Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 963: Bumgarner, Wild Cards, and Cooperstown

Episode Date: October 7, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about the Madison Bumgarner-Noah Syndergaard wild-card duel, their favorite types of playoff games, and their favorite playoff rounds, then discuss whether the Dodgers are more dangerous than the Cubs and how to weight postseason performance in Cooperstown candidacies.

Ah, you cats talking about your Madison shoes. We're doing a thing we call the Madison Blues. We do the Madison Blues. We do the Madison Blues. We do the Madison Blues, baby. Rock away your blues. Hello and welcome to episode 963 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by our Patreon supporters and the Play Index at BaseballReference.com.

I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. Hello. Hey. Anything you want to talk about? No, I don't think so. We didn't get to talk about the Bumgarner-Cinderguard game. You tweeted that it was a good baseball game. I agreed with your take.

Was that your favorite kind of playoff game? It's a good question. Is it different? I don't know if your favorite type of playoff game is different. Right, that's the first thing I have to ask myself. I don't know. I mean, boy, probably not. I mean, if I just think about what the two great games from last year were, they were the Rangers-Blue Jays game where Russell Martin threw the ball and it hit off of the the batter's

bat and it was called a errant throw and the runner got to advance remember that yeah do i have some of those details right no i think that maybe you're talking about the the crazy seventh inning in i am i am i'm specifically, talking about the ball off the bat. Yes, that was maybe the craziest part of that inning. But, yeah, that was the craziest part of that inning, but it was a crazy inning. And then the second game that I remember the most, and probably the game I remember more than any other, and I think at the time I might have said something very hyperbolic about it being, I don't remember what i said but i remember saying something crazy was the astros royals game where oh yeah with the carlos correa error yeah exactly with carlos

correa and the tony sip face and so i would and then so then if i just sort of off the top of my head think about what other games i love i loved loved the Bumgarner game seven, obviously, in the World Series in 2014. And then the game in 2013, game three between the Cardinals and the Red Sox in the World Series, where it ended on an obstruction call. There was basically a play at home, in case people don't remember this, there was a play at home, a second out of the inning was made, and then a runner tried to advance. I think maybe Alan Craig tried to advance to third. There was an errant throw, goes past the third baseman. Craig gets up and runs home, trips on the third baseman.

Somebody corrals the ball in left field, throws Craig out at home by like six feet, but the umpire calls him, starts to call him out, and then calls him safe because of the obstruction at third, which nobody was paying attention to. Anyway, that was like the greatest game, greatest finish. That might have been the greatest finish to a game. So you just want craziness. Right, crazy.

All those things have in common is craziness. Like even the Bumgarner game, it wouldn't have probably been my favorite except for the three base air. I guess it was a two base air and Alex Gordon having to decide whether to go home or not. So I think I would say that I like the crazy games more. That's what I would say. I like the crazy games more. So this was a fun game. This was in a regular season.

I would say that this would be my favorite kind of game. And it was one of my favorite kinds of games. I mean, I think this was one of the 25 greatest games I've ever seen. But it is not quite the most memorable. And it's not quite my favorite for that reason. It was great. Yeah, it was really great. There were definitely moments where I was, I don't know, I kind of wish that I was at home watching on TV, even though the atmosphere at the game was really great. I just kind of wanted a better look at where the catcher was set up and where the pitches were going and everything that you can really get

from the third row of a press box. And there was a point in the middle of the game where it was just sort of like a metronome, like, okay, now Bumgarner will get his three outs and then Cindergaard will get his three outs. And it just sort of lulledaw to Cinderguard or something or, or Kershaw, the, the Arrieta spectrum where a guy can be really, really great without necessarily looking really, really great. Obviously Cinderguard looks greater than anyone in the world, probably. Where does Bumgarner fall in that for you?

