Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 319: Wrapping up the World Series

Episode Date: October 31, 2013

Ben and Sam review the World Series and talk about the 2013 seasons and futures of the Red Sox and Cardinals with Zachary Levine.

Do I gotcha? We have you. I hear you. Yeah, you guys are real quiet. That's just the nature of the show, really. Yeah. At this time, we ask that you please clear the field and continue your celebration elsewhere. Thank you.

Get off the field, Zach. I'm so sad you weren't recording. I am recording. Oh, good. I think you have your sound. Okay. Good morning and welcome to episode 319 of Effectively Wild, the first episode of our second off-season. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series,

and so we're joined today by Zachary Levine, who was in the press box for the game today, and we're also joined today by Zachary Levine, who was in the press box for the game today, and we're also joined by Ben Lindberg. Hi, Ben. Hi, Zachary. Hi. How's it going? Good.

So, first, two quick pieces of business from yesterday's show. One of them is suitable for Zachary, because we had talked about whether a team would rather be 20 games better than their opponent in a seven-game series, but lose the first game, or be equal to their opponent and win the first game. And we got some final numbers thanks to Zachary. The team that loses the first game but is 20 wins better than its opponent is roughly a 59% favorite to still win the series. So that's good to know. That's actually not irrelevant information. There are scenarios in your life where you might have a team in a playoff series

that is around 20 wins better or worse than its opponent, and they might find themselves up or down one game, and you will now know what this means for them. So I'm actually glad that we did this pointless exercise, and I hope somebody recorded it. John Chenier actually did on our Facebook page. He has a great Excel spreadsheet that shows the various odds for different win teams, and it's great, it's beautiful, and it's helpful, so go look at it. Look at you

knowing what's on our facebook page he told me okay i saw it i can verify that it's there and then the other thing i forget what the other thing we were going to talk oh yeah the other thing is uh i guess we don't really have to talk about this right now but uh we talked yesterday about ways to improve the draft to um to keep teams from tanking at the end of the season. And as somebody pointed out, we actually talked about this about 100 episodes ago as well and came up with a solution at the time that still seems reasonable to me. At the time, our solution was to make the worst and second worst teams hold a one-game playoff between the LDSs and the LCSs. The winner gets to pick first overall.

The loser drops five spots. And so that way you don't give a gimme to the worst team. They only have a 50% chance of getting that pick if they want to tank. And we all get a game of significant, meaningful baseball on an otherwise dreary off day. I still like that idea, although I think I like my idea yesterday more. I think I've switched my allegiance to present-day Sam rather than past-tense Sam. You sort of have to

incentivize the players in the past-tense Sam example. If I'm the guy whose position could be taken by a number one draft pick, what do I have to play for? Well, you're probably... That's pretty rare. I mean, I think very few players are that worried about, especially an 18-year-old high schooler or even a really college kid.

But a number of players' contracts would have basically expired at that point, and they are no longer part of the team's future. And so in that case, you're right. You would have serious incentive issues. So I just want to ask a question to start this conversation off, and we can go any direction you want with this show, but as it stands right now, if you're setting the odds in Vegas, are the Red Sox the clear favorites to win next year's World Series?

Can I cheat because I already know the odds in Vegas for next year's World Series? I guess I'll let Ben answer it first because I already know the odds for next year's World Series in Vegas. Yeah, I'm curious it first because I already know the odds for next year's World Series in Vegas. Yeah, I'm curious about your answer, though. I mean, Vegas can be wrong. Oh, um... No, I don't think so. Only just the old rule that your chances of

winning the World Series these days are your chances of making the playoffs times your chances of winning the World Series once you get to the playoffs and we feel these days like the those chances of winning the world series once you get to the playoffs are roughly all the same so the favorite to win the world series is the team that has the best chance to get there so i mean i think the dodgers have a much better chance of making the playoffs next

year and and winning a division like it's a a much better thing to win a division now than to play that coin flip game. The Dodgers have a much better chance of winning their division next year than the Red Sox do. Even though I think the Red Sox are the favorite, they're not a prohibitive favorite. And I guess I would say the Tigers also do, although I guess I'm a little less confident about that one. So I would put the Dodgers as the favorite to win the World Series next year. I have very little to add to that. That's about exactly what I was going to say. Not near if you mention the Cardinals.

