Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2537: The Playoff Parts Draft

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley wrap up the action from the end of the regular season, including the last starts of Justin Verlander and (maybe) Max Scherzer (with mini-Blasts about Verlander, Laz Diaz, Kirby Yates, and overshadowed career finales), the setting of the playoff field, the firing of Dan Wilson, a rained-out Game 162, several lackluster league leaders, and follow-ups about other stats and stories tracked on the show. Then (44:02), to preview the postseason, they do a draft of the offenses, fielders, starting rotations, and bullpens of all 12 playoff teams. Audio intro: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to rainout news Link to playoff field Link to Verlander start story Link to Verlander’s exit Link to Diaz call tweet 1 Link to Diaz call tweet 2 Link to Diaz quotes Link to Diaz salute Link to Verlander on Diaz Link to overshadowed-debuts pod Link to overshadowed-finales sheet Link to Yates story Link to Scherzer start story Link to Scherzer clip 1 Link to Scherzer clip 2 Link to career Ks leaderboard Link to Springer update Link to MLBTR on Wilson Link to MLBTR on M’s coaches Link to Dan S. on managerial firings Link to Dipoto quote Link to Lovullo status story Link to Stearns quote Link to Pouliot on league leaders Link to Posnanski on league leaders Link to Montgomery record Link to Sam on Reynolds Link to 2002 Hernandez article Link to single-season K leaders Link to yearly SB leaders Link to three-inning saves by year Link to 2026 three-inning saviors Link to Ben on three-inning saves Link to Alonso RBI feat Link to Angels loss story Link to PCA article Link to FG WAR leaderboard Link to WAR runners-up sheet Link to Paine on lopsided contenders Link to Paine on the playoff field Link to Baumann on playoff offense Link to Sheehan on playoff offense Link to Bregman video Link to Judge update Link to article on Hedges hitting Link to Hedges framing stats Link to draft-prep sheet 1 Link to draft-prep sheet 2 Link to Green on Yan Link to Lanterns recap  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

Hello and welcome to episode 2537 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Well, that's a wrap on the 26 regular season. It was a sort of exciting final weekend, a fairly exciting Sunday. And now the playoff field is set. It is beginning the day this podcast is posted. So we will do a little bit of playoff preview here.

And our matchups locked in, we have White Sox versus Astros with the winner playing the Guardians, Red Sox versus Yankees with the winner playing the Rays, Phillies versus Braves with the winner playing the Dodgers, Cubs versus Padres with the winner playing the Brewers. So some sexy matchups there. Some matchups I'm pretty excited to see. I would say. A couple real rivalry series, division rivalries with the Red Sox and Yankees and Phillies and Braves, and then other intriguing teams with even better ones waiting in the wings. So should be good. My Sunday was not the best because of the Nor' Easter in New York that rained out Sloan's first Yankees game or what would have been.

Yeah, it was sort of disappointing. It wasn't too bad because I had warned her it might happen given the forecast. But we went up there, even though there seemed to be a little hope of that game being played, because they didn't cancel it for hours. They moved up to start time. It was supposed to be a 320 start, and they moved it up to 1 or 105. And then they finally called it after the originally scheduled start time, which was weird because just looking at the forecast, there was no chance that they were going to get that came in, really. So we just went and we saw where the seats would have been. and she had never been to Yankee Stadium, so we just walked around and had some snacks and stuff. So it was fine.

But it was weird just like lingering around there. And there were a lot of fans, but just no one had any hope that the game was going to get it. Because it had just been raiding steadily since the previous night. And there appeared to be no end in sight, nor was there an end. So, I mean, it was MLB's call. I guess that they had to make it look good. I don't know. They were trying to get all the other games in.

and they were moving teams to neutral sites and stuff. So maybe they didn't want to make it look like the Yankees had an easy time of it before their wildcard series. Or I guess if the Yankees and Braves meet in the World Series, then it could have had some implications for that because the Yankees finished 93 and 68 and the Braves finished 94 and 68. So if that's the World Series matchup we get, then it could have had some implications for Home Field in the World Series or something. so it wasn't totally meaningless, but it was pretty meaningless. I don't know why they waited quite that long. But there was other exciting action on the final day as well. I wonder, well, first of all, how long did it take you to get into Yankee Stadium?

Like, was it. Well, that part was easy actually this time because it wasn't a big crowd. So when there's no game going on, it's not that hard to get in. So that was silver lining, I guess. Yeah, I thought of you. I was like, I just assumed that you guys would stay home. But I was like, if they go up there, right? getting through is going to be a breeze, and then Sloan's going to have a completely distorted

understanding of what this pregame experience is like from a number of different directions, I suppose. Yeah. What's up with this ballpark where they don't play games and it just rains, but they let you in to stand there and get soaked? So anyway. Were they selling concessions? Yes. Yeah.

And so, yeah, there were thousands of people there. That's so strange. Holding out hope, I guess. But, yeah, it was weird. I guess they have to like make a little bit of a show of it because it does have to your point like very distant potential implications for for the World Series but it does strike me as sort of a silly thing. Especially because like the Yankees, the Yankees Red Sox matchup was the first one that was decided. You know what I mean? Like it just was so it would have been so straightforward for them to have settled like this doesn't matter for anybody's seating or anything like that.

So that part of it was was sort of silly. But yes, the rest of the weekend was, well, let's put it this way. The Phillies rewarded their fans with the burden of watching more of the Phillies. It's sort of the way that I'm thinking about it. And I am given to understand I'm hardly alone in that assessment, given how the Phillies fans I follow in social media seem to be reacting to their lineup, finally scoring runs. But yes, a sad end for the Diamondbacks.

Snakes no longer alive. They are eaten. They were bit. They were bit. They were snake bit. They bit their own tail with some poor play on Saturday. Although I guess with the Phillies winning it didn't really matter. So there's that.

Mercifully, it ended up not being decided by tie breaks, which I guess is good. But yeah, the Phillies saved themselves. The Astros won the mediocre off in the AL West. They finished 81 and 81, so we were spared a losing team. Spared. We do have the first non-winning team in playoff full season history. So could have been worse, I guess.

And yeah, there was a little teeny bit of daylight between the Astros and the Rangers and the Phillies and the Dimex in the end of it. But really the highlight of Sunday was Justin Burlander. Well, that was Saturday. but Justin Verlander on Saturday and Max Scherzer on Sunday. Those guys won the weekend. Max Scherzer literally won his game. The Tigers won Justin Verlander's last start, although he didn't because there wasn't much offensive support.

It was a walkoff ultimately. But that was just great. That just worked out perfectly. I don't know that Scherzer is actually done, but they looked not exactly like Vintage Verlander and Scherzer, but close enough. Verlander went five and a third. Five hits, two runs, both homers, but solo shots. One walk, six strikeouts against the pirates, and Scherzer, seven innings.

Who knew he had it in him? It was his highest pitch count in six seasons or something like that. Six hits, one run, one walk, seven strikeouts versus the Reds. So I don't know whether Scherzer was motivated by trying to catch Verlander, which was pretty out of reach after Verlander had gotten six strikeouts, but he did close the gap to three, only three strikeouts separate them now. And so I would not be shocked if Scherzer returns. I wouldn't either.

Not just because he's motivated by getting four more strikeouts to pass for a winter. I'm sure that's not the only animating desire. But just because guy likes to pitch, guy hates to be removed from games. Certainly he's going to hate to be removed from a whole career. And he pitched decently enough down the stretch that he could talk himself into being okay next year. Maybe you can talk some team into giving him a shot as well. That was this thing. I mean, it's better, of course, to have them both look like credible major league pitchers on the way out.

But you could kind of talk yourself into them having a little more gas left just because Verlander missed almost the entire season. But he pitched well down the stretch for the Giants the previous year. And then he just wasn't able to pitch for all this year. And then he came out and looked okay. He, you know, he was throwing 94 or something. I mean, he still had something left. And then Scherzer going seven. So I was glad that it wasn't purely just a, it was a sentimental send-off, but also they pitch pretty well.

You know, we've talked about this before that you just don't end up in a spot where you get to decide the circumstances of your retirement very often. I mean, there are guys who have retirement tours. Certainly they know they're going to retire, but the production they have in that season can really very wildly. And I do think there's something to the notion of going out like sort of. of nominally on top, even if it does make it tempting. But I wouldn't be surprised if we see Scherzer. I think a lot will depend on the lockout and how long it lasts and sort of how normal a ramp up in spring he can have.

I don't say that knowing anything in particular. I just can imagine that like if it stretches on and on, you get to a certain point. You're like, okay, well, like, am I really going to do all of this again? But it was it was great fun to see him with like a full face of fury at the notion of being pulled from that game. Just vintage Scherzer, if that's the last of him we see on a big league mound, it'll feel like a fitting bookend to his career. And yeah, like the Verlander stuff was so nice.

I thought that, you know, not that he's like a stony-faced guy, but to see the emotion that he had in that moment and how carefully the tigers had sort of incorporated his family into the celebration and how much that obviously moved. him and I will admit though I had a moment Ben where I was like Doug Eddings isn't back there right because like I'm not putting it pat I'm not put look Doug you were a sour puss and now it's gonna haunt you for the rest of your career these are the consequences of our actions it was it was Las Diaz back there in his final game as well or his final game behind the plate at least yeah yeah and as much as much grief as we've given Laz over the years for the quality of his zone at times he doesn't

strike me as the type and obviously wasn't the type to to step on that but but moment because you do technically are not as well to go out there with anyone who's like not uniform personnel but they were like what are you get what are you going to do what are you going to do you're going to be a sourpuss you're going to be a poor sport oh uh uh uh no you're not you're going to let forander's daughter on her way sorry you're not meant to be here yeah sorry no um i would imagine even dug eddings would have allowed her out there um but yeah it was just like this really lovely moment and it it is nice to see, like I said, those guys sort of in in a form that at least is reminiscent of

them at their peak, even if it wasn't like the most dominant performance. But hey, you go into the seventh inning these days. We want to throw you a parade regardless of where you are in your career. Lazz actually had a decent day back there. For one thing, he was getting into it a little joking with Rerlander. He saluted Verlander when he left the field finally. And also, even though he does not have a great rep or track record when it comes to calling balls and strikes. He was four for four in ABS challenges. Yes. He was vindicated and upheld.

