Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2390: Goodnight, Seattle

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

In the hours before an ill-fated (for the Mariners) ALCS Game 7, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the state of Meg’s fan feelings and the highlights, lowlights, managerial moves, and more from Games 5 and 6. Then they discuss Shohei Ohtani’s instantly legendary NLCS Game 4 performance (plus postscript). Audio intro: Kite Person, “Effectively […]

Take me to the diamond, lead me through the turnstile, shower me with data that I never thought to comply, now we're feeling out a scorecard with a cracker jack to smile, Hello and welcome to episode 2390 of Effectively Wild, the Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer, Ben. How are you? Well, I'm doing fine. I have very little personally at stake. But what I want to know is, how are you? Because we are recording in the hours, yet again, immediately preceding. The most consequential game in your life as a fan, it's probably fair to say. The games just keep getting more consequential as they go on.

So, how you feeling? You know, not great, candidly. I figured. And not just in a general nerves sort of way, but in what does the future hold for the Mariners. I mean, I guess more generally, but for the Mariners in particular at this juncture. And so I feel, I feel unwell. I feel ill at ease. And, you know, once again, just wishing I understood the contours of magic a little bit better.

And also maybe hockey. I wish I understood hockey better because apparently Vladimir Grewir Jr., who has had very few missteps this entire postseason. Yeah. Got to the ballpark today in a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. and I'm given to understand that they haven't had a good time of things. Is that going to have an influence? Is he doing like a counter jinks? Is this like an Uno Reverse sort of situation actually?

Like put all the bad vibe on the jersey you're not wearing for the night. Is that how it, I don't know. I don't know how magic works. I don't know how infield defense works, but neither do the Mariners maybe. Base running sometimes too. that's also not entirely clear to them at all times. Yeah, I mean, in that game, that was less an issue than the double play ball. Splitters more confounding than base running.

But I think that mostly what I would say, and this feels lousy, this is perhaps the worst feeling you can have about the team you want to win. They deserve to lose that game. They deserve to lose game six. They played terribly. Game six was not a good showing for them. It was a very poor showing. I think that they would have felt, I mean, they would have felt elated. and so would I, but there would have, when the champagne had dried, and you stopped, like,

the commingled smell of champagne and cheap beer, like, you can practically see that smell. But when that had dissipated, I think they would have, they would have had to have acknowledged that they got by on the skin of their teeth. I put more paper in the Dan Wilson question mark file, so, like, that also felt bad. But it just wasn't, it wasn't a good showing. You know, they played very poorly, and now they're on the brink, you know, so that's the thing about it. Well, we're preserving your pregame feelings here for podcasts, posterity. That was a lot of words that began with pee, so this will be just a little bottle sent thrown out into the ocean that people can listen to whenever they want. It'll be a little time capsule.

It'll be preserved in amber. And, of course, by the time people are hearing this, and this is a frequent refrain for. me this month, they will know what happened in game seven. If game seven goes well for your Mariners, I may approach and pester you for another little outro game recap memo. If it doesn't go well for the Mariners, I'll probably leave you alone just to stew and lament and mourn because I don't know that anyone will want to hear you in that moment or that you will want to be heard. But we're recording at this awkward time because Tuesday is a track. travel day for me. I've got to go on a trip. Me for once, not you. And so we're recording

before the game when it's all still up in the air. There are so many possibilities or at least two. And the world might just be your oyster or it might not. So sometimes I kind of cherish being in that moment before something that I'm anxious about is decided just because it can't hurt me yet, you know. Maybe I'll be happy, and there's the possibility that I'll be happy, and I can sort of savor that possibility, and also there's a little bit of dread that goes along with it, but I like living in limbo there not knowing for sure, because it could be bad, but it could be great.

I hope for your sake, it is great. So we can talk a little bit about the games that have happened and what they portend, but I'm with you on that one. Game 6 was just a clear case of. the Blue Jays outplaying the Mariners, and so you can feel bad about the result if you are a Mariners fan, but you can't feel that it was unjustified. I don't know what was going on with Logan Gilbert in this series. I could see if he was just kind of out of gas in the first outing, but this time, I don't know, credit to the Jays, I guess, but he was ineffective.

I think, you know, their approach as a team, and it's not as if, you know, don't have guys who are aggressive. It's not like they don't have guys who swing hard and swing early, but I just think that, like, the Mariners pitching staff, their rotation in particular is optimized for strikeout and swing and miss, and the approach of the Blue Jays is just well set up to counter that. And clearly, like, you know, we're playing a game seven. And it's not like they haven't been able to get done what they need to at times.

But, but, yeah, like, it's just set up in a way that isn't particularly optimal. Game sevens are so interesting because it's not like you can't have, you know, strategic faux pause, but they're very, they're straightforward in a way, right? Like, what's your project to win this game? What are you going to do to accomplish that? Whatever you need to, right? Like, I mean, I imagine even with Brash having gone yesterday, and that's the other thing, it's like, do you understand this to be a low leverage or a high leverage moment? You end up splitting the difference and so you throw Brash and Bizarro, but like, anyway.

Yeah, not that there would be any point to keeping anything in reserve or keeping your powder dry because it's game seven. But also, there are three whole off days before the next game day. So even if you wanted to prepare for the next series. Right. Yes, okay. Yes. Well, that kind of came up with Hoffman, for instance, who pitched a couple of innings. They're only, the only thing they can really hang their hat on in terms of what they managed to do yesterday is, you know, Hoffman through like 35 pitches, 32 pitches, Varland through again.

And so, and, you know, that, that Blue Jay's bullpen is still getable, right? You can, as we saw, you can get to that, to that bullpen. And so it's so odd, I went on the batting around podcast and was talking about this. Like, it's not even satisfying as a fan because it's like, I like that Bluge's team, man. It's like not, it's not like it's the Yankees out there where you can just like lean into hating them sometimes. It's not that I have active Yankees hate, but you know what? They lend themselves to it more easily in a context like this than. You did book your travel, right?

which we discussed last time I also wanted to playoff live stream on Friday yeah if you were going to hold up in the open the possibility of traveling to Seattle for those games then you had to book but yeah now I want to you know speaking of not knowing how magic works I mean I booked so I booked

my flights back up to Seattle because I will go cover any Seattle home games during the World Series should those come to transpire but I am a 39-year-olds and I have a bad back. And so one thing that I, I'm a spring for the seat upgrade person, not into first class or anything like that, but, you know, like get extra leg room. Do it.

If you can get in an exit row, get in an exit row. You need to be able to like move around well the next day. But here's the thing that happens. If I have to cancel these tickets, like I'll have a credit on the airline and I'll be able to use that for another work trip. But you don't get back the seat. upgrade money you know you don't get a credit for that so i was like i'm not going to do that i might not need the i might not even need these seats ben might not even need them so it's like confident enough

to book but not overconfident you weren't going to take the the upgrade money for granted yeah exactly yeah i don't want to be i don't want to be unreasonable here so because both ben gibbard and you of course of the natural fan superstition of what i am doing is dictating the outcome of these games And so with him, it was where he was watching the games, and with you, it's, are you watching them the right way? Are you booking the travel or not booking the travel? Does that speak to a lack of confidence that is dooming the team in some way? And you're both rational people. I understand there's a limit to the superstition, but it's hard not to feel it to some extent.

And I think it was on the live stream. Sometimes I forget whether it was on an actual podcast or the live stream when it's live streaming season. But I was giving you some grief for the Mariners having a surplus. of bits suddenly or recently with the Etsy witch and with other stuff that's going on with Humpy and all the rest. It's just it's bits almost in a Mets-esque fashion and you were on record saying that the Mets had too many bits at one point. They did have too many bits. The distinction that you drew was that these are not team directed bits in all cases at least. Right. Only Humpty. Yeah, humpiest. The Etsy witch,

that was bottom up. That was grassy. that was not top-down team-directed, whatever else is going on. It's organic, and that does make a difference. And just as they control whether Humpy wins or loses, and as I noted on the live stream on Friday, Humby lost. Humby lost, you know, and so, and badly is my understanding. Now, Humpty is presumably not going to be in Canada. I don't know how that works from like a wildlife quarantine perspective.

but they do have they could ritually sacrifice him today if they wanted to right like that's in their yep that's in their purview but yeah you you don't want too many team bits this is the objection i have with and i in the interest of fairness in case anyone's worried that this is simply mariners fan bias i don't super love the trident either i don't like these these home run celebrations remember there was that summer where like every team had a oh yeah Had a thing. Like, Blue Jays have the jacket. Like, two years ago, I guess.

