Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 743: The Cubs Clinch and Kershaw Recovers

Episode Date: October 14, 2015

Ben and Sam review the Cubs-Cardinals series and Mets-Dodgers Game Four, then return to the David Price puzzle.

Good morning and welcome to episode 743 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus, presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Perspectus. Hello. Hello. Actually, it is morning for once when I say good morning. We're down to two games at one time now, so more manageable schedule. Exciting games tonight. Yeah. So are we just gonna talk about Cubs first or Mets-Dodgers first?

Do you have a preference? Do you want to start anywhere else? Can I first just start with one small thing? I just want to say I don't know if you've listened to hang up and listen this week have you i have not yet mike pesca unlocks the key to uh listening to a cal ripken broadcast game without uh growing resentful with rage and the key is just everything he says whatever he says just in your mind mentally preface it with, so kids, if you're out there listening to this. Yeah, that's good. There is just a lot of very generic baseball instruction going on. He just sort of disappeared for a few innings today. I don't think I heard him for like a half hour at least.

Is that right? Yeah, and I didn't miss him much, but I noticed that he wasn't talking anymore. Yeah. All right. So Dave Cameron pointed out the pitch tracker that we were talking about the other day is maybe not a mystery why it's so weird. It's just the rulebook strike zone. And we're used to seeing the strike zone as it's actually called.

seeing the strike zone as it's actually called. And I was sort of surprised because the comments on his article, I mean, his article was that, you know, TBS has to change this because all the other networks have it the other way, have the strike zone as it's actually called, and that's what people expect to see. And the way that TBS has it, everyone thinks that every game is called terribly because there are so many called strikes that are outside of the box. And the commenter reaction to that was, I think a lot of people were opposed to that.

They want to see the rulebook strike zone, even though that's not actually how it's called. how it's called. I think I'm with Dave on this because it is the way that the umpires are instructed to call pitches. It would be different if they were supposed to call the rulebook strike zone and they were graded on the rulebook strike zone and MLB was telling them to call the rulebook strike zone and they were just doing a terrible job of applying those instructions. But they seem to be calling pitches as they're supposed to call pitches. MLB keeps saying that they are more accurate than they've ever been and therefore the zone is bigger than it has been before. And that's why all these balls that are outside on the tbs graphic are actually strikes so it does seem like it would be more useful or less jarring at least to show the strike zone as it's typically called these

days i guess the only i mean the value of it is that it just shows how things have changed how the zone is bigger now than it used to be but other than that educational purpose it still seems like it's not an ideal broadcasting experience yeah well so when people say they want the rulebook strike zone called i i mean i i don't i i'm sure some people have uh that opinion and are well educated but i assume when people say that they just like they don't know what the difference is they they just like they like the idea of the rules being followed yeah like i don't think they are actually saying that's the strike zone for me that's the one that would make the game better like it just sounds better right like the half the half the world is just gonna want

that one because it sounds better like of course make the the one that's in the rule book do that one um and nobody i don't think anybody who's in the game in any capacity is like unclear about what the strike zone is or what it is called as for the most part i mean sometimes it dips a little here and there but yeah you hear occasional like patient hitters complaining about how they're taking pitches that used to be balls and now they're strikes. I think Mike Napoli has mentioned that, not as an excuse for his struggles earlier this year, but just as a contributing factor. I don't know. I don't care. You know where I stand on the strike zone. Yeah, there shouldn't be one Exactly

Minority opinion For now Maybe the only person I've ever heard with that opinion But you're really sticking to it For now, yeah Okay So the Cubs, we have a Championship series team

A team clinched, a championship series team. A team clinched. A division series is over. And they did it in very Cubs fashion. They hit lots of home runs, and they struck out lots of Cardinals, and they used a lot of reclaimed, repurposed pitchers who have been really good for them and other teams kind of gave up on. And so it was a mix of their surprisingly good pitching, which probably gets overshadowed by their really good and expectedly good,

not so surprisingly good, young power hitting prospects. And guys like Justin Grimm, who they got in a trade, or Trevor Cahill, who they picked up after everyone gave up on him and turned him into a pretty good reliever, although he gave up a run, and Fernando Rodney, who is Fernando Rodney, and Pedro Stroop and Clayton Richard. It goes on and on. Is there a publicly accepted version of the trevor cahill story how he

suddenly got good i i think it's just the any starter can be a good no no no no he had been he had been a bad reliever he was a bad reliever for atlanta he had pitched in relief for i mean when he when they got him from atlanta i think atlanta at let him go. Uh, he had a 7.5 ERA. Now that's about half starts and half relief. And, but let me see what he, uh, am I going to be able to do it in anyway? Uh, he left Atlanta. He had 4.8 strikeouts per nine, 3.8 walks per nine. So it's not like he was like dominating. I'm going to see what he was in 2014, but he was a reliever for a bunch of 2014 too. He struck out a lot of guys. He did strike out.

