Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2068: More Like Mild Card

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about their takeaways from sweeps week in the wild card round (how sweep it is!) and pick the division series they’re most excited about, then examine Mariners POBO Jerry Dipoto’s comments about aspiring to win 54 percent of games over a decade (46:04) and provide updates on the results […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2068 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined, as I often am, by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? How did the wild card treat you? It was a tame card, really. It was not very wild at all. We're recording on Thursday. I expected that we would probably be navigating some games still. But no, a whole day or two whole days without baseball. Did not expect that. I'm grateful for the way that the schedule is laid out this year. It feels like the off days are a little friendlier to people getting their breaks when they need them even though it was a tame card

in terms of sweeps like there were still some some highlight moments but yeah we didn't even have to fuss with our recording time just went with the default then how's that i know yeah that's always a challenge in the postseason because uh how much do you talk about games that already happened? Then there are going to be more games. And if you talk mid-series, then you're just going to be out of date immediately. But also if they're all sweeps, then I guess that makes things easy. Not that I would wish for that because not only were they sweeps, but yeah, of course, there were individual highlights and exciting moments. But I can't say it was great baseball on the whole, right?

Not super competitive series, obviously. Sort of a Groundhog Day aspect to it, where some of the Game 2s were very similar to the Game 1s. And they just weren't very exciting or competitive games for the most part either. they weren't very exciting or competitive games for the most part either. Like there weren't like blowouts exactly, but the losing teams just didn't score really. I think collectively they scored nine runs in eight games and there were two lead changes in all of the games combined. And then they were sort of sloppy games too, right? Like not the best defense, you know?

Just a lot of errors, a lot of toot plans. Yeah. Not even, like, thrown out running the bases like an income poop, but just thrown out being on the base. Yeah. Just picked off the bases like an income poop. So, yeah. Yeah. It was not the most exciting start, I don't think.

Yeah. I mean, like, that's fair. But also, let's highlight some stuff, though. Yes. poop so yeah yeah it was it was not the most exciting start i don't think yeah i mean like that's fair but also let's highlight some stuff though should we highlight some stuff because like there's always good stuff here was one of my favorite things that happened in these games which was i think it's always very exciting when a standout like really great player who is on a team that, you know, people are aware of, but aren't maybe making a point to watch has like a good entry to the postseason. And we get to look back and be like, this is the moment when people really got a sense of like, oh, that's who that guy is. When a relatively small baseball man like Corbin Carroll hits a big, big home run run like he did in their

game one against the Brewers. It's really very fun. And it would be silly to say people don't know who Corbin Carroll is. That would be ridiculous. He's almost certainly going to be the NL Rookie of the Year. He was an all-star. He was an all-star game starter. But there's nothing like postseason baseball to really cement our understanding of a guy in our minds. And so when you're hitting home runs and then your team gets to advance, you know, you get to be fast. You get to do stuff. You had a, you know, heads up kind of play in the outfield to like prevent some runs. Like it's a, I enjoyed that.

You know, we know that I'm a Corbin Carroll enthusiast, but now other people get to be too. You know, I'm not saying I discovered the guy, like, again, going to be the rookie of the year, but it's cool when guys get to have big moments on the biggest stage. And that was one of them. Very much so. Yeah. There's also the Twins postseason winning streak, of course. I probably should have started with that. Yes. The undefeated in October, Twins. So that's exciting, right? It was happy for Twins fans, happy for Chris Hannell, our guest last week,

who was just delivered from the indignity of the 18-game postseason losing streak. And just winning one was nice, but they actually won two. You can do that. You can win consecutive games. And they looked quite good, quite commanding, right? Yeah. They look like a good team. I mean, these are all good teams to varying degrees. And I try hard not to say, oh, yeah, we knew the Marlins weren't good.

And there they were having a couple lousy games. It doesn't really mean anything that any of these teams had a couple very good games or not very good games. So try to avoid the confirmation bias early in October. But Twins looked really good. And they got, you know, like Royce Lewis having his Corbin Carroll game, I guess. Yeah. Speaking of guys getting to have, you know, big moments, gosh, what a start to postseason action for that guy, geez. actually writing about the Braves offense, but he just had a little aside in there that the Twins this season, their batters with the most played appearances, their nine batters with the most played appearances had a collective WRC plus that was eight points lower than all the rest of their players combined. So that's weird, right? Because you would expect that the top nine batters, they're going to be your best batters generally.

I mean, you know, you're going to have some fluky guy had a few good games off the bench kind of thing. But like generally a team starters will be better players. It would be weird if they had a bunch of better players on the bench. Like in Atlanta's case, because their lineup is so good. In Atlanta's case, because their lineup is so good, so their starters had a collective 132 WRC+, and the backups had a 76. So that was by far the biggest gap, which was maybe partly because the bench wasn't that great, but mostly because the starters were just historically incredible. And, I mean, as a team, they had the best WRC plus ever, 125, right? So that was, you know, that's not the typical gap, but basically teams always have, you know, better for the starters, right? But the twins, eight points lower for their top nine guys than for their bench guys. And that is really unusual. It's actually the largest negative differential of any team in the wildcard era and it's because they had guys like Royce Lewis

and Matt Wallner and Alex Kirloff, you know, who were worked into that lineup over the course of the season. Like they came up or they were injured and so they weren't among the top nine plate appearance accruers. But once it was all said and done, you look at that lineup now, and those guys are good and are in it every day, you know, in addition to Julianne, right?

Like, it's just a good, deep lineup, gets on base a lot, and it does look different with a healthy Lewis in it. When Ben Clemens was writing the preview for that series, like I think a point that he made, and he said this about the Blue Jays too in their own way, but it's like, I think we had this perception of the twins, particularly because Correa's season was not great and marred by injury and Buxton's season was even worse and he didn't play the field that like this was a compromised group and there have definitely been times where that is true but it really has coalesced over the second half in a way that I think needs to at least alter our

understanding of what they are capable of doing and I think we saw that on full display where it's like Julian's been great and Walner has been good. And, you know, you have guys like Max Kepler and Kirilov who, you know, there were a lot of expectations around at various points in their careers and they've been kind of up and down, but things have gone well this year. because I tend to be pretty dismissive of the AL Central teams. And, you know, historically, Ben, with good reason, you know. But I think that they are a more competitive roster than maybe I have given them credit for. And then you look at their pitching and, like, that's a good group over there. That's a good group there. So I think that, you know,

will that be enough for them to scoot past Houston? I don't know. But it certainly puts them, they're hardly doormats, you know, will that be enough for them to scoot past Houston? I don't know. But it certainly puts them, they're hardly doormats, you know. They're in position to really give a good competitive series. So, I'm excited to see kind of how far they can go. Plus, they're like one of, they're not our only remaining Fangrass alum team, but they're, you know, they got thinned out pretty good there in that wildcard. I guess that's true. So, you know, we have that bit of rooting interest to the extent that we root at all

when it comes to that sort of thing. By the way, the Braves this season tied with the Murderer's Row Yankees from 1927 in best WRC Plus ever. And granted, that team had pitchers hitting and the Braves do not, but still. Right. It's really, it's overpowering. It's really quite something. I wouldn't feel great about facing that Atlanta roster,

but I also think that the vibes of that Phillies team are just so profound. How does one measure that? Can't, can't measure it. You know, does it ultimately matter more than talent? I mean, like, almost certainly not. But they got vibes, Ben. Yeah. What a fun group that is.

They are. Yeah. They're not just vibes, though. I know you're not saying they are. But last year, it felt like vibes were like their main fuel source. I mean, not that it was a bad team, but they just snuck into the playoffs. And true talent-wise, it was not a great team. They just caught fire. But this year, like, this is a pretty good team. You know, I know Bauman said, I think, when he was on last time that he didn't expect them to have as deep a run as they did last year. And you wouldn't expect them to.

I guess the odds are against it, right? But it's a better team than that team was. I mean, really in all facets of the game, I guess, but especially like the bullpen last year. I know the Phillies bullpen was excellent in October, but that was weird. No one expected that to happen. And now they've got a whole bunch of guys. It's like Kirkring comes up and then they have the standbys that they've had all season. Like it's a much deeper group than they that they have in that bullpen. And they still have the good rotation and it's still a good lineup. And the defense is maybe not as as abysmal as it was.

