Rates & Barrels - Is This The Dream World Series?

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Eno, Britt and DVR discuss a few compelling things about this year's World Series matchup and wonder if this round of Yankees v. Dodgers is a 'Dream World Series'. Plus, they rank the starting pitchers that are likely to appear in the series and assess the overall strength of each team's rotation options. Beyond the World Series, they also discuss Britt's story about White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf considering a potential sale of the team, and the upgrades that might be on tap for a Cubs team seeking a return to the playoffs in 2025.  Rundown 1:14 Is This the 'Dream World Series'? 5:32 The Best World Series Money Can Buy? 13:03 What Compels You Most About Yankees-Dodgers? 23:21 Lining Up the Starters Around Expected Bullpen Games 28:28 Rankings the Starting Pitchers We'll See In This Series 42:56 Jerry Reinsdorf is Open to Selling the White Sox 51:12 Offseason Plans for the Cubs Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper, Eno Sarris & Britt Ghiroli Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. Welcome to Rates and Barrels Tuesday, October 22nd. Derek VanRyper, Enosaris, Britt Giroli here with you on this episode.

We answer a question that is kicking around. Is this the dream world series this year between the Yankees and Dodgers? The way this is lining up, we have star power, we have both teams that led their respective leagues and wins matching up. We've got everything you could possibly ask for, two storied franchises meeting for the 12th time in the fall classic. That's kind of a surprising number as well.

So we'll dig into a lot of aspects of this series. We're gonna rank the starting pitchers that we expect to see in the series, talk about what compels us most about this matchup and get a little bit of non playoff news to discuss the White Sox may be up for sale. According to a story Brit had on the athletic recently. We'll dig into that a little bit later on in the hour. We're going to focus mostly on the World Series today.

I'm starting at the top. Is this the dream World Series? Jason Stark had this in his story on Monday. He wrote, How often does each league's highest win total make the World Series in the wild card era, excluding 2020? This will be the fourth time it's happened. So that goes back to 1995. It was the first time it happened,

Cleveland, Atlanta that year. We had a Yankees Braves in 1999, and we had a 2013 matchup between the Red Sox and Cardinals, in which both teams led their respective leagues in regular season wins. So there's nothing anyone can complain about with this matchup, right? You know, am I safe to say that?

Nothing that anybody can complain about. Sorry. That's just, there's nothing in the world that is so good that nobody can complain about it. Sorry. Whoa, nothing in the world? That's a whole series of podcasts to argue that. We have so many people who get frustrated and complain about playoff baseball is not like regular season baseball and I don't want to watch the Diamondbacks and Rangers.

Damn it. OK, you got what you wanted. You got a star laden huge payroll slugfest on tap. So what could anyone possibly be mad about? I mean, if you're a fan of any of the other teams who got eliminated, this isn't your dream World Series. Yeah, but that's that's true every World Series. Melissa Lockard tweeted something like that, that is it always just like kind of a meh feeling in the World Series when your team's not in it?

I just hate watch it. I think you hate watch it a little bit if your team was in and got eliminated, because I think in baseball, as much as any other sport, if your team was eliminated, you're still stewing about the handful of things that if they had gone the other way, those moments that could have flipped the game, kept the series alive and maybe put you in that spot. I think it happened so fast. You're just not over it as a fan. That's part of it.

But if your team didn't make the playoffs this year, this has been a very compelling postseason so far. Right. So from the neutral observer, not dealing with recent scars of elimination. I'll ask the same question in that context. What more could you ask for in this matchup, Britt? You couldn't. And certainly MLB is celebrating this. This is going to be a ton of money. The television networks wanted this.

These are two of the biggest markets that are now playing each other. So this is a big win, I think for the health of the sport because we're going to see some record ratings. We've already seen some record ratings. We're going to see records keep smashing. Anytime Shohei Otani, who is a global brand, is playing on the biggest

stage. Look at the WBC and what that did. Anytime he is in the mix, like it is a big deal. Anytime the New York Yankees, who outside of Otani are probably the closest thing we have to a global team, right? You could leave the country and see Yankee stuff and it wouldn't be weird. That's a good thing. So I do think it's good for the health overall of the sport at a time when we're looking at how to watch baseball, what is it going to look like? There's so much uncertainty with RSNs that we are getting a playoffs that prove that baseball can deliver on the national stage. There's exciting things that can happen and it can captivate a national audience.

So from that perspective, I think yes, it is kind of a dream World Series. And I think the people that complain, well, you know, these are the two teams that spent money and it's not fair. You know, the league has years and years of examples of parody and how like, you have to go back no further.

Like you said, the Arizona Diamondbacksbacks being in the World Series last year so there is parity there is opportunity for teams that don't spend to win and let's keep in mind that the Dodgers are a great example of you know a team that sure we thought in the winter would be in the World Series did we think they'd look like this, though? No, we didn't. Do we do the big in the World Series like two weeks ago? No, not really. I think Dave Roberts, all of us pick the Padres. I think Dave Roberts deserves a lot of credit.

This may be his finest managerial job to date. I think it's also interesting that you're bringing up the health of the game because the I think that's been the one thing where people have there have been some attacks saying, you know, oh, um, this is the best, uh, world series of money can buy. And this is, this is not a healthy situation, but people just like, do they not remember just last year? You know, this is a graph from Neil Payne, um, of the sort of payroll percentage, just percentiles of the sort of payroll percentage,

percentiles of the world series teams. And you can see 2024 very top, you know, 99th percentile, both of the teams. Like, yes, that, that makes sense. And you know, you could pointed that and scream, but there's 2023 where it was like 60th percentile, 2020 was 50th, you know, 2008 we had two teams that were, you know, underneath the 50th percentile, 2020 was 50th, you know, 2008, we had two teams that were, you know, underneath the 50th percentile. Now we'll say that there is, there is a bit of a trend here. And it is that if you want to go to the world series more often than not, you

have to spend higher than the average team. But that's not saying you have to spend the most in baseball to get there. And I think that's an important distinction because if you say you have to spend higher than average, then there is still an incentive for teams to even in the wild card era to spend to get to the world series, to create that depth that it takes because that's been some part of the story for the Dodgers is, Oh my God, we lost everyone. Well, we're still the Dodgers. We still have some prospects.

We still have enough to go trade for Jack Flaherty. We still have enough money. We paid $300 million. The Yamamoto didn't pitch most of the season, but he's here now. You know, it's like, you know, you, you money does help you with depth and depth does become important even in the play, in the playoffs. And so I do think that this is actually, despite people saying it's unhealthy that this might be the two most expensive teams.

