Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 568: Postseason Lessons and Legacies

Episode Date: October 31, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss World Series hangovers and the Danny Duffy deception, then talk about what they learned from the Royals and the Giants.

You know we've told you before But you didn't hear us say So you still question why No, you didn't hear us say Good morning. Welcome to episode 568 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, back at home in New York, Baseball Prospectus, presented by the Play Index at baseballreference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, back at home in New York,

and joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Hi, Ben. Hi. I don't like the day after the World Series so much. There's all this news that comes out that feels so mundane, feel so inconsequential compared to the things that we were thinking about yesterday. Yesterday we're thinking about game seven of the world series and we're

watching the Royals and the giants and Madison Bumgarner doing amazing things. And then today I scan the headlines and it's white socks, decline option on Felipe Paulino. And it's just off-season mode. So suddenly, I wish there were just a news moratorium for a few days so that I could transition into winter baseball. It's just too abrupt from the ultimate drama of World Series baseball to boring transactions. We're like the old man who gets out of jail in Shawshank Redemption. Yeah, Brooks was here. That's what he writes. That is what he writes.

For a second, I thought that Brooks was at the World Series. I got confused. But anyway, we are Brooks. Yeah, we're Brooks. You know, I found that one way to enjoy the day after the World Series, which you could try, is to be on the winning team. Yeah, then you get to do all kinds of cool stuff. Or just sleep.

I mean, don't you get the feeling that, like, when Buster Posey said he was going to sleep all day, you just think that like that's the best day ever like way better than winning the world series is the day after it when you just sleep i mean how great must it be just to be a baseball player whose season is over for one thing i mean yes i mean it's just like stretching ahead of you this gulf of time where you just don't need to do anything i mean yes oh my gosh i mean it's just like stretching ahead of you this gulf of time where you just don't need to do anything i mean that's not really true of course they're preparing for the upcoming season or maybe they're dealing with contract stuff but or getting jobs as as mailman i've heard that sometimes baseball players do that sure yeah but i mean what a release that

must be as much as they like playing baseball when you've been doing it for seven months and traveling constantly and not seeing your family and not being at home and just having to answer questions from people like us all the time, it just, I mean, the grind of baseball and then suddenly the season's over. of baseball and then suddenly the season's over and if you are a champion then you don't even have to feel bad about the season being over you you did everything you set out to do you achieved the best possible thing and now you have all this time although i guess you only have five months instead of six willie mays sold cars in burlingame uh Uh-huh. That's what I just read. Burlingame is like three train stops for me. Willie McCovey worked for a uniform company. Yeah, sure. Lots of restaurants.

Uh-huh. Russell Lindorf did something recently. Russell Lindorf was like he spent part of his winter at the Department of Agriculture. Really? Yeah. That was just a few years ago. He was an intern. He was an intern.

Yeah. The most exciting offseason I've had. Wow, this is a great picture of him. You're probably on a different page than I am, but there's a great picture of him. He sent an email inquiring about an internship and attached his resume. I guess that was probably a good move for Russell and Dorf. What is Russell and Dorf up to these days other than interning for the Department of Agriculture? All right, Ben, game on.

Game on. How much did Ross Sollendorf earn? Oh, his career earnings? Yes. Oh, boy. Okay. I mean, Ross Sollendorf was around for a while. He got several years in.

I don't know whether he ever got past his first six, but all right. I'll say Ross Ohlendorf. I'll say he made $3.5 million. I was going to say $3.1. Yeah, you're going to feel pretty good about the over, I think. All right, I'm looking it up. All right, Ross Ohlendorf, 3.27. Ooh, wow.

So you win. I narrowly win. I was counting his salary as an intern for the Department of Agriculture, so I think that pushes it towards me. Quote, what has made Ross's time here especially valuable is the fact that he didn't just want to take a tour of the building he showed up ready to roll up his sleeves and engage on substantive issues that interested him said oran evans a department spokesman i like that it led to a

memorable winter he met jim bunning a hall of fame pitcher he's ross olendorf he's met a lot of players can you like he probably was like wow that you played professional big you played Ross Ohlendorf. He's met a lot of players. He probably was like, wow, you played professional baseball in the majors? So did my boss. Ohlendorf pitched 15 innings in the

minors this year. As an intern, actually. He didn't have a job. He was an intern, but he didn't just want to show up and take tickets and wear the mascot uniform. He took an interest in substantive issues like the score of the game. And he pitched a little bit. Gotta just kill time between off-season internships somehow. So there was...