Right. So, yeah, it's a solid team now. It's a solid team. And I think that the way that they won in the wildcard round demonstrates like, you know, this is what peak performance looks like for the Phillies, right? And that isn't to say that that's exactly what they'll get going forward.

My God, what a potential buzzsaw awaits them, right? But if you were to listen to the deepest anxieties of Philly fans, and I don't know that I'd recommend looking directly at that, son, but the way that I think they worried this could go was like, you know, Wheeler has been really solid, but Nola has had bouts where he has just fallen apart. He's been quite homer prone. What version of that guy are you going to get?

And it turned out that like they could have had a much worse version of of Aaron Nola last night and it wouldn't have mattered because you know when Bryson starts hitting a grand slam like you're probably just gonna win that game and when they did but he can be very good I think that this season has probably diminished like the contract he'll ultimately get in free agency, but he has the capacity to be a very good starter. And so when Wheeler and Nola are sort of firing on all cylinders, the offense is able to do what it can and what we've seen it do. And then you think about, okay, they still have, like they didn't, you know, Tywon Walker hasn't pitched yet. Ranger

Suarez hasn't pitched yet. Christopher Sanchez hasn't pitched yet. You have a deeper bullpen. I'm not saying that they will be able to overcome Atlanta. And when I did our staff predictions, I didn't, you know, have them doing that. But they do have some good pitching depth that they can throw at that offense. And when you look at the Braves rotation, like they are pretty compromised. And it's not like this is a pushover offense that they're going to see, even if it obviously isn't as good as, you know, their own guys. So I don't know, man, like it's, I think it's going to be a

really fun series. I think I ultimately still would go with Atlanta to advance, but, and we can talk more about, you know, the, the divisional matchups on the next pod, but I don't know, this version of the Phillies plus vibes, Ben, that's scary. feels very real for them. And I know that Atlanta has its own group of rabid supporters that do. You know, you could sing dancing on my own instead of the chop. I'm just saying there are alternatives for you if you want to pursue them. But that ballpark, man, they were, it was loud. It was loud the whole time.

Like if you, you know, there were moments where I had that broadcast turned down because the, you know, the D-backs Brewers game was further along. But any time I turned the volume up while the other game went to commercial, they were rocking the whole time. And the Rangers looked really good. They did. Two games. I mean, I don't know whether there was a—I guess you would say the Rangers were underdogs in this series.

I think most people are probably picking the Rays. And the Rays had a little bit better run differential, although they were also missing a bunch of people who contribute to that run differential. So it was a pretty even matchup, really. But I think they impressed me in two ways, or at least in one way that I wasn't expecting, which was that Nathan Ivaldi was really effective. Really effective. Yeah. And that's the kind of thing that, yeah, you're not really going to learn very much from two games. But if there's someone who has been injured and then has been extremely ineffective since he returned and then looks more or less like his old self like that that does

potentially tell you something like i feel feel much better about the rangers now if evaldi is the guy he was earlier in the season as opposed to the guy who was on the il and then just got absolutely shellacked once he got back from the il and his results were getting worse over time after he came back he was just getting crushed and his results were getting worse over time after he came back. He was just getting crushed and his stuff seemed to be diminished. And then it kind of bounced back a bit in this start and he was extremely effective. So that really deepens their rotation, which they've been piecing it together. I know Max Scherzer is still trying to come back, too.

He's not necessarily out for the playoffs. And then game one, though, just got to salute Jordan Montgomery because he's sort of unsung, right? I mean, historically, he hasn't had a high profile. He's kind of underrated, but he's had just like huge start after huge start for the Rangers. He really bailed them out. I know ultimately they didn't quite win the division because of the tiebreaker, but the addition of Montgomery, just like what he did down the stretch for them when they just really, really needed reinforcements. And he had a sub three ERA for them in 11 starts. It's like, and it kind of almost went under the radar at the time because it was like, oh, Rangers get Scherzer, you know?

Right. And ultimately Montgomery ended up mattering much more. Not only did he pitch better, Scherzer was fine for the Rangers, but then he got hurt. And there's Montgomery who did what he did for the Cardinals when the Yankees traded him at the division last year. Like, same thing, 60-plus innings, three-ish ERA. I mean, he's good. He's a good pitcher. He's a good pitcher.

Yeah. So I guess, you know, he's like the Yankees. I know a lot of Yankees fans are upset that they gave him away for Harrison Bader, who was injured at the time. And that kind of immediately backfired or didn't look great. And maybe the Yankees underrated him, too. I don't know.

He's not a high strikeout guy, so he doesn't impress you in that sense. And if you're not a high strikeout guy, then you maybe tend to get underrated if you're still successful. It doesn't portend well when you're not a high strikeout guy, but he's really making it work. So good work, Jordan Montgomery. We recognize your contributions. Well, and I think that when you're, there's the quality of the innings, which is, you know, ultimately probably the most important thing, but I think that the other piece of it for them, and it's particularly important for a Rangers team whose bullpen has just been like an unmitigated disaster at times

in the last couple of months, is the quantity of the innings. Like you look at his starts for Texas, he's pitched at least into the six, I think in all but one of his starts, and he's like routinely going six, seven, eight innings. So any amount of length that you can give them to limit the exposure to the worst parts of that bullpen and hopefully give guys, you know, rest and time off and big margins.

And it's an important thing, right? It's probably not an accident that, you know, we are having this impression of that team the way we are in part because of what their offense was able to do in that series against Tampa. But like, we really didn't have to see the underbelly of that team the way we are, in part because of what their offense was able to do in that series against Tampa. But we really didn't have to see the underbelly of that bullpen at all. And that's good because, boy, it can get real rough real fast in that bullpen. And then on the other side of it, it's just like,

man, the defensive miscues. It was brutal. It was brutal. It was brutal to watch. It's just not, you know, you're already dealing with a team that can produce runs at a very high level. And then to just give them favors over the course of a short series is just rough. It's rough. It's a bad way to live, Ben. And, you know, it didn't work out well for them.

Not a great showing for the Rays. Quite a contrast with how the season started when the Rays could not lose. And every story was about the Rays and their winning streak and is this a super team? And, you know, they were doing it against some weak teams at the time and with a healthier roster than they finished this season and a more complete roster. And so, yeah, that sort of fizzled as these things do. It's a long season, et cetera, but it was not the greatest exit. I was just looking at Montgomery's game log. So he beat the Blue Jays and Mariners in really big games, two runs in 27 innings in his last four starts,

and then seven shutout innings in game one. He's going to make a lot of money. He's about to be a free agent. I think he has raised himself into a higher salary class with the last season and a half, at least, that he's had. Yeah. And, you know, like the results on the field are what they are. So I don't, you know, when people are like, if you take out this one start, like, I don't tend to subscribe to that way of thinking. But I do think it is like, you know, as you're trying to appreciate, like, how good he has been, it is notable that, like, he had two clunkers, right? He had the bad start against Minnesota, which was also his shortest outing as a Ranger. And then he had the weird five-run game against Oakland, which was like, I don't know, baseball, man.

But, like, in the rest of his games for them, he's just been so, he was so solid. It's just, you know, Ben? Yeah. Man, Jordan Montgomery. And the Rays, like, sort of depressing exit was rendered more depressing by the attendance and the environment, right? was rendered more depressing by the attendance and the environment, right? I mean, 19, 20,000-ish fans at those games, as everyone was saying, the fewest at a postseason game since, like, the Black Sox series more than a century ago.

And obviously, there were mitigating circumstances there. And if you are one of the people who was, you know, kind of dumping on Rays fans, yeah, it was a weekday afternoon game, or they both were. And the start times were announced just days before. So it wasn't something that you could plan for. So obviously that would have probably taken a chunk out of any team's attendance. But, you know, we've had circumstances like that before before and we haven't had attendance that low. So a lot of people were noting.

