Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1916: The Walk-Off Talk-Off

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

With Meg Rowley on the road, Ben Lindbergh reunites with his former Ringer MLB Show colleagues Michael Baumann, Zach Kram, and Bobby Wagner to discuss the moods of Mets and Phillies fans and catch up on the first few days of Division Series action, touching on Yordan Alvarez, Robbie Ray, a playoff walk-off oddity, Bryce […]

Together again, my tears have stopped falling Long lonely nights, hard out at length Hello and This matters. We're together again. Hello and welcome to episode 1916 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, not joined today by my regular co-host Meg Raleigh. Not because the Mariner's fortunes have dropped off dramatically since we last spoke. That's a pure coincidence. She's just traveling, has some other obligations today. And so in her absence, I'm joined by some other co-hosts of mine, or at least former co-hosts. We're taking this opportunity to do a takeover of the Effectively Wild feed for a Ringer MLB show reunion show.

And so I am joined by all of my former co-hosts slash producers of the Ringer MLB show, dearly departed. Michael Bauman. Hello, Michael. Hello. Mike works for Fangraphs now, as many of you listening know. So this is sort of a home series for him as well. And Zach Cram of the Ringer. Hello, Zach.

Hello. And Bobby Wagner of the Ringer and also of Tipping Pitch's fame. Hello, Bobby. Hi, Ben. It's good to hear all your voices again. It's been a while. It feels like it hasn't been long at all. Like hearing all of us together in the same chat room, it takes me back immediately in a very visceral sense. Yeah. The magic is still here. I can sense it. The chemistry that we always had, still present.

We were even five minutes late to recording this because I had to get coffee because it's 8 a.m. my time because I'm just randomly on the West Coast right now, even though I have moved back to New York since the Ringer MLB show was dearly departed. Did you say we were five minutes late? Because the rest of us were here. I just want to point that out. We live in the future. Was it just me?

Was it just me, guys? Always the producer holding up the show. Yep. It's always the way it is. Well, I mean, at least this time it's because you needed coffee and it's the crack of dawn out there, not because you like CeCe Sabathia better than you like us, which is the usual reason we were

this is a false and slanderous accusation to be fair we weren't the ones throwing out the first pitch at game one of a playoff series so i can understand why he would lean in that direction it's true well mike happy to have you at fangraphs we're still in the same slack channel at least we miss you in Ringer MLB Slack and the Ringer Slack. Yeah, does anybody talk over there anymore? It's a lot quieter than it used to be, for sure. And we miss all your cycling coverage, obviously. As I noted before we started recording, our cycling coverage has taken a severe hit since you left. We miss you for many reasons, but it's nice that we're still in the same orbit,

still in the same sphere. Really, all that has to happen is I have to do a freelance piece for d1baseball.com and you have to do one for FiveThirtyEight and then we will basically have the same resume or we'll have been associated with the same websites professionally. I guess I have to work for The Good Fight too.

I don't know if that's going to happen. No, I never actually wrote for the good fight. Oh, Crash Brutality at least. Yeah. And that's defunct. So don't worry about it. Now, I was going to say, if you miss my cycling coverage, you might be interested in last week's Fangraphs Audio where Jake Mintz and I previewed the Division Series and also the

Tour of Lombardy. Well, you had Jake on. We had Jordan Schusterman on here. We're just like, we're finding work for all of the former Ringer baseball podcasters who have found work themselves elsewhere. Or there's like a Bob and Carol

and Ted and Alice situation going on where we're all like swapping partners now. Exactly. Well, it is good to have you at FanGraphs and writing about baseball very regularly again, even though I'm not technically on the Fangraphs staff. I am just sort of in the same circles because there are only so many places that have a need for people who cover baseball and science fiction and like submarines and stuff so like either you get Lindbergh or you get Bauman or sometimes both that's basically it I take offense to that statement that's true a lot

of that applies to you as well. We've been co-workers for a long time too, so I guess it tracks. There's a really good quadruple Venn diagram to make between the four of us here with sci-fi, baseball analytics, leftist politics. What else am I missing, guys? Union organizing. Right. Yeah. So a couple of years ago, I made exactly that Venn diagram and I'll find it once we're off air, but it exists. I've made it before. So we want to do a little catch up on the playoffs because we haven't done an Effectively

Wild since Meg and I previewed the division series. There hasn't been as much baseball since then, as you might think, just because of the weird off days and also the unscheduled off days because of rainouts. But we'll see where we stand in those series. Of course, we're recording late Friday morning on the East Coast, so there will have been games by the time people hear this. There are three games scheduled for Friday, but we'll do our best here. And Mike, you made a joke you picked on poor Bobby before we hit record about the fact that the Mets do not seem to have any games scheduled this week or for the foreseeable future. I think we know why that is. But Bobby, you're the first real live Mets fan we've had on the podcast since the Mets' sad demise.

scale of, hey, they had a great season and the playoffs are a small sample and sometimes it doesn't work out to full scorched earth New York tabloids. This is a disgrace. Blow up everything. Man, I never really felt like I was either of those things. I think I'm still in denial. I don't know. What is the sliding scale? What stage of the process? They definitely lost. I hate to break it to you. They are eliminated. I have been reminded of that every time I open up my MLB scores app to check the scores of the other games. And there's no score for the Mets on the homepage. And it's just like, Mets disappointed with 101 win season coming to a close. And that headline greets me every single day.

Or like a report from Mets minor league development. And I'm like, I don't really want to see this right now, guys. There's playoff baseball going on. Where am I? I really don't know. So we recorded an episode of Tipping Pitches the day after the Mets were eliminated. And I was trying to talk myself through it in real time slash I was trying to have Alex therapize me on the podcast, which I think turned out okay, I guess. I think where I came out and landed was I just have to stop treating every single opportunity like it's the only opportunity there will ever be, myself and other Mets fans. Because, you know, the Mets throughout their franchise have had extremely high highs with

teams like the 86 team, the 69 You Gotta Believe team. And then in between, there have been these long lulls where they don't make the playoffs for extended periods of time and so you know we as Mets fans me as a Mets fan as much as anybody else treats every single opportunity that they have like it's the only opportunity that we're ever going to get to have one of those generational moments and I think now this, the way that they built this team should, should, should, should, emphasis on should, should give me enough confidence that they can build something slightly more sustainable than they have been able to do in the last few decades. And so that's kind of where I've netted out. This is the part where I guess Mike comes in and crushes all of my dreams, though. I mean, you take care of yourself it's likely that

you will live long enough to see a mets world series so i don't know but they're they're doing their best to make sure that i don't live very long yeah you're young eventually you'll stop caring that's like that's my advice thank you my perspective well i think it was a successful season albeit with a disappointing end but that will happen in baseball it was uniquely set up to frustrate like the mets in the met sphere too because the the implication was that steve cohen was going to come in and like sheer force of will them beyond their usual metsy limitations And I think to a large extent he did insofar as that was possible. And then all of a sudden they sit out the deadline and then they blow the division with

it, like didn't even blow the division, just fell victim to the Braves getting red hot. And like they lost two out of three in a short series to a really good team. And like that happens. You can't Steve Cohen the randomness of baseball away which you know makes this sort of an interesting political experiment uh you know can can the sheer force of capital overcome the the vagaries of baseball we've seen over and over don't put me on the sheer force of capital side michael sorry that's the side you picked like we like one thing that you will don't make it seem like i think you're this fandom

what you you're one of us like you're from at the very least the like the maryland of the civil war of the philly's mets border like you could have been one of us if you wanted but no no i was not born there though i was already a mets fan when i moved there it doesn't matter i mean if lindsey's all ads can go the other way, you could come with us. That's true. We're a broad church. We're very welcoming.

You choose Mets fandom every day. You do. That's the problem. You wake up every day and you're like, yeah, the headphone guy and the ear touchers, that's who I want to

throw in my lot with. This is why I felt like such a clown when the season ended is because I chose it every day this year, guys. Every single day. i watched like 140 full mets games this year so i have a broad existential question because a couple minutes ago michael said that bobby would probably see a mets world series in his life and i'm curious so not ready to talk about it since i i'm not asking

this about how long do you think since the start of the wild card era which is uh since 1995 so basically 30 seasons which we would expect every team to have won one world series in that span exactly 15 teams have won a world series and 15 teams have not won a world series of the 15 teams that have not won a world, how many do we actually think will win a World Series in our lifetimes? Because I would bet it's not all 15. Do all four of us have to be alive? Yeah. Just some of us.

