Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2071: Hello Randomness, My Old Friend

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Diamondbacks’ victory and the Dodgers’ defeat, more musings on playoff randomness, Bryce Harper, Orlando Arcia, and the silliest sports/sports-media controversy of the year, the Astros advancing to the ALCS again (at the Twins’ expense), the all-Texas ALCS, and more. Audio intro: Justin Peters, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Andy […]

Hello and This is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2071 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. fan crafts hello meg hello well you were present at the dodgers demise so give us a report from the scene of the dodgers demise or the diamondbacks sweep dust mop whatever we're calling it yeah i mean like look we got to talk about the dodgers of it all you know the discourse demands its answer ben but we should not i i think lose sight of what the Diamondbacks were able to achieve here. Because that's pretty cool.

But maybe we can start with the Dodgers. Because we're going to be talking about them a little bit less in the coming weeks. Because, as you noted, they have been swept on out of the postseason. With a showing that I think they would agree was not their best. Some of their players used words like embarrassing to describe it. Not the most unfamiliar sensation for them to exit the playoffs in this way, but this was particularly a rude awakening, I suppose. and I'm about to do the same, is focused on the starting pitching and what it was able to muster or not really, as the case may be, not only in this start by Lance Lynn, but in their earlier

starts that we already discussed. And that has, I think, a big place in this conversation. I think a big place in this conversation. Dodgers starters only managed 4.2 innings of work in this series. They had a 25.07 ERA as a trio. The bullpen actually performed pretty well, all things considered. As we think back to the areas that we highlighted before this series began, here I was being like, who is even, who is a Dodgers reliever, really? You know, who even are those guys? And they might have come out on the winning end of this by being largely anonymous and by, you know, performing a good bit better than their starter peers.

Yeah. In retrospect, should have just gone bullpen games all the way. Would have been much better. But the offense is its own story. And I think given what they were able to do during the regular season, quite a bit more surprising. Even when you think about the quality that the Diamondbacks were able to put forth

in their own starters, particularly in the form of Kelly and Gallin. So, you know, this was an offense that had the second most home runs and the second highest WOBA in baseball this year. They had the third best WRC plus in the majors. They scored 41 fewer runs than the Braves, and we've talked a lot about how fantastic that Braves offense has been, but they, as a group and here,

I was able to deploy our handy dandy postseason leaderboards to aid in my, in my calculations, which was so nice, but you know, they hit one 77 to 48 to 50. Um, you know, they had a 40 WRC+.

I'm sure that our Dodger fan listeners are tired of hearing about this, but Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman went one for 21 this postseason. And the only hit that they managed was an infield single by Freeman. So, you know, it was a pretty resounding defeat on their part. Again, aspects of that are maybe more surprising than others given what they had to work with. But that was

sort of the base state of things. And then, you know, it wouldn't be a Dodgers postseason run if we didn't have at least a little bit of, hey, Dave, what you doing? You know, what you doing? And some, you know, to set the stage for folks who decided to luxuriate in, I guess, Philly's Braves highlights yesterday instead of watch this game, you know, it was a packed house at Chase. I have, you know, attended games there a fair amount in the last couple of years. And one frequent feature that bothers D-backs fans and in sort of the same way that like Mariners fans get frustrated

with the Blue Jays contingent is that like generally when when the Dodgers roll through like their their fans are present you know and some of that has to do with them traveling well and some of that has to do with just how many transplants there are in the valley uh from california but there's a lot of there's a lot of red last night ben um it was loud it was a sellout crowd there were people sitting in seats that i have only seen occupied in person one other time and on tv mostly just in their last wildcard effort back in 17. So big, raucous crowd, really ready to explode, ready to get the beat LA chance going in earnest. And the third inning afforded them plenty of opportunity for that

because the Diamondbacks became the this this is one of those stats that doesn't feel like it's real then it doesn't feel like a real stat but they became the first postseason team to hit four home runs in an inning that seems wrong but it is a truth true fact and so you know, you have Lance Lynn out there. He's their game three starter. And Geraldo Perdomo, number nine hitter, who had had six home runs the entire season, he leads things off with a home run.

And then, you know, then you get Corbin Carroll to ground out. And you're like, oh, maybe it'll be okay. And then, Kjell Marte hits a solo shot, a far more emphatic solo shot than the one Perdomo managed. And you're like, that was loud off the bat. But then, you know, Tommy Pham grounded out, and you're like, okay, so now we got two outs. Lynn was only at 38 pitches at this point.

And there are all of these righties coming up in the D-backs lineup, really until you get down to Alex Thomas. Alex Thomas, rather. And then Christian Walker hit a home run. And then Gabriel Moreno effectively hit two home runs because he hooked one just foul down the right field line. It was eventually reviewed as a foul ball. And then on the very first pitch hit another home run and all of that would be damaging enough. But

I was sitting in the press box and the way that the press box is situated in chase, it is a little bit hard to see, to get a good line of sight down into the visiting bullpen. And so I was texting people in the Oxbox and then also watching on TV like, hey, when did you see Caleb Ferguson get up and start getting warm? I went back and watched it on the broadcast when I got home.

And you can like, you know when relievers start to do the like flappy arms thing, like I gotta get loose, so I'm doing my flappy arms thing, but I'm not throwing. Like that happened during Christian Walker's at bat. And Caleb Ferguson did not start getting like really warm until,

you know, two pitches into Moreno's at bat. And one could argue, and many have that this was too long, you know, that the Lance Lynn being in enough to give up four home runs without really an intervention from the coaching staff. You know, the pitching coach didn't go out there. Jeff Roberts didn't go out there. Suggests like a, and I made this point in my writing about the game, like a lack of urgency that was a little perplexing given the realities of a must-win game three. Like Roberts after the game said, and here I'm quoting him, you've got two outs and a low pitch count and you figure that this run of right-handed hitters, you've got to be able to navigate it somewhat with two outs, nobody on base. Then two homers later, you're down 4-0. I had some guys ready. Obviously, I can't predict

the future. I try not to be reactionary and get ahead of things. I just can't predict the future the way he was throwing the ball. I didn't expect that. And I think that there's like a logic to that answer that makes a certain amount of sense in much the same way that, you know, when he was asked later in the game, like why we hadn't seen Ryan Pepeo, like why, why would that be true in this must win game? And And he told Lauren Shahadi that, like, I have to, if I'm going to get through this series, I have to think past game three. And, you know, Pepe was a bulk guy. Clayton Kershaw hasn't gone deep.

Even if you set aside his game, like his disastrous game one, like, you know, we know where he is as a pitcher right now. It's probably not a bad idea to have someone around to backstop him, but also you got to win game three to get there, right? Like it just feels like at a certain point, the stakes of the moment have to take center stage and you may very well end up in a bad spot in game four as, as a result of how you have to manage um to get out of game three with a win but if you don't there's no game four anyway so like live for today sir you know get get him up get bring him in you know and and i'm not saying like peppy out specifically but for lynn to be

out there as long as he did seemed seemed like a not great idea especially considering how hard the contact was that he was giving up. But I got to tell you, Ben, the folks at Chase, they were very excited. I'm sure. I would hope so. They were quite loud and very stoked. The Dodger faithful who did show up had a couple of moments in this game. I can stop talking and let you say some words, and then we can maybe talk about some of the pinch hitting decisions if you want to. But it wasn't as if there weren't

opportunities for the Dodgers later, but they did not fully capitalize on those. And now the Diamondbacks are going to the NLCS for the first time since 2007. I think Magic Johnson tweeted it best when he said, we're all disappointed that our Dodgers didn't hit or pitch well. That's why we lost the series to the Diamondbacks, which is extremely simple, but doesn't differ that much from my analysis. Yes, we can critique Roberts, but they really didn't hit or pitch well. It would have been tough. I mean, maybe you could have survived for another day and then you never know. Those players are too good to keep being bad,

but they just really lost that series. I don't want to say the Diamondbacks didn't win that series. They did. They were keeping the Dodgers down, But gosh, the Dodgers didn't seem to make it that hard, right? I mean, their starters were so ineffective that the Diamondbacks had early leads. And then the Dodgers didn't really threaten. You mentioned the 2017 wildcard game. The good news for the 2023 Dodgers, and I was just consulting the Fangraphs postseason leaderboards as well, to look for the highest starting pitcher ERA by a postseason staff. And the Dodgers are second, and they are spared the indignity of being first by the 2017 Rockies, who started John Gray in that game, and he gave up four runs in a third, which is a 27 ERA.

