Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2231: Baseball Bothsidesism

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a mayoral Yankees/Mets cap and the history of politicians flubbing comments about baseball, tease their next playoff livestream, and discuss when it’s acceptable to call a game “winner take all,” the conclusion of the Division Series round, José Ramírez the motivator, the Tigers’ 2025 outlook, nobody believing in […]

Take me to the diamond, lead me through the turnstile Shower me with data that I never thought to compile Now I'm freely now a scorecard with a cracker jack of a smile Effectively wild Hello and welcome to episode 2231 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello.

You know how you said last week that Eric Adams is the exception to your longstanding complaint that you have to hear too much about New York politics? Meg Duffield Yes, I do remember that. Jared Ranere Well, it's time to test that contention because I'm going to bring up Mr. Mayor again and I come not to indict him, that has happened already, but to defend him in this case. So you may have seen. You probably saw that Eric Adams went semi-viral, took some flack for his choice of hat wear

at the Columbus Day Parade. He wore what was widely regarded as an abomination, just a heinous hat that combined both the Mets and Yankees logos as a means of not taking sides currently in the Yankees Mets postseason aspirations, right? I will contend that, should stop right now when I'm siding with Eric Adams. I've already gone wrong.

I will contend that, okay, the political instincts here are abysmal because this is the true third rail of politics, I would suggest, but the impetus, the desire to see both of these teams succeed at this stage of the playoffs, I would suggest that the mayor of New York City should be rooting for a Subway series because the greater

glory of New York City and that to root for a Subway series is to be rooting for both the Mets and the Yankees currently. In fact, my mother, famous for being a Mariano Rivera hater, the world's only one, is a Yankees fan, but she is very much rooting for the Mets as well right now. She's very much pro Mets in their matchup with the Dodgers. I don't know that she would wear a Mets slash Yankees, Yankees slash Mets hat,

but those are her sentiments right now. She wants both of these teams to win. She's not anti-Mets. She grew up in Brooklyn. She was born before the Dodgers move. So she has some sort of sentiment for the team that came in to replace the Brooklyn Dodgers. And she's not anti-Mets.

She weeks for both unless they happen to be facing each other. Which it seems sort of silly to me to be pulling for theMets, you know, she looks for both unless they happen to be facing each other, which it seems sort of silly to me to be pulling for the Mets knowing that if the Mets win and your team, the Yankees also win, that you will then turn right around and be rooting against the Mets like next week. But I understand the mental gymnastics there. And I would say that as an elected official in New York, in fact, you should be rooting

for both teams now, and then next week you can pick a side. LS. Okay. So Ben, I think that the desire to have a subway series, if you are the mayor of New York, even one as seemingly addled as Eric Adams is, that's the right political instinct. And I don't think that you as the mayor really ought to take a side necessarily. Even if you get a subway series, I think that the astute political move is to appreciate the tremendous achievements of your two great teams, what it says about your great city, a city where you can see any number of things. From a 9-11 to a new business opening, you know?

Like there's a real range in New York. I want to make clear that this is an Eric Adams quote and not me being a, I'm going to do a big swear, f***ing weirdo. Okay. So I think that that political instinct is rape. Adam's quote and not me being a, I'm going to do a big square, f***ing weirdo. Okay. So I think that that political instinct is right. I actually think that the thing that people were taking the greatest exception to was the abomination that is the hat itself, because there's a very easy way to satisfy this instinct,

right? Which is to wear the cap of one team and a zip up of the other. The combination of the two logos on the same hat suggests a detachment from reality that is both profound and completely in keeping with Eric Adam's character. That's the issue. The issue is the hat. It's not the sentiment that the hat is expressing, it's the, what is the weirdest possible way

for me to express this completely understandable sentiment that is, I'm the mayor, for now, of this great city and it has two baseball teams and those teams are engaged in a pitched battle to make it to the World Series, you know, fight on Yankees, go Mets. I know fight on Yankees is not an expression in the Yankees fandom, relax, relax. Everyone. CB You sound like a politician pandering by pretending to be a fan of a certain team. Yeah.

I mean, I think the real challenge for Eric Adams is that New Jersey doesn't have a major league team, right? Which would be his closest team. I'm having so much fun. I could tell. Yeah. Just the best time. But so I think the hat is really where people were getting worked up slash delighted.

And I want to say every single human being who was talking about how terrible the hat was was simultaneously delighted by the hat because of who was wearing it. So that's an important thing to note. I wonder, you know, it's like a tradition when teams reach the World Series for like the mayors of those cities to like engage in a challenge, a bet, right? Like if your team wins, I'll send you this local food. And if your team wins, then you send or whatever, you know what I mean? Like we'll exchange local delicacies and, uh, uh, passive aggressive social media posts from official accounts in a way that makes everyone who doesn't

follow sports like deeply confused. What will he do, Ben? Will he just challenge himself to a duel? Will a subway series literally rent Eric Adams in too? Which, you know, I gotta say, that's some problems. It's a messy way to do it. I'm not advocating for it. I believe at least in this particular instance in the criminal justice system to do its work, but what happens to a man who wears such a hat in the event that he is faced with a subway series?

What does he do, Ben? If he were to wear the hat next week, then I would condemn him as harshly as anyone because I think at that point, you have to pick a side if historically you have picked a side and he has. He has a Mets fan. Yes, he has declared himself as a Mets fan

going way back, right? So I don't know whether he is now suggesting that he's neutral or just wore this hat. If the Mets play the Yankees in the World Series and he suggests that he's impartial and that he just wants a New York team to win and he'll be happy either way, then I would suggest that that is disingenuous

because of his past position of being a Mets fan. I think that- Sorry, can I interrupt? Yeah. Are you expecting ideological consistency from Eric Adams? You're comfortable with that position as the one to expect? But if he does flip-flop on that, then I think he should be taken to task for that. Sure. I'm fine with flip-flopping, by the way, when politicians change their stance on something

in response to new information or new experiences. I think we should be more accepting of that and they should be more open about that. But when it comes to sports fandom, I'm not sure that applies unless there was something, a team committed some sort of grievous sin that lost your allegiance. But I think that a big part of the backlash, yes, it was the fashion atrocities that was committed there. But also I think it was the sentiment. It was the sense of trying to have it both ways and not picking a position and just kind of being a line straddler, knowing that that's insincere because that's not how fandom works.

And I think most people who experience fandom themselves and then see that cap, they know that, it's like the opposite of authenticity and a perception of authenticity is pretty important for a politician, right? They want to no cap, as the kids say, they don't want you to wear a cap that- Do they say that?

They do say that, but this would be the opposite of no cap, which is to be sincere and to convey your truth. And this would be the opposite of that. If you are on record as being a fan of a certain team. And there are many notorious examples of politicians trying not to alienate anyone and in the process alienating everyone by sort of straddling the line here. You don't even have to stray far from New York politics because this has happened plenty of times in New York. Hillary Clinton, back when she was running for Senator, she refused to take a stance and she said she was just rooting for a subway series. That was, I think in 99, when there wasn't actually a subway series. But then in 2000, there was a New Yorker cover

that pictured Clinton with both a Yankees cap and a Mets cap. Now it was not a Yankees Mets, like Island of Dr. Moreau vivisection type cap. It was a Yankees cap on the bottom and then a Mets cap facing the other way on the top of the Yankees cap. But she took some flack at the time for not picking a side and then also for claiming to be a Yankees fan,

which I think she had some documented history of being or at least wearing a Yankees cap, even though she's from Chicago, she had claimed to be a Yankees fan prior to that, but people just didn't buy it. And maybe that was just a Hillary Clinton issue more so than this wider issue, just having trouble kind of conveying authenticity. Or frankly, maybe there was some sexism involved because just, you know, she was a woman,

how could she know ball, right? But when it comes to Clinton, it's always a mix of those things. Yes. Very often a melange, a gross soup we have not escaped from. Or Rudy Giuliani, who was a famous Yankees fan during his time as mayor and was often cited as at Yankee Stadium in that box, rootin' on the Yankees, when he was running for president in 2007.

I remember when Rudy Giuliani ran for president. That happened. Wow. That did happen. And he was in New Hampshire prepping for the primary and he said, I will be rooting for the Red Sox because I'm an American league fan. You won the division and we lost.

That was in late 2007. And that just, no true Yankees fan, which from all appearances Rudy Giuliani had been up to that point, would say, oh yeah, well, I'm an AL fan. So when the Red Sox beat us, I've got root for you guys. No, of course not. So that was complete pandering and I think was understood as such to his credit. And he didn't get a lot of credit for a lot of things, but Bill de Blasio, who was a Red Sox fan, he maintained his Red Sox fandom. I think there was one time, I think, like after the peak of the pandemic, when things

opened up again, I think he, he wore a Yankees cap one time and said he was a Yankees fan for one day. I think maybe that was when Yankee Stadium was being used as a vaccination site. And so, yeah, it was clear that like, he wasn't trying to be on both sides or anything. He was just doing it, because it was for the greater good or whatever. And it was tongue in cheek and good humored. And yes, you all know I'm a Red Sox fan

and I'm not fronting here. I'm not trying to pretend to be something I'm not. But politicians love to talk about sports if they can, because it conveys that kind of like, you wanna have a beer with me quality. If it's authentic, if it's true. Like if you're actually a sports fan, as some politicians legitimately are,

then they can convey that and signal that. And I think that helps them. But if you're not that, then I think you should lean into that because people can sniff out a fake fan more quickly than they can sniff out any other kind of artifice, I think you should lean into that because people can sniff out a fake fan more quickly than they can sniff out any other kind of artifice. I think like fandom, you know, like when a politician's pretending to be a fan of something, they give themselves away almost immediately, inevitably.

