonsense it chooses

as opposed to being like, you guys like Broadway, right? 90% of the audience going, no, no, no one asked for this. No one at all asked for this. There really is a desperately sweaty energy to the things Major League Baseball does sometimes where you just feel like they're trying so hard

to convince you that this is a thing you actually want. Yes. Yes. I think that that is a good way to put it and a good note to end things on. Effectively Wild, the Desperately Sweaty podcast. Sweaty energy. Yeah, here we are embracing our desperately sweaty energy. John, where can people find you on Twitter?

At J-A-T-A-Y-L-E-R, my weird alternative spelling of Taylor. I will be mostly yelling about the Red Sox from this point forward. Although I made this point on Twitter and now my replies are just Chernobyl. But I made the point mostly joking, but serious in the way that I think regular season rooting matchups and lifelong fandoms just create the need for pettiness that no matter what happens to the Red Sox and the ALCS they knocked out the Yankees and the Rays

in the span of a week the season is a complete success by that metric fandom fandom is fun like that it does stuff to us it makes us it makes us a version of ourselves I'm not putting a value judgment on that version I'm just saying It makes us a version of ourselves. I'm not putting a value judgment on that version.

I'm just saying it makes us a version of ourselves. It does. We find our version. So for me, I'll be yelling about the Red Sox, but I think, and again, like I said, spoiled child who gets a new toy. I've seen four titles in the last 17 years. I don't need another one.

I'm good. I'm good. I'm being very generous here. No, somebody else, please have this World Series title. I know I'm talking to someone who literally hasn't seen one. No, no. And definitely didn't get to see one at a time when I could be a fan in an uncomplicated way. Which is the other part of it too, I think, for you and me and everyone else in baseball media,

that our fandom just gets really, really weird at a certain point. Yeah. And as I admitted that when the Mariners were on their little run at the end of the season there and it looked like they might sneak in, like I felt I felt a rekindling of fan feeling back around to the beginning of the episode, just wildly stressful. Like I and I wasn't even, you know, I would not consider myself in that moment to be sort of a full throated, prepared to have my mood altered for the rest of the day in response to the outcome of fan feeling I was feeling. Even I felt very stressed on behalf of Paul Seawald. I was like, Paul, man, we're in it together. We're in a trench today. You and I are pinky swearing. Yes, you and me, Paul, because this is what we're doing. I get what you're saying because I think I had something similar, especially writing about baseball very, very often. Just that vibe of like,

you can't really be a fan when you do that, but it also kind of blunts your fandom anyway, because I think that's when you expose yourself to more teams and to more players, and you just kind of like more teams and players because you're just like, oh, I just like this aesthetically. It just kind of,

it does make your fandom, I think a little less intense, but I felt like this series again, both the wildcard game and C Yankees, which I think for obvious reasons and the series against the Rays, where I kind of went into it going, I don't even know how excited I'm going to be about this.

I don't know if I care all that much. And then as both are happening, I'm like, oh yes, this is the most important thing in the world right now. It took very little time for that to happen again. But I do especially think now that, at least for me, I do think that the pettiness of intra-divisional stuff does make a later, or does make a playoff exit to a non-division or non-ales team that much

more palatable i wouldn't be thrilled if the red sox lost the alcs i'm not going to say i feel like i'm just going to wipe my hands and go okay fine it's on to the whatever is next for whatever but i don't think celtics i guess i don't know Let's go Cs. You could be a Kraken fan. You want to come to the Seattle Kraken fan with me, John? Sure. It's a cool name. I bet the two of us can name the exact same number of guys on that roster. There's got to be at least one Swedish dude, right?

If I say Johansson, that's a pretty good. Yeah. It feels like the equivalent of like, I love that moment in Astro's White Sox dusty baker replaced lurie or replaced uh luis garcia with yemi garcia to pitch to lurie garcia garcia is all the way down garcia is all the way down but yeah the it's nice to have the fandom come back even though red socks astros will be i mean not nearly as insufferable as astros dodgers but will also be a deeply unpleasant time on the internet. Although I am going to create a tweet deck column solely of Yankees fans just to watch them just contort themselves into ribbons

or into knots over the course of that entire series. Just miserable the entire time. I'm sorry to Yankees fans, but I'm really not. I suppose that the upshot of having a team like the Mariners as your fan team is that when they do return to the postseason, everyone who isn't a fan of the team they're playing is going to root for Seattle. If it had been a Red Sox Mariners wildcard game somehow, which I think we could have gotten, I probably would have been rooting for the Mariners, too. I probably would have been rooting for the Mariners too. I think there is a certain point, and like I said,

the more you watch baseball that isn't just your team where you get to where it's like, I like my team, but there are also plenty of other things I like and plenty of other players I like and plenty of other situations. It's like, yeah, the team that hasn't been in the playoffs since literally 2001 and just got here by kind of sheer plucky scrap and fun differential. Hell yeah, let's do a Mariner's Tober. Mariner's Tober.

That was Seattle's downfall. They never came up with a catchy name for October. Well, they might have a while to work on it still. I look forward to being able to root for whatever the catchy version of Mariner's Tober is. We will have you back on Effectively Wild before such an eventuality because we won't make people wait that long. But John, thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for letting me do my Effectively Wild debut. That wasn't good English, but it's a podcast. It doesn't have to be. No, I've done Fangraphs Audio with you. I guess that's right. And also with Eric in another time for a different thing. But this is my first time on Effectively Wild.

So Effectively Wild Facebook group that I don't read, please go easy on me. I'm not going to read your criticism or comments anyway, so if you have thoughts you want to send to me directly, you can tweet them at GrantBrisbee. That's G-R-A-N-T B-R-I-S-B-E-E. Just let him know.

Sorry, let me, as GrantBrisbee, because that's who I am, let me know how I did, please, and thank you. That'll do it for today 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 keep us ad free and get access to a few special perks lynn b josh hahn anna creech b Deal, and Justine Dakotas. Thanks so much. Speaking of perks, if you're a supporter at the $10 a month and up level, one of your supporter benefits is access to two Patreon-exclusive postseason livestreams

featuring me, possibly Ben, and several of our baseball friends. The first of those streams is going to take place this Sunday, October 17th, for Game 2 of the NLCS. You'll find details in your Patreon inbox soon, so keep an eye out for that. And if you'd like to join us and aren't currently a supporter or are a supporter, but not for $10 a month or more, don't worry, there's still time to sign up.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild, 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 fangraphs.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. Until then, enjoy the playoffs. With some drops You'll find new friends But not your props

Nothing has changed But there's one thing you know Now you're in a Broadway show