His main focus was tracking the migration of cattle diseases. Right. Yeah. No, I didn't. But I think I, I remember something about a thesis he wrote maybe that was related to that. Is that, I think, I don't know why I retained this information, but, uh, that sounds vaguely familiar.

Um, so there was news about... And what do his teammates think of how he spent his winter? Quote, I think a lot of them wish they could have had some of the same opportunities. I don't know about that. I'm skeptical. Okay. Yeah, Ohlendorf majored in operations research and financial engineering at Princeton. Oh, that's right.

His thesis was about the draft. He looked at the top 100 picks from 89 to 93, and he tried to determine the value of the picks. He basically did a blog post that people have done on the internet looking at the expected value of draft picks. Ollendorf had a 116 ERA plus in 2013 as a swingman, throwing 60 innings. So it's kind of amazing that he... It's basically Madison Bumgarner. Innings so it's kind of amazing That he's basically Madison Bumgarner

It's amazing that he Could only pitch in Triple A He must have gotten hurt Must have gotten hurt I mean he is a pitcher Yeah although he pitched Yeah he pitched in May he pitched In yeah he pitched in May and then he

Didn't pitch until the end of August so So that was Today's Russell Lindorff news. Not even today's. This wasn't even timely. This wasn't even new Russell Lindorff news. He had a low back strain that put him on the 60-day DL. Okay. And there was news about the Astros TV network, which we've talked about from time to time. There was a federal bankruptcy judge

approved a Chapter 11 plan that will allow AT&T and DirecTV to purchase Comcast Sportsnet Houston and relaunch it later this year as Root Sports Houston, which seems to indicate that people will actually be able to watch Astros

games next year. So our jokes about the Astros getting zero ratings are probably behind us. Or twice as funny. Yeah, that's true. If it happens. Uh-huh. And there was also news about a new way. A team. Oh, yeah.

That was a good one. I got distracted. I was supposed to write about that oh there's yeah i didn't i forgot there's a philly's way and the phillies were sorely in need of a way because they came in 25th in your way power rankings out of what 29 so they were or 30 i guess except there were a couple teams that didn't technically have ways. I think there was one, but that got them a very high ranking. Yeah.

So the Phillies way before, you summarized it as hitting. There wasn't really a clear philosophy. It was one of those kind of gritty, winning, scrapping ways. meaning scrapping ways. And so Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Ruben Amaro unveiled a Philly's Way handbook at the organization's meetings this week. And no details, really, in this article, at least, about what that way consists of. It is some sort of manual, but probably reminiscent know, probably reminiscent of all of the other manuals. But if there is something that separates the Phillies way from all the other ways, we will have to wait to find out what it is. But that's exciting news. The Phillies are now officially a rebuilding team and they have a way. So this is interesting too because when I wrote about the

Phillies way, my quote about the Phillies way was from Ryan Sandberg who said that the Philly way the quote was, I remember really learning the game here. Sandberg of course was a Philly when he was a rookie.

I really remember learning the game here. That's what I maintained the rest of the time, playing hard and aggressive, getting your work in and going about the game the right way. That's what he said of the Philly way. And so Sandberg is the manager. And so I think we should probably assume that this would just be a codification

of the way that he already referenced, right? Yeah, that could be. You would have to think that there would be no particular change. Yeah, there were multiple references to the Philly way. So maybe the Philly way, because I had a second reference in which they talked about, Charlie Manuel talked about the Philly way as being different than Ryan Zandberg had described it. And so maybe this is really about unifying the Philly way under one cover

or getting, you know, exercising the Charlie Manuel way. Maybe Charlie Manuel took the way astray. Or maybe it's more of a Pat Gillick way. I don't know. That would be a good way probably. Right now it doesn't seem like they've done enough to change their ranking. No. No. They would probably by default though move up to 19 through 13, which I guess would now be 20 through 13, which is essentially the median way and it just means we have a book. Right.

If you have a book and instead of describing a philosophy, it describes your instruction manual, unless you are... Unless your instruction manual is a seminal instruction manual as with the Orioles and a couple of the Dodgers and a couple of other teams, unless it's that, you are simply a mediocre way team, a team with a way that describes a book but not a philosophy. So that sounds more like what the Philly way would be. Although it also, I'll have to see whether it's the Philly way or the Phillies way.

