Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 314: Comparing Perceptions of World Series Game One

Episode Date: October 24, 2013

Ben and Sam compare notes from Game One of the World Series, discussing Adam Wainwright’s performance, Dana DeMuth’s perplexing call, the Cardinals’ good and bad defensive plays, and more.

Something came over me on my drive home. I'm barely awake. Podcast will pep you up. Good morning and welcome to episode 314 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. Ben, how are you? I had a better day than the Cardinals. Because you didn't lose a World Series game. No, I did actually commit a few errors along the way. You didn't play in a World Series game though. I didn't. That's true. Good point. All things considered, I would say your day sucked compared to the Cardinals.

Really, basically a tragically bad day on your end. That's a valid way to look at it. So I don't know what you want to talk about with game one, but I have an idea, which we haven't talked about. But I watched the game. You watched the game as well? I watched the game with no sound. I was in a room with no sound. So I watched all the TV coverage of it I assume you heard words being said as well There were words going into my ears, I guess I don't know that I was paying that close attention

Maybe I was Okay, I'm just curious to discover Whether our perceptions of the game um differ at all given that we watch it in slightly slightly different ways uh so i just thought maybe we could go over a few of the key moments of the game sure and and see what your impressions were and see what my impressions were and see if they diverge at all they probably won't okay you and i tend to agree on those things. Yes, it's a problem. I guess.

I don't know. We don't get complaints. Yeah. There are no iTunes reviews so far as I can tell saying, these guys agree too much. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. So let's just do a few and then we'll move on with our lives. So Adam Wainwright uh had like

basically maybe i don't know maybe his worst game of the year by by one way of looking at it uh at least in in length um in duration um did adam wainwright look good to you bad to you or somewhere in between? It sort of reminded me a little bit of the Clayton Kershaw start in game six of the NLCS where I didn't think he looked great. I didn't think he looked super sharp or anything, but I didn't think he was a complete mess. It was kind of one of those cases where it's hard to separate what he did from what the team did behind him and also what he did with the pop-up, which you can blame him for. But just the mistakes that were made defensively and then sort of some stuff that like almost snowballed because of the compounded itself i i don't know i

mean he i wasn't impressed i wasn't appalled by his actual pitching yeah the thing that was going through my head was actually your write-up of the kershaw start of how how close it how close it could have been to being a good outing um i mean as far as i could tell he basically he gave up you know two or three hard hit balls um the sack fly was hard hit and you could argue you could very easily argue that he got lucky that that could have you know a few inches away from being you know a home run a grand slam and so you know he he could have been much worse but that was a hard hit ball napoli's uh napoli's double was a hard hithit ball, and Pedroia's single, I guess, was hard-hit. But you could name five balls where runners reached that were no fault of his own

and if not should have been played, definitely could have been played and probably should have been played. The pop-up that he didn't catch should have been played. The two Cosma airs should have been played. The grounder just past freeze should have been played the pop-up that he didn't catch should have been played uh the the cause of the two cosmo airs should have been played the grounder just passed freeze should have been yeah played or could have been played and then yeah like you said the uh david ross's single could have been could have been played uh so uh but on the other hand he was uh you know he was not getting ahead in counts he was having to work hard um he you know didn't

seem to have like pristine control or command uh it wasn't a particularly impressive outing yeah when we talked with zachary about whether the whether boston's patient approach would play right into the cardinal's hands because their their command and control is so great that boston would just you know take strike one, take strike two. They'd be behind in the count all the time. That didn't really happen. Yeah, it's the opposite. And that's one of the things that I think – I don't know that people really –

I might be wrong about this, but I don't think people appreciate that guys who throw a lot of strikes don't actually throw a lot of pitches in the strike zone usually. Like most pitchers don't throw a lot of pitches in the strike zone. Like a lot of pitches aren't in the strike zone usually like most pitchers don't throw a lot of pitches in the strike zone like a lot of pitches aren't in the strike zone and strike throwers oftentimes they throw more in the zone than most pitchers but oftentimes they get strikes because they're getting you to chase they're they're getting a lot of swings and um i don't know what wayne wright's zone rate is um but he throws a lot of pitches outside the strike zone, and he does rely on hitters to chase a little, to expand just a little.