Hmm. Bumgarner is, it's a little easier to see because it's so much of it is just deception. It's the, it's the angles. And I can't see how difficult those angles are. I don't even get a good look at it from home because he's a left-hander throwing from, you know, what's basically an offset camera that blunts the angle of the left-hander. But you, I mean, you know that that's what it is. And so I would say that, that Well I guess it kind of depends On whether you think Bumgarner

Is that good I mean how many Bumgarner Postseason But as a pitcher Overall until this year I was I thought he was great

But I thought he was maybe like the 18th to 20th best pitcher in baseball, maybe. And now I think I probably would put him like, you know, sixth or something like that. So I guess I can answer this a little bit better. I would say finally to get to the answer, do we have a scale? What's the scale? Syndergaard is a 10. And I don't know I mean Arietta, Kershaw they're not ones One would be like Steve Traxell or something

Okay so I can see Let's do a new scale I can see 100% of Cinderguard's greatness I can see maybe 80% of Kershaw's And maybe 84% of Arietta's And I would say Like 86% of Bumgarner's. Yeah.

A lot of it does seem to be extension, but when he has pitched in the post, he's just been so incredibly efficient and just has not left the game ever. And he just keeps coming and coming and coming. So it was a really great game. He keeps coming and coming and coming. So it was a really great game. So Bumgarner, give me an ERA from Bumgarner's next 50 postseason innings.

Yeah, what is it so far? Sub two? So it's actually, is it? Oh, I guess it is after last night. Yeah, it's 194 after last night. A lot of people don't remember this, but in 2012, he was sort of struggling coming into the postseason. And then he got hit really hard in both his NLDS and NLCS starts. And I believe that's why Barry Zito started game one, because instead of Bumgarner or instead of anybody, because Bruce Bochy didn't really like think anybody was doing that well. And it was like, oh, well, we'll just stick with the same rotation that we had in the NLCS.

So even though they could have reset the rotation and had Bumgarner starting, Bumgarner was seen as not being very good at that moment in time. He was a total mess in that postseason. And then he threw seven shutout innings. And in his last one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine outings, he's allowed six earned runs. Yeah. Probably, I guess I would probably just bet on his recent regular season ERAs, which given that he'd be facing good teams and everything is still really good.

Yeah. Yeah. So like a three, like high twos or three. Yeah. All right. Yeah. That'd still make him the odds on favorite to be the best or second best postseason pitcher in a given year. And what is your favorite point of the postseason?

Are you a wildcard game guy? Are you a World Series game guy? Or are you, I think maybe my favorite part is the NLDS, just free-for-all when all of the NLDSs are still going. And you get the occasional day when there's like four games and you can just watch playoff baseball from midday to late night. That's probably my favorite part. I think that the LDS is my least favorite. Really? Yeah.

So you like the stakes? Yeah. One thing I like about the NLCS especially is that the NLCS goes to Fox. The NLDS I think stays on, or the AL, sorry, the ALCS I think still stays on one of the cables, but NLCS goes to Fox. And to me, real post-season baseball is the Fox intro. It's Joe Buck. It's all the Fox graphics. It's the real, you know, the Fox commercials. So instead of having your Frank Caliendo's, you get your Alicia Keys's.

So I really, I kick in at the NLCS. That's the moment when it starts to really feel like autumn to me. So I guess I think I might be an NLCS guy. I don't know why I would like that more than the World Series. Yeah, well, you have two series going on, which is nice, instead of one. I don't like a five-game set particularly. Uh-huh. Well, yeah, I agree that the later series are better,

but having four series going on at once is pretty great. Yeah, having two is enough that you have a game a day though every day yeah yeah and you're right about the world series there's off days so that's no fun especially if you're trying to put out a site yeah it's such a bummer that was the worst day because there's nothing else going on in baseball you don't have your fantasy focus you don't't have your rookie, your prospect stuff, your top 10s. You don't have any other games, and you just have to fake it. Yeah, not your problem anymore. Let it go. You only have to worry about yourself now.