Yeah, the jacket's stupid. They should get rid of the jacket. I don't care for the jacket, you know. I mean, part of it is I've seen it a little too much lately. But I'm not into the jacket. I think the Trident is a workplace hazard. You know, that's just going to take someone's eye at some point. You know, you're going to get, you're going to get on the wrong end of that Trident.

And then we're all going to be like, see, like, why did we even allow them to do that? That seems like an ocean. violation. So yeah, I like it. It's better when, it's better when the bits were organic. And it's better when you don't, you know, flood the zone with bits, right? Like, some of the Mets bits were organic-ish, but there were still too many of them. And they felt like they got, the juice just got squeezed out of them so much. And they were more in the, you know, you had, and then people got mad at me for talking about the bits. And I'm like, well, there's. dumb, you know, and I have to call it like I see it, Ben. You know, you can't have grimace

and the song and whatever. They had a food thing. Didn't Pete Alonzo have a pumpkin or a banana or a cum quad or some shit, you know, so it's just like enough with a, you know, I'm an adult. I'm like a grown-est adult. Okay, I have to make airline decisions based on whether or not I can sit in a, in a comfier seat. Talk to me like a grown-up, you know, have some respect for me. Yeah. And kill Humpy while you're at it. Sure. And to be clear, when we were talking about, remember a couple years ago when every team was doing bit, they're doing bits just as much. They're still doing bits. Yeah, it's just that we're paying a little less attention to it because it really just swept the league and everyone was writing about each team's bid and each team's home run celebration. They haven't stopped. They have switched up the bits in some cases. It's just that I think that we're over it a little more. It's just not as much of a national news story, at least, that every team has a home run celebration. But for the most part, almost every team still has a home run. operations. So ballplayers, they will run some bits into the ground, whether they were good or not to

begin with. But yeah, I'm with you on it making a difference, the origin of the bit, I believe. Yeah. And maybe the stakes matter, too, if it comes at this time of year when you're all kind of superstitious because everyone is not wanting to anger some sort of baseball god because there's just so much writing on every game. But yeah, I'm mostly with you. It's just a very tough time to watch baseball, to be a fan, to podcast about baseball. You just kind of want to suffer in silence or huddle or perhaps scream or eat your hair. It sounds like you've come close to doing all of the above. And I get it, and it's relatable.

And you know what? I think it's good for us to have some very fan-centric content because we talk about things through a national lens. And most people follow baseball through a local or regional lens. And so I think it's helpful sometimes to have that 30,000-foot view perspective, but also that's not how many people to follow baseball exactly. And so perhaps it could sound somewhat removed from the day-to-day fan experience. And we're getting a double dose of it here with the Mariners making this deep run. We're getting access to fan meg. And I've mostly enjoyed it, except when I kind of feel sort of sorry for you.

I just want to remind everyone that, like, you made me talk about a hypothetical Terek Skubel trade on Friday while the game was in progress. Yeah. You know, you did that. I did do that, yeah. That was wild. Things picked up for your Mariners shortly after we stopped recording. And just before we started recording again, doing our live streams. And, you know, when we do our playoff live streams, which are great fun, and we will be.

doing another game one, whether it's Mariners or Blue Jays, facing off against the Dodgers Friday night, sign up now, Ned Garvertier on Patreon. It was a great time, and we got a couple great games and great performances to live stream along with, but it is very difficult in that context to have any perspective on what's happening or to do a whole lot of analysis because we're just trying to talk. It makes you, I think, appreciate the difficulty of the job that broadcasters do. when they have to talk for as long as they talk and react to things in real time. And sometimes we've got guests and friends joining us.

And there's an active chat with hundreds of people chiming in and the chat and we're responding to the chat. And we're trying to stay synced up with each other as we're watching these games and people are sharing their cute pet photos. And it's all very distracting. And I hope that it's fun for people to watch along with us. And it's fun for us, too, I think. And maybe it even helps take your mind off of things. if your Mariners are playing in that game. But it's hard to evaluate things in a cold clinical way

or even really in a fan-centric way to react the way that you probably would if your entire attention was focused on those games. So we started streaming just as the Mariners started their comeback shortly before Cal hit his homer and then Suarez hit his second homer. Those are huge moments, of course. And then the Otani game happened.

And of course, we were blown away by that in the moment, but I don't know that we had the full perspective on how impressive and how newsworthy it was. We were well aware that he has a brilliant six-thing start and hits three dingers. It's going to be pretty big news. But not really like trying to put it into historical perspective in real time or break down various pitching moves. And so I feel like even people who were with us in that live stream, they haven't gotten our takes. in some sense on that. And I almost feel bad for Cal and Suarez because they got overshadowed from a national perspective,

obviously not among Mariners fans, but that would have been the big baseball news of the day. Cal's Homer and then Suarez's second Homer, a grand slam to win it. That would have been huge, but it's been nonstop Otani talk for the past few days and with good reason, I guess. But it's hard to overshadow the heroics of those guys

and that Mariners come back, but it's easy to get overshadowed when Shohei Otani is doing his thing, I guess. But that was also great. Congrats, Cal and Suarez. And Suarez has been like all over the place this postseason. And really, I guess, this season, since he came to the Mariners,

because he's something of an all-or-nothing hitter, and he will hit lots of dingers, but he will also look bad sometimes, and there will be lots of whiffs, and he will drive John Smoltz to distraction. But when he actually makes, those connections, then he's going to hit the ball hard. And, you know, he was kind of hit or miss, feast, or famine in the field as well,

because he's misplaying balls, but then he's making a brilliant play on a ball in game six. So it's been quite a roller coaster ride for him during his time in Seattle. But that, or his second stint in Seattle, that is. But that game and those two homers in the Grand Slam especially, that alone is what you reacquire him. four. Right. And so even though he didn't do as much as you might have thought he would to propel the Mariners to their division title, one game like that, worth it. Yeah. And I think that even though that back half of the season didn't go particularly well for him, and he hasn't hit well in the playoffs, I do think that there's still like an important lengthening of the lineup that

goes on with him because sure, the strikeout thing gives a picture of blueprint for how to approach him. That's a blueprint that has been sort of executed very successfully. You don't really execute a blueprint, but you know what I mean. Executed very successfully this postseason, although if you, you know, if you leave a fastball in the same spot to him, two pitches in a row, he will. Yeah. He will hit a grand slam sometimes. But I do think that the power threat that he brings does require approaching him at least somewhat carefully. And so I think that he was a worthy acquisition. I mean, obviously, Naylor has hit much better since he came to Seattle than A.

Oh, Hennio has. But, you know, you're right. Like, the capacity to do it, the thinkability of the thought with him, makes it worthwhile and useful. And, you know, we don't have to go overboard. Like, we've talked about this before. I would be very open to Seattle bringing. nailer back. Like, I don't think they need to

do the same with Suarez, but especially if they advance and even if they don't, it's going to, that Grand Slam is going to be legendary. I just, can I say, I'm going to reserve my final thoughts on the Mariners season

until, well, until they have to be rendered, whether that's, you know, on our next episode or, you know, a week from now. But I really appreciate, you know, there's always going to be a place in the lore of the franchise, in the highlight reel of the franchise for the double. But God, does it feel good to have some new stuff to play, man?

And I know that, you know, particularly if they lose tonight, fans' appetites for seeing that stuff might need a season of putting it down and putting it away until they're happy to see it again. but um you know having a a high-deaf highlight that feels good that feels good to have to have holstered and i just i hope that um and i think that the deadline maybe hints at it if i can be optimistic about sort of the trajectory even if i feel nervous about the the the game tonight and sort of what the the next little bit might portend for them i do think that uh it is just a fundamentally good thing for them to have been ambitious and then been rewarded, right? My

big complaint about Seattle during the offseason was that they were demonstrating a lack of ambition in the face of a winnable division and a weakened Astros team. And then I think they showed ambition at the deadline. They went out and they got what they needed. And I think that their expectations for themselves as a franchise hopefully will be different going forward having a month of postseason gate in the coffers hopefully helps with that stuff particularly as they're navigating this transition and change on their broadcast side so i you know that's my my hope for them that a new standard has been set right they had to they had to get over the hump of not having been in the playoffs for so long and they they cleared that bar and then they had to get back to the ALCS and then

they had to get deeper into the ALCS than they ever had and regardless of whether they advanced to the World Series or not like you got a new and much higher bar to clear um in terms of what fans are going to expect of you and I think that's pretty exciting so yeah and uh maybe the story won't end here we shall see maybe it won't end here who knows we don't have already seen I mean we don't know we just So, no, we, I mean, you, the listener, know, you know. Right now, we're still living in that happy space where things could happen that are good for your team. Speaking of that Calhomer, John Schneider took a lot of abuse for the choice of pitcher there, Brendan Little. This is another thing that we didn't really react to in depth in real time as we were live streaming.

