Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1920: Pennants Fly Forever

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley are joined by FanGraphs writer (and Phillies fan) Michael Baumann, who covered the NLCS game in Philly, to recap the Phillies’ NLCS victory over the Padres, explain the minds of Phillies fans, celebrate Bryce Harper, review the Padres’ decisions, and much more, followed by breakdowns of the Astros-Yankees ALCS, the […]

I'm leaning on the lamp Maybe you think I look a tramp Or maybe you think I'm round to steal your car But no, I'm not a crook And if you think that's what I look I'll tell you why and what my motives are Hello and welcome to episode 1920 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined always by Meg Rowley

of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. And we are three today because we are also joined coming to us from the top of a greased light pole in Philadelphia. It is Fangraphs writer Michael Bauman, who climbed all the way up there regardless of the greasiness. Hello, Michael. I'm in the corner watching you kiss her. Oh, come on.

I can't hear you. I'm right over here. Why can't you see me? Oh. Thank you. That was great. That lived up to my expectations for your energy level for this episode. I don't know if you remember this, but you had me do an Astro season preview episode of this the day after the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018.

You can tell that I wasn't co-hosting yet because I would have been like, Bauman might not be alive. You should wait a day to get a confirmed sighting. For some reason, I think I agreed to do this beforehand. And I was just like, I'm just going to be hungover. I think I said, like, I might not last very long. So I'm happy to continue this tradition of coming in here not operating on full strength. Well, that's okay. We want you in a compromised state

or whatever state you're in. After spending the weekend in Philly, you're still in Philly. You will cover the World Series. You were covering the NLCS. You've written about them. You were Fangraph's man on the scene. So you can bring us all the local color.

You are the local color, really. That's your purpose on this episode. You're supposed to set stuff on fire and flip some cars over. Did it get anything like that, or is that reserved for championships? It got so I didn't go downtown. I got, while I was putting the finishing touches on my recap from the press box, my brother, who does live in Center City, texted me. And he knows that, like, I'm not wild about crowds. And I think he thought I took the train to the stadium instead of driving. But he was like, if you need a place to duck in and be safe for a while until this blows over, you can come over.

But no, I mean, the scenes at the stadium, I mean, I've been going to that stadium you know since i was a kid and it like i've never seen it that loud there were there were times yesterday that i i thought it was nervous it wasn't as loud as it had been in the the first couple games of of that homestand and then in the division series against atlanta and then i realized that i had been wearing big over-ear headphones to keep my ears warm um And that's the, like, I took them off and it was like, ah! So, yeah, the cocky to distrata meter is off the scale right now.

Yeah. I asked Meg this when she got back from T-Mobile where she covered the Mariners game, but you were like she was. Oh, that just feels cruel. Yeah, well, you had better results. Bring that up now. I guess. Although, you know, you had better results, I guess.

Although, you know, her spirits were fairly high after that. I thought all things considered, not as high as yours. But I asked her if it was at all difficult not to break the tradition of the ox box, not to cheer in the press box, even the outfield press box. So with you, maybe even less removed from Philly fandom than Meg at least was at some points this season from Mariners fandom, did you maintain decorum or did you disgrace Fangraphs forever? 100%. Which one? Well, I will disgrace Fangraphs forever, but not for this reason.

Okay. No, explain this to somebody because I've been getting asked about this and, you know, my wife has been talking to people like saying how cool my job is basically. And they've all asked like, so he's a Phillies fan, but like he goes to these games. Like I've been doing this so long that if I'm there and I'm wearing a press credential, like it just shuts off. It's completely different work mode. All business, Bauman. Yeah. I mean, so the first thing I got – basically, the first thing I ever got credential to cover as a sports journalist was South Carolina football for the student paper when I was in college. And you learn how to take that hat on and off real quick. Well, at least I did.

Not everybody does who ends up doing that job. who ends up doing that job. But so like it was this odd situation where like one of my best friends, Paul Boyer, who hosts the Phillies Therapy Podcast with Matt Gelb from The Athletic, he was there as a fan in game four. And I think he's still completely unable to speak two days later.

And like we were talking about this and I was like, I'm having a lot of the same emotions that you are, but like there's a lot of professional stress that comes with covering these games yeah just completely divorced from from Phantom like you know I've felt the same level of anxiety covering like the the Brewers Dodgers NLCS for instance a couple years ago and so there's that on top of it and there's also like I can't cheer or drink all weekend and so there's no outlet and so like it's all like a very stifled set of emotions that didn't really get let out the one time i like until we invite you on the

podcast and you greet us you're getting the fire hose this is the first time i've spoken since since i left the stadium yeah it's okay if paul loses his voice because who needs philly's therapy right now the phillies are providing their own therapy, I guess. I love that you act as if it is now a fan base that is calm and not at all concerned. I'm not acting like that. No, Ben is. Not calm, but gleeful, joyous for the time being, at least until they play the Astros. We'll see about that. Well, I was going to say, the one time I did a moat in the press box,

I laughed when Bryceryce harper's home run went out i think i was just out of disbelief more than anything else yeah you're allowed to you know move your facial muscles yeah there's a lot of well i mean and there's been a lot of laughing and groaning and and facial muscle movement in philly's press boxes over the years but the way i'm feeling right now is like, Ben, do you remember that episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine where Chief O'Brien is going back and forth through time and they kill prime timeline O'Brien and O'Brien from eight hours in the future takes over

and they never talk about it again? Like, I think this happened to me in the eighth inning of yesterday's game. Like, I feel like I'm in the wrong timeline timeline and because i've seen that play out so many times that like the rain comes and everybody's pissed off that they didn't put the tarp on and and like everybody's saying oh this is going to cost us the the season philly's twitter was having a meltdown at the time and it looked like it was for a minute there and they got you know they got stout on the in the bottom of the seventh and rio muto hit single to, to lead off the eighth.

And I'm like, they had chances. Like, this is not what, what caused the game. And like, I'm so frustrated by just that refusal to acknowledge that like, this didn't actually cost the Phillies the game. And I, like, I was writing a recap to that effect. And then Harper hit the ball, hit the ball at him. Like, I've never seen this part of the movie before. This is not how the movie ends. And so like, I still sort of feel like I'm having an out of body experience. So I hope that was okay.

More so than Meg, you have seen this movie before, right? I mean, you've seen good Phillies teams. You've seen a Phillies championship. Jesus, Ben. It's been a while. But it's not a completely new experience compared to some fan bases who are probably saying, oh, poor Phillies. I don't think of you as like an emotionally sensitive person. But this is a new year you found today. Since 2008, 2009, this is a variant of my Mets fans or crybabies take, I guess.

Now I'm going with Phillies fans or crybabies, but no. I mean, the Phillies fans have had it tough for a while now, but I'm just saying you've seen winners. You've seen titles. It's happened before. Yeah, and I think that's what a lot of the excitement is about about because unlike the bets who have not won a world series in my lifetime like it's it's still in relatively in relatively recent memory like jason worth who was a big part of those you know 07 08 09 teams throughout the first pitch yesterday he threw it to bryce harper who he

played with and bryce harper's not that old, you know, I don't think any of those guys are still in the league, but a lot of them were recently. And, you know, 13 years is not a very long time. And even then, like 11 years, that 2011 team was the cream of the crop, in my opinion, even though they lost in the first round. And everybody remembers that. And I think a lot of the reason that people are so excited now, in addition to just this being a very fun team that's played a lot of fun games and is winning a lot, is we remember just what a buzzsaw those like 2010, 2011 teams were and how much fun it was to see them, like to go to the park and not be let down.

Because I think the past few years have been like, have actually been very very bleak but like you said the ultimate success is in in the recent past that it's still very viscerally present and just the way the phillies have played in the past couple weeks is something that they played with like a confidence and inspired an optimism i haven't like you know i haven't felt since 2011. And I think that's why a lot of people are so excited.

Yeah, I wanted to ask about the experience of watching this team because I don't disagree. They're so fun. They keep hitting these incredibly timely home runs. They seem to just have genuine love and affection for one another. I finally got to see a baseball player kiss another part of a baseball player yesterday. I got to see it. I got to see Kyle Schroeder just give a little kiss. We're going to see an open mouth kiss

if they win the World Series. I'm all but certain. I'm rooting for this if any of them are interested in it. Again, they don't have to kiss if they don't want to kiss, but if they want to kiss, they should feel free to kiss.

So they're so fun. And I think there there are components of the of this team where you just you feel a tremendous amount of confidence and it can be weird to watch them because all of that is true and then their their biggest glaring deficit relative to other teams is just still a glaring obvious deficit right like they are still terrifying to watch in the field every time they manage to execute a double play i go yes they have done it because you wonder a little bit and so i'm curious what it is like to have those two conflicting aspects of the viewing experience sort of coexist with one another because you're a fan base that is prone to great joy and also easy catastrophizing.