I think it's actually healthy because we have an example just last year, two teams that didn't spend as much. And now we have an example of two teams that spend a lot. And I think it'd be unhealthier if we had a lot of teams that didn't spend as much. And now we have an example of two teams that spent a lot. And I think it'd be unhealthier if we had a lot of teams that didn't like spend a lot, make it all the way to the World Series, because there would be a disincentive to spend, there'd be a disincentive to improve your team.

Your team would just be like, hey, you know, this is good enough. You know, and do you really want that from your own general manager? Just be like, yeah, this is pretty good. We want to win 54% of our games. That's it. That's, that's all we're looking for. You know, I think you'd rather have a GM that said, no, in one off season, we're going to spend a billion dollars, you know, cause we want

to make the world, we want to win the world series. So I think that's healthy, man. I think this is a healthy, it's a good matchup for TV raise. I think it's a good matchup for the, for the financials of the sport and for, for the incentives of the playoffs and what we want out of teams. We don't really want a bunch of mediocre teams. We'd rather have great teams. And then hopefully the only thing that, that I, that's sort of missing for me. Um, and I don't know, I don't know if there's something about baseball that

does this or it might be, but the very top stars, the two that you want to be on screens everywhere this whole week and we have a whole week to do it are not going to give us anything where, you know, I mean, like we're not going to get any trash talking. We're not going to get really any insight. We're not going to get really any insight. We're not going to get like, uh, soft lens show, he'll Tani where he grew up, him showing us anything. We're not going to get access really to the biggest two names in our sport. They're not going to give us much other than,

oh yes, it'll be fun to face. So Tani, we'll get some like, you know, vanilla quotes. It's kind of the Derek Jeterism, the Mike Troutism of our stars. And I kind of wish sometimes I look at other sports and I'm like, wow, that guy said what? You know, we don't do we have a guy like that? You know, like we need to take Tommy Fam and put him in Shohei Otani's body because I think we have a whole week to fill. What are we going to fill it with? Well, but if you look what teams were remaining, like you mentioned Tommy Fam, he's not star what stars were we like, Oh, like Bryce Harper, maybe Mandy Machado.

Harper is pretty good. Machado's pretty good. Yeah. Tatis would have said something. I think, I don't know if they would have said something, but their, their play is a little bit more overstated, right? They have a little bit more flair. So I agree with you there. Yeah.

Maybe, maybe it's actually something that's happening across all sports that the access and media is treated as more as the enemy and they're not, you know, they're, they, they feel like, you know, if they're going to be vulnerable, like it'll turn on them, you know, maybe it's, you know, social media, you know, they don't really necessarily want to say anything that'll turn into something bad. You know, it's, it's, it's something that happens in PR over time. As you notice, oh, they'd rather have no story than a bad story. Yeah, no one wants to hear us complain about media access though, leading up to this world

series. I'm not pleading for media access. I'm pleading for like, you know, some fun storylines and we have like judge versus Otani and that's great, but how many times can we talk about it without them giving us something to talk about? That's what I'm saying. Well, the game has shifted though, because you mentioned Derek Jeter and I actually was in New York in 2009.

Last time the Yankees won the world series. That was a really fun team. AJ Burnett used to carry around a WWE belt and give it out to the player of the game. They had Nick Swisher, ton of personality. Cece Zabatia wasn't afraid to speak his mind, still isn't in his post-playing career days. So yeah, there was Derek Jeter,

but that Yankees team in 2009 was a bunch that had a lot of personality. I don't think you could just hang this on air and judge, you know, Yankee stadium, the atmosphere is just different than what it was. The team is different than what it was. So I don't think it's just judge. You know, I think that the Oh nine team had a lot more characters. I think I'm not trying to pin on just him. As I'm saying, I think it's a little bit more about, you know,

how players generally perceive the media, generally perceive stories, how PR perceives stories and how, you know, that has led to, you know, a little bit less in terms of personality, you know, shining through. I can live without manufactured hype because I think there's enough natural hype here. Anyway, this is the first time a world series is going to feature five players

across the two rosters that have won MVP awards before. I think we saw the personality of Juan Soto shining through after the Hunter Gattis home run. Like I think, and the Yankees as a team too, both of these clubs, like they are, they're enjoying themselves out there. You could see it anytime the Yankees had a big homerun, the ALCS against the Guardians, they were over the rails just going nuts. They couldn't make it to first base without celebrating with their team.

Yeah. So I do feel like we're kind of very comfortably back in the let the kids play vibes right now with two teams that actually have veterans on them too, which I think is also good and healthy. Maybe eight hall of famers, future hall of famers. Yeah, absolutely. Depends on what you think of Stanton and Cole. I mean, that's, that's where you get sort of seven and eight.

Both have done enough to lay the groundwork. And then there's the, how does the rest play out part that will still matter for both of their respective cases. But what compels you most about this matchup? I mean, as you think about all the different storylines of what kind of jumps up the most to you, what are you most excited to see as these two teams match up, but I think the bummer is we have to wait until Friday for it to start. That's where Eno's frustration with the lack of storylines comes from. That tension is created by a break that's probably a day or two too long.

I wish we were starting up on Wednesday. I thought about this. Why couldn't they just say the World Series starts three days after the conclusion of the NLCS? Yeah, the later Championship Series. Yeah, whichever one runs longer. Three days later it starts. Because then you know what the built-in rest is already.

Three days is enough. They travel, they have a day to lead up, maybe you have one dead day. You know what the stakes are as a team too, because if you could be like, should we go for the throat or, you know, leave a starter for tomorrow and try to win it with our, you know, our B team or whatever. Because this year was the first year for those who aren't aware that they could have pushed the World Series up if both teams had finished in five games. Now both teams didn't, a series

went six, and so we have to deal with all these extra days. And I guess I just don't understand. And I have not called the league to find out why not. They can't just announce it will start X days after the L the last LCS ends. So my guess when they return your call, I wonder if they'll point to the preference of having Friday, Saturday twice, because the series begins on having Friday, Saturday, twice, because the series begins on a Friday, you have a travel day on Sunday. So you don't have to overlap football, which I think is smart. I don't think you want to overlap with the NFL.

That's just dumb to compete with the NFL. Right? So you go Friday, Saturday, off day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, off day, Thursday, and then you get Friday, Saturday. Again, I think they've left it alone in this case, because I think the days line up exactly the way they want to get as much attention as possible on the series. I think that may have been the final factor. Isn't this about the length of time that we were all discussing?