The tiebreaker is whether you have an S. I don't know. Okay, so before we really transition into off-season mode, I want to talk about the two teams that were in the World Series and whether we learned anything from them, whether we learned anything maybe in particular from the Royals, and then also how we appraise the Giants. And I feel like we've had maybe three different

how should we appraise the Giants conversation on this podcast over the years, but they keep doing things that make us have it again. So we will talk a bit about that. But I will start with Danny Duffy because this was a storyline throughout October and we talked about it. We had Doug Thorburn on to talk about it. Everyone wondered why Danny Duffy wasn't pitching. The Royals said there was nothing wrong with his shoulder.

There was speculation about his mechanics being out of whack. So finally, after Game 7, Ned Yost came clean, told Annie McCullough that he was suffering from an injury, not the shoulder, but a stress reaction in his rib cage, a crack on the outside of the bone, which limited him to two or three innings at a time. So the plan was for him to start in the postseason, as one would expect. And then this injury cropped up in his last start of the season And Yost just didn't want to say anything As Andy wrote, the Royals kept Duffy's ailment quiet for all of October Yost wanted Duffy to loom as a weapon in the bullpen

One capable of extended duty Even though he knew Duffy had to work on a shortened leash So this is interesting. I mean, it's not a shock or anything, but it's a reminder that we probably shouldn't freak out about pitchers who seem like they should be used and are not used because there's often a good reason why they're not being used. And it's, I mean, I kind of went back and tried to find

A quote where Yost or Duffy outright lied And just in a In a cursory look I couldn't really find anything All of their quotes in retrospect Are sort of defensible Like Duffy would say that his shoulder

Felt fine or they'd say that he felt better, or that he was ready to go, or something like that, but they wouldn't outright say he is 100%. There is nothing wrong with him whatsoever. So this is a perfectly defensible thing that teams should do, and probably do more than we think they do, I think. I would guess that there are many nagging injuries that teams are fully aware of that we never hear about, and maybe they are responsible for things that we complain about and wonder about and question. And it's probably a useful thing to keep in mind for next October.

Whoever the Danny Duffy of next October is, there's a reason for these things. I mean, there's, yeah, go ahead. But here's the thing, though, is that now next time a team does something unusual with a pitcher and we go, oh, he's probably hurt, that pitcher gets all pissed off at everybody and saying, I'm not hurt, why are you guys speculating?

You don't know anything about my body. I mean, don't they know we have to talk about things? It seems to me fine to just say, we don't talk about health. It's just not a thing we do. We're not going to talk about

health. We're not going to answer questions about player health. It's our business and it's not your business, but they don't. 90% of the time, if you go to a manager's availability, the first five or six questions are, how's this guy doing? He threw, what's the next stage for him in his comeback? Don't answer any of those.

If you're going to plead the fifth, you've got to plead the fifth the whole time because otherwise you're going to plead the fifth, you've got to plead the fifth the whole time. Because otherwise, you're lying. So I think that I'm somewhat annoyed, partly because I think that you're being more generous than they deserve. I haven't gone through and looked at all the quotes, but I think that there was some misleading going on. Yeah, definite misleading. And two, and this is not their fault they're nice people i have nothing against danny w or ned yost but uh i do i feel like uh someone has to stick up for all the people who've been criticized by baseball players over the years for speculating on their health. Yeah, I mean... Stop being liars, and we won't.

Yeah, I remember early in his tenure, Joe Girardi got in trouble for this kind of thing because he was very cagey about players' health and seemed to make some misleading statements, and it was something that writers wrote about and got annoyed about, and I don't know whether fans particularly care about that, whether it bothers them or whether it just bothers writers

because it makes it harder for writers to do their job. But for a manager, I mean, there is some incentive to be honest with the press so that you develop some trust. And just from a pure job security standpoint, you probably want the writers on your side to some extent. So yeah, I mean, if there were a manager who just refused to talk about any injuries, that would probably not go over well

with the people assigned to cover him, but there's nothing they could really do about it. And maybe once one manager did it, it would catch on once someone broke that ice, which I hope doesn't happen. If you switch to the hockey system where it's like upper body injury is the most specific anything ever gets or or football where a guy's listed as questionable or whatever. And everything is a game time decision and you never know what exactly is going on in baseball. We do at least get the illusion of knowing what is happening because managers say things. But it is something I thought about because just looking at the pre- and post-game quotes in the World Series, the questions are so specific. Like, how many pitches can this guy go tonight? Is he available? And these are people literally asking,

what is your strategy for whatever? When are you going to get this guy out of the game? It's like, they should not disclose what their strategy is. There's no advantage to them in doing that. You would not want to just advertise what you're going to do to the people in the other dugout. All right. Okay, Ben. You're right.