And I respect that. But I'm just curious, what does it feel like to watch them given the fact that sometimes Reese Hoskins, he just can't catch the ball, Bowman. He just can't catch it. So the ironic thing about Reese Hoskins' defense is it stresses me out not at all because the person he replaced at first base, Ryan Howard,

could not throw the ball to second base. Even Money, if he's trying to complete a 3-6-3 double play or get a base steal or a rundown, the ball ends up in left field. So because Hoskins doesn't do that, I don't feel any anxiety now Alec Boehm thrown across the influence is bad yeah or anytime a ball gets hit to Nick Cassianos and right I think like one of the big oh god this might happen moments was in game one of the division series against the Braves when they were in the process of blowing that lead and the ball gets hit in the right and cassianos makes a shoestring catch and it looks like he looks like he thought he had it the whole time but he's not

a defensive outfielder i really take for for granted and he's made a few of those catches definitely against against san diego on balls that look dangerous off the bat and it just seems like you know not everything is going right you know there was the defensive miscue in game one of this series they've had a couple you know I remember Stott having a bad throw. I might be conflating the Brave series on the last homestand with the last round of the playoffs. But it's still popping up here and there. Yeah. But they're throwing and catching the ball, more or less.

So everything's good. You know, that's the standard for can they throw and catch the ball? Most of the time. Most of the time. Most of the time. Everything will take care of itself. Let me just say, Cole Hamels still planning to come back in 2023. So we can't quite close the book yet on the 2000s Phillies, perhaps. Okay.

Maybe. I do feel an apology is necessary on my part. an apology is necessary on my part. When the Phillies acquired JT Real Muto and Zach Wheeler both times, I decried the move on the ringer.com, my former employer. The Real Muto trade because I was really high on Jorge Alfaro, who didn't get off the bench in this series. Jason and I talked about this on Fangraphs Audio last week, how much we love Jorge Alfaro, but also Sixto Sanchez. And my ideal plan for the Phillies, I had no idea Zach Wheeler would turn into this. And I was like, for that money, they could have just brought back Cole Hamels on a one-year contract and kept their powder dry and tried to put together something, line up another

free agent signing. I don't remember who I had in mind. But Cole Hamels has basically not pitched in the majors since then. And Zach Wheeler has been the Zach Wheeler we saw. You hired this guy, Meg? I'm not wrong a lot, but I was wrong about this. And I'm sorry. There's a listener in our Effectively Wild Patreon Discord group who has been posting seismic monitoring data from, I guess, the closest station to Citizens Bank Park, which apparently is not close. It's like halfway to Atlantic City. But a few times. What's the town?

I don't know. Let me see if I can find if they said what it was, but it's not even close. And yet it sure seems like lining up big Phillies events at home games with spikes in this seismometer, it seems like it's actually registering from many miles away. And I saw some tweets and videos of people a mile away from the park and just kind of getting the atmosphere and all the noise leaking out of the houses and car horns honking and everything when something good would happen or a game would end after a Phillies win. So you were in the stadium and I think we could all see when they would show cameras that were like in the outfield or wherever, like they were just shaking. I assumed that you were shaking or being

shook. So what was it like in there? So I got punted out to the aux box on the left field for this series. And the first big hit, I think it was Schwarber in game three. Like it was rocking. I don't think I'd ever experienced that in a baseball stadium before. I was hoping he was like halfway

from Philly to Atlantic City. It's like sort of around like Millville area. So I don't know. But anyway, I'm going to get letters. I know it's not exactly that. But anyway, those sensors like Philly fans are quite sensitive. So I'm sure it's, I'm sure they could feel something. Yeah, those videos you were talking about, like a mile from the stadium, just hearing

the roar really clearly from like, you know, the front porch of your row house. It's, I mean, it's a lot of noise and a lot of, a lot of excitement. It's one of the loudest, you know, one of the loudest environments I've been in. And, you know, I've covered World Series before. It's, you know, maybe this is just my personal chauvinism, but I do think that there's something about this environment that's a little louder than other places. And, you know, not to slag off Minute Maid Park, for instance, which I think is a great playoff environment that I've been to more times than I can count.

But I, you know, just the way the stands go straight up, more or less straight up in the bowl behind home plate, just funneling all the sound back out onto the field, it gets really, really loud. So Bryce Harper had a weird year, right? Harper was off to a great start. He got hurt. He looked obviously compromised for long stretches when he came back. He has been, he was just lights out in this championship series. And one of the things that I thought was interesting listening to the broadcast was just the seeming 180 that has happened in terms of our collective understanding of Harper. Because for so long he was put in juxtaposition with Mike Trout and he was obviously on the wrong end of that equation

and now he has had two MVPs and he had this big moment. So what do you think the Harper sort of in-progress legacy looks like now? Because on the one hand, he had that rough stretch, but also he's just sent his team to the World Series, so it seems like it's pretty good i almost don't believe that this is the same guy from the first round because he looks you know i was i was convinced that you know only being uh in the cover philly's home games of the playoffs i was convinced i i would stay home the entire postseason i remember that i didn't think they get out of st louis and a big part of that was how

lost and how desperate Harper was. Like in that last homestand, he made a couple of dumb base running decisions. Yeah. In the same way, like Chase Utley had done this in the past where things weren't going right. And he was just trying to make too much happen on the bases. And I was just like, you know, this guy's going to go. He looks still hurt. And he's probably going to go one for 13. and they're going to go home in the first round. And it's just like, since really the

start of the Brave series, he's been the best player on the field. On a field with plenty of other really good players. I think that him being on the wrong side of the Mike Trout equation has continued to obscure how many players he would be on the right side of the Mike Trout equation has continued to obscure how many players he would be on the right side of the equation with. When he is on, he's one of the best handful of hitters in the world. And I mean, just the fact that he seems to seek out these big moments, I know that can be sort of a squishy thing, but he really does embrace the pressure. And he's had an interesting relationship with the Philly fans. I think he's worked so hard to ingratiate himself with the fan base.

I don't know that anybody has ever pandered harder, but he's hit all the right buttons. It's to the point where like my friends are like, obviously he's just saying this because it's the right thing to say. But also he's trying so hard. Like it's hard to dislike him. But the Phillies in particular, their fans have a long history of chewing up and spitting out the best player on the team when the team is frustrating. And if it can happen to Mike Schmidt, who famously got booed, it can happen to

anybody. And so he's had his ups and downs. I think everybody realized that he was basically the only good thing about the team last year. But how many of the biggest hits in Philly's history does Bryce Harper have in the past nine days? And the fact that he called a shot to come here and this was always the plan. This was always what everybody involved in that signing had in mind was precisely the kind of moment we saw on Sunday. I don't think they're going to beat the Astros. They might never win.

They might never come closer to a title than they are right now while he's here, but he's got this. And I think that he's put in so much positive social capital in the bank in the past week that he's going to go down. People are talking about him, his signing. It's one of the greatest free agent signings in the history of the city across all sports. And talking about him the same way the Astros fans talked about the Justin Verlander trade. And I think that's a pretty good parallel. It's hard to find fault with anything he's done since he's been here.

Yeah. This is only his fourth year of what was it, a 13-year deal or something? Yeah. But if he wins a world series here who cares what happens in the last nine right i mean even the pennant and the part he played in the pennant goes a long way toward justifying it you know not to mention the fact that he's just like been a good player and he won an mvp award even when the phillies were not that great so i think at this point yeah if it weren't for trout it's really it's kind of done a disservice to him that those guys kind of debuted around the same time.

And, you know, we're lumped together, Trout and Harper. I mean, you could make the case that that you'd rather have Harper's career if you're someone who really values like being famous or being in the postseason or successful in the postseason at this point. That's a differentiator. I mean, he's a differentiator. I mean, he's not the player that Trout was. It's possible that by the time it's all said and done, if Trout has more injuries, who knows what could happen and maybe Harper makes up some of that ground. Or as we see the Angels disintegrate and Shohei Otani make noises about wanting out, bring Trout home, Bring Trout home. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe they could be together. That'd be a great ending for the saga. Can you imagine being Brandon Marsh in that moment? You're like, but I just secured an everyday center field role. Now this guy's here again. Now I'm playing him left. They'll have to move. Harper can go back to the outfield once his elbow gets fixed.

They can move Schwarber to DH and Cassiano's, you know, they can, they'll probably need to offload salary. There you go. I've solved it. Every time I see Marsh and Sindergaard, I think like, wow, you guys were just recently on the most depressing, boring, sad sack team. And here you are on the most exciting team in the World Series. It's quite a come up but i was just gonna say like i think harper like the expectations for him were blown up to just

unmeetable proportions by being a si cover and a phenom as a teenager but he's really made good on every possible realistic expectation you could have had for him. He's come pretty close to meeting those expectations. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, multiple MVP awards. And, you know, I know like he'll be kind of inconsistent at times or he'll go from having an MVP season to having an off year for him. Not a bad year, but an off year.

And you add it all up and he just turned 30 and he's like well over 40 war. I mean, he's like clearly like barring some kind of catastrophic injury, he's going to be a hall of famer, you know, and has also been like one of the most visible players during his era in baseball. And he's so much fun to follow. Like earlier in his career, people disliked him, I guess, either because he was more brash maybe than he is now, or just because people attributed that to him because of things that were written about him, or just because he was supposed to be so good and people were kind of jealous or whatever it was. But now you don't hear that so much anymore. It's just like he's competitive. And yeah,

I guess he likes the limelight, but he's thriving in it. And he's just really entertaining. Like every time you watch him do something demonstrative and celebrate a hit, it's just fun. Like that's the other contrast to Trout. Like he hasn't been as good a player as Trout, but he is more watchable in an obvious way and just kind of more telegenic. And, you know, the expression he made after the Schwarber bomb that just instantly became like an inner circle Hall of Fame baseball Twitter gif. Like, Mike Trout has never made that expression, you know, like not publicly, at least. Meg, we were talking about this on our Patreon live stream this weekend, right?