I'll say this. I don't intend to live long enough for all 15 of those teams. And then there's going to be expansion, too, in the next few years. Okay, so there are a couple of factors to consider. 15 of those teams to... Well, and then there's going to be expansion too in the next few years. Okay. So there are a couple of factors to consider. There will be expansion, which will make each individual team less likely to win. There could be broader changes to the baseball landscape in 25, 35 years. Who knows if, say, the Pirates or the Padres will ever actually win a World Series before

the death of Major League Baseball. It's a broad question. So I wouldn't be so comforted by the fact that my team might win a World Series before the death of Major League Baseball? It's a broad question. So I wouldn't be so comforted by the fact that my team might win a World Series in my lifetime. Zach, you're wondering about the Pirates and the Padres. I'm worried about having to live long enough to see the Rockies win a World Series. That's a tall task, guys. I think there will be a couple teams that are just completely like we see this with the the droughts of the the 20th century and early 21st century there will be a couple long tails just based on random weird stuff like the red socks and then there will be a couple teams that

just don't make it so like particularly if the the end line of this is zach's lifetime because like zach is a fetus who loves cardio. He's going to live another 90 years. Running a half marathon on Sunday. Good for you, man. I would say 12 out of those 15 are going to win the World Series. Yeah, I guess it's an era where, even though there are some teams that aren't really trying in any given year, you don't have the early 20th century sort of breakdown where there were just some teams that had no shot for decades at

a time. Sometimes they played in Philadelphia too. So you could have like, you know, you're not going to have the Yankees winning like the majority of the World Series over the course of a decade or two decades at this point. So there may be more World Series to go around, but also more teams and more playoff rounds and all the rest. So I don't know how much the odds have actually changed or how much the distribution has changed. I would guess it's better than it has been at some earlier points at least. Well, 15 in 30 years, like that's huge. Yeah, that's good.

I think didn't we have a stretch of like an entire decade where there were 10 different World Series champions? Or there was at least nine in the early 2000s. Baseball parody is pretty good. Yeah, the Red Sox won two in 04 and 07, but I think they were the only repeat winner between the Yankees in 2000 and Yankees in 2009. There you go. All right. So just wait it out.

And like, I love this because it dovetails with Ben's only hater take, which he hates when I bring it up, but it's so good. So I'm going to do it again. Mets fans are a bunch of crybabies. Yeah, Mets fans are a bunch of crybabies. Ben, I was always, I love the take, but I've always been struggling to reconcile it with me personally. Well, it just means he's right. Ben's right about a lot of stuff. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, I'm sure that probably, I mean, it sounded like he was not in the best frame of mind already about this. So Zach saying, don't be too reassured that you might win a World Series in your lifetime.

I don't think he was feeling so sanguine about that as it was. But I do agree that like Mets fan pain, it's a different brand of failure and pain and incompetence than a lot of organizations have. I do agree that Mets fan pain, it's a different brand of failure and pain and incompetence than a lot of organizations have. I do think just in terms of the track record, if we add up the wins and losses or the playoff appearances or even the pennant appearances in the last couple decades, let's say, there are a lot of fan bases that have claims to being more benighted than the Mets do. And the Mets just get like a disproportionate amount of the like, oh, woe is us because it's New York and more is expected of them, understandably, I guess. And also because they just shoot themselves in the foot in so many like hilarious and sad and also sometimes disturbing ways. So they fail in a different way than maybe

any other organization except, I guess, the Rockies. The Rockies, maybe they have a different brand of failure too. It's a potent brand and a strong brand, but also slightly different from the Mets. We're kind of like the circus animal of baseball fan failure. People just love to watch us experience it. So I'm okay with it, I guess. I've made peace with that. Do you think that the Mets will be back? Do they have to do a ton? Because there's a lot of uncertainty about this offseason, right? What with DeGrom and Nimmo and other decisions to be made? I think that they're going to take a slight step back next year, most likely, just by sheer force of the roster turnover. Cohen has been crowing about sustainability and doing it the Dodgers way.

And what they did was build, you know, their young core simultaneously to bringing on these free agents and taking on bigger contracts for great players that other teams don't want to necessarily pay for anymore as they cycle through different competitive windows. So that sort of conversation, that sort of talk, organizational philosophy would lead me to believe that this was a push in a window. And now they are going to kind of open a new window, given how many guys are still question marks heading into next year. I personally am not really ready to talk about Jacob deGrom, guys. Just not. We're not at that session yet of my therapy.

Yeah, I wouldn't be either. I love that we led this playoff roundup with a discussion about the Mets. This is a really ringer MLB show, just totally bringing it back. This is on brand for us. We should probably talk a little about the Phillies because Meg has spoken for the Mariners fans on this podcast, but we have not had a speaker for the Phillies fans. And Bauman, you're here. After we record this, you're going to go cover game three and visit the tailgate and get

some local color and mingle with the masses. So I'm going to try to find the said guy from Fox 29, 12 years ago. Oh, wow. I'm going to get a lot of, we're going to talk about hoagies. We're going to talk about hoagies. We're going to talk about the fightings in the postseason. Yep. Tell us what the mood of Phillies fandom is. I don't know if we have to compare it to the Mariners or not.

The drought was long, but not that long. But it's been a bad time for Phillies fans, or at least a disappointing and dull time of late. So this is a breakthrough. Just getting to this point is a victory. Yeah, that's how I viewed it really since August, because I've looked at this team like the pitching is good enough that they could surprise anybody, basically. They're a dangerous underdog.

But frankly, this is about as far as i ever expected them to get uh just because the the braves and the dodgers and i thought the mets but what do i know we're we're too good and i think that's enough like this team has been has been so bad and so frustrating and so unlikable for so long that just getting to the playoffs getting some good memories and getting like the big aaron nola start in game two and big playoff moments, you know, getting Bryce Harper into the playoffs as a Philly is huge. And I think like that'll do a lot for not just the team, but the fan base in terms of interest, because the thing that gets lost a lot is it hasn't been that long since like 2010, 2011, when the Phillies were the dominant team in the National League and they were selling

out every game for three years. And like, it took a long time to get to that point in terms of public consciousness. And they've been number three in this city for a while behind the Eagles and the Sixers. And it takes a while for like the public to get on board with the team once it's newly good. And I think they're getting there now. I expect, you know, there was a little bit of toss in a Brian Snitker quote about Citizens Bank Park being a so-called hostile environment that was getting tossed around yesterday. I think it's going to be loud anyway, but I'm glad we got here because it's been fun seeing the same fully florid, turgid and swollen Phillies Twitter that defined my early days as a baseball writer. So it's good to be back.

And Zach, you're nominally a Yankees fan. I don't know that people are clamoring to hear the Yankees fan mindset. People are mostly just rooting against the Yankees as usual. But how are you feeling as a Yankees fan these days to the extent that you are still one? I felt almost nothing watching the game Tuesday night. I fear I have joined you in the group of former Yankees fans. I'm like, sure, I would like to see them win. But I, again, felt almost nothing. I was almost like I had much more of an emotional reaction

to the Astros game that day than I did to anything in the Yankees game. Well, we should talk about that series. Astros-Mariners. Unfortunately for the Mariners, things not looking great. They're down 0-2, or at least they're going back to Seattle. They get a home game. That should be fun for them. I kind of hope they get more than one home game, but things are not looking good. And I think that is somewhat unexpected. Even Meg, who was on cloud nine after the way the wildcard round went, she acknowledged what they were facing in Houston here. And those two games, they were tough, particularly the first one. The Mariners had leads in both of them. But the first one was the real dagger that was almost as low a low as the Mariners' comeback victory in the wildcard

round was a high. And this has been just the Jordan show thus far. Jordan Alvarez has driven in almost as many runs in the series as the Mariners have as a team. They cannot seem to get around him when they pitch to him, when they pitched around him or opt not to pitch to him. That doesn't work out well anyway. So I guess we should talk a little bit about the first of the homers, although we can talk about both of them really. But Zach, I delegated some research to you as it pertains to the first of his homers, the big three-run shot, the walk-off, because that was a historic homer in more than one way. And it has made me rack my brain for the last 72 hours in confusion because I do not understand

this statistic. Jordan's homer in game one was only the fourth in playoff history that was a walk-off with a team trailing. The others being Lenny Dykstra in 1986, Kurt Gibson, and Joe Carter. Some pretty famous home runs. That also means that in Bobby's and my lifetimes, this was the first in this category because we were both born after.