It's like when we talked about the Rays' new ballpark and how it doesn't seem to solve the attendance problems that they've had as we understand them. In the sense that, yeah, it'll be a nicer park than the Trop, so maybe that's part of the problem. But also it seems to be largely about location. And it's in essentially the same location. And so I wonder if the team and the city are looking at those games. I don't know how much you should extrapolate from them because of the circumstances, but they're thinking like we're signing up for decades more of this. Is this a good idea? Like, is this going to change or are we just doing the

same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Yeah, I think that it really highlights the spontaneity that you're potentially losing, right? So I think that it's always going to be an uphill battle when you have a weekday game that starts in the middle of the day because, you know, people have work and kids have school and, you know, those things are only so movable for a lot of folks. But when you take that and then you add to it the fact that you're putting the game somewhere at a distance from where people are going to be able to easily access it, if you're an office worker in that area and the ballpark is a 10 minute walk from your office maybe you go you know what screw it i'm just gonna i'm just gonna ditch out and you know go see what what like i can do in terms of a walk-up ticket and what that's gonna cost me when you have

to like drive and park and do this stuff and it's not in a place that's, you know, central to the metro. Like, it just takes that spontaneity, that option for spontaneity away from a lot of people. And I think these are the moments where you really see the effect of that. I didn't appreciate the tone that the ESPN broadcast brought to this question, because I really think it's putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, as it were. You know, this isn't an indictment of Rays fans. I think it's an indictment of a lot of things, but not them. So, you know, like, don't, you know, people don't have to get their cheap shots. And it was a sparse crowd, but I don't think that that's something that you can lay at the feet of Rays fans.

Well, are there any other takeaways? There weren't really that many interesting strategic decisions to talk about because there was one. Yeah, I was going to say there's one big goof potentially that we could talk about. Yeah. Would you have pulled Jose Barrios in that moment in game two? Probably not. Or if so, I probably would have gone to a different pitcher i think that's that's always the thing this is it's like the blake snell kevin cash decision a lot of people said okay yeah maybe

you you pull blake snell there but maybe you bring in a pitcher who's been more effective lately and in this case so yeah john schneider of the blue jays took out Jose Barrios in the fourth inning. It's a scoreless game at that point. I don't think it was even necessarily the same as the Snell rationale because this wasn't really a times through the order thing, or at least it wasn't a third time through the order, right? And it was, I think, the bottom of the order that he was facing the second time. So this was more of a handedness decision, seemingly, right? There was lefty, lefty, righty, lefty coming up. And so Schneider brought in, you say, Kikuchi. That, I think, is maybe, first of all, someone tweeted at us to say if Kikuchi is pitching out of the bullpen, potentially, does that mean that he has to sleep 14 hours every night? And I guess so, right? Because he might pull a muscle or something if he only sleeps 11 hours. Maybe he doesn't have to sleep as much if he's not going to be pitching as much, potentially. Maybe he'd only have to get 11 or 12 hours if he's only coming in for an inning or two, but you never know. So he probably just has to sleep constantly when he's not at the ballpark.

I guess that's not an issue now because the Poochie's lost. But yeah, it was early. Brios was looking good. And as we know, that's not always predictive of future results. But it seems to be quite a quick hook, like not even for the reason that you usually have a quick hook in the playoffs, which I think is often justified. Well, and I think that as so Ben Clemens rated the departing managers graded out their performances to the extent we're able to do those things. And I think he made the good point that if what you're trying to do is sort of bullpen your way through the back half of this game, it's really weird to go to Kikuchi when you have a good bullpen and you could have, in theory, used some of those guys again. If that's the rationale, we want to have a strong start from Burrios and then use our high leverage guys, even though some of them threw yesterday. You probably want Burrios to go longer. And since he hadn't really good. And then they went to some of their other better relievers. So you're not really saving what you mean to for game two. You're not getting the length that you need. You're sort of backed up in a corner because runs scored. I don't know. It's just like it left them in a really weird position and then they ended up losing. I mean, the reason they lost that game is because they couldn't score any runs, but this put them at a deficit. And you're right. We can't say for sure like, hey, Burrios would have continued to throw up scoreless innings. He's, you know, been inconsistent. He's been susceptible to

lefties. He had a nice bounce back season this year, but we know what meltdown Burrios looks like. But I don't think that this obviously put them ahead even from a matchup perspective. It felt like they had locked in on this idea, let's use Kikuchi out of the bullpen and let's do it against some lefties. And then they didn't really adjust for the reality of, hey, we can probably get another inning or two out of burrios him walking the leadoff guy isn't great but i don't think it was like indicative you know you can't say like oh we have to pull him right now it's definitely indicative of an impending meltdown so yeah i don't know it just didn't seem it seemed too cute and i think that the cash snell decision felt defensible to me. Who they went to seemed wrong, but I can see the good rationale for pulling him, but I don't think that that was what played out here.

like reliever usage but like we do know that kikuchi has like specific parameters he likes to put around his usage and i don't know how much that mattered in this instance but to go to a guy who has that kind of a routine i don't know like i'm sure he knew he was going to be used out of the bullpen in the playoffs just based on the wild card of it all and whatnot but like do you really bring him in with a guy on? Like, don't you want to, you know, I don't know. I just didn't feel, it felt ill-considered to me. And, you know, it's easy for us to say, like, of course it was a terrible choice because they gave up runs in that inning.

But even knowing that Barrios could have, like, melted down the next batter and then they would have been in a bad spot, like, it just still didn't feel like the right move there. So yeah, it's hard to know how much it matters, obviously, just because the Poochies didn't score anyway. Of course, who knows? Maybe if there'd been different decisions on the pitching side, somehow that would have

changed the offensive side. Or maybe they could have scored an extra innings if it was scoreless through then. Who knows? But it does kind of take away a little, like if it was scoreless through then. Who knows? But it does kind of take away a little, like if it's not that close a game or if you don't. That was a close game. But if you don't hit or score any runs at all, then it's kind of like, well, we probably weren't going to win this one anyway. But yeah.

Also, I don't know whether it matters. People talk a lot about the benefit of bringing in starters. If you're going to bring in a starter in relief in the playoffs that you want a clean inning, you know, that you want them to come in with the bases empty because they're not used to ever starting an inning with the runner on. Because if it's someone like Kikuchi who hasn't pitched in relief at all, all season, then you just like want it to be as close as possible to the typical conditions. And I don't know whether there's anything to it. I'm sure it varies by pitcher.

And Ben Clemens looked at that actually like four years ago. And at the time, he couldn't find any compelling evidence either way of an obvious effect, which he concluded didn't mean there wasn't one, but it just wasn't anything, any blinking, flashing sign that said, don't do it. But you hear that enough that maybe it bothers some guys at least. So it could be just a case by case, like asking your pitchers if they care about that. And maybe some don't at all, but that's another reason potentially why you might just want to go to your regular relievers. Like I guess it's early in the game.

And so it's the time when we would bring in maybe a starter instead of a late inning guy, typically. But if you're going to be asking someone to do something they don't normally do anyway, then you might as well just go with your high leverage bullpen guys at that point. And if you want to bring in Kikuchi maybe later with a clean inning, you could do that. But yeah, that was a little over aggressive. So I don't know if it ended up costing them or not, but that was the most obvious goof or at least perceived goof.

Yeah. Point of controversy. Yes, right. I did. It's funny how much we talk about left in too long like kevin cash arguably left in glass now too long yeah but but all we talk about in the playoffs is just like should have pulled him earlier should have pulled him later it just becomes such a focus that we rarely talk about with a regular season game because you don't

hyper focus on that on a game-to-game level, at least like on a national-level podcast. So suddenly the calendar flips over and it's postseason games, and that's all we just hyper-focus and scrutinize on when guys get pulled or don't. But it does matter potentially. There was one interesting thing I saw on the subject of Jordan Montgomery, because he's a lefty and teams will tend to stack their lineups against him and just put in as many righties as they can, which they'll generally do against lefties, but maybe even more than usual

against him. And there was a contention by Dan Plesak, former pitcher and now MLB Network commentator, who said that actually you shouldn't do that, that you shouldn't try to stack your entire lineup with righties against a lefty. Because if you do that, then they can just get in a groove that they're just facing a hitter from the same side every single time. facing a hitter from the same side every single time. So they never have to adjust righty-lefty, change up the pitch mix that they're using, their locations, et cetera. They can just have a similar game plan for each guy and not have to adjust anything. And he was contending that this would actually backfire.

