Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 210 | Revisiting Our Preseason Bets & Defensive Metrics

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe are running through baseball's important trending topics. There will be a lot of teams giving themselves a long look in the mirror at the end of the week (2:00), Justin Verlander and Ken Giles both need Tommy John surgery (10:00), and Ron Gardenhire retired this week (19:30). The guys also look back on the prop bets they placed before the season (25:00) and look at both team and individual defensive metrics for the short season, trying yo figure out what they mean (47:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball. Thank you for tuning in. We got one more week of the regular season. We're going to look back at the bets we place and talk about some storylines. Let's do it. What's going on, everyone? Thank you very much for tuning in and hanging out with us for a little bit here on Talking Baseball. It's the tidbits episode.

We got Trevor. We got Jake, myself, BBD. We're all coming to you from different Roosevelt Studios as we are solo. Jake in Roosevelt's South, BPD, Roosevelt's more south. I'm in Roosevelt. Is that the official name of yours, BPD? Are you Roosevelt's kind of west? I'm like northwest of the office, if we're being specific.

Okay, he's Roosevelt's northwest, kind of. I'm Roosevelt's mid-Atlantic headquarters, and Trev is Roosevelt's the far out west. So welcome to the show. I hope you guys are doing well. Trev, how are you? I'm doing great. Loving the last week of baseball.

Loving the drama we have going on in the central region. We were talking before the show about some of the dumb takes we had. And I'm okay with admitting that some of my takes, but preseason were pretty dumb. Or at least they look dumb now. At the time, I don't know how dumb they were. but I'm excited to talk about it. Jake, are you excited?

I'm excited, man. Wild Week, going to be some fans that are kind of excited. Their team sneaks in as the eighth best team in the National League, and there's going to be, I think there's going to be some teams that get a real look in the mirror this year. If your team didn't make the postseason, yeah, it was a short year, and you can point to some little stuff. But I mean, if you're not, you're not going to be one of the top half in your conference league.

It's not good. So excited to see how it sorts out. And it's also kind of crazy that six more games are going to change how a fan base and how GMs and coaches get looked at pretty wild. What do you got is the biggest mirror lookers in the AL? I mean, I think the angels are the clear cut winner. for mirror lookers and then and then the rest of it i don't know like seattle baltimore detroit kansas city i don't think any of those are looking in the mirror saying what are we i think they're all kind of pretty firm the rangers is the next best mirror looker in the a oh but even them i don't know

it was uh it was a weird thing that they tried they were going for it didn't work exactly i think they can chalk it up to the season um you got a lot of mirror lookers in the n l a lot i don't want to I don't want to get too crazy here, but I actually don't even know if I want to say this on air. Okay. The Rangers. Well, you don't like them. You know I don't like the Rangers.

Yes. I've done, I'm not going to say it. Never mind. Never mind. I have another one for you, though. I have another one for you. Well, the National League, Jake. Well, A.L. You have someone else in Boston?

The U.S. Astros need to look themselves in the mirror because they have decisions going forward who they can keep, who they can sign, they're losing guys. Grinky obviously been amazing this year, but he's on the back end of his career, you'd assume. They need to figure out for a long time

they had a plan. The plan worked. Obviously, there's a few hiccups in there that'll help. Now they're at the point where a lot of these teams get to where it's like, okay, what's next? Are they going to go into a full rebuild again? Yeah, that's a good one.

It's a different mirror. I like that, Trev. I do think postseason is going to dictate how Houston feels. Like that's a team that can still make a little bit of noise. But you're right. I mean, JV out all next year. Springer is going to be a free agent. Like the Houston Astros are going to feel pretty different pretty quickly.

Yeah, it's the Angels and kind of in a hilarious twist. We've been getting excited about the Mariners, potentially giving a scare. The Angels are a half game behind the Mariners. It'll just be hilarious if they finish their season strong and the Angels finish ninth. And they're like, hey, we were not, we weren't that bad. We just needed more season.

And that sounds like something the Angels would say. The Angels are the biggest mirror looker in the AL. In the NL, Jake, you have a couple. I'll feed you some mirror lookers. The Mets, the Rockies. Mets and the Rockies big time. I'm not even going to put the Giants on there. I think if giants are looking at the mirror,

they're liking what they're seeing and what happened and what transpired, even if they miss. The brewers, I think they're big time mirror lookers because they went out and made some moves this off season. And no one kind of fully grasped them. And they didn't. Yeah, I don't know.

They also lost a lot of guys. I think the brewers, you know, They're kind of middle of the pack and they hope to make one push that gets them there. And they can still have it this year. So I don't think the brewers have a big mirror gut check. Like they didn't expect to be a dominant team. I think this is kind of what the brewers do expect them to be.

I think they expected themselves to be a little more than this. But they had some untimelys. Slams O'Kane opted out. Yeah. The Phillies. The Phillies is mine. I was going to say. The Phillies don't make the top eight teams.

I think that's a huge mirror looker. Yeah. It just goes to show you how important, you know, depth was this year, bullpen depth, especially, you know, the starters are, they're good, they're top heavy there. You need starting pitching is the hardest thing to acquire and the hardest thing to develop. They got two good guys.

They developed one, paid for one. but they need somebody from the organization to step up. And this is partially why we didn't want to fully deep dive on some of the baseball talk today because, you know, in a week, the Brewers could be the six seat and be like, hey, let's go Brewers. We're second in the central. So we're going to let it sort out a little bit. It's not worth us giving a bunch of fire takes.

But, yeah, no, I think the NL is going to have a couple teams that are very, very, very, very disappointed. Starting with the Mets, maybe those zombie rocks, depending tonight's outcome. And then two, two, three more other teams are just going to be, in disbelief, they didn't make an eight team playoff.

