Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2376: No Spoilers

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the state of the wild cards and whether the pennant races have been more exciting than forecasted despite the lack of actual changes in the playoff field, Cal Raleigh’s latest explots, Geraldo Perdomo’s quiet excellence, the Orioles’ 2026 outlook, the Dodgers’ rotation and bullpen, Shohei Ohtani’s playoff role(s), […]

Number one, Fangrass baseball podcast. This stat cast is that blast. T OPS Plus, when the stats need contrast, zips and steamer for the forecast. Hello and welcome to episode 2376 of Effectively Wild. The Fangraphs baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing okay.

I'm trying to sort out my feelings about these pennant races, such as they are. Because we've talked a couple times about whether everything was boring. It seemed like, okay, everything's set early. There's no suspense. There's nothing at stake. The playoff field is essentially cemented, and we've got weeks, if not months, to go. So here we are with not quite two weeks left in the regular season. And to some extent, that's been borne out.

there hasn't been really any movement in terms of who's in and who's out. So nobody, as of yet, has blown it. Nobody has overtaken anyone else. So to this point, that seems to have been prescient that, yeah, okay, it's the same 12 teams that it looked like it was going to be. However, it has never really felt totally settled to this point just because there are a few teams just nipping it, laggards heels here and you can't be comfortable. And so is this good? Is this suspenseful? I feel like that meme with the person holding up the hand and then I'm just thinking, is this a playoff race? Is this a pennant chase? I guess it is, even though nothing really that surprising has happened yet. But it still

could. We're close to the end of the season, and there's still a possibility of change. There are teams that can't be comfortable, and there are teams that have hope. So, I don't know, is this good? Is this exciting? I have to admit to something. I think it's pretty foundational to this conversation, which is that I am having trouble separating my individual stress and enjoyment from what Jane baseball fan might experience, right? Jane being an aggregate median fan representing the dashed expectations

of the fan of a team outside the playoff field, the exuberance of a fan whose team is seemingly set to play October baseball. Because here's the thing, Ben. I think that it has been, in some ways, obviously boring, right? Like you said, not a lot of shifting around. A little bit of movement as a result of the Mets swoon, although they, at least for the last two games, of course, corrected.

But, you know, how thrilled is the average fan at the prospect of, like, the Diamondback squeaking in, right? Like, we can acknowledge, that might be, again, personally exciting for me. as a person who lives in that team's market, who might get to cover playoff baseball in person, right, in a way that I wasn't expecting to,

play this clip back to me at the end of next month if that actually comes to pass and I am dissolving into a pool of exhaustion and work-related stress. But you know, like, is that thrilling? Yeah, I don't know. But on the other hand,

there have been things that I think most people would acknowledge are very exciting on the individual, both player and team performance level, right? Like, I have managed to go this long without saying big dumper, shocking candidly, because Ben, what a dumper, you know? A historic dumper. Are you, sorry, we're going to do a small, annoying cul-de-sac here. We're going to do a little round-up.

Calde-sac. That's better. I'm embarrassed. I'm on vacation. No rules. I'm potting. I told you before we hopped on, I opened a beer before we started recording. I've only had one sip, so.

The seal has been broken. The seal has been broken, but also I'll be able to podcast to my usual abilities. People can decide for themselves how satisfactory those are. But, you know, we're not like doing an impaired show by any means. But loose, we're going to be loose because I'm free and easy. I'm doing projects around the house. I'm reading. in the morning on a Wednesday.

Gorgeous. Anyway, if you'll allow a small cow to sack, which isn't actually going to be about cow, are you an historic or a historic, not a historical, but a space historic person? A historic. Okay, thank Christ.

Look, I understand that in certain quarters, an historic is the preference. And I understand that those people feel strongly, and I'm here to tell you that they're wrong. Okay. It's like we don't need to be so fussy, right? We can like intellectual pursuit. We don't have to be annoying about it, you know?

I mean, we can be. That's kind of the basis of this show, but we can also have some clarity of purpose here. So anyway, all of that to say, I think that, like, there are individual team and player performances that have been so thrilling. And, you know, it's not just, Cal, right? Like, I hesitate to bring this game up because Dodger fans are going to feel like

I'm making fun of them. But like, the Otani that we've gotten to see over this last little bit, the Otani we got to see yesterday. Again, we're recording on Wednesday. Delightful, thrilling, so cool, right? We're getting to see an ascendant Brewers team. The Phillies have clinched their division. Like, we're getting this tight back and forth in the AL East. We're seeing an Astros team that has no healthy players somehow continuing to win. Sorry, that one got a little loud. So I think it's a mixed bag as maybe the fair conclusion to reach. And, you know, your general level of satisfaction with it

is probably going to be highly contingent on your team's performance. And that's probably always true. So maybe it's exactly the same as normal question, I don't know. Yeah, they're just a bunch of teams that have been on the brink. And then every time they seem to just pick themselves up off the mat. Maybe I'm mixing metaphors here. But it just, there's no actual passage. There's no one team that is leapfrogging another.

And yet we're always two days away, three days away from that potentially happening. Right. It just has been averted thus far somehow. So the Mets, of course, have just all of these teams chasing them down. And it's odd almost that they were. will reel off a bunch of wins when they need to, and then they'll go on an extended losing streak. It's not dissimilar from the Mariners situation,

which we talked about last time, but they had that stretch when they were, what, 5 and 15 or something, and everything was falling apart, and then the Etsy witch strikes, and suddenly they hardly lose a game. So it seems like every time. Yeah. Not even hardly.

They have not, as we are speaking here. It's very strange. Yeah, but it's like almost the, the hot streaks and the cold streaks have lined up or not lined up in such a way that there hasn't actually been really any movement in the makeup of the playoff field. It's just that teams have gotten close and they can smell it and then they're just pushed back just enough. And I guess there's been a little movement among the teams that are doing the chasing because they're all jockeying for position.

Okay, if someone's going to pass the Mets, who will it be? and it seemed like, oh, the Reds, they have the inside track. And then, oh, look, the Giants, they're playing super well. And then now, oh, it's the Diamondbacks who are, as we speak, a game and a half back. All of this will have changed by the time people are hearing this episode, but not changed that much. And I guess maybe not have changed really at all because it hasn't changed that much in a way. And then on the AL side, too, the teams that are chasing, well, it's not the Mariners currently, because they are still clinging to a tiny lead in the AOS.

It's actually the Red Sox who have been leapfrogged by the Astros. You can't even really call it a leapfrogging. They're tied in the lost column. So it's extremely close. But technically, as we speak, the Red Sox are the team to overtake in that third wildcard slot. And for a while there, I mean, the Royals were very much in the running. Now they've fallen out of it. But the Rangers could lose for a stretch.

now they have lost. And so they've been passed by the guardians who have had their own really up and down season where I've written them off and, okay, they're done, and they can't score, and then suddenly they reel off a bunch of wins. They're on a hot streak right now. So it's just all kind of overlapped in a way

that nothing has actually changed and yet it's a constant threat of something changing, which is it's better than nothing. I think maybe if there were actual changes, that might be more exciting. But here we are, season's almost over, and at least theoretically, there are two teams in the AL that are three and a half games or fewer within striking distance of that last playoff spot. And in the NL, there are three such teams. So I'm not rooting for the Mets to blow it or the Astros or the Mariners or the Red Sox or anyone to blow it in particular.

I just, I live for drama. I want the intrigue. But there's been enough of that maybe, you know? That's what people always say. It's like you want hope and faith to invoke Bud Seelig's term. So you just kind of want a possibility of something when you're coming down to the wire. You want maybe even the final series to be meaningful for there to be stakes of some sort. And that's still in play.

I think that where I have come to land on this stuff, and I appreciate that, you know, again, not only is my perspective warped by the particulars of the, the team I like best being in the spot that it's in, but also, you know, my perspective on the game is certainly informed by my job, et cetera. I just think that it's useful for us to try to place individual seasons within a broader context of like the flow of the game over time, right? And that's not to say that individual seasons can't be boring or, you know, particularly exciting relative to other seasons recently. But I think that, But maybe the thing that I want to inspire people to intervene on is the instinct to have, like, one season of particular extremity or maybe midness in this case, like, serve as a statement about the game of baseball, right? Like, sometimes you just get a season where the teams that are good enough to be in a playoff spot are largely decided early and your job.

for position within that group. And then you have seasons where, you know, the thing we bemoan is that we don't have a tiebreaker game anymore, right? And that's the thing we're sad about because, oh, my God, look at these thrilling races. Wouldn't it be so great to get one day more? It doesn't need to change the way that anybody thinks about a given season. And I think that keeping an eye on particular results and whether they recur. with any frequency is useful, right? You don't want to ignore signal,

but I also don't want us to overreact a noise, I guess, is where I'm out on it. So, you know, it's like, here we are. You know, as we're recording, like the Cubs have officially clinched a playoff spot, you know, they're going back to the dance. I'm sure if you asked a Cubs fan today, what's your impression of the season?