I got to say, I don't think it's that egregious, really. Yeah, I was less bothered by it than other people. I thought that from a matchup perspective, it made fine sense, and they just didn't execute well. Yeah, I don't, I mean, it's also just, it's Cal, like, he's just going to hit, he hits a lot of homers, right? And then after that, things didn't go so great for Little, I don't know if he was phased by the Homer, knocked off kilter a bit. But the choice of him, that's your top lefty reliever, really. So it's either that guy or you go to Hoffman or Dominguez, I guess. But I don't see that huge difference among them, really.

And so who do you have? I mean, you've got two switch hitters and a lefty coming up. And Polanco, if you look at his career, at least has been better from the left side. So I just don't know what he could have done differently or how much it would have been expected to be better because

he ended up giving the home run up to Cal but he gave up two home runs all year. Like he's a high ground ball rate guy. He's a lefty. There's a lot to like about that matchup and maybe it's more of a Blue Jays bullpen problem than it is this specific choice because who's the lights out guy

you can go to with no qualms whatsoever. Hoffman was effective in game six, but you look at his season as a whole, or Dominguez's, for that matter, it's not like they were that great, really. So that didn't seem so terrible to me. I've seen Blue Jays fans, oh, he's got to go. Like, he should be fired immediately.

It just doesn't seem that bad to me. What was interesting, I thought, is that Schneider seemed to credit this to some extent, at least to a wariness of the familiarity effect because he said, quote, wanted that part of the lineup to see different guys. We talked about it all series. And then he went on to say Little's been one of our best pitchers in big spots, tough guy to elevate.

Cal's a really good hitter. Yeah, that's more or less how I felt about it because Littlehead pitched in game one. But that was about it, I guess, and, you know, Raleigh got him. It's just a lot of guys get caught by rally. So it's not like he's got a long track record of being an elite reliever or anything, but then who does in that pen or who was elite this season. So I don't know. To me, it's not a clear-cut choice.

Yeah, I think that the fundamental flaw, like the biggest weakness of that team is just the bullpen. And you're right, there isn't a shutdown guy. Like, there's no, I mean, even just to look across the way in this. series like they don't have a munoz out there right like they don't have a guy like that and so i think that you assess the matchups you have you try to factor in the familiarity that that the opposition has had with that reliever and then as is often the case like it just comes down to execution i didn't think that there was a a fundamental flaw there from a process perspective and i i don't imagine that the only thing that was driving his decision making was like oh i want him

to see a different part of the lineup. Like, I'm sure he's aware of how he actually matches up from a handedness perspective, if nothing else there. But, yeah, I know people were miffed about that, and I get it. Like, the result sucked for Blue Jays fans, but I don't think the process was bad. I do generally believe that there's something

to the reliever familiarity effect, but I wouldn't overrate it if you were going with a clearly inferior pitcher and your only rationale for doing that was they haven't seen this guy as much. Yeah, then I would say that's an overbid. Yeah, right. Like, you know, it's, I think it's a factor, but it's not such a big factor that it would overcome other factors. But if it's kind of a 50-50 coin flip kind of situation or there's just no obvious right answer or more right answer, then I think it's worth weighing.

It's something that I would throw into the soup, perhaps. It was interesting that he acknowledged it. I haven't often seen, at least until recent years, when we started focusing on this familiarity effect. I'm not sure that it was something that a manager would necessarily cite first as, oh, this is why I went to this guy. But that wasn't yet. That was one piece of information and one part of the process. And, yeah, it backfired for the Blue Jays. But, yeah, it didn't seem that bad to me.

It's not like one of these just completely confounding pitching. decisions and I know that you have been confounded by some of Dan Wilson's decisions and I get it because yes, as you're saying, either you treat game six as pretty important, which it is and you put in your high leverage guys and you try to keep it as close as possible or I guess you could decide to punt more or less and say, well, it's probably a lost cause. Let's make sure that we have fresh arms on Monday. I want to be fair. He did adjust. So once the margin grew, because, you know, they scored two runs. And it was like, okay, like you're only back three.

Like, you know, you can go win. You can go to the World Series if you win this game. And then, you know, they had Cal had that terrible error. Aeoniosaurus probably should have caught that. But like the throw was bad and he shouldn't have thrown it at all. Like it was just like bad to, it was bad front to back. So then it grows to four. And he, he being Dan Wilson, brought, brought Vargas in. It's like, okay, we're not going to see Spire

tonight. You're not going to see Munoz. You know, I don't know that I loved them getting another look at Brash and Bizarro, but, you know, you at least spared your other two top guys. So that's something. But, yeah, it's just, how do I want to put this? I don't think that all of his decisions have been bad. And I feel like I'm given Dan Wilson the business a little bit. Like, I, I saw, you know, people who I respect, like, really surprised that he pulled Bryce Miller, for instance, on Friday. I was fine with him pulling Bryce Miller. Bryce Miller was lucky that the score was what it was when he exited that game. But even in that instance, where I'm like, yeah, be done. Like, how many of those double plays are you getting? Probably not another one. Even then, there was like this,

when he pulled him and for whom was kind of confounding. I'm like, if you're bringing Wu into this game and I don't know, I don't know if them having rostered Wu ended up being the right choice, but because he's thrown one time. And it's like,

okay, if you want to bring Wu in, don't you want to bring him in one as the inning is starting, so he has a clean inning to throw and against, like, if you want to get him acclimated to game action, like, okay, but then don't you want him against the bottom of the line. Anyway, just

even when I've been like, yeah, you can be a little aggressive in these circumstances. That's fine. It's the playoffs. The execution of it is sometimes kind of wonky from him. And it's like, can, the way

that I would also maybe put it with Dan Wilson is that there are times where it feels like he's over learning a lesson. And we saw some of this in the Detroit series, right? Where it's like, we criticized him for not going to aspire in game one. right wasn't that game one am i going to remember the details of these games in the future probably

not they do all blend together a bit at a certain point they do start to blend together but you know we were like what what is the point of having spire warming if he's not coming in to face carry carpenter like why are you what's the point of him being up there and then he learned that lesson and has sometimes maybe then been a little too quick to use spire at times um so the teams are getting a repeated look now i also don't know and this is um i want to be fair by saying this too like i also don't know what the interplay is between dan wilson and the ops group in terms of these decisions like i don't think they're taking the decision away from him necessarily but you do wonder like what whether that there's sort of new influence there so anyway i i say all of that but

ultimately these things come down to execution right i thought Snyder's decisions were fine. I thought should, but, like, his guy just didn't execute that night. I have, I have been frustrated with Dan Wilson. Sometimes it's worked out okay, you know? Maybe, maybe you should just always intentionally walk Vladdy. You could intentionally walk people a little less often, though, Dan, that'd be okay, too. Although, I understand I wanted to pitch to the guy.

Why would you? Why did you want to pitch to that guy? Yeah, no. I love that he's having the most fun of anyone in the playoffs. I really do enjoy that. having the best time. It is, it's cool. It sucks, but it is cool. You know, it's two things at once. Yeah, it sucks for Mariners fans, but otherwise, it's great. I'm happy to see him having this great postseason. And I don't know, it's odd how it just seems like bullpens aren't that

big a factor this postseason relative to most postseason. Just the Mariners starters have gotten killed in this series for the most part and you know testament to the blue jays bats again but there haven't been as many leagues for the bullpen to protect and the mariner's bullpen was i guess the best remaining in this round and and legitimately intimidating i guess like facing munoz especially but then expire and brash and bazaardo and all these guys it's a solid pen blue jays it's a weakness dodgers it's a weakness it's a weakness that they have tried to do away with just by not pitching their relievers

just by putting their starters into the bullpen. Your starters always go away. Don't worry about it. Yeah, either, right, exactly. Either get a bunch of gems from your starters or just have other starters pitch in relief, some combination of those things. So they've basically said, what if we just don't need a bullpen at all?

