Rates & Barrels - Playoff Predictions & AL Wild Card Matchup

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Eno, Britt & DVR share their playoff predictions as the 2021 Postseason gets underway with Tuesday night's AL Wild Card Game between the Yankees and Red Sox.  Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Britt on Twitter: @Britt_Ghiroli Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Watch the show *Live* on weekdays at 11:30a ET/8:30a PT on YouTube and subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic at 50% off for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels presented by Topps. Check out Topps Project 70 celebrating 70 years of Topps Baseball Cards. It is our first live playoff show of the 2021 postseason. Derek Van Ryper, Richard Rowley, Eno Saris here with you for the next 30 minutes or so. Maybe it turns into an hour. Who knows? If we're having fun, we'll hang around. We're here to answer questions and break everything down happening in today's AL Wildcard game. And we're going to try and make predictions for the entire playoffs, which is risky. And as we've learned on the show over the course of the season, not something that we do particularly well.

But we have fun doing it, and that's the important thing. So let's get going. Let's just start diving right in. The playoffs are here. I couldn't be more excited. We know a little bit about what's going to happen this week. Of course, two wildcard games on tap. Yankees-Red Sox goes down tonight. Dodgers-Cardinals on Wednesday night. We got the White Sox-Astros series beginning on Thursday. Braves-Brewers

on Friday. And then, of course, the winner of the wildcard games also starting Thursday-Friday in those leagues. Hold on, DVR. We've already got the most important question of the morning. Oh. James Rogers asks... This is a great question. Did DVR get his coffee yet, or are we going to get the ass?

Yes. It's almost gone. You can tell it's hit, right? It's the delicious, delicious coffee, too. Oh, and that weird mug, dude. What's that mug? Yeah, this is from Cometeer. They send frozen coffee pods out and awesome glasses, too.

Yeah, Maggie's been using those. My wife has been using those. So they're kind of cool looking. You feel like you're in a coffee shop even when you're not, which is a great feeling. It's great coffee too. So playoffs are here. And Britt, you had a key questions piece

dissecting every team in the field. There's a couple of teams that I think are just different because they had the best record in each league and yet people still doubt them. So I thought we should start today by talking about the Tampa Bay Rays and a couple key questions facing them. The biggest observation for me is this is a very different group of starters than we saw from the core that pushed them to the World Series a year ago. 28 different pitchers for the Rays this year have logged at least 10 innings. Of course, some of those guys are hurt. Some of those guys have been traded. Tyler Glass now,

the key guy who's not there because he had Tommy John surgery back in early August. How do you expect this young core to hold up? We're talking about Shane McClanahan and Shane Boz who came up late in the year. Drew Rasmussen, a surprising starter for this team after being acquired from the Brewers and Luis Patino because it seems like a lot of the heavy lifting is going to fall on them. Yeah, it's interesting. I texted Eno after I wrote that story yesterday, one question for each playoff team, because I found myself on fan graphs for an unusual amount of time, and I was quoting WRC Plus and was like, I have spent way too much time with, you know,

nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds. I asked him, I'm, I think I'm under a nerd now. I've been on this for a long enough. I'm going to wear the card. Um, but what's interesting to me about Tampa Bay and you brought it up, Derek, they have pitched the fewest amount of innings out of their starting rotation of any playoff team. And it's not close. The second team is Boston, and it's about 50 innings. So it's significant. My gut tells me the Tampa Bay Rays team is better than last year's team, and they are in a lot of metrics. But I worry about that bullpen and whether it's going to be just exhausted by the time it gets to the later rounds. I also think when you

look at some of these AL matchups, the Houston Astros have caused a lot of problems for Tampa Bay. They've beaten Tampa Bay. And here's another like, you know, and I spend way too much time together for the athletic predictions of the national staff, you know, and I both picked the Astros. So I think when you look at Tampa Bay, they're a good team. Nobody talks about them. They are so well-rounded. They're not at the top of any of these leaderboards, think when you look at tampa bay they're a good team nobody talks about them they are so well-rounded they're not at the top of any of these leaderboards but when you expand the leaderboards the top 100 all of a sudden there's all the race they're a little similar to the giants in that regard but they're not built around that one star uh that one guy that you have to get out or you have to make sure you hit. Uh, but to me,

they're a good team. I just don't know if they can get as deep as they got last year. I think so many things went their way last year. And even in the world series, it felt like at times those bullpen arms were just gassed. Yeah. I think the bullpen is really interesting because, um,

you know, I don't, I just don't think it's the same as last year, even going in, you know, I don't, I just don't think it's the same as last year, even going in, you know, like Pete Fairbanks and Nick Anderson were throwing gas last year, late last year, they looked like unstoppable. And I, I did see something weird. Kittredge was throwing 97 in his last game against the Rays. And I was like, where did that come from? So I guess if Kittredge is going to throw 97, they do have a guy who's going to throw gas,

from. So I guess if Kittredge is going to throw 97, they do have a guy who's going to throw gas, but mostly it's about funk and, and figuring it out. But the figuring out thing is really important for me. The thing that I think that is that the Rays have in common with the Astros is they have good arms and they have a bunch of them. And I think they're going to do like maybe a modified nationals thing actually, where they start using their starters on throw days you know and use their starters for three or four innings and maybe use two starters in one game i mean that's one thing that the astros have to do i think actually because the astros almost go six deep if you count christian javier as a you know starter slash reliever they can go six deep with starters so i think they almost might want to just tandem everybody on the,

on the race side. Like I think they just want to get four innings out of Shane Baz, four innings out of Shane, Shane McClanahan, four innings out of Luis Patino and, and maybe on the same day, you know, maybe have Rasmussen come in and give them two or three innings you know, every two or three daysnings uh you know every two or three days uh but they're the we're gonna see more of that just quote-unquote figuring it out that we've seen in past post seasons i think where it's just nobody is anything like you're not a starting pitcher you're not a reliever we just

need outs how many outs can we get from you today you It's a free-floating thing, and whoever's arm is still hanging on, you're pitching today. I think that's the plan. Nobody is anything. Craig Council just calls them out-getters. That's one way to look at it. They're just pitchers. They're just doing whatever you need them to do,

and then you figure out the next day after you get through today, after you win or lose today, you kind of plot your course accordingly. I think I just want to jump in real quick. Feather Dinos has a really interesting question that I've been spending some time thinking about. It might be a little bit too long to put up on the screen, but he's saying, there you go, Rasmussen has done very well limiting hits against playoff caliber teams,

but without the underlying Ks and a mediocre ground ball rate, how is he doing and can he continue to do it? One of the things that sticks out for me is that, you know, pitching plus this model, you know, values his slider and fastball very, very highly, even though they don't get, the slider hasn't been getting a lot of whiffs. And I don't know if that's just a glitch in the model for now, but I do know the model is trained against getting outs, not necessarily against getting whiffs. So one thing I do know is he gets a 71% first strike rate. So he's just always starting out 0-1.