And then it's even worse than if you just said, look, that's not my thing, but I'm going to be authentic about the fact that that's not my thing. And people might sort of respect that even if you sound like a wonk or an egghead or something. It's like, well, at least you're being true to yourself, you know? But we'll see whether Adams dons this cap again, should there be a subway series. But I'm just saying, you know, should he have worn the cap? No, because obviously there'd be a big backlash to that and it would not be received in the way, in the spirit in which it was intended. But the actual sentiment, I would suggest that is the position that a mayor should hold now

when you can root for both teams because they are not currently in conflict. To suggest that fandom is always like a hyper rational exercise would be wrong. And people do adopt very strange positions. They can tort themselves into all sorts of pretzels when like their favorite team gets eliminated and they feel a need to pick a side so that they can have some sort of direct rooting interest in the whole deal once the postseason continues to progress. It's weird to say you're an American League

fan. What does that mean? You're a fan of the American League. At the time, was that a strongly pro-DH stance? Did it speak to some broader principle? There used to be something to that. There used to be a real league rivalry before interleague and during DH and there was real stakes in the All-Star game and everything. There were bragging rights. In 2007, when Rudy Giuliani grew up, then yes, okay, maybe you could be kind of an AL fan, but not to the extent that it would override your hatred of the Red Sox as a Yankees fan. I don't buy that. Yeah, I don't buy that.

Yeah, I don't buy that either. Interesting to note that there was a time when Rudy was like, look, we lost and now I must root for the success of my rival. Who do we have in them, Ben? He conceded defeat in that series. I already told people this was just going to get worse as the month proceeded. You're in with me now. You just know, Make your choices. I don't know. It is very risky though to say that you're not into sports. I agree with you that people sniff out fakers, but I almost wonder if it's better to say,

look, I don't follow the sport all that closely, but everybody likes going to a ball game and having a beer and a hot dog with their friends and family. I think that's probably the safer middle ground. I think that we are distrustful of people who don't like sports. I'm not saying that that's fair, but I think you're right that it reads as so, it's so legibly normy to people. I know that sports have become contested territory in ways that I think surprise all of us, especially around football. But it's like a thing that we all do. Like we've talked about NFL being kind of the last real monoculture that we have as a society. I don't know that that's good, but it is

I think a true statement to say that it's like the thing that at least engages a broad enough swath of the population for everyone to kind of know what you're talking about, right? For you to feel obligated to have water cooler talk to the extent that that exists anymore about the subject on Monday. But I'm an AL fan? Yes. What is that even? You know, what a lot of people do, and I would count myself in this camp at times, like I think a lot of people have, you I would count myself in this camp at times. I think a lot of people have, they have their team that is their most favorite team.

Their team that when they say, I am a fan, they say, I'm a mm, and they fill in the word before fan with their team. But then I think a lot of people will have a preferred squad in the other league, you know, that maybe they root for above all others in that league or they enjoy the best. But when push comes to shove, I don't think there are a lot of true, just to bring it back to the realm of politics, both sides kind of folks when it comes to sports fandom. You feel it viscerally, even with teams that you're not invested in one way or the other, that you don't have a division rivalry with.

I love the postseason for so many reasons, but one of them is, it is clarifying to me about sort of like my base impression and feeling toward various teams. You're sitting there watching and you're like, I guess I don't want X team to win. I prefer Y team advance. I didn't really know it until this moment, but now I do because it's a gut thing. And being a fake fan or coming off that way is a truly nonpartisan issue. Both sides of the aisle have gotten in on this act over the years. I mean, there have been so many missteps, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney,

but also John Kerry and Al Gore, like they've, you know, very vague statements. Even President Obama, who, you know, obviously is a bigger basketball fan than he is a baseball fan, but has certainly purported to root for the White Sox and probably does on some level. But then when questioned, I think Rob Dibble did a hard hitting interview with Barack Obama

once. This was back in 2008 maybe or quite a long time ago. And he just asked him, who was your favorite White Sox player growing up? And he just couldn't answer. And he hem couldn't answer. And he like hemmed and hawed. And then he said, like, he liked a lot of the Cubs and then he called Kaminsky Park Kaminsky Park. And yeah, it's just, it's like, uh, John Kerry said the Packers

played at Lambert field. Just like, you know, you're trying to like, sounds like you're just a regular Joe, you know, you just, you watch the sports, you root for the teams. And if you don't, then don't attempt to. But yeah, look, I'm just here to say that the cap, I think was a political miscalculation, far from the first,

probably not the last in Eric Adams' career. But I think under the cap, I think that was actually the right position to strike. As long as when those two teams are in conflict, he does not purport to be neutral because he's on record as being a Mets fan. So you can still celebrate the accomplishments of your rival. You don't have to go out of your way to piss people off, but people will appreciate, they will sense the sincerity if you are actually sincere about these things.

So we're available for political consulting when it comes to baseball fandom and signaling baseball fandom, but no one has approached us about that service to this point. Oh boy. What a special mind. What a, I don't want to call him a beautiful spirit, that says something I don't mean, but what a special spirit resides in that strange brain, just a deeply strange, unintentionally funny human being with tremendous power, you know? Yes. Yes. I guess this is just, it's part of his brand now, maybe. So maybe this plays into it. By the way, I think that that Obama interview was maybe 2010, if it had been

earlier, perhaps he would not have gotten enough votes, but this came once he was already in the White House. So all right. Well, in the interest of equal time and being fair and balanced, we will be doing a second live stream that will cover an AL team this time, because we did an NL game in our first Patreon live stream. And so now we'll be switching it up for the AL fans out there, or specifically the fans of the Guardians and the Yankees. And we will be doing our second Patreon livestream on Friday, which will be ALCS game four. So that will be the night game on Friday. If there are two games, there will definitely be two games. Actually, we know that now.

So it'll be Guardians, Yankees, ALCS game four, 808. All these games are 808s and heartbreak for some teams. And we will do our Patreon live stream then for those at the appropriate tier. So just letting you all know now so that you have a few days to get ready for that. And we'll be streaming and chatting with you all in the Discord group as usual. So sign up now. It's not too late. Get in on the Ned Garver tier action to join us, keep us company. It's just, you know, we have to, we got to get one, got to get another one in, right? The, the stated Patreon benefit is two live streams. And you might be asking yourselves,

listeners, why wouldn't they save one for the world series? And look, look, the thing about it is that there's all this weird travel we both got coming up at an inopportune time and maybe it would be fine, but if both of these series conclude in five games, they're moving up the World Series, Ben. They're just scooching it up on the calendar. And then where would we be without a guaranteed second stream? We wouldn't do that to our wonderful patrons. They let us not do gambling ads and we're so grateful. of our listeners. And it's a pedantic point, but an important one for us to straighten out.

This was something Matt tweeted last week and he said, can't keep this quiet anymore. This has to be said. It's not winner take all unless the sports championship trophy is in the building. Tonight is winner go home, but the winner does not take all. They take a quarter of a championship or half a pennant. What do you say? Can we use winner take all to refer to the decisive game in any series or do we need to reserve that for the decisive game of the actual championship series when the winner does in fact take all?

So I can appreciate the sentiment, right? I get where this is coming from. I do think though that I would likely say that it's fine, because I think that the context, which is of that series, is understood. I think that it's understood, and it gives you another way to talk about the thing. And we so often this time of year find ourselves grasping for appropriate synonyms so that we're not exhausting our readership with the same couple of ways to say playoff postseason. We got an email about this too, about the use of playoff versus postseason and whether

we- Yes, interchangeable in my mind. Yes, and in mine too. And I know that there are some folks who have specific uses for one versus the other. But as someone who has gotten to the end of a 2000 word preview and thought to herself, if I see the word playoff one more time, I will simply throw myself out of this window. Where would we be without synonyms? We need playoffs, we need postseason, we need October at times, especially this year, because it's literally, we can refer to the postseason as October because there was no regular season in October.

Yeah. So yes, those are interchangeable, I would say, but yeah, the winner take all, winner go home. Of course you could say it's an elimination, a double elimination game, you could say. That's confusing. You know what I mean? To say double elimination game, to indicate that the team is being eliminated from the series and thus is not going to win the World Series? Well, double elimination, as in it's an elimination game for both teams, as in either team loses. Oh, sure. Yeah, which, you know, I guess, like they can't both be eliminated.

So it's kind of confusing. It's ultimately every game is a single elimination game at most, but still. No, don't do that. That's wildly confusing. Yeah, or you could just refer to it as a must win. Although there's always must win creep because people- There is must win creep.

Yeah, sometimes we'll refer to a game that's not actually must win is must win creep because people- There is must win creep. Yeah. Sometimes we'll refer to a game that's not actually must win is must win. Sometimes then they will be cognizant of the fact that they're trying to stretch the definition of must win. Feels like a must win. Yeah. Yeah. It's the closest thing to a must win. It's basically must win.