And there actually is some evidence that that's the case. I don't know if it's conclusive, but it is at least convincing. So Tom Tangle looked at this on his site, and he broke it down by the number of lefties Jordan Montgomery faced in each of his starts this season. And it turns out that it's kind of counterintuitive. So he had 20 starts when he faced no lefties at all, faced 466 batters. His weighted on base allowed in those games was 302. Okay. And this is not just this season, actually.

This is, I guess, all of his starts. So 20 starts when he faced zero lefties. Woba allowed 302. 58 starts when he faced one lefty. Woba allowed 302. 58 starts when he faced one lefty. The Woba was 298. So this was, you know, these are the games where he's almost exclusively facing righties

and basically he's allowing a 300 Woba. Okay, when he faces two lefties, which you would think would be a good thing for him that he's facing more same-sided hitters, the Woba allowed goes way up to 321. Okay. So that supports what Plesak was saying. When he faces three lefties, the Woba goes up to 338. And then there were six games, I guess, where there were four lefties, which would sound great for him. And the Woba, again, was 326. So on the whole, in the games where he faces multiple left-handed hitters,

which would seem to be a good thing for him, he has done much worse. And it's not, interestingly, that the lefties he's facing do well. Because when I first saw this, I thought, well, it's probably just that if you are starting against him and you're a lefty, you're probably a great hitter. And that's why you're allowed to be in the lineup at all. But that's not it. So the lefties, so in the 78 games where he faced zero or one left-handed hitters. They had a 282 Woba, which is very low. When he faced at least two lefties, the lefties still sucked. In fact, they were even worse, 279 Woba. So he still does really well against the lefties, but the righties. So when there's only zero or one lefty in the lineup, then the righties have a 3010-1 WOBA, which is not very good. But

when there are at least two lefties, then the righties have a 3-4-4 WOBA. So they do way better when there are multiple lefties breaking up the righties. So Tango was saying that might suggest you should feed lefties to Montgomery as if you were feeding sheep to a wolf. And then he will be so preoccupied with like the switching from lefty to righty that meanwhile, the righties, they go from sheep into battering rams. They can be really good. It supports at least what Plesak was saying. And this is just a sample of one, but he said Randy Johnson, who was also someone where it was like, if you're a lefty, you're taking the day off. You know, you don't want to face him.

But same trend when he faced zero to two lefties, he allowed a 302 WOBA. And then in the games where he faced three or more lefties, there was a 3-10 Woba. And the same trend where the righties went from 3-04 to 3-29. So that's interesting. I don't know if I buy it, but it is interesting. At least it's something to think about in these Montgomery games. It is. And it would have been nice for the Rays to be able to take advantage of that if they had any good lefties to put in his way, right? This was part of their problem. Like, I mean, there were so many problems. But you think about their, you know, they just don't right now have good left-handed or even really switch hitters because Franco's on administrative leave, obviously. And then, you know, Rayleigh is hurt and, oh no, I've lost my confidence. Low or low?

It's low. Brandon low. Yeah. I was like, I'm normally so sure, but I just wasn't, I lost my confidence entirely. But anyway, But I just wasn't, I lost my confidence entirely. But anyway, Rayleigh is hurt, Lau is hurt. And so you're just kind of, and you know, then be great. I guess. And like Walsh hits switch. But like they were always going to go righty heavy there, I think, because in addition to whether they believe this theory, like they just don't have. I mean, I guess Rhymel Tapia is like the definition of a left-handed sacrificial lamb in this analogy but you know i i think that the derision you would receive from starting rhyme ultapia in like a three-game series against a lefty would be you know i would i would understand that ire i would yeah it would be tough for a for a manager because all the fans would be

like what the heck and then you'd have to be like well actually having a bad lefty in there makes all the righties better i swear i swear and like i don't yeah like i i think that if it came to that for me i would just be like just put the better hitter in there what are we doing like yeah well well there is a confounding factor here which we should mention because we would get emails otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if we've already gotten an email from someone who jumped the gun and emailed us about this already before the end of this little discussion. But the confounding factor is that if you are stacking your lineup with righties against one of these guys, then probably your A lineup, your regular everyday starting lineup is not entirely right-handed in the Rays case. Maybe close, but for most teams. And so if you're putting in extra righties to stack the deck against the

pitcher, then you are probably bringing down the level of the righty who is starting in that game. You know, you're probably reaching into your bench and saying, this guy would not normally be in the lineup. But we want to get the platoon advantage here and start as many righties against as lefty as we can. And so you're getting a lower caliber of right-handed hitter there. But I don't know that that can explain. This seems very large so tango was at least very skeptical that that that could explain how large this gap is so so maybe larry

walker and john crock just should have sent been sent out there to face randy johnson in order to just as sacrifices to as tribute to make all the ratings better i don't know i'd like to i'd like to see this with an even bigger sample with with more pictures than just two but but it is a really it's really interesting it's interesting for sure this is why you know it is advantageous to have former players talking about baseball at least in some ways and some former players right because they will bring up something like that that i might not think of or I might be very skeptical about. And then sometimes you check it and it's like, huh, they might be onto something here. Because I could see how you settle into a groove, you know, at least like with the pitches that you're throwing and where you're throwing them.

You know, maybe that would actually make you more effective with those pitches. Maybe that would actually make you more effective with those pitches. Yeah, I think that we are perhaps overly skeptical of the former player insight because some of the former players who are most keen to offer their insights have often been wrong. But that doesn't mean that they're always wrong. It might just mean that some of them are loud and wrong. And, you know, that's not the same thing. So, and I often find that even when we are engaged in analysis, like, you know, John Smoltz says something on a playoff broadcast is like a very stable genre of post at FanCraft, particularly in the playoffs and i am often struck when we have that happen where like smolts will say something and invariably like i will message ben or ben will message me and be like hey do you want to write about that like is that real you know like davy's

done some of these too but i am often struck in the process of editing those pieces where like there will be some kernel of something in there even even smolts who is maybe the or example of loud and there will be some insight there will be something that he's thinking of and maybe he doesn't express it well or it doesn't you know it's not as big an effect as he thinks or it's not a reliable you know effect but there's there's stuff there and hey it gives us stuff to write about. So what are you going to do? Yeah, I would say Smoltz is not the most wrong. He's just the crankiest, right?

Like there have probably been former player broadcasters who were less insightful and were more often incorrect about things, but didn't maybe express themselves in such a, you know, kids these days get off my lawn kind of way consistently. And so that makes people less receptive to the message. Yeah. And I'm not saying I find Smoltz super compelling just as a broadcaster. Aside from that, I would put up with the attitude if he were just like blowing my mind about just the wisdom and the insight. But, you know, like sometimes he does have intelligent things to say about baseball, obviously. He certainly knows a lot about baseball.

But it's just, yeah, the way that he expresses those things sometimes can be a bit of a turnoff. Yeah, yeah. The delivery could use some work, you know. Yeah, which is probably a good segue into something else that we wanted to talk about. I'll just say, so the matchups in the Division Series,

we've got the Twins against the Astros, and we've got the Rangers against the Orioles, and then we have the Diamondbacks against the Dodgers, Phillies against the Braves, the higher-seeded teams being the Astros, the Oribacks against the Dodgers, Phillies against the Braves, the higher-seeded teams being the Astros, the Orioles, the Dodgers, and the Braves. So, as you said, we've got another off day,

so we can talk about this maybe more in depth next time. But, yeah, I'm excited, I think, for Phillies, Braves, for all the reasons that you cited before. Division rivals is, I guess division rivals in one sense, you see more of that during the regular season. And so it might be a little less exciting. Now we have like a little less unbalanced schedule than we used to, but still, you know, it's good because there's history between the teams and maybe sometimes there's bad blood or at least there's a past there. Yeah, there's juice.

Yeah, but then it's also a little less new. So that's the case for both of the NL series because they're both same division series. You know, I kind of prefer, I guess, to see teams that do not face each other quite as often or just are not battling down the stretch all season long. You know, like if we were seeing Astros-Rangers instead, that might be good because on the one hand, they just tied in the division. They fought to a standstill. So that would maybe give it some extra juice. Then again, we've seen a lot of those two teams playing each other lately. So I don't know. It could go either way.