I think the Brewers are right where they want to be. I mean, they paid Yelly, they locked him up, and they got some young talent that's cheap for them. Keston, here is making no money. You know,

they have some starters that kind of came and, you know, showed up this year, starting pitching. and like like Jake said they're just kind of a move away from every year it seems like that like they're right there they make a move

they've been you know they've had been net positive with their moves in the last couple of seasons so I think they're kind of where they want to be the Phillies to me is the biggest one they got to figure out what's going on there no it's insane cards

cards brewers are playing five to wrap up the year so whichever team wins four of those games has a great year year they expected, whichever team doesn't, is having a nightmare. Disgusting. That's not baseball. It's disgusting. You know who's like looking in the mirror and being like, ooh, yeah, I like it. Like the white rocks, the Padres. I mean, they're looking in the mirror like Alex Rodriguez looks in

the mirror. They're kissing that mirror. Tasty. Yeah. Indians kind of feel in that way, too. Like, we're getting rid of people, but we're still here. Like, look at them in the mirror because they're disgusted that they're seeing like a nice they're like why am i wearing this suit can't afford this damn suit i'd much rather be in street clothes saving up for this suit i can already afford this this is gross uh yeah it's either that way or like the no body image confidence like they're you know a pretty good looking guy but they're looking in the mirror and they're like we're not i'm not that guy i can't you know thanks right now they're holding it all in.

The therapist is like, draw a chalk outline for what you see. And they just like Homer Simpson. Yeah. They're like Svelt. It's like Gabe Kapler. And he just draws. Hmm.

Mm. Hmm. Gabe. Let's get that Gabe Kapler beach picks going this episode. Just hot, dude. Just like so dreamy. Well,

not dreaming, but just, you know, manly. Anyway, let's go around the league with some quick hitter updates before we jump into looking back at how dumb and smart we were before the season. I got some news for you guys that affects playoff teams, Burlander, Tommy John.

We kind of talked about this. He's not part of the picture. And he's going to be out of baseball for a while, two full years. He'll be. How old is he going to be when he comes back now? Old. 40, 41. So that's sad.

Speedy recovery. and they don't have him. Ken Giles also getting Tommy John surgery. Blue Jays were trying to have him come back and be part of their bullpen for their playoff series. It's not going to happen. He came. He pitched a little bit, gave up a home run to Voight, and then now he's out.

Tommy John. Anything on either of those two besides? I was just going to ask Trev. There was, you know, a lot of nice words on Twitter for Verlander and a lot of the anybody can do it, you know, it's this guy. Do we think, and again, I'm not trying to say this in a rude way, do we think those were just nice words to say it? Or like, I don't know, do you guys think we're going to be here spring training 2022 being like, Justin Verlanders, twirling the pill? I mean, I assume he's going to fight and try to make a comeback, but I mean, we're talking about

some serious odds. A couple things. He'll be 39 before he pitches again. And then, in his contract situation, he's a free agent after next year. So coming off of Tommy John rehabbing 2021, he'll be with a new team or with a new deal in 2022, and you're looking at a 39-year-old coming off of TJ. What does that deal look like? So if I'm a team, I give him a chance. Well, all over your tigers and you just need some fun for the fan base.

I could see a team that say, hey, man, we need a, we need a fourth guy. Like, what's the guy? I'm so cynical. Like, I don't, I don't expect to see Verlander pitch again. But that's just because I'm so cynical. He's 39, Tommy John. Yeah. I can see him getting to a point in rehab where he says, what am I doing?

Yes. I do, I do see that as well. And I'm going to do my favorite thing right now, which is tell you, how much money this guy's made. He right now is sitting at 260 M's with the 33 still coming next year. So we're talking right around 300 M's. He is a very spirited competitor,

and I wouldn't be surprised if he really, really wants to come back and give it a go. Now, obviously, he could be like, nah, this is stupid. If he has setbacks, changes everything. But if you're a team looking Like I said, man Like for our back of the rotation guy

And with plus potential Like that's kind of your dude I love it Jim An incentive laden contract For those 2022 tigers We won't be sleeping on them then The Yanks A little full circle

The Yanks Stop He looked good in pinstripes guys They used to do stuff like that The veteran Yankees used to do stuff like that. That was before they had an analytics department. Yeah. Yeah.

They got, you know, people got to share got her and we just had Lyle over Bay play. Where's Verlander from? Like, well, it's home. He is from Virginia or something. Virginia. Okay, so the Nats. Nats are tigers. Yeah, but he lives in L.A. now. Obby.

He lives in Belair, I believe. He can get a couple houses if he really wants. He's probably got a few residences if I had to guess. Well, that's that news. AJ Puck also undergoes shoulder surgery. Bummer. Cole Hamels. He's done.

Paul Hamels is done, which, you know, the Braves relying on him already was nuts. I'd be shocked if the Braves go deep. I know their offense is really, really good. And in the regular season, they can outscore people. you need some pitching in the postseason like you need a one and a two and they have a one right now and like right's been good Ian Anderson the rookie's been good we're talking postseason it's a whole different thing in a crazy stretch with no off days I have the Braves right now out of my

making a world series run chances because of just no pitching can we talk about that just real briefly because we do have some stuff to you guys know who my pick was i'm sticking with them picking the race to win the world series you guys i know probably preseason yankee yankee i'd assume is that like unbiased forget about your fandom does that has that changed like if you had to lay money right now straight up who's going to win the world series i mean are you still there's still yankees for you no um but well it depends on the odds you're getting and all that but no i i mean you know just straight just like straight who you think is gonna win the world series no odds nothing like i need the yankees

to beat a good pitcher before the postseason and the they don't face any so it's like i hope that they get six toe or they get pablo in that miami series to end the season and they roll out the good offensive lineup. We haven't seen the offense beat a good pitcher yet, um, you know, since they've been healthy. So I, Jake's probably a little more optimistic than me. I still am not incredibly gung ho about the squad going into the postseason and, you know, only one team wins the world series. So it's not like I'm really down on them. I just think the raise, um, if they run into like Cleveland's pitching staff in a short series. I do think that's troublesome for this lineup who hasn't gotten to a good picture.