We're like, literally as long as the break. It's the same for the teams that don't play in the wild card round. It's the same amount of time off that both teams are getting before the series starts. Maybe we should be betting on pitching in this series. The hitters will be cold. I get that it was set up that way, Derek, but they were going to push up the series to start Tuesday. That doesn't give you two weekends.

Right. I don't know. I don't know why they would have done that. It seems so binary. It's either Tuesday or it's Friday. It's like there are days in between. That's why I don't understand why they can't say it starts X amount of days after whatever. And if it started Tuesday, it would have been Friday, Saturday. They would have had a Sunday for a game five, but they still would have hit a Friday, Saturday. I think Friday, Saturday is important to them. Like, I think that's a really those two nights matter in terms of how they plan.

Coverage and what networks want. But let's back to the question of hand. Like what is, what are the most, yeah, what are the compelling storylines? Not, not, not the media access or the rest days. Those are the ones. As we sit here and get way off topic. Yeah. What compels me, the lineups, because this isn't going to be like a, it's

funny, you would think with the two best teams, the two highest win totals, we'd see these like juggernaut pitching. We're not going to see it. We're not going to see it at all. So to me, the most compelling thing is like we were talking about the Otani versus judge, the SOTOs, you know, what Freddie Freeman is going to look like, Mookie Betts. Like it is the lineups.

It is the star power in these lineups, I think, is why you are tuning in. And I don't know if you guys notice this, that like every time Shohei Otani is like almost going to come up, they've been advertising that. One, I think that hopefully they stop that because there's just a lot of other stars. And two, it just kind of tells you where the attention and the eyeballs are. It is on these big stars.

So to me, what I want to watch is what these guys do, is what these lineups do. And I think everyone is expecting that this isn't going to be a four or five game series. So we're going to see these stars come up in big spots over and over and over again. And I think that's where we're going to see these incredible moments kind of akin to Juan Soto's 10th inning home run, right?

That got the, the guardians eliminated. That was theater. We're going to see a lot of theater, I think, with these events, or at least I hope so. Yeah. The, what is interesting is that the, the last three world series that you mentioned that included the two best teams did not actually not they were uneven.

The Braves one, I remember I was like, is that the Andrew Jones one? Nope. It was not the Andrew Jones one. It was the Yankees sweep of the Braves and outscore them 21 to nine with only one of the three games of the four games being really close at all, which was the Chad Curtis walk off in game three. So it doesn't it's not a guarantee actually that this goes along just because they're both very good teams. There could be some shift.

I think the shift might come from, you know, as much as we talk about the lineup, if somebody's pitching staff shoves, then it'll be over quickly because you do think that, you know, the lineups will get through. But if there's a pitching staff that shoves, if Cole comes out and shoves, if Yamamoto comes out and shoves, that changes the whole tenor. So I'm still looking at the pitching. I'm also, uh, I think looking at, you know, last year you had Corey Seeger as the world series MVP. That's the, you know, Oh, let's watch bets and, and, um, and Ohtani

and judge and, um, and Stanton and Soto that Seeger, you know, but the year before was Jeremy Pena. We had Steve Pierce in 2018. We had Pablo Sandoval in 2012, David Friis in 2011. That was an amazing series for him. Edgar Renteria. Never, never mentioned David Friis name on this podcast ever again. Anyway, so, you know, I think that there's still compelling pieces down, down lineup, um, for both of these teams. Enrique Hernandez, uh, you know, plays over his, over his skis in the, in the post

season. Um, and you've got, uh, Volpe playing pretty well this post season. Um, you know, Verdugo even had some big hits. So, you know, this is a guy that has been reviled in New York all season. Um, so I think it'd be kind of cool if there's a game, the redemption game for the Yankees where Verdugo has the winning hit and Clay, Clay Holmes gets five, you know, clean outs in the middle of the season, those are the two guys that I think most Yankees fans wanted to throw off the the playoff roster and not even have them here. So there's still some like personal

redemption stories in here. You know, there's star power, there are bit players that could, you know, make huge impacts. It's kind of hard to zero in because these are great teams all around. to zero in because these are great teams all around. And I think, you know, I'm circling these like down, down lineup names. You know, I still think Volpe's got a big hit on him. I don't know. Tommy Edmond had his day in the sun already, so I don't I don't know who I'm circling down lineup for the Dodgers. Yeah, for the Dodgers, I mean, the guy that's struggled, the guy that's been hurt, it's Freddie Freeman. Like he just hasn't looked like himself.

And for understandable reasons, I think he's, other than the reliever, is probably the most overjoyed player of the long break, because maybe he'll feel better by the time the series starts. He's not going to be 100%. He looked pretty bad. He was hobbling around.

But even if he's 20% healthier than he was by the time the NLCS ended, if you need him to play in game six, And it's not going to be 100 percent. He looked pretty bad. He was hobbling around. But even if he's 20 percent healthier than he was by the time the NLCS ended, he didn't play in game six. Like maybe that's something that gets them. Have you ever seen a tape job like that? But I didn't actually notice it. But I've seen a lot of ankles tape in coaching soccer, though. Outside of his shoe.

Have you seen that in soccer? It reminded me of hockey, honestly. it reminded me of a hockey injury. They taped the outside of his foot, so they must have taped it inside, but then they put the foot in the shoe and then tape the foot into the shoe. So he couldn't move at all. They do that in basketball too, to prevent the rolling. They tape really like that in basketball too. Interesting.

Yeah, I've seen football cleats just wrapped in entire rolls of tape, but I haven't seen a lot of that in baseball. In baseball, right? What compels me most about this matchup? How will Freddie Freeman's ankle be taped in the World Series? We're really hitting on him. We're really getting in the weeds. Join us all week. No, I think the thing,

the player that I'm most curious about for the big stage in the World Series is Jazz Chisholm. I think you've also mentioned it a couple of points, you know, you're like expecting a big moment from Jazz and they generally haven't been there, right? He's been pretty bad so far. 147, 216, 265 this postseason. It's a slash line that's even a little worse than Verdugo's. More strikeouts. A bad base running

blunder that didn't end up changing the ALCS, but it was a part of a bad sequence for the Yankees. I think he's a guy that could use a couple of big swings on the big stage. So I'm just kind of curious to see if it comes together for him. You know, Judge was struggling to begin the postseason. We'll see if he rises to the occasion. I imagine he probably will. But I think Jazz is sort of that player I've got circled on the Yankee side. I'm like, all right, what are we getting from you?

