Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1911: Thump and Dump

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Braves’ first sacrifice bunt of the season, Meg’s gratitude for the effect Mariners fandom has had on her life, the Orioles’ status as impressive also-rans, Atlanta overtaking the Mets, how to assess an MLB season, and the playoff field being set. They also react in real time […]

🎵 Say I'm the man for you, baby Yes, I am for you, baby I'm the man for you Hello and welcome to episode 1911 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I am gobsmacked. Not by the fact that the Mariners and the Phillies qualified for the playoffs, although that was gobsmacking also,

but the Atlanta Braves just sacrifice bunted. They sure did. Yeah. Just before we started recording. Glad this happened first, just so we weren't immediately obsolete after we finished things and the big sack bunt Braves news broke. So Michael Harris II snapped the streak in game 161 with the

Braves first sack bunt of the season. And I guess it didn't work. Sack bunts don't pay. It looks like I'm looking at this now. Top of the fourth, William Contreras led off with a single. Orlando Garcia singled after him. And then Harris, the came up, sack bunt to third, got thrown out, runners to second and third. Robbie Grossman struck out swinging. Braxton Garrett intentionally walked Ronald Acuna Jr., and then Dansby Swanson called out on strikes, left the bases loaded. Wow. So the sack bunt immediately backfired. Wow.

Wow. I thought they were going to make it. They made it so far. They were so close. I was kind of looking forward to maybe they would drop one down in the playoffs because it's October and you play by a different script and everything. But no, they didn't, you make it that far, might as well go for it. And semi-disappointed in that it was sort of a sign of the times. They're very much a contemporary offense, and you take away pitcher hitting, and you insert some sabermetrics, and now no one sacks bunts anymore. And the Braves really, they were going to do it. I heard Brian Snitger, their manager, asked about it at some point earlier this year. We mentioned this months ago on the podcast. I forget when. And he was asked about it and he said there is no mandate not to do it, that he wasn't intentionally trying not to do it. They just weren't really built to do it. And they had had a few sackbunt attempts here and there throughout the season.

So it wasn't as if they hadn't tried this before, but it just hadn't worked. And now it worked, except it didn't work. So end of a short era. Yeah, they don't try to bunt much at all. They don't try to sack bunt and they don't try to bunt for hits. They're just like not a team that really does much in the way of bunting. But, you know, look, when you're trying to secure the the east you got to pull out a bunch of different tricks and some of them might be familiar so yeah here we are i say play the way that got you there

they got this far not sack bunting don't abandon their tactics now but it's true there is still something at stake in theory there but we have a playoff field. Yeah, we do. The playoff field is set, not all the seating and the ordering and who's playing whom, but we know the 12 teams. They're all in. And the others are all out. So we're going to bring on our buddy Jordan Schusterman of SESPA's Family Barbecue soon to talk about the Mariners mostly because Jordan was at the big game. Jordan was at the big game. Jordan was at the clinching game.

He saw Cal Raleigh hit the pinch hit walk-off homer to end the drought and send the Mariners back to the playoffs, which was a big moment for him as a Mariners fan, huge moment for you as Mariners fan. Yeah. So we're going to discuss all of that. Do you have any additional Marin's thoughts that will come before your later Mariner's thoughts that you have already shared, but people haven't heard yet? Oh, Ben, you're so generous because before we got on, here's a little behind the scenes

insight. We recorded our interview with Jordan before we recorded this intro. So we've had our conversation. It's delightful. I think you'll all enjoy it. And then we get on to record this intro, and I immediately was like, I have more thoughts about the Mariners, and I didn't say them. Yep. Get them all out. Well, I just, you know, as we were rolling into that game on Friday, as it was approaching and we were getting closer, like I had, you know, I just had cause to reflect on the random circumstances of my life that have been buffeted about by that stupid

baseball team you know because you know i know i have my moments of being grumpy but i i'd like to think that i'm a generally optimistic person and my life probably could have taken a lot of different paths and i want to think that i'd be reasonably happy in all of them but but i sure like this one that I have you know and there are some people in my life who I like genuinely love and are very important to me who I have met through baseball generally some of

them through the Mariners specifically but but some through baseball sort of more amorphously and I'm aware of how this particular interest unfolding in this particular way led me to certain big life decisions like an eventual career and moves to different parts of the country and what have you. And, you know, I'll be, again, optimistic and say that like the people I would have met in the

alternate versions of my life, you know, maybe they would have been as good. But I struggle to think they would have been better. So I am just very grateful for the life I have. And I'm aware that one of the bits of luck and good fortune that I was buffeted about by was this, again, stupid baseball team that was so bad, Ben, for so long. You know, at times times like embarrassingly bad sometimes bad in just like a boring way right mostly bad in a boring way i guess right like they they never

bottomed out not that it's like that much consolation because they went so long without making the playoffs but like they didn't get astros and orioles bad i know that's extreme but but they were still at times pretty bad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don't want to discount their badness. It just could have been worse, but not really. I mean, in one way, it could have been worse. It could have been an even worse not making the playoffs baseball team. Right. So, you know, it's just funny how life works out. So I was thinking about that as I was preparing to watch them on Friday. Like, you know, that was the first opportunity that they really had to clinch. And then Baltimore won their game.

And it was like, if they're going to do it today, they're going to have to do it themselves. And I found that very gratifying, you know, that they clinched their playoff spot, not because they got an update in, you know an update in batting practice that the Orioles had lost, but because they won and won in dramatic fashion. And that felt very cool and good. And so anyway, I just think baseball is great. There's other stuff that's good, too. But for me, you know, there aren't many things that are better.

And so I'm glad that I have it. And I'm glad that Seattle will get to experience, even if at first at a distance, playoff baseball. And I hope they have the opportunity to play some games at home because I think that would be a great treat for the folks who live there. Yeah, well, I'm glad the Mariners brought you

in a roundabout way to Fangraphs and to this podcast. And all of our listeners can be grateful for that. And congrats to the Mariners fans and the Phillies fans and the Mariners and the Phillies themselves for snapping their respective dry spells. And also, by the way, shout out to the Orioles, too, because the Orioles had to lose so that the Mariners could win. Someone had to lose so that the Mariners could get. Someone had to lose so that the Mariners could get in there. But they had quite a run. And they had a historic season of their own. ESPN Stats and Info tweeted when they won their 81st game,

they have since clinched a winning season. They have a winning season now, but they joined the 1899 St. Louis Perfectos and the 1890 Louisville Colonels as the only teams to finish 500 or better in a season after recording 110 losses in the prior season. That's a big step. By the way, how do you think the St. Louis Perfectos of 1898 felt when they were losing all those games? What a name for that team. Perfectos. I mean, look, we've had to abandon a lot of old names because some of them were pretty racist. But we should have more things called the Perfectos

just to add stakes, you know? Yeah, the 1898. So I guess in 1898, they were the Browns when they went 39 and 11 and 4. So that's probably convenient because in 1899, they went 84-67-4, and then they were the Perfectos, which they probably felt almost perfect after going 39-11-4. I bet they did.

Anyway, better that they were not named the Perfectos while they were losing all those games. So the Orioles, they made really massive strides. They were a fun team. They were an exciting team. They called up multiple top prospects in baseball during the season and they played really well. So you got your glimpses at Henderson and Rutschman and more than glimpses, they were great. Rutschman was outstanding. And next year you get Grayson Rodriguez, hopefully a healthy Rodriguez. And you have other cornerstones and building blocks that are in place or coming along. Like it's a tough assignment. It's the AL East. It's not going to get a whole lot easier in the

short term, but there's something brewing there. And they were for the first time in a long time, something brewing there. And they were, for the first time in a long time, a respectable and entertaining baseball team. So kudos to the players for making that happen. And the front office, they took an extreme Astros-style path to this. But I guess at least thus far, maybe on a slightly slower timeline, I don't know, they're following an Astros-esque trajectory, or at least Orioles fans could extrapolate and hope that that's the case without some of the nefarious aspects of the Astros. But you could kind of comp it, I guess, to like the 2015 Astros who won 86 games and they did win a wild card and got into the playoffs and the Orioles did not. But kind of comparable, except that those Astros went through sort of an intermediate stage where they went from losing 111 in 2013 to losing 92 in 2014. And then they were a winning team, whereas these Orioles just sort of skipped the 2014 model and went from really terrible to winning team.