Love it. It made no sense because I saw this stat and I double checked it and triple checked it and quadruple checked it because I just could not fathom the fact that it has been so long and that this particular set of circumstances is so rare. So I looked into it a bit more using the... Well, before you looked into it a bit more, like the first thing you did was bring it to our G chat group and try to hurt my feelings twice with it. So I appreciate that. i don't recall that maybe trying to hurt your feelings you're just

so second nature that i don't remember doing that but there have been 58 walk-off homers in playoff history now only four of which came with the team trailing that is a rate of seven percent however if you look at the regular season history and all of this data is courtesy of stat head with the event finder 22 of all regular season walk-off homers came with the team trailing so again 22 versus seven percent that is a three-fold difference so i was wondering maybe this is just a weirdness of playoff baseball so i looked at all walk-off non-home run hits, which are obviously mostly singles and doubles. And there the rates are almost identical. It's 9.6% of playoff non-home run walk-off hits and 9.2% of regular season

non-home run walk-off hits. And you would expect the rate for non-home runs to be lower overall just because it's easier to hit a walk-off home run that takes you from behind to ahead than it is to hit like a walk-off single that takes you from behind to ahead because you need guys on specific bases to be able to do that whereas a home run just drives everyone in so you'd expect that rate to be lower which it is in the regular season but again in the playoffs three times less likely for a walk-off run to have come when a team was trailing versus in the regular season. And I just don't understand it. Maybe it's just a relic of a small sample size, but that's still 58 home runs, which

isn't the tiniest sample imaginable. So I don't know if any of you have explanations, but I've been trying to come up with one for three straight days and still nothing really strong has come to mind. Well, it's the death of sequential offense, right? Nobody's hitting against the shift. Nobody's bunting. So there's never any guys on base and all they do is hit home runs. So you can only score one run at a time on a solo home run or something like that. But this is through all playoff history. Well, there just weren't that many playoff games until recently. Honestly, I think that's part of it. Yeah, that must be it. I mean,

I was trying to think of it too, some kind of confounding factor there. I feel like we're going to get emails from someone who will propose something, but I mean, obviously, you're less likely to come back and hit a walk-off homer period in the playoffs just because you have better bullpens and everything. But that's not exactly what you're looking at here. You're not looking at the rate of those homers being hit. You're just looking as a percentage of the homers that are hit. So it's weird. I was trying to think of like, well, maybe in the playoffs, like the better team is more likely to have home field advantage than during the regular season. There might be just fewer walk-off situations or something like that.

But it seems like a lot of that would just apply to the non-homer hits as well. And you don't see the same split there. So I don't know. I will say I also looked at just the wildcard era to see if there was an error effect. at just the wildcard era to see if there was an error effect. And if you look just in the regular season, the wildcard era still has that same 22% behind rate for regular season home runs. So it's been pretty consistent over time in the regular season, and the playoffs are just completely different. I wonder if there's, I don't know, this almost seems like too fine a distinction to make, but I wonder if pitchers are particularly cautious when the walk-off is possible, and they'll be okay walking a guy instead of giving him something to hit.

But that's a huge effect to attribute to one little thing that I think would vary from team to team and pitcher to pitcher. Yeah. Well, whatever the explanation for that, if there is one, this was a noteworthy home run. Please tell Zach before he has a stroke and before the Mets win the World Series. Yeah, he will not be able to complete his half marathon unless he has a satisfying explanation for this.

But this was, what, the biggest game in the postseason ever by win probability added, right? Not championship win probably added because it was the division series and not even an elimination game. But just looking at the impact any one player has had in a postseason game or on a postseason play, it was the first ever walk-off postseason home run that came when the players' team was trailing by more than one run, right Alvarez has now hit two of those. He's the only player to have two, and he's done it in back-to-back games. So yeah, he's owning this series so far. It's been pretty impressive. And obviously, he's very impressive. Usually, this is not one of those like, oh, it's the playoffs and some random person you never thought would be the hero steps up and is the hero. No, it's Jordan Alvarez. Jordan Alvarez is not David Fries confirmed. No, he's, if not the best hitter in baseball, like one of the top three. Like he was, you know, other than Judge, he was probably the best hitter.

He had the second highest WRC plus, even higher than Trout's, I believe. So he's great. Like he's been great for a long time although I was remembering that I actually wrote about a Jordan Alvarez playoff slump because remember in 2019 when he had his great I don't remember 2019 well it happened he had his great rookie season he was just like one of the best hitters in baseball from day one basically and then in the first two rounds of the playoffs, he didn't hit at all. And he was striking out a lot and he just looked completely lost. And I wrote something at the time about how his playoff slump had come at the worst

possible time. And then, of course, he hit in the World Series after that because you can't keep him down for that long. And basically since then, he's just nonstop raked in the playoffs. I guess he didn't hit in the World Series last year. But other than that, he has been just a force in every playoff series he's played so far. I think he was the ALCS MVP last year. So you can't really get him out ever. And it's just that he's happened to have two great games in a row that have pushed the Mariners close to the brink or to the brink here. But he's just like, not only is he one of the best, like he's one of the most intimidating hitters. Like, you know, people will always say like, oh, Jim Rice, he was super intimidating. Like people make a distinction between just good and good plus intimidating.

And he's both partly just because he looks like he's seven feet tall and he just looks like he can completely cover everything not just the plate but off the plate there's a good stat in the fancrafts recap of this game that like even if you look at just jordan's performance on pitches outside the strike zone which the pitch from luis castillo that he hit out in game two was he's like the 14th best hitter in baseball or something like just looking at how he does in pitches outside the strike zone not compared to like how other guys do on pitches outside the strike zone just compared to their overall performance so you can't get him out really wherever you pitching but particularly not where

they pitched him in these two games I guess does it strike you guys as on the nose as it does me, the way that this series is playing out? Like the Mariners are a very good team. The Astros are probably a great team. And the thing that separates them is like two or three players, maybe. And Jordan has just completely performed to that expectation and almost single-handedly won two different baseball games in a five-game series. Yeah, and Castillo was great in that game.

He was better than Frambois Valdez in that game. Maybe he wasn't quite as good as he was in the wildcard round, but he was great. He was throwing really hard again. And again, the pitch that he threw to Jordan was like a 98-mile-per-hour pitch that was running away from him outside the strike zone, and he just slapped it into the Crawford boxes. And it wasn't like one of the cheaper Crawford box home runs that you'll see. Like he hit that hard,

not as hard and as far as the first home run, which was like just an absolute mammoth monster blast. That was how hard did he hit that? Like 116, 117 or something like he just got all of that and really like you can be a great pitcher in the middle of a great game and throw a decent pitch and he will beat you anyway or you can throw the pitch that Robbie Ray threw and I guess we should talk about that decision because that's kind of been the most controversial managerial move of the postseason so far. because that's kind of been the most controversial managerial move of the postseason so far. And Scott Service has doubled down on it and defended it and continued to say it was the right move, that he thinks it was good process, bad result.

But what do you guys make of this? Because just to recap, Robbie Ray not starting in the series because of his recent ineffectiveness and maybe also because the Astros have a lot of right-handed hitters, not quite as many as the Blue Jays who smacked him around in the big spot and went from Paul Seawald, the righty and the closer to Robbie Ray, not normally a reliever. And yes, the reigning Cy Young Award winner, but not someone who's inspiring a lot of confidence these days. It was definitely bad execution, bad result. The process I can see is argument, but it's complicated by the fact that Jordan Alvarez hits everything.