It's a no- Feels like a must win contest. It's important. They're all important games in the short playoff series. We understand how that works, but we must we must reserve, must win for when you actually must win to stave off defeat. But yeah, winner take all. I see Matt's point, but as with so many pedantic topics we discuss, it's kind of

a, yeah, but we all know what you mean sort of situation. So I do think that you should reserve must win for games one literally must win. But I do think the, um, the notion that there are contests that within the context of particularly a team's pitching and how they're pitching lines up that games can feel must win, even though they aren't technically must win. And I think, um, making that distinction that distinction in copy is fine, right? Like if you earlier in the postseason had wanted to make the argument that Scoobles starts were must win or felt like must win games for the Tigers given the dearth of starters behind him, I would find that acceptable. You'd need to make the distinction that it is not literally must-win. But if you wanted to talk about how it feels like a must-win

game, given how the rest of their rotation lines up, I would allow that. I'd publish that. Okay. Well, there have been some winner-take-all, must-win, winner-go-home games since we last spoke. So I guess we have to just quickly catch up and bring everyone up to speed. If you consume postseason baseball exclusively through Effectively Wild, then you have been waiting on the edge of your seat for several days for us to release an update so that you know how the Division Series ended. And they ended in pretty exciting fashion. So we should talk a little bit about the game fives, games five, game fives. Yeah. I had this little debate with myself on hang up and listen, it's game fives. So the Tigers and the Guardians, this was a really fun one and

it was fun because we talked about Terrence Goubel and how he was looming over game five and you have to get past the best to advance and the Guardians did. And there was a nice symmetry, I thought, to that because the Tigers got the Guardians unhittable guy and the Guardians got the Tigers unhittable guy. Terry Carpenter got Emmanuel Classe and then Lane Thomas got Tarek Scouble. And there's even a mirror image sort of symmetry in that Carpenter's a righty killer and Thomas is a lefty killer. And they did their thing. And Scouble looked dominant as ever for the first four rings or so of that game. And then Lane Thomas having the best week of his life, just big addition

by the Guardians coming up big when he had to. And that was that, but it was a hard fought series. And ultimately the Tigers having Andy Abanies batting clean up, not that the Guardians are an offensive powerhouse. And I get that Andy Abanies, he's a big platoon splits guy too and then you could pinch hit with Colt Keith later in the game, but still, like you just didn't really have the lineup that you typically have to have to get this deep into the playoffs and the Guardians don't have that either. Yeah, I was going to say. So it kind of was a battle between offensively inept by postseason standards teams. And ultimately the pitching chaos kind of ran out of steam at the very end there and scoople got got and the guardians deserve to advance.

Yep. And, you know, Austin Hedges and class A thought better of three straight sliders to carry a carpenter to finish things out. And yeah, they emerged victorious. I did, it is fun. I think when, you know, something goes very badly for a guy in an earlier game, right? Like class A against Carpenter where it was just like three straight sliders, big home run, and then all of a sudden the Tigers are winning. And I like when you can almost see the, you're not going to get me that way again in the game plan.

And it was just like, okay, how about I throw you like eight straight hundred mile an hour cutters in on your hands? Good luck buddy. See if you can launch one of those. I was like, me? You just stuck with cutters the whole time? I don't know, dude. But yeah, there they did and there they are.

And it's weird to talk about that series because now we've just had some actual games in the CS. But here we are, we have to talk about it because people didn't know how it ended because they only get their news through Effectively Wild. I just say you can cheat and look at the score. Yeah, it's okay. It's spoilers, it's okay. We won't be. Spoilers, but we understand.

Yeah, we understand. Did you see, according to Carlos Bayerga, which is my favorite way to start a sentence, or at least according to an interview with Carlos Bayerga, Jose Ramirez held a meeting before that fifth game. And he offered his teammates 500 bucks for each run batted in and a thousand bucks for each homer. So Lane Thomas was probably feeling like a million bucks, but he also got a thousand bucks

from his teammate Jose Ramirez, which I think it is kind of funny. And it's, you know, one of those like typical team building clubhouse activity kind of things. I saw a lot of people saying, would that actually be extra incentive for these guys? Given that that's a drop in the bucket for basically anyone who's making a major league salary, right? And also like, well, you know, it shouldn't

be on Jose Ramirez to do that. Look, Jose Ramirez, it's a tiny drop in the bucket for him. So I don't think this is like a- There's a lot that is an indictment against the cheapness of the guardians. We don't have to add that to the list. This is like a clubhouse leadership thing. Everyone relax. Exactly. And yeah, it's just one of these team spirit

building exercises, basically. It's hard for me to imagine that this would actually make me play better anyway. I mean, I don't know what effects that achieves, if any, it's probably just a fun thing. The way that predicting home runs constantly is just a fun thing that you do. I doubt that Lane Thomas was like extra focused

because he's like, hey, I got a thousand bucks here. I wonder by the way, do you get a thousand for the Homer and then 500 for the RBI that when you when you drive yourself in, or is that, is that included in the thousand that you get for the homer? I don't know. You're going to have to do some reporting, I guess. Yeah. I'm not sure how that was paid out.

Get Jose on the blower. Exactly. But no, I doubt it's something, you know, even if it's, I get that like, if you didn't grow up rich, then even if you are making a hefty salary, a thousand bucks might still sound like a lot to you because you remember what your life used to be like, like what life is like for a normal person for whom that would be a significant incentive,

even if as a percentage of your earnings, it's kind of a pittance, right? But you're trying to hit the playoff home run anyway. So I don't think it's like, huh, well, now that Jose offered me a thousand smackers, I think I'm going to try to smack this one out of the park. I doubt it would have any performance enhancing effect, but it's kind of just a fun team building activity. Like Jose Ramirez trying to smoke everyone in Mario Kart. Right. Yeah. It's exactly like Mario Kart.

And think of all the Mario Kart you could buy with a thousand bucks. Yeah. Smackers. So how good are the Tigers going to be next year? You think we've talked about that a little bit and it's dependent on how they approach this off season, obviously. But do you think this is like, well, of course they're going to be back given

that they're on the upswing or do you think it's like, well, of course they're going to be back given that they're on the upswing or do you think it's like, well, gosh, I mean, yeah, they're, they're re rebuilding and that seems to be proceeding nicely. But then again, they were such a long shot. They didn't see themselves as a playoff team a couple months before they made the playoffs. And so you might not get just that Cinderella run again next year. So will they have the underlying talent to make it back without that improbable path to the playoffs, given that it's the AL Central as we've discussed, but also the AL Central, a little more competitive than we have known it to be in some recent seasons.

Well, and I also think just like the AL generally has its share of at least competitive wild card teams, right? its share of at least competitive wild card teams, right? So I think that maybe the way that I would put it is while I think that the AL Central is improving as a division relative to some of the just like completely desolate ones, I still think that in most years, and I know this was not a good example of that, I'm acknowledging that this season was an exception to this rule, but I generally would be of the mind that you're gonna, your most likely path to get to the playoffs from the central

is going to be by winning the division that we're not likely to see another year like this one where you had like just three, there were three whole teams, Ben, that was wild. What, what, wild what what? Could have been four almost And four and so I think that in general They are probably I mean they're absolutely due from for some regression from their second half Like I think they almost have to be they had the best record in the American League in the second half

but I think that it's going to take a good bit of addition for them to really be in the competitive wild card mix, which, you know, maybe having had this experience, they're going to be keen to do, right? That seems possible. But I don't know that they have the talent on either side of the ball, the way that their bullpen is constructed, despite its really good performance in the second half in particular seems cute up for regression to me because they don't really have like a lot of standout guys. They have a lot of guys who threw a lot of pretty good innings, but haven't been, you know, fire breathers in the past. They don't have a ton of velocity in that pen.

And then you look at the lineup and Riley Green's really good. As we've established, Kerry Carpenter can hit righties. But there's a lot of work to do to improve that lineup. And I don't know that even if they go into this offseason thinking, yeah, we're going to really try to be back here next year, that, you know, if they're willing to spend that there's necessarily the kind of talent out there beyond the very top guys who could change things. Now, they have a decent enough farm system. So maybe you look and you say, well, we can get some help from some of those guys, but

some of those guys are still pretty far away. I don't imagine we're going to see Max Clark next year. They're being helped somewhat by the fact that J.C. Young is still prospect eligible, so we'll see what they get out of him, I guess. But I don't know. I don't think that it's the most likely. I think that if I were going to pick another team out of that division to sort of really jockey for a wild card spot, that it would probably be the Royals. But I don't

know, I think all of those central teams are both better than I expected them to be and still quite vulnerable. So we'll see which of them is able to kind of get themselves on more solid footing come opening day next year. So in Dodgers Padres game five, this was a close one. It was two nothing thanks to solo homers from the Hernandez's and wouldn't you know it, this was also predicted that the Hernandez's would Homer together. And in fact, it was predicted by Kike Hernandez, who said, I'm quoting here from ESPN, when Kike Hernandez was placed in the starting lineup

for game four, a byproduct of Freeman and shortstop Miguel Rojas being too injured to play, he told Teoscar Hernandez that two Hernandez's had never Homer'd in the same postseason game. Which I'd love to know, like, did he ask someone to verify that? Did someone in the Dodgers analytics group like like, run the numbers for him on that one to confirm?

So that Wednesday night, Kike Hernandez told Teoscar that they would be the first. When it didn't happen in game four, he told them they would do it in Friday's game five. Then they did. So he predicted it in game four, it didn't happen. Then it happened in game five. Like, you know, I guess second time's the charm. If you predicted in every game, then I guess eventually if you're both playing it will happen one day. But this is still sort of a long shot, but a little less luster to that prediction if you called it in game four and then it happened in game five. And Teoscar said, I believe in him, he believes in me.

I believe in myself and we enjoyed today. Yeah, that's nice. You know, October bros, bro and out and hitting homers together to propel their team into the NLCS. Yeah. So it was quite a turnaround by the Dodgers in that series and extending into the NLCS even.