But even better, I guess, even more exciting that that happened in one season when it finally happened. Anyway, nice that when we're talking about previewing next season, it won't be, oh, we're going to talk about the Orioles last, and it'll be kind of sad and depressing. There will be a lot of optimism surrounding that team heading into next year. Yeah, I think that for their fans to get to watch a winning team is really exciting for them to have gotten to see the guys they have is really exciting i think that we can you know quibble with some of the approaches even in this season that their front office has taken you know there is a lot of houston dna there but i i think it's it's pretty exciting it's so funny that we're like, how do you feel?

I'm like, I didn't really do anything except cry and get excited about the Mariners. I didn't help them. They did it all on their own. But we're excited for fans because that's a more realistic intermediary for us than the players themselves, I guess. But yeah, it was in some ways a very predictable and boring season of baseball, but there were some surprises. And I think it's good for the sport to be done with two really long playoff droughts. It's good for the sport for the Orioles to be emerging. It's not like there won't be any teams that aren't

trying after the Orioles are like, we're here and we would like to win now, please. But it's good to have that stuff happen because, you know, otherwise we just have to watch the Astros and the Dodgers all the time. Who wants that? Yeah. When people talk about this was a good season, this was a bad season, I always have a hard time gauging, at least in the moment. And even in retrospect, it's hard for me to look back and say, that was a good season. I always have a hard time gauging, at least in the moment. And even in retrospect, it's hard for me to look back and say, that was a good season. This was not a good season. There are certain seasons that have something more memorable and historic, or they end in a more exciting way. But it's such a big concept of a baseball season. There are so many teams and there are so many players. And I can't get my arms around it and sort of sum it up or distill it down to this was a good season.

This was a bad season. Like this was a less exciting season in some respects with the standings and the playoff race at the end here and for part of the season. But then you had really exciting individual seasons that at least for me made up for that excitement. And you had Judge and you had Pujols and you had Otani and you had a lot of really exciting rookies. So every season contains multitudes. It's hard for me to say like this one was better than that one. There's just there's so much baseball every year. I'm sated no matter what, no matter how it ends, really. So yeah, you know, if we could talk about a TV season being better than another

TV season, but a baseball season and playoffs, I think you can say some playoffs are better just because some years you'll go to the maximum number of games and it'll just be like in terms of leverage and championship win probability swings and all of that, you can kind of quantify it and it'll reflect your feelings that there were more heroics or more suspense or just more sustained series. But everything that is the preface and the prelude to that, there's just so much of it. So I'm happy to have it and I can't declare it good or bad by baseball standards necessarily. Yeah, it is baseball. And I think it's worth us remembering on this the day before the last day of the regular season we got 162 games ben yeah that was nice too that was not

a given earlier this year that was far from certain so you know sometimes you're just grateful that you get to show up 162 times. I think the comfort and joy of that regularity has been impressed upon us in a lot of unfortunate contexts in the last couple of years. So isn't that nice? So we got 162. Yeah. And I kind of am bullish on the playoff field too. I don't say a lot of nice things about the expanded playoff format, although now that this has happened, I would hate to take away a playoff and some Cinderella stories and underdog stories. Like there's just a bigger field to choose from. So if you're a neutral fan looking to hop on the bandwagon for a month, like there are a lot of storylines, a lot of rooting interests. Some of those teams won't last long and each individual team has less of a chance than they would have under previous playoff formats if they'd made it. But you kind of have a bit of the best of both worlds.

Like you have the Mariners and you have the Phillies who are snapping their own long drought. And of course, the Mariners never having won a World Series, never having been to a World Series. And then you have other teams that haven't won one either in a long time or ever, right? So you have the Rays, you have, of course, the Guardians, who as long as their championship drought endures, pretty easy to pull for them whenever they're in the postseason. You have the Blue Jays, Canada's team, a fun team. They haven't won one in a few decades. A fun team. They haven't won one in a few decades. So you have a lot of teams here that haven't won one. And then you also have teams that are there every year which i think it's kind of a nice mix to have some surprise teams and some perennial winners and teams that people love to hate right so you have your yankees

and dodgers behemoths and you have the cardinals yes the Cardinals are there again and the Astros are there again. So you have kind Mets being back in the playoffs. You have the defending champions making another run. Like there's a lot of exciting storylines, which I guess is inevitable. Like it would be hard to have 12 playoff teams and be like, yawn, shrug, like there's nothing that interests me here. But that is, I suppose, the upside in that I can look at these teams and, you know, like if we were back in the pre-expanded playoffs era when it was just like the best team in each league makes it and it's the Dodgers versus the Astros in the World Series or something, maybe those teams wouldn't have those histories that they do now. But like that's how it used to work. And that had some upsides and

that had a lot of downsides, too. I mean, I think that there's a happy medium maybe between 2 and 12 but still, there's a lot that I'm pretty excited for on the eve of the playoffs. Well, Ben, speaking of Yankees behemoths, guess what happened? 62? He did hit 62.

62! And I wasn't watching because I was recording a podcast and I wasn't watching. Yeah. In the nightcap of their doubleheader against the Texas Rangers, first inning. All right. Has hit 62. So Aaron Judge is the new American League home run record holder. Awesome.

I'm glad it happened. Yeah. And now we can talk about other stuff. I really am happy that it happened, though, just because it would have been a bit of a down note to end on. Like, obviously, taking nothing away from his season if he had hit 61 instead of 62. And you will hear us joke about that with Jordan later in the episode, which was recorded before the 62nd Homer. But hardly makes any difference to how valuable and impressive his season was. But I'm glad that he ended it that way.

And really, it adds a little intrigue and suspense that he did it on the second to last day of the season, right? Like that there was actually some doubt there at the end that he would get pitches to hit and that he would hit them. So we don't get the anticlimax of just talking about this for days and weeks and months and then just another tie like it's it's great that he got over the hump and got over the finish line so this is fun like this was one of the most entertaining running stories of the entire season too so i'm glad that it came to fruition yeah it's pretty incredible it is good

to have the resolution i mean i guess if we had really wanted the drama to stretch you could have last day you know judge you could have done it tomorrow like what were you thinking but i also think that this is just a good moment for us to take a brief live stats full season stat break assuming that the website will load oh there it did so would you like to know aaron judge's updated line sure 311 425 687 he has a 208 wrc plus this aforementioned 62 home runs he is by our version of war worth 11 and a half wins in the 2020 season that's a lot of wins it's a lot of wins ben it's just so many it's just like really quite a lot of them you know like the gap between him and the next two guys both of whom are in the the national league i will point out so like nolan arenado and Manny Machado are currently parked at 7.2.

Like, what? Excuse you? What are we? Excuse you? That's a gap. Now, I don't want to disrespect Otani, so I will note that that is just the hitter leaderboard. If we scooch over to the combined war leaderboard, Otani slides in there at 9.3 wins

when we account for both his pitching and hitting. So don't- Not too shabby. Don't worry, Ben. And he's going to go on the last day of the season. One last two-way Otani day for all of us. One last. Just, you know, for the year, though.

You don't have to make it so ominous. Yes. So Jesus Tinoco was the man who surrendered number 62. Sorry, Jesus. Condolences, Jesus. It had to be someone. Yep. I guess it didn't, but you pitched to him, presumably.

I still have not seen the home run, but I assume it was a strike. So congrats to Jesus. You should be saluted, Mr. Tinoco, for serving up a hittable pitch, presumably. Presumably. Yes. So that's exciting. So we've had a lot of excitement given the fact that we already said that there was a fair bit of excitement just in the past few days because, you know, we did get Atlanta overtaking the Mets in quite a striking weekend series. And as we record, at least, the NL East is still not decided.

That may have changed by the time you are hearing this, but they're really dragging it out to the end here. It's been raining in New York. That has delayed some games. dragging it out to the end here. It's been raining in New York. That has delayed some games. But as we speak, Atlanta's magic number is one. And it is quite likely that they will be winning that division because they swept the Mets. And they did it the hard way. They beat Scherzer. They beat DeGrom. They beat Bassett. The Mets had basically their playoff rotation lined up. And the Braves took all three in that series.

And not only did they sweep, but they got the season series and the tie break. And that was that. I mean, it's not officially done as we speak, but that is most likely that. And really, the worst scenario for the Mets is that they hang on until the last day of the season and they have to use DeGrom, right? until the last day of the season and they have to use deGrom, right, and might still not come back anyway and then have burned their best pitcher when the wild card round starts. So again, as we've said, it's a great comeback by the Braves more so than it's any kind of collapse by the Mets.