Well, they would probably have a lot to say about frustration because they have dealt with some of it. But on this particular day, their dominant feeling might be one of like, hey, we're going, we're playing October baseball again. Cool. You know, like that might be the thing that is resonant. So I don't know. We're just, it kind of depends, land of contrast, et cetera. Yeah, we do end up in the situation. We've talked about this before, which I don't know if I even need to preface a statement with that, because what haven't we talked about at this point after 13 plus years? It would be so funny if I had a specific topic, like, ready to. to go in response to that. Like, I don't, I've, I've told you this. Ben, do you want to talk about and or the rest of this pod?

Because I am three episodes, four episodes into season two. And boy, you should have insisted I watch that show sooner because it's a, it's, uh, it's me with a great time. Save it for the bonus pot. Yeah. You know, you could avail yourself of my thousands words long recaps now that you're working your way through this. I know.

Belatedly just to take those in. I do that. You know, I go back when I've had a show on the back burner for a long time and then I finally get around to watching it, I will go back and listen to pods or read articles about it from people whose opinions on TV I like because I'm like, I finally can do this without fear of spoil. And so I probably will. I probably will go back. I guess we hadn't hashed out our official podcast position on A Historic versus In Historic. So now we've done that. perhaps for the first time. Someone will email us to say, actually, you covered that on episode. 1377.

How could I have forgotten? The one thing that we have covered with great regularity is that I never remember what we say on the podcast. So what I was going to say that we had talked about before is the fact that we end up focusing on the most mediocre of teams in these races just because all the intrigue is located in the wildcard races as opposed to the division races. Not all of it, okay, but less than there used to be back when that was everything, whether you won the division or not.

Of course, you go back even further than that. It was just who had the best record in each league. But as we've expanded the playoff format, the stakes are a little lower for some races than others. And, hey, Dodgers Padres, that's still just a two-game margin as we speak. But the stakes are not super compelling because if it does end up just being this decides who. who will have home field advantage in the wild card round. It's not that that's unimportant. It might matter a little bit, but to a neutral fan, you know, to fans of those teams,

yeah, that matters. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter quite as much as if that were a battle for making the playoffs or not making the playoffs. So there's some seeding stuff. And, you know, buys matter, of course, if you're going to actually have to play in the wild card round or not. But, you know, we have the brewers have clinched and the Phillies have. clinched. And so a lot of those races are sort of settled or pretty much out of reach. And then

you have the Mariners Astros race, which is a toss-up, but they are currently both in playoff position, at least. So we end up talking about, can the diamondbacks catch the Mets? Can the Rangers? Can the guardians? All these teams that are just not that great, really, but that's where the uncertainty is. And I don't know. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that doesn't matter. or the fact that we end up focusing more on teams that are not the best teams. In particular, this season, I don't know how much it matters, because even the best teams just aren't that great, really. So the separation here is not as wide as it would be in some seasons.

And the Mets, it's, I think, an interesting race. Their attempt to avert another collapse and memories of 2007, 2008. It's not unlike the Mariners' conversation that we had last time. I know. The Mariners' memories of blowing it are even fresher than Mets fans' memories, but they're there. They're vivid. They're still pretty raw. Oh, yeah. You look at the Mets, and I think this seems like a pretty good team. I don't know how this is that close, but the rotation, I mean, you know, Senga got sent down and was really struggling, and then there were injuries.

And I am very intrigued. by their attempt to rebuild their rotation on the fly with a bunch of rookies they just called up, so turn over the rotation to this trio. That has entertained me. That has been pretty fun to watch. And

you know, I like the lineup. I like a lot of that team. And of course, if the Diamondbacks manage to do this somehow, that would be an incredible story. It would be amazing. Yeah, for your mainstream casual fan who's not paying that close attention, maybe they won't notice. Maybe

They'll think, oh, right, that team was in the World Series a couple years ago, and everyone fretted about whether anyone would watch the Rangers and the Diamondbacks. But really, to have sold at the deadline to the extent that they did and to have played better since then, to have a winning record, one of the best records in baseball since then, we had that conversation about can any 2025 team pull off a 2024 Tigers here and actually subtracted the deadline and then. make a real run at it. And I'm pretty sure we've at least considered the Diamondbacks, but thought they just, they subtracted too much. It wasn't like some teams, the Guardians, for instance, where they didn't do a whole lot, like you would classify them as a seller, but they didn't do that much other than trade Shane Bieber,

who's looking pretty darn solid for the Blue Jays. But he hadn't pitched for the Guardians this year, so it wasn't like they lost production that they had to that point. But the Diamondbacks, they really, sold they quite aggressively divested and so if we saw that back-to-back seasons they snuck in somehow yeah would be a pretty fun story i think i agree i think it would be fun i i suspect and we have talked about this before we do have original ideas i hope so i worry and not that we have them that will that will like give an impression i i suspect a good story um

And look, the last time I doubted the Diamond Vax, they ended up playing in the freaking World Series, you know? So who's against those Rangers? But I imagine maybe a short-lived, good story, right? You know, they're just still injured is really the thing. Like, I think that the true talent level of a healthy Diamondbacks team is probably maybe not quite the way they've played over the second half, but like certainly closer to that than their first half results.

But they're still just like, you know, it's not like Corvin Burns coming back from T.J. Remember how Corbyn Burns is a diamond back? Yeah, briefly, barely. But, you know, he's not going to like walk into Chase Field being like, no, it's all better now. You know, that's not on offer for them. So it might end up being a relatively short-lived good story, but it has the potential to be a good story nonetheless. I do think that like the teams that are set to play. play off baseball.

And maybe this is the real reason I'm not overly fussed about it being sort of boring here at the end, quote unquote, is that despite the overall midness of the league this year, I do think that there are like fun teams that are set to play October baseball.

And this is maybe largely the group that I would be interested in seeing make the postseason, even if perhaps I wish that the road to get there were a little more energetic, had a bit more pep in its step. But, like, in the American League, I wouldn't mind seeing the Royals play postseason at baseball.

Well, you just know them do that, right? I wouldn't hate seeing the Orioles be a better baseball team. But, like, they've made their choices, you know? Did you see the news that Michael Isis, like, quietly got promoted during the offseason? Yeah, sort of funny because everyone's saying his job is in jeopardy and secretly he was promoted, actually. I guess both things could be true technically. Yeah, but I think that speaking of being able to put yourself in another person's perspective, in their shoes, as it were, just always useful to remember that, like, maybe disappointing team that's still relatively cheap, generally

a path job security for baseball executives. Yeah, I have been thinking, by the way, that their top of the rotation, at least, is setting up to be bad. going into next year just because Trevor Rogers has been so great. Yes. And Kyle Braddish is back and has also pitched quite well in his first four starts. So you pencil those guys in topping next year's rotation. Right. I don't know that you can even use pencil for Grayson Rodriguez at this point.

You may have your eraser and your whiteout ready just in case. But at least if you go into next. Why do you need an eraser and white out? You just need the, if it's a pencil. Well, you know, sometimes you do the eraser. and there's still smudginess there. So maybe... You're using cheap pencils over there, but you need...

I'm not really using any pencils lately, but I never really physically write anything anymore unless I'm drawing with my daughter or something. Otherwise, yeah, because you have your paper planner and your... I got my paper planner. Yeah. With my little lists, the ringer functioning is independent on little lists, apparently, or at least maybe it's not dependent on your little list.

I'm a Google Calendar guy. Yeah, I see. just like writing it down. It helps me remember, you know? It helps me remember. Yeah. Anyway, that's a head start on 2025. But hopefully they will have learned their lesson and won't go into 2026. That's the year I mean, that they will not be complacent and sit on their hands this offseason. And really, it turns out that the hitting has been as big a problem, if not a bigger problem, than the pitching for them. Just why have all the homegrown guys stagnated or gone backward? That seems like a bigger issue to try to figure. figure out what's happening with the hitter development. But, yeah, hopefully they will be a bit busier over the offseason than they were last year. Do you think that the reason that their hitters are having a hard time is because they're not sure who they are because they look so similar to one another? Do you think that there's

like a collective identity crisis happening on the Orioles where, and then I think maybe the alarming conclusion to draw from that is that actually they have resolved their crisis and they've just all the side of their Kobe Mayo, and it's like a Rett Row brother, we're in for a bad time. That's the bigger problem. Poor Kobe Mayo. His last name is enough of a burden. He should be able to hit better. I'm sure they can tell each other apart.