And I updated the numbers that I ran in the stat blast last time about postseason hitters because Kike's got a lot of buzz right now as a playoff specialist, right? Yeah, Babe Ruth's over here. Yeah. If you limit it to a hundred plate appearances or more in the post season, which only 107 hitters have ever had that many, but Kike now trails only Carlos Beltran in difference between regular season, WRC plus and post season WRC plus,

because Kike, you know, not a great hitter in the regular season, 93 career WRC plus, he's up to 135 in the regular season, 93 career WRC plus. He's up to 135 in the postseason and has had a lot of big homers and a lot of big hits. And so he is now not exactly rivaling, but coming close to Carlos on that list. And of course, over on the AL side, Jean-Carlo Stanton has gotten plenty of love also

as a postseason star lately. And both Kike and Giancarlo, if I lower the minimum to a hundred played appearances, they're both in the top 20. I think Stanton's 18th now and Kike is 11th. All of these numbers will be out of date by the time people hear this because there are more games to be played. But yeah, they've both been excellent in the postseason. By the way, I noticed as I was doing this, I didn't notice this when we were doing the

staff last time, but if I keep the minimum at 50 plate appearances, which is where I had it initially, you know who turns up as a very clutch postseason hitter? Clayton Kershaw. Clayton Kershaw is clutch at the plate in October. He has had 52 playoff plate appearances. In the regular season, he has a career WRC plus of six. In the postseason, he has a career WRC plus of 57. Oh my God.

Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, He's improved by like 52 points. So let it not be said that Clayton Kershaw is not a clutch playoff performer. Yeah. At the plate, he is. Maybe he's just reserved all of his clutchness for his offensive appearances in the postseason, which is a shame because he doesn't really get to make any more of those now. I mean, he could still pinch hit, but that would still be a bad idea. But yeah, who knew? Clayton Kershaw. Clutch. October hitter. Just, you know, maybe we should factor that into the record. Anyway, Kike has been excellent in the postseason.

It is true. It has been mentioned many times on the broadcast. Basically every broadcast, every time he comes to the plate. Joe Davis will mention that that was part of the rationale for acquiring KK Hernandez his postseason history. Do we think that's true? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how much I buy that, but. I don't know that I buy that at all. In fact, I do buy, and I don't know if this has ever been stated as a rationale in quite the same way, but they clearly like him, right? And I think that he is understood to be a great clubhouse guy and he is a weirdly important,

maybe glue guy for that team. But I really struggle to believe that the Dodgers, the Los Angeles Dodgers and all the eggheads they have working over there were like, I don't know, this TOPS Plus is overwhelming. We simply must go get him. I'm skeptical that that is true. There is, if you buy it, if you buy the playoff mystique of Kike narrative,

there is a story behind it. He is one of these visualizing success guys, you know, see yourself- Oh, so like every other person who is in LA? And probably a good number of baseball players too, but the ESPN story says, seven years ago in 2017, Kike Hernandez got into the habit of visualizing success going into postseason games. Lying in bed the night before,

he would picture himself hitting a home run, rounding the bases, conducting post-game interviews. It helped make him one of the sport's most productive post-season performers. Okay. Yeah. I mean, whatever works. You'd think he would maybe want to visualize success all the time, unless there's like a limited quantity of times you can visualize success.

Why not visualize success every day? Maybe he'd be a great regular season hitter too. I feel like any answers I would offer to that question are going to make it sound like I'm trying to make fun of Keegan Hernandez, which I'm really not. But your mental attitude toward these things almost certainly has some sort of effect on your performance. Is it enough to catapult you from being a mediocre hitter to a great one? I mean, I'm skeptical that it is a big part of that formula, but sure, like the mental state you're in has to matter to some degree, right? Mind-body connection and all that stuff.

CB Yeah. Definitely don't visualize yourself failing. That might hurt if you're down on yourself, but I'd imagine most players see themselves succeeding when they envision those things. Sure. I don't know that for sure. Maybe some of them do just visualize themselves choking and have intrusive thoughts about how they're going to fail.

And that would probably be bad. I would guess that that might be bad for your performance, but I don't know whether this is better. Sometimes you're able to overcome your intrusive thoughts, Ben. You know, sometimes you just, but you don't sleep well. You feel very tired. That would be bad. Yeah. You want to get a good night's sleep probably before your postseason games. Anyway, the Dodgers move on and look, they have embraced this sort of underdog narrative, which you're the Los Angeles Dodgers. this sort of underdog narrative, which you're the Los Angeles Dodgers. Max Muncie was caught on camera in the clubhouse afterwards, profanely sort of sticking it to the experts who had doubted the Dodgers. And he was citing 80% of the F-ing experts said we were going to lose,

F those guys, we know who we are, we're the F-ing best team in baseball and we're out there to prove it. I don't know which experts exactly he's referring to. It's certainly true that there were a lot of baseball analysts who thought that the Padres were favored in that series. I did. I thought we both did, right? We both sort of picked the Padres again with like extremely low confidence. You know, it's not like I'm shocked that the Dodgers won. In fact, I think the projections even accounting for all of the Dodgers absences and injuries still had the Dodgers being favored.

The Zips odds did, I believe, going into this series. So it was hardly a long shot. Even I, who thought, yeah, the Padres seem like they're just a little better rounded right now. They're just a little closer to full strength even without Musgrove. But I certainly didn't doubt that the Dodgers could win a best of five series. You just, you have to do this, right? You have to, if there's no doubting going on, you have to either invent doubters or you

have to sort of really drill down on the doubters when there are plenty of other people who think you can win. And granted, like the Dodgers, they've had plenty of playoff failures. And so there are people who doubt their ability to perform in the postseason. And they themselves have talked about like Dave Roberts has said, you know, this is like the most mentally tough group I've had. Of course, you know, you're always going to say that to pump up your players, probably. It's like bunch of chokers. Yeah, they're just going to fall over at the first sign of trouble. You're not going to say that. But I guess I get why you use this as motivation, but it's, it can get pretty ridiculous. Brian Curtis wrote something about this for The Ringer not long ago that I'll link to, which is like, even if you are not at all an underdog, you basically have to

portray yourself as one in order to have a chip on your shoulder. Not everyone, not every athlete is like this, you know, but a lot of them use this as motivation. Oh, you don't think I can win? Well, watch this and I'll show you. And that's their way of doing the visualization. I guess they, they visualize 80% of unspecified experts being wrong. So they did overcome some doubts, certainly in that series, you know, when they were down, I mean, when they lost game two and game three, there were absolutely people who thought that they weren't going to pull out of that going back to San Diego or still being in San Diego. So they did overcome the odds at that point in the series.

I think it's useful. And look, I've been guilty of this, right? I have at times over the years, at times over this year, expressed frustration with say the Guardian social media account, because whoever runs that Twitter account is very sassy. About incorporating the projections, for instance, into this narrative, because sometimes it's not done correctly, sometimes it's misunderstood, and I don't mean this as a knock on Muncie. So I want to allow that I have been guilty of this too, but I wonder if it would be useful for us, for me, to remember that when we run our projections for the playoff odds over the course of a season, for an individual series, for an individual game for that matter,

I want those numbers to be right. I want the methodology behind them to be sound and rigorous. But at the end of the day, it's an impersonal exercise for me, right? It's deeply personal for Max Muncie. And so I get it. I get the part that's like, see, they doubted us. It is an interesting thing to contrast with Betz and the excuse conversation because it's like, hey, Max, like, huddle up with me bud. The reason that the projections to the extent that they were down on the Dodgers relative

to say where they would have been, maybe if the team looked exactly like it did on opening day isn't because we think you're bad players or because we think you smell, but because like your entire team is really hurt, right? Like all of your pitching is really hurt. Look at some of the relievers that are getting innings in this postseason who play for the Dodgers. There are guys who, you know, some of these guys weren't A-ball last year, you know? This year.

This year, right? Yeah. It would be strange for the playoff odds, for the game to game odds to not be sensitive to the composition of the team as it is currently constituted, right? We want it to take into account that they have like seven starters on the injured list. Like, what? That's wild. So, and they have a number of guys coming into this series,

you know, Michael Rosen just wrote about sort of the state of their depth for us today. You know, they have a couple of guys who aren't on the IL who might come back if they advance to the World Series, but just aren't on the CS roster because of when they got hurt relative to the start of the postseason, right? So that they have been able to do what they've done, I think is pretty remarkable given all of the injuries they've had to overcome. And even guys who are able to play, some of those guys are still compromised, like Freddie Freeman, I don't know what I'm going to, I want to preface this little segment by acknowledging that I'm not actually saying that they're doing this.

So if we have any Dodgers personnel listening to this, it's fine. I don't know if they're shooting that guy up with the stuff that they put into wide receivers at halftime so that they can come out when they've tweaked a hammy and play the second half of an NFL game. But the fact that that guy is playing is bonkers. And I'm not going to speculate about the medical advisability or lack thereof when it comes to the decision to let him play. But like, you know, sometimes you're like, that guy looks like he looks a little off.