We need something from you in this series. Yeah. Here's your trash talker. The strugglers for the Dodgers are Will Smith and Gavin Lux, you know, other than Freddie Freeman, Gavin Lux has hasn't been hitting for firm power. And Will Smith showed some signs they said he's really grinding in the cage. And I think I think he should do the opposite, you know, because we pointed out how badly catchers do in the postseason.

I think he should, you know, take a breather and take some rest and, you know, you know, do less. Less is more Will Smith. I think if jazz was playing better, you would maybe hear him rest and, you know, you know, do less. Less is more Will Smith. I think if Jazz was playing better, you would maybe hear him talk more. You know, he's already said some like bulletin boardy things. I also think the Yankees probably pulled him aside and said, hey, bro, it's not what we do here. Yeah, maybe.

But there's a guy who can say some stuff. She's not playing well. Yeah. But a couple of swings could change everything pretty quickly. So I mentioned the series schedule earlier, Friday, Saturday for the games one and two. We know Garrett Cole's going in game one for the Yankees. I don't think they've announced Carlos Rodin for game two,

but it's probably the safest assumption at this point because rest will have been there. The Dodgers will have more than the five days rest that they give Yoshinobu Yamamoto before starts. But I think their their decision is a little more complicated because of the way they've had to use their bullpen. So tactically thinking about the way the Dodgers could order their pitchers, would you want to split Yamamoto and Flaherty in a way where one of them pitches game one or two and the

other actually gets the first of the three games that are stuck together because of the way you're trying to use your bullpen. Like what do you think the the best approach is given the overall approach? I think you could do that for the Yankees too is that Rodin might be able to go a little bit further into a game than Clark Schmidt and the reason is Shohei Otani. Shohei Otani is the top of the lineup. The third time through the order, Carlos Sardon, who would you rather leave in against Shohei Otani for a third time?

Carlos Sardon because he has the platoon advantage. So you at least be a lefty on lefty. Like how much better could you do than a 96 mile an hour throwing left-hander against Otani? So what you might want to do is pitch Carl Sv'done in game three, because he could go a little bit deeper and you won't empty the bullpen as early in game three, where it's three games in a row. So in fact, I think the argument should be made.

Whoever you think goes deeper goes in game three because you can go one and two is like Clark Schmidt. Maybe do Clark Schmidt in game two and you use a lot of the pen, but you have that extra off day afterwards. And so who is that for the, I don't know who it is for the Dodgers right now because that's, that's the problem. I was going to say they don't have the Garrett Cole. They don't have like the, you don't know how Yamono is gonna go Flaherty was throwing 90s 90 mile hour to starts yeah. Yeah so I walker Bueller is not a guy you can trust and go he's gonna get us

through X amount of outs I don't I don't think they have that I'm really curious what they do here I don't know if there's an easy lane here if you Dave Roberts and the Dodgers like like with the Yankees like you guys were saying like let's let's let's have it set up so that the guy who gives us length goes three I don't know if the Dodgers have that like have that luxury they're hoping Yamamoto gives them length and one and if he doesn't then are then you're already in the pen. Yeah and I think if you get into the pen too early in the first two games of the series then the problem catches up with you in that middle three block when the Yankees hitters might be getting their third possibly their fourth look in game five at some of your more important

relievers assuming those games are close and you're winning. Otherwise they're getting multiple looks at your worst relievers, which seems like an even bigger problem because those guys are even more hittable. Maybe you just say we lost those. So, you know, one of the things that's kind of cool, Eric Steven from True Blue LA, before game five did like a little thing

where he showed all the Mets and who had faced relievers had faced which Mets and before game five they only had two. Late game relievers good relievers that had faced anybody in the Mets order twice so training had faced Lindor twice and brazier had faced Alonzo twice. twice and brazier had faced Alonzo twice, but Henriquez had faced guys three times because he was the guy that came in when they were losing the game. That's why they had these blowouts. They were just like that. And right guys, here you go. I was, you know, Kasparius, you know, good luck. And when that series finished, they still, nobody had faced anybody three times except

for brazier against Alonzo. And that was, that was probably more key than people realize because Alonzo came on with people on, on, on, on base and he was facing Brian Brazier for the third time. When you face a reliever for the third time, it's just in a series, it's just like facing a starter for the third time in a game. Like, you know, that was kind of a key moment. I don't know if Dodgers wanted that to happen, but at some point they're like, ah, one of our guys has got to see him three times.

But what you're saying is the earlier you go into the pen, the more likely it is. Soto gets to see Ryan Brazier for the third time. And if Soto gets to see Ryan Brazier for the second time, I'd already started and be worried. If Soto sees Ryan Brazier three times, Soto's probably hitting one of the moon that third time. I mean, like. That's the concern.

Who's better, Ryan Brazier or Hunter Gaddis? Hunter Gaddis. Hunter Gaddis, yeah. Not by miles, but I mean, like, look, it just happened, right? And we were talking about the difficulty of pitching to Soto in that sequence and we're like, well, maybe we would have done this differently and we found some, some, maybe we would have done this differently. And we found some other guardians played appearances where they tried the thing we tried and the

Yankees made them pay for that too. So there's no easy pass through. But I think the question I have for both of you is how would you rank the starting pitchers that we expect to see in this world series? I think it's actually a more challenging exercise to do this in October than it is to do it at the beginning of a season the way we do in fantasy when everybody's kind of building up and everybody's healthy at that time and we're looking at a long runway and now we're dealing with all these variables of, you know, Garrett Cole pitched really well throughout the second half, but hasn't been as sharp for all of his playoff starts.

We know Yamamoto's not getting as deep into starts right now as he could at various points during the regular season. You think about different guys that maybe could face the top of the order the third time. You know, mentioned the possibility of Rodin, at least seeing Otani the third time before possibly coming out of a game. Clark Schmitz, historical struggles against lefties

that haven't been as much of an issue this year. Recent form of Flaherty. Bueller having better stuff at city field, that haven't been as much of an issue this year. Recent form of flarity, Bueller having better stuff at City Field. That might have been the result of environmental park conditions that were unique to City Field that might not be there. If he's pitching at Dodger Stadium or even at Yankee Stadium. So it's this whole mess of added variables. So starting at the top, do we agree that Garrett Cole

is the guy we'd all want on the mound? If you know, we're facing an elimination game, if we could choose any starting pitcher from these two teams today, and it were a game seven scenario is Cole, the guy we would all want. Well, no, I'd want to help these show. Hey, Tony, not an option, not on the menu. I'd like a healthy coal. The problem here is like, we're like, you know what?