So I don't know that there's a magic bullet like just like bring in the lefty to face the lefty power hitter like sure but i don't i think it's more complicated than that i but also like what was the good matchup to bring in for for him so i've got less of a problem with bringing ray in as such than like he just didn't execute the pitch. Yeah, the plan for the pitch was good, I think, as a lot of people have pointed out. Jordan, relatively speaking, doesn't really hit sinkers so well. And with a lefty and a guy who throws sinkers, that seemed to be the right pitch call even to double up on that. It was just that he missed his spot and Jordan didn't. So I think

that made sense. I guess the alternatives were that you just stick with Seawald, who has not been great lately. I don't have it. I have no confidence in him right now. Right. I mean, obviously he has a track record of being pretty good. He is a regular reliever, so he's not like outside of his comfort zone or anything. The other options you could bring in Matt Boyd, who has not been a mariner for very long, has been effective thus far in a pretty small sample for them. You. Although Robbie Ray does have a platoon split. He's obviously a lot more effective against lefties make in the playoffs because they do or at least they did have access to data that we don't. And when they're making these decisions, they're not necessarily just looking at platoon splits or even like ground ball fly ball splits or, you know, let alone small sample. How did this guy do against that guy splits? you know let alone small sample how did this guy do against that guy splits they're also looking at things like repertoire and how did this hitter do against pitchers like this you know based on like the release point and the stuff and just all of these different factors that like generally

those of us who are just like tweeting our take are probably not really crunching the numbers to the same extent so you know all these teams have some like super complex model that is taking all of these factors into account theoretically and is spitting out some number or some judgment on whether this is a good matchup or a bad matchup. And so you kind of have to like reverse engineer that to the extent that you can. You know, like a lot of people, they cite platoon splits like the Mariners, I'm sure, are looking at like, well, how does Jordan do against like lefties with this sort of sinker or whatever, like that kind of thing that's just a little more in depth. And Scott Service was alluding to that in his various defenses of the moves that there's like some secret sauce here or I guess secret soup.

He used the word soup. He said to break it all down and tell you how the soup is made I'm probably not going to do that for you so like he said it was a good process but he didn't explain the process fully. The soup lobby is working overtime these days

everybody's talking about soup season Scott Service giving soup quotes placing crazy secret sauce with secret soup. Soup is not food. Wow. Okay, wait. Hold on. I think soup is a great food, actually.

This is one of the- Do you think soup is the ultimate food? Is that where this is going? This is one of the takes that our boss slash former boss has that I do agree with. Soup is a great food. I subsisted on soup for a large part of my life. What are your feelings on stew, then? Stew can be good.

It's all about the viscosity. Right. This is my thing. See, this I agree with. Yeah. There's a continuum from soup to stew to queso. And that's the more viscous the liquid, the better it is. Don't give me no texture and call that dinner. That's my take. Yeah. Or don't give me no texture and call that dinner that's my take

yeah or like don't give me meat tea with chunks you know and it's always sad chunks like chunks of carrots like yeah that's i don't yeah i don't care for boiled carrots it sounds to me like you just haven't had much good soup yeah well yeah what are you well i'll agree with you i have not had much good soup which is why I don't like soup. You would argue that there isn't much good soup. I would, in fact, make that argument. I like foods that go down easy, that you can almost drink them. And soup is the closest you could come to that. And also, I like things that are just blended together. Even if I have a salad, I would just put just a whole bunch of ingredients in there. And some people will recoil and be like, you're having that with that. And I'm like, it's all going to the same place.

If I like all these ingredients, like I don't I'm not going to get hung up on. Does this go with that? Like I like all these hot committed to. You're going to be you're going to be so upset when you find out what goes into Soylent Green. Anyway, the soup apparently suggested that Ravi Ray was as good a matchup as the mariners had for jordan alvarez and the pitch didn't go where he wanted and the result wasn't what they wanted i think you could make an argument just based on like he's out of his element right and it wasn't one of these cases where like he didn't know he was going to be pitching in relief. He had warning.

He was aware that he was out of the bullpen available. He could be called upon. But obviously, he hadn't done this much. And I don't think he'd ever done it in this situation. I mean, putting aside posties, I mean, coming in in the middle of an inning with runners on base, et cetera, he hasn't exactly been in that spot. Obviously, I don't know whether that's why he missed his spot on that pitch

and just didn't throw the good sinker. But I guess like if you think that the edge, the advantage in expected outcome is small, which probably it's going to be pretty small compared to your other options at that point, then would that be outweighed potentially by the fact that, A, Robbie Ray has sort of sucked lately.

So whether you make anything of that or just think his confidence might be an issue now, or just like he's a starting pitcher and you're asking him to come in in the middle of an inning. And I think we're too precious about starting pitchers and like, oh, can't use the starting pitcher in this spot because he is a starting pitcher. But also maybe there's something to that. Like if it's kind of a, if it's like the tiebreaker, if it's like this is, you know, a coin flip or kind of close to it, then I'd probably err on the side of the reliever. Yeah, I definitely don't think like that issue deserves the voice you just gave it.

Like, obviously, I agree that they're're pitchers like they can do their job they're flexible but it is a change in routine you don't need to go all the way i apologize for my voice work yeah but i that's i'm coming down on the side of of that stance in this case don't discourage ben from doing a take, Mike. Come on. Let him do the take. I'd make the slightest take and boy, snap at me. I'll just be cowed into not having any takes again. I was very gentle. Am I a sucker

for thinking that maybe they should have just intentionally walked him and taken their chances with Bregman? How did that go in game two? That's the thing. In game two, even if he's saying it was a good process to pitch to him the way that they pitched to him in game one, in game two, he makes a different decision. And they put Jordan on and also move the runner into scoring position. And then you have Alex Bregman behind him who singles and scores. But that doesn't mean that he would have done that in game one necessarily. No, but statistically. You had two outs already, right?

You had two outs already. And all he would have had to do is get Alex Bregman out. Or even if he walks him or hits him or something, then the game is only tied. I don't know. It's probably not the right mathematical model, but also. No, I think run expectancy wise, you could probably make a pretty convincing case that walking him was a worse decision than pitching to him with Robbie, right? Just like, I think the run expectancy doubles or something, but it's Jordan Alvarez. So, you know, it's not your average hitter, but also Alex Bregman isn't your average hitter behind him. And if we're making squishy arguments, like you can't be that scared

of one guy in game one of a playoff series. You're right. Like, even if it's Jordan Alvarez, you have to go get it out eventually. So it might as well be, you know, might as well be him. Maybe that's a little reductive caveman-y, but it's one of the reasons I don't like walking people a lot is not just that it puts the extra guy on base.

You can't give up that mental edge that just saying we're just, we're so scared of Jordan Alvarez, we're not even going to pitch to him when you've got to face him like 16 more times if the series goes well. The real problem for Seattle is that they can't get Jeremy Pena out. Yeah, I was going to say. Pena, who had a 289 on base percentage this season, and he was very good for a rookie

shortstop, especially on the defensive end, but his offense cratered in the second half of the season he is the number two hitter in this series and he keeps getting on base which forces Seattle to have to make the tough decision about what to do with Jordan I think Houston's lineup from top to bottom is not the same as it had been in like the 2017 2018 era, they have a pretty weak bottom of the order. And Peña is hitting second, but as long as he's getting on base like Jose Altuve is supposed to, then that's going to keep forcing opposing managers to decide how do we handle Jordan, who, like you guys said, doesn't really have a platoon spit and hits everyone. So I think that's the issue is even

if Jordan is hitting, as long as Seattle is taking care of the guys they're supposed to get out, they would have won one of these first two games. Yeah, that's been pretty crucial because I saw some people questioning why is Jeremy Pena even batting second here? Because he was great when the season started and it was like, who needs Carlos Correa? And then he continued to be a good glove, but didn't hit nearly as well. And I did see that he made some mechanical changes in September, I believe, like he ditched his big leg kick and made some other tweaks. And after that, he actually did hit pretty well. So maybe they feel like he's okay. He's like back to his early season self

or something close to it now. And that has been crucial here because Jordan wouldn't have done as much damage if Pena had not, well, extended the innings so that Jordan could get up, but then also be on base for Jordan. So that has been pretty important. And I wrote something this week about just like what a great cropper rookies there were in baseball this season, just like an unprecedented number of really productive rookies. And most of them are or have been in the postseason. And so they're kind of shining on the stage. And you saw, you know, Stephen Kwan hitting the home run against Cole that was the only run that the Guardians scored in game one. And you have Pena excelling here. And of course, you had Julio doubling and tripling off Justin Verlander. So it's been a nice showcase

for just a really impressive group of rookies, great rookie cohort this year. And while we're on this series, so the Astros are without a reliever who was pretty important to them, certainly in the postseason last year. Phil Maton was great for them in October. And he's unavailable because he punched a locker. Amusingly, it seems like after a game in which he gave up a hit to his brother, Nick Maton of the Phillies, which is very funny. I don't know if he was very upset because he gave up a hit to his brother or not, but I'd go to choose to but that's certainly how it was

used to believe that's why yeah but this is just like i i've said this i feel so i like i get it like you don't i don't have siblings so i don't understand i mean i understand sibling rivalry in i was wondering what could possibly have pissed him off that much in a game that like the astros had had the division wrapped up for like a month before that how is he still feeling that many emotions but giving up a hit to your brothers no good the other funny thing about that is and I'm sorry if this is where you were going but there was so much talk about oh where do Aaron and Austin Nola's parents go like and so they had to what they did game one in New York and then game two in St. Louis during the wildcard series.