The Braves have just been as good as any team in baseball. You can date it to whatever arbitrary starting point you want or not even arbitrary. You could date it to when Michael Harris II showed up as a lot of people do or before that, Acuna coming along, even if he hasn't been the full Acuna experience, helps to have him. So I think that they are scary heading into the playoffs, just about as scary, really. I mean, they've gone win for win basically with the Dodgers and the Astros since a long time ago. And they overtook the Mets.

The Mets did not give up the division. The Mets continued to play well, too. They are a good team. They're also a scary playoff team. But the Braves were just better. They just won more games, and they came from behind. So that was a bit of excitement there because, you know, there were real stakes there. Not as much as if getting in or not being in was at stake.

But winning the division, getting that bye, that's pretty significant. And just getting an easier path to the World Series, presumably, if they make it that far. So that was something to watch and be excited about, unless you're a Mets fan in the final weekend of the series. Yeah, it's good to have it coming down to the end. I will continue to lament the loss of tiebreaker games because those were fun. But it's good to have something moving you

as it comes down to it. I mean, some of us, Ben, would, for the sake of ease and logistics, prefer a completely set field so that we can start to bother staff members for their predictions, but I will recognize that the population of people to whom that applies is very small and should not be decisive here.

You know, I'm fine with, in this particular instance, my vote not counting because I think it's a very particular one. You know, I'm a single issue voter when it comes to these sorts of things. Right. Yeah. Not entirely single. You also wanted the Mariners to make the playoffs. I did. I did.

You had other reasons for that. Yeah, but see, like the Mariners, perfect angels that they are, they got that business out of the way on Friday. They were like, look, Meg wants to know, so we will help her. Now, could the rest of the American League field and the Mariners decide which amongst them will be going to Cleveland versus Toronto? You know, you could resolve that. That would be great if you could sort that out. Give a little time to have everyone noodle on their predictions. You know, that would be fine. But I think the most important thing is that we get, you know, an exciting blend of teams. And so I will sacrifice sleep. It won't be the last time. Did you know there's only one scheduled off day on a weekend during October? Wow.

Yeah. It's going to be a bit compressed. Yeah. How about that? I kind of like in terms of playoff play styles and how you have to structure your roster and how it maybe mirrors the regular season more so than just building tons of off days and letting certain teams take advantage of that more. Letting certain teams take advantage of that more. Maybe we can talk a little later in the week about which teams just look like good playoff teams, whatever that means, to the extent that we can even tell what a good playoff team is. It's pretty hard to predict that sort of thing beyond just saying it's a good team.

They win a lot of games. Probably a good playoff team, too. But that would be of interest to me. So a couple of quick things. John Birdie got his 40th stolen base. Oh, stolen base. So, yeah, that was a big race. That was a big source of suspense for everyone. I know. Was this going to be the first season since 1958 not to have someone steal 40? And as it turns out, no, because the Mormons, John Birdie swiped his 40th bag. So thanks to John Birdie. And I read a couple of reports from Ken Rosenthal and I believe Bob Nightingale also that the Astros are considering possibly a leadership change. And by the Astros, I mean Astros owner Jim Crane, which boggles my mind. I guess not that that would cross his mind, but that that could actually happen if it could. Because the Astros, I mean, they've handed that team over to James Click running baseball operations and Dusty Baker running things on the field. And really could not have done a better job taking over under somewhat difficult circumstances. I mean, good circumstances in that they inherited a good team and they have not run it off the rails, but tough circumstances in that they're the Astros and everyone hated them and a lot

of people still do. And not only have they not added fuel to that fire, haven't had any additional scandals or anything, have more or less operated like a normal baseball team as far as we know. But they've kept winning. And granted, there was a great foundation there, but they have taken that foundation and they have built on it or they have made the most of it. They have not torn it down. They have just conducted business as usual and deflected at least some of the ire toward the Astros that was existing or again, not fan the flames. And so Rosenthal, Nightingale reporting here that Jim Crane could be considering

changing both of them potentially, hiring a new manager, maybe making a change with Click, seemingly because there's been some clashing that maybe baker and click have clashed a tad over click's desire for a more analytical approach i suppose that is not surprising given their respective backgrounds and ages and styles and everything and that kind of thing has been dogging dusty for so long right like oh Baker, he's not like analytically oriented. And maybe he wasn't initially. He is an old school baseball guy. But I think he's gotten on board, at least to the extent that he needs to. I mean, all the old narratives about him overworking pitchers and all of that, that's out the window. Like he's done a great job of breaking in all of

these new homegrown pitchers that the Astros have and handling them responsibly. And whether he's fully on board with analytics and the language that Klick speaks sabermetrically, I don't know. But you can't really argue with the results. How much better could the Astros be than they've been under Dusty Baker? Astros be than they've been under Dusty Baker, not to mention the fact that just everyone loves Dusty Baker and his players seem to love Dusty Baker. So that's one possible clash, according to Rosenthal. And then the other one, the bigger one, seems to be between Crane and Click. So reading here from Rosenthal at The Athletic, Crane is difficult, demanding, and heavily involved in baseball operations, acting almost as an owner slash GM, etc., etc. Crane does not trust Click the way he trusted Jeff Luno. How did that work out? With whom he worked for eight seasons. Crane is also more inclined to act quickly and boldly than Click, who comes from the Rays, a more frugal, deliberate operation.

None of click's transactions has been particularly flashy it goes on but basically it sounds like maybe crane wants to meddle more than click wants to or he wants to do some things that click doesn't want to do and if this were to happen it seems like it would be a huge cell phone just given how well things have gone for the astros lately yeah and also the sort of message that would send to prospective replacements right if the message is that crane wants to bring in his own person so he can basically be the boss and make moves himself so the whole thing just seems wild like the notion that the astros would need to win a World Series for James Click to keep his job or for Dusty to

feel secure. I know they have assistant GM Pete Petilla around, who's kind of been the architect of their player development machine. I know people think highly of him, and for all I know, Crane has had his eye on him. But after everything that organization has gone through, and all the self-inflicted reputational damage to think about kind of cleaning house after a 105 win season from the outside, at least just seems really rash to me. Yeah, it's a strange set of circumstances because you would imagine there to be, you know, they've managed to have so much success, which suggests that even though there might be, you know, conflict or a difference in style or approach,

that those differences have prior to now been something that they could navigate with a fair amount of success, right? I agree with you. I don't think Dusty tends to get the credit publicly for how his approach to the game has evolved over time. And that doesn't mean that he's like the most analytically inclined manager in baseball, but to think that he's the same guy he was at the beginning of his managerial career is to discount all that he's done in the time since then.

So like there's that piece of it. I'm not maybe surprised that Crane in particular wants to exert more control i remain surprised that owners of sports franchises are still operating under the assumption that like them being incredibly involved in the day in and day out of their front offices tends to be to the front office's benefit rather than detriment because i think we have a lot of counter examples that would indicate that that's not true so i guess it's just like you spend a lot of money on a baseball team. Right. You're doing it as an investment.

Also, maybe you just want to like enjoy having a baseball team. I mean, sure. It's odd because like there are some owners we might say it would be better if they were like into like the baseball team actually being good and having a hand at it. Not that those things are necessarily correlated or that one would cause another, but a lot of them, it seems like it is just an investment or they're very divorced from like how the baseball team does. I guess if you're a zillionaire and you buy a baseball team and you want to like be in the room and have input and you're willing to like sacrifice your team's future and just be like this is my bobble this is my play thing you know like sorry front office sorry fans

of this franchise i laid out a lot of cash on this thing and i just want to have fun with it and just like not leave it in mint condition and maybe like leave it dog-eared and like stained and broken but at least i will have fun playing with it and that's my prerogative because i own this thing i guess you get to do that but it's not a great idea if you actually want your investment to do well i mean granted your investment will be fine no matter what right but beyond that like if you want to be well liked in your city if you want your team to win if you want to be well-liked in your city, if you want your team to win, if you want the reflected glory that comes from that, that will probably not come from you doing things directly. beyond just being the checkbook, right? Like I think that it's, there are examples of owners who, you know, they set their teams up to succeed by hiring really good people, right?

And being engaged with the strategy of the front office such that they understand the decisions they wanna make and can operate as some kind of a like, you know, sanity check for the direction the franchise is taking, but generally are willing to acknowledge that the things that put them in a position financially to own a baseball team probably aren't owning a baseball team, right? They are where they are because of acumen and success in other fields. And so sometimes the best thing they can do is just get out of the way. Yeah. All right. Here is the last thing. And so sometimes the best thing they can do is just get out of the way.