So as we've been talking, the Indians just brought in Andrew Miller in the fifth inning. It's a real Sonoma Stompers move. Fifth inning, that's early. I wrote about Andrew Miller's relief usage, as everyone has written about Andrew Miller's usage in Cleveland. But even when I wrote about it, the most extreme was sixth inning. But fifth inning, that is a new extreme. Yeah. We also wanted to sign Andrew Miller. So that's another Sonoma Stompers. Yeah, sure. So should we talk a little bit about baseball that is going on this weekend? Neither of us has done the full-fledged series previews this year, which is a relief, at least for me personally.

It's kind of nice to just focus on one aspect of each team or little things you find interesting instead of doing the full thousands of words with listing every player on both teams and comparing rotation versus rotation or position by position, there's a place for all of that stuff. But I prefer that place not to be my keyboard. I missed that. I was telling RJ yesterday that I miss it. I love the series preview.

I love spending 40 minutes on the 25th spot on the roster. Definitely. It prepares you well for the viewing experience. That's definitely true. But the actual producing is not always my favorite. But anyway, we have two series to talk about. And maybe one interesting question is whether you think the Cubs are actually the clear favorite. And maybe this is a hot take, but it's not really,

because the sites that have been running playoff roster-based projections, namely Fangraphs, actually have the Dodgers as the favorite based on who is actually on the team right now, because the idea is that the Dodgers are the team that's maybe getting the greatest benefit from the playoff format and that you don't have to worry about the back of the rotation and, you know, the Dodgers rotation, which was good this year, had a bunch of Bud Norris and Ross Stripling and even more anonymous people popping up from time to time. And now they are down to Kershaw and Hill and Maeda, and that's basically all they need.

And if they need someone else, then they have Orias, who's also really great. And I think it was Jeff Sullivan pointed out that based on the historical patterns or the usage patterns, the way that teams have used, say, their number one starter, their number two starter their closer In the postseason in theory They should be assigning 50%

Of their postseason innings to Kershaw Hill and Kenley Jansen who I think Those guys are in some Order the fourth sixth and 21st best pitchers in baseball This year on a batter per batter Basis by deserved run average.

So basically three of the top 20 pitchers in baseball will be pitching half of the Dodgers' innings. And based on Fangraph's projections using those rosters, whether you use the projected stats or the just 2016 stats, the Dodgers come out ahead of the Cubs. And that obviously wouldn't be the case if you just went by full regular season numbers, which most people have been. And that's how we think of the Cubs, really. They are the best team, clearly. But maybe the Dodgers get the postseason benefit if we believe that there is such a thing as a team that is well-constructed for the playoffs. That's convincing. Yeah.

Maybe. It kind of is. Obviously, the Cubs still have a lot going for them. It's not as if they are hurt by the playoff format. It's not as if the top of the Cubs rotation isn't also really good, because it is, and they've got a pretty good bullpen too. But the Dodgers rotation and bullpen, just based on who is actually going to be on the playoff roster, grades out as better than the Cubs in both cases. I'm a little surprised that the first round opponents don't weigh more heavily for the

Cubs. You mean in terms of like World Series odds or something? That's right. Yeah. Well, in that sense, it might. I think, you know, Jeff's article about this was just going based on team quality. So if you had to say Nationals versus Giants, then maybe that would swing things toward the Cubs, although the Nationals are obviously missing a couple crucial players of their own. So once you take out

Strasburg and Wilson Ramos, then I don't know, maybe they're not that much better than the Giants. Yeah. So do you think that the Cubs, the Cubs obviously had by far the longest runway, runway, is that a metaphor? Going into this, they were able to spend somewhere between the last month and the last five months getting ready for this. It was never remotely in doubt. They had the trade deadline where they could focus entirely on the playoffs. They had September where they were able to, you know, even treat games like practice and to run up to this. to this. Do you think that the Cubs did enough or do you think the Cubs did really anything that was different than they would have if they'd had a half game lead on the Cardinals the whole time?