These two, these two teams are not built on pitching staffs, but let's discuss because they're really not going to factor in. I do think it's going to be, I would go coal. I would certainly trust him the most right now, but you're right. It would look totally different this spring. I think I go Rodin before I go Yamamoto right now. See, that's that. I think that's road on before I go Yamamoto right now. See, that's that. I think that's where it actually gets the tightest because you could make a

pretty easy case where it's just like, you can almost just stagger them, right? Cole Yamamoto, Rodone, uh, Flaherty, you know, uh, Schmidt Mueller, you could kind of do that, but actually think the tightest, the hardest to rank is Rodone versus Yamamoto. Cause Yamamoto, you know, healthy built up, you know, with extra day of rest, like he doesn't throw without that extra day of rest. So can you give him that extra day of rest? All that sort of stuff. If Yamamoto is feeling at his very best, I think I take him over a dome.

But right now. Rodone seems to be maybe a little bit closer to his best. But right now Rodin seems to be maybe a little bit closer to his best. I mean, he, he really has settled down into something that's really great where he's mixing his pitches. The command is decent enough and the stuff is there. He's, he's kind of harnessed that intensity. I, I, I think I'm going to go young mode over a dumb, but I think that's really close. I think it's basically, okay.

So if we're talking about the MLB, the show scale, you're putting like an 80 on present Rodin on a 79 on Yamamoto. They're that close, but Rodin ahead. Yeah. I mean, I think it'd be a little bit higher than that. Higher numbers than that. Okay. I haven't played the show in a while.

Well, they're a bunch of 98s and a hundreds and 99s. So like, I think a healthy coal is like a, is a hundred. And this current coal is like a 96. Oh, okay. So I'm dinging, I'm taking way too many points off of everybody. Okay. You don't usually play with eighties that much,

unless you're really just starting out. So ridiculous, ridiculous system guy. Who hasn't played game is upset. That doesn't make sense. That's a pretty good top three. Do you go Flaherty for even though his VLO has been down, he's a questionable. I think it's a good slider. It's, you know, he can still get outs on the slider. I, I do.

I, you know, one thing I'm looking at, I don't know if, do you think any pitcher goes five full? I know. We's the thing. We're sitting here ranking the starting pitchers and I don't think this series is going to have much to do with the starting pitch. It's going to be one of those series where we're like, oh, they had those guys pitch in the, like, it's going to be so dominated by the hitters. I don't know if they go five.

This actually helps. Hole could go five. He could go five, but he didn't. And in the CSs, the guy who went the furthest was Carlos Rodón, which goes to my argument about it's a little bit easier, I think, to take a lefty into the third time through the order because you're still getting some platoon advantage

at the top of the lineup. All right, so we've got Cole as a consensus one. What if you put Betts lead off against Carlos Rodón? You're taking a plate appearance away from Shohei Otani. Do you think it'd take a whole plate appearance away from moving bets to three and show you? Well, you're risking it. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not, it's not, you wouldn't know. I'm not taking like a has been or a terrible player.

Yeah, exactly. I don't like making it a little bit harder to like massage cause or don't through a third time at the order of Mookie Betts at the top of the lineup. They could go Flaherty four. Everyone's in agreement on Flaherty. I have Fla... Yeah. Who is he?

Who is he over? Clark Schmidt? Bit? I don't know. I might take, I might take Clark Schmidt over Flaherty right now. I might because... And Bueller, he's over Bueller. We have talked about Flaherty a lot ever since the trade deadline a year ago.

The season he put together in Detroit and during his time with the Dodgers, phenomenal, great bounce back, great story. He's going to get paid this winter. It's going to get a multi-year deal. It's going to be a big number. Great. Good for him. I just worry, especially if the VELO is going to be inconsistent. We've talked about the importance of where his fastball lives and how quickly it turns. I don't know, man. It's like he cruised through seven his first time out against the Mets and that looked amazing. I was like, well, Jack Flaherty is all the way back. He's cruising through this postseason the same way did the regular season. And then just got rocked that second time through.

And now I'm I'm shook by it. It's hard to face the same lineup, though, that quickly again. That is something that usually hitters. But also is Velo is down. The Velo, the Velo. Yeah. One of the most predictive, the two of the most predictive stats in baseball for pitching are actually fastball VELO and strikeouts minus walks

if you want to take stuff less out of it. So, you know, his fastball VELO is the worst out of this crew of starters. And Jack Flaherty's K minus BB is the worst out, in the playoffs is the worst out of any of these starters. He has a 12% strikeout rate and a 10% walk rate. I mean, that's not good. Yeah, so I think I'm Schmidt over Flaherty.

If you want to keep Flaherty in that four spot, you guys can have him there, but I think I also just like Clark Schmidt's pitches better. I think, you know, your model likes those arsenal, that arsenal a lot better. So I'd rather trust that arsenal that has good secondaries a lot more. And I think the adjustments he's made against lefties

at least give Schmidt a chance against them in a way that prior to maybe this season, I would have been a lot more nervous about the chances of him getting through at least twice against the Dodgers lefties. But he's got Muncie Ohtani and Freeman. This is where Freeman's injury actually, you know, might make a big deal, uh, is, is for Clark Schmidt because he's going to struggle with the lefties, but he could maybe do something where he just walks Muncie and Otani depending on the lineup situation and who's on base. And, uh, goes after Freeman because Freeman's not who he, who normally is.

So, um, those are the three names you have to circle in a Clark Schmidt start for sure. OK, so in some order, Schmidt, Flaherty, probably four, five, then Luis Heal behind him for sure, or Bueller comes next. The thing that's nice about Heal, I think I take Bueller over Heal, but the thing that's nice about Heal is he's that extra guy for the Yankees.

I mean, we're not putting a name in across from Heal is he's that extra guy for the Yankees. I mean, we have you know, we're not putting a name in across from Heal. You know, so the Yankees. Bullpen, it's this. Right. So it's like Landon Nack versus Luis Heal. Yeah, take Luis Heal. But now, but it's like it's Michael Kopek and Ryan Brazier and Evan Phillips, you know, and Daniel Hudson, it's all of those guys against. And that's and that's fine.