Yeah. All right. Here is the last thing. And this has been a happy podcast for the most part. I mean, pigs are flying and people are hitting 62 homers and the Braves are bunting and the Mariners and the Phillies are making the playoffs. But I just read at dictionary.com that they have added a couple of baseball terms to that dictionary. Dictionary.com's post, which I will link to, says, this update is not just new entries. It also includes, as always, new and revised senses of existing words. And it takes pains to point out, let's set things straight, a word doesn't become a real word when we add it to the dictionary. It's actually the other way around. We add a word

to the dictionary because it is a real word used by real people in the real world. And you, the real people in this real complicated world, have been busy generating a wildly diverse assortment of new words and new ways to use existing words for countless aspects of our modern life. As always, we've been

keeping track. That's our job. The work of a dictionary is to document these changes. All right. One is good. One is bad. One is the worst. I don't know.

Okay. Number one, Otani rule is in the dictionary now. Okay. Or at least in this dictionary. Noun, a rule that allows the pitcher to be assigned to the designated hitter spot in the batting order and to remain as the designated hitter even if replaced on the mound by another pitcher. Editor's note, the rule made official by Major League Baseball in 2022 is named for MLB phenom Shohei Otani, whose exceptional performance as both a pitcher and a hitter gave rise to it. Okay. Seems like sort of an esoteric term to be in the dictionary, but I guess there are a lot of esoteric terms in the dictionary. I guess it's nice that Shohei Otani is in there one way or another. Here's the next one. Ghost runner. Oh, no. Noun. A runner who is automatically placed on second base at the beginning of each half of

an extra inning before any pitch is thrown. But Ben, no. No, no. I don't want this to be in the dictionary. But Ghostrunner means a different thing within the context of bat-to-ball sports. First of all, how is this not in the dictionary already? Yeah. This was a term.

This was a fairly well-known term in sports circles, which is why I constantly complain about us now changing the definition and cementing the definition in the actual dictionary. The wrong definition. While in fairness to the dictionary, I suppose if the idea is that they are merely documenting the language, not passing judgment on it, I suppose they could say that this is how a lot of people are using it. People are saying ghost runner to mean the automatic runner, the zombie runner, the Manfred man, whatever you want to call it. There are probably more people in my mind erroneously labeling it the ghost runner than my preferred terms. So if the dictionary's job is to chronicle the way that the language is used, but not even a second definition here that says, by the way, ghost runner was an existing term that was meant to denote a invisible placeholder. Right. was meant to denote an invisible placeholder when people played baseball or softball or whatever and didn't have enough runners to actually be on the bases. You'd have a ghost runner who would be imagined to be running around the bases and placed on the bases.

No indication in this entry that this was a pre-existing term that is now newly applied or misapplied to a new rule. So this just seems like an incomplete definition at best. that is now newly applied or misapplied to a new rule. So this just seems like an incomplete definition at best. There's no etymology here or anything as far as I can see. Ah, origin of Ghostrunner, it says on dictionary.com. Oh, no. First used in 2020. No, that's just wrong.

Per an amendment to the rules of play. No, that is- What are you doing to me? That is not correct. Not at all correct. Oh, this is paining me greatly. I can't believe it. Ben. Oh.

We need to write a letter. Yeah. Like- They must not know. They must not listen to the podcast. I'm not saying zombie runner needs to be in the dictionary either. No, I'm saying that. You're not saying it. You're reasonable. I'm worked up. I'm very worked up about this being in the dictionary the way that it is with absolutely no acknowledgement that this means and meant something else long before this new meaning came along.

something else long before this new meaning came along. I know language evolves and maybe we'll have to get used to it. I hope that there will just be no more zombie runner and then maybe they can just strike it from the dictionary at some point because we won't have to say it anymore. Although I guess it'll still be used in exhibitions and the minors and international competition and so forth. But this is an absolute affront. The dictionary has been defiled as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. Look, I made my peace with some... I made my peace with irregardless, okay? I don't use it, but I think that language should evolve.

I get it. I made my peace with that. I thought that it was good to put bootylicious in there sure because that's a word that people use and it's descriptive and so we should be in there but this this feels like not doing your research yeah and so i object yeah this is a at best incomplete at worst misleading it's cementing a term that should not be used in the first place in my mind, but at least acknowledge that there was a different meaning and that it has evolved or been misapplied. So I don't know. I hope someone from dictionary.com is listening.

I can't imagine they are or they would know all this already if they had listened to any episode of Effectively Wild during the MLB season. But I am moved to perhaps make my voice heard in some way and contact the editors of dictionary.com. I think you need to write a note. Yeah, this is an outrage. Yeah, you need to write a note. Well, on that outrageous note. We're going to have to delete a lot of goofiness around Aaron Judge's home run in the Facebook group. I can already tell. Oh no.

Oh no. Is there discourse about AL home run records? Of course there is, Ben. Of course there is. But anyhow, that's not what you were going to say. You were going to transition to something else. Yeah, I was going to transition to the guest, but that made me remember

that I first must transition to the past blast. You must. Yes, this is episode 1911. The past blast comes, as always, from Jacob Pomeranke of Sabre, executive editor, editorial director. I'm going to get his position right one of these days, I swear. He's in charge of editorial content there. He's also a Black Sox expert. He tweets from at Sabre.

He tweets himself from at Buck Weaver. And he writes, 1911, slobber ball. The spitball was one of many trick pitches employed by pitchers during the dead ball era. Pitchers loaded up the ball with all kinds of substances, both barn and domestic, to make the ball dance, dip, and dive in all sorts of unpredictable ways, the greatest spitballer of all was Chicago White Sox ace Ed Walsh. On August 27, 1911, the future Hall of Famer threw his first and only no-hitter against Boston at Comiskey Park, and the Chicago inter-ocean couldn't hide its delight at his favorite pitch.

Quote, Mr. Walsh slobberballed along, apparently without being conscious of the fact that he was perpetrating an event that history cannot possibly ignore. His flow of expectoration kept up round after round in a way that at once awed and inspired the public. He seemed to do it with so little effort

that we wondered why he didn't pitch that kind of a game every time he wheels his battery of salivary glands in motion. Just to illustrate how easily he was working, Ed retired the side in the ninth inning after pitching only five balls, three wet and two dry. Which is interesting. I wonder if there was a spitball that was legal now, would we be able to quantify that? Like on the fan graphs pitch type usage tab, would we just have like spitball percentage? I guess we would, right? You could probably tell from the movement and the general slobber ballness what was a spitball and what was not. So we would just have like a spitball percentage column and we would know what Ed Walsh's spitball rate was. Jacob concludes the spitball would remain legal in

baseball for another decade. But by then, Ed Walsh's arm had burned out, probably because he averaged 375 innings per season between 1907 and 1912. I wonder how he slobbered so well. 1912. I wonder how he slobbered so well. How was his flow of expectoration kept up round after round in a way that at once awed and inspired the public? How did he hydrate, I wonder? I don't know. Maybe he had an early version of Gatorade. Yeah. He really must have had to go to town between innings because I assume he couldn't must have had to like go to town between innings because i assume he couldn't lubricate during the inning so he would have had to just saturate himself with fluids just between innings i suppose in order to to maintain the flow yeah i don't know some people are just like spitters you know they have they are they are you know you can just end there cut off that thought probably well i mean maybe he maybe he chewed you know maybe he dipped and that gave him some some yeah

some extra you know got the juices flowing yeah it got it going for him let's talk about the big dumper director of editorial content that is jacob's title there you go memory all right yes no one has hit any record-breaking homers or unprecedented bunts or incorrect dictionary entries since i started that past blast i hope no the the mets are up on the nationals 5-0 in the bottom of the first so you know that's happening atlanta is up 2-1 on miami in the bottom of the sixth so that is a score update that will not be relevant as you are listening to this episode i will have an additional update in the outro for anyone who does not know where to find baseball scores, but does know where to find baseball podcasts. The many of you out there.

You never know. All right. Let's take a quick break and we will be back with Jordan Schusterman of Setsubus Family Barbecue to talk about the Mariners and a little bit about the Phillies and playoff droughts in general, and also fandom. It's the start of a war It's the start of a war It's the start of a war Well, they don't call him the Big Dumper, but he was there to witness the Big Dumper's glory. We are joined now by Jordan Schusterman, friend of the pod, member of Suspitous Family Barbecue,

witnesser of the end of a historic drought. What an intro, Meg Rowley. Let me tell you, I've gone much of my life without a nickname. I'm not someone with a nickname, ever. And if only I could be blessed with a nickname like Big Dumper and have it be shouted to 40,000 people by my drunk manager in the moments after hitting a walk-off home run. I don't think it fits you. I would not have chosen that name for you.