But I'm excited for Rangers-Orioles, I think, especially just because we haven't seen those teams in the playoffs in a bit. And not only are they back for the first time in a while, but they've gotten there in pretty different ways. back for the first time in a while, but they've gotten there in pretty different ways, right? Like the Orioles tanked and then built up this incredible team of young talent. And the Rangers were bad for a while, but didn't outright tank the way that the Orioles did. And then they came back and they spent a ton to kind of vault themselves back to contention and accelerate the rebuild. So different ways to get to the same destination in this series. So I think that one especially, and just

so many good young players, obviously all the Orioles guys, but then like Evan Carter, who had a good wildcard series. Yeah, I'm psyched for that one. Yeah'm very excited i know that i think you're right that like sometimes those division in division playoff matchups can be kind of ho-hum but i think that they often have like a they have a charge to them even if there's not animosity between the clubs like i don't think that you need that so much but it is is a, I don't know, it adds a different layer to it that I think is pretty exciting. And it's, you know, it's fun that we have, we have like a good, I don't know, we do have returning stalwarts, obviously, but we have some folks who, and teams we haven't seen in the division series in quite a while. So I'm excited. I feel like it's a nice balance. I'm,

I'm stoked for this. It's going to be good. So what I was just about to segue to is we said last time that we were done with the Mariners for a while. I made a – I was – and I meant it. I want our listeners to know that I was serious. I was prepared to not talk about the Mariners for at least another month. You know, I was – I had put them on a little shelf in my mind. And I thought, done now. And then the monkey's paw curled. Yeah, well, this will, I think, have some bearing on all teams, just teams in general.

And also we backloaded it. So we talked about the playoffs first in case you're sick of Mariners discussion. But this is just a response to Jerry DePoto's comments, right? So Jerry DePoto, Pobo of the Mariners, is that his title? I forget. But he said some stuff that pissed people off, especially Mariners fans. So here's what he said. And I guess this was in response to questions about whether the Mariners would spend and Kyle Raleigh's comments about how they should spend and they should go get some big name guys to put this team over the top. Yeah. And Jerry said.

If you go back and you look in a decade, those teams that win 54% of the time always wind up in the postseason, and they more often than not wind up in World Series. So there's your bigger picture process. Nobody wants to hear the goal this year is we're going to win 54% of the time. Because sometimes 54% is one year you're going to win 60%, another year you're going to win 50%. It's whatever it is. But over time, that type of mindset gets you there. If what you're doing is focusing year to year on what do we have to do to win the World Series this year,

you might be one of the teams that's laying in the mud and can't get up for another decade. So we're actually doing the fan base a favor and asking for their patience to win the World Series while we continue to build a sustainably good roster. Oh boy. Tongue in cheek, foot in mouth. You know, what's the difference between those two things? So, okay. So I think that we should separate the issues with what DePoto said into two categories, because I think that there's the piece of it that is like hey dude your baseball team just got bounced the final weekend of the year and isn't playing even a wild card

series when it had the opportunity to win the division and how is this sentiment going to resonate with a frustrated and disappointed fan base, right? So there's the like, I don't want to reduce it to PR because I think an important part of the pobo or, you know, whatever the top person in charge's role is to not only help the fan base understand the decisions of the club, but also motivate them, inspire them to remain invested in a franchise and keep giving that franchise their treasure, you know, their time, their money, their emotional investment. So, like, there's that sort of category of failure here. And then I think there's like the vision for the franchise failure. And we should talk about both things because, you know,

I heard these comments from DePoto and my first thought was like, Jerry, have you ever talked to a fan? Like even one time? Because he's right. Fans don't want to hear that the goal is 54%. I know. He should have taken his own advice. He was like, no one wants to hear this. It's like, don't say it then.

You had the thought, my guy. Fans don't want to hear 54%. They want to hear, we are doing everything we possibly can to bring a World Series to Seattle. We're doing everything we can to bring a World Series appearance to Seattle. Right. Like, often my issues with the way that Jerry DiPoto positions the franchise he runs is that, like, it feels like he doesn't have an appropriate understanding or sense of, like, the gravity that the failure this club has had over its life has with the people who root for it, right? Getting to the World Series, even when you're a really good baseball team, is really

hard. There's so much randomness in the course of a playoff run. Stuff happens during the regular season. Guys who you were counting on get hurt or they underperform. I think that fans in moments when they can kind of sit down and look at it with clear eyes, understand the difficulty of the project. But also this isn't, you know, the Cubs trying to win a world series. This isn't the Red Sox trying to break a curse. Seattle's never been there. It's not like I haven't seen it in my lifetime. No one in my family has seen it in the franchise's lifetime. That's what we're talking about here. You know, like they just got a two-decade-long playoff drought off their back.

And I wonder if he thinks, oh, well, we got them back to the playoffs. We got them a home playoff game. So surely, you know, the clock has reset, and they're going to be happy now. It's like, no, no, JerBear. Like, those guys haven't played in the frickin' World Series, let alone win one. It's never happened.

The Diamondbacks,backs, you know? Yeah. Like, what are the expansion teams have been there? What are we doing? So there's that piece of it. between giving fans the sort of behind the scenes candid insight into what the team is doing while sort of marrying those realities with the desire to like pump people up and get them excited you know and you don't want to lie and you don't want to sound disingenuous and like that can be a problem for depoto and so i get that this is part of the

the difficulty of it but also this is a big part of your job you're the public face of this front office and what it sounded like to me was the audience for that set of comments wasn't the fan base at all it was was ownership. This sounded to me like a man saying, I'm going to guarantee my job security for the next 10 years. I'm going to get this fan base excited for 2024 and the nine years that come after. So that sucks. Yeah. It can be tough to tell sometimes whether the front office is just doing ownership's bidding and is like, well, this is the budget I was given, so this is what I have to do. Or whether they're not really pushing for more of a budget and they're like, actually, this is what we think we should do. And then I guess the question is like, who's the audience?

And yeah, is he speaking to ownership here or is he making a case to the fans? I would say my problem with what he said was much more about how he said it than the underlying truth of what he said. Although I think you can kind of quibble with that, too, because, well, you have some stats on this. Right. And I have some stats to share on this, too, of just like what it actually means to have a 54% winning percentage over a decade, right? Because that doesn't sound impressive in a single season. It's not really. That's, you know, 87 wins, right? It's 87 wins. Yeah. 87.5. You can't get a 0.5. But yeah, that's not good. That's like, we'll win a wildcard. That makes it sound like you are aiming for wildcards and you're not even like trying to build a team to potentially like be a favorite to win a division, right? acknowledge like 54% over the decade, sometimes that means you win 60%. It fluctuates, right? And so it is actually very hard to win 54% over a decade. Like it's rare and it means that you are very good and that you will have a lot of success probably in the post-season over that

time. So I don't know if you want to share what stats you have first or if I should, or they're probably pretty similar. They're pretty similar. I mean, like, I think that the entry point that I have for this is to think about the clubs that have over the last 10 years, won 54% of their games or more. And I think the or more is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting for me here. I want to thank Ben Clemens for like pulling this stuff from the database so I didn't have to do it by hand because that sounded time consuming. So by Ben's numbers, the clubs that have over the last decade won 54% of their games or more. And we're going to talk about the or more are, and I'm curious if your numbers match here. So that would be the Cardinals, the Guardians,

the Yankees, the Astros, and the Dodgers, right? So five teams, not very many teams. The Cardinals in that stretch have won 54.22% of their games. Guardians, 54.68%. The Yankees have won 56% of their games and change. The Astros, 57%. The Dodgers, 61%. And there are fractions after that. But I guess, like, it is very hard. I think that, you know, if you are winning, if you're averaging 88 wins a season,