I mean, not always, 71% of the time. But, you know, he's starting out 0-1. The fastball, he locates really well, and you know, he's starting out. Oh, one, um, the fastball, he, he locates really well, uh, and he's added some, some run to it. Um, and then the slider is an 87 mile an hour power slider, like power curve type slider. So I don't know why it's not getting whiffs. I think maybe he's using it for some weak contact for some ground balls and such. Uh, but when I look at the pieces and at the curveball looks average i see i think it's sustainable um i know i'm kind of going out on a limb there are other analysts that don't feel

the same way about drew drasmussen but i think he can continue to keep it going how my only caveat is i think he's sort of an 80 to 100 pitch guy so uh i don't know if he's like a starter with a capital s uh but he's an out get. I think that's maybe part of the reason why he's not trying necessarily to use the slider entirely for whiffs. If he's trying to be efficient, if he's trying to get through five innings and do it with more like 70 pitches,

then not getting into deeper counts is a big part of how you get there. Finding stuff in the zone that guys can't do damage against would be the optimal way to do that. That's exactly it. Both of his pitches are good in the zone. If you're good in the zone, there's a lot of different ways to get going.

He gets a lot of called strikes. He gets a lot of ground balls. And he has been efficient. As a starter, he's been getting to five and six innings without getting over 100 pitches. So I kind of believe in him. Here's a question from Finn J. Who's going to start game one of that series on Thursday for the Rays against the winner of the wildcard game?

I would start fast, dude. Really? Really? Okay. Almost doesn't matter the way they're set up, right? Like it almost doesn't matter. It really did. Like it's going to be someone for three or four innings.

That's why it's like the bullpen kind of worries me, but does it matter? Because this team more than any other organization, they basically invented the opener, right? Like they got the, the whole bullpenning stuff down to a science. I think maybe we can all agree that they're going to beat whoever wins the

Red Sox Yankees game tonight. I feel pretty confident that Tampa Bay is going to match up well against both those teams and, and advance at least out of the first round. Do you guys think so? The only thing is the Yankees, they face the Yankees or they face the winner of Astros White Sox? They face the

winner of the wild card. One thing about the Yankees is I like the bullpen. I don't want to jump ahead in the rundown or anything. Fine, fine. We'll keep it in order for Eno's sake since he's the guy that wants to always color within the lines.

Oh, okay. I was just trying to be a good team player. I'm just messing with you. I don't think I've ever been described that way. I want to talk about the Giants for a few minutes because the key questions facing them have always just been, are they really this good? I think we've probably moved past that. They had the best offense in the NL. We talked about that before in terms of WRC+. Only the Jays hit more home runs

than the Giants in the regular season. And that's despite Oracle Park being Oracle Park, which is maybe more hitter-friendly than it used to be, but still a pitcher-friendly place to hit. They deserve a ton of credit. They won 107 games. It went down to the very last day of the regular season. They held off the NL Death Star to win the division and push the Dodgers into the NL wildcard game. I think when I look at this Giants team,

I'm more fixated on how good the back end of the rotation is and then the bullpen. They had great results from that pen throughout the season. They were second only to the Rays in terms of reliever innings pitched during the second half of the season, but

the Giants' ERA from that group was more than a half run better than the Rays, so I think they were able to really maximize the value of a lot of players that people aren't necessarily as familiar with in the broader conversation. So when you guys look at this Giants team, where do you see their true weakness? Clearly, it's not the offense.

They've proven over 162 games. The offense is fine. I think up top in the rotation, Gossman and Logan Webb, they stack up pretty well with anybody else's 1-2. But where does it start to break now when you're looking for weaknesses in the team with the best record in the National League? That's a good question. They are a little more susceptible to left-handed starters.

If you look at what they've been able to do versus right-handed starters, they've just dominated. They're a little more pedestrian against left-handed starters. So that could come into effect. But that could also be rectified by getting certain guys going, right? Like Evan Longoria has a hot October. We're probably not worried about that so much. There aren't a whole lot of holes. I agree with you. They're the best team in the National League, even though Vegas still has the Dodgers as the best odds to win

the World Series, which is, I don't know if this has ever happened, right? Has a wildcard team ever gotten the best odds to win the whole thing before. I wouldn't think so. That seems very odd to me. Exactly. And I just think when you look at this Giants team, they deserve to be in the World Series. They've played really well all year. They've lived in the margins all year, as we've talked about.

There aren't a whole lot of glaring holes to me when you look at this team. I think how they set up those later innings is going to be important. I think the, you know, the left-handed starter thing is a little important as well. And then maybe when you get into the backend of the rotation,

but we're just kind of nitpicking here, right? Cause every team has some bullpen issues. Every team isn't super confident with the back half of their rotation in a like October setting. The giants are a really good team and maybe we should stop. As I wrote, maybe we should stop questioning them.

Maybe there are no more questions because we've questioned them for six months and it turns out they're just really freaking good. Yeah. I was going to just say something. Steven Anderson just had a good point. The thing about the bullpen that is, that is the most interesting to me is just that they made a bet on command in the bullpen, which is very strange. If you look at K-BB, they do very

well. It's just that they focus mostly on the BB part. They focus mostly on the walks and almost everybody else in baseball is focusing on strikeouts. I just, I don't think that we have a great knowledge base even of like what a command based pen will do in October. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's actually so novel that I don't think that we have other cops. Yeah.

There he goes. He says 11th and came on his BB, but 22nd and K. So like, it's still a good bullpen. It gets a ton of grounders. We have other comps. Yeah, there he goes. He says 11th in K minus BB, but 22nd in K. So, like, it's still a good bullpen. It gets a ton of grounders. Part of that is Tyler Rogers. Like, he can get a grounder whenever you want.