The Dodgers, a mere 25.07 ERA. However, that's in three games. So I think that's worse, we could say. And obviously, like, all of this is magnified because it's October, because the Dodgers have lost early before. Like, the Dodgers lost three games in a row to the Diamondbacks in April and no one noticed or cared or remembered.

Maybe Dodgers fans cared at the time, but nationally, no one knew. But when it happens in October, it's so much more significant. And also in October, there were three games in a row where the Dodgers scored two runs against the Cubs. That's what happened here against the Diamondbacks.

Doesn't matter so much in April. They actually won one of those games. But, you know, when you go on to win the division easily, then that is long forgotten. But when those games come in October, then obviously that does not get forgotten. So it was a very poor showing. And I guess the first couple of games, it was more about not converting opportunities. And then in game three, it was just not even getting them, not even making them, you know, and so much for the, I mean, no Gallin, no Kelly, no problem, right?

They couldn't hit Brandon Fott either. So other than the Dodgers bullpen continuing to be dynamite, I mean, Lance Lynn was dynamite in a different way. It reminded me of a quote I saw from Lynn when he gave up his 40th home run on the season in the regular season. This was back in September. And he said, once you go over 30, who gives a shit? And he really just took that to heart. He's like, why not four more, you know? I mean, once you're over that point, right? And they always say like, well, yeah, he gave up a lot of home runs, but they were solo home runs, you know? And yeah, there's some truth to that. Obviously, if you want to give up a home run, you want it to be solo. But when you're giving up four solo shots in two and two thirds in like, you know, it's not as

if having given up home runs, you know, some of that is going to be about the pitcher, but it's not a guarantee of future home runs, right? And this Diamondbacks offense has been kind of Diamondbacks offense has been kind of thump less relative to their peers. They are in sort of the bottom third of the league when it comes to barrel rate and hard hit rate. And the, you know, the Oakland A's hit more home runs than they did this year, Ben, you know, and that is a famously not good team. Right. So I imagined being able to tell yourself, if you're a Dodger fan,

well, we know what Lynn's bugaboo is, but maybe this is a team that isn't going to necessarily be able to capitalize on that. He's not dealing with the Braves yet, right? So maybe it'll be okay. At the same time, I think that it was pretty easy to imagine what does a catastrophic Lance Lynn start look like? Because we'd seen that, you know, we'd seen the ones that

were just undone by the home runs, whatever else he was able to muster. So I imagine if you were a Dodger fan watching last night, after the second home run, you're're just like dave have you been tied down are you like stuck to your chairs they're glue involved you know it's like this is what the bad version of this guy looks like now what are you doing about that sixth most allowed home runs in a single season for a major leaguer his 44 it's it's an astounding number of home runs yeah i mean in some ways it's astounding that there are five guys that there were you know you're just sitting there and how you know what did it feel like ben what did it feel like to be a fan of one of these teams like what did it what

did it feel like this was the year i was born so i can't speak to it and then the year after but like what was it like watching burt pleylevin in the in the mid 80s it seems like it was maybe not always fun you know because like that was that that guy is on this list twice ahead of lancelin. Well, they were all solo shots. Also, when he gave up 50 and 46, that was in like 270 innings, whereas Lynn is doing it in 180, right?

Granted, high home run era, although so was 87 when Bly Levin gave up 46, but yeah, on a per inning basis, it's pretty impressive or unimpressive yeah it's it's shocking i feel comfortable using that word so i'm trying to nail down what exactly i think of the diamondbacks vibe um i don't know sometimes i think lately we're like we're very

into vibe ben overusing vibe yes we might be we might be having a little bit of i might be experiencing vibe fatigue i might just be experiencing regular fatigue at this particular moment but i'm gonna reference a meme ben and i know that that makes for fantastic radio but like there's a meme of the little sister on on arthur you know the kids show about are they artworks are they aardvarks? Are they supposed to be aardvarks? Yes. Yeah.

Okay. So Arthur the aardvark, I guess that makes sense. And she's looking at a door and she says, that sign can't stop me. I can't read. And that has sort of been the energy that the Phillies, I think, have exhibited at times where it's like they and I don't say that to to take away from the quality of that team particularly you know this year which might sound funny to say given the last year's roster went to the World Series but like I think that this is a better a stronger just across the board Phillies team than what we saw last year despite some of

the individual struggles that they have had and the defense remaining what it is. But, you know, they just kind of have this defiant, like, what? You think that you can stop me? Like, I'm too in my vibe to even notice, like, the problem that you are reasonably presenting to me as something that might be an obstacle. And I didn't get the sense, like, listening to the D-backs guys this week, that that was, that that's quite what it is, you know, but I know Zach Buchanan wrote about them for the messenger and, you know, he noted that there's like this,

sometimes naivete can be to your benefit because you got a bunch of young guys. You feel like you're playing with house money to a certain extent. It's not that you don't have respect for this dodgers team i think they very clearly did in the way that they talked about them and the seriousness that they brought to it but also they weren't like you know they were sort of protected by their youth to a certain extent uh in terms of like not being not having the moment get too big for them. It can go either way for young guys, right? But they just are like, they just want to jump in the pool. Also, Ben, I got to renew my concerns about the pool.

I'm watching these dudes jump in the pool and they do so with the bravado of a young person who could not smack his head on the pool deck. And I am here to say, yes, you could, Cor could corbin you could do that and it would be very bad and you would be it would be ouchy and you would probably miss some time so i i feel stressed about the pool but you know sometimes you don't have to get the pool involved you just have to be gabrielle moreno catching and like sure taking you know balls right to the bare hands so anyway all that to say I think that they have like a young um kind of exciting thing going on and I don't know how

long that will propel them I think that that has value insofar as your any individual player's ability to sort of like navigate the moment but um you know at a certain point it's like I imagine I suspect I don't know for sure but like I suspect know at a certain point it's like i imagine i suspect i don't know for sure but like i suspect that at a certain point like that bullpen will be a problem for them and maybe they won't be able to hit home runs and maybe they'll run into a team that has more than one and a half like functional starters and you'll have they'll have to figure it out and I don't, we'll have to see if they do, but yeah, they, they can read, but the Phillies can read, like to be clear, I'm not saying that they don't know how to read. I think they know how to read. So they've, uh, whatever post-season cliche one deploys at the set, you know, they've gotten hot at the right time, right?

I mean, it's true. That does kind of dictate what happens in these series. And I know Dodgers fans are feeling frustration, which is understandable. I've seen some frustration that's directed more at the front office slash ownership just for not being more aggressive, not spending more. And yeah, you could always be more aggressive. And I was kind of critical of them when the season was starting, or I think when we were doing our previews, because at that time, they looked very vulnerable to me. And they had let a lot of prominent players leave and they hadn't done a whole lot. And then they'd had some misfortune losing Gavin Lux, et cetera. And it looked like

they were weaker than they'd been in some time and their division rivals were nipping at their heels. And it looked like they were being a little too conservative or a little too concerned with not going over the tax threshold. As it turned out, though, and I don't know that they knew for sure that it would work out this way, but they won 100 games. They won their division by 16 games. They tried to trade for Eduardo Rodriguez, and he vetoed it. They have basically an entire rotation injured or suspended at this point and lucks out for the whole season. And they were still this good.