Yeah, Cardinals would be up there too, I think. Just because of... That division is a little tighter. But I know you guys were talking recently about the Dodgers versus the field, and that's the only division where I would, without a doubt, take one team over the field. Can you imagine telling a Cardinals fan in March that the Cardinals are going to make the World Series

and that Oscar Tavares would not play, but that Michael Walker would play, that probably would have seemed really weird and unpredictable. Yeah. I don't know why we're talking about the Cardinals. It's a Red Sox night. So talk about the Red Sox. That's my question. Tell me, say, Zachary, talk about the Red Sox.

Okay, well, the Red Sox, the odds quoted I saw tonight, are 12-1 to win the World Series next year. But this year's Red Sox, it was the best team in baseball, and I think we like when that happens. It was the team with the best record in the better league that won this series in a more dominating fashion than the final score of of the series of four to two would tell you they there were there were two games that really weren't all that close and and

boston was on top in both of them they were game one here and and game six here and and they absolutely deserved this series for as weird as some of it was, there was absolutely no question who the better team was over this six-game stretch. And it's three in ten years. It's three for David Ortiz. It's the first for Ben Charrington as general manager, John Farrell as manager, although they've both been in other roles with this club before. was talking about how, you know, what did you see in this 69-win team last year that made you want to take the approach of going for a championship? And he said that they liked what they saw. They liked the pieces that were left after the Dodgers trade.

But even he didn't see it turning around from 69 wins to 97 wins in a World Series this fast. And my piece tomorrow is going to be a little bit on how they made that transition so quickly, what went right, and is there anything that other teams can learn from this. So I heard Ben Charrington say a couple times after the game that he just felt blessed to be along for the ride or it was fun to be along for the ride which is a a very humble way to to express that as the general manager of the team who is responsible for signing a lot of the players who who helped the red sox get where they were and i've heard various other people talking about this team and the improvement and how much credit he deserves.

I've heard sort of the idea that he just kind of came along and the team got healthy. And that was the primary reason why they weren't good last year. And now they were healthy all of a sudden. And that was the big variable that changed um but he deserves quite a bit of credit right for for the moves that he made last winter yeah you know there's one where i really want to give him a lot of credit and i wish i could have asked him about this and it's something that i probably should have asked him in in some other game where it was less crowded here.

But I'll give him a lot of credit if he had something on Shane Victorino that none of the rest of us saw. So many people said this is a huge mistake. You know, he's a platoon hitter. He's a declining platoon hitter. And they gave him a deal that at the time looked silly. And he was a five-win player this year for $13 million. And, you know, I like to say overqualified for his position. He was obviously had a huge role in today's game. The grand slam that he hit against the Tigers was obviously another hit that got them this far.

So that's the one where I would really like to know if I ever get a chance to sit down with him. Or that's unlikely, but have a chance to do any kind of interview with him and find out really what they saw in Victorino that we were all wrong about. And then the Napoli thing worked out terrifically for Boston, that they were going to give him this big deal. He failed the physical, ended up signing a one-year small money kind of deal. And he did some things that didn't work out too. Did he?

Because I was trying to think about it i i could think of i think seven seven signings they made and i mean dempster maybe arguably but even dempster was you know hot stuff the first half and you know he gave him gave him innings uh i think the one that that was like was the worst was probably melanson for Joel Hanahan. You look at how great this bullpen was and then you realize that this was the throw it together backup plan to what was supposed to be. They actually did invest a lot in this bullpen and it's sort of a nice lesson when the one that worked out and all that was the signing for four million that

barely registered. Game six seemed like it was probably more fun to experience in person than it was at home, I would imagine. It kind of had that feel that it was more or less overly, obviously, the Cardinals have a good offensive team team although we didn't really see it in the last week or so uh and they've they've come back from from deficits like that in the past but it sort of had that that feeling of not not being particularly close not being really in question after the first couple innings and i assume the the atmosphere

there was just sort of waiting for the celebration time to start. Yeah, it was kind of a party. I missed the Tim McCarver farewell, though. Was that good? I believe Joe Buck said he was the best ever. Oh, okay. So just an understated tribute. And he's an expert on the matter.

He certainly has more experience with him than anybody. Right, yes. But, yeah, it was sort of a party here after that Victorino double. There was very little sense, you're right, that the Cardinals could get back into it. The one time it got interesting was when John Lackey played the macho card, when John Farrell came out to the mound and tried to take the ball from him. And Lackey put his glove up to his face and started screaming. And Farrell left him in, and then he walked the guy.