I wonder if he's certain. Sometimes you look at Freddie Freeman and you're like, how are you walking at all, let alone legging out an RBI from second? What in the world? What are my stars? So you know, they're hurt and banged up and they're still winning. Good for them, except yesterday when it didn't go so well. CB Well, yeah. I've questioned at times whether it even makes sense to keep running him out there and running is a generous way to describe what he's doing out there because yeah,

I mean, he's still contributing. He hasn't had an extra base hit in this postseason. And he's Freddie Freeman. So he can still like get the bat on the ball and give you a single every now and then, but I just, I don't know that he is able to like plant his leg and drive and get any force behind. And of course he's looked a little hobbled in the field at times. I'm sure that his, his teammates must appreciate what a gamer going out there. And he took himself out of one game and, you know, has not been in the lineup

sometimes when it's particularly bad. But I do wonder because he's not the only one who we know to be playing through an injury and to be able to see that. I mean, you have Freeman with his ankle sprain, you have Brandon Nimo with his plantar fasciitis, which he's still to see that, I mean, you have Freeman with his ankle sprain, you have Brandon Nimmo with his plantar fasciitis, which he's still, I mean, he's kind of gingerly running around there in the outfield. He still manages to cover some decent ground sometimes,

but also sometimes it looks like it's holding him up. And of course you have people coming back from injuries like Rizzo with his broken fingers or, you know, it's just not everyone has done that. You, you heard Tony Gonsolin might come back and make his first appearance for the Dodgers this year in the NLCS. That didn't happen. He's not on the roster. I guess he conceivably still could be for the world series, but I wonder at,

at this point in the postseason, whether, like what percentage of players are compromised by something? Cause so often like the day after team X gets eliminated or the playoffs, and suddenly there are seven people having surgery or like, you know, and we didn't even know that something was hampering them or maybe you suspected, but they hadn't talked about it because you don't want to give it away if you think there's any kind of competitive advantage there to your opponent knowing that you can't get to a certain pitch or you know, whatever it is, right.

And so they will often just kind of grit their teeth and try to get through it. And then after the playoffs, we'll find out, Oh, so and so was playing through some like horrendous injury where it's like, how were you doing that, sir? Wasn't there, what was the Martin Maldonado injury that he was playing through last year? I'm going to have to look it up because I was wondering like, how in the world did you even do that? And maybe with Maldonado, it's hard to distinguish healthy Maldonado from hurt Maldonado at the plate at least, but there are so many injuries that we just don't know about.

In addition to just the generally being burnt out or fatigued or worn down by the grind, but I wonder what percentage of players, if they took a truth serum and you could actually know their actual physical condition, how many would have some specific complaint? Like, yeah, this thing is bothering me in a way that is actively impairing my performance right now at this stage of the season. I would bet it's probably a pretty high number. I don't know that all of them would fall into like the camp of compromise, but I think that a lot of guys at this point are playing through something, right? Something. Right. And we just don't even know what it is for the most part. Maybe was it, Maldonado,

that might've been two years ago where he played through a sports hernia for like the whole second half of the season, I think. That might be true. Or there was also, oh yeah, he played through a broken hand during the World Series. And he was like, you're a catcher. How did you do that? Yeah, Cal Raleigh played through a broken hand during the postseason in 2022 when he was catching, or maybe it was just, I don't remember if it was multiple fingers, one finger,

I think his thumb was messed up. And he's like out there catching, it's on his catching hand, he's catching Andres Munoz and like having the impact of that guy's fast pull. This is like, they're different, they're different, they're a different kind of folk, the catchers, my God, like all of them. I mean, like all you had to do was look at Richmond, like he didn't seem particularly spry toward the end there either. Like I think it just gets to a lot of these guys. Yeah. And I always try to keep that in mind before I criticize someone too harshly because you never know. Now, sometimes players just slump. Sometimes that happens, but also sometimes you find out there was more to the story or maybe you never even find out. And also sometimes with

managerial moves, it's like, why didn't he go to that guy? Why didn't he put that guy in? Well, maybe that guy wasn't available and maybe that wasn't announced before the game because that team wanted the opposing team to think that that guy was available. So there are machinations going on that we're not always privy to. Speaking of catching, by the way, catching technique has taken a lot of flack lately from one John Smoltz on the broadcast specifically. And to be fair, there was a lot of sloppiness in game one of the ALCS, a lot of wild pitches slash past balls, a bit of both, you know, a bit of column A, a bit of column B was a nailer kind of contributing, but also Joey Cantillo, who was pretty wild when he

was brought into a situation that was pretty tough for him because, you know, he's a starter and he's brought in with men on in relief in Yankee Stadium. Tough assignment from Steven Vogt, who I guess was hoping he would take the ball and run with it for a while, but was spiking it quite often at first. And Smoltz was going on about one knee down catching and how that leads to a lot of pass balls and wild pitches. And we have covered this at length on the podcast and we've run the numbers and we've talked to Tanner Swanson, the catching coach, and it just does not seem to be true, it just does not seem to be borne out by the numbers and JJ

Cooper at baseball America has done a study on this and other people have looked at it too. And I get why people think that it's true. It seems intuitive enough, maybe that if you've got one knee down because you want to get low to frame a pitch, then maybe you'd be a little less mobile than someone who is not one knee down and can kind of look a little springier back there, but it just doesn't seem to be the case. And, you know, it's always helpful to have some numbers.

I know I'm talking to John Smoltz here, but I was proud of him because he, he said the other day, he conceded that I think the quote was it's been statistically proven that one game matters less in a best of seven series than in a best of five, which, okay, that's not like great progress to concede that. That seems sort of self-evident, but even to suggest that something could be statistically proven, that that's within the realm of possibility that you could use stats to reveal some truth about the universe, that's not something he typically acknowledges. And so that seemed like, okay, that's a sign of progress.

But of course, the wild pitch plus pass ball rate this year, which was 0.35 per game, is literally the lowest in 40 years. It hasn't been this low since 1984 when it was 0.34. And that's given all the nasty stuff these days hasn't been this low since 1984 when it was 0.34. And that's given all the nasty stuff these days and tons of breaking balls and so much movement and so much speed and pitchers trying to expand the zone to go for strikeouts.

Despite all of that, the wild pitch slash pass ball rate is lower than it's been in decades. And you could run the numbers like per plate appearance, per pitch. It just, it doesn't make that much difference. You could even look at low pitches. I've seen people run those numbers and no, there's no uptick on. It's not like people are throwing high fastballs now and that's why you don't

get it and partly it's pitch calm as we've covered, but partly also it's the catching technique and catchers just being better at blocking. And now it's kind of become this thing where I guess it's the catching technique and catchers just being better at blocking. And now it's kind of become this thing where I guess it's a confirmation bias because it seems like it should be true. And then every time you see a wild pitcher pass ball, you think, ah, yeah, they were prioritizing framing. And, you know, they got so interested in trying to get the favorable call on that pitch that they weren't prepared when the ball was in the dirt. But that just does not seem to stand up to scrutiny. I'm not necessarily opposed to the notion that there are individual catchers who employ

that approach and therefore struggle with blocking. Like I think that you're going to find guys for whom that's true. I think that you might see guys who struggle to like really get into ideal position the way that they're kind of getting over the ball They're counting on being able to block with their body rather than their hands. I mean like there might be individual guys Yeah, it's a problem individual pitches. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, like, you know, maybe Yeah, even for guys who in general block fairly well, right? But I don't think that it is a huge, huge problem in general. Now, having said that, I will say that like, I don't think Bo Nailer is very good back there.

You know? I think that could be true too. And I think that's kind of Borno Banda stats. Let me see if my sense is true. Let's look. Take the step that John Smoltz typically won't take and check the numbers to see if my sense is true. Let's look. Let's look. Take the step that John Smoltz typically won't take and check the numbers to see if you're right.

Because I, you know, you know one thing they say about me? That I'm so brave, you know? They're like, ah, Meg, so brave. The stats like him, just fine. I don't think he's a bad receiver. I don't think he's an awesome blocker. And I think his arm is kind of weak. Okay. So like, yeah, okay, okay. I don't think he's an awesome blocker and I think his arm is kind of weak. Okay, so like, yeah, okay, okay, I did fine. I did fine, Ben. You know what I did? I did

fine. I did fine. I don't think he's very good back there. Some of it is he's kind of wee, you know? I'm skeptical of wee catchers. I worry about wee catchers. I worry about them holding up. Here's a way to justify my own perception even if it isn't as dramatic as I thought the stats were going to show. I think that if you think that Bo Nailer is amazing, why do you have Austin Hedges on your roster? You know what I mean? Yeah.

I mean, baseball prospectus has him positive this year, but- Yeah. So do we. So do we. We agree. But also, I think I. But also I think I'm right. You know, I think I'm right about it. I don't know if he's very good back there. Well, at least you, you cited the numbers.

You checked your belief. Yeah. Baseball prospectus has him at 0.2 blocking runs above average, which, you know, the numbers are small the way that their catcher defense stats work but uh yeah. Saccast catcher blocking in runs above average has met one. Eight for framing, negative one for throwing. So okay yeah no great shakes when it comes to that stuff certainly. But not as bad as I thought so look I'll accept new information. It's not flip-flopping. It's not flip-flopping, Ben. It's accepting new information. Right. So this Dodgers turnaround, so there was so

much hand-wringing about the lack of starting pitching and then having to rely on bullpen games and how that can go south. And then the Dodgers of all teams reel off this 33 inning shutout streak, just dating back to the third inning of NLDS game three through ALCS game one. And no one saw that coming. I think we were all just saying, oh yeah, the lack of pitching is going to sink the Dodgers, not the bullpen so much, but the fact that the bullpen was being stretched so much to make up for the deficiencies of the starting rotation.

And the fact that, you know, at some point you have to start one of your subpar starters just to get through this thing. And then they tied the all-time record. And they're one of the few teams ever to have three postseason shutouts in a row. You just never know how things are going to swing. And then of course they have the 33 inning shutout streak and then the 34th inning, things

go wrong and Francisco Vindor homers. And then I guess the 35th inning Francisco Vindor gets intentionally walked to bring Mark Vientos to the plate, which was probably unwise and Vientos quite a strong hitter in his own, right? And he deposited a grand slam into the stands in LA and maybe that was a bad call by Dave Roberts. But at some point you have to pitch Landon Nack. That's just unavoidable. Like, you know, Walker Bueller is going to get into a game and Landon

Nack's going to get into a game and that soft underbelly of the rotation, whether Nack is starting or not, he was going to be into a game and that soft underbelly of the rotation, whether Nack is starting or not, he was going to be the bulk guy in that game. So the sequencing probably doesn't matter all that much really. And that's a vulnerability for the Dodgers and probably the Mets have the starting pitcher advantage in most of these games, especially now that Sean Manaya is October ace and he's just been big for them or was for five innings at least until things sort of went south for him and the Dodgers almost got back into that game.