And then after both teams were out of challenges because they had challenged him and he had prevailed, then he gave Verlander sort of an old school expanded strike zone strikeout. I think it was his second to last strikeout. I think it was against Spencer Horowitz. There was a called strike that was well. outside the zone and no one could do anything about it because by that point they had already burned their challenges and so it was almost a salute to the old days when no one could call Lazz on a blown call and who could have possibly cared at that point because it's two teams

that are out of it and everyone just wants to see Verlander have his moment and so I don't know whether that was intentional or not or just Lazz being Lazz but it was a crowd-pleasing call I I would say. Oh, yeah. Well done. I do think that, you know, the sport has its issues. Don't get me wrong. And it can veer too far in this direction at times and be a bit saccharine for, well, for a cynical bird like mice taste. But I do think that we have a good sense of these moments. And even when it involves sort of allowing that the strike zone might be a bit more generous than it would be on any other day, sort of appreciating it, letting other. legend's daughter come out to pull him from the game. You know, these are nice, these are nice moments. And I think have a sort of, it puts our sense of the connective tissue of the sport and how long it arches over and how important guys like Verlander are to this era of baseball and sort of our understanding of it. Like this, that's a nice thing. I think I've decided that my personal

preference and obviously what I want isn't going to have any bearing on Max Schroes or decision-making, I would imagine. But I would like him to go one more season, not because I have anything invested in him surpassing Verlander on the strikeout leader where I truly could give one wit about that. But I do really like the idea of having three consecutive classes at Cooperstown where we have a starter of this caliber, right? We'll have Kershaw and then we'll have Verlander and then we'll have Scherner, I would imagine. So I like that a lot. because it's going to be slim pickings on the starter front, and we don't have to worry too much about their Hall of Fame classes

a couple of years from now, but having a little bit more time to sort of luxuriate and what that kind of starter and the kind of workload those guys carried. And sort of ending... Is that controversial? Is it controversial to say that Scher's the best of them? I enjoyed watching Scher the most. Let me put it that way.

Maybe that's a more defensible position on not having thought about it at all before right this very moment than saying he was the best. I would say, yeah, Pete Kershaw was the best peak as far as career value. I might go Verlander, but it's really, it's really close. Verlander and Scher are just neck and neck. Of course, Verlander pitched a couple more seasons and 500 or so more innings. But value-wise, it's pretty close. I'd probably go Verlander career and then. But yeah, on a rate.

basis maybe Scherzer over Rwander and Kershaw over both of them. But yeah, they're a trio. You could lump in cranky, I guess, if you wanted to make it a quartet. But that's why it felt also extra special this weekend and a bit bit bittersweet because it did feel like the end of an era, the end of the era of the starting pitcher in a sense, not that there aren't still good starters, but will we have starters who rack up that kind of career value and longevity and dominance altogether. I don't know, barring some sort of change or reversal in trends, perhaps not. So, yeah, it felt appropriate for them to take those bows together, but I do also kind of hope, as you said, that Scher comes back for at least a little bit more, even if he's just running on

fumes at that point just to space out the inductions a little bit. It just felt so much less, you know, like, Kershaw's career had, and I'm not even talking about some of the, like, later and career social stuff that emerged. But like his career just felt more fraught because of the weight of that postseason narrative. And having to sort of take aside and then it and disputed or like accepted as a flaw of this guy and his. And it's just like I didn't feel I was afraid of Max Scherzer. I mean, they all carried a supreme intensity to them. And to be clear, I don't think that Scher was actually like a dangerous fellow.

But he just had like a, it is funny that. even the kinds of behavior I tend to be drawn to in people interpersonally that I enjoyed Scherzer's career so much and the vibe so much because it is legitimately unhinged a lot of the time. But it was just so, and there is something so satisfying to me about how neatly, like his production mapped onto the notion of dollars per war during his free agent deal with the Nats. It was just so clean and like so beautiful. And you could have like a little bow and be like, look, look at this beautiful package of excellence. And that was nice.

I liked that. Anyway, we'll have plenty of times to talk about him. His career isn't technically over. I do love the I'm going to make an announcement on Sunday. And then that announcement was, I'm going to make an announcement later. Yeah. Which makes me think he's not done. Because if that man was done, I think.

that there would be like more of a, he would have sort of arrived at that answer. But the stalling makes me think that he's going to come out and be like, don't you guys want me back another year? I suspect the same. Yes. But it felt appropriate if that was the ends that. Yes. Everyone was joking on Saturday about how, well, if Scherzer's daughter ran out there,

he would tell her to get back to the dugout, you know, don't you dare pull me. And that didn't happen on Sunday. But John Schneider coming out there and getting turned away. and then Scherzer just stalking through the dugout after that. It was just the best. It felt on brand. It felt almost like a bit, but I don't think it's a bit. I think it's pretty sincere for him.

I don't think it's a bit. No, but it is, it's true. It's like he's unhinged. He's a loose cannon. And yet it's entirely between the lines. And as far as we know, there's nothing like he's not actually dangerous or anything. Oh, no, no. He's just, when he's in the game, he's just a different guy.

And he wants to stay in the game. And it's great. And you can sort of celebrate it because ultimately what's the downside? He's not like cursing people out as far as we know when he's getting back to the clubhouse. Like people seem to appreciate him as a teammate and players association leader and all the rest of it. It's just that he absolutely loses it when he's in the game. And so it's great because you want that kind of competitive bulldog mentality. And it's just, it's great theater.

So I hope that future starters will be able to muster. as much annoyance about being removed from the game, but I kind of doubt it because they all just take it in stride because they expect to be removed, whereas Max is still of the generation, not that he was routinely finishing what he started, but he always wanted to and intended to. So always enjoyed that.

And yeah, it felt good that kind of coinciding. I did feel a little bad for the players who were also maybe having their last games and got a bit overshadowed. So on Sunday, George Springer, His contract is up. Again, I kind of doubt that he and Scherzer will both be done and maybe at least one or both will be back, but that's somewhat up in the air.

But he got a nice hand and he got celebrated. But even as good a player as Springer is, he couldn't help it be a bit overshadowed by Scher. But I felt it even more in the Tigers game because Kirby Yates was also in his last game. And it was funny because it was his last game, but actually his first start, he started opposite at Verlander. He was the opener. That's right. He hadn't really technically announced that he was done. Word sort of came out

during the game and then he confirmed it after the game. But, you know, he's a visiting player. And meanwhile, it's like Justin Verlander weekend. And Kirby Yates is just bowing out. Not that Kirby Yates should get the same kind of acclaim and share well that

Verlander did. But Kirby Yates at his best was one of the most dominant relievers ever. He had He had a very fine stretch. Yeah, nice, nice career. And he's going up against Justin Verlander. You know, Kirby 8's in his first career start and Justin Verlander in his 557th. So couldn't help it be overshadowed.

I did ask Michael Mountain. So there has never before been a game when both starting pitchers and the home plate umpire were all in their final game, or at least the umpire was in his final game. or at least the umpire was in his final home plate umpiring assignment that has never happened before but there have been some previous pairs of starting pitchers who retired after facing each other but even that's fairly rare forget about the umpire 22 previous times in al nl games between 1897 and at least 2023 most recently dylan bundy and drew hutchison on october 1st 2022 not not quite as significant as justin verlander's last game but yeah

even both starters being in their last major league game, that doesn't happen often. And then Diaz, the veteran Ump, being in his last home plate upping assignment, just added to it even more. Although Diaz, like, he had done an interview and he said, there are a lot of people I'm going to miss and I made a lot of friends. But what I won't miss is the game, not one bit. All right, then last, I mean, maybe the game won't miss you as much either because he was a bit bitter about all the criticism facing umpire. these days and challenges and reviews and all the rest. Not that Umps have ever had it easy, but there are more official recourses for showing them up in games.

And I guess he was ready to go and probably the game was about ready for him to go as well. But yeah, salute to Kirby Yates, who deserves his flowers also. Maybe not quite as big a bouquet as Justin Burlander got. But don't forget about Kirby just because his last game happened to coincide with Verlanders. Yeah, you remember Kirby. You put respect on Kirby's name.

He had a great career. He did. Yeah, nice career. Yeah. It put me in mind of a stat bless that we did on episode 2334, which was June of 2025, about overshadowed debuts, players who made their major league debut on the same day as a much bigger name, more accomplished player, because I noticed that Brian Van Bell had debuted on the same day. as Roman Anthony, and everyone was hyped about Roman Anthony and a little less so about Brian Van Bell.

And so we did a snap less about that. And I asked Michael for some similar data about overshadowed finalies. So players who went out at the same time as another better player, the best player by career war ever to have his last major league game in the same game as an even better player was Jeff Kent. So Jeff Kent's last career game was the same as Greg Maddox's last career game. So Jeff Kent also a Hall of Famer, but not quite as inner circle as Greg Maddox. So Jeff Kent had to settle for second fiddle in his sendoff.

Not that either of them was a legendary Los Angeles Dodger. They were on the same team. But still, after that, it's Yadir Malina and Albert Pooholz. Although, you know, those guys kind of got a package deal. That was a tandem exercise sort of because everyone knew that they were retiring and it was a nice fond farewell and they were both home players and everything. After that, though, it's Adam Wainwright and Joey Votto and Wainwright was home and Vado was visiting. He was on the roads. So if anything, Votto got short shrift maybe because he wasn't there in the home crowd.