And if they can pick it enough on defense, then those are a lot of, you know, free outs from Tyler Rogers. But now they have Camilo Duvall, so they do have a guy who can throw 105 uh I want to see 105 amazing love to see 105 yeah but but generally it's built on command and I just don't know how that plays I do know that I had a conversation with John Smoltz once on my on my uh podcast uh over at Fangraphs that we talked about how he was the best of the big three or whatever in Atlanta in the postseason. And that was because he didn't rely on command and that when he got to the

postseason and he was throwing a mile or two harder because there is a postseason velocity adrenaline bump, that he was better equipped for that because he was the stuff guy. And that when Maddox and Glavin hit the postseason they needed the cooperation of the umpire they needed everything to go right the same day and if they're throwing a mile or two harder maybe there's their spots or they're not hitting their spots as well so uh I do wonder what happens in a bullpen when you have basically like a Maddox-Lavin type bullpen, as opposed to, I don't know, the Yankees, who have a bunch of guys who throw 100. Right, the Yankees pen or that Royals pen from a few years ago

when they won the World Series. Those guys threw hard. Gas after gas after gas. It didn't matter who they went to. It was someone who was going to come in and throw upper 90s, maybe even touching 100. It's a different approach for sure. It's a little bit more like what the Rays did last year with Les Velo,

where you get some really different looks from this group of Giants relievers. I think Duval is kind of the wild card from this group. How does he handle the big stage? We wonder that about all young players. It's different. October baseball is just a little bit different, but he has been really good in the second half, and he might be their best bet.

If they're in a jam, if they're in a two-out jam and they need a strikeout, he might be their best reliever to go to in a situation like that. Two things that are cool about Duval, nobody's seen him. There'll be that novelty. Then the other thing is, after a save the other day, or just after getting out of a jam, I can't remember. He was down in the dugout and uh a coach came over i think it was jp martinez assistant hitting coach and uh put his finger on his on his neck and looked at his watch as if like to check if he had a pulse so i

mean that's the that's the sort of joke around uh the giants camp is that he's got a very slow motor and a slow heartbeat and he can handle these moments, but he does not have a pulse, says Finch. He's officially a zombie who can throw 105. There is

a danger with that, though, because October is different. And you've seen it time and again, right, guys, who haven't allowed to run the entire regular season all of a sudden fall apart in october but they do have jake mcgee who was the incumbent closer coming back now so to me the giants are even stronger and better than they were earlier this season and i know they've said mcgee isn't automatically going to be the closer gabe Kapler can kind of do a committee matchup approach here and play it by ear. And you're right.

I mean, I want to see the guys for a one Oh five as well. But you do kind of wonder it's a little different pitching in a regular season game that it is in October against the Dodgers, right? It's just a totally different feel. So I'm curious to see how he responds to that and if that continues to be kind of what he does in terms of keeping that

cool. It's a good matchup, Penn, though, because Rodgers, you might never see, he might never see a lefty, right? Because lefties like that arm slot. They can see the ball forever um you know it's easier for them so if he if he's only against righties and mcgee is slightly more against lefties and then doval is like the seventh inning out like that's another way you can mitigate the doval situation right it's like we won't use him in the ninth necessarily we'll use him in a seventh in a big spot and even if he allows a run or something we we can pick him up and get him used to it or whatever. Sometimes, I think, actually, if you look at the numbers, the most critical outs are

more likely to be in the 6th and 7th than in the 9th when you look at just how games go. I would say that's the idea. If you're wondering how the rundown works and why it was built this way, the main thing we want to talk about today before we get into the AL wildcard matchup going down tonight

were the playoff odds for the World Series and our own predictions. And I want to start with the Giants and Rays because even though they had the best records in each of the two leagues, they are not the odds-on favorites to win the World Series. As Britt mentioned earlier, the Dodgers are plus 400, even though they have to play an elimination game

right off the cuff, kidding the Cardinals at home, of course, on Wednesday. So Dodgers plus 400, Astros plus 475. Giants are not that far behind at plus 600. Rays sitting there at plus 650. White Sox at plus 700. Brewers at plus 800. Then some longer shots with the Yankees at plus 1,200.

Braves at plus 1,200. Red Sox at plus 1,400. And Cardinals at plus 2, 2500. It's two separate questions. It's not what you think is going to happen, and that's also the way you would bet. Looking at the Cardinals at plus 2500, yeah, we know the Dodgers are great, but if the Cardinals win the wildcard game, there's no reason why they can't win any other series. wildcard game, there's no reason why they can't win any other series. We've seen it. They've played amazing in September, so it just feels like there's a ton of value on them right now, even though if we were drafting these teams for who we thought was going to win the World Series, sure, the Cardinals might be one of the last picks, but they make a lot of sense from a pure value standpoint here. Yeah, my sweet spot is probably that 650 raise where you still have a high likelihood. They don't have to be in where like you still have a like a high likelihood

they don't have to be in the wild card game you have a high likelihood of them winning at all but you still get good odds you don't you're not paying you know you're not paying the the the highest uh the price to get them but the yankees if we're going to talk about a wild card team i might talk about the yankees actually um i really like that bullpen. And I know that it's kind of cold in the bullpen, but we've seen teams like that go really far into the postseason. So, and I, and I've been for as well, I'm not saying that the other guys are terrible, but I think that like, you know, Montgomery, Kluber, those guys are going to get you three, three innings maybe. And it's going to be kind of modified bullpen days so

yankees and rays are the two most interesting to me on that on that list i i think the astros are interesting even though their bullpen has a lot of questions other than ryan presley um zach ranke could be a little bit of a wild card here what's interesting is you know people have listened to the show for a while as they know i'm, I'm a recovering beat writer, right? I covered the nationals and I covered the Orioles. And even when the Orioles didn't make the playoffs, I still had to do the playoffs for MLB. So I've covered a lot of playoff games and it's never,

almost never the best team that wins. It's the hottest team. It's that old adage in baseball that there are no Cinderella's the 162 game season weeds out any Cinderella's everybody who's in the playoffs deserves to be there. But after that, as Billy Bean famously said, like it's a dice roll, right? You're basically rolling the dice. That's what we're all doing here. And in 2019, the nationals were never supposed to make it out of the wild card. They weren't supposed to beat the Dodgers. You know, they swept the Cardinals. So I've seen crazy things happen.

So when I look at those Cardinals odds, I think to myself, man, you know, not a bad idea to put money on a team that just had a historic September. That's a lot of return on like a $10 bet. Yeah. Nobody thought they would win 17 games in a row, but they did it. Nobody thought Adam Wainwright was going to be this good, but still, but he is, right?