But for the average fan, it would be easier if they would hit better, and then people would be forced to know the difference. But, yeah, look, I think we ended up talking about the Orioles, but we were talking about actual contending teams for this year. The point, though, to return to our point so that we can just remind people that we had won was that, like, you know, yeah, the road there may be less full of twists and turns than we would want. But, like, with a couple of exceptions, and I might offer, like, the Reds and the Braves on the National League side of things, like, just this is a good field. You know, this is a field of playoff teams that I think has a lot to recommend it in terms of promising. compelling October baseball. And, and so that's, that's exciting. Now, I don't mean to devalue the regular season when I say that and I worry that I have, but in terms of like, what do the playoff races mean for the potential of good playoff baseball, I think we're going to, we're going to see

some good playoff baseball. I think we will, you know, and that's, so it's going to be, I think it'll be okay, you know? I'm firmly in the camp of not having great teams or super teams that does nothing to make me less excited for the playoffs. In fact, I am more excited for the playoffs because we have a bunch of even matchups and hopefully we will not be burdened by the baggage of everyone suggesting that we start over with the playoff format and everything is broken and needs to be fixed. Not that I completely disagree with all aspects of that conversation, but I do find it frustrating when we keep running back that baseball, it's random, the playoffs, it's a crapshoot.

You play the whole season and you win many more games and then you lose. in a best of five or best of seven or something. And yeah, that is frustrating. But this year in particular, yeah, losing will still suck. But I don't think there will be that much grounds for suggesting that it's the playoff format's fault because none of the teams is that great. There won't be like super heavy favorites and remote underdogs. And I always think that's overblown in October because I believe if any team can make a run

or can make an early exit. and it doesn't even surprise me in particular, but it will surprise me even less this year because, again, none of the teams is really that great. Speaking of the Mariners and the Diamondbacks, is it funny that Ehoyonio Suarez has basically been a non-factor in Seattle? I remember having this conversation before the deadline when we were saying, Suarez,

he's probably the best bat available at the deadline, kind of a thin crop, but yeah, I mean, certainly in terms of the season to date, that he had had. Right. And yet I remember we were talking about, but it wouldn't surprise you if he just kind of go colds. Like, you know, he's had recent streakiness. You remember like last year how he started the season and how he finished the season.

And so you had to go get him if you're Jerry and the Mariners and you need bats. Well, he was maybe the best available or so it seemed at the time. And yet he's gone cold. Like, you know, he's popped one occasionally since then. but he struck out like 35% of the time. He's got a sub-200 babbip about a 35% strikeout rate, 72 WRC plus, right around replacement level. So in that sense, he hasn't helped the Mariners on this recent run, really,

and his absence hasn't hurt the Diamondbacks, not that he would have had exactly the same season in stats if he had stayed in Arizona, but at least they're not looking at his performance in Seattle and say, oh, we're missing out. So that's turned out to be pretty much a non-factor, which you really, you never can tell with deadline trades. You know, you go get a great late-inning reliever, and then that late-a-dating reliever blows a bunch of games for you. The Mets maybe have experienced that from time to time.

And, you know, it's just like you go get the best bat available, and then that bat basically disappears for a couple months. So you can't, all you can do is improve your. probability and do what you think gives you the best chance of success, but it is far from a guarantee that that will actually help. I have two thoughts about this, one of which is semi-serious and the second of which is decidedly silly. And as a semi-serious note, like, I do wonder how much of you not noticing is the fact that, like, Julio Rodriguez has a 160 WRC plus in the second half. You know, it's like they have continued to get good production out of, the bats who are in their lineup, setting A. Oh, Honeyo aside. And so I think that there has been

just like a collective rising tides. But they sink all ships, don't they? The rising tides. Sink all ships? Is that the expression? No, they're supposed to raise all the ships. I guess it's also possible that some of them could sink too. But in three, if they're still, if they're still seaworthy, then they should rise. Eighth of this beer, just only like an eighth of it. But like, you know, Julio has a 160WRC plus in the second half, and Jorge Polanco has a 147, and Josh Naylor has a 115, and you're like, oh, that's not much, but like,

do you want to look at the Mariners' first basement and we're producing for them in the first half? So, you know, it's like, oh, you can kind of carry A. Ohanios Juarez and J.P. Crawford, because you're getting such solid production. from the rest of the lineup and like dom canzone is hitting three home runs in game poor dom can zone it's three home runs in a game no one's going to remember that because it's the game where cow raleigh hit two one of which put him ahead of mantle and one which tied him with ken griffie junior for like a single season high for seattle anyway dom i see you i made the hands i was still trying

to work out a good can zone joke it was like a little naughty i don't i'm not happy with it yet i'm not happy with it, but I'm still working on it. I'm thinking of you, brother. Anyway, here is the non-serious thought. You're like, that wasn't. That was the serious one, okay. Do we know for sure that E. Johanio Swares isn't the Mariners at Sea Witch? Question mark. Maybe his value is written in the stars, Ben, you know? Do you ever think of that? I didn't, but now you have made me. He has such great hair, too. That's true. That hasn't fallen off at all. It sure hasn't. It's fantastic.

It's a little less impressive for it to be so lustrous and beautiful in a humid environment than it was in the desert where I was like, how, oh, how, how, what are you doing? What are you putting on it? What do you tell me? And his hair is mostly, it's not curly, I wouldn't say. It has some curl to it, but it is often worn straight. So I don't know, like, what its natural wave pattern is or curl pattern. but I often was just like, what are you putting on there? Because it can be really dry here, Ben, you know?

Yeah, so I've heard, so I've experienced even from time to time. I guess sticking with those two teams, you posted something on Blue Sky, I believe, about how well the extension for Cal Raleigh has worked out for the Mariners and hopefully for both of them. Hopefully they're both happy. But they signed him to an extension just before opening day, like on the eve of opening day almost 60.

year extension, and then he obviously leveled up and has had this fantastic historic season. Yeah. Also, though, an extension signed by the Diamondbacks for Geraldo Perdomo. Yeah. That was in February, but he signed a four-year extension, and man, he's having a fantastic season, too. It's one of those just all around really excellent years, and so maybe it's been a bit under the radar as well, but now it's not because he's.

It's like top 10 in war, I think, in both of the wars. In baseball, not just in the National League, it's pretty impressive. It's incredible. I think only Otani is ahead of him in both of the wars in the National League. So that's the kind of year he's having. He's going to get MVP votes probably? Oh, yeah, definitely. He might rank it's, yeah, it's a pretty thin field behind O'Tani, and Trey Turner got

hurt when he was really climbing that leaderboard. But yeah, like, you know, Corbyn Carroll is top 10 in Fangraphs War II. So that's been quite a combo. But Perdomo, especially, just because at one point, he was kind of like keeping the position warm for Jordan Lawler almost, or like Lawler was the shortstop of the future. And now you have Perdomo who has just been excellent all around. And I guess that's what it is. Now, he's, He's walked more than he's struck out, which is fairly rare in this day and age. And high batting average for the era, good on base percentage. But, yeah, it's not like amazing power, but it's fine, good.

Enough. He's been a good base runner, and he's getting on base, and he's playing good defense at a premium position. And so you add it all up, and suddenly he's just like a seven more player or something. Because when you play shortstop and you can play it competently, then your floor is high and also it seems like his ceiling is quite high. So, yeah, I didn't see this sort of season coming from him. Like he's been fine, pretty good before, useful, but more like a league average guy than just superstar type season.

And here he is, age 25 year, and he's really put it all together. I think it's just delightful. It is surprising. You mentioned the loller of it all. From a like a positional fit perspective, this is a, this isn't really a problem because as we've just noted, like, A. Hano Suarez isn't on the Diamondbacks anymore. So they will, and I don't mean to disrespect Blaze Alexander, whose name is fantastic. And I have noted that like Arizona is a legal weed state and Major League Baseball has an official CBD partner.

So I think that the B-Writers over at MLB.com. should get to go buck wild with their puns whenever blaze alexander is involved you just you just have a time you just have a time with it in my opinion they won't but they should and i it's not a problem with the writers this is editorial cowardice is what i'm saying so get it together MLB but anyway like it's going to be fine like they'll figure out uh some combination of blaze and jordan and heraldo at you know, probably a short stop in third base. But yeah, fantastic season. And like, you know, Prudom has just been a guy who I think the debacks have been really high on for a long time. You know, there have been various points in the past where they have made decisions on infielder trades.

And they made a point of not trading him, right? And I think that part of it is that like his reputation in terms of being in the clubhouse is pristine. You know, they think that this is like a really good. guy and he seems to be very well liked by his teammates and able to be kind of a glue guy, right? Like when we talked about the kerfuffle around Catelle, Geraldo Prudomo was one of the guys to kind of stand up for Catell, but also seems to have like friendships and good working posture with guys sort of just across the clubhouse. So I think that he is having a fantastic season.

And it's super cool to see, you know, his game sort of progress. I think he came up at 21 and so he's also younger than you necessarily appreciate when you think of him. And just like a super well-rounded game and one that has taken a step forward. And yeah, it just looks like a super smart extension and is a guy who seemingly contributes value to the clubhouse in a way that war isn't able. to capture, but it is, like, obvious when you watch their broadcast. It's just like, he's a, he's a glue guy.