And so you could just as easily probably say that the Cardinals' approach gets neutralized somewhat by an extremely patient team, and maybe that's what happened today. The Red Sox were extremely uh extremely choosy and they they did a great job yeah you could say that um you uh alluded to the well we both alluded we both didn't allude we referred specifically to the pop-up in front of wayne right what was the deal with that is i i just saw a ball land in front of them and then i saw a replay of a ball landing in front of him and then i saw saw a replay of a ball landing in front of him, and then I saw one more replay of the ball landing in front of him.

Was there any insight into why that ball landed in front of him? No, not really. Not on the broadcast. I'm sure someone must have asked him about it after the game. I haven't seen a quote. No, it was kind of strange because it was one of those rare cases where it is the pitcher's ball pretty, pretty conclusively. Like it didn't really hang up long enough for,

for anyone to get there. It would have been a tough play for Molina. And it seemed like he was calling for it or he put his arms out as if he was signaling that he was going to catch it or attempt to catch it. And then he just didn't. So, no, I don't know any more than you did not hearing the broadcast on that play. That was kind of a weird one. Is it conceivable that he was waving everybody away so Molina could catch it? Everybody stay away. Molina's got this one.

Maybe. He should probably work on his signaling, if so. All right. Pete Cosma. So Pete Cosma had a rough NLCS last year. Normally sure-handed Pete Cosma had a rough NLCS last year. He had an extremely rough game one today. And the gentleman I was watching the game with predicted at that point that Pete Cosma would be this year's Brooks Conrad, that he would just melt down and the Cardinals would watch this complete utter disaster happen at shortstop. He has actually gone on the record between he and I as predicting that Pete Cosma will make three more errors in this post season. Cosma, uh, handled the rest of the game, uh, uh, adequately from that point on. But, uh, do you, uh, did, did you get a sense from watching this broadcast that, uh,

that Pete Cosma is a house of cards that is in mid collapse? Uh, it was, it was easy to read into that and say that there were some sort of jitters going on there, either with him or other guys in the early innings there. I don't know. When I get that impression from watching a team, I pretty much ignore it and assume that I'm just reading too much into it.

So I don't know. I thought it was curious that it was him. There was a lot of, like, Buck and McCarver were talking a lot about how this was atypical of this Cardinals team, and you don't expect them to look so sloppy and everything. And that's true in a sense that the Cardinals don't commit a lot of errors. They actually committed the fourth fewest errors in the majors this year. So that was out of character for them. But the defensive struggles were not. And I did so much previewing of this World Series in various places

that I don't remember what we talked about. But if you wanted to find a weakness somewhere in this series, it probably would have been the Cardinals' defense in that, I mean, they were kind of near the bottom at any defensive leaderboard you want to look at. If you want to look at like a team thing, park-adjusted defensive efficiency, they were 26th in that. team thing park park adjusted defensive efficiency they were 26th in that if you want to look at team uzr they were 27th in that or drs and defensive efficiency they were like 22nd 21st so it it was not their strength i guess uh i guess they're one of those teams that's sort of sure-handed but doesn't get to a lot of balls typically and And so this was an anomaly in that sense.

But you, I don't know, you kind of expect like with all the talk about the Cardinals way and winning the right way and all that stuff that they would be a sound defensive team, which isn't really the case. But Cosmo is pretty much the last guy. isn't really the case but but Cosmo is is pretty much the last guy other than Molina Cosmo would be the last guy that you'd expect to have a really bad defensive game um so that was that was kind of strange to see you'd expect you'd expect freeze not to look very good and he didn't and that wasn't surprising but uh yeah it was weird, I guess, to see Cosmo. I mean, that is why he's playing.

He's certainly not playing because he can hit. I didn't realize that the Cardinals had a bad defense, actually. Yeah, not so much. I mean, I don't think of any individual players as being bad at defense, and there's really only Carpenter is kind of out of position in any in any way um so that surprises me yeah the red side i mean maybe one of the reasons why it wasn't discussed that much is that like they're not the tigers and the red socks aren't really that much better so it's not like it was a huge edge for boston or anything but um they don't they don't rate well. And I guess maybe it's more an absence of players who rate really well.