He struck out a lot of guys. He walked a lot of guys. He had an ERA of three. So, all right, maybe. Maybe it's just that. Yeah, I think that's it. So, they have turned Orioles castoffs into the most unbeatable pitcher in baseball

and a good setup man. And Justin Grimm, who was, you know, he was a prospect, but they've turned him into a useful pitcher. I mean, better than that. Yeah, and Travis Wood is a good pitcher, and Fernando Rodney is all of a sudden a good pitcher, and Clayton Richard is a useful pitcher. So they built a really good pitching staff.

I mean, they led the majors in wins above replacement player from pitchers, which, again, I think was overshadowed by the fact that they had the most war from rookie position players since like the 1982 twins or something and it was guys like bryant that we knew were coming and bias contributed a little bit and schwarber was ahead of schedule and soler and just all these guys that we knew were big prospects and would potentially be big players and they were and Addison Russell and so on and so on but they've made a lot out of trades it's not just drafting and developing it's also having a good eye for talent other teams talent yeah they're super good yeah they're really good they're they're super good i mean they're it's sort of shocking how good they are i mean i

we knew they were good i think they had the best third order winning percentage in the national league coming in they didn't feel like unbeatable or unstoppable and I guess they still don't. I mean, they could very easily lose a series. It wouldn't shock you if they did or anything like that. It's not like they're just going to roll all the way there. But it seems like every year there's a team that, like, a lot of teams advance through the playoffs, and a couple of them even make the World Series, and one of them wins the World Series. But you don't necessarily come away thinking they're way better than i thought they were a month ago like you don't i didn't i didn't think the giants at the end of the world series last year were any better than i thought

they were at the beginning of the wild card game uh but like i did think that the royals at some i and then i forgot this but at some point in the middle of it i thought wow you know the royals are pretty good like that's a pretty good team um i didn't feel that way about the orioles but i did feel that way about the royals for instance and the cubs we already knew they were really good like we already knew they were maybe the best team in the national league but they're when they're batting it just feels like that point late in the game when your opponent has the purples the oranges the reds the yellows the greens and the blues and then you've got like baltic and whatever the other one is yeah and you're like come on land on yeah land i get 450 if they land on baltic and you're just like that's

your only hope and then you've got to roll seven times to get back to baltic and you just have no chance and you're like yes i you know i only have to pay 200 for the railroads and that's a victory that's how their lineup feels at this point and their lineup wasn't that great in the regular season i mean there were things that they did really well they walked and they didn't really chase. They were surprisingly plate-disciplined for a young team and an experienced team. They hit home runs. They had power. But they also struck out way more than any other team, and that hurts a little bit.

And so they were kind of an average-ish offense, at least over the full season, and they have been better than that so far. And maybe part of it is the cardinals as we discussed coming into the series not being the team that they were for much of the season a lot of their guys are banged up or not playing but the cubs also looked really good and they put bias in for a game and he hits a home run on an outside pitch opposite field and Schwarber hit that bomb that I suppose is still sitting on top of the scoreboard so it's an impressive performance yeah and in the regular season you would have seen the lineup and for

most of the season you would have said well at least we can get Starlin Castro but Starlin Castro's basically hit like Pete Canley Ramirez for the last six or seven weeks, including this series. And you could say, well, Solaire's kind of, he's, he's, he's not so, he's not so good, but Solaire had a 3750 OPS coming into the last game of this series. So now he's doing that. He did make outs finally. He did finally make outs.

He did make outs, finally. He did finally make outs. And you have, you know, Schwarber's on fire. And Javier Baez, who is a good hitter, who's like a genuinely good hitter, was absent all year long. And now he's chilling. I mean, they have. And we haven't mentioned Anthony Rizzo, who's like the best hitter on the team. Yeah. But, I mean, you knew him the whole year long.

Yeah. But, like, throughout the year, there would be points where you could say, oh, well, this guy's numbers aren't that great. This guy's not that great. But right now, those guys are great. Plus Chris DiNorfia, who's the last guy you want to face. Yeah, that's true. So it's an impressive team.

