Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2396: Best. Postseason. Ever?

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Ben and Meg banter about all the highlights of World Series Game 7, with a side of World Series Game 6, break down the appeal of the now-completed postseason, and discuss what teams might take away from the success of 2025’s pennant winners. Audio intro: Guy Russo, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme” […]

Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2396 of Effectively Wild. A FanGrafts baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraps and I am joined by Ben Lindbergbergh of the ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm already receiving press releases.

about which players have opted out of contracts and have declared for free agency, lots of news coming across the wire. I'm not ready for that yet. I'm not in off-season mode. I am looking forward to reveling today with you about what we saw this weekend. I am forcibly in off-season mode, and I envy your peace, but I am happy to relive the thrill of Game 7 with you. you because what a game it was. What a game. What a series. What a postseason. If you were

expecting some contrarian take from Effectively Wild as opposed to just all the people marveling at what we saw over the past couple days. No, that's not what you're going to get from us. I don't think. I think we're probably going to marvel as well. It really was something. Yeah. It really was just among the best baseball spectating experiences of my life. And I can say that as someone who had no direct stake in anything other than figuring out what my story was going to be about on Saturday night, which I really could not decide in advance, didn't really get any head start on that gamer because everything was up in the air until basically the last second. Yeah, and, you know, there were so many compelling potential narratives, but I, it was hard. That's part of why I was obsolete editing, you know.

It was tricky to rain it. in. But yeah, really a sort of tale of multiple games, right? It felt like it contained a number of different contests that ended up being sort of discreet from one another. And also one that like showcased some of the things that got these teams where they were and certainly had propelled them through the series that we were watching and also some of the things that were holding them back, you know, sometimes in devastating fashion. So it was, it had a little bit everything you know it wasn't quite as it was a better game do i believe that do you think it was a better game than game three i think it was a i think it was a better game than game three i because ben

i didn't want to die at any point during that game and and that wasn't always true in game three as we discussed you know you have this this funny four inning stretch where you're like do we just live here now Is this early forever? Is Purgatory real? Was this like a lost circle of hell that Dante like meant to tell us about? But it just didn't make its way into Inferno. And because Game 7 only won 11 innings, it didn't have that stretch, but it did contain all of the best, oh my God, we're in extras kind of moments. So that was sure something, you know?

Yep. There was so much to it. that we almost could do a draft of just things from that game. No, we won't, but we could. And in lieu of that, we will just discuss some of those moments. And yeah, it went a couple extra innings, but not an entire game's worth of extra innings. But just by virtue of being a game seven, of course,

the stakes are ratcheted up even higher. It's an elimination game. It's a double elimination game. It's winner take all. So that conferred some extra stakes. obviously and the game itself yeah it was just great there were a few innings in there certainly where it looked like it might be over right certainly there were times where i thought yeah this is this is over the dodgers are done the blue jays are going to do this and that varied i mean there

were multiple times when i thought that of course there were times when the blue jays were up early after the bichette homer and you're looking at that and you're thinking can these dodgers score runs? I don't know that they can. They haven't done that a whole lot lately. Or, of course, when it's later, when it's the ninth, when you've got two outs left to play with and you're down and the Bue J's have their closer on the mound, then yeah, I'm thinking, Alex Kirster, on Hankup and Listen, asked me when I knew that the Dodgers were going to do it or when I felt like, oh, there's no way the Dodgers can be beaten. I never had that feeling. Yeah, I never had that feeling. Not even one time in that game. Not until.

Alejandro Kirk's foot hit the bag a little too late on that game ending World Series ending double play. That was it. That was when I figured, okay, I guess the Blue Jays are done because the game is actually over now. But this was the first time ever that a World Series or a winner take-all postseason game ended on a double play with the winning run on base. So it was very much up until the last second things were. in doubt and back and forth, and statistically speaking, there is a case for this as just the best game ever and the best series ever and the best postseason ever. And our Patreon supporter and sometime guest, Michael Mountain, he always runs the numbers on those things just based on the

cumulative change in championship win probability added. So every time someone does something that helps their team win, there's a little bit of championship win probability added there. And then when something bad happens for that team, it goes down, but the net change over the course of a game or a series and a postseason. And this was number one in all of those categories, number one game, number one series, number one postseason, and that's partly just because of the length. Right. The postseason, obviously, there are more games than there used to be.

There are more teams. There are more rounds. And that's part of what makes a postseason compelling that I think 47 of 53. possible postseason games were played, and seven of 12 matchups went the distance. So that's part of what makes it so entertaining, but also that does juice the CWPA stats a little bit. But even if you look at from the division series round on or from the championship series round on, this was still number one, even if you're kind of comparing like to like. Yeah. And this World Series, of course, we got more than a bonus game, basically.

As I said in the beginning of my story, we haven't had an eight-game World Series since 1921, but that's essentially what we got here. In fact, eight games was not enough because after eight games worth of innings, they had to play a couple more to figure out who would win this thing. There are times when we'll have a playoff where, especially if things are mismatch a little bit more profoundly than we had this postseason. in the year of the mid where you feel a little cheated almost, right? Yeah, as you sit there and you

contemplate how long winter lasts, you know, you feel like, well, I could have used a couple more games, though, and I didn't get those games, and I don't come away that way this year. Yeah. I felt nourished, you know?

I felt like I got all the baseball I could handle. And now, well, I don't know that I'm ready for a break, But I don't, I feel prepared. I feel, you know, like a bear or a chipmunk or any other little animal that kind of squirrels away stuff. You know, when things feel dark and the night is long in like January, I'll be like, well, you know, you got an extra game. Yeah, you got a whole, you have several whole extra games out of that postseason. So, that's kid, you know.

Yeah. Part of me, obviously, going from this is the best ever to now I'm just reading press releases about options and stuff. It's always jarring. But remember, you watch football now, so you can live a different life if you want, Ben. Although I thought of you yesterday as I was watching, my Seattle Seahawks just trouts the commanders. And I don't know if you talked about the injury to Jaden Daniels on Hangup and Wilson. I did not, but I saw a still of it and wished I hadn't. Yeah, I was like, I hope Ben's not watching this game.

I hope Ben's removed from this because, you know, it's not like you never see Grus. some injuries in baseball, but not like that. Generally, not like that. Yeah. Yeah, that was bad. Yeah, I can think of a couple in baseball, but I'm already sorry that I thought of them. Yeah. Yeah. So game seven, you're coming into it and thinking this is all set up to be yet another Shohei Otani game, because he's starting again. He's on short rest. Maybe he goes kind of hero mode. And then it turned out not to be that. No. Because he pitched a couple innings, he was looking shaky, diminished stuff.

Yeah. Clearly feeling some effects of the long season of being asked to start on short rest, which, of course, he had not done all season. They were very careful with him. And if you're ever going to push it, then Game 7 of the World Series is the time to push it. And, of course, by the end of the game, three days rest, man, what a luxury. That's all the time in the world. Yoshi Yamamoto is like, fuck, what a cinch.

That's, you call that short rest? Watch this. Yeah. This is no rest. Yeah, I got your short rest right here. Yeah. So Otani, if anything, stayed in a little too long, perhaps, and he gives up the Bichette, Homer. And, you know, he got a couple hits in the game as well.

But this was not the Otani game. No. And while that's, I guess, a little disappointing, I am also kind of okay with it because we got Otani games. We got plenty of Otani games this October. His overall stats were great. the most memorable moments were great. And I'm kind of glad that we got to share the wealth a little bit and spread around the heroics.

Yes. And so this became the Yamamoto game and the Will Smith game and the Bobeshack game and the Miguel Rojas game and, you know, lots of other people got a share of the spotlight. It doesn't have to be Shohei Otani all the time. Right. And I know that sounds silly coming from me, but it's true. We talk about him as much as we should, which is a lot. but also let some other people get some airtime and some screen time, too.

So it turned out to be a super exciting game, not really for Shohei-related reasons. And yet he wasn't terrible, you know, like that would have been also kind of a bummer. I guess, you know, I would have liked to see him do a little bit better regardless of whether the Dodgers won or not. But I'm glad that it wasn't like they lost because of him or something. but he was just not a non-factor, but not the biggest factor, basically. And he was sort of supplanted for a day. It really was the perfect combination of things, right? Because I think that heroics coming from the guys who, you know, you've given big contracts to, right?

Who you want to count on as your guys, who have had a superlative postseason, right? In Yamamoto's case, there's something very satisfying about that. Like, we're going to be talking about him coming in on. no, and it wasn't like he threw, you know, a short start the day before. He threw six innings and 96 pitches the day before, right? Like, he, he had a start and all, it's rich fullness the day before. And so we're going to talk about him doing that, I think, for a long, long time. And even within his efforts, sort of a fascinating little bit of relief, right? Because when he came out there at first, you know, I hate to hand it smelts, but he's right. Like, in an instance

like that, the thing you're maybe looking for isn't so much that the guy doesn't have stuff, but he doesn't have command. And in the initial going there, Yamamoto didn't, right? He was, you know, like he had some balls get away from him in sale and what have you, gritted through what he need to. And then he did look more comfortable, effortful still, but more comfortable and never like really out of control after that initial for a. So that was so thrilling. And then to have, you know, just the most improbable. guy. Also, I love how, and we didn't, we potted last before game six. Again, we will not get into in great detail except for me to say here, you know, on the pot on Friday, I suggested, I was like,

I don't know, is Miguel Rojas the best defensive, like, shortstop option on this team? And then he was like, hey, Meg, fuck you for two games. How nice for him. But at second base, at least. Sure. He might still not be the best shortstop option. But yeah, he was plenty of. good at second. He didn't look bad out there, is what I'm saying. You know, he looked comfortable in the field. He did not look like if his body has backed up, it did not look like it was bothering him. Even, even stumbling, even stumbling to get the ball to home plate to get ICF. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. But before we

do, let me finish this thought. So it's like, you know, he is in there because, I don't know, Dave Roberts got the vibe and put him in. And then he has two games where, He didn't really hit at all in game six, but had a number of tremendous defensive plays, right? You know, game saving, game clinching defensive plays. And then you see him. He's coming up. It's the ninth inning. They're so close.