No, no. It does fit Cal. Oh, it sure does. Tall Dumper? You could be the tall, I don't know. It's really just a matter of, I just wanted to say that I just have a nickname. The whole Big Dumper discourse has made me rethink and understand

and appreciate nicknames again. That's the only reason I wanted to comment on that, but it is so good to be with you guys. Do we actually know the origin story of the nickname? Because I've seen everyone just enjoying the nickname. I haven't actually seen anyone explaining the nickname. I mean, it's very evocative.

I could imagine multiple ways that this could have been coined. Is it true that Jared Kelnick coined this nickname and that he broke the news on Twitter when Cal Raleigh was called up? That certainly seems to be the launching pad. I don't think this was something that Kelnick was sitting on and decided like this is when the world gets to find out that this is what we all call him. Big dumper. My understanding is that it is something that he has at least have vague similar nicknames to dating back to his days at Florida State. And I think that Mr. Kalnick

decided to just share it. And by the way, the tweet that you're referring to, I just need to say that the best part about that tweet is the emoji that accompanies it by far. And honestly, if you're listening to this, just go look up the tweet. I don't want to spoil it for you. I don't want to explain an emoji on a podcast. But for your own sake, just go do your advanced Twitter search. Jared Conley tweeted, big dumper to the show when he was called up last year. Quote tweeting the

official Mariners account. Yes. Which, by the way, Jared Conley does not tweet very much at all. I don't know how many. He probably has like three tweets since then. And that is one of them. So in fact, honestly, I bet if you go to his Twitter account, you probably won't have to scroll back that far to find it.

I will link to it on the show page. Okay, great. Don't let it be said that Jared Kelnick has not fulfilled his prospect potential or contributed to the Mariners over the past year plus because he gave us this nickname or at least he brought it to our attention. Yes. I mean, really though, like, is it the build or is it the literal,

was there a big dump that transpired at some point? That's a great, see, well, isn't that the beauty of the nickname? Yeah, I guess maybe it's best not to know. Yeah, and I say the last thing on this. Or maybe not the last thing on this. Maybe we'll circle back to big number. But it really is just the perfect level of nickname where like team.

I actually had a kind of. I'll just. I'll say it. We're all in a good mood. The Mariners in the postseason. You know, like I talked to some people with the Mariners social. Like before. Literally before this game.

About the nickname. Being like, where does this fall on the spectrum of like, can we use this or not? Sure. And then Scott Service was just like, oh, we're doing it. So now there's no turning back. And I'm looking forward to still seeing some people discover this over the next week plus.

I mean, it is not unusual for catchers to be possessed of a good posterior. They're squatting for three hours a night every day. And so I don't know if we were to make a study of it, I don't know where this falls in terms of its dumperness above replacement dumper. But I sure enjoy saying big dumper, even though I worry about there being children around when I do. I'm like, oh, are there kids here?

Are you going to hear me talking about the big dumper? But I don't know. I think that after what he did, like he just gets to have whatever nickname he wants. Exactly, exactly. And he seems to have embraced it as as well i think it's kid friendly you could play it off as being about a dump truck or something who knows kids love dump trucks so yeah exactly maybe enough about the nickname i don't know that there can't be enough about the

nickname but take us to the scene take us to the moment we all saw it we all sensed the atmosphere from afar but you were there so we'll I guess, about your origin story as a Mariners fan also, but first just to take us back to Friday night. Yeah. We'll just, we'll just zoom in there to the, to the bottom of the ninth. I mean, it was so, first of all, as has the point has been made, God bless Jordan Lyles. I mean, there's really no one we should be thanking more than Orioles veteran right-hander Jordan Lyles, who delivered the start of his life on Friday night against the Yankees to ensure that the Mariners would need a victory to clinch when we all attended. And that was great, right? I mean, sure, maybe the Mariners, if the Orioles had lost and then everyone looked at their phones in the second inning and they're like, oh, hey, I guess the drought's over. All right, nice. But instead, to see that they had to win and then for that game to transpire, which Ty France gives an RBI double early in the game and it's like, oh, well, it's the A's. Vibes are good. Marriott should win. Kedwell, Chucks, whatever, start. But then just both offenses were just did nothing. And it went by really quickly. And then suddenly it was the ninth and we're just looking around like, oh my God, like, is this, this is really what this could happen here after a walk off the night before as well. Uh, and then, and I'll just say

like the, the three minutes from two and a half minutes from Matt Brash strikeout, uh, to end the top of the ninth to Mitch Hanager coming up to start the bottom ninth was just like so loud, so surreal, so crazy. And then just, you know, the anxiety through the roof. And then, yeah, I mean, the home run. So the funniest part about my vantage point for the home run was I was down, I was like 20 rows behind home plate. And by the way, huge, enormous shout out to fellow Mariners fan,

Day Shick, who scooped me these tickets because unexpectedly he was out of town. He was like, yeah, go. You should go. I went, all right, sure. Sounds like a plan. And I was behind the Mariners dugout on the right field line, and the ball is hit down the right field line, right? Yep.

And so I probably had the worst vantage point as far as knowing fair or foul of everyone else in the stadium. And so even Cal, you can see, right, he's trying to, you know, wave it fair too. But I probably, you know, started screaming about.04 seconds later than everybody else, I would say, because it just was that, it was hit that high as well. So, yeah, no, it was completely unbelievable. And I don't, I'll never see anything like that ever again. It's really that simple. Boy, a lot of anxious folks out here at the ballpark.

3-2 to Cal. The pitch from Acevedo. A drive deep to right field. Down the line. The Marys win this game 2-1. The dream lives. They're going to the playoffs. The drought is over. Cal he hits the home run it becomes evident to everyone that the mariners have walked it off that

they have ended the drought and then you know if you were like me and you were watching it on tv there was you know a great amount of of time spent like in the clubhouse after we got to see them with the goggles on and the champagne but then like then it stops right because you can only tax mlb tv for so long before it says i am tired i need to go to bed. But we are given to understand, as evidenced by your photos and video, that the party lasted at T-Mobile seemingly for a while after that. What was the scene like after the players and the coaching staff and everyone had sort of reemerged and taken the field again, I guess? Is that an accurate timeline of one of the better nights of your and my life?

Well, can we do a quick aside that is just really only... If this wasn't this podcast, I would not mention this. But I cannot figure out what dictates when they cut off the MLB TV feed. Because sometimes they just keep the game, the post game show going. And other times it's like three seconds after the last out, it's over. And they say, thank you for watching. And I have yet to figure out what dictates that.

And so in this case, this is why I'm really asking Meg is like, when did it cut off? Because to your point, it was going for quite a while after, but I know that the service speech, I assume if you were watching like in Seattle En Route Sports that they were showing most of that, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know, candidly. I don't know. I know that like at a certain point, they had talked to seemingly everyone in the clubhouse.

Okay. And then I can't remember now if it just was done or if I was done, you know? Yes. It's very emotional. It's exhausting to feel feelings. So key detail there was the other first thing that I was thinking was, wow, I wish I could see and hear all these interviews in the champagne celebration in the clubhouse. So they were showing some of it on the big screen, but not with sound.

But no one wanted to leave, obviously. So that lasts for a while. They were in the clubhouse. So they were showing some of it on the big screen, but not with sound. And so, but no one wanted to leave, obviously. So that, you know, lasts for a while. They were in the clubhouse for a while, but the key detail here is that it was, it was fireworks night. And so Mariners, the Mariners, my understanding is that for every fireworks night on Friday, they let a bunch of like season ticket holders and like a certain fans onto the field for the fireworks. Now, you know, they still did that. And so there are a bunch of fans on the field. And at first I was like, oh, that's like the players families. And then, you know, the players will maybe come out to them, but like, it was clearly like a mix of players families. And then just a bunch of random fans that were fortunate enough to be in this situation where the players were

going to be coming out with champagne. And then eventually that's what happened. And that's what kind of made that moment so cool. Once service and the players came out was that they were basically just like mingling amongst a bunch of lucky fans that were on the field. And then of course, you know, they did the lap and did all that. And then, and then service spoke and yeah, that it probably lasted at least, you know, half an hour, 45 minutes before the fireworks even started. They still ultimately did the fireworks. But yeah, it was just total chaos. But you know, everyone was, it was the kind of thing that like didn't feel like it should have been possible. But like when you're in that good of a mood, and it's not like security is going to suddenly start getting all, you know, fussy about it. But yeah, that was kind of the best way to

describe the scenes right after the fact. But yeah, that was kind of the best way to describe the scenes right after the fact. But the service speech in particular was just so funny because, I mean, he was several beverages in. Meg, I'm sure the scene where you were was not quite as festive on a large scale, but I'm sure on a small scale, it was sort of similar. So I have to ask what you were experiencing in that moment, because I got that question from a friend of the show, Ben Gibbard, who was with us last week to talk about his Mariners anxiety. And this was the release of all of the anxiety. And he was actually in New York playing a show on Friday. And so I saw him. This was, I think, as the Yankees were about to lose or just about, but the Mariners were just starting and he was going to get on his bus to go to his next tour stop.