And then I think Freeze and Beltran didn't have great defensive seasons. Or, you know, if you want to put much faith in a season of defensive stats. But, yeah, that's kind of their MO. But except for the making errors part. Okay. But yeah, that's kind of their MO, except for the making errors part. Okay, so Cosmos First Air was very nearly an almost historically bad call by the umpire. I, as I noted, didn't get to hear what they said about it. I did get to see 85 replays of it. to hear what they said about it i did get to see 85 replays of it um but uh such a bad call by tainted amuse like yeah such a bad call yeah it's it's weird like i like i don't want to make too

much of it because it was overturned and it was good that they huddled up and talked about it and everything but like you watch it and you just wonder how how he made that call because he was in perfect position he was staring right at the play right at it yeah like my favorite was the slow motion replay that showed his face and it did not the replay cut out before he made his call but it was like you know since it was slow motion it was like a 20 second replay that just showed him watching the play and not moving and like just staring at it like thinking well what do i do now yeah um but you know i feel the thing about that call is um that i sometimes find it to be i don't know maybe a little distasteful and i mean i've certainly been there so i'm not i'm not like judging anybody

but a little distasteful how like kind of um insulting people get to the umpires like as though the umpires are trying to get the call wrong or not trying to get the call right and i i feel like this call just there's demuth has no incentive to get it wrong like there's there's not one shred of incentive for him to not get this right he didn't do anything wrong in the process and it wasn't a difficult call and he still got it like gloriously wrong and it just makes you think that like i mean you know you it reminds you that we're horribly flawed as a species and that the game happens so fast, you know,

these things happen so fast. And, and even if you're trying to do it right, you still get it wrong, which is the, is the argument for replay. I mean, the argument for replays is inherently not an anti umpire position.

It's kind of just like an anti-human position. It's like, it's just an awareness that we all suck. Like we're all terrible. And Demuth, God bless him. He is also terrible. I guarantee you Dana Demuth is better at his job than I am. And he's probably at least close to as good at his job as you are.

And he's terrible. Like he's just terrible at it. This is such a bad call with no excuse whatsoever yeah uh it's it's perplexing i mean it and the other five umpires they played they played a little audio of like herschbeck talking to matheny and matheny sounding really whiny actually um and herschbeck being like, well, you know, Demuth, he sucks. Yeah, they cut out that part, but they left the part where he was like the five of us, referring to the non-Demuth umpires, saw it very clearly that way as not a catch.

And yeah, you wonder, the other five umpires looking at it from all over the field saw what we saw, and the guy just stationed right in front whose job it was to see it and who was paying the most attention of probably anyone in the ballpark at that point just got it spectacularly wrong. I don't know. Yeah. Can you imagine being like a manager or a pundit in like 1930 where replay is like something in like the sci-fi future

you can't even imagine it yet and trying to figure out what to do about those horrible umpires like what is the solution to this call there's no solution to dana demuth being unable to call the most obvious thing right in front of him like you would like there's nothing like what are you gonna do like do better like that's all you can do is just tell them, try to do better next time. It's horrible. I don't know. I mean, this won't happen next year. It didn't happen this year, but I guess it will never happen again.

This is our last chance. Well, I guess we didn't even get the chance. Were you surprised that they overturned it? I mean, this is not a call that typically gets overturned. Yeah, that was what Buck was saying. And then Rosenthal interviewed Torrey and asked him that question. And he sort of said, no, it wasn't that unusual, which seems pretty unusual. I mean, I guess how often does that particular call happen?

I don't know. But bad calls happen. I yes like obvious like calls that seem wrong immediately happen yeah like there are there are calls at first base that we all know are wrong in real time and they don't they don't ever get overturned this was this was no really no different than that was it no and tory actually said something interesting which i didn't really realize he he mentioned the fact that people often get frustrated when umpires don't huddle uh and they and they wonder like why not just get together and talk about it he said that if if a crew doesn't huddle it doesn't mean that they're just

stubborn or something it means that they've kind of already communicated to each other that they don't want to overturn the play like he said said that, and I didn't really notice this, but he said like as Feral came out, like the crew was kind of converging already, like signaling each other almost that they wanted to talk about it. Whereas if they don't want to go against the original call, then they'll just stay at their positions and they won't even make a move to talk to each other.

And that's kind of how they know that they don't need to talk. But yeah, I don't know. But the whole thing kind of, I thought, seemed like a pretty good endorsement of the replay process, I thought, because it felt like it took forever and i went i i rewound to see how long it actually was and apparently it was only like five minutes like five solid full minutes from the time the play was made to the next pitch which it seemed a lot longer because there were just like 10 replays in that time but uh 85 85 replays okay um but you figure probably could have been resolved even more quickly well i i don't know not necessarily but but it people often say with replay it's gonna slow the game down umpires are gonna have to leave the field and go look at their little video screen and everything. If you cut out the time that Farrell was arguing