And also he hadn't announced his retirement because technically he hadn't retired yet because remember he came back with the. Blue Jays in the minor leagues the next year, but that was his last major league game. And then after that, it's Roy Oswald and Todd Hilton, Billy Pierce and Duke Snyder, Mordecai Three Finger Brown, and Christy Mathewson, same last game. This is including playoffs, by the way, Rocky Calavito, Mickey Mantle, and Brian Downing and Bert Blyleven. Also, Hall of Famer Travis Jackson, same last game as Hall of Famer Bill Terry. They were both at home for that game.

J.D. Drew was a visit. in his last game in Vladimir Guerrero's last game. Vlad was at home. Bill Freehan on the road at Henry Aaron's last game at home. That's a tough one for Freehan. Jim Jr. Gilliam, last game of his career, was also Sandy Kofax's. October 6th, 1966. Not that everyone knew Kofax was done.

I'll put the full list online for anyone who is interested in this. But yeah, you know, Kirby, not as high on that list, but still. The best visiting player to be overshadowed by a home player in his last game is Brian Downing in Bert Blyleven's last bow as well. And if you're wondering about the biggest war gap between players who retired on the same day, or at least had their last Major League game on the same day, it's the three guys whose last Major League game was the same Major League game as Babe Ruth. So Bill McCabe, Carl Sawyer, and Clyde Barfoot all had their last major league game on September 29th, 1935, Babe Ruth's last game. And, you know, about 180 or so war gap between the babe and those three because they were all roughly replacement level players. So they were a little bit overshadowed maybe by the babes. Goodbye.

Anyway, I will put that data online for anyone who's interested. All right. And just a couple other things we were tracking. The Angels did in fact lose their 100th game for the first time ever in franchise history. The Mariners pulled out a win on Sunday against the Angels to seal that feat. And now every franchise has lost 100 at some point at least once. Although that final victory did not save Dan Wilson's job. So you are marked safe from Dan Wilson and also evidently most of the Mariners coaching staff.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was not unanticipated, of course. But after a very disappointing season, that will be the end of Dan Wilson's tenure as Mariners manager. It will be. And apparently not the end of Jerry's tenure. No, it doesn't seem like it. There's that.

I don't know that I think that what happened this year was maniac's fault. But, you know, or Eric Young juniors, for that matter. I do feel it important to say the following, because I was pretty hard on Dan, you know. And there was some reporting that came out, like, in the days leading up to the decision for him to go about, like, him being sort of outmatched or overwhelmed. And I think there's probably some truths to that. I also think that, like, hey, Jerry's sticking around. So we're getting a particular perspective, maybe prioritized over another. And I want to allow for that possibility.

I will just say, like, I don't think that. Dan's managerial tenure was a complete disaster. Obviously, they were like very close to going to the World Series last year. And I want to put in perspective how much of a difference a manager can make. That said, I didn't think he was a good tactical manager. That said, hey, Mariners, hey, you guys on this baseball team who are presumably going to be on this baseball team next year. You sure did play badly enough to cost a bunch of people their jobs. So maybe think about that, you know?

Like, ultimately, the fault, the biggest deciding factor for the direction and course of this Mariner's season was they played really bad baseball. They played at times listless baseball, error-prone baseball, frustrating baseball, hey, what the hell are you doing kind of baseball? So I hope that the organization finds coaching staff that they feel can direct this team. in a productive way that is sort of tactically aware and up for that part of it that can help, you know, continue the player development process at the major league level. I hope for all of those things. Mostly, boy, you guys better play better baseball next year. You a bunch of, you bunch of dorks.

Like, what are we doing here? So that's what I'll say about that. Because I worry, Ben, that at times I let my frustration get the better of me, at least get the better of my ability to. to express that I understand that the baseball players did a bad job, you know? This wasn't like a team undone by managerial tomfoolery. This was a bad baseball team, and they played like it. So, guys, do a bad job, please.

Okay, thanks. DePoto did say, if I didn't have a job today, it would be justified. But good news for him, he does. Maybe the Mariners will just hire Tori Lavello. That could work out well for you as a mariner. fan. I don't think the Diamondbacks should let him go based on they're just barely missing the playoffs because I don't think that was his fault, but his contract is up. Could be an opportunity for some other team. I checked up on the final tallies for the teams that did fire their managers

earlier in the year to see how they finished compared to projections at the time because Dan Simborski had written that basically you look back over the last couple decades and teams play to the projections to a T, more or less, when they fire their managers, if you look at a snapshot of their rest of season projections from that moment to on, they collectively, cumulatively do just hit those marks. And so looking at that, I didn't look at Zips, but looked at the fan graphs, playoff odds, combination of Zips and Steamer the day they were let go. So Alex Cora was fired in late April. The Red Sox were 10 and 17 at the time. They were projected to finish 70 and 65. That's a 518 winning percentage. Instead, they went 77 and 58.

That's a 570 winning percentage. So that was an improvement. Makes Kora, I guess, look worse, but they beat the projections. They sailed into the playoffs. Obviously, a lot of that was driven by an extremely long winning streak, but yeah, they finished strong on the hole. The Phillies, Rob Thompson was fired in late April. The Phillies were 9 and 19. They were projected to go 72 and 62 from that point forward, a 537 winning percentage. And instead, they went 79 and 55, a 590 winning percentage. So they did not only regressed to the mean in a good way, but they outplayed the projections, despite the fact that they fell apart at the end there and nearly squandered their playoff spot.

On the whole, the Don Mattingly tenure, went a good deal better than it was projected to go. And finally, Carlos Mendoza was fired at the halfway point. of the season in late June, the Mets were 34 and 47. They were projected to finish 43 and 38. That's a 528 winning percentage. Instead, they went 40 and 41, a 494 winning percentage under Andy Green. So they actually continued to underplay their projections slightly. But Green got a deal anyway.

He got to stick around for three more years, a three-year contract. Yeah. I guess the Mets thought that he at least helped limit the, quote, uncapped downside. scenario, as David Stearns put it on Monday. He said, we and I made a number of decisions that created the potential for an uncapped downside scenario over the offseason. That is, that phrase will echo in my mind forever. Yeah, two of the three did a lot better, not just than they had done prior to the firing.

They all satisfied that condition, but two of the three did better than they were projected to do even. And those two of the three are playoff teams, even if for one of them, it was just by the skin of their teeth. Also, PCA did not end up leading the majors in offensive value, according to fan graphs. Yordon did edge him out there. PCA did end up second in baseball and led his league, so no slouch there. That was still pretty darn impressive to be the best defensive player and number two in the majors and number one in your league in offensive value. But unfortunately, Yordaun spoiled that fun fact. And Yorda himself missed out on the triple.

Crown, though he did claim all the slash stats. Also, we had one more, I was tracking this, no one else cared, but there was a 50th three-inning save of the season. Trevor Richards of the White Sox came through on Sunday and got the 50th, which edged out last season, which was 49. So the most three-inning saves in a season since 1999. I know everyone's super excited by that. And, you know, there was a lot of conversation about how.

how the league leading totals were all pretty modest and mediocre. It was just like, you know, Matthew Puglio, for instance, pointed out that among the league leaders. So a 316 batting average, Yordan, was the lowest to lead the major leagues ever. 45 homers was the lowest total to lead the majors since 2014. 116 RBI was the lowest total to lead the major since 2014. 119 run scored was the lowest total to lead the major since 2014, sensing a theme there. 2014 was obviously a down year for offense. That was just before the ball got lively again.

40 doubles, the lowest total to lead the majors since 1972. So, yeah, the league leading totals just were not very spectacular this year. And even stolen bases, for instance, Nassim Nunez ended up leading the majors with 49, which tied last year's leader, Jose Caballero. Before that, though, you had Ellie stealing 67. You had a cunea stealing 73, and we saw stolen bases and stolen base success rate, not just attempts and successes, both just went down a bit this year for the second consecutive year. So it seems like we have found a level, or we're actually decreasing a little bit when it comes to the running game under the new rules. So that was kind of disappointing, too. So yeah, like I was tracking a lot

little things and I was tracking PCA and all of that. But when it came to the actual league leading totals, we are in an era here where they're not very spectacular, which I guess has to do with the fact that offense is not so hot now. It's still sort of propped up a bit by by dingers. But on the whole, it's not a, it's not a sensational offensive time. And so these league leaders, you know, when it comes to, I guess it's partly load management and people not running as much and maybe people playing. a little less. And so there weren't really a lot of exciting statistical races there. Nothing really

came down to the wire where we were psyched about, you know, it wasn't like Cal and 60 homers the year before or Judge and 62. There just wasn't really anything in that same sort of vein. Yeah. Although doesn't the fact that you were able to point to such recent examples of, of races like that indicate this is just part of like the ebb and flow of it? You don't sound overly concerned, Ben, to be clear, you don't sound like you're ready to call a town meeting about it. But I do think that there's just sort of like, you know, good amount of ebb and flow to these things. And you're going to have, if you, if you had a year like that every year, they wouldn't be discreetlyers, would they, you know, they just be having a year.

Right. Yeah. And so it should be sort of rare. It's true. Yeah. Right. And I would argue that, and this isn't going to be captured. simply in like a discrete stat like home run total.