Well, I was listening to our friend Rob Arthur on FiveThirtyEight's podcast, Hot Takedown, and they were asking him about the way that the Cubs kind of dipped in the middle of the year, like they were on that just all-time great trajectory, and then they dipped to merely still the best team in baseball trajectory but not really historically great. And maybe part of that was just, you know, your regular regression. But Rob was also saying that he thinks that Madden just kind of took it easy and rested guys a lot.

I haven't looked at the usage patterns or anything to see how many days off per week the typical Cubs starter got in the second half or anything like that. But Rob is a Cubs fan and watches the Cubs every day, so that was his impression of how Madden has managed this. So that would explain maybe part of why the Cubs fell off that early pace just a little bit. As far as like anything they could have done to prepare for the postseason, I don't know. They made the bullpen moves that they made at midseason. That seemed like the place where they could improve themselves.

And they got Chapman and they got Montgomery and they got better in that area. And I don't know what else there is that you can do really. Do you think that this is, I mean, look, this is, if I'd had any guts, I would have written this on July 15th, not now. But do you think that it is in any way a failure that, you know, say like Jason Hamill is on this team and that they didn't instead, I mean, if you're trading with October in mind and that you don't have to worry about the second half playoff run at all, if you don't need a fifth starter, it doesn't really seem like Hamill factors into their plans at all.

And he was an asset that they probably could have traded for, you know, something not bad at the deadline. Or is it more likely that, you know, the sorts of teams that would have been interested in hamill would certainly not have been giving them value that they could have applied to this year's team anyway and that it's just too radical and that you it also depends on your front four staying healthy uh and that if they hadn't um you know the fact that you carry insurance does make you a loser when you don't get in a car crash. That would have been a pretty bold move. Yeah, no, and I'm not even suggesting.

I'm not even like that. You're so good. I'm mentioning it more as almost like thought experiment, like in fact exclusively as like thought experiment. But I'm just trying to, I'm sort of just trying to figure out if you had a single-minded goal of being, you know, if you figure, well, we're 2% better than the Dodgers right now. a single-minded goal of being, you know, if you figure, well, we're 2% better than the Dodgers right now. And like all that matters is that we be better than them in three months. And the Dodgers have to worry about the Giants and, uh, and even worry about the Nationals because they're

trying to get home field and you don't, uh, is there anything you could have done? Is there anything that they could have done? Could this season have been run any differently because, uh, the Cubs are a really good team and it sort of seems disappointing to have you tell me now that they're not even the favorite like I don't like that yeah well I would have loved the confidence of trading a good starter just because you don't need them in the playoffs and you know that you're going to make the playoffs. So I would have liked it, but probably not a smart thing to do. I mean, just look at what happened to the Mets rotation from opening day to the playoffs. I mean, if they had made it past the wildcard game, it would have been Cinderguard, Colon, and a bunch of guys that probably no one had heard of on opening day.

So I don't think the cubs had enough rotation depth that they could have afforded to do that because it's not like they are sitting around with like three good starters right now who are not going to be on the playoff roster like if they had lost one of their front four then they might use hamill right so i don't think there was enough uh depth there and i don't know where they could have made themselves that much better what could they have done really i mean they needed jason hayward to start hitting yeah but that never happened and you know it's not like jason hayward is a guy you can just drop and pick someone else up because he signed for a really long time so other than that there is No weak point on the team

Particularly so I guess I mean I don't know you could have just Traded Hamill for some other Reliever I guess but You wouldn't have gotten like a Really impressive late inning guy probably For him so They should have traded