They can taste it. You know, they're two outs away, Ben. And I did the thing that I'm sure everyone in Rogers Center did, which is temporarily forget that Miguel Rojas was really going to be. at all in that inning, right? You're looking past him. You're looking past him to the man on deck because the math that everybody does, even when, you know, Otani has looked gassed earlier in the game. He already did have a couple hits. But like, you know, when he was pitching, he looks pretty tired to me. He looked like he didn't really have much. But it doesn't matter when your

season might come down to your guy being able to get out Otani. That's the matchup you're thinking about. You're not thinking. Yeah. And they were saying on the broadcast, like an inning in a advance. Okay, that guarantees that Otani will hit. So you know, if you're one down, he's the tying run and he'll get a swing. And I was even, you know, playoff Kike led off that inning. So yeah, I'm thinking playoff Kike. And then you get the breather of Rojas, right? Like, okay, that's the gimmee out. And then you have to worry about show hey. And so, like, that's what you're, that's what you're thinking about. You're thinking about, okay, you know, we got to worry about the big man. We're not worried about Miguel Rojas. And then Miguel Rojas. Ben, Miguel, Rojas. Rojas. And I don't want to say that, you know, Miguel Rojas is nobody. That's not accurate.

And he's not on, you know, he's not on league minimum, right? This isn't like the Dodgers version of having a standout rookie on a league minimum contract, sort of booing his team. Although within the context of the Dodgers, he kind of is that, not the rookie part clearly. But in terms of, of like on a salary-adjusted basis, right?

Yeah, and he's not that bad a hitter, too. I think of him as from his Marlins' days or most of his Marlins' days, and you think of him as a glove guy, but he's been a league average or better hitter the last couple years in part-time play for the Dodgers. Yeah, the last two. Yeah, but he's definitely, yes, but not the guy you think of, oh, the big bad Dodgers, who's going to punish you, you get about, well, however many position players were on the roster, that's how many you get down.

I guess he's ahead of Justin Dean. Maybe he's ahead of Alex Call. I don't know. It's close. But yeah, he's close to the last guy on the list that you think. Can't let him beat you. Or tie you. Right.

And then he does. And look on Hoffman's face, man, was just. And then he gets Otani on one pitch. I know. You know, like that's the other thing about it that was so wild. It's like, you know, it's not quite right to say like, oh, my God, sequencing. but it was funny like what you know what are we to make of it even what are we to make of it so it it was a very odd deflating thing certainly for blue jays fans and i think that you know i have expressed

i have a desire for sort of diversity of of world series winners just because i think that that's more fun i don't dislike this dodgers team i like them a lot i was excited about the possibility of people i know personally i mean i know people who work for the dodgers too but people who used to work for the website getting a ring. But like, you know, there's so many guys on that, Dodgers seem, that are just wonderful. But I was, I was like, they're going to do it. They're going to, you know, and then, and then they had been, they did have some chances after that, you know. Oh, and that moment, so when Rojas hits the homer, Jeff Hoffman, he gives up some homers. Sure. That's a problem. But against a righty, throw in his slider, his slider is quite

effective. And Miguel Rojas is not a great hitter against righties and against right-handed sliders. And he'd hit one home run against same-handed pitchers all year, I believe. And of course, he hadn't had a hit prior to Game 7 for a month. For a month? Mostly because he hadn't been playing regularly. But that's part of why he hadn't been playing because he wouldn't expect him to get that any hits. And it was the fourth right-on-right Homer off a slider he'd hit in his whole career. It was a pretty low probability event. And what we didn't even know or I didn't know when I was watching, I learned from Jeff Passon's piece after the game that he was hurt. Yes. We're all focusing on the Blue Jays who were hurt. We can talk about that. But evidently,

he got hurt celebrating a little bit or while celebrating the game six victory. Passon wrote, amid the hugs and backslaps, Rojas felt a sharp pain in his rib area. The timing could not have been worse. And so he was very much doubtful for that game. So Passing Rights, on Friday night, the revival of that lineup for Game 7 was in question. The Dodgers went to bed believing Rojas would not be available and that they might need to replace him on the roster with outfielder Michael Conforto. Rojas woke up Saturday morning, still in pain. He went to the stadium at 1.30, received a lot of meds and injections, he said, and tested out the rib in the batting cage. The pain was dulled enough that Rojas told Roberts he wanted to play.

play. Robert succeeded, because he always will, evidently, when anyone on the team says, I can go, Skip. Roberts will say, okay, yeah, you get in there. Rojas took another round of painkillers before first pitch and found himself at the plate in the ninth inning with the Dodgers trailing 4 to 3 and 1 out. So he's all, this is like NFL style. He's like on Toridol or something. I don't know what he's taken, but yeah, he's like all hopped up on painkillers and I guess they worked. You know, I guess they worked. Maybe they numbed. the pain enough for him to be at his best here. I assume this was not performance enhancing, but I always think of that when we talk about like PDs and where do you draw the line between what is an allowed enhancement and what is not. And it's like, you can shoot yourself up with painkillers and stuff. And that enhances your performance in a way. But I guess the idea is that it's just returning to your baseline. Yes. It's undoing a debilitation to some extent as opposed to

raising your natural level. Anyway, it worked. So he hits the homer, and then in the bottom of the inning, he's right back in the thick of things. And, man, I thought that game was over multiple times. Ben. That whole inning just, like, put it in Cooperstown because, ooh, yeah. Ben. Okay. I'm not here to pretend that I'm a coach, you know?

I'm not a coach. I've never really played the game. What was up with the base running? Huh? What was up with that? That's a blanket question that would apply to this entire postseason. Into this entire postseason and certainly to much of the Blue Jays run. But there are multiple issues with the play. The play.

So to remind those who, I don't know, got distracted by football or have eaten too much Halloween candy. We're just blacked out because of the suspense of that moment. We have arrived at the bottom of the ninth inning. It is a tie game. Blake Snell has returned to the mount. Blake Snell is set to face for certain. Vladdy, Bovichette, who famously homered earlier in this game, and Addison Barger, who famously bats lofty.

Yeah. He gets, what, you find a bit. Sometimes you got to commit to it, right? You got to grind it down. You got to grind it down. He gets Vladdy to fly out. Now, I was disappointed because I'm a sucker for nerd. And if Vladdy had walked them off, it would have been beautiful.

But he didn't, because that's not how baseball works. It doesn't, it doesn't submit to your simple narrative. It's got its own plan. It's got its own purpose. It did look like he had for a minute. It did look like he had for a minute. I got faked out by the people behind him play a real bad on that. So Vladdy flies out.

And then Bo singles to left. Now, speaking of injuries, Bo Bichette quite compromised, not able to run. really at all. I don't say this with any, like, knowledge of Bo's plan in terms of treatment over the offseason. But if we, if we heard that he had a little procedure done on the knee, I wouldn't be shocked by that, right? Yeah, I wouldn't. I think he said that he hopes or expects not to have to have surgery, but yeah, who knows? Because as I said in my piece, he had home run trot speed in this series, which was fine when he hit the homer, but not so great. But not so great the rest of the time, right? So, both singles, and then is lifted for Isaiah Kinaferleffa.

A name I've never struggled to Zay, as a pinch runner. Okay. So you got IKF on first base, Barger, who adds lefty, walks. So now they have two on, right? And famously, this is the bottom of the ninth. And if they give up a run, they lose the World Series. Not what you want. And despite it not being what you want, Dave Robert, surveyed his available options and thought to himself Yamamoto's my man and you know what? I don't

know that Dave Roberts was wrong in that moment it was a very risky decision because again as we've established he'd thrown the day before through 96 pitches but you know it's not there aren't a lot of attractive options in there I think

Kershaw was warming mostly to terrify people you're not going to go to Trinin because as I think he finally learned his lesson. Dave did, in fact, readjust his bullpen hierarchy and learned his lesson. So Trinan's not going to come in. And again, in a moment of someone somewhere resisting the narrative, Dave Roberts was not like, what I should do with two on and the season on the line is bringing Clayton Kershaw.

He didn't do that. Of course, he had said after game six that everyone was available except Yamamoto. And when you heard that, you just knew, sure, okay, that's, yeah, I mean, with anyone else, it was more credible just because literally he just pitched. He just pitched through 90-something pitches, who else would come in and be available then. But whenever Robert says someone is not available and it's the postseason, take it with a mountain of salt. Right. Particularly if they ask nicely, apparently, they just remain available. And so, so Yamamoto comes in. everyone is very nervous. He immediately hits Alejandro Kirk with a pitch because, as we've established, what's

the thing you really lose? Command. So now the bases are juiced, as they say, one out. Ben, what were your expectations in this moment? What did you think the most likely outcome to be? Because at this juncture, when Kirk gets plunked, their win expectancy, they being the Blue Jays, we had at 83.2. which is not a hundred but is quite strong right yeah not even the highest point for them in the game no but high but high and so yamamoto and yamamoto doesn't seem like he has it right he just hit he just

hit kirk you know and kirk looked pissed because i think kirk was like i'm going to wharf the sucker off he had he had an ocean and also you know it hurts to get hit by pitch so yeah we'll talk about some mother hit by pitch silliness later um and so then varshot comes up and you know you just need you just need a ball to the outfield that's all you need you just need a ball to the outfield or you need to make contact and not have the shortest secondary lead possible and uh make the decision which i imagine is instinctual but still merits criticism to slide rather than run through the base or even slide head first because this is what happens farsha reaches on a fielder's choice to second, which is the funniest way to introduce one of the most dramatic plays in postseason

history. Isaiah, kinder, Philadelphia, out at home, barger advanced to third, Kirk to second. If you look at the, like, high home, like from behind home, camera angle of the field in the moments before the pitch is delivered here, ICAF has like almost no secondary lead at all. He's barely off the back. And I understand that part of what a base runner is, mindful of in that moment is not getting picked off, right? Or not being vulnerable to a double play. But he didn't have any secondary lead. He had almost none, you know.

And I think far less than most base coaches would advise a runner in that circumstance to have. And then he slides feet first into home. He is out by a scosh, a scosh. And, you know, if Rojas had just stumbled a little bit more, none of this would have mattered, right? because Rojas was very close to just landing on his butt. Oh, yeah. You could see his heart racing because after he made the throw and he stumbles and staggers and gathers himself

and then gets as much as he possibly can on that throw without fully having his feet under him. And he saw that he got the out. And then he just put his hands on his knees and put his head down. Just, I think, wrestling with the gravity, the enormity of the moment, knowing how close he had come to not recording that out

and the World Series being over. so yeah. And I want to be clear that like I am speaking with a great deal of confidence. And so I think was everyone else who analyzed this moment. And our confidence is at least a little unwarranted because we don't know for sure. Right. We don't know for we don't know for certain that if IKF had gotten a little more of a lead or if he had run through the base, right, the way that you would going down to first or if he had slid head first that he absolutely would have been. safe at home. We don't know that for sure. But I do feel confident that that is true. And I think it's true across all three of those potential scenarios, right? More of a secondary lead, particularly if that is coupled with either running through the bag or sliding. But he might even, if he had more of a secondary lead, he might have even been safe feet first. And then the same thing happened to Mookie later, but it didn't matter quite as much. So I feel, I feel bad for him. I also feel like there was just like a persistent issue with base running in this series, and to your point, this postseason, and some of that seemed to fall slightly disproportionately on the Blue Jays, although not entirely, which is on some level maybe unsurprising, just given that, like, they don't have a bunch of zoomers, you know, they don't got a bunch of zoomers. You know, they don't got a bunch of zoom, guys. But some of the decisions that I think ended up being the most consequential for them weren't a matter of, oh, it's poor footspeed, it's Alejandro Kirk. He's

just very, very slow. Some of it was the other stuff that goes into making someone a good bass runner. And there were a number of instances where they kind of fell down on that score in this series and perhaps none more consequential than this one. And yeah. It was so close that it was so close. There's no way that he would not have been safe if he had started any closer. Well, maybe you would have fallen down, Ben. We don't know if he wouldn't have. Unless, yeah, getting a lead caused him to trip or something. Yeah, because there was just so little daylight there. There's so little daylight there.