I think the matchups matter a little more this year. I don't know if that sounds corny, but you're right. I mean, you know, when are you running into Minnesota? Are you running into Cleveland? Are you running into Tampa? I think if you're looking at best teams in the American League, you know, you can make a very easy argument for the Yankees, what Tampa did to them in the regular season was manhandle them, but that also wasn't the full Yankee squad. So I don't know, man. I kind of want to see how this postseason plays out

because circling back to the Braves, you know, what if that Braves offense stays hot and they go to the ALDS and they manhandle a team's pitching? You can wear them out in the first couple games. So this whole postseason has me a little shook. I mean, looking back a week ago when the Yankees lineup was going insane, you're right. It wasn't against A pitchers. Can they look like that?

Sure. I probably don't feel as great about the Yankees as I did at the start of the year just because of Tampa Bay and how much Tampa beat them. If they played a five-game set at first Tampa, I could see Tampa winning the first two and being like, all right, this was a good year. or I could see the Yankees coming out, taking the first game and being like, we're going to make the whole regular season useless. So I'd say slightly less confident because of Tampa, Oakland, Minnesota, Cleveland.

The White Sox are a little better than you expected. I like the White Sox. My favorite, do the raise in the White Sox. The White Sox bring it down a little notch. They're slowing down a little bit. Robert's slowing down. You know, Kichel is a guy who had the Yankees numbers a lot. Giolyto is a stud.

I'd have to look into the rest of that pitching staff more. But again, we're going to see some weird parts of teams we don't normally see in the postseason. We're going to see a lot of fifth and six relievers getting important innings that normally wouldn't happen. So I don't know how that factors in. But when you say World Series, I think from the start and the beginning, and you could probably check the tapes on us, it's still the Dodgers. And then after that, it's everyone else.

Padres look pretty good too. I like them. I mean, I got to see, you know, they had that big brother series and the Dodgers slapped them around a little bit. And like,

this is the Dodgers, man. I mean, Houston beat them in the World Series in 2017. Everything has been built so much for this. And they feel, they feel really good. Yeah.

And then they run into the Reds in a three game series. Good luck. Yeah, like I'm ready for the Dodgers to lose. a weird way more than win. My most nervous series for them will be the wild card. Yeah. Honestly, if they face against like reds or something, I think like very so much pressure

on them and if they win, it'll be a huge release. So all right. All right. Yes, because I think then they can breathe easy. It's like the wild card game. Like when the Yankees played the wild card game against the twins and the A's, once you win and then you say, oh my god now we get to the ds where we have a five game series it's a huge release it's like a

huge breathe easy okay not every inning matters like crazy obviously one game's different than the three but still it's that first round is going to be scary it is going to be scary man yes fucking butt clenched season ron gardiner retires with a week left trev your old manager i don't You know, hopefully everything's all right. It was kind of odd that he retired when there's only a week left. Yeah, I haven't dug too much into this. He had health issues when he was bench coaching for the Diamondbacks. And then I thought it was an interest move for the Tigers to bring him in,

like anyway. Was it last year, I think was his first year with the Tigers? And I thought he did a pretty good job handling people there. And the guys loved playing for him. And that's kind of like the leg. see that Garty Lee's behind. Like he, and I can get a little sappy here, man, because this is my manager. This guy, you know, sort of believed in me.

I say he believed in me. I mean, I had to earn it with him. But, you know, look, he had those great teams with Santana and the M&M boys and all those guys winning all those division titles. The Yankees were the, you know, were tough on him, obviously. but was a player's manager, like through and through, always defended you. People remember him for getting ejected all the time.

He loved that. If there's one thing I'll ever, like I'll remember about Guardi, it's like you knew when he was going to go out. Like it just kind of like built up. You saw it in his eyes and he just knew like the team needed something or like he felt like his players were getting shafted. He was going to go get in the umpire's ass.

and it became almost like a show for him because the fans loved it like that became something that he was known for so whenever he went out if you're in a target field or you're in the metrodome like you knew you were about to see something awesome he was going to get his money's worth and the fans when he would finally walk back to the dugout almost every time he got ejected standing ovation like he that was that was kind of like his thing i think he had a hundred and seventy something career rejections which is really funny to think about it's a lot of money that he spent that he got fine doing that man um but definitely a good guy in the game treb how do how do you pay fines does like melb invoice you do they just take it out of your next paycheck like what's the actual exes and o's on paying

MLB fines as a player. You're allowed to whatever you're fined to pick a charity and donate that too. So they will invoice you but you don't you can donate.

It's not like MNB is just like taking the money and stuff. But yeah, they invoice you. Find out what you owe. I didn't have a lot of them so I don't have a lot of experience. I was trying to keep my money. But Gardy, you know,

he spent, I wonder what his career finds were. We've got to find that out. I'm going to try to find that number. So I think that would be pretty funny. Gardy was, man, he was, a lot of other things legendary. I could keep going on him. Like he would eat sandwiches without the bread

where then slam like six cores lights. It's playing for the tie. That was his thing. So kind of a jolly, fun-loving dude, attention to detail. Sandwich. He'll be missed. The bread and then six. Yeah, he kept playing for the tie, you know.

Although I think if you look at him, it wasn't necessarily a tie. You know, he, he's a little, he's a little portly. But definitely, like I said, just a good man in the game. Nice. All right. Jake, you got any favorite guard in higher memories? Just, you know, baseball lifer and it's fun, you know, bringing up the history now. like, you know, there was a day when Ron Gardenhire was a Mets shortstop prospect.