And then October rolls around and their rotation is really lacking and hanging by a thread. And so, yeah, you could say they should have signed one more guy. They should have traded for one more guy, tried even harder to trade for someone who wouldn't veto the trade. But I just, I don't know. It's not like they were one or two players away from taking this series, you know. And you never know what would have been different if the composition of the roster is different. But, I mean, last year they won 111 games. They were the absolute super team. They still lost in the NLDS.

games. They were the absolute super team. They still lost in the NLDS. The Diamondbacks won 84 games with a negative run differential in the regular season, and they won this series. So if you're a legitimate 100-win team yet again for the umpteenth time winning that division, I mean, yeah, you could always have done more, but I don't know that you can really lay that at the front office's feet and say this was a failure of roster construction or planning. Like, it's not always someone's fault in kind of an actionable way other than just to say people didn't pitch well or people didn't hit well the way that Magic Johnson did, you know? We're always reaching for some sort of culprit or scapegoat or explanation. And sometimes you just had three really lousy games at the wrong time. And that might be all there is to it, as unsatisfying as that is, given that it's not the first time that this has happened, which makes you even more likely to start looking for a pattern.

I will say that, and I think I expressed this some over the course of the winter, that more than any off season in sort of recent memory, it did feel like their understanding and vision for their own roster was more disjointed than I could remember it being. And I know that they weren't quite sure what was going to go on with the Bauer suspension and how much of that they might be actually on the hook for. But it felt like they were like, we're going to let the kids play, but we also, you know, some of the kids are getting hurt. And so we got to go trade for like Miguel Rojas.

And so we're going to end up going over the luxury tax threshold anyway, because we've also extended Miguel Rojas. Remember when they were like, we're going to extend Miguel Rojas. And we were all like, why though? Like, you don't have to do that. It felt more kind of catch-as-catch-can. And it wasn't entirely that, but relative to sort of the fastidiousness that I typically attribute to the Dodgers, it felt a little loosey-goosey. as an organization is how strategic they are in deploying, you know, going over the tax threshold and dipping back under to reset so that they can go spend again. And, you know, I think they have a pretty good in most years understanding that like, you know, the place you don't want to be

is like $2 over the threshold where you're going to pay a penalty, but not reap any benefit. Like if you're going to blow it out, blow it out for a reason so that you can go sign a guy who you're really excited about and who you think is going to be a difference maker on the big league roster. And it felt more muddled than that. And certainly more muddled than is typical for them. I think you're right that there's a lot that happens in terms of injury, particularly to the pitching that they couldn't have anticipated or at least you know could have only planned

around to a certain extent when you just have so many guys going down and then you know they have the suspension to race which is its own thing and so like there there were some mitigating circumstances to the place that they found themselves at the end of the season. But I understand both sides of this. I sympathize with Dodger fans who are like, we normally have such a strong plan and we didn't, or it didn't feel like we did this year. And then, you know, your big reinforcement at the deadline is the home run guy, you know, the guy who gives up all the home runs and Joe Kelly just to torment Craig mostly. I can understand that. And I can also understand the perspective of a, you know, a Dodgers front office member being like, right.

But like, look at just look at how many guys we lost injury, like how many dudes were not able to come back. You know, Walker Buehler wasn't able to get all the way back so yeah but it's it's it's a sad it's a sad murky thing still because we don't know what kershaw is gonna do or want to do you know i think um annie mccullough had a nice piece on sort of the the state he's in in terms of just needing time to sort out what he wants to do with himself, not only in terms of the sort of health of his shoulder, but just like where he is as a person. So, you know, they have more uncertainty kind of ahead of them. And some of those, you know, some of the injuries that they suffered as a club this year

are going to have reverberations for next season, too. Yeah, it's one of the things that people thought about why they kind of went easy over the offseason was that, well, they won 111 games. They were about as good as you could possibly be. And then they were rudely introduced to the reality of the playoffs, which is that that doesn't matter that much. It only helps so much. And so, I mean, that was one of the critiques of expanding the playoffs

is just like you let so many teams into the playoffs. It's even more random than it was before. And it was already random. And so what message are you sending to teams? Like, not necessarily, let's get as great as we can be. If you're good enough to win the division, then are you really going to go all out to be a little bit better than that when it just infinitesimally moves your odds in the playoffs? When being good in the first place barely makes you that much more likely to win? So I don't know whether they just learned the lesson of what's the difference between 111 and 100 when you win the division handily either way. And then you get to the playoffs and it's all just fluky and random and small sample, right? So I feel like if you're good enough to win 100 despite everything that went wrong for you and no one is even close to competing or pushing you in the division during the regular season, even though they've been knocked out of the playoffs in two consecutive years by division rivals who finished behind them in the regular season, then I don't know. I don't know that I can fault you for not stocking

up enough. It's just everything really went wrong. And I saw an interesting prompt in our Facebook group that came up after our Kershaw discussion the other day, and this thread generated a lot of discussion, it was started by a listener named Tucker who said, would you trade Kershaw's regular season effectiveness for his postseason effectiveness? You go back to the beginning of Kershaw's career and you say, I can have the 2.48 ERA pitcher in the postseason instead of in the regular season. And then I get the 4.49 ERA pitcher in the regular season. So you just swap them. Would that be worth it to you? And I know Kershaw has been better than that if you look at FIP and XFIP and all of that in the postseason. He really has been unlucky in addition to not being as good as he usually is. But the results, would you take that? Because if he is the 4.49 ERA in the regular season, if that's who he is, then obviously you're less likely to make the playoffs in the first place. Although many of these years that the Dodgers have been so dominant, they could have made the playoffs with a mediocre regular season Kershaw instead.

That probably wouldn't have made the difference. There may have been some years where it would have. I haven't gone back to look at every margin of victory, but certainly like this year and last year, it wouldn't have. victory, but certainly like this year and last year, it wouldn't have. And if you could have the shutdown peak Kershaw ace in the postseason, knowing that you were going to get this many cracks at it, probably even with a more mediocre Kershaw in the regular season, I guess you could play this whole hypothetical with the Dodgers in general. It's like if we could win a lot fewer regular season games,

I think pretty much everyone would take that, right? Like I'm sure that there was a pleasure to watching the Dodgers win 111 games last year and threaten records and just be so dominant day in and day out. But I think the vast majority of Dodgers fans would probably trade any number of regular season wins for additional championships. Like you can't trade so many wins the vast majority of Dodgers fans would probably trade any number of regular season wins for

additional championships. Like you can't, you can't trade so many wins that you're not making the playoffs and you're not getting the crack at the championships. But, but for Kershaw himself, like you could say that one of the most fulfilling things about being a fan is getting to see a career player who's with your franchise, his whole career and is great and has a Hall of Fame career. And it's, you know, more total entertainment time, right? Because it's a lot more innings in the regular season than in the postseason, even though he's pitched a lot of postseason innings. So all of those brilliant starts that he's made in the regular season, you'd be deprived of that. He'd be Lance Lynn out there or worse, right?

So that would cost you a lot of enjoyment. And I'm the first to say that the postseason isn't all important, that most of the baseball we watch comes prior to the postseason. So we should prioritize that too. I hope that this won't feel to Dodger fans like I'm telling you, like, be grateful for your situation. But also, like, it is a testament to just how incredible a run they have been on of late and how many, like, great guys in general and Kershaw in particular, they have that you can even have that conversation, right? Where it's like, well, you know, what, what flavor of fantastic do we want? Yeah. We don't need him because this is one of the years where we're like, yeah, we want to

win a, we, we want to win a world series. And, you know, this is one of the years where we're really going to enjoy just like what it means to go wire to wire as the best team in baseball. we're really going to enjoy just like what it means to go wire to wire as the best team in baseball. I don't know. Like I do, you know, I think that as much as we are right to, to note the differences between the regular season and the post season and try to appreciate them as like different expressions of the same goal, but fundamentally different exercises. I think you do want to win a couple. I think if I were a Dodger fan, I would, if for no other reason than I'd be tired of hearing people say like, well, the 2021 didn't really count to have one regular season length season World Series.