And then it was, as I said on Twitter, it was time for Farrell to be an adult in the situation. Can I share a hypothesis? Not a hypothesis, but speculation. I actually think that was all kabuki by Farrell. I don't think there's anybody who didn't know exactly how Lackey was going to react when he came out there. We see Lackey do this every single time. It was completely predictable before he took the second step out of the dugout. You knew that Lackey was going to make that face and say, it's mine, it's mine, and get all heartfelt and everything. And so Farrell goes out and lets himself get

swayed, so-called. I just think Farrell knew all along that he was going to go out there, pretend to look into Lackey's eyes, let Lackey convince him, and in doing so, that Lackey would sort of pump himself up and get a little extra boost from getting a vote of confidence from his skipper. So I actually, I'm going to defend Farrell and say that it was not refusing to be an adult but it was just a little bit of psychology he was employing. Okay, psychology not this is pro wrestling. Just psychology. He knows his picture. Okay, I like that. No, that's fair. I sort of had that okay i like that no that's fair i sort of had

that sense too so i i think that's definitely fair and uh metheny didn't i also love i love that lackey walked the guy too yeah best best possible ending to that not a home run would have been awful like a home run would have been too much we all would have felt really lousy but a walk is perfect just enough to sort of move the move the action forward a little bit get lackey out of the game and and and uh kind of embarrass him just a touch he's been fighting for that extra batter for like 12 years he finally got it um uh matheny didn'teny didn't get grilled after the game, right? There was like

a pool reporter situation? Yeah, exactly. It was sort of a closed off situation. So I wasn't there for it. I read a little of it and there wasn't much to it. I guess once you've lost, there's probably

no reason to ask about intentional walks and yeah he walked david ortiz a few times not bringing in carlos martinez when you have lance lynn and and a big jam or or whatever picture you you want to name um that was we did we did yeah there were there was uh that people were uh talking about firing him on Twitter. Do you guys think this is an insanely over-the-top reaction, or do you think that Matheny is going to carry a little bit of stink? I think firing him is extreme, certainly. But I thought it was a pretty poorly managed series on his part. And

I guess you say he's still sort of an inexperienced manager, and he's getting better at this. And he was better in his sophomore season than he was in his rookie year. And maybe they get back next year, and he learns from this in some way. But I think Will Leach wrote a column about that yesterday, about how he's sort of learning on the job in the World Series, which is not really when you want your manager to be learning on the job. I don't know. I mean, we've talked about it. We've written about it.

There were a lot of moves that I thought were not the optimal ones. Yeah. You know, we talk all the time about how the most important things a manager does are things that are out of our sight and how the on-the-field stuff is a really small part of it. And it is kind of surprising to look at this series and see just how many decisions there actually are that you can get wrong. And like Matheny, I mean, you might make the case that they're all fairly small margin decisions that you were talking 52 to 48 or whatever. And that, you know, for all we know, he's right about, you know, half of the

things we think he was wrong about, or maybe he's right about more than that, but there really were, it seems like there just were a ton of situations where he had to make a decision that was kind of important. Like, yeah, you can sort of see how a manager's value on the field is sort of a big deal too yeah i've kind of come around to that that philosophy i i'm still on board with you know the the leader of men stuff the clubhouse stuff mattering a lot and maybe it maybe it differs depending on where in the sort of competitive cycle your your team is if you're a team with a lot of young players or you're just sort of trying to get competitive again maybe then these sort of moves don't matter so much if you're if you're a team that has

solid expectations of being at this point and getting this far i mean at at that point once you're in the world series and you're and you're hurting your team even if it's just you know a couple points here and there of of win expectancy or whatever that's in the world series that's a big deal and that stuff adds up and you could you could try to figure out what that's worth in runs and dollars and it would be pretty big numbers. So I don't know. My philosophy is that, yes, the other stuff is really important.

Maybe it's more important, but that you probably shouldn't skimp on the in-game tactical stuff either, that you could probably find someone who can do both, whether it's a person who can lead and inspire people and keep the clubhouse in line and either has some sort of tactical acumen when he takes the job or is just willing to listen to front office input or whatever it takes. I feel like it's possible to get someone who can do both. Yeah, and Farrow's going to come out of all this looking really good. There's going to be a column everywhere about

how his hiring and getting rid of Valentine jump-started all this, but Farrell didn't really distinguish himself in the series either. If St. Louis had won, there would have been all the same things to

say there. It was sort of odd both ways. And by the way, like 20 minutes after they made that announcement for everyone to clear the field, there's at least 100 people still on the field doing nothing. Just walking around, getting their pictures taken, knocking on the green monster throwing things around like playing ball out in the field i don't know who any of them are but nobody's going home are you