And the news that Phil had broken his hand and Nick had been left off the Phillies division series roster, that dropped in the span of like 20 minutes the other day. And I thought that was very funny, like the bizarro Nola situation that they had going on. The problem is that as another older brother, sure, you give up the hit, but if you then break your hand afterward, you lose that sibling rivalry forever. Yeah.

He knows he's in your head, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure he didn't punch the locker thinking I am going to break my hand doing this, but there's no coming back from that. You could strike him out the next five times you face him, and he's still the guy who forced you to break your hand punching a locker what are we doing punching lockers with our pitching hand that's what i was gonna say just do kick the locker break your toe it doesn't even

matter you're a pitcher at least use your non-pitching hand it's unbelievable to me that this happens so often it's like they don't show bull durham in schools anymore right it's like i show bull durham in your school. Mike explains. So I ever broken my hand, punching a locker. No, I've mentioned this before, but I, I continue to think that like, if I were running a team, one thing I would do is just have padded walls everywhere where players might be pissed off after games, like pad, the dugouts pad, the tunnel pad, the clubhouse just definitely have no mental knockdown effect that'll definitely not make people feel crazy in any way shape or form well they have not earned

the privilege of having non-padded walls because this has gone on for so long it's ridiculous it's preposterous that this keeps happening like there needs to be some sort of either like anger management training like i understand these are highly competitive people. They're giving up hits to their brothers. It's like emotionally charged moments and there's a lot of testosterone coming out. I get it. But like, how do you not? There has to be some kind of like training for how to get your anger out, express your emotions in a non-damaging way, because this happens so often.

There's such a long track record. I don't know if it's as common in other sports as it is in baseball, but there's just so, so many. If we could quantify the amount of war lost or salary lost to people punching and breaking hands, and it seems like there has to be a better defense against this. And it seems like there has to be a better defense against this. I guess you can't completely pad every surface because you might have Zach Plesak just punching the mound and breaking his hands and you can't pad that, I guess. And like people who've missed important postseasons and starts and cost themselves and their teams. And they always like they seem sheepish and penitent after. And they say, you know, like it's embarrassing. Like I cost the team, et cetera. Like we have media training. Like we have people like conditioned to speak in cliches so that they never get themselves in trouble and say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment.

Can we not also apply that to not punching surfaces with like vital, fragile parts of your body? I don't get it. But the issue is not just anger. It's all emotions as we saw with David Robertson this week. True. Yeah. I mean, there's a fairly long track record of that too. So David Robertson is-

Kendris Morales. Yeah, I know. Like celebrating Bryce Harper's Homer and then he hurts his calf. I mean, I guess when you're in your late 30s,ers if pitchers are like you know having hard high fives or like you know punching people in celebration it's like just be careful please everyone just be careful just have them all padded in ben's world they play the games and then as they walk off the field they get bubble wrap isolation pods yeah vacuum sealed bubble wrap until the next game at least for the high-leverage months of the calendar. Ben's pouring over the joint drug agreement, seeing if haloperidol is the banned substance.

Anyway, just like a lot of relievers just ruled out for this round unexpectedly. Those two, Tyler Matzek, who I guess wasn't going to be on the roster anyway, probably, but also Scott Efros, who was pretty important to the Yankees. Like they just had Tommy John surgery all of a sudden and they're just done. So that'll happen. There's no protection against that. None of this would have happened if they installed straitjacket anchors on the sleeves of jerseys. That's all I'm saying. Just take some normal, reasonable precautions. Listen, as someone who hurt his back draining pasta a month and a half ago,

just twisting wrong and hurt my back, I can't really fault these guys. This happens. Come on. So you're recommending Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to be the next president of baseball ops in the Mets is what I'm hearing from you. Yes. Can you guys imagine if the Dodgers had Jordan, which they did at one point, and then they traded him for a reliever? If the Dodgers had Jordan, my goodness. I mean, I guess it's not like they've necessarily had a hole that Jordan would have filled because they've typically had good players anyway.

You know, they'll have Max Muncy or they'll have justin turd or whoever in that slot that jordan would be in and of course like he wouldn't have been able to dh for them prior to this year although he's not unplayable in the outfield but if they had like another guy who was one of the best hitters in baseball and also young well they'd be even better that they are i guess it's the conclusion but that would be i don't know if he i don't know if he plays in left field the same way in an outfield that actually requires the left fielder to run true yeah could be a problem but i guess everyone should just be relieved that the dodgers don't have jordan except like i don't know that anyone is happy that the maybe he was the karmic sacrifice that they had to make. Yeah. I guess every team or almost every team has some like, what if, what if we had not traded

this guy for that guy? So it's not just the Dodgers. It's usually the case that like the Dodgers are not on that end of the trade. They are getting someone who someone else shouldn't have given up. So it's maybe a little more rare for the Dodgers. And generally they like held on to a lot of their most promising prospects, which I guess Jordan wasn't really one yet at the time. So it's not like you could look at that in hindsight and say, how could they do that?

It's just it worked out in such a way that they are probably still kicking themselves about that one. That was back in the era before the Dodgers were able to turn Yancy Almonte into a shutdown reliever. And we're still trading for relievers. So they traded Jordan for Josh Fields. They traded a young prospect named O'Neal Cruz for Tony Watson. So I think the Dodgers have moved past that.

And now they no longer need to trade players for relievers. And they can just turn them into 30 home run hitters themselves. So that's Astros, Mariners. Obviously, Mariners in a tough hole here, but I hope that they manage to make this a series and that for as long as it lasts, the fans in Seattle get to enjoy seeing their team play playoff home games.

That's nice. So elsewhere, there's only been the one Yankees-Guardians game, and I guess there's not all that much to say about that. Game two got rained out. So it's kind of odd that the Guardians have scored exclusively on homers thus far this postseason because they're the team that doesn't. No, it's not. They can't string together enough singles. Well, yeah, that's true. That is the problem. I guess the surprising thing is that they actually won the first series doing that because that's not really their game plan so much. But yeah, Stephen Kwan, of all people, took Garrett Cole deep.

We noted that Garrett Cole, he gives up a lot of his runs on home runs. Not necessarily the person you would have expected to do that. There was like a semi-controversial maybe Tito leaving Quantrill in too long in this game, right? And that kind of got them in some trouble because he was left in for the third time through and like was facing judge, right? And that was probably ill-advised. Again, I don't know if that would have made a difference. It seems like the Guardians haven't been able to score anyway, but when you have Quantrill, who's like your guy who should have the quicker hook, and you also have the bullpen that the Guardians have.

That was somewhat inexcusable, probably. So I guess you hope that he doesn't continue to make that mistake, because now that there's no off day later in the series regularly scheduled, and they have to make up the rain out, so now there's the prospect of four games in four days, right, if it goes that far, So now there's the prospect of four games in four days, right, if it goes that far, which then becomes a test of your bullpen and your depth, which probably does favor the Guardians at this point. So I guess that's a point in their favor, although I guess a thing that goes against them is that now Bieber can't go. So the Yankees are way better than them? Well, yes, there's that. But Bieber can't go on short rest in game five if you would want to do that. It's just going to be even shorter rest now. But they do have Bieber going now. So that's good. And they have McKenzie. So things are looking okay for the next couple of games, I guess. So you can say that at least. Yeah, but the Yankees can still bring back cole in game four on full rest so yeah i mean they're still better but

yeah it's one game there's probably not too much we can take from that but yes you you hope that francona is in more of a like a playoff uh urgency sort of mode i suppose but but with bieber and with McKenzie, he can have a longer leash with those guys than he should have had with Quantrill, probably. Can I just gush about how exciting it is to see a matchup like Bieber versus Nestor Cortez in the ALDS? Bieber, this like perfectly manicured, like create a pitcher, beautiful delivery, like very traditional style righty. And then you just have Nestor on the

other end and they're like you know basically equally effective maybe Nestor has had a slightly better year in terms of results but him just looking the complete opposite and when he comes out there for for his half of the inning I am very excited to watch that matchup it would be a lot more appropriate if they switch teams like you'd expect yeah yeah the archetype to be a yankee but in general i think there's been a very fun level of stylistic diversity already this postseason we've seen at least one really high scoring game we've seen comebacks we've seen really good starting pitcher duels we've seen reliever duels and i appreciate that a lot especially because something i always forget i think when i'm watching games

during the division series is it's like we have 12 hours of baseball wall to wall and then not long from now it's just going to be maybe one game on any given night so i'm enjoying the stylistic diversity while i have it and also i think that's a testament to like i am not a huge fan of the expanded playoff field but as ben you've talked about this podcast on the last couple weeks it's a testament to like, I am not a huge fan of the expanded playoff field. But as Ben, you've talked about this podcast on the last couple of weeks. It's a very fun group of teams, a lot of whom have narratives. And we might well get like Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, Atlanta in the championship series. And it's just the teams that have been there already.