So that's what baseball and sports are is, and it's so hard to predict with these playoff odds, is I could see the Dodgers losing that game. Couldn't everybody? It's a one game playoff. It takes one hit, one bad pitch to all of a sudden change everything. So this is such a fun exercise, but ultimately nobody is ever right, right? Like my, you know,

my three-year-old niece could probably pick the playoffs better than the three of us could. And that's part of the fun is that you cannot predict what's going to happen here over the next few weeks. And I would maybe throw some money down on those Cardinals and say, you know what? Maybe they will get hot. Maybe the Yankees will get hot. And you could just as easily make the case that both those teams lose their wildcard games and their season is over. And you're like, well, I knew it. They had this, this, and this, right? So it just, it almost seems like an

exercise in futility here to make our playoff predictions because the playoffs almost never go the way they're supposed to go. Yeah, I think it was back in March, the Astros at plus 2200 were the team that I thought made the most sense value-wise. So no reason to throw that out at this point because there's a chance that it does come through. But I feel like the teams in the middle are the ones that would get overlooked the most. Junior's curious about the White Sox. What are the keys for them to have a deep run? We did get to talk about them a little bit on Friday. Bullpen is deep.

Bullpen is nasty. Starting rotation is still pretty good, even with a lot of uncertainty around Carlos Rodon. That's where I think the questions are for me. Back of the rotation? No, I think actually the whole rotation. I'm not saying that I think that Lucas Gilito is bad. I'm just saying how will he match up against their ace you know like is he is he

going to be better than their ace and he's had good days and bad days this year you know so like i just think that you know can the starting pitching turn it handed off to the bullpen is the biggest question because i think they can score runs you know and and uh you know the only the only thing is i guess sometimes some of their guys are a little bit not as disciplined, you know, in terms of reaching it. That's pitches that are balls. So maybe maybe, you know, it'll be some closer games than you might expect. But if they have a lead going into that bullpen, I mean, that's that's the nastiest bullpen in the playoffs for sure. Baseball.

I mean, that's the nastiest bullpen in the playoffs, for sure. Baseball. Yeah, and I didn't look at that team and think, oh, they're only the byproduct of being in a mostly rebuilding AL Central. I mean, the Twins underperforming, that was also something that kind of gave the White Sox an extra nudge. Cleveland taking a step back, that obviously made the division a bit easier as well.

But they're fine. They stack up fine with Houston. We'll talk about that series a lot more later in the week. If you're feeling the White Sox at plus 700, I totally understand because they have everything you need to have to make a deep run. Check out this thing here real quick about

opponent Babbitt. This is interesting to me. For my piece today, bold predictions for the playoffs i think actually every prediction is bold because they're all pointless and like you're saying like we're all rolling the dice um from my thing today the cardinals had the best uh uh defense in baseball so the fact that the dodgers are number one there there might be a little bit of shifting and maybe some luck, but St. Louis being second, I think,

is just based on the fact that they are an amazing team defensively. I think that's been part of the Cardinal way forever, is to just have a really good defense. And so, you know, defense is slightly more important in the playoffs. I mean, I bold predicted that the cardinals win this playoff that wild card game and then you know from there on out you could you're getting so many odds and the other thing i wanted to say uh off of what brit was saying is that out of the last 21 years the team with the best record in baseball has won it all four times so you know like congratulations dodgers So You know Congratulations Dodgers You're a very good team

Yeah A lot of pain for teams that have great regular season I don't know how much that means tomorrow Right It's the Valedictorian of the home school You had a great regular season Nobody cares

Now you're in college. What do you do? Yeah. It means nothing. And now you're surrounded by people smarter than you. Good luck. If you're me, it's time to party, but let's move past that. Well, yeah. As soon as I realized I was not even close to being the smartest person in the room, which I wasn't even in high school anyway, that's when I started partying. So like, well, at least I'll have fun if I'm here. I won't feel dumb all the time. That'll be great. Who do you really expect to see

in the World Series? Throwing the odds aside, who is it going to be? We'll put the prediction out there aside from the odds-based value call. We'll go to you first. Astros. I think I picked Astros over Brew uh in the predictions um i'm actually less sure about what's going to happen in the ml i think like i think it'll either be uh the astros of

the rays uh coming out of the al like i'm pretty good about that as good as you can about playoffs uh the astros just make so much contact and that is more meaningful in the postseason. And then on the NL, the Brewers are so weird. You had that tweet, DVR, it's just messing with me. I put it in my piece today. The 95 Braves, yeah. That's who they have to be. They have to be the 95 Braves, but it's not impossible.

Burns, Woodruff, Peralta, five braids but it's not impossible you know burns uh woodruff peralta it's not they don't it's not i'm not making them glab and maddox smalls but right now in the game this year like that's the best front three that anyone's got my heart is going to shatter into a million pieces this month. If they make it to the World Series and lose. If they make it and lose, that is going to break me in a way that my fanhood has never been broken before. And I say that as a... To be so close.

I say that as a Packer fan who's seen some miserably difficult losses in the postseason and as a Wisconsin graduate, that Wisconsin-Duke national championship game from six, seven years ago. Now that's the one that got away. They're never,

they're never going to win a men's basketball championship as long as I'm alive. That was their chance, but that's neither here nor there. We'll keep this moving here. Who do you think it's going to be in the world series, Brit? Well,

you know, pick like eight teams. I get to do that. Yeah. You can have at least eight yep i'm gonna give you at least it i'm gonna give you at least five possibilities right because then then i'm covered uh you're always right that's i'm always right that's the point just make a ton of predictions because the whole point of the show is for me to be always right i think like i was saying to you know my nerd conversion status i agree with you know on the astros i think not only do they make a lot of

contact but their lineup is so deep right like they've got six or seven players in the top 50 um an individual wrc plus so they led baseball in offensive war they led baseball and run scored uh they're just a team that is going to continually come at you. And you look at that lineup and there's like no real weak spots. So they're going to exhaust the White Sox starters. I agree. Once they get to the bullpen, it might be a different game. But I think the Astros are going to come out of the AL.

They have beat the Rays. They've one of the few teams that have had pretty good success against the Rays. So I think they're going to be that AL team. The NL is a little trickier, but I'm going to go with the Giants because they've played well for so long. I can't imagine them just falling off a cliff here. Now I look at the NL and I'm like, okay, which team should the Giants be afraid of?