Why would I say this Do I say it Ben do I say it, Ben? Do I say it? I don't know. I'm curious. They should have just traded Arrieta for Rich Hill, and then they could have kept Rich Hill from the Dodgers, and then they would have a lefty to send up against the Dodgers

who can't hit lefties. And sure, you lose Arrieta. I mean, that would be heartbreaking for sure. But you get Rich Hill It's basically probably something close to a push For the next three weeks Between those two And the Dodgers don't have Rich Hill

You'd have to make the A's promise That they wouldn't trade Arrieta So, what do you think, Ben? Should I have said it? Yeah, I'm glad you said it Alright Did you have any thoughts on Did you hear Andy and Pedro's debate

About the Dodgers rotation And I assume that you're in the Start Rich Hill as often as you possibly can Camp Actually that's the one episode I've not heard Oh well the debate was basically Because of Kershaw's You know missing all that time and

then being eased back into the rotation and then Rich Hill just being fragile and having blisters that are about to heat up at any moment. Would you use either of those guys on short rest? Would you wait until the time comes and ask them if they want to go on short rest? Or would you just put in Urias or something, even though you're trying to limit his innings? I really would have to have some risk factor that I can multiply everything by. I almost generally, pretty much almost always, if there's any discussion about whether a guy should go on short rest, I say the answer is no. Like I'm not a short rest guy at all. I think it's one of the most predictable and frustrating mistakes that we all make every single year. And it just is, I mean,

like the numbers feel pretty convincing to me. They've been pretty convincing for like the last seven years. Pitchers who pitch on short rest are just not as good as you think they are. They're a lot worse than they otherwise are. And so that doesn't mean never do it, but it means do it when the guy is Kershaw and the other option is Ricky Nolasco. So if the guy is, you know, I mean, we've fulfilled half of that. The guy is Kershaw.

But I presume there's more risk now. Like Heron said, Dan Heron in the podcast, in the episode of Sportswriters Blues that I did listen to, I think he said that he, he said he wouldn't use Kershaw on short rest. And he goes, I mean, unless you're down 2-1, which is the only time you would ever use him. That's the only time they ever get used. There's only like four ways for a five-game series to go. So I'm not actually sure where Heron comes down on this, but he seemed—the tone of his voice was that there was more—

he'd be warier of it than usual with Kershaw, and I'm presuming that that's probably true. Herons had a similar injury. And then with Hill, you know, I don't know, they wouldn't let him go for a perfect game, Ben. So I don't know. Maybe they weren't letting him go for the perfect game because they wanted him to do the three-day rest. I mean, really,

like, it would be, like, my answer might be different if I knew that there was zero extra risk on account of their recent unavailabilities but even still urias is good to me that's not in alaska you have not fulfilled the second half of that equation and uh as long as i don't have a reason to think that urias is exhausted or losing effectiveness uh or something like that i think i would just go for it i I would let him pitch. I think that's usually if there's any – like I said, if there's any torment over the decision,

it's usually that you should – I think that you should just go with the guy who's on full rest. When Andy and Dan Heron were talking to Andy, it brought up – did you listen to that one? I haven't yet, no. I don't – I feel bad just repeating another guy's joke or another guy's funny anecdote. But Heron was talking about how he was, his year with the Dodgers, he was lined up to be the game four starter

and the Dodgers fell behind 2-1. And he was like, he's like, come on, pitch Kershaw, pitch Kershaw. And so then, you know, the manager calls him in to the office. Mattingly calls him into the office and tells him, you know, I'm going to go with Kershaw instead of you. And Heron had to like kind of act disappointed and act like he didn't – like, oh, whatever. And really he's like, thank goodness. So that's why people don't generally repeat other people's funny anecdotes.