and Matheny was arguing and the umpires were huddling and all of that stuff with the 85 replays going on, probably you could have just watched a replay and decided it as quickly or more quickly. There was a lot of controversy over the neighborhood play in a previous series because, you know, the neighborhood play in a previous series um because you know the neighborhood play was seen to be called too generously and i wondered happened in two series i think although i guess it only mattered once maybe i wondered whether this was

an extension of that kind of idea like if this had been like if this was just sort of a a a tendency for umpires to be a little too generous to the guy uh turning a double play for his own safety you know like clearly he didn't catch it i mean obviously but if maybe there's a a bias toward giving the fielder a little bit of extra credit when a runner's bearing down on you for his own safety. Yeah. Who was it? Was it Pedroia sliding? Yeah, it was Pedroia sliding. And he wasn't, like, right on top of him. He was kind of a decent distance away.

And, I don't know, he's not a big guy. He's short. He is. Yeah, I noticed that when I was watching the game. So, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it had something to do with that, but he must have thought that there was actually a catch made there somehow. Yeah.

All right. So Carlos Beltran made a fantastic catch. Yeah. And it struck me as being a particularly fantastic catch. What did you think of the catch i thought to do it it looked very very smooth very nonchalant um but it was it was impressive i mean he reached a pretty fair distance over the fence to get it and the fact that he was crashing into the wall at the same time and still managed to to glove it and and hold on was was pretty impressive yeah i don't have much to say besides that yeah you think you think they

should they should do something about that wall i like that wall like it was a it was that was discussed a lot on the broadcast and they showed clips of other people running into that wall and not really noticing that it's there because it's so low that I guess it's not in your peripheral vision in the way that most walls would be um and so you just kind of you're going back and you're tracking the ball and then all of a sudden you your your waist basically slams into this wall. I like that the wall is so low because it's kind of cool when there's a catch like that or an attempt like Tori Hunter's in the previous series. But I guess it's somewhat dangerous.

I tend not to like short walls aesthetically. I find that the home run robberies in short walls are not interesting. I like a larger wall. I like a little bit more. If you're going to steal a home run to me, it should be a little harder. If you're going to hit a home run, I guess it should be a little harder. This is probably not going to go anywhere. I'm just going to talk for a little bit and then give up but it is kind of interesting how the the wall is the dangerous thing in this situation right like like the wall is what is dangerous and yet the solution is having more wall right that's kind of weird like it's a weird sort of paradox about matter and and non-matter yes like

it's actually the absence of matter that makes it dangerous, and yet it's like a U-curve, right? Where, like, it becomes, like, more dangerous, more dangerous, more dangerous, and then less dangerous. It tops out and then becomes less dangerous. Like, if there was a green monster out there, it would have been less dangerous.

But if it had been, like, a foot, then Beltran would have tripped and then gone, like, right over his head. Yeah. So it's nice that the, the x-rays were, were negative apparently because it, I don't know when he was removed from the game with like a rib thing,

it, it sort of seemed like, like Hanley getting hurt in the same area in the first game of a series again. And then having that kind of hang over the whole series. So it seems like hopefully it's not as as serious uh and that he'll be able to to continue to play all right and then the rest of the game was exceptionally boring uh did you have anything else that you wanted to to share subjective experiences about uh not really did were you were you, would you have, would you have tried to take Wainwright out

earlier? The interesting thing about the Wainwright thing is how, how the, uh, the, the rationale for it switched once we knew the outcome. Like initially it was like, oh, should they take him out? He's getting, you know, he's getting hit hard. Is it, you know, can they afford to leave him in there? Which I think is usually a pretty, I think that's usually a bad, you know, a bad line of reasoning. I mean, Wainwright, and you see this a ton and you forget the times that this happens, but Wainwright settled down. He's a good pitcher.

He wasn't pitching that badly and he settled down and he gave him a few really good innings. He was still their best option that early in the game. And people, I think people tend to overreact to the first, you know, inning or two, uh, particularly, um, you know, the first inning probably. Um, and they want to pull the guy. Um, but then the rationale changed later on when you start thinking, well, geez, maybe they should have taken Wayne right out early. So he could have come back early in the series. So it's two, ideas. One is do you take Wainwright out because he sucks and then the second is do you take Wainwright out because he's actually really good and you're

wasting his bullets in a game that's probably decided. I don't think 5-0 is decided enough. I don't think a team should be punting down 5-0 in the third. I see the rationale for it but I would have kept him in for quality purposes and I would have kept him in even for leverage purposes at that point.