And we talked about this a little before we got on air. It's like it's hard to really appraise a bullpen game because I think in the past we thought Bullpen game is something you do when you have no other choice And so a bullpen game you would give the advantage to an actual starter in most of those But I don't think that's the case we've watched enough bullpen games where the team wins with it You know And I think the only problem with the bullpen game is the earlier you do it in the series the more you make it hard to do the finagling they did in the med series where you're like. You don't have you know so do facing one of these relievers for the third time you know and you can play that game in a shorter series but even if that met game and gone to gain seven.

Now you're gonna start to see everyone see Blake trying in the third time. You know, and you, and before that game, there were like five relievers that had pitched 27 innings and given up zero runs altogether. Copac, Trinon, Banda, all these guys, right? In the, in that last game, they faced them second and third times, and they still only gave up three runs, but they gave up more runs. The more times you see the relievers, the better they are. So if they do bullpen game in game three or game four even,

how, when they get to game seven, they're gonna be putting relievers out there that these guys have seen repeatedly. Yeah, or even a starter from earlier in the series for a couple of innings. And you've seen that starter twice already. So it kind of gives you a greater appreciation for Madison Bumgarner hero ball from 2014. Like just the more you see how teams are chopping up the workloads and it's still struggling to get through even with great stuff.

You know, the picture is that I'm actually the most worried about for the Yankees though, if they overexpose the usage? It's Luis Heal. It's not because I don't think Luis Heal's a good pitcher. It's because I think Luis Heal, in a lot of ways, is the flaws of the Mets wrapped up into a pitcher on the Yankees, where he can miss bats,

but the elevated walk rate as a result of inconsistent command is going to make him really, really vulnerable against the team. That's a little, yeah. And it's like, I mean, I'm sure the Yankees have a reduced plan for heel. The Dodgers had a 395 OBP against them. Right. So when you look at a pitcher like heel and the possibility that

Nestor Cortez rejoins the roster, it will be as a reliever. It's not going to be like Nester Cortez going five or six. But that's their bullpen day. It's like, you know, get, get five outs from heel, get five outs from Cortez. That's actually a pretty interesting combo too, because the lefty variety you can, you can bring Cortez out when you see Otani the second time. And you might get six combined between the two. Like everything goes well. You can get six combined from them. No, six innings. Oh, six innings maybe. Six is like the max you could probably get from both combined.

But even if they gave you four or five and didn't give up damage and you got to the lineup one time with them, that's still it's not that bad. Like that's three innings. And yeah, the Dodgers bullpen is going to do the same thing. It's going to use two pitchers to get to the lineup one time, at least one time in the series, maybe twice to start a game. So I like I feel OK about like a heel Cortez versus a bullpen day.

Like I almost picked the Yankees on that one, too. I think I like it better with Cortez back than I do if the Yankees had to throw one or two short relievers in that spot behind heel That's that's actually kind of a big deal They actually don't have the bullpen depth of the Dodgers do and they are they can't do that They won't be able to do the thing We're like we have six credible relievers and so you'll never see our guys two or three times

No, they have like three or four credible relievers and that's it Right and I think that's where, even if the story in the World Series is more about the position players and slugging, I do think what each team gets from its starting pitching will be really important because that's gonna determine just how beat up the relievers get and that might ultimately decide the series.

That can't help it. I'm circling, now I'm circling now. I'm circling Nestor Cortez. You know, and Anthony Banda, those guys are going to be huge. Yeah, so X Factor. Yeah. All right. So it sounds like the collective edge though, across the board is we like

the Yankees group of starters better at this point in the season. We're not even talking about the Dodgers relievers. We're going to break them down in detail with Trevor May on Wednesday. But I think the Dodgers bullpen being better or deeper than the Yankees bullpen offsets most, if not all, of this gap. So if you were grading pitching as a whole, do you think it's an even matchup in this World Series between these two teams, even if we like the Yankees starters better than the Dodger starters at this point in time?

I give the Yankees a slight edge because I think like we said in a series that people are thinking is going to go six or seven, you still need starters. You still need guys to get you more than an inning or two. And I think that's going to show up in games five and six and seven if we have them. So I still give the Yankees a slight edge. You know, you're nodding. So do you agree? I write the pitching matchups for each of these and that's exactly what I wrote. I wrote, you know, I think that the longer the series goes, the more the Yankees advantage in the bulk pitchers is going to matter. So a 97-96 score favoring the Yankees based on the MLB the show.

Am I getting it right now? It'd be a 97-96? Neither of these pitching staffs were top five in the big leagues. So this actually might be more like a 93-92. I'm going to find it eventually. I promise everyone. And the reason I don't play MLB the show is because I would do literally nothing else in my life if I started playing it. I know myself.

It would just be an obsession. I'd be streaming Twitch. I'm actually happy that my child has found other games to play because that one was actually, it was, he's like, do you want to pitch this any? I'm like, yeah. There goes 20 minutes, right? You're just sucked in and life goes by. So we got some non-playoff topics to get to. Britt had a story that Jerry Reinsdorf is open to selling the White Sox. It's hard to make White Sox fans excited about anything in October because of the mess Jerry has created. But Britt, is this real or is this like the time that Artie Moreno was going to sell the

Angels and then laughed and said, ha ha, no, I'm not selling the Angels. I'm going to keep them. So that's what people keep asking me. Like, is it real? And like, I wouldn't have reported it if it wasn't true. People ask if it's true. Like it's true. Question is, like you said, is it real? Is it going to happen? Yeah. And I don't think anybody can answer that right now, except Jerry Reinsdorf. I do think a few things here. So I do think that the losing this season weighed on him more than people realize. I think that there are RSN,

which has had issues for years in a bad economy. I think that team is losing money. You heard Jerry already say the payroll is gonna go down, which went over like one would expect, like a lead balloon. going to go down, which went over like one would expect, like a lead balloon. I think for the first time, maybe since he bought the team, he is thinking about, OK, should I get out here? He's 88 years old.

Even if he sells it as a path to control that takes five years, again, he's 88 years old. Is he going to be around at the end of those five years? We don't know. And also, a big part of this too is the stadium that he's trying to get public money for that nobody is giving public money for. So if he's not going to get the stadium he wants, which would lead to better profitability, and the team is losing and losing money, I think these are things that have now finally forced him to consider other options. And people said, well, he did this before.