We were trying to think of like Trout gifs, you know, like what's the definitive Trout gif? And there are like only a couple right like there's the one where he kind of looked around quizzically when joe madden walked a guy with the bases loaded and he was like what's happening here is this happening there was that and then there was the one you cited where he fired off the arrow with two holes after fernando rodney did the arrow right prematurely and that was kind of all we could come up with off the top of our heads. So like, he just, you know, he's not good in that way.

The point is to entertain us. Bryce Harper entertains us in a more obvious, like, pops off the screen way, whereas Trout entertains us like when we look at the war leaderboards, I guess, largely. But they're just totally different personalities and different players. But if not for Trout, we would be talking about Harper as what he is, which is like, since he debuted, you know, a top 10 position player, certainly, and maybe a top five or so hitter. Like, I guess, you know, he hasn't been the best player of all time, which maybe is what people were expecting after the SI cover, and Trout has been or was for a while. But other than that, Harper's been fantastic. And then the instant he leaves, a better version of him comes along, basically, which I didn't think was possible. And when he was a prospect, comes along and immediately wins the World Series there. And I think that really did get to him a little bit, the fact that he didn't get to check that box as soon as he left the Nationals won it all and i think this whether they win or you know obviously you know he in the post-game press conference last night was all about oh i don't like looking back and i was like

if i had your life i'd be pretty okay you do whatever you need to do to to motivate yourself but he was he's still very he still seems to be very focused on on beating the asters and and good luck to him because it's going to take some doing. Yeah. I want us to talk about the coming World Series definitely, but maybe let's spend a little time on the Padres of it all here because I think we'd be a bit remiss if we didn't acknowledge the year that they had had, but also some of the decisions that were made in this game in particular. And so I guess what I would like to ask both of you is,

what do you make of the fact that we didn't see Josh Hader pitch at all yesterday? go two innings, right? Or even to go more than one usually, you know, the most it seems like you can ask of him is four outs. And because of that, you couldn't just put him in and let it ride, right? Like you had to use someone after hater and you could certainly say, well, worry about after hater after hater, right? And just have your unhittable lefty come in to face your best lefty opponent. And, you know, if that had happened, almost certainly there would not have been exactly the same outcome that there was and things would have been better. That's second guessing. I know there were people first guessing at the time too. And so yeah, when you look at it and you lose with a righty versus a lefty and Hayter is out there, he wasn't warmed up, which again, you could put that on Melvin,

I guess you could say, well, he should have been warmed up. But also, you have Suarez, who's been really great and has been effective against lefties for whatever it's worth. He had that great take on the changeup. And then also like the ball he hit out was like a 99 mile per hour pitch on the outside corner. Right. I mean, it wasn't like an obvious mistake necessarily. Into the wind, by the way. That one was right in my face all afternoon. And it was straight in. There were a couple other balls that I think could have gotten out that got knocked down by the wind earlier in the game. But it just shifted enough. And I think part of the reason I had that reaction in the home run was I didn't think there was a chance it was getting out until it just kept carrying and carrying and carrying.

And I thought the wind was going to knock it down for sure and probably some of that is just my own pessimism but that's just the way things have been going all day so I like I have a hard time faulting Robert Suarez for for anything he did in that appearance he just got beat by an incredible a bat by an incredible hitter you know with that said like I do wonder why Melvin's explanation was oh oh, Hayter wasn't warmed up. And like, well, why wasn't he warmed up? Like, why wasn't he available for a situation like that? And I think, you know, that was probably the one misstep I think Bob Melvin made and definitely in this game. Yeah. I think he also noted like they wanted to mix and match. They wanted to like use those guys in tandem to get through it because otherwise, I guess, like, obviously, they would have used Hader one way or another. This wasn't like a Zach Britton just, you know, never being used by Buck Showalter situation. Like if they had gotten through that inning, Hader would have just had to go with probably like Luis Garcia or Tim Hill or someone to finish it off, like unless Hader made an exception and was like, no, this time I actually want the ball and finish it off. But on most teams, I think if you got to that point and you have your nasty closer, you probably would be confident just bringing them in to finish the game.

Whereas with Hader, it seems like you can't do that. And so I understand the thinking, you know, if he had to do it again, I don't know, like he stood by the decision making, obviously he wouldn't like do it exactly the same again, because he wouldn't want Bryce Harper to hit a home run. But, you know, like the process as opposed to the outcome, like, you know, it's definitely fair to question it. And maybe it was the wrong decision. It wasn't like as clear cut a blunder as I would normally say it would be when you don't have your best pitcher facing the best hitter. Well, I think it reminds me of the 2015 Big Ten baseball tournament, which also famously featured Jay Cronenworth. Yeah, that comp was on the tip of my tongue, too.

Yeah, that comp was on the tip of my tongue too. I think we're just going to have to bring you back like once a week so that you can poke at Ben about college baseball. That's the takeaway here. Yeah. I don't have any other thoughts. I mean, I guess my only thought is I agree that it's just weird that he wasn't warm. I appreciate the logic. I don't think it was like a particularly

or a tellingly egregious misstep, but it was, you know, it's not what you want. And since we- Use a phrase from the former Phillies manager. Yeah, and since we have a convenient counter narrative or counterfactual that we can compare it against, you know, I mean, we would have been like, well, what does that counterfactual feel like okay let's try it on see how it goes yeah there was a a quote from austin nola that i don't know if i've ever heard this term before

he was talking about harper taking that change up from suarez unbelievable take unbelievable take that's the pitch he swings at the fact he patiented it up and took it. That Grisham's bunt, right? Which it wasn't clear whether that was called or whether Melvin was just covering for him afterwards, saying that that was

part of the plan or not. Like, again. It's fascinating. It is, yeah. Yeah. It's the most interesting thing

I think anybody's done this postseason in terms of, like, trying to find the logic behind it. Because you can see it because even though the runners were it's a left left matchup he's already sorry i've been thinking

about this no go ahead you know this is why we asked you to be on the show so you've been thinking about it yeah so the reason that the grisham's hitting their left left against suarez is will myers has already pinch hit for j Azocar, who that was absolutely the right decision to pinch run for Josh Bell during the rainy inning against Sir Anthony Dominguez. Because I mean, that's why they got ahead. That's why they got the lead in the game. Your boy Jorge Alfaro was out there though. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely... And why carry three catchers if you're only ever going to use one and he can't throw? I don't understand that.

Yeah. But I can understand you think that Alvaro's too much of a strikeout risk in a high leverage situation. Maybe you don't want to use him. Fine. But they got two catchers on the bench. But the bunt, it's against a left-handed pitcher. Grisham's really fast. It's a disadvantageous matchup. It's tricky conditions. It's slippery out there. It's a bad defensive infield. Right. And even if he doesn't beat it out, you get two runners in a scoring position. And what's the best way the Padres have found a score in this game is advancing on a wild pitch. Like that brings that into play.

And so I can almost, I can almost bring myself to that being a good idea. And you remember Razor Suarez is one of the best defensive, one of the best fielding pitchers in the game. Like that's not gonna, and you know, and Real Muto is one of the best defensive catchers in the game. And I can almost talk myself into it. That's why I think it's such a fascinating move.

And then you remember, this is one of your two last outs that you have in the season. And this is what I keep thinking about. Like that's what i keep coming back to when i think about late game pinch hitting decisions or late game bunting decisions or stealing bases late in the game is how are you have a finite number of outs left in your game or in your season how do you spend them and because they're a resource and this is how they chose to to spend one of their last two outs in the season and And like, it's, I can almost see the logic, but it's just such a, I don't know.

I almost wrote like an entirely different article about this because it's like, it's such a fascinating decision to me, whether it was Grisham or Melvin or both who, who ended up putting that on. Like, I'm, you know, I'm always in favor of trying to, to bunt for a hit. Like, I think that's an underused strategy. The conditions favored it. But the stakes, like, what a call to make. Yeah. Whoever ended up actually being responsible for it. Yes. Agreed. Sometimes it's fine, you know, depending on the matchup. And maybe this was not the perfect conditions for it, but you can make a case for bunting for a hit there much more easily than you can for sack bunting. So we should be clear about which he was at least attempting to do.