But like I would argue that the year that Pete Crowe Armstrong put together is in this category of outlier, even though it's not again like he set a home run record or whatever because the combination of that guy's offensive performance, you know, being in the 40-40 club with the year he had in the field is it's a very special thing. And, you know, even as we freely admit that there's probably. some amount of like error and and and fudge in the defensive metrics like might have just had one of the best defensive seasons for a center fielder ever so I I think 2026 had something to sort of go toe to toe with with Cal and and and judge just well it had a more well-rounded

feel to it which maybe undermines my entire point I don't know you know I'm just I'm just I'm just a girl sitting here thinking about how much more work she has to do today. That's all I am. That's me, Meg. Well, it was, it was a season that was marked for mediocrity or marked by mediocrity and compression in the standings. And even though you did end up with the Brewers winning 103 and the Dodgers won 100, yeah, the lows were not as low. The highs were not as high as we've been accustomed to. And so maybe it makes sense that that would be mirrored in individual player performances as well. All it takes is one, just one guy like Judge or Cal or Otani or. whoever, and that generates a ton of intrigue.

And PCA, you're right, he held up his end of the bargain. But no one was anywhere close to him. So there was no real race for when it came to who was the most valuable player or an LMVP or anything. He just separated himself by a mile, really. And in fact, I looked that up, just the biggest gap between the number one overall wargetter and the number two overall war getter in the majors, because it was a gap of three points. Seven War or 3.66 between PCA and Bobby Witt Jr., who wound up with 7.0 to be number two overall. That is the biggest gap between number one and number two since 1956, which was Mickey Mantle and Duke Snyder.

Yeah, so you have to go back 70 years before you find as big a gap between number one and number two. And it's the sixth biggest gap of any season. So it's pretty impressive for PCA and then unimpressive for the runner-up or all of the runner-up contenders. Because, yeah, 7.0 for the number two overall guy, that is really lackluster. That is not so hot. So, you know, Bobby Wood Jr. And like a lot of the leading contenders, they got hurt, right? Judge got hurt.

Otani got hurt. Even Bobby Wood Jr. got hurt a little bit. So, yeah, a lot of the contenders who would have been there just ended up with sort of unspectacular seasons by their standards. But, yeah, Bobby Witt, Jr. with 7.0, that is the lowest number two total since 1950. So it's been quite a – not counting 1981 and 2020 shortened seasons. But in a full season, yeah, you have to go back to 1950 when – so Bobby Witt Jr. was 7.5. or 6.97486 because really I like to go out to five decimal places when I'm looking at war. You know, I like to export so that I can go even deeper.

And in 1950, the runner up was 6.91636. So it was 6.97 versus 6.92. But yeah, 1950. Of course, in 1950, they played 154 game seasons. So taking that into account, really, this year was even less special. And before 1950, you have to go back. boy, a few more decades even to find, I mean, 1918 and 1919, those were shortened seasons too because of World War I.

So really, you have to go back to the 19th century, I guess, in a non-shorten season other than 1950 to find a less noteworthy number two. So, yeah, Pete Armstrong just really totally lapped the leagues, lapped the fields. Pretty darn impressive. The only really, I guess, standout record-setting season was actually Colson Montgomery, who set the all-time single-season strikeouts record with 227 surpassing Mark Reynolds, who of course, Sam Miller wrote a memorable article suggesting that Mark Reynolds couldn't see that season. But he had 223 back in 2009. Colson Montgomery, 227 just blew by it. I think he set the record on Friday and kept going.

So, yeah, that's, I guess, a sign of the times that that's the sort of outlier record-setting season we get now. It's strikeout-related, you know? It's like pitchers. Maybe we get rate-basis records, but hitter strikeouts. And if you look at the all-time single-season strikeouts leaders, leaderboard, it's all recent seasons. I mean, it's all, you know, 21st century and usually even more recent than that. So who even cares? but it's funny because I was thinking about, you know, in our lifetime, there was a real stigma associated with whiffing a lot.

And I remember 2002, well, a previous Chicago shortstop, although I guess by that point he was a Milwaukee shortstop, Jose Hernandez, he got benched at the end of 2002 so that he would not break Bobby Bonds' then record for single season strikeouts. Like it was really something to be avoided. And now no one cares. And in retrospect, it was sort of silly because Jose Hernandez was a good hitter that year. He actually had his, it was a career year for him. He was like a four and a half win player that year when he was in danger of setting the strikeout records. And they sat him so that he wouldn't do it. And now who cares?

You have another Chicago shortstop who had a decent offensive season. And, you know, there's just much less of a stigma associated with that now. I mean, Montgomery was not nearly as good as he was last year. and he really, he swooned. He still had pop. He hit 31 dingers. But all those strikeouts in a sub 200 batting average and a sub 300 on base percentage, not ideal, obviously, you know, would be nice to make a bit more contact and get on base a bit

more. But still, you know, they didn't bench him so that. And they couldn't, of course, because the White Sox actually had to win, you know, they had stakes there at the end of the season. So, yeah. All right. Well, let's do our little playoff preview here. By the way, Pete Alonzo became.

the first ever player to win the RBI title in both leagues. Speaking of distinctions that no one really cares about anymore, RBI, this is a good one, but not as much cachet associated with that. But that really surprised me that, I mean, we've had, you know, an MVP winner in both leagues. We've never had an RBI title winner in both leagues. That's really wild. Yeah. So you think by now.

You would think. I guess technically Nap Lajewa did it because he led the NL in RBI in 1898. before the AL existed, and then he led the AL in RBI a couple times in the 1900s. But RBI didn't become an official stat until 1920. So if you exclude him on those grounds or I guess on the grounds that the first time he led the league in RBI, it was not yet the modern era. Not that he knew that. It was modern to him. But with that caveat, Pete stands alone.

But he did not quite drive in enough runs for the Orioles to make the playoffs. So we will not be discussing Baltimore for the rest of. this episode. So the way we are going to do this is a little draft. It's sort of a half draft, half ranking. It's a rafed. I don't know. But it'll be a way to sort of, you know, preview the units, the components of teams that we will be talking about all postseason long. Because, you know, if we did dedicated wildcard series previews, gosh, they'd be over before people heard them in some cases. This should have a slightly longer shelf life. So the conceit is we have separated the playoff teams into their components, into their units, and we have divided them into offense, defense,

or specifically fielding, starting rotations, starting pitching, and bullpens, relief pitching. So four units for each of the 12 playoff teams, 48 total things that we are drafting here. And we have ranked them. We have come up with a personal ranking, each of us, and then we will draft them. And, you know, I mean, we only have so much time. So you could have gone even deeper. We could have separated out base running. We could have done managers.

But I don't even have that strong a sense of which managers are better, less bad than others. I guess if there's any time when a manager's tactical acumen matters, it's October or late September here. But it's hard for me even to say. But yeah, you know, we can kind of fold that in here as we talk. But that's the gimmick. So I don't have any other guidelines beyond that. We can just get to drafting. And I do not particularly care who goes first.

So you are welcome to lead off if you want. And we'll just see how we. rank these things. The way I was thinking of it was kind of just like relative strength. I mean, I guess you could make a case that say offense is just more important than defense period. And so, you know, or whatever, like maybe starting pitching is more important than relief pitching, although I guess that's debatable in the playoffs. But, you know, you could you could take all the best offenses before you take the best defenses or something. I was kind of thinking of it in a relative normalized sense. Like if you had a number one defense, then I would sort of rank it similarly to

my number one offense, even if I'd rather have the offense than the defense. But, you know, we can just take this however we want. It doesn't particularly matter. So you have a number one. You have a unit that you take above all others. Yeah, I'm taking the Cubs offense. Yeah, Cubs offense is strong. I'm starting with the Cubs offense. And like I, you know, one way I thought about this was to look at not only the full season numbers for each of these units. So I looked at like WRC plus for offense, FRV for fielding, FIPP for the pitching. I appreciate the imprecision of that. And obviously that's going to interact with FRV and what have you.

But I looked at these stats and I looked at them on a full season basis. And I also looked at them on a second half only basis, which is an imprecise measure, right? because, you know, guys could have gotten hurt yesterday. Louisa Rice got hurt over the weekend, right? But to give a sense of, like, is this unit sort of swooning or on the ascent in some appreciable way? And I will just say the following, which is, boy, that Cubs offense has been good the entire year, you know. And a lot of that is PCA, but Bregman has been on this heater. He homered twice in his return from Busted Face, which I believe is the medical term for

Two homers and a double. I guess he's okay. Two homers and a double. And, you know, they are not the only good offense either on a full season basis or in the second half. But I think like the constancy of their production and the degree of distance from some of the other teams, not again, all of them, but some of the others is appreciable enough to make them a worthy first overall pick. And that's the most we'll say about any way I picks, the rest of this exercise. Yeah, that's a good pick. They've, yeah, they've gotten better as the season has gone on, if anything.

And they're not a lot of strong. offenses in these playoffs, as we'll become clear as we proceed in this draft. I mean, just the best hitting teams this year were not as good as the best hitting teams in recent seasons. And I guess the worst weren't quite as bad as the worst, either in keeping with our everything was somewhere in the middle. But yeah, not a lot of offensive powerhouses in this playoff field. And also as Joshean noted, it seems like a lot of the best hitters are not on playoff teams. And a lot of the best pitchers are, but yeah, a lot of the big hairy monsters when it comes to hitters are either not in the playoffs or their status is somewhat in doubt. They're just coming back from injury or they recently returned from injury.

Okay, maybe Bregman is fine, but what about Aaron Judge? He's taking BP as we speak, but will he be his usual excellent self? Will Shohayotani? Will Wilson Contreras, right? So a lot of question marks there. All right, well, not to be denied, my piece of PCA then, I will take the Cubs defense because I think the Cubs. because I think the Cubs defense is relatively speaking as good as if not better than the Cubs offense. And it doesn't even matter which defensive stat you look at, FRV, DRS, a sizable lead in both categories.

Yeah. So, so yeah, there we go. I mean, now when it comes to Cubs pitching, I think the Cubs will not be mentioned for a while in this draft. So that's a different story. But position player-wise, super strong on both sides of the ball. So yeah, give me, give me Cubs defense. We'll split the Cubs here. Yeah.