And the brewer's had a good pen, I guess. But it's just like, it seems like this time of year so often, There's just some fire-breathing, flame-throwing, big hairy bullpen guy down there who everyone's afraid of or it's a combination of them. It's like a bridge to that guy. You know, you don't always have the Herrera-Hollin Davis group everyone remembers from the mid-2010s royals. There's not always a collection of late-inning relievers with a name or a nickname of some sort. But it just feels like so many of these teams this year, there just wasn't really anyone.

you were afraid of, okay, the Phillies had Duran, certainly the Mariners have Munoz, but I don't know, it just hasn't felt like as much of a factor, like, oh, we better score here because this automatic scoreless inning person is coming in here. It just hasn't felt like that so much to me. Even as great as Roki has been in this role, I still don't know if you fully think of him in that mold, because, you know, we saw him be shaky that one time, and he just hasn't done it enough really so it feels different to me in that sense yeah i think that we you know some of this is just the the the postseason that you it's not the only reason but i think that we we tend to compare the the postseason we're in to the postseason we just had you know

the 2024 postseason was one defined by bullpens for the for the champions for the world series champion Los Angeles Dodgers I watched escape from L.A. last night after the end of the and you get the I love L.A. There's Randy Newman in there.

That's a wild flick, Ben. Have you seen that? That's a wild. That movie's bonkers. It was great. It was a really good palette cleanser, you know. Is it a good movie?

I wouldn't say that. And it's definitely not even Carpenter's best one, but I had a good time. I had a rip-roaring a good time made me want to go surf a tsunami in post-apocalyptic L.A. And hang glide. There's a lot of sporting implement in that movie that's pretty impressive. Anyway, I think you're right that this has been less bullpen-specific, less bullpen forward as a postseason.

And that has, I think, been more about the dominance and prevalence of starting pitching than it is, like, the bullpens being notably bad, although some of them have had blowups. But, you know, I was thinking through like the NL side of the bracket because I think there's a growing sense in the discourse that the Dodgers are like going to kind of steamroll their way to a back-to-back champion. And I think that they will be favored in that series

and they should be, regardless of who comes out of the AL side. but I also don't think, particularly if they end up facing the Blue Jays, I haven't dealt with an offense like that in the postseason. Yeah, I was going to ask you. And that will be interesting. Yeah. Speaking of escaping from L.A., which team you think is more likely to do that if you think it even makes a difference?

Is there one that's a better matchup for the Dodgers or just a better team? I mean, I think that their path involved. a Reds team that can't hit a lick although they gave them the business more than the final sort of margin of that series would suggest

a Phillies team where the top guys their bats went cold Bader was hurt the Brewer's offense is not particularly stout I mean it wasn't good in that series but also just in general

is contact dependent doesn't have a lot of power and so was going to have to string runs together against a rotation that just wasn't going to put them in position to do that. And then you have the Blue Jays. And like they are in some ways like a perfect blend of the things that might end up putting you in a good position to succeed against any rotation, right? Where they are disciplined, they don't strike out a ton, they do make contact, but they also make a loud contact.

Now, George Springer is obviously compromised. he looked like he was in pain last night he was not able to get into his lower half at all he couldn't swing hard like it was like i am very concerned now he has we're recording on monday game one is friday so he has three days but like springer is not right he's not right so that's potentially a very big problem for them because he's very good and i think his aggression works well against that dodgers rotation so kind of works well against everybody it's so funny george springer's just been like hey i'm going to do this thing for like 10 years and everyone's like all right we're going to still pipe you well down the dick fastball to start for some for some

reason stop doing that yeah that seems obvious like i know you have advance scouts. They're probably telling you, don't pitch a down-the-dick fastball to George Springer. I'm going to swing at it and set it very far. But I don't know if you can right now. Like, it's pretty... I would have said coming into the postseason that the Mariners were the better team than the Blue Jays. And the Blue Jays have played so well for the most part that it's hard to hold on to that belief. I don't know. I think they're pretty close, talent-wise, and I don't, you know, the Blue Jays have kind of been their best selves in the Yankee series and at least like the last four games of this Mariners series. So you never want

to just imprint on the best possible games and say this is who they are. It wasn't always who they were, of course, and the Mariners were borderline unbeatable for stretches of the season two. And you would have said that they had the starting pitcher advantage in many games in the series, but the results have not really reflected that. I think they, the Zips game by game odds, I think had them favored in, in every, I think in every start except for the Gousman once. I think that they were favored every time except for when Gousman was on the mound. Yeah.

So I don't want to just overindex on how this series has played out or even this postseason. And, yeah, you could say that either of these teams. might be the toughest assignment for the Dodgers. The Phillies were a very good team, too. And, yeah, a few of their guys went cold in that series. Maybe that's credit to the Dodgers, too. But it wasn't like they were pushovers at the plate, or at least you wouldn't have expected them to be.

But look, either of these teams is capable of beating the Dodgers. I know no one looks like they are right now, but it is possible. So I don't know that I think there's an obvious edge to one or the other. Right. And it's funny because, you know, we think about these things over the course of a season, and I think we do try to avoid getting too caught up in the recent minutia of how they've performed in the playoffs

because it's just a much, much smaller sample. But the Blue Jays over the course of the entire season didn't have Trace Savage, and now they do. And he looks, I mean, not unbeatable. If you could just avoid, you just have to send the ball to the outfield. It doesn't even have to be a hit. It could just have gone in the air, but it didn't go that way. Okay.

So they didn't have Tray Savage over the entire course of the season. And he looks very, very strong and completely unfazed, you know, like, again, I don't want to. I think that we underindex on the bigness of the moment and the potential impact of anxiety in the postseason as a, I feel like I said anxiety. like I'm Buck Martinez there. I'm still kind of gravelly from that throat thing a couple weeks ago. It's not all the way gone. I don't care for it. But I think we tend to

downplay to our detriment the psychological factor this time of year because we can't quantify exactly how much it matters and it I think is wildly variable guy to guy.

And so I think that we like as analysts can kind of underindex on that. So I don't want to then over index on it to compensate. But I'll just say that like Tray Savage looks like he's been throwing postseason innings for his whole life. You know, he looks great out there. Yep. And then if you look to the Mariner's side of things in terms of how they stack up against an L.A. club, like if they advance, so much, I think is going to depend on the health of Brian Wu. And is he able to make traditional starts? I think they need to, if they advance,

they need to answer that question quick, and they need to have a much more concrete plan for his usage if he's not going to be a traditional starter because otherwise you're just occupying a roster spot with a guy who's going to throw, what, two innings over a seven-game series? Like, what the fuck is that? Sorry for the swear.

But, you know, I imagine we might see Brian Woodenight. I imagine that we might see everyone tonight except for Logan Gilbert, so who knows. But obviously they're not going to throw Gilbert. So I think that it's so hard sometimes to balance, grappling with the rest of this is currently constituted, but not being like, well, but Vlad will never strike out ever again. Plath will hit forever, right? He might hit forever.

He seems very motivated. It is kind of a confounding choice, the Jersey thing. Canadians seem very nervous about it. Yeah, well, there is a history of blowing some big games there, but it's like the, it's like But it's such a pretty jersey. I'm sure that's not why he picked it. But, like, it is a nice, that is a nice uniform. That is a visually pleasing uniform, those Maple Leafs ones.

They are. I find both the Blue Jays and the Mariners uniforms pretty aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. Oh, very nice. Yeah. That was almost Bryce Harper-esque pandering to the home crowd, except that, of course, Vlad was born in Canada himself. Oh, yeah.

It's not the same. transplant with Harper. Oh, definitely not. But there was, if I recall, Harper did maybe wear a 76ers jersey during a postseason run. And that felt like a bad choice. That one I understood better. I was like, oh, I clock that reference. I feel like you should be doing something different there, buddy.

Yeah. It's funny. We didn't get to talk about the Noble Tiger that the Blue Jays hit into in game five, right? Right. where Miller was pitching fourth inning, bases loaded, no outs, and they get out of it, just unscathed the Mariners. And you get a double play that was hit about two inches and was the just diametric opposite of the weird double play in the NLCS,

which was as far as you could possibly have a grounded into double play. And then that turns, and then this is hit as shallow as grounded into double play could, just tapped basically, squibbed barely an inch in front of the mound. And that's the kind of case where you're not going to hear from the folks who say, oh, put it, just put it in play. Good things happen. Bad things happen sometimes, too.

They can. It's been mostly good for the Blue Jays in this postseason. But also, when someone hits into a double play, that's a case where it would have been better if you had not made any contact, actually. Yeah. Especially if you do it three innings in a row, then you really. Yeah, well. I switched over, well, Reg Mowley remembered that the MLB TV app just syncs the game feed with radio audio, and then she felt so silly.