Well, they shouldn't be afraid of any of them. They're the best team in the national league and they have been all year. The Brewers I love. However, what bothers me about the brewers and we've talked about it is the offense and it's not just like okay their offense is middle of the pack no their offense is so bad that they are down there in wrc plus which is now my favorite stack guys i'm gonna you're gonna i hope you're not drinking every time i say that you're listening

to the show because you're just done for the day, but they're, they're 23rd, which for a playoff team is far and away the worst, but for a division winner is even more alarming, right? If they were a middle of the pack offense, I'd have no problem picking them. Now,

if Christian Yelich wakes up and all of a sudden goes on a tear, then this team is, is threatening, but I could see them losing one to nothing or two to nothing. These, you know, earm. These earmuffs, Derek, these heartbreaking, awful losses for Brewers fans.

Unfortunately, I'm going to go with the Giants and the Astros. I just think that's how it's going to stack up, but I would love for the Brewers to have a nice run. They're a really fun team to watch. I just don't know. You have to have some offense to win. You do a little bit. They're a really fun team to watch. I just don't know. You have to have some offense to win. You do, a little bit.

David Justice. Christian Yelich. David Justice. We really don't know what's wrong with Yelich. We've speculated all season that maybe the back is still a problem, some other injury, something else. Get a cortisol shot right before the playoffs, baby. He tweeted, the season begins now.

Oh, okay. He's got to show up now. Mighty convenient, Mr. Nine Homers. Yeah. Does that also apply to Bellinger? Because, like, yikes. The Dodgers might actually need Bellinger in a similar way with Muncy down. I mean, the Muncy injury looks like he might be out of the playoffs.

Yeah, that looked really, really bad. I'll take the Chalk. I'll take the Dodgers and the Astros. I hate myself for doing it. I think those teams are just too good. Obviously, a lot can happen. The Dodgers could lose tomorrow. What were the odds in the AL? Did the Rays or Astros have better odds in the AL?

The Astros are plus 475. The Rays are plus 650. Wow, so the Astros are Chalk75. The Rays are plus 650. Wow. So the Astros are chalked. Dang it. Yeah. I know. And I'll be in Houston for at least part of these shows. So that will be exciting.

But I guess they're officially the team of rates and barrels, huh? The Houston Astros? They've been our Astros. Our Astros. We've been passing them around for a little while now. I think they're not like that. It was Derek's Astros, then it was Eno's Astros.

I don't know if they ever really were Brits' Astros, but they're our Astros at this point. I'd love to see this. Tony the Blind One wants to see the Brewers and Rays. That would be fantastic.

This is actually right on the money right here from McCabe. When anyone says St. Louis and defense in a playoff setting, I think of Pete Cosma in the 2012 playoffs. Yep, that's a classic. Question about a team we didn't talk about from Ryan. Do the Braves have any core competency at this point

that anyone could see them using to pull off two upsets? They seem the easiest to write off of the whole playoff lineup, including the wild cards. That's reflected in the odds, too, since they're buried down there with the teams that are playing, including the wild cards. That's reflected in the odds, too, since they're buried down there with the teams that are playing in the wild card games. I alluded to this a bit on Friday. I think Atlanta matches up pretty well with the Brewers

because the Brewers struggles to score runs and because Atlanta's first three starters can match up closely enough to the Brewers' three starters. Those could be tight, low-scoring games. Especially given the Brewers' offense, right? Yeah. The stage is set for those teams to play a lot of 2-1, 3-2 sort of games, and anything can happen in those situations.

But I think what it comes down to for me with Atlanta is whether or not the bullpen comes through. Will Smith did look pretty shaky down the stretch. I saw somebody on the stream pointing that out. Their A bullpen even is more of a B-minus sort of group when it's not pitching well, and that could be critically important. The starters might go six,

but how do you get those last nine outs? That could be something that makes the difference between Atlanta winning a series or two or going home quickly at the hands of the Brewers. The one thing that I can say for the Braves, and I haven't seen a playoff roster yet, but they have two interesting guys come up. Yes,

Richard Rodriguez post-July did see a marked reduction in efficacy and stuff, but the one thing I'll say is they do have some wild cards there. Spencer. Striderider Strider,

baby. And then they had another guy and another guy. They have two rookies that they're trying out green or something. Forget the other guy's name, but the two guys, but Strider is the, is the really, you know,

impressive one. He throws a really high 90s, high ride fastball. And his fastball rates better than Slider, which is one of the very few pitchers in baseball who can say that. Is it Dylan Lee? Yes. Dylan Lee. Yeah.

What's interesting is I follow his wife on Instagram. We did a story with her. And I was like, wait a second. I think I know who it is. Yeah, there you go. Dylan Lee. He's weird because so far he's made his bones on command, not stuff. The stuff doesn't look as quite as good, but he has a good curveball.

But Strider, he could change things. He could be one of those K Roddy and situations where like no one's seen this guy. He's got this explosive ride ball, uh, rising fastball. And he's the guy who comes in, uh, with the bases loaded in the seventh and strikes out, you know, three brewers in a row, uh, and, uh, and ends the threat, you know, Will Smith might be the guy who comes in, uh, with a two run lead in the ninth, you know, puts two guys on and finishes it off not looking quite as impressive. So Strider's, for being a rookie with three innings

under his belt or whatever, he has a large importance to that Braves team, I think. Yeah. I need to apologize to Braves fans because I wore it after saying on Friday that the Braves did not have playoff success. I apologize for discounting the 60 game season last year and the fact that the Braves did win a playoff series. Though I will note that what I was trying to say is that overall, over the last 20 odd yearsd years, they have won one playoff series. That was just really last year.

So they have largely not lived up to expectations because they keep winning the NL East. And we could talk about all day how the NL East is perhaps not that good of a division. But I could see the Braves advancing, and I could see them going deep because they very quietly had a really good second half and their lineup I mean it's not Astros but it's good it's really good they hit a lot of home

runs they have a lot of power three guys 30 homers or more Gansby Swanson with another just really good breakout year right below that I think a 27 home runs um and they have Max Breed and Charlie Morton so I think when you look at this team, if they can figure out that bullpen, if those two young kids come up and they play that X-factor role, we always like to have some X-factor in the playoffs, they could win a few series. They could give some of these other teams a run for their money.

I really like Brian Snicker. I don't think enough people talk about him. I think he's one of the most underrated managers in the game. That really nice blend of old school, but also uses the analytics, uses the numbers. I think when you look at the Braves and the clip that they've played at to even get back into the conversation, without Ronald Acuna, you have to give them a lot of credit.