So the Cubs, are the Cubs your pennant favorite, regardless of what happens in Mets-Dodgers Game 5? Boy, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, yeah, sure. But I'm not sure that it's any more than like 52% at this point. So the Dodgers will have to go to Granke on Thursday. And they'll start the series on Saturday.

So Kershaw pitched Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So either he would have to pitch on short rest, or he would pitch game two, and then Granke would one, two, three, four, pitch game three. And so they would still get Granke, Kershaw, two starts each. So assuming nobody pitched on short rest, you'd still have to go through two starts of Kershaw and two starts each. So assuming nobody pitched on short rest, you'd still have to go through two starts of Kershaw and two starts of Granke.

And the way it's likely to work out, Arrieta won't go up against either of them. So if the predictable thing happened, the huge pitching mismatches went the way that huge pitching mismatches are supposed to go, I mean, you've got four games where the pitching mismatch heavily favors the Dodgers, and then two where heavily favors the Cubs as it works out. So I don't know.

I mean, in that sense, maybe. Yeah, it's not an enormous mismatch, even though the Cubs have all the buzz and the team of destiny and the sympathetic storyline and all of that. But I agree. It's not a huge talent disparity. But it's nice for Cubs fans that they at least got to win a series finally in Wrigley Field for the first time ever, which is pretty incredible that that hadn't happened before. And it was just a good Cubs kind of win, good Cubs kind of series. What have you thought about Joe Maddon as a tactician? In this series in particular or just overall?

In the series in particular. I don't have a strong reaction i it i don't know if i'm like projecting on his actions or what but it just it it it does seem like there's all these little things that he's doing that show a very active and strategic way of approaching kind of every at bat. And when I think of a stat head manager, it's like, oh, he doesn't bunt and he does this thing and he does that thing. But it's a pretty small list. And I don't know again i'm not sure madden is that much better than anybody else but like you know he's at he's asking for the umpire to check the ball when lackey's pitching like that's a small thing you don't think of that as a stat head thing but i also know that there's like 20 managers who just seem like i don't know if there's 20, but the median manager in my life has been this guy who you just think is kind of sitting there being gruff and not really thinking at that level. And I thought that the two bunts in a row that he had a couple days ago, they were both really well thought out. I thought that his decision, that his preparedness to pinch hit for Jason Hamill

in the, I think, top of the third, and then his decision to not pinch hit for him was well thought out. And I don't know. I think that, again, I think the median manager in my life doesn't pinch hit for Hamill there under any circumstances, and the median manager who decides to pinch hit for Hamill there under any circumstances and the median manager who decides to pinch hit for him then does anyway and I thought he made two sort of both were

kind of nuanced decisions he was prepared to make two nuanced decisions and I mean I don't know I I know I've always known that you know Madden was a manager who would do things in a more optimized, more favorable way, but I've kind of thought about it as limited to a few moves a game. And it sort of feels like it's actually like, I don't know, eight to ten moves a game that he's doing something differently. And it's been, I don't know, I think it fun as as fun to watch him as it has been to watch you know chris bryant did you think there was matheny mismanaging or just not the same level of engagement uh i don't know matheny just blends in yeah matheny makes a couple of

terrible moves a year and then otherwise you don't really notice him that much he's a manager yeah i wrote an article yesterday about bullpen managers and rating how good they are at deploying their relievers effectively and coming into it you think that matheny will probably be toward the bottom just based on some of his more memorable moves like the Michael Waka relief appearance in the elimination game last year and he does show up as the worst bullpen manager by the method I was using even in the 2015 regular season but it's not probably an enormous difference between him and the next guy when Tony La Russa used to do his over-managing, when he would have the pitcher bat eighth

or when he would have his parade of relievers or when he would do something a little unconventional, it always kind of felt like he wanted to... I don't know. This was the knock on him. This is not an original viewpoint. I'm basically parroting what I read other people writing 10 years ago. But the knock was that he was kind of trying, he wanted to be the genius. And he was making moves to be the genius. But like you never necessarily got the sense that there was a great, responsive intellectual process that got him there all the time.