But at least for now, when the other four teams are still here, it's adding some fun flavors to the stew that is the October playoffs playoffs because stew is the one that is sometimes acceptable to mike right exactly exactly this is not a bisque this is definitely a stew still yes if we get those four in the cs though it might quickly become very thin bisque yes a chowder at best yeah i do like seeing good teams advanced and play each other so that's some consolation although in this case like the good teams are teams that most people are probably sick of seeing at this point so it would be nice to have some of these underdogs some some upsets come through here and speaking of that i guess just to round out the last two series the ones we haven't talked about they're split through the first two games. The Phillies took a game from the Braves. The Padres took a game from the Dodgers. So they probably have to be happy about that heading home.

They're in decent upset position now in that they split. They have two games at home now. Their bullpen is rested. They have two of their top three starters scheduled to pitch here. And their bullpen has looked surprisingly good thus far. Sometimes, like, who wins in the playoffs just comes down to whose bullpen has a good month, and you wouldn't have thought that would be a strength of the Padres, but it has been thus far. Josh Hader even got a four-out save, really extended himself past the one-inning limit, and he's looked pretty good lately too. So I guess you kind of have to be happy. I guess both of these games were winnable in theory, but even just taking one from the

Dodgers in LA, it's a victory of sorts. I wrote about this for The Ringer this week. Have you all felt like this Dodgers team is different from the group that we watched from 2013 to 2021? Because I've noticed that, obviously, at the top of the lineup with the three best players, and Betts, Turner, and Freeman have all joined the club since 2020. But I've noticed it, especially in the late innings with the bullpen, because for so many years, when that Dodgers team was consistent year to year, it was Pedro Baez and Joe Kelly for a while and Kenley Jansen, of course. And you had a sense of the long running playoff narrative. And now it's guys who are no less effective, like Chris Martin has been awesome. Over the last few months, Yancy Amante looked amazing in his inning, Tommy Canley. But it's not a group that we have a history with, especially in

Dodgers uniforms. And that has thrown me a little bit for a loop, especially because this is like the last game of the night, and you're used to watching Pedro Baez as a bedtime story. And now that's no longer a possibility. Yeah, that top of of the lineup you can't really get much better than turner and betts and freeman in order but also just like what a fun group of players and also a different mix of styles there and just kind of every way one can be good at baseball on display like that's just a really fun top of the order. So I don't know. Anything else to note about this series so far? How do you say that? Ben, it's going to depend on game three,

whether the Padres can take back home field advantage, or I guess they did take back. Now that the Padres have taken back home field advantage, can they take control of the series? Game three is going to be pivotal. Yeah. I'm curious though how you guys think snell will do against this dodgers lineup because he has sort of been

to me like kind of a big question mark of this team is that he's one of their top two or top three pitchers as you said ben but he just has these games against teams that can be patient where you're just he just looks horrible in in games that really matter because he's just nibbling and nibbling and nibbling and when when they were not to make this about the Mets again but when it was going into game two after the Mets had laid an egg in game one I felt very very confident against Snell because that the Mets have been a team all year that works the count and you know I know there are certain Dodgers players who don't do that as much but there are also a large chunk of the Dodgers lineup that will work a count, will work a walk.

And so I don't know. I wonder how Padres fans feel. I wonder how you guys feel about Snell, who has looked untouchable in the playoffs in the past, but also has struggled to get even to the fourth inning or the second or third time through an order. How many consecutive pitches do you think it would take for Blake Snell to throw to Max Muncy before Max Muncy scores? Snell pitched three times against the Dodgers in the regular season, including twice in September. And in those three starts, he averaged 21 pitches per inning. Yeah, it's not ideal, guys. It's not good. It's unbearable to watch. I can't stand it. I've mentioned this recently. Just aesthetically displeasing pitcher for me, Blake Snell. Sorry, Blake. And I know that people have said that about Darvish, too, because he takes a long time to pitch. It's true. But just much more fun to watch for me than Blake Snell. And the Padres were doing that thing like in the wildcard round, was it, right? Where they were just like constantly just stepping out and like calling time. And that was annoying

people too. I don't know whether that had an effect either. Just like a lot of delays. But yeah, Snell, unless he's like really on, it's like unbearable to watch for me. I'd rather watch Pedro Baez possibly than Blake Snow. I shouldn't go that far. Okay. Maybe not. All right. And also like people, Meg and I as a bit have been belaboring like how many games you need to win in each playoff round and explaining at great length and probably greater length than people would want exactly how many games a team needs to win in a best of three and a best of five. But after you have a split in the first two games of a best of five, then everyone says that now it's a best of three. So I hope that nobody has been confused by that. All right.

Finally, Phillies Braves. So I guess good news for the Phillies. Well, they won one game, so that's good news. But also Bryce Harper is back, it looks like. Bryce Harper's different. Yeah. He has not looked like normal Bryce Harper, even as he's been hitting better this series. I think he's shortening things up and focusing on making more contact rather than taking those big swings.

The one exception is the pitch from miles Michaelis. That was the home running game two against St. Louis, which made the one of the worst. Yeah. It made the Robbie Ray sinker to, to Yordan Alvarez look like, like a Mariana Rivera cutter.

So like, I don't care how hurt or lost he is. He's always going to hit that pitch out, but he's just been getting on base and trusting the guys behind him to, to drive him in, which worked in game one. It didn't work in game two. So I think that's encouraging the fact that Nick Castellanos showed signs of life for the first time in maybe his entire tenure in Philadelphia in game two or game one. Sorry, is encouraging. I was calling for Dalton Guthrie to start in right field and I have stopped doing that. to start in right field and I have stopped doing that. I mean, it's another thing that goes back to the horrible cliche that I brought up

with Padres Dodgers is like, this is the series today is like Aaron Noel, who's been every bit as good as Zach Wheeler, if not a little bit better and coming back home. And yes, Spencer Strider, who was created in a lab to see if it was possible to get me to like someone who went to Clemson. He's going to be back, but he's only going to be back for like two to three innings and like maybe less. I don't know what that rust is going to look like, whether how how much he's gotten out of sim games.

So this is a Phillies opportunity. And it's I don't if they lose today, I don't know if there's a realistic way back. But if they win today, then even without Wheeler or Nola on the mound, they've only got to win one or two. And that's just such a huge advantage. It doesn't matter that they're the worst team with worst pitching from that point on. How are you feeling about Zach Eflin closer? Yeah. What the hell happened there? How did that happen? I don't know what happened on Tuesday. I also don't know what day of the week it is.