And that's, you know, I don't have those images of Ron Garden higher in my head. I have the picture of, you know, that guy that was having six beers to wash down dinner. But he, you know, baseball life for I think 46 most wins as a manager, kind of thought it would be a little higher when I research that. But no, it's good for him and enjoy it. 62 so he's uh got some time to enjoy it 1200 wins if you google rod and garden hire met's some great some great pictures come up another cool thing that garty did was he had his guys like he had his staff and he was loyal to them and they all got axed when the new regime came in or prior to that when they brought in paulitzer you know they got rid of guardie and

basically his whole coaching staff. Then when he got hired by the Tigers, they were all with them with the Tigers, man. So that's, that's loyalty right there, man. That's something you don't get a lot of still today. So I've got to give kudos to that. That's cool.

All right. We pulled up the episode notes from the episode we did. Kudos to Bug Bug Dude for his great notekeeping. episode 166 prop bets before the season started and we gave you guys some overunders we liked some batting average some team wins we just pulled them up before we started the show we wanted to take a look see how everyone's doing it looks like we opened this show talking about you grilling trev well you got the treger you hate the trager people you love the treger people you're a tregg person you hate yourself as a lot going on there yeah um team over unders is

I got a question. Is somebody bringing us this portion of the show by chance? That is a great question, BBD. And the answer that I have for you is, yeah. This episode is brought to by Draft Kings. And week two of football is in the books. Now it's time to review the tape and get ready for week three. There's no better place to get in on all of the action than with draft King Sportsbook. America's top rated sports book app. To add to the excitement of week three, Draft King Sportsbook is bringing back their. can't miss offer if you haven't tried draft king sports book yet head to the app store now because you don't want to miss this draft king sports book is giving all new users the chance to turn one dollar into one hundred dollars when they bet on any team that's right you can place a one dollar bet on any team and if that team wins you cash a cool benjamin how could you pass that up don't worry if football isn't for you draft kings is giving all of you mma fans the same great offer to use for this weekend's ufc 253 draft king's is safe reliable and secure making it easy for you

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Gambling problem called 1-800 gambler. All right. You know, I used to grow up listening to WFAN a lot, biking the mad dog, spent my days listening to them. And, you know, the Minkman does the fast talking updates or Erica Herschowitz. And I was always so like, what a fucking gig. What a gig. You just go in and out of commercial and you just speed read. Now here I am with the gig.

I, you know, just you want to be, Jake. Just, you know, you can dream it. You can do it. You can do anything you want in this world. Fast talking update. It's not true. It's not.

Don't give people that full. So not anything you want to do, but within reason. Within reason. I think we sell like a quote board. That's Jake's quote. You can be anything you want to be in this world. What's something I can't do, Tram? you probably like you per dunk a basketball yeah you probably couldn't be many basketballs next on a on a on a regulation size rim without help any different objects that i can use

all right skies my height that dunk you just have to put in a shitload of time do you think if you trained your whole life you could dunk yes yes he could he could you just kind of Have you seen Spud Webb? He didn't, he worked out of it, but he was also blessed with a natural ability to leap. You don't, you don't, you don't need like Spud Webb's a, a great example, Jake, but also there's like guys out there on YouTube that are like short. They're like, I put in. You have to dedicate your life. They're like five, five dudes and they just spent like. Can you imagine that was your life's work?

to dunk the basketball. I mean, there's guys, it's the weirdest thing. There's guys on YouTube that are like short guys. They're like, I put in the work and then they dunk. And it's like, okay. Yeah. So yeah, Jake wanted to dunk. You give him like two years and the actual training method.

Holy, right now, I would take whatever bet you want to two years. I'd rather not dedicate two years of my life to only dunking a basketball. But if he wanted to, he could do it. I think there was like a year period of my life where I could dunk. Never two-handed and like had to have the ball a little squishy so I could palm it a little bit better. But like, okay, man. Hey, I believe in you, bro. Yeah.

Thank you. Good example. All right. I took the twins. I said they were a lock for the playoffs. and that they should win the AL. Now, a lot of that changed with the playoff format because the first seed didn't matter anymore.

But I took the twins over and it hasn't hit yet. I don't know if it is. I don't bad place to start because I don't, I didn't write down what it was. I think it was 36, you said, Jake. I'm guessing I, again, bad place to start with that. I don't know if this is the number we use, but I'm looking at another place that had an updated 60 season over under

34 or 34 that's what I'm looking at two they're at 33 so I'm pretty happy with that I do think the twins will get the over so go what was that trip Trebs Trebs big one was the Padres which he deserved some love for he thought they'd sneak over and they that wasn't my lock though that was a good pick but my that was not we're just going down the order here you did say the pod years over that was a good one Good job by you, good job by me. Unless the twins don't win again, I will have that. They should win.

They should win. Jake, you had, sit down here. So I had my team bets could both be losers. My Orioles are giving me hope. I thought that one was a loser with their good start. It's 25. I think they're at 23 wins with six games to go. So if they finish bad...

The under. I took the under. The Nats were my big loser. I shat on them all off season. And then when they went to 60 games, I was like, oh, they're going to find that magic and just keep it running. They've been terrible. And the MLB is against them. And I'll dip out.

What you said was the World Series Hangover. You said they were going to be better for the wrong hangover. I thought Scher and Strausberg wouldn't hold up for a full season. And then when they got rid of the full season, and I got excited. Straight shot the bed. The whole Soto thing's honestly bizarre if you look back, but probably the worst bet of all these you'll hear.

It's okay. Moving on, it looks like, Jim, you got interested in the Phillies making the playoffs. This was before the expanded playoffs. So we'll kind of, we'll just table that a little bit, but I liked it. Although the tidbit there is Gerardi will max out

of team's regular season record. I don't know if they've done that. well we we had some discussions about that jim like gerardi's bullpen stuff and then he did acknowledge that gerardi had some nice pieces to work within the bullpen yeah i think i said that thinking the phillies had like a couple pieces and then i realized they had zero pieces and i i came down from it a little bit like oh i don't know if you can do it with that um but whatever yeah i mean that would i don't think i like told anyone to bet on the fillies i just said i'm interested the final The final team note looks like Trevor went with Tigers under.