And I would trade it. I might trade a peak Kershaw year for that. And you know what? I bet he would too. Yeah, yeah, probably. So in the other NL series, the only ongoing series as we speak, although we are recording in the hours before game four, so it could be over by the time people hear this. I had to take a little nap, Ben. I had to take a little sleepy time. You were up late seeing the Dodgers' demise.

But the Phillies are up on Atlanta 2-1 after a commanding victory because Jake Mintz single-handedly beat the Braves 10-1 in Game 3. We've got to talk about that situation. We do. In game three. We've got to talk about that situation. We do. Let's talk about the baseball part first because I suspect that that is what Jake would want. Yes. Put a pin in that, Ben.

We're coming back to it. I got a head full of steam, which is surprising because I barely set up right now. You know, the thing about Bryce Harper, Ben, is boy, can he hit the ever-loving snot out of a baseball when he wants to. They had this game on the bigBox TVs were set to the Spanish language feed, and it was several pitches ahead of the feed that was on the big board, which I don't think had anything to do with it being the Spanish language feed. It was just when they turned them on and what have you. So I knew he had hit a home run, but I was waiting to see it on the big board because the angle i had on the smaller press box tvs you know i had to strain my little old lady neck and be like ouchy and so i

was watching it up there and it was just um he can just really launch him man he can really he can really hit them very far and i don't want to try to tell a professional pitcher what to do because like that's not that's not my place you you all know more about pitching than me but like I think that for the Braves going forward and then presumably potentially for the Diamondbacks like maybe don't leave like a breaking ball middle middle or middle in for Bryce Harper, because as Michael Bowman pointed out in his recap of this game, like what he will often do is foul them off. But sometimes he will launch them to the moon. And that was that was what he did. He said to the moon, let us go to the moon.

And then he did it again. Yeah. Not in the honeymooners to the moon, Alice, probably not actually funny anymore kind of way, but just actually. You know, it's so weird how TV from that era didn't really age very well. Yeah. So, and by the way, I think it was 10, I said 10 to 1. It was 10 to 2.

Don't want to give short shrift to that Atlanta offense because Orlando Arcia, he also drove in a run himself, the other figure in the controversy that we will soon discuss. But yeah, look, I think we kind of hoped it would be a slugfest. I think we wanted this to be a slugfest of a series. I expressed that desire. Yeah, yeah. And the Phillies have held up their end of the park. I mean, that was a lot of home runs. And Lance Lynn wasn't even pitching against them.

And they still hit six of them. Two by Nick Castellanos, of course, as well. He's also on Quaifar. Yeah. I guess it comes down to you know bryce elders pitching right and and he's been seen as sort of a smoke and mirrors guy all season like like not bad like not shouldn't be in a rotation but just like not sure how this guy is is preventing runs the way that he has yeah and that bubble has burst bit, and it certainly burst in that game.

Yeah. I mean, again, it's not to the extent of the Dodgers, obviously, but coming into this series, we said, hey, the Braves are vulnerable because they don't have Charlie Morton, and you don't know what they're going to get out of Max Fried, who was able to make his start, but was certainly far from peak Fried. And I don't know whether the blister is still bothering him or whether it was that he hadn't pitched in a while or he just had an off day. But between those things, you've got Bryce Elder. It's like there's just so much conversation about upsets right now and what it means about the nature of the playoffs. And I do

understand why we talk about this again every year as if we are newborn babes who've never seen the baseball playoffs before and forget the 20-year-old quote about crapshoot, which probably was preceded by many other quotes with similar sentiments decades before. And it's only gotten more random. We all understand this and we all hashed this out last year. And it's only gotten more random. We all understand this and we all hashed this out last year. And MLB has brought this upon itself and upon us by pursuing an ever-expanding playoff format. It's just the nature of the beast and it can be a feature. It can be a bug.

It can suck. It can be exciting. It depends on the season. It depends on the team. And some years it's more obvious than others that this is just inherently the nature of baseball that you have to play March Madness after 162 games, essentially, which makes it maybe a little less purely exciting. And we get to delight in the upsets and partly like, wait, what did we just put all that time in there for? But it's also that these teams were not impervious and invulnerable, right? Like no team ever is. I mean, we always say like, oh, nothing would surprise us. And that really is true. Like nothing, no outcome of a playoff series would ever surprise me more than just like, oh, huh,

you know, like a coin came up heads three times in a row or whatever, like very mild surprise at most. But these teams, it's not the best version of the Dodgers this year. And this year's Dodgers weren't the best version of the Dodgers that we've ever seen. Braves are, I think, probably the closest thing to a super team and were the consensus best team in baseball and had by far the highest World Series odds. But they had that rotation vulnerability. And then the Rangers, I think, it's generally been regarded as an upset that they beat the Orioles. Certainly, it's somewhat unlikely that they would win three in a row before the Orioles would win any. But I don't think that was really that much of a mismatch if it was won at all. I mean, yeah, if you go by win totals, it was. But if you go by just the rosters and the underlying numbers and the run differentials and everything,

you could make a case that the Rangers were the better team all along. So it's not quite David and Goliath that this is happening, I don't think. Like not that David beating Goliath in baseball is all that surprising either, but this isn't necessarily like the clearest indication I think that we've ever gotten of any team can beat any other team. Even though the Diamondbacks

having a negative run differential and getting this far, that is extraordinary. It's not completely unprecedented, I suppose, but that doesn't happen every year or every several years. It's so funny because it's like sometimes you're like, yes, you smoke in mirrors. And it's like, well, there's probably something to that. But also don like i don't know hang a slide or like write down the dick to rise our friendly some of this stuff it's just like execution doesn't it says something about who he is as a pitcher because like you don't do that you know ben like that's a but also it's like it to go badly for anybody, even a really good pitcher, right? But yeah, I think that there are some teams that make a better case for the inherent randomness of this time of year than others.

And some that are like, well, yeah, there are just some flaws you know, there's no, there isn't a team here that is really like really, except maybe the Astros. I don't want to talk about it. It's upsetting. But yeah, like I do think that it is useful. You know, the Dodgers and the Braves, I think are both examples of this and there are other flavors of it, but it's like, it is, it is important to grapple with the roster that's actually in the postseason

and it might be different than the one that got you more than 100 wins it might be different than the one that gets you a division title it might just be newly compromised in a way that doesn't really say anything about what it looked like in july or march but says a lot about why you know you might be on the brink of elimination right now and then to your point there are just clubs where it's like we maybe didn't appreciate that there were they were closer in terms of true talent than we um weren't necessarily giving one side credit for so and then sometimes like you piss off bryce harper and he wants to wreck your day so should we talk about the, like, the Garcia of it all?

Yeah, we don't have to write Atlanta's obit yet. No, because they could win. I think they are capable of the incredible feat of winning two games in a row. I think they have the capacity to do that. Yeah, I mean, like, lest we forget, you know, this game still featured, like, fun feats by Ronald Acuna Jr. And, you know, like, it's hardly a club that wants for its own bits of excitement or offensive potential, clearly. So it's not like it would totally shock me if they came back and we were like oh well kind of wrote that one off a little early they did you know manage to throw strider

and then they did some great stuff on offense and all of a sudden you know we're working on the weekend i mean we're going to be doing that anyway but um you know we're working on the weekend more than we thought we would be yeah Yeah, that's totally possible. I will say though, if the vibes mean anything, one side is clearly operating at a deficit relative to the other right now. Yes, I would certainly say so. And nowhere is that clearer perhaps than in the aftermath of the great attaboy controversy kerfuffle of 2023. So gosh, this is so ridiculous in so many ways. I cannot believe this is blown up the way that it has, but just to bring everyone up to speed, if somehow you've been oblivious to this, which if so, I envy you. You're living your life right. And to be clear, I didn't really know what was going on with this until this morning

because I was so busy with other stuff. People were like, yeah, the Arceus stuff. And I was like, what is the Arceus stuff though? What is it? And why is our friend in the center of it? Yes. So to hear some people tell it, it was not Bryce Elder's fault for giving up the Bryce on Bryce Dinger, or at least the second one to Bryce Harper, or Brian Snitker's fault for leaving Bryce Elder out there as long as he did to give up yet another homer and hits and walks and stuff.