And it's more convincing with the Cubs. Like, for instance, the Cubs, like when we've been running the previews of these games and you have to predict, you have to sort of give the most likely lineup. And the Cubs writers who've been doing this have been having a horrible time because there's like no predictable lineup and that could just be a sort of a twee quirk of a manager who uh likes to be uh active but in fact like this is something that you can see in the way that uh he ran the team this year that like he invested in his roster and in his decisions so that he would have a team that was prepared for a lot of different flexibility so that a lot of guys could move into different places

so he could have different looks depending on whether it's a ground ball pitcher, a fly ball pitcher, a strikeout pitcher, whether you're looking for offense or whether you're looking for defense, whether the platoon advantage is going to be a big deal or not a big deal. These are not frivolous moves that he's making or frivolous kind of flexibilities that he's making or frivolous um kind of flexibilities that he's building into the system like they're actually really useful and they're actually thought out and they actually you can see the planning that took place weeks or months ago

to prepare for this and uh i don't know i i think that it's been more impressive uh than at this point in my life i was even prepared to give Joe Maddon credit for. I kind of just had assigned him a smart score that was pretty good, and I didn't necessarily intend to reevaluate him. And in fact, the score is going up in my mind. He always used a lot of lineups in Tampa Bay and he would have the... He did, but you just thought that was the Zobrist. You just thought, oh, he has Zobrist. This one, he didn't have Zobrist.

He had to make this happen. Yeah, and it was funny. As soon as Kevin Cash was hired to run the Rays, he came out and he said, it's going to be different. We're going to use fewer lineups. It's going to distinguish me from Madden. We think there's some value to having guys in the same lineup slots day after day. And then he ended up using among the most lineups in the majors anyway. But yeah, there's lots of moving parts on the Cubs, which, I mean, it's partially him laying the groundwork for that,

and it's partially just the Cubs having more position players than positions, which they've had to do some mixing and matching and position swapping just to fit people in. And every time they had a veteran doing okay, like Chris Coughlin then kyle schwarber comes up and is even better and then you have to bench cogglin or find a place to put cogglin or justin reggiano hits really well surprisingly or you know something like that happens so they've gotten lots of contributions from many different sources yeah that is true one way of describing what is happening is that he has uh players who deserve to play more than they are playing uh less because they have too many good players and so when you put it that way it does seem like kind of anybody could run this system like you give

the worst manager in baseball 16 deserving players and only a couple would screw it up. Right. And there's some value to keeping everyone happy while doing that, because not everyone can start every day. And I don't know that he's done that perfectly. Coughlin seemed upset about the fact that he wasn't starting game one. And he had some comments about how, you know, Joe has his reasons and I don't know what they are and that sort of thing. So there's some discontent there. But the clubhouse mostly seems to be happy, and maybe it's easier to control that when everyone's a rookie and they're not used to it.

They don't feel like they've earned a spot for the most part. So it's probably a bunch of things coming together in a year that just works out in many ways. Yeah. Good team, though. Very good team. Very good team. So did you see the Cubs fan who used a jukebox app to play Go Cubs Go in St. Louis bars and bowling alleys. Like he was remotely ordering songs on jukeboxes all throughout St. Louis all day on Tuesday.

Very clever. Yeah, very good. And one of my favorite things that came out of this series, and a lot of good things came out of this series. Do you hate the Cardinals? No. I don't either. I like the Cardinals.

I pretty much always am happy when the Cardinals win. I think we talked about this maybe almost two years ago when Will Leach was on. But it feels like anti-Cardinal sentiment just grows and grows. And I can see being happy that new teams are in it. But still, I guess I'm bringing this up mainly because another year and a half has passed and nobody has managed to convince me that there's anything wrong with the cardinals like y'all hate them so much they're just a good team that does good things and makes smart decisions yeah right they don't have a problem with the Cardinals. I'm not upset to see them eliminated because it is kind of nice to see. I mean, whatever the status like the of all the teams remaining, the Blue Jays are the most recent to win a World Series. And it's been over two decades since they did. So we're going to get a new champion, which is nice. It's not a bad thing to have the Cardinals and the Giants not be the teams left in the National League right now.

I don't mind that at all. But yeah, I have no problem with the Cardinals. Any anger that comes from the Cardinals just seems to be people sick of them and people projecting things onto the Cardinals. And people projecting things onto the Cardinals. Like, you know, people writing articles about how the Cardinals' way is different and they are so businesslike and professional and all that sort of thing. And I don't know, maybe some of that comes from the team, but a lot of it just seems to be projected onto the team. Anyway, I don't really get the sense that this is like a changing of the guard moment so much.

really get the sense that this is like a changing of the guard moment so much i mean maybe it is in that i guess the cubs would be your nl central favorite next year and for the foreseeable future but it's not like this is like the cardinals are on their last legs and this is their last gasp or anything like they should probably be back again next year Or there's no reason to think that they won't be Yeah They had They had a third order winning percentage This year of

90 wins Sorry yeah 89 wins Their third order winning percentage would have said They're an 89 win team Next year more or fewer than 89 wins That's probably about where I would put it. They lose what? They lose Lackey and Hayward.