And for some reason, Reg really lucked out because the game audio on the radio side was just available for the entire game. So she didn't have her unfortunate situation where she was lulled into a sense of not hating everything she was hearing and then having to snap back in. for innings 7, 8, 9, which was happening with pretty great frequency prior to that. How did, but I'm, I say all of that because I'm curious, like, did Smolz have any, like, self-reflection

in that moment? Was he like, oh, yeah, this is the downside of contact sometimes? And I'm not a, I'm not a, and I want to be clear, like, I'm not opposed to contact. But did he have a moment to go, well, that's the, that's, did it, even if, if, if,

only to say, well, that is the downside sometimes. Like, was there any of that? I recall, but I don't really recall. It's mostly in one ear, at the other, with basically any commentator or so. But no, nothing stood out to me, but I doubt it. I think that you don't typically hear that. Oh, well, there's the other side of the coin kind of thing. Right.

Even if it's, yeah, it typically doesn't really occur. I'm going to ask a couple of questions, and I need you to tell me if you think I'm being too mean and then if the answer is yes we can cut it are you ready sure okay what's going on with joe davis's makeup he looks like a haunted doll i don't understand what what are they what's happening why are they he's like a victorian doll he's like a silent film star is what what comes to mind yeah and you're like that's not that's not so mean uh meg like he he he's probably not even in charge of his own makeup how would he decide i'm not trying to knock the makeup artist But I am wondering, like, what they're doing is, did he lose a bet?

He's not on camera much, but when he is, it does appear to be cakedown pretty sick there. It is like the blush. Anyway, what's up with that? Also, no, I'm going to hold the other thing in reserve. It's too mean. It's better for the live stream. I like that people think I'm a nice person. I like to be a nice person.

I do have moments where I'm not nice. And I think people have to pay for that. privilege and so I'm going to hold my second thought and reserve but I just he I don't know if it's like a travel thing I don't know if it was just like oh you know we had to go from Seattle to Toronto

and maybe you know I never sleep well the first night in a hotel and so maybe he was just tired and they were like we got to but then you would think they'd want to help him look more alive and less like a haunted doll like he looks like

someone he looks like he would be very worried about the spores can't open the windows the spores i never sleep better than i do in a hotel first night last night yeah i guess that's probably why yeah you have a kid you it's different i sleep well in a hotel after the first night because and i'm not trying to compare the cats to your human child but there is a similarity in so far as there are tiny creatures that might get you out of bed at inopportune moments and they do not unless you're andres munoz they don't travel with you i can't believe he takes his cat on the road that's bonkers behavior i mean like it seems like it works out for him and all cats are you know their own special creatures but i'm just trying to imagine taking the cats on the road and i'm like that's the worst

thing i've ever heard it's like when some minor league ballparks you're doing like cat you know instead of bark at the park they're having like cat night and i'm like what why That is, I love cats, and that is bonkers behavior. Anyway, all of that to say, go a little easy on the Rouge tonight, guys. Like, you don't need to make him look like he's going to like, like, he's in a goosebumps. He looks like he should be on the cover of an R.L. Steinbeck. I did note, I think it was on the live stream, but this will come into play in the World Series, that it's odd when you get someone calling their local teams game.

on a national broadcast, which is happening with Brian Anderson, too, and would happen to Joe Davis, if he's calling Dodgers games in the World Series, because it's a strange relationship, because it's kind of what you want as a fan, as we've been saying, you want to hear your local broadcaster who's been a staple all season, but it's a different relationship. He's with a different partner, and so they don't have the same chemistry that you're used to, and it's like all these other people are eavesdropping on this conversation. that you've been having for six or seven months at this point. In fact, most of the people listening maybe are people who are not usually listening to local Dodgers broadcasts. And so you have your references and your common ground and history and your inside jokes and all of that. And so it's the same guy, but just in a completely different context where he has to call the games in such a way that someone who hasn't listened to him all season long will feel just as at home as someone who is used to having Joe Davis in their living room many, many times all season long. So it's really weird.

It's almost like a kind of uncanny valley where we have our guy, and that's familiar, but it's an unfamiliar sense and unfamiliar manifestation of that. And it's almost it makes it feel more foreign because it's like visually similar, except for maybe the makeup. but it's just a little different in the content, perhaps. So maybe it's still better than just not having your local broadcaster, but it's just not quite the same. It just feels off in some way. Yeah, it is an odd thing. And it has to be a tough assignment.

See, now I'm going to say nice things about Joe Davis because I feel bad for calling him a haunted doll or a goosebumps meme. But, I mean, I don't feel so bad that I didn't say it. And I don't think that you have to take it out. I think it's fine. But let me be nice. Now, it has to be such an odd and challenging assignment for the broadcaster, right? Like, you have to, you know, I think that most good broadcasters, and I've had my quibbles with

him this postseason, but I would generally put Davis in this category, you know, they work for the home team, and they are being, their broadcaster being consumed primarily by fans of the home team. And so they obviously have a preference that their guys win. There's a lot of we that goes on in home broadcast. But I think the very best broadcasters are able to be honest with their audience about what's happening. And so sometimes have to say when the home team is playing poorly, right? And yet, you are the home broadcast and you are operating from a place of having a preference about who wins.

And then you go and do the national game and you have to abandon that preference or you should if you're going to do it well. And so I imagine it would be a difficult little bit of a dance to do. And I think that in general, if you can pull it off, it does add a depth and a richness to the broadcast that can sometimes be the biggest complaint about national broadcast versus local ones, which is you know those guys so well. And so for at least half of the teams on the field, you have a deep and abiding understanding of the club

and their approach and all kinds of stuff. And so I do think that it can augment it in a nice way if you're able to sort of tow the line and not dip into catering more strongly to one side of the broadcast or the other. There's kind of a winking, like, you know, speaking to the portion of your audience that's been listening to you all year long.

And I know you know this, but I have to say it for the other people. I have to tell people about these storylines that, of course, you know, and you know that I know, No, but we can't quite let on here because we don't want to be bad hosts, essentially. Anyway, I can't believe we have buried the leads so deep, and it's the upset of all time that it took this long for effectively well to talk about Otani. It's just that, well, A, it's been well covered, I would say, but also you're a Mariners fan, and game seven is about to happen. But, yeah, let's talk a little bit about Choyotani, whom I wrote about over the weekend as well, and we talked about during the live stream.

But, you know, I, even though it may not always sound like it, I try to moderate my enthusiasm about Choyotani to some extent. I mean, I try to, I'm effusive, but hopefully in a deserved justified way, because it makes sense to be effusive about the guy. I want to tow the line, I don't want to be hyperbolic about it. It's just that when you literally factually describe what he does and how good he is, maybe it ends up sounding hyperbolic. He's just, he's hyperbole embodied. So I have been heartened in a way that I have not been alone in that in the past few days. And if anything, I was sort of surprised by how quickly and universally, pretty much everyone seemingly was just

pronouncing that the greatest game of all time just the touch for his performance in game four it was so above reproach that other than some salty fans of teams that maybe have other players who haven't performed as well in the postseason or whatever their teams are out i really didn't see anyone you know there were some people say oh wow you know he he hadn't hit at all this october and he has one good game finally and everyone's all over him or or wow you know, he finally, the Dodgers are up three nothing in that series and he has a big game as if it doesn't count his clutch or something because they had some buffer, some margin for error there. But most people just, it was a chorus, just, well, that guy's the best. That was the best

that we've ever seen the best guy be, that this was the most impressive display. And it's hard to quantify it exactly. And maybe it's besides. the point to try to put a number on it because I tried because that's the way I'm wired and I'm thinking, what stat can I use to try to explain how impressive this is? Not that you need to because everyone immediately knew how impressive it was. But still, my mind goes to the numbers and how can we sum this up. Totally. And there isn't a great way to do it, really, because we don't have single game war historically, at least. It's not like we can compare And postseason war single game, too.