Just, you know, kind of the like stop bunting, kill the bunt kind of sentiment, I think, led to a lot of people just not differentiating between types of punts. And there is a difference there, both in terms of the advisability of it, but also the entertainment value of it too. Because a sack bunt is boring in my mind. A bunt for a hit is fun and exciting often. So yeah, I think, you know, both of these questionable decisions, like I'm sure Padres fans will be thinking about them forever

and mulling them over as one does when one's team loses a heartbreaker but they weren't the worst in that genre you know so yeah yeah i do think the the padres i do feel for them because like 85 of like the the fun weirdness that people are talking about with the phillies at least 85 of that the padres had Padres had too. And like, you know, they got beat up in a couple of very specific places in the series, but I don't think they played badly. I don't think Melvin managed badly. You know, you could make a case that they would have been deserving pennant winner too. And it's a rough way to end the season, but I, you know, do want

to give them a lot of credit. I think that this is going to sound patronizing and I just don't care, but like, they've got a lot to feel good about coming out of this and just the, you know, the weird way that game ended. The fact that, you know, as a Phillies fan, I know what it's like to have one of the worst moments in your team's

history being played on, on every highlight reel for the next 10 years. And that's probably going to happen with this Harper home run, but you know, they've had a hell of a ride themselves. And I hope that doesn't get forgotten as we get farther removed from this series. Because it was sort of like the 2015 World Series in that it only went five games, but every game was exciting and memorable in some

way. Well, before we look ahead to the World Series matchup, do we maybe want to take a second, given what you just said, Bauman, to ask, where do the Padres find themselves right now? I mean, right now, they probably find themselves sad and disappointed. But as they look ahead to 2023, what is our way too early sort of prognostication about where they stand as a roster and an organization. I'm annoying. Well, I haven't done a full deep dive consideration of how the Padres roster stacks up for next season. How dare you? They're obviously bringing back a lot of the guys who got them here. And now they get a full season of Soto and Hayter, etc. And hopefully Tatis. Hopefully most is of a season of Tatis.

So imagine this lineup that we've seen for the past few weeks and just slot Tatis in there somewhere among Soto and Machado and co. That should be a fun team, should be a good team. Still don't know if they'll contend with the dodgers or not but i don't immediately see any reason why they should not be back here next year yeah i think that's exactly right and you know for a full answer i would say tune into fangraphs.com tomorrow because i'm writing about aspects of this it's almost like i know what our editorial calendar is but yeah they're gonna need to plug holes, but you can get another, I don't know, hell, you could just bring back Josh Bell if you wanted to. Or I think Jerks

and Profar is probably on his way out. I think that he's made himself some money this season. But you can get guys to fill those roles. And you just look at the core of like Tatis, Machado, Soto, Darvish, Joe Musgrove, you know, like the guys who are tough to get, they already have. Yeah. And I have no reason to be anything but optimistic. The nice thing about this playoff format is you don't need to beat the Dodgers over 162 games. You only need to beat the, you know, the second best team in the NL Central, which is very, very easy to do, it turns out. So, yeah, I expect them to be back here or hereabouts next year.

Two things that you mentioned, Profar. I just wanted to note that that controversial Czech swing strike on Profar that kind of thwarted an incipient Padres rally, that was called by Todd Titchener at third base. And when we spoke on the podcast not too long ago about differing rates of calling strikes on check swings, we had data provided by Mark Simon of Sports Info Solutions who told us at the time, and we mentioned that Todd Titchener, I believe this season or for the past few seasons had the highest rate of calling strikes on check swing appeals at third base. So that was exactly the guy that the Padres would not have wanted over there right then. And again, I didn't think that was the worst call I've ever seen on a check swing. I don't think he swung, but who knows because there's

no real definition of it. And it wasn't the most egregious, I think. There was a lot of body movement there. But as far as whether the bat went around, I think probably it did. But it's borderline. It was very, I mean, you see bigger swings than that not get called all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I'd call it borderline. I think Profar's right to be upset, but I don't think that it's, you know, the Don

Dankinger call or anything like that. Right. And then the only other thing I was going to mention was Dominguez during that rain inning if the Phillies had lost that way that really would have been frustrating not just because of like past Phillies losses in rain or anything but that wouldn't have helped but just like clearly like he just could not get a grip and he was throwing wild pitches he's not the only one who couldn't get a grip and he was throwing wild pitches he's not the only one who couldn't get a grip yeah he got it together whatever he did he regained his grip and just started striking guys out but there were those little lapses and wild pitches there and it was just like so clearly

related to the rain and the conditions that you know if you were a fatalistic phillies fan then you could have said oh the skies opened up just as we were about to win this thing. And then it stopped raining in the bottom half of the inning. It started raining again in the top of the eighth. And like at some point in there, I don't remember exactly when,

but I slacked Megan. I was like, if they lose this game, I'm going to have to move. Yeah, you did say that. It's just, it was so like, almost more than like, I'm happy that, obviously I'm happy the Phillies won the pennant. I'm almost as happy that we don't have to do rain discourse. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I do think that, if possible, every ballpark should have a retractable roof, that that would be nice. I think every city should have a retractable roof. I've been on this for years. Yeah, put the entire planet under a dome and that'll fix climate. You don't even need a dome. You could just set aside a bunch of land in the Midwest and have every single human being on Earth have a house with an acre lot. We've got enough land to do this.

And then you can have farming and mining and manufacturing outposts while the rest of us live in peace, free from the elements under a dome. Under a dome. Perfect. Yeah, it's not like I need to see the sun anyway. You don't even know what the sun is. So we should talk a little bit about the ALCS. I guess, Mike, you probably didn't even see these, but Meg, what did you make of the mid-game in-dugout interviews that Ken Rosenthal was conducting during this series? So, like, you know, Bryce Harper hits the home run. You just go right in the dugout and just put a microphone in Bryce Harper's face, like just violating the sanctity of the dugout.

Ken Rosenthal with a suit, a media member in there or or tom verducci as it happens with a very snazzy purple suit and blue tie ensemble on saturday which was not something looking like the trombonist and a big bad voodoo daddy yeah not a look i had seen out of him before as far as i recall like he's always you know well dressed well put together but but not quite as colorful as i recall anyway yeah so, so this was new, right? This was like a little different from, you know, it's not having a player mic'd up on the field during a game and it's not having someone who is not in the game talk to you from the dugout for a half inning or something. This is like a hybrid. It's like someone who is in the game,

but is not currently playing, who's in the dugout, but you're talking to them during the game. And they still have the, like, talk to the manager for 30 seconds between innings sort of thing, too. But this was, I don't know if it was new, but it was, you know, kind of newish, at least. What did you think? So I thought it was fine. You know, we have talked about how we do not like the in-game interview where the player in the field, potentially about to be in the active fielding, which makes it sound kind of dirty,

is being like hectored by the booth. It's like, what if the ball goes to him and he misses it? And it's because he's being yakked at in his ear by others. So since this isn't that, I thought it was fine. I will say like,

I thought that we were given more substantive answers than we often get in the course of those. You know, like I thought that the only ones I remember, and so if they talk to Padre's guys, I just don't remember. It's not that their answers were bad. They just weren't memorable to me. Like I thought, you know, Kyle Schwarber talked about how he hit a home run, and he did it in a way

that was compelling you know harper talked about laying off that change up which i will say it was amazing that he did that like people noting that were right it was patient to did up you're right it was an incredible incredible take so like i thought it was fine i thought we learned some stuff i i do like the idea of letting those guys sort of sit in the the moment themselves and with each other maybe for a bit more but i wasn't offended by it you know it didn't bother me yeah you didn't react the way ben did to the ramon lariano mid-game interview i mean like that was wild why were we doing that that was so yeah anything that helps us avoid that it's it's so funny like i've known you for like close to 10 years now i don't think i've seen anything make

you as angry as you were so mad yeah i went full smolts on that that was yeah i just i really yeah so anything that helps us avoid that this was a nice middle ground i thought and you you're still gonna get some i just went up there looking for a pitch to hit and try to do too much with it. Like that's inevitable. But I think it's right. I think there were better answers, more natural answers, maybe because they're in their habitat. They're in the dugout. I guess you could say they might claim up and be resentful that Ken Rosenthal is intruding or Tom Berducci is intruding.

But it seemed like they were OK with it. is intruding or Tambor Ducci is intruding, but it seemed like they were okay with it. And maybe because they were in the moment and still like in the heat of it, as opposed to just talking about it hours later when they're on the sidelines or something. I did think it was, you know, better answers and not really interrupting anything other than just their normal mid-inning routine, which is not a big deal. So I thought it was a good compromise, a way to provide a window into the game and kind of get us down to field level without actually being on the field during the game. Yeah, agreed. The big thing with all these things is, I mean, really every player interaction is how down to hang the player is.

Yeah. And the Phillies and Padres both have a lot of guys who are down to hang. So I think that, I mean, the Astros do too. And so this was a good place to trial it, but like they kept it relatively short, just one or two questions and get back to the game. There's a lot of dead time. You got to fill it somehow.

Yeah. All right. So from a team that's down to hang to a team that's just down, the New York Yankees and the Astros as well. So the Astros just, you know, ran roughshod over the Yankees as they have to all of their playoff opponents, both of their playoff opponents thus far. And the difference in vibes between

these championship series and entertainment value, unless you were an Astros fan, was really striking, I think, because the games were not as entertaining, just the atmosphere was not entertaining. Now, I'm sure if you're a Yankees hater, it was fun to watch the Yankees. I was going to say, I found elements of the series highly entertaining. Yeah. So there's that. The games themselves were sort of a slog just because the Yankees were playing like it was a slog. I'm not attributing any lack of motivation or lack of spirit or whatever to them, but it looks like that when a team is not playing well and is not hitting. And the Astros just look

unbeatable. Of course, they are not unbeatable. They can be beaten. I wouldn't bet that they will be undefeated this postseason. I would bet on them winning the World Series, but are they going to replicate the Big Red Machine not losing a game despite playing more games than the Big Red Machine had to? Odds are against that. You look at the two teams that swept their way through their league bracket in the divisional era, the 2007 Rockies and the 2014 Royals, and both of them lost the World Series. These Astros are not those teams. I think they're a little bit better, Ben. Just a little bit better than that. I think they're just a little bit better than that. Your lack of non-baseball knowledge is letting you down because they could – can they go foe, foe, foe? Like Moses Malone, most famous as an athlete from Houston and Philadelphia even.