He's making my manager pick look pretty bad. Yeah, that was sort of a slow hook. But to hear some folks tell it, it wouldn't have mattered who was out there facing Harper or what they were throwing him because he was out there with a chip on his shoulder and he had a grudge and he was out for payback and vengeance because

it was reported by a friend of the show, Jake Mintz of Satisfied Family Barbecue and Fox Sports, that in the aftermath of the previous game Jake Mintz, of Satisfatious Family Barbecue and Fox Sports, that in the aftermath of the previous game that ended on that incredible play with Michael Harris II and Bryce Harper and getting thrown off, doubled off, as we discussed last time, that shortstop Orlando Garcia, and I will quote here from Jake's piece, cackled emphatically about Harper's misfortune, from Jake's piece, cackled emphatically about Harper's misfortune, bellowing,

ha-ha, attaboy, Harper, repeatedly as reporters circled the room. I know. I've never heard such insult, such trash talk, such, I mean, the indignity, I cannot believe that he would say such a thing as attaboy and ha ha to Harper. But it's not just that. It's also turned into a baseball journalism discussion somehow and some kind of media criticism discussion about whether Jake should have reported that Orlando Arcia was cackling emphatically. And I think both aspects of this are very silly and I can't decide which is sillier, but you can take it from there. Well, let's start with the like Arcia of it all, because what he has said in sort of, I don't even want to use the word aftermath because what are we doing here, Ben? But following these comments being made public because, you know, he said them in the clubhouse during like that was taken personally and served as additional motivation. And when Bryce hit his dingers, he stared down Arcia rounding the bases both times.

And he said afterward, he being Arcia, that, you know, through an interpreter that this wasn't stuff that was supposed to find its way to Harper. This was like clubhouse stuff that was supposed to stay with the Braves. Travis Darnot said something similar too, right? I forget what the wording was. The clubhouse is a sanctuary. The clubhouse is a sanctuary. And I think when things like that get out, it doesn't make people want to talk to the media at all.

It affects the people who have been great to us all year and it is what it is again i want to get to the media piece of it in a second because i i think that there's stuff here that i want to make sure i'm not sounding overly snarky about but like i feel like just from a trash talk as a mechanism as an aspect of sport that they're playing this all wrong because like the way to diffuse this situation from atlanta's perspective would be you know i'm gonna do a excuse me i talked my shit you got you guys got us harper in particular got us good for two home runs and we're going to come and try to get you tomorrow and then move on like why are you fueling this because all the oxygen that they're giving it makes it sound like they are tiny whiny babies and i don't think they want to portray themselves as tiny whiny

babies because that that's no way to go out and win a baseball game by being a tiny whiny baby. You know, babies famously never get a baseball. So, I don't know. Like, it's a weird, it's, you know, if you're going to, again, excuse my swear, if you're going to talk your shit, like, you got to accept that you might get your teeth kicked in a little bit. And then the way to respond to that isn't to say, well, this was never meant to meet his ears. It's to go get him tomorrow. Like, that's the way to handle this.

And, like, it does feel a little bit like, like, I don't want to, you know, athletes draw inspiration and motivation from all kinds of places. I'm candidly thrilled that, like, our playoff thoughts aren't involved in this in some way, shape or form. So like, you know, thank you, Jake, for taking the- The slightest slight is fodder for motivation. I mean, that's maybe how they do this.

Not every athlete, but a lot of them are kind of powered on, they underestimated us. They didn't believe in us, which often is not really true. I mean, maybe there's someone out there who didn't believe in you. But it's like sometimes it's like the favorites saying no one believed in us. It's like actually a lot of people believed in you. But Travis Kelsey, a lot of people thought you guys were going to win the Super Bowl last year. It was not like a controversial take to take the Chiefs. It's the Michael Jordan. I took it personally.

It's just like they use it as fuel to fire themselves up and Harper, I mean, Harper's really good at baseball anyway. Maybe he would have hit two home runs regardless. He's certainly capable of doing that, but

hey, he's a legend and he's certainly capable of doing that but but hey he's a legend and uh he's certainly like burnished his his reputation and lived up to all the hype and all the expectations and he's done in the regular season he's done it in the postseason he's great and he should use it as as fuel if if he can if that's something that motivates him and actually makes him better, then great, do that. But you called it talking your shit. It barely is that. It's attaboy.

Just a derisive attaboy and a ha-ha, that's it. When I saw this, I was like, oh, what did he say? Is he talking about Harper's mom? Is he calling him? We always think all the moms are so vulnerable. I mean, I thought it was going to be something like, wow, you know, I can't believe he said that.

I mean, ha-ha, attaboy. That's it. It's so tame. Like, I would assume that the other team was saying haha attaboy if if I ran into the last out like that yeah that's just the most innocuous comment by the standards of like trash talk or gloating I mean it barely budges the needle like I would I even if I were someone who was inclined to like be powered by people underestimating me or taking shots at me, like I don't even think this would get me going.

Yeah. Like I need more than that. Ha ha attaboy. Like, did he say something else? Right. Like, did he call me some other name? That's it. Ha ha attaboy.

I mean, it's barely anything well and it's like the the particular grievances here are so strange to me because it's like okay so there's i agree with you as as trash talk goes it is pretty mild um all things considered but but it it feels like part of what is fueling the the braves clubhouse reaction to this is like a deeply held belief on some of their parts that it actually did move the needle in terms of Bryce's performance it's sort of like you remember the clown panic spin where people would like dress as clowns and it would freak people out and you're part of the reaction to people's you know terror like yeah i get it clowns are creepy and like people doing that's kind of weird and it feels anti-social and i understand that but

i was like but you realize it's not actually pennywise right like that guy's not real that's a pretend not even john wayne gacy probably it's just a clown right who didn't kill anyone while dressed with a clown despite what william shatner's the unexplained would have you know so like i'm just saying that shows irresponsible but gotta correct the record there thank you yeah it's it's important right like truth and serial killer media but anyway everyone's like i expected her to go to the clown panic that's totally the direction i thought this was gonna take but it's like i i think that if you were to ask Harper, like he would probably say like this genuinely motivated him in, in some way, but like his perception of that relative to his ability to just whack too

massive. I don't think he needed this. He could have, you know, he got to like, he got middle, middle, middle in break seven.

He's just like, send it to space because he's Bryce Harper. He doesn't need an attaboy patina. Right. So. And you sound like scaredy cats. It's like a it's like a loser mentality almost. It's like, oh, this is getting back to Bryce.

He's going to beat us up after school. You know, it's like don't attribute these powers to him that he can just will himself to homers against you. Maybe he can. But by sending that signal, I feel like you're only making him stronger. You know, like you got to stand up to the bully. I don't know if that's always good advice. Like maybe, you know, go get some help from someone or tell someone, but I'm not, but like in this context, you know, it's like, you gotta, you can't just like, be like, oh, he caught me, you know, and now, now we're going to be punished for this. Yeah, now we're toast.

Stand behind it. And again, like, I would just assume that people were, were like, taking pleasure in my misfortune and being thrown out to end the game. Like did Harper not think that the Braves were happy that that happened? Right. Oh, man. I don't get it. It's so tame. It's so underwhelming.