Just war, it doesn't work so well that way. Yeah, you can look it up in recent years at Fangraphs in the regular season, but it's hard to do. And for good reason, because even if you can look it up, the defense is, it's sort of like extrapolated, as I understand it, or it's kind of averaged out. And so it's hard to have single game war, and we don't really have that at our disposal for the postseason. And then everything else that you could use is either kind of invalidated because he was a two-way player. And so, okay, if he was just a hitter, then you might talk about total bases or something like that. But that doesn't quite capture it because that was only part of this performance. Or you could use something like win probability added or these even more obscure stats like RE24 or RE24 or REW, you know,

and then you have to explain what those are because the vast. majority of people have no idea what you're talking about and it's kind of complicated and they're very context dependent too and so i finally settled on a leaderboard of sometimes it's called situational wins when probability added divided by leverage index so already there it's sort of a tough sell because it's like there's a slash in the name there's like a mathematical operator it's like wpa divided by l i okay sure and it's kind of in this this no man's land where it's like it's it's not context neutral the way war is but it's not quite as context sensitive as wpa is and so it's it's hard to explain it for a mainstream audience at

least anyway wpa divided by l i just saying it's it's just hard right yeah he had the number two postseason score of all time but even that it's kind of counterintuitive because the number one of all time is Pablo Sandoval's three-homer game in game one of the World Series in 2012, and it's hard to explain why that would be higher than Otanis because they each had a three-homer game. Right. Sandoval had a single, and Otani had a walk, and that seems kind of equivalent, and Sandoval didn't pitch, so it's like, how could he be ahead? And it turns out that, well, it's because of park factors, and it's because Sandoval hit two

of his homers with two outs, and that is counted more than if you hit. like a lead-off homer and also one of his homers. What does leaving the ballpark get you? Well, one of his homers was a two-run shot and Otanis were all solo shots and these are all context-sensitive things. And so it's not very satisfying. But I think that's okay because we kind of all knew how impressive that was in the moment. It's just the spectacle of it.

It's like, you know, there was one three-homer game by a pitcher in 1914. during World War II by Jim Tobin. Like, that's the only time that that has happened. There just hasn't really been anything like that exactly, especially on a postseason stage, which just raises it to another level. So it didn't even feel like you had to work that hard to convince anyone that that game was so great. There were a few voices crying in the wilderness that overrated. But for the most part, everyone was like, yep, just got to tip our caps.

Like, that was ridiculous. That was preposterous. That was the greatest thing that anyone has ever done on a baseball field, basically. And I can't really argue with that. Look, I think the interrogation into how do we contextualize this, I'm off two minds about it, because I think that that's a worthwhile endeavor. And I think that one of the cool things about baseball and baseball statistics and particularly advanced stats is that they so often, although,

not always, and you point out some of the limitations in the postseason context, but they allow us to put a modern day player like Otani on footing with, you know, a more recently

retired player like Sonval, and then a player from 1920, and then, and then, and then, right? I think it provides this very robust through line through the game's history right like the weave the weave is so tight right it's all part of i'm just again i keep throwing metaphors out here it's all part of one tapestry um in a way that is i just think

so wonderful about baseball and so i understand the instinct and i think that you know particularly when people go to something like when people do the the little like slip from this is the best game I've ever seen to this is the best game there's ever been yeah right um I understand there being like a tiny contrarian voice that at least wants to like be like well is that true is it the best game we've ever seen but but also sometimes one of the great things about baseball is that it just smacks you over the head with how obviously amazing it is right there are so many numbers that we could put on Otani's performance that night. There are so many sound bites.

We could just play the effectively wild live stream and hear you laughing. Like, giddy. He struck out 10 guys and he hit three home runs. Like, what? Yeah. And short, they were solo shots, right? They didn't come with two outs. Like, there is context to add to these things.

And I do think that there's something cool about helping people appreciate you know the ways in which something that might not seem as obviously great is really great right and the and the role it can play in a win you know and and and that tells you something about baseball and that's an exciting something to learn but it's not as exciting as what show a otani did yeah one of those balls left the ballpark yes it just it then i i i was so i was so excited on friday and I couldn't have imagined being distracted from the Mariners winning that game. And I was because it was just the best individual performance I've ever seen. I've ever seen. I don't know if it's the best individual game that a baseball player has ever had. You know, many persuasive arguments have been made to that end, but I don't, I'd, I, I, I, I, I still don't know what I think of that.

But I know it's the best individual performance I've ever seen from a player. Ever in my whole life? I've been watching baseball for a long time. I'm 39. I have to make concessions to my back. Like, you know, that's not old, but I'm not a kid either, you know. I just couldn't, I couldn't believe it. And I think that one of my favorite things are, I will send it back to you to talk about one of the loves of your life, not the only love of your life.

And not the most important one, you know. Yeah. That's John Brebio. No. But, you know, I think that one of the ways you can understand the singular nature of that performance was just watching the faces of the other Dodgers. Exactly. Yeah.

Right? Like, that's not a team of chumps, you know? You have former MVPs on that club. You have future Hall of Famers on that club. That is, as we discussed last time, a stacked roster. it is full of guys who have had tremendous success as Dodgers and have for the most part had long successful careers with other franchises prior to them getting to LA

and the look that they had on their face in that dugout especially when he was hitting the home runs I don't I don't think was actually that dissimilar from the look that either of us had that night yeah that's the thing yeah that was amazing that's amazing Yeah, it's one thing to impress us, to impress fans, to impress pundits, because we can't do anything remotely like this. And so, of course, we're going to be impressed by it. But when the next best players in sport are that blown away by it, that's the thing that's always

amazed me about Otani is not just my own amazement, but other athletes, not even exclusively baseball players. Sometimes the appreciation is coming from athletes and other sports, but the way that they are reduced to just sort of a childlike wonder watching him. That's the real tell, I think. And so when he hit that second homer that went over the roof in right center, and Freddie Freeman, who's a future Hall of Fame hitter himself and has hit many home runs. And he's just standing there with his hands on his head, just with this look of sort of stunned belief and wonder, that's what we're talking about here. And And the quotes after the game,

Mookie Betz, future Hall of Famer, the one that went out of the stadium kind of took everybody's breath away. Yeah, Roberts. No one's ever seen anything like this. KK. Hernandez, there's only one person who can do that in the world in the history of this game, and it's him.

Not even October Kiki can do that. Andrew Friedman, it's the limitations of the human brain. We can't comprehend just how special this is and how unique. It's one of one. Yeah, okay, they're going to gas up their guy. Sure.

Sure. there's an element of truth to all of that, really. And, yeah, just to see everyone just like, what, how they've never seen anything like this either. And they've been around baseball. And there's always the complication of trying to compare across eras because even if you can neatly reduce things down to a number, you can't quite account for all the other factors when you start talking about Babe Ruth and Bullet Rogan. And we're talking about segregated leagues a century ago. And then, okay, are we talking about compared to your peers?

That's worth discussing. But are we also talking about just are you the most physically gifted and best ever? And maybe that's obvious because it's usually going to be someone pretty contemporary. And that's a different conversation. But either way, just no one has done that. And I think the reason this particular game resonated the way that it did, well, there are a couple reasons. Well, there are many reasons. I mean, one is just the...

Before you list those, though, I just want to say about Freddie Freeman in particular, like, less we forget, Freddie Freeman hit a extra endings grand slam in the World Series last year with like half a good lower half, you know, like barely one working

ankle and a bunch of other injuries in between, besides that, that we didn't even know about at the time. And he was standing there like he was a tiny child and Show Hey Otani was show Hey Otani. Yep. It was, I just, like, it is so cool.

It's just so cool. I mean, I'm sorry to the reverse fans because, like, I bet it didn't feel cool for them. And it's, and it is, you know, I talked about earlier in this episode, I talked about how, like, one of the worst fan feelings is when, like, your team loses and you're like, yeah, they deserve to lose. Like, that's a real, sorry, I'm going to do some stories. That's a real shit-ass feeling. You're just like, they really does, they deserve to lose. I also think that a low-key, terrible fan feeling above and beyond just the results on the field and what they portend for your squad is like when your team is on the receiving end of a historic performance. Because you're going to have to see that shit so much.

You're going to have to, you're going to see that highlight for those highlights for the rest of your life. They might win a World Series and that will make you feel a little bit better, not this year, obviously. sorry um but like you know at some point in the future they they might win a world series but you're still gonna you're gonna get zapped by that by those highlights yeah rest of your life for the rest of your life i'm sorry to tell you brewers fans for the rest of your life you're gonna see that stuff and i am sorry and as a searchs fan who has to see that stupid super bowl every it's also i guess you get eliminated and no one even really talks about you it's just that you were sort of you were like an extra in the Shohei Otani game, basically. You were just the foil, the fodder, the person who

had to serve up the dingers that Otani would hit. Basically, that was your role. And then immediately, it's like, are we going to trade Freddie Peralta now? Look, the brewers, they'll be back. I'm quite confident that they'll be back. Yeah, it's a good club. Yeah, they're young. They've got all these rookies. They just revamped their whole roster. They're good. They'll have another shot. And, you know, there's an interesting question, I guess, about whether the brewer's depth, which is a great strength of theirs, if that's quite as advantageous in the postseason, you know, and I'm sorry, as I said last time, I didn't want them to go out that way if they were going to go out because they did kind of put the, oh, Brewers' bats fall apart in the postseason story behind them

briefly, and then it kind of came back because the bats were just so silent in that series, and they score one run in each game, and it's like a historically terrible offensive performance. But they'll have more chances anyway. Yeah. I think it was so impressive, A, because he pitched six scoreless innings and struck out 10 and hit three home runs and drew a walk.