But yeah, who foresaw that? No one foresaw that. You know, the Dodgers shutting down the Padres and the Mets to gifted offensive teams for as long as they did. It's like a testament to their bullpen, but also a testament to randomness. LS. To randomness. Can we talk about Roberts and his managerial decisions for a hot second? Because I had one grade assigned to him after the game one blowout. game one blowout. And then I want to discuss with you whether we ought to revise that grade down at all. Okay? So I thought at the time that Roberts managed game one pretty perfectly.

You know, Jack 30 going seven innings sure helped, but in the Dodgers scoring early and often sure helped. But I thought he played that very well. I thought he played the game before that very well, the actual bullpen game, right? Not game two that they just lost, but the game prior to that where, you know, he was appropriately aggressive pulling guys. He left guys in when he needed to. He got what he needed to offensively. I thought, you know, his lineup decisions were good, pinch hitting was sound.

Okay. So here's a question I have for you, Ben. Because after yesterday's game, when they lost, there was reporting that Roberts had said that Daniel Hudson was unavailable. Hudson had pitched an inning the game prior. He came in in the eighth in relief of Flaherty. I believe it was the eighth. Yeah, it was in fact the eighth. He obviously pitched a scoreless inning. Then in the bottom of that frame is when Betts added a three-run double to the Dodgersgers ledger and really put the game away, but they were up 6-0 when Hudson came in. So if you think that Hudson's going to be potentially unavailable the next day, why are you throwing him in that game? Like, why wouldn't you throw a lower leverage guy? And I know Hudson, like, you know, he's not closing out games for them at this point. But like, I am a little, I was a little confused by that decision in

hindsight. At the time, I didn't have a problem with it because I was like, okay, you have done, you have asked as much as you possibly can from Flaherty. He should not throw another inning. Like, this is the right decision as you, you know, stare down, you know, you're definitely going to get Alvarez, Lindor in all likelihood this frame. Jeff McNeil came back, which was so funny because I was like, you were just in the fall league like two days ago. He came down here to rehab, which is not unusual this time of year. So in hindsight, I'm like, what is that one about though? That one struck me as a little bit odd. But I bring it up mostly to say that I actually think that Roberts

has done a very deft job with these bullpen moves this postseason at a time when the degree of difficulty is meaningfully higher than it has been in some years where he maybe had more obvious options and I think people have sometimes had issues with the way he's fit all of his pieces together. So I come here not to bury him, but to praise him. Is that how that expression goes? That's the way that that little turn of phrase goes? What a dramatic range of options you present in that moment to praise or to bury, like, oh my God.

Yeah, I think on the whole, he's done a pretty good job. And I guess he hasn't had to resist the temptation to use his starters in relief, which maybe has gotten him in trouble. In trouble in the past. One way not to use your starters in relief. Not to have any. Not to have any. Exactly, right. So it's not that he learned his lesson and did something different, so he just does not have that card to play now. And I'm sure he would rather have some top of the rotation

starters, even if it meant that it might backfire when he brought them in relief, which I understand that temptation because I'm always like, just use them on their throw day. They should be good, but sometimes it doesn't really work and they don't take to that roll or maybe it hurts them when they then return to the rotation their next time through. But yeah, this year he doesn't really have that option. We thought Shohei Otani might be that option for him, but it seems as if that's been taken off the table too. So you just kind of took his toys away and that's not good for the Dodgers probably, but it has sort of simplified his choices. I guess it mostly comes down to, well, for the most part when he's called on someone they have delivered and they've pitched well, which will make any manager look smart when that happens.

But yet it mostly has worked until in game two it didn't because you can't get away with that forever. You know, eventually the bullpen game is probably going to come back to bite you, especially when it's a bullpen game when you can't just use your top line options. When, right, in this series, in the CS round, the schedule is a little less forgiving of that. So in the ALDS, the NLDS, there were so many off days built in that you really could just sort of reserve your top relievers for every game because there was going to be an off day. Whereas in this round, not so much. You're going to have games on three consecutive days and guys are going to get cast now.

I don't know whether he knew that Hudson would not be available or whether that was news to him too. And this is a fair potential quibble with my analysis, right? But that was a game where he had to dip deeper into the options and sometimes you throw a landed knack and those guys against the Mets and you're going to get burned. And I do think the Dodgers mostly right-handed relievers match up well with the Mets and you're going to get burned. And I do think the Dodgers mostly right-handed relievers match up well with the Mets mostly right-handed bats. And you know, you can't completely neutralize the Mets that way, but it helps certainly.

And the Dodgers are without Alex Vesia too, cause he's hurt for this round. They just, you know, Dodgers dropping like flies. And that's another case where they just do not have that weapon right now. And maybe it matters a little less against the Mets than it might otherwise given some other opponent. But yeah, you know, it's a good hitting team and Francisco indoors doing his thing and Mark Vientos is really good. And the Mets fortunes changed with the arrival of Vientos just as much as if not more than

the arrival of Grimace, I would suggest. And so he is making people pay if they want to pitch around Lindor. It doesn't really get that much easier. It is striking that of all the MVP contenders and the main characters of this regular season, Lindor has been the one who has continued those heroics in the postseason, more so than the others. It's not like Otani's been bad. He's had some huge hits too, but he hasn't been the big driver. He hasn't been carrying this offense the way that he kind of did at times during the regular season. And then Judge, he's had some walks, I guess you could say. He's made some good plays in the field, but he hasn't been the masher yet as we speak. And you could say that

about Bobby Witt Jr. who didn't have a big series or even Jose Ramirez who hasn't been especially great thus far. Like all of the big guys who got these teams here, they haven't really been propelling them for the most part other than Lindor, other than the Mets guys. So that's been sort of a storyline. I'm still waiting for the breakouts for Judge or Ramirez or some of these other guys to just kind of take control of a series, but it hasn't happened to this point. To this point. Yes this point? But then- Yes, give them time.

Give them time. I mean, or don't give them time, right? It's no more certain- They got run out of time. Yeah. Yeah. It's no more certain that they'll do it over this coming small sample than that they won't, right? It's just a little baby sample, you know, tiny baby, you know, tiny babies, famously unreliable because they're babies. Yeah. Oh yeah.

I know that. You're like, I have the most unreliable baby. Can't count on her to pick up groceries or take things to goodwill. Yeah. We've all been babies, although most of us don't really remember that, but we know we weren't very good at things. I'm glad I don't remember that. Yeah.

Are you sad you can't remember being a baby? No, it seems frustrating to be a baby. I don't think I'd enjoy remembering pooping my pants. I think I would find that uncomfortable. I guess you don't mind that so much if you're a baby, or maybe you do. Sometimes you cry because- If you can remember that you were a baby, you'd mind it in hindsight though, you know? I guess, yeah, that's true. In retrospect. You'd be like, oh, I didn't like it when I pooped my pants.

Yeah, that's right. So glad I introduced this thought to everybody's true. In retrospect, it's like- You'd be like, oh, I didn't like it when I pooped my pants. Yeah, that's right. So glad I introduced this thought to everybody's minds. Happy Tuesday. Do you think that the Dodgers will roll into next season kind of running back their pitching approach because we learned that Clayton Kershaw, he's coming back, which is nice, you know? Sure. And not surprising really. I think he went through the whole shoulder surgery

and all the rehab from that. And he pitched decently enough before his foot got in the way and he's got these bone spurs that ended his season. And I don't know if he's gonna have to have surgery for that because that's been bothering him for a while, but let's see if he comes back from that and is healthy coming into next season, you know, given what he went

through to get back this season, not surprising to me that he would want to come back. And he has a player option, which was initially, I think, a $5 million player option, but got converted into a 10 million because of some incentives and thresholds that he reached this season. So yeah, I think he will flip that switch and he will come back. I don't know if there will be other negotiations or they'll work out something longer term or whether he'll just give it a go as he said next year and see what happens, but as it stands, the Dodgers might just be kind of going back into

next season with the same deep, but injury plagued collection of pitchers that they came into this season with, plus Otani I guess, and plus Gonsolin. And then you hope that Dustin May can pitch, but everyone, even Otani, none of those guys individually will be someone that you can necessarily be confident in being healthy at any point in time. Not that you can like count on any particular pitcher to be healthy really, but it seems like unless they make more additions

this off season, they'll be going into next year with, okay, we've got Yamamoto and we've got Otani and we've got Glasnow and we've got Gonsolin and we've got Kershaw and we've got Dustin May and we've got Emmet Sheehan. We do not have Gavin Stone who had shoulder surgery and will be out for all of next year, right? And you know, there's a River Ryan had Tommy John surgery. So some of these guys are gone for next year. Some are returning, but all of them, it's the same sort of story, like super talented, but also who knows if they'll hold up.

Flaherty is a free agent. Walker Bueller, of coursety is a free agent, Walker Bueller of course is a free agent. So I wonder whether they will be confident and like, okay, let's just, we've got our collection of guys who get hurt, but when they're healthy, they're really good. And hopefully more of them will be healthy when October rolls around. Or whether they'll say, you know what,

we need whatever passes for a dependable pitcher. I don't know whether they'll be like in the running for Corbin Burns or someone given the number of arms that they have, though, I guess it wouldn't shock me. They're the Dodgers after all. But do they go for some sort of like innings eater by the standards of modern innings eaters, you know, someone with a less like injured or hurt track record. I think they'll want to take a different approach. I think that they will desire to have more stability. I do wonder if the free agent market will lend itself to taking that approach, right? But if I were them, I'd be like, that wasn't fun.