Yeah, Hayward to free agent. Yeah, and then they might not lose. But they could lose both of those guys. And they have a full year of Piscotty. And they have Wainwright, presumably, for a full year of biscotti and they have wayne wright presumably for a full year healthy and um a little bit more martinez and yeah so maybe more for melina yeah maybe more for melina but maybe not yeah i i don't know there's still a good team there so okay so kershaw kershaw was good yeah kershaw looked really good if i were the sort of person who went by appearances i would say that kershaw looked like he was gonna have a good game

but i don't put that much stock in that because a lot of times players will look great until they fall apart completely but he did seem to have a sort of ace face thing going on yeah i don't know he was working really quickly and he just uh i mean there was a string of like six strikeouts in a row or something that was later in the game after he'd been rolling for a while already but those were all just very aesthetic strikeouts they were just all very pleasing to watch they were like 95 and 96 and then just breaking balls falling off the table and there was one called strike three that was particularly pretty but lots of weak swings there was like a Wilmer Flores weak wave at a pitch and Michael Kodair had one also he just looked very much in command and he also

started the Dodgers rally with a single yeah were you surprised at all that he pitched the seventh and were you surprised at all that he was pulled before the eighth nope yeah me neither yeah i don't know the the whole game on twitter was like people being surprised about bullpen things that weren't actually happening it was like jacob de grom having his throw day or whatever and everyone thinking he was going to come into the game so there was an inning worth of tweeting about that and there was an innings worth of tweeting about how mattingly didn't have anyone up for the seventh even though he had two guys up in the seventh so there was a lot of fussing

about bullpen moves that isn't wasn't really warranted but no i wasn't surprised that he came out for the seventh I think anyone would have left him in for the seventh and Mattingly did have guys up in case he did get into trouble and there was a moment like when Suspetus had that infield single that was off Kershaw's glove you kind of did get that seventh inning kershaw feeling for a second but it didn't pan out then there was a pop-up and and it was kind of over all right so let's say that uh so when kershaw when they pulled kershaw in game one and bias came in and gave up the two runs twitter was unanimous not not necessarily my twitter but I was searching because I wanted to see.

And so that exposed me to Wide World Twitter, which is scary. And it was unanimous that Mattingly would be fired. Gibbons for Toronto is unanimous that if the Blue Jays lose, he will be fired. And this is what happens when we watch playoff baseball and a move gets blown up, and particularly when it backfires. We decide that managers that just led their team to the playoffs are actually wobbly chair.

And sometimes they are. Now, sometimes they are. Managers do get fired after making the playoffs, particularly for teams with huge expectations. But there are six teams in win-or-go-home games in the next two days. Mattingly, Collins, Bannister, Gibbons, Yost, and Hinch. I think we can say with 100% certainty that Bannister, Yost, and Hinch are completely safe. Collins, most likely, is also very safe. Will Gibbons or Mattingly, though, be fired if they fail to get out of the LDS? I don't think I don't think there's been any signature managerial moment that was so bad that you decide that you can't bring the guy back if there were other issues that had been bubbling for some time and they're just coming to the surface and team was thinking about making a

change anyway then maybe but I don't think anything fireable has happened in these series. Okay, what about, though... Okay, first of all, you don't think that the price thing is potentially fireable? Price is very strange. So it could be. I mean, maybe if they lose game five and... We still don't really know necessarily the honest rationale and we don't know whether the front office was involved in it and maybe uh it's a great plan that everybody signed off on and we just don't see it yeah but there's also a possibility

that it's dumb and that he did a dumb thing and that it's going to cost them the series. So I could sort of see that. I mean, it's not, I don't have any issue. I had no issues with Gibbons before this. And if you'd asked me to fill out his resume at the top where it said skills, I would have been like, no idea, don't know. He said presumably some. I would have written presumably some. So he's not, he doesn't seem irreplaceable, I guess.

On the other hand, I don't know if this is on the other hand or not, they just won a ton of games. They also won probably fewer games than they should have with the talent they had. And they went through much of the season looking like they were going to miss the playoffs despite having the best team in the American League. So further evidence of him not really necessarily standing out.