So that's why mostly. But also, relative even to previous Otani games, because I was thinking, well, is this the Otani game? Is this the signature game? Has he already had some signature games? And clearly he has. He's had some signature performances before he had the WBC final when he struck out Trout to end it and win the championship for Japan. He had the game last September, the 50-50 game, where he went six for six and hit three homers and a double and swipe two bags and became the first 50-50 player ever.

That was ridiculous, too. And in 2023, he had, well, it wasn't one game, but it was a day in a double header where he threw a shrew. shut out in one game and then he hit two homers in the second game is he he's had these moments like even going back to 2018 when he broke out and right away he had a good start and and hit a homer and you know immediately kind of announced that yeah this this was for real but i think this was bigger just because of the context but also i think mainly because he got to flash all the tools and all the skills in one game, right? Because in the in the 50-50 game last September, he was not pitching. And it was an even more dominant offensive performance. It was again, arguably the greatest

offensive game of all time. But it wasn't quite the signature two-way game for him. It wasn't a two-way game at all. And then the WBC final, that was mostly about that showdown and him coming in as a closer, so it wasn't so much about him as a hitter. And then a double header, well, that's two games. And also it was with the Angels during the regular season. So this was just the perfect encapsulation. If you just had to show highlights from one game to explain the Shohei Otani experience, here it was very neatly and efficiently packaged for us. And it also happened to be in a pennant-clinching game. So it was just like the perfect formula for this to just instantly be

anointed as the goat game. Yeah, again, it was just like the single greatest individual performance that I think I've seen. I have seen better starts, right? Yeah, of course. In that series. For sure. I would even hazard

to say that I've maybe seen more impressive days of the plate than that. But the combination, you can't, you know, this is so obvious that I sound like I've had like an edible before I say it, but it's like pitching is exhausting, you know, and hitting is exhausting. And to be able to pitch and be in, like, your lower half, to be able to, it's unreal, Ben.

That's what, that's like an amazing, it's amazing. It was. Yeah. And, you know, he has hit worse on the days that he has pitched. Right. As we've established. Yeah, the days immediately after the days when he pitched this year, too. So there does seem to be, whether it's fatigue, hangover effect, whether it's just concentration, who knows. He doesn't think that that's real, seemingly, but it has persisted other than 2023.

2023 he hit well when he was pitching. But most seasons, when he's been doing both, he has hit worse on his start days. And for that reason, there continues to be just the chorus of, should he do this, should he keep doing this? And even on the day, earlier on the day of that game on Friday, Stephanie Epstein, who's a great writer and reporter for Sports Illustrated, highly respect her work. She did a story kind of looking at his postseason slump and, you know, not saying like he can't hit when he pitches or anything, but reporting that, hey, there are questions. People are wondering. People are even voicing the concern that maybe he shouldn't do this or he'd be better off not doing this. And even Freddie Freeman said something to that effect, just like he's so locked in on the pitching on those days and he wants to be so good at that that maybe that's why he hasn't hit quite as well. But then Freddie ended that quote by saying, like, now watch him hit a lead off Homer on Friday after I said that. And he did. And then he hit two more for effect.

So it's just like it continues to amaze me that we're now several seasons into the Shohi Otani MLB experience. And all that really takes is like one bad week. Before again, the skeptics start to emerge and should he do this? Can he do this? It's like he had maybe a seven-game cold snap. We wouldn't have even noticed this if it were the regular season. Of course, it's magnified and dissected because it's October, fair enough. And he hasn't hit super well last October either.

But, like, you know, he comes in after yet another MVP campaign. I mean, he hit two homers in the Dodgers' first playoff game against the Reds, their first wildcard game. And then he drove in a run in the second game. And then, yeah, he didn't hit much in the NLDS or the first few games of the series. But that's a blip, or it would be a blip, if not for the fact that it's Shohayotani and he's doing this thing that no one else does. And it's the Dodgers and it's a big stage and everything. And so immediately everyone's like, I'm not sure. Maybe he shouldn't be doing this.

maybe it doesn't work so well. And then he has this ridiculous game. So it's just, I don't know, it's not even like haters. I mean, he has haters, but I'm just, you know, even people who are asking legitimate questions and citing data and all the rest of it, it's just he repeatedly proves them wrong or he comes back and he does something otherworldly that just shows that, yeah, he's up to the task, whatever the task is, even if it's a two-way task. And so there's just been such a long line of people questioning whether he could do it,

dating back to, when he was an amateur, dating back to when he entered pro ball in NPB. And time after time after time, he's just been like, nope, watch what I'm going to do next. It's going to be even better than you can imagine. And, you know, one of these times they'll be right, I guess, right? Either he'll have one elbow injury too many and that'll be that, or eventually he'll just age like anyone does and the skills will slip and there will come a point perhaps where he will have to special. or he just won't be as good at both as he is now. But, yeah, it hasn't happened yet. And every time people forecast that it could happen,

he then rises to the challenge and proves them wrong. So it's been fun to see the reaction to that and just how just universal the acclaim has been because I think it is deserved. And, you know, like this doesn't help beat the allegations that the Dodgers are overpowered. And they, you know, it's just a wealth of, power and resources and Otani's kind of the embodiment of that because he has such an embarrassment

of riches, not just monetarily, but skills-wise. And of course, he wanted to play there and he wanted to do the deferred deal and all the rest of it. So not suggesting that his having this great game should persuade anyone that actually it's good that the Dodgers are yet again in the World Series. However, I do think it's the upside of the Dodgers' dominance. It's the silver lining, and this is small consolation to Brewers fans or most fans probably. But I do think it's good for baseball that Otani had this game and that everyone was talking about this game. Not just baseball people, just across the sports world. Oh, yeah. You know, beyond the sports world. This was like national, international news in a way that baseball usually isn't. And I think

that's good for the sport. And if you are just a fan of baseball and of seeing excellence, then I think it's good that Otani got to have this game. And it's a game that he hadn't had in MLB because, you know, MLB fans hadn't had an opportunity to see him have this sort of game because he starts his career in NPB. And then he's with the Angels for years and they're terrible. And he's never playing in meaningful games, really, except for the WBC final. And then last year, he was not a two-way player. So this is the first opportunity, really, that he has had to showcase all of his talents in an MLB postseason game. And immediately he made the most of it.

And I think that's good. It doesn't outweigh concerns about competitive balance and lack of level playing field and all the rest. I'll leave that to others. I'll just say that I think it is sort of the upside of the Dodgers being here again and, you know, steamrolling over everyone. Is that at least Otani got to have this game. Again, I don't expect people, a lot of people, to say, oh, yes, you're right. It's worth it. But I do think that that is a plus, at least in isolation.

Yeah, I think that it's funny to take this game and have it be like the entry point for a commentary on the Dodgers. I understand the instinct. And, you know, when Dave Roberts is out here being like, let's go ruin baseball, you're like, okay, we're going to be talking about this stuff forever, aren't we? It's like for a few hours there, maybe you could just kind of focus on, wow, this show here, Tani guy, he sure is amazing. amazing, isn't it? And then David Roberts, like, let's really ruin baseball now leading into the heel persona at the end of it. It's like, oh, the spell is broken. But also, what else is he going to do? They can't pretend to be like, you know, underdogs. They aren't. Yeah, they can't pull the Pat Murphy, be like, no one's ever heard of us. So there's that part of it. But I also

just think that, like, part of why this game stands out so dramatically and part of why Otani feels so mold-breaking. I mean, he is. But also, you know, baseball is such a collective sport, right? Like, it has stars and it has guys who, you know, might carry an offense or be such a standout ace that particularly come October, they assume even greater importance for their club than they might otherwise have during the regular season. But it isn't a sport where you tend to. feel like the impact so dramatically from one guy

you know guys have moments and like a audience were a sit a grand slam and no but for that game to be so much about Otani rather than the Dodgers yeah I think

was another part of what made it so striking you know and much more akin in some ways to you know what you might see in like a basketball game than than what you're used to seeing in a baseball game. So I get why any conversation about Otani is going to naturally involve some concern or hand-wringing about what it says about the sport, that he's a Dodger and what have you.