I kind of baited him into that because I talk so confidently about the Orioles under because I was like, every team is going to beat the Orioles this year. And Trev's like, okay, who's another bad team? I like that. So you went Tigers and, hey, we slept on the Tigers and they're great. No, we slept on them and I slept the entire year. I'm still sleeping. They did.

They've already eclipsed the 21 and a half. They're at 22 wins right now. clearly that's a losing bet. They came out hot. Won some games, hung around 500 for a while, and then they've just been kind of on their way down, which is interesting because that, on that trajectory,

lines up when they started bringing some of their guys up, some of their young pitchers. Yeah. It was like they were kind of trying to make a run a little bit, and then it all kind of went down there. CJ Chrome was playing well, then he ended up getting hurt. But that obviously is a loser,

and, you know, we're not this is these are tough bets here okay i said i couldn't bet on the tigers under because the royals existed i just went to see how the tigers and the royals have fared they're three and three against each other and they got four games to end oh ho ho ho hey did you like did you did you see so the cardinals have a double header the day after the season ends with the tigers i believe if they need the extra games. You know,

Jake how last, like we were saying, they're only scheduled to play 58 games. And I believe, everyone commented this that the Cardinals have a double header. I think it's with the Tigers.

Huh. If, let me see. What date would that be? September 28th. 28th. And luckily, the NL does start the day after the AL, so they'd still have some gap days,

but yeah, that could be, that could be wild. And I wonder. But imagine you're the tigers. Yeah. Can we pass? You think your season's over and now hold up. We have to play a double header against the Cardinals, which changes everything maybe in the NL postseason thing.

And we're the AL Tigers and don't give a fuck. Like, it would be fun. That could be fun. for them, playoff type atmosphere, like obviously not atmosphere, but playoff implications, like a young squad like that? I think that's, it could be fun. It also could be like, man, I really just want to go home. I could see the Tigers having some fun with it.

Bring back Gardner. Ronnie G comes back. Yeah. I love it. That's going to be bizarre because if, like, let's say the Cardinals are in the playoffs, could they go from the eight to the six seed? that's some serious funny business that excited for that to now come up. I think we're into the individual player stuff.

Yeah. Jake, you did great here. Do you want to share? I did bad here. I'll go first. I had Benintendi over. I'm very curious to see what I said. Part of me thinks I was probably trying to just pamper Red Sox fans because I was

going to shit on that with JBJ. but I don't know why I would choose the Benny over. I did. And then I said the JBJ under. I'm wrong on both of those. Ben and then he got hurt. Yeah, maybe the worst five game season you could have.

I think you play like seven games, 10 games. And JBJ hit over. I think J.BJ. He's got like a 20-270 batting average now. Didn't he have four hits against the Yankees the other night? He was probably thinking about that. He did. I wonder what his batting average was before then.

I mean, on September 8th, it was, he had a 240 batting average and I was right around the line. He got real hot since then. I mean, his last 10 games, he's got a 370 batting average. So he's over. I'm wrong on that. But Jake, yours were really good. I did good. I stumbled into Goldschmidt.

You know, I was banking on last year was the worst year of his career and it was still really good. Um, the over under was 275. I think right now he's, he's hitting 307. So I should be safe there. Hope it comes down to those Tigers bonus games. And then I followed up with LaMayhew. I was scared of being a Yankees Homer and it was 290. Um, he's going for the batting title right now.

So I, uh, the batting averages I did good, Trev. You, you are a good prop better. Hey, who's that hot chick in the background? What's, uh, hey. That's my sister. Courtney. Sorry, I thought it was your fiance. I was making a joke.

But what's up? That was funny. Still hot. Mine were also bad. I am on gym's side of this. I took Kevin Pilar to hit under 270. And I think you guys kind of goaded me into this as well. No, no, no, no, no.

This was the fiscuous line. And, you know, Pilar's at 283. But, Trev, you found the fishiest line. The Kevin Pilar line was incredibly fishy. Now, Vegas knew what was up because he's, he's over it. But we were looking at a guy at the time who had never hit over 270. Yes. He's only hit over 270 once in his career for a full season.

He was not a hot hitter in early in the season either. So like we couldn't find a single reason why the Kevin Pilar line was that high. Now Vegas knows some shit because he's over. He's a 283. Yeah. And it had him at 270. So there is some wiggle room there if he just has a bad last week, I guess, possibly could happen. And then my other one was Moostakis, who I really love this one.

I kind of went heavy on this one, you guys. 255 over. Moose is not getting it done for me this year. I just had it up. I think he's around 200. with probably really no chance of getting to 255. Right now he's sitting at 218. He'd have to get really hot.

And he can do it. Hit a home run last night's game. He'd have to get really, really hot. So both of mine are looking like losers. Yeah. Wow. Good and bad across the board from us. Yeah.

Wow. Betting. Trev, I'm really good at Yankees over unders. I've decided. So there you go. Did you guys check? out our MVP odds and stuff. I think that's kind of funny. Yeah. I'm funny. I also like I hate those segments. I remember going back and forth with Jake before we recorded that I don't want to give

guesses because I don't want to be accountable to them because I don't care. Who gave Jose Ramirez? Because that one, he's sneaking up there now. That's again. I mean, I don't want to pat my back or anything. But Jose Ramirez, it was Jeff Passon's article today, has jumped to the fan graphs, war lead of all of baseball. War is a fickle stat and, you know, the argument other people are saying he's not, he's not even the guy on his team. People have been looking at Bieber all year. But yeah, Jose Ramirez was plus 5,000.