But anyway, Andy brought up the question of the room, whether you can really go into the room and say to the team, we're starting Nolasco or even 20-year-old Orius instead of the greatest pitcher that most of us have ever seen. I shouldn't say that. The greatest pitcher right now, I'll say that. And I wonder how much of a factor that is. I wonder how much you, I mean, they are investing a lot in keeping the team really fired up

and focused right now. And I wonder if it's harder to make hard moves in the postseason. And I wonder how often the manager makes that decision because it's just a lot less complicated. Yeah, I've always thought that, you know, like there would be almost some benefit to just having some neutral, impartial party in your dugout during postseason games that could just make really unpopular decisions. And the manager just could blame it on that person. I haven't worked out exactly how this would work. But I just mean that there are those times in games and all these decisions get magnified in importance at this

time of year. And there are times when you really might want to take that starter out or whatever, even though he's pitching well, and maybe you just can't, or it's difficult to because he's your ace and he's your team leader, whatever loyalty, whatever it is. And it might actually benefit your team to make a move that would be unpopular, uncomfortable to make. But the starting someone on short rest argument is, I guess it's kind of like the third time through the order penalty argument that we have every year, because it's sort of the same. Like the reason that we recommend that managers take starters out before they face the third time through the order, or at least be more willing to, is because they're not really the same guy anymore.

And it might be Clayton Kershaw in the mound, and you think, oh, it's Clayton Kershaw, but it's not really Clayton Kershaw. It's not really the first inning Clayton Kershaw anymore, or the second inning Clayton Kershaw. It's now a lesser Clayton Kershaw, because the second inning Clayton Kershaw it's now a lesser Clayton Kershaw because the hitters have seen him all the time and I mean he's still great but he's not quite the same guy and maybe it's similar with short rest where we think like well of course if you have Clayton Kershaw or you have an ace then you want that guy but that guy is not really the guy that you know because he's not on regular rest. So you kind of can get deceived by just looking at the name and the uniform number and thinking that this is the guy you know from the full season, whereas he is actually handicapped or, you know,

in some way he is, he's not his usual self. How's Andrew Miller doing? Andrew Miller has only gotten one out so far But he is in there maybe for as many as three innings So we'll see Or people who are already listening to this have already seen So one last thought on Bumgarner When people cite the fun facts about Bumgarner postseason stats Someone else invariably replies Well, yeah, but he's had the chance to rack up these postseason stats because player X who had great postseason stats in an earlier era didn't have wildcard games and maybe just had one playoff round or two playoff rounds. Obviously, that's true to a certain extent. But when you are making the Hall of Fame case for a player, which, you know, is way down the road for Bumgarner, obviously, but he is already, you know, unless he turns into a massive choker for the rest of his career or something, he has already established the credentials that would get a guy into the Hall of Fame if he were a borderline regular season candidate. How would you evaluate a great postseason performer who played in the four playoff round, basically, era? Do you think

about it as he had so many opportunities, so you have to downgrade what he did? Or do you just think now he had the opportunities and he made the most of them. We talked about this with David Ortiz, I think, and we came up with a number for how many war a win probability added in the postseason was worth to us. And I feel like win probability added can be a misleading stat. But for one thing, it's against average. It's not against replacement level. So you don't get a big benefit to having... It's not one of the

counting stats where like simply by showing up, you're going to just rack up big numbers because you know, it's against average. You have to actually be really good. So it's, it's actually hard to add, to collect a ton of win probability added in your career. Mariano Rivera is like so far off the graph. And then you're talking about, like, I think Ortiz was at like four wins. And I think that Curt Schilling was like the number two pitcher ever. And he was like two and a half or three wins at that point. And I don't know what Bumgarner is. And I don't even know if any of my numbers are right. But it's like, you know, like a good, like a really good

postseason career. You're talking about like two to four wins, I think. Like the Beltrons, the Ortizes, the Schillings, the Bumgarn's. So we came up with a number for how much each win would be, and I think it was something like nine. And I stand by that. Like, to me, if you're a starter and you manage to somehow collect, you know, five wins by win probability added in your postseason career, I don't know. I mean, maybe you need, maybe at the upper ends that's too much. But Brendan Goloski and Meg Rowley did a Hall of Fame draft recently based on the premise that there are 25 active Hall of Famers at any given time, usually, on average. So they did a 25-round draft where they each tried to pick who the Hall of Famers are.