And then the price thing is so weird that it's like, I don't know. I don't know. At some point we'll find out. Well, maybe we won't. Yeah, I don't know. Did we ever really find out about Miller and Duffy? Or did we just sort of assume that they were not fully healthy or prepared? I think we found out about Duffy, but I don't remember what we found out.

And I think that Miller—no, I don't think we found out about Miller. I think they just didn't think Miller was good. Yeah, right. Now, Mattingly, I was sure he would get fired before the season started because they hired the Friedman regime. Even if he was a great manager, he preceded that regime. And that's a regime that, well, particularly Friedman in Tampa Bay hired a very particular type of manager and worked extremely closely with him for a decade. And you just didn't really think that he would necessarily want to work with another guy's manager, particularly one who was famous and carried a lot of kind of presumed authority

because of that, but not necessarily the kind of authority that you would want if you were a GM and you wanted to tell your manager how to do things. And I'm impressed that they work together and seem to like each other and that there is a lot of successes in the year. But also, $300 million team, won 90 games, playing game five against the Mets. I mean, basically two things went well for the Dodgers this year. They had, well, I guess three, if you count all their awesome rookies coming up. But basically, Kershaw and Granke were historically great. They had maybe the best 1-2 pitchers in history,

and they won 90 games with a $300 million payroll. So again, it's hard to say he's the manager of the year or anything like that. And so if you lose, everybody knows the playoffs are a crapshoot, but also people get held accountable for results. And so I don't know. I would probably, I don't know which one I would pick, but I would bet if they both lose this week that one is not coming back and that my guess would be Mattingly.

Yeah, it certainly wouldn't surprise me. But he did an okay job in this game. I would have handled Kershaw the same way that he did. I might have tried to use Jansen for two innings, although he hasn't done that. And I probably would have put Jansen in for Granderson, who he let Hatcher face and walk. But those are pretty small quibbles and

do you remember the fox hot spot from the i think it was the 2011 world series the infrared camera that like well i don't know whether you were maybe you were listening on the radio at that point. No, I vaguely recall this being talked about. Yeah, it was like a sort of night vision-y view on replays where you would be able to see heat signatures. So when the bat hit the ball, it would get bright. Both the ball and the bat would get bright. hit the ball it would get bright both the ball and the bat would get bright and i was thinking of that with the uh kenley jansen at bat where aj ellis thought that he had struck out david right on i mean ellis seemed convinced that it was a foul tip it looked to me like it was a foul tip i didn't watch the replay 20 times like I would have wanted to and

like I would have if it had proved to be a more pivotal moment but just based on the couple super slow-mo shots they showed it looked to me like the bat altered the trajectory but that was like the perfect time for the old hotspot technology which I think is still used and maybe originated in cricket i think it's common in cricket and maybe it doesn't matter as much as often in baseball but it's sort of strange that that just came and went because the trend is toward more bells and whistles and more cameras and more views in baseball broadcasts and that one just sort of came and went. And that would have been the perfect time to tell whether the bat had hit the ball. The thing, too, is that Stroman is good,

but it's not like he's one of the five best pitchers in baseball. It's not even like he is coming off of a great start. He allowed four runs in game two. It's like, it's weird to be this in love with Marcus Stroman at this point. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Isn't it?

It's not, right? Like he was, he was. He's like become one of my favorite players just because of his personality and everything. But, and he's just fun to watch pitch, but you're right, I don't think he's a lock. Yeah, I mean, even if he is, like, I don't know. He was seen as worse than David Price coming into the series, obviously. Because Price started game one. And then Price wasn't that good in game one.

But, again, Stroman gave up four runs. And he had a good September, but he had a crazy bad September. It's not like he was striking out six batters per nine. And he had a 3.5 FIP. And I don't know. It's weird. Yeah, it's really weird. By the way, I don't know if you saw this, but we have a phrase to add to strategy.

Did you see Gibbon's quote about why he did price? No. Well, at first he said, well, I thought it was a pretty good strategy, Gibbon said. It wasn't a popular one, but I thought that was the best way to go. And then here's the quote, it's all about winning. Okay. Can't argue with that. okay and then here's the quote it's all about winning okay actually the full quote is it's all about winning i thought you know that's that's the quote it's all about winning i thought you know it's pretty radical yeah so he decided to use david Price because it's all about winning, I thought. He's right about that.