So, you know, Freddie Freeman, I could see really easily stepping up in this kind of role. It's what he's done really all year. And that infield has played pretty much day in, day out. They've been playing their butts off for months. I think the Braves are a team that you could see, again, with every team, you could see them losing, but you could also look at that scenario and you kind of say, well, if they figure out this bullpen,

and this year we have a little more off days built in, right? The travel schedule is back to normal. So if they get deeper in, we have a little bit more of a chance to not run your bullpen into the ground and to maybe get by with two or three arms, which is all the 2000 Nationals had. 2019 Nationals had were basically three arms. So could you see the Braves do that where they get a little tricky, where they start putting starters in the bullpen, right? Like, oh, it's Freed's throw day. day oh it's Morton's throw day right and then all of a sudden the Braves don't have that clear weakness anymore so the playoffs to me is just a totally different game strategically than the regular season was and that's what kind of makes it fun

to watch I mean we could tonight see starters coming out of that bullpen right it's all hands on deck for these wild card games it's gonna's all hands on deck for these wildcard games. It's going to be all hands on deck for these elimination games. Yeah, I suspect that will be the case. Sam, in agreement with me, that Morton, Freed, and Anderson can match up with Burns, Woodruff, and Peralta on the other side. I'm sticking with my guns, man. If they were going against the same offense,

I would take all the Brewers and all three of those. Charlie Morton is one of my favorite pitchers and human beings in baseball, and I would still pick Burns. Come on. Yeah, but it's like 60-40. I mean, maybe like in his peak, Morton. The guy's going to win a Cy Young this year. Burns is throwing 97-mile-an-hour cutters, for Christ's sake.

But one thing I also wanted to point out is that I've forgotten it and we can move on. Look at this. Steven on the stream. Last two teams to go four and ten down the stretch and make the playoffs won the World Series. Analytics. Wow. Analytics. Analytics.

Yeah, the Brewers went four and ten on the stretch. So if that isn't predictive, I don't know what is. That's's what we're here for we're here for those kind of comments oh this is what i was gonna say you were talking about um the the how they played they like haven't like all four played like 162 on the infield or something crazy yes that is that is the opposite of the giants like like they couldn't be more different. And the Giants are preaching, keeping our guys healthy, getting the most out of them, rest days and load management, all this stuff.

I don't know. I mean, maybe what if the Braves, it took all they could to get here and they had to go 162 and now those guys are tired. I don't know. It also could mean that they just will have plus defense because they've all played together and they and they can they know exactly their tendencies and they can pick it and they know how to communicate with each other i don't know uh it's it's just interesting to me that the giants and braves couldn't be more opposite in

this one regard yeah i think there's a lot of value in rest over a six-month season so i'm really curious to see maybe does that go out point does that go out the window in the playoffs where it's like yes the adrenaline is you're just running on coffee and adrenaline you know you're good tired i've had three red bulls what do you mean tired yeah like if you talk to players um they're they're dead by September, right? But once they get to October, they don't feel anything anymore. I don't know if it's the Red Bulls or just the constant like shoot them up with cortisol, Toradol, all kinds of dolls.

But guys talk about how in November, they're basically – their body shuts down. Guys who have deep playoff runs, like they shut down for like weeks because they've just been running on adrenaline. They probably get sick they probably get sick you know probably get colds and just get sick and like spend a week in bed when they get home yeah so no one's gonna say like oh we were tired we ran out of energy especially not the Braves I mean do it because the Giants didn't lose Ronald Acuna Atlanta did they had to play every day that's how they felt like they were going to win.

And they kind of created that culture of posting up every day, which we've talked about before, you know, like, and DVR, I think I'm on the other side of that where I kind of see it as it's going away and it's unfortunate. There's only four pitchers this year who went 200 innings. Corbin Burns probably deserves the NL MVP, but Zach Wheeler pitched, oh, I don't know, 30, 40 more innings. So Corbin Burns probably deserves the NL MVP, but Zach Wheeler pitched. Oh, I don't know. 30,

40 more innings. So is he not as valuable? I mean, the Cy Young, like, is he not as valuable all of a sudden, are we going to place left's emphasis on actually going deep into games and actually being available because quantity matters.

Yeah. Like, but come on matters. There's also this aspect of their human beings. And like, you know, for us aspect of their human beings. And like, you know, for us, like burnout is real.

And like, you know, I barely, I did not, you know, we have like a guide for how many times we're supposed to write. And I did not hit my numbers in August. I was toast in August.

I don't know what it was. Something. I was just the trade deadline. I, I, I like, I've watched a little money heist uh you know i took days i took days off you know i i tried to like you know recuperate for the stretch run and in fact in the beginning of september i i felt rejuvenated a bunch of new

ideas came on my table and you know i felt like that was good that I had like laid fallow for a little bit. Don't look at my August pieces. They are forgettable. But my point is, as human beings, I think that it makes a lot of sense. Oh, that's a really good time to put up the 50% subscription. Yeah, subscribe to Eno's August pieces.

They were real crap. No, subscribe if you're not a subscriber because the October ones are going to be better. That's right. Yeah, I'm at my peak, baby. But I mean, just as a human being, I think that hopefully we're sort of, I think this is sort of maybe pandemic born, that we are reevaluating our relationship to work and that, you know, we don't necessarily like need to value posting up every single day. We don't necessarily need to value working 70 hours a week or whatever it is. We don't necessarily need to value running ourselves into the ground for this big machine when, you know, we would be better. We would do better work.

when, you know, we would be better, we would do better work. There's in fact, a company out there that is going to a four day work week. And of course, they're going to get their, of course, they're going to get their work back by working on real hard on the other four days. But I don't know, maybe you'd be more likely to do a 12 hour day, if you knew Friday was just going to be completely clean. So I don't know i i think that uh i'm i lean a little bit more giants i know that as a fan it sucks you go to the ballpark and oh man i love brandon crawford and why is he not playing today you know but uh i think as a human being on the other side in terms of uh workload and work management i'd rather uh sit every once in a while you know it's 162 is a long time well there's a tactical benefit to the rest

and i think in the case of corbin burns the brewers were using a six-man rotation for a good point good portion of the second half so having him and woodruff and peralta more fresh when from an innings perspective especially with peralta working out of the pen last year they need to do something to make that work, to have these guys be as effective as they can be in the playoffs. You have to sort of accept that as part of it too, just from a pure rooting interest. It might be the best thing your team can do for those players to give them that time off. Look at that comment from Sam Chess real quick before we leave the Braves.