And as I said, you know, it's the old game of inches. But as I said, maybe it's game of inch in this case. Inches is too much. Right. Right, because Smith's foot came off the plate initially. Well, yeah. You know, like he didn't, he lost contact with the plate ever so slightly for a second. And so there were, you know, they were narrow little crevices.

But they were there, you know, they were there for. the walk-off and instead they were there for the out. And I was so relieved, Smith's foot coming off there. And look, I'm sure Blue Jays fans, they would have been happy to win, however, but I'm glad for baseball for the sport that we did not get this World Series decided on a re-play return. Oh, my goodness. Can you imagine if, like, one of the greatest games and one of the greatest series and one

of the greatest postseason ends because they're slowing down super slow-mo and they're like, Will Smith's toe was, or whatever, the back of his foot was just barely off. And, you know, he knows there's a force, and he's stretching out, receiving it like a first baseman. And, yeah, he could have kind of been the goat if he had not had his foot on the bag. But we all would have lost in a way if they had lost that way. I wonder even Blue Jays fans, if you have even bared to listen to this episode, and I wouldn't blame you if you needed a break. but would you have wanted to win that way if you could undo this result and say instead of losing the way we lost we win but on a replay review overturn of that play would you even want to win that way would there kind of be like an asterisk associated with it or would it just be endlessly divisive and i don't think i don't think there would have been an asterisk i imagine i had struggled to say that word asterisk as X.

Anyway, asterisk. I want to, like, add an extra syllable in there or something. I'm doing something funny. I don't know. Leave it in, you know. We all struggle. I'm sure the guy who's like, stop saying badly, is thrilled with me,

but guess what? I'm still vulnerable human. Anyway, I think that it would have been a really bad way for it to end. It might not have been controversial, depending on how, clear and obvious the safe call was, right? Because, I mean, he wasn't safe. No, I was, I was relieved that the call was confirmed, but it was close enough that I had to see it a few times from a few different angles. But like, imagine for a moment that he had been safe and then

they overturned it because they had evidence to suggest that. And here's the thing that I feel comfortable speculating about, even though I don't know this for sure. Like, I'm just going to say, I understand what the rules say, sort of what the guidelines are that govern replay review. But in a moment like that, because they did look at it, right? In a moment like that, I am sure that someone in New York was like, hey, look, if you don't know, if you wouldn't bet the life of your children on the answer to this, right? Like, I don't care. You're applying a level of scrutiny to this moment that needs to far out, far exceed anything that you've ever brought to bear on a replay review question before.

Because we can't overturn this unless you're going to be able to put this on SportsCenter and have every person in America, including Dodgers fans once they get over at say, yeah, he was safe. Exactly. Yeah. If it was egregious, if it was clearly wrong, well, that's what replay is for. That's what it's for. to end on a clearly incorrect call either. Right. That would be, I would argue, even worse. Yeah, if there was any gray area or even if it was wrong and they overturned it, but it was

kind of ticky tack, like it was kind of, it popped off a millimeter and, yeah, you know, like that kind of play where a lot of people think we shouldn't even review those or something. I don't know. I'm glad that that didn't happen. Yeah, that would have been sort of a sour note to end this excellent postseason on it? If it had happened that way, and again, I'm envisioning like an alternate timeline in which he was legitimately safe, which he was not. So, like, let's alter the entire course of this game

and just say that, like, ICF had been safe at home plate, which he was not. You know, even if it's a little mushy, even if it is, oh, he came off, he being Will Smith came off the plate for just like a millimeter. I would, if you're a Blue Jays fan, you go nuts and you would be within your rights to go nuts. Because if your team wins the World Series,

you just get to go nuts. But I'm glad that it was decided by real play on the field in real time rather than replay review. Yes. Yeah. And, you know, I mentioned in my piece there's something Vince Gully used to say. And in fact, he even tweeted it in the last World Series that he lived to see

that he would pray that there would be only heroes and no goats, and it's tough to make that happen, because a lot of times when there's a hero, there's a corresponding goat. Not always. Sometimes someone just gets beaten. That doesn't mean the goat necessarily. But I didn't want that to happen here. And I don't know that I would say that there was the most obvious goat ever, I think, upon further review, yes, ICF's handling of this play was certainly questionable and maybe more than that.

In the moment, I didn't realize that because I'm just watching it split-second play and I'm thinking, oh, that was super close. And I didn't see what his lead was as I was watching. So it was really only after the fact when I get to see, okay, where was he? Oh, he was really close to the bag. Oh, he wasn't really moving off the bag. And then people came in with the stat cast stats about how this compares to other leads and all the rest and confirmed that, yeah, he basically was glued to the bag. Now, in his defense, I suppose, he said that this was what he was told to do. right that the coaches had told them not to get a large lead perhaps because of the way game six ended right and yeah we hardly have time to talk about game six but the end of game six that was a heart in your throat moment too kind of a preview of what we were going to get even more of in game seven because boy you know when that bottom of the ninth started and sasaki hits kirk with a pitch and then there's the ground rule double with the the wedge play

which we should maybe talk about for a second, right? And then, you know, that could have ended it right there or, well, that wouldn't have ended it, but that could have gotten the Blue Jays closer. And then Glass Now comes in and first pitch pop up by Ernie Klamant, who, of course, had a spectacular postseason. Incredible postseason. That was one-played appearance. He'd probably want back. And then the double play, which was a great play by Kike and great positioning. And you never really know anymore.

Was the positioning the players doing or was it the teams? It seems to have been largely key case here that he was playing pretty shallow, and then he got an incredible jump, which was just as important, and then he doubles off barger. So that's what ICF suggested that he was instructed not to take much of a lead because the last thing they wanted to do was to get doubled off there. I know, but... As a lot of people have pointed out, Dalton Varsho hardly ever hits the ball,

like lines the ball to third or hits the ball in that direction. So it was quite unlikely that Varsha would hit the ball in a way that he would easily get doubled off. And so he had to like almost literally stand on the base. And I don't know what the coach has told him. I don't know if he's passing the buck here or whether this was accurate buck passing because he really was just following orders. I don't know if they said like stand on the bag basically or whether they said, hey, be careful out there. You know, keep your head on a swivel, whatever, who knows.

But yeah, in the moment, I couldn't tell. So it wasn't like the O'Ryan Kirkering play where everyone watching instantly knew what had happened. And you're going, oh, no. In the moment, I'm just thinking, ooh, what an exciting super close bang, bang play. Can't believe it. But I wasn't immediately blaming IKF there. It was only later that when you look back on it, you think, yeah, he should have been in there. Yeah.

And I mean, I do think that you can take issue with the feet first slide rather than him running through the bag. Like, that felt, that seemed wrong in the moment. But, but yes, I didn't notice in real time how slight his lead was either. It was only after the fact I was like, holy shit, dude. Yeah. Come on. And that was another example, I think, of how it hurt the Blue Jays that they did have a couple compromised players to say nothing of the players they were missing, Jose Burrios and various relievers. But having to get through the series with George Springer and Boba Chet, the way that they were.

still better to have them than not, and they got some big hits and everything, but having to pinch run with them or wonder, like Springer, I compared him to the Black Knight in my piece, because, you know, from Monty Python, the Holy Grail, because he's just like so banged up is like the knee and then the side, and then he's constantly fouling balls off himself. It's like, tis but a flesh wound. Like, you know, he comes back out there, but clearly wasn't 100%. And then Bichet, just having to pinch run for him in any situation where, you know, he's not, the runner matters.

Right. That's a problem because especially if you happened to end up in some very long extra inning games, then you've taken a couple of your best bets out of the lineup, and then you've got a bunch of easy outs. And, of course, kinderfleffa would not have been in there at all if someone didn't have to run for a shed. And they had other options, and they had Miles Straw, and, you know, you could kind of quibble with whether they used straw or Isaiah Conerflefa in certain instances.

But, yeah, just having to constantly go to your bench, whereas Dave Roberts basically never went to his bench except to put guys in for defense at the very end when they had a lead. But other than that, you know, and then of course just using Rojas when he did at the end. But yeah, Schneider was really having to use his entire bench and then ending up with lots of holes in pretty important spots. I think that the other thing too was like, yeah, I mean, they just, we talked about this going in. Like they not only were they compromised by injury but like they weren't a super

speedy good base running teams to begin with right so you know they were in a spot where you felt like maybe they could take advantage of whatever state of compromise Will Smith was in he ended up looking fine I thought but and clearly he you know wasn't so compromised he couldn't hit a bit of home run

although neither was Pichette but you know they just it was an area where and I don't think that this part of it necessarily made the difference specifically the matchup versus Smith, but they just weren't put, they weren't set up to like take advantage of an area of potential vulnerability

that the Dodgers had, which, you know, they don't have a lot of those. So it does, it was a small one, right? And in some ways, kind of hypothetical, because you didn't really know, like, whether Smith was going to be unable to control the running game or not. But it did feel bad to, like, leave a potential advantage on the table when there were so few of those to be.

had, you know, you're sitting there and you're like, gosh, this would be a great spot for Joey Lopafito. Yeah. The one time the entire postseason that I said that. So, you know, I don't think that, I think it would be far too strong to say, like, they lost the World Series because of Isaiah Kinder Fluffa. There were a lot of moments in that game. I mean, they could have, who knows, they might have mounted a rally in the first inning.