Okay. Well, with that sort of in mind, I'm going to, I'm going to take a go-wide approach. And I'm going to take, I'm taking the Dodgers starting pitching. Oh, okay. I'm taking the, do I want to do that? Does that sound right? You just did. Classic, classic Meg draft, feeling unsure about it, even though she just did it.

Yeah. I'm doing that. just the thing, even though it is not as healthy a unit as it once was, several of their guys are healthy and good, but you don't need all your starters in the postseason there, did it? I will take the division rival Padres bullpen. And I thought about taking some starting units over this, but bullpens in October, just those fire breathing back of the bullpen, ladenning arms, the Padres have a few of them. And obviously they have to get a lead in order for that to matter.

But in isolation, yeah, Mason Miller, Adrian Morihone, Bradgely Rodriguez, a name that just brings me so much joy. So, bradjily. It just sounds like, did you misspell Bradley? No, it's just Bradgley. It's just, it seems like a hybrid of multiple other names that it could possibly be. But that's just a great flame throwing, just 7, 8, 9, right, left, right? I mean, you got Yuki Matsui in the mix. You got Jason Adam.

Like, it's deep. And they have at least a few guys that some other bullpens that are decent might not have a single reliever I would take over, I don't know, the Padres top three or something. So they paid a high price to assemble that bullpen in some cases, but boy, has it delivered? And you always think like, bullpen's unreliable. Who could project bullpens? But they just went and got Mason Miller and they got all these other excellent laid-in arms. And it turned out that no, that's just the best bullpen. in baseball. That's just, that's nasty. If they can get a lead, you do not want to be facing that

bullpen. And they can pitch a somewhat higher percentage of innings than they do during the regular season, what with off days and pushing people beyond an inning because it's October. Yeah. Well, I'm going to stick with that same spirit and I'm going to take the Red Sox bullpen, which is also a very stout unit. To your point, you need, you need relievers, you know. They also still have some starting depth, so you might see some of their less desirable starter shift to bullpen too. So that is, that's always a funny thing with these in the playoffs. It's like which part of the rotation am I actually taking? Yes.

And what part of the bullpen am I actually taking? But I think the group they have is very strong. And I'm enthusiastic about it, even if I wish some of its members were, you know, Less questionable as human beings. So, yeah, Boston Relievers, come on down. Yeah, I'll be curious to see if Garrett Crochet does come on down. He's TBD as we record for the Wild Card roster. But that would be a potentially impactful edition, depending on how he's doing.

All right, I want a starting staff here. And I'm kind of torn because there are a few really good ones still left on the border, at least a couple. Well, boy. Going by positional scarcity, I think it was wise to take cubs. offense number one. When it comes to starters, there are still a few strong teams, even with Dodgers off the board.

But I think I'm going to go Phillies. I'm going to go Phillies rotation. And obviously, you know, we're not just taking one of each. So we'll be doubling and tripling down and more. But yeah, Phillies starting pitching, it's a little weaker because of Lusardo's status being in doubt. He came back to pitch and relief. And he's going to be serving as the opener in game one of the wild card series with

Andrew Painter kind of as the piggyback bulk guy. But I think even with now Wheeler obviously, you know, he had to start on Sunday and he was good. And so maybe that means short rest if he has to go in Wild Card Series. But I think give me Christopher Sanchez plus Wheeler plus Painter plus Lozardo as some kind of combo there, right? And hopefully you will not have to be starting Erin Nola on short rest as they did on Saturday. But yeah, just the three to four guys they've got there.

I think that's pretty darn solid. I'm going to take the Yankees rotation. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm going to take the Yankees rotation. Again, like, would you be enthusiastic about Carlos Rodon starting a playoff game? No, but guess what? He's not going to, so it doesn't matter. Give me Cam Schlittler.

Give me Max Fried. Give me Garrett Cole. You know, give me those guys. Yeah. Yeah. In a best of three to go Schletter freed, Cole. That's pretty darn. Yeah, who even needs a Will Warren or, you know, it's just, they can be depth, they can be length.

So, yeah, that's a good group. All right. I'm going to go with Dodgers offense. Yeah. And, you know, there's some more questions about this than there have been in the past. But Shohay's back. He has looked more or less healthy swing-wise. So we'll see.

Mookie has been hitting really well of late. He's been looking like the Mookie of old or of. young. And so that's encouraging. I don't think it's quite as deep a lineup as it has been in some years. But I do think that it's still got to be, if not the strongest group. I mean, it's right up there. And as we said, it's a kind of lackluster field offensively. So Dodgers bats. I like it. That's a good choice. I support you in your efforts. I'm going to take the Padres defensive unit feels where to say soft football. But I, um, I like it. I'm taking the Padres defense because, well, you know, it's probably, it's not that it doesn't matter in the playoffs.

Like, it can end up being the thing that matters. I would say that if we are waiting these, though, in terms of the aspect of the game, most likely to, like, turn a series, probably not the defense. Having said, relative to the other thing, again, it can matter a lot. But relative to the real stratification in the playoff field, some very very. strong fielding teams and boy, some real stinkers. So, yeah, there are a lot of lopsided squads in these paths, which is not unique to this year, but it does. I've seen Neil Payne wrote about this.

I think Joshian wrote about this. Just a lot of teams, every team just about has some sort of Achilles heel or something that they're not just not great at, but they're actually bad at. I mean, we talked about the, the Cubs dichotomy where it's just. you know, incredible position players and then the pitching, oof. But, you know, that's the most pronounced an extreme split. But there are a lot of teams that they just have one really obvious weak point, just relatively few well-rounded, just all-around excellent teams, which I guess makes sense because if there

were more all-around excellent teams, then there would have been better teams during the regular season also. Yeah, you would think that. That is true. Okay. Okay. Your turn. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take, boy, I think I'll take the Brewers rotation.

Just I want, I want Ms. Just give me Ms. I guess. And I don't know if like playoff Ms is suddenly going to be going eight innings or anything. But he is just so unstoppable. Even in his playoff tune up on Sunday, he was pretty much untouchable. And he's not the only guy, obviously, if they still had Woodruff. healthy, that would, that would have helped for sure. But Logan Henderson is, is really solid, too. And then after that, it's, well, it's definitely a falloff. But, but Ms. Gimmie, give me, give me, Jake and Ms. Resdke. Yeah, this, I'm almost going like partly entertainment value here. I'm really thinking of it more in terms of competitive edge, but also just what am I most excited to see? And I'm excited to see playoff Mizrowski because he was, he was a bullpen guy last year. And now he's fully operational and they've taken it easy on him to try to cut down on the innings.

And this is why so that you can deploy him now. I'm taking the Red Sox rotation. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Good. Totally fun. I apologize in advance for how poor my accounting of this draft is because I am thinking

about 97,000 things at the same time and my brain doesn't have room for all of them. But yeah, like, Payton totally great. Sunny great, great. Rangers, bars, great. Like, they have other guys. They probably won't pitch very much. How much will we see Brian Babe? Doesn't matter.

He's going to be in the bullpen. Let's go. All right. Well, you know what? I'm going to give a vote of confidence to the Brewers' bats here, which has taken the Brewers' offense. And I know it's, you know, they've come up short in some previous post seasons. And that's been the bugaboo.

But I think it's a better group this year, even with a subpar captain. Christian Yelich, I think it's just this is a well-rounded unit and they have been a bit better as the season has gone on. And, you know, they're not quite as like blippin bloop view as you tend to think of the brewers being. They definitely, they are to some extent. Like they had the second fewest home runs of anyone. But, you know, they can, they do hit some extra base hits and they still steal lots of bases. and they, you know, they're not super put the ball in play. That's more of the raise area.

But they draw walks. I just think, you know, maybe they will actually come up big here in October. They were pretty good over the course of the regular season. And I don't really believe that they will be exposed this time around. So we'll see. We are both light on hitting. Oh, you just took the Brewer's offense. It doesn't matter because we're going to end up, well, I guess we could end up skewed.

where we end up, you know, defense-heavy or offensive-heavy, but we can't actually combine them. Well, right. Yeah, there is that we aren't, you know, putting together a weird super team. I'm going to take the Ray's offense. Sure, why not? This is mostly about just enjoying the living daylights out of junior Camerro because, boy, boy did that, you know, that's some good scouting right there is what that is. that's not all they have. It's the most exciting part of what they have to be clear. But it's not all they have. I can root for ground beef. I can move for Jonathan Oronda.

I can hope for Chandler Simpson to get on base and then be fast. So yeah. Yeah. Those are the big questions for me. I think can Brewers offense and Ray's offense to an extent translate? Will they show up in October? Can those teams make good? They've obviously never won world series. They're not the only ones. Lots of either long droughts or never won one in this playoff field, even without the Mariners. We do still have a bunch of extended droughts and the Padres and Cleveland, et cetera. But yeah, that raise, I don't know, like this is very much the model of the make tons of contact, relatively speaking. They had the best or lowest strikeout rate in baseball. And I just, I don't know, you know, it's kind of an anonymous squad, which is always the case with the raise because they're the rays and they play where they play.

They don't get as much promotion. And they churn. They churn a lot through their roster. And there's so much turnover that it's just hard to get a handle on who the rays are. But and I also, you know, they outplayed their pie thag and their bass runs and everything. So it's just been a mystery to me like, how good are the rays really? I don't know. They do have some real outs in that lineup toward the bottom.

You know, good glove guys. They're in there for a reason. But some sort of easy outs, relatively speaking. So I don't know. I just don't know. All right. well, I guess I'm, you know what, I'm just, there's a run on the brewers and I'm just going to, I think I'll continue that run and take the brewers bullpen. I'm just assembling the brewers basically here. That's, that's what I'm doing. So, you know, it's like not as scary individually, I guess those guys. There's no one you fear as much as you fear a Mason Miller or Yonderon or Kate Smith or someone. But collectively, quite a good group and maybe some guys who will, also get their wicks in as starters or in relief of the starters.