And I don't think I am betraying any confidences here because everyone knows he's a Mariners fan. And also he is a famously sensitive songwriter who feels feelings. So I got an email from him that just said, subject line, all caps, big dumper. And the email said, was Meg crying? I was crying.

I did tear up a little bit. Yeah. I didn't think I would. We have joked on the pod over the last, I don't know, 18 months that in the beginning it was, well, the Mariners should make the postseason and see if they can make me cry. That was a joking thing. Then I started to feel fan feeling in a renewed and genuine way.

I still didn't think I would cry, but I did tear up a little bit. It was a piece of trivia that managed to find its way into non baseball quarters of my life. Right. Like you'll watch. I mean, I don't know that either of you spend much time watching NFL football, but like you would watch, you know, a national broadcast of a football game. And if for some reason they had occasion to mention like the longest droughts in men's sports like here i am on a sunday just watching some stupid football and all of a sudden i had to contemplate the like decades-long failure of the mariners and so it feels very genuinely good to just not have that piece of trivia circulating in the same way. And I think it's good for the sport to have Seattle and Philadelphia in the postseason.

Now we have to start looking nervously at, I guess, Detroit. They're coming up on what, eight now? And the Angels. And the Angels, right. But we can be done with these two particular monkeys on our back straight. And so, yeah got i got emotional i think it must be very strange for the guys who are playing for the mariners now because you know with the exception of what like hanager and and marco gonzalez like a lot of those guys are relatively

new to the organization or they're new to the big leagues like this is in some like very important ways like it wasn't their problem right like this wasn't their drought in any kind of meaningful way but that's not how working for a sports franchise works right like you have to carry these things through generations of players and they didn't i didn't start it's like that you know like they they didn't start the fire we have to add a new verse with a lot of Mariners players to that song so it has to be very strange for

them so I'm happy for all of those guys like we all know people who work for the org so I'm happy for all of them but like I'm also happy for like my stepmom who gets to watch Mariners play off baseball now and whatever happens like she gets to do thaters playoff baseball now and whatever happens she gets to do that and that's

really cool so it made me feel feelings I was very excited I found a sparkly drink to drink and felt good about stuff made a joke about a basement murder room it was great good Friday well I love this renewed

fandom for you. Yeah. Meg, of course, comes by her Mariners fandom honestly, whereas Jordan is just a carpetbagger coming in from out of town, just boarded the bandwagon about a decade early, lived through only half of

the drought, knows nothing of the sorrow that everyone else has experienced. No, I'm kidding. Of course, you are a legitimate Mariners fan, as is anyone who declares themselves a Mariners fan, even if it's this season. But tell us a little bit about how you came to be a Mariners fan. Yeah. And I will say quickly on that, because I think about this all the time, right? It's like, wow. And I sort of wrote about this at Fox Sports about how I feel it half as much, if not a fraction more, of the lifelong fans. But I will say it does feel a little good that my fandom basically stretches as long as the next longest drought, which is the feeling. Yeah.

So it's like even though I came in late, I still saw less postseason baseball than every other fan base over the last 10 years, which is really funny. But yeah, so I mean, that's basically as far back as it goes. It's about 2011, 2012. And the first step of that was Felix Hernandez, who was my favorite pitcher by a lot. I grew up outside Washington, D.C., and the Nationals showed up when I was 10 and they were awful. And I wasn't even really that much of a baseball fan between the ages of like eight and 12. I know that sounds crazy for people who know anything about what I do now, but that is true.

Baseball was like one of my favorite sports, but it wasn't clearly my favorite. And so the Nationals losing a hundred games every year was not particularly compelling for me. But then once I was getting into baseball, just fully you know full-blown like this is my favorite sport you know felix just captivated me in a way that no other pitcher or player did and his particular relationship with the city did even though it was a city i'd never been to and i loved staying up and watching the games and then i started reading this guy what was that guy's name look out landing what was that guy oh jeff right jeff sullivan we know him uh i started reading this guy. What was that guy's name? Look out landing. What was that guy? Oh, Jeff. Right. Jeff Sullivan.

We know him. I started reading Jeff quite frequently. And then I was just like, wow, like I'm just now watching this team way more than any reasonable person living on the side of the country should. And then, you know, once Felix threw the perfect game, I was like, well, this is it. Here we go. We're doing this. Even though they were terrible then. this is it. Here we go. We're doing this. Even though they were terrible then. And, you know,

I remember very vividly, one of my, besides the Felix Perfect game, just, you know, reflecting on my Mariners fandom over the last 10 years, one of my most vivid memories is them signing Cano. Like that was very early in my freshman year. And like that, I was the first time when I was like, oh my God, like this is, this could be the start of like a good team. And the number of iterations that have occurred for them since then is obviously stunning and quite accomplishment of one Jerry DePoto. But yeah, you know, that's, it's hardly the amount of pain that those who have watched it for literally 20 years and longer have. But, you know, I've seen some stuff too, that's for sure.

are rooted in a joyful interaction with baseball. I hadn't seen a team that was playoff bound since I was in high school. I was in high school when they were last in the postseason. But my formative memories of baseball are largely really happy ones. They were around a good Mariners team that I have at various times throughout my life kind of resented for being good because who knows what I would have been spared emotionally if they hadn't hooked me early, but they did. And on balance,

like I'm very grateful for liking the sport and engaging with the sport in the way that I do, but I am happy that there are just going to be like a bunch of little kids and not so little kids in Washington who like get their first real taste of of baseball fandom for a team that is gonna play a postseason series even if it's one that isn't at home you know should they not be able to advance to the division series so I think that's very cool that you get to have your fandom sort of rooted in, in a joyful expression of the sport rather than like, well, we're terrible again, but it'll make us, it's like, you know,

we've had a lot of years of vegetables. It's good that people get to enjoy some dessert. Yeah. Also, it's funny you mentioned that. Cause that just makes me think of the opposite experience for nine year old Yankees fans who have grown up and they're like, oh, man, we just never get it done. It's really rough. But no, I totally agree. And that was very much felt just seeing the number of Julio Rodriguez jerseys of people of all ages at the park.

It was really cool. Now that this drought has ended, can the Felix drought end as well? The perfect game drought? Can we release that one? Have the demons been exercised? That's a great point, right? Because to me, so much of, like I take the Felix perfect game so,

because of everything I just described, like I do take that very personally. Like that is like, even if it's goofy, like, I am actively rooting against 95% of Perfect Game efforts. Like, truly. Like, and we've talked before on our podcast about, like, the select group of guys where I would be like, oh, yeah, that's fine. He can throw a Perfect Game, right? Like, if Scherzer's going to do it, what am I going to say? Like, no, Max Scherzer doesn't.

You sorry, dude. you don't deserve it but when we have like the random you know back-end starters like perfect through six i'm like no no no no i don't i can't have that but to your point maybe that is the the karmic you know thing that needs to to reverse that now it's like you know what we can we can let it go right you can let it go. Right. We can let it go. Don't need that anymore. You have something else. Exactly. You have a playoff appearance. Right. How do you think about success in this season, Jordan? Like, is everything after this just gravy now that they've broken through and are going to play postseason ball? Or will you find yourself disappointed if they don't advance beyond the wildcard?

Like, how are you measuring success for this club so first of all i think that it is already amazing and i know part of these last couple days of the season is like the positioning and it's been incredible to me to watch and look who am i to judge other people's fandom and whatever but it's been amazing to be watching mariners fans of all people talk about like the easiest run to the world series it's like first of all the notion of even watching them in the postseason as i'm sure very is is so inconceivable as far as stress and anxiety levels that oh it's gonna be terrible it's gonna be awful it's gonna be awful it's gonna be terrible and and people have asked me

during the season like oh would you rather see them clinch or you know see their first home playoff game or their playoff i'm like i don't want to watch them in the playoffs that sounds awful like no thank you that's even that's even if you told me i can't be at the clinch like watching on the postseason sounds awful so uh to that point i do genuinely say that and and of course if they you know if when they get bounced i of course, it's not going to feel good. I do feel like this season in particular, it's all gravy. And part of the reason it's easier to say that is because, you know, this core is really in place.