You've convinced me that my just tell us nothing solution sucks for us. So you might want to edit that out and pretend that I didn't. So what is the solution? How do we – because I don't want to be lied to. Partly because – I don't actually mind being lied to in one sense. And I encourage these people to do whatever it takes to win. However, there are two reasons. One, I think that telling lies destroys your soul and I do feel for these people. I don't want them to be in a position where they have to lie. I think that it's much better to be in a position where you get to say, I decline to comment. The

other is that if you know that 5% of answers are lies, then you don't know which 5% they are, then all the data that you have becomes tarnished and to some degree worthless. So what should we do? What I would like baseball to do, since I don't actually care about games that happened yesterday particularly, I would love it if all this stuff, including scouting reports, including internal trade discussions, every single thing that happened in the game was put in storage, in a lockbox, and then sometime in the future when it was no longer relevant to the game being played, to the strategy of the next game, they would show it to us. the strategy of the next game, they would show it to us. Every team could have a time capsule that would open up five years later.

Exactly. There was this thing recently where a bunch of members of the IRA gave oral histories to a professor in Boston or something. That didn't go so well. No, they didn't wait long enough. They screwed it up. They didn't wait long enough. Like they screwed it up. They didn't wait long enough. And so then it created this huge, big problem

because people were like, oh, wow, that's interesting and awful. So, however, the idea of sharing your information with academia has a long history. And I consider us academia. So that's all. Yeah. I don't know what other solution there would be because you can't be, if you're honest all the time and then suddenly you start dissembling and you say no comment in one specific case, then that is obviously a tell that you are not telling something. So that doesn't seem like

a workable solution. But anyway, as things stand right now, Danny Duffy, probably a good reminder that we shouldn't necessarily believe anything anyone says ever. So Waka also hurt. And is there anybody else who we now know was probably hurt? I don't know. I wonder now if – yeah. So if you're – we don't generally talk about fantasy strategy in this podcast because we don't know that much about fantasy strategy. But if Michael Wacow is number 100 on your big board this morning,

now that you've re-evaluated in light of this Danny Duffy lie, and you probably think that Michael Wacca was hurt in October, just like Danny Duffy, does he drop to 130 on your big board? Probably not that far. Because I would say if you are pitching at all, it's probably not something of long-term concern, I would think, which seems to be the case with Duffy.

Like this is not something that threatens his 2015. If it were, they probably would have just shut him down rather than keep him around in case he could chip in an inning here or there. So I would guess that if you are active, it's not something that would linger into the following season. But any injury could be a possible risk factor for some more serious injury. So sure, maybe drop him down a little bit. Okay, so the Royals.

We've seen all that the Royals have to offer now in the postseason. They won the most games it's possible to win without winning the World Series. I just want to take stock of whether we learned anything about team construction, about whether there's something that wins in the playoffs. Just put a ribbon on that discussion that we had heading into October. Have we changed our opinions at all? Did the Royals change your mind? Do you feel that they were a better team in the postseason

than they were during the regular season, true talent-wise? And if they were, is it a repeatable skill? Is there anything you can do to build a team like the Royals that will excel in the postseason? Oh, I didn't really. I mean, didn't somebody write that close games are not more common in the postseason i did i they are very very slightly more common but yeah like a couple percentage points more yeah i i mean i i i feel like i'm repeating myself a little bit but it felt like the royals were a team that was well

suited to the types of games that were abnormally common in this postseason. But this postseason is not the only postseason. I mean, we know what a postseason is like. And it's usually more like, to some degree, more like the regular season than this year's was. And you found that the lower scoring environment has not necessarily produced closer games, right? You wrote something for Fox about that?