give or take, over a 10 10 year stretch, like that is suggestive of a club that is really, really solid, doesn't have long periods of rebuilding, is at least in it every year, and is probably, you know, as much as they are averaging 88 wins a season, having seasons where they are exceeding that win percentage pretty comfortably. I think that the piece of this that I really take exception with, I think the part of it that shows a, to my mind, lack of vision, is that if you ask the Dodgers or the Astros or the Yankees or even the Cardinals, the Guardians do contend with the AL Central. And while I said the Twins are like not just an AL Central mirage, like often the club that

emerges from there is just squeaking by because that's all they have to do. They're not just trying to win 88 games a season. They are aspiring to dramatically more than that. And they are. to dramatically more than that. And I think that's where the rub is with what DePoto said. If what you are optimizing for is sort of an 88 win area, it's not going to cut it all the time. It's putting you in a position

where your season is coming down to the final weekend, where you have very narrow margins where you are inducing agita your fan base and your players and your front office where you are not aspiring toward a division win and a buy and i granted that you know this exists this particular playoff structure has not been around for the entire decade that depoto is you know talking about or that the that these stats are from so like let's acknowledge that but you gotta aspire to more than that and give yourself margin and i think the idea for him for him to say you know we're gonna shoot for you know 54 over you know

consistently over a decade sounds, when you think about how hard it is to be that good a team, that consistently a good thing. But when he is deploying that argument in defense of not spending the way that other teams, not only across baseball, but in his division have spent,

it doesn't feel like we're trying to be the Dodgers. It feels like we're trying to be the Guardians. And those are very different baseball experiences for your fans. And they're very different potential outcomes for your club. You know, when you look at the Dodgers and the Astros and the Yankees and even the Cardinals, they are spending more money generally than the Mariners are. Now, you could argue that some of those clubs, like particularly Houston, maybe could spend more, but they're spending more. If you want to be the Dodgers, if you want to aspire to what we think of as one of the best run teams, you know, they have years where they intentionally

dip below the competitive balance tax, but they do that with the purpose of spending big in future seasons on guys they think are going to help their club win. And when you are optimizing for 54%, and again, maybe that's not a totally generous read of what he's saying, but if you are optimizing for that, if you're not willing to spend in free agency, you have to be really, really good at the other stuff. And you just reduce your margins. You reduce your margin for error. And Seattle has proven that they are good at player development. In some areas, they are very, very good. But you are putting yourself in a position where the primary modes of sort of player acquisition that you have are internal development or trades. And if the internal development doesn't work and all you have is the trade market, you're putting yourself in a position

where you might end up overpaying pretty regularly because all you can do is trade. So like, Jerry, go talk to John Stanton and convince that man to invest more money in his baseball team because that's your project now. Because this isn't going to cut it in the West. 88 wins isn't going to work in the West.

And I know that the division was just won with a 90-win season by the Astros. But Texas is getting better, and Houston has an owner who thinks he's a GM, so they're probably going to keep spending too. So, like, I get the broader sentiment here. I do. But I think that focusing on sort of the generality of what does a sustainable club look like over a 10-year stretch loses sight of their specific project, which is winning the AL West. And if you think 88 wins is going to cut it in the West, I think you're wrong. And I think you're resigning yourself to maybe wildcard status. And

that sucks. You have Julio Rodriguez on your team. He is young and exciting and very good. Go put that young man in the World Series. What are we doing? Yeah. I think it is in some ways a very ambitious goal, but it maybe depends on your mindset because if you're thinking, I just want to be 540, I just want to be an 87, 88 win team, then you're probably going to fall short of that a good amount of the time. Now, if you're, if you're thinking, I know I have to shoot much higher than that in order to actually get there over that decade because I know that some years guys are going to get hurt and guys are going to underperform. So, really, I have to be aiming for something higher than 540 and then hopefully I will hit 540 over that time. Then maybe that could still be ambitious and not sort of lower your ceiling necessarily.

But if you're thinking of it as like, yeah, we just want to win 88 every year, you kind of have to aim to win more than that. And then when things go wrong, maybe that'll be the floor for you, as opposed to like, this is all that could happen. Even if you aimed for 87, you'd still have some years where everything went right and you'd win more than that. But you have to aim higher in order to actually hit that goal. So I have some stats here. So there was a deep dive that was done in our Patreon Discord group by one of our listeners and supporters,

Logan Davis, who is a Mariners fan and has written for Lookout Landing. And he was not a fan of the comments either, but he wanted to look into just what it means historically. So he looked like all the way back, he went back in the divisional era since 1969, and he found that winning 54% of your games for a decade is actually very hard. It's happened 29 times over that span. 26 of the 29 went to a that he said it in the worst possible way. Now, he said, if you kind of compare apples to apples, so in the 199 time spans where a team won 54% or more of its games over a span of 10 seasons, yeah, they reached at least one World Series 83% of the time,

won 161% of the time. No one has ever won 57 percent or more of their games over a decade and not won a World Series. Only five teams have even done 58 percent or more over a decade. The 70s Orioles, the Big Red Machine, the 90s Braves, the Jeter Yankees, and the modern Dodgers. Sixteen% of team decades in the divisional era ended with a winning percentage over 540. So he could have said, we want to be a top five team for the next decade because that's basically what it means. And as you said, there have been five teams over the past decade.

So that would have been better. So 55% of your games, that makes you a top three team. 56% makes you a top two team. 57% makes you the best team. If you go 540 or better for a decade, I said the World Series stats, no team has, I said, ever averaged 570 or better without reaching the World Series. said, average 570 or better without reaching the World Series. There's not really an inflection point exactly where if you're that good, that's enough. I was wondering if he said 540 because that's like where the Mariners were this year and also where that's just good enough, but not really. And it looks like if anything, it's like a 530 winning percentage might be kind of an inflection point. And once you're that good, then you tend to have pretty good results. But just a couple last notes. One is that when you are a team that stayed over 540 for a decade, a lot of the teams that did that, of the few that did, did it for even longer than that.

Like the Yankees have been over 540 for every 10-year span since 1990 to 99. So there have been some 10-year spans in there where they didn't win a World Series like the current one, but they won multiple World Series during the overall stretch of 1990 to now. So if you think about it as being all the teams that stayed over 540 for a decade or longer, then the number of teams that made a World Series, I guess, or won one. It goes up even higher from 83% to 90 of at least winning a pennant. So as a rule of thumb, for every 1% of your games you win in a decade, every additional 1%, your odds of making and winning the World Series in that decade each goes up 7%. So at 540, you'd expect a 78% chance of making it and greater than 50% chance

to win. And I guess the actual results have been higher than that because of what he just said about teams that lasted even longer. So going from 540 to 550, that's the first window where you're more likely than not to win the World Series. But one interesting, not so fun fact, I guess, for Mariners fans, but probably in the minds of Mariners fans when he said this, is that of the 29 times that a franchise has stayed over 540 for a decade or more since 1969, only three have missed the World Series entirely. One was the Moneyball A's from 96 to 2010. One was the Joe Maurer Twins from 2001 to 2010. And of course, those are both teams that were kind of notorious for not winning in the playoffs for parts of those times.

And then the Griffey, A-Rod, Randy Johnson, Edgar, Ichiro Mariners from 93 to 2004. So Mariners fans have experienced having a team that good in the regular season over that time and that still not being good enough. I also think that there's like, so there's the, like, you're right that if we take it at face value and we interpret it generously, like, it does suggest some amount of ambition. But I think that I have two further thoughts. The first is that this is where what Jerry has said publicly and then either not done or failed to follow through on comes back to bite him. either not done or failed to follow through on comes back to bite him where i think because he has said you know we intend to spend and they they didn't really the fan base is going to adopt

an automatically skeptical posture toward anything that you put forth so even if he had managed to express this idea with greater tact even if he hadn't said that you're doing fans a favor, I still think that there would be a skepticism about what he really means. And that is born by, you know, from his own prior statements. And I've expressed sympathy for the idea that like, you know, I say a lot of stuff on this podcast, but I don't always remember all the things that I say. But when you say we're going to spend, and then you don't really like people do remember that, particularly when the scenario you're

describing as ideal does fit with the season that you just had that ended with you having a press conference that wasn't broadcast because other teams were playing playoff baseball and you weren't. Yeah. So there's that. There's like the reality of their own division. I think that people think of the Mets and the Padres as teams that spent really big and then didn't make October. And I think that that,

those are the clubs that he was alluding to in his comment, but it's hard for that to be top of mind when one of the other teams that spent really big just helped end your season as it ends in your division. And then I think, you know, there's the piece of this that I don't have a, I don't want to be overly sort of definitive about it because I don't know for sure how much it matters but Seattle has at times kind of struggled to attract

marquee free agents even when they've had a mind to spend and I do wonder how comments like this play you know I wonder how comments would like this play specifically with Otani, who just spent the early part of his, you know, major league career in an organization that couldn't get it done in terms of getting him to the postseason. And I don't know how sincerely Seattle is going to try to play in that market. But I imagine that this is something that he will have heard. And I imagine if I'm a rival executive and the bids are close, this would be something that I'd bring up to him. And he's not a, you know, I don't mean it like Otani is going to be like easily bamboozled. You know, he gets a compelling. After being with the Angels, he'd be like 540, sign me up.