And yet apparently not. Right. But that's only one portion let us pass judgment on both the quality and the potential impact of the trash talking itself. a lot of civilians, if we want to use that language, are confused and unclear about like what the various standards are for when something is on the record or off the record, when something's on background, what are a journalist's obligations of sort of disclosure and notification when it comes to that. And so I understand even if I find it annoying and baseless for Braves fans to be accusing Jake, who like Jake is a good friend of ours. And so I want to like, you know, own that.

But I have a very particular perspective on Jake. But like, you know, if you look at the mentions around this stuff on Twitter, people are just accusing him of fabricating this whole cloth. Yeah, that know, there if you look at the mentions around this stuff on Twitter, people are just accusing him of fabricating this. Yeah, that was a lot of people were like, you made this up, first of all. Yeah. And then Arcea confirmed that it happened and they're still accusing him of of it being either fabricated or inappropriate for him to have included this in his story. He was not the only journalist to include it happening in his story on the back of Game 2. He was the one who initially identified Arcee as the person who said this. Right. The Washington Post had it also, but didn't specify who. The player.

Yeah. Right. And like you've been in, you've been in clubhouses and it's not like I'm, And like you've been in you've been in clubhouses and it's not like I'm, you know, Susie reporter, but I know how this stuff works. Right going to be when it's just you and the guys or you and the coaching staff versus the kind of impression you might want to put forth and your understanding of what you can and can't say when there are media members around but rc has been in the league for a long time he knows what immediate availability is and if he doesn't if he doesn't know that when those designated times transpire particularly around the postseason where you're going to have a bunch of people in the clubhouse who you might not know like anything that gets said or done in that space during that time is fair game and if you want to have an off-the-record conversation with a reporter that is something that you agree to in advance you can't take stuff off the record retroactively. And so the idea that, you know, he would be hooting and hollering and having a good time and think, well, I'm not being asked

a question directly. And so anything I say is automatically off the record betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what this all is. I suspect he does actually know how this stuff works and is just embarrassed that it got out and, you know, became part of this story and he got stared down on the field twice. But, you know, I think we should be very clear that like nothing Jake did here is out of bounds. here is out of bounds. No. And reporting what you observe in the clubhouse during a scheduled availability is totally fair game. It doesn't matter if you're asking the guy a question directly or not. Yeah. And players know this. I mean, they have all sorts of places where they can hide in, you know, they can go out of the clubhouse. They often do. Yes. And they're aware that that's how they get privacy during that designated time. And usually the clubhouse is closed briefly before the media members can enter.

So you can get it out of your system there. You could say something on the field. You could say it in the dugout before you go back to the clubhouse. You could wait until after. You could go hide somewhere where reporters can't see you. There are all sorts of ways to do that. And during the playoffs, you know, probably an even bigger media contingent than usual. Right.

So it's I don't see that there was any expectation of privacy. Right. And certainly not a reasonable one. No. And I've I've seen people say, you know, he is a player who uses an interpreter. I mean, that's true. Like, you know, there would be certain things that I might hesitate to, you know, report him saying if I wasn't confident that, you know, I mean, English is not his first language and want to be respectful of that preference. Right. But, you know, this is a case where he's apparently pretty loudly and repeatedly broadcasting this sentiment. And I don't think there was any confusion here. He's not even claiming that, you know, he was misquoted or anything. Like, this was what he said.

This was how he felt. I mean, if I had been in that situation, I might not have reported it just simply because it wouldn't have occurred to me that it was newsworthy. Because again, I think the quote is just so innocuous that I cannot believe that it's gotten this kind of attention. Like I might've just thought, well, yeah, well, obviously like, you know, he's taking a little pleasure in the fact that his team just won the game. I mean, it's like, I don't know that it would have even stood out to me, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with reporting it. And in fact, there's everything right with reporting. And if you think there's any value

to having reporters in the clubhouse to give you kind of the local color, to give you a sense of the scene on the ground. This is what you want them for there so that they can report a thing like this that's not just the sanitized press conference Q&A, right? I mean, you want them on the ground so that they can describe the scene and say, here's what it looked like, and here's what it sounded like, And this was the mood. And that's what Jake did, I think. This captured that. been a contingent of Braves writers and beat writers and TV news folks who have been trying

to suggest that what Jake did is out of bounds. And I don't want to impugn the journalistic practices of people I don't know, but it smacks of trying to protect one's access in a way that makes me wonder what stories they're leaving on the floor because they're doing this exchange, right? And I think that there are a lot of people who do really, really good work with access and are clear and fair and critical when necessary and sort of diagnose a scene and tell you about it. And they use their access to do that. And I think that there are people who prioritize the maintenance of access over the story sometimes. And if I was an editor of one of these folks, I'd be like, well, what aren't you reporting if you're getting twisted about this and taking the player's side in something that is

fundamentally ridiculous for them to assert so i don't need to name names but it's like what's the standard approach down there that this is causing such a controversy and i think that that's something that that that group should reflect on you know even the ones who have not you know decided that they're going to pretend they don't know what a media availability is. Like, this is a conversation that they should have as a group because it doesn't reflect well on any of them that there has been this rush to impugn Jake's credibility on this question because he didn't do anything wrong. And it makes me wonder what you're not

doing right if you look at this and say you know he's violated some trust i don't think that you're obligated to report this like you said it's a pretty anodyne moment but it is like you know this is part of the post-season color you're right this is what you go into the clubhouse to experience when you get past the smell of the champagne and beer you could like you can like see that smell ben like i didn't get i didn't get got even though i wore shoes with the purpose of maybe like guarding myself against getting got but you can like see that smell it's not good it's like the worst thing you've ever experienced in college but that was not on the table here but you know i've seen people say well why you know he's there reporting

on the phillies why why was he in the braves clubhouse at all and it's like what are you talking about i know i know people like reporting series. Yeah. People claiming that he's a Phillies fan trying to like fire up the Phillies. Yeah. It's like famously an Orioles fan, like pretty, pretty bare in laying that out, you know? So I don't want to spend more time on this than we need to. And hopefully everyone can kind of move on from it. But like, you know, suggesting that there's been a violation of trust that this is like some sanctuary that's been breached, that's a serious accusation to level against a journalist. And I know that we're like all having fun here. And, you know, Jake and Jordan have built a career on wanting to bring those moments to, you know, specific relief for their readers. And so no one understands and sort of appreciates the value of that levity more than those guys do but like those are big accusations

to be throwing around in what is a report the course of a reporter just doing his job and i think particularly given how poor our collective media literacy is around this stuff, it just feels like a missed opportunity. This is the lowest stakes situation to use to clarify for your readers, for your viewers at home. You know, you're awful announcing and you're writing this up like it's some back and forth. And it's like, you know, and who could say what the journalistic practices should be and it's like well maybe you should say because you're writing up this story like it's an actual controversy and it it really shouldn't be so i think that like we are we're actually weirdly whiffing on something pretty important here which is helping people understand like what what you should expect if you have to ever interact with a reporter and how reporters go about doing their work and what the dynamic is between players and journalists.