And again, like, Dave is out here leaning into that. But it was so dramatically an Otani game. not, you know, so I was, that was pretty remarkable too. Yes, that's right. Because the stat that I cited earlier, the situational wins depends on whether you use the fan grass formulation or the baseball reference one. But either way, it had him as being somewhere between 71% and 85% of a win. So, you know, the vast majority of a win, he was worth single-handedly, not literally.

single-handedly, he bats left, he throws right. He used both of his hands and arms, but he beat the brewers with both of them. And that sounds about right that he, on his own, basically accounted for most of that win because he held the brewer's scoreless for two-thirds of the game. And then he personally accounted for most of the Dodgers' runs in that game. So he really did kind of do it himself in a way that it's very difficult for even superstars in baseball to do. I mean, that's like a, that's a little league phenomenon. It's really tough to do that at that level in, in this era and all the rest. So it's not as if he was getting any shortage of

ink or attention before this. I'm well aware or podcast airtime for that matter. And, you know, if the Dodgers steamroll their opponent in the World Series and then they sign Kyle Tucker and, you know, they continue to make the postseason every year in perpetuity, then yeah, people will continue to hate them and resent their success and perhaps have legitimate gripes against the structure of the game, et cetera. But for at least a few hours there, it was just more about marveling at Otani and just like, look at what this guy can do. This is, this is incredible. Yeah, I think that it was pretty remarkable. It really was. And I don't Oh, man.

It was just like a, I can't believe we got to see that, you know? These are the good old days. That whole spread is a good lunch. I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to make that happen. Okay. Well, we will end there for now, and perhaps people will hear from you later at the end of this episode. And if so, congrats, and perhaps not.

And if so, condolences. And one way or another, I will be absent next time. Yeah, that's right. Out for a few days. Yeah, just solo an episode. Yes. So I look forward to presumably hearing some sort of a World Series setup or preview from you. And I don't want to save that for when you're back on Friday?

Well, by the time I'm back on Friday, the series starts on Friday. So by the time we post it, the game will have begun. So, yeah, do whatever you want. But I look forward to listening. You don't want me to do like a Fall League episode. You just have Eric on to talk prospects for a couple hours. Just, I mean. Look, you know, you exercise your editorial judgments on that one.

I leave the podcast in your hands. I'll do my best. I would like to talk at some future date about the Giants potentially hiring Tony Vitello unless you talk to Bowman, in which case you should probably talk to Bowman about that. Yeah, I might. I might see what Michael's up to on Wednesday. But even I am interested in that potential hire. So that's, I mean, a college.

coach jumping directly to MLB, which Baumann has already blogged about. So I would be interested in hearing his thoughts. And I could even share some thoughts, but his will probably be better. Anyway, I will talk to you later this week. Talk to you then. Well, there will be no voice memo from Meg. I didn't have the heart to ask. Because her Mariners succumbed to Toronto, four to three, as the Blue Jays won the pennant in a rollicking, good game. For a while there, it looked like Seattle's big bats, Julio, and Cal could deliver them to the promised land, but ultimately it was one of the Bougays, Big Bats, George Springer,

a repeat postseason hero, who sent them back to the fall classic for the first time since 1993 with a backbreaking three-run home run. Or from the Bouget's perspective, a game-winning clutch incredible home run. So I'm sorry for the Mariners and Meg and Ben Gibbard and all the many Mariners fans, but I'm also happy for Toronto fans. And on some level, I'm sure Meg is also. So she'll probably break down the game next time. But as anticipated, we got some starting pitcher action for both teams, many more double plays, some divisive managerial moves, how much more could one want out of a game seven? Good game, good series, good teams, hopefully more of the same in store starting Friday. George Springer got around the bases just fine, by the way. It helps when

you can trot instead of sprint. And now the Blue Jays will have to contend with a couple of the Japanese superstars they tried to sign. Oh, and by the way, I mentioned earlier that Vlad was born in Canada. I know he was not born in Toronto, not saying all Canadian cities are the same. Also, I was talking talking about how there's some belief that perhaps the brewers are a special regular season team due to their depth, and that that's not quite as helpful in the postseason. But the Blue Jays, who I've been saying are kind of the American League equivalent of the Brewers, they benefited from their depth. They got some good production from the bottom of the lineup. Look at what Ernie Clement has done for them in October. Losing Bo Bichet seemed like a big blow, but Clement has been better than anyone could have expected Bichet to be.

So sometimes you lose a player and it hurts you. Certainly didn't help the brewers to lose branded Woodruff, for instance, or to have Jackson Churio be banged up. But if the Blue Jays could go back in time and have Bobichette be healthy for the first couple rounds, not sure it would behoove them to do that. A few other follow-ups. We answered an email recently about whether one could call a two-game sweep a dusting. I was mostly in favor. Meg was against. Listener Tim says, could it be called a whisk?

A whisk broom is a smaller broom, and it even has a baseball connection. I don't know, because when I think of a whisk, the cooking utensil comes to mind immediately. still okay with dusting or dusted. Dusted actually sounds stronger. We got a few submissions in response to a recent email about players who have lost there, never have to buy a drink slash meal in this town again status. So they earned that with some heroics. They were beloved.

And then that status was somehow revoked. Meg suggested Craig counsel among Cubs fans. Aaron Boone was the example given in the original email. Listener Dan suggests Johnny Damon lost his never buy a drink in Boston status. Yeah, once you're a Yankee, you can't go. back. Listener David says Steve Garvey was pretty close to that status in San Diego after his home run against the Cubs and the 84 NLCS. So close, in fact, that the Padres ended up retiring his number, despite the fact that 99% of his career value, I did not check the math, was

accumulated as a Dodger. I did check the math, and by baseball reference were at least it's about 96% close. To be clear, retiring his number was an incredibly dumb idea. To bring up your original discussion from the episode, it's basically the Yankees retiring Boone's number for the 03 dong. Nowadays, there's a fairly significant groundswell to unretire the number in San Diego. In retirement, Garvey is most notable for two things, a spectacularly failed run for governor and showing up at literally every Dodgers' red carpet event and old timers' day. Has a number ever been unretired? Can we start here? I think the Blue Jays may have unretired Roberto Alamar's number.

Usually take some non-playing related transgressions, some off-the-field unsaviriness. But Garvey would probably satisfy that condition, too. Listener, Cream of Yeat, y'all's discussion of players who had and then lost their free meal pass immediately made me think of David Fries, a potentially odd example of a player not losing their free pass, but giving it away intentionally. Fries, of course, is most famous for his 2011 postseason heroics and was elected into the Cardinals Hall of Fame a couple years ago, an honor which he actually declined, saying his off-the-field behavior and career accomplishments post-2011 heroics meant he did not feel deserving of the honor, or presumably, the free food.

Lastly, cold coffee, another listener far, suggested that Buster Posey might be someone to watch. beloved player as a giant, but perhaps if his pobo stint doesn't go as well, then he'd suffer a boon-esque reputation hit. It would take a lot of losing, though. And finally, we talked about the phenomenon of October Kike, how Kike Hernandez has been a much better hitter in the postseason than in the regular season, though he wasn't so great in the few games after we brought that up. But it's a long track record. We speculated about why it might be that he seems to up his performance in the postseason. And as a few listeners, including Jack and Ryan, flagged for us, He actually briefly addressed this on Mookie Betz's podcast last November.

Here's what he said. I think my superpower is also my kryptonite. That's called ADHD. Okay. And during the season, my brain is just everywhere. And the postseason, it just brings out like hyper-focus. And it just, I don't know. And I just go into compete mode.

I don't really give a shit about how I feel. I'm just like when I go to home plate, everything becomes silent. And there's nobody but the pitcher and I hold, and I just go into the B mode. I assume he has a therapeutic use exemption because of his ADHD. I don't know that for a fact, but I assume he could get one if he has been diagnosed. But the postseason is indeed a different animal. And what he said certainly could explain why he has been a different player. I look forward to listening to the next episode along with you all and talking to you at the end of the week, back here on the main feed.

And also in our World Series Game One, Patreon live stream, you can sign up for Patreon. the podcast by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and pledging some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners adam bradley nummy adam jones Mitch and adeline steward nolan thanks to all of you patreon perks include access to the effectively wild discord group for patrons only monthly bonus episodes the aforementioned playoff live streams prioritized email answers potential podcast appearances 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, your comments, your condolences for Meg, your 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 McKeon for his editing and production assistance. The pod will be back a little later in the week. Meg will talk to you then, and I will be back after that. I wish you well in weathering a few days without baseball. And savor that sweet world series anticipation. Riley I want to hear about show Hale Tani

Or Mike Trout with Three Martin