Well, he didn't. He threatened to move the team to St. Petersburg to get guaranteed great field bill in 1991. He never has said, I'm open to selling the team. And that's what makes this interesting. Now, David Stewart, Stewart of course who he remains in conversations with and I think they're meeting again like next week is what sources have told me so this is like an ongoing thing. David Stewart of course wants a team wants to own a team

was heavily involved in trying to bring a team to Nashville at one point, uh, tried to, uh, buy out Oakland out of their share of the Coliseum, the city of Oakland at one point. Um, so, you know, I think, uh, for Ryan's store, of course, he's going to do it Jerry's way and he's going to go to people he knows and trust first and isn't just going to say, make me an offer. I can't refuse. And this is more Jerry's way, right? Client destined meetings with the next owner and like, yes, yes. Everything we have a J. Ranser is he's not going to say, make me the best off forever.

Again, this guy's 88 years old. What does it matter if he's rich beyond belief when he sells this team? He's 88 years old. He may be dead in a few years. So that is kind of what makes me think that this is more real. He called up a buddy. They're in discussions about it. People are saying, oh, he's just trying to get money for the stadium. Maybe, but he's not getting money. The stadium money is gone. It's a thing of the past and it is just not going to happen. And also like threatening to sell the team is not going to get him public money.

No, everybody's just cheering. Everyone's like, yes, this is time. Please sell the team. Let's be good again. I saw sell shirts in Chicago and they weren't green. So that I think, I think there is some, this is something he's legitimately considering. I think this is something that, you know, still is a ways from happening, still is a long shot for happening. But I think that all those factors I mentioned above kind of finally have triggered a little bit of like, okay, the plan was always for his family to keep the bulls, sell the White Sox when he died. Maybe this is something he should look at now before he dies.

Rich people problems. Yeah, and he probably doesn't have the energy. He has this, he's lost this fight for public money in Chicago and he probably doesn't have the energy, you know, to necessarily start a whole fight with, you know, moving them somewhere and doing that whole thing. Um, and he's probably watching what's happening in Oakland and being like, do I really want to stain like whatever legacy I have left in Chicago by, you know, pulling a Fisher and like, you know, doing all this, you know? So I feel like he's probably, um, you know, thinks that this is the best way to, to extricate and Phillipson situation.

The weird thing is that Dave Stewart's connection to, uh, Nashville, I think is like, you know, is the selling to Dave Stewart. Would that kind of hint that Dave Stewart is then going to have the energy to say, I'm moving this to Nashville, where we I've wanted to have a team. I have connections. I have people who are going to build a stadium for us in Nashville. And as soon as you have a stadium, then the threat of moving is a bigger deal. I think there is some comparison to Artie Moreno. I think Moreno, you know, when he did say he was going to sell it, it was after he lost the fight to get more money for a new stadium. So there's this, there's like this, um, you know, how much energy they have that this, there's always this fight for a new stadium, which I think is, um, it's actually one of

the most rotten things at the core of baseball. It's bad for sure. It's interesting to another team in the AL central might be available. The Polad family putting the twins up for sale, or at least exploring the possibility of a sale. And there's a couple things here, like you think about the twins, it's obviously a smaller market than Chicago.

So you could look at the White Sox and kind of dream big and say, hey, wait, some really deep pocketed owner could come in and buy the White Sox, change the franchise the same way that Steve Cohen's trying to change the Mets. Like that's the that's the dream scenario if you're a fan of the white socks. If you're the twins you're probably not getting a buyer quite like that but you're more enticing as a

franchise in some ways because you've got a beautiful ballpark already so you don't have to worry about getting a ballpark. Your team's not gonna get moved. Yeah but do people buy this with the idea of how good is it already? Or do they buy it with the idea of, oh, if I get a ballpark, I think they just buy it. How much money can I make? Five billion. Yeah. Yeah. What's the surrounding area? That's the big thing now.

Everyone wants the battery like Atlanta has. People forget that the Lerner family in D.C. did this, too. They said they were going to sell the net, explore. People get all excited when the news is they're going to explore a sale. Doesn't necessarily mean they were going to sell the net, explore. People get all excited. When the news is they're going to explore a sale, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to sell. Same thing with Minnesota. It happened with DC and it could happen again here. They're not necessarily saying we are selling the team, right? They're exploring what's out there. And if they don't like it, they're going to hang on to it. And that's what happened with the Lerner family too. Yeah. I mean, there's no downside to holding it. Yeah. Only a team is one of the best investments in, in all of investing

because yes, it may not make a bunch of money in between, but it is so rock solid in terms of how much it'll gain over time. And if you are that rich, you actually just want something that has absolutely no cratering possibility and will just, you know, probably give you a 50%, you know, return or a hundred percent return. I mean, Jay Reinstorf in your story, you bought it for $20 million. I mean, that's what I mean. Like if he wanted to get rich off the scene, he could have sold a 10 years ago and enjoyed it while he was still maybe like

had his energy and stuff. And I know, know you know he has told people close to him Sources told me that his health is like the best thing he has and and that's all fine And well, maybe he isn't great health. That was the other thing people worried about this news However, he's still 88, right You know still is you know, if you wanted to just you know sail on his yacht He could have sold the team 10 years ago and still made a boatload of money. Right. But he's probably looking at his team being like, they're not going to, they're not going to win a world series in the next three, four years.

And I hope Jerry is realistic enough and knows enough about baseball to know that what you just said is true. They're not winning a world series in the next three years. That's just, I will eat a rack of hats. If that happens, I'll go into lids and just eat all the hats. Just like Pac-Man, I'll just gobble them all up. Since we're in Chicago, we've been talking about teams getting eliminated from the playoffs and what's next in the off season.

We're going to talk about a few teams that didn't make the playoffs over the course of the next few weeks and what their off seasons might look like. Figured the Cubs would be a natural fit as a good place to start a team that some folks thought would be in this postseason. They didn't make it. And I saw Jim Bowden had some rankings of the non-playoff teams on the athletic. He put the Cubs seventh on that group. I thought that was actually a little on the low side because there's still a lot

to like on this roster and more specifically, there's a lot to like in their young core, some of which has arrived in the big leagues, but a lot of which is still to come probably in 2025 and beyond. The question we were wrestling with throughout the season though, you know, was how did the Cubs build a team where they spent this much and they didn't get more out of their roster because they don't have a 35 or $40 million AAV player on this roster but they've got a lot of 10, 15, 20s, but Swanson, Ballinger, Hap, Suzuki, Taiyan and Shotai Monaga on the pitching side, Nico Horner who they extended while he was under

club control. So they have a bunch of guys that are not cheap and they have a team that's solid, but they don't have a team that is a perennial contender just yet. What's the missing ingredient for the Cubs? Like when we talk about them, it seems like they get kind of put in the same bucket as the Giants. They should be very active in free agency every winter. They should be able to contend for any free agent they want all the way up to the top of the market in theory based on who they are as an organization. But I don't know. It feels like there's something that's not quite a line between ownership appetite for spending at that level and fan demand for the Cubs to do something to get better and try to win another World Series.