It is. Yeah, I wonder whether we'll get the full story on what happened there. I don't know. It's strange. It seems like one of those times where the team must know something we don't know. But I think... I wonder what percentage of times that we decide that the team must know something we don't know, but I think... I wonder what percentage of times that we decide that the team must know something we don't know. The team actually knows something important that we don't know.

The team knows something that they convince themselves is important that we don't know, but actually isn't important. Or the third option is they don't know anything we don't know and they just did something weird well i don't know what the breakdown would be look other than my having somebody to pitch game one of the lcs because you're really dedicated to winning the world series and not one simple division series is other than that there's no logical way that it makes sense because either they think david price, in which case, why go to him? Or they think David Price is good, in which case, why go to him? I guess you could think that he sucks relative to Strowman but is still better than Aaron Loop.

Yeah, but if he's better than Aaron loop, it's still save him for game five as a reliever. Yeah. Right. If he's good, if he's better than the rest of the relievers, then you want to save him for game five to be a reliever in game five. You don't use him in mop up work, which is what they brought him into. If, if it was three to one and they used him there, then that's fine then we're having a real discussion about whether that was the best way to deploy their guy if it's four to one probably still if it's five to one and you probably try to stall so you don't have to make the decision right away and see if you can get another few outs and the situation becomes clearer

but it's seven to one man like there's no way they're losing that game. There's no way. They could have used their September call-ups in that game, and they'd have won that game. They're not losing a 7-1 game. No. And so you don't bring in a guy who has any value in the fifth game and burn him in that situation. And they didn't have to burn anybody. They didn't have to burn anybody. They didn't have to burn anybody.

They had the day off. They had a rested bullpen. They could have gotten through that game very easily. They would have won it nine to four or something stupid and boring. And by Friday, everybody except for Dickey is ready to go. That was their option. That was their play. And it doesn't matter whether you think Price is Good or broken That's the play either way basically So I don't know What they could possibly know

It's not a matter of Stroman or Price That's not the question They have Ryan Tappera on the roster That's I guess what you have Ryan Tappera for Who's their Who's their mop-up pitcher I think Ryan Tappera for. Who's their mop-up pitcher? I think Ryan Tappera. I mean, their position player pitcher.

They have him, too. Yeah, no, you use Tappera. Who's Tappera? Maybe John didn't know he was there, either. Hang on. He doesn't know who he is. Ryan Tappera. Yeah, looks like a ball player.

19th rounder. Made his... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah, looks like a ball player. 19th rounder. Made his... Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Oh, yeah. Made his debut this year. 33 innings. 22 strikeouts.

Basically had Marcus Stroman's peripherals. Yeah, I don't know. You could say that maybe it was just Gibbons just being excessively cautious and just wanting to make sure they didn't blow that game just to protect his own job security or just avoid being second-guessed or something, except that it leads to so much more second-guessing. If it had been the last game Of the series And they were closing it out with Price

And they had like a couple Off days after that And everyone said well they should have just Let Price rest So he would be totally rested In game one of the next series And Gibbons was saying yeah but We didn't take it for granted

We wanted to shut this one out. Then you could understand. But as it is, they still have to win another game. Is it possible that Gibbons wasn't sure what game it was? No, honestly, when it happened and everybody was like freaking out about it and I thought, boy, there must be something to this. I convinced, I got confused because the only way it made sense is that yes, he just figures you win the game in front of you. Don't even go to a game five. You don't

even want to deal with a game five. And I'm like, all right, that's it. He just got way too aggressive in closing this thing out. Doesn't want a game five. Wait a minute. Am I getting something wrong here? It seems like I'm getting something wrong. And then I remembered, yeah, like the only way it made sense, I had to lie about the trajectory of the series in my head. Weird. It's so weird. It's the weirdest move. Well, I hope we find out someday. Because you'd think if there were an airtight reason,

that he would have said what it was. Unless there was some way that they don't want to acknowledge publicly. But again, if he's diminished, you wouldn't go to him. The only thing that it could be is someone else. What if they think he is Ryan Tappara right now? What if they think he is a Ryan Tappara equivalent? Then they should have gone to tapera i don't know they yeah they uh even if he is a ryan tapera equivalent it's still more likely