So I don't have a problem keeping him out there. Johnny Gomes made a nice catch. It's funny. He made a nice catch, and then he immediately after that made an error. As I was thinking about it, because we were talking about how the rationale and how Zach told us that the rationale for leaving him in there, at least the stated rationale for starting him was that he was a good base runner, which you found to be true. And also maybe a good defensive player, which doesn't seem to be true at all. He made a pretty nice diving catch later in the game.

I forget which inning or hitter it was. And then again, it's left field at Fenway, so he doesn't have to cover that much ground there. But he went 0 for 3, and I assume he will. And Nava got a hit when he pinch hit, but I assume that we'll keep seeing combs. I guess it's like a i guess it's like the managerial equivalent of like when you're sitting in a certain chair or

a certain position when your team does something good and you superstitiously don't move for the rest of the game they're like what seven and oh now when gomes yeah gomes plays. So along those lines, I wonder whether Farrell has made up his mind about the Ortiz-Napoli decision or if he's just waiting, like if he's still sort of collecting little scraps of data and he'll decide after game two based on whatever he's seen. My guess is that he's, you know,

the Red Sox are probably have taken more information than, than, than that into account. And I've probably already planned it out, but do you think that, I mean, Ortiz hit a home run and a half today, but Napoli, you know, had the big, had the big double. Do you think that that anything that happens in the next game will affect that? And do you think anything today will affect that? Short of one of them getting hurt and being unable to play?

Probably not. I would have been surprised before tonight if Ortiz had not started those games. It just, I don't know, it seems like, I mean, he's kind of the face of the team and everything, right? Yeah, if Gomes gets to play for being Johnny Gomes, then it seems like David Ortiz willNava thing, and that Ortiz will have the platoon advantage because the Cardinals only have righty starters. So you could start Ortiz, and he'll have the platoon advantage, and he'll crush the right-handed pitcher. And then if you want, you can put Napoli in later in the game.

Like if Matheny brings in Segrist or Chogar or someone to face Ortiz, then you could pinch hit Napoli and maybe get a good matchup there and also a defensive upgrade later in the game. So it seems like a pretty clear-cut decision to me. Yeah, unless he's the worst defensive first baseman in baseball, which is not totally inconceivable. Can you tell me what happened in the Dennis Rodman commercial? Nope.

Okay. Dennis Rodman is apparently in a pistachio commercial with somebody who is imitating the premiere of North Korea, and I wasn't able to make out much more than that. Dennis Rodman exploded. It doesn't ring a bell. Wasn't Dennis Rodman in Korea, like I wasn't able to make out much more than that. Dennis Rodman exploded. It doesn't ring a bell. Wasn't Dennis Rodman in Korea, like the real Korea? He was.

Yeah, like making kissy faces with the premier in North Korea. Yeah. That's why I'm curious. It was odd. He's, I don't know. I guess I'll go to YouTube. All right, so I guess that's it. I think probably the most important thing that happened in this game is that America learned

that Shane Robinson is Caucasian. I think probably the most important thing that happened in this game is that America learned that Shane Robinson is Caucasian. I think America probably didn't realize that. I learned that in the NLCS, but yeah. It is now known. So that's it. By the way, you asked about Wainwright's zone rate. Are you amused about it? He is, out of the 150 pitchers with 1,500 pitches thrown this season,

he was the 65th highest zone rate. So he's pretty much in the middle. He's definitely highest, but what is he, like 53%? 50.7%. So there you go. Half his pitches are not in the zone. So that's my point. My point is that even a strike thrower like Wainwright lives often outside the zone.

So that is exactly the point I was making. Have you seen the Chevy ad where the guy says it's a Chevy Silverado ad and at the end the guy says the Silverado is second to nobody and by nobody I mean Ram and Ford, which to me means that it's second to Ram and Ford right that's a good point

that is a very good point that's exactly what it means every time I see that I kind of listen again to see if I'm mishearing it but I'm not that is what he says that is what he says that's exactly what he says okay well I'm mishearing it, but I'm not. That is what he says. That is what he says. That's exactly what he says. Okay. Well, I'm not crazy then. All right. So anyway, we talked about how the Cardinals don't

hit lefties, right? Or I talked about it somewhere. They're not a good team at hitting lefties. And so you figure if Boston was going to have the best chance against them in any game, it would be probably game one at home with Lester pitching. So not a huge shocker that they lost, though. It was more lopsided than you would have guessed with Wainwright. But anyway, many more games to go. A few more games to go. Yes. Okay.

All right. We'll be back to talk about them.