They love, they love Perdomo. And it's, you know, it's really nice when those guys are able to sort of find a home. And I don't know, I just like, also like the way that the way that the PA guy says Heraldo Perdomo's name at Chase Field is so great. Heraldo Perdomo. It's just delightful, you know. Yeah. And they call him, you know, they, they, they, they.

they call him jerry sometimes and i don't know if he likes it but anyway perdomo's great and it's super fun and i just want to remind everyone if you're looking for another reason to enjoy herald perdomo he is the guy who when they were piloting uh the automatic uh strike zone in the fall league back in the day and i i have to i have to clarify that when when they were doing this it was still trackman it was not hawkeye it was trackman i'm not being squishy with it doesn't matter um they were piloting a full a b sown so the the umpire was just getting a call in an earpiece they were calling what the abs zone called they were not doing challenge system and perdomo struck out i can't remember i think he struck out looking and then he turned around and flipped double birds to the

trackman unit at salt river and that is so great that's such a great anyway Anyway, I love Heraldor Pardomo. I made a point of going way too early to get a bobblehead because it's just like, you know, he is one of those guys who this is probably, and I don't mean this as a slight against Pardoma at all, it does seem like his game has legitimately taken a step forward. And so I think that that's very exciting. But would I be surprised if this goes down as his best season by war? No, because like he's a seven war player. like that's you know that that's not an easy thing to do but like every franchise needs guys like this right who are good players they are better than a complimentary player right like he is a legitimate everyday starter he's maybe not going to always be a seven win guy but is going to be a good everyday player who is beloved by the team beloved by fans but also can flip double birds at technology like you know but larry and jihad when and i think Domo would be at the front of the line being like, we will not have ABS.

Now I'm putting words in his. People should read Dune. They're like, what, gee, how does she talk? Go read Dune. You'd learn about it. If we can channel his reaction and redirect it to large language models or just various generative AI, then I think that would be good. Maybe he could be the spokesperson for that. We could get him on board, perhaps.

Perhaps. I was going to say when it comes to the playoff races. One thing that I actually don't blame the zombie runner for, people are probably sick of my rants about the zombie runner because either you're opposed and I haven't convinced you or I'm preaching to the choir. But there's one strain of anti-zombie sentiment that some of my allies in World War Z. Yes, it's one of the virulent strains. But some of my allies in this fight, such as Rob Mainz and Joe Sheehan, they will often mention what a team's record is in extra innings as another knock on the zombie runner, the idea that, see, zombie runner results are actually determining the playoff field. And so even though the playoffs themselves are blissfully zombie-free, for instance, Rob had an article at baseball prospectus the other day with the somewhat hyperbolic head. headline, how the zombie runner has ruined the postseason.

And it seems counterintuitive. How could you not click? Because, wait, I thought they didn't have the zombie runner in the postseason. No, they don't. But Rob was trying to make the point that even though we are free of it once the playoffs roll around, it does sometimes determine who is actually in the playoffs because of the results in extra innings. And Joe will often cite a team's record in extras.

You know, he calls it Calvin Ball, of course, which is a reference to something I do like as opposed to the zombie runner, which I dislike. But this rests on the idea that the results just get a little more random in extra innings now because of the zombie runner and because the games end more quickly and everything. I don't really buy that so much. I'm happy to have additional ammunition. So if you want to make that argument, please add it to the pile. but that is not personally something that bothers me in particular about the zombie runner because it doesn't make that much of a difference really. Rob even had the numbers and the correlation between your first nine innings results

or how good you are as a team and your results in extra innings. And it's not that much more random in the zombie runner era. It's only slightly more random because it was very random before in extras. Got it. And so it hasn't changed that much. It has reduced or outright removed home field advantage, seemingly in extra. So not saying it doesn't have an effect, but it was already really random in extras. Plus, both teams are playing under the same rules and they understand the conditions going into it and everything.

So, yeah, like, you know, you look at some teams that have done particularly well in extra innings. I think the Guardians are 11 and 6 in games that went into extras and that sort of thing. There's a lot of overlap with one-run games, though not always. these days because the zombie runner does distort scoring and extras. And so Joe now presents it in a different way where he kind of lumps in the extra inning games with the one-run games, just under the understanding that, well, it was very close before it got to extras and then the zombie runner took over. But yeah, it could have gone either way at that point.

But yes, this does not bother me in particular. But I am still happy that we're free of it when the playoffs roll around. But sometimes it can determine things, obviously. Like there are teams that I think the Padres have had this in recent years where it was just, well, things went really wrong for them in extra innings. And so you could lay that at the door of the zombie runner, but I probably wouldn't. Or it would be far down the list of my arguments against it.

So that I will not really stake my claim on, I suppose. So we were talking about the Dodgers and one of their zombie, runner-related losses the other day. Now, in the game that you mentioned when we had two-way Otani doing really a throwback vintage tungsten and O'Doyle game, where Otani started as a pitcher, he pitched five no-hit innings, they pulled him, and then the bullpen blew it, though he did his best to, I think he tied it because he stayed in his DH, of course, and he hit his 50th homer of the season. But the Dodgers did ultimately lose that game.

Blake Trinan took that loss, and it was a much more deserved loss than the one we discussed last time. So a couple things about the Dodgers. One is that their rotation, how it's lining up for October, is actually pretty interesting. Yeah. Because their starting pitching has been firing on almost all cylinders lately. And so barring additional injuries in the next 10 days or so, which you can never really rule out with this team. Yeah. they might enter these playoffs in a much better position than they were last year,

aside from the fact that maybe they'll just have to be a wildcard team, and that really halves their odds more or less. But in terms of their pitching rotation and their pitching staff and who's healthy, they go into this year probably in much better shape than they were last year when they won the World Series nonetheless. But they had three-ish healthy starters, and even some of those guys weren't that great. Now it's too many guys for a playoff rotation, really.

And if you look at how they have produced, if we just go back, I guess, to August 2nd, because that is when Blake Snell returns. So they have been close to full strength since then. Obviously, Roki Sasaki has been absent still. But Snell's been back, Glass Nau's been back, Otani's been pitching, et cetera. So since August 2nd, their starting rotation has been the best in baseball, But their bullpen, and this was illustrated by that loss, where Otani was brilliant and then Trine and blew it, their bullpen has been 24th in Fancraft's War over that same span and has actually been sub-replacement level. So last year, they tried to piece things together with the bullpen, and it worked, and it only needs to work for, well, not that many games over the course of a month.

so it is entirely possible that they will go into this postseason with a way better rotation and they won't have as deeper run. Things just won't work out for them. But they are going in with maybe almost too many guys. So I kind of wonder how this will shake out it. It does seem like Otani will be part of the playoff rotation because that's been somewhat in question just because they haven't let him go deeper than five. But based on their recent comments and his recent effects,

It does look like he'll be in that mix along with Snell and Yamamoto and Glassnow. And Clayton Kershaw's been pitching quite well, too. Yeah. Maybe they can pair Otani with Emmett Sheehan, which they've almost had like a piggyback thing going on lately. But he's been quite good. They almost have like a credible six-man rotation. I mean, they have been running out a six-man rotation. And pretty much everyone in it has been good.

So that's where the conversation about could Otani go to the bullpen? Now that has come up. Well, or maybe he won't be available because he said he's willing to play the outfield. And so perhaps that will occupy him. I imagine they will work out some sort of piggyback start kind of scenario and, you know, have a designated, here's the guy who comes in to finish things if Otani's inefficient, if he has a stressful inning, what happens? have you. But yeah, it is wild and they have like a better set of options this year than they did last year despite their injuries. And I do wonder if it takes some of the pressure off or concern off them having a number of bullpen arms who just do not seem like they are up for it right now.

I mean, like Trinan's struggles both with extras and without are, I think, well documented at this point, but also, you know, like Tanner Scott, what's going on, Tanner Scott? Like, they just have a lot of guys who are kind of in, in a rough way, potentially. And maybe the answer to that is some of their starters, as often happens in the postseason, just end up being, they just end up being little reliever guys, you know, little reliever guys. Yeah, because the possibility of Otani serving in that role, which has also come up. Now, he's never pitched in relief, I believe. in an MLB game, obviously, famously he did in the WBC.

Right. But because they do just have almost too many arms in the rotation right now, that is kind of a compelling possibility. Like, how confident do you feel in their closer options? Not very. So the idea of Otani coming in, that's pretty spicy. So I don't think that'll happen, or at least not regularly. I don't think they're going to say, okay, he's just in the bullpen for the playoffs,

but could it happen in some instance? Yes, maybe. The thing that makes it really interesting is that if he relieves, well, then you might lose the DH, and they don't want to do that because, well, if he were to start the game as the DH and then pitch and relief at some point, so in a game that he's not serving a starting pitcher, then they would lose the DH once he was out of the game as a pitch. which might be a problem. But if he's closing, does that matter?

Right, if he's closing and he does close it, then that wouldn't matter. So that's one consideration. And that's where the idea of using him as an outfielder came up, which seems quite unlikely to me. But he did float it. I think he was talking to the Japanese media, and he said he was willing. Dave Roberts was asked about it and sort of said, like, nice of him to offer, more or less. He didn't rule it out. He never really rules anything out, but he didn't make it sound likely.