So, no? Nothing? All right. Right. Just absolute no-sell for any kind of basketball. Sorry. Yeah. Like, everything – we can talk a little bit about the World Series matchup to end, I guess.

But just, like, in the series, I mean, Yankees fans are just in full meltdown mode. Like they are, you know, having been beaten by the Astros yet again and been swept. I said this during our live stream, but I do kind of wonder like whether the state of Yankees fans psychologically would be better or worse had they just lost in five to the Guardians, which like would have been quite frustrating. to the Guardians, which would have been quite frustrating, but I don't know if it would have been quite as frustrating as beating the Guardians and then getting swept by your playoff nemeses yet again. So either way, it's bad. People are calling for firings. Can I answer that question?

Yeah, go ahead. They would have been better off if they had lost to the Guardians because this is the 2012 loss to the Tigers all over again. Because there's a difference between like, you know, the Guardians are sort of a pesky, annoying team that just, you know, played well. You can talk yourself into still being good and losing to that team. Sure. You went up, like you looked in the mirror against the team that you thought that you were closely matched with. And you got absolutely atomized. closely matched with, and you got absolutely atomized.

Like, it's going to be, like, you can't talk yourself into there being positives about this. This was just as thorough a beatdown as you will ever find this late in the playoffs. And for a team that, up until the midway point of the season, had a reasonable case for being the best in the league. Like, you can't, there is no silver lining to be had. And now like, I think part of the reason that Yankees fans are melting down about this, some of it is like the eternal solipsism of watching your team lose in the playoffs,

which is all the more intense for Yankees fans because they think their team is the protagonist of baseball in a way that other fans don't. But what are we seeing now? They're likely going to lose their best player to free agency. They've got all manner of holes. They've got an aging club. They're talking about people are calling for the head of the long-serving genius general manager to replace him with some McKenzie goon who's going to make the team into the Red Sox. It's available, maybe. Well, he's busy with soccer, I guess.

And so what I'm leading up to is, are Yankees fans getting so hysterical now because the Yankees are the Mets now? Yeah. Oh, wow. I mean, it seems like that payroll-wise, right? And that's a big, I think, reasonable complaint that the Yankees have. You know, to keep things in perspective, which Yankees fans are not known for doing. And, you know, a lot of fan bases aren't. But they won 99 games. They made it to the ALCS. They basically make the playoffs every year. They haven't had a losing season since

literally 1992. You know, like things are pretty good. They were pretty good this year. And obviously they started off at such a great pace that I think that raised expectations for this season. It's almost like raising expectations for Bryce Harper's career by putting him on the SI cover when he's 16. That's how the Yankees started this season, and they didn't end the season like that. And then they get to the end of this playoff run, and they're missing half their bullpen, and they're missing LeMahieu and, you know, they're missing big components of their lineup and their pitching staff and everything. No one's unscathed at this point in the season, of course, but Yankees were pretty

shorthanded. And, you know, you noted that this looked like it was just totally them getting blown away. And it felt like that. At no point did this really feel competitive. The games themselves were fairly close. Other than game three, which was 5-0, it's 4-2, 3-2, 6-5. These are close games. The Yankees only briefly had leads. I guess they very briefly had a couple of leads. It's hard even to remember that they had leads, but it just it never felt like they were going to put up much of a fight. So I think a big part of why Yankees fans are frustrated is just that like they don't have the big dogs. Right. And Yankees fans are accustomed to going out and getting the big dogs. So they're watching the Phillies win with Bryce Harper, who was seemingly like predestined to be a Yankee for many years, right? And the Yankees made no effort to go get him or Real Muto or like, you know, the Yankees have a first base hole.

Yankees fans say, sign Freddie Freeman. And they don't. They sign Anthony Rizzo, who is good, but, you know, is kind of your budget backup, your plan B to Freddie Freeman. Or you have a shortstop hole and you go get Isaiah Kider, Falefa, Josh Donaldson and kind of remake your defense, which they did. And they had a good defense, which was, you know, out of the norm for the Yankees. But like Carlos Correa was out there and this great class of free agents is out there. And I think a lot of this gets heaped on the head of Cashman and Boone.

I think a lot of it should be heaped on the head of Hal Steinbrenner, who is clearly different from his dad in that he's not willing to just blow away any spending constraint. He wants to stay within the luxury tax and competitive balance tax and economize in a way that Yankees fans are not accustomed to the Yankees doing and that the Yankees shouldn't be in the business of doing, frankly. So there's some justifiable frustration there that other than Garrett Cole, really, the Yankees just haven't gone out and gotten the biggest and the best guys a whole lot lately. And then there's other frustration that I feel like is maybe a little less placed well, more misplaced, and just kind of failing to maintain perspective about how good the Yankees have been over a really long period. But I think there's some reasonable frustration there that is not purely related to the Astros trouncing the Yankees yet again. Yeah, I mean, I think that you don't want to swing too far the other direction and say

that like everything is perennially perfect in the Bronx, right? Like we can acknowledge that some of the fussiness on the part of the fan base is a little silly given the the long arc of baseball generally tilting in the Yankees direction but I think that we're right to say like you know there are decisions that need to be made and this is not a roster that left to its own devices is going to be perfectly competitive next year like they are going to have to make some decisions whether those decisions result in them promoting from within or trading some guys or actually spending a good chunk of change this offseason.

They can't just stand pat and fill a couple bullpen holes and then call it good for next year. That division is too competitive for them to do that. I get it. I think even in moments of reasonable complaint, it's useful to maintain some amount of perspective, right? You know, lest we be accused of being irritating. But it's not all sort of hyperbole and fuss. There's stuff that needs to be done here to make this club the equal of Houston. Yeah. By the way, I think while we were talking,

according to the at scoring changes, MLB scoring changes, Twitter account, Trent Grisham's bunt is no longer credited with a sacrifice bunt. It's no longer a sacrifice. I guess it was initially. So that's good. Did that take the entire day for them to do? I don't know. But that's the correct ruling. I think that's just.

Yeah, they would have just beat the deadline. Because they have like 24 hours, right, to decisions is that right yeah this is like when i wake up at three in the morning and i'm like i gotta reread that one sentence that i edited 10 hours ago yeah i've changed one of those exactly one time by the way just once i think part of it like people think aaron boone can't manage a bullpen and look every fan base thinks that about their manager, almost everyone. And do you think Aaron Boone can manage a bullpen? I don't know. I don't know that he's notably bad.

I feel like in this series, in this postseason, he just didn't really trust anyone reasonably because most of the trustworthy options were taken away or were diminished in some way. So I don't know that they had like, no doubt slam dunk guys for the most part. And it seems like, you know, people were criticizing him for not leaving Garrett Cole in longer in one instance, or maybe you could criticize him for not pulling Nestor Cortez, whose velocity was down as he was dealing with a groin issue. And, you know, he said, I'm okay and I can stay in. And clearly that was not the case, or at least it didn't work out well because Jeremy Pena hit a three-run homer.

What a metaphor. Like losing the season because of denial over a busted crotch. Yeah. But like, there just, there weren't any guys who felt really comfortable giving the ball at this point in that bullpen. I don't think it, like, you know, they just, they lost so many guys

or so many guys were dealing with some sort of nagging issue. So I don't know. Like, I don't know if he's good at managing a bullpen. I don't know if he's bad at it. That's like, it's just so often the complaint that any fan base has about its managers can't manage a bullpen because you remember the times when they made some call that didn't work out.

And it's a case where you can think along with the manager and you may or may not have all the same information that the manager has at their disposal. So I think it's fairly rare for a fan base to think this guy's great at managing a bullpen. Every now and then you see that. But I think one thing that they're responding to is just like the messaging and the attitude and sort of the public stance of Boone and a perceived lack of urgency, I guess. And like Boone coming out and saying that, you know, we got screwed because the roof was open.

Right. Or, you know, Severino, I guess, saying that they got lucky, but more so Boone saying that. And as we discussed on the podcast, like I'm pro reasonable excuses. If you have a good excuse, go ahead. And obviously like luck definitely is a major factor in the postseason. And yeah, you're going to have balls that go out barely or don't barely. And these things will swing a series. But if you're a manager and you say that as you're getting swept, then it just it looks weak.

It looks like you're trying to make excuses because you're not good enough. So that's part of it. And the Yankees in this series, they hit 162-232-269. That's a 502 OPS. Unless you're going to say that it's Boone's fault, or I guess maybe you could ding him for not playing Peraza more or whatever like it didn't seem like there was a great option most of the time but like the only guy who really hit was I guess Rizzo to some extent and Bader and you're just you're not going to win a series that way I think though like the closest I have come to this is a fireable offense, you must get rid of Boone is with the 2004 Red Sox motivational debacle.