And the first few were easy, and then they had to get speculative. And I really liked that piece a lot. And I also said that I disagreed with where Bumgarner went. He went in like the 18th or 19th round. I said, I think he'll make it if he gets to like 42 war. And I think that is true. I think he will make it if he gets like 42 war. He's like in the high twenties right now. I think he's perceived to be better than that as it is. I think he gets a boost from his ballpark, but I think that, you know, there's a perception that he's better than a 25 to 30 win player in his career already. And I think if he gets to something like in the forties, like,

I don't think he'll, he's likely to land on exactly 42, but I think he's going to get a big boost from this. And he's, you know, he's almost there. I think he's almost there i think he's almost there like i i would i would guess that if he has another nine years in him it almost doesn't matter what he does in those nine years he'll get there are you asking me to now make a judgment on whether i think that's good or bad is that what you want from me yeah yeah i think it's it's probably i i like the concept and i think that it's probably a little it's in danger of being maybe a little overdone for Bumgarner. Yeah. Well, the problem with it is that when we evaluate who should make the Hall of Fame, we always talk about the historical standards for what a Hall of Famer is.

And we compare the stats, and you have the Jaws system and all of that, And, you know, each position has an average score that the Hall of Famers have. And so it's tough when you get into playoff stuff because the majority of the players in the Hall of Fame came before this, you know, many rounds playoff era. And so it's hard to know exactly how to weight that given that modern players have so much more opportunity. The thing that i don't like uh maybe the thing that makes it dangerous to me is that you're when you start weighing things like that that are you know basically scarce events and a few a few games matter they actually do matter a great deal more and so that's why you do it but when you have a few games matter way more than

other games like for instance if madison bongarner had gone out last night madison bongarner by the way has 2.865 so 2.9 win wins by win probability added in his career so i think that he's he is so shilling was at four four four point oh so he's getting close to shilling shilling started 19 games in the postseason with a 2.23 ERA. So anyway, what I was saying with Bumgarner is that if he had gone, if he had had a bad start last night, then we're not talking about this anymore. And I don't really like Hall of Fame cases that hinge on one day going the way it did or one day not going the way it did. It's the same reason I don't like the Zach Britton-Sai Young case because, you know, like I said, we were talking about it because he had had, you know, one single with runners on second and third didn't fall.

And it feels a little much to give somebody the MVP when one plate appearance could have undone his case. And so that's why I just sort of am more comfortable giving it to somebody who threw 220 innings. So maybe that's why I think it's particularly dangerous with Bumgarner. Yeah, by the way, if anyone wants to check it out, Dan Hirsch at the Baseball Gauge, seamheads.com slash baseball gauge has a postseason leaderboard of, you can look at it by series win probability added or by championship win probability added. And Bumgarner is fourth all time right now. He is behind Rivera, Raleigh Fingers, Pete Rose, and no one. He is fourth. And he has added over one championship. And this is, you know, just looking at i mean it's it's win

probability added but it's counting how much the game mattered and you know where in the series it was and everything so like his his start last night was not that valuable by championship win probability added just because it was a wild card game and they still have to win three more series so it didn't actually improve their odds that much. Like it doubled their odds. But their odds are still pretty low. So I think that was only worth like.06 of a championship. But he is at 1.09 lifetime.

And if he has one good start. He has won an entire championship. Yes. That's cool. That's a good stat. Yeah. If he has one start.. That's a good stat. Yeah. If he has one start, if he has a good start against the Cubs next week, he will be second all-time on this list to Mariano Rivera.

That's pretty good. It's really impressive for a guy who just turned 27 recently. So I need you to give me a war number. Give me a postseason win to regular season win conversion. I think that 9 or 10 or whatever I speculated we might have said. In thinking about it, I don't think we did say that high. I think that's too high. I think it's too high, yeah.