You know, it'll be used out of the bullpen. I think, yeah, I think it the bullpen, I think, yeah. I think it's a possibility. I think that might be what we're talking about. If you have Oscar Inouye and Spencer Strider, all of a sudden, maybe the bullpen looks totally different.

I think Inouye in the DS is definitely a guy you're going to see pitching out of the pen. Maybe in the LCS, if they advance, you're going to see pitching out of the pen maybe in the the lcs if they advance you'd see him maybe starting game four yeah giants a progressive company pushing the four-day um true here's my main issue with that though is like with the position players is freddie freeman at 70 or 80 better than the braves next best option yes yes so percent better than the braves next best option yes yes so you kind of the rosters but then you have to build the roster to do it right like the giants built the roster like you know they don't

have i don't even know who would play first if freddie doesn't play first so but i know in san francisco who plays first is wilmer flores is pretty good you know like it's darren ruff pretty good you know it's chris bryant pretty good so like's Darren Ruff, pretty good. It's Chris Bryant, pretty good. The Giants built more of a roster to do it. I love that we designed this show to be 30 minutes long and we're 47 minutes in

and we haven't even talked about the game that's happening today, so we should get to that now. We better do that. Yankees at Red Sox, a matchup no one ever sees because they never put these games on national TV. When these two teams get together, it's an 8-0-8 Eastern first pitch. If we are your source of when does the game start,

Yankees slight favorites at minus 125. It's Garrett Cole against Nathan Evaldi. It's two above average lineups in terms of WRC+. Boston strikes out a little bit less. JD Martinez won't go in this game. He's not on the wildcard roster due to an ankle injury. Breaking news! Breaking news! D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d! Love it.

So no J.D. Martinez, but they've got plenty of bats. The Kyle Schwarber addition is kind of huge here because he can just DH. They can keep playing Bobby Dahlbeck, who's had a nice stretch run here. I think it really just comes down to how well Ivaldi holds up in this matchup, and I think he can hold his own, you guys. I think it really just comes down to how well Evaldi holds up in this matchup, and I think

he can hold his own, you guys. I think Nathan Evaldi has quietly had a season worthy of some Cy Young consideration. I don't think he's going to win the AL Cy Young, but he should get plenty of votes, at least coming in somewhere in that fourth or fifth range, if not a little bit higher. And he was really good in the bullpen three years ago when the Red Sox won it all kind of as an extra arm, kind of the wild card of that group. So, you know, with Chris Sale not quite being vintage sale, but still being very good, Evaldi makes a lot of sense in this spot. No rest is a factor too, and why they're going Evaldi in this spot. But I do think this is one of the things that makes Boston dangerous. Evaldi is better than people think. Chris Sale, of course, is back. And Eduardo

Rodriguez, we talked about him in the Pleasant Surprises series. Probably get an inning or something out of him in relief today, given the state of that Red Sox bullpen. He's pitched really well from an underlying skills perspective as well. So, just curious what you guys think about this

matchup that we have here tonight in the AL wildcard game. I think it's going to be a good one. I mean, what sucks is the Red Sox just kind of announced what's going on with the roster. And J.D. Martinez, who tripped over second base on Sunday in D.C., sprained his ankle, is out. So he's not playing. Chris Sale, also not on the roster,

which I wasn't sure about because he did come out early on Sunday. And I was kind of thinking, like, maybe are they trying to shorten him up so that he's a potential bullpen one inning guy if this game gets out of hand but he is not on that roster either so I think behind Evaldi like who do you go to behind Evaldi um to kind of bridge you they did get Garrett Whitlock back I guess you go Nick Pavetta as like an option right in the in the bullpen tonight. He's your A bullpen. Tanner Hawk. Is that how you say it? Hawk?

25-year-old who's been really good. He'd be a bullpen option. I think the Red Sox lineup is deeper than the Yankees, but the Yankees have Stanton who just went completely insane at three home runs. I think 10 RBIs,

something like that, in the last series against them. So recency bias, you're kind of really terrified of Stanton and Judge if you are going against them tonight. I like the Cole-Evaldi matchup. If it comes down to bullpens, you go with the Yankees, right? They've got the deeper bullpen for sure.

It's not close. They have Severino. They got Chapman. They got all kinds of weapons that they can throw out behind Cole. And I wonder yeah right like i wonder do they even let cole go a third time through the order because like i mentioned the red sox lineup is deep they're one to not like they're gonna hit you they're gonna keep coming at you there's not a whole lot of breathing room um unless cole's absolutely cruising if i'm the yankees i want him to go twice

through and then i want to go to my plan because, you know, they have it mapped out. You know, they have the whole thing down to a tee, especially the Yankees. And so I think that's how they win the game if it gets to be into the bullpens. But if the Red Sox go out there early and kind of put a hurtin' on Cole, this whole thing, to me, flips on a dime because Evaldi has been their best starter. Yeah, I looked at the pitching plus numbers for September, and those can be pretty predictive in small samples. It's like 400 pitches.

Cole was still number one among starters, which frustrated, I'll say frustrated, a lot of Yankees fans because they said that he's been having a bad September. You know, he did hurt his leg hamstring. And so, you know, that could have been part of it. His location was a little bit worse in September. He also pitches in terrible parks for pitchers and against teams that have good, you know, the AL East. I do think it actually is a very good division.

I think it is probably the best division in baseball. And so he pitches against some of the best batters in baseball and he pitches in some of the worst parks. So like even a great Cole is not going to have the same numbers as great pitchers in other parks and other situations. But yeah, that's what I was sort of talking about. I think that Cole's stuff is there. And I think if you're talking about getting, getting you know just barely five innings out of him

the yankees are gonna win this game so i i think that uh the the yankees win this game i think the the pen is there the one thing that that bothers me is that dj lemay who is hurt. Luke Voigt's season is done. So some of that depth is... Isn't Urshela's hip not right? Well, Urshela just went flying into the dugout last night. Right. That's what I mean. So that's a good... Someone asked that question. I don't know if I'd go Urshela or

Velasquez. I don't think you want Urshela playing short with that hip. I talked to players you know the isaiah kind of falafel was on a umb network the other day saying that uh he can hit better when he's playing third because short stop is so hard on him and i was talking to a coach about the fact that they actually track stops and starts and that the shortstop stops and starts more often than any position on the field and that that leads to fatigue stopping and starting um so i would put urshela at third

uh and i guess uh velazquez in at short and hey i know i know it's a step down offensively but i would say that velazquez, he had a couple of big moments. And if he like hit the Homer that, you know, won this game for the white side for the, for the Yankees, I just think that it would be, it would be kind of a fun story.