So if that comes through, I will, I'll do a little. And we were doing value picks. Like we were fine. And Shohei, we said, and that one did not. It was just interesting because if he could affect both. sides of the ball not good Gary Sanchez had the plus 5,000 so we were like hey and absolutely awful like I didn't think Gary see someone already came at me because they're like you thought Gary Sanchez was going to win MVP and I was like no I did not yeah value value

and then I think the uh I don't know the only only other thing that stands out were the locks that we've mentioned Jim picked the twins over looks good moose tacos uh for ploof has to get real hot and then I had Goldie and Orioles. Goldie looks good. Orioles. Yeah, why did you little less than a coin flip? But I believe. Jake, why did you give two locks, you know? Because that's how I roll, baby. See, I'm happy now. I guess I gave the twins over as my lock unless they don't win another game. I'm good. Treve, your lock was moose. You're bad. Yeah, bad. Jake had two locks, so he's good and bad. Yeah. Well, they could be, well, let's be good. I'd be good, good.

Oh, the Orioles can still do it. Yeah. Just looking scary. Who do they play? They're playing the socks, which is a loser bowl, but then they finish with the Jays, who, um, so I need the socks to dig deep for a couple games. Let's go Boston. Let's go Red Sox.

What all this is showing is just how dumb, like the season on paper is. You got to play the season. Gavin Lux was the. huge favorite in a rookie of the year and he has even played no he's playing he had a home run there yeah he's back and forth between the alternate site clearly not what you want and the guy that you know you put money on to win the rookie of the year like how he can't well louis robert has has been good about it i don't know if he still is the rookie of the year um him and lewis are both limping towards the finish line they each had each had some decent slumps um

let me go to my favorite website that has the tracking the jimmy odds and then we'll get into some d fence michael copac just as he opted out yikes that's a weird one huh so right now you got robert is plus 125 to win and lewis is plus 150 so it's neck and neck and neck and neck and neck And they've been, like, they've been their little trail, their little line draft, like go, like ebbs and flows together almost. What are the chances we get DeGrom Bieber MVP MVP? Uh, DeGroms MVP? He just kind of blew that and this is last. Do you have a bad game last night or just like, I don't think he did it?

Last night was good. The start before that was like two winnings. He came out early because of a hammy. I just don't think they're going to do pitcher MVP's. Not for the, like if you're a pitcher MVP, you got to be like you, you got to play into the reason your team is like. I feel like all the position players caught up. Like if it was just Bieber and like Ramirez didn't get it going, their offense kind of stunk.

Like, all right, I'll listen to it. But I think the pitchers are done for MVP. I don't know. I mean, Bieber still leads the league in baseball reference war. Betts in Freed are right above them. Bets at 3-2, free to 3-1, Beaver at 3-0. There's an interesting case for Bieber to win the MVP. Cruz is the favorite currently. Who? Nelson Cruz.

Nelson Cruz is the favorite to win the AL MVP? According to sports betting odds. He's plus 125. he's like not hang up his name there's not he's not he's on any categories here that's weird well this was on september 15th okay this website decking update i guess okay if you really look though around the league you know who's leading the offensive categories everywhere no our freaking guy won soto yeah he nobody's talking about him he leads it on base percentage slugging percentage and obviously if you lead in both of those you lead in oPS

the counting stats aren't there because he missed some games but dude the guy's a monster and he only missed some games because of a false positive yes it's really really nuts go soda next year he's 21 years old still dude why doesn't he just sue the false positive company they cost them money they cost some arbitration leverage i think he did have another i forget what he heard but he missed like five games with like an actual injury at some point. You guys love the bold stats and baseball reference right now. Juan Soto.

Bold and batting average. Bold and on base percentage slugging OPS and OPS Plus. And another weird one, intentional walks. I know, because no one else is good. That's a sign of weak teammates more than. The Nats have paid this guy like a million bucks total,

maybe a little bit over, and they've already got nine wars. from him. And they say war on any given year is worth like $8 million per. There's some value in Juan Soto. Do you guys want to do playoff brackets the Monday before the playoff starts

with actual something on the line? We'll do Bug Bug Bug, Zack and the three of us. I would do that. Like money. I mean, and Bug Bug and Zach don't have to put in money. Like I can just put in a pot. I'm in.

Let's put some pot in a pot. Oh, you guys want to see it? Do you have some? Do you have some? No, I don't do that. You got to see mine? It's a clean show. Okay.

All right. Yours look like Gummy Barry. Do you want to do the defense stuff? Yeah, I want to break into that. I think it's kind of interesting. Something doesn't get talked about a lot, but it really is relevant to when you look at, you know, who the good teams are and that's like sustainable. defense gets overlooked in all this but when you really start breaking the metrics down here comes Jim with some stanky thanky yeah yeah oh wow

gummies I miss those gummies all stuck together there's spring training gummies right there so there was um if you look at the fielding bible website which is really fun to look at if you're looking at defensive stats I think we should really start out with the teams and how that correlates to the postseason. Then we'll talk about some individual players who are like, what? I feel like that happens every single year. This year, Jose Reu is one of them. He's been an absolute monster out there. But just looking at the overall defensive run-save stat.

People have different feelings about the stat. But it's pretty indicative of how. team, you know, converts batted balls into outs. The St. Louis Cardinals are always at the top from near the top. They have 34 defensive runs saved. Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Dodgers, White Sox, all the teams that are the good baseball teams that are all up here. And really, I think when you break it down, there's two things that make these teams

that are good, good. one is you got to have the players you got to have the horses if you have guys that can go get the ball and already have natural ability uh with their range you're going to benefit from that already so you think about the cardinals you know they have baiter out there uh de jong is good at shortstop uh colton wong is really good at second base uh goldie is usually pretty good at first base um so they're to do it that way. You look at the Indians, obviously, you have Lindor, who's good. They have a few guys.