You can't mount a rally in the first inning. They might have put it to them, put it to them more effectively in the first inning if they hadn't had like whatever the hell that George Springer Vladdy moment was right like who knows if Springer like doesn't try to advance and I don't think we ever got an answer on that by the way like I don't know yeah that was a weird one yeah I was like it it almost looked like they had a hit and run on but why would you do that with Springer but also why would he be advancing but he was running so he didn't it didn't seem like he thought that Vlad had walked did he forget how many outs there were like I don't anyway I don't know what that was about but yeah you

know, there were, I bring it up to say, like, there were some goofs throughout. And there were sometimes, you know, they just got caught by better play. But it was a pretty devastating thing to not be able to walk it off there. And certainly not their only opportunity to do it in extras, but that one really stung because they were so, you know, they were just so close. Pedantic aside, don't want to sidetrack us too much. But are you suggesting that a team cannot rally unless it is already trailing? I think the combination of both the fact that the game was still nodded at zero and that it was the first inning suggests that rally is not the appropriate word to use in that instance.

Yeah. From what? Rally from what? You can't wrap. You can't wrap? No, it's true. I guess you think that you could, do you think that they could rally in the first inning tied zero, zero? I kind of think that, yeah.

I can't believe you brought this up. We're going to get so many. We're going to get so many emails, Ben. I'm going to bring it up because I thought if I didn't, then we might get emails. We're going to get emails either way. Anyway, but I think a rally, I might be more likely to use it when you're coming back from behind. But I don't know that it's synonymous with like they rallied from being down. You know, I think a rally could just be when you score a bunch of runs.

I don't think you have to be done. But it wouldn't be the word I would reach for in that instance either because it was the first inning. Yes. Yeah. The Dixon's baseball dictionary, yeah, one of the definitions is to make a comeback, but then other definitions are just when you score several runs or a scoring surge or, so I guess to get several hits and runs in an inning to make a rally. So, you know, you could do it, but maybe it's not the ideal place to say. No, it seems like, well, now that we've settled it, now that we've settled it, now that it is settled. Yeah. So I thought there were so many moments, and we're highlighting that one, of course, as a potential inch point.

Yeah, it was. But so were many other moments. And Smith, in that moment, went from potentially being a goat himself if he had not gotten his foot down in time to then, of course, being the hero shortly after. But so many times when an inch or inches made the difference, like in the fourth, when the Dodgers were rallying and they had the bases loaded. It's appropriate. Yeah, because they were trailing, I guess. And Varsho made that great diving catch. Oh, my God, that catch. Teasca Hernandez. And that's not like luck. That's Varsho being an incredible outfielder.

Incredible outfielder. But it was still extremely close to hitting the ground. Or, I mean, Vlad was again showing off his glove in this game because he had that great leaping dive into foul territory to end up the fourth. He had a couple great plays along the line there. Yeah, but close. Yeah, he had another one. Well, there was the one in the seventh to end it on a double play where he made that incredible just pinpoint throw and then got back over to the bag to complete the double play. And he was pretty pumped about that.

And then there was, you know, the time when Max Muncie snagged that Andres Jimenez liner that was just like viciously slapped the other way because Muncie was playing in, right? and just a hard-hit liner. I don't know if Max Muncie even saw that ball. Or his self-defense. Yes, I don't even know if he fully saw that ball. That was wild. Like, he's like he didn't get his freaking head taken off. Yeah, and there was a runner on second.

No outs. Maybe that scores the run. And then, well, of course, I mean, there was one moment that's kind of underrated, I think, for how much it spiked my heart rate was in the 10th when Kike Hernandez hit a two-out, basis-loaded grounder, and Sir Anthony Dominguez went over to cover, but he didn't instantly have his foot on the bag, and he was, like, feeling for it. So easy to imagine him, just getting a little crossed up and not putting his foot on the back, and then, oh. And then, I guess, you know, the other big one, of course, right after the Rojas, IKF Smith play that we're talking about, is

Andy Pahas and his clutch catch on what would have been a walk-off lie from Ernie Kall. Clement over a toppled teammate Kike Hernandez. And Kiki thought that the ball had fallen. And he stayed on the ground because he thought that the Dodgers just lost the World Series. And then Pahes came over and asked if he was okay. And he's like, did you catch that ball? And it's kind of incredible that he managed to hang on. And he called for it.

I mean, I guess he didn't call loudly enough that Kiki was worded off. But no. But, I mean, Kiki didn't have to go nearly as far. to get to the bowels was like covering half the outfield to get there but he did seem to have the better vantage point and the better angle on it for whatever reason i mean just maybe he got a better read but it it it did turn out to be better that he was the one who gloved that but like what if keke hadn't been called off and had gone up for it and they knock heads or something and then the world series ends that way so just oh man amazing i don't know that kiki wouldn't have been

able to catch that ball. Yeah. Like he did have a pretty good beat on it. I guess you're right that his angle wasn't as good and he would have had to do over, you know, the over the back basket catch and, you know, you're just increasing the odds of goofing it when that's true. But yeah, I mean, that was wild. Can we talk about the hit by pitch thing just because I find it funny?

Sure. Because so many people on blue sky were being weird about it. Okay. Yeah, the bench is cleared, which you might not even really remember because so much else happened after that and it was utterly inconsequential but it did happen so okay so we've talked before on the show about guys not getting out of the way so there is so when you have a hit by bitch you're supposed to try to get out of the way as the batter and most guys you don't have to tell in that because instinctively they try to get out of the way because it sucks to be hit by a pitch

but you you're supposed to try to get out of the way this is this was was in the fourth inning. This was in the bottom of the fourth. Andres Jimenez is up at the plate. Robleski is in for the Dodgers having relieved Otani the inning before.

He was, you know, he threw some pitches inside, right? And he threw one inside and it sure looked on the slow-mo replay like Andres Jimenez with his glove, with his hand padded. He's wearing, you know, the protective pads.

like he tried to get hit by the pitch it looked like that and then on the very next pitch he did get hit by a pitch and he was very upset about it and look it did the the pitch that actually did hit him did not hit him on a pad um and so i imagine was more painful than the the pitch would have been although you still have all those little bird bones in your hands been you know it's a risk it's risky business trying to do that but there's no way that roblisky was trying to try to trying to hit him, despite Jimenez trying to get hit seemingly. I don't know what was in the man's heart, but the replay was pretty, it looked obvious to me that he was like, I'm going to, I'm going to. And look, if you can, if you can manage that and not get caught, because they can look at it on review and assess you a strike rather than award you a hit by pitch, right? I guess they wouldn't have, because he was, he didn't swing. I don't know, but they can, they can be like, nah, you didn't get hit.

didn't get hit. They probably would call it a ball because it was a ball. But they can review that, right, and say, you didn't try to get out of the way. And you're supposed to try to get out of the way. So no hit by pitch for you. But if you can do it and you can get away with it, well, okay, that's a fun little bit of brinksmanship that you, and, you know, you're such a good actor, you know, I've been hit. And it was, ah, I wasn't trying. That's probably not what Andre Semenis would have sounded like. He's not a 39-year-old woman. But, you know, but, you know, But if you can pull it off, fine. But if you try that business and then you do get hit and you're not injured, right?

And again, it's no fun to get hit. But him doing that and then bitching about it as he goes down to first base and swearing at Robleski, who, let me be clear, was very comfortable swearing right back as the replay showed, didn't take a lot of mouth lip reading to be able to discern what he was saying. And even I will not say those swears, bleeped or no on this spot. I was just like, this is, come on, come on, come on. Like, that's funny. That's funny to do that. To be like, I'm going to get him and then get him and be like, no.

But he didn't say it that way because he was angry and not, again, like a 39-year-old woman. And then to just put the cherry on top of the comedy, let me give props to the Blue Jays' writers' room. Then George Springer lined the ball up the middle and wagged Robleski with the ball. And he was not trying to do that either. I don't mean that there was actually any intent there, but it was, I found it funny. And let me tell you, the Blue Jays fans who responded to me on Blue Sky, some of them sure did not find my finding it funny, funny. They got very upset. And then one of them called me a Dodgers fan.

And I'm like, oh, this is what happens when you get reposted. When you get reposted, you get responses from people who don't know you. But he tried to get hit. with you on this one. Yeah, he certainly looked like he tried to get hit. And, you know, it still stings and everything. Oh, sure. Yeah, you can't try to get hit and then act quite that upset when you actually do. Because, I mean, you know, he threw, what, three up and in there. And so, sure, you know, you have the tower get buzzed. Then maybe you're kind of annoyed about that. Yes. Yes. Also fair.

You have made no effort to get out of the way of the previous one. Yeah, I was with you. I had the same reaction. Okay. So I do want to say that while I'm also, you know, I was happy that there wasn't the most obvious goat ever. And I was also happy that at least in game seven, there wasn't a super consequential umpire mistake. I mean, this was this was the last major league game ever without some ABS assistance, presumably, unless the system goes down or something. And, you know, there wasn't any truly egregious call that everyone's saying, oh, that guy won or lost the series. series for this or that team. And also, there wasn't really a manager moment, you know, capital M, capital M that everyone fixates on.

I'm not saying that every managerial move was perfect. And Schneider really loves those sackbunts and intentional walks and all the rest. But there wasn't really a moment where everyone's saying that was why. So it ultimately ended up being about the players and their performance. And even if you want to blame it on ICF, at least that's a player. Well, unless you think that he was just following. the script set by the coaches. But the point is, we were mostly able to focus on just the incredible baseball and not

people other than the players, really. And you've got to give Roberts some credit for how he handled those last couple of games because every button he pushed panned out, really. And that doesn't mean they were all the right move. This is post-talk analysis. But no second-guessing because just everything worked when he dropped. Mookie to the cleanup spot in game six, Mookie comes up and delivers his lone runs batted in of the series

via that two-run single and a two-run game. And who knows, you know, maybe someone else gets that hit instead. But he was the man in the moment on the spot and he came through. And then, of course, because he moved Smith up to the spot that Mookie had previously occupied, then he was the guy who hit that big home run when he hit that home run. And, like, benching Pahas and starting Rojas in game six, that paid off because Rojas made some slick plays. And then, of course, in game seven, it pays off a ton.

And then putting in Pahas at just the right moment, just a batter before he makes that game-saving catch, he was just kind of, Roberts was leading a charmed life in those last couple games, and even going to Yamamoto, which was that wise, I have no idea whether that was wise. But once it works, its wisdom doesn't matter, really. Because that was the sort of off-script, break glass in case of emergency move that Roberts has pulled before. So it's not like you can necessarily say, oh, look, he learned from past mistakes, and he applied those lessons, and now he's doing something differently. That was kind of what he had done in previous post seasons in 2021. I mean, he's had these moments with Kershaw, of course, but also Arias and Scherzer and

you know, using starters out of the pen, and it just didn't work those times. And this may have been the riskiest of all the times that he tried that with a guy on no rest whatsoever, but it worked. And I guess he knew his guy or his guy got a little lucky because he didn't have his best stuff either, but he was good enough to get it done. And so it looks like, ah, flawless managing there by Roberts. But, you know, that's just a good example of how these are all kind of, a lot of them are close to 50-50 calls and when it doesn't work out, then we second-guess for an entire off-season.