That was stressful. Why would I do that? Here are their options, right? Did you run through all the options already? Did you run through all of them? Well, I may have missed one or two because there are so many, but they all are in that bucket of, yeah, all of these guys are good, but all of them have significant injury concerns. So, and even though they're the underdog Dodgers

who nobody believed in, they're the team with the second highest payroll in baseball that wins that division every single year. Yes, it can be true that they're the favorites going into every season, and then they're also the underdogs when the playoffs roll around. But Andrew Friedman made some comments about how they're going to examine their pitching approach

and all the injuries that they've had and hey, are we doing something wrong here? And so I wonder whether, if they get burned by this ultimately, and maybe they won't, if they win the world series, they might say, okay, we were good enough, let's do it again. But I would like to think, and I'm trying not to be too complimentary to the Dodgers because they don't need my praise.

I don't want it to go to their heads or anything. But I think that my sense of the folks over there is that even if this ends up ending exactly the way they hope it will, that there will be some serious reflection given to time spent on, you know, what do we want our approach to this thing to be? Now, I don't know that that necessarily, assuming that that sort of examination takes place, I don't know that the place we necessarily see it manifesting is in like this year's set of free agent signings. As we have noted when it comes to Los Angeles, like part of why there might be some player dev issue that they have that is resulting

in guys getting hurt more often. That's a useful audit for them to do as an org. But part of why I think we end up seeing injured guys in the pipeline for Los Angeles who ultimately get to the big league roster and then might be really good but also might be injury prone is that they're willing to take guys who have recently been injured in their drafting and signing, right? Like when you look at their recent draft classes, they'll take a guy who just had TJ and, you know, sort of be there to guide his rehab and then foster his development. But if they believe in the talent, they are not necessarily going to fail a guy on the medical just because they

know he needs Tommy John, right? Or that he just recently had Tommy John. So I think that if you end up seeing an organizational shift around this stuff, it might be the kind of thing that doesn't really bear fruit for a little while because one of the primary sources of their big league rosters injury proclivity is upstream of that roster and a couple of years back. You know how streams are also gated by time? You know, famously how there's like, you know, it's like a, it's a it's like a, but they don't want the dam to burst with anyway. So do you get what I'm trying to say?

Sure. There's like a dam of injuries. They don't want it to burst. They've already let water out of that dam because of who they graft. Man, every day I feel worse and worse for making fun of Boris. Like just every single day that passes, my own brain melts a little bit more and I just get more taxed. There's a calculation that the Dodgers have done, which is, well, we know we're usually going to cruise to the playoffs. It wasn't exactly a cruise this year, but they made it. They won the division and therefore we can afford to have a bunch of hurt or good guys and we'll hope that enough of them are good that we can fill out a

playoff rotation, which does not need to be five guys. It's interesting because usually if you're like the underdog, you say, let's go for the high variance strategy because we can't just coast to this. But the Dodgers have said, well, you know, we can kind of coast to the playoffs and so let's take the high variance arms because we just, we only need like three of them maybe to be healthy at once and that'll be good enough. But I guess you could also say, well, gosh, if we know we're going to be in the playoffs every year, basically no matter what we do, then maybe we should have some certainty in here so that we don't get caught out when October comes and suddenly we're doing bullpen games with Landon Nack because that's our best option because we have two, two-ish starters.

Even Yamamoto hasn't looked like himself really, even though he was fairly effective in his last start. But yeah, I wonder how they'll evaluate things and whether they'll change anything. Did you notice by the way that after the Dodgers advanced to the NLCS, Dave Roberts either retconned or admitted that he was not actually aggrieved about the Manny Machado supposed toss toward the Dodgers' dugout and that that was a work in the wrestling sense that this was theater. He said, I'm quoting from an athletic piece here,

was his reaction designed to take the pressure off his own players after their 10 to two loss in game two? It was, it was Robert's acknowledged at the end of the series as a manager, you never want to make it about you. But I just felt in that situation, if we could take it off our guys a little bit, Manny and I have a really good relationship. I would take him any day, but I don't think that diversion was a bad thing for our guys and they responded by having my back. So Roberts is suggesting that when he was talking about the, uh,

disturbing toss toward the dugout, that he was, is that the word he used? There was something like that, right? I don't know. I think, continue. I have thoughts on this. Yeah. Well, he's suggesting that he wasn't actually unnerved by that at all. Unsettling, I think was the word he used. Yes. Okay. A little weaker maybe than disturbing, but same genre. So he's suggesting that this was just like to pull his guys together, that he wanted them to have a common enemy and rally around him here.

I just look, managers have to manage, man. I think that it's very funny. I also, I don't know, if I were a Dodgers player, I would feel a little like, you think we're kind of dubtive? I don't know, is that an over-read? Is that like too strong? But also, look, I think sort of like the Muncie with the probabilities and whatever. When you're this good, when you are good enough to play Major League Baseball, when you are good enough to not only play Major League Baseball, but play Major League Baseball to the standard that a playoff team is setting, when you're the Dodgers, I do wonder if you

kind of have to manufacture some of this bulletin board material, right? You got the biggest payroll in the sport, your ownership and your front office seem to be really excellent. You're allowed to just spend money to address problems. You have great scouting, you got great player death. Everybody to a certain extent does believe in you, you know, with the caveats we've supplied about injuries and what have you, understanding the toll that that can take on a very talented roster. But saying on a very talented roster, right, in the same

breath quite often, maybe you just have to, maybe you just gotta not make it up, but exaggerate ever so slightly. And against a division rival, you probably don't have to try that hard to get your guys worked up on your behalf. And I will say, like, you know, the dugout reacted in the moment to that toss. It wasn't just after the fact Roberts being like, I found that disrespectful. To be clear, it was disrespectful. As I said, I don't think it was dangerous, but it was disrespectful. Man, he was trying to make a point. But the dugout reacted to that in real time. People were perturbed by that moment. So I bet he didn't have to work very hard. Yeah. And I haven't said much about this Yankees series. On the whole, I would say the

Yankees games have not been quite as exciting as some of the other series. It's not a knock on the Yankees or anything. It's just that the games themselves, I know there was the back and forth Royals game with all the lead changes and everything, but it's been like Yankees taking advantage of their opponents' sloppiness, just so many walks. The Yankees to their credit, they're taking those pitches, they're taking those walks. But as we record here on Tuesday afternoon, they have 34 walks already in the postseason, 37 strikeouts, which in 2024 in the postseason, that's pretty extraordinary. So the Royals and now the Guardians have just been

And that's pretty extraordinary. So the Royals and now the Guardians have just been, you know, handing them free bases, whether it's via walk or wild pitch or pass ball, and they're taking advantage of them and they're getting just enough hits and the bullpen has been good. That was a concern, understandably so, coming into the playoffs. And yet the bullpen has been excellent. And Luke Weaver, he's the guy. He's just the shut down playoff closer. Who knew?

And Holmes seems like he's gotten his act together. And so that seems to be a little more locked down and they are just better than the teams that they've played thus far, which doesn't mean that they're bound to win this series or that they were bound to win the last one, but they've just, they played better in addition to being better thus far. I think that's right. All the Guardians just made a substitution on their roster, Ben. Yes, Ben Lively coming in.

Ben Lively coming in for Alex Cobb. My minor league free agent draftee, one of the most successful in minor league free agent draft history. I don't think that playoff playing time counts for that, but the result has already been decided. I'll say that much, but we'll cover that on a postseason episode. I haven't looked. Did I win? Oh yeah. No. But Ben Lively was great for my team, I will say that much, but we'll save that for a review of that and our bold preseason predictions. I don't remember those either.

review of that and our bold preseason predictions. But I don't remember those either. So yeah, but Carlos Rodan was good in game one, but also, you know, it's the guardians and it's just offense is not really their strong suit. They, they have to get a lead to deploy their great strength, which is the bullpen. And that means that they have to get good starts and they have to get some amount of offense and that has not necessarily been a given, but we're talking before a game with Tanner Bybee and all the good bullpen arms lined up. So perhaps that will have changed by the time people hear this, but you know,

overall, I think that the playoffs have been excellent as we've discussed. This is a recurring theme of our playoff coverage. Wow. These games are good and these are good matchups. And I think the fact that the teams that advanced were the ones that advanced, I think it spared us more hand wringing about the playoff format, just because three of the four teams with buys advanced. So we don't have to hear about the long layoffs and the rust anymore.

Yeah. Not sorry that we don't have to rehash that whole thing. And, you know, most of the favorites advanced, fewer upsets. Again, like the potential for upsets was less than it's been in some time because the good teams just weren't that good relative to the worst teams this year. But again, like Joshian has dubbed it the second chance problem. We talked about this last year where you have division rivals going ahead to head in the playoffs and the lesser team over the course of the regular season, beating the better team in the short series.