And, you know, I'm not here to claim that every like journalist is perfect, that everyone always makes the best use of of their access that all of those stories like really are all that edifying like that you know as we saw by the reaction of some members of the local media clearly not right but you know this stuff doesn't matter and i don't want to get soapboxy about it, but also like stop being jerks to my friend over something that is, you know, fundamentally just a pretty standard doing his job kind of a thing. Yeah. I don't think I would feel much different about it if I didn't know Jake. I mean, I wouldn't have the personal connection, but I don't think that's influencing. I don't think it's influencing my take on the propriety of his actions here. It's just, yeah, I just, I don't know which is dumber that people think he wasn't entitled to report

this or that anyone actually cared that he did, that anyone got so upset about this. Because, yeah, like if you're a beat writer and you're following the team every day there may be some things that you could tweet out that you'll decide not to tweet out because you know it's just it's not that important it will make someone look bad but not in like a really edifying way right and and know, whatever engagement you get on that tweet is probably, it could compromise your coverage in other ways, you know, like you could look at that as being overly friendly, but, you know, it's just relationships and, you know, you give something to get something maybe if it's not, you know, something that you shouldn't sweep under the rug if it's ultimately

not that important like this, then you might say, I'll keep my powder dry here and maintain my relationship with this guy because maybe he can be a source for a more important story and I can expose something else. Right. So I wouldn't frown on anyone not reporting this specific thing. specific thing, but it is, yeah, if your reaction is that there's no way that he should have or, you know, that this was out of bounds, then that would definitely make me question your typical practices. And Atlanta's PR people, I haven't had a whole lot of luck with personally, I will say, just in terms of them being very protective of players or limiting access. And I don't know whether that is playing into this and the players' expectations at all. But again, Arcia is a nine-year, eight-year big leaguer. He's 28 years old.

He's 29 years old. He's played for other organizations. You know, I assume he understands or should understand the ground rules here when it comes to these things. I assume he understands or should understand the ground rules here when it comes to these things. So, yeah, I do think that, you know, part of this is no doubt some expectation setting or what have you with the PR staff there. I mean, he's been on postseason teams before. It's not his first postseason clubhouse. Anyway, so, yeah. Wacky controversy. anyway so yeah like wacky controversy and i i i want to make clear that like i i agree with you and i have not had to do that navigation that negotiation between what we're people who

parachute in yeah we're we're not there on a daily basis so right and so like i have a ton of respect for the at times supreme delicacy that can come with navigating and maintaining those relationships. But to throw a fellow media member under the bus and sort of impugn his integrity in service of what? probably going to have much impact on your own reporting. And even if it isn't your specific job, because you're a beat covering the team every day, surely you have an appreciation for what Jake's job is. And, you know, I really just don't think that this should have ever been presented as a controversy where he's like on one side and Orlando Arcee is on the other. That's not, you know, that's not really what this should have been about. And it seems very silly for the Braves to keep pushing on it because then what are you doing? Making a preemptive excuse for giving up another dinner to Bryce? Like, what is the, what do you understand the vibe you're

presenting to be? It This is like so weird. Yeah. And we would have gotten away with it too, if not for those pesky meddling, suspitous barbecue boys. Yeah. It's like a Scooby-Doo villain. Anyway.

All right. Let's finish up this episode by talking about the other series. We will, of course, return to Braves Phillies and talk about whatever happened in Game 4 next time. But we do have a resolution in the ALCS. We've got a matchup. We've got victorious Houston. We've got the two Texas teams in the championship series. And we have the Twins succumbing,

but not going down without a fight and a few wins at least this time. And I guess the highlight, the takeaway may not be a highlight depending on your perspective, but the Astros are in the ALCS again. This is just Groundhog Day keeps happening. Seven straight ALCSs is just preposterous. It's so many. In this era, to be good for that long and to be successful in the postseason for that long. I mean, my piece after the Astros won the World Series last year was basically like, like them or not, you just, you have to hand it to them at this point. Like, they've just continued to be good.

And they continue to continue to be good. And this Astros regular season team, again, like the Dodgers, this was not the best Astros regular season team. The Astros also won the division, but barely by a hair on a technicality on a tiebreaker. barely by a hair on a technicality on a tiebreaker and yet they get to the postseason and they look like they're in command again not the first time that we've seen sort of a subpar performance from the astros in the regular season that sort of forgotten as soon as they make it to october so it's happening again they they have done it little bit. But they look very good. Jordan Alvarez is a menace. Jose Abreu is all of a sudden too. Right. Revitalized after a completely forgettable season. You know, you're

getting big performances by your big bats. You're getting great pitching. You know, Ben just wrote about Ryan Presley and sort of the run that he's been on. And so you think about sort of this team relative to, say, the Rangers,

and there is, I think, a lot to be said for just how they have this, they have a pretty potent offense, and they have a rotation that I still think has some shakiness potential in it, even though that hasn't quite manifested all the way in their run so far. But there is still some vulnerability there, but they also have a good bullpen, and it's not an easy team to get past. And I don't know if the Rangers will be able to do it,

although their offense is so potent on its own. And they have Jordan Montgomery and potentially Scherzer, right? Like Scherzer might be back for the CS. Yeah, and Nathan Ivaldi is good again, apparently. Yeah, how about that? John Gray might be back too, right? I mean, suddenly it's looking a little less dicey than it was coming into the DS and they had no trouble in the DS as it turned out. as opposed to the one that got a team to the postseason and acknowledge where there might be differences. And I think, you know, there are meaningful differences, both in terms of where guys are with their own health on the Astros roster, who the specific starters are going to be. And yeah, man, it's, we're all trying to find the guy who did this.

So, yeah. I hope we get a Scherzer Verlander head-to-head. I don't know if we will or not, but I guess the first one in September was not as exciting as it could have been. But if we get one in this series, that would be pretty exciting. I hope that lines up that way. But yeah, I mean

even, you know, there were concerns about Framber, which were justified based on his performance, but then Christian Javier stepped up and Jose Urquidy, who was kind of like the break glass in case of emergency, like short notice guy, and

he's been good again multiple times. I mean, it's just, it's a solid staff. It's a solid bullpen. It's not their best ever, but it's been good enough. And yeah, the lineup is still pretty overpowering. So, I mean, the Twins, you know, condolences on a loss. At least they weren't all losses. I know that really does make all the difference, you know, condolences on a loss. At least they weren't all losses. I know that really does make all the difference, I think, to Twins fans who are not happy to lose under any circumstances.

But it's a lot easier to lose having gotten the monkey off their back and ended the drought and even won a series. So hopefully they will look at that as a springboard i guess a stepstone right and and you know it was just like it was partly that the astros just pitch well and the twins i think had like a 35 strikeout rate in this series but then also were four for 28 with runners in scoring position yeah two for 22 in the three losses. Joshian had those stats. So they were certainly not out of this series. I mean, they won one handily and then they were close.

They had chances in games one and four. Game four was a one run game. Like it could have gone differently. So it was a competitive series. I don't want to say like, oh, well, you know, be happy with what you got, Twins fans, because I think you should aspire to more. But I don't think you can look at this Twins roster and be like, this is a bad baseball team. They got knocked around. It's like they lost to a good team and they couldn't capitalize on opportunities.

They lost to a good team and they couldn't capitalize on opportunities. I think when you look at their hitting particularly really past the three spot in their lineup was pretty bad. But they were a good pitching staff all year. They, I think, have the building blocks to do that again. They have shown some amount of appetite for spending money. And like, I, I always want moments like this for central teams to be. And I,

I think the twins had aspirations beyond just winning the central. So I don't want to be unfair to them, but like, you know, one of the concerns that we have with teams that win in weaker divisions is that they will be like, we gotta get to the postseason and then it's just like this fluky thing and anything can happen and that's true but like you are gonna face better quality of competition than like the white socks and the royals right

you're not encountering two like hundred lost teams which there were literally two of them in that division, Ben. Wow. Wow. Wow. So I hope that the way that the Twins players and their personnel will look at something like this is like, okay, we have a good base to build from and we want to be competitive in this space we want to you know we we don't want to be knocked out in the wild card and we don't want to be knocked out in the division like the goal here is the world series and i think that is true for the twins and that

was true this year but it's like i think there is a way to interpret a loss like this in a way that ends up being generative to sort of thriving as an organization and saying like no this is where we want to to see ourselves this is the stage that we are interested in um it's not just the central it's you know it's october baseball beyond that and so if that can be their bulletin board material, there's so much more to that than, you know, and I think it could be a springboard to a really productive and, and sort of thriving era of twins baseball, which would be really fun to see because you don't,

you don't want to have, there's such a, there can be such a letdown. I say from personal experience in the season after you get the playoff monkey off your back. And I think you want to try to keep, you know, momentum like as a concept in a game isn't real, but I think there is such a thing as like organizational momentum. You want to keep moving forward and, and view and looking at your roster and saying, how can we build, How can we improve going forward? And yeah, I think that's the project for the Twins,

which is such a take because, you know, so many teams are like, no, we'd like to suck, you know? Right, exactly. Well, I am looking forward to the Texas on Texas series, and I hope that we just get some great games because I feel like this postseason has had like one great game, really. The Harper-Harris game, Riley game, whatever we're calling it, Arcia game, Mintz game.