And when it works out, we say, oh, brilliant managing, sir. But, yeah, it all worked out. You could point to all these moments and say, oh, wow, the perfect sequence by Roberts. Yeah, I mean, and it's just so funny, the multitudes that someone can show you over the course of a long series, right? Because it wasn't all that many episodes ago, Ben, where we were like, do we need to, like, tell Dave Roberts that Blake Trinen is dead? Like, do we need to, do we need to hide him in a van? Like, does he need to be put in the Blue Jays mascot? So the Dave's like, where did he go? I couldn't even tell you. You know, like, we've, we've had our issues with some of his stubbornness,

maybe is the way to put it. But he wasn't so stubbornness to not be completely adaptable. And we did see him make adjustments, right? Like, there came a point where he was like, okay, I get it. I need to move this guy down my bullpen hierarchy. To say that he was going to sacrifice, like, appropriate leverage for narrative is probably unfair to him. But he was like, I'm going to resist the temptation to bring Kershaw in in this spot because we need to win a World Series. And like, I don't know that that's the right way to handle him here.

So he did adjust and he did adapt. I don't know that that means that the process was always good. I don't know that I think that. I do think that sometimes when you don't have a lot of good options, your choices get easier, if nothing else, right? Because what was he going to do? He wasn't going to bring Trinan in there. He wasn't going to bring Kershaw in, you know?

You had Will Klein was recovered from his effort, I guess. But was he, right? Like, I, I mean, I guess he was probably more recovered than Yamamoto, but maybe not. Like, Yamamoto is used to that kind of a load. not on one day's rest. I'm not saying it's a like downplay what he did, but like Will Klein had exceeded pitches, innings.

Like they're, you know, I can't imagine they wanted to go to Will Klein there. I bet if the game had gone longer, we would have seen him because again, what are you going to do at a certain point you've gone through? I mean, he used every starter he had.

Every post season starter he had. Yeah. You know, and so I'm sure that they were like, I wonder what their hypothetical win expectancy would have been like internally what their own understanding of that would have been like obviously you want to win you want to win as soon as you can because the longer it goes like you're using worst pitchers etc but were they like oh my god we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna have we're

to throw him we're gonna have trinan's gonna have to get in this game at some point at some point because what are you gonna do you can't have you can't have rojas to do it he's the only guy who get at home runs other than will smith and i guess max once we should we should remember that there there were other guys who got them in a position to have it only be a one-run game. Yeah, huge number by Muncie, who hadn't done a lot in the series before that. I just, I meant to mention, I remembered and I jotted down that before Rojas came to the plate, Smoltz said, or as he was coming up, Smoltz said, you can't walk Rojas here, which probably a lot of people were thinking with Otani.

Oh, sure. But that mindset is maybe how you get yourself into trouble sometimes because even if it's a relatively weak hitter compared to Otani. Most hitters are relatively weak. But if you're thinking, I can't walk him, and he's thinking, he can't walk me. And so you're thinking, I'm going to see a strike here. And maybe that helps. Now, you know, it wasn't a good location for that slider either.

But when you're thinking that and he knows you're thinking that and you know he knows, it's right? Right. You want some doubt in the hitter's mind about whether he's going to see a strike. And so if it's a situation where it's almost like an auto-hitable pitch, then you do raise the odds that the pitch will actually be hit. Right. Yeah. Just amazing performance by Yamamoto.

Incredible. And remember, I mean, okay, so he gets the win in game two, and this is the rare case where I'm okay using pitcher wins because he pitched the whole game. The whole game. His pitcher wins used to make more sense when pitchers actually went the distance a lot of the time. And remember, though, that he was up in game three, right? As a little preview of this, he would have had the 19th. So imagine if that had happened, too. Now, maybe if that happens, I don't know, if he pitches in game six and seven also,

but he could have gotten into another game, but that already showed the willingness to do this and the ability to do it. And then game six, solid start, not his best. And then coming back, pulling the Randy Johnson in 2001, just the sort of thing that I never thought. we would see again. See again. Just, yeah, complete throwback.

And I was thinking about this because it's been kind of a perennial tradition on the podcast to trot out a quote from Theo Epstein. Now a full decade ago in mid-October when he was with the Cubs, but before the Cubs won the World Series. And he said, the only thing I know for sure is that whatever team wins the World Series, their particular style of play will be completely in vogue. entompeted from the rooftops by the media, all offseason and in front offices, as the way to win. And so perennially, we have considered, okay, what's the way to win?

What's the new money ball? What's the new postseason secret sauce that people are going to overapply the lessons of the most recent champion? Now, here it's kind of complicated because the Dodgers won again. So we had the same team going back to back for the first time since 2000. but different Dodgers team and a very different Dodgers playbook in October. So you could draw different lessons here

and we got a email from Patreon supporter Rob who said with Yamamoto's success in the World Series and more attention given to his training regimen, do you think this will move the needle at all on how pitchers are developed in MLB? So whether it's

Yamamoto specifically and the way that he trains and his mechanics and just even making it conceivable for him to have this kind of performance or just generally the way that the Dodgers got through this postseason, which was just diametrically opposite of their blueprint last October, which was, we have no starters. Can we bullpen our way to a title? And it turned out the answer was yes. And then this time, hey, we have no bullpen, but we have a whole lot of starters. So can we just not use our bullpen? And it turns out, yeah, they could do that too. I wrote about

that going into the series. And that. trend picked up or even ramped up in the series, because of the two teams, 73 innings apiece pitched in this series, 54 for the Dodgers and 52 for the Js were thrown by regular season starters, and 42% of their combined relief innings were thrown by regular season starter. So even when a reliever nominally was in, almost half the time, more than 40% of the time, that reliever was essentially a starter pitching out of the bullpen. That's what we saw in game seven, of course, as after Shohei leaves, you get Robleski,

but basically you just get starters, you get Sheehan, and then you get Yamamoto, and you get Glass Now and Snell, and you go through the entire rotation, essentially. And even the Blue Jays, we haven't even talked about Scherzer yet, by the way. Shurzer was great. Scher exceeded my expectations this month in this game, oldest starter ever in a winner-take-all World Series game, and I'm not surprised. He said after the game that he's not done because he didn't look done. He got healthy enough and had enough rest, despite being the worst starter in baseball by RA9 war over his final five outings of the regular season.

Despite being left off the Division Series roster, he gives Jay's chances to win in his three postseason starts. And then after he leaves this one, and he didn't protest this time on the mound, Schneider used three more starters. He used Bassett. He used you savage. And he used Bieber, who, of course, was the one at the first. the end who gave up the homer and then of course you know your your daily louisive arland appearance his record 15th postseason appearance but you know it's like starters all the way down so can other teams we're in that lesson are we going to turn back the clock and hey if we could

just get through the postseason with a bunch of good starters the flaw in this plan being applicable to any other team is that most teams don't have yoshinobu yamamoto and most teams don't have Snell and Otani and Glassnow and Shee and and Kirsh, you know, all these guys, right? So it's partly a product of the wealth of talent that the Dodgers have. But even the Blue Jays who didn't have a good bullpen either, they managed to turn like Eric Lauer and Chris Bassett into bullpen options and weapons in October. So, you know, maybe this changes at least how postseason usage goes. Or maybe, and I know there are pitchers out there who want to emulate Yamamoto. and say, oh, look, if he can do it, you know,

will there be other players who are picking up javelins instead of using, you know, lifting weights or whatever? I mean, maybe he's one of one in that respect, but mechanically speaking, just being able to be that everyday Eddie out of the rotation, essentially, you know, that's something I think other pitchers

would like to be able to do, whether they'll actually be able to do it and whether teams will trust them and believe that they can do it. Who knows? But I guess that would be, the thing that I'd point to, because that was the most distinctive thing that Dodgers did this time around. Well, and I think, you know, you raise a good point there at the end that makes the answer,

like, yeah, they're going to try, but I guess I would say that they probably have been trying in some way, shape, or form for a while now, and it's just pitchers break, and you don't necessarily have a full rotation, well, not even a full rotation, a compliment beyond a full rotation from postseason perspective to be able to do this stuff. But I think that the, the, The way that guys get deployed in the playoffs, sure, some of it is trying to mitigate, you know, at times through the order penalty. Some of it's trying to mitigate a familiarity effect with relievers. But so much of the way that guys are deployed in the postseason just comes down to how healthy they are once you get to the end of the year. You know, if L.A. had been able to use, set up their pitching staff, their October pitching staff, the way that they envisioned it,

looking on like day one of the regular season, it would have been a blend of what we saw this year and what they had to do last year, right? They didn't want to just throw a bunch of guys in relief and have a bunch of bullpen games in 2024. They had to. They didn't have healthy starters, right? And they, I'm sure if they had been given their druthers, they probably wouldn't have wanted as much exposure for their rotation guys this October, but a lot of their bullpen sucked, you know? So like, what else were they going to do? And they signed Scott and they signed Yates and they extended Trayden. That was the plan. Right. You know, Kopeck was there. Like, yeah, they wanted a super pen too. They just didn't get one. Right. They wanted a super pen to go with their

super rotation. They wanted to just be super duper. And they couldn't because the bullpen sucked, you know, or at least a lot of it did. And they were, you know, they were short-handed. And so, like, they had to adapt. And thankfully, they had the starting pitching depth to do that in a way that allowed them to cover for a lot of innings that basically didn't go to Roki in games where they were in it and thought that they could win. But, you know, and who knows? Like, if Sasaki doesn't come back and demonstrate just a little bit of aptitude right at the end of the year, they might have had to lean into that strategy even more, you know. Oh, and that's the other guy when we were talking about who could have come in into Yamamoto.

Sasaki hadn't come in. And I think he was warming too. He was warming, but I, I, okay, my, I keep sounding like I'm like really down on Roki and I don't mean to, but I do, I do think people are a little too excited. I think they're a little, I think people are a little too excited about Roki. He looked a little shaky. He looked a little shaky. And I think that if they had brought him in with the, with two on and one out, it could have gone fast in a bad direction. I think you need that guy, at least for now.

I don't know what Rokey's going to look like in the spring. But I think you want to give him the opportunity to, like, send one of the backs down. Not that he was so wild, but the way, when people had success against him this postseason, they did it by waiting him out. They did it by being patient. They did it by not offering at pitches that ended up being obviously out of the zone, which was harder to do than I'm making it sound, right? That is easier said than done is the turn of phrase.