And he noted that, of course, he hasn't played the outfield. He hasn't played the outfield at all. He hasn't even stood out there since 2021. And one of my few disappointments is that he didn't actually get an opportunity out there in his few innings for the Angels in the outfield. Because that was pre the current Otani rule or whatever we're calling it, where you could stay in the game as the DH. And so there were times where he started the game and then they moved him to corner outfields for a little while, but he never actually got an opportunity to make a catch,

which was a little bit of a letdown. But he hasn't even been taken fly balls. I don't think he's been shagging. He's not out there during batting practice or anything. And they're not going to use him this way in the regular season. And usually you want some sort of warm up or audition. So it seems unlikely to me that they'll stick him in the outfield in a playoff game, especially if my question.

Conforto hits a little bit, which he has of late, because that might make it a bit more enticing if you could replace him. Yeah. I mean, look, I posited the possibility that Otani offered it mostly just to get Craig to stop posting about Michael Conforto because it is bordering on obsession. Craig's not wrong, but also, oh boy. But Comforto, bad. Yeah, it's really bad.

It's so bad. It's really bad. Yeah, I am surprised that they didn't upgrade somehow, that they have not found a better solution or didn't get someone at the deadline or something. Right. It would be super exciting if suddenly Otani is a reliever or a closer or he's playing outfield or something, but it seems risky, seems volatile to ask him to do those things in the playoffs.

But, yeah, it almost did feel to me like his last few starts. He was kind of auditioning to keep his job in the playoffs. the rotation because there is a surplus and I think he has at this point. But they've kind of taken it easy with him and giving him extra rest between starts. And that's the other thing that people have talked about with the Dodgers and Craig wrote about this at BP, just the idea that if they do flip the switch and suddenly it's just like pedal of the metal and October, okay, now these games count and we're really going to go for then this might reinforce a tendency for teams to continue to treat the regular season as just a prelude to the playoffs, just a warm up.

And maybe that's true, but I don't know. Like, I don't know how many teams are realistically in position in any given season to just kind of coast in regular season because most teams are really having to fight it out. And even the Dodgers have ended up being in more of a race than anyone anticipated. Do the Dodgers have an understanding of where they are in the standings? An understanding in the standings, that's like a sentence where if someone filed it, I'd be like, can we clean this up? Because it's a lot of the same sound really close together. I think that you are right. And I think that Craig is right.

And I also think that I am a little perplexed by some of the Dodgers' decisions lately because it feels like they should be. And look, I don't know how anyone feels. You know, I don't know how they feel. And as we often say with managers, they have more information than we do about the state of their team, which doesn't mean that they're always making the correct decision. But often when they are making decisions that are somewhat flum mixing to us, it might be because of how they are interpreting information they have access to that we do not. Having said that, it feels a little like there should be more urgency on that part of some. Some members of the staff, like their manager. Because it's like, you know, the Padres are real close in the rear view, you know.

They're like the T-Rex get them ready to chomp, chomp, chomp, you know. And right now you're in the Jeep, but you don't want to be the guy in the toilet. First of all, such an embarrassing way to die. That guy's mom lied about how he died. I mean, probably he had some sort of NDA. This is about the film Jurassic Park. Yes. And the lawyer who gets chomp, chomp, chom, chomped.

They probably weren't in a position to tell the whole truth about how he died anyway. But if they were able to, they lied about it anyway. Like they didn't need, they didn't need an NDA because what's, what's his family going to say? Our cowardly relative got chomped in half sitting on the shudder, not using it, but sitting on it. Important distinction would be even more embarrassing were he, you know, mid- when you say, died a hero. Yeah. Died, well, I mean,

didn't suffer. I wouldn't, I wouldn't mess around with that lie because there were survivors and he did abandon children and they lived and were no doubt traumatized by their experience. So if I were them, I'd be like, that loser abandoned us and went in the head and the shir and then he got chomped in half. I'd say that because I'm a little bit petty. They seem nicer than I am, though. Anyway.

Yeah. I mean, I guess you could say, yes. They must go faster, but at this stage, they don't really need to because if the stakes are just home field advantage in a wildcard round, it's not nothing, but it's, you know, if it comes down to a buy or not, well, that's, that's significant, that's real. I wouldn't treat that too casually, but I don't know how much there is that they could have done. I think part of it is that they construct their roster with a bunch of injury prone pitchers, and so they know going in. that a lot of these guys are going to get hurt and hopefully a lot of them will be healthy by the time the playoffs

roll around and that seems to be what has happening. Sure. So the master plan has worked in that sense, but... Oh, totally. Really, like, what could they have done? Rush those guys back. Granted, okay, maybe some of them took a little longer to come back than they absolutely needed to. Obviously, they

took their time returning Otani to the mound and then had a pretty tight leash on him early on. So, yeah, you could have said, well, They could just let him go earlier, but they are thinking of his long-term health as well, not just the playoffs. So, yeah, I don't know what, like, them turning it on

what it looked like exactly, but it does seem like, yeah, they have their sights set on the postseason because they know from experience that if they put together a super team in the regular season and they have an early exit in October, then everyone calls them a bunch of bums and not just because that's the former nickname of the franchise,

but it just says their choker. or whatever. And so I think they've learned the lesson that, yeah, people prioritize postseason success. So I am sort of disappointed about that because most of the baseball we watch, most of the Major League Baseball, is regular season baseball, and I want that to matter. But when it comes to – that's more of like a team construction thing, I think, than it is, like, deploying the players once the season has started. And am I being a little unfair?

I mean, yeah, I am. comfortable. I'm comfortable admitting it. I'm not. I'm with Craig and the critics on just this is how teams are building their rosters. Craig is crashing out. Well, what else is new? Frashing out. But really, it's just like, yeah, this is something where you go into the season and you say, we don't need to be that great. We just need to be good enough. So that's, yes, I guess if that works for them this year again, if they put together a team that wasn't great in their regular season, then then, they got what they needed to and everyone's healthy when October begins. I know they'll actually be playing playoff baseball in September, but you know what I mean.

We're ignoring that reality. That's not our problem, you know? That's not our fault. No, it's not. You can't lay that at our door. But if it works and their team construction is, you know, kind of mediocre by Dodger standards, and then they have a deep run regardless, then, yeah, I guess it further solidifies what a lot of teams are doing now, which is we're not going to pull out all the stops.

We'll pull out some of the stops, just as many of the stops as we need to pull out to get into the tournament. I want to be clear about what I'm being unfair about. I'm being unfair about, like, how they have been deployed ever so recently. I think that this team was built with an eye toward being comfortably dominant. And it's just that some of the injury stuff hasn't worked out quite the way they thought and has taken longer in some cases or like you know you should always assume i guess that a pitcher is going to be hurt but some of their some of their um like stabilization counter moves

like signing blake snow have have been undone by injury to a certain degree and so like i i think that this team was constructed to like i'm gonna do i'm gonna swear a little bit kick the shit out of their opponents during the regular season and then there's been a bit of bobbin and weven that's been necessary as a result of, yes, a conscious roster construction decision to, like, have a higher risk tolerance with injury guys than other clubs might, but I don't think that the intent behind the roster construction was flawed. I'm mostly just like, how is it that you, how did you not win that game yesterday? It seems like you should have won that game. I would have tried to win that game, and of course he did try to win that game, but like, you know, like harder.

you know or um but again who knows maybe blake trinen was their best option and he just screwed the pooch he was great last year i mean tanner scott was great last year those guys just have not been as good as anticipated yeah and it seemed like they were really gilding the reliever lily there it's like do you really need tanner scott on top of everyone else like right like you don't you don't sign tanner scott as we understood him in the offseason and not have ambition to, like, be 15 games up in your division come September 1st, is my point. It didn't work out that way. Yeah.

And then I've, and then I decided to be unfair, but I just want to note that I'm being unfair in a very particular way. Yeah. And it isn't necessary. I'm not saying Craig is being unfair. I'm just noting that the way I'm being unfair is not in alignment with Craig's argument, although I understand Craig's argument and also am kind of impressed that Craig, who is in the process of crashing out

on social media as a result of his team being very frustrating and they are being frustrating is engaged in a different project than I am. So there you go. Here's another bit of good news for the Dodgers. I'm going to give you the top 10 players in MLB in FanGrafts War since August 5th, which is a bit of an arbitrary starting point.

I'm cherry picking here, but nonetheless, number one, Geraldo Pardomo, just talked about him. Best player in baseball over that spin. Trey Turner is second, which is especially impressive because he's been out for a bit now. For a lot of it. Yep. Juan Soto, third. Great.

He's doing his usual Juan Soto thing. His season has turned out to be just fine, aside from the shoddy defense. Number four, Julio, who as he just mentioned, has been great. Number five, Shohay Otani. That's not, well, and that doesn't even count his pitching. This, I'm just looking at, this is offensive position player war, by the way. And that's not the bit of Dodgers good news that I meant. That's going to be number six, but I'm going to skip over number six for a minute.