I did, yeah, I did. I looked at whether games are closer in low offensive environments, which for the purpose of this I sort of defined it generationally or by era, For the purpose of this, I sort of defined it generationally or by era and found that the margin of games is actually smaller with fewer runs scored, and the margin at various stages in the game is also smaller. So, like, for instance, after the first inning in 1994, the average margin was like .96 runs

and now this year it was like.78 so the games are much closer but they're much closer but that's an illusion because there's also a lot fewer runs scored going forward and so in fact there are fewer games are

have fewer game state changes, so you were more likely to blow a lead in 1994, or you were more likely to come back in 1994, even though the margin was usually larger than you are in 2010. The games are closer by absolute numerical values, but they are actually farther apart in real significant in the ways that actually matter for competitiveness. Yeah. So it's not as if we should expect all post seasons to be like this post season, as long as scoring levels remain where they are. This was just weird, probably.

I think this was definitely weird. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it... Shoot, I shouldn't say anything is definite because I haven't looked, but this year, as we talked about, was much different than the last two years just in terms of how many close games there were.

Yeah. So, right, so that doesn't suggest to me that if if the royals were built well for a postseason where every game was a one-run game that that doesn't really tell us that they are built well for next postseason necessarily so i i don't know i mean, a lot was made of the speed, and the speed was really fun to watch, and it helped. But the range between the best base running team and the worst base running team in a typical season is three wins or something.

It's not usually a difference maker. I guess you could say it was a difference maker in the Royals' case since they barely made the playoffs, So it made the difference for them. But it's, you know, it's like the third or fourth or fifth thing, sixth thing on the list when you're checking off qualities that a team has. It's almost an afterthought. Oh, they're a good base running team. It's nice. It's a tiebreaker usually and and that was kind of the case i mean in the the wild card game of course was not representative of the royals speed they that was a crazy crazy display of speed and steals that will not be repeated and was not repeated

and in the world series they stole one base in the whole seven game series and terence gore who was you know the the darling of the the wild card game and the the alds and an interesting story certainly was not a factor he didn't get into a game did he i mean he did he who was he was not called upon. I think he was a trail runner. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And that was weird when he came in without second base open ahead of him. Yeah. And what did they have? I don't think they stole a base. I think they stole like one base or something like that against Baltimore. I think they went like one for three in that series or something like that. Yeah, right. And pitchers who were facing them,

Dave Cameron noted, just held the ball forever. Maybe that had something to do with it. Maybe it was just not having Derek Norris behind the plate, just having catchers who could throw, catchers and pitchers who were paying attention to the runners. So unlike John Lester who would not ever throw over there so so the speed was not really the factor that it maybe seemed initially in that wild card game and I mean it got them through that game so that was important but beyond that it was kind of uh it wasn't a huge factor and then I mean the bullpen was great but as we've talked about, it sort of relies on their having a lead or being in a game seven where you just use everyone.

If they don't get that early lead, then it's not as valuable to have those guys. And they're not a great offensive team, as they showed all season long. Maybe they're better than they showed all season long. Maybe they're better than they showed all season long, but it's just a low ceiling way to construct an offense. I think they did it as well as it could be done. They did the contact and speed thing perfectly. They really executed that model of team building well, but I don't think that model of team building has the same ceiling that a team that walks and hits home runs and also does some other things has. So, and the bullpen as great as it was, maybe that is a more of a factor than we give it credit for if you have a bullpen like that,

but I don't know how repeatable it is. I don't know how well you can plan to have a bullpen like that, but I don't know how repeatable it is. I don't know how well you can plan to have a bullpen like that. I mean, those three guys, Davis last year was a struggling starter. Herrera spent some time in AAA. He had such a shaky first half last year. And of course, this year they looked totally dominant. They were totally dominant, but they're not going to repeat that crazy performance again. They're going to allow home runs again at some point. Herrera had that remarkable ERA, didn't give up a home run all season, but it was kind of weird. Like he struck out a lot fewer batters than he had the year before and didn't

get more grounders or anything. So it was sort of strange how he was doing it the whole time. He was lumped in with Davis and Herrera, but isn't really in their class, I don't think, or isn't quite on their level. So those guys could come back next year and pitch just as well as they did this year, and they could all have three eras quite easily so and as if as you found that the bullpen is the the least stable thing about a team from year to year there's like no correlation and how good a bullpen is from one year to the next so and not only that but i mean imagine that the lesson from this is that to win in October, what you really need is to have an elite bullpen. That way lies doom for any GM who sets out for it. Because we see teams all the time going,

oh, well, we need to get three elite relievers. Let's go sign these three guys to four-year deals and watch them immediately suck. I mean, it's not just that it's hard to predict. It's that pursuing that, chasing that with too much vigor is how you ruin your team. I mean, the Dodgers spent $30 million on a bullpen this year. That's a good example. We thought they were going to have a good one. Yeah. We thought if you had come into the season thinking that having a good