But I don't know. He looked more vulnerable to me than he did to a lot of other people. I felt like I was a little, I felt crazy listening to people talk about Roki. Because I've seen that split in person, man. And it is like an amazing pitch when it's right. But also, like, it wasn't anyway. So I think you're right. He was available.

But he wouldn't have been available for me, given the game state, because I think that you want him in with, you want him in for a clean inning if you can help it, or at least with the base is empty. So that's, I had that whole little talk with myself, and then I didn't articulate any of those thoughts on this, a podcast. I did want to note something about Game Six, a couple things, I guess. One is that of all the impressive things that Shohei Otani did this postseason, I think one of the most impressive, which will not be nearly as well remembered as the other, the double that he hit in game six in the eighth inning off of Mason Flew Hardy, he hit this ball that Joe Davis called a pop-up. He said he popped it up. And I was thinking that off the bat, that this was just a lazy fly ball. the ball hit the wall. The ball was off the wall. It just kept carrying and carrying. He, like, leaned over it.

It was low and maybe in the middle of the plate or even a little outside, and he was off balance, and he almost golfed it, and it looked like it was off the end of the bat. And I thought this was nothing, too, off the bat. And somehow triple digit exit speeds, and it hits off the wall. And it's like, that was as good as an illustration. of his strength, as I can recall. Yeah. I mean, yeah, when he completely cranks one and just hits it, you know, 480 feet or whatever, then, yeah, that's pretty obviously impressive, too.

But this one where he just really didn't get anything on it, and it was off the wall. That was pretty darn impressive. And I thought that actually, I don't know whether that had any bearing on. Schneider did decide to let Varland face Otani or bring. in Varland to face Otani in game seven without the platoon advantage. And I don't know whether it was because of that double or, you know, I guess he'd had a couple hits off of Fulhardy. But the Jays really seemed to subscribe to the reliever familiarity effect. Yes. Snyder said it. I mean, he brought it up. And this decision to have Varland face Otani

instead of Flew Hardy again, I think could have been another manifestation of that. Because I wrote about this a couple post seasons ago. And I assumed, and I talked to some front office people, I think, who said that, oh, yeah, we're aware of it or whatever. But I wasn't clear on whether this was, like, actively dictating decisions yet. But I think we've gotten to the point with the JAs during this run where it certainly seemed to, for them, for better or worse, they seem to buy into it. Yeah, I agree. That decision in particular stood out. And it stood out, it stood out in the moment enough that, like, Smoltz suggested the potential for familiar.

as an explanation. He's like, I don't know if anybody's looked at this. And I was like, you have an entire research staff. I know. I was losing, Ben, I was losing what remained of my mind. I was like, what do you mean? We, sorry, I got really, I got so much angrier than I anticipated I would in this moment. But I was just like, John, John, John.

Yeah, good on you to bring it up. But also, you don't have to act like you're the first person. ever thought of this. I think part of why it made me, like, short circuit briefly, both in the moment and right now, was that I had this, like, I was like, oh, my God, we're going to learn in this, I had a brief thought, oh, my God, we're going to learn in this instant that, like, Smoltz has been reading, so much, so much more condescending than I mean it to, but, like, that he has been engaged with the research, man, he's been, like, on these internet streets, reading stuff about

relieve a familiarity effect and all the re and then he was like i don't know is everybody but i don't know why i'm making him sound like a weird muppet but i was just like joyd you were so close yeah yeah anyway the other thing from game six was the wall wedgy which uh happened in the ninth what a what a quick reversal that was where it looked like wow the jays are are really going to take this thing and then glass now comes in and throws two pitches he threw no three three pitches. Three pitches, yeah. He had three pitch safe, yeah.

Yeah, so the ground rule double, or I guess we're supposed to call it automatic double now. But this one, or I guess, you know, it didn't go over the fence. So I guess it is actually a ground rule double, not an automatic double. Yeah. So I tried to pedant myself and I out-pendented myself. This is like when you tried to force the, it's been a wild joke. And I was like, no, it's not, you got to let it come to you, buddy. It's not the right context.

Anyway, Barger hits this ball that gets. well, it sticks under the fence. And Justin Dean, who had just come in that inning, he has the presence of mind, I suppose, to note that this happened and call it to the attention of the umpires. And this is a consequential moment because Miles Straw is running from first and the Bouges are down to. And he's so fast.

Yeah. And so, you know, maybe he scores on this. And then the double play is, well, not that it was a standard double play. But, you know, maybe take the... Anyway, the point is like, it's pretty important whether this is playable or not and whether you can keep running or the ball is dead. And Dean, I think defensively, said, hey, it got stuck under there. But, you know, it wasn't irretrievable. It was not. But I believe it was, like, they call them ground rules for a reason.

Like, they're established in advance, right? You don't call them the stuff on the fly. Why don't they just have the, I'm going to ask a really dumb question. Are you ready for my really dumb question? Just have it go all the way to the ground? Yeah. It's a good question. Why doesn't it just go all the way to the ground? Why is there a gap? You know, because there's the padding. They got padding on it so that when the fielders run into the wall, they hopefully don't break themselves in half.

But why not just have the padding go all the way to the ground? You're not actually changing, like, in any meaningful way, like the wall distance, right? It's not like, oh, gosh, you've got to, just have it go out. Why doesn't it go all the way to the bottom? Are they worried about stuff getting wedged under there and then it like growing a civilization? Like a little, like a little mushroom civilization under the, in the tiny gap between the bottom of the pad and the ground? Yeah, I don't know. What's that about?

There's a, yeah, because if the padding, the surface is like an external thing, then I guess there would be some little joint there. But a smaller one than the. Yeah, not big enough for. a baseball, even a hard hit one probably. Yeah. Yeah, you'd think, yeah, I'm still perplex sometimes, because you still have some places with like hard

surfaces and scoreboards and stuff. Really dumb. And the chain link, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, it's not even like there's ivy, the brick. I mean, at least it's like part of the tradition and everything, but also that can hurt. But yeah, that

was a little curious. But good for him, I guess, to have the presence of mind because it's this huge moment and he just came into the game. Now, I saw some people say that maybe he should have kept going after it just in case. Like, what if, what if you don't get the umpire's approval for this to be a dead ball? They were faulting Dean for that. Yeah, like, okay, he could still signal, but in the meantime, might as well go after it because, yeah, you don't want to end up with like a Chuck Knoblock situation where you're arguing something. And meanwhile, the guy's rounding the bases. But then again,

if he does retrieve it and is easily able to does that we can undermine the argument to have been a dead ball, yeah or like maybe the empire doesn't see that it was wedged because you didn't just leave it there maybe that's reviewable I don't know but yeah like you know I think he handled

it just fine but yeah like it wasn't as if he couldn't have reached it but and maybe you could say that well the ground rule is there because if you can't actually get it then that's why you have a ground rule And so if he could have gotten it, then it's sort of ticky-tack to, like, even take advantage of that.

But, A, you should take advantage of it if you can. And B, you know, there's a different ball, you know, like it doesn't care him. It doesn't roll. You're anticipating one thing. And then it just stays there and you have to run all the way to the wall to get it instead of waiting for the rebound. So it's perfectly fine, I think, for him to have played it that way and for it to have been called that way. I think it's correct. But it is another example of Game of Inch's Game of Itch.

I think they should just make the pad and go all the way to the floor. Put it all the way to the floor. I mean, I guess, are they worried about, but you have to worry about that anyway. I was just going to say, are they worried about, like, weird caroms if it, like, goes all the way to the ground? But, like, it doesn't sound like such a darner. Eventually, something stops the ball, Ben, you know? There's always a wall, man. Yeah, it seems like there could be a smaller joint or seem.

Yeah, it's like a lot. It's like it almost, it's almost the size that suggests they are inviting it, right? That they're like, get, get down in there, a little buddy, you get wedged in there. You get wedged in there, a little guy. Like, why doesn't it go all the way to the ground? It's a good engineering note. Maybe they can correct that in time for next year. Yeah, like the whole outfield out of soft stuff, you know?

Like you're out of kids, like, you know, those indoor, like, play spaces when you go to the mall and your mom's like, I got a shop. alone so go in there for two hours like that so the jays i i feel for them and they were clearly broken up about this and you know they had the game and the series in hand seemingly and then it was snatched away and they didn't deserve to lose it's not like they gave this game away or this series in fact they perhaps outplayed the dodgers on the hole they certainly out hit them they did outspored them yeah out defended them they had a 745 ops to the dodgers 658. The Dodgers had a negative eight run differential in this series, which is tied for the second worst by a World Series winner with the 1996 Yankees. And then the 1960 pirates are just

an outlier at the top. The Yankees doubled their run total in that series and still they won. And I'm not saying that the Dodgers didn't deserve to win either or anything or that they stole the series. But it's just that the winner was not convincingly dramatically better. It's just that stuff happened, you know? Yeah. And so the Dodgers scored at the right time. And the Blue Jays, you know, they came up empty in some big spots, too, in the last couple games where they had opportunities that they didn't convert.

And it will be still the postseason of Vlad, who was just incredible. The look on Vlad's face at the end of that game. Yeah. And what more could he possibly have done? Nothing. Other than walk it off, there's nothing else he could have done. He batted almost 400, he slugged almost 800, he unbased almost 500. He was amazing.

And by situational wins, that's when probably added over leverage index. Only Carlos Beltron, when he went off in 2004, had a higher figure in a single postseason. He had a 241 WRC Plus, which is fifth among all hitters with at least 50 plate appearances. You know, he came to the plate 89 times, which was itself. a postseason record. So he was amazing and just all around impressive too.

And then Ernie Clement with a record 30 hits, obviously not the same pop that you were getting from Vladdy, but super productive.

Addison Barger had an incredible postseason and, you know, other guys were good too. Springer and Kirk and just top to bottom. Like that lineup was

really great. And the heroics of Trey Savage who gave up the Max Muncie Homer, but, You know, that Game 5 gem will live on in legend and so many guys on that team. And there really seems to have been a deep affection internally among those players.

And I know, you know, you tend to hear that about any team that wins a pennant, just, oh, this is a special group of guys and all that. But that rhetoric was really turned up a notch with these Blue Jays, like to an uncommon degree, I think even for a successful team. And Chris Bassett, who's a free agent, he said it's hard to replicate true love when he was asked about, like, whether you could recreate that kind of camaraderie with another team. True love. Like, you know, I'm sure Jay's fans feel love for this team, too, because they were just relentless and just the combination of contact and power and patience, which they improved as the season went on. And it's not as if they made a bunch of changes. It was largely the same lineup as the team that finished in last place in the East in 2024. But just about all those guys got better.