just planning to spend the night there so you don't have to walk outside the stadium uh actually outside the stadium looks okay now i'm up on i guess it's called level five of the stadium. It's the top level and looking out and it's very, very under control. They closed all the streets immediately around Fenway. They did a really great job. I think I was reading in the paper this morning, they had police from 40 different municipalities helping out in town between the game and President Obama's visit today. So they've done what seems like a really great job. I haven't heard any bad stories yet. And I've heard downtown, as you get a little closer to downtown,

just where it's more, there's some residences and some bars and stuff. The things have gotten a little wild, but there's by no means anything resembling a riot. It's just the transit won't be easy tonight. So, yeah, I'm going to stay a while, write my story, say some goodbyes, and then I have an 8.30 class tomorrow. So, Matheny only talked to a pool reporter? Is the losing clubhouse open? I am not sure. I was just working on a Boston thing.

There was some grumbling among members of the media today, which as people were getting up, which makes me always think either the press food was bad, but it couldn't have been that because that was five hours ago, or that something about access went wrong. So I wouldn't be surprised if the access in the Cardinals clubhouse was not what it was supposed to be. So, all right. So what's the big weakness for the Red Sox right now? Like what's going to make next year super disappointing?

That's tough. There doesn't seem to be a huge one. I guess it could be starting pitching if something goes wrong there. Leicester took a little step back and you don't know what's going to happen at the end of the rotation if they have to bring Webster in and you just don't know who's ready. I guess it could be there. You're never going to get anything better than this from Ortiz.

So I guess low end of the defensive spectrum stuff with that and whatever happens in left field will probably go down a little bit. So I would say those would be the two spots. And the Cardinals have a bunch of, you don't know, questions to answer, positions to fill, possibly a shortstop to acquire somehow, maybe a surplus of pitching,

and maybe they'll talk about trading a starter and trying to get a shortstop from somewhere. They've got to figure out where to put Tavares and where to put Craig and where to put Adams. These are mostly good problems about having too many players for not enough positions, which is not such a big deal. They should put Tavares,

Craig, and Adams all at shortstop. I think they could reasonably cover the position. Yeah. That's a novel solution. It's not bad. Alright. So what St. Louis Cardinal, now that they've been defeated should

the red sox take into next year uh geez i feel like well i mean the pitchers are off the table so it can't be a pitcher uh carpenter doesn't like Carpenter a lot, but the experts don't seem to think that he's like this kind of a player going forward. I mean, if contract is included, you'd probably just take Tavares, right? I don't know. I feel like you're taking way too long to get to Yadier Molina. Yeah, I think you could take Yadier. I was going to say that. Yeah, that's true. I forgot that they have Yadier Molina. Yeah, I think you can take Yadier. I was going to say that. Yeah, that's true. I forgot that they have Yadier Molina.

Yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah, so they take Yadier Molina. Or Beltran and left or something. I don't know. Yes, that's another thing the Cardinals have to decide is whether to bring him back. And I would guess the answer will be no, probably. I wonder what kind of contract he gets. I don't know.

Two years. Maybe the same. I could see him getting the exact same contract. Basically, for the rest of his career, as long as he stays productive, he'll just always get the exact same contract every two years. He'll just go out and get it again. Two years, 26.

Yeah. Doesn't that still seem like just about right? It's funny because everybody was talking about like what an insane bargain he was, and he was. But I still don't know if anybody's going to give him more than that. He's two years older. Mm-hmm. All right.

Is there anything else from this series that we have to get to, from this season that we have to get to? else from this series that we have to get to from this season that we have to get to uh i talked about my plan for the cardinal shortstop that's the one thing i really wanted to get to so no okay uh all right then um thank you everyone for for following us throughout this season. It's been fun, which is not to say that we are stopping or that really anything is changing, except that it gets even harder to keep doing the show.

And I've been listening to the various other baseball podcasts that I listen to, and all of them have been, like, signing off for the year this week. Like we'll be back next year. Well, we will be back tomorrow. And I don't, I don't know what we'll talk about, but if you have any suggestions for what you want us to do this off season, please send them our way and we'd be happy to consider them.

And, and you're stuck with us, really. If you want to listen to a daily baseball podcast, your options are limited. So we have that working for us. So, yeah, that's all I have to say. Me too. Okay. All right. Zachary, we wish you well finishing your story and getting out of there alive. Thank you very much. Okay. All right. Zachary, we wish you well, finishing your story and getting out of there alive.

Thank you very much. Okay. Good night, everyone, and we will be back tomorrow.