I mean, that's how relieving works, but, you know, kind of bullpen games. So kind of a deep group, Brewer's bullpen. I'm taking the, uh, the White Sox offense. There we go. Because I want to root for Maracami and for Vargas and, um, well, I guess for Colson Montgomery not to strike out, you know, like that adds a fun wrinkle to it. So there we go. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got your pop. Yeah, 330 Homer guys. Yeah, okay. And they have just, it's like the raise, I guess, really up there on base. And that's why they kind of took some people by surprise or beat the projections. But yeah, White Sox, they're fun offensively. Okay, I've got plenty of bullpens, but I'm going to go one more. I'm going to take the Dodgers bullpen, which we know will not include Blake Trinin. So that's a plus. And we'll see what happens with Edwin Diaz. But you've got good Tanner Scott back again. And Evan Phillips has been decent. And then just like a lot of fairly reliable, we'll see what Roki turns out to be.

You know, it's a lot of the same guys who were in the mix last year. And obviously, last year you had a lot of starters working in relief, which we didn't really establish, like, when starters. are in relief. Does that count as the bullpen? I mean, I think technically that kind of counts as the bullpen, right? So if they did what they did last year where, you know, last year they had a really bad bullpen. And so they were trying to paper over those cracks by just having the starters take as many innings as possible to the extent that they do that this year, then that counts for me also, I think. So, yeah, Dodgers bullpen because because then I get Yamamoto when he, you know, comes out on zero days rest. That counts for me.

I'm going to take the Guardian's bullpen Because like Kate Smith's really good You know and they will I imagine like shift some of their starters down that way Be creative I also like this is a place where you know You're joking about Trinan not being available And so the Dodgers bullpen being more attractive

Which has as much to do with Trinan and his Trinineness as like It being off the board for Dave to Yen use him is a good thing, right? Yeah. And if I trust anyone to, like, deploy a bullpen well and kind of wait through that, I just think Stephen Boat's a good manager and has a good tactical sense and really good, like, tactical integration with his front office. So, yeah, taking those guardians relievers.

Yeah, that's a good pick because, yeah, it pales in comparison to some past guardians' pens. Right. But it's still a good group. Yeah, still a pretty strong pen. Still a good group. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. It really is often about avoiding that relief landmine. I mean, it's good to have the good top end, but also the really, the person who maybe used to be good and still has that rep. And so you're worried that the manager is going to be too attached to them and use them in a high leverage spot where they shouldn't. Just avoiding that as good. Okay. I'm going to take the Padres offense. And, you know, if you look at the full season stats, it's not particularly impressive.

But if you look at it, say, post-all-star break. Very good. Yeah, really good. Very, very strong. And I buy it. I mean, yes, they had some sort of small sample flukes and pickups who panned out. But also, they just had good hitters who weren't hitting early on. And do we believe in second half Jackson, Meryl, Fernando Tati's Jr., Mani Machado?

Yeah, I do. So I think you look at how they have hit lately and the guys in that group. I think that might be second only to the Cubs or Dodgers. It's right up there. as one of the best hitting squads. And, you know, we're including base running for whatever it's worth in offense because we're not drafting base running separately. But, yeah, they have some hitters in that lineup.

Yep. Okay. I am going to take, well, let's stick with with hitters. I'm going to take the Astros offense. Mostly this is about Yordon. That group has been really actually, like on a full season basis, quite poor, despite Yordaun's efforts, not his fault to be. be clear, but despite Yordon's efforts, but has sort of been rounding into form lately. Now,

that lately is like very recently lately. They've been on sort of a homer spree in the last two weeks and from guys who have had pretty middling seasons. But, you know, you get to, you get to enjoy like Christian Walker on the upswing. And I'll never quit him. You know, I just will never quit that guy. And you have, he's like parades and, um, Even like Lucas Spence has been okay lately, Jeremy Pena. So I think that, you know, setting aside like the Altovae of it all, this is like a reasonable group as it is currently constituted and you have the upside of Yordon. They are, I think, a team that is like so well optimized for their home park that at least in that initial series boats well. Plus like, you know, I don't really believe in Chicago's pitching.

So I think at least for the first round it puts them in good space. in a good spot. I wouldn't be shocked if like that ends up being a very high scoring series just generally because while the, you know, the Astros are certainly better from a pitching standpoint now than they were at the beginning of the year, if only because guys have come back healthy. Like, this is not the rotation. I'm like spoiling the rotation pick, but there's a reason I'm not taking that now, even with some of their guys getting healthy and, you know, like Hunter Brown just being

legitimately very good in Lambert being this like exciting pickup and was Neski and all of that. like, yeah, that's the noise. I'm making noises. Yeah. I would expect it'll be a low-scoring postseason on the whole. So just to just to grab Yordon just because of the lack of the best bats and the lackluster hitting teams overall and how good the pitchers are. Yeah. And offense is always suppressed in the postseason because the defenses are good and the pitchers are good and they're throwing harder than ever.

And it's colder. And also it seems like the ball maybe has not been traveling and. carrying quite as well of laid. And as Josian noted, we always get upsets and postseason crapshoot, but if it's super low scoring, then maybe even more so because it could swing either way. So, yeah, just go get Yordon. Sure, there aren't there aren't any other Yordons out there, really, someone who strikes fear into your heart at the plate. Okay, I'm going to take the Ray's rotation, which characteristically, Rays is not really a big name group, but really solid. Drew Rasmussen, obviously is one of the most effective pitchers in baseball.

I always wonder, is the fact that he is not famous that, you know, no Normie would name him as one of the best starters in baseball? Is that because he's on the raise? Is that because he's Drew Rasmussen? Is it because of how the Rays use pitchers? I don't know, but you need a two-something ERA. You better go grab Drew Rasmussen because he's going to give you that. And then Ian Seymour has been solid.

Griffin Jack's very raised. Just let's take a reliever and put him in the rotation. and he'll just be fine. Yep. And Nick Martinez has been surprisingly effective. Okay, maybe he's not actually a 310 ERA guy, but decent and you don't even need five starters. And of course, they picked up Freddie Peralta. And I don't want to go too heavy on the, oh, the Rays fixed Freddie Peralta narrative.

Because I don't know that that's the case. If anything, he just went back to being the Freddie Peralta that he was year in and year out. And it's like he has a worse ex-fip with the raise than he'd. did with the Mets, if you want to read into this, you know, his expected ERA is roughly the same. So it's not really night and day. ERA-wise, it's kind of night and day. But they've made some changes with him. And I thought that was a decent pickup just because of his track record.

So, yeah, maybe it's not the same number one guy as some other teams have, but one to five, not that you even need five. That's a pretty good group. Okay. I like it. That's a good. That's a good. That's good justification. I am going to take the

I love how we're both like punting on defense the last the last 10 picks is just going to be us alternating defenses I'm going to take the Phillies bullpen I'm taking the Phillies bullpen Duran is still amazing he's still very good

he is like the kind of guy you want coming in with a game with a World Series game on the line of Rado's been fine they have a lot of good depth in that group I don't think they have like tremendous standouts beyond, you know, sort of their top line guys. I will say that Jonathan Bowlin has been like pretty impressive and some of their, you know, trade deadline acquisitions have been okay. And I would imagine that Andrew Painter is just going to pitch in the bullpen.

So like, it's, it's a good, reasonable group, you know? So there you go. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take, yeah, I'll take a defense. Why not? Let's mix things up.

I'll take the Boston defense. I'll take the Red Sox glove guys. I just enjoy that outfields very much. And I like watching them catch lots of five balls. And I think they've sort of solidified some other areas as well. And, you know, maybe defense doesn't matter as much when the pitchers are, this good in October and and you're striking out more guys. But, uh, yeah, Red Sox D. I, I like, uh, like their gloves. That Brewer's defense is less good than it feels to me. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. You think of Brewers as, oh, great defense. It's, it's not bad. Like, they are one of the teams that has a case as all around good team. So even their weakness is not really that weak, but yeah, it's not as much of a strength, I think, as it has been. Give me the Braves offense. Give me these braves hitters, you know? They got some good ones. They have some real stinkers, too, you know, but that's where we are at this stage. There aren't many offenses that do not have some stinkers.

We've, but I will take, you know, when you can go Baldwin, Ocuna, Olson Harris, that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good quartet up top. Dubon has versatility and he's like a pretty good hitter for the, the role that he's filling, the less said about whatever the hell is going on with Austin Riley, the better. That's pretty rough. And, you know, like the Hassan Kim signing is just a mess right now. I mean, even Dominic Smith can run into one a little bit of one a minute. So, yeah, I'm taking them. Okay.

Great. Okay. All right. Well, I'll take another defense. Why not? I will take the Braves defense since you just took the Braves hitters. I'll take the other side of the coin. Yeah.

And you'd hope, right, that if there were some weak bats in the mix, that they're in there for a reason, which is that they can save you some runs on the other side of the ball. And that applies to some of those braves. So, yeah, Atlanta gloves. Give me. Okay. Well, gosh, now I better take some defenders, shouldn't I? Shouldn't I have? Shouldn't I mean, I'll take the, I don't know what I'm doing, Ben, in this draft.

I'm taking, I'm taking the guardians defense. Yeah. Okay. Patrick Bailey and Jose Ramirez. I'll say, you know, Jose, he's kind of rounded into some form here. They're sneaky. This would be the time. Yeah.

This is a sneaky, dangerous club in a, in a weak field, I think. I think there's sneaky dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, you know what? I'm going to take some guardians. I'm going to give the guardians some love to it. I think I'll take the guardians.