You went so long talking about this and didn't mention that. And I was like, did he miss this? Does he not know? Not on Twitter that much. I was going out of my way to defend Boone, like provide the pro-Boon or neutral perspective. To defend Boone, provide the pro Boone or neutral perspective. When I saw this, though, I was like, okay, they got to make a change. Because this is, I mean, this is untenable. You cannot be coming out and telling everyone that you were showing your team video that director of mental conditioning.

I know. It wasn't like it was a gotcha question or something like, you know, Lindsay Adler. Did you FaceTime David Ortiz? Yeah, like Lindsay happened to see this happening and put him on the spot or something. No, they came out and Boone says, we watched that video of the Red Sox coming back from down 0-3 against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. We sent it out to the coaches and players. You got to be kidding me. I cannot believe that they offered this.

And then Boone apparently, like Eduardo Perez during Boone's, like I give him more of a pass for this, I guess, because like Boone apparently was like doing a pregame interview with Eduardo Perez on ESPN Radio. And Perez FaceTimed with David Ortiz because, what, he was wearing a jersey or something? Oh, speaking of pandering. Yeah. I think an Iverson jersey on Friday night. I looked down at Ashburn Alley yesterday.

I was like, is Big Papi wearing a black brian dawkins throwback yes that's what it was right and boone loves brian dawkins so like we all love brian dawkins he's okay yeah so so paris was like facetiming with ortiz do you know who brian dawkins is i've heard the name do you know do you know who moses malone is i heard that name too basketball player on the podcast 20 minutes ago. Yeah. He had goggles, right? Did he have goggles or am I thinking of someone else?

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Even I know. Did he have goggles? He had goggles. No, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had goggles. He did not have goggles. Oh, man. All right.

Well, I knew he was a basketball player. Hey, I just Googled. I see some goggles if this is in fact Moses Malone. I don't know. I'm seeing goggles on multiple pictures here. I know more about Moses Malone than either of you. Anyway, so evidently he FaceTimed to see the Dawkins jersey. And then like they kept talking and Boone said he put Big Papi on and I said, hey, he had some advice.

Now, he should not have acknowledged that he was just even hearing, receiving advice from David Ortiz. But if we assume that whatever pairs just put him on the spot when he's doing the interview and put Poppy on the screen, I might give him a pass for that. But this was an intentional choice to send around videos of one of this franchise's most ignominious defeats. I guess, granted, no one on the current Yankees was on the 2004 Yankees, and I don't know if they take it personally that those Yankees were beaten by those Red Sox. Yeah, but you... Okay, wait. No.

I guess you could say... No. But the audience for this comment is Yankees fandom. Yeah. And Yankees fandom is not going to take... If you want to send those videos around and keep it quiet, you know, like, if you think, hey, the guys will want to see that, like, hey, we can come back from down 0-3. It has been done. Maybe you, like, blur out the uniforms of the team that is losing and just focus on the team that's winning or something.

No. But to come out and say. Get him, Meg. Get him. Okay. Okay. I'm the guy saying he should be fired for this. I'm not saying. I don't know

if he should be fired for it. I mean it does make me question. I'll say that. I mean like. His strength is like a communicator. He's like the guy who's good with the media. So the fact that he's coming out and saying this. It's not the action itself. It's the total lack of judgment and self-awareness.

That the action represents. Yes. And not only that. You're like, oh, none of these guys were on that team. But you know who is on this team? Famously from New York, Harrison Bader. That's true. Like, imagine.

You go to Harrison Bader. You're like, Harrison, you're having a tremendous series. We're only in this as much as we are because of you, right? You hit these home runs. It's been spectacular. Would you like to relive one of the worst moments of your childhood? When did Aaron Boone turn into Don Vito Corleone? I mean, they all think that they're that.

It's fine. You know, like, it's like, would you like to relive this terrible moment from your childhood would you like to think about it for the rest of the day as you like have your season end around you better hovered in that game too so evidently because he was so mad at that's why he went nuts yeah i'm so pissed i'm gonna pretend the ball is his head yeah so between all of that the excuses and then that and then just like players questioning him, right, in one of the games and just like when he didn't use Clay Holmes, right, and Clay Holmes kind of coming out more plainly than you're used to hearing. You know, like the Padres, they all defended Bob Melvin, including Hader and everyone else. Sure. I understand why he made that move when Boone lost with Clark Schmidt on the mound in the ALDS and

there was some miscommunication. I assume that has something to do with where he went to college. Yeah, Clark Schmidt went to South Carolina. Oh, sure. Yeah, everyone knows that. It's relevant. So when that happened, there was miscommunication maybe about how available Clay Holmes was. Holmes was like, no, yeah, I could have come in.

You know, like, why was I not in that game? And I guess they got on the same page eventually. But the fact that like multiple Yankees were publicly saying that they kind of were perplexed by that decision makes you think maybe there's some deeper strain of unrest in that clubhouse potentially. But really, just this Red Sox debacle, Like, oh, my gosh. I couldn't believe it. The killer with that is that I watched, you know, I looked at the Clay Holmes situation and I was like, oh, this is even worse than the last time Aaron Boone did this exact same thing and failed to communicate about relief pitcher roles in a playoff game. Like, this keeps happening.

Yeah. So he didn't cover himself in glory there. Like this keeps happening. great. Get rid of a lot of them. But if you want to change Aaron Boone to someone else and you keep Cashman, and I think Cashman is quite good at his job. I think if Cashman were gone, you might miss Cashman, who's been there for 25 years. And look, maybe if you're in the same job for 25 years, there's an argument that fresh blood could be beneficial in some ways. It doesn't seem to me he and that front office have gotten set in their ways. He dates from the pre-Moneyball era and the Yankees have completely gotten on board the player development and everything machine. They've revamped how they do everything. So

it doesn't seem to me like they're stuck in the past or married to a particular way of doing things. But who knows? I don't know. I'm just saying I think Brian Cashman, pretty good GM, pretty good at handling the market. And I don't know how many GMs would be an obvious upgrade over him necessarily. Boone, I could go either way. I think most managers don't make a huge difference either way. So if you got rid of Boone, I wouldn't say you were wrong, particularly after this 2004 Red Sox thing, which I just, I could not believe. As someone who is no longer a Yankees fan, was a Yankees fan during 2004, like there is like some residual being offended, just like as someone who is no longer even caring about this team, just someone who was at that time. I was like, you

gotta be kidding me. I could not believe that this came out. So that just made me question everything. I think the most important thing is that I had occasion to look at Harrison Bader's Wikipedia page and I have learned that he is the first cousin of Vampire Weekend's Chris Baio and the first cousin once removed of Scott Baio. Did you guys know about this? Wow. No, but I only recently learned he was from New York because I assumed that because he played his college

ball at Florida, he was from Florida, but they recruit guys from all over. No. This is going to be the new Todd Frazier is from Tom's River for however long Harrison Bader is a Yankee. I did want to mention because Bader had a great series and hit five homers in the postseason, right?

But I said he's the reverse Samson because he cut his hair and doesn't look nearly as good in my eyes. I think he looks great with the new haircut. I think – well, he's got that like gritty grinder look going with the eye black and everything. He looks like he could be beloved by Yankees fans someday. ends someday but I was impressed by something he did in game three in the fifth inning where he he worked a walk like more than I've ever seen anyone work a walk before he just like the Yankees were not scoring he was trying to get something going and he just like stood on the plate almost like yeah I didn't compare and do a frame by frame to see like how much closer he was than he usually is but he was like Anthony Rizzo-ing, like more so than Anthony Rizzo.

Like his arms were like in the strike zone, basically. He just like stood right on proximity to the plate. And when Javier, I think it was still Javier at that point, would throw inside pitches, not even inside, just like on the inside part of the strike zone, Bader would just whirl away as if like he was about to get hit, which he was because he was basically standing in the strike zone. And there were two strikes, essentially, like one clear strike and one borderline strike where he just like whirled away, like turned away, like, oh, my gosh, this is so far inside. And it worked. They both were ball calls. And he worked a walk. And he on the way down to first base was like grinning at the Yankees from the dugout. And it was like ingenious. I don't know how often you could get away with that. But like the Yankees, as poorly as they hit throughout the series, they all should have tried it, I think, because that was the only thing they were going to get.

But that was like he hacked baseball for a plate appearance there. So when he wasn't homering, he was just like drawing a walk in an extremely active way so that impressed me yeah he played a great series i uh never need to look at his mouth guard quite as much as i have ever again yeah maybe it's not that it was a reverse samson it was just the power of his hair got transferred to his mouth maybe yeah and and the one error he was credited with before the mccormick home run into the first row who among us would not have yeah that was a judge error if it was anyone like he was obscured by a giant i was gonna say he thought he was gonna die yeah yeah that was obstructed view and his life was you know his heart was at his throat probably so yeah tough

error i was not a fan of of the trade at the time because I thought, and I think I'm still right about this, that the Yankees would end up needing another starting pitcher. At the time, it looked like a sort of a situational outfielder. But based on the evidence of this series, it seems like this Brett Gardner is a lot more fun than the last Brett Gardner. Yes. He is very Gardner-esque, yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, that's the Yankees. So we'll see whether any heads roll. And based on that, maybe we can talk in a future episode about their offseason and whatever we hear about Judge. I'm surprised they didn't Lane Kiffin Aaron Boone. Does that mean he gets fired? Oh, my God, Ben.