Skip right to seven, Cal Raleigh, number eight. Bryce Terang, who's been great for the brewers. He's managed to hit for power sometimes, too, now. He's really unlocked something. Number nine, Aaron Judge, number 10, Corbyn Curl, who we also mentioned. So number six, the mystery man is Moogie Betts. Mookie Bets! He's back to being bets.

He's raking now. Bets back, baby? Yeah, this is really good news for the dot. Over that span, so this is what about five, five, six weeks now. He has struck out six percent of the time. I mean, that's amazing. That's a rise-esque. He has walked more than he struck out.

He's actually hitting the ball harder now. He's hitting for some power. He has a 171 WRC plus over that. Yeah. And so it seems like the early and not just early season struggles appear to be behind him now because for a while there he was like, you know, below average hitter propped up by the fact that he was actually playing a pretty solid shortstop. But now he is an above average hitter on the whole, still an above average shortstop, which we probably don't talk about enough. That's really impressive that he's doing that at this age with that little experience. and the conversions and everything. He's a plus three, according to the stat cast defensive metric. He's a plus 15, according to defensive runs saved, which is just, wow.

But either way, for him to be above average at all, for him to just hold his own at that position. Yeah, that's amazing. But now he's back to hitting, like, his regular self as well. And so if he can be above average shortstop plus the bat of Mookie Betts, well, that's That's basically your best player in baseball or on the short list. So that's quite heartening because that really lengthens their lineup if Mookie is not a problem. So maybe it just took – he's had multiple injuries this year, but maybe it just took a long time for him to really gain his strength back. I know he regained the weight that he lost fairly quickly, I think, but, you know, maybe that's like water weight and maybe it's not the same body composition and everything.

and it's hard to gain weight and gain strength as the season's going on with the grind and you're playing shortstop and you're running all over the place. So a lot of players, they just struggle to maintain the strength and weight and not wear down. So to have to rebuild the muscle, the strength that he lost with his illness right before the season started, that takes a toll. And maybe now that is finally behind him and he's back to full strength and right in time. I think that we would be, we'd be a little silly to not entertain the reality of, you know, like, I don't think that Moogie Betts is like suddenly a bad player and there was an obvious explanation for the very sudden drop-off that he experienced. I do think that like he's 32, you know, and so the notion that he will be the MVP level bets forever and that that should be our expectation going forward.

like our expectation of his average production in every season after this seems kind of foolhardy like we can acknowledge that yeah he had this weird illness it infected his ramp up like to your point who knows what his conditioning really looks like at this juncture it'll be really interesting to see sort of how he does over the offseason what he looks like when he reports to camp next year also he's 32 like he is slower than he used to be, which maybe is less important because I'm always not having to run around the outfield. He's just playing a good shortstop. But I don't think that Bet's true talent level at this level is what at this point, rather, is what it looked like in the first half. I do think that

we are probably going to start seeing some natural age-related decline as he progresses through his 30s, but also also, not like this, you know, not as dramatic as we saw in the first half. it'll probably be pretty gradual. And, you know, it's the fact that he has been able to bounce back to this level of production perhaps suggests that maybe the decline is actually a ways off. You know, maybe it's actually going to be a factor a while from now. So that's what I have to say about that. Well, since we just talked about a man of modest, slight stature by professional baseball player standards doing well, I did want to talk about a trio of giants who have not been doing so well or who has. have run into tough times for other reasons.

So, Yordan Alvarez is hurt somewhat significantly. He has sprained his ankle. He slipped touching or crossing home plate the other day. And Houston hasn't said how long he is out for. They've been kind of cagey about that. But it's going to be a while, seemingly. It's going to be the rest of the regular season at least. And maybe he can come back in the playoffs if they progress.

But that has to make Mariners fans. breathe a little bit easier because he had sort of a lost season and injuries and everything. But of late, he was looking like kick, scary, Yordon again, and now he's gone. I'm going to let that pitch sail by. I'm not going to offer out it one way or the other, you know? Yeah, that's been tough for them because they got some injured guys back and then there were some re-injuries, which is demoralizing. So that lineup looks a lot different with a healthy and overpassing.

empowering Yordaun Alvarez in it. So his absence hurts and makes things a little bit easier for the teams that are rivaling, chasing the Astros. Also wanted to talk about two six-seven fellows who I refuse to believe that Yordon is only six-foot-four because it's just like no human being has ever been bigger than Yoran Alvarez, at least in my mind's eye. But the stats, I think, don't lie because they actually have to measure these guys now for stat-cast-related reasons. But James Wood, who turns 23 today, Wednesday. Oh, happy birthday. James Wood and still extremely young, obviously. But yeah, he started the season so well,

and we haven't talked about him a lot lately, and it's because he just hasn't really given people much to talk about lately, aside from the fact that he just hasn't been hitting. So that's been a little disappointing because he just seemed like a budding superstar, Not that he doesn't now, but before the All-Star break, he had a 150 WRC plus, and since he is at 80. So it's been rough. He's struck out 40% of the time in the post-all-Star. In fact, he's still within whiffing distance of the single-season record for strikeouts, which Mark Reynolds still holds.

After all these years, 2009 Mark Reynolds, who struck out, gosh, What was his tally? He struck out 223 times that year. And even though the league-wide rate has risen since then, he has not been surpassed in the strikeout department. But Wood is coming close. He's at 209. So he does not have many more strikeouts to play with here.

So that's a bit disappointing because, I mean, there was all the conversation about, well, he still isn't pulling the ball and he isn't really getting the ball. in the air. The way that Cal has with just this extreme, like one of the reasons why he has gone from a very good home run hitter to one of the best. Yeah. Yeah, is that he just, he gets everything pulled in the air now. He has like the most extreme pulled air ball rate. And that has helped him. That has sort of like T-Mobile proofed him too. So that's good. But Wood was making it work earlier this season, and he was still hitting things the other way and straight away and not really pulling

the ball that much, not elevating the way that you'd like, but is so strong and was hitting it so far the other way that it was still getting out. So it seems that the league has maybe made some sort of adjustment here, or you never know what's going on with a player and what they're dealing with. But yeah, it hasn't looked good lately. So maybe he has to make some counter adjustment or I don't know. Maybe there's some physical thing. Who knows? But it's still on the whole a pretty encouraging season, but it's ending on a down note for him. I wonder, I say this, not having, you know, Intel or whatever.

But when you look at, I seem to recall that like some of his sprint speed stuff has declined in a pretty notable way. I wonder if he's got a little something going, you know, which isn't necessarily going to explain all of it. But I do wonder if there's like, if he has a nagging something or other or a, a little impediment of some stripe. You want to see them take a step forward. It would be meaningful for that franchise.

I still don't know what to make in the Nats. What do I think of them? I don't know. Yeah. We haven't really had a reason to think about them all that much at all lately. Whoa. Yeah. He's, Wood was their most valuable player for most of the season,

and he has been surpassed by C.J. Abrams and McKenzie Corr. just barely in fan grass where we're talking tenths of a wind here but yeah that's a reflection of how the season has ended so yeah it was looking for a while because remember he was a super popular preseason breakout pick yeah we took issue with that or at least i did because i thought he's too good like he was too good as a rookie last year yeah and just too highly touted a prospect no one would be surprised if he has a really good season that seems like it should be the expectation, the baseline for him. But he was so good early on that I was almost buying it because, okay, if you have a 150

WRC plus, well, that's a pretty big leap. That's, you know, better than he was projected to hit at least. But now he might just end up being basically where he was projected to be for whatever reason. So it's not looking like a breakout so much as perhaps a slight progression. Maybe he can build on this. I wouldn't be surprised. But, yeah, for a while I was wondering, like, does he actually need to?

to make a mechanical change and swing change, and maybe he can make it work. Now, I'm a little less confident. We'll see. But the other giant who has encountered rough seas lately is Spencer Jones, who is still in the minors. But the last time we talked about him, it was after he had been promoted to AAA,

Scrant Wiltsbury. This is the Yankees giant outfield prospect. Yeah. And he is 25 himself, right? So he was very much at the point where he had to produce and he was striking out a ton. And then they just advanced him and said, here it is, hit it if you can. And for a while there, he really was. And he put on a really impressive power display after he got to AAA, after raking in double A.

And there was even some talk of, could they call him up? Hey, Judge got hurt. Could they replace him with another extremely tall man? And they didn't do that. And probably that was for the best because, ooh, it's been rough for him lately. So the overall minor league numbers still look pretty good for him. And even the AAA numbers are not bad. But lately, I saw Petriello posted about this the other day that his September strikeout rate in AAA was like 57% like a day ago.

So it's not much different now. He's striking out in more than half of his plate. appearances lately and that's not great so you know like in july he had it under control he was striking out like 23% of the time okay with that sort of power that will play and then in august it was 38% uh-oh and then it's 57% that is yeah that's not going to work so he actually hasn't turned 25 yet he's only 24 but yeah it was looking encouraging it was looking like oh maybe they just got to keep pushing him, keep challenging him. Maybe he can figure this out.