So Beltran, by the way, 2.7 win probability added in the postseason in his career. Greatest postseason hitter there ever was. And David Ortiz, who has almost 400 played appearances in the postseason hitter there ever was and david ortiz who has uh almost 400 played appearances in the postseason has 3.3 wins so that's kind of your upper limit uh so how many wins extra do you give david ortiz for his 3.3 man i'm trying to think of whether there would be like a middle ground and by the way like, like Beltran in championship win probability added is like 57th or something just because I think he's only made one World Series. So that didn't, you know, his hits didn't have as huge an impact in that sense.

But by series win probability added, which is just whatever series you did it in, he is ninth all time. And Pumgarner is third all-time by the way so is there a middle ground between just saying well wins are wins and so you you just get credit for how many wins it was wait what you're gonna get what no you don't think but is there a middle ground but is there a middle ground between that and championship when probability added which is like i don't know what the multiplier there would be but like huge because yeah just you know based on on the context and when you did it based on i'm trying to think of like based on what the logic would be for a middle amount like if you're if you're saying that it matters more then shouldn't you count how much more it matters?

And it really matters like an order of magnitude more. I mean, in terms of like contributing toward a championship, it's hugely more important than a regular season war is. But it still seems too inflated to give you that much credit for it so you are but you are using it as i mean you know you're using a stat i don't i don't accept i i don't i don't think i think that it's very cool what bumgarner uh that he has won a championship by that measure i don't think that you can compare postseason win probability championship probability added and regular season championship probability added for the reasons i laid out I don't think that you can compare postseason win probability, championship probability added, and regular season win championship probability added for the reasons I laid out.

I don't think that. I think there's an elusive, an illusion going on there. But that said. So what is the logic for counting it more than? Is it just the competition? Because it's more important. It's cooler. It's more important.

It is more. But isn't that basically the championship win probability argument? Yeah, no, it is. It is. I think that the specific nature of the calculation is bad science. I don't want to say bad science because I think it is fun and it is descriptive, but I think that it's not right. That's all. Yeah. I don't know how to put it. I don't know how to put it in a way that accurately reflects what I feel because it, sorry. Yeah, I know what you mean. But yeah, so I mean, are we giving credit for, I mean, either way, we're giving credit

for timing, which is not what you do when you're trying to evaluate someone's talent. It's going completely in the other direction. So I don't know. It's purely opportunity and timing and context-based, right? Like it's just, I mean, if you get better, if you hit better in the postseason than you do in the regular season, it's more impressive because the competition is greater and everything. But, I mean, it doesn't necessarily make you think the player is way better in in the postseason it might just be that he had a hot streak in the postseason or

something that is that is very fair and you can also reward that guy though if you if you want if you want you can choose to you get to you get to prioritize what you prioritize and yeah i mean if uh david ortiz had never played in the postseason, then it is definitely a different conversation about his career. And I'm perfectly happy. Even knowing that, I'm perfectly happy saying that he's the guy who had all those home runs, and he's all the famer. But that's fine.

Yeah, you're right. That is tricky. And I just want your number pretty much. All right. I'll just going by gut feel. I'll say four postseason win is four times more important That's good I was maybe thinking like six on the high end Like would you If a guy were I don't really want to rephrase the question I just wanted your number

Four is good We'll go with four Alright that's it for today You can support the podcast on Patreon By going to patreon.com Five listeners who have done so already Andrew Danoff, Alex Conway, Jeff Fangp chevronsky and mark eschen thank you you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild playoff time is a good time to be in the

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I'll have a new episode of the Ringer MLB show up today. Mike O'Bammon and I talked to an advanced scout for the Royals about how preparing for the playoffs works, which was fascinating to us, perhaps also to you. You can contact me and Sam via email at podcast at baseballperspectives.com or by messaging us through Patreon. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back next week. And they carried on life

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