Gosh, I'm almost torn between. I think I'll take guardians starters. I guess I'll take guardians. starters. Yes. Sorry. They're ridders instead. I was torn between those two, honestly, which, you know, the Guardians, maybe they're

worse in some respects, relievers than they have been before. But they're also better in some respects. But yeah, I'm going to take Parker Messick, my man. So Guardians, starters, I mean, they always somehow find pitching. It's just, you know, you always think, where will the pitching be with the Guardians? And then they find some. So Gavin Williams and Parker Messick and Bybee and Foster Griffin and Cantillo, those are the starters. I've named them all.

So, you know, there's some, that's like good depth and pretty decent top end arms as well. So Guardians starting pitching, often a strength. But this year, no exception. I'm going to take the Braves starters, which I don't feel good about what I'm doing. I'm going to do it anyway, even though it's a bad pick. because of Chris Sale. Okay, great. It is a very cobbled together sort of group.

Now isn't it? Oh, yeah. Now isn't it? But I'm doing it because of Chris Sale. So there you go. Yeah. Fully rested and fully operational Chris Sale. Yes, one would hope because, yeah, by the time the postseason has rolled around in some years,

he hasn't been available or he's looked kind of gassed. But now hopefully, hopefully he's coming into this still feeling fairly strong. So that should be a sight to see. Okay, I'll take the Ray's defense. Now, the Ray's defense, it's kind of a tale of two defenses, really, because you've got good outfield gloves and then the infields leave something to be desired. But when Mike Petriello was on the podcast in your absence,

he pointed out that Junior Camerro seemed to have rounded into form defensively, that he was holding his own after some early season struggles. So that really helps erase a race. a weak spot and then Taylor Walls, it kind of depends on which defensive system you're believing, but clearly the rays believe in the glove because you can't really believe in the bat. So that plus the outfield and the amount of ground they covered, I think that's one of the stronger defenses. Again, I don't know that there's a true standout.

I mean, I took Cubs off the board early, but it's not like 2016 Cubs level defense. And so I think the rays are the best of what remains. This is bad now. Now we're getting into stuff that's less good. That's how the drafts and rankings work. Yeah. I'm betting on Schwabes and to a lesser extent, Bryce Harper. I'm going to take the Phillies hitters as my last group.

Just because like the judge of it all, I don't know, man. I just don't know. So you can decide how you want to order. This is like closing out a category is sort of a, because now you can just wait. weight on those, you know? Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I have not even been thinking of this in terms of each of us getting six.

I was just thinking. You have to take six. Yeah. So I'm, I don't even, I thought we were just going to take, I don't know. I just thought we were going to just take just draft until we were at the bottom. But so I don't actually know where I am in terms of what I need. But did that, well, you should look at the little sheet. I made the little sheet for you.

You should look at the little sheet. You know, that one. A sheet. Are you in there? Okay. Let me look at the sheet. Shall we do a quick recounting of what we each need to, because our listeners are like, we don't know what the hell you guys are doing. But guess what?

Neither do we. So, what works out? I have closed out hitters. So no more hitters for Meg. Okay. I have two defenses. Ben has four. I have one, two, three, four rotations.

Ben has one, two, three, four rotations. And then we each have three bullpents. Okay, great. Great. Okay, then. So I have plenty of defense. I need to get a little bit of offense. Let's see.

I'm going to go with, oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. It's a slim pickings at this point. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to take the Yankees offense.

Whatever. I'll take the plunge. I was just watching Aaron Judge take batting practice, and he was able to. swing. Will he be able to swing in games? Will he be active? I don't know as I record this. And in his absence, it has not been a great offense. Yeah. So I, I worry. But at least you've got a few guys. You've got, you've got, you've got Rice, you've got Bellinger, Jazz is back. You've got some good, at least platoon bats in the mix. And there's upside here because if Judge does return and if he actually

can hit, then that gives me one of the best hitters in the playoff field. So. So yeah, they aren't exactly the bombers, but I'll take them. I guess that I will take the Brewers defense. You didn't take the Brewers defense yet, right? I did not take the Brewers defense. All yours. Yeah. Brewers are off the board now.

I think we have completed our picks of Brewers. I guess I should have one unit from the best team in baseball on my stupid club. That isn't real. My stupid club of, we're like building like, we're like building like, weird farm systems kind of, you know? Sort of. Like this is more than one baseball team. Yeah, it's like a playoff fantasy draft if we could just smush together a bunch of teams.

Okay. Well, I need, I need bullpens, I guess. So I suppose, yeah, I'll take the White Sox bullpen. Maybe the best standing. I don't know. Yeah, it's a good unit. It's a, it's a less famous unit than I think any of the others. but that doesn't mean that it's a bad unit.

I think you got to be, you should be reasonably happy with that. Like Grant Taylor is good and Hudson is good. They have good depth in that bullpen. Yeah. So, you know, they got Hagen. I love saying Hagen. Jordan Hicks, Sean Newcomb, Brazban.

Yeah, there's a lot of decent. It's not like, yeah, the top end, you're not as scared of them if they've got to get one inning from one guy. But if they have to get several inings from several guys, then they're in decent shape. And it does look like game one of that series will be like dueling bullpen days, which is I'm sure the league is thrilled that that is the reality we find ourselves in. I guess I'm going to so confused by this Tampa team, man.

I don't understand them. It's really hard to appraise the race. I don't know that I get that Tampa team. very much. I don't think I want their bullpen though. Yeah. You usually think of the raised bullpen as being the strength, but not so much this year. It feels counterintuitive to be unenthused about their their bullpen group, but I think I think I am just less enthused. I guess I'm going to take the Yankees bullpen since I need bullpens, you know, speaking of a unit that's like less fearsome than you necessarily are primed to think of them on.

But like, head, headrick is, I like, hedrick. Bedner's fine, you know, it's, it, they don't have, um, they don't have a guy where you look at it and go, excuse my swear, you can bleep this, like, yeah, that's a, like, that's a, like, that's a fuck you guy at the back of their bullpen. Bednar's had a fine season, to be clear, um, but it's not like dominant in any sort of appreciable way. So I don't know. It's like, okay, sure.

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. A load bearing Paul Blackburn. It's not what I expected. You know, they have a Ryan Yarborough, Yarborough remaining a name that sounds like jeez. I like jeez, you know.

Yeah. They always, they assemble a decent bullpen. This has not been their strongest year when it comes up, when it comes to just finding scrounging guys. But yeah, it's not bad. All right. Well, I'll take a bullpen too while we're doing a run on bullpens. and I'll take the Braves bullpen. So you got the Braves starters.

I'll take the Braves bullpen. Primarily for the couple of guys in the back there, the always solid Rice-Eleglaclius. And then Dider Fuentes, who is really one of the best relievers probably in the playoff field. I always want to say DityA and have to remind myself that it's not that. But, yeah, I mean, 21-year-old flamethrower who just made a major impact.

this year and he's he's tough to hit so even just those guys eight nine that's yeah i wouldn't want to wouldn't want to face them and and others in the mix too you know robert swarres is out there and dylan lee i mean that's a good group you know what i'm pretty happy that uh there you go fell to me boy i guess uh i already talked about how i don't like them which is such a funny thing to then turn around and maybe take them. No, I'm going to take the, God, I hate all these rotations so much. They're so gross.

I mean, that's not fair. They're fine, but they're gross. There's just like a lot of like Robbie Ray and Nick Pavetta here. Yeah, yeah. This is one of those drafts where the middle of the draft is probably the worst from the entertainment value standpoint because we take the elite units first and then it's just generic and kind of forgettable and fine. And you don't want to be at the end of the draft when we're taking the dregs.

And it's like, well, these are the real playoff weak points. These are the true vulnerabilities. And we're almost at that point now. Right. We are almost at that point. Man, the Cubs, that pitching is just going to be their downfall. I think you're like, this draft won't take very long. And I'm like, yes, it will.

Why did you think it wouldn't take very long? Of course it was going to take a long time. Like, you're, how do you're gourd? God, dang it. I don't like any of this. I guess, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the Astros rotation. I'm not happy about it.

But I think that of all of the remaining rotations, they have, I mean, they have Hunter Brown. And he is the single, like, pitcher of all of these, like, who belongs to any of these staffs, who I like to watch the most. Is that a reason to do it? Sure. Sure. It's as good a reason as any. I mean, it's like it's, it's, it's really shocking.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to take Dodgers defense. Okay. Because I think the Dodgers are spectacular defensively, but I think they're average or better. And at this point in the draft, getting average or better is pretty good. So, yeah, I don't think it's a weakness for them. There might be a couple of positional weaknesses.

among them. But, you know, you have Andy Pahas out there. You have Mookie Betts who really just has been a solidly above average shortstop incredibly. And yeah, on the whole, I think it's fairly strong. All right, Dodgers defense. Dodgers defense, great. I am going to, I guess I'm going to take the White Sox defense because I think it's the best remaining group. I don't feel awesome about it. it if we're being totally candid, but again, that's kind of where we are in the draft. And the degree to which some of the remaining groups are legit terrible, we're just at the race to the bottom to figure out who's taking that Philly's defense, really. And it's not even entirely Tray Turner, although a lot of Tray Turner. Okay. Yeah.

Great. Okay. Well, I suppose I'll take the Yankees defense, which is also fine. I think it's a middle of the pack defense. I think it's a little bit above average, and so it's fine. And, yeah, we don't exactly know how it's going to shake out, and we'll judge be active, and we'll judge be playing right field, and then you got Grisham coming back and just, where to all those dominoes fall?

I don't know. That affects things, obviously. But however you slice it, I think it's a decent defense. Great. Well, then I'm going to take the Astros defense because I'm not getting stuck with Tray Turner. That's a you problem officially. Okay. Well, I will take, oh boy.