And yes, there are going to be some changing pieces. Like, I really would still be surprised to see Hanneker come back. Maybe it's more like a qualifying offer situation. Like, it's Jerry DiPoto. Like, names are going to change on the roster. We know that. But especially with the Castillo extension, and obviously Julio speaks for himself,

but a lot of these guys should be here. And especially when you look at the pitching, it feels like the window is very much opening, and so I don't feel like the urgency is there. But it also just feels like a special season, and you don't want it to end in two games. I mean, it's better than ending in potentially one game, right? Sure.

The one game wild card. So that part's cool, too. But I do believe I do truly think that it's all gravy from here. Easy for me to say. I watched Cal Raleigh hit the walk up home run down the trap with my own eyes. And so it's hard to get. It would feel a little greedy to push any further than that. But yeah, mostly that's rooted in the fact that it does feel like they're building something

pretty sustainable moving forward. Yeah. We jokingly titled the Gibbard podcast a movie script ending to the season. Now, that was not the actual ending to the season. It was just the end to the drought. But it did feel like a movie script to the drought, at least just having the first ever pinch hit walk off home run to clinch a playoff spot. I mean, come on. It was great. It could have happened so many other

ways. As you said, it could have happened in a very boring way where they clinched through someone else's loss. And then it was kind of anticlimactic in a way. And instead they got not only a win, not only a home game, but the most dramatic ending imaginable. So not that that makes up for the last 20 plus years, but that was a hell of a way to end it. Yeah, no, I for sure. But, you know, that makes me think of Moneyball, how it's like when you watch it and it's like they do the whole streak and then it's like, oh, wait, they lose? Right, yeah. Wait, that's not the end of the season? They just lose to the Twins?

Like what? I mean, it's like, even if it is all gravy, like it's kind of an intimidating playoff team in some ways. Like that rotation, even more so maybe in a longer series than in a three-game series, like they stack up pretty well. Yeah, and it's not a matter of thinking that they have no shot in the postseason. It's more of just like I'm already so satisfied. Again, they were 29-39. In some ways, they have clearly achieved what did not even seem possible 50, 60 games into the season.

So I do think that they – I think they can beat Toronto. I think they can beat Cleveland, whatever. I do think that they, if I think they can beat Toronto, maybe Cleveland, whatever. But as far as my enjoyment, which again will not be enjoyment because it will be watching my favorite team play postseason baseball. That's kind of, that's kind of where I'm at with it. I can't wait. I can't wait for baseball Twitter to get to interact with both Mariners and Phillies Twitter in the postseason. It's so true, right?

Like think about, think about, this is a terrible way to put it. Well, obviously for the Mariners, but for the Phillies Twitter in the postseason. It's so true, right? Like think about, this is a terrible way to put it. Well, obviously for the Mariners, but for the Phillies, right? Like think about how many more people are tweeting since the last time. I mean, literally everybody since the Mariners, but since the Phillies were in the postseason,

like I don't remember, like I was, let's see, 2011. Oh no, this is where you remind us how young you are. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to say how young you are. But I think I was on Twitter. I think at Cespedes BBQ did not exist.

I can tell you that. But I think my first personal account, rest in peace, did exist before when the Phillies were last in the postseason. But that's, yeah. To what you just said, Meg, I can't necessarily agree. I think it'll be a horrible thing

for everyone else to have to experience. Oh, yeah, to what you just said, Meg, I can't necessarily agree. I think it'll be a horrible thing for everyone else to have to experience. Oh, yeah. More tweets is never good. Yeah, it's never good for there to be more tweets. Gosh. Are you going to go? To Toronto and or Cleveland, possibly? No, no.

I mean, if it's Cleveland and it gets to game three, I maybe. Those who don't know, I live in eastern Indiana, so I'm only four hours away from Cleveland. Toronto, no, I don't think so. Again, this is the other thing. People were asking me when I was there this weekend, like, oh, you've got to come back. I'm like, no, man. Why am I getting greedy? This is amazing.

This has already worked out as well as I could. And so I don't think I will do that. I will just be cuddled up on my couch just cowering in anxiety so it should be fun yeah you know because we have this expanded playoff field which will probably only continue to expand we probably won't have droughts anymore now i'm cursing some fan base without even knowing it now i mean it was improbable that the Mariners had a drought as long as they did, even with a smaller playoff field than the one we currently have. But we probably won't get that anymore. I mean, we will be just as likely to get World Series droughts

and championship droughts because, of course, lots of teams get in now, but each of them has a smaller chance than playoff teams in the past would have had. But it would be very unlikely with a 12-team format, let alone a 14 or whatever Rob Manfred dreams of expanding into in our nightmares and his happy dreams. You wouldn't think that you could go a decade or more. I mean, maybe. Maybe if you have terrible ownership that just doesn't invest at all and you don't get lucky with a really capable front office or just draft the perfect draft pick or whatever, it could happen. But we probably won't get extended droughts of this length, of the Mariners' length, certainly. But even of the Phillies' length, I would think would be

quite unlikely, even with this current format. Two thoughts on that. First of all, I think about 2020 a lot. And I don't know if you guys saw there was like pandemic short-dated play-based. It was really crazy, crazy season year in the world and history. But the really wildest part of 2020, just for the earth, was the Miami Marlins making the postseason.

And that had that not happened with the 31 the Miami Marlins making the postseason. Yeah, that happened. Had that not happened with the 31 and 29, Marlins made the postseason. And they did beat the Cubs. We'll give them credit in that first goofy round. They would be longest drought, right? Since 2003. Right. And also, in which they won the World Series.

And so I think about that season too, because the Mariners were close that year. And at the time, I did not want them to make it. I was like so much like, do not want this at all. Because even though in the moment we all felt it was goofy, like we wouldn't be talking about this drought right now. Right. Even if they, you know, scooted in as the eighth seed and like that just, we would not be talking about it because that's just how we kept the records of that silly season and so that is i just i'm just so thankful for that but

i also to that point about what it is now which is 12 teams there is also part of me that hopes they hang on for the second wild card so that it at least feels like they would have you know earned it in the last yeah that has crossed my mind yeah but but like 12 still feels a lot more reasonable than what 2020 was sure we don't have to have a whole expanded playoffs discussion i know i know michael bauman wrote about that i think today about just you know how big the postseason should be and whatnot so but i just yeah 2020 super glad they didn't make it and i also sort of hope they hold on to the second one so people can't laugh at them.

But whatever, can't take the big dumper away from me. So you said that you don't want to get greedy, but let's get greedy for a second. Let's do it. Let's do it. Where would you prefer that the Mariners and the big dumper ply their trade in the wild guard round give us your give us your takes well i will say right it's just okay you're you're

picking between just to be the people that haven't been thinking about this non-stop for the last month the way some fans have been basically the the path is either don't do so well if they go to the wild the third wild card they drop the third wild card they play cleveland instead of toronto and then in the second round they would play the yan, the third wild card, they dropped the third wild card. They play Cleveland instead of Toronto. And then in the second round, they would play the Yankees instead of the Astros, which some people are deeming as a quote unquote easier path. Now, I know we all like to dunk on the AL Central and I look, I'm right there with you. But the disrespect for Cleveland, I've started to get a little feels a little ridiculous. Like people are treating Cleveland like they are totally nothing. And also that going to Yankee Stadium is just like, yeah, that's way better than Houston. But that's a Mariners thing,

right? It's just Houston's existence and just what they mean to Mariners versus how much they just kind of have owned the Mariners over the last few years. So to me, yes, Cleveland is a better matchup, although Cleveland's bullpen is so much better than Toronto that I'm not sure that really balances out. That's the thing. I don't think the Guardians are a great team. I think they're a more fun team than a great team and a good story, but I wouldn't really want to face them in a short series. I mean, you go into a three-game set with them and they throw Bieber and McKenzie at you and a great bullpen. That goes south really fast right versus Gossman and Manoa and a not so great bullpen it's not a cakewalk either but I mean

you know generally any playoff team probably can muster a good starter or two not all of them but I think it's just that like Toronto's lineup is just so much more fearsome than Cleveland for so many ways. Like in the series that Cleveland played against and, you know, the Mariners won the season series against both Cleveland and Toronto. But, you know, the Cleveland games, it felt like two kind of more similar teams where you have a couple offensive stars and then just pitching. Right. Whereas Toronto, it just feels like a different kind of beast, and I think that scares people more. But it's also so funny to me that people keep bringing up like,

oh, don't want to play Houston in the next round. It's like, dude, it's, you know, okay, let's go play Aaron Judge. Sounds like a good time. Well, I don't know. He's like not even going to break a record maybe. Oh, that's true. Yeah, he's kind of a bum. Only 61 home runs.