And that second chance problem, as he dubbed it, which is, Hey, we played a whole regular season to get to this point and to decide which of you was better and now you're matching up again. And all of those results from the previous six months were just undone by this best of five or best of three or whatever it is. And as he noted, that was not something that baseball had to contend with that often,

both because of the format and because of just chance. And then it really came to head the last couple of years. And other than the Mets topping the Phillies, NLB was sort of spared that this year because the Dodgers beat the Padres and the Guardians beat the Tigers. So we didn't have to have a whole round of, you know, understandable discourse about, wait,

why did we even just do that whole regular season 162 games thing to figure out which of you is better if the next three or four games are going to topple all of those results? So I think narratively in terms of tired discussions, I think we were spared somewhat. And then obviously in terms of like getting eyeballs on the games, so, you know, it's good to have New York and LA based teams in this thing. And I know that a lot of people are sick of those teams

and don't wish them success, obviously. It's TV executives are happier, maybe than neutral fans are to see those teams advance to this round. But hey, you got the guardians, right? We've got the three big spenders and then the cheap team that hasn't won a world series since 1948. So if you want your true underdog, whether that's a self-imposed underdogness

to an extent, the team with the longest title drought in North American pro sports, except for your Arizona Cardinals, not yours. Yours are still the Seahawks, but they're in your state now. Wow. My Arizona Cardinals? Okay, so look- You do not claim ownership of the Arizona Cardinals, I know. You're not wearing a half Seahawks, half Cardinals hat.

Well, and I want to offer the following. This is one of the many ways in which I differ from Rudy Giuliani. I think I'm so excited to say aloud, if someone else wins the West, I do not feel an obligation to root for them. I respect the Niners. I have thoughts about the Rams that aren't safe even for a bleeped version of our podcast. I have some amount of affection toward the Cardinals, but in the way that you do with like a younger sibling, you don't feel threatened by. And I say that with my Seattle Seahawks

having dropped three games in a row, two in truly stupid fashion. So everyone relax. I will not be pulling a Giuliani on this one. Not pulling a Giuliani in the state of Arizona should be reassuring to everyone, given how close we are to the election. Ay-oh! Nor do you color your hair as he has been known to do as we discussed last week.

I'm gonna let it go gray, yeah. I'm excited. I wanna be full witch by the time I'm 45. Let's go, yeah. Yeah, so, and look, be full witch by the time I'm 45. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. So, and look at the ratings have reflected the fact that these have been good games and obviously like big markets and big spenders and all that, but also series that are going deep. I mean, that's one of the differences from last year.

It's not that, yes, you have the Dodgers for more than three games and also you have the New York teams in these things, but we haven't just had sweeps across the board and we've had game three wildcards and we've had game fives in the division series and you know, the ratings are up as a result. MLB has bragged about that. They're up, I think, what was it, 18% in the postseason so far, 14% in the division series, and some of the individual games have been the best in years and years. The Padres Dodgers game five was the most watched DS game since 2017. Tigers Guardians game five was the most watched DS day game. A couple of qualifiers there in 17 years and Fox, which had the NL games averaged more than 4 million viewers, the highest average ratings since FS1 started airing

playoff baseball in 2014. So given that you're comparing to a pre current cord cutting time, it's always good when ratings are the highest in some number of years. And yeah, I think that reflects the fact that we've gotten better matchups, more compelling matchups to the majority of the country. Yes. And also just more competitive series and just more compelling games. It's just been a combination of everything you want really in the postseason.

Yeah. I think it's been a great mix. I think that it's been just enough this's and that's. The games have been fun, the teams are fun. We got to hear you talk about the Mets topping the Phillies, which I don't know that you want to throw that bone out to our audience. Bone, oh boy. Great time, great time had by all.

I'm enjoying myself a great deal. And I think you're right. It's good for the health of the sport to see teams that invest in their rosters advance. I think that it's good to have new kind of upstarts, even if they don't end up making it all the way to the championship or World Series. I have a lot to say about sort of the approach of Guardian's ownership to their roster, but I think the people who work for the team want to win, and I think they do a very good job drafting and developing their players, and they put those, they put good guys out there. I'm always excited to watch Jose Ramirez in October. And Quan, I don't have to list every

guy. I like all the guys. I like all of them. They're all great. So I think it's been a good time. I don't really care about the ratings in and of themselves, but I do think that it's good for the sport to feel like it's in a healthy place. And yeah. CB You want a mix of teams that are rewarded for investing in their rosters. And then also some teams that, uh, didn't do that, but managed to make it anyway, just to increase the unpredictability and the perception of parody, the reality of parody, frankly. And even though these are powerhouses and, you know, from a payroll perspective,

it's not as if they've all won a whole lot of rings lately. The Dodgers won one in 2020 for the first time since 88. The Yankees for them, they're in a long drought since 2009. The Mets since 86. These teams have made some appearances more recently in some cases, but yeah, it's not as if they've dominated to the degree that you have concerns about being able to buy a championship. It's still very difficult to do in MLB. So we'll see whether all of these glad tidings and good cheer continue in the Game 2s. Well, I guess we were right that it was only a matter of time until the good hitters started hitting and not that much time.

Aaron Judge-Homert in ALCS game two, though that wasn't the difference maker in the Yankees 6-3 victory. It was 6-3, not 6-2 because Jose Ramirez homered two. So maybe it's time for the stars to star. I did enjoy the timing of this Jeff Frankor comment in the TBS booth. You know, you get the feeling guys, that a few guys you see might be affected by that

six days off with the one and two seat judge Ramirez seem to tick off, right? One ball, one strike and Ramirez fly ball, right field, got a chance. And Ramirez with a homerun. I guess Ramirez hitting that homerun doesn't disprove Frank Corr's suggestion that his timing was off because of the buy in the wild card round. But it was amusing. Why would that time off especially bother the best hitters?

Who knows? I heard Frank Korr and AJ Przezinski on foul territory call that game a must-win for the Guardians, speaking of must-win creep. What's the key for the Guardians? Because I think this is a must-win for the Guardians. If the Guardians lose tonight, I think this could be over quickly. I couldn't agree more. So I guess that means the series is over.

I mean, it might be, but I think they'll continue to play, just to be sure. In another TV ratings update, game one of the NLCS was the highest rated NLCS game one since 2009. That wasn't even the game one with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce in attendance. Casting their light on the little overlooked sport of baseball, I guess it goes to show that there are a lot of people in New York and Los Angeles. Who knew? There was no Grand Slam in that game, though there was in Game 2, which was the fourth Grand Slam of these playoffs. We got a question from Patreon supporter Ruhi about whether that was a lot.

Whether we were on pace for a record. Sarah Langs had this stat after the Vientos Grand Slam. The most Grand Slams in a single postseason is five. From 2021 and 1998, there's a 5-way tie for 4. So it's a lot of Grand Slams, not yet a historic total. Also an update on Tropicana Field, Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported that while it's still not clear how severely the trap will be affected by the damage from Hurricane Milton, the only thing that seems certain, I'm quoting, is that the team won't be able to open the 2025

Major League Baseball season at home as planned on March 27th. So it does seem as if they'll need another home at least temporarily. I meant to mention the last time we talked about this that I guess the Rays might actually get their wish of some sort of multi-city timeshare like the Kakamimi scheme they were trying to put into practice a few years ago splitting time between St. Petersburg and Montreal, but this is not the way they wanted that to happen. Also, let me read you a response I got from historian and past past blaster, Richard Hirschberger, author of strike for the evolution of baseball. I asked him about that route to second base.

Many Machado took in game three of the NLDS, which as we discussed was kind of controversial though legal, Richard confirmed its legality, but he provided some interesting background about the origins of the relevant rule. He writes, if you want a deep historical discussion, well, when don't we? Let us ask, what is the purpose of the rule requiring a runner to stay in his running lane? It has nothing to do with interference. It is due to the rule that a runner is put out by tagging him. This development can reasonably be considered the divide between pre-modern and modern baseball. Most forms of pre-modern baseball put the runner out by throwing the ball at him, variously called burning or plugging or the like. This was changed to touching

the runner with the ball by players in New York in the late 1830s seeking to adapt the game for adult play. What was the objection to the old rule? Think about the last place you want to be hit with a hard-th hard thrown ball. This New York version displaced the various others for slowly than all at once. The process completed for adult play by 1867. During the transitional period, there were discussions of the comparative merits of the New York versus the local forms. Tagging was by far the most noted difference, with most but not all commentators considering it a great improvement.

Tagging rather than plugging created a series of follow-on changes, most notably the force play. Consider a runner at first. The batter hits a routine ground ball the second. If there's no force play rule, what possible incentive would the runner have to run into the tag? At the least, he would tarry long enough to make sure the fielders could not turn a double play. If there were two men on base, every play would be a potential rundown. So next, let's consider the rundown. With the runner's lane rule, a rundown is played in one dimension along the line of the runner's lane. Remove the running lane requirement and the rundown enters the second dimension, with the runner free to lead the fielders on a merry chase.

This might work in pre-modern baseball, where the fielders can put the runner out through action at a distance, but with the introduction of tagging, a rundown could go on indefinitely as other runners advanced. This was judged undesirable, hence the requirement to stay in your lane. So returning to the Machado play, the running lane rule has absolutely nothing to do with it and never has. The real issue here, inasmuch as there is an issue, is that baseball broadcast crews typically do not know the rules of baseball and get outraged when a play they don't understand

is made. Football broadcasts, for all their failings, typically have an on-call rules guy, and the booth crew are willing to call him in for an explanation. I think this is because the football rules have nuances that come into play frequently, while the baseball rule nuances tend to only apply rarely. This allows people to imagine they have a better grasp

of the baseball rules than they really do. Professional umpires are specifically trained in weird rule situations, and typically are very good at this aspect of the job. If the umpires are okay with a play, the thoughtful response is to assume that it was legal and to look into this nuance of the rules. The Machado play was controversial only because baseball broadcasters lack this level of self-awareness. And probably not just the broadcasters. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access

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Talk to you then. And the stat blast queries are detectively compiled Non-Agerian baseball legends selectively dialed But their spiciest takes are still respectfully mild More than two thousand episodes retrospectively filed And at each new one we still collectively smile That's effectively wild That's effectively wild