I haven't known what day of the week it's been since 2014. It's a miracle I showed up for the MLB show every Friday, to be completely honest. But he looked really good late in the season coming out of the bullpen in a one-inning-plus role. I think, obviously, I would rather have him in the rotation but i i feel good about him as the closer well i guess that's philly's bullpen adjusted feeling good about well part of it is it allows you to to have alvarado and sir anthony dominguez come in and like stomp out rallies and get you from the you know from the, whoever it is, to the ninth inning. I think it's easier than you'd think to pitch a clean ninth inning with nobody on base, but that allows Rob Thompson to take his

two best relievers and target them to tougher matchups. And I think Eflin just letting it eat for an inning at a time is plenty good enough to be a closer. One more thing I wanted to say about Harper. He has hit the ball harder, at least, than he had really after he came off the IL. So that's encouraging. But Joe Sheehan in his series preview wrote that there's no path forward for the Phillies that doesn't include Harper hitting like Bryce Harper. And I kind of objected to that. Just generally, I mean, I guess I probably wouldn't say that about any player necessarily, just because it's baseball and you can always advance even if your best player doesn't hit in that particular series. But also, like, the Phillies were easily a winning team without Bryce Harper or with him when he was basically at a sub-replacement level after he came back.

level after he came back so he's it's not a one-man team or a one-man offense like they could get by without Bryce Harper hitting obviously it would be much easier if he did but it's a deep lineup yeah like you got like Gene Segura that deep in the in the order it does like it's not going to sink or swim with one guy I think what's really been killing the Phillies is that Hoskins and Schorber are like one for the postseason at this point. Like there's not a, you know, there's not a path forward for the Phillies if Harper doesn't hit like Harper and also the two guys in front of them, like literally never get on base. Like that's where, where things have really fallen apart. And one other thing I wanted to ask, would you go with Wheeler on short rest if it gets to that or bring back Ranger Suarez? I'd bring back Ranger Suarez. I think Wheeler is still not so far removed from that injury that I would want to take that chance. And if I did come

back with him on short rest, I would want to do a sort of piggyback. Like Ranger Suarez figures in the first five innings of game five, no matter what, if I'm managing the Phillies, whether he's starting or whether it's a piggyback thing and you'd get Wheeler once through the order and then once through the middle of the Braves order. And then you bring in Suarez for the bottom half, something like that. I feel like I lean more toward great starter on short rests often, and it's maybe different with someone who's coming off an injury. If Nolan was set up for there, I'd bring back Nolan on short rest. But just like Wheeler's still, I'm not 100% convinced like he's back to full strength

like in terms of stamina as well as he pitched the other night. So then again, like he got a relatively early hook, and he worked pretty easy. So maybe that was a setup to bring him back for game five. Who knows? We can't have a reunion episode of the Ringer MLB show without my at least mentioning the possibility that they could pull a Curly Ogden maneuver

because Wheeler and Suarez throw with opposite hands. And Atlanta doesn't really platoon much, but they did have a slightly different starting lineup in games one and two. So who knows? Maybe you could throw Wheeler for the first three batters, get through Acuna, Swanson, and Riley, and then bring Suarez in. Yeah. And as we record, we know that Spencer Strider is starting game three. Obviously, we don't know how long he will go or how well he will pitch, but encouraging that he's back, that he's going to have a major role in this series. And Atlanta's got to be a little concerned probably about Max Fried at this point, just because most pitchers throw harder in the postseason.

He was throwing a lot less hard, and that's not a new thing, really. He's lost some velocity as the season has gone on. He's still been pretty effective, but it is kind of concerning if you get to another Max Fried game. So something to keep in mind. Otherwise, I guess I wish the Phillies happy tailgating today and success. For Fried, he was sick. So I don't know how quickly you get over this sort of thing, but if he eats enough or drinks enough chicken soup, I should say. Yeah, or stew.

Maybe he'll feel better for game five. So I'm willing to chalk that off. Did you want to bring up your Phillies banter topic about your friend? Yeah. I would say he's a casual baseball fan. Like he's sort of vaguely aware of the Phillies and knows how baseball works, but doesn't like follow the ins and outs of the team. Has his brother has tickets to the game today and he was asking for help coming up with like, what do I need to say to sound smart about baseball?

So like I told him, you know, something about, you know, the only thing that matters is how long Strider pitches and stuff like that. But I was since I'm going to since I'm talking to you guys, you great esotericists. I was wondering what is the the single best memorizable one liner that we could give a very casual baseball fan to spring on on a more diehard fan during today's game. So you asked this about five minutes before we started recording, and I looked quickly and found one possibility, which is that the last time Atlanta and Philadelphia played in the playoffs was 1993. The last out of that series was a strikeout by Bill Pakoda,

the namesake of Baseball Perspectives' flagship projection system. Wow. Good one. That's pretty good. Yeah. I went much harder, veered towards the tipping pitches element of this question. And I said, Spencer Strider on the mound today.

Did you see Andy McCullough's profile of him today in the athletic? Not since Nixon's family assistance program has a power writing look this contextually progressive. Wow. Well, that's either a Richard Staff tweet or a Bauman tweet for sure Listen I've learned

At the right hand of Michael Bauman Yeah I guess well you could just Regurgitate Zach's fun facts About the home runs Given that this is you could have a 93 World Series reference in here And then you could use your Playoff walk off come from behind fun facts

or you could just hope that a 4-0 ball game at some point appears and then you can trot out the castellanos meme which is not esoteric obviously but may kind of paint you as being in the in group being on baseball twitter if you trot out the the castellanos line at some point in this game it's frankly shocking that that's not esoteric like it's in this game. It's frankly shocking that that's not esoteric. It's a wonder that that's not esoteric. I wrote about that at The Rigger, just about that whole meme. And that was a while ago. That was before last season, I think. And it's still very present. You still see that constantly. That has really defied the short meme life cycle. He was getting the blame for angela lansbury

yeah right that's just like that's never gonna go away and like non-baseball fans know about that meme too which it's very rare for a baseball twitter meme to break out in that way so it's nice all right lastly i guess just in case anyone is worried the the goose is okay. The goose who landed on the field in LA has been released safely. I kind of like, I can't enjoy animals on the field, I guess, because I worry about them. Because the goose, and granted, I know geese can just be assholes a lot of the time. And people just don't have sympathy for geese. That's understandable. But the goose was like, how the hell did I get here?

What happened? Where am I? Which apparently is a problem because it's a light pollution issue and migrating birds will get distracted by these big banks of light and they will just get knocked off their course. And that seems to... So this goose got separated from its flock, right? And one second it's like on the way to Mexico or SoCal or wherever. And then suddenly it's on the field

in a division series game by itself. Like, where am I? What is happening? It seemed completely out of sorts, which was like amusing, made for some good gifts and some good memes. So I don't begrudge anyone that. But I'm always like, I hope that the goose is okay.

Not goose specifically, but like I hope the whatever the animal that is like completely lost and scared is okay. That was the first time since Fly Away Home starring Anna Paquin that I have felt any kind of concern or sympathy for a goose. Yeah, right. Not normally inclined to consider the plight of the goose. No, I can see myself one day becoming a vegetarian out of animal welfare, for animal welfare reasons. The two animals that I will never stop eating because they're evil and must be destroyed are turkeys and geese.

Are geese good eating? I don't know, but I eat them just to, if I'm not eating pig anymore, then maybe I'll have to branch out. But I know that geese are evil. And I think it helped that it's not a Canada goose because Canada geese are I tweeted about this. There's a researchers found an instance of a male Canada goose defending its nesting site who like basically trampled and drowned a rival goose in a puddle by standing on its head for an hour like these are not animals we should be protecting but i'm glad that the so if i saw like if there was a canada goose like absolutely put it on a trash can a greater

white fronted goose yeah it looked like it looked like it was in distress and also like i saw that they brought it like brought it down the tunnel or like are you insane like don't like trap that goose it'll kill somebody so i'm glad that like both the goose and the security people are all okay and i hope the goose gets repatriated have we verified that ben only said that the goose made it out alive oh i guess that's true, I don't know about the security people. It's not been confirmed. Yeah. Anyway, it's like Randy Johnson has talked about that too. Like he doesn't like being asked about killing the bird.

I guess he doesn't really like being asked about anything as people who heard his interview on this podcast could testify other than Kingsford Charcoal. But he doesn't like being asked about the bird because I guess he feels bad about killing the bird, which I probably would too. Although like now it's the logo of his photography company is the dead bird, so I don't know how that tragedy plus time equals comedy. Right, I guess so. But yeah, usually like it doesn't take much

time to result in comedy when some kind of animal is running around the field. And if it's like an animal that lives there, maybe it's a little different. If it's just like a ballpark cat, it's like, okay, that's an occupational hazard of being a ballpark cat is that you just might be on the field during a game. Cats always look like they – I've never seen a cat at large at a sporting event that looked happy. No. This is not like the dog on the soccer pitch thing where whenever a dog gets loose on a soccer field, it looks like it's having the time of its life. Yes, right. Put a dog anywhere where people are playing with some kind of ball and they will be

happy and they will probably disrupt whatever you're trying to do, but in a joyous way where no one can be bad about them and they'll just be good boys. So I guess we have just about covered it here and Bauman's got to get tailgating. So we can wrap up. It has been a pleasure. It's been great to talk to you guys and to pod with you guys. Of course, we are in communication one way or another pretty frequently,

but to get all of us together and convene on a podcast, it's been a while. It's been too long. I'm sorry that we don't get to do this regularly anymore, but I'm glad we got to do it today. Ben, thank you.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks for the invite. It's always nice to hear you guys make fun of me for being sad about the Mets. I had like three other Mets jokes I could have mentioned here and didn't. Like just for one. Well, you still have to work with me. We're still in a union together. You can't be mad.