Sounds great. Let's do that. He wins? My God. Right? But, like, you know, part of your project is they have so many little projects. And isn't that fun? I love to have a little project, Ben.

I'm never so happy as when I have a bunch of little projects I get to do. But, like, their first project is winning the West. And, you know, in support of that project, that broader, more important project, which is itself in support of the broader project of hopefully getting to and then winning the World Series, you know, DiPoto has to persuade ownership to give him the resources he needs to put a winning baseball team on the field. And part of that is going to be attracting free agents when it makes good roster sense. And I wonder how all of this plays, you know, when we're thinking about getting that kind of stuff done. The part of my fandom that has been rekindled, like, so enjoys so many of the guys on this team. And like I said last time, like, they seem like they have a nice

vibe. They got a good way about them. Julio is just like a joy. You know, I really, really like watching that pitching staff work. But this is a club that started like Sam Haggerty as they're starting DH in a must-win game. You know, they gave big playing time to like the shell of Colton Wong and Tommy LaStella. And, you know, it's just, they need to decide if they're serious, you know, and I think that the part of all of this that probably really unsettled people in Seattle the most is that they suspect and they have not been given good evidence to the contrary, that the project that Jerry DePoto views himself as advancing isn't winning the West. It's being around in the wildcard race. You know, that's what this feels like. And so I worry that they are in a bad way. And they're not the Angels. They're not, you know, in as bad a spot as some other clubs that had disappointing

seasons. I do think that they have a real demonstrated talent for developing pitching. I think that their most recent draft class is very exciting, but the urgency around this club in particular doing big stuff, I think, is arguably higher than most other clubs in baseball. And the way that their public-facing leader and top executive talks about it

doesn't make it seem like he understands that urgency at all. So that sucks. Yeah, it's, Evan Drellick always says that, like, when people marvel at the fact that someone said something they shouldn't have said, that they're always like, well, how could he say that, you know? And he's always like, isn't it better for us that they say the thing that they shouldn't have said, that they're always like, well, how could he say that? You know, like, and he's always like, isn't it better for us that they say the thing that they shouldn't have said so that we know what they actually think, as opposed to just, you

know, putting lipstick on the pig or just saying, having some PR crafted statement that is very innocuous sounding and just obscures what is actually going on behind the scenes, which I generally agree with. You know, it's you think like, how could he have said it so, so poorly? Because there are just so many ways that he could have phrased the same idea that wouldn't not really have been that offensive to people or certainly would not have garnered that kind of negative attention. And because of the way he phrased it and because of the doing the friend face a favor, that's just one, you know, but sometimes it is revealing. Now, again, like, I think there are things that are okay about this goal, depending on how they're framing it or thinking of it. So maybe this was partly, as you said, an issue with the actual philosophy and partly with just how it was expressed. I think sometimes though, because so many baseball executives just talk about

sustainability all the time, which can be boring to hear about. It's just, it doesn't get you so exciting. I think there's some virtue in aspiring to be good every year, you know, because it's true that like fans and players would not typically take the long view or at least a lot of them wouldn't, you know? They'd be like, give me all the good players right now. I want to be the best possible team I can be. And sometimes there is a trade-off.

Now, sometimes the sustainability is just sort of an excuse or it's just, this is the way that we're going to frame it because we're not going to spend actually in order to be that good right now. And so the whole concept of sustainability sort of presupposes that, well, we can't run a payroll of X every year. And so in order to continue to contend, in order to make this sustainable, then we have to build a team that will have a bunch of cheap young players so that we can be good without spending a lot. And so maybe you could just say, well, just spend a lot. Now, some owners won't do that. And that's just the reality. And so within that framework, I think there's something to be said for aiming to be good every year, even if that means that you might not be the best most years because the

playoffs are so random and just getting there really is actually pretty important. But sometimes it is just sort of an excuse or it's just a way to say we're cheap and not make it sound like that. But I agree with Evan that generally, like, I'd rather have people sort of step in it if they're actually expressing what they think and it's more revealing and it's a window into how they operate. He often says that about Rob Manfred, where we will marvel at, how could he say that? Like, didn't he know he was going to be asked about that? And could he have come? And Evan's always like, well, isn't it better for us that we know how he actually thinks? And Evan's always like, well, isn't it better for us that we know how he actually thinks?

Now, I think for reporters, it is. I think with Manfred, part of his job or just the actual reality of the job is that he is sort of a spokesperson for the sport. And so if he could be a better salesman for baseball, that might be good, even if it meant that he was kind of disguising what he said, like he'd be doing a better job, I think, as the commissioner, even if part of his job is just to make the owner's money. One way to do that might be by making baseball more popular. And perhaps if he sold it better, that would only help make it more popular. So I think with a commissioner, you're kind of in a PR role and a public facing role. And so you would want them to actually talk up the sport instead of make the sport sound worse sometimes, unless that's a means to an end. Like you got to talk about, hey, the games are too long in order to get a pitch clock imposed, let's say. So there could be a long-term purpose to that too. But yeah, I mean, like with the Mariners executive who got fired with Kevin Mather, right?

Kevin Mather, yeah. Like that's an example where it's like, well, you'd rather have him say it, you know, because yeah, it got him ousted. But at least like, you know, and you know how people like Kevin Mather are thinking, you know, that can be revealing. So yeah, you wonder how it happened, but, you know, that can be revealing. So, yeah, you wonder how it happens, but, you know, you wouldn't want everyone to always say something completely inoffensive if what they actually think and the way that they operate actually is kind of

offensive. Then you'd rather have them say something offensive so that everyone knows that that's the reality. Yeah, I think we've talked about this. Like, I largely agree with Evan. I think there's value, particularly in leaders of the sport revealing their truth thinking because it allows you to see where they're going, understand the true motivation for behavior that you might find distasteful and be able to, like, to the extent that it matters, you know, sort of make your counter arguments. And I think that, like, particularly for fans sort of make your counter arguments. And I think that like, particularly for fans, when it comes to executives of their favorite club, revealing like their sort of perspective on things and the real likely direction of the franchise, there is something

about that that I think is useful because like, you're not obligated to be a fan and I think that it's nice to be able to make a choice like am I gonna invest in this am I gonna spend my time and money on this thing does it still bring me joy and satisfaction am I getting something out of it so there's that part of it you know I just wish that the underlying sentiment were different. And we'll see. We'll see how this offseason goes for them. I would love nothing more than to, come the time when we kick off team previews, be able to look back and say, you know, Seattle made some really savvy moves.

They signed some guys that I think are really going to bolster this club. Like, I'm excited about Seattle Mariners baseball. That would be really great. And, like, that could happen, you know. So it's not like the door is closed on that, but the window we were offered into his thinking, I don't think is particularly encouraging on that score. So we'll see how it goes.

I know that he spoke to, he has a weekly radio appearance and he talked about being embarrassed that that stuff was said that way. And he was making an attempted humor with the, and it didn't land. And, you know, people have said, oh, you apologize. And I was like, he actually did not do that, at least based on what I've seen. But, you know, he clearly expressed regret at that sentiment being expressed the way that it was. And I think the question that, you know, he and the front office will have to answer and that fans will be looking for over the season is the course of the offseason is, is your regret about that sentiment being revealed or about it not being reflective of what you're really trying to do. And that's going to be their question to answer.