I think that was an incredible game. But other than that, there just haven't been a lot of lead changes or fun comebacks or even when the final score ends up being close. It's just like a lot of the losing teams have just really, really lost. You know, Sheehan had these stats too. He said there have been 21 playoff games so far and 17 of them, the losing team has scored two runs or fewer. In two of the other four, the losing team was far behind when it picked up some runs late in the game. In 21 games and nearly two full rounds, there have been a total of six lead changes and just two lead changes after the fourth inning. So the average for all the 21 losing teams so far is fewer than two runs a game.

The average for all the 21 losing teams so far is fewer than two runs a game. So it's just been not the most eventful or contested. And I hope we start getting some really back and forth Topsy Turfy games. Yeah, I feel like it's my fault because I was like, I want big scoring. And I should have specified that I wanted on like both sides. Right. Yeah. You know, like I want that to happen in the same game so that it feels like a, you know, like boom, boom.

Yeah. I'd also be okay with neither team scoring as long as it was close. That's the important thing. So yeah, pick it up teams. Give me some more closely contended contests. That would be great. I think that that would be a tremendous amount of fun. Ben, do we need to talk about creed? Okay. I know there's a rangers' creed motivational angle. Do you think that we could, like, it should be you because you have both more informed and better taste in music than I do. Although we have places where our tastes overlap quite a bit.

But do you think we could send them, like, other music and then they could talk about being excited about that music like preferably before the cs starts that we don't have to listen to creed on the broadcast because ben i'm really worried we're gonna end up listening to a lot of creed on the broadcast and they aren't good in my company yeah i mean there are some bands that are kind of the butt of jokes that, on the one hand, I haven't heard anything to disabuse me of the notion that they don't deserve to be. On the other hand, I've hardly listened to them. So if they had like, you know, if Creed and Nickelback had some great like deep cuts, you know, if they had some great B-sides, like I might not be aware of them. They had some great B-sides, like I might not be aware of them because I've sort of steered clear and nothing that I've heard has made me go against kind of the common wisdom or I guess the snarky wisdom because both bands are actually quite popular in the real world as opposed to online. But is the Creed fever that the Rangers are experiencing here, is this somewhat tongue-in-cheek and embracing? Like, I mean, what is it? They sing along to higher, right? The fans sing along to higher. And like Creed is, I guess that

has come from the fact that the Rangers listen to a lot of Creed. Like Andrew Heaney said, they start listening to Creed before games just to kind of loosen things up and so that makes me think that maybe they're aware of creed's reputation and this is not like an earnest creed is good actually but but more so like this is silly this is kind of trashy like we'll uh we'll listen to this and we'll have fun you know like if if the marlins embraced scott stapp's Marlins Will Soar, I would say that would be highly appropriate. And that would be a great way to loosen them up because I can't listen to that song without laughing and enjoying it on some level. So,

if that's the level on which the Rangers are enjoying Creed, then I say go forth and listen to Creed. I don't know that they need my remedial music recommendations but perhaps it goes deeper than that look this is an area where like what they do in the clubhouse is none of my business unless they do during a media availability and then i might remark upon it because that's part of our job okay but here's the thing what they do in the clubhouse that's none of my business if they like create that's none of my business people should you know like i'm not here to yuck anybody's yum i i like a lot of bad stuff i famously like a lot of ugly things like non-ironically but the problem is you when you tell people this then it

gets to the broadcast and then a producer is like we're all listening to creed now so they need to i think that like for america they need to lie about actually liking creed and they need to say they've moved on to something else you know it's like i i i've had to make my piece with the phillies using a cover of dancing on my own even though they should just play the robin ring and that's so good but this is the one they found and you know what like they this is the thing that is unified that group of her suit home run hitting vibe guys like and that's their business and they get to do it but like a crate is a bridge too far you know it's just i already lived through this i already it's like when you go through that it's like when you go shopping and they're like do you want low-rise jeans and i was like

no i've already done therapy i don't have to do it again. What are we doing? And belly flats. Don't your little feet hurt? I'm just worried about the... Next they're going to tell me that young people are using the apricot scrub from St. Ives. Don't use that stuff either. It wrecks your face, rips up your whole skin. Don't do that.

Don't listen to Creed. And don't wear low-rise jeans. You can't bend over. Don't listen to Creed. And don't wear low-rise jeans. You can't bend over. It's very high stakes. Well, the Rangers probably aren't doing that, at least. Now I'm thinking about Jordan Montgomery and low-rise jeans, which was the inevitable conclusion of this conversation. Did you see his quote about what makes his marriage to his doctor wife work? That she thinks he's dumb?

He's very endearing. He's like, yeah, she's less for me. We talk all the time about that. And it was so nice, Ben. It was such a nice, you know, a story brought to you by Jordan Montgomery and, you know, the media. Mm-hmm.

Well, if Rangers fans are ironically bonding by enjoying something together. I mean, sincerely bonding by ironically enjoying something together. Yeah, also fine. I just, I know, I know what happens when you give music cues to broadcast producers. We're still listening to Macklemore. You know, Macklemore broke contain from Seattle and all these other cities are playing that music. And I'm here to tell you, you don't have to bear that burden.

That is our burden to bear. You don't have to do it. Like, let us bear the burden. We made the mistake. On that note. I was pretty like, I kept it together for most of this. And then I remembered the Creed thing and it, you know, and low-rise jeans. Now I'm having flashbacks to a time when I felt very nervous to bend over. I wasn't going to bring up the Creed thing, but you wanted to take us higher.

Oh, no! Oh, no. All right. Well, after we finished recording, Chelsea Janes, the Washington Post reporter who also reported the Attaboy comment but did not attribute it to Orlando Arcia, posted a thread in support of Jake. She was far from the only one. I can't believe that this is a matter that requires supportive threads, but evidently it is.

Chelsea said she didn't name Arcia because she didn't see who said it, but she said cameras were rolling, recorders were rolling. Arcia was aware, as one of Chelsea's tweets said, suggesting you shouldn't report something said in the presence of more than a dozen reporters because it, quote, wasn't meant to get out, is suggesting reporters should be protecting players from themselves. That's not our job. It's theirs. I'm watching some of these experienced, credentialed reporters having overblown and in my mind, completely wrongheaded responses to this. And I'm just doing the blinking white guy meme and the Nathan Fillion speechless theme one after the other. Just one of the most incomprehensible controversies I can recall on multiple levels.

In actual baseball news, the Phillies won. So attaboy, Bryce. It was three to one. There were some exciting moments. We will discuss it on the next episode, which will be coming up soon. And now our ALCSs and our NLCSs are set. Get excited. It have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay almost ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Zach Vandenbrink, Lauren Lamborn, Oliver Williams, Josh Ballack, and Peter Armstrong. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, where if you join at the the appropriate tier you can hear us do the first of our two playoff live streams this sunday during alcs game one and you can also just chat with your fellow patreon supporters other perks include monthly bonus episodes discounts on merch and ad free fangraphs memberships and so much more patreon.com slash effectively wild if you are a patreon supporter you can message us through the patreon site but if not don't worry you can still contact us via email at podcast at pangraphs.com.

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at r slash effectivelywild. 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 championship series. So we will talk to you soon. A baseball podcast Analytics and stats With Ben and Meg From Fangraphs Thank you.