And I was all set, you know, when I was kind of mentally writing a lead for what would have been a Blue Jays game story victory. Like I would have written probably about how they actually didn't need all the guys that they whiffed on, all the free agents, you know, because in game one, the Blue Jays fans were chanting, we don't need. at Shoah, right? And, you know, I guess they certainly could have used him, but I was all ready to say, yeah, you know what, they didn't need Otani. They didn't need Yamamoto or Sasaki or Teasca Hernandez or all of the non-Dodgers they missed out on, too. At Scherzer was like one of the consolation prizes and he outpitched Otani in this game. And then I was thinking, oh, it's going to be Hoffman on the mound, another of the guys they kind of pivoted to. And Otani will make the last out and, you know, the narrative will be complete, but that's not exactly what

happened, you know, and they went after Soto and Corbyn Burns and Bellinger, just every, the last couple off seasons, even though they spent a fair amount of money and signed some pre-agents, they were reportedly in on everyone and just, you know, couldn't get their top targets to sign. And so I was going to say, well, it all worked out in the end, you know, not that like Anthony Santander was why they won, but maybe they just didn't need that help. They did internal development, they had you savage, you know, they got some other guys. And ultimately, I couldn't go with that story because they didn't win. And also, like, you know, they did miss out on Yamamoto and they signed Hoffman and Yamamoto was the winning pitcher and Hoffman blew a lead.

And, you know, it could have easily gone the other way, of course. But, you know, you can't say that missing out on those guys didn't hurt them there. But they were neck and neck with the Dodgers. if not ahead of them every step of the way in this series. They played so hard, and there was a lot of respect there. And so I think that changes the takeaway from the series because even though, yeah, the Js were underdogs and, you know, they were not favored to win.

Obviously, the betting odds had them as considerable underdogs, and even the projections did. And obviously looking at the trajectory of the team, going from worst to first and everything, they weren't a favorite coming into this. series. And so having that narrative of the underdog and everything, it was like they were kind of miscast in that just because like when Ernie Clement said, well, David won, didn't he, when he was asked about this being David versus Goliath? David doesn't have home field advantage,

probably. Like the Blue Jays had the better records this year. And they had the number five payroll. And they have the guy with the third largest contract in the game. And they have the second wealthiest owner in baseball and they had the AL's best record and everything. So it seems like a stretch relative to the Dodgers. It's not really because the Dodgers make anyone look like an underdog in terms of talent and spending. But the J is, you know, against almost anyone else that would have seemed like this doesn't really fit. They don't fit the description of underdog. In this series they did. But, you know, they didn't play like one at any point. Yeah, it was, you know, a real land of contrast for me, because on the one hand, like, you're listening to the broadcast, you're listening

to Joe Davis and John Smoltz talk about the Blue Jays, and I, I just, again, felt a little bit crazy. I was like, they were the one seed in the American League. Like, you know, I understand that this is not, from a, like, a true talent perspective, I think the Dodgers had a better roster. And I think that, like, part of why this feels so bad for Blue Jays fans is that, yeah, some of these guys seem like they took a legitimate step forward. I think that there are some obvious regression candidates. And you're probably not going to get, even if you think that like they've all taken a step forward in terms of their normal performance, they all, like, is Ernie Clement going to hit like that in the postseason again? I don't know, man, right?

Like, Vladdy might not hit like that in the postseason again. Yeah, I wouldn't think so. And sometimes you just need that month, not to say that Clement's bad or barger's bad or anything, but sometimes you just need a couple guys to play out of their minds. for a month. That's what determines who wins a pennant. That's what gets it done. But if what you want is another bite at the apple because you just lost a devastating, you know, you just had a devastating World Series loss, well, maybe you feel nervous about that and your ability to do it because of how you did it this time. But this is not a bad team. It's a top five payroll team. Like, it's got literally Vladimir Guerrera Jr. on it. Like, I did feel at times like the explanations

were like two pat and they weren't they weren't talking about the team on the field it's like no this is a this is a good team like what are we doing here what do we they were the one they were the they were the one seed though like this yeah they didn't sneak in on a wild card this isn't the diamond back from a couple of years ago right like this was a really good team they won their division sure it took until the very end but that was true for a lot of teams this year sort of a mid sort of showing we didn't have a lot of runaway winners and some of those guys got bounced, you know, so I don't know. I did think that the description was a little odd at times. I was like, which club you're talking about, though, you know?

Yeah. Although there was a notable celebrity wattage differential in the L.A. games and the Toronto games. And I love Canada. I love Toronto. But I'm just saying like the star power anywhere compared to L.A. It's like at the Dodgers games, you had LeBron. You had Justin Bieber. You had Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. You had Sidney and Charlize Theron. You had Harry and Megan, for goodness say. You know, it's like A-lister's everywhere you look. And then in Toronto, when they're doing the montage of like, who are the celebrities in the stands?

It's like Jerry O'Connell and part of the cast of Schitts Creek, which I love Schitts Creek, but, you know, just it's not the same. It's like Brandon Nolan, you know, Getty Lee. But, I mean, I guess Drake was there. I might have been part of the problem. Yeah, maybe. Do we get to be done now? Do we get to be done now? And I like that album.

I like that album, not Drake's, to be clear. I like that Kendrick album. Do we get to be done with the feud? Yeah, I'm ready to be done with the feud. I mean, he keeps appealing his defamation case, so I guess he's not done. But that should be assigned to the rest of us to be done because you really want to be like Drake? No, you don't.

Strise and affecting things. But yeah, there was quite a mismatch there, I would say, in the slymouth. Celebrity lineup, which was, but... I agree with you, but can I say something that is going to sound more, like, judgmental than I mean? So it's like, so hey, look, yeah, the stars come out, and it's the World Series, and it's so fun. And a lot of those celebrities were wearing Dodgers gear. But are they Dodger fans, you know? Oh, yeah, sure.

Like, the celebrities in Toronto that were out, and they were, they struck me as Blue Jays fans, you know? Whereas a lot of the, like, I'm sorry, I'm going to, Sydney, Sweeney, you're from Spokane. What are you doing in Dodger gear? You should have been, you should have worn a Mariners T-shirt is what you should have done. You're from, you're from Spokane. Have some respect for the region. There's some, some, you know, it's the social scene. It's to be seen as much as to see.

But there's some real, you know, Mary Hart's always there. And Jason Bateman's always there and Roblo, I guess. but totally yeah yeah i'm not saying that everybody and if you adopt them as your team while you're living there well okay great that's fine i'm not saying i'm not trying to like make a grand statement about fandom but i am just i think it's important to note if we are doing the comparison to to acknowledge that there is a little bit of like well sure they're they're the you know here we go there and if you have celebrity money and you can spend it on world series tickets wow sure you know i'd do that if i i i i i

am always amazed, I was going to say, I would be everywhere, but I would want to be in a not, I don't like being observed in public. So that part would be tricky. I'm always amazed that the, for as strong as the celebrity culture at Dodger Stadium seems to be, especially this time of year, it doesn't manifest behind home play very much. Like, Mary Hart just has those seats. Those are just Mary Hart's seats, you know? Like, she's there on a Tuesday in August, always out by the seventh inning, though. You know it's the postseason. And I'm Mary, this isn't, I have some other feedback about life choices you've made, but not about this.

Mary Hart is definitely like, I'm here a lot, I'm beaten traffic, bye, but she doesn't, she doesn't do that in the playoffs. She was there, like she was there the entire 18 inning game, her and her husband both. I think her husband got hit by a foul ball in one of the later games in L.A., because there was a lot of attention being paid in a medic. He seemed fine. I wonder if the Theo quote will apply more to Toronto when people will look at what they did offensively swinging harder while maintaining the contact and the swing decisions and everything.

If there's, you know, sort of an emphasis on swing training and everything, even if that doesn't work for everyone. That's one thing you could point to is maybe being the kind of market inefficiency sort of thing that Theo was getting at. And I think maybe in true what Theo was getting at fashion, a good example because often when when folks are talking about like, oh, this is going to be the big differentiator. This is the big thing. It's something that other teams are contemplating and doing already. And it's just a further popularization of an existing strategy. And so I think that maybe the offensive piece of it is a good possibility because I think a lot of teams are already kind of deep in the weeds on swing training and bat speed and what

have you. For sure. The other thing that I don't really think will be the takeaway, though some might say that it will, is just how the Dodgers reached another gear when they got to the playoffs, which, you know, we've talked about this a bit that some people have said, oh, they were taking it easy, they were resting, they were biding their time, they didn't really care how they did in the regular season, it was all about the postseason, which is true to an extent, I think it was really all about the postseason. But I think when people look at their kind of lackluster, you know, by their standards or relative to expectations, 93 win season, and say, oh, yeah, that was That was all part of their grand design, you know, just like rest up for the playoffs.

I don't really think that's what happens, you know. I think they just legitimately were not that great a team during the regular season. And then they happened to get a bunch of guys back at the right time. And, you know, it was obviously the plan to sign all those guys and have all those guys, which is, again, not really replicable. Just like, hey, sign two pitching stabs worth of players. And then when half of them are hurt, you will still manage to win your division. if not by as comfortable a margin as you expected.

And then everyone will get healthy and you will level up and be great in October. That is what happened ultimately. And, you know, Dan Simborski wrote about this for Frank Grass that this was just like the best version of the Dodgers that they had been all year. They peaked at the right time. Andrew Friedman said the same

that this was he thought the most talented team they had brought into the playoffs in any year during his tenure. And Neil Payne looked at this and found that the difference just in the talent of the players who were on the roster during the regular season relative to the postseason, that these Dodgers had a greater differential than any other team in the divisional era since 1969. So, yeah, the October Dodgers were different than the pre-October Dodgers.

But I think that was largely because guys really did get hurt. They just did, like, unless you think those were all phantom IL stints. Right. Maybe there were cases where they weren't rushing someone back. quite as urgently as another team might have, perhaps. But even, like, Shohei, for instance, they could have said, well, you need to go on a rehab assignment and we'll live without your bat for a while,

but they didn't do that. That was part of the plan in addition to protecting him. It was just kind of like, we can't afford to lose you. And you know that even if their goal is win the World Series, it furthers that goal considerably to have a buy in the first round. Right. So ultimately that didn't stop them, but it could have.

easily. So yeah, I think a lot of that wasn't really so much the plan, apart from the plan of let's collect an enormous number of great players. And we know that some of them are injury prone. And, you know, other teams don't have the wherewithal to do that probably and just say, yeah, we know half our team is going to be on the IL all season. But that's okay. We can, we can pay them. And then they will get healthy. And that's all right. And we can afford to lose all those guys and still scrape into the playoffs. So that's not something that you could easily copy, but also I don't think that things went according to plan for much of the season for them. I think that they probably disappointed themselves, you know, compared to their

projections. So, yeah, you know, it's just like I mentioned Blue Jay's had the number five payroll, but the difference between number one and number five is the same as the difference between number five and number 22. The viewers, it's a big gap. It's a meaningful thing. Yeah, it is. So, you We're just about done here. We're not going to do Capital D's Dodger discourse today, I think, just to focus on how fun this postseason is. Because, like, you know, I think what we can say is that, like, if this is baseball being broken, it's still pretty darn good. You know, because we had a whole lot of fun and the sport seems to be thriving and the attendance and the TV ratings have been pretty bananas lately. So, you know, things are going pretty well.