So I've got one more defense to play with. I have one more bullpen to play with. I guess I'll take the Astros bullpen. Sure. Yeah, Josh Hader. Yeah, Josh Hader's a bullpen monster, you know? So of all the bullpens that are remaining at this point, is there any individual pitcher as imposing as Josh Hader? Probably not.

Not a little bit. And Hader obviously sometimes has issues when it comes to non-rigid roles. And, you know, he's a little more flexible when it comes to October. But is he actually good? Not always. But, yeah. And, you know, Abraeu, this has not been a great year for Abraeu, but he has a track record of being effective. They also have A.J. Blubah.

If they need. Blubah. Fun name and he almost made it to 100 innings. No reliever has made it to 100 innings in a season since Scott Proctor turned his elbow to mush 20 years ago, or at least Joe Tori did that to him. Literally his UCL when he eventually had surgery was described as mush. But he is the last reliever, I believe, to have thrown 100 innings in a season. And AJ came close. He ended up at 96.

And so they've got length and they've got at least one really imposing back of the bowl. pen guy. So that's it for me for relievers, I think. Yeah, it is, which means that I did get stuck with that Cubs fucking bullpen. Sorry. That's okay. I mean, what else was there

to do? Which means that I should take the I'm going to take the White Sox starters, which means you're stuck with the Cubs and Padres.

I think the draft we've got to that point in solitaire where like everything starts to just bounce because yeah we're officially at the point where we each have like each category we know what we need right yeah pretty much it makes sense yeah so we'll be fast draft so congratulations ben you're the proud owner of the philly's defense have fun with that you also get the guardians hitters and the red sox hitters yeah and you know i don't feel bad about that actually i think that we're conditioned to think that we're conditioned to Cleveland offense is weak, and it's not strong, but it's not bad in the way that the Guardian's bullpen is not as good as it was before, but it's still pretty decent.

The Guardian's offense is not good, but it's stronger than it was, and it's a little bit deeper, and they picked up some guys, and you mentioned Bailey. Austin Hedges had a 100 WRC plus this year. How about that? His first ever time being a league average hitter. And weirdly, it came with his first ever time, at least in a non-small sample season, being a below-average framer. So it's almost like you can only have one. You can have great framing, no-hitting hedges, or you can have pretty good average hitting hedges and not so great framing.

But yeah, you know, that helps a little bit. And as you said, if Ramirez can be even a little bit better than he was this season, it's almost miraculous that the Guardians managed to win the division with Jose Ramirez having a 92 W. C Plus and missing time. But yeah, if maybe the after effects of the hamate and everything, if he could be good Jose in October, then suddenly that offense is looking pretty solid. And, you know, like Red Sox too, they were better later in the season and they got some guys back. And so, yeah, I'm feeling actually pretty good about getting Red Sox and Guardians bats this late in the draft. Yes. Okay.

And then Philly's defense I was saddled with as you. you said also. Yep. And what else was remaining? So you got you got Cubs, relievers and starters, I guess. You get the double whammy.

Yeah. No, you have their starters. Oh, do I have their starters? Oh, well. One, two, three.

I'd rather have their starters than their relievers. So I've. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean,

I kind of moved that up. You get stuck with Philly's bats too. I picked the Phillies bats. Oh, you've picked it. You did that on purpose. I did that on purpose. Well,

they've got a couple good ones. in there, but that's about it. It's a bad group overall, and they didn't score for like 20 innings and almost didn't go to the postseason at all and got bounced by the Diamondbacks who sure looked like they deserved it more at the end. But here's something I know. We don't know what weird stuff Bryce Harper is putting in his body right now. And maybe some of it will work, you know, maybe I need to open my mind.

No, I'm kidding. I hope he discovers pasteurization. They should give him only pasteurized milk and then tell him if they win the world's year. It's like, hey, buddy, we're pretty sure it's because of the milk, you know? So I think you just got to keep rolling with that. Whatever kind of milk he's been drinking. He has not been the problem with that offense.

He's not been the problem. It's Harper and Schwerber and everyone else. And even to undermine my own pick, like Schwerber in the second half, it's been homer or bust. But, and you know, arises hurt and that's not good. And Marsh has been. admired and, you know, a protracted nightmare. And every person I know who cares about the Phillies even a little bit wants Alec

Bone to be jettisoned into space. But, you know, it could be fine. They can hit home runs in it's October. And we know that offenses they can do that tend to do better on average. So we'll just see how it goes. We're going long and so we should go. I don't know that we previewed the wild card to anyone's satisfaction, mostly because we were confounded by our own draft format,

or at least I was speaking for myself. You were like, it won't take luck. It's very straightforward. And then I was like, I don't know what's happening here. But also, I am very excited just from a storyline perspective for Red Sox, Yankees, because you're right, the rivalry of it all. Having an all-A-le-side to the wild card bracket over there, super fun. I'm stoked for these White Sox.

They're playing with House Money, which, you're right? You know, a sports talk radio person might tell you, that's going to help them play loose, you know, because they don't, what do they have to lose? Nothing. They've already accomplished things ahead of schedule. Going to play loose. Can I play loose ball. If I'm bandwagoning anyone, I'm kind of bandwagging the brewers because it just feels like they deserve it. I mean, both in a long-term cosmic sense, they've just never won a World Series. But also they're on this great run that is kind of overshadowed by the Dodgers run, which is even better. and even longer, but the brewers have done it with a greater degree of difficulty, obviously, and they've just kind of put on a clinic when it comes to team building. And they've got some star power this year. It's not just like, who are these brewers? How are they good?

No, like, look at these guys. They have some of the best players in baseball and some of the most fun to watch. So they feel like the best team and also they're due and overdue. And so, yeah, I would like to see the brewers have a deep, successful run here. Padres, you know, same boat, obviously, with not ever having won a world series and having that very extended drought. And also just they have a lot of star power. And I enjoy a lot of their players. And they went for it.

And they were aggressive. And they did their typical preller thing. And they've really, they finished strong. Every other team is just like shuffling to the finish line. And the Padres were just pulling out all the stops, which doesn't mean they're going to play well. The way you end the season doesn't seem to have much bearing on how you play in the postseason. but they, I think, are peak Padres these days. So, yeah, looking forward to Brewers and Padres, especially.

Obviously, Brewers get it by. But Padres and Ray is to an extent also, but also really White Sox. You know, it hasn't been as long since they won one. But it feels like a long time since 2005. And they are an incredible story to have gone from one of the worst teams of all time to in the playoffs, even if they just missed out on winning the central. in just a couple of years. So they should be celebrated and they have a lot of really fun, watchable players as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm always going to say, go Guardians until they finally win one because 1948 is too long. And also, this feels like a better Guardians team than some of the other guardians teams. It's not a powerhouse, but it doesn't feel like, oh, AL Central, if anything, because the AL West just sort of stole the AL Central's anti-Th Thunder, whatever the the opposite of that would be. So, yeah, I'm psyched. It's, it's, you know, as much as any year anyone can win.

And let's hope we get some new blood and some new storylines and some unexpected stars. And we'll be back midweek to just try to keep up with the whirlwind of wildcard action. All right, a couple quick closing notes. We talked recently about the fact that Mets reliever Jeffrey Jan's strikeout celebration has evolved and become a bit more muted. He's no longer catching quite as much air. And we wondered whether that had been a team mandate or whether he had come to that decision himself. Well, Mets manager, Andy Green, was asked about that on Friday. And here's what he said.

You get worried when he jumps that he's going to hurt his ACL or something? I haven't had that fear. I've had the fear that the ground ball rolls underneath of him, and we've talked about that. He's gone a little bit more to the electric slide lately. That was his own doing. Like, we didn't tell him to start sliding instead of jumping. We told him don't jump until the play is over. It doesn't feel like a high bar to clear, so to speak.

But, you know, I think this maybe is more controllable for him. So he might have just arrived there. So I hope he punches enough guys that we get to see if he's doing both. You know, his own choreography. Yeah, we're not. I certainly have no part doing that. Of course, they want Jan punching people out in a baseball context, but presumably not just punching people.

Anyway, nice to know that this appears to have been a mutual decision or even a Jan instigated change. Also, happy trails to Tyler Wade, Aaron Judge's bestie. He has officially announced his retirement. After not being in the big leagues in 2026, I'm sure his legacy will live on, and people will continue to confuse Tyler's and Taylors and Wades and Wards.

Mariners fans might have wished that Taylor Ward had retired before he joined the Mariners this year. Maybe this will mean fewer mistaken Tyler Wade mentions. And finally, if you've been watching Lanterns on HBO on Sunday nights, the DC Green Lantern show. Well, it became a baseball show. It had been a football show from the start, but in episode seven, this week's episode, there was a big baseball component. In fact, the episode opened and closed on a baseball. I won't give away the context, and I don't have that many notes to offer anyway about the way baseball was implemented. But it was nice to see. Suffice it to say that the young Hal Jordan had a little Max Scherzer in him. It's a fun show. A lot of people are watching and enjoying it. Got a good dose of baseball. And it was in a flashback. I often find. that baseball in movies and shows is invoked to conjure an earlier time.

Not that it doesn't still show up in plenty of present-day context, too. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks. As have the following five listeners, Doug Colchard, Anthony Craftnick, Kenneth Mechek, Jake Diana, and Halle Sebastian. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include monthly bonus episodes.

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Send your questions, comments, intro, or outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash. Effectively Wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes in the podcast posts at Fangraphs or Patreon or the episode description in your podcast app. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistants. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week.

Talk to you then. Baseball is a simulation. It's all just one big math equation. You're all about these stats we've compiled because you listen to effectively wild. With Ben Lindberg and McRolle, come for the ball, binter's free.

Baseball is a simulation. It's all just one big conversation.