in two days that he will be better than tapera than tapera is right like there's some chance that in two days he'll find his way to whatever that fountain is where the lepers got healed and um get better i mean the only the only thing that seems like they could possibly be hiding that would make sense is if somebody else or multiple somebody else's were injured and they didn't want to give that away that like that well but even still that would make it all the more important for price like is it possible that a whole bunch of relievers were on like a secret mission to afghanistan and they couldn't they couldn't let anybody know like are they running like a spot are they canadian spies that would explain it maybe it doesn't i can't i know it doesn't make nothing makes sense there's

not even an explanation for using him in game four works even better for saving him for game five except for my i'm gonna i'm giving them the benefit of the doubt which is not a bad i haven't i haven't really heard it said much and you'd think they would tell you that, right? Although maybe they think it would jinx. Maybe it would be seen as potentially jinxing things, or it would come back to haunt them if they made it look like they were playing for game one of the LCS already. So maybe they don't want to say that.

Maybe they don't even want to bring up... I mean, these guys are professionals. They take it one game at a time. They certainly take it one series at a time. They don't want to get caught talking about an LCS in the LDS. Yeah. So I'm sticking with the very sensible, semi-sensible. Even in the sensible thing, they still shouldn't have used him.

Because as we talked about yesterday, even if they still shouldn't have used him uh because as we talked about yesterday even if they're planning on not using him you still want to keep him available just in case you need him um rather than waste him in a game where he has a zero value whatsoever to um but uh that's the most sensible and i'm sticking with it it's still horrible so okay all right yeah he should have just refused to explain just on the basis of national security. And that would have supported your secret spy mission explanation. He also didn't need to. I don't know if he said this or if it was just implied,

but everybody is reporting that they ruled him out for game five, right? That he's unavailable for game five. And if he hadn't said that, he could have just said, yeah, he's coming back for game five, right? That he's unavailable for game five. And if he hadn't said that, he could have just said, yeah, he's coming back for game five too. And then, I don't know, then that potentially kicks the problem down the road. Now, at some point, if you do need him in game five and he's unavailable, people are going to notice that.

And so there's still a chance that it backfires on you. But at least there are scenarios where Stroman goes eight and you win 13 to two and nobody ever remembers that you promised to use David Price because now it just looks like you chose not to use him. And then it just looks like you're maximizing, like you're using your best pitcher in a fireman role. It's like super cool. Everybody thinks how like what a bold renegade you are.

And so that's probably what he should have said to make it better for himself. Probably doesn't care what we think. Is it possible that in fact they do plan to bring him back in game five and that the entire game four thing was theater to make it so that when he comes out of the bullpen in game five, it'll just absolutely bring the house down, shock the Rangers into submission, and provide the team this incredible uplift that otherwise wouldn't have been possible? Maybe. It doesn't seem like it would have that effect after the Rangers had hit him twice already in this series, but he wouldn't have known that they were going to hit him In that relief appearance

But did you read the Comment about Shinsu Chu That he made when he was asked He said the way I looked at it The knuckleball was starting to roll around that top A little bit One thing I've learned over the years is sometimes the best way to win games Is don't let the team get back into it

And he mentioned that Shinsu Chu was coming up and Chu has hit well against Dickey. So if he is disguising the real reason, he's really doing a good job of having other reasons. Other really bad reasons. I wonder if Ryan Tappera has the fewest Twitter followers of any active major leaguer.

1805. Does he have a checkmark? He does. He's verified. I think I've seen fewer. I might have, but it's close. I'm always surprised by how insignificant major leaguers have large followings. For all the conspiracists out there, lol.

It's only right to change my background to the Toronto skyline. Good to be back. Let's go Canada. Man, that makes makes you wonder what conspiracies are there what conspiracy theories are there about ryan tapera's twitter background i guess people were speculating about whether he'd be on the postseason roster because he changed his twitter background no this was october 10th this was, this was three days ago. So that's during the series. Do you think it's that he used to have,

before he had the Toronto skyline, he used to have the World Trade Center? Maybe this explains the price move somehow. Maybe this is the conspiracy. He tweeted that before the price game. Anyway, if anyone knows of any major leaguers with fewer Twitter followers than Ryan Tapera, let me know.

Okay, so we have chewed over the price mystery more. We have talked about Kershaw. We no longer have to talk about the Kershaw postseason struggles and the seventh inning struggles. He has put them behind him and behind us and we can watch a couple of game fives and see how those go talk about them tomorrow you can send us emails at podcast at baseball perspectives.com continue to discuss the playoffs in the facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild Rate and review and subscribe to the show on iTunes and support our sponsor, The Play Index,

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