I, the number of people, Ben, and look, this is a, this is a soft indicator, you know, and I'm open to the idea that I just follow the right, you know, cross-section of people for this to have been notable. But people who I do not have any exposure to as sports fans, like folks I follow on Blue Sky for like, you know, like politics and pop culture stuff, people were watching this game, man, you know, people were watching this series. And some of that is that. that, like, you know, everyone on Blue Sky is at least 38 years old. And a lot of people who do pop culture stuff are in L.A. So, you know, some of it's that. But it felt like a lot of people were very energized by this series. And this postseason more generally and certainly enjoyed themselves and talked about baseball and were engaged with baseball. And it was fun. You know, it was a lot of fun.

It was a busy, varied, exciting month. We had, you know, dominant quick eliminations. We had long, tense series. We had tight games. We had offensive explosions. We had incredible pitching. Like, it just, it really did have everything. And I don't know if exactly the best team won, but it was also like a fun field, you know, from a true.

talent perspective, I think probably the best team won. Were they the best team in in 2025? No, but I think that we also just had like a really exciting mix of teams. We had some that we hadn't seen in a while. We had deep runs from clubs that hadn't been able to do that in a long time. It was, it was really good. It was a good postseason in a way that like given how as we've, as we had discussed, how kind of mid the field felt like the broader. major league field felt this year. I found really exciting and a bit surprising, but was really energized by. It was a great postseason. It was. And it all comes down to this double play where Mookie starts it, of course, appropriately. And I thought when Kirk was up there, I'm thinking,

well, either he's ending it or it will be a double play, which those were not the only two options, but it just seemed like they were. Yeah. And then the double play did indeed happen. And so Blue Jay's Heartbreak, Dodgers dynasty. I don't know whether anyone would even debate whether it's a dynasty anymore. Well, actually, someone said that to me in my mentions, but... Really? Clearly, era-adjusted. I don't know what you're expecting for a modern MLB dynasty, given the number of teams and

playoff spots and playoff rounds to have... Did they expound on their objection to the use of the world? It was just that, you know, back-to-back, two titles, not enough, you know. Yeah, but it's been three titles. and six years. Right. That's the thing. Three and six years and then five penance in nine years and just, you know, six, 27 winning percentage across the regular season and postseason over that entire time. That's, you know, 101.5 wins per 162. They haven't missed the playoffs since Mark Walter brought the team in 2012. It's an incredible run of extended dominance. So, yeah. All right. The last thing I wanted to ask you, you know, when they were showing Don Matting Lee, prior to the game going the Dodgers way. And, you know, they're preparing for the Blue Jays to win basically in crafting the narrative. And they're showing battingly 39 seasons and X seasons here in this many games and he's never won.

Ultimately, he didn't win again. And he was upset about it. I mean, you know, he wasn't like bawling, but Bobeshett came over to hug him in comfort. And he's never won a World Series. He's been a baseball lifer. Yeah. What percentage of the satisfaction that a player direct. from winning a World Series.

Do you think that a bench coach derives, you know, or like compared to a player or even a manager maybe, if Maddingly had won that one, I'm sure he would have felt great. I'm sure he would have felt a whole lot better than he ended up feeling. But like, do you think that winning one as a bench coach, does that deliver the same satisfaction or fulfillment

as having done it? When you're a more direct participant, I'm not saying like a bench coach is just along for the ride, you know, you're contributing, you're participating, but I wonder, because there are so many people who get a ring, right, in the front office and, you know, not even baseball ops department. And then various people who had some role in the clubhouse or the dugout or, and then there are the players. Like, there's a hierarchy, I think, of contributions.

And, you know, that's reflected in playoff shares, I guess. But, like, if Mattingley finally wins one, do you think he would have felt like, ah, finally, monkey off my back, or would it always be there to some extent just because, you know, he never won one when he was a player and a great player and a Yankee and all the rest? I imagine that it would satisfy the monkey off your back question, right? Now, monkey left him on the side of the road by monkey. Yeah, I guess. And he was a manager for years. Now, you know, maybe with the Marlins during those years, he didn't have a great shot, but he was Dodgers manager for five years during.

at least a few playoff runs. And, you know, that's one difference between the Yankees dynasty and the Dodgers dynasty is that the Yankees did not establish themselves as losers before they finally broke through and became dynastic. The Yankees, they lost to the Mariners, as you well recall. But after that, it was like second times the charm. They went in 96, and then they went in 98, 99, 2000. So there wasn't a period where they were kind of like, oh, they're choker.

they're blowing it what swung with them during the playoffs. Whereas the Dodgers endured that the first seven times they made the playoffs in this run and then three more times after they finally won the first one. And now it's back to back and they seem almost like dynasty Yankees kind of they can come back from anything and they're gritty and they can just make it happen. But they've completely changed that reputation, whereas the Yankees just kind of had that reputation when they came back against the Braves. I think that you would feel an amount of remove from doing it as a player if you are on like on the coaching staff.

I don't think you would have a different sense of satisfaction or responsibility if you're like the bench coach versus the manager. I imagine that. I mean, like you do have different responsibilities certainly. But like you're quite involved, you know. but I imagine that when you're in a front office role or a coaching role that you do have you experience some amount of remove like an appropriate acknowledgement that the execution ultimately lies with someone else but you're still doing important work to get guys in a position to succeed so I don't know I bet he would feel a real sense of of satisfaction and like he had like he had done it like he had finally won one you know, I don't think that there would be much differentiation there. Like you wouldn't, like I said, like I bet he would go, oh, I finally won one. You know, he wouldn't feel like, you know, there was some difference between what he had accomplished since he wasn't a player when he did it, you know.

Yeah, I think you probably separate in your mind your playing career and your coaching career. And probably winning one as a player, it hits different than winning one as a coach. Maybe if you're the manager, you feel a little more like you were. so integral to the operation that you can fully feel like, yes, I did this or I had a huge impact on this. I guess the further you get from. You're so rude about coaches, man. I know. I don't. You're so not rude, but like, you're, you're really down on coaches a lot of the time. I know. I guess so. Yeah. I don't know. It's mostly about their impact during the game. They're meddling. They're intruding on the actual on-field proceedings. I don't think that

there should not be coaches. I think there should be a lot of coaches. I think teams have gotten that right in recent years that they didn't have enough coaches. Yeah. It's really just when the coaches crossed the lines that they cross the line. It's just so interesting to me because, you know, his family is so entrenched too. Like, you know, his son is the gym of the Phillies now. So, you know, you just have this entire family who are so, you know, what else have they ever known to do, really? You know, they don't, he has other kids and I don't know that. they all are in baseball. But it's a real, you're really in it. You're really in it to try to win it. But yeah, I hope he wins one if he wants to keep going. And I'm sure there are

plenty of people who've had more than 39 seasons and haven't won one. But it's notable with him because I guess he was a great player for a team that is known for winning lots of world championships. And then he was a manager for a team that has won a lot of world championships. And it just didn't work out that way. But you just got to keep going. And I guess that's part of the Dodgers lesson. You keep making the playoffs. Eventually, you'll win one or three. All right, I was thinking as bad as this was for Blue Jays fans, would have been worse if Vladdy had still been an impending free agent like Bichette, and then you potentially face the loss of losing those guys. At least now, you know you have Vladdy for 14 more years, something

to look forward to, some solace. And I will be interested if the Blue Jays do go after top free agents again, whether we see any change in their success rate, winning a pennant and putting together this group of guys who really seem to enjoy each other. Does that make this organization seem like a more desirable destination to someone who otherwise might have had some qualms for whatever reason? And you know, as predictable as the winner was, the Dodgers were the favorite heading into the series, heading into the postseason, heading into the season. So the winner was predictable, but the day-to-day drama wasn't. And I don't feel like these playoffs wasted spectators' time. We saw the best baseball teams play in the best baseball. And because it could have gone the other way,

easily. Not suggesting it's less frustrating for fans who still see that the Dodgers do have competitive advantages and are ready for some new blood. We're still getting and going to get competitive balance hand-wringing and salary cap discussions. And if the Dodgers do go after Kyle Tucker, that's going to get louder. I do think it's a little less loud because of the way they won by the skin of their teeth. Because if they had blown away the Blue Jays the way they blew away the Brewers, then I think that drumbeat would have been deafening. Baseball is broken. The Dodgers are too dominant. There's still some of that, of course, but because of how easily they could have lost. It's hard to pivot to thinking that they're about to lose

to then thinking they're inevitable, unless you think they do have Dodgers devil magic now. The way I put it, my piece was, they're unbeaten. They weren't unbeatable. They're harder to beat than anyone else. They start the season, not standing on third base, but standing on first, at least, relative to a lot of other teams. It's not a level playing field. It's never been entirely level. It probably could never be entirely level. It could be a bit more level. But when you have a bunch of baseball writers who are 500 words into their game story about how the Blue Jays beat the big bad Dodgers to then tear that up and write a piece about how the Dodgers are unstoppable.

Well, maybe it's a bit too apparent that you're embodying the XKCD sports comic. Anyway, we'll have time to get into all of this. The Blue Jays put their recent postseason record of futility behind them. That's a win, if not the win they wanted. We have some offseason setup to do, some hot stove league previewing. We have some managerial hires to do. discuss. We can try to figure out who the heck will be running the Rockies. We'll be able to answer some emails and do some stat blasts. We've been so busy with postseason baseball that some of our

staples have fallen by the wayside. So we are transitioning into offseason effectively wild. The content will be a bit different. The schedule will be the same. Thanks for accompanying us through yet another season. And we will keep you company throughout the long cold winter if you agree to do the same for us. And one way you can help with that is by supporting the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild 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. Ryan Satila, C. Trilla, Ken Smith, John Noonan, and N. A. Brindle, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to

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Tell a friend and fellow baseball fan if they want to scratch their baseball itch all winter. That sounds kind of gross, but we can help with that. You can also discuss the Hot Stove League in that Patreon Discord group and in our Facebook group, which you can find at Facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. There's also an 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.

Thanks to you for listening. We will be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. The show is called Effectively Wild. It's about baseball and stars. We might be a major league. Or break down someone's funny and facts. Infectively wild.

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