Well, one of those cowardly pitchers would really just lay one in there. I don't feel that strongly about it. I'm just happy they will be playing. Yeah, I'm happy for both of you and all the many Mariners fans out there. Happy that Julio's back and hopefully healthy.

Sad that Sam Haggerty seems to be done for the year, but Julio being back is maybe a bigger boost than losing sam hagerty is slightly no shots at sam hagerty but ben imagine saying that in april right oh last week of the season like oh no julio's back good but oh down goes sam hagerty i mean how are they gonna recover but truly he has been a real difference maker somehow. Yeah, he's their vroom vroom guy. You know, everybody needs a vroom vroom guy.

Yeah. Now Dylan Moore has to do extra vroom vroom. Yeah. Hopefully he can, you know, carry the load. Well, thank you for bringing us to the scene of the action in The Big Dumper. I could experience the elation through your words

and people can experience the elation of your words on your podcast, which is back from the dead for the umpteenth time. You can't kill the Barbicast. What is dead may never die. It will find a new home no matter what. Tell people where they can find the

new and possibly improved or at least not worse baseball barbacast. That's the spirit. That's the spirit. Ringing endorsement. Exactly. That's how we've been trying to sell it. Not worse.

So give us another. Just give us a try. Yeah. Baseball barbacast has returned. It is on the SiriusXM podcast network, which we are. It is on the SiriusXM podcast network, which we are, you know, it was an arduous journey to return to MLB podcasting, but we did it just in time for all this excitement to happen. And so, yeah, that's where we plan to be. And, you know, we're going twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays for sure.

And then we're going to, we were just talking earlier about going a lot more frequently during the postseason. So be sure to subscribe on all of your podcasts or wherever I should say you get your podcast. Yes. Which we could not say previously. So very excited to say that again. And yeah, give us a listen. Read our work at Fox Sports. If you want to read my words, if my words on here were not good enough, you can go read them in a slightly different version on FoxSports.com.

So yeah, that's it. But thank you guys. This was super fun. Yeah. Happy to have you back in the baseball podcasting space. And we will link to your written account of the clinching game as well. And yes, you can find Cespas BBQ, of course, on Twitter at Cespas BBQ. You get Jake and Jordan there. And you get just Jordan on Twitter at jay__schusterman underscore.

Don't forget the hanging underscore. Double underscore, baby. Let's do it. Thank you, Jordan. Thank you both. And the Mariners knocking on the door to a playoff appearance for the first time since 2001. Here's the stretch. The 3-2 pitch. Swing and a drive.

Deep to right field. Stay fair. Holy smokes. he did it. Off the hit and air cafe. Cal Raleigh with a walk-off home run. How sweet it is. The Mariners end the 20-year drought on a walk-off home run by Cal Raleigh. They win the ball game 2-1.

And the Mariners are going to the playoffs. All right. Well, I have an update for you to end this episode, which is that the postseason bracket is set. All of the matchup uncertainty is resolved. Atlanta won its game. So the NL East race is over. We also have wildcard clarity. So our matchups are Rays versus Guardians, Mariners versus Blue Jays. Winner of Rays and Guardians plays the Yankees. Winner of Mariners

and Blue Jays plays the Astros. And then on the NL side, we have Phillies versus Cardinals, Padres versus Mets. Winner of Phillies Cardinals plays the Braves and winner of Padres Mets plays the Dodgers. The excitement starts on Friday. Actually, the excitement has already started, but the playoffs start on Friday. One other quick follow-up. I read the other day a joking suggestion from someone who wrote in in response to our scenario in episode 1885 about the lowering mound,

the descending mound that would slowly plunge the pitcher into the earth if they exceed their allotted time per the pitch clock. And we got a suggestion that maybe the slowly descending mound could quickly drop to protect pitchers from comebackers. And there was some physics and some calculations about how quickly the pitcher would drop. Well, that response generated many responses, fact-checking some of the math in that joking email. So I'll read a couple. One was from Aaron, Patreon supporter, who said, I'm sure somebody has pointed this out already, but just in case,

the guy at the end of episode 1910 who suggested lowering the mound very quickly so pitchers could avoid comebackers forgot to account for inertia. A pitcher freely standing on top of the mound, that is, not strapped to the ground, would only be able to fall at the rate of gravity on Earth, roughly 9.8 meters per second squared. If the mound fell faster, he would experience airtime as his body fell at a slower pace than the quickly lowering mound, thus mitigating the effect. This happens on drop towers at amusement parks.

When they fall faster than gravity, the riders are thrown up into their restraints because their body is not accelerating downward as fast as the ride. I'm sure you had multiple people write in to point this out. We did. And I'm well aware his response was a ridiculous joke, but I figured I would write in anyway. As did Alana, Patreon supporter, who writes, In episode 1910, y'all discussed dropping the mound into a pit to protect pitchers from comebackers.

As a former Physics 101 TA, I won't check all the math, but I'll point out that the fastest the pitcher could descend standing on a platform would be 1G, as any faster would see him free-falling above a platform pulled out from beneath him. This means the pitcher could potentially drop 10 feet in the.8 seconds between pitch release and return as comebacker, but just 2.5 feet in the.4 seconds from bat impact to ball return. seconds from bat impact to ball return. Since the pitcher would be going almost 20 miles per hour at the end of his 10-foot fall and would need to be slowed down, I think we've arrived at our most logical destination, a The Prestige-style switcheroo where the pitcher's mound vanishes completely and drops him while a designated fielder pops up simultaneously ready to aid the team's defense. Since this operation would be happening hundreds of times per game, it probably makes more sense to have a pillow underneath instead of a water tank, if only to preserve the pitcher's grip on the ball. Good point, Alana, that would be a real

slobber ball after repeated plunges. And I deeply appreciate everyone who wrote in to say I know that was just a joke, but oh, that reminds me, in that same outro, episode 1910, I believe, that was right after Shohei Otani's no-hit bid, I mentioned that there couldn't have been that many people rooting against Shohei Otani, that maybe even A's fans had been polling for him to do it because he's so easy to root for, and what do the A's really have at stake? Well, I heard from some A's fans, including Brandon, who wrote in to say, in episode 1910 you mentioned that even A's fans might have been rooting for the Otani no-hitter because what else do we have to lose?

Well, as an A's fan, I just wanted to let you know that we were definitely not rooting for the Otani no-hitter. The A's have the longest current streak for not being no-hit, dating back to July 13th, 1991. The A's have literally never been no-hit in my lifetime. That's what's at stake. Please, this is all we have. I'm sorry, Brandon, and I'm sorry, other A's fans, that that is all you have. And for misrepresenting your hypothetical views, I suppose that is an acceptable reason to root against Shohei Otani. Not that I would ever suggest such a thing. If there was ever a team

that was almost asking to be no hit, it was the 2022 A's. But it didn't happen. Actually, it just goes to show how random the distribution of no hitters is that we've only had three this whole season, two of them combined, whereas last season we had a record-breaking nine, two of them combined. The league batting average isn't any higher this year. In fact, it's a point lower than it was last year, but not many no-nos. Part as we discussed recently because so many pitchers get pulled from no-hit attempts these days, most recently Luis Severino. Anyway, thanks for all the emails. I always learn a lot. And thanks to those of you who support Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount

to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad-free and get yourself access to some perks. The following five listeners have already done so. Tyler B., Sean Taggart, Chris, Steve Patchen, and AA. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Patreon Discord group. We're on the verge of passing 800 members. Really, you've got to get in there before the postseason starts.

I have a feeling the place is going to be hopping. You also get access to monthly bonus episodes, one of which Meg and I posted late last week. Plus you get playoff live streams. Those are coming up this month too. We do a couple of those. So if you want to get in on them, get in on the Patreon. And there are many more perks to peruse as well. You can contact me and Meg via email at

podcast.fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild and you can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod and you can find the Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter

at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. On the very last day When they hear that bell Ring the world away Everybody's gonna pray to them

Until Judgment Day Judgment Day Judgment Day Judgment Day