Also, they can do it. Then you look at their catchers. The catcher one is the most surprising to me when you look at it. And that's where the Indians get a lot of their value. Their catchers have been good. The Cubs are kind of all around good. You got guys like Bayez out there doing really well. Rizzo is usually pretty good in this category. But if you guys are looking at this list, I sent it to you. Is there any teams that surprise you that are up there? I mean, I'll try to start out wide and just tell you how I'm appreciating this,

because everyone appreciates defensive stats kind of differently. You know, the Cardinals aren't surprising to see them at the top of the team list. Just because think about it, whenever we talk about the Cardinals, we're just like really well-run organization. You know, they got Flaherty and a couple good players, but they just, you know, play good ball. And it's like, well, there are ways to measure that. and one of them is defense. So I'm not surprised to see them, Bader, Colton Wong, like you mentioned. What's initially just jumping off this sheet to me is seeing the big numbers and like where,

where are the big numbers popping? And obviously the one that hits you in the middle of the screen is Colorado Rockies third base. We know that guy is. And I think it's kind of funny. Like if you take that out of the equation, I think the Rockies are almost an average defensive team with Nolan Aeronado, it brings them up a ton. So you wonder, when you do talk team defense, you wonder how that, where is the line on that? The other positive one that really jumped out, and it is further down on the screen, but Atlanta Brave shortstop, and that would be Dansby Swanson, which kind of funny, I was on his stat page earlier.

The offensive stats have come back down to Earth pretty good, around average. it is cool to see him doing it defensively because he's still rating out very much as a plus plus player. So that's, those are the initial things that jumped out to me. Team wise, other than that, I'm not really sure. I think, you know, so we're talking about the individual players that really do it. And then it's the organizations. And a lot of this depends on, you know, how teams, where teams, where, teams set up. So I think I gave BBD a chart. I've tweeted this out earlier. I think it's

interesting for people to look at it. Good. Get rid of Jake's face. We don't care about it. It's a little iffy here. This is on my Twitter. If you just Google like Trevor Plouf, defensive positioning tweet, it'll come up. This is from the Phillies. So if you look at these numbers, this will be a left-handed pitcher, right-handed pitcher, and then you have all all the guys lined up. So each team has their own system of how they want to do it, how they divide the field into different quadrants. And the teams that are better at this and better at positioning,

you're going to benefit from it as an individual player as well. The teams that aren't as good at this have to rely on your natural ability and your range and all that. You want both to be good. And that's kind of what you see with the Cardinals and the teams at the top of this, both line up. The organization does a great job of positioning guys, and they have guys that can benefit and, you know,

take that to the next level because of their ability. So if you're looking at this chart here, there's a lot of like L5s, R2 plus ones, and it really kind of looks like, like, how do you even read this? It's not as hard as it looks. I have this right here. So this is an infield, this is an infield chart, and it splits the chart, or the switch the infield into left and right side.

not that hard to understand right that's the l and the r and it uh does it into sections so zero is the middle of the field and five is towards the foul line there's eight steps that separate the section so if you have an r2 plus five that is like slight pull for the second basement so think about each side being split into five sections and there's eight steps so if you're looking at L5, L5, L5, that's basically straight up for a third basement. Zero would be in the middle, five would be over there, eight steps from the line, and then you can go from there. And when you have this chart, you stick to it.

They want you to stick to it to a T. A lot of times it'll be perfect. A lot of times it won't be perfect. You'll see pictures kind of going back and forth about it. But this is what we're looking at. The guys that are checking their cap all the time, this is exactly what they're looking at. And if you got a team that's good at it and you know how to position and you pitch to that positioning and you do all that stuff, it could really help you individually as a player, then in turn, help your team. So that would be really interesting to show that and make sure people know what we're talking about here.

The Phillies kind of bottom of the barrel with their defense. So this is maybe not the best old example there to look at. But definitely there's so much information and time goes in now. to these positions and positioning people, the shifts and all that stuff. We'll see this come up in the postseason a bunch. So it's good to know where we stand. I was surprised that the A's are poor at this and everything.

Where are they at? I'm looking. I'm looking. Negative 14 total. Where are they getting the negatives from? Marcus Simeon, huh? Simian, yeah. He was a darling last year.

I wonder what happened. And non-shifts. And non-shifts. So they're not shifting and they're just getting beat. Is that what that means? Yeah, you know, Chapman... No one's putting up plus-plus numbers for the A's according to... Chapman was dealing with a little bit of injury.

Obviously, we know he's out now. I think that could have helped him. But the Simeon thing, I'm not too sure about. I didn't catch that the first time around here. That's interesting. I'm going to go look up at his individual page now. I think Simeon had... hamstring or something lower body early, which I would guess plays a part because

short side, we got to move around a lot. Yeah, he's a negative defensive war right now. Also, they're getting bang pretty good from their pitching spot, which I wonder, I wonder what that truly means. Let's take a look now the next page. We'll do the individuals, and I want to talk to you and see if any guys jump off the page to you. Do you guys have that up?

Yep. Yeah. And, you know, you guys already talked about it or not. and Swanson and both of those guys are double digits. The second guy on the list, that's one of the most surprising guys. Buckson is double digits. And then you have Joey Gallo with the second most total run saved with 11. Playing right field, big old bad Joey Gallo, kind of doing it with his arm.

You see his outfit arm there. I don't know what that means. He's got a four next to it. which is the highest we see here. And that one really surprised me. Also, Tyler O'Neill, our little Canadian, not exactly 5.11, probably more like 5, 10 going out there, laying out doing it.

So I'm talking about Bader, but we're not even talking about O'Neill. This is where, this is where like when you see team sign a guy and you're like, what? A lot of times they're looking at stuff like this. Where can we find value? And these types of numbers are extending guys' careers. Like Roberto Perez, if you look on here, he's one of the, he's, I think he is the top catcher in a league with this.