And now, I guess, the holes, the flaws have been exposed, the reason why people weren't bumping him way up prospectless when he was on a hot streak. That has been justified, I suppose. I think that his flaws and potential were both very well understood. And my opinion of Spencer Jones has not changed all that much based on this recent performance in much the same way that, like, I wasn't like, oh, now he's a top 100 guy again when he was having that really great stretch. It's like, well, yeah, this is what he does well. And the question is, can he sustain what he does well?

And I think it's just going to, you know, the extremity of his skill set and the extremity of his limitations are such that he's just likely to always be a kind of streaky player, which doesn't mean that he can't be a big leaker. and it doesn't mean that he can't change up his game in a way that better accentuates the positive and keeps the flaws at bay. But we haven't seen him do that yet. So I just think that it's a really hard thing to identify with accuracy and longevity, the guys who have switched it into a new,

gear in a way that represents a meaningful and real change in like underlying talent and I was skeptical that that had happened and I don't think I was alone in that skepticism so I'm not saying like I was the most special girl. I don't think I was

Ben. I don't think I was being a thoroughly pedestrian kind of gal during that stretch but I was like well yeah this is what he does and now he's doing the other thing he does you know so these are the things these are among the things that he does blend of contrast again.

Yeah. And I just want to give a shout out to a player who's having not an unsung season, but I don't think we've sung about it that much, but we should. George Springer. Yeah. He's had a fantastic bounce back resurgent season. Didn't we talk about it a little bit? Probably at some point, but he's among the big reasons why the Blue Jays are atop the A.L. East

And look like they're going to retain that spot and good for them. And Bo Bichette is out for the regular season, at least. So that's a challenge. But George Springer, man, he has a 161 WRC plus. This is a career year for him offensively, at least on a rate basis. And really, the best season he's had, he hasn't even had one in this range offensively since, well, since he was in Houston. You know, not that he's been bad as a Blue Jay. He's had some solid years.

But the last couple. have been challenging for him, and he was basically a league average hitter and player, and now he's back to being a star again. Granted, he's de-hing most of the time, and when he has played the field, it hasn't gone great, but he's on the verge of 30 dingers, and he's batting 305, who hits 300 these days? Very few guys, it's a short list, and George Springer is on it, so that's been big. for him and for them. It's been nice to see. He has fundamentally changed my understanding of what his decline phase is going to look like, because I was like, well,

we're in it. Like, bummer. We probably still are, but I feel like the slope is likely to be much more gradual than I feared at the end of last season. So that's pretty cool. Maybe we didn't talk about George Springer. Maybe I'm thinking of a radio if I did or something. We should have. We should have. If we were remiss, and I'm glad we're, I'm glad that you gave us an opportunity to remedy our remissness. That's not a word. We've rectified our oversight. I'm only halfway through the beer now. Okay.

It's starting to take effect. Yeah. Remiss. Remissness. Re-remissness. I want to say one thing before we wrap up. We can say more things before we wrap up, but this I need to say before we wrap up. If the Etsy which is listening,

the Mariners Etsy Witch, regardless of whether you are Aeohanios warriors or not. Although, again, A.ohanio, I've got to say, great here. I don't want my light tone, my delight in Cal, my search for a good Dominic Canzone, canzone joke to suggest to you that I am not still very nervous. I am still very nervous, and I need you to keep doing whatever you're doing. I don't understand it as a phenomena. But like if I were forced to describe a lot of like, I don't know, atmospheric science, for instance, would I be able to in an accurate way? Would I be able to say the right words in sequence?

No, probably not. You know, I'm not denying it's real. I'm just saying I couldn't describe it. I don't know if you're real. I mean, you're a person. So you're real in that sense. I don't know that you have powers. but I'm humble enough as a human being to admit there's a lot I don't understand.

And so maybe you are. And I need to allow for that and just remind you that I am so nervous. And I'm not coming for you. You know, I'm not insulting your project. You know, I'm not. If the witch was listening last time, I doubt there would have been too much doubt about whether you were still nervous. I know, but I've had much lighter. tone this episode and I've I've been almost cavalier in the way that I've described the

situation with Seattle and so I just I don't want anyone to come away thinking that like whatever magic exists needs to shift to some other frivolous concern if it wants to shift to like serious concerns you know life and death questions go forth you know um do your good works in a way that matters much more than the mariners but if you are if you're remaining in the realm of frivolity I am still so afraid so just like keep that in mind love you. Don't take care of the ball.

And if you're not aeohenio Suarez I bet your hair is also wonderful, you know? Look at you! You know? People say that all the time. I hope that people talk about me the way they talk about they talked about Robert Redford when he died. Everyone was like, this man was very talented and super hot. And I don't expect

them to say the super hot part, but like I feel like that's a life well lived, you know, when you're like, really, really talented, seemingly like. Hot and talented. Yeah, lived a good life, treated people well, and also just like hot as breakfast. That's great. Yeah, good for you. Well done. Good for you, Robert.

Well done. RIP. Yeah. It's tough when you're competing with Paul Newman in the hotness category, but you know what? They both held their own, I would say. Why did we ever put them in competition? Why didn't we just like appreciate it? appreciate what we had like yeah it was amplifying effects no wrong answers right yeah which is the

hottest one there were no wrong answers and i don't tend to be into blonde men you know that's not my natural they're they're both on my blonde exception list you know sure anyway i'm more of a newman guy if i had to choose but we don't have to choose really we don't have to choose you don't even have to choose isn't because you like it's because you're a big salad guy so you were like which of these dudes has a dressing. Yeah, that's true. Well, I usually don't have dressing, but that's a separate topic. Wait, I'm sorry.

Can you eat the big salad? It's just like, do you not put any as the day it was born? Yeah, well, I've maybe. That's your most deranged. I mean, like, people, sorry, this is like a call back to a Patreon episode where Ben described a, I will say delightfully unhinged giant salad that he makes. Like, it's got all kinds of stuff in it. Some of those things do not go together, but, like, I appreciate your culinary adventure.

They go together in my stomach when I eat them. Okay. We're setting that aside. To learn that there is, maybe you told me on the Patreon and I have forgotten, but there's, I mean, people overdress their salads. And I'm a dressing gal. I am a sauce condiment dressing person, an enthusiast, one might say. I still think people generally overdress their salads, but you don't put anything on there, not even like a little oil and vinegar. I eat it raw, usually.

I mean, maybe some olive oil, potentially, but yeah, that's about it. That's just so many flavor profiles as it is. I think it would be overkill. But I do always have to stress, like dressing on the side, no dressing. It's very difficult to communicate that to serve her sometimes because they're flummoxed by it. But there's already so much roughage. Then then, like, how do you? That's where the bidet comes in handy.

Early birthday, happy early birthday to George Springer, who turns 36 on Friday, by the way. So it should be a happy. Still younger than me. That sucks. It should be a happy early birthday because he's playing so well. The last thing I wanted to mention, A, I wish, meant to say this when we were talking about the playoff races, but I wish there were a way to engineer more season ending head-to-head matchups with playoff significance. And I know you can't really in advance because you don't know what the races will be, especially when it comes to wildcard races.

That could be just anyone. So it's tough to anticipate. But there are a lot of – I mean, there are some big series, obviously, with lots of stakes. And we have Astros and Rangers and Astros and Mariners. And, you know, there are some big series. But there are a lot of teams that are ending where it's just a lot of scoreboard watching because there's just not much head-to-head. And I'm sympathetic to the many challenges, the many permutations of the schedule and all the different masters one has to please when it comes to engineering that thing.

But I do wish there a way, I don't know, like I guess if you were to have a bunch of division head-to-head ending series this year, it wouldn't even add all that much drama because the races and the divisions aren't as compelling mostly as the races in the wildcards. but I do always wish it's so nice when you can go into a final week or a final weekend even and say this team that's trailing controls its own destiny, you know? They're like three behind, but if they have three to play against the team they're trailing or whatever it is, well, there's still a chance. I do find it kind of onerous to have to look at all the head-to-head records, though, at this stage to figure out who holds the tiebreaker in a given matchup, If we just had tiebreaker games, we wouldn't have to worry about quite so often.

But now it's just I have to hold in my head, oh, right, this team is X games behind this other team. But also, this team has the tiebreaker and thus that's actually more or less than it seems. And sometimes, like, the tiebreaker is also at stake still at this stage. I don't know. This isn't like a serious complaint or request. It's just I wish that the universe conspired to give us more head-to-head match. between the teams that are directly in contention because a lot of these, it's just, you know, you're keeping an eye on the out-of-town scoreboard while you're playing and you're hoping

that this team beats up on that other team or you're looking at the strength of schedule and there's some real differences there, not that that really is all that predictive over the course of a couple weeks, a handful of series, really, but you take any edge that you can get at this stage. I just, I yearned for that. I crave that. Yeah. And we're not getting that in all of these cases.