And, you know, he just strikes me like he's from, he's from New York, I think. And like, he's from the Bronx. Yeah.

He's from the Bronx. It's like, he's been a Yankee fan. Like if he did that, uh, it would just be a great story. And, and I think that the, the, the, the bullpen is the real. It's like he's been a Yankee fan. Like if he did that, it would just be a great story. And I think that the bullpen is the real reason I'm saying the Yankees win.

Here's a question from Shane. Is there a wildcard matchup that home field advantage would matter more than Red Sox, Yankees? I mean, it's hard to quantify something like that, but it doesn't seem like there would be. Rays Astros. The Astros love those Crawford boxes. The Rays love the Trop.

I don't know. It's like 200 feet to left field. This is going to come down to the ballpark. It's going to play such a big factor, I think, in the game tonight. Yeah, Judge and Stanton with oppo bombs, and then Rizzo and Gallo with little lasers down the line. They've built a really good lineup for their home park. It's true. Part of it's

just team fit. Part of it's just having your own fans back, of course, after the weird 2020 postseason played in other parks with partially filled stadiums. This is going to be a lot of fun to have the actual home fans back and probably as loud as they've ever been.

We got one last question here. This one comes from Steven. In 2019, the Nats carried nine pitchers for the wildcard game, the Rays and Brewers 10 and the A's 11. Both the Yankees and Red Sox are carrying 12. Why? They have 26 spots. And how many useful position players could you have?

But in what world do you need 12 pitchers? You don't. I don't think. I don't know. In a world where each pitcher pitches to one batter. Oh God, this game's going to go six hours. It's because of what Connor said in the chat. This 23-inning wildcard

game is going to be amazing. I think Major League Baseball would be thrilled. If this game takes 11 hours, they're going to be so happy because it's Yankees-Red Sox. You guys, I have a 6 a.m. flight to Houston tomorrow. This game could not. Can we keep it to 9, please? Okay, 9 innings, 4 1⁄2 hours.

Yeah. I just think that, yeah, they're preparing for extra innings, and it is interesting. What's interesting, too, guys, is that both backup catchers are probably going to start tonight right like ploweki is the evaldi's personal catcher right and gary sanchez isn't going to start with gary cole on the mound so both of these um guys and their backup catcher so if you're the yankees that's why they're carrying that's also why they're carrying three catch i mean that you've always got three catchers but like you're probably going to have to see the starting catcher sub sub in as a pinch hitter at some point.

But if you're going to put Blasquez at shortstop, like we talked about, and you have a backup catcher, the Yankees lineup is really kind of up and down, right? It's really lethal in that top part. There are outs there. There are outs there. Yeah. I think the LeMahieu injury is kind of interesting because it pushes the Yankees further down the high risk, high reward, swing and miss sort of approach, right? He's one of their low strikeout guys. We talked about the race throughout the last postseason having too much swing and miss in their profile.

The arrival of Wander, the addition of Nelson Cruz, that helps to change the complexion of their lineup. The Yankees kind of going the other direction, missing a key guy like LeMahieu. And I lied. There's one more question that I saw before that we didn't put on the screen. This is from Justin. If Ivaldi looks shaky early,

how much margin does he have given what we were just saying about that Boston bullpen? I mean, I think there's zero margin. I mean, we were talking about taking Cole out early. Yeah. Yeah.

And somebody mentioned this. No, Sale is not on the roster. As I said, I thought maybe he would be as like an option for an inning, but somebody mentioned this. No, Sale is not on the roster. As I said, I thought maybe he would be as an option for an inning, but he's not. I think you would see Eduardo Rodriguez come in for multiple innings if they take Evaldi out in the second or something. Yeah, that's a good point. They got Ryan Brazier, Hansel Robles, Tanner Hawk, Garrett Whitlock.

Oh, yeah, it could be how but like i think how can rodriguez with some sort of eye towards the handedness of what's because how is another one of these low arm slot which you'd expect uh lefties would have uh would have better shot at so you could use how for if you saw a string of varieties where he could walk some lefties and get through them you would do how but if you thought you needed the Ed Rarder against the lefties, I think those two would give you bulk behind the Evaldi if they take him out early. This comment from Roger, the

2014 Royals World Series team was 21st in WRC+. That actual number, though, wasn't as bad as this Brewers team or that 95 Braves team. That's where that came from. We have seen a lot of third offenses do it. Did you have a 92 WRC Plus for the Brewers? I think it was a 92 when I ran that search.

I think that Royals team was just a little bit higher, but they were one of the more recent teams that won that were at least bottom third of the league sort of offense. It has happened, but usually that's not a World Series winning team sort of profile. Also, that Royals team,

and I covered the Orioles on the other side of it. The Royals team had speed and power. They had a million bunt singles, tiny little balls that dropped in for hits. Alceus Escobar lighting himself on fire in the postseason. Yeah, and they had that turbocharged bullpen, which not saying the Brewers don't, but at some point the Brewers, as deep as they are, still are going to miss Devin Williams.

There's going to be a point where Hunter Strickland comes in in the 7th or 8th inning, probably the 8th inning, for some really high leverage out. Throws that laser beam straight fastball that he's got. And we're going to put a heart monitor on me and see how much

internal damage is being done watching Hunter Strickland in that spot instead of Devin Williams because it would already be elevated. Let's just hope it's Aaron Ashby instead. Oh, please, please, please, please go with Aaron Ashby. So we did it. We got through our first playoff show. Thank you to all of you who joined us live.

If you didn't make it live today, you can join us every weekday throughout the postseason. 11.30 a.m. Eastern is the start time. That's 8.30 a.m. here in the Pacific time zone on Twitter. You can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find Britt at Britt underscore Girola. You can find me at Derek Van Riper. The pod actually has a Twitter account, too, at rates and barrels. Be sure to barrel up the like button.

I'm not going to say smash the like button. Barrel it up. If you enjoyed this on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you want to know when we go live for future events, including me, maybe wearing a heart monitor, watching Brewers playoff games. That might be fantastic video. But that is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Again, keep those questions coming in the chat. We can answer some of those maybe even after we sign off.

Enjoy tonight's AL wildcard matchup. We are back tomorrow at 1130 Eastern. Thanks for listening.