bullpen is the way to succeed in October, then you would have put the Dodgers close to the top of the list of teams that were optimized for the postseason. And yet, by the time they got there, it was a weakness. The only way that you can make sure that your bullpen is elite is to take all of your starters and put them in the bullpen. That's only way and so maybe that maybe in 30 years we will think oh well that is the lesson is that you should take all your starters and put them in relief but we're not there yet and it's probably not true yeah so i don't know so i mean whatever the royals did and they did lots of things well but i mean they barely made it into the playoffs for one thing that was kind of in doubt until the last weekend almost. So if they had followed some model that worked

in the postseason but didn't work as well in the regular season, that in itself is very risky because if you build this hypothetical October juggernaut that is not as well constructed for the regular season, you might never get to the postseason. And that would defeat the purpose. So I don't know that – I'm trying to take some lesson from the way that the Royals were built and it doesn't seem to me like there is some lasting, I mean, the fact that they built from within mostly and stockpiled prospects and did a good job scouting a lot of those guys, that obviously works. I mean, that's not a new thing, building with scouting and getting young guys and developing them and everything. I mean, that is a tried and true formula. But I'm having a hard time finding the new thing that the Royals did

that other teams could copy in the future that would lead to the same success that the Royals had. And it was really fun to watch And maybe they'll be back I don't think they're going to fall apart or anything I mean, they have enough of their core remaining That I think they'll be, you know, pretty good for a while Like, good enough that you could imagine that they will make it back to the playoffs And that in itself is valuable

In that you just need to be good enough to have a shot at it in the multiple wild card era but i don't know what the lesson in roster construction from the royals is and i don't want to discount their defense either that's obviously a big part of their success but that was a big part of their regular season success too if you want to say that defense is still underrated and the royals were a good reminder that defense matters then i'm on board with that much but that was a big part of why people expected the royals to have some success this season i don't know whether it's really a post-season specific strategy okay and so then there's the giants discussion and talking about whether a team is a dynasty

or not is sort of a silly discussion it's one of those discussions where it just depends on how the person defines that word so that's maybe not the most productive debate if you define a dynasty as a team that has to win a bunch of World Series in a row, then they are not a dynasty. If you define it as a team that wins a bunch of World Series in some fairly short span of time, then they are a dynasty. So I don't know whether to even talk about the D word. I think it actually does this team more credit, and I agree with you, by the way. I don't intend to take this in that direction. However, I think it does the Giants more credit to say this is not a dynasty

and to say that they've actually had so much roster turnover, and even the roster that hasn't turned over has taken effort to keep together, that in fact they have built at least two distinct championship caliber teams, which to me is more impressive than building one championship caliber team that wins multiple World Series. Yeah. It's really impressive. From any perspective, it is incredibly impressive. It is incredibly difficult to win three World Series in five years. It's just, I mean, it comes down to whether you care that they are the best team in the regular season or

not, or over that longer sample. I mean, over that five season span, they had the seventh most wins of any team. They failed to make the playoffs entirely in the two years that they didn't make the World Series. And they haven't really, I wouldn't say, had an argument as the best team in baseball in any one of those years. So it's kind of like when we have those Hall of Fame debates and someone says, well, he was never the best player in his league in any year or something. And that doesn't really mean anything. Maybe he was the third best player in his league in any year or something. And that doesn't really mean anything. Maybe he was the third best player every year, which is really impressive too. From 2000 to 2005, the Giants won 90 games.

Or from 2000 to 2004, they won 90 games all five years. And they won 95 or more three times. In this run, they've won 90 games twice. And they have not yet won 95. In this run, they've won 90 games twice, and they have not yet won 95. So if you were looking ahead to the next five years, and you could take either the Barry Bonds Giants or the Buster Posey Giants, and you get them at the same ages and everything, same teams, but you have to replay the seasons, which ones would you take?

The one that won three World you take the one that won three world series or the one that won none but made one i i refuse your hypothetical i i just i refuse to take and i i refuse to get into the uh process argument with the giants at this point i am simply content to say that they have outplayed everybody else by so much that they deserve a few weeks where we can turn off our brains a little bit and just appreciate how astoundingly well they have played in 10 consecutive series i mean it's astounding it's it is brilliant yeah and i honestly just am not interested in the prediction game right now yeah yeah i'm also not by the way not interested in writing a 340-page book about how every team should be built like the 2010 to 2014 Giants.