You can't make me mad. Did you know that the last team to eliminate the Dodgers in the playoffs and not win the World Series was the 2015 Mets? I discovered that while researching for this pod. I'm ending the podcast before Bobby can be in any lower spirits.

Alright, a few things to share with you here before we go. First, I've got to give you today's Pass Blast, which comes as usual from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. This is episode 1916. Today's Pass Blast comes from 1916, and the heading is A Scandal Before The Scandal. Jacob writes, In 1916, the New York Giants set a major league record by winning 26 consecutive games without a

loss. Two days after their streak ended, they traveled to Brooklyn with a chance to play spoiler against the first-place Dodgers, but the Dodgers won three out of four to claim their first NL pennant. Afterward, the Giants were accused of throwing games to the rival Dodgers by their own manager, John McGraw. Here's how one Pennsylvania newspaper reported the scandal. Quote, the accusation made by manager McGraw during yesterday's game with the Dodgers that his players were disobeying his instructions has aroused a hornet's nest in baseball circles. McGraw was so incensed at the attitude of his players

that he left the field during the game. Not since the memorable playoff between the Cubs and Giants eight years ago, when an attempt was made to bribe the umpires to throw the game to the Giants, has the national pastime been so scandalized? While most of the dyed-in-the-wool fans do not agree that the Giants laid down to the Dodgers, there are some skeptics. Jacob concludes, McGraw specifically called out pitcher Paul Parrott, claiming he used a wind-up with runners on base and made several throwing errors. Parrott defended himself by telling reporters, if there is an implication that I helped to lose the game, you can give it the lie for me.

That game cost me $100 I had bet that I would win 20 games. I was out to win. It's an interesting defense. I couldn't have thrown the game because I had money riding on winning the game. All right. Jacob continues, a few years later, Parrott said he was approached by Hal Chase with a bribe offer to throw more games. Parrott and Chase were among eight players on the 1919 Giants roster who were later kicked out of baseball on suspicion of game-fixing their own eight men out. Clearly the time was ripe for such a scandal. There were some signs and some tremors leading up to it, and Jacob is the perfect person to tell us about them, so thank you to Jacob. Also some news we didn't get to today, Carlos Correa and his wife announced that they were expecting a second child, and Carlos Correa, in a roundabout way, announced that he will opt out of his contract with the Twins, unsurprisingly, and will hit the free agent market, though the Twins evidently have been trying to talk to him about a long-term deal. We covered the Boris-esque Correa quote about that recently. We'll have plenty of time to talk about Carlos Correa's free agency and the other short stops who may be available yet again, like last offseason. There are some other good ones out there, though the

market is probably a little less stacked than it was last year. And also, there's no lockout. That kind of complicated his free agency and probably led to his signing a smaller deal than he might have otherwise. That offseason was perhaps not navigated the best that it could have been, but he's coming off another good season. He'll do just fine. I wanted to bring that up because Carlos Correa, he's also a member of the media, at least for this month. He's been doing some analysis and commentary for TBS, and I saw this in our Facebook group. He was in a studio show with Curtis Granderson and Jimmy Rollins and Pedro Martinez, and they were asking him about new school stats because he's sort of a stat head. He likes the

advanced stats. It was fun and refreshing to hear him talk about those things and how teams value players. But he also suggested a potential new triple crown, which is a subject that we have discussed recently. I've objected that RBI as a third prong or tine of the triple crown, it's kind of redundant. Not only have RBI been discounted as an evaluative tool, but also there's so much overlap with the other two categories. If you're leading in batting average and home runs, there's a very good chance that you will be leading in RBI or even if you're just leading in home runs. So we've been soliciting suggestions for what could be the new triple crown? What other stats could we use? We were looking for traditional stats. Carlos Correa is thinking about sabermetric stats here. And there is a so-called sabermetric

triple crown, which is just 300, 400, 500 batting average on base slugging. But here's a quick clip from what Correa said. When GMs, when front offices, when they look at stats, they want to look at WRC+, FuraHitter, OPS+, and WOBA. Those are the most important stats right now in baseball. Those are the new triple crown, as we like to call it back in the day. It's not average home runs anymore. Okay. I don't know that he's actually suggesting that this should be the new triple crown, or he's just saying these are important stats that players and people should pay attention to because teams are. But boy, if redundancy was the issue

with RBI and homers and batting average, it could not get more redundant than this. WRC Plus and OPS Plus, which are essentially the same thing, except that one is weighted somewhat more accurately, but they tend to track pretty closely. And then WOBA, which is just the non-indexed and park-adjusted, etc. version of WRC Plus, essentially. These are three ways of expressing more or less the same thing, just how good an offensive player you are, how productive you are at the plate. So good stats, definitely not a fitting triple crown. I also recalled back on episode 1672, Meg and I answered a listener email about geese on the field because there had been a goose who landed in center in a game. And someone asked us if we

thought that teams could train geese to land on the field and freak out fielders, that geese might be the best animal that you could have on the field just because they are kind of intimidating. They could make defenders uncomfortable. A questioner asked if teams could use this to their advantage. Having seen it in action here, I think you'd need a better trained goose, not one that just happened to be passing by. Because in this case, the goose was more uncomfortable than everyone on the field. Lastly, and more somberly, just as we were wrapping up our recording, the news broke that Bruce Souter had died at 69 years old, the Hall of Fame former reliever for the Cubs, the Cardinals, the Braves. We've talked about Souter quite a few times on

this podcast. I think most recently on episode 1870, we talked about the so-called Bruce Souter Day and his contract with Atlanta and the deferred money that he received payouts for for decades and decades. We were arguing that we pay too much attention to Bobby Bonilla Day relative to Souter Day. And I was just thinking of Souter earlier this week because I was writing about rookies, as I said, and I was touching on Spencer Strider. And I noted that Strider had one of the most valuable non-qualified for the ERA title pitching seasons ever. He ranked eighth all time in Fangraph's War among pitchers with fewer than 162 innings pitched and fourth among those with fewer than 145 innings pitched. And ahead of him on those lists, Bruce Suter. Suter's 1977 season

with the Cubs, he went 107 and a third innings, all in relief. And by Fangraph's war, he was worth 5.2 wins above replacement. And other than Pedro in 2001, that's the best for any pitcher with fewer than 145 innings. Even with fewer than 162, he's fifth on that list. And of course, he was a pioneer in a lot of respects with the split-fingered fastball. He's the first Hall of Famer who never started a game. For better or worse, he sort of broke the seal when it came to getting relievers in the Hall of Fame and the perception of relievers in some ways. Also, just a really interesting origin story. He was drafted in the 21st round, but he didn't sign. He signed later as a free agent, wasn't thought much of, had to learn the splitter.

After he had surgery that prevented him from throwing his previous pitches, he'd almost been released. The rest is history. An interesting career, a decorated career, a sad so long to Bruce Souter. 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 monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, get themselves access to some perks and help us stay ad free. Jeff Eng, Gregory Montana, Tim Balfour, Casey Knapp, and Chad Thompson. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group,

which now has more than 800 members, as well as monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, we'll have news about those soon for our Patreon people, and discounts on merch and Fangraphs memberships and more. You can contact me and Meg

via email at podcastfangraphs.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. 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 subreddit at r slash effectivelywild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance and to all of you for listening this week. Thanks to my ringer and ex-ringer buds for joining me on this episode and filling in for Meg.

We even got to record at our traditional ringer MLB show time on Friday morning. Meg was missed, but she will be back next week, as will I. Have a wonderful weekend of baseball, and we will be back to talk to you soon. I was about to say, it's such a pleasure being edited by Dylan now on the Fangraphs audio. He's so much nicer to me now. Be sure to actually cut that because you said you were going to bleep me saying shit ass on the podcast last week and you didn't. So. Okay.