He had six runs saved. That's what's keeping him around, man. Like that's going to extend his career exponentially. Something I've been being to death on the podcast a lot lately, Nolan Aeronado in the one spot. His cousin, Josh Fuentes, is looking like he's about 15 or so from first base. So again, if you just want to have some fun. with cousins racking up defensive stats for the same baseball team.

That's pretty sane. And yeah, good, good for Gallo. I mean, I knew he was a big war guy. I think he has some judge-y and attributes. Like, he's a mountain of a man, but he moves pretty good. You know, I want to go check out some of Joey Gallo's throws now that he's rated that way. The catchers are interesting.

And then, yeah, some of those Dodgers pieces. it almost makes sense. Kike Hernandez, Chris Taylor, why they've stuck around for so long in their roles. Apparently, they play well everywhere and play good defense. And you know who really does not want robo umpires, you guys? The catchers. Because it completely eliminates what they're doing.

If they are not able to take strikes or take balls and convert them into strikes, they won't have the stat. They won't be able to measure anything. You're going to get basically strictly offensive catchers. You know, maybe a guy needs to be able to block, throw some guys out. I get it. But as far as framing, which is the value of framing right now is very, very high.

And as soon as you go to the Robo Zone, it's nil. I like framing more than blocking now because you can steal a strike every single pitch. whereas blocking only matters when you get a runner on base. So they are prioritizing framing over blocking. A lot of people can't understand it. But, I mean, the math kind of adds up. It is a little weird. Or do one really good arm.

My only counter to that would be the catchers that don't want that are the catchers on this list. There's also a group of 15 or so catchers that would be fine with robo-umps because they would be playing instead of the. these do. Bangers. Yeah.

You know, I think we got to give one shout out to Trent Grisham, who's had a great year defensively. And, man, if you guys remember back to last year's playoffs, the misplay of the ball in right field in the wildcut game that ultimately let the nationals win the world series. That could haunt you. But Trent's come back, been a good defense player, been a good overall player,

and now has a chance to totally redeem himself. in the playoffs with the Padres. I think that's a pretty cool, cool little story there. I love catchers, my favorite position. But I think Robo would let catchers

actually hit again. Like right now it's a dead position. Like maybe five catchers that are offensive threats. There are so many non-professional bats. That are major. Would you even like bring two catchers on anymore? Would you just have somebody that could like catch the ball that could bang go back there like your left

fielder usually like, hey, just put some catchers gear on. I mean, you you still you, you know, it prioritizes past balls and wild pitches again way more, which I do think is a harder skill. And you don't want people stealing on you. So it's not like you just completely lose everything. But hopefully it brings some offense to the position. I mean, right now, it's almost as bad as like when pitchers were hitting. Like, it's really bad. There's so many bad offensive catchers. And it's because of the framing stats and everything now.

This has totally changed the way we look at the position. And it'll totally change if that next step happens, which we think it probably will in the next, you know, five, six, seven years. yeah i mean and then you're gonna figure out some some way to trick the computers you know from the computers if you catch it like this you got to let the radar pick it up catching deeper now or some shit like that though there'll be some there's art to everything all right before i mean that's kind of what we want to go through is there any individual guy that sticks out that you're like oh well bad or good ver dugos got a good arm i guess which i just wasn't

fully aware of that. I haven't caught a lot of Red Sox games, but good for him. Having a great year. Purdue is good, man. That whole Boston thing, you know, obviously turned so slanted because it was Mokey, but for dogo's a piece. Interested to see if any of the other kids and make make themselves something. But for two goes a good ball player and he had the really good interviews earlier in the year where he's like, hey, I'm not Moogie Betts. at all, but he's doing pretty well. He's outplaying him defensively technically.

My guy that's really up to stock completely this year, I don't even know if he had a stock before this year. Stonks. Our guy on the Orioles, Anthony Santander. Yeah. Kind of a bigger boy, 6-2-2-25 Manning-Rite field. He had a great career year offensively. the 137 OPS plus 11 homers 890 OPS and then you go here

one two three four five six seventh overall fielder according to defensive run saved with eight runs saved that's that's making yourself some money right there dude you got both of those things going for you that's a it's a hell of a year by him something that we got to definitely acknowledge when a guy puts up a year like that not out of nowhere I guess, but he's 25. They used to say 26, 27, 28 was your prime. Maybe we'll see more of the Anthony Santander the next couple of years.

I think that'd be cool. I love late bloomers. Love it. In baseball. And I don't like Jake. Well, he's a late bloomer. Tough ending. Oh, I was in, I peaked so early.

Are you kidding me? You were still waiting on. Eighth grade, man. I was it. It's a bees and ease. I think you got a bit, I mean, I think you hit weight wise. You hit 32. I think your facial hair is going to kick in.

I think you're looking at Alejandro Kirk with bad facial hair. Alejandro Cook. Awesome. All right. Is that everything we got? Thanks, Krav. A little deep dive into defensive metrics that put you to sleep there. Got to love it.

Dropping some knowledge. People love it. All right. All right. Hey, we'll be back. I mean, state of the podcast. Today is Tuesday. We'll be having voicemail episode, uh, recording on Wednesday, dropping on Thursday on Friday. Series recap to let you know, uh, what happened this week and what to, to look forward to over the weekend. And then it's over. Monday will have a little recap of how things ended and a little post, post season preview of sorts. And then it'll be day.

daily episodes. I think 11 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Western. If you're a patron and we want to listen live, recapping whatever game happened the day before, all the playoff game. So that's going to be the schedule. I'll remind you as we go. But yeah,

this is the last week of the regular season. We're here. So call in it with a voicemail if you have one. Love you guys. See you later.