There's this thing in fantasy where you try to identify at the top, but the, you know, in an auction room, which is the most like what free agency is like, you know, where people are spending fake money to buy these players and in an auction room. But you'll see is you kind of the best, one of the best strategies is to determine what the very top players are going for, you know, and then try to get one of the top players with the least amount of overpay. That seems to be kind of the cub strategy. It's like, we want to get one of the top three to four free agents this off season, but we don't want to get the very top one because we think that you're paying way too much over the top. You know, we want to get that next one where we're, we are paying a little bit of a premium for Dan's B. Swanson, but not, we're not paying $280 to Xander Bogart's,

$280 million to Xander Bogart's. We're paying $180 million for, for Dan's B. Swanson. And in that, in each of these sort of singular decisions, I think you say good deal. Like, I think you look at Sayo Suzuki and you say good deal. I think you look at Dan's B. Swanson for the most part, you say good deal. Like I think you look at Sayo Suzuki and you say good deal. I think you look at Danzby Swanson for the most part, you say good deal. It's a little bit long, but you say probably good deal, right? Jameson Tyon four years and 56 million, like decent deal.

I think you say a decent deal. Cody Bellinger. I think he should opt into that. I hear some, you know, there's some, there's some rumors that he's going to opt out. I would not do that. You, your bat is not special right now. You know, if you're Cody Bellinger and you're on the open market and you're no longer a center fielder by age, so, you know, for very long, so I would, I would keep that $50 million or at least the $28 million this off season. Yeah.

Like a Max Fried, Nathan Evaldi kind of guy, I think would fit them. Mike, my question is always like, you're the Chicago Cubs. Why are we like, why not get the number one guy? Yeah. Why are we looking for the deals? I think they they feel like I mean, it's about the pitching for them. I think adding an impact starter would help them a lot. You know, if they're going gonna get to that 90 plus wins that Craig Council has,

it's kind of like verbally said, we need to get there, we need to get better. You kind of have to get some of these impact guys who are gonna push things across. I think a starter is a good idea. One nice thing about what's happening in Chicago is, I think their youth is underrated. Pico Armstrong is, I think, maybe the best defender in baseball at his

position. I think that's a position full of great defenders too. I mean, he's possible like platinum glove center fielder. And the, and the offense was coming around a little bit. Michael Bush was like a really decent last year. And I like Ben Brown as a starter. So like, you know, those are three young players. They'll get some pitchers back from injury and some like Porter Hodge was,

it was pretty good. And, you know, I think the Nate Pearson deal was good. So like there's some, they're, they're doing a lot of things that are good. I don't, I, I sometimes I look at this and I say, why aren't they better? I think maybe it is, you know, go get a, go get a real good starting pitcher. Like get it, get a, get a top two guy to put next to steel. Push everybody down. Sometimes you got a shot in the arm, everybody,

a little bit, you know? It feels like they've been kind of, meh, making those like good deals that you, like you said, good deal, good deal. Wouldn't it be cool if the Chicago Cubs made a, got a big name, got a blockbuster? Like what would that change in the central? I don't know. And looking at what they have now even if uh cody bellinger opts back in um they would have

between this year and last year's luxury tax payrolls um they would still have about 45 million dollars i say get corbin burns yeah at least push yourself up to that threshold if you don't want to go in the threshold, fine. That's your ownership's choice, but you should live right near there. Get an ACE, get Corbin burns, you know, go for it. Spend some money. Cause you actually do have some young players that are going to provide you depth and fill in the holes and play the places.

Oh, where do we need a guy? Oh, we'll put Michael Bush there. You know, he might not be the best glove, but we will put him there. Cody Ballinger is going to play first. We play, maybe he'll play a corner outfield, whatever it'll be. Like I think you, you go and you get Corbin Burns. It makes this whole team better. I just like how every time we have Britt on the show, both of you start attacking the brewers

in even subconscious ways. Like that you want to put Corbin Burns on the cubs now. What did I say? You talk talking about David Friese. Today you've said nothing, but it's always one of you and it's always the day Brits here. And I don't know why this happens. No, no, I'm an Instagram. I don't know.

Yeah. It just brings that side of Eno out. I don't think about the Brewers that much. Yeah, I know you don't. You don't think about the Brewers that much. You should. You you don't, you don't think about the Brewers that much. You should. You know, beginning of the show I said, is this the Dream World series? My Dream World series would have been Brewers Guardians and it would have

been 42 degrees in Cleveland and I would have been there for game five and I'd have been hammered drunk behind home plate with angels wings. That is my Dream World series. Okay. That's what I wanted and I didn't get it. Low television ratings. I don't care about TV ratings. I'm not getting rich off that.

Am I drinking beer at the ballpark? Is my team playing? Perfect. That's all I wanted. That's what I wanted to see. I don't care who the Brewers at the beat to get that first world series. I just want to be there when it happens.

That was my pushback on the whole question was like, I don't know, dream World Series is, yeah, for Yankees and Dodgers fans, it's the dream World Series for everyone else. It's kind of like, okay, I want to see some more. If you're covering it, that's a lot of travel. It's kind of a pain. Yeah, I could drive back and forth for every game of Brewers Guardians. I could have nacho helmets and hazy IPAs and sausage, everything I want. It's all good for us. My dream world series, nationals or reals,

I could spend the entire time at home. At home. The entire time. Yeah, you know, I mean, you had it for a long time and sadly it's not an option for you to have the dream world series just right there where you could go to both parks nearby. The best you could do now would be like what?

Angels and giants. Mm. I've done that drive. I've driven the five million times. I've done that drive so many times. I would do that. I'm, I'm tempted a little bit. We got through the baseball riders association, get, you would get tickets.

I got some Dodgers tickets, but I think I'm going to let the family go do that. The in-laws that are down there, they can do that. I don't need to drive all the way down. It was a very kind of you to share that. But if you'd like to share your dream World Series with us, you can do that in our Discord. The link is in the show description. Be as descriptive as possible.

Be more like me in the description if possible. I think I was very specific with what I really want to see in the World Series someday. Give us a follow on Twitter. You can find Britt at Britt underscore drool. You can find Eno at EnoSarris. Find me at Derek VanRiper. Find the pod at Rates and Barrels.

It's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for watching!