I wonder if we could have, like, the final weekend be, it has to be division. You know, it's not going to get you all the way there, but it would get you some of the way there a lot of the time, you know? Like, you have to play division rivals the final weekend of the season so that you at least have the potential for like division drama. And you're right that we are getting some of that, you know, close to the end of the season, right? So, like, when you mentioned Mariners, Astros, like, when Seattle reps, their series in Kansas City, their next series is in Houston. But imagine if that series were the final weekend of the regular season. Now, to stick with that example, the Mariners played the Dodgers, and that potentially could have, just from a win-loss perspective, implications for each of their respective concerns. But it's better when it's head to head, you know, like make the last weekend, like rivalry weekend, you know?

Yep. It would be nice. It would be nice. Kind of pie in the sky. We're chasing the high of the 2011 remarkable ending to that season still. And they do have the like every game starting at the same time kind of thing on the last day, which is nice. I think that's good. But yeah, I just, I wish we had more sexy matchups to come.

There are some. Yeah, I think that, like, you could finangle it, you know, and again, you wouldn't get there all the way all the time, but you'd be in play a lot more often to have it be. And like, you could kind of fudge it if you're the schedule makers, right? You're like, who are the disaster teams in the division? Make sure they're playing the other less good ones. And you wouldn't get it, again, you wouldn't get it right all the time because there are teams that surprise us, which is so wonderful. But I think it would be a safer bet, you know? Were you ever motivated by the idea of being a spoiler?

late in a season that the Mariners were out of the race because I gotta say I'm just acknowledging my Yankees fan my former Yankees fan privilege here never actually experienced this You were doing so well Everyone was like Ben is so sympathetic

He can talk about the zombie runner again Talk about it all the time And then you have to remind people of your privileged existence As a fan of a team with Helming Yankees were never in a position to be the spoiler because they were never out of it, right? And so I have never known what that feels like.

But I've always thought that it was kind of overblown, at least from afar. Like I, this is all hypothetical for me, but I still couldn't imagine being that satisfied by spite unless, unless you were spoiling the season of a direct rival. Okay, sure. Yes. In that case. That's the only time I think that it really. carries satisfaction. Like, if you can knock a longstanding rival down a peg,

even if it's just like, hey, now you're a wildcard team instead of a division winner, there's some satisfaction in that, but I can't, here's how little satisfaction there is. If that is ever a thing that the Mariners did, I don't remember it specifically. You know, that's how fleeting it was. Because the fact of the matter is, there are. playoff team and you're not and you got to sit with that you know you just have to sit with it yeah i'm all for sports pettiness but if it does feel kind of pathetic if that's all you have to hang your

head on is just ah we we prevented you like you're you're here with with the fellow losers like you don't get to go to the dance either that's that doesn't feel like something to be that proud of really again unless it's a team that you already have a huge grudge against it's in which case, okay, silver lining. We salvage something. At least they're suffering too. But again, so fleeting. And like, you know, it's meringue.

It's a marshmallow. It's, it's, you enjoy it for a moment. And then an hour later, you're like, I need eggs or whatever, like some beans. I need beans. Yeah. You need a piece of chicken. You know, protein. You need some protein.

You need something that's going to sustain you. You can't be satiated. by it. The only way to feel that feeling is to be a good team yourself. I could see if, yeah, if maybe, I could see it mattering more to the players or in the clubhouse than to the fans, because if, especially if you're a young team, let's say, and you're kind of scrappy and feisty and you're looking ahead to next season and you're, you know, you're looking for a little boost of confidence and, hey, we can hang with these guys and,

okay, we came up short this time, but, you know, we can play, and maybe next year it'll be our year, and this is sort of an illustration of that, and hey, we hung on, and maybe it says something, or you think it says something about your clubhouse and your team spirit and morale and everything, all right, you know, we're not phoning it in, even though we're out of it, we're still, we're given our all, and, you know, that's, I could see that being a nice boost heading into the long off season. It's something you can savor from the end there. We didn't fold.

We didn't pack it in. We continued to play competitive baseball to the point that we actually had an impact on who was playing in the playoffs, even if it wasn't us. But as a fan, I don't think that would resonate with me as much. Yeah, it's pretty empty, I think, as an endeavor. And, you know, mileage will vary, right? And I think that sometimes you feel so despondent about the thing that you'll, you'll grab on to any little bit of satisfaction you can. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But I've never enjoyed it. And part of it is I'm a Mariners fan. Would that they had been a spoiler, you know? Yeah, right. Yeah, they were the ones getting spoiled, I guess, in some years, in some recent years. Yeah, that wasn't the role that they were playing. It's also a weirdly arbitrary because it's like we only counted as spoiling if it's at the end of the season. But what if you retroactively said we were spoilers just like when we played you that time in May.

We swept you in that series. And there were playoff implications. We just didn't know it at the time. But those games matter just as much. That counts just as much in the standing. So, I mean, probably if you wanted to dig deep into it, like a lot of teams are spoilers. at some point. Once it all plays out, we can look back and say, oh, yep, that was our spoiler series right there. Right. Yeah, for sure. But it's, you know, that doesn't really

do much for you. All right. A few follow-ups for you. An excellent suggestion from listener Patrick about what to call an immaculate inning with only one pitch type, specifically a non-fastball pitch. Patrick says an immaculate inning with only one non-fastball pitch should be an immaculate spinning just feels right. I agree. It does feel right. Immaculate spinning. There's only one of them on record. It's sui generis, but I like it.

Mason Miller threw an immaculate spinning. Listener Brett writes, love the banter about the zombie runner. Agree the loss for the reliever in some cases could be unjust, just like your example in the Dodgers' Giants game, which made me wonder in cases where the starting pitcher doesn't go five and that pitcher's team wins, the official scorer has free rein to assign a win to any pitcher who follows. Why doesn't the official score have the same freedom in this case? A scorer could have made a judgment that Tanner Scott should have gotten the loss because he allowed all the damage that inning.

Not sure if scores have that freedom, but would be good in these cases. Yeah, I'd be okay with that. Official scorer discretion so as not to saddle someone with an unfair zombie runner-induced defeat. Also got two heads-ups from Patreon supporters Shane and Tobias about a new mini-documentary on YouTube called Hidden Mikes of Major League Baseball. It's a behind-the-scenes look at how Apple's Friday Night Baseball captures the sounds of the game. I'll link to it on the show page as we've been talking about backcrack sounds and other ways that sports are recorded and broadcast work, and this covers that.

Documentary is about 13 minutes long, so it wouldn't take too long to watch. But one tidbit from Tobias about miced-up players, players with microphones have their jersey undershirt modified before the game. A fabric channel is sewn into the collar through which a Lavalier microphone can be run. Additionally, the mic pack is placed in a pouch sewn on the back of the player's garment. I wish we wouldn't have so many miced-up players in games on the field, but I guess good for them for figuring out how to make the audio work. However, no mic can necessarily guarantee that that player will have something interesting to say or that a broadcaster will ask them interesting questions. That's not just a matter of technology. And finally, it's been quite a while,

since our last update on Williams Astidio podcast, folk hero, frequent topic of conversation during the Jeff Sullivan era of Effectively Wild. There haven't really been any good updates about Asadio lately. Either he's been getting into fights, or he hasn't been playing, or he's been playing poorly. In continuing the theme, it was announced this week that Astadio, along with some other players, was suspended for doping in the Venezuelan professional baseball league, where Astadio has played for many seasons. It doesn't say what substance he tested positive for, but he is banned for 20 games in the upcoming 2025 to 26 season. It's a short season, obviously, so 20 games is a fairly high percentage of it. Some other players got 30 games or 60 games even. There were some repeat offenders on the list.

But bad news, evidently following the suspension, his LVBP team released him, so perhaps he won't play at all. It's been a swift fall for our former favorite. Say it ain't so. Astidio. You can support EffectivelyWild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash EffectivelyWild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast coming, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners. Nora, Nora, Nora, Ben the Animit Rock Pile, Neels, Matthew Anderson, and Graham Herbs.

Thanks to all of you. Patreon supporters get access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons-only, monthly bonus episodes playoff live streams sign up now couple live streams coming during the playoffs next month dates to be determined plus personalized messages potential podcast appearances autographed books discounts on merch and ad free fangrafts memberships and so much more check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild if you are patreon supporter you can message us through the patreon site if not you can contact us via email send your questions comments intro and outro themes to podcast at fangraphs.com you can rate review and subscribe to effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group, slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes at Fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today.

Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you soon. Just a couple of baseball nerds. It could be Sam for Jeff Or Sam or Sam Or Meg and Ben Unless he goes on paternity leave again

In which case Meg will find someone great to fill in But whoever it is They'll still be just a couple of baseball nerds They'll still be speaking statistically, rambling romantically, pontificating pedantically, banter and bodily, drafting discerningly, giggling giddling idly, equalling effectively wild.