So, I mean, the story is basically the same for this team that it was for 2010, even though it's a lot of different players. Sabian has generally been very good when you don't give him much money. He has a way of finding busted guys who turn out to be really great. These low-grade pickups, minor league signings in December that end up being three to five win players for him. And his first round picks over the course of a seven-year period when he wasn't giving them away so he could sign Michael Tucker were all really great. He just hit on a number of number one picks. And so I wrote two years ago when we were trying to figure out what

made the Giants, at that point, two out of three run, what propelled it. I basically concluded that the best story you can tell is that they had maybe the best three-year run of first-round picks in history. At that point, Lincecum, Posey, and Bumgarner, this was before Lincecum had had his two terrible seasons, they were on pace by Pakoda's 10-year markers, 10-year projections, on pace to challenge the best three-year run of any team's first round picks ever. And you can throw in there Matt Cain. If you want, you could throw in there Zach Wheeler, although that wouldn't help you very

much. And so obviously getting 20 to 60 war careers out of your first round picks is a good way to run an organization. I haven't seen any real reason to think that Sabian is more skilled drafting first round picks than anybody else. He had a long drought before Kane and he hasn't drafted squat since Wheeler. So, I mean, I guess panic is contributing. But, you know, it's just kind of one of those things. He had a really good run doing the thing he's supposed to do.

I don't know that that's a strategy exactly, but scout well, pick the guy you think is best, develop him as well as you can, and have him turn out great is a thing you could do if you're up to it. Yeah, I more or less agree and wrote basically some of that in my Game 7 recap that if they're a dynasty, they're a dynasty of the modern baseball era where the most important thing is getting there. And they've gotten

there three out of five years. And once there, they have outplayed everyone. And I don't know whether they would have outplayed everyone if you had somehow simulated those seasons thousands of times. But

maybe that's not all that interesting a question right now. They, they did, they, they won those series. They played really well. And if you, I mean,

you'd have to attribute it to, unless you think that they are the team that is just built for October in some way, you'd have to conclude that it was either some amount of good timing in that they played some of their best baseball at the time when it mattered most, or you could attribute some of it to character if you were so inclined or chemistry or whatever. And I don't know whether it was that or not. It happened. And it's really impressive that it happened. And it was improbable that it happened.

And they should feel very good about themselves. And we should celebrate it for what it is, which is an incredible feat. I'm actually glad. I think in a weird way it strengthens the dynasty claim that they didn't make it in 2011 and 2013 if they had and gotten bounced in the division series then they're just a team

that won 3 out of 5 post seasons but as it is they're a team that has won 10 straight series if you get the wild card which you shouldn't but I am because what else are you going to do so that really makes it stronger. It is the greatest gift that they could ever give to historians, that they sucked so bad last year

and that they collapsed so badly in August and September of 2011 that makes the narrative nice and clean. That's right. Okay. So that's a wrap on the World Series and the Royals and the Giants for now. And we did

create a Twitter account for the show, as threatened. It is at EWpod. It's not all that useful, to be honest. It's not all that useful, to be honest. It's an account where you can see. Yeah. Oh, okay.

This is not. I feel like this is like with the podcast itself. I see immediate mission creep. Like immediate. You couldn't do one day and stick to what this was supposed to be about. Yeah, it is. Right now it's mostly don't follow this this is a terrible account wow i am reporting you for spam in fact boy the purpose is to tell people when we are recording so that they will not wait up if we are not recording that day. And I will also notify them when episodes are published so that they can find them there.

They already follow you. You already notify them when it's published. I really think that you, instead of having the default, yes, we're recording, it should only default to no, we're not recording. And on those nights when people should not stay up, anyway, you can handle it. We're doing okay.

Just trying to expand our social media presence. That's what all the consultants are doing these days. Okay. And you can, of course, join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. Now that there are no games, we will be answering emails regularly again. So we welcome them at podcast at baseballprospectus.com. We hope that you will support our sponsor, the Baseball Reference Play Index, by going to baseballreference.com, subscribing to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. And if you've enjoyed the show this season, if you're happy that it's not ending,

you can show us a token of your gratitude by telling a friend about the show or leaving a rating or review on iTunes so that we can expand the audience. And we hope that you will have a wonderful weekend. We will be back next week. I've got tea again. This is great.