I know he's a college football coach and people hate him. You could watch one less Marvel show and get a lot of these references. So I think I was asked to hang up and listen for a one-word answer on whether the Yankees are going to break the bank on Judge. And it was hard for me to restrain myself to a one word answer but I respected the exercise and I said yes No the best answer to give in that situation is maybe They have to at least

they can't be outbid for Judge because as up in arms as their fans are already if they lose Judge and if they lose him to the Mets or something it would confirm everything, I mean, it would confirm everything that people are rightfully thinking and saying about Hal Steinbrenner. Like it's a tough spot because Judge like just having this just amazing season, you

know, being the age he is and the build he is and all of that, like you could very well end up not being that happy to have Aaron Judge at whatever salary he will be earning several years from now. But they just have no choice, essentially, it seems like. And there isn't even really an offer that they could make and someone else tops it. If Steve Cohen comes in from the top rope and offers like $400 million or something, the Yankees fans would still think that the Yankees screwed up by not getting him or not offering him more before the season.

Not that they knew he was going to have one of the all-time best seasons of like the best walk year ever. Like it's just, it's a tough spot. Either you sign Aaron Judge for a blank check basically, or Yankees fans will riot even more than they already are. And if you get Judge, then you have a whole lot of money tied up in Judge and Stanton and Cole and some obvious holes to fill. So it's a tight spot by Yankee standards, obviously.

All right. So we'll talk more about that, I'm sure. But just quickly on the World Series. So we've got a whole lot of days here without baseball and more podcast episodes before this World Series actually starts. days here without baseball and more podcast episodes before this World Series actually starts. But on paper, obviously, like a significant mismatch here, you know, a gap of 19 regular season wins and maybe even more if you look at underlying metrics and run differential and such.

And like, even if you just limit it to the Rob Thompson era and you pretend that the Joe Girardi Phillies didn't exist, the Astros still were a lot better over that period. And everything the Phillies are good at, the Astros are better at. And everything the Phillies are bad at, the Astros are good at. So Phillies, good starting pitching. Astros, maybe the only team with better starting pitching this year. Phillies, better bullpen than the Phillies have had. Astros, better bullpen than the Phillies. You know, you think of the Phillies as a good offensive team.

Astros, probably even better there. I guess more debatable maybe late in the season, like without Brantley and with Harper back to full strength and everything. But, you know, during the regular season, the Astros were better. And then obviously the weakness of the Phillies, the defense defense the astros are one of the best defensive teams so there's no real reason unless you believe that the phillies have momentum or team of destiny vibes or whatever it is that you would pick the phillies to win this series right i mean it could happen obviously but i mean the other reason i can think of is this is going to go out in public and i don't want to get stabbed at wawa this way yeah because you are in philly right now and thus you cannot be

well i'm in south jersey we're close enough yeah i was gonna say the certain wawas are even stabbier than the ones in philadelphia but yeah well if you're putting on your Bauman in the press box for a moment, this is it. I mean, I said, I think I said it on the Fangraphs Audio I did with Jason Martinez last week before I considered the possibility that the Phillies might win that series. Yeah. What I thought then was the Astros are going to just absolutely mess up the Yankees and they were going to mess up whoever came out of the National League. And I think that's still the empirically sound thing. I think the one situation

or the one area where I think the Phillies are better than the Astros, they have a deeper lineup. They really do go one through nine and catcher is kind of a weak spot for the Astros, even though like Chaz McCormick had a couple big moments., the Astros pitching depth, I don't know how you get around that. Like, the Phillies beat up some good Braves pitchers. But what they did, the reason they got past San Diego, is they teed off against, like, the middle relievers. And the Astros don't really have, like, a number four starter. Or, like, you know, I wrote about Ryan Stanek in the last week or so of the season. And like, what is he like their sixth or seventh best reliever?

Yeah. Depending on how you how you measure it. Like, I'll say that like the Phillies do have the offensive talent. And even by the way, like the Astros bullpen is that deep after the Phillies use sibling rivalry to take Phil Maton out of the postseason. So maybe like that, they set themselves up for success there. But it's just, it's going to be really hard to find guys to tee off on the way they did with some of the Padres middleweavers. Like Sean Mania and Mike Clevenger got just absolutely wrecked in game four. That's not going to happen.

So, you know, I'm not going to say it's, I believe anything at this point, but you do sort of have to go to the Phillies or they have momentum. They're playing with great team spirit. They look like the team of destiny, all of which is true, but that kind of thing remains true until it doesn't. And there doesn't seem to be any warning. So, you know, this could be like a 2007 world series situation, or, you know, we could be climbing light poles again in two weeks' time. Yeah. Maybe Brian Cashman should be fired for not naming Rob Thompson manager. Because Rob Thompson was in the Yankees organization

for years and years and years. He became the bench coach. Little did we know. He invoked the 2004 ALCS in his press conference. Because somebody said, you're going to play the Astros. He said, don't assume I was on the Yankees in 2004. See, that's the proper use of that.

That is directionally appropriate. How much the Yankees wish they had him. Have you seen this take in the wild? Because I want to go submit a pitch to the post. Yeah, that'd be a good one. like submit a pitch to the post like yeah that'd be a good one anyway i hope it's a fun series because we haven't had was yankees guardians the only series that's gone to a final game right gone the full length this postseason so all the mets and padres and true yeah right but you know in a longer series we just haven't seen it so there's been plenty of entertaining baseball

this postseason lots of fun upsets and Astros dominance and everything else you would want. But we haven't really seen, I mean, we haven't seen a series go six or seven. So it would be nice if that happened just to stave off the offseason, obviously, but also because it'd be a nice competitive series and be nice if the Phillies actually like put up a fight against the Astros here at the very least. So I'm hoping for that. And yeah, it's just, you know, there's, there's no real weakness other than I guess maybe the bottom of the lineup with the Astros, but like Verlander got rocked in his first postseason start, you know, who's to say like, obviously all those guys could get rocked again. You're so mean to Meg today.

If you're banking on one of their starters getting rocked, it's not a winning hope. It could happen, but the odds are against it. And then it does, and you're like, aha, I have succeeded. And then Jordan Alvarez is like, no. Funny story. Funny thing about that. They can sweep even without Jordan doing all that much. Right, yeah.

I guess he got involved in the end there. Somebody can control that at some point. Somebody can be like, oh, we figured out how to do it. Yeah. Sometimes you're unintentionally mean to our guests, but I guess it's better for it to be directed at me. Yeah. Yeah.

You can take it. Ben's afraid of me. That's for sure. Yeah. I don't want to be inhospitable. But yeah, he had a 675 OPS in the CS and the Astros didn't miss a beat. It's like Zach said when we had our Ringer MLB show reunion recently like what jeremy pena has done has been really important at the time we were saying that because it's like he's getting on in front of

jordan and so when jordan does damage then pena's on base but in this series it was just no he just does the damage himself yeah he's he's the mvp so he's so you know it's not like this was the first time i had watched the astros but especially watching watching him receive his ALCS MVP trophy, I was like, you're just so baby-faced. It's like him and Dahlbeck. They look so young, and then they do stuff. Not baby-bodied, though. He is pretty built. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, it should be fun. I hope it's fun. It would be hard to be more fun than the Phillies have been thus far. Yeah. Should be fun. I hope it's fun. It would be hard to be more fun than the Phillies have been thus far.

Yeah. But I am glad that we could have Mike on to tell us how it was on the scene. Sounds like it was as great as it looked from afar. I barely remember. I really like towels. We had a whole bit in our Playoff Livestream where Meg was talking about just the mechanics of towel waving and uh how evidently it it poses a problem for some but i was just saying that visually the towels are really great and it always looks good on tv yeah it looks great on tv it's like a synchronized you know kind of collective activity i far prefer it to thunder sticks or vuvuzelas or whatever because like it's a little less obnoxious and annoying noise-wise, but it looks great.

I was skeptical about the red ones because usually when you think about towels looking good on TV, they're white or as loathe as I am to give Pittsburgh credit for anything sports-related. Yellow, yeah. The yellow ones do look good on TV, but I think that the Red Tiles played. I did not expect that to be the case. It looked great. It looked like such a fun atmosphere. It was really rocking. Yep. All right.

Well, that'll do it. Good luck with the World Series, Mike. Yeah, thanks. All right. That will do it for today, or almost, but not quite. I have a few closing thoughts for you and a pass blast, of course.