And it really stinks because there are so many people, and this is true of every baseball team with a bad owner. This is true of every baseball team. I think there are a lot of people who work for that club who want nothing more than to bring a World Series winner to Seattle. And I think that the players work really hard to make that as true as they can. And a lot of the ops folks and scouts

and player dev people, that's what they're there to do. And so I hope that their senior leadership and their owners meet that spirit and match it. Because I think that there are pieces of this club that are really cool and exciting. And there's some players that are so easy to get amped for. So, yeah. Yeah. If we talk 10 years from now and the Mariners just had a 540 decade, I would guess Mariners fans will be pleased at that point. But I would hope that at some point during that decade, like now, maybe they would aim above that, which is how you, it's like hitting any target in real life, right?

You have to aim above the target because gravity is going to pull the thing that you're shooting down a little bit. And I think that baseball teams work like that too. So. Okay, Katniss is that how aiming for stuff works yeah I think so not that I

not that I aim a whole lot I don't know I play games where I do that everybody was expecting me to pull a Hunger Games reference too yeah so I'm going to renew my pledge that I'm not going to talk about the Mariners again until the off season. And Jerry, don't make me a liar, sir.

Like, come on. We'll have to have one of those, those flip signs that says days since Meg talked about the Mariners and now we'll reset it to zero and we'll see. Reset it to zero. But I want to, I want it to be clear. I didn't want to have to do this. Okay. Like, look what you have to do this, okay? Like, look what you made me do, Jerry.

Yep. Well, we'll talk about them if they spend some money and sign some players, I'm sure. So that'll be a nice exception to you're not talking about the Mariners' vow. All right. Last thing I want to say is that I felt bad that we didn't mention the Brewers. And just condolences to Brewers fans because they went out early again. And it's been now, what, since 2018? I think that was the last time they actually won a series and advanced before they lost. And it's been over and over.

They just, the bats haven't shown up. And that was kind of true this time in the sense that they only scored five runs total over their two games. Except that this time, like, the offense was not that bad. It's like they didn't score, but they had a lot of guys on base. Like, their OPS for the series was 767, which is not that bad. And that's actually one point below the Diamondbacks, the victorious Diamondbacks, where it's 768. The Brewers hit 309 with a 385 on base and not much power, 382 slugging, but they just, they kept failing to convert those

opportunities and base runners. And so they failed to score again. It's like we always say, you need that short sequence offense in the postseason. That's why the more homer reliant teams do tend to do a bit better. And Mark Canna of the Brewers said the same thing. He said, you have to slug. You have to get on base in a three-game series. You got to do it, and you got to do it in a short window. That's the formula. And the Brewers got out-tingered by the Diamondbacks 4-1. So that sucks for them. But excited for Diamondbacks fans and getting to see more Corbin Carroll. And I think we should say, before things started to kind of

come undone, boy, Freddie Peralta was pitching great. Really pitching great. He might not have been pitching if Woodruff was healthy, I guess. But yeah. Oh, and also I got two results from Effectively

Wild scorekeeper John Chenier, which are now updated on our spreadsheet. Oh, and by the way, thanks to Logan for all those Mariners stats earlier. I will link to the spreadsheet that he sent me as well. But the Effectively Wild drafts and competitions spreadsheet. So I guess I'll give you the one that's still very much in progress. First, just the first indication here.

much in progress. First, just the first indication here, we remember did a draft of 25 players under 25 or wait, it wasn't actually 25. I guess it was 26. We each drafted 13 maybe. Oh yeah. There was like great controversy about that. I felt very stressed for a moment. Right. Yeah. So that was on June 9th and it was just Fangraph's War over the next 10 years. So we've only seen half a season of that period yet. And so far it's close, I guess, as you'd expect. Now, the initial response was that you crushed me in that draft, right? The listeners agreed that you had the better draft. And in fact, I agreed that you had the better draft. And in fact, I agreed

that you had the better draft. You were like really decisive about it in a way that made me nervous. Yeah. So far, I'm holding my own though here. So I'm at 25.8 Fangrass War from my guys

and you're at 22. So I've got a lead, a slim, slim lead. But we've got a lead a slim lead but we've got many more years to go Ben I'm going to be honest with you I don't remember even one single player who I drafted in that well I have bad news for you which is that

Wander Franco was your first round pick oh was he really? Yikes I mean we didn't know no of course not but that's gonna that's put a crimp in your war accrual. Yeah, how about that? Especially if he does not return. You did get Julio, so that's something.

I did get Julio. Okay, I remember getting Julio. That's right. Yeah. And the more exciting result, the final result, the result you have been anticipating for some time, I believe, is the minor league free agent draft result. You won. Yes, you did. Oh free agent draft result. You won. Yes, you did. Oh, I'm so excited.

Yeah. So our annual draft of minor league free agents where we just draft minor league free agents we think will actually get some playing time. And then it's just plate appearances and batters faced. And whoever gets the most combined playing time with our draftees wins. And you won. And whoever gets the most combined playing time with our draftees wins. And you won. You got, it looks to me like this was not a strong year collectively for all of us. We drafted with Ben Clemens and we've definitely had better years as a group. But you had the best year.

You got 504 combined plate appearances and batters faced. Actually all from, oh, you got four guys. So four guys. Your big ones were Brent Honeywell. Brent Honeywell. Yeah, that was a big one, 235. And then Blake Perkins, 168. And then Hobie Harris.

Hobie. Hobie Harris got you 91. And Cole Tucker got 10. Yeah. So 504. I came in second with 352, which was all from three guys, mostly Pablo Reyes and Angel Perdomo and Travis Blankenhorn gave me some too. And then Ben Clemens, a close third with 320, although he actually had the highest hit rate. He didn't really have extra base hits.

They were just all singles. But he went five for ten. Half of his guys made it. So that's impressive in a way. So he had Justin Garza, Franmil Reyes, Jake Marisnyk, Derek Hill, and Zach Muckenhurn, one of my favorite names. Muckenhurn. Yeah. And we all beat the control group, the random selection, which got a total of 30.

It had Weston Wilson and Kevin Padlow. So nice to know that we beat the random. At least we can be better than that. I feel so happy, Ben. than that. I feel so happy, Ben. I feel what a nice, what a nice note to end on after I got very animated about the Mariners against my will. I am so pleased. And I think that like the, the Hobie, I know he wasn't my biggest contributor, but like, I, I think given some of our, um, Hobie fascination as a name that he was maybe the patron saint of my minor league for Asian draft. Yeah. Yeah. And you didn't do a lot of prep this time, right?

I did very little. You were nervous about. Yeah. And yet you won. You had your breakthrough. So the question is, with the upcoming draft, will you stick with what worked, which was no work? Or will you say that was a fluke? I should actually go back to prepping a lot. I got lucky. To be clear, it wasn't that I did no work. It was mostly that I did less work relative to the great amount of work that I typically do, which has not always resulted in winning, as we know. But I was a little more

rough and tumble this time out. And I don't know. I don't know what it's going to do for my approach. Maybe I'll just stick. I don't know what it's going to do for my approach. Maybe I'll just stick with Hobies if they're available. I'm just happy we both beat Ben because he came in as the rookie and crushed us last year, if you recall. So sophomore slump for Ben Clemens, I guess. He did fine. He did almost as well as I did, but our honor is restored. So we'll start prepping for next year's draft or coming up at the end of this year. Already excited, but congrats. Congrats on your win. Thank you. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening. And just a bit of news that

broke after we recorded Billy Epler, the Mets GM stepped down, resigned. Seemingly not because David Stearns was hired above him as his boss. I think he knew when he took the job that Steve Cohen would want a pobo at some point. But it was reportedly prompted by the fact that MLB is investigating the Mets and Epler for improper injured list usage, possibly phantom IL placements of players who weren't actually hurt. That does go on, but I'm sure we will get details at some point about whether whatever the Mets may have been doing was particularly egregious. For now, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon

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You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode before the end of the week and before the Division series starts. So we will talk to you soon. Upstairs, that's inventory They both mean a lot to me That's why I love baseball Special cases, preview series Pitching is pure poetry That's why I love baseball

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