So a few things that I meant to mention and did not, as far as I recall, we talked about how great the Harper Homer was. It's also great just that he happened to be up at that point, right? Because so rarely does it seem a superstar is up at the most important moment. You can't put a bat in the superstar's hands unless he's on the bench for some reason and he can pinch hit. You can't necessarily choose who's up there at that moment and who gets to have their capital M moment. And so it was fortuitous for the Phillies and for Harper that he happened to be at the plate, that we get that all-time moment. Not that Phillies fans would have been upset if someone else had hit the homer instead, but hey, Harper gets a signature highlight there. As Joe Davis

said on the call, the swing of his life, although he has many more swings to come. Not unusual for the NBA, let's say, where you get to put the ball in the hands of the guy you want taking that shot, or the NFL, where the quarterback always gets the ball and can throw to whomever he wants. In baseball, the batting order dictates all that, and you just hope the wheel spins and lands on the right spot. Also, while it would be nice if Harper got his first championship, it would also be great if Dusty Baker got his. I

guess that's the one reason for neutrals to root for the Astros. Not that everyone has to hate the Astros because of the sign stealing thing, which happened several years ago at this point. Maybe you want the best team to win. Maybe you want them to be rewarded for their team building over a period of several seasons. But if you're like most people and you're rooting against the Astros probably and for the upstart underdog Phillies, seeing Dusty have his day would be one reason to pull for Houston. I was also going to say, I bet you could go back to when Joe Girardi was fired and get some good freezing cold takes at old takes exposed of us talking about the Phillies at that point. I seem to recall on one episode around that time that we talked about which organization

was in a worse spot, the Angels who had just fired a manager named Joe or the Phillies who had also just fired a manager named Joe. I'm pretty sure we came down on Angels because we acknowledged that the Phillies still had a chance to make the postseason this season. And whatever we may have said about their long-term future perhaps still applies. But yeah, we did not see pennant-winning Philadelphia Phillies coming at that point in the year. To be fair, neither did most Phillies fans, I would imagine, or just about anyone at that point. And in my defense, I did pick the Phillies to win the third NL wildcard before the season started, so that's something. I just didn't pick the third

NL wildcard to make the World Series. It does amuse me, though, that Yankees fans, I've seen some saying we should do what the Phillies do and go get the superstars, which that much is true. But I don't know that the Yankees necessarily need to emulate the Phillies. Let's not forget the Yankees were a far better team than the Phillies during the regular season. The Phillies made the playoffs because they expanded the playoff field this year. They've been good in October. Does not mean they were a great regular season team. And of course, they had struggled to make the playoffs up until this point. So they've

had a real Cinderella run. Let's not make too much of it. I've also seen some Yankees fans complaining about the one-dimensional offense and all of that. It seems like they took some steps to rectify that this year. The Yankees had like a league average strikeout rate. Their base running was much better than last year. Their defense was much better. They haven't hit in the playoffs. And yeah, they struck out too much, but that doesn't mean their offense was not constructed for the playoffs. Then again, that's a refrain we've heard about the Yankees for years. Even though being a homer reliant does not seem to be a disadvantage on the whole in October. Striking out a ton and not hitting homers, yep, that's not good. But not too many people were complaining about how that offense was built

when it was firing on all cylinders early in the season. They could go get a big lefty slugger, though. Seems odd that they don't have one of those in Yankee Stadium. Okay, a few people have sent us a recent episode of StarTalk, the podcast, as well as a video excerpt from it that I will link to on the show page. I have actually appeared on that podcast, and I subscribe to it. I don't listen to it all that often. And I had not listened to this episode in which Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about exit speed and launch angle. And as far as I can tell, makes a mess of it. And look, I know Neil can be a big buzzkill. That's kind of his thing. He comes

along and he spoils everything by nitpicking. Now, we respect pedantry on this podcast, but for one thing, it should be fun and not too self-serious. And for another, it should be correct. If you're going to come with pedantic corrections, you got to get them right. And in this episode, he argues that MLB or whoever is calculating exit velocity, launch angle, et cetera, is calculating it wrong. And hey, he knows his science, but I don't think he knows his baseball batted ball measurements. Because in this excerpt, he repeatedly says he doesn't know how these things are calculated, but then confidently declares that they are calculated wrong. And really, he could have tried googling before seemingly basing a whole episode and rant

about this, because much of the basis of his complaint was about radar and about how radar cannot capture these measurements perfectly given some constraints. I'm not sure whether he would have had a point if it were radar being used, but it is not radar being used. And it hasn't been for some time. StatCast uses Hawkeye cameras and software to measure these things. So as far as I can tell, all of his objections about how all of these measurements and readings must be incorrect are themselves incorrect because they're not calculated the way that he is assuming that they are calculated. And they haven't been for a long time. And even when they maybe were early on, they were consistent with what we see now.

So I think he's off base here. And I think perhaps he could have done just a smidge of research before declaring the entire industry's approach to measuring batted balls flawed. I will not retaliate by arguing that the astrophysicists are doing their job all wrong too. I'm sure they're great. And also we got a lot of responses to our discussion on the preceding episode about a 75 foot tall batter and whether one would be viable for an MLB team. I think we came down on the side of no, and not just because they don't exist, but that generated a lot of discussion and responses. People pointed out some factors we hadn't considered.

For example, Falafel, Patreon supporter, says, The 75-foot-tall player would still have to swing a regulation bat. That strike zone is very large. Just by the law of averages, you're almost never going to make contact, especially since your hands probably cover most of the bat. Had not considered that, had considered the fact that you would take so long to swing that you could not make contact, but also the bat would just be a teeny tiny little matchstick in your hands and you'd have an enormous zone to cover. Would probably be tough to make contact, even bunting. Raymond, Patreon supporter, also notes that the giant could just make sure to exhale as the pitch is thrown.

So the giant could just huff and puff and blow the ball down. Paul, Patreon supporter, says, I think you overlooked the impossibility of throwing a strike to this batter. I am 75 inches tall, 6'3", and I just measured from the bottom of my shoe to the hollow of my knee. That came out to 22 inches. This means that the bottom of the 75-foot tall man's strike zone would be 22 feet above the plate. No catcher would be able to handle that, so striking out the batter is impossible since he just stepped forward to first base on any strike three. I think we did consider that it would be hard to throw a pitch in the strike zone because you'd basically have to

throw it on a pop-up type trajectory to get it there, but it's true that the catcher wouldn't be able to catch it, except maybe if it came down on kind of a parabolic trajectory past the giant. That could work. But Paul also says, upon reflection, my family thinks that this player would be an excellent DH or even pinch runner. He's guaranteed to get on base and will be able to simply steal bases on any pitch, so he's a guaranteed run. Good point about the pinch running. Though again, not sure if he's worth carrying on the roster, given the problems with clothing and housing him, etc. How would he travel with the team? Can he sit on the top of the plane?

Could you just send him by boat or by train somehow? Would he get there in time? Lastly, Ted O, Patreon supporter, says the 75-foot batter doesn't matter. What matters is their defensive contribution, literally blocking every home run. Or depending on their relative width, they could just stand by each hitter's pull side and shift every at-bat. Good point, they could block homers, but could they catch them? Lots of factors to consider. All right, I will leave you now with the Pass Blast. This is episode 1920, and the Pass Blast

comes from 1920 and from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. Jacob says this is on the same through line of how can you really tell if a game is fixed that Meg and I were commenting on at the end of the 1919 pass blast. This is 1920 the smoke before the fire. One common thread he writes in any scandal that threatens the integrity of the game, whether it's game fixing, PEDs, or sign stealing, is that it's only hearsay until someone on the inside comes forward to confirm the truth. In the Black Sox scandal, that insider was Billy Maharg, or May-harg, maybe, M-A-H-A-R-G,

an ex-boxer and ballplayer who served as a go-between for gamblers in the eight White Sox who conspired to lose the 1919 World Series. In September of 1920, Maharg finally came forward and told a Philadelphia reporter what he knew about the big fix. Within 48 hours, Shoeless Joe Jackson and three other White Sox players also confessed to accepting bribes, and they were all suspended. Veteran reporter Hugh Fullerton had been trying to break open the scandal for months, but couldn't get anyone to talk on the record about it. I've been working on the story for months, and he just tweeted out, or told a Philly reporter about it. Here's what Fullerton wrote in the New Republic after the Black Sox scandal was exposed. I've been working on the story for months and he just tweeted out or told a Philly reporter about it.

Here's what Fullerton wrote in the New Republic after the Black Sox scandal was exposed. It has been the favorite defense of officials, club owners, umpires, and players that the game could not be played dishonestly for any length of time without detection. It was this theory that enabled the dishonest players and the gamblers to reap their harvest. They proved that the game can be and has been successfully manipulated, provided the honest players on the team do not squeal. Plainly, the outsider cannot tell to a certainty. An honest player on any team, however, will know within a short time whether or not his fellows are trying to win. The hope of the future, therefore, lies in securing players of character to disregard the code of the underworld which has ruled the game. The ethics of criminals forbid informing Jacob concludes, be wondering whether or not the 1919 World Series was fixed at all. Just like with Kim Kemeniti openly admitting that he and other players use PDs or without Mike Fiers talking about the Astros stealing signs, perhaps those scandals would have played out differently as well. And then who knows,

maybe everyone would be rooting for the Astros in this World Series. But still, maybe not, because the Astros have been there a bunch and the Phillies are fun. All right, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon 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. Thanks go out today to Jacob Conyers Holyfield, Peter Vliet, Samuel Neckerson, Ralph Green, and Merhim. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, monthly bonus episodes, discounts on merch, ad-free FanCrafts memberships, and, of course, playoff livestreams.

So Meg and I did a good one. We had fun this past Saturday for NLCS Game 4. We will be doing one more during the World Series. I had hoped it would be during the coming weekend, but I'm in a friend's wedding on Friday and Saturday nights, so it may have to be early the following week. Regardless, sometime soon we'll be doing that second live stream. You can get in on that if you're at the Ned Garver tier or above. You can contact me and Meg via email at podcastoffangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com

slash group slash effectively wild. You can rate 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. Dylan stopped by the live stream as well, as did Ben Clemens. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. I am what I am today And I feel good this way You took me into your life

And swept me away